All right. I'm sorry if the 'glazed over eyeballs' came across as
insulting to TV-watchers. I used to watch Buffy, and my eyeballs
glazed over :-P On the subject:
You both make a persuasive argument. I don't think every episode of
every TV show is de facto notable for inclusion, and I also don't
think we can base a guideline of notability on something like Nielsen
ratings (i.e. this show is more popular than X, therefore it should be
included). The top of that notability guideline is definitely in need
of some rehabilitation, but lower down there is a link to a great
essay from Uncle G:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Uncle_G/On_notability
If the core of notability is non-trivial coverage in reliable
secondary sources (not just peer reviewed journals) then most episodes
of most TV shows will fail that guideline, as will most movies and
most novels. And yet, even the most obscure TV shows and episodes have
fans who will want to have articles about their favorite characters,
shows and episodes. There is an argument to preserving the totality of
the output of popular culture for research or other posterity-related
purposes, but that conflicts directly with Wikipedia's notability
guideline. Holding on to an enormous collection of NN data is not the
mission.
Maybe the solution is a WikiTV project, and listification of all
episodes with wikilinks to related WikiTV articles? Then the project
can have its own inclusion mission and guidelines, perhaps along the
lines of all plot summaries are presumed to be accurate unless
contradicted by a secondary source and all episodes of all TV shows
are allowed.
Hopefully less 'radically off-base',
Nathan