Wikipedia talk:Television episodes/Archive 2

message: Are we ready to change the guideline to reflect what's going on so that they are descritive instead of prescriptive?  In particular, the stuff about making season pages, then episode pages.  The only shows left with season pages are a few of the older ones that were created back when that seemed like a good idea, and they have to be constantly defended from change.  Every new show I can think of does it with episode pages.  The "battle" over episode pages was lost some time ago, can we update this guideline so it's useful? - Peregrine Fisher
:The battle was not lost, it's just that newbies (and old user) can turn out hundreds of episode articles on a whim, with no requirements whatsoever. How is that a good reason to keep them? In a matter of minutes I can create 50 or so stubs for any given TV show, because it's easy to do. That, in no way, makes an episode notable. This is not consensus behavior, it's simply default behavior that is done before actual consideration is done. -- Ned Scott 22:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it's unfortunate that people create a bunch of small pages instead of working on smaller numbers of large pages.  That doesn't mean we should allow stubs to be deleted.  Deletion just puts us in a cylce of recreating stubs and never getting to the actual expansion.  The sooner stubbing is done, the sooner we can expand them. - Peregrine Fisher 23:12, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Stubs are only one method of expansion, but they've been abused far too much for fiction and TV episodes. There's no reason we can't start expansion on an LOE or a season/ story arc article. In reality, the vast majority of these stubs will only expand in needless plot summary, never getting proper references or real-world significance. Had the stub method not been abused so badly, I would agree with you. -- Ned Scott 02:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm kind of coming around to the idea of season pages, although I really dislike how you can't individualize cast, EL, infobox, etc.  Even if I change my mind, though, the cats out of the bag.  Every new season of a major show is going to get individual episode pages, and when people see them for one show, they're going to make them for another.  That's how I started.  I saw List of Deadwood episodes and liked it so much, I promptly made 50 illustrated LOEs.  The problem is, I didn't start adding references to articles until about my 5000th edit.  I think it's partly because their were still important LOEs to be made.  If every LOE, and every episode, was finished as far as primary sources can take us, then I think the referencing could really begin.  I know this is crazy talk, so I guess we'll just have to continue to muddle through. - Peregrine Fisher 03:47, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See the abysmal pit that is List of That's So Raven episodes. The LOE page is great. The individual episode pages are worthless. OR, no sources, trivia all over, etc. Plus its just not that notable of a show enough to earn dozens of individual episode pages. Not that those pages actually have anything significant, notable and sourced, to add on top of the LOE page anyway. Check out Boston Legal for a LOE by season done right. ⇒ SWATJester On Belay! 05:01, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change guidelines 

message: I've been bold and added WP:EPISODE to the IncGuide template. ⇒ SWATJester On Belay! 05:01, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: IncGuide template

message: This is a great example of what an article-subset guideline should be, very impressive. I believe the basic principles here (cover under a parent topic if little information is available, split out if more sourcing is found) could be applied to just about everything. Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Great work

message: Do we have consensus for this becoming a guideline?  Radiant thinks we do.  Is there widespread agreement?  --Kevin Murray 14:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I absolutely agree with that.  With the current wording it makes recommendations, but then recommends not deleting articles no matter what, regardless if they don't follow the recommendations or even other WP policies.  Not every TV episode needs its own article, and this should allow for deciding that a particular article isn't necessary.  --Minderbinder 19:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If there are no objections, I am going to unprotect the page in the coming day or so. --WinHunter (talk) 16:31, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fifthed. There may still be some disagreements about exactly what should or should not be noted, or how it should be expressed, but I feel that those can be handled through regular discussion. -- Black Falcon 16:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Not really needed, there's already an existing consensus for these guidelines. -- Ned Scott 00:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

text: If you want to mandate certain forms of advertising for future proposals, please do draw up a proposal for that. I suspect it would be rejected under WP:CREEP, but feel free to try. Do note, however, that this page is over a year old, and was well advertised albeit not in the place where you'd like it to be. The solution to that is not to create additional venues for advertising, but to reduce that number. >Radiant< 08:30, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evaluating consensus 

message: I completely agree with the process outlined here. However I would like to point out that Step 3...
:* Once there's enough verifiable information from secondary sources about individual episodes, create separate articles for them.
...can never be attained by most episodes because they can never achieve notability outside the realm of their own TV show. Thus they don't deserve separate articles. Some episodes have certainly achieved notability and therefore deserve separate articles, such as most Pilot episodes, episodes that have sparked controversy, and other episodes that, for some reason, have received heavy media coverage (like that episode of CSI directed by Quentin Tarantino). 
Therefore, should it be explicitly stated that unless secondary sources exist about individual episodes, separate articles cannot be created?Sandtiger 17:35, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm fairly certain there is no consensus support for such a provision or change. I will edit the text of the guideline accordingly. -- Black Falcon 17:47, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not a change, text along those lines has been in since this was first created.  I can see your point, but without some mention of independent sources, the section because meaningless since if the only source required is the episode itself, you're saying it's OK to make articles with only one source, and a primary source at that.  Other wikipedia policies strongly recommend not doing that.  --Minderbinder 19:00, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are correct that other Wikipedia policies already recommend not doing that. That's why this guideline should not be a "notability" guideline, but rather a style guideline. Firstly, it's not written as a notability guideline. Secondly, as a notability guideline, it is currently much stricter than WP:N, and thus we should not assume it has consensus support. As a notability guideline, this either lacks consensus support (because it's much stricter) or is redundant to WP:N (if toned down). -- Black Falcon 19:07, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Q> About going from Step 2 to Step 3