User:Vanished user 909146283013/Follow the WP:EPISODE guideline and make AfD easier for articles that don't

History
"...sorry to say, but unfortunately, large "group" AfDs like this tend to turn into a mess" - Luna Santin, |here

So, right before I went on wikibreak for the 2006 Midterm Elections (and, of course, actual holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas), I was on prod patrol when I came across Fallen_Angel_%28TMNT_2003%29. I decided to endorse the prod because I agreed that it met the criteria for deletion. However, there was then an objection to the prod, so I posted it to WP:AFD. As part of the AfD discussion, FrozenPurpleCube asked if I wanted to make a group nomination of all articles in the series. Since none of the articles had very much information (and were unlikely to do so in the future), I decided that a group nomination was appropriate. After researching how to do that and following the appropriate procedure, I spent about 30-45 minutes going to every individual article in the series and tagging it for AfD. It was only then that FrozenPurpleCube pointed me in the direction of these two AfD discussions.

Feeling a sense of defeat, I withdrew the nomination. A few days later, I had to go back and remove all the AfD tags I had placed. In total, this was about 1-2 hours of time when I could have been doing something more productive to the encyclopedia. I still believe that the entire series of articles should be deleted, as there is an overview page that includes all the notable information for each episode (and that page should be kept).

Let me say that I'm not singling out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles here. I think the same rules should apply for all TV show episodes. There should NOT be a page for every episode of every TV series. There are some (but very few) series where more than a third of all episodes are independently notable, and I think that's an appropriate threshold for when including an article on every episode becomes desirable. (And, though I love The Simpsons, I don't believe it meets that threshold anymore. The original series of Star Trek, however, probably does.)

Analysis
I can understand why people disagree. There are two conflicting principles here, both in the WP:NOT policy. On the one hand Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, so we can include more information and lower the threshold for notability if the information is useful. However, on the other hand, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, in particular, point #7. Many of the articles contained nothing but plot summaries and character lists, with no reason why anyone should care. Now, as I said above, there was an overview page with a list of every episode and some useful information. I thought that was fine. The show itself was sufficiently notable to merit an article, and it presented the information contained within each episode article in a more useful way. Thus, the individual article pages were unnecessary. (Seriously, who would search for a non-notable episode title of a TV show before searching for the show itself?)

Now, there is a page called WP:EPISODE that gives some good guidance about this whole situation, specifically, the process that should come before creating episode pages and a suggestion to merge unnecessary episode pages. However, when that page explicitly says, "Generally, articles on episodes of television should not be listed for AfD (unless they are completely unverifiable, original research, etc.)," there is no reason for someone to not create a plot summary article for every episode of their personal favorite television series. We need to do something to make sure that you can't disregard a consensus guideline and essentially be immune from AfD. (To be honest, I can't see a situation like this rising to the level of ArbCom.)

Suggestions
So, what can we do about this? Here are my suggestions.


 * 1) Change the procedures for bundled AfD nominations. Create a template that would make sense for posting to an "overview" or WikiProject page saying that some articles in its purview are being listed for AfD. Don't require that every article be given its own AfD tag. (However, for fairness, it's probably best to still require that every article under consideration be linked in the AfD, or at least a link to a page with a list of the articles.)
 * 2) Set a definite (though flexible) threshold for when TV shows can have articles about every episode. For example, if a third of the episodes of a series have defensibly notable articles, then every episode can have an article (with some of them a bit more stubby). If the show doesn't meet that overall, then it could be done by season (e.g. if more than a third of the episodes for a season have defensibly notable articles, then every episode in that season can have an article). Also, once a show meets the threshold, it keeps it forever. (So, even though I haven't watched The Simpsons in forever and the new episodes probably aren't particularly notable, their articles could be created and kept.)
 * 3) Also, if a show truly deserves to have an article about every episode, it probably also should have its own WikiProject. So let's make that mandatory. Must have a WikiProject for the show before creating articles for every episode. (Yeah, this is never going to happen.) This would also create a convenient place for bundled AfD notices to be placed.

Commentary
Finally, I want to point out to people that there are criticisms of the Pokémon test. It's not fair to say, "Every Pokémon is notable enough to have an article, so every episode of show X is notable enough to have its own article." In a bundled AfD, if you want to vote "Keep all," you should have to justify that at least some of the episodes are independently notable and the articles can be more than just plot summary. If the show is notable, but the episodes individually aren't, then an episode list article is sufficient, and probably more useful in the long run anyway. Additionally, such episode list articles would cut down on disambiguation pages. (Yeah, episode titles can sometimes be a little generic.)

I welcome on my talk page any comments you have about this essay.