Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Characters and groups in Bionicle

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 no consensus. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:57, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Characters and groups in Bionicle

This article asserts zero notability through reliable sources, and as such is simply an in-universe repetition of the plot section of the various Bionicle articles combined with trivia. As such, this is duplicative and trivial, and should be deleted. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 19:32, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Does not cite independent secondary sources to establish notability per WP:GNG. this is an important point to make for Bionicle articles because some of the "reference" material is published by Scholastic Inc. While Scholastic is technically an independent publisher, they have a bad habit of making works for hire for anyone who pays (game makers, etc), so we need to make a gut check on whether or not independent editorial control exists. Other sources likely to be used for an article like this are largely primary--manuals and guides are almost all published by LEGO or subsidiaries. I would be inclined to support a merger but at present no verified claims exist in the article and the probable target (Bionicle) doesn't need more in universe information. As always, this article has multiple editorial concerns: WP:WAF and WP:NOR spring directly to mind. Delete it. Protonk (talk) 21:19, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As an update. I've read the slightly modified article and the new sources. References to the "characters and groups" in bionicle range from trivial to non-existent. the references don't belong in this article, they belong in the Bionicle article in general. Protonk (talk) 12:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: If you keep deleting every Bionicle article, then eventually there won't be any Bionicle articles left apart from the main article. People who don't like Bionicle just keep randomly deleting the articles which is hardly encyclopedic. --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 22:09, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This is the sort of article that should be encouraged on fictional subjects. JOM is quite correct, that in deleting articles on over-narrow unimportant aspects, there should be something suitable to merge to. Spinoff articles like this do not need to show independent notability, for they are justified in order to organise the material. Recapitulating plot sections according to characters in a work of this sort can be extremely helpful to ordinary readers=non-fans. Much clearer and better than trying to figure something like this out from the plots, . DGG (talk) 23:56, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All articles must demonstrate notability, since notability is not inherited. Just like Johnny Depp feet do not warrant an article, but he does, so this article is unnecessary and shows no notability, but Bionicle does. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 02:13, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete- If this article needed to be split from the main Bionicle one, an article that itself is bogged down with vast amounts of sprawling in-universe ramblings and minutiae, on the grounds that doing so would make it cleaner and more organized, then that's a sure sign that the spinoff article is an indiscriminate collection of information. The goal of Wikipedia is to collect and present information, of course, but you have to draw the line somewhere. And this article, in my opinion, hasn't just crossed that line, it raced across it long ago and is still accelerating. The total absence of reliable secondary sources makes this not an encyclopedia article but a game guide, and that's simply not what Wikipedia is for. Time to scrape away this cruft. Reyk _YO! 01:41, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. This article was spun off to get garbage out of the main article. That's admirable, I guess, but it's time to take out the trash. This is indiscriminate and unreferenced and unreferenceable and just generally a grab-bag of disorganized junk. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:51, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional characters-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:37, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Wikipedia:Five pillars (notability to a real-world audience, unoriginal research, discriminate, consistent with a “specialized encyclopedia”--not all works of fiction have their own published encyclopedia produced--concerning verifiable fictional topics with importance in the real world) and What Wikipedia is. Google scholar includes out of universe information on the origins of the names of characters, i.e. Polynesian influence, Google books includes out of universe comment on who the characters are marketed for, etc. Even typing in individual character names (see also here) gets some hits and so while I believe the article can and should be better referenced, I think that is entirely possible and that the article also serves a navigational purpose to other articles. Finally, the article concerns notable characters as they appear in toys, movies, and games, i.e. not all fictional characters appear in multiple media. Article passes the general notability guideline as well. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 02:25, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Those are broadly-worded Google searches, and the hits are mentioning the characters exceedingly briefly as part of a discussion of the franchise or are themselves Bioncle fictional works or licensed works. Vague hints about how other people might do the research for you don't amount to a claim that there are sources; spend some time actually reading what you find in Google sources, and critically analyze it to see if it might be useful for writing an article. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:56, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there is sufficient information in those sources for an article as critically analyzed above. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 16:10, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to have replied to some other comment, since you don't address what I actually said. "Exceedingly brief mentions of a topic in the context of something else or a broader subject" is about as trivial as "trivial mention" gets. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:14, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not all of those mentions are "exceedingly brief," especially when spread across multiple sources the information adds up. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 18:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You've taken a bunch of offhand statements that would be better placed in other articles and sprinkled them here to keep an article that is 99% plot summary. These references refer to the characters as a minor part of a larger whole, or refer only to single works, or refer to the general style of naming of all characters/groups/objects/places in Bionicle. Rather than improving Bionicle, you're putting these references in about the worst possible place to make a point that no plot summary should be deleted ever. Where's your effort to improve the parent article with these references? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 21:40, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Which would mean merge and redirect without deletion at worst. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:17, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Or we could delete this article and you could use those sources where they belong. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:21, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to use the references I added to this article eslewhere, I am certainly not stopping you; however, per the GFDL, you need to keep my contribution to this article in place. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:25, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. You're adding irrelevant sources to this article so you can make the point that we can't delete this without destroying your work. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:26, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While I don't know what point you're trying to make, I am adding relevant sources to the article, because I believe the article should be kept and that it can in fact be improved by presenting both in and out of universe material. I devoted my volunteer time today doing that in order to improve our coverage on a notable topic and help make this article, which I think should be kept as is, but continued to be improved. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:29, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed references which are not talking about the characters and groups specifically. If you'd like to devote your volunteer time to reading references and placing them in relevant articles, you are free to do so. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:33, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You removed references that specifically talk about the characters in an out of universe context that make the article an acceptable spinout or sub-article. Instead of telling others what to do, why not devote your volunteer time to adding the references to whatever article you think relevant? --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:37, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why didn't you put them somewhere relevant? They weren't relevant here, because they did not deal with the characters. One was about all names for everything in the series, one was about the land Bionicle is set in, one is about the character designs in one single DVD, and one is about Bionicle as a whole. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:40, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Because as far as I am concerned this article was a relevant place to put it. And while I'm not interested in edit-warring, consider your edit summary here, concerning content that is not about a location, but about the character names associated with that location. As I wrote "several of the names above" based on a reference that mentions in out of universe manner who Toa, Turaga, etc. are names used by those fighting for the locations independence. Thus, the content and reference as used is indeed about the character names rather than the location. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:44, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep/merge The topic is notable as noted above. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:00, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as sheer cruft that cannot aspire to notability per WP:GNG and per our first pillar: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Eusebeus (talk) 18:09, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Extensive collection of excessively detailed plot information, trivia, and OR about non-notable topics that have not been covered in depth in reliable sources independent of the subject. As A Man In Black puts it, "it's time to take out the trash". Doctorfluffy (robe and wizard hat) 18:45, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - no assertion of notability via non-trivial coverage by reliable sources to meet WP:NOTE. Whole article is completely unreferenced (WP:NOR), and consists completely of plot details (WP:NOT#PLOT). sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 22:41, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per DGG. This is a legitmante spinoff article fromthe main Bionicle article to help the length of the main article form becoming excessive. Edward321 (talk) 01:11, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Deleting the material from the main article would also have solved the same problem. Excessive plot detail doesn't become less excessive because it is in a standalone article; Bionicle's editorial issues were simply pawned off on this article. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:14, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Splitting articles is a smart way to organize content. There're at least 6 editors (as of now) on this AfD who support this type of spin-off article. It is your opinion that this is "excessive plot detail"; not everyone must agree. I think the information here is just detailed enough to provide basic information for an average reader (i.e. non-fan, as said above). --PeaceNT (talk) 05:03, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, barring a merge. This form of spinoff is good for organizing fiction materials. While I get the point of the AfD nom that "article asserts zero notability through reliable sources", it should be a good idea to try looking for sources outside the article. Per Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles, such refs appear to exist, so the potential for improvement is there. --PeaceNT (talk) 06:18, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Le Grand Roi has done a superb job of presenting insubstantial fluff to us as concrete sources. They're little more than a verification that the word "Bionicle" occurs several times in different places. At best they might tell you a little bit about Bionicle in general. They do nothing to illuminate anything in the article under discussion. Reyk _YO! 11:40, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - You have thus far presented no actually valid reasons for deletion. Please do not refer misleadingly to the coverage in these sources. After all, such ones as this address the character names in the context of actual real world issues with regards to Polynesia. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 18:44, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - I have provided excellent reasons for deletion- WP:INDISCRIMINATE, WP:NOTGUIDE, WP:N, WP:CITE. These are Wikipedia policy, and far more relevant to this discussion than the feeble non-sources you've dug up. Most of which only mention Bionicle in passing, few of which could be used to substantiate any claim about Bionicle whatsoever, and none of which apply specifically to the various teams and factions in the franchise. Reyk _YO! 22:29, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      - All of which are not accurate, as it is discrminate article with clear inclusion criteria, provides out of universe sections and is therefore not a guide, concerns a notable topic, and is cited in reliable sources, i.e. it successfully meets all Wikipedia policies. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:17, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        Let's discuss all your claims one-by-one.

1) discriminate article with clear inclusion criteria- I would have thought merely writing down each and every bit of information about something, without any regard for relevance, notability or encyclopedicness, to be rather indiscriminate. Clear inclusion criteria are irrelevant without a strong and justifiable claim to notability, which this hasn't got. A list of people with two feet has a clear inclusion criterion but such a list would still be indiscriminate and non-notable.

2)provides out of universe sections and is therefore not a guide- All the out-of-universe sections I can find are the opening paragraph and a few one-liners about the origin of the names, the target audience and some Polynesians being upset at having their culture pillaged for the franchise. All this stuff concerns Bionicle as a whole, and not the characters and groups in it. The rest of the article is in-universe and fails WP:PLOT.

3)concerns a notable topic- again, Bionicle generally is notable. A collection of every single scrap of in-world information is not.

4)cited in reliable sources- no, no it isn't. Google books and Google scholar searches that turn up a few titles because they've got the word "bionicle" in the body of the text just DO NOT CUT IT.

So no, it does not meet Wikipedia's policies. It does fail quite a few though. Reyk _YO! 03:44, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is discrminate in that it only focuses on characters and groups from one particularly notable franchise. How it covers the material and to what detail can be easily fixed by being bold and making wording more concise. Out of universe coverage is found in the sections on creation, reception, and controversy. Characters that appear in multiple works of fiction are notable. The sources that turn up are sufficient enough for our purposes. For these reasons it meets Wikipedia's policies successfully. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:48, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The sections on creation, reception and controversy belong in the Bionicle article, not this one. And once they're moved to the right place, all that will be left is the lengthy in-universe cruft I've been arguing against. And no, for the last time, those sources are just NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Man in Black and I have explained over and over again that passing mentions found by a search engine just don't cut it as reliable secondary sources, but you keep asserting that they're sufficient without any attempt to justify why. Reyk _YO! 04:02, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They can be in both articles just as an article on the wars of Alexander the Great can overlap with an article on the battle of Arbela. Wikipedia:ITSCRUFT is never a sufficient reason for deletion, especially when these sections that I have added are out-of-universe in nature and therefore if good enough to be merged elsewhere even in your own opinion are not "cruft." They are sufficient, because they are multiple reliable secondary sources and again only intended as a start, i.e. if one review of the DVD talks about characters, it's added therefore with the hopes of encouraging others to use other similar sources as well. I don't personally have any vested interest in this Franchise; however, it does seem suffciently notable to our editors and readers that I am willing to defend it and help them in making it better. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 04:07, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems the three of us are just going to argue in circles until the debate closes. There's hardly been a new participant in this debate for days and as it stands the debate will probably end with a no-consensus. I don't want a default keep because no consensus could be reached, and I'm sure you don't want a second nomination in a few months. Would you agree to me asking for editor assistance so that we can get more opinions and, hopefully, a clear consensus? Reyk _YO! 04:16, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The more participation the better, I think. One last thing I'll say for the night, though, is while I personally believe these sorts of articles are wortwhile as they serve a kind of table of contents function and can include out of universe context as I have shown, I would not be totally averse to a merge of the sources I did add and a redirect without deletion as a compromise. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 04:21, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On closer reading, perhaps the Mediation cabal would be better than EA, because it's more than just one-on-one advice. Reyk _YO! 04:33, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: An IP had removed the AfD template, which I noticed while revising the article and have thus restored it and cautioned the IP. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 19:05, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I have begun adding referenced sections on creation, reception, and controversy. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 19:20, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Each of these references is an offhand mention that belongs in another article. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 21:37, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Which would mean merge and redirect without deletion at worst. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:17, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Or we could delete this article and you could use your references where they are useful. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:20, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to use the references I added to this article eslewhere, I am certainly not stopping you; however, per the GFDL, you need to keep my contribution to this article in place. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:25, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You can use edit summaries for that. --Phirazo 17:47, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
An edit summary isn't enough. GFDL requires us to keep the original page history visible. --PeaceNT (talk) 03:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The GFDL doesn't bind us from using the same references in a different article without merging the two in order to maintain edit history of text contributions derived from the same source. If someone takes sources in this AfD and makes/improves another article, there is no copyright debt. Protonk (talk) 05:16, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
True. But if any materials other than the reference is retained in another article, then the history of this article must be preserved. --PeaceNT (talk) 05:44, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Within limits. If that were true, all it would take to avoid deletion would be to copy some text over to a like article. The GFDL offers lots of options. We can add the edit history of the old article to the talk page of the target article. If the merged content is small enough and the attribution is limited, we can attribute it via the edit summary or a talk page comment. If, for example, large chunks of content that constituted the work of multiple editors were copied to another article , we would be in the territory of having to keep the article (as a redirect, maybe) for GFDL purposes. Protonk (talk) 05:49, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - no real world notability provided. Even in world notability is questionable --T-rex 00:46, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Characters and groups that appear in multiple works of fiction are unquestionably notable. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:17, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - No they are not. Especially when the multiple works of fiction, are all derived from the same source, and not really notable themselves. Simply appearing in a work of fiction falls far short of real world notability --T-rex 00:14, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - Yes, they are when they are covered in secondary sources that discuss real-world notability as indicated above. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 17:38, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - No, even then it should still be deleted as WP:FANCRUFT, however there are no secondary sources provided for this topic --T-rex 20:16, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - WP:ITSCRUFT is never a valid reason for deletion and I added secondary sources to the article. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 02:36, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This is a plot summary, pure and simple. It abandons an out of universe tone as soon as possible. Summary style is not a free pass, and articles must show independent notability. --Phirazo 17:47, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- That's no longer true as I added sections on creation, reception, and controversy. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 21:19, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - What you added is off-topic, and doesn't "save" the article. Besides, it's since been reverted. --Phirazo 00:11, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - I added on-topic information unjustifiably reverted as indicated above. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 17:36, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      - The topic here is "Characters in Bionicle." The sources you added are a Bionicle movie review and an article about relations between Polynesians and Lego. Two out of universe paragraphs don't save the rest of it. Trying to force a merge and redirect based on two paragraphs is ridiculous. Delete this and don't look back. --Phirazo 01:22, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        There were more than just two out of universe paragraphs and there is no longer any valid reason for an outright deletion. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 02:36, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep Exactly the right thing to do with a notable series (or frankly just about anything like this). Have a page or pages that cover a bit about each part of the series. Otherwise the main article becomes either overloaded with detail or we don't cover important aspects of the series. Per WP:WAF's spinout suggestions. Also reasonable per WP:FICT. On another note, I think that merging tons of articles to this one and then bringing this one to AfD verges upon not acting in good faith. Hobit (talk) 02:48, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Bad faith on the part of whom? The editor who did the merges did so four months ago, despite a multiple-problems tag on this article from December, and is not present here now. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:53, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure. I dislike seeing something cleaned up so much and then deleted. It feels a bit orchestrated, but I couldn't say by whom. I've felt the Bionicle articles were targeted in AfDs, cleaned up greatly to a single page of stuff, and now that page is targeted. Just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Hobit (talk) 13:01, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would certainly prefer that people make a good faith attempt at cleanup before bringing an article to AfD, or during for that matter. In some cases it may be to just remove unacceptable content in the interim. In some cases cleanup itself may sway consensus (Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Lightsaber_combat_(5th_nomination)) and result in keeping the article. None of this is orchestrated in any sense of the word. Protonk (talk) 16:33, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep functions as a list, thus out-of-universe material is on parent article. I presume this list was also the result of deleted and redirected individual articles? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:59, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, an article on this is necessary if we are to have comprehensive coverage of Bionicle. Please add sources to the article, though. Everyking (talk) 10:54, 29 July 2008 (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.