Wikipedia:Featured and good topic removal candidates/Smallville (season 1)/archive1

Smallville (season 1)
Violation of criterion 1d. If our goal is comprehensiveness, this unfortunately does not make the cut. If the Simpsons topics can make notable and GA-class articles for every one of its episodes, then president has been set and Smallville should be able to make articles for each of its episodes too. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 04:46, 27 September 2008 (UTC)


 * 1D does not state that you must make every subtopic its own article. It specifically states: "There is no obvious gap (missing or stub article) in the topic. A topic must not cherry pick only the best articles to become featured together." -- Funny, as there are no "obvious" gaps. An "obvious gap" would be the topic not including articles that ALREADY EXIST. I believe that you are missing the point of both the 1D criteria, and WP:NOTE, WP:FICT, and WP:PLOT. The fact that 19 out of the 21 episodes are not notable enough to have their own articles does not change the fact that this topic meets the basic criteria for featured topic status. Also, not every show is The Simpsons (i.e. most shows don't last 20 years and develop the type of coverage The Simpsons does). So, if you have a problem with that, you might want to spend your time changing WP:NOTE and WP:FICT before coming here and trying to do it. The argument for removal has not grounds, as #1D is not referring to "creating articles" but whether or not there are missing pages to articles already in existence. P.S. If you've looked at the season 1 page, you'll note that it's actually the most comprehensive season article (note the intentional use of "article") on Wikipedia.   BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  04:53, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I too disagree with removal. There needs to be an assertion with proof by Arctic Gnome or someone that there is sufficient evidence that the other episodes of Smallville's first season are sufficiently notable to warrant articles. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 06:38, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * My past reading of the "missing article" criterion does, indeed, apply to non-existent articles. Otherwise, you could do something silly like nominate a "presidents of country X" topic and leave out the boring president from 1890 that no one wrote an article about.  I'm fairly sure that there have been a couple past topics that necessitated the creation of a new article before they were called comprehensive, though the only one I can remember off of the top of my head is the "National symbols of Belarus" topic, which is not a perfect parallel.  Of course not every TV show can make articles about every episode, but in this case we are talking about a show that ran for eight seasons about the most iconic character in comic books.  Such sources tend to generate lots of reliable sources in the form of books with titles such as "Inside Smallville" or "Philosophy of Smallville", are there truly no such publications for this series?  I find it difficult to accept that no independent sources can be found that discuss these episodes enough to make them notable when there apparently are such sources for shows like Lost and the later, less popular, seasons of The Simpsons.  That being said, the lead article is very good, and I'd like to see something done with it in FT, but I do not think that this show is obscure enough to violate the precedent that has been set regarding "season X" topics.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 14:41, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, what you're talking about is a show based on an iconic character that hasn't been popular for some time. Superman Returns was a flop. The comic books haven't sold well in almost a decade, and Smallville resides on the WB (not the CW), which IS an obscure television station. It gets no where near the publicity of shows like Heroes and House, which are are (not only at different times) but much larger networks that can afford to promote their shows on multiple stations. When was the last time you saw an advertisment (not for the DVD) for Smallville that wasn't on the CW? I've been writing these Smallville pages for years; I believe that I have exhausted just about all possible avenues to find reliable, professional reviews for these episodes. They don't exist. There is a lot of crap out there that doesn't actually "review" the episode, but gives a passing judgement of "it was good" (which is not an establishment of notability, not even if 100 professionals simply say "it was good"). As for the book titles you're talking about. The only books that are published about Smallville are the ones commished by the owners, Warner Bros.. Those are the companion books, which are already used as sources in the season articles. Unless there is a crap load of production information that would warrant a split from the main article, simple primary source information like that does not mean it is notable. Also, any books written about Smallville in general, will most like be just that, a general like at Smallville the television show and would be used at Smallville (TV series). Just to assist some, here is a Google books search, and a Google scholar search. I either already own any directly related book material out there, or I have saved all the PDFs that contain journal articles written about the show. None contain detailed looks at the individual episodes. Here's a Google News search for 2002. If you look at the abstracts and the titles, these aren't article about individual episodes, with the exception of the pilot (which you can see based on the dates of the articles). Here's one from 2003, to give you an idea of what the news results are for the entire first season of the show. They're all primarily about the show in general. You mention the fact that it is in its 8th season, but you have to remember what I said, it's on an obscure network. Four million viewers a week on a network like NBC or FOX will most likely get you cancelled. Four million viewers on the WB and the CW makes you their highest rated scripted show.   BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  15:18, 27 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep I agree with Bignole and Judgesurreal777. I have to go do something, I plan to elaborate later. Zginder 2008-09-27T07:02Z (UTC)
 * Keep. I have to agree with the above comments. While I think it is great that the Simpsons wikiproject has been able to accomplish their goal of making an article for every episode in a season, there are questions as to the notability of doing such a thing. I'm not a huge fan of this topic, but I think it meets the requeirements. The pilot and season finale are certainly the most notable episodes in the first season, and they are included. Unless someone can demonstrate that another episode in season one is notable enough that we should require an article on it, I vote for keeping the topic. Rreagan007 (talk) 12:50, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep per Bignole. Nom's reasoning is based on a misinterpertation of what criteria 1D means by "obvious gaps".     Paul    730  13:03, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * If find it amusing that I'm accused of misinterpreting the criteria given how long I've been working with them. Granted, the meanings of the rules have changed over time and even now are not always clear, but the fundamental purpose of FT is to promote comprehensiveness, and that requires both quality in a topics existing articles and the existence of those articles in the first place.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 15:02, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep but with one caveat: Comprehensiveness is met due to the main article for the topic covering the episodes that "complete" this set, but I would like to see redirects made for each episode (or when they overlap with disamb, an entry in the proper place), so that they are technically searchable. But making full episode articles without appropriate information will lead to AFD and edit wars with the current state of notability; AGF that the editors have found all sources they can,there's no point in tempting that fate. --M ASEM  19:58, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I've redirected a couple titles and added others to disambiguous pages. "Hug" has no place to put a link to the season page, as all related pages are solely to deal with the physical touch.   BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  20:21, 27 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment: Bignole has done an excellent job with the Smallville articles on Wikipedia and this topic does meet the criteria, however, I still have a problem with it. For example, take a couple articles that I wrote, Eggtown and Something Nice Back Home.  They are both as comprehensive as can be, yet I am not about to nominate them for FA status because I do not feel that they are comprehensive (period).  While the group of articles in this topic are comprehensive as can be, I would not necessarily say that they are comprehensive.  – thedemonhog   talk  •  edits  23:02, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - per my arguments in the topic's FTC. There is no need to create articles that are clearly not notable for the sake of the topic. If the topic is comprehensive, it is comprehensive. sephiroth bcr  ( converse ) 23:12, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep There are no obvious gaps in the topic. Using non-existent articles to claim lack of comprehensiveness should only be used when there's sufficient evidence to suggest the missing articles should exist. Jay32183 (talk) 11:40, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Per and . In response to, above, it is interesting to note that  never responded in the thread about the notability of episodes of The Simpsons to the query from , as to which Featured Articles of The Simpsons he would "vote to delete". Cirt (talk) 07:02, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was just using that to show that there are questions about whether every episode is notable enough for its own article. I think it's a gray area, so if someone (like the simpsons wikiproject) wants to spend the time doing it, I'm ok with it. But it shouldn't be required for the completeness of a topic that every episode have its own article. And I've seen a lot of the episodes from season one of Smallville. Most of them are all the same thing: meteor freak gets created, Clark pines after Lana, meteor freak goes crazy and starts killing people, Clark saves the day. Most of them don't deserve their own article if you ask me. Rreagan007 (talk) 15:12, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps. But the test should not be whether or not they "deserve" their own article, but instead whether each particular episode has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. In the case of episodes of The Simpsons, many of them have, as evidenced by the ability to improve the quality of many of those articles to Good and Featured Article Quality Status. Cirt (talk) 15:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps relegate to GT? I strongly believe that smaller topics should be allowed to become "quality topics" to encourage people to work on such articles. Nevertheless, it might be a bit unfair for the other featured topics that are 100% complete. I think GTs can fill the gaps between a fully complete topic, and topics that are comprehensive but may not cover quite everything. Nergaal (talk) 16:24, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Firs, nothing is 100% complete (ever). In fact, nothing in life is ever 100% true. Regardless, you cannot compare Smallville to The Simpsons, or any other show on Wikipedia for that matter. The reason being, no other show on here (that's zero percent) is set up the way Smallville is. Smallville is currently the only show that has season articles, as opposed to season lists. That's because, a part from The Simpsons and maybe a couple of others, all of those other shows refuse to acknowledge that there is no significant coverage from reliable sources about their individual episodes and create them regardless. The idea of a featured topic, and a featured article for that matter, is comprehensiveness. What featured topic does not state is that comprehensiveness equates to an individual article on every subtopic within the larger topic. In Smallville's case, the season 1 article is a comprehensive look at all of the episodes that could not have their own article because significant sources independent of the subject did not exist. Good topics are for articles that are not featured. This is not the case here, as all but one are featured (and the "one" might soon be going up for featured status ...or the potentially new "featured short article" category if that is passed). Featured topics have a limit, three articles, which this topic meets. This topic is comprehensive, as everything you would find with a topic of 22 articles is found here with the 3 articles. There is no difference other than the fact that there just are not 20 separate pages.   BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  16:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree with this comment by . This topic satisfies WP:WIAFA, and so relegating it to WP:GT is not an appropriate solution here. It seems that the general above consensus is to "Keep" its featured topic status, as it is indeed comprehensive. Cirt (talk) 18:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Nergaal, if you want to change the rules, please don't propose the change in the topic nom - rst20xx (talk) 18:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Close with consensus to keep - rst20xx (talk) 10:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)