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This is a collection of discussions on the deletion of articles related to Fictional elements. It is one of many deletion lists coordinated by WikiProject Deletion sorting. Anyone can help maintain the list on this page.

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The guideline Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) and essay Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) may be relevant here.

Related deletion sorting


Fictional elements

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List of songs based on a film

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List of songs based on a film (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)
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Same issues as with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs that retell a work of literature, but that one at least has references - here we have nothing. Just OR trivia, with most songs here not even seemingly notable (not blue linked). Fails WP:NLIST and WP:V. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:57, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Psychohistory (fictional science)

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Psychohistory (fictional science) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)
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Mostly unsourced or sourced to the author himself. This appears to be a split of the Foundation universe and describes similar subject matter with less references. It could be a useful redirect but there is otherwise very little sourced material to WP:PRESERVE. Jontesta (talk) 16:38, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment; I've now created a "Psychohistory" sub-section within the Foundation universe article, as the concept is so central to the plot of the series. But it needs nowhere near the level of detail in this article, which is quite excessive. — The Anome (talk) 09:02, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Nice! I would recommend Foundation universe#Psychohistory as my updated recommendation for a Redirect target, then. Rorshacma (talk) 15:09, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep No before articulated, a brief search shows Journal of Psychohistory exists, so we need to have a clear delineation of why this isn't that--that is, I understand the differences, but those arguing for deletion own the burden to demonstrate why <2 of all RS citing psychohistory might apply to this topic. Much per Daranios, but this needs to be a bit more forceful. "This article sucks" is a great argument for cleanup, to which I have no objection, but not a valid argument for deletion. I am glad that Rorshacma and others understand that this must at least remain a redirect, but it is not clear to me why BLAR was not tried first. Jclemens (talk) 22:55, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Do you see the delineation between Psychohistory the real science discussed by the Journal of Psychohistory and Psychohistory (fictional science)? WP:AGF, I am trying to understand why you are bringing up a journal about a different topic, covered by a different article, which is not up for deletion. Jontesta (talk) 03:32, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Allow me to rephrase: Since there is both a real science and a fictional science, there's a lot of BEFORE to go through, none of which has been demonstrated, to assess that there's nothing with which to improve the article. Jclemens (talk) 05:09, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I mean, improvement need not necessarily happen at this title. If the current contents would be better covered at a different article (or several) per WP:PAGEDECIDE, there's nothing stopping us from doing that and splitting those contents into a stand-alone article if and when improvement/expansion has happened to a sufficient extent that doing so would be motivated. TompaDompa (talk) 06:45, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I also think it's rather peculiar to simultaneously argue that the article should be kept and that it would have been better to WP:Blank and redirect the article than to bring it to WP:AfD. Those seem like contradictory positions to me, but maybe there's something I'm missing. TompaDompa (talk) 21:51, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Not at all; both are process-based critiques: 1) BEFORE wasn't attempted based on the confounding similarly named real science, and 2) if all that was desired was BLAR, why was BLAR not done editorially before bringing this needlessly to AfD? Jclemens (talk) 01:35, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I know you are aware that WP:BLARs are frequently contested and editors told to take it to WP:AfD. Some editors even consider WP:BLAR without preceding AfD to be an inappropriate form of "stealth deletion". AfD is one way to build consensus and get a mandate for redirects and merges expected to be potentially controversial. WP:BLAR says An RfC closed in 2021 found Most users believe that AfD should be used to settle controversial or contested cases of blanking and redirecting. and WP:CONRED, which is part of WP:BEFORE, says that If a redirection is controversial, however, AfD may be an appropriate venue for discussing the change in addition to the article's talk page.. For that matter, WP:BEFORE says to Search for additional sources, if the main concern is notability—but the stated reason in the nomination is not a lack of notability but being a needless split. You seem to me to be overly focused on process to the detriment of actually determining what the best course of action for dealing with the article and its contents might be. Remember that WP:Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. TompaDompa (talk) 04:12, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Was there any indication that this was controversial? I didn't see one, but I clearly could have missed it. I'm not a huge fan of unannounced BLARs either, but I've learned a while ago that we've developed a process that's a cohesive whole, even the parts I don't prefer, and that running the process in good faith is the best way to achieve encyclopedic results. That's not bureaucratic so much as it is a series of checks and balances. Jclemens (talk) 21:54, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know if there was any such indication here specifically, but I also don't think it really matters—it's not unreasonable to expect something like this to be potentially controversial. Saying that this is not bureaucratic so much as it is a series of checks and balances sounds like a distinction without a difference when your argument for keeping this article is entirely on procedural grounds rather than the merits of the article, its contents, and its topic. TompaDompa (talk) 22:29, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Has someone done a BEFORE yet and I missed it? Jclemens (talk) 09:58, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to Foundation universe#Psychohistory per WP:ATD. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 15:09, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect per Rorshacma. This is already described at Foundation universe and there isn't much sourced material to WP:PRESERVE. Editors can further merge if needed, but I agree that sources discuss this overall as part of the series. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to Foundation universe#Psychohistory per WP:ATD. — The Anome (talk) 23:34, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect per other voters. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 16:18, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tralfamadore

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Tralfamadore (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)
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Concept without significant coverage, failing WP:GNG. Article is basically unsourced with nothing to WP:PRESERVE, and WP:BEFORE does not show enough reliable sources to build this article essentially from scratch. Jontesta (talk) 16:16, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Jontesta (talk) 16:16, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 18:48, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question @Jontesta: What about "Tralfamadore is America: Cultural History in Slaughterhouse - Five" and the chapter dedicated to Tralfamadore in The Vonnegut Encyclopedia as secondary sources? Daranios (talk) 19:25, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    A quick look at the first source would seem to indicate that it's not really about Tralfamadore as such but about themes in Slaughterhouse-Five? I can only see part of the second source, but it seems to mainly contain in-universe information and notes that it is not consistently portrayed across works. Maybe there's something I'm missing as I haven't taken a close or in-depth look at either source, but they do not strike me as obviously useful for a stand-alone article on Tralfamadore. What's more, if our article is correct in stating that Tralfamadore is the name of several fictional planets in the novels of Kurt Vonnegut, then it's very questionable if this is even a single topic in a meaningful sense in the first place. TompaDompa (talk) 19:45, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    TompaDompa describes it better than I could. As far as I can tell the sources describe the story of Slaughterhouse-Five. The rare use of Tralfamadore is as a metonym for the novel. Jontesta (talk) 03:24, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Still non-trivial coverage in a reliable source. Jclemens (talk) 05:56, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I was able to access at least two peer-reviewed pieces. These are both over 35 years old
    Mustazza, L. (1986). Vonnegut’s Tralfamadore and Milton’s Eden. Essays in Literature, 13(2), 299–312.

    Whereas Milton ennobles his "divine shapes" by making them superior to human beings, Vonnegut presents the otherworldliness of the Tralfamadorians comically, at.once letting us share in Billy's wonder and, as Klinkowitz says, undercutting that otherworldliness.'<<Yet, like Milton's angels, the Tralfamadorians are far superior intellectually to their human guests, for the space creatures also reason at a higher level. They are able to see in four dimensions, and they pity Earthlings for being able to see only in three (p, 26).>> Moreover, having no voice boxes since they communicate telepathically, they must make accommodations so that Billy can communicate with them, the accommodation being "a computer and a sort of electric organ" to simulate human sounds (p. 76), Again, Vonnegut's portrayal of these creatures relies upon machinery—the instruments of the twentieth century—and again, Vonnegut, unlike Milton, uses these familiar gadgets to compel us to look from dual perspectives: from the mythic perspective (Billy's point of view), the Tralfamadorians are no more or less bizarre than the mythic shapes that people the works of Homer or Dante or Spenser; from the literal perspective, they are ridiculous and Billy's creation is pathetic.

    Parshall, P. F. (1987). Meditations on the Philosophy of Tralfamadore: Kurt Vonnegut and George Roy Hill. Literature/Film Quarterly, 15(1), 49–59.

    At root, the Tralfamadorian philosophy suggests adopting a detached stance from the problems of the world. To some readers, it might seem that Vonnegut accepts this view, since he has written his novel (according to the title page) "somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore," and has filled it with endless repetitions of "so it goes," the Tralfamadorian reaction to death.4 With a little more thought, it is evident that Vonnegut is using the philosophy of Tralfamadore ironically. It is true that the "telegraphic schizophrenic manner" of narration emphasizes the illogicality of events and the helplessness of characters, producing a Tralfamadorian fatalism. But if we, like Billy, come "unstuck in time," the final result is a deepened sense of human commitment as we become aware of the universality of human suffering.

And those are merely two of the first four scholar hits I reviewed--the two others were an undergraduate paper and a masters' thesis, neither as suitable as journal-published papers to conclusively demonstrate the inadequacy of the nomination. While a nominator can be forgiven for not having access to these sources, they are both from the first page of a Google Scholar search on the article name. The WP:BEFORE search articulated by Jontesta appears to be either fictional or sufficiently incomplete as to constitute a WP:CIR violation. I AGF that there's a somehow a better, if nonintuitive, explanation. Jclemens (talk) 05:56, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jclemens: The nonintuitive thing about this is that the article is (ostensibly) about Tralfamadore generally in Vonnegut's oeuvre, not the Tralfamadore of any individual one of the works—because they are apparently very different. If the sources do not treat them collectively, this article is in effect a variant of creating a WP:FRANKENSTEIN. In that case, the scope of this article is inherently invalid—the alternative being having articles like Tralfamadore (Slaughterhouse-Five) and Tralfamadore (The Sirens of Titan) and so on, or else covering it at the articles for the works themselves (Slaughterhouse-Five, The Sirens of Titan, and so on). Another way of looking at it is through the lens of WP:NOTDICT: if the different Tralfamadores are not meaningfully part of the same topic (as per how the sources treat them in their coverage), it does not matter that they share the name "Tralfamadore" because On Wikipedia, things are grouped into articles based on what they are, not what they are called by. Both sources you quote seem to be specifically about Slaughterhouse-Five: the first describes Tralfamadore as being from that work in the abstract and is tagged with "Slaughterhouse-Five" as a keyword but not any other work, while the second discusses the book and its 1972 film adaptation. TompaDompa (talk) 07:05, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the sources do not treat them collectively They do: The Dictionary of Science Fiction Places article "Tralfamadore" (specifically the versions from The Sirens fo Titan and Slaughterhouse-Five) referenced in the article and The Vonnegut Encyclopedia (for all of Vonnegut's works) listed above both talk about differences between the versions but treat them as one entity. So if those secondary source cover various versions under one heading, it is not original research if we do, and therefore not WP:FRANKENSTEIN. Daranios (talk) 10:03, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's not quite right, and the reason I brought up WP:NOTDICT: covering all Vonnegut planets called "Tralfamadore" under the same heading is not the same thing as treating them as one and the same planet (again, grouping things by what they are called versus by what they are, or the dictionary approach versus the encyclopedic approach). If Wikipedia is to cover them under the same heading, they need to be the same (in the sense that applies to fictional elements). What's more, you are misreading The Dictionary of Science Fiction Places (which is also a rather marginal source that takes a very in-universe perspective, though it can often be useful for in-universe details): it explicitly says A later report of Tralfamadore—which might have been illusory and almost certainly referred to a different alternativerse [...]. In other words, it explicitly states that they are different entities. If anything, that source is evidence that the article scope is invalid. But maybe the consensus among the sources is that there is one true Tralfamadore and the different appearances should be considered as referring to one and the same fictional entity—in which case our article is wrong and needs to be fixed. TompaDompa (talk) 11:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hm. Deciding what the best course of action is would be a lot easier if we had somebody familiar with the topic and what sources there may be. Pinging a couple of editors I know to be knowledgable about science fiction: @Mike Christie and Olivaw-Daneel: what do you think? In particular, is this meaningfully a single topic? TompaDompa (talk) 11:58, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Seconding the Deciding what the best course of action is would be a lot easier if we had somebody familiar with the topic. Even if the versions are quite different, secondary sources, both those already listed and others, recognize that those versions are very much self-referential: Unstuck in Time, p. 133: the Trafalmadore from Slaughterhouse-Five "that we recognize from Sirens of Titan"; Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-five, p. 110: "Tralfamadore [from Slaughterhous-Five] - the distant world ... from which the flying-saucer pilot Salo had come in The Sirens of Titan; Sirens, p. 63: "The Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse 5 play with time through their main character's engagement with a fictitious planed named Tralfamadore, which plays a central role in both novels"; Heimatländer der Phantasie on Hocus Pocus: "and Tralfamadore is back again, too"; Satire und Roman, p. 333: ..."the planet Tralfamadore, to which the protagonist Billy Pilgrim feels transported, first appears in The Sirens of Titan; Visions and Re-visions, p. 164: "Back to Tralfamadore: Hocus Pocus"; Study Guide to Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut: "reappearance: object is to trace the recurrance of Vonnegut's places, characters, objects in different stories; e.g., Pilgrim's Tralfamadore first figured in The Sirens of Titan". Daranios (talk) 15:34, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, recognizing that reusing the name "Tralfamadore" for a planet is a form of self-reference by Vonnegut is a rather trivial observation. Is there a good reason to cover all appearances on the same page? Is there a good reason to even have a stand-alone planet article in the first place? My impression from the sources I've looked at (briefly, admittedly) is that content about Tralfamadore in The Sirens of Titan benefits from the context of that novel and content about Tralfamadore in Slaughterhouse-Five benefits from the context of that novel, but that content about Tralfamadore in The Sirens of Titan does not really benefit from the context of Tralfamadore in Slaughterhouse-Five nor vice versa. I would love to be proven wrong about this, but it doesn't seem to me like we have much hope of writing a cohesive article on Tralfamadore à la what I did for the Mesklin article where there actually is good reason to cover the planet separately from the works it appears in. If it is the case that the shared name "Tralfamadore" is fundamentally incidental, simply noting on the Kurt Vonnegut article that the name was used for various stories might be the best option, in which case we could redirect this title to an WP:ANCHOR there. It's not like the current content of the Tralfamadore article is worth preserving, seeing as it's all unsourced apart from a lengthy excerpt from Slaughterhouse-Five. TompaDompa (talk) 18:16, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@TompaDompa: The secondary sources do go beyond "the name was reused" to a degree: The Dictionary of Science Fiction Places has "what the two races of Tralfamadore had in common was that they both regarded human beings as..." and so forth. Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-five, p. 110, directly puts three variants of Trafalmadore in relation to each other, even though I cannot see a direct conclusion drawn from that. Heimatländer der Phantasie draws the comparison between the variants in Sirens and Hocus Pocus, both having the same function of messing up the history of humanity. Study Guide to Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut considers it a worthwhile exercise of textual analysis to trace the variants throughout Vonneguth's works. So without deciding yet if this is the best way to present things, yes, based on that I believe putting the variants in context to each other is beneficial and is what secondary sources do, i.e. not WP:FRANKENSTEIN. Daranios (talk) 15:01, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
TompaDompa, I suspect Daranios is being overly charitable here. The question before us is "Does Tralfamadore have enough RS to write a decent encyclopedia article about it?" which I have demonstrated conclusively to be affirmative. What is to be covered in that article is beside the point, as that is an editorial decision not requiring--or even benefiting from--an AfD discussion. Your arguments here are both wrong (one title can indeed cover two distinct uses of a fictional term) and out of order.
The secondary issue is nominator conduct, by representing that a BEFORE had been conducted and found nothing usable when my cursory look at scholar shows plenty of sources--again, this is either falsehood, mistaken or intentional, or simply a lack of competence. For example, since BEFORE D.1. states Google Scholar is suggested for academic subjects. it is plausible for the nominator to assert that the topic was not understood to be a topic of academic interest, but such an assertion would itself be ridiculously lacking in literary awareness despite that plausibility, hence my CIR comment. Regardless, it brings us into SK #3 territory, The nomination is completely erroneous. No accurate deletion rationale has been provided.. Jclemens (talk) 21:06, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:PAGEDECIDE is a question routinely considered at WP:AfD. The content of the article matters for that, as does the scope—we obviously cannot decide whether a stand-alone article should exist if we do not know what it is to be about. I'm sure you remember that this was a key question at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Discrimination against superheroes back in August. There, one important question was whether the scope of the article as it existed accurately reflected the coverage in the sources or whether there was a problem of WP:SYNTH. There, the article was ultimately not kept but a very small fraction of it was merged. The situation for this article is not entirely dissimilar, seeing as the scope of the article is in question (more specifically, whether it is even appropriate to consider it a single topic). TompaDompa (talk) 21:26, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And one title can indeed cover two distinct uses of a fictional term, but then we are at WP:WORDISSUBJECT. If the scope of this article is supposed to be "Tralfamadore" as a word, then we need sources discussing "Tralfamadore" as a word (and the article would need to be rewritten to reflect that). Otherwise, covering different topics that are called the same thing—even if both are fictional—at the same article violates WP:NOTDICT. As an example: if there were, hypothetically, a Star Trek planet called "Tatooine", it would not be appropriate to cover it at the article for the (obviously different) Star Wars planet Tatooine. TompaDompa (talk) 21:38, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just as a detail, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-five on p. 47 does have to say something on the word, that it is an anagram of Fatal Dream. Daranios (talk) 15:01, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A theorectical article Tralfamadore (Slaughterhouse-Five) in itself would be a notable topic based on how much discussion there is in secondary sources. The same is at least likely for Tralfamadore (The Sirens of Titan). As I have said above, secondary sources do connect those, so they would benefit from being presented together. But what then of the other variations, e.g. in Hocus Pocus. That one is likely not notable as a stand-alone article, but is still commented on in secondary sources. So such content would need to be covered in a parent article in accordance with WP:ATD-M, i.e. be covered here under Tralfamadore (no brackets). The different variations could also be presented each in the context of their respective novels, and that may also be beneficial. But then they are initially cut off from the context of the other variations. So on solution would be to have the commentary in both places based on WP:NOTPAPER. Not a WP:CONTENTFORK then, because it is in a different context each time. Or we could transform this into a disambiguation page linking to the variants/works they appear in, merging content there which we have here now. Or we might bring together all those suggestions together, treating/transforming this into a list of the variants of Trafalmadore, which gives enough definition and publication info to know what they are and presenting the commentary referring among the different variations. And presenting the (more extensive) commentary for each variant referring to the larger plot of their respective works to those works, or even stand-alone articles on the variants in case such commentary becomes too much for the novel article. I guess the latter is my preferred way to go, meaning keep with some spinout/transfer to the novel articles, and ideally some expansion from the secondary sources collected. Daranios (talk) 15:01, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:Set index article? TompaDompa (talk) 15:21, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I guess Dodge Charger seems pretty comparable to me. Similar to a disambiguation page, but allowing for a reasonable amount of commentary. Daranios (talk) 16:06, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Could perhaps work. I'm mostly worried about a WP:SYNTH mess arising if editors aren't careful enough with source use. TompaDompa (talk) 17:08, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Planet X637Z-43

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Planet X637Z-43 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)
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A brief and non-notable hoax. Barely mentioned in any reliable sources. Jontesta (talk) 16:13, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

List of stars and planets in fiction

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List of stars and planets in fiction (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)
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We actually already had this discussion once before, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stars and planetary systems in fiction. This is a recreation of the list version of the article that was rejected at AfD in favour of covering the topic(s) in prose form. As such, it meets the spirit of WP:G4 even if not the letter (as the article itself technically wasn't deleted, just the entirety of the contents). The issues that led to the decision to scrap this version still apply, of course.

Keeping the article in its current state is a complete non-starter. It contains blatant WP:OR, improper use of primary sources, misrepresentations of sources, and outright WP:PLAGIARISM. As I said last time: It's not like we cannot have high-quality articles on topics like this—Mars in fiction, Venus in fiction, and Sun in fiction are all WP:Featured articles—but the bulk of the nearly 400 kB here consists of a TV Tropes-style list with absolutely atrocious sourcing. The article has become a dumping ground for garbage "In popular culture" content to keep it out of the articles on the stars themselves. Another way of putting it is that the article consists of an indiscriminate collection of WP:RAWDATA (the 2008 essay WP:CARGO explains rather well how and why this is a problem for articles like this), and doesn't even source it properly. Something needs to be done, because the current state of affairs is not acceptable (the article has already correctly been tagged with several maintenance tags, and there are many more that could be added—{{In popular culture}}, {{Primary sources}}, and {{More citations needed}} come to mind).

So what are our options here? Well, ordinarily I would suggest fixing the article, but of course we already did that once and don't need to do it all over again. What's more, when we look at the relevant sources—as I did six months ago—we find that this isn't even a topic, but rather several distinct but related ones. Hence, the former stars and planetary systems in fiction article was split extrasolar planets in fiction and stars in fiction. This is to say that we cannot fix this article without fundamentally turning it into something different.

Someone might propose WP:DRAFTIFYing this to bring it up to acceptable standards outside of mainspace; I would note that such an attempt was made a few years ago before being abandoned (see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete&page=Draft:List_of_planetary_systems_in_fiction). In other words, it has been tried before and didn't work. Moreover, moving this to draftspace would do nothing to resolve the fundamental flaws with the article that are inherent in its design, such as combining what is per the sources different topics. An entirely different approach would be needed to turn this into any kind of proper article, and it would in the end not be a different version of this one but an entirely different article altogether.

We could perhaps redirect this somewhere, but it does not really seem like a plausible search term, and there is no reason to do so in order to WP:PRESERVE any content—even if there were anything worth preserving, it can already be found in the edit history for extrasolar planets in fiction.

In summary, keeping this in its current state is not a viable option (as it wasn't six months ago), it could not be improved to an acceptable state without fundamentally turning it into something entirely different, the process of improving it by turning it into something entirely different has already been undertaken and does not need to be repeated, and we would not even lose anything by deleting the article as its contents remain in the article history from which it was copied.

Pinging the participants of the previous AfD: @Piotrus, Randy Kryn, QuicoleJR, Rorshacma, Clarityfiend, Shooterwalker, Zxcvbnm, Cakelot1, and Herostratus:. TompaDompa (talk) 06:56, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It was right to slice this material out of Extrasolar planets in fiction, so that could be an article on the subject. It should have been done by splitting the article, as the list has value on its own.
We can be pious about Wikipedia being for serious topics like this one, but this is a list of interest. We have, for good reason, articles on Mars in fiction, Venus in fiction etc: this is the same theme. It avoids endless articles like 'Alpha Centauri in fiction'.
There is relevance in noting that some star systems appear more often than others in science fiction: Alpha Ceti is famously used in Star Trek and may have inspired other writers to use it. Others flagged up by astronomers have as a result started appearing in fiction. If certain star systems pop up more frequently, that is of interest.
Trimming: when I recovered the list I consciously cut out the redlinks and the long footnotes with plot points and 'OR' observations. More of that can come out. References in fan fiction and online games are of little value in my opinion (but I may be a snob). Best guesses about where entirely fictional planets may be are best kept in an article on fictional planets. Where science fiction literature though chooses to use genuine stars as locations, it is worthy of note.
Hogweard (talk) 10:16, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is worthy of note IFF it is mentioned in independent sources. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:42, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Having written the entirety of the roughly 8,000-word-long Mars in fiction WP:Featured article, I agree that we have such an article for good reason, and I believe I am in a unique position to comment upon it: the good reason that we do have such an article, which you'll note is a prose article and not an indiscriminate list of WP:RAWDATA examples absent meaningful context, is that there are high-quality sources on that topic, such as Robert Crossley [Wikidata]'s book Imagining Mars: A Literary History (2011). I have done the legwork of looking for sources on the topic of extrasolar planets in fiction as well as stars in fiction, and it turns out that sources (at least the ones I've discovered—feel free to point out any important ones I may have missed) don't really cover the topic of real stars appearing as locations in fiction in the way that would be required for an article like this one to be valid.
It's interesting that Alpha Centauri in fiction was chosen as an example, because that's one of only two stars for which I've been able to find sources discussing its specific depiction in fiction. The other one is Tau Ceti in fiction, and both of those are covered (briefly) at Stars in fiction#Real stars. Other than that, sources don't appear to be that interested in whether authors name a real star or not (and if they do, which one) in their stories—indeed, a 2024 article in the Journal of Science Communication about planets in science fiction found an absence of influence of whether or not the planet setting is in a real star system on other worldbuilding characteristics. Based on that, I would have to say that (barring the previously-mentioned exceptions) the assertion that Where science fiction literature though chooses to use genuine stars as locations, it is worthy of note. is, well, wrong.
I agree that the list needs trimming. Of course, trimming needs to be done based on the sources, not our own opinions on what is important and not (in other words it doesn't really matter whether References in fan fiction and online games are of little value in my opinion, what matter is whether the relevant sources find them to be of value or not). I did actually do that back in late 2021 (it's a long story), and the result was that almost every single entry ended up being removed. When we follow the sources, as we always must, what we end up with bears little to no resemlance to the present mess—it turns into Stars in fiction and Extrasolar planets in fiction. There is no benefit to keeping this article around with the intention of improving (or perhaps more accurately, fixing) it when we already have the post-improvement version at a different title. TompaDompa (talk) 12:49, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Zygon

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Zygon (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)
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I believe this subject fails independent notability. A search through News, Scholar, and Books nails various results for "Zygon", but the vast bulk of the results are discussing the episodes they featured in (Three of which have "Zygon" in the title) and are acting as individual analyses of those respective episodes. Nearly all sourcing mentioning the Zygons is only discussing them in the context of a wider review or analysis of the episode, and anything else that does exist is a trivial mention that isn't enough to build an article on. Additionally, all of the article's current sourcing is similar excerpts from reviews, with the only real claim to notability being David Tennant liking them (A minor bit of trivia) and a wasp being named after them (Which does not automatically indicate notability per numerous subjects who get animals named after them that also lack articles). A viable AtD is to the Zygon section of "List of Doctor Who universe creatures and aliens" where the bulk of the notable information on the Zygons as a species is already contained. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 16:04, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nomination. Cremastra (u — c) 23:25, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nomination. Sources do not go into detail about this and it fails WP:N. Jontesta (talk) 16:40, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Merge into listed AtD. The Zygon section can easily be expanded by a paragraph or two. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 17:07, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Merge into listed AtD, List of Doctor Who universe creatures and aliens, per nominator's rationale. Mr Sitcom (talk) 08:51, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge or keep. I think the article with the commentary based on secondary sources we have now, even if plot summary and publication history were significantly trimmed, would still be a non-stubby article which also fullfills WP:NOTPLOT. Therefore, WP:WHYN and thus WP:N is fullfilled. It is not relevant with regard to notability, if the article topic is the main topic of the source, so I see no reasons to discount sources which are episode reviews, as long as they have something to say directly on the Zygons as opposed to just on the episode while mentioning Zygons in passing. In the interest of forming consensus I am not opposed to merging this into List of Doctor Who universe creatures and aliens, where most of the content based on secondary sources is already present, if another paragraph with plot summary and publication history is added as suggested by DoctorWhoFan91.
BTW, thanks to the nominator for providing those details on the results of their WP:BEFORE search rather than just writing "fails notability because there were no secondary sources". I find this very helpful and it reduces the time one has to spend when participating in a deletion discussion, time I would prefer to spend editing elsewhere. Daranios (talk) 14:56, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Beauxbatons

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Beauxbatons (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)
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This page has similar coverage and notability as other locations in the Harry Potter series, notably the Durmstrang academy as both locations have the same role in the series as schools in the triwizard tournament in the 4th harry potter book, which does not have its own article.

The references in the current article are currently two top 10 trivia lists from screenrant, an article written by JK Rowling herself about the school and other articles that talk about Beauxbatons along with other locations in the series with similar depth and focus.

Based on this with the WP:GNG guidelines I don't believe Beauxbatons has significant independent coverage to warrant its own article, and it should be merged with Places in Harry Potter with other locations in the series that have similar coverage. Mousymouse (talk) 04:49, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And like Penultimate supper stated, the analysis deals with themes around national identity and ethnicity in Harry Potter. So if there was and article about that, that might be a good place to cover both, and that might be a more encyclopedic approach than the list of locations, but I don't know of such an article so far. Daranios (talk) 15:24, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting. Arguments are divided between Keep and Merge.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 04:59, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dickens Hill

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Dickens Hill (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)
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This is mostly without sources, or sourced to the BBC, which doesn't approach WP:SIGCOV. Most of the article is plot recap which is already covered at the character articles. Jontesta (talk) 15:35, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 23:19, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting upon request. Please realize though that a relisted AFD discussion can be closed at any time. If you want to participate, I'd do so promptly and not assume you have 7 days to do so.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 22:19, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fictional element Proposed deletions

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no articles proposed for deletion at this time

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