Forum:Pre-Airing episode articles

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I feel that we should have a rule for episode articles. I feel that they should not be made until the episode airs. This is mainly due to the fact that the titles are subject to change. See Talk:Death of the Doctor for more arguments about this subject. User:Solar Dragon/Signature 18:52, June 25, 2010 (UTC)

• I agree, to a point. I mean, the SJA isn't going to air until September(?) and there's literally no information that's worth keeping those pages around. When they get closer to a month or so before they air, I wouldn't mind the pages being made, as long as there is information on them, the titles are confirmed, and the spoiler tag etc is put on them. Otherwise, they shouldn't be created. The Thirteenth Doctor 19:15, June 25, 2010 (UTC)

I generally make it a rule to semi-protect all articles related to the current series. But should these pages be fully create protected, that is full protected so only admins can create the page? Until maybe a month before the broadcast date so we keep all the info on the SJA series page. Or is it more useful to have the pages created and just have them semi-protected allowing all signed in users to make edits. --Tangerineduel 10:14, June 26, 2010 (UTC)

I feel there's nothing wrong with having the episode articles before they air, so long as the title has come from a reasonable (BBC) source. There's lots of useful, verifiable info that can be gathered before airtime from proper sources, whether it be verified casting info, certain plot details, or even the stuff in the "next time" trailer a week before. Even having the empty page stating "___ is an episode in series ___ of ___" followed by a bunch of to be added is preferable to nothing, because we know the information will be added as it becomes available.

Additionally, outside the BBC's broadcast radius the official airtime happens before local airtime anyway; the functional result of keeping it out only applies to the BBC's part of the world.

Even if the titles do change before broadcast, moving the page and updating the links to it is really not as much of an inconvenience as all that; a user could do it in minutes, a bot in seconds. Keeping the pages semi-protected would seem to be the best limitation to place. Rob T Firefly 00:51, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Well, there is what seems and what is.

Semi-protection is barely any protection at all. It only stops people without an account from creating a page. The errors that have been created during the broadcast of series 5 have come from registered users, against whom semi-protection offers no barrier.

And a bot could not do a changeover "in seconds". That's a common misnomer. The change from The Pandorica Opens to The Pandorica Opens (TV story) took about 24 hours, with a bot, and even then I didn't get everything. Bots operate largely on categories. Since you can't tell ahead of time which categories have been affected by a bad name, you have to assume all of them, and that takes time. You also have to allow for slightly different usage, e.g., whether it's in a template or just a raw link, meaning that you run the whole operation twice. Since our category trees have some real kinks in them (people keep organizing subcats in a way that leads to recursion), a bot's work on a general search like this one will sometimes get halted. So you have to begin again, but with a different category. (And, again, you have to do it a minimum of twice, because of variation in usage. Yes, you could probably do it once if you wrote a clever little bit of programming, but honestly it's easier just to do it twice.) Even if the cat tree had no recursion, and you only had to run it once, you're talking about a job on the order or hours, not seconds. And the longer a page exists prior to getting the correct title, the more chance there is for it to be cited, as was the case with TPO. Plus there's the additional problem that wrong titles don't get automatically waved away. For instance, Vampires in Venice is still, insensibly, a legitimate link. We don't see this as a problem, becuase it's a blue link, and it takes us to the proper The Vampires of Venice. But of course it is a problem because — and this might be falling on deaf ears — the job of an encyclopedia is to be accurate, not merely approximately accurate. So I definitely, strongly feel that ep and character pages should be locked down to admin use only until the episode airs. And none of this "month before" business. Episode and character pages shouldn't be created until the credits roll on BBC One, or whatever the home network is. Vampires is an example enough of how things can change right up to the moment of broadcast. And Ambrose Northover is an example of a character whose proper name could only have been divined from watching the episode. What is the point to creating that article ahead of broadcast, when broadcast only meant that someone had to go back and change all links from Ambrose to Ambrose Northover. It's been argued that it's not that big a deal to make these changes. But when you multiply them out and look at all the changes that have been necessitated out of simple impatience, the work load is not acceptable. We shouldn't be cleaning up messes that needn't have been made.

Additionally, once the admin lock is in place, I think admin who choose to use their powers to get around the lock should be strongly censured, perhaps even with the threat of having their powers removed. The benefits of waiting and creating the right article simply outweigh any other considerations. We are not a news organization. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 18:24, June 30, 2010 (UTC)

That can be our motto. "We are not a news organization. We are an encyclopaedia which documents that which has happened, not that which will." I mean, I know it won't, but SJA could be cancelled tomorrow. The episodes could not air, then we'd be left with 6 pages of emptiness. We are supposed to document what does happen, not what is supposed to or going to happen. It's like an animal documentary saying that all the salmon will go up river, but it's just not true, some of them will die on the way. A dim analogy, but you get the picture. --The Thirteenth Doctor 20:57, June 30, 2010 (UTC)

Now, this is interesting. The debate was still inconclusive on the Death to the Doctor talk page, but despite a request to have the manners to continue the debate there, you instead went off to have it here, without informing anyone who might disagree with your opinion (e.g. the other debaters on the page in question) that the discussion was relocating. Way to weight the debate in your favour. And I think this is telling (from the other discussion page on the topic that Thirteenth Doctor starte) "when it comes to the voting, I don't think brand new users, or users who have very few edits should be allowed to vote" and that Admins who disagree with a lock should be censured. Who decides how many edits are enough edit? What you are pushing for is to create a clique mentality, where only those who agree with your viewpoint are considered important enough to have their views counted. Dissenters, anyone with a differing opinion, even Admins, "should be censured." I've not been one of those who created the SJA Series 4 pages, but I see no point constantly deleting good faith edits - we're not talking people vandalising pages. And if you make a good faith edit only for someone who thinks their opinion is more valid purely based on "I have more edits" come along and undo what you did, then it's going to discourage you from making further edits. As I said in the original discussion, I feel common mis-spellings and variant names /working titles should have pages set up, redirecting people to the correct pages. Accuracy is important, yes, but people using the site need to be able to find pages - other wikis recognise this, and have redirects and disambiguation pages, just as I suggested. There's the comment above about having this mean that you won't spot wrong links because they will be blue - rubbish. You go to "Vampires of Venice" (the "wrong page, where the redirect is set up) and you use the "check what pages link to this one" feature. And as for it being work to change things that are wrong, "We shouldn't be cleaning up messes that needn't have been made" - while I agree it's annoying to have to fix things, if you don't want to have to do it, then don't use a wiki. Because the nature of wiki means it's going to happen, unless you lock out everyone except yourself and your friends - at which point it's not a wiki any more. If you want a Dr. Who site that is encyclopedic and run exactly the way you want it, do what dozens of others have done - set up your own site. There's tons of good ones out there (and many less good). If you want a Dr. Who wiki, then you need to accept you can't have it all the way you want it, that it isn't being run to suit you, and that other people can have different but still valid opinions. Lokiofmidgaard.

• The reason the discussion was changed to here is because this is now going to be discussed as a matter of policy. Users who want to discuss policies on the wiki are more than welcome to put their view in, but to do so, they need to actually look at recent changes and in the forums, something which they are obviously not doing. I stand by my statement of new users and unregistered users not having a vote. Though there are a few of them who will stick around, there are a great number who simply come along for two or three days, then leave and don't come back for another 12 months. Why should they get a vote in something the rest of us will have to work with. As for "vampires of venice", there's a difference between redirecting the title without "The" in it and redirecting a completely different name. The Thirteenth Doctor 10:57, July 1, 2010 (UTC)

Should the "not until the credits roll" rule also go for real world articles, I'm thinking of the articles that spring up saying "Bernice Summerfield will be portraying the jelly monster in Series Fnarg2". I only ask as with these articles there is sometimes a source on the main series article which does sometimes back up this. --Tangerineduel 14:19, July 1, 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry that Lokiofmidgaard feels as though this discussion has been unfairly handled. I didn't really cotton on to the fact that Talk:Death of the Doctor was still around until he pointed it out. Even so, I would basically back The Thirteenth Doctor as to the point that discussions here at Forum:Panopticon are generally at a broader level than ones at the talk page level. Yes, the Death of the Doctor page is one that would be affected by this discussion, but it's not the only one. Bringing the discussion here is not at attempt to weight the discussion one way or the other; it's merely a way to get it to have a broader hearing than would have been possible on a single talk page. Though I agree with 13D about his rationale for moving it here, I, like Loki, am appalled at 13D's call to restrict those who can vote on this topic. That's completely against the spirit of the forum and wikis in general. I doubt it has any serious support. On the other hand, I would point out that consensus doesn't always mean that a majority of people agree to a particular change. Consensus doesn't mean you count up the number of yes votes and compare them to the number of no votes, and then —automatically —take the side of the majority. As per Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion — a sentiment which permeates Wikia and all its associated wikis including this one — it's very much down to the closing administrator's view of the discussion. So where you point out that there may have been 3 yes votes and 3 no votes on Talk:Death of the Doctor, the admin Doug86 clearly felt that the arguments on the side of deletion were stronger than those on against. That's possible in a consensus discussion. A wiki is obviously not about the things Loki falsely brought up — like creating cliques — it's about the force of argument brought to bear on the problems that confront its editors. It's about, in short, lively discussion in front of as many eyeballs as possible. That's all that's happened to the discussion that started at Talk:Death of the Doctor — and to be fair at several other places as well. We're just trying to figure out how to balance the risk of error (and the clean-up process that flows therefrom) against the needs of the community to "be first" with new articles. Your views, Loki, are obviously welcome. But it doesn't mean any one individual will get their way. Someone could come into this thread at any moment with a killer idea that no one has proposed yet. It's a messy process, but ultimately a creative one. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 17:45, July 1, 2010 (UTC)

• I wasn't sure whether it was a consensus or vote, but the mention of vote before caused me to think it was a vote. Are you seriously saying CzechOut, that if a hundred unregistered or brand users came along and put forward the policy that we shouldn't have images throughout any articles, and they all voted for it, you would happily agree to go along with this massive change? Like I said, I thought it was a vote. The Thirteenth Doctor 18:25, July 1, 2010 (UTC)
• Another point I should make, from the Forum:Italics or Quotation marks? "Your proposal would effect all users of this wiki, that's why I want involvement from regular users and other admins on this wiki." Tangerineduel said this. Why would this be any different than that. He only wanted regular users and admins, so why should this be any different. --The Thirteenth Doctor 19:19, July 1, 2010 (UTC)
• I think this final point will put it to rest: as stated on the formatting rules for the page, "At the very least, an article should have a basic behind-the-scenes description of the story and basic synopsis, the correct templates, an image from the story and a cast list. Please do not attempt to do a television story article if you are unable to provide these.". We don't have those things for any of the pages. --The Thirteenth Doctor 11:22, July 11, 2010 (UTC)

While I appreciate my sentiments being quoted, I didn't want to be exclusive, I encourage anyone to become involved in a discussion on this wiki, but it is better when discussing policy issues that have an effect on the whole wiki to have users who have edited on the wiki and are somewhat invested in the wiki and the outcome.

The page format that The Thirteenth Doctor quotes is correct, there may be room on the layout to specify a time period or something for when a page may be created or a threshold of information. --Tangerineduel 14:03, July 13, 2010 (UTC)

I'm cheered to see that Tangerineduel appears to regret the exclusivity inherent in his comments at Forum:Italics or Quotation marks?. Very clearly, one doesn't have to be an admin or regular user to participate in that discussion. As a matter of policy, any forum is open to any user of the wiki. Regular users have just as much right as regular editors. And some irregular editors should well be heeded. As a concrete example, sulfur is not a particularly prolific editor on this site, nor is he an admin here, but one would be a fool not to consider his words in any forum discussion, because of his wide experience on wikis, generally. Were Josiah Rowe, an inactive early admin, to pop into a forum thread, we would do well to consider his words, too. And sometimes new users bring a highly useful perspective. So, again, I'm very glad to see TD moderating his own language a bit. Certainly, his words on "Italics or Question marks?" cannot be used as any sort of precedent here in this thread or elsewhere. We all speak with imprecision from time to time.

And it's a central tenet of wikis that consensus, not polling, should decide things. So, in the hypothetical given above, even if 1000 people came on here and voted to remove pics, it would still be possible for a cadre of 3 or 4 dedicated users to carry the day through strength of argument. In a polling situation, generally just signing under "yay" or "nay" is considered bad form. So there's a big differences between 1000 signatures and 1000 signatures with explanations.

13D's final point, above, is absolutely not conclusive. Just because we don't have a cast list now for this one story, doesn't mean to say we won't get one at some point prior to broadcast. The problem I found during series 5 was that the cast list or the episode title or other supposedly "confirmed" details didn't actually show up in the episode. Several wrongly-titled articles then resulted from the prematurely-created story page. My point throughout this entire discussion is that it's only at broadcast that we can fill in a story page with a reasonable degree of accuracy. And if we wait until that date, we miss out on all the to-ing and fro-ing of rumours being changed, sources being sought, and really a hell of a lot of simple busy work. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 04:34, July 18, 2010 (UTC)

For or against

Just so we can get a clear view on this, I want to list who is for the pages being created and who is against the pages being created.

For

1. TemporalSpleen 13:27, July 11, 2010 (UTC)
2. Delton Menace 16:21, July 11, 2010 (UTC)
3. Michael Downey 09:33, July 18, 2010 (UTC)

Against

1. The Thirteenth Doctor
2. Tangerineduel 14:03, July 13, 2010 (UTC)
3. ☆The Solar Dragon 14:48, July 13, 2010 (UTC)
4. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 04:34, July 18, 2010 (UTC). I guess I'm against, but this discussion is about more than a simple up/down vote. It's not clear what is the question being tabled. The discussion above was trying to solve a more complicated problem than just "for" or "against". I thought we were also looking at a) what kind of protection were we going to put on these ep title names; b) what was the time frame in which we were going to allow the creation of the page; and maybe even c) what we would do with any information that was on a page that had to be deleted. In short, I thought we were trying to develop policy, not just say whether it was a good or bad idea to create a page well ahead of broadcast. Oh, and votes in a wiki poll like this should have explanatory remarks from the participants. I don't know why Temporal Spleen and Delton Menace support early creation of pages. Their vote has been heard, but their voice hasn't.