Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lists of fictional characters by superhuman feature or ability

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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 all. Courcelles (talk) 03:05, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lists of fictional characters by superhuman feature or ability[edit]

This is a mass nomination encompassing all members of Category:Lists of fictional characters by superhuman feature or ability whose list does not have an actual article corresponding to the superhuman feature or ability described. List of fictional characters who can manipulate fire, for instance, is not included due to the existence of the article pyrokinesis.

We have established a precedent in prior deletion debates on plants, weather, and superpowers that these articles are ill-suited to the project due to a combination of original research, unencyclopedicness, and organizational concerns, so I am listing the remaining like articles in one batch for ease of discussion. (It is also worth noting that these lists all exist in much better form on TvTropes.)

The following pages are included in this nomination:

I, as nominator and for the reasons described above, am for their deletion. --erachima talk 05:56, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete all per the nomintors well stated arguments and my comments already at the AfDs for "alter probability" and manipulate technology" -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 12:56, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all - An encyclopedia is not a repository for fanboy minutiae. None of this has the slightest bit of real-world impact or notability. Tarc (talk) 13:01, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all Most, if not all, of those lists are just repositories of loosely associated topics based on a trivial cross-categorizations. They are also horrendous train wrecks of original research. Many of the entries on those lists don't even have articles. —Farix (t | c) 15:00, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all Textbook examples of bad lists. I'm not usually a fan of mass noms but in this case it's entirely warranted. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 15:18, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. —• Gene93k (talk) 16:38, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. —• Gene93k (talk) 16:38, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all or merge into single article, sortable tables are extremely useful Useful sortable table based list for fiction genre. Articles like List of fictional characters who can manipulate cold and ice is very useful for comparison. When some user put effort on gathering some verifiable facts about comics etc. everyone claim Original Research. WP:OR is mostly about reaching conclusions by OR, not categorising verifiable fact/info. Fictional abilities can be easily verified by wikilinking. It is easy to delete, hard to create content.
  • Nice job on notifying WP:WikiProject Comics. Most of the nominators does not care about proper announcement during AFD. We may also notify some more projects like WP:WikiProject Films. Kasaalan (talk) 21:19, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So who's gonna create this single article, with all this "info" in tables... you? Ryan4314 (talk) 21:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have accomplished over 9000 edits, around half most of them article edits or sandboxing, rest unnecessary debates. So I can do that yes. Kasaalan (talk) 07:15, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Uncontroversial and routine maintenance of the encyclopedia does not require the permission of any WikiProject. Reyk YO! 21:44, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good point; "Wikiprojects" do not require notifications for AFD, that is for the deletion discussion categories, of which 3 above have already been notified. Do you require a hand stepping down from that soap box, it's awfully high. Ryan4314 (talk) 00:19, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not good point at all. Random, small-circle AFDs without any proper debate processing is wrong and against WP:AFD guidelines. First of all WP:AFD advise you to do make research, assume potential, make debate, seek consensus, then AFD and notify others. Nominator properly did that, I congratulated him as you can tell, that is why a wider and more healthy debate is in progress. Kasaalan (talk) 07:15, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ignore it. This user has been harassing me for weeks about not bringing an AfD of mine to his prompt and swift attention. If people want to care about an article, then they can watchlist it. I never have and never will seek out random wiki-fiefdoms to alert to such. Tarc (talk) 03:34, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The fact is you are disrespectful user who directly insults/swears multiple users including me, and cannot be even thankful they don't take administrative action. So your opinion does not matter to me. Kasaalan (talk) 07:15, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I appreciate WikiProjects for the work they do in getting masses of articles into a readable state and teaching new editors who don't "get it" how to do things. (I also directly alerted four of them of this deletion debate.) I don't really think that either of our opinions of WikiProjects, or your opinion of Kasaalan, has much to do with the discussion here, however. --erachima talk 03:38, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My English isn't great But I assume I congratulated you for your notifications with a link to your post, didn't I. "Nice job on notifying WP:WikiProject Comics. Most of the nominators does not care about proper announcement during AFD. We may also notify some more projects like WP:WikiProject Films." How could anyone take a congratulation negatively. Kasaalan (talk) 07:15, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I did not take your congratulations negatively, I appreciated them. Where did you get the idea that I took them negatively? --erachima talk 07:36, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly because other editors. Thanks for your efforts on wider debate. Kasaalan (talk) 09:32, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I misunderstood your initial post, Kasalaan. To me it sounded like you were saying something like, "You mean you only told WikiProject Comics? Pfff!" but I obviously inferred sarcasm where none was intended. Nevertheless, I do not agree with you that AfDs need to be cleared with the various relevant WikiProjects before they can proceed. Reyk YO! 08:00, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry happens. I just suggested we might notify 1-2 more. Well it should be stressed more strictly in the policy. I will try to ask a policy focus on AFD process. Creating articles really takes time. AFD nominating/debating shouldn't be too easy and swift. Sometimes they even delete articles with a few user opinions, while dozens of people contributed that article. That is not fair at all. Also for specific articles like comics, manga, films, technology, politics etc. it might be good to take opinion on focused users. It wouldn't take more than 5 minutes for the nominator anyway. On the other hand if the objecting users notify projects etc. it brings CANVAS issue. You may claim people should watchlist or watchlist AFD discussions, why and how people can manage thousands of articles in their watchlist daily in the assumption that someone will AFD one day without their notice. That is not effective at all. Kasaalan (talk) 09:32, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'm just asking, are there categories for these lists? As in a Category for characters who can manipulate electricity? Sincerely Subzerosmokerain (talk) 02:56, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    There were. They got axed. --erachima talk 03:02, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay... 2007 said turn it into a list now, they just want to get rid of it entirely. What about userfying it? Sincerely Subzerosmokerain (talk) 03:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Given the number of times these things have been decided unencyclopedic, the fact that userpages cannot be used to preserve deleted pages indefinitely, and the far superior coverage these lists have on TvTropes, I suggest just using TvTropes. --erachima talk 03:59, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not familiar with how TvTropes works, does it create articles similarly to Wikipedia? And i'm not sure how putting it on TvTropes would help accessiblity unless we created a category and linked the category to the TvTropes page. And instead of "Characters who manipulate [insert power here]", can it not be renamed to a much shorter and convenient category title? Sincerely Subzerosmokerain (talk) 21:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    TvTropes is a wiki which specializes in categorization of works of fiction (and occasionally real life events) by their shared thematic elements. It lacks policies such as WP:SYNTH that prevent Wikipedia from containing similarly informative pages on these subjects, and generally does a much better job of them. It's also a bit harder to navigate than Wikipedia due to the fact that all their page names are puns (e.g. the corresponding article to List of fictional characters who can manipulate cold and ice on TvTropes is called "An Ice Person"), but hey, you can't have it all. --erachima talk 21:35, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all The basis for selecting these lists for deletion - the existence of corresponding articles about the powers - seems bizarre. For example, the manipulation of magnetic fields is listed above but we have an article magnetism. And is there really any doubt that Magneto, say, is hugely notable and that this is the essence of his power? What we have here is an indiscriminate slaughter based upon poor reasoning, destructive perfectionism and personal opinion. If we look at an independent work on the subject, such as The encyclopedia of superheroes on film and television then we see that it includes details of the characters' superpowers, as you would expect. This is therefore a legitimate basis for organising our articles on such notable characters. The rest is then a matter of ordinary editing. Indiscriminate pogroms are disruptive to this activity because they drive away editors. And we have people saying clearly above that they want people to go work on TV Tropes instead. Such sentiments are improper because they clearly damage the project. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:41, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't put words in my mouth, Warden. --erachima talk 09:47, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your words included, "I suggest just using TvTropes". Q.E.D. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:50, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Indeed they did, typed out in response to the question "What about userfying it?", after dutifully explaining why Wikipedia:Subpage prohibiting keeping this sort of content in your userspace. What do you find so grievously offensive about this statement? --erachima talk 10:00, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The distinction was made to avoid a WP:TRAINWRECK. Mass AfDs in which the nominator is not careful that all the members are alike in all relevant aspects quite often fall apart as people argue that article X should stay but Y, Z, and W should be deleted, while others vote delete all or keep all without reading the individual articles.
    In this particular situation, it is legitimately arguable whether a list of characters with superhuman strength is an appropriate complement to the article superhuman strength, and that argument is distinct from the current one, so it needs to be listed separately. --erachima talk 19:21, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all - I was the original nominator of weather etc., and while I normally am shy of mass-nominating lists or articles for deletion, in this case it seems appropriate. The remaining lists need to be evaluated - whether they are suitable or not is questionable, and if they're deemed encyclopaedic, they need some clean-up. The lists in this nomination are pure cross-categorizations, and fail WP:NOTDIR. Claritas § 14:44, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all this kind of batch nomination is not usually right but this is exactly the time it should be used. These lists are unfixable because they are unencyclopedic cross-categorizations, as per WP:NOTDIR. There is nowhere except Wikipedia where someone has compiled this passing factoids into a list, which makes this WP:OR, and a violation of a central policy. I would almost suggest adding something to another guideline to make this clear but it's almost unnecessary as per WP:BEANS. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:13, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all Colonel Warden makes a convincing argument. Also, do these Wikipedia list not aid in navigation? All the characters listed have their own articles. And their powers are the notable characteristic that identifies them. Dream Focus 20:11, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • A comment like that makes me included to remove all entries that don't have their own articles, which would probably eliminate roughly 80% of the lists. —Farix (t | c) 14:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Which list are you referring to? The ones I look at have every single thing listed there a blue link, usually to the character's own article, and rarely to a page where they are grouped with others. Have you actually read the list you are trying to delete? Dream Focus 02:29, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How about all of them? I've already gone through about half of the lists and removed entries that do not have stand-alone articles. This has cut many of lists down by half if not more. Just because there is a blue link doesn't mean that the entry has a corresponding article. And the fact that you made that assumption shows that you really didn't check out the lists.
Oh, how could I have missed that? You took characters which had links to articles which specifically mentioned them in them with the powers listed, and deleted those. [1] The first name I check on was Fujiomi, Taisuku, which linked to the series he was in, it having a paragraph for him mentioning his power [2] So why does he not deserve to be on the list? During an active AFD, you went through without proper discussion or consensus, and deleted more than half of the content of these articles. Whether a character has information in their own article, a character list, or just a paragraph in the main series article, I see no reason why it wouldn't be listed. But we can discuss that after this AFD closes, no sense arguing about it if there is a chance it'll be deleted anyway. Dream Focus 18:21, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And while going through the lists, I further realized just how trivial these cross-categorizations are. All of these "powers" are as common as riding a bike in the real world, and we don't have List of fictional character that can ride a bicycle or List of fictional character who can manipulate data. —Farix (t | c) 14:36, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The powers are what makes the characters notable, that what the series is about. If people started buying millions of comic books and cartoons that just had average people riding bicycles around all day, that'd be a notable defining characteristic and would be fine for its own list. And some fictional characters can manipulate data with their powers, so that'd be a valid list. Dream Focus 18:21, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Keep in Categorical Form I can see the sound logic in erachima's arguments. There are many characters who can fall under multiple categories and simply one. Considering throughout the course of history there have been very many fictional characters developed, maintenance of such lists would be insane, and having them fall under WP:RS while trying not to violate WP:OR in these lists would be very difficult. The lists have got to go but the Categories, if we shorten their names, can keep navigation easy for people who want to find correlations within their favorite characters. I believe it can survive as Categories, but to place them back into the many articles would be a great job. Sincerely Subzerosmokerain (talk) 23:54, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all insufficient reliable sources independent of the subject, original research and verifiability problems are rife. No reliable sources -- I'll note that many superheroes have one power in one carnation, but in other story arcs do not. It's a mess, basically, better suited to a fansite (wikia etc...).Bali ultimate (talk) 05:57, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment As a serious manga reader, my opinion is that an article with sortable tables gathering superpowers of superheroes in fictional art is useful. That is what all the fiction genre is based upon anyway.
  • Suggestion We can merge all tables into 1 article, with collapsiple table/text features. Then it won't take much space, don't fork much, and all info will be available within 1 article. If some people agree I can do that by myself. Kasaalan (talk) 09:37, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all, and put the ones who aren't already into their respective categories with caution. Remember that it has to be an integral part of their character, not something they did once in issue #3193 and was never mentioned again. Oh categories mostly don't exist. Even better. Axem Titanium (talk) 09:49, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all --Cameron Scott (talk) 12:07, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all These lists are pure Orginal research, they also should be deleted per WP:NOTDIR, and WP: V. Lets face it anyone can add any superhero/character they want. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:50, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all They all appear to be original research. I also don't think any of the lists themselves are notable, as none has received significant coverage in reliable sources. ThemFromSpace 04:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Certainly some, or even most, of these should be deleted, but I don't have time to evaluate them all individually. I do think that the nominator has made a good choice about how to distinguish inappropriate and potentially appropriate lists. That said, some of these may have potential and should be userfied if anyone wants to use them as a basis for further work as or as a help in finding sources for a topic. Eluchil404 (talk) 04:37, 22 July 2010 (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.
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