Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aircraft in fiction


 * 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The result was   Withdrawn by nominator. Several comments have shown that this article is being actively worked on and many of the points are being actively address. As a result I'm withdrawing the nomination with the intention of allowing people to work on it for a couple of weeks. After that point it will be revisited to see if it has improved, or if it is still just a trivia list. Remember though when editing the article, that just because something has a reliable source, doesn't mean we should include it in Wikipedia. Canterbury Tail  talk  12:23, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Aircraft in fiction

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

A completely unmaintainable and seemingly pointless article. An article on all aircraft that appears in works of fiction? This isn't an encyclopaedic topic. What next, cars that appear in fiction? If certain aircraft have a significant role in a work of fiction then it makes more sense to have that detailed on the article for that aircraft, but having one superarticle for this kind of thing isn't what we're here for. Aircraft appear in fiction all the time, like cars, countries, handguns etc. It's just not a rare or significantly small enough grouping for it to be significant. Seems to me the majority is this page is pure trivia at best, and pointless at worst. Canterbury Tail  talk  15:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  —Polarpanda (talk) 15:45, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions.  —Polarpanda (talk) 15:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - As explained on the article talk page and also in discussions found on Talk:F-15 Eagle, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aircraft and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aircraft/Archive_25 creating this article was as consensus solution to deal with the large amounts of text that was being added to aircraft type articles about films, TV shows and especially toys and video games. The volume of this "popular culture" text was in some cases threatening to overwhelm some aircraft type articles and policing it for refs and notability was consuming considerable time by members of WikiProject Aircraft. This article is undergoing daily improvement and discussion and has a consensus to retain it at this point. - Ahunt (talk) 15:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - and the majority of that stuff should not be on Wikipedia at all. Pop culture trivia shouldn't be there. Someone made a toy of a particular aircraft is not encyclopaedic. Starscream was an F-15 should be mentioned in the Starscream article, but isn't relevant to the F-15 article or any other. Canterbury Tail   talk  16:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree with you. I think the article, at the moment, is full of fancruft for Gobots and Transformers. Again, if you'd read the talk page, you'll see that I've made the argument that Gobots and Transformers don't even belong in this article, since they aren't actually a F-15, but a robot disguised as a F-15. If disguising something makes it become that thing, then after this past Halloween, I'm a Jedi Knight. But seriously, you're saying the same things I said. Please, read the discussions and see, we really are working on this article to make it up to standard. Niteshift36 (talk) 16:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - So what you are saying is the article needs improvement - I agree. Feel free to help improve it, but for the reasons given above I believe that deleting it will not improve the encyclopedia. - Ahunt (talk) 16:06, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment -In other words, this article is a garbage dump for the unreferenced trivial bilge that was clogging up arcraft articles. While I can totally understand the desire to keep this stuff out of actual good articles, putting it in a seperate article is just as bad and, arguably, even worse.  When cleaning up Wikipedia, please remember not to be a litterbug yourself. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  16:07, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - As I said the article needs work to improve it, but that work is actively underway. If the AfD is successful I would hope that those editors who supported deletion will join us at WikiProject Aircraft, take on a watch list of aircraft type articles and help keep the cruft under control. The problem is large enough that it is taking up significant time and thus preventing the creation and improvement of new articles. - Ahunt (talk) 16:19, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - Which part(s) of the current article do you envision keeping after you've rewritten the article? Hint: if the answer is "none", then it's actually to your advantage to have it deleted and start over. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  16:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - It is not just me who is working on it and that subject is under discussion as we try to reach consensus on criteria for inclusion. The fact that the article is still in this early stage and still being developed is more reason to give it more time before a hasty deletion. - Ahunt (talk) 16:37, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: In the past few hours, I've added about 30 reliably sourced entries and about 12-15 more aircraft. I'm only adding stuff that can pass RS. No toy collector sites and IMDB. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete I agree with the nominator, and the annoying thing is that this actually could be an okay topic if treated completely differently: for example, a prose-based article on how air travel is portrayed in fiction, with realistic and unrealistic aspects. There could be coverage of the general trends of aircraft in popular culture: the early 20th century showed planes as adventurous and heroic (Biggles), the jet age made them romantic and fun: a chance for ordinary people to see the world (Sinatra's "Come Fly With Me"), and the 70s through present have focused mostly on danger, terrorism, and negative aspects of air travel (Airport series, Air Force One, Snakes on a Plane, etc.).  There might even be something to be said on how fiction has impacted the actual aviation industry.  Nobody appears to have thought of any of that though, so we just get some unreferenced trivia soup: So-and-so appeared on this episode of Go-Bots, blah blah blah. Delete. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  15:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Provisional keep. I actually entertained the notion of nominating the article myself. However, if you will look on the talk pages, you'll see that there is discussion about establishing criteria for inclusion. You'll also see that numerous, well sourced additions have been made in the past 24 hours and more are coming. I also posted to the RSN about the sources being used and entries without reliable sources will be removed as soon as the rest of the article is shored up. I've become convinced that this article serves a purpose and it has made significant progress in the past 24 hours. I say a provisional keep, because I agree that criteria need established, but, as I said, that discussion is already underway. Niteshift36 (talk) 16:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per Niteshift and Ahunt. The alternative is cruftifying articles on real aircraft. Per Dark matter in fiction and List of fictional swords's AfD outcomes, these sorts of articles seem to be an acceptable compromise, if perpetual cleanup targets. Jclemens (talk) 17:08, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Stubbify and encourage re-development per Andrew Lenahan above. In-universe treatment seems an indiscriminate list of cruft, but non-listy perspective of the way fictional aircraft are conceptualized, developed and responded-to would be appropriate. --EEMIV (talk) 17:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - There has been substantial discussion within the project about this article, and it is in a state of constant improvement. As Jclemens] stated, there are plenty of other articles like this that survived AfD (add [[Black holes in fiction to the list), and this one seems like it has a chance to be much better chance to becoming widely useful than those do (as this is being actively edited). I will say that I think the inclusion of toys like transformers and gobots is ridiculous. The only reference to the aircraft in those belongs in the article for the toy itself, not for the aircraft. -SidewinderX (talk) 18:21, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep as per Niteshift's comments and the fact that activity is in progress with a group of editors who are making efforts to improve the article. Happy if this is revisted if that effort fails to improve the article. MilborneOne (talk) 20:19, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * As I said on the nom's talk page, revisit it in 2 weeks. If there isn't marked improvement, I'll !vote delete myself. Niteshift36 (talk) 20:28, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment - Yeah, I think I'm happy to put this on hold and see what happens over the next couple of weeks and then revisit it based on the other comments on this page and elsewhere. Canterbury Tail   talk  20:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete Per nominator, article lacks depth and is straying too much into uncharted territories ever since it was created. --Dave 1185 02:08, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Again, we've added over 30 reliably sourced entries within the past day. We're working on criteria for inclusion, removing the sources that won't pass WP:RS and weeding out the cruft. Even the nominator said he's willing to hold off to give us time. Niteshift36 (talk) 02:24, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - This work in progress is promising. It has good intentions, and active developers working on criteria. Why throw out the baby with the bath water now? Mathewignash (talk) 03:36, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 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.