Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Splinter Cell characters

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. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:00, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

List of Splinter Cell characters[edit]

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This list of fictional characters is almost entirely primary source video game trivia and altogether not independently notable from the main series. The characters, or anything noteworthy about them for inclusion in an encyclopedia, could be adequately described in a simple Character section based on the current sourcing. (Article topic lacks significant coverage from reliable, independent sources. See ?) czar 08:31, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Video games-related deletion discussions. czar 08:31, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. czar 08:31, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Only five references, with two of them being IMDb and the rest show even less reliablity. Anarchyte (work | talk) 10:59, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Lists of characters appearing in multiple independently notable works are routinely and properly kept, as the content could be included in any of the main articles, but is instead placed in such lists for SIZE issues, as well as to keep people from creating standalone articles on clearly NN individual characters. See WP:CSC item 2. Jclemens (talk) 16:25, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:22, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Not a notable list of characters, no significant coverage by reliable sources. soetermans. ^{↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK} 19:59, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: Keeping a crufty article that lacks reliable sources just to prevent crufty unsourced spam from proliferating is a terrible reason to do so. Nha Trang ^Allons! 23:05, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Regardless of poor refferencing, article has a lot of information and a stream of viewers. The article needs to be better made, yes, but that is not reason for deletion. List articles are common and tend to be poorly made compared to others, however, they serve a purpose.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Veryirregularuser (talk • contribs) 04:14, 8 July 2016

WP:ITSUSEFUL is not an argument. You're saying WP:BEFORE, but it fails WP:LISTN. soetermans. ^{↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK} 05:24, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Jclemens. These are characters that appear in a successful multi-media franchise (video games and books based on the games). The individual entries do need some cutting down, but the list as a whole shouldn't be deleted. Many sources with editorial control write about the characters in the series and the development behind them in more detail than would be appropriate to place on the page of any particular game article: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8] etc. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 19:58, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Those article are either (1) about Sam Fisher (Splinter Cell), who already has an article, or (2) are routine coverage of the games and their development. Especially the latter links are brief news snippets on game development, and they all fit in the context of their respective articles. czar 13:29, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously game reviews will talk primarily about the protagonist of the game series. That doesn't mean that they don't talk about other characters (e.g. Andriy Kobin, who as a key character in one of the demo levels available to reviewers, gets a paragraph or two in most of the game reviews). But all the reviews contains at least a full paragraph on the supporting cast with descriptions, and the various other sources also feature enough information on various characters in the list to be too big to fit in a character section (e.g. my 5th link has a 3:30 video on the character in question, the 6th link to IBT Media has two paragraphs on why certain characters in the game don't fit in with the theme of previous games, the 1st link to Financial Post has two paragraphs on the motivations of President Caldwell), and those above sources are just for the latest game. Searching beyond the latest game gives more mention to characters that have more prominence in those games such as Grim ([9], [10], [11]).

Characters are also discussed over issues such as properly respresenting aging in gaming [12], potentially lacking female characters [13], and being realistic examples of female characters [14]. Sure it's routine coverage for gaming characters, but when reliable sources routinely devote entire paragraphs or entire articles to individual or groups of non-protagonist characters from a series, that passes WP:LISTN. Sources publishing on the game development behind certain characters would also point towards real world notability of those characters. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:03, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Your response doesn't preclude my comment that the coverage is largely of the characters in individual games and not implying any larger importance. Our standard is to cover those characters in the context of their game articles (which is why they have Characters sections when necessary) and to cover recurring characters in the main series article (whose Characters section is currently famished) such that we only split out summary style when necessary. As of now, there is not enough coverage or sourced information to warrant a split from the parent section. czar 00:21, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Coverage of the cast of Splinter Cell in terms of prominence of female cast, how they were affected by improved graphics technology, and realistic portrayal of females (links 12-14) aren't about individual games and do imply a larger importance. The links/reviews about President Caldwell and Grim cover their actions and roles in two games, and that's only from searching reviews for two games; searching for earlier games (5 not covered by the above searches) and the books (7) would lead to more sources about the recurring characters. I'm perfectly okay with cutting down and moving the information on the characters who actually only appear in individual games to their game article, but it makes no sense for characters that recur throughout the game and book series to have their story split up between potentially up to 14 articles, so this list should be kept as a "Characters of Splinter Cell" article which like Characters of Halo would only focus on the recurring and/or major characters of the series, which would be entirely in line with WP:SUMMARY. No reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 19:29, 25 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - That there has been a precedent for character lists really doesn't matter. As of late, there has been a precedent for deleting those that fail to establish notability. There is no reason that the information needs to be covered. There is nothing truly essential that will take away from a person's understanding of the series' articles. Absolute core characters can be adequately described in the main articles, summary style or in very succinct lists. I'm not seeing anything relevant glancing at the above links either. TTN (talk) 21:22, 10 July 2016

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ansh 666 00:35, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and improve sourcing. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 00:53, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Got an actual ground there on which you're advocating keep? Nha Trang ^Allons! 17:48, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

He gave an actual ground: "improve sourcing", which implies that he disagrees with the arguments in the nomination statement about notability not being established through available, reliable sources. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 18:31, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have any examples of more sources? WP:MUSTBESOURCES. Anarchyte (work | talk) 08:11, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There are 12 independent, reliable sources that cover these characters in varying amounts of depth that is the topic of a thread of discussion at this AfD. All of those, if added, would be improvements to the sourcing. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 18:31, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as the sourcing on these characters isn't there. The sources listed above mention one or another of these minor characters in passing, at best, and certainly do not provide enough information for the article content. Adding those sources would be an improvement but they, and others like them, just aren't enough to establish that such a list is needed. Ca2james (talk) 22:45, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: I struggled with closing this for a while, and eventually came to the conclusion that if I was struggling that much, it probably meant no good consensus had emerged yet. The big question that hasn't really been answered yet is whether the specific sources presented here are sufficient to meet WP:LISTN, so hopefully people can concentrate on figuring that out. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:15, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- RoySmith (talk) 16:15, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete On the basis of the lack of coverage in reliable secondary sources. Note that the notability of Splinter Cell is not in question, but the characters as a group have very little coverage. Also note that the argument that people visit the page has nothing to do with its notability under Wikipedia policies. Nwlaw63 (talk) 19:01, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect: As much as I hate the bar being raised for character list articles now (as well as the fact that I agree with Jclemens that character lists should generally have their own article), I'm not seeing quite enough coverage to have this one as its own article. However, this should be redirected, not delete. Deletion should be a last resort, per WP:CHEAP and WP:ATD-R, as well as to preserve the content for any future potential the article may have. The character section at Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell works as a target. Kokoro20 (talk) 00:11, 2 August 2016 (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.