Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eugenics Wars

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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. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 05:22, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Eugenics Wars

Eugenics Wars (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

The article is not notable, and is simply a repetition in an in-universe way of plot elements from the various Star Trek episode articles. It is thus totally duplicative and has no encyclopedic content to speak of. Judgesurreal777 21:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Keep The Eugenics Wars are an underlying thematic/moral basis for the entire series. So as far as in-universe articles go, this is more important than most. It probably just needs to be cleaned up and sourced. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 22:19, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Surely, if this concept was so important, then it should be no trouble to find reliable, third-party sources that talk about it. Because right now, no such sources are on the page. AnteaterZot 22:51, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep other fiction is based off of the Star Trek concept, as inspiration. 132.205.99.122 23:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
    • How do you know that? Where are your references? Judgesurreal777 23:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
    • I think what we're getting at here is that the article violates core principles of Wikipedia; no original research, and verifiable and reliable third party sources. Read Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. AnteaterZot 23:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete It is NOT a thematic/moral basis for the entire series. As a matter of fact, Star Trek: Voyager was seen a contradiction to the whole idea. In one of those "go back in time to the present" shows that were a staple of the Star Trek franchise, a 1996 episode of Voyager had the crew visiting a rather pleasant version of 1996. There's a lot of conjecture here from a brief mention in the episode "Space Seed" Mandsford 00:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Not to be sarcastic, but you may have heard of The Wrath of Khan? Also, in TNG, Picard likes to pontificate on the lessons learned from the Eugenics Wars. Etc, etc. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 00:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
      • Not really. You're assuming that there was a lot of mention of the "Eugenics Wars" in the Wrath of Khan, when it was, at best, a line or two of dialogue. The backstory to "Wrath" was the marooning of Khan and his followers on a barren planet. Anyway, it's certainly not a theme of the series. Mandsford 01:30, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes, and the concept deserves a mention here and there on other Star Trek pages, but not its own article. AnteaterZot 00:24, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually, that provides a nice bit of real world info. We could use this quote from Brannon Braga: "In the original series, it was established that in 1996, half the human race was killed in the Eugenics Wars. Well, what do you do? Do you pay attention to that, or do you just glide on by? ...We're too busy really to sit down and read all of the Internet mail that comes in on all of this stuff. If we did that, we'd have to hire other people to do the television series." (Phil Rosenthal. "Enterprising series 'Star Trek' fans will get a jolt with high- tech slant of new prequel". Chicago Sun-Times. 18 July 2001. – available from Factiva, and probably other newspaper archives.) Zagalejo^^^ 08:37, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Seriously. Google Scholar turns up a handful of scholarly works that examine the topic in varying degrees of detail. In addition to the Eugenics Wars book mentioned already (which turns up as the first Google Scholar result), there is also an entire book that examines the issues of race in Star Trek--a discussion in which the topic of eugenics is almost unavoidable. (Bernardi, Daniel (February 1998). Star Trek and History: Race-Ing Toward a White Future. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0813524660. ) A couple of the papers that don't directly examine the topic or don't examine it in depth use the Star Trek Encyclopedia as a source. These are papers which have been published in peer reviewed journals. I would posit that if that's good enough for a peer-reviewed journal, it's good enough for us. This book (in German), cites it to discuss the Eugenics Wars in Star Trek with regard to how it compares to concepts of artificial and augmented humans in other science fiction. There is also this paper which was published in the European Journal of American Culture that comes up in the search and cites and discusses the content of the two Eugenics Wars books by Greg Cox and puts them into a broader context of "multiple histories" in Star Trek. (Unfortunately, the full text of the article is accessible only with payment or through certain academic databases, the latter of which I have access to, so you'll probably just have to take my word on it. It's on page 172, though, if you can access the article somehow.) LaMenta3 00:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Can't read 'em, for two different reasons, sorry. AnteaterZot 00:24, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
      • Just because you can't read them doesn't mean that they don't exist or that they're not reliable. LaMenta3 00:29, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
      • You could always go to a library. :) Zagalejo^^^ 01:02, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
        • It is up to the keepers to establish notability, not for us to believe it on blind faith.Judgesurreal777 01:10, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
          • Are you for real? It isn't my fault (or anyone else's but YOUR OWN) that you're too lazy to go to a library. Mike H. Celebrating three years of being hotter than Paris 01:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
            • So we are to take your word for it that this is notable? Don't think so, and policy doesn't support that. Either source the article, or your just wasting our time. Judgesurreal777 01:44, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
              • LaMenta provided enough information that you could track down the sources yourself if you had doubts about any of them. You don't have to take her on blind faith. Now, should someone use the sources in the article? Sure, but be patient. It takes time to do this stuff properly. Zagalejo^^^ 01:58, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
              • I just took the time to properly use citation templates, and added the references found in this discussion so far to a "References" section in the article. The article could certainly use a lot more work, but it's a step in the right direction. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 02:16, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
  • DeleteWP:Plot, WP:WAF, WP:FICT, WP:RS, WP:OR, take your pick it fails all of them. Ridernyc 00:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Do you even look at the articles? You've pasted the same string, complete with missing space between delete and WP:Plot, on several nominations. Ideally, you'd look the article and disccusion in question and only use the acronyms relevant to that particular discussion. For example, LaMenta3 clearly showed that it passes WP:RS before you left your comment. Not that it doesn't fail something else that you ent is now sourcedmentioned, but I'd appreciate a little effort in this particular discussion. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 02:49, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Verifiable and passes sourcing tests. Sorry, Ridernyc, this fails none of them. Mike H. Celebrating three years of being hotter than Paris 01:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
    • You can say that as much as you like, but it is meaningless unless you can produce some references. Judgesurreal777 01:40, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
      • Editors already have, earlier on in this very discussion. You appear to be simply refusing to look at them. That wholly undermines any argument that you may have about verifiability. Go and read the sources that have been cited. Then your argument will hold some weight. Uncle G 03:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
    • mind explaining that, it's easy to say anything. For example how is this not a vioaltion of WP:Plot. Actually read the policy before you reply. Ridernyc 03:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom and Mandsford. Xihr 03:34, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment no sources have been provided at all, there is no claim in any comments made here that sources mention the topic. "there is also an entire book that examines the issues of race in Star Trek--a discussion in which the topic of eugenics is almost unavoidable. (Bernardi, Daniel (February 1998). Star Trek and History: Race-Ing Toward a White Future. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0813524660. )" the editor is making a rather large assumption there. Ridernyc 06:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
    • That's not an assumption. The topic is discussed in the book. You're grasping at straws. LaMenta3 06:29, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Right I'm the on grasping at straws.Ridernyc 07:30, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
If you look at the book's index here, you'll see that it is mentioned on at least two pages. Not that great, I admit, but it's a start. Zagalejo^^^ 07:56, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - Verifiable, notable, cited. Ursasapien (talk) 11:38, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - The article describes an aspect of Star Trek that is notable. It is mentioned in many episodes and several novels. Although the current article is all plot summary, it can be improved. Johnred32 (talk) 23:33, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Please by all means, demonstrate its notability through referencing that has been asked for countless times in this discussion if you would care to read it. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 23:49, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep This is a no brainer as a keep. --David Reiss (talk) 20:05, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - Content is now sourced with citations improving (although some cleanup is still needed). The topic is thematically significant to the series and notable as a cross-cutting plot device among Star Trek series. As such, it documents a notable aspect of ST. Banazir (talk) 02:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
It appears there are maybe two references that are notable, and neither are actually put as inline citations, so we have no idea if they actually talk about the Eugenics war, the rest of the inline citations are references to fan sites reiterating the plot of the episodes that deal with the Eugenics war, which is not what we are looking for. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 02:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Could you be more specific, please? Which two, Okuda and Okuda (The ST Chronology) and... Cox (The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh)? Bernardi (Star Trek and History: Race-Ing Toward a White Future)? If you mean both of the Cox books, surely you aren't insisting that print references do not suffice in this case? If you mean the Cox books as one reference, what about the Star Trek Encyclopedia, as others have mentioned? And either way, what is wrong with the episode summaries at Startrek.com as primary source and the Memory Alpha articles as secondary ones? Banazir (talk) 16:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I definitely am not saying anything about preferring print materials, I'm just wondering if the potentially notable references are currently used in the article, or what their contents are. The in-universe references are used in-line, while the potentially notable ones are not listed in such a way. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 18:13, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - The reference to the "Eugenics Wars argument" as a dystopian scenario under Transhumanism is relevant and adds somewhat to the general (story universe-external) notability of this article as a popular culture trope. (While we're here: that is an awful article on tropes. Could someone please improve it? If no one else will, I'll add it to my "to-do eventually" list.) Banazir (talk) 16:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - major concept of a major entertainment franchise, referred to repeatedly, and is also a major example of fiction that predicts a third world war-style conflict. The guideline being quoted is not policy and the very guideline itself says it's not set in stone. 23skidoo (talk) 13:13, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
This is a discussion about notability, please participate in it and make your keep arguments related to both this dicussion and Wikipedia policy, repeating endlessly how "major" it is does not prove it. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 22:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. I'm satisfied by the reliable sources cited for notability purposes. Keep the in-uni tag, though; it still needs some work. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 15:33, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Well I'm glad your satisfied, but what proof is there that this is notable? Thus far, we have two potential references that aren't even cited in the article, and a bunch of fan sites that are, that's not strong proof. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 22:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
      • Ah, it seems you totally overlooked LaMenta3's post. SharkD (talk) 04:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Notability is established by "significant coverage in reliable sources". Whether those sources are currently cited in the article is irrelevant; that is an editorial issue, not a cause for deletion. The Cartesian skepticism involved in doubting the relevance of the sources presented, especially considering there are books that have the words "Eugenics Wars" in the title, is unhelpful and seems to me to be evidence of a refusal to assume good faith. DHowell (talk) 03:51, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Agreed. However, AfD seems the quickest way to unearth these sources (other than doing one's own research). SharkD (talk) 04:35, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Just about anything and everything related to Star Trek is handled in reliable secondary sources. It's just one of the facts about the franchise. SharkD (talk) 18:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Note: This discussion has been listed on the talk page for WikiProject Star Trek. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:36, 9 December 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.