Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tommy Pickles (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 keep. Pax:Vobiscum (talk) 15:08, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Tommy Pickles
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This article is WP:FANCRUFT, it may have survived a deletion attempt back in 2009, and I think a second attempt at deletion will be the charm. Pahiy (talk) 01:58, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions.  CASSIOPEIA(talk) 04:05, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. Toughpigs (talk) 04:10, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions. Toughpigs (talk) 04:10, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. — Hunter Kahn 14:42, 4 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:NEXIST and WP:ARTN. I think it's pretty obvious that the main character of a hugely successful two-decade franchise that spans two TV series and several movies is notable. Here's some sources:
 * Rugrats Creator Talks Chuckie's Mom, Passover Episode - Entertainment Weekly, Aug 10, 2016 -- discusses creators' choices around Tommy being Jewish
 * "TV's most grown-up babies really grow up in anniversary show", Chippewa Herald-Telegram, July 19, 2001.
 * "Adults take on kiddie roles", The Windsor Star, Nov 24, 2000.
 * "Rugrats: Bigger Crawl Space", New York Daily News, Nov 18, 1998.
 * There's lots more, if you want them. -- Toughpigs (talk) 04:30, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * "TV's most grown-up babies really grow up in anniversary show", Chippewa Herald-Telegram, July 19, 2001.
 * "Adults take on kiddie roles", The Windsor Star, Nov 24, 2000.
 * "Rugrats: Bigger Crawl Space", New York Daily News, Nov 18, 1998.
 * There's lots more, if you want them. -- Toughpigs (talk) 04:30, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * "Adults take on kiddie roles", The Windsor Star, Nov 24, 2000.
 * "Rugrats: Bigger Crawl Space", New York Daily News, Nov 18, 1998.
 * There's lots more, if you want them. -- Toughpigs (talk) 04:30, 4 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Merge to List of Rugrats characters. Take out all the plot summary, and you're left with a simple development fact (whom the character was named after) and a couple one sentence bits of reception. There is no significant coverage. The source dump on the article there and above is not providing any real in-depth source on the character- they mention the character in context of the show but not enough for notability. It is wrong to think "hugely popular show, thus should be a notable character" since notability is not inherited. --M asem  (t) 05:57, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Merge to List of Rugrats characters per Masem. Also, the LoC is tagged for so many problems, it's better to cleanup and develop the characters from there, instead of allowing crufty spinoff articles that make the problem even worse. – sgeureka t•c 08:25, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. It seems every day lately there are a multitude of articles about fictional content being PRODed or nominated for deletion, and I assume a good faith effort is made to search for significant coverage in reliable sources to establish whether a subject passed WP:GNG before such deletions are proposed. In this case, I believe this subject clearly passes this standard, with coverage going far beyond even the sources has idenrified above. Any comments about the quality of the article is a good argument for improving it, not deleting it. — Hunter <b style="color:#595454">Kahn</b> 12:03, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Merge Per Masem and others. Dumping sources does not prove WP:SIGCOV meriting its own article.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 12:06, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Redirect - The character list should be built up before any consideration for individual articles is made. It's most probable that the character article can hold everything real world about the characters while providing enough fictional context that an article is not needed. TTN (talk) 12:09, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment I've expanded the article very slightly just to demonstrate that there is more to this character/article than mere plot summary. Please note this is only based on a very few of the sources that cover this character (I didn't even include all the sources Toughpig shared, let alone the multitude of others out there) but I think it already has enough that it warrants a standalone article rather than an disproportionately long list entry. I may try to expand it further in the future, if time permits... — <b style="color:#C0C0C0">Hunter</b> <b style="color:#595454">Kahn</b> 13:33, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * If we use Characters of Carnivàle as the standard of what character articles should aspire to become, then it seem unlikely that the character needs a separate article. That's especially true considering that not many characters will even have a depth of real world info. TTN (talk) 13:46, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Huh, interesting article, I'd actually never seen that one. Though, FA or not, it looks like Ben Hawkins and Brother Justin Crowe can and probably should be made into their own standalone articles, with their specific entries on the list reduced and a template added linking to their main articles. Maybe I'll look into that in the future, but regardless, what another article looks like or doesn't look like doesn't pertain to this discussion, per WP:OTHER. I still think there is signicant enough coverage of Tommy Pickles to pass WP:GNG, and enough content out there that has yet to be added to this article that goes beyond plot summary, and that it should be kept. — <b style="color:#C0C0C0">Hunter</b> <b style="color:#595454">Kahn</b> 14:09, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Spinning out these characters would unfeature Featured topics/Carnivàle, in which case I'll make sure myself that the spin-out editor either takes them through the WP:GA process or de-spinouts them to re-feature the topic. Featured topics is what all of en.wiki's coverage should strive towards, and should not be destroyed to justify poor articles like Tommy here. – sgeureka t•c 14:53, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Please don't misunderstand, I'm not going to go over and start hacking up that article, especially not just to make a WP:POINT. And even if I did want to change it, I'd certainly discuss it with the primary author of the FA and start a talk page discussion to establish a WP:CONSENSUS before attempting to make major changes to an FA. In any case, I have no intention of doing any of that right now. :) — <b style="color:#C0C0C0">Hunter</b> <b style="color:#595454">Kahn</b> 14:58, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * How this article compares to a Featured Article is not super relevant to the question of notability. I believe what we're addressing is WP:GNG, which is a much lower standard. -- Toughpigs (talk) 03:53, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment I've just done a fairly significant overhaul of this article (for comparison purposes, here's the article before the AFD, and here's the version after my edits). I've tried to add sourcing for everything that was in the article, while also restructuring it, rewriting it so it's no longer from an in-universe perspective, and scaling back some of the fancruft and excessive plot summary. (Please note there are still some sections that are unsourced, particularly related to All Grown Up!, so additional work can still be done in the future. I got tired and had to go to bed. lol) I'd like to point out that since I was focused primarily on adding reliable sources to information already in the article, not all of these sources speak about Tommy in significant lengths of time; some are more about Rugrats itself but are used to cite specific facts about Tommy. However, many of these articles do provide significant coverage to the character, and I think this expansion goes a long way toward demonstrating that Tommy Pickles clearly meets WP:GNG and the standalone article is warranted and shouldn't be deleted. I'll also hasten to add that the sources I've added are NOT the only sources about Tommy Pickles out there, and others could still be added to improve this article even further down the road... — <b style="color:#C0C0C0">Hunter</b> <b style="color:#595454">Kahn</b> 06:04, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * ,, and , since you previously voted Merge/Redirect based on the article pre-expansion, or cited the poor quality of the article, I wanted to ping you to see if your opinion has changed given the state of the article now? — <b style="color:#C0C0C0">Hunter</b> <b style="color:#595454">Kahn</b> 06:06, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Over half the reception section is about the full cast, so that shows a clear lack of individual attention. I’m not sure if a free-floating, ever shifting ranking could ever be used as a reliable source. Other than those, the blurb about the film is a trivial momentary comparison that has no reason being in the article. That’s the most important section, but it’s not in good enough shape to show the character has potential. The rest of the information in the article can easily be split between a character list and the main series article when relevant to overall development. TTN (talk) 11:14, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks TTN. I know in the past I've said you never seem to change your opinion in deletion debates once you've made up your mind, so I genuinely appreciate you taking a second look. I do feel like you're giving a little undue weight to the Reception section alone, which is one I didn't even really bother expanding much because I figured it would be the easiest for someone else to do in the future. Anyone can dump a bunch of reviews into a Reception section, whereas other non-plot sections like Conception and Portrayal are often harder to do if a character is not notable, so sections like that always struck me as more important than Reception. But in any event, thanks for looking it over, and I would urge you to consider that many of the other sources outside of Reception provide much more significant coverage to the character. — <b style="color:#C0C0C0">Hunter</b> <b style="color:#595454">Kahn</b> 12:38, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I think what ultimately really matters here is the reception section, since without WP:SIGCOV the article does not need to be standalone. The first sentence is a listicle, so I wouldn't hold that up as a good source since they can really just look desperately for anything to fill their writing quota. The second is a brief, one sentence mention that does not actually concern the character himself. And so on and so forth. None of them discuss the traits of the character in detail or give critical opinions, only stating basic facts about the character. My opinion definitely stands as merge/redirect.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 17:43, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I will try to expand the Reception section in the next few days, since it seems I massively underestimated the importance of it and hadn't really put any work into it. But, even if we were to stipulate that the Reception section is currently lacking, and the Character History section should be ignored altogether when considering notability (which isn't something I agree with in any case), do the other non-Reception sections that discuss this character like Conception and Portrayal not indicate WP:SIGCOV in combination with the article's other elements? I know it's subjective, but just seems sort of surprising to me that you guys still don't think this article subject has received significant coverage in reliable sources. UPDATE: I've expanded the Reception section a bit in response to the commentary here, though I suspect further sources can be found for additional expansions down the road... — <b style="color:#C0C0C0">Hunter</b> <b style="color:#595454">Kahn</b> 19:37, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * According to WP:NEXIST and WP:ARTN as I understand them, notability is not dependent on the current state of the article, or frantic changes made with a ticking time-bomb deadline. WP:NEXIST says: "Notability requires only the existence of suitable independent, reliable sources, not their immediate presence or citation in an article. Editors evaluating notability should consider not only any sources currently named in an article, but also the possibility or existence of notability-indicating sources that are not currently named in the article."
 * If there are enough sources in existence that show that Tommy Pickles is a notable subject, then the article should be improved, rather than deleted. Similarly, WP:ARTN says: "Notability is a property of a subject and not of a Wikipedia article... If the source material exists, even very poor writing and referencing within a Wikipedia article will not decrease the subject's notability."


 * So, Hunter Kahn: I don't believe that you need to knock yourself out trying to rewrite the article to other people's individual specifications right now. There is no deadline. AfD is not an article improvement drive, and if people posting on this page are concerned about the quality of writing on this article, then they should channel that concern into making helpful improvements to the article. For this discussion, the relevant question is: do reliable sources exist that talk about this character directly and in detail? -- Toughpigs (talk) 01:20, 6 February 2020 (UTC)


 * KEEP As I mentioned in the last AFD for this, a major newspaper said at the time: "Tommy Pickles is a bigger star than George Clooney". I look at the reception section and wonder why this is even at AFD again?  Reliable sources give significant coverage of him, just look at Tommy_Pickles and read through that!   D r e a m Focus  19:14, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep The nomination just cites an essay and so there's no case to answer. As the previous AfD was a "keep" and the nomination clearly states that this repeat nomination is being made simply in the hope of getting a different result, the nominator should be warned not to repeat this disruption per WP:DELAFD which states "It can be disruptive to repeatedly nominate a page in the hope of getting a different outcome." Andrew🐉(talk) 20:42, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep enough reliable sources are mentioned now. The article has changed a lot since its nomination. Now the Conception, Portrayal and Reception are mentioned. There are enough reliable sources and there is enough information that is not just plot. The article should be kept. --Dynara23 (talk) 06:23, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep: I think the article now shows that there is enough coverage in reliable, third-party sources to meet the WP:GNG criteria. Aoba47 (talk) 03:30, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Redirect, MAYBE selectively merge The coatrack-y line The Detroit News writer [sic] positively reviewed all the Rugrats baby characters but gave particular praise to Tommy writing: "Ya gotta love 'em, especially leader Tommy Pickles"., sourced to a film review of Rugrats Go Wild, basically sums up everything wrong with this article. The reliably sourced information that relates to this specific topic appears to be almost exclusively in-universe plot content. One could make an OSE argument that Wikipedia has lots of fictional kids' show character articles that are even worse than this one but haven't been deleted/redirected yet, but that would be a weak argument even if any of the above keep !voters were making it.
 * Looking at the history I see that a lot of the problematic content has apparently been added by said keep !voters since this AFD was opened; their poor conduct and Wikipedia editing standards are not in themselves a reason to disregard their !votes, but they should be weighted accordingly (I don't know what was added by whom, nor do I care to find out, so I won't name names). Moreover, the last two keep !votes by Dynara23 and Aoba47 explicitly cite the addition of this problematic content as reasons to keep this article, so I would encourage any closure to take this fact into account when weighing their comments.
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 06:32, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The above is an extremely misleading and inaccurate (not to mention at least mildly insulting statement.) This is the version of the page before the AFD began compared to this, the version at the time that you voted. As anyone could see, the vast majority of additions are not exclusively in-universe plot content. On the contrary, that's what the majority of the previous version of the article was; much of it has been scaled back, and sources have been added to most of what remains. Rather than plot, the majority of the new additions are rather detailed sections about such aspects of the character as its conception, portrayal, and reception, all of which are cited by reliable sources. (Your claim that you "don't care" to find what was added by whom indicates perhaps you haven't reviewed this article's edit history very thoroughly, so perhaps you misunderstood the nature of the additions?) And incidentally, your statement that one "could" make an OSE claim is a straw man argument, because nobody has made that argument. The argument is that this article is cited by reliable sources that indicate significant coverage of the topic, which indicates that it passes WP:GNG. — <b style="color:#C0C0C0">Hunter</b> <b style="color:#595454">Kahn</b> 13:23, 12 February 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.