Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of gadgets in the Spy Fox series

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. postdlf (talk) 20:00, 26 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of gadgets in the Spy Fox series

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In-universe, unsourced fancruft. The "gadgets" are gameplay elements with no out-of-universe notability, and the "locations" likewise. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 11:32, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merge back to parent article where it and its content (except for any analysis/intepretation per WP:PRIMARY) would be a valid internal article list. Keep per WP:CSC, WP:FICT, WP:AOAL, WP:SALAT, WP:LC, etc. WP:FANCRUFT and WP:INUNIVERSE are not valid reasons in and of themselves for deletion; both require one or more ACTUAL policy guidelines which support deletion. WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not good enough (i.e., "Delete as cruft"). ~~Merging all of these (one more not listed here) back into the main article may make that article WP:TOOLONG.~~ VMS Mosaic (talk) 08:31, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, how about "could find no sourcing that wasn't the game proper", "no out-of-universe notability asserted"? Or do those just not count anywhere in your little alphabet soup here? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:13, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The alphabet soup is in support of Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)#Lists of fictional elements. WP:CSC allows lists where no individual item has notability. WP:SALAT allows lists which are not too broad or too specific and leads into WP:NOT which leads to WP:INDISCRIMINATE which leads to MOS:PLOT which allows "character descriptions" and to WP:Real world which allows "Description of fictional characters, places and devices as objects of the narrative". WP:LC defines when a list should be broken out into a separate article due to WP:TOOLONG, what qualifies as listcruft, and that being listcruft should not be the sole factor for deletion. WP:AOAL is probably the weakest one as far as supporting keeping these lists, but, for example, item #5 does support including detailed info in lists. So, no, I wasn't just puking out random guidelines and essays. Each provided at least one valid reason for supporting Keep. I do realize that a video game is not a book or video, but it is still a work of fiction, so I believe WP:FICTIONPLOT applies here. It explicitly allows "statistics or characteristics for fictional vehicles or devices" to be sourced from the primary work. Per WP:PSTS, no secondary source is needed unless there is "interpretation". So "could find no sourcing that wasn't the game proper" doesn't count unless the list contains "interpretation" which of course should be removed from the list if it has no secondary source. "no out-of-universe notability asserted" is pretty much negated also by WP:FICT, ... VMS Mosaic (talk) 03:37, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the [Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Deletion|list of video game-related deletion discussions]]. (G·N·B·S·RS·Talk) • Gene93k (talk) 16:20, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:20, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:20, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Unreferenced, no indication of notability of any of the individual list entries, and notability is not inherited. Per WP:LISTN no evidence that this content has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, so no evidence of other notability. In addition, the content is in large part how-to/original research.Dialectric (talk) 03:10, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please see my response above. I believe it responds to your issues. See particularly WP:FICTIONPLOT. I agree that there could be some "interpretation" here, but without buying and playing the game, I don't know if stuff like "The ultimate gadget" is something stated in the game (i.e., "it is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge" who plays the game) or the writer's "interpretation". VMS Mosaic (talk) 04:11, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The idea that we can have a non-notable list of non-notable entries simply flies against the spirit of our guidelines even if some of them haven't been thought through thoroughly enough. WP:GNG clearly says " Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time, and are not outside the scope of Wikipedia." The other guidelines were never meant to overrule that. Dougweller (talk) 21:55, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Given that these three lists (one is in a separate AfD) were probably broken out of the WP:N main article because of WP:TOOLONG, would you support merging them back in to that article instead of deletion? WP:N only applies to the topic of an article ("These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not limit the content of an article or list"). Inside the main article, the lists meet WP:NOR and WP:V per WP:PRIMARY. I don't believe the remaining core principle (WP:NPOV) is an issue given that the contents appear to include little if any analysis/interpretation. I guess my main issue here is that many editors in WP:FAITH followed WP:TOOLONG without knowing that the lists would be deleted years later (in this case ~6.5 years) instead of being merged back. FWIW, I had never heard of Spy Fox before (I'm not a gamer) until I saw these AfDs. The editor who did the split (I believe done in good faith) appears to no longer be active. I suspect if he was still active, he would be willing to do the work required for a merge back. As far as the guidelines I cited, I don't believe nor did I claim that a "non-notable list of non-notable entries" article be allowed without a supporting WP:N main article, just as I wouldn't claim a list of seasons and sub lists of episodes of a TV series be allowed without a main article on that TV series. VMS Mosaic (talk) 03:22, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. WP:LISTN is not satisfied here. There need to be sources that discuss the concept as a whole. However, this is completely unreferenced plot details. Just because it exists does not mean that Wikipedia should catalog it. If the main article is too long, then non-notable, unsourced information can be simply deleted. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:49, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FAILN gives the suggested action for WP:LISTN: "Topics that do not meet this criterion are not retained as separate articles. Non-notable topics with closely related notable articles or lists are often merged into those pages, while non-notable topics without such merge targets are generally deleted." So why is the default position in this discussion 'deletion'? If merged into the very closely related (i.e., it was once part of it) notable article, notability becomes a non-issue per WP:N, and the list items remain sourced per WP:PRIMARY and WP:FICTIONPLOT. If the article is too long, then so be it, given that WP:TOOLONG clearly states "Content should not be removed from articles simply to reduce length; see Wikipedia:Content removal#Reasons for acceptable reasons." VMS Mosaic (talk) 07:55, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete because it isn't really a list. Any notable items can be merged back into the main article, which can be trimmed if it is too long. - Pointillist (talk) 09:55, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete both. (Has even less coverage than the characters article.) Article topic lacks significant coverage from reliable, independent sources. (?) The items are minor/peripheral, with no coverage in video game reliable sources. There is nothing to merge back to the article because there is nothing able to be sourced. (It's kind of silly to argue that anything that was once a list is worthy to be merged back to its parent article, especially when there's zero notability for the elements of the list.) Please ping me if significant offline sources show in the future. czar ♔ 15:52, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Quoting from WP:VG/RS#Video games: "Games are primary sources in articles about themselves. Whether it is good to use them as a source varies by perspective, subject and game." WP:PRIMARY and WP:FICTIONPLOT (so far no one has objected to the game being a fictional universe) both allow primary only sourcing for this type of in article info so long as no "interpretation" is involved. WP:CSC #2 explicitly permits lists where all items have zero notability. VMS Mosaic (talk) 08:31, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Pretty easily per WP:NOT and WP:LIST. VMS Mosaic's keep rationale is wholly unconvincing. Them From Space 19:00, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I do realize that keeping this as a separate article from its parent article was a long shot, but it was pointed out to me elsewhere that merging an article back to its parent after it has been extensively changed is a somewhat difficult process due to the required history merge and/or editor attribution (difficult to me at least), plus it would have been in the spirit of WP:TOOLONG. Merge now looks like the only option (other than restoring the list to the article as it existed 6.5 years ago prior to the split.) VMS Mosaic (talk) 08:31, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete both as not passing WP:GNG with multiple reliable independent in-depth sources focused on the topic (list of gadgets/locations). A more lax WP:LISTN with topic not necessarily passing GNG, but having notable entries does not fit, as individual gadgets/location don't have coverage either. The material is also WP:GAMECRUFT, which makes it unsuitable for a split from the main article(s) due to size unless it has reliable coverage. Beyond that, this fails WP:WAF more than anything with no real-world context, rather just in-game cruft. As an editorial decision, I don't see anything to merge--readers don't need such detail to understand the game in question, and a couple paragraphs of quality prose would suffice. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 14:44, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It appears video games are treated differently from other fictional universes (i.e., books, manga, films, etc.) per WP:GAMECRUFT. Perhaps sections explaining the nature of gadgets and the types of locations with a few examples of each would be more in line with WP:GAMECRUFT. That would be useful to a non-gamer wanting to know how this game is like/unlike other games. One would have to be careful to leave out any analysis/interpretation in order to meet WP:PRIMARY and WP:FICTIONPLOT. VMS Mosaic (talk) 00:30, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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.