Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Slartibartfast

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 Keep per WP:SNOW, non-admin closure. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 01:41, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Slartibartfast

No assertion of real world notability. Mdsummermsw (talk) 14:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

~~Keep~~ Provisional keep as a major character in a well known sci-fi series. The article needs references and sources, but I don't think these should be too hard to find. Snthdiueoa (talk) 14:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." The only source "outside" of the fictional universe mentioning Slartibartfast in a substantial way is a book about the fictional universe. Saying sources "should(n't) be too hard to find" is far different from finding them and adding them to the article. - Mdsummermsw (talk) 14:37, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - I agree wholeheartedly, so I've changed my recommendation to provisional keep. We'll just see what people manage to come up with. However, if nothing of substance turns up, then I'd say redirect to The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Snthdiueoa (talk) 14:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional characters-related deletion discussions. —Quasirandom (talk) 14:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That rationale has no basis in our Wikipedia:Deletion policy. We delete articles for being unverifiable, or original research, or impossible to expand beyond stub status, or for having no independent sources available anywhere that cover the subject in depth. Questions of assertions of notability only apply to speedy deletion, and even then don't apply to this class of article, only to specific classes of article. This is AFD, not speedy deletion. Please provide a proper rationale that is firmly based upon our deletion policy. If you are going to assert that the subject is non-notable, show what legwork you did to determine this — where you looked for sources and what you found. If you just assert that something is non-notable, without showing that you lifted a finger to look for sources to see what existed, then the closing administrator can quite reasonably reduce the weight given to your opinion. Well-researched rationales that are based upon our policies and guidelines have weight. Bare "I think that it's notable/not notable." assertions have not, and are of little use to a closing administrator. See User:Uncle G/On notability#Giving rationales at AFD. Uncle G (talk) 16:15, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Policy states: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material....If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." - Mdsummermsw (talk) 16:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Correct. And you haven't shown that no reliable third party sources can be found, as I've already pointed out. The onus is on you to show that you looked for sources and couldn't find any. Per Wikipedia:Deletion policy, per the Wikipedia:Guide to deletion, per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, per Wikipedia:Notability, and even per User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage, you must put the effort in look for sources yourself before nominating something for deletion on grounds of verifiability or notability. So go and do so. Your nomination rationale as it currently stands is flawed and does not hold any water. Rationales that aren't backed by actually putting in effort and doing the necessary research will be given little weight. Uncle G (talk) 17:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - Comment I cannot show that third party reliable sources do not exist. However, a scholar.google.com search has 48 hits: all are brief quotes, snarky naming options for bits of code and such. None are about Slartibartfast. A generic google search turns up, of course, 90 bazillion hits (OK, 192,000). I have no intention of checking all of them. From the first 10 pages of hits, I've determined that roughly 10% of net users have the handle "Slartibartfast", UNIX coders name algorithms "Slartibartfast" and h2g2 has a lot to say about Slartibartfast. Oh, and there are a few movie reviews that mention him as well. I have been completely unable to find any reliable sources about him, other than mentions that he exists in the books and the movies. Given that official policy says "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material." I have no intention of proving that the pile of unsourced material is actually supported by articles from the New York Times, JAMA and a Ken Burns documentary on this character. As "no reliable, third-party sources can be found" I am of the opinion that "Wikipedia should not have an article on it." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdsummermsw (talk • contribs) 18:02, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, significant character in well known book series and films. NawlinWiki (talk) 16:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep A "book about the fictional universe." is exactly the sort of real world source which is necessary, Thats the basic criterion. (Given the extremely great importance of this fictional work, there will certainly be others) If you think a book with substantial information about the character isn't sufficient. just what sort of a conceivable source do you think would be sufficient? DGG (talk) 17:36, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment How about Ohio Historical Society, University of Massachusetts Press, The New York Times, Duke University Press, The Journal of American Culture, The Times, San Francisco Chronicle, MSNBC, Time, Johns Hopkins University, that kind of stuff. Or Smithsonian Institue, USA Today, United States Senate, and such. Maybe a little University of Illinois Press, Populism: The Humane Preference in America, 1890-1900, American Literary History, American Quarterly, Journal of American Culture, The Slavic and East European Journal, University of Kansas Press, Journal of Political Economy... that kind of thing. Those all seem to be third party sources. I don't feel that DON'T PANIC - the official Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion is reliably "third party". - Mdsummermsw (talk) 18:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, he's a major character from a prominent book that's been adapted to radio, TV, and the movies. That's enough real-world notability for me. If enough sources aren't currently in the article I'm sure they'll be added in the fullness of time. Bryan Derksen (talk) 18:16, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment So an article on the whale who thinks "Oh no, not again!" is in the makings? Not every character in a notable work of fiction is notable. Notability is not inherited. - Mdsummermsw (talk) 18:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Obvious Keep Major characters from major fictional series are notable and routinely pass AfDs. Here is a good, fairly recent example. This is a complete waste of time. faithless (^speak) 19:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Major enough character with a history behind his creation. Besides, with a name like Slartibartfast, it has to be good. =^_^= --Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 19:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Some actual sources were just added by Faithlessthewonderboy. A nice improvment, though it's still no Tin Man. - Mdsummermsw (talk) 19:36, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Not a Tin Man yet, perhaps, but per policy it doesn't need to be. The variety of references is enough to demonstrate notability per WP:FICT. —Quasirandom (talk) 19:54, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep My only comment in addition what everyone else has said is that the criteria for reputable sources must change as we go back in time. A minor character in the Harry Potter universe or The Simpsons universe can claim justification for an article due a large number of Google hits. The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy was most popular in the 1980s and the start of the 1990s, so one can't expect there to be as much about it on the Internet. --RenniePet (talk) 20:00, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep A major character in a major work, one that has various incarnations in radio, TV, print, and film. Further, the article itself is almost entirely from a real-world perspective, listing which works he appeared in, what actors played him, and some of the creator's thoughts--with no long fancruft recitations of his participation in those works. This is the direction an article on a fictional character should take, and the information would be awkward to place in the main H2G2 article. --Ig8887 (talk) 20:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep possibly one of the most well known fictional characters there is. Comes from a major novel which was also a tv show, radio show, and major motion picture. -Djsasso (talk) 22:52, 23 January 2008 (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.