Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Podcasting

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[edit] Determining Prominence

While I certainly understand the need to do this, I see no objective way. Voting, at Digg, Podcast Alley, or any of the hundred other podshow rankers, has simply gone out of fashion, due to the absurdly skewed results that have been achieved, and the complete lack of agreement among the rankers. No one has any faith that the explicit talk shows all outrank everything else. Also, the shows that self promote vigorously get more votes.

Like books, Podshows is not one category. If your graduate level physics book sells 1000 copies in the first year, that is great; if your novel sells 1000 copies in the first year, there probably will not be a second. Thus Rocketboom and Ask A Ninja are wildly popular in their field, just as Lab Rats and I Make Things, which have vastly lower numbers, are in theirs. Podshows is no more a single category than are Wiki's.

How would you place Galacticast, Minnesota Stories, Richard Show, Ryan is Hungry, etc. all of which have great historical value, but none of which are going to rank highly anywhere? As Casey wrote back to me when I pointed out that there was a double entry splitting her vote count at Podcast Alley, "We don't care about getting a lot of votes there. We are much happier if you comment at our site."

Sites are going social now with their own social networking capabilities, e.g. Ning. In the early days, when there were only two or three rankers, and no individual social networks, determining prominence was simple mindedly easy, but not now.

Sounds like you need some people who are actually familiar with a broad spectrum of the Vodcasting world.

Also, a decision need be made as to whether to cover only those podcasts that have made a notable impact on the culture in general, there are about five, or to cover podcasting as a topic in and of itself, which would necessitate setting up subdivisions for the various generas. dmelliott 20:42, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I think prominence and notability are words which can be used interchangeably here on Wikipedia. Have you had a chance to read Wikipedia:Notability (web) (abbrev WP:WEB)? Although not specific to podcasts, the guidelines do cover a broad range of web media.
Notability requirements for podcasts have been an ongoing issue for a long time. Unfortunately there's no clear-cut line in the sand as far as include / don't include. I agree every podcast show should be judged based on its own merits, and not bundled with others, but for now when assessing notability I'll stick with WP:WEB as our benchmark guideline. Unless a podcast notability guideline appears, gains consensus, and solves all our problems. --Breno talk 10:52, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

When I went to use the included infobox for the Cube news 1 article, I consulted several Vloggers. It was pointed out to me that no one cares what the formats are any more. This was an issue five or so years ago before Real died, but not now, since the browsers can play almost anything out there, and if not an invitation to down load the proper, free software will be given. If felt strongly, the formats can be given in the text for the links, see Cube News 1

What is cared about both by the Vloggers and the users is the personnel, for the same reasons that movies, plays, TV shows and all other performing arts including football have credits.

Also, in today's operations, many Vlogs have multiple RSS feeds for different feed sources, not just one RSS (family) and one Atom (family).

While this Infobox provides a good foundation for making one, it, itself, is seriously out of date. dmelliott 02:32, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah {{Infobox podcast}} needs a bit of an update to handle multiple feeds. Admittedly though it was designed more towards audio than video podcasts. I'm trying to find the guy who made "Infobox podcast v" (can't remember what it's called exactly right now) which was working on making the template better. I'll post it once I find it again. Otherwise I'll start working on doing up the current infobox. --Breno talk 11:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Joining

How about putting the instructions on how to join this group on the group page? I just edited myself in; I hope that is OK. dmelliott 20:44, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Y Done Added a Project banner to the top to help introduce WikiProjects. The instructions to add user names to the list were in a comment, thus hidden to non-editing users. Instructions are now displayed on the page. Looking pretty good now. --Breno talk 10:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Episode lists

I noticed that a few podcasts list their entire collection of episodes on their article page. I'd like to get consensus to remove them from articles that do have episode lists, for the following reasons:

  • Links to the podcast's website and RSS feeds are supplied in the infobox - the episode lists are over there.
  • Supplying an RSS link is easier and cleaner than juggling wikitables on articles.
  • Depending on episode frequency, episode numbers can already be in the hundreds.
  • For an ongoing podcast, this is a never-ending job to continue updating episode lists.
  • Clutters history pages and watchlists when listing each episode as it's published.
  • Radio stations don't list their episodes on their article pages.
  • Finally, Wikipedia is not a program guide and the responsibility and ownership of managing an episode list should be the podcast producer's on their site.

Articles in question are:

After going through this article list I find that most (though not all) have an article list longer than the main article body. I'm doing this as I'd like to see a more manageable, equal list of podcasts here on Wikipedia. When responding, please don't use an emotional "but that's my podcast!" - all podcasts should have a uniform approach and easily navigatable. I look forward to your feedback. --Breno talk 09:32, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe this isn't showing on people's watchlist. I'll give it another day before I be bold. --Breno talk 12:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Um. Some of these are useful – I personally have found it quite helpful to be able to find short stories by particular authors which are listed on Escape Pod. I can't answer for the others. Cleduc 06:56, 12 November 2007 (UTC)


For what its worth, I think there is a worth to some of them, and I split the ep list for Are We Alone? because it was really long. But if we're going to prod it, I just put it back into the main article. So goes it. Not looking for a fight, I just see a purpose for that info in this particular case. Guroadrunner 07:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to know what is the worth to keeping some of them, specifically? Also, if episode listings have encyclopedic merit, then should all shows under this wikiproject have them? I notice that articles of some shows that regularly make top 10 Podcast Alley don't need episode list filler to make a complete article. --Breno talk 10:48, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not a part of this Wikiproject but thought I'd contribute anyway. I removed the PROD for List of The Ricky Gervais Show episodes for a couple reasons. I'll try to justify why in correspondence to your bulleted list. First, it's not just a list of a hundred or so shows with just title and air date and I don't know if the RSS link contains all the information since it isn't linked to one. The linked website, rickygervais.com, gives a brief history of the podcasts but doesn't give a comprehensive list like ours does. In terms of maintainability, the show is currently not in production, and in total there are only 28 episodes. Since February of 2007 there have only been 10 edits excluding the PROD and its removal, so manageability and clutter isn't really a reason either. However, your final point is up for debate, since although Wikipedia claims it's not a programming guide there sure are a ton of episode lists, episode articles, character articles, etc. I think if you took it to AFD you might get consensus but since this might be the most "notable" podcast in history so far that might sway people. (I think we could do without listing the prices though.) The worth of this list specifically is that it gives detailed information on the contents of the shows: it's the equivalent of a plot summary essentially. And Wikipedia usually contains plot summaries of notable shows. --TM 19:22, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
For some podcasts I believe these are very useful. Show that are episodic in nature or done in the style of old time radio that tell a narrative over several episodes can benefit from Episode guides. --Toasterboy 07:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
From Talk:Escape Pod (podcast)#Restoring Episode Table? in order to keepdiscussion together: 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 01:47, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
All podshows have episodes. All episodes have designations. Assuming that the article adequately described the podcast, there will be no new information in the episode designations. Unless they are extremely cleverly written, there is nothing of interest in them. Since they have neither information nor interest, they probably do not have to be re-listed in Wikipedia.
If an individual episode is worth comment, then more than just the title is needed. If the total number of episodes is of interest, one sentence should cover it. dmelliott 05:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks dmelliott :) what I'm trying to explain getting my point across. --Breno talk 10:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article for deletion

[edit] Archiving podcast notability requirements

The proposal of notability requirements on the main page has been posted for a very long time, and does not seem to be going anywhere. Reading the two archive pages on this talk page, there was no concensus to support taking the proposal further. As the Wikipedia community outside this wikiproject have not discussed or agreed on the proposal, it becomes a little confusing to other editors when this proposal is quoted as a guideline, when it definitely is not. Some of the Afd discussions above treat the proposal as a guideline, which is what I'd like to sort out.

I would like to archive these off to a sub page. If someone would like to continue the proposal they are more than welcome to restore it, or alternitively begin writing a brand new one. Will give it a couple of days here on the talk before I actually move it. --Breno talk 01:07, 11 January 2008 (UTC)