Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hodor


 * 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 List of A Song of Ice and Fire characters. This goes in line with the reasoning that, apart from one sentence at the end, the article is only a plot summary. For a stand-alone article, more is needed. Tone 10:41, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Hodor

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

I know Game of Thrones is all the rage nowadays, but what makes this minor character notable (WP:GNG, WP:NFICTION, etc.)? The real world analysis of this character is limited to the fact that the actor playing it has "developed 70 ways of saying his name". Which is amusing but really, this one sentence of analysis is hardly sufficient to warrant a stand alone article. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 14:16, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  14:16, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:15, 9 December 2019 (UTC)


 * REDIRECT: To List of A Song of Ice and Fire characters since the article isn't substantial enough. Kailash29792 (talk)  14:20, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge to List of A Song of Ice and Fire characters. PLOT-only articles do not make for a legitimate spinoff per WP:WAF. Either add real-world material to the article (best at its point of creation), or get rid of the stand-alone article. – sgeureka t•c 16:29, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Redirect to List of A Song of Ice and Fire characters. IMHO, standalone articles for fictional characters should be limited to major characters with a lot of out-of-universe coverage in reliable sources (consider Darth Vader as a good example). Articles about fictional characters that are primarily plot summaries belong on Wikia, not Wikipedia. 107.77.202.56 (talk) 17:03, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep I know that disruptive deletionism is all the rage but what makes this article justify yet another nomination when the topic so clearly passes WP:GNG. It takes all of 10 seconds to find a substantial source which is specifically about the topic – The Ethics of Hodor: Disability in Game of Thrones – and there seem to be plenty more which explore this aspect – Cripples, bastards and broken things: Disability in Game of Thrones; Fantastic Medievalistic Bodies:(Re) presenting Disability in Game of Thrones.  So, WP:BEFORE clearly has not been followed nor are our policies addressed: WP:ATD; WP:BITE; WP:NOTPAPER; WP:PRESERVE.  On a personal note, I was recently tempted to buy a door wedge labelled "Hodor" so next time, I'm definitely going for it.  And now let's leave you with an amusing parody of our bureaucratic discussions here: A Novel Approach.... Andrew🐉(talk) 17:08, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Would you mind explaining why you put the titles of the above-cited papers/chapters in italics? It looks very much like you either (a) did a Google Scholar search for "Hodor" "Game of Thrones" and copy-pasted the titles without confirming what type of sources they are (let alone reading them to determine whether they provide significant coverage) or (b) found the sources by whatever means and made the decision to bring them to this AFD and misrepresent them as book-length works discussing the character. "Cripples, bastards and broken things: Disability in Game of Thrones" for example is a very short article that name-drops Hodor all of two times, a fact not disclosed by you either deliberately or through careless failure to actually read the sources you cite in AFDs; "The Ethics of Hodor: Disability in Game of Thrones" similarly has its name cited in italics as though to imply it is a full-length scholarly book about the character, but it is a short interview that uses the name "Hodor" in its title as a segway to discuss disability in the show (and in fantasy fiction) in general (it also somewhat carelessly conflates book and show, but there's no reason to go into that). It does make the claim that in 2014 a "war" took place between medical bloggers regarding what kind of disability Hodor had, but the fact that some medical professionals with an online presence also watch and care about the show enough to blog about it really doesn't make this one fictional character worthy of an entry in our encyclopedia -- if it's the only piece of real-world information that can be said about him, then it merits a sentence or two in a list entry.
 * Additionally, WP:BITE is a complete non-sequitur (the present article's creator has been editing for three years and has made more than 32,000 edits) and citing WP:BEFORE as you do here is an off-topic personal attack against the nominator. I have had my own beef with Piotrus in the past, but in this case he would have been well within his rights (with both WP:ONUS -- a policy -- and WP:BRD -- a widely-observed practice with the effective power of a policy -- on his side) to simply redirect the page without discussion or any search for sources that might theoretically allow the building of an article; taking the page to AFD to get community input rather than acting unilaterally was a polite, cautious, and entirely appropriate move, and attempting to prevent editors from doing so and from engaging in good-faith, civil discussion is extremely disruptive to the project.
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 01:20, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The great thing about Hodor is that he doesn't make long speeches. Let's try to keep this brief.
 * The use of Google for AfD is not just accepted; it is recommended. Each AfD discussion has Google search links in its header and we are expected to use them, starting with the nominator per WP:BEFORE, "The minimum search expected is a normal Google search, a Google Books search, a Google News search, and a Google News archive search...".  It doesn't appear that the nominator has done this.
 * When I go back and make such a search again, the top of the list is The Ethics of Hodor. This appeared in The Atlantic, which is a respectable magazine.  The topic is clearly about the subject because his name appears in the title and his picture leads the article.  It reports a variety of facts about the character such as the name Wylis; the debate about whether his condition was aphasia or not; and more.  There's an extensive discussion about this with a professor of English – a respectable scholar.  So, it's abundantly clear that there are good, detailed sources about the character and so the subject is notable per WP:NEXIST.
 * WP:BITE may be an issue here. Note that the creator of the article hasn't edited since notice of the nomination was posted on their talk page.  Perhaps they are busy or perhaps they are shocked by the action?  And what about the readers?  This and many other similar pages get a substantial readership.  It's not a good idea to have such deletion notices underneath the appeals for funding which appear at this time.  WP:BITE says emphatically that "nothing scares potentially valuable contributors away faster than hostility. ... Even the most experienced editors may need a gentle reminder...".
 * In conclusion, the nomination has no merit, its claims are false, nobody is !voting delete and so we're in the speedy keep / snow zone. My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:10, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * So, you're just going to ignore the substance of what I said and attack a strawman? That's not helpful.
 * Again, please answer the question. You italicized the title of a magazine article (indeed you have now done it twice) in a manner that implied it was a book-length work with "Hodor" in the title.
 * If they are shocked by the action, then they really have no place editing a collaborative encyclopedia. They went out of their way to violate a standing consensus that Hodor and other minor ASOIAF characters do not get standalone articles, and now they are "shocked" that a community discussion is being held to address how to deal with their violation of prior consensus? Again, apologies to TOO if this is not the case and thoughts/actions that are not their own are being applied to them by Andrew Davidson. (BTW, that Atlantic interview's thesis, in case you haven't read it, could be summed up in a paragraph, if not a single sentence, in List of Game of Thrones characters, because it is not actually about Hodor but about how the show handles characters with disabilities and the way they interact with each other. Hodor's name appears 36 times on the page, but 10 of them are contained in a single short paragraph of 121 words. It also probably would have had significantly less relative emphasis on this minor character if it weren't for the fact that the character had been killed off five days earlier. If you or any other editor wants to create a Themes of Game of Thrones or Disability in Game of Thrones article using these sources, fire ahead, but hanging an article on a loosely-related topic on such sources is not a good idea.)
 * In conclusion, you appear to be uninterested in engaging in civil discussion or in actually answering the questions that are posed to you, so I would ask the closer to dismiss your strawman ad-hominem arguments for what they are.
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 01:15, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * "If my answers frighten you Vincent then you should cease asking scary questions". My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:44, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * So ... you're just trolling and unwilling to answer legitimate questions about your honestly bizarre strawman !vote that argues against page deletion that no one actually suggested? Good -- I hope the closer takes this into account and dismisses your !vote, and any of the other "keep" !votes that are based on your "GNG" and "sources" argument, accordingly. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 08:36, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
 * BTW, the trolling sarcasm in your opening sentence, which several users have called you out on the recent past, is very unhelpful. If you are not careful, you may wind up getting sanctioned for this clearly disruptive and inflammatory behaviour in the near future. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 08:36, 13 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep Major character from a major series ...for which references WP:NEXIST Lightburst (talk) 17:57, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Hodor &#8211; Hodor &thinsp;‐Hodor‐☖ 18:19, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Meh, I did find some articles on the character, but I don't feel like putting in a formal vote/!vote. &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 18:19, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep . Weak article, but, as above, this is a character who has received a fair amount of decent coverage. Josh Milburn (talk) 22:04, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Revising to neutral per Hijiri's comments. I'd be happy ignoring that local consensus if this was an article that did a good job of incorporating the various secondary sources identified in this AfD, but it isn't. Josh Milburn (talk) 12:10, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Redirect per WP:ALLPLOT. To give a little background, there is a longstanding implied consensus among ASOIAF editors that these minor characters (and even most major ones) should not have their own articles, and the status quo was disrupted in 2017 by the sockpuppeteer ; the issue was not resolved appropriately (AffeL was blocked around the time season 7 ended, and little was done to follow up on undoing his disruption), and so now the redirects should probably all be restored and new articles should require consensus to be created. I note that a number of the keep !voters insist that the topic is "notable" as it has been mentioned in sources (I'm not sure I would call it "coverage" per my response to Andrew above). Game of Thrones is a popular show -- that's to be expected of even characters about whom nothing encyclopedic can be written. If secondary sources can't be used to create a decent article that isn't ALLPLOT, those secondary sources don't provide the kind of in-depth coverage needed to meet GNG. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 23:47, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Redirect - Current shown sources seem like rather trivial pop-culture pieces. It seems like it'd be easy enough to summarize the entire character and any minor pop culture impact within a paragraph. TTN (talk) 01:01, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Redirect Per Hijiri and TTN. Notable enough to be mentioned in a list, but not with their own article.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 01:37, 10 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Redirect- I think Hijiri's arguments are sound. A list, rather than a smattering of stand-alone plot summary articles, is the way to go here. Reyk YO! 08:52, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Weak keep Generally I am not good enough to comment about fictional characters as I do not have technical sound knowledge about them. I do not have issues with the article but it seems to narrowly miss out on WP:GNG. Abishe (talk) 13:40, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * KEEP The sources found such as show the general notability guidelines have clearly been met.   D r e a m Focus  01:20, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Not bad, actually, but WP:INTERVIEW is worth keeping in mind. Can you find the medical papers that are mentioned? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:42, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Piotrus would be familiar with the sources already if he had searched for them, per WP:BEFORE and WP:NEXIST. Here's some examples of coverage of this aspect:
 * National Aphasia Association
 * Mother Jones
 * The Independent
 * New York
 * The Science of Game of Thrones
 * Esquire
 * NetDoctor
 * Andrew🐉(talk) 16:44, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Andrew, this is now the third time that I've had to tell you that BEFORE doesn't apply here because Piotrus would have been well within his rights to redirect pending consensus to create an article, but choose to take it here for community discussion first. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 01:16, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The nomination proposes that we delete the article and doesn't say anything about redirection. WP:BEFORE states "Prior to nominating article(s) for deletion, please be sure to:..."  It then lists many actions but they don't seem to have been done.  And because Twinkle is used to crank out numerous nominations, the process is being flooded.  And deletion can certainly be the result as we see many other pages being deleted right now despite our clear policies of WP:ATD and WP:PRESERVE.  It's sad and silly to replace well-read pages like the one in question with pages like this discussion which will just stand as a monument to Wikipedia's waste of everyone's time.  Game of Thrones frustrated and angered millions of people by leading them on and then cutting them off abruptly.  WP:BEFORE is full of sensible advice to limit the damage this can do.  If it is flouted then we all suffer. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:45, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * You were in the very small minority of editors in this discussion who thought AFD was not for redirects. There was clear consensus that you are wrong on this point. Because you were unable to change the policy to reflect your personal opinion, you are now trying to force that opinion on individual AFDs, but it isn't going to work. The existence of dozens of possible redirect targets means it goes without saying that the nominator doesn't think the page needs to be deleted with no redirect left in its place; he would be effectively arguing for both and the Hodor paragraph of  to be removed, so the fact that he didn't explicitly say "this nomination is intended to discuss redirecting the page, not deleting it" needs to be weighed against the fact that he also didn't say anything about removing the discussion of Hodor from those two lists, something you clearly didn't do. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 10:11, 12 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Obvious keep as published encyclopedias cover the characters in this notable franchise. --199.123.13.2 (talk) 22:16, 11 December 2019 (UTC) blocked sock
 * That source is "published" by a print-on-demand service apparently not dissimilar to Lulu. What's more, 150 pages is pretty damn short for a "published encyclopedia" -- would it be safe to assume its article on Hodor is less than a page long and includes no real-world, non-plot information whatsoever? Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 01:16, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fantasy-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 15:31, 13 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep. Significant and iconic character in one of the most successful TV series ever made and the source of one of its most notable quotes. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:41, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Redirect to List of A Song of Ice and Fire characters. Hijiri88's rationale is sound.  Onel 5969  TT me 00:55, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep' I agree with the keep votes above that the character ultimate meets WP:N and WP:GNG, so shouldn't be deleted even if the article itself could use some work as it stands right now. There is no deadline for such improvements. — Hunter</b> <b style="color:#595454">Kahn</b> 03:26, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * See my response to you here. The same basic points apply. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 09:10, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Sure, here are a couple examples of notable sources that discuss the character outside the context of plot summary:, , , , , , , , , . Again, this is not based on an in-depth search, but rather is a sample from a cursory search through Google News; there are other sources out there and a deeper search would turn up much more. (The other points I make at the other AFD you link to apply here as well.) — <b style="color:#C0C0C0">Hunter</b> <b style="color:#595454">Kahn</b> 15:23, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Given the amount of garbage you forced me to wade through here, I see no reason why I should waste time going through all those links you just dropped. I find it unlikely you actually read all those sources and assessed their value for making the character (not the actor or this or that episode he appeared in) notable. I will just say that you seem to be awfully reliant on the websites of various British daily tabloids of dubious reliability. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 01:32, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I would respectfully suggest you read WP:CIVIL and attempt to take a more civil tone in your remarks in future discussions. — <b style="color:#C0C0C0">Hunter</b> <b style="color:#595454">Kahn</b> 03:48, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Same to you. It is entirely uncivil to link-bomb an AFD with a bunch of GoogleNews hits that mention this article's title in their titles, without actually reading them, and insist that anyone who disagree with you waste the time that you weren't willing to put in and actually go through and read each one. You wasted a half-hour of my life on the Ygritte AFD, and now you are insisting that it is "uncivil" for me to tell you I don't appreciate your trying to do the same thing to me here?
 * Also, it seems pretty weird that you would bring up WP:CIVIL when you have an unstricken personal attack against me at that other AFD.
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 05:17, 17 December 2019 (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.