Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Electromagnetic pulse in popular culture


 * 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 delete. And the opinion to Delete was unanimous. Liz Read! Talk! 04:17, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Electromagnetic pulse in popular culture

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Yeah, this exists. And fails WP:GNG, WP:OR, WP:IPC and WP:NLIST. Most prose content is unreferenced and likely original research, and then we have the usual list of works that mention EMP. Or, lightning, because this is what the lead opens with... Anyway, looking at the history (first version, tagged shortly with notability) it is clear this was an ORish essay that over time started accumulated WP:TRIVIA-style list. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:50, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Science fiction and fantasy, Popular culture,  and Lists. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  04:50, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment See also Articles for deletion/Electromagnetic pulse in fiction, from 2007. Electromagnetic pulse in popular culture was created in 2010, and who created it said on the talk page I created this article because of a clear, important and longstanding need for such an article. The main benefit of this article will be to keep fictional references to electromagnetic pulse from getting in to the main scientific article on Electromagnetic pulse. There needs to be a clear separation between the scientific and technical aspects of electromagnetic pulse and the very large amounts of fictional and popular culture references to electromagnetic pulse. The separation of the real and fictional aspects of this important phenomenon has been very difficult in Wikipedia in recent times. TompaDompa (talk) 05:13, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Merge what content is salvageable into Electromagnetic pulse. There's virtually nothing to this article aside from a list which would fail WP:NLIST, but the popular culture section in the EMP article could do with expanding and there's some content from this page that could be added there. OliveYouBean (talk) 07:08, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * @OliveYouBean I don't think anything is salvagabeable - there are refs, but effectively primary, with OR due to conclusion drawns. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 14:17, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  14:17, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Do not merge. I'm not really bothered whether or not this continues to exist, but I agree with Piotrus that this is an unencyclopaedic crufty list. It does not belong in the Electromagnetic pulse article.  The usual reason for creating these popular culture pages is to get the crufty list out of the main article.  I'm not sure of the exact history of this article (too many name changes and merges) but a list was removed in this edit.  I don't think AFD has the ability to override editorial content decisions by insisting on merging back in.  While lists like this don't really belong, deleting them generally doesn't work because they are quickly recreated piecemeal.  Hence the compromise of cutting them out in to a standalone page.   The first ref in the Electromagnetic pulse section discusses common misconceptions and errors about EMP.  While it refers to scenes in numerous films and books, it manages to do so without actually naming any of them.  That is a proper encyclopaedic discussion.  If you think the section needs expanding, then expand it from that source. SpinningSpark 18:16, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Note the hidden comment in that section Please do not post specific media examples here. Save these for the main article on *Electromagnetic pulse in fiction and popular culture*, as linked to above. If you add them here they will be deleted. SpinningSpark 19:02, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete - Nothing but a list of trivial "this was in this thing!" examples. The actual reliable sources that are being used as citations in the opening paragraph appear to be about the actual scientific concept of EMPs, not about its depiction in popular culture. I concur with the nominator that there really is no content that is salvageable, thus nothing that would be appropriate to merge to the main article on EMPs. I have no issues with expanding the current "In Popular Culture" section of that article with properly sourced prose text, but it should not just be a list of examples, which is all this list is comprised of. Rorshacma (talk) 18:28, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete agree, we don't need a list of x thing in yz media, if you don't have much scholarly discussion around it. Nothing for GNG here. Oaktree b (talk) 00:31, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Do not merge. Note that merging would affect two articles, Electromagnetic pulse and Nuclear electromagnetic pulse.  This issue was a major concern prior to 2010, and was resolved by the creation of the article in question in 2010.   I don't really care whether the article under discussion is deleted or not, as long as fiction and pseudoscience can be kept completely out of serious articles on science and technology (without greatly increasing the workload on those of us who are maintaining the articles on science and technology). X5dna (talk) 02:32, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment. I wasn't very clear on this in the above statement, but the reason for the creation of the original Electromagnetic pulse in fiction and popular culture article in 2010 was to un-merge the fiction about Electromagnetic pulse from the scientific articles about the subject. The original Wikipedia (scientific) article on EMP was further split in 2013 into separate articles on Electromagnetic pulse (in general) and Nuclear electromagnetic pulse (which is a specific and unusual type of EMP).  After the all the work done since 2010, merging the fiction back into these non-fiction articles is difficult to even imagine. X5dna (talk) 07:40, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete This fails WP:GNG, WP:OR, and WP:NLIST. This unsourced list of examples doesn't belong anywhere on Wikipedia, let alone as an article of its own. Jontesta (talk) 05:18, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per GNG and NLIST, but not OR. Who in the real world goes around listing fictional EM pulses? Clarityfiend (talk) 05:31, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
 * @Clarityfiend Apparently, Wikipedians do :) Assuming we are part of a real world... <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 13:56, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Well Good Reads thinks there is mileage in it. And Ryan Law has a list on his website. <b style="background:#FAFAD2;color:#C08000">Spinning</b><b style="color:#4840A0">Spark</b> 15:09, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Ryan Law is a "content marketer" who likes to make lists like this, and Goodreads isn't much better. Clarityfiend (talk) 14:54, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I wasn't putting those forward as GNG sources, just answering your question! <b style="background:#FAFAD2;color:#C08000">Spinning</b><b style="color:#4840A0">Spark</b> 19:10, 2 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete I'll say the same thing I said at WP:Articles for deletion/Tonfa in popular culture: Listing every time X appears in fiction (or popular culture, or whatever) is what TV Tropes does, but Wikipedia is WP:NOTTVTROPES. The essay WP:CARGO has it right—fiction is not fact and collecting raw data does not produce analysis. That same essay makes another point which is relevant here: Moving bad content into a separate standalone article does not get rid of the bad content; wanting to keep the main article "clean" is not a valid reason for having an article like this one. If editors add examples to the main Electromagnetic pulse/Nuclear electromagnetic pulse article based on primary sources (or more likely no sources whatsoever), the proper course of action is to remove those examples per MOS:POPCULT.I would have no objection to recreating this as a proper, encyclopaedic prose article about the topic—as was done for WP:Articles for deletion/Far future in fiction—in the event that sources that would allow us to do that while abiding by MOS:POPCULT emerge. None of the current content would be of any use for that, however, so there's no point in retaining this version. TompaDompa (talk) 15:57, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete with no merge. This would be a fascinating entry if it was actually an encyclopedic and REFERENCED discussion, but this is not that. Joyous! | Talk 18:05, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:TNT. While it is a potentially doable concept for an article, in its current form it needs to be totally rewritten. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 18:11, 29 November 2022 (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.