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 keep. There was no consensus to delete. Kingturtle (talk) 20:39, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Listcruft Dotsod1 (talk) 07:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Cruftcruft. Perfectly discriminate list, with a verifiable criteria for inclusion. CelarnorTalk to me 08:02, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep No substantive reason to delete. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: The list provides information about how IQ is discussed in popular culture. The list only includes IQs of fictional characters that were explicitly mentioned in the work of fiction, giving a specific and straight-foreward criteria for inclusion. Q0 (talk) 10:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The current version of the list contains no such information on how IQ is discussed. 23skidoo (talk) 14:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How so? It lists references right at the bottom of the page; in addition to this, most of them have the information contained and cited in the article. In what way is it not discussed? CelarnorTalk to me 14:51, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What I meant was that the list provides information about what IQ numbers get assigned to what fictional characteristics and that this provides information about how IQ is portrayed in popular culture. Q0 (talk) 15:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The references are not the article. All this article is is a list. With a set criteria, yes, but NN subject matter based upon this article's content. 23skidoo (talk) 18:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete while listcruft is never a reason for an article to be deleted, there are other policy based reasons which this article easily fall on, including no reliable sources that isn't the T.V show themselves and no original research, as writing down what a character IQ is said from a television show and making an article out of it clearly is. Also a characters IQ doesn't add any notabilty to the respectiable characters themselves, with the exception of maybe Forest Gump. Secret 16:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: It does say on Wikipedia:Television episodes, "An actual episode may be used as a source for information about the episode and constitutes a primary source. Such use does not constitute original research if it is used to verify a fact. However, the episode cannot be used to justify an interpretation." The list does not make interpretations of a character's IQ. It only reports those for which an IQ is explicitly stated. Q0 (talk) 16:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But that only used for plot in television episodes articles, and wikiprojects aren't guidelines. There aren't any sources that indicate the notability of this characteristic with those fictional characters. Secret 17:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't being used to synthesize anything. It's just "They said this in this episode." Primary sources are fine for that kind of thing. CelarnorTalk to me 17:07, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Television episodes are reliable sources and are also acceptable sources per WP:PSTS. Citing a television episode is not original research, it's source-based research. And these characters are already considered notable. --Pixelface (talk) 10:06, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, IQ is no more of a relating factor to these random articles than favourite colour is. WP:NOT an indiscriminatory collection of information, even when placed in some contrived order. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per thumperward. Just having their IQ mentioned in the fictional work does not create a significant relation and is basically just minor trivia with the possible exception of a couple. Mr.Z-man 17:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is no policy against "trivia." --Pixelface (talk) 10:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A list of trivia is not remotely encyclopedic. The fact that the only sources for this information are the episodes themselves shows how unimportant it is - no one has bothered to publish this information in secondary sources. Mr.Z-man 16:57, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I gave it some thought and I agree this article fails to establish why this would be notable, and to be honest once you start listing things like 2500 IQs for, er, Q, it sort of takes the topic off course. Props for avoiding the OR traps, but it still doesn't work for me as a viable list. Based upon some comments above, however, there might be the seed of a viable article on the topic of how IQs are handled in fiction, perhaps as a spinoff of the main article on the subject. Dare I suggest "IQs in popular culture"? 23skidoo (talk) 18:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WP:N is not a policy and "IQs in popular culture" is a horrible idea. --Pixelface (talk) 10:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This is a well sourced and discriminate list, but it has absolutely no encyclopedic value, nothing demonstrating the notability of the article's subject. --NickPenguin(contribs) 20:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm curious; in a list, what demonstrates notability? I've been going through the List of lists, and I can't find any lists that assert notability. I've always assumed they were like indexes. CelarnorTalk to me 20:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I had to think about that one for a minute. Some lists are like glossaries or indexes, but others are lists where the relating feature is extremely tangential. Lists should still pass the general notability test, where WP:N says that "The topic of an article should be notable, or 'worthy of notice'". This article's subject, which is kinda like "the idea of having a list of fictional characters organized by IQ", is of relatively minor interest and not notable. EDIT I guess what I'm trying to say is that since list articles are clearly defined by their titles, their names should be self-asserting for notability. --NickPenguin(contribs) 20:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I tried to give this one a chance, but the information is not really comparable. For example, Lisa Simpson and Niles Crane both have believable high IQs (so, perhaps, does Homer Simpson, but I think it's a bit low), but the others are just chosen as impressive BIGNUM or vice-versa. There isn't really a listing of "smartest characters on TV" that would be anything but a popularity contest. --Dhartung | Talk 00:01, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as indiscriminate information. Resolute 02:02, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as indiscriminate, because each IQ number was made up by different writers with differing conceptions of what an IQ is. AnteaterZot (talk) 05:38, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, every single one of the entries has a reference and "cruft" is not a valid reason for deletion. --Pixelface (talk) 10:01, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Some have said that some of the IQs assigned to fictional characters are unrealistically high, but I disagree. Most of the IQs around 200 are for characters that have intelligence that makes them among the smartest person in the world. Other than Q, the highest IQ on the list is 240. This is only 10 points higher than the highest interpretation of Marilyn vos Savant's IQ of 230. So although these IQ scores compare to the highest scores humanly possible, they are still possible, even if extremely unusual. Andrew Owsley works for a top seceret government project that uses a time machine salvaged from the Roswell incident of 1947, which within the context of the fictional universe, was a UFO crash. Steve Urkel with an IQ of 196 has invented time machines, cloning machines, teleportation, DNA manipulation and several other things. I will say that it is not realistic for anyone of any IQ to invent those things in their basement with late 20th century technology, but a fictional character that supposedly does those things anyway would probably be best suited to be considered to have as high intelligence as humanly possible. Q has an IQ of 2005, well beyond what is humanly possible, but Q is not human. Q is a fictional character with abilities that far exceed what humans are capable of and can move any object of any mass, or travel through time, at the snap of a finger. Q also frequently makes comments about how "puny" human intelligence is. Given the nature of Q, it does make sense to assign an IQ that is far beyond what is humanly possible. Q0 (talk) 14:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I will say that I'm not sure Martin Prince's 216 IQ is realistic. Although he is portrayed as a highly intelligent child, I don't see any indicator that he is supposed to have an IQ higher than all but a handful of children in the world. I do think that the rest of the 190+ IQs are for characters intended to be among the highest in the world. Q0 (talk) 19:23, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete: I'm shocked this wasn't simply speedied. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:44, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
AfD is not a vote. Providing no reason to delete means that there is no reason to delete. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 20:54, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm shocked there are people who think the speedy deletion criteria are so loose. CelarnorTalk to me 21:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all referenced, defined, and notable characters. IQ is notable and I would strongly think that some popular culture encyclopedia in a library will have some discussion on it. Cheers, Casliber (talk·contribs) 04:21, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is a well referenced article about fictional characters for whom in was a notable characteristic. I suggest ignoring !votes like "listcruft" as meaningless equivalents of "I dont like the article but can't give a reason" . similarly for people who want to speedy it, but don;t say why. DGG (talk) 09:37, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - such a specific list is allowed by WP:LIST. Every entry has a citation, which is verifiable, although they could be better. Yes, the test for speedy deletion is fairly lax, but the main articles for deletion page explicitly lists the reasons for deletion. Each of the characters are majorpersona in fictional works. I can't see any reasons to delete, and to keep is the default setting. I have a lax reason to keep: a high school student may find the list useful for research. Bearian (talk) 15:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep This seems to meet all the criteria for an appropriate article, but I think it is doomed to be hopelessly incomplete and shading towards POV because of it. This would take a staggering amount of research to make it truly worthwhile. That being said, it still deserves a chance. Mstuczynski (talk) 17:18, 9 April 2008 (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.