Talk:Lost (TV series)/Archive 3

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

This archive page covers approximately the dates between September 7, 2005 and September 28, 2005.

Post replies to the main talk page, copying the section you are replying to if necessary. (See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.)


Contents

Page move 1

I suggest this be moved to Lost (television series) and the other Lost TV series (the shortlived NBC reality TV one - at Lost (2001 television series)) be moved to Lost (reality television series) or Lost (reality TV series).

Put a dab header at top of page if necessary. Better than having a ridiculous page title that includes the date of first season run.

zoney ♣ talk 21:42, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I was just coming here to suggest this. Zoe 22:26, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm... similar names? similar agendas? are you guys socks? j/k. I agree, although I've seen some precedence for disambigs for tv series just using (tv series), so the overall title is even shorter. If that's possible, I would be inclined to do that as there are a lot of Lost related articles that interlink heavily, and the retyping gets tedious). --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 22:28, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
I disagree. We don't play favorites for movies just because one is "more popular." (Ex: Titanic (1997 film)) Why would we play favorites for TV shows?
Why not? Which do you think people are going to be searching for more? Isn't there some sort of guideline concerning "least surprise"? Zoe 19:59, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
Actually, generic Wikipedia naming conventions play favorites all of the time. Consider Hurricane Katrina, Venus, Montserrat. In each of those cases, there is a concept that predates the topic that the article actually refers to (1981 Atlantic hurricane season#Hurricane Katrina, Venus (mythology), Montserrat (mountain), but the main article refers to the most common usage, which in these cases is not the oldest one. I favor moving this to Lost (tv series) and moving the other to Lost (reality tv series). --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 20:44, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
I agree with DropDeadGorgias. A disambiguation page would have this LOST series on top anyway... NuclearFunk 21:15, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
Break it apart by genre if you must (this is how I originally had it a year ago), or move this to Lost and move that content to Lost (disambiguation). RADICALBENDER★ 22:30, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
Of all the items on the disambiguation page, the only one I think would be a frequent "hit" besides the show might be the Law of the Sea Treaty... but I also suspect that most people coming to Wikipedia for that would search via Law of the Sea, the article's name to begin with. Lost is, I think, overwhelmingly the topic people are looking for if they come to Wikipedia about the show. Therefore, I'd support RadicalBender's suggestion primarily. If however that is an unsatisfactory solution, given Wikipedia common standards, I also think Lost (TV series) would work well. Baryonyx 06:16, September 13, 2005 (UTC)
I agree that moving this article to Lost is the most logical solution. Failing that, Lost (TV series), since a quick survey of Category:American television series shows that the (TV series) suffix is slightly more common than the spelled-out (television series). The current title is needlessly unwieldy. —Josiah Rowe 06:47, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree... move article to Lost.Ablaze 12:14, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
After looking over the other entries currently disambiguated on Lost, I agree. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 14:46, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
Since moving to Lost seems to have a growing consensus, I have created the Lost (disambiguation) page, and it now has all the contents of the old page, following the Wikipedia manual of style. The link to this show still points to the Lost (2004 television series) page for now, since I'm assuming that a move like this (that of an existing page on top of an already extant page) is a manual move best achieved by an admin. What is the procedure for something like this? Baryonyx 02:46, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
I could technically move it, but I think it would be best if someone put it up at Wikipedia:Requested moves to get a better consensus. K1Bond007 03:06, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
Done. —Josiah Rowe 05:22, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I suppose that if we're asking for input we should do it properly, eh?

Requested move

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

This vote list was for the proposed move to Lost. If you wish to vote for the move to Lost (TV series), please scroll down and vote in the second voting section.

  • Support — Baryonyx 06:42, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
Support — moving to Lost (TV series) or Lost (TV) should the move proposal to Lost fail. Baryonyx 23:00, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support — Satyadasa 08:21, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose (and you can't vote for your own move request) - SoM 17:50, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support --DropDeadGorgias (talk)
  • Support.--DrBat 01:14, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose This show is now very notable, but in a few years the current approach will be more fitting againHektor 03:06, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per User:Hektor. There is even a 2001 television show, and who is to say there won't be a 20xx one also? Besides, the acronym for sea treaty is pretty notable. Given the shortness of the word "Lost", there will only be more need for disambiguation with time. Mareklug talk 04:51, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support --KramarDanIkabu 05:00, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose rename to simply Lost, but support renaming to simpler title Lost (TV) -- which already redirects to Lost (2004 television series). Keep the generic term "Lost" a disambiguation page. LeFlyman 07:06, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
  • SupportIt is highly likely that most users are looking for this show anyway. As long as there is a desambiguation page NuclearFunk 08:48, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, for reasons already mentioned. — Yallis 01:17, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support --Adam 08:31, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support Many reasons above, it just makes sense! Ablaze 11:23, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose As previously mentioned, this TV show is currently very notable, but all TV shows are fads, and it will soon fall out of significance again. Why make the move now, just to have another move and move it back in the not too distant future? Mattlach 18:32, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, "Lost" is far too ambiguous. I don't think this is a good idea. K1Bond007 00:32, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Weak support. Looks good on paper, so I'm voting for it... I jus hope it doesn't cause problems later on. Radagast 00:39, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support Nick Catalano (Talk) 06:16, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Page move 2

Requested move

  • Talk:Lost (2004 television series) — Lost (2004 television series) → Lost (TV series) – A previous proposal to move this article to Lost was unable to reach the 60% threshold, but several voters suggested that Lost (TV series) or something similar would be preferable to the current title, which is needlessly unwieldy and not entirely accurate (since the series did not air only in 2004). (The current title is to distinguish the current drama series from a short-lived reality series, Lost (2001 television series) — a disambiguation note would be placed at the top of Lost (TV series) for anyone who might possibly be looking for the reality show.) —Josiah Rowe 23:39, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
    • Can we remove the first vote? I noticed that 2 people have voted in the first vote... but I don't know if they meant to vote in the second, though judging by the date, at least one probably did... just archive the first vote to the new archive page, I imagine? Baryonyx 22:33, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

Further discussion may be added below.

  • Support for all the reasons mentioned above, as well as the fact that the original move FROM Lost (TV series) to here was never voted on in the first place. Baryonyx 00:53, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, no clear reason beyond moving the page for the sake of moving. There are two television series named Lost. This move only ambiguates the title. This isn't about the 2004 series being more notable or more popular than the 2001 series. This is about minimizing ambiguity, which is an official policy of Wikipedia. K1Bond007 02:39, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
    • See my response below. —Josiah Rowe 04:39, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support as per previous reasons. The brief 2001 reality show called "Lost" (4 episodes) is not notable; there is no ambiguity, as no one is searching for it. There are countless examples of "(TV series)" used for Wikipedia articles to designate television shows titled with "common" words. See, for example, Alias (TV series), Angel (TV series), ER (TV series), Invasion (TV series), Medium (TV series). LeFlyman 06:23, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
  • "Support' because the 2004 series is very much the primary one people are looking for. Nick Catalano (Talk) 05:13, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support — same reasons as LeFlyman. Satyadasa 05:58, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support - this series is evidently more prominent, and furthermore running for more than one season/year. The current title is inaccurate, and needlessly long (as well as perpetuating this annoying habit of disambiguating things by year - creating a very artificial title - rather than by description). zoney ♣ talk 10:10, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, though I think Lost (TV) would be better. --DrBat 10:55, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support Ablaze 10:17, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. The other one can go to Lost (reality TV series), or what have you. This one is more notable and longer-running. Radagast 11:44, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support Let's face it, The ABC series has the most relevance at the moment. NuclearFunk 18:22, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Select, Emmy award winning show that's going to be around for a while, the other one is just obscure. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:36, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support Still would have preferred LOST, the great thing about the Internet is nothing is set in stone, and should something else become more popular in years to come, changes can be made.--Adam 07:15, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

We have a consensus above, but if anyone wants to discuss it further, here's the place. I guess. —Josiah Rowe 05:22, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

  • It seems that, at 8 Support to 7 Oppose in a 7 day voting period, the proposed move to Lost has been defeated (53.3% support, need 60%). There did seem, however, to be a trend in the previous discussion and in a few votes toward accepting Lost (TV series) as an alternative move. Is there a waiting period we have to follow before proposing that move, or can we post it to allow comment on it? Baryonyx 20:18, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to go on the Be Bold principal and move the topic to Lost (TV series) -- as the majority appear to support an abbreviated article title. LeFlyman 01:52, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, but is that kosher? Are you sure we don't have to go through the formal procedure again? (I mean, I'd just as soon not, but...) —Josiah Rowe 04:41, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
First off that page is a disambiguation page and therefore does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion. You should, once again, put this article up the formal way to have it moved. K1Bond007 04:58, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Lost (TV series) was original title for the Lost article. Someone chose to move all the content, without any such formal procedure, to Lost (television drama) and then turned "Lost (TV series)" into a redirect to that new page. Thereafter, "Lost (TV series)" was turned into a disamb to include the now, non-notable 2001 series, and Lost (television drama) (as well as Lost (TV)) became a redirect to Lost (2004 television series) I propose that it be reverted to its original name, which is in keeping with the many other such series articles, as there was no vote to have it moved in the first place. LeFlyman 06:17, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
A slight correction. The article now at "Lost (2004 television series)" was started on 20:16, 21 September 2004 (at "Lost (television drama)", I think, and moved from there to "Lost (ABC TV series", and thence to the current location). A duplicate article was started on 04:00, 23 August 2004 at "Lost (TV series)", and at 18:52, 5 November 2004 that second article was merged into the first one (your comment move all the content gives the impression it was a simple cut-n-paste, but it wasn't). Noel (talk) 14:31, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the additional insight. However, as you note, what you're referring to as the "duplicate article" was actually started a month earlier, making it the original, rather than duplicate. My comment was based on the edit summary left on Lost (TV Series): "18:52, 5 November 2004 Ahkond (moved all content to Lost (television drama))" -- which doesn't sound like a merge, nor look like one, as it replaced the previous "stub" content entirely. Plus, it still didn't follow any formal vote to merge/move. :) LeFlyman 16:08, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Ah, perhaps my terminology wasn't as precise as it could have been; my use of the term "duplicate" wasn't meant to imply anything other than "there were two separate articles on the same topic".
I hadn't looked at what actually happened when the content from "Lost (TV Series)" was moved to "Lost (television drama)" - it may well be that the former content of the latter was simply discarded. Whichever admin implements whatever y'all decide should look at that; if it was a simple replacement, it would probably be appropriate to graft the history of "Lost (TV Series)" (from before) onto that of "Lost (television drama)" (from after). Noel (talk) 18:15, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I'd agree with Leflyman that this page should probably be speedily returned to its original home. The mere fact that the page Lost (TV series) didn't even exist prior to this Lost coming on the air tells me that the 2001 reality show wasn't considered notable enough to take the name of the next logical page name for a TV series below the main article Lost. The further fact that it was moved here without going through the voting process is problematic, as well, because that shouldn't have been done. It would have been perfectly acceptable for a heading like:
This article is about the drama series. There is also an article about the reality series Lost. For other references, visit Lost.
as has been done on so many other pages. Nonetheless, the past is the past. The fact that it was not officially voted on before doesn't necessarily mean we should bend the rules now, unless there's a Wikipedia convention on what to do in this type of situation. If there isn't, then we really should go through the voting procedure a second time, because that avoids someone else down the line saying we didn't follow the rules, and re-reverting us back here again. I suspect that this move, and the justifications for it, are on far better ground than the earlier suggestion, considering 1.) the greater notability of this series in the long haul over the reality series (and, as an aside, I believe the only way another series after this will be named Lost is if its a remake), 2.) the use of a heading like that above on the final product, 3.) the lack of a proper vote in the earlier move, and 4.) that we're leaving the more generic page for a very common English word alone. I think it's much harder to argue the position that, when people come searching for the Lost TV series, they want the reality one, and that alone should block the vote, as opposed to the positions argued in the first move vote. Baryonyx 09:52, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Sure be bold, but to move an article to another title that already exists (with history) you need an admin and thus a formal procedure. Since I do not fully agree (and have stated previously that I believe the page title should be left alone), I'm not going to get involved unless there is a consensus, which there is not. I'm sorry, but you and a one or two others is not a consensus. Going by that, you technically had a consensus to move this page to "Lost" and yet it failed the formal procedure because editors outside of this article did not agree. The problem here is that Wikipedia lacks a formal naming convention for television shows. There is no rule that says it should be "TV series" (example) or "Television" (example) or "Television series" (example) or just "TV" example). There is no rule on what to do when there are two or more shows that are named the same, but there is precedent for using years here and here. That's the real problem here. I'm all in favor of anyone being bold and I'd be in favor of a name change if there is a formal consensus, but as Baryonyx points out, the formal process avoids the possibility down the road that the title is changed again. I may propose a naming convention in the very near future or at least start discussion on one again. Two previous efforts (that I'm aware of) have failed. K1Bond007 18:02, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, it's certainly not just myself and "one or two others" -- if you'd look back over this page, you'd see: (from the top:)
  • "I suggest this be moved to Lost (television series)" User:Zoney
  • "I agree. I was just coming here to suggest this. User:Zoe"
  • "I favor moving this to Lost (tv series) User:DropDeadGorgias"
  • "I agree with DropDeadGorgias. A disambiguation page would have this LOST series on top anyway... User:NuclearFunk"
  • "I also think Lost (TV series) would work well. User:Baryonyx"
  • " Lost (TV series), since a quick survey of Category:American television series shows that the (TV series) suffix is slightly more common than the spelled-out (television series). —User:Josiah Rowe"
... and that's before a "formal vote," which if you insist on for bureaucratic reasons, I'd be happy to support and wait a week for the inevitable outcome :) LeFlyman 19:54, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
And you should note the discrepancies there. One says (television series), one has lowercase tv, etc. (typo or not) Theres a problem in the naming convention that effects all of Wikipedia, not just Lost. I don't like the title because this isn't the only TV series named Lost. Why go from something disambiguated to something even less so, but still a disambiguation of Lost. It makes absolutely no sense except for the ease of writing when linking. The naming convention on Wikipedia as a whole is the problem, as previously stated. No, obviously not "one or two" people support, but look at your other initial "Lost" attempt, you had more than "one or two" there too before the formal process, hell you had a decent number support it, but it still failed. K1Bond007 20:19, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, we're not going to solve the Wikipedia convention problem here. There are other television shows that are not uniquely named whose Wikipedia entry is about the most notable or popular example: see Zorro (TV series) (which ignores the short-lived 1990s series of the same name), and Nightline (which is about the American news series, and links to a disambiguation page for other series of the same name). I think that if there is a great disparity in notability between two TV series, there's no reason not to have the main page at [[title (TV series)]]; it's no different from having articles at John Locke and John Locke (Lost), since the philosopher is much more notable that the Lost character. By the same token, the current (successful, quite popular) drama series is much more notable than the (short-lived, largely forgotten) reality series.
So if no one objects (or has a better suggestion), I'll put Lost (2004 television series) to Lost (TV series) on WP:RM soon. —Josiah Rowe 21:53, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Hence why I said a naming convention proposal needs to be brought up again. I'm in the process of starting one, or a discussion on one. I understand the possible move to "Lost" and the scale of nobility etc, but when there are two of something and we already have it disambiguated then it becomes a problem IMO to step back and say something takes precedecnce over something else in an already disambiguated page. What you're saying is the new 2005 film Mr. & Mrs. Smith should be at "Mr. & Mrs. Smith (film)" when there are two films with the same name. In a case like this Wikipedia has a naming convention that says we make it (2005 film) and disambiguate the other one as well by year. Go ahead and put up the formal request. I've never objected to that, but when it comes time to vote, I do intend to object there for all the reasons I've previously stated. K1Bond007 22:21, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
I see your point (although in that particular example, I'd say that the Hitchcock comedy is no less notable than the recent Pitt/Jolie action film). (I also assume you meant to type "scale of notability.") However, I still feel that the current title of this page is a) needlessly unwieldy, and b) not exactly accurate, since the series has already run past 2004 and looks likely to continue for several more years. Obviously, if a convention is established the page will be moved in accordance with it; but absent a contrary convention, I think that having the drama at Lost (TV series) makes the most sense. I'll go put that move request up now. —Josiah Rowe 23:00, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps "Lost (drama series)" and "Lost (reality TV series)" or something similar would be alright. KramarDanIkabu 23:12, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Not a bad idea, but I think it should be uniform. How would you disambiguate the 1954 TV series Lassie from the 1997 series? They're both the same genre (at least I think, I'm not a watcher). The title as we have it now is unwieldy, I agree. I would rather see "Lost (2004 TV series)". Years are the only way to really do this that I can think of. I don't think 2004 implies that the series didn't continue passed that. IMDB categorizes theirs by year too - but they obviously have a much different system than ours. K1Bond007 06:59, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Response to K1Bond007's vote above:

I've had a read through Wikipedia:Naming conventions and ancillary pages, and I still think there's no reason not to move this article to Lost (TV series). K1Bond007 says that it would ambiguate, but there's ambiguation and ambiguation. When two articles that are both equally notable could share a name, it's appropriate to have a parenthetical clarification in the title, as for example Stanley Unwin (publisher) and Stanley Unwin (comedian). However, when one article is markedly more notable than the other, it makes sense to have the primary meaning without disambiguation in the title, as The Manchurian Candidate and The Manchurian Candidate (2004 film), or indeed John Locke and John Locke (Lost). There's no ambiguity, since each page has a prominent link to the other possible meaning.
Even when two pages might share the same parenthetical disambiguation, primacy matters. There are four people listed at the disambiguation page Howard Jones. Two of them are musicians: the British pop singer from the 1980s, and a current heavy metal singer. The former is more prominent, so he has the page Howard Jones (musician); the heavy metal guy is relegated to Howard Jones (heavy metal musician).
Nearly 200 pages link to the page for this series. Only 12 link to Lost (2001 television series), and of those only three are actual articles (as opposed to redirects, talk or user pages): Conan O'Brien, Conaco and game show. I would argue that, of television shows named Lost, this one is the primary topic, as defined at the page naming section of Wikipedia:Disambiguation:
Some topics have a primary topic which editors agree is the primary meaning for the term (Rome, for example). In this case the disambiguation page is named Rome (disambiguation), and the primary topic keeps the topic word or phrase. Ensure that the disambiguation page links not to the primary meaning, but to an unambiguous meaning (Rome, Italy rather than Rome, for example). The ambiguous meaning might redirect to the unambiguous meaning, or visa versa.
I hold that this series is the primary topic for television series named Lost, and therefore should be moved to Lost (TV series).—Josiah Rowe 04:39, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
There isn't a naming convention for people because given the vast size of the subject, that is handled ad-hoc - case by case AFAIK. Sure you can say in this case that this is the "primary topic", I agree, but it still ambiguates the title for a title that is already disambiguated. You haven't given one reason why we should do that. You've made a good arguement for moving it to "Lost", but not to "(TV series)". Wikipedia's official policy in this regard is to minimize ambiguity in the title. Right now we have that. I'd be for (2004 TV series) if you want to shorten it, but not (TV series). It really doesn't matter, I'll be proposing a naming convention for television shows soon to address issues similar to this (see previous discussions about TV v television etc). This will all be discussed and addressed when that comes up. K1Bond007 05:07, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
Please do propose something, and let me know if you need support, because this is nonsensical. We have, as you say, a good case for moving this to Lost, but that was defeated. We also have a pretty good case for moving to Lost (TV series), but because of other Wikipedia policies, it's actually less defensible? That's pretty screwed up if you ask me, and, to me, a clear sign of weakness in the system. Baryonyx 06:26, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
Because the title is already disambiguated. I really don't see what is so hard to understand. Lost is a rare case, but it's not unheard of. Take Lassie for example. There are number of these, some are named totally different, but there are two named "Lassie" and we've seperated them by (1954 TV series) and (1997 TV series). All we're doing here is minimizing ambiguity because another show has the same name. It's not twisted or screwed up, it's logical; how many episodes or how popular one is over the other is beside the point. Furthermore, Alias (TV series), Angel (TV series), ER (TV series), Invasion (TV series), and Medium (TV series) AFAIK are original titles for television series. I don't oppose a series having "TV series", that's not the case either. If you have a better way to minimize ambiguity here, perhaps by genre or something I've yet to think of let me know. K1Bond007 06:48, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
Actually "ER (TV series) has a disambiguation notice at the top stating, "See E/R for the similarly titled 1980s sitcom," which itself has a notice, "This article is about a sitcom. For the NBC medical television drama created by Michael Crichton, see ER." There's no ambiguity between the current hit series Lost and the unseen 4-episode reality show from four years ago -- as far as I can tell, you're the only one suggesting that there is. The simplest way to disambiguate the 2001 show is to rename it "Lost (TV reality series)" LeFlyman 16:13, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
The difference here is that "E/R" is titled differently than "ER", therefore can have it's own page. I might be the only one advocating this stance on this discussion page, but I'm certinaly not alone. I didn't title this article (2004 television series) nor did I title other TV shows to disambiguate it with other shows of the same name using years there too, I'm obviously not alone. The reality thing would be fine if there wasn't a chance of overlap. Unfortunately for other shows it doesn't work out as much. Some dramas/comedies inevitably get named the same. I don't think an "If...then...but" structure is good for a naming convention, which is what I'm trying to work towards. K1Bond007 21:10, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
As Hurley might say, "Dude, now you're just splitting hairs." :) Seriously, this isn't rocket science; there's no need to come up with a perfect, infallable solution. Every "rule" is going to have a "but" exception. The point is that many editors on this article would prefer that the year not be included in it, as it is clearly going to be a multi-year series. Your opposition to the title change has been noted, but if the consensus does want to see it renamed, will you go along? LeFlyman 00:06, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
I've stated in the past I would. Hell, I'll even move it, if. Since this 'same name' case from TV shows is rare, perhaps it would be best to handle further disambiguation case by case. I don't know. To be discussed elsewhere at a different time. K1Bond007 03:17, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Untangling the histories

K1Bond007 has just asked me to lend a hand with this, due to the cut-and-paste histories involved (never cut-and-paste articles to move them - it separates the history, which we need to keep for Wikipedia:Copyright issues, from the article).

Here's the situation as I see it. There are three separate 'articles' here:

  1. The current article on the series, now at Lost (2004 television series), with its history in two places:
  2. The current disambiguation article, now at Lost (TV series), versions after 18:52, 5 November 2004
  3. A previous duplicate article, now discarded, with history at Lost (2004 television series), before 00:26, 30 September 2004.

(Use of the term "before" and "after" is inclusive of the version at the stated date/time.) If I have made an(other) error in understanding what happened, please correct me!

I will go ahead and untangle the histories, which is pretty much a separate step from any renaming. When I'm done, I will (temporarily) leave the article and the disambiguation page were they are now, until it's certain exactly which spelling y'all prefer for where things are going to go; I'm simply going straighten out the histories. I will archive the old duplicate article (#3 above) at Talk:Lost (TV series)/Old.

I will do this later this evening, when the servers are responding well - I don't want to have an operation time out half-way through, and lose the history as a result. During this process, the article will disappear momentarily - do not be alarmed, this is a normal part of the process for sorting out histories. Noel (talk) 19:02, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Seems fine to me. I'll take care of the page renaming after you're done. K1Bond007 19:14, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
I hate to add another page to an already confusing situation, but I forgot about the rewrite that was done earlier in the month. :) See /draft. You might want to think about working that in there, although it could be added to the top of the discussion page noting the rewrite and when it took place. .. K1Bond007 20:33, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm. Well, during the time y'all were working on Lost (2004 television series)/draft, there were a series of edits to the main article. However, looking at the edit where the draft was put in, it looks like all those edits were not used (I didn't check to see if they were put back in later). Sigh, not sure what to do here. I'm really loathe to delete those edits (so I can insert the history of the /draft article, without it being confusing), because they are part of the history of the article. (And leaving the both isn't really an option, because with no trace of which edit was to which 'article', it would be horribly confusing.)

Also, I would normally move the /draft page to the Talk: space, so that it's not littering the main namespace, but I don't want to rename the /draft page because the edit summary entry for the edit where they were merged includes a pointer to the /draft page, and we can't modify edit summaries.

So I think probably the best thing to do is just leave a note in the article talk: page pointing to Lost (2004 television series)/draft and saying that it was merged in with this edit. (And of course, none of these URL's will work after the article is renamed. Sigh!) Does this sound to everyone like the best approach, or would you all prefer that something different be done? Noel (talk) 21:58, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The information that was removed in the draft replacement of the main page was replaced if it fit with the new page. Any information that pertained to theories, speculation, trivia, etc. was not copied over, because the removal of that information was the very reason for the draft-rewrite in the first place. Information such as Syndication and Characters that was lost was retrieved and returned, frequently by myself. Baryonyx 22:06, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Umm, we're talking about histories, not content. My suggestion is to leave the history of the /draft page where it is. Noel (talk) 23:41, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, all done; the histories of the three separate 'articles' are now separated out (with the duplicate version of this article, the one that was discarded, at Talk:Lost (TV series)/Old). It is now possible to compare the edits of the main version of the article, from just before, and just after, the cut-and-paste (these used to be in separate histories) here. Noel (talk) 01:52, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

WtH?

What happened to all of the move votes and discussions and when they were deleted, why didn't somebody point to a page indicating where they went? User:Zoe|(talk) 01:20, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Ummm, right at the top of the page, it says "Previous discussions: ... Archive 3 (Page move discussions)"? Is that what you were looking for? Noel (talk) 01:29, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
It was archived. I ended the vote early because I feel theres a good enough consensus anyway. The page will be moved soon. K1Bond007 02:09, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
RTFM Zoe :D Garfunkel4life 07:25, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

fixing links

I've fixed pretty much all the links in the main namespace that used to point to Lost (2004 television series). But when I click on "What links here" from the old page location, for some reason Channel 4 and Boone Carlyle are still on the list, even though I've changed the links on those pages to the new location. Am I missing something, or is this just some weird server artefact? —Josiah Rowe 06:23, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

There were links on the page with anchors so you just missed them. I took care of these two. K1Bond007 06:39, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Ah. Ta. —Josiah Rowe 06:52, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, Josiah. I updated the internal links on this Talk page, but hadn't checked any others. LeFlyman 15:54, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
I think we've taken care of everything important: all the links that are left are either User or Talk pages, except for Richard Moloney (which probably was meant to be a User page and got misplaced). —Josiah Rowe 17:55, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
There are the Lost-related image links, which I started to update, but got distracted with something else. LeFlyman 18:26, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
I hadn't done those, 'cause I'd never worked with image links before. But they're done now. —Josiah Rowe 19:06, 28 September 2005 (UTC)