Don't get me wrong: i haven't seen too many other sites that handle Specials very well, either.
If a Special is part of Season 9, then I want to see it when I look at a list of what aired in season 9. It seems odd to have it in its own little Special ghetto at the bottom of the page. I('d think people would want specials... there, at the list of current stuff. Are there a lot of visitors who are saying, "No, no, put the special down at the bottom of the episode list, in its own section"?
Gadfly wrote:
Don't get me wrong: i haven't seen too many other sites that handle Specials very well, either.
If a Special is part of Season 9, then I want to see it when I look at a list of what aired in season 9. It seems odd to have it in its own little Special ghetto at the bottom of the page. I('d think people would want specials... there, at the list of current stuff. Are there a lot of visitors who are saying, "No, no, put the special down at the bottom of the episode list, in its own section"?
Do not forget we also have tons of specials like "Sneak Peek", "Reunion" and things like this, I would find it a bit confusing to see those within the episode order of a season :)
cheers
Juan
JuanArango wrote:
Do not forget we also have tons of specials like "Sneak Peek", "Reunion" and things like this, I would find it a bit confusing to see those within the episode order of a season :)
cheers
Juan
That's where the categorization I talked about comes in place :-)
If you can categorize a "sneak peak" special and a "normal" special, you can than have the "normal" specials be listed within the episode order of a season, but the "sneak peak" special can be listed in the special-box :-)
Gadfly wrote:
All I'd really like to see is the system add something at the end like (Special). Then, when I bring up the episode list for the current season of Doctor Who, it shows me the 13 episodes this season. The first twelve are normal, the 13th one has (Special) at the end. Or has a S to the left. Or something. Some kind of Special indicator can appear on the episode page itself, too.
Indicating it on the episode-page is then indeed a good idea I think, but like I said there need to be some categorization than
Gadfly wrote:
Don't get me wrong: i haven't seen too many other sites that handle Specials very well, either.
If a Special is part of Season 9, then I want to see it when I look at a list of what aired in season 9. It seems odd to have it in its own little Special ghetto at the bottom of the page. I('d think people would want specials... there, at the list of current stuff. Are there a lot of visitors who are saying, "No, no, put the special down at the bottom of the episode list, in its own section"?
I think theTVDB handle specials well enough though it may not appear that way if data entry isn't diligent or up to date. I recently updated the order of specials for Ruth Rendell Mysteries. Someone before me had added the specials as season episodes so I can't fix those without asking for fixing in the forums which I've not bothered to yet. The key is ensuring each special has one/both of these fields;
- Airs After Season
- Airs Before
are set. For example, see here:
http://thetvdb.com/index.php?tab=episode&seriesid=...
The relevant fields are select lists under the overview and language fields.
Prior to setting this data, all specials appeared in a bunch at the top of the all-episodes list.
Not sure how but a cool side-effect of setting these fields seemed to be that Kodi took care of the duplication (erroneous 7th episode vs special) when using a per-season view.
Not sure this TVDB approach would suffice for "Extras" and "Online-only" content, amongst other bits and pieces, but maybe that's more just a nomenclature thing? For example, each show could potentially include items known as Specials, Extras, Webisodes, etc (could add actor interviews, directors commentary, even bloody screensavers or whatever, LOL) and those are simply either included in a season/year, or assigned (in effect) a sorting order or (essentially) virtual date through the above TVDB fields.
Hope this makes some sense and contributes to the discussion rather than just adding noise.
an0n1m0us wrote:
I think theTVDB handle specials well enough though it may not appear that way if data entry isn't diligent or up to date. I recently updated the order of specials for Ruth Rendell Mysteries. Someone before me had added the specials as season episodes so I can't fix those without asking for fixing in the forums which I've not bothered to yet. The key is ensuring each special has one/both of these fields;
- Airs After Season
- Airs Before
are set. For example, see here:
http://thetvdb.com/index.php?tab=episode&seriesid=...
The relevant fields are select lists under the overview and language fields.
Prior to setting this data, all specials appeared in a bunch at the top of the all-episodes list.
Not sure how but a cool side-effect of setting these fields seemed to be that Kodi took care of the duplication (erroneous 7th episode vs special) when using a per-season view.
Not sure this TVDB approach would suffice for "Extras" and "Online-only" content, amongst other bits and pieces, but maybe that's more just a nomenclature thing? For example, each show could potentially include items known as Specials, Extras, Webisodes, etc (could add actor interviews, directors commentary, even bloody screensavers or whatever, LOL) and those are simply either included in a season/year, or assigned (in effect) a sorting order or (essentially) virtual date through the above TVDB fields.
Hope this makes some sense and contributes to the discussion rather than just adding noise.
david and jan have to weigh in on this, no clue how much work the coding will be :)
JuanArango wrote:
david and jan have to weigh in on this, no clue how much work the coding will be :)
I've significant experience with website development though I'm not claiming to be any sort of guru. I doubt there's all that much coding required for the basic forms and database adjustments. Hopefully the scripting isn't too much trouble. Both select lists would be generated by relatively simple SQL distinct SELECT queries and the data added to each episode would be a simple episode and/or season id. That said, I've not see the code for this site so I can't be sure. I don't suppose the open nature of this site extends to it being a github project? :) Maybe I could help with the coding.
an0n1m0us
wrote:
Looks like you're missing a "specials" policy. Many British shows have specials around Dec25 or perhaps for comic relief. In addition, sometimes pilots are considered similarly to "specials".
TheTVDB seems to manage "specials" by having a separate demarcation on the same level as seasons/series. Episode numbers for these "specials" are given the s00 prefix. In addition, there's predefined field(s) to place the "specials" in order. The field(s) are "airs before <episode XX>" or "airs after <episode YY>".
Until TVMaze has a policy/facility for "specials" there will be a big gap in data accuracy compared to TheTVDB.
Would love to address this since it is not only TVDB but Plex and other platforms use this notation as well. S00 for specials makes sense to me and it conforms to a lot of data that is already out there. Love to hear your thoughts on this
srob650 wrote:
Would love to address this since it is not only TVDB but Plex and other platforms use this notation as well. S00 for specials makes sense to me and it conforms to a lot of data that is already out there. Love to hear your thoughts on this
I don't think setting them as S00 is a good idea.
They mostly are related to a real season, but like I said before some categorization is needed I think
We don't need to look at what other websites do. It's not because the whole world is "wrong", that we need to be wrong also. (if you know what I mean).
We need to decide what the best way is an be consistant in that.
JuanArango wrote:
Do not forget we also have tons of specials like "Sneak Peek", "Reunion" and things like this, I would find it a bit confusing to see those within the episode order of a season :)
cheers
Juan
It's confusing if you show everything in the show out of chronological order, and the confusion depends on your point of view. Having them listed several feet down the episode page (for a show with lots of seasons) is also confusing.
If the specials aired during the 2015 season, I want to see them when I look at the 2015 season. I don't want to scroll down to the bottom of the page and have 2015 stuff appear in two different places.I'd suspect that a lot of people don't even look for them if they don't see them at the top of the page where the current season appears.
If I'm looking for a special that is airing this Sunday, I'm going to look at the dates chronologically that lead up to this Sunday. I'm not going to zoom around the page hoping to find it somewhere else.If it ain't in the 2015 stuff, I'll figure it's not there and move on: not spend another 30 seconds searching.
Well, all right. I personally think that it would be more accurate to primarily classify specials based on their premise (whether they are part of the season's arcs or not). But if nobody else agrees, we'll scratch that plan.
As for the other questions, I think the proposal of allowing to specify different types of specials would be the only proper solution.
In the current state, we can't make specials more prominent (allowing them to show up as previous/next episode; showing them with the season in the episode list; showing them in the watch list; etc) because there's simply too much insignificant crap amongst them.
But if we could split up specials under different subtypes, we can treat some of those different from the others. Implementing that wouldn't be as trivial as you suggested, but if that indeed solves all issues regarding specials I think we should do it. :)
david wrote:
As for the other questions, I think the proposal of allowing to specify different types of specials would be the only proper solution.
In the current state, we can't make specials more prominent (allowing them to show up as previous/next episode; showing them with the season in the episode list; showing them in the watch list; etc) because there's simply too much insignificant crap amongst them.
But if we could split up specials under different subtypes, we can treat some of those different from the others. Implementing that wouldn't be as trivial as you suggested, but if that indeed solves all issues regarding specials I think we should do it. :)
I think indeed that we need to have some categorization for the specials, so we can some clear difference between them (in what sort of way is up to us (the community) then) :-)
I agree that specials should be SHOWN in the season that corresponds to the time-frame that a special aired, but I still think they should have their own space and be represented in their own "specials" season "S00Exx". Official listings never seem to classify them as part of a current season, so why should we?
srob650 wrote:
I agree that specials should be SHOWN in the season that corresponds to the time-frame that a special aired, but I still think they should have their own space and be represented in their own "specials" season "S00Exx". Official listings never seem to classify them as part of a current season, so why should we?
The BBC seems to classify Doctor Who specials as part of a current season.
david wrote:
Well, all right. I personally think that it would be more accurate to primarily classify specials based on their premise (whether they are part of the season's arcs or not). But if nobody else agrees, we'll scratch that plan.
I don't think anyone disagrees with it, only that you'd have endless haggling about it. Which would show up when special categories got changed... and changed... and changed back... and changed back again.
To me, it seems like TVMaze only needs two things:
1) Have the episodes that aired recently near the top of the episode page. Because that's where people look when they want to know about recent episodes. Doesn't matter if they're "special" or not.
2) Have something to indicate they're specials.
Anything other than that seems either complicated (coming up with a list of different types of specials, arguing out what they are, trying to change the list if a new type is discovered) or awkward (list the current S10 special below the S01 episodes!). Or both.
If they're "special" enough to list, then they're special enough to list where people can find them. If not... why bother having them here? What's the benefit of having a 6-minute preview up, if nobody wants to see it at TVMaze? And if people do want to see it here... why list it way down at the bottom where it's practically invisible?
Gadfly wrote:
The BBC seems to classify Doctor Who specials as part of a current season.
Do they give specials an episode number within that season as well?
srob650 wrote:
Do they give specials an episode number within that season as well?
I'm not sure that they give episode numbers at all.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006q2x0/episodes/...
If you dig a deeper, they do say "## of 12." Which would make this year's holiday special outside of that. ("Hell Bent" was #12). Then again, they typically produce 13-episode seasons. And some people insist that the season count should match the episode numbering.
But that's the problem: different contributors (and different APIs) have different ways of counting season's worth of episodes, and which are normal and which are special. I don't think anyone would argue that a six-second preview of Gotham is an episode. But were the "13th episodes" of Haven and Eureka from a few years back, that were billed as Christmas specials, normal episodes or specials?
Since consistency is impossible among all the networks across the world, my preference would be for to the display at TVMaze to follow common sense and be intuitively easy. Looking at the last episode of Series 9 of Doctor Who, and then not seeing the Christmas special three weeks later follow from it, makes it very difficult to navigate. The episode list is chronological, but then you jump down 9 years to find the next airing of the show. Weird.
Yeah I absolutely agree that we should be able to SEE specials that air during a season within that seasons episode list. Doctor Who looks confusing!
Well, two years ago during the 50th anniversary, Doctor Who was confusing. :) There were dozens of golden anniversary specials. Most on the BBC, but a couple of ones that only aired on BBCAmerica.
But that's a pretty exceptional case. For instance, I don't think Once Upon a Time having two recap specials a year, and interweaving them in-between the regular episodes, would be confusing as long as they are marked on the episode list and on the episode page as specials. But I could be wrong.
srob650 wrote:
I agree that specials should be SHOWN in the season that corresponds to the time-frame that a special aired, but I still think they should have their own space and be represented in their own "specials" season "S00Exx". Official listings never seem to classify them as part of a current season, so why should we?
I disagree here. As far as I've seen, specials almost always belong to a specific season. Even if they're not officially classified as such, things like preview episodes / recap episodes / behind the scenes / extra online footage all belong to a specific season or even to a specific episode. I don't think showing specials in a "S00" solves any particular issue.
