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. (non-admin closure) DavidLeighEllis (talk) 04:02, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

List of The Venture Bros. characters[edit]

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This article is an endless wall of WP:OR, WP:FANCRUFT, and trivia. The talk page shows discussion going back to 2006 of the article being overrun with fanwank, but no attempt has been made to curb it. The edit history shows literally nothing but IPs adding and adding more and more minor details with no attempts to cut anything back. I was also completely unable to find reliable sources to verify anything, only fan wikis and IMDb. Much like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Total Drama characters (2nd nomination), I think the only viable option is to nuke this from orbit and very likely not start over, as it's likely to attract the same hordes the Total Drama page did. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 03:44, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:31, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:32, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep It requires trimming but lists like these are standard. Just because the article requires cleaning doesn't mean the subject matter's not worthy. Oh and that other show looks like a fairly unnotable show to me, never even heard of it... --Mr. Magoo and McBarker (talk) 04:16, 31 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So do you expect it to clean itself up? Who do you expect to do the trimming when it's just been growing like a cancer? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 05:59, 31 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Since when did we delete articles just because they need trimming? I appreciate what you're trying to do here TenPoundHammer, and I understand that articles like these tend to be breeding grounds for little more than fancruft, but Mr. Magoo and McBarker is right - standalone character lists are pretty standard. The Venture Bros. article appears to have a handful of reliable sources. Do none of those mention anything worth including here? I won't go so far as to vote "Keep", as I see that the main series article has a fairly lengthy "Characters" section, and it may be that this list here is redundant. But at the very least, I'd rather see someone parse through all this and determine whether anything can be merged, instead of having the article deleted outright. And if no one is willing to put in that work, then I would recommend that we air on the side of caution and keep the article where it is. --Jpcase (talk) 15:31, 31 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Jpcase: So do you expect it to just keep siting around forever and gathering more and more fancruft, bloating to the level that the Total Drama page did? Clearly, no one, no one, wants to take a chainsaw to this, so wouldn't the better option just be to blow it up good and then determine whether to start afresh? If it sits, it will only stagnate in its unsourced, heavily fancrufty state, I guarantee you. And that does no one any good. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 04:50, 1 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@TenPoundHammer: Sure...but I don't see how just leaving the article alone is necessarily going to hurt anything either. I mean yeah, it's always ideal for an article to be in perfect shape. But there are a lot of fan cruft filled articles out there, and I don't think that the plausibility of their improvement in the immediate future should be the determining factor as to whether or not they're deleted. The key thing that we need to look at here is notability. The Venture Bros. meets notability criteria - no question there. And while I haven't had the time to personally read through any articles, I have no doubt that there are at least a few third party sources out there, in which the characters of this series are discussed. So the question ought to be - are the characters of this series notable enough to have their own standalone article, or would it be better to simply merge this into the article for the main series? I'll let others reach that determination. If someone wants to "start afresh", deleting everything here and replacing it with better content, then I'd have no problem with that - but until that person comes along, I don't see why deleting the article would be necessary. --Jpcase (talk) 06:01, 1 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as standard list of TV show characters. If it needs trimmed (yes, it does), then trim it, but please keep in mind that basic primary character info can be primary sourced (i.e., trim, not gut). VMS Mosaic (talk) 11:55, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, standard list of characters from notable TV series. Any issues, such as unnecessary detail, are fixable, and given how many of the series' individual episodes have been separately reviewed by reliable sources, much of it is clearly verifiable by secondary sources (and all is verifiable from the primary sources). The nominator's comments are a laundry list of arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. If he's so upset about the state of this list, he can take the time to familiarize himself with the series and secondary source coverage/commentary on it so as to be competent to fix it. Or else he should move along to something he can fix. postdlf (talk) 16:29, 5 February 2016 (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.