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Orby TV is out of business...

A year back its channel positions were added, but now that they're gone, keep a lookout on network articles, because their positions now need removal. Nate (chatter) 03:05, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

I just went through and removed, what, 40 to 50 of them... Sammi Brie (she/her • tc) 04:56, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
Great job! I think I got the last two strays on Orby's WLH page, so this should be cleared up. Thank you! Nate (chatter) 23:55, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Do articles listing television episodes need to have their own notability established?

I assume that if a television show is notable, then you can have spinout articles for each season. Someone has nominated some articles for deletion and argued they need to establish notability on their own. How are television shows normally done? Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nostalgia Critic (season 13) Dream Focus 18:18, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Dream Focus MOS:TVSPLIT and Wikipedia:Article splitting (television) will assist you here. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 18:48, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
The is a general consensus that a season article with just Episode and Ratings tables are not enough to warrant a season article. A season article should also contain a Production and Critical response sections (not copied and pasted from the main TV series article). The season article needs to be able to be standalone. — YoungForever(talk) 19:21, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, uh, no – List of episode articles probably don't need to be "independently notable" (they just need to meet the list criteria), but season articles definitely need to be independently notable, using pretty much the same criteria as TV show articles themselves. --IJBall (contribstalk) 19:35, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
Definitely for web series, there has to be a sign that the "season" is notable, since these are fundamentally arbitrary compared to broadcast/cable/streaming services. I would not rule out that a list of episodes for a notable web series like Nost. Critic as inappropriate -- but as most of his episodes can be summarized by saying "The Critic revies (film)" where "Film" is the same as the episode name, you don't need the short summaries. Yes, this will be a long list, and per SIZE may need to be split over two or three lists, but that should only be due to size, not due to season notability. --Masem (t) 14:57, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
Has this ever been done? I don't think I've ever seen "List of SpongeBob SquarePants episodes (seasons 1–4)" or similar and it seems far more intuitive to create the content forks based on season, which is why people constantly do it. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 20:48, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
Both Doctor Who and The Simpsons have such lists (eg List of Doctor Who episodes (1963–1989) and List of Doctor Who episodes (2005–present), and List of The Simpsons episodes (seasons 1–20) and List of The Simpsons episodes for example.) Doctor Who splits on a natural aspect (the hiatus), whereas the Simpsons split is based on what seems to be the best even distribution while meeting SIZE. But again, both shows also have individual series/season pages that are very notable. I'm not seeing a problem if this had to be done with the NC episodes if there was more summary text added to a handful of episodes. --Masem (t) 04:38, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Series overview

Would simplying a series overview's layout to look like the table at The Twilight Zone (2019 TV series)#Episodes be a poor decision or an acceptable one? -- /Alex/21 04:31, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Poor – in a case like this where there's effectively a "premiere date" for a season, and a "final[e] date", the more "traditional" episodes table format, like at The Boys (2019 TV series)#Episodes, is preferable. --IJBall (contribstalk) 05:14, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
And yet, I'd say that it conforms with MOS:DATERANGE, as well how we already present dates in a television infobox (parent and/or season, instead of separating them into separate rows), and cutting down on unnecessary headers/space. -- /Alex/21 05:16, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Then don't use a table. Tables are designed to present certain information in a better, more understandable/way. If you're going to use a table, The Boys format-style is preferable. Otherwise, just do it in prose. (Which gets to the larger general point that a lot of editors are insisting upon using tables in many circumstances when use of a table is actually not the best choice.) --IJBall (contribstalk) 05:33, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
You're correct about how tables are designed in regards to presentation, that's why we use them for series overviews that include episode counts, dates, average viewers, networks, etc. The formatting of the date range wouldn't change this, I'm confused as to how it would affect these other columns? A great example of a consensus-agreed usage is at The Great British Bake Off. If dates should be separated in table usages, is there a reason why infoboxes (which are also tables) list dates as "Original release July 26, 2019 – present" as opposed to "First released July 26, 2019" / "Last released present"? -- /Alex/21 13:01, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
IJBall gets it when they say Then don't use a table.. MOS:TABLE says Prose is preferred in articles as prose allows the presentation of detail and clarification of context, in a way that a table may not. ... In an article, significant items should normally be mentioned naturally within the text rather than merely tabulated. The tables in two of the articles cited are so basic that they can be converted to a few sentences of prose (or a single sentence if the redundantly duplicative dates are removed). Tables have another negative; they're usually harder for mobile users - i.e. the majority of the audience - to read than prose (and on Wikipedia, often comically so). Also, Alex 21 may wish to fix their The Twilight Zone link, as the acceptable (or poor) format change has been reverted. 49.195.185.179 (talk) 18:44, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Thank you, random IP. -- /Alex/21 01:38, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Not directly related, but my only comment would be that it seems to be redundant to have both an "originally aired" cell and then "first aired" and "last aired" cells below that. Seems it would work/look better without the "originally aired" cell. Unless there's a reason it's that way that I'm not seeing. Amaury09:30, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

I'd also agree with removing the "Originally aired" cell. I assume it was created as a "header" cell encompassing First/Last, and then it's the only cell displayed (so First/Last become hidden) when all episodes are binge-released. -- /Alex/21 00:04, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Contestant Progress in Reality Shows

There is a very, very heated discussion going on at Talk:RuPaul's Drag Race UK (series 2) which is attempting to set a new precedent for all contestant progress tables that would affect a lot of articles such as The Apprentice. I believe that trying to set a new precedent on one series page of one specific show is incorrect, and the discussion should be taken to this page or WP:RPDR instead. The arguments for changing them appear to be access, whereas the argument against changing them is precedent and failing to convey enough information. Spa-Franks (talk) 11:44, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, it's clear why people don't bring discussions like this here – because "contestant progress" tables violate WP:INDISCRIMINATE, WP:INUNIVERSE and WP:FANCRUFT (not to mention WP:V), and every reality TV show that has them should have them removed. I'm pretty sure the reality TV editors knows that is basically the view of WP:TV, which is why they steer clear of here... Beyond that, yes, of course, table color schemes should conform to MOS:ACCESS, and any argument against that on the basis of "precedent" or "this is always how we've done it" is completely and totally invalid. --IJBall (contribstalk) 13:24, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
If a table doesn't meet ACCESS or is overly fancrufty then it can be edited. I don't necessarily oppose simplifying them, but I absolutely disagree with nuking every article. Tables work better/are more necessary for some series than others. I don't understand some editors on that talk page (who don't seem familiar with TV articles... that's not a bad thing, but why are you making new project-wide rules on a single season article and not coming here) who have different standards for plot summaries but demand secondary sources for reality shows. Why is there an issue with using primary sources for reality television contestant progress but never for plot summaries? I'm sure a lot more interpretation goes on for the latter. Heartfox (talk) 20:48, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
My understanding is that the sourcing issues are specifically wrt determining whether or not a contestant earned high, neutral, or low praise during a given episode, as included in the original table. Which is a strict interpretation and editorializing issue and therefore requires an outside source, which is the case for all plot summaries. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 21:07, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
I know, but IJBall above argued that all contestant progress tables do not meet WP:V. Heartfox (talk) 21:23, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
Some of the comments there came across as if they opposed citing anything to episodes, and I was just a bit concerned, especially when IJBall is grouping every reality show article into one category and saying everyone who edits them is dumb and purposely avoids this WikiProject... like, are you serious? Heartfox (talk) 21:34, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
I said that those editors avoid here because they know we think tables like this are WP:INDISCRIMINATE, WP:INUNIVERSE and WP:FANCRUFT violations, which they definitely are. WP:TVPLOT is very clear here: "Plot sections should summarize the core storyline(s), but not offer a scene-by-scene sequence of everything that happens, or attempt to evaluate, interpret or analyze it." A simple episode summary of a reality show that ends with, "...Ann E. Person was eliminated." is obviously fine on this score. "Contestant progress" tables almost never are, and the ones at the Ru Paul article are pretty good at showing why – those don't just track who was "eliminated" by week – they add a bunch more fancruft-y info that pretty clearly crosses this line. And the reality TV articles only get worse from there – I've seen season articles at some of these that include tables that track every single game or contest type over the entire course of the season, and track those results as well. This isn't a wikia – It's an encyclopedia. Really, we are only supposed to be offering a general overview of TV shows, not a bunch of minutia detail that one could only appreciate if they watched every single second of a show. No one is saying that a reality TV series would never qualify for individual "season" articles, etc. But these "contestant progress" tables pretty clearly cross every line we're supposed to have. --IJBall (contribstalk) 22:44, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
Idk I still don't see a problem with tables like American Idol (season 18)#Elimination chart or RuPaul's Drag Race UK (series 2)#Contestant progress (excluding accessibility). I've never watched the latter (or any versions) and I still have an understanding of what happened during the season. Could you argue it's redundant given the table above it? I guess, but I don't see how "bottom 2" is fancruft (maybe others do). I think the more important discussion is for game shows, where I would support the removal of tables like The Wall (American game show)#Episodes and I Can See Your Voice (American TV series)#Summary, as there is no plot that evolves over episodes and a casual reader really does not need to know what the "free fall bank" amount was or what character a person was in the "Unlock My Life" round. Heartfox (talk) 01:22, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
IJBall rightly says we are not Wikia—but you know who is? Wikia. A good example is how, in 2018, I hugely trimmed task-by-task details on List of Taskmaster episodes, which was soon redirected; but the content was very interesting to a dedicated fandom on the show and the Taskmaster Wiki I created to move the information to has flowered. One of its biggest contributors is an editor who was initially furious at the content being removed from Wikipedia. That editor and several others have helped us grow the wiki to a hugely more comprehensive treatment of Taskmaster than even the LoE page could ever have been. As the Wikia wiki's daily pageviews are in four figures, I think it's fair to say that most people who would have benefited from the information have still managed to find it. A few years prior I also did a similar thing with QI Wiki.
I was a Wikia editor prior to joining Wikipedia and I think this is a common entry point—quite frankly, it's far too difficult and the community too hostile for a newcomer to experience much success on Wikipedia initially. You have to really re-orient yourself away from all instincts of what you want to write (detailed plot summaries, interesting facts, other fancruft) and write what readers benefit from reading. I think we should be building bridges with Wikia a lot more (despite their for-profit model). Fans are reasonably upset about information being lost, so an important step in all of these discussions is to find a place that the information is suited to. Wikia gains valuable contributors, fans of a show have a place to do what they enjoy, and we don't develop LTAs who won't give up on re-adding to Wikipedia over and over again.
I broadly agree with Heartfox that accessibility-compliant tables or prose can be fine for simple descriptions of reality show logistics. I think the "Elimination chart" at American Idol (season 18) is okay but the rest should go. It has so much extraneous detail and I still don't learn a single thing I would want to from reading the article: what genre, specialism or background did the main contestants as covered in reliable secondary sources (such as reviews) have? Definitely we should never be allowing more detail for reality shows than we would for other TV, but sometimes I do think less can be appropriate because we're often writing about low-profile individuals, larger numbers of episodes than other genres and because there's no streamlined "plot", original research is much harder to avoid. — Bilorv (talk) 11:34, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
I broadly agree with all of this, esp. that we should actually be building bridges/funneling editors to Wikias a lot more – that actually would solve a lot of problems... As to the specifics, I would narrowly agree that a relatively simple table like the American Idol elimination chart is OK (though even that may be slightly too "busy" and over-relies on color shading), but also agree that all the other tables American Idol (season 18) (aside from the ratings table) are exactly the kind of WP:FANCRUFT-y, overly-detailed overkill that I am talking about, and agree that this is exactly the kind of thing that needs to go from these articles. --IJBall (contribstalk) 15:41, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
Since inadvertently coming across the discussion at RPDR UK S2, I have been toying with the idea of starting an RfC on these "progress tables" for reality TV shows to establish whether the community feels they are worthy of inclusion, and if so, what constraints (e.g. sourcing) there should be on them. Personally I think they are at best fancruft, and at worst (where they contain information that isn't clearly cited to secondary sources) flashpoints for disruption. The RPDR ones specifically have been the subject of furious edit wars about minutiae such as whether a contestant was "safe" or "safe with critiques", however other series (e.g. Love_Island_(2015_TV_series,_series_5)) also have ridiculously crufty tables. I presume here would be the sensible place to launch such an RfC? ƒirefly ( t · c ) 18:34, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
I don't think we can qualify one main table per (elimination-based) reality show season to summarize progress as cruft, as long as it sticks to the facts and quickly gets its point across; who was eliminated each week, and, if there were any other order factors to consider (eg Top Chef/Project Runway, the top ranked contestants and winner that week, alongside the lowest-ranked and the eliminated player, or the arrival order for a show like Amazing Race) that can be neatly summarized without breaking accessibility. Any other tables - such as how players voted in Survivor, or the song/dances choices in American Idol/Dancing with the Starts/etc. - that starts getting to crufty for Wikipedia. I would strongly suggest that the project to define a common set of standardized colors that meet accessibility for the most common results: eg the episode's winner, eliminated player, high-ranked, low-ranked, and probably a couple others, and define that not every unique way a player leaves a competitive reality show needs a unique color (accessibility aims to minimize colors!, and footnotes can be used for your one-off situations, like players med-evaced from Survivor.) --Masem (t) 19:36, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
I would say some what even you are suggesting would not be OK, as per "Plot sections should summarize the core storyline(s), but not offer a scene-by-scene sequence of everything that happens... When you're getting into things like "arrival order" (for all of the contestants), you are getting way too close to a "scene-by-scene sequence of everything". I agree with Bilorv that this kind of thing is a Wikia's job. On our end, anything much beyond a very simple "elimination chart", or something similar, is beyond the scope of what an encyclopedia article should do. --IJBall (contribstalk) 20:41, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
In the case of The Amazing Race and arrival order, if we consider only the key results of each episode: who won and who lost, the table would look similar to most other tables. The fact that we can also include the arrival order without modification of the table format is one of those pieces of additional information that would be appropriate to include without "bloating" the article, if we're using the plot summary analogy. It would be wrong to having the teams' order throughout the duration of each episode tracked - that's far too much into the scene by scene issue. Or as a separate example, if we used Top Chef, one could argue we could add each chef's challenge entree/dish as part of the elimination table, arguably because we're not modifying the format, but that would make the table very large and that's definitely into the nitty-gritty we shouldn't cover. Not every show is exactly the same, but I am pretty confidental nearly all competitive reality shows from Survivor onward can support a single per-season elimination order table that may include additional details specific to the show's format but to an extent that the table's format does not drastically vary from the other shows. --Masem (t) 21:50, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
@Firefly: Not sure. Probably yes, but it would need to be widely advertised at the VPP's, and definitely also at any of our sub-projects like for reality TV and game shows (the other place where tables like this have often gotten out of control). --IJBall (contribstalk) 20:41, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
I am a bit confused as to how this RfC would work. If there is a consensus to remove all contestant progress tables, are people going to go through thousands of articles and just mass delete stuff, or consult with the editors there of what's the most important, or transform the table into something else, etc.?? I'm a bit worried that the scope and complexity of an RfC like this is being underestimated. Not to mention, fancruft can still be present afterwards because it's not only in progress tables. I remain concerned that a few problematic tables at some series are being used to justify the removal of everything. I fundamentally disagree that every contestant progress table is "at best fancruft".
For The Amazing Race, I suppose the "roadblocks performed" column could be removed, but the arrival orders are basic facts and help understand how a team performed over the course of a season (It has an out-of-universe significance too; the first place team each leg wins a prize and the last place is eliminated, etc.). I think it's a bit of a waste of time to spend so much time converting it to what... a contestant chart with a column for what leg they were eliminated and then move the first place/last place to the episode headings? I guess so... but that's my point. If you're going to delete stuff then the valuable stuff needs to be moved elsewhere. Not every series is the same. The impact of an RfC like this is being misjudged. Heartfox (talk) 21:28, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Please note I have now taken the discussion at RuPaul's Drag Race UK (series 2) to Dispute resolution. Spa-Franks (talk) 00:59, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

I created the FLRC page on the List of American Idol finalists page. --George Ho (talk) 22:44, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Pilot (House)

Anyone with subject knowledge about the medical drama House might want to take a look at Talk:Pilot (House)#FA Sweeps, where I've left some comments about how the page—promoted to FA in 2008—doesn't meet the current standard in my opinion, and how this could be fixed. — Bilorv (talk) 14:18, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Cast tenures in MASH infobox

So having seen the absolute vast majority of television series infoboxes not having the tenures of their cast included there, I was surprised to see that M*A*S*H did. So to have it be consistent with the other pages, I took them out. It's not like this info isn't already present. @Beyond My Ken: came in and reverted this, citing "let;s provide our readers with information when we have it". This is confusing to me as it indicates the edit deprives editors of that information. Like I said, this info is still on the page, just at the cast section, which I feel is the most appropriate place for it. So I restore my edit, explaining that the info is still there and stating I don't feel infoboxes need tenures. Ken snottily reverted again, demanding a policy and accused me of edit warring, which is pretty silly given it was one revert. I asked Ken on their talk why this particular show should be different from other shows's boxes and seeing as they refuse to explain, I have brought the issue here to garner an idea of where others stand. Rusted AutoParts 16:36, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

I am pretty sure it is not appropriate to add the tenure such as seasons or episodes on the starring cast list on the Infobox. For the Cast or Cast and characters section, number of seasons are appropriate to add, but number of episodes are not. — YoungForever(talk) 18:51, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
Please cite a Wikipedia policy that fobids having such information in an infobox. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:25, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
Just because if there is or isn't a policy, it doesn't make it okay for you to insist on it remaining without explaining why it's necessary, important or vital to the reader. Rusted AutoParts 21:42, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
Please see {{Infobox television}} under starring parameter under Parameters section which states: Character names, years, or seasons should not be included. This is pretty clear. — YoungForever(talk) 22:08, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
Ken wants a guideline – that guideline is MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. That, combined with the template's own documentation, shows that there would have to be strong WP:LOCALCONSENSUS demonstrated at the article to invoke an "exception" to the template's documentation. I doubt such a consensus exists here. --IJBall (contribstalk) 22:49, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
We don't add season notes in the infobox in order to conserve space. Not everything needs to be a or in a guideline or policy to the nth degree, as per WP:CREEP. A lot of our standard practices aren't even in our guidelines or policies and are just common sense. Amaury21:44, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

As credited on screen

Including ampersands in Infobox credits

User:CartoonnewsCP is going through Television articles changing the formatting in Infoboxes, with edit summaries like the following:

  • Per MOS:TV we go according to how they are credited
  • We go by how they are credited also that's how the WGA wants it

and making changing to the creators field, removing list templates {{Plainlist}} or {{Unbulleted list}} and replacing them with formatting, such as:

  1. Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon [1]
  2. Waco O'Guin & Roger Black [2]
  3. Justin Roiland and Mike McMahan [3]
  4. Mike Scully & Julie Thacker Scully & Amy Poehler [4]

You can see from the diffs that some the changes include a large warning comment telling other editors not to use the Plainlist template. If the guidelines were clear such a large warning comment should not be necessary. This all seemed like a new development to me, and not at all in keeping with how I thought Television Infoboxes have been doing this for years.[5][6] Outside of the animation articles recently changed by CartoonnewsCP I haven't noticed other television infoboxes doing this yet.
When asked User:CartoonnewsCP said he was following the example of User:YoungForever. YF says there was already consensus to format exactly as in the on screen credits, but has not pointed to guidelines or a discussion that makes it clear, which is why I felt I had no choice but to start this discussion.

The MOS:TV guidelines do say "The cast listing should be ordered according to the original broadcast credits" and "All names should be referred to as credited". I understood this to mean that we should use the name as it is credited even if the actor has more than one stage name or pseudonym. It is not clear that this was meant to extend beyond the cast list and apply even to the punctuation and formatting of crew in the Infobox, specifically the need to format the creators using "and" or "&" or "+" exactly as credited onscreen. Template:Infobox television also gives no indication that the formatting should be exactly as the WGA specifies. This seems to ignore other guidelines such as MOS:AMP and MOS:PLIST.

User:YoungForever said there was already a consensus for these for the kinds of changes User:CartoonnewsCP has been making. Could someone else please confirm that the Infobox formatting should be following "and" or "&" or "+" exactly as credited onscreen, or "how the WGA wants it"? If Project Television has decided (or decides) this is the way things should be formatted could someone please update the guidelines to be more specific and also update the documentation of Template:Infobox television to clearly state that even punctuation such as & should be followed exactly in the Infobox. -- 109.79.170.28 (talk) 05:52, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

You should probably make an account btw. Also nobody ping me anymore. Thanks. CartoonnewsCP (talk) 06:55, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
Your personal preference do not overrides on-screen credits. Per MOS:AMP, But retain an ampersand when it is a legitimate part of the style of a proper noun, such as in Up & Down or AT&T. Elsewhere, ampersands may be used with consistency and discretion where space is extremely limited (e.g. tables and infoboxes.) Yet, you keep ignoring that part. For example, Waco O'Guin & Roger Black is a writing team not two separate writer and "&" is part of the writing team name. — YoungForever(talk) 07:51, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
"&" and "and" have two different meanings in terms of writers and replacing one with the other should not be done. "&" indicates a writing pair or team, while "and" indicates two writers (or pairs) working each contributing, but not as a pair. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 14:06, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
Favre1fan93 can you provide a source for that definition of "&" specifically indicating a writing or creative team? It is not essential but it would help to establish where this is coming from, if it is from WGA or from a particular style guide, or whatever.
Again User:YoungForever is dismissing my concerns as "personal preference". My concern was not about a seemingly unnecessary formatting detail but that people were saying there is consensus to do things a certain way when they seem unwilling or unable to clarify where exactly in the guidelines they are getting this (or show from discussion where the consensus came from). Instead of positively showing where exactly in MOS:TV guidelines it says to strictly follow WGA formatting, YoungForever has only argued that MOS:AMP doesn't prohibit doing it that way (note: the MOS:AMP examples are titles but not people, not double acts, not teams of creators) which sounds a lot like someone else forcing their own strict preference because they can't actually show it is in the MOS:TV guidelines. This did not seem to be an issue before, articles such as Rick and Morty have listed their creators without an ampersand for years and years. It seems like only a recent development that people are insisting that the Infobox formatting be more strict, and it seems to have only been selectively applied to a few articles. (So far I've only see a few cases and they've been a result of edits by YoungForever or CartoonnewsCP, and they've been reverted by more than just me and it often takes them multiple attempts and great big comments in the wiki source before the change actually sticks.) What's more, if this is the consensus then why have I have have not seen in it prominent television articles where I might have expected it: in the Infobox of Game of Thrones I do not see "David Benioff & D. B. Weiss" (as they are credited in the opening credits of the show); in the Infobox of Star Trek: Discovery I do not see "Bryan Fuller & Alex Kurtzman" credited as they are in the end credits of that show. If people want to be strict that's one thing, consensus can change, but don't act like the guidelines have made this clear or claim there is already a consensus if you cannot actually show it. At least now if anyone asks you can point to this discussion.
If editors really want to be strict and they think it is best to using ampersands in the Infobox when they are used on screen then so be it. I would appreciate if Project Television could please update either MOS:TV or Template:Infobox television or both to make it clearer that such formatting is what editors want. It would make it a lot easier for everyone if this was clearer. 109.78.202.222 (talk) 20:58, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Pretty much what you said, Favre1fan93, but figured I'd throw this in, anyway, as another way to explain it if it makes it clearer for some people. I'm quoting Geraldo Perez here: For writing guild rules "&" means a formally acknowledged writing team who get credited as a team for everything they do, and "and" just means separate writers who collaborate for this one project but do not generally work together. Amaury21:11, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Guidelines have always made it clear it's names per credits. Amaury21:11, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
If this is so clear then why does the Infobox for Game of Thrones not credit "David Benioff & D. B. Weiss" exactly including the ampersand? Why does the Infobox for Better Call Saul not credit Vince Gilligan & Peter Gould as per the opening credits? Why does the Infobox for Sense8 not credit "The Wachowskis & J. Michael Straczynski" as they are credited onscreen? (All three are GA quality articles.) The guidelines only seem to me like they are saying to use stage names and pseudonyms as credited (as opposed to birth names or married names or anything else). If more articles were already doing this it would be less surprising but although you say it is clear it seems does not seem obvious at all that Project Television expects the Infobox to follow credits exactly down to the ampersand. -- 109.78.202.222 (talk) 00:22, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Note I am not talking about writers credits in the {{Episode table}}, where I have seen writers credited strictly including ampersands already. I'm specifically talking about the creator credits in the Infoboxes, the examples I posted included diffs which show this, I hope people looked at the diffs before they commented. -- 109.78.202.222 (talk) 00:31, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
All of the guidines and expectations discussed so far apply to episode tables and prose, but I agree that it is not clear if they are supposed to be followed in the infobox as well. In my experience, every person in the infobox gets a separate bullet and I think that is best for making sure the infobox is clear and understandable. If someone thinks that we should be combining multiple writers in one bullet point within the infobox then I definitely think we need to discuss that. - adamstom97 (talk) 01:05, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Policies and guidelines aren't the only thing that guides our editing, there are also common editing practices in each subject and field that editors generally follow, simply because that's how we've seen it done already. Policies and guidelines reflect common practices, but they don't reflect all of them. I've never seen, until now, an infobox on film or TV that listed people using the ampersands or ands that are used in the credits, and it's never been a point of contention up to now. There's clearly not a consensus to list people that way on infoboxes, and thus far I've found an implicit consensus of the opposite, given that all the articles I've encountered list them the plain way, without any & or ands in the infobox. —El Millo (talk) 02:22, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
I seen some television series articles use &, some ands, and others {{Plainlist}} on Infoboxes. Few years ago, I have been told that we always go by according to on-screen credits. — YoungForever(talk) 04:13, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Sure, according to them on some things, like the order and which name to use in case someone has a pseudonym, a name change or something like that. But not on everything, otherwise we'd be putting things "with [actor] as [character] and [actress] as [character]" or "introducing [actor]" at the end of cast lists. You can see in the MoS for TV that credits are not taken to be followed exactly as they are. It definitely says the order should be used, but when it comes to the names it says: All names should be referred to as credited, or by common name supported by a reliable source. So you can use a common name that's different to the credits, if there's consensus for it. The same is stated in the MoS for films: All names should be referred to as credited, or by common name supported by a reliable source. Nowhere do I see it stated that the format of the credits should be used, meaning those & and ands, but going off common practice (which is implicit consensus) they shouldn't be used in infoboxes. —El Millo (talk) 04:36, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
FYI, Waco O'Guin & Roger Black is not the same as Waco O'Guin and Roger Black nor {{Plainlist}} * Waco O'Guin * Roger Black. By putting them in separate bullet point, you are not acknowledging that they are a writing team and not two separate writers. Do you realized that you are changing their meaning? — YoungForever(talk) 14:54, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Here's a link discussing a film's billing block, which discusses "and" and "&". Regarding an infobox, per {{Infobox television}} documentation, For most of the fields below, if there are multiple entries, separate them using {{Plainlist}} or {{Unbulleted list}}. We shouldn't be using "and", "&" or other stylings in the infobox (such as cast members being listed as "with X, with Y, and Z", because that should be a quick overview for readers. This is stated somewhere, but I don't know off hand where. Outside of that, prose and episode tables should follow official credits. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:21, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

We shouldn't be using "and", "&" or other stylings in the infobox (such as cast members being listed as "with X, with Y, and Z", because that should be a quick overview for readers. is certainly not on MOS:TV nor Template:Infobox television nor MOS:AMP. — YoungForever(talk) 18:24, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
I haven't commented on this, because I don't care much about infoboxes, but in this particular case, I would say it depends – if it's writers, a {{Plainlist}} without the "&" makes sense (but, then again, writers shouldn't generally be in the infobox – they should just be in the episodes table!); OTOH, if we're talking something like TV series creator(s), then I think the "&" is not trivial and should be included, even in the infobox. However, I feel like, in general, this is rarely going to come up as an issue with the infobox. I do agree that in episodes table, the distinction between "&" vs "and" is important, and we should follow crediting. --IJBall (contribstalk) 19:04, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
The examples provided (see numbered list including diffs at the start of this discussion) were all about the Infobox, specifically the creators in the Infobox. (I only mentioned the episodes tables to specifically make it clear I was not talking about them.) The examples and their edit summaries claimed that MOS:TV was already saying things had to be done that way "Per MOS:TV we go according to how they are credited", which not only did not fit with the common practice I had seen in many other Television articles, there didn't seem to be anything about it in the MOS:TV guidelines (or {{Infobox television}} docs). I think Infoboxes should keep keeping it simple, details about the nature of the creative teams can be detailed in the article body. To summarize, I ask the question: do editors want to be strict about crediting creators in {{Infobox television}} and include ampersands if they are credited that way on screen? For example should the Infobox for Game of Thrones credit "David Benioff & D. B. Weiss" with an ampersand included? -- 109.78.198.254 (talk) 22:41, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
This is about creators or developers teams specifically on Infoboxes. — YoungForever(talk) 22:49, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Then I'm with you – for creators, that is not trivial, and the "&" should be included in the infobox as well. --IJBall (contribstalk) 00:13, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be any disagreement with the suggestion to format the Infobox strictly, and editors seem to be in favor of including ampersands.
Would someone please update the guidelines and Infobox docs to make it clearer that the onscreen formatting, down to including punctuation such as ampersands, should be matched in Infobox? Also would people please update the articles for Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul, Sense8, etc. to follow the strict formatting people say is wanted. -- 109.79.81.227 (talk) 18:00, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
This is heavily against common practices. There should be a formal RfC for adding something like this to the Manual of Style. —El Millo (talk) 18:47, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
This is way too "small ball" for that. It really only affects the creator parameter of {{Infobox television}}. Either a more formal discussion here, or there, should be enough. --IJBall (contribstalk) 19:31, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Are you sure? it seems that it would affect any other parameter in which a duo may be included (e.g. a writing or directing duo), and it would also affect the Wikiproject Film. —El Millo (talk) 19:35, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
No, based on this discussion above, we all appear to agree that something like a list of writers can still use {{Plainlist}} in the IB (though, generally, writers won't be listed there anyway). But creator is in a separate category where I think the "&" is directly relevant. --IJBall (contribstalk) 20:01, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

So what happens next? What do the editors who want this strict formatting propose? How should the documentation make it clear that WGA formatting such as "and" or "&" should be matched exactly? Perhaps a line about formatting creators in MOS:TVPRODUCTION? What are they going to do to make sure that there aren't a whole lot of GA and FA articles setting a bad example by ignoring the strict formatting? It is unfair to expect people to follow so many unwritten rules, or to expect people to take it on trust when someone says a consensus already exists. I'd like it to see this be made clearer somewhere else besides this discussion. -- 109.79.80.28 (talk) 15:33, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Not everything has to be in a guideline or policy to the nth degree, as per WP:CREEP. Many of our standard practices are common sense. Amaury18:02, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Article name: original (non-English) or English name?

Hi — this has probably been discussed before, but I couldn't immediately find the right thread so asking again. If a non-English-language TV series has also an 'official' English name for use in international markets, should the series be described on Wikipedia under the original or English article title? (I found WP:UE, which seems to suggest the latter, but I'm not sure if it applies here.) I came across this question in connection with a Turkish TV series which is currently listed under its original name (Uyanış: Büyük Selçuklu); if anyone wants to contribute to the discussion directly on the talk page, please do. Thanks, --DoubleGrazing (talk) 16:56, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

The official English name. Kingsif (talk) 18:49, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I have created an article on Personne n'y avait pensé !, the French adaptation of the UK quiz Pointless. The French Wikipedia article on Personne... links to the English Wikipedia article on Pointless. Should it be redirected so that the FR page on the FR show links to the EN page on the FR show, and how is this done? Unknown Temptation (talk) 22:12, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Star original programming § problems. Joeyconnick (talk) 01:50, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Request for input

There's a dispute at As Told by Ginger. I am not at all familiar with the conventions in this area and I don't have time to mediate anyway, but if someone could head over there and take a look that would be appreciated. 83.136.106.241 (talk) 03:27, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Should the List of web television series page be deleted or be split apart?

I thought I'd post about it on here first before I possibly propose a deletion of the page. I am posting here because the web television page has now been merged into Streaming television page per a consensus reached on Talk:Web television#Merger_proposal. I was thinking the page could be split apart, but even that may be hard to do. So maybe it should just be junked altogether. Thoughts? --Historyday01 (talk) 17:58, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Importance scale

I am curious, why are we using an importance scale for this project. Is it really needed? Govvy (talk) 09:58, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

To me, the importance scale is useful in identifying areas that need editor attention (e.g. if I'm going through a backlog of articles tagged with {{Copy edit}}, I might go by decreasing importance), and also useful when aggregating statistics and analytics. For instance, somebody may be interested in learning whether importance correlates positively, negatively or not at all with class—identifying which could be useful for identifying the project's strengths and weaknesses e.g. negative correlation could mean that Wikipedians would do better to focus on higher-importance topics, and that Wikipedia is more reliable for specific rather than general topics. It seems to me that WPTV specifically is definitely large enough that these subdivisions by importance are useful (if you start trying to clear {{Copy edit}}s then you'll never finish, so ordering matters). — Bilorv (talk) 11:36, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
There are only four levels in the importance scale, how people in the project can assess the importance of a television show next to others, seems like it's a favouritism game. I feel it's somewhat a pointless operation for this project. Govvy (talk) 11:57, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Television shows are not the only articles we cover: for instance, most TV episodes will be low-importance, TV channels can be high/mid-importance whereas genres may be top/high-importance. TV shows can be measured by objective metrics such as number of international versions, number of seasons, viewing figures, pageviews etc.; there shouldn't be much personal preference biasing someone's importance assessment if they're doing it right. There are four levels but going down a level roughly increases the number of articles included by a factor of ten, so the top/high/mid importances can be better to organise workflow for when managing backlogs, as described above. — Bilorv (talk) 12:13, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

BBC Kids

FYI, there is a discussion about the use of BBC Kids (formerly a Canada-only TV channel; now an Australia-only TV channel), see talk:BBC Kids -- 67.70.27.246 (talk) 11:43, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Original network and Template:Infobox television

Requesting some clarity on what "original network" or programming in the television infobox. I tried raising this issue in the template's talk page, but I was not able to get any feedback.

The original network(s) on which the show has appeared. Do not add foreign broadcasters here. Use links if articles are available.

— Original network field usage guidelines (Template:Infobox television)

From what I understand, the intention of this field is to exclude any secondary broadcasters including simulcast and encore broadcasts shortly after the original broadcast (either the same date or a few days after). However the infobox guidelines only explicitly excludes foreign broadcasters and does not take into account domestic broadcasters which may have acquired broadcasting rights from the original production company/network which produced the series.

This is especially a problem for ABS-CBN Corporation's series since the company was forced to stop the operations of its original main network ABS-CBN due to its franchise non-renewal in 2020. Consequentially the airing of ABS-CBN's series was affected. The company has since set up a pay channel known as the Kapamilya Channel where it continued broadcast for its series, some of which had new episodes/content (meaning these episodes didn't broadcast in the old ABS-CBN network; making Kapamilya Channel and "original network" as well).

However ABS-CBN in an effort to maximize its reach aired its series on its affiliate channels such as Jeepney TV. It also had its series be broadcast in A2Z and TV5 after a partnership deal. ABS-CBN's series either air on all of these channels on the same time or at the same date, which from what I understand is a simulcast. ABS-CBN Corporation is still the producer for the series' content, they just gave A2Z and TV5 rights to air their series. See Ang Probinsyano and the ASAP (Philippine TV program) for example.

Ang Probinsyano "original network"

  • ABS-CBN (September 28, 2015 – March 13, 2020)
  • Kapamilya Channel, Cine Mo! and Jeepney TV (June 15, 2020 – present)
  • Kapamilya Online Live (August 3, 2020 – present)
  • A2Z (October 12, 2020 – present)
  • TV5 (March 8, 2021 – present)

In this example, it was clear that ABS-CBN is the original network until March 2020. New episodes of the series began to air in the Kapamilya Channel, ABS-CBN network's replacement with simulcast in Cine Mo! and Jeepney TV. Then Kapamilya Online Live, an online streaming platform equivalent of Kapamilya Channel, began to air the series while new episodes are still being aired in the previous three networks. Then ABS-CBN allowed A2Z and TV5, both rival networks to air Ang Probinsyano.

What I think is ABS-CBN and Kapamilya Channel should be the only "original networks" since Cine Mo! and Jeepney TV are secondary networks of ABS-CBN Corporation, and Kapamilya Channel is touted by the company to be ABS-CBN network's successor. "Kapamilya Online Live" is basically the online streaming counterpart of Kapamilya Channel. A2Z and TV5 just do simulcast of new episodes but ultimately has no role in the production.

Another big concern is how to relay any consensus that comes out of this. Especially to IPs and new users or to any other users who have a different understanding on what "original network" is. From my experience some users insists all networks that aired the series during its original run are "original networks".Hariboneagle927 (talk) 17:01, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

I am pretty sure the original network parameter also excludes any domestic secondary broadcasters including simulcast and encore broadcasts shortly after the original broadcast.YoungForever(talk) 17:50, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Help with Run BTS episodes

The "Episodes" section of this series was previously laid out in 20-ep batch tables (no idea why) before I recently (Jan) started converting it to what it is now (tables per season) using the NCIS page as guidance. The conversion isn't complete yet but some confusion about episode numbering is making me wonder if I just messed up the page rather than improved it. With what I've done (which was okay for S1 as E6's easily identifiable split makes it understandable), E11 of the show is listed as S2 E1 in the table and #12 overall, but with no indication of its official #11 designation anywhere. The show numbers all eps continuously and 2ndary sources refer to them per the show's titling. The 130th episode recently aired, but if the S3 table is updated it will appear as 131 'Overall', 73 'in Season', and the infobox count would say 131 instead of 130, which could potentially confuse readers. How do I handle this? Is there another column to indicate the actual episode # in the table, or another alternative? I have limited experience w articles of this nature so advice would be most appreciated! -- Carlobunnie (talk) 17:46, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

No doubt this is better than the 20-episode blocks, so thank you for your work so far. In most situations I believe that we categorise multiple-part items as separate episodes as long as they first aired non-consecutively, which looks to be always true here. The season summary and number of episodes listed in the infobox should be changed to match the final counts of the episode-by-episode tables. Unfortunately, this seems to cause confusion between the show's perception of its episode count with 50th and 100th episode specials (they count "Confession" only as one episode and all other multiple-parters as multiple episodes? Why?), so I'm a bit unsure of how to proceed. — Bilorv (talk) 18:45, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
@Bilorv: I honestly have no clue why the Confession episode remained as an outlier considering to the naming/numbering of other split part eps as you pointed out. Would adding a fn stating that only this ep was treated this way—and that other multi-part eps after it were counted as individual eps hence the reason for the discrepancy between the show's count and the actual count—be an acceptable interim measure? -- Carlobunnie (talk) 19:14, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, actually, it could be a sensible outcome to use the episode numberings that the show does with a footnote like you suggest. I suppose something weird has happened that's not our fault, so whatever solution we find will have some drawbacks. — Bilorv (talk) 22:26, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
@Bilorv: I added the fn to the infobox (please lmk if you think that's okay or if I've worded it stupidly). I'll tackle the episode numbers next, but just to be clear, you're saying it's okay for the "No. in Season" column to reflect the actual episode # as stated by the show? -- Carlobunnie (talk) 21:45, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
I'll try to take it from the top since my opinion has developed a bit since I first saw this question: I think there are multiple okay solutions, but we have to pick one and go with it. One solution sees the episode count that the show maintains for itself (so their 50th special is episode 50), with a footnote explaining that "Confessions" is counted as one where other multi-part specials are not. Another solution sees the episode count that arises if we treat "Confessions" as two separate episodes, with a footnote explaining why the 50th special isn't the 50th and the same for the 100th. You need to choose one of these for the "No. overall"/"No. in season" counts, and probably it's better to choose the same one for the total episode tally in the infobox. (But you can't use one count for one numbering and one for the other: it needs to just go with one system.)
After lots of internal questioning I think either of these are fine for you to choose, so long as there is a footnote link in the infobox tally and at the occurrence of the numbering of "Confessions" (and the occurrence of the 50th/100th if you choose the option where those are counted as 51/101). Sorry if that's a bit of a non-answer and also if I've caused more confusion along the way! I guess the main thing I have to say is that when these ambiguities happen, the best thing is just to clearly signpost in the article itself that they have happened (with the footnote) so readers will understand both ways of looking at it. — Bilorv (talk) 22:12, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
@Bilorv: I am still confused but I made this test edit to see if that's what you possibly meant. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 23:50, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
That's okay, and sorry that this is so confusing. This is not what I meant: you should pick either the numbering you've just used in "No. overall" and "No. in season", and use it in the column "No. overall". Whichever numbering you prefer. The numbering in "No. in season" must start at 1 each season and increase in lockstep with the "No. overall" column i.e. they either both increase by 1 at the next entry, or possibly both stay the same in the case of "Confessions" (so that for the first season the two columns will be identical from start to finish). — Bilorv (talk) 00:26, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
@Bilorv: oh ok, I think I partially understand? I undid the above edit and tried again (S2 table only, up to E17). Also tweaked the episode titles to reflect how they're named in the show. Please lmk if I'm on the right track or not (I think I did it partly wrong cuz the Magnum PI article's overall col numbering continues but in season restarts each season so I just fkd the overall col). I might just quit since I'm too dumb to get it 😩🤡 and I feel bad for giving you so much headache over something so simple. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 03:07, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
@Bilorv: ok so after calming down (when I make mistakes it makes me panicky so I apologize if I sounded like I was actually going to quit the page—I was just joking), I fixed my flub up with the numbering and linked the fn to the applicable episodes. When you can, lmk if it's good now. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 20:16, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

I've made a couple of edits and this, barring any accidental mistakes, is a good system I think. Any confusion in our conversation is as much my responsibility as yours—I'm writing for an audience, after all, and this is very complicated to discuss without visually seeing it (next time I think I should probably demonstrate instead of describe). Feel free to ask if you're still confused. Don't worry about taking up my time—I'd simply leave the conversation if I felt it wasn't worth me spending time on this—and there's no rush so you can always leave it for a while and come back when more relaxed, if you feel anxiety at first. :) — Bilorv (talk) 01:55, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Bilorv I am seeking your advice again. During Season 1, an 80-min live special episode of the show titled "Run BTS in Thailand" aired on August 8, 2015 (between Eps 2+3) while the band was on tour. How or where should I mention this? -- 02:48, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
@Carlobunnie: it looks like an anonymous editor effectively undid the renumbering I did in these edits, which I think is undesirable. It puts the "No. in season" tally in contradiction with "No. overall" and renders the notes at episodes 50/100 incorrect. If you want me to change this back to the version I had then let me know—hopefully there's a faster way to do it than to have to renumber each episode tally all over again. As for the question you actually ask, well, you could put it in season 1 between episodes 2 and 3 but not give it a number (put "–" in both columns); or you could create a separate header for "Specials" below season 3 and just list that single entry. I'd be inclined towards the first solution if that's the only live special there's ever been. The overall episodes count could then be "134 (+1 special)" or "135 (including 1 special)". — Bilorv (talk) 12:34, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
@Bilorv: yes, please restore the numbering to what it was prior to those edits. I didn't even notice that tbh (or I would have rv'd) because so many ips edit the page and I'm unable to check every single time so it's difficult to keep track of everything they do. Could you submit a page protection request (high enough to stop all ips+acs w edit counts below 1000 edits who often make unsourced/poor quality changes to the page) request on my behalf to help curb this? I like your first suggestion as well (it's actually what I was thinking of doing) but I'll have to double check if there were any other similar specials because I can't remember off the top of my head. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 17:53, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
Alright, Carlobunnie, still took a few minutes but I did it by editing the old version of the page with the right numbering and then copying over new changes (takes less time the faster you catch it). I don't think protection is appropriate because we want to encourage people to help out, particularly by adding new information as episodes of the show come out. Semi-protection is used as a temporary measure when there's significant disruption and not many positive IP edits, which is not the case here. One person making a numbering change in good faith is not a big problem. I have watchlisted the page so I will try to review changes to it in the short-term. — Bilorv (talk) 19:36, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
@Bilorv: I more said that based on the page's history and the actions of other ip/low-edit count acs, not this particular numbering-related edit. I understand it would restrict contribs (even if many of those contribs consistently require subsequent grammar cleanup+sourcing) but I also thought it would atleast help keep the page at a certain quality/standard. Thank you for now keeping an eye on it (and for your help). I will continue plugging away at things slowly. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 20:24, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
@Carlobunnie: nonetheless, the main supply we have of new editors is people who start as IP editors making vastly subpar contributions, and gradually improve. It frustrates us as experienced editors, but protection isn't used in these cases for good reason. You're welcome for the help. — Bilorv (talk) 20:28, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
@Bilorv: I found another special episode already listed in the S3 table, between eps 112 and 113, an extended director's cut of ep 110 (it says 109 because the summary hasn't been updated to match the new #s). So that would make 2 special eps so far (includ the Thailand live I mentioned above). -- Carlobunnie (talk) 08:14, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
Yep, I see. — Bilorv (talk) 10:09, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
@Bilorv: "I'd be inclined towards the first solution if that's the only live special there's ever been." - it appears to be, since the other special wasn't a live ep but a director's cut. So just go ahead and insert it like the other one? That's what I was trying to get you to confirm. Sorry for not being clearer about that. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 17:05, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
Right, inserting like the other one sounds good. The reasoning I was thinking about when I wrote that comment was that it's not worth a segregated "Specials" section unless there's enough of them to justify a standalone section, which in practice is usually only the case if specials are a regular feature/format of some sort (not just two one-offs of different forms). — Bilorv (talk) 17:20, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

This was moved back to mainspace from draftspace without any discussion – should it have been?

If the answer is "no", I think any WP:TV regular should feel free to move it back. --IJBall (contribstalk) 03:19, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Doesn't look ready for primetime yet in any way, and is WP:TOOSOON. Considering last year's shakiness, keeping it in draftspace is a good idea. It's better to be conservative here, considering that pilot season is in major flux. Nate (chatter) 19:06, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
The whole thing was an exercise in disruptive editing from a recent perennial WP:SPI case: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/GoatMans. --IJBall (contribstalk) 19:28, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
It may need be salted temporary if it gets repeatedly created before it is ready to be in the mainspace. — YoungForever(talk) 19:49, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

And, again, someone has prematurely created the article, and ignored the Draft. I will let somebody else handle this, but if goes to WP:AfD please let me know so I can vote "delete". --IJBall (contribstalk) 03:10, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Definitely need more eyes here – I do not believe that this editor is operating in good faith, and I believe they are trying to WP:Game the system. More WP:TV regulars on this will help. --IJBall (contribstalk) 00:13, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
I have boldly moved it back to Draft. Almost the whole schedule is still TBA which means it is still WP:TOOSOON. Nothing has changed significantly to warrant recreating the article at all right now. 2021–22 United States network television schedule probably needs to be temporary salted. — YoungForever(talk) 20:50, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
I put in a request at WP:RPP. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 21:05, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
At last, it is finally salted until the end of this month and only extended confirmed users can recreate it. — YoungForever(talk) 16:08, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Sorry to bother, but apparently the same has happened to the 2021–22 daytime and late night schedules, all by the same editor. Could you check it? I think they should be removed too. — MrE (talk) 23:20, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for these problems i was the one so i told them to move them to the draft space and i don't know how to do that so can you guys make that happen? Hoopstercat (talk) 18:55, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Conflict of interest on The Boss Baby: Back in Business

How do we deal conflict of interest of the production team on television series articles? Brandon Sawyer claimed to be the creator of The Boss Baby: Back in Business and that the TV series is canceled, but did not use {{edit request}} nor provide a reliable source. — YoungForever(talk) 14:12, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Someone who claims to be Sawyer is saying this. I don't particularly believe it is Sawyer, based on the odd behaviour and flawed writing style. We change to end date, off the top of my head, a year after the most recent episode aired if there's been no further word, so it's not like we're permanently missing out on important information if this change is disallowed. WP:V specifically forbids someone adding true information that has no published source. If Sawyer is desperate to make this change (though I can't see why that would be) then get them to find someone involved in the show whose Twitter profile is verified (it appears to me that theirs isn't) and get them to tweet about the show being cancelled and then use that as a source. The disruption caused could be best addressed by an admin partially blocking that user from that page, if you want to find an admin or noticeboard to report them to. — Bilorv (talk) 19:15, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
Also, user should be reported to WP:UAA as likely softblocked until their identity can be verified. --IJBall (contribstalk) 19:30, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
Reported to WP:UAA and the editor has been blocked indef by an admin. — YoungForever(talk) 07:33, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Here we go, again. Tom McGrath Officail is most likely a sockpuppet of Brandon Sawyer. — YoungForever(talk) 15:16, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
information Update: The admin who blocked Tom McGrath Officail pretty much confirmed that Tom McGrath Officail is a sockpuppet of Brandon Sawyer. — YoungForever(talk) 21:42, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Name discussion at Yasuke (anime)

I thought it would be a good idea to bring this up here since it's being questioned whether it's anime, and we can reach a consensus. There's currently a discussion in Yasuke (anime) about how the article should be named. You can reach the discussion here Your input would be appreciated.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 16:31, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Proposed split of content from the List of adult animated television series page

A proposed split of content from adult animated streaming TV shows to a page tentatively titled List of adult animated streaming television series is located at Talk:List of adult animated television series#Proposed split of content from adult animated streaming TV shows and may be of interest to the members of this WikiProject. --Historyday01 (talk) 16:35, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Source check for Tom Miranda

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers#Source check for Tom Miranda. Thanks! — MarkH21talk 18:56, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

I have nominated Making Waves (TV series) for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. GamerPro64 03:18, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

FAR notice

I have nominated Doctor Who missing episodes for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Hog Farm Talk 02:00, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Infobox television § 'Company' parameter question. I would like some clarification here as to if/when we include "vanity card" production companies in the company parameter of {{Infobox television}}, and the criteria for doing so. Thanks. --IJBall (contribstalk) 14:40, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

What is our standard on in-universe character descriptions for TV show castings?

On Loki (TV series), the brief description of the titular character in the casting section refers to him as a "time variant" of the original character, a strictly in-universe implied angle on the program. However, on articles for other shows such as WandaVision, characters with similar in-universe circumstances aren't noted like that, such as the character of Vision, who's description doesn't start off with noting that he's "an alternate reality-created version of the Avenger Vision" etc, nor are similar descriptions seen for other such characters like Gamora in Avengers: Endgame, who is also a "time variant" of the original character in that production.

Beyond the specific link for 'time variant' not being consistent at all with the way it is being intended for use in the description, my general position is that if we start making these explicit in-universe descriptions for certain characters, we'll have to start doing them to all characters for whom they may apply, and due to the nature of some shows (ie comic book ones) that could lead to some very drawn-out and confusing descriptions being placed all over. Davefelmer (talk) 21:25, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

That's the way the character is described in the trailers for the series and reliable sources have used this description as well. We can't use that description for other characters if reliable sources haven't used them as well. To do so would be original research. In the case of WandaVision, the particularities of the version of Vision that appears in the show are noted in the second line of the character's description: Bettany portrays a new version of the character created by Wanda within her reality from the part of the Mind Stone that lives in her ..., after stating that he had died in Infinity War at the end of the first sentence. Gamora is a minor character in Endgame, so I guess that's why her being an alternate version is not mentioned in the article, but that could well be added. However, she can't be called a time variant, because reliable sources haven't done that and because we still don't know precisely what being a time variant encompasses, since the show hasn't even premiered yet. —El Millo (talk) 21:40, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
What reliable sources refer to the character as a 'time variant' as a consistent descriptor? They most certainly don't appear in the relevant section, and I haven't seen them myself. And secondly, as you note with the Vision description in Wandavision, the particularities of the version of Loki are likewise noted in the second sentence of the character's description as well, where it's clarified that this is a different version of the character and explains where he branches off from relative to the original character. Davefelmer (talk) 22:01, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Checking again, they just plainly use "variant" basing off the label of the character's back in one scene of the trailer and the way Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) refers to him. I still see no problem with describing the character as a time variant there. —El Millo (talk) 22:14, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
You just said it yourself, if it isn't widely used in reliable sources nor is it consistent with how other similar characters are described, there's no basis to arbitrarily pick and choose where to go into explicit implied character detail. It's WP:OR. Davefelmer (talk) 22:20, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Contestant achievement on game shows

Similar to the Drag Race tables above, there's currently a dispute over at The Wall (British game show) regarding the addition of contestant records on the article e.g Rhys & Stephanie from Staffordshire, had £4,713 from Free Fall, got four questions correct which added £10,000, meaning their offer was £14,713, but their final bank total was £65,102 and they accepted the contract and so won the smaller amount - admittedly it's easier to understand in table form, but regardless of that it's still just an unverified collection of WP:INDISCRIMINATE.

An IP user has constantly been re-adding this info since it was first added and removed in November last year. Even more confusingly, A user who only has two edits to their name (neither of which are on the article in question) left me a message on my talk page asking me to "stop deleting my hard work I put in on the wall". Two questions. Am I right to keep removing it? And - thinking along the lines of WP:VGSCOPE - is it time that WP:TELEVISION had a list of bulletpoint explanations on inappropriate content that can easily be pointed to? - X201 (talk) 15:34, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

  • (1) I would say regardless of policy/guidelines you mentioned, does the content help a casual reader understand the show better? No—knowing what a contestant's free fall bank amount was in an episode is something only fans of the show would want to know, so you are right to remove it. (2) I guess that's a decent idea, but other policies/guidelines have seemed to work so far in my experience. Heartfox (talk) 17:01, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Even DUE seems to cover this - if a contestant is notable, judge whether the info is DUE at their article first, if they are not, judge whether it is DUE in the scope of the whole TV show. If there is an episode list article, it may be more appropriate there, but only in the sense of episode "results", which would probably only cover the final win. Kingsif (talk) 18:09, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Agree with both (though, FTR, game shows should almost never have LoE articles, IMO; same with talk shows). And this is not something that WP:TV should necessarily handle – it's better handled under the game shows working group (or whatever). Something similar should be done with the reality TV shows working group IMO. --IJBall (contribstalk) 20:41, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
In principle you're right about task forces. But the last time any message received a reply on the Game Show task force talk page was August 2016. This is the only place to get a range of opinions, have a discussion and form a consensus. - X201 (talk) 07:39, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

A discussion about this has been started on the article talk page. Opinions and comments welcome. - X201 (talk) 20:25, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

I'll comment there but I would agree that on non-reality game shows (The Wall, Jeopardy, Price is Right), we would never document the results of each individual episode. An individual winner may end up notable in context of the show or outside it (eg the exact Final Showcase bid in 2008 on TPiR, or Ken Jennings) and that can be documented that way, but we'd otherwise not include this. The only time this would be different, at least to me, are on celebrity editions of such shows, since they are usually playing for charities and its fair to document that. --Masem (t) 23:20, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Character Confirmation

Currently in the process of properly formatting Steph Song's filmography by splitting films and TV into separate tables. The series First Touch lists her as having played Dr. Anne Lee while IMDb lists her as having played a character Michelle who appeared in only two episodes. Doing a search yields nothing. There is nothing for references on the article. I will only add the character to the table when the correct one is confirmed. Thanks. Mr. C.C.Hey yo!I didn't do it! 05:45, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:KYTV (TV)#Requested move 18 April 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 10:21, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Image help

Hello everyone. I have been working on the Veronica Clare article for a possible FAC, and I would love to add an image of the show's star Laura Robinson. However, I am quite terrible with anything image-related, and I would greatly appreciate any help or advice on locating an image. Thank you in advance and I hope everyone is doing well. Aoba47 (talk) 20:49, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Came upon this article today... and, what even?? All the tables are using round borders and has badly formatted tables... I'm not sure how to go about cleaning this up at all. It apparently seems to be the doing of this IP back in November that was even blocked from editing for 1 month shortly after all their mass changes on the article (though the block may have actually been regarding something else).

Even if I were to just remove the {{round corners}}"; text for the tables, the tables formatting/layouts are still not the best whatsoever. I'm not quite sure how this should be tackled... is there possibly any 'easy' way to get this fixed/cleaned up?... (hoping so..) Magitroopa (talk) 13:54, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

My advice? Rollback to the version before the IP even got there. Then if any changes since then were actually useful, add those back piecemeal. --IJBall (contribstalk) 14:56, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
This is the last version prior to that IP's disruptive table changes- would likely go and remove all the flags in tables (MOS:FLAGBIO) and the tables would look somewhat 'normal' again...
My only issues regarding going back to that version would be things such as having this incomplete table for season 1, and removing all of the season 9/2021 info. This is not a series I watch, as I watch the American shows (not the Spanish ones), but hopefully IPs/users can properly readd that information.
And sadly, seems like the same sort of issues extend onto MasterChef Junior (Spanish TV series) and MasterChef Celebrity (Spanish TV series).... This should be fun... *Sigh* Magitroopa (talk) 15:15, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Time to depreciate TV.com?

TV.com has been long inactive and hasn't had any value as a website for several, several years now; with IMDB being vastly superior in terms of that type of website. I've noticed basically all the links are either dead, not loading, or the pages are just blank with no content. I don't think many Wiki editors are still actively adding TV.com as an external link, but I'm wondering if we should start scrubbing these links from the external link sections of the articles because they no longer hold any value. I'm wondering if a bot could be made, so it wouldn't have to be done manually. Also, would probably be a good idea to remove TV.com from MOS:TV.

To use The Walking Dead as an example:

Thoughts? Drovethrughosts (talk) 14:23, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

I'd want to see a wider check of TV.com links in a wider array of TV series articles. TV.com has only ever been acceptable as an 'External link' – if a substantial percentage of those 'EL' links still work, I'm inclined to leave things as is. (With maybe someone with AWB access going through an fixing "broken" TV.com 'EL' links like in the example above.) If, however, the entire TV.com site is actually dead (see, for example: Television Without Pity) then I'd support deprecation. --IJBall (contribstalk) 14:29, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Searched The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother and a couple of other shows that were the sort of ones I added it to as an EL in 2013–15. All dead for the show and episodes, though weirdly the cast pages all seem to be up. I would support mass removal of its use in EL sections by bot, to be honest. It's past its time, dubious even as an EL and superseded by IMDb and others. — Bilorv (talk) 18:07, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Here's a dozen more various links:

I came across some working links: the main pages for Bones and Community, but they take awhile to load, and clicking tabs such as "Episode Guide" lead to dead pages. The page for Succession (a more recent series) exists, but it's completely empty and void of content. All in all, TV.com is an inactive website (for awhile now), that is buggy, slow, and filled with dead link or pages with no content. Also, their main shows tab is empty and display nothing. Time for it to go in my opinion. Drovethrughosts (talk) 13:13, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

I was an admin on this site about 15 years ago, but I gave up on it about 10 years ago. Trust me, it's a waste of time now and should have been deprecated 10 years ago! Govvy (talk) 13:37, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

The result at WP:TfD was delete (very strongly, with way more participants than usual!). The TV.com templates are currently in the process of being removed and deleted. --IJBall (contribstalk) 16:55, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

I am surprised that this List of episodes is a feature list article. Since MOS:TV and WP:TV have long-standing general consensus that one season, especially just 13 episodes do not warrant a List of episodes article. Should this List of episodes article be merge back to the main article? — YoungForever(talk) 02:07, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

This has been on my list of things to do – I may have even mentioned it previously here... The answer is, "Yes, it should be merged back." But because it's a WP:FL, I think the best approach is to start a merge discussion on the Talk page, and put merge tags both there and at Awake (TV series). Give it about a month – if nobody objects to merging (with a compelling reason), then it can be merged back to Awake (TV series). --IJBall (contribstalk) 02:58, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:TV.com name

Template:TV.com name has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Frietjes (talk) 19:49, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

About series overview

Since when did Series Overview labeled as a subsection under the Episodes section on main articles for those without List of episodes is frown upon? This is stemming from this when an editor decided to remove Series overview subsection label out of nowhere claiming it is wrong/frown upon because MOS:TVOVERVIEW states that. I see nothing on MOS:TVOVERVIEW that explicitly said that. I also want to point out that fact that there are both with and without Series Overview labeled as a subsection on main articles for those without List of episodes articles are good television series articles. — YoungForever(talk) 13:38, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

That subhead is optional in circumstances like this. I tend to prefer including it if the 'series overview' table is longer than 3 seasons, and I tend not to if the overview table is only for 2 seasons. But there is nothing in the guideline about either including or not including a subhead in situations like this. So it basically comes down to local consensus. --IJBall (contribstalk) 14:11, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
You forgot to link User talk:Alex 21 § Clarification for series overviews. Since there's now two discussions on the topic, I'll copy-paste my comments here for those interested.
A series overview table is an overview of the entire Episodes section (hence series "overview"), meaning it should be at the top of the Episodes section without subsectioning it off. Episode tables are sectioned off, because Season 1 is separate from Season 2, but the table summarizes all the seasons. On a LoE page, being an "episodes" page, it summarizes the entire article, hence it having its own section, and being the very first section at that. For example, see how Arrowverse#Development doesn't have an opening subsection, because it all concerns the development, and there's only a new subsection when the development concerns a specific topic. In the same vein, we shouldn't use an opening subsection for a series overview, because it concerns all of the seasons/episodes, and there's only new subsections (i.e. season headers) when the episodes section concerns a specific season.
Also, being a Good Article is also of zero relevance. -- /Alex/21 21:36, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Yet, as IJBall stated above the subheading could be included or not included.
Also, by the way, Arrow (TV series)#Production has three subheadings including one directly under Production heading. — YoungForever(talk) 22:48, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
That's because each subtitle directly relates to the subsection it's in, one concerns just Development, one concerns just Design, and one concerns just Music. That was a terrible example. And it can be included or not, but do you or do you not recognize that a series overview summarizes the entire episodes section? And why are you discussing this in two places? -- /Alex/21 22:56, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
I am aware that a series overview summarizes the entire episodes section. And so what? Nothing on MOS:TV and WP:TV explicitly say that a subheading for the series overview is wrong. I am not discussing it in two places. I posted on here because there is a more centralized discussion. Your talk is just your talk and I did not started the discussion there. — YoungForever(talk) 00:28, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
And nothing state's it's needed, all you're doing is going around in circles here. It's been said so many times before that the WP/MOS's will never explicitly state such "rules", because we do not need to absolutely micro-manage everything in a television article, and thus bringing up that it's not included is a baseless argument. You can include/not include whatever you want, as long as you're aware of the common sense of the situation. -- /Alex/21 00:56, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal of Candice Brown

I started the merger proposal of Candice Brown at "Talk:List of The Great British Bake Off finalists#Redirect Candice Brown?" --George Ho (talk) 03:23, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

FLCR notice

I have nominated List of unmade Doctor Who serials and films for featured list removal. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Hog Farm Talk 02:02, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

TV infobox episode count source

I recently had a disagreement with another editor re: the need to cite a source in the infobox episode count parameter. Before looking at dispute resolution or third party opinion, I thought I would seek out information from someone who also participates in Wikiproject Television. The article is How the West Was Won (TV series). The other user tagged the episode count as CN. I noted that episode counts for the infobox come from the episode table. Noting this article's episode list table was not transcluded, I did that first and noted this information, thus removing the CN tag. A discussion ensued on the talk page, which resulted in a stalemate. There is no specific information in the Project that indicates the answer to this with specificity. It's extrapolated from the fact that (1) the episode count is derived from the episode table, and (2) the infobox template states only that a citation is specifically required when the production count and aired count do not match (which makes sense). I understand that Wikipedia does not cite itself. However, it's standard practice for infobox episode counts in TV articles to be derived from the episode table. Does an experienced TV Project editor have any insight on this? Butlerblog (talk) 18:59, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

I would just add that it is usually good to have the number of episodes sourced to a reliable reference within the article in a production or release section, and things don't need to be sourced in the lead or infobox if they are sourced in the article body. - adamstom97 (talk) 19:10, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
The major problem with that approach is the "number of production episodes" often ≠ "number of broadcast episodes". "Number of produced episodes" should definitely be reported in the 'Production' section, if sources are readily available for that. But there will be a non-trivial number of TV shows where that won't equal the number of "broadcast" episodes because of networks' penchant for combining two "production episodes" into a "single broadcast episode" with one set of credits. --IJBall (contribstalk) 20:20, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
It appears the issue in this case is whether the movie should count as an episode or not. That is something that should be determined by consensus. In general, I would say counting up the number of episodes is acceptable per WP:CALC, though there could be exceptions to this (hour-long episodes of a half-hour sitcom being counted as two episodes, such The Office (American season 4), for example). -- Calidum 19:47, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
This is the issue – if the "movie" was broadcast as a single program, with one set of credits, it should count as one "episode". In fact, I would argue that the The Office (American season 4) is actually handling this issue incorrectly – if it aired as a one episode with one set of credits, it's "one episode". This is exactly why episode tables also include Production Codes – this easily shows readers if "one broadcast episode" was actually made up of "two (or more) production episodes". --IJBall (contribstalk) 20:20, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
information Note: This issue is even more complicated if we're talking about a "backdoor pilot" (which I think might be the issue in this case) – I think a good argument can be made that a "backdoor pilot" shouldn't count as an "episode" at all, and should be counted as a separate "TV movie". --IJBall (contribstalk) 20:25, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
OK, yeah – this issue is that the episodes tables are counting the "backdoor pilot" as "episode #1" – in this case, I would not do that, and would renumber with "Provost Marshal" as "episode #1". Then, in the IB, you can put "28 episodes + 1 TV movie" or "28 episodes + 1 backdoor pilot movie" or something like that... --IJBall (contribstalk) 20:28, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Great info and insight. I think there's certainly the case for the pilot movie not being counted as an "episode" The Waltons as an example of this, the pilot movie is not numbered (neither are the reunion movies), and thus not included in the episode count. Doing How the West was Won the same way would remove the number from the pilot movie and make it 28 episodes. Butlerblog (talk) 20:46, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
I feel that if Wikipedia has a suitable and accepted episode table, and it is a conventional series, there doesn't need to be a citation. In fact, if it is a simple series, PLOT will apply. When there are arguable disparities it is an issue, and though there doesn't need to be a source in the infobox if there is suitable sourcing in the article, there should be reliable sourcing if counts could differ. Kingsif (talk) 23:32, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

The discussion is taking place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andrew Dismukes. Anybody interested are welcomed to participate. Thank you. Run n Fly (talk) 17:20, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

I've been having difficulty with assessing the edits that make up the International adaptations, Arabic version, and Other versions sections. In addition to these having no sources, it looks like vandalism to me with a lot of gibberish, either in English or whatever other languages are being placed there. Originally, this was just one section called Other versions, that was put in there starting in February. Given how that progressed, and seeing gibberish, I eventually decided to remove the section (which was also unsourced) [7], only to see the content return. Any thoughts on how to handle this one? MPFitz1968 (talk) 18:09, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Prose text not in English should be removed completely. Leave the table only. If and when the other versions have articles, they can expand it, but there is no reason to expand the US article with many other versions. --Gonnym (talk) 18:21, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 Done Removed the two sections that were in prose, and left the table for now [8]. Table looks like it needs to have some content trimmed (I don't know why the IPs inserting this stuff keeps repeating text, whether in English or another language). MPFitz1968 (talk) 18:29, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:List of American television programs § The table for the list seems to be broken. There's an immediate issue here, and then a more general concern I've had for a while. The "immediate issue" is that the table at this article may not be rendering with sortability properly on mobile devices – in general, I think the 'colspan' section headers within the table are highly problematic and may be contributing to the sortability issue. So if someone who is technically proficient (esp. with tables) has any ideas here, they would be welcome...
The more general concern I've had for a while is that I strongly think List of American television programs by debut date should be merged into List of American television programs, now that the latter has switched to a sortable table format (and the former has always been an unmitigated disaster of a "list" article!) – it would be relatively straight forward to convert the 'Aired Years' column at the latter into two 'Debut date' and 'End date' (or 'Last aired date') columns...
Anyway, if anybody cares to comment about either issue, please feel free. --IJBall (contribstalk) 17:13, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Multi-series overviews

In a table like Arrowverse#Television series, where we have links to the parent article and season articles, would it be beneficial to add a link to an episode list article for each series, where such a list already exists? Perhaps using something like |series=''[[Arrow (TV series)|Arrow]]'' <br /> ([[List of Arrow episodes|episodes]])? Would there be a better way? -- /Alex/21 02:57, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Unnecessary. Some editors seem to act like a "two-click" solution is some great burden on our readership. It's not. If people want to get to the LoE article, they can easily get to it from either the parent TV series article or one of the season articles. --IJBall (contribstalk) 03:53, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
The same argument could be applied to the season article links. -- /Alex/21 03:58, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Perhaps. But the table is already organized around seasons, so unless an entire redesign of the template is envisioned, it's fine the way it is. --IJBall (contribstalk) 05:20, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree that there probably doesn't need to be a change, especially for series where the list of episodes articles don't really have any content in them because that stuff is at the season articles. The only other thought I had was to link the number in the episodes column, but you would only want one link per season and that could get quite confusing. - adamstom97 (talk) 08:52, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
The same argument could be applied to the season article links, not sure if you meant what I think, but I always found it very strange that clicking on the number link in the "Season" cell of the series overview table (in a section such as Arrow (TV series)#Episodes) leads not to the season page, but to the List of episode page, where we don't even show the episode summaries. That's a pretty WP:ASTONISH and WP:EGG link. --Gonnym (talk) 11:17, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
I'm guessing it's because plenty of TV series don't have individual "season" articles. And, of course, it's also because it's generally transcluded from the LoE page where the series overview table is basically the equivalent table of contents to the sections within the LoE article. Again, at worst, that's a "two-click" solution: transcluded series overview table takes you to a section in the LoE article, which will contain a link to the individual season article at the top of that section – two clicks. --IJBall (contribstalk) 13:27, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Is this two-click thing a guideline I've missed? Just that it seems to keep coming up as a quoted thing. I see the usage of the linking in the case of series without season articles, but can also see the benefit of the series overview linking directly to the season article when they exist; if we already have a table of contents, we don't need to make a manual one as well. -- /Alex/21 13:34, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with two-clicks or even more, my problem is with bad links. The LoE article is the most useless of the whole set as it gives the least relevant information a user is seeking (since they clicked a season and the LoE doesn't have summaries). I'd rather the two-click be to get to that page instead of to the season page (but even then we don't need 2 clicks to reach the LoE, as it should be linked via the {{main}} template anyways). So basically, instead of doing includeonly List of Arrow episodes/includeonly#Season 1 (2012–13) the link should be Arrow (season 1) and everything works as is expected. In the LoE article, nothing is lost either, as the Series overview is right under the ToC anyways so section links are still there. --Gonnym (talk) 13:38, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
That sounds like trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. If the overview table is at the list of episodes article, it should link to the section in the same article that it is summarising. If someone clicks on the link from somewhere else, they will be taken to a section that lists all the episodes for the season plus a prominent link to further information if it exists and the reader is interested. - adamstom97 (talk) 19:20, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree with IJBall and Gonnym the List of episodes articles on Multi-series overviews are unnecessary as everything is already on the season articles and/or main articles. — YoungForever(talk) 22:46, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Awake (TV series) § Merging proposal from List of Awake episodes into Awake (TV series). — YoungForever(talk) 13:36, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The Nanny is one of those articles that has both a 'Characters' section and a 'Cast' section, so I'm looking for ideas/suggestions on how best to merge these sections into one... In fact, I'm looking for advice on how to clean up the article generally, as it's definitely not in the best MOS:TV shape it could be... TIA. --IJBall (contribstalk) 15:23, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

List of episodes where there's nothing but plot

List of Red vs. Blue episodes is (rightly) tagged for excessive size, but I originally merged everything into the main List of article because there's nothing out there in terms of sources. I mean nothing. There's absolutely no good reliable sources that can be used for recaps, or any good secondary sources for anything. In situations like this (a webseries) I guess the question is does it make sense to just either cut the entire thing down to just the list, or does it even make sense to have anything more detailed than a season listing (which could go in the main article?) Not like you could ever feature a list with so few opportunities for real sourcing. Would love some opinions from people not really familiar with it/familiar with dealing with web series. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 16:03, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

RvB is notable as series, and a list of episodes (ignoring the question of plot) is fair to include in such a notable series - and if that list is too large to include in the main article about the series, then splitting to a separate article is fair too (and while I question the huuuuuuge cast table, I do think the main article is too long to comfortably fit a plot-less list of episodes). But as a web series, with most episodes on 7 minutes or so, plot summaries should be extremely high level - like 100 words or less, one sentence blurbs and not full synopsis. --Masem (t) 17:17, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Some editors are, without reason, reverting my removal of unsourced, fansitey content. I'd like additional opinions on the matter. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:15, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Most viewed stub in this Wikiproject

RuPaul's Drag Race (season 13) 816,288 27,209 Stub--Coin945 (talk) 15:17, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers § Co-starring. Editors are needed to weigh in on this. — YoungForever(talk) 13:22, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Short descriptions

Please tell me that WP:TV has some sort of guideline or suggestions at least for how we should handle {{Short description}}s at TV series articles? Mostly what I've seen from this are examples like "American television series" or "American television sitcom", which seems appropriate for this. Something like this is very non-standard, and even goes against policies at WP:NCTV. Further I've seen people attempt to do some really not "short descriptions" at some articles – stuff like, for example, "1984–1989 television comedy that aired on NBC" type of thing.

So is there any guidance on how we should {{Short description}}s going forward? It would be good it WP:TV has some sort of consistent formatting with these. --IJBall (contribstalk) 15:47, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

It seems to be common practice to be the first line on the lead where it describe the genre(s) of the TV series. For an example, Name of the TV series is American legal drama television series created by John Smith. American legal drama television series is the {{Short description}} or sometimes the year when it premiered is added in the front like this 2020 American legal drama television series. — YoungForever(talk) 20:09, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
FWIW, I'm against even including years – {{Short description}} is supposed to be exactly that: "short". If we're going to do anymore than "American television series" or "British television series", it should be no more than 4–5 words total – I think "American drama television series" is actually preferable for this than "American legal drama television series" which is starting to get a lot less "short".... But, thanks – based on this, I will likely reword the one for Danger Force. --IJBall (contribstalk) 20:52, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
I've seen way too many people whose main activity is adding short descriptions en masse but haven't read Wikipedia:Short description's nutshell no more than about 40 characters. I don't mind "[year] television series", and WP:SDDATES seems to like it too, but it seems no-one understands the purpose is to help a mobile user (and, in the planned design revamp, desktop users) identify which of multiple pages they are looking for in the search bar. Just "television series" can do this in any case where there is no TV series of the same name (in which case, the title probably includes the years as diambiguators, which is then enough information). — Bilorv (talk) 10:39, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
I was never sure of the "limit", but I appreciate you finally quantifying the "40 character limit" thing – that does confirm what I was suspecting: even something like "American television drama series" is 32 characters, while "American legal drama television series" is 38 characters (right at the limit!), so the former is probably preferable as a short description, and 4 words maximum seems like a good general rule... As for years, that becomes more of a minefield for TV series than for films because you're pretty much obliged to need to do date ranges for TV series and something like "1984–1989 American television drama series" takes you over 40 characters (42, in this case). So, for TV series, I think years should be left out, unless explicitly needed to disambiguate from another series with the same title, and in that case you're probably stuck with just doing something like "1984–1989 American television series" (36 characters) as the absolute maximum that can be done. --IJBall (contribstalk) 14:34, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
Well, "1980s American television series" will work if there's a reason it's confusing without the decade (and the other TV show wasn't also in the 1980s—which would surely be a very rare case), but leaving it without a year is not something I would object to or try to "fix", and 4 words max is a fine rule (except for hard cases that would make bad law). — Bilorv (talk) 16:49, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
The problem with trying to use "decades" is that many TV shows "straddle" decades, so that doesn't really solve the problem. I'm still at we should generally leave years out of {{Short description}}s for TV show articles (we also try to avoid disambiguating by year under WP:NCTV as well), except in those cases where year(s) are needed to disambiguate from another show with the same title – and in the latter case, I would still advise going with a date range. --IJBall (contribstalk) 16:58, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
I don't see any wrong with no more than about 40 characters as it is for {{Short description}}. — YoungForever(talk) 21:05, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Ugly Betty episode articles

If anyone is looking for stuff to do, a lot (most? all?) of the Ugly Betty episodes such as In the Stars sections don't follow WP:LAYOUT or MOS:TV. Gonnym (talk) 11:10, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

At least the one you linked, doesn't really appear to need to be an article at all... - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:31, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
Most of them (and Desperate Housewives episodes, such as You Could Drive a Person Crazy) are like that, but I didn't really want to get 100s of red bells appearing when I log in... Gonnym (talk) 15:34, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
This is why we need to establish some episode notability article guidelines. There are a lot of episode articles that just contain a plot and nothing more. Sometimes, just copied and pasted from the season articles and/or main articles. — YoungForever(talk) 21:16, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Basic question

Should web series that don't get broadcast on any subscription or free-to-air channel be assigned this project? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:00, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

I think so, as it as been discussed on here Archived 2013-07-31 at the Wayback Machine before. --Historyday01 (talk) 02:47, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply, Historyday01 (although that link doesn't seem to lead anywhere?). I wonder if the words "such as web series", or "including web series" could be added to that first sentence on the main panel ("This is to guide the structure and normalize the standard of articles dealing with the Television medium and television series or other forms of episodic programs."), just to spell it out and avert further questions on this page? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:45, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I'd support that rewording. I've been assuming web series are in scope. — Bilorv (talk) 10:43, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
I'd support that rewording as well. --Historyday01 (talk) 13:26, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
I've implemented it, and let's see if anyone objects. — Bilorv (talk) 16:52, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, Bilorv and Historyday01. Hopefully that will also be helpful to others in the future too. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 10:19, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe task force, a joint task force between WikiProject Film and WikiProject Television, has just been created. Please join if you wish! - Favre1fan93 (talk) 18:40, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Help with draft article about YouTube Pride 2021

I have prepared a draft article about YouTube Pride 2021 celebrations User:Peony1432/sandbox. While on first look this appears to be a WP: Crystal Ball event, there are exceptions for well-publicized events that are newsworthy. I am hoping for input and advice from members of this project about how to improve this draft. I should disclose that I have a conflict of interest because I work for Google. Thanks Peony1432 (talk) 21:00, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

And the winner

for the longest ever article title goes too American Society of Cinematographers Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in an Episode Episode of a One-Hour Television Series – Commercial !! Govvy (talk) 10:35, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

This is a notification to 6 relevant wikiprojects. Most of the talk page Talk:High dynamic range, though it seems like a long-running discussion, is only the last day or two since I discovered the renaming and other things going on there, much of which I reverted pending discussion. Please see and comment if this area interests you. Dicklyon (talk) 02:03, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

WP:NMEDIA rewrite plans

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (media)/2021 rewrite. I know there's a move on to establish a separate WP:NTV and that section isn't being considered, but this is important enough for you know of (especially as some 20 people have contributed to those discussions in the last 6 months), and we'd appreciate feedback as we start the road of rewriting this for the purpose of seeking elevation to guideline status. Sammi Brie (she/her • tc) 01:54, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Netflix original upcoming series

Just a heads up that I've cleared out at ton of series at {{Netflix original upcoming series}} (comparison to previous version), per WP:NTV, draftifying series that have not yet commenced filming. -- /Alex/21 13:53, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, 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. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:56, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

This RFC is worth a look. One possible outcome is the deletion of hundreds or thousands of contestant progress tables project-wide. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:03, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Contributions welcome

New discussion at Template Talk:RuPual's Drag Race. Contributions are all welcome. Thanks --78.148.25.46 (talk) 06:42, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Steven Universe: The Movie § Split soundtrack into its own article. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:44, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

The 10 most-viewed, worst-quality articles according to this Wikiproject

  • 29 The Masked Singer (American season 5) 659,484 21,273 Stub Low
  • 32 Girl from Nowhere 547,478 17,660 Stub Low
  • 41 Doom at Your Service 451,882 14,576 Stub Low
  • 94 The Mosquito Coast (TV series) 315,266 10,169 Stub Low
  • 99 Innocent (TV series) 312,873 10,092 Stub Unknown
  • 115 Girls5eva 293,264 9,460 Stub Low
  • 185 Dark Side of the Ring 228,155 7,359 Stub Low
  • 238 The Pursuit of Love (TV series) 197,566 6,373 Stub Low
  • 255 Eurochannel 189,320 6,107 Stub Low
  • 262 Chupke Chupke (TV series) 185,697 5,990 Stub Low

(Not to mention numerous unrated articles)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/Popular pages--Coin945 (talk) 06:04, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/Tasks. This page is currently unused, but the project might find it useful (if it's used), in which case project participants may want to consider the case for deletion. --IJBall (contribstalk) 15:24, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Emmy Award winners

Would winning an Emmy Award meet (c) of item 4 of WP:CREATIVE? I'm not talking about a Regional Emmy Award, but one of the national ones. The reason I'm asking about this has to do with Draft:Todd Masters. There are lots of issues (possible COI, formatting, NPOV, etc.) associated with that draft, but Masters (if the draft is correct) has won multiple Emmys. There are some other things written in the draft that might indicate that he also meets items 1 and 3 of CREATIVE, but the main thing that stands out is the Emmy Awards. If Masters is unable to meet CREATIVE, it seems unlikely that he's going to meet GNG for his activities in other areas like his environmental work; so, I guess everything is riding on CREATIVE. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:26, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Emmys and International Emmys would qualify as "significant critical attention" I feel. Kingsif (talk) 13:58, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Star original programming

I noticed that Star (Disney+) has a lot of exclusive international distribution of American TV series. Is appropriate to call the list of American TV series Star original programming on {{Star original programming}}? The primary networks are American TV networks, not Star as Star is a just a secondary network. — YoungForever(talk) 19:28, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Probably not – "original programming" means they are producing it, not that they are picking up others' works and "distributing" it. --IJBall (contribstalk) 19:44, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
I was thinking the same thing. We don't call the List of Netflix exclusive international distribution programming as Netflix originals. — YoungForever(talk) 20:11, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (television) close to a site-wide RfC

If you don't have Wikipedia:Notability (television) on your watchlist, and have been unaware, some recent additions have been made by Kingsif to get this notability guideline very close to a site-wide RfC to (finally) implement. Some more discussion is occurring on that talk page regarding some small additions and rearranging in this discussion, so please join to add any more, pre-RfC thoughts. Thanks. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 18:17, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I'll try to look at this over the weekend. There are several things I would like to make sure get in there (like, for example, TV movies should not be presumed to be notable...). --IJBall (contribstalk) 18:26, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

U.S. TV ratings sources

With the hiatus of Showbuzz Daily, I have seen some articles cite SpoilerTV. I don't know how they have finals but apparently they do. I believe this is an unreliable source though, and it is odd to cite an article with "DarkUFO" as the author...

The only reliable sources that give final ratings are the Associated Press, which does a weekly top 20 viewers, and the Los Angeles Times, which is more a highlights of viewers than details for everything. None give 18–49 ratings. Should we resort to using preliminaries from Deadline, TVLine, etc. for shows that do not have their final numbers reported, and add a note or something? At this point I think something is better than nothing. With ratings so low nowadays it's not like there's that much difference between preliminaries and finals for most shows anyways. But for any cable show ratings, RIP. Heartfox (talk) 22:51, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

SpoilerTV is not a reliable source because the website is fan-operated as it stated on the About page of the website and anyone could submit a scoop on there. We could use Programming Insider, although they take a long time to release info on final ratings. — YoungForever(talk) 22:56, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
What do you think about using preliminaries if even PI doesn't report? Heartfox (talk) 22:57, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
I am against preliminary ratings as they are subject to change and give viewers the wrong information. Yes, there are some differences between preliminary ratings and final ratings, sometimes a lot more and other times not much. — YoungForever(talk) 23:15, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

There's really no reason why TVSeriesfinale can't be used for final ratings sourcing for shows until a better source becomes available. It's used as sourcing for ratings graphs on list of episodes pages for a great many shows. I don't know their update schedule but I think they have the finals within a few days to a week of each show airing. 81.96.245.175 (talk) 20:20, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I never understood why it is cited in those graphs anyways; it's redundant to the episodic citations and not really a proper source. TVSeriesFinale doesn't actually get ratings from Nielsen, they just copy from other sources. Right now that's most likely SpoilerTV, which itself is not an actual source either. But honestly at this point I think it's better to have something than nothing, so it might be better to just use it and then add a Template:Better source needed tag, so someone will replace the citation if/when better one becomes available. Heartfox (talk) 20:34, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
When TV By the Numbers became defunct, ShowBuzz Daily and Programming Insider became the only primary reliable sources for Nielsen ratings. Now, it is just Programming Insider as ShowBuzz Daily is still having technical difficulties. I do want to point out that Associated Press is a reliable source. TV Series Finale is definitely a questionable source because sometimes they claimed a TV series is canceled when it is not canceled yet and sometimes they claimed a TV series is renewed when it is not renew yet based on hearsays of "likely canceled or likely renewed". — YoungForever(talk) 20:55, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
The source has been used for TV ratings graphs on countless pages for many years. If the source is good enough for graphs and accepted by other editors for that purpose there's no reason why it can't be used as a placeholder. 81.96.245.175 (talk) 21:31, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
What I am saying is that, if/when better one becomes available, the better source should replaced TV Series Finale source. — YoungForever(talk) 21:39, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm also having issues with another editor on the Superman & Lois page when adding this source. For the record I only reverted him twice on the page. I don't know why I was tagged as "reverting" when initially adding the TVSeriesfinale ratings as a source to that page as I didn't revert anyone. But editting as an IP has its downsides I guess. 81.96.245.175 (talk) 21:35, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Why? I agree that TVSeriesFinale should never be used as a source. In fact, I'd say nearly all WP:TV regulars are likely to agree on this score. --IJBall (contribstalk) 21:40, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
If this is the stance, when is the mass takedown of ratings graphs on TV pages going to begin? They are sourced solely by TVseriesfinale. I couldn't do this myself as I'd get accused of vandalism. 81.96.245.175 (talk) 21:43, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
TV Series Finale is a questionable source even though it supposedly have a staff. Spoiler TV is definitely not a reliable source as it is completely fan-operated as it even stated on the About page. — YoungForever(talk) 21:48, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure if TVseriesfinale are Nielsen subscribers(Or who they source from) but they have always had accurate Nielsen ratings. I think a website that has had accurate Nielsen ratings since its inception is reliable. 81.96.245.175 (talk) 21:50, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Yowza. Looks like Showbuzz Daily is officially over now. Magitroopa (talk) 19:10, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Saw that coming a mile away... But this gets back to the question as to whether (U.S.) viewership ratings are even relevant anymore. (FTR, I argue they aren't, and probably haven't been since at least 2015.) --IJBall (contribstalk) 19:18, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
They won't be in a few years. TV shows post double digit percentage declines every year and can only do so for a little while longer before networks are forced to factor other viewing methods into the mix. 81.96.245.175 (talk) 21:01, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
The Showbuzz Daily website and its past ratings pages are still working for now. — YoungForever(talk) 19:36, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Is there a bot request that can add the archive urls? I think one did for TVBTN. Heartfox (talk) 19:46, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Bot requests. That sounds like a pretty standard request. Somebody probably just needs to put in the request. --IJBall (contribstalk) 20:06, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
I think WP:URLREQ have bots specifically adding archive urls. — YoungForever(talk) 20:57, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm sad to see the website go and think its a huge loss for the TV project pages. They offered readily digestable ratings quickly and freely. The only issue now is that we'll likely see an increase of folk posting preliminary ratings on pages until another source steps up to offer the "finals" in a quick manner. 81.96.245.175 (talk) 21:01, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
The problem with these sites though, outside of TVBTN (backed by Tribune), USA Today's weekly chart, Marc Berman, and the trade dailies, is that we've never been able to understand how these other sites do get their numbers. Some numbers I've removed in the past because they were literally sourced to comments sections by Disqus randos, and a few IPs persisted in adding comments-sourced numbers even into recent years for things like that time Destination America carried TNA and the numbers were hilariously low and below a margin of error, while CNBC primetime (which at least gets into the low 000s) got unreportable 'scratches'. I've never trusted TVSF or SitcomsOnline because I've had to clean up spyware from their cookies in the past. And also in 2021 when everything is literally on-demand and networks have said out loud despite a couple sites keeping up with the 'primetime horserace' that 'we don't bother with fast nationals the morning after', that those first-air ratings are completely unimportant. And since we've had dealings with Nielsen and their DMA definitions in the past, I've always been an editor leery of anything but reliable-posted numbers in fear of their lawyers hitting us yet again. Nate (chatter) 02:14, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
The trades are part of the problem. Networks have considered the fast nationals irrelevant for so long yet that's the only thing they report. That's also a good argument as to why preliminary numbers should be avoided in articles as they're misleading/not even taken seriously by network people. But the problem is the Associated Press weekly top 20 and Marc Berman/PI is all we have for finals now, and pretty much nothing for cable shows. Variety and The Hollywood Reporter stopped posting Live+7 DVR since the end of 2020 for whatever reason; all we have is Marc Berman/PI despite it being essential and without it articles make shows seem way less popular than they actually are. I have literally emailed multiple outlets about posting finals or something. Broadcasting & Cable and THR gave no response, and TVLine said they didn't have time... honestly some of these places deserve to shut down they are so useless. A lot of people give way too much credit to random sites as if they get the numbers themselves. An exception might be SpoilerTV as they posted a screenshot a few days ago of some of the numbers they received, so it looks like they actually get something, but it's not really a reliable source. I think Nielsen is introducing "cross-platform" ratings in a few years, so maybe coverage will get better then :/ Heartfox (talk) 03:54, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
Did anyone ever put in a bot request for the archive URLs?... --IJBall (contribstalk) 15:13, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
I've put one in. You can follow the bot request status here. — Starforce13 19:16, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I thought these thoughts from Bill Gorman(TV Grim Reaper) were interesting. [9] & [10] He seems to believe that these days no one actually pays for Nielsen ratings, he thinks they come from unauthorized sources. Do we actually have any evidence that SpoilerTV pay for access? The way ShowbuzzDaily abruptly poofed away would back up Bill Gormans thoughts. I mean, he did run the largest television ratings website in the world and would know all about the technical side of things. 81.96.245.175 (talk) 19:20, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

I think we should keep using SpoilerTV for now. What exactly made Showbuzz more of an RS than SpoilerTV? Is it considered unreliable because it's "fan-created"? If so, that's ridiculous. We should stick a "better source needed" next to ratings from SpoilerTV for now until we find a better source or find that SpoilerTV is just as reliable. wizzito | say hello! 21:22, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Fan sites aren't reliable sources, it's as simple as that. Why would not using a fan site be ridiculous? -- /Alex/21 00:07, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
SpoilerTV is entirely fan-operated and considered to be WP:USERG. The website do not have an editorial staff team. — YoungForever(talk) 00:45, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
Yet, people are adding those ratings from the site, I had to remove the ratings source from The Owl House episode "Separate Tides", because it is a SpoilerTV source. If people continue to add sources from SpoilerTV, I will make a disclaimer just in case. BaldiBasicsFan (talk) 17:37, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
Given it's our only option, Spoiler TV seems like a reliable source for ratings only, and I think we could make exception for, again, ratings only. Those are clearly coming from Nielsen, which is clearly reliable, just like with Showbuzz Daily, Programming Insider, etc. The data between Showbuzz Daily before the problems happened and Spoiler TV match exactly. However, Spoiler TV should absolutely not be used as a source for anything else, like renewals or cancellations. Amaury18:25, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
Only if they give a source as to where they got the ratings from. If SpoilerTV just list the ratings and nothing to back it up, then definitely not. If we're not going to use if for anything else, there shouldn't be exceptions. I've often noticed that SpoilerTV actually gets almost all of its upcoming episode titles correct, but we still don't use it. SpoilerTV is unreliable behind the scenes, so it fails WP:V and WP:RS, no matter its content (titles, ratings, etc). -- /Alex/21 01:10, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
It's right there at the bottom of each ratings post that the ratings are provided by Nielsen, just like Showbuzz Daily and Programming Insider. IMDb is used only for external links; otherwise, it's not used for anything else. This is no different. Amaury18:06, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
I very much agree concerning IMDb. We don't use it as a reliable source, as it's user-generated. Same goes for SpoilerTV. -- /Alex/21 23:01, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
You are intentionally missing the point, as always. While a lot of it is user generated content, the ratings are not. They come directly from Nielsen; this part is no different than Showbuzz Daily and Programming Insider. There is nothing that says that an entire website must be reliable in order to use it. It can be used if one section of it is reliable, but only for that section. So Spoiler TV should not be used at all to source something like cancellations or renewals, but absolutely can be used for ratings only. YouTube and Twitter are generally not reliable sources, but we have exceptions on when we can use them and use them to source stuff all the time. WP:ABOUTSELF, for one, if it comes from a verified account. Likewise, if there's an announcement for a new series, renewal, cancellation, series/season premiere date, or series/season end date. For this one, though, only if it comes from the verified account of the network or showrunner. Even if verified, we can't use cast members' statements since they don't speak for series. We can only use statements that apply directly to them only. This should be a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS thing, anyway. Amaury17:47, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
WP:ABOUTSELF is interesting, because after all of that, there's nothing about accounts being verified in it.
However, per WP:SOURCE, the "source" is not just the website (SpoilerTV) or the creator of the information (Neilsen), but also the publisher of it (the non-editorial fan-based team that runs SpoilerTV), and given their lack of reliablity, information from SpoilerTV cannot be considered a reliable source, no matter what it is. -- /Alex/21 23:37, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
And now there are multiple users either ignoring this discussion, don't know this discussion exists, or are simply believing two people saying two different things means that SpoilerTV can be used as a source for ratings. :/ Magitroopa (talk) 22:09, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm honestly on the fence about this one- but couldn't SpoilerTV possibly run under the same scenario as Rotten Tomatoes (particularly what it says at WP:USERG)?- "Although review aggregators (such as Rotten Tomatoes) may be reliable, their audience ratings based on the reviews of their users are not." If the ratings are coming from Nielsen like other sources and past viewership/ratings have been compared and match up, wouldn't that be similar to how RT is used on Wikipedia? Or am I missing something?... Magitroopa (talk) 22:26, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
FTR, this is not an issue I care much about. But... My issue here is what the IP points out, up-thread – how is Spoiler TV getting their Nielsen ratings info?! If they are actually Nielsen subscribers, then the fact that the rest of their site is WP:NOTRS is probably irrelevant, as they are legitimate subscribers to Nielsen and Nielsen's data (and thus can legitimately republish that data?...). The issue here is that, AFAIK, we have no proof that this site is actually subscribing to Nielsen. If they're not, where are they getting the ratings info from?! And, if they aren't subscribers, doesn't their publishing of Nielsen data qualify as a WP:COPYVIO?!... Until we can get an answer to this info – "Are they actually subscribers to Nielsen?!" – I don't think we can use them as a source. --IJBall (contribstalk) 22:34, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
If you scroll down the Disqus section at this article of theirs, you can see the website owner/author published a screenshot of the ratings that they get. It does appear they have legitimate access themselves, and are not copying from another site. My qualms with SpoilerTV is that the rest of the site is unreliable, and it's a bit weird for someone reading the sources of an article to see someone named "DarkUFO" cited. Maybe it should cite their real name Andy Page. No one thinks they're posting fake numbers, and they do have legitimate access, so I would also support—reluctantly, if no other sources for a particular rating are available (e.g., via AP/PI)—citing SpoilerTV and tagging it with Template:BSN. Heartfox (talk) 22:49, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Their numbers may indeed be "accurate", but if they aren't the subscribers paying for the data, then it can't be used regardless, because it would be a WP:COPYVIO. Nothing on the page you linked to convinces me that we can be sure that Spoiler TV is actually paying for that data, and not obtaining that data "by other means". (OTOH, if they are getting the data the latter way, it's only a matter of time until Nielsen catches on and their lawyers send a "Cease & Desist" warning...) --IJBall (contribstalk) 23:11, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Where's your proof Mitch Metcalf/Showbuzz Daily paid for the data? Is there website a copyvio? Why is it not taken down? They said they lost access to the data. Maybe it's because he was a former TV executive and probably still had access to the ratings. You don't randomly lose access to something when you're paying for it. Do you want SpoilerTV to show receipts or something?? They didn't just photoshop a screenshot. Your standards are impossible to meet. Heartfox (talk) 00:09, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I've found another source that uses Nielsen Data called Ratings Ryan. My only problem with this site is that it's a blog site. Just putting this out since theirs no consensus about sourcing SpoilerTV. kpgamingz (rant me) 00:43, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

They get their sources from SpoilerTV FYI. At the bottom of the ratings, it says Source: Nielsen Media Research via SpoilerTV. — YoungForever(talk) 00:47, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
Ok can we please get some consensus about sourcing SpoilerTV. It's been over a month since we had a RS for ratings. kpgamingz (rant me) 00:53, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
I would say the consensus is clear. There's too much contention on the use of the website, too many issues on reliability that cannot be agreed upon, and the fact that it's always been considered unreliable for any other content. -- /Alex/21 00:58, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
There are RS for ratings. The AP does a weekly top 20 for broadcast (although they forgot this week...), LATimes lists the top show per network per week, and Programming Insider usually publishes DVR, with cable most of the time. If all of those were to go away, there is still broadcast preliminary ratings which at least provide some context/viewership level. Heartfox (talk) 01:05, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

User:Gonnym User:Alucard 16 please see the discussion for merging a page here [11] and please see the sources there is no spin off it’s continued in same season. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.158.70.117 (talk) 11:57, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Can someone have a look at the cast, the list there seems overkill, I wasn't sure if it needed stripping down, how to handle it. Cheers, thanks. Govvy (talk) 08:26, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Q-Force (TV series)#Requested move 25 June 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Lennart97 (talk) 15:24, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I have done a discussion about the Johnny Test article getting split, as the "seventh season" may actually a different, separate series, according to what Netflix says. BaldiBasicsFan (talk) 18:48, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

del sort

I can see the alert list, but where is the simple del sort page? I have an AfD I wanted to add to the del sort. Govvy (talk) 07:41, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

@Govvy: Do you mean Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Television? --IJBall (contribstalk) 16:20, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
Thank you, I don't know why I can't see that on the front project page. Govvy (talk) 16:26, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Featured article review

I have nominated Degrassi: The Next Generation for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. ToQ100gou (talk) 02:30, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Showbuzz Daily replacement

For years we used Showbuzz Daily to find out how many views the premiere of a TV episode generated. Now that the website no longer publishes views, are there any other websites we can use to find the views of certain TV shows? 172.250.44.165 (talk) 05:52, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

There's a whole discussion on this above at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Archive 34 § U.S. TV ratings sources. -- /Alex/21 11:07, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Doomsday Prophecy at deletion

Additional viewpoints would be appreciated: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Doomsday_Prophecy. BOVINEBOY2008 13:03, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Introductory material for cast lists?

So, per MOS:LISTINTRO, I added an introductory sentence to the cast lists for Critical Role's first and second campaigns. I then thought to compare against the examples within MOS:TVCAST – only to find that there are no such introductions. I've self reverted my edits; but just want to ask if the lack of any opening sentence is an oversight, a case of WP:IAR, or project consensus? I had a very quick look through the archives here and at MOS:TV; but I couldn't find any relevant discussion with the search terms I used. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) Little pob (talk) 12:11, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

I think there is a case by case basis on that. For instance, something like List of Smallville characters has an intro, where has many cast lists within parent articles do not. I'm not sure it's a Ignore All Rules situation, especially if you read MOSTV#Cast where both examples say "followed by a brief description of the character". So, in effect you're getting a brief summary for each character as opposed to a section that is just a list of names and nothing else.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:45, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
@Little pob: I don't think you did anything objectionable there, and I think you should restore your edits. AFAICR, MOS:TVCAST makes no mention about this, which effectively means it's not "disallowed". As Bignole says, there are many cases where an "introduction" like this is not necessary, but in a case like this it's not a bad idea. --IJBall (contribstalk) 15:21, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Holiday Engagement at deletion

Additional perspectives are appreciated at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Holiday Engagement. BOVINEBOY2008 16:26, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

I want to question a source of this edit on Chicago P.D.. I don't think the source on it is reliable. BattleshipMan (talk) 01:54, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Regardless, that section is certainly arguably WP:UNDUE. --IJBall (contribstalk) 03:02, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Prodigal Son (TV series) § Catherine Zeta-Jones. Editors are needed to weigh in on this in order to reach a consensus. — YoungForever(talk) 13:28, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Editors are still needed to weigh on this discussion. — YoungForever(talk) 14:38, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Help needed with a featured article review

I attempting to address the issues brought up at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Nigel Kneale/archive1 in order to get the article back into a shape warranting keeping FA status. However, I'm just not that familiar with the subject, and I'm starting to get to the point where I'm at about as much as I'll be able to do. Any help addressing the issues here would be much appreciated. Hog Farm Talk 01:45, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

What's with the weird duplication? I can't see the where the second infobox code is! Govvy (talk) 17:39, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

@Govvy: This edit is the problem. --IJBall (contribstalk) 17:46, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
k, thanks for fixing. Govvy (talk) 18:49, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Template question

What exactly is the 'proper' usage of Template:End date? I would think (and have thought) that this template should only be used when there is an actual date to list (hence the syntax- {{End date|year|month|day}}). However, per Template:Infobox television season, the last_aired parameter says, "...While the season is airing, {{End date|present}} should be used."

On the other side, Template:Infobox television seems to disagree with this, saying that 'present' can be changed to the date the last episode aired using the end date template, and that the end date template should be used if the show is ended.

If one of these is the 'correct' usage of the parameter, shouldn't the one template (between Template:Infobox television season & Template:Infobox television) that is incorrect be fixed? Magitroopa (talk) 05:08, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Both of these mean the same thing, no? Unless I'm missing something. If the season/series is airing, "present" is used. If the season/series has concluded, {{End date}} is used. Whether the former is listed as |last_aired=present or |last_aired={{End date|present}} doesn't matter. -- /Alex/21 10:14, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
What I'm actually mostly curious about is what is going on behind the scenes in the template. If Y/M/D is put in it, we can see it brings back the correct date, but what happens when 'present' is put in the template? Is it just going, "Invalid date format" and bringing back whatever is shown in the template, or does it understand what 'present' means when put in it? My main thing about this is that the template is called end date so that a date can be listed in the template. I would have to agree with what IJBall says below, as 'present' is not really a date of any kind.
The template parameters are 'YYYY', 'MM', 'DD', 'HH', 'MM', 'SS', 'TZ', and 'day first', so I'm not exactly sure how using the template for 'present' is really beneficial at all. Magitroopa (talk) 18:31, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
I agree with the idea that |last_aired={{End date|present}} makes no sense ("present" is literally not an "end date") – it should simply be |last_aired=present. --IJBall (contribstalk) 14:47, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Per the template's documentation, it also emits dated microformats, so "present" is included both visibly and invisibly, the same as when dates are used. (You can see the generated HTML through your brower's Inspect Element feature.) What exactly it's used for would need further research. -- /Alex/21 01:22, 9 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 (d) 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 (d) 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)

 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) 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)

 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) TheDoctorWho (talk) 18:34, 19 July 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):

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 (talkcontribs) 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 (talkcontribs) 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 (talkcontribs) 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. – DarkGlow18:52, 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 (d) 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)

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 (contribstalk) 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 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)

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 (contribstalk) 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)

 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)

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)

Paraphrased from where? It's either you're really against copied material, or you just don't want episode lists to have summaires. 104.172.119.172 (talk) 15:53, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
Please see WP:CLOP – you can't just paraphrase published material: you actually have to write episode summaries completely in your own words. --IJBall (contribstalk) 16:28, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
I insists that what I wrote is in my own words. 104.172.119.172 (talk) 16:39, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
These summaries are close paraphrasing, which is a legal issue. Additionally, we don't write summaries in the forms of "teasers" so there would be lots of problems with this style of writing (e.g. "Can X manage to do Y?") even if there was no copyright problem. — Bilorv (talk) 16:40, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
Excuse me, but what are teasers? Also, how exactly are my summaries close paraprasing? They're just simple info regarding the plot of an episode. To prove that I didn't copy anything, I didn't use opinionated or non-neutral language. 104.172.119.172 (talk) 16:48, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't understand why users make summaries that are about less than 100 words. Even if the summaries created are in your words, they can be considered COPYVIO due to them looking like they are paraphrased from another website. COPYVIO or not, next time write summaries that are 100 to 200 words in length, per MOS:TVPLOT. BaldiBasicsFan (talk) 18:55, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

For some users, writing a summary is about telling the main topic of the story. For example, writing a synopsis about Cars 3 can be briefly stated as After sustaining injuries in a racing accident, Lightning McQueen ponders whether he should continue or quit his sport. One thing good about this writing is to avoid spoilers. If a user's synopsis shares one or two words with another synopsis, I'm sure the similarity is coincidental, and the user is not trying to copy the other. Come to think of it, I bet all or most summaries of Little Red Riding Hood would contain the word "Grandma" or "grandmother".
As for myself, I would never copy, paraphrase, or such. Only someone who never watch a movie or TV show would do those things. But in my case, I saw some episodes of The Chicken Squad, and I know what to write. 104.172.119.172 (talk) 03:30, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I believe they did this at Johnny Test (2021 TV series) as well — not unreasonable as a potential close paraphrasing, but the plot summaries were also poorly written with ambiguous constructs like [Johnny and Dukey] destroy deadly weapons to people who use them. First removal: Special:Diff/1034390733. –LaundryPizza03 (d) 07:10, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Unless you can confirm that a user got his words from another summary, you should assume that what the user added is his own. There's a rule in Wikipedia about assuming good faith. When did this "paraphrase" thing became a concern? It has been a standard to write brief synopsis in episode lists. 104.172.119.172 (talk) 16:09, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
That's not how it works, at all. We're suspicious of everything, and close paraphrasing has always been a thing. From how you use it in a sentence, I don't think you understand what it means. Kingsif (talk) 16:21, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
@LaundryPizza03: Yea, I saw the similar situation with that page, and yet the trolls would keep readding and paraphrased summaries because they think they're getting whatever they want, but it would get reverted. I have done mistakes in the past and I've grown since then. If the trolls are not listening, the more warnings they would get. Hopefully someday, their will be summaries that follow MOS:TVPLOT for both shows, but time will tell whenever that happens. BaldiBasicsFan (talk) 01:00, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

DirecTV spinoff from AT&T

Now that AT&T has spun-off DirecTV, and along with it, the streaming service AT&T TV (which is now known as DirecTV Stream, and I'm leaving aside my thoughts on how awful AT&T named their entertainment products), the infoboxes have been changed to reflect that, and now that the services outside of one word have the same name, but have already shared common channel lineups, I'm suggesting that (DirecTV/Stream) be used in whichever 'sat_serv_#=' entry in the infobox is used, saving us having to fill the 'iptv_serv_#=' field with a duplicative channel for Stream. Does anyone have any objection to this? Nate (chatter) 03:55, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Certainly not here, from the girl who has taken the axe to some of the cruftiest uses of Infobox television channel. Less is more. Sammi Brie (she/her • tc) 07:45, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

The Disney Family Singalong + Volume II + Holiday

The Disney Family Singalong, The Disney Family Singalong: Volume II, and The Disney Holiday Singalong are television specials which aired on ABC (United States) during the pandemic. The articles for these three programs have been nominated for merging. Discussion has been limited, so I'm hoping some other editors can weigh in. Thanks! ---Another Believer (Talk) 14:14, 8 August 2021 (UTC)