Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Television episodes

Conclusions

A consensus was reached to accept the guidelines below. --InShaneee 05:02, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia contains a large number of articles on television episodes. There is some disagreement as to whether every episode of every show "deserves" an article, which leads to a large number of AFDs for such articles. The following suggestions aim to promote the creation of high-quality articles about television shows and their episodes, which should help to reduce acrimonious AfD debates.

Creating articles on television episodes

More important than having many articles on TV episodes is having good articles on those TV episodes. Therefore, it may not be a good idea to create small articles on every episode of a television show. However, it may still make sense to add information about a television episode to Wikipedia. The following process is a suggested method of doing so:

• First, create an article on the television show.
• Once there's enough independently verifiable information to do so, create articles on each season, or some other logical division, of the show.
• Once there's enough independently verifiable information included about individual episodes, spin the information from episodes out into their own articles.

Content

• Content about television episodes must conform to Wikipedia content policies, including but not limited to Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research.
• Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Avoid excessive trivia and quotations.
• Extensive quotation from episodes is a violation of copyright and unlikely to be fair use.
• Here are some ideas for what information to include about a television episode, where possible:
  • The plot summary of the episode
  • The episode's relevance in ongoing story arcs, if any
  • How the episode was received by critics
  • The episode's impact on popular culture
  • Information on production and broadcasting of the episode
• Elements which are best avoided in any episode article:
  • A scene-by-scene synopsis. An overall plot summary is much better; the article should not attempt to be a replacement for watching the show itself, it should be about the show
  • Particularly for comedies, no attempt should be made to recreate the humor of the show. This rarely works, and is contrary to the purpose of an encyclopedia.

Dealing with problem articles

• Generally, articles on episodes of television should not be listed for AfD (unless they are completely unverifiable, original research, etc.).
• If the articles are very short, consider merging them into another article (e.g. an article about the show itself, an article that is a list of episodes of the show, or an article that summarizes the plot for one season of the show).
• If the same person appears to have created a large number of problematic articles, please refer them to this page.

See also

• Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)
• Wikipedia:Schools