Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/To Market, to Market (M*A*S*H) (2nd 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 was   keep. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 00:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

To Market, to Market (M*A*S*H)
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

While I suspect I'm going to catch holy hell for nominating episodes of MASH, with a few exceptions I feel that they fail to meet with notability requirements as individual episodes of a series. I'm going to stick up separate lists for each season, but most of the episodes really ought to be condensed and dropped, as is the case with the vast majority of other TV shows. As it stands, sufficient episode summaries exist in the season episode lists. While MASH was a particularly notable show, not all of the hundreds of episodes are deserving of separate pages, as the season pages cover this stuff more than sufficiently (per the TV show guidelines, as best I can interpret them). This is the sort of information that belongs on a dedicated wiki, not here.

Shows condensed into this AfD:
 * Requiem for a Lightweight
 * Chief Surgeon Who?
 * The Moose (M*A*S*H)
 * Yankee Doodle Doctor
 * Bananas, Crackers and Nuts
 * Cowboy (M*A*S*H)
 * Henry Please Come Home
 * I Hate a Mystery
 * Germ Warfare (M*A*S*H)
 * Dear Dad
 * Edwina (M*A*S*H)
 * Love Story (M*A*S*H)
 * Tuttle (M*A*S*H)
 * The Ringbanger
 * Sometimes You Hear the Bullet
 * Dear Dad...Again
 * The Longjohn Flap
 * The Army-Navy Game (M*A*S*H)
 * Sticky Wicket
 * Major Fred C. Dobbs
 * Ceasefire (M*A*S*H)
 * Showtime (M*A*S*H)

Exempted from this list is the Pilot episode; others which I can see exempting from deletion are "Chief Surgeon Who?", "Cowboy", "Bananas, Crackers, and Nuts", "Sometimes You Hear the Bullet", as three of these won awards and the fourth is listed as a classic episode by TV Guide. However, even some of the awards don't cut it in my opinion (one is for editing). Tyrenon (talk) 07:16, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * delete I get your point about the TV guidelines, but it's a slippery slope when certain episodes are AfD and others not. By whose criteria are the episodes chosen better/worse? Certainly an award winner would qualify, but then you split hairs with the "not the best editing award" decision. Even though I'm a MASH nut, I probably wouldn't even have thrown my two cents in were in not for the fact that I discovered today that there are complete pages for every episode of the 1985 revival of The Twilight Zone, for crying out loud. The original I could see - maybe. Someone's started in on Land of the Lost. Every episode of every Star Trek series (including the animated one) is apparently worthy of a full page, just because there's a rabid fan base out there to do it. But to me it should be all or nothing. How do you build a consensus?  PacificBoy  08:15, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: I haven't gone to each of the pages in question, but I wanted to chime in with my two cents on the concept. To keep it short, it seems like people who may be spending all their off-WP time in front of the TV are getting out of control as they try to immortalize every aspect of their favorite shows. Every episode needs a page. And then every minor character needs a page. Because the topic isn't notable, there are no reliable sources cited -- if any sources are cited at all -- leaving an unverifiable page filled with original research. I would love to see this trend reversed, but it seems that the fanbase of whichever show is involved will usually turn out to protect their pages in contravention of WP best practices. — Bdb484 (talk) 09:05, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with you, Bdb. An encyclopedic treatment, IMHO, involves only noting the bare bones of a given episode unless it is something akin to the last episode of MASH and notable in its own right.  Most episodes are not notable outside that context, and in that vein I've put the episodes of one of my favorite shows on the block further up the page.  Every episode of a show is not notable, and frankly it can border, or even cross into, on "fun craft" at times.Tyrenon (talk) 09:30, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 12:01, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd like to point out that every show has at least one primary source, itself. This isn't enough to establish notability, but the show itself is an easy authoritative reference of its own content (plot, etc).  So in that sense, an unsourced article about a TV show (and not just TV shows, books and other media are the same way), isn't as bad as some other classes of unsourced articles (like biographies, history, etc).  They might not meet notability, but as long as they lack synthesis, they would generally meet verifiability. Gigs (talk) 14:32, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you're right and wrong. Each episode has a primary source, but I don't believe that watching the episode to write an article is any more appropriate than adding something to a biographical article based on your personal interactions with the subject of the article. The point of requiring reliable secondary sources is that it keeps non-notable fluff and garbage of all types out of the encyclopedia. I brought this up on an AfD for a Law & Order character, and people started griping that my definition would require the deletion of numerous articles, which was kind of my point. — Bdb484 (talk) 17:04, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I won't go into notability and the necessity thereof, but there are such things as reliable primary sources, when used properly. Watching an episode to write an article is more like using a picture of a celebrity to write that she has a prominent scar on her left cheek. Forbidding the use of the works themselves in making uncontroversial, descriptive claims that are apparent to the audience without specialist knowledge would be needless masochism. Have you ever tried describing the plot of Romeo & Juliet entirely from reviews and academic publications? Neither have I, and I'm not keen on starting. Anal as always, Kiz o r  18:19, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep ALL Again Its been less than two weeks since the last AFD.  D r e a m Focus  13:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep all they will need more real world context and criticism, but there is plenty of commentary on this, one of the foremost serials of its time, like the Simpsons is now. Deleting it smacks of recentism, and the existence of entertainment wikis is irrelevant. Hiving off knowledge to specialized wikis sets a dangerous precedent and i am reluctant to see WP carved up. Two weeks post close is not really in the spirit of collaborative editing. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:11, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep all - Each episode has significant independent coverage and thus meets WP:N. Many of the listed episodes have mulitple independent sources referenced within the article itself.  And, as is acknowledged in the nomination, some of the listed episodes won awards.  The episodes are all notable and thus should be kept.  And I question the purpose of a 2nd AFD just days after the 1st AFDs for many of these episodes were concluded. Rlendog (talk) 14:13, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm on record for deleting, but I could be swayed on individual episodes. Would you mind providing some examples of specific articles that get significant coverage in those sources? All I'm seeing are basic synopses of the entire series. — Bdb484 (talk) 17:11, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep all consider sanctions against nominator for disruptive behavior to make his point. This is a clear attempt to game the system. None of the contributors to the articles have been notified. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 14:30, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep all again. Thank you for at least listing them all together this time. I tend to be what some call a deletionist, but I like episode articles for TV series that are very notable (like MASH, Sopranos etc). Niteshift36 (talk) 14:37, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete all For the record, I'm with ya on this, Tyrenon, though it looks like we're Klinger trying to get a section 8 here. Granted, M*A*S*H had more notable episodes than the average TV show (the nominator has avoided those), but the advent of entertainment wikis has made episode articles obsolete.  The only nice thing I can say about such articles is that they give people an opportunity to hone their writing skills on a topic that they feel comfortable with.  However, if this is accomplished elsewhere, we don't need to host a counterpart to an entertainment wiki. Mandsford (talk) 14:58, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Redirect All to the appropriate season list of episodes. As standalone articles, these become magnets for excessive in-universe fancruft. The real-world notability, such as it is, can be easily covered at the LOEs. Eusebeus (talk) 15:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete/Redirect to season one. Each of the articles is cited to the same list of sources, which generally give a synopsis for each episode rather than giving any of them a meaningful treatment. Futhermore, has there been any actual assertion of notability for any of these articles? — Bdb484 (talk) 17:04, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The inclusion of references citing coverage in multiple independent sources is itself an assersion of notability. Plus, several of the articles listed note awards won by the particular episodes, such as Writer's Guild Awards. Rlendog (talk) 17:13, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The references are there, but the sources address the series, not the individual episodes. I don't think anyone here would deny the notability of the series, but until I see an independent, reliable source that treats an episode as notable, I can't agree. And again, if they won awards, let's see it. — Bdb484 (talk) 21:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The sources address both the series and the episodes. I am not sure I understand the comment about awards, since the awards are already addressed within each relevant article. Rlendog (talk) 21:48, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Speedy keep - Procedural issue. Discussion doesn't enter into it. Namely, the previous AfD was closed as "keep" on May 22th. Several other nominated articles that I checked were also closed the same way, except for one where the AfD was withdrawn on the 18th. Consensus can change and all that, but hammering on articles until they give is a very different thing. --Kiz o r  18:21, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Speedy keep per 2 weeks is hardly enough time to improve the articles in the time frame allowed by Wikipedia, and flys in the face of policy itself granting that Wkipedia is imperfect and does not expect to be, and acts contrary to the policies dedicated to building an encyclopedia. The nom might have sought a DVR had he thought the closer 2 weeks ago was wrong, but simply diagreeing with the consensus is no reason to nominate over and over until one gets the results one personally wishes.  Schmidt,  MICHAEL Q. 19:05, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep All The recent AFDs demonstrated consensus to keep these articles for the good reason that these topics are notable so these hasty repeat nominations are disruptive per WP:DEL. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep A renomination 2 weeks after a keep is pointy and disruptive. I think some sanctions might be appropriate. The best way of preventing this sort of thing would be a firm rule that there must be at least 3 months after a keep before renomination on the same or similar grounds. DGG (talk) 23:49, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The nominator is unlikely to have known any better. A firm rule is attractive, so Devil's Advocate: one more rule is one more rule to be gamed. Would it result in a sudden increase of AfDs three months and a day after a keep? Also note that the current vague, community-enforced standard at least forces people to consider others' reactions. --Kiz o r  00:12, 5 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Speedy keep on procedural grounds. We just did this less than two weeks ago.  If this is not closed in short order, I'll return with more detailed consideration of each page. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:04, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, it's been a few days and nobody's closed this, so just in case: keep due to established notability. As I said when this came up just a few weeks back, notability on Wikipedia is defined as ""significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".  These episodes are all covered in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, including both episode guides and scholarly treatments, so the notability requirements are met.  The articles could still be improved, of course, but the sourced thematic analysis in pages like Requiem for a Lightweight is exactly what television episode articles should contain.  As an afterthought, in my opinion the nominator should not have bundled the award-winning and award-nominated episodes with the others.  In the prior deletion debates for these episodes, many of the editors who supported deletion of other episode articles said that these should be kept, as the awards, etc. demonstrated especial notability.  I happen to think that notability is established for all the episodes, by Wikipedia's definition, but I recognize that other editors disagree.  But there seems to be a wider consensus about award-winning and -nominated episodes, so these really shouldn't have been lumped in with the others. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:14, 8 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Snow speedy keep. And a trout whack for nom. These were all just cleared weeks ago so this is a textbook example of why we don't re-nom so soon. Also we're not in a rush here. Many fine articles grow with time until the right editor(s) come along to improve them. If yo must add clean-up tags then go for it but perhaps actually creating some content would broaden the perspective on how writing encyclopedia articles can be challenging and time-consuming. -- Banj e  b oi   01:18, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep. There's a reason time is left between nominations and a random check on one episode showed plenty of sources to meet the WP:GNG thus meeting notability criteria. If you still think they should be condensed into the season articles, then you should be aiming for a redirect instead of full deletion since the episode titles are going to be the likely search terms. - Mgm|(talk) 08:53, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep all Too soon after previous nomination. At least some of the episodes are particularly significant and need time to expand. --skew-t (talk) 11:34, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per above args. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 15:42, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep per all above. Granite thump (talk) 19:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep all. 71.3.53.121 (talk) 15:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC) User:71.3.53.121 made 19 WP:JUSTAVOTE and WP:JNN AfD recommendations in less than 30 minutes after being templated as a single-purpose account on WP:Articles for deletion/Chain smoking — Rankiri (talk) 16:03, 10 June 2009 (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.