Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of miscellaneous fictional animals

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 no consensus‎. Beyond the obvious split in opinion below, this article was significantly changed during the period that this discussion was open. This has led to certain early opinions being changed (eg Daranois), and the later sentiment being towards 'keep'. As with all 'no consensus' closes, this allows for a quicker renomination at AfD should any interested editor wish to discuss deleting this again; alternatively, if 'merge' is still appetized even after these changes, this can be proposed on the talk page. Daniel (talk) 00:54, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

List of miscellaneous fictional animals

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This list is going too far into WP:INDISCRIMINATE and doesn't pass WP:NLIST. (1) Most listed animals don't have stand-alone articles, making their inclusion of "notable" fictional animals quite doubtful. (2) It's "miscellaneous" fictional species, i.e. most listed animals don't have anything in common besides being of an uncommon species, i.e. List of Xs not in list of A, B or C. – sgeureka ^t•c 12:57, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements and Lists. – sgeureka ^t•c 12:57, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Merge This seems very much a technical WP:SPLIT purely based on Wikipedia-internal considerations: We have many Lists of fictional animals, and those whose type does not appear on any of them land here as "miscellaneous". The topic "fictional animals" is clearly notably. So if we want to keep the individual entries of "miscellaneous" animals out of Lists of fictional animals for reasons of readability, this would be a WP:SIZESPLIT and therefore the notability requirement would be fullfilled by the parent topic. Personally, I prefer to merge (the relevant content) completely to Lists of fictional animals.
As for the WP:INDISCRIMINATE criticism, first of all it makes little sense to me that this list here duplicates list-links from Lists of fictional animals. So if kept separately, these should be trimmed. And otherwise defining an inclusion critereon solves this issue, the most simple being to only include notable fictional animals (not listed elsewhere). This may mean a major trim, but there would still be a lot of entries left for this list to make sense as a list of the purpose of navigation. Daranios (talk) 15:13, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have trimmed the article of entries without stand-alone articles per your suggestion (though I have not removed the links to the other lists). TompaDompa (talk) 00:26, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Scratch that, I have now removed the list-links as well. TompaDompa (talk) 00:29, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, TompaDompa: The list is now down to the content I wanted to preserve in one way or another, an inclusion critereon is not only spelled out but also implemented, so that this is in no way WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Size-wise the list is now in my view both long enough to be viable as a stand-alone article and small enough to be fitted into Lists of fictional animals, so this comes down to an editorial decision. Daranios (talk) 14:27, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete/Redirect if unsourced information doesn't fit in an existing article the answer is to clean it up, not dump it into an article that fails Wikipedia policies. This is an WP:INDISCRIMINATE segmentation of a badly referenced list. Jontesta (talk) 16:48, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The article is not well sourced, so it should not be merged. This topic does not meet LISTN and the entries have barely anything in common. QuicoleJR (talk) 17:03, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jontesta and QuicoleJR: By that argument, all lists about fictional animals I've seen should be deleted, because sourcing is very much the same as here. Simply trimming things down to blue-linked entries solves the problem of sourcing, as the information is then present at another Wikipedia article. A list for the purpose of navigation does not strictly need references for that reason. And then, things are longer WP:INDISCRIMINATE as well. Daranios (talk) 17:27, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I still don't think "miscellaneous fictional animals" meets LISTN, and the souring was only an argument against a merge, not an argument for deleting. QuicoleJR (talk) 17:29, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@QuicoleJR: I was also concerned about merging, not keeping: Lists of fictional animals also does not have any sourcing, naturally, and does not need it because its purpose is navigation. Ideally it allows anyone to successively browse to any fictional animal featured on Wikipedia. Except if this list here is deleted, it doesn't anymore. Any fictional animal which does not happen to belong to a larger group, where it was decided to have a separate list, would then be excluded from this type of navigation. I believe that would be less-than-ideal, an (albeit small) disservice to the usability of Wikipedia. So what would be the reason not to find a way to make the blue-linked entries here available in this navigation scheme? Daranios (talk) 18:03, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Animal-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 18:53, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Per WP:INDISCRIMINATE. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 04:39, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- None of the examples in WP:INDISCRIMINATE is even remotely applicable here. Deletion votes need to have proper reasoning. — Timwi (talk) 06:30, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep — Rampant deletionism at its finest. As already noted, there are lists of fictional animals such as dogs, cats, etc. To just remove all of the animals that happen to be of a species that is rarer in fiction just because you don’t like the term miscellaneous for being “indiscriminate” is just silly. Stop the deletionism, keep Wikipedia complete and useful!! — Timwi (talk) 06:28, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep or merge. This was a WP:SPLIT. We should really not dictate that stuff be split out of an article due to size constraints and then twenty years later mosey up and say "uh, why is there this lil lonely article sitting here, better delete it". jp×g 🗯️ 06:41, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Article massively reduced since nomination, only list fictional animals with their own Wikipedia articles that aren't listed in the other lists at Category:Lists of fictional animals by type. Dream Focus 17:00, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Per WP:INDISCRIMINATE and fails WP:NLIST TarnishedPath^talk 01:22, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 10:49, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just merge it to lists of fictional animals, in its current state. Hyperbolick (talk) 10:59, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect or merge to lists of fictional animals per TompaDompa's changes. A few sources aren't a pass for multiple WP:INDISCRIMINATE lists, but one main list would probably meet WP:NLIST. Shooterwalker (talk) 13:33, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per JPxG. After the reductions during the AFD this is fine. It might be possible to merge to Lists of fictional animals, but the naive approach would not improve that article; there is no need to mandate such a merge. Walsh90210 (talk) 19:54, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: I find it strange to see people quoting WP:INDISCRIMINATE after it was successfully rebutted by Timwi, JPxG and Dream Focus. This list is not indiscriminate. It includes only notable fictional animals, which have their own WP article, but aren't included in any of the species-specific lists. "List of fictional animals that do not belong in any other existing list" would be a poor name; "miscellaneous" is a perfectly acceptable shorthand. But if it's the page name you object to, a move discussion would be the right venue for this, not deletion. Owen× ☎ 13:07, 15 August 2024 (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.