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 delete. Discussion to redirect/create a dab should take place elsewhere at this point. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 00:20, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lokar[edit]

Lokar (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

No reliable sources found to verify notability. Redirect is improper because the subject is non-notable. —  X  S  G  01:18, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Change to dab Redirect to List_of_Space_Ghost_Coast_to_Coast_characters#Lokar, where it is mentioned based on comments by Abductive and a confirming search of WP; the dab list can be grown by editors. JJL (talk) 01:21, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. -- TexasAndroid (talk) 03:05, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions. -- TexasAndroid (talk) 03:06, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to List of Space Ghost Coast to Coast characters#Lokar; apathetic as to whether underlying article is deleted. --EEMIV (talk) 03:07, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to the list--anything else is , frankly, ridiculous. What's the point of trying to rescue articles like this except by redirecting them? A subject does not have to be notable to get a redirect. If the subject were notable it would get an article. That's the whole point of using redirect or merge as an alternative to deletion--it's an easy way to deal with things about which we have some information, but not enough for an article. DGG (talk) 00:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• What would be ridiculous would be the rat's nest of redirects and disambiguation pages that would result if we followed your philosophy to its logical extension (if non-notable subjects always received redirects back to their primary subjects). Redirects are used for plausible misspellings and when articles are renamed or have alternate names. There are actually a bunch more reasons, but the one you provide is not listed on WP:RCAT. Please note that even WP:RCAT refers to WP:BLP1E for establishing notability in cases like this. Fact of the matter is that Lokar, in and of itself, is non-notable and doesn't warrant a redirect. —  X  S  G  04:07, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

did you just refer to BLP1E for a fictional character? And as for WP:RE, you're looking only at the top table. The second table give all the other uses including this, including"Too short for own article" and even "people known for one event" and gives the specific example of "list of fictional characters in a fictional universe." : When you quote rules, read them first. IUt says the exact opposite of your selective quote. DGG (talk) 06:19, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Agreed. People always seem to overlook the search bar as a perfectly functional tool--better, in this case. The evidence, as exemplified here; some of the people arguing for redirection must not have searched Wikipedia. If they did Google the term, they were mind-blind to the other uses, because of the (improper) existence of this article on the Lokar of Space Ghost and their urge to save all fictional articles. Abductive (talk) 04:20, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Our organization is aimed at convenience. People should be able to type in a term in any search engine and find the nearest corresponding Wikipedia article. What is the actual reason you think a redirect is harmful? DGG (talk) 06:19, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As you might have noticed, I always use statistics to draw my inferences. Contrast the lack of page views and Google hits for this term with the ones for "Cedric Diggory". Poor Cedric has no article, but his redirect gets at least 1400 page views a day. Cedric has about 1180 Google News hits. Yet we have no stand-alone article for him even though we certainly could. Why is this so? Because it make for a better encyclopedia, one presumes. I would never argue that the redirect for Cedric Diggory was inappropriate. But Lokar is a different matter. As I have pointed out, there is no interest in this term. If a person types Lokar into Wikipedia's search bar, they do get to the place they are going, and better than a disambig would, by click count, given that there are uses that will be overlooked by the disambig. Also, there is information in the fact that there is no article. The lack of an article tells the users that the topic is unimportant. As a librarian, I'm sure you can understand how important it is to know what is and what is not important. Do you see? Put another way, there is no way that a system of redirects and disambigs can compete with the human brain for navigating the list tossed up by a search engine. After all, the person typing in Lokar must have something in mind that they are looking for, right? Abductive (talk) 06:55, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Sadly, I've reviewed the "Too short for own article" entry of WP:RCAT, which indicates that redirects for non-notables is acceptable. Damnit. —  X  S  G  04:32, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Not exactly; the redirect should be to a list of minor entities. This presupposes a work that has enough reader demand for such a list, such as Supporting Harry Potter characters. Furthermore, the entity should be mentioned in the target article. Abductive (talk) 04:51, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The redirect should be to wherever suitable, and if there is no list of minor entities ,it should be made. I do not see what postulated reader demand has to do with it: useful/not useful is not a argument here for articles. But if we talk about reader demand, it seems to me there would be demand for looking up any named character in a notable fiction, and this should be enabled directly. That's one half of the reasons redirects are for. (the other half is for name variations). DGG (talk) 06:19, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if useful/not useful has been decided for redirects. Am I right that the redirect has to be mentioned in the target? Does anybody have an estimate of the number of minor characters in all notable works of fiction? Abductive (talk) 01:27, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Note to closing admin: I previously had redirected this to mentioned target (and was undone by the article creator), so feel free to use this revision to save time if the consensus is to redirect. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:23, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Note to nominator: There is no requirement for a subject to be independently notable to receive a redirect. Further, a redirect to to a location where character information is covered is both appropriate and helpful to our readers (and also discourages the recreation of non-notable articles). --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:33, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, there are a number of other uses of the word Lokar in the world. Among them is Danilo Lokar, the surname of several other real people, an aftermarket automotive parts company, a character in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, a character in some book called Above the Veil, and the "Lokar bean" eaten by the Ferengi. None of these is important enough for a disambig, and their appearances in Wikipedia can be handled by the search bar. Page views of this article were in the single digits, suggesting that none of these uses are enough to justify a redirect or disambig. Abductive (talk) 02:10, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per Abductive; redirect inappropriate; merge would be inappropriate, too, as there's more in yon list already. Cheers, Jack Merridew 02:46, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm fine w/dab post-del. Cheers, Jack Merridew 03:53, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Disambiguate - per Abductive the term has several uses on Wikipedia; the fact that page draws few views is not a sufficient reason not to disambiguate. I will be happy to create the dab page myself if there is consensus to do so. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:00, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Please note that Abductive recommends delete, not disambiguate. —  X  S  G  04:00, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was only trying to give credit where credit was do & "per abuductive" wasn't intended to imply I agreed with every word he said. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:15, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

yes he does, and for no reason that I can see. Redirects (in this case, as a disam) are a/cheap and b/ specifically provided for in the case of fictional characters by WP:RE 3.2 DGG (talk) 06:19, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My reasoning is now explained at length above, rooted in my understanding of library sciences. Abductive (talk) 06:59, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect per DGG. Bearian (talk) 18:48, 13 July 2009 (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.