Memory Alpha:Pages for deletion

Template:Vfd

New IMDb templates

Recently, MstrControl created Template:IMDb-company and Template:IMDb-name, both of which I see as mostly useless. The first one, which is a template to link production companies to IMDb, is only used 3 times, one of which is Memory Alpha:Message templates, explaining it. We don't need a template for only two real pages. I'm sure that we can manually use external links for those instead of a template.

The second one is a bit trickier. It "is used to create an inline link to an IMDb page for a movie or a TV show." There are more links for this one, but most of these links should not be external IMDb links, but Wikipedia links. If there isn't a Wikipedia page available, then either it should not have a link, or it should be a manual external link (again, because a template for such a small number would be asinine). I don't see the point in either of these two templates. Delete both. -Platypus Man | Talk 23:15, 16 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Is it MA's policy to only include links to Wiki pages? If not, why should we not link to an IMDb page if there's not a Wikipedia page. I agree that the Wiki links are preferrable, but I think you'll find that there are a lot of movies and TV shows that are on IMDb but not on Wikipedia (especially older ones). Why not, then, have a template for those links? It saves a bit of typing, and also, ultimately, disk storage. I vote to keep Template:IMDb-name. I agree, though, that Template:IMDb-company is unnecessary, and can be deleted. Renegade54 00:47, 17 Dec 2005 (UTC)

The IMDb-link template serves our purposes just fine. Delete both. --From Andoria with Love 00:56, 17 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Delete company --Alan del Beccio 07:19, 24 Dec 2005 (UTC)

My question still wasn't answered, though... do we NOT want inline links to IMDb when there's no equivalent Wiki page? If not, why not? Renegade54 01:11, 17 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there's any policy that states there should not be any inline links to non-wiki pages, which means the IMDb-name template might come in handy. The main problem is all the arrows all over the place indicating a link to be external. Those are a bit annoying, at least to me. --From Andoria with Love 02:02, 17 Dec 2005 (UTC)

If IMDb-company is used too rarely, we can delete it. Originally I thought about nominating IMDb-name for immediate deletion because it duplicated IMDb-link, but then I noticed that IMDb-link has this "at the Internet Movie Database"-tail, so it can't be used within the text. That's why I changed it to a supplement for the in-text WP links. Ok, the arrows are a bit odd, but that's only relevant if there is a greater number of them, what is rarely the case. So keep it. --Memory 18:27, 17 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I think inline links to external sources should be used only sparingly, if possible avoided. How often do we really want to link to an article at the IMDb if it is about an person/film etc. that we do not want to have an own article about? Delete. -- Cid Highwind 20:06, 26 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Let's explain it this way: if you look at James Cromwell you can see it works well because you don't have to scroll down and click through IMDb to "L.A. Confidential" if you want to know something about this movie. And I doubt that L.A. Confidential is referenced in Trek, so we don't need an article. Btw: if we delete this, the inline links via [[Wikipedia:blabla|blabla]] must be removed for the same reasons... --Memory 20:55, 27 Dec 2005 (UTC)

The Wikipedia links are different, in that they link to another Wiki. However, even those should be used at a minimum. The excessive IMDb links in an article are just annoying, at least in my opinion. By the way, the IMDb links on Cromwell (and some other pages, but not all) have been replaced with the (likely) preferred Wikipedia links, where applicable. :) --From Andoria with Love 05:22, 3 Jan 2006 (UTC)

And this is supposed to be a substitution for all the cases that no WP article exists ;-) --Memory 19:41, 3 Jan 2006 (UTC)

There already is an interwiki link to titles at IMDb. If you put in [[Imdb:L.A. Confidential]], it will bring you to a search page which contains a link at the top, here. I have trouble trying to get it to go straight to the page, because the interwiki link automatically replaces the spacing with an underscore ( _ ), which the IMDb search engine doesn't seem to understand. Anyway, I vote delete both.--Tim Thomason 08:33, 9 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Since everyone has at least agreed to delete the company template, that has been deleted. However, the name template might have to be kept, as we have three votes to keep it (Renegade, Alan, Memory) and four votes to delete it (Platypus, Cid, Tim, myself). This I do not believe constitutes a 2/3 majority needed to delete the template. --From Andoria with Love 03:27, 13 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the outcome, Alan didn't cast any vote on the remaining template. Still, let me address some of the above again:

When I said that, in my opinion, inline links to external sources should be used sparingly, this referred not only to non-Wikipedia links, and not only to actor pages, but to all of them. This site is about Star Trek - inline, off-site links should by definition only appear if the subject (actor, movie, item, concept) clearly has no Trek connection. In all other cases, we'd prefer an internal link. Before an external link is added, this decision has to be made. Second, is the loss of not inline-linking to completely unrelated movies and actors really that big? Someone reading MA is not necessarily interested in everything this actor did - in that case, he probably would have visited Wikipedia or IMDb instead - and in fact, he still can if we add both links in an "External links" section at the bottom of an article. Third, and this hasn't been brought up in this discussion, there even are guidelines that might apply in this case: Memory Alpha:Don't use external links where we'll want Memory Alpha links and Memory Alpha:Describe external links. -- Cid Highwind 11:43, 13 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and good catch with Alan -- you're right, he never voted on the remaining page. We'll need to remove the template from the articles before deleting it, though; I think I can handle that when I get through with my "rounds". ;) --From Andoria with Love 20:51, 13 Jan 2006 (UTC)

If we take an example, Elisha Cook, Jr., it is clear that it wouldn't be really logical to remove it, because nearly every other film on that page is linked with a WP-link, so why not "Terror at Alcatraz" with an IMDB-link (as long as no WP-link is possible)? --Memory 21:04, 13 Jan 2006 (UTC)

As I said above, remove "not only [...] non-Wikipedia links, but [...] all of them" from the main text. Of course it would be strange to have all but one film or series linked from a page, but still: This is a Star Trek encyclopedia. Do we need a direct link to Magnum, P.I.? Gunsmoke? Perry Mason? After all, we don't link to all possibly existing articles on Wikipedia from other articles, just because the phrase in question has no Trek relation...

BTW, the next off-site link in that row would be Wagon Train, which might even be a case of an external link where we'll want a Memory Alpha link. After all, wasn't Star Trek specifically called "Wagon Train to the stars" by Roddenberry? -- Cid Highwind 02:00, 14 Jan 2006 (UTC)

MA might not need this, but it makes it easier for the readers to get more informations about something specific from the work of the actors without the detour via a link at the bottom. If it does no harm, why not offer such a possibility? --Memory 22:00, 15 Jan 2006 (UTC)

This is becoming less of a discussion about this specific template to be deleted and more of a discussion about external links in general. We might want to move (or split) this somewhere else soon, but anyway... The question is: Do we really want to link each and every occurence of something, even if it has no relation to Trek? I feel that it threatens the idea of Memory Alpha as an independent, special-purpose encyclopedia if we start to interweave it too much with other encyclopedias and similar sites. Since I don't know why actor pages should be a special case regarding this, let's take another example: Australia, and assume that every possible internal link has already been created. Then, why don't we link externally to Wikipedia:Melbourne, Wikipedia:Sydney, Wikipedia:Jenolan, Wikipedia:Botany Bay and probably about half a dozen other pages? Answer: Because we concentrate on Trek content here. Someone reading the Australia article here either wants to read about Sydney in a Trek context (and apparently, that context doesn't exist), or is surely able to follow the link to Wikipedia:Australia at the bottom of the page, from where he can find his way to all the information about Sydney he'll ever need. -- Cid Highwind 15:06, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Template:Pna-episode

Template:Pna-episode

Essentially unused (4 pages) and, more important, a near duplicate of Template:Pna-incomplete, just specialized on episodes. I don't think this is necessary, delete and replace with the incomplete message. -- Cid Highwind 14:47, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. I'm abstaining because of personal bias in the Duty Roster vs Template debate, but I wanted to note that this could be used in conjunction with the Duty Roster if it links to the roster or something similar to that. The idea of categorizing episodes this way obviously fell through, but if people want to use this the way we do with multiple {{stub}} templates, I don't see a problem. Weyoun 02:47, 13 Jan 2006 (UTC)
• I'm not too sure if I'd call this unnessary or not. I know we've tried to avoid placing the incomplete template in episode articles in the past, so this seems like a good way to handle it. Then again, I'm not entirely certain a template is needed for one section of an article, and it is a near-duplicate of the incomplete template. I don't know -- this is one of those cases where I'll have to remain neutral until I hear some more opinions as to why or why not to keep this. --From Andoria with Love 21:03, 13 Jan 2006 (UTC)

My first question would be: Is there any good reason why it was avoided to use the incomplete template on episode pages? I can't imagine any if we're placing a similarly worded one linking to the same category on the page at the same time... -- Cid Highwind 02:14, 14 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Don't ask me. I just work here. :P All I know is that incomplete templates were previously added to the episodes, but were subsequently deleted because "episode articles don't get templates". --From Andoria with Love 21:55, 15 Jan 2006 (UTC)

• Since we have the "EDR" project of Vedek Dukat we don't need a special template for incomplete episode pages, not even the regular pna. So delete it. --Memory 23:16, 15 Jan 2006 (UTC)
• Actually, I think we should keep this and use it in conjunction with the Duty Roster to keep things in synch. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 23:22, 15 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Please, the PNA messages and the Duty Roster are completely different approaches, and I really think they don't mix well. Surely I don't feel like "updating the episode duty roster" manually (as the undiscussed change to the template asks me to do) if the way a PNA template is intended to work is to automatically do something similar. Vice versa, if I'm working with the Duty Roster, why should I additionally add templates to pages I'm not actually working on? Regarding the "no 'incomplete' templates on episode pages" I don't see any good reason for that, nor am I aware of any discussion or decision regarding this. Episode articles are articles, and if they are incomplete, they should be marked as such. -- Cid Highwind 02:27, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)

• Keep and apply to episode pages. I agree with the Vedek (that seems to happen a lot lately) on this one. As far as the automatic updating with templates, it's just common courtesy to update the duty roster so we don't get our wires crossed when you write a summary, plus it lets new people know the roster exists. Thus the other concern is irrelevant if we simply apply it to all episodes currently listed on the roster. It's the best of both words. :-) Weyoun 08:11, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)

As I said above, I know I wouldn't (if I used that message in the first place) - not to prove a point, but because I would expect this PNA message to behave just like every other PNA message: I add a template "describing a general problem" somewhere, and somewhere else a link to that page pops up on a list. "Common courtesy" is nice in theory, but this suggestion complicates what would otherwise be a nice&clean process by asking me to do exactly those things that this very class of templates is supposed to avoid. Besides, this is, again, a case of some link to this page "creeping into" other unrelated processes. We already have a discussion about this somewhere, so let's discuss this there, if still necessary. Can we get some more comments by others, perhaps? -- Cid Highwind 11:24, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I think I'm of the mind that it's Vedek Dukat's brainchild and therefore we should let him do what he sees fit (so long as it make sense), after all it does say official duty roster. But in this case, I don't think it is a big problem - if an episode has been finished and the Duty Roster has not yet been updated, someone will eventually update the Roster. So the extra template is probably not necessary. (The Duty Roster does have its purpose and it serves us well enough.) Makon 11:37, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Although I think this could be used in conjunction with the duty roster without causing confusion, I have no intention of going away and can continue to hunt down people who don't know the duty roster exists. So in the end, I guess {{pna-incomplete}} works fine, although this makes things complicated for archivists who want to work on non-episode pages. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 17:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• I am inclined to keep this as pna templates requiring the coinciding talk pages are rarely used properly. Unlike Template:Pna-incomplete, which requires and explaination on the talk page...and which many times is not used properly, Template:Pna-episode specifies what needs attention without the use of a talk page and will edit that specific section (summary) requiring attention. --Alan del Beccio 22:19, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per what Alan said. Sorry, I don't mean to act like John Kerry. :) --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 07:37, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

T'Lak

This article already exists as Talok. A google search seems to confirm that T'Lak is not a Trek name or at least a spelling even used to associate with this character, whereas the latter finds multiple confirmed results. --Alan del Beccio 02:14, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete/Merge Content I agree that T'Lak should go, however T'Lak has a lot more information than Talak. If you're going to get rid of T'Lak, at least bring some of the information from it over to Talak.

• Merge into Talok and delete this. --Starchild ^|<Talk> 03:38, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Merge/delete. --From Andoria with Love 05:28, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The Infobox Text / Template:Infobox Film / SFM

The Infobox Text & Template:Infobox Film

Created by an anonymous contributor who, I think, isn't yet completely aware of the wiki functionality (already gave him a welcome message). The template seems to be copied from Wikipedia, the other page had a wrong call of that template plus some other strange links. I guess both could be delete as "user tests". -- Cid Highwind 19:38, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete both.

SFM

Another one from the same constributor mentioned above. --From Andoria with Love 19:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• I deleted this one, it was clearly spam. --Alan del Beccio 22:22, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
• SFM is still around and kicking. Delete it, says I. — THOR ^=/\= 17:48, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

O

O

Non-canon, with some info possibly being fandom. If the book where this info came from can be found, it should be merged. --From Andoria with Love 20:05, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The book thst this info is found in are the Q-strike series.

Merged with Q-Zone. Thanks. :) --From Andoria with Love 23:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Star Trek: Expanded Universe

• Star Trek: Expanded Universe - promotion of an external website, MA:NOT a web directory. -- Michael Warren | Talk 20:11, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Non-Trek Related TV Articles

CBS, Paramount Domestic Television, CBS Paramount Television, Paramount Network Television, DreamWorks,

January 27, 2006 - SFM

• Articles with no relation to Trek, CBS had mainly biased information but has been removed. - Adm. Enzo Aquarius 21:39, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Added Dreamworks - Adm. Enzo Aquarius 23:02, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep CBS but Delete the others. Vash The Stampede 05:46, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete - No relation to 'trek?. MatthewFenton 23:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete -- however, since we have NBC and UPN, I might lean towards keeping CBS. CBS was the station that aired the first run of TNG (at least in my local viewing area). At times it even ran against first run DS9 on NBC on the same time slot. For that matter, some areas that did not have a local UPN station ran the shows on FOX. Back during VOY's first run it aired on my local FOX station (and later ran ENT), and after I moved to the Grand Rapids (and before the local UPN station was established there) it appeared on oddball stations like PAX and FOX. Somehow I wouldn't doubt this arrangement was unique to Northern and Western Michigan and perhaps with some further support or confirmation, it might be worth noting these as valid broadcast stations, much like we have validated Spike TV for airing the re-runs of these series. My local FOX re-ran DS9 for several years while I was in college. --Alan del Beccio 23:33, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete CBS and DreamWorks, as there is no Trek relevance there. Keep CBS Paramount Television and merge Paramount Domestic Television and Paramount Network Television into that article, as CBS Paramount Television is the new Trek license holder ([1] [2]) and the latter two articles are relevant to its history. -- SmokeDetector47^{( TALK )} 23:35, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
  • On second thought, Paramount Domestic Television and Paramount Network Television could probably be merged and redirected to Paramount Television and that article cleaned up to remove non-Trek relevant content per its talk page. -- SmokeDetector47^{( TALK )} 23:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• CBS currently owns Paramount (Paramount Television is now called CBS Paramount Television). So, keep CBS and CBS Paramount Television, delete or merge the rest. --From Andoria with Love 23:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep CBS and CBS Paramount Television, merge and redirect Paramount Domestic Television and Paramount Network to Paramount Television, and delete DreamWorks. --Starchild ^|<Talk> 02:09, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

• Merge these articles into a single or smaller group of articles that describes the various companies evolutions.. i'm at a loss of a good "top-level" descriptor, but maybe "Paramount" would be it..
  • BTW, no network "aired" first run TNG or DS9 -- they were syndicated. In my area they ran on a FOX station, but they weren't FOX shows -- they could be run by any network that decided to buy the shows on a week to week basis, apparently it was NBC or CBS in Alan's area, but more often they were picked up by "independant" stations (with no network) -- so creating an article about CBS just because one or two CBS stations ran a first run TNG episode doesn't seem necessary. The only networks that have, to date, aired first-run Trek are UPN and NBC. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 02:22, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I found a link between CBS and trek: Gene Roddenberry first offered The Cage to CBS, but got declined. I know that its a small link, but it should be mentioned somewhere that CBS was part of Trek history.

• New Addition - I have added SFM to the list, another unrelated TV article created by Logoboy. - Adm. Enzo Aquarius 17:10, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

The Rock

Duane Johnson ... is spelled Dwayne Johnson, which should be a redirect to The Rock as he was credited as --K^enK^eel^er -- Postfach

I've merged the histories under "The Rock" and deleted the unnecessary redirect.--Tim Thomason 17:33, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

These seem familar...

Kesparn, Phasion Beam, A Matter of Anti-Time

...as they from an IP in the 67.x.xx.xxx range (similar to our vandal from last fall) with contributions like this that are not pulling in google results. --Alan del Beccio 07:31, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

To my knowledge VOY: A Matter of Anti-Time and DS9: A Matter of Q are not novels, as they are certainly not episodes. --Alan del Beccio 07:33, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

To my knowledge, these seem to be legitimate. -Vala 07:39, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• And to my knowledge, you seem to be... well, no personal attacks right? Anyway speedy delete all. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 07:48, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to say you people are stupid, but I still don't like what you've done. What with the threat of Ori attack and everything, you're worrying about articles which may or may not be true. You sicken me. -Vala 08:03, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Riiiight... anyway, going back to reality: delete them all, quick, fast, and in a hurry. --From Andoria with Love 16:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
• How ... odd. Delete them all. — THOR ^=/\= 17:41, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
• How odd, indeed. Delete - Adm. Enzo Aquarius 17:44, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - Probably fandom?--MatthewFenton 17:52, 27 January 2006 (UTC)