Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aldebaran 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   keep all. Jayjg (talk) 20:00, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * To elaborate: The small number arguing "delete" pointed out that the articles themselves mostly consisted of uncited trivia. The much larger number arguing "keep" cited WP:IPCA, and noted that the poor quality of the existing articles was not a strong argument for actually deleting them, arguing that the topics themselves were notable. The consensus I gathered from that was that the articles should be kept, but (severely) pruned. Jayjg (talk) 21:53, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Aldebaran in fiction

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Also nominating the following similar pages as these all seem to have the same issues: These articles are essentially all trivia and the majority of the content lacks citations. There is also no indication that the usages of these stars in the works in question has received significant coverage by secondary sources, thus failing the General Notability Guideline. Icalanise (talk) 23:06, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep some, delete some per WP:BEFORE. Alpha Centauri, Betelgeuse, Sirius, and Vega have been attested more in popular culture and fiction than the average star. For examples, see Beetlejuice, Contact (film), and 101 Dalmations. I am not so sure about the others.  The nomination list is poor, because if the nominator had actually done any homework, many references could be found for the more notable ones of this bunch.  The others probably could be deleted without damage to the project. Bearian (talk) 20:22, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd kindly ask you not to go straight in with the insults thanks. I am still not convinced that any of these topics are of sufficient notability to match the GNG, i.e. is there significant discussion of the concept of "Aldebaran in fiction" anywhere? A list of works that reference (however tangentially) Aldebaran is not a discussion of the usage of Aldebaran in fiction. Should we also have a "Stephen in fiction" article to list every single fictional work that uses the name Stephen? Icalanise (talk) 20:34, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That analogy is surely very far off the mark. If there were only one Stephen, who was a very famous person, recognizable by that name alone -- just as there is only one Sirius and one Alpha Centauri -- then we certainly would want an article about literary references to this "Stephen".  Change the name "Stephen" to "Jesus" and you'll find that the answer is rather obvious.  That's why there's an article Cultural depictions of Jesus.  Or perhaps you think that should be deleted as well?RandomCritic (talk) 12:59, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * There is a large body of literary criticism about the subject of Jesus in various cultural and fictional settings. Is there such a body of work for the literary usage of the star Aldebaran? I think your analogy is off too. Icalanise (talk) 19:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems that Jesus was invoked here not to set the bar for what deserves a IPCA, but to illustrate an example of a unique figure with recognizable popular culture references, unlike "people named Stephen". RandomCritic could have just as easily used Che Guevara or Elizabeth Báthory. - Sangrolu (talk) 20:18, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment&mdash;I think these articles are actually content forks from Stars and planetary systems in fiction. If these are deleted then I can guarantee this (fan-cruft) content will start popping up on the various star/planet articles once more. Perhaps it would help if the information were migrated to one of the sister projects instead? (Wikibooks?)&mdash;RJH (talk) 20:27, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The history of these articles is this: they began as "X in fiction" sections under the articles about the various stars, many of which grew to be so large as to dwarf the scientific content of the articles themselves. To make sure that scientific articles about stars focused on the science, these references were moved to Stars and planetary systems in fiction when the number of references was small, or to their own articles when the number of references was very large (as is obviously the case with Alpha Centauri in fiction or Sirius in fiction).  Of course such lists are bound to attract trivia (which is much better than seeing the scientific articles packed with trivia) but the fact is that these lists contain a solid core non-trivial references which are of considerable interest to literary research. Keep.RandomCritic (talk) 13:01, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete all. Fails GNG.  Not one single article here has evidence of non-trivial coverage/ supporting references from reliable third party publications.  PlusPlusDave (talk) 23:48, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:31, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:32, 12 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep all as preferable to the alternative, which is to merge all of the fictional references (which are WP:Verifiable via primary sources) back into the articles on the real celestial objects, per WP:IPC. Jclemens (talk) 00:40, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * From WP:IPC which you linked: "Although some references may be plainly verified by primary sources, this does not demonstrate the significance of the reference." Icalanise (talk) 07:17, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Anyway, Jclemens is being disingenuous here. The correct backmerge would be to Stars and planetary systems in fiction, which has the same problems as these pages but already deals with the "we don't want this junk near where the adults go on the encyclopedia" problem. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 18:42, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep all per WP:IPCA then clean-up and better source where required. AfD is not clean-up. Plus, a mass nomination of only nominally linked articles does no justice to any editor wishing to judge each on its merits. - Dravecky (talk) 07:06, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep, per Random Critic amd Dravecky. The mass nomination seems heavy handed and indiscriminate to me. Per WP:BEFORE you should really make good faith attempts to establish notability for each; I don't think that's been done here. Each can be re-evaluated, some may need better referenced or pruned and thereafter merged back into the main article. - Sangrolu (talk) 16:04, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment I have seen the light! Keep Portrayals of God in popular media, delete all other lists, especially ones of fictional or imaginary popular culture references Nevermind, my medication kicked in, I feel better now. Anarchangel (talk) 16:48, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Firstly, IPCA still requires that the material demonstrates notability. This content largely does not: it is I-Spy cruft which has gone unnoticed by the world at large. Secondly, the articles are not wildly varied in quality. All of them are very low quality lists of trivia with negligible referencing. A mass-nom is fine here. If there is the odd bit of content worth saving a closing admin with a brain will be able to figure out how to handle it. Quite how RandomCritic came to the conclusion that Alpha Centauri in fiction (five references: three primary, one user-generated, one YouTube) or Sirius in fiction (two references) have a "very large" number of references is beyond me. Redirecting these to Stars and planetary systems in fiction with an admonition not to split again purely on length would be a good start. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 18:38, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems apparent to me he meant the number of references in popular culture, not the number of article references, which may need shoring up. - Sangrolu (talk) 20:24, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * If that's the case then there's no argument for having split the pages in the first place. When it comes to trivia, "add the content and the references will follow" simply doesn't work, as secondary reliable sources are typically nonexistent. The vast majority of the material in all of the nominated articles could (and should) simply be deleted, which would go significantly towards resolving any article length problems. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 20:34, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Re: "add the content and the references will follow", I would remind you that Wikipedia has no deadline. That being said, as mentioned above, I do think that some (many?) of the articles aren't well referenced and it would be difficult to find a third party references. Some, however do include entries in which the role of the particular star in the story is significant enough that it would show up in a review or editorial summary, and should be eventually sourceable, and as discussed in WP:NOTCLEANUP, should not be deleted. (I guess this is a longwinded way of saying I fundamentally agree with Bearian, though I've not yet examined each article enough to determine if his short list is accurate, but as AfD is not cleanup, I think the correct approach would be to back off on the mass-AfD and identify the problems with each article individually with clean-up tags or noms to merge back.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sangrolu (talk • contribs) 13:05, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I will also point out WP:BURDEN that the burden of evidence lies with those who add the material. This burden has been routinely ignored in the creation of these articles, despite the majority of them having templates warning of content issues. If you disagree that this should be the case then perhaps you should ask to have these templates reworded to remove the explicit deletion threat that I have made good on in this nomination. If you disagree that mass nominations should take place then you should take it up on the main AfD page to have the mass-nomination process shut down. - Icalanise (talk) 22:19, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:BURDEN does not assign AfD as a solution. It states the longstanding WP principle of unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Which I have already agreed with above: many of these articles should be pruned and/or merged. But WP:NOTCLEANUP remains the guiding principle here with respect to deletion. - Sangrolu (talk) 12:09, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * This is wikilawyering. Deletion here is simply the reversal of the decision to split these from the original list article in the first place. That was a poor decision which it should not be difficult to undo. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 13:04, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * As I have already explained, there was no "decision to split... from the original list article". These articles share the same genesis as Stars and planetary systems in fiction, but evolved alongside it rather than being split from it.  Length is a reasonable consideration; very long articles become unwieldy, unreadable, and eventually unprocessable.  Folding the articles -- except maybe two or three of the shortest ones -- into S&PS would make the article overly massive and result in the article needing to be split again.RandomCritic (talk) 17:14, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * If there were any degree of editorial restraint on any of these articles there would never have been any need for a split. It is a common anti-pattern on Wikipedia that lists of trivia grow until they are unwieldy and are then split rather than pruned to only contain worthwhile content. Whether these started as lists in the planet entries themselves or as part of the super-list is not really important: the decision to split should not have been taken in any of them as the content lacks the required real-world notability to stand alone. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:44, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree that if the final decision is to merge, the proper target would be Stars and planetary systems in fiction. Icalanise (talk) 23:12, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete all- these articles all suffer from the same flaws; they are all crufty "I saw it here!!!"-style original research and the sourcing is extremely poor or completely nonexistent. A mass nomination is entirely appropriate, despite the personal opinions of some editors that a few of these articles might be more important than others. Finally, WP:BEFORE is not policy, it's not even a guideline, it's just advice. It certainly does not trump WP:V, so it is not appropriate to use it as your entire "keep" rationale regarding articles with zero sources. If you want to elevate WP:BEFORE to a policy, start an RfC; this is not the place. Reyk  YO!  03:09, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think WP:BEFORE should necessarily be policy, but I do think that citing it is germane to the debate and consistent with the notion that "eventually sourceable" material should not be deleted as discussed in WP:NOTCLEANUP. - Sangrolu (talk) 13:53, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep All WP:NOTCLEANUP. Typical example where the solution is not to delete, but to sofixit. walk victor falktalk 14:05, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll note that the WP:NOTCLEANUP that you linked lists "we'll find some sources later" as an argument to avoid for a Keep rationale. This seems to have been ignored by the majority of people citing this resource. Plus that page is advice/opinion, not a guideline nor a policy. Icalanise (talk) 19:15, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * There is no doubt that all these very famous stars are notably used in fiction and meet WP:GNG, and are reasonable content forks per wp:summary style of Stars and planetary systems in fiction, as show by user:OparaJoeGreen below. walk  victor falktalk</i> 20:25, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's nothing but gainsaying. And without a single appropriate secondary source to back it up, it's a flat-out falsehood. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 20:34, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep All
 * Background
 * The article Stars and planetary systems in fiction gives an extensive list of real stars with a list of fictional references to each, either to the star itself or to hypothetical or imaginary planets orbiting the star, from print, film, and games. The article is within the scope of WikiProject Popular Culture, where it is rated as List-Class and High-importance.
 * Certain stars are "overloaded" in the sense that they have disproportionately large numbers of references from fiction. The stars are: Aldebaran, Alpha Centauri, Altair, Betelgeuse, Deneb, Epsilon Eridani, Rigel, Sirius, Tau Ceti, and Vega. Each of these stars is separated from the main list and has its own article. For the stars that remain in the list, the average number of references is about 4.4, and the median is 2. Sirius alone has 44 references.
 * There are at least two reasons that references to overloaded stars are not part of the main list:


 * Readability of the list as a whole. Including the overloaded stars in the main list would make it difficult to see the "forest" (all the unexceptional stars) for the "trees" (the overloaded stars).
 * Readability of the overloaded stars. Moving the overloaded stars to their own articles allows their references to be given a subsidiary structure that would be inappropriately elaborate for the main list.
 * Here’s an example of the main-list entry for the first overloaded star:
 * Clicking on the link takes you to the "child" article "Aldebaran in fiction."
 * Recently, the "child" article for each of the overloaded stars listed above was tagged as being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy.
 * Recently, the "child" article for each of the overloaded stars listed above was tagged as being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy.


 * Cleanup Project
 * Since 3/14/2011 I have been engaged in a Cleanup Project for the main list Stars and planetary systems in fiction. The last comprehensive cleanup of this list was performed on 2/21/2007. In that revision, the contributor standardized entries so that they all begin with title, date (where available), genre, by author (or company), followed by the description, and made a number of other improvements.
 * The current Cleanup Project for the main list includes


 * Verifying content and creating Wikilinks to the title, date, and author or company.
 * Deleting items for which the content could not be verified.
 * Creating citations where appropriate.
 * Improving the grammar and flow of the descriptions, and augmenting them when appropriate by researching original works or linked Wikipedia articles.
 * The Cleanup Project is approximately 90% complete.


 * Argument for keeping the child articles intact
 * I wish to argue that the child articles not be deleted or merged, but should continue to stand as independent articles, for the following reasons:


 * The main article is List-Class and High-importance. It is reasonable to assume that the child articles inherit this importance, and deserve to stand on their own as articles.
 * Trying to juggle a bowling ball with a bunch of ping-pong balls. I noted above the reasons for not merging these articles into the main list Stars and planetary systems in fiction.
 * The Talk page for the child article Aldebaran in fiction contains the header “merge into Aldebaran” (some other considered-for-deletion child articles have similar headers). This would be inappropriate for several reasons:
 * Category error. The child articles relate much more closely to Stars and planetary systems in fiction than they do to the main articles on stars, which are concerned with physical descriptions and scientific facts.
 * Cats and dogs. Fictional references to stars are mostly unrelated to their scientific properties and descriptions. The talk page for a main star article would contain an un-structured mixture of posts from members of two disparate communities, to the benefit of neither. I suspect that the existing contributor communities of the main star articles would not welcome the intrusion.
 * Damaged credibility. Any tagged deficiencies of the child articles (e.g. insufficient citations of fictional sources) would require the main star articles to be similarly tagged – detracting from the authoritativeness of the scientific articles.
 * After I finish the Cleanup Project for the main list, it has been my intention to follow up with a similar cleanup of each child article. I believe that my cleanup will significantly address the deficiencies that have been pointed out in the child articles.
 * At this point I intend to go ahead and perform the cleanup on the child articles to improve their quality. When that is done, there will be more grist for this mill.   OperaJoeGreen (talk) 18:02, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you really asserting that the cleanup of stars and planetary systems in fiction is "90% complete"? It still contains not one single secondary source which discusses the subject matter as a whole, nor any which analyse the incident of said fictional works being set in the locations in question. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 18:13, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * There is no doubt that such sources exist:, , , , , . It is merely a question of of finding (which is not easy in itself due to the high signal-to-noise ratio, but the shear quantity of clutter is a proof in itself of notability) and integrating them. <sup style="color:green;">walk <i style="color:green;">victor falk</i><i style="color:green;">talk</i> 20:25, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Those links are to lists of various science fiction and science fiction related discussion that happen to mention the stars in question, e.g. as a brief plot synopsis. These are not discussions of the usage of, say, Betelgeuse in fiction. Icalanise (talk) 20:30, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Such a list is not indiscriminate, for it discriminates in 3 ways: the object, the notable work, and the significant use. Indiscriminate would be including every appearance whatsoever in any fictional work, however non-notable the work. But that is not the case here. There is no problem with WP:V, for the items are attributable--if it is challenged in good faith that the item is not in the work mentioned, that does have to be demonstrated. There is no problem with LIST, because more than the bare facts are given.  DGG ( talk ) 23:20, 18 April 2011 (UTC) The consensus is 11 1/2 Keep to 2 1/2 Delete. This afd is not generating any new arguments and is well ready to be closed. μηδείς (talk) 16:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep all, OperaJoeGreen's explanation is compelling (at least to me.) htom (talk) 04:50, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge - I hate separate "IPC" articles, and would refer to see them in their parent star articles with references. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:13, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep all Beside the fact that deletionism is the worst form of heresy since sliced bread, these articles will simply begin once again as sections under the main topic, only to be separated out once they grow large enough, creating yet another cycle of kvetching and moaning.  As for refs, keep in mind that works of fiction may serve as the source of their own synopses. μηδείς (talk) 15:28, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Primary sources are sufficient for verification, but absolutely not for establishment of notability. Striped ties in fiction could be adequately "referenced" by hundreds of primary sources but that would do nothing to establish the notability of the content therein. The root problem here is that the parent article should not be in listcruft format in the first place: it should be a piece of prose describing the various aspects of astronomical bodies in fiction and how they relate to civilisation. Were that to happen there wouldn't be a problem with expanding lists. Indeed, it's only the potential for a great article along those lines to be written which prevents me from outright AfDing the parent (along with the most notable offshoots, premature as they are, such as Moon in fiction and Mars in fiction). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:46, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Did I say that works of fiction may serve as the source of their own notability? My bad.  What I really meant to say was that works of fiction may serve as the source of their own synopses. Have to make sure I don't ever make that mistake again.  Whew! μηδείς (talk) 17:09, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * And "may serve as sources of their own synopses" is, in wikispeak, "are sufficient for verification". Which is not the same as "may serve as the source of their own notability". And, as the latter is required to some extent for standalone articles here, a comment which asserted the former and not the latter is by definition not a strong argument for keeping a given page. Sheesh. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:15, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * And ere I sought zee article was tagged as in need of sources for verification. Must be going blind as well as forgetting ow to speek zee eenglish.  Be careful, or I shall taunt you a second tahm. μηδείς (talk) 17:29, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep per OperaJoeGreen and others. Perhaps they should be renamed to "Fictional depictions of X" to alleviate the "concern" that Icalanise keeps harping on. Semantics again rears its ugly head. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 03:00, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
 * No, that doesn't "alleviate" the problem at all. An article discussing fictional depictions of a given subject should discuss them in the usual article style, not just list them with primary sources. No secondary sources == no evidence of notability == inappropriate for a standalone list. Not one answer been given to this so far. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 10:00, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Exactly my point here. Contrary to various people here who suggested I didn't bother to do any looking for sources, I did try to find decent secondary sources that discussed the usage of these stars beyond a simple list of whichever work happened to mention the star in question. I'd actually be quite interested in a discussion of the literary usage of Altair or Vega in fictional works, but I'm just not seeing anything out there beyond the listcruft. Icalanise (talk) 10:43, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Please stop with the cruftcruft. Calling someone else's work garbage does not help solve the problem. I agree that simply mentioning the star in a particular work should not be sufficient to merit inclusion in such a list. However, as others have already mentioned there are many instances where a particular star may play a more significant role in a particular work of fiction, and it is these mentions which merit inclusion. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 05:52, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, no: it is absolutely up for debate whether these particular instances have enough in-depth coverage of that type. Several of them have no sources at all, not even primary ones, and the majority of the entries themselves are trivial references from simple inspection. In fact I wouldn't even call it up for debate: the only people who seem to have bothered looking for sources are those who couldn't find them, which is sadly typical of this kind of AfD. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:59, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep I agree with the RJH and others' arguments that at least these articles, poor though they are, prevent the main articles about the stars being filled up with science fiction TV show/novel references. In addition, for quite a few people, these sci-fi references are probably the first time they will have encountered these names, and they may look for IPC refs for confirmation the name is the same thing. Bob talk 15:23, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep When highly notable things are used as significant elements in notable fiction and other notable cultural phenomena, then a discussion of them is encyclopedic. All that is necessary is to show that the thing in question is used in a significant way, and this can be appropriately referenced to the work directly.
 * You're taking it as a given that there are sufficient non-trivial references to warrant standalone articles here. I could accept that without further evidence for things like Moon in fiction, but certainly not for any of the entries here. The root articles is chock-full of trivial mentions and if they were pruned then all of the notable entries here could comfortably be rolled into it. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:59, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing a headcount. Of course headcounting is not the sole factor that should be taken into account. Icalanise (talk) 17:29, 20 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The problem with the AfD is that it's not getting any arguments which adequately address the comments for deletion. It's certainly attracting a lot of mee-tooism on the keep side, but in case you hadn't noticed this is depressingly commonplace on AfDs on fiction. I suspect that the reason it hasn't been closed is that a close which reflected the actual content of the debate would be unpopular with about three-quarters of the participants. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:52, 20 April 2011 (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.