Forum:Parts of an infobox disappearing

Hi! On the Nintendo Wiki, we have an infobox for video games which can be seen here. Here's what happens when we add this:

We include all that's needed, but occasionally there is nothing to put under "followed", "preceded", or "ratings", and when we leave it blank the system automatically removes "followed=", "preceded=", etc., which causes a blank, blue bar to appear on the page.

Here's an example: example

Above and below "preceded" are two thin, blank boxes. Now this time I personally deleted it just to give an example of what it looks like. It should also be noted that it apparently only happens when using "advanced template editor". Here's what a user on my site said after I asked him to stop deleting the parts of the infobox:

"You see in the Mario Party (and a few other games)' infoboxes, all I've been doing, literally is adding the original year of the predecessor and successor games, for example, in the Mario Party 2 article, all I did was added (1998) and (2000) to the 'predecessor' (Mario Party), and 'successor' (Mario Party 3), in the infobox. But for some reason, the media= and whatever just seems to disappear automatically. I'm actually using the "advanced template editor" (or whatever), where you actually click on the green puzzle-shaped thing or whatever, and then you click "Edit", and you get these text boxes, and then 'Save template'. My only assumption is that if you save a template (not the actual template itself, but in a specific article), and any boxes aren't filled in, it automatically removes them. So, in other words, it's not my fault."

Sorry for the wall of text, but I was just wondering if there's anyway to stop this from happening? Thanks in advance. -- 16:10, August 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * There were some parameters without default text, which causes the text to output as-is (eg. ) when the parameter is omitted from the template call. I've added blank default text to the necessary places so that a missing parameter can cause the row to disappear completely. - Adan Aileron (talk) 00:13, August 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * The edit in question is this; and apparently it is a "feature" of the "Rich Text Editor" to remove "empty" parameters from template calls. As you have found out, a parameter that exists and is not empty is different from one that does not exist, hence I would call this a RTE bug. (Also, the parameter being there invited people to use it, hence it should not be deleted.) Use w:c:nintendo:Special:Contact to report the bug. I've got the RTE turned off for myself, and for our wiki, so I'm unwilling to debug this problem further myself. -- ◄mendel► 06:37, August 16, 2010 (UTC)