Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of starships in Stargate


 * 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. There are conflicting policy aurguments on both sides, while a relisting may result in more !votes accumulating on one side or the other, it does not seem likely to result in a consensus forming. Monty 845  19:20, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

List of starships in Stargate

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

None of the individual ships appear to be notable and Stargate ships as a group do not appear to be notable either. I checked Google, Books, News, and LexisNexis and was unable to turn up anything offering significant coverage. The article is simply a large collection of WP:FANCRUFT. Delete per WP:GNG and also WP:IINFO. Odie5533 (talk) 13:52, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note I am hereby changing my opinion to neutral given that Jclemens has made strong efforts to locate sources and believes the sources he has found and is waiting on will provide sufficient evidence to support notability. I don't feel I should withdraw the AfD this late given that others have still argued for deletion. --Odie5533 (talk) 18:37, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:46, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:46, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:46, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:46, 21 November 2012 (UTC)


 * To misquote Gordon Gekko, deletion is Goa'uld, per nom. Totally in-universe fan trivia. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:20, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep a list of starships from three TV shows spanning 17 different seasons. Large fictional franchises like this typically have a list of starships, because the ships are themselves characters in the series.  Compare List of Starfleet starships ordered by class or List of Star Wars spacecraft, for instance. All material is verifiable by primary sources, and RS'ed commentary can probably be added for most of the entries which don't already have it.  Excessive detail can be trimmed as desired, so WP:ATD expects that those fixes be applied first before deletion is a reasonable option. Jclemens (talk) 06:27, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Star Wars and Star Trek have extensive technical manuals and other publications giving details about craft. Stargate does not. This means information on Stargate spacecraft is largely fan supposition and incidental details gleaned from episodes of the show. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:33, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I've just ordered a copy of this book, "Watching Stargate SG-1", which appears to be an independent reliable source and contains mentions of multiple ships listed in this page. I'll be adding lists of probable RS'es covering these ships as I find 'em. The fanbase is not ST or SW sized, but there is almost certainly plenty of RS coverage for these ships. Jclemens (talk) 05:00, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * this covers the Prometheus in the context of other sci-fi ships.
 * this one does too. Jclemens (talk) 05:09, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * this also covers Prometheus. I've focused my search on that ship because it was the first one permanently featured on the show, which gives it the most time to have shown up in secondary sources.  Lots of news articles from 2009 mention Destiny, the setting for Stargate Universe, as well, but those are trivial to find. Jclemens (talk) 05:22, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I did spend some time with the article (check the edit history) and was thinking up ways of improving it when I figured the best improvement would be to get rid of it. I disagree with you when you say, "WP:ATD expects that those fixes be applied first before deletion is a reasonable option". This does not seem right to me. One should consider trimming as an option, but I would not expect one to trim an article before nominating it for deletion. As I was editing, I realized that everything that was written was still based on primary sources and there was no evidence any of the ships or the ships as a group were notable. If the page is kept, I can't imagine how it won't just be a giant ball of fancruft even if someone goes over and edits it. I can see the argument that they are characters, but at the same time I feel they should be notable if we are to have a standalone article for them (WP:AVOIDSPLIT). I don't think we should split articles when the amount of fancruft in one becomes so excessive that we need an entire new article to contain it all. I tried comparing this case to List of Meerkat Manor meerkats. That article cites multiple references with significant coverage, including two articles from the New York Times that deal exclusively with specific characters on the show. --Odie5533 (talk) 14:44, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * WP:AVOIDSPLIT puts individual fictional elements in a notable universe into nice, big list articles like this one. It's how we deal with the topic in an encyclopedic manner without either a bazillion tiny non-notable articles or having a huge gap in coverage. Your interpretation of WP:ATD is unsupported as well: Yes, if something can be improved by trimming it such that it would remedy a defect, then that should be done before a deletion nomination. Jclemens (talk) 01:56, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Trimming this article will not solve the problem of notability. --Odie5533 (talk) 03:59, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Notability isn't a problem. A few minutes finds plenty of sources, and the whole point of lists-of-not-individually-notable elements is that while the individual elements might not be worthy of individual articles, the class as a whole is. Jclemens (talk) 05:11, 23 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete because WP:NOT. Articles need sufficient context, not just a recap of various plot elements, no matter how novel or interesting it might be to extract those plot elements (in this case, ships). That context can only come from reliable sources that can WP:verify notability. And even if we could, it's not to say we would need a list of every ship above and beyond a short description of the ships as a whole. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:53, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Lists of fictional elements don't have context. Compare lists of fictional characters, which are plentiful, and typically rely on primary sources to establish verifiability. Spaceships are fictional elements that don't pretend to be people (well, except maybe Moya (Farscape) and Andromeda Ascendant and one or two others...), but are otherwise essentially characters. WP:NOT does not apply to lists of characters. Jclemens (talk) 01:56, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete This article is entirely made up of in-universe plot summary with no assertion of real-world notability. The sources presented so far do not establish more than passing mentions of individual elements of the list, which in my opinion isn't enough to evidence notability of the collection as a whole. If this list is kept it would need a drastic rewrite, first a chainsawing and then a slow build-up with real-world reception of the elements.  Them From  Space  05:26, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Can you point to a few other lists of fictional elements that meet your criteria? I'm genuinely curious, because I don't know that what you're describing actually exists. Jclemens (talk) 07:06, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. Jclemens (talk) 07:12, 24 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep per Jclemens. He intends to provide sources, and this seems a reasonable list to exist. The equivalence of spaceships with characters is novel to me, but has appeal in this context. I'm not an xFD regular, so if there isn't enough policy alphabet soup in my comment, I apologise. disclaimer: I'm a bit of a Stargate fan, so subtract a bit of WP:ILIKEIT from my opinion, if so inclined. Begoon &thinsp; talk  21:18, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep substantially per Jclemens. The improvements to the article that he proposes should address the notability concern. If he is unable to effectuate them within a few months, then I suppose the article could be relisted. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:43, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep No worse than most articles on fictional ships here, and better than most. All articles are works in progress, they don't need to be perfect, just have the potential to be made better.--KTo288 (talk) 17:19, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. --Odie5533 (talk) 17:35, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I've ordered 6 different books on the topic, at a cost of ~$50US or so. Give me a week until they're here, and you'll have adequate reliable secondary sourcing on the topic.  If you want to help in the interim by trimming out the overly trivial or speculative bits, be my guest. Jclemens (talk) 21:02, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Why would you need 6 books on the same topic? There is a thin line between dedication and obsession, and you just crossed it. ;)   D r e a m Focus  00:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Because when one editor starts an AfD on one element in a fictional franchise, the best way to make sure the encyclopedia isn't damaged is to have the resources at-hand to shore up any other articles that haven't been sourced to keep pace with our evolving expectations. I agree that six books for one article is a bit much, but at least two of them speak well beyond just the Stargate universe. Jclemens (talk) 05:59, 28 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep Sources have been found. Don't be a hater.   D r e a m Focus  00:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete. Notability issues aside, as it stands, the article is in-universe fancruft, incompatible with WP:WAF and WP:IINFO's rule that our articles are not "summary-only descriptions of works". All articles must maintain a focus on the real world, not on the fictional world of the works described. What (if anything) independent reliable sources have said about these ships can, I assume, be adequately summarized in the article about the series.  Sandstein   16:34, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep More or less per Jclemens, Newyorkbrad.  Given the information at hand, notability seems likely, I'm more than willing to assume Jclemens can craft a viable policy-compliant article here, and am more than happy to revisit this in the future if I'm wrong, or if what can be written here appropriately turns to be so minor that a merge (more or less, as Sandstein suggests we do now) ends up proving appropriate. --j⚛e deckertalk 17:03, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete or Redirect - Fails WP:GNG. None of the references, including the ones discussed in the AfD, show any notability for "List of starships in Stargate" specifically.  A few give a brief mention of Prometheus (although those for the most part appear to be talking about the episode, not the ship), but in passing as part of a single sentence, not in enough detail to make an entirely separate article.  Other sources discussed are about Stargate itself, and mention the ships in passing as part of the Stargate franchise if at all, the sources do not describe the ships as something notable enough to exist outside of that context.  Reliable sources do not see this subject as notable outside of the context of the primary subject, and only briefly mentioning them inside that context. I don't think it's appropriate for Wikipedia to give so much detail to a topic that reliable sources do not, and not in a separate article that has no notability.  If the content is kept, it needs to be trimmed down considerably and merged into Stargate or an appropriate article, but the sources in the article and the sources discussed in the AfD do not warrant a separate article on the topic. - SudoGhost 17:51, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. In addition to the work done and anticipated by Jclemens, I've added a citation from a source specifically discussing ships in the Stargate setting as such, demonstrating notability for this topic not just as an element of a noted fictional setting but as a specifically discussed area of interest.  At this point I'm going to say this topic is clearly notable. —chaos5023 (talk) 18:39, 28 November 2012 (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.