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Filmography RFC

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
This has been a long and complicated conversation, and I have spent almost five hours reading and assessing it to determine the consensus of the participants. Under consideration here are four questions: (1) whether font size should be reduced from 100%; (2) whether the information should be presented in a bulleted list or a table; (3) whether, if a table, a template should be used to prepare it; and (4) whether, if a table, colors other than the standard should be employed.

In the case of font size, consensus is clearly in opposition to reduction. Font should be 100%.

Of the remaining questions, one of the larger is whether this material should be presented as a bulleted list or a table. Both views receive roughly equal support, but several of those in favor of lists mention that tables may also be appropriate (User:Jack Merridew supports it in some, but not most; User:MichaelQSchmidt suggests bulleted lists in articles with separate tabular filmographies for actors with more productive careers; more simply, Erik suggests "do what works for the person".) Given this, there seems certainly no support to discontinue the use of tables, but the language currently used on the project face—"One of the project goals is also to clean up filmographies in actor and filmmaker articles from scruffy or backwards lists into presentable standardized tables that provide information"—is also in conflict. The project might wish to turn to a new consideration at this point: given that both lists and tables are supported, are there circumstances under which one form or the other should be preferred?

On the question of template use, consensus is more clear. Although some are concerned about limited flexibility, where a table is used, it is appropriate to use a template to prepare it to help standardize tables and maintain articles to implement future consensus. One was proposed in this discussion that met with no opposition; it might be adopted for the purpose.

The most complex question is that regarding color. In numbers, opinion here is again roughly divided. Those that dislike the use of colors who explain why generally mention a need for standardization across article types, a desire for simplicity and maximum accessibility (though there is also reference to simple personal preference). Of those who want to keep the colors who explained why, some mentioned project specific reasons (a means of cataloging article type), while others more generally preferred the contrast or, again, just found it met their personal preferences. There's no clear consensus. Since much of the conversation has obviously wider implication than simply this project, it might be advisable to raise a specific and focused RfC (this one covered a lot of ground) at some location like Wikipedia:Tables. I understand that MediaWiki talk:Common.css is the proper place to discuss changing the default color, but that's not the only question here. Key is whether projects and users are free to choose their own colors for tables.

Any who wish to participate in such an RfC are reminded, please, to respect WP:CANVASS by keeping their notes about it elsewhere neutral. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

nb: The rfc-tag was added by Jack Merridew, who did not start this thread. Jack Merridew 16:55, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Examples

90%
Year Film Role Notes
1998 Dil Se Preeti Nair Filmfare Best Debut Award.
Screened at the ERA New Horizons Film Festival
& the Helsinki International Film Festival
95%
Year Film Role Notes
1998 Dil Se Preeti Nair Filmfare Best Debut Award.
Screened at the ERA New Horizons Film Festival
& the Helsinki International Film Festival
100%; bog-standard-wikitable
Year Film Role Notes
1998 Dil Se Preeti Nair Filmfare Best Debut Award.
Screened at the ERA New Horizons Film Festival
& the Helsinki International Film Festival

or a plain list...

Back in December 2008, the project came to consensus about the filmography table formatting here. At some point, for a reason I can't recall, the font size was changed to 95%. Really don't remember why. In any case, the project consensus was to use the 90% font size, use the blue table heading and continue to format awards with a "Nomination—Whatever name" and not to designate wins with saying "Win-whatever name". I want to establish that we still support using that consensus. Please note below via support or oppose. Wildhartlivie (talk) 22:46, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

You changed it to 95% yourself, here, which was where the page was changed to promote invalid code. Tisk, tisk. Jack Merridew 23:02, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
Please do not misrepresent what was done. Previous to that change, and I don't know why 95% was there, the table heading code was not using wikitable style, which was presented as a problem. That you failed to even attempt to explain here, after being clearly asked twice, what part of the code was a problem fairly discredits any pronouncements of "tisk, tisk." Tsk, tsk to you for refusing to bring the issue here to start with. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:57, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose — The 90% is too small and will interfere with accessibility. The coloring of tables is all of dubious value and hard coding any colors is usually inappropriate. Better approaches would be a) plain wikitable, b) a template based approach to encapsulate coding details and to centrally maintain them, and c) a stylesheet based-approach. 'c' is not too likely as few will support such ephemeral shite in site-wide stylesheets. Regards, Jack Merridew 23:02, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support - There has been no issue raised, anywhere, anytime, by anybody about 90% causing accessibility issues. I have a vision disability that could be effected by sizing but it is not effected in any way by that size. An early attempt at using a template for color coding failed and in its stead, we were given the line coding for the colors. Tables used by various projects also use color and this is only an issue to you because you came across it. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:57, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
    Actually, the issue of accessibility *was* raised previously, including the font-size concern. I'm surprised you don't recall it as you were quite involved in that discussion until consensus went against you. Regards, Jack Merridew 07:31, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
    You've stated, below, that you do not remember that long thread that you extensively participated in and that went so against your position; just above, you state that "There has been no issue raised, anywhere, anytime, by anybody about 90% causing accessibility issues." and yet I see a post on this very page that asks "My only concern is that such tables use 90% of regular font size, which to me affects general accessibility." You "replied" to the user (User:Erik) without actually addressing his concern. Do you recall this? Will you address the accessibility concern?
    At this point, I'm fully in favor of no reduction of font-size. And I strongly oppose snotting up the wiki with gratuitous markup to give filmographies undue weight. There may be a case for using tables, but semantically a filmography is a *list* of films and marking them up as a bulleted list (year, titleref) seems a pretty good option. Any other details such as role-played could go in the film's article.
    You and the local clique seem to have a very off view of your authority to determine what is appropriate for articles. This is all ownership. You made some comment to me on your talk page about 'governance' which, frankly, is absurd. As Lar has told you, repeatedly, "Change your approach."
    Regards, Jack Merridew 19:53, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
    It would be helpful if you would change your approach as well, Jack. I agree with the crux of your argument, but there's no need for such rudeness and disrespect. —David Levy 20:59, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
    Wildhartlivie, what is the justification for having 90% or 95% instead of 100% in these tables? An article like List of accolades received by American Beauty looks adequate with 100% font size. I do not think it is worth any perceived aesthetic benefit to reduce the size further. Erik (talk) 22:02, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. I do think a template based table with CSS styling is probably more correct standard wise (and it would simplify things tremendously), but as the previous attempt failed, we should stick with the old consensus until a real alternative is presented. Nymf hideliho! 00:25, 7 March 2010 (UTC) On second thought, I am changing my vote to Oppose. The "100%; bog-standard-wikitable" is far superiour in every way. Keeping it clean will make for less edit warring, cruft, increase compability etc. We shouldn't make it more complicated than need be. Nymf hideliho! 02:25, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
    • The previous attempt seems to have failed due to a willful disregard of a discussion that went against WHL's liking. While she may not remember this now, she summarily removed all the usages of that template last May (see diffs on offer below by David Levy). The 'old consensus' you refer to is simply a local opinion and only supports what the locals prefer; out on the wider-wiki, there are overriding opinions. The reasonable options going forwards are a) bulleted lists and b) font-size: 100%; bog-standard-wiki-table as seen at top-right. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:49, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support Neutral to the 90%. I believe that the use of pretty tables in filmography distracts from the article itself, and would prefer the filmography listed in text and not a table. But if folks want to use a template, smaller is better and less distractive... specially as a pretty filmography template is not the main purpose of an article about an actor. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 00:50, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
    I'd support plain bulleted list for the reasons you cite. Hard-coded tables are about the poorest method of presenting this information; see the featured list Mary Pickford filmography which eschews the funny blue and silver this club is pushing. The Pickford list also goes with normal sized text. All this junk about tables and meretricious colours snots-up the wiki-text with heaps of markup of dubious value and presents teh wiki with a serious maintenance issue. There are probably tens of thousands of actor bios here mostly with some form of filmography and there is no easy way to re-style their look. I've no idea what template approach was unsuccessfully tried before, but such an approach certainly is appropriate. If it was intent on colours, it's probably best to have allowed that dead end road to find it's way to failure. Jack Merridew 02:42, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
    Michael, do you not think that 90% font size affects accessibility? See my link below in my oppose !vote. In addition, I'm reviewing WP:COLOR and am trying to determine if "#B0C4DE", or LightSteelBlue, is an adequate contrast to the black print of table headers. Erik (talk) 14:49, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
    After thought and consideration, I have gone neutral above, as I still don't think that such tables are actually even neccessary in a film or actor's article. They may be pretty, but do not actually add to a reader's understanding of a topic, and take up maybe three or four times the space in an article as the same information offered as plain bulleted text in our standard 100%. I sit here at this PC looking at the examples posted above, using IE7 and my screen resolution set to its usual 800 x 600, any differences seem minor. Then, having temporarily reset the screen resolution to 1024 x 768, I see that 90% is a tad more difficult to read than is 100%. Also, and specially for television roles, the current templates I've seen seem to allow a show's name and a character name but not additional column that might list the year range and number of episodes of a series in which an actor may have appeared. If used, any template must have flexibility dependent upon what information is needed to be presented. All that said, and though I think tables for actors are not always as useful as hoped, I do like the contrast of LightSteelBlue better than the LightGeyishWhite. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 04:36, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I disagree about not using a table period (filmography). The credits are important for an actor, that is mainly what they are known for. Most information should be in prose, yes. However, a table is neat and easier the skim through (which is what most readers do, skim through their credits), while a bulletin list of 50 (or more!) credits is messy and a strain on the eyes. What I'm still trying to understand is how if this is such a huge issue, why is it just being noticed now, when this format has been used for at least two years (2008 is when this became standard practice within the Actor project?). I mean only a selective few seem to have an "issue" with the current style. I would like to see some outside opinions that were not related to the previous discussion from last year. —Mike Allen 05:12, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
There could be any number of reasons why this issue has not been seriously explored until now. For example, it may be that it's this subset of articles that only uses smaller-than-100% text size. I went to WP:FL and randomly clicked ten articles across the various categories; they all used 100% text size in their tables. Accessibility is a relatively hidden issue; it's not something most editors will consider. For example, it was only in the last year or so that WP:ALT has really taken off; as recently as September 2008 did it basically say, "Sorry, there is no way to have alternative text in addition to the image's caption." Now it's a standard process in Featured Article nominations. Wikipedia is a work in progress; we're continually fine-tuning ourselves. Sometimes we go backward, but mostly we go forward. Depending on the outcome of this RfC, I am sure that we will be able to arrange automated tasks to accommodate. As for use of tables, I do not have an issue with them, but simplicity can work, too. Names of the roles an actor has played can be relatively indiscriminate on that actor's article (and more discriminate in each film's article). Same with directors, though awards and some notes (like "Also directed") are more pertinent. Basically, lists or tables, do what works for the person. Erik (talk) 12:36, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
@User: MikeAllen: No argument... projects are what make an actor. Their inclusion supports the overall understanding of the individual and their careers. You offer decent points to consider. Perhaps both sides here can come to a compromise. Here are comparisons:
A lengthy career bulleted: Ernest Borgnine#Filmography.
A lengthy career templated: Tom Cruise filmography
The Cruise example shows that a long career templated on a seperate page does not distract from a main article, and yet is easy to find and study. The Borgnine example shows that for a long career, bulleted or not, such a list in the main article itself can become quite unwieldy. As an actor article usually hits the highlights of more major work within the prose of the article itself, I would think it reasonable that if there were 40 or 50 or more projects that could be listed in an actor article, a trimmed "partial filmography" of 10 or 15 might be bulleted in the main article with the "complete filmography" relegated to a referenced sub-page where use of a table could not be in any way seen as detracting from the reader's understanding of the subject as covered in the parent article. For actors with shorter careers, a bulleted text section within the article serves well and does not distract. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 16:29, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

As they say, there's nothing new under the sun. This whole issue has been discussed at considerable length before and it's time to properly sort all the issues.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:31, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Could somebody please display how a 95% looks as compared to a 90% please? ‡ Himalayan ‡ ΨMonastery 14:13, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Examples at top-right. My concern is also about the colour being capriciously non-standard. The embedded colours also function as an attractive nuisance; see this (l r). Note that there are a lot of instances out there that use a semantically meaningless two-tier heading such as on Miley Cyrus; the col-spanning heading should properly be a caption-element. Cheers, Jack Merridew 16:48, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
  • As covered in the archived discussion to which Jack Merridew linked, Wikipedia's standard table style should be used. A WikiProject doesn't own "its" articles and lacks the authority to override project-wide consensus. —David Levy 16:54, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
    Please note that User:Jack Merridew camvassed the above comment here as well as at several other talk pages [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] in a manner that exceeds acceptable notification. Any comments from those solicited talk pages should be viewed in that manner. Wildhartlivie (talk) 18:00, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
    Not. I believe I notified all the significant participants in that prior discussion. You, of course, were already aware of this thread. I've also sought wider input via the RFC process. Regards, Jack Merridew 18:06, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
    It's entirely appropriate to notify participants in related discussions, provided that this is done without regard for their positions. Do you have any evidence that Jack specifically targeted editors with whom he agreed?
    And what effort did you make to notify users not affiliated with this WikiProject? —David Levy 18:17/18:28, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
    I'll have to re-read that discussion, but my recollection is that there was unanimity in opposition to the effort to set the colour and font-size as a site-wide standard for filmographies. This could create the appearance that I notified only those opposed to the notion simply because there were no supporters to notify. I'm all for full participation by a wide group of editors. Note also, that the prior local consensus does not establish a site-wide consensus, it merely establishes what a small clique believes. Cheers, Jack Merridew 18:41, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
    What I have is the content of the posts he made, which go far beyond a normal notification of "here is a discussion that may interest you" to "here is discussion on which I see you've commented before. I think it's time to do something and here's what I think. Hope to see you there." He laid out his own position on the topic, stating "I think the appropriate outcome is ..." which violates WP:CANVAS which says "it is inappropriate to canvass with such messages" and that he states he selected the notified editors because of their posts to that discussion. I'd also note, per his own comments on my editing, that going about and changing articles while it is under discussion here is also inappropriate, including adding a currently unused template to one article and stripping the coding under discussion from another, to the point of edit warring over it. This is completely unacceptable conduct, both in regard to disregarding this discussion and inappropriately canvassing. As for me, check my contributions. I posted notes to no one about this, nor did I post an outline of my agenda to other editors on Wikipeda. As for who he picked to notify in this way, what matters is what he did. And that discussion was not "site-wide" consensus either. Factually, there was no call for consensus. You make reference to the "site-wide" consensus on wikitables, which this heading uses, but I have asked in the past and have yet to be given a link to the page where this consensus was garnered. Finally, I again object to your minimization of the project to "a club" in a dismissive tone such as you have. It is a project, show a little respect and please stop dismissing it as nothing. You were requested to do so, and steadfastly refusing to stop calling it a "club" is inordinately incivil. Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:05, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
    1. You've quoted (out of context) the section on "campaigning," which is described as "an attempt to sway the person reading the message." By your own admission, the users in question already have expressed such sentiments, so how do these posts constitute "an attempt to sway" them?
    2. Yes, he notified participants in a related discussion. Again, do you have any evidence that he excluded editors with whom he disagreed? If there simply weren't any participants with whom he disagreed, what does that say about your position?
    3. Wasn't it you who went around changing articles (unilaterally declaring that a template would no longer be used and replacing it with hard-coded tables to force the use of your preferred style) while the matter was under discussion last year?
    4.Indeed, you "posted notes to no one about this." Instead, you merely initiated this thread, thereby specifically notifying members of the WikiProject (the users most likely to agree with you), despite your knowledge that other editors (whom you made no effort to notify) had expressed dissenting views and explicitly criticised attempts to exclude input from outside the WikiProject. And then you actually complained when these users were notified and implied that their feedback should be discounted.
    5. What do you mean when you state that "factually, there was no call for consensus"? —David Levy 19:41, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
    Yes, posting his position on the topic and elaborating on it the way he did does by definition equal attempts to sway. That's part and parcel of improper canvassing. That he cherrypicked editors to notify with his biased post is another. I'm not saying that you did anything wrong by replying here, but I am saying that Jack Merridew posting the same basic message to numerous editors did violate WP:CANVAS. It's patently absurd to compare posting a discussion on this talk page, where the first consensus was made, to what Merridew did, as inappropriate cansvassing, especially after being pushed to garner new consensus by Merridew. Where the heck else would one do that? Patently absurd. A huge stretch by any term. There was no call for consensus on that page. That a template developed didn't work on a large number of articles led to not using it. You forget, I'm not the only member here and by far am not the only one who makes filmography tables, so please stop trying to make this all about me and no one else. And yet again, I have been given no link to a formal discussion where it was determined on a "site-wide" basis" that anything was determined about tables. That someone wrote it up doesn't make it a "site-wide" consensus. That various persons say it after the fact does not show anyone the consensus discussion to which is referred. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:17, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
    1. How can one "sway" someone to a viewpoint that he/she already holds?
    2. Again, please cite evidence that Jack "cherrypicked" users to notify. Which editors did he exclude?
    3. "The first consensus," as you describe it, was challenged on the basis that a WikiProject lacks the authority to make such a decision on its own. You were well aware of this, and you nonetheless sought to validate said "consensus" via a message targeting only members of the WikiProject (and ignoring the numerous other editors who have expressed opinions). You could have notified all previous discussion participants and/or added an RfC tag (as Jack did), and you chose not to.
    4. Again, what do you mean when you state that "there was no call for consensus on that page"?
    5. You unilaterally determined that the template "didn't work" because other users edited it in a manner not to your liking. You then went from article to article, replacing it with hard code to restore your preferred table styling (despite complaints that this reduced accessibility). You did this while both the template's use and the table styling were under discussion (with most editors disagreeing with you).
    6. Do you dispute that Wikipedia has a standard class for the tables in question? Do you dispute that the previous discussion (which you decided to not even mention when initiating this thread, let alone notify its participants) demonstrated strong support for such a setup and opposition to arbitrary deviation? —David Levy 21:06, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

The fact of the matter is, I didn't remember that discussion, so each time you try and shove it down my throat, you're bringing something up I didn't even remember. Like I said, posting a request at this page is not improper canvassing, but searching for and notifying only specific editors on that page and posting what he did does constitute improper canvassing. No matter how many times you try and talk around it, the message he left was formulated to tell what he wanted and posted it to persons whom he believed, based on content from that page where he garnered his list to post was in fact cherry picking his postings. He only posted to people involved in that discussion. <shrug> Justify it all you want, it was inappropriate canvassing. There is no viable way to compare that to posting a question on the project talk page. You cannot legitimately compare one to the other. I posted no notices on Wikipedia to specific editors, I posted where Jack Merridew wanted new consensus. I have asked at least three times now on this page for a link to the consensus that is being touted as "site-wide" consensus, and if that isn't forthcoming, I'd suggest that stating there is one is unfounded. That a group got together and set what they thought should be the standard is no different than this group doing the same thing. <shrug> Please stop making this all about what you think I know or don't know or did. I had what equates to a minor stroke before my eye surgery, you have no clue what I remember from months ago, but that discussion was part of it. I recall the template, that wasn't workable on many filmographies because the columns were not "settable" and were fixed, coming from that. The rest becomes tl;dr when the link was posted. But yeah, persons with vision difficulties who can't see 90% already do set their font larger by default in their computers. As for the time frame of that discussion vs. the genesis of that template, it was created and existed as styled after the filmography being used. Meanwhile that discussion halted at first on April 19. David Gothberg, who made the template, did so and stated it could certainly meet what this project wanted without an issue with wikitables. It did not again become an issue until someone went in and changed it in May. It was not an ongoing discussion. The discussion stopped and did not start again until May 27, so saying I did anything to that template during a discussion is incorrect. But for now, I'm off to an Academy Awards party. Wildhartlivie (talk) 22:53, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

1. I'm sorry to learn that you suffered a stroke, and I sincerely hope that your condition has improved.
My recollection of the discussion was incomplete, so I read it today. I hope that you've acted in kind. I don't seek to "shove it down [your] throat," but it should not be ignored.
2. I don't assert that posting a request at this page constituted improper canvassing. I'm saying that you should have also made a reasonable effort to invite participation from users not affiliated with the WikiProject.
I accept your explanation that you forgot about the previous controversy, and I'm merely disputing your accusation that Jack engaged in wrongdoing by filling in the gap.
You claim above that Jack notified "only specific editors on that page." Again, which ones did he exclude? What editors expressing opinions contrary to his did he fail to notify? You note that "he only posted to people involved in that discussion," but you aren't explaining who else he should have informed.
And again, how can one "sway" someone to a viewpoint that he/she already holds?
3. You note that you "posted no notices on Wikipedia to specific editors." I understand that you're referring to users' talk pages, but you must realize that a post to this talk page is directed toward (and likely to be received by) members of the WikiProject. As noted above, I accept your explanation that you did not recall the previous discussion (and therefore did not realize that this would be controversial), but you cannot claim that you weren't aware of your post's narrow target.
But again, I'm not accusing you of misconduct. I'm merely pointing out a problem and explaining how Jack's messages and RfC tag helped to rectify it.
4. Your continual request for "a link to the consensus" illustrates your misunderstanding of what "consensus" is. You evidently believe that consensus is the outcome of a specific discussion or vote. While such things certainly can come into play, consensus also can be established when the community simply does something a certain way.
You state above that "a group [getting] together and [setting] what they [think] should be the standard is no different than this group doing the same thing," which again fails to recognize the distinction between Wikipedia and a WikiProject. In no way am I disparaging the latter (which does important work), but it lacks the authority to arbitrarily override the former's conventions.
In the discussion that you didn't remember, you repeatedly referred to articles as parts of your WikiProject. I don't know whether you retain that notion, which simply isn't correct.
5. I don't understand your claim regarding the template. While the discussion was underway, you responded to template edits that you opposed by unilaterally declaring that the template would not be used and requesting its deletion. You then replaced it in articles with hard code (thereby switching the tables back to your preferred style), without even supplying a class enabling custom tweaks (including those intended to increase accessibility) [1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15]. All of this occurred on 28 May and is covered in the discussion that you didn't remember (but hopefully have read).
6. I hope that you enjoy the Academy Awards party. (I mean that sincerely.) —David Levy 00:17, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
1. The ones he did not notify he went back to notify after it was brought up. There were three whom he failed to notify. To me, that was selective - to the ones who had the most to say. I came to this page to request "new" consensus as Jack Merridew demanded. It never occurred to me to go around hunting down other editors. Had I done that, then yes, someone could say I was canvassing. I consider making a pointed post to invite individual editors to comment, when that post outlines the poster's specific point, is inappropriate per WP:CANVAS.
2. This project is also followed by various members of WP:FILM. It does not occur to me that other editors would be interested in events involving this project. At what point does one decide that enough people have been notified? That one editor involved approached individual editors specifically seems to push the bounds of canvassing. That is an issue to me, one that I was intent on not violating. Should I trot over to Rossrs's talk page and invite him in the same way? No, I doubt it.
3. When someone says "this is by site-wide consensus", then there should be a specific discussion to cite. If not, then something has occurred naturally, such as the way that filmographies evolved here. It was done that way from the start, the only thing that changed was the color used and the move from the prettytables format to wikitable. That was done because the lack of use of wikitable was made an issue. The conventions to which you refer were not an issue prior to last summer and the project was using (unknowingly) a format that was not wikitable. I'm not understanding your statement about articles under this project. The only article I notice I mentioned in specific is the use-of-color nightmare that is Rafael Nadal career statistics.
4. I'd note how many times that Jack Merridew has disparaged this project by calling a "club" and dismissing that it does anything important. That's a serious comment. As for replacing the template with the filmography table we were then using, it was not until after that time that someone gave me the wikitable style. That was done using the same style that was widely used on myriad articles in the interest of consistency. Please stop representing it as being anything but that. If 5000 articles use one style and someone has gone in and stuck a style that isn't consistent to what - 20 articles? - that effects consistency, which is a goal of most projects.
6. I was pleased with who and what won, I hated the broadcast but enjoyed the company. Wildhartlivie (talk) 07:41, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
1. I'm very sorry to learn of your continued medical problems, and I wish you the best of luck in treating them.
2. I assume that Jack made a sincere effort to contact all editors and honestly overlooked three minor contributors to the discussion.
However, having given the matter some thought, I must concede that neutral wording would have been more appropriate (though I assure you that Jack's message in no way influenced my opinion).
3. As established in the discussion that you didn't remember, this is not merely an "[event] involving this project." It concerns the whole of Wikipedia. An RfC tag (along with notifications for all users previously expressing opinions on this matter) would have been appropriate, but I accept your explanation that your memory loss prevented you from realizing this.
4. Again, "consensus" ≠ "discussion outcome." I don't know whether there was a specific discussion. I just know that a standard table format exists and is accepted site-wide, and the only justification for using a different style for filmographies that I've encountered is the opinion that the standard style is "plain and bland."
In the previous discussion, you repeatedly referred to articles as parts of the "project" (referring to this WikiProject) and opined that "any WikiProject should be able to determine style in the articles under its scope."
5a. Well, speaking only for myself, I certainly don't seek to belittle the contributions of this or any other WikiProject.
5b. I was responding to your statement that "going about and changing articles while it is under discussion here is also inappropriate."
5c. Indeed, most projects seek consistency. This includes the English Wikipedia project, whose consistency is reduced via the arbitrary use of a nonstandard table style in one category of article.
6. I'm glad that you had an enjoyable evening. —David Levy 09:51, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Really? Methinks you should have a fresh read of it, to refresh your memory. It's quite comprehensive. Also, I've gone through it, again, and noticed a few other participants that only had a post or two and have posted a note to their talk page, too. As said, I welcome a wider audience.
A simple question:
  • Why do you think that, of all the myriad tables used in wiki-articles, Filmographies should stand out with a custom color heading?
Enjoy your party. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 00:21, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't really care about the format of filmography tables. Either of the two proposed versions would be fine and most readers won't care. Came to comment on canvassing though. Firstly, see WP:CANVAS#Votestacking: When you contact people who you know beforehand will tend to agree with you on a matter, that's improper canvassing (though if he really contacted everyone who participated in a particular previous discussion, that might change things, and I haven't checked to see if this was the case. nevertheless...). Even if you do know this beforehand, and you word your message to them in a way that elevates your own side of the argument over the other, that does not contradict the votestacking characterization. Rather, it's then doubly improper. Yes, you can still attempt to sway someone who you already thought would side with you, because which side they take is never a 100% sure thing beforehand. When a political party contacts its own members for support, it still presents them with reasons their side merits support. That's part of how canvassing works. On Wikipedia, messages advertising discussions need to merely be advertisements informing of the topic and location. This does not qualify as proper notification, whether the list of users contacted was cherrypicked or not (though again, if so, it would be doubly as bad). Jack needs to read through the policy and be careful about this next time. I'd even invite him to edit his messages on those users' talk pages to fix the problem, as a sign of good faith. Equazcion (talk) 07:17, 8 Mar 2010 (UTC)
He did not contact all of the persons in that discussion until later on, when he went back to post the same biased post to the 3 or so he initially omitted. He posted the same, or very similar posts to all individual editor talk pages where he posted. Wildhartlivie (talk) 08:24, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Did you see my question above?
  • Why do you think that, of all the myriad tables used in wiki-articles, Filmographies should stand out with a custom color heading?
Regards, Jack Merridew 19:53, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Whew. Having looked at this and at the previous discussions, I'm not seeing any compelling reason to make filmography a special case (or even class). There's certainly no valid aesthetic reason for tweaking wikitable colours for the film or actor projects. I don't really see that the font-size needs to be changed either.
    The important thing here is usability; for the editors, but–most importantly–for the readers. This overrides any subjective choice of which colour might best suit Miley or Johnny or Nandamuri's filmographies.
    Michael Q Schmidt makes a valid point about the use of text rather than tables, perhaps it would be best to simplify.   pablohablo. 20:20, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Furthermore, the idea that film-project tables need a specific header colour to identify them as film-project tables is flawed. If a user is viewing an article about an actor, director, film etc, and that article is categorised, it would be obvious that that article relates to film without any project-specific colouration.   pablohablo. 09:35, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. If 90% is "too small" for users with vision problems, I'm sure they already have their browser font size increased. That's a non issue. It doesn't matter if we use blue, grey, pink, green, red... but if it is determine that we use the grey style, do you know how many articles we would have to change? Jesus. I can't believe people are still pushing this. Is this really a bigu problem? —Mike Allen 22:05, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
    • Actually, yes, it's a big problem. There is a considerable consensus in the field of user interface design that reducing font-size is an inappropriate action. See Erik's ref to w3.org, for example. Putting the burden on users is a profoundly unethical stance. It's much the same with color. The plain-gray is used because it maximizes accessibility and works well with all the site-skins. As to cleaning up the articles... it's a wiki, things change. I'll certainly work on it; I may even fire up a bot or two. I would hope a few of the locals would help; they did, after all, create the problem. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:21, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
      • If it is indeed a "big problem" why has it gone unnoticed for so long? Yes, I'm well aware that things change—daily it seems. If it is determined to use the washed out skin, then of course I'll help update the existing tables, just as I was [thought at least] helping with adding the current table style. Yes I liked the blue color, it gave some color around here. However, this isn't about personal taste, it's about web standards. I hope a bot or two will come along and help. That would be nice. LOL. On second thought, we may need more than a couple of bots and what this project has to offer. There's a lot of articles with this format. —Mike Allen 00:23, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose because smaller text size affects accessibility. I would rather support 100% and nothing less; text resize, especially below 100%, should not be used as an aesthetic tool. Tables are major parts of articles, and they should be readable. W3C advisory techniques on text resize encourage "Providing large fonts by default" and "Avoiding scaling font sizes smaller than the user-agent default". Erik (talk) 04:22, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Again? I didn't provide a solid opinion in the last discussion, but I'm going to be quite clear this time: unless there is a valid semantic reason for differing styles, tables should not use nonstandard styling, even if that custom styling is standard across a clearly-defined group of tables. There is no such reason obvious for filmography tables, and no one has presented one yet in any discussion on the matter I have read, to the best of my knowledge (but if you can prove me wrong, please do!). Furthermore, Jack makes a good argument for forgoing tables altogether in favor of lists for filmographies. In summary, a solid oppose. --Dinoguy1000 (talk · contribs) as 67.58.229.153 (talk) 04:24, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Again? My opinion remains that—if the consensus it to use a table—the standard wikitable class should be used. If you think the blue looks better—I can see the argument for that—why not improve it for every article, rather than just for your own articles? Discussion would be welcome at MediaWiki Talk:Common.css. (Not watching this page; if you want me to comment here, please ask me on my talk page.) —Ms2ger (talk) 17:37, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Actually, there is a project goal of actually adding such a table to all articles under this group. I can't give you a specific number of articles where this has already occurred, but the section at the head of this page here speaks to that effort. That filmography tables have been created for the preponderance of articles is the rule rather than the exception. It is an active project effort. The table we have set up does use the basic wikitable class as its basis. This project covers over 32,000 articles at last count of actor, etc., articles with the project banner in place, so despite someone dismissing it as a drop in the bucket to the entire encyclopedia, it is still a large block of articles. The table heading colors serve to identify the table as an actor, etc. specific article, much the same as the infobox heading colors specifies to what project that article belongs. This doesn't just effect a few articles that project members "own", to use your wording. Members work on new and untabled articles all the time, thus the questions that are posted about it. I was glad to see the comment that projects should strive for consistency and some projects develop guidelines for that, such as when this project decided to remove awards from the infobox because it overwhelmed the rest of the page when open and the extensiveness of many articles. We listed those decisions on the main page, however that is being arbitrarily overridden in some cases [6]. How can a style guideline be conceived under such circumstances. No one said that this could not be covered in the article, but the overwhelming decision was that the Golden Raspberry awards were not critics or industry standard awards of the status and weight as the others, especially given that anyone can pay a small fee and vote, and there was no standard of controlling bias and margin of error or in fact, it isn't even established that this award has a vetted system of voting. Before we implemented using the blue color, it was checked with the tools listed at WP:ACCESS to ensure it did not effect visibility for color blind/impaired persons. The 90% was chosen because it allowed better fit of the awards a given person won or was nominated for. In addition, aesthetics was mentioned frequently regarding these colors and sizes. As to font size, as Mike Allen pointed out, if a mere 10% reduction is an issue for a reader, chances are highly likely that the person has already increased text size on their browsers, such as I have done. Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:11, March 8, 2010
I'm glad to know that the blue color was checked to make sure it did not affect visibility. However, what does "allowed better fit" mean? Vertically or horizontally? A featured filmography is Arnold Schwarzenegger filmography, which uses 90% font size in the tables. I modified it briefly for this diff, and the presentation of tables seem perfectly adequate without shrinking the text. In addition, visually challenged readers making browser adjustments is not a good reason for editors to shirk responsibility in ensuring accessibility. Reducing text size below 100% is certainly not helping them with accessibility. What does "better fit" in a table mean? Erik (talk) 00:18, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Better fit was horizontally, which is a factor on some articles, not ones entirely dedicated to a filmography like the Schwarzennegger, but on filmographies on full biographies, although I do note that the size difference does force the 4th column to use a line break to the text on my browser, wiht the text taken down to "normal" size. That is the break the size difference is trying to avoid. And we are talking about a 5% or 10% reduction, it isn't the nearly the same as using the <small> would yield. And the color check was used for all choices on both check pages. Wildhartlivie (talk) 00:39, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
What are some examples of filmographies on full biographies where the font size of tables make a difference? This is what appears to me at 1024x768. The line breaks do not make the rows and individual cells any less readable. If visually challenged readers enlarge text in their browsers, then would they not deal with line breaks anyway? It just seems to me that the tradeoff is minimal. If we don't want the title column to have line breaks, then we can "lock" that column and have line breaks in other columns. Browser settings will vary with all readers and editors, who will see the tables in different forms. If 90% is not a big difference from 100%, then 100% seems an adequate and consistent default. Erik (talk) 00:57, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Offhand, Drew Barrymore comes to mind, which looks hugely different to me. I'd have to look for others, but I am running out of time to look tonight. I'd also note that while I was chastized above for going about making changes while the issue was being discussed before, that is also being done today by Jack Merridew, and the edit summaries do not reflect the changes being made, but only says "Filling in 2 references using Reflinks". Why was it wrong for me to do so last summer, and it is okay for him to do so while this discussion is ongoing? And how, Erik, did you get that screen capture to look so clean? Wildhartlivie (talk) 01:38, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I have to get going myself, but looking at Drew Barrymore quickly, I did not see a major difference when I changed to 1024x728 and looked at the sized-100% diff. (I did remove the image to keep it basic.) How do the Barrymore tables look different to you? Feel free to get back to me tomorrow! :) Good night. (After edit conflict; the key is to have a preexisting JPEG file and paste into that. Saving from new makes it look ugly.) Erik (talk) 01:50, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I was about to say the same thing. I've been up far, far too many hours and it has gone into sleep debt. Good night, Erik. Dream well. Wildhartlivie (talk) 01:54, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I honestly don't know. Most of the filmographies these days are looking pretty good so I don't gve them a second thought. If I had to say though I'd have thought the table would look best covering most of the width of the page... I honestly don't really don't whether it is 90% or 95%. As long as they look something like Arnold Schwarzenegger filmography I don't care.. ‡ Himalayan ‡ ΨMonastery 12:43, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
What if they look like this (100%)? Is it a game-changer? :) Erik (talk) 12:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Some points:
  • Going to a bulleted format is a major step backwards and removes the organization of a LOT of information in a LOT of articles. The tables allow us to organize appearances, both major and minor, film roles and in many cases gives us an organized way to present nominations and awards or miscellaneous bits of information regarding the films or the role. I'm firmly against taking that back step.
  • As Himalayan Explorer mentioned, the ones that are done (the majority of major actors, etc.) are looking pretty good. To a certain degree, how those tables are arranged is flexible, regarding presenting "film" or "television" roles and other jobs such as director or producer. Quite a number of actors fill many roles and that is adequately presented. In probably over 99% of them, they do cover the width of the page, I can't remember who put the Drew Barrymore image next to her filmography, but to a certain degree, it's nice - that very lovely photo is looking at her body of work, so I've never considered moving it.'
  • While I think the 90% font is working, I can see that perhaps that will change out of this discussion, but fitting text onto those lines tends to fill them up and crowd the information in some cases.
  • On the other hand, the color of the heading meets accessibility, (which seemed to be a concern) regarding the color used and it does signify that this table is for a person who works in film and television in some capacity, and as I said, there are other projects who use color in some way to designate it is part of a given project. As someone else pointed out, we are given the tools to use color designations and outside of the argument that the wikitable basic doesn't include tables, I've seen no argument that convinces me that it cannot be used, especially given that it has been used in these tables since mid-2007. It is established, prior to my involvement in this project, so blaming me doesn't fly.
  • Using a template for the heading removes any flexibility in making the tables. Some actors make films that have a distinct English title and titles in other languages (specifically coming to mind are Chinese or Japanese films), while some tables may contain box office gross or directors and other various bits of information. Templates remove that flexibility from the picture and presents presentation problems for those situations. Wildhartlivie (talk) 18:47, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose I agree with Jack and think Wikipedia needs better standards in general. If a table must be used in any article it makes the most sense to use a standard wikitable. I see no point in having "pretty tables" with fancy colors and agree with Michael Schmidt - tables are bulky and can distract from the article. Having color looks garish to me no matter what color is used. Tables also make the article much more complicated to edit and I much prefer a bulleted list. I also see absolutely no convincing reason to use a font size which is anything less then 100%. - Josette (talk) 19:01, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support I have to say that I think having the blue color adds to readability and is easier on the eyes. I also have seen that when using the larger size, some info gets moved to the next line which looks awkward to me. I don't understand why there is such a large disagreement over all of this since it's been used this way for a long time. Anyways, I support the above proposal of color and 90-95% fonts, though 100% wouldn't be a big deal to me either. As to the bullet points, I have mixed feelings about using it. The bullet point way doesn't look at all pleasing to the eye and makes articles look cluttered. That being said, I do think that it would be easier for editors to edit it than using the template. I think though that the template that is in use is preferable. Thanks, --CrohnieGalTalk 12:44, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The 90% seems too small of a font. I agree with Jack that using a predefined class (CSS) would be the best option. If that isn't possible, then have a template which defines that standard table header (or a combination of both). Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 23:34, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose: We should have a standardized format across all of wikipedia and not be needlessly complicated by having extra parameters. Ryan4314 (talk) 03:15, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support-This version, the readable one, 100 here also keep a hat on the colours, the same goes for these colors, light grey blue or whatever it is. Off2riorob (talk) 15:06, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Bold TextI don't know if this is "support" or "oppose" or whatever, but these lists should a) be created by template and b) be bog-normal wikitables, and should absolutly not make text smaller than browser-default. Hipocrite (talk) 17:03, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support - I don't much mind about the font size, but I do prefer the blue header, rather than the bog-standard. I like the blue color, but personal taste aside, the main thing I find unsatisfactory with the bog standard is that the header color is only minimally different in shading to the rest of the table, so it does not stand out against the rest of the text. Even a deepening of the bog standard color on the header line would be an improvement. I don't want Wikipedia to look like someone's gone crazy with a box of crayons, but a bit of variation between the header and the rest of the table would make the pages easier to read and visually more interesting. The bog standard is functional, but I also think it's a little static. I also prefer that the table format maintains a degree of flexibility, and I think that would be a drawback if a template was used. I'd prefer any type of table over a bulleted list. Mary Pickford filmography could never provide the current level of depth or readability with a bulleted list, to give one example. I'd rather see filmographies (and articles in general) expanded to their potential rather than cut back to their bare bones, and if relevant associated information can be presented in an easy to read table, I see that as a positive thing. Rossrs (talk) 10:12, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
    Hi. Seems to me your argument for the LightSteelBlue table-header cells is one concerning all instances of class="wikitable", not just filmographies (and any table on an actor or filmmaker's bio, it seems). Would you paste the same markup into any table, anywhere, to get that look instead of the standard look? Fact is, many editors have gone crazy with the crayons, all over the wiki; there are plenty of egregious examples out there. What's different here is that there's a whole prior effort at sorting this issue that was cast aside, and that the problem is multiplied by some tens of thousands of instances. And there's the issue that most of the hard-coded markup in place out there is Bad CodeTM —both gratuitous and invalid code in there, so it it needs clean-up even if it were done in-place. The tables themselves are a huge amount of markup that makes editing more difficult for most editors. Even the experienced editors here are regularly making structural mistakes when implementing these filmographies. You really think that many people are comfortable with colspan attributes? A bulleted list is much more accessible to most editors. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 16:54, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
    Hi, My comments about the LightSteelBlue table are a color preference only. It provides contrast without being gaudy, in my opinion, and if someone was suggesting bright orange or fire engine red, I'd be protesting vigorously. It's a matter of personal taste, which is neither right nor wrong and that's all I'm expressing regarding color, although, as I said, a deepening of the color in the bog standard template would achieve a degree of contrast that I would find satisfactory. It's just not my first preference, that's all. If there are "tens of thousands of instances" throughout Wikipedia, the degree of usage demonstrates that the tables are being used by considerably more editors than have commented here. Whether they are using them because they believe in their value, or whether they are using them because they've seen them elsewhere and they assume they are the norm, and therefore copy and paste them, who knows? But they are widely used. Most people using them would be looking at achieving a specific finished product, and not considering coding issues etc. If people who know about coding can help the people who don't, by providing something more suitable that creates a similar "look", that seems like a reasonable thing to aim for. Trying to achieve a consistency throughout is a good thing to aim for as well, and I don't know what is the best option, only what I personally prefer and that is what I've commented on. A bulleted list is the easiest thing for any editor to use, however I think we also should be looking at the result we want to achieve, and the widespread use of tables suggests that a significant number of editors want them, for whatever reason. If we want a finished product that looks something like the Mary Pickford filmography, the next step should be, I believe, to work out the easiest way of achieving that. I agree with the KISS principle in general, but keeping it simple should not necessarily limit potential. If there's a middle ground between making the editing process easier, avoiding the use of "bad code" and producing the "desired result" (whatever that may be), we should be aiming for that middle ground. If we chose a template, for example, that would make the editing process simpler, and if it achieved the "desired result", that would be fine. Something along those lines was suggested earlier in this discussion and seems to have been swallowed up by subsequent discussion. Would a template offer the flexibility to individualise some filmographies where further detail is wanted? (Mary Pickford example again) If not, that would be my main concern about templates. We should not underestimate the collective abilities of editors - even when one editor stumbles, they can learn or someone can help them, and if they make a mistake it can be fixed. We don't have to aim at the lowest common ability. Rossrs (talk) 00:24, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
    I've implemented the template discussed above
    and added a usage at Anna Kendrick. It could have other wording or more/different columns. This sort of template could not build the Mary Pickford filmography, which seems to be doing just fine with bog-standard wiki-table syntax. You might compare it with Michael Q. Schmidt#Partial filmography, which concerns User:MichaelQSchmidt, who opined here in favor of bulleted lists.
    As meretricious colors go, the LightSteelBlue is pretty far down on the list, so I've little against the color itself, per se (which is not an endorsement of it's use, here). I am concerned about all the hard-coded markup and the notion that a small group has been declaring that this shall be done across all actor and filmmaker bios; *all* tables, too, not just filmographies. However the however-many articles got to be using all this poor markup, is secondary to the fact that we've a mess spread across a large number of pages and that some simply don't see the problem. I'm a developer, so I know a bit about code. I also know more than a little about user interface design. The code issues will not go away by themselves and they will not go away if things are left to those who created the problem. Once there are a substantial number of instances of any coding pattern extant on the wiki, it will be copied about by random editors. These would simply be people following patterns they see in other articles; they copypasta without much thought as to the correctness of the code.
    To effect a course change requires a few things, starting with clarity. We need to run a bot across all of Category:Actors and it's sub-cats. We need to change what this wikiproject is advocating, and we need those who devote their efforts to this domain to cooperate with those seeking what's best for the entire project. Much of what going on here is mere railing against the grays invoked by class="wikitable" coupled with an understanding that there's really no chance of getting that changed. Hell, I wouldn't mind the headers being a tad darker, but I'm confident that sufficient thought was put into the decision however many years ago it was. The obvious assumption regarding why a rather pale pair of shades was chosen is that they maximize accessibility for users with various vision issues and who are using a variety of platforms (laptops, handphones, iPads). Anyway, given the improbability of getting the wikitable colors changed, some are hell-bent on changing the color of their articles to what amounts to a personal preference by any means available and without regard to what "outsiders" have to say.
    What is wikitext? It's a simplified way of marking-up text that can be run through MediaWiki to produce XHTML (and HTML5, at some point). Wikitext does allow the embedding of some html and css (only some; try setting your own background-image), but the intent is that most pages be implemented as wiki-text with no other markup. *That's* the project's goal: the creation of a large set of wiki-text pages that comprise an "encyclopedia". You have to dig pretty far to mission-statement-bits about adding colors. Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:06, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
@Rossrs - I agree with you that the Mary Pickford filmography article is a good example and I totally support the type of tables used there. They are neat, tidy and easy to read. They also happen to be bog-standard wiki-tables with 100% font size. If an article requires more then a bulleted list those are the type of tables I support. If templates can be used to achieve a similar look - all the better. - Josette (talk) 20:03, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
@User:Josette, yes I think the Mary Pickford filmography is a good example of how a table can be effectively used and simply displayed. The bog standard table and 100% font size don't bother me as much as my preference for a table format, whatever it may be. I've mentioned that my personal taste and preference is for the other, but I don't oppose the bog-standard 100% font. I think Pickford's filmography looks very good. @User:Jack Merridew - the Anna Kendrick page looks exactly the same as any of the other pages that currently use the hard-coded markup, and that's what I was meaning when I suggested that someone who understands code could present something equivalent for any who may not. If the color is not uppermost among your concerns, is this then a reasonable compromise to use, at least in the short term? I would support it. Rossrs (talk) 23:29, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
@Jo: To implement bog-standard wikitables, we'd be best-off just using wikitext syntax and eschewing cluttering things up with a template, as the only purpose of such a template would be to encapsulate the implementation of whatever ornamentation of the table. Cheers, Jack Merridew 17:56, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
@Rossrs: A table implementation, whether using a template for the headers or not, entails a considerable amount of markup when compared to using a bulleted list. This is all for including columns such as 'roles' and "notes' which really are information that more properly belongs in the film's article, so I see a desire for an excessive amount of inappropriate information being use as a rationale for needing a table to structure information that I do not see as appropriate in most cases. Fact is, many of these columns are full of empty cells and a very large number of actor bios are doing fine with lists of films and years, period. I'm not opposed to the use of tables in some circumstances (Pickford), but don't see this as appropriate for most actor bios.
I've since changed the styling invoked by that template and on the tables to demonstrate that there are a lot of possibilities for customizing things; the question remains: how much of this shite is a good idea? I think there's little justification for having the tables on actor bios differentiate themselves from those on the pages of other articles. Should the pages of poets, have light-pea-green headings, or should that be reserved for bios of pedophiles? fyi, the stylesheet-focused example at #lean, semantic, markup (sidebar, below) offers considerably more possibilities for customization of the look and feel of tables and might-well fly with the keepers of common.css if a more generally applicable abstraction for a sub-class of wikitables were articulated; namely one that was not named filmography but something that would be of use to areas of the project far removed from actors or even bios. If pitched and implemented, such a sub-class could be trivially pasted into pages such as Pickford's filmography and would be compatible with the considerably more complex heading structure in use there.
I find the notion that the role of those who know code is to provide implementations for those who do not, to be rather insulting (although I don't think you really meant it that way). I've also said I have considerable experience as a user interface designer, so I have a pretty good idea of what ideas are good ideas, and do not see my role as merely one of fulfilling the desires of others. While the LightSteelBlue is not, in my view, a particularly garish color, the notion of myriad domain-specific colors foisted upon the wiki by local cliques is antithetical to the view that the site-styling is a site-wide concern. This is not something best left to the whims of a few, it is the domain of the site UI experience design. Cheers, Jack Merridew 17:56, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
nb: Yet another example of inexperienced editors not getting the filmography table syntax correct. We're making the wiki more difficult for n00bz to edit because… The wiki needs to be inaccessible to the inexperienced because… Why are we making the wiki more difficult to edit? Jack Merridew 23:36, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Jack, I see little rationale that you've given to support your campaign to stop the use of tables for filmographies beyond WP:IDONTLIKEIT and further, you don't like it because the actor project endorsed it. Beyond that, it isn't even included in the original RfC, thus many who posted here aren't even aware that it is an issue. I still only see 3 editors here say they like bulleted lists vs. tables so despite all of your typing on and on, no one else has been swayed. Saying that you support it in some specific cases but not others is a judgment call and that in no way offers a way to make that judgment. The tables contain a lot of information that is organized in a meaningful way beyond "roles" and "notes". They also contain an organized list of awards, which are relevant to a large number of articles. I've objected before about how you characterize a project as a "club" and now a "clique". It is inordinately uncivil and disrespectful and yet you persist in doing so. That is basically an attack upon a group of editors and apparently, your derision toward projects is yours alone. Please stop demeaning an entire project because you hold it in contempt. Meanwhile, what is this mess of coding for, why is the font size set at 120% and why does that demonstrate flexibility? What I see is a frenzy of code mark up stuck in anyway. As for following me around and coming up with examples where someone edits for the first time and make minor mistakes, so what? New editors make many errors the first time out, and that isn't confined to the filmography table. Posting those examples as a reason to scrub out tables is simply reactionary and that someone screwed up and added a pipe in the wrong place isn't good reason to to do. Perhaps since a LARGE majority of new editors can't get inserting a reference correctly, we should do away with the requirement for sourcing content? It's the same rationale. Wildhartlivie (talk) 00:04, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

@ User:Jack Merridew. I said "If people who know about coding can help the people who don't, by providing something more suitable that creates a similar "look", that seems like a reasonable thing to aim for." I did not intend to insult you - you're right - I did not mean it "that way" so you shouldn't be insulted. I didn't say anything as strong as telling you what I thought your role should be. All I was saying is that if people who know about code can help people who don't, achieve something that they want to achieve, it's a reasonable thing to ask for, given that this is supposed to be a collaborative effort and people helping other people is a keystone of Wikipedia. If an individual editor was asked to help achieve something that he or she doesn't believe is right, naturally this editor would and should say no, and no offence should be taken either by the question or the answer. That was my intention, but my use of the word "aim" implied that both parties were on the same side of the argument, which in this case is not so, and which is probably what made my comment unclear.

You ask, "how much of this shite is a good idea?" As you've used the word "shite", your answer to the question isn't hard to guess. You'd probably invite a more open discussion if your language was neutral. If you'd said "how much of this information is needed?" you'd possibly get a less defensive response. If you'd said "individual projects" instead of "local cliques", that would have been more neutral too. Fact is, rightly or wrongly, a lot of people like the tables, and this is evident by how widely they are used, and the fact that User:Josette has noticed them appearing in other types of articles, suggests that other editors like them. They must. If they're so difficult to add, why would someone go to the trouble of adding them if they didn't see any value in them? I care less about the color, but I think the table vs. bulleted list boils down to "I like it" vs. "I don't like it". You say that some of the information, the "shite" you refer to, more correctly belongs in the film article. I think a lot of this information belongs in both the film article, and the filmography whether the filmography is part of the biographical article or whether it is an article in its own right such as the Pickford filmography. Pickford's could be little more than a list of film titles. I don't see that any of the character names are particularly important. It doesn't help me to know that many of her early films were "split reel"? I could probably file a lot of this content under "shite", and I think it's using the same context you gave to the word, and yet it's a featured list and apparently this information is useful for a comprehensive presentation. Each editor who has commented here has held it up as a good example of a tabled format used appropriately. I just don't get that details such as character names are necessary for Pickford but not necessary for Anna Kendrick, to use another example. Either way, they're just a bunch of names, meaningless or meaningful depending on an individual viewpoint. Rossrs (talk) 01:24, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not neutral on these issues, I'm advocating what I believe, with a fair degree of certainty, to be the correct course. The gist of what I was saying re coders/non-coders is that I have little patience with requests to implement what I believe to be bad ideas. Bad Ideas™ should not be implemented (unless you've got a pile of venture capital to play with;). Anyway, I said I didn't believe you meant it as an insult.
You seem to have misread much of what else I said. The "shite" I was referring to is gratuitous ornamentation; the 64 color box of crayolas. The information in the role and notes columns that I feel is more appropriate to whatever film article is not what I was referring to. Similarly, I used "local cliques" to refer to the general case of "local consensuses" (which can be any small group on some talk page and may not involve any wikiproject); had I meant this wikiproject in particular, I would have said so. Folks here are far from the only ones advocating the full use of the 4 billions crayons (and that's not counting the concept of alpha transparency).
Rossrs, you seem a reasonable person, although we are not in agreement. I believe many of the hard-coded filmography tables out there exist in that form simply because random editors copied the format from some other article with no understanding of the code; they simply are going by what they see. The wikiproject has been advocating a format that is patently bad code, is difficult to maintain, and includes bits that are simply gratuitous, and even outright invalid, and I'm fought tooth-and-nail by people who admittedly know little about code. Jack Merridew 03:05, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I didn't mean neutrality in thought but rather neutrality in expression, and I suppose that boils down to tact. I realize you are not neutral on the issue, and nobody here is, else there'd be no discussion. Words or phrases may not be intended as insulting, but they can be read as such. I know you said you didn't believe I intended to be insulting, but that you even commented, suggested at least some doubt in your mind. I wanted to clarify my comment with the hope of removing any doubt. It seems I did misread your comment about "shite". Reading your comment again, with that in mind, yes I see what you mean, and it is similar to an earlier comment I made about crayons. I hope I am a reasonable person, and clearly we are not in agreement on all points. Forget for a moment that this project has been promoting bad code, and look at it from a broader view that this project has been advocating the use of a tabled filmography. That a large number of editors have blindly copied the existing format suggests support for the use of tabling. Or to put it another way, they are looking at duplicating a particular result or form of presentation, and in the absence of coding knowledge, they are copying and pasting. I doubt that they have any awareness beyond wanting the article to look a particular way. You're questioning both their methodology and their aim. I can see a reason for questioning their methodology but not so much their aim.
This discussion has become confusing. There are two clear issues, and a third that is entwined with both. 1. Bad code. 2. Tables vs. bulleted list. 3. Use of color. This discussion has jumped between these points, rather than looking at them individually, and perhaps that might be a way forward. For me: 1. I know nothing about coding. If you say it's a problem, I have no reason to doubt you. If you say it needs to be addressed, I'd be inclined to agree with you. I have nothing to offer on that point. If the template used at Anna Kendrick as an example skirts the coding problem - regardless of your disagreement on other points - from a coding perspective only, does it work as an alternative to what is already in place? 2. I prefer the use of tables. I would prefer that there is enough flexibility to allow for the usage of either a table or a list at the discretion of the editor or editors actively working on those articles or within particular projects. I think it's the type of thing that could be done at project level. Editors who are interested in film related articles, could decide what is appropriate and people who are interested in music related articles could look at things like discographies. In practice this is how it currently is and the only alternatives I can see are "always use tables" or "never use tables", both of which seem like bad ideas to me. Obviously tabling should be as free of complication as possible, and should not adversely affect the coding issues. 3. The color. It's a personal choice. If there was a Wikipedia-wide push toward unifying all articles under a common "look" I would accept it. At the moment I doubt that I would support it, which is another thing entirely, although I'm usually in favor of standardised 'branding'. I'm not sure that individual projects making different choices in tabling are really different to any other style choices that might be made, and as such I'm not sure whether it requires standardisation. It seems to me that this is the lesser of the three points under discussion. Rossrs (talk) 09:02, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Ya, this project has been advocating tables for filmographies, and that's about adding a large heap of wiki-code to pages. This make pages more dificult for editors to edit. This is evinced by the many diffs given showing endless 'fixes'. Further, this project has been advocating hard-coding css-code, too, and this is all about cementing-in a look that was soundly rejected last year. This has been a disruptive effort at evading that consensus. Editors who, in good faith, copypasta something are doing so for all manner of reasons. Most editors know little of code so the simplest explanation is that they just propagating what they see extant.
  1. The code is bad, and needs fixing. I'm a patient guy, but this discussion has hit all the points, *many times*. The {{filmography table headings}} template in Anna Kendrick, "works" from a technical perspective, but the only reason to use such a template is to centralize customizations of some sort, and absent a justification for having such customization, there is no need to use such a template.
  2. I'm not opposed to using tables in limited circumstances (Pickford), but believe a bulleted list is the best format and that that should be what is suggested by this project; 90%+ or so.
  3. There is a site-wide push for color, and for tables it's the shades of gray implemented in "wikitable". It's used millions of times. All these "personal choices" of color are making the wiki a riot of color. They come and they go and none of it is really of much value. It is the lesser of these points, but it is what is impeding progress on the other issues.
  4. There is a fourth issue, here: user conduct. This whole discussion is wrapped by inappropriate behavior. This sprawling discussion has been filibustered in an effort to avoid having the color cut. This has held up sorting the more important issues. Couple this with the pattently obvious ownership issues, and we've another higher level problem that needs resolution.
Sincerely, Jack Merridew 16:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I think there has been less than ideal behaviour from both sides of the discussion, and a lack of give and take and compromise from both sides of the discussion. Both sides have failed to distinguish between needs and wants, and a lot of the comments boil down to "I like it" or "I don't like it." I don't think it's likely to move forward if we get too much into discussing behaviour or trying to determine who is to blame for this mess. Can we all agree that it's a mess and move on? I would like it to move forward, but whatever has been done in the past has not worked, and perhaps we need to look at this differently. In my earlier comment I was attempting to untangle the main themes being discussed. You say about colors that they are "the lesser of these points, but it is what is impeding progress of the other issues." I can see that. If a lesser point prevents making progress on a major point, there must be something wrong with our process. If the lesser point becomes a distraction, we need to stop looking at the lesser point at the same time we're looking at the major point. If coding is the main issue, why not take everything else off the table temporarily and focus on the coding? Deal with it, get it resolved and then move on to the next point. I think it would be easier, (or at least more likely) to get agreement on one point than collectively on three points, but it may be possible to get agreement on each of the three points individually. It's just a suggestion, but this ain't working, and saying it ain't working, won't make it work. Rossrs (talk) 08:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I tend to agree with you, Rossrs. This has become such a mix up of myriad points that even when an administrator considered closing it, he mentioned that the supposed "slam-dunks" of opinion that were pushed here were so close that it wasn't clear. Perhaps it is time that each point be separated out and a decision decided on each individual point. At some point, Jack Merridew's insistence that "bulleted lists" be the standard that everything else got covered up in his push. Nothing's clear here, except that nothing is clear. Maybe it's time to start over. Wildhartlivie (talk) 15:40, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

hard-coded markup

lean, semantic, markup

the markup

{| class="wikitable filmography"
|-
! Year !! Film !! Role !! Notes
|-
| 1998
| ''[[Dil Se]]''
| Preeti Nair
| [[Filmfare Best Debut Award]]
|}

the css

table.wikitable.filmography
{
 font-size: 95%;
}
table.wikitable.filmography th
{
 background-color: #B0C4DE;
}

I'd like to clarify something. Much of my concern centers on the actual code. The current practice is to hard-code markup into each page; 32,000 of them, I hear. There are two common forms I'm seeing; the older form:

{| border="2" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 90%;"
|- bgcolor="#B0C4DE" align="center"
! Year
! Movie
! Role
! Other notes
|-

which is valid code, but messy, and does not include a class (wikitable) for invoking site-wide standards. The newer, second form is:

{|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9;
|- align="center"
! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Year
! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Film
! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Role
! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Notes
|-

which is more messy, includes superfluous and outright invalid code (border="2" cellpadding="4" is simply not needed and background: #f9f9f9; is invalid because it is not in a style-attribute (and is superfluous as it's the color provided by "wikitable"), and align="center" is simply not needed as the following table-header-cells will be centered anyway by the site-wide css invoked by class="wikitable"). While it does invoke "wikitable", it is intent on overriding the site-standard by embedding all that hard-coded markup.

I do not support the reduction of the font-size, the recoloring of the table-header cells, or even tables at all (i.e. bulleted lists). For the purpose of discussion, let's assume I do. A proper way to achieve those goals would be to add an additional class to the tables; "filmography" in the example at right. This approach moves the specifics of the override of "wikitable" to a single, centralized spot. If this "filmography" class were in place on the 32,000 actor filmographies, we could make all sorts of tweaks to the look of them all by tweaking the single instance of the css; we could make all the heading cells 120% but leave the ordinary cells at 100%. CSS is rich, so there are many things possible.

The inclusion of such domain-specific tweaks in the site css will not happen; it's unwarranted and would amount to a camel's nose for hundreds of other domains to seek classes for themselves. If someone were to propose a much higher level abstraction for a class to tweak the standard "wikitable", that could get a lot of support, including mine. This would have to be something of much wider applicability.

So, my primary issue is with all the poor code extant in the 32,000 articles. The ones of the first form, above, need class="wikitable" added to them; that should be uncontroversial. They also need the hard-code pared back. The ones of the second form, need the gratuitous and invalid code removed. And whatever form all these land at should be such that any customizations are centralized. Site-wide css for this will be rejected, strongly, so that leave a template approach for customization, or a recognition that such domain-specific customization is unwarranted and that the recommended format this wikiproject espouses be the 100% bog-standard-wikitable (or a bulleted list, which is far more accessible, anyway).

The Filmographies seem to me an egregious example of a wider issue of inappropriate hard-coding of markup. I will be similarly critical of the practice if I encounter it elsewhere. Anytime something is being done in such a copypasta fashion, it need addressing so that the cementing of the code-base to one form stops. At this point, with thousands of copies of the markup about, it is surely a daily practice for random editors, in all good faith, to be replicating it further. They start some new bio by copying from some other article, and this adds another instance of the hard-coded-markup to the heap. About the same would occur when someone 'updates' a filmography per the proffered norm or per some other article.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:08, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

First of all, your choice of background color for your examples is poor - to my eyes, they blend together and required me to open the page and remove your choice of background color to no background color. I don't know if that background color issue shows up on the color accessibility pages, bu it should. Secondly, the examples used themselves disregard some issues. The first example was discarded because it was not wikitable heading, per issue with it, and was based on the deprecated "prettytable" style, and the second example was given to us after that was pointed out. Thirdly, no one is disputing your issues with "border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9;" and "|- align="center", so that is a superfluous point. I've already addressed the problems associated with using a template, which include the lack of flexibility in the heading for which the current heading allows. There would then be an issue with needing multiple templates, which effectively we don't need. There is also no support for the statement that "hundreds of other domains [would] seek classes for themselves." That falls under WP:CRYSTALBALL. Has that happened in regard to anything yet? There is little support for taking the giant step backward to a bulleted list. That would disregard the inclusion of valid and important distinctions that are used in the filmography table, which I also addressed. I'd comment that the advent of a template for the heading created to address the customization was also overridden along with the usefulness regarding flexibility. Actually, my experience with new articles is that many of them come to the project page for help in developing the tables, but anything can happen, including persons making up their own table specifics. Having said all that, I do wish someone would address the colors used on the Raphael Nadal article I mentioned. That has been that way for a very long time. I tagged it as the overuse of color, but nothing happens. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:56, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I've lightened the background a bit (although the old version looked fine to me). Better?
I realize that the first example is an older form that you're no longer advocating. There are, however, many instances of that code still about and that's part of the problem I see. The second form is issue-rich, as I've pointed out, is widely extant out there, and so is also still a problem.
The effort regarding {{Filmography table head}} in no way limited the addition of other columns to the table; it didn't hard code columns at all; just the overall table style. Please do not dismiss template based approaches as inflexible because that's actually their strong suit. They are another means of organizing rote code to use a central point of control. They can also serve to totally encapsulate an implementation and allow radical refactoring of the implementation while adhering to an interface.
It is not at all unreasonable to consider that many other factions will want some customizations for “their” articles. Avoiding setting poor precedents is always wise.
The use of bulleted lists has a lot to be said for it. Much of the detail I see in filmography tables properly belongs in the film articles. These table dominate many of the articles that are supposed to be about the person as a whole. There are accessibility issues here, too; Michael says he runs 800x600 and tables will force page widening on narrow viewports. And what about handphones, which are typically much narrower? Lists will simply squash to four words per line. There's the issue of accessibility to neophyte editors who may not be comfortable with wiki-table markup. I've fixed tables countless times that have been improperly edited by people confused by the syntax. Lists are a lot easier for a broad spectrum of editors to deal with (they get "*"); that's core to the whole notion of writing articles in wiki-text (as opposed to allowing anyone to edit raw html). Also, our content is reusable, so many take the whole database and do other things with it, in many contexts other than 'here'. What do these filmography tables look like when exported to an eBook being displayed on an Amazon Kindle, which uses monochrome? (I don't know, don't have one. I would expect Amazon would scrub the wiki-text of most embedded markup).
I agree with you regarding the Raphael Nadal article, but that's not what I'm focused on.
Regards, Jack Merridew 22:36, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
p.s. you might see Separation of presentation and content for the core philosophy behind not cementing presentational details into content.
(I lost the first version of this due to browser crash.) I do appreciate the change in background color. The nature of my vision disability is about contrast between light and dark due to vitreal bleeds. Image trying to read through sun-darkened flint glass or a sunburned windshield on a 30s model car or brightness on a computer monitor turned to quite dark. Or trying to read through a glass of iodine stained water. The contrast needs to be a certain level to see. Changing from the first version is an on-going process and the use of that coding is far less than it used to be. I don't know of a way to initiate a search for that specifically, so that slows it down. I'm not sure I know how one would go about adding additional columns with that template. I'm not sure what parts of film, role and awards data would be better contained on film pages when the roles and awards are specific to the actor and would somehow or another find its way into the actor articles. I'm no fan of adding director or box office gross to actor filmographies, I think, too, that it is extraneous content, but some editors do so anyway. The filmography I saw on Kindle was fairly close to what it displays on a computer. I don't know how the pages I've seen on other sites dealt with it, some had tables, some do not. However, I do think that the use of tables is largely supported and has always been. I see fewer and fewer errors to changes in tables than I used to. But let me ask you this - assume for a moment that the color table heading was used - how would you code it? I asked that many times in the other discussion, which is where the current coding came from. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:56, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

how-to: extra-column

w/{{Filmography table head}}
Year Film Role Nude? Notes
1998 Dil Se Preeti Nair nope Filmfare Best Debut Award
I just *gave* an example of how a filmography-specific variant of wikitable could be properly implemented; it's in the box with "lean, semantic, markup" at the top. And it won't fly (with the keepers of the site css) as it is unwarranted; but that's how to do it ;) Filmography tables implemented with {{Filmography table head}} can have columns added just as any other table can, by adding them; see example. A more robust example that allowed custom-colors and whatnot implemented using templates would only be developed, at least by me, if a compelling reason were offered to the question I've repeatedly asked:
  • Why do you think that, of all the myriad tables used in wiki-articles, Filmographies should stand out with a custom color heading?
Please understand that the core issue is the mess extant in 32,000 articles. It is inappropriate to paste thousands of instances of something presentational in nature into the code base. This is a site-wide concern and Filmographies is only a specific instance of the concern.
Regards, Jack Merridew 01:08, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I've answered your "why" question several times in this thread, even if you don't acknowledge the reasons I gave. A couple reasons are that it allows the tables to signify they are part of an actor, etc., specific biography, just as different heading colors in infoboxes make a similar designation and it has widely been noted to render better aesthetics. It also clearly outlines the columns heading instead of blending them into the background by giving the column titles more noticeability is another. Wildhartlivie (talk) 01:34, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Who's stopping the other projects from using a custom colored heading (that's within accessibility)? —Mike Allen 01:49, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
That really gets to the notion of your wikiproject (or any other) having the authority to assert rules concerning what other editors may do in 32,000 articles. I cleaned-up some articles and was reverted with a claim to the authority of this wikiproject where I see mebbe six editors asserting article ownership; the filmography sections, at least. It doesn't work that way. I'm not a member of this wikiproject, and I don't have to be to edit filmographies; I'm allowed that privilege by being a member of a project called the English Wikipedia. If you want it established that it is appropriate to dictate rules, you need to get consensus for it from the wider community. Regards, Jack Merridew 03:04, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
And again, that is relevant to the disdain with which you've referred to wikiprojects and doesn't warrant a reply otherwise. It is entirely appropriate for projects to establish guidelines for articles under its title and because you don't care to regard them with any respect completely weakens anything you say about them. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:24, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Your reasons really amount to little more than personal preference. Is there any coherent plan and rationale for coloring infoboxes? If not, that may simply be another instance of the same problem. If you prefer the LightSteelBlue, then propose that it be incorporated into the site css for all wikitables. I've said my concern is about the implementation and the appropriateness of domain-specific headings and not with the color itself. "noticeability" really is a claim for undue weight. Regards, Jack Merridew 03:04, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
And you've said that you will not support changes such as that to the site css, so why bother suggesting it? And no, you're wrong. That the column title row be noticeable enough to allow the reader to distinguish what column is what is not undue weight. That's a specious statement. Being able to find what column is what is not undue weight, irrelevant or extraneous. Looking at a table that tends to blend everything into an undelineated blur is a problem, not someone's preference. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:24, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I offered the example because you asked for one. You're welcome. You seem to have learned last year that such things would not be accepted into the site stylesheets without my involvement. And whatever issue you have with the distinguishability of the heading would be a criticism of the wikitable class as it applies to the entire wikipedia, not specifically filmographies. Regards, Jack Merridew 07:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't know where all your hostility is coming from, but you need to chill. All you've done is attack Wildhartlivie, which is where I think is what this all boils down to, proving your OWN POINT to another editor and taking everybody else for the ride. There are worst things going on with this site than some table codes. —Mike Allen 04:16, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Sure, the BLP issue is a bigger problem. That give this issue a pass? By pushing the notion that every little thing needs tarting up with a little color, you've empowered the fans of Miley Cyrus to go have their very own shade on that filmography. See here. Regards, Jack Merridew 07:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Prove that they even read WP:ACTOR to find out what color is recommended to use. Looks like they picked that shade of purple from the color scheme of Hannah Montana. Nevertheless, I don't advocate that color, it's too loud. —Mike Allen 07:36, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
There are always random examples of weird color changes, note the mentions I've made of the Raphael Nadal page. That wasn't inspired by coming here. I've come across the use of the color orange. That other stuff exists isn't a valid argument. There is no support that anyone was "inspired" by checking this project to change them and it's an exception to the wide rule, not the example. That's patent nonsense. That serious editors ask here is proven by MikeAllen coming here to ask about formatting and how to do so. Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:45, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
The points about using a class (no Wikiproject-specific tweakage) are valid; this is what css are for.   pablohablo. 21:02, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
In professional circles, it is well understood that inline-css is inappropriate in most cases. Typically it is only used for testing tweaks before committing code to widely used stylesheets. In the context of a wiki, inline-css is used somewhat more because most editors do not have access to the stylesheets (for very good reasons;). Anytime something is being rote-inlined, it is appropriate to revisit the issue with an eye towards maintaining centralized control of the styling in question. Cheers, Jack Merridew 22:36, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I propose the header color be "#C3C3E5", which is a mixture of grey AND blue. I think it'll suit both parties in this dispute. You can see it in action here. :-) —Mike Allen 20:56, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Both parties? Please do not polarize things, this a discussion amongst rather more than two parties concerning a variety of issues that people have a variety of views on. As to #C3C3E5, it addresses very little of my concern, which is not about any specific color other than #F2F2F2 (the background-color invoked by class="wikitable"). Please see my comments elsewhere on this very page for considerable explanation of my concerns. Regards, Jack Merridew 00:28, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
There's one party that doesn't like it one way and the other that does. I don't see anyone actually doing anything about it one way or the other. People seem quite bored by it ... carry on. Thank you. —Mike Allen 02:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

table headings via templates

{{Filmography table headings}}

encapsulation of implementation

<!-- Filmography table headings
-->{{#if:{{{1|}}}  |! style="background-color: #B0C4DE;" {{!}} {{{1}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{2|}}}| !! style="background-color: #B0C4DE;" {{!}} {{{2}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{3|}}}| !! style="background-color: #B0C4DE;" {{!}} {{{3}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{4|}}}| !! style="background-color: #B0C4DE;" {{!}} {{{4}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{5|}}}| !! style="background-color: #B0C4DE;" {{!}} {{{5}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{6|}}}| !! style="background-color: #B0C4DE;" {{!}} {{{6}}}}}

The use of templates has been suggested as a means of avoiding hard-coding markup into thousands of articles and has been dismissed as inflexible. The whole point of our template system is to encapsulate rote things into a centrally managed location. The net-effect of hard-coding raw markup into articles is to cement something in place as-is, and without any easy option to revisit the issue. So, the core issue is one of maintainability. The possible template implementation at right would allow the the encapsulation of whatever markup into a single location where it can be adjusted to re-style all uses as consensus deems appropriate; it would uncement things and decouple the two issues of; a) table heading background-color and b) hard-code markup in thousands of articles. It also demonstrates that the use of templates in no way locks-in specific heading text or the number of columns. It allows 6 columns and the text may vary on a per-article basis (not that that is necessarily a good thing). A typical invocation would be:

{| class="wikitable"
{{Filmography table headings|Year|Film|Role|Notes}}
|-

and a hypothetical alternate would be:

{| class="wikitable"
{{Filmography table headings|Year|TV Movie|Role|Co-star|Channel}}
|-

I see this as an interim step for the pages currently using tables. I believe that bulleted-lists are more appropriate, that any filmography tables should match the look of "wikitable", and that pasting thousands of copies of hard-coded markup into articles is inappropriate as it locks-in an implementation, does not maintain a necessary separation of presentation and content and serves to thwart any possibility that consensus can change.

Sincerely, Jack Merridew 20:37, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem with a template header that works that way if the color background is included. Wildhartlivie (talk) 00:42, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
So you would have no problem with deploying that template as what your wikiproject advocates and all filmographies being refactored to use it? This would allow the hard-coded markup to be removed. This should also include removing the font-size hard-coded into the opening line of the table, as you've already acknowledged on David Levy's talk pagediff that there isn't much support for the font size. This would allow the question of the appropriateness of the heading color to be sorted separately, and changed per consensus from a central point. And assuming that that decision were to not use a color background you would abide by it? (as opposed to summarily cutting the template use as you did last year when it was edited not to your liking.) Regards, Jack Merridew 00:10, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
I actually said if the color background were included. My issue here is that you have made it a foregone conclusion, stating in some places that the opinion was running 3:1 against it, which does not reflect the balance of support vs. oppose here, and that you have already announced that "The light steel blue will not persist as the wishes of mere few do not constitute consensus." This is the face of 5 other posters who do support the use of color headings. You do not have the authority to declare that anything will not persist. Wildhartlivie (talk) 15:27, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Let's try for a more genial tone, please... Erik (talk) 15:28, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Wildhartlivie, it sounds as if you are demanding a color be used. Why are you so convinced that a color is so important again? Nothing you have said so far is convincing. I defy you to show that Eric, MQS, David Levy, Dinoguy1000, Ms2ger, Pablo, Nymf, Jack or myself have stated anywhere that we think any color is a good idea. Most of us see no point to the color at all. Why should an actor, if they have a table (which makes the article much more difficult to edit) somewhere in their article, be distinguished by a color at the top of the table. How does that help any general reader who comes to Wikipedia? How is the general reader supposed to understand what that colored line means? Shouldn't our goal be to make it easy for the reader and easy for anyone to edit? If your goal is to distinguish the Wikipedia:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers from other projects you might find a better way to do that - like colored t-shirts for team members. OK, just kidding about the t-shirts but just saying.... - Josette (talk) 20:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
I am demanding nothing. Jack Merridew asked a specific question and I replied with a specific answer, that I support the use of the template, as he laid it out, which also included coding for color heading. Meanwhile, my comment also addressed that he stated authoritatively that "The light steel blue will not persist as the wishes of mere few do not constitute consensus" to a group of 5 editors elsewhere that the use of color is preferable, editors who made reference to the table being easier to read with the column names more specified with color and felt the color gave a better aesthetic to the entire page. I don't support the color they chose, which is true of another editor posting on that page. I've also answered the question of the usefulness repeatedly here. Most of what I saw of concern from Erik was the size of the font and whether the color used passed accessibility tables, which it did, Michael W. Schmidt was neutral about font size but opined his support for use of lists, not tables and did not comment on the color whatsoever, it seemed to me that Ms2ger was open to discussion on color, and that gives less opposition than it appears. And if one would care to, there are 5 others on Talk:Miley Cyrus who feel the same, although they were clearly discouraged by Jack Merridew's statements there. An IP said "I find the formatting with the coloured background headings to be much easier on the eye. I wish all tables in Wikipedia were done like that." User:DreadfullyDespised said "I think the color helps as well. I didn't mean to engage in a "war" over formatting a table, but I felt it's much easier to read with a colored header rather than one that blends in with the whole thing." User:Keraunoscopia said "The table had color in it for several months, and I thought it spruced the article up a bit, plus it made it easier to read. Just my opinion. The way the table stands now (no color at all) is probably the most hideous looking table I've ever seen." User:HJ Mitchell said "Personally, I'm inclined to leave it as it is for 2 reasons- first, it improves readability and is more aesthetically pleasing and, second, because WP tends to favour the status quo". and User:Liquidluck said "While I believe the current table is better (An actor's filmography table should have extra emphasis, color is more aesthetically pleasing), it is true that the heading color should be blue rather than purple, so I've changed that." These are all points that have been raised here and summarily dismissed as beside the point, though as far as I'm concerned, they are entirely valid. Others here commented that the table clean up was working and that they looked good. How does the general reader know that the colored infoboxes have any distinction, either, but they do. I can't see that any of the editors opposing the tables here have ever put work into them, while editors supporting it most certainly have put hundreds of hours into them. And thanks for the t-shirt suggestion, we'll get right on that. Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
nb: the IP you quote is a troll who opened that thread and took that position simply to oppose me. A few days later it was blocked for repeated personal attacks against me. The others you quote were set-up by the troll. Regards, Jack Merridew 00:19, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Did you just accuse 4 editors, Liquidluck, HJ Mitchell, Keraunoscopia and DreadfullyDespised, who are in good standing of being meatpuppets for an IP? I believe you did and such bad faith accusations are groundless and spiteful. I've notified those editors of your accusations. Now kindly stop trying to confront me on my talk page for reverting a bad edit. Wildhartlivie (talk) 01:52, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
No, I didn't, I consider them to have been manipulated by the troll-IP. You, however, used this to attempt to lure those editors here to support your position and to malign me:
Note that I had already left those folks a link to this discussion on Talk:Miley Cyrus, even though they seem to not support my views. Hopefully they will read all of this discussion and better understand. I see you left them a note on Miley's talk page, too that quite plainly is seeking to get them here.
As to the thread on your talk page,oldid I was calling you on your not abiding by the deal we had reach on my talk page to both refrain from editing tables on actor bios during this discussion. I see you've childishly stuck your tongue out and spat at me on your talk page ("Pfft") and seem not intent on abiding by the arrangement. I await your answers to the outstanding questions for you, here. Regards, Jack Merridew 02:15, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Like I told you on my talk page, stop posting to me there. You're making a mountain out of a molehill about a revert on a bad edit to return the article to its previous status. You're reaching much too far to make a case for canvassing, when I told those editors that you were dismissing their opinions on that page and casting aspersions on their statements. So glad you have extrasensory perception that allows you to divine some hidden intention. When someone's opinion is questioned as you did theirs, they have a right to know and respond where they are accused. You, however, do not have a right to persistently harass me across talk pages of others. For your other comments, saying "Pfft" to a comment someone has made isn't sticking out my tongue, it's making a raspberry to the content of the statement. Please stop making this so personal, it is tiring and boring and you're basically losing credibility in doing so. There's no baiting involved in encouraging them to comment on what you've said about them. Wildhartlivie (talk) 02:25, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for clearing that up; It seems I assumed the wrong end of the alimentary canal, as you're using this definition of raspberry:
  • (pejorative, colloquial) A noise intended to imitate the passing of flatulence, made by blowing air out of the mouth while the tongue is protruding from and pressed against the lips, or by blowing air through the lips while they are pressed firmly together or against skin.
Regards, Jack Merridew 02:43, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
As far as the infoboxes are concerned, you make an excellent point. How does the general reader know that the colored infoboxes have any distinction? I have no idea where those colors come from or what they mean and I have been editing since 2006. Is there a color key somewhere? I prefer articles that look like this. No fancy colors needed there. - Josette (talk) 22:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
None that I know of, though I've brought this point up before. Each infobox is color-coded for its project, but I've never seen a guideline. However, they are project specific as far as I know. I see the filmography tables as nothing different in project specificity. Wildhartlivie (talk) 22:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to respond to a couple of statements made by Wildhartlivie above:
You do not have the authority to declare that anything will not persist. [addressing Jack Merridew]
I'll remind you once again that you did precisely that last year, when you unilaterally declared that the table template would no longer be used (because it was edited in a manner not to your liking). You then orphaned it [1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15]. You did so despite overwhelming consensus against your position.
I can't see that any of the editors opposing the tables here have ever put work into them, while editors supporting it most certainly have put hundreds of hours into them.
That's one of the most clear-cut claims of ownership that I've encountered in my five years at Wikipedia.
That certain editors created the tables gives them absolutely no special standing. (The discussion participants from outside your WikiProject have made other contributions, and it would be equally inappropriate for us to claim that we therefore are entitled to ignore and override your opinions in those areas.)
The same is true of WikiProject members, who possess no more authority than any other editors to determine articles' contents. WikiProjects are valuable assets, but they exist to help implement (and sometimes influence) Wikipedia consensus, not to disregard it in favor of their own. —David Levy 23:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
And so you've posted more than once here. What do you want, for me to lay bare my throat and cut it? You've made that point already in this thread. We are not discussing something that happened months ago, we are talking about something he did yesterday, and by doing so, discouraged 5 opposing editors by crafting a post that sounded quite authoritative. And just why would editors who have put hundreds of hours into doing something not oppose someone who comes in to say "your way is all screwed up and we won't allow it to happen" when it is precisely what's been done for almost 3 years? I wouldn't be so forward as to barge in on something you've spent your blood, sweat and tears over and try to ride over you. Ownership, no. Disgust at being waylaid, yes. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:41, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
1. There's no need for such hyperbole ("for me to lay bare my throat and cut it"). I'm not attacking you. I'm pointing out that you've engaged in precisely the type of behavior that you're now criticising. My intention is not to vilify you, but to balance the picture. (Both Jack and you have erred in your handling of the situation.)
2. You might not want to discuss this, but I regard it as directly relevant (as explained below).
3. You've seen me affirm your WikiProject's value and condemn demeaning comments made about it. And I fully expect you to oppose something with which you disagree. But your opposition carries no more weight than someone else's support. Your perception that users from outside the WikiProject are "barging in" illustrates your fundamental misunderstanding of WikiProjects' role in the Wikipedia community. —David Levy 00:14, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
We seem to have had an agreement, right here in this section, briefly, and then everyone started arguing again. I'd like to revisit that agreement. The two editors who have staked out the most extreme positions on this issue, i.e., Jack Merridew and Wildhartlivie, both seemed to agree that using a template would allow for an alternate color choice instead having to individually code several lines of markup into a myriad of articles. This seems like a common sense solution and a good compromise to me. Why don't we do that? --GentlemanGhost (talk) 23:24, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
I thought so too, GentlemanGhost, but as soon as I said I'd support the template if the color was included, it went off the road. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:44, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Jack has asked you whether you would abide by a hypothetical consensus to replace the template's custom scheme with Wikipedia's standard table coloring, and you replied by reiterating that you "actually said if the color background were included." Can you please elucidate your position? —David Levy 00:14, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
The sticking point, as I understand it, is that Wildhartlivie's agreement might be contingent upon her preferred color scheme persisting in perpetuity. If, at some point, it's decided that the template should instead incorporate Wikipedia's standard table coloring, she might then declare that it will no longer be used and go around replacing it with hard-coded tables to her liking (as she did last time). —David Levy 00:14, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I want to say that I support the pale blue color. WP:ACTOR isn't the only "project" that fools around with colors. Look at WP:TELEVISION. They use multiple colors for episode pages. Sometimes very WILD colors. However, whatever is chosen (if anything) I will follow, per usual. But, I still think it's all a waste of time and resources. —Mike Allen 00:05, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

My mouse just bit the dust, so I'm having to tab all over the place. If I can't finish this, I'll get back to it tomorrow when I have a replacement. Would I support using a template? To some degree, but not as an arbitrarily enforced non-choice. Any replacement of what is used by a forced choice is not a choice. And I would actually like to see a consensus from WP:ACTOR members here on this, not from without. I'm not saying a color scheme should persist in perpetuity, that can certainly change, for example, I liked the color MikeAllen proposed. I've given many reasons why I think using color is superior, and those opinions I noted from the Cyrus talk page reiterate those completely. Look at it from the reader's point of view - they find it more readable, like the fact that the column headings are clearly discerned and it is just neater looking. Apparently that isn't just my opinion, although it is often easier to stand back and let an individual fight that battle than to join in and help. Completely plain tables are unsightly and they are not particularly easy to read. I simply cannot see why people don't see that or why they disgard it as a valid reason. I'd have to ask why show us that it is possible to code color into the template if there is no intention of doing so. And if the template that is capable is being offered with no intention of the potential for its use, why offer it? As GentlemanGhost said "Why don't we do that?" Wildhartlivie (talk) 01:18, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

WHL, you asked for examples, asserted that templates were inflexible, so I have offered numerous examples. Regards, Jack Merridew 21:44, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
1. You need to accept that Wikipedia consensus (not WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers consensus) is needed. This is not to say that the members of WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers should be excluded. Your opinions count as much as (but no more than) those of other editors in good standing.
2. The specific color used is not the primary matter at hand. You've presented an argument for why the use of bright coloring is preferable to the use of grey, and it's plausible that the Wikipedia community might agree (and make something along those lines the new standard, as advocated in one of the comments that you quoted).
3. The proposal is to implement a template that leaves open the color scheme option, thereby enabling any future consensus to be acted upon globally. The question posed by Jack and reiterated by me (which you still haven't answered) is as follows:
If consensus dictates that Wikipedia's standard color scheme (subject to change) be used in these tables, will you allow the template to be edited accordingly and remain in articles? —David Levy 01:38, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
The last seems like a fair question. I'd also like to hear Jack Merridew's answer to it—will he abide by consensus, even if he disagrees with it? --GentlemanGhost (talk) 03:28, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Abide by it? I floated this possibility, albeit as an interim step to resolve the hard-coded markup issue. See the whole thread. Of course I will abide by any genuine consensus; the definition of "wikitable" is a site-wide consensus, and I'm seeking to abide by it here. The notion that a local-consensus amounts to much of anything is flawed, as it is by definition the opinion of a subset of a whole. This is one part of my criticism of wikiprojects in general; to a degree, many I've encountered are intent on creating walled gardens immune from, or at least resistant to, site-wide norms (ya, I've faith that many are otherwise). My goal is bulleted lists as the filmography-norm, as wiki-table syntax is demonstrably difficult for a great many editors and is inherently presentational in nature. Using a template is a major concession, as I believe the best route, for any tables, is bog-standard wikitable, as there's little ground under the arguments for filmography-specific-coloring; they just like it. Most of the rationale is not, in fact, filmography-specific, as it's clear that some want this look on *all* tables on actor/filmmaker pages; see the current David Schwimmer Awards and nominations (colored, but 100%;).
The whole approach of hard-coding markup is poor-form and leads to other problems where uninvolved editors copy-paste the code further:
The above was added here and is an exact copy of the invalid hard-coded markup that this project as been espousing and pasting and pasting and pasting and pasting and pasting… into thousands of articles; hard-coded markup is a disease that spreads without treatment.
I've been clear that I see the eventual consensus landing a considerable distance from the local preference, and I will continue to advocate the proper course. The coloring of table-headings amounts to gratuitous ornamentation. It's is all fooling around, as Mike Allen said above. See the current KaDee Strickland; a featured article on an actress that gets by with bog-standard wikitables. It even uses a black and white photo. See also, the current Noël Coward, also a featured article, and its use of a bulleted list for his films. And James Whale, w/bullets. nb: I found these easily; they're listed at WP:ACTOR#Featured articles. There's also our own Michael Q. Schmidt, formatted with bullets.
There are a bunch of issues here, but the hard-coding of presentational markup into thousands of articles is the most egregious. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 21:44, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for answering the question. I presumed that you would abide by your own admonition, but I thought it important for you to say so.
I agree that hard-coding markup is not ideal. I understand your preference for bulleted lists, although that is not my preference. Since you both have stated that using a template would be an acceptable stopgap measure, why not do so? As you say, there are multiple points to be addressed, but it appears that a compromise could be reached on this issue. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 22:18, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
We could have something workable here re the hard-coding, but there is the open question that I asked WHL and which David Levy reiterated ("The sticking point", above) that's not been clearly answered. I'm concerned that she'll attempt to undo everything if a later consensus goes against her. She's done so before. I also like the idea of simply skipping the template and going straight to something even better (IMEO), such as uncustomized wikitables or bulleted lists. This involves tens of thousands of articles and it is important to not have to visit them all multiple times. Ultimately this will sort; please see: separation of presentation and content and understand that this is the future of the the whole internet and is the norm on most progressive sites today. See also: tableless web design; they will *all* go, in time (not just filmographies), as it's simply an out of date architecture. It only persists on-wiki because we let anyone edit articles, but let few edit the site structure. Semantically a filmography is a list of films, so that's how it properly should be marked-up; semantic markup can be styled in many ways. This is common wisdom in professional circles; it's only when others are at the table that have no other context to inform their views that the question gets any oxygen. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 23:54, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
KaDee Strickland is a five year old FA. A lot has changed (monthly, or even daily like I mentioned) within consensus since 2005. About the bulleted list on James Whale, perhaps someone hasn't had time to make a table. It does take time, and given his huge filmography, triple time. It's such a shame that a horrible disease has been able to spread like wild fire within years and no one has had an issue with it. Until it's "too late". There's never time to do it right the first time, only time to do it over again. All the very best,—Mike Allen 23:17, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry I didn't notice this problem during last year's discussion; had I, we'd be in a much better position today. Your goal of converting lists to tables is misguided, as my post just above explains, and your comment about the time required to perform the conversion derives from the amount of markup a table entails (even using the lightweight wiki-table syntax). Modern views on markup place a premium on lean markup, so I'd advise you to not waste your time, as I can assure you that, in the fullness of time, your efforts will all be undone. Sure, it may be a few years; but you're on the wrong side of broad trends.
Given that this whole issue is under discussion, I would hope that you would refrain from further conversions of lists to tables, as it would be disruptive, discourteous, and antithetical to the notion of consensus seeking. Regards, Jack Merridew 00:19, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
I want to say good luck on your quest with improving Wikipedia to better web standards. Little by little, Wikipedia will one day catch up to this decade. Thank you Jack. And I mean that. I have this page on my watchlist and will catch up with any future consensus, so I'll know what to follow. Thanks for the warning. Although it was unnecessary, as you will see I don't break the rules just for the hell of it. :-D —Mike Allen 01:02, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. It is all about web standards and about educating people. I see your user page says you use Firefox; here's something to try on a few pages: On the view menu, there is an option to disable styling: View→Page Style→No Style. Give it a try, especially on pages using tables. And note also, that the basic markup structure of any wiki page does not use tables for layout purposes. Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:18, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Having just read the above discussions in their entirety, my first thought is that this discussion is being dominated by two editors and that can't be good for building a consensus. As to the issue, I believe the suggestions of some sort of standardisation with a template could be good and it would mean one template (as opposed to tens of thousands of articles) to be maintained and would make it easier for editors to implement- for example, I have great difficulty doing anything with tables that isn't incredibly simple. The only thing on which I have a strong opinion is the colouring. It's my opinion that the current colouring (the steel blue) improves readability and, in cases such as Lindsay Lohan, distinguishes between different roles- in her case feature films, "straight-to-DVD" and TV. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:00, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
    I've noticed the format used there in other articles; it's yet another variant of the hard-coded markup and it's not what's be espoused locally. It's using the LightSteelBlue for an uber-heading spanning the width of the table (semantically it's a caption-element, not a heading-element), and it's using a darker-than-wikitable gray for the column headings. I've also seen that format undone by other participants here and note that you added to that article recently.
    Using templates is essential to improve the maintainability of things and you seem to have no issue with that. Removing the hard-coded markup will also reduce the ease with which folks will be able to make capricious tweaks to colors, as was occurring on Miley Cyrus. Your preference of the Light Steel Blue is an argument to make it the wikitable default, not to make it a means by which filmographies are made to differentiate themselves from other tables. Even bog-standard wikitable syntax presents an impediment to editors; most editors have difficulty with notions such a rowspan an colspan and the general code-heaviness (as opposed to the ease with which they cope with "*" for lists). Cheers, Jack Merridew 23:51, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
    Just for the record, I didn't add that to Lohan myself, I just combined three different tables into one- the fact it took me over half an hour is testament both to my poor technical skills and, as you say, a more centralised way of doing things. I agree with a lot of what you say. Making the colour a default for wikitables is a good idea (though it could have drawbacks and would need to be brought up more centrally). I think the best compromise would be a template with nice, simple parameters like the ones in use with the hard coded tables (|yes, |title, |role, |notes etc.). It would mean one, central item to maintain rather than tens of thousands. I'd come up with a draft to illustrate what I mean, but I'm as bad with templates as I am with with tables! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:13, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
    I know you only combined the three tables; that's the variant table I was referring to. I give an example template above ("encapsulation of implementation") that will work fine for the headers espoused locally and in fairly common use, but it will not support your variant. The place to propose making the Light Steel Blue the default for class="wikitable" is MediaWiki talk:Common.css. This was suggested above and in the discussion last year. Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:24, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
    I'm just bouncing ideas around atm. Out of interest, why do you dislike the use of colour in the tables? As I said above, I like the colour in the filmographies (I'm less sure about using it for every wikitable) but I agree it should not be hard coded, hence my support for the template idea. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:47, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
    Separation of presentation and content is part of it; hard-coding in the wiki-text is directly placing presentational details into the content. Implementing color via templates does centralize the administration of the specific color (and typically other detail), but the template namespace is still part of the content, not the styling. The proper place to manage presentational specifics is in the site css and the high barrier to getting site-wide styling changes actually made serves to screen-out desires for gratuitous ornamentation by enthusiastic special interests. There needs to be much more site-wide discussion about what local preferences are really appropriate from a wider perspective. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 20:37, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Agree with HJ Mitchell. I can't believe this is still an issue. It's a filmography chart people. Believe it or not, most people just skim 'em anyway. Make it half ass readable and easy to fill out and that'll do. It'd be nice if one chart were finally agreed upon once and for all since I already spent the last few years going through articles adding tables instead of bulleted listed, but whatevs. Seems as soon as I get used to something and implement on say, 500 different articles, it gets changed so I just try to roll with the ever changing tide. Pinkadelica♣ 22:20, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
    That you're having to slog through articles in batches of 500 is a great testament to the inappropriateness of hard-coding any specific markup into articles. It is fundamentally an unmaintainable approach and is why this issue is having to be revisited yet again.
    A filmography is not a chart, it is intrinsically a list of films. See: wikt:filmography, which says: A selective list of movie titles that share a similar characteristic such as the same genre, the same director, the same actor etc. A bulleted list achieves this, is semantically correct, and is easily maintained and edited by most any editor.
    The only constant is change is old wisdom and is pretty fundamental to the wiki-concept. Cheers, Jack Merridew 00:14, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
I get that this is your pet project for the moment and you're uber serious about it, but spare me your arrogance. I don't know nor do I care what you like, but I don't like being talked down to and I won't tolerate it especially over filmographies. I most certainly did call the thingy we're discussing a chart-big whoop. I suppose if I cared enough I would've heeded your semantics lessons above, but I tend to put these sort of things into their proper perspective. That said, bulleted lists look like utter shite especially when an actor has more than twenty or so film and television credits. The chart (damn, there's that word again) is quite easy to maintain by any editor so I've no idea where you came up with that one. New acting credit? Add a few vertical lines under the preceding vertical lines and add text. Done. Now, since I loathe Wikipedia process discussions and rarely get involved with them because of the snippiness exhibited above, I'm done. Pinkadelica♣ 11:24, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
The arrogance by so many of you on this page astounds me. Your statement (with the unnecessary expletives removed) "the chart is quite easy to maintain by any editor" is proven wrong by MarnetteD in the Cary Grant filmogrpahy section just below ... In my opinion, a neat and tidy bulleted list never looks like "shite" and is simple to maintain. One of the reasons I came to this discussion is because I have seen these exact color tables starting to show up in articles where I edit - about authors, playwrights and poets - because other editors don't understand that your special blue chart is for filmographies only. I've tried to point out that if someone is not very involved in a particular wikiproject, they don't understand that every chosen color table is specific to a wikiproject. - Josette (talk) 13:35, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
@Pinkadelica: Teh tables are quite easy to maintain by any editor??? I don't think so. I've seen many an editor have trouble with wiki-table syntax and have fixed-up a great many corrupted tables. The word wiki means quick and the idea is that it's supposed to be quick and easy for any editor to make a change. However, this effort to mass convert filmographies to tables is making it tedious and difficult for new editors to edit actor articles. Take poor Thesingingplumber, who had to make 5 edits over 10 minutes to add an item to one of your damn charts:
  1. 15:45, 23 March 2010
  2. 15:46, 23 March 2010
  3. 15:47, 23 March 2010
  4. 15:50, 23 March 2010
  5. 15:54, 23 March 2010 before
    finally getting it right
Sincerely, Jack Merridew 18:05, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
@Josette - I actually wasn't even responding to you originally so my so-called arrogance and horrific use of expletives wasn't directed at you. Like it or not, I'm allowed to respond to editors who attempt to talk down to me. Any editor has that right. If you don't like my responses, don't respond to me. @Jack Merridew, your example editor is a very, very weak example. Their first and only five edits on the entire site were the diffs you provided here. I also screwed things up the first few times I edited so really, what's your point? Novice editors also screw up infoboxes, persondata and other templates. Should we also do away with those because it takes some people time to figure it out? Further, if the "damn table" were actually mine, you'd know it because it my name would be emblazoned on it. Since it's not and I didn't create the thing, I think it's safe to say I don't own it and wouldn't lose sleep if it were deleted off Wikipedia tomorrow. I'm not going to spend my time checking you on your attitude every time you pop up and cry about this issue. If you don't like the table, chart or whatever you're calling this go round, don't use it. If you want to change the code, color, font, or whatever on it, do so and move on already. In case you hadn't notice, most people really don't care about this as this discussion has derailed long ago. Either pick up the cue or find another cause. Pinkadelica♣ 03:40, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

motion to close

motion withdrawn; Jack Merridew 16:59, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I've reviewed the above and it is patently obvious that there is little support for the status quo. Final call for participation. Regards, Jack Merridew 04:12, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

  • OPPOSE - It is entirely not up to the person who opened a RfC to determine what he believes the result is, especially when that person, who agreed to not go about removing the coding breaks his agreement not to do so in order to force me to answer assaultive questions. The RfC began regarding font size and table heading colors. The person who opened the RfC offered coding in a template for the colors and then states it will never happen. THEN the person who opened the RfC changed course and started pushing the use of bulleted lists instead of tables. With the sudden change in tactics, there is no conclusion since he has started pushing for something entirely different. And all of this has been done by him under a spirit of incivility and bad faith comments to other posters. I am not in agreement that anything is decided. And to clarify, I did not respond to Jack Merridew's uncivil attempts to force me to respond to his questions, as in would I drag my feet even if a template was used and later color removed from it, if I am recalling it clearly, nor his ultimatum to answer them and he would stop going about removing the table coding. It finally becomes enough bullying after a while. My while was up a week or two ago. I'm tired of being characterized as someone who spins things every which way but forward and as stalling. Eventually a person grows tired of being whipped upon. A template was offered that incorporates the color heading and just as quickly was disputed as something that will never happen. Beyond that, since the bulleted list has been pushed, there is little to indicate that it is acceptable or widely supported either. Wildhartlivie (talk) 04:27, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Wildhartlivie. This sudden move to close this RfC when you're throwing new things into the mix is disingenuous at best. Edits like this aren't helpful either. There's no consensus to change everything simply because you want to change it and pushing your preferred version in under the guise of "tidy ;)", is again, disingenuous. Pinkadelica♣ 05:29, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose Jack Merridew has been making pointy edits that this RFC is trying to address. His using the description as 'tidy' to change the coding in multiple articles is uncalled for esp. with a deceptive edit summary like that. The next edit summary he is using is that there is no consensus done for the way the hard coding is in the multiple articles yet it is my understanding that there was a consensus for what is there. Would someone please correct me on this, is there a past consensus for this or not? I think this editor needs to stop and stop now. Allow the RFC a little more time to see if others will join in on the discussion. I know it's possible other editors aren't giving an opinion because they don't want to get into drama problems and the above RFC got side tracked and got a lot of noise going on in it. Maybe a new RFC should be started with just the questions about the font size and the color should be started, thoughts? --CrohnieGalTalk 16:40, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

continuing discussion

If folks wish to discuss this all further, I'd ask:

  • What needs further discussion?

Sincerely, Jack Merridew 16:59, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Anyone? All I see above is a discussion going back and forth with no real direction, so I don't plan on reading it all. Nymf hideliho! 14:43, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Implementation discussion

I've proposed to Xeno that his bot make passes across these articles implementing the changes and he's agreed, tentatively. The details need sorting.

There are a lot of variations of all the hard-coded markup and a bot can sort a lot of them, prolly in different passes. There will inevitably be articles that need manual attention and I'm hopeful that all will hew to the gist of this close. I'm going to ask a few template experts to review the {{Filmography table headings}} implementation in case I've missed something needful.

The close of the issue of bulleted lists vs tables is at odds with this project's stated goal, which needs changing and is a separate discussion. In the meantime, we deal with the extant tables and I'd suggest that no further lists be converted to tables by the participants hereabouts.

Similarly, the color question is open and we should have a further, higher-level, discussion about that. Let's get the bulk of the problematic bios cleaned-up before we get too deeply into that question (which is what Rossrs was suggesting in a post I didn't get to reply to before the close).

Sincerely, Jack Merridew 18:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

That seems good to me- at the very least, we should all be pleased that some form of standardisation is now imminent. I personally am only too glad to have the template because I loath having to fiddle with all the markup whenever I need to alter a filmography (which is surprisingly often). I suggest we have some sort of trial run before letting a bot loose on tens of thousands of articles- maybe 100 or so. I'm also wondering how we'll deal with all the separate variations of the current format- for example, some intentionally separate TV roles from feature film roles and there is no shortage of other variations. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:32, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
If you check the code for his example implementation, it allows for up to 6 table headings. As far as I can tell it should be flexible enough. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 18:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
That could be bumped-up, but it would likely result in tables that are too wide for a lot of peoples' displays. Thanks. Jack Merridew 18:59, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I've asked User:Plastikspork and User:Thumperward to look at the template implementation prior to large-scale deployment. It does work, but there may be good adjustments they can offer. Xeno has asked for example diffs and I'll be making the edits to offer him. I'm thinking more like a few dozen pages, as he asked for 3–5 examples each and there are about a half-dozen takes on these tables that are in wide usage. Bot runs should be able to get on the order of 90% of the usages and the rest will need manual attention. The issue of some of the bugged-together tables is probably beyond a bot unless a custom one is written (not worth it;). I don't see the combined tables such as at Lindsay Lohanoldid having much support. I don't favor them, I've seen WHL split them into discrete tables, and they're not even advocated by this project. Cheers, Jack Merridew 18:55, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm not overly bothered about how the templates end up if they all end up standardised- consistency is almost always a good thing. It would be nice, if it's technically possible, to keep the table divided like that, though the 3 separate blue and grey headers are unnecessary- your technical skills are better than mine, so I wouldn't object if you wanted to take the blue sub-headers out but I can;t seem to do it without mucking up the rest of the table. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I see that there the decision was to not modify the font-size. My only question would be if there is any reason to believe that someone might want to add a style statement for the entire table at some point in time in the future. If so, it might be useful to make sure that is possible, without a second massive bot run. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 19:10, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
User:Thumperward asked about the same thing on his talk page.
Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I've tweaked Jack's initial implementation to slightly better match the format used in similar table-construction templates; this also easily allows for the styling to be overridden from a central location. Although it's probably futile, I'd like to strongly voice an opposition to the default powder-blue heading; it's nothing but pointless embellishment and I hate this idea of various WikiProjects marking their territory by insisting on the use of some nonstandard styling for their particular templates. Anyway, that's just my opinion. The implementation is now as follows: 

{{subst:filmography table begin|Year|Film|Role|Notes|More|Another}}
|-
| 2003
| ''[[Camp (film)|Camp]]''
| Fritzi Wagner
| Nominated—[[Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress]]
|-
| 2007
| ''[[Rocket Science (film)|Rocket Science]]''
| Ginny Ryerson
| Nominated—[[Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress]]
|-
| 2008
| ''[[Twilight (2008 film)|Twilight]]''
| [[List of Twilight characters#Jessica Stanley|Jessica Stanley]]
| Nominated—[[Peoples Choice Awards|Peoples Choice Award for Favorite Breakout Movie Actress]]
{{subst:filmography table end}}

Which gives:

Year Film Role Notes
2003 Camp Fritzi Wagner Nominated—Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress
2007 Rocket Science Ginny Ryerson Nominated—Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress
2008 Twilight Jessica Stanley Nominated—Peoples Choice Award for Favorite Breakout Movie Actress

Unfortunately, collapsing the middle bits into per-row templates is more complicated. If you look Anna Kendrick, from where the above was taken, several times the year field spans several rows. When you're looking to support that the code becomes much hairier.

Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:47, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

This seems fine to me. I'm with you on the color, but getting it under central control is essential. Down the road a more useful set of styling can be dropped-in. I'm a bit concerned that the "end" tag will complicate the bot Search and Replace process, and that it may have to be a separate process to find unbalanced invocations. A question for Xeno, really. The templatization of the rows would be great, but also may be a subsequent refinement (and is also a daunting S&R process). Thanks, Jack Merridew 00:59, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

As long as it is consistent I don't mind. I would prefer a silver header than blue though. Dr. Blofeld White cat 11:39, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

As would I, assuming you mean the standard wikitable-look. The template will centralize the styling and allow other tweaks as consensus supports. Bumping the header font-size up a bit, for example (or flaming shadows if you're on a modern browser—not that it's a good idea;). Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:30, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Actually, considering the original filmography table that was developed by Dr. Blofeld had a silver heading color, I wouldn't make that assumption. It was silver, not grey. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:02, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

search and replace patterns

diffs:

old form, nowikitable, 90%, all hard-coded markup:

old form, nowikitable, 95%, all hard-coded markup:

older form, wikitable, 90%, hard-coded markup:

recent form, wikitable, 95%, hard-coded markup (prior partial clean-up):

another recent form, wikitable, hard-coded markup (prior partial cleanup w/Reflinks)

↔Jack Merridew

What is the point here besides taking up excess bandwidth and possibly being pointy? If you've contacted someone to run their bot on this, there is absolutely no need nor point in listing every article you've individually changed and your POV on it. I remind you that you have gone about objecting hugely to any changes made here, not to mention sliding in your own changes behind deceptive edit summaries. If you want to keep your own little tally, do it in your own userspace, don't stick it in here where it is just so much fuzz in the greater picture. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:09, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Xeno asked for diffs; they're search and replace patterns. Jack Merridew 03:20, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Then again, why post the diffs in the middle of a very busy and full page. Why not on a userspace page where there is plenty of room and doesn't confound the posts made on relevant discussion? Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:35, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
I see it as a part of this discussion, I guess. Jack Merridew 03:38, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Except the request itself and the content are part of a personal request that should be addressed on the userspace of either the requestor or the one responding. Please don't add each and every run down of each and every edit you are making in response to his request to this page. It's both unwieldy and will quickly overwhelm the page. It's a reasonable request. To blow off the reasonable request by saying it's part of the discussion that was never posted here will simply clog up the page more and more. And that's just what the page here doesn't need, more lists of content not really relevant to where the discussion is now. Please post Xeno's diffs to either your or Xeno's page. Wildhartlivie (talk) 04:38, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
He's not asked for a list of everything I fix, just 3–5 of each form, so this is not going to grow very long. Jack Merridew 16:34, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
What's the deal with this list now? It's been a couple of weeks and there is no sign that Xeno is even checking here. Maybe this list is better suited for someone's sandbox or talkpage. - Josette (talk) 19:05, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
I've copied this elsewhere;- it can be removed if it's too distracting. –xenotalk 23:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
just checking

Two of the points covered in the close of the RfC can be largely addressed by text replacement with a bot, which Xeno has offered to undertake with Xenobot, the diffs above to serve as patterns. There are some likely minor variations, too, such as 95% and wikitext with various whitespace anomalies. The run would seem best run across Category:Actors and the subcats and whatever best covers 'filmmakers'.

  • In the case of font size, consensus is clearly in opposition to reduction. Font should be 100%.
  • On the question of template use, consensus is more clear. Although some are concerned about limited flexibility, where a table is used, it is appropriate to use a template to prepare it to help standardize tables and maintain articles to implement future consensus. One was proposed in this discussion that met with no opposition; it might be adopted for the purpose.

Any objections? Jack Merridew 19:02, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

What's going on with the color? Is it staying pale blue until further notice? Mike Allen 20:37, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
This is not about the color, it's about fixing the mess of hard-coded markup; stop entangling the issues. The template currently uses that color, yes, but the use of color is one of the other issues. Jack Merridew 20:48, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
One day it's about color the next the size, the next something else. Who knows, but Jack? Btw I was actually asking a sincere question but thank you so much for always jumping to conclusions. Now I'm twisting things around, so screw it from this point on I could care less what goes on with this project and anything you touch. Mike Allen 01:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Ok. I am under the impression that the tables will conform to a more accepted wiki standard. The template will make for easier editing, offers better maintainability, and the flexibility to "implement future consensus". I have no objections. - Josette (talk) 16:26, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Tabled vs. bulleted list non-consensus

I'd suggest, just for the record, that the table vs. bulleted list issue be revisited since it wasn't a clear cut decision, and that Jack's suggestion that no more tables be made is a tacit way of pushing his POV regarding tables, just as his intention to carry issues on elsewhere. I don't believe the issue was clearly discussed because the majority of opinions didn't weigh in on that issue and in other cases, a clear preference wasn't discerned without reading between the lines. I asked Moonriddengirl about that and she said that she didn't try to read the intention in many cases. Rather than suggest that it be stopped, as Jack has done, it needs to be rediscussed to clarify it. It's not a foregone conclusion because one prominent editor in the discussion persistently brought it up. And it is not a good idea to go about warning editors not to table filmographies. That issue was far from clearly decided. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:51, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

You're free to offer whatever you like for the official record, which amounts to posting your thoughts, hither and yon. However, the RfC is now properly closed and I'm going to follow that. Should you choose not to, well, I guess that's an option, albeit an untenable one.
I expect that the statement:
"One of the project goals is also to clean up filmographies in actor and filmmaker articles from scruffy or backwards lists into presentable standardized tables that provide information"
is your verbiage (I've not yet looked). You should heed MRG's advice regarding the appropriateness of revisiting this.
You're obviously aware of:
since you posted a link onto that page; it's your only edit to that pagecite and it appears to have been done without any discussion at all.cite
The MOS re filmographies, which sports actual guideline status, has been recommending bulleted lists for years. I find it quite telling that you did not see fit to mention this during this RfC. WP:Filmographies even offers examples (using bullets;). There's also a whole prior RfC on filmographies (which does not specifically address this issue).
Sure, I've a point of view here; it's one that has consensus. If you persist much further in obstructing progress on sorting this mess, I'd suggest that you'll be held accountable for it. A far wiser course of action would be to accept this close and work with others, including myself. In all honesty, though, I don't expect it of you, and believe that the project will be better off in the long run if you persist in your disruptive behavior.
Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:30, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
P.S. My name is not really Jack, it's David; Jack's a fictional character.
I don't really give a crap what your first name is, I'm well aware of the Lord of the Flies, we read it in high school in the United States too, though I recall that he was a sort of demi-god sort who tried to dominate and run everything. I find the description of him on the WP page quite enlightening. I've grown really tired of your personal attacks, disparagements and aspersions being cast against me. Rather that the hateful comments you've made, I'd suggest the entire project, not just this one, would be better off without editors like you going about attacking editors because you don't like them and suggesting that someone work with you when everything you've been about is decidedly not working with the same person and going about hiding actions behind deceptive edit summaries. If a point in a RfC doesn't find consensus, it isn't obstructive to suggest that it be taken up further and if you'll bother to check back, MRG suggested that very thing. If you'd bothered to check before you inserted your foot in your mouth, you'd have found that both that particular goal which you accuse me of and the formulation of the table preceeded me by a long time, which I think I did point out to you a long time ago. What kind of person goes about suggesting that a project would be better off without someone who has worked tirelessly because they oppose you? The fact that there was no consensus on the RfC on a specific point fairly much indicates a point upon which a consensus could certainly be garnered and there is nothing either disruptive or obstructive about suggesting it or moving to clarify it. How the hell is that in keeping with "the Jack Merridew school of consensus"? There was no consensus. Mostly at this juncture, though, I would appreciate it if you would learn to make a single posting either to or about me that doesn't make unfounded assumptions and can somehow manage not to make attacks. Suggesting that a point be brought back for consensus is not obstructing progress on "sorting this mess", it's suggesting progression toward further sorting something which has been your particular sword to swing at anyone who crosses your path. It's becoming quite tiresome. Wildhartlivie (talk) 09:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
as are you. cheers, Jack Merridew 09:23, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Touche. And that's yet another time Jack Merridew turns a point into a personal attack. This is conduct of someone who wants to be an administrator? Wildhartlivie (talk) 09:45, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
From where I'm standing it's not Jack Merridew who is making this personal. Indeed, rather than posting TLDR screeds about how people can't work together, Jack Merridew went and contacted uninvolved editors to get some rough code worked out which, so far as I can tell, is perfectly compatible with the table style that you're harping on about. I would suggest that any further off-topic commentary on people's characters be taken to a more appropriate venue, such as Blogspot. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:56, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Then from where you are standing there is a lot that isn't in your sight. And take a look to see where the first of the personal commentary posts came from. They are everywhere, including complaints at WP:AN/I and attacks on personal talk pages. Wildhartlivie (talk) 14:57, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Moonriddengirl wrote, "The project might wish to turn to a new consideration at this point: given that both lists and tables are supported, are there circumstances under which one form or the other should be preferred?" I do not have a strong preference for either lists or tables. For situations where we use tables, we should clarify what typically goes into them. Any unique columns for directors, actors, etc? Or do we have a generic "Notes" column just in case? One possible way to decide between a list and a table is if the person is deceased; this would mean the body of the work is static. Compare this to a living actor or filmmaker that would be ever-changing. Since table coding is not easy for novice editors, I'd prefer a bulleted list for living people unless there are useful columns to have. That's why I'd like a better understanding of what information beyond the film and the release year we can have. Erik (talk | contribs) 11:46, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

We really should be looking to:
for prior consensus. It suggests:
  • ''[[Title]]'' (year), role – notes
Most of the lists I've seen flop the year to the beginning and while I think the list should be ordered chronologically, it is the title that's the most important piece of information. And I think far to much information is being shoehorned into the notes field (in tables). The MOS gives and example of what might go in a notes field at the end of a list; "Knightley's break-out performance". More often I see heaps of award nominations or a column of mostly empty cells.
As for when to use a table, I see it as something for exceptional cases, like Mary Pickford filmography (bog-standard wikitable). Bob Hope filmography sticks to the MOS list format and reads quite well.
My primary objection to tables is that it entails a lot of markup that many have trouble with. The Foundation has a major usability initiative going and they're trying to make things easier for editors; trying to keep the more complex stuff at bay. See the latest post on the techblog:
It's about keeping complex templates from spooking editors. Much the same could be said about tables. The whole point of wikitext is to Keep-It-Simple, not throw impediments in front of good faith editors.
Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:54, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict - I was adding a reply to Erik which I will still do, below) There is a prior consensus as you say, but consensus can change. Perhaps the situation could also be discussed at the MOS talk page to see if it should be amended, and perhaps the result will be wording at the MOS and here on the actor project page, that does not conflict, whatever the wording may be. The fact that tabled filmographies appear in a large number of articles indicates that it has a degree of support in the community. Brad Pitt recently passed WP:FA without a mention of the tabled filmography, and one reason may be that reviewers are used to seeing the tabled filmographies and regard them as a natural part of the framework that does not look out of place to them. The number of articles that use the tabled filmography has resulted from more than the number of editors who have commented here, and so if they are commonly or widely used as a suitable way of presenting the information, perhaps the MOS no longer reflects the attitudes of the community. Add to that the number of music related articles that use tables for discographies, and that's representing the activities of even more editors. The number of editors that have actually commented here must be a very small percentage of the editors who use the tables or who use the bulleted lists. Just as a point of interest, is there any way of counting how many articles use a tabled filmography, discography or whatever? I've been editing here for over 6 years and I've seen them being introduced to numerous articles during most of that time, so I expect the number is probably fairly high.
I agree that Bob Hope filmography does read quite well as a list. I wonder, would it read better as a tabled filmography such as that for his frequent partner Bing Crosby? I don't know. The Crosby filmography isn't very well done, but it could be, and if it was, it would become static and no good faith editors would be harmed in their efforts to update it. Rossrs (talk) 13:23, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict - I was adding this comment in reply to Erik, but had an edit conflict with Jack Merridew, and have stopped to reply to his message above) For current actors, the most common addition to the table seems to be awards. Example Brad Pitt. With actors from an earlier era, there appears to be less of this, partly because the careers of many of these came before some of these awards were started. Angela Bassett is an example of a tabled filmography and a list of awards. That whole award section could easily be integrated into the table, and while it would make the table look heavier, it would trim a chunk out of the article, and I think it would look tidier and more organised. Samuel L. Jackson filmography has been broken away from the actor article, and it includes a column for directors. Bette Davis filmography has columns for both directors and co-stars. I started the latter one, and I'm not convinced that the costars or directors are essential, although as a stand alone page the additional columns give a degree of depth, and perhaps Davis and Jackson are significant enough in their fields to merit something beyond a simple list of film titles. Betty Grable's has columns for director, co-star and notes. In this case the notes column records information about the films particularly in the "1940-1955" section but depending on your point of view a lot of these points could be called trivia. Where the filmography is in list form, the awards are in a separate list and some of them are pretty messy. I can't think of an example. The tabled filmography at Jeff Chandler (actor) uses the "Notes" column to give alternate titles for films. I'm not sure if that has major relevance other than making the filmography more complete. I think it's good to be thinking about what could be included, so I've tried to give a few examples that spring to mind and some are beyond the comment you made about identifying information that is typically conveyed. Perhaps we could identify examples of good tables and good lists, and try to work out what makes the format suitable in those cases.
I think there should be more of a determining factor than simply living or dead, although I agree that a static list for a deceased performer will require minimal effort to maintain. I think the body of work and overall significance of the performer should be another consideration. A certain level of detail may be wanted for notable actors such as Kate Winslet or Johnny Depp, who are both very much active, that may not be required for numerous actors, living or dead, who are of lesser relevance. James Dean made very few films but he is highly notable, and an actor could make 100 films without having any lasting notability. If all actors were rated in order of significance there would be a point at which we switched from the thoroughness that could be afforded by a table, to the brevity that could be afforded by a list. I think the biggest problem would be that POV would figure largely in which format to use for a particular individual, especially for those actors in the middle of the field- not exactly great, but better than minor. I'm just throwing thoughts into the air, I must point out. I don't claim to have an answer to this question. Rossrs (talk) 13:23, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Let's outline the variables that can be found in a filmography table. Actors' tables can include the film, its release year, the role, and awards received. Directors' tables can include the film, its release year, and awards received. I have some questions about these variables. First, we have articles listing awards that directors and actors have received. When do we include the awards in the filmography table, and when do we list them separately? It seems more appropriate to list awards separately because it is not a consistent variable. Actors and directors will not have awards for every film. Also regarding actors, there is a similar inconsistency with the role variable. Most character names are not particularly relevant to an actor's filmography table without context. If I see that Samuel L. Jackson played Gerald Olin in 1408, what am I supposed to take away from that? It seems like filler, though I can understand usage for roles that can be wiki-linked, like historical people or notable fictional characters. So for straight-up actors, are there any consistent variables that would entail a table? I have more to add, but I'll stop here now. :) Erik (talk | contribs) 14:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I think User:MichaelQSchmidt's comment on the AN/I thread (in which I was mentioned, negatively of course, but no one bothered to tell me by the way) makes the most sense. If experienced editors want to use the table, they should be able to. If they don't, they don't have to. I do think we all need to be on the same page as far as what content goes into the table, but other than that I'm still at a loss as to why this is an issue. How did this go from doing away with the coding that includes the color and font to doing away with the tables entirely? Sheesh. Pinkadelica♣ 22:47, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
@Erik, I think you've given the mostly frequently used variables - film, year, role, notes (awards). I think that with the exception of career awards such as Honorary Oscars or Kennedy Center Honors which should be listed separately, the awards work better in the table. One reason is that it displays the information in one organised place and to my eye it looks tidier. I also think it gives the awards greater context. Comparing Brad Pitt where his awards and nominations become part of his career timeline, I think they are more easily seen as an overview by being displayed side by side with the film titles, and in the same sequence. On the other hand, Angela Bassett's awards are not placed within any context, and to me the list looks somewhat random and isolated. Character names - I can see the value in giving all names or in giving no names, but I don't understand what you mean when you mention only the wikilinked/notable roles. I see the potential for POV if we become selective in choices like that. I'm not sure you're suggesting that though. For a bunch of meaningless character names go no further than Mary Pickford filmography, and most of the names offer absolutely nothing in telling me about her, and yet that filmography is quite special in being a complete picture of a notable career, even though the relevant and irrelevant are given equal measure. Rossrs (talk) 07:46, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
  • TV Series Versus Film... Table Versus Bullet Lists... Ease Of Use Versus Difficulty... Film variables are not quite the same as television series variables. I've been editing a while and still find the creation and maintainance of tables to be problematic at best and difficult at worst. The instructions for creation and use of various types of tables is not written for editors unfamiliar with wiki markup, and is confusing even for some like myself who have been here for a while. As Eric shares above, tables for filmology seem to be filled with inconsistant information that might better serve if incorporated in the article as contextual text.
  • BUT what has not been addressed is that as many actors have notability for their extended work in various television roles, and not for their film roles, the present table as created for "film" actors does an injustice to those actors who may have a notability for work in television. As useful as tables may be in some situations, they are not always the most suitable approach. Bullet lists can indeed be clean and neat and present information in an easy-to-comprehend manner.
  • So which would be seen as more complete and informative to an editor reviewing an article in trying to determine at a quick glance if a television actor is notable? A table that simply lists Project and Role? Or a bullet list that lists Project, The number of episodes in which the actor took part, and a year range of particpation? Adding this quite pertinent information to the "notes section" of a table that had otherwise been designed for film actors, could overburden that notes section and make the entire table look scruffy... running completely contrary to why such tables were devised in the first place. The same information in a simple bulleted list can actually be a lot cleaner and more presentable... and worth noting, definitely easier for newcomers to create. While perhaps there might be an additional table created specifically address television actors and televion series for those actors... and I do not decry the use of tables, as they do serve a purpose... I still contend that there are situations that support a properly prepared bullet list for its ease of creation and utility of purpose, with information inre awards, directors, co-stars, etc., incorporated into the article itself. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 22:50, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
    Well, the whole point about the template as it was touted by Jack Merridew is that the template header was flexible enough to customize it as it is relevant for the given tables, that is that the categories are supposedly interchangeable to make it specific to the table needs. And they are currently adapted for the category of work. Will it be? We'll see. Wildhartlivie (talk) 06:33, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
     Done—In fact it's been done since the beginning. The template allows other heading names. Jack Merridew 18:00, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
    Michael Q Schmidt, I think you're right in saying that television actors are often overlooked in discussions such as these, and I agree that the table does not appear to be particularly versatile at first glance, but the same fields can be used to convey the type of information you're referring to. Debra Messing is an example that uses the same table differently for her television work and her film work. The number of episodes are not given for her series work, but the date ranges are, and the notes field could accomodate info such as number of episodes in a similar way to the last entry for The Starter Wife which gives a number. Whether it looks scruffy, I guess is an opinion. I think it looks neat and well ordered, but that may not be how other people see it, and I appreciate that what I find aesthetically pleasing is not everyone's cup of tea. I'm trying to imagine the same info for Messing in list form, and I can't visualise anything as ordered or structured as the table. I'm interested in comparing a similar type of article that uses a bulleted list so if you could give an example that would be great. Rossrs (talk) 07:46, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Michael, the template allows things like 

{{subst:filmography table begin|Series|Role|Number of Episodes|Year Range|Notes}}
|-
| ''[[Star Trek]]''
| [[Grendel]]
| 65535
| 700–1000
| voice by [[Seamus Heaney]]; an absurd example
{{subst:filmography table end}}

Which gives:

Series Role Number of Episodes Year Range Notes
Star Trek Grendel 65535 700–1000 voice by Seamus Heaney; an absurd example

The above is about what you're thinking, right? This is not a technical issue, it's a guidance issue. If TV roles warrant a different set of fields than film roles, folks need to hammer-out the specifics and off you go.

With that said, I agree with you about bulleted lists. Aesthetically they're fine; 'scruffy' and "backwards' are subjective characterization. Lists are far easier for most editors to maintain. My objections to snotting-up edit boxes with hard-coded markup applies to table markup, too. Semantically, 'filmographies' *are* lists of roles, plus some other details. Using the single character "*" (which is "markup") is the most accessible to the most editors. Erik's notion of alive/dead does map well to whether or not a filmography section is going to be dynamic or static, and this maps well to how much fussing with markup is going to be occurring over time. Once a performer has shuffled off their mortal coil, it should be less of a maintenance headache to have an additional level of presentational goop (i.e. Pickford). However, with currently working, high profile celebrities whose filmographies are very actively edited, all such goop amounts to a huge impediment to the editing process for the majority of editors. Given the number of filmography tables extant, this impediment is being encountered by someone, on some article, pretty much minute-by-minute. There are a lot of them.

This also gets to a lot of what Rossrs has said hereabouts; most random editors out there that have pasted further instances of any of these tables schemes into pages have most likely simply been seeking to grab some structural boilerplate that they believe works and is appropriate, when in fact it has often proved to be less than ideal. Such people will have been acting in good faith and we should not read too much into their compounding of the mark-up mess and apparent promotion of a table-based approach. Yet other random editors out there are adding new bulleted lists on a daily basis, too, and I would expect more of that to be occurring simply because it's so straightforward. Cheers, Jack Merridew 18:45, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Jack, I basically agree with your points, but in commenting about what I've said before, I think you have not quite got the spirit of what I was saying. I think it's a little more than editors "simply been seeking to grab some structural boilerplate that they believe works and is appropriate" as I think what they've been doing is seeing a "look" that they like and copying a previous table to duplicate the look. I think the intent is the finished result or the "look", and those editors that prefer a bulleted list have copied that format because that's the result they prefer. We'd have to ask them to confirm, but I think it's logical to assume that they wouldn't go to that effort if it didn't achieve a result that they wanted. But yes, editors are creating both types of filmography. Also "Aesthetically they're fine" is as subjective a characterization as "scruffy". "Backwards" is not so subjective, because that's only about presenting information chronologically and does not relate to the visual or technical aspect of it. It's not the best choice of word though. Rossrs (talk) 20:42, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
A couple points here. First, Jack, please desist in changing subheading titles and hiding it behind edit summaries that hide that change ("how'd that get indented?"). Secondly, the persistent insistence that errors are being made widely and consistently is far from supported. I recall a posting of diffs by a brand new editor who wasn't skilled enough to know to use the preview button being bandied about as such an example. Please don't expect that any one thing will be occurring more often based on your POV of a style. Because you prefer it doesn't mean that is what is being done, although your admonition earlier on this page that tables not be constructed based on non-consensus, was designed to further this end. There is nothing anywhere except your posting that mandates that tables not be made in favor of your preference and to suggest so basically sets it up so your contention would come true. Non-consensus means that preference wasn't made, and please don't try to snow this discussion to skew it that way. That's why this section was started, to develop consensus, not to snow it your way by snowing the discussion. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:06, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Wildhartlivie, we can discuss this issue without the tone. Let's focus on the points at hand. Tables are more complicated than lists because of the markup involved. A table is not as easy to create or modify compared to a list. Do you agree with these statements or not? Or are you saying that it is not important enough to matter? I can cite table-issue anecdotes like my effort at a discussion above, but not so much list-issue anecdotes. I am not advocating a complete conversion of tables to lists. I asked about variables in a table to determine what kind of information would be shared in a filmography. Obviously, popular celebrities will have their articles edited more frequently. We should determine what fields are absolutely worth sharing in a given person's filmography. We should have tables with useful fields and not automatically convert a list to a table. There are some fields in particular discussed earlier. What are your thoughts on these? Erik (talk | contribs) 12:06, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
What tone? Suggesting that something being put forth as a rule is someone's POV? Suggesting that someone coming in and persistently renaming a section is inappropriate? Suggesting that a finding of no consensus isn't something valid for further discussion? Please take a look at what I'm saying. The creation of tables is more complicated for those inexperienced in doing so, personally, I find organizing a list in some sort of meaningful way much more burdensome beyond making a list. Frequency of editing isn't a valid rule to go by either. We shouldn't do something because some people find it too hard isn't a valid argument to not use something. To suggest that tables should not be used because some editors find it difficult is sort of saying we shouldn't do anything that requires practice (and examples being given for first time editors who don't even know to preview are not helpful examples). Lists are not a helpful way to organize a set of pertinent data such as awards and nominations or helpful little factoids that are relevant to a performance. That's where "Notes" come in. Perhaps you haven't advocated a complete conversion, but it has been floated about, sort of like saying since there was no consensus, tables should not be created in the future. That's fairly a POV assertion from someone who advocated to do away with tables. Bandying about descriptions such as "smaller", "dead" or whatever else doesn't help, this is an issue for a case by case situation that a given set of "rules of thumb" cannot very well cover. It's a case by case issue. And there has been a relative set of important content used most widely: Year, Title, Role, Notes that include awards/nominations/relative bits of information. It seems silly to me to confound it more than that. They have routinely been used. Co-stars, directors and that sort of thing is something more suited for an individual film article and seems to me to be busy work content. The same case by case situation is true for determining when filmography, etc. lists should be spun off. "Smaller" articles are the ideal place to begin to formulate a table, when it isn't so complicated. Wildhartlivie (talk) 04:09, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't agree with the argument that tables are hard for editors so let's not use them. By this logic, ref templates can be hard for editors, let's let's get rid of them too. Most editors just put a link between the ref tags (and then it's later converted into a template by an editor that knows how to use the cite templates) either because they are lazy or don't know how. I'm going to assume good faith and go with the latter. The same applies for filmographies, editors add a bullet list and it gets converted to a table by another editor. You don't have to be web designer to learn the code. I mean most probably copy and paste it anyway. On the other hand, I do agree with one editor about leaving bullet lists in smaller articles, because a table with 2 credits does look awful. The articles dedicated exclusively to an actor's credits would look sloppy with bullets all the way down the page. This is Web 2.0 not 1995. Theoretically...
Also Jack, or Dave, whatever you prefer, I thought you were against the hard code? You are adding the code into a template to be used for the same purpose. Am I missing the obvious here? —Mike Allen 04:50, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Hard-coding refers to pasting many instances of the same code all over the place. The template is about getting all those pages to get their styling from a single instance of code. Well, 6 copies of the specific color exist in the current template, but that could always be refactored to in turn get the color from a further template that could be shared with other templates. It is best practice to centralize such things. Much of all this fuss derives from misunderstandings about best coding practices and the role of templates and styling. Jack Merridew 17:13, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it makes sense to leave bullet lists in smaller articles where the tables are too intrusive and overwhelm the main biography. I would also like to propose that tables might be presented more appropriately on a separate page - a list of works page or something similarly named, as in the Mary Pickford or Tom Cruise articles: Mary Pickford filmography and Tom Cruise filmography. I think moving the tables to a different page would benefit such articles like Brad Pitt and Debra Messing, I'm sure there are many others. The Bob Hope article already has separate pages for his filmography and television work - they could be converted to tables but would be huge. The Cloris Leachman article is worth a mention. Her list of work is very long and should be moved to a separate page. There is a weird "Dancing with the Stars" table in her bio, it's a good example of how intrusive a table can look. It actually overshadows the rest of her work making it feel like that is her most important achievement - a great disservice to her. - Josette (talk) 20:13, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Hehehe; the version you're talking about is no more. I cleaned the implementation up before I removed it entirely. Two thirds of the of the original version consisted of unnecessary markup. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:12, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
There are certainly a number of instances where the filmography could be moved to a separate page, and I wonder what has determined previous moves. ie is it the length of the filmography or the size ratio of it compared with the article, or whatever? The Cloris Leachman article is overwhelmed by the Dancing with the Stars table, which is equal parts WP:UNDUE, WP:RECENTISM and WP:TRIVIA. I checked Buzz Aldrin's page to see if the same existed there, but thankfully not! Rossrs (talk) 20:35, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
I fixed Leachman ;) Jack Merridew 20:57, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
I think there's a pretty good correlation between the justification of a table-based implementation of a filmography and the appropriateness of splitting it off to another page. More later; it's time to eat. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:16, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
I actually think that there is no set of hard and fast rules on how to determine anything regarding this based on generalities. We can discuss until the cows come home on an article by article basis, but it remains an article by article issue. That tends to be the way it is decided, Rossrs. Based on the opinions of editors on the given page. And that whole Dancing with the Stars nonsense can be found on dozens of articles now. These sorts of things get added due to recency of appearances. Wildhartlivie (talk) 04:02, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

What about Kristi Yamaguchi? I deployed the template there and it rather clashes with the normal wikitables there and the Dancing with the Stars table that has it's own ideas about table appearance. I believe there are too many groups seeking to impose their color schemes on things and that such efforts inherently sow the seeds for conflict. Jack Merridew 23:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

What about Kristi Yamaguchi? She doesn't fall under this project nor does the Dancing with the Stars tables. That was my point regarding the Dancing tables. It didn't originate here, nor except for a few cases when clean up was attempted on those tables, are they of concern to the editors here. None of the tables, save her two cameo roles on that page, have anything to do with it. There are surely better examples of what you contend. Wildhartlivie (talk) 11:57, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, she has a filmography table and so I assumed that you would harbor proprietary views concerning the ornamentation. Upon closer inspection I see that she's more under the sway of {{mono|WP:Dancing with the Stars}]. Anyway, I've cut the WP:ACTOR-branding. Jack Merridew 02:25, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that was a long (that's the only descriptor I'll use) discussion. I'm commenting here, but this is more of a comment on the resulting situation. The template {{Filmography table headings}} is what we're using now? I read this entire discussion (after seeing the template implemented on a handful of articles) and I'm unable to discern if this is the case or not. Is it still up in the air as to whether this will be used now or not? If it is still in the air, I would like to ask why this is "easier" than correctly using a wikitable. Wikitables can be unwieldy for editors, but how does this template address that problem? The most common wikitable-related errors I've noticed are related to the "rowspan" parameter (which this template still calls into use) as the headings, once created, rarely need to be edited. I guess what I'm asking is, why do filmographies warrant such a template when it doesn't offer anything further than a wikitable? I freely admit there may be a very obvious answer to this question, but I don't see it. If it's just for the colorization, which I can see is clearly still up in the air, then shouldn't the template's use be postponed until a consensus is reached on that issue? Why implement this template at all when it may, with a consensus, be rendered unnecessary?  Chickenmonkey  01:02, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

As I commented on WT:FILM, the template is about encapsulating the markup doing the header-cell coloration. It is also about cleaning up the extant mess of poor code in a lot of articles. It is not about tables vs lists, or about making the per-entry editing of filmographiies any easier (or harder).
I've argued for plain wikitables where any table is used and for lists in most cases. There's something like 200kb of talk above here. Try cutting the table header cell ornamentation of an article under the suzerainty of WP:ACTOR. They will defend their ground.
Sincerely, Jack Merridew 00:19, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
I understand why the template was created. This WikiProject (or at least a few editors) feels the blue will differentiate filmographies from other tables, and, to a lesser extent, that the blue is more accessible to those viewing it. To that point, color-coding should not be used gratuitously. This is a site-wide policy and, I would think, WikiProjects -- individually -- do not have the authority to override it. With that said, WP: Simpsons uses yellow on its infobox and navbox, but that is a semantic use (yellow and the Simpsons are recognizable together); even so, that WikiProject, to my knowledge, does not use such a color on tables which contain information within the article. If the feeling is that the current default heading color isn't adequately contrasted with the text, then that discussion should take place in whatever the appropriate place is for that discussion. As to this template, I know you, Jack Merridew, are for lists -- not tables -- and created this template to aid in cleaning up the code (and the discussion), but it's simply unwarranted and entirely gratuitous in nature. Its only function is to override the default wikitable. I don't mean to seem like I'm speaking only at you, Jack Merridew, most of this is for the room. As I commented on WT:FILM, the work to implement this template could just as well be put into correcting the usage of wikitables (i.e. removing the colorization of headings).  Chickenmonkey  01:25, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
It seems to me that a few of the local wikiproject members simply prefer the blue vs the gray. This is about accessibility, but not in the blue's favor. The gray was recently moved to shared.css from common.css. This means that it is part of all WMF wikis. The blue is an aesthetic preferences; it is somewhat less accessible to vision challenged users than the gray is. The same few also seems intent on coloring all tables in actor bios as a sort of actor-color-scheme. Except that WP:MILHIST has a prior claim on this color. The blue seems quite arbitrary re actors and filmmakers. I could argue that it's a bit reminiscent of the bluish hue associated with original screenings of black and white movies, but I've not seen anyone offer a rationale for blue specifically. If a light green had been selected early-on it would not much effect these discussions.
I agree that there is little justification for this pair of templates (and prolly a lot of others) beyond gratuitous ornamentation. Unfortunately, the RfC closed without sufficient support to rote-convert all these tables to bog-standard wikitables. I've tried to simply clean things up properly, and have been reverted on this project's purported authority. Sure, we can try to clean-up properly, but check back to see how that goes (link to be dropped-in later).
If you wish to object to the bot-deployment of the template, see the thread above: #search and replace patterns. That this is all playing-out in a less then optimally efficient manner is simply the nature of wikis. And see: WP:RANDY ;)
Jack Merridew 17:55, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
I can't help but feel the use of blue will be overturned in the future especially due to the limited participation in coming to this consensus, but at this time -- if the blue is going to be used, even though it shouldn't be ;) -- a bot is the way to go (I have no idea how bots are done, but I would imagine one could be used to correctly use a wikitable? in the future?). I will adhere, though, with current consensus and not edit filmographies.  Chickenmonkey  19:02, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
I *hope* that we can achieve a consensus to ditch the notion of per-project branding of stuff. It wouldn't take much, really, as fewer than a half dozen have seriously supported this blue look. If the color is later cut from the template, there would then be little purpose to the template, as all it is about is teh blue. At that point, a subsequent bot run would be able to replace the moot template invocations with ordinary table syntax. The things we do to accommodate the anyones editing here. The template will serve as a means of tracking down usages via what links here, something lacking with hard-coded coloring.
It is unfortunate that one of the side effects of the ownership issues some have concerning actor bios is that others such as your self end up dissuaded from editing in their areas. Of course, that is the usual intent of such behavior.
Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:06, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
That's just it, there has been a consensus on WikiProjects branding things, apparently (WP:ACCESS#Styles and markup options / WP:CONLIMITED) and the consensus is against. The discussion that took place here is almost "asking the other parent", unless I'm completely off-base, which is entirely possible. I'm not trying to be contentious, at all. It's just, I don't see how any consensus reached here, on this issue (the color) should be applicable.
I may be completely wrong, however. I wasn't even aware of WP:ACCESS until this conversation and didn't realize this WikiProject was advocating the colorization of tables or that this was a point of contention. I'm just going on what I've read here and in the various places this discussion lead me to. As far as I can tell, the site-wide policy is that no WikiProject can override a site-wide consensus (i.e. the fact that gray has been determined more "accessible" and therefore deemed the proper color to use -- due to the colorblind, I guess). If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
There are plenty of other things for me to edit while this issue is being worked out, though, and I will monitor it to see if I've made a mistake in my thought process.
I think I've opined quite enough, especially since this is under the header "Tabled vs. bulleted list non-consensus" and I've said nothing pertaining to that. Oops!  Chickenmonkey  23:29, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
I wasn't aware of the two links you offer, and must say that they offer a compelling argument to simply skip the template per overriding site consensus and the authoritah of the Manual of Style. And I'm quite aware that the local venue was chosen for it's sympathetic crowd. The problem of pretenders to authority is far larger than any specific instance of their assuming moar than appropriate. Cheers, Jack Merridew 02:36, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Has consensus been reached here or not? In the majority of cases, I think bulleted lists serve the project better than tables - ease of editing particularly for new editors, the mere entry of information should not be WP:BITEing them, also from a simple visual weight perspective, tables give disproportionate weight to realatively meagre information. Where tables are used, I also do not see any benefit to the Wikipedia project as a whole by begining to assign specific colorings to particular projects. Given WP:ACCESS the limited options for colors there will not be enough colors for every project that wants to brand "its" tables and in instances where an individual might not only be involved in films but some other aspect that has tables, the article will be a mish mash of colors. Not pretty. Active Banana (talk) 21:13, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if consensus has been reached, but I believe, if we are going to document filmographies, tables are the way to go. For relatively long filmographies, that is. For the shorter filmographies, a bulleted list could suffice. New editors often have problems with tables, but they also often have trouble with properly citing references. The aim is not to eliminate mark-up (I wouldn't think), but to keep mark-up simple. Wikipedia's recent changes have attempted to make it easier for editors to insert tables. Hopefully, that helps new editors.
On the color, I honestly can't believe it's still being used. In the face of multiple policies, reasoning, and the above non-consensus; it is still being used.  Chickenmonkey  22:45, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Sortable tables

And at what point in all of that discussion was it EVER agreed, much less mentioned, to convert tables to the sortable mess? Talk about imposing one's personal POV into the mix and ignoring the consensus reached on this page. Jack Merridew has now begun removing the filmography table header. See here, here, here and here. Who was it who was concerned that someone would try to override consensus? Hmm? I recall that Jack Merridew was. Wildhartlivie (talk) 15:51, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Sortability is actually a valid argument for presenting filmographies in table form. It's a feature of wikitables that is widely used and supported, so it's hardly unprecedented. The key impediments to sorting are the amok header structures in-place out there (the multi-row and abutted-together tables), and all the use of rowspan on years. The first makes little sense semantically, and the rowspans are a chief impediment to editors properly editing the table syntax. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 19:59, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
There was consenus to use the templates, sortable tables were NOT part of the discussion at any point. Each time you remove the templates to stick in your new issue - sortable tables, you are breaking consensus. Bad' show. That is exactly what you were trying to claim I would do. Please stop deliberately working against consensus garnered here. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:44, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
And the template has been tried-out as discussed somewhere hereabouts. The issue of sortability was not brought up before; so what? It's a feature of wikitables. I tried it on the Cukor article because I saw that it had all the years fields present and would thus work with class="sortable", and on a few others I fixed the header structure and years so that it would work. Anyway, sorting is actually useful, as opposed to the header coloring via whatever means being ornamentation.
  • Support sorting, in many cases, at least
Sincerely, Jack Merridew 21:49, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a discussion should be had to address whether it's best to make the tables sortable.

In regards to the template, perhaps it is best to refrain from its use until a consensus is reached on whether the default color of wikitable headers should be changed as the only function the template has is to alter the table's color -- which goes against site-wide consensus on accessibility. You could also see if consensus has changed in regards to WikiProjects using their own colors.

Wikipedia:Tables, to discuss WikiProject-specific table colors, and MediaWiki talk:Common.css, to discuss changing the default color of tables, were given by User:Moonriddengirl.  Chickenmonkey  20:54, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

The coloring of class="wikitable" is no longer in common.css, it is now in shared.css, which means it's the ambient default for all wikis running MediaWiki. Sure, it could be overridden at a number of levels, but I really don't think anyone seriously thinks that will happen. Anyway, I think an actually-useful feature trumps all the tosh about people's fav shade of blue-slate-steel-gray-silver. And, of course, cutting the rowspans will also serve to make tables easier to edit for most editors. Not as easy as bulleted lists, but that's another section. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:59, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps, but in the meanwhile, Jack Merridew is deliberately going around edit warring and calling opposition to his new game disruptive as he makes edits that do not conform to the consensus rendered here. Something bordering on ownership of his viewpoint of the day. This is unacceptable conduct on his part. There has been NO discussion that Jack Merridew can go about and remove templates already in place. Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:11, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
You have no right to cut my work from actor articles; this gets right back to the oft-repeated view that you have serious ownership issues regarding actor bios. 'Filmmakers', too, right? Sincerely, Jack Merridew 21:49, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Actually, the current state of the template does not conform to the consensus rendered here, either. The use of a template was within the consensus, but the use of color in that template was not agreed upon. Current consensus, or lack thereof, would have the template contain no color per User:Moonriddengirl's conclusion, just to be clear.  Chickenmonkey  21:55, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I just realized {{filmography table begin}} and {{filmography table head}} are different templates (I had assumed head redirected to begin). This whole exercise is arbitrary. Though, consensus can change, consensus has not changed from what it was then and this WikiProject was aware then that this is not the place to address this issue. {{filmography table begin}} should be edited to reflect current site-wide consensus or it should not be used, in my opinion.

In an attempt to stay on topic, I support foregoing "rowspan" to make tables easier to edit. Whether "sortable" is used should probably be addressed from an article-to-article basis. For instance, if an actor's salary is tabled, sortable would be handy to easily see which films they made more from. I'm sure there are other instances when "sortable" would be useful, but, for the most part, chronological sorting is all that is needed.  Chickenmonkey  22:35, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

{{filmography table head}} is discussed up in the RfC and in the old discussion at:
It was largely orphaned by wildhatlivie after her color was cut out of it.
When I offered the initial version of the template at #table headings via templates, I said that I viewed it as an interim step for the pages currently using tables. Even in its current form, it does not allow adding an additional class or any other styling. If I were to add "sortable" to it, all hell would break loose on the current usages due to the use of rowspans. I, too, believe all the rowspans should go simply because they seem to be the most frequent stumbling block for editors.
See George Cukor#Filmography; it is sortable and has a few more interesting fields. Try sorting by 'Genre' or 'Studio'. Year is patently obvious to sort by, and film title makes a lot of sense. Role is of mixed value and notes typically makes no sense.
To be clear, for tables to be sortable, they need to be properly formed, or the shite hits the fan. This will help clean-up the odd header usages (colspans and the combined film/television tables that have a set of tv headers in the middle of the table).
Cheers, Jack Merridew 23:48, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
If filmographies are going to be in tables then it makes sense to have those tables sortable, particularly for those who have an lengthy filmog or one where they have fulfilled multiple roles - actor/director/producer etc. It adds to the table's usefulness at no extra cost.
The only drawback is the loss of rowspans, which I don't think is such a great loss.
Is there something built in to the class to prevent people attempting to add rowspans?   pablohablo. 10:51, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I think until all of this gets worked out that Jack should stop editing in the way he is doing here. He has been told to stop attacking Wildhartlivie on his talk page recently because of his attacks like the ones he has on this page. It's past the time for Jack Merridew to stop attacking this editor in the ways he has been. Personally I'm tired of it which is why I have stopped commenting. He is pushing his preferred point of view and it's not right for him to make editing articles so unfriendly like he's been doing. Thanks for reading, --CrohnieGalTalk 13:14, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Seems sortability has a lot going for it. The rowspans are problematic in themselves. I'm not aware of any mechanism that would preclude mixing class="sortable" and rowspans. It is something a bot could conceivably scan for and someone might build such a tool someday. Cheers, Jack Merridew 16:15, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
As this came up on a page on my watchlist - my thoughts: (a) adding sortability seems intuitively to be a good thing, but in practice when you see it, it doesn't seem all that useful here - sorting on year is useful, film name and character name not so much; (b) the non-sortable tables render much more nicely (especially when you generate book pages from the article) - particularly because the year column does not contain the same year over and over again. So I favour the non-sortable tables. I42 (talk) 17:08, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I gree with you I42. --CrohnieGalTalk 18:28, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
There's really two questions here: 1) Should we consider not using rowspan? 2) Should filmographies be sortable? The reason to consider not using rowspan is entirely about accessibility to editors. A high percentage of the errors made when editing a table are due to misunderstanding rowspan. Frankly, either way works for me. Making filmographies sortable is an afterthought, really. If we stop using rowspan, then the "wikitable sortable" class will work. Does that mean we have to use it? No. That just means it would be possible due to the absence of rowspan. This is one reason to not use a template, as, with a template, you wouldn't be able to choose whether it's sortable or not (unless the template could somehow have that option put in?).
The second question could be rendered moot if this WikiProject would just use wikitables correctly, and sortability could be employed whenever a particular table called for it... like all other tables on Wikipedia.  Chickenmonkey  19:12, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
rowspan tends to make the year a more 'important' (for want of a better word) attribute than the others. We should consider that people may actually want to see data arranged in a different way, and should be able to do so. (George Cukor#Filmography, cited above, is a good example due to the wide range of genres and studios). I think it's best to optimise for the online reader rather than anyone who wants to make a book from Wikipedia pages.   pablohablo. 19:37, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that I have not seen any sort of conclusive study that would support that "rowspan" is where most errors are made. There have been several speculations about where most errors are made, which change depending on what is being discussed or what point someone is pushing. It's speculative to point to any one thing as the "greatest error" point. And rowspan was not part of the RfC here so consensus did not support using it. Meanwhile, the' template that was presented here did contain the color background and that is what was supported by consensus. The use of sortable tables is yet one more way Jack Merridew is trying to press forward his POV on the tables. Wildhartlivie (talk) 06:27, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Let's stop with the personal beef between you two, please. It's not just his point of view. The site-wide consensus on tables is that they should not contain gratuitous colors. The consensus here was a limited one. The conclusion reached by User:Moonriddengirl was that there was no consensus on the use of color, anyway, and that discussion would have to take place on a broader scale.
As for rowspan, the fact is it is not a necessary use. The information contained in filmographies can be just as well conveyed without it. To that end, any cursory look at the edits repeatedly made to tables will show that rowspan (while not conclusively the "greatest error" point) is often a stumbling block for editors. the Manual of Style advises to "keep markup simple" to avoid such occurrences.
Like I said earlier, sortable is something that isn't really needed in most filmographies, but it would be a nice thing to have available if it ever were thought necessary.  Chickenmonkey  06:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

WHL, please stop revering me. You do not have the right to summarily remove my edits. It is a legitimate feature and you have no right to declare it unacceptable. I'm discussing this adequately and there's significant support for the idea. nb: I think you missed Cukor. Jack Merridew 14:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Can you please clarify where the significant support is. ie is there another discussion we should be looking at? This discussion is among a very small number of editors. One supports you, one says "sortable is something that isn't really needed in most filmographies, but it would be a nice thing to have available if it ever were thought necessary" which isn't full support. I notice another editor who has reverted in favour of the sortable table hasn't commented here, and that editor may only be agreeing with you because you disagree with Wildhartlivie. Was it your intention to add the sortable feature to a few filmographies, so that people could look at them and comment? If so you should make that clear. I'm undecided on this subject. I think it's fairly harmless, and in terms of appearance to the table header, it's quite subtle, but I don't see it as useful. I'm of the same opinion as User:Chickenmonkey. Rossrs (talk) 21:06, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I'm referring to this discussion. There is sufficient support to explore this and that's what I'm doing. I've made less than a half dozen examples and have been repeatedly reverted by the actor article police. I have not broken anything and am entirely within my rights to experiment with useful features on live articles. There are a variety of interacting issues to sort; the rowpans, as mentioned, as well as various configurations of header cells. Mary Pickford filmography, for example, would need some header restructuring to work with the sorting code.
I believe this is a very useful feature for article like Cukor's, and it is reasonably useful for most filmographies. There are open questions about just what fields are best used and for case where more are used, sorting may well be quite useful. The template I've deployed to a few dozen articles does not support sorting. It was designed as a mechanism to centralize the color being hard-coded into so many articles. The primary value of the template and a bot-run to mass-deploy it is that it will offer a what-links-here mechanism to aid in finding all the tables. Then, after an appropriate discussion, the color could be cut and the template either subst'd or re-purposed for some other styling and/or classes. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:57, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
That's what I wanted to know. Exploring is fine. Examples are fine. If you are going to make changes to a few articles to use as examples, please just write something to that effect and identify those articles so that everyone is clear about what you are doing. Your edits look like "real" edits and they've resulted in a mini edit war, when all you need to make your point is a diff to point to. Please just be clear in communicating your intentions, and then you won't be as likely to run up against the "actor article police". Is that reasonable? Rossrs (talk) 00:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm glad you see what I'm doing and seem fine with it. This thread opened some hours after I made the first few edits re sortability and I wasn't even notified of it. I believe it is clear enough what I'm doing. I don't see the distinction you're making re 'real' edits. These are 'real'. They are useful and I see no issue with them staying. There should be no issue with the examples being live, given that they're better than what came before (or during the reverts). Making example edits, and then reverting them (whomever) and then posting a link here would only serve to demonstrate the feature to any here who actually follow a link to an oldid or diff; a live example demonstrates the feature to all readers.
This page is not the "actor article police" —we really don't have those. I do not have to seek the approval of those active on this page to edit actor articles and I do not have to post notes about every little thing I believe it appropriate to try. Further, this page does not have subpoena or veto authority over me or anyone. This is the core issue in all this: a presumption of authority by a few over a large swath of articles. Couple this with the notion that that which is not expressly permitted is forbidden and, well, we're into article ownership and an awful lot of disruptive reverting. Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:32, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I do see what you're doing and yes, I'm fine with it if what I'm seeing is you exploring possible improvements. You used the words "actor article police" and I merely repeated them, and I'm glad you agree that we don't actually have those. Usually there is no difference between a "real" edit and a test edit, but when the issue is being discussed you could show some restraint. Rather than saying "this is what I propose and here are some examples", you are saying "I think this is right so I'm adding it to the articles I choose to add it to". That's different. Nobody owns the article or the style of the article, but I don't see any difference between you insisting on using the sortable feature on the tables you choose, and any editor saying they must not be used. It's still forcing a viewpoint. You're doing it because you say they're "better", and that's your opinion. You don't have to seek approval or post notes about every little thing, but considering there's a discussion in place, other editors have a right to expect that participants in the discussion would at least be clear about what they're doing. It's not asking permission, it's simply being courteous enough to clarify your actions for other editors. That's a pretty basic community standard and it's all I'm asking you to do. Rossrs (talk) 03:01, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
fwiw, I am not a fan of sortable tables in filmographies. It just doesn't seem useful here. Garion96 (talk) 21:11, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Best example at the moment is George Cukor#Filmography. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:57, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
I personally don't care for it. You have also put this in here which I also don't care for. I also find it very offensive to be calling editors who disagree with your POV as "actor article police" You say you have the right to make these edits, fine I agree. That being said, others also have the right to make their edits without being called named. If you are doing these edits to show what they look like than say so in the edit summary like Rossrs suggests. To me it looks like you've decided that this is the way it needs to be and that's the end of it. Well, sorry but I think discussion about this is important so that everyone is understanding what is and is not usuable. --CrohnieGalTalk 09:57, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Isabelle Huppert filmography

Hello. I've set up a peer review for this article, which you can find here. Comments most welcome! Thanks. Lugnuts (talk) 17:37, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Filmography headers

I hate to rehash this thing, but I asked the policy village pump about the blue filmography header situation. The answer I got was that the template, {{filmography table begin}}, should not incorporate the use of colors, because there was no consensus to do so. If you disagree, you could join that discussion.  Chickenmonkey  22:43, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry but that's not how I read things there. You should have made a neutral announcement about the change of the steel blue that you are so against. The discussion is whether the blue header is acceptable or not and what to do about their use. If editors here would go and give their opinions about this it would be appreciated. The more editors the better. The conversation is here. All opinions are welcomed. Thanks, --CrohnieGalTalk 11:27, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
I apologize if you feel my comment was inadequate. At the time of that comment, the answer I had received was, "Seems to me that if there was no consensus to use color, then the template should not be incorporating it. -- AnmaFinotera 19:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)".  Chickenmonkey  19:44, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
Thank you, I just want a fair discussion and everyone's POV listened to. I think more editors need to be involved in this discussion going on at the above link. It takes more than a handful of editors to make a consensus. I am sure you agree on this so lets just let the editors of this page know about the discussion and have there say OK? Thanks agsin, sorry if I sounded testy too, I didn't mean to bite your head off. Editors, please go to the above discussion, read what has been said and give your opinions on whether the steel blue is appropriate or not. Thank you, --CrohnieGalTalk 22:41, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
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