Forum:Premature page policies - again

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Spoilers are strongly policed here.
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.

I want to bring this up again. I really do think we shouldn't have these pages before the episode airs. As I stated before "We are not a news organization. We are an encyclopaedia which documents that which has happened, not that which will." As far as I can tell, there's no benefits to the page being created early, but there are benefits if we wait.

1. Titles of episodes and character names are subject to change until the moment the episode airs. This removes that possibility.

   Note: The change from The Pandorica Opens to The Pandorica Opens (TV story) took about 24 hours using a bot, and even then it didn't get everything.

2. The rumours and such don't get out of hand.
3. The page will not be deleted countless times until "enough information" is gathered.
4. Time can be spent doing other things to improve the wiki, not necessary things because someone can't wait a few weeks.

These are the benefits of waiting to create articles, something which I truly think we should consider doing. --The Thirteenth Doctor 22:20, October 12, 2010 (UTC)

If we're really concerned about rumours and such, why not create a very basic page - "X is the Yth story of series Z" - as soon as the title is confirmed by reputable sources, and then just lock it until broadcast. A template with notices describing our policies against material which has not yet aired can be placed on the locked page. Having this up and viewable will discourage all the other problems apart from possible renaming, planning and discussion for the eventual unlocking can still take place on the article's talk page, and when the time comes we can easily unlock the page and quickly get it up to standard.

So long as there are missing pages, people will want to create them, and despite not being a news organisation we've inherited those enthusiastic viewers because of our status as a major reference work. With this plan I believe we can prevent our readers and users from jumping the gun, and drastically cut down the amount of housework the advanced users have to do. All we'll then have to worry about are the possible title changes as you say, but at the end of the day that's not a horrible piece of housework to accomplish and the redirects will preserve the site's functionality in the meantime. Rob T Firefly 22:39, October 12, 2010 (UTC)

I can see what you're saying. That would work for episodes, and an admin can fully protect it until a certain time, ie when it airs. For characters and actors and such, I'm still against any pages being created. It's a compulsion to fill in those damned red links is what does it, which is why I can see your idea working. --The Thirteenth Doctor 22:47, October 12, 2010 (UTC)

Here's a template I quickly threw together to illustrate:

This or something like it could be placed atop the protected pages before broadcast, along with extremely barebones info, possibly links to the previous/next story pages (similarly locked) in the infobox, and no characters or other things to redlink until broadcast. Here's a mockup. Rob T Firefly 05:25, October 13, 2010 (UTC)

I'm okay with this. I know I've been creating the recent SJA episodes, only because it's tedious to go through and fix infoboxes after everyone's messed with it, so I just like to get the basic format and infobox in place before everyone starts filling the article.

I agree with characters and actors, I hate seeing articles written that say "This actor will appear in an episode of Series Fnarg" and the article being uncategorised and unsourced.

Currently I've got all the upcoming SJA episodes fully create protected (and I've got what I hope is every permutation of 'Christmas Special 2010' locked as well, you can see a full list of protected titles here).

Should these locked pages have the layout and infobox? Or just a note saying "this is story X of Series Y"? I'm in part in favour of having the basic layout of inbox/layout in place, that way it can be set up beforehand and then fully protected to a certain date, then when it's unprotected it's ready to be edited on. --Tangerineduel 11:17, October 13, 2010 (UTC)

Exactly what I was thinking of; the point to have this will be so admins can have the tidy infobox and template in place, without worrying about the info going untidy and requiring babysitting before broadcast.

I like the idea of having the basic layout there with the to be added notes, all the easier to fill in later and create a page that's more easily brought up to standard when it's unlocked. A completely empty or infobox-only page might result in a bit of a mess as the rush to populate it takes place; having the layout already there would simplify that for everyone. Rob T Firefly 01:40, October 14, 2010 (UTC)