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. Consensus is that the topic is likely notable enough for an article, but that the current content - a timeline of events in various fictional futures - is a case for WP:TNT. Sandstein 19:55, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I prodded this with "The coverage (references, external links, etc.) does not seem sufficient to justify this article passing Wikipedia:General notability guideline and the more detailed Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) requirement. WP:BEFORE did not reveal any significant coverage on Gnews, Gbooks or Gscholar." PROD was endorsed by User:Shooterwalker then removed by User:Andrew Davidson with no rationale (despite the fact that I explicitly asked for it). Andrew also removed copyediting banner (more citations needed, notability, primary sources) as "vague, stale, erroneous", hence pinging editor who added them in the past: User:ColinFine. This article is a total mess, most content is unreferenced and it is a mash of several fictional timelines (DC+Marvel+WH40k+EVE online and so on). Extreme WP:FANCRUFT. Now, to be clear, the very topic of far future in fiction is possibly notable ([1]), and I can imagine an article discussing this, but in a totally different form - nothing here is IMHO salvageable, and hence WP:TNT is another (since any proper article on this should not be a fancruft timeline listicle). Lastly, there is also a possibility of having a list of far future works, a related topic, and maybe even stand alone timelines of some famous fictional universes (like Doctor Who), but seriously, putting them all in one article is... not a good idea, for a Wikipedia article at least. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:55, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - This is just currently an arbitrary list of dates in fiction that has no defining criteria for inclusion. There are thousands upon thousands of series that take place in the future, so this is completely unmanageable. The topic likely merits discussion somewhere, but probably as part of a larger topic. Something like Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction linked in the article would be suitable, but that particular article obviously doesn't fit the entire overarching topic. Regardless of where it should be discussed, there's currently nothing to establish actual notability for this topic, so it should only be created at such a time where someone provides proper references. TTN (talk) 03:21, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete- Badly sourced fancruft. As pointed out by TTN, this is unmanageable given the necessity of deciding which of the hundreds and hundreds of works of speculative fiction to include and which ones not to. If there's a topic to be written on the topic of the far future in fiction, this is not it- and leaving it as it is would only obstruct efforts to write an actual article. Also, disruptively removing legitimate maintenance tags just so you can leave a deceptive edit summary strikes me as very childish. It's a trick this disruptive editor keeps using. ReykYO! 08:15, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The nomination is erroneous from beginning to end. The topic clearly passes the general notability guideline because it is explicitly covered in encyclopedias of science fiction. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy has an article on the Far Future which naturally discusses influential works like Stapledon's Last and First Men, just as our article does. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction naturally has a similar article on the Far Future in which it details the way that the topic has been covered in the different eras of the genre. So, the topic is notable. Our policy WP:ATD then explains that "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page." The contrary idea of blowing things up is not policy – it is a reactionary essay in opposition to our fundamental principle of wiki editing – that "Perfection is not required ... poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome.". As for the PROD process, note that it "must only be used if no opposition to the deletion is expected". One should always expect opposition to such poorly-conceived nominations. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:25, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The topic is notable, but 0% of the current fancruft plot summary is usable. There is nothing to rescue, nothing to rewrite. This needs to be deleted, with no prejudice to anyone recreating this article from scratch. In fact, I may even do so myself one day. Our article does not discuss Stapledon's work, it summarizes the plot. That's not the same. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:41, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The prod claimed that the topic was not notable but now the nominator says that it is notable. They should get their story straight before demanding that a topic is deleted without discussion. The prod process is only "meant for uncomplicated deletion proposals". Andrew🐉(talk) 10:57, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Almost unreferenced fancruft. If somebody has written books and theses on the subject (not on the individual works and series, but on the subject of "far future" in fiction, then we could have an article which summarised these books and theses. But this list of dates arbitrarily gleaned from an assortment of work is not encyclopaedic even if they were all sourced. --ColinFine (talk) 09:45, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Andrew asked me to comment here. There's no question that an article on the far future in fiction could be written; Andrew cites the SFE3 article, which is a high-quality source, and the same source even discusses subgenres such as Dying Earth stories. However, I agree with those that say this article bears no resemblance to what the article should be -- some of the timelines might perhaps be sourceable, but if that information were to be shown to be notable it would belong in the articles about those invented worlds, not in an article about the theme of the far future. I am not !voting keep since I don't think anything in the article should be kept as is; it should be replaced with a sentence or two outlining the SFE3 article, for someone to expand when they have time. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:03, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep notable topic - the nominator admits the subject is notable. WP:AFDNOTCLEANUP. The nomination cites two essays WP:FANCRUFT and WP:TNT as reasons to delete: yet when our guidelines WP:NEXIST and WP:N are at odds with the essays - the guidelines should win here. We also have a policy that overrides guidelines and essays. WP:ATD. So this is a keep. Lightburst (talk) 13:25, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I've deleted the content of the article and replaced it with a couple of sourced sentences. I think this version is keepable, but if it were to be agreed that the content at the time of nomination is the right content for the article I would !vote to delete. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:01, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, my edit has been reverted by 7&6=thirteen. I don't spend a lot of time at AfD so am not expert in the nuances; but from their edit summary 7&6=thirteen was clearly surprised that I would do something like that with an AfD pending. I don't understand the point -- if Lightburst's point, above, is valid that AfD isn't cleanup and a salvageable article should be cleaned up rather than deleted, then I feel I was cleaning up in response. If such an edit is not appropriate with an AfD pending then what's the right process given that I (and others above) believe deleting the content is the right move? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:20, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you. I think the article is clearly salvageable. But your ProcrusteanBowdlerization gutted the content inexorably. And it ignored lots of potential sources. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:23, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at all the sources in the article and didn't think any of them were sufficiently good quality for an article focused on the theme of the far future in fiction, though some of them were probably OK for the individual timelines, if those were to survive in other articles. And I really don't think any of the article as it stands is worth keeping; it wasn't a blind cut and replace. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:29, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I agree completely with Mike Christie - there actually is the potential for an actual article on this subject in the form of an actual prose article, but this current list is a complete, unsalvageable mess that should not be retained in any form. The vast majority of this "information" (and I use the term very lightly) is unsourced, and the few entries that are sourced are not reliable. As retaining this content is not needed to develop an actual valid article, and there seems to be some resistance to actually allowing the needed revision to occur right now, I have to vote to delete this mess. Because again, nothing currently here should be retained, regardless of the notability or potential of the actual title of the article. Rorshacma (talk) 15:25, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Rorshacma. This is a quintessential case of "Wikipedia is not TV Tropes". I like making lists of big year numbers as much as anybody, but I'll still admit that those lists are fancruft. The dividing line for "far future" is arbitrary, and the material gathered here under that arbitrary heading is unreliable. XOR'easter (talk) 15:37, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am hardly in a position to argue the notability of this article, but for the record the cutoff point is not arbitrary; it's the same cutoff point Wikipedia itself uses. Serendipodous 21:48, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's just an arbitrary choice with an extra step. What would be defensible would be to gather secondary and tertiary sources that discuss how the "far future" is treated in science fiction, distinct from more near futures, and report on what their standards for the "far future" are. Do they even specify a number of years, or is the concept more thematic? For example, the SFE3 article mentioned by Mike Christie doesn't use a cutoff year; instead, it sets up a contrast between the historical future which will grow out of human action in the present day and a world where everything has so changed as to have become virtually incomprehensible. Imposing a quantitative cutoff when the source makes a qualitative distinction is Original Research. XOR'easter (talk) 16:08, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per TNT. I am less than convinced we need to sub-divide the future in fiction. However this article as it currently stands is pure fancruft and needs to be removed.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:47, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Whether the topic is notable seems apart from the question. More relevant seems WP:SALAT and WP:NOT. There might be a notable topic somewhere, but there isn't one scrap of this article that should be part of an article on that notable topic. There's not on independent reliable source in the bunch, instead comprising entirely in-universe fandom/trivia. It's unclear whether a different version of this article would be notable, because it's unclear what a completely different article would look like. i.e. WP:TNT at minimum. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 18:17, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete this isn't a discriminate topic and unsurprisingly there are no sources that discuss this as a concept separate from science fiction as a whole. That would be a fine redirect target and there is nothing that needs a separate article. Jontesta (talk) 20:55, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Poorly sourced WP:FANCRUFT plot summary. Per TTN comment, this is just an arbitrary list of dates in fiction that has no defining criteria for inclusion. Per Rhododendrites comment WP:TNT, there might be a notable topic somewhere, but there isn't one scrap of this article that should be part of an article on that notable topic. // Timothy :: talk 02:17, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Rework - Current content is obviously not a good fit, but the topic is also clearly notable. Not sure that deleting and recreating is preferable to just blanking the current content and improving iteratively. BlackholeWA (talk) 13:34, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I endorsed the PROD because WP:NOT#PLOT says that articles are not just retellings of plot details, and we cover fiction in a summary style, not as a series of disparate bullet points. If you rewrote it as prose, it would still fail NOTPLOT because there is no third party coverage that adds any out-of-universe context. I do see some comments (including delete comments) that this article could be completely rewritten as something that isn't just plot and primary sources, but those articles already exist by a different name if you look at examples in outline of science fiction. If someone find any secondary sources that talk about common themes in the fictional distant future, they should be added to better articles than this. There is nothing in this article that meets Wikipedia policies and it should be deleted. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:56, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: I came across this article when trying to find information about science fiction set in particular years. Despite its incompleteness and other flaws, it was still one of the best references I could find on the subject. Unless replaced with something better, I would argue to keep it as it is useful. 5 Oct 2020 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:148:200:91F0:897B:DA4D:7AD9:9C43 (talk) 14:46, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and improve. Sources that could be used, directly about this topic, as well as works themselves directly dealing with "far future", include: Envisioning the Future: Science Fiction and the Next Millennium, The Furthest Horizon: SF Adventures to the Far Future, and Far Futures. Further, "Far future science fiction" is itself its own catalog subject matter for libraries. eg [2][3][4][5]Right cite (talk) 17:08, 9 October 2020 (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.