User:AussieLegend/TV colour

This discussion was precipitated by an earlier discussion at Template talk:Infobox television season regarding use of colour in that infobox. The aim here is to get feedback from some of the more experienced TV editors to gain their opinions on how we best approach what is going to be an ongoing process of ensuring compliance with WP:COLOR at TV articles both in and outside Infobox television season. As experienced TV editors we are all aware of how TV articles work, which can be hard to understand for non-TV editors, and we best know how people editing TV articles are likely to react. This discussion has absolutely no authority; its entire purpose is as a think-tank and any participant is free to ignore any outcomes or any consensus formed here.

I'm limiting participation initially to the more experienced editors simply because they have more experience and are less likely to drive the discussion off-track through minor misunderstandings. However, I'm not limiting the discussion to just the editors that I think are experienced. Anybody I invite here is more than welcome, and in fact encouraged, to add the name of editors they think may be of benefit to this discussion. The only thing I do ask is that if you are going to invite a non TV editor, you discuss that here first. I don't plan to directly invite people other than the first person, who I will direct here. I'm just going to ping invitees. If they don't come I'll send an invitation. This is aimed simply at making the initial discussion a little less obvious to talk page stalkers, some of whom I know do not have the TV experience needed to add productively to the discussion. Ultimately, if the discussion needs to be taken to a more open forum we can do that.

Invitees
The following list is in alphabetical order. (If it's not, please fix it!)

Potential invitees
Please add a name, not a link, so that we can discuss.

Why the hell are we here?
It has been identified that many TV season articles are not WP:COLOR compliant. Initially, 1,038 articles were listed in that were not AAA compliant. Of these about 98% are AA compliant. That's about as technical as I think we need to get. The point is, we need to get articles to at least AA compliance and it would be nice, but not necessary, to get the rest to AAA compliance. AA compliance is handled by code in the infobox but we need to also look at the episode tables in season articles, and any non-transcluded tables in the "List of episodes" articles as well as the series overview tables. Where a series does not have an LoE page, or season articles, we need to look at episode tables in the main article. Yeah, it's a big job.

AussieLegend's thoughts
I've been editing TV articles for 7-8 years and they've pretty much taken over my life. What I'm writing is based on my experience only, and I quite understand that others may have had different experiences to me. For example, Bignole and I rarely cross paths so he may have completely different experiences. Colours picked at season articles are usually arbitrary until DVD/Blu-ray releases are available. Most TV editors are not technical people and are unlikely to want to put in the effort to find appropriate colours that are WP:COLOR compliant, especially if they're picking colours to match those used on a DVD cover, and even more so because the tools aren't really all that user friendly. If they can't find something that is compliant in the infobox they're either going to give up and just leave the parameter blank, or leave the infobox with an error message showing. Even if the infobox gives editors an indication of colour problems, they're not necessarily going to equate that to problems with the episode table, so we're likely to see a season article with an errored, or default coloured infobox and a non-compliant episode table. For a series without season articles, there will be no indication to editors that the episode tables are not compliant. This is regardless of whether the episode tables ar at the LoE page or the main article.

As I see it, use of colour in the infobox is only decorative. Do we need it at all? Despite that question I do see some uses in articles. In season articles, colour delineates between individual episode entries, which makes it a bit easier to read. It really doesn't hurt to have colour, so I see no need to exclude it. On the LoE page, or wherever all of the episode tables are included, colour identifies individual seasons. This is especially true when scrolling through long lists to find an individual episode. On some pages, like List of The Simpsons episodes this is more obvious. On LoE pages that have home media or ratings sections, use of colour can be of benefit. It's not essential, but it is handy to have so I see no reason to exclude it completely, which is one way of forcing compliance. Excluding colour would almost certainly result in opposition from groups of editors so I think compromising and accepting that we continue to use colour is the best way forward. However, we do need to help the less technical editors find an acceptable colour. While there are many colours that provide compliancy, we don't need to use every colour there is. To this end, I propose that we develop a pallet of acceptable colours that we can include in the template documentation. Without going into lots of detail I suggest we pick 35 colors and list them in a table with their hex codes and a suggested season, something along the lines of this: This immediately points editors to some colours that they can use and gives them the correct text colour to use as well. I've specified a season number as an additional helper. If an editor is creating Apple (season 4) he can use the b4e381/000000 pair. Another editor creating Orange (season 9) uses ab81e3/ffffff. Eventually we'll (hopefully) have more or less consistent colouring across all articles without colour duplication. Of course that part is optional. It's just meant as some guidance to make article creation easier and this is where picking 30 colours comes in. Some series are long running, The Simpsons already has 27 season articles and others with less seasons have a number of seasons that are not AAA compliant. 30 colours gives editors a wide range to work with. An editor splitting an existing, non-compliant LoE page with lots of seasons will have no trouble picking compliant colours.

AlexTheWhovian has created a number of templates, Series overview, Episode table, etc that could be modified to incorporate compliance checking code so that editors adding non-compliant colours could be notified of the problem, but these are not yet in wide use so perhaps we should also address use of those in TV articles.

Discussion
I like the idea of suggesting season colors for overall use and consistency across all TV series articles that have multiple seasons. Of course my first thought was to use the BBROYGBVGW resister color codes, but that is just me. Maybe others with different background would prefer this. There will be a lot of undesirable-to-provoke vehement opposition and drama from the usual places if the colors are not AAA compliant so suggest tweaking the value attributes to get to the 7:1 contrast ratio needed for that. Other issue I've seen is that if any column headers have column wide references the cite footnote indicator color is hard to see on certain backgrounds and we should try for an AAA compliant background for both that blue and the text color. Light enough colors, black text seem to work best.

I know this is contentious but I personally would like to deprecate the use of custom colors in the inboxes proper and have all the TV series related infoboxes use the same color scheme to pull all the TV series articles together. Colors in the tv season infobox potentially conflict with color standards used by other infobox types. I think that if we encourage but restrict colors to just the table headers that may assuage the users who want to color code the seasons. Geraldo Perez (talk) 15:05, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * One of the colour guidelines suggests using more muted colours, which is why I've picked the colours above as examples, as they tend to give better contrast and are less "in your face". They also seem better than brighter colours for solving the problem that you've identified with citations.


 * I'd certainly agree to deprecating colour in Infobox television season. We did it to Infobox television so I don't see why it shouldn't be deprecated in that infobox as well. As I said, its use in Infobox television season is only decorative. -- Aussie Legend  ( ✉ ) 16:53, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I like the idea of providing examples of properly contrasted colors. We will always have editors who want to match the colors to their favorite Little Pony, so there's that. I also like the idea of a notification system that alerts users if they pick wonky colors. I almost wonder if the project should be notified of these mistakes as well, just so we could, as a community, deal with them, but that'd probably become a notification headache. Deprecating the custom colors in the infoboxes will make the kids flip their lids. I'll have to think about that. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:10, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I guess I'm confused a little. Are we saying we want to restrict the colors to just the ones in the above table, and mandate that you use this color for season 4 and this color for season 10?   BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  17:37, 30 July 2015 (UTC)


 * No, we're merely providing editors with a pallete of compliant colours to make it easy for those editors who don't understand how to pick one, or don't want to go to the trouble. If an editor chooses a colour not in the table that is compliant he should be free to use it. The season numbers are only suggestions. If an editor chooses to use the season 4 colour for season 10, so be it. The aim is just to give editors a gentle push towards consistency. -- Aussie Legend  ( ✉ ) 17:49, 30 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Gotcha. That makes better sense. I'm more on the fence about deprecating the color from the season infobox. Yeah, it's purely decorative, but so are the colors in an overview table. We don't legitimately need them for anything, nor do we need them for an LoE page with multiple seasons. Color will always be decorative. We could simply use a default blue and gray that alternates to the same effect (not suggesting that, merely trying to show my point). So, in that regard I think if we're saying you can use a color scheme, then we shouldn't be limiting it to one location since there isn't a need for it period.   BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  18:03, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of providing sample colors for editors to choose from. You've suggested 15, but I'd say we should go to 50, with a variety of palettes covered, so if a user does want to stray from the nudge we are giving for conformity, they have options. And beyond those provided, we can give the link to Snook.ca so editors can still select their own color, with explicit instructions that the results have to give a compliant color. I agree with George, that if we are going to the trouble to make the samples AA compliant, we might as well make them AAA compliant. I'm also leaning toward agreeing with removing color from season infoboxes, but still using them in the episode tables. In agreeing with Aussie, having the color for the tables is helpful when looking at a series with multiple seasons. In addition, if we removed color from the season infobox and the series overview tables, that would limit our checking to just the Episode list and Alex's new template (if we can adopt it in more articles). - Favre1fan93 (talk) 18:18, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to argue that the colour isn't decorative but it does have some uses. In season articles LineColor provides clear delineation between episode entries. We could do this with a black line, but at LoE articles where a series doesn't have individual season articles, like List of Castle episodes, the colour serves to identify the season, as it does in the series overview tables. The colour therefore serves as an aid. In the infobox though it serves absolutely no purpose. The consensus at the Infobox television season discussion was that articles without compliant colours in the infobox (currently 23% of articles) would revert to default colouring after 30 days and there is a similar proposal for articles that don't have an image in the infobox, so we're going to end up with a fair proportion of articles with the default colours anyway, so why not deprecate colour in the infobox. That though is something that isn't at the top of the priorities list, so we can think about it for a while.
 * I only provided 15 colours because I was lazy. I suggested a colour pallette with 30, but 50 is even better. And yes, we should give editors a link to snook.ca, as well as WP:COLOR. Since this guide is going to be applicable to several templates, Infobox television season, Episode list, and Episode table and Series overview (which is the subject of a move discussion that requires participants) for a start, we could create the guide as WP:TVCOLOR and transclude it to the various template documentation pages for consistency. -- Aussie Legend  ( ✉ ) 12:10, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The reason I said 50, was that's at the extreme end of the amount of seasons a series would have, so that gives an abundance of options for editors. I agree with everything you've said above as well. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:45, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I like the idea of 50. More options. It would be nice to have better tools. Like, say a person doesn't like the colors in this table, a tool that allows someone to pick a starting color, then extrapolates an aesthetically pleasing palette would be sweet. Or a tool that allows editors to check for compliance on a page, then offers suggestions for how to fix. Some of that Wikipedia money should be going to something constructive for once! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:26, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

I thought of one other thing after seeing this edit—We've got to check some of these backgrounds not only against the header text, but also against links that we might put in these headers, right? The blue "citation needed" link is really hard to see against that purple. I'm not a fan of pastels in my real-world life as a macho man of mystery, but maybe we should consider limiting color saturation and keep background colors lighter so that darker text can be used atop it? That might be limiting, but I'm curious what other options there are. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:42, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I know links have been an issue, but is there anyway to change the ref link colors for use in the headers to comply? I think that would be more helpful than limiting our saturation options. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 00:35, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * MOS:COLOR actually says Background color should be used only as a supplementary visual cue, and should be subtle (consider using lighter, less-dominant pastel hues) rather than a glaring spotlight, which is where the early colours in the table above come from.That doesn't stop us using colours from the other end of the spectrum though. A table with 50 colours, 25 pastels and 25 darker colours, gives us a huge range to choose from. The aim though should be to use black as the default text colour where possible, as this is easier to read for most, umm, readers. -- Aussie Legend  ( ✉ ) 03:18, 19 August 2015 (UTC)