Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Drayton Entertainment production history: Difference between revisions

Drayton Entertainment production history (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Indiscriminate list of mostly non-notable theater productions, does not meet NLIST. BrechtBro (talk) 16:45, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect to Drayton Entertainment, where selected, notable works can be mentioned. ―“Ghost of Dan Gurney” _(hihi) 16:51, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Is there a point to a redirect? There’s no links coming here, not even Drayton Entertainment, except for an R from page move. BrechtBro (talk) 17:04, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  WP:CHEAP, as a plausible search target, making such an WP:ATD harmless. Plausible that interested editors could find citations on productions within the list and add them to the article, either in an existing section or a new one. That the article is an orphan is not a reason to purge the page history. ―“Ghost of Dan Gurney” _(hihi) 18:46, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Stating for the record that 4meter4’s rationale is quite compelling; I !voted redirect as an ATD but if people feel it can be kept as an article, I’m good with that. ―“Ghost of Dan Gurney” _(hihi) 15:13, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Keep as a valid WP:SIZESPLIT/SPINOUT per others. ―“Ghost of Dan Gurney” _(hihi) 00:16, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per whatever part(s) of WP:NOT you like best; this is pretty clearly outside WP’s scope. None of this would fit at the main article, and a redirect would be misleading, so shouldn’t be made. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 17:25, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. There are probably good sources about this theatre company, but they are not in the article. — Ssilvers (talk) 01:04, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  List content is copied from the company’s website, likely all easily verifiable. The sourcing is not one of the problems here, imo. BrechtBro (talk) 03:50, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Passes WP:NLIST. Nominator’s rationale is a WP:MISUSEOFINDISCRIMINATE. Drayton Entertainment is described in multiple publications as one of the largest and most significant theatre companies in Canada. Cataloging their productions is therefore not indiscriminate, but encyclopedic. This is an appropriate WP:SPINOUT of the main article. I am working on sourcing this list. There are lots of newspaper articles on this company that discuss their productions as a group/set (not to mention an entry in The Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia). All of their productions get reviewed, often by more than one publication. The issues here are WP:SURMOUNTABLE through editing.4meter4 (talk) 03:29, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  “Passes WP:NLIST”. No it doesn’t. “Cataloging their productions is therefore not indiscriminate, but encyclopedic.”. A misuse of the term, perhaps, but for better or worse, people often use “indiscriminate” to refer to overly detailed minutiae, which this no doubt is. And either way, “therefore encyclopedic” does not follow. I don’t think anyone is disputing the notability of the company itself, but that doesn’t extend to a list of every goddamn play they’ve ever put on. Such a list wouldn’t belong in the main article, and it doesn’t belong in a separate article either. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 16:52, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There are multiple sources discussing their productions as a group or set. It meets WP:NLIST. Period.4meter4 (talk) 17:47, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

“Drayton Entertainment is described in multiple publications as…” This sounds like WP:INHERITED to me. BrechtBro (talk) (re-signing comment broken by another edit)

How? These are their productions that they make. Critical assessment of the company is directly connected to the topic.4meter4 (talk) 18:28, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Notability of a company is not inherited from the thing it makes, and the things an organization makes does not inherit notability from the company. See: WP:INHERITORG / WP:PRODUCT. Please avoid breaking other’s comments thanks. BrechtBro (talk) 19:18, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In this case I don’t think product and company are inseparable. Non-profit performing arts companies exist to perform, and critical assessment of a company’s value in this field is entirely on the artistic merits of their productions. Distinguishing between the two in this case is spurious, and not reflective of theatre criticism and its perspective in this area.4meter4 (talk) 19:23, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree with you in other contexts, but the notability guidelines are very clear on this: “The organization or corporation itself must have been discussed in reliable independent sources for it to be considered notable. […] This works the other way as well.” BrechtBro (talk) 19:43, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Well its good then that the company has WP:SIGCOV,its productions have WP:SIGCOV, and its seasons have WP:SIGCOV which are all evidenced by the sourcing now in the article. NOTINHERITED isn’t appropriate any way you splice this. The company passes WP:ORGCRIT and its theatre seasons as events pass WP:EVENTCRIT.4meter4 (talk) 19:48, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I didn’t cite WP:INDISCRIMINATE. It’s WP:EXHAUSTIVE if you prefer, which is not surmountable. The contents are listed without any useful context (indiscriminately) that would make the list meet encyclopedic standards. That is surmountable, but, as this is a copy of a list the company maintains (but generally with context stripped out), keeping this list invites editors to waste time on something that doesn’t add knowledge or value to the encyclopedia. A list of productions is not inherently encyclopedic the way an original body of work is, and the contents here show very ordinary regional theater programming (I noticed this list while disambiguating the Twelve Angry Men wls: the ones here use the amateur script). The Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia entry is great example of how to handle this in an encyclopedic manner, discussing highlights and representative seasons. — BrechtBro (talk) 17:50, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsense. There’s enough independent in-depth coverage here for individual seasons to have their own articles much the same ways sports seasons have their own pages. A list is much preferable over going into that much depth on this one company, but we could go there and have articles on each individual season because the sourcing is there to pass WP:GNG for standalone articles on each season. I note that sports lists often provide much more detail on their seasons, and they build out tons of pages. There’s no reason we can’t support a list article on the production history of a notable theatre company that operates out of multiple different theatre venues and receives press both locally and nationally. Their audience is over 250,000 people annually, so this isn’t just a little theatre company but a significant part of Canadian culture. I note too that this isn’t exhaustive and is list of a manageable size. Each season has relatively small number of productions (less than 20 a season), so the idea that this fits under exhaustive or indiscriminate criteria is silly. There aren’t that many items in this list in comparison to a truly large list like List of plays adapted into feature films: A to I. This list is tiny in comparison. 4meter4 (talk) 18:21, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

– “A list is much preferable over going into that much depth…” in terms of information, this is equivalent depth, the difference is in presentation. If it doesn’t belong in one, it doesn’t belong in the other (WP:BHTT)

– “sourcing is there to pass WP:GNG for standalone articles on each season” I don’t see a single source that supports this, only routine and promotional coverage of season announcements and reviews of individual productions.

– I don’t see what sports has to do with this but I don’t believe your argument is supported by WP:NSEASONS.

– Attendance does not confer notability (see WP:FACTORS). // BrechtBro (talk) 19:58, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

They are not all routine announcements. A few of the articles are looking back at the end of the season (ie after its over), or referencing back to past seasons. Some of the articles are looking at the long term history of the company with references to productions. Even in individual reviews there are critical cross comparisons with prior productions by the company in some of them. There are clearly multiple sources looking at the history of the company as the whole in an in-depth way as well. Collectively, there is enough here to demonstrate WP:SUSTAINED coverage of the company’s annual seasons, and non-trivial analysis of long-term performance history. I suggest looking at the articles in particular with longer term scope, of which there are several. 4meter4 (talk) 20:04, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I note too, that I have not provided an exhaustive number of sources in the article. I’ve only scratched the surface of what is in newspapers.com, and there are many other critical reviews and articles on the company in there that I have’t read. There are many publications not in newspaper.com I haven’t touched (ie Canadian theatre journals, book sources, etc.) I also have not cited every review out there for every production, or necessarily identified or provided the best sources on this company and its productions. I haven’t even begun seriously looking, beyond trying to source the content in the current list to newspaper sources I can quickly find. In short, I haven’t even started a competent WP:BEFORE, and look what I am finding in just a perusing through one particular website. In short, I don’t think there is a good argument in this case that WP:NEXIST isn’t met. 4meter4 (talk) 20:14, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

What sources are you referring to? I’ve looked at some of the sources you’ve added and I’ve done my own searches, everything I’ve looked at is routine and often promotional coverage of the seasons, but the article is kind of WP:REFBOMB‘d now and it’s hard to see what you might be referring to. BrechtBro (talk) 20:49, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Please indent your comment per normal talk page practice. I personally, and presumably others, can’t visually separate it from mine which is why I indented it for you as a kindness earlier. Not sure why you would object to normal talk page formatting and revert a minor indent, particularly when it makes it difficult to read without it.4meter4 (talk) 22:15, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Comment is properly WP:THREAD‘ed. BrechtBro (talk) 18:28, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

— Note: An editor has expressed a concern that editors have been canvassed to this discussion. (diffs: [6], [7], [8], [9])

• Comment. Since BrechtBro has accused me of canvassing on my talk page and in the note above. I am just going to state that the notices placed at performing arts wikiprojects were entirely compliant with WP:APPNOTE and that no policy violation or canvassing as defined by policy happened. I did not tell editors what to think or how to vote, and outright stated all opinions are welcome. I did say the conversation had a potential to impact other lists, but that is true by virtue of the fact that this is the first AFD to argue a list of the performance history of a major performing arts organization is indiscriminate. The conversation here is likely to have an impact at future AFDs on articles in Category:Theatre company production histories. Making relevant wikiprojects aware of precedent setting conversations is entirely allowed under APPNOTE policy. The accusations of canvassing are spurious and are being made in WP:BADFAITH.4meter4 (talk) 19:28, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  This is absolutely inappropriate canvassing, and anyone who !voted from one of these notices should have theirs struck. This was already listed in appropriate delsort categories. This was plainly done at places where there’d likely be sympathy toward the article, and with a not-so-subtle warning that other similar articles may be next if they don’t act to save this. Failing to disclose that this was done at this discussion is also pretty scummy. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 16:28, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. Notifying wikiprojects directly connected to the subject matter is allowable under WP:APPNOTE. See the very first bullet point. This is often a false accusation on wikipedia thrown around when people place notices at wikiprojects that often gets levied. It’s never upheld as valid when reported. Making editors aware of the potential implications of a conversation and why paying attention to it matters is also allowable. I also did not express that concern in a way that was calling for a rescue or for moving in a certain direction or supporting a certain POV. I wanted people to be comfortable voting how they wanted to whatever their POV which I think is clearly reflected in the note. 4meter4 (talk) 16:58, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

As discussed on your talk page, the issue isn’t that you posted a notice, it’s that the notice frames the question. —BrechtBro (talk) 17:37, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying that I’m not allowed to express a POV that highlights a conversation might have wider impact? If that’s the case, I would start an WP:RFC because I don’t think that the community would agree with that. We should be able to tell editors when a thread has the potential to impact other areas of the encyclopedia.4meter4 (talk) 17:47, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]