Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Razorclaw

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. No one has provided legitimate and independent coverage. To put it very simply, no notability, no article. Courcelles 03:36, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Razorclaw (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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Contested Gobots prod. I'm taking this one all the way. Delete. Donald Schroeder JWH018 (talk) 21:34, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a policy-based reason to suggest deletion of this article?  Frank  |  talk  21:47, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

It is a contested PROD, sir. Donald Schroeder JWH018 (talk) 21:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

That's like saying "dermatitis is a rash". It doesn't explain why you think the article doesn't belong.  Frank  |  talk  21:51, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

• Comment Regarding the nominators baffling refusal to give the reason for their nomination, the original PROD rationale was "No notability asserted, appears to be a few toys only". Hope that helps. Dylanfromthenorth (talk) 22:24, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

  Not really helpful; the PROD was declined, so its original reasoning has already been rejected. That's why a deletion discussion is started. However, there still needs to be a policy-based reason to delete the article.  Frank  |  talk  22:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

  It's fairly usual when bringing a declined prod to afd to provide the reasoning. The nominator didn't, so I did. Helpfully, one might say. Dylanfromthenorth (talk) 22:58, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

• Keep - This has sources from magazines, and it's not even about a gobot. The nominator needs to relax, breath, and get a life outside random deletion nominations. Mathewignash (talk) 21:46, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
• Delete. A couple of mentions of a toy in obscure magazines does not make this subject notable. If the article was in an even remotely decent shape, I may be more prone to support retention, but it simply isn't. It's lists of trivia, masses of plot details and swathes of non-free images. Whether it's about a Gobot or not isn't really that important. J Milburn (talk) 21:51, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
• Delete. If fails WP:NOTABILITY AND WP:RS Dwanyewest (talk) 22:01, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
• Keep when people write books about characters it`s notable mark nutley (talk) 22:14, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Comment. "Licensed by: Hasbro"—not an independent source. Deor (talk) 22:42, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Answer - Could you tell me which of the four books and magazines used as sources in this article are licensed by Hasbro? Because none of them are! The article about the Beast Wars Sourcebook is citing the critic web site which talks about the book, not the book itself. Mathewignash (talk) 23:52, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

• Comment - A Razorclaw toy even got on a "Dirty Dozen" list by some parent group as being inappropriate for small children because it was too violent. Must keep the page if only to spite them! Mathewignash (talk) 22:39, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
• Delete- No reliable independent sources. Reyk _YO! 22:46, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
• Keep - Sources include , , . Thinking something is stupid is not a reason for deletion. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 22:50, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
• Bemused Keep?. This robot has "projectile-launching attack wings, firing battle quills" and "launching cannons." Since this is a toy for pre-schoolers, it has "missiles fit in hands for hand-to-hand battle!" To introduce even younger children to this brand, Hasbro markets a Playskool version called Transformer Go-Bots targeting three-year-olds and their parents. (from the Dirty Dozen citation). Nobody's using this article to market the toy. A lot of effort seems to have been expended. I'd let this live for another day for now and get the problematic issues worked on. I'd like to see the folks involved with Wikiproject Transformers weigh in on this. --Quartermaster (talk) 23:16, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Changed to Delete. Hans Adler's arguments below have convinced me this is not notable and deserving of deletion. --Quartermaster (talk) 13:05, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

• • The Transformers wikiproject is dead or almost dead. I'd hardly expect any improvements from them. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 23:46, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
    • That's funny since we recently had lively debate the last few weeks on improving the sources and formatting of the articles under the project, and even started work on his one, by removing the excess pictures, adding several notable references, and removing the "toys lists". Dead? No. Perhaps we are "undead"? Mathewignash (talk) 20:38, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
• Delete. This article page has an amazing size and looks superficially like a Wikipedia article. But it isn't. I am not sure what it is – fan fiction? pure marketing? Example: "The stage was now set for the Predacons' appearance in the U.S. title, and appear they did, shortly after Optimus Prime perished in a virtual duel with Megatron. Megatron himself had begun to descend into paranoid insanity, and Shockwave summoned the Predacons back to Earth and had them pose as Autobots, planning to have them hunt Megatron as part of a scheme to once again seize command of the Decepticons from Megatron (the UK comic rewrote some of the dialogue in its reprint of this issue to make it appear to be the Predacons' second trip to Earth). The plan did not go smoothly, however, as Megatron defeated them all, even in their combined form of Predaking. " Whatever it is, it doesn't belong here. My search for actual references that could establish notability hasn't turned up anything useful other than wikis (yes, more than one!) dedicated to this "Transformers" stuff which I have no doubt will be happy to accept this page if it isn't already present there.

In spite of its humungous size and the heaps of work that must have gone into the page, it doesn't even make an effort to prove notability. The sources mentioned on the page are as useless as what my independent search turned up. Why didn't anyone stop these kids earlier? Hans Adler 23:29, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

An afterthought: Maybe some of this stuff can be described in a list of all of these, um, whatever they are. That's how we deal with Lego sets, for example. With some luck you can find sufficient reliable sources to justify a short paragraph and a photo for a few representative ones of these things. (Probably not more due to fair use restrictions, but I am not an expert.) Hans Adler 23:40, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

• Delete per Hans Adler. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 23:46, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
• Delete - More fanboy-cruft to sift though. Game guides, toy guides, fan forums and the like are not reliable sources sufficient to pass the WP:GNG. Tarc (talk) 01:28, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
• Keep Standard fictional biography, just like any character from Lost or CSI. The shows themselves are the source. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 01:41, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
  • We don't do biographies on fictional subjects, as this wouldn't present them from a real-world perspective. That several parts of the site still don't follow the Pokemon consensus (including such bastions of fancruft as our coverage of CSI, Lost and The Sporanos) is not an argument to exacerbate that problem. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:10, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Absolutely, and we only have articles on fictional subjects when there's something other than a fictional biography/in-universe trivia to present. J Milburn (talk) 00:29, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
• Delete. Just another unreferenced advertizing for another Chinese plastic toy. If an unsigned rant from an advocacy site is the most "reliable source" of the bunch, it is unsourced. And it's still a cheapo plastic toy, probably with hazardous dies and fumes in it. East of Borschov 02:42, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
• Comment - This whole deletion nomination was created by a banned sock puppet, and should be ended based on that, a REAL nomination could then be made if someone legitmate wants to make one. Mathewignash (talk) 08:06, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
  • The nomination rationale is sound. Stop trying to disrupt running AfDs. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:11, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Comment The Prod being removed is a reason to move to AfD, but it is not a rationale for why the article should be deleted. Obviously, the nominator hadn't even read the article, which makes it clear the sunject is not a Gobot. Edward321 (talk) 13:37, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
      • That's disingenuous - a prod notice being removed means that one editor disagrees with deletion - therefore its prudent for the original prodder to bring it to AfD, with the same rationale, to get community consensus. Dylanfromthenorth (talk) 13:42, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
        • Comment - The orignal PRODer did not nominate this article for deletion. Black Kite PRODed it, and then I added some references and removed the PROD, then some unrelated SOCKPUPPET nominated it for deletion along with about a dozen other pages, all of which he incorrectly identified as Gobots, before being discovered and blocked (for having a half dozen puppets!) Mathewignash (talk) 00:27, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
          • Sorry, I think it's time for you to start accepting that it simply makes no difference for this AfD whether this page is related to Quashluxers, Transformers, Quaintblubbers, Targomulzers, Gobots, shoes, human input devices, newspapers, palm trees, insects, or whatever else. The question is not whether this topic belongs to one television series or toy range that is unknown to virtually every adult who is not raising a child in the US, or the other.The question is whether the topic is notable, and we have criteria for verifying notability. Do you have an idea how many individual toy soldiers Elastolin produced in Germany c. 1920-1945? They were immensely popular, and of course there was advertising for them and they appear in collector's catalogues. There are several online communities for them even now that most children who originally played with them are pensioners. Do you think it would be reasonable to have a separate article for every one of them? I don't. And since notability is not temporary precisely the same rules apply to your favourite toys. (To clarify: I have nothing to do with Elastolin toys and only know about the topic through my research for Pigeon photographer, an article that depicts one of these toys.) Hans Adler 08:01, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
            • You should read before you post. The statement was made above about the original proder making it a nomination. So I responded that the nomination was not made by the original proder. It was made by a sock puppet who was making seemingly random nominations based on a movie quote he linked to me, a rant about "gobots" in a movie he liked. If you let this stand you might as well allow a random number generator or monkeys to make deletion nominations on Wikipedia then argue "well, a monkey nominated it, but other editors voted on it, so it has to stand." Mathewignash (talk) 15:25, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
              • Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. We don't interrupt an AfD on an article that obviously needs to be deleted just because there was something wrong with the nominator, or the prodder, or whatever. If some borderline lunatic admin tried that stunt, they would certainly get into trouble, and I guess I wouldn't be the only one trying to be the first to re-nominate the article. You have nothing to win with this line of argument, except perhaps a few more days for this page and an even greater incentive for a lot of editors to clean up the entire mess. How many more "Transformers" are there? Hundreds? Thousands? It's mind-boggling. Three to ten sounds like a reasonable range, but of course we will have to discuss each page's notability or lack thereof separately. Hans Adler 16:35, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
      • A removed prod in itself is of course no valid deletion rationale, but complete and utter irrelevance of a topic is, and if it is as obvious as in this case a detailed rationale is not necessary per WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY. If articles are immune to being proposed for deletion just because the nominator doesn't understand them, then I have a few pet topics to write about. I have no idea what "transformers" or "gobots" are, and I don't have to, to see that the article is written in in-universe style, doesn't offer a single encyclopedic fact that would be discernible from the article without extreme pain, and doesn't cite a single reliable source of the type that would contribute to notability. I can also search for "razorclaw" and "transformers" and verify that nothing remotely useful to establish notability comes up without having an idea what this is about. That's how Wikipedia works. If it was different, there would be no way of getting rid of separate articles about the various types of screws (separate articles for different lengths and diameters, of course) used in the fabrication of late-20th century Vietnamese hand looms. Or indeed of articles on "razorclaws". Hans Adler 13:50, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
• Redirect to Predacons True, it is not notable. This does not mean we should DELETE THE HELL OUT OF IT instead of REDIRECTING TO THE EXISTING ARTICLES THAT MORE OR LESS COVER THE SUBJECT. --Divebomb (talk) 15:15, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Any particular reason for choosing that article? There is predacons, predacon (Transformers) (to which predacon is a redirect), and also List of Predacons. None of them has any information suggesting that this, um, topic, is even notable. Hans Adler 20:47, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Because that page covers the Generation One subgroup known as the Predacons, which this character is a part of. (BTW, we need to merge some of those pages.) --Divebomb (talk) 08:28, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
      • I would rather think we need to redirect them all to Transformers, as there is no evidence of notability of the topic. Hans Adler 08:41, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
        • Noooooo. If anything, Predacons should be redirected to List of Decepticons, and Predacon (Transformers) to List of Predacons. --Divebomb (talk) 12:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
          • "Decepticons"? It's getting more and more absurd. Neither Decepticon nor List of Decepticons makes any claim of notability, either. Hans Adler 12:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
            • Actually the Transformer named Predacon is NOT a Predacon. It's just his name. He's a Decepticon. Mathewignash (talk) 15:20, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
              • Then the article needs to be rewritten. Because I fail to see how the primary antagonists of a 26-year-long franchise aren't notable. Unless, of course, Wikipedia has majorly cranked up the notability requirements while I wasn't looking. --Divebomb (talk) 16:24, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
                • Certain editors have done EXACTLY that and have been deleting articles based on "lack of notability". We lost The Ark, The Nemesis, Energon, Beachcomber and couple dozen other articles already, and more are nominated for deletion like this one. Mathewignash (talk) 20:02, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:38, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
• Comment - I removed the excessive images and the toy lists today. Should improve the article. Mathewignash (talk) 15:46, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Having read both the discussion so far and the article itself, I find myself no wiser. Why is being a 'Gobot' so damning? Does one need a degree (well, they give degrees in everything now...) to understand Transformers? "Actually the Transformer named Predacon is NOT a Predacon. It's just his name." That sank me. (Presumably he's not a Gobot.) Personally, I've never seen the point or attraction of Transformers, and nor has any kid associated with me so far. (Warhammer and HeroQuest are quite another matter...) However, they do seem to have an appeal, or the manufacturers wouldn't keep making the damn things. Why is there thought to be a need for a separate article on this lot, and why is it thought to be non-notable? (Two questions for the price of one - pick the one you prefer.) Please don't leave me so confused. Peridon (talk) 18:27, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Answer - As to the Predacon is not a Predacon thing, Hasbro owns the trademarks to certain words, and uses them periodically for different things to prove they are still being used, to protect them legally. They have used the word "Predacon" several times in the past. Back in 1986 it was "The Predacons" was the name of 5 "evil robots" who turned into animals, this page is about the leader of those five robots. They have have also used the word "Predacons" years later to describe a different group of "evil robots" in another TV series called "Beast Wars".... then years after that, probably to keep the name active on their trademark list, they made a character for the Transformers: Armada series whose name was "Predacon", but he wasn't a member of any Predacon "group", he was a Decepticon! This article is primarely about the first one, the notable one, the lead bad guy from a TV series, named Razorclaw, who was leader of the "Predacons". I know it sounds like a Monty Python sketch - do you mind if we call you Bruce? Anyways this isn't the only example... There is a group of characters is called "The Insections" in one series, but in another series there is an individual whose name is "Insecticon".... in one series there is a group of characters called "The Dinobots" and in another series there is a character is named "Dinobot". Hasbro's legal department keeping the names in use is at fault. Mathewignash (talk) 19:58, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks - I think... So, this 'character' is a (?)faction leader? Must look into these things. Peridon (talk) 20:24, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, leader of the original Predacons from 1986. If he was to be deleted I'd recomend a direct to Predacons, since that page mentions him by name as the leader and gives a short couple sentences about him. Mathewignash (talk) 20:35, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

• Delete - No sources seem available, in article or online, that would confer independent notability, thus it fails GNG. Skinny87 (talk) 05:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Commment- Its been long established that transformers fansites, forums and some books are unreliable sources of information. Dwanyewest (talk) 08:53, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Comment - It's a good thing that the magazines and books cited by this article are reliable sources then. Mathewignash (talk) 21:36, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
• Keep Character has had multiple incarnations across several series. The character has also been the focus of several stories itself. --Polaron | Talk 18:12, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, but HOW does that contention address notability? Notability has to be established. The contention that there is complexity in the infoverse is interesting, but is it compelling? Is it encyclopedic? I'm convinced the fanboys may obfuscate enough to keep this around (kind of like every single Lego kit deserves an article), but I've been convinced by the arguments that this is something that deserves to be deleted and placed on the appropriate fan site. My opinion (which originally was Bemused Keep but is now this is not notable for an encyclopedia entry) now informs me that this is fanboyadulationcruftcruft. --Quartermaster (talk) 23:32, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

That would be from the sources cited on the page - GameAxis Unwired - July 2007 - Page 99, Alvarez, J.E. (2001). The Unofficial Guide to Transformers 1980s Through 1990s Revised & Expanded 2nd Edition. Schiffer Publishing Ltd.. p. 48. ISBN 0764313649. Figure King magazine issue 150 page 24, Toyfare Magazine April 1998 AND http://www.lionlamb.org/dirtydozen2004.htm | The Dirty Dozen - Violent Toys, Video Games and DVDs to Avoid in 2003-2004 Mathewignash (talk) 00:48, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

• On the merits, Delete; there isn't enough here to show that this particular character is notable enough. A redirect or merge might be worthwhile, if a good target is found. On a procedural note, though, I have to say that this appears to be one of the laziest nominations I've seen; if you're going to delete an article, at least take the 2 minutes necessary to figure out whether it's a Go-Bot or a Transformer. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 15:18, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

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.