Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shepherd (Firefly)


 * 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 redirect to Derrial Book. — Kurykh  04:28, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Shepherd (Firefly)

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This is an article about a fictional profession in Firefly (TV series), whose only documented member is Derrial Book. (There would no doubt be many more, but in this excellent but brief series, he's the only Shepherd we ever hear of.) There is nothing in the series about Shepherds that isn't drawn from Book's activities and explanations, a fact reflected by the article. Furthermore, the article seems to be using these experiences of Book for unsourced speculation and generalizations (e.g., attempting to generalize Book's one-time comment about "a special Hell" into a cultural comment on levels of Hell; drawing an inference about the prevalance of atheism). This is an incredibly common problem with these ultra-specific fictional-universe articles, which undermines the case to have reasonably encyclopedic articles on these subjects. In short, we won't get anything from reliable sources (even primary) that isn't more appropriately placed in the Book article. As I've said elsewhere, I'm a Browncoat, but on Wikipedia I'm I Wikipedian first, so I recommend delete. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Lot of speculation and original research, not a lot of sources, as per the nomination. Delete, or failing that very weak merge and redirect to the article on Book. -- saberwyn 01:36, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Derrial Book. As per nom, most of the article is about him anyway.--Ispy1981 05:31, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Derrial Book, as Ispy1981 suggested. INBN 05:49, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Derrial Book, per above. I'll never forgive the film for killing off two of my favorite characters, but realistically, there just isn't any justification per WP:FICT for this article. --Dhartung | Talk 07:54, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Redirect per Ispy1981. - Philippe | Talk 19:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Redirect per all the above. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 22:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Redirect as above, as a possible potential search term with regards to the character. Tony Fox (arf!) review? 03:15, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep - I based the existence of this article on Companion (Firefly) and followed its form as a guideline. Aside from one character in one episode who was a confirmed (former!) Companion, Inara Serra is the only one, and the Companion article is wholly based on her portrayal. Saffron is only suspected to be one, and background extras in the film are hardly substantial. I suppose this is an argument for a Companion AFD, not a defense of this one, but I'm no fan of double standards. No, it's not a perfect article, but it commits no egregious crimes. - Keith D. Tyler &para; 17:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You make a good point, Keith. Where is the line between reasonable side-article on a fictional subject and redundancy or superfluity? One measurement is the amount of reliable sourcing in the article, suggesting a decent amount of independent sources. On this count, Companion (Firefly) is only slightly better than Shepherd (Firefly), the former having one formal source and several episode citations (all primary sources) to the latter's zero sources. My concern is that both of these articles are too peripheral for a general encyclopedia, given the extreme unlikelihood of any truly independent sourcing. We may (for now) get away with that in episode and character articles, but not if we develop even more tangential material. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:24, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd like to call attention to the fact that Keith has done a lot of sourcing since my last post, actually making this article better sourced that Companion (Firefly). But the problem with primary-only sources remains, and I still don't see the need for a separate article for "Shepherd". ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:55, 21 July 2007 (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.