Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of floating islands in fiction

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 and redirect to Floating cities and islands in fiction. Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:56, 26 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify the consensus is to delete but from the discussion there is clearly a similar article that is was suggested this was a FORK of. Redirecting to that is clearly sensible although that was an editorial not administrative decision. Spartaz ^Humbug! 06:03, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

List of floating islands in fiction

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Extremely crufty, barely referenced list of WP:OR popculture trivia. Doesn't even really distinguish between floating (on water) islands and floating (in the air) islands. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 17:44, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. L3X1 (distænt write) 18:35, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. L3X1 (distænt write) 18:35, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Islands-related deletion discussions. L3X1 (distænt write) 18:35, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete List with few sources, lots of original research, and lacks a clear definition of what is an "island", and what makes it floating.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:18, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
What they say, If a page is nonsense, delete it. Mon t ey
Delete- "extremely crufty" is right. This is nothing but trivia, poorly sourced. Like most lists of fictional XYZ there's no place for it here. Reyk _YO! 11:25, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete No definable criteria of inclusion, largely unsourced mix of conjecture and random assortment. Also inching towards nonsense –Ammarpad (talk) 13:40, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Keep Looking at the above scholar references, it's clear that fictional floating islands are a notable concept. The above deletion arguments are critiques of the content, which can be fixed by regular editing, rather than the concept. While I agree with the critiques (floating in air != floating in water, too unreferenced, too much pop culture trivia), none of those, individually or together, justify deleting a notable topic. Cutting it back to the Odyssey reference, or just redirecting to Floating island (fiction) per WP:ATD-R would be strongly preferable to deletion. Jclemens (talk)

Who says notable topic is to be deleted, and how this random collection become "notable"? The articles themselves are in their in their respective pages. Also redirect list doesn't usually serve any purpose because lit I not " topic" is just organizational index. So by failing WP:LISTPURP and containing random collection, deletion is the not appropriate. You an create redirect about later, because redirect such list only give room for someotto revert it to list since the content is still there. –Ammarpad (talk) 22:48, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Of course the point of redirection is that so someone can see the underlying content, and either integrate it somewhere else, or restore the article if things change. Yes, people can use that to undo redirects, but with an AfD consensus, that redirect will quickly get protected if done disruptively. But we don't delete stuff just due to AGF failure; if redirection is the policy-based option, we go with it. Jclemens (talk) 05:06, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I agree with your fair response. The reason why I favor deletion is because redirect result in AfD is technically deletion but with simple option to restore article. In the recent, I have seen more than 5 articles which closed as redirect but their creators or IPs just removed the redirect and restore the text; many of such have to be taken to AfD again and finally get really deleted. (Sorry I can't find their diffs now, but hope you'll believe me). I also agree the redirect can be protected if understood to be disrupted, but what if not? And there is simpler option to create the redirect with only 1 history after this with larger history got deleted, it just make the process simple, for those who'll keep eye to disruption and those to be called to protect. Also at the same time do the work of the redirect. –Ammarpad (talk) 10:07, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As Ammarpad says, redirection is easily reverted unlike deletion. That is why I favor deletion over redirection unless it's absolutely necessary (e.g. if there is a lot of referenced data that would otherwise be lost). When a page is redirected, pretty much anyone can reverse it easily without much, or any scrutiny. Ultimately you can probably find a redirect target for half of the articles that go through AfD, but that doesn't mean they all need to be redirected._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 01:20, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 02:09, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Just reading the title of this article set me off laughing for a couple of minutes, as much as I'll go into explaining why this article should be deleted, it's perfectly summed up with this word, nonsense. Some articles are oddly obscure but aren't bad, in this case though, the article is pure unorganized cruft and I feel like it was made just for the heck of it. Definitely not meeting WP:GNG, and WP:OR. Grapefruit17 (talk) 03:00, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep If this is "nonsense", then why is this ok? Or this? Or this? Or this? —cnzx 21:09, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Please see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS for why this argument never holds weight._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 01:11, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - What do you think distinguishes this case from the ones I've linked? —cnzx 02:28, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    - List of fictional islands, List of fictional ships and List of fictional spacecraft seem to have potential, but need major cleanup to get rid of listcruft and unreliable references. Mythical continents seems like it should be merged with List of mythological places, as it's a list anyway. This list is overly specific though, and was original research from the start._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 03:53, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      - I'm not convinced of the difference between this list and the others. Sure, it needs better referencing, but I think that "floating islands" is a recurrent trope in literature worthy of a list. Maybe a merge into that article? —cnzx 06:38, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As much as I understand your point, this list is still poorly written cruft and doesn't meet three very important WP guidelines (WP:OR, WP:GNG, and WP:CITE which I didn't even mention before). Further more the argument of this list's topic being notable or not is pretty subjective, I don't think it's notable but you do. The reason why I believe this article's topic isn't notable is because there's not significante coverage of it (even relative to other literary topics) and there's no cultural significance of floating islands in fiction like there is with Dragons or swords for example as two more notable literary concepts (List of fictional swords, List of dragons in literature). Grapefruit17 (talk) 21:03, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Another important point I forgot to mention was that by merging this list in question (List of floating islands in fiction) with any other list with a similar topic wouldn't make the reasons I pointed out for why this list should be deleted any less valid, it would just keep a bad list on the site and make the list it was merged with a lot worse. Grapefruit17 (talk) 21:56, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If you find floating islands worthy of listing, they can be added to Floating cities and islands in fiction. This article is currently listcruft and when you remove all the listcruft from that article I doubt it would even be enough to merit a list._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 07:37, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be happy with a merge where all the substantial content sticks around. —cnzx 21:46, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Floating cities and islands in fiction. bd2412 T 17:09, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete -- fancruft, trivia and original research. There's no valid topic here and no sources that discuss it directly and in detail. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:41, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Poorly sourced without any defining criteria, pretty much WP:OR. Fails criteria for standalone article per WP:N. Also, we already have an article on this as a literary device (or trope) entitled "Floating cities and islands in fiction". That article already cites generalized examples followed by sections with specific examples. That makes this article is essentially a WP:Content fork. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 02:32, 24 December 2017 (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.