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. slakr\ talk / 13:05, 11 February 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

List of C.I.D. episodes[edit]

AfDs for this article:
List of C.I.D. episodes (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Re-renominating for deletion an unreferenced long list of episodes. The list has nothing encyclopedic in it. Only episode name and date of airing. Wikipedia is not a Directory.
1st AfD was closed (non-admin) by nominator in Oct 2010.
2nd AfD was closed by admin as the list was blanked and redirected to the main article in May 2012. Hence renominating it as the redirect didn't stay much long and was again populated with this junk. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 11:26, 23 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 11:33, 23 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 12:26, 23 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 12:31, 23 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I am aware of the "List of X episodes" articles on wiki and am hence aware of their content and quality too. Keeping the quality aside, as poor quality of current status is not a reason for deletion, i am nominating this for it's content. The show is notable and airs fresh episodes twice weekly. But none of the episodes seem have got their own coverage. We do not have information on writers, productions, viewership stats, critical commentary, etc. We actually do not even have verifiable sources to check if the episodes were actually called what they are called in the article now. And its not the case of missing information from the article. This info is never ever available for Indian TV shows. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 04:26, 24 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
So now your argument is that a basic episode list for a notable series that is the longest running in Indian television history is not even verifiable? I find that hard to believe. Are you claiming that there's not even the equivalent of TV Guide in India? Are you claiming that the episodes themselves do not even have credits that would identify the writer, director, etc., or the episode name? postdlf (talk) 17:31, 24 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Please help yourself in making it verifiable. Indian TV shows don't have any TV guides as such. Our newspapers do write which show airs when and that dedicated column is present in every newspaper. But none of them would mention the episodes' names. One could regularly go and watch the show and write all the spot boys' names too. But that would really be unencyclopedic as long as we don't have other third parties also listing them. Similar is the situation with episode names. If we were finding good sources discussing particular episodes as such, maybe how exciting yesterday's episode was, or how the episode dealt with a strange poison doping case, or how some particular actor's part was performed well, etc., then there could be a slight chance of making the list as such. All the notability is for the whole package that is called C.I.D.. Take out bits and parts like Episodes list, stand alone episode, music theme, separate characters' articles; they have nothing. We did have separate individual articles for characters too which was merged into List of C.I.D. characters. A WP:BOLD editor can very well blank it for lacking verification and get the article deleted speedily and there shouldn't be any bad faith assumed on their part. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 14:15, 26 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You're confusing the issues for this list with the standards we'd expect to justify standalone articles on each episode (and apparently confusing notability with verifiability, as your first sentence especially suggests). A list of episodes is a basic part of a dramatized TV series article, and is WP:SPLIT from that parent article for WP:SIZE reasons. And given how readily American TV series episode lists are kept, I'm especially concerned about WP:SYSTEMIC bias here because this is an Indian TV series and thus will just statistically have fewer editors who care about it.

No, an editor could not blank an article for it being presently unsourced, as that would be contrary to editing policy at WP:PRESERVE and WP:V (which merely requires, except in extreme circumstances not present here, that sources are available somewhere) and an ultimately disruptive attempt to make an end run around AFD. Gaming the system in the manner you suggest to sneak in a result that you can't through an express procedural motion such as this AFD nomination would be an act of bad faith.

And given that you appear to concede that much of the information is verifiable from the episodes themselves, and that Indian tv guides provide air dates (not to mention DVD releases...and whatever sources have made this series notable as a whole are bound to have commented on at least some individual episodes), your claim that this list is not at all verifiable (if that's what you even mean, instead of just not notable) is not credible to me. That would mean that this list, much of which includes episodes purported to have aired before Wikipedia even existed, was completely made up by multiple editors, from the episode titles to the air dates, and I don't think that's plausible here. But let's get more opinions in here rather than us continuing to flood this discussion, as it should be clear by now to any reader what each of us think. postdlf (talk) 17:23, 26 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

the fact that other tv shows willy nilly get episode list articles whether or not they should have them is not a valid reason for keeping this article. and WP:BURDEN does in fact require the actual presentation of sources and not just the mere handwave that some might exist somewhere. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:44, 26 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I am not confusing notability and verifiability. But i think you are confusing in understanding that i am putting both verifiability and notability as reasons for deletion and not just either of the two. We split up articles only if the original article has huge size and thats when the content in it is actually worth keeping. Trimming the articles is the first solution before splitting. Splitting can happen only when the sub part is actually notable. I do understand that episode list is basic part of the whole serial. But so are the characters and individual episodes and we do not let stand alone character and episode articles just stay there. They have to have something of their own worth notable. With your logic if the character has stayed long enough on the show for which his actions can be written into a larger-than-stub article, it would simply make its own space on wiki; but thats not what we do. Also, i am Indian and there shouldn't be any reason to assume this deletion is coming from systemic bias unless you are thinking am anti-India. Nor do i intend to blank the article and "game the system" now. Am not that foolish to reveal my plans. If i wanted to do, i wouldn't have opened this 2nd nomination. And i said that newspapers list that C.I.D. would air at 9pm to 10pm on Friday. It doesn't say it would air "Zehrila Khanjar" on this Friday, the 31st Jan '13. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 05:51, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Actually, standalone lists of characters from notable media are regularly kept at AFD even though none of the individual characters merit standalone articles, if those lists (once trimmed of trivia) are too large to be incorporated in the parent series article.

I've found your claims hard to follow, but they seem to boil down to the notion that even notable TV series are transient (like we're dealing with the early days of radio) and nothing is written about them in any reliable source that would even verify the barest of broadcast facts beyond time slot. So I don't even know where you think the information in this list came from (you haven't outright said you think it's a hoax), or how a TV series could be notable without any specific information about it even being verifiable. So regardless of how this AFD turns out, I'd like to see a substantive discussion with both regular TV- and India-related article editors on the general topic of verifying Indian media, what sources are there, what level of preservation is there for Indian TV, because these questions have come up again and again. postdlf (talk) 17:48, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No am not talking about standalone lists of character articles. Do you think that a standalone article should be created at Archana Manav Deshmukh for the lead character of the 1200+ episodes show Pavitra Rishta? If we were to write about this character, the article is going to be long enough to keep it separate. And that's for many characters of this show and many many more other shows. When you say its part of the series, i suppose you should support such articles on basis of SPLIT.

The discussion on general status of Indian television, Indian media, poor articles and what not can happen elsewhere and it actually should. This AfD is not a right place for that. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 05:16, 28 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Standalone articles for individual characters pose a different issue, because the consensus view is that they typically consist of excessive plot details. So unless there is also secondary sourcing on critical analysis of the character, production details and/or creative development of the character, popular or critical reception, etc., those are usually not sustained as splits but instead trimmed down to a basic summary description and overview of the character's narrative in the series to be merged into the TV series article or a character list (and with long running series or multimedia franchises, there are often multiple character lists that also mitigate against an argument for splitting into individual character articles). The same would go for individual episodes; unless there is more information verifiable than a plot summary and basic broadcast details, their descriptions are trimmed to fit into episode lists for the series. And either character lists or episode lists are then split when size dictates, provided that the size isn't just because of excessive plot recitations. That's all consensus-supported principles and practice that I have observed, not my opinion. postdlf (talk) 16:44, 28 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
what is this list other than excessive plot details? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:06, 29 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Huh? There are no plot details in this list of episodes. None of the episodes have any description of their contents. postdlf (talk) 03:32, 29 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
then one questions what worth the list is at all-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:32, 1 February 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Sorry! We are not Congress. Notability is not inherited here. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 14:15, 26 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
"not inherited" has no application here, as whether the individual episodes merit their own articles is not at issue, as I explain above. postdlf (talk) 17:23, 26 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
of course "not inherited" applies here. just above you are going on and on how this list is a spin out child article which is exactly where WP:NOTINHERITED applies. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:46, 26 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Except that essay section itself says "Often, a separate article is created for formatting and display purposes; however, this does not imply an "inherited notability" per se, but is often accepted in the context of ease of formatting and navigation..." And except that none of the examples given there are analogous to this list, but instead would apply to, for example, the claim that any actor who appeared on the show was notable just because the show was notable (i.e., separate subjects or divisible elements that have connections to the notable subject). And except that a TV series is nothing more than the collective sum of its episodes, so it's not even coherent to try to analyze the notability of an index of those episodes somehow separate from the series itself; it would be just as meaningless to claim that a country is notable but a timeline of its history is not (we can analyze the notability of an individual episode, sure, as that's a divisible and distinct element...but not an overview of what episodes have aired and when, which is just information about the series itself as a whole). And except that AFD after AFD has confirmed this view that lists of episodes of notable, dramatized TV series are acceptable even when none of the individual episodes merit articles.

I think it would also be a nonsensical result if we listed episodes in a notable TV series that only lasted one season just because we could easily fit those in the series article, but we would delete a list of episodes in a notable TV series that lasted for ten seasons (and thus likely a much more important subject) just because the list was then too big to fit into the series article and it was decided it failed some additional inclusion threshold applied just because it was formatted into a separate page. And here we're dealing with the longest running Indian TV series ever. postdlf (talk) 17:48, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Northamerica1000(talk) 20:26, 31 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
So after how many episodes does the list of episodes become notable? §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 08:58, 10 February 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Many fewer than the number here, but definitely when WP:TOOLONG becomes an issue which is the case here. The members of a list do not have to be individually notable per WP:CSC. These types of lists, by editor consensus, are kept even if they do not strictly meet the article notability and WP:V guidelines. VMS Mosaic (talk) 13:25, 10 February 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Well.... if something is getting too long, we need to debate on individual notability more than otherwise. Because that's where we are afraid of turning into a directory. Demographics of India is a notable topic but a List of people of India (a redirect now created after my post) is not. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 17:53, 10 February 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Though the comparison isn't relevant here, List of Indians actually does exist, as a list of lists of notable Indians (the "topic" is the people listed, the list is merely the format of that information; there's no such topic as "list of Indians"). Such lists of people are restricted to notable people and so just function as article indexes rather than as primarily informative in their own right. Lists of episodes, however, are used regardless of whether the individual episodes are notable. postdlf (talk) 18:21, 10 February 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yeah... I understand that a list of blue links is just a page which provides ease of surfing. But you aren't making any comments on why a list of non-important non-blue-linked items is notable. You are saying its to be kept because its long and hence needs to be split, its long and has enough bytes to make a article, and now that it's entities are not notable but still its too long and hence should be kept! §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 18:31, 10 February 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Already explained above at length. While it may make sense to judge the notability of individual episodes, there's no such thing as the notability of a list of episodes somehow separate from the notability of the TV series itself. The episodes collectively are the TV series. So the relevant question is then whether significant details for each episode (such as broadcast debut, writer, etc.) is proper information to include in our coverage of that series. If this were a daily news show or a game show, the answer would most likely be "no". But because this is a dramatized series, the answer is "yes", and that the list cannot fit within the series article does not change that. This is established consensus. And it should be common sense, because otherwise, a series that gets cancelled after one season would get a list of episodes within its article, but a series that is the longest running in the history of its home broadcast country (as we have here) would not. Should topics that are less important and less substantial get greater depth of coverage, just because of the arbitrary constraints of what we consider a large article and the formatting of what is really one topic across different pages? postdlf (talk) 18:49, 10 February 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I still don't agree with you that episode list gets notability from series' notability. But as said by you, you have already said enough; and so have i. So lets wait and watch. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 06:13, 11 February 2014 (UTC)Reply[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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