Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of The Galaxy Railways 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 keep. (non-admin closure) Dr. Universe (talk) 21:12, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

List of The Galaxy Railways characters[edit]

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This is an immense wall of cruft detailing characters in an obscure TV show that ran for barely two seasons. Most of it is written in an in-universe style and the only sources are to the work of fiction itself. And I can't find anything better. Reyk _YO! 14:59, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Anime and manga-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 15:36, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 15:36, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is it WP:SNOWing in July right now?. We literally have lists of characters for nearly ALL other notable TV series with a ton of characters. Issues of in-universe descriptions, crufty content and only primary sources to episodes being used are issues of clean-up, not notability which is a typical metric we use for Afd descriptions. Please think about Wikipedia:Deletion is not cleanup the next time you find a list article like this. 👨x🐱 (talk) 16:51, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- On the contrary, the problem of primary sources only absolutely is a notability issue. And excessive character lists like this one get deleted all the time, eg: [1], [2], [3]. Unfortunately, WP:NOTCLEANUP doesn't apply when the problems in an article are insurmountable even with all the cleanup in the world. Reyk _YO! 17:20, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

*Delete - Character lists can certainly be a valid spinout article for a piece of media, but they still need to actually be supported by reliable, secondary sources. They don't automatically get a pass from the requirements for WP:LISTN or the WP:GNG, and this particular character list is unable to pass either one of them. I can find no reliable, secondary sources discussing the characters in the series in general, nor was I able to find any on any of the individual main characters. I also checked the equivalent page on the Japanese Wikipedia to see if that potentially included any non-English sources that could be used, but it turns out that its completely absent of any reliable sources there, as well. Rorshacma (talk) 17:17, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

*Delete per WP:TNT, almost all of the information provided is original research. @HumanxAnthro: if you would like to userfy the article for improvement then that can always be arranged. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 17:27, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm no fan of the show and have never seen it. It's just that it's typical for the most notable TV series, such as The Office, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Seinfeld to have character lists, often with the only cited sources being primary. My judgement, looking retrospectively, wasn't good given that it's WP:OTHERSTUFF logic. I'll be happy to userfy, though. I'd say it depends on how many recurring and starring characters there are and how it would make the article about the show WP:TOOBIG, but other users may decided that. 👨x🐱 (talk) 17:57, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom and knowledgekid. Raymond3023 (talk) 12:55, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 19:09, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 19:09, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Moot/malformed request. If The Galaxy Railways is notable, then a list of characters for it is expected and relies on those same RS'es whether or not they are included in this list article per WP:NEXIST. If the series is not notable, however, then the series and all dependent articles like this should be deleted together. As such, the nomination articulates no policy-based rationale for deleting only this list of characters article. As has been pointed out above, 'cruft' (itself a non-policy based and pejorative word) is not solved by deletion, but by actually editing it out. Jclemens (talk) 23:35, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- (and, to be clear, appropriately modifying the links above to focus on the show itself, e.g. [4], suggests that RS exist to demonstrate notability for the show.) Jclemens (talk) 23:38, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Notability is not inherited, and the WP:BURDEN is on those to provide the sources. If deletion isn't cleanup then provide the sources and WP:FIXIT. You have to remember that lists can always be re-created with found sourcing by those who have time to work on them (this goes for those pushing for inclusion and deletion alike). - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:19, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Even if the show has some sources that demonstrate notability, if they don't actually provide any information on the characters, which I can't find any that do, then all this article consists of is information that is almost entirely unsourced - the vast majority of the items here are not even sourced to primary sources, let alone reliable, secondary sources. And the notability of a given topic does not give a pass to any spinout articles from needing to actually have sourced information. As I mentioned above, even the Japanese Wikipedia article on the topic contains no reliable sources providing information on the characters, so unless sources can be found that do, we can't just keep a lot of information that we can't even demonstrate that WP:NEXIST for. Rorshacma (talk) 06:27, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- On the contrary, we've long held that "List of XYZ characters" and "XYZ" are not identically the same topic. Just because there may be sources to support an article on XYZ, this does not guarantee an article on "List of XYZ characters" because the list still requires sources discussing the characters as such, perferably *as* a list. One can easily imagine an article on a work of fiction for which the sources mostly talk about the setting and plot, with less focus on the characters. And, in fact, this is exactly the situation here; the parent article talks a lot about trains and such but talk of characters is limited to name drops in a plot summary. Rorshacma's delete !vote is completely correct here and, as pointed out elsewhere, this list is inherently OR owing to the lack of sources that discuss this actual topic. Reyk _YO! 16:48, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Jclemens. Even if the article is very crufty, deletion is not cleanup. Link20XX (talk) 01:19, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Its crufty because nobody has provided any WP:RS other than the WP:PRIMARY sources already present in the article. The closest I have seen to this was a google search which vaguely points to several sources without naming any. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:22, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. Such lists are a major issue that should be discussed in a large RfC. We have tens of thousands of them. Do they meet criteria for stand-alone list (WP:NLIST)? Hmmm. There are certainly websites out there which among others provide such lists (and not just fan wikis, for example [5] (however, all such sites I can think of tend to rely on volunteer contribution and are part-wiki anidb.net/anime/1000 (for some reason this is on out spam blacklist), [6], [7], IMDb, [8]). This may be enough to warrant keeping them as navigational aids that may meet our criteria, perhaps? The other argument I can see is that lists of characters are justifiable parts of plot summary, and can be spin-off main articles about works to stand-alone articles simply due to their lengths (this is covered under WP:SIZESPLIT). Anyway, I believe that we should not delete lists of characters without a major RfC. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:45, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You are going into WP:OSE as the issue with THIS particular list is sourcing which I have yet to see offered. Nobody here is saying that we need to delete every character list out there just because this particular one is up for deletion. If you have sources to include the information then great... add them, if not then as an anime fan myself it does little good reading the storyline based off an opinion of someone who already watched the series (we have Wikia for that). - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:17, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree such an RfC would be, if done well, instructive and productive. Jclemens (talk) 19:13, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per rationales provided by Jclemens and Piotrus. Haleth (talk) 13:06, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I agree with the rational others have made. Every notable series has a character list article if its too large to fit all valid information in its main article. Spinoff articles for this, list of episodes, and whatnot, are always perfectly valid. Dream Focus 10:57, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep As per MOS:PLOTSOURCE, it is acceptable to have no sourcing as it is assumed the work itself is the source for plot summaries (and by extension, character summaries). While merging this article back to its parent is the obvious WP:ATD, it would not be the best option as it would make the characters section half of the article, a clear example of WP:UNDUE. However, a cleaned up and denser version could be mergeable, and I wouldn't be opposed someone bold merging if such version is created. Jumpytoo Talk 08:29, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Article is purely fancruft, with the only sources on the article being primary ones. No solid sources have been raised in this discussion to add to the article, and even if the show's notable, I don't think that justifies a massive unsourced list of characters from the show. A brief list of the main characters on the main article would be more apt. Waxworker (talk) 03:35, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 12:16, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is both a response to delete !votes and an expansion of my own !vote. Waxworker said above that No solid sources have been raised in this discussion, however, that is false as Jclemens provided a link that suggests sources exist in books and other print publications. I would say in this case this is simply a WP:SIZESPLIT, so it is alright to be included per that, though like others stated above, a full RfC over this may not be a bad idea. Sources for plot are also not generally needed per WP:PLOTSOURCE. Link20XX (talk) 19:22, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I responded to Jclemen's comment regarding source already to point out that none of the sources that appear in the link he provided actually discuss any of the characters at all. In fact, the sources that come up barely discuss the actual series at all, with most of them simply mentioning it as an example of one of Leiji Matsumoto works, with almost no actual coverage or discussion of it. Rorshacma (talk) 06:20, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

- Have you actually read the sources, or is that just going from the preview? Link20XX (talk) 14:28, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - In most cases, the actual sections of the books in which the show is mentioned are fully available to view. For example, the first listing that comes up with Jclemen's link is this book, where The Galaxy Railroad is only mentioned in a single sentence in a section about another of Leiji Matsumoto's works, Galaxy Express 999. The coverage of this particular series is literally limited to the sentence "The much later Maetel Legend OAV and the Galaxy Railways TV series are currently the most accessible glimpses of the Galaxy Express 999' universe available in English". And that's it. Similarly, the section that this book and this book mention the series are all fully viewable in Google books, and in both cases they are again, single sentence mentions. The only real source that comes up in the search that is only available as a snippet view is this one. I've done searches under the titles "The Galaxy Express", "Galaxy Express", "Ginga Tetsudō Monogatari", as well as doing my best to go through Japanese language sources, and I'm barely finding enough coverage in reliable sources to support the article on the actual series, let alone a spinout character article that can't even really be said to pass the basic tenants of WP:V. If anyone can point to a specific reliable source that actually supports any of the information currently in this article, please do, since I've spent quite a bit of time trying myself, and have not succeeded. Rorshacma (talk) 15:26, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - I admit I haven't looked much, but I did find this on Natalie to verify some of the voice actors. Will keep looking later. Link20XX (talk) 19:05, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To jump in here, in terms of SIGCOV of the show, that does exist (note that I only checked ANN):

"The Galaxy Railways DVD 1". Anime News Network. Retrieved 2021-07-16.
"Shelf Life - Grounded AlienS and Spaceborn Humans". Anime News Network. Retrieved 2021-07-16.

The two sources also lightly discuss the characters in their plot summaries. Jumpytoo Talk 19:46, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nice find - hope you don't mind I grabbed that first, long review to start building up a Reception section for the main The Galaxy Railways article - it was also sorely lacking in reliable sources, and definitely needed some coverage from reviews. Rorshacma (talk) 20:36, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

While we are finding reviews, I found this one from THEM Anime Reviews and this one from The Fandom Post, both of which are considered reliable sources by WikiProject Anime and manga. Link20XX (talk) 21:35, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - I deleted my delete opinion above in favor of a keep. Reliable sources have been found regarding character development and reception. I would trim down this list significantly to focus on the main characters, but this involves cleanup not deletion . - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 03:35, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep/Potential Merge - I concur completely with Knowledgekid87 at this point, and have similarly struck my earlier vote. The reviews found definitely have coverage of the main characters of the series. Thus, as mentioned, I would also suggest vastly trimming this down to only include those main characters with sourced information. At that point, the list would be manageable enough that it would likely make sense to merge it back into the main article on the series rather than being kept as a separate list, however the discussion regarding that decision can be conducted later on, and does not have to be made here. Rorshacma (talk) 06:52, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Closing comment: The keep !votes are overwhelming here versus the 3 delete !votes (1 from nom, 1 saying nothing except "delete per nom" and 1 from a user complaining mainly/only about lack of non-primary sources, which was addressed by Link20XX). Dr. Universe (talk) 21:12, 22 July 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.