Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Earthling


 * 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 redirect to Earth in science fiction. This is clearly a messy topic, but there's consensus that 1) This article isn't worth preserving as is, though the history is worth keeping; and 2) Earthling (disambiguation) should be moved to this title, and this moved to Earthling (science fiction). Vanamonde (Talk) 08:05, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Earthling

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Having recently expanded Earth in science fiction (hopefully a GA in the near future), I stumbled upon this. I am afraid the concept of Earthlings is not notable, as a stand-alone - and for what little it is, I already included the properly referenced discussion of this in the 'Earth in sf' article. Additionally, there is next to nothing to merge - the content here is either unreferenced, or referenced to primary sources. Also, there are dubious claims - for example the term 'Gaians' is in the lead, but it is not mentioned at all in the literature I reviewed (and even plain old google search doesn't help much, plus our disambig on Gaian doesn't even point back here). The lit review/BEFORE I did already accounted for "Earthlings, Earthers, Earthborn, Earthfolk, Earthians, Earthies, Earthmen (and Earthwomen), Earthsiders, Solarians, Tellurians, or Terrans", all of which are mentioned in the new big article (a few may still need redirects...). On a side note, there is totally no good reason to argue that 'Earthlings' is a more popular term than Terrans or Earthmen or such (the naming is subjective and reinforces OR in this tiny essay-ish article). As such, since I don't think there is anything to merge, I propose that this is just redirected to Earth in science fiction (no objection to WP:SOFTDELETE, no need for erasure of history). Ping User:Daranios and User:TompaDompa who were involved in some related discussions about 'Earth in sf' and who probably did their own BEFORE on related aspects already. PS. Interested readers may also want to comment on Talk:Venus_in_fiction, a relevant proposal from last year that went unnoticed till now. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 06:43, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  06:43, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  06:43, 4 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Redirect Mixture of WP:DICDEF and WP:OR. -LaundryPizza03 ( d c¯ ) 06:56, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. -LaundryPizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d  c¯ ) 06:57, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. -<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d  c¯ ) 06:59, 4 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure that "Earthling" is more frequent than other forms in science fiction stories, but it's the best-known term in general pop culture (outside science fiction fandom). Cartoons of little green men in flying saucers saying "foolish earthlings" have been pretty well known for decades, at least in the United States (now often associated with Kang and Kodos from the Simpsons, I guess, but probably predating them...) AnonMoos (talk) 07:00, 4 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment: For the record Gaian does point back here through the redirect at Gaian (demonym). —¿philoserf? (talk) 14:23, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Redirect, I guess. I find this a tough one. A search leads to a lot of instances where the term is used, but I did not see much really about it. If someone were to find more to contribute to a proper article, I'd be happy to hear about it. Otherwise I guess this mostly belongs to the Wiktionary article. I do however find it quite important that there are uses in two, well actually three, quite different contexts: one the sci-fi context as in "An inhabitant of Earth, as opposed to one of another planet"; then the older usage, especially in the Christian and Jewish tradition "An inhabitant of Earth, as opposed to one of heaven"; and then I've seen modern usage emphasizing it encompasses ALL beings from Earth with no distinction between human and animal. To allow for these distinct usages, my idea would be to rename this into Earthling (science fiction) and then redirect it to Earth in science fiction, thereby preserving the history for possible future use (in case new sources are found) and having the right articles point to Earth in science fiction. And as a following step rename Earthling (disambiguation) to Earthling. Daranios (talk) 19:52, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I support the idea of proposed moves/renames/redirects. <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:28, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete and move disambiguation page there This seems like a pure WP:DICDEF/WP:OR. Not opposed to redirection as well, but it doesn't seem to need it.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 03:06, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * @Zxcvbnm The term 'Earthling' is mentioned in Earth in science fiction so I'd think it is a logical redirect; plus it is also plausibly searchable. <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 09:24, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Earth in science fiction. Some of its content could be selectively merged and repurposed to discuss the role of humanity from a sci fi perspective. Haleth (talk) 14:30, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * @Haleth Humanity in science fiction should be a notable topic, I concur. Whether it is, it depends on existence of sources. I'll add this one to my to do list :) <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 01:46, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
 * "Humanity" has an entry in the The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, at least. TompaDompa (talk) 05:14, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
 * @TompaDompa Nice find, but I can't access that page. I checked the other reference works (for "human/ity") and found nothing there. If you feel like it, maybe something from Greenwood could be added to the "Earth in..." article, or maybe start a 'in popular culture/in fiction' section under Human ("humanity" is a disambig)? <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 06:45, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That's weird, I'm able to access it just fine. We're getting increasingly off topic, but suffice it to say that there isn't really anything there that would be a good fit for Earth in science fiction, and I stand by my previous statements (e.g. ) about "in popular culture"/"in fiction" sections being a bad idea in general. TompaDompa (talk) 18:02, 8 September 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.