Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional scientists and engineers

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! 05:55, 1 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

List of fictional scientists and engineers[edit]

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Excessive pop culture trivia in the form of an indiscriminate list. The article doesn't explain how fictional scientists and engineers have had a cultural impact, and I feel it isn't encyclopedic. Lots of original research, and while there are citations for some entries on the list, they don't cover the concept of fictional scientists and engineers as whole. 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)} 13:00, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 13:00, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep These drive-bys get sillier and sillier: Great Scott!, Beam me up, Scotty... Anyway, here's a couple of papers to demonstrate WP:LISTN: From the wizard to the doubter: Prototypes of scientists and engineers in fiction...; The Scientist in Fiction.

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. The first article linked by Andrew Davidson clearly demonstrates that writing a prose article about this is possible. 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) 22:55, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Thinking logically, since we have pages about books or films where these characters appear, nothing prevents from creating such lists per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists. Same about other similar lists of fictional characters. My very best wishes (talk) 02:08, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Andrew Davidson and My very best wishes. 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 scientists and engineers, 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 scientists and engineers" 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 Andrew Davidson, 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) 10:40, 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.