Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Animal Farm characters


 * 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   speedy delete (G5), article created by a sock puppet of a banned user in violation of ban. I will also note that all of the related AFD on the individual characters have been closed as speedy keep. –MuZemike 14:25, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

List of Animal Farm characters

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

This article is a cut and paste copy of the various individual articles already in existence about Animal Farm characters. The main article already has a brief synopsis of each character with a link to an article with an expanded description, which this new article has cut and copied all into one place. Not sure how this doesn't run afoul of WP:CSD, but the reviewing admin said A10 doesn't apply, so we'll try this avenue. WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 11:03, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete Redirect per the info provided below by nominator. No need for a list -- the main article already has one. And this is a word-for-word duplication of other articles-- a classic CSD A10.  Jimmy Pitt   talk  14:32, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment I should point out that on 30 July 2010, a similar article was redirected to the Animal Farm article. I would recommend the same outcome here.  WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 14:55, 15 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete Redundant content fork created as a copyright violation of existing articles. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:52, 16 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment - There are a a crapload of individual character pages up for deletion above. I'm okay with deleting those if this is kept; or with keeping those if this is deleted. This is an extremely major allegorical book and some sort of provision for expanded character coverage is fully appropriate. Carrite (talk) 02:58, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment nominated all of the individual articles after creating this list and finding that the list was nominated.  I believe the individual articels, which existed before Anonymax unilaterally decided to merge them all into a single article, should be kept to preserve their edit histories.  Since the main article contains links to the individual articles, all of the information is easily findable by interested readers.  WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 13:07, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep and adjust the content with the "main" transclusion and Keep the individual articles too. We need lists and we need articles. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 08:24, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per this statement and as article creator. Anonymax (talk) 15:47, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete Redundant content fork and copyvio. Anonymax should be cautioned against doing something like this again. --Divebomb (talk) 19:26, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:29, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:29, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * We need a unified discussion
 * If the individual articles are to be merged properly into a "list of characters" article like this, preserving contribution history, I have no problem with that.
 * If the individual articles are going to be kept as individual articles, I have no problem with that.
 * I object to either both the list and the individual articles being kept, or to both being deleted. Jclemens (talk) 20:10, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - Those claiming there is a copyright violation going on may want to reread our GFDL and CC-BY-SA licenses. If the list is reusing the same text from the individual articles, and starting from the presumption that those articles are not copyvios of outside text themselves, then per our license, we allow for free reused.  The issue of having the same clumps of text in two different articles is more an issue on content forking (not necessarily bad), but definitely not a copyright violation. --M ASEM  (t) 20:13, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment The CC-BY-SA license requires attribution, which means that the users who contributed to the original article shouldn't just disappear when the article is moved to a new location. This is the main reason that the whole page move function was introduced in the first place, so that the edit history of an article doesn't disappear.  What Anonymax has done in creating this list using the text of existing articles is to essentially put his own name as the sole editor of all that text, thus losing the attribution history of all the other contributors.  WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 11:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That's understood, and while normally one does history merges, for cases like this there's other ways for more complex cases: I've seen people drop templates on the talk page to indicate that contributions up to diff X on the borrowed article were used in the present article. Attribution is needed, but it's still a far cry from what the term "copyvio" on WP implies -- eg it is readily fixed. --M ASEM (t) 14:26, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The relevant guideline is WP:Copying within Wikipedia. The unattributed article is a violation of WP:Copyrights, but it can be fixed by any editor (although few are experienced). I will do the needful if the page history is not deleted. Flatscan (talk) 04:02, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Wont the copyright have already expired. This assumes the book was initially published in the UK.  Stupidstudent (talk) 11:02, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The copyright issue isn't with the original book, it is with the text that has been created here at Wikipedia itself. WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 12:10, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The point I'm trying to make is that "copyright violation" on WP generally means external text being used in an unattributed manner within WP, and that is potentially harmful (legally) to the work, and thus is done with hasty admin action (WP:CCI); here, interproject use of unattributed WP text on another WP article is a copyright license problem (Attribution is required) but it is not the same level of urgency or attention that "copyright violation" would require. --M ASEM (t) 15:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete and redirect per nominator. Way too redundant, Sadads (talk) 22:58, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Seems like almost every show on TV has a similar list. Why not one of the most significant books writen.  Are we really saying pop culture is more inportant to an encyclopedia than significant works of literature like this? Stupidstudent (talk) 03:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Yes, many shows and books have a list of characters. That would be completely appropriate if
 * there weren't already individual articles on each of the main characters; and
 * the entire text of the current list under discussion was lifted verbatim from those existing articles.
 * However, those points being true, the list should be deleted. WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 12:10, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Restore previous state by deleting this list article and keeping the individual articles, without prejudice to creating a list article if there is consensus to do so. Flatscan (talk) 04:02, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't object to using this venue (AfD) to discuss merging, but this discussion has been somewhat confused by the attribution issues. Resetting will undo those problems. Flatscan (talk) 04:18, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm going to provide a counter argument here that cannot be one resolved by the closing admin, but realistically: Keep this list but redirect all individual characters to this list article (with proper CC attribution, natch). Spot checking the characters, none of them meet the notabiliy guidelines - technically they should be deleted, not this list article. The work is significant enough that a discussion of the characters (including brief descriptions of each) as a whole makes sense.  Thus, iterating the characters in this list makes the most sense.  However, again, that's not an action that remedied by the closing admin, but I put forward as a reasonable suggestion that others may want to comment on and then can be done after the closure of this AFD. --M ASEM  (t) 05:48, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The characters are certainly notable. They all appear in the Cyclopedia of Literary Characters, for example.  If they were not notable then they should be deleted rather than collected into a list because that would do nothing to improve their notability.  Colonel Warden (talk) 07:39, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Not true. "Lists of characters of X" where X is a notable work are generally acceptable when the characters individually are not notable. (This was recently reviewed in an RFC about lists and notability). But I would argue more that because of the impact of this book ,the characters, at least collectively, can be given more analysis and review.  The book link above doesn't show me enough to tell to what degree (primary or secondary) that the work goes into each character, but what I can see by Google's peak tool suggests its just reiterating plot elements - and thus primary, and thus not evidence of individual character notability.  --M ASEM  (t) 14:31, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It is not primary as the original text is obviously the primary source. It is a summary encyclopaedic treatment of these characters and therefore perfectly demonstrates the suitability of the material for our purposes.  Colonel Warden (talk) 15:36, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, then it's tertiary, as best as I can tell, if it is simply summarizing the characters. That's still not enough for notability of the individual ones. --M ASEM (t) 22:20, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment What Masem seems to be missing is that the "Cyclopedia" is not the source for the information in the character books. The cited source is the book Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens.  Not having seen the book, I don't know what the depth of coverage is, but this argument about the Cyclopedia of Literary Characters is quite off the point, as it is not the cited source.  WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 11:09, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The argument I'm making for the collapsing to the list is based on the present state of the characters - all which flatly summarize the character's role in the work, save for the one reference drop to "Why Orwell Matters" for one statement on one character. WP has determined that if a character is to have an individual article, it should be able the creation of that character and reception of that character, with only a small part of the article dedicated to the actual plot aspects (see WP:WAF and WP:NOT) - eg, notability through multiple secondary, evaluative coverage of the characters and not just being relisted elsewhere.  None of the articles, again save for one line of one character, goes beyond the plot. Of course, given the significant of Animal Farm, I'm sure there's got to be more out there, but as I am looking at the state of the articles right now, the best course to retain as much information is merging (and trimming! you don't need to reiterate the plot over and over for each character!) the characters to a single list article.  It is quite possible that there is enough info out there from literary analysis sources that each character could have on its own article, but no one has really shown that yet; merging w/ redirects to this list would still allow someone later to come along and rebuild off the old articles should they be able to expand it. --M ASEM  (t) 12:20, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete and redirect - copyright problems and redundant to main article. Hekerui (talk) 10:49, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Since the article's creator has now been blocked as a sock of, I'd say the article is a candidate for speedy deletion under WP:CSD (creation by banned user).  WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 12:48, 20 October 2010 (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.