Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)

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Walking Limping Crawling up Mount Consensus

It seems to me that we have a tentative consensus about the general guideline, and there are now two items upon which there is still some disagreement:

1. Whether or not to acknowledge here the possibility of exceptions to this guideline
2. Whether to use "(SeriesName)" or "(SeriesName episode)" when disambiguation is deemed necessary

Regarding the first item: Since WP:D states that "Guidelines are not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception," we should recognize that there may be a situation where an exception to this guideline is appropriate. Rather than use Lost or Star Trek, for which there is guideline-related disagreement, allow me to suggest a hypothetical television show, Wikipedians. This show, described by its fans as "a show about userboxes," has an very interesting distinction: its episodes are named in such a way that the episode article titles require pre-emptive disambiguation. In fact, naming an episode article without a disambiguating phrase would cause the internet to collapse. So it exists as a common-sense exception to the guidelines here at TV:NC.

(Now, before you argue that there is no such show, remember that WP:D notes that guidelines can have exceptions, and so this serves as the hypothetical common-sense exception that may someday be found, and that we should accept and be prepared for.)

So, assuming the existence of this hypothetical series, do we make any mention of exceptions here, on the guideline page? If we do not, we are trusting that future editors will know about WP:D's allowance of common-sense exceptions. If we do mention the exceptions on the guideline page, we risk encouraging editors to find reasons to make needless exceptions to the guideline. Elonka's argument, as I understand it, is that we should make this decision based on the possibility of series that have justifiable reasons to exempt themselves from the guideline. I think that's a extremely valid argument that is in keeping with Wikipedia:Guideline. (Elonka, I hope I'm not misrepresenting you here!) That said, I am leaning toward not including the exception verbiage here, but I can certainly see the merit of doing it both ways.

Lost and Star Trek are both great shows (well, I actually haven't seen Lost yet, so keep the spoilers away, please), but they're not helping us achieve consensus here. It seems to me that we should work toward consensus on a general guideline, and then take that guideline to individual shows and debate there whether or not the shows qualify as common sense exceptions. It's hard to focus on the merits of a general guideline when controversial exceptions keep getting thrown in, and I think it will help those individual discussions if we can create a general guideline and achieve broad consensus on it.

Regarding the second item: One of the reasons we chose against pre-emptive disambiguation was that the title of the article need not establish context (that's the job of the first line of the article itself). Therefore, the disambiguating phrase need only serve to identify the article among the other articles on the disambiguation page. If someone is looking for the article about Futurama article "The Sting," they will quickly determine that The Sting (Futurama) is what they're looking for, and not The Sting (1973 film). However, as Josiah pointed out above, Dalek (Doctor Who) would need to be expanded to Dalek (Doctor Who episode) to distinguish it from Dalek (Doctor Who race). --Toby Rush ‹ ✆|✍ › 23:03, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Well said, Toby. We could use your and Josiah's logic and reason over at Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (settlements). --Serge 23:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The first item, I have no objection to having an example, as long as that example has reasonable rational and context. To make an exception without this would create a loop hole and confusion. Having reasonable exceptions is something that is apart of all guidelines, and a lack of example in no way is an attempt to dispute that. If we have a reasonable example that is not misleading, then by all means include it. (this would not include the above example)

The second item, as I noted when I "voted" that I had no strong preference. Others have also listed their names under both, which I take it is also an indication of no strong preference? The poll itself seems pretty split there. The second item sounds like a no consensus issue. -- Ned Scott 23:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Just to be clear, Ned: my discussion of a hypothetical series was merely for the benefit of our discussion here; I don't see any benefit of actually including it as part of the guideline. --Toby Rush ‹ ✆|✍ › 04:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Including the suggested language that exceptions are possible implies that there currently exists some series which qualifies as such an exception. Barring Wikipedians being picked up for the 2007 season, there are no series I'm aware of that merit a common-sense exception (that includes Star Trek). In the rare and hypothetical event that a show doesn't fit into the guidelines and seems like it should be an exception, I believe that the guideline should be updated to address the particularities of the series and obviate the need for an exception.

As for the Dalek article, that falls under the provisions of WP:D#Primary_topic. Clearly, Dalek (Doctor Who episode) needs the "episode" tag to differentiate it from Dalek, but only because anything less would be ambiguous. Category:Ninth_Doctor_episodes is a perfect example of the position I'm advocating, making proper use of all three possibilities: Dalek (Doctor Who episode) in the aforementioned case, (Doctor Who) when there are other articles unrelated to Doctor Who, and a plain title in general. -Anþony 23:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The point of not listing an example right now is that none exist. Stating that when exceptions need to be made they can be made is unnecessary as that is general policy. Until a situation exists that an exception needs to be made, there need not be an explanation for exception. If an exception actually arises then it can be listed with the reason for its exception being noted as well. Jay32183 00:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Toby is correct that the general notion of "reasonable exceptions" applies whether we make it explicit or not. However, making it explicit has the disadvantage of inviting such exceptions, whether they are reasonable or not. Perhaps if we understood the reasoning, if any, behind the established exception at Star Trek (and proposed exception at Lost), we would be better able to understand the argument for mentioning that exception in this guideline. As it is, the only reason I can see for the exception is "we've done it this way for a long time, and it hasn't hurt anyone." Precedent has a value, but a bad precedent can be overturned if better reasons present themselves. We've given the reasons why we feel the Star Trek example is a bad precedent; I have yet to hear the argument for why it might be a good precedent. I'd like to. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:02, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

My bet is that, if an exception comes up, it will apply to more than one case. It will become part of the guideline, not an exception. It's evolution which, by definition, includes changes and exceptions. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Toby, I completely agree with what you said, thank you for summarizing.

May I also humbly suggest that we start this discussion from scratch? This page is getting awfully long, which is discouraging participation, plus the personal attacks make it difficult to assume good faith. Also, I would very much like to see the poll closed, since it has been repeatedly invalidated by the multiple changes to its structure (and no, I'm not just saying that because I'm in the "minority," I would feel the same way even if in the majority). Also, before rushing to start a new poll, I would like to see us discuss suggested poll questions to make sure that we're in agreement on what is being polled, so that we don't repeat the mistake of rewriting a new poll while it's in-process. So, I recommend that we archive the entire discussion, including the poll, and make a fresh start? Can we at least get consensus on that much?  :) --Elonka 07:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

This is absurd. Making a new poll would be one thing (unnecessary, really, since it's just one form of data collection), but we are not starting discussion over from scratch. And please, referring to each other by name is NOT a personal attack. The poll's results are very still very much valid, and I'll personally volunteer to go to everyone's talk page to confirm their position and intended meaning. You're just avoiding the issues being brought up and keep trying to sneak in an exception. This is a case where we have consensus and a few editors are dragging their feet about this. So, no, we're not starting over, if anything we should be wrapping up this discussion and start requesting moves for the Lost articles. -- Ned Scott 07:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I concur. Internet debates and Wikipedia's especially seem to be a question of endurance and who tires of arguing first. We should accept that we're never going to convince everyone for a true consensus, though there is a clear supermajority in favor of disambiguating only when necessary. -Anþony 11:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, you can archive the discussion part - the vast parts of repetition anyway - but the poll results stay right up on the top. If I recall correctly, Elonka, you were one of the people messing with the structure of the poll while it was going on, so it seems disingenuous for you to call it invalid. Everyone knew what was being discussed - we're not stupid. If you want to start some new poll regarding Lost specifically, it seems only fair for you to invite each one of the people that voted in this poll. —Wknight94 (talk) 12:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the advantage in restarting the discussion or having a new poll. If anyone feels that votes may have been recorded in error, due to the changing of the poll questions, Ned's kind volunteering should take care of that. Discussions have been made, opinions have been stated, and all but two active participants have agreed on a solution. I don't think that going through the whole process all over again will change anything. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:06, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps if we understood the reasoning, if any, behind the established exception at Star Trek (and proposed exception at Lost), we would be better able to understand the argument for mentioning that exception in this guideline. - I don't think there is any reasoning. Star Trek's reason seems to be "it is already like that" and Lost's seems to be "Star Trek can do it, so why can't we". If you mention and allow exceptions, then anyone will just make an exception whenever they feel like it, which is the entire point of this discussion to decide on a single convention and stick by it. -- Chuq 12:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

What's easier to find?

Is it easier to find a page with "episode" in its title, based on wikipedia's search? Is putting the word "episode" in the first sentence equivalent? What if you search for "csi episode"? Do we care about how the search results may change? - Peregrinefisher 07:24, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Note that by using redirects we can get the exact same results. -- Ned Scott 07:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Lost episode move requests?

Seeing as though this discussion is petering out and certainly has gone nowhere as far as explaining a Lost-specific exception to the guideline, I don't personally see a problem with bringing the Lost episode articles at question to WP:RM now. Any strong objections? —Wknight94 (talk) 17:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe a good idea to wait, just a little. I can see this thing finishing up pretty soon now. --`/aksha 11:41, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, give it a few days, just to reduce tension. >Radiant< 12:25, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Will do. I don't see the two main holdouts agreeing to anything final anytime soon but I'll hold off as a courtesy. —Wknight94 (talk) 13:44, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Reasons for exceptions

Let's try to see if the reasons that have been given as justifications for WikiProject exceptions hold water. For the sake of presenting the arguments fairly, I will use Elonka's words, not my own. I see three classes of argument:

• Precedent: for example, the Star Trek episodes have been using a slightly different format for a long time, without a problem.
• Consistency: linked lists of episodes use a consistent titling scheme, and it becomes easier to link between episodes if many of them (or even the majority) already had suffixes... and categories look more consistent.
• Context: it is convenient to include series context with an article's title... and specific subject areas are easier to see in editor watchlists.

Assuming these three classes are the primary reasons given, let's examine them one at a time.

• Precedent: for example, the Star Trek episodes have been using a slightly different format for a long time, without a problem.
  • Precedents are useful, but only if they have good reasons behind them. Furthermore, only decisions by Jimbo, the ArbCom and the Wikimedia Foundation Board are binding — beyond that, there are no binding decisions. If a consensus among Wikipedians is contrary to the decision of a WikiProject, the larger consensus should be followed. (It goes without saying that all WikiProject members are welcome in the larger decision-making process, and indeed the members of the Star Trek WikiProject have been invited to join this discussion.) Given this, the precedent has value only insofar as its reasoning can be explained. Which leads us to the remaining two arguments:

• Consistency: linked lists of episodes use a consistent titling scheme, and it becomes easier to link between episodes if many of them (or even the majority) already had suffixes... and categories look more consistent.
  • This is an aesthetic judgment, and one that is not supported by any Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia:Disambiguation says, "When there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate nor add a link to a disambiguation page." This would indicate that it is incorrect to name an article, for example, A Fistful of Datas (TNG episode) when A Fistful of Datas is perfectly clear and unambiguous.
  • Furthermore, the "ease of linking" concern is adequately addressed by the recommendation to create redirects with the appropriate suffixes.

• Context: it is convenient to include series context with an article's title... and specific subject areas are easier to see in editor watchlists.
  • It is not the function of article naming to provide context. The article itself does that, ideally in its first line. Nor is it the function of article naming to categorize articles. The category system does that. As I argued above,

If I came upon a contextless link to, say, Adios Butler (a page I found by hitting "random article" a few times), I would have no idea what that was. But if I see a link to Adios Butler in a list of pacing horses on Harness racing, then I'll know that Adios Butler is a horse. My ignorance of the subject of horse racing is not a justification for renaming that article Adios Butler (horse).

From my point of view, the objections to these reasons are all much stronger than the reasons themselves. I would greatly appreciate any responses to these arguments, and any further reasons that I have missed. Thank you. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

This appears to be a good summation of the argument. I'd add more but there doesn't seem to be anything else to say. Jay32183 21:11, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a succinct and articulately stated argument that would work as a much more general argument against the practice of "predisambiguation" (qualifying a title beyond the most common name used when no ambiguity issues are known) in any category of Wikipedia articles. Bravo! --Serge 21:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Another hole in the "easier to see in my watchlist" argument, which Chuq mentioned before, is that you can use the Related changes page as a pseudo-watchlist for a specific topic. For example, the Related changes for Category:Lost episodes would suffice for Elonka's needs, I think. You could even get more particular and create a userpage with only the articles you want to watch. -Anþony 21:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Under consistency, there is another important argument. I will copy some of my statements made previously here rather than restate them:

While it may provide a small benefit in remembering link names for those users who exclusively edit articles relating to Star Trek, for the rest of us, who are just as likely to link to a Star Trek episode as any other article, having a policy of preemptive disambiguation for Star Trek articles is just another dumb exception that has to be memorized and makes Wikipedia less consistent overall.

There is more to Wikipedia than just articles about Star Trek episodes. Sure, all the entries in the category page have the same parenthetical disambiguation, satisfying some bizarre fetish for things to line up on category pages, but it makes Wikipedia as a whole more inconsistent, hard to use, and unpredictable, not less. What Wikipedia needs is articles whose titles follow a consistent, project-wide system for disambiguation, not a warren of exceptions and loopholes.

And also, from the list of cons for allowing preemptive disambiguation:

1. Con: Rather than just clarifying the general naming convention, directly contradicts it
2. Con: Clutters the article namespace with unnecessary parenthetical disambiguations
3. Con: Confuses users who wonder what other things have this title because it has a parenthetical disambiguation
4. Con: Muddies the semantics of the article namespace with arbitrary additional attributes for a certain class of articles
5. Con: Is hard to remember for people who don't frequently link to Star Trek or Lost episodes
6. Con: Makes Wikipedia less consistent overall by increasing the complexity of the article naming conventions

Nohat 01:27, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• I found this link at the village pump asking for outside opinions, so I'm not fully familiar with the background here, but if the debate is whether all articles on TV episodes should be titled "Episodename (seriesname episode)", or whether this should only be done when "Episodename" is already 'taken' by some other article - it seems clear to me that the formerlatter is preferred, both per Josiah's good summary of the arguments above, and per the Manual of Style. Redirects are a nice touch for compromise. >Radiant< 11:02, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• • You mean the latter is preferred, don't you? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 14:07, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Yes. Tyop, sorry. >Radiant< 14:26, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Wrapping things up

Brilliant summary up there Josiah Rowe.

It seems like the bottom line is that we're argueing about whether or not to use unneeded disambiguation when there're absolutely no valid reasons for doing so. What a waste of time. The current guildlines are fine as it is, just because two people disagreeing doesn't mean we need to scratch/change it.

The question remaining now is whether to allow exceptions to the guildlines. I can't really see a problem here either. Everyone agrees that guildlines are just guildlines and common sense exceptions are always allowed when there are valid reasons for it. And the exceptions we're talking about here...don't seem to have any valid reasons, as pointed out above.

Can we sort of...try and get things wrapped up here?

Unless of course, anyone here has anything new to say. --`/aksha 11:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• Can you give an example of a (proposed) exception with a plausible reason for that? >Radiant< 12:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Other than the Lost ones being proposed here, I haven't heard any. To me, there's no such thing as exceptions to the guideline. If a situation comes up which opposes the current guideline, that would become part of the guideline, not an exception to the guideline. I haven't thought of a situation like that anyway so it's probably a moot point. —Wknight94 (talk) 13:49, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• • • Radiant (and anyone else who's coming in late), the main issue is that the Star Trek WikiProject has somewhat long-established guidelines recommending pre-emptive disambiguation. Some people are advocating the same for Lost, using the arguments I laid out above (mostly the "consistency" one — an odd sort of fetish for the way articles look in categories, as far as I can figure). I've left a note asking the Star Trek folks to come here and explain their reasoning. I'd give them a few days to do so before we call this finished. I know it's been going on forever, but if we do it right we'll have fewer people complaining when pages start getting moved to comply with this guideline. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 14:06, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Star Trek and Lost have been mentioned as examples of shows that haven't followed the policy on naming, but there seem to be more than that (just looking a bit, more seem to violate the policy than follow it). Has anyone checked to see how many shows aren't following the policy (and could potentially face article renaming)? Do people intend to move every article they find that doesn't follow the policy? --Milo H Minderbinder 16:28, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes. —Wknight94 (talk) 16:31, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• If the argument against consistency is that the Star Trek pages "have always done it that way", then I don't find that a very compelling argument. So that would be a yes. >Radiant< 16:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I've gotten in trouble with moves before, but I think I will if I can get support, consensus and probably present the existing policy. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 17:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

A question. Some shows use a lot of single word titles. List of Smallville episodes would need maybe 95% of its pages disambiguated. When people see other pages disambiguated, that's probably what leads to the unnecessary disambiguation. Should we set a threshhold (50%, 75%) where if that many of the pages need disambiguation, the rest should get it as well? - Peregrinefisher 18:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the need. Disambiguated titles are a necessary evil and should be avoided as much as possible - for all of the reasons given above (if you can still weed through it all). —Wknight94 (talk) 18:34, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Once again, I mention one of my best analogies: G.I. Joe characters. Should they are be pre-emptively dabbed because the writers rarely come up with an original name? No. And no to your question. Though, for better or worse, the episode articles are left to the unofficial "Smaillville Wiki." Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 18:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I think Smallville is a great example, because in it's case there aren't actually any episode articles hosted on Wikipedia - they are all on the Smallville wiki (hosted by Wikia, formerly Wikicities) - thus getting rid of the problem completely! Not that I mind the episodes being on Wikipedia for some shows, but having the episodes hosted externally is certainly an "easy way out" .. and for those of the "we want to have a different naming convention to the rest of Wikipedia" opinion - it is the most reasonable way of getting it! -- Chuq 22:31, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

To clear up some confusions about what people think I said, I am not advocating that all television episode articles should use a suffix, I am stating that some series, in my opinion, should be allowed to exhibit an exception to standard disambiguation guidelines. Further, I think that it makes sense for those editors who are most familiar with a particular subset of subject matter, to make that determination. For example, let's look at the Star Trek articles in Category:Star Trek episodes. In fact, let's get even more specific and look at Category:Star Trek: The Original Series episodes, where all of the episodes currently have a consistent suffix, "(TOS episode)". I realize that a couple of editors here at WP:NC-TV (specifically Wknight94 and Ned Scott) regard the Star Trek format as "evil", and they're itching to go in there and move articles to what they regard as "the right" titles. But, it's not that simple,' and further, I think that adamantly trying to enforce WP:NC-TV as a "policy", runs the danger of being actively disruptive. Here's my reasoning: The articles in that Star Trek category have been stable for quite some time. But what exactly is it that Wknight94 and Ned Scott want to do? To move every single episode that doesn't need disambiguation to just the episode title? Then, what about those with "(TOS episode)". Are we moving all of those as well, to "(Star Trek episode)", since that was the original name of the series? Or are we going to saddle each one of those episodes with the absurdly long suffix of "(Star Trek: The Original Series episode)"? I strongly believe that this is not a determination that we should be making here from WP:NC-TV -- this is a determination that the Star Trek editors who deal with these articles on a daily basis should be making, and have made, and we should trust that they acted in good faith. Also, though I'm doing some crystal ball work here, I'm willing to bet that even if we had consensus here at WP:NC-TV, and then were to suddenly descend on the Star Trek articles like birds of prey (pardon the pun) and move things around, that there would be other Star Trek editors who hadn't heard of this discussion, who would suddenly perk up and yell, "Hey! What the hell??." So there would be a good chance that categories which have been relatively peaceful for months, would suddenly turn into a battleground. Is this really what we want?

In other words, It ain't broke, so why does it need fixing? Let's please trust that editors who are familiar with the subject matter, who are familiar with the various ways of distinguishing the different series, have been doing their best, in good faith, to come up with a reasonable and professional way of handling those many episodes. We shouldn't be trying to micro-manage every TV series from here, we should just be coming up with a general guideline, and then allowing for exceptions. --Elonka 23:44, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I am stating that some series, in my opinion, should be allowed to exhibit an exception to standard disambiguation guidelines. We know what the suggestion is, but we are asking - WHY? The only attempt at a "reason" that anyone has given for this is "because it is already like that" which is not a valid reason. What is the point of a guideline if there are just going to be exceptions? The comments above about (TOS episode) vs (Star Trek episode) are a non-sequitur and not relevant to this discussion. I saw links to this discussion on many other pages, so I would presume there would be one the Star Trek WikiProject one as well - I'll go look now, and mention it if it isn't already. -- Chuq 23:52, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

It has already been mentioned at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Star Trek#Naming conventions poll. I notice the project lists Wikipedia:WikiProject Television as one of its parents wikiprojects, so in *theory* they should be involved with making, and abide by, decisions here that affect them -- Chuq 23:58, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think it was Mr. Spock from Star Trek II who said that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the needs of the one. In Wikipedia terms, the standards of Wikipedia outweigh the standards of the projects or the standards of an individual. With your tone above, it sounds like you need to read WP:OWN. That being said, I've heard that someone has already mentioned this discussion at the Star Trek project and I haven't seen anyone coming here looking for blood. With how long those articles have been in place, I highly doubt the holy war you're envisioning would really happen. I'll bet many there would hail us as heroes liberating them from their annoying article names. —Wknight94 (talk) 00:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

It ain't broke, so why does it need fixing? -Elonka When the naming violates broadly followed Wikipedia naming conventions, particularly those reflected in the WP:D and WP:NC(CN) naming guidelines, it is broke. As far as how to disambiguate those titles that require disambiguation, there is a lot of leeway there. But those where the epidode name alone creates a unique article title within Wikipedia should not have any additional information in their title, and, yes, they should be changed. Of course, any change like this should be done along with a note on the relevant Talk page, including a link to this survey and discussion. --Serge 00:07, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I don't have a problem with leaving them as (TOS episode). We already abbreviate "TV" all over the place here. Hope that makes you feel better. —Wknight94 (talk) 00:10, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Serge and Wknight94 — the Star Trek example is broken. However, if a Star Trek page does need disambiguating, I don't particularly care how it's labelled. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:01, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is actually a very simple way to address this: bring the editors responsible for starting and/or continuing the current Star Trek naming scheme into our discussion. Elonka is right in that we should assume that they acted in good faith when they made their decisions about that convention, and we should hear and address their reasons before making any changes to the pages there.

If the ST folks joined us for a polite, open-minded, constructive, consensus-oriented discussion about naming conventions, then whatever we came up with would be consensus with a captial C. Does anyone have their number? --Toby Rush ‹ ✆|✍ › 00:19, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

That's why I invited them over. No sign of them yet... —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:58, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Why must Star Trek (or any other show) have an exception to the policies and guidelines? If those episode pages were to get moved to names consistent with the rest of wikipedia, how exactly would that make those pages any worse? And what does "familiarity with the subject" have to do with naming? What could possibly be so unique to Star Trek that it requires a different naming convention than every other article on wikipedia? It sounds like you just want to make your own rules instead of following the WP rules. --Milo H Minderbinder 00:50, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Could we stop bring up "good faith"? This isn't about assuming someone has good or bad intentions. This is about deciding what's more important: well-intentioned actions that don't have positive results (and clear/solid reasoning) or following a sound guideline thorough Wikipedia to maintain trie consistancy. No one here is saying that the projects/Wikipedian(s) reponsible are "evil doers". The issue is whether they should be exceptions and why. And as for bringing in others, they're welcome to come; they always were. The most we could/should do is contact them, but if they don't want to join in,—which seems to be the case—we can't force 'em. So, if all that's clear, can we please focus? Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 01:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

It's beautiful irony:

• Side A: The guideline is fine the way it is.
• Side B: You just want that because "that's the way it's always been".
• Side A: Let's go change the Star Trek articles.
• Side B: You can't change the Star Trek standard! That's the way it's always been!

Being both for and against the same line of thinking within a one-week span: priceless.

—Wknight94 (talk) 01:29, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

WK, it's not quite that simple. The guideline was here first. \~_*/

Seriously, though, they chose to ignore the guideline for reasons that don't hold up. And since they are exceptions to this general convention, I'd imagine their method isn't "the way it's always been." More...the way it's been for the majority of the time. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 01:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The same guidelines were ignored when the vast majority of U.S. cities were bot-created with predisambiguated names using the comma convention. Help in getting that fixed too would be much appreciated! (e.g, why is Los Angeles at Los Angeles, California?). --Serge 01:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any point in waiting. Elonka had already posted a notice on the talk pages of all the star trek episode main articles (that is, the "list of" articles) (here, here, here, here and here) 10 days ago. notices were also posted onto the disambiguation guildline talk page and the NC main guildline talk page asking for people to join in. It's long enough warning for people to join us.

Elonka, your entire argument breaks down when we see exactly how the disambiguation standard in the star trek articles came about. Here're the previous discussions by the star trek project on naming conventions:

• naming convention first proposed.
• second naming convention discussion
• third discussion

I suggest everyone take a look, they're not all that long.

Now is this enough for everyone?--`/aksha 04:33, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough — of the two most active participants in those discussions, one (Cburnett) is the author of the current compromise on the guideline page, and the other (E Pluribus Anthony) has left Wikipedia. I suppose there's been enough time for anyone who cares to discuss it here. (Of course, I fully expect more people to show up protesting as soon as we start putting the guideline into effect, but I suppose we've done our duty.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:33, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Josiah, I apologize that I didn't notice your invitation of the Star Trek folks when I posted earlier... and Yaksha is right in that we've made several posts over there so anyone who has interested should probably have joined our discussion by now.

I bring up "good faith" not because I am defending the ST project's naming conventions (on the contrary, I look forward to the consistency TV:NC can bring over there), but because we should be respectful as we bring those pages into consistency with the guideline. While there's nothing stopping us from starting to move pages (maybe it's already begun?), why don't we begin by put something like this on the ST talk page:

Greetings, Star Trek editors!

There has been an extended discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television) for several weeks concerning the naming of television episode articles on Wikipedia. A consensus has been reached that article titles should only include disambiguating phrases when there is another article on Wikipedia with the same name as the episode name. Thus, Circus Knights would not need any disambiguation, where Nobody Does It Better (Knight Rider) would, in order to differentiate it from Nobody Does It Better (song).

This has actually been a very long-thought-out discussion, and has had input from many editors from many different shows and WikiProjects, including Star Trek. However, because the Star Trek episodes are so plentiful, and have used a differing system for some time now, the editors contributing to TV:NC felt it appropriate to mention it here before people started moving episode articles to new names. Rest assured that these changes are not being made flippantly, but only after a long discussion about how to best comply with Wikipedia's general article naming scheme.

Thank you for your help!

This repeats some information Josiah and other posted earlier on, but I think it would show some respect for the editors over there, and it might avoid some reversion wars. I think it would be good to add the article moving to the WikiProject "to-do" list (if there is one), and anyone who is moving pages over there should do it right, fixing secondary links along the way.

Also, I tidied up the guideline formatting just a bit, since we might have a lot more people looking at it here pretty soon. As always, revert me if you disagree... :) --Toby Rush ‹ ✆|✍ › 06:38, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

it seems a tad redundant, since any editor who regularly visits the ST talk page would also be keeping track of the ST project's page. But i guess, no harm done in being poliet. I'm defintely in support of dropping a note to the ST project page before any moving begins. The last thing we need is another article move war over this. --`/aksha 07:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Which talk page were you thinking of putting it on? The Wikiproject's, or the talk page of one or more of the Star Trek articles? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:55, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject. Unless you really want to go spam hundreds of individual episode articles with notices =P. Passing editors who have edited individual episode articles are really not likely to care. Besides, whoever does the moving can just include a link to the discussion here in their summary. --`/aksha 07:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

• This is conflating two issues - the first is whether Star Trek episode articles should use disambiguation if that isn't in fact necessary (which we're actually discussing here). The second is what kind of suffix they should use when disambiguation is necessary (which is an unrelated issue probably best left to the Star Trek wikiproject). Confusion over the second is not a very strong reason for opposing the first. >Radiant< 13:02, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, isn't that what we're trying to do? Move pages which have unneeded disambiguation to get rid of the uneeded disambiguation. We don't seem to be getting any strong agreements on the second issue and it doesn't seem to be all that important anyway. --`/aksha 00:25, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Qualification

I changed this:

Where an episode title is the same as a character or similar object also present in the series, disambiguate further using the word "episode":

to this:

Where an episode title is the same as a character or object from the series which might reasonably have its own page, disambiguate further using the word "episode":

because otherwise episodes named after characters who don't necessarily deserve their own pages (such as The Outrageous Okona or Inca Mummy Girl) might get disambiguated. Recording my reasoning here in case anyone disagrees. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:52, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The "might reasonably have" language is open to too much interpretation, unnecessarily, I think. I suggest (but did not change):

Where an episode title is the same as a character or object from the series which has its own page, disambiguate further using the word "episode":

Requiring a page move in the rare instances where a page is created with a conflicting character or object name is no big deal. We require the same for any undisambiguated episode title should another page with the same name in Wikipedia be created. --Serge 06:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

That's quite reasonable, and I've gone ahead and made the change. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:04, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't mean to beat this to death, but this seems to raise a small problem to me. Isn't the usual disambiguation method on Wikipedia to first disambiguate by the most general term? For example, the WP:NC guideline for books is to first use "novel" or "short story", and only to include the author's name when just the type isn't enough. Same with albums ("album" first, then band name), films ("film" first, then year), etc. In other words, the primary disambiguator is what the item is, not what it relates to. This method appears to be used almost exclusively. With that in mind, shouldn't "episode" be the preferred disambiguator here, and the series name only be used when additionally needed? Using the series name first seems to be contrary to established conventions. -- Fru1tbat 14:06, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

You're probably right but that might send you off into every other part of Wikipedia because that guideline breakage is done everywhere. Take a look through any category of baseball players and you'll find an unpleasant mix of (baseball player) and (baseball) and (athlete) and (outfielder) and (Twins player), etc. That mistake is far more prevalent than this first issue being discussed here. —Wknight94 (talk) 14:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree strongly with Fru1tbat - I mentioned up here that (24), (Medium), (House), (Lost) or (Oz) after a name may be more confusing, causing readers to think that there is a Small and Large version of something, or that a House episode name refers is an article about a type of building. No-one else has really agreed with me though so I have left it alone. Wknight, just because other areas of Wikipedia may need cleanup in this regard, doesn't mean we can't be the first! -- Chuq 20:48, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

(Sorry to sneak in here after the fact) Chuq, that's fine to be the first but that's a holy war I'm not passionate enough to fight in. But best of luck to you in that battlefield!  :) —Wknight94 (talk) 22:54, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The policy really says to use the simplest method of disambiguation. The word episode could also cause confusion, because it really means an incident as part of a series. We'd probably then have to specify that these are television episodes to avoid that confusion. The series name is probably the simplest and least confusing way to disambiguate. Even with the examples given there would be a difference between Pilot (House) and Pilot (house) the former being an aspect of the tv series House named Pilot and the latter a house named Pilot. I know some of you don't like the capital letter disambiguation, but when people search with capital letters they're generally looking for a proper noun. Also, using the series name rather than episode will avoid all conflicts of two tv series having the same episode name. We don't want to have arguments about which episode is more notable and therefore gets the shorter title. I was in one of the discussions between Georgia (country) and Georgia (U.S. state), and it was not pretty. Jay32183 21:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes - the capital would give it away to me - but the general reader may not. I think there is less chance of confusion with the word "episode" though. Compare to the term "(character)" where I used "(Jericho character)" as a disambiguator; the word "character" by itself isn't really very specific, it could even refer to a non-fictional person, so I usually go with the full descriptor (series and "item") for characters. See Category:Jericho characters -- Chuq 21:52, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

With the character thing I've been leaning towards stuff like Jack Spicer (Xiaolin Showdown) rather than Jack Spicer (character). The term character may be confusing, what Jack Spicer am I talking about. But knowing it's the Xiaolin Showdown Jack Spicer, I don't actually need to know it's a character because I now know it isn't any other Jack Spicer. Jay32183 22:33, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

• (edconf) Arguably a "Star Trek episode" is more related to "Star Trek" than to "episode". The guideline you cite shouldn't be taken too far; technically a "book" is a kind of "media" or "object". >Radiant< 14:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Other programs not in accordance with this guideline

Milo Minderbinder made a good point above, that there are lots more television series not in compliance with this guideline than just the Star Trek series. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, for instance, seem to follow the Star Trek model — I only just noticed this when Inca Mummy Girl came up as a redlink above. While we're dropping polite notes, we should probably drop one at the Buffyverse WikiProject too. Does anyone know what other series are preemptively disambiguating, and whether they have WikiProjects? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:15, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Stargate. -- Ned Scott 07:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Tons, actually...
stargate - Wikipedia:WikiProject Stargate (Project informed on 10/11)
lost - Wikipedia:WikiProject Lost
star trek - Wikipedia:WikiProject Star Trek
buffy and angel - Wikipedia:WikiProject Buffyverse (Project informed on 10/11)
4400 - Wikipedia:WikiProject The 4400
some mortal combat series - Wikipedia:WikiProject Mortal Kombat (done)

episodes for these TV series are also in the Star Trek format:
Big Love (done)
Desperate Housewives (done)
Charmed
Firefly (TV series)
Six Feet Under(done)
Battlestar Galactica (fixed now)
List of Battlestar Galactica (re-imagined series) episodes (ehh...turned out Battlestar Galactica had two series, this one still needs fixing)
Dark Angel (TV series)
Forever Knight
Harsh Realm
LEXX
The Outer Limits
Roswell (TV series)
Sliders (done)
The X-Files
Torchwood (false alarm, the disambiguation was actually needed on torchwood episodes)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003 TV series)
Frasier
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987 TV series)
InuYasha
House (TV series)
That '70s Show
M*A*S*H
Naruto
The O.C.
The Wire (TV series)
Blackadder
Fullmetal Alchemist
My Name Is Earl
Prison Break
Ben 10
The Prisoner
The Sopranos
X-Men
Code Lyoko
Planetes
The Pretender (TV series)
Sex and the City
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Strangers with Candydone
Entourage (TV series)
Langt fra Las Vegas
8 Simple Rules
Eureka (TV series)
Supernatural (TV series)
Oz (TV series)
Ōban Star-Racers
Weeds (TV series)
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Jericho (TV series)

That should be all of it.

In other words, tons of article moving if people decide to go through with this. Any volunteers here? --`/aksha 11:15, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

• Certainly. Picking one at random, I fixed Battlestar Galactica (both the old and the new episodes). That took me about fifteen minutes using tabbed browsing. >Radiant< 13:17, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the research, Yaksha. There's obviously a lot of work to be done.

As long as we're explaining our motives in edit summaries and/or talk pages and directing people here, I'd like to think we'll avoid being seen as insensitive thugs. Perhaps the polite notice I posted above is only necessary when there is discussion on talk pages about naming systems? If no one has discussed it for a particular show, I think we can assume that no one is too worried about it. --Toby Rush ‹ ✆|✍ › 17:51, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

It's probably best to put a note, maybe just in the edit summary, everywhere we make the changes. People who haven't been keeping up will be confused, and it could prevent a revert. - Peregrinefisher 18:14, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Since the "suffix" method is more prevalent than I'd thought, I strongly recommend that we not inform those WikiProjects/series with the language of, "There is already consensus," but instead that we tell them that there is currently discussion, and that we invite them to the party. I also recommend that we create a template to make this announcement. I overall like Toby's wording, but instead of announcing it as "consensus has already been reached," how about we state that there is an active discussion, to which any interested editors are invited? I think that would be a bit more respectful. For example:

Greetings! There is currently an active discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (television) about how to title television episode articles (specifically, when suffixes are and aren't a good idea). The goal of these discussions is to hopefully attain a Consensus, which will then be enforced on all episode articles of all television series, all over Wikipedia. Since the result of this discussion will very likely directly impact the naming of this particular article, any editors involved with this article are encouraged to join the discussion. IF YOU DO NOT PARTICIPATE, YOU SHOULD NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT THE RESULTING DECISION. If you would like to participate, please join the discussion at: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#RfC - Episode suffixes. Thanks!

Further, before we invite a bunch more people, can we please get rid of the old poll, and start something new, with wording that we're all in agreement with before it opens (and wording that doesn't change multiple times while it's running?). That would do a lot to allay my own concerns. For example, I'd like to see a question with wording like, "Should WikiProjects about a particular show, be allowed to make decisions that affect the article titles for that show, or must all decisions go through WP:NC-TV?" and "Should some television series be allowed to use a consistent naming convention where all episodes end with a suffix such as (<series> episode), or must all episodes be named strictly according to Wikipedia disambiguation guidelines, meaning no suffix unless there's already another article with the same title, elsewhere on Wikipedia? Note that this might mean that some series would then have a majority of episodes with suffixes, and a minority of episodes without, which could look odd in some cases." --Elonka 19:10, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

A new poll that's not confusing sounds good. "IF YOU DO NOT PARTICIPATE, YOU SHOULD NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT THE RESULTING DECISION" sounds a little harsh, I would leave that part out, otherwise a good idea. Maybe we should archive this page in preperation for the new poll. - Peregrinefisher 19:40, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

We already answered the question about removing the old poll. No. There's no reason to. If you want to start a new poll with new questions, go ahead. —Wknight94 (talk) 20:11, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, IMHO questions like that are not up for vote or discussion. These articles are part of Wikipedia and as had been mentioned repeatedly there is no logical reason why there should be exceptions. Wording in standards that pre-emptively allow for an exception then isn't a standard - its an option, and that's what we are trying to avoid. -- Chuq 20:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there's no need for another poll. The conversation has superceded the poll, and a consensus has been reached (at least among the active participants in this discussion). We could formally close the poll above, if that would help, but I really think that another poll would be a waste of time.

However, I do agree that we should politely inform all WikiProjects that have been using preemptive disambiguation of our discussion, and the direction it has gone. I'm thinking of something like this, based on Toby's proposed note:

Greetings, <nameofseries> editors!

As you may be aware, for the last several weeks there has been extensive discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television) about how Wikipedia articles on television episodes should be named. Editors from many areas of Wikipedia, including members of several different television WikiProjects, have worked together and come up with a general guideline that article titles should include disambiguating phrases only when there is another article on Wikipedia with the same name as the episode name. Thus, if you were creating episode articles for Knight Rider, the episode Circus Knights would not need any disambiguation, whereas Nobody Does It Better (Knight Rider) would, in order to differentiate it from Nobody Does It Better (song). However, the guideline also recommends that Circus Knights (Knight Rider) exist as a redirect to the episode.

The discussion has been fairly well-advertised at the Village Pump, in many WikiProjects' talk pages and on the talk pages of many television program episode lists. However, the editors contributing to the discussion at WP:TV-NC felt that it was appropriate to make one last call for discussion before people started moving episode articles to new names.

We've noticed that many episodes of <nameofseries> are pre-emptively disambiguated: for example, <exampleepisode> is at <examplelocation>, even though there is no Wikipedia article at <examplelocationwithoutdisambig>. If you feel that there are strong reasons for this that have not already been considered, please join the discussion at WT:TV-NC. (The current recommendations have been reached after much consideration, and are based on a long discussion about how to best comply with Wikipedia's general article naming scheme.)

We appreciate the work that editors do in every area of Wikipedia, and want you to feel included in the decision-making process. Thank you for your help!

That's probably a bit wordy, but I was trying to balance the need for full inclusion (everybody has the right to participate in the discussion) with the practicalities of this debate (which I'm sure most of us are rather fatigued over — we don't want to have to explain the same points over and over again). What do you think? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I crossed out Torchwood from the list - it actually follows the standard convention, but may look otherwise at first glance because many episode titles are common phrases. For example, Everything Changes (Torchwood) vs. Cyberwoman. --Brian Olsen 21:01, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Yep. I actually turned Everything Changes into a disambiguation page, because there were pre-existing links to two different pop songs by that name... —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a bit dicey to ask "Should WikiProjects about a particular show, be allowed to make decisions that affect the article titles for that show, or must all decisions go through WP:NC-TV?" The question basically asks if NC-TV should have any authority - if the end result is "no" then you might as well disband NC-TV completely. If you want to change the policy, propose a new wording of the policy. I think the wording of the current poll is just fine, if the validity is questioned because it changed during the poll, just run it again. Also, the issue isn't even whether TV shows must follow NC-TV - the shows in question violate WP:NAME and WP:D. If you really want to name episodes however you want, the proper course of action is to get those two changed (or at the very least post the same notice there and any similarly appropriate places). Trying to override those two from a subset of wikipedia doesn't seem fair to the rest of the editors. --Milo H Minderbinder 21:23, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The list didn't actually take that long. Thanks to the fact that almost all "list of [TV series] episode" articles use the same few templates. I just did a lot of "what links here" for the templates.

Yes, posting a note to the stargate project and the buffyverse project would be poliet, and i'm about to do that.

Star Trek has already been informed on many talk pages, but there's be 0 response on any of them. I think it's safe to assume they're well informed but just don't care/mind.

Most of the ppl in the lost and 4400 project are already here. And parrallel discussions were already going on in those two projects before they got bought here, so they're well informed.

As for the series without projects, let's just go ahead. We need to balance practicality with the need to include everyone. We should just make sure we always explain and link here on the summaries so it gives people a fair chance to come here and complain/debate the moves. --`/aksha 00:34, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, Buffyverse, Stargate and the mortal combat projects have been informed. I've cut out one of the paragraphs about preemtive disambiguation, because it's not needed...as every episode covered by the two projects already have proper articles. --`/aksha 00:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Yaksha. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:07, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Well...someone from the Mortal Kombat end responded by doing the moving themselves. They missed a few, so i'm just going to go ahead and mop up. --`/aksha 05:08, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Josiah, your version of the "polite note" is excellent; I was thinking of something along the same lines all day but haven't been able to get to a computer until now. :)

Looking at this from the point of view from a new editor coming into the discussion, I wonder if it would be beneficial to:

• Archive at least some of the extraordinarily long discussion on this talk page
• Add a new section titled something like "Episode Article Names FAQ" that succinctly summarizes the most common concerns regarding the guideline along with tactful answers to those concerns as brought up here

The second point here is served pretty well by Josiah's previous summary, but we might be able to make it easier for new people by restating that in a way that is oriented toward them. Does anyone else think this would be useful? I'd hate for anyone to be turned off by the sheer length of prose on this talk page, if they're just looking for some enlightenment on the naming convention. --Toby Rush ‹ ✆|✍ › 07:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm relunctant to archieve a discussion so recent, but this is....quite huge. Perhaps just archieve everything up to Josiah's previous summary? --`/aksha 08:56, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea, and I'm going to be bold and do that. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I've archived everything up to the "crawling up Mount Consensus"; the page was 250 kilobytes long, so I think this was appropriate. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Multi-part episodes

I thought I'd check in here, as I've had to start a deletion review over an episode article that was deleted on the grounds that, according to guidelines, episodes with more than one part should be included entirely within the same article. Can anyone cite or otherwise verify this for me, or is it a load of hooey? --BlueSquadronRaven 18:41, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know anywhere that says you have to do it as one, but there are features if that's what you want at Template:TVep. - Peregrinefisher 19:07, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I was sure I'd seen a guideline page that stated that multi-part articles should only have one article... Ah, there it is: Wikipedia:WikiProject List of Television Episodes/structure. Kind of an obscure place for such a guideline, but there it is: "Multipart episodes should have only one article." For what it's worth, I agree. To me, the title of an episode is more significant than how many parts it happened to be broadcast in, especially considering the number of parts may differ between original broadcast and syndication/DVD, or different broadcast markets anyway. If the producers choose to use the same title for more than one part, it's probably better to keep them in the same article. -- Fru1tbat 19:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

If it's truly one episode, one entry is fine. If they have their own credits and different guest stars or whatever, I think they should get multiple entries. - Peregrinefisher 19:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

That's still not grounds for a deletion. The pages should be merged and then left as redirects to keep the edit history in accordance with Wikipedia policy. Jay32183 20:15, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

As it stands, very little would be lost in the deletion of the articles I'm currently asking about this for. Only some infobox information would need to be transcribed. The rest of the article is basically only a starting point for more to be added. And, as such, it has already been moved about. Thanks!--BlueSquadronRaven 23:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Executive Summary

WOW! I've been gone for a few days and it looks like this just exploded and has now started to move towards a conclusion. Could someone give me the executive summary so I don't have to read through it all? Also we may want to archive this (if the discussions all done) and rather then calling it /Archive 4 with just a date it might be best to call it /Disambig Guidline Discussion that way it's easily identifiable. -- Argash  |  talk  |  contribs  09:23, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Basically, lots more argueing back and forth between individuals. Josiah created an summary of arguments (first edit of the section "reasons for exceptions"), after which i suggested we wrap things up here. The Star Trek example was still the main point of debate - so a notice was posted over at the star trek project page asking for input. The original discussions that led to the Star Trek project taking their current naming convention was fished out(here, here, and here).

Towards the end, i think we pretty much agreed on sticking with the "disambiguate only when needed" clause. The "should we allow exceptions" is still a little up in the air. Which is why notices have been posted to the talk pages of wikiprojects for TV series that use the "always disambiguate" form asking for input. Otherwise, a list of all TV series which use the "always disambiguate" format was generated (see "Other programs not in accordance with this guideline" section). The "should we use "nameofseries" or "nameofseries episode"" is still up in the air too, and i think people have just decided it isn't that important.

Now, we're waiting for responses from the wikiprojects of TV series which always disambiguate, moving pages for TV series that always disambiguate but don't have wikiprojects, and thinking about archieving this page.

Also, some minor changes were made to the naming conventions, you can just take a look at the history for the project page. --`/aksha 10:27, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Comments from WikiProject Stargate

Firstly, thank you to Yaksha for letting the project know about this discussion - it seems we managed to miss it somehow (at least, I haven't noticed any names from people active on the project). Secondly, I'd like to explain how we do Stargate episodes and why. All episodes are "disambiguated" with either (Stargate SG-1) or (Stargate Atlantis), non-episode articles are disambiguated with (Stargate) only when necessary. The main reason for this is consistancy - it makes it much easier to link to episodes when you know exactly where to find them. Having redirects would help, but it's always best to link directly to an article if you can. One of the most important times we need to know the exact names is with out templates, of which we use a lot. The main ones relevant to this discussion are {{sgcite}} and {{xsgcite}} which take the name of the episode (and optionally the initial of the show, defaulting to SG-1) and output it with the appropriate disambiguation in the appropriate format for mentioning episodes inline, and in references, respectively.

If we were going to move all the articles to undisambiguated titles, we'd end up linking to redirects almost every time we mention an episode. --Tango 09:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

No point in explaining reasons here.. the people against suffixes are attempting to nullify anyone supporting them, and have even began moving pages with no consensus to do it. Matthew Fenton (talk · contribs · count · email) 09:57, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

You are mistaken, Matthew, we have a rather strong consensus and arguments all made above.

In response to Tango, there is no harm to link to a redirect, and a bot or something like AWB can easily update all of that. The templates are also an easy fix. I'll gladly help out where I can. There really isn't an issue here, and it's probably a lot easier than you think. -- Ned Scott 10:02, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• I think we're going to need a FAQ for this :) if we move "episode (Stargate SG-1)" to "episode", it automatically leaves a redirect, so there are no technical problems for the Wikiproject. It's not "always best to link directly to an article", linking to a redirect is perfectly fine or the developers wouldn't have created them. >Radiant< 10:18, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, one of the good things about redirects is that you can link to the "wrong article" but readers will still arrive at the "right article". However, i don't quite understand what you said about the templates. If we moved the star trek episode articles, exactly what is going to go wrong with the templates? Will they just result in links which are redirects, or is there also some other concern? --`/aksha 10:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Linking to a redirect takes noticeably longer to load than linking directly, and I would imagine causes twice the load on the servers. Redirects are convenient, but they shouldn't be used intentionally without good reason - they are there so your links will still work if you make a mistake on the name. The templates will work fine after all the articles are moved, but they'll all be disambiguated because it's impossible for the template to know where the article is, so they'll be a lot of redirects (and not ones a bot or AWB can fix, as we don't subst the templates because we might want to change the formatting in the future). I don't think causing inconsistency within a project and large numbers of redirects is worth it just to avoid a little inconsistency with the rest of Wikipedia. --Tango 10:44, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

They don't take any longer to load, nor do they cause "double" the server load. Most of the templates can be adapted. Don't be scared, there won't be more work to do to cite an episode, it won't hurt Wikipedia, all will be fine. There is no major negative side effect. -- Ned Scott 11:00, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

No expert on technicalities here, but this seems to show that redirects are not very taxing on the server at all. "In other words, readers of Wikipedia would have to use a redirect link about 10,000 times before it would be worthwhile to replace that link with a direct link.". --`/aksha 11:23, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• See also Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance, a strong recommendation by Brion Vibber. We pay developers to do that worrying for us. If and when redirect performance becomes problematic, they will inform us; until then we can use them as much as we please. >Radiant< 12:27, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, maybe I was imagining the slower response to redirects (or just thinking about viewing them with popups, which is definitely slower, it seems to do the redirect manually). My comment about the server load was secondary - I was more worried about the loading times for users.

The templates can certainly not be adapted, they'll have to link to the redirect page (which you've now convinced me isn't a serious problem, so it doesn't matter).

--Tango 15:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

(showname) or (showname episode)

OK, we've decided to follow WP's rules for disambiguation. Let's decide if a page that must be disambiguated should have (showname) or (showname episode) appended to it. Obviously, if (showname) is chosen and it's already taken by a character page or someting, use (showname episode). - Peregrinefisher 17:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

(showname)

1. support Let's keep it as simple as possible. - Peregrinefisher 17:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
2. Support. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:05, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
3. Support Abstain. There is already a vote on this particular issue above... I suggest you close this repeat survey and vote up there. We might want to move that survey down to the bottom of this page. --Serge 18:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
   • Someone (anonymously) just archived the survey above. In general, it's frowned upon to repeat a survey so soon after having one on the same issue, especially when the first one had so many participants. This instantiation of the survey needs to be justified somehow in order to be credible. --Serge 20:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
4. In most cases, I think clashes between episodes and other articles about the show can be avoided in a similar way to how Stargate pages are done - episodes get the name of the show, other articles just get "(Stargate)". I think other shows use a similar system (non-episode Buffy articles are suffixed "(Buffyverse)" for instance, so their episodes could be "(Buffy)" [they are currently "(Buffy Episode)"]). --Tango 18:12, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
5. Weak support. My general preference is for shorter disambiguation phrases, so (Showname) is better than (Showname episode); however, I think that as long as pre-emptive disambigution is avoided, it doesn't really matter that much which disambiguation phrase is used when it is necessary. I'd prefer to finish up the other debate before getting bogged down in this one; I actually think we can let this aspect go for a while. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:27, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
6. Support Always in favor of keeping it simple. But do agree this was not the more important of the issues. Jay32183 21:00, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
7. Support (obviously except in the examples of Serenity (Firefly episode), Angel (Buffy episode), Captain Jack Harkness (Torchwood episode) etc.)~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 21:08, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Summary of naming issue

I still feel quite strongly that the earlier RfC poll is invalid, because its format and wording were changed so many times while it was in-process.[1][2][3] [4][5][6][7] [8] [9][10][11][12][13] [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] [23][24][25][26] [27][28]for just a few diffs to indicate the mass confusion.

As such, I'd like to start over fresh, with a summary of the issue, and a new poll, where we agree on the wording beforehand, then open it, and refrain from changing the wording while it's in process. As such, here's my own "nutshell synopsis" of the issue as it stands:

On a careful review of current Wikipedia practices, it is clear that in situations where a television series has individual episodes, that in many cases, the editors who created the episode articles chose to use a consistent naming system, where a suffix of (<seriesname>) or (<seriesname> episode) was added to each article title, even when not specifically required by disambiguation rules.

As this practice has come to light, some editors who are in favor of a more strict interpretation of disambiguation guidelines, say that this process is improper, and that all of these hundreds of television articles should be changed to bring them back into strict adherence (meaning that a suffix should only be included if it is absolutely necessary for disambiguation purposes if there's another article of the same title elsewhere on Wikipedia).

Other editors feel that there's nothing wrong with the practice of consistent suffixes, and that it has various advantages, such as consistency in linking, making category listings look cleaner, and providing helpful context in watchlists. They believe that the Naming Conventions guideline should be updated to indicate that this "allow consistent suffixes" method should be included as an acceptable alternative for article naming. Or in other words, per Wikipedia:Guideline, "Guidelines are not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception"

Other editors feel that the "consistent suffix" method should be generally discouraged, but that it may be warranted as an exception in certain situations. For example, some series have cases where the majority of their episodes already require a suffix for disambiguation reasons, so it might make sense to also add a suffix to the minority of episodes that don't have it, for consistency's sake. Other series have gone through multiple title changes (such as Star Trek), and those editors have chosen to use a consistent (<abbreviation> episode) system, such as "(TOS episode)" "(DS9 episode)", etc.

A potential poll question for this issue is: "When is it appropriate for articles about episodes of a television series to use a consistent naming system, such a consistent suffix of (<seriesname> episode) after each episode title?" Answers could be "Always - all series should use this system," "Never - suffixes should only be used when absolutely required for disambiguation", "Sometimes - it should be taken on a case by case basis, depending on the needs of that particular series."

Does this sound like a fair summary of the issue, and a fair wording of a poll question? If not, please feel free to suggest alternate wording. --Elonka 20:26, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The previous RfC was a total mess - I think your suggestion is pretty good :) Matthew Fenton (talk · contribs · count · email) 20:28, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe two seperate polls? One with "always", "never", and "sometimes" as above. Another with (showname) vs. (showname episode)? We should figure both things out now, while everyones watching. - Peregrinefisher 20:38, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see some evidence that at least one person in the prior survey voted incorrectly "because its format and wording were changed so many times" before I would agree that it is invalid. --Serge 20:49, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The above does not sound like a fair summary of the issue. For example, the second paragraph is obviously biased. I suggest:

As this practice has come to light, some editors have noted that this process creates names that are inconsistent with the way Wikipedia articles are named in general. Many editors believe that those articles that do not require disambiguation should be changed to be consistent with accepted and widely followed general Wikipedia naming conventions as reflected in the naming and disambiguation guidelines.

The above is just an example, but it's all moot because the need for a new survey has not been established per my previous point. --Serge 20:49, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, the existing consensus on this page is not based on the poll, but on the extensive conversation that has followed it. You are correct that the poll was altered, and some of the poll-related discussion may have been unclear, but there has been a great deal of discussion since then. Remember that polling is evil, and Wikipedia prefers discussion over voting. Accordingly, I take the many, many kilobytes of discussion into greater account than the poll, which was only a preliminary gauge of opinions. Please read Wikipedia:Discuss, don't vote#Policy and guidelines — although that page has not been approved, it is an accurate description of how policies and guidelines are formed on Wikipedia.

I have yet to see any response to my summary of the arguments at #Reasons for exceptions. In this section, you have merely restated the arguments which I believe I and others have successfully argued against. All your arguments can be summarized by "consistency", "precedent" and "context", none of which are supported by other Wikipedia policies. "Common sense and the occasional exception" is a completely different matter from establishing a guideline which codifies those exceptions.

I also oppose having another poll on this subject, as I feel that the discussion (not the poll) has reached an adequate consensus, and we should move on to the next stage. You and Matthew Fenton are the only editors who disagree with the existing consensus, and consensus does not mean 100% agreement. Let's move on. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:54, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Josiah, the discussion clearly stood on it's own. Not only that, but that mass of diffs links is a bit misleading, as most of them had nothing to do with the actual formatting of the poll. The majority of the votes took place while the poll was reasonably clear in what it meant. "Mass confusion" is a bit of an exaggeration. Again, the discussion stands alone from the poll and shows support for the guideline's current version, as well as coming to the conclusion that Lost and Star Trek do not have a reasonable exemption from this guideline. -- Ned Scott 21:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, here's a compromise proposal. If you ask the people who voted against the guideline you want, and explain to them what the vote was really for, and you find more than a few people that eseentially say, "Oh!!! Is that what I supported! I wanted to vote on the other side!", then we can restart the poll. What do people think of that? Your appeal for re-starting the poll is alleged procedure problems, but the appeal needs to be won (i.e., the procedure problems need to be proven) before the poll can be re-run. —Wknight94 (talk) 22:32, 10 November 2006 (UTC)