Talk:Dancing with the Stars (American TV series) season 31

Destroying the readability of this thread
The current changes made to the DWTS articles is completely destroying the readability of this thread (and all others with DWTS and other reality television shows). It appears to be from the same user, who is making unilateral decisions and operating under the guise of bettering the threads, but is actually clogging them up and making them incredibly challenging to follow - particularly around the tables/charts. Can the user please point me to where they consulted other users/readers about their changes? Thank you, Kiwi Jaden. Kiwi Jaden (talk) 05:38, 20 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Per MOS:COLOR, "Ensure that color is not the only method used to communicate important information. Especially, do not use colored text or background unless its status is also indicated using another method." There was also an RfC in 2021 which addressed this issue: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television/Archive 12. Per that RfC, "There is a consensus that in articles about elimination-style reality television programs... tables should comply with accessibility guidelines." Bgsu98 (talk) 05:43, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Why is it necessary, though, to make the notes "[1]", "[2]", etc., when it is relatively easy to change those to make them more communicative without having to click on them? I see no reason why 32[2] is clearly superior to, say, 32[High], 32[Hi], or 32[H]. Samer (talk) 03:40, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed, the notes sections as they are are not functional as they should be. "Note 1" and "Note 2," for instance, are utterly mixed up on both the scoring and dance charts. This needs to be changed because Note 1 on the dance chart (the highest scoring dance) is linking to Note 1 on the scoring chart (the lowest scoring dance). Wilted Youth (talk) June 29, 2024
 * Thank you for letting me know; I have corrected that. Bgsu98 (talk) 21:19, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

It is so deeply unreadable. It has happened across all reality programmes. And I've been reading these pages for more than 15 years. It baffles me that people have had some sort of RfC to seek to change something that had always worked for readers, and now it looks frankly unreadable. All the [1]'s and [2]'s like on Cheryl's dance, plus the blue and pink not working with the now italicised red which looks far worse than before. You opine that this has been done to improve readability and accessibility, but frankly it looks a complete MESS. I am not a frequent Wiki editor. I am a reader. And therefore your wish is to improve readability for people like ME. And I'm here to tell you Bgsu98, that it looks TERRIBLE. As do the changes to Survivor, Amazing Race and more. I'll say no more, because no doubt you will have a snappy answer as to why you are going to simply continue with your ridiculous changes to these pages, but I certainly won't be using them anymore. Signed - a very disgruntled Wikipage reader. Kiwi Jaden (talk) 00:16, 4 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Honestly, I don't know why we even need to color-code the highest and lowest scores. Each column is sortable - highest to lowest or lowest to highest - so anyone can see for themselves who led or trailed in scores each week. That would eliminate one problem right there if we got rid of those. We can leave the pink cells for eliminations, since that color is also used on the contestants' table right above it. I had initially removed the blue cells for bottom two/three until somebody squawked, so I put them back, because it really didn't matter to me one way or another. The original red and green font colors against the colored backgrounds created problems for colorblind users, and MOS:ACCESS is about making the information on Wikipedia accessible to everyone, not just those with normal vision. Red text against a pink background (or the orange that was originally used) was a terrible idea. Not only colorblind readers, but individuals who print out pages on black & white printers for reference, visually impaired users who use screen-readers to read the text aloud to them, and so on. This isn't my arbitrary decision; this is Wikipedia policy. It's not about ME, ME, ME or whatever high horse you rode in on in the above paragraph. I am amazed at the level of vitriol, personal attacks, complaints, and hate mail I've received while trying to conform to Wikipedia guidelines while trying to keep the essence of what was originally in place. It would have been easier to start over from scratch, but I likely would have received even more hateful comments. Honestly, the Dancing With the Stars articles were not too bad to begin with, but people behave like I've just burned down their house. If people have suggestions on how to further improve these articles and tables while abiding by policy, then by all means, suggest them, but bellyaching about how they should just be left "as is" (ie. non-compliant) is not acceptable. Bgsu98 (talk) 20:11, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Please take a look at Dancing with the Stars (American season 1) to see how the scoring chart would look with the red and green fonts removed, as well as the footnotes for highest and lowest scores. The table is sortable if one wishes to view a particular week's scores in order from highest to lowest or lowest to highest. Bgsu98 (talk) 00:31, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I took a look, and found it unhelpful: you've taken an instantly visible important piece of information and eliminated it, so I reverted your change. If you like, you can set it up in a sandbox for people to look at it (or people can look at the superseded version here). It should be possible to increase information for accessibility without removing useful enhancements for everyone else. (Just because you don't find it useful doesn't mean that many others don't.) A question, Bgsu98: is bolding and/or italicization sufficiently visible differentiation? I notice that you've changed non-bold italic for lowest score to bold italic—was italic by itself insufficiently obvious, or was it reasonably obvious but this makes it more so? BlueMoonset (talk) 05:56, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @BlueMoonset That's fine that you reverted it. It honestly doesn't matter to me either way; I just wanted people to see what the table would look like without the red and green fonts and I chose the shortest table to adjust. People can still see it with the link you provided: here. To answer your question, I added the boldface to the green because some users complained that it was too difficult to differentiate the dark green font from regular black font. That is a legitimate complaint. Here is the problem: The original RED font was not compliant against a white background, but the original GREEN font was. However, neither of those was compliant against a colored background like the blue, pink, orange, gold, etc. The choice was to either change the font color, or the background colors, and since the blue and pink backgrounds are used repeatedly throughout multiple tables, I thought it was easier to darken the font. Even if I'd changed it to dark blue or dark purple or whatever, it was still going to be difficult to differentiate from regular black font. You are correct that the italicized font for the lowest score should be easily identifiable. Another solution that I considered, and will implement onto the Season 31 table so everyone can see it, is to underline the highest score. That should stand out, even if the dark green is not immediately noticeable. Please let me know what you think. Bgsu98 (talk) 22:04, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Bgsu98, I very much dislike the underlining. Bold green, which has been used in the past on various competition shows, is preferable in my view—it's cleaner looking. Adding extra lines and brackets and such is just distracting, and if we're stuck with the note links, it's best if we don't also add extraneous things like underlines. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:58, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, I actually like the boldfaced green more. They both work. Bgsu98 (talk) 21:06, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

I get why we want things to be accessible, and I get that it is Wikipedia's policy, but why are we using number notes (1, 2, 3, etc.) in a section that is all numbers, when we can use letter notes (a, b, c, etc.) instead? I think that is a big part of what is making it unreadable for some people, like the disgruntled person who brought this up in the first place. CoolDudeAl (talk) 20:06, 18 October 2022 (UTC)


 * You can, but you would have to switch the a/b/c's on the dance chart (at the bottom of the page) to numbers; otherwise they conflict with one other.
 * Another option is to use the dagger & double-dagger templates for highest and lowest scores. I will do a sample up quickly in my sandbox and post it here momentarily for feedback. Bgsu98 (talk) 20:09, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Please check out User:Bgsu98/sandbox to see how the table would look with the dagger and double-dagger templates. These satisfy the requirements of MOS:ACCESS since they contain an alt-text, and are less obtrusive than the superscripts. Bgsu98 (talk) 20:18, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Why did the average column for the couples get removed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.91.47.154 (talk) 01:32, 19 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Total Fancruft that had zero impact on the competition, violation of No original research, and so on. Bgsu98 (talk) 02:27, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Week 3 rumbas
If I did my research correctly, I think Week 3 will hold a record for having the most performances of a single dance style in the show's history with 8 rumbas. In early seasons when only 2 styles were performed in the first week, we would get 6-7 performances of, say, the cha-cha-cha or foxtrot, but I don't believe we've ever seen 8 at one go before. Even more unusual for it being in the third week of competition, too. I think it would be a fun fact to note, even though I don't know how it could be best sourced. Wilted Youth (talk) 05:38, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I believe that would fall under original research, which is not allowed. Bgsu98 (talk) 17:42, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Average score chart
In past seasons there’s a chart that shows the couple’s average score and had many dances they done and now it’s been taken is there a reason why? Brianis19 (talk) 06:53, 19 October 2022 (UTC)


 * As has been said numerous times before, it falls under WP:FANCRUFT. Magitroopa (talk) 10:35, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * An argument could also be made that the other two tables - which dancers had the highest & lowest tango, and what dances did Joe Schmo receive his highest & lowest scores - are also FANCRUFT. The show never makes reference to any of these. Bgsu98 (talk) 21:03, 19 October 2022 (UTC)