Forum:Empty Cells In Gallery Templates

Since the new gallery template, Portrait Gallery was created, we have had many edit wars because of the new extensions of that template. To be more specific, some users, but mostly MasterDeva have centered the portraits in almost all the gallery templates, even though the majority of the users, according to this talk page, don't like them. But since not more than ten people have commented there and since many people will claim that what was decided there is not the same for all the templates, I'm making this forum. And the issue is not just the empty cells. Those people have also reduced the colspan of many gallery templates, in order to reduced the empty cells. However, despite the fact that the empty cells are indeed reduced (most of the times), those changes make the templates longer and worse looking. So, I'm making this forum in order to decide whether or not we allow those parameters because I'm sick of all those edit wars. Please share your opinion. 08:45, July 18, 2013 (UTC)

Discussion
As I've started a discussion on this talk page ,.. I'll just repost the same: "IDK 'bout others but the template looks awful(>_<) and too damn big ... how 'bout we split it?..and I think some thing like this might be considered(a lot of work needs to be done on it.) "--

Let me correct some inaccuracies made by Staw-Hat Luffy above first. The comments here are mostly for that template alone and they do not speak about the EMPTYCELL parameter of the Portrait Gallery template code. That's why this forum was made. Secondly, reducing the number of columns doesn't necessarily increase the number of rows. These are some things to keep in mind for the remainder of this discussion. MasterDeva (talk) 09:00, July 18, 2013 (UTC)

As I said I made this forum because some people would claim that the discussion made in that talk page only concerns that specific template. And reducing the columns does create more rows, most of the time. Of course I don't mind using that extension here, sine it made the template look better, but that's just an exception. 09:07, July 18, 2013 (UTC)

Moving on the discussion of the topic at hand, the use of the EMPTYCELL parameter. As you probably know in the use of it is described and explained in the documentation of the template. In it the following is written: "Sometimes one needs to center a cell in a section. It can be done using empty cells:" followed by an example of its use. Notice the use of the word 'centered' in the sentence.The intended use of it is to center the portraits in a template. That much is a fact. The use of it is backed up by the documentation itself. Examples of proper of the EMPTYCELL parameter are plentiful: #1, #2, #3 #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9 and #10 to list a few.

With that out of the way the next thing to discuss is the number of columns a template should have. As described in the documentation there are certain limits to the Portrait Gallery code. More specifically, here it is mentioned that "Each section is limited to 100 portraits. The number of columns is 2, 3, 4, or 5, with 5 the default." which means that according to the number of portraits a template has the number of columns changes. Putting in layman's terms, the number of columns (by default) will always be equal to the number of portraits used, with the minimum and maximum number of columns being two and five respectively. The exception to that is when the number of portraits used is higher than five, the template cannot use any more than five columns. Nevertheless, you can manually change the number of columns used (always abiding to the limitations of the template's code though) by using the cols= parameter and assigning it a value from 2 to 4. The advantage of using this parameter is when you want to eliminate empty cells (in other words empty space) from a template.

For example, if you have a template that contains six portraits by default five columns will be used for it. However, since every row can have a maximum of five cells only the first row will be completely filled and from the second row only one of the five portraits will be used with the rest being wasted space. That can be fixed however by manually choosing the number of columns by adding cols=3 and forcing the template to use thee columns with each row. That way the template becomes more balanced and no extra rows or cells are created. Templates that make use of this logic are also plentiful: 1# manual vs. default, 2# manual vs. default, 3# manual vs. default, 4# manual vs. default 5# manual vs. default, 6# manual vs. default, 7# manual vs. default, 8# manual vs. default, 9# manual vs. default, 10# manual vs. default to mention some. Apparently they aren't an exception to the "rule" like Staw-Hat Luffy believes. MasterDeva (talk) 10:44, July 18, 2013 (UTC)

This, this and this are exceptions, because by reducing the columns you both eliminate all the empty cells and you don't create more rows. If you do that, nobody will revert you. But this template is both longer and still has many empty cells, so, instead of making it better, you actually make it worse. And of course you must not reduce the columns of an already long template.

About centering portraits, well they just look awful. Pictures in the center of a gallery look awful. And they look even more awful when there are spaces between the portraits. Yeah, the documentation says that sometimes we might need to center portraits. And? Somebody wrote the documentation and the user who wrote it probably likes the EMPTYCELL parameter. You have yet to give actual reasons why you want to use those extensions. You only give me opinions, which, according to you are not a real argument. 11:06, July 18, 2013 (UTC)

Liking or disliking something is an opinion, and centering your reason around it doesn't make it an argument Staw-Hat Luffy. This is evident in the way you try to justify your reasons by putting your preference to the front instead of using any logic behind them. The person who created the Portrait Gallery template did it with the intention of using balanced templates. That much is apparent by reading the documentation. Due to the limitations of the code however he gave us the EMPTYCELL and cols parameters to use when the default settings fall short. In case you aren't aware of it, it was Sff9 who created both the code and the documentation in use. If I understand correctly what you want is to completely remove the EMPTYCELL parameter all together. However for that to happen it would have to be removed from both the code and the documentation themselves.

The very fact that we make use of them and have replaced the old template code with it means that they have been already accepted. If the situation was reversed and it was me asking for the EMPTYCELL to be included in the code then, naturally, the burden of proof would have been on me. What you are asking though, is to remove something that has already been a part of the code and you base that only around your personal likes and dislikes, meaning that the burden of proof is on you. So far I haven't seen any arguments from you explaining why we shouldn't use it besides repeatedly saying that "it looks awful" every time. In fact, the only thing that we agree upon is that there shouldn't be spaces between portraits. That's not because it looks awful though, but because it is wrong implementation of the EMPTYCELL parameter. MasterDeva (talk) 12:54, July 18, 2013 (UTC)

You misunderstood. I didn't say that we should remove that extension from the basic template, I said that we shouldn't use it in the gallery templates. The extension is fine and must not be removed, even if this forum decides that we won't use it. 15:23, July 18, 2013 (UTC)

I'll assume that by extension you mean EMPTYCELL (even though it is a parameter) until you say otherwise. You mentioned above that it shouldn't be removed but it shouldn't be used either... It doesn't make any sense! Not using EMPTYCELL is the same as removing it all together. That's like saying, for example, we shouldn't use Portrait Gallery but we should refrain from deleting it either. The template was created in the first place to be used for portrait gallery templates and you are denying its use which the same could be said about EMPTYCELL. Granted that it is simply a parameter of the Portrait Gallery but, undeniably, also a part of it. MasterDeva (talk) 17:18, July 18, 2013 (UTC)

Supposing that this forum decides to not use the empty cells parameter, I believe that we still shouldn't delete it, just in case we need it in the future. 17:25, July 18, 2013 (UTC)

Right... Now, do you have any logical arguments against it? By the way, just so we are clear, "I don't like it" ain't an argument. MasterDeva (talk) 18:02, July 18, 2013 (UTC)

"I like it" and "I don't like it" are arguments. Because the whole point of this wiki is to look good and give information to the readers. If we don't like something, how can we expect the readers to like it? 18:13, July 18, 2013 (UTC)

Let me just stop you right there, because we need to clear this up first as soon as possible. An argument is a statement that evaluates ideas by considering available evidence be it visual, auditory, or written. In other words facts. An opinion is a point of view that may be formed without supporting evidence (for example the result of emotion) and it can be considered to be subjective. I would love however to see you turn your opinions into arguments by using facts instead of putting your personal likes above the wiki. Namely what I'm asking is discussion through proper argumentation. I know that you are capable of doing it Staw-Hat Luffy, I believe that you can do it. Please don't prove me wrong. MasterDeva (talk) 19:03, July 18, 2013 (UTC)

Anyways, I believe that we should still reduce the columns of some gallery templates, but only when, by doing that, you both remove all the empty cells in the template and don't create more rows. But even if that happened, we should only remove one column, not two. No matter how short the template is, we must not remove two columns. For instance, this template is pretty short and if we remove two columns we will eliminate all the empty cells and we won't create more rows. But, we shouldn't do that because the length of the gallery template must not be more than its width.

Moving on to the EMPTYCELL parameter. Well, this is really a matter of likings. Many people like the centered portraits and many people don't. But I am certain that nobody likes the empty cells between the portraits, which is something we must avoid. But, since you want arguments other than "I like" and "I dislike it", here's my point of view. Centering portraits is really bad because the readers will believe that the character whose portrait is centered is special or something, which is not true. Another reason why I'm against the usage of that parameter is because it will go out of control. People will start centering the portraits of the characters they consider special or simply of the characters they like. And you don't want that to happen, do you? Last but not least, I don't want to use the EMPTYCELL parameter because I simply find it useless (in most galleries). For instance, why are we using the EMPTYCELL parameter here when we can simply merge the two sections and write "Non-Canon" next to the filler character's name. That's all I have to say about the empty cells and I hope that you'll understand me. 12:36, July 21, 2013 (UTC)

That isn't true at all Staw. Only MasterDeva likes the centered portraits. SeaTerror (talk) 18:01, July 21, 2013 (UTC)

More people have told me on chat that they like the centered portraits. Deva is the only one that changed the galleries. 18:10, July 21, 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to write the above and for putting more effort into this discussion. Since you started talking about columns in your first paragraph I'll address that first. Even when decreasing the number of columns in some situations it is impossible to eliminate all the empty cells. Nevertheless, that shouldn't prevent us from doing so. I agree with you that we should refrain from increasing the number of rows if we can help it, especially in templates that contain many of them already. That much is apparent from the list of examples I've linked above. In fact, the template you linked is one of my examples. If you compare the before and after you'll see for yourself that it is better now and I think that we pretty much agree on that.

Remember, there is a limit of five portraits per row and this template has six. Meaning, the template will have two rows anyhow. By reducing the number of columns from the default five down to three, the number of portraits in each row becomes the same, all empty cells are removed and the template's width is also decreased. By increasing the columns however, from three to four, you automatically create empty cells and increase the template's width at the same time. That is something we do not want. I'll note here though that increasing the number of rows by one isn't necessary bad concerning some templates, it may vary though depending on the end result which is a case by case discussion.

Moving on to your second paragraph I became somewhat confused Staw. Why do you think that people will automatically assume that the person in the center is someone special or that people will explicitly treat them that way? That's a big leap in logic and it would actually help if you explained the thought process that lead to this conclusion. The use of EMPTYCELL is restricted (or should be) to balancing the templates only. This means splitting the empty cells to equal portions on the left and right side of the portrait or portraits. After all, that is the original purpose of the parameter itself. I think it has already been established that we both are against empty spaces between portraits as it isn't a point of disagreement. As for the template you linked to above; it is among the exceptions rather than the rule and it should be edited to remedy that. The non-canon portrait could go to the bottom and perhaps a new section could be added labelled "Non-cannon" that contains it. Either way, it needs to be fixed. MasterDeva (talk) 23:25, July 21, 2013 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that most of the readers of this wiki will assume that the characters whose portraits are centered are more important than the rest of the characters in the gallery. And if they do assume that, they will do the same to the portraits of the people that have more power than the others in the same template, like the captain of a crew, the leader of a group etc.

And anyway, I believe that if there is a template with a section that contains only one portrait, we should merge that section with another one. But not always, of course. We can't merge the sections of this template but we can merge some sections of this template, in order to reduce its empty cells and its rows. 08:54, July 22, 2013 (UTC)