Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Archenemies in television


 * 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. Stifle (talk) 13:01, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Archenemies in television

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Generally unencyclopedic, mostly OR/subjective content. No reliable sourcing; the most frequent reference is to tvtropes.com, user-generated content failing WP:RS by a country mile. Most of the listed pairings are comic foils for each other, rather than dramatic characters, for whom the melodramatic label "archenemy" is inappropriate. There are no useful inclusion criteria; one could with equal accuracy add pairs like Ralph and Alice Kramden, Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly, and Gabrielle Solis and Gabrielle Solis. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 17:02, 19 July 2010 (UTC) This article has come under criticism, or since deletion is proposed, should we say attack. Let me address a few of the complaints. First a blanket statement: All interpretation of what is "meant" in literature is subjective. We are discussing Fiction and a technique for creating conflictive characters within such drama. Unless you are actually quoting the direct intentions of the author, it is an opinion. Lots of material on WP is opinion. In order to maintain the WP:NPOV and avoidance of WP:OR such quotations of opinion should be sourced, which this subjectivity is. The fact that other people have made similar analysis of these character relationships, verifies the broader acceptance of this subjective opinion. Progress on expanding this article has been limited by the need for sourcing.
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:04, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:04, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete I don't see it being an appropriate list topic (not completable), and I really don't see it as a good category either.  Better that each of these relationships be described in the show article. Jclemens (talk) 00:01, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete Redundant with Archenemy. – sgeureka t•c 06:24, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep In the initial attack on this article, I posted this on the talk page. Since its relevant and ignored here, I'll repost that:

Before posting the prod, the nominator removed some sources that may have redirected to mirrors of WP. While that might have been a technical mistake, the fact that this "opinion" is expressed by other WP editors over years of edits accentuates that this is an accepted analysis of these characters' relationships. There are plenty of other sources available.

As to terminology, the criticism was specific about a couple of characters; claiming that Buddy Sorrell was not a lead character. Granted he was not Dick, or MTM, but he and Rose Marie were next on the credits. I consider somebody in the title credits sufficiently important to merit mention as a lead character in a television drama. Perhaps the header needs to be changed to "main character" to make it technically correct. Perhaps another editor can suggest a different term. Calling a semantic issue as inaccurate does not merit acceleration to deletion of the article--the death penalty.

In posing such argument (not on this page), the proposed deleter mentioned other characters not (yet) mentioned on this page. The bickering conflict between the Kramdens or any other husband and wife could broadly be interpreted as them being archenemies in a dramatic sense, they both are acting to make each other miserable, but deviates from the premise in the sense that being married, there must be some underlying love for each other encapsulating the infighting. We could create a list of fictional bickering married couples as an adjunct to this list including The Bickersons and the Barones from Everybody Loves Raymond.

But the point was, whether for comedic or dramatic effect, this concept exists and here are examples of such usage. There is great potential for expansion of this article which ultimately is support for such categories as (poorly) organized on the master article archenemy. Because this is such a potentially long list, it will exceed the reasonable space available in the master article.

That was posted on July 10. Regarding the unreliability of the blog oriented tvtropes site, keeping with the above, this article is sourcing corroborating opinion about these relationships, confirming that this is not WP:OR. Many additional examples have not yet been entered because corroborating sources haven't been found.

As good lists on WP serve, there are internal wikilinks to the supporting articles. In the currently 60 year history of television, there are certainly more cases of such dramatic tools being used. In table form and at 17 examples, its already superior to the mentions within the article it might be potentially merged to (and certainly is in support of). There will come a day, I suggest sooner than later, where this list of examples will outgrow its space on the main article. There are several other forms of media (film, literature, cartoons, comics, anime, let's add video games) where this kind of technique is used. You should be able to see that 8 examples listed in the television category of the main article should ultimately end up in these, yet to be created, lists. Combining all those examples each will ultimately contribute to making the master article unwieldy with examples. Nipping this article in its infancy will not only cause that future logjam, but with the deletion record will make it that much harder to solve. I've got about 40 examples to work into these various lists as I get some free editing time. However today I've lost my edit time having to write a defense for this article. Good grief, have some patience. Sarcasto (talk) 09:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment I have removed sets of archenemies whose "sources" were blank pages, blogs, wikis, or did not mention archenemies at all. There's not much left. Edward321 (talk) 00:52, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment to the comment Thank you for the "courtesy" of decimating the article while it is under review. However in the attempt to make the article look bad, you've proven my point of the potential of the article and other articles for this same kind of usage in the different categories that I propose will follow.  By leaving Helium as an "acceptable" source, I used that one source's search feature to find a couple of additional examples to add to this article and probably a dozen that will fit into the other categories.  That emphasizes my contention of the potential of expansion of this article.  Your removal of other examples, while making the article look weak in this debate--good timing--it only denies the sources of the article, NOT the fact that these examples are not valid.  The other dozen removed examples just need to find a WP acceptable source to verify them.  Other people obviously share the opinion about the use of this dramatic technique, these are not obscure TV shows or obscure characters within those shows. Sarcasto (talk) 11:27, 26 July 2010 (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.