From the result of a majority vote between the moderators, it has been decided that:

Television will be on topic for this site.


I think with this, it is time to shape the FAQ from more than just the general beta description.

If the title:

  • Has had a major theatrical release (recent examples: Sherlock Holmes 2, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo)
  • Is a television release and stand alone (not related to a TV series, a la Hallmark channel or original HBO movie)
  • Is direct-to-DVD release (Butterfly Effect 3, any Asylum movie)
  • Is a major fictional Television Series (House, Dexter, etc)
  • Is a tie-in movie for a series (Need better examples)

It should be On-Topic.

However,

  • Works of Non-Fiction (News shows, need some more examples here too)
  • "Reality" Shows of any kind (Teen Mom, American Idol, Bachelor)

Are Off-Topic for this site.

Please see this discussion on TV scope for why this is removed


Edit: Tie-in movie clarification.

My intention is that if a film has a Theatrical Release, then it is automatically on-topic. Examples being Serenity (Ending of Firefly); this is on-topic because the movie got a theatrical release and questions about the production of the movie are perfectly fine to ask. Also, asking questions about episodes of Firefly will be On-Topic.

A similar case can be made for Star Trek. There are at least 9 or so Star Trek movies and each question about one of them will be On-topic. Also, questions about specific episodes of Star Trek are On-Topic for the scope of this site.

Edit 2: Serial TV series clarification.

With some more thought, I think the intention of this point was to show that TV series that have longer than normal episodes (50-90 min without commercials) are still On-topic, as well as Mini-Series (The Pacific, Band of Brothers, Tin Man etc) are all On-Topic.

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18 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Well, here's the information I just got. If we were to allow TV series as on-topic and the tv proposal makes it through, then any tv questions here would become off-topic and closed or migrated. If the tv proposal falls through then no issues whatsoever.

Since we have that ability, I'm switching my vote to allow for tv series.

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There was a discussion on Area 51 regarding this: Why not merge movies and television and give both a chance? The question received 32 upvotes and the answer suggesting they should merge received 26 upvotes.

However, the question has now been tagged status-declined so it appears the powers that be disagree. It would be nice to get an explanation from the mods on the reasons for this!

So this leaves the question of where we draw the line between TV and Movies. There are many categories; here I'll list whether I think they should be here:

  • Films that were originally given a cinema release - obviously fine here.
  • TV series that never branched into cinema - definitely not here. (This would include series like Game of Thrones.)
  • Films that have been released on DVD/video only - probably fine here, but there may be exceptions like Futurama, where the films came from a TV series and were later shown as TV episodes.
  • TV series that later had a movie - the movie itself is fine here, but there can be overlap again (e.g. "in the Simpsons movie Homer did X, is that a reference to the TV series?" would be acceptable here and a TV.SE site)
  • TV movies or feature-length TV dramas - I don't know, but probably restricted to TV.SE.

After writing all this I really think the two proposals should be merged. There is a lot of overlap, and many of the basic concepts like plot, characters and storytelling apply to both. Heck, there are plenty of one-off TV dramas that are longer than some cinema-released moves (e.g. Phone Booth is barely over an hour long IIRC).

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I agree with @RobertCartaino 's dispelling of those two weak reasons, and I feel my own opinions on this matter are strong enough to warrant another answer and not a comment that could get lost in the shuffle.

I believe that movies and television are two fundamentally different things. Yes, they overlap in terms of storytelling technique at times (should we therefore allow any fiction in here?) and also personnel at times (in that case, should the discography of Will Smith, Jennifer Lopez or Lil' Bow Wow be on topic here?), and they both boil down to Moving Images With Sound Attached For Pleasure Effect (so by that logic, video games and music videos would also be covered as well). But honestly, movies and television are incredibly easy to differentiate 90% of the time. We should not bend this site's content just to make up for the 10% of content where there is debate. And also, the audiences for both are not the same. It's only recently, as cable television has started to up the quality of the artform, that television has even been acknowledged as an artistic equal to movies. Do we think that real movie professionals, the ones we want to use this site, would take us seriously if we have a "Glee" question next to one about "There Will Be Blood"? I realize there's that big of a genre disparity within movies as well, but I think we run the risk of coming across as foolish by lumping television and movies together.

I don't want this to sound like I don't want a TV stack exchange. My college major was television production. I have a degree in television. I love television. I love television way more than movies. I would love to ask a million questions about "Friday Night Lights" right now, but I don't want to do that on a site that also has movies. Because they are different things. It astounds me that it's taken movies this long to launch, but I feel that's indicative of the Stack Overflow audience, as that's who makes up the core group of users who get sites to private beta. A movies site is something we can pitch to the general public and get them to use. Then that audience can push a TV site through as well. The TV proposal isn't working because the audience isn't here yet, and I think this Movies site is going to help us get that audience.

Lastly, the scope of this site is already insanely broad. Movies. All movies. All movies ever. That covers...a LOT. Why are we so anxious to just add potentially more noise to this site? Going back to my "Glee"/"There Will Be Blood" example, do any of you really want to slog through questions about both movies AND TV shows you don't like/watch?

Keep this site focused on movies and make it awesome. The TV crowd will come.

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Yes, absolutely. Trying to draw a line between movies and TV is hopeless. There is too much overlap in both topic and audience. DisgruntledGoat's answer illustrates the slippery slope: if it's released in theaters, it's a movie. What if it flopped in theaters and got a second life on TV? What if it was intended for theaters but some deal fell through and it was never actually shown except on TV? What about direct-to-DVD releases? If these are all movies, then does it mean any made-for-TV movie is a movie? Is it just that made-for-TV movies are on-topic but not series? When do series start: do miniseries count? What distinguishes a series from those undending franchises with theatre releases (Terminator #42 kind of stuff?)

<deep breath>

All forms of motion pictures should be on-topic here.

There's a precedent for expanding a site early in the beta: Science Fiction and Fantasy initially launched as the “science fiction” site. Fortunately, that mistake was corrected after a few weeks. I urge the Movies community to ask and answer TV questions, so as to make this effectively a movie site encompassing TV.

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I asked this question, because I want to draw no artificial lines between movies, regardless of the medium they were produced for. Because I think they should be on-topic I had no problem to ask about TV-movies and mini-series. Nobody objected, not in a close-vote (we have 7 more users, who could cast a close-vote), a down-vote or a comment. So I think the community agrees, that they are on-topic.

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TV specials like Rudolph that are non-serialized, to me, fall into a category similar or equal to short films. I vote that they are on-topic.

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I think the main reason for the whole discussion about "TV-movies or not?" or "TV-series or not" is just because many people don't realize the fact that the concepts TV and movies are pretty much orthogonal, with the TV-movies and mini-series belonging to both. This makes TV-movies on-topic both in movies.se and tv.se (or whatever it will be called).

But neither does this magically make Dexter on-topic on movies.se, no matter how similar it is to a movie or how well you can analyze and compare it to movies, it stays a TV-series. Nor does it make Ghosts of Mars on-topic on tv.se because it once aired on your local tv-channel. And in contrast to another answer, quality doesn't have anything to do with it (and I'm aware of the quality difference between those two examples, even as a Carpenter-fan).

Maybe one day movies.se is merged with tv.se. Then everything is on-topic of course. But for now it's movies.se, where only movies are on-topic (no matter for which medium they were produced). Sure this definition may seem like nit-picking or relying on hard facts instead of artistic facts, but you just have to draw a line somewhere and then I'd like to have this based on something objective rather than something highly subjective, like quality.

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The proposal is marked [status-declined] simply because the site launched and the merge didn't happen. Now, as to whether it should (or shouldn't) happen… I'll leave that to the experts here to chime in.

Closing that Area 51 discussion brings that discussion out of the theoretical (a proposal) and into this forum, where the actual users charged with the responsibility of building this site can discuss it.

But I would like to dispel two weak reasons to consider a merger:

  1. Merge TV or it will never launch. That's never a good reason in and of itself. Either they're a complementary audience, or they're not. Combining sites only to prop up the numbers is never done. The audiences have to complement each others' interests or you'll never get the network effects you need to reach critical mass in the subject.
  2. Where will TV Theatrical Releases Go? I'm not buying that one either. TV is just one source of story lines for movies. I'm sure you can discuss one in the context of the other without worrying too much about crossover. If they are that inseparable, this site will have to include comic books, plays, short stories, books, news events, history, poetry, and stand-up comedians, too.
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To put it simply, movies are named such because they are "Moving Pictures". TV does fall into this category. Also, I know it is still early in the beta, but our numbers aren't showing much promise, and merging the 2 would not be a terrible idea and by merging the two, it would give them both the combined user-base to move this past beta.

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Thinking back, I think we should apply a very simple rule to determine the scope of the site. When you think “movie” and “website”, there is one site on the Internet that comes immediately to mind, so we should follow its scope. Thus:

A movie is whatever IMDB considers a movie.

Now I couldn't find a definition of what IMDB considers a movie, but it does include TV series. Therefore, TV series are on-topic here.

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The problem I see is if the site becomes popular (which is the goal), then you might be into the same situation as stackoverflow was and you end up needing to split it into multiple sites anyway.

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TV movies should be on-topic, because the only difference between a theatrically released movie and a TV movie is its distribution channel. The production is the same, the audience is the same, the artistic nature is the same.

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I personally think that it is making it quite hard if you start saying that TV tie-in movies are off topic. What would Star Trek movies be? Unless you are saying that a major theatrical release supersedes the tie in - which could become confusing.

Even so, with TV releases only, a stand-alone science fiction tv movie would be on-topic, but a one-off Dr. Who full length movie would be off-topic? I'm not sure that is a makes a very clear dividing line.

Then there is the question of the TV-Buffs proposal. Some people here have suggested to increase the number of questions and create a critical mass that we should combine with them and throw the doors open to all TV. Personally if we can create a critical mass without including TV series, then that would be my preferred option but it would be disappointing for the beta to fail because the group is too narrow.

It strikes me that we have broadly 4 options:

  1. Theatrical Releases Only
  2. Including TV movies (of which Shads0's suggestion is a slight amendment)
  3. Including fictional TV series
  4. Including all TV

I waver between option 2 and 3 - mostly because of the critical mass issue.

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Why are we still having this discussion as Gilles said this is a duplicate of Should we cover TV Series here?

Now that we have moderators established, it is time once and for all to decide if TV shows are on topic or not for the scope of this site.

What does this mean? Now that you are moderators? Does that mean you are going to overrule all previous decisions? Then do it. Stop asking.

SE Staff have already closed Tv questions (e.g. Dexter) whether based on a flag on a user or not, the question has been closed single handedly by a SE comunity team moderator. You have answer right there. TV-topics are clearly off-topic.

In addition to this based on many previous discussions, there were 2-3 other SE staff members engaging in debate on the matter.

So we have 4 SE staff members against the TV inclusion

Then you have Gilles and me (Alonzo) for it.

So this question is not going to bring about any decision as users will just be rehashing old discussion.

You three moderators just make a decision and deal with it

Either say it is off-topic or say it is on-topic. You were elected, time to show your guns and make decisions you have all the points talk to your fellow mods and make a decision.

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I would include all movies, even if they are split up in multiple parts. That would include mini-series like Wild Palms or shows like Game of Thrones, that have one story line. That would not include Star Trek, where every episode is independent of the others.

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The main reason I suggested only 'cinema movies' in another thread is to make it as clear cut and easy to understand the rules as possible.

The problem with the TV argument is that there are only tiny steps between each format: from cinema releases to DVD movies to TV movies to 'continuing' TV series to episodic TV series... all the way down to soap operas and game shows.

What about one-off TV drama or comedy features? They are rarely called TV movies but can be 60-90 minutes long and share almost everything with theatrical movies.

Similarly if TV movies are fine, and documentary movies are fine, that makes any singular (non-episodic) documentary ever broadcast on TV fine as well. I watched a BBC documentary yesterday about Facebook; of course it would never be broadcast in a cinema but in reality it's no different from, say, 'Senna'.

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Why are we repeating Should we cover TV Series here?

I propose that the site covers what IMDB covers.

This includes movies released in theaters, movies released on TV, and series released on TV. Fiction or documentary. Live action or not.

All of these have the same production methods, the same range of production values, and very similar audiences.

Furthermore, the limit is hard to define — witness your more and more abstruse “clarifications”.

We don't have many TV questions on the site as yet, but the only opposition they've had is based on the assumption that TV questions are off-topic (maybe, but that's not decided yet), not on quality (which seems to be the main argument of the anti-TV crowd).

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Some time I was on the fence regarding the question if TV-series should be on-topic or not. I think I came now to the opinion, that I prefer the inclusion of TV-series (opposing the proposal given by this question).

The main influences for my opinion are the arguments by @Brett_White and @Gilles.

Yes, Brett White opposes the inclusion of TV-series. But his main argument is the difference in quality between movies and TV-series. That's an incredible weak argument. First of all it is wrong: There are extremely bad movies and great TV-series. Secondly the on- or off-topic-question should not be decided by the quality of the subject of the question. We don't have a SO for great programming languages and one for horrific languages. We have one SO, there all questions about all programming languages go. I didn't see, that anyone arguing against inclusion brought up a better argument.

Gilles on the other hand has made a much better point for the inclusion of TV-series. They are basically produced in a similar way, with similar skills and similar contents.

Joel Spolsky says the right size for a SE-site is the size of a university-department. But how big would be a university department about movies? Would it include TV-series? But Spolsky gives a hint:

So: the right size might be somewhere around the size of a university department. Somehow, the cultural anthropologists don’t mind sharing a building with the physical anthropologists, and when they both find themselves at the Yale-Harvard football game, you can bet that they’ll sit together and find something anthropological to talk about.

Would people arguing about movies find something to talk in common with people liking TV-series? Yes! They are both can talk about acting-skills, plot-development and the personal style of the directors. The persons making movies and tv-series are mostly the same. There is some artificial line in the USA, but here in Germany all well-known actors and directors also worked for TV-series. Yes they also might make music, but while making a movie and a tv-series involves basically the same skills and has similar artistical properties, making music is a different thing. But if someone asks here on movies.se about the acting-career of Julianna Margulies, should we exclude the Good wife and only talk about her movies? But if we ask the same question for Will Smith, we can exclude his music, as it does not interfere with his acting.

So I propose that we should include TV-series. The definition could be something like: 'motion pictures created as a work of art'. That excludes game-shows and news.

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