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==Another poll - Why?==
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__TOC__
One particular user, who has managed to gain something of a reputation for trying to enact unilateral decisions, has tried to usurp the consensus approach of joint decision-making that is usually employed on Misplaced Pages. The details in respect of this can be viewed in the history and archives of this page.


== ] ==
The poll that was formerly on this page, was instigated by that user, in order to endorse a policy written by that user, with a deadline set by that user, with a criterion of what constitutes a consensus defined by that user. Despite a large number of people opposed to the adoption of that policy without further discussion, that user decided to instigate the aforementioned poll. I am myself taking the unusual step of unilaterally declaring that the poll instigated by that user for this page is invalid. In its place I am instigating a new poll that will allow all views to be discussed, and voted on, as per normal procedure. I will be publicising this poll on the Village Pump and at ]. If anyone would care to invite users who may have opinions on this matter to come to this page by any other means then please do so.


Hello, this is a notice that there is currently a requested move at ] in which it is being proposed to move it back to ] to provide further disambiguation from another series with the same title, which is currently located at ]. I have brought up the TV naming conventions and ], although other editors believe differently. Any comments there would be much appreciated! ] (]) 15:23, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
As part of the process of attempting to make this a fair procedure I will be contacting all those users who voted, or expressed an opinion on this page in all of its previous incarnations. i.e. the following users:


== Episode title disambiguations ==
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So this started because of a comic, but the way TV episode articles are formatted was used as justification, but it made me wonder. Why are episode titles supposed to be disambiguated with (''Show Title'') instead of (''Show Title'' episode)? One reason I ask is because I'm pretty sure that specifying ''what'' something actually is instead of just what it's associated with was one of the main reasons for that big change to how articles about TV show seasons are titled earlier this year, wasn't it? Where the parenthesis around the seasons were removed; an example given at the time was something like, ] shouldn't be titled that way because it's not a "season 6" called "The Simpsons", it's season 6 of "The Simpsons". (edit: just saw the discussion is still on this page, see Alex_21's comment from 3 January 2024 )<br>
If any of those users fail to respond on this page, I think we should assume that their previous vote (if they made one) stands, but in light of the new broader options, I think we should aloow everybody a chance to change their vote before assuming that their old vote holds.
Yet while that format change proposal was successful, the same reasoning does not seem to be applied to episode titles (or characters apparently, looking further at this page). Going by the same logic behind the seasons proposal, a title like, say, ], would nonsensically suggest the article is about a "The Sopranos" called "College". Now I doubt anyone would actually think that, but then why did season pages need to change to follow that logic? Other types of media seem to also follow this reasoning, like how films are disambiguated with (''year'' film) instead of just (''year''). (edit: some other things like lists split up by year don't follow this trend, but I'm only talking about articles for individual media here.)<br>
I doubt any serious proposal to change this would get much traction, but I'm just wondering what other people think, since it seems like something of a double standard. Or I might just be looking way too hard into it. ] (]) 08:01, 29 October 2024 (UTC)


:It would likely be an even bigger undertaking to get this fixed than the season change was, but I agree that the current naming convention doesn't make much sense and is probably more in need of changing than the season articles were. I would support a change to "Episode Title (episode)" as the default disambiguation when there is already an article with the same name, and if there are multiple episodes with the same name then "Episode Title (''Series Title'' episode)". The same should apply to characters and other elements. - ] (]) 08:17, 29 October 2024 (UTC)
'''For the moment I am not going to state a deadline, I believe that we should agree to a deadline through discussion and I would like to hear opinions of what people think that the deadline should be and what criteria should be used for accepting any particular proposal.'''
::Any other interest in this? If others think it is a good idea but are unwilling to go through a complicated process of trying to update all the existing episode articles then we could just update the guideline to say either approach is okay for now and let editors move pages as they come across them. - ] (]) 08:50, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
:::The season thing was a big undertaking but still got done it looks like. I think your suggestion is better than the way it's done now and I'd be interested in hearing others' opinions on that. But it feels like it's harder to get feedback in talk pages lately for some reason? ] (]) 08:18, 27 November 2024 (UTC)


== Allowing disambiguation based on region ==
I am appealing to all users to behave with respect to the wishes of other users and to allow all users to express their opinions on the detailed proposals below. I am also appealing to all users to assist in the policing of this poll. If you feel that the poll below is an appropriate and fair method of achieving the goal of generating a naming convention for television programming articles, then please sign under '''approve''' below. If you feel that the current poll is not appropriate method of achieving the goal of this page then please sign under '''disapprove'''. If you vote 'disapprove' then please add your justification and your suggestions for alternative methods of gaining a consensus. ] ] 16:29, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Should disambiguating by region (state/province/municipality, etc.) be allowed when disambiguating by year, country or genre is not appropriate?
'''Approve''':


I recently closed ] about three regional newscasts in the UK, all known as <i>BBC Look North</i>. In this case, the series are all regional programs in the same country, and only adding the years of premiere would be unclear for readers, so consensus was reached to disambiguate by region in the title despite the existing NCTV guidance. Another example is ]'s disambiguation from ].
*] | ] 17:17, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
*] '''&#09619;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&#09618;''' ] 17:52, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
*] 18:40, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
*Effective, if a tad confusing? ] 18:40, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
*I approve of the efforts by Mintguy, and believe the poll can help us work towards a consensus naming convention, so I put myself down here. That being said, I do not believe this can be a final binding vote, only guidance to help us assess community opinion, and expect that more discussion will be necessary. --] 00:24, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
*After some more consideration I think that the structure of this poll is acceptable. Even though it does not separate the question of TV/television from any the question of other qualifiers we might want to use, it can have all the options a split structure could have, just in a little more space. My original thoughts are in the comments section. &ndash; ] 13:42, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Should this approach be considered as an acceptable alternative to include in the guideline?<span id="Frostly:1732319071947:Wikipedia_talkFTTCLNNaming_conventions_(television)" class="FTTCmt"> —&nbsp;] (]) 23:44, 22 November 2024 (UTC)</span>
'''Disapprove''':
*] ] 18:43, 2004 Sep 13 (UTC) -- The proposed poll makes no logical sense. A much better-worded and arranged poll exists at ]. Oh yeah, and the ] was improperly "called off" while still in progress.


:That sounds acceptable to me if the standard disambiguation options did not adequately define each show. - ] (]) 08:45, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
*] 21:32, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC) I'm not a fan of Netoholic (as I've made very clear on his Talk page), but when Mintguy writes with no apparent irony that " has managed to gain something of a reputation for trying to enact unilateral decisions" so Mintguy is "taking the unusual step of unilaterally declaring that the poll instigated by that user for this page is invalid", after engaging in an edit war on this very page and then banning Netoholic for also edit warring, I have to wonder why Mintguy just didn't vote against Netoholic's poll and open his own on another page.
**I was not specific about the "user" mentioned above I was trying to be reasonably fair about this, but that user's option has already been voted down twice. ] ] 23:49, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)


== What's a series and what's a program: looking for a clear definition ==
*] 23:29, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC) Unsurprisingly, I prefer ], and more importantly find this ''ad hoc'' version to be almost as poorly developed and unilateral as ]'s own. A poll that reiterates a controversial poll shouldn't have voting started without at least ''some'' peer review.
**A "more developed" version of this poll was deemed to be too confusing, so I simplified it. ] ]


A while ago I started moving a bunch of pages in accord to NCTV, which says series television should be disambiguated as "series" and non-series should be disambiguated as "program" (it's not exactly that, but that's roughly what matters). I was doing these without much knowledge of the guidelines, so I ended up moving a lot of reality TV pages that might have been series. The problem is that 1. I'm not sure if every move was 100% right or wrong and 2. I feel like to move it back I'd have to do a lot of complicated stuff. The rules are a bit confusing, too; the definition of series here is written as "shows made of episodes which may relate part of an unfolding story, feature recurring settings or characters, or express a unifying narrative theme." That makes it look like only fictional shows can be series, but the examples include reality shows and documentaries.
*] 14:04, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC) I prefer ] - It seems more logical to me.


Anyways, the point is that I'm asking for help on what should be called a series and what should be called a program. Here are some pages I moved, categorized by how much I think they're a series:
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===Proposals===
Firstly it should be pointed out that the standard convention for disambiguation is that disambiguation should ONLY be used when it is absolutely necessary. Thus when there is no possibility of confusion, such as with ] and ] for example, parenthesised disambiguation should not be used at all.


Not a series - ], ], ], other ones I forgot probably
Users are invited to add advantages and disadvantages to each of the proposals and add additional options as the see fit, but please do not clutter this section with discussion, please keep discussion limited to the discussion section provided.


''Probably'' not a series (dunno for sure) - ], ]
This poll is open, when it closes is a matter for debate. Please discuss below. Please vote for ans many options as you wish. Multiple votes will be treated equally. ] ] 23:28, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Probably a series - ], ], ]
====1 : '''Ad-hoc''' ====
Disambiguation formats should be decided on a case by case basis, with no standard convention. This is pretty much the situation we have at the moment. This would include (not withstanding the above note) things like <nowiki>]</nowiki> or <nowiki>]</nowiki>, but these would live alongside things such as <nowiki>]</nowiki> and <nowiki>] </nowiki> etc..
*Advantages: (please add)
** It's an easy "policy" to follow.
*Disadvantages (please add)
** Article titles lose "guessability".
** Inconsistencies are annoying for editors and for readers.
** There's nothing to stop different users constantly moving pages from one thing to another.


IDK - ], ], ], ] ] ] 18:25, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
====2 : Categorization ====
I.e. all sit-coms requiring disambiguation should use parenthesised 'sit-com' or 'situation comedy' or whatever is decided by the community as appropriate and we should agree on standard classification for other types of programming e.g. documentary, current affairs drama etc.. This option would need further discussion as to what we should use for each category of programming, including whether the specific use of TV and television is necessary. It should be noted that it is currently Misplaced Pages policy that disambiguation SHOULD NOT be used for categorization, but solely for disambiguation.
*Advantages: (please add)
*Disadvantages (please add)

====3: TV====
Example <nowiki> ] </nowiki>
*Advantages: (please add)
*Disadvantages (please add)
**Title may give the incorrect impression that Friends is a type of TV, rather than something broadcast on TV.
**possible confusion with other meanings of TV.

====4: TV show ====
Example <nowiki> ] </nowiki>
*Advantages: (please add)
**"Show" eliminates distinction between British and American spelling (program/me) in titles.
*Disadvantages (please add)

====5: TV program ] and TV programme ]====
Example <nowiki> ] and ] </nowiki>
*Advantages: (please add)
*Disadvantages (please add)
** Some program(me)s are remade in the other locale, but with the same title. Which word form do they use?
*** The article about the remake takes the new locale's suffix. The generic title sticks with the original suffix.
**Same objection as with 9 below -- confusing to those who won't know which one to use.

====6: TV ....====
I.e. Always using the word 'TV', but also using additional disambiguation to sub-categorize a particular entry, notwithstanding the above point about disambiguation vs. categorization. Examples include (TV serial), (TV mini-series), (TV animated series) etc.

====7: television====
Example <nowiki> ] </nowiki>
*Advantages: (please add)
**The simplest form of disambiguation next to TV.
*Disadvantages (please add)
**Title may give the incorrect impression that Friends is a type of television, rather than something broadcast on television.

====8: television show====
Example <nowiki> ] </nowiki>
*Advantages: (please add)
**"Show" eliminates distinction between British and American spelling (program/me) in titles.
*Disadvantages (please add)
**Term is less common in British English.

====9: television program ] and television programme ]====
Example <nowiki> ] and ] </nowiki>
*Advantages: (please add)
*Disadvantages (please add)
**Confusing for those who won't know which is the "correct" spelling.
**:Generally the actual article will have "program" or "programme" in the text. Also AE/BE proponants will be quick to rectify mistakes.

====10: television ....====
I.e. Always using the word 'television', but also using additional disambiguation to sub-categorize a particular entry notwithstanding the above point about disambiguation vs. categorization. Examples include television serial, television mini-series, television animated series etc..

====11. ====
Please add additional suggestions here.

====Additional disambiguation====
There are likely one or two cases where using one or other form of disambiguation suggested above will still lead to possible confusion between two or more articles and additional disambiguation will be required. Suggestions for proposed systems of additional disambiguation are welcomed here.
----

===Voting===

====1: Ad-hoc====
#]] 19:07, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC) (my first choice)
#If we disambiguate only where necessary, the other subjects being disambiguated from can help suggest how to disambiguate titles. --] 00:24, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
#This is such a trivial stylistic matter that I don't understand why it's caused so many problems. Just name the things something rational and go do something else. -- ]|] 04:31, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
# What ] wrote. ] 14:17, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
#] 22:44, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
# I don't really see any need to change the old system, it's worked reasonably well. -- ] 16:26, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
# ] 18:38, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC) Second Choice. Rapidly losing interest due to great variety of choices.

====2: Categorization, would require further discussion ====
====3: (TV) ====
====4: (TV show) ====
# ] 14:24, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC) (second choice)
# ] 15:04, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

====5: (TV program) ] and (TV programme) ]====
====6: (TV ....); would require further discussion ====
# ] ] 22:52, 2004 Sep 14 (UTC) -- Along the other options based on . Everyone knows what TV means, we should use short phrases where possible.
#
#
#
#
#

====7: (television) ====
# ]] 19:08, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC) (second choice)
# ] ] 23:41, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC) (second choice)
# ] 16:08, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
# ] 18:35, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC) First choice. This whole issue seems needlessly over-debated.
# ] 13:42, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC) Keeping it simple. (first choice)

====8:(television show)====
====9: (television program) ] and (television programme) ]====
# ] ] 23:41, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC) (first choice)

====10: (television ....) ; would require further dicussion ====
#My primary vote is for option 1, but I vote here to indicate my preference for "television ..." as a sensible first option when disambiguation is necessary. --] 00:24, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
# ] 14:24, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC) (third choice)
# Telvision does sound better than TV. I'm not sure if it should be alone, or with some other form.. ] 18:36, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
#I like television better than TV, but either should be further qualified. ]
# ] 13:42, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC) Keeping it almost as simple. (second choice)
#] 06:45, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

====11: Other, please elaborate====

==Further discussion regarding this poll==

----

It looks to me like the previous poll was extended when it was at 4/7. That is not marginal. That is decisive rejection, from which no hope of consensus in favor will ever emerge, and that poll should have been terminated. ] 17:07, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

We ought to be careful in using the word "series" in television articles as the British seem to say that a television "programme" has a "series" each year. Here in the US we are of the opinion that a television "series" has a "season" each year. --] | ] 17:20, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
:I don't think you'd need worry too much. 'Series' can comfortably mean either here (so yes, you can have series of series...) and 'season' also has common currency, maybe not so much with the general public, but certainly with anybody who has even a passing interest in television. It seems to be particularly used for series which have a large number of seasons, for example, the twenty-six individual production blocks of the original run of '']'' are almost exclusively referred to as 'seasons' by fans and chroniclers of that particular show. ] 17:27, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Personally, I would think that for purposes for clarity, it would be best to avoid naming conventions that use either US English or British English-specific spelling or terms. Is there any particular reason why it might be ''necessary'' to include such qualifiers as "program/programme" or "series/season"? --] ("]")]] 18:29, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

::It would only become necessary to use season/series or some other alternative in an article title if you wanted to have an article about a particular season/series of a programme. Disambiguation qualifiers do not need to be specific. They are not for classification or catergorization, they are only used when absolutely necessary to avoid confusion with similarly titled articles. ] ]

:::]]] means that '''Foo''' ''is a type'' of '''bar'''. Use of just ]]] or ]]] would mean that Title is a type of television. Using either "series" or "program(me)" by itself is equally ambiguous because you don't know what media is being used. -- ] ] 19:39, 2004 Sep 13 (UTC)

::::But disambiguation isn't catergorization. So that argument is invalid. ] ] 22:35, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

::::No, "Foo (bar)" means that it's an article about Foo and that Foo can be described/categorized as bar to disambiguate it with other Foos. Maybe sometimes Foo is a type of bar, but see for example (all my examples are Star Trek!) ] for a example when it is not. &ndash; ] 23:03, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

:::::] needed no disambiguation, so I've moved it to ]. In this case (television shows), my example is correct. -- ] ] 23:02, 2004 Sep 13 (UTC)

::::::Very well, take ] as an example instead. &ndash; ] 23:05, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

::::::"Vulcan salute" sure does need to be at Vulcan salute (Star Trek), since "Vulcan" can also be a Greek god or slang for Neoconservatives in the Bush 43 Administration. (Better would be to merge "Vulcan Salute" with "Star Trak"). ] 23:14, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

:::::::Did the Roman god have a salute associated with him? Unless he did, ] doesn't need the disambiguation. -] 01:20, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Do people feel that the poll would be clearer if we got rid of the a b c d etc... and just had numbers instead? If anyone wants to do with without removing what's already there, then please go ahead. ] ]

:Well I've done it anyway. ] ]

Gah. Putting the poll itself on a separate page is really a bad idea. ] 19:56, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

Just posted this to ], and though it might clarify my disapproval:
:Adding more options to the poll at ] won't solve my "issue" (too big a word) with it. My reason for liking ] is that it separates TV/television and the questions of program/programme/show/series/whatever. To cover all of the posibilities with the structure of your poll suggestion we'd have to list all permutations of {television,TV,nothing}+{program,programme,series,show,whatever,nothing} which is no good. The "flat" version has the advantage of being simpler of course. &ndash; ] 23:20, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

::That kind of separation is exactly like what I had first, see (). Several people said that this (which is simpler than the other one) was too confusing, so I simplified it. The other poll has many options that are simply unneeded, we don't need to be overly specific about everything, this is for disambiguation purposes only. also these more elaborate options are included (albeit lumped together) on this poll. ] ] 23:23, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

:::Most of those unneeded options were added or rendered redundant by edits by ], as was the "confusing" labelling. The current version of ] is closer to the original version, though of course further input is welcome. -] 01:20, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

::::The labeling was inserted to facilitate referencing individual items during later discussion. My version seems to make the items REALLY clear . -- ] ] 02:09, 2004 Sep 14 (UTC)


This poll is needlessly complex, and probably as doomed as any other effort. I propose that we first decide the question of "TV" vs "television" in disambiguating text, then later move on to what should be used for episoding, one-time, and special programs. Please see section 1 (only) on ] for what this may look like. Any seconds on this idea? -- ] ] 03:56, 2004 Sep 14 (UTC)

Why is voting taking place? Has a consensus been reached as to the form of the survey? Has voting started? Is there a deadline? Can the survey still be changed? Can advantages, disadvantages, alternatives be added? ] 17:06, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

I had a change of heart in the (dis)approval question. This was my original opinion, with comments:
:*] 22:59, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC) I think that the previous poll was not fair, and that ] has acted correctly in "restarting" the process. However, I don't think that this poll is terribly good. While it gives more or less the same choices as ], I prefer the latter as I find it to be better structured.
:**A "more developed" version of this poll was deemed to be too confusing, so I simplified it. :] ]
&ndash; ] 13:42, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This poll suffers from the exact same problem that the last poll did: without having had a fixed beginning and ending for the voting period defined at the poll's start, it can't actually affect policy. It's helpful for seeing what options users prefer, but it can't actually form an official convention; and if that's not the goal of the poll, what's the point? -] 01:01, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

:Then please suggest an end date. At the top of the page I asked for people to do so, please help move the process on. I would myself but but I think I have imposed myself on this too much already. I'm trying to give other users the chance to express opinions and move this whole thing forward, and not have it stagnate like it has been for the last month. 01:11, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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Talk:Hawkeye (TV series)

Hello, this is a notice that there is currently a requested move at Talk:Hawkeye (TV series)#Requested move 28 July 2024 in which it is being proposed to move it back to Hawkeye (1994 TV series) to provide further disambiguation from another series with the same title, which is currently located at Hawkeye (miniseries). I have brought up the TV naming conventions and WP:SMALLDETAILS, although other editors believe differently. Any comments there would be much appreciated! Trailblazer101 (talk) 15:23, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Episode title disambiguations

So this started because of a comic, but the way TV episode articles are formatted was used as justification, but it made me wonder. Why are episode titles supposed to be disambiguated with (Show Title) instead of (Show Title episode)? One reason I ask is because I'm pretty sure that specifying what something actually is instead of just what it's associated with was one of the main reasons for that big change to how articles about TV show seasons are titled earlier this year, wasn't it? Where the parenthesis around the seasons were removed; an example given at the time was something like, The Simpsons (season 6) shouldn't be titled that way because it's not a "season 6" called "The Simpsons", it's season 6 of "The Simpsons". (edit: just saw the discussion is still on this page, see Alex_21's comment from 3 January 2024 )
Yet while that format change proposal was successful, the same reasoning does not seem to be applied to episode titles (or characters apparently, looking further at this page). Going by the same logic behind the seasons proposal, a title like, say, College (The Sopranos), would nonsensically suggest the article is about a "The Sopranos" called "College". Now I doubt anyone would actually think that, but then why did season pages need to change to follow that logic? Other types of media seem to also follow this reasoning, like how films are disambiguated with (year film) instead of just (year). (edit: some other things like lists split up by year don't follow this trend, but I'm only talking about articles for individual media here.)
I doubt any serious proposal to change this would get much traction, but I'm just wondering what other people think, since it seems like something of a double standard. Or I might just be looking way too hard into it. Ringtail Raider (talk) 08:01, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

It would likely be an even bigger undertaking to get this fixed than the season change was, but I agree that the current naming convention doesn't make much sense and is probably more in need of changing than the season articles were. I would support a change to "Episode Title (episode)" as the default disambiguation when there is already an article with the same name, and if there are multiple episodes with the same name then "Episode Title (Series Title episode)". The same should apply to characters and other elements. - adamstom97 (talk) 08:17, 29 October 2024 (UTC)
Any other interest in this? If others think it is a good idea but are unwilling to go through a complicated process of trying to update all the existing episode articles then we could just update the guideline to say either approach is okay for now and let editors move pages as they come across them. - adamstom97 (talk) 08:50, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
The season thing was a big undertaking but still got done it looks like. I think your suggestion is better than the way it's done now and I'd be interested in hearing others' opinions on that. But it feels like it's harder to get feedback in talk pages lately for some reason? Ringtail Raider (talk) 08:18, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Allowing disambiguation based on region

Should disambiguating by region (state/province/municipality, etc.) be allowed when disambiguating by year, country or genre is not appropriate?

I recently closed an RM discussion about three regional newscasts in the UK, all known as BBC Look North. In this case, the series are all regional programs in the same country, and only adding the years of premiere would be unclear for readers, so consensus was reached to disambiguate by region in the title despite the existing NCTV guidance. Another example is Big Brother (Quebec TV series)'s disambiguation from Big Brother Canada.

Should this approach be considered as an acceptable alternative to include in the guideline? — Frostly (talk) 23:44, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

That sounds acceptable to me if the standard disambiguation options did not adequately define each show. - adamstom97 (talk) 08:45, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

What's a series and what's a program: looking for a clear definition

A while ago I started moving a bunch of pages in accord to NCTV, which says series television should be disambiguated as "series" and non-series should be disambiguated as "program" (it's not exactly that, but that's roughly what matters). I was doing these without much knowledge of the guidelines, so I ended up moving a lot of reality TV pages that might have been series. The problem is that 1. I'm not sure if every move was 100% right or wrong and 2. I feel like to move it back I'd have to do a lot of complicated stuff. The rules are a bit confusing, too; the definition of series here is written as "shows made of episodes which may relate part of an unfolding story, feature recurring settings or characters, or express a unifying narrative theme." That makes it look like only fictional shows can be series, but the examples include reality shows and documentaries.

Anyways, the point is that I'm asking for help on what should be called a series and what should be called a program. Here are some pages I moved, categorized by how much I think they're a series:

Not a series - Vitamin, Sponge, Sunday Night, other ones I forgot probably

Probably not a series (dunno for sure) - Hitmaker (2016), Cool Kids

Probably a series - A2K, Dancing with the Stars Korea, Begin Again

IDK - Band of Brothers, Animals, Hitmaker (2014), Roommate Wuju Daisuki 18:25, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

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