Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Lost episodes

Welcome!

Thank you all for agreeing to mediate this issue at hand, which is namely to find consensus on how the episodes of Lost should be written about. From what I can tell, the two opposing viewpoints are basically whether each episode should have its own article, or be grouped with other articles from the same season. Currently, I've seen it done both ways on Wikipedia. However, I saw a proposal before (I cannot seem to find it now, and I've been looking for about 30 minutes), which I find to be very relevant to this discussion. Basically, it proposed that TV articles should expand as such: At first, only have an article about the show. However, if the "Episodes" section becomes too long, then expand into seasons. However, if the seasons article becomes too long, then expand into individual episode articles. I've seen lists done two ways, with List of SHOW Episodes and List of SHOW Episodes (Season X), but the former is more prevalant across Wikipedia, as far as I can tell. Thoughts? Concerns? -^demon^{[yell at me]}_{[ubx_war_sux]} /11:19, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Just to start out, one of the arguments being size, I point out that the Season 2 episode summaries is 159 kilobytes long; but Wikipedia:Article_size says 32 KB is strongly recommended as the maximum. I also find it somewhat difficult to scroll down that page and look for specific info, which is a "readability issue" and one of the reasons to consider dividing up a page according to Wikipedia:Article_size. Since one of the few exceptions on that guideline page is that there might not be a natural point to cut up large lists, I say that dividing up into individual ep summaries is pretty natural, highly organized, and very useful. ArgentiumOutlaw 01:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with ArgentiumOutlaw. When there is a great deal of information on one page, then it makes sense to break the long page up into shorter pages. In the case of Lost, where the mystery behind the show makes it difficult to create short summaries (since we're never sure which details in a particular episode are most relevant), having all episodes on one page is excessive. I believe that polls have been conducted on this issue, and the majority consensus was that there should be separate episode pages, but the main stakeholders refused to accept consensus, saying that only those who regularly edited the articles should really have deciding votes. --Elonka 23:25, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I apologize for my late reply. This issue has been discussed so much that it's difficult to keep talking about it without repeating yourself. Are the article sizes a problem? Yes, of course. But one thing we have seen with the individual articles is they tend to include more fancruft, speculation, and information that has no relevance to the recurring story lines. So we have to make a trade off: either one long article that contains synoptic information about each episode, or many, shorter episode articles that contain a lot of crap. You'll notice that after the episode guidelines agreed upon in that discussion were adopted, the episode summaries did a 180 [1]. As a result, the entire first season was summarized in 75kb, which is quite small considering what an involved show Lost is. I know we can do the same with season 2. One thing that really concerns me about the individual articles is that they are so long and in-depth that an argument can be made that they violate copyright law because some of them give a blow by blow recap of everything that happened in an episode. So reading one of those episode summaries could arguably replace the need to watch an episode, causing ABC to lose money. Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 01:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe the reason that the individual articles arent that great right now (eg too long, scattered fancruft), is that people dont want to work on something that will potentially be deleted, merged or lost in these discussions. The reason that I don't edit any of these pages is because they might be deleted by a discussion similar to what we're having now. If the editors for both the long page and the individual eps came together and worked on the individual articles, it would solve the size/clarity problem, and it would eventually remove all of the fancruft and lengthy details. Also, I dont believe that organizing these pages with the editors' convenience in removing fancruft in mind is a good idea. These pages should be organized so that the reader can benefit, not the editors; but I am not suggesting that it is ok to have organized pages at the cost of fancruft, I am merely saying that we should organize the pages with the reader in mind (like all wikipedia pages should be), and then work on fancruft as a seperate problem. To organize by the editors convenience in this case, is similar (but exagerated) to suggesting that we merge all television shows together so that it's easier for us to remove fancruft that sneaks in. One final comment, I don't believe that saying ABC will lose money if we create individual articles is a useful or relevent argument for putting everything on one page. ArgentiumOutlaw 07:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

If people aren't willing to work on the individual articles because of the risk of deletion, then why do people edit the season articles? Don't those editors face the same risk? Also, fancruft is not the only issue with the individual articles. Many of them suffer from bad grammar, original research, and statement of facts that simply aren't true. Currently, such mistakes can go unnoticed for weeks at a time on these individual articles. If we worked together, we might be able to make the individual articles better than they are, but I don't think that we could keep them at a standard of quality just because of the sheer amount of them. I agree with what you said about convenience to the reader, and I think that the season format serves this purpose much more effectively. A reader does not have to scroll down the page, and if a reader is looking for a particular episode, they can click the link on the top of the page. With the individual articles, the reader would find the articles easier to navigate, but would simply find a bad article that may not serve his or her needs. --Kahlfin 18:01, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The Way I See It...

The major obstacle preventing us from breaking the season articles down into individual episodes is the perceived lowering of content quality and higher risk of AfD when broken down. However, it was mentioned above, and I agree:

| If people aren't willing to work on the individual articles because of the risk of deletion, then why do people edit the season articles? Don't those editors face the same risk?

And it's true. All articles, if poorly maintained, run a risk of AfD. It comes down to whether or not you're willing to put forth the effort to maintain a (in this case rather large) collection of articles about a subject that you obviously are all very interested in. Now, I know fancruft is an issue in TV series especially, but large sets of articles on a subject can be maintained. Look at The Simpsons. They have an absolutely enormous series, and every episode has its own article. Opinions? -^demon^{[yell at me]}_{[ubx_war_sux]} /00:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

The threat of changing the way we database episode content is the reason that individual episodes might not be up to par at this point. Poor maintenance and hesitation to edit comes from the existance of this discussion and all the points brought up in the List of Lost episodes talk page. Right now things are changing, and the process has halted maintaining the episode pages. This might just be an opinion, one shared with many editors mind you. So, let's look at the facts. Jtrost pointed out that the Season 1 article "did a 180." The article, at one point, was 85 KB, and through editing was reduced to 75KB. The Season 1 article is currently 82KB long. In addition, the Season 2 article is 158 KB long. 158 KB. These statements cannot be denied. Regarding standards on Wikipedia, which is extremely important for readers, these articles fail Wikipedia's guidelines for article size, miserably. Why are these pages so big? Because Lost episodes undoubtedly are complex. There is so much to say about each episode- general plot, mythology, character crossovers... While this complexity isn't a bad thing, it's the details that raised Season 1 from 75 right back up to 82KB. Details are important, and we can't just say we will keep reducing the season articles. We can't. An effort to minimize episode summaries on season pages will just result in other editors' reinserting the information. There is evidence to support this. Individual episode articles are appropriate for recording detailed Lost episodes for this reason. Details can undoubtedly lead to fancruft, yes, but I do not believe it is so much harder for editors to patrol individual episode pages. I mean, we do not have a huge article titled Main Characters of Lost. Each main character has an individual page, detailed and yet still maintained efficiently. If Lost episode editors could strive to produce great work like the character pages, Lost episodes would be databased most accurately and helpful to readers. -- Wikipedical 01:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Exactly the point I was trying to make, and I completely agree. Also I'd like to address the quote that was highlighted in this section and explain. The reason that the season summaries are still edited despite risk, is because that page has a few editors that will spend every minute of the day trying to improve the page. My point was that if only one of the two we are deciding on (episode vs season summaries) is chosen, more of the lost editors will begin contributing (including me) to that chosen page. To make it clear, I'm only saying that more people will edit and help remove fancruft and bad grammar, once only one format exists. Regardless of all that, I agree with wikipedical, that we can make it better for the user if we show the same amount of tenacity in the episode summaries as there currently is in many many other places. ArgentiumOutlaw 08:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Details are important? I disagree. If we start citing minute details in LOST articles, where do we stop? Do we talk about what Jack is wearing in every single episode? Do we describe every single equation, quote, and latin phrase featured on the Blast Door Map in Lockdown? If we start citing minor details, these articles are going to spiral out of control. The point of an episode summary is to summarize the episode, not to help someone who might be noting details of a particular episode. I believe that individual articles are too massive a project for LOST editors to maintain at this point. As for the example you cited with the Character pages, Characters are completely different. There are currently 18 characters of LOST, and if this changes at all, it will only increase by a small number. If we have somewhere around 18 pages for the entire run of the show, editors can keep these and only these pages on their watchlists. Episodes, on the other hand, are completely different. There are currently 49 episodes of LOST, and with an estimated 6-season run, this number will increase to somewhere around 144. We cannot maintain 49 pages right now, and during the regular season, this number will increase by 1 every single week. Every week, another page pops up for someone to watch and maintain, and we certainly aren't gaining another dedicated editor every week. And as for The Simpsons, the Simpsons pages have many dedicated editors to maintain their episode pages as opposed to the handful that maintain LOST. And still, individual articles do not seem to work for them. Take a look at The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons, Little Girl in the Big Ten, and Bye Bye Nerdie among others. Many Simpsons episode articles run rampant with bad grammar and POV. If it doesn't work for their large, active community, it certainly won't work for us. --Kahlfin 20:14, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Though I appreciate the intent of some editors to maintain a personal eye on every Lost article in order to keep them clean and high quality, I have a lot of trouble with any argument that says that the quantity of Lost articles should be kept small, so as to minimize pressure on their watchlist. By that reasoning, Wikipedia should never have expanded past a few thousand articles, but it seems to be doing fantastically well with 1.2 million and growing, because different people pay attention to different sections. As I've stated before in the talkpage discussion, I believe in Wikipedia's power to self-regulate. If there's a lot of "fancruft" being added to an article, then I believe that there will be enough other readers of the article to help edit it back to neutrality. Nobody "owns" the Lost articles (see WP:OWN), and we shouldn't be basing a decision on whether or not to split articles up, solely on the opinion of editors who say they don't want their watchlist to expand. When we've had a poll on this in the past (which was allowed to run for only one week in April [2]), there was basically a 2 to 1 consensus to split things up into episode articles, but when some editors tried to implement (what I saw as) the consensus, others stepped in and started reverting changes, saying that there wasn't consensus. When another poll was started in June, the clear majority was to split articles up, though other editors kept claiming "deadlock", and then this mediation was started Talk:Episodes_of_Lost_(season_2)#Vote:_On_the_articles. I don't think we're deadlocked here, I just think we have a minority of editors who are refusing to admit that there's consensus to split up the articles, by continually reverting the will of the majority so that the minority can maintain control of what they regard as "their" articles. Again, I don't think that they're acting in bad faith -- I think that they have a genuine desire to do a good job. But I do think that this minority has to learn to let go, rather than trying to maintain personal control of every single Lost article. --Elonka 00:00, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I've said this before, elsewhere in this long-running debate, but I'll do so again here. Let's just look at the results of having separate articles since about April. The results are clear (and daunting) -- compare any two episodes and you'll see that in many (even most) cases, the individual episode article tends to be of much greater length but with lower quality, including obvious speculation, original research, non-notable items, and fancruft. The individual episode articles tend to use language such as "most likely a reference" and "possibly an allusion". They include the pointing out of continuity errors, which is fan material, not encyclopedic material.

Since previous votes were mentioned, let me again point out the following about that:

• Virtually every long-standing contributor to Lost-related articles voted to keep the season articles and not have the individual episode articles.
• With no consensus having emerged, we've let the individual episode articles "happen" since late March or so.
• For a couple of reasons, several long-standing contributors (myself among them) who had declared their lack of support for individual articles have refrained from contributing/editing those individual articles. Whatever you may think of that reasoning, it's undeniable that it has allowed the results to speak for themselves of the two approaches.

So, four months later, without the attention of the various seasoned Lost editors, these articles have deteriorated and contain material that is contrary to Wikipedia goals and tenets. If those editors had participated, the articles would have almost certainly been kept in check in these matters. But the editors I'm referring to don't want the inundation of the multiple articles, for precisely this reason! It obviously falls on their shoulders to keep out the trivia etc. If they're not there, the trivia mounts up, literally. The people on the side of the individual articles have (for whatever reason) not stepped up to follow the Wikipedia tenets. Without the stops and checks and balances represented by dogged attention to these tenets, people seem to simply follow the "more must be better" philosophy, but more is not better, and we can see that tangibly now.

The results speak for themselves, in other words.

-- PKtm 02:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I am totally against this giving extra weight to the opinion of the "seasoned Lost editors" who seem to have claimed ownership of the Lost articles. Wikipedia works on consensus, and it also works on the concept of inviting in outside editors to give third-party opinions. To say that the outside opinions should not be given due consideration because they're from editors who aren't intimately involved with the editing of those pages, is counter-intuitive. As for the "quality" of the various articles, what I've seen, is some of the people that you describe as "stakeholders", actively sabotaging the work of other editors. Speaking for myself, I have to admit that it made me less likely to want to participate in the articles, because I couldn't tell which version was going to stick around, and I didn't want to put a lot of work into something, only to have it be deleted. So, it's my opinion that once we finally nail down the consensus (and get people to abide by consensus), that the quality of the articles will improve, because everyone will be pulling in the same direction. --Elonka 22:33, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

No, that's actually not at all what I said. I'm not saying that outside opinions not be given due consideration. And I have no idea what you refer to when you speak of anyone "sabotaging" the work of other editors. What I am saying is that there are opinions, and there are now observable results. What I am saying is let's look at reality: Lost invites a ton of participation, often from new or less frequent editors. The seasoned editors have helped diligently enforce basic Wikipedia tenets against a pretty incessant surge of trivia, speculation, theorizing, rumor inclusion. That work is to be valued, not scorned or dismissed. Without those editors, the results are clearly worse, as evidenced in the individual episode articles. No one has stepped up to keep the quality reasonable on those individual articles. People said that they would, but they have not; some proponents of the individual articles have even participated themselves in inserting unsourced rumors and speculation, so the basic Wikipedia philosophy is just not there perhaps. Given those results, it seems clear to me that it makes sense to do what those seasoned editors (with good reason) favor who are actually helping keep back the surge of fancruft: stick to season articles with sections for each episode. The idea is to encourage participation by the people who are helping, not drive them away with a surge of unmanageable articles in the Lost arena.

So again, let's look at results, not opinions, and let's think about what Wikipedia is supposed to stand for, and what's more likely to get us there. -- PKtm 23:00, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Where you lose me, is the idea that if we allow individual episode articles, that we're going to "lose" the seasoned editors. I agree with you that their input is valuable, as is the input of the occasional editors. I disagree that we should keep all the information on long and cumbersome season articles, just to make things easier for the "seasoned" editors. I think that maintenance will be just fine on individual episode articles, too, once we agree on one location for each episode synopsis, rather than the current system where there are two synopses for each episode, being maintained in parallel, because the "owner" editors refuse to let go of their season articles. --Elonka 23:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, several of those seasoned editors, myself among them, have gone on record in these discussions, stating that keeping track of hundreds of articles (for there will be that many) is beyond our energy and intentions and desires. I've said it, Jtrost has said it, Leflyman, Danflave, etc. It's actually easy to watch and revert the fancruft that's inserted into a single article; it's much much harder to even notice changes when there are dozens or hundreds of such articles, and to be sure, Lost articles need constant attention (more so than many other kinds of articles on Wikipedia) due to the popularity of the show. There are clearly a very small number of people who are willing to give Lost articles that attention, but the articles really need it. As we've seen: despite your statement above, the results actually show that maintenance obviously will not be "just fine" on individual episode articles, unless we can get that small number of dogged, diligent people to actually do it. One can disagree, wish it weren't so, or otherwise think ideally about it, but, it's reality. It's not ownership; it's reality. -- PKtm 00:02, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

So your arguement for having season articles is that it's easier for you, Jtrost, Leflyman to be able to maintain it- Is this correct? Because I don't see how moving from page to page is such a difficult task. And I certainly don't see how individual articles naturally create poor maintenance, because they don't. This is a false assumption on the parts of editors that are unwilling for change. The point is we are trying to please the reader, and the conservatism of the elders here is just not helpful. -- Wikipedical 02:47, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Basically one side says 'Let's organize these articles to our (the editors) benefit because it has the side-benefit of having less fancruft', and the other side says 'Let's organize to the readers benefit and the fancruft will naturally be removed'. Those seem to be the main points here, and I side with the latter. To clarify the argument, I believe the basic problem lies in the fact that the former side doesn't believe that the individual articles will naturally be maintained and that we can take the current situation as proof that it won't. Our side claims that we shouldnt just assume things will stay the same. For one thing, unless the season editors cut ties with lost articles, it can be safe to assume that there will be at least a few committed editors that will keep an eye on a few episodes. In addition, many other users who were afraid to edit due to the ambiguity of the situation will begin to maintain the episodes. So in essence, the season editors, the episode editors, and the non-editing users (like myself) will come together and help maintain these episodes. I believe that if the season editors acknowledge that fancruft will be removed with, at most, a bit of extra work, then there is no further reason to debate, because it is a "wikipedian tenet" to break up lengthy and cumbersome pages into multiple pages for ease of use for the reader. ArgentiumOutlaw 05:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe there is a misunderstanding here. I'll try to address them all.

• No one has ever claimed ownership of these articles. If we have claimed ownership, like some of you suggested, then the individual articles would have been immediately marked for deletion. Instead, when I first saw the individual articles, I redirected them and began a discussion, thinking that the status quo should stand until a consensus was reached. (I was quickly reverted and people claimed I blanked and vandalized pages; not wanting a revert war, I just let those people have their way) Our cooperation to have ongoing discussions and agreeing to mediation have shown that we, just like you, are interested in reaching a compromise, and not claiming any ownership.
• Adding more pages to our watchlists is not our primary argument. I use it just to show how much additional work will have to go into maintaining these already overly long episode summaries.
• We don't want season articles just because they're easier to maintain. That's one benefit, but not the only reason. We've already demonstrated how individual articles are more prone to violating policy. Our main concern is keeping the quality of these articles up with other Lost-related articles. If this is going to boil down to a matter of quality or quantity, I'll stick with quality. Unfortunately, I don't think we can have both because quantity almost always leads to lack of quality.

One more point I would like to raise is that those of you supporting individual articles say that it will be easier for the readers to navigate. How is that? If you're looking at load time it takes longer to load 24 smaller pages than one large page. As a whole, those 24 smaller articles are easily triple the size of the season article, if not larger. Also the individual pages will inherently include more images, which will make loading even slower. As for navigation, there is no way to jump from one individual article to any other, only to the previous and next episode. This seems to make navigation more difficult. Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 14:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I have another idea for a compromise. If article size is really your big problem, I would not be opposed to splitting the season article into four smaller articles. For example, we could have Episodes 1-6 of Lost (season x) to Episodes 19-24 of Lost (season x). Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 14:55, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Great proposal along the lines of compromise, Jtrost. I'd support this as well, as a good middle ground between the two camps, and if we can agree on the tenets as summarized by Demon at the end of this thread. -- PKtm 01:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like a reasonable compromise. Other opinions? -^demon^{[yell at me]} 02:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I dont mean to sound like I'm against compromise, but this is one situation where it must be done either one way or the other. If the consensus is going to be to divide it up into what jtrost mentioned, then might as well go with the full season article. Having 6 episodes on one page is still relatively cumbersome, and not to mention how awkward/unorganized it is to divide a season up like that. I still believe that fancruft/grammar problems won't be as problematic as the opposing side thinks it will be. Also, I still only see one advantage to keeping the season article, and its ease of use for the editors. No matter how its stated, including 'policy violation', the end argument is that its easier on us, and that's not right. ArgentiumOutlaw 14:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Just for Clarification

Just so I can better grasp who is on each side of this debate, can you each please sign below, with your respected affiliation, if you will? -^demon^{[yell at me]} 18:51, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Seasonal Articles

• Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 21:34, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
• PKtm 23:54, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
• Kahlfin 03:39, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Individual Episodes

• ArgentiumOutlaw 01:01, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
• Wikipedical 01:29, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
• Elonka 23:32, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

An Idea, Your Thoughts?

Also, in thinking about this earlier today, an idea came to mind, and I'd like your thoughts on it. What if we were to begin by having season articles, and then slowly break out into indivdual episodes, as they required? For example, in Season 1, episodes 1, 2, 6, and 9 might have their own articles, whereas the rest of the season is still within a joint season article (which accordingly links to the episodes where needed)? This would allow you to keep the more minor episodes from having their own (AfD-prone) articles, and the more important ones could be allowed on their own. This also cuts down on the length of season articles, as well as helping to keep the overall number of articles to maintain to a bit lower (and more manageable) number. Thoughts? -^demon^{[yell at me]} 18:51, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Not to be offensive, but I strongly believe we need to affirm one system as the system. In this case, I do not believe we should have overlapping systems any longer. If we have some episodes missing from season episodes and some episodes as individual episodes, gradually and eventually I think the whole season will make it into both systems. This discussion is important and could set a precedent for databasing other television episodes, not just LOST. But I think all of us here can say that we appreciate the time and effort you're taking to help us out. -- Wikipedical 22:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to have to agree with Wikipedical, we definetely should pick just one of the methods of organization. If both exist the way you described, the information will be somewhat chaotic and unstructured. This would be confusing and frustrating for the users who are looking for information on the episodes. In my opinion anyway. ArgentiumOutlaw 01:00, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not fully opposed to this idea. While each episode of Lost has an involved storyline, in the grand scheme of the show (or what we have seen so far) many of the stories within each show really have no relevance (i.e. Hurley's golf course). Some episodes, or parts of episodes could be considered fillers, and therefore the information contained within that episode wouldn't be encyclopedic. I think if we are able to trim down some of the less important episodes, and expand out some of the more important episodes, we can find a happy medium. I wouldn't mind adding a dozen more articles to my watchlist and contributing to them if they really do warrant their own article. However, having 50+ Lost episode articles will inevitably cause problems, and it already has. Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 21:33, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I am a big fan of LOST and am dedicated enough to help maintain its Wikipedia article. But frankly we can't and shouldn't decide what episodes are more "important" to the reader. Hurley's golf course has "no relevance"... to what? The plot? Maybe. Again, I don't think that we can just generalize that episodes that cover more plot are more important. We should trim speculation, repetition, and details that are truly truly excessive, such as Jack's costmues and every latin phrase on the Blast Door map. But other details that are not as important to the plot, such as character pasts and information that is not relevant to Michael's finding Walt, are what make up LOST and are definately encyclopedic. -- Wikipedical 02:54, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I think this is not a bad idea, especially if we decide as a community which articles are ready for individual status. Here's how it might work: say a user thinks that the section of the season page pertaining to the episode "Numbers" is ready for it's own article. That user will create a section on the talk page proposing that "Numbers" have it's own article. The LOST community will have a discussion about whether or not "Numbers" merits its own article, the main criteria being whether the section on the season page is good enough and whether the LOST community can handle another individual episode page at the time of proposal. The community will try to reach consensus, and if an episode is rejected, it can be resubmitted if any user thinks that circumstances have changed since the last submission. This sounds like a good idea, and I would support it. --Kahlfin 03:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I can't support this, I'm afraid. I feel that it doesn't map to Wikipedia's essence. Specifically, the nature of Wikipedia is that we (the LOST community that Kahlfin refers to above) don't really decide a whole lot, when it comes to day-to-day insertions. Anyone can edit. Anyone can create an article. Things that look like gaps (e.g., some episodes without articles) will be filled by eager contributors, in the honest belief that they're helping out, and we'll have to spend lots of time in AfD justifying why this article should be deleted but not others. -- PKtm 04:04, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Amount of detail?

It looks like that so far we are as deadlocked as ever about this issue. However, I would like to come to an agreement about one issue and then from there we could possibly come to a consensus about episode summaries. Earlier in the discussion I stated that having the individual articles may infringe on ABC's copyright of the show because reading some of the episode summaries give a blow by blow account of an episode, and really do replace the need to watch that episode. As examples, see Pilot, Three Minutes, and Live Together, Die Alone. I don't think this amount of detail is required, as much of the information touches on fancruft, which isn't a Wikipedia policy, but still a good thing to avoid in pop culture articles. I would like to hear what everyone believes is a suitable amount of detail to include in episode summaries. As a starting point, take a look at these guidelines that were originally developed, and used to rewrite the first season article:

• should be limited to 500 words.
• should not contain brilliant prose, fancruft, speculation, or original research.
• should only mention events important to the central character and his/her flashback, events that relate to the ongoing or future story lines, and events that emphasize the story elements and thematic motifs sections in the main Lost article. (note: I added thematic motifs since it was added as a section after these guidelines were developed) Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 21:46, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Good start on these guidelines. I'd suggest adding something along the following lines:

• should contain little or no references to actual dialog, other than (as a rare exception) lines that are pivotal to plot swerves or character revelations

-- PKtm 21:56, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we need to compromise. I think I'm on board with these guidelines, as well as PKtm's addition. However, I think we need to verify some of the wording here. Hurley's golf course was brought up in the previous section of this discussion. Now according to ABC's official episode summary (for Solitary in season 1), "A mysterious woman takes Sayid prisoner, and tells him a disturbing truth about the island. Hurley builds a golf course to relieve the survivors' stress." So I'm not sure what to say about this still- should we take into account ABC's own summary? Also, I think "Pilot" and "Live Together, Die Alone" should be exceptions as they are 2-hour episodes. So can we say 500 words per hour episode? And I think recap episodes should not receieve any summary but be briefly mentioned (whether on the top areas of List of Lost episodes, or the Episodes of Lost (season 1), no seperate sections). What do you all think? -- Wikipedical 03:19, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I personally think that although we should remove unnecessary details, we should keep a lot of the descriptions of the scenes (eg in Live Together, Die Alone). In Live Together, Die Alone, the page looks to be extremely detailed only because that page describes 2 episodes, and only then, each part is slightly too detailed. I think details like the name of the book that Desmond was holding should remain, yet a detail like Mr. Eko carving 922 on his club is too much (unless its importance is noted in some other way such as in a future episode). I think if we oversummarize these episodes, the importance of the various complications and intricacies will be lost. Those elaborate complexities in the individual scenes and episodes are very important to the series and should not be overlooked by anyone attempting to understand the show or any of its episodes.

I'd also like to point out again that the episode details don't really have much to do with what we're supposed to be discussing right now. This topic is completely different than the original, and we might want to solve it in a seperate discussion after the current request for mediation is finished. Therefore I suggest that we not waste too much time discussing this. ArgentiumOutlaw 16:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Just so it's clearly stated, the reason I started this is because one big issue here is article size, and these guidelines directly impact article size. While this exact topic may be outside the scope of the mediation, I think that discussing it can help us find a compromise. Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 21:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Potential Guidelines

These guidelines sound like a reasonable compromise to me:

• should be limited to 500 words (per hour, allowing up to 1000 for 2 hour episodes)
• should not contain brilliant prose, fancruft, speculation, or original research.
• should only mention events important to the central character and his/her flashback, events that relate to the ongoing or future
• should contain little or no references to actual dialog, other than (as a rare exception) lines that are pivotal to plot swerves or character revelations

Any others people recommend? Problems with these? -^demon^{[yell at me]} 14:01, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

One other guideline that comes to mind, when I glance at a couple of the current single episode articles, ought to be "no captions". Many of the current articles have various odd "artistic" subheadings scattered throughout the exposition of what happens in the episode; e.g., "Tensions build at the hatch." These add nothing, aren't encyclopedic, and just come off as artificial.

Secondly, whatever guidelines we settle on will have to be prominently displayed for each article. Wikipedia inspires people to contribute, and with Lost in particular, there will always be stuff that can be added by a person who is eager to contribute. The articles will quickly mushroom beyond their allotted 500 words per episode.

Lastly, I think that Jtrost's recommendation of (say) four articles per season (grouping episodes into chunks of 6 episodes per article or so) should be strongly considered. -- PKtm 04:53, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Looking at Episodes of Lost (season 2), descriptions are routinely over 1000 words. On a quick glance, it looks like the longest one is over 1700 words, and the season finale is close to 2500. I think trying to keep under 500 words is not realistic. However, I do agree that the proposed compromise has merit. 6 episodes per page might be too many though. If we break up Season 2 into 4 pages, we're still running about 40K per page, which is over Wikipedia guidelines. I'd recommend fewer episodes/page, and putting a max cap (if we have to have a max cap?) of 1500 words per episode. --Elonka 05:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Sure, season 2 episode descriptions are too long even in the season articles; hence Jtrost's suggestion to pare them down, as we did with Season 1. This isn't unreasonable, given the guidelines. Take a look at this excerpt from Collision's description (1200 words total):

He also finds the closet full of guns and displays a disapproving facial expression. Eko runs into Locke and the two stare at each other very strangely for several seconds. Eko tells Locke "a girl was shot and killed", describing her as "tall with blonde hair" whom Locke quickly identifies as Shannon, showing a sense of grief in his face. When asked if he could take Locke to the scene, Eko takes a quick look at the gun-rack and replies: "No."

That's precisely the kind of overdetailed description that causes these summaries to mushroom. The summaries shouldn't have that level of detail, not to mention the interpretive drawing of conclusions. Short and simple should rule the day. These aren't scripts. 500 words as a limit should be fine (and will also accommodate just four articles for the whole season); setting the limit as high as 1500 words (!) will encourage the kind of thing represented by this excerpt. -- PKtm 14:43, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

What's going on here? This isn't what we're supposed to debate about. Us editors can debate about this in a more public environment at a future point in time. I'd also like to point out that our discussion on the season vs episode summaries, is a complete waste of our time. The problem is that neither side knows for sure what will happen if each episode has its own article. Since we can't know that, our differences in opinion are what we each believe will happen (ie fancruft will take over, or disappear). Us talking about it with eachother is ridiculous and circular in nature. We're just going to end up doing the same thing we did in the previous polls and discussions. So what are we doing here? Is the admin going to decide what he thinks is best? Or are we supposed to keep arguing until the end of time? ArgentiumOutlaw 14:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think that's completely wrongheaded. The point is that we're zeroing in on guidelines and compromises that will allow both sides to feel OK about a new approach. Discussing the season vs. episode summaries is the point here, and doing so is hardly a waste of time if we want to break the deadlock, which is what this mediation is all about. So let's please not dismiss each other's solid efforts to further the discussion. -- PKtm 14:59, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The above examples bring up another question for me as well. One of the arguments by the "page per season" camp, is that the season pages are easier to maintain and keep free of "fan-cruft". And yet, the above example is from a season page. So, what's the deal? If those pages are so easy to maintain, why is that kind of information allowed? In fact, I'll even ask a more specific question: Can the season editors please show me clear examples where an "episode" article is lower quality than the corresponding description in the season article? Because right now I'm not seeing it. --Elonka 17:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Look at Episodes of Lost (season 1). That contains summaries written with the above guidelines in mind. The second season page has not been cleaned up yet. Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 18:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, even while the Season 1 page is "cleaned up," it is still 82KB long. I'm still thinking about this guidelines, but I keep geting stuck on point number three. The wording is so vague and might not relate to each episode. -- Wikipedical 20:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Exactly, it's about half the size of the season 2 article. That goes to show how implementing these guidelines can improve these articles. As for page size, remember that Wikipedia:Article size is only a guideline, not a policy, so it doesn't need to be followed as strictly as NPOV, OR, etc. If the summaries are divided up into four pages as I proposed above, then each page will be approximately a little over 20kb, which is well under the recommended size. As for guideline 3, if you don't like it come up with alternate wording. The purpose of #3 is to keep people from writing something that is completely irrelevent to the main story lines at that time. Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 21:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I know that I am not a listed party in this discussion (due to not holding a strong preference between the two major alternates), but as an occasional contibutor, I would like to make an observation about guideline #3, specific to "ongoing or in the future. My opinion is that episode summaries should be written from the perspective of what is known at the time, and never emphasize something simply because we later find out it was important. Hence, I'd remove the reference to the future, or possibly modify it to clarify that it cannot refer to events we only know about from watching later episodes. Bldxyz 00:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)