Template talk:Infobox comic book title/Archive 1

Archive 1

Redesign

Ummmm... yeah. I see the rationale behind a lot of the changes, but it adds up to an unholy mess in a lot of ways.

Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do
Miniseries by Marvel Comics
Publication date			August 2002 – present
Number of issues
Main character(s)			Black Cat Spider-Man
Creative team
Writer(s)
Artist(s)
Penciller(s)
Inker(s)
Colorist(s)		{{{colorists}}}
Creator(s)		Kevin Smith Terry Dodson

Let's take a look at the box as it appeared on Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do under the redesign.

We have six lines in total, notwithstanding a couple spilling over. Of that:

1. Three are bold in their entirety and have dark-pink backgrounds. As a one-line highlight on an open box, as on {{Superherobox}} and {{Superteambox}}, that's fine. When half a claustrophobic box is that way, it's not.
2. Of the remaining, cramped, lines, half of each line is bold and the other half are links. This means well over half the box is bolded. Bad.
3. There is no consistancy with WP:CMC's other boxen, {{Superherobox}} (973 pages), {{Superteambox}} (103 pages) and {{Supersupportingbox}} (51 pages), all of which are used on far, far more pages than the 27 of this one, hence this one is the one which must fall into line.

(Crossposted with Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Comics/templates#Re:_Fritz.27s_redesign - SoM 23:04, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Publisher

Is there a reason why Publisher is the mandatory while all the others are optional? I recently changed it, but SoM changed it back without giving any reason? --Fritz S. (Talk) 10:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

The bottom six or seven (the various writer/artist parameters) need to be optional because there's so many frelling potential combinations possible, and if the book's not currently running, the "As of" needs to be optional too.

Image/Caption are optional because, well, if there's no image they just take up space (especially if the image was removed by User:OrphanBot and the caption is left)

Format's optional because it's very badly named - it seems to be used to refer to miniseries/maxiseries/ongoing/etc, when it would make more sense as a reference to whether it's a 32-page stapled comic book, album, prestige format, OGN, etc.

Date's hard enough to come by that I accept that it might need to be optional.

No. of Issues... if it's a currently-ongoing series, with one volume only, or an OGN, this is pointless.

main_char_team - it's concievable that, an OGN especially, would have no ongoing notable characters.

Whereas publisher is self-evident from the cover (NB: As distinct from copyright holder, from a discussion elsewhere). - SoM 10:50, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Centering?

Can someone fix it so the image is centered? --DrBat 14:31, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Color

Can we get a different color? - Peregrinefisher 18:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Display

"Colorists", "Inkers", "Letterers" - indeed, anything other than writer and artist - don't seem to be showing up on at least a couple of pages (Preacher (comics) and L.A.W. (comics), for example). Anyone know why? Also, should there be an 'editor' category? ntnon (talk) 02:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Fixed... had some over lap in the label/data numbering. And I'd be tempted to shy away from adding "Editor". It already feels like an index with most series, adding the editor(s) plays into that. - J Greb (talk) 02:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you.

You could be right (on the "Editor" front), but I that since the editor's role can be crucial, it might be a worthwhile addition. It shouldn't be a required piece of information, but might sometimes be of note. And/or interesting when it's someone unexpected or not normally known as an editor. ntnon (talk) 07:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Editor

There should be an editor field. Some comics are notable because of their editor and the editor can play a crucial role. I agree with the post above about it not being required but it should be included. I´ll go ahead and do it, if you want to change it back you can. --George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 15:32, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

CSS Inheritance

From what element does Supercbbox inherit its CSS properties? I'm wondering where it's specified that it should be float:right, and where it gets its background color and border properties. I can see by inspecting the Supercbbox table element that it inherits the .infobox class, but I'm pretty sure .infobox doesn't have a float:right specification. Wikisocko (talk) 19:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you're coming from.

The current version uses {{infobox}}, which defaults to the right, as well as cell boarders, and 'box boarder.

Beyond that, it follows the evolution of the 'box, which was set to the right through all it's iterations. - J Greb (talk) 21:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Make "collected editions" section collapsed

Given that the "collected edition" section can get quite long, that most viewers of an article won't be looking for the specific ISBN of an TPB, and that most articles already have a "collected editions" section, I propose that the "collected editions" section of the template be collapsed as default.--Darknus823 (talk) 04:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The intent of the section was supposed to be for the "notable" collections, first printings of the first few and/or critically acclaimed collections, leaving the "Collected editions" section of the article, which the section of the 'box links to, to expand on that and round out the list(s). That being said, it likely should have been capped at 5 max.

Beyond that, the two other issues: ISBN and hiding the section.

• ISBN — Considering that 1) the 'box is a relevant, important info dump, and 2) the ISBN is a way of tracking down real world information, there is justification about including the information in the 'box.
• Collapsing — Before going to that extreme, I'd rather see if trimming the number of slots down and adding a note about the use of them in the docs alleviates the situation first.

- J Greb (talk) 21:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Genre spacing

Just a note to say it is worth adding a trailing space on the genres as they clump up at the moment, see e.g. Marvel Zombies. (Emperor (talk) 04:06, 26 July 2008 (UTC))

hrm... looks like there's a hole, multiple genres shouldn't show with out |multigenre=y...

- J Greb (talk) 04:21, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

And the hole is fixed. Entering more than one without multigenre will result in the alphabetically first one to show in the box. - J Greb (talk) 04:34, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Help

Any idea what I'm doing American Century (comics)? The "Vertigo titles" cat doesn't seem to be generating. Cheers. (Emperor (talk) 21:59, 4 August 2008 (UTC))

Missed a "Then" condition when I put in the split for the sub-cats for limited series. Seems to be back to working now. - J Greb (talk) 22:32, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

That's great - works fine noew. (Emperor (talk) 01:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC))

Comic book limited series

Good work on that - very useful.

Could I make a couple of suggestions for additions: Avatar Press and Elseworlds - they might not account for a large percentage of the comics out there but an awful lot of them are limited series (and with the Elseworlds the rest are one-shots) and account for quite a few of the current articles in the category (and more when all the Elseworlds titles are given an infobox). (Emperor (talk) 01:34, 5 August 2008 (UTC))

There's a side-step that will work for Elseworlds:

|subcat = Elseworlds

|limsub = DC Comics

That'll add Elseworlds titles and DC Comics limited series, in that order.

Before running through Avatar... does it have any ongoings?

- J Greb (talk) 02:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Good point. I have had a look through and the only ones I can think of are FreakAngels and Doktor Sleepless which are both currently open ended (and don't appear to be like most of his series - made up from sets of mini-series) so I'd suspect it probably isn't worth it as so many are splitting them off might seem a bit silly.

Thanks for the Elseworlds tip. (Emperor (talk) 04:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC))

Historical working?

I can't seem to get the Historical field to work. See The 'Nam. (Emperor (talk) 16:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC))

It is now... missed a | in making "Historical" redundant if "Alternate history" is present. - J Greb (talk) 22:15, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Can you check The 'Nam? It still isn't working and I'm not sure what I've done wrong. (Emperor (talk) 22:22, 5 August 2008 (UTC))

I't showing both the links in the 'box, and both the cats for me on the article, the "The 'Nam" isn'owing on the Category:Historical comics proper... hrm...

I know I was having trouble with a similar thing with the location 'box. I wound up shaking it lose with a nul edit. That may be the case here...

- J Greb (talk) 23:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Yup... a nul edit kicked it into the cat list. At least on my end. - J Greb (talk) 23:28, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Issues

Issues field doesn't seem to be working: Point Blank (comics). (Emperor (talk) 21:42, 20 August 2008 (UTC))

Fixed, though it may take time to propagate. A null edit would hasten that. (Typo cropped in when I set it up to auto "1" for 1 shots...) - J Greb (talk) 21:54, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Great that has done the trick. I'm happy to let it propagate. (Emperor (talk) 22:14, 20 August 2008 (UTC))

That's the 3rd typo I had to fix today. I found out that Romance and SciFi were miss-sorting when I ported the code over to the Asian comics series template. - J Greb (talk) 22:27, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Anthology?

Is anthology a genre? I'd have thought it was closer to being a format. As you can see on Action Comics it is also putting out the wrong category, the right one is Category:Comics anthologies (as opposed to "anthology comics", although, as I say, it might not be something we want in the genre (might be better adding it in separately. It might be worth a monthly/weekly flag for format and then the latter can generate Category:Weekly comics. (Emperor (talk) 16:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC))

Fair point on the cat, an that can be easily changed.

As for genre/format... I'd almost say "six of one", almost. "Anthology" deals more with the content of the publication than its publishing format. An anthology is multiple , generally loosely related or unrelated stories in an issue or across large chunks of the publications run.

If the consensus though is that "Anthology" should be under "format", again, it's not a difficult thing to change.

(On that note I've been thinking that format may need to be revisited with add-ons for "(completed)", "(cancelled)", and something for a physical description...)

- J Greb (talk) 22:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't really suggesting we put it in format (that seems quite clear and few defined) just that it really didn't belong in genre ;) It might be we need another field for something like that or we just deal with it in the article - keep format simple (as I've seen people try to jam things in there like "4 colour 22 page comic book" or "prestige format" and I think if we do want that info (and I am unsure if we would want the former at all) then they can be added into the lead and/or publication details.

I'd be wary of hardcoding anything about duration as there can be multiple "volumes" of any one series and this is really dealt with in the dates field. (Emperor (talk) 23:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC))

The multiple volumes is why I left format as an override — in theory a title could have multiple volumes of each format (ongoing, limited, and one shot), all three logigicals get ticked, and the explanation gets entered as override text.

But I do see your point about the other bits and bobs... that is really more info than is needed.

And as for "Anthology". I can see your point, though I'd like a bit more input before moving it. - J Greb (talk) 00:19, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

OK no worries. (Emperor (talk) 01:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC))

Meanwhile, as we are talking about genres, what about Category: Anarchist comics? (Emperor (talk) 01:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC))

And you can conform them under "Anarch"... - J Greb (talk) 22:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

OK cool - the test worked: The Invisibles. (Emperor (talk) 22:52, 5 August 2008 (UTC))

I just noticed this new addition to the template, and am glad for this improved feature, but would like to suggest a few additions. Primarily, anarchist literature would be a sub-genre of Political fiction, and under that umbrella, there would also be Libertarian science fiction, and Anarcho-capitalist literature. Now these different articles need to be improved, and the anarcho-capitalist article could possibly be merged with an "anarchist fiction" article (which does not yet exist). I recommend including a Political Fiction genre for now, with the potential to create just a few subgenre's later for fiction that depicts different philosophical tendencies. Just a few of the more notable strains. Wouldn't want to overwhelm the user with niche' categories. It pays to keep things simple.--Cast (talk) 08:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Followed by/preceded by

Many independent comics are published in a series of miniseries, and sometimes each miniseries has an individual wikipedia page (e.g. Serenity (comics) or Hellboy). For such instances, I believe followed by/preceded by fields would be useful and justified. I realize that these fields would not be able to be used in most cases, but even the TV series infobox has them and their use would be even rarer for TV series.--Marcus Brute (talk) 02:57, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I back this idea. The current incarnation of the Graphic novel infobox template uses such a system. What of limited series which are never collected into trade paperbacks, or are not originally published as graphic novels? At present, this template gives us no options. --Cast (talk) 03:29, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not so sure...

The graphic novel 'box is fairly narrow in it's focus with most (tempted to say "all") of the sequenced articles being series runs like Tintin. And most of those don't have notability issues.

But... adding it here does run the risk of notability issues by red linking non-notable series.

- J Greb (talk) 03:59, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Franchise specific tags

I was wondering if we could have Star Trek as one, adding it to genre SciFi and Category:Star Trek comics. When we resolve the situation with Star Wars I suppose we'll need one of those too. (Emperor (talk) 14:56, 8 March 2009 (UTC))

I've been looking at a few things as I've been cycling through the 'box templates, one of them being an "Adaptation of/Based on" line in the 'box and the relevant cats. At the moment I've found:

• Video games - WoW among them
• Fiction
• Film
• Television - including Trek and Buffy (which also has a "story line" cat)

It shouldn't be too hard to add these in, and I think we've already got the "Comics based on <foo>" cats. But it does become a question of where/how do we want the cats sorted.

Currently the template is ordering as:

First publisher; next and later publishers of new material; mini series publishers; 1-shot comics; debut year(s); genres in alpha order

Adding the adaptation would be part of the genre fields, and as pointed out can replace one or more genre cats. Should we place the adaptation before the genres or alphabetized within the grouping?

- J Greb (talk) 18:56, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Auto-categorising problem?

I spotted this [1] - the only solution to the categories appearing at the top of the page seems to be removing the genre sections from the infobox. Is this a general problem or specific to that page? (Emperor (talk) 15:35, 24 February 2009 (UTC))

A few things...

• multigenre was throwing a coma in the 'box...
• Anthology could have been added...
• sort needs to be in the template, the genrecat sub-template needs the sort in place...
• altcat needs to be there to have the article not sort into the overall parent "Comics publications" cat.

- J Greb (talk) 23:11, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

OK cool. Fixed. I noticed the same issue with Marvel Zombies (series), although a meta-series infobox seems the better option. (Emperor (talk) 23:54, 24 February 2009 (UTC))

Userfied articles will always be categorized in the main space categories, if they use the infobox (like User:Axl/List of Exalted comics). I'd propose that a new parameter "nocat" be introduced that supresses all categorization. Seems easy enough since everything below the transcluded {{Infobox}} appears to only affect categorization. --Amalthea 10:20, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually... {{NAMESPACE}} can be used to gage if the cats should or should not be added...

And that should knock the few autocatting user pages out of the cats...

- J Greb (talk) 12:20, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Eh, of course, thanks. --Amalthea 13:23, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

J, I don't really get "Actually the maintenance cats are hidden ones. And should fall off of the sandboxed pages anyway". Yes, the categories are hidden, but I will still find userfied pages with the infobox in the categories. E.g. Category:Comics infobox image less caption currently lists User:Axl/List of Exalted comics.
I don't use the categories, so I don't really care one way or the other, but I don't see that this is desirable. --Amalthea 12:03, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

hrm...

Fair point. There is a need for the depreciated parameter cats to show. And those would be the ones eventually disappearing, when the non-user page transclusions have all been updated.

But the maintenance ones... with the exception of "Misplaced comics infboxes", you're right, they are a bit useless.

- J Greb (talk) 12:39, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Tie-ins tag

I am interested in adding a "Tie-ins" tag for the infobox for crossover series such as Final Crisis or Secret Invasion for issues and miniseries which tie-in to the main series. The tag would resemble the "Titles" tag in Infobox comic book story arc and be auto-collapsed by default.

Without this tag, editors must choose between using the story arc infobox for the "Titles" tag (as SI does) or ignoring tie-ins in the infobox (as FC does). I don't find either situation ideal, and since both methods are employed regularly, there doesn't seem to be any standard under the current situation.

Please share your thoughts on this proposal.--Marcus Brute (talk) 02:15, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Frankly? If the article is focusing on an event story line in total, then the the story arc template should be used. Otherwise, the article will just be dealing with a single title and the 'box should reflect that.

And for clarity's sake, when we get to older "events" like CoIE or Secret Wars II where there is a single backbone mini, a section within the article that covers the "officially branded or acknowledged" tie-ins is sufficient. In most cases those articles spend, or should spend, little time on adding plot points from any/all of the "tie-ins".

Also, a "tie-ins" field could become abusive with articles on titles that are not event books getting "related" titles stuck in there. I'd rather not temp that.

Some last thoughts:

• The story arc template has a field that hasn't been put into the docs yet - self-titled - which auto-adds the limited series and debut cats.
• Most, if not all of the Marvel "events" of the past 10 or so years are likely going to wind up converted to story arcs. It's less likely with DC since it has been hit-n-miss with fully integrating things.

- J Greb (talk) 03:23, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Preceeding comma (at, e.g. V for Vendetta)

I'm reasonably technical (I can operate a toaster...) but the syntax for templates is beyond me! At V for Vendetta there's an issue with the "genre" section of this infobox: the genres start with a comma, e.g. ", Anarchist, Mystery, Post-apocalyptic, Superhero" instead of "Anarchist, Mystery, Post-apocalyptic, Superhero". I can't see how this is happening, but me and infobox syntax don't get along...!

An additional issue is that the SciFi genre isn't listed at all - I'm not too bothered about this because I don't think the subject fits into that category, but it would be good if someone could have a look at why that's happening too.

Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 10:40, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

hrm...

The comma is relatively simple. The alphabetically first genre field needs to be identified as "first" so the syntax is "| Anarch = first". I thought that note had been added to the docs... sorry about that.

As for SciFi. As noted in Template:Infobox comic book title#Genre list, SciFi is treated as a parent to Post-apocalyptic both as a genre and a category. So PostApoc overrides SciFi, same as Superhero would override Adventure.

- J Greb (talk) 21:30, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah! Got it. Both of those make sense now. Thanks for looking into this. Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 00:49, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

More collected editions

Fables (comics) has more than 10 collected editions, but with the template only up to 10 can be accommodated. How can this be solved? --Angua (talk) 14:41, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

The limit of 10 was an arbitrary number (the parameter and the parameter with the digits 1 through 9) aimed at two things:

• Avoiding running out of label/data fields in the infobox and
• Enforcing the "nutshell" nature of the 'box.

Since the 'box section links to the "Collected edition" section of the article, the 'box doesn't need an exhaustive list, that's what the article is for. Ideally, the 'box should have a minimal list covering the 1st printings of the notable collected editions, nothing more.

In cases line Fables... the solution may be to change the 10th slot slightly so that "among others" is shown if the infobox does not, or cannot, include all collected editions.

- J Greb (talk) 15:27, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Blue bars

For the sake of somewhat standardizing infobox appearances for works, and partly because it looks rather bad aesthetically, can we remove the blue backgrounds for the dividing headers, or at least allow an option to turn them off? --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 14:47, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Couple of questions...

• Which level of consistency? Especially since the use for sectioning is consistent across the comic book related info boxes as well as in line with the Anime/Manga "building block" infoboxes.
• "Turn off" as in on your monitor or to disable them from showing in a specific article at all? The first may not really be practical, or possible. The second is, frankly, a step to "remove entirely" since it makes the use of the 'boxes inconsistent within the related subject matter.

And to be honest, aesthetics is a personal opinion here. Or is there some more fundamental problem with this method of clearly sectioning an infobox?

- J Greb (talk) 15:30, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

The Comics Project is the odd-man out in terms of infobox consistency; {{Infobox Book}}, {{Infobox film}}, {{Infobox VG}}, all the way to {[tl|Infobox Person}} and the like have no colored dividers, as well as Comics templates such as {{Infobox comic strip}}. Sectioning an infobox can be done with text formatting with no loss of clarity and less distraction and clashing with graphic elements on any given page. It's an extension of the ridiculous color-coding scheme of 2006. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 16:15, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Dave,

• {{Infobox musical artist}}
• {{Infobox Album}}
• {{Infobox Single}}
• {{Infobox Dancer}}
• {{Infobox Theatre Group}}
• {{Infobox sports announcer}}
• {{Infobox Gymnast}}
• {{Infobox Football biography}}

And that's on a cursory look. Now, get off the "odd man out" horse, it won't run. Is there anything other than you seem to absolutely despise it? Anything?

- J Greb (talk) 16:57, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be no Wikipedia-wide consensus (or if there is I can't find it and no one has yet linked to it) so I assume it comes down to the consensus within the relevant Project so you are welcome to start a discussion at WT:CMC but personally I'm fine with them as they are. The exception of the comic strip infobox is probably an argument for changing that as it is based on historical precedent as there was a Comic Strip Project which looked after it but the group was eventually merged with the Comics Project. (Emperor (talk) 18:19, 1 July 2009 (UTC))

Fine, J Greb, I forgot it's your template. Forget I said anything, I'll just change the articles I work on to {{Infobox book}} and we can both be happy. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 18:45, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Snit note Dave.

Also noted that you'll spite your face and use what is likely a less-than-good fit for the articles because you can't have things all your way.

And I'm sorry you feel it's a ownership issue when someone point out a major logic flaw to you. - J Greb (talk) 19:25, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Hardly a logic flaw. I'm not proposing we get rid of dividers entirely, just that for most general creative work infoboxes, they don't have them. Considering the blue bars were only added for perceived aesthetic reasons, arguing against them for the same reasons is perfectly valid. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 20:00, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

And for general novels and films, where there isn't a reason, standing or otherwise, for more the one section, there's no need for sub-headers, fine and dandy.

However, bringing in Infobox person (not a 'box "general creative works") and Infobox VG (for "general creative works", but one that uses color variation to separate label/data sets) to support this being the "odd man" doesn't help. It also opens it up to other going an looking at other infoboxes to actually see if this is really that out of sync with the rest of Wikipedia. That's where the list of person 'boxes and "general creative works" (albums and singles) that are sectioned and do use colored bars to do it.

On aesthetics... I can see your POV as well as an example of it in practice ({{Infobox Athlete}}). I just don't agree with it. Functionally, the colored bars pop the heading on a quick scan of the 'box. And aesthetically they aren't a distraction.

And on ownership - Yes, I've put in a lot of work into this 'box and a chunk of the ones related to it. But frankly, if there is a consensus to change coloring of the 'box(es), by all means, lets get it done. But last I checked, my heavy involvement in the template does not preclude me from speaking up. Right now, you made you position clear, and hopefully I've made mine as clear. Do we move forward from here or do we drop it for now without anymore backhanded shots? - J Greb (talk) 20:47, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

If you feel it is a big deal then start a discussion on it. If there are no guidelines for or against this then you are going to need a consensus on the way forward. As it stands, one person not liking something isn't usually grounds to go and change it, but it might be this i niggling other editors who have never been bothered to express an opinion until you ask.

Changing a specific infobox to a more general one because you don't like the colour of the dividing bars is going to get that edit reverted as, in most cases, this would be degrading the article over what is essentially a pet peeve. (Emperor (talk) 21:09, 1 July 2009 (UTC))

Imprint tag

Since many comics are published under am imprint, there should be a tag for imprints that is separate from the publisher tag.--Marcus Brute (talk) 00:39, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

My first thought on this is "no"... this really isn't and index and the in article text is generally going to be "<Foo> published by <Faa> under the <Flaa> imprint." There are a few notable imprints such as Vertigo and what Wildstorm has essentially become, and these generally have independent articles and in most cases a split for the "<Foo> titles" category.

As the template currently stands, there is a field to insert the publisher/imprint in, one to set the "titles" cat, and, if needs be, the category for limited series. That should be enough for the purposes of an encyclopedic article - it's flexible and preserves a sense of consistency. - J Greb (talk) 02:15, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

question about image size --- *solved*

in such a box, is it possible to change the size of an image??
for instance: please have a look at ("my") Chelo’s Burden: when you click to get the image file, you can see it's smaller (i wanted fair-fair use, 145x188) than the one shown in the box + i tried to add |120px but it does not work --- thanks in advance kernitou talk 08:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

i got this answer on the village pump : If you read the documentation of the infobox you will note that there is an imagesize parameter. — User:TheDJ 12:07, 5 October 2009 (UTC) - thanks to her/him kernitou talk 15:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Covers field

Occasionally I run across a title where the covers are done by one artist and are worthy of mention (and when they are well known for their covers work) like David McKean or Arthur Suydam's work in Marvel Zombies (series), and someone has added the covers artist to the artist field which should really be kept for internal art or things could get very confusing. I have moved these to a "covers" field just to tidy things up (and with an eye ot requesting it here - although I never did) and I ran across a "cover artist" field on The Dreaming (comics) and thought it worth throwing in this suggestion. (Emperor (talk) 17:44, 5 October 2009 (UTC))

Autobiographical comics

There was a bit of a gap in the comics genres (as there was one for autobiographical graphic novels) and so I started Category:Autobiographical comics. I thought it worth flagging in case you wanted to include it in the infobox template. (Emperor (talk) 01:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC))

The modules for the genre out put and cats had been updated as had the metaseries infobox. Hadn't gotten to this one at the time. That's been addressed now. - J Greb (talk) 02:51, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Removal/revision of genre tags

The genre tags currently employed as a part of this infobox are woefully inadequate to properly represent the myraid of literary genres that exist. Moreso, the tags are badly coded as using multigenre often leading to a comma at the beginning of the list and does not follow the Manual of Style (Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)#Musical_and_literary_genres) in regards to captitalization. Therefore, the tags should be removed outright (leaving only the "|genre =" tag) or at the very least be recoded to fix the capitalization and comma errors.--Marcus Brute (talk) 00:01, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

First off, thanks for pointing out the MoS ref. The sub-template handling them ran through a bounce without that. That being said, that change is very minor.

As for the genre lists... As they stand they are drawn from 4 sources:

• Literary genre
• Genre#List of Genres
• Existing categories in Category:Comics by genre
• And "extra" categories that have been used in various comics infoboxes - not just this one or the cross-posted one.

Now, coupled with the tags also adding the appropriate categories as well as a link to the most relevant article, and that genre can be used as an override, removal of the sub-template doesn't seem warranted.

- J Greb (talk) 00:25, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Deletion

• This template was listed on templates for deletion, but there was no consensus to delete. See the log. Dan100 (Talk) 16:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• Please see here —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:41, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Problem with caption field

Please assist I noticed that the caption in the infobox to Action Comics 1 is malformed. Presently, it has the following code:

|caption=Cover of Action Comics No. 1 that hit the newsstands on June 30, 1938.

This should result in only the words "Action Comics" being italicized and with everything in the same font size, but the way it actually displays is as "Cover of Action Comics No. 1 that hit the newsstands on June 30, 1938." (The HTML: <span style=""><small>Cover of</small> Action Comics <i>No. 1 that hit the newsstands on June 30, 1938.</i></span></td> Obviously, something is awry, apparently when you use the name of the comic in the caption itself? Can anyone figure out what's happening here? Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:25, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

The bypass in title to not italicize #1 is affecting the caption. Add a single ' at the end of the title field and it should be fine. - J Greb (talk) 11:55, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Fixed It's been fixed on that page, but I would still recommend someone amend the template due to this arcane solution. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:18, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

The "archane solution" is to a very odd-ball situation. Can it be coded around? Yes. Should it for the less than 1% (2 or 3 of the 1500+) of the articles using the template? Maybe not. - J Greb (talk) 12:05, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't an arcane solution, I added the template to the cover description as I thought it'd help but the problem was what J Greb pointed out - you'd not added the opening formatting for the italics in the "title" field: Action Comics'' - the fix was the same with any formatting snafu where a formatting tag is left open and impacts the following text (its just more obvious when it happens in the body of the article and not an infobox), you close or remove it, the latter is the best option here. I just left the cover description template in as it is a handy thing to have around and should probably be added to all cover caption fields. (Emperor (talk) 16:15, 12 March 2010 (UTC))

Multigenre needs work

There's a bug as evidenced by Powers (comics). Also, can the genre tags be made so that the are not case sensitive?--Marcus Brute (talk) 07:50, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

1. "|Crime = y" should be "|Crime = first"
2. For the most part the genre tags are not case sensitive - "|Genre tag = <anything>" is read as the genre should be there. With multiple genres though, making it cases and number sensitive adds at least 3 lines of code - First, 1, and 1st - per genre. That becomes very unwieldy.

- J Greb (talk) 11:50, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

What I meant by case sensitive is making "|superhero = y" work as well as "|Superhero = y"--Marcus Brute (talk) 23:27, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

And that would close to double the sub-template. LSS, one term is sufficient since it is clearly listed in the docs. Setting up any template to cover any permutation for an argument is counter productive, at best.

- J Greb (talk) 00:56, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Categories

According to the doc page, "This infobox has been designed to automatically place articles its added to into appropriate categories under Category:Comics publications." However, this practice is explicitly discouraged by Wikipedia:Categorization#Categorization using templates. As an example of the practical difficulties this causes, an editor recently added "subcat = Dark Horse" to a number of infoboxes. The problem is that Category:Dark Horse titles is actually a redirect to Category:Dark Horse Comics titles. But, because the categorization is done in the template, the bot that fixes redirected categories is unable to fix these links. I suggest that the categorization features be deleted or disabled. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 09:54, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Just 2¢, but... The coding was done, it was done without using #switch but with nested #if. Replacing the nest with #switch does address the problem exemplified with the Dark Horse situation. - J Greb (talk) 01:02, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Autocat problems

Absolution (comics) and Chronicles of Wormwood both have odd empty/broken categories showing up at the top of the page. (Emperor (talk) 18:33, 6 May 2010 (UTC))

hrm... Looks like trying to fix one thing brok another... - J Greb (talk) 20:22, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

And it should be fixed now... - J Greb (talk) 20:27, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Cheers but it may be it broke something else ;) See for example Witches (Marvel Comics), which is producing a "DC Comics limited series" category as well as the Marvel one. (Emperor (talk) 00:34, 8 May 2010 (UTC))

(Taking a Homer outta petty cash...) Should be fixed, it'll just take time for the system to cycle. - J Greb (talk) 01:52, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

EC Comics problem

The relevant category for EC Comics is actually Category: EC Comics publications (made before everything was standardised), which creates problems, see e.g.: Weird Fantasy. So it can be worked around using altcat but it might be worth fixing (as it could cause confusion) - not sure what you want to do: rename the category or add a switch into the code here, (Emperor (talk) 15:46, 24 June 2010 (UTC))

Should be fixed now...

- J Greb (talk) 21:25, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

New parameters, deprecate the old?

I've gone and done something BOLD---I've added parameters that allow editors to set only one or multiple instances of members of the creative team, which will result in the labels displaying in singular or plural rather than always with the (s) at the end---for example, it will display as "editor" or "editors" rather than "editor(s)", which is ugly and takes up precious space on tight infoboxes. So far it allows for either singular or up to five instances of each. If necessary, it would be easy to add more to the template the way it is set up.

It maintains backwards compatibility with the old parameters, so, as far as I can tell, nothing is broken. If nobody can find any actual problems with the change, I propose that we deprecate the old parameters. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 01:29, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Frankly, since the infoboxes in general use lists for items like creative people ad characters, multiple fields are not needed or warranted.

These types of fields are also going through a slow accessibility change to use {{plainlist}} instead of <br /> or <br/>. For the most part this is being done by using a single field instead of trying to guess how many numbers fields are needed.

- J Greb (talk) 02:23, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

"designer" parameter proposal

I think we should include a "designer" parameter. Book designers have come to play a bigger an more important part in comics in the 21st century.

A designer is different from an editor. An editor's job often includes the job of book design, but, just as pencils and inks are often divided up in superhero comics, these days the editing job and the design job are often divvied up as well, with the editor making decisions such as what material to include and in what order, and the designer creating the package, creating the cover and page motifs.

The editors for The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library and Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse are David Gerstein and Gary Groth, and the designer is Jacob Covey. The designer for The Complete Pogo is Carolyn Kelly, and its editor is Kim Thompson. Walt & Skeezix and Crazy and Ignatz are edited by Jeet Heer and designed by Chris Ware. The Complete Peanuts is edited by Gary Groth and designed by Seth. The Completed Doug Wright is co-edited by Brad MacKay and Seth, and designed by Seth (he is given separate design and edit credits, with his design getting star billing). The Eisner Awards has a Best Publication Design category. Some of these designers are billed as stars themselves on the books they design, especially Seth and Chris Ware. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 05:30, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Two thoughts:

First, that would be an over extension of the template fields for extremely minimal use.

Second, it's using the template for a topic it really wasn't designed for.

Neither of those is really new though.

The current creative fields have tended to be abused to include anyone that contributed to a series in any way. And at least 2 of the fields - letterer and colorist - have questionable need since the aim isn't to index the comics in the infobox and they tend not to be notable. Adding another job, and on that is less recognized in general within the topic of comics, does not make sense.

And this box was designed more with periodical in mind, not graphic novels, collected editions (story arc trades, Marvel Masterworks, DC Showcase:..., etc), or actual books or book series. {{Infobox graphic novel}} is more geared to some of those and {{Infobox comics story arc}} for others. That does leave the things like the Disney books out though. It may be something specific for those is needed, though looking at similar 'boxes, the comics ones as well a {{Infobox book}} and {{Infobox book series}}, "designer" is not an existent field. But to be fair, the books 'boxes don't have a place for an editor, even for anthologies.

- J Greb (talk) 23:47, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

If you think there are too many fields, then you should be proposing removing them. If you're not going to make that proposal, then your objection is not reasonable.

I'm going to take a look at {{Infobox book series}} to see if it's a better fit regardless. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 03:45, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

“”₳

Most boxes are generating this: “”₳ (like Viz (comic) and The Beano) while 2000 AD (comics) is generating “”₳₳ss cheeks!lolk - which seems awfully like vandalism, I just can't see where it is coming from. (Emperor (talk) 00:51, 15 March 2012 (UTC))

An one-shot IP hit {{Comics infobox sec/genrecat}}. It's been fixed and locked. - J Greb (talk) 01:57, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Genre combining results in comma before genres

Bug report: The genre combination is resulting in a comma before the genres. See, for example, Marquis (comics). – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:04, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I've added a workaround to the specific page. Since |Fantasy is one genres that combines with others, two of which you've also included, you have to label both |Fantasy as first, and the first one alphabetically as first, rather than all three as y. I'm not sure if this is the way it's supposed to be, in terms of how the template is written, but my fix is probably the intended behavior. || Tako (bother me) || 17:26, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Use of italics above the article

   I think these two older sections are related to the current problem i'm addressing (but that the earlier #Problem with caption field is probably not) so i've moved them them together here with the new (sub-)section i'm about to start, immediately following them.
--Jerzy•t 23:39, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Non-italics alternative

Copied from WP:HD Mjroots (talk) 09:40, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

In {{Infobox comic book title}}, can someone with template chops please add an alternative so that italics for the title in the infobox can be opted out of—maybe something that functions like |italics=no. The lack of this option is apparently causing much consternation at the FAC for Eagle (comic). The infobox is not protected.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:32, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles), titles of comics should be italicized. Dismas|^(talk) 10:34, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

In text, they should be. The titles of our articles are a different subject, covered by WP:Article titles. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:08, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

And something that has cropped up here since there was a previous project level consensus to use, and centralize, the italics template through the infoboxes.

And IIUC the issue may be coming due to this 'box being used as a secondary one. There are a set of compound 'boxes where they can be tailored to the primary focus of the article. In the cases where the comic book series isn't the primary focus of the article, the italics template is bypassed. Realistically, the "fix" with this template would be to migrate the articles using 2 'boxes to one of the compounds.

- J Greb (talk) 02:23, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

What is the markup to do that?

It would seem better practice to either keep the italicizing out of the infobox or provide an explicit switch; after all, what if some comics article takes out the infobox? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:35, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

An opt out sounds like a great idea. I'll make a request at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:55, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Look at the templates listed here. And it's generally based on which is the prominent topic - the fictional element or the comic book series.

The reasoning for including it in the 'box is pretty much the same reason it's built in to the taxonomy 'box - consistency. If articles focusing primarily or solely on a series should have the italics, all similar articles should. Like wise, all similar articles should have an infobox. Removing the 'box should not be done unless it is replaced with a more correct 'box. And under this set up, that would be replacing a title only 'box with, say, a team and title 'box. The replacement should reflect how the article is written.

The down side is that consolidating templates across all the articles using 2+ types isn't an immediate thing. It would be nice though if there was something that could be embedded to target a tracking cat for "Multiple infoboxes on article".

- J Greb (talk) 03:58, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

But it is done; this is the encyclopedia anybody can edit, and editors will remove such things. On a wider view, making assumptions about the environment a template will have is pretty much like making assumptions about the environment a subroutine will have: an invitation to snafus. Please confine infobox effects to the infobox; if a subproject wants to italicize all its article titles, that is best done, and most maintainable, with an explicit italicizing template. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

"But it is done; this is the encyclopedia anybody can edit..." the same with misspellings, broken links, poor grammar, copyright violations, BLP violations, and so on and so on. Just because an edit that may be incorrect may happen is not a reason to blindly idiot proof things. - J Greb (talk) 16:38, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Fine, we've tried to fix a problem by negotiation. At this point, there are three ways to produce a template which does not produce undocumented and undesired side-effects:

1. A fork.
2. efforts to amend this template while learning the syntax.
3. Proposing this template for deletion.

I really don't care which - it's not my article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:56, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Question first though, have you taken a look at the posts under the thred Peregrine Fisher started at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)?

Would you have a problem with the caveats presented there?

- J Greb (talk) 17:06, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

As long as the documentation makes clear how to turn the italics off, all those are secondary; they are not how I would do it, but the important point is the presentation to the reader, who will see none of them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:39, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Clear enough? - J Greb (talk) 19:04, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, although the doc could stand a little explanation of what the composite boxes are, and when and how to use them. (In their own section; this has nothing to do with italicization.) Thanks. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:11, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Template:Italic title

This template should be removed: there is consensus to use it in binomial names and some mathematical symbols, but not books etc.: see the template documentation. —innotata 19:26, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Neglected special case?

   I've come here to discuss the template page in the belief that a peculiarity of this particular template is the cause of the difficulties with the article List of Angel comics.
   Most or all infoboxes provide by default for "display titles" (the oversize, serif-face version of the page title appearing above the first line of the article text) that match the infobox header casing and roman/italic pattern, with the first character upper-cased (if it's a letter), and italics that end when an open-paren is reached. The "italic = no" parameter setting is designed for avoiding error messages (about multiple invocations, whether explicit or via templates, of the magic word DISPLAYTITLE) which occur for the sake of:

1. dealing with multiple infoboxes on the same article, which would (in effect) fight about which is in charge (even if they specified the same formatting), and
2. permitting many non-standard format choices, the most common being
   1. starting with a lower case letter (as in iPhone [something]),
   2. various unusual patterns in which both roman and italic portions are appropriate -- Ernie (Sesame Street), for instance logically should have the display title "Ernie (Sesame Street)" (tho that's low among my priorities -- and
   3. applying both of those features in the same title).

   Perhaps the template has been misused on this Angel list, so the fix for the article is a different infobox; i don't claim to know anything about what the template's range should be. I also am not prepared to defend the scope of the article or the title that reflects it: perhaps this is not a sufficiently unified topic, and covers two or more topics that should have nothing in common but being linked from the same list article or Dab page.
   In any case, the article expects the template to let it impose the atypical title with a single word (one that isn't delimited by an open-parenthesis) italicized (a task that nearly all infoboxes provide via "italic = no", and the apparent absense of an "italic = no" option on this template means that a second invocation of the magic word DISPLAYTITLE is required), in order to achieve that non-routine italicization.
--Jerzy•t 06:22, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@Jerzy: Yesterday, I just fixed this template so that it accepts "italic title" as a parameter. I think List of Angel comics displays correctly right now, doesn't it? --Nullzero (talk) 07:05, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@Jerzy: Not all infoboxes 'provide by default for "display titles" ... that match the infobox header casing and roman/italic pattern, with the first character upper-cased (if it's a letter), and italics that end when an open-paren is reached'. In fact, very few incorporate a {{DISPLAYTITLE:}} of any kind - for example, {{infobox person}} and {{infobox settlement}} do not. Those that do are mostly infoboxes for authored works - such as {{infobox album}}, {{infobox book}}, {{Infobox comic book title}}, {{infobox film}}. Most of these incorporate a parameter by which the inbuilt {{DISPLAYTITLE:}} may be deactivated; unfortunately, the name of that parameter (and sometimes the trigger value) does vary. It's not always |italic=no either - {{infobox album}} uses |Italic title=no; {{infobox book}} and {{infobox film}} use |italic title=no; and, since 01:32, 21 August 2014 (UTC), {{Infobox comic book title}} also uses |italic title=no. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:20, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

   Thanks to both of you valuable informants. Already communicated with Nz, i think, elsewhere (i don't think i neglected to save!), and i've been doing some of the dog-work that awareness of the Cat makes feasible for me to continue now that the ital/lower overlaps seem stable at zero. It seems like the hard cases are many fewer, and even those requiring explicit DISPLAYTITLE are damn few. Which is to say i've stopped hitting anything like the one that occasioned my verbose question, which i feared would be seen only by those who know less than even i, whom the two of you continue to school.
   I started to sense that i was seeing more "italic title" than "italic", and i think the longer one is fully displacing the shorter; i'll try to keep that distinction near the top of my mostly unconscious list of "things to look for the next time i'm stumped" about expunging an error message. (Along with what i ran across somewhere, the issue of whether the arg given to DISPLAYTITLE reduces (IIRC) to what i suppose is something like the "physical" or "canonical" name.)
   I'm especially pleased to know who two colleagues are, who are saavy enuf to deal with things like the above, where i was pretty much stumped on how to proceed. On the other hand, i'm keeping a lid for now on my curiosity about the coding of modules, a term that i see has been around at least 18 months or so ... while remembering your above hints of module internals.
   Many thanks,
--Jerzy•t 11:17, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I falsely claimed to have communicated with "Nz", bcz actually i keyed the following starting sometime between 07:05 and 10:20, but distracted myself before saving it:

Sure does. I'm afraid it takes me a long time to state a problem in enuf detail that i don't feel i did a poor job of it in the event that no one responds. (Well, and i take breaks in order to relax with e.g. this (and/or proofread with fresh eyes.) Perhaps this problem was newer than i realized, and i could have just been patient! Many thanks. <br />--~~~~<br />

--Jerzy•t 12:43, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Auto-categorization

The way I read the template, it's supposed to work even if no "sort=" parameter is given. However, that seems to be broken; compare for example this page showing a broken category at the top, which I fixed by adding a "sort=" parameter. I find it problematic if omitting some obscure parameter leads to code fragments at the top of an article. Huon (talk) 18:48, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Huon: This is a known problem, I first became aware of it three or four years ago. The template doc suggests |sort={{PAGENAME}} which is not the same as leaving it blank. I notice from your diff above that you didn't add the parameter - you added a value to a param that was already present. It's not feasible to omit the |sort= parameter, because although the "broken" cat would not appear, the article won't be placed in Category:Archie Comics titles. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:55, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Still a problem. The article is now auto-categorized into Category:2013 comic debutsAfterlife with Archie. I see similar problems in other articles that use this infobox. Goustien (talk) 20:24, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

@Goustien: Not the same cause. I have now reverted the recent edit made by Mike V (talk · contribs) which had caused this latest problem. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:32, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

This should be fixed now. Alakzi (talk) 23:59, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Incorrect auto cat

Using cat YEAR comics debuts is incorrect, because many of those cats don't exists. Timrollpickering is claiming that "comic debuts" redirects to the "comics debuts" cats, but take a look at Category:2001 comics debuts and Category:2008 comics debuts over Category:2001 comic debuts and Category:2008 comic debuts. They are redlinks, and cats don't work under normal redirect rules. An article in 2001 comic debut will not be put into 2001 comics debut, and seen by the examples, the correctly set up cats are the ones with "comic". - Favre1fan93 (talk) 14:46, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Using cat YEAR comic debuts is incorrect and is populating category redirects - e.g. Category:1938 comic debuts instead of Category:1938 comics debuts. See User:RussBot/category redirect log for more examples that the redirect bot can't sort out. Timrollpickering (talk) 19:02, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Well at some point, there are article that are populating both "comic debut" and "comics debut". One should be picked and all articles in the other moved properly, plus proper redirects created for the newly unused cats. Because you see my issue, where there are articles in both 2001 comic debuts and 2001 comics debuts. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 19:36, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

I proposed the merger of Category:1982 comic debuts into Category:1982 comics debuts at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2015 September 25 based on this version of the template. I think a single category discussion will be sufficient for confirming this. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:22, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Interest in tracking category for invalid ISBNs?

I have recently added error-tracking categories for invalid ISBNs to {{Book list}}, {{Graphic novel list}}, and {{ISBNT}}, populating Category:Pages with ISBN errors. The code displays a red error message and adds a tracking category. It should make it easier for editors to find and fix these erroneous ISBNs, which were previously non-functional but showed no indication. For an example, see this revision of Fantastic Four.

Would the watchers of this page like me to add the same error-checking code this this template? – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:24, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

fine with me. Frietjes (talk) 16:05, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Go for it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:45, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

 Done. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:46, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Comics endings

There are now categories like Category:1978 comics endings, if that seems a good idea then, as we are autocatting Category:1978 comics debuts then I suppose we should also be generating that too. Just thought I'd flag it up for discussion. Emperor (talk) 18:23, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

@Emperor:  Done - see Rachel Rising for an example. GoingBatty (talk) 17:09, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Cheers, although watch out for those ongoings that are still... ongoing and have "present" in the year box - see: James Bond (Dynamite Entertainment). Emperor (talk) 04:50, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

@Emperor: Should be fixed now. It will check first to see if anything is input in "endyr" and then will check to see if it equals "present". If it doesn't, the cat get added. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 16:20, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

That works perfectly, good stuff. It was a bit beyond my template-fiddling abilities and I was concerned I'd wreck it. Emperor (talk) 16:39, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Quirk in the infobox genres

I've looked at the documentation at Template:Infobox comic book title/genre list, and clearly it's not something most non-programmers can fix. But at Chamber of Darkness and possibly other pages, the infobox contains:

Genre     , dark fantasy

Can anyone adjust the template to get that comma out? And is "Dark fantasy" supposed to be capped maybe? --Tenebrae (talk) 22:03, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

@Tenebrae: It has something to do with {{Comics infobox sec/genre}}. It looks like Chamber of Darkness is looking for another genre to be "first" in the list, to render it as "[first genre], dark fantasy". - Favre1fan93 (talk) 22:42, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

I fixed it. It was because the parameter "Multigenre" was flagged, the template {{Comics infobox sec/genre}} was looking for another genre to add to the infobox, when there wasn't one. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 22:43, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Ah, you de man! --Tenebrae (talk) 15:17, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

1shot categories

Per the template description: "1shot This will also automatically sort the article into [Category:One-shot comic titles]", but this doesn't seem to be working for the category. 1shot=Y is populating a "1" for number of issues and "One-shot" for the format, as expected. I'm not sure if this matters now that that One-shot category has multiple subcats, but there appear to be some other dependencies that aren't clearly stated in the instructions. -2pou (talk) 21:11, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Infobox property

Hello, Infobox-image width is stuck @ 250px and property: ′image_size′ isn't effective. Any help? Thanks. --Gpkp [u • t • c] 14:01, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Please link to a page where you are having trouble, and describe how you would like it to look different. The way that this template sets the image size is complex; have you read and understood the documentation? – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:37, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 22 April 2021

If Limited or 1shot are set to N, the auto-categorization is still happening. See A Game of Thrones (comics) for example. It is auto-categorized as all three Limited, Ongoing, and One-shot. Template probably uses the logic if populated with anything instead of if populated with Y or Yes. I assume that the same holds true for cases where "Ongoing=N", but that's an assumption.

I'm not sure which is better, but the logic should probably make exception to cases where the parameter is N or No, -OR- only perform action if the parameter is Y or Yes. I don't know if anyone might populate the parameter with a year or something. – 2pou (talk) 04:28, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

I suspect the reason the format options are separate parameters is because some comic titles have been available in more than one format (Locke & Key, for example, is a metaseries that has some chapters in limited series and others in one-shots). I'm not sure the current structure is what I'd use if I designed the infobox from scratch, but it seems the best move forward would be to add a note to the Template page explaining that it shouldn't be populated unless it's true. Argento Surfer (talk) 14:09, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

@Argento Surfer: To be clear, does that mean you oppose doing this? It would be fairly straightforward (using {{yesno}}) to make the template not categorize based on falsy values. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:00, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

If it's easy, I don't oppose. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:43, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

 Done I went with only ignoring falsy values (currently defined as, case insensitive, "no", "n", "f", "false", "off", or "0") on the grounds that doing so would be less likely to break things. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:24, 19 May 2021 (UTC)