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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 keep. Consensus appears keep. The minority dissenting !votes seem to bring up problems that are already identified on WP:CLN - and those apply to all lists, not just this one. (non-admin closure) Ifnord (talk) 13:32, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

List of fantasy worlds[edit]

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List of fantasy worlds (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Fails WP:INDISCRIMINATE. One would assume there are as many fantasy worlds as there are works of fantasy, so it would be ridiculously extensive to attempt to list them all. There is also no clear criteria for inclusion, either. What results is a list that is largely context-less nonsense. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 06:44, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 06:44, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 06:44, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 06:44, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete A lengthy, indiscriminate list of items without clear inclusion criteria — I saw at least one sci-fi work mixed in (Mass Effect), which listed, of all things, the Milky Way. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 06:54, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I also have the sneaking suspicion that the fantasy world article itself is something of a duplication of fictional universe and should be merged into it. A fictional universe is a little more general in that it can also include science fiction and alternate history, but otherwise there seems to be little different about it. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 07:06, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Zxcvbnm: I'd disagree on that point, I think the fantasy world article starts with "Not to be confused with Fictional universe" for good reason. As you've said, fictional universe is more general. But as far as I've seen fantasy world does not simply talk about its fictious nature, but about what makes these worlds specifically fantasy. Saying there is little difference seems to me like saying that fantasy, science-fiction and alternate history are more or less the same genre, not three different ones, and that it might be a good idea to merge those three articles. Oh, wait, there's a parent article speculative fiction for that. So it's like saying we should probably delete the fantasy, science-fiction and alternate history articles because we already have the speculative fiction one. Daranios (talk) 20:00, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Ditto above. Sciencefish (talk) 08:02, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Terrible mess. Too broad, pretty much unreferenced, unclear criteria. (Would the world of Watership Down qualify? How about Mickey Mouse? What about the world created by my kid brother? Or the pretty awesome one our game master made few years ago - it even has a fan wiki too!). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:23, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Disorganized list lacking criteria. ArvindPalaskar (talk) 11:30, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Easily passes WP:LISTN and the rest is a matter of ordinary editing per WP:NOTCLEANUP and WP:PRESERVE. Here's a selection of sources:
  1. Literary Wonderlands : A Journey Through the Greatest Fictional Worlds Ever Created
  2. Imaginary Worlds: The Art of Fantasy
  3. Exploring Fantasy Worlds: Essays on Fantastic Literature
  4. Fantasy Worlds: New Ways to Explore, Adventure, and Play
  5. War of the Fantasy Worlds: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien ...
  6. Revisiting Imaginary Worlds: A Subcreation Studies Anthology
  7. Alternative Worlds in Fantasy Fiction
  8. Exploring Imaginary Worlds: Essays on Media, Structure, and Subcreation
  9. 25 fantasy worlds from the past 25 years we'd want to visit
  10. Top Fantasy Worlds in Literature: A Definitive List
  11. The Top 10 Greatest Fictional Worlds Ever Created
  12. The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds
Andrew🐉(talk) 11:36, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Contextal discussion of the best fantasy worlds are not justification for a context-free list of all non-notable fantasy worlds. The copy-pasted list of names of Google Books hits remains typically petulent and useless: How the hell does War of the Fantasy Worlds: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien on Art and Imagination, which is only about these two specific, highly notable worlds, maintain a list of all of these that are often just mere fictional places like Bikini Bottom and single-appearance settings than similar "worlds"? Some of these sources may be valuable for Fantasy world, but not this junk. Reywas92Talk 14:57, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:LISTN explains that "The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability.." Sources will naturally tend to focus on the most famous and significant examples. Tolkien's Middle Earth was especially seminal as it spawned a huge wave of lookalikes, which created fantasy as a publishing genre. See the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series which was a key component of this. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:25, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    So write context about its seminality and influence on the fantasy world article. It has no place or basis here. Fantasy Worlds: New Ways to Explore, Adventure, and Play with Fantasy is a self-published book (iUniverse) that discusses how people use their imaginations to fantasize their lives, but has no basis for an indiscriminate context-free list of any fictional place in media with a fantasy element. What an embarrassment. Reywas92Talk 21:48, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, iUniverse is commonly used to republish regular works which are out of print and that book was first published by the Carol Publishing Group in 1994. And its author has published many other works -- see her own article. So, that source is fine for our purpose and it's just one of a dozen that I listed. The essential point is that there's a huge amount of material about the topic out there and to claim otherwise is absurd. Compiling a list of notable fantasy worlds is quite straightforward and, as it will naturally be lengthy, it's reasonable to have a separate page as an index of our many pages about them. WP:LISTPURPS explains that this is a reasonable thing to do and the page has been meeting this need for over sixteen years now. There's no valid reason to delete it so what we have here is just drive-by, disruptive deletionism for its own sake. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:32, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep - First of all, none of the points of WP:INDISCRIMINATE actually applies here. Or does it? If this is the only policy-based argument, I don't really see why we have this discussion.
- Next, the topic of the list is obviously notable according to WP:LISTN, since we have an indisputed article Fantasy world. (And in addition we have the sources provided by Andrew Davidson.) The fact that the article is not perfect, and may contain entries that don't belong here, is not reason for deletion as WP:AFDISNOTCLEANUP.
- Seeing that the list contains many blue links, this list serves the purpose of navigation, one of the recognized purposes for the existence of lists.
- Since when has article size ever been a reason for deletion of a topic on Wikipedia!? If the length of the list is seen as a problem, the policy-based solution is not deletion but splitting according to WP:SPLITLIST.
- We have Category:Fantasy worlds, which I hope is uncontroversial. Having a list that parallels a category is in general viewed as beneficial according to WP:NOTDUPE.
- But is it advantageous in this case to have a list when we already have a category that an interested person could use for navigation? - Yes, definitely, because the list can do in compact form what the category cannot: Providing the novel/game/etc. and author(s) together with the bare name, wich is what the category gives us. Additionally, the list can contain worlds not notable enough to have their own article but notable enough to be mentioned on Wikipedia at all according to WP:LISTCRIT.
- But "What about the world created by my kid brother? Or the pretty awesome one our game master made few years ago": Easily solved, just apply the core content policies of WP:Verifiability and WP:No original research.
- If this is still viewed as too open, that's again easily solved: Limit the entries to those notable by themselves (i.e. generally blue-linked ones) and those that can be supported by a secondary source as suggested by WP:CSC - a guideline specifically written to solve the problem of lists which would otherwise be perceived as indiscriminate!

So I can only summarize that I see all kinds of policies and guidelines suggesting keep and possibly improve (WP:PRESERVE has already been mentioned in addition to all the ones I've listed), and none that suggest deletion. Daranios (talk) 19:17, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The closest comparison I can make is making an article called List of corgis because we have an article on Corgis. It's going to be overbroad and serve no encyclopedic purpose. Just because an article exists doesn't mean an according list should be created for it.
Category:Fantasy worlds is equally problematic. It should really just be merged into Category:Fictional universes. There is frankly no difference. The articles on Lists of fictional universes are equally as problematic as this one but at least it's not totally superfluous. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 19:59, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Zxcvbnm: Are there notable Corgis? Enough (let's say more than five) to make a list sensible for navigational purposes? If the answer to both is yes, then that it's fine to have a List of Corgis is exactly what WP:LISTN says. If you think that's generally a bad idea, in my opinion you should ask if we should change WP:LISTN. As for Fantasy worlds and fictional universes being basically the same, please see my opinion at your answer to the first vote. Daranios (talk) 20:24, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Zxcvbnm: Ah, yeah, and which of the four points of WP:INDISCRIMINATE would actually apply here? Until that has been clarified, I still think the deletion nomination is fundamentally flawed. Daranios (talk) 09:13, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep. I do not believe the argument for WP:INDISCRIMINATE has made successfully made. On the other hand WP:LISTN, WP:LISTCRIT and WP:NOTDUPE are extremely valid points for this list, and their arguments have swayed me. And for the people arguing that a PLANET is the same as a UNIVERSE, well it's obvious the don't understand those words actual meaning and need to read the first sentence of both those articles before they weigh in again. Finally the argument that actually makes some sense is WP:CSC; remove all references to universes that don't have articles on their own. THAT I agree with. Timmccloud (talk) 21:29, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Can we exactly define planet in terms of fantasy? Planet is a scientific term while "world" is a fantasy one. A fantasy "world" can range from a planet to a plane to a universe. However, even when the story is set on a world, its fundamental laws generally conform to that of its fictional universe. The author essentially must create a universe to create that world, so one is a total subset of the other. And when cruft is removed, the list is such a duplication that there is no need to retain it. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 23:08, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - It should be pointed out that the number of blue links is a bit misleading here. Many of them do not actually link to the articles on the worlds themselves, but to a broader topic such as the series or movie they appeared in. In addition, as mentioned, many of them don't fit the actual topic, either being not a fantasy world, or not a "world" at all (for example, can anyone remotely try to claim that the city of Riverdale (Archie Comics) could be honestly referred to as a "Fantasy World" as defined by our article on the topic?). If we can agree that this list should be culled to only contain entries that A) have actual independent Wikipedia articles on the world itself and B) actually fit the definition of a Fantasy world, then yes, I agree that this would be a perfectly valid navigational list. However, that would mean removing almost the entirety of the current list - the category linked to above is a fairly accurate representation of the number of entries that would remain here, which is a fraction of what is currently here. If people can agree that removing most of the current list is an uncontroversial cleanup (and maybe have the lead be expanded to more clearly state the criteria for inclusion, so it just does not become another huge mess over time), then I think this could actually be salvaged per Daranios' argument. Rorshacma (talk) 21:44, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    A substantial number of those in Category:Fantasy worlds are already in List of fictional universes in literature, and many more, while not listed in that or its sibling pages, are also described in their articles as "universes" rather than strictly "worlds". Most of those not listed are also from gaming which isn't part of the universe lists but I suppose could be. If a salvaged shorter list is heavily duplicative I don't see the point of it. Reywas92Talk 22:00, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Reywas92: I've written why I see the merit of the distinction by genre below. If you think otherwise, why are you voting deletion rather than a merge of the lists (and the List of science fiction universes, another list by genre, if we're at it), in the spirit of WP:AtD? Daranios (talk) 13:16, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Probably because there is nothing from this list that can be merged. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 15:13, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Zxcvbnm: How do you come to this conclusion, given that there are at least some blue-linked entries remaining in this list which are not covered in List of science fiction universes? Daranios (talk) 20:42, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Pretty much an unmanageable, indiscriminate list. Outside of the criteria for fantasy world not being concrete enough for proper inclusion criteria to be established, it's just always going basically just end up as a list of fantasy books anyway. TTN (talk) 00:01, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I find it weird that the topic is described as too extensive, and the broader topic, List of fictional universes in literature, is described as the better alternative, and both are used as arguments against the existence of this list. That seems... contradictory. So maybe the truth is in the middle, that neither argument applies?
I think there are good reasons why we have articles for both fantasy world and fictional universe, and both corresponding list have their merit for navigational purposes. As a reader, I may be interested in the broader topic of fictional creations. But I think we can be sure that some readers will be interested in worlds specifically of the fantasy genre, and would not like to personally sort out entries from sci-fi, etc. Note also that the List of fictional universes in literature has not way to distinguish by genre except, for part of the cases, by reading through all text. Daranios (talk) 09:13, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete- Redundant to numerous other lists of fictional universes, and this one is probably the worst of the lot. No clear inclusion criteria, little to no sourcing, and with no navigational value. The concept of a fictional universe is of course notable, but that doesn't justify an endless procession of functionally identical lists. Even fansites like TVTropes and Wikia have the discretion to say "one page per topic". Reyk YO! 10:11, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Interesting template. Looking there, I see it links to Planets in science fiction and List of science fiction universes. Those in my view are equivalent to our list here, giving the setting in the context of the genre. So they make as much or little sense as this one, and we should either advocate to delete all three or keep all three. My vote is on keep. Daranios (talk) 12:46, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's definitely not something we need. Actually, we need to merge all the lists back into List of fictional universes because there are enough to fit them in a single list article if we pare it down to only bluelinked articles. The only reason it was split into genres was due to all the fancruft. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 15:09, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Another thing, seeing that "no clear inclusion criteria" has now been claimed as a reason for deletion multiple times. We have an article fantasy world. So including what conforms to that article (and of course following the policies of Wikipedia to avoid an indiscriminate amount of entries) gives us an inclusion criterion. But if this is still not clear enough for some reason, defining clearer criteria for inclusion is something that can easily be done. WP:AtD tells us "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page." So as "no clear inclusion criteria" can be solved, this is no argument for deletion according to Wikipedia's deletion policy. Daranios (talk) 12:46, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I eliminated any entry that didn't have a link to an article. Not everything here is listed elsewhere. Valid list for navigation. Inclusion criteria is clearly listed now at the top of the article. Dream Focus 16:44, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep but cleanup. Andrew Davidson has shown it obviously satisfies LISTN. Merger with the various lists of fictional universes is ruled out, because the latter incorporate science fiction as well and are broader(?). Clarityfiend (talk) 21:09, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Since it looks like the massive cleanup has been agreed to, and it currently underway, I agree with Keeping as a navigational list. There's still some work to do (while the obvious non-notable entries have been removed, there's still the work of going through and removing the ones that really don't fit the bill of a Fantasy world), but great progress has already been taken. Rorshacma (talk) 22:12, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Clearly satisfies guidelines as a navigational list. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:23, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep WP:IDONTLIKEIT wears many hats: small list = "it's useless, trivial", large list = "it's too expansive, unmanageable". Fantasy worlds is clearly a notable topic so List of Fantasy Worlds is an appropriate list, all it needs is a little TLC and it should make a perfectly decent featured list. Oh, and WP:CLN is met. Jclemens (talk) 04:50, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, clearly a useful list, just needs cleanup.Jackattack1597 (talk) 11:32, 14 August 2021 (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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