Talk:All Creatures Great and Small

Proposal to split up article

The various forms of this property have all been notable enough to have their own articles. It's especially unsatisfactory that the television show is mixed in with the book page, as it makes the article overlong, whilst denying the simplicity that could be derived by using standard television infoboxes and episode pages. There are also distinctions between the various incarnations that could be made clearer were each version to have its own page. Not sure of behind-the-wiki-scenes "drama" involved in separating an article that has been established like this for so long — so there may be better ways to technically achieve the split than the one suggested — but splitting should be accomplished in some way. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 20:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Splitting the film and the television series would probably make sense, though the film article would be rather short. The book All Creatures Great and Small, though, is just a U.S. anthology containing If Only They Could Talk and It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet, and so not notable enough to have an article of its own; it’s mentioned here just as part of the prehistory explaining where the film and television series got their name. The actual coverage the books is on James Herriot, as it should be. David Arthur (talk) 23:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I’d also like to note that putting the episode list on a separate page seems excessive to me. So, I am supporting All Creatures Great and Small (films) and All Creatures Great and Small (television series), but opposing the other two. This page can become a disambiguation page linking to the two split articles, as well as back to James Herriot for the benefit of U.S. readers looking for the books. David Arthur (talk) 16:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

• I agree with David Arthur. Julien Foster (talk) 1:00, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
• Agree w/David Arthur. There should be separate pages for the film television series, but not the books. IndulgentReader (talk) 05:11, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
• Agree with David Arthur, except I support splitting the episodes into a List of... - Sarilox (talk) 18:06, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
• Agree with David Arthur. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 17:30, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
• Agree with David Arthur. Tommy23 (talk) 18:46, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Further Discssion

Well, this debate's been open for around three months now, and there seems to be consensus on at least splitting the television series and movies off, while making this a disambig page for all things bearing the name "All Creatures Great and Small" (including, I would assume, things not strictly related to James Heriot, such as the hymn). So, how do we, technically, proceed with that? My concern isn't really for the act of moving but with the fact that this article has been linked to so many other articles. Do we literally have to comb through the list of "What links here" and manually edit each thing that currently links here and correcting its link to one of the proposed new pages? Or is there some clever bit of scripting that will automate the process somewhat?

As an aside, I disagree with David Arthur, above, about separating the episode list, only because it's such standard practice in the TV wikiprojects. The standard TV infobox practically begs for a separate episode page. It's seemingly bad form not to create an episode page. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 09:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Changes actioned

It had to be done. Existing links will still go to the disambiguation page until they are all amended. Created a separate page for film It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet. Red links to It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet (book) and All Creatures Great and Small (book) User:Sealman (talk) 06:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)