Talk:List of Holby City episodes*

Page name

@Soaper1234: In response to your most recent edit - AlexTheWhovian (talk · contribs) moved the page earlier today citing examples like Casualty which has the asterisk so guess he didn't check. I think it's better to have the series numbers in the title for better disambiguation between the two pages. There doesn't seem to be any formatting errors in the article anymore. Matt14451 (talk) 19:09, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

@Matt14451 and AlexTheWhovian: AussieLegend has explained really well here why the asterisk is used rather than the "(series 1-11)" titles. It pretty much sums up why it should appear like that. Soaper1234 - talk 19:55, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

@Matt14451 and AlexTheWhovian: The asterisk in the title was used because this is a cache page for List of Holby City episodes; it's not a separate article per se. There have been problems with pages breaking the post expand include size causing a lot of content not to display correctly or at all. It was originally done at List of The Simpsons episodes and when an unfortunate requested move resulted in List of The Simpsons episodes* being moved to List of The Simpsons episodes (seasons 1–20) the change from " *" to " (seasons 1–20)" was enough to break the page again.[1] It required edits to 22 pages to fix the problems caused. Ironically, AlexThe Whovian was aware of this problem, having participated in that RM. Both Wbm1058 and I are tired of fixing problems caused by well-meaning but misguided editors.[2] --AussieLegend (✉) 20:40, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I split the articles with series in the titles as I wasn't aware. Soaper1234 (talk · contribs) then changed it to include *. AlexTheWhovian (talk · contribs) moved it to include series again this morning. Matt14451 (talk) 20:45, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I can't move it back to include *, will need an admin to delete the current page for this to be moved. Matt14451 (talk) 20:49, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it's going to be a problem for now. The two articles are small enough at the moment to stop the problem but in the future it may will break again. --AussieLegend (✉) 20:52, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your input AussieLegend. I think I, personally, would prefer it we avoid the issue arising in the future now and changed the article name back to "List of Holby City episodes*". Soaper1234 - talk 20:58, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I'd completely forgotten about participating in that RM... So, the best course of action would be moving it to the asterisks title (while putting a note in the article as to what the asterisks means, to make it clear to all editors and readers alike), then file an RM to gain consensus for the series-specific title? As for the formatting erorrs; yes, the articles were a mess and should have been split in somewhere like the draftspace first to make sure that there wasn't a mess in the mainspace. There's still multiple reference errors at List of Holby City episodes. As for the DISLAYTITLE, the article just mentioned uses {{Italic title}}, which is transcluded through to the 1-11 article. -- Alex^TW 23:50, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Soaper1234 asked if I would move the page, so I have done so. Would adding move protection help to avoid any future problems? — ᴀnemoneᴘroᴊecтors 23:03, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

@AnemoneProjectors: No need; see below. -- Alex^TW 02:58, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 30 September 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Procedural close. Page redirected to List of Holby City episodes. wbm1058 (talk) 11:00, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

---

List of Holby City episodes* → List of Holby City episodes (series 1–11) – Requesting the page move to be listed in a similar case to List of The Simpsons episodes (seasons 1–20), List of Survivor (U.S. TV series) episodes (seasons 1–20), List of Saturday Night Live episodes (seasons 1–15) and List of Doctor Who episodes (1963–1989) / List of Doctor Who episodes (2005–present). The asterisks makes no sense to the regular editor, and only appears to be an editor preference to have a similar name, especially since the page appeared and worked perfectly acceptable under the new name and no technical errors were present. See Talk:List of The Simpsons episodes (seasons 1–20)#Requested move 17 April 2016 for an identical requested move. -- Alex^TW 02:57, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support – using an asterisk like this is totally non-standard. The current RM will take this to much more standard article titling under WP:NCTV. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:53, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
• Extremely Strong Oppose - The asterisk is used for technical reasons. This is not a separate article to List of Holby City episodes per se. It is a cache page for that article, created to fix major problems. Prior to its creation the LoE page it was horribly broken as it exceeded the post expand include size, which has a 2MB limit. This resulted in much content not displaying so it was necessary to split the article into two parts to get the article size down. A similar problem had previously occurred at List of The Simpsons episodes and it was necessary to split that article. As I explained recently in the discussion above, when an unfortunate requested move resulted in List of The Simpsons episodes* being moved to List of The Simpsons episodes (seasons 1–20) the change from " *" to " (seasons 1–20)" was enough to break the page again.[3] It required edits to 22 pages to fix the problems caused. Most editors are unaware that when pages are transcluded onto another page, as happens with season articles, the entire content of the page is transcluded but only the content between the transclusion tags is displayed. The more pages that are transcluded, the bigger the page. At this time List of Holby City episodes has some headroom but it will likely break in the future, based on other articles that I've had to fix. In fact, the page was a lot closer to breaking when it was moved recently. When it does break, more seasons will have to be moved here to fix the problem. If this page's name is changed now it will have to be moved again at that time, and the next time the LoE page breaks and then again the next time and so on. Using the asterisk in the name negates the need for subsequent page moves. In short, it's a really dumb idea to move this page now as it only ensures future maintenance is more difficult.

The asterisks makes no sense to the regular editor - Transclusion makes no sense to the regular editor, nor do the problems created when the post expand include size limit is exceeded.

and only appears to be an editor preference to have a similar name - I'm quite amazed that the nom would make this comment given that the reason has been explained multiple times in discussions in which he has participated, including at the Simpsons move that broke the article gain and above on this very page. Use of the asterisk reduces file size and minimises the work required to fix inevitable future breaks.

especially since the page appeared and worked perfectly acceptable under the new name and no technical errors were present - At this time, because of the split, List of Holby City episodes and List of Holby City episodes* both have some distance to go before breaking the 2MB limit. However, also as I explained above, it will break in the future as more series are added. The only reason it didn't break when this article was recently moved was because there is presently enough headroom to stop a break and that is exactly what we are aiming at with these splits and the naming - to make future problems easily solveable with a minimum of effort needed by editors. We shouldn't be creating a situation that is going to exacerbate future problems and require more effort to fix them, which is what moving this article will do.

In short, it's a really dumb idea to move this page now as it only ensures future maintenance is more difficult. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:43, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

"Extremely strong oppose" does nothing to further an RM than an "Oppose" does. Nor do walls of text.

I get that it is a cache page, but how long is it expected to remain as such? Caches, by definition, are temporary. You believe the previous RM to be unfortunate, but as can be seen, the list works perfectly well. Yes, it required "22" further edits, but that's what Wikipedia is all about - editing an article to make it better for the site as a whole. These edits could have been performed before the move, and there would be no need for that repeated clam. You seem to be under the impression that when the main episodes article breaks, more seasons would need to be moved here. This is not the case. They could very easily be moved to a third new article, such as List of Saturday Night Live episodes (seasons 1–15), leaving this article for Series 1-20, the current (eventually second split) article for Series 1-40 (for example), then a third for Series 40+. What's required for that? One article, no changes to the previous ones bar a new "list has been split" template. Now, that makes the whole "we need to move more here" redundant.

Transclusion makes more sense to an editor than a random asterisks. If the content isn't here to edit, it's on the season page to edit. Makes sense. An asterisks without explanation in the article? What if a third article was necessary after both exceed the limit? Two asterisks? This is certainly not common practice, nor common knowledge.

In short, this issue is extremely simple, and Mt. Everest is being made out of an anthill concerning it. (Same discussion twice. Glad I copy-pasted.) -- Alex^TW 07:50, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Walls of text are sometimes needed when trying to address a complicated issue that has been simplified because readers don't really understand the issues and the "Extremely Strong Oppose" is aimed at drawing attention to what is obviously an important explanation.

I get that it is a cache page, but how long is it expected to remain as such? - Until such time as the post expand include size issue is addressed or we find a better way of transcluding articles, such as being able to transclude only the content between the tags.

You believe the previous RM to be unfortunate, but as can be seen, the list works perfectly well. - That's only because I fixed it.

Yes, it required "22" further edits, but that's what Wikipedia is all about - editing an article to make it better for the site as a whole. - No it's not. It's about providing an encyclopaedia for our readers. We shouldn't have to edit articles excessively in order to achieve that, but that's what is happening. And, when the article breaks again and again, we have to find somebody who knows what is causing it and how to fix it.

These edits could have been performed before the move - No they could not because the articles were reliant upon the article being at List of The Simpsons episodes*. Had the articles been changed before the move, this would have cause both List of The Simpsons episodes* and List of The Simpsons episodes to break in a different way.

You seem to be under the impression that when the main episodes article breaks, more seasons would need to be moved here. This is not the case. They could very easily be moved to a third new article - Regardless of whether you move them to this article or another article, they would have to be moved to another article. Creating a third article makes no sense. We shouldn't be forcing readers to go to multiple articles just to look at an episode list. Ideally we have the episodes listed in one place. Because of the post expand include size issue we're forced to use two articles but we shouldn't be using 3 when we don't need to.

Transclusion makes more sense to an editor than a random asterisks. - These are two different issues. Many editors seem to believe that when content is transcluded only the content between the tags is transcluded. Some don't even understand that. They just know it's necessary and the content magically appears. The asterisk is a different issue. It was chosen to keep the file size down so we can fit as much as possible into one article and avoid the need for an excessive number of articles, as weel as to note that it wasn't actually a separate article per se. Once the cache page is created it shouldn't really need to be edited again. Only the LoE page needs editing. In the case of this series, with 33 seasons to date, we now have 34 pages just to list the episodes. That's a lot for readers to look through to find content and we shouldn't be forcing them to have to look through even more.

What if a third article was necessary after both exceed the limit? Two asterisks? - That's a LONG way off because of the way that the pages have been created. A lot of thought went into this.

this issue is extremely simple, and Mt. Everest is being made out of an anthill concerning it. - Yes, by you with this RM. Leave everything alone and all works fine. You're trying to "fix" something that doesn't need fixing.

Same discussion twice. Glad I copy-pasted.) - If you had decided to discuss this first instead of diving into an RM things would have been a lot simpler. We could have had one discussion. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:01, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support - no reader should be expected to understand a very technical reason for choosing a bad title, one that doesn't even establish its scope. @AlexTheWhovian: is there a reason why List of Holby City episodes wasn't also added? --Gonnym (talk) 09:25, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

  For a start, it's not a bad title. It was chosen specifically so readers would be presented with a fully functioning article in 99.999% of cases. Most readers would be unlikely to know why we pick specific titles. Hell, a lot of editors don't know why. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:01, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

  They don't need to know why we pick, but they do need to know what title they are going to view. I have no idea what seasons covers a title with an *. --Gonnym (talk) 10:26, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

  Please note that the article started at "List of Holby City episodes (series 11–20)" and after a series of undiscussed moves ending with an unadvertised local discussion, it ended up here. Asking in private an admin, is not how a move request should be done. In case of a no-consensus vote, the title should be restored to its original version before all the undiscussed moves began (or more correctly as the content has since changed, to the correct season scope). --Gonnym (talk) 11:00, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

  I have no idea what seasons covers a title with an * - You have no idea what seasons any "List of <foo> episodes" cover as they don't even mention seasons in the article title. Nor do you need to know, as explained at the discussion at WP:NCTV. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:33, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - AussieLegend (talk · contribs) clearly understands the technical reasons for the asterisk which vast majority of WP editors and readers, including proposer, don't. Matt14451 (talk) 10:38, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

  Then he's done a bad job so far in explaining why specifically the "*" is our only hope. It also violates WP:TITLE which I guess is fine now?--Gonnym (talk) 10:44, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

  I'm sorry you haven't been able to understand what I've written above. Ironically Alex criticised my explanation for being a "wall of text" but it can't be simplified more than that as it's not a simple issue. Unfortunately, Alex has confused this issue by creating 3 intimately related but separate discussions at different locations. I have tried to explain the issue more fully at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television), specifically addressing your questions there. Note that I do refer to the RM at Talk:List of Casualty episodes* but it applies to this RM as well. --AussieLegend (✉) 11:19, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

  Oh, I've understood perfectly well what you've written, please stop condescending. You've just never said why the asterisk is the only option. It isn't. Its just something you decided fits best. Yes, I understood that the bytes changed as the page has had to re-catch the data. So what? It worked at Simpsons, it should work here. Also, if you'd choose a better title next time, one that actually follows NCTV, then we wouldn't need to move the title and re-catch the data. And finally, if this issue was this technical only a genius such as yourself can understand, I'd expect it to have been written up somewhere at MOSTV with a consensus to* back it up. --Gonnym (talk) 13:39, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

  I've never actually said that it's the only option. I have always said that I believe it's the best option and the effect that removing the asterisk at List of The Simpsons episodes* had strengthens my belief. As for writing it up at MOS:TV, when it occurred over two years ago I did raise the matter but there was little interest, like so many issues that people raise. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:27, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

  Pretending that this is the only solution doesn't make it so. Template editors are supposed to serve our readership and our general editors, not the other way around. There is no valid reason for this article to be at a non-standard title. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:45, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

  There are very valid technical reasons why we use the asterisk, as explained and demonstrated at other articles, most notably List of The Simpsons episodes*, which resulted in List of The Simpsons episodes breaking when the asterisk was removed. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:27, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support per WP:AT. The issues that led the user to select asterisks are minor and otherwise trivially worked around. --Izno (talk) 18:22, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, by doing a real article split, and getting away from this transclusion nonsense... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:23, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

The issues that lead to the use of asterisks were most certainly not trivial. It required a huge effort to fix the issues at the Simpsons articles. The initial work to fix the articles went on for months and the work here required significant effort. The comment about transclusion is quite ridiculous. The TV project uses transclusion extensively, for many reasons and using transclusion here means we have one article with minimal need for change with almost all efforts concentrated at the main LoE page. It means we don't have to duplicate any variable content which reduces errors and so on. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:26, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and it's a bad "solution", as several of us have tried to convey to you, without success. Just do a real WP:Split with these articles and be done with as, as is done with List of Pokémon episodes (seasons 1–13), etc. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 12:39, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

I am yet to see anyone who has actually had experience with this problem say it's a bad solution. If the current system wasn't a "real" split then it wouldn't work. It does. What you call a "real" split forces our readers to have to navigate multiple pages in order to find even the first episode and that's not what we should be doing. That is a bad solution. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:24, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

No it's not – not compared to the mess that your "technical solution" has forced on us. And I'm not alone in thinking you're dead wrong on your last point, based on these discussions. You said it yourself – it's a deficiency with the software: so stop trying to come up with a "duct tape" solution for that, and just accept this system's limitations and work within them. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 13:30, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

What mess? There is no mess. It's a fully functional solution that minimises the number of pages that we have to force readers to navigate and it minimises maintenance requirements. By contrast, your solution forces readers to nnavigate extra pages and will result in duplication errors. And please, stop speaking for other editors. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:37, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

OK, clearly you're going to need to see the results of these RM's before you realize that the rest of us don't like your "solution", so we'll just let this play out... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 13:39, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised if the page is moved but that doesn't mean it's a bad solution. That just means that some editors don't understand the technical issues, something that has been demonstrated. In any case, your proposal has nothing to do with the RM which is simply proposing that we replace a single character with multiple characters. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:45, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm also referring to the discussion at WT:NCTV (not to mention some I've seen at one of the Simpson's Talk pages) where other editors have wondered why we don't just do a proper split. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 13:49, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

You still haven't explained how this is a mess. Regardless, how the pages have been split actually has nothing to do with the RM, as I've already pointed out. Let's stick to the actual RM. --AussieLegend (✉) 14:22, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

• Support this is exceptionally non-standard and the "technical explanation" makes no sense to me. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:50, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
• Unsure, although I think I could be convinced. I was very much in the opinion that the page should have an asterisk (hence why I requested the move following the above discussion) since I had only one side of the story and believed that there were deeper technical reasons behind the title. Now, having seen the opinions of other users, I can now understand that perhaps it would be possible to give the page a regular title. But to me, this flags up a few questions. Does the second page still remain transcluded from the first page? Should we explain in the lead the difference between the two pages? Anyway, with a bit of explanation, I'm sure someone can help me decide where I stand. Soaper1234 - talk 18:02, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the second page would still remain transcluded because it's just an extension to avoid the problems that the post expand include size limit imposes on us. We don't normally explain technical issues in articles. Explanations should be limited to describing the scope of the article without getting bogged down with technical details. A reader shouldn't need an explanation because the page has been setup so that, to a reader, both pages act as if they were one page. --AussieLegend (✉) 18:18, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

• Support and additionally suggest List of Holby City episodes be moved to List of Holby City episodes (series 12–present). For more detailed reasoning, see !vote at Talk:List_of_Casualty_episodes*#Requested_move_30_September_2018, the same principle applies that the asterisk is a "clever" technical hack that nevertheless shouldn't be used. SnowFire (talk) 00:45, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

I have responded at the linked discussion but nothing needs to be moved anywhere now because, as indicated below, this page is now redundant. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:43, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

• Comment - This discussion is now moot as, with input from other editors and some work by wbm1058, the main LoE page is now able to accommodate all episodes again making this article redundant. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:40, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.