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) Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 15:25, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

List of The Idolmaster characters[edit]

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Original merge discussion went unchallenged, reverter wants full discussion. These series characters, as a set, are not independently notable from the main series, as shown through their lack of significant coverage from reliable, independent sources. (?) A merge or redirect to the parent article's character section should suffice. czar 16:40, 4 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Just because noone notices a merger does not neccessarily make it unchallenged. A character article is very much notable for this series, particularly with one as many games and media, and with it many characters, as Idolmaster. If sources are an issue, then the article can use references linking to the character pages of official websites (I've already done this for the 756 and 346 idols). Wonchop (talk) 16:46, 4 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Video games-related deletion discussions. czar 16:40, 4 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Anime and manga-related deletion discussions. czar 16:40, 4 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. czar 16:40, 4 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:34, 4 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Firstly, there is no "parent article" for this to be merged to, as the article is a compilation of all characters in the Idolmaster series - yet each game in the series has its own, different set of characters. Secondly, Idolmaster is a franchise made in Japan exclusively for the Japanese market - so there's the usual trouble if one searches for RS coverage only in English (which I suspect the nominator has done), as most sources will be in Japanese. After picking some characters randomly, a Google News search for "天海春香" (one of the characters) nets plenty of sources. Similarly, so does "島村卯月", another randomly chosen character. A case for WP:NEXIST can easily be made here. Satellizer el Bridget ^(Talk) 01:15, 6 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - similar to Satellizer's stance, I believe the game series is pretty huge in Japan, and the entire game concept is pretty closely tied to the characters themselves. I doubt there's enough to warrant individual articles, but they collectively likely receive enough independent coverage. Sources like this show that the Japanese-focused English websites cover it some, and that Japanese print magazines dedicate coverage to them, for example. Sergecross73 msg me 16:13, 6 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but trim to only major characters, ones mentioned in the games and anime under cast/staff. Large franchise with large number of characters. This should cover the most recurring ones. The characters that are unique to a particular branch of the games or are game-specific should stay out of the list and offloaded to the individual games. Get rid of laundry list of 346 idols. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 21:43, 6 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Here we go again. Yes the article needs some work, but merging it to the already-big article The Idolmaster is not going to be very practical. AS Satellizer has said, @Czar:, next time, when searching for sources for foreign topics, please try searching for sources in their native language too. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 08:26, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Great, let's see the sources. I see lots of junk sources and passing mentions in the above Google News search. For all the "keep" votes above, where are the sources that discuss the characters as independently notable from the series? It isn't enough to postulate that they exist somewhere in the ether—if they're so easy to find, find them. Otherwise this is a lot of hot air. czar 08:38, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Czar: Here's a mention by Famitsu, a well-respected Japanese video game magazine. I'm aware that the article itself isn't exactly independent given that it seems to be slightly promotional, but it's far from a junk source. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 08:50, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That article is about a cross-brand promotion... what do you think it says about Idolmaster characters that you think warrants a separate article? We look for significant coverage in keeping articles—you should be able to pull at least several articles with some depth on the subject before !voting to "keep". WP:42 czar 15:36, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note. Is there a guideline somewhere that says that if a franchise is notable, important or successful a list of characters from that franchise should have its own list of characters? If WP:THEREMUSTBESOURCES, how come it is so hard to find them? @Satellizer: and @Narutolovehinata5:, the WP:VG/RS custom Google search engine includes non-English websites, including Gematsu, Siliconera and 4Gamer.net. Is there any information which helps with WP:VGSCOPE No. 6: "Standalone lists of video game characters are expected to be (1) written in an out-of-universe style with a focus on their concept, creation, and reception, and (2) cited by independent, secondary sources to verify this information"? soetermans. ^{↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK} 10:41, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For your first question, no. Separate character lists souldn't always be made just because the primary topic is notable; they tend to be split off due to article size problems and not (just) because of notability. As for your second question, AfD isn't cleanup and the article can always be rewritten. There's tons of coverage on Idolmaster (sadly mostly in Japanese) which are usable if you know where to look. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 10:47, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, my !vote showed that both Siliconera and Famitsu dedicated coverage to the characters. If I found that in a 30 second search, and it's a huge franchise, it's reasonable to think that there's at least a handful of other sources spanning existence. Sergecross73 msg me 23:32, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with Sergecross. Additionally, I'd like to add that since it only lists six Japanese sources yet hundreds of English sources, the WP:VG/RS custom search is itself a victim of WP:BIAS and useless for searching for foreign coverage. I cannot read Japanese asking me to go through the hundreds of hits that pop up on Google after searching for just one character to verify if they are SIGCOV or not would be an exercise in time-wasting frustration. Nevertheless, due to the sheer number of hits there are, the fact that plenty of reliable sources do pop up, and the popularity of the series in Japan, it isn't really much of a stretch to infer that sources do exist thus meeting WP:NEXIST. Satellizer el Bridget ^(Talk) 07:27, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No one contests that the VG custom Google search favors English-language sources (so does the English Wikipedia...) but that isn't an excuse to not look for other sources. I looked and didn't find anything. We don't keep articles based on vague hunches that sources should exist, because that guarantees the article will stay in its current unsourced state for the next decade. Either sources exist that discuss this set of characters in enough depth to warrant a breakout (summary style) article, or they don't. No one has showed sources that do this. Serge pointed to Siliconera, which doesn't go into the characters in any depth separate from the media itself, and Naruto accurately said that Famitsu "mentions" the game as part of a promotion... Where are the sources used to prove that the set of characters needs to be covered separately from the series article? (And if the characters are mostly not continuous between entries in the series, what is the defense for needing to collect them in one place?) czar 13:38, 9 June 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.