User talk:FortMax/Template:Comicnav

This looks good. Could we go ahead and set it up as standard template Comicnav2? (I'm not sure how that's done.) Or I guess if it's not going to affect the ones that are already set up, it could replace the existing Comicnav template. -- Repowers 15:12, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks as if all its new parameters are optional, so in theory if it replaces Comicnav it should be able to do so seamlessly.--Rosicrucian^Talk 15:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

It's comp;etely compatible with the current Template:comicnav. I'll go and update the main one now. --FortMax 15:29, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Yay!!

Now I can slap it on a million UK issues. Joy!

(for real, I think the UK issues are the last major fiction series on the wiki that doesn't have nav boxes.) -- Repowers 15:46, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

template spacing

You asked me about a vertical spaing issue, I replied;

For further information, see: User talk:Derik#A_little_bit_of_help_on_a_template

So since we're stacking republished stories vertically in the Nav, where are the IDW reprints going to go?

That's a serious question- there are not-trivial idealogical issues associated with it. Is this template attempting to be 'about' the issue, or the stories?

If it's about the stories, then simply linking to the next story is inadequate- you can't just keep clicking 'next' and go through the whole archive. What's 'next' after US#4? US#5? 'The Enemy Within!'? (UK#9) Perchance to Dream part 3? (UK#257.) The UK stories, even broken up as they were, weren't always published in chronological order. Sometimes they'd be 'ahead' of the US material which would would be published subsequently despite having occured prior.

What's 'next' for UK #120? US#28? UK annual 1987? UK#130? And if the answer is UK Annual 1987 (and I think if you're guiding someone through the story it has to be, since 120 cliffhangs and literally says 'now go read the annual to see what happens next!') what's 'next' after the annual? It has a half-dozen stories in it that take place at different times. Does the story which directly leads into US#14 (for example) mean that US#14 is 'next'? Does the story which picks up right after UK#84 (for example) mean UK#84 is previous?

This was something that was considered (and I think discussed somewhere) when the original comicnav template was being constructed. The inability to answer these questions resulted in the decision to make the template literal; this navigates the publication history. So US#32 is followed by US#33, not US#35. Reprints, out of continuity, whatever... it's 'what is the next issue.'

It's real easy to make the comic navigation so useful by cramming in more information and cross-links that it becomes absolutely useless like a cheap MP3 player that has a million functions but you have to dig into menu functions for 40 seconds just to play music. (I own one of these MP3 players.)

If I'm at UK#120, I want to be able to click 'next' 10 times and end up at UK#130. That is not possible under the current system because the 'next' link on #120 will kick me out of the 'UK track' and I'll end up in the Marvel US track- so 120 + 10 = 37. And the US nav can't really thread you back into the UK track... because even if you put 'NEXT2's' in for the entire US run which reflect what came after them in the UK, they were sometimes printed out of order.

Do I have to parse which 'next' I'm clicking on every time? What about stories that got reprinted more than once? Do they have multiple UK-nexts? I'm not trying to raise reasons not to use this template, I'm asking-- are there answers? Is there a guiding philosiphy here?

I have always understood the wiki's 'way' of doing comics to be this; each 'issue' has an entry. But since issues often have only a single story, the issue's article can often be titled for that story. ('Showdown!' instead of US#20.) That system works most of the time, but when things are reprinted, or there's multiple stories per issue, it starts to work really, really badly.

When I want to link to IDW Generations #6, and the only place there is to link to is The Bridge to Nowhere!? That's a shitty system. Because if I'm linking there specifically for the IDW reprint chances are it's because there's something unique to the reprint, and that information will be buried in the trivia section of an important and heavily-footnoted story, difficult for the person I linked to find.

Ideally we'd have a page for every single issue, which would then say 'stories printed in this issue,' which would link to story pages. And every story page would have a 'this story has been printed in...' section that can go as long as it has to. (It'd also be a nice way of linking to Trade Paperback editions, nwo that I think.)

But that's so... unnecessary for the vast majority of comics which have 1 story which has never been represented except for trades.

So... yeah. This is long, but it capsules my unresolved angst about how to balance clarity, ease-of-use, usefulness and completeness, and the largely unrecognized distinction between an issue and the story appearing inside that issue. -Derik 00:12, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Whoah whoah whoah. I am strongly opposed to putting any kind of reprints in the nav boxes. At all. I don't think it serves any useful purpose, especially since that sort of information is easily condensed in the page itself. You only need to link through the stories once.

The purpose of the nav boxes, at least the way I see it, is to let you move through the story easily. In fact, I wouldn't be opposed to linking in-continuity stories from the UK annuals into the chain, though obviously there's some question about where they'd go.

So what happens to somebody who owns issue #3XX or whatever, which is a reprint of whatever older story, when they come here looking for more info? I dunno. Is it worth having a ton of pages that do nothing but talk about one issue each, without addressing the story content within? I don't think it is, really. It shouldn't take much poking around for somebody to figure out how the story works, look up the story title, and find the story they're looking for.

As you say, the issue/story distinction is fairly rare. It's gonna pop up when we get to the middle of G2 ("Tales of Earth" vs. the main story), and some of the UK issues, and that's about it. I think G2 ought to stay as one page per issue, since the stories are set in the same continuity (unlike the Dreamwave Summer Special which got split up by story), are happening at the same time in that continuity, and (unlike the US stories appearing in the UK) were never meant to appear anywhere else. At most, "Tales of Earth" should get a small page similar to what we have for the Underbase Saga and Matrix Quest.

I never gave a thought to IDW's Generations (comic reprints), but honestly I don't think there's a need to make a huge fuss over it. Currently the series page has a list of what's been reprinted. Additional notes for each issue could easily be added to that page, with the original story page getting one more "reprinted in" note and a link back to Generations. If the notes turn out to be overlong, sure, split each issue off into its own page; I don't have any of those issues, so I don't know what extras they contain. Hopefully that wouldn't be necessary. -- Repowers 00:51, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

And I don't advocate moving heaven and earth to force everything into a rigid hierarchy. As you say, it doesn't matter for about 905 of comics pages. But for the other 10%... we really don't hav a standard, it's treated all over the place.

And as for 'not putting reprints in nav boxes,' would the issue for Marvel US#24 not list its equivalent UK issue? That was a reprint. Why does the Marvel UK reprint count more than the IDW reprint? Why does the FIRST Marvel UK reprint count more than the second one?

(I think it does, but I want there to be a thought out reasoning here we can base a standard on.) -Derik 05:30, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

UK Nav boxes: As I've mentioned..... somewhere.... my first inclination is to not even include the UK info in the nav box unless the UK sequence actually differs from the US. Thus: DIS-Integrated Circuits! has nav info for the US and UK. But since the next story is the same for the UK and US, there's only a Next link for the US side. The UK reprint only "counts" because its Previous link leads to a different point in the chain.

Someone else will have to tell me if it's confusing and sloppy to go back and forth like that, or if it's fine. I'm in no hurry to work up another hundred or so UK nav boxes, so please, continue to discuss and debate at will.

Comic issues with more than one story: Personally, I think it's fine to treat these things on a case-by-case basis, but my guideline would be something like this: "Tales of Earth" tells a story that is directly tied to the main story in each G2 issue. "Primeval Dawn" tells a story that's in continuity with and is a direct prequel to the main story in each Wreckers issue. In both cases, they're not reprints of anything. I'd therefore say those issues ought to have all their story info on one page, with an overall guideline page for each story title, similar to what's up for Underbase Saga and Matrix Quest.

By contrast, the Dreamwave Summer Special gets split up since its stories have nothing to do with one another. Likewise for the Transformers Legends novel.

Publication order: To address something you mentioned early on... I think publication order is fine for the nav box sequence, if only because it's how the story was presented in the first place. Sure, it'd be spiffy if we stuck Man of Iron! between US issues #3 and #4, but that's not the order it came out in, and Marvel trusted us to be smart enough to figure it out. If it's not clear, well, that's what the Items of Note section is for. -- Repowers 07:25, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I think in my mind it would be a little more easy to read if a HR tag got inserted between the two series' nav in the box.--Rosicrucian^Talk 00:20, 3 December 2007 (UTC)