Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Half-Life series storyline

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 Transwiki Naconkantari 23:19, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Half-Life series storyline

A textbook case of Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information #7. This is a novelization of the various Half-Life games. It has no hope of being sourced to anything but observation of the games themselves (the linked refs are to a HL2 fansite), and the entire article is redundant to the plot summaries in the articles themselves.

We're not here to retell stories in less-compelling form; Valve has some games they'd like to sell you if you want to know what happens in the Half-Life series. Instead, Wikipedia has plot summaries to support encyclopedic overview of the fictional works as artefacts in the real world, and this article makes no effort whatsoever to do that. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:00, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. Wikipedia is also not a game guide. MER-C 09:40, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

  There aren't any game guide elements of this article. It's pure plot...well, it's a long way from a summary or synopsis. :/ - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:00, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. — TKD::Talk 09:49, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Changed to: Keep, or Copy to WikiBooks ("Half-Life Fact File" entry) if the consensus to merge, redirect or delete the article is met. While #7 of the section asserts that plots summaries are not welcomed as sole contents of an article, it adds that it "may be appropriate as an aspect of a larger article, or as part of a series of articles per Wikipedia:Article series." Given that this article was created as a result of a split from the Half-Life 2 article (as a result of comments in the article's featured article nomination) (along with other related topics), the storyline article is at least part of Half-Life 2's article series, and should be exempted from WP:NOT.

  Summary of events:

  • Original split (May 23, 2006)
  • Creation of "Half-Life 2 plot" (May 23, 2006)
  • Creation of "Half-Life series storyline," consisting of copy-and-paste plot summaries from respectable articles (July 11, 2006)
  • Merging of "Half-Life 2 plot" to "Half-Life series storyline" (July 11, 2006)
  • ╫ ２５ ^{◀RingADing▶} 09:54, 2 October 2006 (UTC) ╫
    • How is that justification to keep this overly long, overly detailed, unsourcable novelization of the games? A mistake was made when such a lengthy, overdetailed plot summary was kept in the first place, and this AFD should delete what was originally dumped to a subarticle. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:00, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
      • The merit of the topic's inclusion is more important in this discussion, since these style-specific issues can be addressed later. Besides, there isn't much to criticize about the page in this regard, at least from a personal standpoint: The page is fairly well written (although it is lengthy and isn't short enough to be "plot summary"), while the references, if anything, are mostly from the actual games themselves (but if specific citation is needed, websites are best candidate).

        However, there is also a recommendation to make use of Wikibooks on topics such as this, as it has in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince#Plot overview, for example. Coincidentally, there is also a "Half-Life Fact File" entry in Wikibooks, which is ideal for a transwiki merge/move of the plot summaries. With Wikibooks in mind, my Keep vote remains unchanged; but a Copy to WikiBooks vote is added as an alternate choice. ╫ ２５ ^{◀RingADing▶} 15:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC) ╫

• Delete, there comes a point when you have to say, "OK, we don't need to have this much information on a subject." Just summarize the plot in the main article/s and accept that Wikipedia is not the place to go into this much detail. Recury 13:36, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep As the Half-Life series has a unified Storyline, having a single article collecting that information is very useful, as it means somebody won't have to scan several pages at once to get the same info. I don't see the point in asking for sources when anybody can just play the game if they want to do so, but I'm sure there are FAQs and Game Guides that include most of the information. Anything else can(amount of detail, connections to the real world), and should be, dealt with in cleanup, not calls for deleting. FrozenPurpleCube 13:42, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment every article needs to be WP:V sourced; that is non-negotible.--Isotope23 16:26, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Does every fact in every article need to be sourced? No, of course not. The rigidity implied by your statement of non-negotiability is troubling, because it seems to imply that everything needs complete sources, which is rather silly. The rule of common sense applies. For example, you don't need to find a source to say that the White House is well, White. In this case, you can verify any of the content directly by playing the game. If you don't like that, for whatever reason, though it sounds silly to me, you can easily go over to Gamefaqs and read any number of the Half-life FAQs there. Many of them are quite descriptive as to the Story line. If that's not enough for you, then why don't you identify some of the sections which you find troubling on the article's talk page, we'll see if some sources can be found to establish them. FrozenPurpleCube 17:15, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, article combines of several Half-Life stories. The majority of the article is encyclopedic, except for some parts. Instead, a cleanup tag should be put, and not deletion. This article definitely does not meet Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. It was split as it will take too much space in the main article. --Terence Ong _{(T | C)} 14:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, if it is not properly sourced, source it! If it needs cleaning up, clean it up! None of these are grounds for deletion. With regard to the ever-ambiguous call to not an indiscriminate collection of information, I would like to remind everyone that we are dealing here with one of the most ground-breaking games ever, which certainly means it deserves more than one single article to deal with everything. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 14:58, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per WP:NOT. Groundbreaking or not (and I happen to love the game), storylines for games are not suitable article material. No strong opposition to a transwiki, but Wikipedia is not the place for this article.--Isotope23 16:26, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

So, are you proposing deleting the story-line content from the individual Half-life games articles? That seems to follow from your comment. FrozenPurpleCube 17:15, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not proposing any changes to the exising game articles. My personal opinion is that the level of detail in the storylines in many of those articles is excessive... but that is just my opinion. Trust me, I have no interest in going to each of these individual articles and fighting to edit those sections down. I don't agree however with having a separate storyline article just to have redundant information all in one place. I think Alba's suggestion below is a rather good idea if Wikibooks will have this.--Isotope23 20:02, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I would agree with you, except for one very big thing. The Half-life series has a unified, on-going storyline, as such, it is important to cover that issue. At the least, the information in this article should be merged, however pruned it may need to be to Half-life series. Since you agree that the information itself belongs in the individual articles, I don't see how you can argue that having it in one single place is a bad idea. Sure, it's redudant, but redundancy is often a good thing. How else would you do it? FrozenPurpleCube 22:33, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I already explained how I would do it above... I just simply disagree with a series storyline article. Wikipedia is not the place to cover this.--Isotope23 00:13, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

• There's a good compromise that can be made here. The article as is should first be copied to Wikibooks as it is worthwhile but not encyclopedic. A massively summarized version can be merged to Half-Life series, to augment the rather sparse material already on that page. Alba 17:31, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - As excessively detailed plot summary that is not encyclopedic, which is grounds for deletion. I'm not sure, but I don't think WikiBooks would want this. Wickethewok 17:57, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I have to disagree. WP:FICT also cites the Final Fantasy X article series, which uses Wikibooks to host information that would less likely merit inclusion in Wikipedia. The contents in Half-Life series storyline are simply plotlines and not game guides or walkthroughs, which I would otherwise suggest deleting or moving to StrategyWiki. The existing but incomplete Wikibooks entry on the Half-Life series would also benefit from a transwiki, and is perhaps the best way to resolve this issue. ╫ ２５ ^{◀RingADing▶} 11:17, 3 October 2006 (UTC) ╫
• Delete unencyclpedic gibberish. ShadowKinght (Talk)!?!
• Delete as Wikipedia is not a plot summary. Look at number 7 under Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Whispering^(talk/c) 23:06, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Is useful in keeping the storyline in one article. If it is deleted, then at least make a copy in WikiBooks. JONJONAUG 12:56, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
• transwiki to wikibooks. It is good content, but far too detailed for an encyclopedia. (I mean, compare the plot summary in The Odyssey!) However, I strongly disagree that this is a game guide; not every article about a game is a guide and this one tells you nothing about how to play the game. And again, when writing about an artifact like a game or book, the artifact itself makes a perfectly acceptable source. — brighterorange (talk) 13:21, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
• Transwiki as per above. Ixistant 22:36, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
• Transwiki per above.--Planetary 01:05, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been added to the list of CVG deletions. PresN 19:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
• Transwiki per above. Hbdragon88 04:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Transwiki per above. Tryggvia 15:05, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Transwiki per above. WP:NOT material. Angus McLellan (Talk) 16:08, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep It's not a guide. -- Psi edit 16:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

  It's not a llama, either. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:12, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep or Transwiki since this is a fine llama. MarphyBlack 18:57, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom
• Keep Its good to have a page which connects all the stories together. It just needs a little editing to look more professional.

• Comment Not to be pushy or anything, but shouldn't this debate be closed by now? It's been longer than 5 days. The Kinslayer 23:02, 9 October 2006 (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.