Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television

Articles for every episode

I think it's time we stop making articles for every episode of popular shows. Some examples include The Mandalorian, The Walking Dead and The Simpsons. There's no reason to have an article for every episode, and some of them just plain out fail WP:GNG. Horacio Vara (talk) 17:53, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. I believe work should be done to create an actual article out of Wikipedia:Notability (television), instead of it redirecting to Wikipedia:Notability (media)#Programming. A standalone article could cover pilots/series articles (ideally once it is confirmed filming on the actual season has started similarly to WP:NFF), season articles, episode articles, and other articles related to television and are covered by this project and MOS. Wikipedia:Notability (film) could be a good template to follow if we want to undertake this. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 18:02, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd say only about 1% of episode articles are actually done right. Amaury • 18:07, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd be fully in favor of reworking WP:TVSHOW (the "Generally, an individual radio or television program is likely to be notable if it airs on a network of radio or television stations (either national or regional in scope), or on a cable television channel with a broad regional or national audience." line is massively misunderstood to mean "airs nationally = always notable!!", which has become a real problem, esp. for (non-notable) TV movies) as suggested, but that would be a big project. Maybe the best approach would be for somebody to just volunteer ("NOT IT!!") to write up a draft of that, and then have the rest of us comment on it and make suggestions. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:35, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

From the episode articles of the shows mentioned I've seen (like The Simpsons) the majority do meet WP:GNG. As long as GNG is meet I have no problem with editors creating these articles if that is what the editors want to work on. The Simpsons is one of the few shows that have a standalone WikiProject and does quite well. They have 344 GA articles with most being episode articles. I don't feel that there is a need to create stronger notability guidelines that would cause a lot of them to be subject to AFD. If someone wants to take on the task of reading each episode article and evaluating it against GNG then be my guest. Alucard 16_{❯❯❯ chat?} 18:38, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Maybe true for that, probably true for Seinfeld. But should there be an episode article for every episode of "South Park"?! What about SpongeBob SquarePants?! Because that's pretty much the situation we have now. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:41, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Checking List of SpongeBob SquarePants episodes, most episodes actually don't have an article. South Park episodes do though. El Millo (talk) 18:47, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) South Park is in similar vein of The Simpsons in that every episode generally gets reviewed at this point with topical events covered in the episodes sometimes becoming noteworthy like Band in China which caused the show to be banned in China. I don't read the South Park episode articles much myself but the ones I have seen do meet GNG. Do we need an article for every episode of SpongeBob SquarePants? No we do not and there isn't enough reception to cause the majority of the series episodes to meet GNG. I do agree with you about the bit you quoted IJBall that is taken out of context where people think "aired nationally = Wikipedia article". That needs to be rewritten and clarified because other users could think shows like Keeping Up with the Kardashians or The Only Way Is Essex should have articles for each episode when in fact they do not. Individual episode articles should be treated as any other article in my opinion, evaluated on their own merits not because it is one of the handful of shows that has an article for each episode. Alucard 16_{❯❯❯ chat?} 18:52, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

The standard should not be "gets reviewed by some sites on the web" – the standard should be (as per, for example, WP:NFO: "The film is widely distributed and has received full-length reviews by two or more nationally known critics." (emphasis mine)). Game of Thrones likely easily passes this standard with many of its episodes. I doubt South Park does to the level of pretty much every episode getting its own standalone article. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:44, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

It likely would be worthwhile to identify those critics or at least examples of them for English-based television (likely meaning the US set, Canadian set, UK set and Aussie set will be different). --Masem (t) 19:49, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Multiple episodes from Seinfeld and South Park are WP:PLOTONLY. The Burning (Seinfeld) and Season Finale (South Park) are good examples of why every episode should not have an article. Horacio Vara (talk) 18:54, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

OK looking at those two articles and evaluating them against WP:GNG The Burning (Seinfeld) would fail WP:GNG and is a clear example of WP:PLOTONLY. In its current form it most likely wouldn't survive an AFD. However before nominating it the best thing to do would be to check the almighty Google or the evil Bing to see if the episode does have reliable, significant coverage from secondary sources that can improve the article. Season Finale (South Park) in its current form is mostly WP:PLOTONLY however it has two reliable, secondary sources providing some reception about the episode. The reception does demonstrate the episode was covered. The episode article in this case (given it aired in 2019) could be improved upon by adding viewership information (which most likely is available) and checking other secondary, reliable general places outside of IGN and The A.V. Club for more coverage that often write about South Park episodes. If by chance IGN & The A.V. Club are the only secondary sources and viewership information is unavailable then it would be a candidate for AFD or redirect to the season article. Alucard 16_{❯❯❯ chat?} 19:11, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

FTR, The Burning (Seinfeld) should just be converted to a redirect right now. It's been tagged for 3 years! It's had its chance: nuke it to a redirect! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:35, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

User:Alucard 16, after doing some WP:BEFORE for The Burning, I nominated it. --Slashme (talk) 19:42, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

If episode articles only contain just a plot and/or reception, generally they fail WP:GNG. — YoungForever^(talk) 20:31, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

• @YoungForever: Thank you! This is what I was trying to say. A plot and two reviews do not grant an article notability. Horacio Vara (talk) 14:50, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I think broad questions like "Do we need an article for every episode of X" will be answered according to WP:ILIKEIT or WP:IDONTLIKEIT. We should have articles on episodes that are discussed in reliable sources. If there is significant coverage of the episode, then it is acceptable to have an article for that episode. Horacio Vara has nominated three large batches of articles for nomination today, for Simpsons episodes, Game of Thrones episodes and Walking Dead episodes. I expect that they will all be kept, because of the individual variations between coverage of each episode. If you want to clean out the non-notable episodes, that should be considered on an individual basis. — Toughpigs (talk) 19:12, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Actually I agree in this case the general question "Should each episode of a popular TV series have its own article?" falls exactly within WP:ILIKEIT or WP:IDONTLIKEIT. If every episode of a series happens to meet GNG (even barely) there shouldn't be an issue as long as GNG is meet. It seems some forget about the episode coverage task force. Looking at the batch AFD for The Simpson episodes all of these episode articles pass WP:GNG otherwise they wouldn't have escaped the purview of WP:NPP which requires new page patrol reviewers to check the article against WP:GNG and any other associated nobility guidelines we have at en~Wiki. The only article I would take any issue over is I, Carumbus because 4 of the sources out of 10 are Tweets from Al Jean which makes them primary sources. However I would just slap a more sources needed tag on it. Alucard 16_{❯❯❯ chat?} 19:28, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Given current discussions at WT:N there are two ways that the goal I'm seeing here can be achieved. First, to set the stage it would seem that if you look at our subject specific notability guidelines, we have three functions these do 1) set what are criteria for presumed notability for a standalone article 2) set conditions where it is not appropriate to make an article even if the GNG is met, and 3) set what types of sources are good or poor for notability in that area. For this, you are talking a two pronged approach: you can set (1) for episodes to require two reviews from well-established critics (which you should define; eg it sounds like you want your Rolling Stone or NYTimes which do not routine review shows but only focus on critical darlings (Better Call Saul and Watchmen I know personally) but not your IGN or AV Club (which touch everything) as the quality here) as a presumption for notability, which is good. You can also spell out (2) that while you could have a whole host of reviews from weaker sites (The IGNs and AVclubs), that if there is nothing more than those reviews and ratings, that while for any other topic those may be fine for the GNG, there would need to be more coverage in terms of development or legacy to have the episode article to keep the standalone or otherwise these would be merged back to episode lists.

The only only other thing with that is that for shows that are reviewed in low quality sources, you can usually find a RT score, and thus I would try to find a way to include the per-episode RT score into episode lists when shows are merged back. That gives the reader a quick link to check the reviews that were given without us having to give the reviews. --Masem (t) 19:56, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I can try to dig it up if you want, but I think we've established on a past WPTV discussion (maybe WPFilm) that RT is only worth citing when it lists more than 20 reviews, otherwise there's too much random fluctuation, and if it has 20 reviews then enough of the 20 should be high-quality enough to justify a standalone article. — Bilorv (talk) 21:42, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

@Masem: What would the process be if this project wanted to even consider creating a standalone notability article? Can it be started in the draft space? And where would there need to be notifications that this is being crafted/considered? - Favre1fan93 (talk) 14:53, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

As its more a guideline than an article, it can go to WP space, tagging it with {{proposed}}. When you are happy with it (and to that I mean, the TV project is happy with it), then you can advertize getting to promoted to a full guideline via VPP, CENT, and other reasonable places through an RFC. You don't need to notify the whole of en.wiki as it is drafted, only the version you want to become a guideline. --Masem (t) 14:57, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't think this should come down to ILIKEIT or IDONTLIKEIT. If an episode is to have its own article, it needs to stand on its own as a notable topic in terms of the WP:GNG, with everything that that entails: significant coverage, reliable secondary sources, independent sources, and not indiscriminate information. --Slashme (talk) 19:42, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

• @Horacio Vara, Favre1fan93, Amaury, IJBall, Alucard 16, Masem, Young Forever, Toughpigs, and Bilorv: I've been reading the discussion and didn't find a place to jump in because you all seem to generally agree with each other and with my view that 1. not all episodes, even of very notable shows, should have an article, and 2. there are currently a lot of episode articles that do not pass N. A first step, rather than debate a guideline, could be to bring up all the episode articles (from "List of episodes of X" pages and categories like WP episode coverage) and !vote on which are suitable for their own article. That would probably make the criteria for a guideline clearer, and clean-up episode articles at the same time because then someone could take the no votes to AfD. Kingsif (talk) 14:45, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
  • My suggestion is to set the notability guideline for television episodes here first (getting global support for that), *then* come at the articles armed with that guideline which should have consensus. It will be a lot easier then to justify the merges of existing episode articles (eg you are doing up against attitudes against AFDs like this Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Triggerfinger (The Walking Dead) that a consensus-based notability guideline will easy help to get around. --Masem (t) 14:54, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
    • I generally agree with this approach. But there are specific (flagrant) instances, right now, like The Burning (Seinfeld), that clearly fail WP:GNG, and should simply be boldly redirected back to the relevant season article or LoE article, or can be taken (individually) to WP:AfD in the meantime... But I do agree that Horacio Vara's "bulk delete" approach is unlikely to be fruitful, esp. in the absence of a strong and clear 'Notability for television' guideline. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:11, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
      • Do keep in mind that some will likely try to claim sources do exist (eg I found a review on that episode at AV Club but not much more) when just going off the GNG. That's fair to do, you're just going to get a lot of pushback if the project isn't behind it. --Masem (t) 15:20, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
        • To clarify my position, I do not object to every episode in a series having its own episode article. I object to the general notion that a series can't possibly have most or all the episodes as individual articles which is what the initial post was about. The OP did two small bundles and one massive bundle at AFD but didn't elaborate specifically how the episode articles in question failed the existing GNG guidelines OP just said "failed WP: GNG" which is not enough of a justification to nominate so many articles like the OP did in my opinion. I see no problem with every episode of a series having its own article as long as GNG guidelines are meet. I object to things like "must have at least three reviews and one of them being from Rolling Stone" or something like "reviews from IGN and The A.V. Club can't be used to establish significant coverage" because it would place an undue burden at NPP. (Like how can IGN be good for video games articles but not episodes of a television series?) Also before blindly merging or putting an episode article up for AFD the proposer should do a quick search to see if there are more sources available than currently in the article. Since a lot of articles are created as stubs with the intent to be expanded on later a bit of due diligence should be made. I have no objection for clarification of TV notability guidelines that would clarify something like three or more reviews (or something along those lines) are needed to establish significant coverage along with details about the production, viewership information, cultural impact and/or awards (if applicable). I wasn't able to find more sources on The Burning (Seinfeld) so be bold and merge it like IJBall suggested. Episode articles should be reviewed on a case by case basis just like any other article on Wikipedia not in batches simply because a single TV show shouldn't have episode articles for every episode. Alucard 16_{❯❯❯ chat?} 15:23, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I think it's appropriate to nominate GNG fails like IJBall's suggestion for AfD. Seinfeld has some landmark episodes that have been discussed a great deal, and many that haven't; 1990s sitcoms didn't get reviews for every single episode. Modern sci-fi/fantasy shows like The Mandalorian and Game of Thrones are much more likely to have every episode discussed at length, and I think the guidelines need to be clarified for those. — Toughpigs (talk) 15:30, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

• Talking about Seinfeld, could someone take a look at this AFD? Horacio Vara (talk)

• I would have to agree with Rhino131's keep reasoning as the user was able to find a review from The AV Club, an article from The Week that discuss the episode. They also found sources from Uproxx, two interviews (one from Rolling Stone), etc. Alucard 16_{❯❯❯ chat?} 15:41, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
• I trimmed the plot description and used the links from the deletion discussion to add some meta-discussion. It's now at least an acceptable start-class article of borderline notability. --Slashme (talk) 19:24, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

• For anyone interested, a similar discussion is taking place at Talk:The_Simpsons_(season_32)#Merging_Discussion. Horacio Vara (talk) 17:57, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

• Proposing that merge while this discussion and the AFD is happening is not the way to do this. Let this discussion and the AFD finish and then propose your next steps based on the consensus. TheDoctorWho (talk) 03:34, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Working draft created

All, per Masem's suggestion, Wikipedia:Notability (television) is now a working draft proposal for a guideline. Please feel free to edit thoughts there, as well as continue discussion on that talk page. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:24, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Still busy these days, but I will try and look at and comment, on this over the next several days. If we go with a separate WP:NTV guideline, I'll have several concerns/areas of interest: "refining" the "aired nationally" statement so it's clear that "aired nationally" doesn't automatically mean "notable!", TV pilots (so that we can hopefully avoid unfortunate AfD decisions like this one), TV episodes (not every episode of even the most popular TV series is going to justify a standalone article, and many series will have no epiosdes that qualify for an article!), TV movies (unlikely to be notable most of the time if released on a U.S. cable channel over the last 20 years), and as Masem suggests – what "level" of reviewing do we want to set as a benchmark (and, FTR, AV Club should be under what ever reviewing level benchmark we come up with!). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:21, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Also, just as a general concept – how do you know any TV-related topic qualifies for an article? – When there is enough sourcing to properly justify a 'Reception' and a 'Production' section. Too many editors also take the approach that "reviews = notable!!", but if a TV project isn't also getting WP:RS coverage on the 'Production' end, I'm going to suggest that, as a general concept, that topic is probably not robust enough to justify a standalone article. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:29, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Personally not a fan of ever having YANG (yet another notability guideline). It's almost always better to work down the list of articles that you think fail today's guidelines and either improve them or remove them. --Izno (talk) 17:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

It's actually useful for exactly the reason Masem suggests – there is less likely to be confusion over "what a notable TV program" is, if it's clearly spelled out somewhere how the "WP:GNG test" gets applied to the specific "subject" (TV shows, in this case). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:41, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Honestly I find it a bit shocking at how prominent/active (in my opinion) the TV project is, that a standalone guideline page didn't exist since at the moment, all of the project's notability guidelines are contained to a single section at the general media notability article. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 03:17, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Just to note that the finalised SNG will need a full RFC as it affects 1000s of articles, including quite old ones ( Bewitched has 100+ episode articles, or it did the last time I looked), imv Atlantic306 (talk) 01:23, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
• This is an absurd attempt to undermine community consensus (see WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS or the explicit consensus at Talk:The Mandalorian) that these episodes are in fact notable. A group of editors here cannot suddenly decide the GNG is no longer good enough for tv episodes. Remember per WP:PROPOSALS: “Most commonly, a new policy or guideline documents existing practices, rather than proposing a change to what experienced editors already choose to do.” If you think certain episodes don’t meet the GNG, fine, but you cannot make a more difficult threshold to pass because you don’t like the existing consensus and feel there “shouldn’t” be such articles. -- Calidum 20:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Agree, the stipulations are far too prescriptive and detailed as if it is a manual of style for a featured article. Obviously a production section is preferred but is it really essential? When the article is a fleshed out start class with multiple reliable sources secondary coverage such as national reviews is the absence of a production section really the breaker.The Film Project has defined reviews by national critics as reviews with a large national audience not the reputation of the individual reviewer. There is also the problem that production details often do not come from reliable sources as defined by independence - for example an autobiography of the writer, producer or director, or a source affiliated with the production company. There are GAs that use the dvd documentaries of the film or tv show extensively for the production sections. Overall the qualifications for a episode article as proposed are too onerous in my view, Atlantic306 (talk) 01:01, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (television) is a working draft so you are welcome to edits or adjust anything there. Nothing's been finalized yet. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 04:40, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Favre1fan93 says that edits are welcome, so I took them up on the offer. :) I edited the "Television episodes" section to say that episode-specific reviews contribute to notability.

In the first paragraph, the text said that having reviews "is common to the vast majority of television episodes." This is not true; there are thousands of television episodes that have never been specifically reviewed, especially pre-internet. It also said, "an article composed of just these elements is most likely redundant to the main article." This is also untrue: the main show article does not contain reviews for individual episodes.

I also changed "While having a significant number of reviews is a step towards considering a television episode notable" to "Having a significant number of reviews contributes to considering a television episode notable", and made it more clear that coverage of production aspects is a suggestion for creating a higher-quality article.

I'd be interested to know what other people think about these changes. — Toughpigs (talk) 15:35, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

That all looks good to me. (On my end, I'm not taking a look at this until probably next week...) --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:32, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

I just created the page to start making edits. It is by no means "closed" or restrictive to anyone for editing. I hope any of my comments regarding that page have not come off that way. Yes, I myself have started making edits there, but I want others to edit this, so it isn't just me, and all can then discuss. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 17:14, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

"A group of editors here cannot suddenly decide the GNG is no longer good enough for tv episodes." - what part of the proposal as it stands at the moment is more restrictive than the GNG? --Slashme (talk) 18:50, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

The advice I'm seeing in the draft is the same type of advice that is at WP:NFF for future films - which is where even if good sourcing exists that could potentially meet the GNG, articles on yet-produced films should not be made. Per the current discussion at WT:N on what functions an SNG can do, this appropriate is fully within practice for the proposed TV SNG. (If/when this becomes a guideline, it will be a wholly separate matter of how we'd go about handling the hundreds of episodes that might run afoul of that). --Masem (t) 18:57, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Some editors in the above discussion and the one regarding The Mandolorian seem to suggest that reviews alone -- no matter who publishes them or how many reviews there are -- should not establish notability. WP:N suggests no such thing. It's also remember what WP:SNG says about subject notability guidelines. "[Subject notability guidelines] are considered shortcuts to meeting the general notability guideline" and "A topic is not required to meet both the general notability guideline and a subject-specific notability guideline to qualify for a standalone article." -- Calidum 19:15, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

• I've added some language that explains that we need to show that to rise beyond IINFO, an article about an episode needs to find sources that discuss the episode at a meta level, not just recount the plot, and need to show that it's had an impact beyond that that any ROTM episode would have. --Slashme (talk) 18:44, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

  What is a "meta level"? — Toughpigs (talk) 03:37, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• As far as reviews go, I do say that reviews grant notability since an outlet is extremely unlikely to review every episode that airs. It's the same premise as with film reviews: there will always be far, far more episodes of any given show than there will be outlets that can or will review them. What I would argue is that rather than argue that reviews shouldn't give notability, the number of reviews needed to establish notability should be raised to say, 3-4. That will eliminate a great many episodes as far as notability goes. Length and in-depth qualities of a review would be harder to concretely nail down, as a good writer can nail down a review in 1-2 paragraphs as long as they're concise and clear.

As far as making the critic nationally known, that's a bit harder to nail down since the criteria is so loose when you consider the reach of the Internet. An article of any type posted on the internet can be seen on a global scale and a review from a well-known, major newspaper that isn't posted online could be seen as non-national. The reason I mention this is that there are multiple countries where Internet coverage is a little harder to gain. South Africa is kind of notorious for this, to the point where one of the keynote speakers at the 2015 WikiConference USA actually went into some detail about how difficult it was for some SA topics to meet notability guidelines because of the lack of web presence of many news outlets. I feel that the best way to establish whether a source is usable is to determine if it's reliable and if the source is in-depth, as otherwise this could have a severe negative impact on non-English or Western media. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:40, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

I think the problem is the opposite – anyone in the First World can get a group of friends together and put out a website where they "review" TV episodes. This is rather the current problem – anyone can review U.S. or UK TV shows. This is why the metric needs to be higher than "I found 3 reviews on the internet = notable!!". The issue is that some editors want to define any coverage as "significant coverage" (as per GNG), but the standard should be higher than that. That is why I like WP:NFO's "full-length reviews by two or more nationally known critics" standard, because that at least makes it clear you can't just take any old "review" website you find on the web and use that to try to get "by" GNG. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:49, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Last month, Horacio Vara nominated seven Game of Thrones episodes and an astonishing eighty-nine Walking Dead episodes for deletion, saying that they failed GNG. I looked at a random episode in each bunch, and found that "Kill the Boy" (Game of Thrones) had reviews from The Atlantic, IGN and Vanity Fair, while "Coda" (Walking Dead) had reviews from the Daily Beast, Entertainment Weekly and iO9. I don't think that the Atlantic, Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly are run by a group of friends. IJBall, do you have an example of an AfD discussion that ended as Keep because someone in the First World got a group of friends together? — Toughpigs (talk) 05:20, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• We also need to remember that Wikipedia is meant to cover more than just First World countries, which is why so many of the notability guidelines seem to be so light and easy to pass. Most are written that way because they aren't meant to apply solely to US and other Western-centric topics. They're also meant to help make it easier to have coverage on topics concerning non-First World countries, where coverage may be available but much more difficult to come by. Re-tooling the notability guidelines with First World countries specifically in mind will only have a severely detrimental impact on Wikipedia's coverage of other countries. There's also the issue of coverage of women, minorities, and subcultures that tend to have a dearth of coverage in very mainstream sources. Here are some examples:

• A South African episode doesn't have South African media coverage that Wikipedia editors can easily discover, however they do have coverage by way of reviews in Western media websites such as iO9 and SlashFilm. The episode was a major release in its area, but the majority of coverage isn't online because the media outlets don't have a major web presence or won't come up in a Western Google search. Google search has a history of not properly crawling the websites of non-Western countries.
• A director creates an episode for a TV series that touches upon issues that they personally experienced as a transgender individual. The mainstream public generally doesn't cover LGBT shows and episodes the same way they would for say, Game of Thrones, so the coverage is predominantly reviews in places like PinkNews, AfterEllen, and Queerty.
• An episode of a horror show gets light coverage but gains reviews in places like Bloody Disgusting, Dread Central, and the Rue Morgue website. The websites are not well known outside of the horror community but are major within the horror fandom.

If we argue that reviews shouldn't count towards notability that will severely impact Wikipedia's ability to cover non-Western and mainstream topics as a whole, as some episodes of shows that are non-Western and/or deal with specific subcultures or marginalized groups may not gain substantial coverage outside of reviews. As a horror fan I can say that shows like TWD and AHS are definitely outliers and do not represent typical coverage for the average horror themed show. The average horror TV show (as well as film and other media) is unlikely to gain substantial coverage, let alone coverage in places Wikipedia sees as reliable.

Now when it comes to the argument of nationally known critics, this is also an area that can negatively impact coverage on Wikipedia. What do we consider nationally known? It can be argued that if something is online it has the potential for global impact, as long as it is discoverable. We can't judge websites targeted towards subcultures and marginalized groups the same way that we would a website targeted towards the mainstream public. While a horror fan would see Bloody Disgusting or Rue Morgue as obviously major media outlets within the horror community, others may dismiss them as too minor when comparing them to even predominantly online outlets like the Hollywood Reporter or Deadline. The same could be argued for coverage in other countries where the newspaper may not be known to Western readers but be considered a big deal in its country - but just not have an online presence or much of one.

Where this concerns me is that while this deals with specific episodes, this argument has been applied to film articles and could also be very easily applied to articles for entire series. By severely limiting what can make an individual episode notable it makes it very easy to similarly limit what makes an entire series notable as there are many series that rely heavily on review/reception coverage to establish notability and its impact on media. While this may seem like a stretch to some, this would also impact coverage on the creative professionals involved in the production of said media, as there have been arguments that if a person's work doesn't have an article that they are by extension not notable either.

Wikipedia has already been severely criticized when it comes to its coverage of marginalized groups and non-Western countries, to the point where academic and scholarly articles have broached the topic. This is also a frequent topic of conversation at Wikipedia conferences as well. My concern here is that many of the arguments for this are looking at very mainstream media like Game of Thrones, South Park, and The Mandalorian, shows that are already household names and aren't considering that tailoring a guideline to restrict episode articles for those shows will in turn have an impact on articles for non-mainstream, non-Western media. I know that this isn't the intent of the guideline by any stretch, but I think that extreme caution needs to be applied when it comes to reducing or removing the impact of reviews towards notability and limiting what can be seen as a reliable source as it impacts more than just these mainstream media. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:15, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• I also want to note that I have actually seen cases where people have argued that horror outlets like Bloody Disgusting and Dread Central are minor and shouldn't count towards notability. It's honestly relatively common, particularly when you have a major outlet that is well respected in the horror community (and has been cited as RS by academic and scholarly sources) but lacks an article on Wikipedia. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:18, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

@Toughpigs: What does Horacio Vara AfD activities have to do with the point I was trying to make? Horacio Vara's actions seemed tied to my point as a way to denigrate it. I'm not defending his actions at all, though I agree with his general view that there are far too many "episode" articles on Wikipedia, and that a lot of them obviously fail WP:GNG and WP:ALLPLOT outright (though I don't agree with him that GoT or TWD were likely to be examples of this!)... As to your question, I can't think of a specific AfD where that has been an issue, but I believe I have seen some WP:AfCs that were probably swayed by what I would consider to be "lesser" (i.e. probably not good enough) use of "sourcing". And I can definitely think of instances where articles weren't taken to AfD because the author had strategically placed just enough (what I consider to be crappy) "sourcing" that no one would want to bother with the fight over it at AfD. I would like our standards to be higher than "Well, I'm not going to bother to take this article to AfD because there's just enough crummy sourcing that I'm going to get too much pushback at AfD to make this worth my time to nominate".

"If we argue that reviews shouldn't count towards notability..." @ReaderofthePack: No one is arguing that "reviews shouldn't count towards notability". What some of us are saying is that we'd like to see more than just reviews to consider a TV topic truly notable (in most cases). Add: Also, I think my point is that not all "reviews" are equal (weight/significance) – I don't have a problem with Dread Central, but I might have more a problem with AV Club or TV Tropes. I don't know if TV programs receive coverage of production aspects in a country like South Africa, but I've got to think there's at least some coverage like that even there (though, perhaps mostly in "trade" magazines?...). Certainly at the U.S./UK/Canada/Australia-level, I think a lot of us would like to see reviews+production info, not just reviews, esp. for TV episode articles, which tend to succumb to WP:ALLPLOT without this balance. And that's true for both TV and film. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 07:40, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree that not all reviews are the same, and that the LA Times and Entertainment Weekly are better than random blogs. But you said, "anyone in the First World can get a group of friends together and put out a website where they "review" TV episodes. This is rather the current problem – anyone can review U.S. or UK TV shows." If you don't know of any examples where the "group of friends" level of review was used to meet notability, then no, this is not "the current problem." — Toughpigs (talk) 18:16, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

What else would you call something like A.V. Club? This is the kind of site I'm thinking of. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:43, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

might have more a problem with AV Club or TV Tropes - but TV Tropes doesn't publish reviews, or anything. I now consider it to basically be a fan wiki, a world away from A.V. Club (or any other actual publication). Kingsif (talk) 18:50, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

What you're saying is that reviews shouldn't be enough, however that will effectively end up equating to people not seeing reviews as a source of notability. This could in turn weaken other non-review sources. If say, twenty reviews in all of the major newspapers or subculture websites aren't enough to establish notability then someone could argue that a handful of other types of coverage wouldn't be enough either, particularly if they aren't multiple pages long.

Perhaps what could be a good alternative is to make a guide that would help others learn how to use review type articles more effectively. There are many review articles that discuss elements such as production, themes, and other things that fall outside of the realm of "my opinion is X" (for example, delving into comparisons on the director or writer's work to past works or episodes to comment on character growth). I don't think that many people realize that they can use this information to make an article more than just a review and plot synopsis, not just for film and TV articles, but for most media in general. Not only that, but also help show them what sources in general can be used and which shouldn't. I know that there are some guides out on this, but few that are very user friendly or easily discovered by newbies. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:09, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Comments I agree there are far too many non-notable episode coverages on Wikipedia. Not convinced on a bright line of "20 reviews". One editor seems to think the project may produce "rubbish" and has no authority (no effect) but a large consensus does. The vast majority of episode coverage I have seen fail GNG with no significant coverage, are FANCRUFT with mainly all plot, and I comment those looking into this. Otr500 (talk) 04:11, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

speaking of items, will there be a tv version of {{film draft notice}}? Starzoner (talk) 02:51, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

@Starzoner: If this notability guideline materializes, there will in theory be a "NFF" equivalent that a template could be made to state. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 03:57, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Episode notability suggestions

While WP:NTV is still being worked out, and given the ever-increasing discussions as more and more episode articles are created, I have some suggestions for criteria. I don't intend this as an RfC, but to see if the ideas have general support before an RfC on adding them to the guidelines.

1. Principle: an episode should demonstrate notability on its own; that is, the article would pass GNG regardless of the series. Therefore, it should include:
   1. Reliable sources* documenting its production, with more than a passing mention, and
   2. Reliable sources* documenting its reception, with more than a passing mention
   3. If an episode meets GNG, but not all of the NTV criteria, it may still get an article if...
2. An episode article should normally have both production and reception sections to be considered notable, in line with MOS:TVPRODUCTION and MOS:TVRECEPTION, unless it was unreleased (see 4 & 5)
3. If the episode belongs to a commissioned series, the show will normally have an article for any of its episodes to be considered notable. The episode is not considered notable enough for its own article if:
   1. It will only duplicate information that is sufficiently DUE at the series article or a relevant season article or a relevant episode list; or
   2. There is no season article or episode list covering the relevant span due to lack of coverage. Extremely notable individual episodes may be exceptions
4. If the episode does not belong to a commissioned series, i.e. an orphaned pilot or unproduced pilot, it should demonstrate sufficient production coverage and lasting impact in reliable sources*
5. If the episode belongs to a commissioned series but was unaired, or not completed, it should demonstrate sufficient notability for unproduced works as if it did not belong to any series. This includes production coverage and lasting impact in reliable sources*
6. An episode that may not meet all of the individual criteria can be deemed notable if it is part of a season of television that is extensively studied and of significant historic notability; that is, the season is the subject of lasting academic criticism and extensive lasting popular culture coverage of sufficient depth. In these cases, a majority of the season's episodes must also meet independent notability criteria (see discussion)
7. Plot, release and cast list are considered trivial and non-notable coverage, as they are all evident and able to be confirmed through an episode's mere existence; however, they should be included in episode articles that are otherwise notable
8. Being nominated for or winning awards, even Emmys and BAFTAs, does not automatically denote episode notability; these can be covered at a season or series article (see discussion)
9. Some variation upon saying episodes released as part of a streaming block, with the exception of anthology series, (probably) may not get enough coverage to be independently notable

*Reliable sources refers to those relevant to the TV WikiProject, and independent to the production of the episode. These do not have to be in English.

Kingsif (talk) 20:42, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with this. On the specific topic of TV pilots, I really think we need to clamp down on this area especially, and we should be clear that "significant coverage" actually means more than short-term coverage (and/or sourcing demonstrating a "lasting impact"), so we avoid outcomes like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Best of Times (TV pilot) where the "keep" outcome at AfD was truly a travesty. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:56, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Changed "popular impact" to "lasting impact" above Kingsif (talk) 21:05, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Also, you want to avoid words like "must". A guideline will instead generally say something like, "Notable television series and series episodes will generally receive significant coverage on both their production aspects and their critical response and/or cultural impact." I'm not saying the wording will be exactly this – but it shouldn't use words like "must", as there will always be exceptions. That's actually why I have a problem with the current first sentence of WP:TVSHOW – saying "Generally, an individual radio or television program is likely to be notable if it airs on a network of radio or television stations (either national or regional in scope), or on a cable television channel with a broad regional or national audience." just isn't clear enough that there are definitely exceptions to this, and "airing nationally" on its own isn't enough. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:07, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I'm hoping this will be prose-ified before becoming a guideline, as well. Kingsif (talk) 21:09, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

The wording An episode article should normally have both production and reception sections to be considered notable" reads as more to do with article quality than notability. Notability on those points are things like an overly long production period e.g. took three times as long to shoot as a normal episode, had 12 directors, was scheduled for series 3 but didn't surface until series 5 etc, and reception is, it was universally praised/trashed. I don't think notability should be dictated by having a section, that would invite padding. - X201 (talk) 13:04, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@X201: There's a discussion below about what qualifies as suitable production/reception sections. Perhaps if the wording explains that it should have such sections that meet the TV MOS? Kingsif (talk) 13:15, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@Kingsif: Thanks for all these suggestions. I just want to point out (at least in my view), the text currently being drafted at WP:NTV in regards to television pilots/unaired pilots, and television episodes is more or less "accepted" for what it is, and probably should be used as a basis to expand upon with anything else discussed here. I'm not saying what's at Wikipedia:Notability (television)#Television pilots, future series or seasons, and unreleased series and Wikipedia:Notability (television)#Television episodes are the be all end all, just that there's a good foundation there and that text shouldn't be disregarded when considering any further changes. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:37, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh also, anything that is seemingly agreed upon can just be added right to the proposed NTV because it's just in a drafting stage. Based on how it was described to me, once this project/concerned editors agree on something as drafted, then we should have RfCs to get wider input. We aren't there yet, so as I said, we can just make changes right to the proposal. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:39, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Is there currently anything agreed upon that could be implemented on the working draft Wikipedia:Notability (television)? — YoungForever^(talk) 00:15, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Season crit

There needs to be some version of criteria 5 from WP:BOOKCRIT: The book's author is so historically significant that any of the author's written works may be considered notable. This does not simply mean that the book's author is notable by Wikipedia's standards; rather, the book's author is of exceptional significance and the author's life and body of written work would be a common subject of academic study. Some TV shows or franchises are so notable that their entire history is studied. On the other hand, we don't want this to be a license to having every episode of a long-running, studied-in-academic-circles soap opera have individual articles "because WP:TVEPISODECRIT." To prevent "runaway article creation" I would recommend that the criteria be limited to episodes that are part of a season or series in which over half of the members already qualify for and already have articles (not redirects). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 🎄 21:10, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Interesting suggestion, so the TV season is so historically significant that any of its episode can be considered notable? How about a variation on (added as #6):

1. An episode that may not meet all of the individual criteria can be deemed notable if it is part of a season of television that is extensively studied and of significant historic notability; that is, the season is the subject of lasting academic criticism and extensive lasting popular culture coverage of sufficient depth. In these cases, a majority of the season's episodes must also meet independent notability criteria.

I really agree on that last point; I know a season that would theoretically qualify but I don't think any of its episodes are really notable enough and wouldn't like to see the exception be used to have them created and kept. Kingsif (talk) 21:31, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, let's break down the process: in terms of articles, it's TV series -> LoE -> season -> episode(s) in order (sometimes the LoE step is skipped). Why do I bring this up? Because some TV series will not qualify for separate "season" articles, and just because a "season" article exists/is justified doesn't mean that individual TV episode articles are justified. So I would be leery of the idea that having a well-studied TV "season" necessarily implies that individual episodes will qualify for standalone articles. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:38, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

If most of the episodes are notable, and the season is notable, does that make all of the other episodes to some level notable as default? When David mentioned it, I looked from the reader's perspective; that if a season seems so significant, and I find an article for most of its episodes, I want to read about the rest of them and would find it strange that some seemed randomly excluded. On the other hand, if a series is that well-studied and most of its episodes notable, then episodes that can't procure enough independent notability may very well be not significant at all or it would have at least some coverage. Kingsif (talk) 21:45, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Let the coverage dictate it. First, this hypothetical episode will still be covered – in the season article. But I would have a problem with creating an article for an episode like The Burning (Seinfeld) just because "all the other episodes in that season have articles", because "The Burning" doesn't have the requisite production or even "review" level coverage... So, I think I have a problem with the idea that a "well-studied" season in which most of the episodes have standalone articles should "require" the other episodes to get articles even when the coverage doesn't justify it. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:51, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I would avoid this. Take, for example, most of the streaming services original programming which release new seasons of a show in one block. Because of that model, the season is clearly notable (eg Stranger Things (season 3)) but none of the individual episodes would be. --Masem (t) 21:49, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh no, you've reminded me of streaming blocks. Are episodes released all at once non-notable by default? I feel like that's the case and it would take some good sources to show otherwise. Kingsif (talk) 21:55, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Most of the time, yes, since all the media before and after release focus on the season. You may get individual episode reviews but rarely a single episode in a bloc gets the development or production-type details that a normal broadcast episode may get (comparing how Stranger Things was reported on to how Watchmen or Westworld had been handled). So I'd definitely make sure to account for this. I agree that in a normal case, if 50%+ of a season's episodes are notable, the rest likely are, so given that rarely a streaming bloc episode is notable, this may not be an issue. --Masem (t) 22:05, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

It probably doesn't need to be noted, then. Unless we want a whole section on streaming at the eventual guideline. Kingsif (talk) 22:09, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

In regards to this and #9 above, I think the tone of the statement should be lessened, or that number removed all together. We just need to state something like "episodes released in a block may not get the individual coverage to warrant individual articles" because it is still possible for a singular episode in a block (perhaps the first or last) to get significant coverage. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:48, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Black Mirror (series 3 to 5) is an exception but anthologies are more likely to receive individual episode attention. — Bilorv (talk) 22:42, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Just to clarify My original suggestion was NOT to say "you can create a [non-list-article] page about a season" (or "series" for things like the new Doctor Who) but rather "if the series/season qualified under general notability guidelines, whether it had an article or not, and where half or more of the episodes in the series/season already qualify for an article outside of this special "it's part of a notable season/season" exemption, then in order to "complete the set" all other episodes in that season will be "given a pass" on notability, much as otherwise-non-notable works by famous authors do not have to show they are notable in and of themselves." In other words, as with the books by famous authors, and for that matter songs and albums by famous musicians, sometimes "notability IS inherited" WP:NOTINHERITED notwithstanding. As for shows without distinct "seasons" things like "identifiable story arcs or other definable large contiguous sequences of episodes" or "the whole run of the show" can be used to substitute for "season/series." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 🎄 22:01, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I think we understood what you meant, but are not sure if we actually want to "complete the set" or not: from a reader perspective, we surely would, but episodes of a single season (or series) are much more closely connected than books by the same author (some of which may be much older and/or more obscure), so we can reasonably expect that if most of the episodes meet GNG, all of them will, and those that don't are exceptionally not-notable. Kingsif (talk) 22:13, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Awards

For those already part of the discussion @IJBall, Masem, and Davidwr:, I've now added #8, about awards. I think this seems an obvious point of notability, but that it might be controversial. Kingsif (talk) 22:09, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this. But also on the flip side, depending on the type of award nomination, by getting such it in theory could be believed that there's enough coverage out there to make an article. But an article shouldn't be created solely because of such nominations. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:48, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Missing ideas

So these ideas are just supposed to be standalone distinct ideas we could either get consensus for or against? Mentioned in discussion above (and with precedents at WP:NFO and WP:NBOOK) would be variations upon "X reviews", such as: (a) at least two reviews in reliable (inter-)national sources; (b) at least two reviews in reliable (inter-)national sources excluding those known for an extremely large number of reviews (IGN, A.V. Club have been given as examples); (c) at least five reviews in reliable (inter-)national sources. I would also add a possibility "winning an award can count towards this threshold" or just an option "winning a major award" that automatically qualifies as notability (in direct contradiction to criterion #8). Also maybe I'm missing it but I'd like a way for supporters of the following claim to have the potential for it to become consensus: "if a season/program has received extremely detailed coverage and the majority of episodes in the season/program are notable then the episode is considered notable" (targeted at people who think it would be an undesirable outcome to have 21 articles and 3 redirects for a season of a show). — Bilorv (talk) 22:42, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

To the first point, I didn't want to detail what a decent reception section would be. I think we all agree a reception section is needed, but what constitutes a notable reception section is debated. Perhaps a fixed number of reception articles (not necessarily reviews), with an award (that has a Wikipedia article for it/awarding body) counting towards that number, is the way to go. Should that be hashed out before RfC?

And please continue discussing the merits of the extremely detailed coverage part, more than three views on the matter would be great.

Kingsif (talk) 23:01, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I can tell you what doesn't constitute a "proper" 'Response' section – one that only cites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic! I would actually like to see it written in the guideline that a "proper" 'Response' section must (and here I would use "must"!) have more than just Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, and must include proper individual reviews, and that sections consisting of just Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic can be removed from the article. I come across this fairly often. Right now, MOS:TV doesn't specifically speak to this, but it should. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 23:42, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, what constitutes a "proper" production section should probably also be worked out, but these are more likely needed at MOS:TV, which you mention. And then linked from the notability criteria. I.e. NTV should say we expect "proper" production and reception sections, and see the MOS for what that means. Kingsif (talk) 23:45, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

This is a much higher bar for notability than is currently being used in AfD discussions. How are you planning on establishing a wider consensus for that meaningful change, outside of a few people talking and drafting on this page? — Toughpigs (talk) 00:03, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

That's good. AfDs are being closed as keep with reasons like "they said they're looking for sources and it exists so that's good enough for now", but it isn't good enough; there's a lower bar for notability of films than books and even then that's higher than the current acceptable level of TV episodes. There has to be a good reason to not just give the episode routine coverage at a season/show article to justify an individual article - because the more individual articles exist the more it prompts people to create them for every episode ever - but editors who have caught the creation bug want to give that routine coverage in a stubby episode article. The TV project can decide on TV notability criteria, then start an RfC for guideline inclusion (as I mentioned in the first sentence). But even if this discussion is just something referenced in AfDs as the intention of editors who are focusing on TV articles, it's something of a win. Kingsif (talk) 12:55, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I'll repeat what I said in the previous discussion: RT/Metacritic are only worth citing when they list more than 20 reviews, otherwise there's too much random fluctuation, and if it has 20 reviews then enough of the 20 should be high-quality enough to justify a standalone article. If you see a "Reception" that just cites RT and/or Metacritic then replace them with the set of reviews cited that are reliable/good for Wikipedia's purpose. If there are then not enough for notability then it's time for WP:BEFORE and if that fails then AfD or redirect (and for consistency it's best to look at all episode articles for that show/season as well if you can). — Bilorv (talk) 12:22, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

My problem with using RT/Metacritic as a metric is that lots of non-American shows are not included, or get much less coverage. I think saying that only RT/Metacritic is not a suitable reception section is fine, but we shouldn't say an episode needs X amount on either, because some will never reach that no matter their notability. Kingsif (talk) 12:55, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps you've misunderstood. I don't support any requirement that RT or Metacritic pages even exist for an episode to be notable. My comment above is intended to imply that RT/Metacritic are unrelated to notability—it is only the reviews that they list that could be useful in assessing this. — Bilorv (talk) 13:47, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@Bilorv: Good idea. Should that be at the MOS? (MOS:TVRECEPTION) Kingsif (talk) 14:16, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Be explicit that if WP:GNG or any other applicable notability criteria is met, it is considered notable even if it fails this criteria due to things like missing production information or missing audience information from its initial airing. This can easily happen if old, previously obscure/forgotten episodes are "re-discovered" and heavily commented on by journalists. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 15:33, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Started a line at 1.3 to this effect Kingsif (talk) 16:07, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Be explicit that Wikipedia is not obligated to have an article about a TV episode that meets this or any other notability criteria IF there is an existing consensus against it or if the standard practice for that particular TV show is to not have stand-alone episode articles (see also: WP:SPLIT).

Is that really a notability issue? Or just a "don't make an article that we've agreed not to make" issue? Kingsif (talk) 16:07, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

It's the latter but I've seen enough arguments over things like this over the years that it's worth putting in any special notability guideline, even if it's just in an appendix-type section that doesn't carry the "weight" of a policy or guideline near the bottom. The controlling guidelines/policies are probably those that address WP:CONSENSUS and other behavioral guidelines, along with a dash of WP:BOLD and WP:BRD for cases where there is no firm consensus against per-episode articles but some indication of a standard practice of not having them for this series/season despite notable examples being available. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:50, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Implementation

@Kingsif: Do you want to synthesis what was discussed here an add it into the working draft of the guideline? - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:41, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

I could try. Kingsif (talk) 00:10, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/Assessment is maxed out

Just a note that the Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/Assessment is maxed out by template limits, and is listed in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded. Need help in archiving sections of the page, thanks! Funandtrvl (talk) 03:47, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I split off old requests to Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/Assessment/Request archive. Did that help? - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:42, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

@Favre1fan93: I ended up having to add a link to the quality log, instead of transcluding it on the page, because it's too many transclusions for WP to handle. Funandtrvl (talk) 18:28, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:List of American Idol finalists

Discussion is made at Talk:List of American Idol finalists#Insufficient amount of sources? --George Ho (talk) 21:58, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Star Wars spinoffs

Template:Star Wars spinoffs has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. - adamstom97 (talk) 07:41, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Help with editing Adult animated television series in the United States page

Hello everyone! Back in December, I thought it was a good idea to split off a section from the Adult animation page. Then, that page seemed too wordy so I split off content related to the U.S. in a page titled Adult animation in the United States. From there, I decided to split the page yet again to the Adult animated television series in the United States. Perhaps that was too hasty, but that's a whole other discussion. Recently I was looking at the latter page and shaking my head. I'd still like to keep the page, if possible, but it's also overly wordy. That is, admittedly, my fault, and I've made it worse. Anyway, I'd like help with cutting the content down, spinning off parts of the page to appropriate pages, and so on. I would even venture that the whole page itself needs to be redone, but I'm just not sure how to proceed. So, that's why I'm posting about it here. Any suggestions and help would be appreciated. Thanks. --Historyday01 (talk) 15:36, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Red link in a (TLC "-related") template

There is a Red link in the template "{{Former TLC Programming}}".
I mentioned it (including some "ideas" for ... what to do about it) here:

Template talk:Former TLC Programming#Red link (in this template) for "The Big Garage".

Any advice? or other comments? --Mike Schwartz (talk) 07:14, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Help with Run BTS episodes

The "Episodes" section of this series was previously laid out in 20-ep batch tables (no idea why) before I recently (Jan) started converting it to what it is now (tables per season) using the NCIS page as guidance. The conversion isn't complete yet but some confusion about episode numbering is making me wonder if I just messed up the page rather than improved it. With what I've done (which was okay for S1 as E6's easily identifiable split makes it understandable), E11 of the show is listed as S2 E1 in the table and #12 overall, but with no indication of its official #11 designation anywhere. The show numbers all eps continuously and 2ndary sources refer to them per the show's titling. The 130th episode recently aired, but if the S3 table is updated it will appear as 131 'Overall', 73 'in Season', and the infobox count would say 131 instead of 130, which could potentially confuse readers. How do I handle this? Is there another column to indicate the actual episode # in the table, or another alternative? I have limited experience w articles of this nature so advice would be most appreciated! -- Carlobunnie (talk) 17:46, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

No doubt this is better than the 20-episode blocks, so thank you for your work so far. In most situations I believe that we categorise multiple-part items as separate episodes as long as they first aired non-consecutively, which looks to be always true here. The season summary and number of episodes listed in the infobox should be changed to match the final counts of the episode-by-episode tables. Unfortunately, this seems to cause confusion between the show's perception of its episode count with 50th and 100th episode specials (they count "Confession" only as one episode and all other multiple-parters as multiple episodes? Why?), so I'm a bit unsure of how to proceed. — Bilorv (talk) 18:45, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

@Bilorv: I honestly have no clue why the Confession episode remained as an outlier considering to the naming/numbering of other split part eps as you pointed out. Would adding a fn stating that only this ep was treated this way—and that other multi-part eps after it were counted as individual eps hence the reason for the discrepancy between the show's count and the actual count—be an acceptable interim measure? -- Carlobunnie (talk) 19:14, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, actually, it could be a sensible outcome to use the episode numberings that the show does with a footnote like you suggest. I suppose something weird has happened that's not our fault, so whatever solution we find will have some drawbacks. — Bilorv (talk) 22:26, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

@Bilorv: I added the fn to the infobox (please lmk if you think that's okay or if I've worded it stupidly). I'll tackle the episode numbers next, but just to be clear, you're saying it's okay for the "No. in Season" column to reflect the actual episode # as stated by the show? -- Carlobunnie (talk) 21:45, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

I'll try to take it from the top since my opinion has developed a bit since I first saw this question: I think there are multiple okay solutions, but we have to pick one and go with it. One solution sees the episode count that the show maintains for itself (so their 50th special is episode 50), with a footnote explaining that "Confessions" is counted as one where other multi-part specials are not. Another solution sees the episode count that arises if we treat "Confessions" as two separate episodes, with a footnote explaining why the 50th special isn't the 50th and the same for the 100th. You need to choose one of these for the "No. overall"/"No. in season" counts, and probably it's better to choose the same one for the total episode tally in the infobox. (But you can't use one count for one numbering and one for the other: it needs to just go with one system.)

After lots of internal questioning I think either of these are fine for you to choose, so long as there is a footnote link in the infobox tally and at the occurrence of the numbering of "Confessions" (and the occurrence of the 50th/100th if you choose the option where those are counted as 51/101). Sorry if that's a bit of a non-answer and also if I've caused more confusion along the way! I guess the main thing I have to say is that when these ambiguities happen, the best thing is just to clearly signpost in the article itself that they have happened (with the footnote) so readers will understand both ways of looking at it. — Bilorv (talk) 22:12, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

@Bilorv: I am still confused but I made this test edit to see if that's what you possibly meant. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 23:50, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

That's okay, and sorry that this is so confusing. This is not what I meant: you should pick either the numbering you've just used in "No. overall" and "No. in season", and use it in the column "No. overall". Whichever numbering you prefer. The numbering in "No. in season" must start at 1 each season and increase in lockstep with the "No. overall" column i.e. they either both increase by 1 at the next entry, or possibly both stay the same in the case of "Confessions" (so that for the first season the two columns will be identical from start to finish). — Bilorv (talk) 00:26, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

@Bilorv: oh ok, I think I partially understand? I undid the above edit and tried again (S2 table only, up to E17). Also tweaked the episode titles to reflect how they're named in the show. Please lmk if I'm on the right track or not (I think I did it partly wrong cuz the Magnum PI article's overall col numbering continues but in season restarts each season so I just fkd the overall col). I might just quit since I'm too dumb to get it 😩🤡 and I feel bad for giving you so much headache over something so simple. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 03:07, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

@Bilorv: ok so after calming down (when I make mistakes it makes me panicky so I apologize if I sounded like I was actually going to quit the page—I was just joking), I fixed my flub up with the numbering and linked the fn to the applicable episodes. When you can, lmk if it's good now. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 20:16, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

I've made a couple of edits and this, barring any accidental mistakes, is a good system I think. Any confusion in our conversation is as much my responsibility as yours—I'm writing for an audience, after all, and this is very complicated to discuss without visually seeing it (next time I think I should probably demonstrate instead of describe). Feel free to ask if you're still confused. Don't worry about taking up my time—I'd simply leave the conversation if I felt it wasn't worth me spending time on this—and there's no rush so you can always leave it for a while and come back when more relaxed, if you feel anxiety at first. :) — Bilorv (talk) 01:55, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Shōgun (upcoming miniseries)

It appears this series is in development hell, having been scheduled to begin shooting some time ago but run into trouble, but someone inappropriately placed an article on it in the mainspace. I personally think that long-planned and/or cancelled shows and movies, if the sources are there, are more meriting of standalone articles than released shows and movies that there's nothing encyclopedic to write about, but this doesn't appear to be either, and even if it were the former I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority. I considered redirecting it, but can't think of a good target: what do folks here think should be done about it? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:26, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

WP:TV follows WP:NFF guidance on this – if filming on the TV series has not begun, the article doesn't meet WP:TVSHOW, and should be moved to Draftspace. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 13:31, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. Draftify the article, and redirect to Shōgun (novel)#Adaptations. -- /Alex/₂₁ 13:34, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

TV6 (Malaysia)

TV6 (Malaysia) is a TV channel launching next week. The articl about it has been the subject of a discussion at WP:ANI#TV6 (Malaysia). Main problem is that notability is not established as the article is unreferenced. Any members of this WP willing to try to save it from deletion? Mjroots (talk) 17:17, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Do articles listing television episodes need to have their own notability established?

I assume that if a television show is notable, then you can have spinout articles for each season. Someone has nominated some articles for deletion and argued they need to establish notability on their own. How are television shows normally done? Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nostalgia Critic (season 13) Dream Focus 18:18, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Dream Focus MOS:TVSPLIT and Wikipedia:Article splitting (television) will assist you here. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 18:48, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

The is a general consensus that a season article with just Episode and Ratings tables are not enough to warrant a season article. A season article should also contain a Production and Critical response sections (not copied and pasted from the main TV series article). The season article needs to be able to be standalone. — YoungForever^(talk) 19:21, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, uh, no – List of episode articles probably don't need to be "independently notable" (they just need to meet the list criteria), but season articles definitely need to be independently notable, using pretty much the same criteria as TV show articles themselves. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:35, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Definitely for web series, there has to be a sign that the "season" is notable, since these are fundamentally arbitrary compared to broadcast/cable/streaming services. I would not rule out that a list of episodes for a notable web series like Nost. Critic as inappropriate -- but as most of his episodes can be summarized by saying "The Critic revies (film)" where "Film" is the same as the episode name, you don't need the short summaries. Yes, this will be a long list, and per SIZE may need to be split over two or three lists, but that should only be due to size, not due to season notability. --Masem (t) 14:57, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Has this ever been done? I don't think I've ever seen "List of SpongeBob SquarePants episodes (seasons 1–4)" or similar and it seems far more intuitive to create the content forks based on season, which is why people constantly do it. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 20:48, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Both Doctor Who and The Simpsons have such lists (eg List of Doctor Who episodes (1963–1989) and List of Doctor Who episodes (2005–present), and List of The Simpsons episodes (seasons 1–20) and List of The Simpsons episodes for example.) Doctor Who splits on a natural aspect (the hiatus), whereas the Simpsons split is based on what seems to be the best even distribution while meeting SIZE. But again, both shows also have individual series/season pages that are very notable. I'm not seeing a problem if this had to be done with the NC episodes if there was more summary text added to a handful of episodes. --Masem (t) 04:38, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Orby TV is out of business...

A year back its channel positions were added, but now that they're gone, keep a lookout on network articles, because their positions now need removal. Nate • (chatter) 03:05, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

I just went through and removed, what, 40 to 50 of them... Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:56, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Great job! I think I got the last two strays on Orby's WLH page, so this should be cleared up. Thank you! Nate • (chatter) 23:55, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Series overview

Would simplying a series overview's layout to look like the table at The Twilight Zone (2019 TV series)#Episodes be a poor decision or an acceptable one? -- /Alex/₂₁ 04:31, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Poor – in a case like this where there's effectively a "premiere date" for a season, and a "final[e] date", the more "traditional" episodes table format, like at The Boys (2019 TV series)#Episodes, is preferable. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 05:14, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

And yet, I'd say that it conforms with MOS:DATERANGE, as well how we already present dates in a television infobox (parent and/or season, instead of separating them into separate rows), and cutting down on unnecessary headers/space. -- /Alex/₂₁ 05:16, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Then don't use a table. Tables are designed to present certain information in a better, more understandable/way. If you're going to use a table, The Boys format-style is preferable. Otherwise, just do it in prose. (Which gets to the larger general point that a lot of editors are insisting upon using tables in many circumstances when use of a table is actually not the best choice.) --IJBall (contribs • talk) 05:33, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

You're correct about how tables are designed in regards to presentation, that's why we use them for series overviews that include episode counts, dates, average viewers, networks, etc. The formatting of the date range wouldn't change this, I'm confused as to how it would affect these other columns? A great example of a consensus-agreed usage is at The Great British Bake Off. If dates should be separated in table usages, is there a reason why infoboxes (which are also tables) list dates as "Original release July 26, 2019 – present" as opposed to "First released July 26, 2019" / "Last released present"? -- /Alex/₂₁ 13:01, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

IJBall gets it when they say Then don't use a table.. MOS:TABLE says Prose is preferred in articles as prose allows the presentation of detail and clarification of context, in a way that a table may not. ... In an article, significant items should normally be mentioned naturally within the text rather than merely tabulated. The tables in two of the articles cited are so basic that they can be converted to a few sentences of prose (or a single sentence if the redundantly duplicative dates are removed). Tables have another negative; they're usually harder for mobile users - i.e. the majority of the audience - to read than prose (and on Wikipedia, often comically so). Also, Alex 21 may wish to fix their The Twilight Zone link, as the acceptable (or poor) format change has been reverted. 49.195.185.179 (talk) 18:44, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, random IP. -- /Alex/₂₁ 01:38, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Not directly related, but my only comment would be that it seems to be redundant to have both an "originally aired" cell and then "first aired" and "last aired" cells below that. Seems it would work/look better without the "originally aired" cell. Unless there's a reason it's that way that I'm not seeing. Amaury • 09:30, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

I'd also agree with removing the "Originally aired" cell. I assume it was created as a "header" cell encompassing First/Last, and then it's the only cell displayed (so First/Last become hidden) when all episodes are binge-released. -- /Alex/₂₁ 00:04, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Contestant Progress in Reality Shows

There is a very, very heated discussion going on at Talk:RuPaul's Drag Race UK (series 2) which is attempting to set a new precedent for all contestant progress tables that would affect a lot of articles such as The Apprentice. I believe that trying to set a new precedent on one series page of one specific show is incorrect, and the discussion should be taken to this page or WP:RPDR instead. The arguments for changing them appear to be access, whereas the argument against changing them is precedent and failing to convey enough information. Spa-Franks (talk) 11:44, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, it's clear why people don't bring discussions like this here – because "contestant progress" tables violate WP:INDISCRIMINATE, WP:INUNIVERSE and WP:FANCRUFT (not to mention WP:V), and every reality TV show that has them should have them removed. I'm pretty sure the reality TV editors knows that is basically the view of WP:TV, which is why they steer clear of here... Beyond that, yes, of course, table color schemes should conform to MOS:ACCESS, and any argument against that on the basis of "precedent" or "this is always how we've done it" is completely and totally invalid. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 13:24, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

If a table doesn't meet ACCESS or is overly fancrufty then it can be edited. I don't necessarily oppose simplifying them, but I absolutely disagree with nuking every article. Tables work better/are more necessary for some series than others. I don't understand some editors on that talk page (who don't seem familiar with TV articles... that's not a bad thing, but why are you making new project-wide rules on a single season article and not coming here) who have different standards for plot summaries but demand secondary sources for reality shows. Why is there an issue with using primary sources for reality television contestant progress but never for plot summaries? I'm sure a lot more interpretation goes on for the latter. Heartfox (talk) 20:48, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

My understanding is that the sourcing issues are specifically wrt determining whether or not a contestant earned high, neutral, or low praise during a given episode, as included in the original table. Which is a strict interpretation and editorializing issue and therefore requires an outside source, which is the case for all plot summaries. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 21:07, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I know, but IJBall above argued that all contestant progress tables do not meet WP:V. Heartfox (talk) 21:23, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Some of the comments there came across as if they opposed citing anything to episodes, and I was just a bit concerned, especially when IJBall is grouping every reality show article into one category and saying everyone who edits them is dumb and purposely avoids this WikiProject... like, are you serious? Heartfox (talk) 21:34, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I said that those editors avoid here because they know we think tables like this are WP:INDISCRIMINATE, WP:INUNIVERSE and WP:FANCRUFT violations, which they definitely are. WP:TVPLOT is very clear here: "Plot sections should summarize the core storyline(s), but not offer a scene-by-scene sequence of everything that happens, or attempt to evaluate, interpret or analyze it." A simple episode summary of a reality show that ends with, "...Ann E. Person was eliminated." is obviously fine on this score. "Contestant progress" tables almost never are, and the ones at the Ru Paul article are pretty good at showing why – those don't just track who was "eliminated" by week – they add a bunch more fancruft-y info that pretty clearly crosses this line. And the reality TV articles only get worse from there – I've seen season articles at some of these that include tables that track every single game or contest type over the entire course of the season, and track those results as well. This isn't a wikia – It's an encyclopedia. Really, we are only supposed to be offering a general overview of TV shows, not a bunch of minutia detail that one could only appreciate if they watched every single second of a show. No one is saying that a reality TV series would never qualify for individual "season" articles, etc. But these "contestant progress" tables pretty clearly cross every line we're supposed to have. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 22:44, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Idk I still don't see a problem with tables like American Idol (season 18)#Elimination chart or RuPaul's Drag Race UK (series 2)#Contestant progress (excluding accessibility). I've never watched the latter (or any versions) and I still have an understanding of what happened during the season. Could you argue it's redundant given the table above it? I guess, but I don't see how "bottom 2" is fancruft (maybe others do). I think the more important discussion is for game shows, where I would support the removal of tables like The Wall (American game show)#Episodes and I Can See Your Voice (American TV series)#Summary, as there is no plot that evolves over episodes and a casual reader really does not need to know what the "free fall bank" amount was or what character a person was in the "Unlock My Life" round. Heartfox (talk) 01:22, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

IJBall rightly says we are not Wikia—but you know who is? Wikia. A good example is how, in 2018, I hugely trimmed task-by-task details on List of Taskmaster episodes, which was soon redirected; but the content was very interesting to a dedicated fandom on the show and the Taskmaster Wiki I created to move the information to has flowered. One of its biggest contributors is an editor who was initially furious at the content being removed from Wikipedia. That editor and several others have helped us grow the wiki to a hugely more comprehensive treatment of Taskmaster than even the LoE page could ever have been. As the Wikia wiki's daily pageviews are in four figures, I think it's fair to say that most people who would have benefited from the information have still managed to find it. A few years prior I also did a similar thing with QI Wiki.

I was a Wikia editor prior to joining Wikipedia and I think this is a common entry point—quite frankly, it's far too difficult and the community too hostile for a newcomer to experience much success on Wikipedia initially. You have to really re-orient yourself away from all instincts of what you want to write (detailed plot summaries, interesting facts, other fancruft) and write what readers benefit from reading. I think we should be building bridges with Wikia a lot more (despite their for-profit model). Fans are reasonably upset about information being lost, so an important step in all of these discussions is to find a place that the information is suited to. Wikia gains valuable contributors, fans of a show have a place to do what they enjoy, and we don't develop LTAs who won't give up on re-adding to Wikipedia over and over again.

I broadly agree with Heartfox that accessibility-compliant tables or prose can be fine for simple descriptions of reality show logistics. I think the "Elimination chart" at American Idol (season 18) is okay but the rest should go. It has so much extraneous detail and I still don't learn a single thing I would want to from reading the article: what genre, specialism or background did the main contestants as covered in reliable secondary sources (such as reviews) have? Definitely we should never be allowing more detail for reality shows than we would for other TV, but sometimes I do think less can be appropriate because we're often writing about low-profile individuals, larger numbers of episodes than other genres and because there's no streamlined "plot", original research is much harder to avoid. — Bilorv (talk) 11:34, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

I broadly agree with all of this, esp. that we should actually be building bridges/funneling editors to Wikias a lot more – that actually would solve a lot of problems... As to the specifics, I would narrowly agree that a relatively simple table like the American Idol elimination chart is OK (though even that may be slightly too "busy" and over-relies on color shading), but also agree that all the other tables American Idol (season 18) (aside from the ratings table) are exactly the kind of WP:FANCRUFT-y, overly-detailed overkill that I am talking about, and agree that this is exactly the kind of thing that needs to go from these articles. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:41, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Since inadvertently coming across the discussion at RPDR UK S2, I have been toying with the idea of starting an RfC on these "progress tables" for reality TV shows to establish whether the community feels they are worthy of inclusion, and if so, what constraints (e.g. sourcing) there should be on them. Personally I think they are at best fancruft, and at worst (where they contain information that isn't clearly cited to secondary sources) flashpoints for disruption. The RPDR ones specifically have been the subject of furious edit wars about minutiae such as whether a contestant was "safe" or "safe with critiques", however other series (e.g. Love_Island_(2015_TV_series,_series_5)) also have ridiculously crufty tables. I presume here would be the sensible place to launch such an RfC? ƒirefly ( t · c ) 18:34, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't think we can qualify one main table per (elimination-based) reality show season to summarize progress as cruft, as long as it sticks to the facts and quickly gets its point across; who was eliminated each week, and, if there were any other order factors to consider (eg Top Chef/Project Runway, the top ranked contestants and winner that week, alongside the lowest-ranked and the eliminated player, or the arrival order for a show like Amazing Race) that can be neatly summarized without breaking accessibility. Any other tables - such as how players voted in Survivor, or the song/dances choices in American Idol/Dancing with the Starts/etc. - that starts getting to crufty for Wikipedia. I would strongly suggest that the project to define a common set of standardized colors that meet accessibility for the most common results: eg the episode's winner, eliminated player, high-ranked, low-ranked, and probably a couple others, and define that not every unique way a player leaves a competitive reality show needs a unique color (accessibility aims to minimize colors!, and footnotes can be used for your one-off situations, like players med-evaced from Survivor.) --Masem (t) 19:36, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

I would say some what even you are suggesting would not be OK, as per "Plot sections should summarize the core storyline(s), but not offer a scene-by-scene sequence of everything that happens... When you're getting into things like "arrival order" (for all of the contestants), you are getting way too close to a "scene-by-scene sequence of everything". I agree with Bilorv that this kind of thing is a Wikia's job. On our end, anything much beyond a very simple "elimination chart", or something similar, is beyond the scope of what an encyclopedia article should do. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:41, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

In the case of The Amazing Race and arrival order, if we consider only the key results of each episode: who won and who lost, the table would look similar to most other tables. The fact that we can also include the arrival order without modification of the table format is one of those pieces of additional information that would be appropriate to include without "bloating" the article, if we're using the plot summary analogy. It would be wrong to having the teams' order throughout the duration of each episode tracked - that's far too much into the scene by scene issue. Or as a separate example, if we used Top Chef, one could argue we could add each chef's challenge entree/dish as part of the elimination table, arguably because we're not modifying the format, but that would make the table very large and that's definitely into the nitty-gritty we shouldn't cover. Not every show is exactly the same, but I am pretty confidental nearly all competitive reality shows from Survivor onward can support a single per-season elimination order table that may include additional details specific to the show's format but to an extent that the table's format does not drastically vary from the other shows. --Masem (t) 21:50, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

@Firefly: Not sure. Probably yes, but it would need to be widely advertised at the VPP's, and definitely also at any of our sub-projects like for reality TV and game shows (the other place where tables like this have often gotten out of control). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:41, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

I am a bit confused as to how this RfC would work. If there is a consensus to remove all contestant progress tables, are people going to go through thousands of articles and just mass delete stuff, or consult with the editors there of what's the most important, or transform the table into something else, etc.?? I'm a bit worried that the scope and complexity of an RfC like this is being underestimated. Not to mention, fancruft can still be present afterwards because it's not only in progress tables. I remain concerned that a few problematic tables at some series are being used to justify the removal of everything. I fundamentally disagree that every contestant progress table is "at best fancruft".

For The Amazing Race, I suppose the "roadblocks performed" column could be removed, but the arrival orders are basic facts and help understand how a team performed over the course of a season (It has an out-of-universe significance too; the first place team each leg wins a prize and the last place is eliminated, etc.). I think it's a bit of a waste of time to spend so much time converting it to what... a contestant chart with a column for what leg they were eliminated and then move the first place/last place to the episode headings? I guess so... but that's my point. If you're going to delete stuff then the valuable stuff needs to be moved elsewhere. Not every series is the same. The impact of an RfC like this is being misjudged. Heartfox (talk) 21:28, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Please note I have now taken the discussion at RuPaul's Drag Race UK (series 2) to Dispute resolution. Spa-Franks (talk) 00:59, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

2021–22 United States network television schedule

This was moved back to mainspace from draftspace without any discussion – should it have been?

If the answer is "no", I think any WP:TV regular should feel free to move it back. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 03:19, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Doesn't look ready for primetime yet in any way, and is WP:TOOSOON. Considering last year's shakiness, keeping it in draftspace is a good idea. It's better to be conservative here, considering that pilot season is in major flux. Nate • (chatter) 19:06, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

The whole thing was an exercise in disruptive editing from a recent perennial WP:SPI case: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/GoatMans. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:28, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

It may need be salted temporary if it gets repeatedly created before it is ready to be in the mainspace. — YoungForever^(talk) 19:49, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

As credited on screen

User:CartoonnewsCP is going through Television articles changing the formatting in Infoboxes, with edit summaries like the following:

• Per MOS:TV we go according to how they are credited
• We go by how they are credited also that's how the WGA wants it

and making changing to the creators field, removing list templates {{Plainlist}} or {{Unbulleted list}} and replacing them with formatting, such as:

1. Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon [1]
2. Waco O'Guin & Roger Black [2]
3. Justin Roiland and Mike McMahan [3]
4. Mike Scully & Julie Thacker Scully & Amy Poehler [4]

You can see from the diffs that some the changes include a large warning comment telling other editors not to use the Plainlist template. If the guidelines were clear such a large warning comment should not be necessary. This all seemed like a new development to me, and not at all in keeping with how I thought Television Infoboxes have been doing this for years.[5][6] Outside of the animation articles recently changed by CartoonnewsCP I haven't noticed other television infoboxes doing this yet.
When asked User:CartoonnewsCP said he was following the example of User:YoungForever. YF says there was already consensus to format exactly as in the on screen credits, but has not pointed to guidelines or a discussion that makes it clear, which is why I felt I had no choice but to start this discussion.

The MOS:TV guidelines do say "The cast listing should be ordered according to the original broadcast credits" and "All names should be referred to as credited". I understood this to mean that we should use the name as it is credited even if the actor has more than one stage name or pseudonym. It is not clear that this was meant to extend beyond the cast list and apply even to the punctuation and formatting of crew in the Infobox, specifically the need to format the creators using "and" or "&" or "+" exactly as credited onscreen. Template:Infobox television also gives no indication that the formatting should be exactly as the WGA specifies. This seems to ignore other guidelines such as MOS:AMP and MOS:PLIST.

User:YoungForever said there was already a consensus for these for the kinds of changes User:CartoonnewsCP has been making. Could someone else please confirm that the Infobox formatting should be following "and" or "&" or "+" exactly as credited onscreen, or "how the WGA wants it"? If Project Television has decided (or decides) this is the way things should be formatted could someone please update the guidelines to be more specific and also update the documentation of Template:Infobox television to clearly state that even punctuation such as & should be followed exactly in the Infobox. -- 109.79.170.28 (talk) 05:52, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

You should probably make an account btw. Also nobody ping me anymore. Thanks. CartoonnewsCP (talk) 06:55, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Your personal preference do not overrides on-screen credits. Per MOS:AMP, But retain an ampersand when it is a legitimate part of the style of a proper noun, such as in Up & Down or AT&T. Elsewhere, ampersands may be used with consistency and discretion where space is extremely limited (e.g. tables and infoboxes.) Yet, you keep ignoring that part. For example, Waco O'Guin & Roger Black is a writing team not two separate writer and "&" is part of the writing team name. — YoungForever^(talk) 07:51, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

"&" and "and" have two different meanings in terms of writers and replacing one with the other should not be done. "&" indicates a writing pair or team, while "and" indicates two writers (or pairs) working each contributing, but not as a pair. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 14:06, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Favre1fan93 can you provide a source for that definition of "&" specifically indicating a writing or creative team? It is not essential but it would help to establish where this is coming from, if it is from WGA or from a particular style guide, or whatever.

Again User:YoungForever is dismissing my concerns as "personal preference". My concern was not about a seemingly unnecessary formatting detail but that people were saying there is consensus to do things a certain way when they seem unwilling or unable to clarify where exactly in the guidelines they are getting this (or show from discussion where the consensus came from). Instead of positively showing where exactly in MOS:TV guidelines it says to strictly follow WGA formatting, YoungForever has only argued that MOS:AMP doesn't prohibit doing it that way (note: the MOS:AMP examples are titles but not people, not double acts, not teams of creators) which sounds a lot like someone else forcing their own strict preference because they can't actually show it is in the MOS:TV guidelines. This did not seem to be an issue before, articles such as Rick and Morty have listed their creators without an ampersand for years and years. It seems like only a recent development that people are insisting that the Infobox formatting be more strict, and it seems to have only been selectively applied to a few articles. (So far I've only see a few cases and they've been a result of edits by YoungForever or CartoonnewsCP, and they've been reverted by more than just me and it often takes them multiple attempts and great big comments in the wiki source before the change actually sticks.) What's more, if this is the consensus then why have I have have not seen in it prominent television articles where I might have expected it: in the Infobox of Game of Thrones I do not see "David Benioff & D. B. Weiss" (as they are credited in the opening credits of the show); in the Infobox of Star Trek: Discovery I do not see "Bryan Fuller & Alex Kurtzman" credited as they are in the end credits of that show. If people want to be strict that's one thing, consensus can change, but don't act like the guidelines have made this clear or claim there is already a consensus if you cannot actually show it. At least now if anyone asks you can point to this discussion.

If editors really want to be strict and they think it is best to using ampersands in the Infobox when they are used on screen then so be it. I would appreciate if Project Television could please update either MOS:TV or Template:Infobox television or both to make it clearer that such formatting is what editors want. It would make it a lot easier for everyone if this was clearer. 109.78.202.222 (talk) 20:58, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

List of American Idol finalists as featured list removal candidate

I created the FLRC page on the List of American Idol finalists page. --George Ho (talk) 22:44, 19 March 2021 (UTC)