Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional journalists (2nd 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 keep. AfD is not for clean up. Please clean up/improve and if multiple reliable secondary sources can't be found feel free to renominate. Missvain (talk) 23:18, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

List of fictional journalists
AfDs for this article:


 * – ( View AfD View log )

Excessive uncited pop culture trivia in the form of an indiscriminate list. The article doesn't explain how fictional journalists have had a cultural impact, and I feel it isn't encyclopedic. Waxworker (talk) 11:32, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 12:40, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 12:40, 23 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep Here's a book on the subject. See also WP:ATD; WP:BEFORE and WP:CLN. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:38, 23 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment This WP:AfD reminds me quite a bit of Articles for deletion/Eco-terrorism in fiction, where the outcome was converting a list article that looked like this into a prose article that looked like this. Listing every time concept X appears in a work of fiction is something TV Tropes does; we should strive to write something about concept X in fiction, not just enumerate examples. This applies outside of fiction too, of course—it is the difference between writing the article Climate of London and creating the article list of rainy days in London. Reading just a few pages of the book linked by amply proves that writing a prose article about journalism in fiction is perfectly feasible. I would be in favour of converting this list article to a prose article as was done with Eco-terrorism in fiction, although unlike in that case it we would obviously need to change the title as well here to not be called "list of [...]". TompaDompa (talk) 18:31, 24 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep As far as I understand a list is justified on Wikipedia either as a sensible grouping of topics that are treated somewhere on Wikipedia (or have secondary sources), or because the topic, in this case fictional journalists, itself is notable. I feel the nomination does not make clear on both points why this should not be the case here. I think, especially as this is a second nomination, that "I feel it isn't encyclopedic" does not carry any weight as long as it is not supported by more arguments. Sure, this list can be improved, e.g. by citations (though by its nature, the entries themselves already give primary sourcing), but that is not a reason for deletion.
 * For the first point, "fictional journalists" is clearly delineated, and as there are many blue links in the list, it is something that does appear on Wikipedia and is therefore not trivial.
 * For the second, the fact that eight such lists were nominated within minutes makes it highly doubtful that the nominator did a proper WP:BEFORE search, which is part of the normal AfD process. As found by Andrew Davidson, the topic itself seems to be notable, and the list should be kept on that grounds also.
 * As for changing this from a list into an article, I have no particular aversion against that, but in my opinion the list itself also has its uses. In think the comparison between Climate of London and list of rainy days in London is not quite accurate, because if properly used this list is not indicriminate. We don't have entries about single rainy days in London because they are not noteable. We do have e.g. a List of European windstorms, because many of them (and the topic itself) are notable. Daranios (talk) 10:33, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   08:46, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep The fact that Andrew Davidson was able to find a whole book on the subject demonstrates that this is an encyclopedic cross-categorization. Jclemens (talk) 14:34, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. Contains plenty of non-notable characters or characters from non-notable works, too inclusive. Category is enough, this is just fancruft list of trivia. The proper way to deal with such articles is to have a non-list Journalism in fiction, which may have a short subsection on the most notable fictional journalists, based on groupings in reliable sources. The book Andrew found suggests there is a potential to write something here, but the current list merits nothing but WP:TNT. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:32, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:TNT is neither policy nor guideline. Instead it is an essay and so has " no official status, and do not speak for the Wikipedia community".  The actual policy is WP:IMPERFECT, "poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome." Andrew🐉(talk) 09:31, 8 May 2021 (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.