Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Episodes

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[edit] Potential problem concerning episode articles

I am not certain if this is our expected behaviour or not however I am bringing this to admin attention anyways: [1]

User seems to be mass merge tagging articles and later redirectifying them. That seems to be the case for the past 5000 edits at least. Is this acceptable behaviour? Are episode articles banned?

-- Cat chi? 21:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Individual episode articles aren't banned, but they still have to meet WP:NOTE just like every other article. That is, they don't get a free pass on notability just because their parent show is, if you get my drift. There are currently vast numbers of individual episode articles which could never meet WP:NOTE and thus should be merged into their parent "season" article instead of on their own.
WP:EPISODE lays out the procedure pretty well. Bullzeye (Ring for Service) 21:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
They are not merged. They are blanked/redirectified. WP:EPISODE doesn't require mass merging. And I see no centralized discussion for such a thing anywhere. -- Cat chi? 21:19, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Actually, it kind of does...there's a logical progression here that has to be met. Series, then season, then individual episode. Each one must meet WP:NOTE. A lot of people assume that since multiple independent sources can be found for the series and the season, that means every individual episode deserves it's own page. This is, obviously, not the case. Merging (mass or otherwise) is the appropriate policy-approved way of dealing with a non-notable episode from a notable season (or notable series). Bullzeye (Ring for Service) 22:13, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
I see no "policy"-approved procedure for this. Guidelines are there to help us write better articles. They are not licenses for deletion without discussion. -- Cat chi? 01:07, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
You mean those policies such as Verifiability? And the guideline at Reliable sources? Corvus cornix 19:43, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm using merge tags, and waiting for discussion, so yes, it's fine. This has been up here many, many times for when I was being WP:BOLD in redirecting, so it has come down to that. To answer your question, by WP:EPISODE, most episodes have no chance of ever needing to exist. We have somewhere over five thousand episode articles (possibly way more) that need to be taken care of, so that is what I am doing. TTN 21:09, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Your idea of taking care of is removal of over "five thousand" articles without undergoing any deletion procedure. Such AFDs will most likely fail if my experience is any indication. -- Cat chi? 21:19, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps you could try something constructive like coming up with a reason that these articles are notable? Otherwise, TNN is just engaging in cleanup. Shell babelfish 00:09, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I am uncertain what to say here. What is the metric for notability for episode articles? If all episode articles are to be deleted, I want to see a general discussion for it. Or else someone, if not me, will mass revert the mass merging. -- Cat chi? 01:07, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Under WP:BOLD, he can redirect as he pleases. If people push back, he needs to discuss. There is no special notability for episodes- just the standard form. He should, if people revert, discuss individual groups of articles on the List of Episode page. — i said 01:11, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
i disagree. TTN is editing way too fast on tagging and redirecting the episode articles. Being bold is one thing but redirecting an episode without checking if it has sustained its notability is another... TTN, please stop and gain consensus before redirecting any more articles. --DarkFalls talk 01:17, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
There is no way I or anyone can discuss at the rate of his tagging. I would think any show with the cultural impact as 24 to be notable. I do not know what reason is needed to establish notability... Why is Shakespeare's Hamlet notable? Why is any book or movie notable? The idea that a show itself is notable yet none of its episodes are worth a mention simply baffles me. If something is not notable, why is not AFD used? -- Cat chi? 01:23, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Also, the pages are not being merged. "Merge" implies that all or at least some of the content is being moved into the target article; this is not the case, they are just being redirected. For such a large list of articles, there should be some sort of centralized discussion, possibly one discussion per series as to: should they all be merged (some episodes may have notability for specific reasons that others in the same series do not), what content should be merged, etc. I think this is taking WP:BOLD a little too far and bordering on WP:POINT. Mr.Z-man 01:32, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I would agree that this behavior is quite disruptive. Particularly disturbing is the fact that AWB is being used to make controversial edits. IronGargoyle 01:35, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Re:Notability. There has been centralised discussion about the notability of episodes: WP:EPISODE arose out of one such discussion a couple of years ago, and has recently been rediscussed (see WT:EPISODE). The guidelines for establishing notability of fiction articles is undergoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction), and the actual necessity for separate guidelines for fiction is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Notability. As to centralised discussion about the appropriate action to undertake regarding articles which fail the above notability guidelines, then this can be found at the talk pages of WP:TVE and WP:TV-REVIEW, Wikipedia talk:Television article review process. If anyone has a concern about any issues about episode articles, regarding notability through to the processes surrounding such articles, then it's probably worth checking out any of those pages and contributing to constructive debate there. Gwinva 01:45, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
WP:EPISODE does not say that this is what to do. It says how to determine if episodes should get articles. This is just mass redirection of episode articles with little or no review. WP:EPISODE does not say whether or not each of the episode articles redirected was notable or not, nor does it say that episodes should not get articles. Mr.Z-man 01:57, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Having just randomly reviewed ten of the most recent thousand edits made by TTN (talk · contribs), all the episode articles I saw generally had zero references and no real world context. Likewise they were chock full of things that WP:EPISODE says to avoid, including trivia sections, quotations, in-universe writing, and extremely detailed plot summary sections. Again, this was only a 1% spot-check, but I did not see any issues with TTN`s clean up work. --Kralizec! (talk) 01:50, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I fail to see why redirecting articles without checking the notability is considered "clean-up work". WP:EPISODE is a guideline on creating new articles, it is by no means a guideline set for deleting articles. WP:NN clearly states that discussion must be present, and that suitable consensus must emerge for the redirection of articles. --DarkFalls talk 02:39, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps I missed something, so please bear with me. Lets take Indian Summer (Dawson's Creek episode), one of the articles in question that I reviewed during my spot-check of TTN`s clean-up work. On August 25th, TTN added [2] a {{mergeto}} tag on the article that included a discussion link to Talk:List of Dawson's Creek episodes#Episode notability. After 34 days, consensus was determined and two days later (36 days after the article was tagged) the episode was merged [3] into the episode list. Reviewing the final, pre-merger version of the article shows it to be a textbook example of what WP:EPISODE says to avoid: quotes, featured music, zero citations, no real world context, and a decorative fair-use image. Looks like a pretty clear cut case of cleanup to me. --Kralizec! (talk) 04:05, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
He also redirected all the episodes in List of 30 Rock episodes, and multiple reviews can be found for every episode. This was discussed and ignored on the talk page. Lots of shows episodes, especially older ones don't have second party information, but some do, and it doesn't seem to effect his redirecting them. - Peregrine Fisher 04:32, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Some of these articles were really bad before he redirected them. That said, regarding the discussion linked to above he closed the debate himself and claimed consensus despite two people disagreeing with him and only Ned Scott agreeing with him. That's not consensus to merge/redirect. As for articles containing trivia the correct approach is to merge that into the rest of the article and then delete the trivia section, not simply to merge/redirect. EconomicsGuy Return the fire! 04:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Reviews for episodes does not mean you will have real-world information to place in said articles. As for the reviews themselves, they were somewhat questionable, being from http://tvsquad.com and http://buddytv.com . A consensus does not just include the discussion on the immediate talk page, but also what the community at large had decided about excessive plot summary (WP:PLOT). -- Ned Scott 07:27, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
True but then what is the purpose of starting a debate if the outcome is predetermined per consensus on WP:PLOT? I'm neither jumping on his back nor am I disputing that most of these articles were bad. What I'm disputing is the way he did this. If he was going to be truly bold he could have redirected without wasting other editor's time with futile debates the outcome of which he was just going to ignore anyway. What is the purpose of tagging so many articles using AWB when the debates were futile and the obvious outcome was to redirect rather than merge? EconomicsGuy Return the fire! 07:52, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

When you have a group of artilces, of which say 10%, 20% or 50% can have their notability established, do we have any guidelines on how they should be dealt with. Is summary redirection based on BOLDness the correct way to deal with this? - Peregrine Fisher 03:14, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

If you can establish notability for those articles — and you would like to see them survive — you should do it; absent that, they are good candidates for rediretion. --Jack Merridew 10:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

And before more people jump on TTN's back, I'd like to point out that he has yielded to past requests, taking more time with these issues, giving fair notice, and starting discussion about these redirections before they happen. -- Ned Scott 07:33, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Ignore me if someone else has said this, but TTN is not deleting anything, since the episode articles remain in the revision history. I don't believe s/he's an administrator, so s/he isn't actually capable of deleting anything. Merging is a completely acceptable action for anyone to perform on any article they feel it's appropriate, and is in fact suggested as an alternative for deletion (here and here). There is nothing about TV episode articles that makes this any different, and there is no special guideline regarding editing episode articles. WP:EPISODE is only concerned with notability, so beyond that they are subject to all the normal editing rules, including the deletion policy. So this discussion (which should take place somewhere else, since it requires no admin intervention) should take into account the fact that there is no reason episode articles are special or otherwise exempt from the normal rules and practices. Natalie 13:22, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] edit point a

Let me reword my original argument since there seems to be a confusion. When an article is low on quality, you improve them. I do not mind several article improvement drives on episode articles. We do not have a deadline so in the course of several years this can lead to multiple good articles. If an article does not immediately have adequate sources, the recommended action as per community approved procedure is written here. In this case that was not attempted. In fact the last three steps were avoided all together. Process is important. There are many low quality articles on wikipedia. Each suffering from valorous problems. Unless an article suffers from an urgent problem such as WP:BLP it is almost never blanked. Blanking is a last resort not the first.

Usage of {{merge}} is entirely improper as nothing is ever merged as a result. I also observe that all these mass merging is preformed by a specific group of editors that impose their consensus to the "local" people working on the articles. An imposed consensus is no consensus by very nature. Some of these users have no other contribution.

The WP:EPISODE guideline was drafted to help guide editors to better write articles and was a decent resource if used for this purpose (I am not madly in love with it mind you). While the guideline was never community approved (no community wide discussion), I think it was adequately worded on the 16 April 2007 version. Between then and 26 September 2007 article underwent a major rewrite, based on what I do not know. It was originally a MOS guideline (and should have stayed that way) and now is been turned into a notability guideline [4]. I am uncertain if there was an extensive discussion by the community as a whole for this abrupt and extensive change. I see no evidence of it. Guidelines and policies are not written by an elite group of people but are derived out of a consensus from the entire Wikipedia community as a whole.

-- Cat chi? 18:06, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

When an article is low on quality, you improve it. When there are hundreds or thousands of articles on very similar subjects (like TV episodes), all with the same problems, all for a long time, you merge them. Nothing is lost, and we get a lot closer to following our content policies (WP:NOT, WP:V) and guidelines. I have redirected episode articles the day they were created, without discussion, as people felt the need to create articles for episodes that wouldn't be aired for two months...[5]. The problem here is not that these stub articles should get more time, but that less of these should be created in the first place. When someone is willing and able to make a better article, with out-of-universe content and reliable independent sources, then the merge can be very easily undone. Until then, these articles are only bad examples for new editors. Fram 19:48, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
From where are you getting the idea that merging is never appropriate? I note that the very page you linked suggests "if appropriate sources cannot be found, if possible, merge the article into a broader article providing context." The notability policy, which has been derived out of consensus by the community as a whole, is the policy by which these articles are being merged. I would also like to underscore Fram's point by noting that the sky is not falling and all of these articles can be retrieved by anyone, since they are not being deleted. Natalie 20:17, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
See, I think what we have here is a breakdown of communication all around. In my mind, at least, the problem isn't necessarily that these articles shouldn't be merged; it's that what TTN is doing is not merging them. Merging implies that information from the article being eliminated is incorporated into the article it's being merged into. TTN's standard practice seems to be to simply redirect articles en masse without any effort to incorporate the information into the article he redirects to. I've noted a similar modus operandi by other people who have been redirecting many articles while citing WP:FICTION as a reason, and think that there may be a need to clarify this point, since we end up with people angrily editing and creating lots of AN/I and AIV reports as a result. Rdfox 76 21:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I think that's the point exactly: it's only a merge when you actually retain some of the content in the article. Many of TTN's edits have not even vaguely been in line with that statement, and even then regardless of the merits of the actions themselves his (her?) handling of the situation has been "counter-harmonious" to say the least. I understand exactly where White Cat is coming from on this. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 11:37, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
And when there's nothing worth merging, we redirect.[6] So? Fram 15:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
TTN has merged over 5000 articles such that none of the content from the individual article was retained in the merged article. Statistically and logically it is impossible that none of those articles had content worth retaining. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 11:31, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
A large number of these articles contained identical or near identical summaries from the List of episodes article. Also, summary is easy to generate, and we have no shortage of editors willing to do it. -- Ned Scott 07:35, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
So what's your argument here? It's okay to completely blank an article because eventually someone else will perform the rest of the merge for you? That's wildly irresponsible, and a crap argument to boot. If TTN is so hard-pressed to merge that many articles then he needs to put in the time to do it properly. Right now he's just wiping out whole swaths of information and dragging the overall quality of Wikipedia down, regardless of how "easy" it is to find the original article content in the edit history. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 01:51, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I notice TTN has been noticeably absent from this discussion, yet he continues to redirect articles. I've asked him to comment here. Mr.Z-man 23:10, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
User:TTN has said on his talk page that he will not comment here. Mr.Z-man 00:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
There's not much more to say, he's not doing anything wrong. -- Ned Scott 07:35, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Mass removing article content is a problem. Some of these allegedly merged articles contained enough information that disqualifies them from being stubs. So they are "full articles" and not stubs. Altering a guideline and converting it from a "MOS guideline" to a "notability guideline" without adequate discussion is a problem. TTN isn't even willing to discuss the matter which is also a problem. There most certainly is a problem. -- Cat chi? 11:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
TTN is even revert waring over his "bold" action despite the lack of consensus. In this case a discussion was overwhelmingly against a merge or let alone a redirectification. [7] was redirectified anyways despite having enough content to disqualify even as stubs. Granted these articles are not featured they aren't stubs either. -- Cat chi? 11:40, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
His priorities--his choice of which articles to modify first--seem very shady for someone not doing anything wrong. In trying to determine what the actual, practiced standard for episode notability is, I looked over the television shows which have featured articles (as I take it those are supposed to set the example for other articles in the category). While I did not look at all of the shows, I looked at enough to realize that virtually every featured article for a television show on wikipedia has a full complement of individual episode articles that contradict TTN's interpretation of the guidelines for notability, but from skimming his extensive edit history, he doesn't seem to have even attempted to apply his modifications to shows with featured articles--other than his very recent (10/4/07) attempts to apply those modifications to The Wire, with its famously small audience--although he has applied many thousands of them to articles with lower traffic.
Although I can see how his interpretation may be valid, it contradicts the example set by most or all featured articles in this category, and I am inclined to respect their combined example over his individual objections. If his interpretation is widely acceptable by wiki standards, then it would be more honest for him to apply it to the featured articles first, and have it demonstrated as part of the standard for featured television articles. While I understand his stated objection that he can only modify so many articles at once, it looks like bad faith editing when he attempts to change the de facto standards for the entire category of wikipedia television episodes by altering all of the articles with low readership first, and intentionally flying under the radar of the featured articles with high traffic.
He has also stated explicity that he will sneak in "silly messages" on low-traffic talk pages to prove a point, something wikipedia seems to expressly discourage. Apparently it's an official wiki policy that the number of people interested in a subject does not in and of itself constitute noteworthiness, contrary to TTN's own guidelines for modifying or deleting these articles. The more I look at his history, the closer it seems to systemic vandalism and selective modification of articles where he believes he can get away with it (as shown by his "testing the waters" with silly messages to see if anyone will revert them), rather than trying to apply criteria uniformly across the entire category of articles. Wiki describes bad faith editing as "deliberate disruption just to prove a point, playing games with policies, and vandalism", and TTN's modifications seem to be edging very close to this precise description, although I have the impression that he believes these practices are constructive when he's doing them. --24.90.146.245 11:13, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Indeed there certainly is a problem. -- Cat chi? 11:42, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
TTN has stated on his own talkpage in a discussion regarding WP:FICT that he doesn't see much chance of being able to pull off his redirection-without-merging and "discussion is unnecessary, consensus is unnecessary" tricks on high-traffic topics. He specifically says that he plans to mostly stick with "picking off smaller ones," because he feels that "once the weaklings are fully gone, it'll probably get easier to deal with the larger ones." The way I read it, it appears to me that he's trying to establish a precedent of eliminating episode and character articles by working "under the radar" on lower-traffic topics before attempting to do anything to the ones that would attract a lot of attention. Looking through his talkpage archives, I also see dozens of comments and complaints per month about his method of indiscriminately mass-redirecting episode and character articles to lists without any discussion or even an explanation in the edit summary, including ones from before WP:FICT went into effect. I don't know how often he's gotten warning templates put up as a result, because he has a habit of deleting them, and digging through the history to find them is enough of an annoyance that I didn't try it today. Rdfox 76 15:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm missing something... how exactly does TTN have special authority to decide how the standards will be applied, and enforce his decision over any and all objections? I understand that he thinks his application of the notability guidelines is valid, but it is obviously not accepted practice. He demonstrates his awareness of this by avoiding the most popular shows, for instance generously decreeing that all the Simpsons articles can stay, because "they have proven themselves with a few featured articles and around thirty good articles". I don't know how the notability of several articles in a category gives automatic notability to the others, but if anyone can see the hidden sense in that, I'd like to hear it. It sounds more like an excuse to avoid articles where he knows he won't be able to unilaterally enforce his own vision of what wiki should be. If he doesn't need consensus to enforce whatever interpretation he pleases, then does anyone else need consensus to revert his changes wholesale (much as he applies them wholesale to begin with)? And at what point can it be blocked as vandalism, since apparently he is engaging in revert wars in the process? --F.dolarhyde 15:59, 4 October 2007 (UTC) — F.dolarhyde (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
After having looked further into the issue, there are several things I want to underline. I can see how TTN feels his interpretation is backed up by the guidelines, but it would be much less offensive, less destructive (fewer people would spend days and weeks typing up information that will only be discarded), and less devious, if: 1) TTN weren't taking it on as his sole responsibility and mission to bulldoze through thousands of lower-traffic articles, but was backed up by other notable contributors sharing this duty; and especially 2) it were applied to the highest profile articles FIRST, not after he's wiped out the pages for hundreds of less-popular series.
If I'm a new user, unfamiliar with TTN, and I want to create a set of articles for a new series; I'm going to read the guidelines, and then look at the featured, high-profile shows to see an example and confirmation of how to construct accepted articles for a television series. If I see that they avoid creating articles for most individual episodes, I'll think twice before doing that for a new show. But what I actually see now, is that they nearly ALL have articles for each individual episode, and that nobody is putting "merge for lack of notability" warnings on most of them. As a new user I'm not likely to go look up one of the several hundred obscure anime series that TTN has seen fit to reshape to his idea of the notability standards; I'll look at the highest-profile series for examples. I may then spend weeks typing up information for individual episodes, thinking that it's in line with the approved, featured, high-traffic show articles, and then have him come along with his back-door bulldozer and wipe most of it out.
This practice creates an unwelcoming (if not outright hostile) environment for new contributors, and without good cause. His talk page shows many dozens, possibly even hundreds, of users he's discouraged by his way of going about this--several who have entirely abandoned wikipedia as a consequence. If he's as sure of his version of the notability guidelines as he claims to be, and does not intend to harm the site in the process, then the high profile articles--which serve as role models for new articles--need to be retrofit first, before the countless deletions he's applying to lesser-known articles.
This would serve both as a good test of whether his reading of the guidelines is a sustainable practice, and serve to spare new contributors: from working hard at finding, creating and contributing content in good faith that will mostly be swept away by his interpretation of the guidelines. The only argument in favor of his doing the low-traffic shows first is that it's easier for him to get away with unpopular changes, even at the cost of substantially damaging the "good faith" of this subset of the wiki userbase. Rather than show any compromise or respect for the community that has created all of these pages, his talk pages show something close to an eagerness to spite most of those creators en masse. It may be a rewarding power trip for him to single-handedly reshape the face of WikiProject Television from underneath; it would be much less destructive for the contributors (and would generate much less destructive ill-will and mistrust in the community) if he joined with notable contributors who share his views on fiction guidelines, and together they approached these changes head-on, starting with the highest traffic articles, where everyone can be aware of the changes from the top down. --F.dolarhyde 17:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC) — F.dolarhyde (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

WP:NOT#PLOT is an official policy. WP:EPISODE is a derived guideline backed up by consensus. User:TTN enforces both. If he took all episdes that do not assert notability to AfD, fans would scream bloody murder for not following WP:FICT ("Non-notable information should be deleted only when other options have been exhausted"), and those AfDs usually end in no consensus or keep anyway because there are enough fans to outvote the PLOT policy. Tagging all nn episodes results in complaints about his behaviour at ANI. Going for the "small" shows first to evade major fan outcries (that would again outvote the policy) results in accuses of POINTy and biased behavior. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, I'd say. Fans who really care about their TV shows should spend their time in establishing notability and create real world content, maybe write a good episode article, but not create excessive plot summaries. The redirects allow fan-editors to recreate articles with their notability asserted in the case they can. If I had more time and weren't that thin-skinned, I'd support the enforcement of WP:EPISODE much more than I already do. – sgeureka t•c 14:09, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

"when other options have been exhausted"... Which any other option is even attempted? Yes that is right none. Mass redirection is unhelpful. The more productive way to deal with poor quality articles are through article improvement drives. How many have been attempted on the episode articles before the merge (not merge in actuality mass-redirectification)? I find it hard to swallow that all of the episodes of the 24 TV series is automatically non-notable. All movies are automatically notable even if they haven't even been produced yet, why are episodes of TV shows that aired internationally for multiple seasons automatically "non-notable"? More people watched them than theater movies so they received a greater reception by simple logic. This mass redirectification based on how "lowly" fans are is disruptive. It is not in line with WP:FICT at all. -- Cat chi? 18:45, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Also with your approach we would not have any intermediate steps between a featured/good article and a stub. -- Cat chi? 12:04, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
It seems you're confusing wiki-notability with real-world notability. Wiki-notability is established by reliable sources. As far as I can see, TNN gave fans several weeks to find third-party reliable sources for any episode. If they can't or won't do that for at least one episode, that's a pretty good sign that (1) no such sources exist, making the episodes non-notable by wiki-standards, or (2) no-one cares to improve the articles in the immediate future to establish notability. In both cases, "other options have been exhausted," allowing deletion. But the articles aren't deleted, they only get redirected. And you're right, movies (exactly like most TV shows and books) are notable, so they get an article. But not every act of a movie gets an article. Not every chapter of a book gets an article. And not every episode gets an article, unless wiki-notability has been established. – sgeureka t•c 01:09, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I am not confusing anything. Notability isn't temporary and if something is notable in real-world, it most certainly is notable here. Every article on wikipedia starts out as a stub. What you are doing is banning stub articles on fiction.
As for your point number one: how do you know weather or not they exist in all of the 5000+ articles that were mass removed. They might not exist right now but they might be added in an article improvement drive. We do not have a WP:DEADLINE.
As for your point number two: that attitude isn't how wikipedia articles are written. With that rationale all stub and start class articles would need to be removed.
Every chapter of a book and every TV episode is not the same thing. TV episodes also have acts and arts. A TV episode or two occupies the same time span as a movie. It is a series of movies. When you add up every episode of a TV show they almost always add up to something much much longer than an average movie.
Why should each individual harry potter book get an article? Because it is a series of books. Or how about Star Trek movies? Why should the episode articles be destroyed when there are eleven movie articles? Even Tribble gets an article. I see no requirement to mass merge TV episodes in general into one article.
Then you start asking the questions "What makes the list notable if the contents of the list is non-notable?" or "What makes the show notable if it's episodes aren't notable".
-- Cat chi? 10:00, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Here's the problem with the issue of reliable sources -- To people like TTN, nothing is a relaible source, whether it's an official site, a fansite, or media-related site. I could claim that there was an episode of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody where Zack & Cody snuck off to a Hannah Montana concert, did cocaine with her backstage, had three-way sex with her, and made her reveal her secret identity, with all the links as evidence, and it would still be deleted. Of course, anybody who knows of both these shows, knows that would never happen, so such an article would deserve to be deleted. ----DanTD 16:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


I'm (currently) not banning anything, especially where I see merits. Having dozens and hundreds of episode articles without established notability for long times however looks like "having no merrits". If I have the wrong impression in a case (we're all human), prove it by establishing notability and the case shall rest in your favor. The suggested improvement drives can only improve an article if there are sources to begin with, but those don't seem to exist. Again, if you think they exist, prove it.
TV episodes obviously have about the same consumption length as movies and books, but they are doled out in a much higher frequency. It takes about half a year to make a movie; it takes about a year to write a good book; it takes an average of about two or three weeks (1 year divided by 20 episodes, disregarding the pipeline time) to produce a TV episode. Remember, an encyclopedia focuses on the production of a piece of art, and there is obviously much more secondary information available for a work that took longer to produce. So comparing of TV episodes to acts of movies or chapters of books holds up much better than comparing them to movies and books directly.
Besides, (this may be a case of differing opinions, but Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) happens to agree), subjects should IMO grow from within. If there is enough (sourced!) material and encyclopedic treatment, info may be split out into subarticles. Creating dozens of stubby subarticles in the hope that reliable third-party sources exist somewhere is not the way (Top-down and bottom-up design) – summarizing the information in a list until it can be broken out is much better for encyclopedic coverage in the long term. – sgeureka t•c 22:46, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

As an example of the overzealous attempts at enforcing WP:EPISODE that TTN is carrying out, see the discussion of his recent merge-tagging of Category:Kim Possible Episodes in its entirety, with his immediately shooting down any attempt to justify any particular episode's existence. Note that some of these episodes first aired as recently as three weeks ago, yet he's claiming that the episodes will "never" manage to be able to demonstrate notability, regardless of how much work is put into them. Rdfox 76 13:04, 6 October 2007 (UTC) Edited to fix my screwup that resulted in no link to the category, and ANI being miscategorized at a KP episode. Whoopsie! Rdfox 76 13:40, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Randomly surveying twenty of the articles in that category:
  • None of them had any third-party references (eighteen of them had no references whatsoever).
  • None of them had any real-world information (barring trivia)
  • All of them were composed of plot summary, trivia, quotations, or some combination thereof.
Forget merge tagging; If I had the time/effort/tools/patience to deal with inclusionists, I would have merged all of them on sight. If you want to help out, just type up paragraph summaries for each episode and stick them on the episode list, as is the step recommended before splitting into individual episode articles. That was half of the point of the merge tags. TTN is doing nothing wrong in terms of merge tagging and redirection. Just like Durin and his crusade against nonfree images, TTN is simply enforcing poorly-enacted Wikipedia policies and guidelines on a massive scale and getting loads of crap for it. There might be something to say about his unwillingness to discuss, but that's about it. You Can't See Me! 02:36, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
We do not immediately delete articles without sources. If that is an argument all stubs must be deleted right away. Also articles like James C. Jones should also go. As for the guidelines as demonstrated above, they never had any consensus for such an alteration to begin with (Sure I can alter any MOS guideline to a Notability guideline and butcher an entire topic of my choice). It is simply an article development procedure. Please do not complicate this exclusively for fiction related topics. -- Cat chi? 10:00, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
You can't compare the deletion of images with the deletion of articles, You Can't See Me. With "Durin's crusade" against unfree images, these images will have severe copyright problems if they are left unattended by admins. With articles, the same implication doesn't apply and needs suitable consensus before deletion. TTN is redirecting articles without consensus. The process of finding lack of notability is illustrated at Wikipedia:Notability#Articles_not_satisfying_the_notability_guidelines, and TTN is not trying to find sources for the articles, merely redirecting. --DarkFalls talk 10:42, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't necessary agree with the approach and rate that TTN is tackling these articles, but there is fair-use concerns (among other issues) with excessive plot information; yes, it's not as strong as the need to protect WP from non-free images, but it does exist (see WP:WAF#Fair use). There is timeliness needed for non-free images as by April 2008, WP's board has stated they all must be tagged with rationale, or be deleted. There is no such timeliness for plot descriptions, but still, the less time they spend in such a state, the better. --MASEM 17:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
TTN is also failing to follow the rules set out in WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE for dealing with non-notable episode articles. He does not bother with the {{Notability|episode}} templates, nor does he actually merge the articles he tags for merging after asking one of his preferred admins to close the discussions, he merely redirects the articles en masse without any merging of information from the article or transwiki-ing the material to either the Annex or a specialty Wiki. He also asserts that the implementation of WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE constitutes a "larger consensus" that automatically overrules any objecting consensus that may be developed on article discussion pages, thus making it impossible to defend any article that may actually be a stub--or possibly passing the notability requirements--as inappropriate to merge or redirect, thus completely ignoring both WP:IAR and the facts that consensus can change and that contrary opinions need to be considered in building it. WP:CCC particularly applies; the first I had heard WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE came after they had already been implemented. I don't see any links in the current new-user welcome templates (or the policy articles to which they link!) to the locations where such policies are discussed and developed; I suspect that, like me, many Wiki editors don't even know where you would look to find out about impending policy changes, much less contribute to discussion about them. How can a true consensus on the issue be gained if most of the userbase doesn't know where to look to participate? Rdfox 76 15:43, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
WP:EPISODE does not have a "large consensus" or any consensus behind it as a notability guideline. It should be reverted back in being a MOS guideline. If an episode notability guideline is necesary, that can be drafted separately and be put into use if it receives approval from the community (everybody, by that I don't mean a 'select' group of users). -- Cat chi? 16:46, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
No, TTN is not merging the articles, but he is not deleting them; he is redirecting them. Furthermore, he is not redirecting them on sight: he is slapping merge tags on them. That should give the regulars at those articles the following message: clean up or merge, because this article isn't looking too good. I don't believe any single person would have the time to strip down every episode article to its bare essentials; it takes a taskforce to do that. So rather than waiting, TTN just redirected the articles. Rather than complaining that he's not merging, merge them yourself. Also, if you think that WP:EPISODE does not have large consensus, then go change it. If it does not have consensus, you'll get away with it. If you get reverted quickly and repeatedly by different editors, then it does have large consensus. There's no point in saying, however, that it does not have large consensus without testing it. You Can't See Me! 21:35, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
A close look at TTN's redirects demonstrates that they are less "careful examination and assessment" and more "slap a tag on hundreds of articles, ignore any objections, and redirect anyways." As others have mentioned, there is no effort whatsoever to actually do any work to merge. None. Zero. Zip. If you question this, the automatic reply is that there is nothing of value, or that you're just a fan of the series who doesn't know any better. Talk pages get a boilerplate statement that demonstrates TTN hasn't actually read through the pages. There are also numerous examples of mistakes from the rapid-fire approach, including this tagging of an article about an entire series, and these incorrect redirects to a disambiguation page[8][9][10] - which then have to be fixed by other editors. In fact, the overall attitude seems to be "somebody else can clean up after me". --Ckatzchatspy 07:20, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to note, as the most recent example I've seen of this attitude of "I'll just zap 'em all, and someone else can handle tidying up all the problems it leaves behind later," his most recent comment on Talk:List of Kim Possible episodes. For those who don't want to check the link themselves, the short version is that, after several people spent a couple of days bashing their heads against the wall trying to get him to work with them, I found out that there actually is already a KP Wiki, and recommended, as WP:FICT suggests, transwiki-ing the disputed articles over there, redirecting only AFTER the transwiki process is completed. TTN's response was, "That can be done over time by the interested editors. It's easy to take information from redirects, so that won't be a problem." He has yet to respond to the questions posed about that reply--in particular, my asking why, when WP:FICT says to transwiki BEFORE redirecting, he feels that the articles should be redirected to the list page first, then transwikied. Rdfox 76 15:00, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
You expect any human being or the wikipedia community as a whole have the capability to deal with the speed of his tagging. Are you seriously suggesting that he has attempted improving all 5000+ of the articles before he has tagged them? How much effort do you think he spent per article? And mind you we are only looking at TTN's edits. There are others who are also mass tagging pages and later rectifying.
What is the rush? The WP:DEADLINE? If this is acceptable behaviour, why do we need TTN or others for all for this? A bot can mass redirectify pages more efficiently if there is a general ban on character and episode articles. His actions aren't even in line with the policies/guidelines he is allegedly enforcing.
-- Cat chi? 14:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
At least TTN has started to bother with merge-tagging articles before he mass-redirects them, even if he's not using the notability tags that are supposed to be used before a merge proposal. I've seen other users, such as User:The Prince of Darkness, who just do the mass redirect without any warning. I can understand the desire to reduce the amount of articles about fiction on Wikipedia, but I have serious problems with the methods being used to do so, including unwarned mass-redirects; changes of MOS guidelines to general guidelines with little fanfare; a liberal dose of Wikilawyering; and a general unwillingness, on the part of those carrying out the campaign, to discuss, compromise, form consensus, or even consider other points of view. Rdfox 76 15:00, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
The problem I have with TTN is that he isn't merging anything, he is deleting these pages without placing any useful information into the List Of Episodes. Over in the List of My Name is Earl episodes, which he wants to "merge"/delete all, User:Magioladitis suggest keeping the episode pages around for a few days so they can be approved, while TTN says that they can just be reversed after the merge to be imrpoved. He "really doubts" the articles can be approved and he "doesn't care," and passed on my question on what he did to try to improve the articles. Instead of merge and re-direct, he should do what he is actually doing and go for Articles for Deletion. Notthegoatseguy 18:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
If you're problem is that he isn't merging, then why not merge the episodes yourself? You have access to article history, so you can easily draw information from that, and I'm sure you're more knowledgeable about the subject matter of some shows than TTN. Bettering Wikipedia is a community effort; there's no way you could possibly expect any one single user to perform a merge of this scale. You Can't See Me! 08:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] edit point b

The problem seems to be spreading to character articles: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Group of users blanking Star Trek character articles... -- Cat chi? 09:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I found this comment in the Talk page of List of My Name Is Earl episodes quite revealing: ""Unless shown otherwise, it is better to assume that there is no chance [for episodes." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Notthegoatseguy (talk • contribs) 11:48, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
You mean this diff also mind this diff which demonstrates that he isn't following WP:N#Articles not satisfying the notability guidelines. -- Cat chi? 13:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Then again, most of the articles in question aren't following WP:NOT#PLOT, and removing policy violations isn't a bad thing. I have been involved in only a few of these disputes on episode articles, and while I don't agree with everything TTN does, it's very one-sided how all the complaints are about his actions, and none about the experienced editors who create and/or defend articles which are nothing but (or in the best cases almost nothing but) plot summaries, and then are amazed that their policy violating articles are redirected (not deleted, despite what they often claim). We shouldn't be focusing solely on one editor trying to solve this problem (with errors in tagging and judgment, like most of us), but also and perhaps perhaps more on the editors creating the problem in the first place. I'll give an example: when DanTD creates The Misery Chick this month, he is creating an article which is basically one big violation of WP:NOT. The only good thing to do with this article in the short term is to redirect it to List of Daria episodes. It looks to me like you would then complain about my action (the redirection), but not about the initial creation of the article, which caused the problem in the first place. Not following a guideline is not so bad when you do it to get rid of something not following policies... Fram 14:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Well said, thanks. And I have redirected it. --Jack Merridew 15:08, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
(didn't last) --Jack Merridew 15:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Don't you think it would be better to reach a consensus first rather than impose your will? There obviously is a lack of agreement as demonstrated with above comments. What is the hurry? -- Cat chi? 16:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
There's a reason for that; I undid your redirection. Frankly I can't see what makes it "one big violation" of any of Wikipedia's guidelines. Plus, the fact that you tagged all the other Daria episodes(unlike The Misery Chick, which you just ditched) doesn't exactly make writing here so pleasent either. Now, I had hope for a while that transwiking the articles would make things easier, but that hope died when I tried to do it. ----DanTD 15:40, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
If you check the link a gave above, you'll see that I linked to your undo. You are adding unencyclopaedic content to Wikipedia; please stop. I tagged some of the episode articles after your undo, including The Misery Chick; see WP:BRD. I will look at the other episode articles when I get the chance. You might want to find a few sources for those episode articles you wish to keep. Given the probability that they don't exist, you might want to bone-up transwiki-ing them outta here. --Jack Merridew 15:55, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Need I remind you that the whole criteria for "unencyclopedic content" is at best questionable? I'm pretty sure I have on numerous occasions. ----DanTD 16:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
We've met? I don't recall where. Anyway, unsourced, non-notability-establishing, material about fiction written in an in-universe style is unencyclopaedic content. And that's multiple, reliable, third-party sources that are non-trivial and specific to the subject at hand. Try a wiki that's not an encyclopaedia for that sort of content. --Jack Merridew 16:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
No, we haven't met. But I have called the rampant misuse of the guidelines as an excuse to delete every episode article. ----DanTD 16:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
“ WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY: Wikipedia is not a moot court, and rules are not the purpose of the community. Instruction creep should be avoided. A perceived procedural error made in posting anything, such as an idea or nomination, is not grounds for invalidating that post. Follow the spirit, not the letter, of any rules, policies and guidelines if you feel they conflict. If the rules prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, you should ignore them. Disagreements should be resolved through consensus-based discussion, rather than through tightly sticking to rules and procedures. ”
“ WP:NOT#PLOT: Wikipedia articles on published works (such as fictional stories) should cover their real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's development, impact or historical significance, not solely a detailed summary of that work's plot. This applies both to stand-alone works, and also to series. A brief plot summary may sometimes be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic. ”
Articles on wikipedia are neither expected nor required to follow policies and guidelines on creation (unless they violate something like WP:BLP or WP:C and have legal implications - nut that does not apply in this case). Guidelines are there to guide towards a finished product. They are not a license for inclusion or deletion. Instruction creep should be avoided especially on disagreements. All discussions on these mass redirectifications are more of a one sided instruction creep...
There is a process which articles develop which you may agree. Articles develop starting as stubs weather they are related to fiction or not. Most articles are not featured quality so most of them are not in line with numerous guidelines or policies. This same problem exists on fiction related and non-fiction related articles alike. For example: Garret Hobart, the 24th vice president of the United States, is not in line with WP:N. Mass redirecting all US vice presidents not in line with WP:N would be disruptive. I am picking this outrageous example simply to illustrate my point. My point being that same concept applies to articles related to fiction and articles not related to fiction alike. Both kinds of articles suffer from the same problem. However lack of quality is not a license for deletion. Notability should be established slowly on an article by article basis with attempts to improve the articles quality before bulk deletions. It should not be used as a license to bulk delete tens of thousands of articles without discussion or despite discussion.
Also text on WP:NOT#PLOT contains a lot of "should"'s and "should not"'s and no "must"'s or "must not"'s. No argument against that... But the lack of it is not a license for non-discussion deletion. Of course nor is it a license for non-discussion inclusion. Of course articles related to fiction should contain information more than a plot summary if they are to ever become featured but WP:NOT#PLOT is more of an expectation from the finish product rather than an inclusion/deletion criteria.
Redirectification is a kind of defacto deletion as all content on articles are mass removed often without a discussion. Any restoration of the information is also reveted by the redirectifying party - a defacto protection. Deletion and protection can be conducted without the use of admin tools like that but would almost always be disruptive. Content being in the history is of no use to the reader.
-- Cat chi? 16:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Experienced creators are expected to create articles that don't flat out violate one of the main policies, like WP:NOT. This has nothing to do with instruction creep and everything with maintaining our core policies. The article in question was created a week ago, so it isn't a question of picking on it right after creation. The author clearly wasn't intending to make it policy-compliant in the short term, and I fail to see why you defend that attitude. I don't expect the article to be featured quality immediately, that's a bad strawman. But you seem to imply that you cannot first create a stub indicating why the episode is notable, and later flesh it out with a plot summary where needed.
Claiming that Garret Hobart, an article completely unrelated to the scope of this discussion (first error), is not compliant with our notability guideline (second error: I complain of a policy violation, you of a guideline violation), is quite laughable (which is the third error in that one claim), as it makes a clear statement of notability, and provide sources in the external links section (or is the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress not good enough for you?). Claiming that "wikipedia is not a plot summary" only is vald for finsihed articles is completely laughable as well, as that means that one can never use it as an argument (no article is ever finished, is it?), making it completely irrelevant. I doubt that people have included it in the policy only for laughs. Apart from mixing all these things, you also still mix redirection and deletion, despite your last point trying to rectify that. All in all, a lot of wikilawyering and no serious discussion.
I suppose it is of no use pointing out that the article should never have been created, according to WP:EPISODE#Process for creating articles on television episodes, a guideline both you and people like DanTD know very well? Complaining that people should not redirect according to a guideline which wasn't followed in the first place is rather hypocritical. Fram 19:42, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
You obviously aren't aware that WP:EPISODE was rewritten by an "elite" group of people without any real discussion or consensus. It was a MOS guideline not a notability one. The tone of this pose is a personal attack. I refuse to reply to it any further. I am no laughing mater. -- Cat chi? 19:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
(If you change your post, please change your signature (timestamp) as well.) I don't think that the tone of a post can be a personal attack. The post was direct, certainly, and uncivil, perhaps. That's my way of reacting to experienced editors who start wikilawyering and using straw man arguments.
As for your point on WP:EPISODE: which version do you refer to? Something even older than e.g. March 2006[11]? As my arguments are already contained in that one.Fram 20:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The article on Garret Hobart is not irrelevant to the topic. What TTN is doing is saying if one doesn't fit, they all must go. ----DanTD 20:20, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] edit point c

People complain about TTN redirecting episode articles because they don't follow WP:EPISODE. I give the argument that we shouldn't focus on the redirection of the articles, but on the creation of them, which shouldn't have happened in the first place. White Cat then starts about an article which has nothing to do with either TTN, WP:EPISODE, or WP:NOT#PLOT, but according to White Cat with WP:N. How, then, is this relevant? Perhaps it would be more relevant if you explained why you create articles consisting of nothing but a plot summary, even though that goes against both WP:EPISODE and WP:NOT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fram (talk • contribs) 08:28, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Work in progress. Articles that only contain a plot summary aren't banned. Nor is there any consensus what-so-ever to mass blank them.
Articles on episodes aren't required but recommended to follow WP:EPISODE a mere MOS style guideline. Even as a MOS guideline it did not have a whole lot of consensus behind it as MOS guidelines generally aren't expected to have community wide agreement as they are often over trivial style issues such as the order of names of Japanese people. What MOS guideline should I use for episode article related styles? None exists.
On the other hand notability guidelines do need a good amount of consensus. If not no one will take them seriously. Hence why I can't take something as unstable as WP:EPISODE seriously. As a MOS guideline there are some sane remarks I agree with but thats it.
I take WP:N seriously, I take WP:BLP seriously, I take WP:CIVIL seriously, I take WP:NPA seriously as well as dozens of other pages. I am looking at 8 August 2007 edition of WP:FICT and I see a significant difference. I do not see an accompanying community wide discussion at all. Page history contains other significant alterations without an adequate discussion as well. Furthermore the same people rewriting WP:EPISODE and WP:FICT are the ones mass redirectifying fiction articles. For example TTN who has not showed up here much is actually among the people editing the guideline. People who actual write fiction related articles aren't present in the discussion or are a minority. Meatpuppetary may be the case. This kind of covert meddling with policies or guidelines is disruptive. Sure I can rewrite any guideline simply to give me a legitimate sounding way to mass blank/merge/redirectify/vandalise/whatever an entire topic of my choice. If a policy or guideline is altered or created in a manner not in line with WP:CON it is void. Surely nobody is suggesting that we should alter guidelines and policies on our whim simply to use it for our own personal needs, right?
If I were to mass blank/redirectify all stub articles of any kind as per WP:NOT, I'd be blocked for WP:POINT but when TTN is doing it he is nearly given a medal for it. Ultimately your statement is in conflict with WP:STUB and the purpose of stubs. You seemingly expect articles to be featured quality on creation. That violates common sense as well.
-- Cat chi? 16:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
"Work in progress"? Let's take some random articles tagged by TTN. The Big Splash[12] was nothing but a plot summary six months after creation. Truth be Told had no improvements except a list of guest stars in four months[13]. Won't Ask, Won't Tell has no improvements in a year and a half[14]. The Storm has no improvements in three months[15]. Power Trip / To Heck and Back was only expanded with a trivia section in over a year.
You will probably be able to find exceptions, but to call these "works in progress" is not really an accurate description. These are either abandoned, or the editors consider them finished. These go against NOT badly, and any discussion of how our guidelines came to be (it seems to have evolved from an "elite" group of people to "meatpuppeting", so I wonder what you would call them if you took CIVIL and NPA not seriously) is secondary (and avoids the previously mentioned fact that the Episode guideline has been virtually unchanged since at least March 2006[16]). These articles, many many thousands of them, violate our policies and guidelines and don't improve over months and even years. Letting them sit in that state just "because they are stubs" is useless, and makes a mockery of our policies and guidelines. Only blaming the people acting upon them, while ignoring those creating these problems in the first place, is very one sided. Blaming it all on the people rewriting guidelines against consensus makes me wonder which versions you do prefer. From FICTION, January 7 2006[17]: "If you find articles (particularly stubs) on fictional characters (and places, concepts, etc.) you may want to be bold and merge them into an appropriate article. This allows the information to become more organized and easier to access. However, if you should do so, do not delete meaningful content.". Oh wait, this explicitly states that it is a good thing to merge such articles, particularly stubs even. Perhaps, just to makes things clearer, you could point us to what versions of which policies and guidelines you feel (more) correctly represent consensus, so that at least we can discuss something concrete instead of those vague allegations against the meatpuppeting elite. Fram 20:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, for one thing, there's WP:STUB itself, which says that stubs shouldn't be merged just for being stubs. TTN also makes no effort to improve any of the articles he tags, nor does he make any effort to merge information, instead just redirecting it with an attitude that seems to be, "I can do it myself; someone else can clean up the mess I leave behind later." Likewise, it seems highly counterproductive to just mass-tag articles without notifying the WikiProjects concerned with the articles in question of the plan to do so; notifying the WikiProjects might well obviate the need to do the tag, by getting people to conduct an improvement campaign.
However, given past history with people trying to discuss, compromise, or otherwise build consensus with the people pushing this as their pet issue, that might not work anyway, since the attitude tends to be that it's "impossible" to improve the articles in question, based purely on their subject matter, without any evidence that it wouldn't be possible beyond the assertion of impossibility, and not deigning to answer any questions regarding the exceedingly murky details in WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE. As I saw someone point out in one of these discussions, if this group's standards were expanded to cover all of Wikipedia, we would have nothing in between stubs and Good Articles. Rdfox 76 21:50, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
But they aren't merged "just for being stubs", they are merged because they are policy and guideline violating stubs. Furthermore, I have not said that TTN is faultless, but why would he need to improve the articles he tags if even the editors who created them can't be bothered? He thinks, rightly or wrongly, that most episode pages are overkill, and has no interest in improving them. I see no reason why he should either. And he doesn't leave behind a mess, he leaves behind a better encyclopedia. As for notifiying the projects: they are by now more than aware of what he is doing, and in most cases, no improvements are forthcoming. As for your second paragraph, you still fail to see the problem with those creating these articles, or with the articles themselves, making this discussion (which is already way too long) completely pointless. As long as you have the opinion that articles which are nothing but plot summaries should be allowed to stay that way indefinitely because it may perhaps someday that some editor turns it into a decent article, you will only be able to see fault with those redirecting such articles, and not with those creating them, making a useful discussion and looking for a possible compromise fruitless. Fram 09:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't necessarily mean that the articles that are nothing but plot summaries shouldn't be merged; I hope that's not what people think I meant by this. I'm talking about articles more along the lines of, for example, Stop Team Go, which is, in my opinion, currently a borderline case as regards Wikinotability; it already covers two of the guidelines in WP:FICT (plot summary and critical reception--in this case, fan reviews, as there are few major critics who review individual episodes of ANY television show, much less a "kiddie cartoon"), and has analysis of the psychological implications of the episode's McGuffin that, while currently OR, can be investigated and possibly sourced and improved, which could then meet a third notability requirement (real-world influences on the story). As for the fourth requirement, I've been digging through discussions that the production staff have had with the public, looking for information germane to that particular episode; some nuggets have turned up, but I haven't yet incorporated them into the article.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the mass-tagging of these articles like TTN has done, by just going and setting a category tag, is questionable at best, since the people doing it refuse to consider whether some of them are close enough to notability that attempting improvement should be done instead of simply merging them. No, articles like Graduation (Kim Possible) shouldn't be on Wikipedia (and yes, it's on my target list for a complete rewrite that will hopefully put it more in line with the guidelines), and unless an episode article is less than a month or two old, even one that's merely a short plot summary should be merged. However, ones that have information beyond the plot summary should be improved, not eliminated.
Irony: There are six Kim Possible episodes that won't have their episode articles merged in any event, because they made up the two stories that Disney Channel randomly chose to designate "original movies" instead of three-part episodes... despite being produced as three-part episodes, and counted as such towards the "65 episode rule." However, because they're officially designated as a "movie" by Disney's marketing types, they're considered automatically notable. Don't you love semantics? Rdfox 76 15:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
"
You will probably be able to find exceptions, but to call these "works in progress" is not really an accurate description. These are either abandoned, or the editors consider them finished.

That's not true at all, Fram. In my case, what actully happens is that I have to wait for an episode to be shown in reruns again, so I can get more of the details straightened out. If not, then I'm ususally busy with another article. But even that doesn't mean anything to TTN. If it's an episode article, he wants to shoot it down, for no other purpose than to build his own edit count! I know of plenty that could use rewrites, extensions and other fixes, which his kind of deletions & redicrections will take those chances away from all of us! And I STILL say we should reverse everything he does, or most of it! ---- DanTD 22:34, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

You need the rerun for what? To get your plot summary more accurate, in depth, detailed? That is not exactly what we are waiting for, and doesn't solve any of the problems with these articles... As for "for no other purpose than to build his own edit count!", please don't use personal attacks, it doesn't help your case. Fram 09:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Here's something else to consider. If an episode has to have elements of the real world in order to be accepted, then many of the episodes of American Dragon: Jake Long should never have been deleted at all, since they contain real-life New York City landmarks, and other elements. ----DanTD 23:46, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Not enough. By that logic, all episodes of Law & Order need articles. And all episodes of Friends. Setting alone doesn't justify the 'Real World Elements' condition you posit above. However, an episode of Law & Order which specifically addresses exploitation of WTC 9/11 heroism and recompensation, as I believe at least one has, WOULD have an argument for a uniwue episode article. In such a case, the reflection of a real world series of events and the creative team's reaction might be notable, especially in the context of the articles which I have read regarding treatment of 9/11 in the media. If such an article mentioned the episode, in any particular context, it would satisfy at least MY interpretations of episode notability. Even with all that, you'd have say, Guest Stars list (regular cast being backlinked to the main article), Plot summary, two para, (one law, one Order), and perhaps two to three para about the subject matter's importance, making for, with the lead, a 7 paragraph article. That's a notable article to me.
TTN's efforts, while brusque and occasionally curt, are solid edits. Any editor who feels an episode deserves the article can revert and discuss, and improve the article. However, I've followed out a number ofthe links, and so on, and I've yet to see anyone pick a link to an article and say 'but this had all that and got redirected anyways, WHY?". These articles represent a range from overeager editors to fancrufty articles packed with trivia, word for word plot summaries, and so on. Most of these articles should've been nominated for deletion instead, but the crash on AfD would've been absurd. Every Wikiproject would've defended their own, the deletionists and inclusionists would muster up in brigades, and accusations of POINT, PROCESS, IDONTLIKEIT, and so on.
No one seems to object to the assessments of the articles: Lacking in citation, real-world context, overly detialed plot summaries, trivia lists, peacock terms and images, and so on. No one denies that all material is available via the Article Histories. No one denies the article material can be retrieved and improved by such a manner.
As such, I thoroughly support the redirecting of all these episodes, not one is NOT subject to reversion and improvement. Given that tagging, talking and so on often went unheard, and since anyone who creates an episode finds the article in his/her watchlist, we can assume many editors simply ignored the taggings. Let's move on. ThuranX 01:58, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
No, let's not move on, as long as these articles are being given hatchet-jobs by people like TTN! The trouble with people like him, is that he fails to see how many of these regulations contradict one another, making writing them impossible without alerting the deletion radar. We can use citation, real-world context, guest star lists, etc., and they still get tagged for redirection or deletion. Either way, we can't win. And don't try to tell me that lie that "any editor who feels an episode deserves the article can revert and discuss, and improve the article" either, because even when we do, he deletes them. This is wrong, and he and his defenders need to take a hint. ----DanTD 05:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
What hint would that be? One of your comments above was revealing, I think. " If an episode has to have elements of the real world in order to be accepted [...]" No, that is not at all what is asked. An episode may be complete utter fantasy with no connection to the real world at all and still have its own article, as soon as the real world has commented in depth on the episode. Are there any reliable sources (not TV.com, not any fan forums, not an amateur webzine) who have commented at length about the episode (not the series, not the actors, but the episode) or about a specific aspect of the episode? Then you may have a good reason to create and keep a separate article about that episode. If not, bundle it into a list of episodes (or a list per season, if the seasons are long enough). It's fairly simple, actually. Fram 09:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
The hint would be that he's too uptight about what's acceptable, and takes things too far. And yes, he is doing this to build up his edit count. His own user page states that his one goal is redirecting episode articles. You claim that an episode can be pure fantasy "as soon as the real world has commented in depth on the episode," but by that criteria, nothing can be written. As for your remark about "reliable sources," as I've repeatedly stated on these talk pages, if you take away the fansites, official sites, tv.com, the Internet Movie Database, and sites like that, THERE ARE NO SOURCES LEFT. ----DanTD 12:39, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Please read TTN's user page again. It states or implies nowhere that he redirects episode articles to build up his editcount. It gives no reason at all, and it is your interpretation that that is the reason, making it a personal attack. Again, stop it. As for the rest of your post: for the episodes for which that is true: too bad, then they may not have a Wikipedia article. But there are enough episodes of TV series that do get extensively reviewed in newspapers and so on. Take a look at things like this review of the final episode of The Soprano's from the New Zealand Herald[18]: coupled with the many, many other reviews and discussions of this episode, it should be fairly easy to create an article about this episode, and lo and behold, Made in America (The Sopranos) has quite some background material (real world references). So your claims that "nothing can be written" is false, but the episode has to have received some specific attention. As we are running in circles and I don't seem to really get through to you or White Cat, I'll not contribute to this way too long discussion any more unless new elements turn up. This page can better be used for more pressing matters than this content and policy interpretation discussion. Fram 13:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with Fram, above. This is the usual grousing from the usual suspects who seem to believe that their fan-driven enthusiasm trumps larger, established, consensus-driven policy. Folks, if you really care that much, just transwiki the information to a wikia where you can write as much in-universe detail as you want without having to worry about, how to say it ... encyclopedic standards. As it is, this is not actionable and I would suggest that User:White Cat/07's and others' actions are verging on disruptive in these continuous efforts to thwart the good faith application of a core and fundamental pillar of Wikipedia. Eusebeus 18:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Regardless of what TTN's user pags says, it's clear that he is doing it to bring his edit count up. I used to think he was editing them because he didn't like them or find them useful, but I was wrong. As for your comment about articles being created on the basis of "fan-driven enthusiasm," I'd have to say you're wrong too, Eusebeus. Yesterday I noticed somebody who created an article for an episode of Supernatural asked TTN why it was being deleted, and got no answer. I pointed out that writers of these episodes are all getting the same crap from him, and got flamed for it as much as I'm getting here. For the record, I'm not a fan of that show at all.
One aspect of the policy is to discourage featured music when writing an article, but most for most episodes of Beavis and Butt-head, featured music is a key element, with the exceptions of scattered episodes in later seasons. The New Zealand Herald article on the series finale of The Sopranos may be okay, but that goes back to my argument on the Who Shot J.R. episodes of Dallas. Unless the episodes are that huge, they're worthless, and might as well not exist. Also, one major problem with newspaper-based references, is that the newspapers that run them, tend to save them only for a short period of time, before they demand that you subscribe to their service in order to read their articles, and even then they only go so far back in time with them. Try going to The New York Times' website, and see if you can find a link to the Communist Workers Party's disruption of the 1980 Democratic National Convention, and subsequent attempt to assasinate Jimmy Carter. You won't find it there. You'd have to go to a library to look it up on microfilm or microfiche.
As for transwiking these episodes, I have tried to do so, but it has been proven far more difficult than I thought. ----DanTD 20:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
It's clear to you, and only you, that TTN is pursuing an increased edit count. To me, it's clear he's interested in clearing crufty writing about how cool Hannah Montana's hair is out of an ENCYCLOPEDIA. This is not an indiscriminate collection of facts, it requires context. Real World Context to validate notability is first. If No one notable in the real world gives a crap, then no article. Two, whatever the real world writer finds interesting needs to be tied to the context of that episode, which means that an article solely consisting of an assertion of notability in the lead, followed by a ridiculously expository plot retelling, and a trivia list saying 'so and so mentioned it in the New York Times' also fails it. This really isn't tough stuff to get. IF you really feel each article matters, go start a wiki for that show. Butthis continuing descent into a tirade and personal attacks against TTN is not helping your case. Have you yet found an article which was redirected which held solid reliable citations about Real World Context(I should copyright that), gave a brief plot summary, and a section discussion the Real World Context(r)? If not, then you know you have no legs to stand on, not with policy, which is clear to many others in this section, and not on errors. Errors might suggest he's moving to fast, or genuinely indiscriminate. I suspect that if asked, TTN, could provide specific cases where he found an article met quality standards and left it alone. Can you find a mistake? ThuranX 20:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] edit point d

  • We have clear standards governing encyclopedic content. Upholding those standards is laudable. Dragging the issue to AN/I is not. This discussion should be closed and, moreover, serves as a clear endorsement of what TTN has been doing. Eusebeus 21:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
    Alterations to the policies are controversial, making his edits based on the controversially altered policies controversial. There is no endorsement that I can see. "Upholding those standards" (based on consensus) through mass deletion is just not an acceptable way to approach to the matter. We would not have anything but featured articles if that were the case. Or even featured articles can be removed if you interpret WP:NOT "right". Deletionism is one thing, but this goes far far beyond that. How is this inline with WP:CON or WP:CCC? Hmm?
    This attitude is quite hostile. You are supposed to work with people and yet you are showing them the door. WP:NOT has been quoted many times but I think this combative attitude falls under WP:NOT#BATTLEGROUND. Probably the lamest kind ever...
    -- Cat chi? 21:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
    This kind of thing is what I've been trying to tell them. You can edit out how cool Hannah Montana's hair looks in one episode or the other, without deleting the whole thing. TTN simply seeks to delete the whole things. Also, looking back at that New Zealand Herald article, I didn't see as much real world context there as Eusebus claimed there was, compared to other TV shows. Most of what I've seen there only existed within the world of the cast of The Sopranos.
    One other thing, regarding the question of how encyclopedic an article is or not; When I wrote that article for the KP episode A Very Possible Christmas, the only non-encyclopedic thing I could find was one comment on the the talk page. ----DanTD 22:33, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
    The key issue isn't the specifics but the reluctance for TTN and others to even engage in a discussion. Edits to policy and guidelines should have self-evident reasons. Major alterations such as... umm... A COMPLETE REWRITE needs a consensus that is accepted community wide BEFORE being applied to the guidline page. "Hey I made a few edits, likey?" (directed at 3, 4 people) is no way to alter a guideline. -- Cat chi? 23:05, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
    Balderdash. I have attempted to engage you in discussion on pages such as Talk:List of Oh My Goddess episodes, Talk:Oh My Goddess! and Talk:List of Oh My Goddess characters, I've gotten nothing but disruption and you avoiding the core issue - the non-encyclopaedic nature of your articles. You seem to have made no edits whatsoever with an eye towards actually addressing the concerns editors have expressed about these articles. You have been disruptive and duplicitous — and that is all.. --Jack Merridew 11:09, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
    I've just reviewed A Very Possible Christmas and found it wanting; all plot and trivia and no conformance to guidelines. I redirected it to the LOE and commented to that effect at the merge discussion. --Jack Merridew 10:44, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Endorse TTN's efforts. --Jack Merridew 10:44, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
    That isn't surprising. You have been endorsing him on many of the episode pages where you have no edits. This repetitive imported/imposed "consensus" is part of this overall problem in my opinion.
    No single user or a group of users should be imposing a consensus in this matter on a topic by topic basis. If something needs to be done and there is a disagreement over it, dispute resolution must be observed. Disputes and disagreements on Wikipedia are not resolved by the use of brute force. Dispute resolution is slow and painful at times but has no alternative. Hence why I am not mass reverting TTNs actions even though I have an editorial right for doing so.
    Also what is the rush? Why should the pages be mass removed as soon as possible? Is there a legal threat stemming from the existence of these pages such as a WP:C, or WP:BLP violation? I do not believe so. If there is no reason for an immediate action there does not need to be an immediate action.
    As for Oh My Goddess!, you will ignore whatever I have to say as you did so before with the episode articles on Oh My Goddess! episodes which were also redirectified by you. So there is no point in participating in a discussion with a predetermined imposed consensus. So please pull the other leg... Next section is evidence enough on the nature of how these "discussions" are conducted. I can "discuss" that after the overall problem mentioned in this entire thread is resolved. I do not have any reason to rush unlike some people.
    -- Cat chi? 20:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
    Just because I've not edited some non-notability-establishing article does not mean that I have not read it. If I see him comment about some articles, look at them and agree, I'll say so on the talk page — where my edit will not go to waste. If I feel that an article is not likely to be able to have its notability established and that it is unencyclopaedic, why would I bother editing it?
    As to 'the rush', this is already an overly drawn-out process. It needs to move faster. You have made no valid arguments addressing the concerns expressed about your articles. You have not added a single source or edited them in any way to improve them. Your attitude seems to be one entirely focused on obstructing others who trespass. While we talk in circles on talk pages, more tv episodes are created and more unencyclopaedic articles about them spring up like silverfish between encyclopaedic pages. Editors who create such articles are the real problem.
    I've ignored what you said? All you say is give me more time — well, it's been months and you've had time. --Jack Merridew 10:36, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

For most of these articles, saving the plot summary is more trouble than it's wroth. It's not that valuable, and we are never in short supply of people to write summaries. More often than not, they need a complete rewrite in order to summarize the same information but with less detail, or because they're written really badly. What's the point of WP:NOT#PLOT if we don't do anything about it? And, as I've said before, TTN is listening to people, and has taken much of our advice about giving time for cleanup and for discussion. I don't dispute that there should be a better way for us to deal with these things, so people don't get so mad about it, but TTN isn't violating any policy, and this is a discussion for another talk page. -- Ned Scott 10:58, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

This really demonstrates the rather arrogant and condescending attitude that certain editors have with regards to this issue. "Not that valuable" really means "I don't like them"; "saving the plot summary is more trouble than it's worth" is just another way of saying "I can't be bothered, since I don't like them"; and "never in short supply of people to write summaries" just means "someone else can clean up my mess." --Ckatzchatspy 18:00, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Ckatz, I don't understand how you can come to the conclusion that is how I feel. But if you are going to say that, I must ask, do you think it's fair that we have to clean up the mess left behind by other people in the first place? A single user can be responsible for dozens if not hundreds of episode article stubs and plot dumps, with no regards to if an article should exist or not. They were created in this way, and yet you say we cannot remove them in this way? And no, it is not because "I don't like them", and I take offense to the accusation that I would be so shallow. For your information, the last few days I've been helping set up a big transwiki project for WP:DIGI, setting up things on an external wiki on WIkia, because when I can (I work full time, and I do have a life outside of Wikipedia) I do want to give this stuff a home. In life, as in Wikipedia, we are forced to set priorities for ourselves, and believe it or not, most of these articles are in horrible shape, need to be rewritten, and even if fixed up will still usually not have a home on Wikipedia. -- Ned Scott 21:33, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
There is no consensus on this kinds of edits, they are controversial. If an article is just a plot, there are two ways to fix it: you can either delete it or expand it. Why is "saving the plot summary" any trouble? It just sits there at worst. Looking at the featured episode articles, plot summary is half or one third of such articles content. So the plot summary is an important fraction of a good article and not garbage. Lack of other sections should not be a license for redirection. Other sections seems to be reception and production. Typically only fans and people who watch the show have access to a plot summary (by watching the show), anyone else can gather any remaining information. Each TV show is subject to ratings by default by being on TV (notability != popularity so even non-popular shows are fine). This information exists. TTN is definitely violating the word and spirit of WP:CON. -- Cat chi? 20:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I find this part of White Cat's answer disturbing: "anyone else can gather any remaining information". In other words, you're admitting that most of these articles are NOTHING but plot summaries, and we should all do the clean up work for the fans who, what? take the time to write out a blow by blow of a cartoon, like A Very Possible Christmas? Hell no. there are thousands of these episode articles, from hundreds of shows, and TTN's cleaning them up. Good on him. Every article I've seen from the keep side says:
  1. We could've saved them if you would only let us
  2. You're just not a fan of that show/character/actor
  3. WP:PAPER
  4. Notability guidelines aren't fair, because I care about it, so it's notable to me.

From the other side, I keep seeing:

  1. You can still save them, the old versions are there to strip-mine for material for good articles.
  2. The articles being redirected have no real-world notability established; no criticisms by academics, general MSM, or industry experts critiquing the works.
  3. The articles are problematic in their capacity for trivia, extended, nearly script-reconstructive plot summaries, and general fannish tone of writing.
  4. We have guidelines and wide support from those not invested in such TV Series.
As someone who's an active, participating member of the WP:HEROES project, I can admit that not every episode is notable. Unfortunately, even our project needs to clean up its' act. I'll probably begin that process today, and I'll drop a note to TTN that our project will work on its' own mess. This should serve as a wake-up to the larger community that we don't need cruft, and we don't want crap here. I'd much rather be writing about Howard Pyle than this at length, but it's a job that needs doing.
IN conclusion, I support TTN and welcome his efforts. ThuranX 16:33, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
<humour>But cats are used to people emptying their litter boxes</humour> --Jack Merridew 16:48, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
And that relates to this how? -- Cat chi? 19:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
in reference to: we should all do the clean up work for the fans and we don't want crap here --Jack Merridew 08:05, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
No, I am not "admitting" that most of these articles are NOTHING but plot summaries. I am saying there is no reason to blank even such articles.
"We have guidelines and wide support" is only in your mind as I see no evidence of it. If there were such a consensus, this thread would not be necessary.
Mass blanking w/o following consensus is not cleanup. Cleanup by very nature cannot be controversial and this mass blanking is quite controversial.
-- Cat chi? 19:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Also the status of these articles in mass aside, the methodology of not seeking a WP:CON is utterly unacceptable. -- Cat chi? 19:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I keep hearing TTN, Jack, and others insisting that A Very Possible Christmas has no references. What do they call Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Christmas Carol? Maybe they're not categorized correctly, but I'd say those are references to well-established Christmas-related fiction, nevertheless. ----DanTD 17:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, let's see. Rudolph's light on facts and context, but as it's not a single episode of a series, but a one-shot show, it skips the 'series' and 'season' steps of 'series, season, episode' in the chain. As for Charlie Brown, it's got production details, context, how they recorded kids, LOTS of Real World info, with some sourcing. A Christmas Carol? You're really going to throw a Dickens novel up against a Plot summary only Kim Possible episode? I hear the Fonzie's bike revvin' it's engin' for a rider. Two out of three are solid articles, and one could use some tweaking. Further, I sey your Kim Possible articles's been redirected a few times today, and you keep reverting it, without actually adding references, sources, context, real-world information, or anything else. If all these articles are so fixable, show us with that one before you revert it again. Prove to us that such an article can be redeemed. thank you. ThuranX 19:22, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Should I mass blank all articles in Category:All articles lacking sources? -- Cat chi? 19:31, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
DanTD is referring to the links to other wiki articles as 'references' - see them at this version. Dan, you need to read-up on stuff: see: WP:CITE, WP:NOTE, WP:RS - and others. What you are talking about does not count at all as 'references'. --Jack Merridew 07:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
So, you don't like the Rudolph article, Thuranx? Well that doesn't change the fact that "Snowman Hank" refers to one of the characters from that special. So what if it's a "one-shot show?" It's still as much of an established tradition as the Charlie Brown special & How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Furthermore, I'm not the one who added the Dickens reference, but that doesn't change the fact that for this one episode Drakken's lair had signs outside reading "Bah Humbug!" And don't tell me I didn't do any references to it after I reverted that article, because I specified the other Christmas special that the show referred to, and deleted a redundant trivia post. ----DanTD 20:20, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Then WHAT were you asking me??? Good grief. You asked me what I thought about those articles, did you not? I answered, in a context meaningful to the discussion of articles, merging, redirecting, and real world content. I answered, evaluating each article for the sorts of criteria that are needed for a decent, if not good, encyclopedia entry.
I now see that you were asking me what I thought of your WP:OR determinations ascribing various lines in Kim Possible to tributes to these other media? Can you cite ANY of it? Saying "I know what that line references" is not the same as having actual article references!!! A "Reference" is an indication of where one found a particular fact added to a paper, report, or in this case, article. It's like a "source", and gets "cited" using "Citations". I highly recommend you find a copy of Strunk & White's or the MLA handbook. Both are excellent resources for mastering the basic general use forms of these concepts. And no, this isn't sarcastic. You're making it clear that by references you mean, in-show references to other shows. It's now clear to me that half our problem is that you aren't using the same vocabulary as the rest of us in discussing this problem. ThuranX 05:04, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, easy, Thuran, let's try and be civil about this; someone misinterpreting the word "references" (which CAN be used to mean "things that the source material refers to") isn't worth blowing your top over, particularly in what's already a highly-charged issue like this.
DanTD: When used in this debate, "references" refers to providing verifiable, reliable sources for all assertions of fact in an article. For some items, such as plot summaries, there is no need for a reference, as it's assumed that the reference is the original work being discussed; however, for other items, you must cite references that provide the evidence. If you don't, then it's considered original research, which isn't permitted on Wikipedia.
ThuranX: If memory serves--and admittedly, it's been fifteen years since I had to crack my summarized version of the MLA handbook--there is an exception to the citation requirement for material that is considered "common knowledge." While "common knowledge" is pretty nebulously defined (my English teachers always said that anything found in three different sources qualified), I would suspect that it would qualify as "common knowledge" that if a Christmas-themed television show or story features the phrase "Bah Humbug!", it's making reference to Dickens's story. The episode in question making reference to Frosty and Grinch ("They'll be playing with their noisemakers and frim-frimmers and zoot-zootlers and--" "Whoa, whoa, whoa, Dr. D., you've stopped using words!") is probably something that would qualify as common knowledge only in the US, if that.
In any event, this whole section of the debate is taking a lot of energy and time that could be better spent on trying to figure out what kind of compromise-consensus people could come up with about the whole damn issue. I'm gonna offer up a somewhat bold solution here that I hope everyone can agree is at least worth throwing at the Pump to see if it can stick. My idea has the following steps for a major trimming down of various fiction-based articles that're not in compliance with WP:FICT:
  1. Before doing anything else, put a note on the discussion page of the associated WikiProject to make sure possibly interested editors who might not have the exact articles in question watchlisted know it's being done.
  2. Tag the articles with the appropriate tags, both listing your proposed solution and, if there are tags for them, the issues that the article has.
  3. Start a discussion section on the article talkpage to encourage users to discuss the situation; in the event that an entire category of articles is being proposed for a merge, this should probably go on the article that they're proposed to be merged into, just to try and keep the discussion centralized instead of scattered over dozens of articles.
  4. WAIT until either a consensus is reached, or the discussion at least ends, before asking for the discussion to be closed; during this time, be an active part of the discussion, helping people understand the issues that the articles have, and possible solutions. Answer questions, and explain, not dictate. Basically, don't be a dick to the people you're certain to anger with the proposal. Perhaps help the interested editors to identify a small number of articles that are relatively close to meeting the WP:FICT notability requirements as ones to target for an improvement drive.
  5. Once the discussion is closed, use the least destructive option outlined in WP:FICT to carry out your proposed solution; for example, if the articles are merge-tagged and there is a separate Wiki for the fictional work in question, transwiki the articles over to the other Wiki, rather than simply merging or redirecting them on Wikipedia. If there was an agreement on a small list of articles worth targetting for improvement, give those articles only additional time to be improved; if they don't improve within, say, three months, then it's time to deal with them.
I'm hoping that by codifying this process (which is really already implied by the various Wiki policies and guidelines), we could greatly reduce all the gnashing of teeth and spewing of vitriol that comes up every time someone tries to deal with these articles, and also provide a nice clear set of guidelines that can be used for determining if someone has improperly performed a mass-redirect, mass-delete, or mass-merge. Comments? Concerns? I'd really like to know if this makes any sense at all from the people here, where the discussion is taking place, before I head over to the Pump and suggest it on the policy page there. Rdfox 76 12:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Alternatively, we could routinely redirect episode pages which consist only of plot summaries to larger articles, since they violate one of our core policies, and recreate them only if sources indicating notability are given. This solution would equally greatly reduce the "gnashing of teeth and spewing of vitriol", albeit from a different set of editors. There is no reason why experienced editors should be free to create such articles, but then a long and tedious discussion has to be started to establish that yes, just like thousands of other very similar pages, this episode page is nothing but a plot summary and is unlikely to be brought in line with policy in the near (or even far) future. What do we see now? TTN tags pages for merging, nothing is done on them for a month or so, but then people are unhappy that they are merged anyway, and even blame TTN for not improving the articles they want to keep. So while I appreciate that you try to find a solution, I don't agree with the actual solution, and propose a much stricter dealing with these articles. Default for episode articles should be redirection to the list of episodes. Keeping episode articles as separate articles should be the exception and those wanting to do so must provide a good reason. Compare it to the fair use policy: if you don't provide a good rationale for keeping the article, it will get redirected. Fram 12:48, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Spot-on. --Jack Merridew 12:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
A lot of what you've written-up is basically WP:TV-REVIEW. And I agree with a lot of it. See Talk:List of Farscape episodes for an example where it has broken down in step 4; Talk:List of Oh My Goddess episodes in step 5. The major failing of this sort of approach is that it gets drawn-out for weeks or even months and, meanwhile, a huge hoard of other unencyclopaedic articles crop up. See my silverfish comment ... somewhere around here [19]. This is bad faith on the part of those opposed to anything but endless episode articles, everywhere... billions and billions of them. Too much of the burden is being placed on those who want to do something about this mess. Someone stays up late slapping together low quality articles about every episode of - pick something - and others need to spend weeks dealing with it? No. The key point that has come out of this sprawling discussion is that at least a lot of the problem is the editors creating the problem in the first place. If they want to transwiki their mess, it is up to them to do it. If they find a more agreeable home there, great, best wishes. --Jack Merridew 12:52, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
(above a reply to Rdfox 76; had not seen Fram's post) --Jack Merridew 12:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay, ThuranX, at least you understand what I wasn't asking you about the articles themselves. For the record, I didn't write any of the articles on the specials the episode referred to. I just showed that it referred to them. As for citing sources, it's more of a question of how to do it. In the case of the Charles Dickens reference and Snowman Hank, I could swipe an image from a fansite, and tag it as a non-free image and use them as proof, but that would be a huge copyright violation. The Charlie Brown Chrismas line, and Drakken's Grinch imitation, would require either finding or making a sound file. The problems with that are that I can't make a sound file to save my life, and I have no idea where to find those specific ones. Besides that, somehow I get the feeling even that would violate some other rule on Wikipedia. This kind of thing makes citing sources incredibly difficult, which is why I've been saying that the criteria for saving these articles is impossible to reach. ----DanTD 17:02, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
But , DanTD, these aren't the things we want you to source, and sourcing these things won't help a bit in saviong these articles. What you are showing is that the episodes have references to the real world, which isn't important (I can write a webpage that has references to the real world, iconic movies and literature, but that does not make it notable). What we want is evidence that the episode has been remarked upon at length in reliable sources, e.g. a newspaper review. Fram 07:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
The problems with that is; 1)Very few episodes of any TV show get reviewed in newspapers, and as I stated earlier; 2)Newspaper links don't always stay in tact for everybody to read. It's that whole issue of only being as big as the series finale of The Sopranos, or the Who Shot J.R.? episodes of Dallas again. ----DanTD 14:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
...which is exactly why I support transwiki-ing the articles over to appropriate specialty wikis--in this case, KPWiki. Unfortunately, the information on exactly how to do a transwiki is about as clear as mud, and nobody has yet responded when people have asked for help on how to do it, whether images can be transwikied, and other such things. Hell, if I could make heads or tails of the WP transwiki information, I'd probably have already transwikied all but one or two of the KP episode articles by now. So for the umpteenth time, could SOMEone please help with a simple, plain-english tutorial on how to transwiki an article over? Please? To help quiet this long-term argument down a little? Rdfox 76 18:37, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
The way things are going at this point Rdfox76, it doesn't seem like anybody is willing to help, which convinces me they couldn't care less, and thus reinforces everything I've grown to believe about the excuses for deletion and redirection. ----DanTD 15:51, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Neither deletionists, redirects, mergists nor inclusionists have replied to Rdfox, so commenting on "deletion excuses" is not really helpful here. Anyway, I've never done a transwiki, but I tried the most logical place: WP:TRANSWIKI. And as far as I know, you can transwiki anything as long as you follow the GFDL, meaning e.g. a list of all contributers has to be accessible somehow. That is most easily done by copying the history (history tab) to the talk page of the new wiki-location and/or maybe a link to the old wikipedia article. – sgeureka t•c 16:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I just so happen to be in the middle of a large transwiki project and can tell you a little bit about what I've learned so far. There are a few ways to transwiki, most of which involve Wikipedia keeping the article history (usually as a redirect, but not deleted file). Basically you cut and paste the article contents, note which version of the article you are making a copy of (I like to put the perm url in the edit history) and then use a template that most Wikia or other wiki sites have that says "this article originally came from Wikipedia, and a full list of contributors can be found at [link]". The other way is to use Special:Export on Wikipedia, then have someone with admin access on the other wiki use Special:Import. The latter method lets you import the full history, so you don't have to rely on Wikipedia keeping the page history. -- Ned Scott 04:43, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I've tried to transwiki some episodes of KP. I've also added some episodes of Even Stevens into The Annex in order to create an Even Stevens Wiki. There is a DisneyWiki of some sort that has Even Stevens, but I wanted to separate them, and so far it hasn't worked. ----DanTD 12:16, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


Again, stub articles aren't banned. Things can be notable even if newspapers don't cover it. An episode can be notable simply for the first on screen interracial kiss even if not a single newspaper covers it. -- Cat chi? 19:21, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

The first onscreen interracial kiss actually has quite a few sources just from Google News and Google Books and easily passes even the strictest notability guidelines, I suspect if more sources from the 60s and 70s were digitized there'd be a plethora of information. Even if it were unsourced (the article actually is at the moment, someone should look to that) it is at least an assertion of notability, most television episode articles assert nothing more than that it exists. Stardust8212 21:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] edit point e

Ok, lets focus on one problem at a time in a non-article spesific manner. First problem to be adressed is the non-consensus rewrite of WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE in a controversial manner. PLeople are changing guidelines to suit themselves. -- Cat chi? 10:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

No, first problem is the editors creating episode articles which violate WP:NOT#PLOT, and then objecting to redirecting these articles to the main articles. But if you want to discuss the problem only you seem to be aware of so far, then please,as I asked you earlier, first point us to the versions of WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE before the "controversial" rewrite. Then at least we will know what it is you object against, and who are these elite meatpuppeteers you earlier talked about. Fram 10:36, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Creating articles is never a problem. Check all edits from early august of this year and compare it with now on both pages. You will see a significant difference. Check the corresponding discussion you will see a very elite group of people "discussing". it was not a community wide discussion at all. WP:EPIOSDE was a MOS guideline and not a notability guideline. It still has the MOS traits. -- Cat chi? 11:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
"Creating articles is never a problem"? That's a good one... Anyway, thanks for still not providing any diffs. I have just checked WP:EPISODE, and there is no significant difference at all between the version of July 18 and September 26.[20] So either all the problem edits have been undone, and there is no more problem, or you meant other dates, or there never was a problem to begin with. Whatever the case, please finally provide links to actual diffs you have problems with, or cease this baseless complaining. Fram 11:25, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
If you are unable to post a civil response, do not post one at all. Your participation to this thread have overall been uncivil and on occasions outright hostile. Treat people how you'd like to be treated. This isn't even a heated discussion. At least not for me.
Changes as of last version in May 2007:
  • WP:FICT [21]
    • If nothing Wikia spam was introduced as an alternative to wikibooks and etc. Wikia is not a sister site at all. It is a commercial site that by very nature should NOT be advertised like this. Serious COI.
    • Multiple sections were introduced and there is an indadequate corresponding discussion for it.
  • WP:EPISODE [22]
    • Most notably "Process for creating articles on television episodes" instruction creep was introduced. It used to be a "mere suggestion".
    • The page has less than 500 edits since its creation in October 2005. This is the change to it in 2007. First edit to it in 2007 was on April and prior to that the page received a handful edits (since October 2005). There is very little discussion on it on the talk page. No community-wide discussion or a poll. Typically guidelines undergo a community-wide poll to demonstrate consensus.
Also at it's current state the page contains:

Note: Stubs are allowed on Wikipedia and many articles are stubs. It may be inappropriate to merge or redirect an article about a television episode just because it is a stub. Before executing a merge, ask yourself:

  • Will the merge reduce the quality or coherence of the target article?
  • Are more sources available? (Do some basic looking for additional source material that could be used to improve the article.)

If the answer to either of these questions is "yes", it is probably better to avoid merging or redirecting. Instead, consider improving it, or offer suggestions for its improvement on the talk page.

TTN and others aren't observing this since mass redirectification reduces the quality or coherence of the target article.
-- Cat chi? 19:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Likewise, if you were unable to post a useful reply, perhaps you shouldn't have posted it at all. Why are you amazed that when you post a useless, timewasting response, the response is not filled with gratitude? Now, finally, after I had first to ask for diffs and then had to point out that the dates you gave were incorrect, you have given a link to what you consider the problems. But when I look at the older version, I see in WP:EPISODE [23] (which was then and always a guideline, not a MoS guideline as you claim) that "Once there's enough verifiable information from secondary sources about individual episodes, create separate articles for them." The same line was included in the very first accepted version of the guideline in March 2006[24]. As I said, the problem is the creation of articles that do not follow this simple rule, and not the subsequent redirecting of them. But you protest that "mass redirectification reduces the quality or coherence of the target article." Would you care to explain how this happens? Nothing is added or taken away from the target article in such a redirection, all that is "lost" is the link to an overly long plot summary, which is a violation of WP:NOT#PLOT. So basically, these episode pages violate the older version of WP:EPISODE which you prefer, just like they violate the current version, and the redirection of them does not violate the guideline, and should be supported. Fram 07:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
White Cat, after having researched this a bit more, I'm done with you in this discussion. You claimed on October 1st (first post under edit point a) that this was a MoS guideline, which has since been changed into a notability guideline. You have repeated this same thing at different times as one of the problems you have with this guideline. Having looked at the diffs and the full history, it turns out that this guideline was a MoS guideline for a full seven minutes[25], and that it was a normal guideline before and after~(except for that time when you changed it to an essay before even discussing it[26]), with the very same contents. I may be uncivil, but at least I try to discuss these things honestly. Fram 07:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


Those of you who criticize fans of these shows for trying to keep the articles overlook one other thing about them; They make sense for the rest of us. A die-hard Trekkie would know every episode of Star Trek from episode title, to episode number, to the exact stardate each episode was supposed to take place in, while the casual viewer might not even know that the Nazi-planet episode is called Patterns of Force. The same thing applies to every other show. ----DanTD 04:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pages protected

I have fully protected the episode pages as they had descended into edit wars. I protected them in the state I found them in regardless of whether they were redirects or articles at the time. Please follow the dispute resolution process to try and come to some agreement. Once the matter is resolved, unprotection can be requested at my talkpage or at WP:RFPP. WjBscribe 12:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

offering a clarification: the pages referred to are the individual episode articles of season two of Farscape; I redirected the articles after much discussion on Talk:List of Farscape episodes. --Jack Merridew 13:28, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
A revert war is also ongoing on A Very Possible Christmas. There are false claims for vandalism as a revert rationale as well. -- Cat chi? 19:14, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
this? Merely a revert of vandalism to a redirect. See also: [27] [28]--Jack Merridew 08:12, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
It isn't vandalism. See: Wikipedia:Vandalism. It is an ongoing revert war though. Reason for a "revert war" is irrelevant as revert wars are disruptive. -- Cat chi? 10:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Edit war != Vandalism. The edits in question are not disruptive to the article and do not go against any clear consensus. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 22:33, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Can I just ask: Is TTN blanking the episodes which are notable/have sources, or just the ones without notability/sources? Blanking the notable ones is in my opinion not very good, because then content is being deleted which belongs on Wikipedia. As Jimbo Wales said: "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." Does deleting valuable and valid content contradict what Wikipedia set out to do? Collect the "sum of all human knowledge"? :-) Stwalkerster talk 21:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
He is redirecting ep articles of shows that don't have their ep notability established after several weeks. According to TTN, he just needs to see one ep (other than the pilot) establish its notability, and he would leave the other articles alone as he sees the potential. But this scenario doesn't happen very often, as he is going for TV shows that seem not-so-notable to begin with. – sgeureka t•c 21:31, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
TTN is also redirecting episodes that have had their notability estabished. - Peregrine Fisher 02:06, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Example please? This might be a good time to see what the differing opinions are on what establishes notability. Stardust8212 02:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
He redirected All Hell Breaks Loose (Supernatural) after I added multiple reliable sources to it. There's a conversation about it at Talk:List of Supernatural episodes#All Hell Breaks Loose. I got tired of arguing about it there, but basically the upshot of the conversation was that meeting WP:N isn't enough, TTN and other editors in charge of the redirecting must also like it, else they edit war. - Peregrine Fisher 02:50, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Redirecting was the right thing to do. The material you added in no way constituted significant real-world context and certainly does not assert anything like out-of-universe notability. I understand that you disagree, but frankly there is no way to read WP:N that suggests digging up a TV review constitutes notability. Eusebeus 12:16, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Did you read the accompanying conversation? It was like pulling teeth, but the end result was that it met NOTE, but that isn't enough when it comes to TTN revertig. To paraphrase, it was multiple (more than one source was found), reliable sources (paid writers with edorial orversight working for a subsidiary of Time Warner) with significant coverage ("more than trivial, less than exclusive", in this case two of the articles were exclusively about the episode). Even Bignole finally accepted this. The reasons for redirection then became, although it meets NOTE, reviews aren't good enough. This seems to be your position, as well. If you guys won't follow our guidelines, then you win, and you can keep redirecting. I'm not going to revert war over it. - Peregrine Fisher 23:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
In other words episode articles cannot be notable regardless of how many reviews and etc happen to be provided. When people suggest that the measures you are taking are extreme you reply with a statement suggesting that they are not extreme enough and you want to go further extreme rather than compromising. This is not in line with WP:C at all therefore the entire thing is disruptive. -- Cat chi? 01:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

'It is impossible to claim in good faith that the TV episode "policy" cited by the deletion enthusiasts here is a valid Wikipedia policy. As the policies and guidelines page states quite clearly, the primary source of policy is "The codification of current convention and common practice which already have wide consensus." It is clear from the ongoing edit wars over a wide range of articles that the supposed "policy" does not enjoy "wide consensus," and that the number of users who actively reject the policy is significantly greater than the committee of vigilance that is attempting force it down the community's throat. It is clear that the vanishingly small number of editors who established the "consensus" for the guideline is minuscule in comparison who to the thousands of editors who write and defend the articles involved. The supposed "policy" or "guideline" should be deleted.' "Policy is what we do." —Preceding unsigned comment added by VivianDarkbloom (talk • contribs)

Nice completely unnsoursed claim about being in the "majority", when it's far more likely that the general community (not just those who edit TV articles) agree with the current guidelines and policies. Even so, consensus is not formed by numbers, and even if you didn't have a specific guideline for TV episodes, the same conclusions can be drawn with other policies and guidelines. If it lacks significant real-world information (or often times, any real world information) then it shouldn't be on Wikipedia. -- Ned Scott 00:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I do not see any consensus that mass bans episode articles or warrants a mass redirectification of the episode articles. People who write episode articles are not animals. You (redirectificationists (hey I invented a word?)) are ignoring the views of the people who write episode articles completely in a siege like manner. -- Cat chi? 01:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I have not ignored anyone's view, at least not those who behave in a rationale manner and don't throw fits when consensus disagrees with them. Nor have I claimed a ban on articles, nor do I treat my fellow editors as animals. You insult me by making such accusations, and go out of your way to specifically reply to my comments to do so. What part of "disengage" do you not understand? -- Ned Scott 04:09, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I am stalking you now? Dude, I initiated this! There is nothing more NATURAL than me to be present on a discussion I started. My comments were aimed at the general issue, not you specifically. -- Cat chi? 22:30, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

White Cat asked me to comment on this. I agree with him that episode articles should go through AFD, just like everything else. Raul654 01:32, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirecting even when artilces pass WP:N

So, TTN redirects even when articles meet NOTE requirements. See History of All Hell Breaks Loose (Supernatural). Anyways, he hasn't done it a lot of times, but I would like for him to agree to not do it in the future. I guess he doesn't participate on this page, so then I would like it if we could agree that redirecting episode pages that meet NOTE is a bad idea. - Peregrine Fisher 02:09, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

That meets WP:N? I'd have to disagree. -- Ned Scott 03:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
After talking with Raul a bit tonight about this matter, it has got me thinking. I still believe that this is a good effort, and that we are improving Wikipedia by dealing with these episode articles, but if we have to fight this hard about it, we need to do something better. Those of us that want to redirect these articles, we might have to earn some more trust to keep this situation from backfiring. Peregrine Fisher and others, maybe we have been letting our frustration get to us, and maybe we have been pushing too hard. I don't really know, but I am sorry if we've been taking this too far in some situations. -- Ned Scott 05:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moving On?

This discussion has reached an impasse, presumably because people have realised that there is nothing they can do when others quote the guidelines at them. However this discussion has not resolved the central issue here.

Ignoring Policies and guidelines for the moment, they are glorified instruction creep, and reverting to the slightly less creepy Five pillars. The most relevant sentance being "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information". We also see "Wikipedia works by building consensus" and "consensus can change", which is the reason I am bringing this up. Followed by "Act in good faith", "Never disrupt wikipedia to prove a point" "Follow dispute resolution" and "Avoid making … sweeping generalisations", which are why the actions being carried out as described above are unacceptable.

This leads us to discuss the "indiscriminate information" sentance. This is a major problem with wikipedia at the moment, no-one is quite sure where the line stands - and in many senses that is good, every situation should be open to individual interpretation and should be handled seperately. That is the whole point behind AfD, with which I wholeheartedly agree, if content is unwanted then it should be deleted.

Now we get to the issue in hand, where instead of going through AfD, people are "soft deleting" pages by turning them into redirects. It has been said that because redirection is not deletion, it doesn't need to be discussed, as the content can always be got back; however this reasoning is faulty. Firstly, redirection like this leaves no obvious trace of any article that used to be there, exactly like deletion. It encourages elitism as only those who know their way around Mediawiki will be able to fight their way back to an old revision of an article that redirects. But the overall fallacy is that if it is not deletion, and the content can be got back then what is the point in the operation in the first place, you have achieved absolutely nothing except for irritating people.

I would like to ask the editors who waste everyones time with this sort of behaviour to stop and think of how they are improving the project. Wikipedia has no size limit, so extra articles aren't a problem. I know that every time any article is deleted (or redirected) wikipedia is damaged. Firstly content is lost, This in turn frustrates the readers who knew it used to be there but dont know how to get to it. This in turn causes people to stop visiting wikipedia. This in turn leads to fewer people taking the plunge into editing, and thus reduces the number of people improving articles, and thus reduces the quality as a whole. It also frustrates the editors who have created these articles, which may cause them to stop editing, which is worse - because they have already been through the process of learning how this place works, and so their contributions will (in general) be better than the new users'. This means that removing a page should be reserved for cases where there is a strong reason for doing so, it shuold not be done as part of a generic "I don't like it" crusade.

And to everyone who thinks "But they are just not notable", you are right - of course, no self-respecting publisher would waste time with irrelevant trivia like this. I think it reflects very poorly on the human race that we do waste our time with such irrelevancies as television; However, it is (almost exclusively) members of the human race that are writing and reading wikipedia, and thus wikipedia should contain the things that they (think they) need to know. Wikipedia cannot hope to reach the status of an academic reference work - its fundamental ethos is totally against anything so boring and conforming as that, but wikipedia has the potential to become the most used and generally trusted resource on the planet (we will beat google one day!) however it can only achieve this if it contains things people actually want to read.

I realise this is quite long and a bit confusing, because I am trying to get one point across in two ways. In summary, I think the following two creepy instructions should be put into a guideline of some kind: Do not remove an possibly contentious article without an AfD request. Do not request an AfD that does not cause harm. Incidentally I am definitely not against a sensible content merge that preserves information, that is often the best way to procede. Conrad.Irwin 08:20, 2 November 2007 (UTC) 131.111.220.6 01:24, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I sympathize with the people who "lost" episodes articles that they worked hard on. My first 200 wiki-edits concerned episode articles of my then-favorite TV franchise, and I have created some ep articles myself until I realized the problem with this approach. But it needs to be understood that the current discuss&redirect actions by some wikipedians is the direct consequence of other editors who create articles inspite of policies and guidelines, and who then cannot or will not work on bringing these articles up to wiki-standard. Should these articles remain because some people put a lot of work into them, like them and because these articles don't do any harm? In the perfect wiki-world, these articles wouldn't have been created in the first place. The whole procedure about article creation of fictional topics (mainly episode articles) needs to be re-thought and enforced; the rethinking part is already over (but is still subject to discussion). And to quote you from the other perspective, "I would like to ask the editors who waste everyones time with this sort of behaviour to stop and think of how they are improving the project." It can also be argued that the article creators waste everyone's time, as they don't realize that (in most cases) they are not improving the project by adding poorly formatted episode articles that violate WP:PLOT, WP:TRIVIA, WP:QUOTE and WP:NOTABILITY without hope for change. My last three months of editing made me realize that you can fully cover your favorite TV show in four kickass articles. If I could, I would merge the episode articles that I created, back into the ep list, but that TV show is too popular for its own good and has too much production info and independent analysis that could potentially be added to the articles so that any merge attempts by me would not be successful. Having said that, I don't believe that these articles will still be there in five or ten years if they don't change, and I consider that a good thing. – sgeureka t•c 10:41, 2
I see what you are saying, but I do not understand what the problem that these articles cause is? They might go against some 'guidelines', but in terms of the actual project, "the sum of human knowledge" do they cause any problem at all? I happily agree that many of them should not have been created, but two wrongs have never made a right. I also agree that it can often be in the interests of a more readable and better Wikipedia if the articles are merged together, however merging does not mean blanking and redirecting, which is what is disagreed with. If people want to blank a page, it should be requested for deletion, and Wikipedia has a well established structure for dealing with this. If editors do not have time to merge the content sensibly, then they should not do it, though there is nothing to stop them proposing it.
Incidentally the idea of 'enforced rules' is against the ethos of Wikipedia and is almost impossible to do - how many anons even know that Wikipedia has guidelines, let alone where to find them. And how many (new) users have actually read the 20-30 pages that detail them. The only people who will know of the rules, and try to stick to them, are those who have been here for long enough; therefore we can only hope to have a say in what well-established editors do - which is slightly pointless as they 'should' know how to behave.Conrad.Irwin 22:57, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I believe it has been said again and again in this discussion what's wrong with the articles, but I'll summarize again. It is simply that there is (at the moment) nothing that would/could bring these articles into wiki standard, and it is unlikely that this will change. So what other option is there to improve wikipedia other than to remove them (in whatever way)? Also, WP:NOHARM is not considered a valid reason to keep an article. Neither is WP:ABOUTEVERYTHING. Redirecting/blanking is done because all relevant plot info already appears in the episode list (some of the infobox material may be merged also, but those should appear in the ep list anyway). If someone believes the ep lists do not have enough plot summary, fix or merge them yourself (it's an editorial choice that can be done by anybody), but it is usually easier for a fan to just summarize his plot knowledge than to trim&merge the old plot. Anti-ethos rules are enforced daily; see AfD and AN/I (and I didn't like that my first major contribution was deleted, but I survived it). The talk page discussions are left open for over a month now, with big merge templates on most episode articles, so "I didn't know the guidelines" is no longer an excuse to keep an article either. The best thing would be if fans enforced wiki guidelines themselves (like Wikipedia:WikiProject_Harry_Potter/Notability is doing), but if they don't, there should be no surprise if others do it for them. (By the way, this is the main reason why episode articles are not often taken to AfD...) – sgeureka t•c 09:48, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Poor choice of section title as the actual problem was not addressed at all. The problem is the mass blanking of mass number of articles without a discussion or even despite a discussion. TTN and others will even revert war to keep the articles blanked. This is disruption per official policy not a few pesky guidelines or essays.
Not a single byte is "merged" in the process. If you are mass blanking pages and are not willing to "merge" do not label it as a merge. False edit summaries are problematic and are utterly unacceptable for very obvious reasons.
Some people are opposing the very existence of stub/start/b-class articles. This is not in line with any guidelines. Any guidelines that bans stub/start/b-class articles by very nature are void.
If an article is nothing but a plot summary what exactly is the problem? It is a work in development. I so far do not see any rational explanation on why mass merging is absolutely necesary. I also do not see why the mass merging should be preformed urgently. Is there a legal threat I am unaware of? Are these WP:OFFICE actions? If not why are they being urgently and unconditionally mass blanked? Isn't mass blanking with a nominally-legitimate reason to illustrate a WP:POINT disruptive?
WP:EPISODE cannot be quoted or used as a guideline or policy as it had been created and significantly altered without any kind of consensus behind it at any point. It can be labeled as an essay at best. Guidelines are not written to meet the needs of a few editors but the needs of the community as a whole.
-- Cat chi? 06:56, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
You know, there will always be people who enforce guidelines and policies, and there will be people who discuss ad adsurdum that the "other" people don't enforce them correctly and therefore shouldn't enforce them at all. But this doesn't mean squat. Help them if you want wikipedia to be a better place. Show them how it's done correctly. And most importantly, don't be the one to violate guidelines and policies (e.g. WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:NOTABILITY) in the first place. Your other points have already been rebutted in this long discussion, so no need to go into them again. BTW, if you don't want ep articles to keep blanked, the revival attempt should probably put more effort into establishing the potential in the first try. My try went from this (an average episode in an average season of a not hugely popular TV show) to this in three hours. (I'm not saying the article is finished, but the potential is clearly established. No one in his right mind would blank this article now.) – sgeureka t•c 11:18, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Nice improvement. The first version would be redirected of course. The discussion could mention the sources you used, but unless they are immediately added, they'll be redirected and edit warred over. - Peregrine Fisher 22:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] edit point alpha

Peregrine Fisher is right, that is exactly the problem. I might just as well mass blank all stargate articles despite any improvement attempts at my whim quoting those very guidelines or others. I may declare gateworld.net to be a non-notable source. Furthermore, I may just as well revert war over it simply because I have a fancy non-critical and unofficial guideline to quote! Obviously I am not going to do any of this but this is what we are dealing with. Some people have not targeted many popular shows yet as they are "picking off smaller ones" at the moment. But rest assured, Stargate and other more popular shows are next in their words at least.
The problem is not a specific article or series so specific examples do not much matter. An episode article in its stub/start/b-class form (your first link) is perfectly fine as they will eventually be improved to a good/A-class/featured article (as you have). Article blanking of the stub/start/b-class does not fit anywhere in the process. This process does not only apply to fiction related articles but to all articles on Wikipedia. Anything beyond that is in violation of WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY which was written for a very good reason - perhaps this very reason.
If we are going to talk about "potential":
  • All TV shows (even news) have "ratings" so a reception section is automatically a possibility for any TV episode that aired. This rating info may not be very easily available (it could be published in a magazine that is only available in a foreign country like Japan) for some shows but it is there. Ratings determine the price of the commercials for example.
  • All non-live shows (excluding stuff like reality-shows, game-shows, and etc) go through a thought process that can be used in an article. This info may not necessarily be easily available but it is out there for certain. This kind of information maybe available later as well as some shows like Doctor Who have a production related publication right after the show while others such as Star Trek make a point to give production information much much later than the air date as DVD extras.
Therefore the "potential" to grow is there. The potential to grow right away may not necessarily be the case as that depends on the popularity of the show among native speakers of English which of course has nothing to do with the notability of the show. But not growing right away had been one of Wikipedias traditions. For example Lee Harvey Oswald article stayed as a stub for 2 years before undergoing more serious expansion. It stayed without citation for another 2 years I believe. The 'potential' of an article on an assassin of a president can be demonstrated without the use of a single source with this very sentence (see the italicized text).
Same is true for a movie articles (movies are also "episodes" even if they have a more condensed plot). For example, there is no reason to blank Star Trek XI until information on production, reception, or even plot is made available. Production related information may be released months after the film itself. There is absolutely no reason to wait for that information to be available to create and start working on the article with what we have rather than backlog the workload.
There are two ways to correct an article not in line with WP:NOT#PLOT. You can either destructively blank the article or improve it by expanding (like how you did). As WP:NOT#PLOT explains an article on a fiction related topic will typically have a plot section. Articles can stay not in line with WP:NOT#PLOT in their stub form. Stubs are not banned, they are expanded.
No one is the wiki-police. Guidelines and essays should NOT ever be enforced. They are there to guide people. You should be teaching people about them and helping them better understand them. You should use their guidance to improve articles. TTN and others who are "enforcing" these guidelines have not been making any such effort. They are merely using these guidelines as an excuse to mass blank. This is a combative mentally and attitude by the "blankers" which I find to be disruptive.
None of my points have been rebutted as what I am saying has even been in line with WP:EPISODE. My arguments have been promptly ignored though. Consensus does not mean ignoring the points by the other persons in the disagreement.
-- Cat chi? 14:28, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I am still not sure whether I should reply, as it has been clear to me for some time that this won't stop the discussions from going in circles. Repeatedly hammering on "potential" is not going to get you (general you) very far in any merge/redirect/deletion discussion, especially if the potential is never followed upon. We should all realize that Wikipedia doesn't exist to serve the plot but real world information (no sufficient real world information -> no wiki-notability -> no article). Neither is WP a battleground for fans to prove that their fave TV show is better than any other because it has more articles. And Wikipedia is not a crystalball. I won't go much into your discussion about Stargate, as gateworld is considered notable enough to have a wiki article (at least until now), and reliable (MGM, the producers and the actors have collaborated with the website countless times via exclusive news, blogs, with DVD features and interviews). Besides, the article uses GW as reference only once - for the ratings - the other time is the producer's blog at GW. And as I've said before I'm positive these SG ep articles won't be there in a few years if no-one works on establishing their notability. But I am working on getting my own wiki-articles featured before I defend overlong plot summaries that I didn't write/create in the first place (although I'm working on this one). I have done the first step in the SG wiki-project to guide those who don't know what to do with their wiki-time though. – sgeureka t•c 16:44, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
You again completely FAIL to address the problem. Non-discussion mass deletion is disruptive. I have not been given one solid reason why this immediate combative mass removal of mass number of articles in bulk is necesary.
If wikipedia isn't a battleground why are people waging a war against all episode articles starting from less popular shows? Indeed you are right there is at best a "no consensus" on the issue therefore the deletion is disruptive since an agreement was not ever reached. Key players such as TTN wont bother even talk. He is too busy with his quest to delete all fiction he deems unnecesary. What has TTN done for wikipedia aside from mass removing fiction related content? Well? Has he written a single article? What has he been doing since his 11th edit from about a year ago?
There is no such thing as a wiki-notability. Thats only in your mind. If something is notable in the real world then it is more than notable here. Fiction can be notable even if the show doesn't have a dedicated site on it. Notability isn't temporary. You cannot have a double standard for fiction and non-fiction related articles. Non-fiction articles are deemed notable for far far less. "Notability" is been used merely as an excuse or as a tool to mass delete pages.
WP:EPISODE itself talks about the "potential" (as does numerous other guidelines and perhaps even official policy and also so do you ( [...] establishing the potential [...] [29])). How can people disregard WP:EPISODE's content when quoting it to mass merge?
Also why is the target just pop culture? How about Verdandi? Tyrfing Cycle? Skuld (Norn)? Does not WP:FICT apply? Or the fact that they are among the most notable Norse mythology (as fictional as you get - no offense to the worshipers) material and hence have a hell of a potential?
-- Cat chi? 22:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
You cannot have a double standard for fiction and non-fiction related articles. This is absolutely correct which is why wikipedia routinely deletes non-fictional articles on the grounds of not establishing notability. Perhaps you're suggesting that the correct mode of action is to tag every episode article that does not give a reason for being independently notable with {{db-nn}}. That would certainly make the deletionists work easier but personally I'm against it. We must hold episode articles to the same standard as we do real world content which means establishing the notability of the subject by showing that it has significant coverage in reliable sources.
As far as WP:EPISODE goes it explicitly states that articles should never have been created in the first place for the majority of these episodes and to take your comment about "potential" in the correct context of the guideline we must assume that those nominating the articles for merging have made a good faith effort to look for sources and it is the responsibility of those wishing to keep the articles to provide meaningful sources should they feel the nominator has missed them. I personally still believe this system can work once people on both sides get over their fandom and personal feelings about what does and does not belong and look at each episode individually. Also this is not the forum for you to make personal attacks against TTN simply because you disagree with him. I personally take issue with his methods at times but attacking him in no way helps to improve your arguments nor does it further the attempts here to resolve this issue, if anything it makes your arguments weaker.
As to your question of why is this necessary I will ask seriously "Why is AfD necessary?" If you can answer that question I think you will find that the same reasoning applies here. My answers to both questions, at least, are virtually the same.Stardust8212 23:50, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I have never heard of such a mass removal of non-fictional articles in bulk. Several people have tried it and had been blocked indefinitely for vandalsim and/or trolling. There are lots and lots of articles without any sources but their AFDs would bound to fail: Solander Islands/Cocos (Keeling) Islands/George Clinton (vice president).
Someone blanking an article has a responsibility to make sure this action improves wikipedias content. At the very least a google check. If there are hundereds of thousands of google hits, something probably is notable. Reckless actions are disruptive. No one has a job to mass blank articles in bulk. Consensus gathering is absolutely necesary. AFD is that consensus prior to a deletion. When you claim to be "merging" a page and yet are completely removing everything, I would consider that to be dishonest. Soft deletion like that is merely to avoid an AFD.
"we must assume that those nominating the articles for merging have made a good faith effort to look for sources" you say. I make no such assumption. No human being can seek sources at the rate of TTN's bankings. How many times had TTN expanded an episode article?
There is lots of bad faith going around behind these blankings. Consider Samurai Shodown (series) (some 15 games): List of Samurai Shodown characters. Individual character pages were merged by TTN with significant trimming into a "list of characters page". He waited a while and blanked the 'List of characters' page over the lack of out of universe information. So they were trimmed again out of existence. TTN expects people to write articles in sandboxes and only move it to article namespace when it is complete. TTN allegedly merged them to the main article but there is absolutely no mention of the individual characters in the article. This is despite a failed AFD which the closing admin further explained as a lack of consensus to delete despite very weak keep arguments. TTN is having a slow paced revert war on that particular page as well. TTN will probably blank Samurai Shodown (series) and individual game articles next in due time.
TTN and others are not acting based on consensus. This is the largest deletion wave in wiki history on the article namespace and yet it is not based on any kind of consensus. TTN has stopped "picking off smaller ones" and has attempted to "pick off" a larger one and see how that tuned out? He isn't acting with consensus.
I just established that most episode articles can easily be expanded with not a whole lot of effort with the addition of reception and production sections if one has access to these sources which by very nature do exist. I call that "potential"
You (all of you) failed to give me a single answer on why this urgent and immediate mass removal of all fiction related articles is necesary.
Call this anything you like, but when I am genuinely citing evidence of disruption, do not blame it on an emotional response especially on issues, shows, articles I could care less about.
-- Cat chi? 01:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Before I go on with my message, although it has already been established that TTN will never join any of these discussions, I've been taking the issue directly to him and have been getting in heated arguments with him on it. I don't know if I'm proud of that or not. In any case, I'd like to focus on a couple of points that sgeureka has earlier.

Neither is WP a battleground for fans to prove that their fave TV show is better than any other because it has more articles.

No, it isn't. But by making it so that we only have selected articles on selected episodes of selected shows, you end up creating the appearance that it is.


And Wikipedia is not a crystalball

That's true too. In the 1960's there were articles and letters in TV Guide insisting that shows like Bewitched and Gilligan's Island were low-brow trash, and complete wastes of FCC signals that had no cultural significance whatsoever, and were destined to fall by the wayside. Instead, they both became cultural phenomenons. Therefore, I don't see why we can't have the articles on episodes of Playhouse 90 and the low-brow stuff at the same time. ----DanTD 18:07, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

But by making it so that we only have selected articles on selected episodes of selected shows – What makes you think that these "selected shows" won't have to undergo an episode review at a point not so far in the future? The only show that will not have to face it is probably The Simpsons, because their fans have already proven that each ep article of the show can likely be turned into a Good Article: Wikipedia:Featured topics/The Simpsons (season 8). (And I am not a fan of that show; neither do I hate it.) Most ep articles on WP are legacy articles from times where notability was not a major issue. Plus, new ep articles are created all the time, because "if Star Trek can have episode articles, so can my favorite Show-that-will-be-cancelled-tomorrow". Now, when the long ep-article review process started, it was considered best (I guess) to avoid another Wikipedia:Pokémon test situation by starting with those shows where non-notability of individual episodes seems clearer, then go for all other shows, one by one. You can help with this boring task if you like. The most boring part by far is to get editors to realise that their favorite subjects are not exempt from following guidelines. – sgeureka t•c 20:51, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I never knew about the Wikipedia:Pokémon test situatiuon until you mentioned it, and from the description of it, even I think that's a bit extreme. Nevertheless, it seems to me there should be some distinction between "my favorite character is better than yours" from "this character existed here, had this type of personality, etc.," and "this episode title was part of this series and these events occured in it." You also pointed out that the Simpsons fans upgraded the episodes to the point where they could be tagged as Good Articles. Good for them. But could they do it if we had today's standards back then? ----DanTD 21:14, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] edit point beta

Surprise, surprise. TTN himself offered me a sandbox, and I've made duplicates of this sandbox as an effort to save and improve the articles. I still don't think it's going to work, especially with him around. ----DanTD 03:43, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

CONFIRMED: I now have more evidennce that we still can't have good faith in the redirections of TTN, or his supporters. I finally read the revision history of All Hell Breaks Loose (Supernatural), and the previous version had Production, and Reception information, one of the very things that he insisted the Kim Possible episode articles needed in order to stay alive. I told him that one episode of KP had reception coverage, even if it wasn't under the same name. That episode was Stop Team Go. But he just brushed it off as trivia. If I find a way to rewrite the article, I sure as hell won't send it to him for approval. ----DanTD 05:26, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
TTN has decided the aeicles are guilty even if proven innocent. That;s just how he rolls. - Peregrine Fisher 06:09, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
You both paint the picture of disgruntled emotional editors who want this to be about a "war" rather than being about real world information, I don't think you mean to, but that's how it keeps coming out. TTN can't force anything anymore than you can, so stop acting like he has this power over you. Let your arguments stand for themselves, and stop taking it so personally. -- Ned Scott 06:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Depends on whether or not one wants to edit war. - Peregrine Fisher 16:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
On the contrary. I hate edit wars. But when faced with the threat of one, I'm determined to fight them until there's a sensible resolution. Sometimes I see one, and other times I don't. I'd rather spend time either writing or improving articles. I told TTN, and one other person involved in the conversation, that I have nothing against standards for articles. What I'm against are obstructions to reaching those standards. These rapid-fire deletions/redirections are obstructions. ----DanTD 23:18, 12 November 2007 (UTC)