Talk:Sydney Newman

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Contents 1 Television producers category 2 Notes numbering 3 Additional reference

[edit] Television producers category

Is the Category:British television producers for television producers who are British, or producers of British television? Or both?

As Newman was Canadian and he produced British and Canadian television, would it be better to move him to the parent Category:Television producers? And maybe add him to Category:Canadian film producers too? --Whouk (talk) 23:16, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Very good question. I'd probably say the producers category should be for producers who are from that particular country, rather than just worked there, so that should be changed I think. I agree about the Canadian film producer cat too. Angmering 23:24, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes numbering

I've tried to match up the notes to their uses in the text. However, the "uplink" only works for the first use as that's where the anchor is. Should the anchor names be varied for each to get around this? —Whouk (talk) 16:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think there's a work-around for this, so that the same anchors can be used for multiple notes. I'll look into it. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 16:39, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I've found the relevant templates ("ref_label" and "note_label"), but I'm not sure what the best format to use them is. I've changed the note references through "Early career in Canada", but the letters and "ibid" look a bit ugly to me. The example at Help:Footnotes has multiple links to the same note on one line in the note — do we want to do that? That messes up the numbering, unless we label every note manually with a number. Opinions? Paul? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:12, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I was sure I'd read in a previous FAC — for Denis Law, I think — that multiple linking to the same note rather than creating Ibid notes was preferable, but then again that does create the number issue. I think it looks okay as it is, but I've decreased the size of the note text so it hopefully looks a little neater. Angmering 18:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The numbers seem out again now - the last footnote marked in the text in 18, but there are still 23 notes. —Whouk (talk) 19:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The numbers should be fixed now. If we want to avoid "ibid", we could remove the # numbers on the side, and just have links to the relevant notes (so that the Guardian obit would have <superscript>2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13</superscript> beside it, for example). Should I try that to see how it looks? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:39, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I've been bold and made that change — if folks don't like it, they can change back to the full list with "ibid"s. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it works well that way — cheers for all your efforts on this one Josiah! Angmering 20:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree - that solves all the issues. —Whouk (talk) 20:29, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The references to the Financial Times and The Independent pieces seem to have disappeared. They may not have had anything directly tied into them but they were still important background references. Can they be brought back in that context without the formatting being upset? Angmering 20:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

They're still there, at the bottom of the Notes section, but commented out (within the <-- and --> tags). If they aren't references themselves, maybe put them in a further reading section? --—Whouk (talk) 21:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes, I see them. As what was the References section is now Notes, I've put them in a new "References" section. Angmering 21:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

This recent edit changed the numbered notes to "cite.php format", which I wasn't previously familiar with. Is this really preferred, or an improvement? It seems to me that a reader following a link should have some indication of which upward link will return him to his or her prior position in the text, which the current format doesn't give. For example, if a reader wanted to find out the source for Newman saying that he knew "nothing about drama", in the current format he or she would have to count all the [2]s prior to that citation in order to know that the "d" is the link that would return them to their previous location. Would anyone mind if I reverted the latest change? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:48, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree — it does seem a bit of an odd revision, given that the previous notation system didn't seem to have any obvious faults with it once we'd sorted it all out here on the talk page as shown in the discussion above. I'd certainly support a revert. Angmering 20:14, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. If the previous editor wants to explain or justify the alteration, he can do so here; meanwhile, I'll revert. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Additional reference

On referring to this article, I thought that some of the phraseology, particularly early on, seemed very close to the article I wrote on Newman for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. On closer inspection, I see that they are not the same. This article manages to cover some of the detail that I couldn't include in the ODNB article, and I don't object to the occasional bias towards Doctor Who details here, because that's what people will want to look up. --Matthew Kilburn 01:22, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Just to add that Angmering has calmed me down! There are a lot of details here which I hadn't found out and if I add them to the ODNB article at some stage the Wikipedia entry will be cited. --Matthew Kilburn 01:40, 12 February 2006 (UTC)