Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Starfleet ship classes


 * 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 keep -- Y not? 05:31, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

List of Starfleet ship classes

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Minor elements of minor fiction should not have encyclopedia articles. This is a sterile topic incapable of being properly researched because the Trek writers will make up "facts" as they go along. This list is similar to another list of imaginary space ships and has not been merged although nominated for merge months ago. Star Trek fans have their own fora and need not take up an excess amount of space in the encyclopedia. You can't search for "sensor" in the Wikipedia without hitting many articles for "Star Trek", which obscures the real-world utility of the encyclopedia. How much fancruft is enough? Wtshymanski (talk) 21:58, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've just re-read Notability (fiction) which I think applies.--Wtshymanski (talk) 22:15, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I really think in the spirit of Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2/Proposed decision this should be closed early. As for the space argument that is never an issue and the deletion of the page will not save us any space. -- Cat chi? 23:27, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep Star Trek is obviously not minor fiction. The nomination just seems to be a rambling reiteration of WP:IDONTLIKEIT.  It almost makes a valid point about sensors but this article isn't actually about sensors - minor, fictional or otherwise. Colonel Warden (talk) 02:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep This is, appropriately, a list of the less important ships in the fiction. Articles on them would be totally out of place & I would have said to merge them. This is the right way to do it. Possibly should be written in a more tabular fashion, not a prose.-- might be clearer. I'm not sure such article are justified for every SF series, but for this one, yes. We shown cover the most notable series in more detail than the barely notable ones. its the extensive articles on details from almost unknown series that need to be removed, not the concise ones on the most notable. DGG (talk) 02:31, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with your point about turning the article into a table. Editors seem far too obsessed with making lists which are bad style and discourage coverage of items which are sui generis.  The article, in fact, contains good material which is not list-like such as the section on registration numbers.  I think the article would be better titled "Starfleet ship classes in Star Trek" to discourage it becoming a pure list.  Colonel Warden (talk) 08:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Very weak keep Given notability, I give some credence to DGG above. Only just over the line, though, an 'err on the side of'. Achromatic (talk) 05:21, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment — Shouldn't this be broken-out into individual articles for every fictional starship class and every individual (albeit fictional) ship of each of those ship classes? If the writers of this fiction went to the effort of dashing-off a gratuitous line of dialogue about some particular ship of whatever class, why shouldn't wikipedia have a detailed article on it? --Jack Merridew 10:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh heavens - No(at least not here). This is not the Trekiepedia. It's a total waste of human lifespan to spend time documenting imaginary spaceships that were dreamed up by some scriptwriter who needed a throwaway bit of dialog for a TV series! Is this the Pokemon principle at work? And for encyclopedia users who are NOT Trekkies or some other type of fanboy, it's very annoying to, for example, type in "sensor" in the search box and come up with imaginary spaceships. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:19, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, I very much agree with you. --Jack Merridew 11:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
 * keep obviously a split from another article. We should not be deleting content because it has been split from other articles because of its size. Fosnez (talk) 12:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Star Trek is one of the biggest and most well-known sci-fi franchises out there. While I wouldn't support individual articles on each of these ships (many of which would only be a stub anyway) I believe that they should have at least some mention here since they are a part (albeit minor) part of one of the most influential TV series ever made. The original deletion requester's justification that "It's fancruft" and "It's annoying when I try to search for sensor" seem to be just along the lines of the "I don't like it therefore it should be deleted" argument, which is NOT a valid reason for deletion. Some may find it annoying while others find these articles useful. Are the ones that find it annoying inherently better and more important than those that find it useful? By that reasoning, maybe we should consider eliminating all the articles on military weapons so they don't cloud my search when I look for a hunting rifle. the_one092001 (talk) 07:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - Just because I don't like it, doesn't mean the article isn't deletable. I probably haven't put my arguments in the most persuasive form, but exhaustive catalogs of fictional trivia to me don't seem useful for a general encyclopedia. At least all the military rifles are real things - which presumably have real histories, descriptions, uses - real-world impact, capable of being researched at least in principle (although the archives of the AK factory may be inacessible, at least they probably exist). But "Star Trek" spaceships are unreasearchable fantasy objects - they are made up off-the-cuff by scriptwriters to fill a bit of dialog or background and will *never* have more information made available about them other than the attributes assigned in passing. This is what I call "Sterile" - and unsuitable for a general encyclopedia. Now, the very many Trek writers may wish to impose some episode-to-episode continuity on their fiction but the place to look up ship names in past episodes is a concordance, not an encyclopedia. (Look how much human lifespan has been wasted debating Captain Kirk's middle name - a good concordance could have saved millions of person-hours over the last thirty years.) Yes, the last Star Trek movie sold mumblety-million tickets and made umpity dollars for its proponents -that's real, in principle suitable for an encyclopedia (on a rather low "Entertainment Tonight" or "Business Week" sort of level).  But, say, Raskolnikov's  family tree - that's pure fantasy.  Encyclopedias should be about reality, not fantasy. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:47, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep per the_one. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 01:25, 8 February 2008 (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.