Talk:Main Page

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Editing contestants

One thing when categorising contestants, if a certain 'heriarchy' could be maintained, e.g.-

series winners/ coc winners/ finalists/ octochamps/ contestants of series xx/ contestants of coc xx

remove all those that don't apply. Love and peace y'all. User:Nebagram 1707 25 July 2007 amended 1718 same day.

My first impressions

A good start; however, the structure leaves much to be desired. We could have done with a chance to discuss things before giving it this level of unstructured content.

Firstly, what's with such categories as Episodes presented by Richard Whiteley and 9-round games? It makes more sense to categorise series than individual episodes in this way. Of course, that leaves specials, which it might make sense to categorise individually.

Moreover, was it one person's decision or the consensus of a small group of people to title episodes by the overall serial number as opposed to, for example, the series and episode-within-series number or the original broadcast date. That said, I'm not sure what I think is the ideal naming strategy here. -- Smjg 18:13, 31 July 2007 (BST)

1. Categorising by series is different to categorising by format because the finals used 14 rounds in the 9 round era. "Episodes presented by Richard Whiteley" is useful because there's no particular reason that presenters should change over at the end of a series (it was only a coincidence that Whiteley did so) although currently it could be done that way.
2. The naming of the episodes is by number because that seemed convenient, gives concise titles, and provides a useful sorting order for categories. Numbering by series and episode doesn't have any advantages over that. Original broadcast date might be useful, but it's problematic when multiple episodes are broadcast on the same day. We could create redirects manually, but that probably isn't fun. Soo 18:45, 31 July 2007 (BST)

And don't think multiple episodes on the same day won't happen - the series 53 quarterfinals 3 and 4 are proof of that. GJM 20:58, 31 July 2007 (BST)

Indeed. However, what is the practical use of categorising episodes by format? Especially considering that, as these categories grow, few people are going to browse them with any real aim. Moreover, the current system creates an inconsistency: we have a category of finals of the 9-round era, but no corresponding category of finals of the 15-round era. (Except that the very first grand final is categorised as a 9-round - is this correct?) -- Smjg 21:32, 1 August 2007 (BST)

I'm sure adding a category for finals or 15-round finals is no problem, should it prove to be needed. Which it probably is. And the -era categories are very handy as a check, to make sure no games are miscategorised, misentered or similar. GJM 21:44, 1 August 2007 (BST)

I take your point, I don't think categorising by format is fabulously useful. However, having the categories is harmless at worst, and if they do turn out to be useful adding them later would be a ton of work. They might be useful for some kind of automatic processing, even if they serve no purpose for human readers. Also, we do have Category:Grand finals, from which inferring the 15-round finals is not difficult if it were ever necessary. Soo 18:12, 4 August 2007 (BST)

Server compromise

What was the nature of the server compromise? Without any further information, it might look like the message on the home page was written by a scammer who has compr(om)ised the Reams account.

I've not been told exactly, but it's plausible that the database on which this wiki is run was stolen, including all the passwords. Of course the passwords are stored in encrypted form, but if you have a weak password or a hacker with a lot of time then it's certainly possible to break that. Soo 07:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Where I can find good quality films online

Where I can find good quality films? Can anyone help me?

You can use Channel 4's 4oD service, although that can consume a lot of bandwidth. I don't know of anywhere else that redistributes Countdown. Soo 10:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

People with the same name

Has anyone else noticed that a few contestants have had the same name. Look at Mike Brown and John Clarke for example, not to mention Linda Smith who was both a guest (indeed while I was on the show) and a contestant earlier on. Mglovesfun 16:22, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I have a hitlist of contestants with the same name, although it needs to be reviewed by hand. I'll post that when I get full Internet back (maybe tomorrow?) The guest/contestant clash issue hadn't occured to me though, I will have to check that out. I imagine it's fairly rare. Soo 21:47, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I can't believe they had two different Mike Browns only six days apart! Is it the later one that runs The Countdown Page? I'd imagine so - I remember the website being mentioned when he was on, and would certainly have noticed if the same name had cropped up again six days later.

We might need to start having disambiguation pages, or at least disambiguation links at the beginnings of pages. But what titles should we use? John Clarke (Series 11)/John Clarke (Series 49)? And when there are two in the same series - Mike Brown (first in Series 48)/Mike Brown (second in Series 48)? Mike Brown (Episode 3324)/Mike Brown (Episode 3328 et seq.)? -- Smjg 03:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

There are a few disambiguation pages already, which are named with the IMDB convention: Mike Brown, Mike Brown (I) etc. But I think I prefer the by-series convention, although the Mike Brown situation is a bit clumsier. Soo 11:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not with you. Mike Brown is, at the moment, an ambiguation page, i.e. it covers up the distinction between the three Mike Browns by treating them as one and the same. A disambiguation page, OTOH, is a page whose sole purpose is to list and link to different entities with the same name. And Mike Brown (I) doesn't exist at the moment. So what are you on about? -- Smjg 14:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I can't remember any actual pages like that, I was just illustrating the existing convention (which I think was set by Ben.) Most other pages are indeed ambiguous. I will post the list of potential problem pages today. Soo 17:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't drag me into this. Nebagram 18:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Episode titles

It's been suggested before that we title the episodes by date rather than by Mike Brown's fairly arbitrary numbering system (which long since desynched from the production team's numbering.) This would be:

• Easier to search.
• Easier to maintain.

I could rename the existing articles automatically so it's no big deal. Any thoughts? Soo 21:21, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I would certainly find indexing by date more useful, and would welcome it. However, how would you cope with (a) the semi finals of series 53 (I think that's the correct series), which were shown on the same day as each other, just after RW's death? (b) Coundown masters programmes, shown on the same day as a regular programme? I imagine (b) is no problem, as such programmes would be referenced from a different page, if indeed they appear here at all. Drawoh 22:26, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The 53SFs could still be titled by date, but with some suffix, e.g. "First semi-final". This shouldn't be too hard. Soo 00:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I personally prefer going series/heat number/qf, e.g. 57/GF for the most recent grand final, or 37/67 for a completely random heat. Maybe have the dates as redirects, and have MB's numbering also as redirect? Nebagram 22:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

That has all the problems of maintainence and searching as the existing system. Although I do like the idea of, say, "Series 53 final" redirecting to the relevant game. And yes, there'll be redirects all over the place. Soo 00:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Also I don't know where you got the desynching from given that the production team actually use Mike Brown's site whenever they need an archive. Nebagram 22:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

For example, the special 1000th episode was actually 1003. They also got numerous other anniversaries wrong (e.g. Susie's 1000 episode) so if they do use Mike's site, they don't do it very successfully. Soo 00:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Solution to the Mike Brown problem

See Mike Brown for my solution to the problem, if anyone has a better idea, change it, otherwise, shuddup! Mglovesfun 00:24, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Although I can't be bothered doing all of the ambiguous ones by hand, any chance of getting dumper to do it? Mglovesfun 14:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Serious wiki or not?

What's with articles like Jade Goody and everyone? At some point we're gonna have to decide if this is a serious projet or not, no? Mglovesfun 14:31, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we can have serious pages and frivolous pages, as long as the two don't interfere. We have pages about the DC guests for completeness, but I doubt anyone uses this wiki as a serious information source for them, and I don't mind them being a bit silly. The episode, contestant and series pages are held to much higher standards. You're right about everyone though. It is now an ex-article. Soo 18:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I still think Gevin and Zef deserve some sort of page, after all gevincountdown and Zef's Countdown summaries have pages on here, I think? I might have a crack at the Zef article when I'm drunk (no seriously I will). Mglovesfun 20:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not against them having pages if anyone can be bothered to write them. Soo 23:58, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Request an article

Also taken from the Wiktionary, how about a Countdown:Request an article page, people might come up with some articles that are missing. Mglovesfun 20:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Special:Wantedpages is a pretty good starting point. Soo 23:58, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Categories

I thought I would create Category:Countdown just as a way of keeping all the categories together, so something like Category:People could go in that category, just to make sure every is accessible via at least one category. Mglovesfun 20:16, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't seem like a bad idea. It also makes this more compact. Soo 23:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

OED

I think the Oxford dictionary pages are the ones most needed now. I'd do them myself but I'm not as well informed as other people such as Ben, so I'd prefer to leave it. PS I've finished my lists for now. Mglovesfun 19:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

St. John Daly

I was trying to access the above link from Series 4 but it doesn't work, I think it's directly linked to the URL because the URL is http://www.countdownwiki.com/St._John_Daly where as I think on the real Wikipedia it would code the . as something else. Mglovesfun 21:52, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

It's actually a rather subtle bug with the URL rewriter that allows us to have such pretty URLs. You can access the page via the long url until such time as I can devise a fix. Soo 01:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

That works alright but when I try and edit it, I can't. Mglovesfun 17:21, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure? The edit link works fine for me. Soo 18:15, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Even clicking on 'article' on the edit link brings up those 3 little numbers: 404. Nebagram 20:29, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Wiki addict?

Why do I try and sign my emails with four tildes? I should get out more. Mglovesfun 17:21, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I often try to do four tildes at the end of real-life conversations. Soo 23:00, 14 January 2008 (UTC)