Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Narnian timeline


 * 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. Perhaps it could be a "no consensus" otherwise, but the serious copyvio concerns is more than sufficient to tip this over. T. Canens (talk) 17:46, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Narnian timeline

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Violates WP:NOT because the article is mainly a plot summary. There is some information here that talks about the author of the work providing a timeline in a manuscript that was later published. But if that's the case, then reprinting the timeline here is a WP:COPYVIO and may even warrant speedy deletion. Regardless, Wikipedia is still not a place for articles that are basically plot summaries, with little coverage of reception or significance, and this has been the policy for almost 5 years. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:18, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Nomination refactored to Speedy Delete: I stopped by a public library and looked at "C.S. Lewis: a companion & guide". So it turns out, Hopper the executor of Lewis's estate and the legal copyright holder, thus making making him far from a neutral or independent source on this topic. But more importantly, C.S. Lewis's entire "Outline of Narnia History so far as it is known" is reprinted here in this article, almost verbatim. The list of dates I read at the library begins with the birth of the characters, their entry into Narnia, every subsequent re-entry into Narnia, right until the end of Narnia, with exact years quantified in both Earth and Narnian times. I continue to believe that even if this timeline were synthesized purely by editors, a regular AFD would still be suitable since it takes more than a few lines about the authorship and publication of a plot to make the article something other than WP:JUSTPLOT. But the fact that it basically reprints several pages from a copyrighted source with a few editorial annotations, it makes it more than just fundamentally unfixable. It makes this article an obvious "delete on sight". It's frustrating to think that the fans thought it was okay to do this, and no one else bothered to look into it until now. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:32, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment if it's not a copyvio, merge to Narnia (world). 65.94.44.141 (talk) 04:42, 1 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep WP:NOT does not forbid plot or tell us that we should delete it. It just counsels that we should aim to do more than recount the plot of a work.  This article does just that by explaining the provenance of the timeline and its use by scholars and critics of Lewis' work.  Lewis is a major author whose work is routinely taught in school.  Per WP:NB, all his work is notable and that includes this timeline.  Warden (talk) 07:04, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The "Narnian timeline" is neither a book nor a proper independent "work". As such, it is not covered by WP:NB.Folken de Fanel (talk) 12:37, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You're being too literal but guidelines expect us to use common sense. It is clearly a significant piece of work when considering Lewis' work on Narnia in its entirety, as scholars do. Warden (talk) 06:15, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If it was such a significant piece of work, then I'm sure there would be enough analyses about it in reliable secondary sources. Why can't we find any in this article ? Why are there only trivial details relegated in intro ? That's because this "piece of work" is not significant at all. And the idea of using WP:BN for a single sheet of preliminary document no scholar cared about in an attempt to circumvent WP:GNG is a clear abuse of policies.Folken de Fanel (talk) 12:19, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. WP:NOT is a valid concern but as Colonel Warden points out it is not a reason to automatically delete. I'm not qualified to comment on the possible copyvio, but for the article itself I think that WP:SUMMARY justifies it - frankie (talk) 15:09, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions.  —Shooterwalker (talk) 00:57, 2 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:NOT and WP:GNG. As Shooterwalker explains it, the secondary content included is really too unsubstantial to claim that the article would not be only a plot summary. WP:NOT defines that only "concise plot summaries" are appropriate, and WP:WAF informs us that "the length of a plot summary should be carefully balanced with the length of the other sections". In other words, the plot summary should only be a small part of the article, the core of it being secondary information about the fictional work. Here, we have a complete reversal, in violation of the two mentioned rules: the plot summary is the core of the article, and what little secondary content is available is relegated to the introduction. Clearly the article doesn't not meet the WP:GNG because the subject hasn't received "significant coverage" beyond the trivial mentions reported in the introduction.Folken de Fanel (talk) 12:37, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The balance of content in an article is not adequate as a reason to delete everything because it would throw out the baby with the bathwater contrary to our editing policy. Warden (talk) 15:07, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry but I don't see any baby in this water. Everything that can be said on the topic is already thoroughly covered in Narnia_(world).Folken de Fanel (talk) 23:46, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Nonsense - that contention is clearly false. Your supposed alternative says nothing about the views of Ford, Lindskoog and Sammons on the authenticity of this timeline and, lacking this real-world aspect, is in greater breach of WP:PLOT. Warden (talk) 06:15, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Then I advise you to change your vote to "merge". But in any case, the Narnian timeline cannot stand on its own.Folken de Fanel (talk) 12:19, 3 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Redirect to The Chronicles of Narnia - Articles of this type are iffy, and need significant material to prove that it is notable. Blake (Talk·Edits) 17:39, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. I just want to say that while WP:NOT is certainly the policy bit that is concerned with this discussion, the article itself is not plot driven. It is a timeline, which is a particular construct with an specific purpose and scope, that relies on plot elements by necessity - frankie (talk) 18:38, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * So you're saying that this article is constructing a specific summary based on plot elements...wait, aren't we back to WP:NOT, then ?Folken de Fanel (talk) 23:46, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I still prefer SUMMARY. Both Narnia (world) and Chronicles of Narnia cover diverse aspects of the general subject of Narnia, so it makes for sections to be of more use if they can stand by themselves. The focus of this article is not the plot but the manner in which the storyline develops with respects to the order of events. The mention of plot elements is mandatory since the line needs to be tagged, which doesn't mean that such tags should be spurious, since it is good to provide context that enables the user to see how events affect each other - frankie (talk) 00:20, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You go to such great length to avoid using the words "plot summary"...but are you really going to claim that "the manner in which the storyline develops with respects to the order of events" is an altogether different thing from "summing up the plot" ? Objectively, it's the same thing, and as I see it, you're just nitpicking on terms. Plot = storyline/"how events affect each other", summary= "Presenting the substance in a condensed form". That it follows the in-universe chronological order doesn't make it less a plot summary. Don't you think that, for example, showing a number of secondary sources significantly covering the topic would have been a more convincing angle to defend the article ?Folken de Fanel (talk) 01:34, 3 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep While a timeline will by its nature include significant plot elements, that is not the purpose of this article. If the purpose of the article was to provide a timeline of events from Lewis' Chronicles, this article would be woefully inadequate. It includes insignificant and excludes significant events. The article is about the timeline that Lewis wrote, and is notable enough to be included in books about Lewis' works. LloydSommerer (talk) 22:55, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Notability is not something you can improvise. WP:GNG defines it as a topic that has received "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", which is not the case of this timeline as it seems to have only been mentioned in passing. If this article was supposed to be a critical analysis of one of Lewis's works, as you claim, then we would have sections devoted to the actual analysis. I don't see any. I only see a chronological plot summary with a few trivia in introduction. So either your definition of "notable" is wrong, or you are talking about another article.Folken de Fanel (talk) 23:46, 2 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment On the one hand there is not enough of a plot here for it to really fall under WP:. Whole groups of events are mentioned as one (the entire story-line of The Horse and his Boy is covered in two sentences), as well as "bridge" or "transition" events that occur in between Narnia books are mentioned such as "1502: Queen Swanwhite of Narnia lived around the time." This just is not a simple plot summary, but instead a highly selective listing of some plot elements as required to construct a timeline. On the other hand, the timeline of Narnia is not quite as notable as the timeline of Tolkien's Middle-Earth. The latter has been widely discussed in a great deal of critical literature on Tolkien. And I suspect the same thing is true of the timeline of Asimov's Foundation series. Little attention is given in literature about Narnia to the Narnian timeline.--WickerGuy (talk) 00:00, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * For Foundation I'm pretty sure it's been discussed, specially because it goes all the way to I Robot, which starts in the 90s - frankie (talk) 00:31, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The crux of WP:NOT is not the level of details and trivia a summary can include, but how a summary (whatever its length) cannot be the main content of an article.Folken de Fanel (talk) 01:34, 3 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. Other than possible copyvio, the content itself is no candidate for deletion. I'll gladly participate if there is a merge proposal - frankie (talk) 02:06, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete: The timeline as a subject does not meet the general notability guideline and there is no indication that it can be anything other than a plot-only description of a fictional work. Upon further examination, the references used in the article, while reliable, do not show notability for the timeline. Past Watchful Dragons: The Fairy Tales of C. S. Lewis is a primary source since the timeline is taken allegedly from a manuscript by the author of Narnia. It is not a review or essay about the timeline and certainly not a secondary source, so it doesn't work for notability purposes. The C. S. Lewis Hoax seems to be used only to prove the authenticity of Outline of Narnian history since the document is not mentioned as part of Hooper's alleged hoaxes, which are mentioned in that book, but I couldn't find any mention about that document itself or anything related to the timeline, so it is not even a trivial mention. The Outline of Narnian history is only alluded in one sentence within Reading with the Heart: The Way into Narnia, a trivial mention. The other two sources cited within the article are tertiary sources that do not show notability for the timeline in anyway as they do not make analytic or evaluative claims about the timeline. A search engine test shows no indication of third-party sources that cover the timeline as a subject addressed in detail. Since it is only plot and that is already covered in several other Narnia-related articles, I do not see the need to keep around this non-notable and redundant content fork. The text of the article itself is redundant since it merely rewrites the Outline of Narnian History, which is already present in image form at Wikimedia Commons. It is sufficient to add a link to that image in Narnia (world). Jfgslo (talk) 02:43, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, the image is a copyright violation as well and would need to be deleted. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:46, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep First, this is not a plot summary. It presents events, not plot -- there are many important plot threads entirely missing.  It gives information and context not present in the books, and includes events not mentioned in the books.  Some of the information is not even consistent with the books.  Second, the criteria for notability are largely met.  The only one there is any question about is whether independent sources cover the item "significantly" -- but the stated reason for requiring this is so that "no original research is needed to extract the content".  Arguing that Hooper is not an independent source sounds like special pleading to me; certainly Lindeskoog thought him "independent", and his Companion is regarded as one of the definitive treatments.  The argument above would apply to any "official" biographer, rendering all such biographies somehow unreliable.  Hooper thought enough of the Timeline not just to mention it but to reproduce it in its entirety, so its content is certainly known without OR.  Several other sources use the material, and Ford devotes an appendix to reproducing material from it.  Third, while I can't speak to the copyright issue, I will mention that the "image" is not a graphical reproduction from the original; it's merely an SVG text file that uses the graphical capabilities of SVG simply to position the text so that the spacing is chronologically significant.  And using this as the primary presentation (as suggested above) makes it difficult to provide the links that the article currently provides.  Finally, I prefer to keep this as a separate article precisely because it is a separate source of Narnian material, is reasonably self-contained, is referred to by scholars, and would be a space burden in the Narnian world article.  It's the sort of thing that routinely gets off-loaded into a separate article. -- Elphion (talk) 16:03, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes it is plot summary. Fictional events are the plot. How could it be otherwise ? Everything that is fictional is part of the plot. "Plot" means "the fiction". And no, this article doesn't meet the notability requirements. You said it yourself, it means "significant coverage in reliable sources", and I don't see that in the article. "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention", and I only see trivial mentions in the article. Merely reproducing one of Lewis's working document is not "covering it significantly". I don't see any thorough analysis of it from any Lewis scholar, so it is not notable.Folken de Fanel (talk) 19:53, 3 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete Does not assert notability and only lists in-universe plot events. – Harry Blue5 (talk • contribs) 23:23, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete trying to split hairs between "plot" versus "fictional events" is wikilawyering of the worst kind. Not enough independent coverage to asset notability. Needs far more than a sentence about scholars challenging authenticity. 74.198.9.247 (talk) 00:50, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment from nominator re: copyright I've talked with an admin about how to handle the copyright violation issue, considering that this page reproduces the entire copyrighted timeline almost verbatim. On a quick scan, she agrees that there's a potential copyright problem here. At her advice, I've tagged the article using the appropriate tag. The tag automatically blanks the page. Someone with copyright expertise is going to look into the issue to make a full determination, and I expect them to find what I've found. But regardless, it will be a full week until the review is completed. I should note that I previously tagged this for speedy deletion due to a copyright violation, but because it wasn't blatantly obvious (you can't just look it up on the web) it was declined in favor of a slower copyright deletion process. Shooterwalker (talk) 00:00, 6 June 2011 (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.