Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/2020 Infobox television channel redesign proposal

This is a proposal for a comprehensive overhaul of Infobox television channel, in order to remove many common transclusion and parameter name errors, add frequently called but currently unsupported parameters, and prevent the excessive accumulation of content in the infoboxes. I appreciate your feedback. Sammi Brie (t • c) 06:58, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

What?
An example with all parameter names filled (but only first and last service fields, to save space) is shown at right. The template lives at User:Sammi Brie/Infobox television channel revamp for now.

Standardizing parameter names
Infobox television channel has about 5,900 transclusions. Until recently, it lacked any tracking for unknown parameters. When I added it (and included blank parameters), 2,702 pages wound up in the resulting tracking category. Without blank parameters, more than 1,200 pages—roughly 21 percent of all transclusions—had one or more unknown parameters.

This is more likely than usual because this infobox has nonstandard parameter names, particularly when compared to similar templates: Infobox television station, Infobox radio station, and Infobox broadcasting network. With the latter template in particular, a number of articles in each try to call parameter names from the other (e.g. replaced_by instead of replaced by names. Mismatched names like launch and closed date, the use of spaces in parameter names instead of underscores, and an incomplete facility for a second logo or image that does not provide alternative text or caption facilities are other problems.

Standardizing format
The new template adopts a similar content structure to that used in my joint redesign of Infobox television station and Infobox radio station (see WikiProject Radio Stations/2020 infobox redesign proposal). The appearance of this template will now match others in its field and improve thematic organization of the data fields.

Conversion of transclusions of Infobox broadcasting network
I have a pending RfC on Template talk:Infobox broadcasting network. I note that many transclusions of that template call for either a radio network template we don't otherwise have, an expansion to Infobox organization, or this template. In fact, some articles, like CNN Philippines, have both Infobox broadcasting network and Infobox television channel, one after the other. The high cross-call rate of parameter names also suggests this course of action.

To facilitate migration of templates, the proposed revamp adds parameters already called by dozens of pages and existing uses of Infobox broadcasting network, like key_people (with a total number of calls in the triple digits) and type.

Cutting the cruft
Infobox television channel has a very high content capacity, arguably too high. In its current form, it supports information on 20 terrestrial services, 30 satellite services, 20 cable services, 20 satellite radio services, 20 IPTV services and 20 online services—and some were pushing beyond one or more of the category limits! Some articles on television channels available in many countries had so much information that the length of the infobox far exceeded the content of the article. This is also an invitation to cruft, and in my opinion, the listing of so many services causes this template to stray from MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. Services selected for inclusion should be broad in geographic and population coverage and national in scope.

While I would like to have tighter limits in most cases (ideally 10 terrestrial and no more than 5 of any other kind, or even a global cap of 10), I tried to keep a list where fewer than 100 articles for each type of service would need to be trimmed down. The new template supports 10 terrestrial, 10 cable, 10 satellite, 5 IPTV, 5 online, and 2 satellite radio services. If an article is likely to exceed that by a significant amount, the question should be asked if any non-terrestrial listings are useful at all. We're not a TV guide.

Implementation
Implementation will require a bot, such as PrimeBOT, to edit transclusions and a short transition between old and new parameter names, as was carried out with the station infoboxes. Currently, the two templates with more than 25,000 combined transclusions have zero unknown parameter errors, and it's my hope that this template can get there too.

So?
I'd like your feedback on the redesign and other changes. If you feel additional parameters would be useful in these templates, especially if you write or edit articles that use this template regularly, please chime in. Sammi Brie (t • c) 06:58, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

''I appreciate I've had a lot of infobox RfCs lately, but I find it hard to get an audience for potential proposals otherwise. A prior discussion only attracted one editor.''

Discussion

 * One thing I didn't include in the scope—yet—is potentially deprecating share, share as of, and share source (equivalents of which were removed from Infobox radio station in 2017) or slogan (which was deprecated from Infobox organization in 2018 but is present in the similar topic templates). I'm neutral but wanted to at least throw the ideas out there, particularly as the latter was suggested earlier this year. Sammi Brie (t • c) 07:08, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest keeping the slogan parameter in the Infobox, and maybe including a "key people" parameter (a la the Infobox Broadcasting Network template). A global cap of ten service parameters for terrestrial, cable, satellite, IPTV and online services, or a separate cap of eight parameters each for online and IPTV services would make more sense, as a hard five-parameter cap for internet-based TV services (whether via streaming or conventional wireline-modeled IPTV) is difficult to work with in some articles (HBO being one example, because it is available through multiple streaming platforms operating internally or through various outside partnerships with third-party streaming vendors and through virtual MVPDs). Two or three service parameters for satellite radio make sense, given the limited amount of competition in that marketplace globally. TVTonightOKC (talk) 07:31, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I’d think that local channels in Venezuela should use this Infobox since they broadcast through smaller cable providers in that country. VenezuelanSpongeBobFan2004 14:43, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Those really look like transclusions of Infobox television station waiting to happen, not this box. Sammi Brie (t • c) 04:10, 25 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I think slogan should be removed from most if not all infoboxes. It was removed from and, both of which had high use of it, with little pushback. A slogan is just company marketing and generally doesn't belong here unless the slogan itself was written about by other sources. I would agree key_people would have utility. I don't see a way to specify the availability of a channel when specifics aren't known - like "Cable and satellite" Can this be accommodated?. MB 02:59, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I hadn't heard of its gradual disappearance from infoboxes until I was reading the talk page of this template, actually; if I had, it might very well have gone in my redesign proposals elsewhere. Thing is there's quite high usage in the templates in this field too. At Infobox radio station (21,000 transclusions) it's used on 57% of pages. Usage on this particular template is about 39%, and I can't get data on Infobox television station right now. Are there links to the discussions? Obviously this seems like a broader matter of encyclopedic consensus than I had thought. Sammi Brie (t • c) 04:10, 25 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Template talk:Infobox company/Archive 10
 * Template talk:Infobox company/Archive 11
 * Template talk:Infobox organization/Archive 2
 * Template talk:Infobox airline
 * These are relatively recent; some of those discussions refer to older ones also. MB 04:57, 25 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Not getting into the specifics of the infobox, but make sure that if you are already fixing issues, then convert all parameters to underscore (so not picture format, but picture_format). That is consistent with how good templates are designed. --Gonnym (talk) 17:20, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Already planned, because this is one reason this template had so many bad parameter calls. Transitionally the space-based parameters would have to be supported until a PrimeBOT run. Sammi Brie (t • c) 21:57, 30 August 2020 (UTC)


 * As I've been cleaning articles up, I get the sense that picture format might be worth removing too... It doesn't seem to have much useful or verifiable information and is another opportunity for cruft to accumulate (it also has lots of small font tags which are not good, see MOS:SMALLFONT).
 * Thoughts from prior contributors — ? Sammi Brie (t • c) 23:02, 10 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if this discussion is closed, but I'd like to make a suggestion to move up the ownership and history sections in the template code to both be placed before the programming section of the table to be more consistent with the previous layout. How the sections were laid out resembled the code layout of the television station infobox; however, for that template, the sectioning kept each integer's arrangement basically the same from that template's prior layout. It doesn't necessarily fit as well here, given that the TV station infobox had a technical information section that followed the history section, the history section has more available data points and the programming section (which consisted of a list of the applied station's subchannels and, in some cases, an accompanying generic list of affiliations) was arranged to mesh with the analog/digital/virtual channel integer preceding it. I'd also suggest looking at consolidating the ownership and history sections in this template into one section, on account of the limited amount of data integers used and use of the close date and former names integers varying more widely with the TV channel template compared to the TV station template (in most cases, the launch date is the only integer in that section that is used and visible). TVTonightOKC (talk) 16:31, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Same here. Also, having the launch and close dates at the top of the infobox just feels right; it matches the article layout better and it lets me see how old the channel is and whether it is still operating. (Compare Template:Infobox person and Template:Infobox company, which also put the start/end dates on top.) The slogan parameter can go... not so sure about anything else. I think Availability can be collapsed into a list of names of providers of a given channel; the specific channel numbers seem superfluous to me. -B RAINULATOR 9 (TALK) 22:29, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Giving terrestrial, cable, and satellite 10 slots each, but IPTV and online only 5 each seems completely arbitrary. IPTV and OTT online services are a growing way that people get content, while traditional terrestrial, cable, and satellite are declining. IPTV and online should get the same number of slots that the other viewing categories receive, whatever that number is. If it's 10, then give them all 10. If people think that's too many, then give them all 7 or 8. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:57, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
 * An infobox should be a summary of the information. If we have reached a point where we need 20+ entries to list, then we should scrape that whole section and move that data into a table in the article. There it can expand to include whatever extra information people add to that - dates, resolution, etc. The infobox shouldn't be as long as the article. --Gonnym (talk) 18:59, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I had done this already and really should have closed this, but I did end up bumping IPTV to 8 to account for a whole string of articles. One problem with online is that a lot of online services don't have channels, so they get listed as "Internet protocol television", such as at ESPN2. We were in a dire need to cut some cruft out of these articles in general while retaining legitimate uses. Sammi Brie (t • c) 19:29, 15 October 2020 (UTC)