Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Red Vs. Blue episode guide: Season 3

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was keep. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 16:35, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Red vs Blue episode guide, Red Vs. Blue episode guide: Season 2, Red Vs. Blue episode guide: Season 3

I nominate this page for deletion for the crimes of fancruft-dom and complete misuse of an encyclopedia. If much larger series don't qualify for this type of extensive Episode Guide Treatment, neither does this fancruft nonsense.--The Grza 07:05, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

Um... I'd like to call for a resolution on this issue. It's been two weeks, guys. Time to acknowledge, shake hands, and move on. Joylock 3:42, April 26, 2005.

Merge While an episode guide is probably not deserving of an article, the VfD/Precidents seems to indicate that precident says we merge all information on the series into a central article, in this case on RvB. Whether or not episode guids are encyclopedic; I would tend to say that in a limited way, yes, they can be. Should Wikipedia echo tvtome, I don't think so. nb. The Simpsons has a very successful episode guide "List_of_The_Simpsons_episodes" TheDaveRoss 15:16, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Comment. An episode list, I have no problem with, but the guide goes too far. --The Grza 17:12, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
Comment: This was apparently either never listed on vfd or removed out of process, so I'm bringing it to today's page for resolution. —Korath (Talk) 00:28, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)
Keep - I wouldn't want articles on each individual episode, but I'm happy with the list. Radiant _* 08:38, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)
Marginal Keep based upon precedent but condense a little. Some of the formatting here makes it almost look like a cut-and-paste from a fan site, so I'd check for copyvio. Wikipedia is not paper argument applies here, IMO. 23skidoo 13:41, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Merge all info into one 'episode guide' article, maybe condense a bit. --InShaneee 16:34, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Keep, I agree with Radiant on this. Does need a cleanup though K1Bond007 23:23, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)
Merge. Cleanup and simplify the articles' information, merge it into a single article, and give it a name List of Red vs. Blue episodes so people don't confuse its purpose for an episode guide. --NormanEinstein 02:07, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Merge and condense. The reason these were put on separate pages was that the main RvB page was getting towards 64k. I suggest merging all three guides and condensing info. Last several episodes entries are nearly blow by blow accounts. And they give away all the jokes.--DooMDrat 09:09, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
Delete non-notable. Grue 19:55, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Merge into one episode guide. bob rulz 04:36, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
Merge and possibly condense to season-wide summaries. So little happens in any given episode that per-episode descriptions are a little pointless. Should be pointed out, however, that as far as Google tells me, these pages is not copyvio--there ARE no other RvB episode guides on the Internet, except for copies of these pages. (Old ones too--they don't reflect my Apr 2nd cleanups.) Delete. Have just discovered full episode transcripts at http://rvb.chrismarks.net/. That, plus the new season-by-season summaries on the main article, is enough to change my vote. Marblespire 02:12, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Keep - As far as I can tell, this information is not widely available, and I can personally testify that most of the info here is original and not a cut-and-paste job. NOTE: While I'd be fine with a merge and slight condensation of the episode summaries (although EP 49 is the only one that seems like problematic to me), I think too much deletion (such as reducing it all to a general season by season account) would be going too far. Because RvB is broken up into so many small episodes, it's good to have information as to what happens in each individual episode so you know what you've missed if you don't have the entire set (which alot of people don't). Someone's already streamlined the descriptions considerably, I think it's fine the way it stands. Joylock 2:00, 15 April 2005.
Keep The precedent for episode guides/lists is well established. It serves no purpose to strip an episode “guide” down to an episode “list” as a list of titles is virtually useless information, while a guide can provide useful encyclopedic information. Miros 9:25, 16 April 2005
- Comment Also, some web cartoons such as the Homestar Runner set have entire articles devoted to single characters. If that doesnt qualify as fancruft, then I dont see how an "episode guide" for this web series can, considering everything else is rolled into one article. Miros
  - Comment Some would and have argued that those articles completely qualify as worth deleting. The standard should be better then crappy unneeded articles, it should whether or not it is actually encyclopedic.--TheGrza 19:28, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
    - Comment I agree, it's easy to be excessive with things like this. But I would also argue that it does have some value, and so long as it's confined to a relatively small number of pages, it does more good than harm. And as far as the articles being needed or unneeded, I see that as a poor way of looking at things. There are plenty of legit articles on wikipedia that nobody needs but there are plenty of articles that people find useful. I certainly think that this has the potential to be useful to some people for some of the good reasons people have already pointed out. And as long as it's useful to some, and harmless to everyone else (since we are talking about 3 total articles here), the obvious greater benefit is to keep it. Without it, there is no benefit to anybody. With it, there is no harm, and benefit to some. Miros 20:06, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Keep, there are quite a few episode guides on Wikipedia... Soemone could merge these into one article but personally I think the article would be a bit too long however I suppose all it would need is a good TOC. -- Lochaber 09:59, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Keep, reasons stated. Google "Red vs Blue" or "redvsblue" and you'll see how notable this is.-LtNOWIS 15:10, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Comment It's a sad, sad day that reflects the fundamental flaws of Wikipedia when a amateur web comic about a video game made by a couple of fanboys gets four pages of fancruft, while a perfectly legitimate art movement THAT ACTUALLY EXISTS IN REAL FRICKIN' LIFE gets VFD out of existence just because there aren't thousands of rabid fanboys on the internet smearing it all around. Grza, I feel your pain. 166.666.666.011.
- Comment Just because some of your legit content got VfD'd (wrongfully or otherwise) does not mean you should go on a crusade against whatever content you feel you can blast out of existance. I'm sorry about that, it sounds like it shouldnt have happened, but this is a community, and retribution isn't very neighborly... Miros 12:25, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Comment RvB is more than just "a amateur web comic about a video game made by a couple of fanboys". It is an example of machinima, an emerging artform if ever there was one. If anything it gave machinima new direction, showing that episode based series are more successful than singular long movies. It also gave a lot more exposure to machinima. Some of the people behind RvB have television production experience. Its not just 'fanboys' standing around recording themselves ingame going "bang bang you're dead stooopid! Dur hur hur!". Hell, the people behind the series aren't even very good at the games.--DooMDrat 18:50, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)
It's not really "about" Halo, certainly not as much asM*A*S*H was about the Korean War. Yeah, they'll mock the genre and the absurdities of the environments from time to time, but it really is about characters and plots, not satire. Also, it's not as "amateur" as a lot of legitimate works of art. They sell DVDs and merchandise, and make people pay to see the archive. But, I understand your frustration. I was pretty sad when I found the Star Destroyer articles got merged. If you're sad about something getting sub-optimal treatment on Wikipedia, you're perfectly free to start you're own wiki site, like Star Wars fans did.-LtNOWIS 03:12, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- OK, I'm assume that's true, and I'll conceed that RvB is professional made. I'll even let it be said that it's quality-comparable to mainstream TV shows (certainly, the resolution is higher). Because the point remains that excessive coverage of it is still excessive. Take the Seinfeld page. A brief description about the show, the stars, and the general impact on pop culture. That's all there is. That's all that's needed. That's all there should be. Do we really need to know Kramer's favorite blend of cigar, all of Jerry's personal issues, or what a friggin Soup Nazi is? Remember, compare African art to La La, and see the fundamental flaw in Wikipedia's design. 166.666.666.011

Well, your point now looks a whole lot more valid. But the fact of the matter is, people care more about some stuff than others, and people mostly write about stuff they know/care about. Maybe nerds, fans, and gamers are overrepresented online, but nothing stops anyone from expanding neglected topics. Furthermore, more is simply a lot better than less, when it comes to content. Despite this flaw and others, Wikipedia is still the best encyclopedia we've got, and it's free. -LtNOWIS 21:20, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If I may comment, that's precisely the point. The encyclopdia is in as good as shape as it is because people have fought to keep this fancruft out, to a large extent. An article describing the show, fine, but the actual article of Red Vs. Blue along with three seperately huge episode guides goes too far.--The Grza 21:48, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Respectfully, I have to totally disagree with anonymous. Take Seinfeld, for example. There IS an article about the Soup Nazi, and I believe that it is perfectly appropriate. The phrase was huge back in the 90's. It's more than just mere "pop culture". It's hard to put into words, but it's like it's become part of our society's collective social dialogue. Also, without the dedicated article to Cosmo Kramer, I would have never learned that he was based on a real guy. Sure, that info might not save anyone's life or bring them enlightenment or cure cancer or get them to vote for the right candidate or get involved in the right social issues, but it is interesting and informative and not hurting anyone. If you think an article is poorly written with embarassing or unprofessional grammer or outright lies, you can always edit it. As LtNOWIS said, nothing stops you from expanding neglected topics you think are worthwhile. But if you want to actually delete topics because you think that the information in an article is just "useless", than you might just be imposing your own POV on something you don't know all that much about. Who's to say Seinfeld is any less worthy of coverage than Gödel's incompleteness theorem? Both provide information that is useful to different types of people. RvB isn't some vanity page about some brief animation a bunch of neighborhood kids cooked up in their basement for their friends. It's not a neighborhood cafe frequented by at most three dozen people. It's a professionally made piece of media with a HUGE following on the internet numbering on the hundreds of thousands. Joylock 12:00, Apr 21, 2005.

Also, as far as Wikipedia standards go, the article on Red vs. Blue is very restrained, very conservative. All the information on the show is merged into one single article that just gives a brief summary of the story and a couple paragraphs for each character, which is not unreasonable seeing as how the show so heavily revolves around the characters. Compare that to, say, the Futurama article that has information about the show's fictional politics, religion, and seperate articles for each character. Joylock 12:00, Apr 21, 2005.

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.