Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Resident Evil (disambiguation)

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. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:31, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Resident Evil (disambiguation)

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This is not an ambiguous topic; this is merely a list of installments in different media of works within a single franchise, the franchise as a whole being thoroughly discussed at Resident Evil. There is nothing on this page that is not already listed and linked there. Why have a disambiguation page that is completely redundant to material properly listed in an existing article? bd2412 T 19:26, 5 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Disambiguations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:17, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The title is ambiguous (there are two video games, a film, and a soundtrack with the title). Not all redundancy is bad redundancy. This page is also the target of the {{R from incomplete disambiguation}} Resident Evil (video game), which should be maintained. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:21, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That redirect - which only addresses two title matches, and could be dealt with by a hatnote - also has dozens of incoming links, and is likely to keep drawing them. I hope that if you intend to maintain the redirect, you will fix all of those incoming links. bd2412 T 11:26, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have no idea on what you might base that hope. Improvements to Wikipedia do not carry the burdens you're assuming. Incoming links to that redirect should be fixed regardless of where it lands. If it lands at a disambiguation page (which it should), there are mechanisms to identify and highlight that problem. If it lands at Resident Evil, it will be harder to identify the links that should be improved. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:28, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If it lands at Resident Evil, there is no need to improve any links because the reader will have found the subject of the link - a media franchise that happens to derive from a video game (and include a later version of the same game). There is no ambiguity there at all, any more than Coca-Cola is ambiguous because someone might be drinking a New Coke or a Coke Classic. Having a link to a disambiguation page is misleading, because it suggests that the terms are unrelated. We have plenty of terms that are genuinely ambiguous, with multiple wholly unrelated meanings, without needing to invent ambiguity for media franchise names. bd2412 T 13:07, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If there's no ambiguity at the title "Resident Evil", then there are no articles at titles of the qualified form "Resident Evil (qualifier)". There are articles at titles of the qualified form "Resident Evil (qualifier)". Therefore, there's ambiguity at "Resident Evil". QED. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:18, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That is merely an artifact of how we use qualifiers for media titles. We have articles on Early life of Marilyn Monroe and Death of Marilyn Monroe. If our convention was to title those Marilyn Monroe (early life) and Marilyn Monroe (death), we would know right away that, irrespective of qualifiers, these were not really ambiguous topics because they are all covered in the main article, Marilyn Monroe. With Resident Evil (disambiguation), we have only titles that are covered in Resident Evil. Resident Evil (video game) could just as usefully redirect to Resident Evil, or to a section in Resident Evil listing the video games (the only reason there is no such section now is because the article itself presumes the reader is thinking of the video games and lists everything else as "Additional media"). To have a redirect to a disambiguation page when a redirect to the franchise article itself is an option is like putting a stop sign on a freeway. bd2412 T 13:41, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's an artifact of how we title topics that would have the same title, yes. We call that "disambiguation". It is not "merely" an artifact. A hypothetical way we could have screwed up the naming convention for topics (such as Marilyn Monroe's early life and Mailyn Monroe's death) that shouldn't have the same title is irrelevant to the way we disambiguate topics for an ambiguous title. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:34, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's still like putting a stop sign on a freeway. Disambiguation pages are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. How is the reader served by this duplication? Is it any better to redirect Resident Evil (video game) to a disambiguation page than to Resident Evil#History, which discusses all of the Resident Evil video games? bd2412 T 15:50, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's also not like putting a stop sign on a freeway. The "freeway traffic" here will be unimpeded by a hatnote linking a disambiguation page. It's like putting a green navigational sign for side destinations on a freeway. The reader seeking the 2002 video game (for example) is served by a predictable hatnote leading to a predictable disambiguation page, rather than having to parse the article for the link. Yes, Resident Evil (video game) should go to the dab for video games that might be referred to as just "Resident Evil", while List of Resident Evil video games (or the less well named Resident Evil list of games) would be better targeted to Resident Evil#History. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:35, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest that a person looking up Resident Evil (video game) is as likely to be interested in the whole body of Resident Evil video game franchise as in any one particular video game, and would therefore be best served by being taken to the article that sums up that body of work. I would further point out that to the extent that we are talking about video games named "Resident Evil", there are only two, which would typically make for a WP:TWODABS situation resolvable with a redirect to one and a hatnote to the other. Why should a person who types in "Resident Evil (video game)" be taken to a page where he or she is told, you may mean the film or the soundtrack? bd2412 T 16:52, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest that the disambiguation page disambiguates more than two topics sharing an ambiguous title, and there is no reason to delete it. The rest of your questions miss that point. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:58, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The link load to this page comes from the "(video game)" redirect, but all of the meanings on the disambiguation page are covered by the Resident Evil page - in fact, both the 1996 video game and the film are in a hatnote on that page. I find it highly doubtful that anyone would be looking for the soundtrack to the film under the unqualified title of the franchise, so I still see no reason to have a disambiguation page separate from the article that already covers all of those topics. bd2412 T 17:10, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A particular link load is not required for a disambiguation page. When a disambiguation page is needed: there are two or more non-primary topics for an ambiguous title. Does this title meet that? Y. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:18, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
By "link load" I mean the incoming links that need to be fixed. bd2412 T 20:39, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - There are actual different topics (admittedly related) but all bearing teh name "Resident Evil" so this disambig page serves the purpose to distinguish between them. -- Whpq (talk) 16:49, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Doesn't Resident Evil already distinguish between all of the topics bearing this name? bd2412 T 16:53, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - That article is about the franchise, this navigation aid allows readers to find the other articles easily. Alternatives for navigation helps our readers. -- Whpq (talk) 17:16, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    - What about the hatnote on the article? bd2412 T 17:46, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      - What of it? I would just point to the disambig page, but that's an editorial decision. And the disambig page contains more links than the hatnote. -- Whpq (talk) 18:08, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        Well, let's compare them. Resident Evil has three links in a hatnote, including a link to the disambiguation page. The disambiguation page links to Resident Evil (which, of course, would be unnecessary on the Resident Evil page); two video games (both discussed in Resident Evil, with one linked in the hatnote); the film (also linked in the hatnote); the film series (also discussed at Resident Evil, and which really should not be referred to as "Resident Evil" in the singular), and the film soundtrack. As I mentioned to JHunterJ above, no one is going to look for the soundtrack under the name, "Resident Evil"; but even if they did it is already discussed at Resident Evil. If we got rid of the disambiguation page and replaced it in the hatnote with a link to the 2002 video game, then the hatnote alone would contain everything that a reader could reasonably be looking for on a disambiguation page. bd2412 T 18:50, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        I've read the huge long discussion above, and I disagree with deleting the disambiguation page. It very clearly meets the criteria for what a disambiguation page is used for, and I don't see removing it as an improvement. -- Whpq (talk) 18:58, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        I could be wrong. bd2412 T 20:50, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep several valid entries. Boleyn (talk) 15:40, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Proper disambiguation page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:19, 9 June 2013 (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.