Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Source (comics)


 * 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 no consensus.  Sandstein  08:14, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Source (comics)

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

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 English-language coverage on Gnews, Gbooks or Gscholar. Seems like a very niche piece of WP:FANCRUFT. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:34, 11 August 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  04:34, 11 August 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  04:34, 11 August 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  04:34, 11 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep Another cookie-cutter, cut/paste, drive-by nomination in which there are precisely no specific details about the topic in question. The nomination claims to read the article and searched for sources.  How come they haven't noticed the extensive coverage out there about Jack Kirby's The Source as an influence on George Lucas' The Force?  The nomination's claims are not credible.  And where is the consideration of alternatives to deletion?  It's just WP:IDONTLIKEIT + WP:IGNORINGATD. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:22, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Did you read the source in question? Yes, Kirby's Source is mentioned in Taylor's book - but it is a tiny, 4-sentence paragraph, that does not seem to meet GNG requirement of in-depth coverage. Worse, the paragraph only states that the similarity is in the fact that the main character is fighting the villain who is their father, says nothing about Source inspiring the SW's Force. That seems to be an OR / mistake based on the part of whoever added this to the article. So no, even if their rhyme, we don't have a reference that claims that The Force was inspired by Source.  --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  05:23, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment: My vote is pending, and will depend on if can demonstrate the extensive coverage.  Dark  knight  2149  05:51, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete: I haven't been able to find enough coverage to justify this having its own article, and even the source listed only justifies a mentioning at Force (Star Wars).  Dark knight  2149  22:14, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Just a nitpick, but per my comment above, I think the source does not make a connection between source/force, only between some unnamed characters Kirby created and and Anakin/Luke, as in a son-and-father duo turned enemies and using the same mystic force. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 00:49, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete - Insufficient sourcing to fulfill WP:WAF and WP:GNG. TTN (talk) 20:55, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep - Let this page stay. It is a major concept of the New Gods comics. I am also agreeing with on the latter parts of his comment. --Rtkat3 (talk) 19:15, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. Utter failure to comply with WP:BEFORE. The nominator doesn't even claim to have done a competent basic Google search, a telling omission. Looking just at one aspect of the nom's claims, "we don't have a reference that claims that The Force was inspired by Source", a straightforward search on "source kirby force lucas" produces page after page of potential sources/references, including Paste Magazine ("Why Jack Kirby is (Probably) the Forgotten Father of Star Wars and Rogue One"), The Daily Beast, The New Republic, The Hollywood Reporter ("The Unmistakable Pop-Culture Influence of Jack Kirby"), and L.A. Weekly ("Frank Zappa to Jack Kirby"). There's a large volume of coverage in The Jack Kirby Collector magazine, which has run 80 issues so far and may not be academic prose, but is far more literate and reliable than the glorified fan pages we use as sources for pro wrestling BLPs (!) and splatter horror films and creators. If you don't even claim to make competent, quality searches, your opinions on notability are frankly worthless variations on IDONTLIKEIT. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006.  Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong! (talk) 21:04, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
 * As another editor just says below, those are good sources... for article on Kirby. But here we discuss the concept of the Source. None of those aticles contains any in-depth discussion of the concept of the Source, just a few sentencs at most, mostly PLOT summary (what Source is), with a one line saying "it might have inspired the Force in SW since it is a very similar concept"). So ok, we found sources connecting Source to Force, but this still doesn't merit a stand alone article. Those articles give equalu amount of lines (which is very few) to other stuff, like Doctor Doom = Darth Vader, etc. Maybe there is even an entire article to be written about Jack Kirby as an inspiration for the Star Wars or such, but the aricle on the Source remains a piece of fancruft, since outside the one sentence relference to it as a possible The Force inspiration there is nothing else we can say about out-of-universe (well, ok, we can write a sentence about who created it, I guess). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:49, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * "If you don't even claim to make competent, quality searches, your opinions on notability are frankly worthless." Aptly put.  Advice that would have been well worth taking.   Ravenswing      01:48, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep: The Paste Magazine reference that Hullaballoo Wolfowitz posted, as well as the American Comic Book Chronicles coverage, demonstrates notability. — Toughpigs (talk) 21:13, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete - The coverage (I found) is about the artist, Jack Kirby, not about the concept of the Source....I'm leaning to !vote delete for now, but I'll watch for more convincing "Keep" arguments as well. - GizzyCatBella  🍁  04:46, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete: Didn't find any coverage about the subject either. And the sources above?  Is this some sort of joke?  That Paste Magazine piece mentions the subject in all of two sentences.  The Daily Beast pieces mentions the subject in just ONE sentence.  So does the New Republic piece.  So does the Hollywood Reporter piece.  So does the LA Weekly piece.  This kind of namedrop coverage is the very definition of "trivial mention," and doesn't come remotely close to meeting WP:SIGCOV.  Like GizzyCatBella, I'll pay attention if any valid keep rationales do show up, but unless I've been misreading deletion policy all these years, insulting the nominator OR the intelligence of AfD participants are not among them.  Did Hullaballoo Wolfowitz think no one would check?   Ravenswing      16:01, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Learn to read better, Ravenswing. As I said quite clearly, the sources you derogate were specifically cited to address Piotrus's counterfactual argument that the Source/Force connection couldn't be referenced. There's now no support for that argument. The nom's god-awful search practices are clearly demonstrated. Yet we're left to accept on faith that forty-year old print sources don't need to be checked, because, you know, WP:WECANTBEBOTHEREDNOTTOBESUPERFICIAL is a guiding light these days. And where the hell do you get off casting aspersions of bad faith and intent to deceive at me? The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006.  Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong! (talk) 01:48, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * While I promulgated Ravenswing's Law some time ago, perhaps it's time for a corollary: that the degree of vehemence with which an editor bellows about the notability of a subject (especially while avoiding providing significant coverage) is in inverse proportion to the degree for which significant coverage actually exists.   Ravenswing     05:52, 30 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep based on the many magazines which cover the subject. The article passes our notability guidelines. Wm335td (talk) 19:20, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment: If you've found any sources which provide significant coverage to the subject -- the GNG being the only notability guideline that could apply here -- could you identify them for us?   Ravenswing     21:13, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   20:04, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Merge to Fourth World (comics) - There has been no demonstration of significant coverage of this concept demonstrated so far. As stated by several editors already, the multitude of sources presented here barely even mention the actual topic, let alone have enough coverage to sustain an article.  However, as it is a pretty major part of the mythology of Kirby's Fourth World, and it is currently not even mentioned on the main article on that topic, merging information on the Source there, so it is included with the general overview of the setting, would be a good way to present the information.  Rorshacma (talk) 23:48, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete: Seems to be references to star wars, Kirby, and the comics themselves, rather than much independant discusson of the concept. Deathlibrarian (talk) 08:53, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete due to insufficient coverage in third party sources, thus failing the WP:GNG. There are only WP:TRIVIALMENTIONs in the context of coverage about the authors or universe. Would not object to a merge/redirect as per Rorschacma. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:44, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment. I'm impressed by the ferocity with which editors here insist that they're competent to assess the extent and quality of coverage in sources they can't be bothered to review. Not one of the delete !voters here has shown the slightest effort to take even a cursory look at the eighty issues of The Jack Kirby Collector I discussed above, or the multiple book length Kirby biographies, or anything else published in the pre-Internet era. Given the ubiquity of the acceptance of the Source/Force connection (which the delete proponents couldn't even find), where do you think the information comes from? Is information created by elves working in hollow trees? Or is the claim supported by print sourcing -- the kind of thing that researchers worked hard to find for centuries? The insistence here that information that can't be found in a five-minute Google search just isn't worth finding is breathtakingly stupid. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006.  Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong! (talk) 02:06, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Reply: I'm impressed by the ferocity you exhibit defending sources you fail to identify. No editor is going to go through eighty issues of anything or read every published biography on Jack Kirby just on your airy speculation that somewhere within those pages some significant coverage of the subject surely must exist. Either identify the exact issue/s and the exact page numbers of the relevant information -- it being the explicit responsibility of editors wishing to preserved challenged material to do so -- or admit you haven't reviewed those materials yourself.  Prove us mistaken, or stop wasting our time.   Ravenswing      05:47, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * That's as brain-dead an argument as I've ever seen an experienced editor advance at AFD. If a large body of potential sourcing exists, the default should be to assume that nothing relevant can be found, because honest effort is too much to ask of Wikipedia editors. If you want to make sloth the sixth pillar of Wikipedia, go ahead and propose that. I would eagerly participate in that discussion. Besides, your own search habits look to be piss-poor as well. in this recent AFD you initiated, you were pretty much hung out to dry for missing easily available sources, as well as missing substantive coverage in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, easily found in a competently executed Google search. So spare us all the snark and the snide. You're NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia, you're working to tear an imperfect one down and turn it into an online "notability" game. Stop wasting constructive editors' time. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006.  Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong! (talk) 02:16, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:THEREMUSTBESOURCES/WP:GOOGLEHITS have been long acknowledged as bad arguments. Stop tormenting the dead horse, particularly in a way that clearly goes against WP:AGF/WP:CIV. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:27, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Translation = you've got nothing. You have no idea, in fact, whether the "sourcing" is "relevant" or not, because you haven't read it yourself. That's where I get off on thinking that you're not acting honestly or in good faith.  You want to save the article, it's been eleven days since your first post here.  You've had plenty of time to come up with the citations you claim exist.   Ravenswing  '    02:46, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Boy, you two guys must be really butthurt by having your dreadful search skills exposed. Ravenswing, that edit summary of yours is a flagrant NPA/civility violation, far worse than anything I've said that you complain about -- and those complaint, which almost always came yo nothing, reflect the fact that I am willing to go where you tinbadgers fear to tread, and be among the first to blow the whistle on the likes of now permabanned users like Qworty and Scalhotrod. I'm still particularly amused by the ANI where some of your comrades argued that I was so fast and so accurate as to be disruptive. Wonderfully inane stuff you're bringing up. And, once again, Ravenswing, you've gone out of your way to misrepresent what I said. When discussing The Jack Kirby Collector, I commented rather plainly on the quality of articles in the publication. If you actually were willing to AGF, you ought to conclude I have read it myself, But you don't. You extend good faith to editors who say that sources don't exist, but not to editors who disagree with and say they do. And that's really not a thing an honest guy would do. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo).  Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006.  Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong! (talk) 04:54, 31 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Let's read things: Instead of squabbling over who has read The Jack Kirby Collector and who hasn't, I have an idea: let's read The Jack Kirby Collector! "Love of Anti?-Life" from Jack Kirby Collector #71 (2017) is an article with three pages specifically examining and analyzing the Source. Here's just a few sentences; the article has much more:
 * "The assumption underlying this writer's entire interpretation of Kirby's concept is that The Source is non-physical in essence, but is also the the origin of all things physical. The essence of all living physical beings returns to The Source upon the death of its physical form, implying that each individual essence is itself immortal and eternal like The Source. The physical wall of The Source, located on the planet of New Genesis, is the communicative portal, the point of contact and fusion between two planes of existence which are part of one reality."
 * So what does that prove? It proves that people write for-real literary criticism analyzing Kirby's work in general, and the Source in particular. Pay attention to the first part of that quote: "this writer's entire interpretation of Kirby's concept"... This is an interpretation, written down and published in a magazine. The first person who tries to say that this article is all WP:PLOT will get a massive WP:TROUT in the mail by tomorrow's post. Seriously, y'all, sometimes you can just go and read the thing. — Toughpigs (talk) 01:59, 2 September 2020 (UTC)


 * KEEP Sources give significant enough coverage in reliable sources about this, and what it inspired.  D r e a m Focus  03:27, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep for now, because of the sources. It may be beneficial at some point to expand Fourth World (comics) to include a detailed section on the analysis of Kirby's work, in which case this article could be merged into that. Until then it's best to keep this as is. Rhino131 (talk) 03:48, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Weak keep-- In all honesty, I came in here expecting to !vote delete, but when you cut through the angry sentiments expressed on both sides, there are some good sources to suggest notability of the topic, the best being Love of Anti? Live and other coverage in The Jack Kirby Collector. There is also in-universe reliable coverage such as Screen Rant (iffy reliability), CBR, and reliable passing mentions in mainstream media. Alternatively, merge to a suitable target, but I don't think there's a great source to merge it to currently. imo, GNG is just barely met. Eddie891 Talk Work 12:26, 3 September 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.