Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)/Archive 9

Episodes with the same name in revived series

In cleaning up the Outer Limits episodes, I came across a small curiosity. Several episodes of the original 1963–1965 Outer Limits were remade in the 1995–2002 series: specifically, I, Robot (1964 The Outer Limits) (remade in 1995), Nightmare (1963 The Outer Limits) (remade in 1998)), and The Human Factor (1963 The Outer Limits) (remade in 2002, but doesn't yet have a page). I renamed those pages on the pattern of the only other similar case of which I was aware, The Hand of God (1978 Battlestar Galactica) and The Hand of God (2004 Battlestar Galactica). However, the years used in that case are the years in which the respective Battlestar Galactica series debuted, not when the specific episodes aired (the original "Hand of God" aired in 1979, and the recent one aired in 2005). I thought that the year of actual broadcast made more sense for the Outer Limits episodes, but the disambiguation still seems awkward to me, so I thought I'd raise it here. What do we think is the best way to handle cases like this? (I don't know if there are any others, but there might be, perhaps in animated series which have had multiple incarnations, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Batman.)

The question is connected with the matter of how best to distinguish television series with the same name. I've never been particularly happy with the use of "initial year" as the disambiguator for an ongoing series or one that ran for several years, but there are cases in which it seems like the least bad option (such as the current Robin Hood series, which can be found at Robin Hood (2006 TV series)). Does anyone have any bright ideas about disambiguating series with the same name, or the specific odd case of episodes with the same name in series of the same name? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Best tp be consistent, if you'll forgive the further abuse of that term. I would recommend using a comma, though. As in The Hand of God (Battlestar Galatica, 2004). Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 08:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Convention at the moment does seem to be the use of the debut year for differentiation, and I admit it looks better than the other options, such as using the terms "Original" and "Re-imagined" (both of which are in and of themselves likely to be subject to controversy). The only other possibility would be putting the range of years each series ran, which would look even worse aesthetically and still only give the series, rather than year aired. I wouldn't be adverse to Ace's suggestion, above, though, putting the year second rather than first. --BlueSquadronRaven 08:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

What about just The Hand of God (2004 episode)? Personally I like the least amount of disambiguation - in cases where (Battlestar Galactica) doesn't cut it, using the year would. Sure, some of the episodes would use a different disambiguation technique than others but who cares? Back to the original months-old debate, disambiguation is the key, not title aesthetics. —Wknight94 (talk) 12:20, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

This is the way it is done with movies (see e.g. Bedazzled) so it seems it would be the most consistent with standard Wikipedia style. -- Chuq 12:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Dab vs. non-dab

I'm thinking of splicing the article in disambiguation NC vs. article, cat, template title NC The index would then become something like this:

1. Terms and Abbreviations: TV vs. television, season vs. series, program vs. programme vs. show vs series
2. Italics when using a Program name within articles, and quotes for an episode name within articles.
3. Common names for articles: List of, Characters of, Season 1 of etc
4. Common names for categories and templates
5. Dab: mostly current content of the page

I would also like to highlight the "Only dab when necessary"-part by making it bold. Are there any people who think these suggestions are a bad idea ? -- TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 15:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

We've come to find "necessary" a bit subjective. Try, "don't disambiguate when there is no ambiguity" or "don't disambiguate for aesthetic purposes." Alternately, you could spell it out with, "Don't disambiguate when there is no ambiguity; don't disambiguate for aesthetic purposes. If the name of a series, episode or character is the only known use of that word/phrase/term/title or collection of words, do not disambiguate. See Wikipedia:Disambiguation for more information." I fear that this point can never be driving home enough. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 21:26, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

We may want to make sure that the reasonings behind these guidelines are spelled out. I'd like to avoid arguments about changing the guideline from people who don't understand the guideline, such as "It's just a guideline and I think it looks better this way". Jay32183 21:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

What would you suggest? Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 22:01, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure, because the existing guidelines all seem to make sense to me. But I'm sure some one will get confused sometime and complain. The only place in the existing guidelines I could see that confusion arising is the "originating country" for "program vs programme". Some people may interpret that as filming location rather than country of production or country of initial broadcast. I guess for anything else we'll actually have to wait for some one to complain. Jay32183 22:18, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

24 (season 3)

I was looking at the main article and noticed this particular example... Now (season 3) implies a dab within wikipedia article naming usually. However, this isn't really a disambiguation issue is? Shouldn't the article be called Season 3 of 24 or something like that? what do you guys think ? TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 16:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

"season 3 of 24" sounds a bit like your talking about the 3rd season out of 24 seasons. --`/aksha 01:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

This is semantics, and borderline unimportant. I can suggest "24's third season" or "24 season 3", but I really don't see the point. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 01:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

In this specific case indeed a slightly different wording of the articlename may be appropriate, but there are more (season #) articles beyond this specific example :D TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 02:32, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Smallville (Season 2) as another example. Smallville season 2 just looks weird for some reason. – Þ  05:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

How about "24 3rd season" / "Smallville 2nd season" ? -- Ned Scott 05:51, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I honestly don't think it matters much, and I don't think it's that important for shows to be consistent with each other in this way. I'm fine with how it is now, with parenthesis. The only thing I really care about is that the show title comes first (as opposed to "season 3 of 24"). If it reads funny without parenthesis, what about other punctuation like "24: Season 3" or "24 - Season 3"? --Milo H Minderbinder 14:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

24 (season 3) looks backwards to me. We aren't talking about the season 3 kind of 24, we're talking about the 24 kind of season 3. If we keep using parentheses I think it should be Season 3 (24). The other suggestions for are good too, except the one that was already pointed out. Jay32183 17:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Each season the name of the series is the same: 24. I suggest 24 - Season 1, 24 - Season 2, etc. or 24 - Day 1, 24 - Day 2, ... --Serge 21:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I like 24: Season 3 or 24, Season 3 most I think. Note that the latter is citation style. Much like "The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, Second Edition" when you reference a book. It would be the most official style i guess. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 05:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, what you are anyone else "likes" is not relevant. The question is what is the common/least confusing name. Look it up at Amazon and you will find, 24 - Season Five, etc. --Serge 05:16, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I renamed them per WP:BOLD. --Serge 05:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

While I'm fine with the renaming, it's not really that clear cut which is the most common/least confusing. The fox 24 website uses Season 6, not "six" (amazon isn't the best source for names although it's a decent second opinion). Sometimes it does come down to what the editors "like" (consensus) - in this case I don't think it really matters as long as people can find the articles (redirects for other versions) and we stick with a decision. --Milo H Minderbinder 13:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. series - Season Five for instance uses capitals, something which we usually try to avoid. Also ER - Season Twenty-one would probably be less desirable then ER - Season 21TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 13:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

We were trying to establish generic guidelines here, not a rename specific to 24. I was trying to find where your rename was, before I figured out that your rename has been undone, because it did not follow the current Naming Conventions. :D Let's try and create a proper guideline first. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 13:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to quibble about 24 - Season One vs. 24 - Season 1 (I have a slight preference for the former), but can we at least agree that 24 (season 1) has to go, and that 24 Season One (no dash) is off the table? --Serge 18:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

What's the big objection to parenthesis? It's what is recommended in the guideline right now and a number of series seem to be using it already. --Milo H Minderbinder 18:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

My objection is that it's not how each 24 season is generally referred to. I think 24 might be an exception, in that each season is a distinct story. 24 - Season One is actually the name of one story. 24 - Season Two is the name of another distinct story (which has alternate names, including 24 - Season 2 and 24 - Day 2, but generally not 24 (season 2). With most TV series, each episode is a standalone story. With 24 this is really not the case. Watching just one episode of 24 in the middle of a season is like stepping into a movie theatre in the middle of a movie that you've never seen, for 10 minutes. --Serge 18:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

If people refer to "24 season 2" I think it's just a matter of taste how it's punctuated. It seems a bit pedantic to insist that "24 (season 2)" is really that different from "24 - season 2" or "24: season 2". All are perfectly clear what the article is referring to and arguably just as likely to be searched for. --Milo H Minderbinder 18:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm talking about how people commonly refer to it in writing (in articles, reviews, on products, etc.), not when speaking (which is what you seem to be talking about). Also, the use of parenthesis in Wikipedia implies disambiguatory information, and that the name of the subject of the article is outside of the parens. But in this case the season specifier is part of the name of the subject of the article, not additional information added for the purpose of disambiguating from other articles with the same name (which is the case for 24 (TV series), the article about the entire series). --Serge 19:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

If your main objection is that it looks like disambig, I'm not sure why you're not proposing changing the guideline and renaming all articles that use (season 3). --Milo H Minderbinder 20:00, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not proposing a guideline change for all series because I'm not sure that for other series that it's not simply disambiguatory information. I don't think very many people see ER (season 3), for example, as a distinct story/entity in the way that 24 - Season Three is most definitely a distinct story/entity. I suspect distinguishing 24 from other series where the seasonal division of episodes is more for arbitrary temporal reasons than story cohesion reasons (that do apply in the case of each 24 season) makes sense. --Serge 20:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm just not buying that it's anything more than an aesthetic preference. Anyone else want to weigh in? --Milo H Minderbinder 20:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Well if you read the first part of the discussion "I was looking at the main article and noticed this particular example... Now (season 3) implies a dab within wikipedia article naming usually. However, this isn't really a disambiguation issue is? Shouldn't the article be called Season 3 of 24 or something like that? what do you guys think ? " Then yes it's about the fact that this implies Dab, and we should change the guideline and use some other aesthetic pleasing and readable form of doing this. Everybody so far seems to agree on that part, it's the exact form that's under debate (at least that was my impression). TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 21:00, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Milo, have you ever watched 24? The reason I ask, and why it's relevant, is that it might be difficult to appreciate how a 24 season is distinct from most other TV series seasons if you've never watched it (and I don't mean an episode here and there). --Serge 21:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand me. I don't disagree that the seasons of 24 are more distinctly separated than most shows. I just don't agree that it warrants a different style of punctuation than other shows. --Milo H Minderbinder 21:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

And, so, you don't seem to fully appreciate the significance of the difference. Hence my question: have you ever watched 24? --Serge 21:42, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I've seen every episode. I fully appreciate the significiance of the difference between seasons. I just don't agree that a difference in punctuation indicates anything beyond a difference in punctuation. --Milo H Minderbinder 22:03, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, there is some truth to your objection. In order to really convey the difference we should probably name the articles 24 - Day One, and so forth. --Serge 22:13, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I oppose to 24 - Day one And i tell you why. It's a type of designation that is too topic specific. You need to have SEEN the show and even then you need to be so into it that you understand that a "Day" in 24 terms corresponds to a Season in normal Television world. I dare say you could consider it as 24-slang.. It's confusing and without need. It can perfectly well be explained within the article and I believe already is. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 22:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

What is so difficult to comprehend? Each season has its own name... Day One, Day Two, etc. That is the name of each season. As long as each article explains it, which they do, it adds clarity. I've made a Requested Move accordingly. We can debate it at Talk:24 (season 1). --Serge 23:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I think his objection is that a casual reader who is unfamiliar with the show might not understand that Day One means season one. Season One is going to be clear to everyone. I'm not sure why you think it's so important that the title convey that seasons are more contained than they are on other shows - can't the articles themselves get that across? --Milo H Minderbinder 23:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Anything that can be easily explained in the first sentence of an article is not much of a concern, if you ask me. 24 (season 1) would still redirect to the article. I think naming the 24 seasons just like any normal TV series is actually disinformative, if you will. It's more effective to answer a question that the name itself raises, rather than raise the question and provide the answer in the text itself. A casual reader is more likely to miss the latter. --Serge 23:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Parentheses have a substantive difference

I don't particularly care about these particular shows, but the people making these arguments ought to be aware that there is one way in which using parentheses is not "mere pedantry" with respect to other options. There is an actual, substantive difference in the way they can be used in links, based on the way our software is set up. For example, if you use [[Smallville (season 2)|]], what you see is Smallville (look on the normal page, not the edit page). Gene Nygaard 13:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The Little Rascals (TV series) --> The Little Rascals (animated TV series)

When this naming convention was first set in place, this article was moved to The Little Rascals (animated TV series). Psychonaut3000 (talk · contribs) saw fit (twice) to move to article to The Little Rascals (TV series), a confusing title considering people would very likely wonder why the article isn't about the live-action Little Rascals series (that series is properly covered at Our Gang). I propose to move the article back to The Little Rascals (animated TV series) for the sake of directness. PS: I read the blurb above about not posting move requests here, but if I posted this on the article's talk page, it would go very much unnoticed. --FuriousFreddy 05:31, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

We do the same thing at WP:ANIME with many shows, where they are "Show Title (anime)" rather than "Show Title (TV series)" to help avoid the confusion between live-action versions (which are increasing for anime). I think it's about time this page reflect that type of logical exception for animated shows. -- Ned Scott 05:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense to me in this sort of case. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:45, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Two episodes with the same title

What do I do if there are two shows that have the same episode title? Both Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) and Yu-Gi-Oh! GX have episodes titled "The Darkness Within". The TMNT one was made first, but do I put (TMNT 2003 episode) on the side of it? "The Darkness Within" will redirect there still... Matty-chan 12:51, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Both those episodes already have articles, The Darkness Within and The Darkness Within (Yu-Gi-Oh! GX) so you don't need to do anything. — AnemoneProjectors (talk) 16:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, unless there's an argument I'm unaware of saying that the TMNT episode is the primary meaning of "The Darkness Within", I'd say that the TMNT episode should be moved to The Darkness Within (TMNT 2003 episode) and The Darkness Within should become a disambiguation page. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:44, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't really think there's a need for that. I'd always thought disambiguation was only used when there was more than 3 items. If there's only two items, then don't we just use disambiguation links at the top of the article (the "this article is about...for the...see...etc line)? --`/aksha 10:36, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I generally agree. In the current setup, 50 percent of the people that type "The Darkness Within" in the search box will go immediately where they want. The other 50% will need to make one click to get where they want. With a two-item dab page, everyone will have to click once after the search. I always prefer dablinks over dab pages by default, esp. with only two items in question. —Wknight94 (talk) 12:55, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I just made The Darkness Within (TMNT 2003 episode) a redirect to The Darkness Within, as suggested by our guideline. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:04, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I was actually thinking that "The Darkness Within"'s primary meaning shouldn't be a TMNT episode, especially since the other meaning is an episode of another show. But I guess it would work if someone did want the GX episode they could click it. But if something else called "The Darkness Within" turns up, we should make a disambiguation page. Matty-chan 14:07, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

No doubt. And, if you really think there's a 50-50 split, this wouldn't be the first ever two-item dab page. Just stating my personal preference.  :) —Wknight94 (talk) 17:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee has spoken...

...and the arbitration case relating to this convention has closed. The Committee has found that a consensus was reached to disambiguate episode titles according to the general principles at Wikipedia:Disambiguation (that is, not to place suffixes indicating the series after episode titles, unless there is another article that would share the name). The Committee has also ordered that administrators participating in discussion should close completed policy discussions, so accordingly I am announcing that the discussion of the episode titling guideline is closed. As the Committee noted, the discussion following the poll held in November reached a consensus; the guideline page already reflects the decision reached. Details of the discussion can be found in the archives of this page, beginning here and continuing here, here, here and here (whew!). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:56, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

An official declaration for what most of knew two months ago. How unfortunate. Thanks Josiah. —Wknight94 (talk) 05:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank goodness! I have a nice bottle of cider I'm going to drink in celebration now.--BlueSquadronRaven 20:52, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

It's finally over. Glorious. To that end, I think you all will be seeing less of me here. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 05:04, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Ditto here. I was even thinking of finally taking this thing of my watchlist. But it's been floating at the top of my watchlist for so long i think i'd miss seeing it there. =P --`/aksha 09:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd just like to again point out that concensus can change, and this topic will almost undoubtly be brought up again. I'd also like to point out that the Arbitration never touched the real issue, the apparent ownership of articles by this wikiproject, and the interaction of this wikiproject with other projects that came to different naming conventions than you did. EnsRedShirt 09:21, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

This is not a WikiProject. It is a centralized location for discussion of Wikipedia guidelines, open to any Wikipedian. As such, it takes a wider view than any WikiProject can or should. In her evidence, Elonka did raise the issue of WikiProjects which had previously established different naming patterns. I hazard that the fact that the Arbitration Committee affirmed the consensus reached on this page, and did not see fit to mention the guidelines developed by WikiProjects, may be interpreted as a validation of the perspective that WikiProjects are subject to guidelines established by the larger community. Now, the members of affected WikiProjects were invited to join the discussion here on several occasions, and many of those members did so. Their contributions were and still are welcome.

You are, of course, correct that consensus can change — however, I hope that if and when this topic rears its head again, it is with a fresh perspective and fresh arguments, rather than recycling the ones that failed to gain any traction before.

Also, if you felt that ownership issues were the "real issue" in the dispute, you should have mentioned it while the case was open. You can hardly blame the arbitrators for not addressing an issue which wasn't even raised. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 09:43, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

As why I didn't participate in the arbitration the format of the proceedings was confusing to me at best, which page should I go to, should it be a talk page or the main case etc.. I hope that the process may get streamlined in the future. Thank you for the link you left on my talk page. EnsRedShirt 10:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

There's some discussion of the implementation of the case at WP:AN#Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Naming Conventions, which may be of interest. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 10:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I am glad of this :) Illyria05 (Talk • Contributions) 22:07, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Season one

Seemingly a spinoff of the 24 discussion above and on the 24 pages, Serge has redirected (and in most cases created) articles like Season One‎ to point to the respective season of 24. It seems like an odd choice since there are hundreds if not thousands of shows with a Season One. This especially seems questionable in cases where there were already articles with that name (without disambiguation) such as Season One (Suburban Legends) and Season 5 (album). The logical solutions seem to either make huge redirect lists on each, or just not have articles with those names (especially since doing that would be an obvious redlink if someone did that by accident). At least one artlcle of this sort was previously deleted: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Season 2 Opinions? --Milo H Minderbinder 21:33, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Since when is it an "odd choice" to redirect a name in Wikipedia to the article that that name is clearly most commonly used to refer to?

I did not create articles; I created redirects for the seasons that were missing. There is no other TV series besides 24 for which each of its seasons are nearly or as commonly known and as often referred to as Season One, Season Two, etc. The name Season One is much more commonly used to refer to the first season of the series 24 than it is used to refer to the DVD by Suburban Legends, which is little known. The name Season 5 is much more commonly used to refer to the fifth season of the series 24 than it is used to refer to the little known album. As for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Season 2, that had to do with a different TV series with little known seasons. Speaking of season two, consider these google results:

Results 1 - 20 of about 1,150,000 English pages for "season two" 24.
Results 1 - 20 of about 1,210,000 English pages for "season two" -24

Note that references to season two of 24 are almost equal to the total number of references to "season two" that does not include 24. For season five, the number of references to 24's season 5 actually outnumber the combination of all non-24 references to "season 5":

Results 1 - 20 of about 619,000 English pages for "season five" 24
Results 1 - 20 of about 471,000 English pages for "season five" -24

Since anyone searching for "season 5" (or "season 1" or "season two", etc.) is most likely to be searching for the corresponding season of 24, it seems pretty logical to me to have those names redirect to the corresponding 24 seasons... No? --Serge 23:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

It's an odd choice when there isn't one that's clearly the most commonly used, and potentially hundreds it could apply to. And google isn't the best test for this, particularly since your searches won't just find articles about the show 24, but about other shows that mention the number 24 (episode 24, age 24, 24th of the month, times that include the number etc). --Milo H Minderbinder 23:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you disagree that it's relatively unusual to talk about particular seasons of any TV series? Tell me, what did you think of Seinfelds's 3rd season as compared to their 5th? Did you think Mary Ann was more believable in the first or second season of Gilligan's Island? How often do you hear such questions? But when it comes to 24, it all about the seasons. Each one is a distinct entity that is commonly and often referred to independently. Do you really disagree? If you don't like my google results, then consider:

Results 1 - 20 of about 164,000 English pages for "season two" sutherland

Can you find any TV series star whose relatively unique last name, with "season two", produces even half of this 164k count for "season two" combined with "sutherland"? --Serge 23:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I do disagree that it's unusual to talk about seasons (and even if it were unusual, 24 certainly wouldn't be the only show). Google results vary depending on what you search for (and Kiefer isn't the only sutherland out there). Searching for "season 2" sutherland=294,000, "season 2" longoria=579,000, "season 2" aniston=750,000. Are we going to do searches for each season for every popular show we can think of and assign different redirects and different seasons to different shows? --Milo H Minderbinder 00:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I consider this being a WP:POINT by this 24 fanboy that goes by the name of Serge. He should be careful because this is the stuff that gets people blocked at one point. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 03:24, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that. Although I think it is a bit strange to assume "Season One" is strongly associated with the show 24, Serge seems honest in his reasoning. -- Ned Scott 03:48, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe he's using good faith, but the end result is a bit ridiculous. It's like making beverage a redirect to Coke. Whether it gets the most google hits or not, it's POV and not what the average user is going to expect to find. Ned, do you favor the new redirects? What's the best way to handle this if they get reverted - delete them or redirect them to something else (like maybe Television season)? --Milo H Minderbinder 13:43, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm just saying I don't think it's a violation of WP:POINT, a specific response to DJ's message. As far as the issue itself, I agree with you (Milo). -- Ned Scott 22:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's try this. Until 24, I never heard or read anyone refer to particular seasons of shows as "Season Number". If anything, the terminology used would be something like, in the first season. I'm not saying that Season One, Season Two, ... etc., is never used with respect to other shows, but that it's much less common. With 24, it's extremely common. Whether it's at the water cooler at work, an article in TV guide, a review at Amazon, or even a photo caption in Wikipedia (see 24 (season 1)), the terminology is very common with respect to discussion about 24. Anyway, if you want to request that the redirects be moved, feel free to submit an RM. As to what readers would expect, who other than someone looking for the article about a particular season of 24 would even think to search for Season Three, for example? In other words, the name given to the 3rd season of 24 is Season Three. For most other TV series, individual seasons are simply not named. --Serge 23:55, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

This is getting more and more ridiculous. "Season two" is used for virtually every show. And "Season two" is the name given to the second season of every show, that's not remotely unique to 24. People searching for "season three" could be looking for any of hundreds of shows, only someone with blinders on would even imagine any significant number were all looking for the same show. At this point I'm trying to figure out what the best course of action is. I'd appreciate input from other editors - what would be better, put the redirects up for deletion, or change the redirects to point to something else (not an RM, I assume would end up with a nasty revert war). Opinions? --Milo H Minderbinder 00:10, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Milo on this. Maybe the lack of episode title names or any other "title" for 24 leads people to only being able to use "Season X" as a title, but it's not actually a "name". -- Ned Scott 00:19, 31 January

2007 (UTC)

The term most commonly used to refer to an entity is its name, by definition. The thing about 24 that distinguishes it from other TV series is that each season is a complete highly cohesive story. In fact, few if any 24 episodes stand alone as coherent stories - they are out of context, like a few scenes in the middle of a movie. So, in 24, a season is something that is not in other TV series. That's what makes each 24 season more significant than the season of any other TV series, and why the name (Season One, or whatever), is more commonly used to refer to a 24 season than to seasons of other shows: simply because seasons of other shows are not distinct entitities the way 24 seasons are. --Serge 17:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, probably since the beginning of the proliferation of TV DVDs (though perhaps even earlier), I've found myself referring to individual seasons of almost every show by number. I don't think a redirect from "Season One" to 24 (season 1) is appropriate. Incidentally, I refer to 24 seasons more often as "days", but that's probably not standard usage. 24 may be referred to by season more often than other shows, but without the show title, "Season One" does not refer to that particular show to a significantly large portion of the population. --Fru1tbat 17:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

But what a name refers to for a "significantly large portion of the population" is not the criteria we use. There are countless articles (not to mention redirects) that do not meet that criteria. The criteria that is relevant is: of those that commonly use the term, is there any meaning in particular that is more likely to be referenced than all the others? I agree that Day N is also a name commonly used to refer to a 24 season, but that just supports my point that 24 is different from other TV series. In 24, each season, since it is a distinct cohesive story, is much more often refererred to as an entity in the first place (regardless of what name is used to refer to it) than are seasons of other TV series. In other words, since seasons of typical TV series are not distinct entities with cohesive stories, references to them as distinct entities are much more obscure (though not non-existent) as compared to seasons of 24. --Serge 18:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought "of those that commonly use the term" went more or less without saying. The scope of this discussion is people searching for a term on Wikipedia. I'll try to be more explicit in the future. In any case, that individual seasons of 24 are more cohesive than other shows is irrelevant. We're dealing with an ambiguous term ("Season One"), and you're recommending redirecting it to a specific article. According to WP:DAB#Primary topic, this should only be done "when there is a well known primary meaning for a term or phrase, much more used than any other" (emphasis theirs). That's what my comment was referring to. "Season One" is not commonly used out of context without the show name to refer to "24 season one", and therefore is not a "well-known primary meaning" for it. Most users looking for "24 season 1" would type in that entire phrase, or just "24". Most would not type just "season 1", and those that do could be looking for a number of different shows, many of them with fairly distinct seasonal plots (Buffy, for example?). --Fru1tbat 19:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

RFD

I've submitted the Season 2 batch of redirects at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2007 January 31. Have at it. --Milo H Minderbinder 16:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I did, and the early results don't look good for Serge. --BlueSquadronRaven 21:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The early results look fine for me. They don't look good for those redirects that I created though! ;-) --Serge 22:31, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Feedback/Assistance Needed (Heroes episode)

I request that members of this project please assist me. According to the television episode naming conventions, "For an article created about a single episode, add the series name in parentheses only if there are other articles by the same name". A recent episode of Heroes entitled "Run!" currently has its article located at Run! (Heroes). Since there is no article at "Run!", per the guidelines, the "(Heroes)" is unnecessary, is it not? However, people are opposing a move on the article's talk page. Some people are arguing that the article SHOULD have the "(Heroes)" after it just in case sometime down the road another episode gets the same title. This is not correct either, yes? I would appreciate any help clarifying this on the talk page, if you could please help. Thanks -Seinfreak37 15:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

There seem to be a number of editors who don't understand the policy voting on this one, with reasons like the disambig should be there to explain what the article is about, or "plan ahead" since in the future something else might have that title. Other voices would be appreciated. --Milo H Minderbinder 15:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

In the future it's best not to actively ask for support on a guideline page, this may be considered by some to be advocating. Asking for opinions is usually better. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 19:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

House M.D.

Talk:House_(TV_series)#Requested_move. Matthew

"telemovie"

If someone with a bit more expertise in the TV naming conventions could take a look at the title of these:

• Victor/Victoria (tele-movie)
• Peter Gunn (tele-movie)

It appears that #1 was just an individual programme and #2 was a failed pilot. Not sure how either of them should actually be titled, but tele-movie just don't seem to make it! SkierRMH 02:28, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

"TV movie" seems like it would be better, because that's something people actually say. Jay32183 03:22, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Capitalisation

What is the established convention for capitalisation of television episode titles? Do we capitalise all words except articles, conjunctions, and short prepositions (per convention) or do we look at the written title from the piece of work itself (e.g. title on screen or on DVD release cases, etc.?). I was having a dicussion at User talk:JBK405 about this and realised that I couldn't find a Wikipedia convention for this.

Thanks,

Acegikmo1 18:39, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I would use the convention rather than the written title, because written title are often all caps for artistic purposes. Jay32183 00:42, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking. It would also make it easier to achieve consistency. Is there some procedure to make this a policy? Acegikmo1

Question about 'The' capitalization

I was going to move Heathcliff (DiC series) to it's more appropriate name, Heathcliff and the Catillac Cats. The things is, just as I was about to do that, I noticed that on the DVD cover, it's listed as Heathcliff and The Catillac Cats. I know standard usage is to have a lower case t in the unless it's the first word, but in this case, it seems to note that the show features 'Heathcliff' and 'The Catillac Cats'. So, should this 'The' be capitalized? -Joltman 12:34, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

In looking in a little more, that wasn't the official title, so I instead moved it to Heathcliff (1984 TV series). I'll leave this here in case someone else has a similar question. -Joltman 13:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

It could have been Heathcliff and The Catillac Cats, as in there are tow title being presented at once. Jay32183 18:50, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

There is a discussion over at Buffy the Vampire Slayer over the name of the article. Some people feel the article should be named as it is, while the competing opinion is that it should be named Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series), per naming conventions. The film with the same title has "(film)" attached, and it came first. Please see the discussion at Talk: Buffy the Vampire Slayer#Page move.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 04:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

That's not a fair summary as the conventions say "If the title of the television program is the most common usage of the phrase, let it be the title of the article; for example, The Apprentice or Guiding Light." This must currently apply to Buffy as Buffy the Vampire Slayer redirects to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series).

Please note that the discussion has been reactivated at Talk:Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer_(TV_series)#Move_over_redirect_request; background info here. --kingboyk (talk) 18:24, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Characters from TV shows

Are there any guidelines for naming articles on characters in TV shows? (in instances where disambiguation is required; e.g. Buffy Summers is fine because the full name is available; Angel isn't).

If there aren't, I think there should be a section here. My feeling is that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) should mostly apply (firstname lastname) but when disambiguation is needed the word "character" should be included to distinguish from TV episodes, e.g. Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer character). Thoughts? --kingboyk (talk) 18:27, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Curiosity with TV naming conventions

I have always wondered... with various other forms of media, we use (film), (album), (book), (song), or (TV series) and so on to disambiguate. In other words, a common noun that describes what the entity is. Additional details (year of the film, artist of the album/song, etc) are only used if further clarification is needed. Going by that same pattern, we should use (episode), (character) to disambiguate between episodes and characters, but we don't - we usually just use the name of the television show. I'm wondering - why is that? Is it just for historical reasons - it was done that way before the convention was in place and it is too time-consuming to change?

The table below illustrates the difference. Shouldn't we be using the format in the left hand column for consistency? Of course, if there is more than one album, song, episode, etc with that name we would then add the artist/show/etc. but on the first instance, "(episode)" or "(character)" should be used.

Type	Disambiguated with common name	Disambiguated with artist/show/etc
Album	Dangerous (album)	Dangerous (Michael Jackson)
Song	Yesterday (song)	Yesterday (The Beatles) Yesterday (Help!)
TV series	Heroes (TV series)	Heroes (NBC) Heroes (Tim Kring) Heroes (2006)
Film	Unbreakable (film)	Unbreakable (M. Night Shyamalan) Unbreakable (2000)
Episode	Left Behind (episode)	Left Behind (Lost)
Character	John Rowland (character)	John Rowland (Desperate Housewives)

What made me realise this was the article James Ellison (Terminator), which is about a character in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but the name makes it look like the article is about a Terminator (obviously a fictional one, but the character is a regular human being).

Of course if there is more than one film or episode or album, etc. the name can be disambiguated further as per current conventions.

There are other benefits - some TV show names do not make a very good disambiguator by themselves. If you see (24), (House), (Lost), (Medium) or (Oz) at the end of an article name, it isn't always clear that it is about a part of a television show. -- Chuq (talk) 07:06, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

One of the problems there is "Pilot". Every pilot episode would be "name of series" episode, because they are all episodes. You also get more out of disambiguators when you pay attention to capitalization. Parenthetical disambiguation in article titles always start with lower case letters, unless they are proper nouns. There is a difference between "House" and "house", although I don't see why one would use "house" rather than "building". Do we have houses and castles with the same name often? Also, disambiguation isn't to tell us what the article is about, but to tell us what makes it different from other things with the same name. Article titles are supposed to be as simple as possible. Using a disambiguation term that applies to multiple things doesn't aid searching and makes the title unnecessarily long. Anytime the parentheticals can be avoided they should be. For instance Turanga Leela is better than Leela (Futurama) or Leela (character). Basically, we want to keep things simple, rather than to make everything the same. If the names are available, you may create redirects that are as complicated as you like if you think it will aid searches. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jay32183 (talk • contribs) 08:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

• Pilot episodes - that's ok, we can name them all Pilot (Lost episode) etc - nothing wrong with that. We don't rename all the songs named One to end in (bandname) instead of (bandname song) just because there are lots of them.
• I'm aware of the capitalisation rules, but not everyone is.
• Yes article titles are supposed to be simple - doesn't this mean they should be predictably named? A shorter name isn't always deemed simpler, otherwise we should move Heroes (TV series) to Heroes (NBC), for example.

What I'm basically asking is why don't the rules that apply to the rest of Wikipedia (including movies, music and books) apply to TV episode/character articles? -- Chuq (talk) 10:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I think you are right. Using your example, James Ellison (Terminator) should be renamed to James Ellison (character). If there are more than one, it should be James Ellison (Terminator character). Just my opinion. - LA @ 11:45, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I was saying avoid having to do Pilot (series name episode) because the word episode is meaningless. It would appear on every one of them. Pilot (Smallville) and Pilot (House) are clearly different. Adding the word "episode" doesn't help at all. People not being aware of capitalization rules is no reason to change conventions. This is a color of the bikeshed issue. Unless there is a major reason with huge consensus to change it, we shouldn't bother. We'd end up having a discussion that doesn't really matter every couple months when there are much more serious issues to deal with. Like should the episodes and characters actually have articles. Does it matter what the articles name is when it's supposed to be deleted/transwikied for not having sources? The only reason to change the convention with television episodes and characters is conformity, which is not a good reason. Jay32183 (talk) 06:58, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Season article naming

I've been BOLD and added a section about naming articles for seasons. This is based on the generally consistent use I've seen around. Please have at it if there any problems with this. (Also, do we want to make things more consistent with this? lower or upper case on the word "season" in parathesis? Season number as a number or spelled out? ) --MASEM 20:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

This was a helpful addition. I'd propose that the word season needs to be lowercase, to be consistent with Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Wikipedia takes a conservative approach to capitalization: subsequent words in a title are capitalized only if they are part of a proper noun. In this case, season is not part of a proper noun. It is also consistent with other TV naming conventions—e.g., it's Lost (TV series), not Lost (TV Series). Disambiguators are usually not capitalized, if they're not part of a proper noun or an initialism like UK or TV. Any objections to this change? It will involve moving some pages: The Apprentice (U.S. Season 1) → The Apprentice (U.S. season 1) and so on. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:05, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I agree to move this article into small letters, I didn't know the move page on The Apprentice (U.S.) articles without the merge and edit history. --ApprenticeFan (talk) 22:26, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Anime TV series

There's some anime TV series, like Gungrave (anime) and Mononoke (anime), that disambiguate by adding "(anime)" instead "(TV series)" as recommended by this naming convention. I think they should be moved (e.g. Gungrave (TV series) and Mononoke (TV series)), the same way Justice League (animated series) and Gargoyles (animated series) have been moved. What do you think?--Nohansen (talk) 00:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

There is an on-going discusson on this already at WT:MOS-AM#Article names and disambiguation. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 03:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Should there be a list of special cases somewhere?

Should there be a list of special cases somewhere that can be kept handy just in case of an inappropriate move or a discussion getting out of hand about a requested move? I came across UFO Hunters (The History Channel) and was going to move it to UFO Hunters (TV series). Right before I did the move, I decided to peruse the article. It is a good thing that I did. I found out in short order that there is another series, UFO Hunters (Sci Fi Channel), that aired on the same date at the same time. Now, to keep people somewhat like myself from acting too quickly, I added a little box on the top of each articles' talk pages, History and Sci Fi, as a little reminder as to why the articles are named the way that they are.

The disambiguation page is UFO Hunters.

Look good to the rest of you? - LA (T) 08:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Quotation marks

When referring to a television series should the name be in quotation marks (ex. "Lost") or italicized (ex. Lost)? I know that italicization is the standard in paper encyclopedias, but I have seen it written both ways in Wikipedia. Copana2002 (talk) 23:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Always in italics. :) -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 00:37, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Pilot naming standards

I'm a bit confused about the naming convention for TV Pilots, it seems odd. Right now we have the following model:

• Pilot (TV show name)
• TV show name (TV Series)
• TV show name (Film)

For example:

• The X-Files
• Pilot (The X-Files)
• The X-Files (film)

All of the DAB entries start with "The X-Files", with the single exception of the Pilot episode, which I just added:

• The X-Files (disambiguation)

This is the only discussion I've seen thus far on the naming of pilots: [1]

This naming standard seems strange to me, that the article name would start off with "pilot" and not the name of the show. It appears to not only be inconsistent and confusing, but it doesn't make sense to me. Personally, I think it should be Name of Show (Pilot), e.g. "The X-Files (TV Pilot), that way they'd all be the same format, a consistency across all the article names.

I think the naming standard should be:

• The X-Files (TV pilot)
• The X-Files (TV series)
• The X-Files (Film)

If there are multiple films, then

• The X-Files II: Rise of the Silver Mulder (Film)
• The X-Files III: Beneath the Planet of the Mulder (Film)

Another issue is when the pilot show's title is "Pilot", as in Fringe TV Series Pilot..."Pilot"...and in the article title Pilot (Fringe), "fringe" is almost meaningless...it can mean many things, perhaps a Surrey with a Fringe on top. At first, I thought it was some kind of Fringe topic, but it's a TV show pilot...and the name of the pilot episode is "Pilot", so it's doubly confusing....

Also, I'm wondering if we have first shows being incorrectly called "pilots" per TV pilot distinctions, and if we have any standards to classify notable pilots versus non-notable pilots (or all they all notable if they have the standard industry reviews?). Dreadstar † 21:37, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Right now pilots are not taken with any distinction from other episodes of the series. The naming convention is Name of Episode (Name of Series). Generally, pilot episodes do not have names. Instead of naming the article Pilot episode of Name of Series we went with Pilot (Name of Series) as if Pilot were the name of the episode. If a pilot has an actual name, that would be used instead, Brains and Eggs or Broken Bow (Enterprise). Jay32183 (talk) 22:20, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I would think a consistent naming standard only makes sense. Using the Series title first and then adding subsets of that title for example, Pilot or fringe or Series as Dreadstar outlines above creates a standard, easy to remember way of naming.

Ist Shows vs Pilots: TV pilot distinguishes first shows from pilots. I would think the industry itself, possibly producers would be the final word on whether something is a first show or a pilot. A first show would be included in the Series article I would think, rather than have a separate article given to it as a pilot might.

I haven't seen standards for notability of a pilot. Is Wikipedia the place to have article about every pilot made which would be the case unless standards are set. Pilots fail and disappear. They are in general meant to test the audience "waters" Should this be taken into consideration when defining notability?(olive (talk) 22:34, 20 September 2008 (UTC))

Jay32183, would you be able to provide a link to the discussion that led to the decision to use "Pilot (Name of Series) as if Pilot were the name of the episode"? I'd like read it over to gain a better understanding of that decision. Thanks! Dreadstar † 04:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

It was never a separate discussion. We never had reason to distinguish between pilots and other episodes of a series. Other than the potential for sources there's nothing different between episode 0 and episode 5. X-Files (pilot) creates an inconsistent naming scheme with the other episodes, as well as one thats less meaningful. It isn't a pilot named X-Files. X-Files (TV series) is a TV series named X-Files and X-Files (film) is a film named X-Files. Titles of articles name the thing they're about then categorize them as necessary. Technically, Pilot episode of The X-Files would be the most accurate title, but Pilot (X-Files) gives the same implication with fewer words. Pilot (Smallville) is probably the best example of an article on a pilot episode and there hasn't been any confusion with it's title. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Also, we like to keep things simple. Separating out pilots makes things more complicated than they need to be. Jay32183 (talk) 07:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I see no reason at all to make the naming convention of an unnamed pilot episode inconsistent with other episodes and with named pilot episodes. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 07:20, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. First, Wikipedia doesn't function on the premise that "if it ain't, broke don't fix it", secondly, I do think this pilot naming standard is "broke." I've already stated that I find it confusing, and I believe that Smallville (TV pilot) is just as simple, even more so because we aren't creating an apparent episode name. To me Pilot (Smallville) could be an actual episode title...since "Pilot" replaces what would ordinarily be an episode name. And by this very naming standard, we are indeed distinguishing between pilots and other episodes - and you know, I do think we need to distinguish between a pilot and a standard production episode in the article's title, and perhaps even identify a "special" episode (e.g. a 2-hour special or TV Movie). A pilot is a type of show and should be identified in the same manner as we do with (film), (TV series), etc. That's consistency and simplicity combined.

We also have to keep in mind how the television industry refers to TV pilots, the majority of professional outlets seem to use the format: "Smallville: {Pilot)", they don't call it "Pilot (Smallville)": IMDb, Rewind, TV.COM, TV.COM Cast, Yahoo TV, Amazon.com, Tower Video, even the station, The CW, has it listed as "Smallville" with the sub: "Pilot" [2].

Not to be too funny, but what if the name of the pilot episode of a series called "Pilot" is "Pilot", that would necessitate something like Pilot (Pilot) or Pilot (Pilot of Pilot), whereas "Pilot (TV pilot)" would be far simpler and easier to understand. Dreadstar † 19:17, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Nor does Wikipedia work on the idea of emulating IMDB, TV.com, nor Amazon.com. I see no reason to add unnecessary complexity to the naming convention. And one series is a bad example. If its named "Pilot" it would be Pilot (TV series) same as it would be if it is not named pilot. I don't see any reason to differentiate a pilot from a regular episode. It may be a "type" of episode, but that doesn't matter. Or shall we also different season finales, season premieres, or series premieres? What about television specials? Should their articles also have special naming conventions. And how shall we differentiate a "pilot" from a "series premiere" as both terms are used and they do not always mean the same thing. Shall we treat all of those episodes differently just because of a minor difference? What is the actual percentage of television series WITH notable pilots where the pilot is unnamed rather than named "Pilot" or given some other episode name? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 19:58, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry AnmaFinotera, but that's almost exactly how Wikipedia works, “Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject.” as well as following the principle of least astonishment, Very few people are going to type in “Pilot Smallville”, they’re going to type in “Smallville pilot”. As for the Pilot actually named "Pilot" of a TV Series named Pilot, it would be titled "Pilot (Pilot)" and Pilot (TV Series) under the current naming standards, it's far less complex and confusing to just say Pilot (TV pilot), and Pilot (TV series). Not sure about identifying a "series premier" in an article title, could be "Series name (premier)" if we need to make that distinction. There's generally a much greater distinction between a series episode or series premier and the Pilot of a series, as older ≠ wiser points out below. Some pilots never generate a series at all, or the series may be vastly different than the original pilot. There may even be multiple pilots for the same series or concept. Dreadstar † 20:37, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

If we go by the most easily recognized name, we cannot use you method at all because the pilot episode of a series is only known by the name of the series if the series wasn't picked up. For instance, no one refers to the pilot of The X-Files as The X-Files. The name is completely inappropriate. If a pilot is unnamed its most accurate title would be Pilot episode of Series Name, which is more complicated than it needs to be. The only difference between a pilot episode and any other episode that matters to Wikipedia is the availability of sources. Availability of sources does not call for a new naming convention. That just doesn't make sense. Unnamed pilot episodes are most often called "The Pilot" or "Pilot", even outside of Wikipedia. So pretending Pilot is the name of the episode makes us the same as industry professionals. Basically, your proposal violates the KISS priciple for the sake of instruction creep. Jay32183 (talk) 00:11, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

No, that's entirely incorrect, I never said what you're saying. I agree that no one calls the pilot of The X-Files just "The X-Files", they call it The X-Files Pilot", no one really calls it "Pilot X-Files" - except us, I guess.. :) If a pilot is not picked up as a series, then there is no series to name it after...it's just the pilot. For instance if the Smallville Pilot had not been picked up, there would have been no "series" and it would have been referred to as the "Smallville Pilot". As far as "..pretending Pilot is the name of the episode makes us the same as industry professionals": no, it does not, it merely violates WP:NOR and WP:V because industry professionals do not "pretend" that the title of their Pilot is "Pilot", nor does the public think the title of a pilot is "pilot". Dreadstar † 00:45, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• How about "TV show (Pilot)" — Rlevse • Talk • 23:21, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Dreadstar † 04:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree. The X-Files (Pilot), The X-Files (TV series), and The X-Files (Film) make much more sense than how the naming is now. Consistency is a good thing. :) Ariel♥Gold 09:19, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

As per AerielGold, consistency is critical on Wikipedia especially as it gets larger otherwise we'll be back here again in a short while discussing the same concerns. Consistency creates a "template" of sorts for this situation, and creates ease for editors. What we had before wasn't any of these things. Can't we just make it as easy as possible to deal with. Dreadstar's version is consistent.(olive (talk) 14:09, 21 September 2008 (UTC))

As I explained above, that version actually makes things inconsistent. A pilot is still an episode of a TV series and should be treated the same as others. The way it is now is consistent, making the change suggested is not. Jay32183 (talk) 07:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

But a pilot is not just another episode -- and implying that the name of a pilot is "Pilot" is also inconsistent. There is often many differences between the pilot and the actual series, ranging from things like the opening/closing sequences or theme music to new/changed case members. IMO, a pilot should be marked as distinct from the regular series episodes. older ≠ wiser 09:54, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Well put, older ≠ wiser, I completely concur. Dreadstar † 19:17, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify, it is wrong to say "A pilot is still an episode of a TV series and should be treated the same as others.", because in addition to the points made above by older ≠ wiser, not all pilots generate a television series, and not all TV series have pilots. Dreadstar † 00:45, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Now, now. Well, I suppose if he's going to use that as his username, he deserves what he gets. LOL. Anyway, really this is about having a convention that makes some kind of sense. What's the big deal? Why not have something that is logical that people, even, like, gasp, noobs, can understand? Have so you could say "It's always like this: you have the series name and then the episode/pilot name" That way it is like a tree: the root of the tree is the franchise, say as above the X-Files. Then under that you should have variations on that theme. As it is, you have multiple roots to the tree, and it sucks. It isn't a concept, it's an evolved system which is confusing. Needs to be straightened out. What are you guys, Window$ fans? ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 23:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm surprised to see an invocation of KISS and instruction creep above. At the risk of beating a dead parrot, a convention that begins with the most general point and then becomes more specific is logical, and well used in may areas, and creates a template or formula that any user can just fill in. There's very little instruction required. One always begins with the series name -the general One then adds what aspect of the series is being named-the specifc. This is a hyper simple formula.(olive (talk) 03:52, 23 September 2008 (UTC))

TV pilot naming standards

• Question: Should the television pilot naming standard be in the form of "Pilot (show name)" or "Show name (Pilot)" or some other format? (For further details, see the discussion in the section above this one: Pilot naming standards.)

• Current standard:

• Pilot (TV show name)
• TV show name (TV Series)
• TV show name (Film)

For example:

• Pilot (The X-Files)
• The X-Files
• The X-Files (film)

All of the DAB entries start with "The X-Files", with the single exception of the Pilot episode, which I just added:

• The X-Files (disambiguation)

This is the only discussion I've seen thus far on the naming of pilots: [3]

• Proposed new standard:

• The X-Files (Pilot)
• The X-Files (TV series)
• The X-Files (Film)

RFC Responder comments

• As I see it, there are two issues here: consistency and WP:NOR. Different people have been seeing the consistency in different ways, depending on what they think the "real name" of the pilot episodes in question are. If the "real name" of the X-Files pilot is The X-Files, then it seems more consistent with general Wikipedia naming practices to name the article about that episode The X-Files (pilot). But if the "real name" is "Pilot", then it's more consistent with general Wikipedia naming practices to name the article Pilot (The X-Files). The way to resolve this apparent conflict is to determine what reliable sources call the episode. In this case, a reliable source might be a review of the episode in a newspaper, or an official episode guide for The X-Files. I own such a guide, but I'm not at home right now to check it.
  
  When a television pilot goes to series, what is the standard way to which that pilot episode is referred? I presume that during production a pilot is often called by the name of the series, since there's no need to distinguish it from other episodes yet. But if it does go to series, and the pilot is not given an individual title like Encounter at Farpoint, then it's often called "Pilot", or at least listed that way in publications. If such publications can be found to confirm that this is the general practice in the television industry and in the critical apparatus surrounding it, then that would support the naming of articles as "Pilot (name of series)". —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:22, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments on responses

Yeah, but it could be done just with a redirect, for the sake of making things logical. "Pilot (name of series)" --> "Name of Series (Pilot)." ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Whichever way the consensus develops, I agree that the path not taken should be a redirect. (That is, if discussion settles on "Pilot (name of series)", then "Name of series (Pilot)" should redirect there, and if discussion settles on "Name of series (Pilot)", "Pilot (name of series)" should redirect there.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

As far as The X-Files', from the pilot episode script, it looks like it's called "The X-Files, pilot episode". A photo of the original copy at the Smithsonian also shows the same title across the top of each page: [4]. I don't think "pilot episode" is the actual name of the pilot, it's just what it is...the pilot... :) Dreadstar † 05:47, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

You've missed Josiah Rowe's point if you're confirming the name with a script. Scripts are pre-production information. For a series that not only was picked up but had several successful seasons, we should be using post-production publication published by those not involved, such television critics and historians. Jay32183 (talk) 08:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I've confimed it every which way, original script,[5] production,[6] release, IMDb, advertising [7][8](at: 2:54), and reviews [9][10][11][12] - this was merely the final piece. I've yet to see evidence that its name is "Pilot". I'm not certain that I totally agree that we're restricted to only what post-production publications by those not involved called it, but it appears to me that virtually every source calls it "The X-Files Pilot", not "Pilot". The name of the X-Files pilot is not "pilot", that's the type of show it is. The Pilot episode. Dreadstar † 09:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the iMDB title is just pilot. If you look at any other episode page you'll notice they all begin with "The X-Files" in large print with the name of the episode in small print. The MSN site uses a similar technique with all episodes prefaced by "The X-Files". The cover art at Amazon shows that the two episodes on the video are Pilot and Deep Throat, read the very top of the art. You've actually shown that the episode is called "Pilot" when it's clear that The X-Files is the series at hand, and "The X-Files" is added to it in some way when the series needs to be indicated. The standard way to do that on Wikipedia is Pilot (The X-Files), which when piped([[Pilot (The X-Files)|]]) produces Pilot. You also didn't find anyone referring to the episode as just "The X-Files", which your suggestion for The X-Files (Pilot) implies. ([[The X-Files (Pilot)|]] → The X-Files) Jay32183 (talk) 09:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

No, it isn't, if you look, it actually says "The X-Files" Pilot (1993); which, by your logic, would mean the title is actually "Pilot (1993)", which it isn't. "Pilot (1993)" is merely the description, not the actual title. There's inconsistency everywhere, which is part of the problem. What you've just shown, really, is that our entire naming standard is backwards, it should be "Series Name (episode name)". I haven't seen any source that titles the X-Files or Smallville pilots as just "Pilot", it's always "X-Files Pilot episode" or "The X-files Pilot", or "Smallville pilot", nowhere but here is it "Pilot (X-Files)" or Pilot (Smallville). That's the actual point, the name of the episode, according to the producers, advertisers, reviews, etc, is not "Pilot", it is "'The X-Files' - pilot episode". We just can't pretend that the name of the pilot is "Pilot", and the sum of my evidence shows that it's not.

And in reality, it doesn't matter what IMDb calls it, nor what Amazon or the critics call it, the show can really only be named by those that created and own it, the producers or production company, such as I've proven with the original script, trailers, and the show’s own credits….I don’t see how those can be overridden. Say that every Critic called it “The Crap-Files” had it been lousy (or “crappy”…;), we certainly wouldn’t use that as a title..! Nor would we title it "Pilot (1993)" just because IMDb appears to.[13] But even sources such as IMDb, Amazon and the critics call it "The X-Files pilot", not "episode 'Pilot' of the X-Files". No matter how you slice it, the name is just not "Pilot".

I don't see how my proposed naming standard implies anything except that the article is about the X-Files pilot episode. The standard does not imply what its name is any more than "The X-Files Pilot Episode" does. And the piping issue is a non-starter, it would merely be piped as [[X-Files (pilot) | The X-Files pilot episode]]...besides, there's already The X-Files. Dreadstar † 23:08, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it shows that every single source refers to the episode as only "Pilot". What I'm actually trying to tell you is that you don't understand the standard naming convention for all Wikipedia articles, or disambiguation standards. If the parenthetical part of the title is remved the title still needs to be accurate, it could just be applied to more than one article. Not one source referred to the pilot as "The X-Files" so naming the article The X-Files (Pilot) is incorrect. My point with Amazon was that the cover of the video, official merchandise, indicates that the title of the episode is in fact "Pilot". Also, iMDB did not call the episode Pilot (1993), as every title on iMDB is followed by it's year of release. I wanted you not just to check the Pilot pages but those of other television episodes. If you are right that the title is The X-Files Pilot, then the second episode is The X-Files Deep Throat. Episode title are never used without the series title unless it's clear from the context what series is being discussed. Based on WP:NAME and WP:DAB the title of the article on the pilot episode of The X-Files should be Pilot (The X-Files). There are sources calling the episode Pilot and the are none calling it The X-Files. Jay32183 (talk) 23:58, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

My point was the producers, creators, owners, script, trailers and actual pilot credits themselves do not list the name of the X-Files pilot as "Pilot". All IMDb is doing, and all the package advertising on the video is doing is deliniating the show as the pilot. This does not mean the name is actually "Pilot". Our naming standard is explicitly saying that the name is "Pilot". I haven't seen that proven with evidence yet. And we do put "type" into parenthesis, e.g. The X-Files (film) and The X-Files (books), so putting the type "pilot" into parenthesis fits. Looks like you and I will just have to agree to disagree and leave it to consensus to decide. Dreadstar † 00:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Our naming standard does not claim that Pilot is an official title. If you look at Pilot (Smallville), the word pilot appears in the opening sentence in lowercase letters. The episode is named neither Pilot nor The X-Files. However, the episode is referred to as Pilot but not as The X-Files. If the article were at The X-Files (pilot) then we're saying "This thing known as The X-Files is a pilot". The current naming scheme has us saying "This thing called a pilot is a part of The X-Files" which is significantly more accurate. Jay32183 (talk) 12:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

What has been claimed repeatedly on this page is that our naming standard does indeed "claim" that pilot is the title, even so far as saying that we are "pretending" that it is the title. Since the episode name is clearly identified first by our current standards, and "Pilot" is in that place, I must disagree with you on this as well - not to mention the level of accuracy you claim. Dreadstar † 13:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

At least you have an excellent grasp of what the word pretend means. The episode does not have a name. Wikipedia articles are named for what things are called. The sources you found demonstrate that, even if unofficially, the episode is called "pilot" and not "The X-Files". You may want to refer to WP:NAME and WP:DAB again, since this naming convention is supposed to be a derivative of those. Jay32183 (talk) 21:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

At the very least, the Pilot (Smallville) infobox disagrees with you. If, as you say, the "episode does not have a name", then we surely cannot "pretend" that it does, per WP:NOR and WP:V. I won't bother going into details about the other deficiencies in the logic presented by the arguments you've made and the naming standard you support, as I said, we'll just have to agree to disagree for now. Dreadstar † 22:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments:

• Consistency has to be considered again and again. Wikipedia is not consistent on this, for example look at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files_(song). This isn't consistent with what your saying above Jay. The final word on consistency :must be the production company, and whatever Wikipedia is doing now should be brought into line with that.

• This is a confusing statement: Not one source referred to the pilot as "The X-Files" so naming the article The X-Files (Pilot) is incorrect. IMDb calls the pilot episode "The X Files" Pilot(1993). Doesn't this negate your point.

• Still referring to the IMDb reference, semantically and syntactically, "The" and "X-Files" have been placed in quotes. This indicates a title. Pilot is not in quotes. This indicates descriptive of what the title is. Its a pilot. 1993 is also not in quotes. This is a release date. Again, like pilot, not in quotes, so not a title. The only aspect in quotes is "The X-Files". Because it is in quotes it has to be a title as per the rules and principles that govern our language.

• Logically the first X-Files pilot would not have needed to be named. We have to remember no one had ever seen an x-Files before so there wasn't necessarily a need to distinguish this first episode, and certainly not from anything else because there was no guarantee there would be anything else . A subtitle would have only confused the public. If the pilot had not been successful, in the annals of time there would have been a clear description of what had been shown ... The X-Files ...its pilot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Littleolive oil (talk • contribs)
  • You've misread the iMDB title by not reading the name of any other episode. The first episode may say "The X-Files" Pilot (1993), but the second episode says "The X-Files" Deep Throat (1993). When analyzing the iMDB title you have to understand iMDB practices, not just standard English. See the episode list so you can see how the episodes are actually named. Also, The X-Files (song) is named exactly as I'm saying above. The song is called The X-Files. The Wikipedia article name matches what the thing is actually called, and that's what I've been arguing for. Jay32183 (talk) 12:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

You're right IMDb uses quotes around every X-Files and I missed that. "Quotes" is still an English language naming convention, and means X=Files is being designated as a title, and episodes are subtitles. My above argument then, that Pilot is not a title of course doesn't hold. As a final comment I would suggest that we have certain kinds of shared, implied knowledge and one (less profound for sure ) is that a pilot is not a title but a description , and I would argue, completely without basis except for our conventions, that pilot is not a title but a place holder because there is no subtitle for the first episode because one wasn't needed. Had the series failed the title X-Files would have been all that was needed..... Just had to have a last word :0).(olive (talk) 13:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC))

You are wrong about iMDB again. They put the name of the series in quote for every episode of every TV series. That's why I wanted you to check the episode list, so you could episode names in isolation. It is irrelevant to Wikipedia naming if Pilot is an official name or just what people call it. We name articles based on what the subject is called. Unnamed pilots are generally called pilot, and that's what's been shown in all the sources. Therefore the existing naming convention is correct. Jay32183 (talk) 21:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

No, Jay I just agreed with what you had said, see my first line above in the last post. Now you are saying I'm wrong. I'm confused. And even more confused with:"We name articles based on what the subject is called" but by whom if not the official name or just what people call it. Who's naming it. These arguments are not making any sense at all. If your argument is to hold on to what Wikipedia is doing now, fine, say that , but these arguments seem contradictory and illogical given that I agree with you and then you turn and tell me I fundamentally have it wrong. Pretty much in the dark! (olive (talk) 22:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC))

Consistency

Indeed, consistency is an issue. But it isn't just the consistency of Wikipedia, it is consistency in the television industry. Some shows have a name for the pilot, others simply call it "Pilot". (Examples would be the pilot for Star Trek, which was titled "The Cage", the pilot for Grey's Anatomy, which was named "A Hard Day's Night", and X-Files, whose first episode was not given as anything but "Pilot", even years later). Most shows show the title in the opening sequence, and X-Files is no exception. I only have Seasons 3+ on DVD for the show, so it would be interesting to see the pilot again, and see if it gives a title at all, or if it does call it "Pilot". (Personally, I would prefer to omit "pilot" from any episode that has an actual name, and use the lead sentence to explain that it was the pilot episode for the series, but many other shows do not give the pilot a name, so therein lies the issue of how the title should be ordered. Additionally, readers looking for a pilot episode may not know the name, so if they search for "Show - Pilot" they wouldn't find it if it weren't in the title.) I agree with redirecting, to a standard naming format for pilot episodes, as Martin suggests. As for what that standard should be, I still think Series (Pilot) is logical. For shows that give the pilot a name, then Series (Pilot: Name) seems logical, but it could end up being a huge line of text for some shows that use long title names, lol. Ariel♥Gold 11:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any justification for "Series (Pilot: Name)" — in cases like "City of" (the pilot for Angel (TV series)) there's no reason to move a perfectly clear, unambiguous and accurate title to some Frankensteinian title like Angel (Pilot: City of). This discussion shouldn't concern itself with series whose pilot episodes have unambiguous names. Personally, I don't even think that shows with titled pilot episodes which have ambiguous names should be part of this discussion. Indeed, there are good arguments against trying to force named pilots into this schema — for example, the original Star Trek had two pilots, The Cage (Star Trek) and Where No Man Has Gone Before. Moving those articles to Star Trek (Pilot: The Cage) and Star Trek (Pilot: Where No Man Has Gone Before) would add confusion, not relieve it. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with that, the scope of this was not meant to address named pilots or episodes - just unnamed pilots. Dreadstar † 23:35, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

To add another nit-picky issue into the fray, should the word "pilot" be capitalized in the title, or not? X-Files (Pilot) or X-Files (pilot)? I'd vote for capitalization, because when shows are not named, the word "Pilot" is capitalized. Ariel♥Gold 11:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Again, it depends on whether the word "pilot" is to be considered the name of the episode (e.g., "...in "Pilot", Gillian Anderson had not yet begun dying her hair the red color later associated with the character of Scully") or a description of the episode ("in the pilot episode, Gillian Anderson..."). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Well that goes without saying, but has nothing to do with the issue. I was not referring to mentioning it in prose, but in the capitalization of the word "Pilot" in article titles. In the examples Dreadstar gave, the word "Pilot" is capitalized, but in the example given by Josiah, he did not capitalize it inside the parentheses. Ariel♥Gold 21:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

You'll have to pardon my caps, they don't always obey the laws of nature or the man behind the keyboard. Dreadstar † 23:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC) Pay no attention to that cap behind the curtain!

One article that will almost certainly need to be moved, whatever we decide here: M*A*S*H the Pilot, which doesn't conform to either model we're debating. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC) Josiah, did you happen to see if your official X-Files episode guide says the name of the show is "Pilot" or is it just referred to as the "pilot episode" of The X-Files or "The X-Files pilot"? Does it say the pilot's actual name is "Pilot"? Dreadstar † 23:08, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I finally got home, and found... that my official X-Files episode guide is not on my shelves. I think it might be in storage. I did find an unofficial guide, X-Treme Possibilities: A Paranoid Rummage Through The X-Files by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping. It was published by Virgin Books in 1997, and is "totally unauthorized". (Before anyone uses this to dismiss it out of hand, I should point out that some people have argued on this very page that an unauthorized publication is preferable to an authorized one, at least for purposes of establishing episode notability, because it's "independent of the subject" in a way that an official episode guide isn't.) This book lists the first episode as "“The X-Files’ [a.k.a. “Pilot’]. So that's clear as mud. I did also check my X-Files Season One DVD set: the first disc contains episodes which are titled (in the DVD menus, not in the episodes themselves — The X-Files didn't put episode titles on screen) "Pilot", "Deep Throat", "Squeeze" and "Conduit". Our articles for those episodes are at Pilot (The X-Files), Deep Throat (The X-Files episode), Squeeze (The X-Files) and Conduit (The X-Files).

In the official department, I did find an official guidebook for Lost, another series with an untitled pilot episode. That guidebook lists the first three episodes as "PILOT EPISODE", "TABULA RASA", and "WALKABOUT". The Lost Season 1 DVD menu lists the episodes as "PILOT-PART 1", "PILOT-PART 2", "TABULA RASA" and "WALKABOUT". Our articles for those are at Pilot (Lost), Tabula Rasa (Lost) and Walkabout (Lost). To me, this seems both reasonable and consistent. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

So, does this mean you support the view that "Pilot" is the "official" episode name? Or just that the naming sequence has a sufficient match to be reasonable and consistent? Or is the jury still out, awaiting more evidence? Dreadstar † 04:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I'm increasingly of the view that there is no "official" episode name for cases like this. I agree that "Pilot episode" is more of a descriptor than a title, as evidenced by the script; however, when reliable third-party sources want to distinguish the pilot episode from later, named episodes, they often call it "Pilot". (One semi-official case in point is this episode guide on TNT's website.) I don't think that the episode is titled "The X-Files" either — that's the name of the series, and the pilot episode has no individual title.

What does that mean for our article naming purposes? Well, I think that the current naming scheme works well enough with what the reliable sources use. "Pilot" isn't really the title, but it's used as the title by reliable sources, so we can do so as well. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It looks like people are coming around to the idea of making it fully consistent. With named pilots, would you have to say in the title it is a pilot? If you did not, then a named pilot is done just the same as a episode. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 02:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I strongly feel that named pilots like "City of" and "The Cage (Star Trek)" should be treated just like any other named episode with regard to naming. The only matter that should be under discussion here is what to do with pilots which do not have individual names (or which are named "Pilot", depending on your viewpoint). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

An additional point

The precedent of Pilot (Smallville), mentioned above, could be seen as another argument against changing the naming convention for unnamed pilots. Specifically, Pilot (Smallville) made it through a peer review and the FAC process, successfully becoming a featured article, without anyone questioning the way it was named. There was one suggestion about renaming the article at Talk:Pilot (Smallville)#Rename?, made on the day the article was TFA on the front page, and briefly responded to in the negative. Other than that, nobody's suggested that the article's naming was problematic. Of course, consensus can change, but by the time an article has made it to FA and has appeared on the front page, it's generally been passed over by a number of eyeballs. The fact that only one person, in passing, questioned the article's title, may indicate a consensus in favor of the current naming practice for unnamed pilot articles. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for researching all this and for your thoughtful responses, I see what you mean, but I happen to disagree. By our naming standards we are de-facto making "Pilot" the official name, which does not match the creator's or copyright holder's intent, nor does it truly match what the reliable sources are saying, and according to the primary sources I've seen, it doesn't match those either. I also can't agree that the apparent consistency in the names created by having the series name in parenthesis is a true consistency, nor, again, does it truly match what the reliable sources are saying, it's actually structured in the opposite. Perhaps this can be alllayed by changing the naming standards entirely, making a change to something like "Series name (episode or type)", where the content of the parenthesis can be either the title or type. This would greatly diminish the issue of what the official name of the pilot is or what it's called in reliable sources, either way it would be "The X-Files (Pilot)" (pardon the lack of capital distinctions. I'll have to read through the previous discussions on why the format "Episode name (Series name)" was chosen, becuase it doesn't present the very best match for our other standards, which gives us The X-Files (film), The X-Files (books) or even the lovely The X-Files (song). As Martin says above, things are not fully consistent, and I think we can do better. Dreadstar † 22:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• The above discussion on this Pilot proposal is continued here: #TV pilot naming standards limited proposal

Modified version

• I support a modified version of the proposed new method, based on MoS page title capitalization guidelines, as follows:
  • The X-Files (TV series)
  • The X-Files (pilot episode) (for an unnamed pilot)
  • The X-files (Tabula Rasa) (for named episodes, including named pilots)
  • The X-Files (film)

With this, a pilot eposide titled "Pilot" would be automatically disambiguated: Fringe (Pilot); X-files (pilot episode); and Start Trek (The Cage).

This seems better than putting the episode title first because series-title first is self-consistent and brings the readers directly to the group of related articles when they search. It's not likely that someone wanting to view the X-files pilot episode would start their search by typing "Pilot". Likewise someone seeking the Star Trek pilot might not even know the name of the episode.

Also, the above method works equally well with films that are based on comics or TV shows that are based on films; this also helps in situations where a character and a film or comic or TV show have the same name, usually the character is the article to be the main entry with the other formats disambiguated, ie: Batman, or Peter Pan. In some cases there are franchises, such as Star Trek and Star Wars, where there are so many adaptations that the franchise itself becomes the main entry. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 23:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I could certainly support Jack-A-Roe's proposal. This seems a logical move, and would help to create consistency.(olive (talk) 00:50, 27 September 2008 (UTC))

I like this too. Good idea. Something needs done here. The fact that the TV episode naming is so non standard begs that it be fixed and that something is or isn't an FA doesn't matter here. A standard naming convention will help users eat their way out of this twisted mass of spaghetti. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:41, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Some users may not be aware that the current naming guideline was reached after extensive discussion and debate, which led to a failed attempt at mediation and eventually to an ArbCom decision. The ArbCom ruled that consensus had been reached supporting the naming of television episode articles. Of course, consensus can change, but there's would have to be a much wider discussion before that happened. As a veteran of the former dispute, I'd prefer not to open that can of worms again if I can avoid it.

To that end, it might be helpful for me to explain the reasoning behind the current naming system. The pattern "Episode name (Series name)" comes from the default assumption that most episodes have individual titles. When these titles are not ambiguous (as, for example, the Doctor Who episode "The Unquiet Dead"), there's no need to use anything other than the title; when they're ambiguous (that is, when they share the name of something else that might have a Wikipedia article), we disambiguate with the name of the television series (as, for example, the Doctor Who episode "Journey's End (Doctor Who)"). If there were not other subjects using that name, we wouldn't put the name of the series in the title at all.

This is inconsistent, if your goal is a uniform naming of episode titles. However, on a larger scale, it is consistent with the general guideline on disambiguation. Generally speaking, I don't mind a little inconsistency as long as there's an underlying logic behind it. After all, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". The notion that an utterly unambiguous title like "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" should be needlessly disambiguated to "Lost (All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues)" seems to me the very model of the "foolish consistency" to which Emerson referred.

Dreadstar has referred a couple of times to the intent of the copyright holder and/or creator. That's not actually the criterion we use on Wikipedia. We use common names. If there's clear evidence that the pilot episode of The X-Files is referred to as "Pilot" more commonly than as "The X-Files", then we should call it "Pilot", even if the official sources call it The X-Files. I may have sent the discussion in a misleading direction when I talked about the "real name" early on. I should instead have talked about the "most commonly used name".

I think that the evidence we've seen indicates that these pilot episodes have no official names, and that they are most commonly referred to using "Pilot" as a name. That's what the DVDs and episode guides tend to use. Placing the article at The X-Files (pilot) instead of Pilot (The X-Files) is analogous to placing the article for the current U.S. President at George Walker Bush instead of George W. Bush. The former is the name on his birth certificate, but the latter is the one that's most commonly used, and where his Wikipedia article is located.

Finally, as to the question of whether readers will know episode titles or not: I actually suspect that most episode articles are navigated to not through the search box, but through lists of episodes. If we add redirects in the format of The X-Files (pilot), then readers who think that schema seems logical will arrive at their intended destination, but the article will still be at the "most comonly used name". —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:41, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, seriously now. Let's examine basic disambiguation criteria. Would any reasonable person enter "pilot" into the search box and expect to get to the article for The X-Files pilot episode? I mean really. "Pilot (The X-Files)" implies that if no disambiguation were necessary, the article could be titled as simply "Pilot" -- but I don't think any reasonable person would suggest that and I don't think Wikipedia naming conventions support that either. older ≠ wiser 03:53, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, personally, I'd be more willing to support the fairly minor change from Pilot (The X-Files) to The X-Files (pilot) or The X-Files (pilot episode), and keeping other episode articles named as they are, than to support restructuring the overall TV episode naming conventions. The current conventions reflect the result of some long and hard fought discussions, and I really don't want to go there again. However, the issue of how to title pilot episodes wasn't really part of those discussions, and it would be much easier to add an exception for pilot episodes than to completely rework our episode naming guidelines. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:55, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

If I were going to find an episode, I wouldn't search in wiki, I'd go to Google, and say Show Name Episode Name, and come to WP from there. If people are willing to quarrel over this so hard, fine. But what's really the matter with naming things as Jack-A-Roe says? It's consistent, logical etc. The current way of doing it is not. Should "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" be "Lost (All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues)?" Yes, because you need a trunk to the tree, then the branches, and you need consistency so that you don't have Pilot (lost) or whatever. Make it easy to remember how to name stuff. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 06:22, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

That would completely throw out not only the results of the lengthy and heated discussion that led to the ArbCom, but the principles of WP:NAME and WP:DAB. The current guideline isn't something we just threw together for TV episode articles, it's derived from the basic naming principles of Wikipedia. Jay32183 (talk) 08:01, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Yep. As I said above, the TV episode naming schema may not seem consistent when regarded on its own, but it's completely consistent with the way that articles on Wikipedia are named. If Wikipedia were just an encyclopedia of television, it might make sense to name things the way MartinPhi is suggesting. But it's not. If Wikipedia named articles in general this way, we'd have things like Shakespeare play (Two Gentlemen of Verona), or Dickens novel (Martin Chuzzlewit). Instead, we have a system based on disambiguation, which is applied when necessary and is not applied when a title is unambiguous. Wikipedia articles aren't named according to "the trunk of a tree". That's what we have categories for.

And if you understand the way that articles on Wikipedia in general are named, it's not at all difficult to figure out how to name TV episode articles. If the television episode has a unique name, like The Next Doctor, the article goes there. If it has a name that's shared by something else, like "Journey's End", then the article is disambiguated with the name of the television series (Journey's End (Doctor Who). In the very rare occasions when that is ambiguous, you use the word "episode" (e.g. Dalek (Doctor Who episode)). What's difficult about that? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:59, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I can also support Jack-A-Roe's proposal, it makes sense and provides a consistent structure for television-related naming standards, and closely fits one of my earlier suggestions [14]. But since the original scope of this was to address how to handle an unnamed pilot episode such as Pilot (Smallville), a part of the current naming standard that makes no sense to me; and since it looks like we have consensus on the change originally proposed, I think we should go ahead and implement that change, and use the format "Series name (pilot)" (e.g. Smallville (pilot) or Smallville (pilot episode). As Josiah points out above [15], this is a relatively minor change, and it should help alleviate some of the concerns about consistency. Dreadstar † 20:22, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

If there is indeed a consensus about this, I'd be willing to go along with it, even though I think that the current naming pattern makes sense and the proposal would make episode article naming more complex, without need. However, I'm concerned that the discussion here doesn't have enough visibility, despite the RfC. In order to gain a wider consensus, I've put notes on the talk pages of all FAs and GAs of unnamed pilot episodes (on the assumption that FAs and GAs would have more engaged editorships). If these editors agree that the naming pattern Smallville (pilot) or Smallville (pilot episode) makes more sense than Pilot (Smallville), we can make the change. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:57, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

There are two forms of "consistency" here. "Series (pilot)" might look consistent with "Series (film)", but the naming pattern "Pilot (Series)" is meant to be consistent with other episode articles, and that makes more sense to me. I might support using "Pilot episode (Series)" to avoid some confusing titles like "Pilot (JAG)" (which exists as a redirect, not an article). There are maybe 50 articles on pilots, total (not counting redirects, which are probably another 50), so it seems silly to change every other episode article in order to "fix" a debatable problem with these 50-100 articles. Gimmetrow 21:44, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I have to support Jack-A-Roe's proposal as well, as per my past discussions. Gimmetrow would you mind clarifying the last couple of lines of your statement above. I apologize, but its not making sense for some reason. Many thanks.(olive (talk) 22:24, 11 October 2008 (UTC))

I think Gimmetrow is saying that it seems ridiculous to rename every episode article to solve a perceived (not actual) problem with a small number of them. It's basically the same point I made earlier when I pointed to WP:CREEP. The proposal makes things unnecessarily complicated for an issue that may not even be problematic to begin with. Jay32183 (talk) 22:39, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The (or rather a) problem with "Pilot (Series)" is that it is inappropriate by disambiguation standards unless it is presumed that users are expecting to find the article at simply "Pilot" and the parenthetical "(Series)" is required merely for disambiguation. older ≠ wiser 23:00, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

At first, I wasn't sure if I liked the idea of placing the episode title in the parentetical, but now the more I think about it (and re-read the discussions above) the more it makes sense. Especially since it allows for the use of Special:PrefixIndex/Star_Trek to find all the episodes.

So support User:Jack-A-Roe's proposal. - jc37 23:07, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

That's what categories are for, Jc37. This proposal would require too much changing and disadvantages for too little benefit. About half the episodes listed at WP:GA have unique titles and need no disambiguation. Do we really need to rename Bart the General to The Simpsons (Bart the General)? Are we then going to rename all characters the same way for "consistency", and have The Simpsons (Maggie Simpson)? What if a character name matches an episode name? The Simpsons (Radioactive Man) (episode) and The Simpsons (Radioactive Man) (character)? That looks odd. Radioactive Man (The Simpsons character) and Radioactive Man (The Simpsons episode) work fine. I strongly oppose changing. Gimmetrow 23:23, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I understand your concerns, but I think we're talking about RL presentations here, not about the content within those presentations.

That's why I feel I can support, because we already do this with dates, publisher names, etc. - jc37 23:50, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what "RL" refers to. But if we end up with The Simpsons (Bart the General), it would need to be piped when linked in articles, and the "pipe trick" wouldn't work. Gimmetrow 23:54, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I Support it. It only makes sense. There are going to be some problems with anything done. But at least this is logical. And anything works with a pipe-- whatever. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 23:57, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, of course, [[Radioactive Man (The Simpsons episode)|whatever]] works, and that's exactly what we use now, and it also works with the pipe trick. The point is that if we used [[The Simpsons episode (Radioactive Man)|whatever]], we would NOT be able to use the pipe trick. [[The Simpsons episode (Radioactive Man)|]] would become [[The Simpsons episode (Radioactive Man)|The Simpsons episode]]. This proposal would effectively disable a long-standing shortcut, but ONLY for TV episodes. That would be confusing and counter-intuitive. Gimmetrow 00:11, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

That's also one of the reasons I oppose changing the existing guideline even for an unnamed pilot. I want to have Pilot (Smallville) so I can pipe [[pilot (Smallville)|]] and see "pilot". When would we ever refer to the episode as just Smallville? When it's clear we're talking about Smallville we would just say "the pilot". The set up we have now let's the pipe trick work, and is in keeping with WP:NAME and WP:DAB. We need to invoke the KISS principle and avoid instruction creep. Jay32183 (talk) 00:21, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

In regards to the policy WP:NAME, there it states: The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists. (The pipe trick is for editors, not for readers). Also, instruction creep refers to adding new rules; that does not apply here, because we're considering a change to existing instructions, not adding of new rules. The episode titles are not disambiguations, so WP:DAB doesn't apply. I'm not positive the change I proposed is the best method, though considering there has been some support for that approach, I thought it might be useful to address some of the objections. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 00:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

The Simpsons (Radioactive Man) (episode) is not "optimized for readers". Radioactive Man (The Simpsons episode) at least makes some sense. Gimmetrow 01:01, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know why you wrote " The Simpsons (Radioactive Man) (episode)" - no-one has suggested anything like that. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 01:32, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Under your proposal, how do you name the article on The Simpson's episode "Radioactive Man", and distinguish it from the article on the character of the same name? Gimmetrow 01:43, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

←Seems to me there's a difference in how to handle an episode title and a character. Some characters are notable in themselves, and some might get spinoff shows. Some episode names might be unclear and need the word "episode" as you noted, but not with extra parentheses. For example:

• Character: Radioactive Man (if its unambiguous),

or as in this case, when it's a term with multiple meanings, the current page title is appropriate: Radioactive Man (The Simpsons character)

but not The Simspons (Radioactive Man)

• for an episode is named after that character: The Simpsons (Radioactive Man episode)

Since there's a character too, the word "episode" is needed. For episodes that are not named after characters, the word "episode" would not be needed, though in the special case of untitled pilot episodes, the term "(pilot episode)" is better than just "Pilot" to avoid confusion with an episode thaqt uses the word "Pilot" as a title.

• This way, if he gets his own show, it would be: Radioactive Man (TV series) - that fits with other character articles, like Batman, etc. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 03:48, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Jack-a-Roe, your proposal treats the first part of an article name like a category, and the term in parentheses as the specific case. That's backwards of how disambiguation works. When a title is unambiguous, it shouldn't be disambiguated (thus, Dombey and Son, not Dombey and Son (Dickens novel), or Dickens novel (Dombey and Son), which is parallel to your proposal). When a title is ambiguous, the term in parentheses shows what distinguishes it from other items of the same name (thus, Summerland (novel), Summerland (TV series) and Summerland (song)). According to standard Wikipedia disambiguation rules, The Simpsons (Radioactive Man episode) is an episode titled "The Simpsons", of a series called "Radioactive Man". —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:33, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
    • I agree with Josiah Rowe. Writing The Simpsons (Radioactive Man) is the reverse of how parenthetic disambiguation works everywhere else. If this form doesn't apply to every other topic on Wikipedia, then why should it apply to episodes? Your reply above doesn't explain (to my satisfaction) why, if we have The Simpsons (Radioactive Man episode), we shouldn't also have The Simpsons (Radioactive Man character). What you are proposing would, if adopted, set a precent applicable to unknown tens of thousands of titles, and would make them less understandable. Gimmetrow 15:46, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Separating proposals

The discussion is getting a bit muddy, because there are two proposals on the table. I'm going to separate them out for clarity: —Preceding unsigned comment added by Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs)

It was a bit muddy, but I think the above two discussions on these proposals, discussions that are still ongoing in their original sections, should be read fully before commenting in the below, parsed sections. It's only fair to those who have already commented and raised excellent points on both sides. Naturally, like Josiah, everyone who has already commented is welcome to restate their views in the below sections. Dreadstar † 04:33, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

That's fair, and the links to discussion above are a good idea. But I do think it's useful to have a summary of the proposal in front of each section. If anyone would like to summarize Jack-a-Roe's proposal the way I summarized Dreadstar's, feel free — I didn't think I could do so in a fair and coherent fashion, because I don't understand the reasoning behind it. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:41, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

It's kind of unfair to restart a complex, ongoing discussion, and I think it's best that editors read through the original discussion to get the full story. Mine's easy..Jack's is a little more in-depth..:) Dreadstar † 04:49, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

My intention wasn't to restart the discussion, just to separate the two proposals out so that people could continue the discussion on each one separately. But I won't edit war about repeating Jack's proposal below. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:55, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Guide to the discussions:

• TV pilot naming standards limited proposal: TV pilot naming standards
• Modified version broader proposal: Modified version

TV pilot naming standards limited proposal

• This is a proposal to change the current naming standard for unnamed television pilots from "Pilot (series name)" to "Series name (pilot)" or "Series name (pilot episode). {e.g. from "Pilot (Smallville)" and "Pilot (House)" to "House (pilot)" or "House (pilot episode)" and "Smallville (pilot)" or "Smallville (pilot episode)". This is only about pilot episodes which do not have individual names and would not affect episodes with individual titles, such as City of and The Cage (Star Trek).
• The discussion on this started here: TV pilot naming standards. I hope everyone will read through that discussion before commenting here. Dreadstar † 04:17, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

• I mildly oppose this proposal, as I feel that it adds unneeded complications to an already complex (but rational) system which is in keeping with general Wikipedia article naming guidelines. However, if a clear majority of interested editors feels that this is more logical than the existing pattern, I will accede. This issue was not really part of the previous discussions, so whatever consensus is reached here will not represent an overturning of the prior arbitration. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:58, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

• Strong support for my own proposal, of course. Coming into this as outsider to TV naming standards discussions, I saw a problem with our standard for unnamed pilots. I was getting ready to watch the first episode of “Fringe” after noticing we had an article on it: Pilot (Fringe). Didn't read the article, but from the article's title, it looked like the name of the episode was “Pilot”, which made sense because the advertisements presented the show as starting off with a commercial airliner that landed even though everyone on board was dead, so I thought the show might be about the pilot of that plane. To my surprise, the plane's pilot had nothing to do with the main plot of the show; he was just one of the victims. I read our article, and searched the internet to see if the name of the show was actually pilot..that’s when I noticed that all our unnamed pilots are named pilot – which made no sense to me at all, and was confusing.

I find the argument that all unnamed pilots are commonly named “pilot” to be unsourceable and somewhat baffling. If I walk up to a friend and ask her if she saw “Pilot”, she’s going to think I’m talking about an airplane movie; or if I ask Blockbuster for “Pilot”, they’re going to look at me funny…or hand me that airplane movie my friend and I ended up talking about. The name I would commonly use would be, “have you seen the Fringe pilot episode?” or “The Smallville pilot episode,” not just “Pilot”. I also noticed that the pilot episode for The X-Files wasn’t even on the X-Files dab page, so I added it.…but it’s backwards and doesn’t fit the rest of the names there: The_X-Files_(disambiguation) If it doesn’t fit, you must aqui….well, never mind that..but… :)

We shouldn’t be using “Pilot” as the title for an unnamed pilot episode; we should be using “Pilot” as a type, as in The X-Files (pilot), which fits with the other types, such as The X-Files (film), The X-Files (books) and The X-Files (song). Dreadstar † 00:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support. The basic consideration, IMO, is that if disambiguation were not necessary, could the article be properly titled as "Pilot"? If not, then the current convention is incorrect. older ≠ wiser 01:32, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support. Whatever may or may not happen with the modified broader proposal, this limited proposal regarding TV pilot naming standards is important and should be adopted for the various reasons already noted. In particular, if it's not done this way, the disambiguation of the term "Pilot" is excessively burdened. Between the various forms, this one seems best: The X-Files (pilot episode) - it's the most clear version, since there might be an episode named "Pilot", by keeping it non-capitalized in the parenthesis, and adding the word "episode", no-one needs to wonder what's being described. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 02:54, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• I Support Dreadstar's proposal as I have in the past. I can't see anything in the recent discussions that could lead me to change my mind. His proposal is a step towards consistency. In addition, his recent comment above indicates the biggest concern with the naming convention in place now, and that is, that the reader, and in this case one of our own experienced editors and an admin. had difficulties with it, imagine a reader who has never navigated Wikipedia trying to make sense of this system. Of the first importance, this encyclopedia must be user friendly, must cater to the reader first, and not the editor. If it doesn't, by the definition of what this encyclopedia is, the convention must be changed(olive (talk) 03:11, 14 October 2008 (UTC))

Yikes....I realized after posting this last night that my comment was less than complimentary. I've seen at different times Dreadstar has a good sense of humour so...My support and point stand, but reworded is, if even a savvy Wikipedian finds the present convention cumbersome so will probably the reader. The convention needs to be more reader friendly.(olive (talk) 14:13, 14 October 2008 (UTC))

• Support. That's pretty funny that he'd have trouble with it. Perhaps I shouldn't blame the WP search as much as I do. I use Google instead of trying to figure out what they named things like that. This makes much more sense. Per older ≠ wiser. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:55, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• I strongly oppose on the grounds that there has not been one logical argument for change to the existing guideline, or any evidence that a problem with Wikipedia even exists. There does seem to be a problem, but it has to do with people not understanding the basic naming and disambiguation guidelines or the meaning of the word "pilot" in the context of television. The pilots are not named "Pilot" but are called the pilot. Wikipedia article titles omit "the" unless part of a proper name. "Did you see the pilot of Fringe?" is a completely reasonable and understandable question. Changing from Pilot (The X-Files) to The X-Files (pilot) doesn't make sense. Not only is the episode not named "The X-Files", it isn't called "The X-Files" either. The people supporting this proposal even found indisputable evidence that the episode is called (again, called not named, the words are not the same) "the pilot of The X-Files", and when the context is clear, simply "the pilot", even on official merchandising. Jay32183 (talk) 07:22, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support changing from “Pilot (series name)” to “Series name (pilot)” for unnamed pilot episodes. (e.g. change to “The X-Files (pilot episode)” — Rlevse • Talk • 22:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• Strong support It has never made sense to me why the television series name is not given first, especially when so many first shows are not given names, but simply called "pilot". If you do a search for "Pilot" you come up with tons of results, (yes, some non-TV related, but scroll and there are plenty of TV shows where the article's title is "Pilot" (show)), you have to wade through pages and sift through all the results to find the "pilot" that relates to the show you're looking for. It is counter-intuitive. The standard should be "SeriesName (Pilot)". Pilot episodes are not technically named "pilot", but "pilot" is simply a description of the type of episode. (Yes, some pilots have names, and that's fine, but this is discussing those that don't have names.) The proper way to name the article for such shows should be the series name, followed in parentheses, by the word "pilot" which is the description of the type of episode, not a name. The X-Files was a TV show, it had a pilot episode with no name. Thus, it should be The X-Files (Pilot). (Now, whether the word in parentheses, "pilot" should be capitalized or not, is another issue. I think it should be, but whatever...) Ariel♥Gold 19:14, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

By the way, just in the first page of results, I count no less than twenty-two pages that refer to a TV show, and are called "Pilot". From these, a user has to find the show they wanted to find. (And this is why I too, use Google, instead of Wikipedia's search!) And, among the 22, there is absolutely no consistency at all, some give the show's name, and some say "episode" after the show's name, so the naming convention is not being followed in the system currently in use. This proposal would not only give consistency, but it is much more likely that someone would search for the pilot of a TV show by its name, rather than by the word "pilot". Ariel♥Gold 19:23, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

• Two major reasons why your support doesn't make sense. No pilot, even if unnamed, is ever referred to by the series name alone unless there are no other episodes. No one will search for an article on a pilot episode by searching for pilot and not the name of the series. They may not use the parenthetical if not familiar with the guideline, but they would include the name of the series. We should really be discussing this from a WP:NAME and WP:DAB perspective. This guideline explains how to conform to the general guidelines for television related articles. It is not intended to override them. We can't break a Wikipedia-wide consensus because a small group feels they're better qualified to discuss the issue. If pilot were in parentheses, it would be lowercase because it is not a proper noun. Jay32183 (talk) 19:28, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

• It looks like we have a consensus to change the unnamed television pilots standard from "Pilot (series name)" to "Series name (pilot episode)". I'll write up the wording change to the guideline and start making the change to the relevant articles. Dreadstar † 20:25, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• There is absolutely not a consensus. Consensus is determined by the strength of argument, not the number of votes. There is no consensus, especially since you wanted to agree to disagree. Only the opposes in this proposal are supported by the general policies and guidelines of Wikipedia. We don't get to have votes to do whatever we want in disregard of everything else going on on Wikipedia. Especially when the sources provided by supporters directly contradicts their position. Jay32183 (talk) 21:44, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• I agree. The declaration that consensus has been reached seems premature to me, to say the least (unless you're just counting votes). I also agree that only the opposition argument is supported by the general policies and guidelines of Wikipedia. I can't even figure out what the support argument is, besides "we want it that way". I also think there is something to be said for considering the naming of each pilot episode article on an individual basis. Consensus has already been established for using the episode name when the pilot has a name, dabbed when necessary. For some pilots there might be evidence that the most common name to refer to it is the series name, in which case Series Name (pilot) would be an appropriate article title. But for those for which the only name ever used to refer to is "Pilot", Pilot (series name) seems to be the most reasonable title. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:43, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• While I agree there is as yet no clear consensus, I think it is fairly rare that there would be pilot episodes for series that are widely enough known as simply "pilot" to qualify for that title under use common names. Using a name such as Pilot (series name) implies that if no disambiguation were necessary the article could be titled as simply "Pilot". The current convention for naming pilot episodes fails both UCN and DAB. To satisfy those guidelines, we'd need to see strong evidence that that particular episode is commonly known as simply "pilot" -- especially outside the specialized context of DVD content listings (or websites that parrot such information). older ≠ wiser 19:49, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• If you think it's rare that the episodes are known as pilot, find sources for a different name. If it's called pilot on official DVDs, it's unlikely that there's another title because they would have used that instead. We are, in fact, trying to indicate that the articles would be called "pilot" if there were no need to disambiguate. There is reason to disambiguate, even if only one TV series had used the word; pilots are the guys who fly planes after all. The first dab term in a TV episode article is the name of the series. The guideline is not unique to pilots in that respect, you'd need evidence that pilots are a special case. The only way pilots seem like a special case is that pilot is not an official title, therefore should be spelled with lowercase letters in the lead section of the articles. There's no evidence of a problem or that change is needed, meaning this proposal fails WP:CREEP. Jay32183 (talk) 04:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

• You misunderstand. I never said there was another name -- only that using the title Pilot (series name) is NOT supported by either WP:UCN or by WP:DAB. Find reliable sources (apart from the specialized context of DVD listings and web sites that parrot such content) which use the name "Pilot" as a proper noun and not as an adjective to refer to the shows and then there might be some basis for titling the pages as Pilot, but without such evidence there is no valid reason for using such a title. older ≠ wiser 14:00, 30 November 2008 (UTC) PS, it would be nonsensical to list all pilot television episodes at Pilot (disambiguation). NO ONE, not EVER, would type in "pilot" looking for the pilot episode of a particular tv series. older ≠ wiser 14:03, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

• Support Comment: using the form “Series name (pilot)” for unnamed pilot episodes is much better than the opposite method, "Pilot (Series name)" - that's a confusing disambiguation of the word "Pilot" that is not what's intended and does not reflect the way readers search for the information. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 20:01, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  • You already supported. Jay32183 (talk) 04:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
    • Oops. Struck-through duplicate and changed to "Comment" - it's been a month and a half, I thought this was a new section when I saw the new activity. Now that I've re-read the recent entries more carefully, I'll add this:
    • There does seem to be at least a rough consensus of support among the people entering comments here for the limited proposal. We should proceed with the change. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 07:19, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
      • There does not seem to be a consensus. Vote counting does not make a consensus, the strength of argument does. This proposal contradicts large scale policy and guidelines with illogical reasons. There can never be a consensus for that. There are simply editors who want to do something different than existing practice(not just the one we're discussing), and Wikipedia at large has not noticed. Jay32183 (talk) 08:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
• Support and agree with Jack-A-Roe.(olive (talk) 20:22, 29 November 2008 (UTC))
  • You already supported. Jay32183 (talk) 04:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Supporting the idea that there is agreement among majority of editors here for the change that Jack-A- Roe outlines rather than the change itself, which you correctly note I have already supported. (To clarify).(olive (talk) 04:44, 30 November 2008 (UTC))

Modified version broader proposal

[Entering this note 6 weeks after this section was started. Since there's no new discussion on the broader proposal, I suggest tabling it for now and focusing on the limited proposal above, that seems to be making some progress. The broader proposal can be re-opened later, or not, depending on editor's interest at the time. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 07:29, 30 November 2008 (UTC)]

• As with the above section, this discussion started here: Modified version and I hope everyone will read through that discussion before making comments here, as well. Dreadstar † 04:23, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I strongly oppose this proposal, for several reasons: first, it goes against the general article naming guidelines at WP:DAB and WP:NAME. I've argued this point several times, and don't feel like restating it again here.

Second, it goes against a previously established consensus, which was the result of a long and arduous discussion and even resulted in an [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Naming Conventions|ArbCom decision. The ArbCom concluded (emphasis added), "There has been an extended discussion regarding the Wikipedia:Naming conventions for the titles of episodes of television series; a consensus decision was reached, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Naming_Conventions#Statement_by_Yaksha, but is not respected by some users, possibly due to lack of an authoritative and generally respected procedure for closing the consensus decision making process, see Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(television)#Episode_articles." They also stated, "It is the responsibility of the administrators and other responsible parties to close extended policy discussions they are involved in, such as this dispute. Closing consists of announcing the decision at the locations of the discussion and briefly explaining the basis for closing it in the way it is being closed; further, to change any policy pages, guidelines or naming conventions to conform with the decision; and finally, to enforce the decision with respect to recalcitrant users who violate the decision, after reminding them and warning them." As one such administrator and responsible party, I feel that although consensus can change, this previously established consensus should not be lightly dismissed. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:58, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Certainly prior consensus should not be dismissed lightly. But as you noted, that can change. That's why there is an RfC active on this page; the proper procedure for determining consensus. Regarding the quote from prior RFAR on closing of "extended policy discussions" - that does not apply here, because this discussion is not "extended". The RfC was only posted a couple weeks ago. The RFAR was about a debate that went on for months; one in which consensus was violated by a small minority. Nothing like that is happening here, this is a good-faith debate on the best way to handle the naming conventions. The prior consensus is two years old. There's nothing wrong with discussing it to find if consensus has changed or not. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't, we don't know yet. And I'm not sure myself about which is the best approach. I like the method I proposed, but I'm considering the responses with an open mind. I don't have a "position"; my suggested change was just that, a suggestion put up for discussion. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 19:47, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. Upon re-reading my comment above, I see that it looks as if I was trying to shut down the discussion — that was not my intention. I intended merely to restate the previous consensus, and note that it was reached after a fairly arduous process. I'm probably still a bit scarred by the experience, and may be reacting more harshly to this proposal than is warranted — to a survivor of the previous debate, this feels like opening old wounds. But that's my problem, not anyone else's. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:21, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I also strongly oppose. I guess Josiah Rowe pretty much summed up all my thoughts, and then some. Also, to name all episodes "The X-Files (episode name here)" would be confusing and unneeded. Why not just have "(episode name here)" in the case that no other pages have the same name? Corn.u.co.pia / Disc.us.sion 03:48, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Part of the problem here is there is no consistency whatsoever on wiki about this X-files episodes are EPISODE (The X-Files) but Simpsons episodes are just the name of the episode. I vote for either "Pilot (The X-Files)" or "The X-files (Pilot)". — Rlevse • Talk • 01:23, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

If there's a lack of consistency it's because this guideline hasn't been consistently applied. Many of the X-Files episodes should be moved: for example, there's no reason that How the Ghosts Stole Christmas (The X-Files) should have any disambiguation at all, since there's nothing else called "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas". A change in the guideline would probably make things even less consistent, unless someone wanted to commit to moving all the thousands of TV episode articles on Wikipedia (and all the redirects, and so forth). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:42, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• I strongly oppose. This proposal is instruction creep that contradicts the basic naming and disambiguation conventions. It also attempts to single out television episodes using an argument that could easily apply to any set of articles with a clear defined hierarchy, such as songs on an album. To make this change we would have to completely throw out all of the established naming conventions and start all over, as if the category system did not exist. Jay32183 (talk) 07:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. Per the compelling arguments of Josiah Rowe and Jay32183. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:47, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Redirects

Edokter (talk · contribs) made a bold change to the section talking about redirects, and I've reverted it: per WP:BRD, discussion comes next.

A little background: in prior discussion about episode article naming, a consensus was reached that television episode articles should follow the general Wikipedia rule "Disambiguate only when necessary". Some TV programs had episode pages which used disambigating suffixes for every article; this guideline clarified that this was not best practice. However, the editors who preferred this style made the point that readers wouldn't necessarily know when an episode shares its name with another Wikipedia article, and when it didn't. Such readers, looking for episodes of television series "xyz", might get into the habit of typing "episode name (xyz)" or "episode name (xyz episode)" into the search box. Since redirects are cheap, it was felt that it was appropriate for redirects of this type to be kept and maintained.

Thus, the retention of these redirects is actually in support of the general rule "Disambiguate only when necessary", not in opposition to it, as Edokter suggests. Redirects help readers find the article they're looking for. I see no reason why this aspect of this guideline should be changed. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The current search box has been greatly enhanced since then; it now displays suggstion for quick access. The existence of these redirects has an adverse effect on this; On more then one occasion, entering a title in the serach box results in the suggestion box being filled with redirects pointing to the same article. That defeats the purpose of these redirects entirerly. It is also not likely to a new reader to enter (xxx episode) after a title. Ones first action is usually searching by title alone.

My philosophy is to keep navigation simple and to the point, with only keeping the more obvious redirects in place. Having to many redirects encourages linking to the wrong or even misspelled titles; in my eyes it creates a navigational hell. It is bad enough to have to maintain an article to have consistent incoming linking, without having to go through all the redirects as well. Unambigous tiltes should stay unambigous, as creating ambigous redirects only creates more confusion. — Edokter • Talk • 18:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

We just have two different philosophies about redirects. I think that keeping redirects for plausible search terms is always a good idea, despite "cluttering up" the search box. The (xxx episode) suffix is a plausible search term for anyone who used Wikipedia prior to the establishment of this guideline in its current form — that used to be a very common naming pattern, and is still found in a lot of articles that haven't been brought in line with this guideline.

Your reasoning would remove redirects for typos and many of the other categories recommended at Wikipedia:Redirects#What do we use redirects for?. Redirects do complicate the work of the editor, but they aid the reader. As WP:RFD#KEEP says, "Some extra vigilance by editors will be required to minimize the occurrence of those frequent misspellings in the article texts because the linkified misspellings will not appear as broken links." The same principle applies here. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:11, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

By the way, the original discussion that led to this part of the guideline is here. You can see in that discussion that several editors felt that redirects with these suffixes were useful. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:21, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree with keeping the redirects. I do see Edokter's point though, and that's a good reason not to have too many redirects. But one or two - or even three - seem fine. Do you have a specific example where too many redirects is causing a problem in the search control? —Wknight94 (talk) 18:38, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Keep the redirects. And puhleeeeez let's not open up this can of worms again. When I saw Josiah's note on my talkpage, my first impulse was to make a sign in the air to ward off evil. To be more specific: I work with redirects all the time, all over Wikipedia. Especially when dealing with biographies of obscure monarchs with names in non-Latin languages (Chinese, Turkish, Arabic, etc.), pretty much every history book you pick up is going to have a different (English) spelling of some of these guys' names. So each time I work on an article, I routinely make a dozen redirects with all the potential misspellings and phonetic choices. Even if such a redirect is never used, it's better to have it on the off chance it might be used, than to delete it because it's not used enough. For TV episodes, it doesn't mean we have to create redirects for every possible version of an episode title, but once a redirect is created, there's really hardly ever any good reason to delete it. --Elonka 19:25, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Edokter's issue has merit for one situation though: there's no reason to have 10 redirects, all with the same title, but only different disambiguation tags. Like Joe Gets Married (TV episode), Joe Gets Married (television episode), Joe Gets Married (The Smiths episode), Joe Gets Married (The Smiths), Joe Gets Married (The Smiths TV episode), etc., etc. We get it already! And if you search for "Joe Gets Married", the search box will be deluged with redirects. God help you if you were looking for some non-TV-related "Joe Gets Married" article - like maybe a novel or something. It would be drowned out by redirects. —Wknight94 (talk) 20:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I understand Edokter's point, and can relate as I've been annoyed by similar experiences searching for articles since they installed the new search box. That being said, I find myself simply typing the name of the article fully, more so than I type a couple of letters and see what pops up in the search box. The physical redirects are applicable, and should stay, but I think we should include an emphasis on not over doing the redirects. As Wknight94 pointed out, we don't need 10 different redirects. Most "(X episode)" type of redirects are not going to be the first thing the average reader searches for. After initially trying the basic title (if they haven't found it through disambiguation links), they're probably going to go to the more simple "Title episode" (without the paranthesis). The average reader isn't completely up on Wikipedia naming conventions, and I think they're more apt to search for things using simplistic titling.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:21, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Just to make sure I'm understanding, when you say "new search box", you're talking about the little dropdown menu that appears when typing something into the box? Or something else? --Elonka 13:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the drop down box (which isn't "new", but a new feature....which in itself isn't that new as we've had it for a little while now).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

So the consensus seems to be to keep some redirects, but not too many. Should we attempt to standardize which redirects are useful, and which aren't? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:25, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's really needed. The existing guideline at WP:REDIRECT seems to be sufficient, without making any special allowances for the TV topic area. --Elonka 01:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

True. Then it might follow that the redirect-related verbiage at this guideline should go away in toto. —Wknight94 (talk) 01:43, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd be OK with that, as long as the removal of the text isn't interpreted to mean that these redirects should be deleted. I suppose that the results of the current discussion at RFD could be sufficient, though. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:50, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

House episodes predisambiguated

Hi folks, I have not participated here since the big debacle over the predisambiguating of the Lost episode articles, but it looks like all of the House episode articles have been predisambiguated, directly in violation of the guidelines. FYI... --Serge (talk) 03:10, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Avoiding unnecessary disambiguation

Hi, I see that in the first paragraph of WP:NC-TV it says "Remember that the disambiguator should be added only if multiple articles would normally have the same name.", but I wonder if that ought to be either bigger and bolder or repeated under the various section headings? I spotted this edit where someone cites "Naming convention" as the reason for moving an unambiguous article title to one with "(TV series)". There also need to be more reminders that if ever a title is created as "Foo (TV series)" then there must be a link on a dab page or hatnote which points to this article from "Foo" - time and again it doesn't get done! PamD (talk) 15:39, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I have proposed that the general naming convention policy be changed to say explicitly that unnecessary disambiguation is to be avoided for all Wikipedia articles, as is already explicitly stated for TV episode articles. You are invited to comment on the proposal here. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:32, 7 November 2008 (UTC)