Deletion of 1981–1982 United States network television schedule (Saturday morning)

Comment: per Carrite and Eduemoni. All of these TV shows are notable, and organizing them by the programming blocks, seasons, and networks on which they aired is not only "useful," but one of the most obvious ways to index them. These lists also further coverage of the networks themselves, and American television generally, particularly at a time when the three networks ''were'' American television for most people, and that's where your "historical significance" comes in. , though it usually fails to offer any semblance of clear guidance regarding lists, expressly states that "mention of...historically significant programme lists and schedules may be acceptable," to the extent anyone is looking for express "permission" for these existing. The one time I could find in the WP:NOT archive that Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not/Archive_23#NOTDIR_and_TV_schedules|these schedule lists were discussed directly, there was a clear consensus that they were not NOTDIR violations (or at the very least, a clear recognition that there was such a consensus in the community at large). As Masem noted in that discussion, it would be a completely different matter if these were day-by-day schedules, which then would be a  issue, but these annual network schedules pose no NOTDIR problem. Finally, I do not believe for a second that any network schedules are unverifiable, even if not verified at present
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (WP:NOTDIR||WP:NOTTVGUIDE)

Comment: The "|it's useful" argument above isn't valid when these lists violate Wikipedia policy.  Blatantly inconsistent with /
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (WP:USEFUL||WP:NOT||WP:DIRECTORY)

Comment: 1980-1984 are easily sourced to Castleman and Podrazik's 1984 book ''The TV Schedule Book: Four Decades of Network Programming from Sign-On to Sign-Off'' from McGraw-Hill. Castleman and Podrazik's book ends with the Fall 1983 schedule, but I'm quite certain other sources exist for the more recent years. I've been able to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1954%E2%80%9355_United_States_network_television_schedule&action=historysubmit&diff=316248487&oldid=305457181 source and find critical commentary in |reliable sources for every network television season between Fall 1946 (DuMont's and NBC's first TV seasons, before CBS and ABC operated television networks) and Fall 2007 (the last listed in Brooks and Marsh's 2007 book). These things just take time, since Wikipedia is |a work in progress. A note at |WikiProject Television Stations might have helped, since I have that project watchlisted, and there are several clever editors there with reams of reference material on network info. BTW, any schedules for non-broadcast (ie cable channels) should probably be culled from schedules in the 1990s; none of the major authors cover those
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Reliable sources (WP:RS||WP:COMPLETE||WP:TVS)

Comment: or possibly '''redirect''' to 1981–82 United States network television schedule etc. Wikipedia articles should not consist of TV schedules.  says only that ''mention of ... historically significant programme lists and schedules may be acceptable''. If these particular TV schedules were historically significant then we would expect coverage of them in third-party reliable sources. The articles do not cite any such sources despite the fact that they have existed for over five years, have had an {{tl|unreferenced}} tag on it for the vast majority of that time, and many people (including the relevant Wikiproject) haven't been able to find references. If there were references that discussed the TV schedules in question then we may be able to expand the articles so that they discussed the efforts of the various networks to get or retain market share, at which point the page ceases to be a mere TV schedule and becomes an encyclopedia article, such as 1953–54 United States network television schedule. But the five-year history of these pages shows that such a thing is unlikely to happen. The argument that ''"it's useful" is a valid argument for a list'' is flawed.  does say that ''The list may be a valuable information source'', however this is a sufficient criterion, not a necessary one. To see this consider a hypothetical page called List of companies by telephone number. Such a thing blatantly violates , which is why it doesn't exist, but it is a list and it would be useful to some of our readers. The fact that information could conceivably be useful to our readers does not mean we should provide it if it goes against our purpose as an encyclopedia
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (WP:NOTDIR||WP:LIST||WP:NOTDIR)