Usage

This template should be used for all episode pages. For the code, please see Template:Episode Data.

Guidelines

All fields, with the exception of the chronology field, will not print if the information is blank. However, all fields have to be defined when using the template -- leaving a variable out without defining it will cause some asthetic displeasure.

Other guidelines:

Images should be widescreen. Max width is 350px. Images that are in a portrait format should not be used with this template.
Guest stars must be separated by line breaks, using <br>.

Talk

Apply to all Episode Guides

Is this template intended for use in all episode guides? If so, I'll likely start in converting the TOS and 1980 pages. Would duplicate/redundant info be removed from the "Stats" section at the bottom? --Steelviper 12:29, 6 January 2006 (EST)

Yes, this should be applied to all episode guides. The Stats at the bottom should be removed as well. (Actualy, this template is supposed to remove that section, as I think it was fairly ugly to begin with anwyay... IMHO, of course.) -- Joe Beaudoin 12:39, 6 January 2006 (EST)

Formatting

Joe, the template works and looks generally good, except in the formatting guest stars. Steelviper figured out how to add multiple guests, but the width of the template on the page, once done, really makes a page butt-ugly, or at least unbalanced. We may need to limit the area to guest names (no characters), or use actor names with redirects to their character if a page exists to shorten the page. We need to set a picture size maximum as well. Thoughts on this? --Spencerian 13:36, 6 January 2006 (EST)

Yeah. I think we should fix the width of this thing at about 300px (to allow the largest thumb size), and spoecify some padding and margins to it. Right now, on 33 the text inside and outside the template run right up tot he Red Line and, to me, looks bad (italics leans over the line). I also think, a la the Character Data talk page, we should lay out some guide-lines... I think the pic at the top of the template should always be a wide-screen shot of a whole frame from the episode. Anything taller will bulk this up enormously. --Day 14:25, 6 January 2006 (EST)

Agreed. For the guest stars, the format should be: Actor Name (Character). We should probably avoid any titles or ranks; though, if we do use ranks, we should abbreviate them. -- Joe Beaudoin 14:57, 6 January 2006 (EST)

I think ranks are more problematic than they're worth. Two things come to mind immediately:

Ranks can change - thus, an S1 cast template that specifies Lee Adama as captain won't be useable on episode which take place after his promotion to major.
What about episodes in which a promotion takes place? Goerge Birch was both a Lieutenant and a Captain in Home, pt. I
What about civillian "ranks"?

In general, I'd just rather not open the can of worms. (And the width thing is a serious issue. Why don't we separate the cast date and put that on the bottom of the page, leaving the image, airdate and episode order on top?) --Peter Farago 15:18, 6 January 2006 (EST)

After seeing the results, I think that this new template is unwealdy and we should stop using it. It scrunches the top of each article (simply making them look awkward), and we can't fit in the full name and title of several characters. I think it's more trouble than it's worth. Does anyone agree? --Ricimer 15:53, 6 January 2006 (EST)

As Peter stated, ranks (and, to an extent, titles) are more problematic then they're worth. (We can always do what the Lurker's Guide to B5 has done and put the guest characters immediately after the overview/summary.) Also, the issue that makes the template "unwieldy" is the damn table of contents box which fills the top of the page... I think we need to compact it. -- Joe Beaudoin 16:06, 6 January 2006 (EST)