Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Realms of Arda

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 No consensus, but please do the necessary clean-up and other work to make it more verifiabile, less cruft and less messy.--JForget 23:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Realms of Arda

Delete Unbelievable amount of both fan and listcruft; as someone not deeply emerged in Lord of the Rings lore, I have no idea what "Arda" even is. Incredibly low activity page; while that isn't necessarily grounds for deletion, I believe it is a clear indication of how non-notable this subject is. Does a poor job (if it can even be called a job) of explaining subject matter to those outside of the "fandom." ♣ Klptyzm ^{Chat wit' me § Contributions} ♣ 23:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - pure fancruft, no references or real-world notability, not much in terms of actual content either. Terraxos (talk) 05:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - some physics articles also rely on previous knowledge (explaining subject matter to those outside of the "fandom."), and context is provided in the first paragraph. That the article has equivalents or translations in Czech, German, Luxembourgish and Swedish shows its wide appeal. And, as always, WP:NOT#PAPER. Article could do with a cleanup, however. — Itai (talk) 09:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Just because "Wikipedia isn't on paper" doesn't mean you can make topics about anything. And equivalents in other languages do not assert notability, just as popularity doesn't. ♣ Klptyzm ^{Chat wit' me § Contributions} ♣ 18:34, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect If this article was called "List of places in Arda" and confined to blue-linked articles, it would probably not be nominated. Is it kosher to make this article a redirect to the category Middle-earth realms? Blast Ulna (talk) 07:39, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as notable - it's a list of separately notable fictional places - and seriously clean up. A merge is not out of order. Bearian (talk) 18:46, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, jonny-m t 13:35, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. This seems to be an annotated list of articles, useful for navigation and acceptable per WP:LIST. The low activity may be explained if this is a mature list that doesn't need much further expansion. --Itub (talk) 13:51, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Agree with Itub. Seems like a valid annotated list for navigation. Maybe should have "List of..." in the title, but that's an editorial decision.--Cube lurker (talk) 14:06, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: It is a list of placenames, a number of which appear only in the appendices to LOtR, on maps in the books and in Chris Tolkien's annotations. Many of the locations are communities, not "realms" -- in some cases, not even that organized -- and any inference that they constituted independent nations in any way is sheer speculation. It is not kept up to date, given the number of redirects if you hit the links. This list is also duplicated in several other articles, including Beleriand, Minor places in Arda, Minor places in Middle-earth and Minor places in Beleriand. (And could some of the Keep proponents elaborate on their "seems likes?" Are those guesses or backed by researching the point?) RGTraynor 14:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Duplication may be an issue here, in fact it may be something that needs broader attention then just this article. Your comment is also the first and only policy based delete issue raised so far, since it wasn't mentioned I didn't go searching for every list of middle earth places. On that thought i'd still lean to asking the project involved to give attention to the duplication and merge/trim if needed. As to the use of the phrase "seems to..." I often use qualifiers like that because, with the exception of the most blatent violations, these are opinions. I try not to be dogmatic when it's not needed. After all I say keep, but that doesn't mean you don't have some valid points to raise.--Cube lurker (talk) 14:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Reply: I certainly don't have an objection to merging into the relevant articles, although from a casual glance they already seem to have such information as this one contains. RGTraynor 15:32, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep/merge The title might be better since the setting is more usually known as Middle-Earth. The rest is a matter of improvement rather than deletion. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Agree also with Itub. A tweak needed here and there, but otherwise... --New Kind Of Grey (talk) 17:33, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep appropriate general article. Some of the individual ones are also notable, but that's no reason not to have this--perhaps some of the less notable individual ones will end up being merged here. the duplication argument doesnt hold. Every country in the article on, say, Asia also has an article of its own. DGG (talk) 17:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The chronological information makes this more than just a list. The introduction perhaps needs some context, but that can be fixed. The point of an encyclopedia isn't to be obvious to someone who wanders in accidentally, but to allow the reader to learn about something. --Dhartung | Talk 17:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, valid annotated list, useful and complete. IMO should have 'list of' in its title, but this is a style issue, not a deletion one. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 20:08, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - meets WP:CLS SunCreator (talk)
Delete (Note: I am a Tolkien fan and a member of WP:WikiProject Middle-earth, which BTW should have been informed of the nomination.) Simple lists like this are inappropriate in case of fictional topics, especially with Tolkien's works: a) simple links to separate articles are useless, considering that most of them are candidates for merging; b) many of the notes currently attached to entries tend to drift into OR, and this cannot be emended without whole passages of annotation; c) as mentioned above, the list mixes up realms, regions and nations; d) possibly some appropriate replacement will be created in future, if ever some "Geography of Middle-earth" will be created (as a merge target for articles that do not deserve separate pages and at the same time do not suit "Minor places in ..."); e) as a link farm, it is mostly edited for updates after page moves etc.; f) finally, the page has been virtually replaced by Category:Middle-earth realms and by Template:Arda Realms Age1, Template:Arda Realms Age2, Template:Arda Realms Age3. Súrendil (talk) 18:48, 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.