Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional invertebrates: Difference between revisions

List of fictional invertebrates (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Interesting as this subject is, this list violates of our policy on not collating indiscriminate sets of information. It is also entirely original research, and with the present title and scope it can never not be original research. Biological classification is meaningless for fictional creatures. In limited cases, such as fictional parasites, secondary sources refer to a recognizable phenotype that allows us to group them without OR. Invertebrates are all animals without vertebra: the grouping of fictional creatures with this criterion is arbitrarily large, limited only by OR (do Kaiju belong? Cylons? The alien from Life? why/why not?), and critically, not treated as a coherent topic by secondary sources, failing WP:NLIST. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:30, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Fairly obvious keep as a container for various kinds of fictional invertebrates for which we have uncontroversial lists. The definition of Invertebrate is set forth in our own article on the subject, which is referenced in the article. BD2412 T 19:42, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. INDISCRIMINATE list that fails LISTN in terms of sourcing. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 19:45, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep This is appropriate for navigation to related lists and to include lists that are too small to have their own articles. We have many lists of fictional animals, but this one being a broader category doesn’t mean it should be deleted. I don’t understand why nom is bringing up aliens that are not listed here when it’s obviously intended to include fictional versions of actual animals and is not arbitrarily large. Reywas92^Talk 21:00, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The navigational purpose is valid but is entirely fulfilled by Lists of fictional animals, of which this is a subset. That it is only intended to include fictional versions of actual animals isn’t obvious, and if that’s how it is framed, it is no longer a navigational list of lists, and is required to meet WP:NLIST, which it does not. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:04, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  You are welcome to edit it so as to make the criteria for inclusion obvious. If the meaning of Invertebrate is unclear, then that is a problem of that parent article. BD2412 T 21:47, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Show me evidence that WP:NLIST is met, and I will gladly edit the article. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:50, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The request is a misapprehension of WP:NLIST. This is not a freestanding list, but a subset of Lists of fictional animals. If there is not a list at this title, the content will not disappear from the encyclopedia, but will merely be merged up to a larger containing article. We are, of course, free to subdivide large lists into smaller sections, irrespective of whether there are sources that mirror those specific subdivisions. There are, of course, sources that list fictional animals generally. BD2412 T 23:09, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That’s simply not true, and if it were true, it would be entirely redundant to Lists of fictional animals, which does not require a split, with only a few dozen entries. Vanamonde93 (talk) 00:31, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep as per keeps above. this is the sort of list for which Wikipedia exists; nothing wrong with it that can’t be fixed by what’s right with it. Hyperbolick (talk) 09:39, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep or merge to List of miscellaneous fictional animals. I see the inital concern about WP:NLIST, but I am very much on the same page as BD2412 that this is an organizational split for more convenient reading/usability of Lists of fictional animals. With regard to “That’s simply not true“, I believe that was never meant as a statement on the history of this list, but rather about the intention behind the list right from the creation. I feel that as it currently is, a merge back to Lists of fictional animals would be possible sizewise, but would not be in the best interest as it would break the format, look, and readability of this target, which currently is purely a list of lists. But now that List of fictional worms has been decided to be merged here, this problem is exacerbated, with our List of fictional invertebrates being destined to become significantly larger. In any case, this being a navigational list, our main goal should be to organize things down from Lists of fictional animals so that all relevant articles and sections on this topic can be found. So Patrick Star, Sid the Slug and SpongeBob SquarePants all should be accessible through browsing in a convenient way. Just deleting this list would forbid that, and therefore would both violate WP:ATD and the spirit of WP:IAR. If the nominator thinks this should be solved within Lists of fictional animals, the route suggested by policy would have been a merge discussion on the talk page rather than a deletion discussion. (As for individual cases, I expect there will be remain some vagueness, but the vast majority can be solved through looking at the primary and secondary sources and the definition of Invertebrate. Kaiju as a group contain only some based on invertebrates, so that should go to Lists of fictional animals#Lists by features. Cylons are robots, not animals, right? So they are out. The alien from Life, if there are no statments in sources beyond what’s in the Wikipedia article, would go to List of alien species. Recognizably fictional animals (as opposed to aliens) but without enough information to assign to a real-world group could go to an “Others” section in List of miscellaneous fictional animals.) Daranios (talk) 09:59, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Daranios: I’m not fundamentally opposed to navigational lists here. But navigational lists still require systematic selection criteria, and need to be writable without WP:OR and without violating WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Invertebrate is already a catch-all biological grouping, it is doubly useless for the categorization of fictional creatures. There is simply no way to represent all notable fictional creatures (as an aside – and not as a reason for deletion – these lists are rife with non-notable entries) in a list structure without original research and indiscriminate groupings. I wasn’t aware of List of miscellaneous fictional animals. The NOTINDSCRIMINATE violation is in the title. That’s what the category tree is for: situations where lists can’t group things coherently. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:35, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Vanamonde93: The verdict on List of miscellaneous fictional animals was no consensus. Obviously that can be read in two ways, but it certainly also means that your stance “The NOTINDSCRIMINATE violation is in the title” is not consensus. If readability tells us presenting lists of fictional animals separate from individual fictional animal species, WP:NLIST is not meant to stop us from doing that. And we should find some form to allow for navigation from Lists of fictional animals to all notable fictional animals. The real-world biological system is one road for that, wherever it can be determined. I am convinced that it can be reasonably determined in many cases. Where it cannot, there has to be another grouping. “miscellaneous fictional animals” might be one way to do that. Daranios (talk) 19:09, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  We can agree to disagree on the idea that because we have lists of some fictional animals, all fictional animals must therefore be represented in the list structure. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:14, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  What, then? we’re going to list all fictional animals, including arthropods but excluding non-arthropod invertebrates? Not how lists work. Hyperbolick (talk) 19:33, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  If we applied NLIST and NOR with any consistency, that’s how we’d work, yeah. We’d have List of fictional parasites because that’s a group that’s been treated as a group by RS. That and other notable lists would be featured in a navigational list of lists. Creatures that haven’t been unequivocally described in terms of a real-life equivalent, or ones in groups that haven’t been treated in reliable sources, would be placed in the category tree of fictional creatures. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:38, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]