Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lost: The Journey (3rd nomination)


 * 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 of the debate was keep. Mackensen (talk) 23:04, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Lost: The Journey
A previous AfD on this subject, closed as a keep, met with some controversy and was reviewed by DRV. A DRV consensus determined that relisting should occur for a variety of reasons, including a rewrite of the content. A second AfD also took place during the DRV, but was closed as being out-of-process, and should be ignored here. This is a procedural relisting, so I abstain. Xoloz 19:04, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. Although the article has been rewritten in a much more encyclopedic presentation, that does not affect the fact that its subject matter is a non-notable clip show. The episode in question is not notable within the canon/context of the series, and it is not notable external of it, either. &mdash; Mike &bull; 19:37, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep -- (obligatory note per Deletion Policy, this article was rewritten by me.) Notability/Significance is established by the episode 1) being the first linear presentation of the Lost story; 2) being the Nielsen Ratings winner in all demographics; 3) having over 27,000 Google entries for "Lost: The Journey". Additionally, the content in the article is verifiable, based on reliable published sources and meets the consensus guidelines for television episodes, which in particular says, "Generally, articles on episodes of television should not be listed for AfD (unless they are completely unverifiable, original research, etc.)" Finally, please note that the initial AfD and its subsequent Deletion Review were based on the previous article. This one is a substantial re-write.-- LeflymanTalk 20:02, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * With regards to no. 1: I don't believe, personally, that's sufficient to make it notable. With regards to no. 2: are we going to make sure that an article exists for each respective Nielsen winner of each respective timeslot of each evening of television programming?  If not, I don't see that as being a sufficient metric of notability.  With regards to no. 3: 27,000 hits but only 572 unique hits, which is the number that really matters.  (517 hits for "Lost: the Journey" and "ABC" together.) &mdash; Mike &bull; 20:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you didn't bother to read the rest of the "Unique results" section, which notes:
 * "Google's list of unique results is constructed by first selecting the top 1000 results and then eliminating duplicates without replacements. Hence the list of unique results will always contain less than 1000 results regardless of how many webpages actually matched the search terms. For example, from the about 742 million pages related to "Microsoft", Google presently returns 552 "unique" results (as of Jan 9, 2006). Because of this, caution must be used in judging the relative importance of websites having well over 1000 hits. " (emphasis mine) -- LeflymanTalk 21:40, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You're right, and I'll strike through that response. Nevertheless, I still don't think a clip show's notable.  I wouldn't run a normal Lost episode article through AfD, or a character article (unless it was something like "Unnamed Extra #5 in Pilot"), but yeah, this at least merits community review. And the "Google test" is a little overused, in my opinion.  But whatever. &mdash; Mike &bull; 21:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Of course, that doesn't exactly answer the question that a Google search, irrespective of "unique hits," for "Lost: The Journey" and "ABC" yields 517 hits &mdash; and a high Google count isn't unsurprising given that "lost" and "journey" are commonplace English words. Any poem that has something like "Lost, the journey ended" or "Picard said, 'We're lost.'  'The journey's not yet over,' Troi replied." is going to yield one of the 27,000 hits your search produced.  The ABC limiter yields a far more accurate representation of how many Google hits the program owns. &mdash; Mike &bull; 17:26, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, with regards to the material quoted, I note the same page states, "More important than having many articles on TV episodes is having good articles on those TV episodes. Therefore, it may not be a good idea to create small articles on every episode of a television show." Furthermore, I see no header identifying whether the quoted material has the strength of an essay (no strength), guideline (medium strength), or policy (full strength). &mdash; Mike &bull; 21:05, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep Notable episode of notable show. Plenty of verifiable sources for it. Capitalistroadster 21:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Could you expand on what metric you measure its notability? &mdash; Mike &bull; 21:05, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep - the article has been rewritten to be useful and is now a part of the series of Lost articles. The version that was considered by the previous AFD - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lost:_The_Journey&oldid=51191217 - was pretty much worthless.  This version is for all practical purposes a new article. BigDT 21:21, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * How is it useful? And usefulness is not really a criteria for keeping an article, frankly.  The AfD on Enterprises canonicity problems is a very useful article.  But it's all original research, and as much as my personal taste would prefer to have it around, it doesn't meet Wikipedia's qualifications.  It was rewritten and looks better &mdash; admittedly &mdash; but it still doesn't seem to be a notable subject.  Again, it's a clip show, for Pete's sake. &mdash; Mike' &bull; 21:52, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Individually, a heckuva lot of what's on Wikipedia is not notable. Think WP:PTEST.  Those little individual Pokemons that nobody has ever heard of would never survive on WP in isolation.  But together, they are a part of a series of co-equal articles that would be incomplete if one were missing.  It's the same thing here.  This show is not notable in and of itself, but as a part of a series of articles on shows from that season, it belongs with the rest of them. BigDT 22:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The WP:PTEST essay doesn't seem to be making the point you're suggesting, e.g., that non-notable articles when looked at in an aggregate sense can be considered notable. It instead seems to be noting that non-notable Pokemon articles are used to justify keeping other non-notable subjects &mdash; as the page itself says, "Keep. Clearly, [the article in question] is more notable than Nidorino [or any other random Pokémon], so if Nidorino gets its own page, why the heck can't [the article in question]?" &mdash; Mike &bull; 17:26, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Obviously, keep. Centralized discussion/Television episodes. "It's a clip show" is not a reason to delete this article, unless you plan on getting all the other articles on Lost episodes deleted too (which, yes, I would fight against strongly).--SB | T 22:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not nominating all the other articles, nor would I. I'm nominating a single Lost clip show that had no impact on the canon or storyline of the series, and so is not even notable within the context of the series let alone from a larger perspective. &mdash; Mike &bull; 17:26, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is no longer the same article I originally wanted deleted. It now explains why this is a significant clip show, explaining the purpose behind it, and has references. I wouldn't say I'd keep all articles about clip shows, but this one does a good job of defending its existence here. BryanG(talk) 00:12, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep episodes of television shows. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Mind expanding on this? Every single episode of a television show should have its own article? &mdash; Mike &bull; 17:26, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Pretty much. --badlydrawnjeff talk 04:22, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll let that one stand on its own. &mdash; Mike &bull; 04:40, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete episodes of televisions, ESPECIALLY clip shows. Slathering on some OR to try and confer some importance on an hour-long "Previously on..." doesn't help it. --Calton | Talk 04:14, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Could you perhaps elucidate what is meant by "slathering on some OR"? -- LeflymanTalk 04:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I was the closing admin on the first AfD, and as I said during the deletion review, I would have commented delete on the article as it was then, were I commenting, instead of closing, and would have closed delete, were it not for the mediation action that was ongoing. This article is substantially better than it was then, but I'm not convinced it's encyclopedic... THAT said, in view of Centralized_discussion/Television_episodes, specifically "Generally, articles on episodes of television should not be listed for AfD (unless they are completely unverifiable, original research, etc.).", for which there appears to be consensus, I am going to overlook my personal distaste for individual episode articles, note that the OR has been removed, verification has been added, and comment Keep. I further note that it's not necessary or appropriate for WCityMike to comment on just about every comment. For the record, I will not be closing this one.  + +Lar: t/c 06:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Kindly knock off the hyperbole, sir &mdash; you're an admin and you should know better. I've not commented on just about every comment. I've tried to clarify areas where I didn't think justifiable reasons were cited for comment.  As you've pointed out, quality of reasoning behind votes are counted moreso than headcount itself, and it seems to me that many of the votes here aren't properly supported by policy. &mdash; Mike &bull; 16:22, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * What you view as hyperbole is what I view as calling attention to the fact that you're citing things out of context (for instance, citing one line from Centralized discussion/Television episodes while skipping the very next line that completely undercuts your argument, for another instance, doing the same thing with the google test text) in what I view is a strenous effort to get this article deleted, no matter what the actual policy is, no matter what tactics you need to employ. I detest this article, I detest the entire Lost show, and I think it's silly to have individual television episodes carry articles except in very limited cases where they were culturally significant in a larger context, but the group that works on these articles has arrived at a consensus that clearly says individual episodes should not be deleted except in certain cases, which this episode (and if it's branded with the Lost episode badging, it's an episode, clip show or not) no longer, in my judgement, meets. Instead of fighting so hard this way, instead of doing out of process things (that second AfD you started WHILE the DRV was running, was way out of process, picking and choosing from guidelines as you have apparently done more than once here, is a bit out of process, policy wonking like you did in the DrV to try to get people's views discounted is out of process) to get this article to go away, why not work to get the guideline changed. I'd support that. But I find your contributions to this process not nearly as helpful or collegiate (you are quick to charge others are not assuming good faith while giving the appearance that you yourself are not assuming good faith, for example) as they could be, in my view. Your opinion may differ, of course.  + +Lar: t/c 16:54, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think we have anything further to say to each other, Lar. I could, of course, claim that this entire long rant is one big personal attack, but then I'm sure you'd accuse me of citing that policy out of context, policy wonking, making unhelpful contributions, being a bad Wikipedia editor, and raping kittens. &mdash; Mike &bull; 17:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * And, by the way, hyperbole is "extravagant exaggeration," and exaggeration is "to enlarge beyond bounds or the truth" or "to enlarge or increase especially beyond the normal." Given that I'm not responding to every individual in here, yes, you were extravagantly enlarging beyond bounds or the truth.  The underlying point of your argument may have been what you then proceeded to rant about directly above, and how much that underlying point was hyperbolically stated is another issue, but your originating hyperbolic statement was what I was taking issue with.  Really, if you've now been charged with enforcing Wikipedia's policies, you should be trying to embody such basic pillars and as WP:AGF, not laugh them off. 17:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that stating you respond "on just about every comment" is an egregious "hyperbole"-- I noted the same habit at a previous AfD you initiated, Articles_for_deletion/Episodes_of_Lost_%28season_3%29, where I pointed out that the Guide to deletion says, "Please do not "spam" the discussion with the same comment multiple times. Make your case clearly and let other users decide for themselves." I'd further suggest that claiming others are making personal attacks against you, while you make statements such as those above isn't going to be looked upon too positively. In short, criticism is not a personal insult. -- LeflymanTalk 17:18, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but (1) never said it was egregious, just hyperbole, which is "extravagant" in and of itself by definition; (2) I'm not writing the same reply to each and every person, and the cited comment you ask can't in any way be construed to cover replying to individuals to challenge the reasoning of their queries; there is indeed a line between criticism and insult, but it depends much on the motive. Saying to someone that they smell of elderberries could either be a criticism of their scent or an outright insult, couldn't it? &mdash; Mike &bull; 17:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) "Egregious" is an adjective meaning "conspicuously bad or offensive" -- which is exactly what is being claimed about Lars' comments. Ironically, the notion of calling a criticism of one's AfD habits a "hyperbole" equivalent to a personal attack is in itself an "egregious hyperbole." 2) Repeated asking those whose comments you disagree with to justify their position is akin to making "the same comment multiple times". 3) As this discussion has veered off from AfD norms, I might suggest that if wikistress is getting the better of you, as it appears to have done recently, perhaps it's time to take a break.-- LeflymanTalk 18:12, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * With regards to your point no. 1, I'm claiming he's exaggerating the extent of my responses. That's hyperbole.  With regards to the latter half of your point regarding calling someone's comments hyperbolic itself being an act of hyperbole, you're essentially saying I'm exaggerating his exaggeration -- that really doesn't seem to parse out as understandable for me.  With regards to no. 2, I'm bringing up individual problems I have with people's responses &mdash; what metric they're using, misunderstandings of policy.  In each case the responses vary, and are thus not the same comment multiple times.  The cited portion of the guide in question can hardly be construed as interpreting the mere act of challenging someone's viewpoint as "the same comment."  With regards to no. 3, were you someone who I felt had an objective viewpoint on, or benevolently meant opinion of, my behavior and actions, I would value your comments about my personal reputation and thus take your comments under due consideration.  I do not believe our past interactions support such an opinion, however, and thus do not. &mdash; Mike &bull; 18:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Your comments are giving the appearance, in my view anyway, of policy shopping, wikilawyering and attacking the messenger instead of paying attention to the message, I'm afraid. Your points have been made, though, and I suspect you've now pretty effectively undercut your own arguments for deletion when this one goes to close, but I could be wrong. You can have the last word here, I'm done, your words speak perfectly well for your approach without further comment being necessary. + +Lar: t/c 18:28, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, Lar, you're of course certainly entitled to your view of things. However, it's rather unkind of you to characterize a view you disagree with as "policy shopping, wikilawyering, and attacking the messenger."  Ironically, such comments are in and of themselves attacks against the messenger and not the message, the very thing you suggest I have a problem with.  As for your comments about my "approach," you may rest assured I do not exit from this process precisely enamored of your own approach, at least as demonstrated by the manner you have conducted yourself with this issue. &mdash; Mike &bull; 21:58, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete - Clips show and per previous AFD - Hahnch e  n 16:27, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep - the article has been rewritten to be useful and is now a part of the series of Lost articles. Deal. MikeWazowski 04:37, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep: article is short, well researched and to the point. Huge interest in series makes topic notable. Stephen B Streater 19:03, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep: short, useful --Ayanoa 18:39, 26 June 2006 (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.