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. I suggest a merge discussion as a way forward. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:00, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Shaper of Worlds

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Shaper of Worlds (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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This character does not establish notability independent of Marvel Comics through the inclusion of real world information from reliable, third party sources. Most of the information is made up of plot details better suited to Wikia. There is no current assertion for future improvement of the article, so extended coverage is unnecessary. TTN (talk) 20:52, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • That page is 127K and so, per WP:SIZE, is far too large. Further merger and bloat is therefore not appropriate. By keeping entries on their separate pages like this, the material is easier to both read and edit. This is especially important with the small screens of mobile devices and the new visual editor. Warden (talk) 12:00, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 23:52, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 23:52, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 23:52, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Marvel Graphic Novels and Related Publications: An Annotated Guide to Comics
  2. The Encyclopedia of Super Villains
  3. 500 Comicbook Villains
  4. The Marvel Comics Encyclopedia
Warden (talk) 11:43, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do any of them provide relevant real world details? Given their titles, I would think it unlikely. Searching inside two of the available ones on Google Books, it is mentioned within the context of its role in the plot on three pages between the two books. That is not enough to even qualify as a minor mention, let alone the significant coverage necessary to establish notability. TTN (talk) 15:07, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do not share your glass-half-empty perspective. The sources clearly aim to detail major super villains and this character seems to qualify, having appeared in a variety of titles over many years. I have no particular knowledge of the topic myself but was able to locate these substantial sources quite quickly. You guys clearly haven't lifted a finger to research the topic and your opinions just seem to be drive-by, cookie-cutter, knee-jerk deletionism. My !vote stands. Warden (talk) 17:05, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • before you continue to make accusations about what another editor may or may not have done or thought, I would remind you of the policy of WP:NPA and WP:AGF. Do you have any evidence to support your claims of what the or are you just blowing steam out of your ass? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:09, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I pointed out, two of those do not even cover the character in an entry. It is literally mentioned once on a single page three times between the two books as a passing mention in the character's role in the plotlines of other characters. The other two aren't available online as far as I can tell, but it is up to you to prove that they contain anything substantial. That isn't even including the fact that they are unlikely to contain any actual information besides restating plot information, which makes them completely useless as sources to establish notability. TTN (talk) 18:21, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have a higher standard of notability than some and lower than others. I'm perfectly willing to invest time and effort in researching a topic to establish notability, fixing salvageable articles, and arguing for their retention. Your accusations show a lack of good faith, and I would remind you that we're all here to make a better encyclopedia. There will always be disagreement in areas that depend on opinion or interpretation, and some editors will simply disagree with you that you've established notability. This does not make them "knee-jerk deletionists". I am skeptical of claims of notability based on comprehensive encyclopedias for the same reasons as TTN. This may frustrate you and strike you as too high of a standard for notability, but I would appreciate it if you didn't resort to bad faith accusations and personal attacks. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:30, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Editors acting in good faith would thank me for finding such good sources and would rethink their position. Sadly such behaviour is so rarely found at AFD that I go out of my way to praise it when it occurs. Warden (talk) 23:01, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The entries are not trivial because they include separate main entries and entries in indexes. These sources clearly indicate that the topic has been repeatedly noticed and that inclusion in a work of reference is appropriate. My !vote stands per our editing policy. Warden (talk) 12:00, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • They aren't even trivial at this point. They're absolutely worthless because two have been shown to be completely worthless and you have yet to even prove the character receives any coverage at all in the other two. Then there is the fact that even entries would be worthless if they contain nothing of the character's development, reception, cultural impact, ect. You cannot imply being name-dropped in a book is an indicator of notability no matter how much you want to skew the idea of significant coverage. TTN (talk) 15:25, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The entries in works such as The Encyclopedia of Super Villains are neither trivial nor worthless because they demonstrate how independent works of reference document topics like the one before us. You don't like the way they do this and want to stop Wikipedia from doing the same. But you have no authority to impose your standards, opinions and value judgements upon other editors. The work of independent professionals is a better guide to what is appropriate here too. My !vote stands. Warden (talk) 12:39, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • It doesn't even have an entry in that one. You're just listing random books hoping that it is mentioned in detail. It's just a listing of fictional details, so there would be nothing to add to the article from it anyway. Fiction related articles need sources with significant real world details to meet WP:NOTPLOT and WP:WAF, so it is not like there is nothing more than my opinion behind this. There are notable comic book characters able to have information on their creation, reception, cultural impact, and other such details. There are also those that have nothing of the sort available, so they cannot meet the encyclopedic standards of the site, much like this one. TTN (talk) 16:36, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • These are not "random books" - they are reference works which document this type of material in this type of way. The Shaper is related to the Cosmic Cube and the Red Skull. These are all blue links, as they should be, because they form part of the complex web of characters and artifacts from the Marvel Universe - another blue link. This stuff is notable because professional authors and publishers produce reference works documenting this stuff in detail and they do that because it finds a ready audience. There might be some scope for restructuring and reorganisation of this material but titles such as this should remain blue links to assist readers in navigating the complex web of data. Deletion therefore plays no part in this and the rest is a matter of ordinary editing per WP:ATD. My !vote stands. Warden (talk) 16:20, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • You have yet to actually show that the character has any true coverage in them, let alone significant coverage. You just completely shifted the conversation without addressing the actual issue of not even having sources in the first place. None of what you just said can satisfy WP:N and WP:WAF. It is only your opinion on how articles should be managed, so you should probably take that up on the related pages to change that. Articles can always be deleted and given a new redirect afterward, so that is hardly an argument to avoid deletion. TTN (talk) 16:42, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • You're the one who has to make a case here and I am still not persuaded that there is any reason to use the delete function here. The sources cited certainly contain coverage of the topic and so I am confident that there is more we could do to improve the article. My !vote stands. Warden (talk) 17:09, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm hardly attempting to convince you. I'm just showing that your rational has no basis in current policy for the closing admin to hopefully put less weight on your on opinion to keep it. As I said up above, two of them have exactly three mentions of the name without even explaining the character, and I can't even find a mention of it in the villain encyclopedia. I don't know about the fourth one, but I doubt it has anything. That hardly shows potential for future improvement. TTN (talk) 17:20, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • In these numerous discussions, you never, ever accept the sources which good-faith editors present. You seem to lack a neutral point of view. Or perhaps your standards are just impossibly high. I remain content with the sources as evidence of notability because they show that the topic has been noticed. My !vote stands. Warden (talk) 19:16, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • It hardly has to do with overly high standards, but the fact that people are flinging the most minor, trivial "sources" in an attempt to act as if the topic is actually notable. There are ways interpret policies and guidelines differently, but there is a very clear sense of what makes a fictional topic notable. None of what you have presented complies with WAF, and it does not allow the article to comply with NOTPLOT. I believe many characters deserve articles, and many more do not deserve them. That's neutral enough as far as I can tell. I'm certainly not going around and nominating them because they are only fictional characters, but because they are fictional elements that do not properly satisfy current standards. If I ever nominate Jack Sparrow, you can call me overly biased. TTN (talk) 20:29, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 03:09, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • That has absolutely no basis in our current guidelines and policies, and it is only how you feel they should be handled. Character lists are considered acceptable splits (and can often support themselves anyway), but anything else has to support itself per WP:N, WP:NOTPLOT, ect. If such articles are merged into a longer list article, it will but cut until an acceptable amount of weight is given to each character, as it has always been. TTN (talk) 15:43, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The real-world issue that you keep obsessing about is largely irrelevant for this sort of topic which is inherently imaginary. The way this is done is just a matter of writing style, not deletion. For our purpose, it is adequate to maintain contact with the real world by citing the publication and issue in which salient developments have occurred. This is especially useful in a comic universe where there are often multiple comic book titles and story-arcs in which particular fictional creations recur. Warden (talk) 16:25, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, characters can have a real world impact, and a number of FAs can readily attest to that. They need to establish their own independent notability per WP:N, and as I said above, your opinions are contrary to the current guidelines and editing consensus. They can be redirected to a suitable topic, but they cannot be allowed to stand alone because of some apparent importance that you have given them. TTN (talk) 16:42, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sensuous? This is not a featured article review. We only have a few FAs and it is unrealistic to expect every topic to aspire to that level. If you want FAs then you should be working on those topics which seem promising, not wasting your time in arguing about the other sort. Warden (talk) 17:09, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have no idea how I did that. The point is that characters have real world impact, so the argument of independent, real world notability being "largely irrelevant" and "inherently imaginary" makes little sense. There are plenty of characters that can reach the level of establishing notability, and there are many that cannot reach that level. Those that fail to meet it do not suddenly get a free pass because of supposed importance that can be generally be summed up elsewhere without difficulty. If the characters have no sources or only sources that recount only fictional details, they cannot meet the relevant rules. TTN (talk) 17:20, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ah, consensus not sensuous. My fingers type malapropisms like that too. I must see if the phenomenon has been researched. Anyway, your theory about real-world impact is ludicrous. Fictional characters are imaginary and that's mostly that. When we consider the characters of Dickens, Shakespeare and Conan Doyle, we are not especially concerned with their real-world impact, whatever that may be. What we want to know is their appearance, their mannerisms and their personality. The fact that Sherlock Holmes smokes a pipe, for example. That is the essential coverage of them. Any real-world linkage, such as being based upon a real person known to the author, is mostly trivia. Warden (talk) 17:41, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I really can't say anything other than "your opinions are contrary to the current guidelines and editing consensus." WP:WAF is quite clear on what is required, backed by WP:NOTPLOT and WP:N. There is always room for debate and interpretations, but you're just completely ignoring them. Characters receive appropriate weight depending on their real world relevance, and hundreds, probably thousands, have been merged, redirected, or deleted because of a lack of that. That's just the reality of it until someone changes the relevant rules. TTN (talk) 20:29, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Those are just weak guidelines and stylistic issues. I prefer the stronger policies of WP:PRESERVE, WP:CENSOR and WP:NOTPAPER. As for rules note, per WP:NOTLAW that "Written rules do not themselves set accepted practice." It is clearly accepted practise to have pages about characters in the Marvel universe - we have thousands of them. Even if we wanted to consolidate some of the minor characters, we would still have them as blue links and so deletion is not appropriate. You're the one trying to rock the boat and overturn this existing practise and consensus. Warden (talk) 23:20, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak? Really? I get that you're in favor of a more inclusionist site, but really? You can certainly argue against them, but to even claim that there is no established consensus on fiction and notability is just not true. Everywhere on this site has been pruning articles for a long time now, and just because it hasn't happened to one section does not mean it is a consensus to have them without establishing notability. I don't get why people bring up the whole red links thing. If it is deleted, there can be the creation of a new redirect to the appropriate article. TTN (talk) 23:36, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • You seem to have been absent from Wikipedia for four years - from 2009 until just recently. While you were away, there wasn't some great purge of this stuff like you started. On the whole, most editors seem content to let sleeping dogs lie. Now that you're back and off on this big deletion spree, your activity is attracting adverse comment because it seems to be unusual. You appear to be a zealot and such extremism is not the stuff of consensus. As for the redlink issue, that's a big deal to me because is a bright-line test of the appropriateness of deletion. If we expect something to be a blue link then we shouldn't be deleting it. And the rest is then a matter of ordinary editing. Deleting something and then recreating it is wasteful and disruptive. Warden (talk) 23:52, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
the fact that crap hasn't been dealt with for a long time is justification that it needs to be dealt with now, not justification that we should let it sit around longer. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:33, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No evidence has been presented that we have any kind of problem here. The page has existed for many years. It gets a respectable level of traffic and there are no complaints on the talk page; not one. The nomination is obviously a drive-by, being made in a disruptive, battleground way, contrary to deletion policy and without notifying any of the page's authors. Warden (talk) 22:06, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you didn't happen to glance at our discussion, those do not cover the character at all. The two available on Google books do not even talk about the character. There are only three passing mentions in relation to other characters, and it is literally just the name without any further context. There is no guarantee the others even mention the character in any more detail, so "decent coverage" is quite the stretch. TTN (talk) 22:57, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are you really saying a passing mention in a book is enough to establish significant coverage? We're not talking about detailed entries that go on for pages. It is three mentions without any context. TTN (talk) 23:16, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:SIGCOV does not require pages of coverage. But the main facts about the character are covered in abundant detail in the various issues of the comics and so we do not lack for material. On the fine point of notability, we have notice in works of reference too and that's good enough for me. The main point of notability is to spare ourself the effort of writing about something that nobody is interested in. That's clearly not the case here as the article gets a surprisingly large amount of traffic - over 30 hits a day. I've written plenty of real-world topics that don't do nearly so well. The Dog and Duck, for example, only gets a quarter of that traffic. That's a much better article IMO - rich in history and sources. But it doesn't pull in the crowds and we must respect what our readership wants to know, rather seeking to dictate to them. Warden (talk) 23:38, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
the WP:GNG is "significant coverage IN reliable independent sources." the fact that primary sources include the subject in their fulsome story lines is completely irrelevant. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:31, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • ""Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail." I'm done replying. There's just no point anymore. Hopefully the closing admin will take into account that your arguments are counter to policy and guidelines related to fictional topics and notability, and that your arguments would be better served attempting to change the relevant pages rather than as a rational for the inclusion of this article on the encyclopedia. TTN (talk) 23:43, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I wrote above, if the coverage is enough for a separate article or if it justifies a merging somewhere is a matter of opinion that could be discussed in the proper venue (a merging discussion in the article's talk page). What I am pretty sure is that our readers would not be well served by a bold deletion of the article when there are some alternatives to deletion. Cavarrone 00:00, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever you may claim was a previous intention of what the words meant, there is no evidence that the community actually views it in such a narrow scope when they apply it now. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:57, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A handful of hostile zealots do not constitute nor speak for the community. Nor do they reflect the way these topics are covered in the real world. I was browsing in a bookshop today and nticed that there were several compendia of fictional characters. Works with titles such as Doctor Who: Character Encyclopedia; DC Comics: The Ultimate Character Guide; Lego Star Wars Character Encyclopedia. Presenting fictional characters in this way is the standard mainstream way of doing it. Trying to keep them out of Wikipedia because you don't like it is blatant censorship. Warden (talk) 21:54, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I am glad that you agree that a few zealots should not be speaking for the community nor pushing their idiosyncratic interpretation of policies. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:09, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly does this have to do with whether or not there are third party reliable sources that discuss Shaper of Worlds in a significant manner? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:02, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:35, 27 September 2013 (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.
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