Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Years of the Trees

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 the whole shebang with leave to nominate any of these separately. However, some of these have already been merged and redirected so it might be better to discuss the fate of the rest on the article's talk pages or at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth. Ron Ritzman (talk) 14:14, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Years of the Trees

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As with Years of the Lamps, this article is written with an in-universe perspective, lacks citations for verifiability and also doesn't have third-party sources independent of the subject being covered. All text appears to be original research by synthesis and while Tokien's work has notability, this article by itself doesn't. The article doesn't meet the criteria of the general notability guideline, it's an unnecessary content fork and a plot-only description of a fictional work. It is my opinion that this article falls into the criteria of reasons for deletion. The topic of the article, along with other similar ones, is already covered in History of Arda and Timeline of Arda so there is no need to merge anything. Jfgslo (talk) 22:58, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am also nominating the following related pages because they share almost all the same problems and are all related to Tolkien's work in the same way that this article is:

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. —Jfgslo (talk) 23:04, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. —Jfgslo (talk) 23:04, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. —Jfgslo (talk) 23:04, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment No opinion on deleting or keeping, but the Third Age probably should be nominated separately — unlike all of the other periods, it's commonly referenced as being the setting for The Lord of the Rings. Nyttend (talk) 23:38, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Split Vote. Redirect Years of the Trees, Years of the Sun, and Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar to History of Arda, making sure that all relevant content (Years of Bliss, Noontide of the Blessed, etc. etc.) is preserved in that article. These aren't really important as concepts and there isn't significant information in the background literature on them as concepts. Delete Valian Years as it doesn't need its own article - the content should be preserved because it's important for chronology, but I don't know where. (Timeline of Arda?) Keep Dagor Dagorath as the article charts Tolkien's conception of the final battle as an idea, the content wouldn't belong anywhere else, and it's been observed to be similar to Armageddon and Ragnarok. (That's not the only source that draws the connection.) Keep First Age, Second Age, and Third Age, because the history article would be too long if the information were merged, and Fourth Age for consistency. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:14, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per Roscelese, who takes a balanced approach to the topics. I might even see a merger of the numbered ages into one article on Tolkienesque ages, but that's really an editorial decision, not AfD's purview. Jclemens (talk) 05:54, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
First, there really ought to be separate AfDs for each of these rather than each page being directed here. Second, I note that none of the content from Years of the Lamps was moved over to History of Arda when that article was 'merged'. Third, I see no grounds for deletion. It has been demonstrated that this material is referenced in multiple independent sources. Once notability is established the matter of whether the material is presented on one page or multiple pages is purely a stylistic issue - which ought to be discussed on the article talk pages like normal merge and split discussions. Some of these (Valian, Lamps, Trees, Sun) are short enough and unlikely to expand that they can be merged into 'History'. The explanation of 'Ages of the Children of Iluvatar' could also go there. However, the specific ages and Dagor Dagorath either already contain more information than it makes sense to merge or could easily grow to do so if/when all relevant references are incorporated. That said, again none of this stylistic discussion really belongs here. --12.42.51.28 (talk) 12:36, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per Roscelese, indeed. Lots of other things to do before AfD. htom (talk) 21:44, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge Ages There are so many in-depth, unnecessarily lengthy articles on Lord of the Rings topics, and I think that instead of deleting them, First Age, Second Age, Third Age, and Fourth Age could be merged into Ages in Middle-earth, for example. That way most of the substantive content is preserved, while all the fancruft is rightfully removed. As for everything else, I'm with the general consensus, which seems to be Roscelese's plan. --Interchange88 ☢ 13:56, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest we keep them as-is. Those that are poorly referenced can have references added; those that are well-referenced contain plenty of sourced, substantial information that merging would make the merged article completely unwieldy. I see nothing wrong with the status quo. Húrin Thalion (talk) 01:06, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I respect your opinion, but given that you are highly associated with the topic at hand, it seems all your opinions must be taken with a grain of salt. I would have no intentions of arguing with anyone here, but in order to get some discussion going I would like to state that per WP:NOT and WP:Fancruft, there is no need to keep the vast majority of the content in these LOTR articles, and we are doing LOTR enthusiasts a favor by even considering not deleting the article. Thus there is also no argument as to that there is too much content on any of these articles to merge them. --Interchange88 ☢ 13:02, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While you refer to WP:Fancruft, you should also consider the following advice from that page: "Instead of immediately listing a potential WP:NOT article for deletion, it may be better to prompt those interested in the article to improve the article." That said I think Roscelese has provided the best arguments above. The three main ages are important enough as a part of Tolkien's fiction to have standalone articles and Dagor Dagorath provides insight on Tolkien's inspiration, so these should be kept. All the rest can be merged to History of Arda. De728631 (talk) 20:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 21:47, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Simply pointing out a direct reference to WP:Deletion_policy/Middle-earth_items, dating all the way back to 2005. Everything old is new again, it seems... And as always, once again open for debate. :P Twredfish (talk) 17:46, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Merge or redirect all for the sake of producing a consensus. This AFD is a bit of a mess. It would be easier to deal with if they were nominated separately... articles appear to have different levels of potential. But appears to be some movement towards merging or redirecting. And no harm from doing that since the articles with potential can be unmerged once adequate sources have been found. Shooterwalker (talk) 13:30, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and consider in appropriate groups or separately. There are enough commentaries on tolkien that there should be sources for most of this. certainly for the four ages, which I think should be kept as 4 separate articles. As for the Years of... they might be nominated in a group; I would support a merge to Arda ; as for Dagor Dagorath, I think there's sufficient independent discussion. DGG ( talk ) 17:13, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and consider separately. Some of these should probably be merged and some kept but none of these reasonable search terms should be red-links. Eluchil404 (talk) 22:18, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- For the sake of completeness my preliminary recommendations would be to merge Years of the Trees, Years of the Lamps, Years of the Sun, Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar and Dagor Dagorath to History of Arda and Valian Years to Timeline of Arda while Keeping First Age, Second Age, and Third Age. Fourth Age could be either a separate article to complete the set or a section, probably in Timeline of Arda. This is pretty much what Roscelese suggested above except that I am more sanguine about merging the Last Battle. However, a full AfD to consider the individual issues raise by that article is the best way forward for it and indeed for the others here as well. Eluchil404 (talk) 22:32, 15 January 2011 (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.