Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional counties (4th nomination)


 * 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. I have to discount most of the "keep" opinions because they consist mostly of attacks on the nominator or the nomination, rather than of attempts to address the nominator's reason for the nomination, which is WP:IINFO. Per WP:AGF and WP:NPA, such comments are prohibited and cannot be therefore taken into account when assessing consensus. This includes the "keep" opinion by Andrew Davidson, as well as the opinions that refer to that opinion, and by Philoserf and 7&6=thirteen. While there are other "keep" opinions that do make an argument for why this list is not indiscriminate, they by and large fail to address the WP:LISTN arguments also advanced by the "delete" side. Based on this assessment of the merits of the opinions voiced here, I conclude that we have rough consensus for deleting this article.  Sandstein  07:23, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

List of fictional counties
AfDs for this article:


 * – ( View AfD View log )

Not to be confused with List of fictional countries, this is a list that is so minor as to be indiscriminate. The category has extremely few actual articles. Should be deleted as an example of overlistification. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 19:00, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 19:00, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 19:00, 16 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep Another vexatious repeat nomination contrary to WP:DELAFD as no valid reasons to delete are provided. If the list is short, then this is not a problem – if it were long, the nominator would be complaining about that too.  The complaints that it is minor and overlistification are not policy-based and so are just forms of WP:IDONTLIKEIT contrary to WP:NPOV.  This dislike seems to be an Anglo-American bias as counties are more significant in national culture in the UK, as compared with the US.  Borsetshire and Thomas Hardy's Wessex are quite notable in the UK and the list is a reasonable index of such per WP:LISTPURPS and WP:CLN. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:30, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
 * If counties are so important in British fiction, there ought to be far more standalone articles of them. It doesn't seem like they are any more important than they are in fiction from the US, as most of the links from the list go to works of media rather than the county itself. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 19:40, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
 * The list has had its ups and downs since it was created back in 2003 and I had little difficulty adding a significant entry just now. So, what is the magic number of entries that is required and where is the justification for it?  Bear in mind that we have featured lists with fewer entries such as List of castles in Greater Manchester which just has 9, for example.  My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:11, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Andrew Davidson - I think the key difference is that the castles of Greater Manchester are clearly 'a thing' and have been grouped together by reliable sources per WP:NLIST (see:, , ). Nobody seems to be able to produce similar sources for this list other than sources speaking about individual fictional counties. Without this, it is WP:ORIGINAL. Vladimir.copic (talk) 07:19, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * No, castles in Greater Manchester are not a thing. I grew up in the area and so am quite familiar with places like Dunham Massey.  AFAIC, that's in Cheshire – the historic county which is more appropriate for medieval matters.  Greater Manchester is a modern invention (1974) and so its use in this context is an anachronism.  You see, counties in Britain are ancient institutions with deep roots and their fictional equivalents are a thing too.  If you are not British and have never listened to an episode of The Archers, you are unlikely to fully appreciate this topic. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:18, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Well whatever your opinions are they are irrelevant unless supported by sources or guidelines. Vladimir.copic (talk) 12:05, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * So far I have cited at least four policies and guidelines. I've added a good source to the article and I have plans to do more now that Wikimania has finished.  My !vote stands and is only going to get stronger. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:08, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep The sources indicate the notability of the topic. But I would suggest removing unsourced entries and one-shot entities. The main setting of a series is probably notable, but we seem to list counties that appeared in a single episode of a long-running series. I doubt there are many sources on the topic. Dimadick (talk) 19:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete - My opinion hasn't really changed since the last time, except the list has been somewhat pruned since then. It still seems to be an indiscriminate collection of trivia, but perhaps I'm not seeing the sources people above are talking about. Could someone provide the best sources which provide some in depth coverage of "fictional counties" as a group (not about specific fictional counties, that is)? Surely we can also find sources which say that [X] is the [township, commonwealth, subdivision, country, continent, state, province, company town, neighborhood, borough, street, square, region, etc.] of [work of fiction] sufficient for all of those lists. The question is whether there's significant coverage as a group. &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 23:42, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. Fails to even properly define what a county is in this context, badly design indiscriminate list. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 09:16, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Any of the previous AfD discussions have enough reasoning on there own. Still, is correct. I sense a bias. —¿philoserf? (talk) 12:38, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Question anyone have a reason for keeping that isn't just an attack on the nominator? Links to sources which treat this subject as a group, perhaps? &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 12:54, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
 * The page has existed since 2003 without significant problems, providing information and navigational assistance to thousands of readers. It's the handful of nay-sayers that need to find a good reason to change the status quo – something better than WP:IDONTLIKEIT, WP:TRIVIAL, WP:NOTBIGENOUGH and WP:KEEPLISTING. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:18, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
 * An indirect answer to the question, I guess. &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 14:43, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
 * See also WP:ARTICLEAGE for why that argument holds no water at all. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 15:36, 17 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete - The sources in the article seem to fail to meet WP:LISTN. One of the sources in the lead doesn't even seem to mention county within its text. Otherwise, it's just an indiscriminate list that, if reduced to blue links, really doesn't even need to exist. TTN (talk) 18:34, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep The third AFD was in March 2020. Anything linking to its own article or an article with sufficient coverage of it, or that has a reference saying its a notable setting, belongs on the list.   D r e a m Focus  01:58, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete as completely fails WP:LISTN. I've done a brief WP:BEFORE and cannot find any sources discussing this subject as a whole (this alone should be enough to convince editors to delete). The article as it stands is the result of WP:SYNTH/WP:ORIGINAL. Just to go through some of the sources in the lede:
 * This source never once mentions counties (let alone fictional ones), is an article about one specific fictional map and never makes any general claims about fictional maps of counties.
 * This entire book on fictional worlds only mentions counties once in a list (when not in a proper noun).
 * The Kinberger source also never speaks about counties but rather talks about mapping "informal geographies" (not necessarily even 'fictional' geographies).
 * This source is hardly reliable and again never speaks about counties specifically.
 * All other sources just speak of fictional counties in the work of Faulkner - not as a larger idea.

Sources in the rest of the article only speak about the specific fictional county in the list. I think this exposes the WP:REFBOMBING that has justified the article's existence so far. Read the sources fellow editors! Vladimir.copic (talk) 06:59, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete- per Vladimir. Between the sources that don't mention the subject at all (!), the passing mentions, and the unreliable sources I think it's pretty clear that this doesn't pass WP:LISTN. Reyk YO! 14:43, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment- I would also urge the closing administrator to take note of the unjustified accusations of nationalist bias on the part of the nominator made by several of the participants here. I regard these comments to be personal attacks, and I strongly urge the closer not to overlook this behaviour just because the comments are prefaced by the word "keep". Reyk YO! 14:49, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep as a sufficient list article that identifies numerous fictional counties. I supported merging in the previous nomination, and since it was kept, I cleaned up the list from this to this, providing encyclopedic context for each fictional county wherever it exists. This is essentially a subset of lists of fictional locations, spun off by the type of location, like the other subsets are. We can have a range of subsets by territory, and we do, from city to state to country to world, and I don't see it to be detrimental to have a county-based list as part of that spectrum, as long as the entries have noteworthiness independent of the primary source. That's what I added after the last AfD, and I find encyclopedic value in identifying and briefly discussing the relevance of each fictional county, especially what they are based on. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 16:02, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep For the same reasons listed in the last three nominations.  Another vexatious repeat nomination contrary to WP:DELAFD as no valid reasons to delete are provided.  WP:Not paper  WP:Preserve 7&amp;6=thirteen</b> (<b style="color:#000">☎</b>) 19:48, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete There's no unifying coverage or purpose to listing such disparate fictional places together, dissimilar in media and genre, merely because they are within an administrative hierarchy sharing a name in these two countries. While writers may choose to avoid locating their works in a real place, even if inspired by one, to allow for more creative flexibility, there's not anything discussing the subject as whole indicating the relationship between listed items or a navigational connection between one place to another relative to other types of fictional places. Reywas92Talk 19:59, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment I can see a lot of ‘keep’ votes are relying on WP:LASTTIME (even though last time reached no consensus). Would be interested to see some engagement on the topic and relevant sources. Vladimir.copic (talk) 22:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep: this nomination being made after three unsuccessful AfDs aside, I don't see how this fails WP:NLIST. I see twenty-two sources, which look legitimate to me -- I don't see anything wrong with them, and nobody else has tried to challenge their reliability. The article could definitely stand to be cleaned up -- this should be done -- but I don't see this as an inherently absurd or disjunct subject for a list. jp×g 02:14, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * the reliability of the sources isn't the issue; what the sources are doing is the issue. They verify information, but they don't show notability. We can find 22 sources of things that verify each of 22 fictional purple things or fictional playgrounds or fictional people named Ralph. That doesn't mean that the subject itself is notable (the subject being "fictional people named Ralph" or "fictional counties"). The way we evaluate that is by finding sources which provide significant coverage of the subject -- that is, of fictional counties as a group. Otherwise we can cobble together fandom lists about nearly any subject if each individual item is verifiable. &mdash; Rhododendrites  <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk \\ 02:30, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. There are at least four counties of well-established note which make the list viable: Barsetshire, Wessex, Yoknapatawpha, and (last and least) Hazzard. All else is a matter of cleanup. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:43, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per NLIST. The few notable entries aren't discussed as a group. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:46, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * That isn't want makes something WP:NLIST. The grouping itself has to be notable via sources not the individual items making up the list. Vladimir.copic (talk) 05:19, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I presume what Clarityfiend is saying is that it's not an encyclopedic list; it's a purely navigational list. I would disagree that four (or even a bit more) items (plus perpetual additions of trivia) makes for a useful navigational aid. Categories and lists can coexist, but we also don't need another list to maintain for every category. &mdash; Rhododendrites  <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk \\ 13:58, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Points taken. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:46, 20 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Weak keep per Andrew. ArvindPalaskar (talk) 14:28, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete - The sources on the article verify that the fictional counties listed exist, but don't establish that the concept of 'fictional counties' as a group is notable, and no sources have been raised in this discussion that demonstrate this. Some of the sources currently on the article don't cover the subject in much detail, and I agree with Vladimir.copic's analysis. Waxworker (talk) 11:43, 22 August 2021 (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.