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 of the debate was delete. Johnleemk | Talk 11:56, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of fictional rulers[edit]

This is a classic example of an indiscriminate collection of information. The subject is unlimited, or at any rate any attempt to produce something approaching a comprehensive list would involve terabytes of information. It has little content beyond links to other articles, and would therefore better serve as a category, if indeed it is needed in the first place. Vizjim 13:18, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • No - it's not to do with fictionality. The list of legendary kings of Britain is a finite category - there are only a certain number of them, and it makes sense to collect the information together in one easily used list. The List of fictional rulers, by contrast, could include any king, queen, sultan, emperor, dictator, chieftain, sheik, khan, etc, to have appeared in any work of fiction, in any language, ever. This makes it an infinite list, in other words an indiscriminate collection of information (since the job is simply too big to be completed or worked on in any kind of systematic way). Better by far to create a category to cover this, which all of these entries could be included within. Vizjim 14:36, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, we already have categories for "Fictional monarchs", "Fictional kings", Fictional queens", etc. Far better to expand and standardise these than to try to mainatin an unmaintainable list. Vizjim 14:39, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can only conclude you start to invent indiscriminate rules supporting your AfD nomination. Quite disgusting. Where is that so-called rule that finiteness vs. infiniteness has anything to do with whether a list can be made in wikipedia? You just invented it on the spot. Wikipedia deals with a lot of "infinite" lists (if we take infinite according to your definition); But the list at hand isn't even infinite (you just constructed an akward definition of "infinite" in order to make this list seem "infinite". Disgusting).
  • Also, if there's a good running set of categories, there's no argument that for that reason a list on the same topic should be excluded. Where did you get that? Obviously not in wikipedia's current policies and guidelines, see for instance Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes: "Increasingly, multiple entries to fields of knowledge are provided [...]" (which is followed by an example of a set of articles that are connected as well by lists as by categories as by series boxes).
  • Note that, for instance, King Ubu isn't listed in any of the "fictional rulers" categories (nor should he necessarily be, the article is on the play with the same name, not the fictional ruler): much better to keep this fictional monarch in the list of fictional rulers.
  • Note also that Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) *discourages* to make separate articles on secondary fictional characters. In many fictional universes, for instance, the emperors are the secondary characters (e.g. in Futurama). So, if one wanted to have these in categories, articles would need to be created (or at least categorised redirects). Well, no, the list, where the rulers are listed grouped by the work they come from has a separate function of it's own... would need an "infinite" number of subcategories to do the same grouping by categories.
  • Please don't make up your own rules. Please have a look at the existing ones instead. --Francis Schonken 15:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
PS - note that verifiability via reliable sources of course limits such list notability-wise, so no indiscriminate accumulation of fiction could be possible. That's why I said above that the list should better have more references, so that it is easier for those who do maintenance on such lists (and e.g. throw out the non-notable content). --Francis Schonken 15:35, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Isn't "indiscriminate", and isn't a list of "persons" (fictional characters are afaik not persons).
  • Compare, for example List of real people appearing in fictional context - now that's a list of real persons. "List of fictional rulers" is not. As far as WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information #1 (or any other description on that page) is concerned, "List of real people appearing in fictional context" is not indiscriminate (yet currently a longer list than "List of fictional rulers"). Neither is "List of fictional rulers" a page listing indiscriminate content as defined by WP:NOT. Further specifications for fictional content are in wikipedia:notability (fiction), which doesn't exclude listing of significant fictional content. Neither does it exclude lists of "real persons in fictional context", nor of "fictional rulers". --Francis Schonken 16:06, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • And your rule lawyering with WP:NOT where it doesn't remotely apply, is that OK? The problem is not the persons (I don't know why Vizjim even started about that). The principle at stake is the indiscriminate epithet with which you lot want to rule-lawyer, where it doesn't remotely apply. --Francis Schonken 18:43, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The article under nomination is no more encyclopedic than plenty of things found in WP - I gave some examples, that's all - how many US townlets census results should really appear in a real encyclopedia ? I love this article, but I'd like WP to keep an appearance. Not an appearance of serious, nor definite usefulness, something mixed with our world (fantasy, fun, science, knowledge). --DLL 20:03, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A side-thought[edit]

Accidentally I stumbled into some asteroid-related wikipedia pages today:

For me, this puts this vote (regarding a single list) a bit in perspective... especially the outrageous claim by the initiator of this vote that "any attempt to produce something approaching a comprehensive list would involve terabytes of information":

  1. I think there are less "fictional rulers" than there are registered asteroids;
  2. For the *notable* fictional rulers (anyway, per wikipedia notability criteria only the notable ones would be included in the fictional rulers list, and the notability criterion has apparently a slightly higher threshold for fiction than for asteroids if "visibility in the media" would be used for comparison) the meaningfullness for people's lives is often higher than that of most of the over 100000 rocks of a few cubic kilometers floating around the sun.
  3. Most importantly: list "size" is a lame argument from whatever side it is approached.

Note also that I must formally reject the argument that the list of fictional rulers would be difficult to maintain. I have it on my watchlist for some time now, and I suppose there are some others. I've seen no particular vandalism to the list. There were some odd reverts (just a couple as far as I can remember), but maintenance-effort-wise not comparable to anything happening on the "high profile" lists contained in wikipedia that are on my watchlist. In fact this vote cost me up to present dozens of times the amount of energy than the maintenance on that list has cost me over the last year.

So, obviously, those that argued "[...] unmaintanable list" above, weren't involved in its maintenance. "Votecruft"? Is that a word? If not, I invent it here formally: votecruft. --Francis Schonken 13:34, 3 June 2006 (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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