Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Minor characters

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Contents 1 Attempted consensus 2 Conclusion 3 Description 4 Merge 5 Major Major 6 An alternative proposal

[edit] Attempted consensus

Sometimes, a group of similar or related articles is nominated for deletion over a short period of time. In cases like this, it seems prudent to have one centralized discussion about the entire group, rather than repeating arguments over each member thereof. This is an attempt to forum consensus on one such groups of articles.

[edit] Conclusion

1. Major characters (and places, concepts, etc) in a work of fiction should be covered within the article on that work of fiction. If the article on the work itself becomes long, then giving major characters an article of their own is good practice.
2. Minor characters (and places, concepts, etc) in a work of fiction should be listed with short descriptions in a "List of minor characters." This list should reside in the article relating to the work itself, unless either becomes long, in which case a separate article for the list is good practice.
3. Fictional characters which are cultural icons transcending their appearance in a particular work of fiction, or who cannot be neatly tied to a particular work of fiction or fictional universe deserve articles of their own, regardless of other circumstances.
4. It would be useful to add redirects to the article page or list of minor characters, from anything that's listed in there.
5. This has been summarized at WP:FICT for easy reference.

[edit] Description

Characters from books, TV series, movies and/or computer games are often nominated for deletion as 'fancruft', and reader reactions vary between keep, delete and merge.

A possible distinction (taken from WP:WIWO) would be the following.

• Major characters from major works deserve their own article (e.g. Harry Potter).
• Minor characters from major works should be merged into a list for easy accessibility, and because there isn't that much to say about them (e.g. Lionel Hutz).
• Trivial characters from major works should be deleted as unencyclopedic (e.g. that guy that appears in scene seventeen for twenty seconds, then dies).

• Major characters from minor works should be merged into the main article for the book for easy accessibility (e.g. Dua from The Gods Themselves).
• Minor or trivial characters from minor works should be deleted as unencyclopedic (obviously it's hard to think of a suitable example).

I would like to open this matter to further discussion. The criteria for what constitutes a 'major' vs a 'minor' work or character are necessarily vague.

[edit] Merge

• I mostly agree with your criteria above, but I think that we could merge trivial characters from major books into a list as well. Why not? What harm would it do to have a list that mentions Neville's toad, Trevor? DaveTheRed 20:18, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I am definatley in favor of the merge proposal, and DaveTheRed's suggested modification--nixie 06:57, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Dave has a good point. When writing about 'trivial characters' I was mostly thinking about those who appear only on a couple of pages (or one scene) and then disappear or die or whatever. There has been some precent for deleting characters from Star Wars movies that were on-screen for about three seconds total. Personally I would not consider the toad 'trivial', just 'minor'. But that distinction is probably too vague, and it wouldn't hurt to list them anyway. Radiant! 08:39, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)
      • Note that most Star Wars characters, which appear for only a few seconds, are developed in fuller detail in books and comics. For smaller characters, these are generally considered part of their biographical canon. -- user:zanimum
• I concur with DaveTheRed. Trivial or minor characters should be listed as suggested. One reason for extending this claim to minor characters is that some of them play a very important role in a screenplay/book/etc, even when they are not developed as characters. Much could be said, for instance, about Norman Bates' mother in Psycho, although this "part" is not even "played" in the movie. vlad_mv 17:10, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• I suggest creation of an alternative Wiki just to contain the virtually inexhaustible library of fictional characters, places, and things, and reserve Wikipedia for notable fictional characters, places, and things, i.e. those that might have some impact on some real person's life. --BD2412 03:28, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Dave[thered] says it ... either a list in the main article, or a article just for the minor ones, in list format ... perhaps a template for these should be readily available? BigFatDave 03:00, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Major Major

Major characters from major books/games/etc deserve an article. Merge and/or redirect all others. At the same time, I have no objection to articles which deal with minor characters in such a manner as "List of Minor Characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer", for instance. Denni☯ 00:42, 2005 Mar 16 (UTC)

• I think Lists of Minor Characters are very useful, as they allow for easy categorization and make a lot of details easily accessible. Radiant! 08:45, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] An alternative proposal

The Brothers Karamozov is a major book. Alyosha Karamazov is a major character in that book, who does not presently have a page of his own. However, if I wanted to write about him, my inclination would not be to start such a page, but rather to add this material to The Brothers Karamazov, since the article on the novel itself is at present not terribly long. With this in mind, I suggest the following.

Major characters in a work of fiction should be covered within the article on that work of fiction. If the article on the work itself becomes long, then giving major characters an article of their own is good practice.

Minor characters in a work of fiction should be listed with short descriptions in a "List of minor characters." This list should reside in the article relating to the work itself, unless either becomes long, in which case a separate article for the list is good practice.

Fictional characters which are cultural icons transcending their appearance in a particular work of fiction, or who cannot be neatly tied to a particular work of fiction or fictional universe deserve articles of their own, regardless of other circumstances. In my opinion, Odysseus, King Arthur, Superman and Tarzan of the Apes meet this criterion. Hermione Granger probably does not, although giving her an article based on the length of the artice on the Harry Potter series is a good practice. Shimmin 18:40, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with more of this idea since it seems to follow most of the traditions. Even if the character is really really minor, you never know if someone might be looking for the name of that character. -- AllyUnion (talk) 10:24, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This seems to accord with common sense. We need to note also that it's an idea to have a whole forest of redirects pointing at the article - it makes it findable for people who don't agree that the character is ridiculously insignificantly minor, and also discourages the creation of a separate article until one greater than stub length is writable. - David Gerard 22:30, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This sounds like a good proposal. --Carnildo 04:15, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Seems like a great compromise. Other than the occasional character/place/thing that transcends its original fictional work (being in the US, Paul Bunyan and Mickey Mouse spring to mind), keep the fiction within the main article, until it gets too big, and then major characters/places/things get separate articles, and minor characters/places/things get combined in one article. If that gets too big than separate articles for minor characters, minor places, and minor things, etc. And by all means, yes, redirect from all the characters/places/things names. Niteowlneils 01:06, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This proposal seems quite reasonable, as long as we don't have to constantly debate what "major" and "minor" mean. All works should have equal status if people are prepared to contribute about them, and editors of each field should be allowed to decide which elements are major or minor within it, thus keeping things out of Vfd. Kappa 02:26, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Support. I totally agree with the idea that whether there is an independent article about a character should depend on the length of the article on the respective work of fiction. Martg76 16:42, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Support. This is a far more encyclopedic approach to the problem. Rje 01:03, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

Support--ZayZayEM 01:56, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Support, although I don't agree with Kappa's suggestion that all works are equal if there are people who are willing to work on them. If we adopt this policy, it seems like the definitions would be worked out either in editing or in susequent calls for consensus. Remes 19:07, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Support. The problem seems "worst" with fairly long running series like TV shows, book series, or role playing games; these things can generate a lot of trivia, and there are fans to whom it is important. Since Wikipedia is not paper, I don't think folks should be discouraged from writing about these subjects0. The real problem is pigeonholing it so that interested people can find it and add to it. Multi-stub character list articles and dozens of redirects may be the best way; and new articles of "fancruft" merged and redirected as they arise, usually without discussion. If a character's section becomes long enough to support a separate article it can always be broken out. There may also be other ways of classifying these characters; look at Hercules (comics) for an example. -- Smerdis of Tlön 05:02, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Support. This approach will help a long way in solving the problem of trying to keep deciding on who should get their own article in fiction. kaal 06:23, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Support, this is a definite improvement and will make for a well-searchable hierarchy. I don't think anyone would object to the same policy for locations, items, concepts, etc from fiction. Radiant_* 11:26, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

Support, this seems a great way to organize this information. Joyous 12:14, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

Support, but has this already been concluded and adopted as policy? -- Lochaber 17:00, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Support, but with the caveat that a list of minor characters could become very long in some situations even where individual entries are relatively short. So the question of whether an entry is of borderline length to merit its own article should take into account that an inclusive list is getting too long. Alternatively, categorising the minor characters into articles might do it. Start with everything together, then divide as it grows. Sandpiper 08:47, 14 August 2005 (UTC)