Talk:108 Heroes

108 Star Bonuses.

108 Stars of Destiny, while making mention of the games, should really be a more generic article. The expert tag is warranted: now let's add a split too. Keep game stuff in game articles and help eliminate things that could be considered unnecessary fancruft.--Trent Arms 11:00, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

From the article:

In Suikoden IV, it is by their power that the Rune of Punishment ended it's atonement phase and moved into its forgiveness phase.

First off, I'm not sure I entirely buy the miracle explanation, preferring a more prosaic "bonus" approach (especially for S3)... that said, is this what really happened? Perhaps Suikoden Tactics clears things up, so maybe someone can comment on the role the hero has there. My impression was that you merely got to see that the hero lived... and that he'd probably been tossed out on a rowboat by the Island Nationers eager to get rid of the Rune of Punishment which had caused so many problems. I mean, you don't see the boat he's hailing turn or anything, just a pan, and it seems unlikely that the Rune could have teleported him onto a random skiff... I never got any impression that the Rune was going into the forgiveness phase, aside from the unresolved mystery of why the Hero didn't disintegrate and die. Then again, it does make some sense if you assume that the Hero straight-up disintegrates if you don't get 108 Stars.

Suikoden section split-off?

D3v4st4t0r split off the Suiko chart and moved it to a special Suikoden page, although lots of the links still point to here. I'm not sure I agree with that; the "original" 108 Stars are certainly relevant for the Suikoden section for comparison, and I don't think we get much added by having a separate page. I'm not completely against it having its own page, but it should be done with discussion, and with moving a lot more links should it actually occur. Any thoughts? SnowFire 16:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

• I really don't care either way but logic tells me that every subject deserves its own page and these stars of destiny is not the same thing as the Suikoden stars of destiny. And considering that the SoD concept in Suikoden directly comes from The Water Margin, it makes sense if the original source is located on this page and that Suikoden's SoD is shuffled of to a Suikoden specific SoD page. (Djungelurban 11:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC))

Hmm. Well, I just think that the original information is interesting, but since Devastator presumably agrees with you, if no one else pipes up within the next few days, I'll go ahead and move it back. SnowFire 19:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Merger with individual character articles

Wikipedia's policy on original research states that "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources" and goes on to say that "material based purely on primary sources should be avoided." None of the articles for the individual characters who make up the 108 Stars of Destiny are mainly based on secondary or tertiary sources while the majority of these articles are purely based on primary sources. As such, the following articles should be merged here: Duan Jingzhu, Shi Qian, Bai Sheng, Yu Baosi, Wang Dingliu, Sun Erniang, Zhang Qing (Gardener), Gu Dasao, Sun Xin (Water Margin), Shi Yong, Jiao Ting, Li Yun (Water Margin), Li Li (Water Margin), Cai Qing, Cai Fu, Zhu Fu, Zhu Gui, Zou Run, Zou Yuan, Du Xing, Tang Long (Water Margin), Zhou Tong (Water Margin), Li Zhong (Water Margin), Shi En, Xue Yong, Du Qian, Song Wan, Cao Zheng, Mu Chun, Ding Desun, Gong Wang, Yue He, Song Qing, Tao Zongwang, Zheng Tianshou, Yang Chun, Chen Da (Water Margin), Hou Jian, Meng Kang, Tong Meng (Water Margin), Tong Wei, Ma Lin (Water Margin), Jin Dajian, Li Gun, Xiang Chong (Water Margin), Kong Liang, Kong Ming (Water Margin), Fan Rui, Bao Xu, Hu Sanniang, Wang Ying (Water Margin), Huangfu Duan, An Daoquan, Guo Sheng, Lü Fang, Jiang Jing, Ling Zhen, Yang Lin (Water Margin), Yan Shun, Deng Fei, Ou Peng, Pei Xuan, Xiao Rang, Wei Dingguo, Shan Tinggui, Peng Qi, Han Tao, Hao Siwen, Xuan Zan, Sun Li (Water Margin), Huang Xin, Zhu Wu, Yan Qing, Xie Bao, Xie Zhen, Shi Xiu, Yang Xiong (Water Margin), Ruan Xiaoqi, Zhang Shun, Ruan Xiaowu, Zhang Heng (Water Margin), Ruan Xiaoer, Li Jun (Water Margin), Lei Heng, Mu Hong, Shi Jin, Li Kui (Water Margin), Liu Tang, Dai Zong, Suo Chao, Xu Ning, Yang Zhi (Water Margin), Zhang Qing (Featherless Arrow), Dong Ping, Wu Song, Lu Zhishen, Zhu Tong, Li Ying (Water Margin), Chai Jin, Hua Rong, Huyan Zhuo, Qin Ming, Lin Chong, Guan Sheng, Gongsun Sheng, Wu Yong, Lu Junyi, and Song Jiang. Neelix (talk) 18:51, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I have removed Song Jiang from the merger suggestion because he is the only one is a historical person. Neelix (talk) 18:23, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

How is this not a reprisal against the outcome here? This is just a backdoor attempt to recreate an issue overwhelmingly laid to rest. Moreover you are indiscriminately tagging so many characters for merger, which is not only disingenuous but also ridiculously unreasonable -- many of the articles are perfectly fine (in the sense of being notable), and the fact that it's impossible to merge so many articles into 1 shows your actions are simply in bad faith, which is shocking for a sysop. If you're serious about improving the articles, you would start a proper discussion with those in this project first, before launching something as counterproductive as this act of massive tagging. Chensiyuan (talk) 20:34, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

This is not a reprisal against the outcome of the discussion you mention. That AfD was about deleting a particular article, not about merging, and the decision was against deletion. The discussion I have started here is not about deletion, but about a merger, which is a common discussion to take place after an AfD that results in a decision to keep. It is not impossible to merge the number of articles I have recommended, and I believe it to be the most productive course of action when dealing with the articles in question for the reasons I have outlined above; the articles consist almost entirely of primary-source material, and 108 articles of plot summary is far too much. This is the correct location to hold a merger discussion, not a project page. Please review Wikipedia's behavioral guideline regarding accusing others of bad faith; it states that "accusations of bad faith serve no purpose. They also can be inflammatory and hence can aggravate a dispute. It can be seen as a personal attack if bad faith motives are alleged without clear evidence that the others' action is actually in bad faith and harassment if done repeatedly." I am not acting in bad faith; I sincerely believe that merging these articles is in the best interests of the project. Please engage in this discussion under that understanding. Neelix (talk) 20:09, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

The real question is the capacity for expansion. Most of these articles are on the short side, sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was more that could be said about them - granted, largely in Chinese sources. I mean, Little John's article is short too at the moment, but I'm sure it could be triple the size easily. Characters who just don't matter could certainly have condensed versions merged back here. If we can't tell the difference, I suspect keeping them all unmerged is the better option for now. So count me as an oppose to the merge. SnowFire (talk) 22:49, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

All of these articles consist entirely of plot summary, something prohibited by Wikipedia policy. These articles should only exist as individual entities if they are more than plot summary, but no one has been able to expand them past such. As far as plot summary goes, the amount that could be placed on a list article is all that is justified. Neelix (talk) 20:18, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

It is standard practice to wait five days after no one has objected to the last arguments in support of a merger in a merger discussion and to then perform the merger, but because this is such a large undertaking, I want to be as explicit and as patient as possible. There are merger tags on all of the articles; if my arguments have not convinced you and you wish to object to the merger, I would greatly appreciate it if you would object before I spend the hours required to merge these articles rather than after I have spent the time doing so. Neelix (talk) 01:31, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, we've both objected. Don't get me wrong, I think a merger *might* be reasonable, but I'd really want someone more familiar with Water Margin to comment on the potential for expansion here. I would not be surprised if sufficient sources did exist to make articles that were not "plot summary", but that many of these sources are in Chinese. Also, since there were a number of spinoff works, even calling it "plot summary" is misleading, just as Arthurian legend isn't all based on one source either. There's no hurry. SnowFire (talk) 02:07, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Most of these articles have existed for seven years and not one of them has been expanded beyond pure plot summary. The term "plot summary" is not misleading in this case; all of these articles are solely sourced by one novel, Water Margin, and even if they were sourced by multiple novels, it would still only be plot summary until non-fiction sources were added. Seven years is long enough to wait for such sources. 108 articles worth of plot summary is a supremely inordinate amount, especially if we are to leave these articles as such indefinitely. The articles should be merged here until individual notability is demonstrated. If further sources eventually surface that demonstrate the individual notability of specific characters, they can be resplit from the main list. Neelix (talk) 18:56, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

A quick meta-comment on your edit summary: "No one has objected to my most recent arguments in support of a merger for over five days. Standard procedure is to merge at this point."

No, that's not the case. Wikipedia does not function based off of how dedicated people are to responding to talk page comments - one persistent person who is told they are wrong by 5 separate people who can't be bothered to tell them repeatedly that they're wrong doesn't "win." Or at least shouldn't win, since unfortunately that is how many Wikipedia policy pages work de facto, but that's exactly why they run requests for comment to a wider audience on majorly contentious issues - every person has the same !vote there, even if it is just to say "I agree with side X." The other way lies madness - whichever side has more dedicated fanatics would "win" every time.

Anyway, for this specific page. Go ahead and merge if you want, but say you're doing it because you're being bold and making changes over two other editors legitimate objections because you think it's for the best. Don't claim that it's because Chensiyuan & myself failed to post often enough or something. I didn't respond because there isn't anything more to say; we've both said our pieces, there's an argument either way, and I still think that merging is a bad idea, but if you are set upon it nobody is stopping you. SnowFire (talk) 05:15, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

I hope that no one will interpret my actions on Wikipedia as pursuing the goal of winning; I have no desire to win but only to improve the project. Decisions are not made on Wikipedia as a result of a vote but rather as a result of discussion that "involves an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns." As you have acknowledged, I sincerely believe the merger to be in the best interests of the project and that my arguments in support of a merger have not been fully countered. If anyone wishes to split either of these characters off into their own articles again in the future, I hope they will start a new discussion before doing so. I would be grateful to be notified of such a discussion should it take place. Neelix (talk) 14:59, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I've to admit that not all the 108 articles have a potential for expansion. But this doesn't mean that they should be axed. It's ridiculous to say that something should be deleted because it has remained relatively stagnant for seven years. WikiProject Water Margin was founded three years ago, and as of now it has less than two active editors. How do you expect the two of us (me and Chensiyuan) to cope with such a heavy workload? There's no deadline on Wikipedia.

This isn't the first time I've encountered such a situation. Every now and then some editors will step in and propose that the Water Margin articles be deleted, redirected or merged, on the grounds that they are not notable, plot only etc. I'm really sick and tired of trying to explain to people whose purpose on Wikipedia seems to be to erase as much content from the encyclopedia as possible.

Lonelydarksky (暗無天日) _{contact me (聯絡)} 08:49, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I am not suggesting that anything be axed; I am suggesting a merger of all plot-only character articles until such time as a sufficient number of reliable, secondary sources is found for a specific character, at which point that specific character article should be re-split-off. This is a far better alternative than leaving 108 plot-only articles on the project without any demonstration of the existence of sufficient secondary sourcing. Neelix (talk) 20:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

If anyone still objects to this merger, please review Wikipedia's policy on dispute resolution, which states that "Talking to other parties is not a formality; it's an imperative to the smooth running of any community. Not discussing will make people less sympathetic to your position and may prevent you from effectively using later stages in dispute resolution. In contrast, sustained discussion and serious negotiation between the parties, even if not immediately (or even remotely) successful, shows that you are trying to find a solution." I completed this merger back on the 9th after waiting five days for other users to respond to my comments, after which point the merger was reverted and a single comment was made in this discussion. I responded to that comment and I am willing to discuss the merger at further length, but if no one responds to my comments, I can only assume that no one objects to the merger and so I should complete it. Unless something changes between now and tomorrow, tomorrow will mark another five-day silence from objectors to the merger. If no one responds to my points by then, I will again complete the merger. If anyone objects to the merger after it has taken place, please notify me, start a new discussion, and do not revert the merger until the subsequent conversation is complete. I am quite willing to continue to have a productive conversation about the future of this content, but I am not willing to inactively wait for an indefinite period of time for someone to continue the discussion with me. Neelix (talk) 13:09, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

If you are acting in good faith, you will not be waging this battle of attrition against this project which you know consists of only two people (in which the lack of numbers in no way correlates to the lack of notability of the project or its subjects therein), and make plainly inaccurate edit summaries such as no objection to your proposal. If one wanted to be cynical -- and frankly, on the pattern of your behaviour, it's impossible not to -- your relentless quest to suppress Chinese folklore and reduce articles that are clearly depicting and properly substantiating well-known characters (semi-fictional or otherwise; it's irrelevant anyway) into a table smacks of cultural imperialism at best and racism at worst. You are not even taking a targeted approach to the problem. It is true that some of the characters are not very substantial, and their article lengths reflect this. One way around that is to merge various characters by way of connected plotline or campaign, while retaining full-fledged articles for the bigger characters, which is as reasonable a compromise as it can get. Instead, you indiscriminately spam-merge everything, including obvious non-choices such as Lin Chong, Lu Zhishen et al, which is something I have never seen before in any sysop. Did you even read those articles, or decided in one fell swoop that they are all mergeable? If something is inherently only merge-worthy, why is it not PROD-worthy? Two wrongs do not make a right, which means that you realise this is not a matter of two wrongs but a half-right that can be remedied. At the end of the day, in the penumbras of disputes, we have to return to first principles behind Wikipedia. We're not even talking about inclusionist-deletionist dichotomies. We're talking about providing free education to the world. So when certain topics clearly are of interest and are value, but suffer from some procedural defects, why is the solution so lacking in nuance, sensitivity, and strategy? Do you think we painstakingly constructed the information for each character out of thin air? Why the hurry to spam-merge everything? Do you know believe us when we say that these are truly notable characters, held close to the hearts of billions upon billions of Chinese over centuries? Do you also not understand that short of us deluging the references with Chinese sources, it is hard for us to assert further notability? Is that preferred? It is not easy writing articles on Chinese topics on English Wikipedia for various reasons. Finally, your argument about how this is not a reprisal against your failed PROD is disingenuous in the extreme. A failed PROD does not, by any logical conception, lead to a necessary merge. No one here has said anything remotely close to agreeing with the merge, let alone spam-merge. Instead of mischaracterising so-called "non-objection" (which is patently contentious) into consensus, please proceed in good faith and stop with the war of attrition. You can't wonder why people are unwilling to engage with you; the problem with Wikipedia truly is "anybody can edit anything" which you have abused to the maximum extent -- just because someone goes on a spam project and there is inertia in opposing this, does not mean that someone is correct or justified. It just so happens that sometimes, not everyone sees the sense in this protracted senseless engagement, especially since false compromises are proferred and executed on false consensus. Chensiyuan (talk) 01:25, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

This is the second time that you have accused me of bad faith. I do not appreciate being called a cultural imperialist or a racist; I am neither. Please stop these personal attacks. I have been trying to engage in discussion with other editors about what to do with these articles, and when no one responds to my suggestions, I make edits accordingly and then my edits are reverted and I am accused of acting against concensus. There can be no concensus if no one is willing to respond to my comments. Please enage in content discussion with me so that we can come to a mutually satisfactory decision about what to do with this content. I cannot have a conversation by myself. Neelix (talk) 02:55, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I see. No one has been responding to your comments, so everything in this section was posted by you only. I'm the first person to give a reply. Excellent! It's obvious that at least three editors (including me) are against the idea of merger. You are acting against consensus when you redirected the individual character articles before all parties involved in this dispute have yet to reach an agreement on what to do. Lonelydarksky (暗無天日) _{contact me (聯絡)} 05:26, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, Neelix's reply above was completely ignored: I am suggesting a merger of all plot-only character articles until such time as a sufficient number of reliable, secondary sources is found for a specific character.... Taking a look at some of the articles in question, I think that he makes an excellent point here. I don't see any problem with this content being on Wikipedia, but I see absolutely no reason for there to be individual articles for all of these characters (there may be good reason to keep a handful of them as stand alone articles, however). This kind of detail seems more appropriate for a more focused wiki on Wikia, for example, if you ask me.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 15:01, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose merger: merging 108 articles into one is simply impractical. Are we going to have an article the size of a book? The suggestion of merging them now and re-splitting them later when more sources are added is disrespectful of other editors' time and effort. Besides, these fictional characters are familiar to billions of Asians, and most have separate articles on Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese wikis. --Zanhe (talk) 06:55, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

We merged all the Pokemon articles, most of which had more individual content than these ones. Cultural sensitivity does not demand that we have separate stub articles for over a hundred subjects: it does not in fact demand that we have separate article for subjects at all. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:59, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose merger per Chensiyuan and Zanhe. Pokemon articles present false analogy. The real issue here is the indiscriminate mass-merger of ALL characters, when some characters plainly demonstrate per se notability, such as extensive coverage in the novel itself, extensive coverage in subsequent cultural depictions, elevated placement in folklore, and so forth. Motivating this act of mass-merger is nothing more than vengeful reprisal after a PROD attempt failed completely. But even putting all the shenanigans aside, agree with other contributors that the sensible middleground, if indeed it should come to that, is to identify the characters which may be considered for grouping, and those that clearly deserve their own space. However, not confident of such dialogue, given presumptuous conclusions drawn prior. Manderiko (talk) 14:49, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

This sort of reflexive histrionics and blame-shifting isn't helping anything.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 15:03, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

User:Ohms law's comment points out a key problem in this discussion. We'd like to hear from User:Neelix on how he intends to do the merger if we all agree to it. As far as I see, he has been redirecting the individual character pages to 108 Stars of Destiny before we've reached a clear consensus here, which resulted in an edit war. A compromise would be to combine certain articles. Some examples are listed as follows:

• Combine the following articles into single sections on List of Water Margin characters:
  • Kong Ming and Kong Liang
  • Shan Tinggui and Wei Dingguo
  • Zou Run and Zou Yuan
• Merge Han Tao, Peng Qi and Ling Zhen as a sub-section on Huyan Zhuo's article or as a section in List of Water Margin characters

Any other suggestions? Lonelydarksky (暗無天日) _{contact me (聯絡)} 15:46, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Let's get to work. I've identified the articles that can be lumped together. They are mainly articles on people who are related to each other (such as siblings, partners, and couples). They are listed as follows:

• Zhu Tong and Lei Heng
• Mu Hong and Mu Chun
• Zhang Heng and Zhang Shun
• Ruan Xiaoer, Ruan Xiaowu and Ruan Xiaoqi
• Xie Zhen and Xie Bao
• Zhu Wu, Chen Da and Yang Chun
• Xuan Zan and Hao Siwen
• Han Tao, Peng Qi and Ling Zhen
• Shan Tinggui and Wei Dingguo
• Lü Fang and Guo Sheng
• Fan Rui, Xiang Chong and Li Gun
• Kong Ming and Kong Liang
• Tong Wei and Tong Meng
• Gong Wang and Ding Desun
• Song Wan and Du Qian
• Li Zhong and Zhou Tong
• Zou Run and Zou Yuan
• Cai Fu and Cai Qing
• Zhang Qing (Gardener) and Sun Erniang

Well? Lonelydarksky (暗無天日) _{contact me (聯絡)} 16:00, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

• Such mergers are unacceptable if they are based upon a scheme of your devising because this would be improper synthesis. Having a page per character with that character's name as the title is the natural way to organise this and the current presentation with an infobox seems excellent. If it works, don't fix it. Warden (talk) 21:05, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose merger The Water Margin stories are a major world mythology, comparable with the tales of Robin Hood or King Arthur. Apart from being well-known in Chinese culture, they will also be familiar to English-speakers due to the popularity of retellings such as The Water Margin (1973 TV series). The attempts to steamroller a merger when there is clearly no consensus for this action are quite improper. Warden (talk) 20:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I just got back from a weekend away and am so glad to have returned to find that other users are finally engaging in sustained dialogue on the issue of these articles. There has been a number of comments in this discussion that I believe to misrepresent myself and my actions, but as I am more interested in coming to a mutually acceptable future consensus than in defending myself, I will not address the allegations individually but will simply state that an investigation into my actions would demonstrate that I have been acting in accordance with standard Wikipedia policy and procedure and my sole intention in this discussion is to bring these articles into the form that is most beneficial to Wikipedia.

Lonelydarksky states above that "We'd like to hear from User:Neelix on how he intends to do the merger if we all agree to it." This statement suggests that unanimity is what leads to actions on Wikipedia, which is not the case. Consensus is the fundamental decision-making model on Wikipedia, and our policy on consensus states that "consensus on Wikipedia does not mean unanimity... nor is it the result of a vote. This means that decision-making involves an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns, while respecting Wikipedia's norms." As stated in this policy, it is not the action that receives the most support by editors that has consensus but rather the action that receives the most support in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines (the target of the "norms" link).

I believe that Wikipedia's policies and guidelines speak for themselves and are clearly against having more than one hundred articles that consist entirely of plot summary. One of our policies states that articles should never be "summary-only descriptions of works." Another of our policies states that "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources." One of our guidelines states that "when an article is created, the subject's real-world notability should be established according to the general notability guideline by including independent reliable secondary sources—this will also ensure that there is enough source material for the article to be comprehensive and factually accurate." Another of our guidelines states that the subject of all articles must have "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject."

As a review of this article's revision history will demonstrate, the form of the merger I have recommended has already been implemented on this article, except for the fact, of course, that the redirects have been reverted. My recommendation, based on the policies and guidelines cited above, is to restore the redirects until such time that significant coverage in reliable, secondary sources is found for particular characters on the list. Considering that most of these articles have existed for more than seven years and such sources have never been added to them, I think it unlikely that such sources exist for most of these characters. Without such sources, the plot summary that can fit on this one article is all that should be allotted to these characters. Neelix (talk) 18:03, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• It is also our policy that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. The hundreds of policies and guidelines are not laws; rather they represent an attempt to summarise our customary practise — an aggregate of numerous individual cases such as this. In determining how to proceed, it is therefore best to look at existing practise. We observe that characters in comparable Western mythology get individual pages. For example, see Lancelot; Friar Tuck; Odysseus; Dick Turpin; Dick Whittington; Bluebeard; &c. And, of course, we have huge numbers of similar pages for characters in modern mythology. The best example of these is, of course, Neelix.

The material of the Water Margin is less accessible because it is Chinese but we should persevere because of the importance of the work which seems to have been reworked as often as Sherlock Holmes or Dracula. Sources are certainly available in English which testify to the potential of the matters. For example, read in Presence and Presentation: "...some of the male outlaw characters are modeled after historical figures found in Southern Song archives...". And, we may reasonably expect that there is much more commentary in Chinese. For example, we read in Turbulent Decade that Mao Tse-Tung himself provided critical commentary which was published as an official directive. As we have no deadline, we should maintain the present structure as a framework for the influx of Chinese editors as China's engagement with the English-speaking world increases. Warden (talk) 19:53, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• Agree with everything Warden wrote above, and I'd like to add another point: Neelix argues that the articles have existed for more than seven years without satisfactory sources, therefore such sources are unlikely to exist. I'd like to point out to him articles like King Gong of Zhou and King Li of Zhou. They are major kings that ruled the whole China thousands of years ago, yet their articles still contain very little information and no sources at all, despite having existed for almost nine years. And they are the rule rather than the exception. Even worse, there are hundreds of less important kings and monarchs who don't even have articles (I just wrote a dozen or so last week). Wikipedia's China project suffers from an acute shortage of contributors who are both able to read the sources, which mostly exist in Chinese, and able to write acceptable English. At this rate it's going to be decades before the gaping holes in Wikipedia's China coverage are filled. But the solution is not to drive away the few active contributors by essentially deleting what they've written, but encourage them to make more contributions. --Zanhe (talk) 23:45, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

@User:Neelix: Just to clarify, when I said "We'd like to hear from User:Neelix on how he intends to do the merger if we all agree to it.", I meant I wanted to hear from you more details on how the merger you've proposed is going to be implemented. Frankly, I see no difference between redirecting the individual character pages to 108 Stars of Destiny and having the former all deleted, apart from the fact that other editors can still view the page histories and revert the redirects. As far as I see, you've copied information from only the infoboxes on the individual pages to 108 Stars of Destiny. As User:Chensiyuan had pointed out above, how is this not an attempt to erase the individual character pages (by disguising it as a merger) after a previous AfD turned out to be unsuccessful? Lonelydarksky (暗無天日) _{contact me (聯絡)} 14:48, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

@User:Lonelydarksky: As I have stated before, the AfD was a deletion discussion about one particular article; that discussion is not duplicated by a merger discussion about 108 different articles. Even if it did, that is allowed for by Wikipedia policy; consensus can change.

@User:Colonel Warden: You are correct in stating that the policy to which you refer, namely Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, indicates that Wikipedia "is not governed by statute." Nonetheless, the express reason that this policy gives for diverging from established policies and guidelines is to be true to the principles that the policies and guidelines are based on. The only occasions in which it is appropriate to act against established policies and guidelines is "if the rules truly prevent you from improving the encyclopedia." I do not believe that 108-articles-worth of untransmuted plot summary positively contributes to Wikipedia. Most of the Western media to which you refer is not comparable to the 134 character articles we have for Water Margin. Friar Tuck is one of only 19 Robin Hood character articles and Neelix is one of only 18 Voyager characters. There are only 6 Sherlock Holmes characters that have their own articles and only 10 character articles relating to Dracula. Dick Turpin and Richard Whittington are real people, not simply fictional characters as 107 of the 108 Stars of Destiny are, and the Bluebeard article is about a folktale, not a character, and is more comparable to the Water Margin article than to any of the individual Water Margin character articles. The only works that you mention that have a comparable number of character articles to Water Margin are Arthurian legend, with 151, and the Odyssey, with 80. As far as I can tell from a brief survey of the Arthurian characters, many of these should be merged into the main character list and several of the Odyssey characters could do with merging as well.

@User:Zanhe: You say that "the solution is not to drive away the few active contributors by essentially deleting what they've written, but encourage them to make more contributions." I agree that we should be encouraging the active contributors to make more contributions, but we should not be encouraging them to make more contributions no matter what those contributions are. Creating more than 100 articles that entirely consist of plot summary is not something that we should be encouraging. We should be trying to disuade contributors from contributing massive amounts of plot summary; we should be encouraging them to contribute properly sourced information.

The main issue with these articles is that a character article's coverage of plot summary should be far outweighed by that article's coverage of real-world impact. The plot summary portion should only grow in proportion to the real-world impact portion, which means that plot-summary-only articles should be merged into broader articles until such time a modicum of real-world impact information is found. Such information may exist for some of these characters, but I think that unlikely to be true of most of them. Neelix (talk) 21:42, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

• The case of the Arthurian characters demonstrates clearly that the format of separate articles is quite acceptable. If you think that pages such as those and Neelix should be destroyed too then please take your line of argument over there and get back us if you have any more success with it. Warden (talk) 11:12, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

• I'm kind of echoing User:Neelix here, but I'm genuinely curious: What's so important about the individual articles, as individual articles? In my experience, having a bunch of the same (or very similar) information in one article instead of a plethora of articles actually increased the impact of the content itself. That's obviously not always true, but it is in a significant number of cases.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 05:02, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

  The tabular format which Neelix has drafted is not an improvement because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a database or spreadsheet. The preferred format for our writing is the prose article or simple list — see WP:WHENTABLE, "Prose is preferred in articles". The individual character articles are consistent with this preferred format, presenting the material in our traditional format. Each page is of a nice size per WP:SIZE and does not overload the reader, his device or interface. Warden (talk) 11:02, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

  There's a draft article somewhere? Regardless, I agree with "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a database or spreadsheet.", but I don't see anyone saying that anything should be a database or spreadsheet, so I don't understand the significance of that comment. Clearly you and I have different views on what constitutes a "nice size" as well, since I find the existing individual character articles extremely stubby (nevermind repetitive!). That seems to be the root of the logjam between opinions, here.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:45, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

  Warden, I cannot accept your argument that "the case of the Arthurian characters demonstrates clearly that the format of separate articles is quite acceptable"; because other stuff exists that has the same problems as the Water Margin character articles does not make it OK for the Water Margin character articles to stay the way they are. If I were to make merger suggestions for the Arthurian character articles, objectors could say that I should try to merge the Water Margin character articles first. There is no reason for the Arthurian character articles to be merged first; the Water Margin character articles should be dealt with because that is what we have been discussing. Other articles can be dealt with in a subsequent discussion. Also, I agree with V = IR; one list article of a standard length is a better size than 108 permastubs. Neelix (talk) 21:32, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Why are you so fond of mischaracterising all 108 pieces as stubs, when no less than a third of them receive substantial treatment and some of which have corroborative cultural manifestation? You lose all credibility straightaway, and any engagement with you is utterly pointless. Chensiyuan (talk) 09:15, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

It is not acceptable to be willing to revert my edits but unwilling to engage with me in discussion. If you are not willing to pursue via discussion a mutually satisfactory solution to the current situation with respect to these articles, please allow me to carry out the solution I have recommended: namely, redirecting the character articles here. Also, I have never referred to the articles in question as stubs, and only once have I referred to them as permastubs; I do not believe that I am miscategorizing the articles in question by suggesting that they have no reasonable prospects of expansion, but you are welcome to make a case for specific articles. Neelix (talk) 19:57, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Middle grounds?

I'm sorry for re-igniting an old, heated debate, but I hope nobody minds if I look for a compromise. The problem is that some WM character articles are about two people that are so closely related that even after expansions, they would result in nearly identical articles, which IIRC is not acceptable in WP (but I haven't been on for a year and a half, so please bear with me). Therefore, I propose merging together heroes:

• Who were born and died at around the same time
• Who almost always appear together
• Who are nearly always together in battle
• Who ascended Liangshan at the same time
• Were placed adjacent to each other in Chapter 70 (Jin Shengtan)/Chapter 71(original)
• Will not violate WP:SYNTH

Articles that will be merged:

• Xie Zhen and Xie Bao
• Han Tao and Peng Qi
• Shan Tinggui and Wei Dingguo
• Lü Fang and Guo Sheng
• Kong Ming and Kong Liang
• Xiang Chong and Li Gun
• Tong Wei and Tong Meng
• Chen Da and Yang Chun
• Gong Wang and Ding Desun
• Zou Yuan and Zou Run
• Cai Fu and Cai Qing
• Zhang Qing and Sun Erniang

Articles that will not be merged:

• Song Jiang and Song Qing
• Zhu Tong and Lei Heng - different stories
• Xu Ning and Tang Long
• The Mus
• The Ruans
• Zhang Heng and Zhang Shun
• Yang Xiong and Shi Xiu
• Zhu Wu into Chen Da and Yang Chun because of Zhu's special status as vice-strategist (and we don't want to merge all three into Shi Jin)
• Huang Xin into Qin Ming
• the Dengzhou guys apart from the Xies
• Xuan Zan and Hao Siwen - did not become a pair until they both fought under Guan Sheng
• Xiao Rang and Jin Dajian - completely different jobs, Xiao Rang is much more visible
• Ling Zhen into Han Tao and Peng Qi - Han and Peng were sworn brothers, while Ling just happened to hop along with Huyan Zhuo because he's good at cannons
• Wang Ying and Hu Sanniang - different stories
• Bao Xu and Jiao Ting
• Fan Rui into Xiang Chong and Li Gun
• Hou Jian and Xue Yong
• Song Wan and Du Qian
• Li Zhong and Zhou Tong
• Zhu Fu and Zhu Gui - ascended at different times, different posts

Kayau (talk · contribs) 02:24, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Article title

The term "108 Stars of Destiny" does not appear in the original text, nor is it used in English translations, as far as I can tell. It's also not used in English-language scholarship, at least not before this wikipage was created (suggesting citogenesis), and even then it is not used by specialists in Ming literature. Wang Yunhong's 2020 monograph, English Translations of Shuihu Zhuan: A Narratological Perspective, does not mention the term even once. I think it's fair to say at this point that "108 Stars of Destiny" is not the common term. So where did it come from? As far as I can tell, the term "108 Stars of Destiny" comes from the English translation of a Japanese video game called Suikoden. The Chinese-language wiki uses the term 一百單八將 (108 Generals), but they're also known in Chinese as the Heroes of Mount Liang (梁山好漢), the 108 Heroes (108好漢), etc. In the text itself they are not commonly referred to as 108 anything, but instead divided into the 36 "Tiangang" stars and the 72 "Disha" stars (the text itself mentions 天罡地煞 as a collective term at points). Even when the text mentions that there are 108 of them, it uses different terms (108 leaders, 108 heroes, 108 people, etc, see here). Pages should be titled after the common name for something, and as it only really seems to be wikipedia that uses this term, it should be changed. But before suggesting a page move, I'd welcome a discussion from other editors on this. Retinalsummer (talk) 19:56, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

As you can see from the 2006-era talk page comments, yes, that's pretty much what happened. This article was originally on the Suikoden concept, which was fine (this was pre-Wikia/Fandom when Wikipedia also hosted a bunch of material that would now be considered to be skirting WP:GAMEGUIDE restrictions), and a user decided to split off the Suikoden work and put the Water Margin characters in here. I don't believe there was any deep analysis on if the Water Margin characters (that Suikoden was based on) were actually usually called "108 Stars of Destiny" in English language scholarship, just a belief they had primacy over the Suikoden characters. That said, I wouldn't necessarily put it past English to use the Japanese term in preference to the Chinese one. (Monkey King is probably better known as Son Goku than Sun Wukong, for example.)

Anyway, a check of Google Scholar seems to back up what you say - 108 heroes, 108 outlaws, 108 Liangshan outlaws, 108 heroes of the marsh, etc., but no "stars of destiny". Google Books isn't that much better. It does appear that "108" comes up reasonably often in English language sources though. So I'm not sure I have a particularly good alternative suggestion. Characters of Water Margin I guess? That seems very bloodless and dry though. SnowFire (talk) 21:27, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

To be clear, "108 Stars of Destiny" isn't from Japanese, but from the English translation of the Suikoden game (the Japanese just says "108 Stars" (108星)). The Japanese-language version of this page is simply called "List of the 108 Stars of the Water Margin" (水滸伝百八星一覧表), and as most character list pages on Wikipedia have prosaic titles, I would be inclined towards something like that here. "Heroes" does seem to be one of the most common in English-language scholarship, and "108 Heroes of the Water Margin" is an option. I do think it needs to be changed, as "108 Stars of Destiny" is currently being used as if it's a term-of-art on other Shuihu-related wiki pages. Retinalsummer (talk) 00:00, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 9 May 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved as requested per the discussion below, with no prejudice against future discussion of a list title. Dekimasuよ! 04:58, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

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108 Stars of Destiny → 108 Heroes – "108 Heroes" is the most common name of these people in English-language sources about The Water Margin. "108 Stars of Destiny" seems to be the translation of 108星 in the Japanese video games Gensou Suikoden and saw very limited usage in English-language writings about Water Margin. KomradeRice (talk) 16:53, 9 May 2022 (UTC)--KomradeRice (talk) 16:53, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

• Support Google Scholar searching "108" "water margin" readily pops up "108 Heroes", "108 outlaws", etc. but not the current title. The current title should redirect to Suikoden. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 02:18, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
• Pinging @Retinalsummer and SnowFire: who also discussed this issue last December. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 02:20, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
• Comment. I don't really have much to say. The original placement of this article at "Stars of Destiny" was done on very... questionable... grounds as noted above. "108 Heroes" is fine by me, with the asterisk that it's an artful name for a page whose topic is really "Characters of Water Margin" (since it's not like the other characters can't be covered as well). SnowFire (talk) 05:32, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
• Support. As per my arguments above. I would also support changing the title to "108 Heroes of the Water Margin" or "Characters in the Water Margin" Retinalsummer (talk) 23:56, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.