Template talk:Infobox animanga/Archive 2

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List of episodes

I'd like to recommend adding a "list of episodes" feature to the anime infobox template, similar to Template:Infobox Television (which, when "list_episodes" is used, places a "List of episodes" link next to the episode count). Not many anime shows have episode lists compiled into separate articles, although some high-profile series (like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex/2nd GIG) do, and there will probably be more like that in the future if the anime episode list template continues to be used. I don't see how it would be a Bad Thing, anyway. Tony Myers 06:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, I'll implement that. --Squilibob 07:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

There is a small problem with this parameter : filling it prevents from displaying a reference for the number of episodes (example of Serial Experiments Lain). Should we add the references somewhere else (after all, the episodes list has references too, but still) or is it possible to fix that ? ~ Jean-FrédéricFr 11:25, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This was always a limitation of using the parameter. Instead you can link to the list manually in the No of episodes field and then have your reference. The section title won't be linked. I used to reference the number of episodes in the infobox too, but now I link them in the article instead. --Squilibob 04:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

New licensed anime sub-box

Lately, there has been some conflict related to licensed anime where in the studio section in the anime infobox, both the studio that did the animation and the licensing company were included. This created conflict on the basis that "studio" strictly pertains to the company that did the animation. So as to not have conflicts, I have instituted a sub-box to the anime box for licensed anime so that the information on which company licensed the anime can be included without worry of it being taken out later.

This shouldn't pertain to manga, let's say, because the "publisher" parameter is used which is more ambiguous than "studio" and there doesn't seem to be any conflict when all the known publishers are put into this section. However, this should also pertain to the OVA and Movie boxes, so I guess I'll go make those now.--十八 05:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why a separate infobox had to be made. Wouldn't an optional Licensor field to the existing boxes be enough? Or is there another reason to create new boxes? --Squilibob 10:26, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Back in August 2006 I created the Light novel box by the same principle with these, and no one seemed to care back then. But perhaps I was a bit hasty this time; if you can create an optional Licensor field to the existing boxes, then thank you for doing so.--十八 10:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

IMO licensing information is best presented in the article body. There are enough lines in each section of the infobox as it is, and licensing doesn't strike me as essential 'infobox datum' information. - mako 02:34, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

What about an 1-volume manga?

I've just recently edited the Alien 9 page to add information about the sequel: Alien 9 Emulators. The problem is, the manga has only one volume released on 15 May 2003. The information doesn't fit well in the Infobox animanga/Manga. The Original run box reads 2003 - 2003 which is quite silly. In such case, should there be an option to put in the sole release date (like the OVA and movie) instead of the same "first run" and "last run" info? - DTRY 14:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, you mean like how the novel infobox works with "publish date" instead of "original run". The only reason this would not work for manga is that almost always manga are serialized in a magazine first, thus the "original run" and the infobox is meant to reflect this and not when the bound volume(s) were published, even though users must use this if the original run information is not available. Thus the difference between the novel box and the manga box and novels (and light novels too) are not always serialized first before being published in bound volumes.--十八 22:15, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. So we need to find information about the serialization date. It looks like I have to leave the box the way it is at the moment.
However, once in a while an exception exists such as Battle Royale II: Blitz Royale (another Tomizawa's manga.)

"This manga was released straight to tankobon (graphic novel) format, therefore there was no serialization"

So how are we going to put such title into the infobox? Use "Not serialized"?
It's a good thing that the title in question actually has 2 volumes released on 2003 and 2004 so we can put the year directly into the box. Imagine what will happen if a manga is not serialized and has only one volume. That's a double exception! - DTRY 03:31, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Game --> Visual novel

Currently, we have the game infobox which has the heading simply of "Game". Since we are talking about games related to anime and manga, isn't it more accurate if the heading was changed to Visual novel instead?--十八 22:21, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe make it an optional switch? -- Ned Scott 01:41, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

A large number of games related to anime and manga are not visual novels, so it would be inappropriate to rename the box to "Visual Novel". --Farix (Talk) 01:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Per Fairx's point, would it be alright to create a subset of the game box much like how I did with the novel box into the light novel box?--十八 07:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think it's necessary. _dk 08:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree, because when you get right down to it, a visual novel is a type of game. --Farix (Talk) 11:31, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

"Listas?"

What are "listas," and why have they been added to the header template? Snarfies 17:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

It's the {{DEFAULTSORT:}} function. See WP:CAT#Setting a default sort key. --tjstrf talk 18:00, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Is there way to add a toggle function?

I think it would be nice to have a toggle function to "hide" and "show" the infoboxes, similar to what you can do to the contents list. Is there a way to do that? --AutoGyro 17:49, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

It is possible but we don't have it in place for the entire infobox at present. Some parts do have the show/hide toggle, the network field in the anime box and the publisher field in the manga box.--Squilibob 04:41, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes getting too long

To expand on this idea, I want to bring up an issue with a few articles that I've been involved with. Chiefly: Air (visual novel), Kanon, Shakugan no Shana, and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. In all of the articles, the infobox is getting much too long and is starting to become obstructive, especially in the first three articles listed that have to realign images to the left because the infobox is in the way. I think that we could set up a system to only show the very first box on default with an option to toggle the rest to appear. For example, the only sub-box visable by default on the Kanon article would be the Game box (the header would always be visable) and there would be an option to see the other six boxes. And we could only do this as an option to articles with excessively long infoboxes such as the ones I have listed.--十八 17:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Another option would be to move the relevant section of the infobox into the section discussing that topic or split the article into multiple subarticles with the relevant parts of the infobox, such as putting all of the information about the video games into their own articles. Then you can use the most important parts of the infobox for the main article and provide extra links to the subarticles through Template:Infobox animanga/Other. --Farix (Talk) 19:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with images being on the left for the length of the infobox. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 19:34, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

To expand on this, this only affects one image for Air (visual novel), possibly two each (if you have a really wide screen) for Kanon and Shakugan no Shana, and no images at all for Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. I don't see a problem here. And I think splitting the infobox into multiple pieces scattered throughout the article is a very bad idea. The whole point of the infoboxes is to give a concise quick reference at the top of the article. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 19:39, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I also believe that it should stay together, but another reason I bring up the issue is that when infoboxes become too long, doesn't that detract from it being a "concise quick reference"? I just feel this has to be addressed.--十八 09:42, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

How about we have a height= option to the header so that the infobox can be set to a fixed height. You would navigate the infobox with a vertical scrollbar. --Squilibob 07:18, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

That's not very intuitive, I think. _dk 10:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, trying to think of a solution to this. Hiding information is counter productive to having it there in the first place. We hide the publishers/networks in different countries because that is optional information which is not relevant to every reader. The information that we do have there is relevant. I don't think there is an information overload, it's a space issue. Perhaps we need to redesign certain aspects of the infobox:

• Does the number of episodes/volumes need an entire line to itself? Can we put this somewhere else like in the subtitle (eg. instead of       TV anime      how about       13 episode TV anime     
• Do we need the kanji and the translation in the header of the infobox to take up one line each? Could we use {{H:title}} to Mouse over things?
• Some fields are short and should always be short and could share a line with something else. eg. Demographic. Some fields are self explainitory like Original run. It doesn't need a title, just the dates could be displayed. Perhaps directly under the subtitle or directly under the network field.
• Look at cutting out some fields that have always been mandatory. I remember long ago that Cool Cat wanted the Title to be optional. The infobox image usually has the title logo on it, so why not save a line.

I think if we can make the infobox somehow more efficient then it could take up less space without losing any information and without hiding anything. --Squilibob 15:05, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

animanga/movie

Could the 'producer' and 'music' fields in the animanga/movie infobox be set as optional fields (like 'demographic')? Now that they've been added, most articles with anime movies have minor issues - {{{producer}}} and {{{music}}} have appeared in the infobox (see for instance Nana (manga). Ninja neko 13:26, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Any new fields added to the infobox components should be made optional. I'm not sure why these fields were not done so. --Farix (Talk) 14:07, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Using the animanga/movie infobox automatically adds the "Anime films" category. That's cool, but Nana (manga), Honey and Clover and Boogiepop and Others don't have animated movies. They're live-action films and not even based on anime, but on light novels and manga series. Could someone create a component for live-action movies, or remove the feature that adds the "Anime films" category?--Nohansen 23:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT

It is generally agreed that templates should not be setting {{DEFAULTSORT}}, since it can only be set once for any article. Also, this template does not appear to involve categories at any point, so I have removed the listas parameter and taken out the DEFAULTSORT. Articles which require sort keys should have DEFAULTSORT set manually in the editable text, rather than hidden in a convoluted template. --Stemonitis 07:35, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The other templates that are combined with this template do use categories. --Squilibob 07:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Then they should have sort keys coded into them, without resorting to DEFAULTSORT. This demonstrates how convoluted the syntax is, and how difficult it is for the average user to find out where the default sort key is being set. --Stemonitis 08:01, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Why have a listas parameter for every template component when a central listas would do the job more efferently? --17:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheFarix (talk • contribs)

Question about publisher_other

publisher_other is an optional parameter to be used when foreign publishers are to be included in the infobox.

For clarification: does "foreign" mean "other than in Japanese" (original publication) or "other than Japanese and English" (original language + language of this wiki)? As worded, the guideline's ambiguous -- and in practice I've seen it both ways, though more often the former. Recent talk on the project's style guideline page (include only Japanese and English info) suggests the latter interpretation. —Quasirandom 22:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Well it depends on the size of the infobox. It has always been used as a space saver. If the extra line for the English publisher/network makes the infobox too large and there are several other languages then I would group the English into publisher_other. Otherwise if the infobox is not too large then it could be grouped with the Japanese. Use your discretion as an editor. --Squilibob 01:45, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Make all fields optional?

This was something that was brought up at WT:ANIME earlier, but I was wonder just how much support or opposition there is to making all infobox fields optional. --Farix (Talk) 15:12, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

It won't damage any existing articles, I would like it to be so. The title should be optional too. (The image can be used as a title if it contains a logo). --Squilibob 01:45, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I was actually thinking of defaulting the title to the article's name. --Farix (Talk) 01:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'm made all fields optional for all components. I've also cleanup the other fields which where rather convoluted. I also took the opportunity to remove the meta templates such as {{!}} and use Template:Infobox animanga/Header2 and Template:Infobox animanga/Footer in the previews. I also provided some shortened alternate field names (ex. first_aired = first) though the originals will continue to work and will override the alternate names. I've also merged Template:Infobox animanga/Novel and Template:Infobox animanga/Novel/Light so we now don't need the latter any longer. --Farix (Talk) 00:37, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Live-action movie adaptations

Hi all, what infobox template do we use when a manga is adapted into a live-action movie? Now, the 'Movie' one is used, but this puts the article automatically in the Category:Anime films which is incorrect (see for example :Kagen no Tsuki). Add a parameter to indicate live-action or not? Or a new animanga infobox template? (as 'studio' is a bit odd too for a live-action movie.) Ninja neko 08:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Kanji and Romaji

Currently the template has ja_name and ja_name_trans which is often filled with the Kanji and Romaji titles respectively. However, since both the Kanji and Romaji forms of the title is already the first part of the lead sentence, I was wondering if this is over-duplication that is too close together. I don't think it will hurt anything to actually drop these two fields completely. --Farix (Talk) 00:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

If the infobox is a summary of all the important facts, then the original Kanji name should certainly be in there (and by extension the Romanji too). The author is usually also mentioned on the first line in the lead, but it also should be in the infobox. I've also seen editors cram in the kanji for separate installments (sequels, ova's and movies) in the infobox section's 'title' field, so I think there is a need to keep the kanji/romanji fields - if not, they'll be added at random. Ninja neko 02:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

What about my previous suggestion of using {{H:title}} to save space for this? --Squilibob 10:30, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Could you specify this? Would it look like underlined Kanji, and on hovering you'd get Romaji? I'm trying to picture it. Ninja neko 13:42, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Question re: Captions

This is mainly directed at User:TheFarix, as he recently altered the header portion of this template to display the caption under the image in the box. My question is, is this really necessary? Why not just keep with how it's always been with the caption imbeded as alt text for the image it represents?--十八 03:50, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I figured it was a shame to have a caption for the image, but the readers will never actual see it. --Farix (Talk) 11:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I kinda liked it better as an alt text too, it looks awkward beneath some busy images. Most of the time it's just 'volume 2' or 'series X logo' anyway. Ninja neko 13:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

"network" should be replaced with "broadcast"

Many animes are only broadcast on independent UHF stations so I recommend changing it to the aforementioned "broadcast" following the the television infobox template custom 203.173.196.237 04:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Header image

The template currently states: The image is resized to 300px by default, so the image used should optimally be 300px or greater. If the image is smaller, there is an optional 'size' field. When I use 300px images in the infobox, they get resized by other editors for being 'overwhelming'. Set a new default size? Stick to the 300 and reverse the images back to 300? Ninja neko 11:42, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Improving documentation

We have to admit that this infobox is not properly documented. The existing documentation states that all parameters are self explanatory, but apparently they are not. It also doesn't give an example of what each individual component.

To fix this, I started rewriting the documentation in one of my sandboxes. Mostly what I attempted to do was provide an example of each component and an explanation of the parameters. --Farix (Talk) 17:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me. ごくろうさまでした. -mako 10:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Drama CD's & Artbooks

I have noticed that there is some ambiguity about where to list Drama CD's and Artbooks that are specifically based on the series. I can see where adding these could get out of hand with anime series, but on manga series that have one art book and maybe a CD or two, I would like to add the information. Many manga that never make it to anime often will have a Drama-CD. I've tried to think of how to list them under "other" but I end up with very long lines of text after writing out the title, media type, release date, and publisher. I guess that I would really love to see animanga/Drama-CD and animanga/Artbook. Amphi 07:08, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we really need to add in these fields to the infobox if that's what you're proposing, but as for listing them in an article, put them in an "Other media" section if you want to, or you could put the drama CD(s) under a separate header and then add in a note about any artbooks in the manga section. That's what I'd do anyway. But then I've never added in information about artbooks before mainly because I have never seen anyone do it before. I always add in the drama CD information if it's present though.--十八 07:51, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Template:Infobox animanga/Magazine

Exactly why was this component added when Template:Infobox Magazine does a perfectly find job with more details? The likelihood of this ever being used with other components is nonexistent. --Farix (Talk) 00:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I was about to pose the same question. The animanga boxes in this template are meant to be used in tandem with other boxes, like a series that has a Game, Anime, and Manga adaptations to it; a magazine is not a media-type adaptation, and {{Infobox Magazine}} is perfectly capable of being used for all magazines.--十八 00:24, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but there does seem to be some nifty auto-category features that are anime/manga specific. It's use in Manga Life seems to work pretty well. While I like to keep things standard myself, I'm interested in seeing where this leads to. I have no objection to the template at this time. -- Ned Scott (talk) 07:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

The auto-categorization isn't a big deal. And no one can legitimizes state that it's easier since you have to add {{Infobox animanga/Header}} and {{Infobox animanga/Footer}} to make the infobox complete. That's actually more work then using {{Infobox Magazine}} and adding the category at the bottom of the page. --Farix (Talk) 13:06, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

We're keeping it for now. It's not a big deal, and it might lead to some good ideas. -- Ned Scott (talk) 22:32, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I must have missed the discussion were it was decided by consensus that "we" are going to keep the template. However, if Nihonjoe doesn't make any comments as to why he created the template as opposed to using {{Infobox Magazine}}, then I'm going to put it up for deletion. --Farix (Talk) 22:42, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

"We" didn't decide everything, that's not what I'm saying, but on that same line of thinking, no one has to consult you before making a animanga template. Now you're threatening to take it to TfD? What's going on with you, Farix? -- Ned Scott (talk) 22:59, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Because I see it as completely redundant with {{Infobox Magazine}}. I originally asked the question about why it was created so that Nihonjoe can respond, which he hasn't. So I haven't been convened that it isn't redundant and shouldn't be deleted. So why exactly are you getting your panties in a punch? --Farix (Talk) 23:30, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I have to say, the fact that I have given reasons myself for why I think it should be kept, and given how easy it would be to clean up if nothing comes from this new template, I think you're wasting our time by taking it to deletion. I think you are obsessing over something that isn't a big deal at all. A great deal of templates have grown organically like this, and there's no need to jump on something like this simply because you don't see where it's going. -- Ned Scott 08:27, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Farix as listed the template for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 November 21#Template:Infobox animanga/Magazine. -- Ned Scott 08:27, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

This must be the discussion you mentioned. Why didn't you post a note on my talk page letting me know you had a question, Farix? I don't come to this talk page often, and it likely got lost in the pile of 6300 other pages I watch. Ned has given several good reasons for why this template should be kept, and I think the template could be improved to make it more flexible and easier to use. I mentioned putting in a standalone switch on the TfD page. I think that my allay concerns about having to include the header and footer parts. One of my biggest reasons for including it is to be consistent with other anime and manga pages. That, and easy categorization. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 03:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Examples

Must we have an invented example plus three more examples right under it? It just seems like a waste of space (and the Sailor Moon one messes with the horizontal scrolling in IE/MSN broswer).--十八 06:43, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Composer

Should we perhaps add a field indicating the composer of the original music for the media where it is appropriate (anime, OVA, movie)? {{Infobox Television}} has one, for example. And seeing how often music plays a greater role in anime, it might be reasonable, too. --Koveras ^☭ 10:29, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

We had a composer field in the first iteration of the infobox, but we decided to get rid of it due to bloat. (Similarly, mechanical design and character design can be argued to be important, but their inclusion would make for a really long box.) Such topics are more appropriate for the body of the article. - mako 10:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok... --Koveras ^☭ 13:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Error?

I was trying to use this Marmalade Boy, but when I set first and last, only last shows up with a dash in front of it. If I put the date in the published field, it works. But that doesn't match what the documentation indicates. Has published replaced first? AnmaFinotera (talk) 10:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

"Published" is used only if there was a single novel release, otherwise "first" and "last" are used to indicate the time between when the first and last volumes were released. If "first" and "last" are used, the "published" parameter won't show up.--十八 11:25, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Manga box bug?

Can someone fix the manga box bug so the dash in the dates doesn't show if there is no last date? I'm not quite comfortable enough with the code to do it myself, but if the manga only has one volume it looks weird to have "date -" then nothing. AnmaFinotera (talk) 03:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

It's not a bug. Remember that the vast majority of manga are serialized, so there should be two dates every time. Now, in the very few cases where we have one shots, I suppose we could set up something like with the novel box for single-novel releases.--十八 04:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

The vast majority are, but if we can't find the serialization dates and can only use the single volume date, it would be good if the dash didn't show. AnmaFinotera (talk) 04:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

But I do not believe the template was designed to be for the volume release dates, hence the first and last release row, and the serialization field. Is it really that hard to find at the very least the year the manga started serialization and the year it ended?--十八 04:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

So far, yes, it has proven to be very difficult indeed for this particular one, named Escaflowne - Energist's Memories. ANN just has the volume release date, and my Japanese reading ability is limited to the Engrish spit outs of BabelFish. I'm not even positive it was serialized at all, though ANN says it was in Asuka, but thus far I've yet to find an actual start or end date. AnmaFinotera (talk) 04:48, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

It's helpful to ask others for help too. I found this site relatively quickly, and it seems that Energist's Memories was a comic anthology not serialized in a magazine (ANN can be wrong at times), and with a ton of different artists. It seems to have been published under the "Asuka Comics DX" publishing label on January 8, 1997 (here's the Amazon page for further confirmation on the date, since the first link says January 1996, but also says the originally planned date was in December 1996. So, yeah I guess I forgot about comic anthologies too in addition to one-shots. I'm not too adapt at altering the template code for instances like this, but there's the info you wanted.--十八 07:35, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

That was basically all of the information I had found as well. I just though Asuka was only a magazine and didn't realize it was also a publishing label. So then my original question was actually correct as it was never serialized (but glad to have it confirmed so I can quit chasing ghosts LOL). AnmaFinotera (talk) 07:43, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it would be simple enough to add an optional parameter, something along the lines of single_release, that would hide the dash if defined. If everyone's comfortable with the parameter name, I can add it in for you. —Dinoguy1000 20:41, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Since no one else has commented for or against it, I'll go ahead and make the change. At this point, if anyone feels it shouldn't have been done, feel free to revert back. —Dinoguy1000 19:12, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Game box suggestion

It just occurred to me that since we have other boxes that hide content that gets to be too long, such as with the publisher fields for the novels/manga boxes, and the network field for the anime box, that I think it would be a good idea to have a similar parameter for the game box in order to shorten the release date field. I was looking at Air which to date has been released 10 times, and I thought it could help to shorten the infobox in such articles. Another example would be Higurashi no Naku Koro ni which has a very long infobox.--十八 09:49, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but I thought the release date field is only suppose to contain the first release, not every release. Re-releases should be covered in the article text. AnmaFinotera (talk) 14:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Supposed to? I never read anywhere about that. Just looking at how WP:VG does it, they list all the releases in their VG infoboxes: GA article The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for example which has seven releases, and FA article Final Fantasy VII has eight.--十八 20:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but we have own info box for games, it and its instructions say first release, not all. AnmaFinotera (talk) 20:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

All it says is: "Released - Date the video game was released in Japan." That does not say first released, which and seeing as how Air's been released in Japan 10 times, you get the picture. And I do not think WP:Anime should be any different from WP:VG in terms of how the game infobox is structured. And it wouldn't hurt to hide the extra release dates even if only the first release date was kept; it'd be the same thing.--十八 20:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any harm in splitting the release parameter into a first release and a list of later releases, though the older syntax would have to be supported until all instances could be updated. —Dinoguy1000 21:50, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd be willing to systematically update all the game boxes currently in use. There are less than 500 of them, so if I had the time it'd probably take me a few hours at most, but if I start doing that, the template would have to be changed before hand or users will end up reverting me due to the parameter not being activated yet.--十八 22:11, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

(Unindenting) I can perform the necessary template updates, but first I need to know what the best parameter names would be. first_released and other_releases, maybe? [EDIT] Looking at the template code, it seems that release_date is the preferred parameter, but released is offered as a backup. —Dinoguy1000 22:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Why would the template need a backup for release dates? That seems repetitive. I think first_release and other_releases works fine.--十八 23:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't referring to the proposed edit, I was talking about what was already in the template - it had been designed with a 'fallback' parameter for some reason. It's a moot point now, in any case. —Dinoguy1000 18:17, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I actually went ahead and updated the code myself; wasn't that hard when I took the novel's collapsible field as a template. I've already edited Air (visual novel) to contain the parameter.--十八 08:34, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Anime infobox alternate parameter

If it's all right with everyone else, I'd like to add the alternate parameter episode_list to {{Infobox animanga/Anime}}. IMHO, this is much more straightforward and obvious, and much less confusing, than list_episodes. —Dinoguy1000 19:11, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. :) AnmaFinotera (talk) 22:25, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

 Done. (lolz, templuts r fun!!!1) —Dinoguy1000 17:53, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Did every use of list_episodes get replace by a bot? If not, there are going to be thousands of broken infoboxes now. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 02:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

It will take either, just like it will take either first or first_aired for the same field. I had earlier recoded all of the components to take shorter parameter names and used the same technique. --Farix (Talk) 02:34, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. I wasn't (quite) stupid enough to outright replace the original parameter and end up breaking thousands of infoboxes, though on some days I certainly would have been apt to do just that... —Dinoguy1000 03:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Suggested changes

There's been talk on the Manual of Style talk page about creating a Live-action movie infobox and changing the Demographics field. So, to whom it may concern, please check the discussions.--Nohansen (talk) 05:42, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Lets add a demographic field. Light novels as manga, target a certain demographic. --ChuChu (talk) 17:37, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The demographic field is being moved to the manga part of the infobox. Light novels, while having a target audience, are not considered as having a demographic which can be clearly stated. Manga receive a demographic by which magazine they appear in originally. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 17:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Light novels have a target demographic according to what light novel label they are published under. Its the same thing. --ChuChu (talk) 17:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

You're breaking up the discussion. Please take this back over the WT:MOS-AM page. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 18:01, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem, though I don't see much enthusiasm in the discussion about this, nor much knowledge about this. --ChuChu (talk) 18:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

As was discussed in Wikipedia_talk:MOS-AM, I added an optional demographic field. --ChuChu (talk) 18:01, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Movie box and cats

I used the Movie box to note two live action films adapted from a novel and manga series, however it is automatically adding the category "Anime films" to the article. Is there anyway to disable that? While most manga film adaptations end up being anime films, there are quite a few live action ones that are not TV films, so how can we properly display these? AnmaFinotera (talk) 07:42, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe I have done what you have asked. Try it out by adding the function live_action = yes to the movie box. This adds the article to Category:Japanese films instead of Category:Anime films, and when this function is not in place, it behaves like the normal box by adding the article to "Anime films". Also, to differentiate, I changed the default title setting as "Animated movie" for anime films, and "Live-action movie" for live-action films. An example is viewable at Kagen no Tsuki.--十八 08:56, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

You rock! Thanks, it works great :) AnmaFinotera (talk) 09:28, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Request

Juhachi, could you add a similar function to the OVA infobox for original net animation (something like ONA = yes) People are using the OVA infobox for ONA like Mobile Suit Gundam SEED C.E. 73: Stargazer and Hoshizora Kiseki and, even if it was ultimately released on DVD, that's technically wrong.--Nohansen (talk) 20:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Done; and I also created Category:Anime ONAs to go along with Category:Anime OVAs. Add ONA = yes to a box; see an example in usage at Hoshizora Kiseki.--十八 23:41, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

volume_list?

Something I've noticed looking through many anime and manga articles is that there are often chapter and volume lists for a given series. However, there is no parameter in {{Infobox animanga/Manga}} for a list of volumes or chapters, and therefore, the link ends up being manually inserted in the infobox. Therefore, if no one else objects, I'm going to add, at the very least, the parameter volume_list, and I am considering adding the alternate parameter chapter_list with it. Any thoughts?

On a semi-related note, would anyone object to adding an episode_list parameter to {{Infobox animanga/OVA}}? —Dinoguy1000 18:12, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes yes yes to volume_list/chapter_list! I meant to ask about that the other day and completely forgot. OVA should also probably have an episode_list parameter, though the instructions should probably note that if the OVA eps are on the same list as the main series (if there is one), you can still use and just add an anchor. For straight OVA, while it will probably be less often used than the main anime one, there are some OVAs with 12+ episodes that would likely benefit.AnmaFinotera (talk) 19:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Hehe, nice to see such an enthusiastic reply. ;) One thing that I thought of shortly after this was posted was that many ongoing manga series include an "as of ..." parenthetical statement in the chapter number field. Whle not necessarily correct, if this isn't handled properly, it means that adding a volume_list parameter would result in the whole statement being linked, and I don't think MediaWiki likes nested wikilinks too much. In that regards, what would be a good parameter name? About the best I can come up with is last_chapter_date or a variation thereof. Or should it be made to work off of the last/last_run field plus an additional optional ongoing field? —Dinoguy1000 20:44, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

All right, I've added the parameters episode_list and list_episodes to the OVA infobox, and the parameters chapter_list, volome_list, and ongoing to the Manga infobox. Defining ongoing causes the last_run parameter in the Date field to be replaced by the word "ongoing", and inserts the text "(as of last_run)" after the number of volumes or chapters. I'm not completely happy with this, but it's the best way I could come up with that didn't involve breaking lots of template calls. —Dinoguy1000 20:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Should this also be added to the light novel box? For some series, like Kino's Journey and Trinity Blood, the lists of light novels will be too big for the main once the summaries are added, so a link to the chapters/volumes would be appropriate. AnmaFinotera (talk) 10:06, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

• poke* Any thoughts on adding the volume_list parameter to the light novel box? AnmaFinotera (talk) 19:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not objected to it, I just haven't taken the time to add it yet. I've also been meaning to ask about extending splitting the english publisher from other publishers across the rest of the infoboxes, but I don't really have the time to take care of it right now... hopefully tomorrow, though. —Dinoguy1000 21:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it should be done, at least for those published ;) I think the OVA/Anime/Movie, et all already have a field for English licensor? AnmaFinotera (talk) 21:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

 Done. I added an English publisher/licensor field to {{Infobox animanga/OVA}} and {{Infobox animanga/Novel}}, and an episode/volume list parameter to {{Infobox animanga/Drama}} and {{Infobox animanga/Novel}}. If there are any objections, feel free to revert and chew me out. =) —Dinoguy1000 20:44, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Awesomeness, thanks. ~goes to update the portal news~ AnmaFinotera (talk) 21:25, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Splitting volume number from chapter number in infoboxes

I have never been particularly happy with how the number of volumes and chapters has been handled in {{Infobox animanga/Manga}} for ongoing series, and a recent update I made to the template (or, more specifically, an edit to Bleach made afterwards) served to exascerbate the issue. I was curious as to whether anyone else feels the same way, and if anyone has objections to seperating the number of volumes from the number of chapters for ongoing series. I also asked this on WT:MOS-AM since I wasn't sure where best to ask. —Dinoguy1000 20:58, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Why list the number of chapters at all? And last_run field is when the manga came to an end, not the most recent chapter. If the manga is still ongoing, then it should either be left blank or set to ongoing. --Farix (Talk) 21:21, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Illustrator field

There was a discussion last year about adding an "illustrator" field to the manga infobox part (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anime and manga/Archive 18#Infobox Manga and illustrator field); were we going to do this or not? —TangentCube, Dialogues 06:00, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. While many manga the manga-ka does writing and illustrating, it would be nice to have the template be able to handle those where its a dual work. AnmaFinotera (talk) 06:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe at one time there was a separate illustrator field. I don't know the specifics, but I can assume that it was removed because of the fact that a lot of manga are written and illustrated by a single person, so putting the name twice in the infobox would be pretty repetitive, so it was removed to detract from this practice. Now, we just line-break the writer and artist whenever they are different, and since it has been like this for so long, I don't see any reason to change it. Also, the reason why we have a separate illustrator field for the light novel box is because (from what I've seen) there is always a writer and an illustrator, but never is it the same person for a light novel, therefore a separate illustrator field makes sense.

However, looking at the previous discussion, if what Ned Scott said was right, then I'd agree with the addition of the illustrator field in the manga box.--十八 06:27, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Hiding it when illustrator == author is no problem. I have an example at User:TangentCube/sandbox4. —TangentCube, Dialogues 07:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

For that matter, it would be far simpler for the template to assume that an omitted illustrator field means that the author and illustrator are the same person, rather than requiring that both fields be specified and then comparing them, which opens the door to typos, alternative spellings, etc. —Dinoguy1000 16:53, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that is the idea, that in general illustrator should only be used when different. The comparison would be for dealing when someone ignores the instructions and sets both anyway. AnmaFinotera (talk) 17:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Since it's compared only when illustrator is defined, omitting it would be no different than how it's already done. If we come across a typo or alternative spelling, that's something we should fix in the article anyway. —TangentCube, Dialogues 19:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

 Done Since there've been no further comments (and I might have forgotten about it for a while...), I went ahead and added the illustrator field to {{Infobox animanga/Manga}}. —Dinoguy1000 18:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Licensor field

The anime and OVA boxes have a "Licensor" field which, according to the help page, should be set to the name of the subject's U.S. licensor. This raises obvious WP:BIAS concerns. Perhaps we can change this to "English-language licensors", in a fashion similar to the recent addition of an "English-language publishers" field to the manga infobox? In this case, though, only the displayed field name needs to change, so no large-scale tweaking of infoboxes would be required.

Besides, while the OVA box has a "licensors_other" collapsed field, the anime box doesn't, making it the only one without licensing information for countries other than Japan and the U.S. Is there any reason to choose not to include this information, or was it just left out by mistake? Bikasuishin (talk) 19:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed this discrepancy myself, and I've wondered about it too. As far as I can tell, though, the licensor field tends to be used for *all* license companies, not just U.S. (or English) ones. If there are no objections, I can expand the licensor field to include licensor_en and licensor_other fields. And while I'm at it, are there any objections to a network_en field? —Dinoguy1000 22:10, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

What is up with the new parameters

One other thing I've attempted to do was provide shortened alternatives to the parameter names. I see more work can be done with some of the newer parameters as well. Frankly, I think many of the new parameters are poorly implemented or poorly thought out. I am also a little appealed by the lack of discussion here on some of the new parameters. It seems that a lot of these new parameters where arbitrarily added without any discussion. Such as, why is there a licensor and a licensor_other? This is repetitive and makes little sense. Why is the US licensor given special treatment over other licensors? The same can be said for publisher_en. This creates a systemic bias that the infobox should avoid. And what is the whole point of single_release in the manga infobox? Shouldn't this be renamed to published such as in the novel infobox? --Farix (Talk) 13:51, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

IIRC, licensor and licensor_other have been seperate for some time now, though I'm not entirely sure which infobox component you're referring to with that.

As for publisher_en (and related fields), there was discussion about the placement of English information – should it go in the original field, or the "other" field – and consensus for an "en" field was what resulted. I hardly see how presenting English release information seperately from Japanese or other language information on the English Wikipedia could create "systematic bias".

And the single_release field in the manga infobox was introduced and is used for when a manga had only one release date – for instance, when a given manga is only one volume long and was not serialized in any magazine. —Dinoguy1000 00:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

First, discussion about changes to the infobox should either take place here or at WP:ANIME, but not on an unrelated discussion page, such as WT:MOS-AM. The infobox is not a MOS issue. I also think that treating English releases/publications/broadcasts separately from other languages/countries is systemic bias. The Japanese releases can be justified because the anime, manga, and light novels originated from Japan. However, the English information does not enjoy such luxury. And I still think that the single_release parameter is a poor implementation to a relatively minor problem, especially when there are two other, more elegant ways to fixing the problem. In fact, I thought I rid of it earlier. So what is it doing back? --Farix (Talk) 01:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The MOS-AM is a perfectly acceptable location to discuss issues such as this since it has to do with article organization. You're splitting hairs here saying that they aren't related. As for it being systemic bias, that's bollocks. People come here primarily for information regarding the Japanese and English versions, so listing those up front is just fine. If they are interested in the other language releases, that information is available through one click of a mouse. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:09, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

As the infobox is a critical part of anime articles, I think its fine to discuss on the MOS, which gets more traffic than this one (though a notice should have been posted to the main project page as well). That doesn't negate the discussion, however, and it plenty of time was given for folks to weigh in. Listing the English separately is no different than what was already being done with the anime box, with the English licensor(s) listed separately from the rest. This also helps deal with the issue of people wanting to put the English licensors in the main publisher field because this IS the English Wikipedia so the English release info should be easily visible. It is no more a systematic bias, to me, than what is done with the anime box, or what is done in general in that we do not provide all of the release info and details on every other language form of a series. We discuss the original, the English versions, and maybe mention its licensed in other places and leave it at that. We don't include them all in our lists of episodes, chapters, etc or give them extensive coverage. Only the original, and English where available, gets full, complete, and relatively equal coverage (or as equal as we can do with the difficulty of acquiring sources on the original versions). AnmaFinotera (talk) 04:13, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

As for your argument concerning single_release, I'd like to see the other solutions you consider to be "more elegant" than it. I haven't really looked at it in any detail, so I don't know if I (personally) could improve on it or not, but I'd be perfectly willing to consider any solutions you might have to offer. —Dinoguy1000 18:30, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Template style

I think these templates should be upgraded to look more like Template:Infobox VG. Would this be possible? -- Tenks (talk) 03:41, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Why? I personally think ours look nicer. AnmaFinotera (talk) 03:43, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd have to disagree with you, but I feel infobox VG or Person fits in more with the rest of Wikipedia's layout. -- Tenks (talk) 03:46, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Ours is more in keeping with the TV infobox, which is one of our parent projects. It is a better fit and looks better. The VG is not any more in keeping with Wikipedia's layout than any other.AnmaFinotera (talk) 03:51, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Hm... it doesn't seem like it's keeping too much with Infobox Television to me. -- Tenks (talk) 04:01, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it does, at least as far as coloring and sectioning. Either way, our infoboxes are fine and there is absolutely no reason to change their design. The VG infobox is not designed to handle the many many media types that ours is, and is ill-suited to such a purpose. It is a single media format, not something that may have three manga, two novel, an anime, three video games, and a movie version! AnmaFinotera (talk) 04:04, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

AnmaFinotera basically summed it all up. These templates enable coverage of all the necessary information related to a series/franchise. On an additional note: expansion of a series into other mediums is always on the table. Manga turn into anime, light novels, video games, movies, live-action, radio dramas, etc...and vice-versa...then licensing and additional information for supporting networks across countries, etc.. What we have basically allows such information to be covered well enough. Any abrupt changes would be unnecessary with what already works. Fox816 (talk) 04:24, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not saying to change the actual content of the templates, just to change their look to be more in-line with most other infobox templates. Of course they wouldn't look exactly the same, but I'm assuming it could be done. If no one else wants it, though, I guess it doesn't matter. -- Tenks (talk) 04:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Infoboxes on Wikipedia range extremely widely in their appearance, so making them "more in-line with most other infobox templates" doesn't make any sense as most other infoboxes vary too widely. AnmaFinotera and Fox816 covered the main reasons why changing them would be bad. In addition, I think the VG infobox is not as pleasant to view (white and gray as opposed to the pleasant, soothing blue we already have). There's no logical reason to change. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:52, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

If the styling is to be changed, is should be one that reflects the one used by {{Infobox Convention}}, {{Infobox animanga character}}, and {{Infobox Magazine}} since the project heavily uses these infoboxes as well, and occasionally {{Infobox Television episode}}. You can see a mockup I did some time ago, though it hasn't been updated with the newer parameters. --Farix (Talk) 11:17, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I rather like that mock-up, actually. More than the VG infobox, if it comes to that. —Quasirandom (talk) 22:27, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The mockup is mostly what I had in mind. Infobox VG was just the first thing I thought of. -- Tenks (talk) 23:07, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm...I don't mind the mock-up, but would it give us the same flexibility that the currents one have? We need to be able to order items by release, have multiples, etc. AnmaFinotera (talk) 00:27, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

When broken back down into its individual components, it should. Though how I implemented images is a bit different then how the current header implements them. --Farix (Talk) 00:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if it might be good to give more visual clues regarding what a particular part of the infobox is for? Would using other colors for the headers of different sections be useful for this? Perhaps (just going off the top of my head) light green for manga, light red for OVAs, light yellow for movies, light purple for novels, etc.? I'm just thinking of ways to make it quicker for someone to find a particular section if scanning the infobox. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 00:41, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd say different shades of the same color would be best to use if you want color-coding. Shading would maintain some continuity while differentiating the information. Using different colors would be distracting. Fox816 (talk) 02:21, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Different shades of the same color would be fine. I just think something should be done to help with easy visual clues for what each section contains. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:14, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

If there are no objections, I'll look into updating the style later on this week. The color scheme for the components can be worked out later. --Farix (Talk) 16:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

You mentioned the new one implements images differently. Can you give an example of what you mean? When the code is updated, will all current pages still work okay or will we need to do a mass update? AnmaFinotera (talk) 17:58, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Instead of letting the infobox build the image link, the full link will have to be specified. So instead of image = Image.png | size = 230px, you will have image = [[Image:Image.png|230px]]. I've seen the former break in a couple of articles even though the image property is suppose to be empty. The latter will allow an editor to put in a different description then the one in the caption and lets bots to tag any images that are up for deletion. It will require a mass update, which is the major drawback. But I think using an interim template and subseting it with AWB would make things go much more smoothly.

Or we can still keep the old method and update the reset of the infobox's style. How the images are implemented isn't dependent in the infoboxes style. --Farix (Talk) 18:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm...I can see the benefit of finally being able to have a bot tag those up for deletion, but I think unless/until a bot can be made to go through and convert them all, it might be better to hold off on that part. AnmaFinotera (talk) 20:44, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

If StringFunctions were already installed, then it would be easy to deal with while the transclusions are updated. --Farix (Talk) 16:46, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Hehehe, I figured out how to accept both methods without StringFunctions. You can thank Davidgothberg (talk · contribs) and his work on {{Shortcut}} in giving me the clue needed to solve this little conundrum. --Farix (Talk) 02:04, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have AWB all set to go. And while I'm at it, I'm going to cleanup some of the parameter usage and reformat the templates. This will slow things down, but will make the infoboxes easier to read. Still not looking forward to updating 2.5K to 3K articles. --Farix (Talk) 11:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done with the style update. We will see what the reaction is. Though the style that resulted in just changing the heading[1] didn't look half bad either. --Farix (Talk) 11:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks good, if Blood+ is any indication with its plethora of infoboxes LOL. I don't suppose anyone has a screenshot of the old style? I meant to grab one before the change to use for doing a portal news update. *doh* -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 13:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Ooh, it does look good. The Blood+ infoboxes look much cleaner now. If you need a screenshot, I could put the old version of the templates in sandboxes or something and use them with the preview button and take a snapshot that way. --Eruhildo (talk) 19:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it looks better than it used to; much more professional. The only thing I have a problem with is the bolding of the names in the individual boxes which become bold-italicized which looks a little excessive I think.--十八 21:24, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

If you wanted a screen shot, then look at the older version of Template:Infobox animanga/Header, since that component is used in every infobox and contains most of the original styling code. --Farix (Talk) 02:17, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I hate to be a party pooper, but I can't say that I like the new look. Yes it's more like the other infoboxes, but I've always liked our style over those ones anyway. Having some cell shading for visual separation has always been a plus in my eyes. Several UIs use something like that in the computing world. -- Ned Scott 22:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Wait, is the only change making the backgrounds all white? 'Cause I liked it better with the darker part to the side - it was much easier to read. I think I thought the old one was the new one or something when I voiced my opinion before. --Eruhildo (talk) 00:57, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The new version looks very similar to what is in my sandbox, which matches the look of {{Infobox Convention}}, {{Infobox animanga character}}, and {{Infobox Magazine}}, which the project heavily uses, and the occasionally used {{Infobox Television episode}}. I did proved a link above to the older Template:Infobox animanga/Anime that was affected by the newer code in Template:Infobox animanga/Header2. --Farix (Talk) 02:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah, the no lines version - I remember now. I like that way too. I guess that doesn't help much does it. --Eruhildo (talk) 04:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

It does have a nice appeal to it. It seems cleaner, somewhat more professional, in a way. But like I said above, it's also nice (and functional) to have some good visual separation. Maybe we can make it cleaner and closer to other infoboxes, but still retain some form of cell separation. Maybe some more subtle colors? -- Ned Scott 05:01, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Upgrade v2

I liked the new style. I'm disappointed the "upgrade" was undone. I hope Ned Scott's concerns are thoroughly addressed so we can get back to the newer, "cooler" infobox as soon as possible.--Nohansen (talk) 05:11, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I prefer the "no-lines" version, myself (example). In my opinion, the separation goal could be achieved by keeping the different colors in the different colomns (See Example 1 for an example of the concept — but I agree that more subtle colors would have to be used). G.A.S 05:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I tried something a little different, A real light shade of blue to separate the fields. But nothing that stands out too much. Hopefully that will satisfy Ned's concerns. --Farix (Talk) 00:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks great to me. I left a note about the style change on WT:ANIME and WT:MOS-ANIME, but it seems I'm the only one who had a concern, I guess. -- Ned Scott 09:04, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I still don't like the bolded titles in the individual boxes; and why are we suddenly showing the image caption where we previously have kept it hidden? Also, why are there now individual fields for the episode/volume lists? Is it only to make it a more obvious link? Bear well in mind that WP:ANIME boasts some of the longest infoboxes on Wikipedia when more than 5 boxes are used (excluding the header). I think it's already become a problem when it extends so far into the article for series that use a ton of boxes. The infobox is meant to be a quick-and-easy look into the media types of any given series, but when you have to scroll down however far down the page just to see the final media type, I think that's when things start getting ridiculous. I mean, more fields just means more convolution. Either we redesign how we structure infoboxes to make them more organized (if that's even possible) or we just keep on adding field upon field.--十八 09:16, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand, the titles have always been bold. As for the image caption, why is it being hidden? What is the point of providing a caption if you are not going to show it to the reader? Hiding the caption never did make a whole lost of sense to me. As for list field, I've already explained by thoughts further down on the talk page. But perhaps an overly long infobox should be taken as an indication that the article should be broken up or that {{Infobox animanga/Other}} should be used instead, especially if there are other articles cover that specific part of the franchise. --Farix (Talk) 13:03, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The fields for the lists were added months ago, and do not add to the size of the box on the visible page as it just links the counts to those lists. I think that's fine. I don't think its really a major problem on most series, and on those few that do have a lot of infoboxes, the article should be long enough to support it. As Farix notes, the other field can also be used to compact, if needed (though I would disagree that a lot of infoboxes is a sign it may need to be broken up). -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 17:24, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Modified version is now in place. One other thing I did was wrap the dates in {{nowrap}} and remove the nowrap from the cell. One of the problems I had with completely not wrapping the cell was that when dates contained long month names, it would stretched the infobox to an excessive width. This way will allow for wrapping to occur around the ndash instead of in the middle of a date, which is equally unseemly. --Farix (Talk) 20:02, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay...after seeing it in place again, I have to agree with the suggestion of taking back out caption. Previously, it was the alt text of the image. It looks off to me the way it is now, though, appearing under the image, such as on Trinity Blood and Fushigi Yūgi. I know the TV and Film infoboxes do the same, but it looks strange for ours because of the Japanese kanji/transleration names. Alternatively, maybe we could move the box with the other names up above the image and below the main name box? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 20:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest removing the kanji title from the infobox altogether. It's already present in the first line of the article, and it is just clutter in the infobox. But then, it may also be an artifact that the images and captions on many articles aren't very good to begin with. (See Infobox image below.) --Farix (Talk) 21:02, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

When I was talking about the title bolding, I said in the individual boxes, not the header. Look at Clannad (visual novel) which uses five titles in five of the boxes. Now look at the title in the light novel box, and how obstructive it is now. Before, those titles were unbolded and looked much nicer (and took up less space accordingly). I do not believe these titles should remain bolded (but keep the bold in the header title, as per usual). Also, I guess I misread the template code; whatever I said about the episode/volume lists, I retract as it doesn't apply. As for the captions, I still think they should remain hidden, though if we are to keep them, removing the kanji/romanji title from the infobox may be a viable option.

Further, I may as well bring this up too, about lengthy boxes and how it was suggested above that a split may be in order. Well, take a look at Clannad (visual novel); it uses 1 game, 1 novel, 1 OVA, 1 movie, 2 anime, and 4 manga boxes. Other than the movie, all other media types have not been split, and for good reason. If the box was going to get any shorter, the 4 manga boxes would have to be removed, but there's no reason to even split any of the manga info from the main article. I mean, the episode/volume lists are incorporated into the anime/manga boxes themselves, and I haven't seen anyone use the Other box for a "list of episodes/chapters" in exchange for using the anime/manga box itself with the link for those lists provided. So you can't just say "oh well, this article uses 10 boxes, I guess we should split" when it probably doesn't even apply to half of the articles that use a ton of boxes like Clannad does. --十八 21:57, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, those titles have always been bold and where never unbolden. --Farix (Talk) 22:26, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

No they weren't; I'm 100% sure of this. If they had been bolded before, I would have brought up the issue about unbolding them way before. Or are you suggesting, somehow, that my browser (firefox) wasn't rendering the titles as being bolded? Also, why is it that we have an "other publishers" hidden field for the manga/novel boxes, but not for the game one? Articles with games that have been released a lot of times by different publishers (One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e) I think should be given the same treatment.--十八 22:30, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The title headers have always been <th> elements, which render by default in boldface, in every revision of {{Infobox animanga/Anime}}, and I would wager that the other components have behaved similarly. If you don't believe me, check the history yourself. —TangentCube, Dialogues 23:28, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I did check the history, and I couldn't believe it. I know what I know, and if I only had a screenshot to prove it to you. There is no way I wouldn't have brought it up sooner if they had appeared bolded in articles, I assure you. Am I really the only one who says this, or am I just officially going crazy now?--十八 23:32, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

What browser are you using? -- Ned Scott 04:12, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Specifically, lolifox, but this is just a mod on Firefox 2. Plus, when I used to use Firefox 2, and MSN I never noticed the titles were bolded, and I've used MSN the longest for browsing wiki (not since last January though). Also, the same applied to when I viewed pages in IE on the rare occasion. I know I'm not wrong, and I can't imagine this only affecting me when I've provided 4 browsers who rendered the titles merely italicized in the individual boxes in the old version of this template which was just used until this month. Ned, were these titles really always bold-italicized for you? Keep in mind I'm not talking about the header box which has always been bold-italicized.--十八 04:32, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Juhachi is right. The titles in the individual boxes have never been bold (I use Firefox 2.0.0.1), and quite frankly it looks horrible the way it is now. So can someone fix this please? Kazu-kun (talk) 07:01, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Ned Scott/sandbox6 shows old and new, and sure enough there is a noticeable difference when viewed in Firefox (also, it's not as compact, which I now notice, but I'm sure that's an easy fix). See Image:Animanga screenshot.png. -- Ned Scott 07:55, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The only noticable difference I see in that image is smoothed versus unsmoothed fonts. The only way I could see the titles not being rendered as bold is if the type is small enough that the browser doesn't bother. I went and checked that sandbox on a different computer running IE6, and the text isn't rendered as bold unless the font size is set to "Larger" or above, which is more the user's problem than any change in the infobox. —TangentCube, Dialogues 08:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

But the majority of people using such browsers won't have it set to a "larger" text setting, probably. The point is, now that everyone can see the bold-italicizing, how about we cut it (because it look terrible)?--十八 08:56, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree, I think the bolding of the section titles should go, at least partially. While in the screenshot, I can see the old versus new look similar, in looking at the actual code version in Ned's sandbox, the titles were not showing up bolded. I'm using Firefox with fonts set to normal size. In IE 6, fonts also set to normal, there is also no bolding of the section titles. I think it might look okay to have the "TV anime" etc parts bolded, without the italics, but having the actual titles themselves bolded looks off to me from what it was. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 09:07, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't support adding another span just to thin the letters. If anything, the sheer smallness of the font before was terrible; this is just different. —TangentCube, Dialogues 09:10, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Both versions are showing up bold on my end (Win XP SP3, Firefox 2.0.0.14). Apparently, it is a font rendering bug on XP that was may have been fixed recently. But really, having the titles bold don't appear to be a problem. --Farix (Talk) 17:11, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I still think it look horrible. Let's get read of the bolding, please, at least in the tiles.Kazu-kun (talk) 17:13, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Infobox image

Guess this belongs here, though I'm worried that it won't get much attention if it's not posted at WT:ANIME or WT:MOS-AM. Currently we have for the image description for the header code: A relevant image for the work, which should be a movie poster, a DVD/VHS cover, screenshot, or another related image. What I am wondering, primarily, is the use of logos in the infobox. From what I've found, this is up to the choice of the editors involved in a given article. GAs like Elfen Lied and Death Note use a logo, but other GAs like Fist of the North Star and Golden Boy (manga), or the FAs Excel Saga, Madlax, etc do not, and instead use either a cover of a manga volume (Fist, Excel) or just a character group image (Golden Boy, Madlax). I know that there is no regulation as to what should be used, but I was just wondering what the community thought about the use of logos in infoboxes and if they are suitable for an infobox image or not.

This primarily stems from a recent conflict over the infobox image in Ballad of a Shinigami which since March 17, 2007 used an image of the first light novel. When I cleaned up and expanded the article last February and extending into March, I included a logo in the infobox and moved the light novel image down to the light novel section. Then, a couple days ago, this was changed back to the light novel image. This sparked some discussion on the talk page, though neither me or the other user agreed with each other.

Basically, my argument was that Ballad has many different media types including light novels, manga, anime, and a live-action drama. I thought that using the primary work (light novels) as a representation in the infobox was providing a narrow view into the entire media franchise, plus the fact that in terms of media types, the light novels only take up a small portion; in this case 1/6 of the whole as there are 6 distinct media types. Using the light novel cover as a representation of Ballad as a whole I thought was detracting from the other media types, at least initially when a reader first comes to the page, so I felt a logo was best. However, while I still believe in this, I'm not entirely close-minded on the issue, as was apparent from the end of the discussion as the other user gave up, and gave me the option to switch back to the logo, but as you can see I have not done that, and even more recently have moved back a light novel image into the infobox for Allison (light novels).

Truly, I think most of the debate came from frustrations related to edit conflicts between User:AnmaFinotera and I on Ballad (and earlier in March on Kino's Journey as the history reflects). I think I was more annoyed that she was saying that logos were absolutely not acceptable when compared to a light novel cover, manga cover, DVD cover, movie poster, etc depending on the primary media type for a given series. But I say that logos can still work out.

So what is the community's stance on all this?--十八 10:13, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I think using a logo is fine for manga/anime with lots of different media types, as long as there is at least one picture of some type of media (be it a manga/light novel/novel/DVD case cover or an anime group shot) should be placed somewhere on the article.WhiteArcticWolf (talk) 11:24, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

(edit confilict) Personally, I find logos and title cards to be useless when identifying a series. The whole point of including an image in the infobox is so that the read can identify the subject. IMO, a cast shot or even the cover of a DVD or book cover is always better. --Farix (Talk) 11:30, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

If a logo has the necessary product recognition and association with its series, then I'd say it's all right to use it. Otherwise, I would say to use an image from the most prevalent and widely known media type. In any case, as long as the relevant section is long enough to support it, there's no reason each media type can't be represented by at least one image in the page's body – you just have to be careful not to end up with an image gallery or FU violations (which you should be careful of anyways). —Dinoguy1000 14:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

My view is probably already clear, but like Farix, I find a logo and a title card to be fairly useless, particularly a logo. Its almost always just stylized text or kanji. That doesn't identify anything, it just repeats the name. A book cover (for light novels and manga), a DVD cover (for series, movie, OVAs), etc is far more representative to me. AnmaFinotera (talk) 15:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

My problem with using just a logo is that it conveys nothing to me of the art style of the visual media. It's just a logo -- often in kanji/kana, which I can't read. —Quasirandom (talk) 22:24, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that a cover scan is going to be much more useful in identifying a show than a logo. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:13, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm being told that this discussion REQUIRES cover art in the infobox. Is this a requirement, or can we use any image that best illustrates the main idea of the series like a promotional poster, offical art...etc? Should Elfen Lied have a manga cover simply because the focus of the article is the manga (unreleased in english) or can we use an cover image from the Anime since that's what most english wikipedia users are likely to be familiar with? --Kraftlos (talk) 21:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The image should be something that can easily be identifiable with the work. It does not have to be cover art or some other specific image. -- Ned Scott 06:30, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Publishing label field suggestion

While typically not included even in prose from what I've seen, I always try to include the information pertaining to the publishing labels that tankōbon or bunkobon are published under, such as with Dengeki Comics and Dengeki Bunko. I've seen that on the Japanese Wiki there is a field for publishing label. I suggest adding it in to our manga and novel boxes as well.--十八 19:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm...I think part of the reason it may not be typically included, at least in my own experience, is that it isn't always easy to discover which label it was printed under. I guess looking at the Japanese covers can help for some. I have tried to include it myself, when available, in the prose, but are most people interested in the labels? And if we're going to do for the original, will we also do for English (for those that have labels, like Viz and DMP). AnmaFinotera (talk) 22:50, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it's useful to have, especially when someone is trying to find out information and they may kow the label, but not the publisher. (Yes, this happens, even to someone like me who is very familiar with most of the labels used in Japan) ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 02:22, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I was going to suggest this myself at some point. labels are good to include, in the case of light novels: most light novels are published under labels, and not serialized in magazines, in the case of manga: there are manga not serialized in magazines, but published directly, and what other way would you know it's demographic other than the label its published under. for example: the seinen manga magazine Manga ALLMAN is defunct, but the comic imprint(label) ALLMAN Comics is still alive and used by the publisher. anyway, yeah if I was going to suggest this then obviously I think it's a good idea lol. --ChuChu (talk) 22:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed, but it appears someone added this parameter back in April[2], but said nothing about it and did not update the documentation. Had we decided this was something that should be added? If so, how should be be used? Format, contents, etc? We need to add it to the documentation with instructions if its to be kept. Here is apparently how the person who added it envisions it being used[3] AnmaFinotera (talk) 07:43, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I added it to the docs just now, but I don't have a clue what it's for. Someone else please write a description of it. --Eruhildo (talk) 03:14, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Decription added. Basically is the label the work was published under, which some felt was important as most light novels aren't serialized. See Blood+ to see it in practice. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 03:19, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Coolio. Should be used for regular novels as well? 'Cause I put it in both examples. --Eruhildo (talk) 03:02, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

publisher_en field

We always put {{flagicon|USA}} in front of the English publisher, right? So wouldn't make more sense for the template to put it in by default? I think the code would be {{{publisher_English|{{flagicon|USA}}{{{publisher_english|{{{publisher_en}}}}}}}}}. Is this a bad idea? --Eruhildo (talk) 00:18, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

No, we don't always put it in front of the English publisher, because the English publisher may not always be in the US :P There are some manga series which are published in English by Chuang Yi in Singapore, for example, that were not released in the US. Could also be published in other counties in English, like the UK, Australia, South Africa, etc. So best to manually add. AnmaFinotera (talk) 00:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, duh. *slaps forehead* I guess putting in {{flagicon|country_var}} wouldn't work either since there can be more than one English publisher. Oh well. --Eruhildo (talk) 00:42, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

On a related note, I've been wondering for some time: should the Japan flag be placed in the publisher field, or not? I've seen it done both ways, and it would be nice to get consensus. If it should always be put in, then this could automatically be added by the template, similar to how Eruhildo suggested for the US flag. —Dinoguy1000 23:31, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

There is actual a minor bruhaha over the flagicon issue over Template talk:Infobox Television#Flag usage and whether they should be used at all, and to a lesser degree at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (flags)#Flagicon usage issue where discussion has also pointed out something I hadn't thought of. By the MoS, "When a flag icon is used for the first time in a list or table, it needs to appear adjacent to its respective country (or province, etc.) name, as not all readers are familiar with all flags" so it would seem like maybe we should be using "Japan" instead of "" for all of our first usages of each country. Thoughts? AnmaFinotera (talk) 23:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking of suggesting automatically putting in the Japanese flag in the publisher field, but I thought: "Are all manga series originally published in Japan?" Are they? I'm testing something to link the flag icons to articles. If that works the issue AnmaFinotera brought up won't be one anymore, I think. --Eruhildo (talk) 01:17, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm...technically, yes all manga is originally published in Japan, but we do have an option to use that box for OEL manga, so that still may not work (and not sure if people are using the box for Manhua/Manwha even though its not in the project scope). AnmaFinotera (talk) 01:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, it'd be a single extra parserfunction to determine if the OEL manga parameter is set and to remove or replace the flag if it is. As for manhwa/manhua using {{Infobox animanga}}, since they're outside the scope of the wikiproject (and thus the template), the automatically inserted flag would be a tip-off to any article editors that they need to update the infobox. As to the discussion regarding the usage of flag(icon)s in infoboxes, I'd lean more towards {{flag}} for the first appearance of a flag, followed by {{flagicon}}, unless two or more flags look alike enough as to be ambiguous. It's really a rather complex issue with no simple "quick fix". =P —Dinoguy1000 17:53, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Found a couple from Tokyopop: King of Hell is a manhwa which uses our infobox and Dramacon is an OEL which also uses it. Some OELs like Megatokyo fall under WP:COMIC, which has its own infobox. Even still, I think the Tokyopop should use our infobox and probably fall under our project, so that would mean we can't have it automatically put in the flagicon. --Eruhildo (talk) 18:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I decided to give the flag/flagicon a try on an article to see how it looks. For Voices of a Distant Star, I used flag for the first appearance, and flagicon for subsequent. What do you think? AnmaFinotera (talk) 18:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Manhwa doesn't fall under our project scope, so I think King of Hell needs to probably change to WP:COMIC or if there is a Manhwa template, then that one. Ditto Dramacon. I think the only time an OEL should use the template is if it is connected to an anime/manga series that does fall within our scope. AnmaFinotera (talk) 18:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hmm... this highlights a problem I thought about with using it that way: if you have your preferences set so that wikilinks are never underlined, the country link is not clearly split from the publisher link. This may not actually be a common problem, but e.g. "USA ADV Films" is definitely a plausible company name, and could confuse anyone not familiar with the company. In any case, IMHO we should refrain from really working on this until the larger issue of whether and how flag icons can be used in infoboxes is resolved. —Dinoguy1000 18:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that as well. I thought about adding a - or something after, but then it looks odd in the subsequent flagicon use. AnmaFinotera (talk) 18:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I finally finished what I was testing: I came up with a way to make the flagicon link to the country article instead of its image. It doesn't have the ability to resize like {{flagicon}}, but for our purposes it doesn't matter. The code is here and uses this code. Here is a test on my user page showing it in action. I've submitted the idea to the guys working on the flagicon template, but I don't know that they'll be able to get it to work with that template. In the meantime, do y'all want to try out my idea? --Eruhildo (talk) 18:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Cancel that - someone over there is working on using the new #tag parser function. I'd rather put this issue on hold until they're finished working that out. --Eruhildo (talk) 23:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Note: King of Hell is using {{Infobox manhwa}}, which looks similar to this one, but isn't. —TangentCube, Dialogues 23:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, ok. I should have checked that. I take back what I said. I guess there wouldn't be a problem with auto inserting flagicon Japan then would there? --Eruhildo (talk) 00:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)