Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ice (The X-Files)


 * 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   keep. No consensus to delete. The issue of merging can be discussed on the article's talk page or someone can be bold and redirect it to the existing section in the episodes article. Transwiki to the wikia site is not really an option since the article there exist and is farely comprehensive. (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:19, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Ice (The X-Files)

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This article is about a single episode from season one of The X-Files but fails to show why the episode is notable, either with regards to importance in the "real world", or as an important episode of The X Files franchise, and thus fails to show why the article should exist.

Looking at the structure of the article, there is too much reliance on what is basically a scene-by-scene WP:PLOT recap rather than a short episode summary. There are two other moderately sized paragraphs about the production and reception, and that is it. In the reception section, it says "This episode was highly praised as one of the best episodes of the first season by its creators." Wow. The creators liked it. What about anyone else? What about "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject."? That's not reception. That's just the production team practicing WP:PUFFERY. The article does mention that the episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 6.6 with an 11 share, and that 6.2 million US households watched the episode, but those are not notable figures.

I've looked in Google, and a few other places, and can find nothing to indicate that the episode ever received any third-party coverage or anything to establish Real-world notability. There are seven references in the article, and they point to three different books written about the overall X-Files franchise, but not the episode. Because they are written about the entire franchise, and all include episode guides, none can be used to establish significant coverage. One, by the way, is an Officially licenced guidebook.

Because The X-Files (season 1) exists, which has an adequately sized plot summary, there is only one outcome for this article, and that is to delete. Matthewedwards : Chat  07:19, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Transwiki merge is a worthwhile option: http://x-files.wikia.com/wiki/Ice &mdash;siro&chi;o 12:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 13:59, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 13:59, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep All episodes of this show are notable. Without the episodes, there would be no X Files. Ditto The Simpsons, Southpark, etc, etc.  Lugnuts  (talk) 17:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment It's from 1993, so the presence of online sources will be somewhat limited. If you look at much more current episodes of the X-files, there's sufficient reviews and coverage for later season episodes, so the question remains: are there extant offline sources for the first seasons? This is a major show, spanning numerous seasons, spawning at least one spinoff and two movies (that's from memory), so individual episode articles may be in order. Jclemens (talk) 18:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. From Google Books:, , , , , etc. See also: Category:The X-Files episodes. — Rankiri (talk) 01:21, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per book sources identified above. Hobit (talk) 03:22, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Episode fits notability requirements as referenced by other users; will see what I can do about adding more sources, hopefully by the weekend. Third party coverage already identified by non-official sources already listed, books linked to, and should be able to find at least a few more. Quiddity99 (talk) 03:26, 13 April 2010 (UTC)Quiddity99
 * Additional Comment It doesn't take long to find several episode pages from several other series with very similarly structured articles. For example, Bart Star from the Simpsons is rated as a good article, and is pretty much the exact same format at this article. A summary of the episode, followed by a discussion of production and a reception section consisting of a comment from the authors of a book dedicated to being an episode guide for a particular season of the Simpsons and a comment from a person involved with production of the episode, providing praise for the episode. That article uses as its sources the official Simpsons web site, the director's commentary for the episode, an episode summary from the BBC web site, and an episode guide book for the season. It is wildly inconsistent to award the Simpsons article in question good article status and single out this article for deletion. Quiddity99 (talk) 02:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)Quiddity99


 * Keep Every minute we waste on notability challenges is one less minute we have for producing content. This is not Encyclopedia Britannica, there is no limit to the available space, realistically speaking. If someone felt this subject was important enough to do a (very nice) page of, chances are there are users out there who will be glad it is here. It makes no sense to waste time and air on this. If you want an example of what is WRONG with WP, just pay a little visit to SPECIAL PAGES>NEW PAGES and get a load of the waves and waves and waves of CRAP being chucked this way. This article is fine. There are hundreds and probably thousands of articles dedicated to crappy bands that no one has ever heard of, crappy albums that they've made, crappy artists that no one cares about, and on and on. All of that is substantially less "notable" than an episode summary of the X-Files, for example. Stop being so anal retentive and micromanaging, people. Get out there and get doing real work, cleaning up the SPECIAL PAGES>NEW PAGES crap funnel. Carrite (talk) 05:29, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge to an episode list for The X-Files. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 05:33, 13 April 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.