Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Index of Babylon 5 articles

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. Tone 16:04, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Index of Babylon 5 articles

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I am also nominating the following related pages:

I guess index pages are allowed on WP because of Category:Wikipedia indexes, but I haven't seen such pages for TV shows in ages, and I believe them to be unnecessary because categories will do the job just fine. – sgeureka ^t•c 14:46, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per WP:CLN which explains that we have a variety of ways of helping readers navigate our voluminous content and these are complementary rather than exclusive. Categories are quite inadequate, because they do not support citations and their tree structure does not work well with multiple independent keywords. Indexes are a traditional way of navigating reference works and so it is quite reasonable that we should support them. Andrew D. (talk) 15:57, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 16:57, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 16:57, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, potentially speedily so. I've never been a big fan of index articles; the project supports them as a sort of analog to the traditional table of contents. Personally, I think they tend to be incomplete, often poorly maintained, and rarely accessible to readers. But my opinion on them doesn't matter as an issue of policy; index articles (and the similar outline articles) are explicitly permitted as part of our system of navigation tools. If you desire to change this, AFD isn't the right venue (indeed, "the deletion processes are not a forum for revoking policy"). If the argument is that specific articles on the list need to be deleted or merged, then the right approach is to consider those articles and not the index. And even if we assumed that the currently in-vogue cull of fiction-related topics pares the list down somewhat, there's no realistic claim that this isn't a valid index. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 17:01, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Counter-argument: WP:WikiProject Babylon 5 is marked inactive, and WP:WikiProject Buffyverse seems to have been dead for at least the past 5 years, so these index pages clearly aren't used as navigation tools anymore, so they have lost their right of existence (IMO). – sgeureka ^t•c 18:27, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete both - Seems like a pointless relic of the past. That a set of articles is allowed does not mean it actually needs to be utilized. There are only two fiction-related ones in the category, so it's not like this is a major trend. TTN (talk) 17:46, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I still tend to feel that's a policy revision that would preferably need an RFC first. Don't get me wrong, I'm inclined to argue that we deprecate indexes and outlines in their entirety. But that's not up to me (and isn't in order at AFD). Right now, indexes are a permitted navigation structure, and there's nothing prohibiting their use in fiction or fiction-related topics; if anything, that just means that index-space is not done (and I'd oppose a fiction restriction; things like The Simpsons certainly could support an index). Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 18:02, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say it's less a denial of policy and more simply an editorial decision to retire functionally useless and hard to maintain pages. Categories are so much more useful in not requiring manual updates that I don't see much valid reason to keep them unless they are religiously maintained and have a large enough page view count to substantiate their usefulness. TTN (talk) 18:18, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep How many of those links are just redirects? Anyone got a bot to show that? As long as enough of them are links to valid articles, this list/index article should remain. Dream Focus 18:29, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep until such time as index-related policy changes, but with major trimming to avoid overlapping. Links to List of Babylon 5 episodes and List of Babylon 5 characters are sufficient, not ones to every damn (fragging?) one. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:14, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep But cull and then perhaps redirect. The vast majority of these entries appear to be articles on episodes, and those that are not are not actually "articles" but redirects to sections of other articles like Civilizations in Babylon 5. Several of the others that are articles should probably be merged per WP:ALLPLOT (Centauri (Babylon 5) and Lyta Alexander were the first two I clicked on that were actual articles, but neither of them should be actual articles from what I can see). It's entirely possible that once all entries that are not actual articles are removed, the index will be completely redundant with List of Babylon 5 episodes. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:55, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for now This list/index article should remain. Lightburst (talk) 03:08, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep as it stands, i don't recommend deleting it yet. It's just a navigational list. Some of the articles may not all be notable or are redirects. I recommend reviewing all the articles in the index before trying to delete the index itself. I'm in the firm belief that if the articles are well maintained and check notability, then indexes aren't normally needed for franchises like Babylon 5. But that's just a personal opinion.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 22:27, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Squeamish Ossifrage. I too think WP:Indexes are kinda dumb, but policy says they're allowed. No good rationale has been given for why these specific nom'd index articles are less worthy of existence than any of the others at Category:Wikipedia indexes. Colin M (talk) 01:20, 13 November 2019 (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.