Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Let Bartlet Be Bartlet


 * 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. There is no strong agreement on what should happen with this article, and there is certainly no consensus that it should be outright deleted. I think the best way forward would be to either start a merge discussion on the talk page of the article, or perhaps an RfC to settle the issue for all of the individual episode articles. -Scottywong | soliloquize _ 18:57, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Let Bartlet Be Bartlet
Page was redirected to The West Wing (season 1) on July 16. G. C. Hood (talk) 16:46, 16 July 2012 (UTC)


 * – ( View AfD View log  •  Stats )

This article is not the subject of any significant amount of discussion, is not one of the ones attached to an Emmy, and is not notable. The content has already been merged with the season article. (Disputed PROD).  S ven M anguard  Wha?  20:22, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep unless there is consensus to merge all West Wing episode articles (or for the default to be merge, with the exception being Emmys and so on). WP doesn't necessarily need to cover individual episodes in this amount of detail, but given that we do, we're doing a disservice to the reader by leaving them wondering what happened between "Six Meetings Before Lunch" and "Mandatory Minimums." –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 21:38, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions.  Gongshow  Talk 22:17, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Merge to season list: my reasoning is outlined here: User:MZMcBride/Edit summaries. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:35, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep given the prevailing sentiment on WP, I think these episodes should be kept. The experts at episode article creation could probably make an encyclopedic article out of just about any West Wing episode. (see the closing comments at Articles for deletion/Drought Conditions (2nd nomination))--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 00:10, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * At least part of the closing comments in that AfD are seriously flawed, specifically "while merging may well be a viable long-term solution, if it is to be done, it shouldn't be done one episode at a time." There is no practical way to merge all of the episode articles at the same time. Some have ridiculously long summaries that far exceed what is reasonably expected and specified. WP:TVPLOT says, "As a rough guide, summaries for episode articles should be about 200 to 500 words". However, it also says that for season articles, "a tabular format that sections off each individual episode with its own brief plot section (approximately 100–200 words for each, with upwards of 350 words for complex storylines)". The instructions for Episode list say "A short 100–300 word summary of the episode." When you have articles like 17 People (570 words), 365 Days (657 words) and 2162 Votes (a massive 1,125 words), there's a fair bit of pruning to do. The only way to merge the episode articles is one at a time. --AussieLegend (talk) 16:25, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Redirect to season list and let this be the precedent for the other Westwing episode articles. The majority violates WP:NOT, and the one-sentence real-world information is too embarrasing WP:TRIVIA to count for notability. From sporadic browsing, it seems the vast majority of Westwing ep articles suffer the same inadequacies. – sgeureka t•c 08:50, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * How does that line go? Oh yes: "AfD is not cleanup". Not to mention, "There is no deadline". If you want more real world info, then add it? Else, wait, and through the wiki-way, the pages will slowly be developed per the normal wiki process. - jc37 17:50, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * One day we'll all fly around in personal skycars. Just because you say something, doesn't mean it's true. How long has Paul Moller been developing the skycar. The edit histories of The West Wing episode articles fail to support your claim. There comes a point where it becomes clear that nobody is going to make the effort. You have to be realistic. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:19, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete or Redirect (with a preference for delete). I went through all of The West Wing episode articles and there are about 130 that fail WP:PLOT or have serious issues that stop these articles from meeting our guidelines, including WP:N. All episodes are listed at User:AussieLegend/The West Wing for anyone who is interested. Nobody seems interested in improving any of the articles, which is why I was so frustrated to see articles that I had merged back to the season articles and then redirected or prodded, later restored. The only interest seems to be in keeping articles that fail to meet our guidelines and there is no point in doing this when the article is redundant to the season list. There was a reason for some of the articles when the season articles didn't exist and the content couldn't be incorporated into List of The West Wing episodes, but I created the missing season articles (seasons 1-5) and reworked the two that already existed (seasons 6 & 7). Nobody had even bothered creating seasons 1-5 so there's little chance they'd bother with the episode articles. I agree with sgeureka that this should set a precedent for all The West Wing episode articles. There's no reason why any of the 130 non-complying articles should continue to exist. There are some episodes that are notable and these should remain but the rest should all be deleted. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:37, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * There seems to have been a consensus to keep all the episodes of poplar TV shows as separate articles. Based on that precedent, I would keep.  If consensus has changed, I would like to be informed so. Bearian (talk) 17:30, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Can you demonstrate this consensus? Why would we have a consensus to keep bad articles? --AussieLegend (talk) 18:18, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep, per User:TonyTheTiger, and others above. - jc37 17:50, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Note for the closer - This discussion closure should take into account the discussion at Articles for deletion/The Lame Duck Congress. They were nominated at the same time by the same nominator. - jc37 17:56, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep The nomination states that content from this article was merged into another. We must therefore keep the edit history of this article to satisfy our licensing - see WP:MAD for more details.  The issue of which page this content should best appear on is a matter of ordinary editing, not deletion, and so our editing policy applies. Warden (talk) 18:41, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * We keep the edit history by redirecting the article, not by keeping the article in its current, non-compliant form. --AussieLegend (talk) 19:25, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Improving the article is a matter of ordinary editing per our editing policy. This is easy to do because the topic is covered in detail in sources such as The West Wing: The American Presidency As Television Drama, Considering Aaron Sorkin, The Prime-time Presidency and Hollywood's White House: The American Presidency in Film and History.  Deletion would be quite inappropriate and disruptive. Warden (talk) 19:46, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, the article can be improved but nobody has shown any interest in improving it. It doesn't matter how easy it is to improve it, if nobody is willing to do it then it may as well be impossible. As it stands now, it's just a plot summary that's redundant to the season article, so redirection is definitely an alternative. I don't see how deletion would be disruptive. Wikipedia won't lose anything by deleting this article. --AussieLegend (talk) 20:28, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Deletion would cause us to lose the edit history, which is required for attribution, and the episode title which is a distinctive search phrase, referenced in numerous sources. Warden (talk) 23:27, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * That still doesn't explain how it would be disruptive. i.e. how would it disrupt Wikipedia? I've already said that redirection is an alternative that would keep the edit history. WP:NOTPLOT says this article shouldn't exist but it doesn't say we can't redirect it. --AussieLegend (talk) 00:01, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * This and the other similar discussions are obviously disruptive in that they create numerous pages of idle and unproductive discussion, contrary to WP:NOTFORUM. Deletion of any of the article contents or history would be disruptive in that it would make these details unavailable to readers and editors, contrary to WP:PRESERVE and would contravene our licensing legalities, contrary to WP:GFDL.  Warden (talk) 17:14, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Deletion of the article contents would not be disruptive at all, as the only content worth keeping was the plot summary, which is already in the season article. --AussieLegend (talk) 17:20, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep Every episode has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject and therefore it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article.... Let's not delete just because of WP:NOEFFORT. Mcewan (talk) 01:01, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * "Every episode has received significant coverage in reliable sources''" - Do you have a source for that, because the article certainly doesn't. --AussieLegend (talk) 05:53, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Well a quick search on this episode turned up quite a lot of coverage:
 * Guardian, UK
 * Spectator magazine, UK
 * Telegraph, UK
 * Philadelphia Enquirer
 * Television: the critical view, OUP, 2007
 * I don't like fancruft any more than anyone else but that is not what this is. Mcewan (talk) 09:46, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Will you be adding these to the article? --AussieLegend (talk) 11:09, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * These sources are not relevant for notability, as far as I can tell after a quick look. They are not about this episode, but about the relevance of the entire series - and the phrase "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet" - to real-life politics.  Sandstein   20:27, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, if that phrase has enough notoriety that it has entered the vocabulary of political debate to the extent that it is used by 3 of the UK's leading newspapers in different contexts (and there are US examples too - "Let Obama be Obama" for instance), then I would argue that it is notable. The phrase only exists because of the episode that is the subject of this article, so does that not mean that the episode itself is notable? I suppose we could have an article on the phrase that links to the merged and redirected content in the episode list, but the encyclopedic outcome would be for the influence of this episode on political discourse around the world to be seriously discussed - and that would be better achieved in a dedicated article. And I know that the article has been neglected and does not at present contain this sort of content. And I'm not going to write it myself - this is not my area at all. But there is no deadline, we're told. Mcewan (talk) 20:58, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Use of the phrase might make the phrase notable, but it doesn't make the episode in which it appears notable. There's irony here in the fact that the phrase isn't even discussed in the article. Instead there's a trivial note about how Martin Sheen had never heard of the director. If the phrase has been used a lot, and notability can be established, there might be justification to turn this article into an article just about the phrase, similar to Beam me up, Scotty, but the episode itself doesn't appear notable. --AussieLegend (talk) 13:02, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete and redirect to season list. The article (or this discussion) does not contain references to the sort of substantial third-party coverage needed to pass WP:GNG. The one footnote does not appear to relate to this episode at all.  Sandstein   05:53, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Redirect to The West Wing (season 1) - Until balance is made for this episode, this is the best way. AFD is not a substitute for cleanups. --George Ho (talk) 15:09, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep If we're going to start deleting episodes of every major TV series that has articles for each episodes, then that discussion should be had elsewhere. Merging is clearly not tenable, for if you merge 20+ articles to a single list, then you're going be getting warning about pages being too long, unless you are actually deleting content. Nfitz (talk) 19:10, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid your assertion is incorrect. The longest season article for The West Wing is season 4, which has 23 episodes. 23 episodes at the maximum 300 words per episode summary gives you about 43kB of prose including non-episode summary prose. WP:SIZERULE specifies 40kB as the "Length alone does not justify division" boundary. 50kB is the "May need to be divided" point. Since most episode summaries are less than 300kB, the pages are unlikely to cause any grief and there are plenty of season articles that are longer than this. For example, despite having 68 episodes and some excessively long episode summaries, there have never been any size warnings at List of The Penguins of Madagascar episodes (season 2), which is more than twice the length that these articles would ever be. --AussieLegend (talk) 19:51, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * There are a couple of mistakes in this assumption that you'd only have 300 words per episode. This page alone has over 350 words of content that would need moving, and some individual episodes are much larger.  More using this article as a gauge, there's about 366 words taking in 2,185 characters - or 2.13 kB.  23 more articles like that give you 49 kB - assuming you keep them all below 300 words; it's not hard to imagine that it would be easy to be exceeding the 50 kB criteria. I hope most episode summaries are less than 300kB?  Which ones are bigger? And really - your going to compare an series of 23 episodes of drama, each 42 minutes long, to a series of 68 10-minute cartoons?  That's over 100 kB long???? Doesn't that kind of prove my point? If 680 minutes of material produces pages that are too long, surely 966 minutes of material will be even worse. I think your cutting it a bit too close, Kowalski! Nfitz (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * No, there are no mistakes, at least not at my end. Merging isn't simply a case of copying and pasting. As I've explained above, the instructions for Episode list, which is used in the season articles, say the the episode summary should be 100–300 words. Part of the merge process (at least when carried out correctly) is to trim the episode summary so that it is 300 words or less. Some of the episode summaries are already less than that. Episode length is irrelevant to the comparison I provided above, which relates to page size, not the length of the episodes. However, if you want to relate it to episode length, despite being only 10 minutes each, the episode summaries average out at 165 words each, or 16.5 words per minute. Translate that to 42 minutes and the summary would be 693 words, more than twice what the instructions say. --AussieLegend (talk) 23:11, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Page was redirected to The West Wing (season 1) on July 16. G. C. Hood (talk) 16:46, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep as required by WP:MAD. At a minimum, Let Bartlet Be Bartlet should redirect to The West Wing (season 1) and deletion is out of the question. CallawayRox (talk) 19:38, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
 * WP:MAD doesn't require speedy keep. It says that closing admins may interpret "merge and delete" votes as "merge". WP:SK indicates that speedy keep doesn't apply here. --AussieLegend (talk) 20:06, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Why is this at Articles For Deletion if deletion is prohibited? AFD is WP:NOTCLEANUP. CallawayRox (talk) 18:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Deletion isn't prohibited. WP:MAD is intended to supplement WP:DP, but it's not a policy or guideline. It's only an essay. If deletion was actually prohibited WP:AFD wouldn't exist. --AussieLegend (talk) 18:35, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 *  Weak keep Sources are light at best, but given the cited uses of the phrase in the media, we should probably have an article. Plus I see no point in merging--it just removes material (as we summarize) and makes it harder to read (I find most episode lists very difficult to parse as the brief summaries just aren't enough). Hobit (talk) 03:40, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The only source in the article is used to support a fairly trivial comment about how Martin Sheen had never heard of the director, which is the only non-plot information in the article. "Light" is giving the reference a lot more credit than is due. Concerns about brief summaries in episode lists really don't apply here. The plot summary in the article, which makes up 81% of the article's prose (which is why it violates WP:PLOT), is only 246 words. A merge would result in that summary being directly copied into the season article, so nothing at all would be lost. The phrase "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet" isn't even discussed in the article and it's not used in the real world, it's just paraphrased, as in "Let Osama be Osama". --AussieLegend (talk) 12:26, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * At 246 words the plot summary is much longer than most I've seen. That said, the article now has a solid claim to addressing the issues you raise (thanks to Uzma Gamal).  Does his her (Uzma is traditionally a female name I see) changes address your concerns?  They move me from a weak (and nearly IAR) keep to a solid keep. Hobit (talk) 17:08, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It's very courageous of you to say "yeah, that's fine" 10 minutes after the article was edited. I'm actually looking more deeply before making a decision. --AussieLegend (talk) 17:28, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Redirect - Nothing significant about the episode, no indication of real-world notability, a slim mention in tvguide.com regarding the episode director is all. Tarc (talk) 13:35, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect (merge of material into The West Wing (season 1) was performed already. --→gab  24 dot  grab← 14:59, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - Expanded. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 16:58, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * @AussieLegend: According to WP:TVSHOW, National TV shows are generally "kept". It is, perhaps just my anectdotal memory that we have kept individual articles in the past.  I will get you some links of past AfDs. 17:25, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, here are some examples of crap that we have kept: an upcoming season of a TV show from countries with 20 million residents, list of characters from a situation comedy, a second-rate gay journalist who had his 15 minutes, etc. (Since number of West Wing articles have been nominated all at once, it has been difficult to keep up with the debates.)  Contrast: a list of voice actors of a children's show and the personal life of Jennifer Lopez.  Now, I do not like any of these shows; I am just taking the stand that we have, in the past, kept lots of crappy TV show articles.  It's not what I want, but it has been consensus here at AfD. If the sand has shifted from underneath me, I want to know now. Bearian (talk) 17:42, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Here are some examples of articles on individual Simpsons shows: Nov. 2004, Oct. 2005, another early one, then one was deleted but was re-created later and a whole bunch were kept en mass). See also these Heroes episodes: Articles for deletion/I Am Become Death.  WP:EPISODE is an official guideline, but most articles on individual episodes are kept anyway.  Like I said, just tell me that Elvis has left the stadium, and I will be happy. Bearian (talk) 17:55, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Big Brother Australia 2012 - I don't see the relevance of Australia's population. The show has been the subject of considerable coverage in the media, particularly because it suffered declining ratings and was canned four years ago and is now being shown on another network. I lost interest in the program when they evicted a suitcase in the first episode and the owner a few days later but I would have voted keep for the same reasons as the closer noted.
 * List of My Name Is Earl minor characters - has been moved to List of My Name Is Earl characters It's fairly common to have character articles for characters in sitcoms.
 * Pete Williams (journalist) - I don't really have anything to say about this one, but the one thing that it has in common with the other two articles is that they are not episode articles like this one so they don't demonstrate "a consensus to keep all the episodes of poplar[sic] TV shows as separate articles". The same can be said for some of your other examples. Bart's Dog Gets an F actually has GA status. It may have been different back in 2005, but you really can't use 5 to 7-year-old AfDs as examples of current consensus. Wikipedia was a different place then and we let more stuff slip through. --AussieLegend (talk) 18:16, 17 July 2012 (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.