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. Opinion is divided between keep because the topic is notable, and delete because the topic is overbroad / poorly defined and the content is deficient. I can't give more weight to one or the other side's arguments. Sandstein 06:05, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

List of science fiction short stories[edit]

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article is a huge festering mess of OR with inconsistent, poorly defined criteria. How can you tell whether something 'defined a subgenre'? If something was 'the first to introduce a concept', what counts as a concept, and where's the proof that a given story was the first? "Founded an important series" - who says what counts as important? "Topped a major bestseller list" is pointless because short stories aren't sold independently. "Important in some other way" is so vague as to be nearly meaningless. DS (talk) 16:50, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 16:55, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 16:55, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 16:56, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

~~Keep~~. AfD is not cleanup. While the article does require improvement, its subject passes WP:LISTN. Science fiction short stories are notable and are frequently discussed as a set. Lowercaserho (talk) 17:41, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've just reread WP:LISTN and I strongly disagree. Please explain in further detail. DS (talk) 18:23, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My reading is basically that we should ignore all the inclusion criteria that are currently stated in the article. I agree that they are a lot of nonsense in multiple ways. However, if we clear all of that away, we're left with the question not of whether this list of science fiction short stories is acceptable, notable, and free from OR, but whether a list of science fiction short stories can be created which meets our criteria.

WP:LISTN suggests that a list topic can be considered notable "if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources". So, is "science fiction short stories" something that is discussed as a group or set? I believe so. The Hugo and Nebula awards both have awards for science fiction short stories, for instance, and many science fiction magazines devoted to the genre/medium have existed and continue to exist.

The list needs heavy cleanup and a complete overhall of its selection criteria (I would suggest the simple "Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia" from WP:CSC but choosing the criteria is outside the scope of AfD), but the currently used criteria are not set in stone and are not enshrined in the article title. My vote is not based in any way on the current state of the article, but about whether I think that a list of science fiction short stories is something we should have on Wikipedia. Lowercaserho (talk) 19:57, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Changing to neutral. Because, truthfully, my feelings on this are not strong either way, so I am happy to let people who do have strong opinions argue it out. Lowercaserho (talk) 11:23, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep There are lots of notable examples – here's one that I wrote about myself: Black Destroyer. Andrew D. (talk) 22:51, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Of course there are tons of notable examples. I've written 50+ articles about notable SF/F short stories. The point is not, are there notable short stories. The point is, is this list at all useful. Is it a valid article. The criteria given for being on this list are so vague as to be useless. It'd be like an article for "list of people". DS (talk) 23:29, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  - List of people is a blue link, not a red link. If we have a lot of articles of a similar sort then this is a good reason to have a list of them to help readers browse and navigate them all – just like indexes and contents pages in a paper reference book. If the numbers are large then we can structure the list with subdivisions and sublists. Per WP:NOTPAPER, numbers and size are not a major problem for us. Andrew D. (talk) 13:32, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    - "List of people" is a redirect to "list of lists of people", which does not support your argument. DS (talk) 19:08, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      - A list of lists is an obvious way of structuring large lists and there are many such examples. List of people is the root of a large tree of lists of poeple. If our list of short stories should become large then we can follow this well-established model. There is therefore a clear alternative to deletion and the nomination's case is utterly refuted. Q.E.D. Andrew D. (talk) 20:38, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Andrew, it's kinda off-topic for this discussion (though exactly as off-topic as your own !vote, so I can't imagine anyone complaining), but you probably shouldn't go around "claiming" articles as ones you wrote yourself when your last edited version looked like this: you should not have left it in the mainspace like that, and the only reason it survives today is because others came along after you and improved it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:34, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The good thing about these stories is that they are short. Andrew D. (talk) 13:32, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's the weakest defense of substubs I've ever heard, and since you have yet to respond to this I can only assume it's also your defense for unsourced substubs. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:08, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment First we delete lists of topics which have notable entries and which are discussed as a group when WP:TNT is the best course of action. The first one that springs to mind for me is this one but I know I've seen others. It seems to me like this might be a case where we should heed the advice of WP:DOAL #6, Some topics are so broad that a list would be unmanageably long and effectively unmaintainable. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:45, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of box office bombs (2000s) is given above as an example of why this should be deleted? but we still have List of biggest box-office bombs that may show the article needs to be rewritten with an adjustment to its inclusion criteria, not a deletion. Coolabahapple (talk) 05:17, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There's a reason I made my comment a comment rather than a delete !vote. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:24, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

no probs:)Coolabahapple (talk) 01:27, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or at the very least WP:TNT – Not that passionate about arguing for this but I feel like I should at least copy the rationale in my 2016 PROD: "This list is arbritrary (ambiguous criteria: what is notable, what is science fiction and what is a short story?), full of OR by definition (people just listing what they read), and Category:Science fiction short stories provides the same purpose. It lists a handful of stories out of thousands that could fit its overbroad criteria, which makes is less-than-useless for readers. See talk page for discussions around this dating back to many years." (Disclosure, I was neutrally pinged by DragonflySixtyseven.) Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 00:51, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"This list is arbritrary (ambiguous criteria: what is notable - see WP:GNG, what is science fiction - see article on science fiction and check with science fiction taskforce, and what is a short story? - see WP definition and check with short story taskforce)", "full of OR by definition (people just listing what they read)" - so rewrite to remove OR, "and Category:Science fiction short stories provides the same purpose." - as i've said in other afds (but havent received a response on this point) - i thought categories are for editors and not for readers?, "It lists a handful of stories out of thousands that could fit its overbroad criteria, which makes is less-than-useless for readers." - yes it does so either turn this into a "list of lists" and/or tighten up the criteria for what is a useful/notable subject for wikireaders. Coolabahapple (talk) 05:39, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, but remove the arbitrary criteria. Any short story with a legitimate article belongs on the list. Category:Science fiction short stories has somewhere around 500 entries, so it could be broken down by decade. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:43, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

~~Keep, but cut the bullshit~~ Topic is clearly notable and could be the topic of a featured article if we put the work in. @DragonflySixtyseven: While I understand and respect WP:TNT as a rationale for deleting festering OR messes like this, you could not have possibly hoped to get this article deleted through AFD, and I worry this might have an adverse effect as "consensus to keep" can be, has been elsewhere, and might be here, used as an excuse not to clean up articles like this if it involves blanking virtually the entire article in the short term: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Korean influence on Japanese culture for an example. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:25, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Changed to delete. Huh. I wrote the above as a practicality measure, since I figures having at least one editor saying 'keep, but don't close this discussion as "keep, and definitely don't do anything to improve the article"' would prevent that situation from coming to pass. But as of right now there are three people saying keep and three saying delete, so I guess killing this one with fire is not as unfeasible as I thought. Yeah, it's really fuckin' unfair that a mainstream, well-known topic can get treated properly and in accordance with our content policies while Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Korean influence on Japanese culture was steamrolled by a bunch of editors more interested in fighting "the deletionists" than in improving articles, mostly because the closer didn't know enough about the topic to ignore them, but I won't punch a gift horse in the mouth when it's put on my plate. (And yeah, I know Wikipedia is not a democracy, but in practice very few AFDs where it's 50-50, let alone 70-30 in favour of keeping, but the keep side have no argument get closed the way they should be.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:11, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Those of you who say that this could be salvaged by tightening the criteria: a) by all means, please do so instead of just saying WELL IT'S POSSIBLE; b) in that case, we'd have to rename the article to "list of SF short stories that meet criterion X"; c) and purge all the content and start over from scratch; d) at which point, why not just have "list of SF short stories that meet criterion X" as a separate article? DS (talk) 13:37, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, I sympathize. I just think, given how many AFD contributors (and even closers) don't understand WP:NOTCLEANUP and think it applies to articles that include nothing salvageable, that opening an AFD that will obviously be a target of such !votes. There are far fewer frequent AFD contributors like me who will specifically say "Don't simply close as keep, because that will be taken as an endorsement of the present content of the article" than there are editors who will just say "Notable -- keep" and then, if you or Salvidrim! or even I try to remove the crap, will revert and claim that there was "a clear consensus to keep the article" or some other garbage like that. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:18, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

IMO, the criteria don't need to be tightened; they need to jettisoned completely. Anything less would be artificial. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:24, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I see that someone's already done this. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:27, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:15, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nomination and Salvidrim but not Barkeep. No well defined criterion and a list of unimaginable overbroad scope.If you wish to create a list of short stories meeting some definite narrow criterion, do it in a de-novo manner and abiding per LISTN.Lowercaserho's argument (esp. how he derives this from LISTN) looks to be his own noble interpretations and Coolabahapple's argument is IMO, way off-ground. Meeting GNG has been never a ground to create a list-article of near-unbounded number of elements and yeah, categories are for the aid of readers too.And, umm..... Hijiri88, shall the scope of the article and it's criterion be not radically redefined, it will be a wiki-heavenly privilege to come across that editor who will have the capacity to generate a FL out of this:-) ∯WBG^converse 10:22, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, meets WP:LISTN ie. "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines" (oh look! wp:gng is above:)), numerous books discuss/group sf short stories eg. The Norton Book of Science Fiction, The Starlit Corridor, Science Fiction By Gaslight, Rationalizing Genius, The World Treasury of Science Fiction, A Science Fiction Omnibus. Coolabahapple (talk) 12:34, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nope.There are ample books produced with a generalized title of something around A collection of short stories.So, we ought to create a List of Short Stories?∯WBG^converse 12:45, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

yep, as for "List of Short Stories", its been tried before, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of short stories, so we may wish to start small(er) say List of English Short Stories who are, after all, the best at this type:)) Coolabahapple (talk) 13:18, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

keep Some but far from all science fiction stories are individually notable. For the ones thatare, a list is appropriate, just as for all other types of creative works. If there are ones on the list that are not notable in the sense of having Wp articles, theyshould either be removed or an acceptable article thats hows notability written. This is the same practice we do with everything else of this nature. DGG ( talk ) 06:50, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, meets WP:LISTN ie. "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines" Needs clean up, but AfD is not cleanup. Obviously, no compliance with WP:Before, which does apply. This article can and should be improved, not deleted.

I do think it would help if there was more than a bare listing. Some actual discussion of why these are notable, some criteria, and some sources that say they are notable. Cf. Trial film, which i wrote. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 11:10, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, Hugo Award for Best Short Story#Winners and nominees would be a good list article to emulate. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:01, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and the Nebula is a big award for this genre, too – see Nebula Award for Best Short Story, which is a featured list. Andrew D. (talk) 15:26, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think the article should probably be retitled as "List of notable science fiction short stories." Otherwise it could be just an omnibus trash can; and then it would be useless to our dear readers. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:31, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, per WP:LISTNAME. List inclusion criteria should be written in the lead, not the title, WP:SALLEAD. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:05, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I have on Friday and then today added the 739 unique entries that were present in Science fiction short stories category and its children as a proxy for notable short science fiction story. I am sure some things were miscategorized and so this list will be need editing (plus some entries no doubt lack one of those categorizations). Hopefully this provides a basis for those editors who wish to improve this page. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:21, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Tables can be hard work but structured information like the author is good to have. I've tweaked the format of the table to make it sortable and recommend use of the visual editor for entry of individual cells. Andrew D. (talk) 18:10, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete fails WP:LISTN. Criteria is inconsistent and overbroad. I have no problem with keeping a better defined list, or turning this into a list of lists. The information may be best categorised. SportingFlyer talk 02:08, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:INDISCRIMINATE. A total overlap with Category:Science fiction short stories. Non-notable short stories would best be dealt with by ((R from short story)) redirects categorised into that category and pointing to an article (author or collection) which mentions them. Other categories could also be added; that is commonplace with ((R from song)) and the like, and helps navigation. Narky Blert (talk) 11:14, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It is our established practice to have both a list and a category when possible. Each has their advantage.The category is automatically populated, and provides for inclusion in the hierarchy of categories. The list lets people better find what they want by providing some minimal information (usually, date and author), in case they do not remember the title or are not entirely specific. The only reason for not making both is in those special cases where thee may be too few items for a category of their own, or a list is being used for some specific qualitative way. Possiblyy some categories may be too large to make a practical list, but if this uses a proper criterion, it will not apply there. DGG ( talk ) 16:22, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I'm sure that sources can be found to demonstrate the notability of the concept of science fiction short stories, but I don't think a list format is useful for this information. This list is very long already and would be much longer if complete, which makes me think that a category would be more effective. If filled out this list would give year, author and place of publication, all of which would make suitable subcategories if there's enough entries. The bibliography of individual authors should also list short stories they've published. Hut 8.5 21:28, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete- Sprawling list with inconsistently applied inclusion criteria and minimal navigational utility. There are times when lists and categories should duplicate one another; this is not one of those times. Reyk _YO! 07:03, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy keep (mainly per "delete" arguments): It's completely bizarre that this is even up for deletion. This list not only passes WP:LISTN but also seems to pass the much higher standard WP:CSC with flying colors. But the real kicker is that there appears to be a unanimous consensus among the "delete" !voters here that the category should be retained regardless, meaning that the classification is not subjective after all. Per WP:NOTDUPE, lists and categories are complementary, and only in relatively exceptional cases should one be deleted without the other. No argument for this being a special case has been advanced, and the reasoning behind the "delete" arguments actually supports that. Modernponderer (talk) 14:23, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The article certainly needs work to make it more useful to the reader, but I don't see a problem with having this as a list topic. --Michig (talk) 18:37, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Are you volunteering? DS (talk) 00:51, 26 October 2018 (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.