Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Time Agency


 * 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 delete. No secondary sources, and both the articles and the keep votes note that little is known about it. We wouldn't have a separate article about The Briefcase in Pulp Fiction; discussion of the agency should exist in the article relevant to it, rather than having a separate article that says "We don't know much about it." If substantial, reliable secondary sources devote coverage to the Time Agency itself in the future, the article can be recreated at that time. Nandesuka (talk) 21:08, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Time Agency

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

Non notable part of TV show, with little meaningful content Stuart  DD  contributions 10:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC) *Keep - with some work this can be a great wikipedia article! As for notability, its expected to be expanded on further in both Doctor Who and Torchwood. TheProf | 2007 17:10, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge into Jack Harkness. Will (talk) 11:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge into Whoniverse; the concept predates Captain Jack. IIRC there's something about it in a sidebar in the discontinuity guide, which would provide a much-needed independent reference.  Percy Snoodle (talk) 11:12, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * This could be kept as-is, really, or preferably merged to Jack Harkness for now with a redirect. The agency is an off-screen entity which, by the time of Torchwood series 2, has been disbanded, but it is likely to feature in (authorized) Torchwood spinoff novels in the near future.  Until that happens there isn't a lot to write about that is separate from Jack. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 11:19, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, thanks for the hint, Percy Snoodle. I checked google and there are already, pre-Jack Harkness, Doctor Who novels involving the Time Agency  .  On that basis I'd say we should keep this article and expand. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 11:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - not really notable or necessary to have its own page.--Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 13:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, do not merge - This topic lacks sufficient notability to justify its own article, and is essentially an extended plot summary. All of the content is already available at the Doctor Who fan wiki The Tardis.  I would object strongly to it being merged into Jack Harkness - that article has had considerable work done over the past several months to ensure that it follows WP:FICT.  It already contains a description of the Time Agency insofar as it is a relevant plot device; it doesn't need a large injection of in-universe content that goes into disproportionate detail over one aspect of the character.--Trystan (talk) 15:21, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge with Whoniverse as suggested by Percy. However, doesn't this article fall under the Arbcom injunction (see AFD nomination below)? 23skidoo (talk) 15:33, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Somebody mentioned such an injunction in another AfD I participated in recently (as nominator), but apparently it didn't apply there because it's for television items only. If you know where this injunction was passed, could you link to it please? I don't see any point in continuing if we're enjoined from deletion. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 15:42, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * That's the thing - this is a television-related topic. As for the injunction in question, look at the AFD immediately below this one and you should see a nomination for "ChalkZone characters". The Arbcom injunction is linked from the banner. I'm hesitant to include the banner and info in this particular AFD if it doesn't actually apply. But if the Time Agency is considered "characters" then it would. 23skidoo (talk) 15:50, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah!
 * Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2
 * That seems to be directed at actions, rather than discussion. We could still arrive at a provisional consensus here and now, and it could be enacted (if appropriate) on expiry of the injunction.  I'm sure that injunction isn't intended to trump consensus formed by the community. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 16:42, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Tricky one this. Information about the Time Agency isn't that great, but on the other hand it has been referenced in a 1970s Doctor Who adventure and in two more recent spin-off novels, as well as all the references in the new series and Torchwood. What makes it tricky is that the second Torchwood series is halfway through transmission and the second Time Agent to be seen will be reappearing and there are arcs concerning the Time Agency that are clearly going to be addressed. Personally I think the AfD should have waited until after the second series of Torchwood aired. Even so, I think there's enough there to Keep. Alberon (talk) 16:06, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually I'm getting quite keen about this. I (and I'm sure most casual fans of Doctor Who) had no idea there was backstory going back to the second decade of Doctor Who. Magnus Greel, The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977), Eater of Wasps, Emotional Chemistry.  Very sketchy, but it's deeply interwoven into the fictional universe. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 16:51, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * But that's part of the problem, the article provides no real-world context (and there is no indication that reliable sources exist to introduce it). It provides no information on how Russell T Davies viewed the earlier serial.  Was he borrowing the idea from it?  Was he building on the previously established continuity?  Was he even aware of it?
 * In any case, without a real-world basis, the article has no valid reason to discuss plot in such detail. While I agree the subject is of interest to fans, that's why we have The Tardis, so that non-notable concepts like this can be explored in detail.--Trystan (talk) 17:12, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * To establish notability, we would need coverage in secondary sources that are independent of the source material. We don't have that here.--Trystan (talk) 17:14, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * So-called "notability" is of little concern here; if it's not "notable" enough for some tastes, consensus for a merge can be reached because it's part of a larger subject. Actually the novels are independent of the source material, and the later appearance of the Time Agency in Doctor Who episodes is in part drawn from those external sources. This is as if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were to come back to life, read some of the works of the Baker Street Irregulars, and incorporate some of their ideas into further Sherlock Holmes stories.  --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 17:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The novels are an authorized spinoff published by BBC Books, so I wouldn't call them independent. In any case, they aren't secondary sources.  Even if we choose to disregard the notability guideline, the content still fails the What Wikipedia is not policy against bare plot summaries.--Trystan (talk) 17:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, it does fail WP:PLOT in its current form, which is why I think it needs to be expanded to discuss the evolution of the concept through the medium of different writers. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 17:43, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * But without reliable secondary sources to refer to, how can we include such an analysis that isn't original research?--Trystan (talk) 21:20, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Unless you're writing about Shakespeare or F. Scott Fitzgerald or Dickens, to be blunt you ain't gonna find many "independent" secondary sources for stuff like this. And OR, as I keep reminding people, refers to information that either never previously existed or is the writer's unsourced opinion on something. If the information is taken from a novel or from a TV episode, that's not OR because you've used a source, so long as you're not adding POV to the report. 23skidoo (talk) 15:32, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * There are many reliable secondary sources for this sort of fiction; just look at Jack Harkness, an extremely well-sourced article with clear notability.  There just isn't any signficant coverage of this topic.
 * I agree that we avoid OR so long as we stick to reporting plot. But to avoid violating WP:PLOT, we need real-world context or critical commentary, which would be OR unless we can provide verifying sources.--Trystan (talk) 16:28, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I think we're tying ourselves in knots here. You can make a stub article listing and describing (out of universe) all of the episodes and spinoff novels in which the Time Agents appear, or you can put the same content into the Whoniverse article or something similar. How you do it is an editing decision. No original research is necessary, nor is it necessary to go into plot exposition (and indeed I hope we don't spend time on such in-universe matters).   --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 16:37, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * comment - If we knew more about the agency, then we could restart the article. Right now, all it really tells you is that not much is known about the agency - which isn't really worth an article.  Stuart  DD  contributions 11:28, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Change vote - Merge into Whoniverse per StuartDD's above comment. TheProf | 2007 11:40, 29 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep While currently there is not much information on The Time Agency, it is still an important historical organisation for both old Doctor Who episodes, and for Captain Jack and the recurring villain/character Captain John Hart will be appearing in another two episodes in the current series, which is still being aired, more information is likely to be divulged. Shouldn't we defer the decision to delete until the end of the current series to see what else in revealed, and why is was disbanded? Resistme (talk) 23:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment We should have clear information about the end of series 2 of Torchwood in a couple of weeks. And it'll only be a couple of weeks after that the finale airs. I think, personally, there is enough to keep the page already. The Time Agency in the 70s story and the two books is clearly linked to Captain Jack and Captain John as they're from the same century (the 51st). It is clear that the linkage between the two was deliberate and understood by the new series producers. Alberon (talk) 15:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. With John coming back into the series it seems reasonable to expect more information on the Time Agency, and if the entry is deleted now, it's probably just going to be recreated in a few weeks time with the new information. If we reach the end of the current series of Torchwood and there still isn't enough content for a worthwhile page, then deletion could be reasonable. Until then, I say keep Ametatsu (talk) 23:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, pending finalisation of relevant Arbcom injunction-- VS  talk 00:54, 8 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions.   —Pixelface (talk) 07:45, 8 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep, seems notable enough already as an organisation which spreads across several episodes and is intrinically involved with a main character. Will almost certainly improve with the season two finale of the series  - Dumelow (talk) 12:14, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep appears to be a notable fictional agency. --Pixelface (talk) 10:25, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment We still have no independent, reliable sources that give significant coverage to the topic.  How are you establishing its notability?--Trystan (talk) 17:47, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
 * That's one way of presuming notability. The agency's mention in the Doctor Who episode The Talons of Weng-Chiang, the novels Eater of Wasps and Emotional Chemistry, a time agent's appearance in The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances, and the Torchwood episode Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang make it notable in my opinion. --Pixelface (talk) 17:41, 10 March 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.