Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charlie Harper (Two and a Half Men)

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 keep. –Juliancolton ^Tropical ^Cyclone 01:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Charlie Harper (Two and a Half Men)

Delete - there do not appear to be independent reliable sources that indicate out-of-universe notability for this fictional character. PROD removed. Otto4711 (talk) 20:36, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but improve. This is one of the three principal characters of the TV series and the article should be kept unless the remaining principal characters are also nominated for deletion. I admit that a lot of the content is cruft but that does not necessitate article deletion, just deletion of the cruft. KuyaBriBri^Talk 21:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That there are articles about the others that have not yet been nominated has no bearing on this nomination. The notability of the TV show doesn't mean that the article should be kept as notability isn't inherited. The article cannot be improved in the absence of reliable sources. Otto4711 (talk) 22:11, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. This is a very popular character on a current hit TV show. Please try a little harder. Bearian (talk) 00:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to challenge you (again) on yet another pop-culture AfD nomination. Did you see this [1] or anything else? I'm going to add some external links now, and come back to it later. Bearian (talk) 00:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
While this is not a scientific survey, nor reputable site, "Charlie Harper (Two and a Half Men)" has almost 18,000 fans on Facebook. This character is notable, period. Bearian (talk) 02:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I implore you, please read the general notability guideline. The guideline specifically states that notability is not popularity. The popularity of the character is simply not relevant in determining whether the character is notable. Notability requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Facebook is not a reliable source as you pointed out and if the facebook entry is maintained by the production company or the network it is not independent. Please also note that significant coverage is defined as "more than trivial" and that single-sentence mentions of a topic in a larger source are "plainly trivial. The source to which you linked has exactly one sentence out of a much longer piece that is unambiguously about the character, which reads in its entirety: "Leading the ensemble cast on “Men” is Charlie Sheen, whose portrayal of oversexed Charlie Harper has garnered him three Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nods for comedy performance." There is an additional sentence from an unnamed source that says "Charlie" is the reason for the show's success in syndication, but it is unclear whether that is a reference to the actor Charlie Sheen or the character Charlie Harper. Either way, the mention is plainly trivial. It is really not that difficult a concept. Sources = notability. No sources means no independent notability. Can you explain exactly what it is about that concept that is so hard for you to grasp? Because I can certainly try to explain it again. You want the article kept, you "try a little harder. I do not nominate articles for deletion without conducting searches for sourcing, so I do not appreciate your implication that I did not do so here. There, again, appear to be no sources that support the independent notability of this character. I'll chek your external links and I'm sure that I'll find that they are every bit as trivial as the non-source that you posted here.

There is no reason to insult someone's intelligence in an AfD discussion. What goes on here is not that important. We are all trying to make Wikipedia the best it can be. SMSpivey (talk) 06:33, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Um no, some of us are apparently wanting to detract from the encyclopedia by keeping articles that do not come close to meeting the policies and guidelines of the encyclopedia. This not only weakens the encyclopedia as it stands by maintaining non-encyclopedic topics, it undermines the future of the project by setting precedents for keeping such articles. Otto4711 (talk) 09:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What undermines the future of the project is having to continuously engage in endless arguments with those who push interpretations of guidelines to an extreme far beyond community consensus. When even the only other person arguing to delete (Kww, below) disagrees with you on notability ("the character certainly passes the notability criteria"), I'd suggest you entertain the possibility that your interpretation of the notability guideline is a peculiar personal one. DHowell (talk) 02:29, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional characters-related deletion discussions. -- Raven1977 ^{Talk to me}_{My edits} 04:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. -- Raven1977 ^{Talk to me}_{My edits} 04:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The references may all be primary sources, but the external links section has enough RS to satisfy GNG. Could definitely stand to be improved, but no compelling reason to nuke it. Jclemens (talk) 04:55, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The references not only have to be reliable, they musy significantly cover the subject. These do not. Otto4711 (talk) 05:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No they don't. They only need to significantly cover the subject if they are used to establish notability rather than merely verify article content. Since sources show the actor playing this character was nominated for notable awards for doing so, the character is already notable, so the WP:GNG you're referring to here doesn't apply. GNG is just one of many possible notability guidelines, not the only one and certainly not a strict version of WP:V. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Sources exist. No brainer, really. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

God, aren't you even the slightest bit embarrassed !voting "keep" on the basis of Google hits? You've been around here long enough to know that the Google test is bogus. But hey, lets examine some of the high quality sources that have turned up since this AFD opened:

External links section: IMDB - not reliable. A link to an external wiki - not reliable. A list of girlgriend's on a wiki - not reliable. The TV Week article - plainly trivial. The "Wingman" article in the Daily News - doesn't even mention the character's name. The Hofer book - page content's restricted but the character is mention on one page of a 315 page book; in other words trivial. The Muir book - mentioned on one page of a 348 page book...trivial. As for the meager less-than-200 Ghits your search returned, while I did not look at every single one of them, they appear simply to mention the name of the character while providing no real-world information about the character. So they do not pass notability guidelines. Otto4711 (talk) 05:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep, one of the lead characters on a Emmy and Golden Globe nominated television show. This particular character garnered 3 different Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor and 2 Golden Globe nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Comedy Series. I'll go dig up some sources, but honestly, this is a situation where most people would assume in good faith the availability of sources. SMSpivey (talk) 05:34, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Here is a source talking about the character from People Magazine, [2]; here are two from The New York Times, [3], [4]. SMSpivey (talk) 05:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Here are two more from the LA Times, [5], [6]. SMSpivey (talk) 06:10, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And once again, mere mentions of the character do not constitute significant coverage. And no, the character did not garner any Emmy or GG nominations. The actor did. And the standard is not "I bet there are sources out there somewhere." The standard is "there are reliable sources available." This bizarre notion that articles for which there are no sources should be kept because somebody believes that there might be sources would bring AFD to a grinding halt. There can be no justification for removing any article, not even hoaxes, because someone might believe in the hoax in good faith. Policies and guidelines aregood things. They exist for a reason. If someone believes that this weird "someone somewhere thinks that there might be sources somewhere" should be the standard, then they should take it up on an appropriate policy or guideline talk page and attain consensus rather than trying to backdoor it through AFD because they don't like it. Otto4711 (talk) 09:38, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but you are wikilawyering an incredibly narrow interpretation of GNG that has not, and will not garner the support of the community. If you can't see that a character in a fiction whose portrayal has garnered multiple major awards is notable, then you are missing the forest for the trees. Wikipedia's policies are not more important than its content. Sort of a moot argument really, since many (not all, though) of the sources I provided speak directly to the character and its motivations. SMSpivey (talk) 10:31, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the actor was nominated for the award, but it was for playing the character under discussion here.http://www.thegoldenglobes.com/welcome.html?nominee/sheen_charlie.html] - Mgm|^(talk) 10:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and consider off-AfD merger Per Google Books and News I do not doubt that this article can be turned into a GA (i.e. a standalone article may be justified), but if a decruftified version of this quite bad article doesn't leave anything for a standalone-article, then it's time for a merger into new List of Two and a Half Men characters along with the other bad character articles. This can be done outside this AfD. – sgeureka ^t•c 07:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And yet one more time, mere mentions of a topic do not make the topic notable. Otto4711 (talk) 09:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And yet again, enough mere mentions can make a GA (been there, done that), and every future GA needs to start somewhere. You think no-one will put the energy into doing the necessary research (which is a reasonable assumption) => upmerge the character into one character list with easier-to-reach FL potential until someone volunteers. No deletion necessary. – sgeureka ^t•c 12:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Based on my comment above. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, seems like a valid article about a valid character. Stifle (talk) 10:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Firstly, I disagree with Otto4711's assertion that articles like this about fictional characters are somehow dragging Wikipedia down or spoiling the rest of the apples in the barrel. On the contrary, I think that it's articles like this (while they should be verifiable and accurate even if that involves using fiction as a primary source) that attract readers and potential editors (myself included) who come to Wikipedia to find information a traditional encyclopaedia would lack, and find fiction-related articles an easy path into editing. Secondly, I don't understand this ever-changing requirement for "real-world context" or "out-of-universe notability", where every mention short of an entire book or chapter about a character is dismissed as "trivial" or "unreliable". --Canley (talk) 10:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep. Although i think the show is terrible, and this article needs serious work, there seem to be sources on this character - at least enough to write a start class article. Weak becasue even with all the sources, i'm not sure that this couldn't be merged to a list of characters (which i find more useful).Yobmod (talk) 14:28, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep, probably keep per WP:SNOW as well. Here is further proof of why "notability" is such a ridiculous concept and how it is interpreted subjectively. An award-winning role with numerous reliable independent references that allow for the potential development of sections on development and reception is somehow called to delete on a not notable basis. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:38, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Snow keep and tag for expansion and improvement. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 08:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Violates WP:NOT#PLOT, as content of article is essentially a plot retelling. The character certainly passes the notability criteria, but there isn't sufficient content to go beyond a stub once the plot retelling is removed. The trivial amount of legitimate information that could be included on him (none of which is actually in this article, so merging isn't appropriate) would fit nicely in the parent series article.—Kww(talk) 13:02, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- If it passes the notability criteria, we keep and improve it. As presented above, there are sufficient sources available to make development and receptin sections, which means the article has realistic potential. Even if you believe the information can go somewhere else then that is a call to redirect at worst, but it clearly has no reason even remotely valid or compelling for redlinking here. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - If all content currently under a title should be discarded, deleting the article is the appropriate action, even if someone later chooses to create a different article under the same title.—Kww(talk) 18:13, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - There's no reason to discard all the content as there is sourced information about this award winning character. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:15, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      - Care to point to a piece of information, aside from plot recap, that isn't already in Two and a Half Men or Charlie Sheen?—Kww(talk) 18:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        We have separate articles on Napoleon and Duke of Wellington and Battle of Waterloo that overlap with each other. These articles, however, expand on specific aspects of their subjects, just as this one does. Overlap is not a reason for deletion. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:34, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        Overlap? No. 100% redundancy is a different matter.—Kww(talk) 18:57, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        Yet, just because two people think that the plot summary is somehow unwikipedic does not trump the clear majority of eidtors who work on and use this information. Thus, the plot stuff can and should be balanaced out in this article. I believe from the sources presented above that development and reception sections can and should be developed here and because it has that realistic potential, we should either help editors to do that or allow them to do so and work elsewhere on what does matter to us. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 19:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep To the extent that any rules would suggest that one of the title characters of the "the most-watched comedy on television", played by an actor who has been nominated multiple times for significant awards for this portrayal, is "not notable", this absurd suggestion should be ignored. Fortunately, the rules don't suggest that, as the notability guideline does not define "significant coverage" to mean that "enough coverage exists to convince Otto4711 that it is significant," and WP:NOT#PLOT says that "a concise plot summary is appropriate as part of the larger coverage of a fictional work," which is what this is (and to any extent that it is not, that's a reason for improvement, not deletion). There is "real-world" content in this article, including "the character has garnered three Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor and two Golden Globe nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Comedy Series" and "The character of Charlie Harper is loosely based on Charlie Sheen, the actor who portrays the character." DHowell (talk) 02:29, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Two and a Half Men for now. Sources need to provide more than just trivial coverage or this fails the GNG. Karanacs (talk) 14:12, 13 February 2009 (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.