Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of villains

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 of the debate was keep. —Cleared as filed. 02:41, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of villains

Due to the amount of literature created it isn't very logical to make a list of villains with no restrictions. Maybe a list of evil mythologycal cratures, a list of Disney, DC Comics, Cartoon Network or whatever company villains, a list Famous Villains of Classic European Literature or even a list of historical characters considered as villains by most people; would be logic, but mixing all of them in one same list is not very smart. It looks dumb! 201.144.142.8 09:33, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

• Keep, if the list is divided as suggested by the nominator each subpage would still have to be linked from the top. Kappa 11:31, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Strong categorify and delete. This is an absolutely hopelessly unmaintainable list; categories are designed to handle very general groups like this. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 11:47, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
  • So users shouldn't even know what work of literature they belong to? And villains in merged articles should be unacessible? Kappa 19:01, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Either method will be incomplete. I err on the side of incomplete that doesn't involve the waste of time spend maintaining an overly broad list. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 19:05, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
      • I don't think that "waste of editors' time" is one of Wikipedia's criteria for deletion. And a good thing, too — that's a hopelessly POV standard, and many legitimate articles would be threatened by it. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:27, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
        • This isn't an article; it's a navigation tool. All of this information exists elsewhere on Wikipedia, so no information is being lost, merely this particular unwieldy arrangement and expression of that information. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 19:32, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
          • Kappa's point still stands — even regarded as a navigation tool, this list presents information not available in a category. Why not keep the list, on the principle of belt and braces? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:08, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
          • I'm disappointed that you'd want to forcibly prevent editors from "wasting their time", and simultaneously waste much user time and wikipedia bandwidth by making navigation harder. Kappa 00:11, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
            • This is inelegant and has no hope of becoming elegant. This is incomplete and has no hope of being complete. This list has far too broad a scope to ever have a significant amount of commentary. It is a failed navigational tool. I respect that you disagree, but I don't see how it's inappropriate to "force" editors to not work on navigation tools I don't feel help Wikipedia as a project, and I don't think any list so hopelessly broad to encompass both Pontius Pilate and Scarface from All Dogs Go To Heaven is useful to Wikipedia as a project. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 06:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm honestly trying to understand the unmaintainable argument - has it not already proved its maintainability? It's been a year since the last vote, and the page has improved, not gotten worse, since then. Turnstep 23:11, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Keep as it appears that a whole lot of work has gone into this and it appears that the maintainer has made this as comprehensive as possible. Jtmichcock 12:43, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keepkeep - these are the things that make wikipedia special. And useful! I already used it to look for names of shakesperean villans. If the IP wants to go ahead with the splitting s/he has my full support. But not delete! muriel@pt 12:58, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Split and Keep. This article is FAR too big and too generic for one list. I find it hard to believe that Pontius Pilate (Bible) and Mr. Burns (The Simpsons) have anything in common that should keep them on the same list. Additionally, the page is already 91kb in length and bound to grow exponentially. ♠DanMS 16:53, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
  • They both habitually rub their hands, you know. ;) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:48, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Some lists are just too stupidly vague and all-encompassing to exist, and this is one of them. Where do we draw the line? A list of blondes? A list of people? A list of lists? wikipediatrix 17:11, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. This article survived a call for deletion approximately one year ago. Turnstep 17:22, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Strong keep. This page has undergone lots of editing and cleanups, and substantial effort by myself and others to keep it NPOV. As far as I know "It looks dumb!" is not a valid deletion criteria. A category would not be relevant, as not every item listed has its own page (nor should it). Turnstep 17:22, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete and categorise. Absolutely textbook category situation. Lord Bob 19:06, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and split, possibly into "List of fictional villains" and "List of historical figures portrayed as villains in fiction". I don't see that the nominator has established a legitimate reason for deletion, and as others have said, a fair amount of work has gone into it. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:24, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Split and Keep as above (or somehow). --InShaneee 19:46, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• (Split vote) Keep only the section about Historical Figures as villains, which at least has a strong criteria. Delete the fiction villains section that could potentially have thousands of names; unmaintainable and way too broad. 23skidoo 19:56, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep but split entrants into sections like List of people. Add a disclaimer at the top noting that villiany could be subjective. -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 20:27, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Categorize the top bit which is sorted alphabetically. Split and keep the stuff on the bottom. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:50, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep it's fine --TimPope 21:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete; arbitrary, inherently POV, unmaintainable list. MCB 19:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and possibly re-categorize It is a good navigation tool. CUrrently a bit sloppy, but that could be fixed by re-categorizing things. Just please do not delete, as many people use this list.
• Keep, there are enough redlinks that I don't think transitioning solely to a category system would preserve all the information. Perhaps split the article up into lists based on genre, though, to make the size a bit more manageable. Bryan 04:54, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
• Split and keep Could be interesting. CanadianCaesar 05:28, 20 November 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 a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.