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)

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)

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