Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/100 Greatest TV Moments


 * 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   delete. Ironholds (talk) 03:07, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

100 Greatest TV Moments

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Clear violations of copyright as detailed in WP:FU: "A complete or partial recreation of "Top 100" or similar lists where the list has been selected in a creative manner.". Articles are offshoots of 100 Greatest/100 Worst, which contains all information acceptable and necessary. (see also previous AFD: Articles for deletion/100 Greatest TV Moments from Hell) ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 20:49, 17 September 2011 (UTC) I am also nominating the following related pages as they are also violations of Channel 4's copyright for the reason given above:
 * ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 21:00, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions.  ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 21:02, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 21:02, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 21:00, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions.  ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 21:02, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 21:02, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 21:00, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions.  ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 21:02, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 21:02, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions.  ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 21:02, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 21:02, 17 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Further note This edit rationale, is not accurate. The fact that another organisation has published part of one of these lists does not justify a belief that the material itself is copyright free. The poll results remain the intellectual property of Channel 4 ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 22:08, 17 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete all. Following Articles for deletion/100 Greatest TV Moments from Hell, I considered starting a mass AfD just like this one, only I was distracted by other business on-Wiki and it kept slipping my mind. They're interesting pages, but the nominator's concerns regarding WP:COPYVIO are still completely nevertheless seem accurate. Furthermore, none of these articles meaningfully substantiates the notability of the TV programmes in question, which is probably a strong rationale for deletion in itself. Similar 100 Greatest/100 Worst spin-out articles not listed in this AfD have been (often more than once, depending on whether or not the article was re-created) variously AfDed, PRODed or SPEEDYed over the years. In my experience, "countdown"-style pages such as the ones listed above are also popular targets for vandalism (people oh-so-subtly changing poll results to reflect their own opinions as to which is the best/worst TV show/comedy film, etc.). For multiple reasons, therefore, deletion is seems to me to be appropriate.  Super Mario  Man  01:56, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Keep/merge all The Channel 4 shows are based upon polls and so the rankings are not creative in the sense meant. The 100 Greatest TV Moments example just list the top ten and so this is a fair use summary of the most significant part of the results. The main issue, to my mind, is that there are numerous clip shows of this kind and so there's some scope for merging our coverage. For an example of the notability of this phenomenon see Consuming history: historians and heritage in contemporary popular culture. Warden (talk) 17:30, 18 September 2011 (UTC)


 * According to a footnote at WP:NFC: "... polls are likely to be protectable as well because the parameters of the survey are chosen by those who conduct the polls and the selection of respondents indicates 'at least some creativity.'" The same text recommends that polls be accompanied by critical commentary so as to meet the criteria for fair use. Keeping these separate articles doesn't seem to be an option - the majority are full or partial reproductions of polls without commentary, which seems to violate the fair-use principle. Perhaps fleshing out the main 100 Greatest/100 Worst article with a handful of results for each programme (Top 10? Top 5? Top 3?) and critical analysis from book sources - therefore a partial merging - would be an acceptable compromise.  Super Mario  Man  19:33, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * That footnote on Unacceptable use, Text example 5 was following discussion at WT:Non-free content/Archive 51. The discussion and the footnote state that it is advice from the "Wikimedia Foundation's associate counsel". Flatscan (talk) 04:07, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not buying the footnote. This seems to be copyright paranoia which has been added to the guideline recently and does not represent settled policy.  What it suggests is that we'd have to delete lists like List of number-one country hits (United States) because these are based upon Billboard's "creative" selection of country music.  I do not believe there is community consensus for this. Warden (talk) 22:52, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Problems with that argument: 1: the Billboard chart is "calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales". In other words, List of number-one country hits (United States) is a compilation of hard statistics based on actual events (plays and sales). The Channel 4 shows were based on loose polls of opinions of people who felt like voting and there is no way of independently verifying how much input Channel 4 themselves had in the final results. Therefore, the two cases cannot be compared. 2:That argument in general seems like WP:OTHERSTUFF. 3: It is my understanding that copyright rules (which, after all, are based on the law) over-rule any consensus/settled policy/personal opinions that may (or may not) exist. ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 01:15, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Looking at a more current case, the process was that a panel of experts selected a short list of 100. This was then voted upon by an online poll and an opinion poll conducted by the polling organisation ICM.  The results of the two polls were then combined and the experts broke the ties.  I'm not sure that the process is significantly different in the case of record charts, so far as copyright is concerned.  There's a process of expert involvement there too - choosing representative sources and determining genre classifications.  Neither of these seem very creative.  They seem to be more sweat of the brow in nature and this is not a copyright consideration in the USA, where Wikipedia is based.
 * WP:OTHERSTUFF is very relevant here because it's not a single article that has been nominated but a big bundle. It is therefore appropriate to see what else will be affected by this broad brush action.
 * The support for this action is WP:FU which is a guideline not a hard policy and so has a fair amount of wiggle room. Fair use is, by its nature, a matter of compromise and discretion not an exact rule or law.  I don't see how it makes any sense to say that we can summarise the plot of a story like Harry Potter or report who won the Oscars but that we can't summarise the findings of a Top 100 poll like these.  What's the difference?  Warden (talk) 15:37, 19 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete all: Long-time magnet for copyright violations, and the list article contains sufficient detail.&mdash;Kww(talk) 17:30, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete all: don't normally like mass deletions but this is copyright infringing territory. The way to summarize these and escape infringement is to incorporate individual ranks into the "reception" section of individual creative works. Quoting entire segments of the lists is asking for trouble from the copyright holder. I don't like how copyright law denies power to consumers. But there it is. Dzlife (talk) 14:13, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. I've asked for input about the possible copyvio problem at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup. Novickas (talk) 17:15, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The Wikimedia Foundation's attorney was approached about this matter when a similar list was brought to the copyright problems board, and her expert opinion is quoted liberally in that footnote. I had been working on a guideline at the time we received her recommendation (User:Moonriddengirl/Copyright in lists), but it has not been completed because I could never launch a community discussion about how to handle it. People don't generally like to talk about copyright concerns. Previously, we had always felt confident with limited selection of much larger lists, such as the 10 out of 500 listed at The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, but she expresses some concern that the top 10 are the most commercially valuable part of the list. Time 100 is an example of such an article that does not reproduce the list at all, but it is easier for that list to critically discuss contents because it is variable. More information on what she recommends in terms of handling these can be read at Wikipedia_talk:Non-free content/Archive 51 and especially the subsection on "Attorney feedback." --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:12, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I thank you for the feedback. I'm extremely interested to see the result of this AFD as it seems a clear precedent may well be set. My interpretation (and I'm open to correction, naturally) is that these articles would only be acceptable if they were not lists but rather objective analyses of the subject matter (based on coverage and commentary from reliable sources) that contained a few references to poll positions (no pun intended) as part of the overall evaluation. ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 01:41, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * That is a fair summary of her position. Based on her feedback, I would say that the specific article in discussion here makes a poor claim for fair use, as there is little transformative about it. Actually, in the version tagged for deletion, there was no critical commentary whatsoever; the only possible appeal to our readers is the list, which would supersede the original. It is only the top 10 of the list, but, again, our attorney points out that the higher numbers are the more commercially valuable. That said, I have just noticed that the only critical commentary that existed was removed without explanation at the time that the list was truncated from complete to the top 10, here. While not restoring the full list, I've brought everything else back. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:40, 22 September 2011 (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.