Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephen Colbert (character)

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The result was Withdrawn by nominator due to overwhelming keep votes. Non-admin closure --Longing.... 23:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stephen Colbert (character)

Stephen Colbert (character) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

• Original AFD

The page has made little improvement in quality since its original nomination, and after a month of tagging it, no one has made an attempt to improve it. Any significant aspects of the character are already noted on the Stephen Colbert and The Colbert Report pages. The article reads like a list of gags and off-hand remarks about Colbert's supposed past on the show with little in the way of actual sources or organization. The article could be re-written to be an actual biography, but it would not be notable due to the fact that most of the info Colbert has reveal about the character is just made for a joke, ie, the backpacking around Europe, etc.

Before giving your support, please read this policy. Keep in mind that little improvements have been made since the original nomination and I don't see anyone making an effort to clean-up the article. Also observe that the two above articles already discuss the important aspects of the character. Unless someone is willing to do a total re-write of the article, due to the fact that it is a fictional character, I don't see any reason to keep it.

Also, I apologize if I used the improper protocol for a page's 2nd nomination, but this is the first time I've done it and I had difficulty understanding the policy page's advice for such. The Clawed One 02:36, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment on protocol only. An admin needs to do the moves, but Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephen Colbert (character) (the page I'm editing) needs to move to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephen Colbert (character) (2nd nomination) (which you've apparently created as a redirect. Then Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephen Colbert (character)/Archive 1 should be moved back here to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephen Colbert (character). Finally the AFD log and page need to point to the (2nd nomination) address. There are some wonky AFD pages out there but doing it this way makes it easier to find them when there are multiples -- which I expect will be the case. --Dhartung | Talk 05:56, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. There's a separate article for Jerry Seinfeld and his character, and for the most part, they're fairly similar people. The Stephen Colbert character is so completely and totally different than the actual Stephen Colbert that it certainly warrants its own article (probably even more than the article on Jerry Seinfeld). ShadowMan1od 06:02, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Considering that the character page in question is also in-universe and poorly sourced, bad example. Also, see this policy before you make such a comparison. The Clawed One 06:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Note: The Pokémon test is not a policy, and not even a guideline. Punkmorten 08:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep It's a gag character so of course its sources are in-universe and content will include a list of gags. Wl219 08:21, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, but that doesn't mean it's alright. The Clawed One 14:17, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
• Merge - as I said in the last AFD, the obsessive level of detail is completely unnecessary and can be adequately covered in Colbert's own article. Otto4711 13:57, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep -- well referenced article. --millosh (talk (meta:)) 14:16, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep The Jerry Seinfeld character has his own article. Plus, this one is sourced. And to the clawed one, all of these so-called policies you mention are actually essays. Pats Sox Princess 15:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Essays, policies, same difference. And the Seinfeld comparison is a poor example, as it too is poorly sourced and in-universe. Now, the style and structure of the article is what would be preferred for the Colbert one, but no one has made any attempt to make that happen. The Clawed One 15:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually, essays aren't the same thing as policies or guidelines. An essay is simply an opinion piece written by one or several users. Referring to an essay as a policy is quite disingenuous. Pats Sox Princess 22:05, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes, referring to an essay as a policy is somewhat like referring to a a police officer's morals as a law --Longing.... 22:11, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Is this a particularly good article? Absolutely not. However, it is an article about the main character on a popular, Emmy-nominated, hundreds-of-episodes-deep television series; the character is distinctly different from the person who plays him; and there have been many third-prty mentions of the character himself. I suggest strong trimming and clean-up, but I have no doubt of the validity of an article about the character as a whole, and there's enough salvageable content that starting over from scratch is unnecessary. -- Kicking222 17:11, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Agreed to an extent, the article could be salvaged, but no one has made even the slightest attempt to do so in two or three months. Thus, I have reason to believe that no one will, hence the nomination. If the article is cleaned up I would gladly withdraw my AFD, but that doesn't seem likely. The Clawed One 17:14, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Last I checked, "Nobody wants to clean it up" isn't a deletion criteria...
• Keep, because oddly enough the character is probably more notable than the actor. If he had named it "the Smith John Review", and used Smith John, his own name would be far less notable than it is nowadays. The character is significantly different from the person, putting the article for his character on his page would be like putting the article for Peter Griffin on Seth MacFarlane's page, it would be highly out of place. Just because they share a name does not make them the same person. There have been no actual reasons for deletion brought up, and the subject clearly passes WP:N and WP:V --Longing.... 21:20, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • No reason? It's poorly written, poorly sourced, in-universe, unstructured, and no one has made any attempt to fix it after several months. The Clawed One 22:43, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
• Forget it, everyone wants the article to stay, no one wants to fix the problems or even acknowledge they exist. I withdraw the AFD. The Clawed One 22:46, 1 August 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.