Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Pokémon attacks

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 on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Keep. Redwolf24 (talk) 19:57, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of Pokémon attacks

See also the entries for Destiny Bond and Ember

PokeCruft and if completed its going to be too long There are more than 200 of them attacks out there and the way those 2 nn attacks are written in that article if those 200+ attacks go there its going to be a long long nearly useless article Delete while u still can --Aranda56 05:23, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

• Comment - When this list is finished, there will be 18 different types of attacks, each with a listing with an average lengeth comparable to the (currently complete) Fire and Water headers. This is assuming that the list will be complete (instead of abridged), but will not include the hundreds upon hundreds of one-off attacks in the Pokémon Trading Card Game. - A Man In Black (Talk | Contribs) 06:33, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

• Delete As per nomination. Jwissick^(t)(c) 05:30, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Weak delete. I don't think that a list of attacks in Pokémon (which would start with the 100 or so in the games, and then could end up including the hundreds of one-off called attacks in the anime, manga, and card game) is encyclopedic material, and it borders on an unmaintainable list. Furthermore, I don't think that such an article would lend much to understanding of Pokémon either as fiction or as a social phenomenon, given that in nearly every context the attacks will appear in, their effects or attributes will be immediately apparent or immediately explained. - A Man In Black (Talk | Contribs) 05:49, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Weak keep without prejudice to renomination at a later date. Let's give this article a while and see what it turns into. If it turns out it's a fannish collection of factoids, it can always be renominated, at which point people can debate about what it is, rather than what it will be. - A Man In Black (Talk | Contribs) 10:41, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per the above --Mysidia (talk) 06:01, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: This page was created from the suggestion of two recent AfD's (of the two attacks actually on this list). In other words, whoever made this AfD is working at cross-purposes with other AfD suggestions. -- Grev -- Talk 07:18, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep (disclosure: I created this page). As noted above, more than one person seemed to share the sentiment that, while individual pokeattacks did not merit seperate articles, the information should be kept somewhere. Thus, this article. I'm not sure why an article on common attacks in the pokemon universe, which would surely be of interest to quite a few people, is unencyclopedic. AS for concerns about the list being too long, criterion can be selected so that the number of attacks is limited to the more common ones. As for concerns about the individual write-ups on the attacks being too long, those can be shortened (I've already shortened them some). Wandering oojah 07:37, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
  • We have an excellent place for descriptions of common or signature Pokémon attacks: in the articles for the individual Pokémon involved. The fact remains that there aren't many (none that I can think of) common Pokémon attacks that aren't plainly obvious, and the uncommon ones don't bear mentioning (for the same reason that List of Pokémon characters doesn't include every single Pokémon trainer in the games; there are hundreds and most are more-or-less interchangable). Anyone with a basic grasp of English or a dictionary understands that Flamethrower is going to be a blast of flame, Water Gun is going to be a jet of water, and that Thunderbolt is going to be a blast of electricity.
    As for attacks that aren't as obvious, in both the manga and the anime (where the effects of the attack are extremely fluid, depending on the needs of the plot) they are immediate explained, in all but the oldest games they're described in the game, and, most importantly, it's exceedingly unlikely anyone without access to those primary sources will ever have cause to look up further information on Wikipedia (unless that information was specific in a technical way, a la GameFAQs, which isn't Wikipedia's thing anyway).
    I just don't see how this sort of list could contribute to an encyclopedic understanding, instead of being a random list of loosely-connected trivia. - A Man In Black (Talk | Contribs) 07:55, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
    • The very fact that we even have a list of (notable) Pokémon charachters is, in my view, a good argument for keeping a list of (notable) Pokémon attacks. Wandering oojah 08:06, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
      • My point is that they aren't notable, on top of being obvious. Most of the characters on that list aren't notable; that's why their only presence on Wikipedia is one-sentence mentions on that list. These attacks are even less notable than those characters who are only bullet points on a list, and are comparably notable to the interchangable one-off Pokémon trainers who form the starchy parts of the Pokémon games and anime. Any list of the attacks would be statements of the obvious, information better off placed in the individual Pokémon species articles, or trivial minutia (most likely in the form of raw data) that doesn't serve to create understanding (e.g. "Charizard uses Flamethrower in episodes X, Y, and Z. Charizard learns Flamethrower at level Q.") - A Man In Black (Talk | Contribs)
        • My thought on that is, an individual article about a single pokemon attack would probably be obvious and none too interesting, as you say. But, in my view, an article listing various pokemon attacks provides some useful information...such as the names of various attacks, and which pokemon use them. It also just provides a good general overview of the ways in which Pokémon attack each other. Wandering oojah 08:56, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
          • Which describes pretty well why I voted weak delete instead of delete, in the way that I was having trouble articulating. Hmmm. - A Man In Black (Talk | Contribs) 09:09, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Keep certainly far preferable to listing them all individually. Dlyons493 07:42, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. I would definately not want this page to turn into a list of every attack in the universe but many are notable, if not in their own articles. Vine Whip and Thundershock for example (Yes, I know they're not there yet). And also, I dislike the fact that this is running cross-purposes to the other AfDs. People have said on there that they wanted it merged somewhere so that's what was done. Please wait untill the others are over before nominating next time. --Celestianpower ^hab 07:47, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I'd be inclined to possibly change my vote if you added a rough list of the attacks you consider worth including, at least as a temp page (maybe over on WP:PCP/T, even). If nothing else, it would give some idea of where signature attacks need to be elaborated upon in the Pokémon species articles. - A Man In Black (Talk | Contribs) 07:55, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
    • Okay, started it of at WP:PCP/T. --Celestianpower ^hab 08:42, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. As I understand some attacks are used by several different species of Pokemon, so listing them within the articles on individual pokemon would create too much duplications. This list is much more preferable to listing all attacks in seperate articles and thus I consider it to be the best solution. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:43, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Wiki is not a repository of random information. Fan-to-fan you may indeed say this is a notable attack, this is not. In the larger sense, none of them are notable. Marskell 10:10, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, in the grand scheme of things.... how much of the information on this encyclopedia is REALLY notable? Next to none of it, I'd imagine. Wandering oojah 10:36, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. Pokemon attacks are an important part of their nature. Being a "long article" is not a reason for deletion, since wikipedia is not paper and pages can be subdivided. Kappa 10:30, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep a list is probably the best way to handle these, actually. A long article is not necessarily a bad article. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 10:44, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete this cruft before it grows. Martg76 11:08, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Keep. *shrug* why not? wiki is not paper Astrokey44 11:10, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. 200 items in a list is nothing much, and large amounts of data can be synthesized in tables--see List of masts for a good example of many hundreds of entries containing complex information being listified. This is an article which will be useful to Pokemon enthusiasts, of whom there must be many thousands, if not indeed millions. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 13:01, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, it's creation will discourage new stubs for individual attacks, and if they're made anyhow, they can easily be merged/re-directed into this, without going through countless AFDs. I don't agree with above comments about re-opening another AFD if the list has problems in the future. If it has problems, edit it, don't AFD. Whatever the result of this vote is, it should stand, and be respected, either way. --rob 13:20, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep without creating individual entries for each attack. Let the list stay. Punkmorten 22:57, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep better to have this than a thousand individual articles. Not massively encyclopedic, but hey! people seem to care about it. Sabine's Sunbird 02:47, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. If you don't want gobs of Pokécruft like this, then vote to delete it, either as a list or in separate articles. The way Pokéeditors are pushing their luck, they should be lucky we vote to keep even relevant article. As it stands right now, I would vote to delete literally everyhing except Pokémon. / Peter ^Isotalo 04:53, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Pushing their luck? I'm curious what you mean by that. - A Man In Black (Talk | Contribs) 08:52, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, this is much better than making separate articles for each attack. — JIP | Talk 09:07, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and put in redirects on each of the attacks to this article. That will discourage articles on individual attacks. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:39, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, although I dislike Pokémon, it was a worldwide phenomenon, enough to have its own encyclopedic entry - and I guess the same could be said of everything affiliated within the phenomenon, perhaps this list or article could expand to include other aspects of the Pokémon universe so as there isn't so much Poké-clutter. I agree with the above statements. Piecraft 14:19, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep according to current policy. If this is deleted, it is in spite of current policy, not because of it. If you think policy should be changed, go ahead and submit it to the community and see if it reaches consensus. ··gracefool |☺ 17:55, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Which policy? - A Man In Black (Talk | Contribs) 00:25, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: We already have another, more complete although less descriptive list of Pokémon moves, Pokémon moves by type. Also, if there is going to be a list of this sort, I think it should have a title with 'move' in it rather than 'attack' - move is the catch-all term used in the games that includes non-attacking techniques, such as Recover and Withdraw. --Sparky Lurkdragon 04:52, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
  • That list is inaccurate, out-of-date, and incomplete, to the point of being misleading and useless. I have redirected it to this one, as this list, if kept, will be rewritten based on primary sources. - A Man In Black (Talk | Contribs) 06:36, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. While we had accepted beforehand that Pokemon is an encyclopedic cultural phenomenon, there's way too many Pokemon attacks, and the alternative is having an article for each one of them. It's a lesser of two evils thing for those who viciously hate Pokecruft. Titoxd 06:21, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
  • That's a false dilemma. Another alternative is to have no articles about the attacks, collectively or individually, and mention them where relevant in the species and character articles/lists. - A Man In Black (Talk | Contribs) 06:36, 1 October 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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.