Wikipedia:Article splitting (television)

Determining when to split an article

When making the decision to split article content from the main page to a List of Episodes page, a season page, or an individual episode page we first must look at the size of the overall main page (or primary page being split). For this, we defer to WP:SIZESPLIT for guidance on appropriate lengths for articles. Wikipedia aims to provide as much encyclopedic information as possible in a centralized location, without having to send readers to too many separate articles on the same topic. With television articles, this is frequently impossible to maintain, as television programs running multiple seasons will inevitably have more information than can and should be presented on one single page. For this, a guide has been established to help editors determine an appropriate time to start splitting articles.

Per WP:SIZESPLIT, between 50kB and 60kB of readable prose is a threshold that editors should start to look at how information is organized and whether it should be split. Anything above 60kB of readable prose should almost definitely be split. To determine "readable prose" (using Prosesize), simply click the "Page size" icon in the banner on the left of the article's page. Readable prose will be highlighted in yellow. You will notice that articles that have episode tables will not have the summaries highlighted. This is because the coding used to house the summaries hides the content from the page size counter. To assist editors, it has already been determined that episode summaries that average approximately 200 words (which is the standard set forth by this MOS), create an estimated 1kB of readable prose. Thus, 1 episode summary = 1 kB of readable prose.

Just looking at episodes, it would take between 50 and 60 episodes to warrant separating those summaries off the main page to an List of Episodes page. That said, given that parent articles will most likely have more information than just episode summaries (e.g., production information, reception, casting, etc.), it is recommended that this guide be applied after determining the size of readable prose for the rest of the article. For example, an article with readable prose listed at 15kB, that has an episode list of 15 episodes, would be at approximately 30kB of readable prose. That would generally not be appropriate for splitting, regardless of how many seasons those 15 episodes encompass. An article that is 40kB of readable prose, not factoring in the episode table, would most likely require splitting as the main page is sufficiently large to justify the split.

When splitting from a List of Episodes into season pages, or into individual episode articles, the size of the page may require a larger threshold before splitting IF the only information available are episode summaries and ratings for the show (as ratings themselves would never be counted as "readable prose"). An List of Episodes page would need a threshold closer to 70kB to 80kB (approximately 70 to 80 episodes). Meaning, separating out into season and episode articles just for the summary is NOT sufficient reasoning, as episode summaries must be accompanied by real world content to justify their existence (as Wikipedia is not a TV guide, nor a substitute for watching a program).

There should always be real world content to accompany any additional split that is not simply a duplication of the main page's content (e.g., reception specifically for that season, or that episode; production information for the season or the episode), or duplication of the season page's content (e.g., an episode article that contains 1 or 2 reviews, and used the overall production information about the season that is not specific to any one episode). This is because notability is not inherited from a parent article, and all articles must stand on their own. So be careful when splitting pages too soon; if the material for the new article is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of the subject, or would simply duplicate the summary that would be left behind, then it may be too soon to move it.

Please remember that anytime a split has occurred, a summary of the content being split needs to be left behind with the parent article it was split from. In order to give proper attribution, this can be done within the edit summary from the original page and at the destination page, or with the use of the templates {{Copied}} or {{Split article}} on each article's talk page.