Category talk:Television documentaries

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This category was nominated for deletion, renaming, or merging with another category on 2007 April 28. The result of the discussion was keep.

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[edit] What is the difference

What is the difference between this category and Category:Documentary television series. Is there a point where we can decide something becomes a series? Something like Panorama started in 1953 is very different from The Power of Nightmares a one off 3 part series.

I'm just not sure which category to sort programmes into and by what criteria

-Jamesmorrison 04:54, August 25, 2005

Well, presumably, documentary television series are for a series of TV shows, not a single run (i.e. a film). However, there is also a category:documentary films so this category makes even less sense except for only those documentary films that only aired on TV--however obscure such a category would be; in such a case, the category name should be category:documentary television films. -Eep² 03:26, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming

Dispute over respective naming and categorisation of Category:Television documentaries and Category:Television documentary series. Discuss --ZayZayEM 04:41, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I think possibly some clarification needs to be made about whether the television series are true documentaries or just non-fiction infotainment. --ZayZayEM 05:10, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, this isn't about what the style of documentary it is (docu-drama, mocumentary, rockumentary, etc) but what format/medium the documentary was created for. Granted, a documentary could be created for both a movie theater and television but a series of documentary films (and not just a sequel/prequel) wouldn't count as a series, per se, in my view. -Eep² 22:30, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I feel the categories are fine as they currently exist. Category:television documentaries is distinct from Category:documentary television series. A single documentary film made for television goes under Category:television documentaries. A regular, repeating television series, such as Biography (TV series) goes under Category:documentary television series. That said, renaming Category:television documentaries to Category:documentary television films may be a good idea to help to eliminate confusion. -MakeRocketGoNow 03:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, what about films made for both movie theaters and TV? They should just be categorized as "documentary films", otherwise you will have to provide evidence of a documentary made just for TV--and what about documentaries made just for video (DVD/tape) release that are then aired on TV? -Eep² 23:04, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

It appears that Category:Film has already dealt with this type of issue. There exists: Category:Television films and Category:Direct-to-video films. Similar new categories could be created: Category:Documentary television films and Category:Documentary direct-to-video films. Films are categorized by what media they are first released on, and documentary films should be no exception. If a documentary is released simultaneously on TV and in the theater, it would get both relevant categories.
I now feel Category:television documentaries is indeed too vague, and should be renamed Category:documentary television films, to distinguish it from Category:documentary television series. MakeRocketGoNow 15:18, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. :) Perhaps a bot could be used to auto-rename all the pages in this category? :o -Eep² 10:03, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems time to consider moving this discussion to WP:CFD. -- Samuel Wantman 19:49, 28 April 2007 (UTC)