Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television/August 2016 updates/Themes

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Current text

Themes

Themes are unifying or dominant ideas and motifs in a television show's elements (such as plot, dialogue, photography, and sound) conveying a position or message about life, society, and human nature. Most themes are implied rather than explicitly stated, regardless of whether their presence is the conscious intent of the producer, writer, or director. Inclusion of a treatment of a shows's themes—well-sourced and cited to avoid original research—is encouraged since an article's value to a reader and its real-world context will be enhanced. A separate section is not required if it is more appropriate to place the material in the Production or Reception sections. This information may be more applicable to the main article of a series than to an individual episode, though episode articles may contain such information if available.

New, updated text

Themes and analysis

Themes are unifying or dominant ideas and motifs in a television show's elements (such as plot, dialogue, photography, and sound) conveying a position or message about life, society, and human nature. Most themes are implied rather than explicitly stated, regardless of whether their presence is the conscious intent of the producer, writer, or director. Inclusion of a treatment of a shows's themes—well-sourced and cited to avoid original research—is encouraged since an article's value to a reader and its real-world context will be enhanced by this inclusion. A separate section is not required if it is more appropriate to place the material in the "Production" or "Reception" sections. This information may be more applicable to a series or a season article than to an individual episode article, although episode articles may contain such information if available.

Previous discussions

None

Discussion

• Two small things for me: rename the section to "Themes and analysis", and in the last sentence make this change may be more applicable to the main article of a series or a season article than to an individual episode. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 00:18, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

No real issues for this small section for me, and not opposed to either of your proposed changes -- Whats new?^(talk) 00:34, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I also have no issues here, and support Favre's proposed changes. - adamstom97 (talk) 00:41, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

• This one will be short – the current version is generally fine, and the two suggested changes are clearly improvements. I imagine it won't be long before we can close this section up and move on to the next one... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 23:18, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Proposals

Proposal 1

(section renamed to "Themes and analysis")

Themes are unifying or dominant ideas and motifs in a television show's elements (such as plot, dialogue, photography, and sound) conveying a position or message about life, society, and human nature. Most themes are implied rather than explicitly stated, regardless of whether their presence is the conscious intent of the producer, writer, or director. Inclusion of a treatment of a shows's themes—well-sourced and cited to avoid original research—is encouraged since an article's value to a reader and its real-world context will be enhanced by this inclusion. A separate section is not required if it is more appropriate to place the material in the "Production" or "Reception" sections. This information may be more applicable to a series or a season article than to an individual episode article, although episode articles may contain such information if available.

Proposal 1 discussion

• Support: This includes the two changes I proposed in the general discussion. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 23:28, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
• Support: Unless anyone else comes up with something, I think we can move on from this discussion pretty promptly. - adamstom97 (talk) 23:33, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
• Support: Yeah there really isn't much to debate in this section in any case. -- Whats new?^(talk) 23:51, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
• Support but I would do slight rewords in the following way:

Themes are unifying or dominant ideas and motifs in a television show's elements (such as plot, dialogue, photography, and sound) conveying a position or message about life, society, and human nature. Most themes are implied rather than explicitly stated, regardless of whether their presence is the conscious intent of the producer, writer, or director. Inclusion of a treatment of a shows's themes—well-sourced and cited to avoid original research—is encouraged since an article's value to a reader and its real-world context will be enhanced by this inclusion. A separate section is not required if it is more appropriate to place the material in the "Production" or "Reception" sections. This information may be more applicable to the main article of a series or a season article than to an individual episode article, thoughalthough episode articles may contain such information if available.

—Joeyconnick (talk) 04:17, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

• I would be supportive of those adjustments as well. - adamstom97 (talk) 04:27, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

• I've added in your edits Joeyconnick. They were small and nothing controversial, but just letting Whats new? know I did so in case they wish to change their !vote. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 04:51, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks! And thanks for continuing to push all this along... if herding cats is hard in real life, on Wikipedia it's doubly insane. 😉 Joeyconnick (talk) 05:10, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

@Favre1fan93: No issues here either. This was a simple section to deal with; the next section (Release) almost certainly won't be! -- Whats new?^(talk) 06:08, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Great. I'll let this stay for another week (since I put another reminder out) and will close after then. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 17:33, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

• Support - Seems pretty straight forward to me.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:09, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
• Support. But what if the themes material is just themes without analysis? If that's the case, I'd prefer that the section simply be called "Themes." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:25, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

  @Flyer22 Reborn: The intent with it being "Theme and analysis" was to indicate the section could be about themes, it could be about analysis of the series, or it could be a mixture of both, not that the section should be called exclusively "Themes and analysis". - Favre1fan93 (talk) 17:21, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, but just like with MOS:FILM, editors often copy the style of MOS:TV, sometimes strictly. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 12:50, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

@Flyer22 Reborn: Would "Themes or analysis" be better? - Favre1fan93 (talk) 19:17, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

As an actual heading in the article? Or just on the guideline page? I take it you mean just on the guideline page. Either is fine. On a side note, no need to ping me; I'll go ahead and watchlist this page for now. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:21, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I meant for the section in MOS:TV. That is always what the heading "Themes and analysis" was going to be for, just the guideline page. Which to me, meant that a section in an article could be "Themes", "Analysis" or "Theme and analysis". - Favre1fan93 (talk) 19:36, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Unanimous support for this one, looks like we're ready to close Favre1fan93? -- Whats new?^(talk) 00:21, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.