Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/General (fiction)

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 of the debate was delete. - Mailer Diablo 17:10, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] General (fiction) (Renamed as List of Fictional Generals)

Unmaintainable list. I can think of hundreds of works in which fictional characters with the rank of General appear, and in soem of them there are many such charcters. If the list were to be anything like compelte it would be huge, and if not it would be seriously misleading or PoV. Why not Postman (fiction) while we are about it? This is really just a "random collection of information" there is no particular theme or fact linking these fictional charcters, and no selective principle to reduce the thousands of entries at least as qualified as the one currently in this list. Delete. DES ^(talk) 01:53, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

• KEEP: As the creator of the article, I wasnt thinking long term. Who knows where it can go. Its not POV and could contain some interesting info and links. -Husnock 01:58, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
  • FOLLOWUP: Moving this article to List of fictional Generals would seem a good compromise based on what I'm reading in the vote. -Husnock 23:53, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. If, however, the list focused on fictional MILITARY individuals (generals, captains, sergeants, etc) then I'd go for it. As it is, it seems bizarrely specific. I don't want to end up with fifty different articles describing the fictional characters of fifty different military rankings. Devotchka 02:22, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
  • What would be the size of List of fictional military characters? If it wern't inclusive, what would be the criteria? Maybe if you limit it to such characters that alrady have separate articels on wikipedia, or perhaps that are mentioned in articels about the fictional works in which they appear. Otherwise, will we include for example every sailor named in the Horatio Hornblower books and the Aubrey-Maturin series? Every character in the works of David Drake? and so on? DES ^(talk) 02:32, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Good point. But I don't really care either way; it's not an article I'd be interested in writing. I was just suggesting it to him. Devotchka 02:43, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Anyway, once you limit the entries to WP articles, it would be better as a category. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:10, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• Comment Title is misleading - should be something like List of fictional Generals. Maybe state inclusion criteria? Should there be categories for fictional characters - we do have them for real people! Dlyons493 Talk 02:24, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. "List of >whatever<" articles are rarely useful; this one doesn't appear to be an exception. Friday (talk) 02:33, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete as per Friday Bwithh 03:27, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Lists like this are seldom useful, and I don't think this one is an exception. -- Captain Disdain 06:31, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• Merge into General, no redirect. Important fictional postmen should be mentioned in Mail carrier, etc. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:10, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• SUPER STRONG KEEP. We have tons of lists like Fictional Presidents, and Generals are incredibly important people as well. Much LOWER than General and I'd vote delete, but fictional generals deserve a list if any sub-group of fictional characters do. Staxringold 21:57, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete Too broad a scope, does not appear to serve any useful purpose. --InShaneee 23:29, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete as general listcruft. MCB 00:58, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

VOTE AS OF 1 NOV 05: 7 Delete, 2 Keeps, 1 Merge, 1 Comment

With the recent name change, I feel that such a list can be maintained on Wikipedia to provide good links and info about characters in books and films. While the majority of the votes are above are to delete, I feel the article still holds merit, espeically as a list, and that the list article is a good compromomise to the original concept which was an all encompassing article about fictional uses of the rank of General. -Husnock 03:47, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

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.