Thoughts on the new template
 

As has been pointed out by some other members, the template gets kinda messy when adding Anime and Video games since there are no actors (unless we start adding Voice actors, which actually doesn't work because voice actors play multiple roles and it's just a pain).

I have a suggestion, but it's just a thought, but it's a revamp of the template so don't yell at me ;)

How about aligning ALL of the templates in a similar order? So that the Anime and VG sections don't look wonky when following the Movie and Television sections?

Moving from LEFT to RIGHT:

Start all sections with TITLE (movie title, television series title/Episode, anime movie Title/Episode, and VG Title/Mod)

Next section is Date (Date released, introduced) since now we're starting to list dates (which is a good sorting field for future use)

Next Section is CHARACTER (movie character, television character, Anime Character, VG character ... can be primary player, or team player, or opposing force or a named character if applicable)

Next section is ACTOR (Human actor for movie and television, N/A for Anime and N/A for VG)

Next section is NOTES (special gun finish or type or fictional gun or special usage notations, etc.)

This way, the blank sections aren't scattered all over the grid, making the page look messy. The sections of TITLE, DATE, CHARACTER will always have an entry and not be blank. The sections of ACTOR will always have an entry in Movies & Television. The Section with the least amount of info (in that specialized info is not applicable most of the time) will be at the tail end.

Thoughts anyone? I think we should consider this before we spend too much time updating the templates.

==Actor pages==
Also did anyone notice that the templates don't align to the left of the photos? This may change how we align photos (look at the Maria Bello Page). Historically the text could be to the immediate left of the 'right aligned' image. If they can't be on the same space, then it changes how we align photographs, in that we traditionally have aligned them to the right, unless it's a screenshot on a movie page, then it's aligned "none". What do people think of this? Just curious.

I would like it if it looked nicer, but so far it just seems really complex for something only slightly better looking. Most of the people on the site have been talking about how they aren't a big fan of it.

Example other than yours. I have not seen that on the talk page and it is miles better than what was on there, I can just see what wikipedia would look like if they did not improve their site. If you don't like come up with a better idea instead of whining about it. Man you just can not please people.

The template is aligned to the left of the photo. The problem was the multiple page breaks before the layout. Page breaks <BR> have their place but are not intended to misaligned the page unless you want it to look like crap. Check out the Maria Bello page now to see the difference.

Hey, come on guys, can't we disagree respectfully?

Right, but here's the thing...as it develops, it will start to seem simpler. It is important for organizational purposes. Remember that we'll be able to sort the movies a little more easily (title/date/whatever), and then on gun pages with lots of movies, or actors who have lots of gun movies, it won't seem so disorganized. Look at the Beretta 92F page, for instance...if a person wants to see if, say, "The Corruptor" (one of my pages) is already listed, he'd have to wade through the whole thing, because there's no order by date/title. By having tables with titles and dates in order, it'll be easier to achieve this organization. This is part of the reason that we see so many repeat entries for movies on gun pages (like how "The Rock" was listed TWICE on one actor's page for the same gun).

Aesthetics aren't the only issue here. The idea is to make something much more organized, and tables present at least a better opportunity for that.

Yeah, something else I forgot about. The standard "*" listing by definition is unwieldy when page breaks become necessary.

Although recently, I found a command which separates entries automatically without lots of "<BR>". I used "<br clear=all>" on the Norinco Type 84 section of the AK-47 page, and that works better, too.

But anyway, I think we really need to continue the move towards tables.

Oh, yeah, and that reminds me...are we sorting tables by title or date? I vote for the latter, but would like to hear what everyone else thinks.

I had a bad first impression making the Maria Bello page but you fixed it and it looks much better now. Jcordel and Anonymous had messaged me about how they weren't particular fans of it, so I may have exaggerated "Most people on the site", my bad. I didn't mean to "whine", the format looks nice. It's being exacted and it looks better than when it was first introduced. I apoligize if I upset you on the matter. Come on Steve, aren't we friends? :)

We are always friends it's just we sometimes don't agree but it's cool.:) I think that it's will take some getting use to in this format. I figure that is what I can do to help those who have a difficult time with it.

Don't worry John besides you have enough to deal with living in New York.:D

Forgive me for still being confused, but is there any agreed-upon standard yet? If not, once such a standard is developed we need to make a properly functioning wiki template (For example). That's a much more organized way of doing it because simply applying the same kind of tables to every article individually will eventually snowball into a huge inconsistency problem, because if the standard is ever changed every article will need to be reworked individually. If a wiki template is used, whenever it's modified the changes will automatically take affect on every article it appears on.

If you know how wiki templates work already, disregard that, just sayin'. Anyway, I'm eager to know because I'd like to help apply the new standard to articles, because it'll be a big job.