Agreed, I can not correct season 2 or 3 because they are clashing with each other because of various reasons such as episode The Fry Cook Games and Squid on Strike that has been duplicated in season 2. Season 3 is trying to pull the episode from season 2 notable, The Bully and Just One Bite. It's aggravating. Both The Movie Database and Tv Database have problems. I haven't started watching it yet purely because I want it organised.

Please fix this

Ok...since nobody really seemed to respond to the issue here, I went ahead and put it back the way it was. No more lost episodes. The source used (which is what was apparently used previously) is the spongebob wiki here: https://spongebob.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_season_2_episodes.

@WardenclyffeTower said:

We can review and lock the episodes if someone would take the time to find official sources and link them here. Wikis aren't official, they can be modified by anyone and the linked article has no references itself. I see issues with the episode order right away because the air dates for episodes 1 & 2 are after episode 3. Episodes should be listed in aired order and you can create Episode Groups to deal with production or DVD orders.

https://www.themoviedb.org/bible/tv/59f743289251416e71000037

Please also note the report guidelines: https://www.themoviedb.org/bible/general/59f792a29251413e93000001#59f792a29251413e93000003

Be patient! We receive a high volume of reports. Getting a reply may take a few weeks or more. You can bump your request after two months.

Including official sources in reports help speed the process along.

The listing is a real mess as it is since previous users have changed the titles and overviews without taking into account the existing images and translations, etc.

The problem here is that it's been that way for years and years. Someone only recently changed it. All I did was put it back the way it was. So, if we want to stick to aired order, etc, then it should have been done from the start on these. But you can't just go and cherry pick a season from almost 20 years ago and suddenly redo just that season. As mentioned above, it created both orphaned and duplicated episodes.

So, for season 12 and going forward, sure - I'll absolutely follow those rules, no issues whatsoever. But for stuff from 2001, whomever made the changes basically broke it for everyone, including myself, who has been using that order for years.

I do apologize for any issues I've created in trying to rectify this. I did think about the images and was going to try and loop back and address that, but I didn't think about any translations.

@WardenclyffeTower said:

@doncaruana said: But you can't just go and cherry pick a season from almost 20 years ago and suddenly redo just that season. As mentioned above, it created both orphaned and duplicated episodes.

If it was wrong then you certainly can, and should.

Swell - so it's okay to "correct" season 2 and then mess up season 3 and subsequent seasons without addressing those as well? Again, these episodes have been set like this for years in this system. At this point, "wrong" is a tad subjective also. This was a case of "let sleeping dogs lie" from my perspective. And now we have a mess.

Personally I think any season older than a year or two should be locked once complete. If someone feels the urge to go and rearrange it, then they raise a report and have it vetted properly.

So has this been corrected then?

@WardenclyffeTower said:

It is always allowed to correct incorrect data. It is not okay to mess up anything. Has anyone said it's okay to do that? If you see something wrong you can either correct it yourself or make a report.

So this is kinda my point...whomever made this recent "correction" should have either a) done the entire series or b) made a report. Doing it half way just put us in this messed up situation.

And, staying on the subject of actual data, a fundamental issue with Spongebob is that when seasons start and end is not universally agreed upon. There may not be much reference on season 2, but the spongebob wiki that I linked to has far more documented official sources than I've seen anywhere else. Most of the time, someone just sort of arbitrarily, based upon time or whatever, decides when a season has "started", and at times in conflict with documented information otherwise. For example, "The Bully" and "Just One Bite" were "deemed" to be in Season 2 (per TVDB) because they premiered in 2001. However, "officially", they are part of season 3 as it was released.

I don't think there is a definitive enough source to change what is in the system currently as I don't consider TVDB source enough to warrant changing what is here. Can we please just leave things they way they are currently (which is the way they were a couple of months ago) and agree to maintain the show order, etc on new episodes?

So you started correcting the order... Based on what information source? In what season? All of them? Did you just start recreating the same issue? At least before it was a consumable data base. Instead of trying to redo 250 episodes, why not create groups to represent the "seasons"?

I'm trying to come up with a reasonable solution that doesn't take months of work nor breaks the use of this series' for so many people. I just want to try to resolve this for everyone.

@Magitroopa said:

The newer seasons and specials have also been messed with now too.

What specifically have you noticed? I'm personally not understanding why it was necessary for anyone to arbitrarily designate an episode right in the middle of the current broadcast "season" as a "special". What makes it a special? That's the only thing I see in season 12, where the birthday bash appears there and (somehow) twice in the specials as well.