Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of retcons

:{{la|List of retcons}} – (View AfD)(View log)

List is almost entirely unreferenced, potentially infinite in length, and basically entirely a trivia article VivioFateFan ^{(Talk, Sandbox)} 12:12, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

• Keep The article is a valid appendix to the article Retcon and it is reasonable for it to be spun off, for reasons of length, as the nomination indicates. The individual entries are no doubt variable in quality but improving these and sourcing them is matter of editing, not deletion. There are certainly entries which are highly notable, such as the notorious it was a dream in Dallas. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:44, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
• Keep very interesting. Ix Dschubba 13:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
• Delete and do not merge. This is a list which could, potentially, become infinitely long and is not encyclopedic. WP:NOT#DIR applies here. I would suggest not merging some information to Retcon, as is tempting, because that would bring all the problems of this article to Retcon. Redfarmer (talk) 13:34, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
• Keep Per Colonel Warden. Calling the article "potentially infinitely long" is inaccurate hyperbole, and it's also not a valid reason for deletion. Being unreferenced isn't a valid deletion reason either. The article can be improved by including an unreferenced tag and adding references. (References not existing is a valid deletion reason; references not being included in the article is not a valid deletion reason.) Rray (talk) 15:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
• Keep: if retcon was a term referring primarily to Victorian media, then nobody would consider this article trivia. But the instant you start talking about Elizabethan media, it's always trivia. An encyclopedia must give examples of what it's talking about. As Colonel Warden points out, some of these examples are highly notable; removing the overly non-notable ones is a matter of editing, not AfD.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:54, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
• Keep per previous two Doc Strange (talk) 18:06, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
• Weak keep provided that this article get some sources and also avoids becoming a "Christmas tree article" (i.e. the kind where everyone comes by and "puts something else up") by only including notable instances of retconning. Also, the list needs to be massively cleaned up. Many of the items on the list right now are not retcons but are simply inconsistencies or plot changes that were not explained. A retcon is, by definition, an inconsistency that later gets "explained away" by changing the established continuity (e.g. a character's death being explained away as another character's dream). --Hnsampat (talk) 22:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete. WP:FICTION states "fictional concepts can be presumed notable if they have received substantial coverage in reliable secondary sources." Very few entries are notable by this definition (Dallas springs to mind). The notable examples are already part of Retcon, as they lend themselves to encyclopedic discussion. The rest are not notable, and it is inherently OR to label them as retcons without a reliable source.--Trystan (talk) 16:57, 17 January 2008 (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.