Memory Alpha talk:Navigational templates

Succession Boxes (moved from Memory Alpha:Ten Forward
I propose that we introduce (re-introduce?) the Wikipedia-style succession boxes on appropriate pages. I realize that this would be a fairly large "can of worms," but I always thought it looked nice on articles, and I'm sure will only add to some articles. Of course, these succession boxes should only be used when appropriate (obviously, one name preceding or succeeding). Here's an example of what a finished succession box would look like for James T. Kirk:



Please discuss any opinions on whether or not this is a good idea.--Tim Thomason 08:17, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)


 * I personally think it is not a good idea because, compared to Wikipedia, there are only very few examples where we do know predecessor/successor, most of which even were just temporary. Even in the example above, there are two unknowns, and two lines are related to a temporary change (Decker). Such a table might make sense on Wikipedia, where positions often are related to dozens of persons, and someone might be interested to, for example, read about all 15 captains of ship X. Something like this doesn't really happen here. I think that standard text combined with lists at the positions' article and perhaps some of the existing templates (we have "Enterprise Captains" or something like that, right?) is more than enough for our needs. -- Cid Highwind 12:01, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree with Cid. --Memory 22:01, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I tried a long response once, but my computer/browser messed things up, so I'll try again. First, I think it was a good idea. I included Kirk to specifically show an "unknown" and "eventually" field. I'm pretty sure that would be his full succession box if this were to be accepted (I realize there might be a problem with the kinda non-canon 3rd 5 year mission). I created succession boxes for about 30 characters, in trying to see how viable this idea was, so I don't think that should be a problem. Here's an example of someone (Charles Tucker III) without any "unknown" or "eventually" fields: 

Also, temporary shouldn't be a problem if you look from an in-universe POV. From that POV, Decker was in command for 2 and a half years, and was preparing for a new mission. He picked out a crew, and was a genuine Commanding Officer of the Enterprise, deserving mission in the succession boxes in my opinion. Counter that with William T. Riker. He was field promoted by Admiral J.P. Hanson, because Jean-Luc Picard was "out of commission." Riker was only "acting Captain" and stepped down as soon as Picard was de-Borgged. On Picard's succession boxes I would exclude Riker (but I would include Edward Jellico, but that's debatable). Anyways, It is quite easy to "work around" temporary assignments by combining all of the positions into one, for example, Benjamin Sisko: 

That's just an example, I still think it would look okay without combination. We should deal with those on an individual level anyway. I created the "Enterprise captains" template, and if these were accepted, I would have nominated that template for deletion.--Tim Thomason 06:11, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)


 * One thing I don't see addressed yet is the fact that a navigation table like this just doesn't make as much sense here as on Wikipedia. There, one might start of the first person having that title/position/... and then use the template to navigate through all of them. Often, there are dozens of articles linked that way (for example, US presidents starting with George Washington). Because of the fictional nature of this project, a navigation help like this isn't as useful here. Besides, this information is most often already listed on the article about the position itself. -- Cid Highwind 14:57, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * I'll spare you any more "examples." First of all, on Wikipedia they often link to articles in the middle that contains a list page. In fact the George Washington page contains a list of Presidents just under the succession box for President. I still think this would be quite useful here on Memory Alpha. I've also seen succession boxes used nicely on other similar articles in similar fictional franchise projects.


 * For example, if you were to look through all of the pages on the Chief Engineers of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), what page would you go to? We could create a page entitled "Chief Engineers of the USS Enterprise-D." We could also create a template and place it on Sarah MacDougal's, Argyle's, Logan's, and La Forge's pages. Even though it is noted on all four of their pages, I'm sure there's a position (perhaps Flight controller) where this template will help create new links.


 * The point is that I find them to be quite useful, snappy, and a good addition to an articles page. However, since I'm the only one, I guess it could just wait till after a couple months this is archived, and then in a few years, after I become some corporate shill or something somewhere, some teenage/twenty-something will find this in one of the archives, or accidentally post the same idea. Then it might be accepted, filled up most places, and then within a week to a few years, someone else will decide it was a bad idea, harkening Cid's motif, and then delete it again, only to have it pop up once more a few years later (assuming we survive 2012).--Tim Thomason 16:08, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)


 * Maybe some form of timeline of functions, on a single page, with respect to who fullfilled them and when ? -- Q 18:59, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)

One point I don't like is that this is so ... "dominant". If there is a way to do this simpler (smaller), with less code, I would support it. --Memory 21:57, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Episode navigation templates (moved from Memory Alpha:Ten Forward)
All episodes of TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT have now been updated with their respective navigation templates. The only series I haven't done yet is TOS, and that's because as the TOS episodes currently stand, the nav bar is different than all the other series. The TOS episodes have navigation to both the previous and next episodes, as do the other series, but they also have navigation to the previous- and next-aired episodes as well. My question is... do we want to stick with this difference with the TOS episodes, or do we want them to match the formatting of all other episodes? If we do want the TOS episodes to differ, why? Input, please! -- Renegade54 23:55, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Are there instances where the "next" episode in any of the other series is other than the next one aired? Aholland 00:22, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
 * There are two that I know of in TNG, probably just as few, if any, in TAS/DS9/VOY and ENT.


 * Perhaps the current form of the TOS two tiered browser could be made into a template for when it applies in TNG, and also be placed on the TNGs in question? -- Captain M.K. Barteltalk 00:29, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
 * As far as DS9 goes, there were a few (at least two eps per season) that swapped production and airing orders, but they were never swapped back at any point, unlike TOS eps which originally aired one way, then were swapped to the production order for most (if not all) of their reruns, which is what the dual navigation on the TOS page facilitates (for those who don't know, and sorry for the run-on). I think the "stand out" for DS9 would be, , , which were produced in that order, but aired 1, 3, 2. The "stand out" for TNG would be most the first few eps of TNG Season 4 and filmed before , but obviously aired in the more logical, Pt I-Pt II order. --Alan del Beccio 00:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I can certainly do what Captain Mike suggests, and create a two-tier template for use on the episodes of the other series that have swapped production and airing orders, if everyone agrees. It sounds good to me, and we can do the opposite for the TOS episodes where the production and aired orders are the same, thus negating the need for the two-tiered approach. Does that sound like a plan? -- Renegade54 02:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


 * According to Alan's explanation, those episodes in other series were "swapped once but never swapped back", so there's only one official episode order outside the studio. I don't know if a new template would really be necessary in this case. Additionally, we would have to create not only a template for those episodes themselves, but also one for the episode before (1 previous, 2 next episodes) and the episode after (2 previous, 1 next). -- Cid Highwind 10:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah guys, the VOY Series page has lost all the episode descriptions, which was the most useful part of it --71.16.204.67 23:58, 11 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The Voyager series has lost the episode descriptions, and the template doesnt seem to allow for it... I can't imagine why we'd be removing information? (Incidentally, I'm the one that did it) --Funkdubious 00:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

CCG Navigational Templates
I have created two navigational templates for the CCG's. One of them has all of the names spelled out, the other has the names abbreviated. See CCG Navigation for the templates. Wondering if these could be used. Thanks! :) Willie LLAP 16:58, 11 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd say so. Although it's pretty huge, I'd use the regular one.– Cleanse 00:19, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Any other comments or objections? I'll wait a day or two and then add the regular one. Thanks! Willie LLAP 00:09, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Template was added into the main Template namespace. I edited the link above to go to the template. Willie LLAP 21:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Subject-related episode template suggestions
I have a few templates I would like to submit for review. They can be found here. They are templates that are in the same spirit as the Section 31 episodes and Mirror universe episodes. They deal with time travel, the Borg, Q, Genetic Engineering, the Temporal Cold War and the Dominion War. Please feel free to add any that I may have missed. Comments are welcome here. Thanks!!! Willie LLAP 00:11, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I like them. Yes, there's a risk that it can get too fan boyish with excessive categorization, but all things considered, I think these help navigate the site and are definitely of interest. --- Jaz 00:21, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * With these subjects, there are 3 options of how to deal with them: template, sidebar arc, or category. The latter is not currently used, and has been rejected for episode categorisation by plot characteristics (eg. "Hero ship destruction", "O'Brien Must Suffer")


 * The way I see it, the sidebar arc feature should always be first considered. If the episodes form a coherent story arc, they should be listed there. Templates should only be used where the sidebar arc feature can't cover the related episodes accurately. That was kind of the reasoning behind MU eps and Section 31 eps - they compose several distinct arcs (which are put in the sidebar), but are still all go back to the MU/S31. I support Q-related episodes because it's exactly the same situation - they're TNG Q eps and VOY Q eps that arc (and one DS9 ep), but they're all related in a sense.


 * Dominion War I wouldn't have, because:
 * A. We've got the beginning/ending arcs covered in the sidebar, but more importantly
 * B. Nearly every episode of DS9 in the later seasons in "Dominion War" related, and we certainly don't need to list the entire seasons in a template. Furthermore, there's the Fed-Dom Cold War and Klingon story lines which are also arguably "DW related". My fear here is that a huge chunk of DS9 would end up being listed, which would make the template useless (and ugly).


 * Temporal Cold War is only one arc, so it should just be a sidebar arc. Could have sworn it was one before.


 * Genetic Engineering seems a good idea.


 * Borg-related may be going a bit overboard, as may Time Travel episodes. They're just so many and they're more tenuously related (We certainly don't want "Klingon eps", "Romulan eps" or "Bajoran eps" - they'd take an entire page each!) Others may disagree. In fact, I wonder if Time Travel episodes is not better dealt with as a category - unlike say "O'Brien must suffer episodes" or "Ferengi episodes" (previously rejected and deleted), it is an objective measure. Furthermore, it could act as a suplement to Time travel episodes.


 * The above, of course, is a bit picky and case by case, but I think it's best for each of those topics. – Cleanse 00:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Jaz - Thanks for your support! I had to look up "fan boy." :)

Cleanse - Thank you for your support and comments. The Dominion War episodes and the Temporal Cold War episodes were just taken from a list at Story arcs. They may be linked via the side bar. If that is the case, then the side bar will be acceptable. I also used the "Time travel episodes" as a reference for the template. The reason I created the Borg template was because, in my opinion, they were the single greatest threat to the Federation and I believed they might warrant a template. Those are the reasons I created those.

Once again, thanks for the support and feedback. Willie LLAP 00:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok... so... nice idea and all... but those boxes are too bloody huge. I mean seriously... look at that time travel related episode one.  C'mon. -- Sulfur 16:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree, they overwhelm the page, and probably should be used sparingly. --Alan 13:04, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I think we've gone through several "plot categorization" suggestions in the past - sometimes, categories were suggested, other times templates like these or production POV articles about it. Every time we had the discussion, a major argument that came up was the fact that there's no real limit to the amount of these categorizations. If you think that these ~10 suggestions are useful, someone else might want to have another 10 categorizations, and so on. The possibilities are limitless, and soon we'd end up with a huge list of, in this case, nav boxes - making the whole thing very useless. However, there are other ways to deal with this. You already mentioned the pages about Time travel episodes and Story arcs, and for what it's worth, "topics" like Section 31 or Borg obviously have their own article pages already, where a list of episodes could (or probably already does) exist. -- Cid Highwind 13:21, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all of the input. Instead of the Time-travel box, I will work on the Time travel episodes page. Also, the war boxes could be dropped as well. The Borg box was taken from a list of episodes on the Borg page (sans hallucinations and holograms), so that one can go as well. This leaves Q and Genetic Engineering. Genetic Engineering can probably be dropped. It was one that I just threw on there on a whim. As for the Q, I think that that box follows the same lines as the Section 31 and Mirror Universe boxes that we already have. If anything, I would like to have that one stay. Should the rest of them be dropped, I will also remove my suggestion below about the collapsable nav-boxes. Once again, thanks for the input and comments. Willie LLAP 14:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

No comments in a while. I'll leave this open for a few more days and then add the Q navbox and remove my suggestion below. Thanks! Willie LLAP 23:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Q episodes added. Willie LLAP 13:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Possibility
Would it be possible to create and use a different navigational template instead of. The one I am thinking of would be like the one at Wikipedia here:. It would allow us to collapse the navigational templates. This would be helpful when more than when more than one of these are on a page. Using this template would be benficial when there are large templates that take up a lot of room. If someone whats to see it, they would click on the "show" link and display the full nav-temp. This would also allow us to include images in the template. This suggestion is in light of my suggestions above and might allow more of those templates to be included. What do people think? Willie LLAP 13:44, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * That sounds like a great idea. I'd be willing to have say "Borg-related Episodes" and "Time travel episodes" then. – Cleanse 05:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Cleanse. I think this new one would help a lot, especially when some of the Borg episodes are also Time travel episodes and so forth. If my research is accurate into the navbox used at Wikipedia, I believe that the code would simply have to be coppied. I don't know much about creating a template type. Is there any way that someone with more experiance than me could look into this? Thanks. Willie LLAP 12:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll leave this suggestion here in hopes it might be included at some later date. Willie LLAP 13:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Navigational template pages.
Kind of in reguards to Bridge's thought about inline templates, I had a thought that has been bouncing around in my head for a few months. We have about 160 navigational templates listed here: Category:Memory Alpha navigational templates. Then, for what I believe to be ease of viewing of several templates, we have these three pages: Memory Alpha:Navigational templates, Memory Alpha: Starship navigational templates and Memory Alpha: People navigational templates which only show maybe half of the templates. I, personally, like these kinds of pages. It make it easier to see the different templates without having to open each one individually. So here is my proposal: Could we expand this? Listed below is my take on how it could be expanded. (Note: I'm not going to link every template, that would be a little too much).


 * General (to be kept at the "Navigational templates" page)
 * Ages of Tkon
 * Atmosphere
 * ConsoleStations
 * Countries
 * Dominion War Battles
 * Federationwars
 * Ground vehicles
 * Ranks
 * ReligiousTexts
 * Seasons
 * SFPostrank
 * Shakespeare
 * Starfleet uniforms
 * String instruments
 * US states


 * People (to be kept at "People navigational templates" page)
 * Aliases of Flint
 * EnterpriseChiefEngineers
 * EnterpriseChiefMedicalOffcers
 * EnterpriseCommandingOfficers
 * EnterpriseCommunicationsOfficers
 * EnterpriseFirstOfficers
 * EnterpriseFlightControllers
 * EnterpriseHelmsmen
 * EnterpriseNavigators
 * EnterpriseScienceOfficers
 * EnterpriseSecurityChiefs
 * Federation presidents
 * Greek Gods
 * Hosts of Dax
 * NovaSquadronMembers
 * Praetors
 * RedSquadMembers
 * StarfleetOperationsChiefs
 * USAPresidents


 * Groups (something like "Group navigational templates")
 * BattleGroupOmega
 * Branches of Starfleet
 * Cardassian orders
 * FederationAllianceFleets
 * Great houses
 * Intelligence agencies of Earth
 * Kazon Sects
 * Militaries of Earth
 * Starfleet Personnel


 * Science and Technology
 * Element lists
 * GammaSeries
 * Genitronic
 * Gravimetric
 * HypersonicSeries
 * LaserTechnology
 * MegaSeries
 * Neurogenic
 * Nucleonic
 * OmegaSeries
 * Optronic
 * PhaserTechnology
 * Phases of matter
 * Phobias
 * Subspace
 * TransonicSeries
 * Transwarp
 * WorldSeries


 * Non-Canon
 * CCG Navigation
 * Enterprise Log 1
 * Enterprise Log 2
 * Enterprise Log 3
 * Enterprise Log 4
 * Key Collection 5
 * Star Trek/X-Men
 * Starfleetcommandseries
 * StarTrekParodies
 * Tests of Courage
 * The Best of Star Trek
 * The Mirror Universe Saga
 * The Modala Imperative
 * Who Killed Captain Kirk


 * Ship Classes (to include "types")
 * Akira class starships
 * Ambassador class starships
 * AntaresTypeStarships
 * Bird-of-PreyClassStarships
 * ConstellationClassStarships
 * ConstitutionClassStarships
 * D7ClassStarships
 * DanubeClassRunabouts
 * D'deridexClassStarships
 * DefiantClassStarships
 * D'KoraClassStarships
 * D'KyrTypeStarships
 * DYTypeStarships
 * ExcelsiorClassStarships
 * GalaxyClassStarships
 * GalorClassStarships
 * HermesClassStarships
 * IntrepidClassStarships
 * K't'ingaClassStarships
 * MirandaClassStarships
 * NewOrleansClassStarships
 * NovaClassStarships
 * NXClassStarships
 * OberthClassStarships
 * PtolemyClassStarships
 * RenaissanceClassStarships
 * SuurokClassStarships
 * SydneyClassStarships
 * Vor'chaClassStarships
 * WhorfinClassStarships


 * Ships Named (i.e. ships named "Enterprise", "Defiant" ect)
 * ShuttlecraftGalileo
 * StarshipColumbia
 * StarshipConstellation
 * StarshipDefiant
 * StarshipEnterprise
 * StarshipFarragut
 * StarshipSaratoga
 * StarshipValiant


 * Shuttles (including crafts and pods)
 * ClassFShuttlecraft
 * Enterprise-DShuttles
 * Enterprise-Eshuttles
 * Enterpriseshuttles
 * Type15Shuttlepods
 * Type6Shuttlecraft
 * Type7Shuttlecraft
 * VoyagerShuttles


 * Logs
 * Captain'sLogs
 * DS9Logs
 * Enterprise-Dlogs
 * EnterpriseLogs
 * EnterpriseNX-01Logs
 * PersonalLogs
 * VoyagerLogs


 * Planets and Geography (including systems)
 * Alpha Centauri system
 * Bajoran geography
 * BajorSystem
 * Earth continents
 * Planet ordinals
 * Planetary classification
 * RigelSystem
 * SolSystem

Those are the ones that I think are the important ones. The ones that follow are just about everything else. Maybe they could all be on the same page and seperated by sections.


 * Series Navs
 * DS9 nav
 * ENT nav
 * TAS nav
 * TNG nav
 * TOS nav
 * TV Series
 * VOY nav


 * Series regular cast
 * DS9 regular cast
 * ENT regular cast
 * TAS regular cast
 * TNG regular cast
 * TOS regular cast
 * VOY regular cast


 * Time
 * Date nav
 * Days of the Week
 * Decade nav
 * Months of the year


 * Episode Themes
 * Mirror universe episodes
 * Q episodes
 * Section 31 episodes


 * Production
 * Paramount stages
 * UndevelopedSpinOffs

I do know that this is a lot. :) I hope that that won't deter people from looking at this with an open mind. I'd be glad to entertain any discussion. Thanks!! Willie LLAP 21:07, 27 May 2008 (UTC)