Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Darth Sion

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep (13k, 11m). Scimitar ^parley 17:02, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Darth Sion

Should be either merged with another page or shortened. Not notable enough to be single standing. 138.130.214.13 07:33, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

They have been merged. All three of them. Hunger, Pain & Betrayal as one. 50% plus have agreed to this, so i went through with it and merged the articles. I did not know there was a different policy in place for merging articles than deleting articles. It is done now.

Unsigned comment by User:138.130.215.115. jni 08:36, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

• • Um, no one at all agreed to what you just did. Nor does it appear that your merging is done. The present article doesn't even explain why the three of them have been put together in one article, nor are the "lordly" epithets you've added even explained. All you've done is cut and paste the three complete, independent articles into one under what appears to be a wholly arbitrary and unsearchable title ("The Three Dark Lords of the Sith ~ Hunger, Pain & Betrayal"). How did that fix things? Postdlf 08:45, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Also Wikipedia requests that you do not copy/past things from one article to another. -- Psiedit

User 138.130.214.13 - Actually, I got that advice from the Wikipedia merge page, and incase you can't see, there is a clear cut majority of users wanting the article merged rather than kept the way it is.

• Strong Keep as per everything I've said in Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Darth Nihilus. Nufy8 16:49, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable and worth for a standalone article --Neigel von Teighen 16:51, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Keep, informing and good info.---Obi-WanKenobi-2005---
• Strong Keep This is ridiculous. Why do both of the KOTOR II's Sith lords have to have VFDs. With out them it wouldnt be "The Sith Lords" plural. User:Psi edit
• Please do not nominate articles for deletion, 138.130.214.13, if you do not actually want any articles deleted. If you wish to merge articles, please follow the instructions for doing so, and use the tags provided. Deletion forms no part of the process of either article merger or article cleanup. Uncle G 01:10, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• I think the anon user's motives are suspect, considering how listing Star Wars characters for deletion is all that he does on here, but nonetheless this should probably be merged into both the article on the game and List of minor Sith characters, and redirected to the latter. It's a character in one video game; until it appears in more Star Wars media (or more pervasive media like a cartoon or movie), it's a minor character. That the game gave this character voluminous backstory doesn't make it more notable, and the article doesn't even establish how important this character is to the game—what role does he play in what the player experiences? Someone should rewrite the content so that it's actually from the perspective that this is a video game character, and that every portrayal of him is derived from that game. Any unfamiliar reader will have no idea how this character is encountered by the game player or how his "biography" is revealed to the player in the context of the game. Articles should not be written as if this encyclopedia existed in the Star Wars universe, and simply adding the fact that he's a fictional Star Wars character isn't enough. Postdlf 01:36, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
  • And btw, who actually created this character? Do committees write up the "biographies"? Is it a single plotwriter per game? This is the most important kind of information for an encyclopedia article about a fictional character. Postdlf 01:41, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Keep very important character. Revolución 02:08, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. You are kidding, right? --Maru 02:27, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

• Merge. I don't think I have anything to add to the reasoning given by Postdlf. I don't think anything needs to be added to it. The Literate Engineer 02:48, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Just how does having excellent articles about obscure topics hurt wikipedia? Themindset 03:12, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Merge per Postdlf. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 03:54, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. Notable major villain. - Sikon 10:07, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

• Merge: A "major character" and a "major villain" in a single game. It is not needed as a stand alone, as nothing can refer to it except a single game. Geogre 11:47, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

• • Then merge Darth Traya, Darth Nihilus, Darth Revan, Darth Malak and the Force knows whom, they are all major villains who appear in a single game each. Many less notable characters have their own articles, and merging of this article will change nothing except set up a bad precedent. - Sikon 16:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Good God, those are some long articles. I'm shocked a game player has time to actually accomplish anything in the game if he's spending so much time reading backstory. Right now, none of those articles are written with the proper presentation and context appropriate to a video game character—what do they actually do in the game? Does the player actually encounter these characters, or just learn about them? Postdlf 08:52, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
      • It explains their actions in the game quite well, actually. It just doesn't always say "this is what happens in the game at this point," because frankly, that would read more like a strategy guide than an encyclopedia. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they couldn't stand to have a little user interaction detailed in their articles, but to say that because it isn't written correctly by some people's standards then the knowledge it imparts should be limited, isn't doing it, or Wikipedia justice. Nufy8 16:55, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
        • The article is entirely written as if Sion's story is an absolute narrative that a player passively observes and cannot affect. "He would later duel with the Exile on Korriban, and defeat him, but the Exile would escape." I only learned from reading another article (not this one) that the "Exile" is the player character. So does the quoted sentence mean that the player has no choice but to duel with Sion on Korriban and will inevitably escape no matter what he does? It doesn't say "if the player survives past level 3..." or "if the player decides to go to Korriban, he will be attacked by..." And does that sentence mean that the player is incapable of defeating him, no matter what? Why? It doesn't say "the game designers made Sion impossible to defeat," it just states that the player is defeated. For all a reader of the article knows, it's just because no one who wrote the article was good enough to defeat Sion at that point in the game. Yet somehow the player is destined to escape; does Sion always refrain from delivering a fatal blow? What if the player decides to remain there until one of them dies? Is the player swept away to safety against his will? The entire article is written like this ("the Exile was forced to use his powers of persuasion to turn Sion against his own beliefs"), without any acknowledgement that a real human player interacts with this character and becomes involved with the story, which is instead described as if it were merely a self-contained narrative. The entire article is nonencyclopedic fancruft writing, written simply to satisfy fans who want to know the complete fictional history of the fictional Star Wars universe, rather than to portray facts about how a fictional character was created, how the fictional work portrays him and his relationship to it, how he is experienced/encountered by the consumer/audience, and what that audience thinks about him. The article needs more than just a couple style tweaks; it needs a complete rewrite. Postdlf 18:22, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

1. Yes. The player has no choice on Korriban. He must duel, and must lose.
2. He must go to Korriban, or never finish the game. Needless to say, it is stupid to preface every statement with "And if the player decides to keep playing and completing the game, he will..."
3. Yes. Sion always refrains from a fatal blow. No dialogue option will cause Sion to kill the Exile on Korriban, as part of the story, for obvious out-of-game reasons. The ingame player is not swept away against his will, but the player outside of the game is, as the Exile escapes in a cinema with no dialogue options which will change anything.
4. You don't seem to understand, Post. The article describes what is canonical. The canon rules for SW state that plot events for games are canon, branching plots have one specific unique singular end-branch which is canonical, and that's it. The minutiae of the actual game implementation are not canon- including game mechanics and possible plots like you endlessly harp upon. Sion does not need a "Rewrite", it needs expansion. Go ahead, add audience reaction, go ask the producers who wrote in Sion, what were they thinking, what early versions of Sion were there, and how did they differ, etc. But don't call the article unencyclopedic (or, if you do, then go start several thousand vfds to cleanse Wikipedia of all SW 'fancruft'), or use fictional as an epithet. It incorporates what is available, sourceable and reliable. --Maru 19:08, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

1. That should be described and explained.
2. It should at least be prefaced by "When the player makes it to Korriban;" otherwise, it sounds like a player has no volition over that outcome.
3. This should be described and explained, and the parts of the game that the player in fact passively watches ("the Exile escapes in a cinema") should be distinctly separated from the parts that the player actively participates in. And what the player actually sees should be separated from that which he is merely told about.
4. What you don't understand is this is not the Official Canon Encyclopedia of Star Wars. The article needs a rewrite because it just relates a story abstracted from the source from which it is derived, without any sense of how the media actually constructed the story. And yes, there are a lot of Star Wars articles that need similarly serious cleanup. This particular article should focus on describing what the player sees him do in the game, what he does to the player, what the player does to him, and what the player is told about him and how. Considering how he's a bloody video game character, one would think that these would be the most fundamental things to set forth. Then a separate section on how this portrayal of the character fits into Star Wars canon may be appropriate, but that certainly shouldn't be the overriding perspective. No, "fictional" is not an epithet; I've written quite a few articles about fictional subjects myself. But the article should not itself become fiction; it should write about fiction by describing works of fiction, and write about subjects of fiction by describing exactly how the works portray them. Postdlf 06:41, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• Merge per Postdlf. Dcarrano 15:11, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
• Merge per above.Robert A West 15:43, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Smerge and redirect, as has been done with many minor Star Wars characters. -R. fiend 15:56, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Merge per above. This is doubleplusunnotable. And yes, I would also merge Revan, Malak, and all the other little baby Darths too. Even though I liked KOTOR. Nandesuka 18:19, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Merge as above DES 18:30, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable SW character.--Kross 20:38, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
• Weak keep - thorough and well written article. A bit crufty, and a merge would not hurt, but there are better cases where merges are really necessary. -- BD2412 ^talk 21:08, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
• Merge all of these single game Darths, as per User:Postdlf. JamesBurns 03:49, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Delete or merge, typical fancruft. Martg76 07:59, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep decent article and there is so much fan stuff on here already, so I don't see a good reason to single this article out for deletion. Salsb 15:31, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable character. Jon Hart 22:40, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Keep Well written, informative and a fun read. All you party poopers please don't delete. It just needs a little tweaking on the facts.

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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.