Wikipedia:Television episodes

Wikipedia contains many articles on television episodes. The following guideline aims to promote the creation of high-quality articles about television shows and their episodes.

Creating articles on television episodes

More important than having many articles on TV episodes is having good articles on those episodes. Therefore, it may not be a good idea to create small articles on every episode of a television show. That is not to say that one should not add information about a television episode to Wikipedia. The following process is a suggested method of doing so:

• First, create an article on the television show.
• Once there's enough verifiable information independent of the show itself, create articles on each season, or some other logical division, of the show.
• Once there's enough verifiable information from secondary sources about individual episodes, create separate articles for them.

Content

For detailed style guidance for writing about fictional works, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction).

• Content about television episodes must conform to Wikipedia content policies, including but not limited to Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. An actual episode may be used as a source for information about the episode and constitutes a primary source. Such use does not constitute original research.
• Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Avoid excessive trivia and quotations.
• Extensive quotation from episodes and overly detailed plot summaries are a violation of copyright and unlikely to be fair use.
• Here are some ideas for what information to include about a television episode, where possible:
  • A brief summary of the episode's plot
  • The episode's relevance in ongoing story arcs, if any
  • How the episode was received by critics
  • Information on production and broadcasting of the episode
• Elements which are best avoided in any episode article include:
  • A scene-by-scene synopsis. An overall plot summary is much better; the article should not attempt to be a replacement for watching the show itself, it should be about the show
  • Particularly for comedies, no attempt should be made to recreate the humor of the show. This rarely works, and is contrary to the purpose of an encyclopedia.

Dealing with problem articles

• If the articles contain little content, consider merging or redirecting them into another article (e.g. an article about the show itself, an article that is a list of episodes of the show, or an article that summarizes the plot for one season of the show).
• If the same editor appears to have created a large number of problematic articles, please refer them to this page.
• Avoid listing episodes for AfD unless they are completely unverifiable and original research.

Note: Stubs are allowed on Wikipedia and many articles are stubs. It may be inappropriate to merge or redirect an article about a television episode just because it is a stub.

Before executing a merge, ask yourself: Will the merge reduce the quality or coherence of the target article?

Also do some basic looking for additional source material that could be used to improve the article. Are more sources available?

If the answer to either of these questions is 'yes', it is probably better to forgo merging or redirecting. Instead, leave the article as it is or consider improving it.

See also

• Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/Episodes - WikiProject guidelines and tips for articles on television episodes