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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 redirect‎ to List of Doctor Who supporting characters. There seems to be a rough consensus against keeping the article as a standalone page, and no convincing argument against redirecting it to a relevant page. A discussion about what content, if any, to merge into the target is best left for the target's Talk page. Owen× ☎ 17:11, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

List of Doctor Who villains

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List of Doctor Who villains (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Wikipedia is not a directory. Purposeless list of often one-story characters from Doctor Who, with next to no attempt at secondary sourcing or justification of the notability of the group. U-Mos (talk) 08:50, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Delete/Redirect per nom. WP:BEFORE can't WP:VERIFY most of the contents here. There are some sources for individual notable characters, but these are already covered better at their character articles. Sometimes a single character list is fine for navigation and context (which is the case for List of Doctor Who characters), per WP:ATD. But the premise for this list is flawed, and contains far too much unverifiable content for an additional list. Shooterwalker (talk) 13:38, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Shooterwalker: I expect more or less everything here can be WP:VERIFYed by primary sources, but on what basis did come to the conclusion that most of the contents cannot be verified by secondary sources? Daranios (talk) 15:19, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's no reliable definition of a villain without reliable secondary sources. Just to reiterate, this overlaps heavily with list of Doctor Who characters and this is an WP:AVOIDSPLIT situation. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:06, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Shooterwalker: There's no reliable definition of a villain without reliable secondary sources. So what do you think about the many secondary sources listed below which do apply the term villain, in general and to most if not all of the examples in our list here as it currently stands? And the content already referenced in the list now?
I am not specifically opposed to the WP:AVOIDSPLIT argument, but then why remain with the Delete !vote? Daranios (talk) 10:23, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm always in favor of consensus building, and if things start to lean towards merging, I am usually in favor. I am not currently convinced by questionable/situational sources (e.g.: valnet) and I see a lot of these characters are already covered in more standard character lists. I wouldn't oppose a merge and I appreciate editors such as yourself who can offer a compromise a solution. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:45, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Shooterwalker: Ok, in this case I would like to point out that there are also many secondary sources listed below which are not by Valnet and which to my knowledge are reliable, mostly books. The same is the case for all the referenced material currently in the article - no Valnet sources there. Daranios (talk) 10:18, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or merge: I do see the issues with list, but as the topic clearly seems notable based on the secondary sources a WP:BEFORE search brings up, those issues all can be solved through normal editing are therefore not grounds for deletion: As for the purpose, this list can gather links to the Doctor Who villains notable in their own right for navigation, and collect a balanced amount of relevant information on characters who are not notable in their own right, in accordance with WP:CSC and the result of the earlier discussions (although these are quite old). Lacking references can be added from the existing secondary sources (and probably trimming some entries). As for justification and Wikipedia is not a directory, inclusion criteria can and should be phrased. And while tags are admittedly often not very effective, one month is a bit short for see if someone else would like to tackle the problem before bringing things to a deletion discussion. And AfD is not cleanup. And as always, if you see an issue, always consider to Fix it yourself instead of just talking about it. All that said, I have no objection against a merge to List of Doctor Who characters, if a majority thinks this is the better way of presenting things for editorial reasons. A renaming away from List of Doctor Who supporting characters might then be in order, though. Daranios (talk) 15:20, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll confess I didn't look at List of Doctor Who supporting characters before nominating - one thing at a time - but now I have, that too is hard to justify. What doesn't duplicate List of Doctor Who cast members and/or Companion (Doctor Who) is in-universe trivia. We can of course talk about adding in secondary material, but when there's nothing worth keeping at the present moment aren't we in WP:STARTOVER territory? And why is it worth preserving this structure when an alternative exists concurrently, and is far better maintained? U-Mos (talk) 16:04, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Now I was not at this point aware of List of Doctor Who cast members. I do not much care under what heading the information is presented, and if List of Doctor Who cast members and List of Doctor Who supporting characters should be merged, but the current format of List of Doctor Who cast members does not allow for adding additional information/commentary on characters without major overhaul. List of Doctor Who supporting characters does. With regard to Pokelego999's opinion, I do believe that the concept of "Villains" in Doctor Who is notable based on sources like The Humanism of Doctor Who. But if they should be presented separately or not is an editorial decision. I do not think that this is a case of WP:TNT, because while we are currently lacking secondary sources, I believe that most entries in the list will have such secondary sources. I have arbitrarily chosen to look for Axos and Helen A, I have right away found sources for both. In general I have made the experience that such a collected list, in a bad shape as it is, is a good starting point if one seriously wants to improve things. So I believe preserving it in one form or another is best. If someone performed a search for secondary sources on any specific character and came up empty, then that one can be removed. Daranios (talk) 10:06, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The first is a review, the second is from an unreliable source, and the third mentions Helen A once. Additionally, notability must be established with the group being a notable group of subjects, not by individual members having small amounts of coverage. The book source you've linked above is honestly pretty solid, but admittedly my main concern is with the overlap with the main characters list even if other sources are found. List of Doctor Who universe creatures and aliens has a lot of entries, but that's mostly alright because the list itself doesn't really have much viable overlap. The villains list is a majority of one offs who tend to fall into a supporting character role, or fall into the aliens list itself. There's some notable entities in there in terms of the series, but most of these could probably be included in the supporting characters list, with a subsection related to villain reception inside the article. The list obviously needs some work before that can happen, but it's 100% a feasible outcome with some editing that I'm fine with doing myself. I just don't see as visible a need for separation here. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 19:49, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The first is a review: I don't see a problem with that, as there is coverage of the character. Per WP:NOTPAPER it is also not a problem if things were covered at two place each with their respective different contexts, i.e. in the episode article if that exists, and in this overview list of villains or characters. the third mentions Helen A once: Not only sentences where the name of the character appears are relevant. There is more commentary on references to Margaret Thatcher in Doctor Who more generally, which refer back to Helen A being such a reference. But even aside from that, the character being a commentary on real-world politics surely is fitting for an encyclopedic entry. And that that is in one sentence does not make it irrelevant, as here we are not talking about Helen A getting a stand-alone article, but that it is content exactly fitting for such a list with regard to WP:CSC. the second is from an unreliable source: Right, sorry, I did not realize that at that time. But the point is that it was easy to find coverage, and that these three results are by no means the results of an exhaustive WP:BEFORE search. So I currently see the viewpoint that most entries here are not covered by secondary sources as unfounded, one just has to invest the time to properly search for the entries individually. notability must be established with the group That is the case when consulting secondary sources such as the one I mentioned. I wonder how U-Mos came to a different conclusion.
So I still think keeping this list would be fine, but I also understand and am fine with a merge to a more general character list, seeing that this would solve the point raised by Svampesky of the somewhat fuzzy definition of villain. (Even though secondary source do use that term a lot!)
Now that I have found and restored some sourced content formerly in the article and added some noe content to show that it exists, would you, Pokelego999, and anyone be willing to support a merge of such material as WP:AtD rather than pure delete/redirect?
I would also be happy to further add such materials based on secondary sources if anyone who has voiced concerns with the current state of the article would like to team up. Daranios (talk) 10:16, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Notability of lists is based on the group, and that's my concern. Sources and secondary material can be added to episode articles and elsewhere as appropriate; what I'm not seeing is significant secondary material covering Doctor Who villains as a topic in its own right. I have at no point stated a belief that entries in this list are not the subjects of secondary coverage. U-Mos (talk) 11:02, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@U-Mos: Well, there is the already mentioned The Humanism of Doctor Who, and other early hits are The Best ‘Doctor Who’ Villains, Ranked and A World of Demons, a whole book dedicated to the villains of Doctor Who. More generally, the deletion process requires a WP:BEFORE search from the nominator, and to "demonstrate that you couldn't find, any independent sources of sufficient depth". Now the mandatory searches in Google, Google News and Google Books, as well as the optional one in Google Scholar produce a lot of hits. Can you please comment on why you think that nowhere in all of those is material to establish notability for the villains as a group? Daranios (talk) 15:10, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm finding your tone unconstructive so will not be engaging with this discussion any further. I'm glad that this proposal has spurred some work on improving the WikiProject, whatever its outcome may be. U-Mos (talk) 18:21, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@U-Mos: Sorry, I did not realize that. Please let me rephrase. You've mentioned you were concerned about the notability of the characters as a group, as required by WP:LISTN. What do you think about the coverage in The Humanism of Doctor Who, the web article The Best ‘Doctor Who’ Villains, Ranked and A World of Demons, a whole book dedicated to the villains of Doctor Who. I believe these contain enough to fullfill that requirement. What do you think of these? I believe there are even more secondary sources about that. In case you think these three are a start but not enough, I could look again. Thanks for letting me know. Daranios (talk) 18:41, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The third source you listed seems solid, but the Mary Sue source is pretty weak. Not only does it include characters not included in the current list (Alien species such as the Daleks and Weeping Angels) but it does not give commentary as a group, only individual members in the list. It honestly compounds the issues with list overlap mentioned above, as this list overlaps with several different lists. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 19:11, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Pokelego999: So where does that leave us? Are you happy with the two other sources, discounting the Mary Sue article? Would it change something if someone dug up more secondary sources on the villains as a group? Daranios (talk) 05:52, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do feel if you can prove notability as a group, you've got a strong argument for keeping the article. I still believe it's better off merged, but I definitely believe that if you can dig up sources you can probably sway the argument towards keep. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 20:23, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, yeah, and there is also this web news article which not so much discusses the villains as a group, but is a secondary source which just sees fit to collect all of them (as of the date of publication). This should also allow to WP:VERIFY almost all currently uncited information here, including the status of the entries as "villains", without recourse to primary sources or original research. Daranios (talk) 15:28, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete/Redirect per nom, whatever works best. I've meaning to take action on this list for some time, and was planning to start a merge discussion once I finished my work at List of Doctor Who universe creatures and aliens. Most of the characters in here are one-offs easily redirectable to their target article, as I don't believe the concept of "Villains" is really independently notable from the main character list. The main character list is, for all intents and purposes, complete shit, and was on my to-do list for a rewrite. I do plan to work on the list eventually and improve it, but I believe the recurring villains can be safely merged to the main list while one offs can be redirected to their parent article. I'd be happy to handle individual character redirects should this article be merged, redirected, or what have you. Should the supporting characters list be decided as the target, I'd be fine with shifting my priorities to rewriting the character list to be actually useful if editors feel that would more greatly beneficial than doing the aliens list, as I already have a draft started in my userspace for a rewrite, because per nom, that list is very much in Wikipedia:STARTOVER territory. In any case, I see no reason this article should exist, and if sources spring up to determine separate notability, the Villains list would require a complete rewrite akin to the aliens list. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 18:32, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Svampesky: You are referring to WP:NOTTARDIS. So what about the content where secondary sources can be found, as that essay asks us to do, and the content where they already have been found and added? Daranios (talk) 18:16, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Svampesky: I'd be happy to work together and improve this in some form (merge?) or another, if it were not summarily deleted. Daranios (talk) 05:52, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, largely unsourced and so subject to WP:NPOV issues - especially with entries like the Bogeyman, where as well as being listed as a villain there's a note saying it's no longer a villain by the end of the episode. Doctor Who is not Batman, and doesn't have or need a 'rogues gallery' in the same sense. The key villains (Daleks, Cybermen, etc) already have their own articles and are more than adequately covered. As others have noted, this is not the only list of Doctor Who characters, so it seems there's a lot of unnecessary duplication and segregation that will need to be looked at.
JustAnotherCompanion (talk) 00:04, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I will note that List of Doctor Who universe creatures and aliens has a very strong keep rationale (Meets LISTN and was proven notable in its last AfD). Supporting Characters is likely notable for the same reasons, but needs to be entirely reworked. Spin-off companions can probably be merged back to the main article (Companion (Doctor Who)) while Robots is iffy but I have seen significant coverage for in several books. Could potentially be merged with the aliens article but it'd depend on how much coverage there is tbh. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 20:25, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, because it can be considered a WP:SPLITLIST from List of Doctor Who characters; and/or because the topic as a set has been discussed (https://www.space.com/doctor-who-villains-ranked-worst-to-best ; https://www.cbr.com/doctor-who-villains-ranked/, https://collider.com/doctor-who-modern-villains-best-ranked/ https://www.thegamer.com/doctor-who-best-villains-list/ https://screenrant.com/doctor-who-villains-monsters-most-appearances/ https://movieweb.com/doctor-who-best-villains-from-the-modern-era-ranked/ https://movieweb.com/doctor-who-underrated-villains-more-respect/ https://screenrant.com/doctor-who-classic-villains-return-after-toymaker/ https://www.scifiscience.co.uk/drwho/drwho_badguys.html and so on, ....) which is the requirement for lists (WP:NLIST. A redirect and merge is anyway warranted imv, so very opposed to deletion.-My, oh my! (Mushy Yank) 00:16, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    These lists don't really contain discussion as a group, though. The list needs a valid split rationale and the above sources aren't really doing it since they don't discuss the subjects as a group. These sources mention them being in a group, but only discusses them as individuals, not as a group. Additionally, many of them are Valnet, which don't contribute to notability. For an example of sources valuable for building Reception and a split reason, consider the book sources Daranios found above, which contain hefty discussion of the subject as a group.
    Unrelated, but what does imv mean? I haven't seen that abbreviation before. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 06:25, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    "in my view". -My, oh my! (Mushy Yank) 08:45, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    And yes, when you make a list of the 10 best villains or the most underrated ones, and so on, your approach of the set is collective. It is not possible to have an even collective appraisal of a list without considering the items it consists of. A list is not a mass of unquantifiable mud. As for split rationale, WP:SPLITLIST is very clear: size and navigation matter because this is an online encyclopaedia. I had seen the books mentioned above but thanks for mentioning them again as yet another reason for keeping this. -My, oh my! (Mushy Yank) 08:58, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Many of these lists don't contribute to notability, and additionally, those that do don't actually say anything about the concept of a villain in Doctor Who. They simply list several, which focuses more on them individually. Let's go through the ones you posted:
    Ignoring CBR and Screen Rant, I'm going to assume the other sources here are reliable for the sake of discussion, though I lack familiarity with Space.com and MovieWeb.
    -TheGamer gives a brief two paragraphs of plot summary at the start before going into individual coverage of the top ten. Another thing to note is that of this top ten, only three of these do not overlap with List of Doctor Who universe creatures and aliens (The Toymaker, The Master, The Family of Blood)
    -Space.com briefly summarizes the show for the first few paragraphs, and merely touches on the antagonists as existing in the latter two. Again, only three don't overlap with the aliens list (The Master, Torchwood, and the Gas Mask People.)
    -The two MovieWeb sources have the same issues as the two above. The first again only has three without overlap (The Master, the Family of Blood, The Beast) and while the second does a little bit better, it still is only covering these entities individually, and many of the individual entities are one off members of specific species that can be, if not already covered, at the creatures list.
    -I frankly have no clue what "Sci-Fi Science" is but this site is not a significant coverage source. This is just a list of every vaguely antagonistic figure with a brief bit of plot summary explaining who they are. Many of these are iffy in terms of their "villainy" as well (Such as Aggedor, a character who is literally just a wild animal who has helped the main protagonist on several occasions in the past).
    -Collider's small bit, I'll give them credit for, is potentially usable, unlike the others, but it's still just the usual "two paragraph lead-in" and I wouldn't count it as significant for the whole group. Again, there are only four entries without overlap (The Empty Child, Maestro, The Master, the Toymaker).
    Each of these lists has significant overlap with the aliens list (Since many of these antagonists are aliens) and many of them even outright discuss aliens in terms of the antagonist role (Such as TheGamer and Space.com). The few entities that aren't covered on the aliens list can easily be ported over to the supporting characters list, and if there is significant coverage of some of the one offs that got a lot of attention (Like the Gas Mask People or Family of Blood) they can be covered there too. My problem, again, is that not only is actual coverage of the group weak, but the actual subject matter is far more logical merged than anything else because it overlaps with the other lists in significant contexts. Unless you can find actual significant coverage about the subject of villains in Doctor Who, then all this does is prove further how heavy the overlap is with the other two lists. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 17:01, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Pokelego999: Unless you can find actual significant coverage about the subject of villains in Doctor Who We did discuss further sources further up, though, didn't we? but the actual subject matter is far more logical merged than anything else But then why remain with the "Delete" !vote? Daranios (talk) 15:22, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Only two sources that were considerably, guaranteed notable, which isn't enough for a whole article. As for my vote, I personally feel it's better off deleted with the redirection of content handled editorially, as trying to decide new targets and merged content here would clutter discussion. (Additionally, the current lists' merged content for aliens is already there while the supporting characters list itself needs an overhaul before content can be improved, which I have volunteered to undertake should it be deemed for the best) Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 16:36, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Irrespective of possible notability as a topic, this content fails WP:NOTPLOT, WP:V. An encyclopedic treatment of the topic would present the villains in a real-world context (e.g. are there any Soviet analogs, as the Klingons were in Star Trek?), based on reliable sources. Sandstein 11:17, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sandstein: So what about the currently present referenced content on fan reception, production, and "literary" commentary, brief as it might be? Daranios (talk) 15:22, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What little encyclopedic prose content there is would fit better into the existing articles about the respective characters or episodes. Otherwise, deleting all the superfluous or unsourced entries, we'd be left with a list of like four entries. Sandstein 16:53, 6 August 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.
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