Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/HAL 9000 in popular culture

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 delete per consensus. fishhead64 00:13, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

HAL 9000 in popular culture

HAL 9000 in popular culture (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Another indiscriminate "pop culture" spinoff article chock full of even the most fleeting references to the HAL 9000, the song "Daisy Bell," or even the name "Hal" being used in any vaguely science-y context for that matter. Chock full of speculation and OR, and a prime example of what what Wikipedia is not. Krimpet (talk/review) 02:39, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Film and TV-related deletions. --Slgrandson (page - messages - contribs) 02:49, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. We really ought to have a centralized policy on these damn things. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 03:32, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • What we need is somewhere to put it all. Wikimedia should make a useless-trivia wiki so we can transwiki it all there. Until then, this can definitely be of interests to some people, so I'll give it a weak keep. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 05:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • A centralized policy is a good thing. So much debate both in afd and edit-wars over issues such as these. On this particular article I say a clear delete. The list is totally unmaintainable, and an indiscriminate collection of information. An article in prose form about the general impact of Hal could be acceptable, a long list of random examples is not. Dr bab 12:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep per Arctic.gnome. The article-subarticle-delete cycle is crazy. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 07:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as unsourced. If articles stay unsourced and indiscriminate, then the only place for them is C:\My Documents or /home/user/mydocuments or what have you, not here. —Resurgent insurgent (as admin) 2007-04-17 09:27Z
• Merge to HAL 9000 --Dweller 13:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Let's leave aside the unsourced element, which is bad enough, but this article is crammed with speculation and assumptions, and as nom correctly points out the author/s have declared dozens of SF/media references as having to do with HAL9000 without a scrap of evidence being proffered. What's next, the original Cylons being cited because, well, they're hostile machine intelligences with red eyes?  RGTraynor  14:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to back to HAL 9000. HAL 9000 itself exists only in popular culture, so a separate article about its appearances in popular culture is redundant. FWIW, the claim that many entries are "unreferenced" is also implausible. Most items simply describe allusions in other works, and are quite easily confirmed by consulting them. Entries like that are self-referencing and non-analytic; they need no further citations. - Smerdis of Tlön 14:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as arbitrary and unsourced list.-- danntm ^T _C 19:36, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete I'm sorry Dave, but I'm afraid we can't quite have this article. Some of this stuff is a bit dubious at best. The rest can be kept at the main Hal 9000 article. Assuming it can be verified that is. FrozenPurpleCube 19:59, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and do not merge at least as a list. I strongly oppose "In popular culture" sections in articles. However, HAL 9000 itself is a part of popular culture and a pop icon of sorts, a section should be devoted to this.— JyriL ^talk 21:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - this article is terrible. Not only is it totally unreferenced - which, in and of itself, is a reason for deletion per WP:ATT - but it's not even an encyclopedic article. I've brought this up again, and again - this is an encyclopedia not a list of trivia. If you are going to have an "in popular culture" article about a topic, it needs to about about the topic in popular culture - this means having sources. This means discussing the impact of the character on the popular culture, with references and examples. This does not means that we should take every single passing reference, throw away joke, mention, name that sounds like, random insertion and put it in an article. This is an encyclopedia not a list of places where something occurs. I mean, look at some of these: Kingdom of Loathing has a red eye item dropped by a robot creature? A computer controlled player has the name HAL 9001? A game mentions something being run by a computer called HAL 9000? Are these really non-trivial references to HAL 9000? If so, then why haven't we had the good sense to put them into an actual article, rather than an unsourced and ridiculous pile of trivia. These articles are the worst part of Wikipedia, and we need to clean them up post-haste. --Haemo
• Delete. Isn't there a 2001: A Space Odyssey in popula culture article as well? Pufnstuf 23:05, 21 April 2007 (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.