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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. I see a consensus to Delete this article. Liz Read! Talk! 06:44, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

List of stars and planets in fiction

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List of stars and planets in fiction (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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We actually already had this discussion once before, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stars and planetary systems in fiction. This is a recreation of the list version of the article that was rejected at AfD in favour of covering the topic(s) in prose form. As such, it meets the spirit of WP:G4 even if not the letter (as the article itself technically wasn't deleted, just the entirety of the contents). The issues that led to the decision to scrap this version still apply, of course.

Keeping the article in its current state is a complete non-starter. It contains blatant WP:OR, improper use of primary sources, misrepresentations of sources, and outright WP:PLAGIARISM. As I said last time: It's not like we cannot have high-quality articles on topics like this—Mars in fiction, Venus in fiction, and Sun in fiction are all WP:Featured articles—but the bulk of the nearly 400 kB here consists of a TV Tropes-style list with absolutely atrocious sourcing. The article has become a dumping ground for garbage "In popular culture" content to keep it out of the articles on the stars themselves. Another way of putting it is that the article consists of an indiscriminate collection of WP:RAWDATA (the 2008 essay WP:CARGO explains rather well how and why this is a problem for articles like this), and doesn't even source it properly. Something needs to be done, because the current state of affairs is not acceptable (the article has already correctly been tagged with several maintenance tags, and there are many more that could be added—{{In popular culture}}, {{Primary sources}}, and {{More citations needed}} come to mind).

So what are our options here? Well, ordinarily I would suggest fixing the article, but of course we already did that once and don't need to do it all over again. What's more, when we look at the relevant sources—as I did six months ago—we find that this isn't even a topic, but rather several distinct but related ones. Hence, the former stars and planetary systems in fiction article was split extrasolar planets in fiction and stars in fiction. This is to say that we cannot fix this article without fundamentally turning it into something different.

Someone might propose WP:DRAFTIFYing this to bring it up to acceptable standards outside of mainspace; I would note that such an attempt was made a few years ago before being abandoned (see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete&page=Draft:List_of_planetary_systems_in_fiction). In other words, it has been tried before and didn't work. Moreover, moving this to draftspace would do nothing to resolve the fundamental flaws with the article that are inherent in its design, such as combining what is per the sources different topics. An entirely different approach would be needed to turn this into any kind of proper article, and it would in the end not be a different version of this one but an entirely different article altogether.

We could perhaps redirect this somewhere, but it does not really seem like a plausible search term, and there is no reason to do so in order to WP:PRESERVE any content—even if there were anything worth preserving, it can already be found in the edit history for extrasolar planets in fiction.

In summary, keeping this in its current state is not a viable option (as it wasn't six months ago), it could not be improved to an acceptable state without fundamentally turning it into something entirely different, the process of improving it by turning it into something entirely different has already been undertaken and does not need to be repeated, and we would not even lose anything by deleting the article as its contents remain in the article history from which it was copied.

Pinging the participants of the previous AfD: @Piotrus, Randy Kryn, QuicoleJR, Rorshacma, Clarityfiend, Shooterwalker, Zxcvbnm, Cakelot1, and Herostratus:. TompaDompa (talk) 06:56, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It was right to slice this material out of Extrasolar planets in fiction, so that could be an article on the subject. It should have been done by splitting the article, as the list has value on its own.
We can be pious about Wikipedia being for serious topics like this one, but this is a list of interest. We have, for good reason, articles on Mars in fiction, Venus in fiction etc: this is the same theme. It avoids endless articles like 'Alpha Centauri in fiction'.
There is relevance in noting that some star systems appear more often than others in science fiction: Alpha Ceti is famously used in Star Trek and may have inspired other writers to use it. Others flagged up by astronomers have as a result started appearing in fiction. If certain star systems pop up more frequently, that is of interest.
Trimming: when I recovered the list I consciously cut out the redlinks and the long footnotes with plot points and 'OR' observations. More of that can come out. References in fan fiction and online games are of little value in my opinion (but I may be a snob). Best guesses about where entirely fictional planets may be are best kept in an article on fictional planets. Where science fiction literature though chooses to use genuine stars as locations, it is worthy of note.
Hogweard (talk) 10:16, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is worthy of note IFF it is mentioned in independent sources. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:42, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Having written the entirety of the roughly 8,000-word-long Mars in fiction WP:Featured article, I agree that we have such an article for good reason, and I believe I am in a unique position to comment upon it: the good reason that we do have such an article, which you'll note is a prose article and not an indiscriminate list of WP:RAWDATA examples absent meaningful context, is that there are high-quality sources on that topic, such as Robert Crossley [Wikidata]'s book Imagining Mars: A Literary History (2011). I have done the legwork of looking for sources on the topic of extrasolar planets in fiction as well as stars in fiction, and it turns out that sources (at least the ones I've discovered—feel free to point out any important ones I may have missed) don't really cover the topic of real stars appearing as locations in fiction in the way that would be required for an article like this one to be valid.
It's interesting that Alpha Centauri in fiction was chosen as an example, because that's one of only two stars for which I've been able to find sources discussing its specific depiction in fiction. The other one is Tau Ceti in fiction, and both of those are covered (briefly) at Stars in fiction#Real stars. Other than that, sources don't appear to be that interested in whether authors name a real star or not (and if they do, which one) in their stories—indeed, a 2024 article in the Journal of Science Communication about planets in science fiction found an absence of influence of whether or not the planet setting is in a real star system on other worldbuilding characteristics. Based on that, I would have to say that (barring the previously-mentioned exceptions) the assertion that Where science fiction literature though chooses to use genuine stars as locations, it is worthy of note. is, well, wrong.
I agree that the list needs trimming. Of course, trimming needs to be done based on the sources, not our own opinions on what is important and not (in other words it doesn't really matter whether References in fan fiction and online games are of little value in my opinion, what matter is whether the relevant sources find them to be of value or not). I did actually do that back in late 2021 (it's a long story), and the result was that almost every single entry ended up being removed. When we follow the sources, as we always must, what we end up with bears little to no resemlance to the present mess—it turns into Stars in fiction and Extrasolar planets in fiction. There is no benefit to keeping this article around with the intention of improving (or perhaps more accurately, fixing) it when we already have the post-improvement version at a different title. TompaDompa (talk) 12:49, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The article in its current state desperately needs a TNT. Also, we already discussed this and decided against including this list. My opinions on this list's merits have not changed since that previous discussion. QuicoleJR (talk) 12:35, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - The original AFD resulted in a Keep only because it was completely rewritten and many initial Delete advocates, including my own, struck their initial recommendation because of WP:HEY. Recreating the original list not only seems like an attempt to circumvent that consensus, but means that all of the original arguments for deletion (and there are many of them) apply to it. Rorshacma (talk) 14:56, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - per nom and Rorshacma, the result of the original discussion was "keep," so there's no reason to duplicate the information in list form. DesiMoore (talk) 15:31, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The past AFD already covered this. Nothing fundamental has changed to justify this article. Jontesta (talk) 16:29, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Good arguments made above aside, this should just be a category, not an article. On a side note, I find it a bit odd how how a list of "planets of fiction" doesn't feature Tatooine, Giedi Prime, or Romulus. Cortador (talk) 17:42, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Userfy in the space of editor who wants it to be kept and/or consider transwiki to WP:TVTROPES. This is fun and useful - but sadly, not very encyclopedic. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, just a list that was previously "deleted" (actually redirected) by a lot of reasons. 21 Andromedae (talk) 15:42, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I think. Altho I'm a little confused... if it's just a content issue, can you not just roll it back to its stable version (which was written during/after the last AfD)? If the person edit wars, report him to the admin corps. The last AfD ended in "Keep, its OK now after WP:HEY", but the article was then deleted at some point? Cos this article was created just a few days ago. Then I am seeing an article Extrasolar planets in fiction. I'm not sure if these articles are overlapping some? It looks to me like they might be complementary? We're not running out of paper, why not have both, each fulfilling a different function?
Could somebody fill me in, otherwise its hard for me to decide well.
On the merits, well, there are all kinds of articles here. Most of them are merely descriptive (biographies, filmographies, etc) without any analysis, and will never be Good Articles, but that is fine, they are still worthwhile. And we have tons of list articles. I've written some, and of course the list is OR as I compiled it myself (if I hadn't, that would be plagiarism and copyvio). I'm just not seeing the claimed plagiarism, OR, improper use of primary sources (yes it is based on the primary source, but so are most of our "Plot" sections etc). Or any other claimed violations. Yeah it is very long. That just kind of proves that the subject is notable. If it was only three entries that would be cause to delete it maybe. I didn't find it all that hard to navigate, the menu is alphabetic... Somebody put a lot of work into it. I don't see the advantage of throwing it away.
Also, WP:ENCYCLOPEDIA says we include the functions special-interest encyclopedias. I can certainly see this is a section in Encyclopedia of Science Fiction or whatever. So it is perfectly encyclopedic in my view. Herostratus (talk) 06:08, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To fill you in: The last AfD resulted in a consensus that Stars and planetary systems in fiction should be kept because it was rewritten. That rewrite involved scrapping the entirety of the list contents (i.e. the contents of the article under discussion here) and replacing them with properly-sourced prose. Follow-up discussion on the talk page resulted in the article being split in two: Extrasolar planets in fiction and Stars in fiction. So roll[ing] it back to its stable version (which was written during/after the last AfD) would mean duplicating those articles.
On the merits: For WP:PLAGIARISM, you can compare entries cited to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction to the cited entries there; there are several instances of blatant plagiarism. For WP:OR, we have among other things WP:ANALYSIS of the WP:PRIMARY sources, i.e. the works themselves, and analysis of trends in e.g. the "Proxima Centauri (Alpha Centauri C)" and "Ross catalog of stars" sections. For misuses of primary sources, see the previous comment about improperly analysing them, and additionally recall that we are supposed to not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them.
As for special-interest encyclopedias: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction specifically does not have anything resembling this (there is not even an entry about planets outside of the Solar System; different aspects thereof are covered separately in various entries instead). Nor do any other science-fiction encyclopedias to my knowledge—The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1977) does not, The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2001) does not, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy (2005) does not, Don D'Ammassa's Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2005) does not, Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia (2006) does not, Science Fiction Literature through History: An Encyclopedia (2021) does not, and so on. I am certainly in favour of covering science-fiction topics as science-fiction encyclopedias do (and I think my track record amply demonstrates this point), but what we have here just isn't that. As I said in the last AfD: compiling raw data about works of fiction is not Wikipedia's purpose, nor is analysing the same (it is, however, TV Tropes' and Wikia/Fandom's purpose). Compiling analysis about works of fiction made by others is, however. The latter approach has resulted in several WP:Featured articles: Mars in fiction, Venus in fiction, and Sun in fiction. TompaDompa (talk) 06:55, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all this belongs on TV Tropes not here. Stanley Joseph Wilkins (talk) 20:51, 29 October 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.
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