Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Percy the Small Engine

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 redirect to List of characters in The Railway Series. Daniel (talk) 07:43, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Percy the Small Engine

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

I prodded this with "The coverage (references, external links, etc.) does not seem sufficient to justify this article passing Wikipedia:General notability guideline and the more detailed Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) requirement. WP:BEFORE did not reveal any significant coverage on Gnews, Gbooks or Gscholar.". It was deprodded by User:Necrothesp b/c "too iconic". Fair enough. Let's discuss here. Over the last half a year or so we had AfDs about most of the characters from this series and almost all ended up redirected to List of characters in The Railway Series, and I suggest the same is done here. Also ping User:EEng#s who on the talk page concluded this article is WP:FANCRUFT. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:57, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:57, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:57, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

TBH I don't have an opinion on notability; what I said on the article talk page is that the article is chock-full of fancruft. It's possible that after the cruft is purged it may be a WP:NOPAGE candidate. E Eng 04:17, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I'm neutral, but I do object to articles being prodded when their deletion would clearly be controversial. Prodding is being overused to get around having to have an AfD discussion and this needs to be curbed. Its purpose is only to rapidly delete rubbish and clearly non-notable articles (my mate, my mate's band, my favourite vlog, my great-great-grandfather who happened to fight in WWI, etc), not any article an editor doesn't approve of, and its increasing use for the latter is disturbing. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:26, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Necrothesp, Most of the examples given by you fall under CSD... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:14, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Do they? WP:A7 is often mis-understood and applied too broadly. Most of those, if they try to establish some sense of importance, which they would, should be PRODed. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 12:04, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - WP:PROD: PROD must only be used if no opposition to the deletion is expected. Increasingly this is not being applied. Some deletionist editors have even suggested that removing prods is tantamount to vandalism and that any editor who does so is sabotaging their efforts to 'clean up' Wikipedia because taking articles to AfD is too much trouble and a waste of their precious time. This has to stop. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:19, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Wikipedia is not Wikia. We need reliable sources that are independent showing significant coverage which is lacking here.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to List of characters in The Railway Series. Following the deprod, no evidence has been given to support the claim that the character is iconic and notable enough for a standalone article._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 15:40, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
'Redirect - I would suspect that Percy is potentially the second best known character in the Railway Series and the Thomas the Tank Engine franchise it spawned, and also probably has the most merchandise after Thomas. However I do not think any of the engines need an individual article, with the exception of Thomas given his clear cultural significance. The information on Percy (and his fellow engines) from the original books and the two "histories" of Sodor and its engines written by the Awdrys can easily be dealt with in List of characters in The Railway Series - information about the character as portrayed on TV (for which there is less factual material) can also be added where appropriate. One slight point I would make though is that if somebody types in "Percy the Small Engine" they might be looking for the Railway Series Book of that title (no 11) rather than the engine, so redirect to List of books in The Railway Series might also be an option and Percy (Railway Series Character) could be a redirect to List of characters in The Railway Series? Dunarc (talk) 23:59, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Dunarc, Maybe a disambig then? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:08, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Piotrus - That would sound like a good way forward. It could simply be something along the lines of "for the fictional engine see List of characters in The Railway Series for the book see List of books in The Railway Series. Dunarc (talk) 20:19, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is literally a major protagonist in a very well-known book series. Deleting this page would be the equivalent to deleting the Patrick Star page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blubabluba9990 (talk • contribs) 21:57, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect per Dunarc and the consequent subthread. As a standalone it doesn't meet WP:GNG, and I agree with EEng#s about fancruft. — Alalch Emis (talk) 06:20, 11 February 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.