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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional Romans (2nd nomination)

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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 delete. per policy-based arguments. Star Mississippi 02:19, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

List of fictional Romans

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List of fictional Romans (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Almost all refs are imdb or WP-articles, which may be intended as primary sources. An article like this should be based on secondary WP:RS, and there are none of those here. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:34, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I see now that there was an afd 10 years ago, but I think my argument has merit, so let's do it again. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:41, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The second problem with this nomination is the argument that individual entries are invalid if they refer to unimportant characters, which here is being used to mean "characters who don't have their own entries on Wikipedia". This is not a legitimate argument for list articles, which by definition may include entries—perhaps numerous entries—for persons or things that individually do not possess sufficient notability for their own articles. In essence the argument is that a list does not meet general notability guidelines unless most or all of its contents meet general notability guidelines—a contention not based on any Wikipedia policy! This argument undercuts one of the basic purposes of list articles in general—the collection of miscellaneous but potentially encyclopedic material in a logical place, with a format that requires only minimal description or citation.

But the inappropriateness of these two main arguments for deletion doesn't provide a reason for keeping. It merely undercuts the case for deletion. There is, however, a good reason for an article such as this to exist: it allows researchers—whether academic, or merely curious—to view a cross-section of literature about ancient Rome and its people, and see how Romans have been treated as characters in fiction. It's true that readers would be able to find many, if not all of these characters by reading individual articles about the literary works containing them, but that would require them to read dozens of individual articles merely to encounter the names or basic descriptions of characters who can be listed more conveniently in one place, the way that a list of characters from Dickens or Shakespeare or Agatha Christie or Star Wars simplifies the process of searching through dozens of works—some of which may not even be adequately summarized as individual articles.

Doubtless only a small proportion of the characters in such lists are significant enough to merit their own articles, or could be found through categorization, which only helps with those characters who have their own entries. But few editors would contend that lists of such characters can only contain those who have their own articles—which potentially would negate the purpose of list articles—and there is no logical reason why readers would benefit more from having to search through dozens of articles in order to gather material that can be conveniently collected in one place. Nor would it be a reasonable argument that a list should be deleted because it is missing characters from important works that fall within its scope; that's no different from any other article that begins as partial and inadequate coverage of a subject, and is gradually improved by editors who supply missing details and otherwise address those deficiencies.

The argument that this list is unwieldy because it's large is equally absurd: surely the remedy to this is simply to sort the list into different categories—whether by type of source, or type of character (which, to some extent, it currently does), or potentially by splitting the list for further specificity—the remedy is to improve, not delete, the article. The more I look at these arguments, the clearer the result for this nomination becomes—the list is an obvious keep. By all means improve it if you can, but base arguments for deletion on actual Wikipedia policies, not contorted and invalid criteria that don't apply to list articles or their individual contents, and which if applied do nothing to help readers, but only serve to make information more difficult to find. P Aculeius (talk) 14:15, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@P Aculeius Please familiarize yourself with WP:GNG and WP:NLIST. Also, WP:FICTION. Lastly, WP:OR. And Wikipedia:Stand-alone_lists#Appropriate_topics_for_lists. Rule of thumb is - are such groupings - of fictional Romans - made by reliable sources, or is it a Wikipedia invention? As right now this appears to be the latter, the list is likely to be deleted. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 12:40, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't assume ignorance on the part of experienced editors and list a bunch of policies, some of which clearly don't apply here, while others are of only arguable relevance. A list of characters in literary works doesn't require a discussion in secondary sources to prove that they exist or that they constitute a group; the inclusion of any entry here can be verified by examining the work in question, so as long as it's clearly identified there's no question of original research. Nearly all of the works mentioned here are individually notable, which not only makes the contents easier to verify, but also rules out the direct application of WP:Fiction, which does not address the issues presented by this article. The General Notability Guideline says—in fact, it's a section header—"[n]otability guidelines do not apply to content within articles or lists". For more specific application, this policy points to the Stand-alone lists section for selection criteria, which says: "[w]hile notability is often a criterion for inclusion in overview lists of a broad subject, it may be too stringent for narrower lists; one of the functions of many lists on Wikipedia is providing an avenue for the retention of encyclopedic information that does not warrant separate articles". Which is precisely what this article is for. The subject is valid on its face; most or all of the entries clearly identify the works in which the characters appear; the works in which the entries appear are mostly or entirely notable. You may have been thinking that WP:Listpeople requires notability here—it does not, in part because these are fictional characters; they do not need to be individually notable, nor do we need to verify that fictional Romans are members of a group of fictional Romans—if reliable sources can verify that they're fictional Romans, they're members of the group—and it's well-established that merely reporting the contents of a work of fiction—not analyzing it, or providing commentary—is not original research. P Aculeius (talk) 14:11, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I assume this is intended only to refer to ancient Rome and its empire, not the medieval and later city. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:55, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ITSHARMLESS... Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:32, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If you actually read that page carefully, you'll note that it's not a policy, but an essay—general advice—and the section in question doesn't claim that "harmlessness" is cause for deletion. It says that an argument for harmlessness doesn't overcome basic Wikipedia policies, such as verifiability or notability. But those things have already been addressed in this discussion: the characters are cited to the specific works in which they occur, which makes them verifiable; works of literature are inherently reliable as to their own contents, so reliability isn't at issue, provided that this article merely summarizes the characters without adding commentary; most of the works are obviously notable and have their own articles, so if the argument is to be made that any of them are non-notable then that would have to be made on an individual basis; and the individual characters mentioned do not have to meet general notability guidelines, as long as the works containing them do. As Peterkingiron says, it may be that some characters are not important enough to the works in which they occur to merit listing; but that doesn't relate to a nomination for deletion. P Aculeius (talk) 12:14, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
most of the works are obviously notable and have their own articles, so if the argument is to be made that any of them are non-notable then that would have to be made on an individual basis. Absolutely not. Practically none of the characters are even notable themselves, and they don't inherit notability from the works they appear in. The only way this list can be shown to be notable is through secondary sources discussing (WP:NLIST) the extremely broad topic of fictional Romans, to such extent that it justifies listing everyone down to some minor characters in obscure novels or comic books. Avilich (talk) 16:27, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's not how this type of list article works. Of course persons insufficiently notable to warrant their own articles—including literary characters—can be included in lists with some other claim to notability—in this case a list of fictional Romans appearing in works that are individually notable. This has nothing to do with the principle that "notability is not inherited". By that reasoning, list articles could only include items sufficiently notable to warrant individual articles—essentially becoming categories with additional information. Yet Wikipedia includes thousands of list articles for persons, places, or things that may or may not warrant individual articles. See the General Notability Guideline: "[n]otability guidelines do not apply to content within articles or lists", or the guideline for stand-alone lists: "[w]hile notability is often a criterion for inclusion in overview lists of a broad subject, it may be too stringent for narrower lists; one of the functions of many lists on Wikipedia is providing an avenue for the retention of encyclopedic information that does not warrant separate articles".
You definitely don't need a secondary source to say, "Quintus Arrius is a Roman senator in Ben-Hur"—anyone who reads the novel or sees the film can verify that—or an article saying that "the following persons are fictional Romans", any more than you need a secondary source to list the titles of chapters in a book—the book itself is a perfectly valid source for its own contents. As for the worry that "it justifies listing everyone down to some minor characters in obscure novels or comic books", multiple editors have said that the list could justifiably be edited to remove minor or unimportant characters—but that is a question of content, not whether the list itself should exist. Per Wikipedia's deletion policy, "[i]f editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page.... Disputes over page content are usually not dealt with by deleting the page, except in severe cases." If there's a problem with the inclusion or exclusion of a character you think is or isn't important enough to include on a list such as this, then just add or remove that character. As Wikipedia's editing policy says, "[p]erfection is not required: Wikipedia is a work in progress. Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome." P Aculeius (talk) 17:52, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Literally all the characters in the list are minor or unimportant. There wouldn't be a list without them. So really, excluding the minor or unimportant entries would be no different then just deleting the list entirely. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:38, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's patently false. Many of the characters listed are the protagonists of the works in which they occur, or the main characters in the chapters or episodes that involve Romans. Your claim is essentially that there are no fictional Romans important enough to list—surely an extreme position. P Aculeius (talk) 14:01, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete none of these characters seem to be individually notable and there's no evidence from what I can tell that they are discussed in any reliable sources a group or set. So this clearly fails WP:LISTN. In the meantime, it's perfectly fine to mention a few of the clearly notable ones, which are really none at this point, in Fiction set in ancient Rome. There really doesn't need to be a separate list article for it though. At least not at this point, if there ever is a need for one. Personally, I doubt it. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:34, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Please consider what the General Notability Guideline says about list contents: "[n]otability guidelines do not apply to content within articles or lists"; and what the guideline for stand-alone lists says: "[w]hile notability is often a criterion for inclusion in overview lists of a broad subject, it may be too stringent for narrower lists; one of the functions of many lists on Wikipedia is providing an avenue for the retention of encyclopedic information that does not warrant separate articles." You're applying criteria that don't apply to this type of article. The individual entries don't need to be notable; and it's absurd to insist on a secondary source grouping them all when each of them can be cited to the source in which they appear; there is absolutely no need to cite a secondary source to say that a fictional Roman in a literary work is a member of a group of fictional Romans, any more than you need a secondary source listing all of the characters in Jane Austen or Shakespeare or Law & Order in order to have such a list on Wikipedia, from which characters not mentioned in said source would be excluded even though they can clearly be verified from the work in which they appear. P Aculeius (talk) 14:01, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete While I can sympathize with the spirited above attempt to defend this article, the fact remains that verifiability alone doesn't cause a topic to merit inclusion, and that the grouping as a whole needs to have been discussed in secondary sources. Else, lists of fictional elements just end up being textbook failures of WP:IINFO and MOS:TRIVIA. There are also probably too many characters that classify as 'fictional Romans' for this to be a maintainable standalone list (WP:SALAT). Although WP:SALAT notes that splitting is a way to fix this, I agree with the above argument that splitting wouldn't solve the existing problems due to the arbitrariness of, and lack of guidance from sources (per NLIST) on, how to do so. Avilich (talk) 15:26, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Any arguments that this is original research surely also apply to Fiction set in ancient Rome. This is a useful list. If we can't keep it, can we at least copy the contents to Fiction set in ancient Rome? Ficaia (talk) 18:00, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unfortunately WP:ITSUSEFUL and WP:OTHERSTUFF are not generally considered valid arguments during an AFD. Simply copying the contents of a deleted article into a different article would not really be appropriate, as that would just be circumventing the consensus of the AFD, though if the article is deleted, you would probably be able to request a copy of it to keep in your draftspace if you wanted to try to preserve any of the content for future reference in editing other articles. Rorshacma (talk) 18:08, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Fiction set in ancient Rome absolutely need secondary sources, there is very little referencing. Fiction_set_in_ancient_Rome#Works_inspired_by_Roman_history,_or_by_works_of_fiction_and_non-fiction_about_Rome really needs refs. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:58, 16 February 2022 (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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