Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Terran Federation (2nd nomination)


 * 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 for deletion, default to keep. Two "delete" opinions advocate merging, which does not only not require deletion, but actually precludes it due to licencing issues (see WP:MERGE). Sandstein (talk) 22:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Terran Federation
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

This article should be deleted mainly because it can never ever be verified, as a fictional government from one book, the only information that can be drawn from it (and I do mean "drawn", see WP:OR) is open to wild interpretation (which has been seen in previous versions of the article, I'll post links if someone asks) and as I said before there is no way these "interpretations" can be verified Ryan4314 (talk) 11:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, a lot of this is WP:OR, and the rest is really fancruft. Mainly merge anything particularly pertinent to Starship Troopers?  Lankiveil (complaints) 12:27, 12 February 2008 (UTC).
 * Keep or move to an article on the writings of Robert A. Heinlein or similar. As to verifiability - just take a glimpse at Google scholar - . Catchpole (talk) 14:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * comment A carefule examination will reveal that a lot of those are false positives, Catchpole. -- Orange Mike  |  Talk  15:00, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep per Catchpole (re: verifiability).Sbowers3 (talk) 14:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - badly violates WP:OR. Merge anything which is sourced properly into the main article about the novel, as Lankiveil suggests. -- Orange Mike  |  Talk  14:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Starship Troopers - Original research, not notable. --Explodicle (talk) 16:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions.   -- the wub  "?!"  23:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep if a better article can be written. Though central to Starship Troopers, the concept is present in a great deal of Heinlein's fiction, and the criticism will talk about it. alternatively, merge to the novel. DGG (talk) 23:58, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: I don't think a better article can be written, we're talking about a subject that can never be verified. I mean even if we followed the Style Guide to the letter, what's to stop one guy saying "I think Terran Federation is Socialist!", then we'd have a debate (all discussing our views of the book), then form a consensus... and that's the problem, that's original research :( —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryan4314 (talk • contribs) 22:14, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: There's a thing called "Starship Troopers Wiki" (http://starshiptroopers.wikia.com), which deals with everything relating to the Starship Troopers universe. Maybe these debates on the Terran Federation can continue there on a much larger scale. Just my two cents. --86.121.58.215 (talk) 16:28, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Starship Troopers to allow interested editors to merge some factual tidbits, or weak delete. Many voices in the VfD three years ago preferred to "cleanup" the "fancruft" instead of deletion, but all that's happened since is the addition of more unsourced in-universe material (WP:NOT and WP:OR). It is unlikely that (1) reliable source for real-world content exist, or that (2) editors will include them, so even if (1) and/or (2) turn out false, it's better to start new. – sgeureka t•c 16:56, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. The main argument of those who want to delete this article is that articles about fictional governments are inherently original research. We have dozens of articles on fictional governments and many of them actually refer to secondary sources. I think Terran Federation is notable enough, so it should not be so difficult to verify the article. The only question is who will be willing to do it... Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 00:01, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: Never said "fictional governments are inherently original research", this one is though, as it is only mentioned in 1 book, it can't be verified therefore is vulnerable to interpretation. Ryan4314 (talk) 13:13, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I am not an expert on the Terran Federation, but a short survey of Google Books shows more than "one" secondary source that can be used in this article:, , , , . Someone with more time and commitment to this article would surely find even more secondary sources. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 02:25, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * All those sources merely prove that there is a thing called the "Terran Federation" in a book called "Starship Troopers". We all know it exists, were having an AFD about it lol. Our problem is people interjected their own ideas into the article, and us without any sources to prove them otherwise Ryan4314 (talk) 11:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Not really. For example, some of the sources claim the regime of the "Terran Federation" is fascist. Some other describe the Terran culture of militarism. I believe many other claims from the article can be found in these sources and the article can be eventually verified. On the other hand, I am not sure if anyone is up to this task. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 16:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * That's the problem; "some of the sources claim the regime of the "Terran Federation" is fascist. Some other describe the Terran culture of militarism." it can't be verified! Unless we have a séance with Heinlein, this is all interpretation of his work. Even if we had sources from litery scholars about there views on the federation, the article would then need to be changed to "Interpretations of Heinlein's Terran Federation". Unfortunately, no amount of effort or work can solve this fact. Ryan4314 (talk) 16:41, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * We can verify what the the sources say. There is a substantial literature regarding Heinlein and his works. Catchpole (talk) 17:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think you guys understand, there are no sources to refute ludicrous ideas (like this), that people wanna add to the article. I love Heinlein's work and that's why this article needs to go, we (the users) should not be able to interject our own opinions and if we simply just had the text the from the book... well it might as well just be a copy of the book, which we have the book for lol (not to mention the copyright infringement). Ryan4314 (talk) 19:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I am afraid I do not fully understand your point because the same comment can be made about any article devoted to a piece of art. However, we have tons of articles about novels or even imaginary objects from novels. And many of these articles are protected quite efficiently against ludicrous original research. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 20:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It's ok mate, I wanna draw an end to this thread anyway. Some poor admin has gotta read it all and were starting to repeat ourselves. I think we probably got our points across for the others to read by now n all :) Ryan4314 (talk) 21:17, 19 February 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.