Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lengths of science fiction movie and television series

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 - has had citations added since AFD started. - Yomangani^talk 11:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lengths of science fiction movie and television series

This is original research and really seems to be quite random. Ponch's Disco 05:43, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete a great big "So what"
  Danny Lilithborne 05:55, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Delete
  WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information Resolute 06:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • As I've asked another user at the bottom of the discussion, this list is not one of the examples of indiscriminate articles from the Not Indiscriminate guide you linked to. In what way do you see this as being indiscriminate? --Arctic Gnome 05:30, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per above. MER-C 06:44, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - Has curiosity value, though.--thunderboltz^(Deepu) 07:23, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Intereesting and useful: provides a quick at-a-glance way to compare various sci-fi series by length. I think our definition of "original research" is starting to get overly-broad. It was supposed to protect us from crackpot theories and "Dude, what if the whole universe is just a hair on an ant's butt?" silliness. None of this article is original research. If one wants to find out how long, say, Blade Runner is, there's a thousand different places to find it: the IMDB, the DVD, countless video guides. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 10:01, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment You don't even have to go as far as IMDB. This information is available in the existing Wikipedia articles about each series. This list exists so users can make a quick comparison of these specific facts about the series. It's just like how wikipedia has a list of past presidents so that the reader does not have to look at each president's page to compare them. --Arctic Gnome 05:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Per
  Danny Lilithborne. --Brianyoumans 11:29, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Keep, per Andrew Lenahan. The Wookieepedian 13:02, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete for being pointless trivia collected under the pretense of academic research. Interrobamf 13:37, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Several people around the net have found a point for it; see the bottom of the discussion. --Arctic Gnome 15:54, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Nicely formatted, but still listcruft. ... discospinster _talk 15:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per Resolute. --Metropolitan90 15:24, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep It is not original research, but merely a collation of information from other sources. Potential value to anyone researching science fiction series. FrozenPurpleCube 15:55, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Keep as a usefully put together collection of data that is not itself all that important. It's not OR, although it leans toward an indiscriminate collection of information. Given a potential usefulness to someone wondering exactly what they are getting in for when starting a new sci-fi series (which is happening more and more as DVD season sets continue to come out), I'd say err on the side of leaving it alone. It can be reviewed at a future date if it expands in foolish directions or is not maintained. -Markeer 16:10, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep or move somewhere else (make sure the individual SF series articles have the information), because I just know I will want to refer back to this one day! Incidentially, I suspect this started from the tendency of Star Trek and Star Wars fans to run "24-hour marathon viewings" of their oeuvres. Carcharoth 18:21, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as listcruft Bwithh 20:06, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Listcruft and will be extremely hard to maintain. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 22:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I've had no difficulty maintaining it over the past year. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:56, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment But listcruft nonetheless. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 00:49, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Incredible listcruft. -- Kicking222 22:27, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. A useful almanac-style list. As Andrew Lenahan points out, it's not original research, but a collation of information available at dozens of other locations. Citations can be provided if verifiability is the concern. Whether it's too trivial to merit inclusion in Wikipedia is, of course, an individual judgment, but I'd question whether it's any more trivial or listcrufty than the vast majority of the articles in
  List of Indianapolis 500 winning starting positions. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:56, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • Comment Thank you for pointing out that there are also other lists are also listcruft and hence worthy of deletion. --210physicq (c) 00:49, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as indiscriminate collection of information (listcruft). Valrith 23:04, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It isn’t indiscriminate at all; the article describes very clearly what belongs in the list and how it is organised. Neither science fiction nor motion pictures are random categorisations made up by the article’s creators. --Arctic Gnome 14:31, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Keep as per Markeer. It's not an indiscriminate collection of information as it provides an actual context and criteria for the information. Maintainance is not really an issue because there are obviously people willing to maintain it (and it gives counts up to whichever episode it mentions, so again the context - and the limits of the information - is clear). As for cruft, it really depends on your definition, although I would say that it's a step above most cruft insofar as it is actually interesting to see how long certain series have lasted and the breadth of fictional universes. I, too, would err on the side of keeping it. --
  khaosworks (talk • contribs) 01:37, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Delete per nom. Arbusto 06:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Not original research. Somewhat indiscriminate, but potentially useful, collection of information -- enough so that I'm inclined to give it benefit of the doubt. Might be NPOV/citation issues (who's deciding what's "canon"?), but that calls for cleanup, not deletion. Shimeru 09:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep or maybe move it something like SCIFIpedia before deleting it from here. --GracieLizzie 11:30, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep for the sheer fact that it's a useful collection of information, that clearly a number of people have use for it, and that clearly a number of people have put a lot of work over a long period toward maintaining it. I've often seen links to this article, in conversations about TV sci-fi.--Aderack 17:04, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - Useful and original data set, even if not of interest to everyone. It is well presented, well linked and thus can serve as an extension of the information available on this site for many films/programmes. --Orbling 22:36, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. I have twice seen this article used as a reference on other websites, meaning people are finding it useful. It is an accurate, up-to-date, almanac-style list. --Arctic Gnome 05:11, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Definetely not liftcruft. It's verifiable, managable and very useful– a lot of people are interested in it. Just the other day I saw someone cite it to resolve a question they were having [1]. Makgraf 05:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as
  WP:RS. Sandstein 07:16, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • Comment That's not the way it works. Reliable sources for this information exist, so it's merely a matter of citation, which is not a reason for deletion. Shimeru 08:51, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, that's the way it works. Per WP:RS: "The responsibility for finding and adding references lies with the person adding material to an article, and sources should be provided whenever possible." Per WP:V: "Unsourced material may be challenged and removed." So a lack to cite sources is very valid grounds for deletion. Just asserting that sources exist somewhere isn't a valid remedy. Sandstein 17:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think you're misreading WP:V. The criterion isn't whether information is verified, it's whether it's verifiable. Yes, it is important that we cite our sources on Wikipedia; but that's not a deletion criterion. The criterion is whether such sources can be provided. An article on my cat Maggie is unverifiable, because no reliable source could be provided. Sources can be provided for the information in this article (and, indeed, Arctic Gnome has begun to do so). This article isn't original research, but a collation of widely available data. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:48, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I was not arguing this article fails WP:V; I'm arguing that it fails WP:OR by default because it has (or had) no sources. But strictly speaking, it does fail WP:V, because I think you are misreading WP:V by stating that "The criterion is whether such sources can be provided." Quoting from WP:V again: "'Verifiable' in this context means that any reader must be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, because Wikipedia does not publish original thought or original research." It also says that "The burden of evidence lies with the editors who have made an edit or wish an edit to remain." Read together, this means that, in case of disputes, the criterion of WP:V is whether sources are in fact (not: can be) provided. The same is true,
          WP:OR compliance. Sandstein 18:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply
          ]
          • Unsourced material is not the same as original research. In this case, any reader can in fact check the information against reliable published sources. The error lies in the fact that the citation isn't (or wasn't) provided -- which is not in itself a reason for deletion. If the material were questioned, and such sources were not (or, more to the point, could not be) cited by editors, then there might be reason for deletion as OR -- however, since the citations can be (and are being) provided, this meets WP:V criteria. Ideally, of course, all articles would be both verifiable and verified -- but the fact that a given article is not yet verified is grounds for cleanup, not deletion. Deletion of verifiable material is simply counterproductive when cleanup is a possibility. (This is also, I believe, why the policy states "unsourced material may be challenged and removed," rather than "will be... removed." Babies, bathwater, you know the drill.) Shimeru 20:29, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Everything on this page comes from imdb or tv.com. I'll give the article links to those websites. --Arctic Gnome 14:24, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you. But I'm sorry to say these sources are rather unspecific. These are big websites, you know. How about providing specific inline references for the individual shows? Sandstein 18:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm on it. --Arctic Gnome 20:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]