Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Star Trek expanded universe

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. Clear consensus to delete but unsure if this is a hoax. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:18, 20 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Star Trek expanded universe[edit]

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I stumbled on this article during a voice call at WP:Discord. I'm pretty sure it's a hoax article.
Per Geni, the Person who created this article later got blocked for fabricating sources (See AN/I thread). There is no evidence of this term being used before October 2004. On the talk page, Brian Kendig mentioned it isn't a term used in the fandom (which a YouTuber friend of mine confirmed for me fwiw). OberRanks claimed D.C. Fontana used the term in the 1960s to describe Leonard McCoy's backstory, but that is a claim I find doubtful given the user's history of fabricating sources.
If the article is referring to licensed non-canon Star Trek media, then we have Star Trek spin-off fiction. If it's for a list of notable fan works, then we have Star Trek fan productions.
Credit to Sideswipe9th for helping figure out it was a hoax. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:05, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:05, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It was created at 16:41, 27 October 2004. If this is deleted as a hoax, it would surpass The Heat Is On as the longest-lived hoax in history. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 03:14, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete As far as I can tell, this is a hoax article. The mention of D.C Fantana using it in the 1960s seems factitious and is unverifiable. Any contemporary usage of the term seems intrinsically linked to the former Star Wars Expanded Universe (now known as Legends), usually in the form of parallels between how the two franchises handled third party licensed (and unlicensed) published materials. The article itself has been tagged with {{no footnotes}} since September 2015 and no sources have thus far been forthcoming. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:18, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Or, to quote my good friend Senator Vreenak "It's a FAAAAAAAAKKKKKKEEEEEEEEE!" Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:21, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Sideswipe9th Fun question: is this a WP:HOAX? Does it deserve a spot at WP:List of hoaxes? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:23, 15 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Per nom. Retinalsummer (talk) 05:17, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The article discusses nothing more than the difference between canon and non-canon. The owners of the Star Wars license (Disney) declared much non-canon Star Wars material to be incompatible with the direction they wanted to develop further stories, and that resulted in the Star Wars expanded universe which is rich in detail but conflicts with recent Star Wars movies and television series. Star Trek has not (yet) had a schism like this (even alternate Star Trek universes have been explored in canon). - Brian Kendig (talk) 14:08, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, appears to be a hoax, or egregious original research plus wishful thinking, which amounts to the same thing. I see no evidence whatsoever that this is a viable topic; even if the demonstrably false pieces are removed, there's several extant articles that would cover all its material. Vanamonde (Talk) 06:54, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
(Delete and) recreate as a disambiguation page: This article may have false facts, but I think the topic is valid: the term is used in a number of academic and non-academic sources. The term seems to be used in at least two meanings, though. The first is just what the introduction to our article here says. Just compare To Boldly Go and use "expanded universe" as search term. The second is fan stories for Star Trek, as exemplified by STAR TREK Expanded Universe Wiki (compare this and other sources). So basically Star Trek spin-off fiction and Star Trek fan productions, just as the nomination says. That's why I think this should be a disambiguation page to point the interested reader in the right direction about this actually existing term. Daranios (talk) 11:02, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Non of the academic and non-academic mentions pre-date the creation of the article, which seems to me to be a clear case of citogenesis. It is only an "actually existing term" because an unscrupulous and now blocked editor made it up. Retinalsummer (talk) 11:23, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Retinalsummer: "Non of the academic and non-academic mentions pre-date the creation of the article" seems to be true enough, however that does not make it "a clear case of citogenesis". E.g. this academic source goes back to the definition of extended universe rather than our Wikipedia article here, as well as drawing the parallel to the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and both those terms have been used before 2004. Most academic sources refer for the name to said STAR TREK Expanded Universe Wiki. This wiki seems to be younger than 2004, so it is possible that they have taken their name from the Wikipedia article. But that does not seem very likely to me in comparison the concept of expanded universe simply being applied to their fandom. Even if we were to assume that the name originated from our article here, it is out there and is used now. Why should this (hypothetical) unwanted Wikipedia-neologism-origin hinder us from documenting it now? Lastly, as it is not a false fact that is promulgated, but rather a new name for a concept, it seems to me that WP:Neologism would apply rather than WP:CITOGENESIS. (Aside from the one sentence, "The term was first used...", which seems likely a hoax, but is not take up by other sources, so no citogenesis there.) Curiously, I did not so far see any guidance for a case of a term created by Wikipedia in violation of WP:OR which became a real thing afterwards. Daranios (talk) 15:06, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Why should this (hypothetical) unwanted Wikipedia-neologism-origin hinder us from documenting it now?" I personally think this sort of thing makes Wikipedia look unreliable. I can't imagine continuing to use the term "Jewel Voice Broadcast" after it was shown to have originated on Wikipedia as a sloppy translation, for example. Some lazy academics also copied that term from Wikipedia, but it doesn't mean Wikipedia or more rigorous academics should use it. Retinalsummer (talk) 23:07, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Retinalsummer: Allright, then we should have some evidence or solid indication that indeed "Some lazy academics" "copied that term from Wikipedia" in this case, before acting on it. Said source has a valid explanation for getting to that term independent of Wikipedia, and as long as there is no indication that the authors are not among the "more rigorous academics", we should not place a hunch from our side above a secondary source. For the second use of the term, the work of the academic sources seems to be mainly in analyzing STAR TREK Expanded Universe Wiki. We should not ignore such analysis just because the name of that wiki may or may not have been taken from an erroneous Wikipedia article. Daranios (talk) 10:31, 15 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:V, WP:TNT. IF sources exist to rescue this, I doubt they'd support much of the existing content anyway, so the best I can say is that I am not opposed to seeing this recreated, with sources, later. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:22, 15 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - giving the creator the benefit of the doubt, I think this might be Original Research rather than a hoax, but it still does not belong on Wikipedia. PhantomSteve/talk¦contribs\ 15:08, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete While the article was an interesting read, it's totally original research and doesn't belong here.--SouthernNights (talk) 17:27, 17 September 2022 (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.