Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of one-time characters in The Simpsons (6th nomination): Difference between revisions

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List of one-time characters in The Simpsons

Exactly what it says on the tin: A list of one-time characters. The Simpsons is known for having 80 trillion characters, do we really need to list every single one? This list, surprisingly for a Simpsons article, is entirely devoid of sources, and I can't find any evidence of improvement since the last four AFDs. I have no idea why anyone would want to keep this article, as it's nothing but an indiscriminate list, crammed with OR and fansite-worthy material. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Many otters • One hammer • HELP)} 18:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Notable characters, a lot of these characters were key plot pieces of the episodes they are in. CTJF83Talk 18:52, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then isn't the episode article sufficient in that case? Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Many otters • One hammer • HELP)} 19:37, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, but we had problems with users adding long drawn out descriptions of the characters on the episode page, clogging it up with too much cruft. CTJF83Talk 19:41, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That can be fixed quite easily. We don't need a ginormous list of entries that individually would be non-notable. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Many otters • One hammer • HELP)} 20:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Strong delete for the same reason as this. And for once, can all the users voting "keep" please leave WP:ILIKEIT and WP:IAR out of it this time? THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 19:22, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Okay, but only if you agree to leave WP:IDONTLIKEIT out of this. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 22:26, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. -- — LinguistAtLarge • Talk 20:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. If the characters are only notable for having been in one episode, they should be able to be discussed in the article for that episode. Presently, this seems like an indiscriminate list, full of WP:OR. Karanacs (talk) 20:59, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete, fails WP:NOT on multiple levels, fails WP:WAF, fails WP:N, etc etc. Trivial, beyond minor characters and clearly redundant to the better written episode lists since they are all "one-time" characters = one-episode each. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 21:01, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. — -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 21:01, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as a reasonable spinout of an iconic franchise, with an appropriate level of sourcing for these chracters. Jclemens (talk) 21:04, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, for basically the same reasons I gave at the last AFD. I agree that we can discuss these characters at the individual episode pages. However, a page like this is still useful for navigational purposes. The main list of Simpsons episodes doesn't contain any episode descriptions, and while the season LoEs do, most readers will not know by heart which season a character appeared in. They'd have to browse through 20+ lists to find the information they want, which is asking too much. On top of all that, readers may only vaguely remember what the character's name was, and how it is spelled, which rules out redirects to episode pages as a useful solution. (Imagine the mispellings for Adil Hoxha!) But browsing through a page like this, they can hopefully find what they need. It should be noted that most of these characters do have fairly memorable roles in their episodes; they're not random background characters. And verifiability isn't a huge problem; there are dozens of sources that could be used to verify this info. Zagalejo^^^ 21:11, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Characters if they are important one-shot characters can be described in relevant episode articles. While this list is potentially useful, usefulness is not a factor for keeping this around. --MASEM (t) 21:22, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep precisely because it is useful. Wikipedia is intended to be an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias are used by people to look things up. If people are trying to look one of these characters up -- and believe me, I volunteer at a library, how do I find out more about this TV show character is a very more than daily question -- this article makes it much easier to find the character. Zagalejo said it better than I do. And is exactly right! Wikipedia ain't belle lettres. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:58, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I see the same arguments presented that last half dozen times people have tried to delete this page and it always ends up a no consensus. Perhaps we should try to work out a compromise, rather than going through this afd every 6 months. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 22:30, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for this reason - Say you wanted to find a one-off character but you don't know what episode they were in. It would be in no-one's interest to constantly open articles, find out that they weren't in that episode, then go back and click another one. You'd have to be pretty dedicated - and have a lot of time on your hands - to do it (I'm only speaking for myself here, but I'd probably stop at around a dozen). Having the information in one handy page would be much better (and less time-consuming as well). DitzyNizzy (aka Jess)|(talk to me)|(What I've done) 22:33, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yet another comment If this article is kept, I am going to convert it into table form and try to add as many refs as I can. I haven't done it in the past because it's a big job, and why should I spend time improving an article that people are going to nominate for deletion based just on the title? -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 22:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- What stopped you from doing this the first five (5) times this article was kept? Why is this time different? / edg ☺ ☭ 11:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Important aspect of an important show. There are certainly enough sources to keep the article, although even if there were none, I would still say keep. And I do agree that this is being nominated just because of the title. It would be interesting if we did an experiment with this and renamed it "List of significant Simpsons characters who have appeared in one episode", and see if it is nominated for deletion. Rhino131 (talk) 23:34, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The show is important enough for this to be justified, and there are sources DGG (talk) 23:59, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete since I do not think these one-off characters are important. This is trivial, and saying this list of trivia is important places undue weight on American TV shows. Drmies (talk) 00:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. People are arguing that this article should be kept because otherwise no one will know which episode certain one-time characters appeared in. Um...has no one heard of Google???

Or how about snpp.com? THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 00:35, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Because I think this is a very poor nom, based largely on WP:IDONTLIKEIT, with faulty reasoning. Here's why:
- "Exactly what it says on the tin: A list of one-time characters"
  - What is that old saying?... Oh right, never judge a book by its cover (or in this case, the merits of an article by its title)
- "The Simpsons is known for having 80 trillion characters, do we really need to list every single one?"
  - It doesn't list every one, just the ones that played an important part in the plot of an episode (or at least in theory, IPs then to add very minor characters)
- "This list, surprisingly for a Simpsons article, is entirely devoid of sources"
  - You lost all credibility with that statement because it became painfully obvious that this is a blind nomination and you likely didn't even bother to scroll down the page. Perhaps my eyes are deceiving me, but I see 20 references in the version before my minor clean up effort.
- "And I can't find any evidence of improvement since the last four AFDs."
  - The page DID improve last time, more refs were added and crap was removed.
- "I have no idea why anyone would want to keep this article"
  - WP:IDONTLIKEIT
- "it's nothing but an indiscriminate list"
  - Explained above.
- "crammed with OR and fansite-worthy material."
  - I actually think that this page has very little OR and fansite worthy material than most character lists because it is basically a retelling of what happened in the episode. There is little actual original research. Sure, there are a lot of unsourced statements, but users these days seem to think that all unsourced statements are automatically original research, which isn't true. I don't think it's really fansite material - the kind of stuff you would find at a fansite would be a lot cruftier. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 00:47, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. One more thing...Scorpion, I'm not sure which side you're on, but I think you need to understand that just because someone nominates an article for deletion or votes "delete" doesn't necessarily mean it's solely because they don't like it. In this case, it's because we don't think it follows the necessary Wikipedia guidelines. Now, I'll admit Hammer was off when he said the article doesn't have any sources, but he's not off about anything else (I know, because I nominated it last time). At any rate, it's not right to ignore all the rules in a vote just because it's about an article you like. Whoever falls into that category should maybe recuse themselves from the discussion. THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 00:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I think you need to understand that just because someone votes keep doesn't necessarily mean it's solely because they like it. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 00:47, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - I do understand that; it's just that in this case, when people vote "keep" that seems to be the only reasoning they give. And like I said before, why can't people use search engines to find out which episodes characters were in? I notice no one has been able to respond to that question yet. THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 04:56, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - One other thing I noticed: I checked the contributions of all the users voting "keep", and...surprise, surprise! Their edits are mainly for Simpsons-related articles. Isn't that a conflict of interest? THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 05:00, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      - Conflict of interest?! What? Isn't that the point of Wikiprojects to improve related articles, such as this article? Should we not give our opinion because we are members of WP:Doh? Should it be left to people who never edit Simpsons articles, and have no idea about any of them? Did you really look at the contributions? DitzyNizzy appears to comment on a lot of AfDs and doesn't edit Simpsons articles, neither does DGG, Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, or Jclemens. So please be more careful by saying all users voting keep edit Simpsons articles. And as far as a Google search result, I typed a few into Google, and came up with 438,000 to 1.9 million search results, who has time to look through that many pages for information. CTJF83Talk 07:00, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        But you can look through them; it sounds like you just don't want to. THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 16:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        
        That wasn't a particularly constructive thing to say or way of saying it either AM. Having an interest in a topic area means just that, it doesn't mean everyone who works on Simpsons articles is here to votestack. Someone another 11:34, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        Sheesh; looks like a lot of people need to read WP:COOL. THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm as cool as a cucumber and twice as rubbery. Once one side of the debate's motives get attributed to X it turns into "us and them", which is not good. Someone another 00:45, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

- - - - I don't see how this could be called a conflict of interest, unless you believe this article is being edited by one-time characters from The Simpsons, or editors similarly invested. These might (and I haven't checked) be single-purpose accounts—the most I would infer from that would be a better-than-average knowledge of The Simpsons, and a lack of perspective (relative to the rest of Wikipedia). (You might, however, check for User:Del arte sock puppets.) / edg ☺ ☭ 11:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. An alternate name of this list is List of episodes with one-time characters, which illustrates its triviality. Every one-time character that isn't non-notable to begin with, can (and usually is already) covered in the episode lists and the episode article without any loss of information. Navigation can be solved via redirects in categories, if need be, although that just shifts the triviality from a visibible to a less prominent place. No other show would get away with a one-off character list, and arguments like "it's popular" and "it's essential for navigation" would be ignored in a heartbeat. Let's stop playing favorites. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:51, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Scorpion and DGG. "One-time character" does not mean "minor" or "trivial" character; many of these played significant roles in the one episode they were part of. There is not all that much to write about them, but having them merged together in a list which is verifiable along with a brief description is a reasonable way of handling it. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:59, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep. I think this follows the rules of Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists, linking characters to episode articles (which, for The Simpsons at least, won't be going away any time soon), and is similar to a chronological list or a discography. My rationale was that Simpsons references were once dropped like Bible verse in some discourse, so this information could become WP:USEFUL (not a keep reason) or WP:NOTABLE (keep reason) at any time. However, I could only find one character sufficiently memorable that I knew the name, and the practice of Simpsons-speak seems in decline, so the chances are increasingly poor that this will become anything but trivia. I could be persuaded into a Delete !vote, and perhaps a few years I will vote delete in the 10th AfD nomination. / edg ☺ ☭ 11:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and merge with List of guest stars on The Simpsons, which is what the focus should be on anyway. I'm not convinced at all that every bit-part character on any show is inherently worth noting, but there's a decent list screaming to get out of these two which are basically the same damned thing. There should be a single sortable list which has data fields like: Voice actor > Episode number > Episode (wikilinked) > character played (extremely brief description) (citation). Then you get a genuinely useful navigational tool, which can help anyone who's wondering "which episode did Mr T feature in?", as well as a list which explicitly lays out the volume and variety of celebrities that have appeared on the show (a tool in itself). Get rid of the excessive free images and space it out properly in a grid and suddenly we'd be looking at something very different. Someoneanother 11:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I would now say delete per Sgeureka, but if all else fails, merge per Someone another. THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 16:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - I would like to note to the closing admin that this is the second time THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL has voted. --Maitch (talk) 13:40, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I think this article is being single out because of the title. The list is not only sourced but it links to articles that have more references. The article meets the criteria of WP:LIST as an useful information source and navigational tool. --J.Mundo (talk) 17:27, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- This is being singled out as opposed to what? THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 18:13, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The list has been compiled in a way which singles it out. It's largely duplication and focuses on characters which are self-admittedly minor, instead of bolstering the other list which focuses on the celebrities who've been involved in the show (real-world info), which is what landed it with the Guinness World Records title. Although doing it that way from the start would not guarantee that it wouldn't be up for AFD, it would be a lot less objectionable. Someone another 00:51, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete and merge all useful content to episode articles per WP:indiscriminate collection of information—Chris! _ct 18:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What part, prey tell, of WP:IINFO is this violating? Plot summary seems to come closest, but still... this isn't that. Jclemens (talk) 06:49, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Definitely as useful list for navigational purposes. Scattering these one-time characters amongst individual articles would not accomplish the same thing at all. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 00:55, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or merge with List of guest stars on The Simpsons per this discussion. —TheLeft orium 14:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. While I'm not entirely sure that I like this list, the delete side has not managed to provide any evidence of this list breaking any policies. I will try and respond to the comments here:

is entirely devoid of sources

Nope, there are 25 reliable sources, which makes it pass WP:V

it's nothing but an indiscriminate list

Please do tell what part of WP:IINFO it is breaking, because I can't find a sentence to support that claim.

crammed with OR

I don't think you actually understand the concept of OR. A one or two sentence bio is not OR. Please read WP:OR.

fails WP:NOT on multiple levels

Again, please cite just one part of WP:NOT it is breaking. I can't find any.

fails WP:WAF

No it doesn't. The bios are kept to a bare minimum and the list includes real world information.

fails WP:N

No it doesn't. It has in fact received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject.

In the end I would like to say that it seems like the delete side only objects on the basis of the title with comments like one-time means trivial and non-notable. I disagree. If the character is covered by a reliable source then I wouldn't call it non-notable, because somebody else obviously found it notable to write about to begin with. Another thing is that they don't have any policy to back up that claim with. --Maitch (talk) 14:34, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

- How does it fail WP:IINFO? Well...if it's a list of well over 100 individual items, shouldn't every entry be sourced somehow? (Or if not that, every entry should have at least pass WP:N.) For a list this size, 25 sources isn't enough. THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 15:41, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Well, can you back that statement up by a citation from a Wikipedia guideline. We have to deal with real policies. Not just make up rules to fit our own agenda. --Maitch (talk) 19:53, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I think everyone should read this. THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL 19:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I love how you are criticizing people for using arguments that haven't even been used. Nobody other than you has brought up IAR in this discussion. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 23:46, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - The irony is that it is in fact THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL who is ignoring all the rules, since he has yet to demonstrate what policy this list is actually breaking. --Maitch (talk) 00:43, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Essays are not policy and this one is clearly one you just made up. CTJF83Talk 21:51, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think everyone should read WP:DOTHISBECAUSEMYESSAYSAYSSO. :P - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 20:11, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This may violate WP:POINT, but I am going to add a reference to every single entry just to shut COMPFUNK2 up. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 23:03, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Update Sort of done, the majority of the entries are now referenced. I await your next reason why this page should go. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 23:43, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 84: / Line 84: @@
 *'''Comment.''' I think everyone should read '''[[WP:IARBIAS|this]]'''. '''[[User:COMPFUNK2|THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL]]''' 19:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 **I love how you are criticizing people for using arguments that haven't even been used. Nobody other than you has brought up IAR in this discussion. -- [[User:Scorpion0422|<font color="#FF8C00">Scorpion</font>]]<sup>[[user talk:Scorpion0422|<font color="black">0422</font>]]</sup> 23:46, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
+*** The irony is that it is in fact [[User:COMPFUNK2|THE AMERICAN METROSEXUAL]] who is ignoring all the rules, since he has yet to demonstrate what policy this list is actually breaking. --[[User:Maitch|Maitch]] ([[User talk:Maitch|talk]]) 00:43, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 **Essays are '''not policy''' and this one is clearly one you just made up. <font face="papyrus">[[User:Ctjf83|'''<font color="#ff0000">C</font><font color="#ff6600">T</font><font color="#ffff00">J</font><font color="#009900">F</font><font color="#0000ff">8</font><font color="#6600cc">3</font>''']][[User Talk:Ctjf83|Talk]]</font> 21:51, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 *:I think everyone should read [[WP:DOTHISBECAUSEMYESSAYSAYSSO]]. :P - [[User:A Man In Black|A Man In <font color="black">'''Bl♟ck'''</font>]] <small>([[User talk:A_Man_In_Black|conspire]] - [[Special:Contributions/A Man In Black|past ops]])</small> 20:11, 16 April 2009 (UTC)