Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Recurring character


 * 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. John254 17:58, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Recurring character

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Broad subject that may merit an article, but this is a bad start. List + original research = nothing worth keeping. Cleanup would mean deleting all but part of the 1st sentence and watchlisting for drive-by appends. (Is TV really the only medium that has recurring characters?) / edg ☺ ☭ 11:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep It's a legitimate subject for an article, since it's a common feature not only in television, but in comic strips and other continuing storylines. I agree with you that the article, so far, is original research and could use some sourcing, and yes, the list of examples does seem to work like flypaper.  I don't agree with the equation of L+OR = 0.  Mandsford (talk) 13:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * What else is there? I don't dispute that this subject may be encyclopedic; however, this article has no content. I would say it is best deleted until someone comes up with something. / edg ☺ ☭ 15:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep If something "may merit an article" then the proper action is to improve it, not delete it. Also, recurring characters exist in many other forms of fiction - Dickens used recurring characters in his novels (or so a quick search for "recurring characters" in Google Books tells me). Staeiou (talk) 14:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I realize Wikipedia no longer deletes articles for being sheer garbage, but I would remind voters that there is nothing in this article to keep beyond a WP:DICDEF. / edg ☺ ☭ 15:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep! Does need a bit of a tidy up, however. Doesn't necesarrily have to be a list, sir! Flutterdance (talk) 14:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * According to this edit, it does have to be a list. This article lacks sufficient valuable content to be worth the energy spent patrolling it for listcruft (not to think of the inevitable edit wars with editors who really like listcruft). / edg ☺ ☭ 15:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - per Wikipedia's deletion policy. AfD is not ceanup, and potential problems (e.g., the likelihood of edit wars) are not a reason for deletion either.  If there is a likelihood of sourced information beyond a dicdef (and the nominator concedes that there probably is) the article should be tagged appropriately and retained pending improvement.  ◄   Zahakiel   ►  19:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete (preferred option) or stubify as original research. I agree with everyone, including the nominator, that it is possible to create an article on the topic.  However, the current material, even with the list removed, is so bad that it would be better to re-create an article from scratch than to try to salvage this mess.  As Staeiou noted, recurring characters are not limited to television series, so not even the first sentence can be preserved as is.--FreeKresge (talk) 16:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep as recognizable and verifiable subject. Concerns seem to fall under SOFIXIT.  Best, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 16:47, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Classical music in popular culture would be an example of an article on a recognizable and verifiable subject that was deleted in favor of starting from scratch. / edg ☺ ☭ 13:07, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Where is this rewritten-from-scratch article on classical music in popular culture that was supposed to have replaced the deleted article? It seems to me that deletion did absolutely nothing to encourage a new article in its place. Rather, it nipped any chance that someone knowledgable in the subject might have seen the "bad" article and fixed it. DHowell (talk) 20:44, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Some knowledgeable user can still create a good article. I disagree with your suggestion here that keeping an article in this condition will be an aid in the creation of a good article. I propose that articles allowed to linger in this condition will tend to remain bad articles, creating inertia against improvement by their implicit acceptance. By way of example, this article was created in 2004, and by your reasoning it should be a very good article by now. / edg ☺ ☭ 21:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * By your reasoning no bad article could ever became a good article without deleting the bad article first. Examining the edit histories of many currently good articles would certainly falsify that conclusion. There is no time limit for improvement, and of course not every bad article is going to become a good article within some certain timeframe. However, I think far more people spend far more time improving existing articles than creating new ones from scratch. If there is no information in Wikipedia about a certain subject, because the article has been deleted, how is this knowledgeable user going to happen upon Wikipedia in order to create this good article from scratch? Isn't it more likely that such a user might find this "bad" article in an Internet search, and then want to improve it? By the way, I disagree that this article is even a "bad" article; it may be unsourced, but none of the information here seems unverifiable and much of it is common knowledge. The fact that this article has been here and has been regularly edited since 2004, without so much as a tag being added until you came along, speaks volumes about the consensus of what most editors think regarding the quality and desirability of this article. Is there really anything specific in this article you are challenging, or do you just think that any information without a cited source is dubious and must be deleted? DHowell (talk) 23:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * No, that is not my reasoning. I am only saying that keeping a bad article neither helps the encyclopedia, nor encourages creation of a good article. However, keeping such poor information is detrimental to the encyclopedia (and a disservice to its readers). If you feel this is not a bad article, we probably disagree on too many fundamentals to have a meaningful discussion. However, problems with this article are noted above by several editors. / edg ☺ ☭ 23:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * There is a huge difference between an article "with problems" and a "bad" article that needs to be deleted. Problems can be solved, but an article so bad that it needs to be deleted would presumably have insoluble problems. And if we disagree so much on fundamentals, then a "meaningful discussion" should be able to expose those fundamental disagreements and educate us both. It is the lack of meaningful discussion, and even attempts at such, in so many AfD's that frustrates me immensely. DHowell (talk) 03:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep as the subject is clearly notable and is covered in numerous reliable sources, for example: Crafty TV Writing: Thinking Inside the Box, pages 27-28; Writing Television Sitcoms, pages 103-106; The Age of Television, pages 41-45. I found these just doing a Google Book search; I'm sure more could be found with better research. Deleting low-quality articles about notable subjects which can be improved, and are not harming anyone, serves no useful purpose, and hinders the wiki process in developing the encyclopedia. If articles like this had been routinely deleted in its early years, Wikipedia would never have grown to what it is today. DHowell (talk) 20:44, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't believe anyone here has said a good article cannot be written on this subject. I am saying none of this article contributes toward a good article. Nostalgia for Wikipedia's "early years" is not a strong argument against quality control. / edg ☺ ☭ 21:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * If you are not personally going to rewrite this article, then by what authority do you presume whether this content is useful or not to others who might actually want to improve it? I'm not arguing nostalgia, I'm arguing what is good and bad for the project in the long term, and deletion is not the only method of "quality control", nor is it the best method. I'm arguing that there wouldn't be a Wikipedia as we know it if your point-of-view was allowed to prevail early on. I also believe that judging good-faith editors' contributions as "sheer garbage" and deleting them does far more harm in the long term, by driving potentially excellent contributors away. A far better approach is to allow such substandard articles to remain, with tags indicating their substandard quality if necessary, while collaborating with those editors to help them improve. DHowell (talk) 23:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Since we are personalizing matters, I would suggest that you, DHowell, are also welcome to improve this article. / edg ☺ ☭ 23:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Very well, I have accepted your challenge and have contributed my improvements to this article. Let me know what you think. DHowell (talk) 03:56, 26 April 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.