Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elementary School Musical

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The result was Nomination Withdrawn. Hate to break into your inciteful discussion, but it would be better placed in either WP:VP or in a talk page. Thanks! (non-admin closure) DARTH PANDA ^duel 21:54, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Elementary School Musical[edit]

This article about the most recent episode of South Park consists solely of the plot summary and some trivial information. There are no references, no notability established and no reason why this episode should have an own article. Recently, several shows have had the episode articles summarized in the season articles and only the most prominent single episodes kept their articles. A good example of a well-written episode article is Trapped in the Closet (South Park). However, not every single episode of every single show needs a separate article on Wikipedia, that's what another wiki is for. Probably you see that I don't focus on the nominated article only but I would like to have some feedback regarding such articles in general. This one is just an example. Thank you for your comments. Tone 19:35, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a brand new article, give it time. ZZT32 (talk) 20:10, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Take any of ther article of the season, they are solely plot summaries. Some have references, some not. I am saying some episodes simply do not deserve separate articles. --Tone 20:33, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My suggestion is in fact Merge. --Tone 14:30, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep - Most episodes deserve articles. Since this is basically a brand new one, give it some time. Articles can and will develop. If, after a month, the article is untouched, bring it to AfD again. _David ^WS _(contribs) 21:22, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep - Most articles do indeed develop, especially from a popular series like South Park. If this is to go, I would like to see the nominator go through and similarly tag every other non-notable (in their opinion) episode of South Park and every other TV series on Wikipedia. Alastairward (talk) 22:06, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is sometimes done. The recent series that had had the episodes summarized are for example Stargate and Smallville. Random check, maybe The Arsenal of Freedom. There's a separate wiki for those. --Tone 22:16, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS by the way. --Tone 22:24, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Vote Change: Keep I would like to formally apologize for my initial vote of the matter. I was stupid and ignorant. I tried to use this vote to reflect my personal sentiment regarding Wikipedia Television articles. Disregarding Wikipedia Policy is not basis for a deletion, and I can now set aside personal feelings and look at this article for what it is. Though I hold the opinion that Wikipedia shouldn't be TV.Com, I know trying to delete one article is stupid. I cannot change Wikipedia Policy, and no matter how much I dislike it, as a wikipedian I must clear my conscience and change my vote from delete to keep. Wikipedia Policy has kept Wikipedia as the largest online encyclopedia and whether I dislike/like it, I will always uphold it and cannot reasonably keep my vote as delete. Bigvinu (talk) 20:44, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merge Until the article has enough legs to stand on its own, it should be merged into List of South Park episodes.--User:2008Olympian_chitchat^seemywork 23:50, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am someone who had read this article and I strongly disagree about his/her/its reason for the episodes to be deleted. The episodes should be summarized if someone does not have the chance to watch the episode. I also believe that Bridon's dad should have his own page. That is why i don't think this article should be deleted.

'Comment The examples listed above are articles which disgrace wp in various ways. The Stargate list appears to be copy paste from a tv guide, as it gives not episode summaries, but teasers; any summary bending with .... is unencyclopedic. A episode summary that says something like "The Atlantis expedition is put on trial" but doesn't give anywhere the result of the trial is unencyclopedic. When NOT says we are Not a program guide this is what it is properly referring to--we tell what the episode is about, and summarize in a paragraph or so what takes place ini it--not give a tag line to encourage people to watch it. The point of an encyclopedia is to provide information, not publicity. The Smallville one has longer entries, but the same problem: "WLex does something unexpected with the unproven antidote." An encyclopedic description prepared from an actual source for the material will say what the expected something is, not leave it as a hook to the potential viewer. " Things go awry when she discovers that her kryptonite-enhanced beauty causes harm to anyone she kisses." A proper summary describes what happens, which is probably the point to the episode. "and Chloe attempts to set the school on fire." does she succeed or not, and how does the episode close? All this is program guide material, not actual description. But in contrast, The Arsenal of Freedom is a very long overdetailed description of each turn in the plot; the corresponding article in MemoryAlpha describes the plot much more clearly (though in similar detail) but also add much more encyclopedic information about the production and other externals. There should be a middle ground, except I very rarely see it. Perhaps if people who know the series would work on these articles, instead of arguing about removing them, we would get somewhere. Either good reasonable size episode articles, or good adequate season summaries: either would do. DGG (talk) 00:02, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts exactly. What you suggest was done at the Stargate SG-1 series - reasonable plot summaries at the episode list, of those articles that are about specific episodes, two are GA and one FA, the seasons articles are being worked on. An approach that should be applied courageously for other series as well. Lost (TV series) has a great approach, most of the articles are referenced and much more than plot summaries, several FAs and in depth season articles. --Tone 00:15, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it that people have such a hard time comprehending Notability? Notability is not ARTICLE notability, notability is SUBJECT notability. It doesn't matter HOW GOOD the articles on Lost are, the subject they cover (specific articles) is PRECISELY AS NOTABLE AS A SOUTH PARK EPISODE, and actually much less notable in my opinion, as South Park actually covers topics of general interest. Even if our Einstein article was just a stub, and our Frank Tirnady article was 2,000,000 words long, Enstein would still be MORE NOTABLE than Tirnady. PyroGamer (talk) 20:03, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep I don't understand why this particular episode is less worthy of its own page than any other preceding it. There has been a standard set in terms of giving South Park episodes their own page, and I don't see a reason to change that. Stuartfaz (talk) 03:33, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as per Meta:Wiki is not paper. Specifically, "There is no reason why there shouldn't be a page for every Simpsons character, and even a table listing every episode, all neatly cross-linked and introduced by a shorter central page. Every episode name in the list could link to a separate page for each of those episodes, with links to reviews and trivia. Each of the 100+ poker games can have its own page with rules, history, and strategy. Jimbo Wales has agreed: Hard disks are cheap." -- Masterzora (talk) 05:13, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Uh, WP:NOT#PAPER also says that, in bold, that This policy is not a free pass for inclusion. MuZemike (talk) 08:30, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Also, there is one of the core criteria in Wikipedia and this is Notability. In any case, some of the people here seem to be missing the point of the nomination. I don't oppose this specific article (which is still bad and IMO should be merged to the season article), I am just demonstrating that several episodes do not pass criteria for separate articles. There were some attempts to get a consensus on this but as far as I know the summarization has been done for a couple of series only. Sometimes, this was pretty radical, for example, see Wikipedia:Pokémon test. --Tone 11:10, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - You are absolutely correct in that it's not a free pass for inclusion, and that articles must abide by the content policies. However, nobody has pointed out a single policy that this article violates, so my original statement stands. Further, note that your link, WP:NOT#PAPER references the same essay from which I pulled the quote regarding how there is no reason we shouldn't have an article about every episode of a TV show. -- Masterzora (talk) 22:38, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 04:09, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 04:09, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep So by deleting this article, you want to set a precedent so every article covering 12 series of South Park gets deleted? Hell, why stop there? Lets start deleting episode articles about Star Trek/X-Files/The Simpsons, et al. If it's the manner in which the article is written, why not ask for it to be re-written? Just because one Wikipedian deems a page irrelevant, doesn't mean others feel the same way about it. This is one very strange deletion request. --Factorylad (talk) 13:55, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This was not ment as a precedent nomination. I am just trying to point out how the standards should be raised. Check the last season of Lost, every article has much more than a plot summary and trivia. I am not saying every article needs to be deleted, only the bad ones. This is an encyclopedia, not a tv guide. Other wikis are for that. Check a FL, List of Stargate SG-1 episodes. Episodes that have notability asserted (won awards, gained media attention etc.) have separate articles, the others haev the plot summarized and there is a link to wikia where all the details are more than welcome. What I am trying to show is that this is a better encyclopedic approach. --Tone 14:06, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Going by that notion, I'm sure there are plenty of unworthy articles in List of The Simpsons episodes and List of Family Guy episodes of which every episode has an article. Bear in mind that this article is still in it's infancy. I'm sure articles such as Trapped in the Closet (South Park), which you referred to didn't appear overnight and are the result of ongoing work. --Factorylad (talk) 14:22, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I should have probably chosen an older article to demonstrate the point. For that purpose, maybe The Arsenal of Freedom is more illustrative. Most of the articles will never get over the plot summary since there's not much to add as they are just episodes. My proposal is not delete, but Merge. --Tone 14:29, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The point still remains that any action you wish to be taken with this article should be adhered to with similar articles (for example, articles included in List of The Simpsons episodes and List of Family Guy episodes as I referred to). Why stop at television shows? Does Wikipedia really need a single article for every element in the New Order discography? On a separate note, if your suggestion is to merge and not delete, you should consider removing the article for deletion box and replacing it with { {merge} }. --Factorylad (talk) 14:42, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the notion that hard drive space is cheap, what do we gain from merging into a season summary? Nothing it seems. What do we lose? The extra detail and perhaps the encouragement to go ahead and add to the article. Seeing everything squeezed like this might be off putting to newer editors.

Besides which, this article seems to have been chosen as an example for the nominator's idea of how articles should appear in general, not on the merits of how it might turn out, which seems sort of wrong to me. At the very least, the assertion that "Take any of ther article of the season, they are solely plot summaries" is wrong. What about The China Probrem and the controversy caused by the sight of George Lucas raping Indiana Jones, that seems outside a mere plot summary. Or the production segment of About Last Night.... It doesn't help the nomination that the nominator doesn't seem to have read the other articles from this season. Alastairward (talk) 15:38, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep South Park being a culturally significant series, popular internationally, even single episodes are notable enough to have their own articles. You want to include only really important subjects, such as countries and human organs, there are literally a million less relevant articles in Wikipedia one should get rid of first. Granted, this might not be the most significant South Park episode in terms of controversial plot elements etc., but it would be near-impossible to agree on which episodes deserve an article of their own, should this one be deleted.--Almost Anonymous (talk) 16:32, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete of all South Park episode articles. Keep only the main South Park article, the one for the movie, and the list of episodes. Kill all the episode and character articles; none of them are notable in the slightest way, and the South Park Wiki exists for the fans. --Captain Infinity (talk) 16:46, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep Wikipedia is *wikipedia* and trying to imitate every other encyclopedia in the areas they lack compared to Wikipedia is just doing everyone a disservice. If you want to read traditional encyclopedia, please by all means log off and go buy one. The only sensible alternative to Keep is to create a sub-section of wikipedia that's dedicated to hosting this type and other trivia information and in the process of moving the content also create links from the original content, not to some 3rd party site (driving revenue and value away from wikipedia). I think it's reasonable to assume the person who proposed this has a financial motive having noticed people prefer to go to wikipedia for same information that certain commercially natured sites offer.

Notability: 1.(dated) Capable of being noted; noticeable; plain; evident. 2. Worthy of notice; remarkable; memorable; noted or distinguished.

People all over the world see these episodes. Are articles about rare disease that only might occur in US near some old chemical spill area or obscure science and math subjects notable by definition 2 ? I don't think so, yet no one is arguing for their deletion. Clearly the case here is that commercial sites have taken interest in Wikipedia competing with them. Fact is that gamefaqs and so on lack some of the interesting information you have on Wikipedia and they could go down any moment for various reasons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.115.125.142 (talk) 6:54, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Strong Keep Per common sense. 71.64.154.24 (talk) 17:00, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to LoE / new season article until this episode has (at least) been nominated for an award or has otherwise caused controversy (WP:NOTABILITY), or has been improved to support a spinout per WP:SIZE without violating WP:NOT#PLOT, WP:WAF, WP:RS and WP:OR. Note to nominator: Tagging plot-only articles of notable/popular shows with {{notability}} usually works better - either the articles get improved (great!) or not (at which point there is proof that they aren't getting improved and should be merged/redirected/deleted). Note to SP wikiproject: maybe it's time to reconsider your approach. WP:SIMPSONS and WP:LOST are doling out GAs and FAs at high speed and thus can reasonably assert that they are improving the other articles as well, and WP:STARGATE and User:Bignole with his Smallville articles have stopped adding WP:SEWAGE to the already polluted pond and voluntarily cut back heavily on their in-universe and plot cruft (SG is still in the process, SV has already succeeded). – sgeureka ^t•c 17:29, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep per common sense. Jonesy702 (talk) 17:53, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep It has been the accepted standard on Wikipedia to have pages for episodes in series, be it Simpsons, Seinfeld, South Park, whatever. It is shameless that a user would attempt to brute-force his own opinion against the accepted consensus by attacking a single page and causing all this chaos. If you don't think Wikipedia should give television episodes their own pages, then there should be a general talk page to discuss making broad sweeping changes to accepted Wikipedia policy. Removing a single page by brute-forcing an adf would make Wikipedia look dreadfully inconsistent and unpredictable. Users who regularly visit Wikipedia for information on pop culture such as films and television episodes would suddenly be inconvenienced and denied pertinent information because someone had a hissy fit over the existence of an article they didn't happen to like. If any of the other pages stay, then this page stays. For the sake of consistency and common sense: STRONG KEEP. PyroGamer (talk) 19:54, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep, it's an episode of a notable TV show. The episode itself is the primary source for the plot summary. And notability cannot be "established" — it's a subjective opinion. Go write an article on the topic of notability and you might learn something. There is no policy against "trivia" — that's because just about everything on Wikipedia is trivia. You cannot know what an orange tastes like by reading the Orange (fruit) article — it is just a description. Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. There is no reason why episodes of notable shows cannot have articles on Wikipedia. No, this is not "what another wiki is for." If you want to make Gil Penchina richer, go ahead and delete the article. But Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Saying "This is Wikipedia, not TV.com" is irrelevant. This website is obviously en.wikipedia.org, not tv.com — but that doesn't mean this article should be deleted. You might as well say "This is Wikipedia, not IMDb.com" and try to delete every film article. It doesn't logically follow. The nominator has suggested a "merge" so I don't even know why we're here. Please only nominate articles for deletion if you think they should be deleted. AFD is not for discussing merges. So if you want to merge the article and not delete it, taking it to AFD is a waste of volunteer's valuable time. In response to Bigvinu, I don't care what Wikiproject Video Games thinks, or does (and as if they all share one mind). If a TV show already has season pages, great. But that doesn't mean we should delete every episode page on Wikipedia. No article on Wikipedia is "necessary." Tone, you do not understand what Wikipedia:Notability says. It says topics should be notable. This episode is notable. Notability guidelines list evidence that the community considers evidence of notability. But that is not the only evidence of notability. Saying "This is an encyclopedia, not a tv guide" is irrelevant. Like Masterzora said, Meta:Wiki is not paper says "There is no reason why there shouldn't be a page for every Simpsons character, and even a table listing every episode, all neatly cross-linked and introduced by a shorter central page. Every episode name in the list could link to a separate page for each of those episodes, with links to reviews and trivia. Each of the 100+ poker games can have its own page with rules, history, and strategy. Jimbo Wales has agreed: Hard disks are cheap." It's sad that the people making these deletion nominations don't realize they're doing more for Gil Penchina and Jimbo Wales and Angela Beesley than the readers of Wikipedia. --Pixelface (talk) 21:23, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
After that last entry, when do we remove the AfD box? --Factorylad (talk) 23:20, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My interpretation of the GFDFact is that gamefaqs andL license is that text from Wikipedia cannot be moved to Wikia, like Captain would like to, only copied, because the "original document must be made available" and obviously if you delete the users contribution made here then the original is gone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.115.125.142 (talk) 00:07, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would add that I've seen many articles deleted a while before they became "notable" and then people being unable to add it back. Therefore I propose the Notability policy to be changed so that article must be atleast one year old before it can be suggested for deletion based on notability. For example. Suppose someone made article about assasination of Obama and you would speedily delete it and then few months later Obama was assasinated. I think the police would be very interested in why was the article detailing the assasination plan deleted as obviously it was notable, just not when the article was created. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.115.125.142 (talk) 01:03, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Plenty, plenty of articles are less notable/have less claims for notability. Most South Park episodes are already notable by virtue of their existence. 143.89.188.6 (talk) 02:19, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep - Articles like these make Wikipedia what it is. This latest article on this week's episode of South Park is informative and consistent with the over 150 previous articles like it about past South Park episodes. My jaw dropped when I came in this week to get the info on the latest episode and saw the deletion message. If someone doesn't want these articles then they've got some serious issues with core Wikipedia ideologies -- not just this article. We'd have to go and delete every South Park episode entry, every Star Trek entry, all TV episodes entries. How about we just be happy that people are willing spare their free time to expand Wikipedia to cover all directions of human endeavour whimsical, scientific, cultural, economic and otherwise. If TV episode articles are not your cup of tea then don't view the articles. The articles don't get in your way. JA (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 02:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC).[reply]

Keep dido Pixelface. - poof money

Keep, why the hell is this episode being singled out? Someone obviously has a bias as there's no continuty between this and other eps. --TheTruthiness (talk) 08:59, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep, Ditto to TheTruthiness on the singling out. This is obviously just some who just don't like South Park who want it removed, for example person who said remove all episodes and character pages, are you kidding? Keep the page and stop the growing Wikipedia bias. --Mothball666 (talk) 18:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep, I don't get it. Like Mothball666 said, people just want it removed (only who don't like South Park). Its really situation to say "What the hell?!!".. Rogerchocodiles (talk) 15:49, 16 November 2008 (UTC)Rogerchocodiles[reply]

Keep. All South Park episodes gain enough media attention to classify as notable. There are numerous relevant Google News hits to prove this. I've also added a section on the episode's reception, so it's not just a plot summary anymore. 96T (talk) 19:58, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep. You're trying to tear the building down while it's still being built. All articles have to start off somewhere, and just because it needs improvement does not mean it needs to be immediately deleted. We have plenty of articles lacking in references, more information, and the like, but that does not necessarily mean it merits deleting. —Mizu onna sango15^Hello! 20:47, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep. Never get rid of episode articles. Where else would we get episode info? Nowhere! So keep this article. Whoever nominated this made a large mistake.

Strong Keep, I just saw this episode and I came here to see what little bits of information and references I missed. When I saw it was up for deletion, I was kind of irked. Wikipedia has always been about information about everything. Start limiting it here, what else would we have to get rid of? seanfury —Preceding undated comment was added at 04:44, 17 November 2008 (UTC).[reply]

Incredibly Strong Keep You're just like the quarter of Americans that thinks there was a conspiracy behind 9/11. This episode is only 5 days old. The article isn't that much older. You cannot delete it. If you want this deleted, you might as well wipe it off Wikipedia itself. I was pleased when Wendy Testaburger got her own article, as she is an important character- she is Stan's girlfriend. If you want this deleted, just delete all the articles on South Park. Then delete important stuff, we might as well delete the articles opposing Robert Mugabe's regime- and Robert Mugabe is the most evil black man ever. Hell, we might as well delete articles on current dictators to keep the dictators happy. Allow the Chinese government to censor Wikipedia to keep the leaders happy. If we want Wikipedia to remain a good source of information, then we cannot delete important stuff. Stuff about episodes. There is stuff to delete, like Wendy's bio on the students thing after expanding her main article, but not articles about major stuff. Sorry I ranted a bit, but that's what I feel. It's like censoring random things: it's unnecessary, unhealthy and completely stupid. nintendomaster3, not user (yet) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.27.174 (talk) 08:36, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all for your feedback. I am happy that the responses have been civil though the nomination itself was pretty provocative. I think I have gathered enough opinions now. Since the nomination is losing its point because most of the people is just voting for keep and not suggesting any systematic improvements to the episode articles in general, I feel it is time to withdraw the nomination. I am happy to see that the article has been slightly improved, though it still includes an unreferenced trivia section at the time I am writing this. As DGG mentioned above, there should be a middle way between well-referenced articles that span beyond plot summary and season articles that make an overview. Somehow, if you compare a tv show to a book, episodes are like chapters. The show or the book can notable by itself, but that does not necessarily hold for chapters. Anyway, I think it is more appropriate to continue somewhere else. With this I would like to conclude this debate and ask an uninvolved admin to close the nomination (keep, obviously). Thanks again. --Tone 10:15, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WAIT[edit]

Ok before you end this, think about this: Part of the reason why Wikipedia exist is to provide more insight about topics that expands as an encyclopedia that gives information about every aspect of something. Deleting the article being discussed is going against the Status quo of wikipedia. i have noticed on this page that one person suggested that ALL the episodes should be removed from wikipedia and only keep the main South Park article. But what if someday, someone very new to South Park comes along, reads the main South Park article, and says "hm, i wonder what the episodes of this show is about so i can get an idea of what is satired in South Park." If we remove those articles, that person would be very disappointed because he was unable to read sourced information about the episodes of South Park. He will then look at an unsourced and untrue website about the episode that wont provide the information correctly, and he would be very skeptical of it. One of the reasons why i got into South Park is because of wikipedia. Denying that chance for someone else is selfish. I think Wikipedia needs to be there so people can get the right information, and South Park articles do just that. We already have 12 full seasons of the show in seperate articles. Why not just finish it out till the show ends in 2011? If people think that the article is irrelevent, which its not, simply improve the article so that it is more formal, provide sources for the information, discuss the content before it is added so that people reach a consensus, then lock the article. end of story. --J miester25 (talk) 15:31, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I might also add that this deletion proposal was premature. The episode had barely been out for two days. Expecting the article to be perfect after only two days is unrealistic. I suggest that you wait a lot longer before proposing to delete something like this.--Matt (talk) 16:17, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I feel I have to add something here. Please, check Free Hat. I could have tagged it because of exactly the same reason - no references and nothing but a detailed plot summary. Anyway, I was not proposing a complete removal of the articles, I just find that a short summary of each episode at the season article would suffice. Like 5 sentences, most episodes could be covered with that. For those that need more, separate articles, sure. So all the relevant info is accesible for those interested and Wikipedia does not turn in a fanpage. --Tone 17:33, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

J miester25, exactly! I feel bad about the link to Memory-Alpha in the Star Trek episode articles for just that reason. It may be a pretty good fan wiki, but it's not wikipedia and as such information in it goes from the cited to fancruft. SP is a popular series, why not offer viewers the opportunity to read about the series knowing that we've sifted through the rubbish to give them verifiable facts?

I added the reference to the article, with is the episode that is found on SouthParkStudios.com that an adminsitrator in a previous arctile talk page stated that it would verify the claims good enough. I will also remove the Sources Tag. --J miester25 (talk) 22:16, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep. I disagree with the reason for opening this article for deletion, as well as a few of Tone's supplementary arguments.

Tone's thought that only the 'well written' articles, or the ones that do more than 'summarize the plot' can be kept, but extras can be cut. Unfortunately, a lot of the better articles became that way through the process of Wikipedia's revisions. Ergo, they are what they are because they weren't deleted at this early stage of the item.
Tone weakens his argument by saying 'some' articles are acceptable. Considering that all episodes are of the same duration, judging which ones were monumental (besides the first and last) is strictly up to opinion. On that note, if some are acceptable, all should be acceptable.
Of my own personal thoughts, South Park is one of the longest running animated series. On this note, each article on it is suitable, versus brief series with less lingering cultural impact. --SoreThumb (talk) 21:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Answering Tone. Only having a season article does not provide enough insight for each specific episode. Not only does the plot need to be inlcuded, but also the references to pop culture that the specific episode makes. If there is not a seperate article that shows these attributes of a specific episode, there is no way of knowing what is satired in the show and the main South Park article does not hold the water for the entire series, and neither will 15 season articles. ALL 180+ episodes need to have their own specific article. Also, if information is placed on wikipedia, like a plot summary without references as you suggessted, would not be verifiable and follow Wikipedia Standards. By providing a seperate article for each episode would you be able to verify the claims that are brought forth for each episode. --J miester25 (talk) 21:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Slight misunderstanding here, I believe. The problem with references to pop culture as I see in most of the articles is that they are mostly original research. Chech the talkpage of the article in question, there is a debate whether a specific detail is a reference to some show or not. One needs external reference for that, like a magazine review saying "this episode of South Park satirized this and that show". I don't see what you mean with last two sentences here, all should of course be sourced and therefore everything should be easy to check. I remember from one debate that too detailed plot summaries are close to copyright violations but I can't direct you to that debate so I will not go further on this ground. Anyway, the plot of this episode can easily be summarized in something like Guys find out that they know nothing of the new fad, that's causing everyone to sing in a way that resembles High School musical. The most prominent singer is a new guy called Brydon. Stan tries to convince Brydon to play basketball instead but this proves to be hard because of Brydon's singing obsessed father. At the end, Brydon chooses to play basketball. After resisting to follow the fad the guys decide to go along singing but then they realize that everyone is interested in basketball. The reason is that they liked Brydon and not the fad itself. Ok, could be done better but I believe this is perfectly enough for a summary. And again, some episodes require more place because they generated controversy or won awards or were significant in some other way. The rest were just episodes. There is no need to have an article for every episode just because there are articles for some of them. Are we coming any closer here? --Tone 22:41, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just because something can be summarized in a few sentences doesn't mean that's the correct way to do it. If you can provide all the information on a subject, why would you go with the bare minimum? Wikipedia is about giving information about everything to everyone, why would you want to limit the topics covered? It makes no sense. seanfury —Preceding undated comment was added at 01:44, 18 November 2008 (UTC). \[reply]

First of all, cultural references are not original research. We established this with admin. Nightscream. The cultural references that are provided from season 1 to 9 on this website is from DVD commentary that user Alastairward did most of the work on with other users, and provided sources for his inquiry. Though some of them, like Free Hat, that you mentioned, that SHOULD have cultural references to movies such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones, will be provided with sources that come from SouthParkStudios and DVD commentaries. I will begin this construction in Decemeber, since I am currently dealing with school. The seasons afterward, some of the articles, are provided with fact tags that need references when the DVDs come out in the near future. Season 10 and 11 are currently under construction for such reason. Also, if you look at the original Star Trek episode articles, they provide a WHOLE bunch of information that gives a lot of insight of that episode, none of which are original research and provide resources for their inquiry. Also, the summaries on these South Park articles are not mostly short, but that is because the information comes from a primary source such as the DVD commentary and content of the episode. The reason why these are not shortened for the episodes coming out now and the recent past as of 2006, is because the information comes from a primary source: the videos that are posted on SouthParkStudios.com The references that are on these articles come from that primary source, and those that cannot be proven until later are marked with Fact Tags. And like what SineBot said, it does not serve the article justice to simply have a few sentences of it. While summarizing an episode, you need to provide the intro, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion. What you suggessted does not do any of it and it goes against the status quo of episode articles on Wikipedia. Also, this is not a "fan site" as you claimed. The information comes from very direct refernces and proves the claims made to be true. What you suggest does not do that in any way and does not seem right by any means. Secondly, artilces such as Trapped in the Closest has the same plot length as most of the articles of South Park episodes, but provides more reception and more information because it had such a greater impact than other episodes. That is ok. That does not mean you exclude other episodes from being able to show what it is about and you must cleary define it, instead of having a few sentences. And no we are not getting any closer because you cannot realize the REALITY of Wikipedia and what it stands for. Finally, you are completely misunderstanding the issue here. I am not. I know what should happen here, and I know how to handle this right. You apparently do not. --J miester25 (talk) 03:26, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You may want to ease your tone a little. The interpretations of what should be written in the Wikipedia articles are different and there are many people who agree with you and many who don't. In any case, since you say that you are willing to improve the articles, I am happy to hear that. I think I have already presented all my arguments in the discussion so I will now retire from the debate. Maybe some Wikipedia guidelines need reshuffling but I will not engage in any debate there for some time, maybe later. As I have stated before, this nomination can now be closed. --Tone 08:16, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep. It is commonly accepted on Wikipedia for several notable television series to have individual articles for each episode. Wikipedia is not a traditional encyclopedia; it's not intended to be, and that's why there are articles on so many more things than in an encyclopedia like Britannica or World Book. The fact that some episode summaries are copied-and-pasted from a television website is disgraceful, perhaps, but there's nothing keeping you from rewriting the summary yourself, and that's no reason to nominate an article for deletion. The bottom line is that this is just your personal crusade against episode articles, and nominating an individual article for deletion is not going to automatically overturn some precedent. If you really want to mess with the status quo, there would have to be a discussion on changing Wikipedia policy -- because as it is now, there's nothing wrong with having articles for individual "South Park" episodes. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 05:55, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep I disagree with many policies on Wikipedia. But I don't act on my opinions like this. I'll say I don't like them. But I won't go around act in blatant defiance of them while they still stand. I know the rules. They are there for a reason. They keep things stable. A personal vendetta is no reason to try to delete something.Matt (talk) 10:16, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just a final comment. episodes are usually not like chapters! Chapters can not stand alone, in any sense whatsoever; they're basically pauses. Episodes in contrast are written to have some degree of internal closure, to be viewable by themselves--you won't know the background, you won't appreciate the motivations, but you will know at least the resolution or deliberate non-resolution of the particular incident. Look at the descriptions--this is almost always the case. In most good books, if you skip a chapter, you usually miss something necessary to understand the action and as things go on, you get more and more confused. Episodes are usually written with enough hooks backwards to explain the continuity. They more resemble & I think derive from the structure of comic books, which is why there is such an easy translation between those media. (There are of course other possibilities--the structure of those 19th century novels published as weekly chapters usually do not stand alone--they are not true episodes. ) The traditional form they most closely resemble is connected short stories. My favorite example is Wodehouse, with stories using the same repeated characters. Thats why we almost never have articles on individual chapters of novels--there are very few where it would make the least sense, even if a particular chapter is famous for its particular artistry or complexity of development. DGG (talk) 22:20, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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.