Wikipedia:When to use or avoid "other stuff exists" arguments

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

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WP:OSE

This page in a nutshell:

"Other Stuff Exists" may or may not be a legitimate reason to include any particular article.
"Other Stuff Exists" is absolutely not a reason to delete (e.g. "delete because OSE is not a good enough reason").
Wikipedia Precedant is set by what already exists throughout the project, and relationships between one series of pages and another series of pages is intricately linked to notability threshhold standards.

A word about precedent: The justice systems of the US and the UK, and many other countries throughout the world, are based on prior legal cases and the decisions and interpretations of prior courts. This is called precedent. Wikipedia can and should operate on a similar methodology in determining article inclusion and exclusion. Whereas it would not be correct simply to point to a single article and use it as justification for the inclusion or addition of a new one, nor should the lack of an existing article be used to show that a new article is unjustified. Keeping that in mind, though, when a list of articles can be shown that are similar in nature to a new or proposed article, the precedant has been established that such a level of article meets Wikipedia guidelines for inclusion. Commonly, precedent is used to delete new articles while at the same time deletionists will deny that precedent is sufficient evidence to keep an article.

Basic argument

The basic precedent argument goes something like this:

Keep. Wikipedia has many articles of this nature, and this one is of the same type and quality.
Delete. Wikipedia routinely deletes articles of this type and quality, and this is just one more deletable entry.

The nature of Wikipedia means that you cannot make a convincing argument based on what other articles do or do not exist, because there is nothing stopping anyone from creating any article, but when articles have existed for some time, this lends credence to the worthiness of an article inasmuch as it has not been deleted (and there exist a lot of people whose sole purpose on Wikipedia seems to be to delete articles). Wikipedia guidelines also state that simply being a small or minimal article is not sufficient reason to delete. Although comparisons are not a conclusive test, they form a part of the overall argument, so an entire comment absolutely should not be dismissed because of a comparative statement like this.

Plenty of articles exist that probably should not. Equally, because articles must wait for someone who is interested in the subject to notice they are missing before they are created, a lot of articles do not exist that probably should, so just pointing out that an article on a similar subject exists does not prove that the article in question should also exist; it is quite possible that the other article should also be deleted but nobody has noticed it and put it forward for AfD yet. Sometimes arguments are made that other articles have been put forward for AfD and survived/deleted, but even here caution should be used.

Deletion debates can sometimes be faulty, and even if the debate was correct it can be hard to draw comparisons: does the fact that there is an article on every Grey's Anatomy character mean there necessarily should be an article on every character on The Office? Comparisons can provide important insight and understanding of the level and standards of notability currently accepted by global consensus throughout Wikipedia. To say "these reality show participants are non-notable" while "these (other) reality show participants are notable" is a fallacious argument; in fact, many, many reality show participants have their own page, even though they have no claim to fame other than the show. Is this appearance on a nationally or internationally-televised series enough for notability? Judging by the articles already on Wikipedia for such people, the answer would seem to be "yes". This has set a precedant for future reality show participants and reflects consensus across Wikipedia. By the same token, if all participants in such shows were denied an individual page, then precedant would thusly be set in the reverse.

This is the difference between "Well, there's this page" and "Well, there are these established pages, series, and established page types."

Some people may argue against an article saying "just because other stuff exists...", but the truth is that if many other things of the same type exist, we as a community on Wikipedia have given implied consensus to such articles. To deny this would mandate the removal of all other pages for the sake of consistency.