Wikipedia:Notability (TV episodes)

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[edit] Pre-draft Essay

See also: Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Television episodes

I apologize that I cannot begin this page with a formal draft, because I don't know how the community wishes to see this. This is a pre-draft essay, and should be moved to the Talk pages once something more formal is fleshed out. Before then, this is the only suitable beginning that I can see to this page.

This proposal comes from discussion that I have engaged in at Talk:A Room with a Moose, a discussion of a single episode of the (notable) TV series Invader Zim. I am seeking a proposal that will extend to all TV episodes, regarding their notability.

( This essay was penned originally by Drostie )

Previous discussion (and some prior consensus) occurred at Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Television_episodes. This proposal seeks to create a new guideline page for television episodes, to go with other articles on notability.

[edit] Problem Statement

Wikipedia has two things that need to be reconciled:

  1. Notability -- "A topic is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works from sources that are reliable and independent of the subject itself and each other."
  2. A large number of articles on individual television episodes. Each link that follows contains tons of links to individual articles, each on a single episode of a television show:

Actually, I think I can continue the two-a-letter for roughly the entire alphabet without running too short on these sorts of articles.

The contradiction comes because virtually no single TV episode, minus maybe a couple of pilots and season finales, are the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works from independent sources.

Let me clarify that these television shows are notable, in themselves. And, possibly, some pilot episodes and season finales are also notable, in themselves. But in general, as a matter of policy, Wikipedia articles are not TV/radio guides and Wikipedia articles on fiction should be based on real-world context.

Notability is a guideline. That means that it has some exceptions. Articles on episodes of notable TV shows may, or may not, be exceptions to the notability guidelines. That is what I wish the community to decide:

  • Should these single-episode articles be tolerated as an exception; or should they be purged from Wikipedia?

[edit] Considerations

  • If we decide to delete/merge the existing articles, some role-model examples are:
  • The amount of content deletion will be considerable. Even in a massive summarized merging, a considerable amount of work will be lost. And that is a lot of people's work that will be destroyed. Any such action must be decided carefully.
  • Admins will have to delete a lot of articles once the merges are complete.
  • The implementation of a policy here would probably require its own Wikipedia:WikiProject.
  • I believe that this discussion should be made all at once, by the larger part of the community -- not relegated to a couple of special-interest Articles for Deletion debates.

I do not propose this notion lightly, and I am personally torn -- between, first, a distaste for deleting the contributions made, and, second, an appreciation of the notability guidelines and a desire to see them followed.

I don't know which way this should go, so I'm seeking community input and consensus in drafting the new policy.