Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre


 * 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 no consensus. No prejudice to renominating individual articles separately, which would make for a much clearer discussion instead of this mess... Randykitty (talk) 15:42, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre

 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. Levivich (talk) 02:05, 20 November 2018 (UTC)


 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

I am also nominating the following related pages because they were all created by the same editor and concern the same company's documentaries:

This is a group of stand-alone articles for documentaries recently released by A&E Networks, which do not appear to merit being standalone articles per the policies WP:GNG, WP:NOTTVGUIDE, WP:NOTNEWS, WP:IINFO, WP:NTV, WP:NF (if it applies), and WP:PROMO, or the guidance in the essays WP:E≠N, WP:TOOSOON, and WP:OEN.

All of these articles were created by a single user (contribs), who has created many stubs for TV shows and specials on A&E and A&E-owned channels (Biography, History, Lifetime, Viceland).

All of the sources (listed below) seem to be not independent, not reputable, or not significant under GNG. In addition to the sources cited in the articles, a WP:BEFORE search turned up non-significant mentions of these programs (announcing that they would be airing), but no significant treatment of them as documentaries (for example, reviews). Some sources given discuss the subjects of the documentaries, but not the documentary programs themselves (other than to mention they are airing).

It seems to me to be a case of WP:PROMO, but perhaps I'm being overly strict in my understanding of what "significant" and "independent" mean, and not WP:AGF. Looking forward to reading everyone's thoughts.

The sources for these articles are:


 * Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre


 * 1. A&E: obviously not independent


 * 2. Scott Holleran: Does not appear to be a reputable source within the WP:RS meaning of the term.


 * 3. The Root: A one-sentence mention. Significant coverage?


 * Elizabeth Smart: Autobiography


 * 1. Biography.com: Self-referencing source (this is an A&E Biography special)


 * 2. Biography.com: Self-referencing source (this is an A&E Biography special)


 * 3. The Wrap: This appears to be about the Lifetime movie, I Am Elizabeth Smart, with the title incorrectly stated as "Elizabeth Smart: Autobiography," which is the A&E Biography documentary that came out shortly before the Lifetime movie. (A&E owns both Lifetime and Biography.) This doesn't seem to be significant coverage of the documentary, Elizabeth Smart: Autobiography.


 * Warren Jeffs: Prophet of Evil


 * 1. The Salk Lake Tribune A TV review that is much more focused on the difference between LDS and FLDS, and only talks about the documentary to criticize its handling of this one issue. Significant coverage?


 * 2. Heavy.com: a one-sentence mention in an article about Jeffs. Significant coverage?


 * 3. In Touch: The article repeats what A&E says about its own program, adding little if any original content. Significant coverage?


 * 4. Independent: One-sentence mention. Significant coverage?


 * Waco: Madman or Messiah


 * 1. Realscreen: Realscreen does not appear independent to me because A&E was the primary sponsor of Realscreen's summit in 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and that's as far back as I looked. Independent source?


 * 2. BroadwayWorld: This "article" is literally a reprint of A&E's press release.


 * 3. CNN: Two sentences mentioning this documentary. The rest of the article is focused on another documentary, and CNN says that A&E's doc "piggybacks" on the other one. Significant coverage?


 * 4. People: Relays information from A&E's press release (though at least it's not an outright copy-and-paste). Significant coverage? Independent?


 * Manson: Inside the Mind of a Mad Man


 * 1. Monsters and Critics: A four-sentence article; two about the documentary, two about Manson. Significant coverage?


 * 2. BT: An article from the cable company that is airing the program. It states at the bottom of the article, "Manson Speaks: Inside the Man of a Madman begins Tuesday December 12 at 9pm on History, BT Channel 327." Independent source?


 * 3. Radio Times: A listing of the program with no copy at all that I can see (unless my browser is not working). Significant coverage?


 * 4. Realscreen: See above under Waco -- Is Realscreen an independent source for it's primary Summit sponsor, A&E?


 * 5. UPROXX: Not about A&E's documentary at all and makes no mention of it. Levivich (talk) 01:50, 20 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete none of these works have the broad cultural impact to show notability.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:22, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment – Just a note that notability on English Wikipedia is not particularly based upon whether or not a film has had a "broad cultural impact" (as stated above in the discussion). Rather, notability is often determined in terms of whether or not a topic has received significant coverage in independent, reliable sources. See WP:NFP for more information. Also, did you perform WP:BEFORE searches for each article, or is your !vote solely opinion based? North America1000 06:47, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. North America1000 06:43, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. North America1000 06:44, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of South America-related deletion discussions. North America1000 06:45, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

 References
 * Keep for Waco: Madman or Messiah. Meets WP:NFP / WP:GNG as per WP:BEFORE searches. Some source examples are listed below. This is somewhat of a weak keep !vote per only finding two independent sources that provide significant coverage, but that's all that is actually needed. North America1000 06:59, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * WTVA
 * People
 * Comment: I don't think there's an independence or reliability concern with CNN or People, so if the consensus is that the coverage in these articles is "significant," then it seems that Waco would pass under WP:N. (FYI these two examples are cited in the article, #3 and #4 on the list; WTVA is the same article as on CNN.) Levivich (talk) 15:34, 20 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep all As they all pass WP:TVSERIES as nationally broadcast they are most likely to pass WP:GNG which requires at least one paragraph on the subject which many of the above mentioned references comply with as a minimum. Also, has the nominator edited under another account as they seem very policy driven for a new editor? regards Atlantic306 (talk) 12:48, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment: No, I have not edited under another account. I hope that bite was tasty! :-) Levivich (talk) 15:34, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment You are misusing WP:TVSERIES which says just a sentence later In either case, however, the presence or absence of reliable sources is more definitive than the geographic range of the program's audience alone. Not every national TV show is notable. Either there are reliable sources or they don't. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 14:59, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi, the ping didnt work, Im not saying passing WP:TVSERIES means they are definitely notable but that they are very likely to be as North America has shown. The average age of a webpage is only 100 days and many sources are paywalled so I have much less faith in google than others have and offline sources should be sought, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 22:04, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment I totally get it now, no worries. Also I feel this should have been split to separate AfDs in my opinion, messy to assess all noms here. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 22:17, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sam Sailor 04:59, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 04:31, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   17:29, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete Doesn't meet TVSERIES because it's merely another of many 'round number year divisible by 5' docs which always seem to come out around these tragedies (and are made merely to target a certain group of people; here, women who enjoy shows about Jonestown). No new information is broken in this show, and not everything on cable that fills 1-2 hours needs an article.  Nate  • ( chatter ) 19:17, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment – Per its wording, 's !vote appears to be only about the Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre article. Denoting this because four other article are nominated for deletion herein, and it would be inaccurate for this !vote to be applied to all of them if it only pertains to the first article in the header of this AfD. North America1000 19:30, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * It certainly was and I'll elaborate further for the other four; the Smart doc at least should be withdrawn because it's an 'in her own words' show where Smart herself tells her story, has complete editorial control, there is new information disclosed, and there's likely many sources for that, so keep on that. The Jeffs and Waco docs would be delete for me as more round number anniversary docs which advance no new information, and I have no real opinion on the Manson doc because it comes at the subject at a different angle than most, so neutral there. I do definitely agree that a separate nom would be better for all five docs.  Nate  • ( chatter ) 19:41, 5 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment – It comes across that it may have been more productive to have nominated these articles separately, rather than as a bundled nomination. See my comment directly above for an example why. North America1000 19:31, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * How do I fix it? Levivich (talk) 20:34, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Since it's already been opened as such, it would just create more confusion and be entirely out-of-process to create new discussions from the discussion herein, and you cannot have two separate AfD discussions for an article running simultaneously. So, I would simply wait until this is closed, and then if you'd like, you can re-nominate separately if any articles are retained that you feel are topically non-notable. North America1000 20:38, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I wasn't ignoring your comment above, but I came to the same conclusion: if I tried to undo/redo, it would be worse than if I left it alone. Apologies for bundling them. I really thought these were all absolute no-brainers. If folks want to keep some of them I don't have a strong objection. I'm not going to re-nominate any that are kept. In fact I'm out of AfDs altogether after this; where these are keeps and the TV schedules are deletes, it's obvious I'm not on the same page as the community on this. Levivich (talk) 20:47, 5 December 2018 (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.