Battlestar Wiki talk:Original Series Article Development Project

Congratulations to All

What a difference a few months make. I personally wanted to give a thank-you to Steelviper and the many people who've stepped up to bring the Original Series articles to practically the same level of depth and detail as our Re-imagined Series articles enjoy. Where we used to find red links on almost every randomly-accessed Original Series article, anyone know can hit these pages and find more than enough detail, complete with very good screen captures. Despite the availiablity of the complete series on DVD, this could not be easy; many contributors had to pick carefully through online sources with dubious canonical value on a show that aired long before the Internet would record its passing.

My two cents: The character pages still seem weaker in comparison to their RDM versions, and the actor bios are lighter still. I've still to get my TOS DVD set to help out, but keep up the good work. I will need to update this personal assessment of the wiki in comparison to other wikis in a few weeks. Not to steal Joe's thunder (he owns the place, after all), but I did want to say that's it great to read about the old show again, if not be able to watch it. --Spencerian 11:12, 8 February 2006 (EST)

Yeah, I still haven't declared victory yet. I'm still plodding along on the episode summaries. Once those are done, I'd like to get an episode by episode breakdown of what they did (for the main characters). Boomer is the closest example on the TOS side of what I'd like all of them to be like (but with more present tense usage). Mokwella and Skywayman come to mind as some people to particularly thank on the TOS side (especially Mokwella's 1980 contributions). --Steelviper 11:24, 8 February 2006 (EST)

Image Hunt

I've been digging through the TOS category, looking for articles that need images. I think we're near 100% of the characters, but there are other odds and ends that could use images. I'm trying to either find an image for it, or classify it as Mentioned-Only (or terminology, figures of speech, or some other category that indicates that an image is not necessary/expected). --Steelviper 16:18, 20 February 2006 (EST)

HTML v Wiki Code

I Quote the Standards and Conventions page:

HTML is allowed to be used, but if you can, please use the Wiki code. Wiki code is faster and if everything is in Wikicode, everything can change if a format or style changes. Then we will not have to re-edit all the pages during a huge update.

So why were the strikeouts hanged to HTML? --Grafix 07:13, 13 April 2006 (CDT)

Using templates for simple markup reduces portability of our content to other wikis, since they would also have to carry over whatever formatting templates we use. The <del> and <u> tags are perfectly legal wiki code, even if they also happen to resemble their corresponding HTML tags. --April Arcus 10:50, 13 April 2006 (CDT)

Sorry but I stil don't understand what you did because it is against BG S & C. Would another admin , SV?, like to comment? --Grafix 12:31, 13 April 2006 (CDT)

<del> and <u> can be restyled just as easily as templates, using CSS. If you're referring to the edits I made to other user's talk entries, they weren't to substantive content, and enabled the deprecated templates to be removed without damaging the readability of their posts. I don't think it's much different that adjusting indentation, but naturally I apologize to SV if he felt slighted. --April Arcus 18:04, 13 April 2006 (CDT)

I didn't feel slighted in the least (and if I did, I hope I'd drop a note on your talk page). I'm just a template junky, and knew about the "s" template, and knew something of the "wiki trumps html". I didn't see the discussion over at S&C about portability, and having seen it, I agree completely. (If you just copy and pasted entries with the s template, it would be broken on another board). Ultimately , the "s" template (R.I.P.) didn't really save much time over the strike/del/etc. tags, and strike is valid XHTML. Sorry for the confusion. --Steelviper 20:15, 13 April 2006 (CDT)

Reassessment?

There's still a ton of work to be done on TOS articles. I think this project could greatly benefit from a pretty thorough revamping. I fear I may be too close to the subject and things we've marked "done" here probably could use some more work (especially the "analysis" section of the episode summaries now that that section has become more standardized in the RDM space). --Steelviper 08:18, 26 December 2006 (CST)

After the work to be done has been identified, maybe this page could also play host to an "episode of the week/month/period" whereby a certain episode is highlighted and interested contributors would be encouraged to watch that episode and/or contribute content (specifically enumerated needs) regarding that episode. We could stay on the episode for a set time period or until a set amount of goals for that episode is completed. --Steelviper 08:21, 26 December 2006 (CST)

Sounds like fun. I've got my DVDs but can never get past episode 1. I need some motivation. --Spencerian 19:51, 26 December 2006 (CST)

While I initially feared lack of objectivity might be an issue, the more I ponder, the more I realize that if I don't do the "audit" myself it might not get done. After I get "The Eye of Jupiter"'s podcast transcribed I'll try to go through the TOS articles and establish an episode by episode to do list for the needed fixes/content. Once we have that we can start the "featured episode" section of this project. We could probably do it in a little template that the TOS portal could display, and perhaps even the main page if there's enough interest (but I'm not holding my breath). --Steelviper 20:51, 26 December 2006 (CST)

Page Revamp

I was considering wiping out the old "To-Do List" section, in favor of our new to-do list by episode. If everyone agrees, I'd just wipe it out and transfer any articles in that list into the new episodic format. Once transferred, I'd look at how to incorporate the featured episode onto the page, as well as exploring ways to make this page a bit more visually appealing (while still being easy to maintain the todo items. --Steelviper 08:10, 28 December 2006 (CST)

I'd be game for the revamp. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 18:11, 28 December 2006 (CST)

I went with wikitables to try to better utilize the horizontal space without getting too complicated (the html behind the main page design can be difficult to parse at times). I'm definitely open to suggestions/experimentation with the design. Also... do we need the reasoning anymore? It's taking up a lot of space (and I can't think of a way to render it in a more visually appealing way). --Steelviper 08:35, 29 December 2006 (CST)

I just removed it, since it's not as pertinent as it was when the project was started. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 16:36, 31 December 2006 (CST)

Timeline for feature, etc.

Should we shoot for switching out the featured episode at the end of this week? I think we can probably finish the current list and verify everything by then. Also, we'll want to start expanding out the todo list for the next featured episode. I figured we could do "Lost Planet of the Gods, Part I" and continue in broadcast order through the series.

I'll try to continue where Joe left off on the deleted scenes. I too have experienced freezing problems with the TOS DVD's. Granted, you can see some of the scratches on the discs that have problems, but I can't tell if I was particularly careless with the discs or if they were particularly susceptible to being scratched. --Steelviper 08:10, 2 January 2007 (CST)

If there are no objections I'll switch the featured episode to "Lost Planet, I" tomorrow sometime. Joe's already gotten a good start on it, and I think most single episodes will go quicker than Saga did. --Steelviper 13:49, 4 January 2007 (CST)

I'm cool with that. After we're done with the episodes, we probably want to go through print publications and enter in comments and other information into the necessary articles. But that's more of a "phase 2" sort of thing, IMO. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 18:52, 4 January 2007 (CST)

Sounds good. I was figuring a rate of roughly an episode per week, which would project out to several months actually. Maybe that's slow, but once the podcasts start rolling again that eats up most of my BSG/wiki time. I don't have much in the way of print materials on TOS (and there are plenty out there, but I'll do what I can. --Steelviper 07:15, 5 January 2007 (CST)

Subproject

I have copies of unproduced and previous versions of Battlestar Galactica scripts for the old series. After this project comes near completion, which I imagine won't be for at least a month, I would very much like to go through the scripts and add content to the wiki based off them (obviously, they wouldn't be necessarily reflect as "canonical", but they are far more interesting than tie-in novels and the like, IMO). Just wanted to see what everyone thoughts on this are... -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 19:05, 4 January 2007 (CST)

Cool. I've read about stuff like that elsewhere, but never had enough official source to cite back on it. I think it'd add another texture/flavor (in RDM's parlance) to the TOS stuff, since we won't have any more episodes to draw on. --Steelviper 07:11, 5 January 2007 (CST)

Pace

Is the "pace" of the featured episodes moving too slowly (or too quickly) for anyone? Joe seems to be getting out ahead, but I don't have a good feel for everybody else. I was planning on switching them out roughly once a week (as I planned on actually sitting down and watching the featured episode once a week), but it's just meant as an organizational tool. If we want to slide it up to or increase the pace, let me know (or edit the "featured episode" subpage). --Steelviper 10:23, 9 January 2007 (CST)

I'm more or less adding articles and images right now. Later, I intend to go through and add audio clips, but that takes me a little while longer, so I wait for a rainy day to do that. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 20:42, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Unmagnificent Warriors...

I'm not able to do this episode since I'm having problems with that particular disc, which is painfully aggravating to me... Ah well. Working on The Young Lords now. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 21:30, 25 January 2007 (CST)

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has trouble with these discs. I don't think I'm particularly hard on them, but they seem to scratch more easily than others. I finished up the requested articles for that one, and will probably switch the "featured episode" to The Young Lords on Monday. Though it looks like it might just need a pic of Adama's quarters... I may go ahead an grab a shot of that today. --Steelviper 14:03, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

Ditto. There was a manufacturing flaw with these things for everyone I've read about. --Spencerian 15:29, 2 June 2007 (CDT)