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I have observed an editor relying heavily upon citing this website for establishing things like episode titles and debut dates.
Although it is possible that this site could qualify as a source for "when an episode was first televised at a scheduled date in the United States", I don't think we should use it for anything beyond this.
One major problem is that people will cite an "upcoming air date" as if it is the "First Aired", which is wrong. Zap2it may not create an entry until it has a time-based televised airing but that doesn't mean this will be the date they will use as "First Aired", since that may defer to an earlier time.
In fact the 'First Aired' often appears to be earlier in the Episode Guide tab. 184.145.18.50 (talk) 15:17, 9 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
I've been annoyed by some things I've seen from people doing this.
Firstly is the appending of the ?aid=zap2it string at the end of a URL. Please take that off. It isn't needed for a link to function, all you need is the number before it. I realize that's added automatically when you visit a page but please take the time to clip it off instead of unexamined copy and pasting.
Secondly is the linking of episode list pages instead of individual episode pages. Please do the latter instead of the former. A problem I'm seeing is misleading "access-date" summaries. People will, at the start of the series, paste the episode overview page and then give a very earlier access-date. Then people will just keep using this same URL to support later episodes without actually updating the access date.
The problem there is that when zap2it initially lists a series, they might for example only list the first 3 episodes and their dates, as only so many are known in advance. But then as people keep adding more and more episodes, it gives the false impression that say, episode 10, had its date and title announced far earlier than it actually was.
I'm going to remove that wherever I see it due to this recurring misuse of citation. Instead, actually link an individual episode page and when you accessed that page, as that may not have been reflected in earlier versions of the overview page.
It's to the point where I'm not going to believe an access-date reflected some later episodes unless someone has copied it to archive.org to show it was there. Archive dates can be checked and are more reliable than access dates. Ranze (talk) 18:29, 17 August 2016 (UTC)Reply
It appears that Zap2it has changed its name to Screener. We should probably reflect that in the article, however it seems the transition is not complete yet, as TV listings and ratings (TV by the Numbers) are still under the old domain for the time being. nyuszika7h (talk) 20:50, 12 October 2016 (UTC)Reply
Ah, it's mentioned in the article, I missed that. Might be too early to rename it though, not sure. nyuszika7h (talk) 20:51, 12 October 2016 (UTC)Reply
In cases where there are conflicts of information, while I do see zap2it as useful, it isn't perfect and want to point that out here in cases where it contradicts other sources.
To start off, with the show PJ Masks
The problem with these as follows:
Given these examples, we can see that zap2it has a history of including mistakes, duplication, and misleading numbering. While this isn't the norm, it should we shouldn't put absolute faith in what they do and consider that sometimes their claims may be in error.
I don't know if this is due to manual input mistakes or problems with some kind of automated software that doesn't receive competent editor overlook, but we should give priority to more official sources of information when there is a contradiction noticed. Ranze (talk) 03:45, 16 November 2016 (UTC)Reply
The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) TonyBallioni (talk) 14:12, 25 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
Screener (website) → Zap2It – As of April of this year, Tribune Digital Ventures has dropped the Screener name from the website, and reverted it to the previous Zap2It brand. However, the article title has not changed accordingly. Traditionally, when the name of a product, network, website or company, etc. has changed, the article title is redirected to the new name, with information included in the article to note the name change. TVTonightOKC 13:51, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
This has become rather complicated but in the original nomination [1] Tvtonightokc stated Traditionally, when the name of a product, network, website or company, etc. has changed, the article title is redirected to the new name. I won't mince my words, AFAIK this is pure and absolute rubbish. There is no such tradition, policy, anything. Andrewa (talk) 11:15, 24 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
The result of the move request was: not moved. Number 57 12:39, 27 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Screener (website) → Zap2It – The reason for this is because six months ago, Tribune Digital Ventures dropped the Screener name from the website, and reverted it back to the previous Zap2It brand. Zap2It is the original name of the website. AdamDeanHall (talk) 21:21, 19 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
As of Jan 2018, the zap2it website TV listings are suddenly quite changed/limited: "new and improved" in frustrating ways etc. This seems to be connected with a change in ownership. Please add info to the article about this apparently consummated change in management.-73.61.15.58 (talk) 00:46, 9 January 2018 (UTC)Reply
My two cents on an old can of worms:
Screener (website) is not even named in its own article intro.
Screener's url, as given by this article and verifiable by reproducible original research (that is, by visiting the website), is zap2it.com.
My understanding from the article and this talk page is that Zap2it was the original name and Screener has decided to return to that primary branding. This suggests to me that Zap2it is both an official name (see also its url and the header of that website) as well as the most likely common name.
Wikipedia:Article titles#Deciding on an article title recommends Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness, and Consistency (as goals, not as rules). For Conciseness and Precision, does anyone dispute Zap2it is better than Screener (website)? For Recognizability, i've only ever known Zap2it, and was surprised Wikipedia redirected to a website name i'd never heard, but i wouldn't know how to guess how many people recognize the website by the name Screener. Naturally (for Naturalness) i would only search for, link to, or mention anything using the name i know, but i recognize (see what i did there?) others might naturally use other names that they know.
(i don't know that article title Consistency is relevant to this conversation. If a website has a Wikipedia page, the site name is probably typically the best article title, unless a disambiguation is needed. Screener's disambiguation is fine, but Zap2it doesn't need disambiguation. For comparison, the websites that come to mind that need disambiguation include Amazon, Bing, Googol, Hotwire, Outlook, Yahoo; websites that don't need disambiguation include eBay, GeoCities, Hotmail, Lycos, YouTube.)
...Yeah, my two cents. Got change for a five?
--71.121.143.194 (talk) 22:31, 17 July 2018 (UTC)Reply
