Template talk:Episode list/Archive 3

Category:Episode list articles that use colour


This should help get a clearer picture of usages; mebbe a pair of categories, but this is a good start. It should go before the last. Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:29, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, I . Mebbe track both? Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:38, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose: I have a feeling that Merridew will use the category in order to engage in disruptive editing. See section above. —Farix (t &#124; c) 01:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * See WP:ABF and
 * Category:Episode list using the default LineColor
 * Jack Merridew 01:41, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I added Category:Episode list using the default LineColor, before I saw your request. I think this is better, since if cleared/checked, would allow for your original request to be enacted with no negative impact.  Note that some in this category may be mistakes, like this.  It will take some time for the category to fill up.  You can always generate the other list by taking the list of transclusions, and subtracting the members of this category.  I can give you a toolserver link that does it for you. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  01:47, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep in mind that it will take some time for the category to fill up, but this is close to what you are after. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  01:53, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * A whopping five instances ;) (but expanding, I expect) That gets to my point, above, that this has served to force the use of some colour in order to avoid the odd look of those five. Will give it a day to flesh-out; and would welcome said link. Terima kasih, Jack Merridew 01:56, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

LineColor


The default for LineColor should be the same as for TopColor (which is Wikitable-th's #F2F2F2). This will produce more consistent results when colours are not specified, at all. should become: and the /doc will need to be tweaked. Cheers, Jack Merridew 19:34, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Better yet, match the default border's colour, #AAAAAA, which is what this line amounts to:


 * The #CCCCFF is out of infoboxes, not wikitables. As these are full-width tables, they should by default mimic wikitables, not right-floating infoboxes.
 * Cheers, Jack Merridew 19:46, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Cheers, Jack Merridew 19:46, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * This will "break" hundreds of episode tables which also place a line between the header and the first row/episode matching the default color of LineColor. So this shouldn't be done unless you are going to run a bot to correct all of those implementations. —Farix (t &#124; c) 20:13, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, all of these colours are inappropriate per WP:Deviations, so I don't see breakage, I see improvement in that things will hew closer to site-norms. For a cleaner transition, we could be talking dropping the colour support for this suite of templates entirely. Jack Merridew 23:12, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that it wouldn't be major breakage, and we should be striving to use the default here. I could have a bot run through all the transclusions and provide statistics of the colours used.  There are under 5000 transclusions, so it shouldn't take more than a couple hours. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  23:18, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Some stats would be interesting; inform things. Cheers, Jack Merridew 23:41, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It's "breakage" because you have one border at the top with one color and other borders in another, leaving a very inconsistent table. I also I don't see how the border line colors is affected by WP:Deviations. It's applied using basic CSS supported by all browsers and is generally consistent from article/list to article/list. If a reader's browser doesn't support CSS, then they have more things to worry about in using Wikipedia then a border color on an episode table. And I don't see any improvement being made by removing color support from the template altogether. —Farix (t &#124; c) 23:27, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The 'border' at the top being the header row? The inconsistency you're referring to would be the remaining top header colour, not the standard borders (and why is it 3px, not 1px?) I referred to WP:Deviations because all of these colours are gratuitous ornamentation (see 2nd ¶). People are sticking in whatever colour floats their boat. See List of Charmed episodes and the eight pages it is built from, such as Charmed (season 1). Skittles everywhere. This is all unprofessional. Cheers, Jack Merridew 23:41, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The colors of the table headers on List of Charmed episodes has nothing to do with the border line under each summary section. If you want to complain about the background colors of the headers on List of Charmed episodes, then go to that talk page. But the reason that summary border line exists is to visually separate the episode summary from the information for the next episode, giving the table a cleaner appearance. In many cases, editors, like myself, will add a matching borderline under the header to tie it in with the rest of the table. Use of color in tables is not something that is prohibited by WP:Deviations, especially when the coloring is generally consistent from list to list. But there are cases, such as with The Simpsons and Code Geass were a different color creates a better visual match for the series itself. —Farix (t &#124; c) 00:22, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Ah, classis Jack Merridew on his lonesome color crusade again stopping by once in a while. I've removed the edit protected template, this proposal has been contested, and needs consensus to proceed, once that is established, consider placing the template back. (Nice image addition, the colors bright up the place a bit.)  X  eworlebi (talk) 23:53, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Having a non-standard default for the LineColor effectively forces the notion that such tables should be coloured “somehow”, as invoking this suite of templates without any colour parameters still results in the coloured 3px line. To get a standard table, one would have to explicitly provide what should be the default colour of this bottom-border, or, line, or whatever this 3px ornament is supposed to be. Per separation of presentation and content any such meretricious ornamentation should be encapsulated and allowed with only a solid rationale; 'The DVD boxset used those colours' is not very compelling. Cheers,  Jack M e r r i d e w  00:08, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It seems by that statement that you are against any CSS coloring, regardless of where it is. A black and white Wikipedia would be very boring indeed, nor is it a sign of professionalism. But the default color of the border matches those of Infobox television and the Infobox animanga family of templates as well as navbox. It didn't come out of nowhere, as you're implying. —Farix (t &#124; c) 00:22, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * CSS is awesomely powerful and it is all about site-wide stylesheets. *That* is where CSS belongs. Inline-CSS is a hack, is about deviations from site-wide norms. You cite Naxbox, but these are not Navboxes, they're tables of information and so should follow the site-norms for tables; wikitable. None of these are are black and white. You and Xeworlebi are attacking me, not addressing the issue. The issue of the site's look and feel is not up to individual editors or WikiProjects with ownership issues, it is about taking a WMF-wide look at things, and presenting a consistent look to articles across the project. Have you noticed that the articles most afflicted with gratuitous colouring are those that have large advertising budgets behind their topics? They don't call it television 'programming' without reason. You want a riot of colours in your wiki experience? Go get a Skittle-skin added to preferences. Oh, and all these lurid colours are at odds with appropriate accessibility; many people will have difficulty reading such stuff. Jack Merridew 00:38, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * First, inline CSS is not a "hack". In fact, your usage of that term in that way shows how much you don't know about CSS or what a hack really is. Second the default color of LineColor is standard for Wikipedia and consistent from list to list. Editors, at their discretion, are allowed to override the default color, just like the are allowed to override the default colors of many templates. So you're complaining about lack of "standardization" where there already is "standardization" is nothing but a fares. Third, there is no policy or guideline prohibiting or restricting the use of inline CSS because it would be seen as just silly and counter productive in improving Wikipedia. And in those cases, there is always WP:IAR. —Farix (t &#124; c) 00:53, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, I know quite a bit about CSS and hacks. And I explained that the #CCCCFF has been plucked from another context than what it is being used for here. Bzzt. You really need to read WP:Deviations; standard conventions, semantic distinctions and gratuitously. Jack Merridew 01:08, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The fact that you called inline CSS a "hack" shows that you don't know much about either, or you are being facetious. Also, the color of the bottom summery border was "plucked" from Infobox television, Infobox television season and Infobox animanga, which already established a standard color convention. Also, the colored border is neither proven to be a distraction or gratuitous. —Farix (t &#124; c) 01:38, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Attack others, much? The 'SS' in CSS stands for 'StyleSheet', which is where CSS belongs. Note that inline CSS has no selectors, which is core to the concept ('C' as in Cascading). Those are infoboxes, not wikitable; off topic. The burden is on those who wish something included to provide a rationale. Got rationales for all the Skittles? Jack Merridew 01:51, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * CSS is not limited to just a separate "style sheet", hence the "Cascading" part of CSS. This is why embedded CSS was included in the CSS design from its initial drafts. So calling it a "hack" is just preposterous. Second, there is no systemic difference between an episode table and an infobox; both presents information in a tabular format. The only real difference between the two is presentational. —Farix (t &#124; c) 02:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * How about reading about it? There is no cascade of styling with inline CSS. Sheesh. And you mean semantic, not systemic; an infobox is a narrow right-floating thing. These are not that, are not class="infobox", they *are* class="wikitable"; see the documentation: Template:Episode list/doc. Jack Merridew 02:21, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I attacked you? I only referenced that you try this every once in a while (and get shot down pretty much every time that I saw it). You're right in that I didn't addressed the issue, my comment was only a note to say that I removed the Edit protected-template because it's not an uncontroversial edit as it was contested. If you're going to be offended by something I said, at least give me the chance to say something offending first.
 * I'm pretty sure there is no argument that you would see as a solid rational for colors., anywhere. I would even put some money on that you would like to see every image on Wikipedia be turned into a black and white version of itself, just to get rid of the colors you seem to hate so much.  X  eworlebi (talk) 01:11, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Back having reloaded, I see. How about you re-read what I wrote, and then read WP:AGF. I commented on images? Jack Merridew 01:35, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Really? playing the WP:AGF-card after you baselessly accuse everyone of attacking you…  X  eworlebi (talk) 01:48, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Really. Jack Merridew 02:21, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * was obviously an, with, I thought, Plastikspork in the section below. Calling it  shows your... wait for it...'' true colours. Also, are for WP:MMORPGs, which this is not (supposed to be).  Jack Merridew 03:01, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Sure it was, only when you have an edit conflict Wikipedia stops and tells you, which means you ignored it and removed my comment knowingly. And hahaha, you're so funny, MMPRPG… Wait, no your not, you clearly have never heard of the race card. Also no, talk about using actual hacks…  X  eworlebi (talk) 08:34, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I was assuming 'playing card'; a misunderstanding.
 * Your removal of my, was poor; this template is currently constructed to oblige users to accept the 3px CCCCFF unless they act to do something about it. This effectively makes the LineColor obligatory. The default should be what is expected in a wikitable. That's documentation, not guidance. I don't believe users should have to 'opt-out' of a colour out of right field. Most of what I'm seeing in that category are normal wikitables that are getting CCCCFF out of right-field. Jack Merridew 08:59, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It wasn't poor at all, the contrary in fact. For one, your interpretation of what is "optional" and "obligatory" is flawed, there is only one mandetory field, and that is Title. You have to use Title, because you can't create a decent table without it, you'll end up with an empty column and the headers won't correspond with the columns. LineColor is optional, you don't have to fill it out, not doing so will not break the format. Secondary, you made a controversial edit to the documentation without even a notification on the talk page. In fact the line is part of the template and the standard representation, no-one should have to, or even have the option to, "opt-out", talking about going way off the standard. You assume that everywhere were something is not explicitly defined that the user intended not to have it, rather than what probably happens more, which is the user didn't care and choose for the standard. The line is the default, "opting-out" should not be an option.  X  eworlebi (talk) 12:12, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * A CCCCFF-colour is appearing by default, and that's inappropriate as it is forcing a colour into a wikitable. The category is documenting that there are many places where this spurious colour is appearing. This template should be changed, along the lines that I initially suggested, so that wikitables appear *normal*. My edit to the doc simply clarified what the current state of the template *is*. If colour is to be used in these tables at all, it should only be when users seek it (and I don't believe such gratuitous colouring is at all appropriate). Jack Merridew 19:37, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with Xeworlebi about "optional" and "obligatory" but I think there is merit in including " allows a particular page to "opt-out" of this color." The ability to opt out should be documented. --AussieLegend (talk) 12:37, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * This should not be about 'opting-out' but, at most, 'opting-in'. The current coloured default is inappropriate. Jack Merridew 19:37, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * For someone who claims to know a lot about CSS you're proposal to put an anything else than a hexcode in the border-bottom style property does not help to back up your "Actually, I know quite a bit about CSS" statement. You should only place a hexcode in the LineColor parameter, anything else is an actual hack. By basically breaking the CSS it craps out and doesn't show up at all anymore, that is a hack, and a pretty bad one at that.
 * And correct, this shouldn't be about "opting out", but neither about "opting in". This is the template, and the line is part of it. There is nothing technically wrong with it, this is just you disliking any color on wikipedia to the extreme.

I don't see how the current coloring is inappropriate by any means. The applicable guidelines talk about technical compatibility (which was tested when we made it into a CSS line rather than a table-bg line). The entire point of the line is to help give visual distinction to each episode entry. The point of the template itself is that standard wikitable appearance and markup wasn't cutting it for episode lists. The default color is using standard Wikipedia colors, so it matches over-all site appearance.

Jack, do you want this change because it is what is technically correct or because it is what is visually the most beneficial to readers? -- Ned Scott 04:49, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, I'm all for entertaining other ideas about achieving "episode entry distinction" using an alternative to a line, colored or not. The best way to get people to change is to find an option they like. If it exists, let's find it. -- Ned Scott 04:56, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Is this all just more of Jack's quest to have an all grey Wikipedia? The great variety of shades of grey already in use are a right pain in the eyes to reading. To quote Ned, "I don't see how the current coloring is inappropriate by any means." And neither do i. Would the next step to be making the links two different shades of grey instead of blue & red by default? Colours are actually very helpful visual aids; a variety of grey is at best useless and at worst very confusing. I am not much a fan of the sorta-blue used by default but it is a better than what is being prosed here. My inherent objection to removing colour should be seen in my signature, which is a bright pink #ff69b4 should there be anyone reading this who is colour blind. delirious  &amp;  lost  ☯ ~hugs~ 14:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't thinks so. He seems to have an aversion grey too, which he claims is inappropriate. --AussieLegend (talk) 19:02, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * He's also been removing color form several nav templates as well as in existing episode tables. I would say that this has crossed the line into disruption as he is eliminating the parameter from articles after having lost the argument here to have it removed from the template. —Farix (t &#124; c) 21:46, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It's called . Note how whomever that is had to override the inappropriate LineColor default to get a normal-coloured wikitable border. Jack Merridew 00:18, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * That's not cleanup, that's called disruptive editing. You have no consensus to "de-colorize" navigational templates or episode lists on a mass scale. And WP:Deviations is not an excuses as it actually allows for these types of variations within templates. —Farix (t &#124; c) 12:50, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

My main concern is about endless hard-coded markup in articles. All we're taking about here are arbitrary colours that people are pumping into articles to “pretty” them up. This is what WP:Deviations, is about; gratuitous colours and markup. There is no rationale for all this meretricious junk. People are just sprinkling colours about as they see fit. The current default LineColor is forcing a colour on users of this template suite when they have not specified one. The very line-by-line nature of the LineColor arg allows (and requires) a large amount of repetitive code be pasted into articles, whether to achieve a coloured look, or to opt-out of one. A lose-lose situation. , I removed 9261 bytes(almost 15% of the article) of pure dross.

My other concern is that this is undermining the site-wide look. There is no site-wide consensus to allow the random colouring of things. Jack Merridew 23:04, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * First of all you, Jack, seem to be the last word in what is gratuitous. At least according to yourself. The sheer volume of articles you have objection to would indicate people greatly disagree with you whether they know of this discussion and come here to say so or not. The LineColor exists for use. Summarily removing it from articles is not cleanup; it is open expression of not liking something which others do like. Removing it from some articles is "undermining the site-wide look" and saying there is no consensus to have it is grasping for justification. I don't think it is any sort of policy but i would say there is implied consensus demonstrated by site-wide use among most every other person but yourself. Your mention of removing 15% of an article because it is pure dross would have me think you prefer we just change the whole wiki to plain text - no images, no links, no italics, no bold, no section headings, no navigation templates, no infoboxes, no signatures, no page histories, no logs, no option to edit, no tables - because all of it could be pure dross if all you want is to have information to read. Options built into templates are not deviations. Just like signatures are allowed to be pink without you having to approve of it. delirious  &amp;  lost  ☯ ~hugs~ 01:42, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, that's just a silly statement, taking that this template has had LineColor since the day it was created, a month shy of five years ago now, and you're the first one to complain about this. I would say this has a pretty strong consensus taking the sheer amount of usage, long standing practice and near non-existent opposition.  X  eworlebi (talk) 01:57, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * proposal
 * a better solution would be to have this template not emit any border-styling for the summary cell's border-bottom if no LineColor has been specified by the invocation. This would allow the hundreds of articles in Category:Episode list using the default LineColor to simply get the expected look of ; i.e.   Jack Merridew 00:34, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have any idea how hard it is to read the episode lists when there is no division between the episodes? That, and for layout consistency, is i would say exactly why this template was created instead of coding episode lists as plain tables. Further, do you have any idea how hard it is to read black on grey, on multiple shades of grey? It is the most straining eye-sore of Wikipedia. If i could easily find an alternative i would set the background, LineColor, and TopColor for every episode list to completely remove all traces of the default grey for every single episode list. Then move on to the wikitable and remove all the grey from there. Border, header, fields, N/A . That is four different shades of grey in a table. If you count black as a 'really dark grey' that makes for 5 shades of grey found in a wikitable. TOO MUCH. Designing pages that can be viewed with Mosaic these days is a bit of a stupid thing to be doing. I have a version installed purely for the novelty of having a retro browser but i really honestly doubt anyone is still using 20+ year old technology as an only option. I hate the puke-blue but must oppose there being any more grey found on Wikipedia; my own custom monobook makes use of one of the failed logos, a sunflower, because the WP logo itself is too grey. I am so an advocate for WP being too American but i preferred the US Flag as a logo over everything officially used since then. As such, my pink signature and i absolutely oppose this proposal. delirious  &amp;  lost  ☯ ~hugs~ 01:42, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose – undermines the very basic purpose of why this was added in the first place, the line is the expected look of the episode list.  X  eworlebi (talk) 01:57, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose and lol!vote. Like I said, the point of the line is for visual distinction between episode entries. It's not to pretty up things. I don't even strongly oppose a gray line as long as there's a distinct line/separation. Not that I have a problem with colors, but I do think that some lists use some really bad choices for their line colors (bright pink? really?). There are other situations were the LineColor is used to highlight an entry (along with TopColor) that would require this in some form. The point of this template is to result in this formatting (and it's quite flexible as far as a pre-formatted table goes). If you don't want the formatting then either use normal wikitable code or make another template. The root of the matter though is that this template has served as a de-facto style guide for episode lists without an actual separate style guideline being written. This is less about a change to a template and more about a change to what has become the standard style guidelines for episode lists. I'm all for brainstorming alternatives, and maybe at the least a guideline for what colors should and should not be used, but it should be treated like a guideline proposal and needs support from everyone. -- Ned Scott 07:27, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose The border and color has long been established for many years and has became the standard for episode lists. It has been stated repeatedly that the border helps separate the episode entries from one another when a summary is present and the color matches the default color schemes of other television templates that will appear along with the episode template, such as Infobox television, Infobox television series, and Infobox animanga. Removing it to fit one persons mis-interpretation of WP:Deviations is not an improvement to Wikipeida, but an determent to readability. The point of WP:Deviations is to not change styles within an article or article series. Removing or changing the border line color will do just that. —Farix (t &#124; c) 12:50, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Why should the default line colour for a border in an episode list table not be the default for a wikitable? What's so special about #CCCCFF that it is the default colour for this table? --RexxS (talk) 21:32, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Because the template itself was created to format lists in a way that a default wikitable does not. Keep in mind I'm not entirely opposed to changing the color, but Jack has now proposed that the line not have any formatting, so it wouldn't have any thickness to it at all. Are you supporting that as well? -- Ned Scott 20:44, 27 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Support We are talking about the default, which does not prevent one from selecting another colour if it makes sense. Even better would be to take the colour from MediaWiki:Common.css, which would allow users to change it if the so desire. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  02:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If you change the default color to something other than #CCF, then it will conflict with the default colors of Infobox television, Infobox television series, and Infobox animanga, which will also appear on the same page. —Farix (t &#124; c) 03:30, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't follow. I checked Template:Infobox television/colour, and it doesn't use CCF as its default.  In fact, it's a big bag of colours. The nice thing about grey, is that it doesn't conflict with other colours.  Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  03:46, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Apart from the fact that wikitables and infoboxes are entirely different, the default "LineColor" (actually the colour of the 'border' attribute) for each of those templates is the same as for a default infobox: #AAAAAA, which of course is the same as for a wikitable. You seem to be confusing the border colour of a cell with its background colour, probably because this template uses an extra-thick bottom border as if it were a separating row. The three infoboxes you quote use three different default background colours, so don't seem to be good models for consistency, although at least Infobox television/colour offers a single point of definition for its default (currently #C6C9FF). Nevertheless, If you insist that "LineColor" must match other colours used in an article, then don't you see a whole bunch of conflicts at List of Xena: Warrior Princess episodes for example? --RexxS (talk) 10:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Infoboxes ARE wikitables. LineColor used to be an actual table cell, but it was changed to be more CSS-friendly/appropriate. It doesn't matter what it technically is, only what it visually creates. -- Ned Scott 20:44, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of using Common.css for the default and think that idea has a lot of merit. Are you also supporting the proposal from Jack to remove the line's thickness? -- Ned Scott 20:44, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Standardized color palettes
Not to prematurely conclude the discussion here, but I think it's safe to say that LineColor and the line itself are not going away. However, I think I see some of Jack's point, especially when I see some really crazy and harsh colors being used. What would everyone think about trying to come up with some standard colors, or even a few "palettes" of colors, for use? For example, the yellow and the pink seen at List of Andromeda episodes makes me cringe. If we had example palettes for editors to use, or maybe even write it into the template somehow (like LineColor=1, LineColor=2, just as an example), I think that would be a worthwhile improvement.

If we think it's a good idea we can poll the greater community on what colors should be used and how this should be applied. There's been a few different times on Wikipedia where people already have put together some very nice color palettes that really work well with the Wikipedia look. I think one of the times that notice templates were reformed the discussion on that generated a lot of great examples. Nice soft tones that don't make your eyes bleed, but still allow customization and options when it's needed. That kind of idea. -- Ned Scott 14:13, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Just to point out, that yellow used at Andromeda is (or very close to) one of the standard colours. The CSI shows all have a dark yellow colour for season 1 even though it is completely unrelated to anything about the show or DVD cover art. I would object to the palettes of colours because then you run into grossly clashing colours between the episode list with its (semi- ) predetermined colour for a given season number and the DVD cover art or poster or show logo found in the infobox. A little while ago i re-did NCIS from its random colours to make use of the unique colour found in a particular spot in the N of the show logo on each season's Region 1 DVD release. Some background colours were too similar to use that as the colours. I thought it worked out quite nice. Bignole and the folks at Smallville have done likewise. Dito for House MD. Even though they are a bit more rich than what is on the 8 box sets in from of me on the shelf just beside my computer the colours used on Charmed come from the same approach to use of colour. I had recently redone the entire article for The Practice, a show which does not have DVD releases. I took some promotional posters and pulled colours from those to use for the seasons as a (long term?) place holder. At more than 160 episodes it was a bit much to have the default in use for the entire list. Where there are 2 part cross-over episodes i included those and used the colour from the other show's season article to highlight that it is not part of The Practice but is included for continuity of the whole show.  I could name off probably dozens of other shows as i do a lot of editing of episode lists. I also have seen many that make use of bright, bold colours for apparently no reason greater than someone liking it that way and so writing it up as such. I could support something like "use colour that corresponds with the promotional image for the season for continuity of the whole page; if no such image is available to draw the colour from here are some suggested colour palettes for use on seasons".   delirious  &amp;  lost  ☯ ~hugs~ 15:35, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Some of the colors look god awful on some lists, but I really like your NCIS and The Practice colors (I haven't looked at the others yet). My thinking is to not say "use these exact colors!" but to give a little bit of guidance and some examples. I don't believe in mandating anything for colors, but rather presenting an idea and seeing if it catches on. There is a lot of flexibility for colors too. You can use the same colors found on DVDs and promo images but tweak them to not be so harsh/bright/etc if they don't look great at first. -- Ned Scott 01:53, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Standard pallets is a matter that should be taken up with the individual episode list or with WP:TV as a whole (WP:ANIME for anime episode lists). —Farix (t &#124; c) 21:16, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm talking about some basic brainstorming before getting to that point. I always run these ideas past both WP:TV and WP:ANIME before major changes with the template, and hope that others would do the same. I'm just putting some feelers out there to see what people think about the idea. -- Ned Scott 01:53, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

What is going wrong?
Trying to use sublists for Law & Order: SVU episodes (Seasons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and List of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes). Instead of sublists (no summaries) a preview in the final list article is including the summaries. What did I do wrong? — CobraWiki ( jabber 21:23, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Something with the way this system works it doesn't accept special characters in plain text. Using the ASCII codes for like  (remove spaces before ";") should do it.   X  eworlebi (talk) 21:39, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That makes sense. Unfortunately it did not work, even with the inclusion of ASCII codes for the parenthesis as well. How odd. — CobraWiki ( jabber 01:17, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * How did you know it didn't work before you tried it? Anyway, I have no idea what it could be besides that, although you had some weird formatting which might have caused it, like the bulleted lists etc (really shouldn't be in the plot though). It worked for other episode lists though, so there's still some weird stuff going on at that one.  X  eworlebi (talk) 05:05, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * haha I was wondering if you would catch that. I had actually tried the incorrect opposite and tested in a preview the full list instead of the individual articles. It was only after I made the above statement that I realized my mistake. Testing again, I saw that it still did not work, so there was no reason to remove it. — CobraWiki ( jabber 06:37, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The problem is the ampersand in "Law & Order". I've done some testing at Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 13) using episodes from a known to be OK list, and found that if the main list article was List of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit episodes the transclusion works properly. --AussieLegend (talk) 00:04, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Can we rename the page? -- 91.64.24.139 (talk) 20:23, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not that great with templates but here's a thought: If templates such as   work without resorting to using ascii codes then it is something in the template here not the wiki as a whole.  delirious  &amp;  lost  ☯ ~hugs~ 02:15, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I fixed it. You needed to change the   to  .  This could probably be fixed a different way, but this works.  Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  05:32, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Very Good!!! Do you do the same for List of Law & Order episodes? -- 91.64.18.191 (talk) 13:25, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I've encounter this problem before. The thing is that PAGENAME will evaluate the page title to "Law &amp;amp; Order" instead of "Law & Order". There is nothing that can be done to "fix" the issue other than to use "&amp;amp;" in place of "&" when you declare MainList. —Farix (t &#124; c) 13:47, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Right. It may be possible using one of the urlencode or anchorencode templates, but it's not worth the effort, and would almost certainly break other pages which are already using the work around. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  22:02, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * may work because it will covert "Law & Order" to "" and to "". Since this two string will now match. Since it also converts the HTML encoding, it shouldn't break existing lists. I'll go ahead and make the changes, but if it does break, revert it and drop a note on which lists become broken. —Farix (t &#124; c) 00:14, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Anticipated air dates
I've noticed that some upcoming series have episode tables with the entire season mapped out, including dates of every episode, months in advance. The template doc says "OriginalAirDate; (optional) This is the date the episode first aired on TV". This does not say "scheduled date, or "probable date" or "announced date". It refers, unambiguously, to a past event. When I tried to remove or just comment out such dates, I am reverted and told that the dates are are "verifiable"  because they are "sourced". This is a absurd use of the word "verify", as it's actually impossible to verify a future event. Past events are verifiable if there are witnesses and evidence. Future events can only be predicted; you can't verify the event but only that a prediction was made. You can see one such specific argument  here. I will excerpt some of my points:

"While AT THIS MOMENT it's clear what is a future anticipated and unverified date, in a few weeks months or years it isn't. The dates can remain and the links they were sourced from are probably dead. The dates become accepted as 'fact'. This show is high profile enough that it will be corrected, but you're following a practice that encourages people to paste in scheduled events and treat them identically as historic facts. A show could be announced and some editor creates the page and list of episodes and dates, all 'verified' according to your lights. The show airs once and is cancelled. The article can remain as a 'record' of events that never happened. You're creating an unstable article knowingly, assuming that someone will come along and work out that the dates you put in are notional and clean up the mess you are making. Doesn't always work out. If the dates are left blank or commented out, at least the dates that ARE there are real no matter when you happen to be reading it."

While I am perfectly happy with scheduled dates being mentioned in the text, IMHO they should not be put in the episode tables with no way (when being read at some later date) to distinguish them from actual broadcast dates without forensic checking of when the edits were made and access to the sources cited (which often are some ephemeral news or PR release that may be dead).

I don't see any real benefit to this practice; and it creates a maintenance issue and churn for the page text. After the show has aired the laborious citations to Futon Critic or whatever are dispensed with anyway, assuming someone is actually cleaning it up, which cannot be guaranteed.

While I'd suggest to keep it simple and just leave future dates blank in such tables, alternatively if they are included, any such presumed dates should be distinguished in some way, such as being footnoted. The argument that "it's clear because they're in the future" applies ONLY if a responsible editor has indeed gone back and checked all the dates after the fact, which is far from guaranteed. Barsoomian (talk) 05:34, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * If "future" air dates have been published by a reliable source, it should be allowed on the episode list like any other sourced content. If the linked source is likely to be affected by link rot, then the editor adding the source should take measures that the link is properly archived. —Farix (t &#124; c) 11:50, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I see you have ignored all the points I made. (TL:DR?) Yeah, the source is "reliable". Great. So a cited prediction of a future event is to be treated and presented exactly the same as if it were an historic fact. Better go and change the documentation of the template to match: "OriginalAirDate; (optional)  This is the date the episode was, or is scheduled to be, first aired on TV". Barsoomian (talk) 13:06, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll also note that you appear to be attempt to forum shop, seeing that you haven't gained a consensus for your position at the episode list page. —Farix (t &#124; c) 12:35, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll note that's a quite offensive allegation. I haven't been to any other "forums" at this level. I raised this here because it's an issue that affects multiple pages using the template and I thought that people who were concerned with the template in general, how it is defined and should be used, and not just a particular article, might have some perspective. I linked to the article talk page with the previous discussion so it's not as if I was hiding anything. I see plenty of topics here that began as issues on specific articles and were continued here to consider the general case. Any given article can be corrected, if I was only concerned with the one you imagine I am, I can watch it and make sure its dates are correct when and if it airs, but no one can guarantee there will be someone doing that for every upcoming show. Barsoomian (talk) 13:06, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * A schedule cited to a reliable sources is a "fact" until it changes (providing there are reliable sources for the change). And if there are little to no expectation for the schedule to change, then it is not a problem. It seems that your real issue is with potential link rot. Again, the editors adding the sources should ensure against that by using one of the archiving services to prevent link rot. And its forum shopping because you attempted to press your point in one forum and didn't successes, so you sought another to press the exact same point. —Farix (t &#124; c) 15:23, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Something that has not happened cannot be a fact. No matter what. It certainly is not what should go in the slot described as "the date the episode first aired ", since it is not verifiable, and cannot be verified, to be that. I've explained in exhausting detail the problem and you reduce it to two words, and then dismiss it. And I'm getting more than tired of your repeatedly accusing me of some violation of etiquette for simply raising a question in this page. I didn't realise this was a private club and I needed your permission to post here. Barsoomian (talk) 16:02, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * "Something that has not happened cannot be a fact." That is not correct. A fact is information that can be verified. Since the broadcast schedules have been published in a reliable source, the information about the air dates is easily verifiable. We can verify that the 2012 Summer Olympics will occur in London between July 27 to August 12, 2012. We don't need to "wait until it happens" to confirm that it as fact, and air dates one to two months out are no different. Besides, there are few post-broadcast sources that could verify the air dates. —Farix (t &#124; c) 17:04, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The reason I'm posting ON THIS PAGE is not to have a generalised discussion about "information" or but because the template this page is supposed to be about states This is the date the episode first aired on TV. Explain how this can apply to any event that has not happened yet. My grasp of the language may be imperfect, but it looks to me as if it's in the past tense. Otherwise, your Olympic analogy is just silly. Olympic dates don't change short of world wars. TV broadcast schedules change every day. We certainly DO have to "wait till it happens" to have certainty, and verifiability, about them. Barsoomian (talk) 17:29, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Are you suggesting that the published TV schedules are NOT reliable sources? My experience is that they are. But that is a matter for WP:RSN. Your complaint about tense in the documentation is extremely minor and not worth remove verifiable information over. —Farix (t &#124; c) 18:20, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * No future event depending on human actions is a fact. No source can make it so. A reliable report of an intention only "verifies" the intention, not the fact. And the wording of the definition in the template is NOT minor. It's the whole point, which is why I cited it in the second line of first very first post I made here. The template refers to the date of a completed event. (And even if it weren't, most of the "verified" future events solemnly documented in Wikipedia are varying degrees of wishful thinking. TV scheduling is not as bad as the release date of Indiana Jones 5, but they're a long, long way from the certainty of the date of an upcoming solar eclipse.) Barsoomian (talk) 18:45, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I've noticed that some people just don't like scheduled future events. Mention in prose is awkward as hell because the episodes themselves are not given prose mention to begin with because they are lists and to prose an entire list is about 100% redundant and bad formatting. If you can read the schedule then you can get about half of the third season of White Collar right now even though it is as far as 6 weeks in advance. Many shorter run British series are announced in full well before their start date. I also just simply do not in any way at all see the template or documentation being of a strictly paste tense. I just do not see how anyone could understand it that way. The fact being reported is that the respective episode is scheduled to first be shown on said date. That is why the future episode listings are referenced. Subsequently it transitions to reporting that said episode was originally shown on said date. One thing that everyone so against listing dates seems to dismiss is how easy it is to change an article should a schedule be changed by a broadcaster due to a shooting in Arizona and a public memorial with a speech for a high ranking government official. In Canada that episode of Cougar Town was shown on 12 January as scheduled but in the USA it was held back until 19 January and on that date in Canada a repeat of a different episode was shown. Every once in a while someone comes along who doesn't like there being mention of a Canadian broadcast of an American show and they remove that. Myself or someone else reverts that edit. delirious &amp;  lost  ☯ ~hugs~ 05:06, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You don't have to put future dates in prose. I don't know why Wikipedia needs to mention them at all, beyond say the premiere. If the article is being actively edited, each episode's data can be reliably updated after the broadcast. If it isn't being maintained, at least the data that is in the table is trustworthy and isn't an outdated schedule. Barsoomian (talk) 06:17, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

When the template was first made we used names like "original air date" because it was descriptive. Mostly it had to do with the fact that it was based off of a show specific template for an anime that had two sets of air dates, one in Japan (original) and the first English language broadcast. We could have just as easily named the parameter "AirDate1". In other words, I wouldn't look for too much meaning just based on the name of the parameter and the basic descriptions we put in there. The template was meant to be extremely flexible, anyways. -- Ned Scott 19:18, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Bolded episode names
Is there a reason why the episode names in the  parameter are bolded? MOS:BOLD advises to use boldface in the article body only in a few special cases, and it doesn't list this case as an exception. --213.196.219.104 (talk) 14:54, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It gives some examples of usage, but obviously can't cover every single usage of bold out there. Episode lists are specially formatted tables, so you won't find much info about it in the manual of style, which is for general article content. One of the reasons episode lists never really bothered being included in some kind of formal manual of style entry is because the template itself enforces a consistent style. Otherwise, you'd probably see some mention on the MOS pages about episode lists.


 * If it really bothers you, use  to override the formatting and see what people think about it. Generate some discussion. -- Ned Scott 08:18, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Sortable episode table
Changing the class of an Episode list to "wikitable sortable" produces silly results, as the summary does not stay with the rest of the episode data. I was hoping it could allow the episode list to be sorted by either "EpisodeNumber1" or "EpisodeNumber2" for series with alternate running orders. Can this be made to work? Barsoomian (talk) 03:21, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It isn't possible if you want the summaries in the same table. 117Avenue (talk) 03:49, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * S-Episode list is what you are looking for. —Farix (t &#124; c) 11:42, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks, but there is absolutely no documentation for that, not even a description of what it's supposed to do. I tried replacing "Episode list" with "S-Episode list" and got a mess. (See User:Barsoomian/Sandbox/s-list) I suspect it does not support "Director" and "Writer". Barsoomian (talk) 12:36, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The sortable version of the episode list sets the width of things like airdate so they appear to line up with each other. Each episode entry is actually its own table within a row. The more cells put in the first row, the more you have to hard set the size, and the greater the chance that things will look weird if the text in a cell is too long, etc. Thus, the sortable version was kept very simple.


 * It never really got documented because not a lot of people seemed interested in it. -- Ned Scott 08:08, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Links
Is there a way to add a link variable if particular episodes of a series have specific webpages? Beyond495 (talk) 01:46, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, RTitle Barsoomian (talk) 10:47, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 8 April 2012
I'm pretty sure the last edit should be reverted. It is causing, at least on my end, the appearance of a strange "ʁ" character in several places on the transclusions. See List of The Penguins of Madagascar episodes and List of Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness episodes for examples. —Sgt. R.K. Blue (talk) 10:07, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Addition: I did try purging, but this did not remedy the situation. —Sgt. R.K. Blue (talk) 10:16, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The table looks great on the pages I originally made the request about, but I see the weird "ʁ" symbol on the pages you've mentioned. Hopefully this is just some encoding glitch and can be easily fixed without reverting the entire update, but it's definitely not just you or a "purging" issue. --- Crakkerjakk (talk) 11:24, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * This should defiantly be reverted as soon as possible, it's causing the ʁ issue on every episode list that I can see.  Я ehevkor ✉  12:12, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, it seems to break every article which transcludes Episode list/sublist, of which there are over 1000. DH85868993 (talk) 12:16, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Undid recent change. – sgeureka t•c 12:22, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Fixed Episode list/sublist and checked the other wrapper templates for Episode list and none of them are using that ʁ notation. Example from The Penguins of Madagascar is on the sublist testcases page. In order for the testcases page to work, Episode list/sublist/sandbox has to call Episode list/sandbox, not the actual Episode list template, so the sublist sandbox cannot be copy/pasted into the sublist template without changing that. I can make the change after everyone's had a chance to check out the testcase, or the admin can do it as they swap out the code. Note that both the main template and the sublist template have to be swapped out at the same time when this goes live. Cheers, — Bility (talk) 15:21, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all your work on this. --- Crakkerjakk (talk) 20:55, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, thanks for your work on this. The revised versions of the template and testcases look good. One thing to check is that the short summaries are displayed on the individual season episode lists, but not on series "master" episode lists (which transclude the individual season lists), e.g. they should be displayed on Bones (season 2), but not on List of Bones episodes. (I tried to check this myself using the sandbox versions of the templates, but ended up tying myself in knots :-) DH85868993 (talk) 10:08, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * It does work, except it adds the thick line at the bottom of each entry, which is a new change to the template. If you don't like it when you see it, we can add a switch to remove it. — Bility (talk) 10:20, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Possible need to change the template, and remove some functionality
I noticed today that there had been some rather peculiar edits to List of Friends episodes, replacing transclusions from season articles with raw tables using some formatting that, to be honest, I haven't seen used at any TV article that I've edited. Assuming that it was the work of a misguided editor, as often happens, I started restoring the article to its transcluded format, but received this message on my talk page. I don't agree that transclusion has been discouraged at the featured list discussion, unless I've read something incorrectly, but the nomination, if successful, will set precedents that we will be expected to follow. Of particular note is the non-transclusion of season article episode lists, which will result in duplication errors. Not transcluding the season episode lists really means there should be no episode lists in the season articles, which means content for individual seasons will be in at least two places, whereas at the moment all is generally in the season article and shared with the main list. The changes made to List of Friends episodes also include complicated coding that is going to be difficult to follow, especially for new editors. Some season articles simply won't need to exist. Episode list currently avoids the need for this. It also adds an enormous amount of content to the episode list article. Without any episode summaries List of Friends episodes has increased in size from 14,184 bytes on 1 March 2012, to 82,569 bytes with this edit. Also to be noted is de-bolding of episode titles, which will require changes to Episode list. I've started a discussion on this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television as well, because the changes affect WP:TV. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:27, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't forget compliance with MOS:DTT which is essential at WP:FLC these days! Cheers.  The Rambling Man (talk) 18:47, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Requested edits
At the direction of User:The Rambling Man, as the result of a discussion at Featured list candidates/List of Friends episodes/archive1 I'm posting here to advise that episode lists using this template can not meet the criteria for promotion to FA or FL status as this template is not compliant with MOS:BOLD, WP:ACCESS or WP:DTT. I have no idea how to achieve compliance, but User:The Rambling Man insists that I should fix the template. Unfortunately, requesting the changes is all I can do. Any further information should be requested from The Rambling Man, since he seems to know the exact problems. --AussieLegend (talk) 19:02, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * For complete disclosure, the template fails to meet MOS:DTT and WP:MOSBOLD. I never claimed any understanding of what is needed at WP:FAC but I certainly recommended WP:WIAFL is followed which mandates compliance with MOS.  Also, for a more fulsome understanding, AussieLegend seems to think that using this template regardless of its failings is better than using hand-crafted tables which do actually meet WP:ACCESS.  Any further information on his opinion should be sought directly from the Legend.  The Rambling Man (talk) 19:50, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I removed the edit request. I've done some tests in the sandbox, you can see the results at Template:Episode list/testcases. Before making the request again, we need to decide exactly what we're asking for, so stop being petulant. Matthewedwards : Chat  20:02, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The MOS:BOLD should be an easy fix. Replace  with   That should work right? Jay32183 (talk) 20:39, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that fixes that bit. Matthewedwards : Chat  20:53, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Why must the TopColor shading be removed? The table is easier to follow when the background color for the episode title and episode summary rows are different, especially now that the episode title is no longer bolded. 117Avenue (talk) 03:31, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It's possible that it doesn't have to be. But adding "col=row" "scope='row'" to the table coding on the articles (per WP:DTT) results in a shaded cell. If it's already shaded by the template a reader isn't going to know that. Screenreaders will probably still read it correctly, but don't take that as a guarantee because I don't have one to test it on. Matthewedwards : Chat  04:53, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry I don't follow, I don't see  on WP:DTT, do you mean  ? I'm asking that the line   remains, or is cut to  . For a fully sighted reader, the table is easier to follow when the background color for the episode title and episode summary rows are different, a screen reader doesn't care if the title row is #F2F2F2, #FFFFFF, or #7CFC00 for that matter. 117Avenue (talk) 05:44, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, Matthew means "scope="row"". I agree that the shading isn't that significant, although I have seen problems with sortable tables where the sorting arrows disappear, perhaps because of a background colour.  I don't think that's too important here because these episode list templates aren't geared up for sortability, unless I'm mistaken.  The Rambling Man (talk) 08:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I meant that. :) Matthewedwards : Chat  14:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * My workaround was even cruder than what you were thinking, 117Avenue. I did hehe! Matthewedwards :  Chat  14:22, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

So, just for clarity, do we now have both col (from the table header) and row scopes, and the ability to unbold (which was already there, using the raw field, right?)? The Rambling Man (talk) 14:33, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Bolding of episode titles
It seems fairly clear that bolding of episode titles contravenes MOS:BOLD. Is there any opposition to removing bolding from the "Title" field of the template? It's a fairly simple fix that can be quickly implemented so we may as well try to get it out of the way. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:36, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * No objections from me but before we make a change do we want to advertise it somewhere more prominently than here? I guess it needs to be more prominent than WT:TV or WT:MOSTV even. I don't know why the inactivity recently; its usually not like that but this has only heated up in the last 48 hours. Perhaps leave a note at the village pump? If we don't there's going to be a lot of people crying that we've messed up their pages without any thought to the fact that they like the titles in bold, and that we can use RTitle= if we feel so strongly about it.
 * RTitle=, incidentally, was introduced a few years ago mostly at my request because it was (A) bolding the [3] ref links when you put a reference after the title, and (B) placing the ref inside the quotemarks (the quotemarks around the titles were still bolded then, too). That was also the idea behind the show-specific sublists like Episode list/Degrassi because it was implemented there as a test case before going live on the main template. The "R" stood for both "Raw" and "Reference". It was never intended to be an alternative to Title= and I think it's funny looking through the talk page archive that people have been asking for RProdCode=, RAirdate==. to reference other items that are already "raw" or unformatted (although adding a template such as cn can mess up certain entries).
 * While we're making changes, we might as well get a couple more out of the way if there are no objections:
 * RAltTitle= gets requested every so often. There was one in in March 2008, in September 2009, and January 2011. In all the cases I've seen the alternative title (usually from a foreign broadcast) goes unreferenced or placed within the quotation marks. This change will place it outside the quotation marks.
 * Viewers= Many of the current episodes, a lot of those from the 2000s, and some from earlier give the number of viewers as the final column of the table by utilising Aux4=. By adding a named column and including it in the template's documentation more editors will be more inclined to adding the number of viewers, and |Aux4= can be freed up for one-off uses, in the same way that |Aux1= and Aux2= were originally used to list Writers and Directors.
 * Oh, I'm still trying to change the background from F2F2F2. I just realised as I was typing this that a background can't be stated (as was mentioned a few hours earlier) because changing it to FFFFFF is simply going to override the scope=row with white. But I'll have to play with that shortly. Matthewedwards : Chat  18:45, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Still can't get it for the scope=row. Someone else can try if they want but I'm gonna give up for now and keep playing with it. At least the other DTT and MOS stuff is sorted out though. Matthewedwards : Chat  19:14, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The point of this subsection was to gain consensus for a single change, since it's a relatively easy one to get out of the way. If we're going to tack on a whole pile of other parameters from the wish list we're never going to build consensus for removal of bolding. Bolding is a clear issue. Its use is not supported by MOS:BOLD so it shouldn't be used. Addition of other parameters is not clear-cut, so we shouldn't be discussing them in this section. Even the F2F2F2 issue (Screenreaders don't care about it so I'm not sure why it's a problem) doesn't have a place here. --AussieLegend (talk) 19:31, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Dang, Stick a fork in me, I'm done. Excuse me for trying to help. I didn't realise a person took ownership and controlled direction of a thread just because they'd initiated it. How antisocial of me to not know that discussions must be so rigidly structured. When you've decided what you want to do, change it yourself or find another admin. I'm through with it. Matthewedwards : Chat  20:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Nobody is taking ownership. It's just that if we expand the thread well beyond the original scope of attempting to get a single, simple change incorporated by adding new fields that weren't even under discusssion, that change is going to be lost and we'll never get it changed. --AussieLegend (talk) 04:10, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not clear to me that "bolding of episode titles contravenes MOS:BOLD". That lists several places where bold is used, including "Table headers and captions". That's how it's being used in the episode table, as a subheading for the table section on that episode. In prose, of course, it isn't bolded. It's also similar to the (allowed) use in definition lists. How about raising it at WT:MOS and ask if the current usage really is illegitimate before changing the template. Barsoomian (talk) 01:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * No, the headers are "Series No.", "Episode title", "Written by", Directed by", "Airdate", "Production code". The actual episode title isn't a header, just like the entries "53", "Steve Zuckerman", "Shana Goldberg-Meehan & Scott Silveri", "January 1, 2012" are not headers or subheaders. That's why they're not bolded, and if you look through the talk page archives you can see that it was bolded for visual effect to highlight the episode name. Matthewedwards : Chat  02:48, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think we all know what a header row is. The point is that the title of the episode is, in effect, the heading of the section of the table about that episode. If you were doing it as text, it would be the first line, a heading, and headings are bold. But in the table, it's not on a line by itself, similar to the use of bold in definition lists. This use is not much different from other allowed uses of bold. And of course it was done to "highlight the episode name". Why else do you use bold? And why is it wrong to do that? Barsoomian (talk) 04:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * No, the episode title is nnt the heading of the section of the table about that episode. It's a data element of a list. The main data elements in Arnold Schwarzenegger filmography are the films, but they're not bolded as if they're heading a section. The main data elements in List of helicopter prison escapes are the escapees, but they're not bolded. The interstate name is the primary data element in List of Interstate Highways in Texas but they're not bolded or highlighted so you can find it easier.
 * List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Hertfordshire, List of islands of Scotland, List of culinary nuts, List of cities and towns in California, List of current sovereign monarchs -- none of them highlight any data elements using bold type (or any other style for that matter) to make obvious what the most important data element is. Even WP:DISCOGS, a project who were having an incredibly hard time adjusting and coping with MOS:DTT no longer bold their albums or singles titles (compare the earlier written Kaiser Chiefs discography with the more recent Kelly Rowland discography or Jennifer Lopez discography.
 * To compare episode list to another table where the data is presented over two lines, then List of International Space Station spacewalks and List of spacewalks and moonwalks 1965–1999 do that, but again, there's no bolding.
 * Anyways, I don't really know what it is you mean by "if you were doing it as text, it would be the first line, a heading, and headings are bold". If you're referring to the format of an article's first sentence, the episode titles are bolded because it is also the title of the article; if that's not what you mean you're going to have to explain. MOS:BOLD is explicit in what is allowed to be bold. Table headers are allowed, but a header is at the head (top) of a table to define the data, it isn't the content or data itself. The episode title is the data. You're right that lists of definitions are allowed to be bolded, but an episode title isn't a definiendum. From List of Glee episodes, "Saturday Night Glee-ver" is not a definiendum, and the episode numbers, director, writers, airdate and viewing figures are not the episode's definiens, so the comparison is not analogous. The other two cases that are allowed to be in bold type are mathematical objects and volume numbers of journals, and I would hope we can agree that episode titles are neither of these.
 * Don't forget that this template was written six years ago when there wasn't as much concern about using boldface for emphasis. But things change, and after 6 years there is the growing realisation that the titles don't need to be emphasised after all, and certainly shouldn't be by using boldface. Matthewedwards : Chat  05:41, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep, what Matthew said. For what it's worth, I'm certainly in favour of removing the bold text (it's particularly jarring when it's a bold link when an episode has its own article).  That's a step in the right direction.  The Rambling Man (talk) 06:50, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Nope. I'm still not seeing how this would make an article better. Quite the opposite. This proposal is a pedantic application of a rule that was designed first and foremost for prose, not tables, and would make episode tables less legible. The cases already allowed for are analogous and should be extended to explicitly cover this case. Can someone say WHY they want to remove the bold titles  -- and don't just cite the Holy Writ. The argument "It was done six years ago, when people didn't know better" doesn't convince either. Barsoomian (talk) 07:45, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Quite the opposite, it's far from a pedantic application of a rule. There's no reason to have bold titles (and even worse, bold links) at all.  Not one good reason.  Why would a reader need to have the title of an episode "highlighted"?  Why?  Do you think they can't quite see that particular column?  Did they suddenly lose track of what they were looking at by column two of the table?  I'm sure there's a plethora of good reasoning but we have a MOS for a reason, for consistent presentation.  Just because you don't like it, it doesn't mean we shouldn't follow it where possible.  The Rambling Man (talk) 07:55, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Why would a reader need to have the title of an episode "highlighted"? I don't know, I guess the people who did it were just idiots who got carried away by the technology and couldn't help themselves. We're lucky they didn't use . Or maybe they thought it helped the reader to navigate the table more easily. As I said, MOS comes out of prose, not tables. To apply the same rules for non-linear arrangements is not sensible. Anyway, in prose, you have a hierarchy of headlines that use bold to highlight headings, for exactly the same reason as you would highlight each episode name.  By your logic we would do away with all formatting for headlines. Whydowehavesapcesbetweenword?whydowehavecapitalisation?orpunctuation  People can work it out  even if it's sdrawkcab. So let's just do away with all that unnecessary formatting. And don't throw IDONTLIKEIT at me. It cuts both ways. Obviously I don't like your proposal. And you don't like bold in tables. Barsoomian (talk) 10:04, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The point being we have a clear mandate not to use bold for emphasis and certainly not to have bold links in our articles. It's nothing to do with me not liking it, it's to do with complying with our manual of style.  MOS applies to articles, not just prose (why else would we have MOS:DTT for example?)  Your arguments, while amusing to an extent, don't really satisfy the question, i.e. why would one particular column of a table need to contain bold (or worse, bold linked) titles?   By the way, I do like bold in tables, in the headers as described by WP:MOSBOLD.  It's just you that doesn't like the idea of removing the unnecessary bold.  The Rambling Man (talk) 10:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * No you don't have a "clear mandate". You may be able to push it through if no one notices, but it's not open and shut. The bold isn't to highlight a "column", it's to highlight the episode title. Thus it is a pointer to information about that episode. Exactly the same function as if it were a heading followed by a paragraph of text. In fact I often come across articles with episode lists formatted as headings and paragraphs, and if the mood takes me, I reformat it using the Episode list template. I may not bother to do that if it would become a grey block of undifferentiated text. Barsoomian (talk) 12:12, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, we do have a clear mandate, it's the Manual of Style. And I'm not pushing anything through.  You may not have noticed but we're having a discussion here about this.  Highlighting one column of text makes no sense, why would a reader need to have something unnecessarily bold?  We don't use bold for emphasis on Wikipedia, remember?  If you couldn't be bothered to roll out a template which currently makes list articles fail to meet MOS, that might not be such a bad thing.  The Rambling Man (talk) 12:32, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * -- deleted misplaced comment -- [User:Barsoomian|Barsoomian]] (talk) 12:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * "We don't use bold for emphasis"????? So next you'll go and redefine all the heading definitions then. Look, I KNOW what "emphasis" means. I never bold text in normal prose for emphasis. A table divided into many subsections is not normal prose. A "bold" episode title is the exact equivalent of a heading in a page of prose. And n Wikipedia, headings ARE bold. But I can see by your dismissive tone and the way you ignore what I actually say that I'm wasting my time with you here. Barsoomian (talk) 13:04, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Who said "dumbing down a template"? Are you reading a different discussion from me?  I'd like the entries in the table to be consistently presented in line with our MoS and I still haven't worked out quite why these bold titles (and bold linked titles) are helpful to the reader?  MOS:BOLD is straightforward enough to follow.  Where does it say that it only applies to prose?  A bold episode title is clearly not the exact equivalent of a heading in a page when the episode title is tucked into the midst of a table.  But this is now in WP:LAME territory, always a pity.  P.S. I'm pretty chilled out but I certainly think your "WTF" is entirely uncalled for in this discussion. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:46, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The "dumbing down" bit responded to a post above. An edit conflict made me lose my place when I pasted it back, I've deleted it. Otherwise, if all titles are bold, that's consistent.  Reading MOS it clearly is mostly about prose. The only specific "Contraindications" are "Use italics, not boldface, for emphasis in article text." The specified  exceptions are mostly tables and lists. And "A bold episode title is clearly not the exact equivalent of a heading " -- I can only say -- no, it's not "clear". They are functionally the same. Compare this version of an episode list, originally as headings and text, with the list template version. Note what were the episode titles, level 3 heads, bold, are now elements in the table, for the moment, also bold.  As for you declaring my argument WP:LAME ... that is insulting and not "chill" at all.  Barsoomian (talk) 18:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you are reading a different debate. I didn't declare "your argument" as LAME, I said "this is now in LAME territory".  You really need to read carefully what I'm writing and take care when you edit pages, hurling insults at me like WTF really isn't sporting.  As for "Reading MOS it clearly is mostly about prose", that's genuinely funny.  Could you point out to me where it says "this does not apply to tables"?  Of course, in MOSBOLD, it clearly mentions tables, and says the "headings" could be bold, but nothing else.  So are we agreed on that? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Of course I read the MOS section. I stand by my interpretation of its broad intent. I've explained my reasoning several times. You want a flashing neon sign, saying "TV episode titles in Episode lists may be bold", no it isn't there. I never said it was. And your intent with your "lame" remark was even more obvious, though careful to avoid violating WP:CIVIL. The "genuinely funny" quip is yet another putdown, implying that I can't read a paragraph of text correctly -- where the "correct" reading is of course the excessively literal way that you do. And thanks, but I'll pass on taking advice from you on how to edit. I'm also getting tired at your carping on about a misplaced comment that was deleted shortly after it was posted. As you yourself noted  "Are you reading a different discussion from me?" Yet you persist in insisting it was directed at you. Please either drop it, or take it to WP:ANI, or have your seconds call on me if you want satisfaction. Barsoomian (talk) 09:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * "Seconds"? How odd.  Anyway.  Your interpretation of the MOS is unique, and until you can show me it doesn't apply to the content of tables, (note, tables, not just television episode lists), I'm afraid you're very much on your own. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)


 * You are aware, aren't you, that the List of epsiode tables is the only such set of tables that put the main data element in bold? If I'm wrong, then please show me. What about anything I said before, other than "Nope. I'm still not seeing how this would make an article better."? Are all other lists doing it wrong then? Do you really find every other single table on Wikipedia illegible? I really doubt that otherwise surely you'd have gone around making all the data in tables bold. Why are you so insistent on it being that way for episode tables only? Why does the episode title have to be highlighted? Do you think that our readers are so dumb that in a table of 24 episodes they find it difficult to find the named column of episode titles, look down it and find the episode they're looking for? Perhaps it's just you that has a hard time doing that, because so far you're the only one who has spoken against it. Removing the boldface doesn't make the table a "grey block of undifferentiated text". The template still allows for shaded lines and headers, still has 1px vertical and horizontal lines to separate each cell, still had headers to differentiate the different columns. The typeface is still black on white when it is bold, so it's still grey. What's your point here?
 * Did you read any of the links I provided you with? "A 'bold' episode title is the exact equivalent of a heading in a page of prose" appears that you didn't, or you just don't get it. First off, it's not a heading in a page of prose, it's the Lede sentence. Second, it's bolded because it just happens to also be the title of the article. If an article title was The appearances of Det. John Munch outside the Law & Order franchise, that is descriptive and wouldn't get bolded in the "heading in the page of prose". It's rather funny that you quote the MOS when you want to convince us that episode titles are headers or definitions and so should be allowed to be bold, but when we refute that you call it the "holy writ" that is "pettifogging misapplication of a rule" and "applies only to prose", and wave it away with the back of your hand. Matthewedwards : Chat  15:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Who was advocating changing other kinds of table? Not me. Who was talking about the lede? Not me. You haven't "refuted" anything I actually said. You've just made up a collection of straw man arguments to pillory me with. Barsoomian (talk) 18:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Ok i have roughly ready most of this, personal i think the bolding of titles is acutalyl better it makes it easier to read. the question isnt what MOS says (not personally read it just taking the word of other editors here) but does it really affect a reader ability does it hinder or does it improve. This wont be easy to determine. as i say for me personal it makes it easier since i m dsylexic. A pool of general readers of the types pages in question would be better to determine what is best. As i say this is my opinion sincea wider editor review has been asked for i am inputing but i aint going to vote either way i am neutral.-- Andrewcrawford ( talk  -  contrib ) 17:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC) "Boldface (text like this) is common in Wikipedia articles, but only for certain usages. Use boldface in the remainder of the article only in a few special cases: "Only in a few special cases" seems pretty clear. As the episode title is a data row, and not a header or a caption, it's not one of those "few special cases". --AussieLegend (talk) 18:41, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Right, so you offer an opinion on the MOS but haven't read it? With your argument that bolding makes things easier to read, we should probably bold all text in all articles, right?  The Rambling Man (talk) 17:05, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Did i say that??? no i say it makes it easier to read the titles as generaly that why i go to a lsit of xxxx episode to find out about the episodes not neccessariyl the summaary. YOu seem to be missing one main point, MOS is for guideance but isnt always right, as editors we should try to comply to MOS where possibler but if MOS for some reasons makes a article worse then as editors we must not follow the MOS strictly to the tee, but MOS for any subject can not cover it completely as there always going to be exemption article where MOS doesnt fit right and if you strictly follow MOS you get a article that is hard to read or doesnt cover the topic right. Oh i dnt need to read the MOS on BOLD to give a opinion or a non biased viewed im so to say a outsider to the discussion with no preference either way(oh being dsylexic makes readinga pain ;))-- Andrewcrawford  ( talk  -  contrib ) 17:35, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * You said "it makes it easier" when text is in bold. MOS is what we mandate for featured material, so if the consensus in this project is to not comply with MOS then I suppose that's fine, but it's a shame because it means that nothing from this project will ever become featured, and in due course, everything that is featured will be de-featured.  That may not be a priority for some, but if a project isn't working to make Wikipedia's finest articles, I don't really know what justifies that project's existence.  You're right to say you can give an opinion without reading MOS but the point is that we should all be striving for excellence and consistency across all articles in Wikipedia, and MOS helps us with that because it tells us how to format our articles.  This template seems unique that it decides to make one column of a list bold without any kind of justification.  I imagine that being dyslexic does make reading a pain, and I wish we could make Wikipedia better for that. Part of this discussion was to make the episode lists accessible to screen readers for those who are blind or have issues with sight.  It's all part of the same effort to make sure Wikipedia's articles are top notch and accessible to all.  The Rambling Man (talk) 17:44, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem is you cant cater for everyone, that why i think the best way forward is a poll for reader of these type article to vote on what they prefer bold titles or none bold title, that the best way to reach the conesus, yes MOS is what wikipedia community should strive to achive BUT and big BUT it doesnt fit all article and if the community decides that MOS for bolding doesnt fit MOS for TV then it can be overuled, there is tons of MOS out there that conflict with each other, the problem is always deicdeing what should be high pirioty. im not sayng bold of title shoudl stay that not for me to deicded but we needa wder reach to deicde the best way forward. as for feature articles, if editors where to go with mos that applies to all features article no feature article would pass because it would fail on one of the many mos that applies to it-- Andrewcrawford ( talk  -  contrib ) 17:56, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Of course, you can't please all the people all the time, but at WP:FLC for instance, part of our criteria for promotion is compliance with all aspects of MOS. There's still been no good reason why one particular column should be in bold.  Naturally, if this project opts for bold titles, then that's fine, but that would preclude any article from this project becoming featured.  That's fine too as long as the contributors here are satisfied with that.  I will be looking closely at all current featured lists of television episodes and advocating the delisting of those who no longer meet our criteria.  The Rambling Man (talk) 18:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * you seem to be taking it abit personally, the articles will meet the critea for featured list, as they will be meeting mos for television articles. if you want to demote the current feaatured list then i suggest you bring up every article that is featured and review them for all MOS that applies to it and you will fidn thy fail at least one MOS-- Andrewcrawford ( talk  -  contrib ) 18:08, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * No, not at all, it's not personal in the slightest. Articles that fail to meet MOS will fail to meet the criteria for featured lists.  The "MOS for television articles" is entirely irrelevant if it doesn't match the site-wide MOS.  And yes, if any FL fails MOS then it should be corrected, in some cases that needs to be via WP:FLRC, thanks for your suggestion!  The Rambling Man (talk) 18:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It's YOUR OPINION that it violates MOS. I've read it. It's not at all clear that it does. And you really want to screw up thousands of articles so some editors can collect a gold star for a "featured list"? When editors focused on scoring "featured articles" move in, it's time to take that article off my watch list, because they'll make it impossible for anyone else to work on. Barsoomian (talk) 18:22, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, firstly, not sure why you're shouting, and secondly, how would removing bold text in line with WP:MOS "screw up thousand of articles"? Wild and utterly unfounded accusation. And why did you screech "WTF" at me?  Perhaps you're becoming too emotionally involved here. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:32, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * "Shouting"? Sorry, I forgot, any form of emphasis in text is apparently against your religion. It will screw up every article that uses the template if you go ahead with this proposal. (By which of course I exercise dramatic licence, but you'll certainly make them harder to read and use.) I'm pretty sure that amounts to several thousand, if you have a precise figure I'd be happy to correct it. Barsoomian (talk) 09:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * What does the MoS actually say?
 * Table headers and captions"
 * Well, again, we have all read that. Since you're repeating yourself, I will too : the Episode title is functionally a subheading, and headings are generally bold. Barsoomian (talk) 09:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not repeating myself since I haven't said it before. The episode title is not a subheading, functionally or otherwise, it's simply a data field in one of two rows allocated to most episodes. The most significant field in the row containing the episode title is EpisodeNumber, as I've demonstrated below. --AussieLegend (talk) 22:24, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Just to remind everybody, this is a table: It has a a series of columns with data rows below it. The data is not normally bolded. Sometimes there may be a reason to bold the main field in a row such as in the following table: The primary field in each row is the left-most field, not the second, third or fourth, but what are we effectively doing with this template? As the left-most field, EpisodeNumber is the primary field, not Title. If we link to episodes it's in the form " <Title> ", not to " <Title> ". Readers are certainly interested in titles, but they're also interested in writers, directors, air dates, ratings and so on. Yet, for some reason we bold episode titles over the other "interesting" fields, even when some programs don't have defined episode titles, such as Primeval and Top Gear, and more don't actually show the episode title in the episode itself. There's really nothing to be lost from de-bolding. For those who want attention drawn to the title, we already have that, in the form of quotation marks. We don't need both quotation marks and bolding, and MOS says we shouldn't. --AussieLegend (talk) 18:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * "For some reason"? When there are articles about significant episode, what are they named -- the number" The date? The director? When an episode is discussed, how is it referred to? "nothing to be lost"? Only readability, usability and navigability. Barsoomian (talk) 09:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Prove what you're claiming, how does it lose "readability" (if that column's bold, why not make them all bold?), "usability" (nonsense, it's text, it's usable), and "navigability" (really, I'm lost here, is how does bold text help a normal reader navigate? is it like "oh, wow, bold text, that must be the episode title?"  isn't that what bold column headers are for?) The Rambling Man (talk) 09:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)


 * We're not talking about articles on individual episodes, we're taking about articles on the entire season. The choice of names for episode articles is a purely practical consideration. Imagine the disambiguation pages if we named episode articles based on the "Episode No. <#> (<TV series name>)" format. Please explain how readability, usability or navigability could be lost simply by unbolding the episode title. To make it easy, I'll disprove the last one now: It won't. When we navigate "to" an episode entry in an episode table we link to the "EpisodeNumber" field, not the "Title" field. For example, Episode 5 of season 2 in List of Primeval episodes is linked to by List of Primeval episodes, not List of Primeval episodes, which is just as well because there are six episodes called "Episode 5" in that list. --AussieLegend (talk) 22:44, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

 * We don't need to unnecessarily bold one column, full stop. Cheers for your clarification.  By the way, whatever has happened in the past is no guide to the future, obviously!!  (and we use "plainrowheaders" in the markup to avoid failing to meet MOS just in case anyone was wondering)... The Rambling Man (talk) 18:35, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I have always foudn teh qutotion marks more annoying, but you havea point you only need one to draw attention. Can anyone find old talk that might shed light on why it was done, i will support removing the bolding since quotation are there, but it be nice to get aidea why it was done and discuss why that was done and see if it is valid if it was unvalid reasons then ther ewill be clear conesus to remove bolding-- Andrewcrawford ( talk  -  contrib ) 19:25, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Well removing the bold is just implementing WP:MOS, it doesn't really need a consensus here to not do that. Or, you can try to change MOS, but that debate is not for here, it's for elsewhere. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:27, 2 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi, Andrew. I wanted to reply earlier but ended up getting distracted in RL and couldn't until now. You asked if anyone can find old talk that would shed light on why episode titles were bolded. I think it's just that no one considered it to be bad back then, because there was no clear instruction or guidance on whether it was good or bad.
 * episode list was created six years ago, and earlier in the thread I said, "But things change, and after 6 years there is the growing realisation that the titles don't need to be emphasised after all." to which Barsoomian responded, "The argument 'It was done six years ago, when people didn't know better' doesn't convince either."
 * But This was the MOS immediately before the template was created, the line that referred to boldface outside of the title in the Lede sentence was "Consider the legibility of what you are writing. Make your entry easy to read on a screen. Make judicious use of devices such as bulleted lists and bolding. For more on this, see "How Users Read on the Web"."
 * Meanwhile, this was the version of "WP:MOS (Text formatting)" immediately before the creation of the template. It consists of one sentence, "The following are proposed guidelines regarding the use of various style devices to show emphasis:" (emphasis added by me) and six bullet points, the two that are relevant are "The use of bold is discouraged for emphasis since it is reserved for headings, subheadings, and article names. Bold is also used in biographies for the person's name and alternate versions of the person's name." and "Avoid double emphasis such as "italics" and quotation marks, or italics and an exclamation point."
 * There was no clear consensus or instruction about when bolding can be used or whether its use in tables is allowed, unlike today, where we are told by the MOS explicitly what can and cannot be bolded. Perhaps the editors then though that they were being judicious in bolding episode titles in tables because there was nothing that really said they could or couldn't do it.
 * Back then there were only a small handful of editors who were really interested in writing and maintaining these episode lists, so I suspect they innocently introduced the boldface. Looking through the page histories of the articles mentioned below, they are all in boldface even before the creation of the template, so I think the template just carried it over.
 * Episode list was based off of what was then Digimon episode (now expanded and redirected to Japanese episode list). User:Ned Scott created the Digimon template on 21 March 2006, and the usage instructions just say that the template will auto boldface and auto quotemark. It looks like the first edit he made to it he just included boldface in it.
 * This template was created on 10 May 2006 as a test, Ned then copied over the Digimon code three days later and then people began making adjustments so it was more generic. The thing is, some of the first pages to use the template were List of Lost episodes, List of The Sopranos episodes, List of South Park episodes, List of Meerkat Manor episodes, and List of Degrassi: The Next Generation episodes, which all became Featured Lists soon after they used the template. Other episodes lists started catching on and using the template more and more, until it took over and there are fewer and fewer articles that don't use it now.
 * From what I can see there has never been any discussion about the boldface of episode titles, It's just that it was done before there was any real MOS guidance about boldface, and by the time there were any discussions (minor dicussions), the template was so prolifically used with so few editors who understood exactly how the template worked that it has never been properly addressed aside from a few comments here and there. I think List of Friends episodes is one of the first, if not the first episode list to be brought to WP:FLC since the introduction of WP:DTT and MOS instruction related to it. Because FLs are supposed to follow the MOS, this is the first time there has been any in depth thought or discussion into it. The Rambling Man is right that removing it is simply complying with the MOS. The MOS has already been written via consensus, so there's no need to find consensus from a little tiny corner of the site to do it again. What I said at the beginning of this discussion was that we should "advertise we are making the change" out of courtesy so that no one is surprised when it happens. I can't believe there's been so much resistance to it and so much discussion. AussieLegend has a point when he said to keep the discussion only about Boldface and not about extra input options for the template! lol!
 * And speaking of the Friends episode list, and the recent edits that have been going on there, Ned said soon after he created the template, "The template looks fine, works great, but I understand if you don't wish to use it for a list that's already generated or doesn't plan on making any changes." and "our WikiProject isn't to enforce how people generate the table. Rather, the template is just a tool." I know he has no say over what does or doesn't happen with it just because he created it, but he is right, if there's an article that doesn't use the template, that's okay, it doesn't have to. The Project certainly cannot say "YOU MUST USE THE TEMPLATE!", it was just to start and improve a standardized appearance, but if that appearance can be achieved without the template, it's perfectly okay. Matthewedwards : Chat  06:20, 3 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks matthew for the history, in that case since there was no real reason for it other than that was how list where being display and MOS for bolding wasnt in place then i say it has to be remove to conform with MOS, although i still perosnal perfer it i agreee MOS is important, but shouldnt this discussion also be carried over to jpaense episode list as it will need ot be changed to-- Andrewcrawford ( talk  -  contrib ) 08:19, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Another venue...
It would appear this discussion has moved to another venue, please find it here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

So far/What now?
There has been no further discussion on this page about keeping or removing the boldface formatting of the episode titles since three days ago. The attempt to gain input from editors familiar and experienced with the MOS at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style resulted in nothing but a change of venue for the arguments, and a grand total of 0 helpful or insightful comments from the MOS regulars. Messages have also been left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television and have had no reaction from those venues either.

From the many discussions in many locations between me (User:Matthewedwards), User:The Rambling Man, User:Barsoomian, User:Andrewcrawford and User:AussieLegend, my observations at this point are that only User:Barsoomian is of the view that either the MoS doesn't apply or should be ignored, consensus to keep the titles in boldface has been achieved through the fact that there has been no previous attempts or discussion to change it, and the episode titles should remain boldface. The other four editors feel that episode titles are not table headers, that MoS should be applied and not ignored, and that consensus to not make them bold has been achieved in the various places, notably the pertaining edits to the MoS and subpages, general site-wide acceptability of the MoS, which overrrides the seemingly lack of interest from those who would likely be expected to be interested: editors from WP:TV.

So at the risk of opening up the discussion again, where do we go from here? It seems like we have a few options:
 * Let the discussion remain open, even though nobody else either (a) appears to be interested, (b) wants to get involved, or (c) wants to get caught up in the many verbose discussions?
 * Close the book on this and try again at a later date?
 * Cap the discussions to prevent further arguments and conduct some type of straw poll for a few days?
 * Cap the discussions to prevent further arguments and formally ask for outside input such as from WP:Third opinion
 * Make a simple edit request for an admin to make the necessary edit (both the Rambling Man and I are admins but IMO it's not a good idea for either of us to do it) Matthewedwards : Chat  00:00, 6 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I would suggest cap the discussion and looking for a third opinion maybe look at formal mediation which will involve other editors as well and try get a wider conesus on what to do and so to say geta formal vote on whether to keep or remove the bold facing-- Andrewcrawford ( talk  -  contrib ) 08:14, 6 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I concur with Matthewedwards' assessment. As for where to go from here, most discussions run for at least 7 days, and I can't see why this can't run for that time as it's already 5 days. Consensus doesn't have to be unanimous agreement; if there are no further dissenters in the next two days I feel we can safely say that we have consensus to change based on the arguments. At that time we can request an admin make the necessary edit. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:00, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I was thinking we should move forward along those lines, too. Matthewedwards : Chat  16:16, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

So it's been over 7 days since the discussion about boldface and scopes began. It's after midnight for me now, and I probably won't be here tomorrow, but there's been no further objections so we can probably ask for an uninvolved admin to edit the template to address these issues.

The line that needs changing is

the new line should be

If someone can add the edit request template at some point tomorrow we can finally get these issues out of the way. Matthewedwards (talk · contribs) 07:14, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

As per Matthewedwards' post immediately above, it has now been 7 days since consensus to make changes to the template was sought, and 10 days since the issue was first raised. With only one disssenter, who has not posted further, the majority of editors seem happy with the changes. Accordingly, it is requested that an uninvolved admin make the changes outlined by Matthewedwards; specifically, change:

to


 * --AussieLegend (talk) 15:57, 8 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Edit change made. I copied and pasted the above, so if it could be verified that nothing broke on that, that would be helpful. --M ASEM (t) 18:05, 8 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm terribly sorry to arrive here so late, but I feel I ought to point out a problem with the suggested change. The HTML5 specification does not support  as an attribute for the   tag, only as an attribute for the   tag. If you make the change suggested above, then at some point in the future, somebody is going to have to change the tags again, and I'd rather not see us leave that legacy for others to have to search for. You'll see that WP:DTT clearly indicates the use of , which produces   when marking up the row headers. The specification has changed from HTML4 because it was recognised that some data cells do serve an auxiliary function as 'row headers', and the W3C dictated that such data cells should be marked up by TH in the HTML. I understand that that lends some weight to Barsoomian's argument, but both sides have some validity: certain key pieces of data do have a semantic value beyond simple data; nevertheless, we are not obliged to render all headers in bold-face. You only have to observe that second level headers are not bold by default in monobook. The class "plainrowheaders" was created to allow such cells to be rendered as normal weight (and left-aligned since th also centres the data by default). I'd recommend that the changes need to be:


 * Unfortunately that will require a change to the header for every table where it is implemented to insert the plainrowheaders class - a quite substantial task, which is why many similar templates tend to also use a "first row" template that opens the table and sets up the required headers from parameters as well. The relevant part of the documentation should read:

{|class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="width:100%; margin:auto; background:#FFF; table-layout:fixed;" ! scope="col" style="width:3em;" | No. ! scope="col" | Title ! scope="col" style="width:12em;" | Original air date ! scope="col" style="width:12em;" | Production code
 * i.e. add plainrowheaders and remove the extra table row (TR) that comes from the superfluous "|-" at the end of the current documentation. I don't have a simple solution for what needs to be done. You can either implement scope on a data cell, effectively violating DTT and leaving a problem for later, or go through every article updating it to plainrowheaders. --RexxS (talk) 18:51, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * A bot can easily do this. Find all pages that use this template in mainspace, find the wiki table lead, and make said changes.  Heck, a user with AWB could do that, if they're willing to work through ~5000 articles, but I'd recommend the bot instead. --M ASEM  (t) 18:56, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Well god bless HTML5, about time too. So we now have a whole new set of issues to confront.  If RexxS is able to keep pointing us in the right direction, and if the community are still committed to getting this template improved, I'd say let's talk more and get the fixes properly implemented. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:12, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Unfortnalyl Rexxs is right and wrong, currently the draft html5 says scope will not be part of td but it is only draft it is by no means finalised and properly wont be few another year or two, that is why there no html5 verifyier as the code that is acceptable can change ever month so one month it is fine next it isnt, but i agree we should make it html5 complaiant-- Andrewcrawford ( talk  -  contrib ) 19:20, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll go with whatever RexxS says, he seems to be the expert on this around these parts. When I was reading WP:DTT it linked to http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20081211/H63.html which says to put the scope=row markup in the TD tag. Matthewedwards (talk · contribs) 19:52, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, H63 gives an example of scope on TD, but it dates from 2008. The W3C seem to want us to move to only scoping TH in future, as the draft HTML5 spec has been consistent on that point for over a year now. That's not to say that it's inevitable, but I reckon it's smarter to anticipate likely changes and save somebody some grief in the future. The present change that Masem kindly implemented will work for quite some time, but I'd still suggest that putting the "plainrowheaders" class into the first line of the table from now on will allow us to change TD to TH later on more easily. --RexxS (talk) 20:15, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, well I have all 5106 pages that transclude the template loaded into AWB. I haven't used it for a while, but I'll go through as many as I can until I die of boredom. :) Are there any other issues that may arise from changing the TD tags to TH in the template? Matthewedwards (talk · contribs) 20:34, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Semantically TH is a rather different element from TD, but when we apply scope="row" we are distinguishing those cells from the others in that row anyway. The effect is that virtually all screen readers will recognise that cell and allow the listener to hear it with a data cell if required. So the screen reader might announce "46", "Original air date", "May 2, 1996" when navigating down the column of air dates. That's exactly what we want to make available and should cause no issues. Visually, it's a different story, because TH in a wikitable renders the contents as bold, centred, and with a slightly darker background. However, the plainrowheaders class when applied to the table renders the contents of TH cells with scope="row" as left-aligned and normal (non-bold) weight. So if the 'TD scope="row"' markup is changed to 'TH scope="row"' with plainrowheaders applied to the table, then the contents will end up as left-aligned with normal weight (with a slightly darker background) by default, but of course some tables have those properties overridden - another good reason to stick to the defaults for wikitables wherever possible. Sorry I didn't notice your question earlier, Matthew - if you ever need to get a response from me quickly, my wikpedia email is enabled and linked to my mobile phone that alerts me when a mail arrives. Thanks for all your hard work on this issue - I know the visually impaired don't make up a large percentage of our visitors, but the work you're doing will give a much nicer experience for most of them, and that makes it worthwhile. --RexxS (talk) 00:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

As someone who frequently visits the television pages on Wikipedia, I have to say I am disappointed with the de- bolding edits. I disagree that they are not sub headers. As the articles are 'list of x episodes,' that make the idividual episodes that most important part of the article. Each episode name is an idividual work of media and the episodes -which are represented by their tile- are what forms a season. Air dates, writers, directors and viewers etc are less important to the pages main subject. The articles aren't called 'list of x episode directors'. I'm not really sure how to word that well. Say the article is 'Lost (season 1)'. "Pilot (Part 1)" is an individual piece of media that forms the season and the article tile in question. All of the other information is then regarding that specific episode. Then on the ' list of lost episodes, "Pilot" is an episode of lost. The writer of that episode is not an episode itself. Also now that the episodes are not bold, a new method of listing alternate titles need to be found. It now just lists multiple titles without emphasising the official title.SmallHill (talk) 11:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I disagree alt titles are still very much easy to identify as alt titles have always been on the bottom, removing bolding does not prevent it being identifble just jsut stops it standing out so much, please explin why you think they are sub headers??? and why did you not get invovled in the discussion befor enow? -- Andrewcrawford ( talk  -  contrib ) 13:02, 14 May 2012
 * It's ok for editors to involve themselves at any stage of a discussion, so it's best, Andrew, not to dwell on that. It is perfectly possible for the titles (or even the unique episode numbers) to be considered either as a kind of header (a "row header", if you will), or as a normal piece of data - looking at each row as an entry in a database, for example. Neither view is "right" or "wrong". It's a bit like light behaving as a particle or as a wave; it's just depends on how you're looking at it. So please, don't get too worked up over the issue. Let as many people as possible have their say in how they want the episode tables to look and then reach a consensus. You've done all the hard work in marking up the tables to help the visually-impaired, and whatever decision you come to on how you want the tables to be presented to the normally-sighted viewer, we can produce a solution in css or wiki-markup that will deliver that. Personally, I like the non-bold titles better, mainly because they are often linked to single episode articles and I generally dislike bold links. But you need to ask the question of the related wikiprojects and let folks debate until a solution that everybody can live with emerges. Remember, there's no deadline! --RexxS (talk) 15:33, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
 * i thought i had signed it earlier apogolise if i didnt, if you read it i acutalyl prefer it to be bold as it helps me but MOS means it shouldnt be, episode title is data, only in the LIst of xxx episode could a arguement be made the epsidoe titles are subheaders and not just data. im not getting worked up over the late post just wonder why come into it later and not post during the time leading it up to git getting removed but i have still to see arguem,ent that the epsidoe titel is really is a sub header and not data, as i say my personal perference is for it to be bold but i want articles to confirm with mos and accessable to as many peopel as possible-- Andrewcrawford ( talk  -  contrib ) 16:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)


 * SmallHill, of all the lists that exist on Wikipedia, episode lists were the only ones that consistently violated the MOS by bolding elements of the table. Look at any other list on the site. In each table there will be one main element and all the other elements along the row are relevant to that one only, but none are boldfaced. Look at a sports result table for runners or something. There is a rank or finishing position column, a nationality column, the name of the runner, the time he finished the race. But the runner's name is not bolded. Matthewedwards (talk · contribs) 07:16, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Airdates
I am jsut wondering other editors opinions on potential altering the template to include airdates for other coutnries, there is quitea few amended templates for this type of things already one that comes to mind is list of iron man armoured adventures. What i proprose would be different to that template.

Basically it would involve having the parameters |USAOriginalAirDate, |UKOriginalAirDate, |CanadaOriginalAirDate, |IrelandOriginalAirDate, |AustralianORiginalAirDate, |NewZealandOriginalAirDate. Not sure there is any other promite english speaking countries that air stuff before america but if there is might be idea to add those. how it would be displayed would be as follow.

Americanairdate CanadianAirdate UKairdate Irishairdate Australianairdate newzealndairdate

The reason i am proposing this is i see quite a lot of the time articles getting edited where antoehr english speaking coutnry airdate is there and removed to add only the american so givinga false impression of original airdate so by having the extra field hopefully people willrespecthe other airdates and leave them and add the american one when known. also not sure it be possible but maybe those airdates would be displayed as worldwide airdates, and original airdate would bea auto matic colum that works out the airdate of the first one from the toher paramters set and displays the airdate of the original with the ocuntry, as i say thoughts?-- Andrewcrawford ( talk  -  contrib ) 15:11, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen two different airdates on too many pages and I've never seen an entire column of airdates removed. I know that List of Degrassi: The Next Generation episodes (which I've been upkeeping) has two columns for airdates. The reason I did that was that although it is a Canadian show it has a high US audience, sometimes even higher viewing figures in the US than in Canada, even though it's on a national broadcast channel there and a little cable sister channel of Nickelodeon in the US. Some episodes also aired in the US before they did in Canada.
 * Other lists do it other different ways, such as List of Law & Order: UK episodes, which gives the British airdate and either the Canadian or US airdate underneath in the same column, because many of the episodes aired in Canada or America before they did in Britain. List of Stargate SG-1 episodes does it in yet another way. That one gives just one airdate but notes which station it premiered (Showtime or Syfy in the US or Sky One in the UK). None of the three formats are wrong, they all get the pertinent information across using current template parameters, and none of the pages have had the information removed.
 * To be honest I don't think it's absolutely necessary. We already have . Do we add all variations to the template? What about South Africa and the other African English-speaking countries, or the South East Asian countries. Where do we draw the line? If they are all added, do we allow editors to include all the fields, or force them to limit it to two or three? If they're all included it's going to encourage editors to use them all even when there is no reason to. Also, if we allow them all to be used, the table is going to be super wide which will be a problem even on modern widescreen monitors, but if we say how many to use it's heading into WP:Instruction creep. The template doc tells editors what all the fields do and how it works, not "You MUST do this and CANNOT do that".
 * The WP:LOE just have to be vigilant in how articles and editors use the template and keep an eye open for when entire columns and fields are removed. Matthewedwards (talk · contribs) 18:25, 8 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Fair point and that is one concern i have where do oyu call limit of english, natural? second language english etc. you wouldnt need more coloums you just have them listed below so ifa parameter isnt used it doesnt display. ill have a look for list that i know where the airdate of other coutnries have been removed. generally i see it happen when the show episode hasnt aired in america and it airs somewhere else and a editor put that datwe in and when it airs in america the american editor just replace the other airdate with teh american one-- Andrewcrawford ( talk  -  contrib ) 18:44, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * There would be no way to list the countries in the right order for every case. I think the two parameters for airdates, plus the auxiliaries, is enough. 117Avenue (talk) 03:16, 9 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Had to log in for this one, just found this discussion after seeing a partial removal of the bolding of the titles. I would say strong no to this proposal, way to much irrelevant info, and it would be going way to far into WP:NOTTVGUIDE. In addition, I'm don't know what kind of giant screen you have but, I've already heard complaints from people that the episode lists are to crowded on their smaller screen, adding just the five new ones you propose would probably make these lists a giant mangled mess for everyone who doesn't have a dual screen setup. What's to stop someone from requesting every known country in the world? Limit it to English speaking countries? Which ones? Only main language? (% of population? (Isle of Man wins with 99.93%, U.S. is nr. 11 with 95.19%)) Official language? (Believe the U.S. doesn't actually have an official language.) etc.
 * I've always been in favor of cutting out all the listings of in which country a show has aired, and this practice has in the past lead to ridiculous lists and giant tables for the broadcast sections. I personally find that only one date is necessary and that is the original air date, the day the episode was first broadcasted, that that is not in the country of origin doesn't matter. While I can see more logic in roving multiple dates for some show (voice-over non-English shows, mainly anime etc.) I've never liked the look of it.  X  eworlebi (talk) 07:55, 9 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I think wha ti mean has been misinterrupted so i will post a exmaple later today so show wha ti mean, i know wikipeida isnt a tv guide but wikipeida should be listigns the original airdate as the first airdate of a episode nnot american airdate as some eidtors think and that why i am propusing it so there is no confussion and the template automaticatically displays it-- Andrewcrawford ( talk  -  contrib ) 09:13, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

here is a example from list of winx club episodes which acutalyl highlights the problem with altdate more than i had thought

what i am propousing is, the table below is how i currently do it but ther eis many ways to do it

so it would change to this

note to display what i mean rather than sandbox it i have jsut used the same code as in the current example

there will still be the problem where do we call the limit of country i probaly say the 4 i used above are the main english speaking countries and alt date or using  for other english speaking coutnries and notes for countries that arent english ass first languagse but have channgls broadcast in english similar to the winx club one above, also there still be the poroblem what order to display it in what coutnry take preference, or do we code it to automatically display it in order of country first broadcast in-- Andrewcrawford  ( talk  -  contrib ) 12:24, 9 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Looks like the one thing I misunderstood was that you don't want new columns, but everything in the same cell. Still doesn't change my oppinion though, to much irrelevant info, still blatant WP:NOTTVGUIDE. Only one date should be listed the original, not two, not three, not four either. The only thing I can see is that it only shows one of the dates (the first one) if all four are filled out, but that woud needlessly create extra code and discriminate against other countries where the show might have premiered.  X  eworlebi (talk) 08:15, 10 May 2012 (UTC)