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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fictional history of Spider-Man (3rd nomination)

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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 no consensus. As some editors mentioned merging, I'd encourage that to be discussed on the article's talk page. Otherwise, it seems from the discussion that a considerable rewrite (trimming original research and such) might be needed for subsequent AFD's on this subject to be closed as 'keep'. Regards, Arbitrarily0 (talk) 11:27, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fictional history of Spider-Man

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AfDs for this article:
Fictional history of Spider-Man (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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What more do I need to say beyond the title "fictional History of Spider-man"? We don't write in-universe fictional histories of characters. We write real world perspective encyclopaedia articles that keeps recaps of plot to the bare minimum and concentrate on what third party reliable sources (which this has none of) have to say about the cultural and historical significance of a character. This article doesn't cut it in any way shape or form nor can it be made to because it's structure and purpose are so out of line with every policy we have - at it's core, it's just one long plot summary and we don't have article that are simply one long plot summary (it's also a misleading plot summary because it treats the history of Spider-man as a linear narrative and it's nothing of the sort). The MOS (and a dozen other policies) is clear and explicit about this - we don't have articles that are just fictional biographies, we don't write articles that are just to provide descriptive accounts of fictional happenings.I would support a Publication based history of Spider-man but not this. Fails: WP:NOTE, WP:FICT, WP:PLOT, WP:WAF, WP:NOR. Cameron Scott (talk) 15:33, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete in respect to WP's stated principles as explained by the nominator. Kitfoxxe (talk) 15:49, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Per our policies and guidelines, we shouldn't have an article containing these details. Most can be trimmed and summarized; those storylines that generate enough critical commentary to be notable can be linked from there and provide greater depth in line with our specs. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 16:23, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • STRONG KEEP As the previous discussions of this have shown, there is clearly a reason to keep this article. I have been working on trimming this article down so it is not as long, but I am only one person with limited time. I agree that the title is incorrect. We should probably move the article to a new title of Fictional character biography of Spider-Man (or something like that), but it should not be deleted. Wikipedia is for the readers and not the editors, and I have heard in discussions with readers who do not know Spider-Man's full history that articles like this on Wikipedia are VERY useful. Over 40 years of publishing of one character qualifies as notable. Spidey104contribs 16:53, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But which bits are notable? Answer - the bits that are the subject of critical commentary and scholarly discussion. Those stories can be discussed in the normal way according to policy. An article which simply exists to relist story details based upon primary sources and in an in-universe manner, simply shouldn't exist. --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:34, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

*Strong Keep and if not kept it should at least be merged (with a little bit of trimming) in the Spider-Man article like what the articles Batman and Superman look like. (Yes follow in their footsteps after all they are featured articles) I strongly admit that Spidey 104 really does almost all he can to keep it well sourced and if this should go so should all the rest of the fictional history of comic characters should because Spidey is the most notable of all the characters that have one. The only problem I have with this article is it's crammed with too many images and it does need an trim (but trust me that's easier said than done). Jhenderson777 (talk) 18:02, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bluntly, they should all be deleted. The article is *not* well sourced, it's simply original research based on rehashing primary sources. A well sourced article makes use of reliable sources independent of the subject. If such sources don't exist - why are we writing about it? --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:34, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Then by all means nominate them too. But I am sure you realize these articles are just seperation of the section of the fictional character biography of the character because it shared too much room in the characters article. Jhenderson777 (talk) 19:18, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So what? That's not a valid reason for *this* article to exist. The only question here is - can an article be constructed that makes use of secondary sources, is not simply a plot summary and so on - the answer is clearly no. --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:59, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Now Now! I hear you I didn't necessarily say that was an valid reason or imply that. I do agree that this article needs reliable sources along many other of the in story articles. Jhenderson777 (talk) 23:58, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There are secondary sources (usually encyclopedia-like books) that have this information as well. I have read them at the bookstore so I know they would support what is in the article, but I do not own them so it is hard to provide them as a useful reference. I will try switching references over from comic book issues to secondary source encyclopedias as Cameron Scott wants, but I thought Wikipedia preferred primary sources to secondary sources. Spidey104contribs 19:30, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, while we do make use of primary sources, without secondary sources we soon head off into original research and also we then have to make our judgements on what is important - that's what why we rely on secondary sources to do that job for us. Moreover, using primary sources, it's very difficult to write anything but in-universe content. A wikipedia article should always treat spider-man or any other character as an object of the narrative, they should never be presented as if they actually exist and the stories actually happen. --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:57, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Along with trying to shorten the article I have tried to correct the in-universe tone of the article, but that is a lot easier said than done. Spidey104contribs 20:45, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge into Spider-Man. And yes, a little snipping will do (as suggested above). Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 21:28, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - As the article stands right now it is in-univere toned and strrung together based on reader assumptions. At best the content could be transwikied to a related Wikia, if it isn't already there. If there is a serious consideration of mergining... it'll take a serious weeding not a "slight trim". And part of that would be eliminating plot overload from the storylines that currently have their own articles.
    As for the other like articles, their existance does not justify this article just as this artilce's existance does not justify thiers. There is no requirement that an AfD for one must include all. Especially since a lot of those types of nominations get hit with "But each article should be evaluated on its own merits." - J Greb (talk) 21:40, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for being obvious. I am just agreeing with User:Cameron Scott that those could not be necessary as well if this one isn't. As he discussed in the talk page in Wikiproject Comics a while back. It's obvious that this isn't the only article with these problems. They probably all fail Wikipedia guidelines that he put above as well which we don't need. Jhenderson777 (talk) 23:58, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
With resepct: Commenting that "others exist" isn't needed within the discusion. It comes off poorly at best. If it is coming from a point of "What are we going to do about the like articles?", that's a discusion for the Project talk page. - J Greb (talk) 00:17, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I know what you meant the first time. It just came up and it isn't needed in the AFD as much as talking about this does. Thanks for the correction. Jhenderson777 (talk) 00:48, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I'm an idealist, I guess - I figure there's a place for a well-sourced, properly formatted chronological history of Spidey stories on Wikipedia. I mean come on, much like Batman and a few other characters, there have got to be enough reliable secondary sources out there to make it work. The problem is, I don't have the time or resources to give this article the kind of attention it deserves to make it worthwhile, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. I'd like to keep it, but something tells me the better thing to do would be to start from scratch and do it the right way (it would take the same amount of time, I'd think). I'll give this one some thought. BOZ (talk) 00:00, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I assume what you are looking for is something like History of Superman (which itself isn't great and needs more sources) and I think what is called the "Fictional character biography" in Batman is pretty similar and needs renaming (we might need to discuss the idea name and format for such articles). The problem is this article is not anything like those and would have to be moved and completely rewritten from scratch. If anyone wants to do that then I'd recommend they sandbox it first until it looks more solid (as it'd be massive). (Emperor (talk) 01:11, 19 May 2010 (UTC))[reply]
      • You got it - if this was written anywhere near halfway what History of Superman is, I'd feel a whole lot better about it. Like I say, that's not going to happen anytime soon, so maybe it's better if someone down the line were to start from scratch. Having worked on the FCB for Spider-Man as part of getting it to GA, I really don't want to merge a bunch of story details in there, and really feel a separate place describing the many serieses and such that he has appeared in and the major stories described by secondary sources, would be ideal. BOZ (talk) 05:31, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry for bugging this board again but I really feel that if an main story is in an issue article then I really think it needs to just link to that article to avoid redundance. This is what I mean by that. Lot less to worry about. Jhenderson777 (talk) 00:41, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - this is basically a big slab of WP:PLOT. As articles progress to FA status the plot is hammered down and rewritten in an out-of-universe manner (see the Superman and Batman examples above), splitting off the FCB to a new article is not the solution to the problem and the fact this has been done a few times doesn't make it right (those other articles will also be nominated in time). There is a solid article to be written about the portrayal of the character over the years (as mentioned above), this just isn't it. (Emperor (talk) 01:11, 19 May 2010 (UTC))[reply]
  • As you can see I an now changing my vote for I can see your side of the story. I don't agree with originally said about merging it to the Spider-Man article because that will fill the same problem this article has. But I don't agree with deleting it either. Instead I am requesting it to be an Keep if not as an article then as an redirection page to Spider-Man#Fictional character biography. Any thoughts about that? Jhenderson777 (talk) 01:51, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thing is that it isn't really an obvious search term but I am not going to loose any sleep over something this side of a merge (so deleting it or turning it into a redirect is fine as long as people don't try and shoehorn the content back into the article). It is also worth mentioning that people could look at working on that section looking at the characterization of Spider-Man in an out-of-universe manner (as is done in the Batman section), which is a better approach than trying to rewrite this article from scratch (as discussed above). See also the discussion at WT:CMC#Fictional history of... where I am trying to open this up in general terms so we can try and avoid this general problem and see if there a way to steer articles on the path to FA in productive directions. (Emperor (talk) 02:25, 19 May 2010 (UTC))[reply]
  • In response to the whole start to scratch thing. The Fictional character biography of the Spider-Man article is an good start. It is already well sourced and as long as it can be well sourced when it comes to further detail then maybe (if it gets too large or something) the information can be moved back to Fictional History of Spider-Man when being an redirection page. And you could always do an fresh start if it is an redirection. And in response to Emperor about it not being an obvious search. Even still people still might be searching for it who knew of it's existence. Jhenderson777 (talk) 13:27, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What sort of policy based argument is that? Keep the page because we find it too hard to stick to policy? really? Why do you think all of this info needs to be on the Spider-man page anyway? --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:47, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
All of the information is important to understand the full history of the character. Can you easily, accurately, and without removing necessary content summarize the entire Fictional history article into some short paragraphs to fit easily into the Spider-Man page? Spidey104contribs 15:52, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What I think Rtkat3 and Spidey 104 is trying to say to keep this article alive is the main purpose of this article is encyclopedic on it's own. For some just because it's lacking sources or is an bad article doesn't always mean it should be deleted because it is still high importance, for others if it doesn't have any sources they don't want anything to do to it no matter how important. But that is really debatable and I am not going to take sides on that. I don't really think you need to always reply if you just disagree with an vote though. You made your opinion and they made theirs. Jhenderson777 (talk) 18:49, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • If there are no reliable secondary sources to be found for this article, then it fails Wikipedia:Notability. The fictional history of Spider-Man might be of crucial importance within the universe. Outside of it? None, as there are no reliable secondary sources supporting the article. It doesn't matter how important it is to the in-universe fictional setting. It matters how important it is outside of it, in the real world, reported in reliable secondary sources. If it can't do that, it's not what we call encyclopedic by definition. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:05, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to Spider-Man. General consensus is that we have "biographies" of major fictional characters; this one is simply badly titled and inappropriately broken out from the main article. It may be appropriate to break out a Spider-Man (character) article from the main article which currently discusses both the character and the franchise, if the resulting article is deemed too long. This should include both biography sections and the parts of the cultural influence section that are appropriate. JulesH (talk) 20:12, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep. High importance article detailing an aspect of one of the most major characters in the medium. Merging in these cases is unattractive because of the ultimate length of the article it would create. Articles like these are forked precisely because a comprehensive one-page overview of all aspects of the subject is simply too long to be both tenable and encyclopedically comprehensive. The history of a character is completely relevant and notable to report on. Ford MF (talk) 20:30, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • You say it's high importance. How? To the fictional universe, it's very important. Outside of it? None. If you can't find reliable secondary resources supporting the notability of the article's importance, then it has zero importance. Merging is not unattractive because the resulting content still needs to be properly sourced to secondary sources. If those sources don't exist, the content of the resulting merge would be very short indeed. You can't claim notability by saying it's notable. You have to be able to sustain that argument with reliable secondary sources. None exist on this article. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:05, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Use of primary sources doesn't guarantee WP:OR: "Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources, though primary sources are permitted if used carefully. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." Just because the article lacks secondary sources, that doesn't mean they don't exist. Torchiest talk/contribs 05:44, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep with much editing   This is a tricky one. WikiProject Comics is rife with articles that have become, essentially, free-hosted fan sites. I need only direct us to Siege (comics) to make my point. That said, there's validity in a contextual history of a long-running character's development — in pop culture, particularly, characters are highly reflective of the concerns and fancies of the mainstream world. Superman of the 1930s was a much different character from the Superman of the 1950s, and both are different from the Superman who reflects the world of the 2000s.
The key here, I think, is to severely pare down the minute, issue-by-issue or storyline-by-storyline details. That level of minutiae loses the forest for the trees, as the saying goes. I think ideally you'd have a scholarly history, with proper third-party references, that creates a roadmap of milestones in a character's development. So, for example, one could talk about the early history of the Fantastic Four's development, citing authors, scholars, historians and journalists, and also make mention of certain original-source milestones, such as marriages or childbirth — milestones that would be conspicuously unencyclopedic not to mention. Obviously there's some subjectivity involved, but birth, death, marriage, and a major costume change, for instance, seem like concrete markers within that.
We could merge this article into Spider-Man, though that's already a lengthy article; still, incorporating the fictional history does works at, say, Superman. Either way, we can take this as a great opportunity to define how WikiProject Comics handles fictional history, and give ammunition to those who want to see fictional characters' development within a real-world framework, as opposed to the blow-by-blow minutiae that may be of interest to certain fans but which muddy the waters for general readers. --Tenebrae (talk) 03:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem here is that we don't have third party sources. We could rewrite this to be considerably more like History of Superman. But, we'd need reliable soruces to do so. We don't have them here. Further, see User:Stifle/Delete unless cleaned up. There are 57,000 articles tagged for cleanup, a 3.5 year backlog. If you can't find reliable secondary sources now, years after publishing of the primary source, it's highly unlikely you're going to find them. If you can't, take it to the [Marvel Comics Wikia]. That Wikia doesn't require secondary sources. We do. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:05, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • See my thoughts here - it seems we need to get this area better defined (and properly named) as more articles are getting B-class assessments and pushing on for GA and above. If we can get a proper framework and an idea of what we are aiming for it should be possible to nudge articles in the right direction. I think we are agreed that there probably needs to be a longer piece on Spiderman the character I'm just not convinced keeping this and heavily rewriting it will work without a dedicated editor taking it on as a major project (and I.m not seeing any volunteers ;) ), which is why I think we may need to start from scratch with a better idea of what we want this to end up as. (Emperor (talk) 14:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC))[reply]
Strong Keep: The arguments have all been made - thrice already. Clearly there can be no consensus on this article. To nominate the article for a 3rd time borders on an abuse of the AfD. Spidey is perhaps the certainly one of the notable of all fictional characters. There is a real need to separate into separate articles. Andy14and16 (talk) 04:13, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Consensus can and I believe does exist. None of the keep arguments have been based on policy. Meanwhile, the delete arguments largely have been. Arguments without a basis in policy tend to be very weak, at best. We don't count votes here to ascertain consensus. Nobody is contesting that Spider-man is notable. The fictional history of Spider-man on the other hand isn't. If it were, reliable secondary sources would exist. They don't. This article is based entirely on primary sources, which causes it to fail WP:OR. In fact, this is so fundamental to what we are here that it is part of [Wikipedia:Five pillars]]. As for this being an abuse of AfD, sorry but wrong. Consensus can change, and this article was last nominated more than a year and a half ago. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:05, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep with significant trim, or redirect (but not merge) - I think Tenebrae really helped me make up my mind about that one. If someone is willing to put in the work to pare it down to maybe 1/3 ot 1/4 of its current length, and at least get a start on writing it from an out-of-universe perspective using reliable secondary sources then it is worth it to me to keep; otherwise, redirect for now until someone is willing to work on it in that respect. BOZ (talk) 05:50, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We know that nobody will actually do that work, the people voting "keep and rewrite" know that nobody will do the work - we'll be back here in 12 months. --Cameron Scott (talk) 06:28, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I know, which is why I'm fine with a redirect. Note that I say keep only with a significant trim and the start of a rewrite, meaning that needs to happen like now, not some promised future date like "oh yeah, we'll definitely do that" because then we would be back here in 12 months; I'll favor a redirect now over that scenario. BOZ (talk) 12:45, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The last deletion discussion closed with significant voices to clean the article up, source it properly, trim it, etc. What's happened? Since the October 2008, 35 new references have been added, all...all...to primary sources. Do we wait another year and a half for someone to come forward with reliable secondary sources? 5 years? 20? When does an article simply fail Wikipedia:Notability? Or do we just keep articles around forever because maybe someday there will be secondary sources? --Hammersoft (talk) 17:05, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Did you miss the "I'm fine with a redirect" part, or do you figure the loudest complainer always wins an argument? I'm not advocating waiting years for this to get cleaned up, I'm advocating, let's see... this AFD has 5 days to go, so let's say... yeah, I'm willing to give it 5 days. If cleanup hasn't begun in earnest within the next 5 days, then let's go with a redirect. Happy? BOZ (talk) 18:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I wasn't attacking you BOZ, and I don't need to be attacked. In all honesty, I intended to remove my comments that you are responding to, as I copied them to my later deleting support below, but forgot to remove them. If you're fine with it, you can remove this comment from me, your comment responding to me, and my comment. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:31, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Blatant Delete History of Superman is encyclopedic (though it too needs references). This article isn't. Where this belongs is at [Marvel Comics Wikia]. This article blatantly fails no original research policy, as all of it is sourced to primary sources. ALL of it. The last deletion discussion closed with significant voices to clean the article up, source it properly, trim it, etc. Since then, 35 sources have been added; all of them to primary sources. Still badly fails WP:RS. Badly fails Wikipedia:Notability. Fails WP:OR for basing everything on primary sources. All of these issues were extant 1.5 years ago. They're still extant now, with no sign that it's ever going to improve. If there were reliable secondary sources, they would have been found by now. We don't keep articles around for 50 years hoping that some day, somehow, somewhere, somebody is going to find a bevy of secondary sources on this. Even if you could find reliable secondary sources (which don't exist) it would need to be rewritten to the style of History of Superman. This article has existed for more than three years. It's not going to get better. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:05, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's important to address a couple of contentions that have been made that may or may not be accurate.
First, I would not say "reliable secondary sources...don't exist." In fact, copious secondary sources exist for, for instance, a history of the character Spider-Man. Just glancing at my bookshelf, I see Steve Saffel's Spider-Man the Icon, Peter Sanderson's Marvel Universe, Les Daniels' Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades..., about a hundred issues of Comic Book Artist, Alter Ego and other magazines, academic books like Bradford W. Wright's Comic Book Nation and much, much more. This only scratches the surface.
Secondly, I'm not sure it's accurate to state that those advocating trims of fancruft and a more scholarly style will never put our convictions to practice. I've seen many of my colleagues, such as some of the ones here plus User:Pepso2, User:Hiding and others, to give just a couple of examples, who have done great work adding references and citations. I would humbly add my own body of work. We're on no deadline; it's fine for things to be fixed over time.
I think if there's anything we can do to help, it's to put together a draft policy on fictional histories, so that when some of our more fannish and less encyclopedically oriented brethren start adding scads of fictional plot, we can simply remove it, point to the policy (assuming it passes muster) and stop the argument and the plot-bloat right there. --Tenebrae (talk) 02:46, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Plus it would help establish a target for future articles to aim at rather than having to reinvent the wheel every time and, even better, we could largely avoid problems like this getting so out-of-hand as we'd have headed things off at the pass long before it got to this level. (Emperor (talk) 03:03, 21 May 2010 (UTC))[reply]
  • If you believe secondary sources exist, then add them. Prove me wrong. I often see people toss out "no deadline" as a keep argument for fiction articles. First, WP:DEADLINE is an essay. It's not policy, or even guideline. It's just an essay encapsulating some ideas some editors have had. It hasn't achieved any sort of consensus or community support. This article has existed for more than three years now and has existed for all that time without secondary sources. The last AfD strongly suggested various improvements to this article, none of which was done. How long are we supposed to wait? If we are to keep this article, then there's no reason to ever delete any article for violating WP:RS, WP:OR and WP:PLOT. We might as well vacate those policies and guideline (NOT essays, mind you) since we can invoke WP:DEADLINE, an essay, and trump policy and guideline.
  • We already have policies that guide us on how to write articles. This article violates a large swath of them. Re: "Less encyclopedically oriented brethren" - this article is a monument to non-encyclopedic. 84 sources, and all of them to primary sources. This isn't Wikia. There's already plenty of basis in policy to completely gut this article right now. WP:PLOT: "Wikipedia treats fiction in an encyclopedic manner, discussing the reception and significance of notable works". Is there any discussion of real world impact of the fictional history of Spider-man? No. Is there any evidence of its significance? No. Are there any secondary sources? No. And on and on. Y
  • You are biased by your own bookshelf. Look at this, in as much as you can, from a dispassionate perspective. If the fictional history of Spider-man is notable, then prove it. Don't invoke WP:DEADLINE and grant more years of this article languishing in the abysmal state its in. It's had 3+ years in the sun, and not one secondary source has been provided. Prove me wrong. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:01, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can't see how you can have it both ways - you constantly challenge that there are secondary sources, then when examples are provided claim they are a bias. The secondary sources do exist, the problem is simply they haven't been used in the article. Tenebrae has provided some, I can give you a list of other articles he's put under and other magazines and much, much more. I also support his idea that this could be used to "put together a draft policy on fictional histories" and Emperor's thought it would "help establish a target for future articles to aim at". And I'm not sure why it's such an imperative that it's deleted right now when clearly the subject has possibilities, can provide such a pointer to the future and is nowhere near as bad as the hundreds of extremely poor articles that clearly violate so many rules and conventions with no chance of anyone improving them.
Without using this as a chance to improve things generally, this will just end up as a minor storm. The problem wouldn't have arisen if Spider-man was a limited or short-run title - the history would have been stuffed onto the one page without any citations and nobody would have turned a hair ever. Deleting, in the end pretty much on the basis of time, doesn't make the problem disappear.
I'd also suggest that Spider-Man's fictional history is important (in context) in itself. It's already agreed that Spider-Man as a subject is valid, and the reason for his historic value to comics as being the result of the considerable difference in characterisation to other comics of the day - 'the Marvel Method' - is well-documented in articles and interviews with Lee, Kirby et al down the years. Later storylines, such as the death of Mary Jane and the black costume, were also key to sales figures and public perception and press coverage of comics. Archiveangel (talk) 11:42, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Here, here. I don't understand Hammersoft's belligerence, and I don't even know what "biased by [my] bookshelf" means. Secondary sources exist. As for deadline being an essay and not policy: Of course. It's simply a way of asking, "What's the rush?" We're all doing this voluntarily in-between jobs, family and other commitments, after all. Let's all remain civil.--Tenebrae (talk) 23:34, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • History of Superman is an entirely different sort of article. It's not a fictional history. It's the real world history of the fictional character. This article can't be trimmed to meet that standard. It would have to be re-written from the ground up and become not the fictional history. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:47, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, then, but we've already concluded that reliable secondary sources do indeed exist. Therefore, this article can be rewritten so it doesn't violate WP:OR, and deleting it would be counterproductive. Random the Scrambled (?) 00:07, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Regardless of the current state of this article, there exists enough independent, reliable commentary on the various story lines of spider-man to create 10 such articles, each with 90% out of universe commentary. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:42, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
see several responses above Archiveangel (talk) 11:42, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


  • KEEP Just because this is a fictional universe it does not make it less notable. If Spider Man were a one off series of comic books and that was that I would say put it all in one article. Spider man is just such a big franchise, a collection of different incarnations. It takes a separate article to discuss any of this in a way that makes any sense whatsoever.--Hfarmer (talk) 08:20, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The universe is notable, as shown by the Spider-Man article. This is an AfD about the fictional history of that character. The fictional history isn't notable. We evaluate that based on the lack of reliable secondary source for this fictional history. All of these sources for this article are primary sources. Without those secondary sources, this is all original research. If all we needed to assert notability were primary sources, then anyone could write a book, and cite the book as evidence it's notable. Just because the fictional history of Spider-man has been written doesn't make it notable. It has to have been written about by third-parties. That hasn't happened here. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:47, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


On reflection, what's the difference between having a detailed plot synopsis for superhero characters and individual plot synopses for (picking at random from the house viewing list) Desperate Housewives, House, Supernatural, the Stargate franchise, The Simpsons ... other than that the Spider-Man case under the microscope here is a lot smaller than the above mentioned. Not to mention there's absolutely zero secondary source in most of the examples I've mentioned. Perhaps a little consistency needs to be considered before individual hack and slash at a weak example. Archiveangel (talk) 11:21, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So other stuff exists? So what? By that logic, we can't do clean-up anywhere, unless we do it everywhere at once. --Cameron Scott (talk) 21:04, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but I don't see stasis as the logical conclusion. My argument is - if this style of article exists in a similar form somewhere else, then we should look at whether it is part of the consensus or an aberration. If it's part of the consensus, then is Wikipedia Comics applying Wikipedia rules in a different manner? If it is, why is it different? and is that to the detriment of the Project? Once you've established whether the article fits the general established consensus, then look at the article itself and decide whether it's to be deleted because it doesn't, or is kept. There has to be a clear system to decide such things or the system is deficient. This is possibly an example where the sytem is deficient, or it could be that Wikipedia Comics has drifted (or indeed perhaps it hasn't but the rest of Wikipedia has). Testing will establish, and, as others have said, set the template for the future.
That steps back and takes the argument out of personal feeling in any direction and directly into setting the standard by consensus, which surely is what this should be about.Archiveangel (talk) 08:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Nominated by the same guy who nominated it last time I see. Spider man has been around for 48 years, appearing in several long running comic books at once, plus countless crossovers into other series, and special issues. That's a lot of history, and its only logical to put it in a separate article. Remember, AFD is not cleanup. Its to decide if an article's subject is notable. If you have a problem with the article, discuss it on that article's talk page, and work it out. Dream Focus 23:20, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • First off... The last AfD. It closed over 18 months ago as "No consensus". As such it can be revisited after a reasonable, and generally short (3-4 weeks seems the minimum polite wait) period. Even a close as "Keep" can be revisited after a suitable period. The fact that it was kicked off by the same editor that started this AfD is irrelevant. Bringing it up isn't anywhere near a good argument for closing this one as a "Keep" since it is an attack on the editor not a defence of the article.
      As far as defending, or rescuing this article... I'm really not seeing any justifiable defenses or reasons for this article to exist under the policies or guide lines Wikipedia has in place. (And this is going to cover items from a number of posts here, sorry.) It is a pure, unabashed plot dump. There is zero context presented other than with in the more-or-less current continuity of the Marvel Universe. That violates the spirit and intent, if not the current wording of WP:NOTPLOT. Trotting out "other articles are written the same way" doesn't make the problem go a way, it just points out there is more work to be done in bringing the articles up to standards. And while on that point - using television episodes to try and sell the idea of "plot only articles are acceptable" doesn't fly. Most of the episode articles that have avoided merging or deletion have some degree of secondary source material and/or real world context incorporated into the articles. "Notability" has also been brought up. Yes, Spider-Man is indeed a very notable character. But not all of the stories from the ~1000 issues of various comic book title featuring the character are notable. Nor are the bulk of them relevant for a summary of the character's in story history for a general encyclopedia article. Having an article set up to accommodate inclusion of the unneeded minutia is creating a bad content fork.
      Lastly, an editor up thread commented that there are enough secondary sources to add add real world context and inflate this article to 10 times its current size. Honestly, that would be nice to see since it would eliminate the chronic problems this article has had. However, I don't hold out hope that such editing and inclusion will occur with the current article. This is the 3rd time in three years that the article has been tagged for AfD. The previous 2 AfDs ended with what amounts to "If it's broken, fix it through editing. There is no deadline." I'm sorry, it isn't being fixed. It's being left, or kept as is. Deleting it seems the only way to actually allowing an improved version of this to be put up. - J Greb (talk) 04:49, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - No good reason for this page to be separate from the main page of Spider-Man; scope of article is arbitrary; given the contradictory sources the content must by definition be original research or synthesis. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:19, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep (Most of it): My judgement is that each of the sections are not too bloated, and as long as there is no irrelevant details it will be fine. The relationship with other heroes section is the only thing that needs to go since it is more off topic and can be Merged (Depending on character) to the supporting characters section with a small summary. -67.171.250.39 (talk) 00:41, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I think this article is a valid split of history from the main Spider-man article. At one point in time, it was probably a part of the main article, but its extremely increasing length, considering the amount of history Spider-man has, made it necessary to split it into a separate article. If the problem that the Delete voters have with the article is that it isn't referenced well enough, like Superman's history page, then that is something that needs to be rectified, though it is not something that would be quite that hard to do, I don't think. In a way, it is more of a content issue. All in all, this article is notable. SilverserenC 00:59, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, part of my problem is that there is no such thing as a "fictional history of Spider-Man". There's a mess of stories in multiple continuities that, even within any one continuity, are outright contradictory. There's nothing to be gained here that isn't more appropriately covered in a publication history of Spider-Man and synopses of notable storylines. - DustFormsWords (talk) 01:04, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a publication history article though? If not, then I do believe that this should be changed to be as such. Of course, that is a content change. SilverserenC 01:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The publication histories are purported to be covered by the various titles (Amazing Spider-Man (comic book), Spider-Man 2099, etc). Which has the neat side product of allowing the differing continuities to be treated separately. - DustFormsWords (talk) 01:21, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but there should be a main root article that uses summary style to link to the various types of publications. Because readers are probably going to type in "History of Spiderman" or "Publication History of Spiderman" and they're going to run into a brick wall. SilverserenC 01:49, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The article is interesting, useful, and popular, and looks like a lot of work has gone into it, but it's completely out of line with a number of wikipedia policies and the scope of this encyclopedia. For example: We are tertiary source, meaning our articles should draw from secondary sources; this article is all based on primary sources. Yilloslime TC 04:39, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In respect of the primary source point, we've already established that secondary sources exist, just haven't been utilised Archiveangel (talk) 08:30, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have secondary sources that I am willing to use to fix this article. I had been under the mistaken impression that the primary sources would be better to use than the secondary. I have not added them because I found about my misconception from this discussion to delete the page and I do not want to waste my time (because it will take lots of it) to add in the secondary sources if it is going to be deleted anyways. People's complaints that it has languished in the sun for years without correction are probably because people were unaware of the need to correct this. Several editors have mentioned having secondary sources, if this article is allowed to continue and we make a concerted effort the article could be fixed in a few months time. I realize this is a weak argument to keep the article, but it's all I can offer. Spidey104contribs 15:38, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly wouldn't hurt to add some secondary sources, but without totally retooling it, the meat of the article will still rely primarily on primary sources, and that's a big problem. Yilloslime TC 16:00, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a real problem; start small, by introducing them here and there. Then, you can start to trim out stuff which is overly descriptive and reliant on primary sources only. Go back and forth, even. There's no need to rush, and I'm sure just about everyone commenting here would be more than willing to see what you can do with an earnest effort. Most people are arguing to delete based on lack of secondary sources, but if you can add them then many will change their minds. BOZ (talk) 16:57, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't see how the current article in the current form can be rescued; it was completely misconceived from the start. The best thing to do, if anybody is really keen, is to start completely from scratch without paying any attention to the current version. The current article goes like "Spiderman was born as the son of such-and-such... and then he did this... and then he did that..." etc. etc. All completely in-universe, and without any references to secondary sources. That is, all of it is just pure original research. But look at History of Superman, which may be a good example (although references are a bit thin even there). It deals with how the character was first conceived, how it was developed by different authors in different periods, how it was received by the public, etc. Now that is a good starting point, an "out-of-universe" perspective. If something like that can be done here, it would be a good thing. -- Ekjon Lok (talk) 04:21, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This logic, I must submit, is completely wrong. "Sufficient cultural importance" deserves a "decent sized 'in universe' article" now? Since when? Even an article on Hamlet sourced exclusively to Shakespeare (without any secondary sources), or an article on Don Quixote sourced exclusively to Cervantes, would be equally inadmissible, being original research. -- Ekjon Lok (talk) 03:49, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete -- a clear, obvious, textbook example of original research. Everything is sourced to primary sources -- not a single secondary source in sight. Moreover, information has been collated from many different, disparate primary sources -- a textbook example of WP:SYN. Want me to quote a policy on that? How about this: "Do not make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about material found in a primary source. Do not base articles entirely on primary sources." (From WP:OR). -- Ekjon Lok (talk) 01:42, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would very much like to close this as delete, but I recognize I am not impartial enough to do so. Therefore, strong delete as an utter failure of WP:NOR and WP:SYN. This is entirely original research, and the suggestion of cleanup has been present since the last AFD nearly two years ago. Time to recognize that the cleanup's not going to happen and the article has to go. Could be transwikied to an appropriate Wikia. Stifle (talk) 08:40, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    There are valid reasons being given on both sides of the argument, but "cleanup's not going to happen" is not one of them unless we have the power to absolutely foresee the future.
    My feeling is we have a rare opportunity to make this article of exemplar of how a fictional character's history, a useful resource for journalists and academics, can be done with secondary sourcing and encyclopedic tone and context. If we can do that once, then we will have a model that we can point to that will help rid the Project of fictional-bio fancruft while still providing useful information. --Tenebrae (talk) 08:47, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Do you not think that if anyone was capable of and willing to perform the necessary cleanup, that they have had enough time to do so? Stifle (talk) 10:27, 26 May 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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