Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Slipstream (science fiction) (4th 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 redirect to Space travel in science fiction#Methods of travel. Content can still be merged from history to the extent editorial consensus allows. Sandstein 07:55, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Slipstream (science fiction)[edit]

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I can't believe this survived three AfDs, and quite recently. Ok, first thing first: we need an article about Faster-than-light travel in fiction or such; it's boggles my mind FTL article didn't even have a section until I just added one right now (no entry listed in Space travel disambig contains anything related to fiction, not even a section). I'll even pre-emptively agree that hyperspace is a separate and notable concept and should stay, ditto for warp drive. But slipstream is a niche sf jargon which merits only a passing mention in the larger, to be-written article, and nothing in our current article seems worth rescuing - it's just a plot summary of 'this term was used in a few works', and as such I suggest for now redirecting this to the section I created in the main FTL article (and I'll add writing a proper 'FTL in sf' article to my to-do list). Lastly, I'll just confirm that I've reviewed works such as following (and add some notes for future writing of the promised article):

the SF Encyclopedia (main entry: space travel)
Brave new words the Oxford dictionary of science fiction (entry for space flight and space flying on p.200-201; space travel and space travelling, 209-210)
Encyclopedia Of Science Fiction (Library Movements) by Don DAmmassa (term space travel used in index, no entry)
The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (entry on space travel on p.511-512)
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction by Clute, John Nicholls, Peter (space travel is just a disambig; entry for space flight, p. 2103, spaceships and transportation)
The New encyclopedia of science fiction (no entry on space travel, has entry on spaceships)
Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (in its entry on space drives, lists about fifteen different concepts - but not slipstream)
The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy - I couldn't check this one properly, no digital copy of volume 2 I could find? According to [1], has an entry on space travel, but nothing about slipstream

I'll note that many of them do discuss Slipstream genre (and/or Slipstream (1989 film)), but none has an entry - and actually as far as I can tell, not even a passing mention of (!) - slipstream in the context of FTL travel. It's just a niche term that at merits nothing but a redirect and a passing mention. PS. I'll be stubbing Space travel in science fiction shortly, may likely be a better redirect target than the FTL subsection. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:38, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:38, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:38, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Wikipedia:Deletion is not cleanup. There is no pressing reason to delete this page. The nominator can write his article, merge in Slipstream (leaving out anything he does not like) and job done. It is unnecessary to hide the hidtory of this page, and the material on it, from future editors, especially as it has survived three previous AFDs. SpinningSpark 07:10, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Spinningspark Just a note for you and other readers that I have indeed "written my(?) article" (i.e. Space travel in science fiction), which now mentions splitstream (you can think of it that I did merge whatever I liked and left out all I thought was irrelevant). Feel free to merge anything else you think is relevant and properly referenced, and can you consider whether redirect as the end outcome of this AfD now makes sense? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:06, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That is not a merge, it is hardly even a mention. It's just one item in a bracketed aside of a list of synonyms of hyperspace. That is directly contrary to the results of all the previous AFDs. It is not even consistent with your own sources. So no, redirect is not appropriate, and the structure of the article you have written makes it next to impossible to expand on it. SpinningSpark 07:46, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I disagree with nom's rationale and agree with Spinningspark that in such a case, deletion is discouraged and merging would be better. But I believe that this article is a complete overlap with hyperspace and it is so crufty there is nothing to merge. There only needs to be one article on this concept and it is hyperspace, which covers any FTL in sci-fi that involves leaping through parallel universes. Piotrus' assertion that it is a niche term that is used far less than hyperspace is correct._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 07:57, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- You have asserted over multiple AFDs that slipstream = hyperspace or that one is a subset of the other, but have offered no sources backing up that claim despite being asked multiple times. In the 2nd AFD I offered this,

The Escapist magazine an article by C J Miozzi, "5 Faster-Than-Light Travel Methods and Their Plausibility" has at no.1 Hyperdrive and no. 4 Slipstream. While Miozzi agrees that "there is no widely-agreed upon definition" of slipstream he looks in detail at the Andromeda incarnation of slipstream and gives a description which clearly puts clear water between it and his earlier description of hyperdrive, at least for the case of Andromeda.

and no counter sources were forthcoming. It's hard to generalise with SF comcepts because authors can make these things behave how they like, but my reading is hyperspace → extra dimensional, slipstream → wormhole. SpinningSpark 08:18, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, the links I gave above have gone dead, here's the archive copies Hyperdrive and Slipstream. SpinningSpark 08:25, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The point is that since Slipstream has no WP:RS that define it besides just that single (long since deleted) article, it should not merit an article, and there is no proof it's any different than hyperspace. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 19:12, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, it hasn't been deleted (not that that affects its reliability one iota) it just now lives somewhere else. SpinningSpark 19:31, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If Slipstream really is a wormhole type travel though, then I vote to redirect to Wormholes in fiction. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 19:13, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not. Redirecting an article you don't like is backdoor deletion, but even worse, it confuses readers to land on a page that does not even mention the redirect term. SpinningSpark 19:24, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for finding a working link to [2]. It's borderline SIGCOV, but I don't think that's enough to build an article on - a brief definition and one example (Andromeda). This can be merged somewhere, and I think the new article I started is best - a sentence there (plus maybe another with examples in the footnote) will be quite enough. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:46, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, at least for now.(Updating my opinion to changed circumstances below. Daranios (talk) 11:01, 3 September 2021 (UTC)) As Wikipedia aims to be a collection of all the world's knowledge, it should also cover a sci-fi concept that has no unified definition. The article should provide, as much as possible, an overview over the communalities and differences. Some my be close to hyperspace, but some, as the cited Escapist article says, are not. Just compare both concept and visualization of Star Wars' hyperspace and Voyager's slipstream! I think there is enough material here to justify a stand-alone article. I would not be strongly opposed to a merge to e.g. Faster-than-light travel in fiction, though, but it can't be right to delete what we already have first, and then start from stratch if and when a target article has been started, just as Spinningspark has already said. For future use/the sake of completeness, Slipstring Drive: String Theory, Gravity, and "Faster Than Light" Travel has a short bit in chapter 3, comparing the slipstream drive to the serious scientific concept of a "slipstring drive" and stating why, in comparison to other sci-fi FTL methods, it does not simply disregard the laws of physics. Oh yeah, and despite my misgivings against deletion, thanks to Piotrus for the effort of checking those various encyclopedias. Daranios (talk) 15:10, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Daranios I am afraid there's just not enough sourcing. In addition to two paragraphs in the Escapist Magazine SpinningSpark found, you found a single sentence in a book. If this is the best we can do, redirecting this is an obvious choice. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:47, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Piotrus: There's also the Heavy.com article. But even if there should be a ruling in the end that these were not enough for WP:GNG, there would have to be an alternative to simply loosing the information about this SF concept by deletion or redirect, actually to the point of WP:IAR. So if you have any plans for a Faster-than-light travel in fiction article, I can only agree with Spinningspark: "The nominator can write his article, merge in Slipstream (leaving out anything he does not like) and job done." Daranios (talk) 11:08, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Daranios: Barring the usual life and stuff, I hope to start work on such an article in a day or so. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:22, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or merge to e.g. Space travel in science fiction. I think this could be a nice non-stubby stand-alone article using primary and the found secondary sources, comparing the differences and communalities of this concept, which is used with some differences in detail in various works of science-fiction. However, granted, the volume of treatment in secondary sources is not very great, so I am not averse to treating the topic as a section in a larger summary article. Daranios (talk) 11:01, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Update. The Space travel in science fiction is developing nicely. I've used [3] to reference the term slipstream, also jump drive (that redirects to USB flash drive, btw) and hyperdrive (effectively a redirect to Hyperspace through a mention in a disambig). Leaving the concept of warp drive for the moment (our article is not very promising, but I haven't done research on this), I am not seeing much to justify existence of articles on such niche concepts (as they don't seem to be considered significant enough to warrant their own article in the review works or through GNG in general - we still don't have much on 'slipstream'). Please note that (pending lit review) I'll be very likely proposing (or already did) mergers for Spindizzy and torchship (interestingly, Dean drive seems notable enough to be left alone...). Right now my lit review suggests that the best most of those concepts deserve is a redirect to Space travel in science fiction, where they could be mentioned in a footnote in the form of 'slipstream, the term meaning blah blah invented in work A and popularized by work B' or such. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:55, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Piotrus: Thanks for the work! I think the slipdrive deserves more than a mention in listing and more than a footnote, though. Rather, I think a section for each drive attested in secondary sources would be warranted in the long run. That, however, is more a question of working on the target article than the AfD here. Daranios (talk) 11:01, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think I am done with this article - and still, no slipstream in reliable sources (I am not denying it exists, but it has less recognition that torchships, which, btw, I boldly redirected; see also Talk:Cities_in_Flight#Merge_from_Spindizzy). Btw, found an interesting tool: [4]. Next, if my interest holds, I'll try to improve the article on hyperspace, I think this concept has enough discussion in the sources I saw that it should hold its own. I am still concerned about the warp drive... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:03, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Merge and redirect - not that there is ample to do here. Add whatever is possible from [5] to the target article and then redirect. - GizzyCatBella🍁 14:21, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect - From the above, it doesn't seem the topic has enough to be independent of Space travel in science fiction. TTN (talk) 20:25, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to space travel in science fiction.4meter4 (talk) 21:31, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Various interpretations of "slipstream" have made their way into the mainstream: it's appropriate that we have some sort of content so that people can get at least some idea of what the various authors/writers mean. RomanSpa (talk) 21:49, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@RomanSpa They did? If you'd have some WP:RS for this I'd be happy to rescue it or add more to the "space travel"... article. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:51, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to space travel in science fiction - There are no compelling arguments to actually keep the content in the article - it is currently just pure plot summaries with almost no information being pulled from reliable sources (two of the four sources listed currently in the article are simply links to other Wikipedia articles). None of the sources found during the course of this AFD have amounted to anything but some very brief coverage, and nothing that could be considered to be WP:SIGCOV. The term makes sense as a redirect to the main article on space travel in science fiction, but there is no actual sourced content here that needs to be merged. Rorshacma (talk) 22:09, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, thanks for stopping by. I'll see what I can do with that source which I forgot about, good catch. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:52, 9 September 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.