Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nanoprobe (Star Trek) (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   Merge. Fails WP:NOTABILITY's prescription that "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." Let's examine bit-by-bit. The topic is nanoprobes as they relate to the Star Trek franchise. In both this AfD and previous, several sources were brought up. However, many appear to be just google search throws, in hoping that something will stick. For example, only uses the term nanoprobes, without regard to 'Star Trek', so we can't be sure that's what they are talking about. Google Books searches mostly turn up Star Trek fiction, and no significant mentions (plenty of the borg, of course.) Better are sources such as and  which show a clear use of the term, especially in relation to today's nanotechnology. (I accessed LexisNexis and EBSCOhost looking for information on borg nanoprobes, unfortunately I was unable to find any good sources which were not already brought up).

The issue is not whether reliable, secondary sources exist for the topic (as has been shown below, they do), but whether these mentions are anything beyond trivial or mentions such as explanatory text. Here, nanoprobes fall short. As per Deletion_policy, articles that are not otherwise notable can be folded into a parent article, so a good location for this information would be Borg. Users below also brought up a combination of nanoprobes in the fictional context with Nanoprobe (device); either method is up to editor discretion. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 19:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Nanoprobe (Star Trek)
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

2+ months after no-consensus AfD, article is still unsourced summary of non-notable plot device. First and third source identified in previous AfD make passing reference to Star Trek's use of "nanoprobe"s, second source uses the term but with no connection to Trek (and no effort since AfD to bring the article into line with WP:RS, WP:GNG) -- insufficient to establish notability or sustain an article. --EEMIV (talk) 03:02, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Article has references. - Eastmain (talk) 03:12, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Errr...for all its plot summary, the article cites only a single episodic source; the rest, even just regurgitating plot points, lacks any sort of indication from what episodes or books the claims come from. And there are no references or even vague allusions to any third-party sources. --EEMIV (talk) 03:21, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong, Speedy Keep - what this article needs is sources, not deletion. Here are a few news sources mentioning Star Trek. Not only that, there are a host of news hits in reliable sources that talk about the real nanoprobe work being done here in our universe and in our time, not just a fictional future. These can be mentioned in the Star Trek article, and included in the Nanoprobe (device) article, which could also use some expansion. It should be a small matter to do a search for reliable in-universe hits on the web; here's a start. Frank  |  talk  03:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions.   —  Frank  |  talk  03:50, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Three of your sources make only superfluous, passing reference to the topic; none of them offer anything approximating substantiation of the topic's notability. (For those who can't/don't access the mildly-protected "academic" article, the single reference to nanoprobes is the incisive, "On Star Trek, the Borg collective fills their drones with nanoprobes so that everyone is linked together"). The fourth reference is a shoddy review of a book, and the reviewer's own musings in his final paragraph don't mention "nano"anything. Really, none of these do anything to establish notability. And while the Google News hit for "nanoprobe" certainly does yield lots of results -- why wouldn't it? unlike, say, "tricobalt device", it's a perfectly plausible real-world term -- appending the critical franchise limiting "star trek" to the search field yields far fewer. And while some more-nerdy-than-others news writers have said, "Hey, this thing in a lab reminds me of last week's Star Trek technobabble!", there's still nothing here to push this topic over the WP:GNG hurdle. --EEMIV (talk) 03:58, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * we now look at the quality of the reviews? I though we looked to see if there were sources with substantial coverage, even if we thought the reviewer did a bad job of it. DGG (talk) 04:10, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, we do. The purpose here is to use reliable sources to build an encyclopedia.  It is not to have an article on everything and then grab at anything with the text string on the title in it as dressing around the edges.  WP:N asks for some indication that significant coverage of this subject has been published from independent sources.  It is well within the purview of editors to note that some mentions might not be significant (which he did here). Protonk (talk) 04:18, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The very fact that the "more-nerdy-than-others news writers" make reference to Star Trek, and that multiple independent sources also directly reference Star Trek when writing about nanoprobes, is enough to establish general notability. The fact that the term "nanoprobe" is well enough known in American society is due in no small part to people hearing it on Star Trek. Without starting the WP:OSE list that could naturally be inserted here, it is nevertheless relevant and on-point to note that there are plenty of other things from the Star Trek universe that are well known in our real-world culture (and which have articles here). This one is at least as notable and probably more so than any of them, because it also happens to refer to something real. In addition, this is a term that is widely known specifically to Star Trek fans, like, for example, a warp drive. While it is probably so that both warp drives and nanoprobes exist in other science fiction universes, it is clear from the quantity of references specifically to Star Trek when writing about nanoprobes - real or imagined - that this reference is notable. People should be able to read about both when searching for the term "nanoprobe" here. Frank  |  talk  04:20, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If you can substantiate the claim that nanoprobes have had some palpable impact on science, rather than just served as an allusion in coverage, then I'll withdraw the nomination. I'd also endorse some editor boldly moving this article to Nanoprobe to merge its content with Nanoprobe (device), which is also uncited and badly in need of revision. --EEMIV (talk) 12:01, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Weak delete Sources above are pretty thin.  However, Some might crop op, it isn't outside the realm of possibility. Protonk (talk) 04:18, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge to Borg, and dab 70.55.86.100 (talk) 05:54, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep - a fairly central plot element with significant profile in a highly notable series. I am sure there will be media-related periodicals which have information. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:41, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete - It's entirely in-universe plot summary. --Cameron Scott (talk) 09:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, the article doesn't have to be brought "in line" with WP:RS and WP:GNG since those are not policies. Nanoprobes are a notable Star Trek device. This article survived AFD two months ago, and another nomination for deletion so soon after is uncalled for. --Pixelface (talk) 09:49, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Upmerge or delete Mostly unsourced plot summary/description that can be covered in a mother article until it qualifies for a spinout. – sgeureka t•c 09:51, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep. Last Afd was two months ago and nom, bless them, deleted the article by way of a redirect without any discussion of merge or delete that I could see. So obviously this was the next step. A quick review of the last AfD - link above - indicated that nanoprobes has indeed transcended the notability threshold so when AfD is currently clocking in at 3000+ plus AfD'd articles - sadly that's not a typo - I would think a reasonable course would be to avoid AfDing, at least for a bit, and work toward article consensus which we had two months ago - to leave it for further development. We aren't in a rush here so give it a bit - is there something that is malicious, falsified, misleading, a liability? Those are concerns for trimming and clean-up as well - not deletion. -- Banj e  b oi   12:15, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. I strongly encourage editors to review the prior AfD on this article. -- Banj e  b oi   14:10, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Notable bit of technology used frequently in a major franchise, which in turn has potential real-world ties to nanotech development. 23skidoo (talk) 14:17, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete No reliable sources (even those mentioned above, which are trivial) to demonstrate notability. gnfnrf (talk) 14:40, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - Looks like the naysayers need more sources to establish independent coverage in multiple numerous sources. Yes, I've included some pretty thin sources, but there are a bunch of them. Yes, that smacks of WP:ILIKEIT but that's not my point: the point is these things are all over the place. They are a part of pop culture, and the web hits demonstrate that. The news hits support it. The real-world technology corroborates it by crossing it over from fiction to fact. And - I still haven't even looked at the old AfD, which apparently has more support for keeping this article. Frank  |  talk  14:49, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, these are mostly wikis and fan sites. And as I wrote above, if someone wants to squeeze nanoprobe (device) and nanoprobe (Star Trek) together to focus on the term jointly, swell -- but the idea that this background plot device has been the subject of significant coverage by multiple third-party sources simply isn't supported by any of the assorted links, individually or in whole, pasted here or in the old AfD. --EEMIV (talk) 14:58, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I can support a merge, removing the dab page and combining the two as Nanoprobe. Frank  |  talk  16:05, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Merge to Borg Nanoprobes are discussed entirely within the context of Borg, once that context explanation is removed, this article is really only a few sentences. Whether or not it meets the GNG, the potential for this article to expand is minuscule. -Verdatum (talk) 15:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete as page has no evidence of receiving significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject (as directed by the notability guideline) and is wholly constitutive of plot. Alternatively, merge whatever plot isn't already mentioned duly at Borg (Star Trek).  —   pd_THOR  undefined | 20:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment They have yet to be introduced but certainly exist:
 * http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=31&art_id=ct20020822112331465S5262447&set_id=1
 * http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15220578.200-is-there-anybody-out-there-.html
 * http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/252558
 * Google books has 40+
 * Per AfD if an article can be cleaned up through regular editing it isn't a good candidate for deletion. -- Banj e  b oi   21:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep per everyone.--63.3.1.2 (talk) 16:23, 1 November 2008 (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.