Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of works of fiction set in 2029


 * 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 no real established policy on this, except there is previous consensus that they do not belong in the articles on the real years. If you want to reverse that consensus, then feel free to start a discussion on that, and if it closes in favor then I can restore all of these to aid in the merge. The "delete" !voters have the clear majority, and several "keep" !votes are described as weak or primarily for the purpose of preventing a merge into the main year articles. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 23:12, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

List of works of fiction set in 2029

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This article should be deleted because it fails WP:OR by being an article where no reliable published sources exist. The article also fails WP:GNG because there is no "significant coverage" for this topic. The author put the comment saying "Please do not delete. While it may be lacking entries right now, it will become more useful as 2029 approaches, as can be seen for lists for previous years." This is not a valid reason to keep this article because there is no sourcing available now meaning it is WP:TOOSOON. KAP03Talk &bull;&#32;Contributions 21:00, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I would also like to nominate these articles because they all have the same problems which are a lack of reliable sources and the concepts of these articles are not notable. This is because they are narrow lists and knowing what time period a fictional work took place in is not notable topic. KAP03Talk &bull;&#32;Contributions 21:27, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. KAP03Talk &bull;&#32;Contributions 21:45, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. KAP03Talk &bull;&#32;Contributions 23:52, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. KAP03Talk &bull;&#32;Contributions 23:52, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. &mdash;  Rhododendrites  talk  \\ 15:33, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. &mdash;  Rhododendrites  talk  \\ 15:34, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. &mdash;  Rhododendrites  talk  \\ 15:34, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Video games-related deletion discussions. &mdash;  Rhododendrites  talk  \\ 15:34, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This debate has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites  <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 15:35, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This debate has been included in the list of Anime and manga-related deletion discussions. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites  <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 15:35, 8 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment. It seems these type of articles have been deleted before with the result to delete. Here is the link Articles for deletion/Works of fiction set in 2034. KAP03Talk &bull;&#32;Contributions 22:10, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete all - the previous AfD linked showed that there is a consensus that these articles are not notable (fail WP:LISTN, WP:IINFO etc.); I see no reason why this needs to be changed. Spiderone  23:04, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment. The previous AFD (which I personally closed as delete) only included lists of books set in future years. Though some commenters discussed lists of books by year of setting generally, that was not relevant to the AFD or its closure and the consensus that was reached was not that broad. That these have all been lumped together may make this an overbroad and unworkable AFD. The nominator's contention that this is OR is also incorrect, so long as the book itself is clear about its time of setting, and it is also not credible that the setting of a notable book would be unmentioned by any secondary source. The one possibly fruitful line of discussion I can see that would apply to all of these equally is whether it makes sense to pinpoint years like this, as the narrative of many books will span multiple years. postdlf (talk) 14:19, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Pings - it's standard practice to notify the creator or primary contributor(s) of articles nominated for deletion. I didn't check all of the user pages, but the one I did check didn't have a notice. Easy to overlook with so many nominations, I understand. Pinging them here (sans indeffed accounts):  &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites  <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 15:46, 8 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment - There are a couple possibilities here. The question isn't whether OR is involved, because it can be limited to just works that have Wikipedia articles and the relevant information is the sort that can be primary sourced. The question is whether it's an appropriate subject for a list. That would mean that either a given "list of works of fiction set in [year]" is notable (demonstrated, typically, by reliable sources which provide similar lists or otherwise treat them as a group), or that it serves as a navigational aid for Wikipedia articles. I'm not sure whether the first is true. The few brief searches I did just now weren't fruitful. I'm inclined to say that they are indeed valid navigational lists, though. Navigational lists don't have to be notable because they're more like navboxes or categories in their purpose. As it says at WP:LISTN, there's no clear consensus about determining notability of these sorts of cross-categorization lists (lists of X of/in Y). &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 15:56, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Merge all back to parent article. In addition to 's argument that the deletion reason is not in keeping with guidelines, there was never a real consensus to split them off from the corresponding year articles.  After some limited discussion, WP:YEARS was edited to suggest creation of these articles, but consensus was never established.  The net effect of the previous deletion was to completely remove information from Wikipedia, while there was still a consensus that it should be somewhere.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 16:11, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment WP:YEARS and WP:RY have not yet been notified. I do not trust myself to make a neutral notification.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 16:16, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Parent article as in the year (e.g. 2010), List of works of fiction by year, or something else? Though I wasn't part of those discussions (nor any other at WP:YEARS), including a list of fiction at the main year article (presuming that's what you mean) seems odd to me. Major events, notable births, notable deaths, Nobel Prizes.... and whatever fiction that happens to be set in that year? There are any number of awards, book releases, etc. that are notable. If it were deemed worth keeping somewhere, I'd argue to keep it separate just on the basis of spinning out content that takes up an undue amount of space. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 16:23, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Parent article as in the year. The consensus (in 2011, WT:RY) that these articles should be spun out from the year articles seems weak to me.
 * I also notice WP:RY wasn't informed of the 2014 deletion discussion about 2039, suggesting that that close was improper. WP:RETAIN still comes to mind, as many of the articles on works of fiction are not properly categorized, as well as the appropriate categories also being deleted at one point.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 16:38, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Found the discussion: Wikipedia_talk:Recent_years/Archive_2 (I presume). Based on my skimming, the consensus isn't super strong to spin out, but the alternative does not look to be merging back in (or, at the time, simply leaving them be). There looks to be more support to just remove them or to be extremely selective (along the lines of 1984, 2001, and other particularly notable works of fiction in which the year plays an important role as opposed to a random number that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the actual year) rather than what would exist if we just merged these back in. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 16:50, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The reason for the existence of such articles is that contributors interested in historical or futuristic fiction were putting sections into the year articles where they could be confused with real events. So in general I'm in favour of keeping them if they have content, and I OPPOSE any move to transfer the content to the main year articles. Deb (talk) 16:44, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Weak keep as navigational aids (see my comments above), and oppose a merge into the main year articles. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 16:50, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment There was another afd where the consensus was to delete and the articles were not in the near future even at the time. Here is the link: Articles for deletion/2006 in fiction Secondly, what year a fictional work takes place in is not a defining characteristic of the work. KAP03Talk &bull;&#32;Contributions 17:00, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It isn't necessary for a list's concept to be "defining" (that's a standard for categories, see WP:DEFINING, WP:NONDEFINING). And notwithstanding that, why do you think that setting is not generally defining for a work of fiction? Or are you saying that we simply need not be so precise as to index by year? postdlf (talk) 17:09, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It is that making a list of fictional works in a certain year is a trivial criteria and the items on the list are subjective, meaning they require inline citations to reliable sources which don't mention what year a fictional work takes place in. KAP03Talk &bull;&#32;Contributions 17:37, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * What makes you think that no works themselves nor secondary sources mention what year a work takes place in? There are definitely works that are vague on that point or not more specific than a decade or era, and so should not be included in such year-specific lists, but to give an easy example, I'm reading a novel right now about Napoleon's exile on St. Helena. No question there as far as the year the main events start, and this is going to be typical of historical fiction or alternative histories. And there are works like The Transformers: The Movie that start with express narration ("It is the year 2005..."). And critical reviews of works (which are going to exist for any notable work) are always going to describe setting. So let's avoid ipse dixit assertions that this information is necessarily subjective or not found in any source, as these sweeping overgeneralizations of yours aren't actually based on any evidence and are easily contradicted. postdlf (talk) 18:17, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep Have sources even been looked for here? Remember that AfD isn't cleanup, I would either keep the articles or source merge them back into the parent articles (years). - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 17:16, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:MUSTBESOURCES, please indicate what these sources are and where we can find them. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:37, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * per WP:BEFORE, the nom is required to indicate if they have searched for sources or not. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 20:28, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree, . It's not clear if has done this; failure to meet GNG is argued but it is not explained how they've come to this conclusion. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:57, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I have found a few sources for some of the years on the list. However, the articles seem to be mostly WP:OR. KAP03Talk &bull;&#32;Contributions 22:20, 8 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete all for failing WP:LISTN – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:43, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Anything but merging them to the article on the real years. This was some time ago, but I did spin some of these off  after a discussion with other users. The reason is simple: When our readers come to an article about a particular year, they are loking for information about events that actually happened that year, not what a dozen random works of fiction that coincidentally happen to be set in that year were about. Even in cases like 1984 (novel) or 2001: A Space Odyssey (novel) they are more culturally significant in the context of the year they were written or published than the year they happened to be set in, but in which the events depicted did not happen. I'm fine with it if consensus is that these shouldn't exist at all, the ones I created were made in the interest of compromise to keep them from cluttering up articles about reality, so I definitely feel that merging them into those articles would be a mistake. In nearly every case it sin't relevant to the real year in question. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:02, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I can't speak to every one of these but the initial discussion about recent year articles is at Wikipedia talk:Recent years/Archive 2. I haven't particpated at RY in quite a while, but at the time it was a bit of a walled garden and rather unpleasant. Spinning these off instead of just removing them altogether was a compromise when those arguing to keep this content admitted it did not add to the reader's understanding of the actual year but wanted to keep it anyway because....vague reasons that seemed to be more about feelings than Wikipedia policy. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:34, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete all but consider that this type of breakdown would seem to be prime for categorization. --M ASEM (t) 02:42, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete all - I'm amazed that we'd even consider keeping articles like these. The era (Middle Ages, Roaring 20s, etc.) in which a fictional work is set might be significant, but certainly not the specific year. And it's ten times worse when you're talking about future years, because the various works set in (for example) 2029 aren't really set in the same year, or even the same universe! Even in the most hard realistic science fiction, the year is just an arbitrary number picked out of the time frame in which the author thinks such events might occur. In other words, the works included in these lists have no real connection to each other at all, not even a trivial one.--Martin IIIa (talk) 13:38, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Strong keep - Avoid main-articles becoming landfill sites for dumping information into them. J 1982 (talk) 22:25, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * While I agree that would not be desirable and is in fact whay many of these were created to begin with, thsi is a fixable issue and this sort of argument is one that generally is not considered valid. if we have a consensus both that these artices should nto exist and that this content should not be in the main year articles (which was already established) then anyone seeing such additions can simply remove them. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:10, 10 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete all. Too many works that are set at the time of the publishing or close to it that it isn't that useful, as well as stories that are set in the present, only to have an epilogue of "X years later". Not to mention time travel ones that cover a multitude of times. However, the List of stories set in a future now past and List of films set in the future is useful. <strong style="color:#606060;">AngusWOOF  ( bark  •  sniff ) 23:38, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete all- poorly sourced, overly specific and filled with WP:OR. These do not serve any kind of useful informative or navigational purpose. Definitely DO NOT merge them into the real year articles. Reyk  <sub style="color:blue;">YO!  08:07, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete Delete all of these. They don't meet GNG. Capitalismojo (talk) 10:20, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete all. This is better suited for a category, or a certain type of fiction (i.e., novels, films, video games, etc). soetermans . ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 12:03, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment, we already have these cats ie. Category:2029 in fiction, do we need list articles that are essentially duplicates? do these meet WP:LISTN?, where are these "discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources"? Coolabahapple (talk) 07:29, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Navigational lists aren't subject to the same notability guidelines. Granted, that makes them harder to assess, and it may be there's no consensus that navigating between articles on fiction set in a particular year has value to a reader, but they don't duplicate categories. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 13:51, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * thanks for explanation. Coolabahapple (talk) 15:09, 13 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete All - Largely unsourced mounds of Listcruft and Fancrust. Looking through these articles, its looking like most of them are chalk full of OR, as well, making any possible cleanup far more difficult than its worth.  64.183.45.226 (talk) 17:24, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose group nom per WP:NOTDUP, really. We have a vast category structure along the lines of Category:20th century in fiction, broken up by years. We have an equally vast Category:Works by setting, for geographical settings. There are advantages to lists as explained in our policy and these lists are a logical extension of a system we've created so readers can find articles.Shawn in Montreal (talk) 00:22, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I really don't see how NOTDUP applies here. While some have argued that a categorization is better than having these lists I don't believe most, if any, delete comments argue that the existence of the categories is the primary reason these list should be deleted. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:18, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Really? "Delete all but consider that this type of breakdown would seem to be prime for categorization"? Regardless, I don't see a reason to delete. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 02:33, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That suggests it as an alternative, not as a mutually exclusive option. Beeblebrox (talk) 07:21, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * He suggests it as an alternative as part of a mutually exclusive option. But this is besides the point. Then just ignore the first sentence of my !vote. I go on to state -- and will gladly do so again -- that it makes no sense for us to have created such a vast category structure in order to situate fictional works both in time and place of setting, to help readers find articles, but that somehow only categories can do the job -- and these lists can't. WP:AOAL makes it clear how there are advantages to lists in this regard, and I'd ask editors to fully consider this if they're on the delete side of the debate -- however WP:IMPERFECT these lists might currently be. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:07, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * To continue this further, of course WP:LISTVERIFY does apply. And there's so much content that is currently unreferenced and as suggested above, is unlikely to be referenced soon. But to my knowledge no one has uncovered any serious, widespread inaccuracies in the content that has been added. Nothing so egregiously misleading as to necessitate nuking it. The worst that can be said, has been said, is that it is "cruft," "the year of setting doesn't matter, just the age", etc. But again, at the risk of being repetitive, it is not our place to tell readers how to browse the encyclopedia, and so Category:2007 in fiction and List of works of fiction set in 2007 function together. In fact, if kept, I'd suggest these lists be more prominently added to the category page, via , so as to get more eyeballs on the lists and hopefully, in time, improve them -- as of course we have WP:NODEADLINE (just an essay, but one which I agree with). Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:33, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions, as a good number of the lists are set in the past, not future. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:52, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * And at the risk of hogging this, I've been critical of the nominator the recent past for bringing lists to Afd while misunderstanding or misrepresenting policy. I simply don't buy his rationale of "WP:OR by being an article where no reliable published sources exist" (italics added). That's sort of preposterous. Are we being asked to accept that there are no reliable sources that state when fictional works take place -- all of them? Of course there are. He's trying to say that that no reliable sources "exist" on the list currently -- which is a very different thing. Now. I wanted to take a close look at the initial list he's brought here: List of works of fiction set in 2029 and yes it's a mess. The list creator has fatally confused "year of setting" with "year referenced within a work" -- which is a very different thing. I've done some clean up. I jumped down to List of works of fiction set in 1977. Some of the same problems. A bit more cleanup. But the list creator has simply based his list on which articles he finds in such categories as Category:Films set in 1977, it seems. Which only reinforces my feeling that Afd is not the place to resolve this, this is not a list-specific problem, and the nominator's enthusiasm for bring lists to Afd -- under any pretext -- shouldn't unduly sway us. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:51, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Weak keep per Shawn in Montreal and Rhododendrites. I especially oppose the inclusion of the 14th century article in this nomination. Having an article for an individual year may be too narrow, but an article about an entire century is a very different thing and should not be grouped with the articles about a specific year. Lepricavark (talk) 17:00, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * True, even if the by-year lists are deleted by consensus, the 14th century list is a very different matter and shouldn't have been bundled. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:02, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I have removed the 14th century list from the nomination and secondly why do we need list articles that group fictional works by what year they occur which is a trivial criteria, making the articles mentioned loosely related  and if it is important it is mentioned in the target articles. If these articles are kept, I think that these articles should be merged into one article for a decade.  -KAP03(Talk &bull;&#32;Contributions/Your Page) 17:34, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It's good that you pulled 14th century -- it strengthens your group nom. And if I understand your comment correctly, the association with a year or place of setting should never be trivial, no. And that's a problem with a lot of the entries on these lists from what I can see, as well as the categories from which these list are partly based. I did prune a lot of entries from two I went through and more would certainly need to be done. In particular, we seem to have one editor there who's a fan of Dr. Who, and so any time the good doctor time-jumps to a stated year, for the purposes of the plot twist, in a given episode,  that's been added as a "year of setting," which I for one don't believe it meaningfully is, based on what I see in the target article. What's worse: he's added redlinks to what are probably non-notable Dr. Who episodes, based entirely on WP:OR or data not in Wikipedia. But notable/defining characteristics are an issue for categories and lists generally, I don't see it as specific to this particular set. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:27, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete All The subject(s) fails GNG. Navigation would be better done by categories. If there were secondary sources discussing how a particular year was depicted in fiction you could make a case to keep, but each of these lists are the result of someone vainly trying to turn a red link blue. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 20:44, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep - I think the setting is a notable part of fiction, and I don't see why notable part of the setting doesn't include year. I think lists of art/fiction by setting are interesting to our readers, are good for the project, and make suitable wikipedia articles. I want to point out that lists of the setting in fiction is clearly contentious (compare to ), and I wonder if a more general discussion might be useful. Smmurphy(Talk) 22:39, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It's a weird area. For one, these lists mix works set in 1977 where 1977 is: a) the simply the contemporary period in which the work was produced and set b) when 1977 is a past year c) or older works in which in 1977 is a future of some kind, usually dystopian. I understand this is hardly supporting my own !vote but one has to acknowledge the issues around both these lists and categories, and it's why I agree that a more general discussion would be good. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 22:50, 14 January 2017 (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.