Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional companies

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List of fictional companies

List of fictional companies (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - (View log)

Delete - another indiscriminate, unmaintainable list. Otto4711 10:10, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • What's indiscriminate about it is that almost every book, TV episode, film, comic book, etc. has at least one fictional company in it. If every such example of a fictional company were added to this list, the article would have tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of entries. There is no way that such a list can be useful or encyclopedic. Take a show like Bewitched as just one example, that takes place partly within the context of an advertising agency. Would Wikipedia become more useful if someone added every single client that Darrin ever wrote copy for to this list article? Otto4711 19:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Come now. You should know better than that. WP:NOT#IINFO is not limited to just those things. A list of all the people in the US who own a cat doesn't fall under any of those guidelines, are you suggesting that such an article would not correctly be removed under the policy? Otto4711 17:15, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem with this argument is that you haven't yet connected this article and the one about cats. People can recgonzie the problem with an article about every cat owner. But that doesn't mean we don't have list of cat breeds or other such lists. The real problem is, there is no policy argument that supports your position, and I just don't see a good articulation of why this list is bad. Sure, it's hard to maintain, it's potentially vast...so is Wikipedia. This list isn't any more impossible to manage than Wikipedia itself. Even if it reached the point where it was far too long, it could be broken up into "list of fictional X from American Media" or "list of fictional X from 20th Century Media" or whatever. Mister.Manticore 01:08, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Unencyclopedic" and "unmaintainable" and "indiscriminate collection of information" are more than sufficient justification for deleting this article. It does not benefit Wikipedia to have an article consisting of nothing but the names of fictional companies that appeared in some piece of fiction or another. Is there any significance to the vast majority of the named businesses, even within the works themselves? Hard to say, because vast numbers of them offer no assertion of their notability or indeed any indication of what role they play in the narrative from which they are drawn. There is no value to Wikipedia in having a list to include business names that appear on billboards in video games and otherwise play no role in the game. There is no value in a list that gathers the names of, say, fictional groceries where the hero of the story buys his toilet paper. To which your answer undoubtedly will be that such entries should be excised. Which then brings up the inevitable maintainability issues, not to mention POV issues. If you don't like WP:NOT then how about WP:FICT? If this were a list of characters rather than a list of businesses there would be no question that the article should be deleted. Otto4711 01:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • That would be only your opinion that it's not encyclopedic. However, I disagree. These companies themselves may be the subject of articles themselves, or they may not, but that they can, demonstrates to me that there is potential encyclopedic value to them. This content is real, and if any of it in particular doesn't belong, remove that. And yes, the criteria for this list is very important, and as far as your concerns go, clean-up is an option instead of deletion. I'd say establishing some good criteria would fix your concerns just fine. If you don't want to do it, you don't have to do it. Leave it to someone else to maintain. And I would not agree that there would be no question that these lists would be deleted or not. Your past experience with nominating members of various professions should demonstrate to you that there are questions to it, and valid concerns. So I'm not sure why you think it would be automatically done. While you may think there's no question of deleting these lists, obviously other people do. So perhaps you need to work on either improving your argument, or recognizing where it's not applicable? Mister.Manticore 02:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • As far as nominating lists of professions, it remains my opinion that many of the keep opinons were in respnse to procedural concerns rather than the quality of the articles themselves. But that's neither here nor there in regards this discussion. If you can demonstrate in any convincing way that an encyclopedic article can be written about, oh, just picking a few at random, Big Bud Dean Construction from Heathers or Monumental Pictures from Singin' in the Rain or Ace Tomato Company from Spies Like Us then I will cheerfully concede your point. Otto4711 02:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have to convince you of any of those companies, because I don't believe that they should have an article, though admittedly, I don't know much about any of them, so I really would refrain from expressing anything about them. Of the three entries you named, I only know I've seen one, and that was years ago. I wouldn't even know if they really were in the material. Personal ignorance therefore trumps argument. If you're concerned about those entries, bring it up to the people who added them. Besides, there is no requirement than a list be composed solely of entries with articles. Or even primarily. Still, even if they were, that the material they appeared in has a Wikipedia article is enough for me. And I think the general consensus is that almost any non-self published fictional work is going to be kept. Therefore, I believe that the standard you've created is a false one, and unsupported by Wikipedia practice. If you want me to agree to it, you're going to have to convince me of it first. And as far as the fictional professions go, while some opinions were on that reasons, many others were for actual ones. You should go back and look at them. There are real arguments there, not just procedurally kept ones. Mister.Manticore 04:04, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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