Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fictional history of Spider-Man (4th nomination)

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. Courcelles 01:08, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fictional history of Spider-Man

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As with the Fictional history of Wolverine article, this article is nothing more than plot summaries presented in an in-universe style and thus violates WP:IN-U and WP:PLOT. Spider-Man’s history certainly is notable but this doesn’t do it justice as it doesn’t show the creative processes that went into developing the character and his universe. LittleJerry (talk) 02:25, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete already. Last three AFDs were rife with promises that the article would be cleaned up, but it ain't happening. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 04:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment In direct contrast to TenPoundHammer's assertion there was clean-up done to the article. It was cleaned up so well (following the 3rd nomination) that the cleaned up version was merged into the main Spider-Man article to replace the single paragraph that followed a link to the Fictional history article. I thought this article had been made into a redirect to that section in the main article. Spidey104 02:51, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, for all the same reasons as at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fictional history of Green Goblin, which resulted in the deletion of that article. Like it, this and other "Fictional history of" articles that are written completely in-universe violate WP:IN-U, WP:PLOT and other policies / guidelines. The character background at Spider-Man, which properly includes milestones and contains third-party commentary from creators, critics, academics and historians, is sufficiently encyclopedic without becoming impenetrably minutiae-filled. --Tenebrae (talk) 04:45, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete for all of the reasons I gave in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fictional history of Wolverine (2nd nomination). A "fictional history" is not encyclopedic; this is not The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Leaving aside questions of what constitutes excessive plot detail, the in-universe perspective of the "fictional history" means that 1) real life publication history is obscured or ignored; 2) the roles and intentions of the character's creators and subsequent writers and artists are downplayed or ignored; 3) continuity errors are papered over or ignored; 4) retroactive continuity changes are treated as if they were always part of the narrative; 5) the actual contemporary setting of the works of fiction (e.g., a comic book published in the 1970s that takes place in the 1970s) is ignored in favor of a floating timeline that keeps the character ever young only by ignoring or contradicting elements of the prior works of fiction; 6) and story elements are weighed not based on their importance to the works of fiction that depict them but rather based on how such elements would be weighed if the character were a real person. All of which amounts to nothing useful at all. It's not a valid history in any sense; it's just current canon, or How Spider-Man and his backstory are depicted in Marvel Comics as of 2010, without being about that canon and how it developed in any meaningful way. And canon changes and will change again purely based on the whims of whomever the current editors and writers are. This and all other such "fictional histories" are irredeemable in their very conception, as well as execution, for all of these reasons. postdlf (talk) 05:18, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect - Targeting to the FCB in the parent article. For the reeason I had pointed out at the Green Goblin FH AFD. This is a masive plot dump. A massive plot dump that has been nominated before. A massive plot dump that has been nominated before and been defended as just needing to be "fixed through editing". A massive plot dump that has been nominated 3 times in the last 2 and 1/2 years and been defended as just needing to be "fixed through editing". A massive plot dump that has been nominated 3 times in the last 2 and 1/2 years and been promised to be "fixed through editing". A massive plot dump that has been nominated 3 times in the last 2 and 1/2 years and been retained through "No Consensus" and a promised to be "fixed through editing". Enough. The attemps to "fix the content through editing" have gone no where and this has moved to the point that this article is being maintained and expanded solely as a plot dump. Spider-Man has an appropriate FCB section - #Comic book character - to give the in-stoy jist of the character and the "high points". Redirecting at least gives editors a chance to see what can/should be moved off to one of the wikis that are specialized for this content. - J Greb (talk) 05:58, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - My views on this have changed since the previous AfD. There was some initial effort to fix the article up, but I think its very nature prevents it from being possible to really make it into an acceptable Wikipedia entry. Certainly, and assuming they're not already in it, the most essential parts of the history can be added to the main article and leave the detailed stuff like this to fan sites. —Torchiest ^talk/_edits 14:14, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there's a Marvel Wiki article about Spider-Man that would surely love all this information. —Torchiest ^talk/_edits 14:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete with a mind to the previous AFD where many claimed this article could be improved. It's time to pack it in. This is just a content fork of the main spiderman article. And we should delete this one for being only WP:PLOT, while keeping the main article that includes information that is WP:NOT#PLOT. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:23, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 20:26, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 20:27, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Back in September, I re-raised the issue that this article was seriously lacking in a number of ways. I noted that it fundamentally failed core principles of this project. In response, I was told that policy allows us to ignore all rules, allows exceptions, allows common sense, and Wikipedia is not a mindless set of rules. I found this humorous, but the troubling issue here is that the issues aren't being addressed. Since then, even more primary sources have been added without any apparent interest in finding the claimed mass amount of third party sources. The promises of improving this article have gone unfulfilled, and any further promises ring absolutely hollow. If you want to fix this article, fine, but take it to the article incubator instead. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:13, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. I was partially responsible for the proliferation of these sorts of articles with my work long ago on Batman. The more I've grown as an editor, the more I've come to understand such sections are untenable, and complete articles devoted to fictional details with no real-world context or secondary sources fly in the face of several Wikipedia guidelines. These types of articles are little more than intricate, elaborate plot summaries, and do no fulfill an encyclopedic purpose. Anything of note as covered by third-party sources can be (and already is) covered in the main Spider-Man article. WesleyDodds (talk) 07:59, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Kusonaga (talk) 17:14, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Regent of the Seatopians (talk) 02:52, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep -There is no question this page needs to be trimmed and refocused; however, similar to the precidence set in FCB of GG there is standing precidence for fictional bios of Superman, Batman, Dick Grayson, Wonder Woman... The short is while not all characters merit such a large fork of content (like Norman Osborn), I would believe Spider-Man to be first tier character that would require such a page. A character that appears in nearly 6-10 books a month for the past few years produces much content, and to re-focus the article as a publication history; aligned with aformentioned Fictional character biography of ... (all which may carry a different name, but are still looking and quacking like ducks), would be a better use of the content than a simple delete. There are several 2ndary sources and it has been re-editted within the past year, showing work has been done on the page to further align content. Simply precidence is null in this circumstance, and concerns of content seems to be trending for the better. -Sharp962 (talk) 16:06, 31 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Comment - Looking at the changes in the article from the begining of May 2010 (just prior to the close of the 3rd AfD) and now - [1] - nothing positive has happened to the article. Just the addition of more plot from more primary sources. As the article currently stands, of the 106 references provided only 3 are from secondary sources. Up from the 2 of 85 at the other end of the comparison frame.

Bluntly: The "Fix it through editing" closes/promises have not worked. And will not work. It has stopped being an option.

Yes, History of Superman, Publication history of Wonder Woman, and to a lesser extent Publication history of Dick Grayson (yes, that one has major sourcing and tone issues) are examples for a similar article on Spider-Man. This one isn't that article and it has become clear it never will be. It's time to put this one away and start History of Spider-Man from scratch, building from the secondary sources first, writing it explicitly in a real world context, and not induldging in adding every scrap of plot relavent to "current canon".

- J Greb (talk) 17:25, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Concur with J Greb. Sharp, with respect, your vote to keep is little different than the tone of the last couple of AfDs on this article. The idea that we should keep it and fix it has been argued extensively. Yet, despite heavy pressure from multiple editors to correct this article, nobody has...even the most ardent supporters of it. This keeps coming up for deletion not because people are out to get it, but because it is not an encyclopedia article. Fixing it would start with wiping out all content not sourced to a non-primary source, but nobody has been brave enough to do that. The article is left at a permanent impasse in a state that is not acceptable. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:24, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment In direct contrast to J Greb's assertion there was clean-up done to the article. It was cleaned up so well (following the 3rd nomination) that the cleaned up version was merged into the main Spider-Man article to replace the single paragraph that followed a link to the Fictional history article. I thought this article had been made into a redirect to that section in the main article. Spidey104 19:30, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, why is this article still here?

If the clean up was applied here to reduce the content to the point where it could be folded back to Spider-Man, the page history certainly doesn't show it. It also shows a lack of this ever being converted to a redirect. On the contrairy, it shows that this has been kept, maintained, and expanded as a massiive plot dump from primary sources to meticuliously re-state the current continuity for the charcater.

Props for doing those that did the grunt work to put a proper FCB into the main article, but that was only half the issue. Also, look at what Sharp962 is suggesting then complare this article to History of Superman. If a way this has move from just folding this back, but the refrain stands: This has debate has been closed down three times over the past 2 1/2 years with the stament/promis "Fix it through editing." It hasn't been. And based on this articles history page, it has never been attempted. The FCB at Spider-Man has been addressed. A massive stand alone plot dump is no longer needed for that. That reason for this page to be is gone. There is no faith that this article will see the severe re-working needed to start it along the path of becoming a Spider-Man equivelant of History of Superman.

- J Greb (talk) 20:24, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I thank my old colleague J Greb for the kind kudos on my work at the "Comic book character" section of Spider-Man, which I largely rewrote based on existing material and for which I added the print-book references. It's a 2,500-word section, so it by no means gives the character's fictional history short shrift, but it does place it in a real-world context with quotes from creators, comics historians, and cultural experts. What I hope is that this — like the Superman and Batman articles before it — can demonstrate that we can write a proper character history within a character page without giving blow-by-blow minutiae.

I agree with the vast majority of editors here that Fictional history of Spider-Man should be deleted, since it is at this point redundant. And then we need to keep vigilant at Spider-Man so that plot-creep doesn't set in all over again. (Fortunately, most of the younger editors doing this aren't interested in expanding the older material, so the bulk of it is probably safe.)

Dovetailing this with the discussion at Talk:Fictional history of Wolverine, which is likewise leaning toward delete, I have found it personally easier to start from scratch than to try to wade through incredibly dense trees from which one cannot see the forest.--Tenebrae (talk) 20:40, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - although, as with the Wolverine timeline article, "Delete" seems to be the popular choice here so far, I'm inclined to agree with Sharp962. BOZ (talk) 23:30, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I guess I should be more explicit than I was in my comment about the article being previously fixed up (in a sandbox outside of the actual article): I thought it was already a redirect and that means I also think it should be deleted since I thought it was already gone. It has become a plot dump and the improved 'article' is now part of the main article. Spidey104 16:24, 1 January 2011 (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.