Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Movies and TV Series Related to the History of England


 * 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. Tone 17:10, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

List of Movies and TV Series Related to the History of England

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This article should be deleted for the same reasons that List of Movies and TV Series Related to the History of Italy(AFD) is being deleted. One reason that this article should be deleted is because it is WP:LISTCRUFT since it satisfies definitions #3,#4, #6, and #12. The article should also be deleted because the topic is too broad and "related" is vague term. It also fails WP:NOTDIRECTORY #6 which states "Non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations, such as "people from ethnic / cultural / religious group X employed by organization Y" or "restaurants specializing in food type X in city Y". Cross-categories like these are not considered sufficient basis to create an article, unless the intersection of those categories is in some way a culturally significant phenomenon. See also Overcategorization for this issue in categories." This applies because the list is a non encyclopedic cross category. KAP03 (talk) 16:16, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The list may be deleted, as per the Italian one, for content issues -- but the nominator continues to try different jumbled concoctions of policies in search of a winning combination, which in some cases make no sense. In this case, saying and apparently believing that a list is a category and that WP:OC applies to list. The Italian Afd is not yet closed and perhaps should have been allowed to run its course first.  Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:15, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:15, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:15, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:15, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Gabe Iglesia (talk) 17:16, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Gabe Iglesia (talk) 17:16, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I was referring to WP:NOTDIRECTORY #6 not Overcategorization. KAP03 (talk) 17:26, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete -- There is so much history on TV and screen that this is not a useful category. Furthermore, it is necessary to distinguish documentaries from dramas, which tend to be a variety of historical novels that intertwine history and a novelist's inventions, necessary to fill gaps in what is known or just to make a good story.  Peterkingiron (talk) 10:54, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete - per Peterkingiron; this list is likely to be indiscriminate; you could even argue that Doctor Who and Dad's Army etc. are related to the history of England even if they are entirely fictional. Spiderone  12:17, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. Pointless. Far too general to ever be a useful article. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:41, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment If this article is kept, its title should probably be changed (per the Italy discussion). I'm curious to see how the related Italy-based list's AfD goes before !voting here. Smmurphy(Talk) 03:38, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep, Continuing my point from the Italy discussion, the portrayal of history in film and television is as notably as its portrayal in writings (aka historical fiction). How history is portrayed in "Dad's Army" and "Dr. Who" is important in itself, not just as a plot device. Novelizations of both have been described as historical fiction for instance. And the historical setting of "Dad's Army" (see: Nicholas, Siân. "HISTORY, REVISIONISM AND TELEVISION DRAMA: Foyle's War and the ‘myth of 1940’." Media History 13, no. 2-3 (2007): 203-219.) and of individual Dr. Who episodes (see Hobden, Fiona. "History Meets Fiction in Doctor Who,‘The Fires of Pompeii’: A BBC Reception of Ancient Rome on Screen and Online." Greece and Rome (Second Series) 56.02 (2009): 147-163. and Orthia, Lindy A. "“Sociopathetic Abscess” or “Yawning Chasm”? The Absent Postcolonial Transition in Doctor Who." The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 45, no. 2 (2010): 207-225.) is of broad interest. So while the title is clunky, a list of the portrayal of history on screen is notable and it makes sense to split such a list by country portrayed. I don't understand what further criteria are needed other than that the show take place in a period before the show aired historicism portrayed is itself considered notable. Smmurphy(Talk) 15:08, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, T. Canens (talk) 17:26, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep Because such categories are useful. (I am all about making WP user-friendly.)  But sections should be split as article grows, and it might be might eventually be more useful to use this article mostly as a directory linking towards subcategories.  I was of 2 minds about this article at first, so I checked a couple of obvious titles.  Take, The Scarlet Pimpernel, for example, a Novel that has been made into a dozen films; it is categorized in Category:Napoleonic Wars films, but not under England- or  Categories for Category:Films by decade of setting, and, of course, categories of novels Category:Novels set in 19th-century Russia, Category:Novels set in Victorian England and, well, so many categories that I am puzzled to understand why this one should not be kept.  Although I do wonder if it would be more useful split into categories such as Category:Films set in 16th century Britain as a user-helpful subset of the very large Category:Films set in the 16th century.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:28, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete - the list criterion is both hopelessly broad and impossible to define - how related is related? No doubt there is room here for several better-defined lists. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:46, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Can you give an example of a better definition or title for a list of English-setting historical fiction on screen? Smmurphy(Talk) 19:36, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * List of film adaptations of Jane Austen novels. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:37, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Do you think any lists of historical fiction on screen by subject-country would be suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia? Smmurphy(Talk) 20:17, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I haven't considered the matter—it sounds risky—but the sharpness of the list criteria would be critical. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:25, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That is an interesting position, although I'm not sure what you mean by risky. I certainly disagree. I think a list like this is useful, interesting, and encyclopedic (the criteria for stand alone lists at Stand-alone lists seem to be that the list be non-trivial, encyclopedic, or related to human knowledge). As I pointed out in the Italy discussion, similar issues arise in lots of lists, including everything in Category:Lists of historical period drama films and List of historical novels. Smmurphy(Talk) 20:35, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The Italy list was rightly deleted. All loosely-defined lists (see WP:LISTCRITERIA) are subject to AfD. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:40, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. As I've pointed out at the Italy discussion, grouping historical movies and tv shows by subject-country is common in academic film study, so while the criteria for selection is broad, I do feel like it is encyclopedic and based on reliable sources. You may, of course, disagree. Smmurphy(Talk) 20:47, 8 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete. As with the now-deceased Italy list, "related" is just too nebulous, and there's a lot of English history and many, many more films about it, which makes things very unwieldy. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:21, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Isn't that a hypothetical concern? The page isn't yet unwieldy and when it is, it could be split by historical era.Smmurphy(Talk) 02:44, 9 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete per Necrothesp. There is probably a right way to do something like this but this article isn't it. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 02:31, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete- far too vague and broad to be of any use. Reyk  YO!  09:57, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete - The topic is too broad and indefinite. This list is worse than the similar list about Italy, which was recently deleted, because England is only part of the United Kingdom and many of the films and series listed are not specific to England. This list would be more suitably turned into a category. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2017 (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.