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. Further discussion may reveal a consensus to merge, but that need not happen at AfD. Barkeep49 (talk) 02:19, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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

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The list is largely unsourced original research. Most entries cannot be verified in secondary sources. This is not viable as a separate article and fails WP:GNG. There might be an acceptable redirect target at University of Cambridge#In literature and popular culture, but the target should be much shorter once unreliable information is removed. Jontesta (talk) 04:20, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Jontesta (talk) 04:20, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 09:44, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I suggest to postpone this discussion until a conclusion is reached at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional British and Irish universities, as the result there could have important impact on how to go on here. Daranios (talk) 17:57, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment The deletion discussion was closed as keep, and the scope of the list has since been expanded to List of fictional universities. Daranios (talk) 10:12, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep or merge to List of fictional universities. A very brief search yielded Ancient Cultures of Conceit, which has something to say on fictional Cambridge and Oxford colleges as a group, as well as feature individual examples. But one soruce alone does not establish notability. Individual fictional Cambridge colleges certainly do appear in secondary sources, so they should have some place on Wikipedia. If someone finds more secondary sources on the colleges as group, please let me know. Daranios (talk) 10:12, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Education. Daranios (talk) 15:20, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• 'Comment If merged to List of fictional universities, this would be appropriate as a separate section of the list, rather than numerically overwhelming the main list. Better sourcing is also needed: the blue links do not all lead to information on the fictional college ("All Saints College" is mentioned in 2 of the 3 bluelinked articles on works, "Boniface" is in the Pendennis article, but no sign of "Brakespeare" in Manalive.) But it would be sad to see this compilation of content disappear: I'd suggest a new section, tagged as {{refimprove section}} and left for a few months to see whether sources are added after pinging major contributors to the list. PamD 20:59, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep We have three related articles, List of fictional Cambridge colleges, List of fictional Oxford colleges and List of fictional Oxbridge colleges, which I will address together. They have been in the encyclopedia for 20, 20 and 19 years, and during that time no editor has tagged them with any concerns about lack of sources or notability. They were initially created when the encyclopedia's standards of sourcing were less demanding, and list items were sourced only by being linked to Wikipedia articles on their content; later editors have added further entries consistently, ie generally without explicit sourcing (although most can indeed be sourced with a little research). This can be contrasted to List of fictional universities, created in mainspace in 2020, which has been thoroughly sourced from the beginning. (COI: I created that one) The three lists have grown gradually over the years, added to by a large number of different editors. Some of these are still editing, but not regularly. I note that @Paul A:, creator of the main lists in 2004, edited once in Nov 23, once in Dec 23, twice in April 24: a current editor, though one who quite probably won't even see the note on his talk page in the duration of this AfD. It would be sad to see this accumulated collection of knowledge deleted after a week's discussion, at the behest of an editor who appears to focus mainly on article deletion.

I suggest that instead of deleting this trio of lists, we should:

1. Keep them
2. Tag them as {{More citations needed}}
3. Add a note on their talk pages pinging editors who have contributed to them over the years, alerting them to the fact that the list is inadequately sourced and may risk deletion (I hereby offer to add such notes if the lists survive this AfD)
4. Wait a year. (Why not? There is no deadline, and Wikipedia is not damaged by the existence of these lists) This will allow occasional editors to be alerted to the situation and given a chance to improve the lists. (It seems likely that some of the editors who have contributed to the list spend much more time reading books than editing Wikipedia.)
5. If after 12 months the lists do not appear to be worth keeping as standalones, bring them back to AfD or merge their sourced content to List of fictional universities, perhaps as a separate section.

The universities of Oxford and Cambridge hold a special place in UK society (witness the fact that even the new, largely state-educated, cabinet ministers are predominantly Oxbridge graduates), and historically a large number of novelists were educated there and used them as settings for their works. The "Oxford" list shows a couple of major series (Morse and Pulman) which have generated a batch of fictional colleges each. (Non-COI: I have no association with Oxford or Cambridge, though worked or studied at five other English universities). These three lists should be given a chance to be brought up to 2020s levels of sourcing, and will then be an even more valuable contribution to the encyclopedia. PamD 07:47, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing that limited sourcing has been found and tagging first is a one suggested step in the deletion process, I would be fine with such a plan. Daranios (talk) 10:13, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment An added complication of proposing a merger with List of fictional universities is that these are not fictional universities. They are fictional colleges of real universities. The list would need to be moved again, and a new scope carefully defined. PamD 10:21, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge, to List of fictional Oxbridge colleges. Pam's got the right idea, I think, but I don't see a reason why we wouldn't merge the Oxford and Cambridge lists into the Oxbridge list now. And I do also think that this is a significant, separate set of fictional universities than "all fictional universities ever". -- asilvering (talk) 01:16, 27 July 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.