Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Dinner At Eight

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was - kept

[edit] Dinner At Eight

Does a single episode of Frasier really warrant it's own article? I'm sure there are many other resources with synopses for all episodes available. Delete Barneyboo 00:28, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• If the episode is particularly notable or famous or somehow stands apart from other Frasier episodes, then it could warrant an article. There are precedents. (Spam (Monty Python), for example). If there is no evidence that this episode specifically stands out, however, I say delete it. Fishal 01:13, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Delete: Just an episode. Nothing stand-out about it that I can tell. For that matter, I'm not sure Frasier ever had such a notable episode. Geogre 01:33, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep and I look forward to having every episode of the show. - SimonP
• Delete and... AAAHHHHHH!!! --Fastfission 05:39, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. Gamaliel 06:21, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Delete, or condense into a few sentences and merge with List of Frasier episodes. We really just don't need this. -R. fiend 07:20, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• I agree; delete. It's not even a full and correct summary, IIRC. Katherine Shaw 09:25, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

• If people insist on having this sort of thing (and at least Frasier had a relatively large audience), but if they're going to be that short, they should be at least merged by season. Average Earthman 09:09, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. Ambi 09:27, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Comment: Unsure. Since the song "Dinner at Eight" is probably more famous than this episode, if it's kept it should be moved, and under this title we should either have a disambig or an article about the song. If the latter then we'd need a Dinner at Eight (disambiguation) page too. Wikipedia is not paper sure, but... No vote yet. Andrewa 11:22, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Comment: Unsure. The problem with removing it is if you do then we really need to remove all other pages that are episodes of TV series. Wikipedia needs a policy on this, do we have them or not. We need one rule to apply to them all. Ben W Bell 13:28, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • There's a thorough ongoing discussion about this very topic at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy. I encourage people to get involved. (and if someone does could they maybe throw a new heading in there to divide it up? The section has gotten too big for me to edit without deleting someone's contributions) -R. fiend 16:11, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. Episodes are not intrinsically encyclopedic. Fancruft. --Improv 14:53, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Delete: fancruft. Another one for the fan sites. Wile E. Heresiarch 15:53, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• keep, tens of millions of people have seen this episode. —siroχo 19:37, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
  • Comment: tens of millions of people have also seen Levitra ads. -R. fiend 14:46, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Comment: My comparison is to the street corner of 86th and Lexington in NYC. Probably a hundred million people have been there, bought something at one of the stores, and dodged traffic or gone to the subway. It's just a corner, though. Similarly, we know that Rod McKuen has outsold William Shakespeare as a poet. A billboard saying, "The end is near" that's put up on a major highway will get seen by tens of thousands. Notability has to, in my opinion, inhere with the thing itself and adhere to the thing in its context (Frasier episodes, TV shows that year, etc.). Geogre 16:03, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. Wikipedia is not and should not be an episode guide. There is nothing to suggest that this particular episode is of encyclopedic notability. An article on Frasier is warranted and sufficient. To echo my opinion at Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_policy#Policy_proposal_concerning_episode_guides_and_episode_lists, this article—not its current content, but the concept—is exactly like an article called National Geographic Vol. XXVI, issue 17 or Uncanny X-Men number 73. —Triskaideka 20:16, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Delete, but if someone makes an attempt to demonstrate the notability of this episode (in the article), I'll change my vote. [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 21:37, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Merge a clipped form of this into the List of Frasier episodes (which could get separated into lists by season to describe what story arc there is). Sitcom episodes are decidedly poor candidates for extended analysis. There is little to be gained beyond a few sentence summary on the List page. I'm not saying that it's not possible for there to be a good extended article about a Frasier episode, but this isn't it and doesn't do anything to indicate its noteworthiness. older≠wiser 21:48, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep Cabalamat 22:04, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Delete jni 13:47, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopaedia - from where I stand I would contend that single episodes of Frasier carry more worth than some trashy novels which are given articles simply on the merit they are books. There is no justifiable reason to delete a correct article, on a subject familiar to millions - simply due to academic elitism. --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 22:02, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Comment: By that same logic you could justify the inclusion of a recipe for tuna salad or a HOWTO on refueling a car, as long as they were correct. Academic elitism is not the issue; if it were, we'd be trying to delete Frasier too. The problem with my examples, and with Dinner At Eight, is that they are outside the scope of an encyclopedia. —Triskaideka 15:53, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. agree with OldakQuills comments. RustyCale 11:42, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC).
• Delete, if only because it's too trivial to justify a stand-alone article.--NathanHawking 19:08, 2004 Oct 15 (UTC)

It is "stand-alone" due to its reasonable length - a length not appropriate for a compiled season article.

• Delete, since nobody's been able to demonstrate that this is a particularly noteworthy episode. Fishal 22:43, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Noteworthiness" is not a definitive value. The mere fact that millions of people from many countries have watched the episode and that it is an integral part (along with most other episodes) of Frasier is "noteworthy" in itself. I would contend that this episode has been experience by more people than many artists on Wikipedia, than many books.

Noteworthiness is indeed critical to whether something belongs on Wikipedia. We don't, for example, have encyclopedia articles on each block of sidewalk in New York City, despite millions of people from many countries having walked on them (tourism). --Improv 15:31, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

An episode and a paving block are simply not comparable - you use sidewalks to get somewhere, they are necessary to movement - they are passive. To watch an episode requires dedication and awareness. Similarly, an episode carries artistic and other worth - which is not necessarily the case for a paving stone. Thirdly, I would see nothing wrong with each block of sidewalk in New York City having an article - if enough could be written about each, we are afterall not paper. --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 22:58, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• Delete. Although I'm still unsure whether a blanket rule for this stuff would pan out, it still needs to be dealt with in some manner. Ian Pugh 18:15, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep Three points. (1) There are plenty of these articles about a single episode about, why single out this one. (2) With a season of 20+ episodes, a single page for all of them would just be too long. What would happen if we tried deleting all the Star Trek ones?? (3) There are plenty of articles about characters in a single sketch in a half hour show about (eg see Piranha brothers). If they're noteworthy enough for an article, so is that.
• Keep. It may not be a topic everyone is interested in, but it's information nonetheless. MK 01:18, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Comments: To be included in wikipedia something has to meet a slightly higher standard than being "information". True, "wikipedia is not paper", but a less widely cited truth is that "wikipedia is not infinite". An article on every episode of every TV show ever aired would eventually fill up wikipedia, as would one on every slab on concrete in the world. I do think we need to be more consistent, but I do not think that writing thousands of episode articles is the way to do it. Likewise I disagree that a single page for a season would be too long. -R. fiend 16:54, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. Interesting. Plus, WP is not paper. You don't have to read it. The Recycling Troll 19:59, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. Intrigue 20:33, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. The senseless censorship of Wikipedia is clearly out of hand. Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. There is a clear demonstrated precedent and interest in this subject matter. Radman1 14:21, 18 Oct 2004 (PST)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.