Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Big Bad (2nd nomination)


 * 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. -- Cirt (talk) 03:14, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Big Bad
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Article on what appears to be an almost solely fandom term, unreferenced and tagged to that effect for over three years. Previous deletion discussion's support for keep all called for sources to be added, well over three years later this does not appear to have been even attempted. All the "big bads" mentioned have their own articles (as to individual episodes), rendering the biographical details which make up almost the entire article completely redundant. U-Mos (talk) 22:22, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Undecided. This fandom term certainly seems as though it could be in common use, and in fact it's the most linked trope on TVTropes. But the phrase "big bad" is hard to Google due to its common use in other contexts, and this article is poorly sourced and gives little indication that the term is used beyond the Buffyverse. I could imagine this subject having a decent article on Wikipedia, but this isn't it, and I don't know how to find the sources to make this article into a decent article. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep/merge It is our policy that Wikipedia is not a dictionary. This means that the particular words of the title are unimportant; what we are concerned with is the topic.  The topic in this case is similar to that described in numerous other articles including archenemy, antagonist, boss (video gaming) and supervillain.  We should look to merge these together  per our editing policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:03, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * What content from this article do you think is worth keeping, exactly? Robofish (talk) 00:29, 27 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - non-notable fandom concept, with zero coverage in reliable sources. (No, TVTropes is not a reliable source.) I'm as much a fan of Buffy as the next nerd, but I agree with the nominator that this article is entirely redundant: the Buffynav template already links all the major villains, and this article is no more than a list of them plus a list of times the phrase 'big bad' has been used in other media. Robofish (talk) 00:28, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 16:19, 27 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. I was able to find (and add) references within a few minutes of noting this deletion nomination. A quick Google Scholar search pulls up about 300 scholarly articles discussing the subject. Although this article was unsourced for a long time, "unsourced" does not equate to "unsourceable". Some parts of this article should probably be trimmed, but it shouldn't be deleted. Firsfron of Ronchester  22:19, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Do those sources pass WP:RS? U-Mos (talk) 22:55, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Is that a rhetorical question? As a long-time editor, you must be aware that peer-reviewed papers are reliable publications. As cited in the article, "You Slay Me"!: Buffy as Jurisprude of Desire" was published in the Cardozo Law Review, Vol. 24(6), pp. 2421-2440, and that is a peer-reviewed publication. As I stated, many reliable sources exist for this term. I was thinking of adding this one to the article as well. Firsfron of Ronchester  23:43, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * No, not a rhetorical question, I just didn't have time to check them out in detail. I don't, however, think these sources allow the article to pass WP:NOTE. They seem to consist of passing mentions rather than in-depth analysis. These sources allow the term to be used with regard to the Buffy universe, but they don't warrant an article on the term. U-Mos (talk) 11:44, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, WP:NOTE does not require "in-depth analysis". It requires that "sources address the subject directly in detail" so that "no original research is needed to extract the content". I'm sure you are still short on time, which is why you're not clicking on any of the links I've been providing during this discussion (and why you didn't know from my link above that I had cited the Cardozo Law Review), but here is an example of the type of citations I'm talking about: from MacNeil (2002): MacNeil discusses characters Buffy and Spike's intimate relationship, citing season six episodes, then talks about the metamorphosis of the "big bad's" role in the series ("Now if this sort of metamorphosis can happen to the "Big Bad" himself"), and from Durand (2009), p 59: "While Buffy confronts various forms of evil during each episode, each season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer had its own "big bad" villain who dominates throughout the season. The power of the "big bad" always threatens to end the world, but Buffy ultimately overcomes him or her in the season finale." The Big Bad is also discussed on pages 13, 15, 45, 54, 161, 203, 205, and 208-209. These aren't passing mentions; they are the in-depth analysis that you (but not the general notability guideline) require. Firsfron of Ronchester  16:36, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'm not denying that there is some citable coverage. But I don't believe this topic is notable, or that there's anything useful to say about it, and even if there was it would need a complete rewrite which no one has been willing to do in three years. U-Mos (talk) 17:00, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Complete rewrite? Done. Well, I did leave in some stuff, but I trimmed the excessive details that tend to accumulate on every nearly Wikipedia article over time. I don't feel it was necessary to make so many random asides that have little or nothing to do with the subject of the article, and so I jettisoned large chunks of text discussing Clem, Tara, Anya, sibling retcons, alternate realities, deleted pictures, the high school principal, body-switching, Adam's real name, the Knights of Byzantium, Wolfram & Hart, etc. What's left is an on-topic discussion of the subject of the article (the big bads), with a much-reduced discussion of the plot directly involving the Big Bads. I've also reworded and made a lot of grammatical fixes, and included references and sourced commentary about the Big Bads from MacNeil (2003), Brannon (2007), Durand (2009), and Jagodzinski (2008). More references could certainly be added, but it's clear that reliable sources are out there. This is a good example of an article which has degraded through time though a massive amount of trivial additions. Here is the same article in 2007; although unsourced, it at least stayed on-topic. Although you are correct that no one added any references to this article during several years of what amounts to article abuse, that has changed, and although there may not have been very many good references when this article was tagged for clean-up, there are quite a few now, and many of them do indeed discuss the topic directly in detail. Firsfron of Ronchester  20:40, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:00, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Keep - Buffycruffty, but done tolerably well. Wikipedia is many things to many people — it's a serious encyclopedia on the one hand and a pop-culture compendium on the other. This falls solidly in the latter realm but, djknow what? That's fine with me. This is a pathetic KEEP argument, I know, but there is something to be said for enthusiasm and utility. Carrite (talk) 04:12, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. Would having Big Bad as a disambiguation page work better? It can be used to describe any of the antagonists listed by Colonel Warden above and may serve to help users find the term that most matches their search. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:05, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Referenced part of the Buffy series. Each season had a "big bad" which threatened the world and motivated the action. The term was used in the series and in writings about the series, thus providing secondary in addition to primary sources. Consider moving to an article title more closely related to the Buffy series. See, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . It is a notable concept in fiction, and a notable neologism. Edison (talk) 22:16, 1 May 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.