Specials that have been given episode numbers?

@sassacass wrote:
I'm still working on getting Dimension 20 (tvmaze id 56531) in tip-top shape, and I've hit an "I don't know what to do" moment. Everyone can see the official metadata at https://www.dropout.tv/dimension-20 even without a dropout subscription.

Check out season 1. There are 3 episodes at the end that are not currently included in TVMaze's database. Based on their content, I would consider episode 18 to be an insignificant special, while episodes 19 and 20 would be significant specials. But they've been given episode numbers by the content producer, so maybe they're just episodes?

I can definitely see a very strong argument for calling episodes 19 and 20 regular episodes, but an episode called "Fantasy High: Behind the Scenes" is, in my mind, pretty clearly a behind the scenes special.

But also I'm new to editing tvmaze and really just want to do it the tvmaze way. Please advise?

I am not familair with the show,but  "behind the scenes" is definitely a special (insignificant), the other two have the "Live" added to it, are they in the same vein as all other episodes or something different?

@JuanArango wrote:
I am not familair with the show,but  "behind the scenes" is definitely a special (insignificant), the other two have the "Live" added to it, are they in the same vein as all other episodes or something different?

They're in the same vein, but not identical -- the entire show is just a recording of a bunch of nerds sitting around playing Dungeons and Dragons. Most of the episodes are recorded in the studio and then edited before being released. The Live episodes were sessions played at cons in front of a live audience and also recorded and released pretty raw. But it's a continuation of the same story.

@sassacass wrote:
They're in the same vein, but not identical -- the entire show is just a recording of a bunch of nerds sitting around playing Dungeons and Dragons. Most of the episodes are recorded in the studio and then edited before being released. The Live episodes were sessions played at cons in front of a live audience and also recorded and released pretty raw. But it's a continuation of the same story.

I think both would work, I might favour to list them as normal eps. :)

@JuanArango wrote:
I think both would work, I might favour to list them as normal eps. :)

So here's where I get stuck: My inclination is to make the "Behind the Scenes" a special, while making the live episodes regular episodes. BUUUT that means the episodes go 17, 19, 20 without an obvious explanation as to what happened to episode 18, and I think that's a bad user experience.

@sassacass wrote:
So here's where I get stuck: My inclination is to make the "Behind the Scenes" a special, while making the live episodes regular episodes. BUUUT that means the episodes go 17, 19, 20 without an obvious explanation as to what happened to episode 18, and I think that's a bad user experience.

the insignificant special does not get a number, so the other two eps would be 18 and 19 :)

@JuanArango wrote:
the insignificant special does not get a number, so the other two eps would be 18 and 19 :)

And we're not worried about the confusion created by the publisher explicitly calling them episode 19 and 20?

@sassacass wrote:
And we're not worried about the confusion created by the publisher explicitly calling them episode 19 and 20?

Well they are also calling a behind the scenes episode a normal ep with the number 18.

As l said before you can also add all 3 episodes as specials. 

@sassacass wrote:
And we're not worried about the confusion created by the publisher explicitly calling them episode 19 and 20?

ok, I talked with the staff, we should list all 3 episodes as normal episodes, as the network lists them that way :)

Sorry for the confusion!

Sorry for the confusion!

Absolutely no apologies necessary. It's a really confusing situation -- if it weren't, I'd have fixed it instead of opening a thread. I really appreciate you patiently sticking with me through my navigating a new-to-me system AND working through understanding a lot of nuance.

ok, I talked with the staff, we should list all 3 episodes as normal episodes, as the network lists them that way :)

Does that mean we should also list the "behind the scenes" content from Season 3 as normal episodes since the network lists them that way?
I think there's an argument to be made for that based on consistency. I think there's also an argument to be made to exclude them entirely because they're "insignificant specials" type content and are 3 to 6 minutes long (as opposed to  1.5 to 2.5 hours for regular episodes.

Season 3 then does NOT run in to the problem where our numbering is then different from the network's numbering because there isn't any regular episode content after behind the scenes minisodes start.

This kind of thing comes up a bunch more times too, and there are different twists each time:

In Season 4, there are 6 regular episodes and then they literally list the season trailer as Episode 7.

In Season 5, there's a single behind the scenes episode at the end. It's 27 minutes long, so calling it a regular episode doesn't feel weird in quite the same way, but it is less than half the length of typical episodes, but also it has an episode number, but also excluding it doesn't create later problems with numbering

Then it seems like they mostly figured it out -- they started a separate show called "Dimension 20's Adventuring Party" (tvmaze id 63761) and it seemed like all of the insignificant special type content moved over there.

At least it seemed like they had figured it out until May 3rd of this year when, in Season 17, they released another "behind the scenes" episode at the end of the season.

I feel like all of these questions could be answered on a case-by-case basis, but it feels a little arbitrary, and also I imagine that as soon as we find a groove for what we do and don't include, they're just going to throw another curveball. Which might be an argument for just including everything, which is supported by the "that's how the network is listing it principal.

In fact, they already have a curveball for us since Adventuring party came out, they also started releasing each season as a separate show called "[Season Name] The Complete Experience" which is set up so that the regular season episodes and the related "Adventuring Party" episodes alternate back and forth. There's nothing in a "The Complete Experience" show that isn't already either in Dimension 20 or in Adventuring Party, but they're listed as separate shows. Do we want to include those in TVMaze, or are they just duplicates of things that already exist and so we don't want it?

@sassacass wrote:
Does that mean we should also list the "behind the scenes" content from Season 3 as normal episodes since the network lists them that way?
I think there's an argument to be made for that based on consistency. I think there's also an argument to be made to exclude them entirely because they're "insignificant specials" type content and are 3 to 6 minutes long (as opposed to  1.5 to 2.5 hours for regular episodes.

If it's listed as a normal episode then that's how it should be listed regardless of the content of the episode. Always follow how the network chooses to list episodes.

If it's listed as a normal episode then that's how it should be listed regardless of the content of the episode. Always follow how the network chooses to list episodes.

Alright, that's clear enough. I'll start working on it.