Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mind uploading in fiction

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. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:35, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Mind uploading in fiction

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Mind uploading in fiction (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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The topic is likely notable (see SFE), but our execution is terrible. First, the prose part is pretty much unreferenced (the article is tagged with OR warning for 5 years now), then a gigantic list of random examples (mostly unreferenced too), failing WP:OR/WP:V/WP:IPC/MOS:TRIVIA/WP:NLIST/WP:NOTTVTROPES/etc. Mind uploading does not have a section about 'fiction/culture', just mentions this article in lead. Looking at article's history, this was split (exorcised...) from the main article in the old 00's, and of course it had no references or such ([1]). The article hasn't been improved since, quality wise, just accumulated more fancruft. WP:TNT is required. For now, this can be WP:ATD-Rredirected to the main article, with no prejudice for this being restored as an article - but it will need to be rewritten from scratch using reliable sources like the SFE article I've linked. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:03, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Science fiction and fantasy, Popular culture, Science, and Lists. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:03, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: I am not commenting on the contents of the article. However, it should be brought to everyone's attention that several prominent (controversial) figures have claimed Mind uploading will be reality in the not-to-distant future (see Mind uploading#Advocates) including Elon Musk (Elon Musk’s Big Neuralink Paper: Should We Prepare For The Digital Afterlife?. One would suspect that fiction would be a good source for trying to understand such a world. I am not so sure WP:TNT is necessary. - BeFriendlyGoodSir (talk) 03:42, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

  @BeFriendlyGoodSir We do have an article on reality (science) at Mind uploading. And fiction article would be good to have too - but fancruft is realistically not rescuable; experience shows that noone wants to spend countless hours verifying/referencing such stuff - only solution is to blow this up, and write something from scratch, using sources. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:47, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

  I agree with removing WP:OR but I disagree with removing all content that is not original research. Why not add a flag at the top of the page asking for citations? The current one only applies to WP:OR. If you TNT this, I would not be surprised if this article gets rewritten again to the same size without any citations added all over. Let's save volunteer time where possible. Regarding your fancruft concern, I think that can be fixed. - 04:00, 24 March 2024 (UTC) BeFriendlyGoodSir (talk) 04:00, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

• Keep Nomination statement cites WP:MOS, which is about how we present information, not what we cover, implying that the problems here are surmountable and deletion is unnecessary. Ping me if MOS statements are stricken from the nomination statement. Jclemens (talk) 06:01, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

  The existence of problems with presentation necessarily making problems with substance surmountable is certainly a position you can take, but it's not a particularly coherent one. I am sure you would agree that if somebody makes an incorrect statement riddled with typos, fixing the latter would not somehow resolve the factual inaccuracies. TompaDompa (talk) 11:36, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

  MOS is relevant. That policy warns, for example, that "When not effectively curated, such material can attract trivial references or otherwise expand in ways not compatible with Wikipedia policies such as what Wikipedia is not and neutral point of view." as well "A Wikipedia article may include a subject's cultural impact by summarizing its coverage in reliable secondary or tertiary sources (e.g., a dictionary or encyclopedia). A source should cover the subject's cultural impact in some depth; it should not be a source that merely mentions the subject's appearance in a movie, song, television show, or other cultural item." _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 22:42, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

• Delete or Draftify This page requires a full rewrite and is currently inappropriate for Wikipedia, lacking citations and being largely WP:OR. It is an example of a viable subject with an unencyclopedic page. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 18:08, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
• Keep but trim and add reliable sources. I will help in this effort. Perhaps this should be renamed List of Mind uploading in fiction instead of going in depth on a few books in the intro. - BeFriendlyGoodSir (talk) 03:17, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

  Taking a list approach is really the opposite of what we should be doing to clean this up. In the past, what has worked when it comes to fixing these types of articles has been to rewrite them essentially from scratch in a prose format using sources on the overarching topic—see e.g. WP:Articles for deletion/Eco-terrorism in fiction, WP:Articles for deletion/Earth in science fiction (2nd nomination), WP:Articles for deletion/Space stations and habitats in fiction, WP:Articles for deletion/Supernovae in fiction, WP:Articles for deletion/Neptune in fiction, WP:Articles for deletion/Genies in popular culture (2nd nomination), WP:Articles for deletion/Battle of Thermopylae in popular culture, WP:Articles for deletion/Loch Ness Monster in popular culture (2nd nomination), and WP:Articles for deletion/Time viewer. Or just recently, WP:Articles for deletion/Tachyons in fiction (2nd nomination) (though I can't vouch for the quality of that one as I haven't taken a particularly close look at the new version). TompaDompa (talk) 06:14, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

• Comment Overhauling is needed, not deletion. ArvindPalaskar (talk) 15:54, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
• Comment There seems to be agreement both that the topic is notable and that the article as it existed at time of nomination was not in an acceptable state. I took a look at the article and the sources and concluded that it would be way less effort to start over from scratch than to attempt to salvage the mess that was there. We now have a very brief start for a properly-sourced article (courtesy link to the version as of my writing this for future reference). It could certainly be expanded (at least somewhat), though I don't anticipate finding the time to do so within the relatively-near future. I invite everyone who commented above to consider whether it would be better to keep this here for future expansion or to merge it to the main mind uploading article. @Piotrus, BeFriendlyGoodSir, Jclemens, Zxcvbnm, and ArvindPalaskar: What do you think? TompaDompa (talk) 02:28, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  With the current scrap of an article that remains, merging is a better idea than retaining it there. It's clearly a subtopic and marked as such; subtopics should be split off when the amount of content necessitates a split. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 03:18, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  I am totally fine, as usual, with the TNT-and-rewrite approach, and TD's version is acceptable to me. If it is not merged, it should be added as a new section with the 'main' link to the subarticle (that can likely be expanded). In fact, I'll do it now. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:27, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 08:06, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

• Keep Opening sentence of the deletion rational "The topic is likely notable" immediately followed by "but our execution is terrible" WP:DELETIONISNOTCLEANUP. Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 07:10, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

  The nomination mentioned WP:V as a rationale for deletion, which is perfectly allowed by policy. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 07:23, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  There is nothing that is notable that is not also verifiable, per WP:NRVE. The fact that something notable is not verified is a surmountable problem, and not a reason for deletion. Jclemens (talk) 03:41, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• Keep per all above. This is a sufficient kernel of an article to keep in mainspace. BD2412 T 15:14, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
• Comment. I see the article has been effectively TNTed and is being rewritten. As such my initial rationale no longer applies. Unless the article reverted to its older version, I also favour keeping the new version. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:42, 7 April 2024 (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.