Talk:Escape Pod (podcast)

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Escape Pod is a magazine in the same way that shows like "60 Minutes" are magazines. (see http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/magazine)

Calling Steve a "host" in the first paragraph is misleading. On a show a host recites lines which (s)he may or may not have written. An editor of a magazine, print or otherwise, selects the features, schedules releases, coordinates production, handles contracts, budgets, signs checks, oversees marking as well as work done by assistants. After that the editor writes editorials.

In short, Escape Pod is a magazine in an audio medium. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sjanssens (talk • contribs) at 15:59, August 4, 2006.

I don't know if it the definition of 'magazine' as neatly as 60 minutes, as each edition generally has only one feature (the story/review/whatever,) so I can understand Haakon's reasoning, but it is referred to on the official site as "The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine," so using the term in the intro is probably appropriate.
How's this for the intro:
Escape Pod is a magazine-style podcast which presents stories in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. The show is hosted by Steve Eley, who also provides a short introduction and closing comments for each story.
Agreed about the host/editor thing, I missed that one. -- Vary | Talk 16:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


I agree that Escape Pod is best categorized as a magazine in an audio medium, not a show. This is because:

  • The publication refers to itself as "The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine"
  • Though radio shows exist, the word "show" often implies a visual component (as with a television program).
  • The content of Escape Pod is similar to major science fiction and fantasy literary magazines, such as Asimov's Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Calling attention to Escape Pod's similarity to these magazines is more helpful than calling attention to Escape Pod's similarity to television or radio shows.

For similar reasons, I agree that Steve Eley is best considered an "editor," not a "host." - Jrissman 02:16, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, each regular episode (issue) has not only a story but also an editorial, sometimes letters, sometimes events. They're just not clearly seperated by section headers. (Section headers make sense in print but don't work as well in audio.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sjanssens (talk • contribs) 15:05, August 8, 2006
I didn't say each episode only had one element, I said it had one 'feature', in the journalistic sense, and my point was that I could understand why the editor who removed the term did so. 'Magazine' is currently the term used in the article, so I don't think the particulars matter. The important thing, as Jrissman and I have said, is that Eely refers to it as a magazine, and so should we.
I've moved the above comment down from where it was originally placed, after the first paragraph of my comment above. Please don't add replies in the middle of other user's comments. It makes the page difficult to follow. Thanks! -- Vary | Talk 15:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
If I seem a stickler for the details it's because I'm a member of the Escape Pod/Escape Artists staff. We very much consider our podcasts to be magazines. Here's a thought experiment: If Escape Pod came out once a month with four stories, then your definition clearly considers it to be a magazine. I don't think spreading it out over the month changes that distinction. I know I'm harping on the issue, but I feel it important that our intentions and goals be clear. Sjanssens 16:28, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Table of past episodes

I've just done a lot of work on the formatting and the wikilinks in the table. For anyone who adds to the table, please keep in mind the following:

Stories from Escape Pod may or may not have articles, but books or movies that are reviewed on the podcast probably do. Wikilinking media reviewed by Escape Pod is definitely a good idea. Ditto for authors, whether they have an article or not. Short stories tend not to get articles unless they're extremely notable (major award, made into a movie, etc), so linking story titles is entirely optional, but not discouraged.

If you decide to add a wikilink, please check that you are linking to the correct article or to a red link, and not to an unrelated article. If there is already an unrelated article located at the story's title, you should disambiguate the link to point to the article's correct title or to an empty page where a future article on that story could go.

If the title links to a disambiguation page (a page that is just a link to other pages), or to an article that has a link to a disambiguation page at the top, you can check that page to see if there's already an article on your subject that you can point to. If there isn't, you need to make your link point to a new, nonexistent article. For example, there is already a long disambiguation page at Imperial, the title of the story covered in the podcast's first episode, but not an article on the story, so I altered the link to point to Imperial (short story). Per Wikipedia:Disambiguation, if anyone ever decides to write an article about that short story, Imperial (short story) is where that article will go.

To make the disambiguated title read properly, I piped the link. You can do this by adding a pipe (|) after (short story) and before I closed the brackets, like this: Imperial. This causes only the text prior to the parentheses to be displayed. You can also use a pipe to alter what text is displayed altogether, as in The Lego Moonbase Project, which points to Lego. This is done by putting the target before a pipe, and your desired text after it: [[Lego|The Lego Moonbase Project]].

An article only needs to link to a particular article once, the first time it's mentioned. I haven't taken the time to remove all the extra links today, but linking to a frequent contributor over and over isn't necessary.

Finally, in general, the titles of short fiction should be placed inside double quotes, as "Imperial (short story)". Longer works (for example, the films and books that are reviewed occasionally), should be put in italics using two single quotes. For example, Primer (''[[Primer (film)|]]''). -- Vary | Talk 07:20, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phasing Spider Menace

The article still states that the new joint Escape Pod-Daikaiju Album is coming in late 2006, but, as we are now in 2007, and that hasn't happened yet, this should be updated, does anyone know the new date?Haggisfarm 19:02, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

And now 2008... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.37.250.185 (talk) 16:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Restoring Episode Table?

I feel it had value because it showed the type of writers and stories Escape Pod attracts, which may have bearing on it's notability. It would be possible to list notable stories but that might violate NPOV -- Jason Penney 22:51, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. Sirana 08:24, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I think there's precedent; lots of TV shows have lists of episodes or a separate 'list of episodes' article. -FisherQueen (Talk) 12:22, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


I also believe the episode table should be restored. The Wikipedia policy guide which Breno referenced in order to support the deletion, WP:NOT#DIR, forbids four types of "directory" pages:

  • Lists of loosely associated topics, such as quotations
  • Geneological and phonebook entries
  • Directory entries and business resources, such as a radio station's upcoming events or promotions
  • Sales catalogs

The Escape Pod episode table falls into none of these categories. Granted, the listing at WP:NOT#DIR may not be all-inclusive, but the fact that Wikipedia is not a directory does not mean that Wikipedia bans all lists of anything. The episode table was a valuable resource for people wishing to understand Escape Pod's scope, notability, content, and major contributing authors. It provided a great deal of valuable information about the publication- information which would be useful both to a researcher and to a casual reader. - Jrissman 08:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe episode listings should remain off the article. My reasons for removal was not solely WP:NOT#DIR; other reasons were stated on the WikiProject talk page. The specific part I was referring to on WP:NOT#DIR is that Wikipedia is not an Electronic Program Guide, though historically significant programme lists and schedules may be acceptable. Regardless of Wiki guidelines, episode listings seem to be overused by some podcast shows as article filler, and detract from writing an encyclopedic, FDL article. The reason why television shows may have episode lists is that due to the massive audience television has compared to podcasting, each tv episode has enough notability to merit an article on its own. An example being List of The Simpsons episodes, a featured article - note how each episode has its own notable article. Podcasts on the other hand, struggle to meet notability requirements for the entire show. The point of this exercise was to focus shows on writing encyclopedic articles, rather than copy-pasting from websites each time a new episode comes out. In order to keep discussion together, please respond at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Podcasting#Episode lists, as this relates to a few shows maintained by WikiProject Podcasting. Thanks. --Breno talk 01:42, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I too agree that the episode table should be restored. As FisherQueen points out, many (if not most) TV shows include lists of episodes. If the issue is the ever-growing length of the table, I'd vote for a seperate page. AarrowOM 18:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Articles for sister podcasts?

I saw that there was no article for Pseudopod and was just going to create a stub when I then saw that it had already been deleted with what seemed to me a cut-off discussion of what constitutes "notable".

It would seem that since the Escape Pod article survived that metric, that Pseudopod would as well, and perhaps it just wasn't as notable at the time the decision was made to delete it?

And I guess as I have no axe to grind in this endeavor other than being a guy who tosses 5 bucks a month at Pseudopod, my unprompted attempt to create the article (and I guess my 5 bucks) would be a little more evidence of notability.

And I would then point out that unless the newly launched Podcastle tanks, any successful measure of "notability" for Pseudopod would equally apply to Podcastle. Although I could perhaps understand a warm-up period to prove it's viability first. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BrianDeacon (talk • contribs) 05:59, 18 April 2008 (UTC)