Wikipedia talk:Television episodes

Changes to guidelines

This guideline has recently been expanded, following discussion and consensus reached here by editors from Episode coverage taskforce. The guidelines have not changed in nature, but expanded to allow more explanation of each point. The 'Dealing with problem articles' section may require some expansion once consensus is reached at Wikipedia talk:Television article review process, which aims to create a suitable review process for problem articles. Further discussion about the guidelines can take place below. General comments about episode coverage on Wikipedia should be made at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Episode coverage. Thanks! Gwinva 09:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Tag pages needing expansion

There's a lot of prime-time TV shows which have some episode articles which contain little more than plot and trivia (eg. episodes of 24, Lost, Prison Break, etc.). As these episodes have had the attention from the critics and media which will allow for individual episode articles to be expanded and not redirected back to the main list, I think it would be a good idea to tag the articles with banners suggesting cleanup with a banner like the one below. I had a look at {{TV-in-universe}} and I think a more specific banner would be needed in this case.

The tag could also add the article to a cleanup category called something like Television episode articles needing expansion.. Does anybody else think this is a good idea? ●BillPP ^{(talk|contribs)} 20:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The idea is to tag to let them know that it will be under review after a given amount of days and if they haven't show any attempt to get it out of the "problem area" then it gets merged and redirected. If we are simply tagging articles they'll just sit there, years from now, still tagged...or worse, some less experienced editor, who thinks it looks ugly or just doesn't agree with it, will remove the tag. Bignole 21:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

That's assuming that people know what's needed and are simply not adding it. It's become apparent lately that a lot of people are unaware of the episode style guideline. A banner like this would be similar to {{plot}} or {{trivia}} which both inform the editors of the guidelines and gives brief outlines of what to do, as well as linking back to the guideline. For example, there's some editors who write complete stories up in plot sections, the plot banner informs them, as well as other editors who see it about the Wikipedia guideline on plot lengths. A banner highlighting the guideline for TV episodes would be just as useful as a lot of editors believe that all Wikipedia needs is a plot synopsis as an article. The tag does have a date parameter so articles that have been tagged for a certain age could be merged and redirected like you said. One thing I'd change about the banner I suggested before is that it includes something along the lines of "Articles lacking this information are likely to be deleted." at the end. ●BillPP ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

That's why they are directed to the appropriate pages. The only differenced been this tag and the other tag is that this one links to this page, whereas the other links to WP:TV. I think only severely troubled articles would be deleted, like if they had " Episode title is the blank episode in blank series" and nothing else. People have brought up their concerns about the word "deletion". Probably I have is that neither actually links to the "how to guides" that we have been trying to expand and detail. Bignole

I assume you're talking about {{Episode-notability}} (I didn't realise at first). The banner I suggested would be for episodes which are notable enough to be included in Wikipedia, but need expansion, as a "come fix me" type thing. Also when I said deleted earlier, I meant redirected. ●BillPP ^{(talk|contribs)} 11:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's the template. Well, I think the idea is that they need to prove notability, because a large community of people assume that just being a television episode makes itself notable. My feelings are, if you can't find professional, reliable reviews of an episode, then it really isn't that notable for an encyclopedia, because no one outside the fan community cared to talk about it. You could have an episode that was a musical, or had a very famous special guest, but if no one other than the fans of the show talked about the episode, then it hasn't established any notability. There could be plenty of other, encyclopedic things to talk about, but are probably better suited on a parent article.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:15, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, a banner similar to the one you have suggested will be useful for the 2nd review discussed at Wikipedia:Television article review process, when reviewers decide what to do with problem articles which are probably notable. I think there's something about templates there...(but it will need expanding: the page is really only in an early draft). I think the biggest issue in "problem" articles is that people don't know how to improve articles, what they need to include etc. It's useful to have a few pointers (if people follow them!). Have you seen the review suggestions? Anything you can add? Gwinva 12:21, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Dealing with problem articles

Should this be modified to directly reflect the review process? Other than just "can be tagged with {{Episode-notability}} template (by pasting: {{subst:episode-notability}} on the page), which automatically adds it to Category:Episode articles not asserting notability after fourteen days"? Or, at the very least, a link to the review process? Alcemáe T • C 05:42, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe we wanted to create a tag for when the review was taking place. If someone was only concerned with their article, then they probably wouldn't want to constantly check the page to find out when it's turn is. Though, we coudl link to the review page, but put in a notice that says "a review tag will be placed on the parent article when the review is set to take place"..or something like that, so that don't have to worry about checking the page every day to see if the article is up yet.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 05:44, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was referring to the section here on the project page. I should've used a better title. I was asking if, since the review process has been updated, if the section should be updated to reflect what the process currently is. Alcemáe T • C 05:49, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, well, why didn't ya say so....come on in. Yeah, there should at least be mentioning of articles going to the review page with a link. Probably another bullet, just after where it says they would go to the category after 14 days... well, a double bullet, because the review is based on the articles that are in the category.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 06:01, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I updated the section...give me your thoughs. Alcemáe T • C 06:17, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Dated episode notability

Template:Dated episode notability has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Matthew 23:46, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Concensus??

I don't see a consensus for this guideline.

I came here from teh TfD discussion. I read the last archive, and don't see consensus. I see a bunch of arguing and a ton of incivility. I can see obvious problems with reading this guideline within the first section. SchmuckyTheCat

Well, I dont know your definition of consensus, but the WP definition applies. If you see obvious problems, then fix them, as this is a wiki, and that is the point. Alcemáe T • C 23:10, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Guideline was in place a long time ago. But if you don't like this guideline, please feel free to check out Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) or just WP:NOTABLE. But the best one, is WP:V which states that the burden of evidence falls on the person adding it. You create an article, it is YOUR responsibility to provide the evidence that proves it is notable enough for an encyclopedia. If you can't, as it states on that policy page, it can be removed. We aren't even removing pages, we are merging them with larger topics.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

CONSENSUS: Yes..there is, but there is a lot of reading to find it. The basic guidelines arose out of a discussion in 2004 regarding deletion policy. It became a centralised discussion in 2005, which can now be found archived here. The guidelines arose out of the discussion, and were consistent with WP:NOTABILITY. Minor changes were made (see edit history of the guideline page, archived link or archive 2 as well. The most recent archive contains a wide-reaching discussion but the pertinent information to the changes is here and following. It is worth noting that the recent changes expanded the guideline (ie making it more explanatory) but did not change it. Look at diff carefully (ie. word for word). Most of the new additions are quotes from other guidelines/policies such as WP:WAF, WP:NOT, Wikipedia:Reliable sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability, WP:TRIVIA, Wikipedia:Non-free content to make it easy for people to find the info. If you have a problem with any of those, then this is a wikipedia-wide problem, not a WP:EPISODE problem, and must be taken up more widely. Can you show us what particular point in this guideline that you thought 'horrible'? perhaps we can show where it came from, or reword it if it's merely ambiguity. Or perhaps we've misinterpreted a policy? Gwinva 07:37, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletion review

Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 July 4#Template:Dated episode notability -- Ned Scott 07:33, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite

I'm interested in rewriting this guideline as I don't believe it to accurately reflect the community's opinion on the issue of episode articles, but rather a small portion of users. As it stands I would be willing to say that this guideline is disputed, as such should be marked as so (but I will not do this right yet). I'm interested in hearing opinions from ya'll? Matthew 11:49, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

As it stands right now I believe it's "broken". As a result of the TfD (delete) it's clearly shown to me the process isn't backed by consensus. This further enhances my opinion that we should rewrite this guideline. Matthew 11:52, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

It is not disputed by anyone besides people that ignore WP:N, which are people that we kindly ignore. Anyways, you cannot state the community's opinion from the small number of people that voted in the TfD. The fact that WP:N still stands should be enough to show that this is fine (being a child of WP:N). TTN 11:56, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

TTN, I've grown acquainted with the fact that you do not acknowledge the opinions of people that differ from yours. The TfD result is insignificant, I look at many AfDs and it comes to my mind that the community supports these articles, and believes they establish notability. The problem at hand is that a select few editors (yourself included) disagree and changed the guideline (now this is an easy thing to do, how many people truly get involved in the politics side of Wikipedia?) The fact there was little notification to the community shows to me this guideline is only endorsed by the people who created it. Pursuant to this I don't believe this guideline carries much weight. Matthew 12:03, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll take in the opinions of others, but I'm not going to accept them just because there are a lot of them. There are plenty of people that want everything on this site, but the number doesn't matter as long as WP:N and WP:V exist. That is why they're ignored. We notified various places of the guideline change. People just didn't bother to comment on it, so don't claim that we're a little group. Besides that, we have drawn in various people that were 100% opposed to it. TTN 13:06, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

TTN, it appears you've acquired "I'm right, you're wron"-itis, this illness is treatable, though. On a more serious note: you believing yourself to be right, doesn't actually make you right. Matthew 17:08, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The same goes right back to you. You're acting as if you're the one that can just pass me off as nothing. The thing is that I can cite policies and guidelines while all you can do is use a personal view of consensus to back yourself. That shows a pretty big difference in argument strength to me. TTN 17:23, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Matthew, would you care to provide links for these Afds where articles that dont even have sources are kept? Also, the TfD turned out the way it did possibly because of your's and Angie Y.'s canvassing, not neccesarily consensus. I  ^{(said) (did)} 13:13, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Bignole "I", would you provide the relevant diffs. for my apparent TfD canvassing? And to answer your request: sure, here's an example: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Take Me Out to the Ballgame (SATC episode). You should know though that an episode itself is a verifiable source (it's a primary source), so the article is not unsourced. Matthew 17:08, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no problem with the guideline. We can't have a guideline which defines its own Notability, which contradicts the long standing WP:NOTE guideline, or the long standing policy of verifiability. This guideline does nothing but say what those already say, and that is you must establish notability (NOTE guideline) and that you must use reliable sources, if you do not then it can be removed (verifiability policy). The rest is simply how to write the page, which again just brings other guidelines and policies into play in reflection to a television show. Also, the TfD was over using the template, as many that voted "delete" even said that they agreed with what was going on, just felt the template was redundant to what we already had.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Reply to Matthew. You said: "The fact there was little notification to the community shows to me this guideline is only endorsed by the people who created it. Pursuant to this I don't believe this guideline carries much weight", a statement which is entirely false. The relevant community was notified and invited to comment. All involved at the original AN/I were invited to contribute to the discussion. The review was raised at the village pump (twice) and I left messages on the talk pages of all the television-related wikiprojects. Thus the group working on this guideline and WP:TV-REVIEW was enlarged by people from all over Wikipedia. You also were aware of the discussion and could have joined in. When people are notified correctly, silence is taken as consensus. Also, if you had read this page, most particularly my comments at #Concensus?? you will find that a) this guideline has arisen out of consensus gathered over several years and b) the guideline was EXPANDED not changed, for the express purpose of making it more helpful and c) most of the expansions consist of quotes from other guidelines and policies. You are more than welcome (as anyone is) to offer suggestions for improvement, but they CANNOT be contrary to existing guidelines and policies. If you have a problem with any of those, then the first step is to bring the issue up on those respective pages. (eg. WP:WAF, WP:NOT, Wikipedia:Reliable sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability, WP:TRIVIA, Wikipedia:Non-free content). As I mentioned to SchmuckyTheCat above, can you show us where we have misinterpreted or gone beyond the spirit of existing wikipedia policy? Gwinva 15:47, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The village pump? I wonder how many people actually regular the "pump". No, that is far from ample notification. "Silence is taken as consensus", what silence? I see no silence---not to mention the fact people were not "notified correctly". Matthew 17:08, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Exactly how would you have liked to have been notified? Should we have gone to every Wikipedian's talk page and put up a notice? A notification on the television wikiprojects seems rather "correct". Regardless of how many people on Village Pump frequent the page, it was still put there for outsiders (people not necessary associated with television articles) to know about. I must say, where were you when we were discussing the clarification of this guideline, or coming up with the review process? Huh? Please, I know you are begging to say something along the lines of "you didn't know it was going on".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:17, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I had also posted notices to some of the WikiProjects I've been involved with, such as WP:ANIME. -- Ned Scott 06:48, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

A rewrite of some sections of this guideline are sorely needed. Just as an example, the section "Process" instructing editors in which order articles must be created is an unnecessary instruction creep. The "How to write a good episode" is largely sound. There's no real problem with the "Problem articles" section other than it tells us to use the currently only propsed review process, but it should emphasise that articles don't need to be a Good Article quality. Tim! 11:15, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

The "process" should probably go on a manual of style page, like the "how to write good episodes" article, as it has nothing to do with notability, and more to do with "don't jump the gun".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:01, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, the process was a core part of this page even before it had the WP:EPISODE shortcut. Notability is a second issue that we've added on to help people understand why we have those instructions. The instructions to editors for which order articles should be created is the heart of this page, and is anything but instructions creep. -- Ned Scott 02:15, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

And a guideline should be focusing on making more articles GA quality. Articles don't need to be GA only in the sense that they won't be deleted for simply not being GA. GA should be a minimal goal for all our articles. -- Ned Scott 02:17, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Examples of good pages are great examples of good pages. Too bad whoever wrote the guidelines didn't realize how skewed the selections are. All of them are English-speaking shows, all except two in Programme pages category are non-American, and in the episodes category, most importantly because episode lists are being mass edited despite heavy protest, all the shows have been in the top ten of the Nielsen's rating and appeal mostly towards 18-35 age group.

So if I wanted information on a show in Italy, Japan, or Egypt and/or it's older than 40 years, I'm mostly out of luck because they won't be sourced in English from Entertainment Weekly or English DVD commentary. Or in simple terms to whoever wrote the guidelines, "if I can't see it then it doesn't exist," because they can't be sourced, therefore not notable.

I kind of understood the trivia purges, but now it's going too far. Plot summaries support the main article, the show, they're not an article in itself. People put in a lot work writing the summaries on shows most people don't know about, much less care to write about and now it's going to waste. Simpsons and Lost wikis exist, but most of the shows on the chopping block unfortunately don't have a specific wiki and once they're gone from Wikipedia they're gone off the internet or will be after the fansite isn't updated. Please reconsider before further action is taken. JasonSmithee 07:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, we pull from what we got. Do you have an FA television article that's Japanese, Italian or Egyptian? Older than 40 years old? The examples on this list are featured articles, not some random article plucked from Wikipedia. Secondly, where did you get this "when they are gone from Wikipedia they are gone from the internet?" theory? Nothing is ever truly gone from the internet, and it is certainly never gone from Wikipedia. If someone actually deleted a page (which isn't what is happening to the television episode pages, they are simply being merged so their history is still in-tact for you to view) then an Admin has the power to recreate it with all the information that was there.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Bignole, I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you about the "gone" comment. The idea of text "disappearing" from the Internet is a valid concern, and one that doesn't really get proper consideration in the redirect debates. We have to keep in mind that we (the regular editors) are "privileged", if you will, in that we have a better understanding of how Wikipedia works. Sifting through the history might be a realistic expectation if you are a committed editor who knows the ins and outs of the system. However, that isn't a practical option for most readers. We simply cannot expect the average reader who comes here through a Google search to know how to find material in an article history, especially if there is not indication that such an article ever existed. Once the text on a (for argument's sake) 40-year-old series has been redirected to a condensed version, the original article is effectively gone for most Internet users. Moreover, it is highly unlikely to have been created anywhere else. That does not mean we have to accept every article as "undeletable", of course - poorly written rubbish is rubbish, no matter how you look at it. We must, however, keep the bigger picture in mind before we hastily "soft-delete" large swathes of unique Wikipedia content. --Ckatz^chat_spy 20:14, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I would assume that anyone coming here to read episode plots probably isn't too unfamiliar with Wikipedia. They may not know what happened to them, or where to look, but they probably know to come to a talk page and ask...usually in the "what the hell happened!!" kind of way. But I wasn't getting the opinion that Jason was referring to the loss of information to the readers, but more of the "loss of 'hard work'" from the editors.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:06, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Review update

I've done some revisions to the review process that should address many concerns in the TfDs and MfD. For starters, the page has now been moved to Wikipedia:Television episodes/Review with Wikipedia:Television article review process moved to an instructions subpage and transcluded on the review page. Instructions could be cleaned up some more, but discussion themselves are now held on the talk page of a parent article, with a link to that discussion being listed on the review page. Thoughts? -- Ned Scott 20:44, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

List of Keeping Up Appearances episodes

Note-I refactored this to make it more understandable, and a more NPOV discussion.

A debate has raised on the bases of the Keeping Up Appearances Christmas Special table arrangements. I would like YOUR own opinion on the following:

What do you think looks better?

• A seperate table for each Christmas Special, placed under the individual seasons' table

• Or one table for all of the Christmas Specials, placed at the bottom of the list

Follow the link for the page in question: List of Keeping Up Appearances episodes and please air your view on the list of keeping up appearances episodes discussion page. Thanks!

Expansion required

See also: Wikipedia_talk:Television_article_review_process § Comment

This is a summary of changes required to the summary to help with its understanding and to help editors improve articles:

"It should be clear if a page is being use to do nothing more than discuss an episode in detail."

Examples should be given of the above (As well as of borderline cases that is acceptable, and which is not, to provide some sort of cut-off).

"This idea of 'getting the content improved' only works if it's available, and it isn't for many shows"

The guideline should be more clear as to when episodes can be appropriately improved, and alternatives, in the case if it cannot be improved.

The words "Wikipedia should not merely be a plot summary."

I think the policy should rather focus on/expand on Plot versus other content in the articles: a plot summary is not notable, but if there are non-trivia content to a great enough extent, such articles are worth keeping.

I think the notability guideline needs to be reconsidered regarding episodes, and should be seen in context with the episode list, series' article, etc.

I think notability should be defined as an article saying "If you read me, it will be time well spent!" — but that is just me. (Esp. when someone got there using the "random article" function)

"If an article is always going to be in "start" class, or even a low "B" class, because there isn't anything written about it, then it should be merged with a larger topic. Wikipedia is about quality, not quantity"

This should somehow be worked into the article.

Regards, G.A.S 18:31, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Notability discussion

There's some discussion of what sources can be used to establish notability for an individual television episode at Wikipedia talk:Notability#What are "independent sources" and this AfD. Editors of this page may be interested in joining the discussion, and helping work towards a common understanding of "notability" in the context of television episodes.

My opinion, which I recognize may not be shared by all editors, is that if a detailed episode guide which meets the standards of WP:RS exists, that episode guide can be used to establish notability for the episodes it discusses. By "detailed episode guide" I mean something which is not merely a plot summary and cast list, but provides interpretation, analysis, background and/or reception information (e.g. quotes from newspaper reviews of the episode). My reasoning is this: WP:N's general guideline is "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." A detailed episode guide published by a legitimate publishing house meets all these criteria, with the arguable exception of "independent of the subject" for officially licensed episode guides — and even some books which are officially licensed can be considered to be independent of the subject, especially if they were written years after the television series in question aired. (How could a currently published book on, say, M*A*S*H be considered advertising, whether it's licensed or not?)

Some editors disagree with this opinion, wishing to exclude episode guides from being used to establish notability. But I don't think that view is supported by policy or guidelines — only by those editors' opinion that these particular individual episodes don't deserve articles. (Incidentally, I agree that not all episodes deserve articles — this debate is about where the line is drawn, not about whether it should be drawn at all.)

My feeling is that if a major publishing house believes that an individual episode is worthy of several pages in a book published under "an established structure for fact-checking and editorial oversight" (per WP:RS), Wikipedia should be willing to give it one page. To say otherwise is to say that our editorial judgment is superior to that of the publishing house — a very un-wiki sentiment. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. A detailed episode guide made under those conditions are notability asserting, at least enough for it to be an article. i ^{(said) (did)} 23:46, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

It is based on the material. First, you cannot say that several pages about one episode have anything encyclopedic in them. And since you cannot blatantly copy the page (copyright violation) of the book, you have to use some common sense. Significant coverage does not mean someone wrote a book about a season of show X, so that means we should have an entire article devoted to that page. Read Smallville (season 1) . That's 21 episodes worth of information. There wasn't usable information for every single episode. You can't have extraneous stuff like "Actor John Doe really like this episode". It has nothing to do with making the show, thematic elements of it, not even the impact on the show. It's irrelevant. Significant coverage = multiple discussions.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 01:03, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Why couldn't "Actor John Doe really liked this episode" be considered part of the production/development of the episode? Isn't Actor John Doe part of the real world? Doesn't his opinion on the episode relate directly to how the show was made?

And I agree that we want multiple discussions. I'm just saying that one of the sources which establish notability can be a well-written episode guide. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It's called extraneous. Unless he gives a real reason for it, his personal opinion has to be weigh as biased toward his own product. If John Doe makes comment about the writing and how he though character Y was just so nice...what does that mean to an encyclopedia? Now, if actor John Doe characterizes said character (that sounds kind of funny, but you get what I mean), then that can be encyclopedic, because it's providing context. His simple opinion of a show is kind of biased. His opinion on character development isn't, because he probably has better insight into his own character, than someone else...though that isn't to say we shouldn't have other scholar's opinions on those characters. His opinion certainly doesn't assert notability, specifically because of that bias he has. A show wouldn't have cultural impact simply because the actor that works on it said it was a good show.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that season overview pages such as this are better than individual episode pages. From what I've seen, episode pages merely attract original research and pointless trivia like "Such-and-such's behaviour clearly contradicts what was stated earlier in episode such-and-such." Also, there are so many episode pages that they cannot be easily maintained. Most episode pages are just plot summaries, and if people want that, they should just watch the episode. Only if an episode is particularly notable, such as a pilot or 100th episode, or has aclaim or criticism in the media, like Hush (Buffy episode) or Trapped in the Closet (South Park), then they deserve their own page. But not every episode. Paul730 03:48, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I also agree that such episode guides are notability asserting, as long as they provide information that we can use. How the cast or crew feels about an episode may be important, or it may not. It depends on exactly what was said. Some people would just like to nuke the ep pages, so they start with non-notable, and if that doesn't work, they have to move on to criticizing the sources. - Peregrine Fisher 16:48, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It's as simple as correlation/causation. Correlation doesn't equal causation, but causation cannot happen without correlation. Reliable sources do not equal notability, but notability cannot be established without them. A reliable source might publish something completely unencyclopedic, does it make that information notable? No, it doesn't. It's just rubbish published reliably. It's all based on context. If you aren't talking about the impact of the subject, then it doesn't help notability causes. Knowing how one makes something means nothing next to how that something has made an impact. A pilot episode creates impact, because that can determine whether or not a show makes it beyond a few airings. If no one watches a pilot, no one will watch the rest. A random episode in the middle of a series, which does nothing more than exist, is not notable. Why? Because it already has that basic following of fans. It hasn't impacted anyone else outside of that close family of fans. The show itself would be notable, but the parts would not always be. A 100th episode is milestone, unless episode 23 of some show. It's all about context.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me)

I'm seeing a lot of good points here, and I forget who brought it up originally, but it's likely that we just need to emphases more on WP:NOT#PLOT more than the weird gray area of notability. Granted there would still likely be a lot of episode articles that should be merged or whatever, but a lot more people would likely not fuss about the notplot requirements, and we would still get a ton of clean up done. Just thinking out loud (and at 3am). -- Ned Scott 09:59, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Episode review lessons learned

I'm not sure if it's because of the frustration over the XfDs or frustration over people complaining, but the episode review process is a bit.. stalled. At the same time we have suggestions from others, such as expanding the process to cover all fictional articles (such as characters, etc), or turning it into notice board type system, or just making it more of a merge process. So what have we learned from all this? What parts did we like, and what parts didn't we like? And if we continue with reviewing episodes like this, how do we get it to catch on, so the process won't die when the already involved editors go do something else? -- Ned Scott 06:34, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

What I have learned:

• A formal process faces a lot of opposition, takes a lot of time, and does not seem to have wide support.
• A formal process would likely delay the concept of being bold.
• Being bold would be proposing AfD or Merging.
• High profile series' episodes are unlikely to be deleted, as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mortal Coil (Star Trek: Voyager) would show. Adding maintenance templates to have sources added, would be more effective (Note: Not "episode is not notable template"; editors does not seem to know what this means, or what to do about it).
• Wider attention was requisted, so we will see what happens.
• I really have to write that essay.

Regards, G.A.S 08:17, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea of something to deal with all the minor characters (see Coco the dog, for example); I'm not sure it should be this process, though. I do not like the merge approach because, from what I've seen, there is nothing to merge — although that may not be the case in all cases. I've found that many editors, often anonymous editors, wholesale restore the links to episodes on LOE pages; they mostly do not get as far as undoing the redirects. This is reasonably easily dealt with, but does seem persistent. I feel the process works well enough for the episodes that don't have a snowball's chance of establishing notability but the borderline cases need more precedent to refer to; just what is considered a reliable source, an independent source? I've seen too many crappy websites referenced. --Jack Merridew 10:40, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

a side note: I just dropped a {{subst:TVreview1}} on Talk:List of The Simple Life episodes and realized that it still includes a 14 day period before a review starts... how does this square with the results of the dated template being deleted? i.e. are we still to give this window? how do folks feel about a WP:BRD per WP:SNOW approach to the lamest of the lame? --Jack Merridew 11:03, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I know the merging process may not always be the best idea, but WP:ANIME#Sections #4's approach seem to make sense:

• If the character section grows long, please reconsider the amount of detail or number of characters included. Beyond that, a separate page, named List of characters in (series), may be appropriate.
• Separate articles for each character should be avoided unless there is enough verifiable, citable material to warrant a separate article.

As such, creating a list of article, and moving all information there makes sense. This could get rid of most minor characters with their own articles, especially ones like your favorite example, Coco the dog.

Maybe, regarding episodes' articles, a list of season X episodes may make sense. This should get rid of all the Simple life articles. Use an H2 heading for each episode and move the information from the separate articles there. Redirect to the specific section. There will be little sense in reverting it then.

Your suggestions will be welcome at the essay's current talk, I will need some help in defining the finer points.

WP:BRD makes sense as well. Especially if the article has not been edited in a long time. First merge, but if it is reverted, discuss it, although adding the merge templates for anything except the lamest articles, is better etiquette. I would caution against merely redirecting the info, though, as it builds up resistance to any other alternative, such as merging. I myself had this dilemma; in a case like this it is justified: No meaningful edit was done in a month, and a similar article with at least the same information existed.

[Edit]: Sample essay added to Wikipedia_talk:Television_article_review_process#Suggested_essay.

Regards G.A.S 12:29, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposed minor addition to the "Things to avoid" section

Quite simply, I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned prominently in the guideline elsewhere:

Things to avoid:

• blah blah...
• Spoilers or surprising plot elements in the article summary

It probably needs to be reworded slightly, but I'm sure you get my point. While spoilers are sort of expected in the Plot summary section, having one on the very first line of the article is just, well, wrong. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check) 11:42, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This is mostly covered by WP:Spoiler already but I guess it could be mentioned here. The spoiler guideline says "Very rarely, a spoiler warning may appear in the article lead. Plot details that are not significant from an out-of-universe perspective should not be found in the lead at all." Which seems appropriate, anywhere else in the article however spoilers are fair game. Stardust8212 13:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't argue that point; the only thing I'm looking for is to keep spoilers out of the very first few lines of an article, 'cause it seriously brings article quality down. (Or at least makes it annoying as hell) Perhaps an explicit mention of how WP:SPOILER already says this should be included in the line, just to make it clear that this isn't just a single-guideline thing. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check)

That should be a problem anyway, if people are following WP:LEAD correctly. The entire first paragraph should be pure basic information about the topic of the article, in this case it would be: title, airdate, writers, and director. Then maybe a sentence or two that gives a truly summarized plot, something that merely hits the important points, no actual details. But, at least in regards to the very first sentence it should be quite easy to avoid any "spoilers" there.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:43, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Smallville

I'd like to get some more opinions on some character articles that I have proposed a merger for. You can find the discussion at Talk: Smallville (TV series)#Merge characters.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:59, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Production numbers

A recent merge proposal added to List of Dirty Jobs episodes has pointed me to a fork of the article at Dirty Jobs Episode List that was created after a content dispute over "Season Number" and "Episode Number/Production Number" and the use of the {{Episode list}} template. See Talk:List of Dirty Jobs episodes for the discussion I had with the editor. The editor also converted List of Modern Marvels episodes using this Season/Episode/Production Number which I believe is original research. Before I make the merge and undo the numbering on List of Modern Marvels episodes, can somebody verify my statements that none of these numbers are official and should not be used? Thanks. -- Gogo Dodo 18:39, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Episode numbers are not original research, it's simple arithmetic. By season number I assume you mean things like "4.01", "401", "4-01" for something like season four episode 1? Season numbers are kind of irrelevant. There isn't counting involved, and people should know what season they are looking at anyway. It isn't like you are saying "this is episode 17," because in that case it's better than making them count to find out what the number is. As for production numbers, those are actually kind of hard to find. I don't know too many shows that actually gives those out, and a lot of times I've seen people using the season numbers in place of them. Unless there is a reliable source that identifies the production number (and TV.com and IMDb would not work) then it shouldn't be mentiond at all.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 18:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Production codes are not actually hard to find with a little bit of effort. Some shows may not even have production codes. So anyway, if you see any unsourced Prod. Codes, just remove them (the onus is on those seeking inclusion to provide a source). Matthew 18:57, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I removed the "Production #" from List of Modern Marvels episodes and converted it to {{Episode list}}. Thanks for redirecting the forked article. -- Gogo Dodo 23:36, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Podcasting

Posted the below to the village pump, but thought those who watch this page should have it brought to their attention. Please respond there. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Podcasting

I've seen spammy, poorly formatted lists of podcast episodes, but recently one that was [1]. As I responded there, the list was writen like an advertisement, prone to attacks based on the myriad external links, and contained no independent analysis. However, the contesting editor does raise an interesting point: What is the bar for note for episodes on other media? Is there a rational reason to cover every episode of a radio program or issue of a magazine? If not, why not, and are there preexisting policies that cover the point? MrZaius^talk 19:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Guidance

I frequently monitor new pages and tag them as needed. Very often, I see television episode articles which are linked from an episode list. 9 times out of 10, the episode article contains nothing but a plot summary, infobox, and occasionally the characters / actors involved, but nothing more. These episode articles pretty much never get improved or changed. After reading this talk page, I'm unsure what the appropriate course of action / template would be. Guidance would be much appreciated. cheers! - superβεεcat  20:24, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

That's interesting. If they are articles for episodes that have not aired, as I've seen people create them for episodes that won't air for months, then I would redirect on the spot. If the episode has aired, I would bring the appropriate guidelines to the attention of that article, and let them know that they really shouldn't be splitting off these episodes unless there is just reason for doing so (i.e. episode has already established some form of notability, the page it split from is too large already).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a small note about future episodes, in the case of The Simpsons, we create redirects to the season page as soon as an episode title is confirmed (people are less eager to create an article when it doesn't involve a creation credit) and we only create an episode article when there is a confirmed plot. And in response to your commernt that about episode articles never getting improved, at this time last year, there were 0 episode GAs. Now, there are almost 60 from a dozen different shows, as well as 10 FAs. These articles CAN be improved, it's just that people want it done NOW, when in reality it takes time. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 20:37, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I guess my question is whether it is appropriate to have articles (such as your Simpsons example) which are mere plot summaries / character lists (as most tv episode articles seem to be), and if not, what the appropriate template to tag the article with is. It seems to me that if episodes are not per se notable by virtue of being an episode of a notable program, then creating an article for a future episode assumes it will become notable, violating wp:crystal. For episodes that have already aired, if there is no evidence that they are notable, why do we have countless articles that are mere plot summaries / character lists? Should they all be tagged with notability templates? Is there a better template? Am I totally mistaken? (it happens!) Cheers! - superβεεcat  20:44, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I would be willing to bet that the majority of that 60 GAs are from The Simpsons. I already know they have an entire season taken care of. Also, the burden of establishing notability is NOW, not later. Plot summaries are not reasons to create an article. Having a plot is not notable. For those articles that do fail the notability guideline, there is a tag, and a taskforce that is going around and reviewing all these articles. There are just so darn many of them that it takes forever. If you go to the front page, you'll see a link to the review process.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:46, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

What about the thousands of film articles that are basically just plot summaries with a small bit of cast information and some unsourced trivia? Or the thousands and thousands of articles for little known actors that just list a couple of roles and a small amount of unsourced trivia? How come people never seem concerned about those? I agree that these pages need cleaning, but people need to stop with this "GA or merge" mentality. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 20:48, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Who said they get special treatment, or that people are not concerned with them? Please don't make excuses for the problems by saying "well this exists". If you find something that fails the notability guidelines, tag it; prod it; AfD it; propose a merger. Don't sit there and say "well, if they exist then this can exist." Yes, there are tons of articles that have problems and fail guidelines and policies left and right, but we are not here to perpetuate a cycle that has already gone on for long enough. You say that this time last year there were no GA episode articles, but now there are 60. So, in a year, 60 episode articles became GA status, yet probably hundreds of articles were created (which doesn't include the ones that were already there). The turn over rate isn't that high, and most will not be able to meet the basic criteria for notability.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

When did I say that? I just said that people need to stop going after episodes and acting like they are Wikipedia's biggest problem. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 21:02, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Who's going after the episode, but the people that edit in this WikiProject of Television shows. Episode articles are not the biggest problem, but we shouldn't ignore the fact that they are a problem.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that this is confounding multiple issues. My questions are not regarding whether this is a big or small problem, or whether it exists elsewhere, but simply, whether these articles are appropriate, and the proper action to take when I see an editor uploading articles which are mere plot summaries / char lists. I was unsure whether there was consensus on whether these articles should be templated, or if they somehow inherit notability. If I understand correctly, the answers are: yes, these articles fail notability, and should be templated or deleted when I see them, and yes, there is a specific template for this purpose. In a related matter, individual albums by notable artists, and songs of notable albums probably suffer from the same deficiency and should be handled similarly. - superβεεcat  21:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Not deleted - as Bignole outlined, there is a process to follow. Furthermore, they have to be assessed, they don't automatically fail, and there certainly isn't consensus. Discussion is very important, too, to avoid what happened several months ago. --Ckatz^chat_spy 00:08, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Ckatz, I'm sorry, but that "process" is not for the creation of articles about episodes that have not even aired. If the episode has not aired, there isn't anything to even talk about. It fails notability, crystal ball, almost anything you can think of right off the bat. Unless there is some unique circumstance where the episode has received significant coverage before it ever aired (kind of like Aquaman, or maybe the new Bionic Woman pilot) then it shouldn't have been created in the first place. Otherwise, we get into this "I'll ignore everything right now, because nothing can happen to the article." Sorry, but that isn't true. I didn't say we delete articles automatically for episodes that have aired; I was referring specifically to articles on subjects that have not been released (which puts it kind of into crystal balling, because you have no proof the episode will even air. An act of the television gods could yank it from airing ahead of time).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 00:26, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the discussion is getting confusing, because it appears to be a blend of future and existing articles. (I was responding to the "existing article" question.) The "delete" I responded to was from Superbeecat's reply, by the way - sorry if it appeared to refer to you. --Ckatz^chat_spy 00:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Understood. Tag the articles of episodes which have aired with episode notability template if merely a plot summary / charlist. - superβεεcat  08:05, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I thought it was, my apologies for misunderstanding. It looked like you were saying that I was promoting the deletion of all those articles.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 00:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Notability standards

I'm thinking that the WP standards maybe aren't all that germane to TV episodes, and that somebody should rethink how they apply here. It is not at all usual for print sources to cover individual TV episodes, so many notable and very important episodes would fail the (IMHO not very applicable) notability test.

Looking at the reverse of this, consider major league baseball games. Each game is covered in depth in the newspapers of at least two major cities (or one, for example if the Mets are playing the Yankees). But it's pretty hard to argue that each of the 162 games of the 2001 Pittsburgh Pirates is notable and therefore qualifies for inclusion. Moving down the food chain, consider college football games, minor league baseball games, rock concerts, symphony performances, etc. Many are routinely covered, but few are really worthy of note.

The point here is that just because print media report on something doesn't necessarily mean it's notable, and just because they don't report on it doesn't necessarily mean it's not. Lou Sander 18:34, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

What makes something notable or important if people are not covering it? Who said it had to be print sources? USA Today has articles that never see their newspaper. Entertainment Weekly? There are a lot of online, reliable secondary sources out there. The notability criteria (the general page, not the specific ones) is clear, reliable secondary sources that show significant coverage. Your argument about Baseball doesn't hold water, because the articles about those games are not anything more than mirrors of what happened in the game and how badly someone performed. We cannot write an article about a Baseball game (or any sporting event) on the concept that we should say what happened in the game. That would be illegal to republish the events of a baseball game. If something notable happened at the game, that could be a different story. Some fan of a television show saying "this is an important episode" does not make that episode important, or notable. Sources do not have to be in print media, they just have to be reliably published.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:17, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

You might be a bit premature in casually dismissing the baseball argument as "not holding water." A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. (Emphasis added.) If somebody wants to write an article about something that meets the standards of notability, who am I to complain?

Baseball games = things that automatically meet the standards for presumed notability, because they ALWAYS receive the requisite coverage (but they may sort of seem "all the same" to many people). TV episodes = things that are notable to many people in their vast audiences (but do not generally receive the requisite coverage for presumed notability). Lou Sander 21:18, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Wiki isn't a mirror. If the article is nothing but a play-by-play of the game, as told by 100 reliable secondary sources, it still fails policy. It isn't simply just having reliable secondary sources, the information itself has to be encyclopedic (as Wiki isn't an indiscriminate collection of information, nor a list of plots). It all has to be relevant. So, as I said, if the coverage on the game was about something specific, then you probably have a reason to have the article...but we don't have articles on every game ever played (another reason why we don't have--shouldn't have--an article on every episode of every television show that ever aired).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

A duck, because the vest has no sleeves. I'm trying to talk about notability here. All major league baseball games, even the dullest and least worthy of being noticed, meet the official standard, so proper encyclopedia articles could be written about them, without anyone claiming they aren't notable. Extraordinary, highly notable to many people, TV episodes and semi-episodes don't meet the (maybe not such a good?) standard, because unlike baseball games, they don't get automatic newspaper coverage and the automatically presumed notability that goes with it. Wonderful, needed, wanted, very appropriate, encyclopedia articles about such worthy-of-note episodes, if such are ever written, can be challenged on the basis of notability.

I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, the notability standard that works so well for so many things might not be exactly wonderful in the case of dull, poorly-attended baseball games or great, frequently-repeated, appreciated by millions, TV episodes. Maybe there's some better standard of notability for the latter. Lou Sander 03:36, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Or, maybe there isn't, and the shows aren't notable? As for sports games, I don't believe they satisfy the spirit of the guidline, although, ironically, they satisfy the letter. — i ^said 03:40, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Lou, the notability guideline is about what consistutes the necessity to have its own article. Even topics that meet the notability guideline, and every other policy, are so small that they get merged into larger topics. Since we cannot repeat everything that happens in a sports game, there generally isn't much to tell about it. There isn't "production" information like a television show, there isn't true "Reception" or "impact" that can be measured. It's like comparing apples and acorns. They both grow on trees, but they are completely different. Meaning, they are both televised events, but sporting events are in a completely separate field (pardon the pun). They are "reality". They are nothing more than televised days of the week. It would be like having an article for every day of the week (i.e. September 27, 2007). Unless there was something important that happened during it, it probably isn't notable for being anything other than a day. What you are missing is that: a) Coverage isn't limited to paper sources. b) The information in those reliable sources has to be relevant. 100 newspapers can talk about a game, but if they just say the same thing over and over again, that doesn't constitute "significant coverage". Please, show me an episode that is well written, and contains encyclopedic content and I'll show you an article that has reliable sources attached to it (thus meeting the guideline). You cannot write an article without sources (see WP:V), and you cannot write encyclopedic content with nothing other than the episode itself (see WP:NOR) Also, there are almost 300 million people in the United States alone. If a show has 6 million viewers, that's 2% of the population. That's not a lot when you think about it, especially when you think that shows aren't just shown in the United States, so that percentage is even less. This is why "viewership" isn't a reason to create an article devoted just to an episode. It's the equivalent to saying it got a lot of Google hits.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) This is just a exclusionist vs. inclusionist conversation. Effecting 2% of all people is way over what some historical subjects do, yet they get articles. Right now highways get pages, presumably because they effect so many people's lives. The same can be said of TV eps. We have 2,000,000 pages rouglhy now, and I'll believe we really want to get rid of this kind of stuff when that number stops going up. - Peregrine Fisher 04:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

They have context. An article about an episode summary does not. How many people watch an episode does not establish notability, not unless that number broke records. Again, even then that alone would not be enough to warrant separation. I don't think it's "exclusionist vs. inclusionist" either. People confuse "does not warrant a separate article" with "does not warrant mentioning at all." No one is deleting the existence of the episode. We have "List of episodes", "Season" pages and a main article. Two of those seems like they were created specifically to handle such things as episode plots, and other information too small to warrant separation.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 04:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Oops! There was an edit conflict, so this might not show up in exactly the right place. Sorry.

Meeting an explicit standard for presumed notability doesn't mean it's notable? The 15 column-inches devoted to a Yankees game in each of four different major newspapers, written by senior specialist reporters under the direction of professional editors isn't relevant and just says the same thing over and over again? Six million people isn't a lot? Maybe I'm in some sort of a Dr. Who episode.

The point I'm trying to make is that A) many trivial things meet the standard of presumed notability because they are routinely reported on in numerous reliable sources, and B) many truly notable TV episodes may fail to meet the standard of presumed notability because TV episodes are only occasionally reported on in reliable sources of any kind. (An exception to the latter is episodes of U.S. soap operas, which are regularly covered in multiple reliable sources such as big city newspapers.) Lou Sander 05:01, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Sports games: they obviously meat notability standards, but they don't fare well when it comes to AfDs because editors have an idea in their minds about what should get an article, and sports games don't meet it (I'm not talking about my opinions). Episode articles: basically the opposite. We just muddle along. The exclusionist response has been to stop putting them up for AfD, since they weren't getting the results they liked. Now, they try and redirect them in groups. Of note is that when one can show that a group of episodes meets notability requirements, then they start trying to move the notability line. Some people just don't like them in general, and some people think they're OK. Again, we just muddle along. On the positive side, there are starting to be a number of web-based magazines/newspapers that cover shows on an episode by episode basis. This is only going to increase in the future, till virtually every ep page meets notability requirements. Then the personal preferences can be shown for what they are, instead of hiding behing guidelines. Basically, be prepared to disagree for the forseeable future. - Peregrine Fisher 05:37, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm interested in the implications of these arguments. Let's assume someone uploads an episode article which are like most episode articles, simply a plot summary and perhaps an infobox and character list. If the plot summary is covered in reliable third party sources (let's say there's a few well read magazines akin to readers' digest which compresses episodes), is wikipedia satisfied with such, as it would meet source notability? My point is this: We are confounding two distinct issues. 1) A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. 2) In particular, a short burst of present news coverage about a topic does not necessarily constitute objective evidence of long-term notability. This is where the sports argument may fail. A game which is played during a particular day, but is otherwise non-notable does not (that I can see) have long-term notability. Just because a game contributes to overall stats for a season (or lifetime) is not relevant to the long term notability of the particular game. Similarly, presume an episode of a series is notable in that several sources print a plot synopsis (Like TV guide used to / does). This does not speak to long-term notability. Notability is not temporary does not mean that notability, once established, is permanent. Rather, it means that long-term notability must be established for an article to be notable at all, unless I'm misreading the policy.

Another argument- Wikipedia's presumption of notability is defeated by what wikipedia is not. It says so specifically: However, many subjects with such coverage may still be non-notable – they fail What Wikipedia is not. Therefore this is not a mere argument over notability, but a multi-layered test for inclusion. First, it must pass notability. Next, it must not fail what wikipedia is not. Plot summaries. Wikipedia articles on published works (such as fictional stories) should cover their real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's development, impact or historical significance, not solely a detailed summary of that work's plot. This applies both to stand-alone works, and also to series. A brief plot summary may sometimes be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic. Most episode articles categorically fail that test, and therefore the presumption of notability is rebutted, hence, the non-notable article should be: ?????? Which was my original question :) Remember, if they aren't long-term notable, even if notability is established, then they still should be ?????? - superβεεcat  07:49, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Got it! Thanks. Lou Sander 11:25, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Is WP satisfied? Not so much lately. This has always been (and will always be?) a hotbead of dispute. As far as "long-term notability must be established for an article to be notable at all" is open to intrepration, much like everything to do with this subject. For example, could re-runs effect this? They haven't so far. The consensus lately is if you can find individual reviews and/or production information, an article gets to live. 1 independant source is too little, 2 or more is enough. I can name a few editors who don't think 2 is enough, but they haven't been getting there way all the time, so who knows.

Remember that there is always information for episode pages beyond its plot, so they cannot "categorically" fail WP:NOT#PLOT (although a number of editors would agree with you). Who was in front of the camera, who was behind it, and what channel aired it and when are all not plot info. It sounds like you don't think episode articles are encyclopedic, so you've come to the right place to find like minded editors (this page). Welcome to the fray.

Basically, there are arguments and counter arguments for every aspect of this debate, and mostly we decide our positions by gut, then make the arguments work for us as best we can. The same with all wikipedia. As I mentioned, in the past these type of articles were put up for Afd, and when the result wasn't a consistent delete, other avenues have been explored (mostly soft delete redirects.) - Peregrine Fisher 08:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Heya, thanks for the reply! Actually I'm playing devil's advocate to get all of the arguments on the table, but not taking sides; simply trying to deduce the answer. As far as there always being info beyond plot, (unless you are talking about character lists and an info box), that's pretty much all there is in most wiki episode articles. Or are you saying that there's always more to write than plot, meaning that the content exists, but hasn't been written? As an example, all of the Frasier articles (pretty much) include nothing but a plot synopsis, infobox, and character list - no production notes, etc. Delving even deeper yet into my can of worms, how would you address this: If by virtue of wp:not#plot we can say that the plot synopsis is not itself notable (which is why it defeats the presumption of notability), does that mean that sources to show notability must be sources including info OTHER than plot? So a link to a magazine or website (or whatever) that simply summarizes the plot is not a valid reference (per wp nottaplot), and something which goes over production notes is? If I were to draw out a flow chart outlining the logic (I promise not to!) that's where I'd be lead, given the guideline. Aside: as far as frays go, this is a refreshingly civil discussion compared to a lot of what's out there. Cheers to you all, barnstars all around when we develop consensus on this (I'm making it a personal goal as of now) - superβεεcat  08:56, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

` (reset indent)To answer your actual question, yes, sources must provide info that isn't related to the plot or the cast to effect notability. The two most common sources that come to mind are reviews that aren't just plot summary, and anything independant that talks about the actual production of the episode. DVD commentaries about the production do not count towards notability, but if you have a couple of independant reviews plus some DVD commentary that can fill out a production section, the article is now pretty much AfD proof. Not that it wouldn't pass AfD easily regardless, depending on what show it was. For instance, Frasier would have some trouble because it's an old show. Children's cartoons don't fare too well either. Programs popular with geeky young males like Lost and Heroes don't need any independant sources, they have editors who will protect them. I know Star Trek won't go down, but what will be interesting is when someone tries to redirect ST:Deep Space Nine or other older, yet popular with geeks, episode articles. For an example of a Frasier'ish article I've been working on, check out Pilot (Back to You). If Frasier was new, one could do this to all the eps, but it's old and one can't search newspaper archives effectively, so it's not looking good for Frasier. - Peregrine Fisher 09:40, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm starting to see it. In the minds of many editors, the inclusion of non-notable or questionably-notable information about production (for example), none of which readers are likely to care about, is what qualifies TV episode articles to be in the encyclopedia. And the primary sources of information about production (for example), DVD commentaries, don't count.

It's like they won't eat food unless it contains a lot of filler, and the filler can't be from the mainstream sources of food filler. (Crab cakes made only of crab, no. Crab cakes made of crab and Chinese sawdust, yes.) Yummy! Lou Sander 11:25, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

We don't write just plot summaries, we have to have real world information in the article. Real world information is production information, reception, cultural impact etc. I'm sorry, I'm one that disagrees with Peregrine in the essence that naming the director and the cast does not eliminate the article from the category of "I'm just a plot description". Wiki isn't a substitute for watching a show, nor is it a mirror for people to comem here and find out exactly what watching the show would have told them. It comes down to supporting an article. Why would you have 22 articles that have a plot, actor, director, writer, airdate, when you can have one article that does that for all the episodes? Wikipedia is about quality over quantity. Peregrine, you have an interesting point, one that I have made before. It doesn't matter how much some shows fail every policy and guideline, sometimes there are just so many fans on Wikipedia that nothing can be changed. Go over to the Buffyverse Project and you'll see that they will actually fight you if you add something that they don't consider "canon". Even though this is an encyclopedia and we have to cover all aspects of a topic, mentioning the fact that there is a movie called Buffy the Vampire Slayer is like nailing yourself to the crucifix. To Lou, yes it is about substance. You can meet notability on the surface, but if the information that meets the criteria is itself non-notable--in other words, if the information basically says "There will be a baseball game tomorrow," then that doesn't show notability. Lou, I think a better analogy would be pie. It can look like a pie at first glance--it has the shape and texture--but when you open it up it's empty. You could call it "pie", and you could eat it too, but there's nothing actually there to eat. There has to be substance to the information. Sources can come from a lot of places, not just printed media, but if USA Today simply publishes a "What's on TV tonight" list, that does not constitute significant coverage. Significant coverage is not just how many different sources discuss a topic, but how they discuss it. If they are all reporting the exact same information, then we aren't going to report that information all the 20 times it was reported. We're going to say it once. This is why we don't have articles on every sporting event, which by the way I think would be the priority of the Sports WikiProject, and not the television WikiProject, seeing as sporting events are televised real-life events and not television shows. This is why we say that some episodes can exist on their own, but a lot cannot, because no one goes through the trouble of detailing the production of every episode, or reviewing every episode of every show. It just doesn't happen unfortunately. Some really good episodes probably get left out, but that's just an unfortunate circumstance and Wikipedia cannot make other organizations write about stuff so that we can report on it. If no one analyzes it, discusses it beyond just stating what it is, then we have nothing to actually write about. As I pointed out before, it's about size. There may be quite a bit of information for an episode, but it may not be enough to support an entire article, and it may work better in a larger one. Here is an example. There was production on all those episodes, thanks to a book that talked about it, but there were no real world impact to talk about for each individual one.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 11:50, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Given current guidelines re: plot summaries, the conclusion seems to be (if the guidelines are to be followed) that the mere plot summary articles do not meet several important thresholds including, obviously, WP:PLOT. The question then becomes, what to do about it. Can these be transwiki'd to another more appropriate project, linked from the wikipedia page which is notable (i.e. the episode list page, main program page, etc). That would seem to make sense, as the articles would remain intact, and the experience would seem (fairly) seemless to the reader; the episode links would simply go to an appropriate wiki of plot summaries, episode guides, whatever. No? - superβεεcat  18:02, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Redirection and transwiking have been proposed before. It's my feeling that if something unencyclopedic, but important to the show itself is lost, then it should obviously appear on the appropriate Wikia site and a link to that Wikia page should be given. Say, if we have no episode articles for season two of The Shield, and The Shield has a Wikia (if it doesn't, one can easily be created for it), then we can link the episode titles--which are probably listed in a table on a List of Episodes page--to their respective Wikia pages. This way, it's the same process any reader would have to go through had their been a Wikipedia page...they click a link and it takes them someplace that isn't the page they are currently on.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:34, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

That seems like a perfectly reasonable solution, why isn't it policy? - superβεεcat  05:37, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

It would never pass with the consensus it would need to become policy.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:35, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it's worth a try. What's the first step? - superβεεcat  06:13, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

This is more of a style guideline, which is based around WP:FICT. If you want to try and get something turned into policy, I would try the general Notability guideline. I'd read this, WP:POLICY, to get an idea of how to get a policy.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 11:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

After all the stuff I said above, I went back and read the article to which this is a discussion. It's amazing what one misses the first time through. There is a well-thought-out rationale for including/not including TV episodes. (One may or may not agree with it, but it's definitely there and well-thought-out.)

Along the lines of improving the rationale, it still seems to me that the requirement to include production information, but disallowing DVD summaries as a source of that information is kind of whacky. I also hear what they are saying about copyright law, but I'm not real excited about getting legal advice from the sort of unscreened people who edit online encyclopedias. The legal considerations don't seem totally unreasonable, but it's hard to imagine that there's not a way to allow simple summaries without violating copyright.

Maybe there should be more thought put into notability of episodes, and suitability to include them. Reruns and reissues should mean more than zero, but of course those things often happen with entire seasons of episodes rather than individual ones. Sometimes there are lists of "top 20" episodes of certain series; maybe that should be considered when evaluating notability. (I'm thinking specifically of Monty Python sketches, of which there are several in each episode. Entertainment Weekly published a top 20 list of them, and it just seems un-online-encyclopedic not to include them.)

That's it. I'm going to shut up now. Lou Sander 16:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

We allow DVD sources for production information, but production information, unless there is a substantial amount of it, is not a representative of notability. If you mean the plot summaries, you don't need a DVD source for that, we basically take the word of editors as to what happened in a plot. As for the illegalness of it, there are editors on Wikipedia with professional degrees, and I'm sure there are lawyers here as well. You don't have to take the word of the guideline though, you can read Wikipedia's stand on copyright laws and what constitutes a derivative work. If you write a plot summary that traces every single scene of a television show, incorporates dialogue, then you are basically creating a derivative work of that show--one not sanctioned by the network that owns it. This is why we put real world information around it, and why we summarize the plot instead of rehashing the plot, because there is a fair-use license that allows the use of copyrighted material under certain circumstances. We have list of episode pages that have brief synopsis of episodes, and that is fine because they are generally very "basic" in their summaries so that there isn't a question of copyright violation. If you are ranking a show's episodes against itself, then it really isn't a question of notability. If that show is compared to other shows, then you got a case, because you are comparing across the board in that example. That isn't to say that you couldn't mention that EW ranked "Spam" as the best Monty Python skit, it would probably just be better noted on a larger page, like the main page or the list of episodes/season pages. The that was trying to be made is that not only do things have to have significant coverage to warrant a separate page, but there needs to be enough information to support said page. You can have something qualify as "notable" but there may not be enough information to warrant separation.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:28, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Request for comment

Can people please comment here? TTN 00:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Reception information

There has been some recent discussion on the talk pages of those articles being proposed for merger in regards to what information constitutes "worthy encyclopedic criticism" for a reception section. I'm not sure if we want to address this on this page, or on other, but I feel we need a more defined rationale, otherwise we'll have receptions sections that basically turn into "The Denver Post's John Doe thought Character X was cool," or "IGN gave the show a 7, which translates to 'descent'." Neither really says anything about the show specifically. I mean, unless the consensus is that that is enough for a reception section.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 01:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I think if a newspaper actually took the time to review the specific episode there's a possibility that this is a plausible reception starter, it would go on a case-by-case basis. The IGN rating however is not enough for a reception section though could be included as part of a more in depth analysis. Just my $0.02 of course. Stardust8212 01:55, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Guideline against Consensus

This guideline seems to be being cited as a reason to 'soft delete' articles. (i.e. by turning them into redirects) This is almost equivalent to deletion because only those who previously read the articles will have a chance of knowing that there is a whole lot of content there; And only people who are experienced users of mediawiki will know how to get back into the history of a redirect page to view the over-written version. The problem is that, although many of the articles do not meet the notability guidelines, the consensus locally is strongly towards having separate articles. Having the guideline against consensus is causing a lot of people to be upset by the few users who go on a crusade about this. Consensus is more important than notability, firstly because it is a policy not a guideline, and secondly because it is what people want.

For the above reason I feel that this guideline should be updated to reflect the fact that many people do not agree with actions carried out in its name. And it should advocate seeking local consensus rather than sticking exactly to the rules. Conrad.Irwin 12:06, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a "consensus" among fans that these need to stay. There are many, many, many, many editors that have nothing at all to do with fiction. Poll them before making biased claims like that. TTN 12:24, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't make sense, why should editors that do not edit these articles have their opinion valued above the editors that do edit these articles. Conrad.Irwin 12:40, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

consensus locally ??? Taken to an extreme definition of 'locally' that would be WP:OWN. Why would the opinion of those who create non-notable articles be of greater weight than that of editors without any possible ownership-issues? The editors who create articles without first (correctly) assessing the notability of the article subject are those creating the problem of too many non-notable articles underfoot. --Jack Merridew 13:02, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with ownership, as with any other articles, there are some editors who edit these articles more than others. For an unconnected editor to come along and say that the content should be removed because they have not heard of it is silly. The content of these articles is verifiable, by anyone who watches the episodes, and Wikipedia has no size limit because it is not a bit of paper. To say that the episodes are not notable is to apply the letter of the guideline and not the spirit of it, as there are many thousands if not millions of people who know and want to know information about these episodes. Conrad.Irwin 14:16, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Read over WP:V, WP:N, and WP:RS very thoroughly before trying to argue what notability means. TTN 14:22, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I have done so several times, to repeatedly do so is to apply the letter of the law and not the spirit. These articles tend to be verifiable by anyone who watches the programs. They are notable because people do watch the programs. The only thing they lack is reliable sources, which are only needed in the case of a disagreement in a claim, which there is very little of. I know the text of these guidelines is slightly different, but it is only semi-relevant, as it continually changes. (I assume that everyone will disagree with that statement, it is my opinion). Conrad.Irwin 16:09, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Conrad, EVERYONE gets a voice, from the fans to the non-fans. Why? Wikipedia is open to the public, not open to the fans. Wikipedia is also an encyclopedia, and not a fansite. If a lone film article violates policies and guidelines, but only 2 editors are actually editing it, should we let the article stay as it is because no one else cares enough to edit the page? No.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:31, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

In which case I must bring specific examples of what I am talking about, where some editors are being completely ignored by editors that have no knowledge of the subject. See Talk:List of Drawn Together episodes for one example. Conrad.Irwin 16:09, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

To be completely honest this thought of mine was brought about mainly one the actions of one editor who, in order to avoid AfD debates, just blanks the pages and replaces them with a redirect to the list. Some of the problems with this are obvious at List of Mighty Max episodes where the full list table was created, but before the information (which was all on Wikipedia very accessibly) was copied across the articles were converted to redirects making the content very hard to get to by anyone who is not an experienced mediawiki user. This guideline should try to people from 'soft deleting' episodes in this destructive manner. It not only upsets people, it makes a lot more work for those who are actually trying to contribute sensibly. Conrad.Irwin 16:09, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

What exactly was lost when it was redirected? If it was an overly long plot, trivia sections, quote sections, "featured music", original research of any kind or unsourced information of any kind...then I'd say that isn't a reason to complain because it would have been removed from the page itself, even if it had stayed.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:12, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for emphasising my point, it is easier for you to ask me what was lost than to go and check for yourself. You are right in that the content would have been removed from the article, however, some of it should have been copied to the list and it is now very difficult to do this. Conrad.Irwin 17:05, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

It isn't my problem, you brought this to us. It's called always being prepared. What was lost?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:09, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

As I implied above, exactly the kind of stuff that you say would have been deleted from the article. But that is not the point. The point is that it was removed before it could be used in a more appropriate way. As you agree with me that the content was lost, you must also agree that this is very similar to deletion, and as such should be consensed. That one editor can go and cause all this damage and inconvenience to others, should not be encouraged at all. This guideline was cited as the reason for these actions, this guideline should be changed so that it does not get used as an 'excuse' in the same way. Conrad.Irwin 21:17, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

If the pages were cleaned up, the same content would have been lost regardless. The only thing that is happening is that after its cleaned up it's merged. The merged content is usually what's already on the page being merged to. If you feel something was important, and was lost, then you need to bring that up on the talk page of the show in question. This guideline, or any guideline that I'm aware, does not dictate what is taken and what is left when a merge takes place. We have guidelines and policies that say what content should on a page and what should not, but what happens in a merge is not covered. That is something that needs to discussed with each individual show.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:38, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that in a significant number of cases, there is not enough of the episode page's content on the list pages as the list page relies on the episode pages to provide the rest of the detail. That the content is removed before it can be used constructively is at best irritating and at worst vandalism. I brought this up here because it concerns many sets of articles, some of whom have already undergone the described treatment, and some of whom are in imminent danger of being damaged like this. To contribute to anything implies giving, not taking; and by editing in this fashion people are taking away content (at a phenomenal rate), readers (as they no-longer find what they want) and editors (because they are not being respected, and their efforts are being described as worthless) from Wikipedia. This cannot be in the best interests of the project. As you say above this guideline does not say what should be taken and therein lies the problem,

I propose that it should say that "if none of the content is to be taken from the episode pages, then they should be proposed for deletion before they are converted into redirects" or words to that effect. That would at least ensure that a reasonable consensus is reached for each individual case. Conrad.Irwin 23:16, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Not what this guideline aims to do. Again, if you have an issue with how those editors are merging and redirecting, take it up with them. The simple fact that information isn't coming over has nothing to do with whether the page should exist or not. If you cannot find a place for, I would have to assume that the page it is going to just isn't that well organized to suit it. If it's a simple LOE page, and there are many seasons, then I would suggest creating season pages like Smallville (season 1), so that you can organize it in a manner that allows you to find homes for information that is limited, but still relevant.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:18, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

It is not just one editor, there are several of them. It does not refer to just one set of episodes, but to many. For those two reasons, and the fact that these editors ignore most of the comments on their talk pages, it should be discussed in a central place, and this is the most relevant one. Behaviour similar to what I am describing has been cited as a reason that people do not want to support the latest fund-raiser [2] and as mentioned above is otherwise detrimental to the health of the project. I emphasise, I am not really objecting to what is being done - though I cant see the point in it, I am objecting strongly to the way in which people seem to think it should be done. If this guideline is not to help the project then what is it for? Conrad.Irwin 10:02, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

This has been discussed at length e.g. here, where a wider group of Wikipedia editors gave input. It doesn't look like this guideline goes against consensus, it just follows policy. And we don't change our policies to get more people to contribute (content or money). We are an encyclopedia with some content policies and notability guidelines. The limits of those can be discussed, the baselines are rather firmly fixed, since they define what Wikipedia is and what makes it different from e.g. mySpace. Everyone is welcome to contribute within these lines, but people shouldn't expect that Wikipedia as a whole will change to incorporate their favourite content as well. Wikipedia is a tertiary source bringing reliable content from independent sources in a neutral way. Most episode articles are secondary sources, bringing unsourced or primary sourced content without any out-of-universe secondary sourced information. This is a basic disagreement between those articles and the fundamental goals of Wikipedia, not between those articles and a guideline. The guideline only specifies the basic policies for this kind of articles, it doesn't create them. Changing the guideline will not change the fundamental problems of these articles. Fram 10:50, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I will go there to continue this discussion - once I have read everything that is there so far... Sorry about clogging up the wrong talk page. Conrad.Irwin 13:13, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

images

Can/could/should this guideline also deal with images in episodic articles? — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 16:04, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

ALL non-free images are governed by WP:FU. Unless we just reiterated what WP:FU states, there's nothing new to actually say. We couldn't write a different version that contradicted what WP:FU states.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I realize that, but could we incorporate a small section for people here looking to write/recreate/fix TV episode articles and would benefit from a synopsis of how the WP:NFCC apply? I see so very many episodes with an image "from an important scene", "a pinnacle point" of episodes, or "a significant change" that really aren't necessary for the encyclopedic article, albeit were important to the given episode. What do you think? — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 17:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

So long as we don't contradict WP:FU, then I can see how we could come up with a section that discusses appropriate image usage in episode articles. I too have come across episode articles with questionable image use, mainly where they have a screenshot in the infobox, and then another one in the plot section. To me, since episodes generally don't have "posters", like films do, whatever screenshot you put in the infobox should be the one that represents the plot section as well. It just seems to me that people are trying to get away with two non-free images where one really does the job. But, something like this will need widespread consensus, preferable discussed so that the most people possible can weigh their opinions. Specifically, the television WikiProject community.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 18:14, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Pilot Articles

I'm requesting opinions on these articles specifically at WP:TV-REVIEW. I'll make note here as it seems to be more active. I (talk) 05:23, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

List of episodes of daily soaps

I like lists of episodes, as they really serve a purpose (mainly episode name, episode number, short summary, airdate). But I just came across List of Shortland Street episodes, which lists season 16 (Season 1-15 are marked as "Little information can be found about these episodes") with the nameless episodes 3646 till 3825. Is this still covered by the guidelines for lists and general notability, or is this indiscriminate? If there is "little information" about the episodes of even last year, I guess this list would have major sourcing problems as well. Comments? (I just want to know if such lists are already common practise, and if I should therefore ignore it.) – sgeureka ^t•c 21:22, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I recall talking about the issue before, but I'm not sure. My own impression is that it would be excessive to have an episode list for Soaps, but some form of story arc or year summary would probably be ok. -- Ned Scott 05:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Validity of this AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ernie (Family Guy)?

Based on what is written here on this page, is there any validity to the reasons why the author puts Ernie (Family Guy) up for deletion? Odessaukrain (talk) 13:14, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you want WP:FICT instead of this page. -- Ned Scott 06:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

List of The Simpsons episodes

This guideline needs to be applied to List of The Simpsons episodes. The existence of those 409 articles shows why this is a poor guideline. I'm not going to put a merge tag on those articles. I don't think those articles should be redirected, even though hundreds of those episode articles lack real world information and reliable sources. If those 409 articles are allowed to develop, I see no reason why other episode articles should not also be allowed to develop. This guideline needs to be rewritten to reflect current practice, not what a handful of editors think current practice should be. --Pixelface (talk) 04:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Pixel, at this point you're pretty close to crossing the line. The reason we give more slack to Simpsons episodes is because they have so many FAs and GAs, and a steady rate of improvement. These are articles which have demonstrated a reasonable potential for real-world information, even if many of them currently lack that information at the moment. -- Ned Scott 05:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Suggesting this guideline be applied to Simpsons episode articles is crossing the line? I know that 7 Simpsons episode articles are featured articles. That still leaves 402 episode articles. Articles like Duffless have potential? I thought notability isn't inherited. Cape Feare being a featured article doesn't make The Front conform to WP:EPISODE. This guideline does not describe current practice. --Pixelface (talk) 06:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

It is unknown if there will be an article for every single article on the Simpsons, but that's hardly the point. These articles have potential because there is real-world information and sources to be found for most of these episodes. You obviously don't even know about these books and interviews and other sources, and are only looking at the articles in their current state. Discussions on the talk page side of things have established that these sources exist, and that it would be reasonable to give time for editors to work on these articles, given the high rate of success there. What you are asking is that everything be fixed right now, which is not how Wikipedia operates. -- Ned Scott 07:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

You're also forgetting the high number of GA-class articles they have. For example, Wikipedia:Featured topics/The Simpsons (season 8). -- Ned Scott 07:04, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

So an episode article shouldn't be turned into a redirect if other episode articles in the series have GA-Class? If that's the case, this guideline should say that. --Pixelface (talk) 07:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The guideline does say to not merge or redirect when there is evidence of real-world sources. -- Ned Scott 08:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Evidence for that particular article or for other episodes in the series? --Pixelface (talk) 09:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to note that, if the DVD is released, every episode has the potential for GA. We are working very hard on getting many episodes to GA status with our Featured Topic Season drives. Currently, we have 57 GA'd episodes, with five being GA candidates right now. If given a few months, we can have every episode up to season at least GA'd, thats more than half of the episodes. xihix(talk) 04:02, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The first 6 seasons of Scrubs are on DVD. And nearly every episode article was redirected to List of Scrubs episodes. --Pixelface (talk) 09:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Feel yourself encouraged to resurrect any episode article as soon as you have two or more paragraphs of real-world information (usually for production and reception) to add. If it becomes apparent that you can make every episode a GA, I am sure the rules will be bend for you a little more. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Every episode article has to be GA? Why is that also not the criteria for List of The Simpsons episodes? --Pixelface (talk) 14:46, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

You misread his comments. He meant that every episode must have the POTENTIAL to be a GA, not be an actual GA. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 14:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I see that I did misread his comments. Xihix said if the DVD is released, the episode articles have the potential for GA. So why not give other episode articles time to develop if the episodes have been released on DVD? --Pixelface (talk) 16:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The Simpson's episode's cases are different. With The Simpsons, every episode has a detailed, 21-22 minute commentary by several people, which helps us make a Production section, and usually some other information to add to the article, such as cultural references. We have two-three sources for the plot, and there are many books out on The Simpsons that we use as Reception sections. In case of shows like Scrubs, where I do not believe many references are out for, there isn't much luck for episode articles. xihix(talk) 21:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Music featured in program episodes

I would like to propose that we discuss (or revisit) discussion on noting music used in episodes of television programs. I've read DIR, and I don't see the comparison. As well, I think it is something readers would want to know. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 22:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

It has no context. Simply noting that Lifehouse's "Everything" plays at minute 3:45 in Charmed episode X has no encyclopedic meaning. If you say, "Director X chose to use Lifehouse's "Everything" during scene Y to illustrate blah blah blah", then you have something to write about. Otherwise, simply listing them just means we are creating indiscriminate collections of information, because the only relevance any of the songs have is being played for 30 seconds during some random episode of a show.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you know what the word "indiscriminate" means? If an article for a Charmed episode listed music from a Golden Girls episode, yes, that would be indiscriminate. But noting that certain music is featured in a Charmed episode in the article for that Charmed episode is discriminate. Wikipedia has no policies on relevance or context. --Pixelface (talk) 09:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

No it wouldn't. If Charmed featured Golden Girls music it wouldn't be indiscriminate, as indiscriminate is not about having information that has not connection to a topic, but information that just isn't suitable for inclusion, regardless of verifiability. Read the part about statistics in that policy example list, because it's very similar to what is being asked about music. You are creating "long spiralling lists of music". It also says that there should be explainatory text that put the statistics into context, the same is true of lists of "featured music". You need to put them into context, otherwise they are indiscriminately put on the page. Their own connection being that they appeared for a few seconds in the show. Might as well time every moment a sound effects occurred and mark that on the page. It has no value to the article.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Another possible use where it could be relevant is if the band is a guest star in the episode. The band/artist making a guest appearance vs the song being used could be a determining factor, particularly if secondary sources discuss the appearance. At least that is a how I view it, that was my reasoning to include the info in "Hell Is Other Robots" where The Beastie Boys voiced themselves. I agree with Bignole that it should be represented in a context beyond a trivia item. Stardust8212 00:07, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I guess I can see your point, but I kinda miss the little bits of actually useful 'trivia', like music in an episode (Grey's Anatomy episodes were a pretty good example of that, and it turned me on to some pretty good music). It would turn me on to some pretty good music. It was just useful, and not a bag of indiscriminate junk. Sometimes our own policies kinda hurt the point of why we do this, i think. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 05:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, most shows have a soundtrack released featuring their music...which would fall under media releases on their main page--like when they're DVDs are released. If you are personally wanting to know the music to certain shows, I could hook you up with lists of "featured music". A lot of fansites list that sort of thing.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there any actual consensus for this guideline at all?

See above question. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:15, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

See above discussions and archives.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec) It is applied and accepted by quite a few users several times each week, so I guess there is consensus. Is there something with it that you don't agree with? – sgeureka ^t•c 22:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It's reached arbitration for being applied in a mechanistic, game-playing manner. What does the rest of the world think? - David Gerard (talk) 22:49, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's about what's been asserted, however it does not appear that that will be a finding. As to the rest of the world, there's the view that the main contributers to Wikipedia are unbelievably huge nerds. --Jack Merridew 09:47, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, large scale merger of well-written episode articles such as those of Scrubs and elsewhere. And from talking to people I get the impression that there's not many people other than the WP:EPISODE regulars who actually favor this. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:50, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It's an episode-centric version of things like WP:FICT and WP:NOT#PLOT. Obviously, no one likes seeing their work removed, or even the work of others. However, when the articles are almost completely just a recap, and have little to no real-world information, it needs to be cleaned up, or at least shown that it has the potential for improvement. -- Ned Scott 22:55, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Put it this way, if you fail WP:EPISODE, you most likely fail the general notability guideline, because this guideline is based on that guideline.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, no. Almost any television episode of a generally popular show will have a few secondary reliable sources about it, such a TV guide talking about it. Furthermore, there's nothing inherently wrong with a bit of eventualism in regards to this sort of thing or a small bit of inherited notability. Sources being hard to find doesn't mean they don't exist (that's for example why we have separate articles on every single olympic athlete- the presumption is that we will find sources if we look hard enough) If we have massive numbers of people who want to work on these and massive numbers who want to read them and we don't have serious WP:OR or other concerns we should let them be. JoshuaZ (talk) 23:07, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Um, if you have legitimate "significant coverage" (see the general notability guideline) then there isn't a problem. TV Guide posting a plot summary is not coverage in the least, it's their job to post the plot summary of everything that comes on TV. Wikipedia is not a current events encyclopedia. Our articles are supposed to be based on historical sources. That means the information needs to be available, not "let's hope they talk about it eventually". That isn't how articles are meant to be created, regardless of how much disregard editors give in response to that. We base inclusion on verifiable sources, the burden of proof lies with the editor adding it, and information can be removed on the spot if it is not cited. If you have a page that has nothing but a plot, then you don't have a need for a page (see WP:PLOT). This is not "let me be and I'll find it eventually", this is "show it now, or find it later and then recreate the page". We aren't on the "hopeful system", we're on the "show me now system".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, m:immediatism versus m:eventualism -- the yin and yang of Wikipedia. -- phoebe/(talk) 06:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

This guideline should be deleted. The proper process of writing wikipedia is to add information and improve that information. Wikipedia strives to be the sum of all knowledge. This guideline is being used to delete information based on the mistaken notion that wikipedia should not contain stuff that people want to look up on wikipedia. That's so completely backward. The sources for these articles are the shows themselves. As time goes on the articles get better. That's what wikipedia is all about. Deleting and redirecting a perfectly adequate article about an episode serves no good purpose, but makes wikipedia less useful and drives away good contributors. Don't delete in-universe information that you think is probably true and you think people will want to read. WAS 4.250 (talk) 22:59, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Dear lord. You know, if you editors put as much effort into actually improving articles that meet all the policies and guidelines on Wikipedia, instead of complaining about the said policies and guidelines then maybe there wouldn't be a problem. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, nor is every topic worth writing about on Wikipedia. Sorry, they just are not. That is the reason we have a notability guideline. You cannot establish notability for a show by saying "it's a television episode, so that makes it notable". Sorry, that isn't how things work here. Please read WP:NOTE (BTW, if you think deleting this guideline will mean that articles that fail it will not be kept, you're wrong, because articles that fail WP:EPISODE also fail WP:NOTE. That means, if you want this one deleted you might as well delete the general notability guideline as well...and I don't believe you'll every get that to happen).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:04, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, because, you know, it's so much easier to improve articles to impossible standards than it is to fix the screwed-up standards in the first place. Obviously one should treat the symptoms and not the disease! I have seen the light! Thank you, Bignole.

But as for your odd ending arguments, I really have nothing to say - why does being against a subcategory imply being against the main category? That's like saying that someone who is against having an article on a particular episode of Scrubs must necessarily be against having an article on Scrubs itself. It's bizarre. Opposing this particular misbegotten set of standards does not mean opposing the notion of standards. Your thinking is muddled. --Gwern (contribs) 23:24 20 December 2007 (GMT)

• I haven't previously commented because of the pointlessness of voicing my discontent alone (we all know there is considerable inertia to things in the Wikipedia: namespace), but if I don't comment now, people might think WP:EPISODE uncontroversial - and then you'd have a self-fulfilling prophecy there. If no-one objects, it's consensus, after all...

But! I agree with Gerard, JoshuaZ, and WAS. This is a terrible "guideline", which I have never supported, and I would be surprised if many of the editors I've worked with/am familiar with support it either. This anecdotal belief of mine is further buttressed by my observations that the chief invocations of WP:EPISODE are by "outsiders" to a topic (by outsiders, read: people who are ignorant of the subject and didn't do any work on them) seem to be solely for deletion. Have you ever seen an episode article where it was started because the editor felt that WP:EPISODE prescribed an article on that episode? A good notability guideline encourages as many articles as it discourages. The sign of a guideline which exists solely as a partisan weapon is one which is severely imbalanced - as is WP:EPISODE. Of course an episode inherits notability from the series: what is the series but episodes? --Gwern (contribs) 23:24 20 December 2007 (GMT) 23:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

If an episode inherited notability, then when would it stop? That would mean that any house in a given show is notable enough for its own article. That would mean that the guy/gal hired to be the key grip is notable enough to have their own article. Hell, I'm from a notable state, doesn't that mean that I should have my own article since the state is made up of people? We should have an article on every individual song of every album from every artist, because what are albums but individual sounds put together. Right? How many times has this guideline been question, and how many times did it end up still a guideline? Focus your attention on fixing articles, since it's clear that FA episode articles follow this guideline. Since FA status is decided by the community, it appears that the community believes articles should follow this guideline. Non-episode articles are deleted every day for failing WP:NOTE and not providing sources to assert notability. Why should we let episode articles get away with not providing sources to assert notability? We shouldn't. If you cannot assert notability, then you should not have an article. If, as some editors have said, it takes time to find the sources, then I guess there is no rush to create the page now is there? The episode isn't going anywhere in the history of entertainment but up. Either it will gain notability, or it won't, nothing every loses notability.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Dunno about you, but I know the difference between a television episode and a person.... seems to me that if we are going to have specific guidelines to help determine notability for specific areas of content, their arguments can be nuanced and centered around the topic at hand. -- phoebe/(talk) 00:00, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

(To Gwern) What is a book? a series of chapters. We don't make articles for every chapter of a book. Episodes can sometimes be seen as separate works presented in a series, but more often than not, they are seen just as we see chapters in a book. Even if you wanted to organize the information in a per-episode format for every show, you would be limited by now much information goes in each article due to WP:NOT#PLOT. Then from a purely organizational standpoint it would be absurd to have 30 or 100 or 500 articles with only a few sentences each. When you have real-world information, you can justify writing more about the plot. When you don't, you have just summary that is excessive. -- Ned Scott 02:58, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

We used to. Remember when we started, how we had articles on individual chapters of stuff like the Bible or The Fountainhead?

We may not make articles for every chapter, but we could. It may seem strange to have short articles, but bizarrely many encyclopedias include them. I would note that as this page stands, it makes no exceptions for "separate works presented in a series". Just another of its flaws... --Gwern (contribs) 04:28 21 December 2007 (GMT)

• Agreed with Gwern. Yes, articles should have sources; but a guideline that's thrown around mainly to delete large swaths of things could very well be out of touch with wiki-reality, and needs to be thoughtfully considered. I also see very little helpful here in terms of determining just what sources are valid for a popular tv show (which aren't going to get written about in the academic literature, or really in most of the sources that are useful for other topics). Furthermore, I see nothing about what happens to make one episode more important than another. Season finales? As determined by the fandom? Without a clear sense of "yes, we can have articles about episodes in the following cases" or "no, we cannot" it turns into one big game of IDONTLIKEIT. -- phoebe/(talk) 23:59, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It's called "real world content backed by reliable sources". That means information that isn't indiscriminate or mere trivia (most of the time it is pretty clear what that is, if it isn't clear, then a discussion should take place. Regardless there needs to be a source that meets WP:V and WP:RS). WP:V and WP:RS are clear, if you don't understand those then that isn't a fault of this guideline. Fansites are not reliable sources--short of a personal interview that they might conduct. Reviews of episodes that actually give context about the show, and aren't mere "I like the episode 5 stars" reviews, which give no context. Reviews written by professional reviewers are considered reliable--as they would for WP:RS. DVD commentaries can sometimes have enough real world information to support a separate episode article, but not necessarily every episode. Another thing editors need to realize is that just because you can find a single review, or a few snippets of production information, does not mean that the article has enough information to support itself. Articles are routinely merged into larger topics because they don't have that much information, regardless of whether or not they meet WP:NOTE. That is the reason Smallville (season 1) contains information on 20 episodes, but Pilot (Smallville) was separated out on its own. Wikipedia is about quality not quantity.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 00:06, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes, I do think I understand WP:V and WP:RS, thanks -- understand them well enough to know that they are not always clear in every case (I've certainly seen my share of battles over what makes it into RS over the years). I'm a librarian in my day job, so one of the things I know about sources is that what a "good source" is can vary a lot depending on the discipline you're working in. The literature of, say, film and media studies is very different from my field of electrical engineering. Because I don't work on television articles much, I think it would be helpful to have some more formal explication and explanation of what kind of sources more experienced editors in the area know are are out there, and what consensus is among people working on the episodes (does TV guide cut it? DVD commentaries, as you say?) and this would probably be helpful for newbie editors as well. A guideline that defaults into "I know it when I see it" is not so helpful for everybody else. -- phoebe/(talk) 00:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Bignole, fansites can absolutely be reliable sources. To take a favorite subject of mine: the Neon Genesis Evangelion articles. This anime franchise has made literally billions of dollars, has dozens of media properties (a TV series, ~6 feature length movies, a manga series that has been running for more than a decade, etc. etc.), influenced every mecha anime (and not a few non-mecha), made Gainax the major studio it is and so on; all of this has lead to quite a few academic mentions of it. And these "reliable sources" you vaunt so highly, that you consider the be-all and end-all of editing - they are crap. They are pedigreed, peer-review, published, "reliable" & "verifiable" crap. They are factually inaccurate, navel-gazing; they are ignorant of even the most basic secondary literature and Eva paraphernalia, much less the later ancillary material - and that's when they are not quietly cribbing bizarre and fanciful interpretations from equally clueless sources like the American DVD commentaries. The most ignorant poster at a fansite like Evamonkey.com knows more about what Eva actually means, about what Anno (the director) has actually said and written about, about its development and role in anime history, than any reliable source I have yet found. Want some Anno interviews translated into English? I'm afraid you'll have to quote a fanzine like Protoculture Addicts, which got the article from, yes, a fan. Want a solid translation of the Red Cross Book? Supplied by an pseudonymous fan on a fansite. Interested in the early conceptions of the plot and characters? Ditto. Did you find some useful sources and information in the back of the English manga editions? Oh, too bad - that author, he's that ever so despised word, a fan, an amateur. To write good articles on Eva practically demands that one ignore the strict letter of the guidelines and policies which are oh so perfect.

You and your ilk fetishize notability, you fetishize printed sources. You raise up a god of process and bow down to it, burning useful good stuff as a holocaust with pleasing smell to it. You dare talk about quality? You guys don't have the slightest clue what quality is. All you can perceive are the trappings that sometimes go with it. --Gwern (contribs) 04:16 21 December 2007 (GMT)

The first time I found out about this guideline was when huge swaths of well-written articles started vanishing in its name, and I suspect the same can be said for many other editors coming here now. So I don't think one can point to "previous discussion" on this talk page from before then and call that a consensus. Furthermore, this guideline is being applied with policy-like absolutism in the field, which goes beyond any mandate that it might be able to claim even if there were widespread consensus supporting it. Bryan Derksen (talk) 00:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

What phoebe and Bryan said. Most of the guideline is fine with me, except for the first section, which presumes there can never be inherited notability. I think it is perfectly fine to have an episode article which consists of little more than a 200 to 450 word plot summary (this being in line with the guideline, by the way), even though this would not necessarily require a reference. It is certainly inappropriate to cite this guideline as a blanket excuse to delete huge swaths of episode (or any other type, for that matter) articles. Johnleemk | Talk 00:34, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. It's a classic case of inward-looking "consensus", where "the Wikipedia community has achieved consensus on this topic" actually means "a few people on an out-of-the-way talk page came to a 7-3 vote on it." Not that we see this pattern repeatedly or anything - David Gerard (talk) 00:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

So I guess the question now is what to do about it. Focusing just on this policy page for the moment, I expect a {{Disputedtag}} banner at the top would be appropriate right now as a temporary measure, and then we can look at how to insert clarification that will prevent this guideline from being misused in the way it recently has been. Bryan Derksen (talk) 01:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, let's clear something up here. First, only Admins can delete an article, not any ol editor. Secondly, AfDs are community discussed. The fact that articles are being deleted because of this guideline is not this guidelines fault, nor does it stand to reason that this guideline is wrong, it means that the community of Wikipedia must see some kind of application in it if they are using is to say "this article should not exist". Also, many articles are not being deleted, they are being merged. They can easily be re-opened at any point, all with their edit histories still intacked. Because there is no deadline to start a page, there is no rush to keep it open "in hopes" that one day we'll have something to write about it. We have plenty of other policies and guidelines that dictate appropriate information for articles, so filling them with unencyclopedic information just to say "this is full of useful stuff" doesn't help the article. The idea of writing any article on Wikipedia has always been about starting with a main topic and working your way outward when you have enough information. Unfortunately, somewhere down the line someone decided that they'd rather just start on the outward articles and work their way in.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 01:21, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Just because admins are the only ones who can delete articles doesn't mean that a guideline with a false claim of consensus can't be used to hammer a discussion to an apparent consensus in a particular way. Especially if the same people always make a point at voting at the same AfDs. And in any event merging doesn't make people likely to split something off, once something is merged if anything people are less likely to start a new article than if it is deleted. Oh, which brings us to the whole GFDL issue since some of these are getting merged and then having the redirects deleted which is a big no-no. After I return from break I will try to get a project together to look systematically at that problem. And no, Wikipedia has generally been about people writing articles in a fairly haphazzard fashion. The claim that "Wikipedia has always been about starting with a main topic and working your way outward when you have enough information" is simply false. JoshuaZ (talk) 01:27, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

It just isn't done, doesn't make it false. You are seeing tons of articles about this and that nowadays, and not a lot of organization. People have lost sight at what this place is about, and how to go about attaining that goal. Just because we have a lot of shitty film articles doesn't mean that the intention was to start with a lot of shitty film articles. As for the deletion of redirects, not this guidelines fault. Again, AfDs are decided on consensus. That means, if consensus is against this guideline being used as a point for deletion, then the article is not deleted. It's easy to claim that "the same editors are voting on the same thing and getting articles deleted" when your favorite article gets canned, then turn around and claim "there's no consensus for this guidelines" when your favorite article survives an AfD nomination. I guarantee that any article failing this guideline fails the general notability guideline as well--in which case everyone will be whinning to delete that guideline too....oh wait, they already do that. Sorry, you cannot please everyone. When someone's favorite show has an article on every single episode, regardless of whether that episode deserves or even simply warrants a separate article...and one day that article is gone they go ballistic. If you have sufficient, verified real world content then your article is just fine. If you don't, then maybe your article does not need its own page. People need to stop thinking that if one episode has an article then every episode needs an article.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 01:58, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there any consensus, cont. (arbitrary break)

#List of The Simpsons episodes above puts a lot of this into context. Articles with reasonable potential are given more slack. Anyone following the recent arbcom case related to this knows that we're not going to be allowing mass action without proper discussion (regardless of who is right or wrong, the changes were too.. swift, for a lack of better words). By all means, use your best judgement, and if you feel an episode article has reasonable potential for real-world information, restore it. -- Ned Scott 02:36, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

And if it doesn't have reasonable potential for real-world information? Just like people are studying plays from the 17th century and esoteric groups of monks from the 18th, some may want to write a study about the portrayal of our time's political agenda in Boston Legal's season 1. In order to do that, they will need knowledge of most episodes and this is where WP articles on them can help. Also, there's no harm in keeping articles about episodes that make up the "sum of human knowledge" when many people find it useful, especially when we can always delete them later rather than gouge their potential (where there'd have to be a margin of error meaning we'd lose some good content). Yonatan ^talk 03:47, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I'm glad Joshua started this discussion, which will probably end in the de-guidelining of this page due to its lack of support. Yonatan ^talk 03:49, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

You're argument is with policy, then. WP:NOT#PLOT. Wikipedia is not here to just recap works of fiction, and that's something that was decided by the community at large. Wikipedia is not an episode guide, or an abridged version of Boston Legal. The source people turn to when they wish to write about such details is the work of fiction itself. Yes, believe it or not, they can actually watch Boston Legal. Although, they would likely come to us anyways since they'll be looking for real-world information, such as production notes, interviews, real-world impact, that tell us the how and why the show was made the way it was. -- Ned Scott 03:54, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

You must be new here. Check the talk page archives, this is hardly the first time someone has come stomping around because someone went and redirected their favorite TV show's episodes. -- Ned Scott 03:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

That's a nice attempt at biting but I'm an admin, so I'm not really new, and nobody went and redirected my favorite TV show's episodes, rather I saw Joshua's post to wikien. Besides, an episode's article not having this information doesn't mean it won't. I'd also like to take the opportunity to direct you to that meta page about not being nice. Yonatan ^talk 15:05, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I already knew you were an admin when I made that comment. I meant to say, you must be new to this talk page. The problem with the idea that an episode article might get real world information is that when it lacks it, it still needs the plot summary cut in the meantime. Most of such summary would be cut even with the real-world information, with some of these articles. The resulting summary can easily be merged into a List of episodes or a season summary page (or a mix between the two, as some shows are starting to do now). -- Ned Scott 02:55, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Pssst, Yonatan, you need the consenus of a much larger group of people to "de-guideline" a page; not the few opinions of some disgruntled editors on a single talk page. To clarify, as you probably already know, only changes to the wording of this page and similar such things can be made by the simple majority of editors that appear on this page. To de-list this page as a guideline, there needs to be a much larger announcement made to bring in unbiased, neutral editors and their opinions.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:57, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

So how large a group in the first place did it take to make this a "guideline"? I'll bet that number is a lot smaller than the number it would take to persuade you there is consensus against... It's strange how looking back through the archives, I see a small number of familiar names arguing to make this a guideline and impose it throughout the wiki, and a large and revolving cast of editors arguing against it. --Gwern (contribs) 04:37 21 December 2007 (GMT)

(Wow, edit conflict much, my comment is way out of date... :P) To Yonatan, what's your idea of "good content"? If there's no real world context then it's not really good content, good content isn't plot summaries. Wikipedia shouldn't be a substitute for watching a show... if someone wants to study Boston Legal they should watch Boston Legal, they shouldn't read Wikipedia plot summaries. If they come to Wikipedia looking for info on how Boston Legal was produced/developed/critically recieved... then great, we should try our hardest to provide them with that information. But if that information can't be found for whatever reason, and the episode article "doesn't have reasonable potential for real-world information", then there's no need to have an article, is there? We can provide a brief summary of the story in a "List of episodes" page, we don't need a full article for plot.  Paul  730 04:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• This was discussed earlier this year as a result of a review of guidelines and proposals. There was no evidence of an evaluation of consensus prior to this being tagged as a guideline, and it was never widely advertised as "proposal". Proponents did not dispute that observation, but argued that consensus at the talk page and advertising a proposal is not required if the proposal reflects a de facto consensus demonstrated by the community (i.e., at AfD). This opened up quite a battle which culminated in the eventual elimination of the help page for creating policy. It is still not clear at WP how we create policies and guidelines, and there is a debate at the Policy and guideline policy page on that issue. Dedicated Wikipedians have strong feelings and valid logic in both directions. --Kevin Murray (talk) 04:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• I just want to chime in agreement with Gerard, JoshuaZ, WAS and others that this is a terrible guideline -- certainly not something to base mass merging of articles on. older ≠ wiser 04:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

IMHO, there should be a special ward reserved for people who insist on using the International Phonetic Alphabet and those who think that recapping TV episodes has no place on Wikipedia. They always remind me of the British colonel in The Bridge on the River Kwai. That's just my opinion, though. Lou Sander (talk) 05:03, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a place to recap episodes, and regardless of this page, that is not in dispute. Even before the specific WP:NOT#PLOT entry, we had an entry in WP:NOT that also said we were not an episode guide. It is very widely accepted that details of works of fiction should be justified by real-world information, and articles that were only plot are usually excessive. -- Ned Scott 05:57, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

In order for a guideline to be a guideline it has to have the acceptance of the community and at least a rough consensus behind it. If "this is hardly the first time someone has come stomping around because someone went and redirected their favorite TV show's episodes", then that just provides more support for the view that it doesn't have that acceptance behind it. In this particular case, I myself am not particularly interested in the shows that have been hit - this is a matter of Wikipedia's overall philosophy. This disregard for the interests of certain sections of our readership and editorship based on prejudices about what's "scholarly" is damaging to Wikipedia as a whole. Bryan Derksen (talk) 05:39, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe you are taking my comment out of context. Any guideline on Wikipedia has the potential for someone to come along and complain about it. People have been complaining about WP:V far longer than WP:EPISODE, but that does not de-bunk a page. People come here because these pages were useful, and now they're gone. I understand that, but there are a lot of useful things that Wikipedia doesn't allow, because we're not simply the place to put everything. The fact that someone has come blindly charging in because they didn't like the results of a particular situation should be seen in context. Look at Talk:List of Scrubs episodes, and make an argument there if you believe we should still have articles for them. Attacking the guideline page because you don't like the results of a discussion is just lame. WP:EPISODE is great advice, mirrors our other related guidelines and policies, and results in higher quality articles. It's not the guideline's fault if no one wants to publish real-world information about individual episodes of a particular show. -- Ned Scott 05:57, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Guidelines are supposed to be descriptive not prescriptive. This "guideline" simply does not have consensus. That is a fact and I challenge anyone to prove otherwise. Add to that the issue of redundancy and the narrow focus of the guideline and I recommend that it be ProD'ed. This guideline is disputed and totally unnecessary. The good parts can be folded into WP:FICT and WP:WAF. Perhaps, more fitting than deletion, we should redirect it to WP:FICT citing WP:BURO and WP:CREEP. Ursasapien (talk) 06:33, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

The core of the guideline, which has been unchanged, has had consensus from the very start [3] (and here). That consensus is that not every episode should have an article, and that people should go from a list and/or season page before even creating individual episode articles. This has been upheld in several AfDs and merge/redirect discussions, as well as several WikiProject discussions. Off the top of my head, I know that WP:STARGATE started to evaluate their episode articles even without a prod from TTN or any of us.

You are correct in that the "notability" portion could easily be merged into WP:FICT, and I think that might even be a good idea. However, WP:EPISODE#How to write a good season or episode page is also a very good section, and I'm not sure if anyone actually disputes that. then we have WP:EPISODE#Dealing with problem articles and WP:EPISODE#Examples of good pages. I'm trying to figure out what is in dispute here. -- Ned Scott 06:53, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the other sections could be put into WP:WAF. I think the focus of this "guideline" is to narrow and provides a target for disputes about fiction-realted notability concerns. Additionally, this seems like the perfect example of instruction creep. Ursasapien (talk) 07:00, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

In any case, regardless of how we decide to organize it, what is being said on this page that you don't like, or dispute? -- Ned Scott 07:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

From the discussion above, many editors dispute this guideline for a variety of reasons. I dispute the usefulness and necessity of the guideline. Just like character and episode articles, I think this guideline goes into too much detail. We do not need this kind of depth. I strongly believe WP:FICT and WP:WAF should cover it (heck, WP:N, WP:NOT#PLOT, and WP:MOS should cover it but I think we could use a little more guidance). Ursasapien (talk) 07:14, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

But you don't actually disagree with what it says? -- Ned Scott 07:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Do I disagree with the examples of good articles? No, not necessarily. They all seem like pretty good articles from my perspective. Do I disagree with the many quotes from other guidelines? Again, no, but a guideline should be more than a collection of quotes. This guideline fails WP:BURO, 'nuff said. Ursasapien (talk) 07:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

So you don't actually dispute what the guideline says, but rather how it says it in an isolated guideline, instead of being in other guidelines? That sounds like a reasonable position, and I can't say that I disagree with it. -- Ned Scott 07:33, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Policy and guideline pages are frequently held to account for their interpretation in practice. If the basic idea is so very good, it'll come back after the guideline page in question has been rightly taken out and shot - David Gerard (talk) 14:27, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, another user who's simply pissed off at the removal of articles, and is unable to actually argue the merits of the guideline. -- Ned Scott 08:41, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Piling on, I also do not support this guideline. This didn't have the support in the first place, and has been used in such a way as to cause inordinate damage to the encyclopedia, getting rid of a load of good content, and worse, driving off loads of editors through sheer bloody-mindedness. I also think it's beyond illustrated here that there is no consensus for this to continue being a guideline, and indeed, probably consensus that it should cease to be so. Rebecca (talk) 07:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

It was never the intention to have things be handled in mass. Don't let the actions of one user blacken this guideline. While I agree with a lot of what TTN did, it would have made things a lot less stressful, a lot less heated, if a little more time was taken. By the way, if you have any examples of articles you wish to be restored, please list them here. The editors here are not deletionists, and some of them have made FA episode articles. We will help you find the real-world information needed. -- Ned Scott 07:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I too want to register my opinion that this guideline should go. While some of the episode articles might seem excessive to some, no-one can ever possibly be interested in all the programs. If I am interested in some I can also respect that others are interested in programs that I personally find boring. As a user, what I most appreciate is the plot outlines in these articles. When an episode of a favorite program happens to conflict with a real world obligation I still maintain enough links with reality to give precedence to the real world obligation. I am content to go to the relevant article to read about what I missed. I don't write in this subject area, so that despite nearly six years of general Wikipedia experience, I can still almost express the view of a passive outsider. In that capacity I am seeking only the basics of the episode, enough to maintain continuity between the one that came before, and the one that follows. I view my favorite shows as entertainment, not as a stepping stone to great critical research. To the extent that I have viewed DVDs I mostly ignore all the supplementary material about the making of the movie, or whatever. But I suppose some people find that stuff interesting.

The obsessive deleters are oblivious to the swath of damage that they cause to the social structure, to the mistrust that they breed. They focus on a misguided vision of Wikipedia, but firmly believe that they are providing a benefit by getting rid of what they see as cruft. This kind of self-righteousness is not without consequence, and can literally love a project to death.

Sure people go ballistic when they see their work erased, and rightly so. Most people don't hover like an armed guard over their work, so it can easily be months before they realize that their work has been put up for deletion. They not only find their work deleted, but find that the deletion page has been closed, and has been marked with an admonition against any further comments. The POV pushers who worked so hard to have the article deleted want to make sure that it has a minimal chance of resurrection. Why shouldn't a person's right to remove the "closed" tag, and continue the discussion be respected? Eclecticology (talk) 11:06, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

This damaging guideline needs to go, and as soon as possible. I can see that it's the same people implementing their own agendas on all the fiction guidelines. See the mess that has been made of the fiction notability guideline. As a result of their rash changes in the summer, character lists are being deleted at an alarming rate. And why? Because the same handful of like-minded editors dominate, claiming false consensus, when in fact, no one else knew about the proposed changes to voice their opinion until they were already implemented (and we can all see how difficult it is to change them once that happens). You can spot the editors here, it's those who refuse to admit that consensus for their guidelines never existed in the first place.62.255.76.14 (talk) 14:19, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• Enough people. The guideline is fine and its basic tenets have been repeatedly confirmed at AFD. There is no widespread support for fancruft at Wikipedia: plot summaries, trivia, continuity and other in-universe naval gazing has been consistently found to run counter to our inclusion principles. I read a lot of bellyaching and grumbling, above, but until the core foundations of WP:N and WP:NOT change, this guideline absolutely should stay. Eusebeus (talk) 16:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

My two cents: instead of complaining for the removal of two guidelines, instead:

• Work to change the guidelines to be fairer than they are now, and;
• Work on the articles in the mean time to conform to the guidelines.

The second step is actually rather easy, especially with prime-time shows. Nielsen/BARB ratings and reviews, for example, aren't going to be buried under hundreds of Google results. Hell, it took me two minutes, with a slow connection, to find what three people think about the season finale of Heroes that aired two weeks ago ([4][5][6]). The first two were found with Google News. So instead of making drama, please, work on the articles. Will ^(talk) 19:47, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

All three of those examples are non-notable blog entries. That doesn't mean I think sources can't be found, but those clearly do not justify an entire article for an episode (nor does basic ratings, which can easily be covered in a list). -- Ned Scott 08:40, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

As I said, that was a two minute search. I'm sure I can find more if I even bothered. And with reviews, the articles actually do pass WP:N, if the review is carried by a reliable source, like a newspaper, as a review would count as "significant coverage". Will ^(talk) 10:08, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree. What you say also doesn't conflict with WP:EPISODE. -- Ned Scott 10:20, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to agree with JoshuaZ, WAS, Gwern and phoebe, this notability guideline (like all notability guidelines) is broken. The motivation behind it seems to be the idea that pruning areas of Wikipedia will make it better and the idea that limiting coverage of certain areas of knowledge (non-academic areas of knowledge) will improve Wikipedia. Inclusion shouldn't be based on notabilty (a vague and abstract POV notion), but on the availability of reliable sources. It is not true that there are limited reliable resources on television episodes. It is not true, in the most part, that deleting an article is better than fixing an article. Unless an article is unrescuable and has no reliable sources, we should work to fix it and aim to maximise breadth and depth in our coverage. --Oldak Quill 05:22, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

No one has been deleting articles, only redirecting them until there is enough real-world content to justify the massive amounts of plot summary, and even then such summaries would require being cut back. Wikipedia is not an episode guide, Wikipedia is not just a plot summary. This guideline, if you cared to actually read it, doesn't give any blanket ban on episode articles. -- Ned Scott 08:40, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

"No one has been deleting articles" is factually incorrect. There was a recent arbitration case about people using this highly defective guideline for destructive gameplaying - David Gerard (talk) 13:10, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

• Mr Gerard, a misleading statement. Yes, there was an arbitration case, but if you review the result it has not found that the actions based on application of policy should be subject to sanction. Whilst further discussion was urged, no individual sanctions were or will be enacted and no cpnculsion of "gameplaying" were reached. You may feel the the Rfar case was launched in defense of a position you hold. I view the Rfar case as a bolster to the efforts to clean up the encyclopedia of its non-encyclopedic content. Eusebeus (talk) 16:56, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

(I know, I'm a party in that arbcom case) They were redirected, which, yes, is pretty much deletion in the sense that it's no longer there or accessible to most people. My point was that recovery of the information was easier than something like requesting undeletion. Some people don't seem to believe us when we say this, but making less red tape to restore an article, once real-world content is found, is one of the reasons the redirects were more desired than AfD.

You'll also note the lack of evidence for anything like "highly defective guideline" or even "destructive gameplaying" being presented, or being asserted by the Arbitration Committee or even the parties involved. Rather, arbcom has decided to focus on how the redirects were carried out, and the importance of discussion, regardless of who is right or wrong. -- Ned Scott 16:51, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth (not a lot, seemingly), I have read the guideline, but thanks for your assumption of bad faith on my part. The guideline has two aspects: what is written and how it is used. I know this guideline "doesn't give any blanket ban on episode articles", but this guideline has caused unnecessary article deletion. This guideline does seem to be a vehicle (like the rest of notability-related policy) for the deletion of fixable, verifiable articles and the destructive treatment of Wikipedia content. --Oldak Quill 02:13, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

To throw in my two cents, I haven't been around here in a while, but I supported this guideline when written and support it now. Let fansites and tv.com handle the cruft. We should stick to information from secondary sources, since an encyclopedia is intended to be a tertiary, not secondary, source. Using the "show as a source" makes us a secondary source. There is a place for such synthesis, and indeed many fansites thrive on it. But unless they're reliable, they don't work here. And neither does "But Scrubs is notable, so every episode of it is too!" By that line of thought, the universe is notable, so everything in it is too. Notability is individual, never inherited. Sources have written about the individual topic enough for a comprehensive article, or they have not. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Multiple episodes/story arcs and how to deal with them.

I don't really want to discuss the notability of episodes in this section, so please take this elsewhere on this page:

We need a process for articles on episodes with multiple parts. So far, we have four types of these articles, with examples:

***	One article	Multiple articles
Episodes with the same name	Exodus (Lost)	Imaginationland Imaginationland Episode II Imaginationland Episode III
Differently-named episodes in a distinct story arc.	Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story	The Eye of Jupiter (Battlestar Galactica) Rapture (Battlestar Galactica)

As you can see, there is a level of inconsistency here, thus there are two questions to be asked:

1. Do episodes with similar titles that air in succession warrant their own articles, or a summary article?
2. Do episodes in a distinct story arc warrant their own articles or a summary article, if the arc has a common name?

1. If the arc does not have a common name, should there be a summary article or seperate articles?

(Sufficient notability is assumed for both questions) I've created a straw poll for summary articles and discussion area below. Will ^(talk) 15:23, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

• I'm confused, does supporting option 1 mean you support one article or multiple articles? The phrasing is ambiguous. Also to be considered: Episodes with the same names that don't air consecutively i.e. The Simpsons's Treehouse of Horror or Futurama's Anthology of Interest, do they need to be treated differently then they are now or is this the best way (once again assuming whatever notability standards apply that day are met). Stardust8212 15:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

  Treated differently. I put in the question "that air in succession", which would mean that, if "Episode part 2" was the episode after "Episode part 1", they should be merged together. This would include season finales and premieres with the same name, like "Who Shot Mr. Burns?". Seeing as the "Treehouse of Horror" and "Anthology of Interest" episodes aired about twenty episodes apart, they shouldn't. Will ^(talk) 15:51, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• Comment The Doctor Who examples aren't the most relevant as "episode" for the original series means an individual part, not an overall story (which is what 100,000 BC aka An Unearthly Child is). A "story arc" would be something spanning several stories - e.g. The Key to Time. Timrollpickering (talk) 15:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

  I know, and thus put the footnote. I've replaced the example with a better one. Will ^(talk) 16:00, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• I think it really depends on the series context. For series where there is a general plot throughout all episodes that develops (on average) week after week, such as Lost and Battlestar Galactica, each episode, even if part of a multiparter, should be treated separately, save in the rare case (rare enough that I can't think of one) where the plots of the parts are so intertwined that it is impossible to talk of one part without talking about the other. (eg imagine the case of if an episode of "24" was unraveled to follow one character for one episode, then another for another ep, etc.-- there would be so much crossover that it would make sense to simply talk about the chronological events of several episode -- again, its such a rare case that I don't think it comes up a lot). The only thing special about multiparters here is that generally its the same theme for each of the subparts, but other elements related to the entire story continue to grow.

In the case of series where week-to-week continuity is the exception and not the norm, then multipart episodes should be grouped together, with appropriate redirects from the part names to the episode as a whole. Mind you, there is a matter of context here. Imaginationland or Who Shot Mr. Burns are strongly connected multipart episodes, but something like Cartman's Mom Is a Dirty Slut/Cartman's Mom Is Still a Dirty Slut, where not only is there an episode between the two, but the plot of the second takes a radical turn from the first, each should be treated separately. Basically, given that the show lacks large-scale continuity, it is likely easier to describe the events of the entire multipart work as a whole instead of having to re-establish context each time.

Obviously in the case of older Doctor Who serials, the common story name instead of the individual chapter names should be used; this almost falls under the "non-continuous" series (as during the time they used individual chapter names for each serial, there wasn't much series continuity). But I agree this is likely not a case at issue. --MASEM 16:09, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• I know BSG has a continuity between episodes. I used "The Eye of Jupiter" and "Rapture" because the whole plot of both episodes takes place on the algae planet and the plots are intertwined - TEOJ actually ends with "to be continued" (so does Pegasus, but the plot isn't as intertwined). Will ^(talk) 16:18, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• If they have the same title they should all be in the same article with a summary of each part - otherwise we'd have 8 articles for The Invasion (Doctor Who) and 10 for The War Games.
• I also think that differently titled episodes that for a serial (such as An Unearthly Child) should be merged provided there is a suitable name to cover the episodes. Otherwise The Daleks' Master Plan would be in 12 episode articles. If there is not overall title, I think it should remain separate. (For example Army of Ghosts and Doomsday (Doctor Who) do not have an overall title, so remain separate until there is one). StuartDD _{contributions} 16:44, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
• Treehouse of Horror (series) is a good way to handle notable long story arcs, but less notable subjects like Starbuck quits smoking won't merit their own articles. Other options for long arcs (more than 2 or 3 episodes):
  • Curb Your Enthusiasm does this in the main article, Plots section.
  • List of episodes pages are a logical mid-point (between the main article on the show and the episode articles). Including information about multi-episode arcs would add meaningful prose to these articles which are currently tabular directories, thus improving those articles.

Of these two options, I like the List of episodes option best, but I realise some editors will object to this change. Some arcs, especially when multi-season, will be better treated in the main article, perhaps as a subsection under Themes. / edg ☺ ☭ 17:26, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a meaningful question but the timing of the question sucks since it comes at a time when the whole guideline page is under attack. Wikisource has had some experience with this sort of thing when dealing with books that must be broken down to chapters of manageable size. Thus we use the "Book title/Chapter" format. A "Series/Episode" format would have a similar effect here in contrast to the "Episode (Series)" disambiguation format. Only the most dedicated will know the episode titles. A distinctive title that needs no disambiguation will still not be found except by going through the episode list. Wikisource still has differences of opinion over the format to be used where material appears as a series of very loosely related articles, but there is agreement when it comes to chapters of a novel. Eclecticology (talk) 19:18, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

When I first got involved in these guidelines one of the things I really liked was the idea of season or story arc pages being an alternative to individual pages. One of those reasons was that, regardless of how one feels about the merits of individual episode articles, sometimes it would be better from an organizational standpoint to lump some of them together when it makes sense. -- Ned Scott 16:55, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Consensus for this guideline

Template:RFCpolicy I have not participated in the discussion above partly because I have gotten sick of this debate take place among the same TV editors on many different talk pages, including an arbitration case. Bignole above suggested that if this guideline were to be delisted, it would need a bigger audience of unbiased, neutral editors, and thus I have listed this issue for RFC.

To briefly frame some of the points made: some editors feel that WP:EPISODE should be trashed entirely because it encourages editors to spend their time removing episode articles rather than constructively work on them. They feel that WP:WAF and WP:FICT are suitable enough to govern episode articles. Supporters of WP:EPISODE feel that feel that television episode articles are not inherently notable, and such a guideline is necessary to appropriately define notability for episode articles. -- Wikipedical (talk) 01:50, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

The users who are "disputing" this guideline are not are judging the guideline by it's merits, but rather they are trying to attack the guideline because of how other situations were dealt with. WP:EPISODE has been a great guideline that never called immediate mass cleanup. All the people coming in from the mailing list notice seem to be completely missing that point, and parentally can't be bothered with actually reading what the guideline says. This has had consensus since 2006, long before it even has the WP:EPISODE shortcut, or was given a specific guideline tag. That consensus is that not every episode should have an article. We note that, citing existing policy and guidelines that reenforce that. Then it goes into very good advice about how to make make a good episode article. Then it goes and encourages article improvement over taking things to AfD. Top it off with some good examples, and you have what WP:EPISODE is. Does anyone actually disagree with what the guideline says? Most of the people on this very talk page don't, even by their own admission. -- Ned Scott 03:08, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

The only contentious part of the guideline is the section on what subjects deserve articles. There is no consensus that there should not ever be inherited notability when it comes to episode articles. I agree it is unfortunate that there have been kneejerk reactions to the mass deletions, but legitimate concerns about this aspect of the guideline have been raised. There are two, separate issues at hand: 1. The apparent misinterpretation (so it is claimed) of this guideline which was used to justify the mass deletions; 2. The nature of the guideline itself. We are here to discuss #2, and legitimate, germane concerns have been raised here. Johnleemk | Talk 05:08, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, you're very incorrect about that. Wikipedia talk:Television episodes/Archive1 points out the original consensus, and this has been upheld in several AfDs, WikiProject discussions, and other such discussions. -- Ned Scott 08:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

However the content has significantly changed from a "do not fork articles by creating thousands of stubs" to a "episode stubs with only plot information and an infobox should be merged into a more general article and more advice" type of guideline. As such I say perhaps it is time to restore an older version (of early 2007 for instance) of this page as the CD outcome, fork the current version into an essay and start with a blank WP:EPISODE. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:51, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

What is the problem in "episode stubs with only plot information and an infobox should be merged into a more general article", obviously if all that an article can provide is OR than it should be merged... It seems like the people who are oppossing this guideline are using it as a scapegoat for releasing their childish frustration of the "published sources only" principle of WP:V. 76.10.141.232 (talk) 16:33, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

What OR? A plot summary and an infobox can be filled in from watching the episode and the credits. That's published information, and is perfectly verifiable - more verifiable than many of the printed sources that are commonly relied on elsewhere in Wikipedia. BTW, please refrain from ad hominems. This displeasure over the recent bout of deletionism is hardly "childish". Bryan Derksen (talk) 18:12, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

One also should consider the fact that merging non-notable episodes (as long as the original page is redirected) to episode lists retains that information such that if notability is established later, the article can be easily recreated without admin assistance. Merging shouldn't be a snap judgment reaction, but it should be done if after a reasonable good-faith effort to find notable information fails. Merging is not a point of no return. --MASEM 16:45, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

That's all pretty ironic, considering critics of this guideline include the founder of the Association of Deletionist Wikipedians and former arbitrators. It would seem, at the very least, that the people most likely to be in favour of the guideline (assuming it has consensus and is derived from existing core policy) actually oppose it and/or its effects. As an aside, this emphasis on original consensus is a red herring - the point is not whether there was consensus then, but is there consensus now. Judging from the discussion above, there is no such consensus.

I would also add that plot information is not necessarily OR, and that infoboxes can easily contain valuable information not gleaned from the episode. The guideline specifically implies that inherited notability is never a sufficient reason to have an episode article, when existing practice runs counter to that (look at all the South Park episode articles). Having a plot summary and an infobox is by no means original research, considering both of these things are all citeable to the original episode. You can argue that this means we shouldn't have an article at all, but by reductio ad absurdum, why should we have a list of episodes when all it does is give the episode titles and the order they were aired (this itself being "original research")? This cut-off point seems entirely arbitrary. Johnleemk | Talk 17:56, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is making the claim that the information in the infobox is OR, nor is many obvious things that can be said, or found out in credits, etc. As for the point of noting past consensus, I do so given that many of the same arguments apply, and have gone unchanged. It also shows that this wasn't just something that got slipped into the guideline pages, but at least had a reasonable starting point. Like you noted, people seem to have more of an objection on the effects of the guideline than what the guideline actually says, so I don't consider the comments on this talk page to debunk the consensus of the guideline.

Regarding the arbitrary cut off point with Lists of episodes, I think that has more to do with WP:NOT#PLOT. It is somewhat arbitrary, but it's also a way to summarize episodes without being excessive (when all you have is plot). I also support season articles, which can dive into a little more information, and sometimes even "story-arch" articles, depending on the situation, and often these are considered acceptable for the over-all plot summary without being too much. It's a level that no one really has had any objections to. -- Ned Scott 18:08, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I have no particular interest in this issue and do not edit (or usually even read) TV articles, but as I was led here from the bulletin board I will give you my opinions anyway. I feel that there is far too much "froth" on Wikipedia of Popular Culture sections and not very important books, films, TV and music. If there are no limits on what can be in Wikipedia, then you will end up with an article on every obscure band, every mediocre TV episode and every repulped book. Anything that is tending to keep a lid on this process should be kept, if not reinforced. Spinningspark (talk) 01:51, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I have a hard time talking about this subject without using words like fancruft. This guideline is consistent with WP:NOTE, and content deleted per WP:EPISODE is probably not (almost by definition not) a loss to Wikipedia. Considering how difficult it has become to remove the non-notable material enthusiasts like to see, and considering the preponderance of episode articles, I find it hard to believe this guideline has led to unreasonable deletions. I favor retention of WP:EPISODE, and do not look forward to this guideline being merged into WP:NOTE (or into wherever it is proposed to be merged). / edg ☺ ☭ 08:38, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand what your issue with the existence of episode articles is when you explicitly say that you don't actually read them. Wikipedia doesn't have space limits, so it's not like they're using resources for the articles you would rather read instead - they can all coexist perfectly well together. This is the main point I've never really understood behind the drive to delete "fancruft" - the why. Bryan Derksen (talk) 18:12, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Now's the time to trot out the term "encyclopedic". "Cruft" is by definition low-quality information. One imagines an encyclopedia would have some kind of quality control, and would aspire to some scholarly standard. Nothing in Wikipedia is required to reach that standard immediately, but by such a standard, information about a non-notable TV show that includes a plot summary, titles of songs in the soundtrack, and Goofs does not merit inclusion, even if all that is desirable to fans of that series. Even if it's fun. And managing such information presents a load on Wikipedia's human infrastructure (availability of admins, policy development, software development, dispute resolution, copyright policing, and so forth) that saps its ability to perform its intended function, no matter how unlimited the technological infrastructure may be.

There are plenty of things I would like Wikipedia to do that it does not, much in the way the Funk & Wagnalls in my bedroom never provided much in the way of the porn I needed when I was a kid. I'm someone who would like spoilers prevented; not strictly, not in a backflippingly complicated way, but as much as possible. Wikipedia will not let me rewrite articles in this fashion. I'm okay with that.

Encyclopedia are not fanzines. Wikipedia is not free webspace for one's fansite. And Wikia are, so it's not like anyone is being deprived here. People who write television articles on Wikipedia should aspire to contribute in a way that will help Wikipedia be encyclopedic, not just dump everything they see on TV. And if they should boldly dump, that's actually okay as long as they are prepared to be edited merciless, and see many of their articles deleted. This is quality control. Please do not rail against it. / edg ☺ ☭ 01:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I, of course, support this guideline. I believe that the spate of talk here is largely driven by the current ArbCom case and the fact that the outcome of it is looking like a cop-out lack of consensus among the arbitrators. The remedy amounts to "make talk, not edit-war" and here we are. The process by which tv episode and character articles are reviewed, merged, redirected, deleted, or whatever, will undoubtedly change somewhat, but the non-conformant ones will still attract withering criticism. Those who object to this guideline because they object to articles being redirected or deleted would be well advised to go beef-up articles they care about instead of railing against encyclopaedic fundamentals. --Jack Merridew 09:03, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

It's hard to "beef up" an article once it's gone. Also, many of the articles deleted were already pretty beefy; the reason they were deleted was "notability", which is a subjective concept that won't necessarily change simply by adding more material. Indeed, some of the objections I've seen here to the existence of these articles hinged on them being too "beefy". Bryan Derksen (talk) 18:12, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

It's actually quite easy. Ask on DRV or ask an admin to restore and move into your userspace. From there, you can use your userspace as a sandbox. Once the reason the page has been deleted has been invalidated, move it back into meatspace. Will ^(talk) 18:19, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

you've never tried to do that on any scale have you?Genisock2 (talk) 19:08, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The former? No, but I doubt that many admins would be opposed to provisionally undeleting for rewriting in userspace? The laztter? Yes, 1 FA, 1 GA, 1 DYK from pretty much the ground up, and I often use my userspace for sandbox articles. Will ^(talk) 19:22, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

And risk being accused of wheel waring? Please.Geni 00:49, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

If you're getting accused of wheel warring in that situation, You're Doing It Wrong™. I hardly believe anyone's going to believe the complainant in any case. Will ^(talk) 00:56, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the points made above as well. And I think that AfD regularly supports the general consensus. The guideline and its prescribed remedies should stay. The arbcom case seems to support such a finding as well. Eusebeus (talk) 11:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I assume that Bryan Derksens comment,

"I don't understand what your issue with the existence of episode articles is when you explicitly say that you don't actually read them . . . "

was aimed at me. I did not say I had a problem with episode articles. I said I had a problem with mediocre froth. Actually, I would not really have a problem with this either if I never saw it. The fact that a user (me) who, not only does not read this stuff but actively tries to avoid it, is continually coming across it, must tell you that something is wrong. Where do you get links to this stuff? Trivia and Popular Culture sections for one thing and sometimes embedded in the article itself. No thanks - I have no need for a link to every episode of Star Trek that has such-and-such mentioned in it.

Spinningspark (talk) 21:34, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

What the people think

Every tv show that has had its episodes redirected has had its talk page filled with people speaking out against it. For example, the Scrubs page has around 30-40 and maybe even more people who've voiced their opinions against the merge, while a group of 10 or so people have been patrolling the page to make sure no one tries to revert anything back. The people who use wikipedia for information do not like this move, while the people who are supposedly trying to help it are ignoring their cries of disapproval. If wikipedia is acting in the interest of those who edit it, then yeah take out the articles, but if it's working in the interest of the people who use and read it, reinstate them. Look page your thoughts about "episode stubs" and think about what the people who read it want. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Laynethebangs (talk • contribs) 18:01, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Being useful or liked does not dictate what Wikipedia does, as odd as that sounds. This is the same reason we are not used as a travel guide, even though that would be very useful, given our editing resources and being able to directly tie into high-traffic articles. This is also why we don't do things by vote or by popular demand. We are, however, trying to find homes for these articles, such as the Srubs Wiki. Wikipedia is great, but it's not an episode guide, and it's not the end-all dumping ground for anything useful. -- Ned Scott 18:13, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I just read WP:NOT, and I don't see anything there that provides a rational basis for excluding summaries of past TV episodes. It would be helpful if someone could provide a brief but reasonably detailed rationale of the case for excluding them on the basis of WP:NOT. Lou Sander (talk) 20:21, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOT does - "Wikipedia is not a plot summary". Will ^(talk) 21:45, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

As Will points out, the topic has its own bullet point in WP:NOT, at WP:NOT#PLOT. -- Ned Scott 00:49, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing it out. But it's VERY hard to see why plot summaries are not to be here. We've got every municipality in Pennsylvania, every railroad station in England, every this, and every that. But we don't have plot summaries. Why? Lou Sander (talk) 03:49, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the reasoning for NOT#PLOT is copyrights (though I'm not entirely sure) - a page full of "he did this, then she said that" is in danger of being a derivative work, with a lower chance of being fair use than on a TV-only wiki or on TV.com Will ^(talk) 17:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

It's unrelated to copyrights, although it has been preposed to mention copyright issues in that bullet point. The reason, as I understand it, is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia grounded in the real world, and when we summarize fiction, we do so only because we have other information that relates to the real-world. -- Ned Scott 04:06, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to continue on Scrubs, I just watched the episode My Long Goodbye, then looked up the episode for the song that was featured in it. The page has production details, the songs, guest stars, and of course a plot summary. In fairness, I then changed the Scrubs Wikia page, which had all of those, but with holes in the information. It didn't have all the songs in the episode, or the guest stars, and gaps in its summary. Along with that, on the Scrubs Wikia, it says the last aired episode is My Inconvenient Truth, and that episode's page has no information on the episode, as opposed to the page on wikipedia. Not only that, but the actual last new episode to air, My Number One Doctor has no page. Clearly, the Wikia page is not sufficient, and if the people who took away the articles on wikipedia were willing to help recreate/transfer these pages to the Wikia it would be very helpful instead of just getting rid of them and doing nothing. I believe that's pretty ignorant and single-minded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Laynethebangs (talk • contribs) 01:05, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

(I have moved to wikia most of JD's article and will do so for the rest of the characters. Your point is well-taken & it is worth porting the content to the Scrubs wikia. Eusebeus (talk) 15:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC))

Some of us are doing just that. Having just learned much of this stuff myself (and am still learning), I'm very eager to help not only build up a guideline for the transwiki process, but also start a pool of editors that are willing to assist people in moving articles and supporting smaller wikis. While I don't think that Wikipedia is the place to have many of these articles, I too want to preserve them, and all the hard work done on them. It's something that a lot of us are learning, because Wikipedia's relationship with third-party wikis is mostly new ground. -- Ned Scott 07:24, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

This has largely turned into the same small handful of people pushing their arbitrary interpretation of what they insist WP:NOT means. It seems to be getting clearer that the consensus is that articles on individual episodes of television program should be the rule. Alansohn (talk) 04:33, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The sheer number of episode articles constantly nominated and deleted in AfD would seem to indicate otherwise. As a very dedicated member of the TV project, it is rather aggravating having to deal with so many fans who just want articles for every last episode and every last minor little character on a show to have their own article, even though it goes against Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and even our rather meager TV project MOS. I suspect if you checked, you'd find that quite a few episode article nominations are coming from the TV project itself to try and clean up our area of focus and get it back on track. I have a lot of shows I love that I work on, particularly anime, but I also firmly believe in Wikipedia's core policies so I am always very careful to try to remain neutral in my editing of those show articles and to only include verifiable information from reliable sources. I also don't believe Wikipedia was ever intended to be the world's largest TV guide, and that's all individual episode articles really do most of the time, give the entire plot of the show. There are plenty of wikias for that sort of insane fan level detail about shows, and that's where most of tat kind of stuff goes. Collectonian (talk) 04:37, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Of course most of the people here want individual articles. I'm rather sure that most of the people editing TV-show articles are people who would like to see the entire contents of their favorite shows' websites merged into Wikipedia. But however interesting such a work might be, it isn't what Wikipedia is for.

Wikipedia's basic purpose is to collect information about the world previously published by reliable, independent sources, and summarize it, just like any other encyclopedia. The two unique features are that it is not limited by physical media binding or publication cycles, and anyone can edit it. That doesn't mean that anyone can put anything they want to into it. Wikipedia has very clear requirements for verifiability through reliable secondary and tertiary sources. The vast majority of TV-show episodes simply don't have enough independently published information to create meaningful Wikipedia articles.

I happen to be a huge fan of many shows, for some of which I've written considerable information that wasn't necessarily well-sourced. (I originally wrote most of the material in the Firefly articles, for example.) I readily concede that, although I'd like to see this material preserved, Wikipedia is currently not the place for it, based on its general principles. I have a hope someday that we will be able to create a useful "encylopedia of everything", but I fully stand by the demands that Wikipedia makes on sourcing, neutrality, and verifiability. We can copy the information (with credits) to other projects before it's deleted. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:52, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The "Wikipedia has a greater purpose" excuse is simply one's way to arbitrarily decide that what doesn't appeal to you doesn't belong here; basically WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Individual episodes of most popular programs are regularly the subject of reviews, all of which provide ample sources for inclusion in articles. It's the same narrow group of deletionists pushing the same narrow interpretation on these articles. Alansohn (talk) 05:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

IDONTLIKEIT is a strange thing to accuse someone of saying when they just told you that they do like it. And while many shows do have a lot of real-world information about them, it's not always in a "per-episode" format. Like when an actor talks about their character, that information is better presented on the character article, rather than splitting it up on each episode where development of that character occurred. -- Ned Scott 07:37, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

"The vast majority of TV-show episodes simply don't have enough independently published information to create meaningful Wikipedia articles" evidences?Geni 19:11, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Past experience would be the evidence. A lot of us do go looking for this information before recommending merges or redirects, as well as during those discussions. -- Ned Scott 04:08, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, the consensus that we see at AfD seems to be the very opposite - that individiual articles are to be avoided (unless the episode is significantly notable on its own, see The City on the Edge of Forever and Abyssinia, Henry. Lankiveil (talk) 07:44, 23 December 2007 (UTC).

We need a paragraph at WP:NOT#TVGUIDE that expands on the notion that Wikipedia was [n]ever intended to be the world's largest TV guide. --Jack Merridew 08:13, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

But it became the world's biggest tv guide, and people liked it. Laynethebangs (talk) 08:20, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

See WP:ILIKEIT and WP:CCC. We are free to pass that 'honor' to wikia - along with a huge PageRank boost. --Jack Merridew 08:27, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I've left a message on the village pump discussion a day or so ago asking if anyone knew who to contact about the nofollow settings on the interwiki links. I'll try to do some more follow up on the issue. Also, I think WP:NOT did used to say something about not being a TV guide, but that was before WP:PLOT, so I suppose they thought it was repetitive. -- Ned Scott 04:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

To make a more general point and incidentally respond to what Laynethebangs has correctly identified as an outpouring of concern at the Scrubs LOE page after we undertook the redirect, it is clear that episode retention is not really the issue. Scrubs fans - I'll speak for them since I know that case best - want

1. the songs featured in the episode + performer info
2. in-universe and continuity details, such as character family info, peripheral character info, guest stars etc...
3. detailed plot outlines
4. trivia

Per our existing standard at WP:N, WP:NOT#PLOT, WP:WAF & WP:TRIVIA episode retention would focus on

1. production
2. external reviews
3. wider, real-world cultural significance
4. episode specific awards

and would have a modest amount of in-universe details to provide context. Well, frankly that is not what "the people" named above likely want - and neither would I if I am looking for a detailed episode guide. WTF do I care if some camera guy named Frank won a $#^%# award for special angle work in My Random Episode. What I probably care about is like OMG why is JD bald?? or in which episode did Carla get pregnant or other such info. To caricature those of us undertaking these sitewide revisions as rabid deletionists may make people feel better, but such slander (intended or otherwise) does little to resolve the basic tension that is at work here. Even if we keep individual TV episodes, the onus to focus on real-world significance is not going to deliver the content fans want. Consistently, via AfD and policy discussion and now arbcom, there has been strong consensus that Wikipedia not be a fanguide, that this not be a place for extensive in-universe fan-driven content. Consensus can change, of course, but if people want to change our policies, going after a specific guideline is not the right place. We need to rewrite our standards - not to be undertaken lightly - at WP:N and WP:NOT, since this guideline - and consequently the actions of us evil deletionists - are a sincere reflexion of those principles. Eusebeus (talk) 13:26, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Unlike other examples given just before and after WP:NOT#plot, the one about plot summaries offers no justification. It's just a fiat says don't include 'em. That sucks. IMHO, if folks thought about justification, they'd have a hard time finding any.

Those who drink the "no plot summaries" KoolAid are reminiscent of Alec Guinness (as Col. Nicholson) in his climactic scene in The Bridge on the River Kwai. I, and hordes of others, gaze on them from our lurkplaces and say "Madness!... Madness!" Just like in the movies. Lou Sander (talk) 15:10, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Any discussion of dismantling WP:NOT#PLOT should take place at the WP:NOT policy talk page. When you bring it up I'd go lightly on the koolaid/obsession/madness motif. Some people, crazy fools that they are, don't view such information as compatible with encyclopedic content. Eusebeus (talk) 15:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I took a look over there. No, thanks. We'll just wait for someone to fall on the detonator. Lou Sander (talk) 15:51, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Just tossing my comment in here, since I'm on vacation and don't want my relative lack of participation to look like acquiescence. I remain quite thoroughly against the notion of deleting episode articles for arbitrary reasons like what's been going on, and as soon as I'm back on my regular net connection I intend to spend some time pushing back on the matter. When there's controversy (as there most definitely is in this case) deletion cannot be the default without some pressing reason for it (such as in cases of potential libel or copyvio). If that NOT#PLOT guideline needs to be dispute too then by all means I'll dispute it. This pointless removal of good content has gone far enough. Bryan Derksen (talk) 18:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree totally with Bryan Derksen. WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:45, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Ditto. I too will be going on vacation and be largely offline, but I second it heartily and all the other comments opposed to the brutal application of EPISODE. --Gwern (contribs) 03:48 24 December 2007 (GMT)

That really sums it up. If you have a problem with how some people apply a guideline, take it up with them instead of blaming the guideline. -- Ned Scott 04:04, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Guns don't kill people, people kill people, eh? --Gwern (contribs) 04:09 24 December 2007 (GMT)