Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Magik

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. Withdrawn due to the discovery of more sources during the AfD. I am now confident it can pass GNG in some form. (non-admin closure) ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 18:33, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Magik

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This character was recently moved to primary topic despite her notability being extremely weak. The majority of reception is from content farm-related sites such as ScreenRant that don't really distinguish between major and incredibly minor comic book characters. At least in the Video Game WikiProject, we consider Looper/CBR unreliable and ScreenRant inadmissible, leaving almost no reception that passes GNG. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 10:57, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Science fiction and fantasy, and Comics and animation. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 10:57, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Reception section may be weakly referenced, but that doesn't disqualify the whole article. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:10, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@UtherSRG: The article is mostly plot summary when you put aside the reception. So I would say the entire article is pretty much disqualified if the reception fails notability, unless there is something I missed? ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 13:18, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep. I think Looper SyFy are enough (in-depth, go beyond plot summaries). Looper is not a great source, but this depends on the particular article; that one seems relatively well written and signed by non-anon writer. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:26, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Piotrus Looper is considered an unreliable source, and a content farm at best. I wouldn't consider it a viable source for this discussion, even if it's well written. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 20:03, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Question to Zxcvbnm: Were Google Books and Google Scholar included in the WP:BEFORE search? I don't yet have time look into this myself more closely, but these searches look promising, as do the individual hits of Marvel's Mutants - The X-Men Comics of Chris Claremont and Superheroines and the Epic Journey, p. 244-249. Daranios (talk) 16:25, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Those appear to be talking about Magik (1983 comic book), I think, which shares the same name as the character. Would not be surprised if the comic were notable, but character wasn't. I did find an entry for her in the DK Marvel Encyclopedia, but it has no actual critical reception, raising WP:INDISCRIMINATE concerns, and a couple of SIGCOV are not yet sufficient. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 18:00, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Zxcvbnm Did you look into this query? It seems promising, but I am tired today and don't have time to access paywalled sources. Ex. [1] "But his discussion of Illyana Rasputin’s ‘Magik’ saga devolves into a patchwork of radical" (and others). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 20:53, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Zxcvbnm: As you were looking for another extended source, what do you think of The New Mutants - Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics, the chapter mostlyl dedicated to the character and her implications p. 248-266? Not all of it is accessible (to me), and there is quite a bit of plot summary, but it is quite a number of pages and p. 248 already has important analyis. Daranios (talk) 14:10, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for actually being rational and not assuming I am some grudge-filled troll. From what I can see, it does count as significant coverage, though it is coverage for Ilyana and her alter-egoes, not just Magik. This seems to imply the page should be renamed to her actual name. I might attempt to do that, but either way it does seem like notability has been shown with Syfy, the DK encyclopedia and this source, so I will voluntarily withdraw the nom, though I can't close it unless @Pokelego999: also agrees so as not to be a supervote. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 14:30, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Zxcvbnm I'm satisfied with the sourcing found and am willing to change my vote to Keep so as to avoid a supervote and allow you to withdraw it for further work on the article. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 18:09, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect per nom. I did a brief search myself and found little, though ping me if anyone finds anything that could be considered significant. Any of the sources brought up have very little backing beyond a potential one or two. There's some coverage, but she appears to fall short of the coverage threshold. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 20:11, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, nom once again seems triggered by prejudice against a certain medium and the idea of cleanup work. Only done a very quick Google (like the nominator *rimshot*) but there seems to be a bit more for Illyana Rasputin rather than the code-name. My X-Men is faded but IIRC she spent a good chunk of time not as a Majik, and was referred to by name an unusually high amount for the period. Possibles: - [2] [3][4] [5][6] Presumably those don't count for some nebulous reason, though. And then there's the pile of reliable publications focusing on Bronze and Copper Age comics that shock fucking horror aren't indexed on Google - Amazing Heroes, Back Issue and Wizard are right in the wheelhouse of an X-Men character. But I'm not putting more effort into a vote than someone has into the nom. BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 21:30, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The claim of "triggered by prejudice" is WP:ADHOMINEM and outright false. It's unbelievable how you would accuse someone of hardly looking for the subject while then putting a list of sources featuring brief mentions and failing to expound.

Unfortunately I can't access most of these due to copyright, but from the ones I could see, it still seems trivial. Which ones have SIGCOV here, exactly? ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 04:52, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Clutch those pearls. Not putting more work into a vote than you've put into a nomination. Not re-gearing my work because you like video games more than comics. BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 07:33, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per the claims of @UtherSRG:, @Piotrus:, and @BoomboxTestarossa:. If the article is saved, a brief mentioning of Amanda Sefton operating as Magik can be listed in a section called "Other characters named Magik" in light of this recent renaming. --Rtkat3 (talk) 22:56, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The book The Ages of the X-Men: Essays on the Children of the Atom in Changing Times mentions Magik on pages 169, 227, and 229. It looks like they may have a mention or two in the book The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men. Definitely mentions in the book The Psychology of Superheroes. Also mentions in How Superheroes Model Community: Philosophically, Communicatively, Relationally and Antiheroes: Heroes, Villains, and the Fine Line Between. You can find these results here. (I find this kind of search better than just Google Books.) Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 12:47, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep So in summary we have coverage of the character as such, as well as coverage focussing on her What If? chapter (e.g. Polygon) and her own series, which also have something to say on the character even if that's not the man topic. So in total I see the notability requirement as fullfilled. Daranios (talk) 15:26, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This AfD lays bare inherent problems with the way the system is used by some nominators.
- Before it was nominated there appear to have been no cleanup tags warning of the content issues on the page.
- The nominator has likewise not engaged by making queries or suggestions on the talk page, and in short has made absolutely no attempt to put any effort into improving the article, or make any other editors aware of their reservations.
- Of course, you don't have to do any of that, but it's hard to assume good faith when an experienced editor ignores those steps in favour of escalating to AfD, which means everyone interested in the page suddenly has to jump through hoops for a week on the whim of one editor.
- Tagging an article for deletion or nominating for AfD takes seconds; properly researching a page - especially if we're not talking just mashing three words into a search engine, and using paper resources - can take hours or even days, and whoever's doing the research may already be researching something else. It basically forces an issue no-one was aware even was an issue 72 hours ago.
- As we're talking about a fictional character from a major publisher with clearly *some* degree of notability that would leave the term some use as a redirect or a merge to a list article/page, but again that has been ignored in favour of nominating for deletion. Unless, of course, the nominator is gaming the system and thinks it should be a redirect or merge, and is using the AfD process to force the issue. Again, assuming good faith can be challenging in such circumstances.
- AfDs (at least in Comics & Animation) are mainly contested by the same 6-8 people, most of whom just pick an entrenched position; AfDs are a niche area for many editors, and the process gives a disproportionate say to the dogmatic. Most of whom who then do absolutely none of the work their nominations have created for others.
- AfD has its' uses but honestly over the past year or two flaws in the mechanism are becoming obvious, and processes put in place to swiftly remove obvious spam/advert/troll pages are being misused. BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 09:49, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is making the mistaken assumption that a certain amount of work can save a non-notable page from removal, if I thought it was feasible to save the article I wouldn't have nominated it in the first place.
I fully admit it may end up as a keep result due to various obscure sources found during the process, but at the time of nomination there was nothing immediately evident online or in the article that it passed GNG. If it does it would be entirely due to sources discovered afterwards by significant research that the article creator did not do. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 11:37, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's an assumption that many potentially notable pages need people actually making calm, patient, friendly evaluation of their notability rather than some passing random just yelling "DELETE!!1!1!". Obviously there are pages out there with questionable notability, but you've made no attempt to actually objectively see if this is one of them in any sort of constructive manner. You've just tried to put everyone in a ticking clock situation, sat back and demanded people jump through your hoops.
There are the "obscure sources" that I turned up in five minutes on Google on my phone. At work. And it's still not entirely clear why they didn't show up in your Before search.

It is highly, highly possible that the various article editors were unaware of the various nebulous, shifting definitions of what sources are and aren't admissible (CBR used to be a pretty decent site, for instance). There's no reason to assume anyone editing the article recently was totally unaware of any issues with the sourcing or notability because no-one had actively raised any concerns until you slapped a deletion notice on it one day. I mean, for someone who seems to take great umbrage about my assumptions you don't seem shy of making them about other people.

Wikipedia's standards have shifted dramatically over the past few years, and there are tools to help work with the wide number articles that could do with being raised to them. Tag it as better sources needed or whatever, give it a month, let someone who knows something, anything about the area have a look. There might not be an official process but there's an array of sensible, good faith steps that can be taken - otherwise it looks like you just randomly want an article about a particular X-Men character GONE RIGHT NOW, which naturally makes it look like it's just on your shitlist for some reason (to be fair, the whole Darkchild thing was repetitive as fuck).

That you only searched online shows a lack of basic knowledge of the medium - many heavyweight comics sources like CBJ (and thus Amazing Heroes, which is defunct but owned by Fantagraphics) and Back Issue! do not maintain full online archives for profitability reasons, and the same goes for a lot of books due to low print runs.

This again reflects poorly on your Before, and therefore your ability to judge the feasibility of saving articles. BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 12:27, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of this non policy based, totally irrelevant yelling about how bad Wikipedia is, just please tell me the single best source you have found that is not Syfy. I will gladly withdraw the article if there is a clear and obvious SIGCOV I missed, demonstrating my good faith. I think just one more will put it over the edge into notability. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 13:40, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Again - not jumping through your arbitrary hoops. And you withdrawing this is meaningless - you've already wasted enough of everyone's time with your shoddy nomination and subsequent evasion of questions, and your judgement in this particular area is clearly suspect. Going through the sources people have already posted would be a way of demonstrating your good faith. I mean, it should be easy - they would have all shown up in any halfway competent BEFORE undertaken for abrupt outright deletion of a long-standing article with many contributors, so it should be really, really easy for you to dismiss them.

Wikipedia is not bad. It's great, but a lot of it is built on people being cooperative and constructive; like most nice things, it's just vulnerable to people who want to tear stuff down. BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 14:01, 19 July 2024 (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.