Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of The Blacklist 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 keep. There is a consensus to keep this. This close does not prevent large content changes nor would it prevent editors from choosing to merge this selectively into the main article. Barkeep49 (talk) 04:36, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

List of The Blacklist characters

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Some of the characters on this list may be notable, but most are not. Much of this article is a plot summary of the TV series. Natg 19 (talk) 18:55, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. Natg 19 (talk) 18:55, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Natg 19 (talk) 18:55, 23 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep or merge to the parent article. What is an appropriate level of detail for coverage here is a matter for editing to determine, not deletion (i.e., a scalpel, not a wrecking ball), as is whether and how many nonnotable characters should be listed. Including nonnotable entries is in no way grounds for deletion in this kind of list, btw. postdlf (talk) 19:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment An additional issue is that this list type article is mostly unsourced, and is original research of biographies of the characters. Natg 19 (talk) 19:25, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Redirect to The Blacklist (TV series). Since no reliable sources have covered these characters as a group, with most references being either trivial in-universe information or coverage unrelated to the actual characters, this article fails WP:LISTN. Since none of the characters in this list are independently notable, it serves no navigational purpose. The fancruft in this article is so extreme it would probably qualify for a WP:TNT delete regardless. Devonian Wombat (talk) 21:34, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep - list of subjects of a notable topic don't need to be notable by themselves as WP:NLISTITEM says The notability guidelines do not apply to contents of articles or lists. If this were in the parent category you'd have no valid argument. The only reason this is in a different article is because of WP:SPLIT. Some editors, including some here, keep thinking that a) all entries in a list need to be notable, which is the exact opposite of what are guidelines actually say and b) that these need to be notable as a group, which is also incorrect, see my first point. --Gonnym (talk) 16:35, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:NLISTITEM specifically applies to content within an article, as this is a seperate article LISTITEM does not apply. What does apply here is the policy of WP:NLIST which states in the first sentence “Notability guidelines also apply to the creation of standalone lists or tables”. The only exception to this would be if members of the list were independently notable, but they are not. A seperate article is a seperate article, and this level of in-universe information should not be in any article. Devonian Wombat (talk) 20:41, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * "The only exception..." No, the guidelines do not say that. Nor is NLIST a policy, nor is satisfying it a requirement. postdlf (talk) 13:46, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Would be great if you actually understood the guidelines you cite. If you talk about stand alone lists, you should check WP:STANDALONE and specifically read WP:CSC (notice how they give a list of characters as an example): Lists are commonly written to satisfy one of the following sets of criteria: [...] Every entry in the list fails the notability criteria. These lists are created explicitly because most or all of the listed items do not warrant independent articles: for example, List of Dilbert characters or List of paracetamol brand names. Such lists are almost always better placed within the context of an article on their "parent" topic. Before creating a stand-alone list consider carefully whether such lists would be better placed within a parent article. (Note that this criterion is never used for living people.). Then re-read my argument which said that these lists are part of the main article, but because of WP:SPLIT are split into a separate article. --Gonnym (talk) 22:32, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Highly selective merge into The Blacklist (TV series). The overwhelming majority of this article is irredeemable cruft, but there is probably a small amount of sourced content that could be salvaged and would be useful at the target article. We definitely don't keep huge sprawling unsourced crufty lists of characters just because they are lists of characters. Reyk YO! 12:19, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Redirect to the main article to allow others to merge if they wish. I don't think character lists are inherently necessary splits. They're just convenient, and then they become like this. TTN (talk) 12:43, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Neutral I fully agree with nom's NOTPLOT concerns, but (1) this is a show with 7 seasons where I actually expect that a decent stand-alone character list can be written, and (2) it is such a pain to reduce the number of crufty stand-alone character articles, that one crufty hold-it-all character list is not a real concern to me. Better encourage one crufty stand-lone list with potential than 10 crufty stand-alone main character articles, or people will be even more reluctant to support a merger when they learn that the LoC runs a high chance of getting deleted down the road. – sgeureka t•c 09:53, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   11:58, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. – sgeureka t•c 07:42, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep. There is a considerable amount of significant coverage in reliable sources for many of these characters; the article itself simply needs some maintenance. The nom writes "some of the characters on this list may be notable, but most are not", which to me is more of an argument for article improvement and not deletion. If some characters need to be removed from the list, that can occur via talk page discussions or over the course of edits to the article... — Hunter Kahn 03:45, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   18:36, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. Lightburst (talk) 21:44, 8 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:ARTN: Notability is not determined by the current state of the article, even if it's currently poorly written and badly sourced. I agree with Postdlf that this is a matter for a scalpel, not a wrecking ball; if people in this discussion are concerned about the writing in this article, then they should make positive edits to improve it. Sgeureka points out in his Neutral comment above that if character lists like this are deleted, then it would make people less likely to support merging individual character pages into a character list like this. I agree, and I think the practice of merging individual pages into a list and then deleting the list should be discouraged. -- Toughpigs (talk) 21:59, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete and/or Redirect Pure fancruft and FANDOM material. I do not see how the non "wrecking ball" approach is justified when the article is almost entirely WP:OR. No original research is one of the most basic policies of Wikipedia.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 10:16, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
 * On what basis do you claim that it's OR? postdlf (talk) 16:49, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep – cut the cruft, remove non-notable characters (with a discussion on talk), but delete a list when it can be improved? I don't think so. Keep per WP:ARTN. —Mel</b><b style="color:#F20">bourne</b><b style="color:#F73">Star</b> ☆ <sup style="color:#407">talk  01:41, 11 February 2020 (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.