Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musical Theatre/Template sandbox

Winners in green

I like the idea of winners in green or some color. Maybe the whole table should be a little smaller and more compact? Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I definitely like the idea of this table -- it's long overdue! However, conveying information using color should generally be avoided. Every time I've tried it, someone has come along defending the rights of the colorblind. If we also enbolden the text in those cells, I think we'd be okay. —  MusicMaker5376 23:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, there are instances when two leading actors, for instance, are both nominated and (obviously) only one wins. Seperate boxes? —  MusicMaker5376 23:35, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Already encountered the double nomination, just made multiple boxes. I initially tried making the winners bold and it made the table far to cluttered because of the other bolding (this simple example dosen't show it much, but the bigger one did:

Production title 1
Award title 1	Award 1	Award 2	Award 3	Award 4
Note: Winners noted in green and bold.

Perhaps something like this instead?:

Production title 1
Award title 1	Award 1	Award 2	Award 3*	Award 4
Note: Winners noted in green and with an asterisk (*).

--omtay38 00:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Or this?

Production title 1
Award title 1	Award 1	Award 2	Award 3	Award 4
Note: Winners noted in green and in italics.

--omtay38 00:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I like the italics better.

What if we made the award family (Tony, etc.) a subheading under the production instead of a left-hand column? If we do that, we might be able to keep the nominations in their own columns, making it easier to see that so-and-so missed out on the nom for such-and-such an award.... —  MusicMaker5376 00:41, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Production title 1
1994 Tony Awards
Award 1	Award 2	Award 3	Award 4	Award 5
Note: Winners noted in green and in italics.

Maybe bold for winners would work for something like this?

Production title 1
1994 Tony Awards
Award 1	Award 2	Award 3	Award 4	Award 5
Note: Winners noted in green and in bold.

—  MusicMaker5376 01:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I thought of making the award a full length heading but it ends up being more confusing and almost the same as simply listing them out. Think vertical verses horizontal reading: as you read down the left justified example (the first one), your eye finds general information by moving down, and specific information by moving left and right, creating a distinct delineation between the two types of information. With the top justified example (the second one), you simply read down and your eye gets lost among the jumble. Plus this left justified example is going to be easier to template-ize (just trust me on that one). Although I do greatly appreciate the response and think it's a great example!

On another note, just by quick guess / examination, what do you think is the greatest number of awards from a single award entity that a show has been nominated for (i.e. the greatest number of tonys that a single show has been nominated for). I just need a guess for template use. Right now i'm working with 16 and I think that should cover anything. Do you suppose there has ever been more? --omtay38 02:50, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

And i just reread your last comment and more understand why you would want the columns: so that if "Joe Blow" got nominated for the tony but not the drama desk we could see that. The problem is, that would mean something like 8 or so columns, which is just too many. --omtay38 03:02, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking. Well, could we do it just by listing the person's name at the top of the column, the award family to the left, and then just an N or W in the box?

And, if I'm not mistaken, the record for Tony nominations/wins is The Producers with 11. However, some of the smaller awards (Drama Desk, Louise Lortel, etc.) have many more categories. —  MusicMaker5376 03:06, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Just looking at the Mary Poppins example, it seems rather large. Can we maybe drop down the font size? Doing that, we may be able to add another column. Also, the way it is now, the cell sizes are un-standard, making it seem a little busy. If we get the font to a manageable size, we may be able to standardize the cells. —  MusicMaker5376 04:53, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Revised table Dec. 20

I have a problem with putting in headings for people because, strictly speaking, awards are given to a production not a person (simply specifiying a person who it is awarded to). For example, the "best musical" category has no person to give it to. Even the "best choreography" awards, even though they go to the choreographers, also take into account the talent of the dancers. The only awards truly specified are the "best actor/actress" ones so those are the only ones that i've decided to list a person for (the others should be outlined in the article anyway). SO, I've updated it a bit, here are a few things to note:

• reduced the font size. I don't think it's to small, thoughts?
• Added another column (from reduced font size) which took away at least one row
• Standardized columns widths but not the heights: I wanted to allow them to be as small as possible, but when an actor or actress must be specified for a roll, two lines make it look better. So I allowed it to be bigger where it needed to be. Thoughts? Should it just always be bigger?
• Added in italics with the green. I think this works well.

So, thoughts? --omtay38 16:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd say that that's much more manageable. I think, though, that the cell height should just always be two rows of text. Also, I think that the year of the award should be in the cell with the award family: "2007 Bobcat Goldthwait Award". (A highly-sought after award, I must say....) —  MusicMaker5376 16:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, if the awards specify to whom the award is given, so should we. I don't think that every award considers the award going to the production and not the designer or director or whatnot. And we don't always mention the costume designer in the article. At least with Tonys, Best Musical goes to the Producers, but they're usually too numerous to list in something like this.

And... are we going to standardize the hierarchy of the awards? Of the award family itself, and of awards within families? Like, Tonys, then Drama Desk, then... Goldthwaits? Also Best Musical, then Best Score, then Acting, then Design -- things like that? I think we should.... —  MusicMaker5376 16:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Better and better! I think the reduced font size looks good. I agree with Omtay that the heights can be smaller, now that the font size is smaller. I agree that the height should take account of what is actually in each box and be as compact as possible. For the green shading, why not say "shading" instead of green. People who are not color blind will see that it is green, and to people who are color blind will just see that it is shaded, which is useful for them, too. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree re:shading, but, trust me, someone will want it changed. I used the same concept -- just on the documentation for Infobox Theatre; not even in an article -- and someone changed it. I thought it was kinda stupid, but, oh, well....

I don't want to make the coding prohibitively difficult, but what if we used embedded tables? One table for all of the productions, one cell in that table for each award family, then a separate table in that cell for the various awards with a vertical heading? I don't know if that would really solve anything; I don't know if it would look better, but I think it might make things easier to read. It might be a little harder to code up, Om.... —  MusicMaker5376 22:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts and orginization

Order of Awards Listed.

• There's so many and no standard for which is more important. The only order I could think of would be alphabetical and I think that's just needless organization.

I alphabetize my CDs. Well, that's not true: they're organized by genre, then alphabetized. Except for bands -- they're chronological. I think everything should be alphabetized. I'm a little OCD (can you tell?). But I can deal without organization for organization's sake in this instance. —  MusicMaker5376 23:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

For Broadway productions, I would go with Tony first, then Drama Desk, then whatever. I think Drama Desk is the #2 award, and I would list awards in order of prestige. I don't think alpha helps here. -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with this, but there isn't really anything that tells us how to organize the lesser awards. I'm pretty sure, too, that most people would inherently organize them in that manner. —  MusicMaker5376 18:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Formatting and Language

• "Shading" instead of "green" in bottom language.

Fine. —  MusicMaker5376 23:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• No tables in tables. I'm already experimenting with formatting this in a template and it's getting complicated enough.

Fair enough. —  MusicMaker5376 23:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• I'm gonna leave the height non-standard. If an award only takes up one line, it'll only take up one line. Going along with the space-saving goals
• Only listing of Actors and Actresses in boxes. This formatting was meant to reduce the size of information. If I say "Best Musical" you know that that is given to the producers because that's what always happens with the award. Then, as a reader, you can look up the producers in another section of an article. Basically, if it's already in the article, it shouldn't be in the table (except for pure awards of course).

I don't know if we're necessarily saving space; sometimes we end up wasting it. If an award where the recipient is mentioned is in the same line with four awards with no recipient, we're effectively wasting the space in the other four cells where the recipient's name could be mentioned. I'm not arguing for the inclusion of the producers, but for designers and directors. I'm not entirely sure if your rationale that the award goes to the show and not the designer holds water. If you look at the Tony website, awards that go to the show mention the show first and who's responsible for it second. The design awards are the person's name first and the show second. I think they're awarded to the person and not the show. —  MusicMaker5376 23:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Point taken. Lemmie take a look at how easy this is in the templates. Right now this was accomplished by using something like this

Title of award <br> Person it went to

In the template, this would all be typed into one line. However, if we're going to encourage the inclusion of an "awarded too" person, there should be a better way to accomplish this (perhaps embedded tables...ughh). So I'll take a look and see how easy it is to streamline the entry. --omtay38 00:09, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd think that you could do something like:

|tony2=

|tonyaward2=

(or however you want to phrase it)

Then in the template:

{{{tony2}}}<br>{{{tonyaward2}}}

all in one cell

But, of course, 'tis you who are the code god.... (And, if you could, link me to where you're working on the code.) —  MusicMaker5376 01:26, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

It's still really buggy and hasn't been updated to the newest formating version, but it's here: User:Omtay38/sandbox/templatetest (I'm still workin on it on and off so feel free to look and i'll let you know if i have any problems you can help with :-D ) --omtay38 02:54, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think we're on the right track. I'd like to fiddle with it a little, as well, but it's going to have to wait until after Xmas. I'm a little swamped right now. —  MusicMaker5376 03:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to re-organize and comment within the above. --omtay38 23:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Single awards

What about single awards? I'm thinking mainly about the Pulitzer Prize. Can there be a way to insert a table-wide cell for awards like that? Granted, it only affects -- what? -- seven shows, but it is definitely the most prestigious award and should appear in the table. Too, it's awarded to the work as a whole and not any individual production, isn't it? I know that the PP for Drama has different rules than the rest of the PPs, but I think it's to take into account the Broadway season. —  MusicMaker5376 17:29, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Table's lookin' very very good, Omtay. Congrats. Pulitzer: Can't you just add a row across the top of the table above the Tony or Olivier (whichever is first) for the Pulitzer? -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

That's kinda what I was saying, but I think it should appear before the productions, as I think it's given to the work and not a production. Actually, I think they take production values into account, but it's not their main determination. —  MusicMaker5376 18:04, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

What happened?

I'm noticing you blanked your sandboxes, Om. Are you giving up, or are you trying it from a different perspective? —  MusicMaker5376 22:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Naw, just different sandboxes. I'm getting there, just a few more kinks to work out. Then it'll be up here. :-D --omtay38 22:34, 5 January 2008 (UTC)