Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pregnancy in science fiction

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 no consensus. JoshuaZ 15:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pregnancy in science fiction

Pregnancy in science fiction (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Many problems. For an article that was created in 2003 (spinoff from Pregnancy), it is in a really poor shape. It's basically an unsourced list that is close to failing WP:NOT#IINFO. The inclusion criterion isn't really outlined, and quite a few entries in the list don't even deal with pregnancy but infertility. With 1000 google book hits, I guess a real article about this topic could be written, like Sex in science fiction (pretty good for all its failings), Nudity in science fiction and Gender in science fiction (both acceptable for a start). Maybe this AfD will create some substance for the article that it failed to include in the past four years. Because without it, deletion can't be much worse. (To clarify: I am not attempting to misuse AfD for cleanup work, but I ask whether there should really be an article when no-one cares to write about it - Dogs in science fiction, Food in science fiction, Music in science fiction,...) – sgeureka ^t•c 21:06, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of science fiction deletions.--Gavin Collins 21:12, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete unless secondary sources are found which discuss the subject (as opposed to discussing specific instances of pregnancy in works which are categorised as SF) and establish its notability. This article is, if not indiscriminate, an arbitrary collection of information. It's one step up from [[Green spaceships in science fiction]](e/c: original poster beat me to it). Sheffield Steel^talk_stalk 21:19, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Delete - not exactly an encyclopedic subject addressed in a scientific manner, more mutterings and rattles of a collection of notes. Rgds, - Trident13 21:33, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Unencyclopedic list. How many people will come to Wikipedia looking for a list of sci-fi books with pregnancy in them? NASCAR Fan24^{(radio me!)} 21:39, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per NascarFan. Jonathan ^{t - c} 22:11, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
• Merge with Sex in science fiction. Artw 22:32, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete' yep again another trivia dump.--JForget 23:15, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Horrible, horrible, horrible. As it stands this is entirely listcruft and OR - virtually none of the stories listed are about pregnancy or deal with the subject as a main theme (there are very few sf stories that do, and the ones I can think of - such as "Randy's syndrome", by Brian Aldiss - aren't even mentioned). A real article on this topic should be possible, though I can't for the life of me think of any published articles on the subject - for now the best thing would be to redirect this to Sex in science fiction. Grutness...wha? 00:32, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, but massively clean up as I think a topic could be there (maybe sexual experimentation in science fiction or something?). I'll see if references do exist in any case. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 00:39, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - I don't understand the argument that this is any more or less OR than Sex in science fiction - If anything, the OR arguments make a great deal more sense in the latter. This article makes no pretense to being anything but a Wikipedia:List. Also don't understand the comment that infertility and pregnancy are somehow separate topics. Prose could use a bit of cleanup for tone and style, but there's nothing more offensive here than at any other list. Could obviously use some coverage of Wikipedia:Reliable sources discussing the topic, as can Sex in science fiction, but deletion's no more warranted here than it is in half of Category:Lists. Personally, I'd say keep it. MrZaius^talk 09:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC) PS to NascarFan: This reader has, in the past, coming from Children of Men.
• Keep I agree with the above comment; there is precious little comment and analysis of pregnancy or infertility in fiction and if we aim to be encyclopaedic there should be. Pregnancy and infertility are obviously related items. Furthermore, this may be a subtopic of 'sex in science fiction' but the motivation for search may well be entirely distinct. - PS to NascarFan I came here from The Handmaid's Tale and Children of Men —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alisonjenenr (talk • contribs) 19:31, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Honest reply (1) Sex in science fiction at least attempts to write about its subject. (2) If you're infertile, you are not pregnant. So what are those infertiliy entries doing in the pregnancy article then? However, renaming the article into Reproduction in science fiction could solve this. (3) Many lists on WP are deleted each week (think ... in popular culture lists), mainly for failing WP:OR and WP:NOT#IINFO. Is the article in its current state any better? It didn't change in the past 4 years, so why should it be expected to become a somewhat fleshed-out article in the next few years? – sgeureka ^t•c 22:29, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

(1) Sex in science fiction does attempt it, but it is one of the best examples I've ever seen of OR. Seems like it would be considerably less so if it were formatted like this article. There are essentially no unsourced assertions of controversial statements in this article, just one-line summaries of the relevant aspects of their plot. (2) The purview of a list is defined by its lead, and its lead currently refers to both of the very much interrelated topics. That said, the name you suggest would be more apt. (3) Might be - I generally just monitor the Actors, Education, and Sci Fi sorting lists, so I'm a little out of date on the topic as relatively few lists come up for discussion there. In terms of it becoming a fully fleshed out article, the very fact that it begins with "this list" should make it clear enough that its staying a list is not a particularly negative thing. Might warrant a move to a List-type name. MrZaius^talk 06:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

• Delete - the compilation of this list is original research. Percy Snoodle 11:07, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete this compilation of pathetic original research. These are exactly the type of articles that make Wikipedia to be the laughing stock of the internet. Burntsauce 22:42, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect to Sex in science fiction (which should then be moved to Sex and reproduction in science fiction). Much of the material here is verifiable in principle even though it it currently unreferenced like many otherwise good articles. This is an editing concern in my opinion. TreeKittens 00:23, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and expand. There is potential here. If the article were Pregnancy used as a plot device in science fiction or otherwise qualified it could easily be a good read and actually have something to say as well. What I don't know but I'm not into Sci-Fi yet have seen plenty of pregnancies used to launch storylines. Benjiboi 12:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and rename. There is certainly a valid topic here, and several of the items which mention infertility do actually focus on pregnancy. A merge with sex in science fiction followed by a rename also seems a possible option. Espresso Addict 06:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete one could synthesize any XYZ topic in ABC genre and populate a list - but it is essentially OR - has there been significant coverage in 3rd party WP:RSes that discuss this topic to give it notability, and more so that The definite article in science fiction, which could list nearly every sci/fi that uses a definite article and cite to the source to show that indeed it's verifiable that the definite article was used. Carlossuarez46 17:13, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, It doesn't seem to meet the notability requrements (No books or articles). 68.163.65.114 19:34, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, an uninformative list on a non-notable topic. Pablo Talk | Contributions 23:57, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
• Comment/proposal Again, these lists are not devoid of value because this is currently the only way to find these like-themed works, and the content of this one is no more OR than any categorization or plot summary. Also helps keep the linked article's see also sections to a reasonable size. When an article is split from those or used as to prevent those from growing overmuch while not restricting the flow of that information, I see no problem with it and still do not favor deletion. - That said, how about blowing it away and replacing it with a cat? No reason to have a static page that has to be maintained this way when it could just as easily be replaced with a category of like name or Category:Fertility in science fiction, per the quite common Category:Science fiction themes - here's a good example of a subcat, with subcats for novels, short stories, et al Category:Post-apocalyptic fiction. There's plenty of precedent for it. MrZaius^talk 16:44, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support suggestion as nom. Anyone else? – sgeureka ^t•c 19:08, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Sounds like a fair compromise to me, at least until such time as someone actually writes a proper encyclopedic article on the subject. Grutness...wha? 22:52, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. Redirect the article to Sex in science fiction to preserve page history and, thus, valuable data for someone trying to write a better article. --Kizor 23:18, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

That works - As long as the history's accessible, I'd be happy to help with the conversion, if the closing admin doesn't have a way to automate things. MrZaius^talk 02:00, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

• Any objections? --Kizor 01:45, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

• I do. categories simply provide a list of articles with no other useful information as to why they are related and thus will make wikipedia worse, not better. This is a list that needs editing to become a real article. Just because many folks here don't envision that doesn't mean there is no hope. Article should be improved with regular editing.Benjiboi 02:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

If you believe it can be a fully fleshed out article, provide sources - We wouldn't want it to become another OR-laden, crufty article like Sex in science fiction. Again, there are at least a dozen examples of similar categories, so that really does seem like the most appropriate action to take in the meantime. There's almost no data that would be lost by the switch. MrZaius^talk 12:34, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. It's not my job to provide sources or even prove they exist and I'm no expert on the subject so i wouldn't even know where to find them or who writes on the subjects. I stated I object to this article being eliminated in favor of adding layers of categories to clump articles that have something to do with the subject together. I believe the article should be improved through regular editing. There is interest and material on the subject - now we need someone who has some knowledge in the area to start the process of turning the current article into a decent one that makes sense and, of course, it should adhere to wp standards. Benjiboi 16:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

If we're judging this article as an article, rather than a list, then we plainly require sources to demonstrate the notability of the topic and prevent it from turning into something like Sex in science fiction, which seems to be wholly and entirely original research. MrZaius^talk 20:10, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, actually we're not judging the article as it is, we're rendering judgment on what it can become. Can the article become a good article or is it beyond all hope? Of course it shouldn't be wholly and entirely original research but we can look at those less reliable sources to see if they, in fact, reference sources we can use.Benjiboi 00:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

That's just it though - noone's brought any references to bear, and I wasn't able to find any when I blew a couple minutes looking before. The proposed redirect would leave the list intact, and the category will probably be populated either way. There really isn't any content in the article as it stands that wouldn't be covered, other than the redundant summaries of the plot summaries. MrZaius^talk 13:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• I really object to this as a category; it will certainly get deleted. Very few works have pregnancy as a defining element (Naomi Mitchison's Memoirs of a Spacewoman, maybe a few others), and it's just not suitable for a category. It is, in fact, suitable for an article, with appropriate examples. Although it's not there yet, it doesn't seem really helpful to delete it in the hopes that someone, someday, will start from scratch to achieve the perfect article. Better to have someone go in and do major clean-up after this AFD closes, and write an assessment in the Talk page leaving guidance for more development. --lquilter 21:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• Delete list cruft. Alternatively merge with Sex in science fiction. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 01:41, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: A list article, like this, is of much less value than an article which enumerated the major variations on pregnancy (or more properly, reproduction) that have been explored in science fiction -- parthenogenesis, artificial wombs, cloning, eugenics, dystopian controls on reproduction, etc. I'm not going to comment on the value of the article as it is now, but an article which surveyed what science fiction has explored on the subject of reproduction would in my opinion be worth keeping. -- 192.250.34.161 15:44, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - I agree that it's not very good right now, but the topic (whether limited to "pregnancy" or expanded to "reproduction and fertility") is actually of significant interest. Science fiction is one of the only literary genres that actually considers pregnancy -- various types, social implications, metaphoric. Yes, it's not a good article right now; but deleting it so that someone else will start it from scratch and do it better isn't really that useful. Far better to include this discussion on the Talk page, let someone synthesize the useful points, and give editors something to start with. --lquilter 20:58, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete I like the idea of this list, as it shows the development of this theme in SF writing. However, without secondary sources, it perhaps qualifies as OR, as it is essentially an essay based on a thematic list. "It is better to have no information, than to have information like this, with no sources[1]." --Gavin Collins 08:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep as it is notable. Wow, is this badly sourced. :-( I would clsoe and keep but for a my potential COI. No time to fix it, monkey on my back. Bearian 19:13, 10 October 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.