Talk:Portal:Transcripts

From Lostpedia

Couldn't someone just copy them and give them their own articles? Wouldn't that be easier? LOCI! 18:06, 26 June 2006 (PDT)

As long as we have permission to do so, it should be fine. I sugest a format lkike [[Man of Science, Man of Faith/Transcript]]. --Aero *Zeppelin 18:38, 20 July 2006 (PDT)

I agree with bringing the transcripts here; but its gonna be a long and repetetive job. --Ph ma ll 14:42, 3 August 2006 (PDT)

Internal Transcripts

OK, with the internal transcripts, I agree with some of the above that we should have our own transcripts HERE, on lostpedia. Transcripts are the ultimate form of canon. Though we will never have access to official transcripts, Spooky's on Lost TV are VERY well done, don't know how often people use them, but I use them all the time, and I know she is careful and meticulous, and I trust her versions. I Pm'd her over at Lost-TV (I have spoken to her in the past), and asked her if she had any exclusivity clause with LostTV, and she said no, and she was willing to let us have internal cut and pastes for lostpedia. I also give Suil Liath, who runs the forum there, and she is ok with it. I would like to link credit somewhere on the page, of course, but I think it is a valuable resource (for God's sakes, we have DJ Dan's stuff 100% transcribed, and that's not even show material). What do you guys think? It will mean 50 new pages on lostpedia. I am willing to do it, but it is mostly cut and paste with credit to Spooky. Any other suggestions for format? Any serious *objections*? --Pandora X 13:43, 8 September 2006 (PDT)

Hosting entire transcripts here is borderline copyright infringement. I think we would want to get some permission first. -- Jabberwock talk contribs email - 13:44, 8 September 2006 (PDT)

Suil Liath says its ok, so whats the issue? Unless she never transcribed them herself --Nickb123 (Talk) 13:45, 8 September 2006 (PDT)

Jabber: Huh? Copyright infringement on who, though? Spooky does not get hers entirely from closed captions and she doesn't scan in a stolen copy from TPTB or something. She does it from hearing episodes, using a DVR, and types them in by hand, sometimes with the assistance of CC. Would ABC object? And if so, why would Lost-TV host it internally without getting in trouble? --Pandora X 13:47, 8 September 2006 (PDT)

PS: Nick, Suil is just staff on the site. Spooky is the actual person who types. PPS: Using fan-transcribed (informal) scripts is actually a lot lesser of a form of infringement than using screencaps from the show, actually. ABC has always had an open policy on sharing so long as it is for fansites and used for entertainment, and not profit.

I'm not a lawyer. I'm just saying that we should be sure about the legality before we pursue it. Even Spooky's transcripts have a disclaimer about reproducing the transcripts. -- Jabberwock talk contribs email - 14:17, 8 September 2006 (PDT)

How is this any worse compared to using screencaps, show logos, set pictures, and any number of other things that we do commonly on this site, and many other fan sites/wikis? All we need to do is use the same disclaimer. This site is a wiki for fan info, they know that... do you seriously think ABC would have a problem with it? We already have detailed transcripts of DJ Dan, orientation tapes, Rachel recordings, etc. --Pandora X 14:25, 8 September 2006 (PDT)

The disclaimer says: "...and may not be reproduced commercially without permission from ABC." As this is not a commercial website, there is no problem. --Ph ma ll 14:26, 8 September 2006 (PDT)

Settle down, I never said "no"...was just voicing concern and wanted to make sure all your t's are crossed and i's dotted. -- Jabberwock talk contribs email - 14:28, 8 September 2006 (PDT)

Don't worry, no one's getting anxious over it, and I understand your concern. :) But I'm fairly certain about ABC's "fair use" open copyright standard. I staff at 2 sites, and this issue came up once with screencaps, and ABC was actually emailed just to make certain. I believe they gave the same disclaimerish statement... as long as the site is for "educational" fan exploration, and not commercially exploiting for profit, there would be no legal objection raised. --Pandora X 14:32, 8 September 2006 (PDT)

Someone will donate it to us? Fine, I say: Joop! (Joop means yeah in finnish)--†††GodEmperorOfHell††† 14:13, 8 September 2006 (PDT)

Exactly. Saves us a job! --Nickb123 (Talk) 14:16, 8 September 2006 (PDT)

Sounds good - my semi-expert knowledge of copyright practices makes me think that if ABC had a problem with online transcripts being posted, they'd send us a cease & desist order. Then we'd delete the offending pages with no repercussions. But the bad publicity resulting from that move would be far more costly to them than the control over content they'd get. After all, LostPedia does nothing but help generate interest in Lost products... (now gotta go wash down an Apollo Bar with a refreshing can of Sprite!). --Jajasoon 08:02, 9 September 2006 (PDT)

google transcript search

Hi pandora, I restored the google search functions, esp. as this is now a Help article, rather than a normal article. I frequently refer to this article and click on the link as it's easier than remember the entire site url and typing it in manually. It's especially useful for filling out disambiguation pages when one may need to search through transcripts, for example, for every mention of a dog or hospital. Nice job getting Spooky's support for mirroring transcripts btw. -- ^C¯ _Santa_ ¯^T00:14, 9 September 2006 (PDT)

Understood, Santa, we can leave that part in. I took it out before because I was thinking if we had the transcripts here at lostpedia, they would pop up in here on a normal wiki search, but you are right, we should still offer fans options. --Pandora X 07:46, 9 September 2006 (PDT)
OK I understand now. Let's see how it turns out once the transcripts are hosted here. I figured that was your intention, but I wasn't sure if there was a way to limit wiki searches to transcripts only. -- ^C¯ _Santa_ ¯^T13:37, 9 September 2006 (PDT)

Page Rename?

Now that this is a list page and not so much a helper page, can one of the sysops please change the title to just "Transcript" and "Transcripts" (redirect)? Thanks. --Pandora X 10:03, 9 September 2006 (PDT)

transcript file hierarchy (move articles?)

Pandora, I was vaguely wondering some more about transcript searching, and here's an idea. I haven't thought it through, so you can ignore it if you want. The idea was that if the transcripts were created with the main transcript page as the parent article, then we could use google to search lostpedia's hosting of transcripts. For example, rather than S1E13 - Hearts and Minds Transcript you could nest everything into the main transcripts article: Transcripts/S1E13 - Hearts and Minds. Then you could google

"some phrase" site:lostpedia.com/wiki/Transcript/

Maybe there's some better way to implement transcript searches, but I couldn't think of one atm. -- ^C¯ _Santa_ ¯^T01:19, 10 September 2006 (PDT)

To clarify:

Current URL:
http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/S1E13_-_Hearts_and_Minds_Transcript
Suggested URL:
http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Transcripts/S1E13_-_Hearts_and_Minds

-- ^C¯ _Santa_ ¯^T15:27, 11 September 2006 (PDT)

Hey Santa, I'm real sorry, I didn't check this talk page in a while and missed your suggestion :( At any rate, hmmm... we could do that maybe, if it'll help with searches? I was thinking of moving the titles anyway, away from that cumbersome S1E13 format (originally before we had a template for easier navigation, helped me keep track of which was before or after another) So maybe http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Transcripts/Hearts_and_Minds? Well, I'll have to think about this one, as it'll be quite a task to move it over... but one of these days when I'm less tired... :) --Pandora X 18:23, 6 November 2006 (PST)

Season 3

Anybody have the A Tale of Two Cities Transcript?--LOST ON CRAPHOLE ISLAND!!!!! 14:06, 5 October 2006 (PDT)

Cost of living transcript?

There should be one by now. Nusentinsaino talk contribs email

Headers?

Can we get permission to add Act and Scene headers? This way a specific scene's anchor could be referenced in another article by wikilink. --Jackdavinci 23:19, 20 December 2006 (PST)

Tell me what you think of this method. Example: Pilot, act 2. No headings, but anchor tags - Cheers 23:34, 20 December 2006 (PST)
- Looks great. If we can do anchors without headers then I guess we wouldn't need to ask spooky's permission. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jackdavinci (talk • contribs) .

I think it looks alright, though I'm not sure about all that scene division, takes up a lot of room at the top. I edited the sandbox page so that the transcript header remains on top; it's the best option, I think, for ease of navigation (as opposed to other pages, where nav-bars on the bottom, transcript pages are following the format of epi pages, since they are contiguous by episode, and the order is important).--Pandora X 08:01, 21 December 2006 (PST)

For the acts and scenes divisions in the sandbox example, I just left them all where Beardog had placed them in his earlier example. For the moment, the purpose of the sandbox examples was more to show in general how this could be done on a page and how it is flexible enough to allow whatever divisions and subdivisions people may want to use, not so much what their actual number and positions would be in a real transcript. I don't know if there are objective criteria to determine where divisions should go. I suppose it will depend on what level of accuracy the users of references want available to them for targeting a particular passage in the transcript. - Cheers 09:47, 21 December 2006 (PST)

Cheers, that's brilliant! Thanks again! Right now we're just over two seasons into the series, but once they hit 100 or so episodes, memories can start to get fuzzy. I really think having the ability to specify where something happened within an episode will save us all a lot of time later on. Still, it wouldn't hurt to run it past Spooky before we get all header-crazed, just out of consideration. Does anyone know how to reach her? -BearDog 08:57, 21 December 2006 (PST)
I love this idea, but I have a question about how people will use these. So say I want to link to the part of the given Pilot part 2 sandbox transcript that says:

 SAYID: It could be a SAT phone, maybe a radio signal...

How do I know what the anchor for that sentence is? Do I have to view the document source? Maybe we could do some style sheet tricks to display the anchor name over to the side or something?--Dagg 17:21, 21 December 2006 (PST)

I added an example of a style sheet trick here: User:Cheers/Sandbox#Act 9 scene 3. Ideally, if you clicked the box, it would give you instructions on how to cite that particular scene. I'm pretty sure this could be done with a template. --Dagg 17:35, 21 December 2006 (PST)

I agree it's better if the anchors are visible. Hopefully we'll get Spooky's explicit permission for that. I really like your idea of displaying the anchor's text to the right. I toyed with a few variations to make it more discreet and more distinct from the transcript's text. We can just use some different color or font, like this Act 8 scene 3. Or without the box Act 8 scene 4. It can be made even more discreet by making only the box immediately visible, indicating that there's an anchor on that spot, but the user must highlight the inside of the box to see the anchor text: Act 8 scene 6. Finally, the ultimate last word in discretion: the anchor text is there in background color (assuming the user uses a white background) and without the box, so the user must highlight the article to know that the anchor text is there: Act 8 scene 5. - Cheers 22:38, 21 December 2006 (PST)

Dagg & Cheers, as usual, you come up with some great solutions. I like the light blue visible anchor options in your sandbox example (in those cases, Act 8, Scenes 3 & 4), I find those unobtrusive, and don't disturb the integrety of the transcript as being one readable document too much. I've asked Spooky to come in and voice an opinion about all this as well. --Pandora X 05:23, 23 December 2006 (PST)

Talked to Spooky by PM at Lost TV, and she took a look and says it's a good idea, and has no problem with it. Sounds like there is a consensus in the straw poll below (which I have no strong feelings against, either) on how to proceed. As stated above, I like the less obtrusive light blue box version of the tag the best, anyone have any objection to that? So with those two choices, looks like it's a go! I'll start releasing the protections on the transcript pages, and people can start editing these anchors in. Thanks all for the good collaborative ideas. PS: Spooky says just please double check the COMMERCIAL BREAKS in S3E 1-4 to make sure she got all of them; the ones for S1, S2 and S3E5-6 should be fine. --Pandora X 11:19, 23 December 2006 (PST)

Cool. One last thing to choose would be what standard "wording" people think would be the most practical for naming the anchors. Beardog's first example used the format "#act X scene Y" and I just continued with that in the other examples. We can use that, or it could also be something else, for example simply numbering the anchors: #1, #2, etc. Or anything else people might prefer. - Cheers 12:17, 23 December 2006 (PST)

I personally would have no problems with ex. "Act 1, Scene 1" Anything in small, light font to the side is good with me. --Pandora X 12:26, 23 December 2006 (PST)

LInks

In the scripts, shouldnt names and items etc. be linked to their appropriate article in Lostpedia? --Blueeagle islander 02:56, 21 December 2006 (PST)

No. 1) It would take an enormously long time, 2) again, it would change the formating. If Spooky doesn't like any of the changes, she has the right to pull about 50 transcripts from the site, and I don't think we have many people who are willing to write them over again (they take about 3 hours a piece). --Pandora X 07:58, 21 December 2006 (PST)

They already link back to their respective episode articles, if there's anything you'd like to go into more detail on. :) -BearDog 08:50, 21 December 2006 (PST)

Straw Poll for anchor placements

So, if we were to put anchors within the transcripts for reference purposes, now that we know they can be unobtrusive, what might be the most useful placement? The examples we have right now are just broken into Acts and Scenes, by commercial breaks and locations, but our options really aren't limited- it's possible to put an anchor for each line if we thought it helpful. So, whatd'yall think? No anchors at all (it's just not worth doing, ever.), Less is More (for large chunks like dvd chapters or commercial breaks), More is better (for smaller chunks, like scene breaks or page numbers), Specificity is key (go crazy and anchor everything).

More is better Acts (everything between commercial breaks), Chapters (DVD chapters) and Scenes (when the location switches). --Jackdavinci 10:56, 21 December 2006 (PST)
Less is more Don't think it's necessary to break down by scene, clutters top of transcript pages. Use "Section" instead and have breaks be where commercials are written (also easies to edit in, given that these are already marked in transcripts. --Pandora X 11:06, 21 December 2006 (PST)
More is better Scene changes are the way to go I say. P.S. The DVD chapter breaks are usually the same as the commercial breaks. --Blueeagle islander 16:22, 21 December 2006 (PST)
More is better --Marik7772003 16:36, 21 December 2006 (PST)
More is betterScene changes. I think the most important part is real time events and Flashbacks.--Mr.Leaf 16:51, 21 December 2006 (PST)

Korean in transcripts

A helpful addition would be if anyone can translate the unsubtitled Korean and add it to a separate page. The places where it appears in the transcripts can link to this page or something. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Puppyfury (talk • contribs) .

I think this was an idea spooky had also; see here. We'll have to find some more Korean lostpedians who might volunteer this (if you look in the talk pages of Hoo-Goh Choi, I think we had one); Lostlinks also had a page that started last season, but it is out of date. --Pandora X 16:11, 5 January 2007 (PST)

We can start by making a page devoted just to the language - one titled "Korean". We can start seeing if people have interest from there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Puppyfury (talk • contribs) .

Well, we can't start pages on LP that are just for advertizing, with no content. I put it in the talk page of the South Korea page, which is already for South Korean fans of Lost. There is also this note here. I also have friends on other Lost sites that speak Korean. We'll find a way, don't worry. Oh, and please sign your talk page comments, press the button. --Pandora X 16:21, 5 January 2007 (PST)

Redundancy

Is it necessary to have both the nav and the full titles linked in the article? Seems redundant to me. -- Jabberwock talk contribs email - 11:03, 31 January 2007 (PST)

We could get rid of the full title list (started listing it before I made the nav-template for transcripts) if people want. I left it on the main article as a reminder for those who don't recall off the top of their heads what S2 #12 is, for instance (couldn't fit the full title in the template). It's kind of like a portal with a nav on top. --Pandora X 12:16, 1 February 2007 (PST)

Eh. What's an encyclopedia without a little redundancy? Plus, if the nav template ever gets screwy, we'd still want the eps linked on the portal. -BearDog 12:20, 1 February 2007 (PST)

Naming of transcripts

Shouldn't transcripts be named like this: Not in Portland/Transcript rather than Not in Portland transcript

It keeps things neater and tidier this way.

-- Plkrtn talk contribs email 19:43, 11 February 2007 (PST)

Yeah, that makes sense, I should have done that before I put them all up, huh :) That way, it's easier to go back to the "parent" page. Want to get started? Blah... it's like over 50. Sorry. --Pandora X 19:45, 11 February 2007 (PST)

Par Avion

Why isn't there a Par Avion transcript? bjdharma 10:52, 6 June 2007 (PDT)

Because nobody contributed one? -- Cheers (talk) 16:10, 6 June 2007 (PDT)

Splitting transcripts

Well, I finished my first transcript. My hat goes off to Spookey, PandoraX, Nickb123, and everyone else who does the transcripts. It is no easy feat. I do think though if we were to "split" the transcripts - have someone do one half, someone else do the other half - it would be much easier. If anyone would be interested in splitting a transcript with me, just leave a message at my talk page and we'll discuss. --Mr. Crabby (Talk) 13:02, 14 June 2007 (PDT)

Locked?

Why are some transcript pages (eps 11-22 in season 3) locked? None of the transcript pages should be permanently locked, unless we're absolutely certain that they're 100% perfect. (Which I don't think is generally possible without an official transcript to check them against, though they may be very close.) I noticed "HURLEY" typoed as "HURELY" in two transcripts, and was able to correct a season-1 transcript, but not "D.O.C." because it was locked. I'm sure there are other minor aberrations that can slowly be fixed by our userbase if we leave pages unlocked. There are even cleanup requests on some protected transcripts, which is silly when we're prohibiting most of our users from editing them. -Silence 09:59, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

They've all been unprotected for now. We had problems with users adding premature incomplete transcripts, among other things such as plagiarism from other Lost sites so we left them locked for the end of the third season just to be safe. -Mr.Leaf 11:28, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

Thanks! I think there may be other protected pages that are no longer at risk, too. Maybe the list should be checked over sometime. -Silence 14:52, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

The reason why some transcripts were locked originally is because of the way how they came to be hosted on this site, which translates into a special status of non-editability. You can find the long story about it in discussions scattered on various public and user talk pages. Here's the short story. All transcripts from S1E01 through S3E11 were not created for Lostpedia. We merely copied them from another site after negociating the conditions with their author and with that other site. It was understood that they were immune from the editing process. Basically, the deal was that we were allowed to copy and host them as long as they were left into their original form, period. However, some users eventually began to make edits as they would any other Lostpedia page, which resulted in the sysops taking action and locking the transcripts to prevent that from happening. Some time later, we asked permission to add a few anchors and we obtained permission to add them as long as it didn't modify the text itself (see above, on this talk page). Many transcript pages were then unlocked to allow placement of said anchors. However, as far as I can tell, nobody ever got around to actually do the job of adding the anchors, and those transcript pages have remained unlocked since then. Well, that's the story. Note that transcripts from S3E12 through the end of season 3 were created for Lostpedia and are not subject to the above restrictions and can probably be considered fair game for normal editing. I'm guessing those may have been locked at some point only from force of habit. -- Cheers (talk) 17:25, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

Cheers is right. However Spooky will not be returning to transcribing Lost episodes and therefore will not be editing these transcripts. Because of that any minor changes will be left unedited as Spooky would have normally found them. Because of that we are allowing minor edits to the transcripts for things such as spelling errors or an incorrect word (example hear instead of here), things that Spooky would have fixed and did not mind being fixed. Any larger changes that basically change the transcript in any way are not allowed and reverted. I have all of the transcripts on my watch list so any major changes are reverted but we like to leave them open so we don't have to have users post on the talk page every time they find a spelling mistake, and it is easier this way. Keep that in mind when editing please Silence or any other users who find mistakes and wish to edit past transcripts. -Mr.Leaf 17:36, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

Well, I don't know anything about what sort of prohibitions are on editing the scripts or what sorts of changes are or aren't permitted, but I do know just from starting to read one of the scripts while watching an episode at the same time that, like most fan-made episode transcripts, they're full to the brim with minor errors: grammatical errors, typos, misheard phrasings, naming inconsistencies and anachronisms, awkward or inaccurate descriptions of objects and events, and oddly inconsistent ways of representing pauses and other speech mannerisms. I've made some sample edits to the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities transcript; I'd love to hear which of these edits are or aren't acceptable before I proceed to correct the errors in our whole transcript collection.

It is my honest and very strong recommendation that if our hands are tied in such a way that we cannot fix all the significant errors in these transcripts, then we should start from scratch with transcribing each episode ourselves; it may be more work in the short term, but in the long run it's definitely worth it if it means having accurate rather than inaccurate transcripts. If we are able to fix the transcript's problems without overstepping our bounds, that won't be necessary; but if not, I'll gladly put in the work of making as many of those from-scratch transcriptions as I can, for the sake of letting the wiki do what wikis do best: permitting editing by the userbase, rather than by just one user (no matter how skilled and dedicated that user is). This seems particularly wise if we're going to end up having to do our own transcripts for future episodes anyway. -Silence 18:07, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

I mostly agree with your reasoning. I just explained the history of how the present situation came to be. I didn't want to enter into deeper discussions. -- Cheers (talk) 18:47, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

OK. I definitely want to improve the quality of the transcripts we have available on Lostpedia; all I need to know before I really jump into working on them is (1) whether I should make significant changes to our current transcripts, or just start from scratch if I want to do any more than the most trivial of improvements; and (2) if I do need to start from scratch to improve our transcripts, whether I should follow the same basic style and format of the current scripts, or try to deviate from them in various ways (e.g., by giving dialogue an indent or using section breaks for acts) to avoid accusations of plagiarism. I'm eager to start working on season 3, but I need to know those one or two answers. -Silence 18:57, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

Drop a line to user:nickb123 and user:Mr. Leaf (as they are the unofficial keeper of the transcripts I think) regarding the larger changes. For minor corrections of omissions and errors, just drop me a line and I'll unprotect whatever you need. -- ^C¯ _Santa_ ¯^T 19:01, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

Mr. Leaf's already unprotected all the transcripts, I think. (And I'll alert nickb123 to the ongoing discussion.) I just want to make sure I know what kinds of changes, specifically, are and aren't allowed for the Spooky-created transcripts. If the limitations are severe enough, I'd be happy to begin work immediately on creating some completely and unconditionally free-use transcripts from scratch, so Lostpedia won't have to worry about offending a transcript-maker when an anomaly needs changing. If the restrictions aren't so severe that any of the changes I've made so far to A Tale of Two Cities transcript would be unacceptable, though, that may not be necessary; that hasn't been made clear yet. -Silence 19:26, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

I think Leaf exlained very well where the line can't be crossed. With the exception of the occasional spelling error or typo, the transcripts from before S3E12 are off-limits (including style, wording, everything). We could argue if it was a good thing or not to make that deal (it seemed a good idea at the time), but anyway, a deal's a deal, we gave our word and we should keep it. IMO, the solution is what you suggest: writing our own transcripts from scratch, which would then be normally editable. Unfortunately, not many peope have the patience to do many good transcripts. (I did two transcripts for the French version of Lostpedia and I realized how much work it requires.) If you are willing to do even a few transcripts for Lostpedia, I'd say yes, go ahead. -- Cheers (talk) 19:53, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

For now, I'd suggest working with transcripts after S3E12. Keep in mind we have a general format we follow here (it is hard to miss) so just avoid changing that, anything else in regards to making the transcript more accurate, go for it. All transcripts after 3x12 were written specifically for Lostpedia so they are fine. In the mean time I'll discuss with Nick and other Sysops about the Spooky transcripts and let you guys know what we come up with. -Mr.Leaf 19:58, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

Thanks, that's very helpful. I'll work on 3x13 instead of 3x01, then, for starters. It seems to me that the best long-term course of action, assuming Spooky doesn't object, is a gradual phasing-out of the Spooky transcripts, replacing them one-by-one with completely free-use transcripts as soon as we find or create ones of adequate quality. In this way, we can space out the workload, but still eventually end up with a completely user-editable set of very high-quality, thoroughly-checked and polished transcripts.
If y'all agree, then the only big question I see is: what format and style, specifically, should we adopt for our scripts? Should we pretty much mirror Spooky's style, or should we make as many differences as possible in order to emphasize that they're our own product when we replace Spooky's with Lostpedia's transcripts? Or somewhere in between? It seems to me that if we somehow broke up the monotony of the script pages a little, the transcripts would become immensely more user-friendly and thus valuable. An endless unbroken chunk of text is intimidating and difficult to navigate: I have no idea exactly what improvements y'all think we could make on Spooky's format, if any, but I think this is a perfect time to brainstorm some ideas, if we do decide to start making our own scripts for every episode. -Silence 22:14, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

Character introductions?

I've just started copyediting the script pages, and I've already found dozens of small errors and inconsistencies. Right now, I need to know just one thing: should we or shouldn't we be referring to characters by their names prior to those names being revealed? (This is basically the issue of whether we're writing the script from an "all-knowing", retrospective point of view, or whether we're writing it from the perspective of the "viewer-at-the-time".) So, for example, in ep 3x01's transcript Juliet is referred to rather oddly as "UNKNOWN VOICE" when off-camera, whereas Karl is referred to consistently as "KARL" long before we learn his name; if I know which style is preferable, it'll be possible for me to reconcile this inconsistency while I work on other contradictions. -Silence 14:52, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

I think Spooky, the Lost-TV member who transcribed all of Season 1 and 2, and some of Season 3, said their names before the viewer found them out. See the Pilot transcripts for an example. --Blueeagle islander 00:53, 26 July 2007 (PDT)

I always did my latter S3 ones as unknown until addressed, from the POV of a naive reader. So, for instance, even though the press release told me they were Greta and Bonnie, I didn't add that until Mikhail addressed them as such. To be honest, I didn't really critically analyze Spooky's work for a uniform style, I just did the transcripts that needed to be done, trying to be a bit similar. My understanding was that the transcripts are merely for historical purposes and for resolving disputes like "well it was confirmed by Locke during this episode......" - so I don't think its necessarily prudent to overhaul them all just so they are slightly more align in that one respect. Also, just wanna point out that writing the transcripts from naive point of view seemed better suited as some people read the transcripts having not seen the episode (especially some international viewers who have difficulty with fast-paced spoken English), so I think its a better style for them than revealing, putting it in a nice florid example, who is behind the curtain before they actually show themselves. --Nickb123 (Talk) 03:30, 26 July 2007 (PDT)

First of all, the character-naming issue is one of the least important inconsistencies I saw in Spooky's scripts, so how we should handle them is largely irrelevant to the much bigger issue of what to do about the hundreds of inaccuracies in the transcripts. It's just one of the few inconsistencies I wasn't sure how to handle. Currently, I'm learning toward Spooky's naming practice for a variety of reasons: next to no one will read a transcript before they've seen the episode (even if they first read it in a language they don't know), so spoilers aren't a big issue, especially for episodes that aired months ago; it'll be simpler and easier to keep track of who's saying what, in a text-based medium like scripts, when we don't confuse people with a whirlwind of aliases; do we have to use an alias every time a character speaks off-screen?; and the naive point of view seems impractical precisely for the purpose Nickb123 says our transcripts are primarily for: "historical purposes and resolving disputes". If we have to check the episode or read the whole series of transcripts to understand who's saying what when a line says "UNKNOWN VOICE" or similar, then the transcripts fail in their main purpose. Currently, I'm leaning toward a "seasonal" approach: to avoid egregious spoilers, we just use whatever names will be revealed by the end of a season, in all episodes for that season. Thus, we call Ben "Henry" in season 2, but "Ben" in season 3; since a lot of people these days are watching Lost' on a season-by-season basis with the DVDs, I think that'll avoid most bad spoilers while keeping the scripts easier to parse than if we pepper every episode with "PERSON A" and "PERSON B" or similar.

But, again, none of that's the reason for the overhaul; it's just a sidenote. See my changes on just a preliminary copyedit to see the real problems here. -Silence 08:26, 26 July 2007 (PDT)

Mobisodes

The mobisode transscripts should be added --Hunter61 21:08, 28 November 2007 (PST)

Hi Hunter, mobisode transcripts have now been added. --Lewis -Talk-Contribs 07:30, 30 November 2007 (PST)

Lost: The Complete Third Season (DVD)

Maybe somebody could work on the transscription of the deleted scenes and other specials? It would be appreciated ;-) --Hunter61 21:15, 28 November 2007 (PST)

Wow i'm surprised these havn't been started already! Looks like I'll be spending a lot of time with my box set soon.. --Lewis -Talk-Contribs 07:33, 30 November 2007 (PST)

Subtitled dialogue

Hi. I posted my first transcript, Ji Yeon, and I tried to be consistent with other transcripts. So I typed (in Korean) to every dialogue entry that anyone speaks Korean (rather than just "subtitled") and I placed it after the colon, since now Jin speaks half English as well. Anyway, do you think we should eliminate these paranthesis and instead use color codes? Something like:

The dialogue in blue is subtitled from Korean.

and other colors for other languages if necessary? I think it would make it easier to read and discern between languages spoken. -- c blacxthornE t 08:21, 15 March 2008 (PDT)

Searching

Is there a way to make searching the transcripts easier? This article suggests using Google to search the Lost-TV site, but I'm guessing that is a hang-over from before we hosted the transcripts here. Any suggestions?--TechNic|talk|conts 12:53, 22 April 2008 (PDT)

Interviews

The LP interview section has been removed. This portal is for transcripts of external events which were not originally in text form. It is true that some of the events in the portal are interviews, but these are external events which were televised or podcasted elsewhere. The text-only interviews created by Lostepdia do not qualify; the original text and the "transcript" are the same. (To clarify, the originally "released" media from Lostpedia was a text product, regardless of how the content was created during authorship, e.g. phone call). However it would indeed be useful to have a portal or nav template just for the Lostpedia interviews-- but it doesn't belong here. -- ^C¯ _Santa_ ¯^T 20:54, 18 June 2008 (PDT)

I'll take the credit for that, as I made the LP interview section. I hadn't pick-up on that nuance before.

Kevrock talk contribs 08:00, 19 June 2008 (PDT)

I quite liked them being here, as I felt it is easy to find. However, I guess you're right, they need their own nav portal, as long as they are well linked to, as I think lots of people will want to see them. --Nickb123 (Talk) 08:08, 19 June 2008 (PDT)

There's no reason not to put them here, they are in fact transcripts (yep, go check a dictionary). We'd just to make a minor tweak to the introductory paragraph which was written before we anticipated all the links that might go here. Certainly if the diary can go here, our interviews can go here. --Jackdavinci 22:27, 20 June 2008 (PDT)

Good point about the diary. However the rationale for its inclusion as a "transcript" is that it is no longer available in its original form (the website no longer exists). Even when the website did exist, it was a transcript of a full graphical ARG website. -- ^C¯ _Santa_ ¯^T 01:26, 21 June 2008 (PDT)

No, I feel that the interviews are separate from transcripts in the sense that LP uses them in. I think that they should not be grouped in with these, and should be their own separate entity in the site. -- Sam McPherson T C 22:41, 20 June 2008 (PDT)

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