Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of Guiding Light

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. v/r - T P 23:00, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

History of Guiding Light

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The above articles have either insufficient or no references. There is no notability established in these articles, even if the topic is "(un)notable", despite the help of the notability of Guiding Light. Full of in-universes and less of real-world. Too much plot and trivia possibly. One article does have some real-world perspective: 2000-2009. However, there should be more room for improvements if articles must be kept; otherwise, they may have better chances of deletion than merge. Notability of a soap opera is not the same as notability of a history of the same soap opera. What is the point of keeping a history of a cancelled soap opera? --Gh87 (talk) 22:35, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:44, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I won't vote in support or oppose. However, I can understand why they exist, since Guiding Light lasted 72 years (the longest lasting in history). Maybe we could merge the 7 articles together and cancel out this AFD?Mitch32^{(Never support those who think in the box)} 00:19, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, the result of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of All My Children was delete all. Maybe this AFD could do the same to the above article. The "All My Children (1970-1979)" page was deleted recently under WP:G4. If you want to contest that AFD, try Wikipedia:Deletion review. --Gh87 (talk) 00:38, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dude, that's more of a place to avoid, like bringing merging candidates here. I avoid AFD unless necessary and never read Deletion review. We should use talk page discussion to make those decisions.Mitch32^{(Never support those who think in the box)} 00:48, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

please don't be afraid of Del Rev, the average rationality of discussions there is at least as great as here, and the main thing it needs is more regular or at least occasional editors to comment, so the same few of us don't decide everything. The only hope of achieving some consistency is to take important reasonably questioned decisions there, especially if a general principle is involved, as it would be in this matter, and if there's a clear error in the close or a sound argument that consensus has changed. DGG ( talk ) 16:46, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all ~~Comment~~ Would these be considered the soap opera equivalent of List of episodes? If so, then I assume something notable happened in the years that the show won emmies. --Odie5533 (talk) 07:26, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Wouldn't awards be insufficient or irrelevant to the meets of WP:GNG and WP:PLOT for these articles' subjects? --Gh87 (talk) 08:04, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think WP:SUMMARY should also be considered. Although I doubt we will find sources that specifically talk about a single decade from the show, perhaps if enough important information were found for notable years or events that occurred during the show, the articles would be kept on the basis that the main article would become excessively long if all the information were added to it. --Odie5533 (talk) 08:13, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In that suggestion, if we want sources to cover dates, shouldn't we just merge the seven articles and source just that one? That's the vibe I'm still getting. Mitch32^{(Never support those who think in the box)} 10:57, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looking again at the state of the articles, I could see two options: 1) Delete them all and if Guiding Light later became excessively long due to cited and important information, then re-split into some logical number of history articles. 2) Find reliable sources to address notable events for each decade. If the articles contained enough cited and important information, I could see keeping all the articles and just trimming the plot. I could not personally find such sources. I searched for a number of different decades and included different characters names but found nothing useful. I don't think merging is necessary because the main article already contains a whole lot of uncited information for each decade. Unless such sources are found, I am going with delete. --Odie5533 (talk) 13:05, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well I don't know, pardoning the last 20 years of the series you'll find much online. Considering Guiding Light started in 1937, and lasted until 2009, a lot of the sources that would help would probably end up being offline in some magazine or newspaper. I'd love to see anyone who is knowledgeable in writing about soaps comment who might know of any. (I personally don't think we need all 7 articles, since 1 could cover it i.e. History of Guiding Light.) All 7 articles should go, but I don't think we need to leave a large blank.Mitch32^{(Never support those who think in the box)} 19:01, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My view is that they were already properly merged in a sense, into the already lengthy plot section of Guiding Light. I don't think we should have another article just to elaborate on the plot. --Odie5533 10:53, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Tone 22:14, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Relisting comment Several ideas here but needs more discussion time. I'd prefer merging everything in a single article but it may result in a really long one. --Tone 22:17, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all At the outset, I state that I am not a follower of soaps, and don't like them in general. But sources exist sufficient to provide a summary of the general plot development, the stars, producers, writers and other creative staff, ratings, and awards from each of these periods. The early radio years are already referenced, and Guiding Light is well covered in standard works on radio such as The encyclopedia of old time radio. Google Books search shows a 1987 "Guiding light:a 50th anniversary celebration" by Ballentine Books, with information up to that point. From 1998 there is "Guiding Light:The Complete Family Album." with more details. There have been many magazine articles such as New York Magazine Aug 16, 1993. "Guiding Light: relevance and renewal in a changing genre", in a 2010 Kindle book, brings things relatively up to date. Details on the 2008 switch to handheld camcorders is given in Television Production. Additional books from Google Book search show no preview but have coverage, such as "All my afternoons:the heart and soul of the TV soap opera". I do not see a problem with giving as much coverage to one era of a 72 year show as a shorter running show gets for its brief run, when each period has multiple reliable and independent sources with significant coverage, satisfying WP:N. Edison (talk) 23:52, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If the debate results a merge, then I will add them as "Further readings" and/or "References" rather than inline citations. Also, I will not use Google Books as links. --Gh87 (talk) 02:12, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand your comment. The links are to the actual books. What is your complaint? Edison (talk) 05:22, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyrighted material may either stay or go away, depending on appeals from cases of copyright owners and Google. Some pages that have relevant material may not be previewed. Later, I'll use Google Books for public domain books; in fact, I will add Google links of Anne of Green Gables, a PD book, to its External Links section. See Google Book Search Settlement Agreement and Google Books#Copyright infringement, fair use and related issues. --Gh87 (talk) 06:01, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all These articles are obviously spinoffs from the main article about Guiding Light and, given the extraordinarily long history of the show, it is reasonable that there should be such spinoffs. Deletion is quite inappropriate because, if we feel that this is not the right structure, a better alternative is to merge back into the parent article. Detailed sources for this general topic exist such as The daytime serials of television, 1946-1960 and Guiding light: a 50th anniversary celebration. The rest is a matter of ordinary editing per our editing policy. Warden (talk) 09:50, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So it is not appropiate to delete all articles nominated in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of All My Children? --Gh87 (talk) 02:15, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. That was a nomination of a banned user known to have used sockpuppets. The arguments to delete were mostly weak WP:PERNOMs and illogical nonsense like "Delete because ... this can be merged". Warden (talk) 10:03, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are no time requirements of reviewing the older AfD; who will review the deletion: you or I? And why do I have to rely on WP:AADD, an essay that is not officially a policy? --Gh87 (talk) 10:20, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all: What is the point of keeping articles on the history of a canceled soap opera? Beats me; what's the point of keeping articles on the history of defunct nations, for instance? Ravenswing 17:11, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Soap operas and nations are NOT the same thing. Soap operas are fictional; nations are not. Why basically comparing without sufficient depth? Why do you compare history of one soap to history of a nation? Answer yourself: what are your points of keeping them? --Gh87 (talk) 17:16, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What is the point of having an article of every person who played in one single game of a professional sport, or every dot on a map which was once inhabited? These articles at least satisfy WP:N unlike the minimal athlete articles, the articles about someone who served for two months in some US state legislature, or the tiny failed hamlet articles, which are kept per de facto notability policy. Edison (talk) 05:27, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

...Let's get back on track, all right? --Gh87 (talk) 06:01, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I don't mind if you guys want to keep them, delete them or merge them all together into a new article. But whatever you do, don't merge them into the Guiding Light article. The article is already long and I don't even want to imagine what it would turn out to be if the Guiding Light article absorbed all these articles.Farine (talk) 15:27, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I mentioned in my response above, I think they should be deleted because as you said, the Guide Light article is already long enough and the histories are not notable by themselves. --Odie5533 01:22, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Keep all - Seminal soap opera, main article too unwieldy for a merge. Wikipedia is a serious encyclopedia and a compendium of popular culture, embrace the fact. Carrite (talk) 05:22, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all, I came here ready to vote delete when I heard about it at wp:DRV, but reading through this AFD and the articles I changed my mind. These articles include some non-plot content which is not duplicated elsewhere, namely the show development sections and season ratings. As such deletion if off the table, for that material should be kept somehow. Merging might be an option, but as others have expressed that would make the main article very unwieldy and I agree with that assesment. So I can only vote Keep all, although I would like to ask fans of this series to please clean up and standardize the articles. Yoenit (talk) 07:59, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Not a single reference in the batch. Without reliable, third-party sources addressing the subject in detail, notability is not established. "Keep" votes totally fail to identify any sources that treat the plot in such great detail. Neutrality^talk 18:52, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: "What is the point of keeping a history of a cancelled soap opera" Well, what is the point about keeping a history of any cancelled production? Those history books with details about broadway plays, casts, etc., in the 19th century? BURN THEM! They don't run on Broadway anymore! OK, snark aside, a mass nomination like this requires a bit more to convince me all this deletion is necessary. Yoenit makes good points as well.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 06:06, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Merge two ways into a summary in the main article and a impeccably sourced history article that contains real-world commentary. At the moment, the current situation isn't tenable, but it would lead to a spinout article. Sceptre ^(talk) 20:42, 29 October 2011 (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.