Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)

Will there be a Pan-Wikipedia Television Naming Convention cleanup, or at the very least, full, self-consistency

e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Big_Bang_Theory in violation of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_%28television%29#Episodic_television — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.94.204.129 (talk) 04:01, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

• The Big Bang Theory does follow the existing naming convention. Disambiguation is unnecessary. "The" is only included in article titles when part of a proper name. Also, the word theory wouldn't be capitalized unless part of a proper name. The requested move closed less than a month ago. It's also really hard to listen to an anonymous IP claiming something violates policy when their posts aren't signed and they use external links to link to Wikipedia pages. Wikilinks and signing pages are usually among the first things new users learn. Jay32183 (talk) 04:54, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

(TV film) or (television film)

Either one may be fine, but I used "TV film" in Undercover Angel (TV film) to distinct that. May I include "TV film" in the guideline, please? --George Ho (talk) 16:41, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

naming of season articles

Forgive me if this has been discussed already, but what is the rationale for naming articles things like 24 (season 1) and Doctor Who (series 1). The bit in brackets hardly seems to meet the usual usage of disambiguation. There's not a thing called "Doctor Who" which has to be distinguished from the other Doctor Who's by specifying we mean the one which is series 1. It's almost like having, I dunno, Film (2012) rather than 2012 in film. I'd expect to find them at Doctor Who series 1 and 24 season 1 instead, I think. Morwen - Talk 15:46, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Anyone? I'm not about to go on a move spree or something, but I'd like to hear any arguments anyone has in favour of the current convention. Morwen - Talk 16:58, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Well? I'm going to give it another week or something and then, if nobody objects or comments, just belatedly be WP:BOLD and update the text to specify 24 season 1 and Doctor Who series 1. Ones of the form Being Human (U.S. season 1) would then I suppose become Being Human season 1 (U.S.), instead. Morwen - Talk 14:51, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I'd be opposed to this, as generally the titles imply what I've always seen to be the case—regardless of season, the show is always the same, so we disambiguate the show at a given moment by season. When you watch an episode of Millennium, it's always Millennium, not "Millennium season 2". We then separate seasons by disambiguating a slice of the series as a whole rather than declaring each season a separate entity, which is the implication of the suggested change. I hope that makes sense. I guess it would be the same as changing The Thing (1982 film) to "The Thing, 1982", which isn't its title. However, I would support enforcing MOS:NUM in season titles, as I don't see why we use "season 1", "season 2" etc, and not "season one", "season two". GRAPPLE X 15:02, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Another way to look at it is to compare it to lists like Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster (G). This isn't so much disambiguating the "Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster" from other similar titles, but dividing the roster into manageable chunks based on a natural break (alphabet here, seasons in TV). GRAPPLE X 15:07, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

But, it's not a disambiguation, by the guidelines at WP:DAB. Let me address your example. The Thing (1982 film) is not the same thing (if you will forgive the pun) as The Thing (2011 film). There two films, in a film series, that happen to be called The Thing. Both of their simple names are The Thing, but only one thing can be at The Thing, so at least one of them has to be somewhere else. If one of them was WP:PRIMARYTOPIC then the other would be dablinked from a hatnote. Disambiguation is only for things that are separate entities already, but share the same name. However, in the case of 24 (season 1), 24 (season 2), etc we're not talking about a series of things all of which are called 24, but they are about portions of a single entity. When being distinguished in sources, they get called "24 season 1", or "season 1", never "24" or "24 (season 1)". Significantly, they're not linked from 24 (disambiguation), and doing so would be wrong and confusing. Furthermore, even if we allow that disambiguation is involved, then Wikipedia:DAB#Naming_the_specific_topic_articles suggests "natural disambiguation" be tried first - which would lead to 24 season 1. If you look at the things it suggests for being inside brackets, "season 1" does not fit the models that it recommends.

I would regard your example list there to also be probably misnamed, although in that case it is less obvious what a better name would be. Morwen - Talk 16:43, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and another important thing is what the lede of the article bolds. Doctor Who (season 1) bolds "1st season", as well as "Doctor Who", "24 season 1" bolds "Day One" only. Your example, Millennium (season 1) bolds "first season", and not "Millennium". Lots of other other ones, e.g. Game of Thrones (season 1) and Lost (season 1) don't bold anything. Generally, if disambiguation were involved, I'd expect to see only the part before the brackets bolded: none of these articles do that. Morwen - Talk 16:55, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the OP. I find the naming fairly inconsistant with the rest of the Wikipedia articles. E.g. it is called United States presidential election, 2012, not "United States presidential election (2012)". 2012–13 Premier League, not "Premier League (2012–13)". 85th Academy Awards, not "Academy Awards (85)". --Maitch (talk) 16:34, 11 November 2012 (UTC)