Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional characters with surname Carpenter


 * 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   delete. There is clearly a consensus to delete this, but I have userfied it to my own userspace at User:Black Kite/Carpenter so that it may be merged back into the main list if necessary. Black Kite (t) (c) 11:22, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

List of fictional characters with surname Carpenter

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Procedural nomination as an uninvolved party. This was deleted by User:DragonflySixtyseven to the objection of User talk:Jrcrin001. WilliamH (talk) 20:45, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * This is ridiculous piffle: random bits of data with nothing in common except a coincidence of nomenclature. This opens us to "list of fictional characters named Johnson", "list of fictional characters named Smith", and etc. DS (talk) 20:56, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - there is no inherently notable phenomenon about fictional characters being named Carpenter. Compare this to, say, List of streets named after Martin Luther King, Jr., which is notable because Dr. King was a notable figure and throughout the country, people sought to name streets after him. A bunch of characters being named Carpenter more has to do with the generic nature and ubiquity of the name Carpenter than some massive effort to name characters "Carpenter". hare j 20:58, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete per Harej. This is not a logical encyclopedia topic. It seems to me that flavor of SYNTH applies, in a way. We don't have lists of characters with arbitrary similarities of name, or for other random similar minutiae. KillerChihuahua ?!? 21:02, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. My initial reaction was to dismiss this list as useless as well, but then I found List of people with surname Carpenter.  I suppose it is unlikely that people will look for fictional characters by their fictional last names rather than by some other attribute (such as the work in which they appear, the type of character they are, some trait they possess, etc.), and real people with the surname Carpenter actually have a historical reason for having that name though the relationship is arbitrary at present.  But I would like to see a more coherent and developed argument on that than I can articulate right now to edge me from "meh" into "delete".  postdlf (talk) 21:09, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete—There doesn't seem to be a compelling reason for this list. Possibly add these characters to List of people with surname Carpenter? ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 21:18, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

This page was created due to a discussion at: Talk:Carpenter (surname). People (fictional and real) and places named Carpenter were moved to list pages per a discussion and requests. All were once in the primary article then moved by request. Basically the page was getting too big. A See also section was created with the following links;
 * KEEP or MERGE back with List of people with surname Carpenter.
 * List of people with surname Carpenter, for real people
 * List of fictional characters with surname Carpenter, for fictional people
 * Carpenter (disambiguation), for Carpenter named communities, natural features, and manmade features
 * Historic Carpenter Houses, for houses, homes, shops, homesteads, farmsteads, or other partially named or hyphenated named places with "Carpenter" or a similar meaning name

This page is a supplemental list for Carpenter (surname) page that meets the guidelines for WP:LISTN and Wp:STANDALONE in which every listing in it is linked to the related Wiki article. It also meets the requirements for WP:LISTNAME and WP:LISTPEOPLE. For more info, see: WP:LISTS.

Almost all surname pages list real, fictional and some related surname places. Many surname pages use lists to supplement the surname article. Examples:
 * List of people with surname Smith – Yes it has fictional Smiths in it.
 * List of people with surname Evans – Yes it has fictional Evans in it.
 * Category:Lists of people sharing a surname

Under WP:NOTREPOSITORY – “Wikipedia is not a “Mere collections of internal links, except for disambiguation pages when an article title is ambiguous, and for lists for browsing or to assist with article organization and navigation; for these, please follow the guidelines outlined at Stand-alone lists.”

Under WP:NOPRICES – “Wikipedia encompasses many lists of links to articles within Wikipedia that are used for internal organization or to describe a notable subject. In that sense, Wikipedia functions as an index or directory of its own content. However, Wikipedia is not a directory of everything that exists in the world or has existed. Please see Alternative outlets for alternatives. Wikipedia articles are not:
 * 1) Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics such as (but not limited to) quotations, aphorisms, or persons (real or fictional). If you want to enter lists of quotations, put them into our sister project Wikiquote. Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contribute to the list topic. Wikipedia also includes reference tables and tabular information for quick reference. Merged groups of small articles based on a core topic are certainly permitted. (See Stand-alone lists for clarification.)” – If a Carpenter is noted (notable or famous)  in Wikipedia then the link in a list (significantly or less-significantly) contributes to the Carpenter surname article.

Jrcrin001 (talk) 22:02, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I've just looked at Talk:Carpenter (surname). This list wasn't created as a result of a discussion at Talk:Carpenter (surname). Indeed, not only did you fail to gain consensus for your proposal to create this list there, but you have previously claimed in your discussions (back in April) on that talk page that you'd obtained consensus for the change in just the same way by alluding to e-mail discussions between "major participants" on that page. This and other behaviours leads me to believe that you appear to be gaming the system and misrepresenting consensus over this issue; please stop doing it. --Tristessa (talk) 00:54, 20 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - Per Harej, I see nothing notable about this list at all and fail to see what encyclopedic function it serves. Tiptoety  talk 01:12, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. There comes a time when a name becomes used so many times, that a disambiguation page must be split from becoming to large. This has happened for Carpenter, it has split off the surname. The list of fictional characters can't be merged into either Carpenter (disambiguation), because it is too long, or List of people with surname Carpenter, because the name is incorrect. 117Avenue (talk) 01:24, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. The list fulfills two of the three purposes for lists on Wikipedia, providing Information and a Navigation aid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lists#Purposes_of_lists) -- both of which are encyclopedic functions.  Name-calling like "ridiculous piffle" suggests a personal judgment bias, which should have no place on Wikipedia.  If the list truly was "random data" there would be no commonality to the entries.  If it needs to be merged back into the main list, that is easily done -- it was split out from that list at some point in the past. Cohee (talk) 21:38, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions.  — frankie (talk) 14:14, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  — frankie (talk) 14:14, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

*Delete I'm certainly an inclusionist about list of fictional whatever, but the "whatever" has to be something notable. Having the name Carpenter is not. I understand the problem raised by Arciloxus, but there has to be a better way of doing it.  DGG ( talk ) 07:24, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete – Non-encyclopedic cross-categorization. I would argue that were is nothing special about being a fictional character and having the last name of "Carpenter". –MuZemike 23:58, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete - Overly specific. Also per Harej. Mitch32(Never support those who think in the box) 00:01, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. This could have been speedy deleted under WP:CSD, as the article contains no assertion of notability or importance of the intersection between fictional characters and those that have the surname Carpenter, largely because there appears to be none whatsoever to assert. Wikipedia cannot contain a list of every single intersection of factors that has no informational value in itself. I accept that this may have been the result of a talk page discussion on Talk:Carpenter (surname) and occurred because the disambig was too large; but the size of articles does not justify the creation of articles on non-notable subjects for the sake of it. Reliable sources documenting the phenomenon of fictional characters having the surname Carpenter would be required to prove notability. --Tristessa (talk) 00:32, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete - I agree with Harej, this is too specific to merit its own article. There is no indication that the phenomenon of a fictional character having the surname "Carpenter" is notable in and of itself. – GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:42, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete - while I appreciate that lists of names often have fictional characters among them, and that the Carpenter list is too large to incorporate this list, I don't think there's enough justification to retain this list on its own. There is nothing special about the use of Carpenter as a fictional surname, and listing characters by that attribute seems far too trivial. Lady  of  Shalott  02:36, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep per Cohee: it's part of a group of legitimate navigational lists, split up because of their size. If a wider consensus decides they don't like dividing the list by subject matter, then re-integration, not deletion, would be the remedy. --Arxiloxos (talk) 05:36, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * There are more than 100 navigational lists of people by surname, see Category:Lists of people sharing a surname. I see them as simply an organizational convenience.   I'd like to better understand the objection here: Are you suggesting that we should get rid of all of these lists, or is the objection specifically to navigational lists of fictional characters?   And I'd still think that if the problem is that the "Carpenter" list shouldn't have been divided by subject matter, the remedy is to re-merge the lists (keeping at minimum all the names that have their own articles), not to delete it. --Arxiloxos (talk) 17:42, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. I think most of the delete !votes are not analyzing this correctly.  The issue is not whether fictional characters with the surname carpenter is itself a notable concept, really a silly way of looking at it.  The issue is whether an index of fictional characters by surname is a useful navigational tool for articles that are about those characters or the works in which they are depicted - retitle it List of fictional characters by surname - Carpenter if that clarifies it.  Problem is, surnames often aren't that meaningful for a character.  It was news to me that Shaggy from Scooby Doo had a last name, or Anya even though I've watched the entire run of Buffy.  So I'm just not seeing this as a useful index, given that we can index characters by type, occupation, work of fiction, etc.  postdlf (talk) 20:16, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * merge back to a single list, as suggested. Seems I was indeed not seeing it from the right perspective. The advantage of merging it into a single surname list will be to avoid the sort of confusion that I and others here experienced.  DGG ( talk ) 02:53, 25 October 2011 (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.