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Law and Chaos

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Law and Chaos (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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A user generated essay that is entirely WP:OR. There are no reliable sources to confirm this as a topic or write anything significant about it, which means this article cannot meet most policies and guidelines, including WP:GNG, WP:V, and WP:NOT. Jontesta (talk) 14:23, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Jontesta (talk) 14:23, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
• Weak delete. OR is a major concern. That said, the topic may be notable (see ex. this book). Weakly leaning towards WP:TNT due to OR concerns, however. I was going to ping editors active in recent Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Stormbringer but after re-reading a certain (first) comment there I've lost any motivation, someone who cares more can do so. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:17, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

  No comment on the article, but pinging editors from that previous AFD for comment here: User:Artw, User:Rorshacma, User:Jclemens, User:Necrothesp, User:LEvalyn, User:Julle. BOZ (talk) 15:52, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

• Keep ...is entirely WP:OR. There are no reliable sources to confirm this as a topic or write anything significant about it... Another deletion rationale by Jontesta which has no basis in reality. We have one secondary source already in the article which discusses the topic, showing both the claims "entirely WP:OR" and "no reliable sources to confirm this as a topic" as false on a quick glance. A bit of WP:BEFORE search shows, in addition to the find by Piotrus: "Fractal Fantasies of Transformation" links the concept from Moorcock to scientific notions, as well as John Milton and William Blake; the book Chaos Ethics discusses the concept in multiple places; Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy discusses the D&D side of things specifically on pages 36-37 and more generally in the whole essay from 29-47. So plenty to fullfill the requirements of WP:GNG and WP:NOT, even though the list of existing sources is far from complete. I think both WP:V and WP:OR are very minor problems, as most of the as yet unreferenced content refers to the primary sources, it is very likely most content could be verified in that way. All that said, I think the article currently has significant problems: For such a broadly titled subject it focusses too much on the concept within Moorcocks works. And it has way too much plot summary of those works. All that could be solved with trimming, sourcing, and introducing more analysis based on those secondary sources which do exist. I think this is no case where WP:TNT applies, as in my view the referenced content, as well as limited plot summary, would be kept in "good" article on this topic. Daranios (talk) 11:09, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

  @Daranios The problem is the lack of footnotes. With those kind of topics, WP:FANCRUFTy WP:OR is common enough it's difficult to WP:AGF that the author "just forgot to add footnotes" (note: the original version of this essay, not changed much since 2006, had no references at all). PS. For best practices, I'd like to see the nom (Jontesta) confirm that they couldn't find references fo the content in the article. I think our findins strongly suggest the topic is notable, but nobody has debunked that this may be OR. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:47, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

  @Piotrus: The lack of footnotes obviously is not best practice. But one does not have to assume that the author "just forgot to add footnotes", either. I have no problem to assume in good faith that the author knew what they were doing when the article was created until proven otherwise, as I think doing plot summary without footnotes would have been common practice back then. E.g. WP:ALLPLOT was not yet written at that point. Actually looking into when a lack of footnotes would be an argument for deletion, I have only seen reason no 7. of the Misplaced Pages:Deletion policy apply: Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed. If the the nominator Jontesta were to do such a search describe their findings, that would indeed be helpful. Assuming for a moment that such "thorough attempts to find reliable sources" would actually show that the unreference sections could not be verified, that still would be no reason to delete the whole article: If we were to keep only the referenced parts, we would still have a decent stub on the topic. And we already know now that there are secondary sources out there which would allow to expand such a hypothetical stub into a full article in the future. Daranios (talk) 15:50, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

  In good faith, the author tried their best, but the resulting piece is likely WP:OR that clearly violates WP:V. Now that the lack of references has been called out, this needs verification or cutting down to size, removing all referenced content. Which, I am afraid, means not even a single sentence would remain, would it? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:59, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

  I do think the plot summary content should be trimmed, but not removed entirely. clearly violates WP:V would mean that the missing references could neither be found in secondary nor primary sources. That could be decided only by a person who knows the relevant primary sources quite well, or has done the thorough attempts to find reliable sources which is the phrasing in the policy. And what would remain if one would remove all un-referenced content? The referenced content! I've allowed myself the fun to roughly count, and get to ca. 350 words of referenced content, which is more than one common threshold for being considered a stub already. Daranios (talk) 16:19, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz 23:22, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

• Delete - This isn't written from reliable third party sources and fails WP:GNG. At times it looks like it's talking about the fiction of Michael Moorcock, and other times it drifts into other fiction that deals with chaos (which is a lot of fiction), making WP:SYNTH connections that aren't implied by the sources. But I see the source from Piotrus that could at least expand Multiverse (Michael Moorcock) (which is also in bad shape). Would not object to a merge or redirect but right now there is nothing to WP:PRESERVE here. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:16, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

The influence of Moorcock's work on D&D, Warhammer, Babylon 5 and chaos magic are all attested in secondary sources, so no WP:SYNTH there. Not so sure about Magic and Mayhem, though. Daranios (talk) 10:45, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

• Keep GNG is met per the sources already discussed, so the fact that it could be written less about specific plot points is a reason for cleanup, not deletion. This is not limited to Moorcock; Babylon 5 based its central conflict around these same concepts. If anything, there's far more room to include semi-related topics from searches like this. Jclemens (talk) 18:32, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

  Argyably it's a large philosophical concept, but here the article is 100% about Moorcock. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 19:04, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Arguably, both the the broader topic of Law and Chaos in fiction and the narrower of Law and Chaos in Moorcock's work + influences have enough secondary source to establish notability. It can be decided outside the deletion discussion which one this article should cover in the end. Daranios (talk) 10:45, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

• Keep. Plenty has been written about the concept in relation to fantasy literature and gaming, easily enough to satisfy WP:GNG. However, I think the article should be repurposed to cover the concept in general and not just Moorcock's take on it, hugely influential though that may be. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:06, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 08:06, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
• Weak Delete - I agree with Necrothesp that the concept of law and chaos as a whole, and its representation in fiction, definitely is an article that should be quite possible. However, this article just isn't it - its almost entirely just overly detailed, unsourced, in-universe plot summaries of the works of Michael Moorcock specifically. As stated multiple times above, this is a philosophical concept that goes far beyond the works of a single author, and having this current article be a massive fan-wiki style essay on that one author's work just gives a completely unbalanced view of the subject, and is a case of WP:TNT being the far preferable solution to leaving it as it is. I would probably be fine with keeping it if nearly all of the current material was removed, leaving just the bit of sourced material in the lead on Moorcock's work and the sourced material in the "Cultural influences" as a stub. But, the current article should definitely not be kept in its current form. Rorshacma (talk) 15:32, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
• Delete or selective merge to Michael Moorcock. The in-universe content is OR and WP:NOTPLOT. The section about influences on other works is better placed in the writer's article, if it is to be retained. Sandstein 11:04, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
• Delete or redirect - The current content seems like it would hinder efforts to work this into something that meets GNG. Even if the core topic may be notable, there is no point in keeping OR indefinitely until someone decides to work on it. TTN (talk) 14:20, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

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