The TV IV:Proposals/Importing Data From Other Sources

An explicit policy needs to be set on the importing of data from other sources (this section may be more appropriate under licensing). Episode titles, air dates, cast lists etc are probably all OK to grab from whereever. What about trivia lists, episode summaries, notes etc? Can I just start feeding in a leeched version of TVTome to seed the database? Some people have already started doing this (for instance Firefly/Serenity has notes, trivia and quotes from tv.com's firefly page.)

Comments

1. Currently, you can "import data" to an extent, as long as you don't directly copy and paste information. This Wiki is meant to be a full-fledged site, and not a portal that has the same exact information as another. You shouldn't, for example, copy entire paragraphs of plot synopsis to this Wiki. --Wizardryo 23:46, 13 Sep 2005 (EDT)
2. The firefly link in the original comment above is basically a cut and paste of the tv.com information into tviv. TVIV's Firefly pages are currently exact duplicates of the info on TV.com --Coolbutuseless 00:51, 14 Sep 2005 (EDT)
3. If someone had access to a tvtome mirror, what avenues exist for doing bulk uploads of the "standard" episode information: title, cast, airdate? This would be a great way of seeding the wiki for future contributors. --Coolbutuseless 00:51, 14 Sep 2005 (EDT)
4. As a first attempt at seeding some of the monotonous info, I've added all the season pages for Babylon 5 e.g. Babylon 5/Season Five. The page generation for each of these season pages was done automatically, using data from another source. I think I've got the formatting OK. but feedback on those pages is welcome. If it's all OK, then I can let loose and import a whole stack of dates and titles for lots of tv shows. --Coolbutuseless 03:55, 14 Sep 2005 (EDT)
5. Although TVTome/TV.com has a lot of data on a lot of shows, perhapswe should also consider looking around for other sources that are licensed more freely. For example, Memory-Alpha is a Creative Commons-licensed Star Trek Wiki and has a lot of data on episodes of Star Trek. A lot of episodes are missing the complete details, but there's usually a synopsis that could be copied and pasted/automagically imported verbatim to at least get some stubs for the Star Trek series and episodes. -Dave Corder 23:48, 14 Sep 2005 (EDT)
6. I'm not adding any of the actual content from tvtome/tv.com, since I'm sure there must be a licensing issue involved. As some of the admins have said, this is meant to be a new resource for TV information, not just a mirroring of other places. Presently, Autobot only imports the season lists, the episode names, air dates and guest stars. This information is then used to create the templates for the show (like 100 Centre Street) which can be filled with information. With luck, this will reduce the high barrier to starting a new show on the wiki (it takes forever to set up season lists and links manually. and forward and backward links on shows can be frustratingly tedious). I'd like to think that if you're sitting in front of the TV and watching a show, it should be dead simple to add in information - otherwise it might seem too much like hard work. --Coolbutuseless 02:42, 15 Sep 2005 (EDT)
7. The comments and opinions and show summaries we should stay away from mirroring tv.com. But, the ACTUAL episode names, prog#, and dates of airing are common knowledge, and have no licensing issues whatsoever. port on. --Randall 09:05, 23 Sep 2005 (EDT)
8. Being a Wikipedia[1] user; i really think once the licencing issues are sorted out with TVIV, there should be some gesture made to wikipedia to import the information there into here. For instance Lost [2] has a great resource on wikipedia, which IMHO belongs here not there. Oliyoung 11:42, 23 Sep 2005 (EDT)

• This appears to be resolved. No comments for almost 1 year. We have established conventions for importing data that aren't going to be changed (or likely, they won't). I'm going to mark this as resolved on the Proposal page unless someone objects. --MateoP 13:42, 9 September 2006 (EDT)