User blog:WoeisWingbat/Last important change (For now)

Hopefully.

Before I start, not everyone saw my comment, so I will also add that channel pages are staying, but will also go through a slight revamp if needed, since we're also working on better categories, and as mentioned before it would be pretty ridiculous to have to have a list including every dub that has a page when we already have the category for it with the same purpose. Country pages are going. IPA is going away too (good riddance) so it would be nice if we could get more people to pitch in this category. Thank you.

By now you have may have noticed that we are finally getting rid of character pages, for yet again the simple reason that they've outlived what little usefulness they have. Fandom isn't just some program you can input data in one place, and then get the result in the other; it just simply wouldn't work anymore.

But the one problem did arise before I ever started deleting these pages just yet: There are many articles with the "unknown" template in place of character names and so SO many images not uploaded; therefore if they were removed, everything would fall apart instantly.

So no, they're not going away just yet. I just ask that you don't make any more from now on, and if you have time to kill, please help in removing the |link= part of the cast list template, that'd be very appreciated.

So where are we going from here? The important update I really wanted to make is becaues character pages are going away soon, we needed a quick solution because right now the cast list template just ultimately wasn't working for like, the majority of the pages.

The solution is that we are not making transparent images a priority anymore, screenshots will have to be the norm in order to make all of this work. I know, this is a drastic change, but ultimately transparent images don't help fix the functionality of the wiki and it's not really what we need anymore, if one is not available (and if it is, the image can always be replaced). There are SEVERAL images with "broken files" (aka no images) because we were obsessed with trying to find a transparent image for EVERYTHING. But a newsflash is that 80's and certain 90's cartoons (let alone anything prior that isn't as popular as Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse), live-action shows, most 3D cartoons, and just overall specific niche shows won't have transparent images.

But again, they're not going away, if you have them and they work then by all means use them! And we don't need people to replace what we have right now if these images are working, it's only really for images that just don't exist, they are our top priority right now, since when we start removing characer pages, this fixes most of our problems right there.

This also means doing away with color codes (we're not sure just yet how we're going to handle that, as in how easy it is to remove that part from the cast list template or if we should just keep and ignore it/remove it when possible from pages), HOWEVER if one can grab a transparent image and then put a color background over it (that doesn't look terrible), that would suffice too.

Obviously bad images will be deleted, we're not playing around this time. They don't have to be PERFECT or EXACTLY 300x300 if you're not capable of doing so, but trust me, I've seen some terrible images on here inserted by some people (both transparent and otherwise), and you know who you are. Don't be that person please. If you can't upload a proper character image then you REALLY don't have to.

To clarify again, there are three options for character images: These are not to be voted on, by the way, we're operating by all systems for now, but again, the first option should be our main priority now.
 * Non-transparent, typically (and hopefully) screenshots from the show that look good and presentable and are not terribly squished
 * Transparent images but with no color codes (to compensate with actor pages and to make things way easier in general)
 * Color background (one that isn't jarring) on a previously transparent image

Here's how it looks.



The second part of this announcement is that because of the aforementioned change, actor pages are getting rebranded for the final time (I promise). I have experimented with the page Ashleigh Ball as a base. The audio samples are not mandatory but would be appreciated; like this example, if there is a case where nobody is adding them to the page, then put |colspan="2" | next to the name so it doesn't look ugly. Audio files have to be in the traditional ogg format.

And if you're curious on how to order them, it goes alphabetical order from dubbing studio (with the "TBAs" and "unknowns" listed last), then the media name, and then order of importance for the characters themselves.

Here's how it looks.



Here's hoping I FINALLY got everything I wanted to mention, but keep an eye out for updates just in case, and let me now what you think as usual. I've made a lot of these blogs in the past so I am taking one of our admin's advice and I will be making a spreadsheet and sharing it with you all of what we finished with, what we're in progress of doing, and what still needs to be discussed.

Ciao!