Talk:How I Met Your Mother

2006-June 2009

Tie-Ins addition

canadiansexacts.org is another site mentioned in episode 18 of the fourth session and I think it should be added into the Tie-Ins section. Don't worry, no adult content ;-)

Yeah, for some reason the site is always down. Can't imagine why they don't fix that. Alan Thicke is certainly apologetic, however. And yes, it should be added to the list. — $wgUser 16:18, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

• How many of the "tie-ins" listed on the site are official sites? At least a few of them are most likely created by fans in honor of the show. --V2Blast (talk) 02:53, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

LilyAndMarshallSellTheirStuff is no longer archived. Sound the alarms

Lorenzo Von Matterhorn fake wikipedia page: lorenzovonmatterhorn. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.110.5.92 (talk) 15:44, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Production

The production section begins with a comment <!-- introduction, letterman etc. -->. The article makes no mention of David Letterman but by searching for the quote "our friends and the stupid stuff we did in New York" I was able to find an article explaining the writers worked on Letterman before they go the show. Is this something that still could or should be added to the article? -- Horkana (talk) 23:27, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Notability of International Broadcast section

I seriously question the notability of the "International Broadcast" section. Wikipedia is not TV Guide, and WP:NOTNEWS. It seems like CBS and Lifetime are the only two networks that are notable. How accurate will this information be in a week/month/year. This is the English language wikipedia, do the countries listed even broadcast the show in English? I know Germany dubs most programmes into German. I've looked at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Television/Style_guidelines and it doesn't mention anything about an international broadcast sections anywhere at all in the article. I looked at several well established articles mentioned on the project television guidelines. Prison_Break#Distribution does provide some information but certainly does not have a flat list of International broadcasters. Smallville, Heroes_(TV_series), The Simpsons, none of these shows have an international broadcasting section. The closest I've been able to find to an exception is Friends which still does not have a flat list but does have some information about exceptional Friends#International deals made in distributing the show. I'm going to delete the International Broadcast section now before it gets any worse. It is shame to see good faith edits going to waste but good articles just don't include lists like that. -- Horkana (talk) 00:43, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The list of International Broadcasters was only added recently (not in the article mid October) and started to sprawl very quickly. Based on the Friends article if there was some huge high profile deal made then it might be relevant to include it but so far the only thing like that was the deal with Lifetime network already mentioned in the article. -- Horkana (talk) 00:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

You're forgetting That 70's Show, boy THAT one had a lot.--Eaglestorm (talk) 02:42, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that, good to have a counterpoint. I looked at Friends as a sitcom to make sure I was doing a fair comparison. I feel it is not unreasonable to delete the section because it was only recently added and I can say with confidence it is not something normally included in good articles. I can see how the information is useful to readers but just is not something a good encyclopedia would include, if nothing else it is too hard to verify if the information is still correct. -- Horkana (talk) 04:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Tristram Shandy

Has anybody considered the 18th Century novel "Tristram Shandy" as a model for the show? Both feature an comically inept narrator who gets events out of order, remembers the past with obvious exaggerations, forgets to give the reader crucial information (in this case the identity of the mother), and goes off on tangents all the time.CharlesTheBold (talk) 15:14, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

We'd rather go with Bays and Thomas' rationale for creating the show. To insist on this book being connected with it seem like OR. --Eaglestorm (talk) 15:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Wendy the Waitress

Was searching for details about "Wendy the Waitress" and apparently John McCain used the name along with "Joe the Plumber" when he wanted to appeal to middle class voters. Did the writers of the show borrow from him or the other way round or was it just a bit of convenient coincidental alliteration? It is probably just a coincidence, a wikipedia search mentions a very old comic titled Wendy the Waitress.

I saw an online quiz which claimed that Charlene had auditioned for the part of "Girl who works with Carlos" before she got the part of Wendy the Waitress but couldn't find a suitable source. -- Horkana (talk) 17:51, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Removed odd information from recurring cast

I've removed the last two paragraphs on recurring characters because they don't seem to be relevant. A correlation between characters on a show also acting in another show is probably a co-incidence, unless there's something else to suggest a connection. If there is, then that should be in the article rather than what I've removed. Josh04 (talk) 19:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, and that connection should be well sourced if it exists. DP76764 (Talk) 20:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

What a shame. The paragraph you deleted was the reason I started watching the show (I'm a huge Joss Whedon fan). In fact, I just came here right now to add two more characters I spotted to the list. Odigity (talk) 23:24, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Which paragraph? Hard to find citations for a deleted paragraph. If it is something that probably could be sourced but you are having difficulty or don't have time to find them then don't just delete it, put the paragraph here on the Talk page and give other editors a chance to find sources.

The show creators have certainly mentioned in interviews about guest casting and how they have cast people who have previously worked with cast members in shows such as Buffy or Freak and Geeks but admittedly finding the right source for each guest can be a bit of a pain, usually you need to search through articles and reviews for specific episodes.

Again the first thing to do is to mark items as citation needed, only if citations are not available should you think about deleting. -- Horkana (talk) 13:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Simple

There is an article for How I Met Your Mother in Simple English Wikipedia that is really only a little more than a stub. The article needs to be expanded now but it will always need to be kept much simpler and more minimal than the many article we have for How I Met Your Mother in the English language Wikipedia and it might appeal to editors who feel we have too much detail about the show here. It might also inspire some of us to see where we have overcomplicated this article and things could be simplified with no loss of quality or detail. -- Horkana (talk) 13:04, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The Mother

Why do people keep removing references to the "Mother" (from the title) from this article. The producers were happy enough to blatantly reveal that the mother would be played by Nicole Muirbrook in the episode "No Tomorrow" (season 3). What is the issue with having this up on wikipedia? Do you want me to say "Spoiler Alert" before informing people? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Religious Burp (talk • contribs) 23:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

As per the note on your talk page, we need reliable sources. IMDB doesn't meet that standard. If you are prepared to discuss the matter here rather than repeatedly reverting your text in, you'll find people are quite willing to help out. --Ckatz^chat_spy 23:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

So you want me to upload the physical episode as a way of citing this? How else is going to be cited. It's evident. How obvious does something need to be? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Religious Burp (talk • contribs) 23:55, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Having reviewed some of this, where exactly is your proof that the actor in question is intended as the mother character? In the absence of reliable proof, this is nothing but speculation, and has to go. --Ckatz^chat_spy 01:42, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Ckatz, you should actually watch the episode. It's wrong of you to be removing content about an episode you haven't watched.--Religious Burp (talk) 02:11, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

See also

See also Talk:No Tomorrow (How I Met Your Mother) where this is discussed further. This is speculation, which is interesting and notable and we can report on it as speculation by critics but there is not enough to do much more than that. -- Horkana (talk) 02:04, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

"'How I Met Your Mother': We Think We Figured Out Who 'Your Mother' Is". New York Magazine. 2008-03-18.

Horkana, do you think it would be alright to start up a whole new section then? I think there is enough evidence, in edition to the article. And lots of people have noted this occurance in the episode as a give away that she will play Ted's wife. I think it belongs there, rather than getting however many years down the track and inserting information that was already evident. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Religious Burp (talk • contribs) 02:22, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I definitely encourage you to include the information in the article No Tomorrow (How I Met Your Mother), the only problem is how to present it but I think including it under Critics will be adequate.

I'm not sure what the appropriate way would be to include this information in the main How I Met Your Mother article. I've no great desire to delete the work of anyone trying to improve Wikipedia but I'm just not sure how we can massage this into a form others will accept. Perhaps the few other editors who reverted your changes can say what way they believe it would be acceptable to present this. -- Horkana (talk) 02:38, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Religious Burp (talk • contribs) 02:42, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I suggest using the best sources you can find. Blogs and minor reviews aren't going to cut it. Nor will original research, but that's another story. DP76764 (Talk) 03:24, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

(reset indent) I've removed the text yet again, per the discussions that recognize it as speculation. Given the media commentary, it probably can be restored in some form once the proper sources are added for the speculation. However, what we have to avoid is any speculation that comes from us as editors and/or viewers. For example, the article Nicole Muirbrook had text that was completely non-encyclopedic and speculatiove, such as "Nicole's breakthrough acting role", "...was the producers way of giving fans a sneak peak of who Ted would eventually marry" and "It is unknown when she will return to the series to film the episodes that lead to her marrying Ted". The main article, the episodes article, and the 3rd aseason article were all written in a manner that suggested the role definitely was that of the mother, whereas it would have to be written to reflect the fact that some critics thought this with no confirmation from the producers as to its accuracy. --Ckatz^chat_spy 04:02, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Ckatz, you really are a bit full of yourself. You remove content (on this & other pages, as is evident on your talk page) that you have no idea about. And you say there isn't enough citations. But you only have to look lots of the plot summaries to find virtually no citations. In fact, the only citation on Nicole Muirbrook's page was the one I inserted. Perhaps you should back off and realise you don't know everything about everything, others know stuff too. At least do some research to back up your refusal of information. --Religious Burp (talk) 04:37, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so you're the one repeatedly adding unreferenced material, yet you say I am at fault? Look, if you want people to help you, you really need to adopt a less agressive attitude. The problem is not about reporting straight-forward plot elements, such as saying that character X bumped into a woman. The problem is in making speculative assumptions that the woman is the mother, without any proof whatsoever. Plus, the text you wrote on Nicole's page was non-encyclopedic in nature; among other opinions, you described Muirbrook's acting as her "breakthrough role" and you stated that she was the mother character. The IMDB reference - and keep in mind that IMDB is only usable for specific facts - does not support those claims in any way whatsoever. It only describes her role as "woman". --Ckatz^chat_spy 05:48, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

You may think I'm the aggressive one but I'm not the one removing other's contributions willy nilly. You removed a contribution on Heidelberg railway station, Melbourne. How many times have you been there? Do you even live in Australia? I've been to that station a few hundred times. The only reason I have not oulined the evidence in the articles themselves was to save the articles becoming too messy. I think keeping it simple is more in the interest of the readability of the articles. If you think the description of Nicole Muirbrook on her page was non-encyclopedic then you should have amended it to be like that, not just rip out whole sections. You really need to stop thinking you are the king of wikipedia. --Religious Burp (talk) 06:05, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Please read through the verifiability and reliable sources policies. There are many, many, many things that you, I, and every other Wikipedia editor know. That does not mean we can write about it; we do not qualify as reliable sources. Material that is unreferenced can and should be removed; this is a fundamental and long-established practice on this site. --Ckatz^chat_spy 06:12, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

So going to destination that is listed on wikipedia, seeing a massive landmark with an accompanying sign detailing it is unreliable. The actual place is unreliable? You don't even hear yourself, do you? Take your head out of your butt, it might help. --Religious Burp (talk) 06:25, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

With respect to the station, please put yourself in the position of a reader. How are they supposed to know that the material is accurate? If you go there so often, why not simply post a photo of the sign? That would both serve to verify the information and add to the article. With respect to this article, please note that I am certainly not the only person who disagrees with your position. People here are willing to help you, but you have to work with them. --Ckatz^chat_spy 06:31, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I didn't think I needed to take a photo of the sign because anyone going thru the station can see the semaphore signal as clear as day. The thing is huge. I don't come on wikipedia to see photos of signs. Are you honestly suggesting that I would concoct a story about a semaphore signal at Heidelberg Station? You think that's how I get my jollys? You think that just coz you believe the likelihood that someone would make up a story about a historic semaphore signal at a station is more likely than there actually being one gives you the right to remove content? Get a grip on reality. The fact you felt a need to remove this shows you are a control freak, simple. --Religious Burp (talk) 06:44, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, calm down please. I never said you were making up anything, I merely said that Wikipedia's verifiability policy requires us to provide proof. Note that I didn't make the rules; they were here when I started on Wikipedia, and they'll in all likelihood be here for the life of the project. Please also note that I'm bound by them as well. There is a lot of information that I could add with regard to my home town, but without any form of verifiability they would be just as likely to be removed.

Now, I do apologize if you're miffed over the station. To be fair to me, I was faced with unverified material that had been posted by an editor who was repeatedly adding unverified speculation to other articles. I suggest, however, that if you wish to continue discussing the sign, we take that either to our respective talk pages or to the station's article, as it is not related to this article. Fair enough? --Ckatz^chat_spy 06:55, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not a viewer of this show and found the article confusing. It seems that a central plot device or joke is that the viewer is kept in endless suspense from episode to episode about who Ted will eventually marry, even though his ostensible audience (his kids) presumably already know. Is this the case? If so, shouldn't it be mentioned early in the article? (The article currently seems to assume that every Wikipedia reader already knows this: for example, the synopsis of Season 1 says that the viewer can deduce that Robin is not the mother.) Eclecticos (talk) 03:15, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that is correct. I'll see what I can do to make this more clear. Reywas92^Talk 03:26, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

E4

Since the show reached the UK, its been airing on channel E4, i was going to add it, but because it was originally American and on CBS, i didn't know if it was relevant. --Stripy Socks (talk) 15:53, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

It is also aired on the BBC 2. I don't think International broadcast sections are generally notable. Those big long tables full of countries are definitely not notable, they're of little relevance to English language Wikipedia, and hard to verify or keep up to date.

There are exceptions where foreign broadcasters pay a whole lot of money for exclusivity and it is enough to gain press coverage, but those are the exception rather than the rule of good television articles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_(TV_series)#International

-- Horkana (talk) 16:34, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

An international broadcast section has already been deleted at least once. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=How_I_Met_Your_Mother&diff=356953434&oldid=356941004

I tagged it being of questionable importance. I was waiting before deleting in case anyone might have made the effort to show why it was notable but anyone restoring it would need to include citations not just to verify it was true and up to date but also something to suggest it is actually notable. -- Horkana (talk) 16:49, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Transcripts

A fan of the show has been writing transcripts of the episodes after they air. These might be of some use to verify quotes or points of discussion that might be disputed. -- Horkana (talk) 12:03, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I?

Why is the I capitalised? Shouldn't it be a small I, like in the title sequence? IAmTheCoinMan (talk) 14:38, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Someone correct me if im wrong, but the name of the article has to be grammatically correct, whereas the name of the show is similar to a logo. You wouldnt find the small i in a tv guide or something similar to it. --Stripy Socks (talk) 14:41, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

the iPod article starts with a small I..... most articles start with a capital.IAmTheCoinMan (talk) 13:47, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Again, I could be wrong, but I think it may be because the ipod article has a one-worded title where the second letter is meant to be the capital on purpose as it is stated officially by Apple. Where as the How I Met Your Mother title sequence has it all in lower case because it looks better and suits the show, which is probably unneccessary for the article title. --Stripy Socks (talk) 14:32, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Guest stars

The show has had a lot of guest stars and even been criticized for stunt casting. I wouldn't go so far as to assert or presume these guest are "notable" but I think the list could be added back to the article in some form. Perhaps as prose rather than a list? -- Horkana (talk) 13:35, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

GNB Logo

It appears that Wikipedia (or a few of their hit men) are attempting to delete the GNB Logo. The logo is used a number of times during the series hence it was added to the text of this article. Please click on the logo and direct yourself to the section argue that the logo should stay.Throttler (talk) 07:44, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Marshall

Why does Marshall not have its own page? Where as the other 4 main characters have their own page! --94.215.215.175 (talk) 19:22, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

He has a page on the HIMYM Wiki ([1]) if you are looking for more info or want to add some. — JediRogue (talk) 22:37, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Linking to fan wiki here and episode/character pages

There are a lot of trivia and details on episode pages for How I Met Your Mother here on Wikipedia. Most of this content is less appropriate for Wikipedia than it would be on a wiki specific to the show. To encourage people to bring all this trivia there, as well as add an external source of information about the show, I am placing links to the show wiki on pages related to the show. Hopefully it will encourage less trivia lists on episode pages by making it apparent that a better place for it is available and encourage more of these devoted fans to contribute trivia, miscellaneous info, and other content relevant to that community which is a more appropriate venue for such content.

Note that, according to Template:Wikia which is being used, we shouldn't be linking to copyright violations (WP:COPYLINK). Pages on HIMYM Wiki that use content from wikipedia are (and should be if they are not--please add the template if you are editing over there unless you are recontributing your own content {{wikipedia|pagename}}) attributing the content to the original wiki page and marked for rewriting.

According to WP:FANSITE, we should not be linking to sites that don't add more content than the article should have based on the ideal amount of content needed to be featured. While some of the pages on the HIMYM wiki have less content than their wikipedia counterparts, ideally, the content on these articles should move from one wiki to the other. Especially considering, WP:PLOT and WP:TRIVIA. For these reasons, it should be appropriate to place these links to encourage the appropriate content placement.

Basically, althoough it is serving to "promote" that wiki and is linking to pages that sometimes don't contain more content than can be found here, I think its going to be beneficial in helping improve the content here. While so far, these links are only on episodes and pages that do have more/better content on Wikia, I want to put it on all the pages, regardless of their status on that wiki. So unless someone says something before tomorrow, I am going to be bold and start. Especially because I would not be suprised if someone started to delete the questionable content because its not as appropriate on wikipedia.

This should also be enough to justify going around the Template:no more links tag. — JediRogue (talk) 03:26, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have removed the links. There are very few cases where a fan wiki warrants inclusion as an external link. In this case, the wiki is so small and draws upon a very small pool of editors, so it would not meet the terms for inclusion. As an aside, we can not use wikis as reference sources; this site was used for a reference on one page. --Ckatz^chat_spy 03:55, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Your suggestion elsewhere that the wiki should be presented as a site for trivia etc. is useful. While it still does not mean we can link to the site from articles, it might be worth adding a mention on the series project page (if one exists) or in a FAQ on the talk page of the main article. --Ckatz^chat_spy 03:57, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

No Lily in the title card picture

Wouldn't it be better if the whole main cast was shown in the title card picture? Maybe something like this @ http://daniel-gebauer.de/serientipp-met-mother --Lathrop1885 (talk) 09:41, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Lorenzopedia

There is also the Lorenzopedia, another Lorenzo von Matterhorn site, that is not mentioned in the article. I don't if it aws made by CBS. The Text is nearly or fully identical with the Text from the former Wikipedia page [2]. According the Buzzfeed, the Wikipedia page was created by CBS [3]. --Christian140 (talk) 21:15, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

"Continuity"

Please take a gander at my question here about "Continuity" sections. These sections in the HIMYM article are trivia and/or WP:OR. Can anyone offer a compelling reason for retaining them? --EEMIV (talk) 12:51, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I've given up trying to improve these articles since others are so determined to delete large chunks of them - death of a thousand cuts - when as you can see from this page there are many who do want these article but again unfortunately aren't very interested in working on them or even relatively easy tasks such as expanding the Reception information beyond the bullet points to more thorough prose. If I'd known about (or if it had existed) The How I Met Your Mother Wiki I'd have gone there instead.

I'm especially disappointed to see the carefully sourced tie-in material from "Barney's blog" being deleted. I mention it particularly so others can note this date and the username EEMIV if they want to try to salvage the material. At this rate I expect whole episode articles will be redirected or deleted next and the information will be gone, so if anyone is interested in salvaging do it while you still can. -- Horkana (talk) 14:33, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

The blog is also oddball trivia. But, yes, it's in the edit history. I only axed the trivial material from season 1 to see whether it actually motivates folks try to incorporate other articles' trivia into e.g. the production or promotion section. Ultimately though, yes, I suspect most of the episode articles would ultimately be better served as redirects to an episode list. But that's a push/conversation for another time. Here and now, it's pretty clear this continuity, cultural reference and blog-integration stuff is just too trivial for its current form of coverage here. --EEMIV (talk) 15:13, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you seriously underestimate the value of additional material from the producers of the show. It is as close as we have to the writers giving more detail about where they are coming from, even it is framed through the views of one character.

I think - hell I know, there have been calls before - there are editors who would prefer to see all these HIMYM episode articles removed. Deleting is too easy, improving is hard. Hard enough that after adding many reviews and other referenced material it wasn't fun anymore. Perhaps in time other editors will see a better way to present this information (like so many Trivia sections deleted before, later rephrased, regrouped, better referenced, and presented as good background information). I hate to see any good faith efforts deleted (with limits) but Deletionists have the consensus. So be it.

For now at least the information remains in the edit History, and motivated editors might try and do something with it. "Out of sight, out of mind." I'm not optimistic that articles will not be reduced to redirects then be deleted entirely leaving no history at all. I register in advance my unequivocal and very strong objections to deletion of the episode articles. While I try to be polite, it seem like I should take a long (if not permanent break) from Wikipedia. -- Horkana (talk) 02:16, 9 March 2011 (UTC)