Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Snowball (Animal Farm) (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 Speedy Keep per WP:SK. It doesn't have a snowball in hell's chance of being deleted. :) Andrew (talk) 18:05, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Snowball (Animal Farm)[edit]

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The article is pure plot, with no references. There's no valuable content to merge somewhere else. Cambalachero (talk) 14:44, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - this is an invalid nomination. We don't delete articles based on their current content, as they could always be improved (with certain exceptions, e.g. copyrighted text).Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 14:55, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

keep See Talk:Animal Farm for the recent blanking of 9 articles below Animal Farm itself.

Of the allegorical animal characters, Snowball is the one most easily identified with a historical character. This is also well covered in any student study notes edition on the novel.

With a comment like "article is pure plot", I wonder if the nominator has even read the book? Where in the book is the name Trotsky ever mentioned? Similar points apply to nearly all of the character articles: Orwell put it on with a trowel and the people implied are very obvious. However such things do need to be explained - they are not in the book, the book is an allegory and it relies on some historical familiarity. Such a purpose is encyclopedic and entirely within WP's scope.

As to sourcing, then that's a fair criticism and an easy fix but it's a lousy rationale for AfD. Viam Ferream (talk) 15:19, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:PLOT. An article about an element from a wor of fiction such as a character can not have just a plot summary and nothing else. And yes, Animal Farm is a notable novel, but that doesn't mean that its characters are automatically notable as well. Brave New World is also a very important novel, and yet we do not have articles on Bernard Marx or John the Savage. See Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions#Notability is inherited, and Wikipedia:Notability (books)#Derivative articles. Cambalachero (talk) 16:33, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:58, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:58, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy keep, speedy close. The idea that there isn't sufficient critical commentary on one of Orwell's most prominent works to sustain an article on a major character could easily have come from the Ministry of Truth. Wikipedia does an utterly wretched job overall of covering most major literature, but "since it's bad, make it worse" isn't policy yet. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 17:58, 24 September 2014 (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.