Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Organizations in A Song of Ice and Fire (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 delete. Randykitty (talk) 14:48, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Organizations in A Song of Ice and Fire
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There are two problems with this:
 * Notability: The sources only show that individual organizations from this fictional world have been discussed or (much more often) merely mentioned in third-party sources. But none of these sources discusses the topic of this series's organizations as a whole, which makes that topic fail WP:N. The sources are mostly media sources that mention the one or the other group in passing in the context of some plot point. A case could perhaps be made for the notability of some specific organizations, if they have substantial real-world-related coverage, but that's not apparent from the article.
 * In-universe style: Per WP:NOTPLOT, a policy, an article must not consist of "summary-only descriptions of works". But that's the case here. The article is almost exclusively a portrayal of these groups as they exist in-universe, i.e., a summary of the respective parts of these fictional works. We don't see any real-world connection, e.g., sourced commentary about how the Iron Bank of Braavos reflects real-world capitalism. Also, the draft is written in an in-universe style, treating the fiction as though it were real, in violation of the style guideline MOS:FICT ("Wikipedia articles should describe fiction and fictional elements from the perspective of the real world, not from the perspective of the fiction itself."). As such, this content is suited for a fan wiki, but not for Wikipedia. - While AfD is not cleanup, this is a long worked-on draft that was recently restored to mainspace. If even focused editing can't fix this fundamental problem, it is likely unfixable because there are not enough secondary sources that allow out-of-universe coverage of this topic, and we can therefore delete the article.  Sandstein   12:17, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep Those two sources are a start for what is a notable work of fiction with real world basis. More sources to come article was just restored a day ago give the article some time to be expanded. Given the complexity of the subject this could take awhile. Valoem   talk   contrib  17:35, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Which two sources? You just had this restored from your userspace via DRV, so you had all the time you wanted to improve it - but it's still just a heap of fancruft, not an encyclopedia article. (And I'm saying this as the person who probably wrote most of the main Game of Thrones article). I'm not seeing any indication it can ever overcome the problems mentioned above.  Sandstein   18:25, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete or possibly redirect to World of A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm sympathetic to the work Valoem has put in here, but I just don't see any likelihood of this approach producing a quality article. A few of the "organizations" included in the current version may eventually generate enough out-of-universe coverage to warrant brief encyclopedic treatment, but those can be discussed in World of A Song of Ice and Fire (which is itself badly in need of cleanup, but probably deserves to exist; the recent debates around sexual violence and realism in the setting might be enough by themselves to anchor that article). The question isn't just whether one can find discussion of topics from the books and the TV show in independent websites; a popular franchise is inevitably going to generate a high quantity of ephemeral and rather trivial coverage. But "the five best new characters from Game of Thrones" isn't meaningful content for a character article, and stuff like a two-minute interview with George R. R. Martin about the inspiration for the Faith Militant doesn't justify this one. Brendan Moody (talk) 19:17, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * A follow-up comment: the material Valoem has just added to the article underlines the issues here. Neither new source in the lead supports the sentence they're both citing, "Martin based many organizations on the nature of medieval cruelty and behavior." The Radio Times article contains the phrase "extreme medieval cruelty," and the LiveScience piece contains the sentence "George R. R. Martin, the author of "A Song of Ice and Fire" book series on which the HBO series is based, has said he draws inspiration from certain historical events, including the English Wars of the Roses." But there's nothing there directly about organizations in the series, which is the topic of the article. Nor does either Den of Geek article specifically claim that Martin based the Faith Militant on the Catholic Church. The first makes a glancing allusion to the influence of history on the series' portrait of religion, while the second speculates about "likely" influences on Martin. The "History Behind Game of Thrones" article is likewise speculative, and since none of the website's contributors appear to be notable scholars or commentators it's a dubious source to boot. The only one of the five that comes close enough to addressing any aspect of the article's topic to be useful is the second Den of Geek article, and that's limited to information on a single organization that is already adequately sourced. The way to demonstrate the notability of this topic is not to locate every article with even a passing mention of Martin's debts to real medieval history; there may well be many more than 150 of them, but that's not relevant. Adding a single sentence each about possible inspirations at the end of several paragraphs of plot summary is not enough. What we need is significant secondary coverage of enough different organizations to allow a meaningful out-of-universe article. I don't think that coverage exists, which is why I maintain that deletion is the best approach. Brendan Moody (talk) 23:31, 24 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Inclined to keep per our approach to lists of fictional content and in particular (quoted from there): For fictional works, these spinout articles are typically lists of characters or other elements that usually rely on the coverage of the parent topic, and may lack demonstration of real-world coverage through sources dedicated specifically to those elements (see Wikipedia:Lists). I think that takes care of the WP:N concern. Regards the overall WP:FICT concern, yes, text written from an in-universe perspective needs to be corrected (I haven't reviewed the article in this case), but 1) that's not a rationale alone to delete an article (and in fact "Summary style approach" covers this in its second paragraph also); and 2) the nom seems not to understand that per the quoted text out-of-universe writing does not necessarily dictate the presence of reliable sourced coverage. --Izno (talk) 20:36, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * From that guideline: "Very rarely should such spinout articles be about a singular topic (e.g., character, plot item); either that topic has demonstrated its own notability, or should be merged into the main article or existing spinout articles. The spinout article should concisely provide details of the topic or topics covered in the work – just because the spinout article is given more space to grow does not mean that excessive plot summaries (...) are appropriate." That's a good explanation why this article is inappropriate.  Sandstein   20:43, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The text you are presumably concerned with is should such spinout articles be about a singular topic (e.g., character, plot item); either that topic has demonstrated its own notability, or should be merged into the main article or existing spinout articles--this is I presume a badly written statement that any spinout article should not be concerned with singular entities i.e. a singular character, or a singular item, etc. Otherwise this would point to the guideline being internally inconsistent, which I find unlikely given how WP:FICT was hammered out. The other text quoted, spinout article should concisely provide details of the topic or topics covered in the work – just because the spinout article is given more space to grow does not mean that excessive plot summaries (...) are appropriate. is part of the normal cleanup process and does not suffice to delete an article. As I commented, I agree that in-universe is a problem but it is not so insurmountable that the article must be deleted. --Izno (talk) 20:47, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it is, because if one were to delete all the in-universe stuff from this article, how much would be left? A few sentences? Not enough for an article, at any rate. The entire article is an an excessive plot summary; aggregating this amount of random details from this series goes far, far beyond what we need and already have, in the articles about the books and the characters, to appropriately summarize the plot of the books. We only provide value if we focus on covering this (and any) fiction as a cultural artefact that impacts our real world, and this article does not help one iota to do that.  Sandstein   20:56, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * This is untrue--content which is in-universe can be written from an out-of-universe perspective. Do you understand this? As for your assertion that it is only a worthy article if it places the fictional content in the context of the real world, this is plainly false per the cited guideline. We do find these sorts of articles to be somewhat valuable even without context. (This is not to say that we should not add such context as applicable, naturally.) --Izno (talk) 22:56, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete - as much as I like GOT, I don't see the notability here for the organizations themselves. This is not the GOT Wiki. —Мандичка YO 😜 15:51, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete unless reworked out of its in-universe style. I had some hope duuring the DRV that it might be possible to work this into a decent article due to the high cultural notability of the series itself but as it is it's a pile of in-universe trivia.  One possibility might be a very selective merge into the characters list. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  20:45, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * There are so many sources regarding this topic it is hard to find sources based solely on real world implications. I'll see what I can find. It is odd with the massive influence on popular culture we cannot find a place for this here. I've found over 150 secondary sources which means the in universe subject has vastly more coverage than other counter parts. These sources suggest this subject should have a place here on wikipedia and is not limited to ASOFAI wiki. Once again Wikipedia has no timeline so if sources are found and there is some coverage in real world basis we should favor retention. Valoem   talk   contrib  21:50, 24 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment I've added even more sources which can be expanded on I also found this source showing the influence of women in GofT compare to medieval history. Perhaps DGG could give some advice as to how to improve this article, as I am currently working on this alone and given how popular this subject I cannot help but notice the possibility deleting this could be a mistake.  Valoem   talk   contrib  22:26, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep The basic reason for keeping articles like these is that on balance they are a better place to cover the individual organizations than to do it in separate articles on the one hand, and to overload the main article with the details. The general first time reader/viewer will want an overview; most people, who are now no longer totally unacquainted with it will want a reasonable amount of details. This is not fan coverage--true fan coverage includes every possible detail, potentially to an extent greater than the original works.    As the amount of literature of the series develops in future years, there may be need for such individual organization articles, but I don't think we're there yet.  DGG ( talk ) 04:04, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:35, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:35, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:35, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:35, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Davewild (talk) 06:48, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete - agree with above solid arguments KiwikiKiWi (talk) 08:33, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete as lacking in deoth coverage in independent coverage. Stuartyeates (talk) 10:51, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 14:46, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment There are tons of independent coverage in secondary reliable sources. That argument does not hold under scrutiny. Valoem   talk   contrib  00:42, 7 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete per Sandstein and Starblind above. The Izno-Sandstein conversation gets to the heart of the matter for me, and I have to agree with Sandstein's points there (although I understand what Izno is trying to say). -- Shudde  talk 10:11, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete- As Wikimandia says, this is not the GOT wiki. This article is inherently unsuitable here. Reyk  YO!  11:20, 14 July 2015 (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.