Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional actuaries

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) Ashley yoursmile! 05:52, 1 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

List of fictional actuaries[edit]

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Excessive uncited pop culture trivia in the form of an indiscriminate list. The article doesn't explain how fictional actuaries have had a cultural impact, and I feel it isn't encyclopedic. Waxworker (talk) 11:37, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 13:01, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 13:01, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Easy pass of WP:LISTN – see the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, for example. See also WP:BEFORE and WP:NOTENCYCLOPEDIC. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:12, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep needs cleanup, not removal. A list of notable works where a primary character is an actuary is a reasonable list. Listing every TV episode where a character has a throw-away line regarding an actuary is not reasonable. Deleting does not help us towards the former. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 02:14, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This WP:AfD reminds me quite a bit of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eco-terrorism in fiction, where the outcome was converting a list article that looked like this into a prose article that looked like this. Listing every time concept X appears in a work of fiction is something TV Tropes does; we should strive to write something about concept X in fiction, not just enumerate examples. This applies outside of fiction too, of course—it is the difference between writing the article Climate of London and creating the article list of rainy days in London. I don't know that the link Andrew Davidson provided is all that helpful to us (So here are five times actuaries have been portrayed on the big screen, blogs Charlotte Forsyth.), but there are other sources discussing actuaries in fiction as a group.[1][2][3] As a sidenote, I think that a few of the broken links in the reference list on the article are articles by Daniel Skwire, who has written several articles about specific instances of actuarial issues in fiction. I would be in favour of converting this list article to a prose article as was done with Eco-terrorism in fiction, although unlike in that case it we would obviously need to change the title as well here to not be called "list of [...]". TompaDompa (talk) 00:28, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Andrew Davidson and 力. In my own words: As far as I understand a list is justified on Wikipedia either as a sensible grouping of topics that are treated somewhere on Wikipedia (or have secondary sources), or because the topic, in this case fictional actuaries, itself is notable. I feel the nomination does not make clear on both points why this should not be the case here. I think that "I feel it isn't encyclopedic" does not carry any weight as long as it is not supported by more arguments. Sure, this list can be improved, e.g. by citations (though by its nature, the entries themselves already give primary sourcing), but that is not a reason for deletion.

For the first point, "fictional actuaries" is clearly delineated, and as there are many blue links in the list, it is something that does appear on Wikipedia and is therefore not trivial.

For the second, the fact that eight such lists were nominated within minutes makes it highly doubtful that the nominator did a proper WP:BEFORE search, which is part of the normal AfD process. As found by above, the topic itself seems to be notable, and the list should be kept on that grounds also.

As for changing this from a list into an article, I have no particular aversion against that, but in my opinion the list itself also has its uses. In think the comparison between Climate of London and list of rainy days in London is not quite accurate, because if properly used this list is not indicriminate. We don't have entries about single rainy days in London because they are not noteable. We do have e.g. a List of European windstorms, because many of them (and the topic itself) are notable. Daranios (talk) 10:44, 26 April 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.