Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tom Marvolo Riddle

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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 of the debate was delete the current form and make a true redirect to Lord Voldemort. (There seems nothing to merge, as pointed out below). While the intention of spoiler prevention is a good one, this case really seems to be stretching things. It's quite common knowledge and hard to avoid at this point: anyone searching Google for Tom Riddle is going to see the WP article Lord Voldemort as the first hit. Search for Tom Marvolo Riddle and it is the second hit. This soft redirect seems like far too much trouble for the very unlikely case that someone comes across the term "Tom Marvolo Riddle", and decides to jump to that page on Wikipedia, without consulting any other sources, without searching Wikipedia, and without looking at any other Harry Potter pages on Wikipedia. Once they do hit this page, all they find out is that Tom Riddle is a character in the book, one short sentence of content about him, and that he is important enough to warrant some sort of spoiler (which is a type of spoiler itself). If they follow the spoiler link, then the soft redirect was not needed. If they don't follow the link, it begs the question as to what they were hoping to find, if not information about the character that they might not know yet. Finally, arguments for a soft redirect might have more weight for a more recent spoiler, but the book revealing the connection was released in 1998. - Turnstep 17:00, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tom Marvolo Riddle

Orginal merged into Lord Voldemort, This article provides little in the way of information (To put it mildly) and the series has been around for some time (in both book and Movie form) that a stub of Tom Riddle with a redirect is not needed has this plot detail is not much of a secret - Delete Aeon 02:02, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment. I'm not sure... having this soft redirect sure looks silly, but I can imagine someone, in the middle of reading Chamber of Secrets, looking up Tom Riddle on Wikipedia without expecting to have such a major plot point spoiled for them. Is there a precedent for anti-spoiler redirects like this? --Allen 02:13, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment This is the first one I've seen and I agree it is pretty silly. Aeon 02:26, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment. The only other example I can think of is Scabbers (talk page) and Peter Pettigrew (talk page): more from Harry Potter universe. The PP page was originally created to contain spoiler information, but the information was rapidly returned to the Scabbers article as well. Subsequently I merged them. Telsa (talk) 08:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. Kids love this Harry Potter stuff, but I don't see the need for all this fandom in an encyclopedia. Brian G. Crawford 02:27, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. This is part of the second book, many many later plot details are revealed in the main article. This is really ridiculous. Grandmasterka 02:56, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge into Lord Voldemort & delete Bridesmill 02:58, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Why do you want us to delete Bridesmill? He's a perfectly good user :) --LambiamTalk 09:04, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Ok i shall nominate him for deletion. ;) --M1ss1ontomars2k4 14:13, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
We can AfD users?--Tollwutig 14:52, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
In case this was a serious question, no, you cannot. Turnstep 17:00, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per Brian G. Crawford. DarthVader 03:49, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Act per any prior precedent per Amcbride. If there isn't one, keep. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEMES?) 04:15, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak Keep. I'm generally more of a deletionist, or at least a mergist, but my abhorrence toward undesired spoilers trumps those right now. It's an odd little article, but it has some value. I'm going to make this a weak keep, however, as I remember the dispute over whether or not certain characters should have a heading titled "Death" in their articles, lest the article's very table of contents contain a spoiler. I agreed in those cases that after a reasonable amount of time, certain information changes from "spoiler" into "common knowledge". In those cases a quirky soft redirect like this wouldn't be possible, so it's not a perfect comparison. So in consideration of these factors, I'm making this a weak keep vote. --Icarus 05:32, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
...Huh? What does that have to do with this? I still just don't see why a piece of the plot of a series should be arbitrarily taken out and put in a separate article like this. It would make for an impassible encyclopedia if we chopped up a plot into ten different articles to avoid spoilers, and this is clearly not the precedent... This makes no sense to me. Grandmasterka 05:48, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, This IS an encyclopedia. Small little and very useless redirects like this should be deleted. Aeon 06:17, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand your question. What that has to do with this is that this article exists primarily as a way of avoiding the inherent spoiler that would come from redirecting it to Lord Voldemort. That's why I was talking about spoilers. --Icarus 07:30, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge into Lord Voldemort & delete. I would expect this sort of thing on a Harry Potter reference site but on Wikipedia as an abuse of redirects. WP does just exist to pander to those Harry Potter fans who don't know about these plot developments. This would set a ridiculous precendent if novels and television series were to have their story arcs explained in separate articles.  (aeropagitica)  (talk)  06:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment As this is a perfectly valid name for a major character, I think that even if the consensus is that this article has no place here, it should be turned into a redirect (or deleted and recreated as a redirect, if there's any reason do to so) to the main Lord Voldemort article rather than being totally deleted. If nothing else, this might serve to protect against re-creation by someone who discovered that there was no article of this name, but who did not know that there had once been. --Icarus 07:30, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect as per aeropagitica. Seriously, nobody would ever bother to learn about Lord Voldemort on Wikipedia first before reading the books, and to purport otherwise is dumb. Common Wikipedia practice should not be subverted at the whims of Harry Potter fandom. Proto||type 09:14, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
To clarify - this should just be a straightforward (ie, not soft) redirect. This was tried with Anakin Skywalker being a soft redirect to Darth Vader, but was eventually overturned and the Anakin Skywalker just states what happens (following a spoiler warning). This is different, though, as this article is two lines, not a lengthy article, and it may as well just be a redirect. Proto||type 09:21, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I considered this very example when deciding how to vote, but decided that it's different because the Star Wars spoiler is over 20 years old at this point. I don't know where I'd draw the line, and made my vote weak because a case could be made for this spoiler being too old to be a real spoiler too, but for what it's worth, I thought I'd just mention the huge difference between a 20+ year old spoiler for a trilogy that was finished 20 years ago and a more recent spoiler for a series that isn't done yet. (Hm, maybe that's where I'd draw the line... Except for serieses that have no set ending point, of course.) --Icarus 19:01, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep – Unlike Grandmasterka, I don't think this is a "plot detail". If you read Lord Voldemort front to end you expect to encounter possible plot spoilers, but if you innocently just look for "Tom Riddle", it is potentially a major spoiler to be redirected to You-Know-Who. The article should be rewritten a bit, making it more like a typical article, and I think it is safe enough after a plot spoiler warning to say something like: "More about his identity is revealed in the article on Lord Voldemort." --LambiamTalk 09:16, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I really don't understand some of the recommendations. "Merge"? There is nothing to be merged. Have those recommending this even looked at the situation? "Delete"? So do these users propose that the next user looking for "Tom Riddle" gets to stare at a page stating: "Wikipedia does not have a page with this exact name. *Start the Tom Riddle page or add a request for it."? I can assure you that such a page would be started in essentially zero time. LambiamTalk 09:25, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Keep. I've never seen a "soft redirect" before, and it's a little fishy, but for someone as culturally big as Lord Voldemort I think this is a reasonable use. This should not be construed as an invitation to create soft redirects for every minor character in every fantasy series; I would reserve this sort of thing for only the biggest exceptions. bikeable (talk) 15:20, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep. I don't see why having this soft redirect hurts anything. Certainly don't delete, we need it as a hard redirect if nothing else. - AdelaMae (talk - contribs) 15:48, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge to Lord Voldemort. It says in the Wikipedia FAQs that Wikipedia contains spoilers, so there's no point in keeping this as a separate article just to avoid spoiling the second book. Anyway, most Harry Potter fanatics have already read it almost immediately after it came out, and most Harry Potter non-fanatics won't care anyway. JIP | Talk 17:35, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. I don't think it hurts to have this redirect, given that we do acknowledge spoilers by having spoiler warnings. Vashti 18:24, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
    • It's currently not a redirect, it's a separate article whose only reason for existence as a separate article is to avoid spoiling a plot point. If it were to be changed to a real redirect then that would be fine by me. JIP | Talk 19:04, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
      • It is a "soft" redirect with a little additional commentary. I just checked that guideline page, and it actually does explicitly state that it can be used in cases where a spoiler would be inherent, such as when a character has an alter ego. --Icarus 19:13, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
        • Woot. In that case, I'd say that for something as big as Harry Potter, which new people are discovering all the time, the soft redirect can be justified. Vashti 22:13, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Redirect. This is silly. We are an encyclopedia, which is supposed to contain information, not pander to people who whine about spoilers. I you don't wish for spoilers, then have the common sense not to go to Wikipedia. Simple as that. ' (Feeling chatty? ) (Edits!) 21:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Having a soft redirect with so little information is pointless, and it in a way gives away the alter ego of Riddle....why even bother. Aeon 22:44, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per Icarus and Wikipedia:Soft_redirect. --Allen 22:56, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong and Speedy Keep per this being a perfect example of Soft redirects for spoilers. Shadowoftime 02:33, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
    Comment If having extra information on Tom Riddle is the reason that people think this article is somehow hurting Wikipedia, the info can always be deleted as long as the spoiler and soft redirect stay. A soft direct is better in this instance because it doesn't spoil an important part of the story while there is no reason for a hard redirect over a soft one here. Shadowoftime 02:38, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep I created this soft redirect. The fact is to simply redirect Tom Riddle to Voldemort would reveal a spoiler to someone who is simply asking for information on Tom Riddle. Suppose someone hears the name from a friend or is in the middle of reading the Chamber of Secrets. They could possibly believe that Tom Riddle is a minor character and is not any more complicated then what they were reading at the time. It is simply safer to include the soft redirect, then not too. The Filmaker 16:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment This AfD is about the article Tom Marvolo Riddle, specifically. I don't have the book in front of me, but I seem to recall that "Marvolo" is introduced as his middle name, like, three sentences before he's revealed to be Lord Voldemort, so the chances that anyone who knows enough to search for all three names wouldn't already know his true identity is extremely small. It might be more justifiable to move this soft redirect to Tom Riddle, and have Tom Marvolo Riddle go ahead and redirect to Lord Voldemort (although personally I think that anyone who uses Wikipedia to look up stuff about an eight-year-old book while reading it deserves what they get). --phh (t/c) 22:37, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect to Lord Voldemort. Stifle (talk) 01:51, 29 April 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.