Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frontier (subgenre)


 * 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. Whether or not it becomes a redirect or not is another matter, but as it sits, the overall consensus is that it is closer to WP:NEO than genre. Dennis - 2&cent; 21:24, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Frontier (subgenre)

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WP:MADEUP: this is a neologism supported by an old page on an obscure website and a link to a syllabus for a high-school class on "The Frontier as a Theme in Science Fiction". The other "sources" are just links to Google Books searches that find the word "frontier" in books about SF. Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  03:19, 16 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Not really, they do indeed mention the frontier theme in sci-fi and sci-fi factor explains it's a theme that discusses space exploration and in case anybody hasn't noticed, we have no subgenre that covers that. People falsely claim space opera covers that, but it doesn't. Space opera is about battles and conflicts set in space and other planets. Oppose delete.--Taeyebaar (talk) 05:21, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
 * reply - neither themes, motifs nor memes constitute subgenres. There are no SF conventions dedicated to "Frontier SF", no publishers publishing "frontier SF", no critics doing "A Survey of Frontier SF after World War II". You've got a terminological misunderstanding going on here. -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  17:55, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete - it's true that some people have discussed frontier-related concepts in the context of science fiction but these sources aren't strong enough (in my view) to substantiate the claim that "Frontier" exists as a defined and notable sub-genre of science fiction generally. That doesn't mean that some games, films and books haven't touched on such concepts as other games, films and books have done in other genres. There is, for example, a strong "frontier" theme to many post-apocalyptic works in a "re-exploration" context. But drawing these disparate parts and examples together under an otherwise unrecognised umbrella term is synthesis. That we can conduct our own original research and find "examples" is not a sufficiently strong case for keeping this. The fact that experts haven't yet identified a term to "fill the gap" doesn't mean we should.  St ★ lwart 1 1 1 09:26, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete. The problem here is that while I can find things that focus on the theme of the frontier in science-fiction, I don't see where it's really turned into a fully developed subgenre per se. In other words, it's used as a descriptive term but isn't really used to refer to a subgenre specifically and at most, this is a neologism. A theme is not necessarily a subgenre. The two terms can be very, very close in how they're used but strictly speaking a theme is more of a general concept whereas a subgenre would be a set concept that something would have (ie, "coming of age", "slice of life"). Basically, the difficulty here lies in showing that this is clearly defined enough to be easily labeled a subgenre. It's an insanely hard thing to do, especially with very broad concepts that someone could argue is a mainstay of the basic science fiction genre as a whole. What we're dealing with here is that we have to not only show that "frontier" is a legitimate subgenre of science-fiction but to also show that the term is frequently used enough to where it'd merit an article separate from the main science fiction pages. I'd like to hold up new-adult fiction as an example of how insanely hard it is to get a term popularized enough to where it'd gain notice enough to warrant its own entry. This genre of fiction has been around for years, yet only recently has it gained enough coverage to merit an article... and even then that article's notability was challenged. I'm looking for sources on this, but I'm not coming up with all that much as far as coverage goes. What we need here is a lot of coverage that specifically refers to frontier as a subgenre. The problem here is that a lot of this could be considered original research since Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction does not actually mention frontier as a subgenre- meaning that this is a connection that User:Taeyebaar came up with on his own. Now don't get me wrong- I think that as a subgenre this makes sense and I can see where you're coming from with this. It's just that right now all we have are ultimately a few texts that focus on "frontier as theme" and your personal attestation that it's a separate, recognized subgenre. That's pretty much the catch of all of this: I don't see where the term is frequently used enough to where it's a recognized subgenre of science fiction and per your own words, it seems like many consider it to be part of space opera. Wikipedia is not the place to popularize a term or to correct things that you personally feel are incorrectly categorized. Again, I do understand what you're trying to do here but this just isn't the right place for this, not when we can't find the research to back up your claims that this is an existing subgenre. I can't even see where publishers are using this term, and that's fairly telling because publishers love to subcategorize things because it means that they can advertise things in a new, more exciting way. (Publishers were the main driving force behind new adult fiction, which was part of the reason the article came up for scrutiny.) Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   10:14, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I can see where it's slowly getting there, but it's just not there yet. At best this is just WP:TOOSOON and at worst this is something that will remain forever unverifiable because the subgenre could be considered far too wide of a concept to neatly fit into the idea of a subgenre. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:05, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Merge. As soon as I read this page I thought it read like a theme that fitted within the Space opera sub-genre of science fiction.  A check of that page shows the Frontier page listed as a "See also" link.  So rather than lose the work that has been done here (admittedly there's not a lot) I suggest it gets copied into the higher level Space opera page and edited appropriately there. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 21:15, 16 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Reply to above - No it's not space opera. I already discussed it. Space opera is about conflict-type adventure totally different from Frontier. If it constitutes wp:toosoon, then I suggest we save it until future time when it is notable. Also Star Trek is NOT Space opera.--Taeyebaar (talk) 22:01, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Arguably, nor is Stargate SG1 and its ilk. But you're missing the point. Things need to be notable (which means having received significant coverage in reliable sources) before we create articles. We don't keep/save things and hope they become notable because WP is not a publisher of original thought. You can't simply invent something because you see a gap and then synthesise and article based on passing mentions and personal interpretations.  St ★ lwart 1 1 1 23:06, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I quote from the Frontiers page "Another common depiction in Frontier is contact between humans (or whichever species is shown traveling) and another species that live in the uncharted region of space. Mutual co-operation or conflict between the two civilizations is also a common occurrence." And the note from Taeyebaar says: "Space opera is about battles and conflicts set in space and other planets." I see some strong similarities between these two. If this page isn't merged with Space Opera I would expect it will be deleted as I don't see "Frontier" sf being a specific and distinct sub-genre. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 00:14, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Conflict does occur, but not necessarily. Space opera is more about epic battles, whereas Frontier occasionally as it.--Taeyebaar (talk) 01:33, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Merging on the basis of personal interpretation isn't much better than creating an article on that basis in the first place. They are clearly distinct concepts, it's just that one is notable and the other isn't (yet).  St ★ lwart 1 1 1 00:42, 17 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete This supposed sub-genre doesn't appear to be covered by reliable secondary sources. Nwlaw63 (talk) 01:03, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep Page could use some improvement and expansion. What's more is I keep getting messages that it's been linked on many pages. Anyways i never came up with the name. It said on those websites. I was looking for the subgenre that describes space exploration and I found this to be the one. Otherwise we can also re-title it.--Taeyebaar (talk) 01:33, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * @Perry Middlemiss, whoever called stargate space opera ??? :-\ Taeyebaar (talk) 01:35, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The Stargate suggestion was mine; I was suggesting that other media logically fits into the theme described. But that doesn't make that theme a notable sub-genre. I don't think there is an accurate sub-genre to describe what we're talking about. But that doesn't mean we should invent one or synthesise one.  St ★ lwart 1 1 1 03:08, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I only put in the word as the sources described. That's it--Taeyebaar (talk) 05:06, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I think the bulk of the arguments here would be nullified if you could include the sources you refer to in that statement, on the page as citations. I've just checked the online edition of "SF Encyclopedia" and while the term "frontier" does turn up a number of times, the search hits only lead to book titles, game titles and tv shows.  The closest I could find was under the subject header "Scientific Romance" as follows: "Brian M Stableford later revived [Scientific Romance as a term] in order to facilitate the comparison and contrast of the distinct UK and US traditions of speculative fiction; his study of the UK genre's separate evolution before the triumph of genre sf is Scientific Romance in Britain 1890-1950 (1985). In that book, and in entries throughout this encyclopedia (see in particular Evolution, Religion), the term can be seen as tending to describe works characterized by long evolutionary perspectives; by a focus on long vistas brooded upon by meditative protagonists (> New Zealander; Ruins and Futurity); by an absence of much sense of the frontier and a scarcity of the kind of Pulp-magazine-derived Hero who is designed to penetrate any frontier available; and in general by a tone moderately less hopeful about the future than that typical of genre sf until recent decades (> Optimism and Pessimism). - See more at: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/scientific_romance#sthash.sdChxy3H.dpuf".  Maybe the information on the Frontier page better fits under Planetary romance.


 * I suspect the number of page links is due to the fact that the term "Frontier" as been added as a subgenre on the Science Fiction template. Every page that accesses that template will link back to the Frontiers page. So the page link number will be quite high. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 05:24, 20 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Space Western, which is what I think the article is supposed to be about. I somewhat recently rewrote that page, and frontier settings do come up in the sources for that notable genre. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:19, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy with that so long as "Frontier" becomes a sub-heading on the "Space Western" page. If "Frontier SF" becomes a recognizable independent genre at any time in the future then the original page can be re-instated. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 21:05, 21 October 2014 (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.