Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of events of the DC Universe (2nd nomination)

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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. There does not appear to be a consensus at this time for deletion. If there are concerns that some of this material should be in other places instead, then a merge discussion should take place, at the article's talk page. — Cirt (talk) 00:24, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of events of the DC Universe

AfDs for this article:
List of events of the DC Universe (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

The topic of this article fails the general notability guideline because there are no third-party sources that cover "events of the DC universe" in direct detail. Whatever sources exist don't go into detail, and do not allow us to reliably discriminate between events and non-events. Most of all, this article will never be anything but WP:JUSTPLOT with a few sentences of introduction, which is WP:NOT what a Wikipedia article is for. There is no obvious role for any non-plot information to enter this article that isn't redundant with the main DC Comics article, indicating this article might even be a WP:CONTENTFORK. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:25, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Extended content
  • Comment from Nominator As seen from the numerous AFDs listed in the "extended content", these fictional timelines are generally deleted as WP:PLOTONLY WP:CONTENTFORKs that violate WP:NOT. Keeping this article would go against policy and consensus practice. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:29, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment the article you nominated isn't a fictional timeline, it's a publication timeline, a timeline of the real world. The things you compare it to are fictional timelines. 65.94.47.63 (talk) 05:17, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep a timeline of publication history, like that novel series have with the date the novel was published, is a reasonable list to have. As we have articles for each of these series, it should be navigable by year of publication. 65.94.47.63 (talk) 05:19, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This has no conceivable use for non-fans. It must be maintained by a fan wiki, not by Wikipedia. Shii (tock) 14:05, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rename to List of DC Comics crossover events and prune accordingly. This seems to be the closest thing to whatever this list is trying for that would have clear inclusion criteria and be an index of notable topics (all of the crossover events have articles to my knowledge: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, Invasion!, etc.). As it is, there is no apparent inclusion criteria; it includes limited series, single-title multiple-issue story arcs, and crossovers. postdlf (talk) 16:23, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep It seems easy to find sources which discuss these major events. For example, we have Comic Book Collections for Libraries, aimed at the professional librarian, which discusses in detail the way that these major events were used to manage the continuity problems of the elaborate DC universe. The contemporary comic book superhero discusses the impact of such events upon the readership while The Routledge companion to science fiction calls one of these events "the most significant storyline of this decade". These sources demonstrate the notability of these events in critical analysis of the output of this major publishing house and so deletion would be contrary to our editing policy. Note also that the same nominator brought this same topic here earlier this year with much the same reasoning. Our deletion policy advises that "It can be disruptive to repeatedly nominate a page in the hopes of getting a different outcome." Warden (talk) 18:32, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • In all fairness, it's a bit passive aggressive to state such a rule in the abstract, accusing by implication rather than coming straight out and saying that you believe this AFD is disruptive and why. Do you mean to say that this AFD is disruptive? I don't think it is, considering that the previous AFD was closed four months ago as "no consensus". postdlf (talk) 02:46, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Two or three paragraphs are not enough to make a stand-alone article, which requires "significant coverage". At best, the sources presented here can be used in DC Comics, but they don't make this article notable.Folken de Fanel (talk) 13:15, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not to belabor this discussion. But you've found sources that talk about individual storylines such as Crisis on Infinite Earths and Identity Crisis (comics). There are no obvious policy issues with the individual articles listed here and I'm not nominating them for deletion. The problem is a lack of sources for this "list of events" in aggregate, whatever an "event" is supposed to be. Right now, it's just a loose collection of storylines, including some, but excluding others, at the whims of the editors and the flippant use of the word "event". According to WP:LISTN, "a list topic is considered notable if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources". I believe it's possible to provide some information that's WP:NOTJUSTPLOT for the individual storylines, but nothing in aggregate. That's why I'm not doing anything with the individual storylines, but nominating this list for deletion. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:09, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, violates WP:GNG, WP:PLOT.Folken de Fanel (talk) 13:05, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. —Shooterwalker (talk) 14:12, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 15:17, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 15:17, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep 1) The list includes (almost exclusively) list of comics crossovers which are themselves notable. 2) It addresses them not from an INUNIVERSE perspective, but chronologically based on date that the comics were published. While not every list entry must be notable, a list of notable entries with a cohesive theme (in this case, fictional works with the same publisher and setting) should have a really compelling reason for deletion. The nominator errs when he compares this to in-universe timelines. Jclemens (talk) 18:29, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think I'm making an error. The list is dominated by in universe details. The "notes" column is most of the substance of the article, and sometimes breaks into entire paragraphs of plot summaries. So my conclusion is that this article is just an extended plot summary, which is what Wikipedia is not. If the emphasis is supposed to be on the publications, then someone should rewrite the article that de-emphasizes the fitional details and offers more of the publishing context. I can't envision how this article would become something else, and I don't believe that's what this article is trying to achieve. So I'd ask that someone try to actually fix the article instead of just saying "keep". Shooterwalker (talk) 19:18, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Are you going to go around and list every list of episodes for TV shows for deletion then? They are mostly summaries of episodes, combined with airdates and titles. 65.94.47.63 (talk) 04:19, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Those are very different. For one, they're discriminate. It's not just "moments in a TV series", but a discriminate class of episodes. For two, they're usually organized by season, which means it's trivially easy to find a source that can talk about "season 3 of tv series", where you also list the episodes after you've discussed the broader class. At the heart of all of this is sourcing. There are lots of sources about seasons of TV series, where you can expand on it with a list of episodes in that season. There aren't sources that talk vaguely about events in any kind of fiction. If there are, then they talk separately about specific events, and would best be

included at the article specific to that event, rather than a list of "all events". Shooterwalker (talk) 06:24, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment  Regarding the most recent entry on the deletion list above, Chronology of Star Wars, the totals of Keep !votes for the repeated AfDs is as follows:
  • 1st nomination:  7
  • 2nd nomination: 17
  • 3rd nomination: 21
  • 4th nomination:  0
It would normally be difficult to conclude that editors had chosen not to participate in an AfD, but the numbers speak for themselves here.  The keep !votes in the last AfD were replaced by a small but unanimous opinion for Speedy close because the nominator was a sock puppet and the nomination was in bad faith, and so that the AfD could be reopened "by a human being".  Neither the editors nor the closing admin mentioned WP:Banning policy, and the closer simply noted in the absence of keep !votes that "the consensus to 'delete' is clear".  Unscintillating (talk) 03:19, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment  The discussion page for this article states, "This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale."  I don't know how the encyclopedia should deal with this but I find it questionable that a High-importance article should be nominated for deletion.  Is there a noticeboard for questionable AfD nominations?  Unscintillating (talk) 03:20, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Project importance ratings are only relevant among project members, are made at the members' own discretion, and have absolutely no value at the global community level. Of course, any comics fan is likely to deem of the utmost importance any comics-related topic...but that doesn't mean the article meets community-defined quality criteria. So please don't mix up the two things. This nomination is not questionable at all since the list discussed here violates at least two major policies, WP:NOTPLOT and WP:V, and doesn't even meet the notability guideline. On the contrary, if one behavior is questionable here, it is yours. That's the second or third time I've seen you attempting to disrupt a deletion process with blatant policy distortion and threats to a nominator, just like you did here, so it would be better for everyone if you could just be reasonable and let deletion processes end.Folken de Fanel (talk) 14:26, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per Jclemens. These kinds of articles always seem to go up for deletion, and always could use more sourcing. That said, they do serve a purpose. Dayewalker (talk) 03:31, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: There is not evidence that the list meets the criteria of notability for stand-alone list as the list topic has not been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources. Even with a search engine test, I do not see reliable secondary sources that give significant coverage to presume that the list meets the general notability guideline. In fact, all links appear to be for mirrors of this very article. Even changing the search terms to events and "DC Universe", I do not see reliable sources that give significant coverage. With no third-party sources, there is no presumption to have a list article. And while the list tries to give a focus on the publication history, it does not have a clear inclusion criteria, which means that the events are added if editors feel that they would count as an event, which implies that they are using original research to reach that conclusion as this is not a topic covered in third party sources. With no third party sources that have a similar list or references to back up the content, I do not think that it meets the criteria of appropriate topics for lists because the list falls into what Wikipedia is not by being an indiscriminate collection of information and I also believe it is an unnecessary content fork of the several DC Comics articles. Jfgslo (talk) 14:35, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - fails WP:GNG. It has remained wholly unsourced over its five year life. No non-inuniverse content. No analysis or critical commentary. TerriersFan (talk) 15:28, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The notable events have links to articles that cover each of them, so this is a good list article. These events are significant to get coverage in places that review comic books. Dream Focus 20:49, 25 June 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.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_events_of_the_DC_Universe_(2nd_nomination)&oldid=1138009767"