Can we get a mod consensus on the spoiler:s08e14 vs. spoiler:s08e18 tags?

Because right now there sure as heck ain’t any consensus among uploaders; some people are tagging Yakity-Sax as spoiler:s08e18 and some as spoiler:s08e14, and a sizeable portion of both are ready to smash a bottle on the bar and fight about it.
 
I think the correct thing to do would be to tie spoiler:s08e14 to a matter of principals and spoiler:s08e18 to yakity-sax, since those are the actual factual episode numbers regardless of DiscoFam effing up the airing order, and change the tag descriptions of all four tags to indicate the correct ordering, with a site announcement banner for a week or two to remind everyone who actually pays attention to site announcement banners of it.
 
This airdate swap is a temporary feature, done as a one-off for a DiscoFam special event in July 2018, and won’t be repeated again; the proper episode order– i.e., Yakity-Sax is Ep18– will be the permanent record for Season 8, appearing in future DVD/iTunes/Netflix(?)/et al. lists. It just seems silly to perpetuate any confusion FOREEEEVER based on a one-time misordering.

Airing order = our order.

Eh, I think it should be changed…

@cheezedoodle  
It would be one thing if the episode was just aired out of order and that was it, but the season doesn’t officially restart until next weekedend and Yakity-Sax is still scheduled to air as the 18th episode of season 8 at the end of August.

I think we should list it in the official order.

the df press release and the site code also list it as ep18, so i would recommend the change for yakity-sax to ep18.  
it was just because of this sneak peek or summer surprise that it was available earlier, outside of the intended normal schedule.  
the episode will air again in a few weeks at its intended place 18 on the 25th august.  
repeatings will also have it at place 18 etc.

Aside of people arguing which number it should be (which isn’t “natural” so to speak), the one time I’ve seen someone number it has been 14 (see >>1785762).  
I believe the average fandom goer who does not particularly follow official info will believe it to be episode 14, and that we will probably create less confusion if we go with what they believe. Additionally, if I was someone not in the know setting up an anti-spoiler filter, I’d assume episode numbers are sequential in terms of airing and put 18 and not 14 in my filter right now.  
A year out, people will be going off of wiki numbers etc., and on that note, the main wiki currently lists it as episode 14. Wikipedia meanwhile lists episode 14 as A Matter of Principals, apparently based on the official info, while Google appears rather confused as it lists episode 14 currently as The Hearth’s Warming Club (part 2 continuation of A Matter of Principals from what I’ve heard).
 
So, it’s clear we will create some confusion calling it 14, due to Wikipedia/Google and the official info they’re drawing from. However, the most important thing for episode numbering (in the short term) is spoiler filtering, and I think it’s quite reasonable to expect numbers be ordinal with respect to time. Between that and the main fandom-specific wiki, I think it best we keep it 14 and, in general, go with episode air dates.

Normally, I’d argue for sticking to numbering episodes as their air. However, the fact that this if fairly clearly something done outside of the normal airing order and that “Yakity-Sax” is going to be airing in the 18th spot anyway later this season makes me wonder if this is the best course of action in this particular instance – largely, most official sources still seem to be treating it as episode #18, DiscFam’s early airing notwithstanding.
 
EDIT: And never mind, ninjad.

Sorry to play Captain Hindsight, but I can’t help feel this could have been avoided if Yakity-Sax had just implied spoiler:s08e18 from the start and the usual warning message from when it aired had called it an early preview rather than declaring it to be episode 14.
 
I understand changing it to episode 18 now could cause some major confusion, but some part of my brain really can’t stand the willful mislabeling going on.

I personally stand with the official listing as a better form of standard, if it’s 18 officially go with it, then again either ways the tag will serve it’s purpose… at least when you sorta out which one is it hehe so this isn’t as problematic as it seems.

@ZONESS  
Same. Not much can really be done I suppose…

I agree with TexasUberAlles and LightningBolt in this thread. Please go by the actual order, not this one-time unique “SURPRISE” early airing.

@cheezedoodle  
Airing order = our order  

 
@ZONESS  
Yakity-Sax is still scheduled to air as the 18th episode of season 8 at the end of August  
This is the thing that really clinches it for me; the early airing was just that– an early airing– and it doesn’t make sense to me that the permanent site timeline should be based on a one-time event instead of the actual regular schedule. If Derpi is going to set the episode number by initial airing, is Yakity Sax going to be Episode 14 and Episode 18, in a season with 27 episodes? If not, why not? The logic is internally inconsistent.

And for the record, I disagree with the way the wiki is doing it and I’m going to see what I can do to change it.

“Yakity-Sax” is s08e14. It wasn’t leaked, it wasn’t aired early on some Canadian or European or Australian network, it was intentionally aired as the 14th episode of season 8 of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic on the official Discovery Family Channel network.
 
If you want to change that, get Brian Goldner to email me about it.

Tags are gonna need cleanup/policing, then, and likely an addition to the tag descriptions.

@Zeb  

 
I agree.  
Everything else will just lead to much confusion and unnecessary work.  
Now the real episode 14 will be tagged as 15, the real episode 15 will be tagged as 16 and so on.  
It would be better to correct it as soon as possible.

@Princess Luna  

 
Being the only site listing it with the wrong episode number shouldn’t be done.
 
And this is easily fixed by just changing the implications and mass tagging. It’s seriously not somehting that will be difficult to clean up.

i see this as evidence that it is indeed episode 18.  
http://sharing.rainbowdash.tv/ys-evidence/df-xhr.png  
http://sharing.rainbowdash.tv/ys-evidence/midseason.png
 
and nearly every site go by it, except derpibooru and wikia.  
http://sharing.rainbowdash.tv/ys-evidence/wikipedia.png  
http://sharing.rainbowdash.tv/ys-evidence/broniesde.png  
http://sharing.rainbowdash.tv/ys-evidence/eqd.png  
http://sharing.rainbowdash.tv/ys-evidence/mlppolska.png  
http://sharing.rainbowdash.tv/ys-evidence/mlpforums.png  
http://sharing.rainbowdash.tv/ys-evidence/youtube.png  
http://sharing.rainbowdash.tv/ys-evidence/xxnightmaremoonxx.png  
http://sharing.rainbowdash.tv/ys-evidence/downloadsyakitysax.png
 
i see nearly no reaction video, download, or episode guide who list it as 14.  
so it will lead to confusion if derpibooru suddenly decides to make their own numbering.

@Zeb  
“Everyone else is wrong so we should be wrong too.”
 
Nice.
 
It’s the 14th episode of season 8 aired.

@The Frowning Pony  
“The people in charge of the product are wrong. We’re right.”  
I can make exaggerated comments too. =P  
[Said in jest]
 
But in seriousness. Do we have a reason for ignoring the official order? Why make it more confusing for the users who see a different number on all of the other sites?

@Zeb  
As I said, get Brian Goldner to email me about it. Otherwise, official airing order is the episode order, and Yakity-Sax is the 14th episode of season 8 officially aired on the home network for the show.

Is Big Jim not authoritative enough a source? He seems a bit more accessible.

@TexasUberAlles  
Can Big Jim warp time? Because otherwise the question of “Was Yakity-Sax the 14th episode of MLP:FiM aired on DFC?” is still going to be “Yes”.

@The Frowning Pony  
Well, presumably he could say something along the lines of “Yeah, it’s supposed to be the 18th episode, here’s a script excerpt with ‘EP187’ clearly labeled, Discovery Networks didn’t ask us but we still got paid so whatevs” and maybe have it carry a little more weight than any of us on this side of the DHX security checkpoint could bring to bear.
 
I think you’re wrong here about Airdate v. Production Order, but it’s your site and not mine, so y’all are the ones who decide how stuff gets labeled. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Mostly I just want there to be one consistent rule that gets applied to all uploads and is clearly explained where everyone can see it, because right now there are two camps and each one is agenda-tagging screencaps accordingly.