Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Features of the Marvel Universe (2nd 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 keep‎. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 22:15, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Features of the Marvel Universe[edit]

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This page is a huge, WP:INDISCRIMINATE mess that is used to store irrelevant fancruft. There's already a page on Marvel Universe that can explain these things in prose, making a "features" page undue and mostly of interest to fans. The 2013 discussion largely rushed it to a keep offhand without discussing why and how the article would be merited, I think inclusion criteria have become a bit tighter since then. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 16:50, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Science fiction and fantasy, Comics and animation, and Lists. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 16:50, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, wholly unencyclopaedic. CoconutOctopus talk 17:27, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. We had this exact discussion a decade ago, and nothing about the clear notability of the subject has changed since then. The Marvel Universe, as a collection of settings and story elements, is no less significant to the human experience of the modern day than the world of the Bible or of Shakespeare or of Tolkien. BD2412 T 17:43, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:NOTAGAIN. You are also making a straw man argument that I am claiming the Marvel Universe is non-notable. I believe it is, but this particular article goes against WP:NOT. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 19:04, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the Marvel Universe is notable, then it follows that the collection of features that distinguish the Marvel Universe is also notable, as a set. This notability is borne out by substantial sources. To the extent that the article itself contains content for which these sources have not been directly provided, that is fixable, not deleteable. BD2412 T 20:52, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per BD2412 and results of previous AFD, as well as the arguments below in particular by Gonnym and Daranios. This has functioned well in its time as a merge target, and can be cleaned up as necessary to trim or restructure. This article does include an independent source (The Marvel Comics Guide to New York City), as well as several additional independent sources for different pieces of the article, and I am sure we could easily meet the GNG by pulling sources from other articles. BOZ (talk) 18:07, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I still think it should be renamed List of features in the Marvel Universe, but whatever. Many things on the list have their own Wikipedia articles. This franchise has made billions of dollars, many notable films, video games, comic book series, toys, etc. A valid navigational list and also a valid information list. Dream Focus 18:14, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are many other incredibly popular franchises out there, but none of them get a free pass to write random lists of concepts and objects solely because they are popular. If there was a textbook "indiscriminate list", it would be this article, where "features" can encompass literally anything about the universe there is. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 19:16, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Most of these articles are called "Universe of" Category:Fictional universes so perhaps just rename it. Dream Focus 03:17, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The problem with INDISCRIMINATE is that so many things have been merged here, that if it is now indiscriminate, it's a problem substantially of the encyclopedia's own making. Zxcvbnm, how many previous fictional elements have you nominated for deletion where discussions have ended up in a merge to this or a similar list? With respect to notability, if all you need is 2-3 RS'es across this entire list, then that's easily going to be met. Jclemens (talk) 22:45, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"how many previous fictional elements have you nominated for deletion where discussions have ended up in a merge to this or a similar list?" - I'm guessing that's the reason this AFD is happening, to eliminate a possible merge target and force more actual deletions. BOZ (talk) 22:48, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete In addition to the nominator's concerns, this is inherently redundant to Marvel Universe - what else could one discuss there that isn't a "feature"? That article is bloated enough as is so there is no need to merge any additional content to it. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:30, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are many things in this article not in that one. Best to split articles that get too large. Dream Focus 03:21, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In order to do a split you have to have some coherent criterion to decide what goes where. I'm not seeing one here. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 05:44, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep The quality of the article is terrible, but WP:AFDISNOTCLEANUP. InfiniteNexus (talk) 08:14, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. A secondary page of a topic that handles a subset of its content is pretty straightforward and consistent with how we handle things here. As BD2412 raised a comparison to the bible, even it has a page similar to this in List of biblical places. Claiming that this page is redundant to Marvel Universe ignores or hides the fact, that if that would be true and that outcome of this would be to merge into it, then that page would be very long and this content would have undue weight in that article. A more correct path forward is to actually make Features of the Marvel Universe better with layout and sourcing. Gonnym (talk) 08:48, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The name notwithstanding this is the complementary list to Marvel Universe, therefore it is notable and warranted in accordance with WP:LISTN and by no means redundant. It can fullfill two of the main purposes of a list in accordance WP:LISTPURP: There are many blue links, so it allows for navigation between the many notable topics of "things" within the Marvel Universe. Partially this is/may become a WP:LISTOFLISTS, if it is deemed reasonable to split out subgroups. As a second purpose it allows for collection of material which is not notable as stand-alone articles and is better suited to our list format here than the prose format of Marvel Universe. This has already been done in a number of merges here. The results of those discussions ending in merge decisions should not be summarily ignored and overturned here. I agree with the nomination that we do not have a very clear inclusion criteria for what should go onto this list and what should not. Spelling out such criteria solves the problem of WP:NOT/WP:INDISCRIMINATE. This, however, can be done through normal editing. So there is no reason for deletion, and WP:BATHWATER applies. Daranios (talk) 11:38, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep this is actually an interesting to read article. Related to a notable topic but should not be merged to not clutter the main article, so it's good as a standalone page.--PeaceNT (talk) 02:26, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per BD2412. NavjotSR (talk) 08:50, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per BD2412 and Gonnym. The article can always be improved upon, though I find no valid reason with enough merit to delete it. Trailblazer101 (talk) 16:05, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - While I doubt this discussion is going to result in anything but a Keep at this point, from the above comments agreeing that the list is a mess but that can be solved by editing, does that at least mean that some major cleanup can occur here? I worry that if editors go in and start removing the entries that are neither blue-linked nor have any reliable, secondary sources, there will be pushback resulting in nothing being done. And something definitely needs to be done here to clean this up and make it not a indiscriminate mess. For example, that "Weapons" section has absolutely no reason to be here and should be removed entirely, and there is a lot of random topics here like that. Rorshacma (talk) 16:18, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rorshacma: Personally, I have no objection against a cleanup, as I do see the concern with WP:INDISCRIMINATE. However, I already disagree with that "Weapons" section has absolutely no reason to be here and should be removed entirely. Despite many entries just linking to characters, there are three stand-alone articles in there (Mjolnir (comics), Iron Man's armor, Captain America's shield). And in my opinion, to be most useful for navigational purposes, we should also allow links to the sections Soulsword, Nova Force, Ebony Blade, as well as arguably Thunderstrike and Stormbreaker. So trimming in my view should be done carefully so as not to curb the usefulness of the list. Daranios (talk) 19:03, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rorshacma: AfD is WP:NOTAVOTE, so the result is still up in the air if the keep !votes are found to have little or no rationale (which right now, is the case - it's mostly WP:ILIKEIT and WP:ITSNOTABLE). If you truly believe that it should be deleted in its current state, you should make that known. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 19:25, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Zxcvbnm: Ahm, WP:ITSNOTABLE is not what many !votes are, because that would mean that participants simply claimed the topic is notable without providing a reason why it should be. Here, in contrast, in the discussion about notability participants like me claim that this is notable because the Marvel Universe is notable. Daranios (talk) 19:37, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - While in principal I would agree that a spinout list for a notable topic can be valid and useful, I really want to emphasize that a topic being notable does not mean that lists can be created that just contain every piece of information tangentially related to that topic with no inclusion criteria and absolutely zero regard for notability of the items listed. Someone above used the List of biblical places as a precedent for a similar type of spinout, but the comparison does not work at all. That list has a very specific scope (i.e. locations) and only contains blue-linked entries, which is the exact opposite of what we have here. I have long expressed my opposition in AFDs of dealing with non-notable content by just shunting it over to some list or another precisely because the result is a massive list of non-notable content, which this is the prime example of. The reason why I have not formally recommended a Deletion as of yet is because, if massive amounts of this was removed, it could function as proper list of notable concepts. But I do worry that actually taking the axe to the sheer amount of material that needs to be excised is just going to result in accusations of trying to get around the consensus to Keep if that is the result of this AFD. Rorshacma (talk) 21:20, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Re: "taking the axe", sorry, I immediately thought of Stormbreaker. BD2412 T 21:45, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Problem is such clean-up requires knowledgeable and committed editors, who get put off by those hell-bent on deleting articles relating to certain subjects, usually after only a cursory Before. Why bother working on improving an article if someone is going to impatiently demand its deletion without making any attempt to actually constructively edit it or make positive suggestions first? No point, much easier to channel free time into other projects where you don't have to put up with people bending policy to justify personal agenda. BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 20:27, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I may well object to a cleanup, depending on who does it and why. AfD->Merge->Trim is a well-known backdoor deletion technique for people who loathe fictional content. If someone who actually likes the content wants to standardize, cite, expand, and oh, yeah, delete some redundant or overly detailed stuff here and there? All for that sort of cleanup. But I can't recall ever seeing that be what they meant when cleanup of a major multiple merge target was discussed. I'd be happy to see it here first. Jclemens (talk) 08:15, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jclemens: I could easily see splitting off Places in the Marvel Universe (or perhaps call it Locations in the Marvel Universe). BD2412 T 14:55, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I could definitely see that working. Jclemens (talk) 22:12, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's needed. As it stands this is too much of a mess just because our coverage is *so* deep. Hobit (talk) 02:27, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's basically a list and navigational aid for our (perhaps too detailed...) coverage of the Marvel Universe. I tend to like such things but I realize not everyone does. weak keep per the ideas and goals of WP:NLIST. Hobit (talk) 02:26, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per the claims of the other users....Especially since a bunch of redirects are currently redirecting to this page with some of them being the result of their respectful AFD closures. --Rtkat3 (talk) 04:30, 23 January 2024 (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.