Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/South Park credits

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

The result was Merge — and redirected. History is preserved for merger. --Haemo (talk) 02:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] South Park opening sequence

South Park opening sequence (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Also nominating the related South Park opening credits‎

Delete - Yes, South Park is unquestionably notable. That does not make every single aspect of South Park inherently or independently notable. In the absence of reliable sources that offer substantive coverage of the opening credits sequences themselves (not passing mentions of them, not descriptions of them in episode guides) they do not pass muster for separate articles. See for example AFDs for the credit sequences for Guiding Light, Another World (opening), Another World (closing) among others. Otto4711 18:18, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Unsourced and full of original research. Nothing to prove real-world notability or encyclopaedic worth. Tx17777 18:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Is there a fan wiki for South Park? Maybe this can go there. Just not here, for the problems of WP:OR. --Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 19:49, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete No reliable sources to establish the notability of the credit sequence. Jay32183 20:50, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - This just needs to be cleaned up and linked South Park in WP:SUMMARY style; the South Park article is large enough to merit it. Compare this coverage to Family Guy. ;) --- tqbf 21:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• WP:SUMMARY does not justify creating articles that fail WP:N. Topics get articles when they have significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources independent of the topic. Jay32183 21:20, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• Come on. I don't really care, but, first, it takes two seconds to refute the "NN" argument. Clearly, you'd have WP:N issues if you took a marginally notable topic and divided it into 10 articles. But South Park is hugely notable, and has a long enough article to merit summarization.--- tqbf 21:29, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• It's not the notability of South Park that matters. Your search didn't turn up anything useful. You need to find significant coverage of the opening credits, not a list of things that mention it. Jay32183 21:35, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

You're not going to win this one. :) From the previous G-news search:

• The Orlando Sentinel writes about Jesus flying around in the credits
• The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette performs a close-reading of the credits to discern whether Kenny is truly dead
• The Wichita Eagle (there are Eagles in Wichita?) writes about the talking poo in the credits

... and now I'm bored. I'm just working from the most obvious search, not actually mining for sources.

I'm not arguing that the article is good. I'm just arguing that it's not inappropriate. The bar for "notable" is pretty low on WP, and the South Park credits clear it by a mile. Deletion isn't a cure for bad articles; editing is. --- tqbf 21:42, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• The fact that the opening credits are mentioned in a source doesn't mean that the source itself establishes the notability of the credits. Simply generating a list of Google news hits that include both the phrase "South Park" and the phrase "opening credits" doesn't demonstrate that the credits are themselves independently notable or indeed that the Ghits themselves are even about South Park's opening credits. Out of the top ten results, for instance, one is a review of "Orgazmo," three are (apparent duplicate) hits about the subject of religious satire in the show, two are about the show "That's My Bush" and one is about Bruce Willis. Your supposed "close reading" by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reads in its entirety "He was written out of the opening credits and replaced by another character, named Butters." and then there's the one-paragraph mention of South Park's spoofing another show's credit sequnce, but not during South Park's own credit sequence. So, again, no sources that establish the notability of the credit sequences in and of themselves through substantive coverage. Otto4711 04:12, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

• Merge into South Park. Captain Infinity 03:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
• Keep merge the two articles together. Per tqbf, this is completely acceptable under WP:SUMMARY. I don't want the South Park mainpage overlaoded with details about the opening sequence. minimise cruft yes, but this article could be cruft-free and standalone.--ZayZayEM 03:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
• Merge into South Park Doc Strange 07:37, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete it is completely Original Research and there is nothing provided to show any notablity of the topic.TheRedPenOfDoom 19:02, 13 November 2007 (UTC)\

Where's the WP:OR here? --- tqbf 19:07, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Fancruft. Jmlk17 23:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. This article is being considered for deletion because the two articles weren't merged.206.255.186.75 03:48, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• No, the articles are being considered for deletion because they do not meet relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Otto4711 04:14, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• Keep and merge the two articles into one. Notability guidelines do not require exclusive coverage of a subject, and just because there are no news stories or books entitled "South Park's Opening Credits" does not mean the subject is not notable. Even one-sentence mentions in reliable sources can contribute to significant coverage if a significant number of unique one-sentence mentions with different perspectives on the subject can be collected into a comprehensive article about the subject. But in addition a large amount of mentions in news stories, a book about the Simpsons (Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture) actually devotes a paragraph to the South Park opening credits. One of Wikipedia's biggests strengths is being able to collect information from a disparate variety of sources into comprehensive coverage of a huge variety of topics. Why does it feel like there are forces trying to misuse policies and guidelines in order to reduce Wikipedia to a clone of Encyclopedia Britannica or Microsoft Encarta? -- DHowell (talk) 21:44, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• No one except you is suggesting that sources need to be exclusive. But they do need to be, as the guideline states, "more than trivial." One-sentence mentions are not "more than trivial." One paragraph out of a book is not "more than trivial." If there were sources that were actually significant in their coverage of the opening credits, then they would establish the independent notability of the credits sequence and the one-sentence mentions or the paragraph could be cited for their information. But they do not establish notability. Otto4711 (talk) 00:23, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• I really think you're challenging common sense. There are probably more than a million people who can recite the first lyric of the theme song from memory, which is part of the opening credits. All these two articles do is summarize content from a large notable article. You are arguing with how the South Park topic is organized on WP by trying to argue with how notable it is.--- tqbf 01:06, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• There are probably ten million people or more who can name for instance every person who ever appeared on Survivor. That doesn't mean that every Survivor contestant should have his or her own separate page. "Lots of people know what it is" is not the name thing as notability, which requires reliable sources that offer significant coverage. Otto4711 (talk) 03:48, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• You're confusing notability with verifiability, for what it's worth. --- tqbf 03:50, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• Um, actually I'm not.Actually I'm quoting directly from WP:N. Otto4711 (talk) 04:23, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• The funny thing is, many (most?) of the Survivor competitors have WP pages. --- tqbf 04:26, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• It doesn't necessarily mean that they should. The existence, or lack thereof, of any other article shouldn't impact this discussion. Jay32183 (talk) 06:45, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
• Many do, many don't. Those who do have reliable sources attesting to their notability, and if they don't then the pages should be deleted. Otto4711 (talk) 15:03, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• The discussion of those articles isn't really relevant. The issue at hand isn't the subject's notability, I think it is generally agreed that this article's subject is notable. The problem, however, is proving there is significant coverage and sources to meet WP:N and be verifiable per WP:V. In its current iteration, it does neither. As such, arguing the article meets assumed notability really doesn't matter. The burden of proof on this article is on finding sources. I attempted to do so, but couldn't find any. Until such sources are found, policy dictates that we delete. SorryGuy 21:39, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• I say Merge. It is somewhat of a hallmark for the show, so outright deletion is bad. However, shorten it up and add it to the main South Park article.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.146.62.185 (talk) 04:52, 17 November 2007
• Delete. Per my justification above, if significant sources are not found I support deletion. SorryGuy 21:39, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

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