Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Law & Order task force

Importance Assessment Criteria

How are we assessing the importance of L&O related articles? I'm going to go out on a limb and say -- "top" for shows, "high" for lead characters, "mid" for less importance characters/guest characters who were lead for only a few episodes (ex. Nina Cassady), "low" for episodes? --Mûĸĸâĸûĸâĸû 21:59, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

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Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:20, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Anyone here???

I can tell that this task force is mostly inactive. Is there anyone that still watches this page? I think it would be great if we could get this project active again.--Edge3 (talk) 14:48, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I still watch it, but my edits are piecemeal. ;) I don't think there's enough interest to merit having an actual task-force on this topic. --Mûĸĸâĸûĸâĸû 18:11, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, well that's too bad. --Edge3 (talk) 15:52, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Updates to TV#MOS

I'm not sure how many people monitor WP:MOSTV or even WP:TV (the basic WikiProject for all of us), but we've been trying to get some feedback on additions to the TV Manual of Style. It largely has to do with the inclusion of "Overview" tables at the start of the page, the order in which season lists are presented (currently, there is no concrete order), and what is considered too much info for DVDs (i.e. should we be placing every detail about the box set in the article, from each interview to the aspect ratio, or should be keep it more generalized). Please see discussion at WT:MOSTV#Updates to the MOS. Thank you.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:09, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup and Consistency issues

I am currently reviewing (watching) all Region 1/USA Network L&O CI episodes. There are many missing and/or deleted articles and/or articles which need cleanup, particularly for consistency. I would like to propose some consistency and style guidelines for L&O episode articles.

• Every episode ideally ought to have an article. Otherwise episode links in the infobox and footer templates redirect to the season page, which breaks continuity. At the minimum, ensure anchors exist for each table row of the season synopsis sections and point to those so that links to non-existent episode articles will land on the appropriate table row. Ensure that episode links in infobox/templates link to episode articles (preferred) or the anchor tag to the correct row of the episode table in the corresponding season article (in the case that the episode article does not exist yet).

• Every episode article should be entitled "Episode Title (Law & Order...)". This will ensure consistency in article titling and reduce the necessity for redirects/disambiguations/renaming later on. See WP:NCTV.

• Because every episode ideally ought to have an article (due to the necessity of listing guest stars, among other infobox attributes), ensure the removal of {{notability}} tags on episode articles that have them. Because episode articles are under the purview of the L&O task force wikiproject and L&O namespace (see above), they should not be up for AfD unless they are really broken (and if so, try to fix it instead!).

• Needless to say, every episode article should have the corresponding and correct infobox (so far true for CI, not sure about others (main series, SVU, etc.)

• Every episode article should transclude the appropriate {>{L&O:XXX-seasonX}} template in its footer.

• Stylistically, the first subheading should be normalized to "Plot" and not "Recap".

• Stylistically, Guest Star listings should be in the infobox not the main article and guest star listings should appear in the order listed onscreen. (Currently true for CI but not true for main L&O series).

• Stylistically, episode plot summaries should attempt to relate the guest star to the character name in the plot, in as early an occurrence as possible: e.g. "John Doe (Guest Star Name) shot the food." This follows the style used in wikipedia movie articles. Because the infobox already contains wikilinks to guest stars, do not wikilink to the guest star reference in the plot summary; especially as some guest stars do not have wiki pages yet.

• Episode articles "Trivia" sections should be verifiable, and *not* transclude {{trivia}} templates

• TBD.

Cowbert (talk) 15:55, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I realize this is almost a year old but I am about to propose consistency guidelines for SVU so I thought I'd comment on this. I disagree that every episode ought to have its own page. A pragmatic reason would be that the vast majority of episodes do not have one right now and it would take a really long time to create 200. But more importantly, I highly doubt that enough behind the scenes information exists even if you watch all the special features on all the DVDs and read all the entertainment news sites. The directors and producers don't have an infinite amount of time to spend giving interviews so they make choices and this means that most of us don't get to hear the creative decisions that went into our favourite episodes. Other than the episodes that they choose to discuss thoroughly, I think the only substantial piece of information that you could put into an episode article without repeating the show's main page or the season page is a longer plot summary. This is not really a great reason for starting a Wikipedia article. At the very least, I would first put that information into the L&O Wikia site. That site does have dedicated pages for every single episode but they are in very bad shape. Connor Behan (talk) 20:35, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

SVU Season page consistency

The season pages for Law & Order: SVU are quite inconsistent. I'm sure the season pages for the other shows are as well, but SVU is the one I know enough about to edit.

• In seasons 1 and 2, "recurring cast" is its own section. In every other season page it is a subsection of the "cast" section. I assume that I should make seasons 1 and 2 conform to the others.
• When listing main actors, the order should be the same order as the show credits. What about when listing recurring actors? Should they be in alphabetical order or by order of appearance? (I am aware that an actor who appears once in a season is a guest star for that season even if he or she appeared in several episodes of a previous season)
• There seem to be four methods of listing the guest stars associated with an episode:

1. The bottom of the box says "Guest stars: X, Y and Z".
2. The bottom of the box says "X, Y and Z guest star".
3. The box parenthetically indicates who the guest stars are in the descriptions and concludes with a list of guest stars who still haven't been mentioned. For example "Casey Novak (Diane Neal) returns as a prosecutor to face a formidable opponent (Terrence Howard) in the court room. Joanna Merlin also guest stars."
4. The box indicates guest stars parenthetically but does NOT mention the ones leftover at the end.

I need to make sure only one style is in use. Cowbert has indicated that it is proper to use brackets so I think method 3 or 4 is the best. The articles for season 9 and onwards tend to use method 4 so I think I should convert them to use method 3.

• Some episode boxes make a point of saying that a recurring actor appeared in it in addition to whatever guest actors appeared. For example, season 1 keeps mentioning that Abbie Carmichael showed up. I think this needs to go.
• Some episode boxes include bullet points for trivia. For example "One of the few episodes to have a parental advisory", "Ice-T's wife appears", "Tamara Tunie's first appearance as M.E. Warner", "Based on the DSK case", etc. Should I put in more of these or take them out and move them to other sections that deal with production instead?
• The season 8 and 10 pages have virtually no information on casting, production or airing and simply function as episode lists. I plan to add background information.
• Seasons 13 and 12 have separate sections for "development" and "cast changes", season 11 simply has one section called "development and cast changes" and all other season articles have no such sections. They just put what information they have in the header. I want to add information to the season pages until they all have "development" and "cast changes" sections.
• 11, 12 and 13 have "guest star" subsections of the "cast" section that talk about the guest stars in prose. 6, 8, 9 and 10 have "guest star" subsections that simply list the guest stars. The other season pages have no such subsection. I think all season pages should be edited so that guest stars are discussed in prose.

That's all I can think of right now. Does anyone have opinions on what I plan to do? Connor Behan (talk) 21:10, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Point 1: Agree!

Point 2: Agree!

Point 3: 4 seems more appropriate, than 3, because if we were to mention Joanna Merlin, for example, we would also need to list the other guest stars in the particular episode, which we both know, is usually 5+ people.

Point 4: That is true, however, in Carmichael's case, she's not only a recurring character, rather a "crossover" character from Law & Order.

Point 5: It's fine to include a few points, in the episode's section - however, not too many.

Point 6: Yes Please!

Point 7: Okay yepp, that's fine.

Point 8: I tend to agree, however, in some cases, especially early seasons - it's not possible to have large slabs of information on cast changes; production; reception etc., due to the fact, that there aren't many sources for early seasons. Post season 9, there has been a lot of coverage on the show, but prior, a lot less. -- MST☆R ^{(Chat Me!)} 07:52, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

That took forever but I think my first pass of seasons 1-13 covering points 1-5 is finally done. I will try to cover points 6, 7, 8 on my second pass! Connor Behan (talk) 07:20, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

As season 14 is not my favourite, I have stopped watching the show for awhile and cannot say when I'll catch up. Therefore I consider this project to be done. If you object, feel free to complain here and I might change my mind. If not, I wish L&O editors all the best in making the season pages for 14 and onwards consistent with the conventions above. Connor Behan (talk) 19:49, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

L&O:LA

I was wondering if someone could split Law & Order: LA episode list section to list of Law & Order: LA episodes / list of Law & Order: Los Angeles episodes -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 06:29, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

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Closing inactive task forces

I invite editors to join the discussion at WP:WikiProject Television to close inactive task forces, including this one. Gonnym (talk) 12:10, 10 July 2021 (UTC)