Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Space stations and habitats in fiction

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 keep. Sandstein 14:59, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Space stations and habitats in fiction

Space stations and habitats in fiction (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Almost entirely WP:OR and unreferenced with the exception of a few list entries. Despite having a valid subject, none of the info on the page is salvageable, and Space station#In fiction is barely expanded upon so a separate article isn't really necessary. Total listcruft and a collection of trivia. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 16:09, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 16:09, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 16:09, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• If anyone wants to take a stab at re-writing the current article, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction has a pretty ambitious entry on space stations which includes a list of further reading on the topic at the bottom. /Julle (talk) 17:45, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - At this time, there is nothing showing that the topic needs an article, and the current article is a waste of time and space WP:TNT-case regardless of the validity of the topic. This is something best explored in the parent article using proper prose summary style writing, and it can always be split out if the weight ends up being too great. TTN (talk) 20:58, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete As it stands, everything here is WP:OR and WP:IINFO — per precedent at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Far future in fiction and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Earth in science fiction (2nd nomination), which voted to rewrite from scratch. From the length of the The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction entry above, I'd suggest that the topic will need a new article at this location and not a mere section in Space station. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 23:31, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The nomination clearly indicates that the subject is valid and so the policy WP:ATD applies: "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page." To demonstrate the notability of the topic, here's a selection of sources:

1. Dreams and Nightmares of the High Frontier: The Response of Science Fiction to Gerard K. O'Neill's The High Frontier
2. Small Worlds and Strange Tomorrows: The Icon of the Space Station in Science Fiction
3. Islands in the Sky: The Space Station Theme in Modern Science Fiction
4. Islands in the Sky: The Space Station Theme in Science Fiction Literature
5. Visions of Space Habitation: from fiction to reality
6. Living in space: From science fiction to the International Space Station
7. Space, Architecture, and Science Fiction: An Architectural Interpretation of Space Colonization
8. Host of Otherness: The Trope of the Urban Space Habitat and the Concept of Evil in Contemporary Science Fiction Media
9. The Space Base and Science Fiction
10. The Other Side of the Sky: An Annotated Bibliography of Space Stations in Science Fiction, 1869-1993
11. Megastructures, Superweapons and Global Architectures in Science Fiction Computer Games
12. The Space Station From Concept to Evolving Reality
13. The idea of rendezvous: From space station to orbital operations in space-travel thought, 1895-1951

See also WP:BEFORE; WP:NOTCLEANUP; WP:NOTPAPER; WP:PRESERVE; &c. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:22, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: I concur with Andrew Davidson. While this article needs improvement, it isn't really a good candidate for deletion or merger. The other article's section on the subject could also be improved but, were this subject to be done right in that article, it would result in a split eventually. Better to improve the subject here. —¿philoserf? (talk) 12:15, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep or rename to List of space stations and habitats in fiction. The number of sources is simply vast and all of the useful content would be lost if we delete. Leanne Sepulveda (talk) 12:16, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't disagree that the number of sources is vast. But if there is no desire to want to improve it to a notable standard, that doesn't really mean anything. See WP:HEY. There has been a decent effort to expand it thus far though still not at the point it could not be merged yet. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 15:58, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Much as with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eco-terrorism in fiction and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Earth in science fiction (2nd nomination), I have rewritten the article such that instead of having a list article that looks like this (pre-AfD version), we now have a prose article (which is admittedly rather brief) that looks like this. @Zxcvbnm, Julle, TTN, and LaundryPizza03: Do you consider this satisfactory? TompaDompa (talk) 15:37, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Right now that would still merit a Merge from me, but if you keep expanding it I could probably be convinced to withdraw the nomination per WP:HEY. However, I must note that Earth in science fiction is still a stub, and the effort there was more of a token gesture to prevent it from being deleted than an actual attempt to improve it. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 15:41, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's currently no cohesion between the two topics on the page, so I still don't see any need for this page to exist. It's now been reduced to essentially being two semi-related stubs. Each parent article should be able to handle a healthy three paragraph section going over the topic, and I really don't see potential article to grow enough to justify its existence. Merging to each parent topic would be a fine alternative outcome. And if it turns out there is more potential, there is literally not a single downside to it because they can just be split out again, compared to the alternative of just letting this sit here and never improve. TTN (talk) 16:36, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • @TTN: I agree about the habitats part. Stuff on habitats needs to be moved to Space habitat#In fiction rather than be here, as they are two different things with separate articles and no pressing need to combine them together besides making the article look bigger and more notable. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 18:08, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Zxcvbnm and TTN: I have to say that I am not much of a fan of "in fiction" or "in popular culture" sections. I usually find that if there isn't enough coverage in WP:Reliable sources to warrant a separate prose article, having such a section in the main article is also a bad idea (and conversely: if there is enough to write such a section, it would be better to turn it into a separate article). Anyway, I've expanded the article some more, and it now looks like this (and I intend to expand it more—Dreams and Nightmares of the High Frontier: The Response of Science Fiction to Gerard K. O'Neill's The High Frontier is quite a gold mine).
        I take issue with the assertion that my edits to Earth in science fiction were more of a token gesture to prevent it from being deleted than an actual attempt to improve it because it's still a stub. It would be trivial to make the article longer by adding the examples used by the cited sources, but I don't think that would improve the article since I think a prose article about the topic is the way to go (rather than a list of examples of the topic), and I think the current state of the article is about as good as it's possible to make it with the current sources. I see three possible ways of expanding that article:
        1. Adding examples (which I think is likely to become detrimental to the article's quality rather quickly unless it's done with the utmost care).
        2. Finding additional sources (which the AfD discussion showed wasn't altogether easy, although Andrew Davidson seems to have quite a knack for finding sources and might be able to help?).
        3. Expand what's written about the subtopics, perhaps in the way suggested by OsFish at Talk:Earth in science fiction#Suggestions for structure, which would presumably mean using WP:SUMMARYSTYLE.
        I'll have to think about that last one, since I'm not sure it would be a good idea. TompaDompa (talk) 02:42, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. This is now a completely different article than when this AfD was started. /Julle (talk) 15:44, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep a WP:HEY case. A notable topic, and now without TVTropes-quality listcruft. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:57, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep There seem to be enough secondary sources to easily fullfill WP:GNG; actually the article already does fullfill that right now thanks to the efforts of TompaDompa. If it stays the length or is further expanded (a concern raised by ZXCVBNM when comparing to Earth in science fiction) is no one specific editor's responsibility and should have no bearing on the deletion decision, seeing that there still is secondary material to expand the article with. Whoever is unhappy with the article being to short can expand it. Actually, I am somewhat concerned that List of fictional space stations has been merged here and now all previous material has been removed. But it's still there in the history, so it's a problem that could be solved with effort. Looking at the former content, I think the allegations of original research were hardly warranted, as by the nature of the topic, primary sources were present for almost everything. Lastly, for the wish to split out content on space habitats raised by TTN: I don't have a strong opinion against it, I think myself that the current title is a bit cluncky, but in the end I would prefer to keep this together: As the article, based on a secondary source, already says, the two concepts are often not clearly distniguished. Take the prominent example of Babylon 5: It clearly fits the definition of a space habitat, but in its fiction is consistently called a space station. Where would you put that? Or include it under both headings, which would be no problem given WP:NOTPAPER, but also an unneccesary WP:CONTENTFORK. Daranios (talk) 19:27, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • If an article has so little content that it remains a stub, then it's better off merged, not staying as a standalone article, then split off later if it grows to sufficient size. Leaving merge worthy content there, simply to stop it from being deleted, is gaming the system a little.
  • As far as Babylon 5 goes, we should always go with what the sources say over the judgement of individual editors. If the sources call it a space station all the time, it should go under space stations, unless we can find a source saying that it's really a space habitat and that the label of space station is wrong. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 20:11, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy calls it a space habitat whereas The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls it a space station, for the record. Having read some sources about space stations and space habitats in fiction, I get the impression that they don't necessarily distinguish between the concepts (which may very well be in contrast to sources about these concepts in the real world). TompaDompa (talk) 02:42, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Zxcvbnm: I think the article was beyond a stub then, is more now, and will be still farther beyond a stub if TompaDompa's plans come to pass (thanks!). So no reason to merge. As said above, the example of Babylon 5 shows us that "There's currently no cohesion between the two topics on the page" is not correct: The cohesion is that the terms have been used interchangeably in fiction. Splitting them would, like in this instance, force us to make editorial judgments when there is no need for this. Daranios (talk) 11:13, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. I recommend that this nom is withdrawn; the old article was a mess and I'd have voted delete for it, but it's gone, next to nothing remains and the new version looks fine and I'd vote keep. Anyway, this article is totally new and would need a new nom since old votes for old version no longer apply. Thank you to User:TompaDompa for rewriting this. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:37, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Concurrence. I was for conversion to a list. I now concur with Piotrus about the article, the AfD, and the work done by TompaDompa. —¿philoserf? (talk) 12:22, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, thanks to improvements since the article was nominated. MrsSnoozyTurtle 05:53, 14 August 2021 (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.