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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timeline of fictional future events

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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 was Delete. Either the list presents these timelines/events as if there is a relation between them, which would be a violation of WP:SYNTH. Or they are presented as individual facts, without link between them, which makes it WP:INDISCRIMINATE. The keep arguments (useful, interesting, fun, ...) are less convincing than the delete ones. Fram (talk) 09:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Timeline of fictional future events

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AfDs for this article:
Timeline of fictional future events (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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WP:NOTCRYSTAL,WP:INDISCRIMINATE,WP:OR ,WP:RS and finally WP:V.

This article reads like an April fools . How can we have a "timeline" from hundreds of non-related sources. There appears to be no criteria for inclusion here apart from it happens in a fictional future. There are very few references, some of the dates appear to be guess work (i.e Dune times are changed from in universe times to standard times) , a quick search for Dune finds we jump in mid way threw the series with no mention of events of the first 2 books! I could go on... Gnevin (talk) 16:00, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete This is exactly why WP is seen by many as useless and unreliable. we have nearly no references, there is wild synthesis, original research, lots of incomplete links. (a year that says x happened links to that year, event is not listed). its a fan page, basically. i personally love the idea of comparing different timelines, but for it to be encyclopedic it would have to show the NOTABILITY of each fictional or predicted event, ie why who wrote it is an important source. Arthur clarke: notable. Family guy/star wars/futurama ad nauseum: not notable as being serious efforts of foretelling. any and all fictional future events can safely go in the articles on years. comparing different peoples timelines, if it was not done in a book already, is blatant original research. Seriously, can anyone show how this doesnt violate WP article guidelines? id like to know how it lasted for 6 years with no serious attempt to fix or delete.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 17:38, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
ok, i see one previous afd. im not sure afds were done very well then, if this is a typical example.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 17:40, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Heh; I just got pulled here by a bot. This was quite a surprise, as I had thought this article was deleted six years ago! Maybe someone forgot to do the actual deletion? Ben Standeven (talk) 06:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and Delete: Obvious violation of WP:SYNTH. Ben Standeven (talk)
  • Delete as simply outside the reasonable scope of an encyclopedia. Way too broad, could never be even 1% complete. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:03, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. It's a big, wp:indiscriminate collection of non-wp:notable information. While I find the idea of interconnecting or reconciling independent fictional elements very interesting (eg. the Wold Newton family), this is not that beast. This is merely a list of events in unconnected timelines which have never been seriously discussed or cross-referenced by any reliable source. That Dark Angel begins in the year 2009 and is largely set in 2019 wasn't really relevant to the narrative of the work itself, let alone relevant to Knowing or Blade Runner. The article itself even acknowledges that this one tangential connection (being future fictional events) isn't even particularly relevant or notable, “[T]he needs of the story are usually the primary concern, and science fiction stories are often more about the present in which they are written than the future in which they are supposedly set.” » scoops “ŧâłķ„ 18:57, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Another hangover from Wikipedia's early days, apparently meant as a place for things that weren't interesting enough for another article, a bedpost for everyone to stick their chewed gum upon. This has so many things wrong with it, including things that most people would not consider a "future event" (i.e., something that was still "in the future" at the time the book or movie or TV show came out) and the fact that one could put thousands of entries on here, both uninteresting and slightly interesting. Mandsford (talk) 20:05, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This article was originally part of a trio, along with one on fictional historical events and one on contemporaneous events. I'm kind of surprised this is the one that survived. Ben Standeven (talk) 06:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Very cool, but needs another home.Kitfoxxe (talk) 22:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as totally unencyclopaedic. Hilarious that it last so long though. Can we pull List of timelines in fiction while we're at it? Handschuh-talk to me 01:14, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Scoops and nom, with the exception that I disagree that WP:NOTCRYSTAL is applicable. THF (talk) 19:52, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per the last Afd. It does what it says on the tin & is useful for research. The current referencing is poor, but the content should be entirely verifiable, and there is no OR or synthesis when no connection between the events, other than the date assigned to them, is claimed. Nom does not stand up; deleters need to find better reasons. Johnbod (talk) 21:16, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and expand Actually Johnbod has made most of the points I intended to. I will just add that WP:NOTCRYSTAL simply doesn’t apply, and that the fact that it is entertaining makes it not in the least unencyclopaedic, Ian Spackman (talk) 23:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The article has potential, and I actually wish all our articles had such information on the origin of their sources. The argument being made here is that the page is not required because its essentially a list of things yet to occur, but I see this as a fleet in being article which could aid in the battle against cruft, pop culture, and other poisonous information which would contaminate a lot of articles of high quality. I will allow for the possibility that the information could be presented in other articles, but as is it I think keeping this article would be a good thing. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. If this would be a complete article, it would be the longest article we would have, by far. This makes as much sense as trying to summarize every kind of fiction in one article, or having timelines of past fictional events. --Conti|✉ 00:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep If they are key events in notable fiction the list is not indiscriminate. What it needs is not deletion, but expansion (and each event before the RW present should of course give the date of publication of the work involved, which is the justification for listing it. )

(User:DGG forgot to sign)

  • Comment: I would argue that it doesn't fail any of the listed policies, as per some commenters above, except WP:INDISCRIMINATE, which lists "plot-only description of fictional works" as its first example. It's harmless, but the topic is indeed way too broad, so I'm ambivalent. --L33tminion (talk) 03:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Clearly an indescriminate collection of facts which is a violation of wikipedia policy. L33tminion is correct that this is not OR since it does not claim to advance a position, but there is no need to go there anyway since this is a fundamental violation of WP:NOT policies related to directories and indescrimate collection of information and violates the guidelines of WP:Stand-alone lists (which also speaks to timelines) by being overbroad. Pages that violate policy this flagrantly need to be expunged sooner rather than later. Indrian (talk) 05:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Fun, funny, wild stuff, which is probably why so many humorless people hate it. Yes, it does need work, but that's not a good enough reason to delete. If it is deleted, someone please give it a new home and let us know the URL! --Logotu (talk) 02:02, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Check the talk pageGnevin (talk) 09:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Huh? I don't see anything relevant there. But I bet TVTropes would take this, and timeline of fictional contemporary events. [I thought I called it "contemporaneous fictional events"...] Ben Standeven (talk) 01:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Tone 00:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relisting comment. I believe it is worth to give this debate some more time. Personally, I'd go for Delete per indiscriminate (what are the most important events from Star Trek for example?) The article in the present state is a mess and confronts WP:SYNTH. But it could eventually be rewritten from beginning. --Tone 01:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete it's an indiscriminate list of events, and not suitable for an encyclopedia. ~DC Talk To Me 00:54, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per WP:OR and WP:NOT. If Wikipedia is the only place a list such as this is written, than we can't include it. We only work off of what has already been published in reliable sources. We can't put together timelines spanning different fictional universes such as this, as that would be original research. We only write on topics that have already been written on. ThemFromSpace 01:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Nice list, but it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Echtoran (talk) 02:18, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Ye Olde Novel Synthesis at work creating something found in none of the sources, with no particular criterion for inclusion other than "the future". — Gavia immer (talk) 02:34, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment to answer some objections, the criterion is events in major fictions, major as determined by Wikipedia's notable criteria-- This is therefore not indiscriminate; the sources are directly from the works involved, an acceptable source for such things, so it is not OR. Putting numbered things in a list by chronological order is not SYNTHESIS. Whether someone has made such a list before or not is irrelevant and not a criterion for a list. DGG ( talk ) 03:13, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Quoting directly from WP:SYNTH "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published the same argument in relation to the topic of the article. Organizing this list when it hasn't been organized before is indeed synthesis as per our OR policy. ThemFromSpace 03:37, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This list does not say "therefore" anything, thereby avoiding synthesis. Johnbod (talk) 14:29, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right, but this is not an argument, so I really do not think WP:SYNTH applies. However, I completely disagree with DGG that this is not an indescriminate collection because we do not have reliable sources that claim there is any value to grouping these events together into a single timeline. This list throws in every fictional event from "major fictions," as DDG calls them, and therefore makes no effort to discriminate between which of these events are actually important through reliable sources. I imagine it would be difficult if not impossible to provide third-party sources that attest to the importance of most of these events, as they would generally just be mentioned in passing in plot summaries or the like. Indrian (talk) 06:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Most items on the list cover the whole action of a fiction; for others, like "2053 - World War III devastates Earth in Star Trek" the "importance" seems clear. Johnbod (talk) 14:29, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly, most items do cover the whole action, which is the very definition of indescriminate since no effort is made to pull out the actual important events using reliable sources. Also, for specific events, the "importance" is only clear the same way importance is made clear in every other wikipedia article: significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject. That is the standard articulated by the core guildeline of WP:N, and this article fails to meet it. Indrian (talk) 18:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Such a list cannot be encyclopedic because timelines of events in different works of fiction aren't compatible with each other. This causes the article to consist of too much synthesis. Some events also lack proper references. JIP | Talk 10:37, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - indiscriminate list. There are thousands of work of fiction set in the future, each with its own set of "significant events".--70.80.234.196 (talk) 03:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I'm not in love with the title, but the content is shaping up to be very encyclopedic and valuable per wp:notability. ChildofMidnight (talk) 04:20, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Truly indiscriminate, in a sense it is a synthesis (it is being asserted that there is a single traceable timeline between hundreds if not thousands of fictional universes which do not occupy the same space). The more it's updated the less related each individual component becomes as we move away from the handful of different authors etc. currently listed to a complete mess. There are literally thousands of books, video games, films and TV series, role-playing games, comics, songs and other things which could be added. Self-perpetuating self-defeat, no thanks. Someoneanother 11:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is no such assertion at all; rather the opposite. No timeline list on a major topic can ever be "complete"; this is not a relevant objection. The list has been around a long time & remains at a very managable size; if it ever became enormous that would be the time to object on those grounds. Johnbod (talk) 14:29, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course there is an assertion, a correlation has been formed on a single data field; the year the fictional event supposedly occured. If that was not the case then it wouldn't be listed in year order, the list is organized in such a way that it suggests that readers can navigate these topics in a meaningful way because they're birds of a feather. It may have been a consistently small dustbin of trivia up till now, but that doesn't change what it is nor what it can only become (a large dustbin of trivia) should someone actually bother to update it. Someoneanother 15:36, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Without wishing to labour the obvious, the whole point of the article is that it allows comparison of what are clearly incompatible and individual timelines, which is exactly where the utility of it lies! Johnbod (talk) 16:11, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Except that half of them are not lines at all, merely random events from random fictions which can be nailed to a particular year. The list's lead states "This list is a chronological collection of significant events from various works of such fiction." That isn't about comparing individual timelines, it's about mashing individual timelines and one-off fictional events together willy-nilly into one big, meaningless mess. While I can certainly see why a great many people would be interested in timelines from particularly well-known series in direct comparison (say Sherlock Holmes against other fictional detectives from that era), that's not this list's stated aim or the reality on the ground, this is a dustbin for random dates from random fictions. Someoneanother 16:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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