Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Inertialess drive (2nd nomination)

Inertialess drive

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Inertialess drive (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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This is a pure piece of WP:OR, poorly sourced to novels, short stories, games and like. While it is plausible the topic could be notable, given the ORish state of this, nothing here is rescuable; 80% of the article is a plot summary for Lensman series, and the remainder 20% is unsourced OR in the WP:IPC-failing style of "this term also appears in the following random works". WP:TNT treatment is advised, although WP:ATD-R allows for a less drastic solution of redirecting this to Space travel in science fiction where the term is mentioned. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:04, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Science fiction and fantasy, and Spaceflight. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:04, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I’m obviously biased, since I was the first contributor, but “a pure piece of WP:OR, poorly sourced” is clearly incorrect: The first two footnotes are uncontroversially secondary research, and there are nine other footnotes, which I think is above average for a Wikipedia article of this length. I can’t speak to the quality of citations by other contributors, but would welcome specific corrections.

—FlashSheridan (talk) 19:05, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

To my surprise, there seem to be 368 pages that link to it (a number which could perhaps use some filtering); that’s a lot of red links to fix.

—FlashSheridan (talk) 19:39, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

There are 325 pages that transclude Template:Science fiction, which includes a link to inertialess drive, so the numbers for links to the latter are almost certainly heavily inflated by that (some pages may of course transclude the template and include a separate link to this article). TompaDompa (talk) 19:53, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

• FlashSheridan, could you perhaps elaborate upon what you are referring to when you speak of secondary research here? I am a bit confused by the article itself in terms of what's in-universe and what's real-world. TompaDompa (talk) 20:03, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

  > could you perhaps elaborate upon what you are referring to when you speak of secondary research here?

  Citations to “The Epic of Space,” page 84, in Of Worlds Beyond, 1947, and to Samuel Lawrence Bigelow’s Theoretical and Physical Chemistry. Of Worlds Beyond was quite important in the intellectual history of early science fiction, and I dare say most readers have been puzzled by Dr Smith’s reference.

   

   

  > I am a bit confused by the article itself in terms of what's in-universe and what's real-world.

  That’s fair criticism, and I’d be happy to fix it.

  — FlashSheridan (talk) 20:48, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

• Redirect to Space travel in science fiction where this is covered with better sources. There isn't enough WP:SIGCOV to justify a split, here. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:28, 10 March 2024 (UTC)