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 delete. As reflected by consensus and overarching policy, people don't read encyclopaedias looking for a strictly limited amount of information. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 01:47, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of Stargate SG-1 episodes (spoiler free)[edit]

Content forking...for the sake of spoilers. We don't need "spoiler free" versions of the same article (here is the original article). That's what spoiler warning tags are for. This is almost as bad as trying to POV fork.

The following three articles are being bundled in:

List of Stargate Atlantis episodes (spoiler free)
List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes (spoiler free)
List of The Sopranos episodes (spoiler free)

-- `/aksha 11:29, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I should mention, all of these violate Wikipedia:Content forking. They are also not within what is allowed for spoiler warnings, as per Wikipedia:Spoiler warning. --`/aksha 06:12, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another spoiler-free episode list:

List of The Sopranos episodes (spoiler free) Michaelas10 (Talk) 17:11, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom, almost trying to make a WP:POINT --Steve 12:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. This is, in fact, content forking. One could also make the point that WP is not censored, and that includes censoring storylines. -- Kicking222 14:26, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I'm fairly sure this actually is a WP:POVFORK. Not necessarily malicious in intent, but POVFORK in result. WilyD 15:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete well-meaning but unnecessary fork.-- danntm ^T _C 16:52, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It's a pity this violates wikipedia policy, I found these articles(for stargate sg1 and atlantis) helpful. I've been using them to see the air dates without seeing an image and/or description of the episode to watch the episodes in order, since I've found nothing like Buffyverse_chronology_(tabulated) for the stargate-verse, both in wikipedia and the rest of the internet. 85.139.186.98 00:36, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete While I agree that they are usefull, it's a content fork. Maybe the independent wikis involved will take up the lists for those who want spoiler-free lists of episodes. Robovski 00:42, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative suggestion: make policy that main Wiki episode lists be spoiler-free (cuts length, avoids spoils), and that detailed lists belong on a topic-specific Wiki. Then extend this to Pokemon, WoW and other cruft. After all, recording artist album entries (generally) just contain a track-list and technical details. -- Simon Cursitor 14:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Sorry, but Wikipedia is not censored, and that includes spoilers. WilyD 14:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - - Having read WP:NOT, I doubt anyone would find this material objectionable or offensive (the criteria there specified), and what I am suggesting is not censorship, simply a relocation (with any necessary redirect) of information to elsewhere within the meta-Wiki. --Simon Cursitor 14:21, 11 November 2006 (UTC) (no vote)[reply]
  - Removing the information from the lists does not remove the information from all of Wikipedia. If the removal of information from one part of Wikipedia that still remains in another part is called censorship, then deleting this list would be censorship.MikeMaller 16:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - It's not, because all the information is already at List of Stargate SG-1 episodes WilyD 00:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      - Likewise, the information contained at List of Stargate SG-1 episodes exists also on the individual episode pages. MikeMaller 05:09, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        This doesn't have anything to do with the fact that the information already exists. But that the article violates our policy of no content forks and our "no disclaimer policy" (spoiler warnings are a bit of an exceptions to the no disclaimer policy, and what 'spoiler warnings' are allowed is detailed on WP:SPOILER.) --`/aksha 06:09, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Michaelas10 suggested the creation of the spoiler-free LOE for The Sopranos. I am indifferent as to its fate. —Cliff smith 04:53, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- It did seem like a good idea at first, as I saw many other episode lists using it. Although it would be unfair to exclude that certain list from here. Michaelas10 (Talk) 08:39, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I understand. I felt exactly the same way, actually. And as I said, I don't really care if it is deleted. Now I understand how it's rather unnecessary. —Cliff smith 18:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep These are useful articles, so why delete them? If policy says they should go, then policy should be changed. Blindly deleting things because of policy without considering if they are good for the encyclopaedia or not, is crazy. How does having these articles hurt Wikipedia? It certainly helps Wikipedia (by helping its readers that want to know what order episodes go in without having the plots spoiled), so if it doesn't hurt Wikipedia, they should stay. --Tango 19:40, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - per Tango. Matthew Fenton (talk · contribs · count · email) 20:14, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep: As the two above me noted, these are useful articles. I will also add that WP:POVFORK refers to a fork where two articles on the same subject have different viewpoints. The rationale behind the "spoiler-free" versions is more to provide a text-only tabulated list of episodes that doesn't take as long to load, than it is to be spoiler-free. Would these articles be acceptable if we changed the disambiguation to "(text only)"? --Alfakim-- talk 21:31, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- As pointed out by the anon ealier up, Buffyverse chronology (tabulated) seems to serve the purpose of a "text-only tabulated list". Something like Buffyverse chronology (tabulated) is fine in the sense that it's really a summary article - collecting all buffyverse media into a chronological table. Where as a spoiler free list is nothing more than an "alternate version" of a pre-existing article. --`/aksha 13:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I've noticed this for a while, but didn't care to get in a dispute over it. I do agree with the nom; we shouldn't be making forks for the sake of spoilers alone.

It did make me think about possible ways to have such a second list but for a reason other than "spoiler free". If a list "without summaries" can be seen as useful and a logical list on Wikipedia, but for reasons other than hiding spoilers, then that might be worth exploring. One thing to note is that Stargate has 10 seasons, and images for each episode. That can be a hell of a page to load for some users. List of The Simpsons episodes (18 seasons) deals with this issue by having a main list that does not have images or summaries (making it free of spoilers, but more as a "side effect") and then has sub episode listings per season. Keep in mind that Stargate SG-1 is being dropped from Sci-Fi channel, and might not have future seasons. Still, even just 10 is a lot of stuff on one page.

I'm not sure if there is another method or rational that would allow for such a "spoiler free" version to co-exist with one(s) with summaries? Additional thoughts, ideas? -- Ned Scott 21:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Having the spoiler free list as the main list and the spoiler list split into seasons would work quite well. It might end up with them all getting put up for deletion as not being notable enough for an article of their own, though. Over 200 screenshots on one page is rather excessive... --Tango 22:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

use a spoiler tag on the spoiler list? Add a link to the category on the spoiler list. The category in effect serves as a spoiler free list of all episodes, since it shows only the name. If people really wanted to, they can tag the episode articles such that they'll show in the category in order (so like [[category:category of episode articles|episode number]]). Or on the spoiler list, have a spoiler free list of episodes first, then summaries below. There're plenty of ways to give readers fair warning without having to create redundant pages. --`/aksha 02:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even if the category was in order, it wouldn't say what the numbers were or what seasons they were in, nor would in include air dates, etc.. And putting the spoiler free list first and then the summaries would just be putting both pages on one page - if you're going to keep it all, it might as well stay on two pages. --Tango 12:47, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if we keep all POVs about a topic in one article, then we may as well keep each POV as a seperate page? That's the same idea as what you're suggesting --> to cause a content split in an article. Which is meant to be a big no-no. Having the list first and then summaries would be just like putting both pages on one article, but what's wrong with that? Where as them as seperate pages is a problem because it's essentially a content fork. Wait, it's a content fork and a redundant page, since the "list" would exist on both articles, just that one of the articles also has summaries and the other doesn't. --`/aksha 13:26, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Besides, where to draw the line? I can imagine a spoiler free overview articles on movies and books to be useful, and not to mention spoiler redirects. Go take a look at the spoiler policy talk page if you want to see how far that got. If this is just because of the usefulness of a summary-free list, then something like Buffyverse chronology (tabulated) covers it. List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes (spoiler free) is basically a shortened version of Buffyverse chronology (tabulated) containing only the TV episodes, but serves no other purpose. Where as Buffyverse chronology (tabulated) does also serve the purpose of being a full chronological list of all Buffyverse media. Someone who wants a spoiler free list can just go to Buffyverse chronology (tabulated), although being spoiler free isn't its original purpose. --`/aksha 13:36, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't about POV, it's about helping the reader find the information they want without finding information they don't want. There is nothing POV about it. What's wrong with having both pages on the same page is that it would be far too long - when pages get too long, standard policy is to split them in a sensible way into multiple pages, the most sensible way would be to split the list and the summaries into separate article, and you'd end up with what we started with. Yes, the information on the spoiler free page is redundant, put its purpose is not to provide more information, it's actually to provide less information. If we could have the spoiler page not including the info that's already on the spoiler free page, that would be great, but it wouldn't actually work (you can't have summaries of episodes without listing the episodes). --Tango 13:47, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

uhh...splitting the article when it gets too long? I think you're forgetting, that the ultimate purpose of splitting a very long article is to make it into several shorter articles. This spoiler split doesn't solve anything. Because as you said, you can't have summaries of episodes without listing them. So we're not "splitting the list and the summaries into seperate articles" at all. We're "copying the list out into a seperate article."

And as i said, Buffyverse chronology (tabulated) serves the exactly purpose you described ("helping the reader find the information they want without finding information they don't want"). I'm sure other projects like stargate can find an equally sensible way to provide a list that satisfies the purpose, but isn't just a redundant copy of information from another article for the purpose of spoiler protection. --`/aksha 13:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that you can't have the summaries without the list applies just as well to the summaries being at the bottom of one article as it does to the summaries being in a separate article. If you had it all on one page, you would have the list duplicated on one page, rather than spread over two pages. A chronology like the Buffy one would just end up being a spoiler free version of Timeline of Stargate. --Tango 18:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete unless someone can think up with a good non-spoiler-related reason for a second list to exist. -- Ned Scott 21:43, 14 November 2006 (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.