Talk:List of Horrible Histories (2009 TV series) episodes

Would like to work on the songs article next... (extended discussion from Talk: Horrible Histories (2009 TV series)
I've already posted as much to the relevant talkpage, but am assuming interested editors might also be found here: As it turns out I've got lots more spare time coming up this holiday break, so would like to spend some of it doing a similarly exhaustive cleanup of the song article. I'm confident I can do that article justice as well, esp. since it appears to have many of the same issues as this one initially had (with the addition of a serious lack of references... and/or problems with the existing ones, including links to Facebook).

Barring any serious objection, I thought to begin work later this week and have the completed rewrite up within a few days past that. Thanks, Shoebox 2   talk  00:49, 23 December 2013 (UTC)


 * ETA: Actually, on further, more serious review, I'm thinking my first question should be do we even need a standalone song article? Again, I don't mean to denigrate anyone's work here... and believe me, I get that the songs are an important part of the series... but important enough to be handled on the level of a list of episodes, or characters? Most of the songs don't even have anything resembling official titles, and many of the parody inspirations are never going to be anything but unsourced guesses. I can and will make it all tidy and readable -- and probably provide decent enough guesses -- but unless I'm missing some precedent here (quite possible) it's still going to seem fancruft-y to me. Shoebox 2   talk  04:10, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I totally get what you're saying, and perhaps Wikipedia will be better off without the list (I'm sure you'll make up your mind after analysing it. Perhaps the article could be renamed and refocused to Music in Horrible Histories. In any case, many of the "guesses" can reasonably accurately be sourced from web reviews by guardian, telegraph etc, and also via primary sources like the Masterclass. Worth bearing in mind. :)--Coin945 (talk) 04:22, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not so sure; most of those will still be guesses, albeit a bit more informed I suppose. Meanwhile, the topic of Music in Horrible Histories is already more than adequately covered by the section in this article, that's the problem. However, the current standalone song list has lasted this long despite everything, so I'll go with that consensus for now. It's not such a complex project that I'll be crushed if it's deleted afterwards.
 * That said: Coin, I apologise for the bluntness, but since you do seem to need things spelled out: I do not want your help. (Especially not after encountering those Facebook cites; let's just leave it at that.) If I find you trying to 'help' anyway by making edits to my sandbox or to its talkpage, in any way shape or form, it will be immediately reported to an admin as per previous warning. Shoebox 2   talk  14:46, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

(Outdenting for new idea) Sorry for posting my entire train of thought like this... hopefully it's less irritating than random huge surprise!edits. At any rate, the more time I spend trying to figure out what the song article needs, the more the fancruftiness just really, really makes me itch. I've looked into a few Wiki procedures (including WP:BOLD), and had a good long think besides, and have come up with what I think is the best-case scenario:

Shoebox 2  talk  19:19, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Everything noteworthy that possibly needs to be said about Horrible Histories music in general has already been said in, or can be added to, the 'Music' section in the main article.
 * 2) Everything else of interest -- by which I specifically mean the song titles, main performers and parody inspiration if any, and possibly the lyricist if not Dave Cohen -- is already in, or can easily be moved into, the List of Episodes, which is in fact a worthwhile spinoff article that I'd much rather be working on anyway (and frankly have always been irritated, when I've checked it in the past, that the songs aren't easier to find). Like so: Song: Cut-Throat Celts: 'Boudicca' (hard rock parody) Martha Howe-Douglas, Mathew Baynton, Jim Howick and Ben Willbond
 * 3) Therefore, unless there's serious objection, I'm proposing to formally merge the song article into the list article and go on from there as described above.
 * 4) I will of course follow all steps as outlined on WP:MERGE, repost this on the song article's talkpage, and wait for response until the holidays are over before doing anything rash so as not to be accused of railroading anything. It'll mean finding other uses for my holiday spare time, but I think that can be managed. :)


 * Well assuming that I'm the one who will most likely be the biggest obstacle to this merge (not being high and mighty - just making an informed assumption), I just want to say that I am in full support for this idea. The song page was always destined to be fancrufty, and I mostly just created it to keep the fanboys and girls happy, so they wouldnt add that stuff to the main page for the TV show. I think you should just be WP:Bold. :)--Coin945 (talk) 19:40, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you -- wait. You didn't want people adding fancruft, so you... added an entire page of it? Explicitly so people could add more? *facepalm* Coin, do you by any chance have a background editing TVTropes or similar fan-run wikis? And if not, can I quite sincerely suggest you might really enjoy it? I know for a fact there's at least one HH fan wiki out there just begging for some TLC. It'd at be a much more logical outlet for your editing philosophy.
 * At any rate, thanks again for the explanation, and support, but from the edit history you seem to have inspired at least a few others to recently consider the song list a real page. I'll put the merge notice up for at least a few days past the holiday on the off-chance anyone is seriously invested. Shoebox 2  talk  22:31, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, it worked. :D. It's a common thing to do when fancrufty material continually clogs up an article - to create an off-shoot specifically for that purpose as a compromise. I cleaned up a lot of the messy fancrufty stuff before the recent rewrite took place. I know how bad it can get. Before the content transfer, the Song List section was continually being tweaked with, and so was all the other trivial stuff. Check out an edition 2 years ago. Not pretty. So yes (side note) my work wasn't the best, but I think it was an improvement over what was there before. And I do think that the article served a purpose - to allow the completed-list philosophy of many of the HH editors to be put to good use. After all, who doesn't love a completed list of the songs in a TV renowned for its music? It was not an attempt at a fancruft article to avoid another. It was faux-fancruft. Something that fans could create to competition in intricate detail, while remaining encyclopedic in its own right. And I think it was on the road to getting there. Whether or not it still deserves a place here is for the public to decide, and I've express my support for your stance on the issue. But I stand by the article's creation at that time and place.--Coin945 (talk) 17:17, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Mm. Something tells me one of us is deeply misunderstanding the concept behind creating an article offshoot, and I'm not at all sure it's me. As for how it was 'getting there'... yeah, sorry, I'm trying to believe your intentions were good, but I keep seeing those Facebook cites still in the supposedly almost-enyclopedic article, six months on. Also, despite your helpful notes to me above demonstrating an awareness of this exact problem, a majority of content based on random fan theories rather than proper citations. (Frankly, the treatment in the article version you linked looks eminently reasonable by comparison.) Coin, I don't know where you got the idea that 'randomly dumping stuff in and hoping someone else will figure it out down the line' was a viable editing philosophy anywhere, but trust me, it isn't. It's demonstrating the exact opposite of respect either for your material or your fellow editors, and it certainly doesn't inspire their respect in turn. Shoebox 2   talk  18:43, 25 December 2013 (UTC)


 * To be fair, I didn't add those Facebooks cites and other non-notable ones. In fact, I edited intermittently to fix up references or add a Writers column, and besides that didn't monitor the article at all for a while. So I can't really be blamed for its state. That seems a little like WP:OWN - the idea that because I created it I am ultimately in charge of its maintenance.--Coin945 (talk) 19:25, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
 * On a side note, would you really find those endless fancrufty lists "eminently reasonable by comparison"? Hmm..--Coin945 (talk) 19:25, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Also can you remind me when I mentioned "randomly dumping" content as my philosophy? I remember mentioning in an edit summary that i was in the process of info-dumping from a source (the masterclass if memory serves) because that was step 1, before step 2 which was copyediting. But that particular phrasing escapes me.--Coin945 (talk) 19:25, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
 * In any case, I understand you are upset and frustrated by what occurred on your sandbox, and despite you not accepting an apology I want to offer one to you regardless. I am truly sorry for offending you and invading your personal editing space, I made a retrospectively silly decision and I hope we can both move past this. I have certainly learnt a lot that I will take with me. After years of editing in isolation - or playfully bouncing off co-writers when working on group projects - it's a very different experience to be challenged by others with opposing views - something which I've had to come to grips with in the Horrible Histories corner of the 'pedia. But I feel now there is a stain on the Coin945 name in your eyes that cant be removed, and that is a shame.. As you have probably seen by now, I've been spending the past few days creating article on the other notable parts of the HH franchise, and buffing up the HH template as a result. I hope that you see me not as an academic scholar & expert editor, nor as a vandal & nuisance, but rather as a person with both flaws and talents like any other, who tries their best to achieve and succeed.--Coin945 (talk) 19:25, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

{Outdenting for final word on subject) Coin, after the incident re: my sandbox, I went through your talkpage archives, and also re-read the discussions here a bit more closely. The quotes around the 'randomly dumping' bit above represent me summarising what I gathered from all that reading, which also fitted neatly with the pattern I'd already noted on the HH articles.

The majority of the discussions clearly show concerned veteran editors repeatedly trying to tell you that your drive-by infodump approach -- what you yourself later acknowledged to me as 'a disease' -- was harmful. Yet in every case you went ahead with it anyway. Then, despite claiming that I was "finally giving the article the TLC it needed since [your] edits", you tried the exact same approach while I was rewriting, to the point of repeatedly invading my personal space over my objections... and then, after (barely) apologising for that, you showed back up on this talkpage with basically the same laundry list of implausible suggestions as you'd tried with me, only with bonus utter goofiness re: possible mentions of how clean the show makes viewers feel. And now this business with the deeply dubious spinoff article you knew from the start might be problematic, but apparently never bothered even to monitor for, let alone fix, obvious issues. (ETA: And we won't even get into your latest note on the marketing discussion, written apparently not long after this latest apology...)

If I am still frustrated, it is with this ongoing pattern of destructive editing behaviour that you clearly would rather endlessly make excuses for than change. And if I am still blunt, it is largely due to ongoing fear that that behaviour will once again overwhelm a lot of hard work on a subject I care deeply about. That said, going forward I'll do my best to remain civil and focus on the issues at hand... but I'm afraid that for awhile at least, my default is going to have to be skepticism. Shoebox 2  talk  20:49, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Extended discussion from Talk: List of Horrible Histories songs
Proposed merge with List of Horrible Histories episodes

First off, understand that I don't mean to denigrate anyone's hard work here. Thing is, I had originally proposed a cleanup on this article -- based on my previous extensive work rewriting the main TV series article, which should be enough to demonstrate both my goodwill towards the show and familiarity with it.

But quite honestly, the more time I spend trying to figure out what this article needs, the more the blatant fancruftiness just really, really jumps out. Yes, music is important in the context of the TV series, in which article it is accordingly, and lovingly, now given special mention. A separate list implies separate notability for the songs themselves, and -- absent a CD release or similar -- they just don't have that. They don't even have official titles, most of them.

Barring simply proposing this article for deletion, which almost certainly would mean wholesale losing the aforementioned hard work, I've come up with what I think is the best-case scenario:


 * 1) As noted, everything here that possibly needs to be said about Horrible Histories' music in general has already been said in, or potentially can be added to, the 'Music' section in the main article.
 * 2) Everything else of interest -- by which I specifically mean the song titles, main performers and parody inspiration if any, and possibly the lyricist if not Dave Cohen -- is already in, or can easily be moved into, the List of Episodes, which is in fact a worthwhile spinoff article that I'd much rather be working to improve anyway (frankly I have always been irritated, when I've checked it in the past, that the songs aren't easier to find). Like so: Song: Cut-Throat Celts: 'Boudicca' (hard rock parody) Martha Howe-Douglas, Mathew Baynton, Jim Howick and Ben Willbond
 * 3) The creator of the article has already voiced his support for this proposal (over on the main article's talkpage). Therefore, unless there's serious objection within, say, the next week, I'm proposing to formally merge the song article into the list article and go on from there as described above.  Shoebox 2   talk  23:28, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, have now finished the rewrite of the episode list article--available for review in my sandbox--incorporating the usable song info from this one as outlined above. I've checked over the header, but aside from a few credits there's just nothing usable there (although the claims re: the original inspiration for including the songs and the saga of the nonexistent CD release would be, if they could be sourced at all/to something much more plausible, respectively.)
 * At any rate, in the absence of any objections will complete the merge as of tomorrow (Monday) afternoon EST, turning 'List of Horrible Histories songs' into a simple redirect to the newly-enhanced episode list. Again, my sincere thanks to everyone who's put serious work into this article, and rest assured everything of it that I could possibly salvage has been (in fact, it was a huge help in the process). Shoebox 2   talk  03:26, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Rewriting in line with the merge discussion
So given no objections (and support from that article's creator) I've started merging the salvageable List of Horrible Histories songs into this article. In the process, I've also commenced a pretty thorough rewrite of this article, based on improvements to a few major things that frankly have been bugging me for awhile now -- 'me' being the author of a pretty thorough and well-respected HH episode review blog, if credentials are needed. :)

The ongoing results (from Series One half-way through Two) can be seen in my sandbox. I would welcome review and any suggestions made, on this page please.

Major changes:

Songs -- As per notes on the song article's talkpage, as far as I can tell there's no real reason to have separate list articles when the entire contents of one can logically and neatly fit into the other, besides (I'm realising as I go through) substantially improving the other in the process. Accordingly I've replaced the half-buried -- and often wildly contradictory to the song article -- mentions in each episode summary here with a separate, clearly marked Songs section, using either the sourced title/parody inspiration or as close and informative a guess as I can make (or sometimes a combination of both).

Formatting -- Apart from separating Songs and Sketches out more neatly as per above, I've switched the italicized sketch titles out for quotes, they being notable sections of the larger show as per WP:QUOTEMARK. That makes room for what I feel is a more attractive and readable layout, but of course I'm open to other opinions.

Sketch synopses -- I've removed what are clearly the BBC programming summaries at the top of each episode, on the grounds of a) probable copyright issues and b) being redundant -- they're just descriptions of the exact same sketches as are already described below. Beyond that, I've tried to make the individual synopses more systematic and informative, while also trying very hard not to give away too much.

Thanks for putting up with me thus far, and again, would welcome feedback. Shoebox 2  talk  04:08, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, all done the rewrite--still available for review in my sandbox--and in the absence of any objections, will post it up here tomorrow (Monday) afternoon EST, completing the merge and redirect of the song list in the process. I think I've made an improvement, if I do say so myself--but that said, let me be the first to thank and congratulate those who've obviously put a lot of hard work in before me. Someone could still help with adding in the parody inspirations for the magazines, if any (I knew I'd be wrong, so didn't even try). I feel like the additional credited cast of each episode could also be bunged in there somewhere--next to the writer listing maybe--but in the absence of familiarity with these episode list articles am not sure if that's getting into too much detail. Thanks again, Shoebox 2   talk  02:57, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

WW1
There is a WW1 speel — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.102.93.78 (talk) 08:06, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Indeed, the World War One special's on right now. can anyone add that to the specials list? Visokor (talk) 08:15, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Series 6 is all "specials", each devoted to one historical character, such as King John (played by Ben Miller) or Henry VIII (Rowan Atkinson). Can these also be added? 87.115.203.223 (talk) 15:37, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

2015- episode list merger
The 2015-present episodes, Series 6-8 at the moment, has a slightly different format and indeed different cast, but still holds the same formula and brand of the first five series. Therefore, I'm thinking we may as well have all the HH episodes listed in one place, to make it easier. The 2009 page and 2015 page with cast lists etc. can remain separate, as they carry separate information, but episodes are episodes, regardless, right? Why not list them all together, they're similar enough?

And it feels right that the 2016 Specials should be added to the Specials list (right now the 3 episodes are classed as their own series, which they are not), and therefore Series' 6, 7 & 8 follow suit.

Any thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.14.76.75 (talk) 22:35, 10 July 2019 (UTC)