Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timeline of Faerûn: Present

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 one deleted by Garion96 due to copyright issues, the rest delete. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 09:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline of Faerûn: Present

Timeline of Faerûn: Present (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Contested prod. WP:NOT for plot summaries, no matter in which format you present them. This and the other timelines are in-universe only. "Wikipedia articles on works of fiction should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's achievements, impact or historical significance, not solely a summary of that work's plot." It is sourced (or at least, sources are given in the main Timeline of Faerûn article, and are published by the company that produces Forgotten Realms, so they are hardly independent sources anyway), but that's not enough to make it an article fit for Wikipedia. Articles are also not really included into the flow of the Forgotten Realms articles, as they are barely linked. Two of the six timelines are linked to by one relevant article, the other four are linked to by none. The lack of links in itself is not a reason for deletion, but shows that the articles hardly serve any purpose here, and coupled with the clear WP:NOT violation, they should be deleted.

Also nominated:

• Timeline of Faerûn
• Timeline of Faerûn: Pre-History
• Timeline of Faerûn: Netheril
• Timeline of Faerûn: States-Northkeep
• Timeline of Faerûn: Archmages
• Timeline of Faerûn: Waterdeep-Zhentarim Fram 08:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete all per nom. No assertion of real world significance. Way too much cruft to merge. MER-C 08:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The reason that was given for the proposal was

"WP:NOT for plot summaries, no matter in which format you present them. This and the other timelines are in-universe only. "Wikipedia articles on works of fiction should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's achievements, impact or historical significance, not solely a summary of that work's plot." It is sourced, but that's not enough to make it an article fit for Wikipedia."

AFAIK, in modern usage "should" is not "must/has to". Therefore, there is no reason to delete this article.

Also, WP:NOT, heading Plot summaries, second sentence: "A plot summary may be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic."

As far as I can see, the abovementioned timelines *are* aspects of a larger topic. — 62.224.109.237 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

But how can you justify a plot summary of this size? MER-C 09:51, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment One justification is that these plot summaries are just 1-2 sentance summaries of entire books. There just happen to be an amazing number of books. If this could be cleaned up and links added to the books containig this information it could be made into a great guide for the series. Anything with about a hundred books is hard to keep straight without some sort of timeline. Shimaspawn 15:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment Well... If this got userfied, do you really think that there would be folk up to the daunting task of heavily reformatting this and adding such notations? As per my comment below, it's not that I don't think that it couldn't be done or is necessarily not worth doing, but I'm certainly daunted. Bitnine 15:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment I'd be wiling to work on it. I've been looking for a reason to crawl through my old novels, and I have an old copy of the offical timeline (circa ~1990's). Shimaspawn 16:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete all per nom. It doesn't help the articles that you have to search elsewhere to find out what they are about, and being all in-universe (nowhere does the first one make it clear that it is a timeline for a video game) hurts them. TJ Spyke 09:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all for the reasons listed above. I'm afraid the argument on the semantics of the word 'should' is not enough to save the articles. Nuttah68 11:05, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all. And don't get me wrong, I like Faerûn fine. In fact, the Forgotten Realms setting is interesting and notable as a fictional construct, as it is used as the basis for dozens of video games, a large number of gaming supplements, swarms of novels, and other media as well. If this were just an article - or even a couple - giving information of the setting and showing the placement of the various works in the setting, that would be dandy with me. However, this mammoth in-universe sprawling timeline isn't the way to do that. (I'd say "Merge down and reformat if you have a giant amount of free time and the patience of a saint," but that seems like too much to ask of anyone.) Bitnine 15:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep The truth is, this is the timeline for the largest setting of the largest RPG in the world. It has about a hundred novels and close to fifty rule books pertaining to this. The setting has been around for ~20 years and in that time the offical infromation alone has made for a huge timeline. There are 816,000 ghits for Faerûn [[1]], 543,000 for Faerun [[2]] and 3,100,000 for Forgotten Realms (the offical title the setting material is published under) [[3]]. Also, Amazon lists 843 books under "Forgotten Realms" [[4]]. Cleaning this up won't be easy I admit, but there are a lot of souces that can be used. Short I don't think can be managed though even if we only stick in a sentance or two about a book. Shimaspawn 16:05, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep but needs a huge re-write. --Hobit 16:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all I don't doubt the importance of Faerun, but no need to have exhaustive plot summaries. This info is probably repeated elsewhere on the internet at a fan site or some such. A link on the main Faerun page would be appropriate. --Daniel J. Leivick 17:46, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Possible CopyVio I am not concerned with this subject of this article, though I think this is not the best way to do it, but I am concerned that this is a copyright violation. Several websites on the FR do contain this information in the same way, and I do not know whether they took the information from Wikipedia or the information was taken from them. See: [5][6][7] Plus there is the possibility that some of this was copied and pasted from the books themselves. However, the subject itself is not inherently objectionable, and would be quite appropriate, especially since it could show the overlaps between various books, adventures, computer and video games and other content if properly done. Mister.Manticore 18:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Here's another couple of possibilities [8][9] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mister.Manticore (talk • contribs) 18:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC).
• Transwiki to Forgottem Realms Wiki This level of detail is inappropriate for an encyclopedia catering to a general audience. Better as an external link in the Faerun article (which already has one by the way). --Polaron | Talk 22:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't think it should be transwiki'ed. For one thing, it seems they already have the content, but for another, I am still doubtful of the copyright status of the pages here. Mister.Manticore 00:56, 8 March 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.