Wikipedia talk:Notability (serial works)

See also WT:EPISODE. -- Ned Scott 21:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

It remains my conviction that notability guidelines are overly programatic and number-based ways of dealing with something that is best dealt with via context and judgment. Deletion decisions should not be made by robots, and this guideline, like most of our notability guidelines, proposes to do just that. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:52, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree with Phil. Hiding T 10:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree, but that's a whole change in attitude for wikipedia, which is right now wading toward a thicket of guidelines. Probably something that needs to be raised on the policy pump for broader discussion: how to handle policies & guidelines. My own view: have a very few policies that are short statements of principle; have as many guidelines as useful that are very specific & nuanced, and, most importantly, rely on lots of examples; and clearly distinguish between policy, which should be prescriptive, and guidelines, which should be descriptive (except for style guidelines). --Lquilter (talk) 16:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I was not even aware this page was created. We still do not have any consensus on the necessity of such a guideline.  I agree with the editors above that see a strong push to make Wikipedia a rule-filled bureaucracy where no editorial decisions need to be made.  Is it black or white, on or off, notable or not?  This future wikipedia can be produced entirely by bots.  I rant all of this to say, we have no need for this instruction creep.  Ursasapien (talk) 06:22, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The intent of this guideline was that several people are complaining that WP:EPISODE is doing double duty as both a MOS and notability, which creates confusion. Because there are more than just fictional works that are presented in an episodic format, it seems to make sense to take the notability parts of EPISODE, and expand it to include any serialized work.  I will also point out that ultimately, these all say the same as WP:N - significant coverage in secondary sources - just that the method of application is given guidance.  --M ASEM  14:56, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

criteria 2: number of reviews
The second criteria here is significantly broader than WP:N. WP:N says: "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Note that "sources" is plural. The proposed language here says "An episode of a television is likely to be notable if it has achieved one of the following conditions: ... The episode has been critically reviewed from a reliable secondary source." Note the different language, and that secondary source is singular. I think we should simply restate the language from WP:N to avoid guideline madness, alternative conflicting interpretations, possibilities of ambiguity, and so on. --Lquilter (talk) 16:28, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem there is with WP:N, not this page, since WP:N contradicts WP:V in that instance. WP:V only asks for one third party reliable source. Hiding T 14:48, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

serial works generally
The other thing that strikes me about this proposal is that it is clearly oriented towards serial fiction works and TV series generally. I'm not sure that this proposal has been carefully vetted for how it would apply to academic book series, lecture series, academic journals, and so on. When and if this is ever to go forward, we need to carefully and systematically consider all types of serial works, and thoroughly discuss how this guideline would apply to them. --Lquilter (talk) 21:37, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

About TV episodes
Well, I don't support or oppose any creation of a certain episode article. However, many episode articles (such as episodes of Prison Break) contain only plot summary and cast. In fact, there're more things which can be included in them, such as production, and episodes of The Simpsons are almost well-written, including not only synopsis but production notes and cultural references. So rather discussing this notability guideline, we'd better focus on the style guideline of episodes.--RekishiEJ (talk) 18:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Many shows have not yet proven that more than a handful (if even that) of their episode articles can reach the level of encyclopedicness that many of the Simpsons episodes articles have demonstrated to have. So before we can get to work with the style guideline, we first need to determine what shows can have/keep (a number of) their episode articles, i.e. notability. This is already proving more than than difficult. – sgeureka t•c 18:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why we can't focus on a style guideline instead. I'm not sure why it is our job to decide what shows can have/keep their episode articles.  Surely that's a job for community consensus, which is subject to change and doesn't have to be decided one way or the other.  The wiki-process is supposed to form the consensus through collegiate editing, or have we abandoned that fundamental principle on Wikipedia? Hiding T 23:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I am not saying that we shouldn't focus on the style guideline, but that we should make sure the child is born before we decide what college he should attend. I don't understand why you bring up community consensus. – sgeureka t•c 00:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Episodes of TV series which are awarded can have their own articles. On the contrary, episodes of TV series which are not awarded generally can not have their own articles. And non-Simpsons episodes can reach encyclopedicness as long as articles about them contain at least production notes (they're ususally contained in DVDs, and editors can use DVDs to find correct and useful data.--RekishiEJ (talk) 05:30, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Inclusion vs. Exclusion
What I dislike about this proposed guideline is the fact that it renders Wikipedia, to a degree, incomplete, encouraging the proliferation of redlinks, too. Let's say a television series produces 22 episodes in a season, but only 3 of them actually somehow satisfy this nebulous wibbly-wobbly notion of "real world notability". So does that mean that only 3 episodes of a season get articles and the rest don't? That doesn't make sense. Same with book series. Imagine, if you will, if The Two Towers or Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets totally bombed, were ignored by the media, no one bothered to make movies about them ... so under this guideline it would mean that a complete accounting of the Lord of the Rings or Potter book series would not be possible? I'm of the view that such exclusionary tactics on the part of Wikipedia will just drive people away from the project, but at the same time, I'd rather see an all or nothing approach. If you want them, then it should be left to editor discretion whether a series justifies individual episode articles or season summaries (which, by the way, have also been put up for AFD, so not everyone wants them either). Common sense has to prevail somewhere. It's doubtful that an attempt at doing individual episode articles for a daily soap opera would work well, so more likely a year-based article would work. If, on the other hand, you don't want episode articles period, full stop, then ban them. Just expect to see a bunch of people throw up their hands and move to Citizendium or start up yet another rival wiki. Every time a Wikia site is started dedicated to a specific topic, Wikipedia loses a base of information. But people don't seem to understand that. 23skidoo (talk) 21:01, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * In general, not every episode/entry of a serial work is notable, and thus taking that general view, to the extent that WP is not a plot summary, a article about a series is likely to have a section or spinout that describes the overall, but concise, plot of each element of it: shows can have episode lists (even down to a by-season episode list), a series of books can have a per-entry discussion, and the like. When an episode/entry is notable, then a new article can be created, which may be able to expand the plot, but this article is also expected to have a deeper coverage of why the show is notable. --M ASEM  21:26, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I read the policy as more useful to inclusionists. Is there ONE critical review in a reliable source?  It's notable.  Inclusionists could hang their hat on that in deletion discussions.  Absent this policy you've got WP:GNG and WP:GNG is not going to be kind to individual episodes or chapters of a serial work.Bdell555 (talk) 22:46, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Still needed?
Is this guideline still necessary if the current post-spinout WP:FICT succeeds? Percy Snoodle (talk) 10:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * IMO, it wasn't ever needed. Ursasapien (talk) 10:46, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * WP:FICT has been "proposed" for more than FIVE YEARS as near as I can tell so I can't see that policy ever succeeding. I'd add that something like this policy WILL be needed if a deletionist decides to get aggressive by using general guidelines, since the resulting disputes will create a natural demand for something specific like this.Bdell555 (talk) 22:48, 19 August 2010 (UTC)