Wikipedia talk:Television episodes/Archive 3

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June 2007: There is an active discussion in progress regarding the guidelines for articles about television episodes. This discussion has been split into two parts: the first, regarding the guideline itself, is on this talk page. The second, dealing with the creation of operational procedures regarding the guideline, is occurring on the WikiProject Television Episodes task force talk page. Please feel free to contribute to either discussion.

A relevant quote from Jimbo

I was doing a little digging and came across the following, from the earliest incarnation of Wikipedia:Importance:

"Why shouldn't there be a page for every Simpsons character, and even a table listing every episode, all neatly crosslinked and introduced by a shorter central page like the above? Why shouldn't every episode name in the list link to a separate page for each of those episodes, with links to reviews and trivia? Why shouldn't each of the 100+ poker games I describe have its own page with rules, strategy, and opinions? Hard disks are cheap.

I agree with this one completely. --Jimbo Wales"

Now, I know that Wikipedia is more than Jimbo, and his view may have changed since then, but I thought the perspective might be relevant to our discussion. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Hehe, I love that on this whole page, the most relevent piece of information received the least attention. God, wouldn't want any power taken away from the behind-the-scene Wiki-bureaucrats now, would we? Wouldn't want to consider the fact that... uh oh... maybe... Wikipedia isn't like other encyclopedias? Good work Josiah Rowe, sorry that the voice of reason is so hard to get heard. Conor 10:42, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

DISCUSSING THE GUIDELINE

There has recently been much discussion about this policy throughout Wikipedia, and how it should be implemented, and people encouraged to follow it. I now encourage all interested parties to discuss it here. Please remember to be civil and allow others to present their view. Please offer constructive comments and practical solutions rather than drum-beating and complaints about other editor's actions. I am sure compromise and understanding can be reached. Gwinva 21:03, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Any episode that cannot meet the criteria of having possible information sourced by readily available secondary sources (they need to be established in order to count) that will substantially add to it needs to be redirected. It's as simple as that. Show sources that encompass all episodes, and all episodes stay. Show sources for one and that one stays. TTN 21:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The guideline works, as seen by the several featured episode articles. The problem is people superceding the guideline and doing what they want. It says, develop a series main article, then a derivative like a "List of" or "Season" page, then if need be, split an episode off. It says no where in there "split every episode off". "List of episodes" is good if you just want to know the basic info: "title, writer, director, airdate". "Season pages" are good for a little more indepth information, where you can talk about the production that went into the show. Most shows don't have elaborate productions, and most reuse the same stuff over and over again, so it's redundant to mention the same thing every episode article when you can say it once on a season page. If a particular episode shows signs that there is more relevant information for that one episode than for the rest of them, split it off and develop it on its own. What should have been done was the development of a season article, and then if it became apparent that an episode was going to need a bit more room to stretch its legs, then a discussion about its split should have commenced.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Just a note: we should not be proposing to actually discuss each single series because that leads people to think that they can win out with numbers or single opinions. We need to ask sources, and if they cannot be provided, the episodes are dumped. Only a few episodes here and there will need to be salvaged (only stuff like pilots and really popular/contraversial episodes). TTN 21:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Obviously the guideline fails, or there wouldn't be such a lengthy and divisive discussion. --164.107.222.23 23:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

No, it's just because fans don't want their work being removed and because some people want to include everything on this site. Both are horrible reasons to brush this off as bad. TTN 23:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

To me, the guideline is very confusing. Just what makes an episode article irrelevant? People need to know the plot, allusions and references to actual reality, etc. not just a mere short summary of the episode. Angie Y. 21:39, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The plot on its own is not good enough. Real world information is great to have, and it make the articles have worth. The problem is that the information doesn't exist or it's complete OR. TTN 21:41, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean "the information doesn't exist"? OF COURSE it exists! You jusst have to LOOK for it! Angie Y. 21:44, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Better yet, what's all this talk about "real world information?" These are works of fiction. Not every show can be Law & Order or it's franchises. ---- DanTD 02:04, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

For fiction to be encyclopedic, it needs to have some sort of relevance in the real world. Otherwise, we're just retelling it and giving some trivial details. TTN 02:08, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The internet is not magical. Just because you claim it exists doesn't mean it can be found. If it is that easy, you should be able to go find sources, thus getting "your" episodes back. TTN 21:47, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

A good episode article should tell you something you can't learn from watching the episode itself, and what it does tell you should be something notable, and not just something that can be said about every episode.

While covering what the story is about for a show, the plot, covering each story told, a high level of detail, or blow-by-blow information, is considered too much information. We don't need to cover that much. When we do we often make the notable things much harder to find, encourage cruft, original research, or even possible copyright violations (usually not a major concern, but it's there. And yes, even if it's not word-for-word, a detailed retelling can be seen as a copyright violation). Even if a lot of us want Wikipedia to be that detailed, to cover every little character and story, that's not what Wikipedia was supposed to be for, and for good reasons. -- Ned Scott 22:21, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Hel-lo! The free encyclopedia? You, TTN, and your other supporters are NOT supremacists! People can write whatever they wish to write! This is a free country! Angie Y. 22:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

If you really believe that is the case, I suggest that you read WP:N, WP:V, WP:NOT, and really anything in Wikipedia:List of policies. TTN 22:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Stop Wikilawyering; it obviously is not convincing people of anything. --164.107.222.23 23:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikilaywering requires using a direct and literal view of a policy or guideline to back your argument even though it really doesn't. I'm using ones that directly state that this information isn't good, so it doesn't fall under that category. TTN 23:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Everyone is sick of your so-called "contributions": people like User:Ckatz and User:Chris 42. You contribute nothing whatsoever, even to your userpage. We don't even know what gender you are. You and your supporters should be banned from Wikipedia. If you can't respect the rights and freedoms of the thousands of Wikipedians that worked hard on these articles, then I strongly suggest you pack your bags and leave. Angie Y. 23:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm contributing to the good of the site be removing articles that blatantly fail policies and guidelines. You have an inclusionist view, but that isn't supported by much. You don't have the right to do anything on this site; you're allowed to by following rules. The server may be in America, but that doesn't mean separate rules cannot be created (as all non-public places can do). You really should read the basic tenets of this site before ranting like that. TTN 23:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry you spent so much time on these things, but you can't blame TTN because it turns out we shouldn't have massive plot summarizing. -- Ned Scott 23:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Please keep this civil... it is a contentious issue, but we won't get anywhere if it degenerates into a street fight. This isn't going to be a short discussion, for certain - and we'll need to get lots of input. TTN appears to have paused for now, which would be a concession on his/her part. (Forgive me, TTN, I'm not trying to put words into your mouth, so correct me if I'm wrong.) --Ckatz^chat_spy 23:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

While I may also care about episode pages as well, the problem is some descriptions are too minor or too detailed which I prefer to have a medium amount. Also another problem I have been noticing about numerous shows is that they lack sufficent sources and the only sources that provide that come from what the general rules regard is unreliable sources. I also agree with Bignole as well on improving season or episodes list if the episode pages have to be deleted. In a small literal sense that question I keep asking myself is that should Wikipedia deserve to have seperate pages for each episode of a TV series which is somewhat of a complicated question. Also one of my past prefences on this site was that I preferred if the article was rated as a B or higher on the assessment scale. -Adv193 23:20, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm trying to be as calm as I can. Angie Y. 23:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

First off, please be civil else we really will not go anywhere. While it is acceptable that mere plot summaries are not what an episode article should constitute of, it is still debatable that they be deleted on that pretext. Rather like the reviewing system (for good article candidates etc), comments should be made on the article and the diversions from the guidelines should be pointed out. That way, at the very least, an attempt can be made to correct the articles so that it meets wikipedia's standards.

Also, episode articles provide information about the specific episodes that would not be available on the main article for the tv series (cultural references, allusions etc). Even an article for each season would not be able to provide that information.

I agree, however, that the production notes for each episode do not really vary that much and hence it is hard to obtain articles that tell a reader "something you can't learn from watching the episode itself". That said, I don't think the guideline exists to allow people the opportunity to carry out unconstructive activities such as "dumping" articles after quoting the policy . Zuracech lordum 23:42, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Normally dumping would be fine, when one honestly thinks an episode is notable and there is real-world information about it. It's just that episode articles happen so often. It's often virtually impossible to distinguish an editor who is dumping for a notable episode article, and an editor who is just.. making another episode article. -- Ned Scott 23:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

No, wait. By dumping, I mean deleting. Zuracech lordum 23:51, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Most episode articles fail this, and will never have the possibility to ever meet it. There is no need to entertain the notion that many episodes will be saved. It's easy enough to do a quick overview of the series to tell if they can ever meet it (such as regular cartoons, soap operas, and the like will never have the proper resources). Single episodes may need coverage, but that can easily happen after they are found.

Regarding the "information about the specific episodes that would not be available on the main article for the tv series", that stuff needs to be sourced, and sources cannot be found (the main reason for removing these). The guideline requires sources to be found beforehand and to have them be applied. I was just using the most effiecent way to rid ourselves of the ones that don't meet that. TTN 23:52, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I just left a message at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Mass deletion of television articles by TTN stating that I was going to take a back seat from this for a couple of days to allow for a bit of calm, but "just when I thought I was out..." TTN, it works both ways: see Wikipedia:Civility. I appreciate your point of view about improving these articles, sources, more info and all the rest of it, but you won't achieve that by going about it in this way. Sorry, I'm going off topic. Despite being intensely annoyed at your behaviour, I have reflected on your point of view and have started a discussion at Talk:Yes Minister to find out what other editors think for those particular pages. I would appreciate it if you backed off for a while to allow the discussion to take place. As regards whether episode articles in general should be allowed to exist in their present form, I feel that there is no reason why they can't be tagged as needing improvement, or maybe even someone coming up with a 'TV episode' tag to inform editors what is expected of such articles. I never knew of these guidelines when I created the Yes Minister articles; being relatively new to Wikipedia at the time, I took a look at other pages to see what they contained. The vast majority contained plot and trivia, with the rationale for a lengthy plot section being that the article solely concerns one episode and not the entire series. Putting a tight deadline on them for improvement or deletion is unhelpful, as most will take exception to it and give up. Wikipedia is so much more than an off-the-shelf encyclopedia: it has vast resources that can contain any aspect of human knowledge to whatever extent its editors want it to. There are TV shows I like and those I wouldn't give the time of day. However, some of the ones I enjoy, I would have never have got into if it wasn't for their coverage here — shows like Lost, House, Deadwood, The Sopranos, The Wire, etc. Seeing how much there was to know about them and the extent to which people wanted to provide that information made me curious to watch them. There is no site that provides the amount of coverage that Wikipedia does; I don't see there is anything wrong with catering for all tastes. I remember once being against episode articles for Lost and in favour of season articles with summaries, but the majority won out and now I'm happy to live and let live. Hell, I even copy edit some of them! I would be saddened if the only reason I couldn't read about something is simply because one censorious editor has 'judged' it unworthy of inclusion. At the end of the day, these are guidelines, not rules. Wouldn't it be great if every TV episode article was Featured? Bottom line, it won't ever happen. But, as Angie Y noted above, Wikipedia is "The Free Encyclopedia" (That Anyone Can Edit). And everyone is different: c'est la vie. Chris 42 00:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I really can't do much until this little discussion is over anyways, so there really isn't much I could do with those articles right now. Tagging never works; it is a waste of time to ever suggest it. People don't see tags and say "I need to take care of this." They ignore them, and only improve them when they feel like it (they would have done it if no tag was there). Sources also have to exist, which needs to be given on a series by series basis. We have notability guidelines for a reason. To ignore them so we can have some extra information isn't a good ideal to follow. They should always be taken the same way you'd take a policy most of the time. TTN 00:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

We've been over this before, time and time again, the same discussion. We can tag them for improvement, but none will come. If an episode article isn't even asserting it's notability, then there is no reason to wait for someone to discuss why we need a detailed plot summary. -- Ned Scott 00:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you tag it, and no-one does anything, you have your answer - just as with a standard merge process. If there's a complaint, you can say you gave fair notice. (What I mean by a tag is a banner saying something like "this article does not meet WP:EPISODE and will be merged to "X" in 30 days if not changed.") --Ckatz^chat_spy 00:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

People are still going to complain about it and claim that they can improve the episodes or that they're good enough. We just need quick action that will allow us to manage these things easily (my way). After most of the episodes are gone, it would be pretty easy to sort through the ones that may actually need them in the future. TTN 00:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they will complain about it - as is their right. This is a guideline, not a policy - and as such it is very much open to interpretation. You also have to remember that this is *not* a "crisis" - there is no need to race through the proceedings, and no harm is done (in fact, a lot of good) if we take the time to do it properly. --Ckatz^chat_spy 01:04, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

It may well come down to some sort of task force to sift through the episodes, addressing each on their own merits. If this is split up amongst a reasonably-sized group, the assessment can be done fairly briskly. This might not be the "lightning stroke" you're hoping for, but it has a far better chance of being well-received than the delete-it-all approach. --Ckatz^chat_spy 01:08, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Complain as in not let them go, thus forcing them to stay. This is a problem that needs to be taken care of. We don't have a time limit, but we also shouldn't drag along because the longer this sits idle, the more of a chance this has to fail. If nothing is done, we will fall apart with various "what if" and "buts", even though the solution is clear (remove the bad articles). TTN 01:10, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Removing bad articles is very different, though, from removing *all* articles. And remember the perspective, too - it is obviously more of a "problem" for you than it is for others. (No offence intended, I just mean it obviously bugs you a lot more than it does me, for example.) --Ckatz^chat_spy 01:14, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

All articles are bad articles. Only certain series will need more than one episode article (Simpsons, Doctor Who), and those are easy to figure out. We need some sort of way to get rid of these, and following a bureaucratic approach won't work. TTN 01:18, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Where are you getting this notion that we need to look at specific articles? It isn't that hard with a quick look. Not one article that I redirected had any merit. The only examples that I can recall of people even claiming that they were actually important was one with three trivial sources, and one with one minor development source. Those are not enough. TTN 01:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Is this really going to get us anywhere? We may change the minds of a couple people, but others will still use the same exact arguments afterwards. Is this something the we could put up a WP:RFAR for? That could certainly take care of it, though I don't think this would fall under its criteria. TTN 00:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is. At the very least, it is ensuring that there is some dialogue rather than a total lack of restraint on your part. I understand that you're taking a hard line with this issue but you need to be a little flexible. I strongly support adding tags to the relevant sections warning editors to conform to the guideline before a specified date. I am sure that there will be a suitable response. I highly doubt that you have even offered the remotest respite or chance for improvement in many of the articles that you're redirecting. I apologise if I sound like your typical "fan" but I'm trying hard not to lose my patience after reading the Mass deletion of television articles by TTN discussion. Zuracech lordum 01:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Dialog came when necessary. The problem with this is that we're trying to lump everything as if it's a general thing. Even though I know better, each series needs to be looked at one its own. By forcing this, it's basically killed any chance of that. TTN 01:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Whatever the result of this debate, I will be enforcing it since I am well aware that although I personally like some of the previous episode, I follow the rules above that and I have to accept this hard choice. I tell ya it's one thing that is not taught to editors that on Wikipedia is that sometimes it is hard to make a tough choice and that sometimes sacrifice is nesscessary to maintain both quailty and conforming to the policies of this site even if there was no chance of merging articles together. As I said this before TNN, you made an acceptable choice, but the hastiness of redirecting articles, without disscussion only angered a number of editors. -Adv193 01:35, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Realistically, people were going to be angry no matter what method was used. They just don't want the episodes removed; that's it. Much of the criticism towards me is due to the fact that people cannot back their claims, so they need another outlet to vent it (though certainly not all of it). TTN 01:39, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I am aware of that too, since I started out angry on my first impression but am calm about it now, besides improving the episodes list was my second idea to handle this since there is currently a higher chance that those pages are going to permanently redirected despite my personal opinions for keeping them, which I know that I'll have to accept the change. -Adv193 02:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I have discussed the matter with the big guy behind this place. Apparently, TTN, deleting mass amounts of articles is again Wikipedia's policy, and will get you banned if you yourself don't clean up YOUR OWN messes. So I strongly suggest that you clean up the messes you made or you will suffer the consequences. Do I make myself clear? Angie Y. 02:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

No, you have just posted rather spammy messages on his talk page. You are making idle threats. TTN 02:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Consensus - read it and weep, TTN, Ned Scott! You are NOT following consensus here and are being very selfish. I speak for all the editors that have busted their backs. Angie Y. 03:18, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Consensus is built by discussion, not numbers. TTN 03:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree on that point - and again, being aggressive and snarky won't work for *either* party. It is why TTN is in the thick of it here (sorry, but it's true) - but it will also weaken your case, Angie. If we are to have any hope of reaching a compromise, it will have to be through civil discussion. --Ckatz^chat_spy 03:34, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I also lay down my opinion the same as Ckatz since I find that both TTN and Angie Y. are out of line with those comments, although I do agree with your point Angie Y. to contact Jimbo Wales for his input. -Adv193 03:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Even though that isn't really important or likely to happen, he already has commented on it years ago [1]:

"Why shouldn't there be a page for every Simpsons character, and even a table listing every episode, all neatly crosslinked and introduced by a shorter central page like the above? Why shouldn't every episode name in the list link to a separate page for each of those episodes, with links to reviews and trivia? Why shouldn't each of the 100+ poker games I describe have its own page with rules, strategy, and opinions? Hard disks are cheap.

I agree with this one completely. --Jimbo Wales"

However, he's just like us regular Wikipedia uses now and doesn't know how a free internet encyclopedia should be, like the pro 'Wikipedians' who make-up and enforce these policies behind the scenes.Conor 08:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

So, what you're saying is that JW agrees with all of us who have had their hard work deleted? That's great! We can finally sleep safely. Angie Y. 11:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm only saying that, at least in theory, he probably does. But calm down please, it's not good for discussion to break off and start contacting people before there's a dead-end reached or something. Conor 12:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I got rid of that remark. Angie Y. 12:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Jimbo's opinion on this type of stuff holds no more weight than yours does Angie, or mine for that matter, meaning he's equal to everyone else when discussing guidelines. Remember, this is also the guy that was breaking his own "living biography" rules. He's only human. In response, not every episode can maintain an article by itself. We aren't IMDb or TV.com where we can include useless trivia, we're an encyclopedia. And plots are copyrighted pieces of material, if we have no encyclopedic content around them, then we fail to meet fair use criteria. Not every episode has that much information on it. You're talking about thousands of episodes, that are only 22-42 mins long, who use just about most of the same procedures each time. It would make many episodes redundant. Those that had something different might be severaly undersized, and the way to make them "full" is not to expand the plot to a point that it's larger than the surrounding information.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Section break

Are you siding with this spammer? He has VANDALIZED so many editors! And all you can do is let him DO that? I'm sorry, but I do NOT agree with that! THIS IS WIKIPEDIA!! You can't delete so many articles without getting banned from it or getting scolded! (I'm sorry, Gwinva, but my patience has wore thin. ^_^) If this guy/girl/whatever keeps this up, Wikipedia will turn into a wasteland, and we don't want that. Angie Y. 13:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

As they used to say, a long time ago, "slow your roll". You are getting way too bent out of shape and your anger, which is becoming clearer that is what this is, is not helping anything. I never once said anything of the sort. I said, most of these articles do not, and will not, fit the criteria for existence. Some do, and some others have the ability to, but most do not. Also, TTN did not "delete" a single article, so please stop saying that. They were redirected. Redirection is not deletion, because the information is still there in case someone needs it. Wikipedia is already a "wasteland", becase we allow so much crap to go on. How much true vandalism could we avoid if we forced people to register? A lot, but that would defeat the purpose of Wikipedia. There are already, way too may articles that are not notable in anyway, and will never meet criteria for existence. It just won't ever happen, because it's a 20 minute television show, and most people could give a rip about how it was made, or care enough to actually professionally review it. That is why most will never be "stable" articles.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:11, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I exaggerated and I'll do my best to calm down. Forgive me for that. But TTN had said that all articles are bad articles. Angie Y. 14:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Where did he say "all" are bad? I've talked to him, and I don't recall him telling me that. And we have 5 or 6 in FA status, so obviously not all are bad. Are you sure you didn't just misinterpret what he was saying? He could have meant something else (i don't know, because I didn't see the original statement). Could you point me to it so I could see. Was it in this section?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

FYI, the statement was here. TTN has made quite a few comments that suggest a dislike for episode articles in general. That aside, TTN is participating in this discussion, and contributing some good ideas, so I think we should perhpas put this aside for now and continue the process. --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:35, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes. It was. I still consider TTN to be a threat because he does this mas deletion with the editors becoming angry. I just want him out, fair and square! He doesn't belong here. For example, look at his userpage - there's no information on it about himself. He never contributes anything and all he does is delete useful information and destroy the work of thousands of hard-working editors. And worse still, he expects others to clean up the messes - messes that he made himself. I was one of those hard workers that he vandalized. So, evidence given, I still stand by my convictions. Thank you. Angie Y. 14:26, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, he isn't deleting anything. He isn't required to talk about himself. Look at User:Matthew. I bet if/when you clicked the link you were taken directly to his talk page. He redirected his own user page so that he doesn't technically have one. Also, "deleting", "merging" "redirecting", even simple copyediting is still contributing to Wikipedia. If someone only comes in to make a sentence grammatically correct, but doesn't add anything, they are still contributing. If you remove a sentence that doesn't belong, that is still contributing. There is no requirement that says you have to add a certain amount of information on Wikipedia, or else you need to leave. Your anger toward him is really starting to concern me.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:29, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[2]

Oh no! Don't pull that "innocent little boy" routine! Ckatz and Chris 42 will back me up, right guys? Angie Y. 14:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, your exclaimations are getting a bit unnerving, and if you recall, I was at that discussion. Still, he didn't delete any article. Nothing he did was (as per that link) "removed from Wikipedia". It is still there. If you look at the history, a simple "undo" puts it right back. As opposed to a deletion, which requires an Admin to go in and recreate the page as it once existed. Again, I never claimed I agree with his tactics, you can view his talk page for my discussion with him, but I do agree with his stand that not every episode is created equal, and thus not every episode warrants an article to itself.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Angie, you have made your point. We know you have been annoyed by TTN's edits, but please stop this crusade to get rid of him; it helps no one. The fact is, Wikipedia has guidelines, policies, manuals of style, accepted processes, all agreed through consensus by MANY wikipedians throughout the projects. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia we can all edit, but only within the bounds of its own rules; anarchy would result in the collapse of the whole thing. If material is not notable, or is unable to be sourced by third parties, it does not belong here. See WP:NOT if you are unsure. Like it or not, that is Wikipedia. There are lots of other wikis out there that does not have these rules: check out WikiIndex, where you might find a good location for information that won't fit here. Alternatively, turn your energies to locating good sources for just one of your episode pages, and improve it according to WP:EPISODE guidelines. (You can retrieve your previous stub from the redirect page history). Invite the Television contributors to look at it and offer criticism and advice. Once that is in a good state, then move onto the next. If you find you can't do it with one episode page, then perhaps merge them onto a season or series page. Editors such as User:Bignole can show you how this is done, and give you examples of good pages. If, over time, you find you have heaps of resources and further expansion is necessary, then they can be broken out. TTN has vandalised nothing; the information can be retrieved and repackaged into appropriate formats. But if you don't care enough about your TV series to do that, then I'm afraid you're wasting your time jumping up and down insisting the pages stay. Gwinva 14:54, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'll stop. Angie Y. 15:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Just for clarity, TTN's "all articles are bad articles" comment was posted here, one of several comments that suggest a dislike for episode articles in general. That aside, TTN has stopped redirecting, is participating in this discussion, and is helping to develop some good ideas, so I think we should perhaps put this aside for now and continue the process. --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:35, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm just saying that they are all crappy. Only a select few have shown any worth. If an article has the possibility of quality, I'm fine with it, but I don't feel like playing around, pretending that more than a few need to be saved. TTN 17:40, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, your feelings are quite clear. I think the assessment idea proposed above would go a long way toward helping others understand that there is some sort of process involved. Redirecting en masse just creates problems - for example, you were proposing to do that for the Scrubs episodes. I've been looking through those, and yes, there are articles that could easily be merged into expanded season lists. However, there are also quite a few that I've seen so far that cover topics either unique to the series, or which expand on themes presented, production techniques, and so on. Blanking all of them, and then expecting editors to work backwards to recover the relevant data is counterproductive, whereas an assessment could say "these ones could be merged, these ones should stay, and these ones may have potential." --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Very rarely would episodes need to be saved. Most of the ones that you are talking about are unsourced, and don't assert that they could be sourced. I believe that there was one specific article that Bignole pointed out on it. That one was pretty decent looking, and seemed to have some possibility of improving, so I would have left it. I'm not against leaving them, they just need to show that they can be improved. Just having globs of information doesn't do that; it has to have some quality. TTN 18:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

A Proposal

There is no point in a discussion which consists of "There should be episode pages" - "No there shouldn't", and attacks on individual editors. What we should be discussing is what makes a GOOD episode article. How many have actually read the WP:EPISODE guidelines? Does anyone disagree with them? Could they be made more clear? Does anything need adding? Then, having decided that, people can address the question of which articles currently meet the guidelines, and what is the best way of dealing with those that do not. So, to start the ball rolling, I shall give some of my thoughts.

• Guidelines The guidelines seem very sensible and appropriate. They do not forbid episode articles, but encourage lists and season articles to be developed first, which is a good idea. They also set out what should be included in a good article. I think it would benefit from a summary of Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) and how it specifically relates to television, rather than just a link. Similarly, a quick outline of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction), with a particular mention of the concept of out-of-universe writing, would get people going on the right track. Plot summaries are a problem, as overly-detailed ones ARE a breach of copyright. Perhaps it would be helpful to have a word-limit guide. A similar discussion happened recently at Doctor Who, and some concluded that ten words per minute of screen time seemed to fit with international concepts of fair dealing. Guidelines on citations and what constitutes a reliable source is vital... many contributors will not know that fan sites etc are not suitable sources, and that citing the episode itself as a source runs into original research problems. Another thing is the screen shot... fair use applies there also (perhaps an explanation would be helpful). We should discourage trivia sections. Linking to good examples of episode pages is helpful, but better still, examples of good series/season pages so people know what can be done (and perhaps a template to help them?).
• Problem pages As the guidelines currently say, it's best not to merge or redirect articles which show potential for good sources. But creating a tag to acknowledge they do not meet the guidelines would be helpful (and encouraging to the editors). As to the mass of existing articles which are seriously in breach of the guidelines, action needs to be taken, but not so quickly it angers people rather than encourages them. A template could be devised saying something along the lines that 'this page is in breach of WP:EPISODE etc etc' and warn them that they have 14 days (or whatever) to substantially improve one episode article (to demonstrate it is possible), or to provide on the talk page a list of possible sources for the series and a outline of what the editors plan to do, or to merge the articles themselves, otherwise they stand to be Afd'd or redirected. Warning is therefore given, and editors might be disappointed, but they can't complain. Plot summaries could be deleted immediately for breach of copyright...

Anyway, my thoughts as they occur to me. TTN's actions may have polarised people, but please can everyone put that behind us and now make the most of this opportunity to improve Wikipedia. Gwinva 09:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we should agree on an age for these episode articles that do not meet the criteria, and say "if you are ___________ months old, you're automatically redirected if you do not meet the criteria". That means, all these episodes, which are clearly uncontroversial (e.g. literally nothing but a plot) should be redirected. Nothing is being lost. Not only is the info still technically there, but a more concise plot can be written on a "list of" article, or a season article. For more controversial articles, ones that contain maybe trivia, or better, ones that contain actual sections that could be encyclopedic but are filled with OR and unsourced... well then we just put their names in a section for all of us to review and say "yay" or "nay" as to whether it can be easily salvaged into a good article, or if it's nothing more than fluff trying to hide the fact that it shouldn't be there. I think, any articles that have more than "plots" will require all of us to review together, whereas ones with just plots (literally just plots, not articles that when you remove stuff boil down to having just a plot) can be redirected if they are a certain age. Then, whatever that age we set is, we tag all the other articles that don't meet that criteria with a "you have 'this long' to develop the article per WP:EPISODE guidelines, or it may be redirected". This way, something just created will have plenty of time to develop, or face redirection, while articles that have never even taken the time to expand, and are past that time, will be redirected on the spot.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Also for lists depending on the size of the show itself there is also the possibility of dividing up the lists based on sagas or seasons and further deveop them there rather than rely on Episode pages for the shows that don't need them, but only if the show is large enough for that to happen, where minor or cancelled shows do not meet the criteria. I happen to know where to find some of these seperate lists as well. -Adv193 14:54, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Other than that I agree with the above proposals and state that it is better to give a warning first. Although there is obviously a chance that no one would be able to improve the article, however, not is there always a minor chance of the unpredictable factor that someone will improve that article, but more importantly it would be less rude and it that there was at least a warning beforehand to prove that the article was not speedily redirected but rather it failed to be improved in time, which would have been a much more kind approach since TTN was rediecting articles unannouced in most cases (Not to be too rude at all TTN if you happen to view this message). -Adv193 15:04, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, like Smallville has a "List of" and a "Season" page(s), whereas most Anime are just one "season" and could probably be developed on that one page. I think if we can all agree on how to handle not only the ones we already have, but the ones in the future, then if we go the "you've been here for _____ months, nothing but a plot, so it is redirected" then we can upload an alert on all the television show pages about what was decided. Since not all editors of say "Dr. Who (TV series)" will have the individual episodes all on their watchlist.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:12, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

One more idea I had was to work on the proposal of a new template that would reflect the episodes' need for improvement within a certain time frame and have it used on the main page of that article rather than that articles' talk page where it would be less noticable to many editors. -Adv193 15:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking of that too. I think, regardless, it will require everyone to go to the history and find the date of creation and say "you have 2 months to get this article into shape" or "you have 6 months", or "14 days"...if that's the case, depending on if we decide that ones that are a certain age should be redirected. What would really be good would be if we could get it to count down, so it doesn't stay at "2 months" and confuse people. That, or include an ending date.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:18, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I think either something within a week or two weeks will be most appropriate and not that long for editors to wait to have to redirect it. -Adv193 15:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

LOL, I'm good with that date, I was only thinking about that one editor that suggested 60 days (which I thought was a bit long).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah definatly too long. Anyway I gotta go now and won't be able to post again for a little while. -Adv193 15:25, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I can go along with all that. A subsection or policy detailing good season/series pages would be handy to encourage good versions of those in the first instance (in fact, we need a MOS for 'list of episode' pages, because some of them are simply a list of episode titles, which serves no useful purpose at all. I could just as easily list the chapters in the book I'm reading, but would anyone care?). A time frame from a page's creation is a good idea; so many articles get made from good intentions but no corresponding good work. Others do improve, but take time. A template that gives the date to work towards would be best rather than just 'you have two weeks' (or whatever)... if it's automatically linked to a category, assessors can immediately see which ones are due for review. An advisory panel of editors is also good... so no one editor cops all the flak or makes the decisions. Redirection by consensus... (like a mini afd review)! In fact...some might qualify for deletion. Set up a WikiProject Television 'Page review' taskforce. Then it's obvious who's on it, what their standards/policies are, anyone is free to join and no-one can think it's some cabal who go round removing everything they don't agree with. They can ensure everything's correctly tagged so contributors know what needs to be done, where they can go for help, and (in the actioned examples) why their page was redirected. Another thought: there are some WikiProjects relating to specific TV series; it needs to be established that they are following the same guidelines on their project pages and set-up templates, otherwise we'll have the anarchy of "but they do that, why can't I?" Gwinva 15:36, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I like that. We'll have to find all the WikiProjects devoted to TV series and let them know. Wikipedia: Episode Taskforce or would you prefer a Wikipedia: Television Taskforce. I think the latter would go more hand-n-hand with us provide examples of good season pages and "list of" pages for people to model after. I had thought about that category idea you mentioned, something that we could easily access and quickly say "ok, these 20 episodes will be up for review in a week, let's make sure everyone is aware so we can get a good start on the review process". Something like that. To save space, we could review all the episodes together, and make a decision about them. If they require some additional work, and don't need to be redirected, then we just provide the criticism on that episodes talk page, instead of bogging the review page down. Otherwise, I'd think we'd potentiall have dozens of reviews going on separately, but at the same time.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:53, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

If change must happen, then I agree with Gwinva's approach: it is fair to editors, encourages consensus and helps keep everything within the guidelines. :-) Chris 42 16:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Taskforce Television definitely: it needs to assess season pages, 'list-of' pages and any other spin-off pages (characters is another whole can of worms waiting to be opened). Also tag parent pages if they need wikifying. Yes a whole review space would be good, so you're not dashing everwhere looking at everyone's comments, with a link to current discussions on the relevant talk pages. There'd also be space to flag up concerns about copy-vios or whatever that arise. We could set up a proposal page, outlining how it would work, and then pop messages on all the wikiproject pages inviting them to look, comment, join the task force, etc.Gwinva 16:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

How about instead of bothering with a taskforce, we just go with generic messages on the episode list or series talk page? If they aren't answered within a week, they are redirected. If they are answered, they get another week to find sources. After that, if none are provided, they are redirected. The number of days can be changed if necessary. If we do stumble across ones that seem to have a chance of passing with only a little bit of work, we can list them somewhere for discussion. I really don't think we should go all formal with this. If we're going to force discussion, let's just do it without worrying about specifics. If we get too drawn into that side of it, we may loose focus. TTN 17:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, shut up, TTN! You're the one that caused all this mess! You're the one that's at fault here! All my hard work on the Code Lyoko articles has been RUINED thanks to you! Angie Y. 17:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it helps keep people in understand, as opposed to simply just throwing a tag on an article and not having a place to direct them. Otherwise, we'd be sending them to multiple places. We could probably absorb some articles (like this page and the other episode page) so that we aren't directing people to multiple areas. I think it helps with simplicity purposes, since (apparently) some were not aware of the guidelines to begin with.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

If we just reinforce this page, we could probably be all set with explaining things. One of the main problems is that people take little loop holes and stretch them to the extreme. And doesn't Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/Episodes already cover what you want to create? TTN 17:12, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment A few thoughts on the above... first, I'm pleased to see that there is some movement toward developing a process for assessing articles. I think that would go a long way toward easing concerns over what is happening. Second, I'm also glad that there is acceptance of the idea of a "waiting period". As the person who said "60 days" - I'll be honest and say that I knew that wouldn't fly. I really think thirty is more appropriate, but if I'd said that, the counter would have been 5 or 10 - which is far too short. --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC) (more to follow)

Section break

• Ever work on a cordless key board, sit down at the desk like you were going to type and then realize you moved the keyboard across the room?...just a random thought..which just happened to have occurred*...Anyway, I think that is a great idea. We could set up a "Need to know" about non-free material, and provide examples of what meets that criteria and what doesn't.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:10, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

No, but I have tried to use a mouse that's not there... (I can hardly type I'm laughing so much).Gwinva 16:14, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I like your 'need to know' title as well... Ever watched Yes Minister? It's what Humphrey says whenever he's not going to tell the minister something (as in 'it's on a need-to-know basis'). Gwinva 16:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Obviously, not everyone knows the exact criteria for fair use information (that includes plots as well), but most specifically for images. I think it would be good to say "see this page, this is how a non-free image fulfills the criteria of fair use"... see this page "this is how one does not". Same with articles that have nothing but a plot on them. It isn't limited to just copyright information. There could be something on what should not be included on a page, if it's something that might cause a problem if it was.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:26, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely...I'm still figuring out all the guidelines and criteria, and I'm interested in looking for it!Gwinva 16:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

All the Code Lyoko, Sailor Moon, and Ben 10 articles need to be changed back. A lot of hard work has been put into making these. Creating a taskforce would be complete dictatorship of the whole thing. That would be completely unfair. Domniance is not what Wikipedia is about. Angie Y. 16:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Obviously you didn't read a single word of what we all said. It's a group for everyone, and a place where the articles go up for review that do not meet the criteria. That's hardly a dictatorship (which by the way, would require just 1 editor to govern everyone, but I believe this is set up like a democracy (which Wiki isn't a democracy regardless).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:54, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, sorry. Angie Y. 16:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

This "Taskforce" is meant to provide a place to help not only articles that can support themselves, but to address the problem articles that cannot, but do so in a fair way, by applying a tag at the top of an article with a given date of expansion. If the article cannot be expanded by that date, then it will be reviewed and possibly redirected. Nothing is lost in a redirect.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, can you all help poor confused me by putting your comments at the bottom? I'm jumping up and down this section trying to find you all. Angie, please stop the personal attacks. We are trying to find a solution that allows everyone to be involved. TTN, that is why establishing a taskforce is important: so people know who the editors are, what they are doing, can contribute themselves and not feel it one editor or a cabal who are running the show. Gwinva 17:30, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Really, is a taskforce going to solve much? Soon, we'll be getting people like Matthew claiming that it's just us and only us, so we have no consensus or something like that. Then people will be claiming that we don't have any real "power" or that we're trying to "be elitists/push a point/something derogatory." Either that or it will pretty much die out like the trivia project, leaving us with a ton of tags that increase each day. I really just think we should keep it as simple as possible. TTN 17:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment A few thoughts on the above... first, I'm pleased to see that there is some movement toward developing a process for assessing articles. I think that would go a long way toward easing concerns over what is happening. Second, I'm also glad that there is acceptance of the idea of a "waiting period". As the person who said "60 days" - I'll be honest and say that I knew that wouldn't fly. I really think thirty is more appropriate, but if I'd said that, the counter would have been 5 or 10 - which is far too short. --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC) (more to follow)

The idea of "automatic redirection" isn't great - it takes no time to add a merge template, and give at least a few weeks for any sort of response. (It's probably even fewer keystrokes than the delete-redirect process.) I like the idea of revamping the guidelines to include a much clearer explanation of how to develop articles, as well as a good explanation of the process that will be followed if an article doesn't cut it. --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Let's just try to do something. My fear is that this will break down into nothingness, and I do believe that it is very possible. TTN 17:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

One aspect that hasn't been touched on - but which I think is very important - is the process for articles that do end up being redirected. I honestly don't think that a simple "erase-redirect" is appropriate. There should be some onus on the redirecting editor to actually merge the content into the destination article. A point that has been raised elsewhere is that the "list" pages usually include plot summaries that are far too short, primarily because there is an article page. There is also other information on the article page that may well qualify for the "list". It isn't really fair to dump that work on other editors, and it would again go a long way toward showing that the intent here is for real improvement. --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

No, we shouldn't force people to do that. It would take forever to summarize most series' articles. We should just let the single editors do that because I'm sure they have the time, and they are much more familiar with what is actually important to the summary. TTN 17:52, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

See, that's the problem. We can't presume that others have the time to pick up after us. People may have created an article, developed it to where they thought it was OK, and then moved on to other articles. It is one thing to expect them to put in the time to improve an article if they wish to keep it as an article. It's quite different to expect them to salvage valid content just because someone wants to redirect. That's why I think we have to be fair, and look at this as a "merge" process rather than a redirect process. --Ckatz^chat_spy 18:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Really, if you try to force that, you will kill this whole thing. This isn't something that should take years to do. It should be a month or two after it has started. Nobody is going to want to take the time to do that, thus loosing any sort of momentum. You'll be getting one or two small ones done in a week (at most). TTN 18:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, both with the need to rush this process, and with the "kill" theory. We're not dealing with vandalism here, which qualifies for "shoot on sight". We are talking about valid content that may be too large or misplaced. (We're also talking about a guideline, not a policy, so what is and what isn't suitable is somewhat subjective.) If we want this guideline - and the resultant *major* changes it would bring - to be accepted, we will have to prove that the process is fair. Erasing an "overly long" plot page, but not bothering to incorporate some of it into the single-sentence summary that might exist on the page you redirect to, won't come across as being fair. --Ckatz^chat_spy 18:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

If we don't remove them, we'll just become another static project like Wikipedia:WikiProject Trivia Cleanup. We'll just be going day by day, never actually reaching our goal. That will just lead to more episode articles, and more crap. You find solace in keeping people's work, but it won't really be their work anyways. I know that I wouldn't be using the summaries here to make them. You're making this way too formal to bother with. Not many people are going to go with it. (I know I certainly won't bother anymore if that is forced). TTN 18:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Human Nature (Doctor Who episode) and Homer's Phobia are both fine examples - in fact, most Family Guy, Simpsons and Doctor Who episode articles are. Will ^(talk) 18:29, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, this isn't about making the process "easy" - it's about making it understandable and transparent. Look at the image cleanup - that involves a legal issue, with potential ramifications for Wikipedia as an organization, and it still goes through a formal process to avoid disruption. --Ckatz^chat_spy 19:33, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Forcing people to work on things they don't understand very well will not help the cause. You'll only drive people away. Image cleanup is not a hard thing to do. You tag it, someone provides a sources, a rational, or whatever or it's gone. We don't force the taggers to go find sources or add rationals themselves; others can do it. TTN 19:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Geeze, gone for a meesly hour to take an exam and all hell breaks loose. Let me explain what seems to have been lost. The idea is, if the episode only has a plot section, and is of a certain age (to be delegated by this taskforce after we agree on the concept) then it is automatically redirected. That is the only type of episode that doesn't required a "review", because plots are a dime a dozen and don't need merging. If you a merging into a "List of episodes" you can take the time to write a brief description for each, or you could just have that group of editors do it. They should know the series best anyway. For episodes that have reached that limited age, but have more than a plot section, we can ALL review them, and determine if what is in them is anything more than cheap fancruft that wouldn't survive an FAC regardless of a source. For all the rest, we tag with a notice that says something to the effect of "This article does not meet the criteria set forth on individual episode articles, and has (fill in the required time) days/months (<-this is based on when the article was created) to expand and fulfill them. On (a specific date) the article will go up for review, if it is determined that nothing has been done to improve the quality of this article, per criteria, it may and can be subject to redirection back to its parent article". As for the taskforce page, TTN, I understand your concern, but sometimes people just need that formal page that says "hey, we discussed it, sorry you weren't a part of it, but here's the low down". The problem with WP:EPISODE is that not only does it not encompass season pages, or "List of" pages, but it doesn't talk about the consequences of not delivering on the goods with the article. We need a formal page that says "listen, this is how you should develop a series of television articles (we'll provide some specific examples of how it works and how it doesn't work), and when it becomes apparent that a specific episode should be split, here are examples of what should go on the page", then we need to say "These are reasons that should not be used to justify the creation of an episode article:". We need to get down to the nitty gritty on how to do everything. WP:TV doesn't do this very well, and neither do any of the others, and that was our problem. Unfortunately, we have hold every editors hand on this, because if we map it all out to a "T" then we shouldn't have to worry about backlash. We shouldn't have to worry about noticeboard incidents. Look back now, how many people are complaining about the non-free images today? Few, because it's over and done with and we've all accepted the criteria.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Problem with the "redirect, not merge" idea is that plots really aren't "a dime a dozen". That may be the case for some current or popular shows, but the lesser known ones just do not have that kind of information readily available. --Ckatz^chat_spy 19:26, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

It might also be appropriate/polite to incorporate some sort of link to the redirected article(s) - perhaps as a hidden comment or as a note on the talk page. That would make it easier for editors wanting to upgrade the list page summaries to find the original material. --Ckatz^chat_spy 19:29, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, if it's a redirect the plot isn't lost, and people can simply go in, grab it, trim if necessary, and insert into the "List of" episodes. It shouldn't be a requirement that we do it, when we aren't deleting anything. The people that work on say "Black Adder" know the show better than most of us would, and thus are probably better equiped to write/trim plots for the episodes. It's easier to go in and say "all the episodes were reviewed and subsequently redirected on the basis that they held nothing more than a plot. If you want to keep the plots, you can view the history of the article and pull the plot information out (trim) and insert it into your "List of" episode article". We can leave notice on the main article pages that, following the tags, the articles were redirected because of.. but they can still view the information through the history and pull any relevant info they want and place it on the parent article. I say "they" again because I wouldn't know the first thing about summarizing plots to shows I've never seen. I won't even do that for films I haven't seen.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the idea of the timelag between tagging and redirecting is so that the relevant editors have a chance to do the merging themselves. That is the ideal solution. Of course, often they'll have fled the scene and no longer take interest, so a 'task-force editor' is left with the problem. We can encourage them to salvage something if appropriate, but it can be very hard to summarise a plot from poorly written over-detailed fannish summaries. We'll have to rely on the editor's judgement, and console ourselves that the information can be retrieved from the history if such is necessary in the future. If there is a project page, any disgruntled/confused editors stumbling across it later can go there for help. A tag on the series talk page stating the redirect has taken place on X day for X reason should be enough. Gwinva 19:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Everyone in this discussion, please save Wikipedia:Television Taskforce to your watchlist, even you TTN. I know you disagree with it, but right now I think we need something set to the side that holds everything that we clearly agree on, so that we don't have to sift through this discussion and try and figure it all out in the end. Anyone can update it once it's clearly that every agrees on that aspect. We can worry about details later, and if we don't develop a taskforce we can delete the page afterward. Right now, I think the only thing that anyone has agree on is that we should tag all the articles.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

We already have a taskforce for episodes, so you should modify that rather than actually making a new one. Still, why a taskforce? Let's just strengthen this, build up a nice detailed "get sources" message that gives all necessary details and links to the appropriate policies and guidelines (WP:NOT, WP:V, WP:FICT, ect), and go from there. If nothing happens with them, they are redirected. If someone replies, promises sources, or something, we wait a bit. If that doesn't come true, they'll be redirected. It's not as if creating a page is going to get people to suddenly go "Wow, I never looked at it that way before!" and we don't even know if people are going to accept a big project proposal like that. By doing it with just messages, we're going with a simple "merge" discussion. TTN 19:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Because this only deals with episodes, not "List of" pages or "season" pages. If we build this up, we'll end up having to move the name because it is directed a episodes themselves and we want to incorporate a good guideline on how to develop "List of" and "Season" pages, so that we can prevent this overload of individual episode articles that never meet criteria.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:52, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want to direct people to those articles, just add a couple of paragraphs here. It isn't a large enough topic to require a sister guideline (and it would take quite a while to pass). Even then, it's not going to solve much. We need to make it so they have no option, not give them examples because they don't really care. They just want to make episodes. TTN 19:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I think that's the wrong way to go about it. If you don't give them examples then you open yourself up to arguments of "I didn't know how I was supposed to do it", "you weren't clear". This needs to be made crystal clear. On Wikipedia, articles need to be written in a professional tone, but need to be understood by a 7th grader. You don't tell a child "you can't do that, because I said so", it needs to be explained for them to understand. That is how we have to handle this. You need to be able to explain to them as if they were your grandmother, or your child, otherwise they won't get it and they'll simply ignore you.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

You can still give ways to develop these articles, but by the way you're describing it, it's as if we're just giving an alternative. We need to say "No sources, no articles. Only create articles if... *examples* Otherwise they should be on a list of episodes... *blah blah blah*". It would be like how this page is now, but just more strict in tone. TTN 20:11, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Because people think the bottom line is it's one way or no way, and if it's no way they are going to fight you to the death (remember the noticeboard?). We need to show them that these "List of"/"Season" pages can be expanded to include more information, so that individual episode articles are not always warranted. They don't know that. Look at the format of some of those pages and you wouldn't begin to think that they knew that because most "List of" pages are basic, and most "Season" pages are just horrific. They need to see some good pages that show how you have relevant, real world information on them, so that you don't have to create these individual episode articles.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me)

You can show examples. You just don't need another guideline to do it. A couple of paragraphs linking to things like WP:WAF would suffice. But we cannot act as if it is just an option instead of the solution. TTN 20:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't receall "WAF" talking about Season pages, or providing examples. Why would be have a page that says "these are rules", go read these 30 pages to see why? If you want nothing to do with this fine, I'm trying to come up with the clearest, simplest, most concrete way of doing things and avoid further noticeboard incidents. The problem is, you're suggesting we make the page basically say exactly what you were saying when you redirected all those articles. From my memory, that didn't work too well because you pissed a shit load of people off, and most of your redirects were undone because of it. People aren't going to hunt through a dozen pages just to find out that none really explicitly say what we are trying to get them to say.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:28, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Linking to that would be used to explain on writing out of universe and using outside sources. It's not as if you would just say "Go for episode lists. See WP:WAF. I want this to go smoothly. The problem is that we're making no headway. We have varied opinions of what needs to be done and how to do it (not just me and you). We don't even know if other users will accept anything yet. And even then, it's likely that this will fall apart or come to a screeching halt, leaving us with nothing actually happening. We're still doing what I was doing; we're just making it more shiny. TTN 20:35, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I like the proposal idea. However, I want to make it clear that TTN wasn't doing anything wrong, and got a lot accomplished so far. Don't worry, TTN, this will help us by giving a place to direct the energy of all these editors, like I mentioned on my talk page.

Like TTN mentioned, this idea is already a task force at WikiProject Television/Episodes. However, that project is pretty much.. dead.. and wasn't really that alive in the first place. So I've archived the talk page, cleared out a bunch of stuff on the main page, and it's all set to be whatever we want it to be. -- Ned Scott 04:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that without TTN's effort, whether some like it or downright hate it, was a necessary catalyst to get this problem back into people's minds so that we can work to find something definitive to use.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 04:29, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be appropriate to leave discussion of TTN's efforts - and methodology - to another page, so as to avoid a protracted debate about them. Simply put, there is no consensus that the actions were appropriate - some editors think it was perfectly acceptable, others that it was completely unacceptable. We've already moved the guideline discussion here, so as not to clutter the AN/I page - why not leave the behaviour discussion there, so as not to clutter this page? --Ckatz^chat_spy 06:09, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

The editors who thought it was unacceptable are also the ones who think every episode should have an article. TTN has done nothing wrong. That is not saying he can't improve the way he does things, but that is far different from doing something wrong or against consensus. -- Ned Scott 06:19, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, that's not true. There are several editors at the AN/I page who spoke out in favour of TTN's desired result, but against the way it was done. Let's also try to avoid generalizing - there is a tendency here to categorize anyone who speaks out against TTN's actions as being misguided, or uninformed. That, simply put, is incorrect. TTN made some serious mistakes in how he/she approached the task, and there is no point in trying to gloss over that fact. However, I still think we need to move past that on this page or else we'll just get bogged down again. --Ckatz^chat_spy 06:39, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not true... I don't think every episode warrants its own page, and agree that most such existing articles should be redirected. However, I did have a problem with the manner of TTN's editing. I didn't mean to go into all that again, but I don't like sweeping statements like that, as if this all falls into camps. Gwinva 06:40, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Future Episodes

A problem no one here seems to have brought up is that most of the people creating new articles for TV series seem to have no idea about the strict guidelines that are being enforced. Take Lost for example, there was a big mediation thing to decide how episode articles would be made, and it doesn't mention at all that the articles must be backed by secondary sources and have production/reception information. Shouldn't the editors involved be informed now rather than later when the articles are being deleted? (Yes, I am aware that Lost most likely will have sources, but firstly, it appears the liklihood is not enough, and secondly, the vast majority of episode articles even from the first season are still confined to very long summaries.) Other examples are Stargate, Star Trek, and in fact, pretty much all of them. Wouldn't it make far more sense to work on preventing more 'bad' articles being created first, and to let these people know that if they create standard summary and trivia articles, they will be removed? It seems pretty clear at this stage that if everyone was made aware, clearly and firmly, of the official Wikipedia stance on individual episode articles, all this uproar could be avoided.Conor 20:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The only way to do that is to cut down on the articles beforehand. Otherwise, there is just no way to manage them or anything. If we only had twenty or so episode categories, it wouldn't be too hard to take a look every once and a while. If there is a new, random category, we just tell the user not to create anymore articles with a little explanation. TTN 20:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, we did bring up the fact taht we need to talk to the respective WikiProjects for each TV series. But we can't even decide on whether or not to have a Taskforce or just simply tag and run. So... we need to take it one step at a time.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but my main point is that they seem completely oblivious to the way they should be doing this, and it's not like they're a bunch of random I.P. address, they're people who contribute to Wikipedia quite a lot. I mean if you look at the Lost episode article guidelines, it doesn't sounds anything like the guidelines on this page, and the same goes for the rest. Shouldn't it be made clear to them that they're going about it the wrong way... essentially wasting their time? Furthermore, shouldn't all these projects be consulted when these policies are being created? I mean it affects them the most.Conor 20:30, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's the problem, we haven't set a "right way" yet. I mean, you can direct them to all the relevant pages if you like, you seem to know who is doing it wrong, and they can get a feel for the right way. What we are doing isn't so much that it's "changing" anything, but more or less being much more descriptive so that there isn't loopholes. At least, that was what I was getting out when I proposed my opinion earlier.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:34, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a lot easier if we work on this now, and after we finally get it all hashed out (if ever), put one of those big tags for everyone to see on their watchlist that says there's a new proposal for Television episodes. Many times it's a small group of editors that work up a new guideline and then bring it to the community to talk about. It's already chaotic with this handful of editors, we'll get no where if we go ahead and alert every person. Everyone will be fighting for an opinion that we'll lose track of what we had. It's easier to do it with a small number and then say "this is what we got, what do you think and what can you suggest?"  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:37, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed - after all, I'd guess that this is how WP:EPISODE came about to begin with. This is a guideline, not a policy, and so if you want people to respect it - you have to make sure it reflects and *respects* the diverse interests. --Ckatz^chat_spy 20:43, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree as well. It sounds like a good compromise Michae2109 20:45, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello, sorry that I am just butting into this discussion. I just want to say that I agreed with Bignole's suggestion in being more descriptive to avoid loopholes. Although I disagreed on the speedy and mass redirects, I realise that many of those episode articles were not encyclopedic enough (including the articles I wrote). The suggestion of setting up a taskforce also sounded as a good idea. Michae2109 20:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I have moved the discussion here. It is more focused on that rather than the guideline. TTN 18:12, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Improving the guideline

Ok, what should be done here to make it more clear or helpful? TTN 18:14, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we should find or help develop a "List of" and "Season" page that proves you can develop real world content in these articles, and not be forced to created individual episode articles that are undeveloped.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 18:16, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I've almost always liked the idea of season / story arc pages. -- Ned Scott 18:59, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Once we establish procedures over at the other page, and get feedback on them from the wider community, we can develop a section here outlining the responsibilities of editors looking to merge. (A "how to proceed" guide, if you will.) --Ckatz^chat_spy 18:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Once this is sorted, we mustn't forget to ensure all the stuff at Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/Episodes is consistent, especially infoboxes and templates. Need to add stuff on season pages too. One problem with the info box is the 'preceeding/suceeding episode links' which might create red links everyone feels they should make blue. The whole page just asks for people to create episode pages. Anyway, we can look at all that once this is settled.Gwinva 21:52, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Suggested expansion of guidelines

Right, I've played around with the first section of the guidelines, hoping to expand the information so everyone knows exactly what it means. Have a look, see if I've interpreted it right, what else needs adding etc, and comment below. I'm playing around in my sandbox with the next section.Gwinva 19:27, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

• I like it. The only thing that I think could use attention is the part that says "Series", because it makes me automatically think of an article that has (TV series) in it's name, instead of "List of _____ episodes" as its name.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:36, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
• I'd lose the "At this time" - not necessary, plus some episodes may well "jump the queue" if they are particularly notable (musicals, awards, notoriety etc.). We could also say "some episodes or story arcs have enough real-world information..." so that editors consider the option of breaking out multiple-episode story lines, rather than just a single episode. (For example, instead of several single episodes for Smallville where Oliver Queen appears, one article on the "Green Arrow" plot.) --Ckatz^chat_spy 19:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd like to see more than just an award. A show can win an award for one thing, but we have no idea what they did to win the award and nothing else to put on the page besides "it won this award".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

• I made a point of saying 'series' as in the UK this is used instead of 'Season' which is a bit confusing, really. Anyway, next section posted below. I'll leave the 'problem pages' bit until that is resolved.Gwinva 20:04, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Well, then maybe also list the "List of" as a possibility as well.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:08, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
    • (why are we bulleting?) I've just managed to wipe my comments rather than pasting them after an edit conflict, so let's try again. Story arcs good... gets people thinking outside the episode mentality. Awards? did I say that? But you're right, one award with no context is pointless. Gwinva 20:15, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Section 2 suggestion

• Ah, forgot to put in anything about what it means to writ efrom an out-of-universe perspective. Grab a quote or two from WP:WAF perhaps, or summarise a few points. It needs to be here, because how many people bother with 'see also' ? Gwinva 20:20, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Wow, I have to honestly say I wasn't aware of the 10 words per min rule. That's a cool rule. I always thought it was weird that film plots were restricted to 600-900 words, and 22 minute Simpson episodes were restricted to....600-900 words. I think we'll need to explain how to use the episode as a source. I've seen people interpret an episode and then try and claim it sources itself on that, which is not true. Saying "Clark was hurt by kryptonite for the first time in the pilot" is easily sourced by the episode, but saying "Clark has the same teenage angst as the average american teen" does not. No matter how much it's obvious he does, and how you can point out the similarities yourself, the episode is not reliable in that instance.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:26, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I nicked the ten-words a minute rule from a discussion at Doctor Who, and thought I'd put it in for everyone here to chew over. It sounded good... We'll probably need to do the maths ourselves to be sure Gwinva 20:31, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
• This looks like a decent compromise. I like the bit about keeping plots short. Lots of articles have overly detailed plot summaries. --Malevious Userpage •Talk Page• Contributions 19:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah I can second that and I can say that I have on numerous occasions showed restraint in working with summaries on episode lists and I can do it with pages as well probly with no more than two paragraphs and not to much in-detail. -Adv193 05:13, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the "featured music" list. Unless it's on a soundtrack, it isn't that notable. I was watching the DVD commentary for the Smallville pilot and the second episode after that, and you know what they said about the songs that came up? "Wow, that's a nice song. Lifehouse is hard to contract. I really like that song". Doesn't appear to be too notable.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Guidelines changed

I've gone ahead and made the changes discussed above. We still need to change the 'problem articles' bit once all is settled across at WT:TVE. I've kept in the 10-words a minute plot guide, as it's a nice rule of thumb, but I don't know if it will stand up to intense scrutiny. As I said, I found it in another discussion. Can we keep it? Also, does anyone know any good examples for each type? I think these need to be rated GA if not FA. Gwinva 11:55, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I say keep it. I mean, 420 words for a 42 minute plot? That's enough. Heck, the plot I wrote for Aquaman (TV program) and Pilot (Smallville) are barely that. I think you'll only get big "nahs" from people that work regularly with 22 minute shows.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:13, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't we be presenting these to the community for input before changing the actual guideline? --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:25, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Since we have to bring the guideline to people's attention anyway, because they obviously aren't following it, then it doesn't really matter. People make adjustments to other guidelines just within the talk page of that guideline all the time. That's how the "Cast and characters" section of "WikiProject Films sytle guidelines" came state that a "cast list is not mandatory", where it used to imply that. It isn't policy, so I don't see a problem, since most of us within the circle have agreed on the changes. Also, it would be best to have a clean talk page for when we shot it to the community. Otherwise we'd be doing this number: "follow this link to see this discussion, follow this link for that discussion, halfway down this page is this discussion". It's easier to say "this is the outcome so far, start the criticism".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure Ned Scott has tried to spread the word through things like the village pump. I doubt that many people really care anyways (which is why we're in this situation). TTN 17:59, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, he has. On top of that, we've not changed anything, only expanded (ie. stuff there now is consistent with what was there before) and the guideline template on the page itself explains that major changes should be discussed here (not anywhere else). We've done that, anyone concerned can check these comments. The guideline reflects the consensus of this talk page.Gwinva 18:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Season pages

I've been trying to follow this discussion, and I know I haven't contributed to it yet, but I was just wondering about the season pages. Is there any guideline right now about a season page for shows? It seems that the title of how to write a good episode was just changed to add a season in the title with nothing else expanding on it. It does show an example of a good season with the Simpsons there, but that seems to be an "overglorified" List of Episodes page. What are the guidelines for writing a season page? Should they be written like the Smallville pages (like this for example) or only like the Simpsons one as a list with no mention of continuity (the Simpsons don't really have continuity but they are the only example right now)? Is there anyway to have an example page on how to write a season (like this page for college football teams) so that people would be able to write a good season article? Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts. Phydend 14:32, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, I see that discussion of this is going on at the other page mentioned at the top of this talk page. Sorry, I should read things first. Phydend 14:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Season pages w notable episodes only?

I just had an idea, perhaps someone has proposed this already, I haven't read the whole discussion. What about a page, linked from the TV series' page, that gives the title and a maximum five paragraph summary for each episode of that season, with significant plot and characterization details? Specific episodes which have an above-average amount of discussion on the Internet (fansites and fanforums included!), or which are noted in other sources (media, magazines), would be de facto notable, and thus retain their articles, with links from the season page. The titles for consensually non-notable episodes would be redirected to the season page. The season page would have a link to the Season-Page Initiative or the Non-Notable Episode Taskforce or whatever the wikiproject would be called, to explain why Wikipedia Is Not An Episode Guide. --205.201.141.146 19:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean 5 paragraphs altogether, or 5 paragraphs per episode? Fansites and forums are not reasons for notability, by nature they discuss every episode.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

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 [3]. 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)

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)

Bignole, you said, "Wikipedia is not a current events encyclopedia." but Category:Current events proves you wrong. TV Guide is not coverage? And we are most definitely not on the "show me now system" — see List of The Simpsons episodes for proof of that. --Pixelface (talk) 01:43, 8 January 2008 (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)

If editors would take 5 seconds to do a Google News Archive Search before placing a {{merge}} tag in an article or nominating an article for deletion, then maybe they're wouldn't be so much complaining. It's true, not every topic is worth writing about in Wikipedia. And we do have a notability guideline, that's true. So why do we need this guideline? I'm still unsure if this is a guideline meant to encourage editors how to write good articles or if it's the episode notability guideline. This is a content guideline, but it' clearly being used as the episode notability guideline, with editors saying articles "fail" this guideline. A television show is nothing but a series of episodes. When you say a show is notable, the episodes are notable. A show does not exist apart from all of its episodes. People applying this guideline and using it to merge articles or delete them have schizophrenic reasoning. It's like saying Skeleton should have an article but Tibia should not. Do we have a notability policy? No, we don't. On Wikipedia, "notability" means "worthy of notice" and I don't think you could ever make any kind of policy out of the term "worthy of notice." I don't see how M*A*S*H is notable enough to have an article, but Goodbye, Farewell and Amen could be considered not notable enough per this guideline. This guideline is completely superfluous to WP:N and needs to be deleted. If this guideline is supposed to help editors write good episode articles, it needs to be merged into Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/How to write an episode article. Shall I put a {{merge}} tag on this page? --Pixelface (talk) 02:02, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• 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)

When would it stop? It would stop at the episode. I don't think props and crewmembers inherit notability. Those are used to produce a show, they are not the actual show. And states aren't made up of people. They're arbitrary geographical lines designating a specifc area. If some editors want to come up with a notability guideline for songs, they can do that. If we already have FA criteria, this guideline is completely unnecessary. WP:NOTE is a guideline. And it's a guideline that hinges on one phrase, "worthy of notice." There is no notability policy. WP:NOTE says a topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. And then goes on to offer its own definition of "presumed." Go look that up in a real dictionary. WP:NOTE does not link to WP:EPISODE because this is not a notability guideline — even though several editors are pretending it is. "Why should we let episode articles get away with not providing sources to assert notability?" Because List of The Simpsons episodes, List of South Park episodes, List of Futurama episodes, and List of Doctor Who serials and their sub-articles do it, and that appears to be the actual consensus of the community. It's clear from the articles linked on those pages that episodes do inherit notability. Articles have to follow 3 policies: WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV. WP:N is not one of those policies and WP:EPISODE is definitely not one of those policies. There should be no rush to redirect episode articles or delete them either. You said "nothing ever loses notability", but that's not how this guideline is being used. This guideline is being interpeted by editors so Scrubs is notable, but the season finale of the first season is not notable — and that's ridiculous. --Pixelface (talk) 02:23, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it can stop at the season. Most episodes are not notable in their own right. Notability is not inherited, sorry. Everything must earn its own way. Episodes comprise seasons, and there is nothing wrong with having a season article that discusses all of the episodes for that season. If there is something special about a particular episode, and it stands out in notability and real world content then it can have its own article. But this is proof that you don't need individual articles for 22 episodes when you can say the same thing, much more coherently and with better quality on one page. Just because other people do it doesn't make it right, nor does it make it consensus. There are over 2 million articles on this Wiki alone, that's far too many to oversee sufficiently. The Simpsons get a break simply because that group of editors has shown progress in making all their articles comply with notability (check out the article on the eighth season of The Simpsons if you don't understand what I mean). Also, Pixel, your tone is becoming a bit combative, maybe you should take a break for awhile to cool down. You mention that NOTE is about "worthy of notice", but it is also about showing that "worth", and you cannot do that without sources. Anyway, have a nice evening, I have some more important matters to attend to at the moment.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 02:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

So seasons inherit notability but episodes don't? If each episode article has to assert notability by providing independent coverage, hundreds of the sub-articles of List of The Simpsons episodes clearly fail that. The Simpsons episode articles do not all comply with WP:EPISODE. See the sub-articles of The Simpsons (season 16) for proof of that. You say "everything must earn its own way" and then you say the Simpsons episode articles that don't assert notability don't have to assert notability — so which is it? This guideline says nothing like "articles must assert notability unless one season of the show has many articles that do assert notability." Clearly The Simpsons episode articles are about notable episodes because those episodes are part of a notable show. Providing outside sources for each episode is merely one way of establishing notability. I don't see why each episode has to assert notability, and the sub-articles of List of The Simpsons episodes, List of South Park episodes, List of Futurama episodes, and List of Doctor Who serials follow that. I don't see how an episode is non-notable until IGN reviews it or some guy writes a book about the show in general. There must be some way of determining whether an episode is worthy of notice besides reviews in magazines and newspapers or mentions in books. But again, WP:EPISODE is not a notability guideline. WP:EPISODE needs to be merged into Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/How to write an episode article or redirected. --Pixelface (talk) 11:11, 13 January 2008 (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)

This rests on a misinterpretation of WP:NOT#PLOT. Most the episodes in question are not pure plot summaries, but often contained other data such as actors, guest stars, producers etc. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:17, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Data on who starred or worked on an episode is not sufficient information to help an article "cover their real-world context and sourced analysis" as required by WP:PLOT. --MASEM 00:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me? Who starred and such is real world information. It may not be an ideal level of information but it is certainly enough to cover WP:PLOT. It makes something not a pure plot summary. Furthermore, the basic point of PLOT is to avoid articles that contain every single joke and plot detail (obviously an article that mentioned every single joke in a Simpson's episode wouldn't be good even if the article was otherwise great). This isn't meant to remove articles that happen to be primarily plot. JoshuaZ (talk) 13:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

See my point below. Yes, it is real-world information, but that doesn't mean that it justifies a per-episode-article format, or the additional summary. How we organize this information comes into play here. On a Wikia wiki that I am an admin on, even though we get to go hog wild about every detail, I still strongly encourage people to think about how we organize everything. -- Ned Scott 05:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Even if it did, that amount of information normally does not justify a one-episode-per-article format. Joshua, do you have any specific examples in mind? -- Ned Scott 03:01, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Many of the scrubs episodes would be good examples. JoshuaZ (talk) 13:56, 3 January 2008 (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)

I agree it would be fitting if WP:EPISODE itself was redirected. --Pixelface (talk) 11:18, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The core of the guideline, which has been unchanged, has had consensus from the very start [4] (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)

The actions of one user have tarnished this guideline. There's the guideline and then there's the way it actually is applied. This guideline is clearly being used to turn tens of thousands of articles into redirects. This guideline is being applied like it's the notability policy for television episodes but it's not even a notability guideline. The valuable parts of this guidelne need to be merged into Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/How to write an episode article. --Pixelface (talk) 11:32, 13 January 2008 (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)
  • Oh yeah...that bedrock policy, Wikipedia:Fancruft. If we have already have WP:N and WP:NOT, why do we need this guideline? --Pixelface (talk) 11:37, 13 January 2008 (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 ([5][6][7]). 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)