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:I think this is a general issue, as I have been having this problem on other articles as well, not just the project page. - [[User:Adamstom.97|adamstom97]] ([[User talk:Adamstom.97|talk]]) 05:40, 12 March 2016 (UTC) |
:I think this is a general issue, as I have been having this problem on other articles as well, not just the project page. - [[User:Adamstom.97|adamstom97]] ([[User talk:Adamstom.97|talk]]) 05:40, 12 March 2016 (UTC) |
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:: This is a known issue, happens with other pages too. See [[Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 141#Firefox and anchors]]. – [[User:Nyuszika7H|nyuszika7h]] ([[User talk:Nyuszika7H|talk]]) 15:07, 12 March 2016 (UTC) |
:: This is a known issue, happens with other pages too. See [[Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 141#Firefox and anchors]]. – [[User:Nyuszika7H|nyuszika7h]] ([[User talk:Nyuszika7H|talk]]) 15:07, 12 March 2016 (UTC) |
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::: Yeah, they tagged that Phab as "resolved"?! 'Cos it's not resolved – it's still happening to me. --[[User:IJBall|IJBall]] <small>([[Special:Contributions/IJBall|contribs]] • [[User talk:IJBall|talk]])</small> 20:39, 12 March 2016 (UTC) |
Revision as of 20:39, 12 March 2016
Television Project‑class | |||||||
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A "Netflix Original" vs. Netflix original programming
Taking WP:TVINTL and WP:WORLDVIEW into account, any opinions to add at Talk:List of original programs distributed by Netflix#Degrassi: Next Class? --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:51, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Character descriptions
This is about the character descriptions in series (maybe even season) articles as explained by WP:TVCAST. When describing properties that change during the show, such as age, health, death, relationships, jobs, etc, are they supposed to describe the character
- as they are introduced into the series/season?
- currently (i.e., whatever the character's state is by the last aired episode of the series/season)?
- in a general way that is valid for the entire series/season? (Which would mean to avoid giving character properties that are changing.)
- detailing the character changes throughout the series/season?
To give some examples: is the character who starts out as "15-year-old daughter" updated to 16 and 17-year-old as she ages in the series? Is "Amy's boyfriend" changed to "Amy's ex-boyfriend", then to "Betty's boyfriend", and then to "Betty's husband"? What about the "deceased grandfather" who was still alive in the beginning of the show? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dark Cocoa Frosting (talk • contribs) 19:26, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
- I've always felt the best way to handle this is to start the description with how the character is at the time of their initial appearance, and then discuss significant changes in prose along with appropriate references to when the change occurs. DonIago (talk) 19:45, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
- WP:TVCAST explains that articles should reflect the entire history of a series so "currently" is inappropriate while "in a general way that is valid for the entire series/season" is what is appropriate. Doniago's comments are pretty much spot on. Generally, exact ages for fictional people are unnecessary. Age and birth date parameters were removed from {{Infobox character}} because of this. "Teenager", "in their 20s", "in their 30s" etc are more appropriate terms that don't need to be constantly updated. In infoboxes, boyfriend and ex-boyfriend aren't needed. Just name the person in the appropriate field and explain any changes throughout a series in the prose. If something is too complicated for the infobox, just leave it out and explain it in the prose. There is no obligation to fill out every infobox field. --AussieLegend (✉) 01:44, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
- First appearance, along with season number and basic description works pretty well. I did a character list where the main characters start in high school and later attend college together. As for boyfriend, it can be changed to love interest or it can briefly summarize "boyfriend and later husband". I'd use deceased if the character is killed off early in the series or only appears in flashbacks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AngusWOOF (talk • contribs) 01:55, 30 January 2016 (UTC
- WP:TVCAST explains that articles should reflect the entire history of a series so "currently" is inappropriate while "in a general way that is valid for the entire series/season" is what is appropriate. Doniago's comments are pretty much spot on. Generally, exact ages for fictional people are unnecessary. Age and birth date parameters were removed from {{Infobox character}} because of this. "Teenager", "in their 20s", "in their 30s" etc are more appropriate terms that don't need to be constantly updated. In infoboxes, boyfriend and ex-boyfriend aren't needed. Just name the person in the appropriate field and explain any changes throughout a series in the prose. If something is too complicated for the infobox, just leave it out and explain it in the prose. There is no obligation to fill out every infobox field. --AussieLegend (✉) 01:44, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
Marking Genre as Intended Genre
Thanks to Let's Trim over at List of North Korean Television Series being a comedy show, I'd marked Genre as Intended Genre. We should do something similar for all television series. For example, What Not to Wear is a comedy show, but it is marked as "Reality". We could even have both, marking the television series for both Intended Genre and Genre.203.215.119.183 (talk) 10:56, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
TVPLOT is confusingly written
I find these two paragraphs of WP:TVPLOT confusingly structured.
Extended content
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As a rough guide, summaries for episode articles should be about 200 to 500 words. Complicated plots may take more space to present than simpler plots. For articles on the main work, this section should be brief, only discussing the important plot elements for each season (though, if the article is becoming overly long it may be best to trim it to over-arching plots for the entire series) that steered the course of characters' lives, or the course of the show. For season articles, there are a couple of ways to present plot information: in a basic prose section that gives season story arcs and main plot points or a tabular format that sections off each individual episode with its own brief plot section (approximately 100–200 words for each, with upwards of 350 words for complex storylines, with the provision that articles using {{episode list}} should not exceed 200 words in accordance with the instructions for that template). See the following for examples: "Confirmed Dead", Smallville and comparatively, Smallville (season 1). |
I think what they intend to do is give three (or four?) different rules for the different article types, but the text seems to jumps back and forth. It is also not very clear what type of summary is referred to for the 350 words storylines (just not an episode table). Or does it may mean that one can use upwards of 350 words for an episode in a tabular format as long as one doesn't use {{episode list}} to make the table? Another puzzling point is if season articles may have both a prose plot section and an episode table with summaries. Also, does this section give minimal plot lengths: at least 200 for an episode article, at least 100 in a table, and complex storylines must have more than 350?
My attempt to interpret and rephrase this information less ambiguously is:
Extended content
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See the following for examples: "Confirmed Dead", Smallville, and Smallville (season 1). |
Is that the correct interpretation of these paragraphs? Is this found to be less ambiguous? –Dark Cocoa Frosting (talk) 22:02, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
- The season one isn't meant to have two separate plot sections. Either you have one section in entirely prose format, or you have the episode table. You don't need both because the lead is already going to summarize the overall plot. Your suggested change seems to say that we should have two. I've seen some articles do this, but they really shouldn't. You end up with plot in the lead, plot in its own section and episode summaries. Tends to go against the idea of WP:NONFREE. Other than that, I don't see a problem with the rest of your suggested change. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 23:01, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
- The lead is not supposed to summarize the plot; it's supposed to summarize the article. If the plot isn't in prose format in the plot section, it's difficult to summarize that in the lead without running into serious WP:OR problems.
- WP:NONFREE has nothing to do with what's being discussed now. Only direct text quotations and fair-use images are non-free content. Paraphrasing the plot, even if you recount it over and over again in the article, isn't non-free content. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:19, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
- The season one isn't meant to have two separate plot sections. Either you have one section in entirely prose format, or you have the episode table. You don't need both because the lead is already going to summarize the overall plot. Your suggested change seems to say that we should have two. I've seen some articles do this, but they really shouldn't. You end up with plot in the lead, plot in its own section and episode summaries. Tends to go against the idea of WP:NONFREE. Other than that, I don't see a problem with the rest of your suggested change. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 23:01, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
- Spartacus: Blood and Sand, Beauty & the Beast (season 1), 24 (season 5), Pretty Little Liars (season 5), Teen Wolf (season 3), Vikings (season 2), The Walking Dead (season 4)... See? Obviously confusing. Next try:
Extended content
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See the following for examples: "Confirmed Dead", Smallville, and Smallville (season 1). For series without season articles, the main article or a List of Episodes may contain the tabular episode summaries. |
- Is that what it means, then? –Dark Cocoa Frosting (talk) 23:29, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
Sorry I still find this quite confusing. I looked at some diffs to find out in which context the 200 and 350 words were introduced. Here the MOS from 2008: Special:Diff/216825173, Special:Diff/227529313, Special:Diff/227532949, and Special:Diff/227533092. I think it is clear that in 2008 the 350 words were introduced for the tabular format, and that is almost the wording used currently. For the {{episode list}}, the limits were introduced later in 2010 Special:Diff/355574169 as 300, and adjusted in 2013 Special:Diff/557179428 to 200, referring to the MOS, but the MOS did not change the word limits during that time. Something doesn't match up. (Alternatively, the template doc could be changed to match the MOS.) –Dark Cocoa Frosting (talk) 11:51, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
- I changed 100–300 to 100–200 because 100–300 was not the wording used in the MOS. We have to place limitations on the length of summaries in articles using {{Episode list}} for technical reasons. When episode lists are transcluded to an LoE page, what you see is not all that has been transcluded. All of the content on the season pages is copied, but only part of the episode table is seen. The transluded content increases the post-expand include size, which has a limit of 2MB. If the post-expand include size exceeds 2MB, then the LoE page will not display correctly. This has been been a huge problem at List of The Simpsons episodes, where it was necessary to comment out navboxes and reformat citations on the page so that it would display almost properly. In order to fix the problem it has been necessary to split the first 10 seasons (for the time being) to another article to get the size down to something manageable. Even at articles where we aren't dealing with 27 seasons, the post-expand include size needs to be kept down to minimise page load times, and that means keeping episode summaries short. 100–200 was initially proposed, but changed to 100-350 based on featured list discussions. I wasn't party to any of these discussions in 2008, but I was heavily involved in one in 2012 that lead to changes to {{Episode list}}. List of Friends episodes was nominated as a featured list candidate and, as part of the discussion it was decided to replace the transcluded version with a version that used manually formatted tables.[1] This version looked the same but essentially duplicated the season articles, raising the distinct likelihood that the LoE page and season articles would eventually get way out of sync. It had a post-expand include size of only 174,048 bytes, so episode summaries could really be any size you wanted them to be. That's the advantage of not transcluding, but the duplication errors with such a format can be problematic. Bignole's edit to the MOS seems to have been a compromise, but we really should keep episode summaries in {{episode list}} to 100–200 words to avoid slow page loads. If an episode is so complicated that it needs anything more, there are probably good grounds for an episode article. --AussieLegend (✉) 12:30, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
- After re-reading the MOS, and the diffs provided by Dark Cocoa Frosting, I believe the main problem was the 2008 edit based on featured list discussions.[2] I think any issues can be resolved with this amendment:
For season articles, there are a couple of ways to present plot information: in a basic prose section that gives season story arcs and main plot points or a tabular format that sections off each individual episode with its own brief plot section (approximately 100–200 words for each, with upwards of 350 words for complex storylines, with the provision that articles using {{episode list}} should not exceed 200 words in accordance with the instructions for that template).
- As I've said above, if 350 words are really needed for the average episode, an episode article is probably justified. If reliable sources don't see the need to discuss an episode, then 350 words is likely way too much. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:15, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
- I believe the issue still stands though for how large prose plot sections used on main articles that summarize each season's plot or (more rarely) on season articles, which where the 350 comes back into play. In those instances, I believe a 200-400 word range for each season's plot is better to give enough word limit to summarize the whole season. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:07, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, deleting the 350 words for more complicated single episode plots in a the tabular form makes the MOS much clearer (still this wording is unclear if you can have both prose and table), but it is also a change to the MOS. The same 350 words limit is in the section on List of Episodes. In principle, when the episode tables are not transcluded, there is no technical reason for a further limitation of summary length, but having the length depend on the transclusion is also confusing. (The size limit for transclusions is something that should be changeable in principle but it appears to be difficult to do so.)
- The 350 words is clearly not the intended (upper or lower) limit for the prose plot sections of season pages, and so far, there is none. Introducing one would be another change to the MOS (while I was mainly trying to understand what the MOS means in its current state without changing it). –Dark Cocoa Frosting (talk) 18:40, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
- The 350 word mention in the "List of Episodes" section should also be removed. The same reasoning for limiting episode summaries that I stated earlier (if 350 words are really needed for the average episode, an episode article is probably justified. If reliable sources don't see the need to discuss an episode, then 350 words is likely way too much.) still applies. The other issue is that, if we allow 350 words on non-transcluded pages, then if we split the pages the summaries need to be pruned. Let's be consistent. --AussieLegend (✉) 19:02, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
- Even a change in meaning would be better than the current state because it is confusing and maybe even contradicting to the template doc.–Dark Cocoa Frosting (talk) 13:16, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
- The 350 word mention in the "List of Episodes" section should also be removed. The same reasoning for limiting episode summaries that I stated earlier (if 350 words are really needed for the average episode, an episode article is probably justified. If reliable sources don't see the need to discuss an episode, then 350 words is likely way too much.) still applies. The other issue is that, if we allow 350 words on non-transcluded pages, then if we split the pages the summaries need to be pruned. Let's be consistent. --AussieLegend (✉) 19:02, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
- I believe the issue still stands though for how large prose plot sections used on main articles that summarize each season's plot or (more rarely) on season articles, which where the 350 comes back into play. In those instances, I believe a 200-400 word range for each season's plot is better to give enough word limit to summarize the whole season. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:07, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Nielsen ratings
The guidelines on ratings seem to only mention Nielsen, aren't there other rating systems out there in different nations, like BARB? Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:08, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
- Yes there are. BARB for the UK and BBM for Canada should definitely be mentioned, and if there happen to be any for Australia or New Zealand (I'm not aware of these, if there are). Stemming off of this, we've hit sections here and there of the MOS, but I think we, as a project, should do a top to bottom rewrite of the entire MOS soon, because we keep finding things are very outdated and need updating. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 18:00, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
Shortcuts to the project page are not working correctly - technical problem?
When I link to a shortcut here, like WP:TVCAST or WP:TVOVERVIEW, it goes to the MOS/TV page, but is directed much farther down the page than where the shortcut is supposed to take you. I tried this in Firefox, Chrome, IE and Opera, so I'm not thinking this is a browser issue. The misdirect may be a problem when informing inexperienced editors to MOS:TV related guidelines. Using full links like Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Television#Series overview does the same thing. MPFitz1968 (talk) 01:46, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
- I think this is a general issue, as I have been having this problem on other articles as well, not just the project page. - adamstom97 (talk) 05:40, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
- This is a known issue, happens with other pages too. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 141#Firefox and anchors. – nyuszika7h (talk) 15:07, 12 March 2016 (UTC)