Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Archive 4

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Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

• User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory 2,
• User:Badbilltucker/Philosophy and religion Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Sports Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory/United States, (note: This page will be retitled to more accurately reflect its contents)
• User:Badbilltucker/History and society directory, and
• User:Badbilltucker/Science directory

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now moved the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 13:38, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm working on setting up an Assessment page right now. not finished yet. will do tonight. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 18:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Category:Actors_by_television_series

The suggested deletion of this and its subcategories failed, but even many of those voting keep stated something to the effect of "as long as it doesn't include anyone who just guest-starred." Currently, such categories as Category:ER actors do include guest-stars, by the explicit description of the category as well as the failure of the category title to impose any limiting conditions. I suggest these all be renamed only to remove this problem, to either "[Television series] recurring actors" (my preference), or "[Television series] cast members." Considering the sheer effort involved in simply listing all of them for renaming on CFD, I thought it best to bounce the idea here first. Thoughts? Postdlf 17:36, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

If a re-naming would help keep only reoccurring actors in the categories, then I'm all for it. Sounds like a step in the right direction. -- Ned Scott 06:11, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

So no objections from anyone? Postdlf 00:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I prefer cast members, to further keep guests who appear in multiple episodes from showing up. CovenantD 00:24, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

"Cast" may be too narrow, as the distinction between who shows up in the credits and who is billed as a "guest-star" often appears arbitrary (if that's all "cast" means). For example, I think Martin Donovan appeared in every episode of the second season of Weeds in a rather significant role, yet he was billed as a "guest-star." I think we'd have a greater consensus if we only went so far as "recurring" rather than just "cast," and it's a big improvement to eliminate one-off guest-stars. What if we took that step first, and then a later rename can attempt to limit it further to cast only? Postdlf 19:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm in favor of either of these suggestions. As a related example, about six months ago Cindy Crawford had something in the neighborhood of 60 or 70 categories. The article before the deletion of most of the cats can be found here. If character actors have a cat pertaining to every show they've guest starred on, it could get out of hand. On the television side of things, a category like Category:Star Trek: The Next Generation actors has at least 300 right now. Many of which were only in the show once and may have been "red shirts" and therfore only appeared for ~2-3 minutes of screen time. Dismas|^(talk) 22:54, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, when I get around to it, I will list all actors by television series categories for renaming to "[Television series] recurring actors." Many of the Category:Actors by series categories, however, are actually "Actors by licensed property" rather than focused on a single series (whether TV or film), such as Category:X-Men actors; these inexplicably link everyone who ever played a role in any TV cartoon, movie, or video game property that ever involved those characters. I'll be leaving those out to be dealt with another way. Postdlf 20:36, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't X-Men actors be in CFD? I remember similar cats being in CFD. The category is too broad. Listify and delete is my thought on the matter. RobJ1981 00:06, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I have listed that and other comic cook character adaptation categories for deletion; see discussion here. Postdlf 20:36, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Per the above discussion, I have listed the actors by television series subcategories for renaming to "[series] recurring actors." See discussion here. Note that I have not included any categories that have "cast" or "cast and crew" in the name, as those are already more narrowly focused. Postdlf 20:36, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Has there been any effort put towards this issue? There have been a number of these cats put up for CfD lately and still these cats exist with huge lists of actors who were in single episodes. Dismas|^(talk) 03:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Still no consensus on how to handle these categories. There's also a discussion going on about actors-by-series categories in general at the Wikipedia:Overcategorization talk page. So far the only consensus is that actors-by-film and actors-by-stage-production categories are a bad idea. But actors-by-TV-series is split, with some people (like myself) preferring to see most of them deleted, while others (like Tim!) generally ok with most television shows having an actor-by-series category. There is some partial consensus, though, in that when these categories exist they should not include guest stars. Dugwiki 16:17, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Note that it's parent Category:Actors by series is under WP:CFD at the moment. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 19:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Introduction section out-dated

The introduction paragraph citesand quotes the introduction to the M*A*S*H article as an example when the paragraph has been altered. Shaybear♥

Was vs. Is

I don't know if there is a guideline on this. What is the preferred way of referring to TV shows which are no longer in production? "X show is" or "X show was"? See The X-Files versus Sons & Daughters. - (Nuggetboy) (talk) (contribs) 17:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Creative works are "is" if they still exist. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 17:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, how about with characters and the actors who portray them? There are a number of articles (Jericho for one) where character descriptions get edited to read "John Doe was played by Bob Smith" as soon as the fictional character dies. If Bob Smith dies, "was" would seem to be appropriate as Mr. Smith will never play that role again. However, presuming that the actor is still alive, it seems the correct form would be "John Doe is played by Bob Smith", since the actor portraying John Doe is still alive, and the character could be used again in a historical role, or turn out to not really have died, or even be returned to life through some sort of plot twist (sci-fi, fantasy, soap operas, etc.). I couldn't find a guideline for this at the Television or Film projects. Thoughts? --Ckatz^chat_spy 19:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:WAF. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 20:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Ummm... thanks, but where exactly does that article refer to tense? It's one of the ones I read through yesterday while trying to puzzle this out, and it doesn't really address the issue at hand. --Ckatz^chat_spy 20:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Check your fiction has some advice. It also depends on the context you use. For example, "Happy Days is a TV show" but you could also say "Happy Days was on channel Blah Blah". For the actor I would say "was" because we are looking at the actor from the real world having done a previous job vs a job they are currently in. -- Ned Scott 20:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Also (and as I have mentioned earlier on this talk page, to no one's response), the examples given on the project page seem to violate the WAF guideline. The project page suggests, for example:

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard, one of Starfleet's most trusted captains; he has a keen sense of what to do, and thus has been known to ignore the Prime Directive. Played by Patrick Stewart.

It seems to me that this not only endorses writing in incomplete sentences, but is also out-of-universe. As to your question, I think generally, you should stay in the present tense, which I think WAF suggests. In your case, "John Doe is played by Bob Smith"; Smith's living/dead is immaterial, the fictional character exists regardless of whether the actor is living/dead. Even if the actor is now deceased, he has already portrayed the character. If you want to flip it around, I think it should be "The actor Bob Smith portrayed John Doe...". schi ^talk 20:45, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to those who've added notes so far. I'm looking for guidance specifically in situations where the fictional character dies, while the actor is still alive. (I've amended my initial post slightly to better reflect this.) --Ckatz^chat_spy 22:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Note that a fictional character may well survive the demise of the actor, or may be played by multiple actors without anybody dying. (Ref, e.g., James Bond.) Changing the tense based on the actor's status would lead to painful sentences in these cases.

Note also that any answer that requires that a bunch of articles be updated when the actor dies seems like a wrong answer, because it'll never be done consistently. My vote is for "is" in all cases.

I'd stick with that when the fictional character dies. Death is such a nebulous concept in fiction, as you mention. Heck, Trudy Monk died before the series started, yet has been played by four different actresses!

Jordan Brown 00:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

So is there a consensus on whether a show that has fished is a show or was a show? Liyster 07:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I would tend to agree that a show, whether or not it's still actively airing or being produced, still is a show. Just because people aren't filming new episodes doesn't mean it suddenly stops being a show (becoming a show in past tense only). If it's no longer a show, what is it now? For example, you can say that "Ronald Reagan was President of the United States" because he no longer is, now he's just a public citizen. But if you say that "Futurama was an American comedy series" then you're implying that it's now something else. So is it now a British comedy series, because it was bought out by the BBC? Or is it now an American drama series, because they killed off the main characters and took out the comedy aspect? It's neither, it's still an American comedy series, just one that is no longer in production. Just keep in mind that it does still depend on context as well. So "Futurama is an American comedy series that was aired on Fox for 5 years." Just my thoughts... but unfortunately the example on the main project page of an intro sentence contradicts all of this (MASH was a TV series? What's it now?) so I'm left uncertain as well... ;-) --Maelwys 16:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for The Honeymooners

I opened a peer review for The Honeymooners recently. I've done quite a bit of updating and think it is close to FA-worthy. Please come by and make some suggestions! --cholmes75 ^{(chit chat)} 20:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Overcategorization guideline discussion

Just a heads up that the discussion at [1] for the proposed Overcategorization guidelines has a talk section dealing specifically with how to handle actor-by-film and actor-by-tv-series categories. The goal would be to form a consistent policy guideline for which actor-by-series categories are acceptable, which aren't, and generally help editors decide when to use a category for cast lists and when to use a list article.

If you're interested in this topic, head on over to that discussion page and give your two cents. :) Dugwiki 17:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Infoboxes on articles covering multiple media

Some articles cover multiple TV shows or a mix of TV shows and movies. Examples: The Addams Family, Dragnet (series). How should infoboxes be used in these cases?

I can think of three possibilities:

• Just don't. They'd be too much clutter.
• For the most notable releases only. Perhaps, for instance, for the 1950s and 1960s Dragnet TV shows and the 1960s Addams Family TV show.
• For all releases. (For Dragnet, that'd mean a radio box (if one exists), four TV boxes, and three movie boxes; for Addams Family it'd be four TV boxes, four movie boxes, and dodges six video game boxes only because they have their own articles.)

Thoughts? Jordan Brown 20:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

This is something that WP:ANIME deals with a lot, since anime takes form of a lot media. Although I like the clean look of the current infoboxes, we might be able to pull a lot of good ideas from the Template:Infobox animanga system. -- Ned Scott 21:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. That's a pretty serious rework, though. I know I'd have to learn more about templates and tables to attempt it. Also, the architect in me says that it really should be a joint project between anime, TV, movies, video games, ... so that it ends up with a single template suite that they can all share, so that it's immediately obvious how to handle an article that covers any random combination of media. That kind of Wikipedia project management is well beyond me. (I wonder how reasonable the result would be if you just took the animanga templates and used them unchanged. If it's not bad, maybe the right answer is just to rename them to something more generic.)

Jordan Brown 00:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I like where this is going. Media standardization infoboxes. -- Ned Scott 03:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, so I can't resist a puzzle. I tried putting vanilla animanga infobox entries into Dragnet (series). The result was this. Since that was sort of successful, I got more adventurous. First I created my own private module for a radio program, and then I copied one of the animanga modules to create my own TV series module and added a few of the Infobox Television features, to create this. Of course, you can always look at the current state of that page at User:Jordan Brown/Dragnet (series). (Note one change from the TV infobox: I consolidated IMDB and TV.com into a single "Links" line, both for consistent formatting and to conserve space.)

One might hope that the background color could be extracted out to CSS or a metatemplate or something, to avoid having to duplicate it across the entire suite. It'd be nice to create a meta-template for an optional parameter, so that you'd just say {{Infobox optional|Label|varname}} and it'd do all the conditionals and whatnot, but I don't know whether that'd really fly.

Comments? Jordan Brown 06:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Please take discussion of the implementation of this experimental infobox system to User:Jordan Brown/Infobox media and User talk:Jordan Brown/Infobox media. We can leave discussion of whether and how to use it or something like it here. (Plus of course it'll eventually be necessary to get buyin from the movie, video game, animanga, et cetera communities.) Jordan Brown 07:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

(indentation reset) Hmm. No comments since Ned's comment; in particular, no comments on my experiments.

Based on the results of those experiments, I think that Template:Infobox Television should be reimplemented based on a modular framework like the one in WP:ANIME. Articles that need only the single-entry form could use Template:Infobox Television; articles that need multiple entries could use the underlying header and module templates directly. Of course, the Anime infoboxes should be pulled into the same framework.

Comments?

Jordan Brown 08:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

It might be interesting to open up a brain storm of sorts for new ideas. Invite lots of editors via WikiProjects and talk pages to just whip up different ideas on how to approach the infobox situation, get lots of different examples on one page, and see what we come up with. Make your own infobox and show it off, then everyone picks and chooses the different elements they like and don't like, as well as maybe identifying unique situations, etc. Heck, the more I think about this the more it starts to sound.. well.. fun. (oh, the wikidork I've become..)

The reason I suggest this is because I'm not sure if people would normally be comfortable with large scale infobox change. I think if we can present many ideas like I've suggested, we'll be able to develop this idea more rapidly and with more flexibility. Basically, something to help people think outside of the box. Throw all the ideas out on the table and really get something nice. It's not that the infoboxes are bad, but I've always thought we could do better, for just about all of them (TV, anime, film, etc). -- Ned Scott 09:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. I agree that they aren't bad, but I think they have some weaknesses. In particular, they seem ill-suited to multi-release works like The Addams Family and Dragnet (series), and they have a lot of duplication from one to the next. (In fact, if I was to be really bold, I'd suggest some commonizing across all infoboxes... why should they have different color schemes, for instance?)

There seems to have been a fair amount of discussion over at Template talk:Infobox Television#Reimplement in modular form?, so let's continue the discussion there.

Jordan Brown 17:00, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Fix The Love Boat Links

Could someone please fix all improper links to The Love Boat? Many pages link to "Love Boat" assuming that it will lead to the television show, and instead it links to an obscure "Overseas Chinese Youth Language Training and Study Tour to the Republic of China". It won't take a lot of time, as there aren't that many incorrect links. I just don't have the time currently (swamped with schoolwork) and I think it should be fixed ASAP, that's why I came to you guys with the job. Bifgis 01:26, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

"U.S. Broadcast History"

What is the opinion of people here on sections entitled "U.S. Broadcast History" (or for that matter any other country..) – They are generally just duplicating "International distribution" sections, the point of the matter is Wikipedia is not a U.S. only encyclopaedia, (nor for that matter is it a UK, Canadian or any other country only encyclopaedia) and so should we be having dedicated sections for singular countries? (I do believe however we should of course tell when it premièred in its original country and when it ceased within the lead-in..) - I've recently had to remove a fair few of these sections and asked the editor in question who is adding them to stop. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 17:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

It might be ok if it was something like "English broadcasting history" and contained info on all English speaking nations, since a reader of the English Wikipedia is likely to take particular interest in that. If there is something notable about a specific broadcast, I can see that, but I doubt there would need to be a dedicated section just to one country. -- Ned Scott 21:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Err.. "They are generally just duplicating 'International distribution'" (in my above message.. :-\) thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 21:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

"See Also" vs infobox?

I'm extrapolating from WP:TV#External links that when the infobox includes a link to the list of episodes, the See Also section shouldn't.

Comments? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jordan Brown (talk • contribs) 19:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC).

Linking No. of episodes in the infoboxes

If a show has a separate article on its episodes, should that article be linked to the number of episodes in the infobox? --May the Edit be with you, always. T-borg ^{(drop me a line)} 15:42, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Are you looking for something other than the Template:Infobox Television "list_episodes" parameter? It shows up in the infobox like

No. of episodes

27 (List of episodes)

See, for instance, the infobox at Star Trek: The Original Series.

Jordan Brown 18:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

So, is that the way it should be in the infobox, under the condition a separate page for episodes exists? --May the Edit be with you, always. T-borg ^{(drop me a line)} 18:19, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm a newbie here, but I can only presume that since that's the way the infobox template is rigged it's the preferred way to supply the information. Note that if the show's article supplies list_episodes, the template can be tweaked to a different presentation and all shows will track it. Jordan Brown 17:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Got it, thanks. --May the Edit be with you, always. T-borg ^{(drop me a line)} 22:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: List of problems solved by MacGyver

FYI, List of problems solved by MacGyver is nominated for deletion. — EncMstr 07:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

A question on game show categories

Category:1 vs. 100 has people that were in "the mob" on the show, as well as the host Bob Saget. I can understand the host, but others? I don't think it's needed. Category:Jeopardy! seems to have the same issue. Then there is Category:Gameshow Marathon. Celebrities were solely the contestants on that show. Game show categories shouldn't be dumping grounds for contestants. Category:Game show contestants and it's sub cats do the job just fine in my opinion. What does everyone else think? I was just going to remove all the un-needed cats, but decided to ask here first. Plus I'm sure the other game show categories are effected by this as well... so it's not a simple one person task. RobJ1981 01:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I created Category:Jeopardy! contestants as a start. As long as we have categories for actors on specific shows, we would have categories for notable contestants on specific game shows. If the game shows are short-lived and/or have few notable contestants, then a separate category would be overcategorization. For 1 vs. 100 and Gameshow Marathon, having a separate cat for contestants would be over the top. Tinlinkin 16:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Category:Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is the next cat I want to clean up, but I don't know if there should be separate cats for the British and US contestants. Tinlinkin 16:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Reality contestants, hosts & judges vs. participants

In the December 6, 2006 CfD discussion for Idol series contestants, I raised the proposal that there be two levels of categories for people in reality television:

• Category:Reality television participants Category:Reality television staff: includes hosts, judges, advisors, and other non-contestants/participants
  • Category:Reality television contestants Category:Reality television participants: a subcategory of the above, contains only contestants/participants

The basic idea is that there should be a distinction between contestants and non-contestants. Any thoughts? Tinlinkin 16:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree on the distinction part of it, but participants and contestants sound alot alike to me at least. RobJ1981 19:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

"Participants" and "contestants" do sound alike to me, also. And I don't think reality show non-contestants are called "participants" as I think of the connotation of that word. But some users want to have consistency in categories named "contestants" and "participants", preferring to land on "participants". At the same time, they want to have the participants category include all reality show people, and I disagree with that because an important distinction would be lost. I don't have a better suggestion other than Category:Reality television people, which I'm reluctant to have as a category name (rather indiscriminate-sounding title), and I don't want to overcategorize judges, hosts, consultants, etc. either. Tinlinkin 22:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

"Staff"? Jordan Brown 02:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Staff could work for the category. RobJ1981 03:00, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

That's a naming I'll support (with changes reflected above). Also, since some participants are not contestants (e.g. Britney Spears), the subcategory will be named "participants." If you want to preserve the separation of contestants/participants (or not), you should discuss at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 December 6#Category:Idol series contestants. Tinlinkin 07:36, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Adult Swim

I've added 2 tags to it recently: cleanup-laundry (list cleanup basically) and advert (for advertisement). The article has a few good starting paragraphs...then goes downhill. It has a current schedule and coming soon sections. Wikipedia isn't a TV guide, nor should it ever be. Plus there is a huge trivia section that needs to be cleaned as well. I've posted this message on the article's talk page as well. So I'm hoping both groups of editors can improve these issues. RobJ1981 06:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Adult Swim Fix also needs cleanup. RobJ1981 06:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Filmography

Do we have a filmography guidline? If not, we should make one. Or maybe let Wikipedia:Biography take care of it. - Peregrinefisher 01:47, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

original run information in intro section

TheDJ added

This section is usually reserved for "original-run" information, sometimes with additional US/UK information in case the series is not of US/UK origins. Lists with International broadcasting information, or syndication information is often not desired here.

Why is US/UK information special? It seems like either it makes sense to include all first-run-in-country information, or only first-run-in-origin-country.

Now, since runs in countries other than the origin country aren't on the originating network, for instance, it seems like the appropriate information may be quite limited - perhaps only run dates. That's true whether or not the country is US/UK.

Jordan Brown 06:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Because en.wikipedia.org is english oriented. This means that in many cases the "english speaking" point of perspective is primary and as such important. For instance "The Office" is originally a UK series but it's US spinoff success is so much more prevalent to "our" audience that it's valid first section information. (I know bad example since it's UK vs. US, but it's the best i can come up with atm.) I however do think that the addition needs some rephrasing.... TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 17:15, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite

I have started a rewrite of the page Television program which is in a disgraceful condition atm. Please contribute with me to it in the comming days. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 16:52, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Category:Joey (TV series) and eponymous TV categories

Ok, I'm trying to get my head around eponymous TV categories and it doesn't seem to be consistent. Recently we had a cfd on Category:Joey (TV series), a category that currently has exactly two items. One is the subcategory Category:Joey episodes and the other is the main article Joey (TV series). Note that both items already appear in other parent categories, so neither would be orphaned if Category:Joey (TV series) were deleted.

Nonetheless, the admin marked the result as "keep" (although as a technicality I think it was "no consensus" since half the people wanted to keep and the other half supported deletion, but anyway....) My question then is this - if Category:Joey (TV series) is considered acceptable, then to be consistent shouldn't every TV show have its own unique category? The show doesn't appear to be any more notable than any other television show, and if the lower bar to category creation is that it have at least two items, why don't almost all the TV shows on Wikipedia have their own category?

What I'm trying to look for is consistency. If all the TV shows are supposed to have their own category, then so be it, but if not then why we are keeping virtually empty categories like Category:Joey (TV series)? Since all these categories fall under this project, I'm posting this open question here for insight into what your project is looking for here. Should I start adding more such eponymous categories for TV shows that don't have them, or should I start cfd'ing the eponymous categories that can be deleted apparently without problem? Dugwiki 16:12, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Such a category seems unnecessary to me. If there are a small and finite number of related articles, it seems like internal linkage (wikilinks and See Also sections) are sufficient and more useful than categories. Categories seem appropriate for articles that are not strongly related to each other and may be created completely independently of one another. Even a fairly large collection of articles about a TV series seem like they might be better linked together through internal linkages (through lists of episodes, lists of characters, et cetera). Jordan Brown 03:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

That cfd seems seriously underpopulated and more a discussion. And it definetly was a (no concensus ->keep vote) Though technically there is indeed no reason to delete the show category, it does seem like overdoing it. To have 2 categories for so few related articles really seems like a waste, and indeed creating a precendent to create more of such "empty" categories in the future. The thing is that even though they are right about much of their "keep" arguments, the fact is that this thing simply does NOT aid in ordering said information and making it better searchable/navigable if you ask me. However remember that wikipedia is NOT consistent and not intended to be. Creating categories for all the other series that are in the same situation, would be a violation of the WP:POINT policy in my eyes. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 13:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It would only be a violation of WP:POINT if, for example, I just started randomly making categories to show that it's a bad idea. Obviously I'm not doing that, though. Rather, I'm asking for feedback on what the preferred categorization scheme is for television shows. Wikipedia isn't always consistent, BUT it does try to be consistent within fields of study. So to that end it's a good idea if television shows are categorized in a consistent manner. Otherwise a reader looking for information about specific shows might find that sometimes he has to look in one manner, and other times he looks in another manner. Or sometimes he uses one spelling, and other times uses another spelling.

So this is a question about what guideline is desired for television series categorization. Should there be a bar to entry to having an eponymous category for a TV series? And if so, where should that bar lie? Dugwiki 17:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Are you forgetting that Wikipedia is *not* paper? We do not have a "limit" - Just because a category only has 2 articles now doesn't mean it won't have 3 articles tomorrow, or the day after, or who knows? The fact is that it does exist and trying to get it deleted is just pointless, when the fact is that television shows are category worthy. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 17:42, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

"Not paper" has nothing to do with the problem. The issue is category dilution within articles. An article having too many categories presents a couple of problems. First, it makes it more difficult for readers to find the category or information they're looking for if they have to sort through a score of category listings. Also, having categories with information that is almost completely redundant with links in the main article increases the maintainence requirements by forcing editors to not only update the main article but to also maintain the categories associated with that same information.

Now if there were a substantial benefit to the reader for, say, Joey to have his own category, then that would be one thing. But in this case there is absolutely no benefit that I can see for the reader. How does having this category benefit a reader looking for information about actors or episodes or anything else related to the show? All they need to do is visit the main article and they get the exact same information.

Thus "Wikipedia is not paper" has nothing to do with the problems associated with eponymous categories; it's not an issue with disk space or physical paper. Rather, the issues are that you are gaining almost no additional search utility for the reader at the cost of increased maintainence and category clutter within articles. Dugwiki 18:13, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

There are currently no clear rules regarding categorization of the TV related articles. The only one thing that truly can be considered a rule is that the "Tv show by network/channel" are only intended for "original" airing, as are the "decades in Television" and "year of debut", "country (of origin) show" categories. Beyond that it's a total mess without much concensus where ever you go :D

I agree that that is bad and unwanted, but I don't see it changing anytime soon. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 18:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it's not a short term project, that's for sure. I'm more looking for guidance in the form of maybe a TV Project guideline or something that I can refer to for cfd's and the like. It'd be nice to have some consensus on this stuff one way or another. Dugwiki 19:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

This new guideline might help, Wikipedia:Overcategorization. -- Ned Scott 19:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the topic of eponymous categories in general is on the talk page for Wikipedia:Overcategorization. I've been following that guideline's talk page for a little while now, and it's generally a pretty good article. Unfortunately the specific topic of eponymous categories is still kind of up in the air and hasn't actually been incorporated yet in the guideline itself. Dugwiki 19:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Categories named after television series

[2] [3] Are we pro this and will we make it "WP:TV" policy? I was reading the deletion discussion, and I'm not sure yet if I'm pro or not. Although the categories do have some commonalities with "categories named after people", I also think that most categories without their own verses are actually just fine within the "articlespace" categories. They are much less broad then most of those "people" categories. StarTrek and Stargate etc. might be exceptions of course. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 13:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Eh..? thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 17:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Episode order: by airdate or production?

When having a list of episodes, is there a consensus as to whether they should be ordered by production or air date? In other words, should they be ordered in the order they were made or the order they were broadcasted? Joltman 18:37, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

It depends in cases where some episodes where "lost" and aired after the show ends it makes sense to do it by the production, if however there is no such problem air date would seem to be the correct way. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 18:41, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, there may be a solution for this problem! Sortable tables. It might need some tweaking to work with the normal episode list format that we usually use, but there should be a way. -- Ned Scott 21:08, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks good, hopefully they'll add it onto Wikimedias wiki's soon. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 21:25, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

It's already added, actually:

{|class="wikitable sortable" ! Title !! Prod number !! Episode number |- | The Themeback Banner || A002 || 01 |- | Other Areas of Power || A007 || 02 |- | Taco Party 7 || A001 || 03 |- | Plastic Cable || A003 || 04 |}

The only problem is that it doesn't work correctly for tables using screen shots or summaries, but there might be some ways around that, I'm just not sure how yet. -- Ned Scott 01:08, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Heh, and for some reason Safari seems to have problems with sortable tables, but FireFox works fine. I haven't seen it in IE, but I assume it works for that. -- Ned Scott 01:10, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

DuMont Television Network FAC

Recently I've submitted the DuMont Television Network article for Featured Article candidacy. I left a request for the fine folks on Wikipedia:Wikiproject TV Stations to make suggestions on ways the article might be improved before it was sent to FAC, but the results were somewhat underwhelming (in the sense that no one there commented). This article has had peer review and is currently a Good Article. I'm leaving a note here in the hopes that some nice TV buffs might take a look at the article and opine or whine about it on the FAC page. I will gladly attempt to fix anything that still needs improvement. Best wishes, Firsfron of Ronchester 05:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Category:Cancelled TV series cfd notice

FYI, I have placed Category:Cancelled TV series on the cfd board for discussion and either deletion or renaming/redefining/changing its parent category. This category is brand new, created Dec 31 2006, and appears to have some problems in how it is defined.

Please feel free to include your input at the discussion at [4]. (I'd recommend keeping comments on the discussion at that link so people not directly in this project will see them.) I included my reasons for the cfd at that link, so I won't bother rehashing it here. Dugwiki 17:30, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Are broadcast schedules copyrightable?

Please weigh in at this discussion. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not reading it as it's to long, but in short: no. - they are not creative works, they are not a "particular expression of an idea or information" (Copyright) thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 23:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

An interesting debate, but I'm not sure why it's on ANI. Anyways, broadcast schedules don't seem to be eligible for copyright, since it's just what happened at what time. -- Ned Scott 00:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

What's confused some people is that the television schedules were "created" by someone, but just because your decisions can be expressed as written data doesn't mean that you've created copyrightable written expression. The schedule is more akin to a set of instructions, or a recipe: "air program B after program A at these times." This is not eligible for copyright.

There's also the fact that the relevant "work" to be judged would not be a night's schedule as a whole, but instead a single network's schedule. These only include around 3 - 5 elements, a very short "phrase" consisting of a few television series titles as "words" that is simply too insubstantial to qualify for copyright protection. Postdlf 02:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It definitely didn't belong on AN/I. I don't think television programming grids are any more copyrightable than train station schedules: both exist only to relay scheduling information; they aren't creative "works". Firsfron of Ronchester 05:28, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• The link provided above for weighing in on this debate didn't work for me. This did. My comments are posted there.--Vbd 14:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Annother CfD on actor categories

Someone has CfD several actor categories Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_January_4#Category:The_4400_actors.2C_Category:Andromeda_.28TV_series.29_actors.2C_Category:Battlestar_Galactica_.281978.29_actors.2C_Category:Battlestar_Galactica_.282004.29_actors.2C_Category:Heroes_.28TV_series.29_actors.2C_Category:Roswell_actors_and_Category:Torchwood_actors. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 11:21, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

The Quatermass Experiment FAR

The Quatermass Experiment has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

tvland link spam

When randomly browsing some articles, I noticed several tvland.com links in the external links of some shows. These shows apparently all air or have aired on TV Land, however that hardly seems like a qualification for an External link (in that case those sections could be filled with a dozen of links from all around the world). I noticed that many of these additions have been made on January 2nd, by the following user: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Aldengirl I propose they be removed. Does anyone disagree with that? TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 20:20, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

No strong feeling either way, but could a case be made that these are the equivalent of an "Official website" for old shows that don't have a real Official site, and are broadcast on TVLand? - Peregrine Fisher 20:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Friends review

A review of the Friends article, most probably leading to a rewrite, is going on at Talk:Friends/Rewrite. Anyone is welcome - a list of good references about the TV series would be quite handy at this stage. CloudNine 20:37, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Star Cops

I opened a peer review for Star Cops recently. I want to submit it for GA following the review. Please come by and make some suggestions. Joe King 20:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Professional wrestling about handling episodes/storylines

FYI, I started a discussion over at [WikiProject Professional wrestling] over how to possibly handle episodic style articles for wrestling shows. Many other types of television shows have articles for specific episodes. However, wrestling shows, which are basically just scripted character driven shows with "fight scenes" in the ring, don't currently have episodic articles. It seems odd to handle wrestling shows entirely differently from other scripted shows, including shows that draw lower ratings and/or didn't last as many seasons as RAW or Smackdown, for example.

So the question is this: is there a way to allow for episodic style content articles for notable wrestling television series? So far options might include:

1) Some people expressed that we should be deleting episode articles for television articles that already exist. The idea there is that articles about specific television series episodes are not notable enough for inclusion and are better suited to fan sites devoted to that show.

2) Treat wrestling shows identically to other scripted shows, allowing for episode specific articles. The main downside would be that these shows produce one episode a week each with no reruns, so there are up to 52 individual episodes a year per show. That could mean extra maintainence.

3) Consolidate information from multiple episodes in a single article. One possibility would be to compact information from each month or between major pay-per-views within a single article. Another would be to create an article per major storyline, most of which take place over multiple episodes, leaving out "one-shot" matches. This would reduce the number of articles per show to about 5-15 per year, depending on the format used.

Since this discussion is directly related to how to handle episodes for television shows in general, feedback from this project is appreciated. I'd recommend keeping discussion on it to the WP:PW discussion so that all the comments are in one place. The only advice I'd suggest going into the discussion is to keep in mind that these shows are not just sporting events, but do involve a fair amount of fictional scripting and plot lines. Reporting just simple numeric results loses a great deal of information. Thanks! Dugwiki 17:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I think #1 is the best idea. Episodes should be on fan Wikis. It's getting way out of hand here on Wikipedia. Alot of TV episode articles (not all though.. yet at least) are full of POV, cruft, too many quotes, too much trivia and so on. The problem is never settled, and continues on with no apparent end in sight. As for wrestling: it would probably be the same thing, if articles for each show were made. A month article for all the Raw episodes wouldn't be much different. I know many people enjoy the TV episode articles, in case they miss a show or whatever: but the fact of the matter is... Wikipedia isn't a collection of information (a guideline clearly states that). There is many TV websites out there with plot summaries galore they can easily find. RobJ1981 05:51, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

International Broadcasters

People in a recent AfD for Airdates of Lost and now another for Airdates of House (TV series) have expressed concern that including a list/table of international broadcasters and the series premiere date for each is inappropriate, particularly because they are unverifiable and a collection of indiscriminate information. The AfDs have obviously targeted the cases where such lists are split off as their own articles, but there are many series which include the exact same information as part of the main article. The project page doesn't state explicitly whether it's appropriate or not, but I think given that significant concerns have been raised about these sections, we should probably come a decision and incorporate that into the project page.

My view and more explanation is covered at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Airdates of House (TV series). – Þ  21:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

A list of airdates, the listings of dates and times that a show is on internationally, is not the same as listing the broadcasters, and therefore I think this discussion of international broadcasters will stray from the AfD. If you can find another TV series article that lists dates/times of international stations, please list them here. -- Wikipedical 21:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused, because Airdates of House (TV series) doesn't include the information you're talking about. Maybe Airdates of Lost did, I don't know since it's already been deleted. – Þ  09:58, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Cahoots TV

Is Cahoots TV a real show? Also see List of Cahoots episodes. Maybe they just got their dates wrong. - Peregrine Fisher 05:41, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Possible Project for Supernatural

I'm a huge fan of Supernatural and with all the canon and new backstory info this season maybe it's time for a WikiProject for the show and its pieces. Especially with all the plotline with Sam and how he's linked to others like him.

Just an idea from a newbie(but been lurking for quite some time)

(LadySatine 09:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC))

Upcoming TV

I'm ok with the new section after the edit by Matthew. Also, the four templates linked in that section have been updated recently, I'd recommend checking them out. --Milo H Minderbinder 17:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally I think it would be best to combine all four of those templates into one template now, seems more manageable that way as well. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 17:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

They do seem fairly redundant. You want to take a stab at turning one into a multipurpose template? --Milo H Minderbinder 17:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

OMG. you have to be kidding me. This is what i suggested like over a year ago and everybody was against it. Now we are gonna merge them all back again using ParserFunctions ? It's all just fine by me, but I want this settled already. it's getting annoying. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 17:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

My attempt...

• series
• episode
• running

Still working on it. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 18:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

And what I was working on:

this showed a user's sandbox template and is currently implemented in {{future television}}

I forgot to mention that this template also automatically categorizes into the existing categories. Seems handy. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 20:28, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Shall i put this template in place on {{future television}} and redirect the other templates to use it? TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 16:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Other issues:

• the category Running television shows often gets added to individual shows without it's template. I vote it should be renamed.
• the "info" thing is a problem and has always been. It's definition is often changing and not well understood. It was supposed to warn about competition shows like The Apprentice, american idol where contestant info was fast changing, or shows with announcements about their future development. Information that is confirmed, but not yet set in stone. The current text applies to almost any series that has been broadcast once and not yet definitively cancelled, which is way too broad. Can we please come up with a better text or just delete the entire thing?
• there is no place for "upcoming seasons", unless you count that under info as "future development".
• Series and shows is a seperation which is not really necessary if you ask me. They could both easily cat into Upcoming television shows, I vote to keep the seperate template messages (just so it reads better), but delete Upcoming television series.

Could people please contribute to the discussion this time, before i'm gonna be WP:BOLD again? TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 16:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The template has been put into place. I have changed the other templates to make use of it. I'm considering getting a bot to subst those templates with the new one, and then getting them deleted. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 19

05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Reality Telivision Shows

Are these included in this WikiProject? I added Top Chef and Top Design, but I am wanting to make sure these are part of this WikiProject. Tinkleheimer 19:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe they are. Big Brother, Big Brother is anyway. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 19:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Mass removal of images from List of episodes pages

There have been some mass removals of the images from various List of episodes pages. For example, List of Heroes episodes. Despite Wikipedia talk:Fair use criteria/Amendment 2 being thoroughly shot down, the removals continue. Originally it started with the removal of images that weren't good, unique representatives of their episode, or didn't have detailed fair use rationals. The movement seems to be gaining steam, and heading towards removal of all fair use images from TV episode lists. Any ideas on how we can stop this? - Peregrine Fisher 22:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the proposed ammendment as particularly relevant either way. What is the reason for the deletions, that they aren't necessary, or that they are a fair use violation? Is using a bunch of photos to illustrate a list a violation of fair use? --Milo H Minderbinder 22:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

At times it appears that the prevailing attitude among some editors is that any use of images is a violation of fair use. See, for example, the (IMO unnecessary) mass removal of TV Guide images from dozens of articles last year. Right now I'm trying to keep the main image at T'Pol alive because an editor is of the opinion a free version is available.23skidoo 19:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I have a similar concern with the article for Jared Padalecki. Someone recently removed the actor's fair use photo from the infobox, leaving behind the words <!-- free images only -->. Has it really come to this, that unless a Wikipedian personally takes a photo of an actor and releases it, it is not acceptable to have an image showing what the actor looks like? There is another image further down of Padelecki with his co-star, illustrating the show they're in, so it may be that the person was reasoning on a one-image-per-article basis. The images illustrated two different things, (the actor and the series), but they are both from the same show. I could substitute a screen capture from A Ring of Endless Light (film), but that seems like a silly way to handle this, and may not alleviate the other editor's concerns. Even if there's only one picture used, shouldn't priority be given to having something in the infobox? I didn't revert because I didn't want to get into an edit war without further guidance. (I realize this is more a WP Biography issue, but surely it's an overlapping concern for TV as well.) Karen | Talk | contribs 21:09, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Those are the rules. If a free image could be created, then a fair use image cannot take its place. The reasoning is that no one will try to find a free image if there's already an image there. This can't really be fought because the people who control wikipedia have decided this. Images of characters are not replaceable, which is why the other image is OK. The infobox image is about the actor, not the character, which is why you can't move the images up. - Peregrine Fisher 21:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The Rich List

I recommend that The Rich List be moved to The Rich List (US game show), with the original link redirecting to The Rich List (Australian game show).

With the US version only lasting one episode it is unlikely to receive much interest on wikipedia - on the otherhand the Australian version is a major prime time show in Australia that is (at this stage) still in production.

Alternatively, merge the two pages together. 139.168.189.96 11:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea of merging the two together. I've added merge template tags to both articles and suggest moving discussion to Talk:The Rich List#The Rich List. -- Ned Scott 23:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)