Battlestar Wiki talk:Episode Standardization

Shane, as was my understanding there wasn't a call for making a new standardization project, so much as a call to reinforce our old ones. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 17:03, 23 July 2006 (CDT)

Battlestar Wiki talk:Think Tank/Episode Standardization well 8 support votes including 6 admins... --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 17:32, 23 July 2006 (CDT)

Yeah I supported that but isn't that a drive for enforcing old rules, not a new project? Or, well I guess the Citation Jihad is like that actually; enforcing the existing rules...--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 17:42, 23 July 2006 (CDT)

Would it be better and less confusing to rename this page 'Episode Standardization' to match the project agreed on? I wish that I had originally came up with a better project name. --FrankieG 18:49, 23 July 2006 (CDT)

Yeah, that's good; making stuff standardized to S&C --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 18:52, 23 July 2006 (CDT)

I'm sorry, I was really fuzzy when I wrote that first thing and I don't know why I didn't understand it. Of course: when a "Think Tank" proposal goes through and passes, of course it becomes a "project". Sorry about that fuzziness; beer is a wonderful and mysterious thing. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 21:10, 23 July 2006 (CDT)

Initial Project Groundwork

I laid down some initial groundwork for the project page (rather unilaterally, but in keeping with the spirit of the TANK proposal). Feel free to modify as needed. --Steelviper 08:21, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

Archetype Candidates

1. Pegasus (episode)

Note: Feel free to add candidates and discuss.

Based on his edits here, I believe Merv was proposing "Colonial Day" as a potential archetype candidate.--Steelviper 08:21, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

• Well, yes and no. Colonial Day is an example of the worst case, episode most needing standardization, which was then "fixed" to a good standard; good "before and after" example is what I mean. However, I think a lot of Season 2 episodes are better "archetypes", off the top of my head I'd say "Pegasus (episode)".--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 12:01, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

• Deviations from the norm: Season 2 is actually fine, I've looked it over. It's season 1 that had a problem: this guy called "Ernestborg9" made his OWN Reviews on each episode (What exactly "Analysis" was was poorly defined at this early point). Then there's the Miniseries: that's a special case. I'm not sure how to approach that myself, though I think it should be as standard as any article and needs lots of fixes. I'm on to Season One now...--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 12:04, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

Even though, "standardization" is complete, I still like to have a discussion of an "Archetype" episode, what makes it good, compare other episodes to it, and apply what is learned to future episodes. This could defined as the "quality" part of the project, looking at the intangibles. --FrankieG 11:41, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

100% concur. --Steelviper 12:00, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

Structure Change

In our mighty template {{subst:Episode Guide}} for quick and dirty Episode creations, I am driving tot he fact that we have great structure, but not that great. On the BW:POD project we use Act 1 through 4 (not 6), because that's how the Podcasts are breaked up. I am suggesting this format change for the "headings".

• DISMG (if any)
• EPISODE TEMPLATE
• == OVERVIEW == - The "small text"
• == OVERALL SUMMARY == - Two/Three paragraphs explaining what happened through the acts
• == ACT 1 == (Paragraph Style)
• == ACT 2 == (Paragraph Style)
• == ACT 3 == (Paragraph Style)
• == ACT 4 == (Paragraph Style)
• == GUEST STARS ==
• == Analysis == - If this section got to long we should create Further Analysis of X using a {{seealso}} template. If we created this on the main episode page it would be in paragraph form of a quick summary of what we are looking at.
• == Notes ==
• == Worthy Dialogue == - Not to much
• SEASON TEMPLATE

Inside the "Acts" we would have those act questions at the end in === Questions ===

• Official Statements - Move to Sources namespace
• Worthy Dialogue - if this also got to long maybe in the Quotes namespace - Quotes:Epsiode Name

Anyway... feel free to edit the structure idea. :) --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 13:04, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

• We don't need any new templates. Instead of "Overall Summary" we can just say "Summary" as we have already been. The only change we might want to do is what Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki, does where they break up the Summary according to Act breaks, such as for this page for What You Leave Behind. No, we should keep our Summary section in easy-to-read bulleted lists, instead of Paragraph Style.--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 13:13, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

One thing the bulleted summary items buy you is modularity. It's easy to add/remove bullets, where paragraph format requires the use of "writing skills" to make substantial changes. (Not that that's a bad thing to have when contributing to a wiki.) Also I feel the bullets tend to encourage concision, since it is easier to detect rambling when it is out in a bullet. I do like the idea of examining the Analysis section, and figuring out EXACTLY what we want to have in there (as well as discussing the possibility of breaking it out if it gets long). --Steelviper 13:17, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

Could be bullets at the start, but once a episode is done with, i.e. 33, I am sure we could change it into prose. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 13:20, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

No, this would be more confusing. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 13:29, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

Another reason I first proposed this is that every episode look the same, especially before Season 3 starts and we start having renewed interested and input. --FrankieG 16:11, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

Project Scope

Shane, your proposal is significantly different from what Episode Standardization is meant to be (enforcing existing rules) that you shoudl bring it up in the Think Tank as a separate proposal. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 13:14, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

• I don't think it is, otherwise I would have brought it up there. I already said about the ACT breaks ups above and there is no new template to create. They are already here. {{subst:Episode Guide}}. This makes episodes standerized. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 13:19, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

I don't think it's too out of line to take a second to examine the existing rules before we go forth and apply them. It would be foolish to blindly apply rules that could be improved before making signficant changes. That's why I wanted to try to identify the archetype to see if the existing rules should be honed. --Steelviper 13:20, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

Correct SteelViper: We're just changing things to make them match "Colonial Day" and "Pegasus (episode)", etc. Shane: yes, this is significantly different from the scope of the project. The scope of this project is "make episodes match our standard format": if you want to change the actual format, you should bring it up as a Think Tank proposal: that's the entire concept behing creating the Think Tank function. --->These are not gigantic changes you are proposing, it's just that if you want to switch from bullets to prose you should suggest it elsewhere. No reason for a new "Worhty Dialogue" thing; our current Official Statements and Noteworthy dialoge stuff is fine.--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 13:31, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

If you want, we could move this discussion to Standards and Conventions Talk, Shane. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 13:37, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

I want it to stay here because it deals with this subject. Also I think doing massive edits is really not a good idea until we get it stright on how things should flow from this project. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 13:38, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

Scifi.com stuff

Some of the early Season 1 episodes have both "Summary from Scifi.com" and "External Links: (this episode) on Scifi.com" in them: I think we should remove one or both of these, as the external links thing is a link to the summary. Thoughts?--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 13:40, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

remove it or move it to the source namespace (ref) --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 13:47, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

The Scifi.com summary should be at most a crutch for when we don't have a summary generated ourselves. Keeping the link is fine, but the text becomes redundant after we've got the episode summary hammered out. Plus having potentially copyrighted text (with the summary) intermingled with our creative commons stuff isn't that consistent. With that regard I'd be happier ONLY providing the link (even when we don't have the text summary of our own generated). --Steelviper 13:48, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

The Scifi.com summaries was one of the main causes of me starting the proposal. My idea is to use the summary until the episode airs and is replaced by one of our own, leaving the link in the reference section. --FrankieG 16:03, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

For upcoming episodes, as in season 3, using the (CITED) Summary is fine, but to save space I'm removing them from the other Season 1 episodes; they're redundant with the link at the bottom of the screen. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 21:43, 26 July 2006 (CDT)

Bloopers and Nitpicks

I think that this has been discussed elsewhere. I believe these sections should be merge into Analysis and Notes where fitting. --FrankieG 20:38, 26 July 2006 (CDT)

Concur. Analysis of a blooper or nitpick can go to analysis, where one-liners can get slotted into notes? They aren't a "standard" section. (At least, they weren't in the Lurker's guide.) --Steelviper 20:40, 26 July 2006 (CDT)

I've already been doing that, yes. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 21:33, 26 July 2006 (CDT)

Nothing should be happenning without anything finailized. In any case, maybe they should be moved to the Bloopers page. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 21:40, 26 July 2006 (CDT)--Task Bot 21:38, 26 July 2006 (CDT)

I'm already removing them. They were never part of the "Standard" format.--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 21:43, 26 July 2006 (CDT)

Text to add:

These items should never appear on Episode Guide pages:

• Bloopers or Errors (Continuity errors (RDM))
• Visual Effects Errors
• Timeline Errors
• "Other Information"
  • Posts of the Podcasts, as they have their own namespace
  • R&D TV as they appear in one article (R and D TV)

--Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 20:43, 12 September 2006 (CDT)

Finished

The initial Standardization which I proposed this project for has been completed. I've fixed up all of those Analysis sections from (mostly) Season 1, which sounded like Reviews. There is currently no episode article in dire need of any particular cleanup. However, we should be vigilant about episode standardization in the future, during Season 3 and beyond, to make sure that new episode guide entries match the format. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 01:32, 28 July 2006 (CDT)

I'd still like to see the TOS and 1980 episode guides standardized, as well as refining and documenting what each section is for (to make it clearer for those who wish to contribute, as well as for applying to existing work). Is Pegasus (episode) still your pick as the best example of a "standard" episode? --Steelviper 07:59, 28 July 2006 (CDT)

Status

During the past weeks, I think that I have moved all the continuity errors/goofs/bloopers stuff to Continuity errors (RDM).

In the last two days, I went back through all episodes and "standardize" the Noteworthy Dialogue section according to what had sort evolved by the end of Season 2. Main purpose was to make them "look" the same for the casual viewer, and not a major correction/rewrite of the contents. If it is decided to format them different, at least they are all the "same" now which will make reformating easier.

The other MAJOR thing that I did mainly for the sake "look" and casual readibility was "move" two large "non-standard" "deus ex machina" sections in Epiphanies and Flight of the Phoenix. Most of the Epiphanies stuff was already duplicated in the Science in the Re-imagined Series article. However, this was not true of the Flight of the Phoenix, so I finally deided to move the info to the Science article. I realize that others may have different ideas about this, but I was on a roll going through episodes and did what I thought was the "best". Nice thing about the wiki is that it is easy to revert. :) --FrankieG 15:30, 23 September 2006 (CDT)

Candidate

I think a candidate article that we can finally set to is Resurrection Ship, Part II. Comments? --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 20:27, 8 October 2006 (CDT)

Questions/Analysis Sections

They are getting way to long with a lot of "forum" type questions and answer discustions. I think we need to come up with a game plan on how we should deal with this. My ideas are as follows...

• Questions
  • Questions should be something that come from the episode, and no speculation should be put underneath. Unless the question can be answered in a future episode with that episode guide having the proper BW:CITE information, it should then be placed in the {{spoilli|Info}} tag. Once that information becomes "non-spolier", the {{spoilli}} tag can be removed. Otherwise nothing should be placed.
  • Question should only be one thing, so if a new question is warnted from a question listed already, it should have it's own heading; not ** under another question.
  • Questions from pervious episodes must be checked to see if they been answered in episodes aired after them.
  • Questions should be answered from Official Sources or Episodes and/or Deleted Scenes. User speculation answers should not be allowed, unless the question is related to the same episode that it's posted under.
    • I.e From Exodus, Part II: Q: Since Galactica now has Pegasus' Viper and Raptor compliment in addition to its own, will the starboard flight pod now be pressed back into service? A: It might alredy be in service after a year of free time to convert it back. Also the vipers are lauched out of the starboard pod when Galactica is falling.
• Analysis
  • Simply anaysing. No questions at all. "Reasons" should be consise.

That's about it. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 23:44, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

I can't find any fault with this. It's also how it was done on the Lurker's Guide as well. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 12:04, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

I see it this way: Notes is for simple things that don't require any thought but are kind of interesting: "Pegasus doesn't retract flight pods", "Tyrol shaved his beard", etc. Analysis is for points that require more explication: "Kat was previously shown to be a driven pilot in "Final Cut", so it's unsurprising that she is so talented in "Scar" now that she's overcome her Stim addiction." Questions is for those remaining points which cannot be answered by the episodes aired to date.

The key point about the questions section is that they should not have answers in the material aired up to the episode's release. Questions which are answered adequately should be redacted and moved to analysis. It should be our expectation that contributors will do this themselves, and not wait for a mop boy to do the gruntwork. Redaction is particularly excrutiating given the current server problems and the issue of edit collisions. --April Arcus 21:50, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Again, 100% agree. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 21:55, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Updates to Guides

Images in Guides and Analysis section

The best looking example of how we should do image in guides and maybe a better version of Analysis sections is in the "He That Believeth In Me" guide. The headers and images in each act give it some interactive flavor. I have added an image to the notes section for Six of One and The Ties That Bind, but those are sections that usually show one thing that is important. Comments? BW:SAC page would need to be updated. Shane (talk) 16:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Act vs. Location

We really also gotta update old guides to the Act Format or Location format. Location format should only be used if the episode has two or more story lines happening. Acts should always be four and flushed out in detail. Comments? BW:SAC page would need to be updated. Shane (talk) 16:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Excessive Use of Lists

Hi. I'm new here and was looking over some episode articles. Can someone explain to me the reasoning behind the excessive use of lists on those pages? It actually makes it harder to read. Also, the Notes and Analysis sections seem rather unorganized when just thrown all together in a large list. --Tuzaa 03:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Welcome, Tuzaa! In response to your question, the formats are directly inspired by the guide pages on Lurkers Guide to Babylon 5. Hence the extensive use of lists.

As for the analysis and notes sections, they do tend to be thrown together in a disorganized fashion, and this is particularly the case for the older episode guides dating back from season 1 and 2. When it comes to episode guides for the newer episodes, such as "He That Believeth In Me" and others, this problem is rectified as the points are all bulleted together under a theme or topic. Of course, any help in organizing the notes and analysis sections in older episode guides would be greatly appreciated! -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 03:48, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

At the very least, each bullet point in Summary should be a separate scene. That is not always the case. --Tuzaa 05:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Here's a suggested format change. Use a definition list instead of an unordered list for the Acts. Each list item should be a scene. See example at: User:Tuzaa/Sandbox#Summary --Tuzaa 05:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Grouping them more logically, instead of starting a new bullet point when it's convenient is certainly a good idea. Scenes are fine. But personally, I don't like those additional headers. The paragraphs themselves point out where a scene takes place. As for the style in general. That depends on the person doing the summary. Some use more bullet points than others for some reason. -- Serenity 11:53, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Serenity. Obviously, things can probably be tightened when it comes to when a bullet point is and should be used. Probably best to define such things in the standards and conventions. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 20:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I used the idea of collecting each line item into scenes and naming the scene location from scriptwriting practices. The reason I liked the definition list is because the default formatting makes it a little easier on the eyes to separate the list items than from an unordered or ordered list. The bullet points for some reason just made it all blend together. Another possibility is to change the CSS for a definition list so that the "headword" appears inline with the definition. *shrug* Speaking of CSS, it seems like the image thumbnails need some padding around them. The text hits right up against the image border (on Firefox using default skin). --Tuzaa 23:01, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

From main.css: div.thumb {border:medium none;margin-bottom:0.5em;width:auto;} Suggest adding margin:0.5em or margin-left:0.5em. --Tuzaa 23:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Original Series definition: a Cylon outpost (TOS: "Lost Planet of the Gods, Part I")