Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Middle-earth cosmology

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 per nearly unanimous consensus. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 22:19, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Middle-earth cosmology

Middle-earth cosmology (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - (View log)

OR-article on the layout of the stars and planets in a fictional universe. This is an encyclopedia, not the JRR Tolkein-wiki. Please check #7 here > WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information delete Cornell Rockey 01:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - the article has references. It is not WP:OR. I have the books listed and I can (and will) provide quotes for each assertion made in the article. Carcharoth 01:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the point here is that its not notable. Yes its correct but how is it noteable? Does the cosomolgy play a major role in the book? As per WP:FACT major characters/places should have articles, not minor ones. I find it hard to believe the structure of the cosmology has is of major important to the story of LotR but would be for other books of middle earth maybe.--Dacium 03:18, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Another point here is that the article is being improved all the time. I am extremely uncomfortable with the way this was nominated so soon after creation. Wikipedia articles should not have to be written fully formed, and some on-wiki development is both natural and helpful. I understand that articles have to pass a notability barrier, but that can't be fully evaluated until the article has stablised after the initial editing following its creation. The AfD could have waited a week. Wikipedia would not have imploded if the AfD had been delayed by one week. And to answer your question, yes, the cosmology is relevant to the overall strucutre of Tolkien's writings, which go far beyond just LotR. Carcharoth 12:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - the nominator points to #7 at WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE, which says to avoid plot summaries. This article is not a plot summary. It should end up being an article that describes, using reliable sources, what the author said the names meant, what language they are, and where they are mentioned in Tolkien's works. Its notability comes directly from the notability of the article Middle-earth, which it should be considered a subarticle of (the Middle-earth article is too long for this to go there). It can also be considered a subarticle of Elvish languages. Carcharoth 01:44, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - Oi. Marking this for speedy delete as G1, "nonsense"? Twenty-six seconds after the article was created? Then slapping a 'not many pages link here' tag on it? How many newly created pages DO have alot of links to them? Then calling 'original research' on something which had thirty-six references in the initial stub? All very strange. The 'What Wikipedia is not' claim is within the bounds of reasonable (deletionist) interpretation, but I don't agree... Wikipedia also is not PAPER. Meaning that it can be the equivalent of a 'Mammals encyclopedia', plus a 'Star Trek encyclopedia', plus a 'Pokemon encyclopedia', and yes... a 'Tolkien encyclopedia'. Indeed, it already IS all of those things... as evidenced by the numerous existing pages of Tolkien articles which this one linked to. The benefit of this article is in laying out the various terms and their relationship to real world equivalents where possible. I also wanted to explore the possibility of merging some of te shorter pages on individual items into this one. I'd only made ONE edit to the page so far... there's alot left to do, but I don't see how that stub was anything like a candidate for deletion. --CBD 01:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep gives a structural context to a considerable number of linked articles, how is that a bad thing? Well-structured and referenced, verifiable and in my opinion, notable. --Canley 02:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep gives a structure to otherwise unrelated entities in an important (admittedly fictional) universe. Pleclech 02:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep at first it doesn't appear to pass WP:FICT but it is a valid list of names in the fiction. It would do much better to go about removing articles these link to because they fail to be major characters or major places, rather than to start at deletion of a list.--Dacium 03:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep For better or for worse there's a huge number of J.R.R. Tolkien articles out there. Perhaps there shouldn't be. But since there are, this article isn't any less notable or verifiable than most of the others. --Shirahadasha 03:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep The cosmology is notable, spanning several works that build on this world. The article suggests that they may not even be entirely fictional, possibly corresponding to our solar system. Pomte 03:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep The books themselves are notable, and this is merely a subset of the books. There are also a lot of similar entries for other fictional universes, for instance Narnia (world).JCO312 03:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete for blatantly failing to include independant, third party sources. This is entirely in-universe. This is NOT a LOTR wiki or a concordance to include every possible topic relevant to LOTR. -Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 03:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I keep forgetting I promised to myself not to get involved in any more fantasy/sci fi/computer game-related AfDs. They make me too angry. I need to take a WP:CHILL. -Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 03:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I know what you mean. A lot of fiction stuff slides in. Only notable 'major' things are meant to get an article, yet if you look at LotR stuff and Harry potter even minor characters get pages and then these pages are argueed as if they are major characters even when they are blatently minor. Either way this article is more of a list and it would be much better to start with deletion of 'Ea' and 'the Void' articles since they fail WP:FICT as non major. Just be prepared for all the fans to claim that its 'not minor'.--Dacium 04:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

For what it is worth, there is an active WikiProject in this area that has the subject area under control, and is (slowly) merging some of the stubs into lists. We recently merged a weapons list and a roads list and the hobbits were dealt with ages ago. It is going slowly though, because there is a lot of stuff. Give it time and things will improve. Carcharoth 10:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. What about merging all the linked stubs into this article? It seems only Arda and maybe Eru Ilúvatar are notable enough for their own articles. Pomte 04:06, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Merge all related stubs, per Pomte. It's (just barely notable) but having small stubs that will never grow is not helpful, not even to LotR fans. IronDuke 04:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Pomte. Killroy4 05:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, as above. - Iotha 06:03, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete or transwiki to some LOTR wiki. I don't see how this is any different from all the Star Trek cruft that was moved to their wiki. Lots of OR synthesis of in-universe stuff. Recury 15:04, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep WP became famous for having articles like this, and this is a good one of its kind, about a series that everyone knows. The page is not just a list, because the information was assembled from a number of sources and organized. The procedural problems before it came here are also worth mentioning, and perhaps indicate an inappropriate degree of speed on the nominators part, and a totally inappropriate use of speedy--especially on a topic he must have known would be contested.. DGG 17:30, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable material, gives structure to other articles, etc per above. And gees, it's not even 24 hours old. --Fang Aili ^talk 19:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per there's no chance in Hell there's been a scholarly study of "Middle-earth cosmology." And, yes, it is original research if it's all being sourced from the books themselves, because that's using primary sources to write the article. It ceases to be original research when we're citing what somebody else has written about middle-earth cosmology in a reliable source. Seriously, though, sourcing everything about Tolkein's works to Tolkein's works is somehow supposed to demonstrate notability? I rarely invoke the word cruft, but this is dangerously close to being such. GassyGuy 19:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
  • See Wikipedia:No original research#What_is_excluded?... note that none of the 'original research' exclusions is remotely applicable to this article. Collecting facts from disparate sources onto a single page is NOT original research... otherwise List of English words containing Q not followed by U would be 'original research' along with virtually all of the other featured lists (not to mention the featured articles). As to 'no way in hell there has been a scholarly study'... actually there have been several (Dr. Kristine Larsen - 'A Definitive Identification of Tolkien's "Borgil"', Naomi Getty - 'Stargazing in Middle-earth', et cetera)... but there is little (read 'zero') reason to cite other people citing Tolkien. Citing the primary source for factual information (as opposed to opinion / interpretation) is anything but 'original research'. I've been pondering whether it is worthwhile to cite these scholarly studies to include their opinions on identifications NOT specified by Tolkien... which would be 'research', but not 'original'. --CBD 22:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
  • No chance in hell? See Category:Tolkien studies. --Fang Aili ^talk 02:58, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Oh, and, as far as some of the other arguments above, the best point I've seen is that it may be worthwhile to examine many of the articles linked to from this page and see how many of them really pass stand alone article guidelines. GassyGuy 19:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Did you know there is a discussion on the talk page on this very topic? I know I don't always look at the article's talk page before participating in and AfD, but it is surprising what you can find if you read around an article, following links and looking at talk pages, page histories, page logs, and 'what links here'. Try it some time. Carcharoth 23:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep We are planning to merge some of those short articles into this; see the article's talk page. Uthanc 06:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Delete This is blatant WP:OR. Any useful information in this article can easily be merged with something else, it isn't as though there are a shortage of Tolkien-related articles here already. --Lee Vonce 16:37, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  • To quote the original research policy, "Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed. However, research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is, of course, strongly encouraged. All articles on Wikipedia should be based on information collected from published primary and secondary sources. This is not "original research"; it is "source-based research", and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia." In short, you are mis-using the term 'original research' in a way that would invalidate everything on Wikipedia. Every article is an 'original compilation' of referenced materials... but that is NOT original research, its the correct way to do things. --CBD 10:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Sorry, but it would be more difficult for this to be a more textbook example of original reseach than it already is. This article is nothing more than the author's personal speculation and commentary wrapped around a list of links to other Tolkien articles. --Lee Vonce 14:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
      • As I am, thus far, the primary 'author' of the page I take exception to that accusation and would invite you to provide some basis for it. What specifically are you claiming to be 'original research'. --CBD 22:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
        • I think the problem might be the first six entries, which haven't been referenced yet. I would hope that Lee Vonce read further than those six entries, and saw that the rest is well-referenced. But I can understand why someone not familiar with the subject matter might think that the first six entries are speculation by fans, not assertions of the author. Sticking in references and selected quotes from the 'Ambarkanta' material might help. Currently Ambarkanta redirects to the HoME volume it is in, but it would be good to have an Ambarkanta section in the Middle-earth cosmology article. Carcharoth 14:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Article does not appear to be "original research", but rather is a reindexing of verifiable information, apparently including good referencing. WP:NOT does not seem to apply, as it is neither a personal essay or an original analysis of the material by the article's author. WP:OR is likewise met, as everything appears to be verified and sourced, and the article is not intended to introduce new, original ideas, or do any of the other things listed under the bullet points of "What is Excluded". Indexing collections of referenced information is normally acceptable. Dugwiki 18:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per the above. Any chance it'll SNOW soon? —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 21:11, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• keep please per the aboves this is notable information not original research yuckfoo 20:36, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Verifiable information on q rather complex subject, relating to the works of a famous writer. Wikipedia at its best by other words. User:Dimadick
• Keep - I'm gonna assume this was spun off from middle earth which is getting really frikking huge and seems like it could use being split up. The article could clearly use work but I'm not ready to delete it without giving it a chance because there's a lot of potential. Plymouths 02:35, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Merge into Eä since this is mostly a list of the named components thereof. This is not original research since the identifications are sourced (mostly to commentary by Christopher Tolkien as it happens), but the lack of third party sources suggests limited notability. Eluchil404 09:55, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: The first two items in the list are outside the physical realm, so Eä (the universe) was merged into it instead. Uthanc 12:32, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I did notice that, which is why I didn't change mostly to entirely in my previous comment. I still think that having Eä as the main article with links to the Timeless Halls and the Void is the best way to organize this, but that's mostly just an article title dispute (I certainly prefer Quenya titles but few others do) since the final form (minor entities merged into a single article) would be essentially the same. Eluchil404 13:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep Per above. I think some of the confusion the opposers have with Tolkien's fiction is that they want interpretive references as opposed to the historical references (i.e. the Christopher Tolkien refs). There aren't that many interpretational references out there because Tolkien emphatically states his work was not alegory. As a constructed history (of incredible impact), Tolkien's work deserves special consideration in relation to the drawing of sources from his son and the work itself. If this was a real historical or astronomical article, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Irongargoyle 20:15, 27 January 2007 (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.