Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional child prodigies (2nd 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. RL0919 (talk) 02:51, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

List of fictional child prodigies[edit]

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This article was reviewed for deletion in 2007, with the outcome 'no consensus'. WP has a clear definition of child prodigy: "A child prodigy is defined in psychology research literature as a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain to the level of an adult expert." This article has been used as a dumping ground for 'smart kids', including from comics or video games, who cannot be shown to meet this definition. At present there are three names in the article, two of whom have no supporting citations. The other one is a five year old child in a Belgian comic who would meet the WP criteria perhaps if he existed. (But in fact no such character could exist). As 'child prodigy' has a WP deinition, the intersection of this definition with works of fiction seems arbitrary and certainly not worthy of a WP list. You might, perhaps, conceive a list of 'smart children in fiction' - but how then would you define 'smart children'? - and what would be the use or point of a list which included, say , Adhemar and, e.g. Hermione in Harry Potter. This article can never be anything but a bunch of spam. Delete Smerus (talk) 18:18, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 18:28, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 18:40, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as an inappropriate nomination. Note that the first discussion was at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fictional Child Prodigies. What's more concerning is that over the past six weeks Smerus has incrementally removed most of the content, including numerous references, yielding a much poorer list than existed before. Of course, a cursory review of such a list missing Ender Wiggin is a dead giveaway that it has been previously decimated. By all means, if we're going to have a discussion about such a list, let's roll it back to before Smerus' removals and discuss this version instead. Jclemens (talk) 19:31, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have no objection to discussing the list as it was - as that will strengthen my case by demonstrating how the entries which I have removed do not meet the WP detinition of child prodigy. Nothing, by the way, in the article or the single citation given in the article on Ender Wiggins, indicates that Wiggins was "a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain to the level of an adult expert", so I suggest better examples may be needed if Jclemens's case is to be supported. I am not sure why Jclemens has repeated the link to the original discussion, which I give at the beginiing of my nomination, noting that there was then 'no consensus'. --Smerus (talk) 20:25, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- If you don't understand that Ender Wiggin's output was the genocide of an alien race, I can't really help you, but I can say that removing such an entry from the list demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of child prodigies in fiction. With respect to Wiggin, we have a plethora of Google Scholar references noting him as a prodigy here. I've not evaluated any of them for significant RS coverage, because Wiggin is just one list entry, admittedly likely to be among the most well documented, and not the subject of this list. The best way forward at this point would be for you to withdraw the nomination, revert all your changes to the list, and begin to work at actually attempting to source the list items: again, I really don't care if you think you did a reasonable WP:BEFORE search in your six-week long progressive paring of the list, because your net output with respect to Wiggin demonstrates that whatever efforts you put in did not amount to a 30 second Google search. Jclemens (talk) 22:38, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- I hate to pile on, but it also occurred to me that you think Child prodigy matters to the list inclusion criteria, when in fact whether or not each list entry is referred to by WP:RS as such is normative. Wikipedia (or Wiktionary, which has a definition that doesn't correspond) is not a reliable source, and reliable sources are allowed to use their own, possibly inconsistent, definitions in their own coverage. Jclemens (talk) 04:07, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - I agree. In the article for child it says The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines child as "a human being below the age of 18 years". So any doing anything to be considered a prodigy when still legally a child, should be included. Dream Focus 09:55, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I have restored the article to what it was. You can't go through and erase 99% of article before you send it to AFD. The dictionary defines prodigy as "a highly talented child or youth" [1]. Any search engine with a news search, if you check for "child prodigy" it doesn't just list those 10 or younger. Anyway, Ender was a prodigy, that's why they choose the kid to lead the attack against space aliens that had previously attacked humanity and which they feared would come again and wipe them all out. You don't just give that sort of responsibility to a child if there wasn't something special about them. Dream Focus 23:59, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Another indiscriminate list. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:50, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Please describe in detail how this list is indiscriminate. I mean, sometimes you provide entirely appropriate, reasoned rationales in deletion discussions and actively contribute to the dialogue even if I disagree with your position, and then at other times you provide an WP:IDONTLIKEIT WP:VAGUEWAVE like this which does nothing to the discussion forward. In short, you can do better. Jclemens (talk) 04:22, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  @Jclemens On the subject of best practices, it's always best to ping someone if you want them to reply :) Anyway, you are right, I could elaborate more. My problem #1 is that there are too many fictional child prodigies to make this work. A lot of anime characters, or otherwise characters from children books or animations, are prodigies in something. Ex. [2]. 10? We could easily list a few hundred similar shows. There is a zillion of works with fictional youth that have been or could be called prodigy. I don't think it is a definable trait for most. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:21, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Piotrus: But there are strategies in Wikipedia's guidelines that tell us how to avoid a list becoming indiscriminate. And if there are secondary and primary sources telling us if a character is a child prodigy, than I don't see the problem: Basing content on sources is the most basic thing here after all. And then I cannot follow the problem of length. If there really should be very many entries (the inclusion of which is supported by policy), then the list can easily be split, in this case with type of medium being the obvious choice.

Lastly I can't help noticing that the two deletion !votes so far seem to be based on "this list might become too long" (Piotrus) and "this list might become too short" (ZXCVBNM). Daranios (talk) 10:49, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Out of curiosity what do you think about merging the referenced parts to the main article? It's not overly long, and certainly, 'child prodigies in fiction', is a section that is needed and that could list examples. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:10, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Piotrus: As for me, as usual I would prefer a merge to deletion. However I do not think it would be helpful in this case. I did not check the quality of all the references myself, but just talking about "the referenced parts": There are ca. 50 entries which have references! I don't think putting those into a new section in Child prodigy would improve that article (while a short new section on fictional child prodigies, possibly based on sources here and sources found in this discussion, would). In addtion, I think navigation is one of main purposes of this list. There are blue-linked entries here which don't have references, which is fine in a list. Those should not be lost in a merge (passing scrutiny about their place here not withstanding). Daranios (talk) 10:48, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep First, I believe the removals by Smerus were done in good faith trying to fit entries to the narrow psychological definition, but I also think that even based on this some removals were unwarranted.

@Smerus: I don't understand what you meant with "one is a five year old child in a Belgian comic who would meet the WP criteria perhaps if he existed. (But in fact no such character could exist)." Could you please explain why "no such character could exist"?

Now for the current state I think the list is perfectly valid and should be kept: Child prodigy is a notable subject; we have an undisputed List of child prodigies; we have a long list of blue-linked fictional child prodigies, many of which have their own article, so we can assume they are notable. So it makes sense to split out the List of fictional child prodigies to avoid the fictional characters having WP:Undue weight in List of child prodigies. So the existence of the list is valid notability-wise according to WP:LISTN, and serves the purpose of navigation, one recognized reason for having a list according to WP:LISTPURP.

As for the definition/inclusion criteria, I think the most important reason should be if secondary (and perhaps primary?) sources call a character a child prodigy. (And that makes many removals unwarranted.) Only if this is not the case one way or another do we need to make the editorial judgment if a specific character conforms to a definition, narrow or broad. Daranios (talk) 10:49, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Smerus: I came upon another question: You stated that "This article can never be anything but a bunch of spam." To the contrary I have found that there are actually secondary sources discussing the topic of fictional child prodigies, like The Child Prodigy Ages are Out (chapter 8 of Misfit Children: An Inquiry into Childhood Belongings or The Child in French and Francophone Literature. How did you come to that opinion, assuming you did a proper WP:BEFORE search? Daranios (talk) 15:15, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.cbr.com/top-child-teenaged-prodigies-anime Dream Focus 15:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete If this article were reduced to bluelinks, as should be done, there would be very few entries. Just another subject that is better off as a category than a list that is prone to gather fancruft._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 11:13, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Fictional child prodigies shows there would be ample blue links if that's all that was listed. List are always more useful than categories. Being afraid of "fancruft", that is things you don't like, appearing in an article is not a valid reason to delete it. Dream Focus 14:46, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Zxcvbnm: Yeah, I too was also wondering how you came to the conclusion "very few entries". I took the trouble of counting and reach ca. 30 blue links (not counting something like Matilda, where the article of the work contains significant treatment of the character), of which there are 23 stand-alone articles. Also, the amount supported be citations of secondary sources clearly speaks against the percieved problem of "fancraft" in this case. Daranios (talk) 15:15, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that a lot of the members of Category:Fictional child prodigies fail Wikipedia:NONDEF as they are not well known for being child prodigies; it's just part of their backstory, sometimes one that almost nobody realizes. If the list were reduced to characters with articles who were predominantly known for their status as a child prodigy, there would only be a few; Jimmy Neutron and Matilda being the only clearly notable ones._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 19:03, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Do go through my above-linked cursory Google Scholar search for Ender Wiggin please. I think you'll find that the more you research, the less well your characterization of the topic holds up. Jclemens (talk) 04:14, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ender Wiggin is totally unsourced right now. Once you have to argue that if certain articles were notable, the list itself would be notable, you're putting the cart before the horse. Perhaps it could be reconsidered once we have sufficient, stable articles on child prodigies. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 05:27, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Zxcvbnm: Huh? Ender Wiggin is not "totally unsourced"! It is referenced with this article from The A.V. Club, which not only states that Ender is a child prodigy, but even how this is relevant in an out-of-universe context! So as it seems you are mistaken on this point, you will understand I still doubt your "very few entries" statement. Also, many entries are sourced. So I am happy to discuss this further, but I'd say it is now on you to show which of the 30 entries are in doubt so as to arrive at "very few" in the end. And if this would be the case, which I doubt, then the question would be why deletion should be preferable to a merge to List of child prodigies according to WP:AtD. Daranios (talk) 07:16, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That article hardly counts as WP:SIGCOV... first of all, it's not specifically about Ender Wiggin, and really only mentions him for one sentence. It's the kind of thing that would likely be removed from an actually notable article for irrelevance.

As for whether a merge is appropriate... I don't know if it's typical to include fictional subjects in non-fictional lists. If it's allowed, I'd endorse it and probably change my !vote to merge. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 07:27, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Zxcvbnm: The guideline you have cited a little further down tells us that significant coverage is not required for content within an article or list. Also, as Jclemens has already stated, this one article is not the end-all of secondary sources on Ender Wiggin. Did you do a proper search to check if there are no other secondary sources before arriving at your opinion? But looking at the A.V. Club article itself, yes, there is only one sentence that includes the character "name". But more sentences give us context for the character: "Why the sudden excitement? With the end of its Twilight Saga in sight, Summit is reportedly looking for its next youth-oriented franchise, ... one where the kids are even younger and creepier in their precociousness." "But given our current fascination with killer kids, there’s probably never been a better time to try to finally make this movie." So the article does exactly what you require: It tells us why being a child prodigy (in the art of killing in this case) is important for the character: It is what makes it fascinating for the audience.

As for merge options, yes, I think combining fictional content in lists of real content is appropriate when separate lists are not warranted due to length. I recently came upon this in the case List of people with surname Taylor#Fictional characters. Daranios (talk) 10:49, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Unnecessary, indiscriminate list that could easily be covered in the main article as summary style prose as it should be. TTN (talk) 17:47, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Merge with Child prodigy - there are certainly enough sources that speak of fictional child prodigies as a group to meet WP:NLIST both provided in the article and more. My main issue is that the term 'child prodigy' is not concrete enough which is probably why the article has become a dumping ground lacking citation for many of those included in the list. The sources must actually assert that the character is a child prodigy. This is probably WP:FIXABLE but I am not sure it is worth or encycopeadic to trawl through sources to find one that calls the character a prodigy just to justify inclusion. I think a Fictional Child Prodigies section would be better on the Child prodigy page with a paired down list. Happy to see Delete too due to my general dislike of these kind of useless lists. Vladimir.copic (talk) 03:33, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Vladimir.copic: I think "the article has become a dumping ground lacking citation for many" is overstating the problem: Sure, there are entries without references (some of which are blue links still helpful for navigation), but the significant majority has references. Daranios (talk) 07:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Funny Comment how has Ender Wiggin been linked to 10 times in this discussion but I am the first to link WP:NLIST?! 05:31, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

I see your point that the discussion has bogged down around one specific item, exemplifying some points of criticism vs. support. But WP:LISTN has been linked before. Daranios (talk) 07:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

comment One thing that simply hasn't been discussed here is whether fictional child prodigies is itself a notable topic, rather than simply an encyclopedic cross-characterization. I submit that the former is true:
A Child prodigies in fiction article would be fine, it's the indiscriminate list nature of this that is the problem. Actual articles are hard to write; sticking a bunch of trivia in a list is easy. I should mention that child prodigy is such a small article that a section about fiction would have to get very large before it merited a separate article._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 08:16, 22 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with ZXCVBNM. I mentioned above that the article meets WP:NLIST but meeting the criteria does not make this a useful or encyclopaedic article. A stand-alone article, or a section in child prodigy as I prefer, would be fine. The list format, as usual, is just no good. Vladimir.copic (talk) 01:16, 24 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What about the use of navigation of content related to the topic of the child prodigy in fiction that exists distributed in Wikipedia? One of the established reasons that lists exist in Wikipedia at all. Which does not mean that a Child prodigies in fiction article or section within Child prodigy should not exist in addition. Daranios (talk) 19:50, 24 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above, I don't see enough notable, defining content to merit one. (As opposed to characters who happen to have been child prodigies, but to whom this is just an irrelevant piece of filler backstory information). _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 20:09, 24 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: More discussion on how this list does or does not meet our inclusion requirements (e.g. NLIST) is likely to be more helpful than a focus on Ender Wiggin as an example of why this list does or doesn't make sense.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:50, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Seems useful to anybody wanting to see how child prodigies are represented fictionally. Hyperbolick (talk) 03:04, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Was on the fence at first, but Daranios and Jclemens make very persuasive arguments. I'm convinced that the topic as a whole is notable enough to justify a list, and that the list will not necessarily be fancruft-y. Mlb96 (talk) 04:58, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
KeepAs per above. DJRSD (talk) 17:10, 31 August 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.