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 redirect to List of Mazinger characters. Any needed information can be merged from the article history — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:57, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

General Birdler[edit]

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This nom is for a collection of articles about villains from the Mazinger universe. They are all unsourced, and mostly tagged as such for 2-3 years (some for 6 years). There is no assertion of notability in any of the articles. They are written in-universe in style. Some have been proposed for merge for a few years, but that hasn't happened. If no one can source, maintain, or merge these articles in years, I propose that they should just be deleted.

This nom was originally for almost all articles about individual characters, but upon suggestion (discussion collapsed below) I am breaking the articles into categories in separate noms.

I nominate the following related articles:

Dr. Hell (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Baron Ashura (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Count Brocken (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Archduke Gorgon (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Mikene Empire (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Minister Argos (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
General Scarabeth (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
General Angoras (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
General Ligern (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
General Hadias (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Some guy (talk) 19:26, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion about breaking nom into categories
Comment - I think that a mass nomination of this size is not appropriate in this particular case. While most of proposed articles are indeed rather unnotable (such as General Birdler) and would be better suited to be a mention in a character list, there are others, such as Koji Kobuto and the titular robot itself, that I would be utterly shocked if there were not reliable sources to be found, albeit most likely in a language other than English. In addition, the rather wide range of article types here, ranging from individual characters to standard character lists, makes this a difficult nomination to be able to support or oppose a mass decision. It might be better to split this AFD up into smaller, more manageable nominations to foster easier discussion. Rorshacma (talk) 21:37, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply] Reply: My thinking is if it hasn't been taken care of by now, it never will be. Anything kept will need a complete rewrite. The Koji Kobuto article, for example is so full of original research, casual analysis, and editorializing that it's not usable. It's generally more work to rewrite an existing article than to write one from scratch. Additionally, I thought it more prudent to put the articles all together than to flood the AfD with twenty or so nominations, but maybe grouping into categories (protagonists, mechs, antagonists, or something) would be more appropriate. Anyone else have any thoughts? Some guy (talk) 00:16, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply] I agree with Rorshacma - it would be easier to split them into general "categories" which can then be dealt with group-by-group. Defining those "categories", though, is going to require some arbitrary line-drawing on your part. I think the general categories you came up with are a good start. If I could make one suggestion - perhaps leave the lists to the end so that editors have the option of suggesting a merge into those lists for any of the individual articles. If, after it's all said and done, the lists are only populated by red-links, you can put those up to finish the process. Cheers, Stalwart111 (talk) 02:22, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply] Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. (for the Koji Kabuto article). Northamerica1000^(talk) 03:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply] Okay, should I do that immediately? Also, I don't know whether to remove this proposal manually or wait for an admin to close it? Some guy (talk) 02:51, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply] Would think you could non-admin close it yourself with an appropriate note about splitting it up. Can't see anyone being offended by that. Or you could reduce this nom down to one particular "category" of articles, collapse the above comments to allow consensus to re-start and start new noms for the other "categories". And maybe for the sake of a cleaner consensus, the two articles sent to the list of content for rescue consideration should not be nominated (for now). Stalwart111 (talk) 04:54, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion about breaking nom into categories

Comment - I think that a mass nomination of this size is not appropriate in this particular case. While most of proposed articles are indeed rather unnotable (such as General Birdler) and would be better suited to be a mention in a character list, there are others, such as Koji Kobuto and the titular robot itself, that I would be utterly shocked if there were not reliable sources to be found, albeit most likely in a language other than English. In addition, the rather wide range of article types here, ranging from individual characters to standard character lists, makes this a difficult nomination to be able to support or oppose a mass decision. It might be better to split this AFD up into smaller, more manageable nominations to foster easier discussion. Rorshacma (talk) 21:37, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: My thinking is if it hasn't been taken care of by now, it never will be. Anything kept will need a complete rewrite. The Koji Kobuto article, for example is so full of original research, casual analysis, and editorializing that it's not usable. It's generally more work to rewrite an existing article than to write one from scratch.

Additionally, I thought it more prudent to put the articles all together than to flood the AfD with twenty or so nominations, but maybe grouping into categories (protagonists, mechs, antagonists, or something) would be more appropriate. Anyone else have any thoughts? Some guy (talk) 00:16, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Rorshacma - it would be easier to split them into general "categories" which can then be dealt with group-by-group. Defining those "categories", though, is going to require some arbitrary line-drawing on your part. I think the general categories you came up with are a good start. If I could make one suggestion - perhaps leave the lists to the end so that editors have the option of suggesting a merge into those lists for any of the individual articles. If, after it's all said and done, the lists are only populated by red-links, you can put those up to finish the process. Cheers, Stalwart111 (talk) 02:22, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. (for the Koji Kabuto article). Northamerica1000^(talk) 03:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, should I do that immediately? Also, I don't know whether to remove this proposal manually or wait for an admin to close it? Some guy (talk) 02:51, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Would think you could non-admin close it yourself with an appropriate note about splitting it up. Can't see anyone being offended by that. Or you could reduce this nom down to one particular "category" of articles, collapse the above comments to allow consensus to re-start and start new noms for the other "categories". And maybe for the sake of a cleaner consensus, the two articles sent to the list of content for rescue consideration should not be nominated (for now). Stalwart111 (talk) 04:54, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please add new comments after this note. Stalwart111 (talk) 06:24, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Merge and/or redirect all into List of Mazinger characters. Nomination is based on WP:NEGLECT and WP:RUBBISH, which are not good reasons to delete articles when they should be merged and copyedited. It took years to clean up the Gundam related articles, there is no WP:DEADLINE to cleanup these articles. —Farix (t | c) 13:15, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- NOTE: I have removed AfD tags from all articles that are not listed in this AfD. —Farix (t | c) 13:29, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - I intend to list AfDs for the remaining articles but hadn't gotten to it yet due to school obligations. I'll retag the other articles as I put up their categories. This nomination is not based solely on neglect and rubbish, there's also the question of notability. There has to be a deadline on proving content is notable, otherwise we could never delete any article for lack of notability. While the universe might be notable, per INDISCRIMINATE it is unlikely every character and mech is notable. Some guy (talk) 19:05, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - What characters are covered by the character list is an editorial depression and not one for AfD. However, and indiscriminate deletion nomination—such as this one—which nominates main characters and major villains along with incidental characters, does not produce productive results. —Farix (t | c) 22:45, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - All of these articles share exactly the same issues. I have clustered together articles by category (in this case villains) to keep from flooding the AfD boards. Without sources, any judgement call I make on which characters are notable is arbitrary. I also have no expectation of finding sources based on my experience in searching for them thus far. "Being the main villain" isn't by itself a sufficient criteria; per WP:GNG notability requires significant coverage from reliable sources. Regardless, let's see what additional input garners. Some guy (talk) 23:31, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      - WP:GNG does not determine which characters are covered in a list of characters. Per WP:NLISTITEM "The notability guidelines do not apply to article or list content." —Farix (t | c) 00:36, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Just as an aside, I want to point out that several of these characters are not actually villains, but are main protagonists. Not that relevent to the discussion, but I thought I should point that out since you mentioned you had attempted to make this AFD grouped as all the villains.Rorshacma (talk) 16:31, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Farix: Okay, but there must be a notability guideline that covers list content somewhere.

Rorschacma: Whoops, I even remember thinking "I need to remove Boss and Jun" and I thought I followed through with that. The mistake is now corrected. Some guy (talk) 23:44, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think you might be looking for WP:NLIST, which "applies to lists in general, not only lists of people". Yeah? Stalwart111 (talk) 00:04, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's about right, thanks. Anyway, the discussion is getting off topic. It's probably better to determine the merits of the list of characters article separately at a later time. Some guy (talk) 00:25, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Only for particular types of lists, but the only inclusion guideline for a character list is that the character is from the series and their appearance is more than incidental. —Farix (t | c) 01:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect all to List of Mazinger characters. ~~If you want to move any references in the articles to List of Mazinger characters that can be done now before the AfD closes~~ . - There are not even any references to move, redirect all then as putting unsourced information into an unsourced character page will not help things get better. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:54, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect All to List of Mazinger characters. Most, if not all of them, are listed there already. Only a few of the characters would actually need to have any information merged, as their current entry in the list consists only of a "See Main Article" stub, but that can be done as appropriate. Rorshacma (talk) 16:31, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:38, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Merge and redirect, per above, Boleyn (talk) 21:31, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Merge and redirect, I just got done placing all necessary information from the character articles above into the main list article, at this point I propose giving it to the article rescue squadron. I'd also suggest using Anime News Network or some similar site for character voice actors (and lets be honest the article needs fixing on that badly.... among other things). Rorshacma is also correct, as someone that has seen every entry in the franchise save God Mazinger, the list article does have every character that appeared in more than one episode in some entry of the franchise (except for Juuma since he was in a movie). The issue though is that all these characters, at some point in some entry, did contribute their part in the story's plot; with that said notability is hard to determine for most of them. As for the franchise mecha articles I have taken the liberty of copying, redirecting, and refining them at a Wikia and will work on it until a lot of lost information can be restored so if Someguy or whoever wants to nominate the articles for deletion I will not stop them even if I personally disagree.Yapool Seijin (talk) 23:55, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If the contents of the articles have been merged into List of Mazinger characters, then the articles cannot be deleted as it would be in violation of both the GFDL and CC-BY-SA 3.0 licenses, under which all editors release their contributions. The edit histories of those articles must be preserved to maintain attribution required by the licenses. —Farix (t | c) 02:18, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for recording the merges with ((Copied multi)). Flatscan (talk) 04:19, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please try to avoid merging during an active AfD, per WP:Guide to deletion#You may edit the article during the discussion. It looks like everyone agrees that merging or redirecting is appropriate, but actually performing the merge deprives participants of the option of deletion. Flatscan (talk) 04:19, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:History merge and redirect to the list, as per above. Stuartyeates (talk) 04:02, 29 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Normal merges (WP:Merging) are fine, but history merges are not appropriate, per WP:How to fix cut-and-paste moves#A troublesome case and WP:Merge and delete#History fixing. Flatscan (talk) 04:19, 1 October 2012 (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.