Dimension 20 LIVE is not a separate show

@RoseRed @Aidan @gazza911 @LadyShelley @CostaDax @TonyMayhew @TomSouthwell @MTQueenie 

what is your take on this?

Dropout doesn't list Dimension 20 LIVE as one of the seasons on Dimension 20 so have a hard time seeing why it should all of the sudden be listed as such, but i have no clue about these shows so if any of you are familiar with it I'm happy to go with what you think.

However i noticed that our episode listings look all messed up, the dates might be correct but they are not consecutive, season 2 starts airing before season 1 is finished, season 3 start airing before season 2 finish, season 6 ends in october 2020 but season 7 start in october 2019  etc etc.

However i noticed that our episode listings look all messed up, the dates might be correct but they are not consecutive, season 2 starts airing before season 1 is finished, season 3 start airing before season 2 finish, season 6 ends in october 2020 but season 7 start in october 2019  etc etc.

I'll double check the dates, but I believe dropout does sometimes start the new season of Dimension 20 before all the content for the old season has been released. This is less crazy than it sounds when you consider that each season is its own independent story. And season 7, in particular, is absolutely in the wrong place. It was initially a Twitch Livestream that was then made available as VODs which is why it was a separate series.

Then, at some point after the fact they pulled it off of twitch and added it to dropout.tv as part of the main sequence of Dimension 20. For reasons inexplicable, they called it season 7 even though it took place and was originally released before season 4. Just in the last week, they changed the sort order, so if you're watching on their website or app, it plays after season 3 and before season 5, but if you look at the URL slug and the episode pages, they're all still listed as season 7.

Trying to get this show's data in shape has been... quite the journey.

@sassacass wrote:
I'll double check the dates, but I believe dropout does sometimes start the new season of Dimension 20 before all the content for the old season has been released. This is less crazy than it sounds when you consider that each season is its own independent story. And season 7, in particular, is absolutely in the wrong place. It was initially a Twitch Livestream that was then made available as VODs which is why it was a separate series.

Then, at some point after the fact they pulled it off of twitch and added it to dropout.tv as part of the main sequence of Dimension 20. For reasons inexplicable, they called it season 7 even though it took place and was originally released before season 4. Just in the last week, they changed the sort order, so if you're watching on their website or app, it plays after season 3 and before season 5, but if you look at the URL slug and the episode pages, they're all still listed as season 7.

Trying to get this show's data in shape has been... quite the journey.

Like any other show on the site we list it as the show is presented, plenty of shows have continued storylines and recurring characters crossing from one show to the next in the franchise. We deifnately don't follow any rewriting of history as per the data policies, we should only be listing what aired originally and how it aired originally too. 

@TomSouthwell wrote:
Like any other show on the site we list it as the show is presented, plenty of shows have continued storylines and recurring characters crossing from one show to the next in the franchise.

Sure, but that's not what happened. This was just another season of the same show but, because they wanted to produce the season live and because they didn't have the infrastructure to do that, they initially released it on a different platform (Twitch) and then moved the content back to their own streaming service for the digital equivalent of syndication.

By analogy, this isn't Frasier Crane moving to Seattle and getting his own show with the occasional cameo in a couple other shows. This closest analogy I can come up with is this is Brooklyn Nine Nine moving from Fox to NBC. Except they only did it for one season before returning to their home network. Plus they kept the syndication rights. Because Twitch wasn't even acting as a network. They weren't involved in the production at all, just the distribution.

@sassacass wrote:
Sure, but that's not what happened. This was just another season of the same show but, because they wanted to produce the season live and because they didn't have the infrastructure to do that, they initially released it on a different platform (Twitch) and then moved the content back to their own streaming service for the digital equivalent of syndication.

By analogy, this isn't Frasier Crane moving to Seattle and getting his own show with the occasional cameo in a couple other shows. This closest analogy I can come up with is this is Brooklyn Nine Nine moving from Fox to NBC. Except they only did it for one season before returning to their home network. Plus they kept the syndication rights. Because Twitch wasn't even acting as a network. They weren't involved in the production at all, just the distribution.

So we list how it was originally released as 0er the data policies. If one season aired on twitch then you can set that as a Web channel at the season level. 

@TomSouthwell wrote:
So we list how it was originally released as 0er the data policies. If one season aired on twitch then you can set that as a Web channel at the season level. 

Alright, I've updated the web channel at the season level. That sounds like two votes for deleting the entry for Dimension 20 LIVE (tvmazeid 59614)?
I don't think I have the user level necessary to do that.

@sassacass wrote:
Alright, I've updated the web channel at the season level. That sounds like two votes for deleting the entry for Dimension 20 LIVE (tvmazeid 59614)?
I don't think I have the user level necessary to do that.

But the episodes aren't in the correct order from the bottom of the list should be the earliest date an episode aired to the top which should be the latest date an episode aired. Season 7 has episodes in 2019 but season 6 aired only in 2020. 

@TomSouthwell wrote:
But the episodes aren't in the correct order from the bottom of the list should be the earliest date an episode aired to the top which should be the latest date an episode aired. Season 7 has episodes in 2019 but season 6 aired only in 2020. 

That's correct. "Season 7" originally aired before "Season 6." And concurrent with "Season 5" -- "Season 5" began after "Season 7" started but ended before "Season 7" did.

I don't like it either. The "season numbering" I'm using above is is based on the season numbering as it's presented on the episode pages and URL slugs on dropout.tv, which is the original producer of all Dimension 20 content.

However, on the page for the main show, they don't use season numbers at all and instead they just have you choose by season title. And they did recently reorder it so while it used to have the watch order go:

Tiny Heist, A Crown of Candy, Pirates of Leviathan, Fantasy High: Sophomore Year, The Unsleeping City: Chapter II (season order as per URL slugs and episode)

it now goes:

Fantasy High: Sophomore Year, Tiny Heist, A Crown of Candy, Pirates of Leviathan, The Unsleeping City: Chapter II (release order of episode 1 of each season)

I tried asking about this in my thread about Dimension 20 because there's a pretty strong argument to be made for calling Fantasy High: Sophomore Year Season 4 and bumping the season numbers of the Tiny Heist, A Crown of Candy, and Pirates of Leviathan. But that would mean that TVMaze calls the episode "Sophomores Start" S04E01, even though the dropout.tv website explicitly calls it "Season 7, Episode 1".

To be clear, I don't think there's an obvious answer here. The Dimension 20 Fandom Wiki lists Fantasy High: Sophomore year as Season 3.5. TheTVDB, TheMovieDB, and IMDB all call it Season 7. Which was the obvious answer a month ago, because that's how it was consistently presented on dropout.tv. But with the reordering on the main show page to be in line with the release dates while the individual episode pages still call it Season 7, we have a situation where the TVMaze data policies don't cover:

There's no data shown on-screen, there's no press release or press kit, which means the authoritative answer is the data on the show's official website. The show's official website is dropout.tv, and the data there is inconsistent between the show page and the episode pages. This would be covered by the "no rewriting history" policy, but if we were to follow that policy, it would mean that both Fantasy High: Sophomore Year AND The Unsleeping City: Chapter II are BOTH Season 7, and S07E01 through S07E18 would each refer to two different episodes. I haven't ever looked at TVMaze's back-end code, but based on the behavior of the front-end, my guess is that following the "don't rewrite history rule" would require making fundamental changes to the architecture of the TVMaze database.

Does your head hurt yet? Because mine does. I'd fully support calling Fatasy High: Sophomore year Season 4, Season 7. If TVMaze has the capability, I'd also support taking the Fandom Wiki's approach and calling it Season 3.5. I think all of the answers are wrong, all of them have strong arguments to be made for them, and I think we just have to decide.

@sassacass wrote:
That's correct. "Season 7" originally aired before "Season 6." And concurrent with "Season 5" -- "Season 5" began after "Season 7" started but ended before "Season 7" did.

I don't like it either. The "season numbering" I'm using above is is based on the season numbering as it's presented on the episode pages and URL slugs on dropout.tv, which is the original producer of all Dimension 20 content.

However, on the page for the main show, they don't use season numbers at all and instead they just have you choose by season title. And they did recently reorder it so while it used to have the watch order go:

Tiny Heist, A Crown of Candy, Pirates of Leviathan, Fantasy High: Sophomore Year, The Unsleeping City: Chapter II (season order as per URL slugs and episode)

it now goes:

Fantasy High: Sophomore Year, Tiny Heist, A Crown of Candy, Pirates of Leviathan, The Unsleeping City: Chapter II (release order of episode 1 of each season)

I tried asking about this in my thread about Dimension 20 because there's a pretty strong argument to be made for calling Fantasy High: Sophomore Year Season 4 and bumping the season numbers of the Tiny Heist, A Crown of Candy, and Pirates of Leviathan. But that would mean that TVMaze calls the episode "Sophomores Start" S04E01, even though the dropout.tv website explicitly calls it "Season 7, Episode 1".

To be clear, I don't think there's an obvious answer here. The Dimension 20 Fandom Wiki lists Fantasy High: Sophomore year as Season 3.5. TheTVDB, TheMovieDB, and IMDB all call it Season 7. Which was the obvious answer a month ago, because that's how it was consistently presented on dropout.tv. But with the reordering on the main show page to be in line with the release dates while the individual episode pages still call it Season 7, we have a situation where the TVMaze data policies don't cover:

There's no data shown on-screen, there's no press release or press kit, which means the authoritative answer is the data on the show's official website. The show's official website is dropout.tv, and the data there is inconsistent between the show page and the episode pages. This would be covered by the "no rewriting history" policy, but if we were to follow that policy, it would mean that both Fantasy High: Sophomore Year AND The Unsleeping City: Chapter II are BOTH Season 7, and S07E01 through S07E18 would each refer to two different episodes. I haven't ever looked at TVMaze's back-end code, but based on the behavior of the front-end, my guess is that following the "don't rewrite history rule" would require making fundamental changes to the architecture of the TVMaze database.

Does your head hurt yet? Because mine does. I'd fully support calling Fatasy High: Sophomore year Season 4, Season 7. If TVMaze has the capability, I'd also support taking the Fandom Wiki's approach and calling it Season 3.5. I think all of the answers are wrong, all of them have strong arguments to be made for them, and I think we just have to decide.

We just follow tvmaze policy so seasons need to be ordered in airing order, if two seasons are running at the same time then we change to year based right @david ? 

That's correct.

It's not allowed for two seasons to run simultaneously. For example, there cannot be an episode in season 2 with an airdate that's before the last aired episode in season 1. If a source provides season numbering like this, it should be discarded and you should look at the next best source instead. If none of them offer a valid season numbering, fall back to year-based numbering.

-- https://www.tvmaze.com/faq/15/episodes

In this case, if you so desire, a verbatim order (https://www.tvmaze.com/faq/40/alternate-episodes#verbatim-order) can be created to track the exact numbering the web channel uses.

Can someone point me at a show that has a verbatim order so I can see an example of what this looks like?

As someone who is familiar with this show, I can say that if the end result of my trying to get all this fixed is that it winds up using year-based numbering, I'm going to regret it because people looking at TVMaze trying to understand what's happening are going to leave more confused and anyone who's trying to access TVMaze as a metadata provider for actually sequencing the content is going to create a jumbled and unusable mess.

Here's a random example of an alternate list for episodes that were aired out of order: https://www.tvmaze.com/alternatelists/739/pixelface-verbatim-order

We don't have the option to create a season "3.5", season numbers must be whole numbers.

Do I summarize the situation correctly with: the show has two separate seasons that should both formally be numbered "7" - but changing it into year-based numbering isn't ideal either because that would mix up episodes from two distinct seasons into one?

Do I summarize the situation correctly with: the show has two separate seasons that should both formally be numbered "7" - but changing it into year-based numbering isn't ideal either because that would mix up episodes from two distinct seasons into one?

All of that is accurate, but I'd say it's an incomplete summary -- It's further complicated because several seasons also often have content released later that, in traditional media, would probably be released as specials but since this is web-only, those distinctions aren't all that important, and so they just get added on to seasons with an episode number and everything, with no distinction made between the episodes that were released weekly and the episodes that came later.

@sassacass wrote:
All of that is accurate, but I'd say it's an incomplete summary -- It's further complicated because several seasons also often have content released later that, in traditional media, would probably be released as specials but since this is web-only, those distinctions aren't all that important, and so they just get added on to seasons with an episode number and everything, with no distinction made between the episodes that were released weekly and the episodes that came later.

The only way we could follow policy and add the episodes and specials is by making the show year based and adding a alternate list like @david said.