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. First, I appreciate the detailed deletion rationale provided by the nominator. I wish this happened more often. However, the overwhelming consensus here is that this article should be Kept, however it needs a lot of work, perhaps even a full rewrite. This point of view to Keep was strengthened by additional sources found by participants during this discussion which hopefully will address some of the concerns of the nominator. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:36, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sans (Undertale)[edit]

Sans (Undertale) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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

Character likely fails standalone notability and falls under WP:FANCRUFT. Most of the article is unsourced plot summary or reception that can be included on the Undertale game article, and this article itself is a disorganized mess. Full source analysis:

• In appearances; Most of the plot summary is completely unsourced. As for the sources that were there, 1 is citing something related to Papyrus, 2 is just fan theories that don't give very much, and 3-8 may be the definition of a WP:REFBOMB. All it does is demonstrate that Sans got a Mii costume in Smash and his boss fight was remade in Fortnite (odd thing to document in a section meant for official appearances). This REFBOMB takes up a fourth of the articles citations (6/24).

• In Development, literally nothing is cited to the character himself. 9-12 are for Megalovania.

In Reception:

• 13 praised all of the boss fights in the game, this is not notability for his boss fight.
• 14, yeah he's a fan favorite, but this is just a Q&A with the developer Toby Fox with little substance. Doesn't talk about the questions received. Might be WP:USERG.
• 15 says nothing except about how he is introduced in the game. This is the most character reception any of the reception sources contain, and it is solely because he is included in a "top video game characters of the decade" list. Nothing about his character is said.
• 16 is decent reception for his boss fight, but nothing about the character himself.
• 17-18 are repeats and are just fan art showcases. Same with 19, except 19 is extremely confusing. 21-22 is a poll among a single internet community. These are USERG.
• 20 is funny but this isn't character reception.
• 23 may as well be primary.
• 24 is about Megalovania.

Summary: Out of 24 sources, 6 are part of a ref bomb, 6 more are USERG, and 5 are about Megalovania, which I believe may as well be its own topic due to its history preceding Undertale.

So there is no critical analysis on this character, and WP:BEFORE turns up nothing on WP:VG/SE as well as Google Scholar at first glance. Until I removed them, there were also originally sections from The Gamer and Screen Rant in reception, which may have given the illusion of notability despite them being unusable in those situations. There are also numerous grammar mistakes and weird organization problems, such as "the subject of much fan art" and Megalovanias appearance in Taiko no Tatsujin being in the Development section. This article is likely WP:FANCRUFT and no evidence of standalone notability exists, possibly violating the "Article criteria" under WP:VGCHAR. NegativeMP1 (talk) 04:26, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements and Video games. NegativeMP1 (talk) 04:26, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Keep per other commenters. Pokelego999 (talk) 16:40, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Looking at Scholars, I found [1] and [2]. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 04:44, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Not sure how I wasn't able to find these when I looked, these seem like they could be useful and one even says a lot about Flowey. A broader consensus is probably still needed though, and I still question how much could truly be done. NegativeMP1 (talk) 04:52, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep The scholarly sources are very strong evidence Sans is notable due to his 4th wall-breaking nature in a similar manner as Flowey, even putting aside the Megalovania popularity. I don't have any prejudice towards a merge to a character list if one were created, as the sourcing is still fairly weak (IMO, even the merged Toriel was stronger source-wise) but deletion? Certainly not. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 08:22, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep. Recent finding of scholarly sources should be enough to hold its notability. GreenishPickle! (🔔) 13:36, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per the scholarly sources. I think because Sans is a large internet meme, the article has plenty of WP:SIGCOV, but there are a lot of unnecessary sources. Conyo14 (talk) 17:23, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - The "Reception" section of the article should be rewritten to remove the nonsense fanart gallery and "this guy dressed up as him" sources and replace them with the actual sources providing scholarly analysis, but the sources are out there, so deletion should be off the table. No prejudice against any subsequent discussion of creating a "Characters of Undertale" article to merge this to in the future, but as that article does not exist yet, Keeping is the best option now. Rorshacma (talk) 20:42, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Note List of Undertale and Deltarune characters has now been created by myself, so make of that what you will as a possible target. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 05:02, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Scholary sources for video games, including one which looks written by a non-academic/student, with low journal impact keeping WP:FANCRUFT on the site? Not buying it. We can redirect to the character list page as a compromise. SportingFlyer T·C 12:42, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I still agree with the nom's source analysis, and only one of the scholarly sources found might count towards WP:GNG as one wasn't written by someone who had completed a degree. We still have no sources to keep this article on, and no one else has identified any which might. SportingFlyer T·C 12:38, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak Keep The existence of poor quality and unreliable secondary sources amidst other mainstream sources sufficient to establish significant coverage should not endanger an article. That said, as a comment, caution should be exercised when relying on in-depth academic papers to establish notability particularly where the scholarship has the tenor of primary research. I don't think those papers alone would strongly contribute to a justification to keep an article. ＶＲＸＣＥＳ (talk) 03:59, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Passes GNG based on sources.★Trekker (talk) 18:57, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, but rewrite There are some sources here underutilized, and a more thorough rewrite focusing on Sans himself would yield better results. Right now as the article is written it's propping itself up on Megalovania's notability which isn't doing it favors.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 08:51, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, but rewrite The article is in need of some TLC, but the character itself is notable. The argument that a lot of the sources "are about the boss fight, not the character" does not hold water with me, because you can't separate one from the other - each of the encounters in Undertale is tailored to the characters in them. ReneeWrites (talk) 14:57, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  The point I was trying to convey when I made that argument was that the sources didn't talk much about the character itself outside of the boss fight, which the article needed more of. NegativeMP1 16:19, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Sans appears to be covered enough to meet SIGCOV. I've also found some interesting info from these books. SWinxy (talk) 20:51, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep For the reasons ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ pointed out, and the fact he is frequently cited on prominent gaming magazines. Seekallknowledge (talk) 01:29, 21 August 2023 (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.