Template:TCMDb title ispermanentlyprotected from editing as it is aheavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported byconsensus, editors may use {{edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template'sdocumentation to add usage notes orcategories. Any contributor may edit the template'ssandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked usingtest cases.

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This template was considered fordeletion on2018 August 19. The result ofthe discussion was "keep".

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Please incorporate the sandbox code foundhere to the live template. Per a discussion atWT:FILMhere, it was determined that TCMDb has gone away from the url stylinghttp://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/title.jsp?stid=ID and is now usinghttp://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/ID/film-title. My edits in the sandbox adjust the url in the template, and either taking the PAGENAMEBASE of the Wikipedia article and replacing spaces for "-" to account for the last bit of the url, or a new override field|url_title= to manually add. That new parameter is definitely needed for any title that has an "&" in it (likeThelma & Louise) as the url needs to be "thelma-and-louise". I could not get{{replace}} to switch an "&" to "and", so if the template editor who responds to this knows how to make that happen, we could code that into the template. -Favre1fan93 (talk)18:33, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'll do some testing in the sandbox and see what we can do for you here. Temporarily disabled request. Will be back shortly ... — Martin(MSGJ · talk)18:46, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm getting a message "Oh no! Turner Classic Movies isn't available in your region." which is making testing impossible for me. I've reopened the request so another template editor can take a look. — Martin(MSGJ · talk)19:48, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@MSGJ: Thanks. I did some testing on the testcase page and picking some articles and switching them to the sandbox code and checking in preview mode (not saving) and I believe everything works as it should, but definitely glad to have another check. Even if you can't view Turner Classic Movies, do you have any knowledge to make the template/{{replace}} handle the "&" / "and" situation I mentioned? -Favre1fan93 (talk)20:06, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not well-versed in such things, but look at the url forThelma & Louise. The URL code is:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelma_%26_Louise

Note the "&" symbol is represented in the URL as "%26", so maybe replacing "&" with "%26" would work?P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 23:05, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Paine Ellsworth: I thought that as well, and tried that inthis attempt, and sadly it didn't work. Because it's taking the PAGENAMEBASE, not the url, it would see the title as "Thelma & Louse". -Favre1fan93 (talk)23:22, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If I do this code {{replace|{{replace|{{PAGENAMEBASE}}|&|and}}| |-}}, which I felt would first replace the "&"s in the title with "and"s and then replace the spaces with "-", the resulting string to append to the url (with Thelma- & Louise as an example) is "Thelma-and#38;-Louise". And having that "#38;" screws up TCMDb's end. -Favre1fan93 (talk)23:22, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried not nesting the Replace templates? that is, have you tried them separately?P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 23:39, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is it the magic wordurlencode you're looking for? --Trialpears (talk)00:08, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Using the article title to "guess" the URL is a very bad idea, as there's no guarantee it will lead to the correct one. Too bad e.g.https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/24336 doesn't redirect tohttps://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/24336/thelma-and-louise, but this strikes me as something that should be corrected by either running a bot or contacting TCM to redirect the old or partial URLs. (Wonder what Wikidata does.)Nardog (talk)00:19, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just realizedhttps://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/24336/any_string_whatsoever redirects tohttps://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/24336/thelma-and-louise. So we don't need to do all the transformations like& →and—it could even be just_ or something—at least as a tentative measure.Nardog (talk)00:43, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how this isa very bad idea when in the small sample I've done with articles here that are using this template, all use the ID, plus "the-film-name-with-dashes-for-spaces". So firstly, this change makes the template use the correct URL for TCMDb's end, which it currently is not. And second, as you noted, as long as the ID is correct, and the title string of the url isclose, it will redirect correctly. I don't believe that was working yesterday when I started this, but I have testedhttps://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/24336/thelma-&-louise andhttps://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/319298/batman-&-robin and both redirect correctly. And as well, I have added a new parameter|url_title= that will override the automatic handling if for some reason it is vastly different than expected, or not working correctly. -Favre1fan93 (talk)15:16, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Again, there's no guarantee TCMDb uses the same title for a movie as that of the Wikipedia article, which can be in any of a variety of languages and can contain various punctuation marks—not just ampersands but colons, slashes, dashes, etc.—which you'd have to escape if you're going to use{{PAGENAMEBASE}}.as long as the ID is correct, and the title string of the url isclose, it will redirect correctly Not quite; the title string can be anything, it doesn't even have to be close. Recycling the article title for guessing the URL and adding a parameter when any arbitrary placeholder works just as well strikes me as overkill.Nardog (talk)15:55, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So then what are you suggesting as a solution, because the template is broken in its current state. -Favre1fan93 (talk)18:30, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We can simply replacehttp://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/title.jsp?stid=... withhttps://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/.../- or whatever.Nardog (talk)19:19, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I don't fully understand how using just a "-"in the url where the title should go to force TCMDb to fix it, rather than the PAGENAMEBASE/replace code I implemented that would present the actual URL in the vast majority of cases (disregarding the &/other character situation). Because as demonstrated, in those cases, whatever was generated by the template would still get users to the correct TCMDb page. -Favre1fan93 (talk)19:30, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So would any other arbitrary string, like-. So what's the point of using PAGENAMEBASE/replace code when there's no guarantee they will produce the canonical URL?Nardog (talk)19:34, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It has the ability to be correct for the vast majority of articles, and not for a few, verses being incorrect for all with TCMDb fixing it on their end. -Favre1fan93 (talk)20:25, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

TCMDb is not "fixing" the URL, it's just indifferent to what you put in at the end. The more maneuvers you put in the template the more opportunities for it to break. Particularly we don't know how some punctuation marks and non-ASCII characters are handled. The simpler solution is usually the better one.Nardog (talk)08:26, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But if TCMDb adjusts on their end to make these soft redirects not valid, then we are back to where we are now, with a template that doesn't do what it should. So beingindifferent to what you put in at the end seems like only a partial solution to making the template work properly. -Favre1fan93 (talk)13:42, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Nardog and this will be a more robust solution in the long run — Martin(MSGJ · talk)18:23, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have coded the sandbox so that it takes advantage of the current TCM redirect scheme. They will probably break it again in the future, but I think it works for now, without us needing to burn cycles with convoluted text replacement. Do more test cases need to be added to ensure that the sandbox works, or should we deploy it now (since the current template doesn't work at all) and wait for reports of problems? –Jonesey95 (talk)23:26, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely feel this should be tested to ensure TCM redirect scheme does work as intended. -Favre1fan93 (talk)13:42, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Test away!Template:TCMDb title/testcases is not a protected page. You are welcome to add a wide variety of test cases. As a template editor, I love a robust test cases page, especially when I am modifying a template with which I am unfamiliar. In this particular situation, where the template transclusions are 100% not working, as far as we know, a more useful test might be deploying the sandbox code and then going to the What Links Here page and checking the template's transclusions in a few hundred articles. –Jonesey95 (talk)15:07, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Jonesey95: I agree we should roll out the new version first given the live version doesn't work at all. I've extracted 500 transclusions in articles (excluding those relying on Wikidata) and added them to thetestcases page.Nardog (talk)16:05, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Done –Jonesey95 (talk)17:10, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For many people, clicking the links produced by this template is a waste of time, because these links only work in limited regions of the world. Can we update the template to flag this issue, similar to thesubscription required template?

• The links produced by this templatedo not work for many people
• In large parts of the world, these links redirect tohttps://www.tcm.com/unavailable
• In these cases, the TCM page can takelong to render (10 seconds +)
• The TCM page just says "Not Available – Oh no! Turner Classic Movies isn't available in your region"
• This redirect appears to depend on location, as derived from IP address
• The output produced by the template does not flag this issue

Superp (talk)08:52, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thisedit request has been answered. Set the|answered= parameter tono to reactivate your request.

Please change
[[Turner Classic Movies|TCM Movie Database]]
to
[[Turner Classic Movies#TCM Movie Database (2006–2019)|TCM Movie Database]]
so it's a direct link.Blippy1998 (talk)14:52, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Done. I used an anchor instead of the current heading, the latter of which might change. –Jonesey95 (talk)14:56, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yesterday,TCM announced they have updated their homepage to improve user accessibility. Unfortunately, it erased the database links and all those links now redirect to the updated homepage. There's no telling if TCM will restore those links but they are officially dead for now. Only a few of them such asCasablanca have been archived.PrinceArchelaus (talk)01:39, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Woof. Improve accessibility my butt! Is there a way to somehow have this template work via archive.org within the template? Because otherwise, I don't see much of its use anymore if the site is just gone. :/Andrzejbanas (talk)15:35, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In my eyes, it's not too intuitive to have the template deal with looking at Wayback to find a viable archive. That should be done on an individual basis to A) see if the old page was even archived, and B) find a "proper" archive if they exist. For example withCasablanca, if you just go tothe Wayback here without specifying a specific archive date, the latest archive comes back with a "403 Forbidden" error. So not easily solvable. -Favre1fan93 (talk)16:46, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's unfortunate. I think we'll have to grasp the scope of how much is actually lost and see what the viability of this kind of short-cut link is anymore. The Turner Classic Films site had a lot material linked to it across film articles. I'll report it on the talk page of WP:FILM too just to have it get some more notice out.Andrzejbanas (talk)14:34, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am the bot operator that does kind of URL work. A bot request was made today atWikipedia:Link_rot/URL_change_requests#I_can_fix_TM:TCMDb. I will follow up with a course of action there, in case anyone wants to participate. --GreenC22:32, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Template-Class film pages
• WikiProject Film articles