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. Some Dude From North Carolina (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. Some Dude From North Carolina (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. Some Dude From North Carolina (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. Some Dude From North Carolina 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)

• @Some Dude From North Carolina, 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 Some Dude From North Carolina'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? Some Dude From North Carolina (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. Some Dude From North Carolina (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, Some Dude From North Carolina 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 Some Dude From North Carolina AfD activities have to do with the point I was trying to make? Some Dude From North Carolina'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)

Closing inactive task forces

Over a year ago a group of inactive TV WikiProjects were converted to task forces and joined a group of other TV-related (mostly inactive) task forces. As the table below shows, almost all task forces related to TV series haven't been active in years, most since before 2013. Keeping them in active state (regardless of an inactive notice some use on their page) means that there is a lot of needles maintenance surrounding them, including hundreds of pointless categories; the need to update dozens of rows in {{WikiProject Television}} when a new task force is added; many unseen XfD discussion notices; and many other automatic or semi-automatic bot operations that no one cares about.

To the editors who were members of one of these task forces and to the editors who enjoy these TV series - this is in no way personal or means that your program isn't deserving of a task force. It's just an objective fact that no community collaboration is taking place on those pages and issues that do get posted, don't get answered as there just aren't editors watching those pages. Closing those task forces and redirecting to the main TV project would allow better collaboration for those programs.

Also note that there are also inactive non-TV series task forces, but to not make this proposal even harder, I've left them out.

I propose to officially close these inactive task forces (note: the ones in the active table aren't included in the proposal):

• Archive any talk page discussions
• Redirect main and talk pages to Wikipedia:WikiProject Television and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television
  • Reality and competition task forces could alternatively be redirected to the Reality television task force
• Delete all task force quality and importance categories
• Remove parameters from {{WikiProject Television}}

Additionally I propose that no new TV series related task forces be created without gaining consensus here first.

Inactive task forces

TV series task forces Task force Last task-specific, non-maintenance post 24 task force 16 July 2012 The 4400 task force 25 June 2007 The Amazing Race task force 20 March 2018 (and before that 20 April 2015) The Apprentice UK task force 12 June 2010 Arrested Development task force 19 May 2008 Avatar: The Last Airbender task force 13 August 2010 Awake task force 4 May 2013 Babylon 5 task force 27 August 2013 Battlestar Galactica task force 11 August 2013 The Bill task force 13 July 2014 Buffyverse task force 21 December 2011 CSI task force 27 September 2011 Dad's Army task force 16 May 2010 Degrassi task force 27 March 2021 (and before that 9 June 2015) Desperate Housewives task force never Dexter task force never Emmerdale task force 14 March 2021 (and before that 20 March 2015) ER task force 6 September 2010 Fawlty Towers task force 16 January 2008 Firefly task force 23 May 2009 Friends task force never Glee task force 8 February 2021 (and before that 28 September 2011) Grey's Anatomy task force 25 October 2012 Heroes task force 11 March 2012 Holby task force 17 April 2017 Hollyoaks task force 3 December 2015 House task force 6 April 2019 (and before that 27 May 2013) Idols task force 14 November 2020 (and before that 21 January 2017) Jackass task force 9 June 2007 Law & Order task force 22 July 2015 Life on Mars task force 14 October 2008 Lost task force 1 March 2014 NCIS task force 19 August 2013 The O.C. task force 28 April 2009 The Office task force 17 December 2012 Prison Break task force 5 July 2009 Private Practice task force never Monty Python task force 30 June 2013 Red Dwarf task force 23 May 2012 Seinfeld task force 24 June 2012 Spooks task force 3 February 2009 Top Model task force 7 March 2017 The Twilight Zone task force 10 March 2020 (and before that 26 June 2016) Veronica Mars task force never The Wire task force 1 December 2012 The X Factor task force 7 June 2013 The X-Files task force 5 February 2016

Active task forces
TV series task forces Task force Last task-specific, non-maintenance post Arrowverse task force 9 June 2021 (new task force) Marvel Cinematic Universe task force 6 July 2021 (new task force) Stargate task force 19 December 2019

Note, if don't oppose the general proposal but only oppose a closing of a specific task force, it would be helpful if you state that instead. Gonnym (talk) 12:04, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (closing inactive task forces)

• Support as nominator. I've personally dealt with most of the conversion cleanup last year and additional maintenance that comes up every so often. These task forces are a true burden and they offer no real value. A series for example like Category:Firefly (TV series) does not need a task force with 27 categories when there are only 4 content categories altogether. Additionally, as I stated in the proposal, having all discussions here, where we have many more watchers, will help content much more than a page with less than 10 watchers, most inactive. --Gonnym (talk) 12:18, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Partial Support of taskforces that are incontrovertibly inactive for at least 3-4 years (perhaps from January 2018 and before). A number of the ones listed by Gonnym (based on opinion) have had recent activity and I question the legitimacy of the claim they're all inactive. That said, clearly many were not picked up when converted from a wikiproject. I think 3-4 years is a fair point to call, as this would still close the majority of those listed. By closure, this doesn't mean deletion (the history must remain if ever there was future interest). Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:38, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

In addition, it needs to be clear what defines "inactive", as I understand Gonnym defined this by talk page activity without necessarily taking in to account sub-page activity or just general activity on the task force's articles by members. I will still support this partially, however, I would think the criteria on how activity is being ascertained should be clear and perhaps itself also subject to discussion, as others may have a different view on what is considered inactive. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:12, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

If the discussion is happening on user talk pages, as stated below, then you really can't expect me to know that. I've based activity of the task force based on talk page collaboration which is one of the main reasons for the creation of a task force. Article creation and updating can be done with or without a central project page, so I personally don't see how that changes a project's activity status (pages are created for many TV series which don't have projects). That being said, if members of tasks force say they are still active, then they can just be removed from the list above. There is no need to step on anyone's toes here. Gonnym (talk) 13:34, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

@Gonnym: If you're making a proposal on the scale that you have, then you have a responsibility to do a very thorough check, so saying "you really can't expect me to know that" doesn't quite cut it when you're proposing deleting projects that editors have invested considerable time in. While I can accept some have had no activity for a "long time" and thus retiring them is not an unreasonable consideration, others are certainly seeing activity and interest in the articles, even if discussion doesn't always occur on the TF itself. This is why I suggested perhaps looking back on those that are clearly long inactive, maybe even beyond 3-4 years. However, even for that, it would need consensus, and the consensus already is not favourable. Perhaps you could reconsider your list and elucidate how you are defining activity. Many editors who watch this talk page are probably, or have at some point been involved in at least one of the listed TFs so are not necessarily going to be open to your suggestion (myself included). Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:06, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose, at least on behalf of the Holby taskforce. Subpages of this taskforce are regularly updated with the new articles which are created regularly. New goals are also met. The taskforce has a to-do list and tasks have been achieved. I would be disappointed to see the task force deleted. Soaper1234 - talk 13:09, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, The Holby task force is active and the subpages are used. The Emmerdale and Hollyoaks taskforces are the same. They have active editors. There has been renewed interest in improving them over the last 6 months. New articles are being created, old articles are being improved. Most of the talk has taken place over user talk pages - but the project pages have been used as a hub and have been updated.Rain the 1 13:27, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose three; specifically the closure of Emmerdale, Hollyoaks and Holby. I can't speak for the others but I'd like to clarify I'm not against the closing of taskforces that are actually inactive. As an active editor of all three and someone responsible for recently reviving the first two, these taskforces are active. Ongoing soaps/continuing dramas will always have a group of active editors on Wikipedia. – DarkGlow • 18:52, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• I oppose them DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 19:07, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Oppose what exactly? - JuneGloom07 Talk 00:19, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

• Support, pending subsequent approval per project by MfD, though this shows why we should vet all new taskforces. I see several taskforces for shows that were rather short-lived, such as Fawlty Towers, or supported largely by articles of dubious notability. Not to mention those 5 taskforces that have been stillborn. But they are correct to note that several of these have been recently revived. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 22:27, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support per nominator. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 23:46, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose for The Bill. It's still very active and has active editors. Like Rain has said, a lot of the discussion takes place on user talk pages and the project pages used as a hub. There has been a lot of new interest recently with the programme announcing a return 5 albert square (talk) 14:12, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I don't have a significant opinion, but would generally lean oppose (work put in and the fact tracking history is easier). I would quite strongly oppose removing the talkpage banner parameters and categories; again, history, shows the article has been worked on/was relevant to an organized project. And when WikiProjects go inactive/are deleted, as standard, the talkpage banners remain to indicate that. I don't see how taskforces (several of which were originally projects) are different. I also share Bungle's concerns about defining long inactivity, and will suggest that it should be discussed if some of these may become active again (there's the Gossip Girl reboot, A:TLA animated movie, for examples of what might soon bring back interest). Kingsif (talk) 18:22, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
• Partial support per User:Bungle and User:DarkGlow. I don't oppose the closure of task forces that are genuinely inactive. I think perhaps there needs to be a better way of checking inactivity though, instead of just basing it on the task force talk page. As others have said, discussions often take place on article talk pages and the like. - JuneGloom07 Talk 00:19, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
• Query Hi, this is more of a question than a vote. It touches on Kingsif's comment about talk page banners. Lately, I've been going through defunct & inactive WikiProjects and deleting assessment categories for ones that have no articles assessed. These are defunct WikiProjects have 20+ assessment categories created that are completely empty and have been since they were created in what I think was a wave of WikiProject creation in 2006-2012. My question here though is about those WikiProjects that have a handful of articles assessed (say, between 1-20 articles). Should those articles have their talk page assessments removed? Although I'm not focusing on television task forces, it would touch upon your proposal.

If these task forces are archived and main pages are turned into redirects, do all of those articles that were evaluated & tagged get untagged? If the WikiProject or task force doesn't exist any more, should these assessments, which serve as a source of publicity for the WikiProject or task force, be removed as well?

As for support or oppose, it seems like this doesn't have to be an all or nothing resolution. Keep the ones that editors are still working on and move forward with those that have no public support. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:50, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: I have been the only user that has actively editing articles on the Degrassi shows for the past few months, improving, expanding and creating articles with very little assistance (save for WikiProject Television assessments and good article reviews and recently a few editors on Degrassi: The Next Generation episode articles), and it is pretty tiring when there's nearly nobody else doing it especially when a lot of Degrassi articles are in need or were in need of major improvement. I cannot fathom how a show that continues to garner interest (and unlike other teen drama shows, hasn't been forgotten and left in it's time, and where even it's 1980s predecessors still continue to have some form of interest as well) would not continue to be heavily edited. I'd much prefer if any interested users tried to at least revive the task force for now instead of it being removed. ToQ100gou (talk) 23:40, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Dead Ringers

I split List of Dead Ringers episodes from the main article due to its sheer length; which by itself has over 166 KB of content. It still needs some more MOS cleanup, including reorganization of the specials, selection of unique colors for the summary table in the main article, and possibly removal of fancruft. An RM is open for Dead Ringers as well. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 15:27, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Cleo & Cuquin

Cleo & Cuquin is an animated children's television series. I think I have cleaned it up after some unconstructive editing in the last few months and would appreciate it if some of you wanted to add it to your watch lists. TSventon (talk) 18:52, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Requested pending-changes protection at WP:RPP, c.f. this thread. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 05:44, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal for AFI Awards

Hey everyone, I've opened a proposal to merge the articles for individual AFI Award ceremonies into a single article. If you're interested, any comments would be much appreciated at Talk:American Film Institute#Merger proposal for AFI Awards. Thanks! RunningTiger123 (talk) 00:00, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Episode list titles

The convention for episode list titles has always been "List of <Foo> episodes". When it was necessary to split List of Casualty episodes because it was so large that it broke the post expand include size, the title of the first sub-page "List of Casualty episodes*" caused quite a deal of concern resulting in a huge RM discussion at what is now Talk:List of Casualty episodes (series 1–20). This resulted in no change to the existing convention, with sub pages now at "List of <Foo> episodes (seasons/series a-x)". I've just discovered a number of move discussions at Talk:List of Saturday Night Live episodes#Requested move 12 July 2021, Talk:List of Chopped episodes#Requested move 12 July 2021, Talk:List of Casualty episodes#Requested move 12 July 2021, Talk:List of The Simpsons episodes#Requested move 11 July 2021, Talk:List of The Simpsons episodes#Requested move 11 July 2021, Talk:List of Survivor (American TV series) episodes#Requested move 12 July 2021 and Talk:List of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes (there may be more) that seek to move the main LoE pages to "List of <Foo> episodes (seasons 7-present)" which is out of line with the existing convention. I have voted in the move discussions. My intention is not to convass, but to bring this to the attention of the TV community at large. I'm unable to dedicate too much time to this as I'm busy with cancer treatments. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:54, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Pinging @Blubabluba9990, Gonnym, Necrothesp, IJBall, Adumbrativus, Zzyzx11, Lugnuts, Nohomersryan, Scratchu90, ApprenticeFan, and DevonteHuntley: all participants in these discussions. These RMs should probably wait until the issue is discussed here, and then this discussion could be applied to them all perhaps without even the need of an RM. —El Millo (talk) 18:23, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

I've left a note at each of the known RMs noting this discussion. Any close of these RMs needs to be by an anuinvolved editor. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:29, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree that they should be closed by an un-involved editor, but "this RM should be halted until the discussion [...] concludes with an appropriate outcome"? They should absolutely not be halted, regardless of it the outcome of them is what you want or not. It'll be an un-involved editor that determines if any of this is "appropriate" or not. -- /Alex/₂₁ 20:58, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I would say, regardless of the merits of moving or not, there should at least be redirects at, for example, List of Survivor (American TV series) episodes (season 21–present) if they are not moved. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:17, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't know if casual readers would be helped by this but why not? Redirects are cheap. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:57, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

The solution that is proposed by AussieLegend is logical and makes sense - someone looking for a list of episodes (even for an older season) will likely end up on that article via the natural search and as they are structured, can easily navigate to an earlier season. It also has the property of "gracefully failing" as a show continues running and a new separate article is needed - there's no need to change that main landing article. The precision-in-title arguements against this seem to be off the mark since there's far more utility in this approach and technically is not also wrong. --Masem (t) 20:25, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree with the RM nominator. The titles currently used are bad and should be changed. Lists of Doctor Who episodes works well as a landing page, while pages like List of The Simpsons episodes have much more info, which makes finding the link to the correct list page more time consuming. Gonnym (talk) 20:30, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

I also agree with Gonnym and the RM nominator(s). If the "season A-B" article is disambiguated, then so should related articles, such as the "season C-present" article. An article's title should be the clearest indicator that reflects the content of the article: "List of X episodes" indicates that all episodes are listed on the article, but "List of X episodes (season C-present)" indicates that only a set number of episodes are listed on the article and that the rest are at a related article. I'll be voting to support the above RM's, with the same reasoning I've listed here. -- /Alex/₂₁ 00:49, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

The idea of landing pages was discussed in the past and it never went anywhere because it adds a layer of complexity for readers. It works for Doctor Who because of the "unique" situation with that program and I agree with it. As it is now, regardless of the program, reader clicks link to LoE in main article. Reader wants specific season so clicks on season link in series overview table or the long bar menu that a lot of programs have (see List of The Simpsons episodes) and they're straight at the season they wanted. Overall, that's much easier on our readers. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:54, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

To address Gonymm's point, pages like List of organisms named after famous people just have a link to both of the pages. In fact, this is not uncommon. There are several pages with "lists of x", in fact we have a page called List of lists of lists. So why not have the episode lists be something similar. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 17:26, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

The current situation provides almost seamless navigation, which makes it very easy when jumping between seasons. The example that you've quoted does not need this. TV programs usually do. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:18, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

The full splits make sense to me, but we can still use the List of episodes as more than just brief redirects, e.g. transclude the series overview tables directly there, leave their current lede paragraphs, etc. And we shouldn't worry too much, as this only affects a handful of shows. -- Wikipedical (talk) 15:25, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Per Wikipedical. It seems like people are getting more worked up about this than necessary. Not a lot of the episode lists have been split in half. Also, it wouldn't be inconsistent since other articles that have been split in half contain the same naming scheme. For example, List of organisms named after famous people was split into List of organisms named after famous people (born before 1900) and List of organisms named after famous people (born 1900–present) and the original page remains as a sort of redirect to both of the split versions. Perhaps the episode lists can be organized in a similar manner, such as "Lists of x episodes" with each list linked, which is what was done with the movie lists. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 17:50, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

@Wikipedical:

• transclude the series overview tables directly there, leave their current lede paragraphs, etc. - That's what we do now, but we've tried to minimise the number of articles created.
• we shouldn't worry too much, as this only affects a handful of shows. - Only 2 years ago it affected only 2 or 3 but a lot more have been identified and split. Fortunately, COVID-19 slowed it down last year but this will affect many more programs as time goes on. --AussieLegend (✉) 15:19, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

• @AussieLegend: Currently, we don't transclude the series overview tables to the List of episodes pages because the LoE is where the series overview table lives. I'm suggesting that if we fully split the LoE pages, the series overview tables can live in the split pages and we can transclude both/all to the full LoE disambiguation pages. Yes, there would be some work to do, but the present status quo is still odd, as noted by the other editors. -- Wikipedical (talk) 16:40, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

• True, currently we transclude from the LoE page to other pages, and there's no reason to change that. Doing so just adds complexity and would make extremely large episode lists more confusing. The current scheme makes it a lot easier for editors and readers alike. I'm concerned that anyone claiming that the present status quo is still odd doesn't really understand episode lists, especially the technicalities of Labelled section transclusion. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:13, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks for the concerns, but I'm not uninformed here. I just disagree with you on this issue. -- Wikipedical (talk) 15:58, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

@Blubabluba9990: - As I already pointed out above The current situation provides almost seamless navigation, which makes it very easy when jumping between seasons. The example that you've quoted does not need this. TV programs usually do. --AussieLegend (✉)

However, other split pages actually do that just fine, like the lists of Nintendo switch games, which have a way to jump from each letter even when it is not on the page. Also, it is not really all that necessary when you can just visit the intended page. Also, for many shows, each season has its own page. Also, something similar is actually done on List of deaths due to COVID–19, where each month is listed in a specific table. So we can do something like that with the episode lists. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 17:50, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Here is what I am suggesting. This ONLY affects the titles of each page, and does not affect navigation. Changing the name of the page's names that I have suggested does not affect the readability of the pages nor does it affect navigation. The same logic is used with wiki skins: Changing from Vector to Monobook will not affect readability, navigation, or underlying software, it will just make the page look a bit different. And a name change is an even more minimal change. The only issue that I could see arising is redirects, though those could easily be fixed, since there are not that many pages that have this issue being discussed. Many of the other split pages have proper names and still work just fine. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 17:56, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

What you are proposing means changing a small number of articles to be inconsistent with thousands of others, because of a misconception about what article titles indicate. That requires wide consensus and I don't see that. --AussieLegend (✉) 15:25, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2021 July 18 § Template:DragRaceProgressTable/5

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2021 July 18 § Template:DragRaceProgressTable/5. Gonnym (talk) 15:16, 18 July 2021 (UTC)Template:Z48 Gonnym (talk) 15:16, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Requesting assistance with Invincible (TV series) infobox image

Could I please get some feedback at Talk:Invincible (TV series)#Infobox image? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 17:23, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television § Love Island (American season 3) "Exclusive episodes"

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television § Love Island (American season 3) "Exclusive episodes". TheDoctorWho (talk) 18:34, 19 July 2021 (UTC)Template:Z48 TheDoctorWho (talk) 18:34, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Original air date vs. early streaming release date

It's become fairly common for episodes of TV series to get early release dates via the network's streaming service. I'll use AMC+ as an example, episodes are released three days prior to their broadcast dates, while season premieres are generally released a week early. Kevin Can F**k Himself is an example of this, I noticed the dates in the episode table were for their AMC+ dates and changed them back to their air dates. Is this what should be doing? The episode table is using "Original air date", so we should obviously be using the air dates, but we can easily change the table to read "Original release date" and use the streaming release dates. However, with the use of the viewership column, it would make sense to keep the air dates. Basically, the question is, and I feel we need a consensus on this for consistency across the project: do we keep "air dates" as the primary release date for any television series that is traditionally broadcast and simply note the early release via streaming in prose? Thoughts? Drovethrughosts (talk) 13:08, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't have any "big thoughts" on this, but I would say the further back (in time) you go, the more "broadcast air dates" should be used, esp. if released "early" by only 24 hours (or less) via streaming/the net. IOW, any TV show from 5 years ago or more should be primarily using air dates on "linear television". But for shows from the last 0–3 years?... I have no strong opinion on the question of which to use. It probably depends on whether, for example, the show is considered primarily a "AMC [network] show" or a whether it is primarily considered to be an "AMC+ TV show" that is simply being "rebroadcast" (later) on AMC cable channel... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:09, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, I think Taskmaster did something like this (aired all episodes except the series finale a week early) for a couple of series on Dave. And then I've been seeing a few iPlayer shows released in their entirety on the day that the premiere is broadcast on television (A Perfect Planet, Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World). I think television broadcast date is generally the canonical date for the episode table, but the prose should make the full situation known if there are sources for it. In some cases, there probably isn't a trail left behind—if no source talks about the release dates on streaming services and it's also not listed on the streaming service itself. The iPlayer ones I mentioned fall into that category, I believe. In that case, my current go-to has just been doing the broadcast television date and not mentioning early streaming availability at all. — Bilorv (talk) 20:06, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

The primary network is AMC, not AMC+. The airdates should go by primary network original airdates, not a secondary network early release dates. A note in the prose about early release should be fine as I seen this on a lot of television series articles that have early releases. — YoungForever^(talk) 20:35, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I think that each show can be handled on a case-by-case basis. On High School Musical: The Musical: The Series the first episode (only) aired on ABC and Freeform seven days before its release on Disney+. Nearly the opposite of the situation there because HSMTMTS is primarily a streaming show but the first episode aired on broadcast television before it ever streamed. If all of the episodes have an early release date you could always add an alternative air date column to the episode table. See this episode table here where the television series is considered a British TV series (where the first two seasons originally aired) but the third season aired in the United States before it aired in the United Kingdom. Because of that both air dates are included in the episode table. TheDoctorWho (talk) 00:16, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

• On one hand, it should be the earliest date on which someone could watch the episode, that is, when it became available to the general public. From that date forward it is officially released, regardless of any further planned broadcasts on other outlets. On the other hand, the inclusion of viewership figures means that the date shown should match the date of that viewership figure. I think the best solution might be to show both with appropriate notes indicating one is streaming the other broadcast, and with a note that the viewership is for the broadcast date. oknazevad (talk) 22:12, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello, Please note that Episode, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 26 July 2021 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team

Talent show contestant - Article creation

I got this odd question, that I've started having in regards to articles that are created for contestants on talent programmes - with the exception of people who have already begun a career and have an article already, should editors be making articles for contestants who have none on Wikipedia and who's only notability per WP:BIO is connected to that programme? Or should such articles be created by editors, on condition it remain as a draft until they have made further appearances beyond the programme, or have had their backgrounds checked to find out if they had worked before appearing on the programme? GUtt01 (talk) 21:10, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

They have to meet WP:BASIC regardless. The vast majority of individual contestants almost certainly won't meet WP:BASIC (and likely run afoul of WP:BIO1E) – in these cases, there should perhaps be "List of contestants..." articles, or they can be covered at individual "season" articles, but there almost certainly should not be articles on individual contestants. If the latter don't obviously clear WP:BASIC, they should be moved to Draftspace, converted to redirects, or sent to WP:AfD. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:28, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

I had to ask, because I was a bit concerned over the amount of linked articles in separate navigational boxes for America's Got Talent and Britain's Got Talent, under "Other Notable Contestants", in which some linked articles were later nominated for deletion (some by me) in regards to WP:BASIC or WP:BIO (whichever was applicable) because they were never expanded upon beyond their subject's involvement on one of these programmes. I recently had to hide the list that was being made for the sixteenth season of AGT, because I felt that was WP:TOOSOON, mainly in regards to the programme being broadcast and having not concluded in its final, and with people putting up articles for some contestants who had these made because of their appearance with little regarding anything else, and that's when the question hit me that I needed to ask. GUtt01 (talk) 21:46, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Proposal to Exclude TV series debuts from Establishments in countryname

Discussion launched by Dutchy45 at Category talk:Establishments#Exclude_TV_series_debuts_from_Establishments_in_countryname, which is entirely about categories within the scope of this project.

Editors interested in joining the discussion should post their comments on the category talk page. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:10, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Prodigal Son (TV series) has an RFC

Talk:Prodigal Son (TV series) has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. — YoungForever^(talk) 14:28, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:List of Black Mirror episodes § Ratings graph/table

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:List of Black Mirror episodes § Ratings graph/table. To summarise: is six episodes enough to use {{Television ratings graph}}? -- /Alex/₂₁ 07:43, 5 August 2021 (UTC)Template:Z48

The Chicken Squad

About two days ago, I try to submit a plot summary to The Chicken Squad which is absolutely my own idea. However, BaldiBasicsFan calls my contribution "copyvio" without proof. Because of this, the user has reverted me twice. Well, what's your take on the case? 104.172.119.172 (talk) 14:33, 5 August 2021 (UTC)