Topic on Talk:Long Runners

Someone just templated this onto the page: "The organization of examples below assumes that the page will only ever be read in the middle 2000s, when it was written. From the vantage point of 2020 most of the headings, while technically true, are also outdated. They need to be changed to indicate the decade in which the work originated, not how long ago that was in 2005."

Unfortunately, if such a change were to be made, it would require the article be split into two separate lists - one for series which are still running (ordered by start date), and the other for series which have concluded (ordered by run length). We know how many years of Guiding Light will ever exist if the last episode was shot in 2009 (72 years) but Sesame Street? 10 Nov 1969 and still going strong.

Anything listed as "still running" will likely have to be rechecked in any case, as some of these series have wrapped up since this was written.

I just checked the page history. That particular "someone" has been a mod longer than I have... so I think maybe the template isn't a suggestion. I could be wrong.

We might be able to get away with a single list with headers like "Running for 10 years", "Running for 20 years", and so on, moving examples from section to section as needed, or we could split the list in two the way you suggested. Which would make more sense?

And who does the work? I'm still cleaning up pages that should be categories...

If we put Sesame Street into a section named ==Running for 50 years== or ==Ran for fifty years== we'd have to keep moving it every year as 50 years becomes 51, 52, 53... but if the section is ==Running continuously since 1969== or ==Running since The Sixties== the entry could mostly stay there untouched until the last episode (if there ever is a "last" episode) is shot.

In any case, any claims like "...and it's still running on National Educational Television today!" will have to be updated periodically, as either individual series disappear or as individual networks vanish.

Yeah, it's a messier proposition than I initially thought. But regardless something needs to be done. I'm not sure what the optimal solution is, though.

And you've obviously found the optimal solution, Carlb. Replacing the hard-text ages with an auto-calculating duration template was the perfect thing to do. Massive thanks are due you!