Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Transformers spacecraft


 * 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   no consensus.  MBisanz  talk 00:09, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

List of Transformers spacecraft

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The spaceships in Transformers are not notable, so there is no reason to have a list of them. Insufficient reliable secondary sourcing. Claritas § 08:12, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete Fancruft. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 18:43, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. &#9733;&#9734;  DUCK IS PEANUTBUTTER &#9734;&#9733; 20:30, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. &#9733;&#9734;  DUCK IS PEANUTBUTTER &#9734;&#9733; 20:30, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep - The nominator says that Transformers spaceships are "not notable", but there are a couple articles on Transformers spaceships, who linked to on this list, who were nominated for deletion and found to have sufficient notability! So his argument is completely false. Also, there are many reference from reliable sources. On a personal note, I find this nomination of this article to actually be highly troubling. We had seperate articles for many of the lesser ships on Wikipedia at one time. Then there was a round of deletion nominations. Many editors came to the agreement to merged all the articles into one list page. Deleting this list would be sabotaging that solution. Mathewignash (talk) 01:23, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep per Mathewignash; the list article allows for an encyclopedic collection of fictional-world information without creating large numbers of articles which are prone to requests for deletion. A specific example of this is Steelhaven which was merge/redirected to the article under discussion here after an AFD (here) and a deletion review (here).Vulcan&#39;s Forge (talk) 02:54, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep Lists of fictional elements for notable franchises exist to merge non-notable elements into; removing the list without the underlying articles already being merged into it makes no sense.  I'll further note that this nominator has previously been found to have abusively used sockpuppetry on previous Transformers-related AfD's. Jclemens (talk) 05:30, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Guys, where are the third party reliable sources which cover "Transfomers spacecraft" ? If these are really so notable, there should be some good sources easily accesible. Claritas § 12:19, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * They are in the article. Read it. Mathewignash (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Bullshit. There is a short list of references- some are clearly not reliable, others seem to mention the subject in passing. I am not seeing any decent sources that would serve to help the article pass the GNG. J Milburn (talk) 19:59, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. This isn't a stand-alone list of red-linked non-notable things. It's a list with entries linked to Wikipedia articles about them. Sourcing looks reasonable too. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:33, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete as above. In-universe drivel supported by no real sources. I challenge those supporting this article's retention to point to some reliable sources primarily covering this topic. J Milburn (talk) 19:59, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep You have three spaceships that link to main articles they each have, plus ten transformers that turn into spaceships with links to their individual articles. Its a perfectly valid list article.   D r e a m Focus  02:28, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep as feasible spinout list from important theme in huge topic. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:27, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete not seeing the policy based arguments. I'm seeing lots of explanations that this is feasible and notable, but Wikipedia isn't based on bald editorial opinion. Opinions need to be cited to sources. I'm also seeing people say "well this article exists because there are lots of non-notable entries that were merged here". Well, what if the whole thing isn't notable? The guideline on notability says If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list. There are no such sources. And there's no guideline that discusses the exception to notability described by some of the "keep" comments. If anything, WP:Notability says the opposite: "Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") is based on the group. One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources". There are no sources that discuss this group of things, making deletion the only appropriate response. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:41, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note that, right after that, WP:N also says "There is no present consensus for [...] what other criteria may justify the notability of stand-alone lists". This means that being noted as a group definitely shows notability for the list; but other types or lists are not excluded. LISTPURP explicitly allows navigation lists as indexes to content found at other places in Wikipedia, like this one. See also WP:SALAT, that accepts lists of similar topics as long as they can be split if they grow too much. Only cross-categorization lists are explicitly disallowed by policy, and this is not one of them. Diego (talk) 14:45, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 04:30, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

 
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 03:54, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep - Wikipedia is both a serious encyclopedia and a compendium of popular culture. We shouldn't nitpick the cruft, we should embrace it. The serious encyclopedia should have serious inclusion standards, a low bar here isn't going to hurt anything or anyone. There is sourcing showing, imperfect though it may be. Is the material accurate? That's the main thing. If it is, then this sort of gunk should be tagged for better sources, not hauled to AfD. Live, let live, build the serious encyclopedia. Carrite (talk) 07:48, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * AfDs are the place to discuss whether an article meets or violates policies/guidelines. They are thus not appropriate to discuss the value of policies/guidelines. Such comment doesn't provide any policy-based reason to keep and thus should be discarded.Folken de Fanel (talk) 12:31, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The above comment by Carrite seems to be squarely based on how the article meets WP:V and WP:NOTPAPER. Diego (talk) 14:00, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Nomination is based on the fact that the article may not meet WP:N, meeting WP:V or WP:NOTPAPER is thus irrelevant to this AfD. Besides, it seems on the contrary that Carrite indicates the article does not unequivocally meet WP:N, on the contrary, whole chunks of texts are still unsourced. I'm merely remarking that Carrite does not say the nomination is wrong regarding our inclusion policies, only that our inclusion policies are wrong, and AfD is not an appropriate venue for that kind of discussion. The questionning of a community-wide consensus on our policies regarding popular culture has to happen in a wider and more visible discussion, not a in small, time-restricted, confidential AfD. Carrite's views may have merit in another context, just not for an AfD.Folken de Fanel (talk) 16:39, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Citing applicable policy is never irrelevant to AfDs. Carrite Claritas (the nominator)'s views may be based on the GNG, but WP:N allows for other ways to determine notability (in particular in the context of lists as I pointed out above), so any view that predicates a way to establish N is consistent with policy and must be taken into account. Diego (talk) 17:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I have yet to see any better reason of having such a list, when all the real-world info can easily and more efficiently be included somewhere else, besides "it exists so let's write about it", which blatantly contradicts WP:IINFO and WP:NRVE.Folken de Fanel (talk) 20:54, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * My, oh my, I had no idea I was being so controversial... In reply for FdF's seemingly furious demand that my opinion be ignored since it is not grounded in policy, I will cite the policy of WP:IGNOREALLRULES (translation: use common sense to improve the encyclopedia) and will remind him that site policy (rules) trumps site guidelines (strong suggestions) in the hierarchy of internal legality. I am a realist about WP. We have different notability standards for different sets of knowledge. A very low bar for things like garage bands and athletes, a relatively high bar for politicians, for example, in which bios about unelected candidates with dozens of verifiable, independent, published sources are tossed because, ummmm, they tend to be uninformative, self-promotional, and are frequently vandalized or edit-warred over. Or something. Point is, leave the Transformers cruft alone if it is minimally sourced, as this is, and move along to productive endeavors that will improve the encyclopedia rather than disimprove pop culture coverage. My opinion, just like others have theirs... Carrite (talk) 17:58, 12 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete or merge with most related Transformers article. I won't go into detail since these fun related AFD discussions are just popularity polls anyhow ;-) BO &#124; Talk 15:10, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep Questions about notability would be more to the point it it were desired to make an article about individual spacecraft. This is a combination article, in which the individual items need not be notable, any more than any other item of content within'' an article. Whether to make such a list separate from the main articles is purely a question of convenience. I think it's a very good idea to keep this separate from the main article,as the best way to prevent an accumulation of details there. This is not fancruft--fancruft is in considerably more detail than this--true fan-level detail would be a list of every appearance of every craft in the series.  DGG ( talk ) 21:31, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The above comment seems to ignore the fact that lists are also subject to notability guidelines. It doesn't provide any policy-based reason to keep, and as such should be discarded.Folken de Fanel (talk) 12:31, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete per Shooterwalker.Folken de Fanel (talk) 02:29, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep as a navigational list per WP:LISTPURP and per WP:LISTN - the Transformer vehicles have about three decades of coverage in all forms of media, making them "notable as a group" as described in the notability police. Diego (talk) 16:39, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Also per WP:CSC#3, a "short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group" is an explicit accepted selection criterion for lists. Diego (talk) 00:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: I've trimmed down the amount of in-universe-only per conversation below. The original version when nominated was this one.

List articles don't have to prove their notability. Look through some of the various List of articles, and you'll find some have nothing but blue links of similar articles listed in them, and nothing more. Others show information which is helpful. There are multiple blue links in this article of related things, so the list article is valid. And because it should be complete, it list additional things that don't have their own article. See List of characters for some examples of this.  D r e a m Focus  23:00, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Notability requiring "verifiable evidence", could you elaborate on what significant coverage there is on Transformer spacecrafts ? All I see in the article are episode summaries which just happen to mention some of spacecraft names, but that isn't significant coverage that would justify a SAL, in my opinion.Folken de Fanel (talk) 16:47, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Sherman Roger's The African American Entrepreneur: Then and Now and Dan Fleming's Powerplay: Toys As Popular Culture provide extended reviews of the Transformer franchises as toys transforming into vehicles. Pop magazines have always focused on the vehicles when reviewing the video games (see from early examples (when the vehicles where mere "common" modern cars and tanks) to modern appearances in video-games and comics and movies covering the whole range of transformations for the day are also easy to come by with (cracked and Wired for example comment how ridiculous it's to disguise as a spaceship when all robots can travel to space on their own). I agree the current articles on the franchise are heavy on in-universe only coverage, but the cure for that is not burying the information but trimming the plot descriptions and adding the real-world impact of the toys. Diego (talk) 17:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * You're right in that these sources provide good real-world coverage on the Transformer franchise, but do you realize they could actually be put to better use somewhere else ? The main Transformers articles don't even have any "Development" or "Reception" sections. The purpose of this list is to gather in-universe info only, I understand you only have good intentions, but I don't see how in the world you could incorporate your sources in this article, except by linking to them each time a vehicle is mentionned, and thus leaving out any info that doesn't mention a vehicle. Spreading out every little bit of real-world content across the wiki is the best way to ensure no Transformer article will ever reach GA status. My opinion is that justifying plot articles instead of working on real-world sections in appropriate articles is a waste of time. Support this article if you wish, but if you agree on the importance of real-world info over plot, maybe you can think about the other ways to deal with the issue.Folken de Fanel (talk) 20:39, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * You could copy the the real-world content to both articles, for example. Diego (talk) 23:32, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * And make the content WP:REDUNDANT ? If you acknowledge the need to limit in-universe only coverage, I don't really understand why you have to go to such length to save trivia such as this. If the real-world content can work in an altogether different article than this one, it is unlikely to prove notability for Transformers spacecrafts.Folken de Fanel (talk) 08:11, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * No, that's giving the content WP:DUE WEIGHT - it can be summarized in the main topic article and expanded in more specific articles. I said limit fictional coverage, not to eliminate it. Wikipedia doesn't have limits of space nor requires perfect articles from the first day. If you wipe out everything that's not in pristine state, and forcing editors to start from scratch each time, you'll never advance in the process to write good articles - that's the reason why deletion is a last resort. If the proposal was to merging, stubbing or even blanking the page I'd be more sympathetic, but I have no patience for deletion discussions based on CLEANUP reasons and I see no value in limiting access to history for content that pose no legal risk. Diego (talk) 08:44, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If you "see no value in limiting access to history for content that pose no legal risk" then you are in a seriously minority view on how to deal with problematic content on Wikipedia, and should not be taking part in deletion discussions. J Milburn (talk) 09:32, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * O RLY? Where do they give the membership card? :-P Diego (talk) 10:04, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Equally, I would expect anyone who (for instance) believed that the NFCC would be best ignored or that articles should be based on at least one book (as opposed to web or periodical) source would have no business taking part in GAC if they were going to try and enforce their minority view. J Milburn (talk) 10:07, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Moving off-topic discussion to my talk page - I've replied there. Diego (talk) 10:21, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Diego, you still haven't proved that any coverage you could extract from the sources wouldn't be limited to name-dropping on a few entries of this list. Nor that the actual substance of the sources does indeed go in-depth on the actual topic (which is fictional vehicles, not real life toys, as indicated in the introduction) instead of better fitting somewhere else, thus giving WP:UNDUE WEIGHT to the article currently under discussion. You still haven't proved that your recommandation is based on anything else than ideology (rather than policy).Folken de Fanel (talk) 11:30, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * What, PRESERVE isn't policy now? I've described at least four viable alternatives to deletion. Diego (talk) 12:19, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yet you recommanded the only one that violates the WP:NOTPLOT policy.Folken de Fanel (talk) 12:26, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * How does stubbing the article violate WP:NOTPLOT? Diego (talk) 12:30, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Because I don't believe there is enough coverage from independent source to ever make this list WP:NOTPLOT-compliant. That's the whole notability issue, in case you didn't follow.Folken de Fanel (talk) 15:32, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Grasping at straws here? Obviously, it doesn't violate NOTPLOT.  It list all the spacecraft in this notable series, and list details about them as they appear in toys, comics, and animated series.   D r e a m Focus  16:23, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Nitpicking here ? Yeah, 90% plot, the rest is too trivial to bring any notability. Obviously it violates NOTPLOT, because plot has to be kept a concise summary while the focus should be real-life coverage. This article goes the other way around.Folken de Fanel (talk) 17:15, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The question was how a stub version, with only the 10% that's not plot, would violate the NOTPLOT policy. I think it's a valid one, given that STUBBING is a recommended action by the guideline. Diego (talk) 17:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * "because plot has to be kept a concise summary while the focus should be real-life coverage. This article goes the other way around", with no proof it can be changed. That's the whole notability issue.Folken de Fanel (talk) 19:53, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * All article-space need notability in the sense of having third-party reliable sources enough to write thier content, but lists can be kept by criteria other than the WP:GNG. See this recent talk for how LISTN is interpreted by the veterans in the community. I've trimmed down the excessive plot (it was definitely doable, not difficult at all) and the result is actually longer than a stub. Diego (talk) 23:58, 8 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 20:39, 13 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep or Merge As Per Diego Moya His reasons for keeping seem to be more compelling than the reasons for deletion. -- Cameron11598  (Converse) 22:17, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Summary of the points I agreed with'' WP:IMPERFECT, WP:PRESERVE, WP:CSC -- Cameron11598  (Converse) 22:27, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment: I wonder if all those supporting the retention of this article are going to go and sort it out if it's kept? J Milburn (talk) 22:33, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * That's not anyone's obligation, we are here to determine notability, not to improve articles. Carrite (talk) 03:57, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I've already done it anyway. J Milburn doesn't seem to be paying attention. Diego (talk) 06:33, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Carrite: I think that speaks for itself, really. Reread your comment, and have a wonder about how I may be seeing your intentions right now. J Milburn (talk) 08:22, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Intentions to keep a notable article? AFD is WP:NOTCLEANUP.   D r e a m Focus  08:34, 14 January 2013 (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.