Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion/Log/2007/May/12

Cable tv-stub

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the stub template and/or category above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the template's or category's talk page (if any).  No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was delete

Unproposed. We split television by country, by subtopic (such as programme, people), and very, very occasionally by network. Splitting it by means of broadcast seems to be counterproductive and somewhat inappropriate given the standard ways of splitting tv stubs. And then there are the obvious problems with the "non-compliant" template name... Delete. Grutness...wha?  01:03, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete I could possibly see a stub about the technology involved in cablecasting, but not for the channels, which is what this stub is being used for. Given the inevitable confusion, if we did want such a stub tv-tech-stub would seem the place to start. Caerwine Caer’s whines  03:01, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. I could see the possible logic of a US-tv-channel-stub, though.  (Though don't ask me to try to disentangle the "channels" from the "stations".)  Alai 04:30, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * In the context of the U.S. at least, we'd probably want to distinguish between "networks" and "stations", both of which show up on different "channels" on divers cable systems. Caerwine Caer’s whines  05:11, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Keep Please excuse my tone if I sound a little harsh because I do not understand the objections and they do not make sense; I want to understand and I'd like to argue the reasons why I think this is correct. I created this stub because there is no method available to distinguish items related to non-broadcast television entries. I looked for something else related to the issue. There was nothing. The issues involved with cable and satellite TV transmission are different from and do not have the same aspects as over-the-air television. If someone puts up a stub for a non-broadcast network, what should be used to mark it? ? What about specific encryption for non-broadcast issues? Issues over HD TV via cable and standard over-the-air? Further, this creates a specific stub that can be used to mark articles (through category) which are related to this form of technology as opposed to television in general. It is not counterproductive because the issues are not the same. Nor, based on the templates I have seen, does it appear to be inaccurately named, as I will explain.

The issues involved in ordinary 'television' are not the same for plain 'television' and such issues as cable-tv, satelite-tv, HD-tv, internet-based-tv, are different from each other, and articles which are related to these separate issues should be marked. For example, general broadcast TV, by law is forbidden to be encrypted. Almost all satelite-based transmissions are encrypted. Further, having a cable-tv and/or satellite stub allows adding of the category related to this issue as opposed to it being categorized as something else which isn't adequate, and maybe allows fixing of articles.

You don't like this? Give me an alternative. Tell me what now exists now - other than this template stub - that can be now be used to adequately identify the content. You don't like it, fine, give me a replacement to use. Otherwise you're simply saying to remove a stub because you don't like it and not because it is inaccurate or fails to correctly identify the subject matter in question. That's all that this comes down to. You don't like it because you don't like it, but you have no alternative to propose to solve the problem. All I have heard from people is their negative comments about they don't like it, but not one comment about what can be used now, as an adequate substitute.

If there is a published standard on the creation of stub templates, please show me the page name so I can understand.

Consider the issue, what can be used? Neither Tv-cable-stub nor Television-cable-stub exist. Neither do Television-satellite-stub. Further, common usage is 'cable-tv' or 'satellite-tv' not 'television-cable' or 'television-satellite'. Thus I would think 'cable-tv-stub' or 'satellite-tv-stub' would be appropriate. But again, if you don't like it, give me a reasonable alternative now available. I don't think 'television' as the prefix would work because the terms involved never use it that way.

I looked for something to use before creating this because there were two alternatives. Create a stub article (because I didn't have enough information at this time to add more) or not create an article at all. Given the choice, I could create a stub article with no mark indicating it was a stub, or create one with a stub. Okay, so I wanted to mark it as a stub article. Now, what could I use? I looked, and looked, and found nothing. Television alone is too broad an issue. There was nothing about Cable TV. Nothing beginning with 'Satellite'. In fact, having created this one, I put in a redirect template for 'Satelite-tv-stub' to point to this one. There is nothing available to indicate stubs relating to this subject other than television in general and that's too large an entry to cover this issue. You wouldn't include organic chemistry and general chemistry together in the same stub, just by only having a chemistry stub alone; the fields are too large and there are different issues involved. (I looked, there is a separate organic chemistry stub from the general 'chemistry-stub'.)

Further more, all I've seen in stub formats which exist now consist of subject-stub, e.g., and ,. Thus as far as I can tell this was correctly named in view of all the other stubs. If it's not, please be so kind as to explain where, in a simple, easily understood and well publicized place, are the normal standards to be used for the creation of stubs so in the future I will know what the standards are and be able to comply with them. Otherwise, you're again saying it should be deleted because you don't like it and not because of an easily understandable standard defining exactly what should be used. And you want it deleted despite the fact that it does serve a useful purpose and there is no substitute. Unless you want to claim that broadcast television and satellite/cable-tv are the same or that differentiating them is not a useful purpose. If differentiating between broadcast and non-broadcast television are a valid activity, then the stub should stand. But, if despite there being a valid reason to differentiate between television in general and non-broadcast television, you think this stub should be deleted - and if you can offer a explanation as to why there should not be a differentiation between television as a general class and non-broadcast television, please do so - then that's the way you want it then the only answer I can see is to discontinue marking things as stubs since apparently if it's something you don't like and there's no alternative, all you can do is say that it should be thrown out with nothing to stand in its place, and your standards are nothing but subjective whim which have no basis in reason.

But again, show me something. Teach me that I may understand. Allow me to learn why it is inappropriate to differentiate between television in general and non-broadcast television. Show me the reasons why I was wrong OTHER than you simply don't like it. Allow me to know so I can do things right. I've been here for three years. and I've edited thousands of articles. Look at my user page and my talk page; people have even praised some of my edits. I'm not stupid (at least I don't think I am, maybe you can convince me :) ), and if I am wrong, show me the standards. Show me how I can understand so I don't make the same mistake in the future.  I await your replies.  Paul Robinson (Rfc1394) 14:37, 13 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Much of your question requires a fairly lengthy answer about the reasoning behind the way stubs are split.I'll try to summarise it, so apologies if I miss some of your points as I write this. Stubs are split primarily to be of most use to as many editors as possible, yet also in a way that makes such splits clearcut and non-overlapping. This is to stop stub articles having a large number of vague stub templates, but instead keeping them to a maximum of three or four stub types. To do this, we look at how editors are likely to want to look up articles on subjects that they can deal with, and also look to split broadly along one axis, subdividing by a second. Thus, for example, buildings might be split by location and by type of building, so we get UK-church-stub, US-museum-stub, etc. There's also a thin line walked to make sure that stub types are both specific enough for editors but also general enough to not create micro-categories. It is for this reason that thresholds have been set for the optimal sizes of stub categories.


 * In the case of broadcasting, the primary broad split is by medium - television, film, book, magazine. The second split relates to the branch of that medium - technology, writing, individual episode, etc. Splitting by cable/non-cable makes little sense from the twin ideals of non-vagueness and editor-friendliness - individual programmes screened on cable in one country are often free-to-air on others, some cable networks also offer free-to-air services, and much of the technology used on cable television would be editable by the same editors who can expand articles on the technology of other television systems.


 * Also, in order to aid stub sorters in their handling of the nearly two thousand different stub templates, we try to keep the naming consistent, as explained at WP:WSS/NG. For that reason, even if this stub type were to be kept, it would need to be renamed.


 * Some of this is covered at WP:STUB, but much of it is not simply due to the requirements of space on that page. We're not saying you're a bad editor, or anything like that - quite the opposite, I've seen your work before and it is good work. And there is no compulsion to have stub types passed by WP:WSS/P before creation - but it is a very useful process to go through to check whether a particular stub type would be as useful and specific as you believe. I can see where you';re coming from with this particular stub type, but feel that a tv-tech-stub would be more useful for the technology of cable television and other stubs like tv-series-stub and tv-network-stub would be more useful for these aspects of cable television. I hope that answers some of your questions. Grutness...wha?  00:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the template's or category's talk page (if any). No further edits should be made to this section.