Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television

Lists of episodes placed in seasons by year categories

I noticed that some TV series that are not divided into seasons have episode lists that are sorted into season categories by year. These are mostly anime series. What is the policy/consensus on this? As far as I can see, not all (0-season series) episode lists are organized this way, especially regular live action miniseries. I've removed some of them from these categories, but I've noticed that there are still quite a few such lists in those categories. Personally, I find it odd to sporadically see "list of episodes" articles next to numbered season articles; if the creators of a TV series don't position it as seasons and don't break it down into separate units, then we shouldn't be making it up on Wikipedia and calling it seasons. Solidest (talk) 16:53, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Ah, the good 'ol anime articles. The issue with those is that List of Death Note episodes is actually not a list of episodes article, but the main TV series article page and should be titled Death Note (TV series). A group have anime editors have been actively resisting this for years. Gonnym (talk) 17:13, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Well, in both cases that doesn't make it an article about the season, right? Solidest (talk) 20:09, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

First sentence

I would like to suggest that something along the lines of MOS:FILMLEAD should be included in the Lead section here, so that we have consistency in what is presented particularly in the first sentence, such as the date of first release. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 23:57, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

There is an example in MOS:TVLEAD but that is not similar to what most pages I see use. I agree that a more consistent style would be much more helpful for the project. If this has consensus, the MoS should take into account TV series, season, and episode leads. Gonnym (talk) 07:12, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

The particular post above was concerning adding the release year into the first paragraph of the lead; i.e. "Fallout is a 2024 American post-apocalyptic drama television series". This, I would disagree with. -- Alex_21 _TALK 07:44, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Why can't a release year be added? Arrow (TV series) has The series premiered in the United States on The CW on October 10, 2012, and ran for eight seasons until January 28, 2020. I agree that the date shouldn't be the 4th word in the lead, but it should still be in the first paragraph of the lead. Gonnym (talk) 07:48, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

That is fine, since it gives explicit detail on the release span, and isn't just the premiere year. The above suggestion concerned also adding the year immediately in front of what type of television series it is. As far as I've come across, many articles (including Fallout) follow the standard of listing the premiere date as the first sentence of the final paragraph of the lead, since it follows all production information. -- Alex_21 _TALK 08:00, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Let's wait for the full discussion to be completed and consensus reached on the MOS talk page. I am always happy to abide by consensus but do not agree with editors reverting my changes just because they think their idea is better. Pretty much every TV series I see includes at least the year of first release in the first or second sentence, sometimes repeating the precise date(s) further down the lead if the lead is a long one. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:58, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Your edits were reverted by multiple editors as they were made without any TV-related guideline cited; they were made simply because you thought your idea was better. Could you please cite this list of "every TV series" you've seen? Any article with repeated content should be promptly fixed. -- Alex_21 _TALK 10:02, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

TV series leads pretty much always include a full premiere date already. In an edit like this, the release year added to the first sentence reads as especially redundant because the full premiere date is already noted in the third sentence (albeit the start of a new paragraph). We often see full start and end dates in the first sentence for completed series like Seinfeld or The West Wing, probably because the duration is itself defining, but for ongoing series which lacks an end date this info tends to be included later in the lead.— TAnthony^Talk 14:34, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think a single year should be added to the first sentence of the lead in a similar way that MOS:FILMLEAD allows because it's an apples to oranges situation. Only a handful of series, presently, release all episodes at once on a single day, in a single year. But the vast majority release their episodes over multiple days (sometimes within the same calendar year) and over multiple years (be it network series from September to May, or multiple seasons over multiple years). Most series account for this in some way with a sentence highlighting the release cadence in the lead. I personally prefer it in the third or fourth paragraph of the lead, but others could chose to have it in the first paragraph. It just shouldn't be in the very first sentence or one of the very first elements of that sentence. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 21:21, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

"Audience Says"?

MOS:TVAUDIENCE says "Do not include user ratings submitted to websites such as the Internet Movie Database, Metacritic, or Rotten Tomatoes (including its "Audience Says" feature), as they are vulnerable to vote stacking and demographic skew." MOS:FILMAUDIENCE says approximately the same. I didn't actually find anything called "Audience Says" on Rotten Tomatoes. Is that referring to what Rotten Tomatoes now calls its "Popcornmeter", or is that referring to something else, such as individual comments submitted by members of the public? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:16, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Here: "Audience Says" is a short blurb that summarizes what fans think of a movie, drawing on common points made in user reviews written for the title Gonnym (talk) 20:20, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, but are they still using that feature? That links to a blog entry from more than 3 years ago, and I don't see such blurbs for the well-known movies I checked on the site. Is it acceptable to use averaged audience scores such as the Rotten Tomatoes "Popcornmeter" or the Metacritic "User Score"? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:31, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Copying my comment from your talk page. Generally, I don't like to include the user-generated scores from anywhere - IMDB, Metacritic, RottenTomatoes in part because they are largely fed by either fans or haters of shows and are easily manipulated. If the only source for a user generated rating is IMDB/Metacritic/RT, I would 100% leave it out. If a secondary sources calls out the score and highlights something unusual about it, that's worth a second glance to see if it should be included with the full context - show XYZ was review-bombed and the user rating on DEF went from 9.5 to 2.3 in a month. That's notable and worth mentioning. Ravensfire (talk) 20:36, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I think having this discussion is good just to get some definition here and use that to update the MOS. Ravensfire (talk) 20:37, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

If the "Audience Says" aspect of RT has been retired, then I see no issues with removing that parenthetical. Really, I try to avoid the use of parentheticals in general. I'm assuming that was originally added to the guideline because there were issues with editors adding that specifically. DonIago (talk) 12:48, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

It was presumably useful information at the time it was added. What would be useful now is to clarify whether the Rotten Tomatoes "Popcornmeter" and the Metacritic "User Score" are acceptable. I suggest they are not, and that the MOS should be clarified to say this. In fact I just discovered someone already added a mention of the Popcornmeter. I expanded it to also mention the Metacritic "User Score". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 14:59, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate that you are refreshing the documentation and adding clarification[1] that you feel is necessary but it seems redundant to me. I would suggest instead (or in addition) to point up to the higher level guidelines and principles of WP:UGC or WP:RS because audience scores are fundamentally unreliable and that is why they not allowed. -- 109.79.167.27 (talk) 21:14, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for those links. In my opinion, the statement at WP:UGC was not very clear about reported averages. I just added a clarification there. Which specific sentence(s) at WP:RS would apply to this type of polling result? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 21:25, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

As I noted on your Talk page the point is not about any specific mechanism for expressing user scores, the point is that such user voted or crowdsourced information is not the Wikipedia kind of reliable and should not be used. I didn't decide the consensus I've just seen these same discussions before. I'm not claiming the documentation is well written or clear enough.

It might be helpful to note that as with every rule in Wikipedia there are always exceptions. Occasionally reliable WP:SECONDARY sources (e.g. Variety magazine) point out there has been a big discrepancy between audiences and critics then occasionally editors will use that source to mention that there has been a divergence of opinion, but even then it isn't about the score (or average rating) specifically but it is about the audience response in general. e.g. The_Acolyte_(TV_series)#Audience_response -- 109.79.167.27 (talk) 21:52, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

I have started a discussion about potentially changing the approach to determining the cast lists for this series at Talk:The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power#Approach to the cast lists. It does not follow the standard Main/Guest/Co-star crediting style so needs a different approach from MOS:TVCAST, and the release of the second season has raised questions about whether the current approach is adequate. Any regular television editors who have thoughts on the best way to determine cast lists for the series are welcome to contribute them at the discussion. Thanks all, adamstom97 (talk) 13:27, 7 September 2024 (UTC)