Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Looking for Now

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 redirect to List of Looking episodes. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 12:09, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for Now

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Article about an individual television episode, serving primarily as a plot summary and not demonstrating any significant real-world context for why it would require a standalone article separately from the existing List of Looking episodes. As always, every TV show that exists does not automatically get to spin off a separate article about each individual episode -- we use episode lists for this purpose, and only create dedicated articles about individual episodes in rarefied special cases, on the order of Ellen's "The Puppy Episode", that can show genuine context for why they need more than just a basic plot summary in an episode list. But what we've got here for real world context is "the episode was released to general acclaim", the end, and what we've got here for sourcing is not really coverage of the episode itself, but brief mentions of the episode in general overviews of the series, a non-notable YouTuber's recap video, and the cast and crew's own self-published audio commentary on the DVD boxset. These are not sources that properly establish that this episode needs a standalone article separately from the already-existing episode list. Bearcat (talk) 18:40, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 19:46, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per GNG. I disagree. There are many Wikipedia articles about specific episodes, and there are sources for this one, too:

I'd prefer to see this article developed, not deleted. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 19:48, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Plot recaps aren't enough to establish the standalone notability of an individual episode either — especially for a show that aired in the 2010s, when every single show that exists at all will be getting recapped on some pop culture website somewhere. Yes, there are "many" Wikipedia articles about specific episodes — namely, certain specific episodes that have notable real world context, qualifying them for special treatment different from the way we handle most television episodes. What's required for a television episode to qualify for its own dedicated article to be spun off from the episode is real-world context, along the lines of "The Puppy Episode" getting extensively covered as the single most important watershed moment in the entire history of LGBT representation on TV. (Wanna guess how many other episodes of Ellen besides "Puppy" actually have standalone articles separately from the episode list? Free hint: you'll be wrong if you guess any number greater than zero.) Bearcat (talk) 14:07, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, well even if a standalone article is not appropriate at this time, we should just redirect to List of Looking episodes and not delete this page. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:51, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The series it was connected to lasted two seasons and under HBO terms, didn't do well. This is a low-quality "current-day Family Guy episode type-what-I-see"-level recap which is poor in every manner; the plot, the 'production' section (nobody cares if an actor is making his first appearance on cable), and reception ('general acclaim' is a dreadful description of critical reaction). Nate • (chatter) 02:33, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Alonso Duralde is a respected film critic, and has written for many publications. The Young Turks are definitely notable; What the Flick is aired through their channel. I would also like to point Mrschimpf towards our civility policy—labelling other contributors' work as "poor", "dreadful", etc. is not helpful. Gertanis (talk) 19:59, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I apologize if I offended you, but the writing for a plot summary must be well-sourced and read well, and this did not to me; there's parentheticals identifying actors, which distracts from the summary (you've got the cast list in the main article, so readers can easily reference that), along with too many blue links for obvious items such as condos, LA and bachelor parties. "Many scenes were re-shot for the episode, as they were considered too sad." is a line I should not be reading in a Wikipedia article; why is it considered 'too sad'? Can you use better wording? Just on that alone I can re-write it as 'The original cut of the episode was considered too depressing to audiences, and scenes were re-shot in order to lighten the mood'. Why is Mr. Alvarez being on cable for the first time so important? It's an HBO show; that should be good enough, and you don't really need to point that out (as it was most of the cast's first time on cable or HBO). And 'general acclaim' is too vague to describe critical reaction; that could vary as much as 'there are issues with the show that keep it from being great', 'it was an OK show' to 'this was fine'. As for your sourcing, Duralde is a film critic; we usually look for television critics because they work the field all the time, where film critics are grading on a curve because they have different expectations for a television series than a film. TYT (like it or not) is also known more as a political show, with their arts criticism as on the side. Generally, we also prefer to have a written review to source; readers looking for more generally don't want to have to sit through a video (or here also, audio commentary for the episode from those involved in the work, which is a disallowed WP:PRIMARYSOURCE). Nate • (chatter) 21:15, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is the first article I've created of this kind, so maybe you should be a bit more polite. Unnecessary blue links and parentheticals are easily removed, and constitute no solid reason for deletion. Mr. Duralde is indeed a film critic, but not exclusively. He writes/speaks of both mediums, which is becoming more and more common, as they both pertain to the moving image. Primary sources are not disallowed on WP; autobiographies are often used in articles, for straightforward statements. Also, Ellen is a talkshow, not a narrative feature. You mention Family Guy: that show has WP articles for almost every episode, even some GAs. So why no articles for Looking? Gertanis (talk) 06:44, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As noted above, what gets an individual television episode into Wikipedia is not the mere fact that it's possible to source a plot summary to episode recaps and critical reviews of the series — what's required is real-world context for why the episode has its own independent importance as a separate topic from the series as a whole. You haven't shown any of that, however — you've just sourced a plot summary.

Also, please read WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS: the fact that some other unrelated show has separate articles for most or all of its episodes does not automatically mean every other show gets that too. It's possible that those other articles should be deleted too and it's just that nobody's tackled them yet, or it's possible that there are contextual reasons that you're missing as to why the two shows aren't actually equivalent in terms of episode notability or sourceability. (For example, the sheer depth of Star Trek fandom, the show's incalculable influence on pop culture and its gigantic body of literature all mean that it's possible to reliably source genuine real-world context, beyond just a plot summary, for virtually every episode of that series — yet it's not possible to do the same for the shortlived Canadian knockoff The Starlost, where the best we could ever actually do is just a plot summary.)

And incidentally, you need to familiarize yourself with the difference between Ellen, the 1990s sitcom that was actually raised as an example in this discussion, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. They're two different shows; the 1990s one that had a historically important episode called "The Puppy Episode" was not a talk show, but a narrative sitcom. Bearcat (talk) 16:06, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, J 947^{^{^{(c) (m)}}} 18:40, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 05:00, 8 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - I'm not able to find coverage about this episode aside than the aforementioned expected coverage by virtue of it being the pilot of an HBO series. I agree that in this day and age pretty much every show is going to be covered in some form by some pop culture podcast or web site, but that does not make the episode worthy of its own article. Had this show made more of an impact on the cultural zeitgeist, my vote would be different. I don't think a redirect is warranted either. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 23:06, 11 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, J 947^{^{^{(c) (m)}}} 06:02, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I wonder why, per WP:ATD-R, redirecting to List of Looking episodes is unwarranted? Ready to be persuaded for sure. — fortunavelut luna 09:35, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's about focusing efforts where they would be more useful, and managing expectations. For the former, once it becomes standard policy to create redirects for every episode of every show, people will go out and do just that for their favorite shows. So rather than beef up plot summaries, for example, we'll just have more redirects. As far as managing expectations, some of these redirects may show up on disambiguation pages and even in articles as Wiki-links, yet clicking on them might cause disappointment when the occasional reader expects an episode's article as advertised, but lands on the series page instead. In this specific case, the lack of sources that prevent my support of a standalone article also suggests to me that there's not much that will trigger a search for this episode by title anyway, making all of this moot. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 17:37, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to List of Looking episodes, as suggested above. I'm not seeing a lot of sources about why this episode itself is important enough to merit its own article, but I see no reason to not have the episode title go somewhere. 331dot (talk) 12:04, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The remarkable unlikelihood that anybody would ever actually expect it to exist and search for it, coupled with the fact that in that remarkably unlikely event the episode list would still come up in the search results anyway? Bearcat (talk) 05:14, 18 September 2017 (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.