Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television

Recent edits 23 July 2018

To the rest of the community, is this edit acceptable? I see no issue with shortcuts, especially when they're used as [[WP:SHORTCUT|text]], and I'm seeing a lot of rewording, in an edit that wasn't discussed, or a consensus gained for, nor do I see anything that supports that shortcuts can only be used by experienced editors. -- Alex^TW 10:21, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

The one issue with shortcuts is that they can get out-of-date, and end up pointing to nothing – for example, I know I've needed to update the destination for the WP:EPHEMERAL shortcut several times over the years, and sometimes it's difficult to figure out the correct new target. But that's probably true of "direct" links too, so... [shrug] --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:12, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

It's utterly routine to replace newbie-confusing gibberish like [[WP:COLOR|color]] with [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Color|color]]. This is cleanup we're doing through all the MoS pages (and other guidelines and policy, for that matter) make the material less confusing for new editors (and for longer-term ones who do not live and breathe policy debates). Shortcuts exist for experienced-editor convenience on talk pages and in the URL bar; they're "user-hateful" to use in piped links, because the URL that one sees when hovering over the link is meaningless to anyone but the long-timers who already know what the stand for. If you have some particular objection to or question about one of the minor copyedits, aside from the link cleanup, then please state it and don't beat around the bush, or handwave about "undiscussed". Trivial improvements do not need to be discussed; no one needs your permission; WP:EDITING policy applies, and so does WP:BOLD (though it applies less to substantive changes to guidelines pages). I didn't make any substantive changes; zero rules' actual meaning was altered, just linking made less redundant, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:33, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't really have a problem with this, but I also don't think it was particularly necessary. Readers of the page would have been taken to the same destination anyway and do not see the redirect wording, so the claim that there was "newbie-confusing gibberish" present rings false to me. - adamstom97 (talk) 23:05, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

You're not following. If you hover over the link, somewhere in your browser interface (unless you have a very incapable user agent) you'll get some indication where that link points; if it tells you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_titles this is going to make some kind of sense to a new user. If it's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AT this isn't going to mean jack to you. PS: "Necessary" is not a precondition for an edit being made. Even "marginally better" will do fine.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:58, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Okay. I get it. I still see it as unnecessary, per Adam as well. However, This is cleanup we're doing through all the MoS pages? Who's "we", and from what central discussion? Clearly, if there's a "we", there was some agreement of some sort. -- Alex^TW 09:48, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

"We" is whoever else is bothering with it. I'm hardly going to trawl years of MoS-page edit history to provide an answer for a pointless question. If you really care, WP:YOUCANSEARCH. Why do you think that every idea has to have a prior discussion? WP:Common sense applies. The fractional amount of best practices we've chosen to immortalize in RfCs and WP:P&G pages and well-reasoned essays are only those things we considered non-obvious enough to bother recording. Also: [1]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:02, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

If you don't have a substantive objection to an edit, then please do not waste people's time by objecting just out of "change resistance" or whatever this is. We have way better things to spend our time on.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:02, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Then don't respond, or believe you can dictate what I can and cannot question. -- Alex^TW 12:27, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

See: wikt:please, wikt:request, wikt:dictate, and wikt:hyperbole.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:28, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

• I've no issue with shortcuts, although I try & save them for wiki edit summaries, but I have absolutely no issue with anyone expanding them to the full link. Why would I? AnonNep (talk) 10:54, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

  Indeed. No one does; it's standard operating procedure in pages like this. No one's going to do that to people's talk page posts, or whatever, but it's important in our core documentation.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:03, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Is television its own source?

Perhaps this is a good place to raise an issue which may be of general interest. I should say at the outset that I am perhaps not the best person to discuss this - as my User page makes clear, COI might be thought to warp my view - so having raised the question I'll leave this to others to follow up.

Are television shows their own sources or not? For example, here is just one sample page of (conservatively) many dozens of articles, all of which provide detailed information about network tv shows while not citing any sources for much of that information. What sources are, or could be, cited for the names of the directors and the plot summaries in that article (and the many others like it) without referring to the original show?

Looking at the Style guide, this section appears to take it for granted that episodes of a tv series can be their own sources but this is not spelled out explicitly.

Transmitted network tv seems akin to other sources which are perhaps difficult to access but could be consulted if necessary (for example books held in specialist libraries and not digitally available). Certainly most British network television shows transmitted in recent decades are held in archives, both by the original broadcaster and often also by the BFI, which provides public access to its holdings.

There is benefit in being able to access encyclopaedic information about television (particularly given the well-known problems of IMDB) and so it seems a pity to restrict Wikipedia's television coverage to only those shows which, say, have been issued on dvd or are permanently available online. Is there consensus on this point?

It may well be that this issue has been asked and answered many times in the past, in which case apologies. AnOpenMedium (talk) 16:03, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

TV shows are considered reasonable sources for information on plot and casting one the show/episode has been aired. It would be considered a primary source so not sufficient for nearly any other purpose like notability, original research, etc. It doesn't matter if the series is available on DVD/Streaming, as long you know a record of the series exists in a form that meets WP:V (even if that means paying for access to a service). --Masem (t) 16:31, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, your example demonstrates exactly how we should be handling articles; as long as an episode has aired, it is an acceptable primary source for plot, cast lists, and writer/director credits. Other production info (Conception, Development, and Casting in your example) is backed up by inline citations from reliable sources. One exception would be plot summaries in which the editor attempts to interpret or explain events seen onscreen; any explanation of vague plot points would require a source.— TAnthony^Talk 19:08, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

I would add that the show itself is ok if you're just sourcing plot on either the List of Episode pages, the season page, or an episode page. Namely, because those would contain all the information needed to verify it in the medium (e.g., air date, name of the episode, etc.). But, I would say that although we don't use in-line citations on those pages (because it would be redundant to the episode tables or the infobox on an episode page), it would be more necessary to do that for say an article on a character of a show. Reason being, if I'm reading a summary of their fictional history (the plot of the episodes they were in), it would be good to know when these events took place should I need to verify the content at some point.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:37, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Bignole, if the page does not include the information that we would usually find in an in-line citation then actual citations for the appropriate episodes should be provided. - adamstom97 (talk) 21:50, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

All published works are reliable primary sources for what they contain (who said what, who appears in the credits, etc.), provided no WP:AEIS (analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis) is done with the material. Some more analytical plot summaries require secondary sources, but the average one does not. Where people run into problems is they they try to draw connections between events in a plot which are not explicit; when listing uncredited cast members; when trying to determine on their own whether someone is "featured", a "regular" cast member, a "supporting" one, etc.; declaring something in the plot to be an homage or allusion to some other work; or some other kind of AEIS or insertion of claims that cannot be found in the original source material.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:33, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

TV show navigation templates including contestants

I've encountered an issue which I can't find addressed in the MoS so was hoping someone here might know. Do contestants on TV shows get added to the TV show navigation templates? The reason I'm asking is that I've noticed that Template:The Amazing Race contestants and Template:Big Brother in the United States both list contestants and that the templates are added to each person's article as can be seen at Jordan Lloyd's article. --Gonnym (talk) 17:48, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 August 16#Template:Japanese episode list

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 August 16#Template:Japanese episode list. The discussion is a proposal to merge {{Japanese episode list}}, {{S-Japanese episode list}} and {{S-Episode list}} into {{Episode list}}. -- Alex^TW 02:56, 16 August 2018 (UTC)Template:Z48

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Basing major layout changes to a Featured List on the consensus of two editors

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Basing major layout changes to a Featured List on the consensus of two editors.

This discussion regards the recent proposal to merge the prose plot summaries from the Game of Thrones season articles to the Game of Thrones episodes article, a Featured List, and the apparent consensus to do with by the support of two other editors. -- Alex^TW 08:30, 26 August 2018 (UTC)Template:Z48