Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Episode lists/Archive 3

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Old WP:TVE: 04/04 - 06/07 Old WP:LOE: August 2005 - April 2006 May 2005 - June 2006 June 2006 - January 2007 Feb 2007 - June 2007 /structure Current: 7-12 June 2007 Deletion-related

/structure

Wikipedia:WikiProject List of Television Episodes/structure needs to be updated a bit and cleaned up to reflect the formatting currently being used by the templates and such. I've started to edit some stuff, trying to stick with things that I think you'll all agree with. Feel free to revert, edit, reword, anything you don't think sounds right. Any major concerns should be brought to ether this talk page or to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject List of Television Episodes/structure. I think it's important that we still explain the article layout even without using templates. For one, it shows people what the templates are actually doing, in raw form, as well as giving editors a non-template option, if there be a need for it. In addition, I think we should strive to eventually get this, or something like this, into the Manual of Style as an official guideline, in which case we would have to explain all the formatting details.

In addition to the changes I made, there should also be a section about references, which is one requirement for Featured list status. I also think we should come up with some guidelines to help deal with lists that are embedded into their main articles and not big enough to split. Maybe even explore other formatting appearances that would still be acceptable, to give some additional options.

This should at least get the ball rolling. I think it might be a good idea to inform some other wikiprojects about the updates to get their input, since our membership is still pretty small. -- Ned Scott 02:40, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I also got to thinking, in having more than one possible layout, we should have a guideline for very small lists, ones that don't have a summary or image. A good example can't come to mind at the moment, but I'm sure there are many lists were it would be a mess to encourage summaries for each episode entry. Game-shows come to mind, but I don't really think they should even have a list with each "episode", as they don't really have... "episodes". Just a thought. -- Ned Scott 03:42, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Cell shading

I just noticed how nice the cell shading was done for the row that contains title and air date in The Simpsons season 4. It really helps to visually separate the information and makes it easier to read. Maybe we should apply this to our style guidelines and templates? -- Ned Scott 20:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah looks nice. I'm all for it. - TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 22:11, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we might even be able to use the math function of templates to make this process easier. Basically, it would take whatever value LineColor has, then lighten it. Now to see if I can get that to work.. -- Ned Scott 08:28, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I've applied some very light cell shading to Template:Japanese episode list as a test. Even though it's very subtle it seems to make an improvement. Should we try this on Template:Episode list? I know the template is mixed with manual table code, like in List of South Park episodes, so we might want to at least manually enter the shading in the normal wiki code for consistency on those articles. Thoughts? -- Ned Scott 05:23, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and applied it to Episode list as well, and I manually put in the shading for the other episode entries on the South Park list so they'd keep their consistency, being a featured list and all. -- Ned Scott 01:08, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Parameter compatibility

I think we should strive to keep the same names for the parameters of the templates where possible. Also we should probably make some comments on things like "Guest stars, directors, writers etc.". Personally i prefer the way Grey's Anatomy and Simpsons Season 4 do this. It's much more readable then having it in seperate columns. - TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 22:11, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, although for the Japanese episode list that was basically my reason for making its own template, to make parameter names that would be easily understood what they were for. I think there's a way to make more than one parameter name equal the same parameter, which would make it so that there wouldn't be a need for a separate template like Japanese episode list, and even if you moved the parameters to another template they'd still work. But yeah, I agree, this making consistent use of parameter names will allow episode list data to be applied to many different templates without needless editing. -- Ned Scott 06:04, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Response to comment

Hi, one of your project's leaders made a comment on the page List of Stargate SG-1 episodes. I would just like to say that I have responded and made a proposal that I think you will like. Please respond on the SG-1 list's talk page; we should keep the thread in one place. Tobyk777 08:07, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Categories

I was thinking we should evaluate the categories we have right now and see if there's any possible restructering / renaming / etc. Also, we should probably note a bit more as some form of guideline, even just a short one on the main project page, about how to select the appropate category. Here's a list of our current categories:

• Category:Lists of television series episodes

• Category:Lists of animated television series episodes
• Category:Lists of anime television series episodes
• Category:Lists of anthology television series episodes
• Category:Lists of children's television series episodes
• Category:Lists of comedy television series episodes
• Category:Lists of crime television series episodes
• Category:Lists of drama television series episodes
• Category:Lists of dramedy television series episodes
• Category:Lists of fantasy television series episodes
• Category:Lists of nonfiction television series episodes
• Category:Lists of reality television series episodes
• Category:Lists of science fiction television series episodes
• Category:Lists of sitcom television series episodes
• Category:Lists of soap opera episodes
• Category:Lists of variety television series episodes

and there you have it. If anyone hasn't already done so, be sure to read / skim through Wikipedia:Categorization when coming up with suggestions and ideas. -- Ned Scott 09:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair use images in lists

See Wikipedia:Fair use/Fair use images in lists for a request for comment about the use of fair use images in lists. This RFC arose out of a dispute about the use of images on list of Lost episodes and has grown beyond that article to have broader significance for lists generally. Please join the discussion if you are interested in this issue. --bainer (talk) 05:03, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

List of Justice League episodes

At List of Justice League episodes,we have an editor who wants to split all of the episodes off at once into their own articles. Unfortunately for him, the majority of editors has asked him not to create so many stubs at once, saying that the current page should be expanded before we go to individual episodes. Despite several Wikipedia bans over the last month, this editor refuses to listen, is uncivil toward the editors who do not agree with him, and continuously splits of articles and reverts the current one dispute consensus being against it. He is now seeking support at a number of other TV articles. This has gone on far too long. I have asked as a compromise that he add the information he wants to add to the current article so that it will expand enough to split off. I would appreciate it if editors from here came and provided some guidance one way or the other because I have never seen one editor rage against a number of other editors and revert their edits for so long.--Chris Griswold 06:50, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

This looks like a headache... but agreed. This is one editor forcing his flawed logic on others. LOE is in need of writing up and adopting such guidelines for the whole article -> ep list -> ep article, evolution, looks like now is a good time to come up with a draft, and maybe those rationales will help the JL issue as well. -- Ned Scott 07:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much. I have been working to organize WP:COMICS and would like to help out here as well. --Chris Griswold 08:42, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Using our WikiProject banner for a notice

I've placed a notice using {{WikiProject LOE}} in regards to the current RFC about fair use images in Lists of episodes. Normally I'd be against using a WikiProject banner for posting this type of notice, but I feel the issue is very important to our WikiProject, and will effect many articles that we are involved with. For the sake of informing other editors, this seemed to be a good idea. The message can easily be removed, and is very efficient in informing many effected articles and editors with little effort. I don't think this is something we should make a habit of, in any case, but feel this is a special case. -- Ned Scott 04:14, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, considering the discussions really aren't making any new/ drastic grounds, and it doesn't seem like a consensus will be forming anytime soon, I've removed the notice from the WikiProject banner template. I think we should still have a notice of it (such as the manual banner on the top of this talk page) and definitely still keep track of the debate. The issue doesn't seem as urgent right now, or at least, in a sense that it would require a major notice such as this to be constantly displayed for more than a month. -- Ned Scott 11:56, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

DVD release information at the top of each page

Please tell me if this is not the right place to being this up:

I like the boxes at the top of some episode lists such as List of The Simpsons episodes, since they are a summary that links you to the appropriate season and provide some extra information about DVD releases on the same page. Having DVD release dates and cover art there isn't entirely necessary in my opinion but that's a minor quibble, it doesn't take up much room to have that there.

What I am against is the massive expansion of this on some pages to have a great long explanation of which episodes are on which DVD sets, such as the pages on Family Guy, the word "summary" has actually been changed to "DVD releases" because there's so much DVD info there, plus the information in this cases is not presented very well anyway. Some shows (including Family Guy) have their own pages for discussing DVD information, and in my opinion even if there isn't it should go on the article's main page. Can I confirm that it's not good practice to have a summary box like this? It's an episode list after all, not a list of DVDs. I thought I'd seen a couple of other pages where there was a lot of DVD stuff in the sumary box but I can't put my finger on them now Jimbow25 18:49, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

That's a tough one. I would say that information does belong somewhere. Maybe it should at least be reduced to two sentances at most just like the episode summaries. The List of Family Guy episodes could probably use a wider table.--Will2k 19:05, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Categorisation work

Hi. I've done some refactoring work on your Project's categories and templates today (along with several other WikiProjects). I'm confident you'll find that the new organisation a big improvement. For more information and a rationale please see what I've written at Wikipedia:WikiProject/Best_practices#Categorisation or drop me a line on my talk page.

If you're not yet assessing articles for Wikipedia 1.0 and using Mathbot, you might also find Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index of subjects and it's talk page very useful. --kingboyk 17:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

That's terrific, thanks!--Will2k 19:47, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

episodes by title

Currently we've been formatting episodes by air date, but I noticed that List of Justice League episodes does it by title/ story. Basically, instead of splitting the entries by Part one, part two, etc, they did that. Depending on the nature of the show, and maybe some other factors, I can see this as a good idea. What does everyone think? -- Ned Scott 20:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I like it with one episode (row) per air date.--Will2k 17:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

more template tweeks

I made the background of the ShortSummary cell white, to help the tables not look so dark. This has also made more contrast between the shading of the Title row. Thoughts? good? bad? -- Ned Scott 20:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

ImageCaption

I'm not sure why this hasn't been included in either of the templates, but I've included the ability to set a caption that will appear as tooltip on the images. --TheFarix (Talk) 17:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. -- Ned Scott 22:11, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's list guidelines

Just noticed this now, but apparently there's been some discussion about Wikipedia:List guideline (see Wikipedia talk:List guideline) about reforming the basic guidelines for lists and list articles. A proposal has come out of that discussion, Wikipedia:List guidelines reborn and will be discussed on Wikipedia talk:List guidelines reborn. I haven't looked at it in depth myself yet, but I thought I'd pass the word. -- Ned Scott 05:51, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Batman: The Animated Series

The episode list for this is severely lacking. Could the members here please lavish some care onto it? Ta. --Jamdav86 20:50, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

What do you think it needs? --Chris Griswold 06:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Has red links to many the episodes, flip-flops between disambigs and part listings, all jobs that are relevant to the list editor. --Jamdav86 18:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Need an opinion

TrackerTV has created a barnstar proposal relating to Broadcasting. I would really appreciate it if interested people could give an opinion here.--Ed 20:58, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment:This barnstar may be used in assoiation with your WikiprojectEd 21:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

List of Justice League episodes

Main article: List of Justice League episodes

People are taking consensus against the conventions in this page. Votes are needed to keep the work up in that page. These people (I think most of them don't even get any work done on the article, just criticize) don't want neither expand the synopsis on the episode list nor create articles per episode and it happens in most cases. --T-man, the wise 06:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Heh, this is more something for WP:TV, as it involves both LOE and WikiProject Television episodes. So far the two daughter projects, LOE and TE, have not directly collaborated on how to grow this information, although it has been suggested that such collaboration would be helpful. Basically, you are looking for a consensus that has not yet been reached by this project. Currently, as a daughter project of WP:TV, we simply follow Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Television episodes. -- Ned Scott 06:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

heh, thanks for the tip. You don't follow the centralized discussion, read it again.--T-man, the wise 07:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

In what way does LOE not follow the centralized discussion? -- Ned Scott 08:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind, I was talking in general LOE is ok. The consensus against a convention is kinda weird.--T-man, the wise 22:59, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Template stuff

Just thought I'd note here that we're playing around the ability to link to specific episode entries, same way the # article-section links work, at Template talk:Episode list#Page anchors. We're also looking to make the optional parameters more efficient and solving the problem of what to do when you have an optional parameter that isn't filled out at Template talk:Episode list#Empty Cells. -- Ned Scott 05:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

On the topic of the templates, I just did a quick count and there are about 93 different episode lists (including both standalone and embedded) that are using the templates! Totaled from {{Episode list}}, {{Episode list (no image)}}, {{Japanese episode list}}, and {{Japanese episode list (no image)}}. -- Ned Scott 03:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Backgrounds

Hello, Could you please add your opinion (or voice your support or a opposition) at this page.

It could decide the fate of colours in not only episode infoboxes but, nav boxes, celeb boxes.. (The bars in between episodes guides..) etc. MatthewFenton (talk • contribs) 10:46, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Or it could be just about one isolated issue, which is basically all that has been discussed so far. --Chris Griswold 11:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

It actually isnt about one issue. MatthewFenton (talk • contribs) 11:11, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

un-filled parameters are no longer an issue

and other great stuff. I'm a bit tired right now, so sorry if my message seems a bit sloppy tonight.

The problem of, say, having Aux1 for director, but then having an episode where it wasn't filled out would result in the cells shifting over. This is no longer a problem. Instead of the parameter being filled out being the trigger for the cell, now wether or not the parameter is listed in the template triggers the cell. Also, the colored line divider should now be IE compatible. And there's no more need for a "non image" template, any episode list that doesn't wish to use images (and wishes thus to not have a column for images) simply needs to remove the |Image= parameter from the template listing (the reverse of the above). Lists that don't wish to have images or summaries, and thus don't need a color divider only need to remove both |ShortSummary= and |Image=. Been reading up about templates and it finally hit me on how to fix those issues.

These fixes are not live yet, they are only on my sandbox page. All of the episode lists (about 100 or so) need to be updated via bot (I can run mine) to remove unused parameters from being listed. The side effect of this fix is, if you don't have a column for "alt date" but you use |AltDate= then a cell will be created for Alt date. The bot will check for and remove such parameters which aren't being used (with a human inspecting each of the final results). Oh, and the Japanese episode list template will also be merged, but still keeping it's custom foreign title parameters (they'll just be equal to Title and AltTitle, etc).

The new template code that I've been playing around with is at User:Ned Scott/sandbox and examples can be seen at User:Ned Scott/sandbox2 (be sure to look at the page in the edit view to see what I mean).

Still have some more tweaks, and then run the bot through, which should actually be a simple process. But I do want some other people to look at it incase I missed anything (which I probably did, like I said, I'm a bit tired right now :) ) and give their inputs and such. Also, be sure to look at the examples in other web browsers and see if you can spot any compatibility issues. Again, any input, feedback, whatever is welcome. -- Ned Scott 09:38, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and everything except Title is optional now (heck, even Title could be optional, if we want, since there won't be an issue of optional parameters not popping up.) Also, the line color divider no longer is using an empty table row to make the color, but instead is using style=, so it should show up in IE now. Also, here's a list of the parameters:

|EpisodeNumber=
|EpisodeNumber2=
|ProdCode=
|Title=
|AltTitle=
|Aux1=
|Aux2=
|OriginalAirDate=
|AltDate=
|Image=
|ImageSize=
|ImageCaption=
|ShortSummary=
|LineColor=
|TopColor=

Example of minimal parameter use:

|EpisodeNumber=
|Title=
|OriginalAirDate=

Tyipical use:

|EpisodeNumber=
|Title=
|OriginalAirDate=
|Image=
|ShortSummary=

So to keep the instructions simple, I think the basic parameters should be introduced first, then show the extra options such as the colors, sizes, aux cells, etc. Oh yeah, and there's now |TopColor= so people can change the shading of the title row if they want, like what is seen on The Simpsons (season 2). -- Ned Scott 09:56, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

new template stuff now live

{{Episode list (no image)}} now redirects to {{Episode list}}, which has been updated using the sandbox template (with some more updates). Everything seems to work, but the line color divider looked really.. bad.. with some of the lighter colors. I changed it back to using the old line divider to the time being, not sure if we should find another way or just update the articles with light colors. I updated all the articles that used unused parameters, and there seemed to be no major issues. Most won't even notice a difference :)

Also, when there is no |Image=, the template swings around the episode number to the left hand side as it did with {{Episode list (no image)}}, but in doing so now |TopColor= or it's default (or a manual entry of color for that first row) won't work at all when it is in a no-image state. As you can see from the edit history, it was driving me nuts last night, and I still can't seem to find the issue. The template is a bit hard to follow right now, it's not all nicely indented and such, but you should be able to see what I mean. And I still haven't figured out why using the # sign in a parameter messes it up (an old problem), which prevents us from using spelled out color values such as "blue" (as it would result in bgcolor="#blue" instead of ="blue"). If you are wondering why it has an if-statement for that color, it's so that lists without summaries or images can be presented without color options or a color line (a "simple" mode, of sorts).

Instructions have been updated a little bit, but in general could probably be updated to be more easier to follow. So that's where I'm at. I haven't gone through the articles that use unused parameters for {{Japanese episode list}} yet, so they're still using the old template. When it's all said and done they'll all be using one template, while still being able to use specific parameters when there is a large demand for them. -- Ned Scott 19:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Nice work. I was looking at the examples here and the one that says "Nothing is filled out for Image or ShortSummary, but because they are there the template will format places for them to show that they should be filled in" seems to have its "#" out of place. - Peregrinefisher 19:48, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, {{{ShortSummary}}} is showing up in the ShortSummary box if "|ShortSummary=" is left out. - Peregrinefisher 20:20, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Alright, the problem with the TopColor is fixed now. The only "issue" left is the use of English colors as well as hex value colors. -- Ned Scott 20:34, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

List of Smallville episodes dispute

moved from #/structure

Currently there is a debate about the structure with List of Smallville episodes. These "lists" create hundreds of unsupportable episode pages. Single episode pages are riddled with unencyclopedic information. Goofs, Trivia, Quotes, Special Guest Stars, Allusions, Featured music are all things that are not considered encyclopedic on Film pages, let along TV pages, it's fancruft. These things are best reserved for Wikia. Also, expanded plots that are scene for scene are unencyclopedic and poor quality. If you look at Good Article requirements or FA requirements one of the things that is pointed out is the "extended plots". There is not enough information to support a single episode page. What was working for Smallville, before this new list became questioned, were Seasonal pages. They cut down on the number of ridiculous unencyclopedic pages, provide short summaries of the plot, and only the necessary information about the episode (writer and director). Template:Smallville lists the different seasons. They themselves need a work at removing some of the fancruft, but the idea is to limit only the encyclopedic information (which in my opinion should really only be a list of the episodes, writers, and directors. Plots aren't necessary). If you look at Smallville, all the episodes are linked to Wikia already, where all the information you find in episode pags for other shows is listed. Bignole 14:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Seems to me that "Goofs, Trivia, Quotes, Special Guest Stars, Allusions, Featured music are all things that are not considered encyclopedic" is blatent POV. thanks/MatthewFenton (talk • contribs) 14:37, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you see them in a Featured Article? Trivia (which is what all that is in general) is hard to pass as encyclopedic. Bignole 14:40, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Are they any FAs on episodes? Trivia can convey critical commentery on episodes; IE: How it was produced (if differrent to normal; IE: if an ep. was 3D etc). thanks/MatthewFenton (talk • contribs) 14:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Your way of thinking is that if they don't do FAs on tv episode/show pages then it's OK to ignore Wikpedia policy on unencyclopedic information? Riiight. Well [Arrested Development]] is a featured article. Filmed differently (uniquely) like 3-D is less fancruft then say "this scene showed Joe with his shoe untied, yet 3 seconds later it was tied" which is what will happen. Read episode pages, alot of the information is unencyclopedic. What is the value in knowing the feature songs every episode? They change every episode, as do the Special guests. Quotes have their own Wiki so I don't even need to go there. Allusions are fanbased and thus unencyclopedic, and should be on Wikia. Bignole

Please dnt make assumptions on my way of thinking; Again its POV that you consider them unencylopedic. Theres a limit to what could be considered unencyclopedic but in the pages ive seen i've never seen a page pass that limit. and also to my knowledge A and D is a TV show not a TV episode its self. thanks/MatthewFenton (talk • contribs) 14:57, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

What you considere not unencyclopedic is POV. And again, just because there isn't a FA on tv show doesn't mean you can ignore the policy behind it. Wikipedia wants every article to worthy of a FA, and by ignoring their Policy you aren't helping that. TV episode don't even fall into GA requirements. Again, just because they haven't been one doesn't mean you can ignore policy, it means that they haven't been one because (1) They are not good enough to be one because they contain too many violations of requirements and no one has tried to make them better (2) they don't belong here in the first place and so nominating them would be a joke. ThanksBignole 15:02, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Your failing to quote this policy that states you cant have trivia etc. thanks/MatthewFenton (talk • contribs) 15:06, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

It's unnecessary to do so, just go to any featured article about a show or film. Go to any Good Article about a show or film. Do you see trivia there? You guys are in the busy of "this is standard" and that being your law of life when creating a page. Look at pages that have properly been done, from GA/FA shows, films, fictional characters (which would have more trivia for them than just a single episode of anything). Here are the links for you: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Arrested Development, Jabba the Hutt. These are all fictional settings or characters and are all Featured. This isn't "well episodes haven't been featured" but rather "why haven't they?" They haven't because they can't fit the requirements. FA/GA are nothing more than Wikipedia's policies, only strictly enforced if an article is to "bragged" about. They do nothing but make sure that all the stuff that fans put into an article are not there. Again, episode pages are better suited for their own Wikia. Bignole 15:17, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

"It's unnecessary to do so" - Because you cant quote one? thanks/MatthewFenton (talk • contribs) 15:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm following your rules: Which is to follow that is "standard". I haven't seen you supply me with anything supporting the otherwise. Bignole 15:29, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

What would you like me to supply you with? thanks/MatthewFenton (talk • contribs) 15:47, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

How about where it says that Trivia is fine for a Wikipedia article. Specifically, where it says Trivia is fine for a film, television, fictional character, or any fictional universe article. I'm really interested in the Wikipedia policy that says that, cause I've worked on many articles where Admins didn't allow that. Better yet, because I know Wikipedia doesn't mark out everything in black and white, we'll make it simplier. GA/FA are nothing more than strict versions of Wikipedia policy. If you look at the requirements they are nothing more than the requirements for any wiki article of the same nature, it's just that the article doesn't get noted as such unless it follows the rigid policy of GA/FA to the letter, mainly because Fans always want to add things that should not be there, and Wikipedia cannot monitor every page (hence the reason for editors and admins of NPOV nature), but alas you can't get them to monitor every page, especially when there are so many. What I want you to show me is a GA or a FA, that allows it. I know for a fact that there is plenty of trivia out there for films, tv shows, etc. If you can show me a GA/FA that allows that sort of stuff then I will have no problem with it. Bignole 15:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Dude; it is rude to twist peoples words. Also i need not show you anything saying you can because as we both know there is nothing to the contrary. thanks/MatthewFenton (talk • contribs) 15:57, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Please take a look at this, it details what should be done with a Television show. You'll note that it says first you do the Show itself, then you do Season page, then you do episode page. Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Television episodesBignole

Notice how it aint policy and has 0% relevance to this discussion? thanks/MatthewFenton (talk • contribs) 16:07, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

This article isn't policy, and it has relevance. It contradicts the point of this article, and "list of episodes" articles in general, especially to individual episode pages. Bignole 16:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

It's probably best not to continue the dispute here. When you are asking for comments it's best just to give a brief neutral summary of the dispute and then link to the discussion and leave it at that. (Also, I couldn't help but notice you two yelling "POV" at each other. POV in a discussion is not an issue in Wikipedia, that's the whole point of giving one's opinion or thoughts on an issue. The neutral point of view policy is only about how we write article text, not about discussions and comments... In other words POV is ok on the talk page because you're in a discussion. ) -- Ned Scott 01:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Television programming blocks.

Am I right in saying that listings of shows having aired on a particular programming block as: S.C.I.F.I. World and Cartoon Quest for the Sci Fi Channel, would not be covered by this WikiProject? DrWho42 04:11, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, basically, the reason we have this WikiProject is because there's enough work that is episode-list-related to split off from other tv-related articles. It all falls under WikiProject Television, and this is a daughter group of that project, so it's simply a matter of organization. WP:LOE is an attempt to find a common, useful, and consistent style layout for lists of episodes, so it would seem that it's only for episodes and not all TV-related lists, at least for the time being. However, some form of consistent listing styles for TV related articles might not be a bad idea, but I don't think it's been explored yet by a TV WikiProject. -- Ned Scott 04:25, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Merge / become taskforce / work group of WikiProject TV?

Since there's not a lot of episode list-specific activity, I was wondering maybe we should "merge" ourselves back with our parent project, WikiProject Television. Pretty much the main reason for LOE was to come up with a style-guideline for lists of episodes. We could merge some of our pages to WP:TV and then set up a dedicated sub-page with it's own talk page. I think we should do the same with WikiProject Television episodes. There's a lot of ideas and such that I've wanted to bring up, but it can be hard because they cross into a few different areas, including lists of episodes. Better integration with our parent project would still allow us to do all the things we've been doing independently, but allow for easier collaboration and make things easier to find. Thoughts? -- Ned Scott 20:14, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

What I like about having seperate projects is that when someone says episode pages or list of episodes pages aren't notable and tries to delete them, I can say there's a whole project devoted to them. I think part of a projects purpose is to show that a significant number of wikipedians find a subject worthy of inclusion in an online encyclopedia. I would support merging except I think it would give ammunition to the deletionists. It might even open up the whole debate again. This could be wrong though, maybe the inclusionist position would be strengthened by the larger numbers of WikiProject TV members. - Peregrinefisher 18:59, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't say having a WikiProject is a good argument to keep anything (as a reason alone, that is). If there is a good argument against deletion then it should be able to stand on it's own. That being said, we can still use such an argument for a "task force" style sub-project, in that the number of participants interested specifically in Lists of episodes will still be maintained, etc. We'll also probably be able to keep better track of deletions and deletion rationales as a more centralized group. -- Ned Scott 20:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

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 22:01, 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 13:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair use images in lists

Wikipedia talk:Fair use/Fair use images in lists is revived, this time for a concrete proposal. The talk page has been dead for a while, but I have archived it and taken a new fresh start. I hope this time we will be able to achieve something as I have summarized the main points of both sides (feel free to improve them) and I call you to express your support or oppose on the proposal that I have formulated. Thanks, Renata 02:38, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler vs teaser in summaries

Have we decided on whether there should be spoilers in the short summaries in the list of TV episodes pages? - Peregrinefisher 18:18, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I would also like input on this. I recently had a long discussion with another editor: Talk:List of Kidnapped episodes/Archive 1, Kidnapped (2006) spoilers, and am concerned as to how it can be decided what information in a summary is too much, and why. x 16:46, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Ideally, you should write a short, but solid, paragraph that summarizes the episode as best it can. If you end up with spoilers, then you end up with spoilers. The recently promoted List of The Sopranos episodes and List of Avatar: The Last Airbender episodes had heavily reviewed episode summaries. They'd probably be good examples of how to write summaries for similar series. Jay32183 23:04, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks. Those are good examples. What is a useful response to someone who feels that a spoiler might "ruin the show" for someone who hasn't seen it and decides to remove the spoiler? I tried explaining that there was a spoiler warning, but to no avail. x 23:21, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

A common reply on forums I use to the people who get all upset over spoilers is "Please don't spoiler troll." - if they don't want to be "spoiled" they shouldn't be on websites that WILL contain spoilers, we give plenty of warning as well with {{spoiler}} - Wikipedia:Content disclaimer also plainly states "WIKIPEDIA CONTAINS SPOILERS AND CONTENT YOU MAY FIND OBJECTIONABLE" thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 23:31, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. That was also useful in helping me find the Unacceptable Alternatives section in Wikipedia:Spoiler_warning x 23:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

It is, however, ok to remove unnecessary plot summary, which might contain spoilers. Being a spoiler alone shouldn't be a reason, but often times Wikipedia dives to far into plot summary. -- Ned Scott 23:49, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm a little unclear as to what you're saying. Yes, for sure, a summary should be just that: a summary (as indicated here already), and not a lengthy retelling or rehash. But as to "unnecessary" or "too far", I've already seen those words used to justify removing spoiler info. So I'm going to go with the other responses above, and the articles mentioned. x 02:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's why I said removing for being a spoiler alone. If someone wants to remove something there should be more reason than just that. -- Ned Scott 02:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Yep, totally got that (it's also in Wikipedia:Spoiler_warning in Unacceptable Alternatives). I appreciate your concern that summaries are often not concise, and it seems the examples above show how tight a summary should or shouldn't be. If you know of any useful Wiki guidelines not already mentioned, I would welcome them. Thanks x 03:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I was the other editor with whom Xtramental had a discussion about spoilers, and my point was not that we shouldn't ruin the show with spoilers, but that we should try to be consistent throughout the list of episodes in the level of spoilers that were given. In other words, if this page had major spoilers all through it, I would not have objected to that - yes, readers have to proceed at their own risk. In fact i've often written summaries with spoilers elsewhere. But in fact people (not me) had written up all of the other episodes for this show in a manner that gave up minor spoilers but did not reveal major plot twists, so it appeared to me that the sense of the page was to not reveal major plot twists. In other words, I thought it would be right for there to be some consensus on the page about the level of spoilers given up, and some consistency between episodes, and that no one's words were above being slightly edited, which is all that happened there - an extremely minor edit to one random episode's summary (not the conclusion or something like that) that I felt went unnecessarily beyond the level of spoilers that had been established on the page by revealing the gender of someone who was involved in the crime. It was actually not a big deal at all - I made a very small edit and he didn;'t like my changing his words - I brought it to talk and actually we worked out a compromise that was ok with me and almost identical to his original. This was not the big deal he's portraying, so I don't know why he's still talking about it - I did not say all spoilers should be removed at all - I just minorly edited his summary for that one episone on that page. If you write on wikipedia you have to be prepared to have your words changed by other editors if they see things slightly differently than you do. Tvoz | talk 07:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Just to be clear, are you guys talking about summaries of future episodes, or episodes that have already aired? --Milo H Minderbinder 13:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

You want to use a consistent quality of writing, not a consistent level of spoilers. Like I said above, write a short, but solid, paragraph for each episode, and if there are spoilers, then there are spoilers. When there is already text, don't remove it just because it is a spoiler. Spoiling episode A more so than episode B does not necessarily mean A was more detailed. Jay32183 15:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems like a good summary is going to spoil as much as possible. Plots usually have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the summary should capture all three, if they're important, including the end. - Peregrine Fisher 16:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• "are you guys talking about summaries of future episodes, or episodes that have already aired?"
  For my questions, I've been referring to already aired eps. I would assume, though, that any info posted to Wikipedia about unaired eps should still be verifiable from somewehere else (i.e. info that is available anyway). So, given that, I would presume that ultimately it makes no difference if it is aired or unaired, as long as a spoiler warning is applied. As a side note: there can be many reasons for an ep being considered unaired
• "You want to use a consistent quality of writing, not a consistent level of spoilers"
  I think I know what you mean, but I just want to clarify. I would presume that if an ep-list already has badly written summaries (such as just being teasers), I can still enter a summary for a new ep that's more in line with the descriptions provided above, w/o having to fix the old ones (I may not have the time or info), and not have it later reduced to a teaser only because that's how the rest are written.
• See, my presumption is that summaries in an ep-list want to be a level of quality that is consistent with Wiki standards, not necessarily with the standards of other editors of the ep list. (I apologize if I'm being tedious)

x 16:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Those three points are correct in my opinion. This conversation reminds me of the time I was rewriting some of the List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes entries. It had summaries like "Buffy and Willow are in for a suprise." There was some resistance to actually summarizing the episodes, mostly because whoever started the page used teasers, and then people became used to that. People are slowly coming around to the idea that this is a pedia, and that it doesn't hold back when conveying information. Maybe we should add a little section to point to on the project page saying "summarize, don't tease." - Peregrine Fisher 17:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

X, of course you can do it however you want to do it - and it might be a good idea to take the time to change them all to whatever consistent thing you want - but everywhere else on Wikipedia it is stressed that if there is a difference of opinion among editors, then the editors should try to work it out between them and reach consensus on how to proceed with a given edit or set of edits. I have no reason to think that lists of TV series episodes are any different. One editor posted an entry, another editor modified it, the first editor reverted, the 2nd took it to talk to have a conversation about it, and in fact they reached an agreeable solution that satisfied both editors. So what is it about that exchange that is a problem?

Just to be clear - I think that what was wrong and continues to be wrong with that particular list is that it is preceisly not a consistent level of writing. If that writing had been an all-spoilers type of thing - if that's the level of detail that the editors chose to use and spoilers appeared wherever they appeared - that would have been fine with me. But if the page had evolved by the editors writing it (not me, again), to be essentially teasers, then I still think a conversation on talk is in order if one editor feels differently. One last time for the record - I don't have any problem with it being all spoilers. Really. Go ahead - I am not allergic to them. I 'm not going to promise that I won't change anyone's words if I think they can be better stated, but if you want it to be a good page, be consistent. Tvoz | talk 20:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry - I had missed Peregrine's note - actually, I agree with that - people are used to a page being however it has evolved, whether it is lots of spoilers, or just teasers - and yes, "summarize, don't tease" is a good standard. But if a page is the way it is, then the best thing to do is to talk to the editors about moving to real summaries rather than teasers (which, by the way is not what was posted on kidnapped - it was no more of a real summary before it was edited than after). Anyway, believe it orn ot, we're really not in disagreement about this, except insofar as I'm stressing that we all should work in a collaborative way, and try to work out consensus language when there's a problem. By the way, good work being done on this project. Tvoz | talk 20:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

"Maybe we should add a little section to point to on the project page saying "summarize, don't tease."
I would like to see some kind of guideline regarding this as well, although slightly more comprehensive; mainly because it's not only about summary vs teaser, but that teasers are not really encyclopedic, that spoilers shouldn't be removed merely because they're spoilers, and that a summary's content shouldn't be removed merely to make it consistent in style with other summaries in the article. Granted, less is more regarding guidelines, and this all might be implicit in general Wiki guidelines, but the two examples above suggest it may need to be more explicit. So, is this a reasonable suggestion? x 16:15, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

From African military history

• The Desert Fox - Erwin Rommel. I am not being flip, but The Rat Patrol was a long-running American TV show with a long repeat footprint set in North Africa during World War II; where does something like this fit in categorically? posted by McTrixie

We received this suggestion for military history in the Sahara/Sahel region. Well, it is no actual military history event, but a TV series. I think you know better how to handle it. Greetings Wandalstouring 13:50, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

And a companion category would be something like 'movies about African military history', in addition to 'fictional books about African military history'. Like the movie Zulu, for instance. --McTrixie 01:51, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Episode list gets too long

What do we do when the episode list gets too long? For example, List of Smallville episodes has over 115 summaries and screenshots. Other pages have way more. Do we devide it into ~100 per page, or what? Thanks, Peregrinefisher 05:01, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I've wondered this myself as well. Dividing it might be where we need to go. List of The Simpsons episodes uses a system that excludes the screenshots and summary for the complete listing, but includes them on list that is done per season. This would also help the situation we have with our template having a limit of being used about 200 times in a single article. Not sure if all should be done per season or per number of episodes. -- Ned Scott 06:07, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

That Simpsons page is 63 kilobytes long, so even without screenshots and summaries, it's too big. We need a system that will keep pages within a reasonable page size, and allow people to find the pages their looking for. I'll throw out an idea: create multiple pages and use a table of contents similar to List of One Piece episodes. - Peregrinefisher 06:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Multiple Episode Name Templates

Hi, at List of Winx Club episodes we'd like to think about applying a template, cos we think they look cool. :) The problem with this is that each episode has four different titles - the Italian original name, a literal translation, the Rainbow/UK english dub, and the 4kids english dub. If anyone could give some advice, that would be very much appreciated. The page itself is semi-protected atm due to vandalism. - Malkinann 12:57, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a similar situation some anime shows have. If you want to use {{Episode list}} you could use Title and AltTitle for the Italian and translation titles and then use Aux1 and Aux2 for the two dub versions (only problem is Aux centers text, and any formatting such as bold or quotes would be manual). Although, this situation makes me wonder if an alternative title layout would be a good idea. I'll see if I can come up with any ideas, and if anyone else has any ideas. -- Ned Scott 18:51, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks heaps :) - Malkinann 02:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

We need to come up with something. I hand made a table for List of My-HiME episodes because the Jap Ep List sticks both the titles in the same cell. It's very hard to fit extra names, writer, director, etc. in a table without making it ugly. You can put the screenshot in the shortsummary area, but that doesn't work quite right either. One idea is make the screenshot the necessary width so it's 4 or 5 lines tall. Also, maybe class="sortable" would help. - Peregrinefisher

I'm not too concerned about the image cell being stretched farther than the image. Personally, I'd love to find a way to wrap the text around that area, so longer summaries or windows with short widths would still use space efficiently. We could do something along the lines of the Aux parameters, but make them more title friendly. I personally prefer stacking the title, though, instead of cramming as much text into the top line as possible (granted, not as efficient, but I think it looks better and makes things easier to find in a sea of text). Maybe a combo, stack the Italian and literal translation, then next col will be one dub on top of another dub? That sort thing looks kick ass, it could really come in handy. -- Ned Scott 05:48, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

The text wraps around the image at List of The Simple Life episodes. It adds a blank line below the image, which I can't get rid of. The reason I don't like multiple lines in the title row is because then the table header is only talking about half of the cell's contents. - Peregrinefisher 05:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

List of The Sopranos episodes is a featured list

I forgot to note this here on the talk page for anyone who missed it, but List of The Sopranos episodes is now a Featured list. -- Ned Scott 19:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh wow, cool, good going, people :) Illyria05 (Talk • Contributions) 22:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Request for comment - naming of episode articles

There is currently an active debate at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television) about the naming of episode articles, such as when is it appropriate to use a suffix such as (<series name> episode), and whether or not WikiProjects should have the right to set guidelines for their particular shows. Any interested editors are invited to comment, at Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (television)#Request for comment. Thanks. --Elonka 08:56, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

• In fact this debate has been going on for several weeks now, and a consensus has been reached on retaining the existing guideline at WP:D. Elonka is about the sole dissenter to this consensus. (Radiant) 09:01, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Actually, what Elonka claims is not what's being debated. The issue is whether wikiprojects can set guidlines that contradict the global guidelines of wikipedia. There hasn't been a single argument that wikiprojects shouldn't have the right to make their own guidelines. --Milo H Minderbinder 14:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I think it's a fair statement that there is considerable disagreement about what "contradict the global guidelines of Wikipedia" means.  :) Some people believe that "global guidelines" are recommendations, and that WikiProjects have the right to set their own recommendations, even if those disagree with the "global" recommendations. Others say that "global guidelines" should be enforced as policy, no exceptions, even if there is significant disagreement from a WikiProject. --Elonka 01:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Whether wikiprojects can or should set guidelines that contradict wikipedia guidelines is something that probably goes beyond the scope of this naming debate. But regardless, "whether or not WikiProjects should have the right to set guidelines" is an inaccurate and biased way to describe this particular discussion - there's only one decision in question, not the fate of wikiprojects in general. --Milo H Minderbinder 02:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
        • Let's do the vote again with the wording: 1) Follow wikpedias naming convention 2) follow the precedent started by Star Trek and other list pages. - Peregrinefisher 05:48, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 23:23, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

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 16:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Filmography RFC

I've created an RFC to work out the details involved in making useful filmography sections. Check it out at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Filmography. - Peregrinefisher 21:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Only Fools and Horses

I've recently nominated List of Only Fools and Horses episodes for a peer review. Any comments and suggested improvements will be much appreciated. Thanks. SteveO 19:58, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Colour

List of Charmed episodes could do with some colour to match the DVD cases, much like The Simpsons' list has. Could anyone more familiar with doing this lend a hand? ~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 13:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Accessing LOE to do list box

How does one add items to the "To Do" list contained within the LOE box on the article's talk page (in this case the List of Farscape episodes)? Feel free to answer on my talk page RoyBatty42 20:35, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

It's at: Wikipedia:WikiProject List_of_Television Episodes/to-do. The way to find templates that are included in a page is click "edit this page" and at the bottom of the page, all the templates transcluded are listed. - Peregrine Fisher 22:06, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, followed the links, but did not get info I needed. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I wanted to add things that were ONLY for that page's "to do" list as I've seen on other talk pages for specific articles. RoyBatty42 03:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you might be looking WP:TODO Jay32183 03:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, that's it. Thanks RoyBatty42 04:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

List of RahXephon media is a Featured List Candidate

List of RahXephon media is a Featured List Candidate. Disucssion here: Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of RahXephon media. --GunnarRene 22:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Two Part Episode

Is there any reason why two part episodes have to be in the same article?

Just because they share the same title does not mean that they are the same.

Doing this means a lot more information in the info box. Eg: This is from the info box from the episode Kill Ari episodes of NCIS

{{Infobox Television episode | Title = Kill Ari 

| Colour = 

| Series = [[NCIS (TV series)|NCIS]]

| Season = 3

| Episode = 1 and 2

| Image = [[image:NCIS-03x01.jpg|250px]]

| Airdate = [[September 20]], [[2005]]<br/>[[September 27]], [[2005]]

| Production = 03x01<br/>03x02

| Writer = [[Donald P. Bellisario]]

| Director = [[Dennis Smith]] (Part 1)<br/>[[James Whitmore Jr.]] (Part 2)

| Guests = [[Rudolf Martin]] as [[Ari Haswari]]<br/>[[Pancho Demmings]] as [[Gerald Jackson]]
<br/>[[Lauren Holly]] as [[Jenny Shepard]]</br>[[Alan Dale]] as [[Tom Morrow]]

| Episode list = [[List of NCIS episodes|Episode chronology]]

| Prev = [[Twilight (NCIS episode)]]| Next = [[Mind Games (NCIS)|Mind Games]]

}} 

If it was on separate pages you would not have to specify who wrote and directed each part and you would not have two separate air dates.

It is not necessary to have them on the same page.

If you will see other shows such as Charmed, House and even Buffy the Vampire Slayer have two part episodes on separate pages.

Mhrmaw 10:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not a requirement. Usually it's better readable. If it's not, then there is no point in putting them on the same page. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 13:26, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The recommendation about combining them is for continuous plots. That is, it was really one episode that was twice as long as usual. If the two episodes are actually distinct entities then go ahead and separate them. Jay32183 18:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC)