Talk:Fictional company

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Starting to work on the page, looking for RSes that can back up what's said in the cracked.com article about cross-series uses of fictional companies and notable examples HominidMachinae (talk) 08:59, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Working on finding sources. HominidMachinae (talk) 18:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

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Something about Microsoft Contoso

I think a section about Microsoft's fictional corporation, Contoso, Ltd., should be included here QuickQuokka ^{[⁠talk • contribs]} 16:11, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merger

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was: Not merged. There was no support for the idea that the best way to present the content of the entry "Oceanic Airlines" is is to merge it into "Placeholder name". Editors agree that "Placeholder name" is not a relevant article where to put the text of "Oceanic Airlines". There is no consensus behind the underlying idea that "Ocean Airlines" is an article that should be merged into any article, but there was what appears to be some interest in merging it into another article, "Fictional company". Many editors were pinged at some point. Few have responded. There was an attempt to change the target during the discussion. However, time has passed, and merging "Oceanic Airlines" into "Fictional company" was not seriously considered here on its own merits. This discussion will not produce a consensus regarding that. It is possible to start a new discussion.

I have noticed that one comment refrences something I had done elsewhere, unrelated to this proposed merge on its merits materially but related, as an example, to some procedural disagreements. I am however uninvolved with this dispute, and the only reason why I decided to close this discussion is that it would obviously benefit from closure.—Alalch E. 22:42, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

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Moved from Talk:Placeholder name § Proposed merger of Oceanic Airlines into Placeholder name —— FaviFake (talk) 12:15, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

Article Oceanic Airlines was nominated for deletion three times, and in the 2020 nomination, the closing comment was: (emphasis not mine)

The result was keep. Possibly not the best way to present this content, but a clear consensus not to delete

Well, a much better way to present this content would be to merge it into Placeholder name into Fictional company (this discussion was moved). The Oceanic Airlines article is just 1 paragraph, relies on 2 references, and it would fit perfectly inside this article. Here's how it would look if merged. I don't see why we should keep such a small article on its own. FaviFake (talk) 22:56, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Support as nominator. Pinging @TompaDompa as main contributor. FaviFake (talk) 23:00, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. It is not a placeholder name. If one disagrees, show me the sources. --Altenmann >talk 23:02, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

  Well, it's already on this list. See Placeholder name § Companies and organizations:

  • "Oceanic Airlines" is used as a fictional airline in several films, TV programmes, and comic books, typically when it is involved in a disaster or another event with which actual airlines would prefer not to be associated.

FaviFake (talk) 23:07, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

When we write "sources" we usually mean WP:RS, and wikipedia is not one. --Altenmann >talk

Fair enough. I don't think any of the 2 sources in the page specifically call it a "placeholder". FaviFake (talk) 23:14, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Question Why merge to placeholder name rather than fictional company (as was suggested in the 2nd AfD back in 2020)? TompaDompa (talk) 23:04, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Because Fictional company describes what they are; the purpose of the page isn't to give examples. OTOH, this article already lists about 15-20 fictional companies at Placeholder name § Companies and organizations. It seems people filled Fictional company with examples from this page to make it a bit longer, but I don't think it was supposed to house a list of examples. (Also pinging @Altenmann, who replied later) FaviFake (talk) 23:12, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

If you think gthat "Fictional coompany" is a non-article, then make it into List of fictional companies. Judging from Category:Fictional companies, it may become a nice list with a nice solid lede, I say, a potential future candidate for "Featured lists". --Altenmann >talk 23:18, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

I do not think "Fictional company" is a non-article, please re-read my message. Having an entire List of fictional companies article just for a dozen companies would be ridiculous given that we can't even fill one section of this article. FaviFake (talk) 23:41, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

• <ec>P.S. A much better merge target is Fictional company. --Altenmann >talk 23:06, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
• Pinging participants in the previous three AfDs: @Renamed User dSgaUUTyFy, Consumed Crustacean, AJHalliwell, Whomp, Wikipedical, N0time, Jtrost, Nertz, Calton, Leflyman, Wolfsbane Kane, SigmaEpsilon, Gareth Owen, ArgentiumOutlaw, SergeantBolt, Angusmclellan, Sfufan2005, Piotrus, Zxcvbnm, Toughpigs, Atlantic306, Sgeureka, Oiyarbepsy, R. G. Checkers, Kaliforniyka, Wasted Time R, Deeday-UK, Jontesta, RecycledPixels, and 4meter4:. Feel free to ping anyone I may have missed. TompaDompa (talk) 23:12, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. Oceanic Airlines is clearly not a placeholder name.4meter4 (talk) 23:20, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

  Oppose per 4m4. I do not agree with all of 4m4's deletions, but Oceanic Airlines is no more a placeholder than, say, Luke Skywalker. —Tamfang (talk) 06:59, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose I do think it is in fact the best way to present this content. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 23:22, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
• Object. The placeholder name article is about to be deleted or merged/redirect itself, and the merge proposal here does not provide a robust rationale why we should merge this at all. And if we were to merge, I agree fictional company article is a much better target. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:49, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

Alright, this is becoming a WP:SNOW but many have mentioned that they would support merging Oceanic Airlines into Fictional company, so I'm changing the target. I am now advocating for merging Oceanic Airlines into Fictional company per the same reason I gave before: The entire article is just 1 paragraph, relies on 2 references, and it would fit perfectly inside Fictional company, which already contains other examples of fictional companies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FaviFake (talk • contribs) 08:18, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

• Procedural close per WP:SNOW/ oppose discussing a merger to Fictional company because of improper notifications/procedural process. I attempted to do a good faith closure of this but it was reverted by FaviFake who objected. We can't discuss a new target article here because that is bad procedure. New merge tags would have to be added to the new target page, and as this page is no longer part of the merge equation it can't happen here. 4meter4 (talk) 12:14, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

Closure and moving of this discussion

Moved from Talk:Placeholder name § Proposed merger of Oceanic Airlines into Placeholder name —— FaviFake (talk) 12:15, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

• • There is no "procedural reason" to close a discussion after 12 hours, especially if performed by an involved editor like you. Moving the notification tags and discussion doesn't require the discussion to be closed. See WP:MERGE for information about involved editor closures. I moved the discussion and the templates here. FaviFake (talk) 12:18, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

This is highly irregular. I've never seen talk page discussions moved to different talk pages, and other editor's comments get copy pasted to a different talk page without their consent. I'm not ok with this. I don't think this follows the spirit of the guidelines at WP:CONSENSUS. And I don't think it's proper to move discussions across pages at any WP:MERGEPROP for procedural reasons. 4meter4 (talk) 12:21, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

I've seen many discussions being moved this way across talk pages and I've never read anywhere that discussions only belong where they were created. Feel free to point me to policies that say this practice is forbidden. (Following your reasoning, we should SNOW close the merger discussion at Placeholder name too, since there is almost unanimous consensus not to merge any page into it.) One thing that I've definitely never seen is an involved editor closing a merger discussion just over 12 hours after its creation while consensus was forming.

I did everything you wanted done in your reason for closure. Now please allow the discussion to continue. FaviFake (talk) 12:30, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

Pinging Whoisjohngalt, HominidMachinae, NellieBly, and Dmartin969 as main contributors. FaviFake (talk) 12:34, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

FaviFake Please WP:Assume good faith. My intention to close was not to be obstructive but helpful. 1. No I don't want to SNOW close the other because I don't think there is a clear consensus there. 2. You invoked SNOW before me and mentioned a support for a new target article. 3. I agreed with your comment and closed per SNOW. 4. A new target article requires a new nomination; especially when the topic was held on a page no longer relevant to the new merge proposal. 5. Yes I do think copy pasting discussions onto different talk pages is a problem. I am considering taking this to WP:ANI, but not because of a behavioral problem but to get clarity as to whether this is ok.4meter4 (talk) 12:38, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

My comment was changing the target page, just like we did with Placeholder name. The same thing happened in that move discussion, except it wasn't closed but continued and improved. I am not aware of any policy stating that "a new merge target article requires a new nomination" or that moving discussions is prohibited, especially since I've seen both things happen elsewhere multiple times. You haven't mentioned any, so I assume you aren't either. Feel free to point me to one or to take this to ANI to clarify what's allowed.

I admit I didn't initially fully assume good faith and now I understand why and how my comment may have been misinterpreted. FaviFake (talk) 12:47, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

@FaviFake It's been mentioned at the ANI thread that the decision to move the conversation is likely to cause a problem with the bots that manage the notifications/archiving, etc. of merge discussions, and that this was likely an improper move. I strongly urge closing this discussion and starting a new one for this reason. It might be that a normal talk page conversation can move, but in the middle of a formal WP:MERGEPROP process it's a bad idea because of the way that process is managed and automized by bots. You are also likely to get better community engagement by starting fresh. Best.4meter4 (talk) 20:21, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

@4meter4 Hi, I read the discussion at ANI and I have taken the appropriate steps to update every page where the merger target for Oceanic Airlines was Placeholder name to "Fictional company". You can see the result of my efforts on this search; (it's empty). You also check my user contributions; i've used the edit summary "Updating Article alert report: The proposed merger target for Oceanic Airlines was changed from to Placeholder name to Fictional company."

This should satify any concerns RedRose had about my edits. They never mentioned possible issues with archiving bots, and I don't see how this would cause them to break, or that "this was likely an improper move"; they said my actions were improper because of the bots tasked with notifying people, and I believe that specific issue is now resolved.

By the way, a very similar thing happened over at one of the pages I had watchlisted while this discussion was happening. At Wikipedia talk:Deletion process § "Wikipedia:DPROCESS" listed at Redirects for discussion , discussion was moved elsewhere with this diff by the OP because they thought it wasn't relevant in the OG talk page anymore. Following their example, I have removed the duplicate discussion over at Talk:Placeholder name § Proposed merger of Oceanic Airlines into Placeholder name, leaving a link to this section.

I believe that, if we started fresh, we would actually lose engagement, as the existing 8 relevant comments would be lost and thus it would become harder to form consensus. Best, FaviFake (talk) 16:23, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

I disagree, because the other commenters were not all considering the new proposal, and double checking that interrupted automated processes have been properly resolved is problematic. This is not the ideal way to go about a WP:MERGEPROP/WP:CONSENSUS discussion in a controversial merge discussion. Based on what's happened here I think I'm going to advocate that a policy be created banning this type of procedural move from happening again at an WP:RFC. It's too disruptive on a practical level. I'll also point out that nobody other than me or you has commented here since the discussion got moved and it has been a few days. That should tell you that the move is decreasing participation and the process isn't working well.4meter4 (talk) 16:47, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Maybe if we hadn't argued about where a discussion should take place, a discussion would've actually taken place! Who knows! If you feel this kind of merge request requires both a post at ANI and an RfC, go ahead. I'll just repeat that nobody has objected the move other than you, and you haven't mentioned policies or guidelines supporting your position. FaviFake (talk) 17:31, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

I think you missed the statement by Redrose64 at ANI I would say that FaviFake has performed a series of improper actions. We don't have procedures for this because to my knowledge you are the first person to make these choices in a merge discussion. Those choices are not normal and are disruptive.4meter4 (talk) 17:37, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Sure. FaviFake (talk) 19:50, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

This practice seems to be widespread. Another merge proposal that I had watchlisted has just been moved by another editor, see Special:Diff/1316368794 and Special:Diff/1316368486. FaviFake (talk) 10:09, 12 October 2025 (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.

Merge Oceanic Airlines into Fictional company

The following discussion 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.

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Per the above discussion:, I think Oceanic Airlines should be merged into Fictional company: (emphasis supplied)

[...] There is no consensus behind the underlying idea that "Oceanic Airlines" is an article that should be merged into any article, but there was what appears to be some interest in merging it into another article, "Fictional company". [...] There was an attempt to change the target during the discussion. However, time has passed, and merging "Oceanic Airlines" into "Fictional company" was not seriously considered here on its own merits. This discussion will not produce a consensus regarding that. It is possible to start a new discussion.

Both articles are about 1 paragraph long and Oceanic Airlines definitely needs some of the context given on Fictional company. They both need each other (one for length and one for context). FaviFake (talk) 16:25, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. There are thousands of fictional companies in television, films, video games, novels, children's books etc. This would clearly by WP:UNDUE. Note that Company doesn't include content on individual real world companies. The same should apply to fictional companies at the parent article because focus on any one fictonal company would be unbalanced in the topic area. 4meter4 (talk) 22:23, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

  I mean, if you remove the unsourced statements it becomes just two lines, which is the same number of lines that are used to describe Oceanic Airlines specifically in the Fictional company article. The second paragraph of Fictional company is exclusively about oceanic airlines. FaviFake (talk) 13:44, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

• Courtesy pings: Alalch E., Altenmann, FaviFake, Piotrus, Tamfang, TompaDompa, Zxcvbnm as participants in the previous discussion. FaviFake (talk) 13:45, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

  It makes more sense than the last proposal. No objection, since I do think this has very weak stand-alone GNG. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:10, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

  Support —Tamfang (talk) 20:34, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: I don't have an opinion regarding the merge, just wanted to mention that Oceanic Airlines is linked from 62 articles (mostly related to Lost (TV series)), while fictional company is linked from only 13 articles. — Chrisahn (talk) 15:23, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

  That's an easy one: it is included into Template:Lost (TV series) so linking is not a real indicator of real use in article texts. --Altenmann >talk 15:32, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

  No, I only counted links that appear directly in the source. Check the reference links I provided above, they lead to the search results. Based on User:PrimeHunter/Source links.js. — Chrisahn (talk) 15:58, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

  When I simply click "what links here" (which includes links in templates) and restrict the search to article space, I get 103 links to Oceanic Airlines and 16 to Fictional company. — Chrisahn (talk) 16:03, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

• Support, but the trivia about 555 must be dropped: it is a dubious opinion of a nonnotable collector of entertainment trivia, incorrectly attributed to Fortune magazine: the author is not from the magazine staff, so this attribution is just an attempt to boost the importance. 15:32, 14 October 2025 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Altenmann (talk • contribs)

   Done FaviFake (talk) 15:35, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

  I have restored it and changed the attribution to "Daryna Tobey, writing for Fortune magazine in 2012". TompaDompa (talk) 17:32, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

  • No opinion - I changed my opinion after unexpectedly finding several RS that will allow me to fleshen the article with the details of the occurrences. I expanded the article, so now I dont feel right !voting.--Altenmann >talk 21:11, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose WP:SURMOUNTABLE, WP:NOTCLEANUP, etc. This could be a larger article and your lack of desire to expand it does not mean it must be merged. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 16:44, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

  This could be a larger article
  How? It's the name of a company in a TV show from many years ago. FaviFake (talk) 16:50, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

  • Personal attacks are not an argument. Why do you think people did not try to expand it? I myself tried three times to find RS (secretly hoping for off-WP "citogenesis" to happen :-). --Altenmann >talk 16:53, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose I am sympathetic to the position that Oceanic Airlines is a WP:NOPAGE situation. It has been through WP:AfD no fewer than three times (in 2006, 2020, and 2022), each time with a "keep" outcome that seems rather misguided to me. I'm the one who cleaned the article up from a a TV Tropes-style mess to a sourced stub in April of this year, and I would note as Altenmann did above that there is not exactly an abundance of sources to use to expand it. With all that said, I think what 4meter4 said above about this being WP:UNDUE at the Fictional company article is the stronger point. TompaDompa (talk) 17:25, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
  • @TompaDompa: Are you suggesting to send it to AfD one more time? --Altenmann >talk 17:56, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
    • Not really. I don't expect the outcome to be different than the last three times and it could very well be seen as disruptive (temporal WP:FORUMSHOPPING, basically). Had it never been to AfD before it would have been a more appealing proposition. TompaDompa (talk) 18:01, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
    • I'll also note for the record that I can't say I think expanding the article with what amounts to a list of appearances and some "behind the scenes" trivia is particularly an improvement. There's a reason I didn't add any of that stuff when I rewrote the article back in April. TompaDompa (talk) 08:21, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. The article has been expanded. But even for the short version a merge wouldn't work well. I looked at Category:fictional companies – there are lots of articles. Most of them longer than this one, but merging only this one would give its subject undue weight. We could create List of fictional companies (currently a redirect to the category), but that probably wouldn't be very useful either. — Chrisahn (talk) 06:44, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

  I'm curious, why wouldn't it be useful? It worked well for List of English placeholder names for people. FaviFake (talk) 11:32, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, that worked quite well. Thanks for your work on that! Regarding fictional companies: I had a look at the category (and some of the sub-categories) and saw there are lots of entries. We could create a list page, but it would be a good deal of work, and it wouldn't provide much additional value. The only real advantage I can think of is that we'd have a place (and redirect target) for fictional companies that are WP:NOPAGE cases. I wouldn't oppose creating such a list, I just think it might not be very useful. — Chrisahn (talk) 18:46, 15 October 2025 (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.