Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unseen University (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. what on earth was I thinking when I was relisting this? Spartaz Humbug! 07:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Unseen University
AfDs for this article: 
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Delete. Subject is in-universe, has no real world notability, and lacks non-trivial coverage from reliable third party publications. Fail to the extreme. JBsupreme ( talk ) 20:20, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Fail is a bit harsh, isn't it? Someone spent time on this, whatever its fate. UltraExactZZ Said~ Did 21:47, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Discworld or some similar target, as appropriate . Given its importance to the fiction, this title will absolutely be a useful search term, so it makes sense to preserve it as a redirect. There is no particularly objectionable material in the content, no violations of BLP or such that I can find, so redirecting without deleting seems to be an acceptable alternative. Someone spent a lot of time on this content, and it is well-written and clear - but it's also unsourced and in-universe, which doesn't work. Is there scholarly analysis of the discworld novels? Such a source might provide some real-world notability to the concept, which might in turn shift this to a keep (with significant cleanup). But, for now, a redirect seems to be the best option. UltraExactZZ Said~ Did 21:47, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Per the sources below, changing to Keep. The tangled chain of redirects to this article also complicates matters. I will say, though, that the in-universe content must be trimmed severely, copyedited to speak in neutral fashion from a real-world perspective, or removed entirely. Concur, though, that notability is evident from the sources. UltraExactZZ Said~ Did 13:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep and cleanup. Notable fictional organization that appears in multiple novels (and a film based on one of those novels) by the second-best selling UK author of all time. Jclemens (talk) 01:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Note that only three months have elapsed since the first nomination. Jclemens (talk) 01:40, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Sources are trivial to find. Following the Google Books link on this page we find not only Pratchett novels which reference UU, but also...
 * three derivative works.
 * Multiple third party references to the University.
 * Overall, BEFORE appears to have been completely ignored. There's plenty of sources here. Jclemens (talk) 01:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Also note that this fictional topic has ten interwiki references. While anecdotal, that certainly seems to be well above the norm for fictional topics, and demonstrates in my mind that we need to have some sort of an appropriate article at this name. Jclemens (talk) 21:41, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Redirect to list of locations in Discworld (I know such a list exists, just don't know exact name to link here). Discworld stuff is a tremendously cruftfull walled garden at Wikipedia; needs a serious overhaul. (I say this while, sublimely, listening to the "Making Money" audiobook :-) ). --EEMIV (talk) 03:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Derivative works Jclemens points toward seem a sufficient starting point for stand-alone article. So, changing a redirect to a unabashed, unreserved, and overwhelming stubbify -- the article is, quite frankly, utterly awful and wholly unreferenced. It regurgitates plot and is laden with original research. Nuke from above and rebuild from ground up. --EEMIV (talk) 03:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what you're advocating here. Do you mean that you want to keep the article but dramatically reduce its size somehow, or is "stubbify" WP jargon for something else? Yappy2bhere (talk) 23:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * "stubbify" means to the excise a huge portion of the content and essentially start over -- the idea is that the topic warrants standalone coverage, but that the current content is overwhelmingly awful. --EEMIV (talk) 02:46, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment: Many articles redirect here already. Deleting this one article will also delete about 10 others. And I don't particularly want to rewrite them. And why is this article, of all the unreferenced, in-universe Discworld articles, being repeatedly targeted for deletion?  Serendi pod ous  08:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * How does deleting this article "also delete about 10 others"? If you're speaking of the redirects you've mentioned, there's nothing really to rewrite, is there? Yappy2bhere (talk) 23:50, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This article is the result of the merging of several other articles, including Wizards (Discworld), Archchancellor (Discworld), Tower of Art, Octavo (Discworld), The Chair of Indefinite Studies, The Bursar, The Dean of Pentacles and Ponder Stibbons. If this article is deleted, then all those other articles will have to be recreated, which means a lot more unreferenced and in-universe articles.  Serendi pod ous  01:32, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a specious contention. There are, I think, some lists of Discworld characters, for one thing. But, the broader idea that an article needs to be kept because of all the redirects that point at it doesn't fly. At worst, it's a matter of fixing double-redirects; non-notable characters, e.g., can be redirected to the work in which they first appear. Even if/when this article is kept, we should reexamine those redirects: the plotcruft to cover these amusing but real-worldly-insignificant fictional subjects should be cut from this article, and they might be more appropriately covered at work of first appearance, list of characters, etc. --EEMIV (talk) 01:44, 6 February 2010 (UTC)


 * But this article is itself unreferenced, and these component articles are still available in their edit history. Yappy2bhere (talk) 02:26, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The fact that an article is currently unreferenced, much to many editors' surprise, is not a reason for deletion. Instead, the fact that no sources exist for incorporation into an article is a reason for deletion, but an article's current lack of (extant) references is instead a reason for cleanup and/or sourcing. Jclemens (talk) 02:43, 6 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Sure, but what is user:Serendipodous's point here? Is s/he endorsing user:EEMIV's "liposuction" proposal as preventing 8 more discussions like this one, because it doesn't seem difficult to restore the component articles from their histories? Yappy2bhere (talk) 03:32, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think anyone is seriously considering restoring eight other just-as-awful articles. --EEMIV (talk) 03:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think so either. I think it's a way of voting to keep the article but leave it substantially unchanged, which WP:notability won't allow. user:Jclemens's third-party references are very good, but they aren't really consonant with the article as it exists now, analyzing the UU rather than explaining it as the article does. If the article is trimmed to fit the available secondary sources, it will be a satisfactory WP article, but it won't be this article; that is, the subject won't nominally change but it will be a different subject. Given that, I'd like to understand what is to be kept by !voting to keep. Yappy2bhere (talk) 04:17, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * There is only one Discworld character list and it is pushing 100 k in length. I've been trying to reduce the number of in-universe Discworld articles through merging but there is only so much I can do. It is difficult to define what constitutes a "notable" Discworld character because the Discworld series doesn't work that way. A character like the Dean of Pentacles may not have much time in any one book, but he will appear in 20+ novels. Thus merging with "first appearance" doesn't really make sense or explain anything. Anyway, the Unseen University is a major plot thread in over 20 Discworld books. If this article doesn't deserve to exist, then no Discworld article does.  Serendi pod ous  09:35, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Notability is notability; referencing is referencing--Don't confuse the two. An unreferenced article on a notable topic is still notable. It may be more difficult for editors not personally familiar with the topic to understand its notability if the article is unreferenced, of course, but unreferenced != unnotable. Jclemens (talk) 21:39, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. This is in-universe fanspam far longer and elaborate than that found in any independent coverage of the topic, which has only passing mentions to this place in the context of plot summaries. I don't see any critical discussion of the significance of this fictional element in the links provided above. If someone can write an encyclopedic entry for this topic, please do so, but you should almost certainly start from scratch and use WP:SECONDARY sources. Pcap ping  05:22, 6 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - When merging character ariticles, there are frequently growing pains. Let Serendipodous keep at it (and good job). - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 17:49, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep As Jclemens has shown, multiple sources exist. Edward321 (talk) 14:54, 10 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Weak keep Clearly user:Jclemens' references demonstrate that the subject satisfies the general notability guideline. However, I don't believe that those references have much in common with this article. The article should be kept because it's a de facto important adjunct to many other articles, as shown by the number of links to it from the body of other articles and from the number of interwiki links. Since that's not possible, keep it because it's de jure notable. Yappy2bhere (talk) 05:00, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No, the material that is OR should be removed. Abductive  (reasoning) 05:55, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz Humbug! 06:51, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Delete- I believe an encyclopedic article on Unseen University is possible, given that reliable secondary sources exist. However, as it stands the article is cruft from beginning to end. Terry Pratchett deserves better. I agree with Pcap that the best thing to do is nuke it and start over. Reyk  YO!  11:20, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If you're a fan of Terry you should know that Ponder Stibbons's article currently redirects here, as does the article for The Chair of Indefinite Studies, The Dean of Pentacles and The Bursar. Don't you think it would be easier to improve this article, rather than force those articles to be recreated?  Serendi pod ous  11:46, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree that the sources provided above establish notability for the topic; I also agree though that the best way forward is probably to remove the current content and start afresh. The latter doesn't require actual deletion, although doing so may well be the best way to spur someone into actually fixing it rather than just letting it sit in its current undesirable state. While I can see that POV, my personal preference is to keep but stubify; then the old material's available in the history in case anyone finds sourcing which justifies re-adding some of it. Olaf Davis (talk) 12:38, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Notability clearly demonstrated. There is no 'harm' being done by the article so I do not think its perceived bad state is a reason to get rid of it. Quantpole (talk) 16:48, 12 February 2010 (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.