Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Secret Society of Super Villains


 * 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. Per consensus and nominator withdrawal. (non-admin closure) - The9Man  ( Talk ) 08:57, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Secret Society of Super Villains

 * – ( View AfD View log )

A fictional organization - and perhaps also the focus of a single comic issue? The article isn't very clear on this... The coverage (references, external links, etc.) does not seem sufficient to justify this article passing General notability guideline and the more detailed Notability (fiction) requirement. WP:BEFORE did not reveal any significant coverage on Gnews, Gbooks or Gscholar. PROD removed by anon with no rationale, sigh... maybe, just maybe, this could be salvaged if rewritten into an article about the comic book that they appeared it that has the same name, but I can't find any reliable reviews. The few more reliable sources cited seem do suggest this can be salvageable more than most similar articles, probably because they had an entire issue about them? But again this is not very clear from the sources I can access. PS. This is also very related to the List of Secret Society of Super Villains members with which it should be merged, on the off chance this survives. Anyway, let's see if this can be rescued, the odds are a bit better than with most similar articles. Any takers? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 05:21, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  05:21, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  05:21, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  05:21, 8 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep, major element in DC comics with coverage. IQNQ (talk) 08:14, 8 October 2020 (UTC) Indef blocked user followed a SPI
 * Comment just to clarify, the original comic book series about the team ran for 15 issues, and various other versions of the team have formed since then. Rhino131 (talk) 11:47, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep but as said below the article should be changed to emphasize the actual comic with the title and not the fictional elements. Rhino131 (talk) 13:39, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep: There are two real-world info sections at the top of the article: "Series conception" and "Publication history". The core reference for these sections is a six-page article in Back Issue!, a professional comics history/criticism magazine. The Back Issue article dicusses the Secret Society of Super Villians, directly and in detail. I have the magazine, and I added that information with the reference (in the article's current state, it's footnote #2). It doesn't seem like the nominator has looked carefully at those sections — if they did, they would have seen that the "Publication history" section says that the comic lasted for 15 issues, with two further issues unpublished. This information is backed up with an article in Don Markstein's Toonopedia, which also offers real-world publication information, as well as The Encyclopedia of Supervillains, The DC Comics Encyclopedia and DC Comics Year By Year. — Toughpigs (talk) 15:10, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Redirect or maybe reframe into an article on the comic if there are any sources on the comic itself (Seriously, why do so many comic articles focus on the fiction element at the forefront?) - It appears a single source provides the bulk of the information, while the rest are trivial mentions. Items like "The Encyclopedia of Supervillains" and "The DC Comics Encyclopedia" do not even belong in the article unless there's trouble finding the primary source corresponding to the sentence. There's not enough to meet WP:GNG. TTN (talk) 17:38, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Rewrite into the article about the comic book series this group was featured on. Comic magazine series is possible notable, much more often than the substances covered within. GizzyCatBella  🍁  01:05, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Update: In addition to the previously-named sources, I added more material to the article based on American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1970s by Jason Sacks and Keith Dallas (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2014), which discusses the comic for about a page, entirely real-world information about the conception of the comic. I also rewrote the lead to focus on the comic book and not the fictional group. I believe that this demonstrates notability of the comic. — Toughpigs (talk) 22:37, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep: Let this page stay. They are a major opponent to the Justice League and have been through different incarnations. Plus, and  are right about their information. If someone wants to make an article about the comic book like  suggested, then the information is going to have to be sorted from the limited series and the comic book team information. --Rtkat3 (talk) 20:12, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep, good improvements so far by, could also look into The Supervillain Reader edited by Robert Moses Peaslee, Robert G. Weiner. Right cite (talk) 00:41, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   07:51, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Clearly notable, being covered in numerous sources including DC Comics: Super-Villains; American Comic Book Chronicles; CBR; and more.  The policy WP:ATD therefore applies: "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page". Andrew🐉(talk) 10:52, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per Toughpigs. Caro7200 (talk) 16:54, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep - suitable coverage in sources has been shown to exist (good work Toughpigs!) and that means this could be a decent article once the fictional history cruft is cut back. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 21:24, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Withdraw. This has been rewritten into into an article about the comic series, not ficitonal organization. As such, I think the new article is sufficiently different, and a about a topic that has at least some borderline notability, this AfD shoudl be closed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:37, 19 October 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.