Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leroy Jethro Gibbs (3rd 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 Nothing much has changed policywise from previous AfD and overwhelming consensus by most participants in the AfD despite eloquent and civil attempts by nom to sway them. Mike Cline (talk) 18:34, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Leroy Jethro Gibbs

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I am nominating a number of articles here, all of which are NCIS characters. These articles consist entirely of fancruft, and are nothing more than very, very lengthy plot summaries. The articles all fail two key policies; the first is simply WP:Notability; the policy states that, in order to qualify for an article, a topic must have "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". All but a very few references are first-party publications clearly not independent of the subject, and thus cannot be used to establish notability. Also, WP:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) states: "When an article is created, the subject's real-world notability should be established". None of these articles contain any development or reception that establishes any real world significance for the subjects. None of these articles "describe the subject matter from the perspective of the real world", but only from the perspective of the fictional world they inhabit, making them essentially fancruft. Some of these articles were nominated for deletion before and kept, however, upon perusing these debates, it is clear that no reasoning for keeping rooted in policy was ever given. The main argument given for keeping is that they are major characters in a major series, but it should be noted that this has never been, and is not now, a criterion or policy that can be used to establish the notability of an article.

Transwiki all NCIS is one of my favorite shows, and although I imagine that there will be a flood of keep !votes on this, Wikipedia isn't the TV show fan site that it was a few years ago. Such articles now migrate over to entertainment wikis (in this case [ncis.wikia.com] the NCIS Database), where such contributions are welcomed with a "good work" rather than a slap to the back of the head. At most, the team should have an article about the NCIS characters. Mandsford (talk) 14:31, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Procedure. After deletion here, I'd be happy to provide the deleted copy to a wiki that didn't have standards for references or notability. Or did you mean that you were offereing to do the transwiki move of these topics? -- Mikeblas (talk) 03:00, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. — — MrDolomite • Talk 15:34, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge all with appropriate editing into a List of NCIS characters. Jclemens (t alk) 15:34, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep- sources supplied meet GNG. If it needs pruning, prune it. constantly bringing them up for deletion doesn't change that. Umbralcorax (talk) 16:04, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - can you be more specific? Which sources make these articles meet the GNG guide? Where are there a good amount of reliable sources independent of the subject? Anything from the network the characters come from does not count as independent of the subject. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 16:07, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - and by the way, opening a deletion debate two years after the last one is NOT repeatedly bringing something up for debate. Quite frankly, the community has cracked down on fictional elements that do not have references or real-world content as of late. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 16:09, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Correction The last nomination for Leroy Jethro Gibbs was December 2008, only 16 months ago, far less than 2 years. --AussieLegend (talk) 07:51, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - GNG = Wikipedia:Notability#General_notability_guideline. — MrDolomite • Talk 16:14, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Sources exist.[1] - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 16:26, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Search engine tests "Hit count numbers alone can only rarely "prove" anything about notability". Perusing the sources on that page reveals none that provide none that "address the subject directly in detail" per the general notability guide. Majority of sources merely mention the characters existence in relation to the show, and notability is not inherited because sources cover the show. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 16:31, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Arrived here because just today I was helping a young student with his school project and we saw the deletion notice on Caitlin Todd's article. Not earth shattering but mighty convenient to have found that article and would have been disappointed were it not on WP. hydnjo (talk) 00:28, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is useful is not a valid keep argument. The issue here is whether the articles are notable and meet guidelines. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 01:30, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep by default To me, the ultimate question is whether this material be appropriate at NCIS (TV series) or List of NCIS characters. If so, it seems to me these are justifiable as splitting a long article. Combining all of these would result in a massive article that would just need to be split again. Moreover, these articles have been nominated before. However, I won't even get into that because the onus is on the nominator to establish what has changed since the last time this was up for deletion or what he or she is arguing that wasn't argued the last time. Since nothing like that is presented here, and it is unfair to expect everyone to read through all the previous discussions, I'm going to have to assume that there is in fact nothing new and that the previous consensus to keep should remain intact. -Rrius (talk) 01:37, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - You are right, nothing is new; these articles did not provide references establishing there notability then, and they do not now. Over two years, consensus can change. Arguing that the articles will be long otherwise is not a valid keep concern. The majority of these articles are inappropriate fancruft right now anyway, and the relevant information is already at the character list. I am arguing for deletion, not a merger. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 01:40, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all. These are non-notable, as demonstrated by the fact that no substantial references have been provided for such a long time. Unreferenced and speculative material keeps growing back even after efforts to prune the content. -- Mikeblas (talk) 02:58, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Lack of references in the articles does not demonstrate that the subjects are non-notable, only that references have not been added to the articles. Contributors at previous AfDs have identified references that support notability. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:07, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment lack of references sufficient to mee the guidlines may here just highlight insufficiently flexible guidelines. Some topics simply cannot be references sufficiently given the current guidelines, because copyright problems do not allow such sources to exist. Alternatively, ther emay be nobody with an interest in creating them, as is likely the case here. Thus, strictly applying the guidlines is nonsensical. HMallison (talk) 11:21, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - If you believe the current policy is not adequate, then bring it up on the relevant talk pages. However, pages must be argued to be kept or deleted based on current policy. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 15:41, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - what are you reading about 'keeping' or 'deleting' into my comment? HMallison (talk) 18:32, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct of course, strictly applying the guidelines is nonsensical, and that's why we have WP:IAR. Unfortunately too many editors seem to ignore its existence. --AussieLegend (talk) 18:40, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge All with appropriate trimming and edits, into List of NCIS Characters. As an example, the Leroy Jethro Gibbs article contains a full listing of "Gibbs' Rules," which factor into the show frequently but are not necessary to an understanding of the character or the show. Similar interesting but unnecessary details exist on all of the character pages, and they are really nothing more than trivia. Further, such details are not encyclopedic in nature. In summary, these pages contain much more information than what is needed, and would be more appropriate at an NCIS wiki, as mentioned by Mandsford above. TheBigFish (talk) 17:30, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Trim and merge all into List of NCIS characters. All fail WP:GNG. --TorriTorri^{(Talk to me!)} 02:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with perhaps a little trimming. The reason not to merge ts that for this sort of subject it inevitably results in excessive trimming. To take an example above, if the Gibbs Rles are significant the article on the character is a good place to discuss them. I would only support a merge for this is the entire content were retained , except for the parts that necesarily duplicate each other--some shortening this way is certainly possible. As we currently have no way to control such things, the only practical course is to keep the articles separate and work on them individually.

I urge you to see WP:PLOT. Why must all of this fancruft be kept? What it amounts to is an overly detailed, indiscriminate plot summary. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 07:52, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please, I encourage you to provide some examples of the fancruft. We should be working at improving articles, not just criticising them. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:12, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read the articles? They contain paragraphs and pargraphs discussing every aspect of the character within the confines of the show. This is the definition of fancruft. It will give a very specific example: "In the episode "Blowback", Gibbs reveals that he is a Virgo". This sentence appeals only to fans of the show, and only to die hard fans at that. A good deal of article content here is minutiae, and I stress again that Wikipedia is not a plot summary, and that is all these articles are, summaries of the characters within the confines of plot and fiction. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 08:17, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, I was arguing that merging content against policy was not a desirable outcome. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 08:37, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have indeed read the articles. However, you have claimed that the articles "consist entirely of fancruft", so it's up to you to demonstrate that. Are you arguing that there is nothing in the articles that is relevant? If not, then your nomination is not completely accurate. Either way, you should be able to provide examples of what can be deleted, starting with Leroy Jethro Gibbs. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:59, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I did provide an example, an exact quotation in fact. This type of content plagues articles like these, which are kept despite having no real-world content. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 09:01, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'd agree with that, but that's just one example and to put it in some context, it's only 0.5% of the article, or 0.1% of all of the content you are seeking to destroy. I'm not arguing that there's no fancruft, as there clearly is some. As a matter of fact I've removed some today.[2] This had actually been previously discussed.[3][4] A third opinion posted here[5] seemed sufficient justification to remove the content that we had already been considering removing. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:15, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep and clean up! - Far from "consist[ing] entirely of fancruft", as indicated by the nominator, these articles contain quite a lot of encyclopaedic, biographical information. If these articles were biographies of living persons, instead of "biographies of fictional persons" we'd be praising them because of the amount of information that they contain. All of the articles are about the lead characters of a highly rated television series that, to date, has been running for over 6.5 years and has aired 157 episodes in at least 39 countries. The characters are clearly notable from that alone. WP:WAF may say that when an article is created, the subject's real-world notability should be established but that's really irrelevant because we're well beyond that. The article has been created, kept as the result of an AfD, nominated again, kept as the result of another AfD,[6] redirected against consensus, (ironically by the same editor who removed the AfD notice)[7] was then the result of a massive redirect/unredirect edit war.[8] It was finally rebuilt and then worked on for well over a year before it was again redirected against consensus with questionable justification,[9] After reversion of that it was then nominated again and that's where we are now, well beyond the point where the WP:WAF statement was relevant.

Opponents of these articles have cited various policies but there's been a bit of cherry picking, with a few policies conveniently ignored. One of them says that if a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, you should ignore it. Does rigid application of the policies quoted by those suggesting deletion improve Wikipedia? Four hundred and sixty edits since February 2009 in Leroy Jethro Gibbs (1,665 in all of the articles) demonstrate that these articles are seen as important by a large number of editors, most of whom won't join the discussion here. Nevertheless, their voices can't be ignored. How does deleting the content created by these people (yes, I know some of it was vandalism) improve Wikipedia? The answer is, it doesn't.

I support Rrius' arguments.[10] If we delete these articles without merging then a lot of valuable content is lost. If we trim and merge to List of NCIS characters we're going to end up with an article that is starting to get too long and which WP:SIZERULE says we should look at splitting out into individual articles. The lead characters in the series warrant more space than repeat and minor characters. There's simply no way they can be trimmed to a few lines so we would instantly have to consider splitting List of NCIS characters. Anyone who thinks that we can maintain the article at a small size without splitting is not living in the real world. Despite efforts, the six articles have increased by about 33.5KB (combined) in the last 9.5 months alone. Size increase is going to happen whether we like it or not. People supporting deletion or merge just aren't looking at the big picture.

Scapler is correct in stating "these articles did not provide references establishing there [sic] notability then, and they do not now. However, I was recently reminded that Wikipedia is not working to a deadline. As indicated in that essay, we have articles that have been lacking references since 2001. That they are lacking references is regrettable and something should be done about it, but sometimes it just can't be avoided, as it was pointed out to me when I unsuccessfully nominated Jeff Bennett for deletion because it had been unreferenced for five years. Interestingly, WP:DEADLINE, admittedly only an essay and not a policy, makes (at least) two especially interesting suggestions about fancruft that are relevant here:

If you come across fancruft, a kind approach is to assume that the article or topic can be improved.
Instead of immediately listing a potential WP:NOT article for deletion, it may be better to prompt those interested in the article to improve the article.

This nomination does neither. Instead, it comes across more as WP:IDONTLIKEIT, especially when you look at the edit histories of the articles and their talkpages. A more constructive approach to the encyclopaedia would be to assist in removal of fancruft from these articles. There's only so much that the limited number of consistent editors of these articles can do. We aren't exempt from WP:3RR. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:11, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for assuming good faith; I just love the notion of being dismissed over an assumption. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 14:34, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't bad faith, nor was an assumption. It was based on a critical examination of your edits at all of the articles, including the talk pages. --AussieLegend (talk) 18:22, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep While this AfD is about a very narrow family of articles, IMHO, it is really about the larger treatment of fictional items on WP. These articles are actively edited, improving, may contain some crufty details (like most things on WP), and very likely to be recreated based on the popularity (which may or may not be equal to notability) of this TV show. While none of these four items are specifically terms in a WP policy, in my view of common sense, I am being WP:BOLD and stating they are all reasons to keep and improve the content. Otherwise this will be a whack-a-mole game for these articles going forward and you know that someone will use this AfD to start deleting fiction all over WP, even though one AfD is not "supposed" to be used as a precedent for another. All the WP:WIKILAWYERING gets old very quickly and and while I agree that there is plenty of cruft throughout WP, this AfD is not the appropriate forum for its debate. Bump it up to an RFC or other larger audience and work towards changing the policy towards fiction. Are these decent articles in need of improving? Yes. So then keep them, improve them, and move along. — MrDolomite • Talk 13:40, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Other than the some of the rationales given by AussieLegend, most of these arguments remind me of those that kept an article on every Pokémon for so long. Things like, where will all of this information go? and isn't it useful to have all this information on a character? The fact still remains: these articles are nothing but long plot summaries, and this amount of detailed information is not necessary to understand the work as a whole, and becomes less encyclopedic and more fansite with each addition. The article only contains an in-universe perspective, and as such does not analyze the subject in a manner befit an encyclopedia. I see a lot of keep votes here that seem like a rallying cry to save an article that people edited or have enjoyed reading, but do not address my deletion rationale; in fact, the majority of keep votes (with the notable exception of AussieLegend, who though I disagree with, is at least arguing with some policy involved) do not give any reasoning based in policy or anything but unsubstantiated personal opinion. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 14:34, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct that there is not a reasonable analysis of the subjects, but there will be no analysis if the articles are deleted. --AussieLegend (talk) 18:32, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - The Gibbs article has been viewed more than 21000 times so far this month. Also, Timothy McGee - 12000 views, Anthony DiNozzo - 22000 views and Caitlin Todd 10000 views so far this month. hydnjo (talk) 18:13, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep There are articles much cruftier than the NCIS character articles. I agree the nomination appears to be a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Aussie is also correct in stating there will be no analysis of these articles if they are simply removed. TristaBella (talk) 04:07, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is not a valid keep argument. Also, would someone like to SUBSTANTIATE the claim that I am nominating these just because I don't like them? I cite policy in my rationale, so everyone start assume good faith, because throwing around minor personal attacks (like insinuating that my edits are meant to be malicious without any evidence) looks more like you simply don't like my nomination, rather than that I don't like the articles. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 04:12, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, while WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is not an exclusive reason to keep, it his, however, a fact of life on Wikipedia. Every article, list, category, compiliation of Category:Video game characters by game, Category:Harry Potter characters, Category:Science fiction television characters by series, etc, can probably be successfully argued that they do not have any real world notability. As a result, it can be further argued that every one of those could be redirected to the main article in question. But that has not happened before and it is not going to happen now. Should that kind of wide ranging change be made as a result of the policies on fictional notability as it stands? Possibly, but is not going to happen on this little AfD. — MrDolomite • Talk 15:20, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all. No evidence of notability for any of them. Doctorfluffy (robe and wizard hat) 04:37, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to List of NCIS characters. They probably aren't notable enough to justify individual articles, but some of the information and in a few cases sources could be incorporated into the list. Alzarian16 (talk) 12:48, 30 April 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.