Talk:American Experience

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Untitled[edit]

If the anonymous user (68.22.77.252) could provide some documentation (ratings, cancellation of the show, critical reviews) of the show becoming "less and less interesting" the comments would be more appropriate for he wikipedia. - Bellhalla 15:43, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt that will happen.--Dp462090 03:00, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

American Experience topics in Wikipedia[edit]

note: I have moved this section from the article itself; the information is useful to us, but it violates Wikipedia:Avoid self-references to have it in the article. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:05, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The in-depth research conducted for each American Experience program means that the show has provided a good source for some significant contributions to Wikipedia. Some articles including information from the program are:

Tenor and Tone[edit]

This looks NOTHING like an encyclopedia article. It reads like a series of promos from the PBS/WGBH website. I'm a huge fan of the program and believes it deserves a more balanced, sourced, and factual article than this. I'm attaching the beginning of a large numver of [citation needed] tags where appropriate.Sensei48 (talk) 06:37, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Funding[edit]

At issue is an unsourced list claiming various corporations and foundations "funded" the show over various time periods.

The material is unsourced and trivial. We can go to the original shows (with the Wayback machines we all have in our basements) to see who "funded" the show in 2005 or whenever. While we are at it, we can use the same primary source to determine what show was on immediately before it, what the 116th word spoken was, how many neckties are seen in each episode and see who the gaffer is. It would all be true. It would also be trivial.

Yes, there are sponsors for shows on PBS stations. A show on commercial broadcast TV has advertising that pays for the show. As PBS is non-commercial, they have "sponsors" who are said to have "funded" the show. Pay cable has subscribers who pay for the shows. We generally do not list advertisers for 60 Minutes, Wayward Pines, etc. and sponsors for PBS shows. Without looking, I'd bet we do discuss advertisers for American Idol and some funding sources for Sesame Street. Why the difference? We have something to say about these two because independent reliable sources discuss the material.

Yes, "Viewers like you" donated money to PBS stations who used the money to pay the station that produced the show. This is as meaningful as ADM wanting viewers of Wall Street Week to hear their name each Friday and the suits at Chuck E. Cheese want the kids watching The Cat in the Hat Knows... to see their commercial "sponsorship thank you".

Yes, various foundations have layered reasons for wanting to support various types of programming. We might find independent reliable sources discussing the "interesting" relationship tying Koch Industries to PBS... but that is a weight issue in individual shows' articles.

Long story short: Unless we have independent reliable sources specifically discussing various "funders" for various shows, listing them makes no more sense that an extensive list of every company that runs ads during CSI: Cyber. - SummerPhD, v2.0 00:06, 1 June 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tefkasp (talk • contribs)

I'm in agreement. The content is unsourced, which is problematic, but even if it were sourced, verifiability does not guarantee inclusion. This seems to be the type of thing that only a finite group...and I mean a really finite group obsessed with minutia would be interested in. Funding isn't particularly noteworthy, and these sections are attractive nuisances for editors like IP 67.236.182.55, a problematic IP that vandalized numerous articles with improperly formatted, unsourced funding content. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 01:44, 1 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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