Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Outline of Middle-earth


 * 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 keep. I considered relisting due to the close division of numbers, but based on the arguments this is a pretty clear Keep. Most of the arguments for deletion, including the nomination, do not seem to recognize that outlines are a navigational feature, and therefore are not treated as redundant to regular articles or lists. The comments about the need to maintain the outline are relevant, but appear to have been addressed during the AfD. Most of the other on-point comments evaluate this as a useful and appropriate outline, so the overall result is Keep. RL0919 (talk) 03:49, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Outline of Middle-earth

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Maybe I'm wrong and there is a place for vague topic outlines like this in Wikipedia, but the content here is duplicated in many other places. Even if this article, which duplicates articles such as Middle-earth, List of Middle-earth characters, and Arda (Tolkien), this outline has serious fancruft issues, probably half the stuff linked here are redirects, it would likely require a WP:TNT delete. Hog Farm (talk) 03:19, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Hog Farm (talk) 03:19, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. Hog Farm (talk) 03:19, 8 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep Outline pages for large topics are reasons, and there's no question there's a lot of Middle earth topics that notable despite the present number of AFDs. It is rare for a topic on fiction to have this much but ME has had a great deal of study to support this. That said, it does need to be trimmed where there are excessive use of redirects - the only major links should be to standalone pages. --M asem  (t) 03:52, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete - WP:CLN says articles like these can exist alongside categories, but it also says editors may decide that certain methods of listing are inappropriate. These kinds of lists are just impossible to keep up on with how much fiction fluctuates. Even something like this where the original author has been dead for decades constantly has pages added and deleted due to new works still being made. Without a project dedicated to keeping it up to date, it'll just stagnate like one of the other recently deleted ones. I'd say at best the lists of non-fiction items not already covered in Middle-earth should be merged there. TTN (talk) 12:10, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete It's not the role of an encyclopedia to provide glossaries for fictional worlds when reliable secondary sources don't reference such glossaries. Nwlaw63 (talk) 16:24, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. I don't think this is a duplicate of any of the linked articles: this is explicitly an outline, while Middle-earth and Arda (Tolkien) are broad topic articles. I agree there is overlap between Outline of Middle-earth and List of Middle-earth characters, but the organization is very different: the former orders them by historical period and association, the later in alphabetical order. I do agree that listing redirects is problematic, but this can be resolved. BenKuykendall (talk) 19:24, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete: just a galaxy of fancruft. There is no Middle-earth franchise.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:22, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per Masem and BenKuykendall. Also, there is in fact a Middle-earth franchise. The Tolkien Estate that controls the intellectual property of JRR Tolkien has chosen to license his works for a plethora of commercial adaptations, from the Peter Jackson films to Lego sets. This is by definition a franchise. De728631 (talk) 17:14, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete We can adequately cover these things in the articles on Middle-earth and probably in some ways more to the point in the article on J.R.R. Tolkien himself. If the LotR TV show takes off the ground in a truly dramatic way, than this might be something worth revisting. However that is an event that is not going to happen unitl at the easliest 2021, so we have a long time until then. We do not need this article until that TV show actually exists.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:28, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep, also per Masem and Benkuykendall. This is a useful outline, and it would be a shame if it were deleted. It serves a different purpose than the Middle-earth article. After a little cleanup and a link from that article to this outline, the utility of this outline would be undeniable. BirdValiant (talk) 20:36, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:4360:25:2C81:FAD:F228 (talk) 01:39, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Useful index type article and different enough from the rest. GenQuest  "Talk to Me" 11:29, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete Index pages for en.wiki's fiction coverage are usually badly maintained, and this is no exception: it seems 50-70% of the in-universe topics are either black-linked, red-linked or redirects, and it will just get worse. The navigation templates for the franchise are up-to-date, easier to maintain, and easier for navigation purposes. – sgeureka t•c 13:17, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * This has been improved, for the most part. See this diff. I agree the navboxes for the franchise are quite nice. But nav boxes and outlines serve different purposes. BenKuykendall (talk) 21:39, 11 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep for navigation purposes. AfD is not for fixing red links. FWIW, I like it. Bearian (talk) 02:07, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep, seems like a good enough article, even if it's only use is for navigational purposes. Devonian Wombat (talk) 04:31, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is comparable to Outline of Narnia, Outline of Star Trek, or Outline of A Song of Ice and Fire franchise. Goustien (talk) 04:34, 12 January 2020 (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.