Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The US network TV schedule articles

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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 No consensus, defaults to Keep. Any help untagging the 96 articles would be appreciated. NawlinWiki 04:22, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The US network TV schedule articles

OK... this AfD covers the following 96 articles:

United States Network Television Schedule
1946-47 • 1947-48 • 1948-49 • 1949-50
1950-51 • 1951-52 • 1952-53 • 1953-54 • 1954-55 • 1955-56 • 1956-57 • 1957-58 • 1958-59 • 1959-60
1960-61 • 1961-62 • 1962-63 • 1963-64 • 1964-65 • 1965-66 • 1966-67 • 1967-68 • 1968-69 • 1969-70
1970-71 • 1971-72 • 1972-73 • 1973-74 • 1974-75 • 1975-76 • 1976-77 • 1977-78 • 1978-79 • 1979-80
1980-81 • 1981-82 • 1982-83 • 1983-84 • 1984-85 • 1985-86 • 1986-87 • 1987-88 • 1988-89 • 1989-90
1990-91 • 1991-92 • 1992-93 • 1993-94 • 1994-95 • 1995-96 • 1996-97 • 1997-98 • 1998-99 • 1999-00
2000-01 • 2001-02 • 2002-03 • 2003-04 • 2004-05 • 2005-06 • 2006-07 • 2007-08

... and ...

United States network television schedule (Saturday morning)
Seasons:
1990-91 - 1991-92 - 1992-93 - 1993-94 - 1994-95 - 1995-96 - 1996-97 - 1997-98 - 1998-99 - 1999-00
Seasons:
1980-81 - 1981-82 - 1982-83 - 1983-84 - 1984-85 - 1985-86 - 1986-87 - 1987-88 - 1988-89 - 1989-90
Seasons:
1970-71 - 1971-72 - 1972-73 - 1973-74 - 1974-75 - 1975-76 - 1976-77 - 1977-78 - 1978-79 - 1979-80
Seasons:
1966-67 - 1967-68 - 1968-69 - 1969-70

(View log)

With every single one of these articles, there is little more than what the titles say, i.e. the network television schedule for the years listed. I'm quite wogboggled that these have existed this long... Wikipedia Is Not an indiscriminate collection of information, nor are we a historical TV Guide. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and these listings serve no encyclopedic purpose. Folks have put a fair amount of work into these, so a transwiki would be best (Wikisource?)... but at the very least they need to be removed from here because this content (which is largely unsourced) is just not appropriate for an encyclopedia. Delete ALL. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 18:45, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep - this is sensible, encyclopedic information. In the best of all possible worlds we'd have some sort of "data" or "interactive thingy" section that we could put content like this. Barring that, it's a sensible thing for an encyclopedia with unlimited amounts of space to have (as it would be reasonable to have an article on each of these television seasons, and this is a reasonable piece of information to have in those articles), and there's nowhere better for it than the article space. Phil Sandifer 19:53, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How is this stuff encyclopedic? It's an archive of unsourced data with zero context, not encyclopedia articles. Anyone remember the encyclopedia? --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 20:01, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, OK - they should probably be moved to 19XX-19XX United States television season and tagged as stubs. But the fact remains, these are wholly sensible topics to have articles about, and these are sensible tables for those articles. It's a bit odd that the tables came in before the articles, but deleting the tables is still losing progress. Phil Sandifer 20:03, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's valid data which reflects something that's covered every year in the news. Lack of sources doesn't concern me here, if sources are wanted, they do exist. FrozenPurpleCube 20:08, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't think I would have to link these, but here you go: Wikipedia is not a directory, Wikipedia is not a time capsule, and Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 20:10, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NOT#BURO. The spirit of the rules is more important. Convince me there's a real problem with these pages, don't throw me a bunch of wikilinks. The directory issue has been invalidated before. Time Capsule is a useless reference. There's nothing in indiscriminate about this. You're going to have to actually provide arguments, not just wikilinks. FrozenPurpleCube 20:18, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
These are hardly indiscriminate. American mass culture is pretty notable. Nor is this a directory - these are not loosely organized. List of shows that aired Tuesdays at 9:00 would be a directory, but this organizes its information into sensible cultural moments and eras such that continuity is established. And time capsule is relatively new - and, frankly, relatively badly written and unclear. Phil Sandifer 20:21, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I was unaware of the prior AfDs, but looking at them, there are few policy based arguments for keeping... comments like "novel navigation guide" and "interesting".... but never addressing that this info is not appropriate for an encyclopedia. And to be honest, that the pages "[provide] a page that lists the appearance of a program by day" is not a valid, policy based argument fot keeping the data (and that's all it is, indiscriminate data). Wikipedia is not the place for a historical guide to past television airings, Wikisource is. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 20:13, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm surprised you're unaware of these, and yet you see fit to nominate all these articles. That doesn't bode well for the degree of examination you've given to this subject. Personally, I'd say if you're reading policy to exclude these kinds of articles, then either you're misreading it or the policy is miswritten. I think you seriously need to examine whether or not there's a real problem here. These are historical facts. The notability is sufficiently covered by yearly discussions of the subject. The pages are limited to a natural grouping of the major broadcasters in the country. Where is the problem here? And please don't waste my time with links to pages. I want an actual articulation of the problem. FrozenPurpleCube 20:21, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think I have articulated the problem fairly clearly above, there is little sourcing, no context, and violates three full facets of WP:NOT. That they are "historical facts" is not relevant to what we are doing here, building an encyclopedia. Your rhetoric (and attempt to turn the focus to me) is not helpful. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 20:32, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it may violate one facet. Though that facet isn't very clear, so it's not a useful test. It does have context - these are clearly subtopics of the larger topic of American mass culture, and the significance of network television in that is straightforward. There may be issues with sourcing, but I bet if you contacted some of the poeple who wrote the articles they'd find their sources for you. Phil Sandifer 20:36, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What facets? How? Lack of sources? I don't see any serious problem with the sourcing. A lack of sources in the articles only means whoever put them together should have sourced them at the time. It doesn't mean the sources don't exist. They quite obviously and undeniably do. And these historical facts are relevant to an encyclopedia, since it provides a clear picture of the weekly broadcast schedules which is itself the subject of coverage in newspapers and books. Why wouldn't it be covered? You do realize there are thousands of dates that have articles about them on Wikipedia, aren't you? Why? Because that provides a context to the events. The same as this does. Therefore, I say your claims of a problem are very poor. I think this is very much part of an encyclopedia, the same way s covering election results, sports events or population changes are. I'm sorry you feel I'm commenting on you, but I do feel you should give more consideration to the prior discussion. It is very troublesome to me that you didn't even know about them. FrozenPurpleCube 20:41, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
KEEP all. Agreed. How many times must an article (or type of article, in this case) be run through the ringer? once? twice? three times? Enough is enough! Users and editors have spoken out time and again to KEEP these articles; leave 'em alone already. Wikipedia is full of "lists" and "tables" to help navigate and organize groups of related articles, and these are no different. They present the data in a most logical fashion and it just makes sense to have them. They also happen to be rather popular and contain often searched-for information. Wikipedia is also where you find articles on the networks, programs, actors, producers, directors, distributors, awards, etc. so moving these pages elsewhere makes no sense either. So long as all these other related articles remains on Wikipedia, these "schedule" articles must also remain; their use could even be expanded (links to them from the television show articles; links from them to respective Emmy awards articles, etc). vmz 03:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is a collection of encyclopedia articles. Wikisource is a collection of information. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 19:39, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Last I heard, encyclopedia articles included information. Perhaps you might not want to make your distinctions based on splitting hairs in definitions. Of course, it doesn't help that Wikisource also includes some Encyclopedias... FrozenPurpleCube 21:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, even as is. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but this article fits within the scope of Wikipedia, which is not restricted to paper and the formality required of paper encyclopedias. GABaker 2104, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete all - or move to wikisource. My interpretation of WP:NOT#GUIDE includes these articles Corpx 21:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please explain your view then, since there's nothing I can see that makes this particular instructional. Now if these lists said "Watch this program at 8 pm tonight" I would probably agree, but that's not their purpose. FrozenPurpleCube 21:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Because these are the same as these listings, save for specials/1 time programs Corpx 21:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. That's week to week. This is describing the schedule as set for the season. If there was an attempt to make things up-to-date, then I would agree with your concern, but since that's not the intent here, it's not a problem. FrozenPurpleCube 22:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How often does a network change its prime time programming, especially during the times when ratings are being calculated? If such a change is made, this article would be updated to reflect the change in programming. Corpx 01:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Don't know that it's possible to meaningfully answer your question without going into a long discussion, and I don't know that I feel like giving you a primer on American broadcast programming practices, but the fact is, there are a plethora of sources that refer specifically to the schedule as a whole. Like [1] or [2] or [3].

or [4] or [5] or any of the plenty of others you can find. If your problem is that these articles don't offer enough content besides the raw schedules, I'd respect the desire to expand them. That seems a reasonable request. However, objecting to the inclusion of the schedules themselves? Doesn't make sense, as that provides the very framework which the further content would exist around. FrozenPurpleCube 01:47, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My problem is the raw content in the TV guide format. If that's removed from these, I'd have no objection, as long as all the analysis is sourced from reliable sources. Corpx 16:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The "raw content" as you call it is actually an aid in understanding the schedule, so no, I'd say it should not be removed. The value of a tabular representation of the shows in relation to each other, by time, day, network, and whether or not they're new, or moved in the schedule is quite high. It's like say, the election results by district. They're considered very useful, don't you think? FrozenPurpleCube 17:04, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep. for many reasons: (1) it works as a navigational tool much in the spirit of the ubiquitous succession boxes and List of... articles; (2) the topic of what television programs are airing nationally in the United States is notable (in summary form); (3) readers may not remember the name of a program (or don't remember it correctly, causing blank search results), but can remember when they saw it ("What was that show that aired after Tracy Ullman? Oh, yeah."); and (4) it is not in violation of WP:NOT#GUIDE because it is not a weekly listing, but a summarized version of an entire television season (schedules do change week-to-week, but are generally set for the entire season). All of that said, these must be sourced, which is available since the information there now came from somewhere.—Twigboy 16:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. These articles are a part of television history. The 70s and 80s network TV schedules can be found on [6] or [7]. If these articles are left alone, classic TV will be saved. If they are deleted anyway, the person who planned the deletions will be subject to a permanent block from editing Wikipedia. A new rule should be made: If any user plans or threatens to delete any TV shedule, primetime, saturday morning, or daytime, that user will be blocked from editing Wikipedia for more than three weeks. That is all. Jim856796 16:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that will be happening, as outside of an Arbitration case, it's unlikely for specific rules to be imposed, and I can't imagine one being blanketly done of this scope. It might be possible for a given user to have such a restriction imposed, but while I feel that the nominator in this case was ignorant and mistaken, I don't believe there's any bad faith here. Just a bad decision. Thus no reason to impose blocks or bans. If for some reason the closing admin chooses to act against the obvious consensus, then DRV is the place to go. FrozenPurpleCube 17:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Jim, unless my sarcasm detector is not working, assume good faith and please read WP:COOL.—Twigboy 19:11, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep per reasons stated above. These articles are an important part of Wikipedia's coverage of television history and a great resource for readers researching American television. --musicpvm 09:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per other supporters. Also, these charts help illustrate how television programmes competed with each other in the various time slots, an important aspect of the American television industry. Such lists also assist with verifiability. Dl2000 02:22, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP - Absolutely! Not every user is interested in every topic in this or any other comprehensive reference. These pages are valuable resources to any one interested in pop culture and the history of US mass media. Some recategorization would be helpful. References would not hurt either. Those are valid points but not a reason to delete these pages. Don't do it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaelcarraher (talk • contribs)
  • Strong keep. Only a person who has never read a television encyclopedia could convince him/herself that network TV schedules are unencyclopedic: all the major ones (McNeil, Brooks, etc) have national program grids from 1946/8 to the present (McNeil: 1948, Brooks 1946), and they have since at least the 1960s. I'm pretty sure the Guinness Television Encyclopedia does too. I think Newcomb is the only one that doesn't, and they've only been around since 1997. I think the nominator has limited experience reading or using television encyclopedias, so it's an understandable mistake, but Wikipedia's Five Pillars makes it clear that Wikipedia should contain elements of both a generalized and a specialized encyclopedia: since other encyclopedias include this information, there is no reason for Wikipedia to remove it. The "not encyclopedic" argument has no basis when other encyclopedias include this information. This isn't even a policy: it's a pillar of what Wikipedia is.
There's the argument that these are indiscriminate lists. The fact that they are arranged by year, network, and time aired (Mister Manticore's point, above) seems to indicate to my mind that these are hardly "indiscrimiate". Firsfron of Ronchester 09:02, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Before I forget: Someone above has made the argument that Wikipedia is NOT a TV Guide...with a link to a local electronic programming guide! Such comparisons indicate an unfamiliarity with TV Guide (the place to go to check local listings) and unfamiliarity with historic national programming grids, which affected (and still affect) 300 million viewers (not to mention the entire U.S. television and film industries) each year: national broadcast network programming grids certainly fall under the "historically significant programme lists and schedules" umbrella because even the least watched broadcast network series still attracts millions of viewers.[8] Firsfron of Ronchester 09:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete there is no threshold for inclusion in these articles, they violate NOT#GUIDE, and on top of that, they don't seem to realize that TV schedules change during the year too. There's just too much indiscriminate info here that doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Axem Titanium 14:10, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, WP:NOT#GUIDE doesn't have anything to do with TV schedules. NOT#GUIDE states "Wikipedia is an encyclopedic reference, not an instruction manual, guidebook or textbook." WP:NOT#DIRECTORY specifically allows "historically significant programme lists and schedules". Firsfron of Ronchester 18:22, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The threshold for inclusion is being part of the schedule of the nationally broadcast television networks, hardly an indiscriminate criteria. And while it is certainly true that schedules do change, there's a simple solution to that: Add information about schedule changes to the page as appropriate. See for example: 1991-92 United States network television schedule and 1989-90 United States network television schedule. Problem solved. FrozenPurpleCube 18:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep: In my opinion, WP:NOT refers to current schedules, not past schedules, which may have historical value. Wikipedia is not a TV Guide, but if these schedules are removed, you might also call every TV reference book, such as the Brooks and Earle "Encyclopedia", TV Guides. -- azumanga 19:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question BTW, this has gone on for almost 10 days, there's no way there's a consensus for deletion, so are we just waiting for an admin who wants to deal with 96 pages?? FrozenPurpleCube 19:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously I can't close this (as I already participated), but I will gladly help the closing admin de-tag the pages and even add references to the pages that are unreferenced (they aren't all unreferenced; the first one I checked, 1946-47, is referenced). That's one more thing I dislike about these mass deletion nominations: there's no way the nominator looked through each one before nominating them all for deletion, but mentions the lack of sourcing(!) as a reason to delete. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I specifically looked at these pages before reading the discussion and nothing mentioned in the debates changed my mind. In fact, they more than solidified my thoughts on the subject. Wikipedia has tons of list that provide value to the reader. Some of those lists are very beneficial, while others take a stretch at reaching a rational perspective. These lists, are, IMHO, something that many readers will be interested in at some point. They are not an in discriminant collection of facts. They are collected around specific criteria.Balloonman 01:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep All - WP:NOT#DIR and WP:NOT#GUIDE have to do with the local station schedules, not the national ones as they have more significance than something from WQRS-TV or KXYZ-TV....especially the older ones. - NeutralHomer T:C 01:28, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'm reserving my right to "vote" at a latter time, but I'd like to say this -- in the event that these are deleted, surely the information must be preserved somewhere in some form on the internet. I've never been one to argue on the side of "so much work has been put into this, you can't possibly delete it," but to compile all this info in one place and then send it into oblivion is just wrong. WP:NOT quit possible, but not Internet:NOT. JPG-GR 02:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I consider it sincerely unlikely that this information will be deleted (there being a strong showing of support for keeping), if you like, you can make a copy of it right now, since the GFDL does permit such action, and then do what you like with it. Dont' feel it's needed, but it is an option. FrozenPurpleCube 03:57, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Maybe they need some work, but these are more than mere schedules. They are a record of American television history, and that's encyclopedic. Being that they are limited to network programming and not local programming, they are also potentially of interest to a significant number of people. There is not one tenet of WP:NOT#GUIDE or WP:NOT#DIR that applies here. dhett (talk • contribs) 04:13, 14 August 2007 (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.
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