Conclusions

Articles (or stubs) on video game items should generally be merged into the article on the game (or series) itself, or merged into a list of items in that game or series. This also makes it easier to read about the lot of them.
Items that are well-known outside the games, or that have attracted a cult following (e.g. the Mario Mushroom) deserve their own articles.

Attempted consensus

Sometimes, a group of similar or related articles is nominated for deletion over a short period of time. In cases like this, it seems prudent to have one centralized discussion about the entire group, rather than repeating arguments over each member thereof. This is an attempt to forum consensus on one such groups of articles.

Note that individual members from the group may still be considered notable on other grounds. This discussion is purely to determine whether membership of this group, solely on its own, is merit enough for inclusion in Wikipedia.

Description

From the category Nintendo items, a number of articles about minor Nintendo objects and obstacles were nominated for deletion. The question arises, where does the bar of notability lie for these objects and how is such notability determined?

For the record, template:nintendoitems has been voted for deletion on the TfD page.

Arguments for deletion

Arguments for keeping

In my opinion, it depends on whether the item is only part of a single game (like, say, Kuribo's shoe) or a recurring item that appears in many games and is part of the Nintendo culture in general. A lot of them go on to be featured in merchandise and other spin-offs. For example, Mario's famous mushroom power-up is a popular theme for t-shirts and such. I ran a Google image search for mario mushroom and on the first page alone, I see t-shirts, boxers (2 different ones), a hoodie, and much more. Total Google web hits for mario mushroom, in case anyone is interested, was 239,000 hits. Let's face it, folks, this might not be high culture, but it's a significant part of modern pop culture and is well into its third decade now. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 00:03, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)
That may be true for a few items like the Mario mushrooms or the Pokeball, but is it true about things like VS Seeker, Rare Candy, or Metal Box? --Carnildo 00:36, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If one item in a category is notable, does that notability somehow rub off on the dozen or so other items within the same category? Please note that I intentionally did not list Fire Flower nor Super Mushroom on VfD. Also make note that the {{Nintendoitems}} template itself is listed on Templates for Deletion. --GRider\^talk 01:20, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I made no statement that every Nintendo item is notable. The question asked was where the bar of notability lies, and in my first sentence, I answered that: single-game items are not notable, items that appear in multiple game series and are part of Nintendo culture are notable. It's an easy and convenient standard to follow because it's easily verifiable and leaves no guesswork. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 02:46, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

I believe the Mario Mushroom is an exception because it's practically turned into an internet phenomenon (qv Dopefish). In general, I believe these items should be located somewhere where they can best be found to people looking for that information. That would in most cases be done by merging them onto the main game page. If an item appears in multiple unrelated games, it should have its own article. If it appears in multiple parts of the same series, then I guess it should be a case-by-case basis, and if the parts of the series are sufficiently alike maybe a merger is still in order. Radiant! 09:17, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

The problem with merging is that some of these, such as Freezie, have fairly detailed articles already and appear in more than one game. That content needs to be put somewhere. I suppose we could create a List of Nintendo game items, but it would be quite bulky if all the content from the item pages were kept. Items from only one game might be merged back into that game, though, unless they're extremely notable on their own, as per Pokeball. Meelar (talk) 00:58, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Arguments for merging

It seems to me that game-related powerups are best kept together in an annotated list. That way, the comparison and differences are easier to spot, and there is no need to duplicate the information about the games in which they are found. Radiant! 20:33, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

Great idea. Agreed. jdb ❋ (talk) 22:18, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Game-related powerups are generally of such limited interest that they shouldn't be seen outside the article on the game or games they belong to. --Carnildo 21:17, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
A single game-related artifact in unencyclopedic but a collection of them is potentially notable. I would recommend The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Minor characters from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as a model of how these items should be handled. --Allen3 22:29, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)
Major items, like mario super mushrooms are notable enough for their own articles. Minor items, like a metal box, are not. Merge all minor game items into lists, with appropriate descriptions. DaveTheRed 04:08, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Most such items ought to be merged into one or more lists. -Sean Curtin 04:52, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)
Merging into a per-game or per-game-series list makes the most sense to me. Radiant! sums up well many of the arguments that lead me to be a mergist; the information is easier to understand in one article rather than twenty. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:54, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Merge with the article on the game or a list like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time weapons and items. Exceptions being articles like Super Mushroom or Fire Flower, which are notable on their own. Andre (talk) 23:02, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)
- What about items that appear in more than one game? Meelar (talk) 01:00, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
  - It depends. In the case of Freezie, it can go mainly in the Mario Bros. article with a bit of information in the Super Smash Bros. Melee article. If it's more notable, it can probably have its own article. Andre (talk) 02:40, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
  - I don't really think that happens all that often, actually. When it does, it's usually one of three things:
    - The games are all in the same series, which means that the preferred organization might be "List of items in the X series" rather than "List of items in the game X", "List of items in the game X2", etc.
    - An item is included in one game series as an injoke reference to another game series. The biggest example would of course be Super Smash Brothers, where nearly everything is taken from some other game series. Even there, I don't see why you couldn't link to the "List of..." article just as you could to an individual article.
    - It's debatable whether it's really the same item or something generic in classification (i.e., laser pistols have been around since back when they were "rayguns" and video games were themselves the subject of science fiction; can it really be said that so-and-so's laser pistol is a deliberate reference to other-game-that-had-laser-pistol?) This possibility doesn't really make the case for "the item needs its own article", either.
  - In all those cases, I think the "List of..." format still produces acceptable results. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:13, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I'm a mergist at heart. I think the information is most useful when it's all in one article, not sprinkled about all over the place. When there's only one or two sentences to say about most items, it creates a frustrating number of permanent stub articles. This is not to say that extremely well-known items (of which there are relatively few) should not also have their own articles (the Super Mushroom being the canonical example) in addition to their short blurbs on the lists. Keep the redirects under each item name, of course. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 22:22, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Only the most interesting or notable power-ups should be merged with the appropriate article. I'm still learning the ins and outs and Wikipedia but I'm pretty sure it's not a repository of old game manuals. 23skidoo 03:20, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Powerups have no context outside the game, the most clear way to display the information is in a list, or merged back to an article about the game.--nixie 00:47, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It would be better to have the items as a list on one page, or several pages should the page be too long. However, I don't believe that they should warrant for their own article unless the length of information on a particular item is longer than 16K. -- AllyUnion (talk) 05:02, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Length of the resulting article shouldn't be a criteria. For example, Dopefish has a life that is mostly independent of the game it's from, but it's only 2.5K. --Carnildo 05:33, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Nintendo items