Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cultural references in Pokémon (3rd nomination)

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 NO CONSENSUS. I count 12 keep votes and 7 delete votes, with "strong" qualifiers on both sides. That is too narrow a margin for consensus. — JIP | Talk 20:30, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Cultural references in Pokémon

This is still a list of random historical or pop-culture "references" in Pokémon, and is a collection of indiscriminate trivia. There's no good place to merge it, and no real use for it as a standalone article. The Pokémon Wikiproject, as far as I can tell, hasn't shown much interest in fiddling with this list of trivia, and other than some vandalism patrol and bot changes, it hasn't been touched since the last AFD.

Please note that this is not a merge target, and deleting it will not result in a bunch of Pokémon stubs popping up.

For those interested, this has been on AFD twice before. The previous AFDs are here and here. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 13:28, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Speedy Keep You have attempted to VfD this article twice in the past two months. Both times it was kept. Do not attempt to delete articles through attrition. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 13:56, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- I listed this for AFD a month and a half ago; Apostrophe listed it a second time a week later, and I would have advised him not to. Both times it has received a majority of delete votes; the last AFD had a 2d:1k ratio, with several of the keeps because of the too-quick relist.
  Note that it has been a month since any non-vandal, non-bot edit of this article, despite being listed on the Pokémon Wikiproject's talk page. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 14:03, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - Going a month without a major edit is hardly a reason to delete a substantial article which survived two very recent deletion attempts. If you really want it deleted, unlist it and try again in 6 months. 3 AfDs in two months is completely unacceptable. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:29, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    - Both times it barely survived AFD for reasons unrelated to the quality of the article (a mistaken belief that it was a merge target, a much-too-soon relist). Both times it received a majority of delete votes. The only relevant Wikiproject has no interest in doing anything with this. Had I just redirected this to Pokémon (anime), I'm doubtful anyone would have noticed.
      Don't be so hung up on process, especially when there aren't any applicable formal rules. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 14:39, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      - There aren't any applicable formal rules?! Surely you've read and are familiar with Wikipedia:Deletion policy, which explicitly states: "In some cases, repeated attempts to have an article deleted may even be considered disruptive. If in doubt, don't delete!" No applicable rules indeed! Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 15:16, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        I'm curious what this AFD is disrupting, exactly. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 15:23, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        Here's two for a start: (a) AfD now averages some 150+ entries a day, and is more than bloated enough without re-noms of things twice kept in less than two months (b) repeatedly re-nominating an article hurts its chance for natural development and cleanup, as editors are unlikely to work extensively to cleanup something that gets an AfD nomination every couple weeks. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:15, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Agree with Andrew on this - leave it at least 3 and preferably 6 months. However pointless the article is! Dlyons493 Talk 14:41, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- If you feel the article is pointless, why do you want to keep it for three months? - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 14:53, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This article will not get improved untill possible contributors to the article believe that their contributions will be kept. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:02, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Unreferenced Original Research Cruft. I've not seen the "I Feel Skitty" episode, but does Meowth really kick someone in the style of Chun Li? Was this an actual cultural reference, or someone picking up the merest coincidence with something else? Meowth's ability to speak is reminiscent of Garfield? Even if the script writers confirmed these things, I still don't think Pokemon episodes should have every facet which deals with real life in a article. I mean, one of the episodes contains a samurai? Is this a notable event in the Pokemon world, do people sit up and think, "Wow, Samurai were mentioned, that's an important cultural reference in my favourite show!" - Hahnchen 16:41, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Oh dear. Have any of the reflexive "keep" voters actually read the article? User:A Man In Black is right, Despite the title, which might lead one to believe that it contains references to popular culture this is a unsalvageable grab-bag of trivia. Delete. Pilatus 16:45, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- That's a job for cleanup, not for AFD. Keep, keep, keep, a thousand times keep. ~~I want to be careful to avoid personal attacks, but I feel that this is verging on a bad-faith nomination.~~ -- Plutor 16:55, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - You've made a fairly serious accusation. Do you have any evidence to back it up? - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 17:10, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    - You're right. I apologize, I didn't really mean bad-faith. I really should have just agreed with Starblind that this is getting a bit repetitive and possibly disrupting. Based on your other edits and votes and whatnot, I'm sure that you do have the best of intentions. I withdraw my accusation. (But not my vote) -- Plutor 17:50, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - Cleanup has failed since mid-August. No one on the Pokémon Wikiproject, who are a pretty active bunch, has ever wanted to touch the mess up. Can't blame them for it. Pilatus 18:01, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Keep or merge somewhere (I'm not sure what the best target would be). In any case, I've trimmed the article down to less than half its former size and rewrote the lead; it should be somewhat more viable (aside from the choice of topic) now. Kirill Lokshin 18:04, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep this. It is no longer a bad article, IMHO. Well done Kirill. AndyJones 18:15, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
As the other two AfDs, I have no idea what on earth to do with this. Its a garbled mess. I could do with splitting and merging between various articles but I don't want to do it. Despite this however, the fact that it's been on AfD twice before and kept twice makes me lean towards keep. --Cel e stianpower ^háblame 18:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I am a bit concerned it's a form of original research, but not very. The Land 18:42, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Keep While it has scraped through by the skin of its teeth twice, it has improved beyond being a list of "references to general human culture in Pokemon"! I will however pop it on my watchlist and if any edits I consider blatently ridiculous come up again I will delete them with haste. Lets face it, before the edits half of it was complete rubbish and I fear the article may well attract the same kind of blatently obvious and pointless trivia it contained before... I mean the prunes comment... bloody hell! *sigh* Jezze 18:48, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Strong delete. Sorry, but this is just inherently unencyclopedic triviacruft. Even in the cleaned-up version, it's mostly nonsense: half the "cultural references" are just phrases like "all's well that ends well" and "another one bites the dust" that are simply everyday cliches! There is nothing here remotely notable. Nothing at all. — Haeleth Talk 19:05, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, quickly. Kappa 19:37, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Delete unverifiable. Jkelly 22:08, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Delete echoing above. Dottore So 22:27, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: unverifiable, inherently POV, unmaintainable, fancruft. MCB 22:36, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Unencyclopedic fancruft magnet. --Calton | Talk 01:11, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- "Even in the cleaned-up version, it's mostly nonsense" To be honest I wish the article had never existed! However it has been through AFD twice and got through, once with myself voting against it. 'All's well that ends well'? Considering that two sub-characters are called Romeo and Juliet, this could be easily seen as a cultural reference! See the article on cruft for one which is of equal merit to this (and yet it has been used in various offensive ways to the English language throughout this AFD)! Jezze 04:24, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Again, this is the third nomination, and the reasons given to keep still stand. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:39, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I've read much better articles, and I'll admit that it's not particularly well implemented, but it's not inherently outside the scope of Wikipedia. It could use some cleanup by fans, but it's not delete-worthy even as it stands. -- stillnotelf has a talk page 23:36, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, no basis for deletion. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:43, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- OR, indiscriminate trivia, covering a subject better covered by Pokémon (anime)...take your pick. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 16:00, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - I don't think at the page is original research fundamentally, although it may need a rewrite/cleanup to better align to what we can reasonably say from the sources we have. It's not indiscriminate trivia. Your third point is not a basis for deletion. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:24, 4 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    - The problem is that we have no sources whatsoever, other than the primary source (the anime itself). You have a number of fansites with disparate speculation, but varied, inconsistent speculation on fansite forums isn't an encyclopedic topic. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 04:14, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
SPEEDY KEEP IT RIGHT NOW I can't believe you're trying this sh*t again, AMIB. You've tried before, and you failed. Give up already! CoolKatt number 99999 02:56, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- Oh, and if the result is keep, I want an admin to make sure that no one can ever put this on AFD ever again CoolKatt number 99999 02:59, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - That is unlikely to happen. That said, I won't relist this again (ever) if there's a bonafide consensus to keep. I only renominated after two AFDs that closed no consensus with a majority of delete votes.
    As for the rest, WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF, eh? I'd rather not see a repeat of the original debacle. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 04:14, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete, plainly unencyclopedic; it not only an arbitrary list, but an arbitrary list based entirely on the interpretations, readings, and original research of a few editors. Relisting a deletion because new information has come up or because the original vote was based on errors strikes me as entirely approprate; but if deletion fails because its relisting was too soon, please do remember to list it again as soon as enough time has passed to dispel that concern. --Aquillion 04:06, 5 November 2005 (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.