Forum:List of appearances/archive1

Now that the cast lists are as complete as we can get them for the 1960s, I wondered about doing "Full list of appearances" for the characters who appeared solely in that decade or shortly into the next. In Daran Little's 40th anniversary book he includes a table for each year of the top twenty most-seen characters by number of eps, their place in the chart, their chart position for each year and a running total of episodes. He also states when a major character goes how many episodes they appeared in. Now there are a couple of errors here, for instance he states that Minnie Caldwell only appeared in two episodes in 1960 whereas she's definately in four. He then goes on to say (and I suspect his figures were not his work, to be fair, but were calculated by Granada staff over the years) that she appeared in total in 986 episodes by 1976 but for 1969 appeared in 62 episodes, added to the 607 by the end of 1968 giving a new subtotal of 651 (???) and this latter figure is used as the basis for what is added on for 1970, 1971 etc. For some characters we agree exactly with his numbers: Florrie Lindley for instance - 1960 - 2 1961 - 54 1962 - 85 1963 - 85 1964 - 58 and we then have 28 appearances in 1965 but no figure from Little for that year as 20 other characters appeared more than her. Assuming that the figure of 28 is right for her final year, we have an exact list of her appearances in Corrie. But what about Jack Walker? We're in agreement until 1964 and then are one or two out for each year until his final appearance in 1970 when Little states he was in 807 episodes but we can only account for 799. Do we still do a "full list of appearances" page even though we are probably (slightly) in error? Opinions welcome.--Jtomlin1uk 19:29, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I think we should make them, we can always correct them in due course if we find errors. I've got a copy of Daran Little's book and noticed the Minnie Caldwell error myself, I was surprised considering Ena's famous line about her mother breaking wind and dying was in Episode 2 with Minnie present. David 19:37, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Not to mention the fact that she's in the famous cast photo from 1960 for the first two episodes. I got shouted down on a Corrie forum when I pointed out that the book had many obvious errors from people who just wouldn't understand things like the "first networked" date is given as two different dates on the same page and that Alf Robert's first appearance is given as a date which wasn't a transmission date and therefore had to be wrong. The debate started because I said that the first colour episode was 17th November 1969, not 24th and a few people got uppity. I was looking at the Granada TVT for 1969 just yesterday and there it is, clearly marked for 17/11/69 as being in colour. I'm also convinced that 8/2/71 episode being the last one in B&W is wrong. I suspect there was at least one more and possibly three more after that.--Jtomlin1uk 19:51, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Thoughts
I've had a few thoughts about the list of appearances pages and would like some feedback. It's about the layout - while I like the basic layout, the pictures in them for each year have always looked like they don't belong there IMO. I was thinking on each list of appearances page we could put a gallery at the bottom, putting all the pictures there, so that not only can we see what episodes characters appeared in, but at a glance how their appearance changed over the years. I wanted to keep the pictures in the page somehow. David 15:35, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I really like that idea. Corrienet has a similar method although their choice of pictures is too small and is based on publicity photos whereas off-screen captures shows the changing face of the production methods as well. One point though - might the gallery be either better placed at the head of the page to grab the reader's attention? I suppose it could be "titled" to appear in the table of contents.--Jtomlin1uk 15:48, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Another revamp
Sorry I know those words are probably not what you want to hear but I was editing Christine Appleby - List of appearances to make the lists presentable with the new Wikia design and thought the statistics under each year heading would look better in a table, so that each character's yearly statistics can be read at a glance instead of scrolling down the page. I think it's an improvment and we need to edit the appearance pages anyway so we can make this change at the same time. I'm willing to update all the pages myself. Thoughts? David 16:09, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * It does look better but if I was a casual user I think I would prefer to see the columns about number of appearances and running total first before the other two columns. Also, could the gallery go across the page rather than down?--Jtomlin1uk 16:37, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * The picture gallery? David 18:16, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Forget it! The pictures go down the page on my other pc with the older explorer!!--Jtomlin1uk 18:39, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

Just a flying visit for now, but I had an idea for the new tables. For a made up example you might have Sid Smith appear 90 times in 1988, 95 in 1989 and 100 in 1990. On the face of it it looks like they've appeared more times each year, which of course they have - except each year their percentage of episodes decreased. You could add therefore a column for 'episodes broadcast that year' and, more importantly, one for '% of episodes the character appeared in'. Good idea? TellyFan 00:04, October 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * Good idea, I'll incorporate it. David 09:39, October 21, 2010 (UTC)

Criteria
I was told recently that any character who has appeared in 50 episodes or more gets their own list of appearances page, regardless of whether the character is a regular or guest cast member. However, I noticed that list of appearances pages have been created for new characters such as Sylvia and Stella's family who were introduced as regulars, even though they haven't appeared 50 times yet. So does this mean that a character introduced as a regular gets their own list of appearances page? They would most likely appear in enough episodes anyway, eventually. Notdoppler 11:31, September 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm of the thinking that if a character is introduced immediately as a regular cast member then they get their own "list of appearances" page, and when any guest/minor character reaches 50 episodes, they should have their own page too. Karen2310 11:41, September 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * But then if a regular departs without reaching 50 appearances, their "list of appearances" page should be merged with their character page. Notdoppler 11:46, September 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * Claiming the 5th on that one!! I guess that's what happened with Connie Rathbone? Karen2310
 * What do you mean by "claiming the 5th on that one"? Connie was demoted to guest anyway and didn't reach 50 appearances. Notdoppler 12:54, September 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * "Claiming the 5th" just basically means "pass!!" I haven't a clue to be honest - the first character I spotted with a list of appearances under 50 is Ida Barlow. I think that the page should still stand, although that's just my opinion. Karen2310
 * Hmm, I'm not sure. The page looks like it could fit nicely merged with the character page but I have a feeling that maybe it should stand. Lets see what David and John think... Notdoppler 14:07, September 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * All goes back to who is guest, who is regular, in my view. Ida Barlow was contracted as a regular character and was certainly not a guest. The fact that she clocked up only thirty-odd appearances is incidental. As regards the other points, I started list of appearances pages for Stella ect because it's pretty obvious that they are medium/long-term characters and have been announced as such. It's when a guest becomes a regular and not planned as such that a change has to be made.--Jtomlin1uk 16:04, September 5, 2011 (UTC)
 * I created Frank Foster - List of appearances because David told me that anyone who appears in 50 or more episodes gets their own list of appearances page - whether or not they are guest or regular. But there is that gut feeling that Ida Barlow - List of appearances needs to be kept. Maybe all regulars get one and guests when they reach 50? Notdoppler 17:29, September 5, 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that's a pretty good starting point.--Jtomlin1uk 09:27, September 6, 2011 (UTC)

Guest formatting
Karen and Notdoppler have had a discussion on their talkpages about the formatting of the list of appearances on the guest character profile pages. Karen has pointed out that because we have been putting the full episode name page link in and not pipelinking it down as we do on the regular cast "Full list of appearances" pages, the page is overlapping. I didn't realise this was happening. I don't remember any postulated reason at the time why the format of the episodes on the guest pages was different and the problem didn't arise at the time due to the page width being wider. Now with the new skin being introduced, we need to reformat these pages. My thoughts are that we should match the full list of appearances pages as follows:

List of appearances (Main heading)

2011(Sub heading)

Agreed?--Jtomlin1uk 10:26, September 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * Mon 1st Jan (1)
 * Mon 1st Jan (1)
 * Wed 3rd Jan
 * Yes, agreed, although we will need to mention the year too. David 11:02, September 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it's a good idea too - at least it will keep uniformity. Karen2310 11:08, September 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * The year is already there as a subheading (Perhaps Bolded rather than with equals (=) characters before and after it.)--Jtomlin1uk 12:00, September 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, if the list of appearances is on the main page, then I think should have the "list of appearances" heading with bold text for the year, since if the character is minor there will likely be minimal information and bold text rather than a subheading would look better. Notdoppler 14:27, September 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * I've tested it out on the Lauren Wilson page, and I have to say it looks pretty good. Notdoppler 18:15, September 6, 2011 (UTC)