Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Code of Honor (TNG episode)

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[edit] Code of Honor (TNG episode)

Code of Honor (TNG episode) was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was keep.

Please read this.

This page has no potential to become encyclopedic. Wikipedia is not a general knowledge base. Wikipedia articles are neither encomia/fan pages, nor critical pans. Biographies and articles about art works are supposed to be encyclopedia articles. But of course critical analysis of art is welcome, if grounded in direct observations.

The page in question is about the third episode of the television show Star Trek, The Next Generation. It is not a biography about an art work, but a mere synopsis of a Star Trek episode, and it has little potential to become encyclopedic because it was not a notable work on its own, and did not affect society in any observable way.

There is a Star Trek Wiki at http://www.memory-alpha.org, where articles like this would be appropriate. --NoPetrol 05:20, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Keep. Gamaliel 06:36, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, because this article would fit in Sci-Fi encyclopedia and there's no reason why Wikipedia can't be all sorts of different types of encyclopedias instead of just a general reference. Listing all these pages at once for the same reason wastes our time, you should have listed only one and then listed others if people agreed with you. DreamGuy 08:31, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. Xezbeth 09:47, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. See above for my comments about why "critical analysis of art" is not "welcome". (Besides, if you start deleting Star Trek episodes, what next? Deleting Sherlock Holmes short stories?) P Ingerson 12:24, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Actually, if an article about a Sherlock Holmes story is not about a story that has any significance on its own, then it should be deleted too, I think. An encyclopedia isn't supposed to be a substitute for narrative works- if a person is interested in a story, they should read or watch that story, not read about it in an encyclopedia. --NoPetrol 12:43, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

But if you haven't time/opportunity/etc. to read the whole story or watch the whole episode? If you need to know background details about why the story was written that way, and which real-life events/places/people inspired it? Or behind-the-scenes information about the controversial reasons why this actor was cast in the guest-star role, and how that particular special effect was done? You can't get all that just from reading/watching the episode, especially if you're skimming through it in a hurry. (Ok, so you can't get it from this particular article either at the moment, but that's a reason for expanding it, not deleting it!) P Ingerson 13:15, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Keep. Second, Star Trek: The Next Generation arguably "affected society in an observable way". And yet that series primarily consisted of its episodes. Do you think you can judge exactly what made it affect society, an why this episode certainly had no effect? JRM 17:27, 2004 Dec 27 (UTC)
  • Yes, it created a group of people that everyone else stereotypes as being over the top obsessives (see the character of Comic Book Guy in The Simpsons). This is what the vast majority of people think when you say Star Trek - that it's followed by really, really obsessive fans who dress up as Klingons at the drop of a hat. And it should be noted that it is not the Next Generation that started that, it was the original series (which I used to watch as a kid). Apart from having the first interracial kiss on US TV and having fans campaign to get a Space Shuttle named Enterprise, I can't think of that many major contributions to the world that it really achieved. Average Earthman 12:43, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. While I appreciate you telling us all what the Wikipedia is and isn't to you, I think you are mistaken if you think the whole world agrees with you. Michael L. Kaufman 18:00, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)
• Hmm, tricky one. I'm going to have to vote Merge and Redirect into Star Trek The Next Generation Episodes. --fvw* 19:48, 2004 Dec 27 (UTC)
• Keep. Delete nominator for blatant and deliberate violation of Wikipedia:Deletion policy - David Gerard 23:00, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Rubbish. The nominator believes that it does not have the ability to become encyclopedic. You have a different definition of encyclopedic to him, that's all. Suggesting he should be deleted is just ridiculous. Average Earthman 12:43, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, personal POV over whether one would like this information to be in a small encyclopædia is irrelevant; this listing does not seem to have been made on grounds in line with policy. James F. (talk) 02:18, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. The web is not lacking in Star Trek episode guides. -- Walt Pohl 06:31, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• The net is not lacking in many things that appear here. Should we delete the pages about the US presidents because there is a government web site that shows the same information? Should we delete the Oscar winners? Should we delete the pages related to current events because there are plenty of news sites? As far as I know, the Wikipedia was not designed to fill in the missing pieces from the rest of the web. Michael L. Kaufman 19:45, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)

What do you think an encyclopedia is? It is a reference work that collects information that would be difficult to obtain otherwise (as high school students have known for several generations). An NPOV account of a US president's career is the perfect example of what you turn to an encyclopedia for. We shouldn't have a Star Trek episode guide for the same reason we shouldn't include listings for the local movie theatre. -- Walt Pohl 21:52, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, I have looked and looked, but I can't find any part of the definition of a Wikipedia or an encyclopedia that mentions anything about it being important that the information is difficult to obtain elsewhere. It uses inclusive words like compendium or general. Plus, I just don't get your anology. We shouldn't include local movie listings, because that information is constantly losing its value and there is essentially no chance that the information will be of interest beyond a small group of people. Neither case is true here. The information about the epsiodes is not expiring, and it certainly is of interest to a large group of people. How do you feel the anology fits? Michael L. Kaufman 02:00, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

• Merge into an appropriate season guide. Average Earthman 12:43, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Merge this and all other season one TNG episodes into a single season guide. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:32, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Keep unless there is a specific Wikipedia policy against doing so. There are other articles devoted to individual episodes of other Trek series such as Enterprise, as well as individual books in a series (see James Bond). If Wikipedia's admin wants to cast a blanket rule, that's their perogative. (Cutting and pasting for all TNG episode-related VfD, apologies for duplication) 23skidoo 04:03, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Keep Dbenbenn 18:36, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Delete I'm sick of this, from the amount of stuff on here about Star Trek TNG you'd think it was the towering achievement of human history, which it isn't. The Simpsons is. Alexp73 14:20, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Keep Holodoctor1 11:35, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, silly deletionists. ✏ OvenFresh☺ 16:18, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.