Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Atlantis (Stargate)


 * 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   no consensus. Black Kite (talk) 15:11, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Atlantis (Stargate)

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Non-notable fictional spaceship. Article is a plot-only description of a fictional element which is already suitably discussed at Stargate Atlantis. Claritas § 00:22, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I would have to think keep is the best option as this is a natural split off of the main article, and maintaining it there would be too large. Dennis Brown -  2&cent;    &copy;  Join WER 01:10, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete While it's cool that the show has a city-sized spaceship, the article is 100% sourced to the show itself.  This tends to show that the ship is not notable to the outside world.  It would be better to just mention the ship in the article on the show and let people watch the show, or visit fan-sites which could be linked, to find out all the details. Borock (talk) 01:23, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * (Warning: Rant. Please don't consider this in the AfD discussion but I couldn't help saying it.) There's reasons why things are presented in fiction, rather than non-fiction prose.  If the writers of this show wanted tell us about this spaceship through a non-fiction article they could have done so themselves, and probably better than we on WP. (Thanks. I feel better now.) -Borock (talk) 01:32, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment - I'm not going to try and argue with the last bit, but non-notable? Seriously? Being the main location of a big series like Stargate is not notable? That's exactly the same as saying Walford from EastEnders is not-notable. Lukeno94 (talk) 14:00, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * If it's notable, it should be facile for you to verify notability by including citations to secondary sources which discuss it in detail. I believe your argument is one to avoid... --Claritas § 16:27, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * You're erroneously conflating two different things. Notability is not fame nor importance. Uncle G (talk) 16:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not making an OTHERCRAPEXISTS comment at all. As to finding sources on it, that's not exactly easy, due to the name of the series tending to take priority. Lukeno94 (talk) 17:25, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep I'll find and add sources, which clearly exist. Jclemens (talk) 07:18, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Two book sources added from my personal library, GNG is now met. I'll find and add others over the course of the AfD, of course, but that's what I had tonight. Jclemens (talk) 07:43, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
 * GNG isn't met until we verify notability, quote relevant sections please and I'll withdraw nom if they're sufficient. Claritas § 09:36, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
 * GNG is met if the sources exist, not if you can read them yourself. Per WP:SOURCEACCESS, your inability to find what I add simply isn't my problem. Jclemens (talk) 15:30, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Put another way, WP:V requires that facts are verifiable, not verified, nor that they are easily to verify with a click of a mouse. Dennis Brown - 2&cent;    &copy;  Join WER 15:40, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Why are you unwilling to quote the relevant pages if they contain significant coverage of the material ? If I write an article about Cheese consumption in 13th century Transylvania, and cite lots of extremely obscure Hungarian books from the 19th century which don't exist outside legal deposit libraries, would you travel miles to disprove me, or request that I quote ? It's an obvious case of the burden being on those who wish to keep material. @Dennis, things have to be verified. The statement that "It's raining" is verifiable, but it's not always true. You don't understand what the words mean. --Claritas § 18:33, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Because it's your job, not mine. I'll spend my limited Wikipedia time as I see fit, and if you want to kick down the sandcastles I build, you need to do your own homework, not say "show me" and "that's not good enough" if I comply. Jclemens (talk) 05:01, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Claritas, trying to convince Jclemens of anything that doesn't go his way is useless. He has an inclusionist agenda and will always try to push for his own extremely loose and unconsensual interpretation of the GNG, but his AfD comments will rarely fool reasonable closing admins. It would be a waste of time trying to argue with him.Folken de Fanel (talk) 18:32, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Next you'll be accusing me of stalking you to yet another AfD in which I participated before you did. Jclemens (talk) 07:06, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Without proof, anyone could save an article just by claiming it has offline sources. Whether or not the claim alone is sufficient is up to consensus I suppose. Curiously, no page numbers were listed. --Odie5533 (talk) 14:25, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * You're mistaken. If you'd looked at the article, instead of just zooming to the reflist, you will see that page numbers are cited using the rp functionality. Cheers, Jclemens-public (talk) 21:39, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * You are correct, I missed the page numbers. --Odie5533 (talk) 22:17, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Reading Stargate SG-1 p. 251 is a list of dictionary-like entries and has only 3 sentences on Atlantis. Other interesting dictionary entries include Blood of Sokar, [tok'ra] Blending, and Body-swapping machine, but none are enough to warrant an article on Wikipedia. If anyone wants a scan of p. 251, please leave me a message on my talk page and I would be more than happy to share educational resources with you. --Odie5533 (talk) 22:17, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Approaching the Possible: The works of Stargate SG-1. p. 453's citation does not support the statement it is cited at. It only mentions Atlantis in passing, dealing with it as a series rather than a place. p. 453 does not claim that "Full Circle" is the first time that Daniel mentions Atlantis, so the citation should be removed. Again, if anyone wants a scan of the relevant page, please leave me a message on my talk page and I would be happy to share it. --Odie5533 (talk) 22:33, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * This is the impression I get from the other sources that editors have identified for their support of keeping the article - they are in-universe guides to explain what Atlantis is and provide no insight on the fictional element's concept by the show's producers, its design, or any type of reception about the ship itself (not the show). As there's little out-of-universe information to write, it fails NOTPLOT, despite how many apparent sources there may be and thus not appropriate to keep. --M ASEM (t) 23:04, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep per Jclemens, and the sources he has added. BOZ (talk) 15:32, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The sources he has added only seem to point to the fictional existence of the spaceship, which was never in question. All the rest of the information in the article is sourced to the show itself.  It doesn't look like coverage in depth in multiple secondary sources. Borock (talk) 17:49, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
 * "significant coverage" (or "Non-trivial", historically) is the standard, not "in depth". Jclemens (talk) 03:09, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I've looked at the works you cited to substantiate notability, and there's no way those constitute "significant coverage". There's plenty of rehashing of primary sources, but very little serious secondary analysis. --Claritas § 09:48, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh? Do you care to post detailed quotes from the sources to substantiate your rationale? Jclemens (talk) 00:34, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I will if you do :) Claritas § 12:29, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I've yet to see anything to convince me that you've actually read the sources in question. Seeing as how I added both of them myself, I know quite clearly well that I have. Jclemens (talk) 07:08, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Just keep on assuming bad faith, and I'll do the same. --Claritas § 10:39, 18 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep In addition to what Jclemens has found, I'd like to point out this series got a lot of coverage before and during its run, and you can't talk about the series without talking about the city of Atlantis its based in and about. Highbeam search for "Atlantis" "city" "Stargate" has 106 results to look through.  I see coverage of them finding the city in a distant solar system, it sunk, built by the ancient, reviews and previews of episodes when its been attacked by this and that and the other, when they sank it to protect it, etc.  Bit coverage, but taken as a whole, that is something.  The entire notable series was about this city, that why they named the show after it.   D r e a m Focus  14:17, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete, doesn't meet GNG as the subject hasn't been significantly covered (in detail, with more than trivial mentions, allowing to write more than a definition of the topic) in multiple reliable sources independent of the subject. The recent trivial additions don't change that fact.Folken de Fanel (talk) 18:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete - Those darn verifiable sources; the article is so well written and should be included in this encyclopedia directly commenting on its content! Sources are surely out there, and surely substantiate much of the information in this article. The subject matter and sheer fact that this is a legitimate sub-article of a section from the main series is relevant to the series with in this encyclopedia. That said, the article does need solid verifiable sources to steer it away from WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, and at present it does not and so I must put myself in the delete argument for the time being. I surely hope you can find some more sources before the AfD closure at which time I will re-evaluate my position.  Mkdw talk 09:59, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. Far too in-depth and significant a subject to merge back into the main article, and while the sources are a bit weak, I think they are good enough for the article to stand on its own. Of course this does not mean that the search for additional sources should not continue, as they can only serve to improve the article as it is. — Huntster (t @ c) 12:56, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:35, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:35, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:35, 17 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Stubbify and attempt expansion with renewed focus on concept, design, production, and critical response. --EEMIV (talk) 17:43, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Merge - Fails WP:NOT. May be worthwhile to summarize into the the Stargate mythos article. --M ASEM  (t) 18:02, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Wholly in-universe. Critical commentary from outside of the franchise itself is nonexistent. The argument that this needs split for length carries no water for precisely those reasons: there is not enough independently notable material on this subject (a fictional space ship's fictional facilities) to justify including enough detail on it to warrant a split. This belongs on a dedicated external wiki, which can go into as much detail on topics covered exclusively by primary and closely-affiliated sources as it sees fit. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:21, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Theo polisme  21:12, 19 December 2012 (UTC)




 * Weak keep - the whole thing is very in-universe and the sources seem (without being able to access them) to also be fairly Stargate-universe (no pun intended) focussed. But in-universe ≠ non-notable, in my opinion. I suppose I can see some value in having an article for a significant plot-line item from a notable television show, but there seems to be a lot of content in the article that's of no real encyclopaedic value. So while I see no particular reason to delete the article, I think there's a good argument for paring it back a little bit. For those above, Reading Stargate SG-1 (Beeler & Dickson) is available online. Pages 107-109 provide "historical" (in-plot) background for the ship, details of some of its features, technology, etc, and its placement in the general Stargate plot-line with regard to previous seasons and characters. I think the page-specific citation in the article might be an error, or perhaps just not the best one available in that book. It is obviously focussed on the Stargate "universe", but it provides coverage of the subject in that context. Approaching the Possible: The World of Stargate Sg-1 (Storm) is also available online, though the book is incorrectly cited in the article as works of Sg-1, not world. Anyway... Stalwart 111  02:09, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * This is not a policy based argument. There's simply no value in using secondary sources which regurgitate primary sources. Claritas § 08:00, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, it's not really an anything-based argument - just an opinion on what has been presented. My comments on the sources were more a response to concerns (above) that particular sources were not available online. People can make their own judgements about them but I think they are better than the usual primary-source-only citations for in-universe stuff. Stalwart 111  12:51, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Secondary sources per our definition at WP:NOR would provide the necessary commentary and critique to pull this article into an out-of-universe approach. (You may be confusing using third-party primary sources, like recaps, as replacements for the show itself, but that's not protecting it from notability). --M ASEM  (t) 03:52, 24 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep per above discussions of source, etc. If I can quibble with the OP, though, Atlantis may be a spaceship (really a starship) technically, but its in-university function is primarily that of a city and location of a defunct country/capital city, not that of a starship. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 02:12, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete as a lot of other editors have noted, we need to do more than just verify in-universe plot elements. See WP:NOT. We need something to WP:verify notability. There's nothing independent and reliable to really say whether this is notable. The quality AND quantity of coverage matters, and articles that are merely WP:SYNthesize together various descriptions gleaned from the story can't meet the WP:GNG or policy on what Wikipedia is WP:NOT. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:24, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Weak keep and add a link to the disambiguation list. There are other starship cities in science fiction Cities in Flight, about the Okie Cities, are some. Noting the number of uses of the word "Atlantis", however, I'd like to keep a redirect from Atlantis(Stargate) to Stargate just to prevent confusion even if the article is deleted.htom (talk) 01:31, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note A detailed book search here shows plenty of reliable secondary sources--once you filter out the Wikipedia mirrors, primary sources, and first-party sources, there are plenty of books like 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. These are only a selection of the books available, but it seems people simply don't trust me when I say that sources are available--these are the ones that come readily to preview, that aren't already represented in the article or available to me personally. Jclemens (talk) 03:02, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Did you actually look at the sources, as opposed to just a search? Of the 5 you list, the 2nd may be a possible source, but the book appears more focused on the STargate technology than the ship Atlantis (But that's as far as the google book preview allows). 1 is a companion guide, implying non-independence. 3 and 4 are discussions of the general Atlantis (the ancient lost city on Earth) myth, and while they mention the common name, is far from signification coverage. 5 seems to be a third-party recap/summary, ergo a primary source. --M ASEM  (t) 03:07, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep. "Companion" books are not under the editorial control of the showrunners, hence independent and non-primary--however, while each season has its own book, I simply listed one of the five.  A third party recap is, by definition, not a primary source.  The 3 and 4 references demonstrate that the "city of Atlantis" from Stargate Atlantis receives mention in works dedicated to "Atlantis" as a cultural phenomenon. And, as you point out... this is all limited to/by Google Books Preview. Jclemens (talk) 06:44, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I've seen several companion books that are issued by the showrunners - its impossible to tell from just the ref, but the blurb for that implies that it is more focused on characters as opposed to the mythos that the ship would be in.   Third-party recaps (if that is all they do) are primary sources because they do not impart any original analysis to make them secondary, and that source, as best as can be seen from GBPreview, is only that (if anything it may be a tertiary source, but even still, notability requires independent secondary sources). And just because a few sources spend a couple sentences to note that the ship is named after the Earth mythology is not "significant coverage". Remember, it's not just notability here, but also NOT#PLOT that is a concern, even though that latter is a content aspect; but so far the amount of non-plot content relative to the body of this article of in-universe coverage suggests that we're never going to be able to get the right balance without trimming the bulk of the existing article. --M ASEM  (t) 06:56, 27 December 2012 (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.