The TV IV:Proposals/Categories

We need to decide what gets what kind of category. At this point in time, it's kind of a crapshoot as to what page will use what category. How should the categories be distributed? Should every page go into a show category? We also need to decide on how to use "Network" and "Channel" becuase both are being used interchangably for the same thing.

Comments

1. What I've been doing is categorizing episodes with only Show Name/Episodes, characters with Show Name/Characters, and what not. The program pages go into their genre and channel categories (with some other special ones if applicable like JLU being in the Diniverse category or Adult Swim shows getting their own beyond Cartoon Network). --IndieRockLance 04:01, 9 Sep 2005 (PDT)
2. I think anything that has more than a handful of pages should get a category, providing that the topic is broad enough. Maybe we can change "Network" into "Company" and make it house pages for Universal, Viacom, etc. That's what the meaning of Network arguably is, but I think there needs to be a better distinction made for it. --Wizardryo 19:45, 10 Sep 2005 (PDT)
   1. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to the difference between a network and a channel. This resulted in the completely redundant application of the network and channel categories. A channel is either a band of frequencies assigned by a country's regulatory body or a local cable company to a particular local or national station and tends to vary through out the country and from provider to provider. A network on the other hand is a national distributor of television content as describe in the network article. In the UK these terms are fairly interchangable since BBC One is always channel 1, Channel 4 is always on channel 4, etc. This is not the case in the US and as such should not be treated as standard. Those companies Wizardyo listed are not networks but coporate parents who own a number of different networks and production companies. I'm eliminating the channel category from network articles and in the future the channel category should be for local stations like WABC in New York. I'm also adding categories for corporate parent companies since that seems fairly useful.The-jam 17:17, 31 July 2006 (EDT)
3. Whoa! New users are going a little nuts with categories. Do we need a "Stop motion" or "mockumentary" subcategory? How many shows would fit those categories? Shouldn't we instead have a "keyword" section below external links? --aenematron 14:02, 13 Sep 2005 (EDT)
4. Late last night, I figured it'd be cool to have categories for where series are set. (E.g.: New York and New York City for Seinfeld and Friends, Colorado for South Park and Everwood, California and Los Angeles for Entourage and Huff, New Jersey for House, M.D. and The Sopranos, even Outer Space for Firefly and Star Trek. It was a perfectly logical set of categories, and I knew nobody would mind. So I set out to fill in what I knew off the top of my head, and figured I'd ask for help when I was done. I only got up through the G's before I passed out sleeping. And then I wake up this afternoon and find someone has already started filling in ones I missed. You guys are the best.JCaesar 16:33, 3 May 2006 (EDT)
   1. Although I do approve of states/provinces/countries/etc getting categories, do we really need to move into specifics like cities? --IndieRockLance 12:30, 4 May 2006 (EDT)
   2. I don't actually have a problem with cities and states/provinces/prefectures, but I'm a little hestitant about adding countries since we aren't adding "United States" to every show set in the US, are we? So including say, Germany, as a category seems very Americentric too. -- Lampbane 15:17, 4 May 2006 (EDT)
   3. I think city categories are just as useful as state categories but only for large significant cities, we don't need a Providence, Rhode Island or an Albany, New York sub category just because some show was set there but San Fransisco, New York, London, LA, etc. categories make sense as sub categories because there's a lot of shows in each. There is actually very little information on where shows are set on the internet and it is the kind of thing people like to search for. (It's also frustratingly hard to search for since set and setting have multiple television related meanings and location more commonly refers to where the show was filmed.) As for country categories it again boils down to how many shows are set in random German states and how useful would it be to categorize them as such. If someone doesn't know that something is a US state when they click it the state is categorized as such. We could add a United States category but it would be unfunctionally large and not much of a resource. --The-jam 15:50, 4 May 2006 (EDT)
      1. I wasn't advocating adding "United States" as a category so much as for removing other countries. Because honestly, there are going to be tons of shows set in Japan, for one. -- Lampbane 17:15, 4 May 2006 (EDT)
         1. I don't see using states as Americentric per se as we also don't have an EU category or an Asia (bad example), I personally think if it is a large enough political unit it deserves it's own category and only should distinguish if names conflict. The reason to use state names (for us) and country names is that often times cities share names in different spheres but rarely in the same sphere (there are several cities named Springfield in the US, but to my knowlege no state has more than one), to the best of my knowlege this is not a problem in other countries, if it is I am in favor of splitting them into provinces and adding a US category, it just seems to be a waste of effort to do so if it isn't needed. -Philoetus 00:13, 6 May 2006 (EDT)
         2. I made "US States" (and "Canadian Provinces") subcategories of Countries a while ago and grouped all the United Kingdom countries together into a UK supercategory, so that should solve the "political units" problem. Granted, other nations have states, but as this is still an English-language Wiki for the most part, the overwhelming majority of our entries are for TV shows filmed or set in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. As for Cities, I've been keeping an eye on these, and from what I've seen, they tend not to be abused. Major cities, be they American, international or fictional—London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Gotham City, etc.—get categories, smaller cities—Indianapolis, Providence, Sunnydale, Bremen, etc.—don't. If one of my fellow Hoosiers gets a wild hair and decides to create an Indianapolis category, it won't be overly populated, and should be pretty easy to remove. (Unless, of course, he or she discovers a ton of series set in and people born in Indianapolis, in which case, maybe we should have a subcategory for that city. But I doubt he or she will find that. I'm from Indianapolis, and off-hand, I can name only three series in television history which were set there, two of which were rather obscure and have since been largely forgotten.) -- JCaesar^talk 19:44, 16 August 2006 (EDT)

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• I think we're maybe missing the point of the category structure. I've noticed on many program pages that subcategories and categories are placed on the same program. For example, many (if not most or all) sitcoms have both a sitcom and comedy on them. This defeats the purpose of subcategories. If a person is navigating the category pages and is looking for a show that is a comedy but not a sitcom, they are sort of screwed. By having subcategories, the point is to use the most specific category possible. Those comedies (as an example) which don't fall into any of the specific subcategories like sitcom or improv would then be given the general comedy category. --MateoP 13:24, 11 August 2006 (EDT)
  • The "Comedy" category is for all comedy series, regardless of whether or not they have a valid subcategory. It defeats the purpose of having an all-encompassing category like Comedy if those shows that fit the subcategory (in this case sitcoms) are omitted. The purpose of the category isn't to provide the user with a listing of niche comedies, it's to provide the user with a list of comedies. End of story. Everybody Loves Raymond has just as much reason to belong in there as Saturday Night Live. --IndieRockLance 13:32, 11 August 2006 (EDT)
    • Articles which are placed in subcategories are accessible from the supercategory page. They are not omitted. --MateoP 13:48, 11 August 2006 (EDT)
      • Yes but the comedy category is supposed to list all comedy shows if someone wants non-sitcom comedies they can click in the various non-sitcom sub-categories. Conceivably every show should fit in a subcategory so then there wouldn't even be anything in the main category so it's not like it would be useful to take them out. If something fits in a category than it should go in that category otherwise people will get confused as to where such and such show is if they don't realize what subcategory it is in. Plus if we did that for drama it would be kind of pointless since the subcategories there are more thematic than structural and all dramas are the same general "type" of show and should be in a category together. The-jam 14:04, 11 August 2006 (EDT)
        • But that's never going to happen. There are always shows that are stylistically different enough that people don't consider them to fall into any of the subcategories. Maybe the style will be given a specific name down the line if it becomes popular enough. I don't see how this would be a problem with drama or any other supercategory. If a person is confused as to what category a program is in, they can go to the program page and it lists all categories at the bottom. Subcategory pages also list categories. --MateoP 14:30, 11 August 2006 (EDT)
      • You're missing my point. My point is the the main comedy category is a master list of all comedy series, not just ones that don't have a specific subcategory. If we remove all of the sitcoms from the list, then where does it stop? Do we go to drama and remove all the procedural shows, mysteries, teen dramas, medical shows and so on until all we're left with are shows that nobody knows how to categorize? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. --IndieRockLance 14:06, 11 August 2006 (EDT)
        • I don't see any point in a "master list". Every drama/comedy is easily accessible from that category page through its subcategories. There are always going to be plenty of shows that don't fall into subcategories. That's the point in categories, I believe. It's like folders on a computer. If you place Solitaire in "Cards", a subfolder of "Games", you're not going to get confused and think that because you don't see Solitaire in the games folder then it must not be on your computer or it is not a game. --MateoP 14:30, 11 August 2006 (EDT)
        • This only works for sitcoms since by very definition they have to be comedy almost all the other subcategories can be applied to multiple genres. You can have a medical comedy as easily as you can have a medical drama or a sci fi comedy as easy as a sci fi drama. A talk show can be a comedy or it can be a news show. If we start removing the main categories from show pages how are these going to be distinguished?The-jam 14:39, 11 August 2006 (EDT)
          • By calling them "medical drama" and "medical comedy", respectively, and then placing both of those into a "Talk Show" supercategory (which would house talk shows that are neither comedic nor news). This wouldn't be necessary always, though. Dramedy is a subcategory that applies fine to both of its supercategories. It's not a big deal with me though, I think the current method is flawed but i'm not going to make a big deal out of it except to say that I think it is flawed. --MateoP 14:45, 11 August 2006 (EDT)
            • a little late to the party, but i have to agree; listing something under both the supercategory and subcategory, unless it fits into the supercategory in some way additional to the subcategory, both makes the categorization redundant, and inflates the sizes of the categories enormously. but i'm going to leave it alone/abide by the current redundancy and leave it to somebody else to do the work, i'm tired. Gzuckier 00:52, 22 March 2009 (EDT)