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 Merge. —Wknight94 (talk) 20:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of minor Babylon 5 characters[edit]

List of minor Babylon 5 characters (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Subset of the fabled List of non-notable people. A list of non-notables is not made notable by including a lot of them. Article is entirely unreferenced (for months), and I can find no non-trivial secondary source mentions in reliable sources regarding any of these characters. Seraphimblade 16:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment "I saw the episode and observed that..." is the same as "I did an experiment and observed that..."-original research. Of course, if a secondary source has written up the character, that'd be a source. Seraphimblade 03:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Um...if that was true, we could never cite TV shows. Or books. I think what Manticore is saying is that the episodes themselves are references. --Masamage 04:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Would agree, TV shows shouldn't be cited. Of course, for plot summaries and the like, there's usually the tv.com's and such of the world which offer plot summaries-that would be a secondary source, but in that case, you're not posting your interpretation, you're posting theirs. That's the definition of source research vs. original research-basically, with proper sourcing, someone who has never seen the show should be able to verify everything in the article. Seraphimblade 04:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But isn't that like...I mean, if I'm talking about the character of Hamlet, shouldn't I make references to William Shakespeare? Commentators are great, but they don't completely preclude ever using the original as a source, do they? --Masamage 04:31, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh of course not! However, primary sources should be used in conjunction with secondary sources, not in place of them. I don't think anyone would be hard-up to find reliable third-party analyses of Hamlet. There'd be nothing wrong with citing the part of Hamlet the critic cites in addition to citing the criticism-just not instead of the criticism. However, per WP:NOR, we still shouldn't be offering our own interpretations of Hamlet, only reporting on others' evaluations. Seraphimblade 04:44, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Right. So it seems like "TV shows shouldn't be cited" is a little stronger a statement than what you meant--oftentimes the best commentary on any work of fiction will be in the work itself, like when a character talks about himself. I think the real issue is that TV shows need to be cited very exactly, which is to say, without any extra commentary, unless that commentary is coming from somewhere else. --Masamage 05:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Right. I think direct quotes from the characters would be perfect candidates for direct sourcing. However, interpretations (such as plot summaries) should be secondarily sourced. Seraphimblade 05:15, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, no, I think I'm quite comfortable with relating simple facts from television shows and other fictional media as quite acceptable. Why? Because anybody else can also observe the thing. It is not an experiment, it is not a theory. It is reporting directly from the media. It is really no different from saying "And Author So-and-So says this about that" . Basically, I don't need some third-party book to tell me Hamlet is about a Danish prince who returned home from England to find his father dead, and his uncle married to his mother. Analysis beyond that, yes, that would need further sources, but to say that we can't report what occurs in a television show (or other fictional work) unless we can find some other source that says it? Far too strict an interpretation of NOR. Sure, if there's some dispute or disagreement as to what happened on a show, or to some specific detail behind it, that'd mean checking other sources, but even then, given that the episodes were named here, I would say a link to a book on B5 or a website would be quite feasible if you desired to do it. Might even be references in the Wikipedia articles on those episodes already. Anyway, the real point is, I don't see that objection as possessing much merit. FrozenPurpleCube 05:04, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I still disagree, but I'd suggest moving this to user talk-I don't think an individual AfD would be the place for such a discussion. I'm also not sure how it's "too strict" an interpretation of WP:NOR-the policy is no original research, not "Only a little bit of original research." Anyone can get hold of a lemon and make a battery out of it, but to say "I did this and it works" is OR, regardless of "anyone can do it"-and even regardless of the fact that it's dead-on correct. On the other hand, reporting on a reliable source stating that this can be done is sourced and verifiable to anyone. Also remember that Wikipedia is worldwide-while probably most anyone can get hold of Hamlet, some of our readers in various parts of the world might find it difficult or impossible to obtain a Babylon 5 episode, at least legally. Using reliable sources would mean that any reader, anywhere in the world, can verify the information. Seraphimblade 05:15, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would say that Template:Cite_video and Template:Cite_episode covers all your citation needs. The Babylon 5 DVDs constitute published, verifiable, commercially available primary sources. Static Universe 07:09, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Primary source" is the problem-if some part of a TV series/movie/etc. has not been covered in secondary sources in some form, it isn't notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia. Seraphimblade 07:14, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding notability - I think the main thing we need to establish is that the work of fiction is notable. If the work, as a whole, is truly notable, then by extension, so are its characters. Minor characters, however, don't earn their own articles - that's why, according to WP:FICTION, it's best to combine them in a list. I made this minor chars list to address that exact concern - I don't really care what list these character bios end up on, but they shouldn't be split up.
Now, regarding the use of primary sources, I think this is the most relevant quote from WP:OR:
anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source.
If the plot summary says "Bob shot Greg", this is verifiable by anyone who watches the show. We don't need a movie reviewer to say "Bob shot Greg" before we're allowed to say it. The key question here is, when does a plot summary turn into original research? I wrote up a "thought experiment" on this a while ago - it's not really finished, but given that it's relevant here, I'd appreciate any feedback. I'd just like to re-emphasise the disclaimer at the very top of the page that most of it is shite in its current state - it's just a scratchpad. Still, if you've got any comments, feel free to start up a discussion page there and speak your piece. Hell, if you folks just want to discuss this further on a user talk page, I'm happy to host the party there :-p Quack 688 15:13, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you've already got a proposal going, I'm all for moving it there, no use crapping up the AfD (any further). Seraphimblade 21:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, WP:NOR is much more verbose than just "No original research" even the nutshell statement is far longer: "Articles may not contain any unpublished arguments, ideas, data, or theories; or any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published arguments, ideas, data, or theories that serves to advance a position." As these episodes were unquestionably published, the data from them is not a problem. Access to Babylon 5 episodes is not an especially big issue, there are plenty of books used as references I could not easily obtain. And if you really want to do so, there are plenty of books and other material on Babylon 5 you could review and use as a reference. So basically, as a deletion reason, OR is not especially applicable in this case. Feel free to edit some of the content though. FrozenPurpleCube 21:09, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - if this article is not a clear-cut poster child for violations of WP:OR, I don't know what is. Actually, I do, but that's another matter. CyberAnth 11:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reply Even if it does have some OR in it, that's got nothing to do with the inherent concept of the page, which is about characters in a television show. Easily verifiable, doesn't have to advocate a position. Not a real problem. So as a poster-child, no, I'm afraid it's not a good one, except for the value of clean-up over deletion. FrozenPurpleCube 19:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm also still concerned about notability here-earlier, you suggested "notability by association", if the show is notable so by definition are all its characters, with which I (and WP:FICT) strongly disagree. McDonald's is notable. That doesn't mean each one of its workers is, or even each one of its stores. Notability has a purpose-if no or very little secondary-source material exists on something, it would be impossible to write a thing but a very short article without OR. Seraphimblade 21:50, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think the relevant part of WP:FICT is:
Minor characters (and places, concepts, etc.) in a work of fiction should be merged with short descriptions into a "List of characters." (emphasis in original)
I agree that shouldn't be extended to truly insignificant characters (e.g. the guy who opens the door for someone, then is never seen again). However, all the characters listed here have a significant effect on the the plot of at least one episode or novel. Quack 688 22:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There already is a perfectly good List of Babylon 5 characters. You do bring up another point though-who determines what a "minor character" is? If these characters had major plot impact, they may not have been minor. As an example, take Q out of Star Trek-he only appeared in a pretty small minority of episodes. But was he minor? I really don't know you could say he was. By placing anyone on this list, we're editorializing. (On the other hand, placing Q on a "List of Star Trek characters" would not be an editorial, there's no doubt he certainly was that.) But let's not have cruft. Seraphimblade 22:40, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Considering there are quite a lot of Lists of minor characters on OP, this probably opens yet another discussion we really shouldn't get into on AFD. There have been several merge votes, however, which seems like a solid approach. I've even changed my vote to reflect my support. --Masamage 23:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, on minor vs major, WP:FICT says "the main criterion is how much non-trivial information is available on the character.", but it's intentionally vague on the matter. However, I take your point about editorializing - I'd be happy to see this merged into the main B5 list. In my mind, the only real reason to have separate lists is size (like the Star Wars lists), and that's not applicable in this case. Quack 688 23:41, 9 January 2007 (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.
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