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AFI 100 as an example
There's a problem with using the AFI 100 as an example: Not all the entries on it are notable, by current practice. Perhaps we should remove that footnote. Percy Snoodle (talk) 08:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- You are not confusing "notability" with "has a wikipedia article" are you? More evidence mounts that notability produces strange results. Catchpole (talk) 11:29, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- I'm taking lack of an article as lack of consensus that that topic is notable. Why, do you think they are absent for some other reason? Percy Snoodle (talk) 11:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- The project is still a work in progress. There remain vast gaps in our coverage. Catchpole (talk) 12:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- Yes; some are there because we haven't got round to filling them in yet, and some are there because we've decided not to. But if the idea is to put forward a list that is definitely, definitely evidence of notability, shouldn't that list be fully populated by now? And, frankly, I don't think that, say, Thelma and Louise do merit their own, separate articles. So I'm not convinced that the list is a good example for us to be using. I'm not saying it's a non-notable list, or that the entries on it aren't mostly notable; but I don't think we should be holding it up as an example. Percy Snoodle (talk) 12:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- We do also say that not all notable elements of fiction should have their own article if they can sanely be covered as part of another. There's not a perfect following of notable <=> has article normally, and with that instruction there's even less of one. Plus, there's always the instruction to use common sense. SamBC(talk) 13:06, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- I understand all that - but if we hold up this list as an example, then it will set the threshold for notability for articles of characters in future; and it sets that threshold lower than current best practise does. We're better off with no example than a bad example. Again, I'm not saying it's a bad article, just a bad example to be using here. Percy Snoodle (talk) 13:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- Are any of the ones that don't currently have articles ones that have had articles that were then deleted as non-notable? As far as I can see, otherwise there's no evidence of consensus either way on the ones that don't have articles, and around 90% of them do; wikipedia being unfinished, that's a pretty good rate. Add to that the fact that consensus can change, and that awards are usually accepted, and I feel fairly safe saying that everything on the list is notable. I'd say "everyone" on the list, but not all of them are human or approaching it... SamBC(talk) 13:29, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- I suppose we just disagree there... I could see some of them having their own articles, but not all. Also, it's not true to say that "awards are usually accepted" - most awards are trivial fansite offerings or vanity awards given by bodies in cahoots with the makers of the fiction. Only the top awards in any given field are usually accepted. Percy Snoodle (talk) 13:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I was taking it as read that crappy fan awards and polls and so on don't count; I was referring to behaviour generally in line with the clauses on awards on other notability guidelines. SamBC(talk) 14:10, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- I suppose we just disagree there... I could see some of them having their own articles, but not all. Also, it's not true to say that "awards are usually accepted" - most awards are trivial fansite offerings or vanity awards given by bodies in cahoots with the makers of the fiction. Only the top awards in any given field are usually accepted. Percy Snoodle (talk) 13:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- Are any of the ones that don't currently have articles ones that have had articles that were then deleted as non-notable? As far as I can see, otherwise there's no evidence of consensus either way on the ones that don't have articles, and around 90% of them do; wikipedia being unfinished, that's a pretty good rate. Add to that the fact that consensus can change, and that awards are usually accepted, and I feel fairly safe saying that everything on the list is notable. I'd say "everyone" on the list, but not all of them are human or approaching it... SamBC(talk) 13:29, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- I understand all that - but if we hold up this list as an example, then it will set the threshold for notability for articles of characters in future; and it sets that threshold lower than current best practise does. We're better off with no example than a bad example. Again, I'm not saying it's a bad article, just a bad example to be using here. Percy Snoodle (talk) 13:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- We do also say that not all notable elements of fiction should have their own article if they can sanely be covered as part of another. There's not a perfect following of notable <=> has article normally, and with that instruction there's even less of one. Plus, there's always the instruction to use common sense. SamBC(talk) 13:06, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- Yes; some are there because we haven't got round to filling them in yet, and some are there because we've decided not to. But if the idea is to put forward a list that is definitely, definitely evidence of notability, shouldn't that list be fully populated by now? And, frankly, I don't think that, say, Thelma and Louise do merit their own, separate articles. So I'm not convinced that the list is a good example for us to be using. I'm not saying it's a non-notable list, or that the entries on it aren't mostly notable; but I don't think we should be holding it up as an example. Percy Snoodle (talk) 12:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- The project is still a work in progress. There remain vast gaps in our coverage. Catchpole (talk) 12:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- I'm taking lack of an article as lack of consensus that that topic is notable. Why, do you think they are absent for some other reason? Percy Snoodle (talk) 11:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- They're major national recognition--every one of them is notable, and the award is sufficient evidence., just as for other topics. Even in well-covered fields such as this, there are a great many articles still to be written, especially for the older material. DGG (talk) 15:39, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
- Even the shark from Jaws (film)? Do you think he/she also has sufficent coverage to justify a stand alone article? --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:32, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it did have sufficient coverage; even so, we already seem to have agreed on the principle (for fictional elements) of "don't give it a separate article just because it's notable". SamBC(talk) 11:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- Even the shark from Jaws (film)? Do you think he/she also has sufficent coverage to justify a stand alone article? --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:32, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
- It's the same thing as winning a single award. It helps establish notability, but it does not warrant a separate article. Unless you have the information to support split, the simple fact that something has won an award does not mean that it needs its own 5kb stub of an article. If you have the information to develop an article, wonderful, but if you don't then no individual award (no matter how great) is going to change that. We don't need to split an article out for something that takes a single sentence to report. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 21:46, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
- I agree. However, if this was a media guideline such as WP:BK or WP:MOVIE, an award is accepted as specific evidence of notability. So why mention awards for fictional elements at all, if they are not admitted as evidence of notability unless supported by evidence that the ficitonal element meets the requirements of GNC?--Gavin Collins (talk) 22:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
- "received significant coverage" is the most important part of the notability guideline. A single award is not "significant coverage". Further: "'Significant coverage' means that sources address the subject directly in detail, and no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exclusive." This is clarified by, "Examples: The 360-page book by Sobel and the 528-page book by Black on IBM are plainly non-trivial. The one sentence mention by Walker of the band Three Blind Mice in a biography of Bill Clinton (Martin Walker. "Tough love child of Kennedy", The Guardian, January 6, 1992. ) is plainly trivial." -- In this context, a single sentence award mention of a topic would be "trivial". Now, this does not mean that the information should not be included, but that it isn't significant enough to warrant separation from the main topic. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 22:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
- So what you are saying is that awards are acceptable as evidence of notability, as long as they are presented with evidence that the ficitonal element meets the requirements of GNC. So why mention awards for fictional elements at all, if like any other content, the requirements of GNC must be met first (or in tandem with) as a criteria of notability? --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- Bignole, you seem to be labouring under the same misapprehension as Gavin has/is (I'm not sure if he's understood yet; no offence intended, Gavin). So let me set out a few points:
- To have a worthwhile wikipedia article, a topic must (among other things):
- Meet one (or more) relevant notability guideline (the GNC or a subject-specific one); the GNC means significant coverage in independent sources, but other guidelines do not necessarily require this. Some permit notability to be evidenced purely through a single major award.
- Have sufficient information available in reliable sources to populate an article; an important point here is that not all sources that are acceptable for WP:V are acceptable for the GNC. Thus, an article may have enough sources available without the subject meeting the GNC.
- If the topic is related to fiction (a work, an element of fiction, whatever), it must be possible to populate the article with a reasonable balance of real-world information, such as analysis, reception, etc etc, as well as in-universe or plot information.
- To reiterate, many sources are acceptable for verification purposes are not acceptable to demonstrate notability per the GNC, but a subject may be notable without meeting the GNC.
- For some information (but not usually enough to meet the requirement for real-world information), the work itself is a valid source.
- To have a worthwhile wikipedia article, a topic must (among other things):
- Does this clarify the fact that sources are always needed, but not every article topic must meet the GNC? SamBC(talk) 11:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- There's only two things any article needs. "Significant coverage", which I have defined already, and "
Verifiable facts and content not supported bymultiple independent sourcesmay be appropriate for inclusion within another article." Exactly what the GNC states. You cannot bypass the GNC, it's the parent article for this guideline. When NOTE states that it must either meet GNC or the subject specific guidelines, those guidelines cannot be less than GNC. It means that if the subject specific guidelines have a more strict criteria for inclusion, then you have to follow that, otherwise just follow what is stated below. The bare minimum an article should have is significant coverage from multiple independent sources. Hell, it states it in the first section. So, the point is, debating about whether or not AFI recognition, or an Oscar that represents an award to a fictional element, proves that the topic is notable is not relevant. It shows support, but unless there are other sources that provide "significant coverage" (and since FICT doesn't define significant coverage, we have to use NOTE's definition) then it isn't worthy of its own article. Just because you cannot give something its own article doesn't mean you can use that same information somewhere else. So, to answer your final statement, no, a subject may not be notable per subject standards and not per the GNC, because all subject notability guidelines are based around the GNC. Unless the subject specific guidelines totally disregard the GNC (which this page does not), then you're going to meet the GNC no matter what. So, AFI is good information, just not going to prove that any topic needs its own article. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 12:06, 4 May 2008 (UTC)- If that were the case, NOTE would say that topics had to meet the GNC and any subject specific guidelines; many of the subject specific guidelines provide criteria that allow something to qualify as notable without meeting the GNC. The GNC is a "criterion of last resort" if there are no subject-specific guidelines, or a topic doesn't meet its subject specific guidelines. It's clear as day in what's written in WP:NOTE. SamBC(talk) 14:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- BigN, the GNC (WP:N) does not require multiple sources, it says: "Multiple sources are generally preferred" This was a hard fought compromise with the language deliberately meant to encourage but not specifically require multiple sources to establish notability. My interpretation and intention for fighting for the inclusion of single source of notability is to allow a single source to be used to establish notability when it is supported by significant other verifiable information, especially information leading to establishing independence and credibilty of that source. --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
- If that were the case, NOTE would say that topics had to meet the GNC and any subject specific guidelines; many of the subject specific guidelines provide criteria that allow something to qualify as notable without meeting the GNC. The GNC is a "criterion of last resort" if there are no subject-specific guidelines, or a topic doesn't meet its subject specific guidelines. It's clear as day in what's written in WP:NOTE. SamBC(talk) 14:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- There's only two things any article needs. "Significant coverage", which I have defined already, and "
- "received significant coverage" is the most important part of the notability guideline. A single award is not "significant coverage". Further: "'Significant coverage' means that sources address the subject directly in detail, and no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exclusive." This is clarified by, "Examples: The 360-page book by Sobel and the 528-page book by Black on IBM are plainly non-trivial. The one sentence mention by Walker of the band Three Blind Mice in a biography of Bill Clinton (Martin Walker. "Tough love child of Kennedy", The Guardian, January 6, 1992. ) is plainly trivial." -- In this context, a single sentence award mention of a topic would be "trivial". Now, this does not mean that the information should not be included, but that it isn't significant enough to warrant separation from the main topic. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 22:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
- Doesn't matter if it contradicts "other" subject guidelines, because it doesn't contradict this one as this guideline is a reflection of GNC. This guideline clearly states "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." as the definition of notability. Now, unless you wish to rewrite that, nothing else matters. Since we know from the GNC what "significant coverage" means, then a single award does not constitute the criteria necessary for a separate article. Plain as day. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 14:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- It doesn't say "if an only if"; in terms of logic, that means that significant coverage is a sufficient but not necessary condition; however, it is probably worth clarifying this case one way or the other. Most opinions here would suggest that the direction to clarify is that there are other situations, but they are few and far between. SamBC(talk) 15:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- This page doesn't say that, and if it did then it would be a contradiction of itself. You cannot claim that notability is one thing, and then try and say it's something else later on. This page defines it as "significant coverage", and GNC defines what "significant coverage" is. So, unless you want to change this page, then AFI is not substantial enough to warrant a separate page for anything. Matter of fact, does this page not clarify that just because you meet the basic idea behind notability for fictional topics that it does not necessarily mean you need a separate page to present it all? If that's the case, then a single statement wouldn't even fit the basic criteria for notability. You cannot take the criteria from another notability (ie. Books) guideline and automatically apply it to something that falls under the jurisdiction of this guideline. Not unless you change this guideline, which would be a whole new topic of discussion and months of debate. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 15:09, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- There's been months of debate, and at least one person is willing to outright contradict you on the weight of the AFI list (DGG, below, I think, might be above). Where in this guideline does it define notability as significant coverage? It quite WP:N with "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", but again not the if, not if and only if; if it is defining notability as you say, then that needs to be changed, as that's contradicting rather a lot of other guidelines, and the generally agreed terms of debate at the top of this page. SamBC(talk) 15:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- This page doesn't say that, and if it did then it would be a contradiction of itself. You cannot claim that notability is one thing, and then try and say it's something else later on. This page defines it as "significant coverage", and GNC defines what "significant coverage" is. So, unless you want to change this page, then AFI is not substantial enough to warrant a separate page for anything. Matter of fact, does this page not clarify that just because you meet the basic idea behind notability for fictional topics that it does not necessarily mean you need a separate page to present it all? If that's the case, then a single statement wouldn't even fit the basic criteria for notability. You cannot take the criteria from another notability (ie. Books) guideline and automatically apply it to something that falls under the jurisdiction of this guideline. Not unless you change this guideline, which would be a whole new topic of discussion and months of debate. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 15:09, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- It doesn't say "if an only if"; in terms of logic, that means that significant coverage is a sufficient but not necessary condition; however, it is probably worth clarifying this case one way or the other. Most opinions here would suggest that the direction to clarify is that there are other situations, but they are few and far between. SamBC(talk) 15:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- I reverted, because "there may be cases where an element does not seem to have significant coverage, but that coverage is sufficient to demonstrate notability," makes no sense. Exactly how does something "seem to not have significant coverage", but actually has "significant coverage"? Either it does or it doesn't. It's clear if it does, because we know what significant coverage is based on what GNC defines significant coverage as. Unless you rewrite the definition of significant coverage, then GNC is the place we look for how to establish it. A single statement, "Character John X received an AFI award" is not significant coverage. It's a single statement. So, unless this page agrees on a NEW definition of significant coverage, then you cannot plop in your own definition at will. That isn't how it works. Since this page doesn't have a definition listed, we use the GNC's definition, given that the GNC is the parent article and because even you stated above that if it isn't covered here then we revert back to what the GNC says. You stated it's a "last resort" if the subject doesn't meet the subject-specific guidelines. Well, this subject-specific guidelines does not stipulate the definition of "significant coverage", but NOTE does. Hence why we use NOTE's definition. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 15:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- Okay, I'll ask just the simple question again; comments on my suggested change would be better in the section I started on that, below. Here's the question: where is notability defined as receiving significant coverage? SamBC(talk) 15:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- Notability is defined for fiction here, which clearly states below: "Based on this reasoning and the above excerpts, fictional concepts can be presumed notable if they have received significant real-world coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.". From there, significant coverage is defined here, which is further clarified here. This guideline (FICT) does not define significant coverage as anything other than what NOTE defines it as. You can draw this conclusion because this guideline specifically cites NOTE's definition of notability as part of the 3 excerpts we use to define notability for topics on fiction. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 15:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- Exactly; can be "presumed notable if", not "are notable if and only if", which would be a definition. The usage of "presume" means that it can be overriden; "are" instead would make the condition entirely sufficient, but the use of "if" rather than "if and only if" means that it cannot be seen as necessary. So, as written, it states that significant coverage is usually sufficient to indicate notability, but not necessary. SamBC(talk) 16:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- The reason it is "presumed" is because nothing is definite. Anything can be overridden with consensus, but it doesn't mean ignore it until consensus says to get rid of the article. The point of presumed is to follow the guideline unless you can make a case for the "exception to the rule". Since significant coverage explicitely states that a single mention is trivial, you need a pretty good reason to say an article needs to be created because of a single award given (and not just "I think it's the most important award in the world" argument). This guideline does not specify such a thing, and I don't believe that any single award that can be mentioned in a single sentence on a parent page is proof that the topic needs its own article. Based on the discussion here on this section, it seems that there isn't consensus to assume that any one award is significant enough to grant a topic its own article. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 16:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- I agree, the reference to AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains needs to come out, as is not proof that the topic needs its own article. In addition, the purpose of the list was to provide a backdrop to a television programme which featured clips from the films themselves, which in my mind provides additional evidence that it is the films themselves are notable. Therefore the award does not establish the notability of the characters outside of the films in which they featured. It is debateable whether this example falls purely within the scope of WP:MOVIE, but I would say that as evidence of notability, it is a contraversial if not misleading example. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:18, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
- The reason it is "presumed" is because nothing is definite. Anything can be overridden with consensus, but it doesn't mean ignore it until consensus says to get rid of the article. The point of presumed is to follow the guideline unless you can make a case for the "exception to the rule". Since significant coverage explicitely states that a single mention is trivial, you need a pretty good reason to say an article needs to be created because of a single award given (and not just "I think it's the most important award in the world" argument). This guideline does not specify such a thing, and I don't believe that any single award that can be mentioned in a single sentence on a parent page is proof that the topic needs its own article. Based on the discussion here on this section, it seems that there isn't consensus to assume that any one award is significant enough to grant a topic its own article. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 16:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- Exactly; can be "presumed notable if", not "are notable if and only if", which would be a definition. The usage of "presume" means that it can be overriden; "are" instead would make the condition entirely sufficient, but the use of "if" rather than "if and only if" means that it cannot be seen as necessary. So, as written, it states that significant coverage is usually sufficient to indicate notability, but not necessary. SamBC(talk) 16:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- Notability is defined for fiction here, which clearly states below: "Based on this reasoning and the above excerpts, fictional concepts can be presumed notable if they have received significant real-world coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.". From there, significant coverage is defined here, which is further clarified here. This guideline (FICT) does not define significant coverage as anything other than what NOTE defines it as. You can draw this conclusion because this guideline specifically cites NOTE's definition of notability as part of the 3 excerpts we use to define notability for topics on fiction. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 15:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- Okay, I'll ask just the simple question again; comments on my suggested change would be better in the section I started on that, below. Here's the question: where is notability defined as receiving significant coverage? SamBC(talk) 15:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
- I believe there is now agreement to remove the reference to awards and reference to AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains out of WP:FICT. Should this award be cited in WP:MOVIE?--Gavin Collins (talk) 08:03, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
- I wouldn't agree, although the issue is quite complex; this draft states that notability doesn't mean, on its own, that fictional topics should have their own articles, so demonstrating notability does not imply demonstrating that the topic should have its own article. More to the point, I don't think that posting new comments to sections that are otherwise long-dead is the best way to ensure that people read it. You're the only one insisting that these either a) aren't really awards, but rather some sort of scheme, or b) aren't for the characters rather than the actors or the films. SamBC(talk) 09:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
- In fairness, I think Bagnole has disscussed the point in great detail, and has come to the same conclusion as me, but by a different route. There is a lot of agreement that reference to awards must go, and not just on the strength of what I have written; sgeureka has also gone on record to say that he would rather leave awards out of FICT at this point, and Kevin Murray is also of the view that unworkable and precriptive special cases such as awards are not evidence of notability, a complete dearth of reliable secondary sources would tend to suggest that the work was not notable even if it had an award. So what do you think should be done? --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:59, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
- Having just read the (relatively) recent re-write of WP:BIO with merge of WP:ATHLETE and so on, it might be worth taking cues from there as well as WP:BK and such. Some subject-specific guidelines make exceptions with things like awards, and some don't. It would seem awkward to suggest that such exceptions are unworkable when they've worked well for other things, as there are sources acceptable to WP:V that don't demonstrate notability per the GNC, allowing articles to be written verifiably without passing the GNC. I also think avoiding any mention of awards is perilous as many users take awards to be defacto evidence of notability even when no applicable notability guideline says so. Hence my suggestion that we state that awards indicate or suggest notability, in proportion to the stature of the award, but that (other) secondary source coverage will generally be needed. It's also worth saying that awards may contribute to notability where the award is independent of the subject, as the award itself is secondary coverage. SamBC(talk) 10:11, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
- SamBC, we have covered your arguments before, and as you know I am of the opinion that awards don't apply to elements of fiction, because they are not real-world people, and generally it is they who recieve awards in recognition of their creative abilities, either directly when the award is presented to them personally, or indirectly when their work (film or book) is singled out for an award. Kevin Murray is of the view that awards are not evidence of notability at all; Bignole is of the view that awards are not evidence of notability on their own, and that they cannot be used to justify a standalone article without coverage from reliable secondary source. sgeureka has made his view known he is uncomfortable with the idea that minor awards (such as those handed out at trade or fan conventions) contribute any notability at all, and for this reason awards should not be mentioned in this guideline at all. I have pointed out that this AFI award, created for a television special, has more do with the films that were featured in it than it does the fictional characters were "awarded" the honor of villan or hero. Even Percy Snoodle is not clear that this particular award is a good example, as not all the entries on it are notable.
On the grounds that awards don't contribute evidence of notability (in the same way popularity does not contribute either), I think the reference to awards of any kind or type should come out altogether. I am now of the impression that you no longer wish to consider these agruements, as you are convinced that your view is overwhealmingly the stronger, and at the end of the day you may be right. If you feel you are completely right, feel free to ignore our views and my proposal to remove the reference to awards. Leave the reference to the award in if you feel strongly about it; you are under no obligation to act on our advice. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:19, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
- Gavin, I wouldn't say that awards are not evidence of notability; I would say that an award when verifiable could be a building block toward cummulative notability, and a strong reason to prevent deletion of a stub. This does not need to be subject specific and could be part of a richer WP:N covering all topics equally. I don't oppose more advanced thought at WP:N, what I oppose is fragemented standards which are perpetuated by subject specific guidelines. --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:44, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
- SamBC, we have covered your arguments before, and as you know I am of the opinion that awards don't apply to elements of fiction, because they are not real-world people, and generally it is they who recieve awards in recognition of their creative abilities, either directly when the award is presented to them personally, or indirectly when their work (film or book) is singled out for an award. Kevin Murray is of the view that awards are not evidence of notability at all; Bignole is of the view that awards are not evidence of notability on their own, and that they cannot be used to justify a standalone article without coverage from reliable secondary source. sgeureka has made his view known he is uncomfortable with the idea that minor awards (such as those handed out at trade or fan conventions) contribute any notability at all, and for this reason awards should not be mentioned in this guideline at all. I have pointed out that this AFI award, created for a television special, has more do with the films that were featured in it than it does the fictional characters were "awarded" the honor of villan or hero. Even Percy Snoodle is not clear that this particular award is a good example, as not all the entries on it are notable.
- I think Gavin has summarised my views pretty well. No single award for a fictional element is evidence of notability. This page is a reflection of WP:NOTE, in that notability is "significant coverage". A single statement of "Character X won 'Best New Character' from IGN's Comic Book Awards" is not evidence of notability. It's a simple statement that can be easily presented in a larger article. But, what you can infer from this is that if the subject has won awards (though as Gavin pointed out it's rare to every see a fictional element "win" an award itself, but Jason Voorhees did win a Lifetime Achievement Award from MTV...so there are cases) then you can probably find information on that subject to validate "significant coverage". If the notability guideline for books says that if it wins a major award that's for the book itself. If Tom Welling won an Emmy for playing Clark Kent, that doesn't make Smallville's Clark Kent notable. The award has nothing to do with the character, but the actor portraying him. The same is said for when the Academy Awards award shows for special effects. The scene itself isn't notable, it's the work that the SFX company did that was awarded. They are awarding the work that went into it, not what came out in the end. I don't not believe any single award, no matter how major one might think it actually is, asserts complete notability for a fictional element. It helps, but it's like a single lego in the entire lego castle. If that's all you got then you don't have a castle. The same goes for "rankings" for that matter. A rule of thumb should be, if you can state the fact with a single sentence and you cannot provide any context to the fact (i.e. prose that contains information about what they did that was so special that they were given an award), then you don't have enough coverage to warrant a separate article. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 14:38, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
An award could definitely suggest notability, and as such "could be evidence of notability" is a true statement. Evidence does not mean a conclusion, and can cover an entire spectrum (for a lack of better words) of possible criteria being satisfied. We should say "this could be evidence of notability, which means that editors should look at it, possibly discuss it, to see if it is or not". It's not going to be black and white, and it's not going to be the same for every award/award-winner. -- Ned Scott 22:49, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Ned that awards suggest some kind of notability; this is common sense. I also agree with SamBC and Bignole that just because something is notable (by whatever definition), doesn't mean that it automatically deserves/needs its own article; i.e. awards suggest some notability but not sufficient notability. Receiving an AFI 100 award etc. is one sentence, and that can fit into a parent article. "received significant coverage" remains the big point for a separate article, and the article needs to to demonstrate that sooner or later (I am thinking two or three medium paragraphs at least), or we go back to "this can also fit in the parent article". I consider the current footnote about awards ("An example of a plaudit...") pointless but harmless, and I agree with the current wording of the second footnote ("It is not generally a sufficient indicator of notability for an award to be given for a fictional topic..."). – sgeureka t•c 07:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
- Do awards provide evidence of "some kind of notability"? I think the answer must be either they do, or either they don't. I think WP:FICT needs to provide clear guidance on this issue in relation to fictional elements, or reference to them needs to come out. Would you object if it were to be removed? --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:08, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
Guideline
I've added the guideline tag. Anyone is of course free to remove it, but I suggest people who think this is as good as it can be and that any more edits may as well happen with the tag on as off think through their position. All the best, Hiding T 14:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
- The guideline tag suggests it has broad community consensus. There's no indication of that; there may be broad consensus here, but it needs acceptance broader than that. Plus, once it is accepted, it should be tagged as a notability guideline, not a general guideline. SamBC(talk) 14:37, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
- I agree that consensus is not yet demonstrated and this should remain a proposal. --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I think that it is probably worth putting this to a wider community discussion now, though; I would suggest archiving most or all of this talk page and then RFCing, advertising at VPP, etc. SamBC(talk) 10:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
If this has developed as far as it can go, then I suggest that we should look at the end-product and determine the specific value added over WP:N etc. Could the project be better served by merging the better aspects of this proposal with Books and Film so that we have one comprehensive and consistent guideline for "Creative Works", rather than a collections of competing rule-sets? --Kevin Murray (talk) 16:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- I think there are some important practical issues as well as fundamental principles to be resolved before this becomes a guideline. I agree with Kevin Murray that consensus is not yet demonstrated and this should remain a proposal. Also, this proposal is highly unstable, and there is evidence that the number of changest for this month will be greater than any month previous.--Gavin Collins (talk) 16:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- Merging with Book and Film would be a bad idea, because in those cases, there are specific cases where notability has been shown through means other than the general notability criteria (significant coverage in secondary sources); while these cases would stay when bringing all into a common guideline, there would be people that will try to read across the lines, and apply a book-based criteria to a video game, for example -- see the entire discussion about awards that shows that what applies to one form of media doesn't apply to another. Additionally, those guidelines include non-fiction works as well.
- As for the specific value, it is necessary to map how NOTE and PLOT interact when it comes to works of fiction. While the same effect is there without FICT, it is necessary to explain how these interact to lead to appropriate encyclopedic coverage of fiction. --MASEM 16:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- Can't agree! In each of the special cases in any subject specific notability guideline, an educated application of WP:N would yield identical results. Most of these special cases are the result of a poor understanding of WP:N at AfD. These are bandaids on a festering problem. --Kevin Murray (talk) 18:03, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- Can you give a specific example of where a specific notability guideline arose or was applied to a case which was the result of a poor understanding of WP:N at AfD so that we can understand more fully what you mean? --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- Gavin I can't cite specifics but over several years of invlovement at AfD, I have not yet seen one article which could be kept by a subject specific guideline that couldn't have qualified by WP:N. Take almost any legitimate line item argument citing a subject specific guideline and see if you can't make the same argument work using WP:N. The only accomplishment of subject specific guidelines would be unverifiable stub articles. WP:V is the key to WP:N. The problem is that AfD is about WP:ILIKEIT not applying guidelines. Consider the adverse effects of WP:CREEP against the marginal benefit of a further guideline. --Kevin Murray (talk) 21:12, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- The only evidence I have would tend to support your viewpoint: note the closing remarks of the admin at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GURPS 4e Basic Set (2nd nomination) regarding awards as evidence of notability. However, I think in instances where there is insufficient content to meet the requirements of WP:N, I guess the specific guidelines provide examples that a topic should be presumend to be notable, although presumption is rather over reliant on a subjective perspective compared to WP:N. --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- OK, so we presume a topic to be notable, then how do we write the article without material from verifiable sources? If we have verifiable sources we satisfy WP:N. --Kevin Murray (talk) 21:58, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- The point of these additional notability guidelines beyond the GNC is that they can help newer editors identify what we mean by notability, and to make it easier to include things. For example, MUSIC presumes an album by a notable band will be notable. Yes, ultimately, 99% of such albums will have sources that support the GNC, but at the time of release, they may not. However, given enough time and volunteer editing, it is highly likely that such articles will be given the appropriate sources. Thus, a newer editor that wants to contribute can do so and may not be able to easily search for reference but can assert the notability of a topic that likely will never be deleted. Ultimately , sources for verification will/can be added, and technically this notability "shortcut" is unnecessary, but having these makes WP much more user friendly to newer editors. (Unfortunately, it is very difficult to provide a short circuit for elements of fiction that virtually guaranty secondary sources as noted by the awards discussion.) --MASEM 22:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- Slight correction. WP:MUSIC says an album by a notable band may be notable, not will. Common misinterpretation, but there's a but difference.--Fabrictramp (talk) 14:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
- I'm amazed at how often I have to mention this... there are sources acceptable for verification that aren't considered evidence of notability; they may not be preferred sources, but they are accepted. For example, first-party sources, primary sources, and directories are all suitable for verification, at least of limited things, but not considered indicative of notability. Thus articles that meet non-GNC subject-specific criteria (the ones for athletes are a good example) can still contain verifiable, encyclopaedic information. Like I've said plenty of times, if this weren't the case, there'd be no need for notability guidelines, and I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have them. SamBC(talk) 14:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
- The point of these additional notability guidelines beyond the GNC is that they can help newer editors identify what we mean by notability, and to make it easier to include things. For example, MUSIC presumes an album by a notable band will be notable. Yes, ultimately, 99% of such albums will have sources that support the GNC, but at the time of release, they may not. However, given enough time and volunteer editing, it is highly likely that such articles will be given the appropriate sources. Thus, a newer editor that wants to contribute can do so and may not be able to easily search for reference but can assert the notability of a topic that likely will never be deleted. Ultimately , sources for verification will/can be added, and technically this notability "shortcut" is unnecessary, but having these makes WP much more user friendly to newer editors. (Unfortunately, it is very difficult to provide a short circuit for elements of fiction that virtually guaranty secondary sources as noted by the awards discussion.) --MASEM 22:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- Can't agree! In each of the special cases in any subject specific notability guideline, an educated application of WP:N would yield identical results. Most of these special cases are the result of a poor understanding of WP:N at AfD. These are bandaids on a festering problem. --Kevin Murray (talk) 18:03, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- It may prove salutary to initiate over a set time (say a month) a series of AfDs on various articles that exemplify different aspects of the questions being raised here in order to gauge community reaction and perhaps solicit wider engagement. Editors who have weighed in here would need to participate systematically as well. But since AfD is consensus in the making at a very fundamental level it could help move the issue along. Apologies in advance if this comers across as idiotic or promoting division - not my intention. Eusebeus (talk) 22:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- I like your concept, but I'm not sure that is a fair use of the time contributed by AfD participants. Maybe modify your idea to review a sample of past AfD discussions as a team to test my hypothesis. --Kevin Murray (talk) 22:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- I think one would have to mount a huge disclaimer on the AfDs in question, indicating that opinion is being solicited with respect to consensus for fictional notability. Past AfDs will can probably be used to show everything and the kitchen sink, they are so inconsistent. AfDs for a specific purpose could perhaps aspire to greater consistency. Eusebeus (talk) 22:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- I won't oppose this and will participate if you get something going. --Kevin Murray (talk) 23:23, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- We have enough discussions already on real cases. The last thing we need at Afd is additional work on imaginary ones. We can draw our conclusions from the material there already: and the conclusion I draw from having participated in what seems like half of them over the last few months or so (more likely one-tenth--they are remarkably tedious) is that except for the extremely good and the extremely bad, the results have a considerable element of randomness. They're probably not random, but they're close, and the factor determining it is the relative energy of the participants. the quality of the arguments has nothing much to do with it, for they're always the same. some of us want to maximize the coverage of fiction , and some want to do just the opposite. I'd be tempted to propose something in the middle, but every time I say something which seems to me the most basic common sense, like "it should depend upon the importance of the fiction" , or "some fictions are best discussed by chronological plot, and some by characters and many by a combination of approaches" or "the default option should be to merge but preserve content" or "as much as possible of what is removed should be kept in a redirect for future development" or "the real problem isnot division into articles but quality of writing" -- only a few people agree. DGG (talk) 00:06, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
- I agree! It mirrors the US justice system where victory is based on a good spokesman and a sympathetic jury. I just don't see further rules solving the problem. I believe in less rules and better training for the closers. Verifiable independent source material should be required and that's pretty simple. --Kevin Murray (talk) 00:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
- AfD is pretty well flooded as is and so it would not be a good idea to use it to test possible policy consensuses. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 03:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
- Kevin, there is good verifiable source material for almost every one of these--plot and the like can be sourced to the work itself. It would be a very good idea for those who have videos and so forth going in an putting in timings (or, in other sorts of works,scene numbers if not lines). Judgements & other opinion of course need to be sourced from the usually abundant criticism for at least major works. DGG (talk) 16:08, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
- AfD is pretty well flooded as is and so it would not be a good idea to use it to test possible policy consensuses. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 03:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
- I agree! It mirrors the US justice system where victory is based on a good spokesman and a sympathetic jury. I just don't see further rules solving the problem. I believe in less rules and better training for the closers. Verifiable independent source material should be required and that's pretty simple. --Kevin Murray (talk) 00:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
- We have enough discussions already on real cases. The last thing we need at Afd is additional work on imaginary ones. We can draw our conclusions from the material there already: and the conclusion I draw from having participated in what seems like half of them over the last few months or so (more likely one-tenth--they are remarkably tedious) is that except for the extremely good and the extremely bad, the results have a considerable element of randomness. They're probably not random, but they're close, and the factor determining it is the relative energy of the participants. the quality of the arguments has nothing much to do with it, for they're always the same. some of us want to maximize the coverage of fiction , and some want to do just the opposite. I'd be tempted to propose something in the middle, but every time I say something which seems to me the most basic common sense, like "it should depend upon the importance of the fiction" , or "some fictions are best discussed by chronological plot, and some by characters and many by a combination of approaches" or "the default option should be to merge but preserve content" or "as much as possible of what is removed should be kept in a redirect for future development" or "the real problem isnot division into articles but quality of writing" -- only a few people agree. DGG (talk) 00:06, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
- I won't oppose this and will participate if you get something going. --Kevin Murray (talk) 23:23, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- I think one would have to mount a huge disclaimer on the AfDs in question, indicating that opinion is being solicited with respect to consensus for fictional notability. Past AfDs will can probably be used to show everything and the kitchen sink, they are so inconsistent. AfDs for a specific purpose could perhaps aspire to greater consistency. Eusebeus (talk) 22:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
- I like your concept, but I'm not sure that is a fair use of the time contributed by AfD participants. Maybe modify your idea to review a sample of past AfD discussions as a team to test my hypothesis. --Kevin Murray (talk) 22:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Now that my last minor quibble has been ironed out (mostly wording and tweaking of examples), I have read through the whole guideline again. Although I'd still wait a couple of days or a week for stabilization, the current version of the proposal has my support. I think we should advertise the proposal in some wider circles soon and see where it goes. – sgeureka t•c 18:09, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with the tweaks from Percy and Sgeureka, and think this is definitely nearly there. SamBC(talk) 18:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
- I will point out that I made one small change in the footnote in regards to how these articles are named: "List of Y characters" where Y is a fictional grouping but not a work is a bad article title since you have to presume knowledge of Y; "List of Y characters from X" or a similar scheme where Y is based on the work of fiction X at least provides better context. --MASEM 19:22, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
- Not sure how to resolve it, but what about the case where a division is fictitious, but not limited to a single work or group of works? I'm not certain of any non-silly example now, but I have a feeling there are some. Of course, categories might work, but at the moment it's outside guidelines to group shortcuts by categorising them as "fictional X". SamBC(talk) 19:47, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
- "List of X characters in the Y series" or "in the Y franchise" would allow for the larger series --MASEM 19:50, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
- Lists for franchises that I could think of: Recurring characters in The Legend of Zelda series, Ancient characters in Stargate, List of Doctor Who monsters and aliens (interesting merge tags on the last article-list). It seems this is not so uncommon. – sgeureka t•c 20:42, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
- Not sure how to resolve it, but what about the case where a division is fictitious, but not limited to a single work or group of works? I'm not certain of any non-silly example now, but I have a feeling there are some. Of course, categories might work, but at the moment it's outside guidelines to group shortcuts by categorising them as "fictional X". SamBC(talk) 19:47, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
- I will point out that I made one small change in the footnote in regards to how these articles are named: "List of Y characters" where Y is a fictional grouping but not a work is a bad article title since you have to presume knowledge of Y; "List of Y characters from X" or a similar scheme where Y is based on the work of fiction X at least provides better context. --MASEM 19:22, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I know some people are busy with WP:Plot summaries now, but these are the changes since May 10. It's been silent for a few days here on the talk page also. The "awards" debate died down without significant results in either direction (FICT remains vague), the notability of lists will likely remain a hot topic in the foreseeable future (FICT remains vague), and whether FICT should point to other fiction-related notability guidelines seems to remain a matter of taste and doesn't really affect FICT either way. Can we have another poll for whether it's time to de-dispute FICT? – sgeureka t•c 21:11, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
- I think what has happened is that Percy has stopped editing the draft for some days, and this might explain the peace and quiet.--Gavin Collins (talk) 01:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
- Go read WP:NPA Percy Snoodle (talk) 07:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
- I was not attacking you if that helps.--Gavin Collins (talk) 09:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Current Version
- Comment I have also now read through the new wording and I like the current version a lot. It maintains a
strong injunction against in-universe materialstrong injunction against excessive in-universe material unbalanced by real-world content, places the right emphasis on requiring notability (and not simply a weak verifiability standard) and retains the need to demonstrate real-world significance for fictional material. At the same time, the LOE and LOC provisions offer good balance to those local groups of editors who are more interested in plot summary, trivia and in-universe material. Finally, I would note that in conjunction with the recently strengthened wording concerning global consensus at WP:CON & the renewal of the injunction against mere plot summary at WP:NOT#PLOT, there is an effective convergence of policy & guideline that should allow for a significant increase in the standards of Wikipedia's coverage of fictional topics. I think many editors deserve a lot of credit for what I see as fundamentally a success, but I hope no-one is offended if I single out Masem for his outstanding patience and hard work, especially in the face of so much divergence of opinion. Eusebeus (talk) 20:57, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
- Well, thanks for highlighting where the real disagreement is. I think that what we should have, what is appropriate for an encyclopedia like this one, (in addition to coverage of publication & reception & criticism), is reasonably detailed coverage of in-universe material. What people come here is for this, at least as much as the publication details--to understand what a story is about, or what a game is: What the characters are, what people mean when the refer to them. What happened in an episode they missed. What the peculiar-sounding elements of background people talk about on the web are. This is the place I actually learned what some soaps are about--perhaps I wish I hadn't, but my distaste for the genre is at now an informed distaste. Informing the ignorant is the purpose of Wikipedia. NOT PLOT says that plot should only be part of the overage, and all of us agree about that. It does not say it shouldn't be the major part. If it did, it would not have consensus. I too admire Masems attempt to deal with the issue, but if it can be interpreted the way you interpret it, either he did not reach an acceptable compromise, or you totally misunderstand it. DGG (talk) 14:10, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
- I do disagree with Eusebeus's interpretation, but I'm not sure how one would clarify it in the guideline without upsetting other people. At the moment, policies seem to carefully say that there should be "a balance" without saying what the balance should be, and I get the feelings that this is because there'd be significant numbers who'd disagree with anything specific. Maybe that's a problem, but I don't see as how it gets solved. SamBC(talk) 14:58, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
- It's absolutely true that PLOT does not state anything about balance beyond that some have to be covers, and does suggest plots should be concise, but that's why WP:NPOV/WP:UNDUE are cited - one aspect of a topic should not be covered in significantly more detail than other aspects. The level of detail that many would write articles on fiction want to go into generally is in great excess of what the real-world aspects are for it. Mind you, I don't think we even want to try to set hard numbers or ratios on what content vs context we should aim for or the like, but there are obvious cases where the imbalance is there. Since it is generally harder and more time consumer to locate information on a work's context, that's why the focus tends to be on limiting the coverage of a work's content more. Plus, it is important to note that within the encyclopedia we can't cover certain things in some ways because of its goals and policies, but that's why places like Wikia and others should be used and should be encouraged to be linked into WP, not necessarily being a completely transparent line for the end user, but giving a place where someone more interested in the work can look too. --MASEM 15:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
- Why don't we have a sister project like wiktionary instead of having to rely on ad supported wikis? I'm sure this has been discussed and rejected, anyone know where? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 15:35, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
- I don't know where those discussions have been. I suspect that one of the major problems would be funding. I can understand why people feel inclined to contribute money towards an encyclopedia, but can't imagine that many people would feel inclined to contribute to a television trivia guide.Kww (talk) 16:02, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
- Why don't we have a sister project like wiktionary instead of having to rely on ad supported wikis? I'm sure this has been discussed and rejected, anyone know where? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 15:35, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
- MASEM, then, let us explicitly say that we are not specifying the balance, and that depending on the topic, the fictional elements may be either a small or a large part of the coverage. DGG (talk) 19:15, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
- PLOT may not say it, but as FICT is the combination of NOTE, PLOT, and the other core policies, including NPOV/UNDUE, it needs to be stated here. Coverage of fictional works cannot be heavily weighted on the coverage of the works' content. --MASEM 19:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
- I'll add my agreement to this sentiment here, and incidentally reply to DGG's objection above by noting my inaccuracy in suggesting this advocated an injunction against in-universe detail; rather such detail needs be balanced by consideration Masem notes above. That said, I understand that DGG and I are going to disagree based on very different wikiphilosophies. This guideline, however, strikes me as an excellent balance and I believe the gist of my remarks - the sloppiness of my initial wording now amended - is an accurate reflexion of its intent. Eusebeus (talk) 20:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
- (ec)I'm half-playing devil's advocate here, but that doesn't actually follow logically; what evidence, from policy and other guidelines, is there that "coverage of fictional works cannot be heavily weighted on the coverage of the works' content"? SamBC(talk) 20:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
- The relevant section from WP:UNDUE is Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements. Since we can easily classify the content and the context of a fictional work as two different aspects, we should try to balance the amount of material given to each. --MASEM 21:31, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
- PLOT may not say it, but as FICT is the combination of NOTE, PLOT, and the other core policies, including NPOV/UNDUE, it needs to be stated here. Coverage of fictional works cannot be heavily weighted on the coverage of the works' content. --MASEM 19:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
- and nobody disagrees with that. What Sam and I are trying to say, is that the proper balance will vary, and will usually be very much more on he side of plot and characters than has been the statement in the guideline so far--a widely ignored guideline, as we all know--the extent to which it has been ignored is perhaps what shows the true consensus. We shouldn't give undue weight to the "real-world" content about the production and distribution. We should give it due weight, as the framework and setting for what usually is the important parts. sometimes, of course, the production and so forth, and especially the subsequent fate in criticism and popular culture, will be the important part--I can think of a number of films where the production was more dramatic than the story, & much more discussed. We all agree we want balance, but we disagree where it lies. so lets just say what we agree, instead of pretending we don't. I have no way of forcing my views on Eusebeus, and no great likelihood of convincing him, and he likewise of me--I agree with him about that much at least! So since we must work together here, we have to let the matters disagreement remain unspecified by the rules, for we have no other way of making rules except by agreement. But there's something else I know that he, and I, and all of us here agree on: what coverage we do have of each of the various elements should be well written, both appropriately concise, and sufficiently informative, and above all, clear. We can all work towards that. DGG (talk) 02:53, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- Which almost brings this back full circle - what I've been trying to do is get this to a point where fictional elements aren't prevented from being discussed, but at the same time, keeping a sense of encyclopedic treatment to these. Exactly the amount where they lie is impossible to agree on right now. We should not be trying to force an exact limitation or allowance for treatment (being a guideline) but if we hit a point where some articles may exceed a bit too much, allowing for a bit of lenancy to this, is exactly the middle ground we should be aiming to it, and make sure that while it may not be the 100% solution both sides are looking for, hopeful people recognize that from this point we can go forward. I noticed User:Hiding has opened a centralized discussion on plot summaries, and this discussion will helpfully point if there's sufficient global consensus to decide ratios of content vs context and the like, or if for now it's still rather large margin. --MASEM 03:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- Do we want to wait for that, or do we want to try to get something written here now and put it forward, subject to amendment per any central discussion on plot coverage? If the latter, we need to find a reasonable way of phrasing this. I do feel that fictional-division lists should be discouraged, in favour of categorisation of the redirects, but not outright banned; Mandelorians shouldn't be a list, but Jedi makes sense as a list. It's hard to express how to say this, but I feel that was the intent of the old phrasing; it just came out too proscriptive. However, the DGG text is too permissive, and can easily be read as "make whichever list(s) you feel like", which is admirable in intent, but "do whatever you feel like" doesn't usually serve us well in practice (hence a number of our guidelines and policies). SamBC(talk) 12:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- You summarized my feelings on this matter very nicely. I don't have any solutions either but to keep the wording short and vague, although I actually considered the examples quite good. – sgeureka t•c 13:15, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- I think it's just a matter of wording choices here, coupled with the fact we want to see how this one sits and should expect that it may need fine tuning. "Editors are encouraged to keep such lists grouped by an out-of-universe affiliation (list examples), though grouping by a in-universe association is generally acceptable for notable fictional concepts (list good and bad examples)." Not too descriptive, but still guiding editors towards a level of quality (though not demanding of it either - other editors can help see better groupings if at all possible). --MASEM 13:26, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- I also think they were to permissive; I've replaced "appropriate" with "highly notable" as a compromise: it includes the sensible examples I can think of, and this way an editor can check whether a list is appropriate before they start an AFD. Percy Snoodle (talk) 13:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- How can you have "highly notable" lists, if you have already stated that the list is comprised of fictional elements for which there is consensus that the elements themselves are of unproven notability"? This choice of wording brings into the open what I have said all along: exempting lists from GNC is the wrong way to deal with ficitonal elements. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- Um, it's not "highly notable lists", it's listing by "highly notable fictional aspects", and of course Jedi is the good example of this. SamBC(talk) 14:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- The article Jedi does not cite any reliable secondary sources. We can presume they are notable, but on what evidence can you claim it they are "highly" notable? I think you will find that most fictional elements have little in the way of evidence to show they are notable outside their primary source, but this is a side issue and I digress. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I'm comfortable with "highly notable" this time, especially with that definition. What about "clearly notable", and maybe a new footnote to explain this. What I mean by "clearly notable" is that it should comfortably meet notability requirements. Plus, as DGG points out, there are situations where the most natural, appropriate, useful division is in-universe and not notable; that then doesn't necessarily have to give weigth to that in-universe aspect, just a matter of arranging things most usefully for readers. SamBC(talk) 14:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- I'm afraid I disagree. Each step away from the parent topic reduces the notability; unless the parent is highly notable it will reduce it below the threshold at which the subtopic merits an article. Giving a second article to a subtopic that doesn't merit it is giving it undue weight. If describing all the characters in or episodes of a fictional work would give undue weight to a subtopic, then it's inappropriate to describe all those elements, and the best thing to do for the benefit of the reader is to describe only the more important elements. I'm still not 100% convinced that splits should be covered by FEAPOALT at all, and it certainly shouldn't allow unduly-weighted lists. The current wording is a compromise that describes current best practise; we shouldn't pull it away from that by giving style advice that really only applies when several lists are notable on their own terms. Percy Snoodle (talk) 14:30, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- Ah, here's the thing; presumbly, you'd say that a "list of Jedi" would be okay due to the notability of the concept of "Jedi"; in that case, the list is directly reasonable. Perhaps FEAPOALT should make clear that lists may be justified otherwise as well. SamBC(talk) 14:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- I'd be a bit uneasy saying that in so many words, what with WP:NOTINHERITED and all, but I'd definitely say that the reason that a list of Jedi was OK where a list of Mandalorians wasn't, was that Jedi were more notable than Mandalorians. I'd definitely support explaining that FEAPOALT isn't the only notability criterion for lists. Percy Snoodle (talk) 14:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- That's just fine, as long as it's clear that it's not the only one in the sense that there are alternative qualifications as well as/rather than additional restrictions. SamBC(talk) 15:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- ...all this is assuming that Jedi are "highly notable", of course. Looking at it, we'd probably have to merge the Jedi Census article in to get it up to that standard. Percy Snoodle (talk) 14:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- Jedi was just by way of example, although I suspect the reason that there's no decent evidence of notability on Jedi is largely because contributors couldn't imagine anyone challenging that notability. SamBC(talk) 15:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- You might be right, but the evidence is just not there. You may recall that the only Featured Article for a Star Wars character was Jabba the Hutt, which suprised me. I was also suprised to discover that amoungst the characters from Lord of the Rings, only the article for Gandalf actually cited reliable secondary sources. I take this to be evidence that it is actually very hard to find evidence that a fictional character has notability outside the primary source from which they are derived, in fact I would say it is very rare relative to the number of fictional characters that are listed on Wikipedia. I am not sure that this has been taken into account. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:09, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- Jedi was just by way of example, although I suspect the reason that there's no decent evidence of notability on Jedi is largely because contributors couldn't imagine anyone challenging that notability. SamBC(talk) 15:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- I'd be a bit uneasy saying that in so many words, what with WP:NOTINHERITED and all, but I'd definitely say that the reason that a list of Jedi was OK where a list of Mandalorians wasn't, was that Jedi were more notable than Mandalorians. I'd definitely support explaining that FEAPOALT isn't the only notability criterion for lists. Percy Snoodle (talk) 14:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- Ah, here's the thing; presumbly, you'd say that a "list of Jedi" would be okay due to the notability of the concept of "Jedi"; in that case, the list is directly reasonable. Perhaps FEAPOALT should make clear that lists may be justified otherwise as well. SamBC(talk) 14:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- I'm afraid I disagree. Each step away from the parent topic reduces the notability; unless the parent is highly notable it will reduce it below the threshold at which the subtopic merits an article. Giving a second article to a subtopic that doesn't merit it is giving it undue weight. If describing all the characters in or episodes of a fictional work would give undue weight to a subtopic, then it's inappropriate to describe all those elements, and the best thing to do for the benefit of the reader is to describe only the more important elements. I'm still not 100% convinced that splits should be covered by FEAPOALT at all, and it certainly shouldn't allow unduly-weighted lists. The current wording is a compromise that describes current best practise; we shouldn't pull it away from that by giving style advice that really only applies when several lists are notable on their own terms. Percy Snoodle (talk) 14:30, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- How can you have "highly notable" lists, if you have already stated that the list is comprised of fictional elements for which there is consensus that the elements themselves are of unproven notability"? This choice of wording brings into the open what I have said all along: exempting lists from GNC is the wrong way to deal with ficitonal elements. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- I also think they were to permissive; I've replaced "appropriate" with "highly notable" as a compromise: it includes the sensible examples I can think of, and this way an editor can check whether a list is appropriate before they start an AFD. Percy Snoodle (talk) 13:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- I think it's just a matter of wording choices here, coupled with the fact we want to see how this one sits and should expect that it may need fine tuning. "Editors are encouraged to keep such lists grouped by an out-of-universe affiliation (list examples), though grouping by a in-universe association is generally acceptable for notable fictional concepts (list good and bad examples)." Not too descriptive, but still guiding editors towards a level of quality (though not demanding of it either - other editors can help see better groupings if at all possible). --MASEM 13:26, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- You summarized my feelings on this matter very nicely. I don't have any solutions either but to keep the wording short and vague, although I actually considered the examples quite good. – sgeureka t•c 13:15, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- Do we want to wait for that, or do we want to try to get something written here now and put it forward, subject to amendment per any central discussion on plot coverage? If the latter, we need to find a reasonable way of phrasing this. I do feel that fictional-division lists should be discouraged, in favour of categorisation of the redirects, but not outright banned; Mandelorians shouldn't be a list, but Jedi makes sense as a list. It's hard to express how to say this, but I feel that was the intent of the old phrasing; it just came out too proscriptive. However, the DGG text is too permissive, and can easily be read as "make whichever list(s) you feel like", which is admirable in intent, but "do whatever you feel like" doesn't usually serve us well in practice (hence a number of our guidelines and policies). SamBC(talk) 12:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- Which almost brings this back full circle - what I've been trying to do is get this to a point where fictional elements aren't prevented from being discussed, but at the same time, keeping a sense of encyclopedic treatment to these. Exactly the amount where they lie is impossible to agree on right now. We should not be trying to force an exact limitation or allowance for treatment (being a guideline) but if we hit a point where some articles may exceed a bit too much, allowing for a bit of lenancy to this, is exactly the middle ground we should be aiming to it, and make sure that while it may not be the 100% solution both sides are looking for, hopeful people recognize that from this point we can go forward. I noticed User:Hiding has opened a centralized discussion on plot summaries, and this discussion will helpfully point if there's sufficient global consensus to decide ratios of content vs context and the like, or if for now it's still rather large margin. --MASEM 03:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- Well, thanks for highlighting where the real disagreement is. I think that what we should have, what is appropriate for an encyclopedia like this one, (in addition to coverage of publication & reception & criticism), is reasonably detailed coverage of in-universe material. What people come here is for this, at least as much as the publication details--to understand what a story is about, or what a game is: What the characters are, what people mean when the refer to them. What happened in an episode they missed. What the peculiar-sounding elements of background people talk about on the web are. This is the place I actually learned what some soaps are about--perhaps I wish I hadn't, but my distaste for the genre is at now an informed distaste. Informing the ignorant is the purpose of Wikipedia. NOT PLOT says that plot should only be part of the overage, and all of us agree about that. It does not say it shouldn't be the major part. If it did, it would not have consensus. I too admire Masems attempt to deal with the issue, but if it can be interpreted the way you interpret it, either he did not reach an acceptable compromise, or you totally misunderstand it. DGG (talk) 14:10, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
No evidence of notability doesn't mean the topic isn't notable
(outdent) WP:N also says (along the lines of) "just because an article doesn't give evidence of notability doesn't mean the topic isn't notable"; I think it specifically says "secondary sources" rather than evidence of notability. We're supposed to use common sense, none of our policies, let alone guidelines, are rules to slavishly follow, nor for that matter does anything say that "articles failing to meet notability guidelines must be deleted"; WP:DP just says they may be deleted, not must. Further, I've generally seen it accepted that pervasive concepts (like Jedi) are notable without evidence, but if you want evidence, there's plenty of academic studies on the topic (not on specific works). I've already found "Jedi and jungian forces" and "A New Hope: Jedi Knights, Cyborgs and Other Educational Fantasies". However, there has not been a general requirement for people to "prove" notability on demand for such subjects, and wikipedia will be in a (very) sorry state if there ever is. SamBC(talk) 17:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- If we're looking for other highly highly notable examples, it seems like the Harry Potter editors got their act together - almost all of their character lists seem to reasonably meet the notability guidelines. Hogwarts and Hogwarts staff is an example where the concept and the character list are separate, whereas Death Eater contains both the concept and the character list. There is also a Supporting Harry Potter characters list, and the most significant characters have their own article (e.g. Severus Snape), all of them with a reasonably claim and demonstration of notability. If we want to give good guidance on how this should be done, maybe we should stop using Star Wars and use Harry Potter instead. – sgeureka t•c 15:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
(outdent)While I think the SW stuff is better for examples in a conceptual sense, you are right that the HP articles seem to give better practical examples. SamBC(talk) 17:23, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- I am not so sure the Harry Potter articles do have much in the way of reliable sources that actually demonstrate notability of those characters per se. Most of the citations are at best classed as Questionable sources; they quote content from fan sites (jkrowling.com), or quote the author directly, but most are actually citing discussions or reviews of the books and films, rather than the characters themselves, who are dealt with indirectly, or who are mentioned just in passing. I have seen two similar articles that had been classed as Good Articles, Goldmoon and Riverwind, but despite over a dozen citations in each article (mainly from the books in which they feature or intereviews with the author), neither article provides a single ounce of evidence to suggest that either character has stand-alone notability. Again, I must warn you: there are few articles about fictional characters that cite reliable secondary sources about there subject matter. I think suggesting that there is a distinction between notable and highly notable fictional subtopics is misleading; notable subtopics are so rare as to be actually exceptional. --Gavin Collins (talk) 17:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- Intuitively speaking, I think there are a great number of notable fictional elements and topics, which it to say, topics worth of notice. Because you do not find them worthy of notice does not mean they are not. Nor does failing to meet the GNC. However, even with the use of the GNC as the (apparently) only acceptable standard to apply to fictional elements, everyone except you seems to feel that there are plenty of elements that are notable. SamBC(talk) 18:28, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- Perhaps I am not making myself clear: I am not saying these characters are not notable. What I am saying is that there are very few fictional characters (or any other type of fictional element) on Wikipedia with proven notability, because finding reliable sources about a specific element (as opposed to the book or film it is in) is difficult. There are exceptions we have discussed before (e.g. James Bond or Tintin), but these fictional elements seem to be very exceptional, and fall into a tiny minority of articles on fictional characters that cite more than 3 reliable secondary sources. My guess is that of all of the articles about individual fictional elements in Wikipedia, less than 10% of television episodes are of proven notablity outside of their series, of fictional characters with their own article I would guess that less than 5% are of proven notability, while for all other fictional elements (such as characters in lists) I would say that less than 1% of can show any evidence notability at all. --Gavin Collins (talk) 18:53, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- Then I think we need to review the burden of proof. When a character like The Terminator (arguably the most reused moniker in moviedom) can't prove their notibility then we need to revisit what we are expecting in the way of proof. Padillah (talk) 19:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- Gavin, that is what some of us have been saying for a long time. That is why 95% and 99% of those things need to be removed: no evidence of notability. No one needs to have a whole book written about them, but the character needs to at least be independently discussed. It's a shame that when it happens, it doesn't seem to be noticed. Take Pointy haired boss, for example: I know that I've read business management texts and articles that made explicit reference to him, which means that he has achieved independent notability. Not a sign of that in the article, though.Kww (talk) 19:43, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- That is exactly why they shouldn't necessarily be removed, certainly not post-haste. There's no need for every element in a list to demonstrate notability, and if there's a case where editors generally accept that something is notable, then that is sufficient. A demonstration or evidence may be an improvement, although it may sometimes be very awkward to add and still maintain decent prose. SamBC(talk) 20:13, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- C'mon, few are that supine Sam! Retention should be based on whether real-world notability can reasonably be expected to be asserted. A fancrufty article about the Terminator character (cited above as an example) may make no mention of its cultural impact, but that is a fault with the article. By contrast, with many fictional characters, it will be reasonable that such a requirement remain unfulfilled according to any reasonable consideration. Eusebeus (talk) 22:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- You've completely lost me, Sam ... a 95% failure rate at establishing notability is an argument for retention? Kww (talk) 03:41, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- The argument for retention is there is a difference between meeting the GNC standard of presumed notability and establishing notability. WP's article on a species of plant or animal may not contain citations of significant coverage in reliable sources, but that does not mean the topic is not notable. We MUST establish other criteria to determine what topics are notable and need their own article. It seems like many editors have an anti-fiction bias. We should have significant coverage of all notable fiction-related topics. To Eusebeus: I am not sure that there is not a determined corps of editors dedicated to the irradication of all articles on elements of fiction. If they get rid of Bulbasaur today, they will move to get rid of Superman tomorrow, and then our project will be incomplete and fall into disrepute. Ursasapien (talk) 06:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- There's a world of difference between Superman and Bulbasaur. Superman has coverage in hundreds of sources. Bulbasaur does not (in fact, so far as I've been able to determine, he got a single passing mention in Time magazine ... that's it). Pokemon is a notable phenomenon, and deserves coverage ... it is also mentioned in hundreds of sources. The existence of Bulbasaur is a detail, worthy of mention in the Pokemon article, but not much more.Kww (talk) 13:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- Well, if the Terminator article is crufty, that's a reason to fix it, not delete it. I have trouble AGFing if anyone suggests that the Terminator isn't notable, unless that person slavishly follows notability guidelines without applying a little common sense, in which case they may well be acting in good faith, but aren't working to the benefit of the project or in any way that makes sense. I mean, c'mon, the character (as well as the film and story) are a stock feature of university courses! It was one of a batch of movies (a worrying number with the Governor of California in) that my mother waxed lyrical about the postmodernism of when she was last doing an MA, and the academics talk specifically about the character. Would the article be better with information and discussion of that in? Sure it would. Is it not worth having without it? That's crazy talk. SamBC(talk) 09:38, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- You've completely lost me, Sam ... a 95% failure rate at establishing notability is an argument for retention? Kww (talk) 03:41, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- The Terminator (character) is of unproven notability, so too is the Terminator (character concept) and the Terminator (franchise). Without the notability guidelines, how do you distinguish which article is worth keeping? I can't take Sambc statement at face value: what is needed is evidence of notability for this and most other articles about fictional characters on Wikipedia. Its easy to establish the notability of the The Terminator (film), but not so the character himself. In my view, unless WP:FICT stays close to the principals of GNC, it is sure to flounder.--Gavin Collins (talk) 09:56, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- Well, for starters there's no requirement to prove notability in any case; otherwise how could the GNC talk about a presumption of notability? Secondly, notability is not defined by our guidelines, they simply give guidance in evaluating notability, and are generally acknowledged as incomplete. Of course, I can understand your attitude, given as you've refused to acknowledge (or deny) the value in including articles on any fictional concept, character, etc. SamBC(talk) 10:05, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- Gavin, the Eastern Lowland Gorilla is of "unproven notability", however we know the species deserves an article. The Terminator (character) and the Terminator (character concept) may not currently have the references, but we can make a reasonable assumption that the references exist. See Eusuebeus, there are those that are that supine. Ursasapien (talk) 10:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- Gavin, per the current wording of FICT, you are free to open a merge proposal of Terminator (character). This proposal will then either be shot down per local consensus (you can seek dispute resolution then), or someone will source/add a couple of paragraphs of real-world information, or the page gets merged. The first option will in the end lead to one of the latter two options. FICT would therefore work. – sgeureka t•c 10:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- I think the Terminator articles will eventually be merged into the topic which provides the most evidence of notability, but if none of them can, then my view is that a third option (merger with the over arching topic, the Terminator (film)) is more appropriate. I make no judgement to what the outcome of these articles will be, but providing them with an exemption from GNC in the section FEAPOALT is a bad idea, because it presumes notability for all of these articles is inherited from the over arching topic. However, for most fictional elements, the evidence shows that this presumption is based on wishful thinking, as the notability for the great majority of fictional elements is unproven.--Gavin Collins (talk) 11:55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- FEAPOALT doesn't currently give any such exemption that I can see, so there's no problem. SamBC(talk) 12:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- So by way of illustration, which one of the three Terminator articles passes WP:FICT and which ones fail?--Gavin Collins (talk) 12:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- The Terminator would pass WP:NOTFILM, so FICT is irrelevant. Franchise articles like Terminator (franchise) are becoming more and more in use on wikipedia, and they serve to discuss recurring elements. Terminator (character) argues its content with an in-universe perspective and therefore doesn't really pass FICT currently, but I have no doubt that it could pass FICT like Clover (creature) does. Terminator (character concept) should be merged into either the franchise article or the character article, which is an editorial decision. – sgeureka t•c 13:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- I think the Terminator articles will eventually be merged into the topic which provides the most evidence of notability, but if none of them can, then my view is that a third option (merger with the over arching topic, the Terminator (film)) is more appropriate. I make no judgement to what the outcome of these articles will be, but providing them with an exemption from GNC in the section FEAPOALT is a bad idea, because it presumes notability for all of these articles is inherited from the over arching topic. However, for most fictional elements, the evidence shows that this presumption is based on wishful thinking, as the notability for the great majority of fictional elements is unproven.--Gavin Collins (talk) 11:55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- I am not so sure the Harry Potter articles do have much in the way of reliable sources that actually demonstrate notability of those characters per se. Most of the citations are at best classed as Questionable sources; they quote content from fan sites (jkrowling.com), or quote the author directly, but most are actually citing discussions or reviews of the books and films, rather than the characters themselves, who are dealt with indirectly, or who are mentioned just in passing. I have seen two similar articles that had been classed as Good Articles, Goldmoon and Riverwind, but despite over a dozen citations in each article (mainly from the books in which they feature or intereviews with the author), neither article provides a single ounce of evidence to suggest that either character has stand-alone notability. Again, I must warn you: there are few articles about fictional characters that cite reliable secondary sources about there subject matter. I think suggesting that there is a distinction between notable and highly notable fictional subtopics is misleading; notable subtopics are so rare as to be actually exceptional. --Gavin Collins (talk) 17:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
- the above discussion illustrates my point--some of the arguments are clearly aimed at trying to find how few articles are necessary to cover a work of fiction. I do not think that view of how articles should be written has consensus at Wikipedia in any context, fiction or otherwise. We should write the number of articles that is necessary to adequately cover the topic, and how to interpret that is up to us. We make the guidelines. I point out that there is no agreement that the general notability guideline is controlling over the consensus on a particular topic--see the discussions there. The current wording, taken literally, can be seen to imply almost anything in terms of the relationship between general notability and the specific guidelines. DGG (talk) 14:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- See, just about the only thing most people here agree on seems to be that there are some topics (in fiction) which have more articles than would be optimal (or appropriate, if you choose to look at it like that). Quite a few such topics and articles, in fact. Trying to get a consensus guideline on what sort of coverage things should have stops us having so many discussions, or at least shortens them and gives them common terms of reference. SamBC(talk) 16:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- I don't want to go down that rabbit trail here because we need to baseline FICT first, but I would argue that there are certain fiction areas that while widely notable throughout (Star Trek, Star Wars, Simpsons, and others like that), there's an imbalance in the number of articles they really merit simply due to the fact that they don't have to worry about showing notability because it clearly exists throughout the works and fictional elements. However, just because a topic is notable does not mean it needs to have its own article, and this is where (more in WAF than here) just considering the best encyclopedic approach to such works needs to be considered. However, these are more exceptional cases to the general problem of fictional works, so I'm not as worried about it just yet. --MASEM 23:05, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- I am glad to concur with Masem in his view that the general importance of the fiction itself is a significant factor in the advisability and tenability of articles on the specific aspects. But I do think they're not just for exceptional cases, I think they're the basis of the distinctions that need to be made. DGG (talk) 00:17, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
- I could not disagree more with Masem. The statement that we "don't have to worry about showing notability because it clearly exists throughout the works and fictional elements" is just not in evidence - very few fictional elements can actually demonstrate any evidence of being notable at all. The exceptional cases are those that do demonstrate notability, as explained earlier: it is very unusual for an article on a fictional element to cite more than 3 reliable secondary sources. In my experience, well over 80-90% of all articles on fictional elements do not cite any real-world content from reliable seconary sources. If you think you can draft a version of WP:FICT that can accomodate all of these elements of unproven notability, it is just not going to work.--Gavin Collins (talk) 08:42, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
- I am not saying for all works, because I agree for the bulk of fiction, the elements cannot demonstrate notability. However, when we turn to specifically cases like Star Wars, Star Trek, and The Simpsons (and likely a few others), there are volumes written about this works that do make a number of fictional elements notable. But, this leads to two problems that I don't think we want to try to establish now in FICT (as it significant confuses the matter) but should be a consideration in WAF. First, there is a osmosis of notability that spreads from highly notable elements to non-notable elements. If, for example, every bridge member of Star Trek:TOS was shown to be sufficiently notable except for Chekov, Chekov would be bound to have an article anyway, justifying it on the fact that OTHERSTUFFEXISTS for Trek info. The other problem is that things that are just barely notable are given undue attention and while an article may be perfectly fine within policy and guideline for this, there is likely a better way to present the information in a more ordered fashion, merged with other notable elements of the same vein, to make the overall treatment much more encyclopedic. Again, these are problems isolated to a few specific fictions; the average piece of fiction would not have the amount of material behind it to make these concerns a problem. --MASEM 13:48, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
- Problem is, we can't have this guideline just ignore such cases, or it will be used as justification for a claim that such cases aren't notable at all. SamBC(talk) 13:57, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
- FICT would still technically apply to the Chevok article in the example above, so that still makes sense. As for the other case, that's more a writing and style approach than an issue with notability, since as I've suggested, notability's been shown, but it's just a better encyclopedia if the elements were approached in a different fashion. --MASEM 14:11, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
- Approaching fictional elements in a different fashion other than via GNC does not make sense in my view: either it is matter of opinion which can be disputed, or there is no test based on evidence than can be applied that distiguishes notable elements from ones that will never have proven notability.
Your arguments in favour of this approach can be countered: the "osmosis of notability" goes against WP:NOTINHERITED, and large quantities of primary sources have never been accepted as evidence of notability, although they might be evidence of popularity.
What this guideline is not getting to grips with, or is deliberately avoiding, is the need to distinguish between fictional elements of proven notability, and those of unproven notability. I think the reluctance to deal with elements with unproven notability is based on the fear that they will be deleted, but as this is just not the case; as was pointed out in a an earlier discussion, AfD protects articles from deletion if there is local consensus to do so. However, once it is recognised that an article on a popular character does not provide evidence of notability (even if the subject will do so in the future), then there is no shame in tagging for cleanup (to encource sources to be added), or merged into another article pending the day that sources will be found.
The fact that there may exist articles on notable fictional characters without reliable secondary sources is not a reason to water down WP:FICT, which in my view is the situation we are in now. Lack of evidence may only be a timing issue: if the character is truely notable, then sources will be provided at some point in the future. This is why I have been arguing that underlying premise behind the section FEAPOLT is fundamentally in error: simply by creating a second class of list of fictional elements will not postpone the day until those individual elements are evidenced as notable, merged to provide context with articles that are, or deleted if consensus wishes it. I think the idea behind the creation of FEAPOLT is that it would serve as some sort of refuge for notable characters of unproven notability. However it is no such refuge, as the process of improvement, merger or deletion will continue regardless of what FEAPOLT says. I think this section is really an attempt to deny or postpone the overarching primacy of GNC over fictional elements. In my view, this section should be removed, and then we can get down to dealing with what should be the real concern of WP:FICT: identifying notable elements from non-notable elements instead of avoiding the issue of distinguishing between the two.--Gavin Collins (talk) 16:07, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
- Either I'm not clear or there's a misunderstanding, but I completely onboard the fact we don't want "notability by osmosis", but it is something that presently exists for the super-notable works of fiction like Star Trek. FICT lays out what to do with singular topic articles that fail to demonstrate notability: they should be merged along with trimming or transwiking. However, as we've gone through already, there is support and consensus for limited cases of lists of non-notable elements that are the repository of such merges, which is necessary in the present balance of editors to not disenfranchise anyone. --MASEM 17:06, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
- I am not saying for all works, because I agree for the bulk of fiction, the elements cannot demonstrate notability. However, when we turn to specifically cases like Star Wars, Star Trek, and The Simpsons (and likely a few others), there are volumes written about this works that do make a number of fictional elements notable. But, this leads to two problems that I don't think we want to try to establish now in FICT (as it significant confuses the matter) but should be a consideration in WAF. First, there is a osmosis of notability that spreads from highly notable elements to non-notable elements. If, for example, every bridge member of Star Trek:TOS was shown to be sufficiently notable except for Chekov, Chekov would be bound to have an article anyway, justifying it on the fact that OTHERSTUFFEXISTS for Trek info. The other problem is that things that are just barely notable are given undue attention and while an article may be perfectly fine within policy and guideline for this, there is likely a better way to present the information in a more ordered fashion, merged with other notable elements of the same vein, to make the overall treatment much more encyclopedic. Again, these are problems isolated to a few specific fictions; the average piece of fiction would not have the amount of material behind it to make these concerns a problem. --MASEM 13:48, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
- I think Masem has the balancing point a little wrong, and I would look for a wording like "very important" or even ""very important" rather than exceptional. Myself, I think it should be anything significantly more important than the minimum for fictional notability, but I'm willing to compromise. The attitude of some of the people above that they are not willing to compromise can have only one result, which is the inability to agree on any guideline at all. How they think this will accomplish any rational end escapes me. I would think they'd want anything that provides a agreed basis for decreasing some of the coverage they object to. DGG (talk) 20:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
- Again I beg to differ: Notability is not transmitted by osmosis, either from "very important" or even "super-notable" works of fiction, not only because as it is impossible to define these "terms" in any objective manner, but also because this ideat goes against the Wikipedia wide consensus that notability is not inherited. There is no Wikipedia wide consensus for list of non-notable elements to be the norm, as they fail WP:NOT and they do not meet the requirements of GNC, which is widely respected. There might be local consensus for keeping the lists if there is local consensus, but WP:FICT can't cater for every instance of local consensus, not should it try to. By comparison, other guidelines such as WP:CORP don't cater for local consensus - spam is not accepted, even in lists; therefore, why should WP:FICT try to accomodate non-notable characters just because they are in lists? I don't see any evidence that other guidelines make allowance for non-notable topics and I take that to be evidence that WP:FICT is currently following the wrong path. You can pretend that non-notable elements in list receive notability by osmosis for super-notable works of fiction, but in reality they will either be sourced from secondary sources eventually, merged or deleted just like any other non-ficitonal topic on Wikipedia, because GNC takes primacy over all articles and lists without exception - that is the Wikipedia consensus as evidenced by WP:N. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to decrease coverage of fictional elements: I just want WP:FICT to clearly distinguish between a topic that can demonstrate notability and those that do not, so that editors will know that articles like Jedi#Dark Nest need to be improved and one day reach the same Featured Article standard as Jabba the Hutt. I don't think WP:FICT should say we are satified with lists of fictional elements that are non-notable, when the rest of Wikipedia is moving towards improving an article or list such that the notability of its subject matter is evidenced in the article itself.I propose that the section FEAPOLT be dropped so that WP:FICT can be brought in line with the rest of Wikipedia.--Gavin Collins (talk) 22:55, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
- I don't think you're convincing anyone Gavin or at least not me. Saying that SPAM doesn't cater to local consensus is way different. People agree on it locally and globally. Anything that isn't agreed upon locally and globally needs to be looked at, and suitable compromise needs to be found. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 23:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
- Are there any other points that don't convince you and can you say why? With regards to spam, you say that there is local and global consensus that WP:CORP should prohibit it. But what is the difference between spam and an unsourced plot summary or character essay? Is it not true that they are both lacking in reliable secondary sources? I think there are strong parallels between the content of articles of unproven notability of fictional topics and non-ficitional topics. For example, why should WP:FICT have special provisions for non-notable characters when there is no precedent for lists of non-notable companies or non-notable scientific equipment? Please expand on why you think SPAM and lists of fictional characters of unproven notabality are any different. --Gavin Collins (talk) 07:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
- "When there is no precedent for lists of non-notable companies or non-notable scientific equipment?"
- Au contraire, my dear Gavin, at least in practice. There are many non-notable lists throughout Wikipedia. This is what some editors see as anti-fiction bias. I pointed to an article before on a particular type of gorrila. This article had almost no citations of reliable secondary sources. I could point you to thousands of articles on lesser-known species that are in this same sad shape. Nevertheless, all species are automatically considered notable, flying in the face of the GNC. I seldom see cries of "original research" on their talk pages either. I think fiction is held to a different standard than virtually any other subject group on Wikipedia. Ursasapien (talk) 09:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
- I would say that the evidence is against you. WP:NOT effectively proscribe list of non-notable items, such as exhaustive lists of non-notable species, on the grounds that fail WP:DICDEF and effectively fall within the scope of other projects such as Wikispecies.If the Eastern Lowland Gorilla is of unproven notability, then I would suggest a cleanup tag will be added to the article until reliable secondary sources have been added; additional sources would not be difficult to find, as I believe this creature has been the subject of many important scientific studies. Therefore I don't understand why you would want to add an exemption from GNC to create a class of articles which could easily be sourced in this way at some point in the future. I think you will find that your assertion that "all species are automatically considered notable" is just not true: they are subject to WP:N as well. By contrast, I have noted rationalisation drives of non-notable articles, such as London streets, many of which were presumed to be notable before they were deleted. WP:UKRD has the objective to raise all articles in its remit to B-class quality, and as part of this drive has elimated many non-notable articles. In summary I would say that nowhere on Wikipedia (except WP:FICT) is there a class of article or list that is exempt from GNC, and I think Ursasapien's comments may be misleading, and underestimate the impetus to improve or eliminate article of unproven notability by various Wikiprojects. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
- I quote from WP:NOT: "Merged groups of small articles based on a core topic are certainly permitted" (emphasis in original), followed by a pointer to guidance on suitable topics for lists, which does not then require that list elements be individually notable. It does refer back to NOT, somewhat redundantly, but does not imply that NOT be taken to completely exclude any sort of list, merely that it inform the choice of when to make lists and to encourage list-makers to prepare for questions. SamBC(talk) 10:26, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
- I would say the evidence is against you, Gavin. I suppose we could expend vast amounts of time seeing who could compile a larger list of articles to prove their point, but I think that would be a waste. There are multiple examples of exceptions to the GNC, both in practice and in guidance. I think you are being bullheaded in your refusal to acknowledge this. I am all for improvement of the encyclopedia, I just have a different point of view regarding how to improve it and there is nothing misleading about that. Ursasapien (talk) 10:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
- We don't have to compile a large list of articles, but a review of AfD debates would suggest that lists such as List of masks in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask are being deleted on the basis that they fail WP:NOT. However, if this topic was compliant with GNC, it would almost certainly be kept. I think you will find I am not being bullhead, as I agree that there are many non-notable lists throughout Wikipedia. However where we disagree is that I consider the underlying premise behind the section FEAPOLT is fundamentally in error: simply by creating a class of lists to accomodate non-notable fictional elements will not postpone the day until those individual elements are sourced, merged to provide context with articles that are, or deleted if consensus wishes it. I don't think proving them with an exemption from GNC should be the purpose of WP:FICT, whose objective should be to distinguish between notable and non-notable elements. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:01, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
- I believe we are talking about two different things. The point I am attempting to make is that there are lots of exceptions to the GNC, both in practice (there are many non-notable lists throughout Wikipedia) and in guidance (WP:PROF and WP:MUSIC). I am not speaking to whether we should make such an exception in this guideline. All I am saying is it is not unheard of to make subject-specific exceptions. Ursasapien (talk) 11:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
- I gotta side with Ursasapien on this one. We're looking for what works for fiction, what makes things manageable and reasonable. -- Ned Scott 11:51, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
- There may be exceptions to GNC, such as notability criteria specific to certain media or people, but there are no exepemtions other than the one provide FEAPOLT for non-notable fictional elements. However, where as the notability criteria specific to certain media or people tend to support GNC (for instance, awards tend to suggest that a film has been widely covered by reliable secondary sources), the FEAPOLT expemtion fromGNC runs counter to WP:N. I don't think this section works becuase basically it is going the opposite way from the rest of Wikipedia. --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- I would say that the evidence is against you. WP:NOT effectively proscribe list of non-notable items, such as exhaustive lists of non-notable species, on the grounds that fail WP:DICDEF and effectively fall within the scope of other projects such as Wikispecies.If the Eastern Lowland Gorilla is of unproven notability, then I would suggest a cleanup tag will be added to the article until reliable secondary sources have been added; additional sources would not be difficult to find, as I believe this creature has been the subject of many important scientific studies. Therefore I don't understand why you would want to add an exemption from GNC to create a class of articles which could easily be sourced in this way at some point in the future. I think you will find that your assertion that "all species are automatically considered notable" is just not true: they are subject to WP:N as well. By contrast, I have noted rationalisation drives of non-notable articles, such as London streets, many of which were presumed to be notable before they were deleted. WP:UKRD has the objective to raise all articles in its remit to B-class quality, and as part of this drive has elimated many non-notable articles. In summary I would say that nowhere on Wikipedia (except WP:FICT) is there a class of article or list that is exempt from GNC, and I think Ursasapien's comments may be misleading, and underestimate the impetus to improve or eliminate article of unproven notability by various Wikiprojects. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
- See, just about the only thing most people here agree on seems to be that there are some topics (in fiction) which have more articles than would be optimal (or appropriate, if you choose to look at it like that). Quite a few such topics and articles, in fact. Trying to get a consensus guideline on what sort of coverage things should have stops us having so many discussions, or at least shortens them and gives them common terms of reference. SamBC(talk) 16:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Skype discussion for WP:FICT
I've proposed having a Skype discussion regarding WP:FICT and related issues at Wikipedia talk:NotTheWikipediaWeekly#WP:FICT. -- Ned Scott 06:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
- not yet held, as of May 31. DGG (talk) 03:04, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Content dispute at Glitch City
Moved to the Fiction Noticeboard. Please comment there. Ursasapien (talk) 09:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Next steps
Talk on here has been rather quiet, as well as both at WT:NOT and Wikipedia:Plot summaries so the question to be asked is, are we at a point where what FICT is now is comfortable and agreeable to most? Or are there other discussions that we should wait to have completed before proceeding with the next steps?
My sense is that all that has been said now has been said. There is the issue of awards, but I'm thinking that that might be good to tackle better once we have established a firm global consensus foundation as otherwise we could get bogged down in details. And I expect that others will provide more possible input once we seek further global input.
I want to make sure there are no immediate issues left. I know this isn't the perfect solution for everyone (eg we have Gavin's complaints for one, but there's more than just him, dunno if Nydas is still around as well), but I think that locally we have a reasonable consensus that meets what we expect FICT to provide without imbalancing it one way or another. All that's left to do is to toss it to the masses and see how badly it comes back to us to fix.
(Mind you, this is a good time to wordsmith it, but I don't expect we're adding any major points that need to be added). --MASEM 21:44, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, let's seek global input now. Most people here have said what they've had to say, and the current draft is an acceptable compromise for most; that's the best we can do for now. – sgeureka t•c 07:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- Whas the issue of NOT contradicticing FICT figured out? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 07:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- NOT didn't contradict FICT. Consensus was very strong to keep NOT#PLOT in some form, and the following lack of consensus about the wording kept it like it is, so there were no changes other than the creation of WP:Plot summaries, which works fine together with FICT. – sgeureka t•c 08:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- No, consensus was not "very strong to keep NOT#PLOT in some form." And WP:Plot summaries should be MFD'd soon anyways. --Pixelface (talk) 21:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- I will take the time to note as I did in WP:NOT that I think there is a separation (a subtle one but one nevertheless) between PLOT and FICT, inso much as that FICT helps to support PLOT, but it is more specific as a subset of NOTE. Even if PLOT was removed, NOTE still exists and we need to work within that. --MASEM 22:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- We don't need to work within WP:NOTE. For example, musicians are evaluated with WP:MUSIC, not WP:NOTE. If a musician "has released two or more albums on a major label or one of the more important indie labels", the musician is considered notable. WP:NOTE doesn't factor into it. --Pixelface (talk) 00:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Those extra provisions exists because by achieving them, there's strong likelihood of secondary sources to exist for the album (or any other case where that occurs), thus it makes sense to allow them to be included and not challenge their notability, though ultimately the articles need to be sourced correctly. People have tried to suggest similar terms for fictional elements but there are none that readily exist where secondary sourcing is highly likely. --MASEM 00:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oh really? Where are you getting that from? So you're saying the Thamserku article needs to "ultimately" contain evidence of notability? What do you mean by "ultimately"? By the time everyone on this talk page is dead? By our deadline? --Pixelface (talk) 03:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Those extra provisions exists because by achieving them, there's strong likelihood of secondary sources to exist for the album (or any other case where that occurs), thus it makes sense to allow them to be included and not challenge their notability, though ultimately the articles need to be sourced correctly. People have tried to suggest similar terms for fictional elements but there are none that readily exist where secondary sourcing is highly likely. --MASEM 00:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- We don't need to work within WP:NOTE. For example, musicians are evaluated with WP:MUSIC, not WP:NOTE. If a musician "has released two or more albums on a major label or one of the more important indie labels", the musician is considered notable. WP:NOTE doesn't factor into it. --Pixelface (talk) 00:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- I'm curious Masem, how many more months will it take until we can slap {{rejected}} on this page? --Pixelface (talk) 21:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- If we take it to RFC as proposed and it is completely rejected by the community, then there's reason to do that. But even if the RFC shows disagreements pending changes, it can be fixed. We have been instructed to work cooperatively to find some way to make this policies and guidelines work to satisfy most editors, and it is clear from the previous RFC here that some sort of FICT is needed. --MASEM 22:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- Pixelface, it honestly doesn't seem like you've been trying, at all, to help us with this guideline. While part of your viewpoint is shared by others, your total rejection of these pages and lack of cooperation is not. -- Ned Scott 22:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- Ned, the {{rejected}} template says "This proposal has failed to attain consensus within the Wikipedia community. A failed proposal is one for which a consensus to accept is not present after a reasonable amount of time, and seems unlikely to form, regardless of continuing discussion." I've been periodically checking this talk page for a while now and in my opinion it appears to be a disaster. So how much longer do we go give this proposal time to form consensus? Because to me, it seems consensus is unlikely to form, and that's even without my participation. I'm willing to participate, but I refuse to accept that a guideline dictating whether fictional topics are "worthy of notice" is anything other than a horrible idea — especially considering it's based in part on WP:NOT#PLOT (which I'm sure you already know my opinion on). --Pixelface (talk) 00:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- How much longer? The RFC to decide whether this is acceptable or not (which is currently in favor of this, and thus certainly isn't looking like a rejected more than disputed, if that at all) will end on July 3. --MASEM 00:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- And you think 7 million editors will have commented by then? Or did you mean something else when you said "global consensus"? How about you apply WP:FICT as it is currently written to several articles, and see if FICT actually *has* consensus? You can start with the articles Luke Skywalker, Lenny Leonard, Baldrick, Cosette, and Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky. Good luck. --Pixelface (talk) 03:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- How much longer? The RFC to decide whether this is acceptable or not (which is currently in favor of this, and thus certainly isn't looking like a rejected more than disputed, if that at all) will end on July 3. --MASEM 00:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Ned, the {{rejected}} template says "This proposal has failed to attain consensus within the Wikipedia community. A failed proposal is one for which a consensus to accept is not present after a reasonable amount of time, and seems unlikely to form, regardless of continuing discussion." I've been periodically checking this talk page for a while now and in my opinion it appears to be a disaster. So how much longer do we go give this proposal time to form consensus? Because to me, it seems consensus is unlikely to form, and that's even without my participation. I'm willing to participate, but I refuse to accept that a guideline dictating whether fictional topics are "worthy of notice" is anything other than a horrible idea — especially considering it's based in part on WP:NOT#PLOT (which I'm sure you already know my opinion on). --Pixelface (talk) 00:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- What bothers me is the increasing number of people who are acting like (or actively claiming) that NOTE is a corollary of V; this was certainly not the original intent. Hence NOTE excluding sources that are perfectly acceptable in terms of V (like directories), and V stating the secondary and third-party sources are preferred (strongly preferred), but not necessarily required (at least that's what it said last I checked). And hence there being subject-specific guidelines that give criteria indepedent of the GNG. Verifiability is "what can we say", while notability is "is it worth saying anything, whether we can source it or not". There's plenty of independently verifiable information about every registered company in the UK, certainly, but that doesn't make them notable. An artist could have released two major articles, yet there be little writable about them within V; this justifies the article being a stub because of V, not deleted because of N. However, last time I tried to say this, very reputable editors outright contradicted me, without actually addressing my points of logic and history. I rather think it's getting to the point where I can't be bothered with policy anymore, give the fact we seem to have a collective memory like a mayfly, and in the world of fiction guidelines we have two extremes (statistically speaking) who have a "my way or the highway" attitude. SamBC(talk) 10:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Duplication of guidance on article deletion
I have reverted Masem's additional footnote[1] on the subject of deletion, as this issue is already discussed at length in the body of the proposed guideline under the section Dealing with non-notable fictional topics. If Masem or anyone else has a proposal to reword this section (particularly to make it simpler or shorter), I am open to suggestions.--Gavin Collins (talk) 12:11, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- If we are asserting that a non-notable article can be tagged or taken to AFD, it is very important that AFD needs to be the last resort after other options. I know the guidelines says more down there, but in this location, it is written to make AFD seem like a first option, which it never should be. Something needs to be added there, maybe ("See other section for other options") because while it is true AFD is an appropriate solution, it comes off too strong as a one-or-the-other option. --MASEM 13:27, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- Indeed; we should either not mention AFD (that is, after all, also duplication of other guidelines and policy) or mention that there are alternatives. SamBC(talk) 13:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- If a topic provides no evidence of notability, it can be merged or deleted at any time, and for many AfD candidates, that is exactly what happens, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that as it is down to the article contributor to cite reliable secondary sources in the first place. However, if you want to make an amendment to Dealing with non-notable fictional topics, do so by all means, but do be brief as this section is already to long and does not provide any guidance on the notability of fictional topics per se; in my view it should be much shorter.--Gavin Collins (talk) 14:06, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- Indeed; we should either not mention AFD (that is, after all, also duplication of other guidelines and policy) or mention that there are alternatives. SamBC(talk) 13:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- Ok, here's what I guess I'm struggling with. The line where I added the footnote was: Editors may request evidence of the notability of any article, including those on fictional elements, either through the addition of a {{notability}} template or through listing for deletion at articles for deletion, where consensus will determine any notability. Taking an article to AFD to request notability is a very very bitey approach; AFD is the last step for content resolution, and should not be initiated early in the process. Now, this can be changed in two ways; instead of "request", one could say "challenge the evidence...", when then AFD is appropriate, but this language is very bitey and negative. The other way is to keep it as request, remove the statement about AFD but still mention the tagging, and then as a new phrase "should an editor then believe the evidence of notability to be insufficient, they may then explore other options as listed below". --MASEM 15:27, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- I disagree that AfD determines notability or non-notability at all - there are many other reasons why an article might be deleted. There are also other procedures to reduce non-notable material (e.g. WP:PM, redirection)) but we do not need to cover them all here. To be honest we don't need to refer to AfD anywhere in this guideline at all, simply because an article can be recreated at any time, for example where good sources have been found subsequently. The phrasing needs to say:
- ''Editors may request evidence of the notability of any article, including those on fictional elements, either through in discussion on the article talk page or by the addition of a {{notability}} template on the article itself.
- I have taken the liberty of moving this sentence into the section Dealing with non-notable fictional topics, which is the subject this sentence is addressing. I hope you will find this change agreeable.--Gavin Collins (talk) 17:31, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
New MOS for TV
Just an announcement. The television community currently has an MOS guideline under proposal, and would appreciate all comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Style guidelines#MOS proposal in order to have the best possible guide for television related articles. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 12:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
RfC: Proposing WP:FICT for global acceptance
Notability (fiction) has been undergoing a year+ long revision, and at this point it appears accepted by the local editors that have worked on it. We now seek global consensus to move the guideline from "proposed" to "accepted", though any additional input at this time for other improvements or changes are recommended. Much of this is based on aligning the guideline with existing policies and established practices as well as from commentary from recent Arbitration Committee cases for television episodes and characters. --MASEM 22:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
(This is not a vote, but a discussion towards consensus, however, for easy of reading what arguments may need to be fixed, please your comment in the appropriate sections below)
- I don't know where to put this, so feel free to move it wherever the best place for this comment is. For certain fictional universes like TV shows, putting its characters into lists is a compromise. For fictional universes like Marvel Comics, it's worse than deletion. A TV show has a limited number of characters, and there's a coherence to listing them together. They're all related. For something like comics, the proposed guideline will lead to List of Marvel Comics characters A-Ad and a slew of other similar articles. If that's the best compromise we can acheive, then I would rather have this page remain disputed and the articles deleted per NOTE until such a time as NOTE can be suitably amended. Edits have shown that we can create articles on these types of subjects in a couple of years, so if we had to redo all of them it isn't that big a deal. The will is there. It's a bit POINTY, but lets force the issue if that's the best thing we can do. Also, this guideline does not have consensus, and opposing viewpoints don't cancel each other out, they just show a lack of consensus. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 08:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Support
- There have been several versions of WP:FICT that I have been mostly fine with. The general advice leads to better articles, and there's very little I disagree with myself when I read it. I will be the first to admit that the guideline is not perfect, and won't solve all our problems, but WP:FICT was never meant to be an exact rule book. Some editors may continue to misinterpret things, and some of our advice will be vague since there's less agreement on more specific details, but I think we also need to understand that this specific page, no matter how much you tweak it, won't be able to fix every problem. That doesn't mean we should stop improving this guideline, as well as finding other ways to clarify the details and find consensus on those more specific matters. -- Ned Scott 22:58, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- Agree with Ned, who put it as well as I could. This is not perfect, but it's a solid beginning and an effective compromise for the promotion of encyclopedic content. Eusebeus (talk) 23:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- What can I say that Masem and Ned haven't said already? I have watched the developments of FICT since October, and and it comes down to this being as good as it can (currently) get with the wide spectrum of opinions. Straying too far into either inclusionist or deletionist territory will not satisfy the "other" party, so I can live with the compromises in FICT (notability of lists, awards) and leave that for later when we hopefully have more of an idea what wikipedia wants to be. – sgeureka t•c 23:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- Grudgingly support. I would be happier if it went further, and think that it really needs to emphasise that an article is supposed to rely on third-party sources. Still, if we want to achieve some kind of compromise, this seems like a decent, middle-of-the-road approach.Kww (talk) 13:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Support as per this is the best its prolly going to ever get. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 13:33, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Given how hard it's been to get it to where it is, I have to say I think this is going to be the best it's going to get for now, and it's better than not having it. SamBC(talk) 13:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Pragmatic support, because it codifies the existing status quo on what we do with these topics. Now if we work on implementing this, let's see if we can go further, in the direction of Gavin Collins' comments below. I support his stance, but I do not think are relevant to this guideline as-is, but would be better suited for a general discussion on the topic. Moreover, this guideline will finally enable some pragmatic work in this area. Sure, Gavin Collins' analysis is how it's supposed to be, but as long as we have (insert politically correct word here that encompasses both "fanboy" and "inclusionist") it's not going to be practical at all. User:Krator (t c) 15:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Support and dismayed that this RfC is forcing what appears to be a rehash of previously raised arguments. Both arguments are valid but entirely backed by opinion, not concensus. From what I see, there is no strongly supported concensus, merely precedents. I think the fears about allowed non-notable articles overestimate the instances where the clause is appropriate. I'll try and review the last month or two of comments, update the FAQ I wrote, and put it up as a subpage in hopes of alleviating this cyclic argument pattern. -Verdatum (talk) 17:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Do realize that the arguments about fictional topics have been ridiculously long and convoluted. Major discussions are still going on at about a half dozen talk pages. Lots of editors might have been too intimidated to enter previous discussions, so you'll need to be patient with them if they seem to be "rehashing previously raised arguments". Zagalejo^^^ 00:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Support - valid compromise. It defines the current status quo in which character lists and episode lists are widely considered acceptable, and tertiary lists or articles on specific elements prove their notability or be part of the larger list (a list on a specific group of characters, an individual episode, a specific character in a series for instance). And I see the problem with the poor state of some of these lists as a fault of bad writing and not enforcing WP:WAF enough than anything with this guideline. As Characters of Kingdom Hearts, Characters of Final Fantasy VIII, etc. have shown, they can be presented in a good, encyclopedic fashion. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 04:44, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Support— This seems to be an acceptable compromise, and as it seems to summarise current practice. — G.A.S 05:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- An acceptable compromise. I'm willing to put aside minor issues (I am sometimes in agreement with some of the opposers) for the sake of an overall good show. Can we move on now? giggy (:O) 11:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think this is a good compromise, it won't make both sides happy but since there's no way to simultaneously delete and keep the same articles it's unlikely that both sides will ever be happy. Stardust8212 13:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Support, but re-organize This codifies the existing guidelines and consensus on notability. Remember, we should avoid more than a concise summary, as per WP:PLOT. We should also avoid undue weight on topics that are not important as per WP:NNC and WP:UNDUE. We should also avoid creating non-notable split articles as per WP:AVOIDSPLIT, and comply with the General Notability Guideline that we require multiple independent reliable sources to show notability. That's how I read this guideline, along with the consensus that lists of characters and episodes can be notable. However, I think this guideline should be re-organized to mimic the organization of WP:N: a section on notability for articles, and a section about notability for actual content within each article. The guideline already includes this information, but it's all mashed together. Randomran (talk) 21:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Support - This whole idea of "give the readers what they want" is ridiculous. First, there are millions of readers so lets stop trying to assume what their opinion is. If 20 people keep creating individual articles for their favorite shows, does that mean that all the millions of readers want that? No, so stop saying they do. Unless you do a poll and find significant evidence to suggest that, then stop using it in an argument. Second, if you get rid of FICT for that reason you might as well get rid of every single notability guideline, because frankly I want my own personal article and WP:BIO is holding me back. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, first and foremost, no matter how many fans and readers want it to be their personal episode, comic, film, etc guide. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 11:19, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- We should give the readers what they want as readers become contributors and donors. We are trying to be a comprehensive reference guide, not some limited duplicate of Britannica. There's no reason Wikipedia can't be a sound general encyclopedia and specialized encyclopedic of fiction at the same time. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 17:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- We should be careful with including excessive copyrighted material to avoid expensive lawsuits. We are trying to be a high-quality encyclopedia, not a mirror of google. - Both this and your view are totally valid and totally at opposite ends of the spectrum. There's no reason Wikipedia can't be a sound general encyclopedia and specialized encyclopedic of fiction at the same time, yes, but only as long as the other two or three points are observed. That's why compromise is the solution, not extremes. – sgeureka t•c 17:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with you regarding copyrighted material, but what I find with many of the fiction AfDs is just a lack of effort at finding sources or regarding Google as the end all of sources. MANY topics actually are covered in published works that don't have online archives or if they do, they're not public. I just do not see what we gain by limiting our coverage of certain topics just because a fraction of editors don't like that stuff. By contrast, when we allow it, we gain editors, readers, and donors, we become a more comprehensive and complete reference tool and the time spent trying to delete these artices can instead be used referencing and developing these and other articles. I see all sorts of gains from allowing the articles and improving them and using our time to do so, but I see time lost or misplaced when focusing on trying to delete them. I whole heartedly agree that we must delete hoaxes and that we should not allow libel or copyright violations, but too much is called original research just because it's based on primary sources. Well, plenty of almanac and published encyclopedic information is based on primary sources. If it's not a thesis driven essay, but a list, like say a list of Academy Award winners, it's hardly "original research" and obviously the primary source from the Academy of its winners is reliable. So to would a game guide or game magazine list of villains be a reliable source for that information as well and these things do work a spinout articles and yes, while some may say they're weak arguments individually that they are in fact useful, interesting, and harmless, taken together they stronger than to delete them just because some see the opposite. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 18:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- We should be careful with including excessive copyrighted material to avoid expensive lawsuits. We are trying to be a high-quality encyclopedia, not a mirror of google. - Both this and your view are totally valid and totally at opposite ends of the spectrum. There's no reason Wikipedia can't be a sound general encyclopedia and specialized encyclopedic of fiction at the same time, yes, but only as long as the other two or three points are observed. That's why compromise is the solution, not extremes. – sgeureka t•c 17:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Why don't we have a poll? You don't know what the readers want either. And remember that there's a big difference between an article about yourself and an article on a television episode viewed by millions. Zagalejo^^^ 18:22, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I beg to differ. My work is viewed by millions every day. I've written several fiction related articles by myself, and they're viewed by countless readers all the time. So, in essence, that would make me notable. Then again, you're claiming that something viewed by millions is notable, when that cannot always be the case. There are numerous television shows that are viewed by millions and yet canceled quite quickly afterward, so obviously no one cared to watch it enough to keep it on the air. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 20:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- If so, then we should find a way to notify the editors who have created and worked on various fiction related articles to get a sense of how they really think. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 18:27, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- See my above statement. I've written several by myself, and I'm for notability on fiction that restricts simple plot pages from being created. When I say I've written them, I'm referring to the ones that are featured (i.e. been peer reviewed by the community). BIGNOLE (Contact me) 20:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- We are not a democracy. We judge arguments and reasoning, not masses of users that want an article on their favorite comic book character. You could have a couple thousand fanboys and it doesn't matter. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 20:19, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Calling people "fanboys" is the argument you basically have to resort to when you're trying to remove content on fiction and you're discussing the number of people with various viewpoints. Obviously the people who want to remove fiction are vastly outnumbered, so all your left with is saying that the opinions of people who don't agree don't count. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 20:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Hardly. There is a clear disparity between a fanboy (i.e. "OMG, I love this character, article now please) and one who is actually presenting a legitimate point about why notability is bad. WP:NOT#DEMOCRACY is policy for a reason - again, if we ran by numbers, I would be writing an article on myself, which is obviously not appropriate for an encyclopedia, or any of the reasons illustrated below in practically the same argument. Trying to dismiss notability itself is a red herring at this point. If you disagree with notability in general, go to WT:N. Existing consensus doesn't change because you claim it does. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 21:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Calling people "fanboys" is the argument you basically have to resort to when you're trying to remove content on fiction and you're discussing the number of people with various viewpoints. Obviously the people who want to remove fiction are vastly outnumbered, so all your left with is saying that the opinions of people who don't agree don't count. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 20:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- We are not a democracy. We judge arguments and reasoning, not masses of users that want an article on their favorite comic book character. You could have a couple thousand fanboys and it doesn't matter. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 20:19, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I beg to differ. My work is viewed by millions every day. I've written several fiction related articles by myself, and they're viewed by countless readers all the time. So, in essence, that would make me notable. Then again, you're claiming that something viewed by millions is notable, when that cannot always be the case. There are numerous television shows that are viewed by millions and yet canceled quite quickly afterward, so obviously no one cared to watch it enough to keep it on the air. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 20:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- We should give the readers what they want as readers become contributors and donors. We are trying to be a comprehensive reference guide, not some limited duplicate of Britannica. There's no reason Wikipedia can't be a sound general encyclopedia and specialized encyclopedic of fiction at the same time. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 17:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Support This is a good compromise -- encouraging the addition of quality material, while avoiding the "article for every Pokemon" syndrome.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Support - It's good enough at this point. Hopefully, it'll be up and running sometime before 2015, though. I do find it funny that the opposers think that their whole "everything it notable" ideal still has any chance in hell. That has never been a viable at all with the existence of other policies and guidelines. This should be about trying to reach a mid-ground where a good chunk of people will be happy, and not about trying to force extreme personal opinions that go against the very point of this site. TTN (talk) 00:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Extreme personal opinions that go against the point of this site like a minority of editors telling the majority of the community what isn't notable? The whole "everything is notable" allegation is itself faulty too when myself and many others who oppose below have both argued and even nominated to delete more articles than I have seen some argue to keep. Please remember to assume good faith here and not make implied insults against your fellow editors. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 04:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Please go poll the actual majority of the site before claiming that we're somehow the minority. Despite how large the area of fiction appears to be on this site, it it actually fairly small compared to the big picture. The majority that you speak of is also a fairly small chunk compared to the actual number of users on this site as well. Go poll some people working with Ancient Egypt, military related topics, and celestial bodies just to start off. Come back if you find that a majority believe that all fictional topics, major and minor, deserve the same amount of coverage. TTN (talk) 13:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- It would be interesting to see what would happen if we polled the site. Because the reality is that many of the same handful of accounts that are anti-fiction in these sorts of discussions here and in AfDs seem a minority considering the combination of those arguing in support of fiction articles, plus the thousands who created and edited fiction articles, and the maybe millions who come to this site looking for those types of articles. Those working on other topics are probably just ambivalent and more interested in focusing on improving the areas they do care about. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 17:48, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- May I just say that it is laughable that you consider the supporters here to be against fiction. Most of the people here, myself included, care much more about fiction than you ever will. We want to see it actually flourish rather than act as a garbage dump. You and and a fairly good chunk of the opposers could care less about fiction; you just want to impose you own "notability is bad" standards on nearly everything. My main point was that if you actually were to ask the people that do not regularly edit fiction related articles "Do you believe that all fictional topics, major and minor, warrant the same amount of coverage?" that the answer would be "no" in most cases. That really cannot be done in any capacity though, but it stands that the argument "But all the people that create and edit these articles equal a consensus" is just as worthless. TTN (talk) 19:11, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I dig comics, but I'm primarily an editor of articles about classical history, biography and mythology, and yes, if we really want to get screamingly anecdotal, I believe there's no practical reason fictional characters and elements deserve articles less than, say, Agroecius, bishop of Sens (who might have lots of pretty refs but is 1000 times more obscure than even very obscure comics characters). Also, I get that this subject can call forth pretty strong emotion (my teeth are gnashing pretty intensely as well), as I think it cuts to the heart of what a lot of people think Wikipedia is, but can we try to be a little less bitey with our disagreements? No one, least of all me, is advocating an indiscriminate "garbage dump". I want Wikipedia to have standards. Reasonable ones. And the current state of WP:FICT applies the scythe to pretty much everything from Rabbit Angstrom on down to Omega Red, which seems to me unreasonable, and insufficient to our purposes. Ford MF (talk) 19:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I'll agree with TTN on the assertion that any belief that the supporters here are against fiction is ludicrous. And to Ford MF, the problem there is that there's a crapload of more academic material on classical history, biographies, and mythology than there will ever be on our favorite comic book characters simply because stuff that's been around for a couple centuries tends to gather a lot of coverage and the longer you get, the more the coverage. This is not to demean the inclusion of fiction, but point out practical reality. And again, FICT doesn't undercut the current status quo in regards to comic book characters that happens in practically every AfD - they are kept because long-running characters are implied to be notable since they've been around long enough and featured prominently enough to acquire adequate coverage, which certainly Omega Red does. FICT doesn't change this. All FICT ends up doing is taking the material that does not survive the process and instead of outright deleting it, places it into a list or another applicable merge target. Per what I said below, a more thorough application of WAF solves a great deal of the problems that we have in regards to fiction by presenting the material better rather than the completely in-universe approach that Wookiepedia or similar would use. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 05:33, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I dig comics, but I'm primarily an editor of articles about classical history, biography and mythology, and yes, if we really want to get screamingly anecdotal, I believe there's no practical reason fictional characters and elements deserve articles less than, say, Agroecius, bishop of Sens (who might have lots of pretty refs but is 1000 times more obscure than even very obscure comics characters). Also, I get that this subject can call forth pretty strong emotion (my teeth are gnashing pretty intensely as well), as I think it cuts to the heart of what a lot of people think Wikipedia is, but can we try to be a little less bitey with our disagreements? No one, least of all me, is advocating an indiscriminate "garbage dump". I want Wikipedia to have standards. Reasonable ones. And the current state of WP:FICT applies the scythe to pretty much everything from Rabbit Angstrom on down to Omega Red, which seems to me unreasonable, and insufficient to our purposes. Ford MF (talk) 19:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- May I just say that it is laughable that you consider the supporters here to be against fiction. Most of the people here, myself included, care much more about fiction than you ever will. We want to see it actually flourish rather than act as a garbage dump. You and and a fairly good chunk of the opposers could care less about fiction; you just want to impose you own "notability is bad" standards on nearly everything. My main point was that if you actually were to ask the people that do not regularly edit fiction related articles "Do you believe that all fictional topics, major and minor, warrant the same amount of coverage?" that the answer would be "no" in most cases. That really cannot be done in any capacity though, but it stands that the argument "But all the people that create and edit these articles equal a consensus" is just as worthless. TTN (talk) 19:11, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Do I have to remind everyone here that the WP:Content disclaimer says "Wikipedia's coverage of subjects is patchy, based on the whims of its volunteer contributors (in particular, subjects of interest to young technical people are likely, but not certain, to receive heavier coverage than other subjects). Readers should not judge the importance of topics based on their coverage in Wikipedia, nor assume that a topic is important merely because it is the subject of a Wikipedia article."? And speaking of ancient Egypt, military related topics, and celestial bodies — do Egyptian gods, Private Snafu, and articles in Category:Roman gods like Neptune (mythology) fall under FICT? --Pixelface (talk) 00:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- What does that have to do with this? I didn't state that fiction was more or less important than any of those. I stated that, while fiction seems to be large from this scope, it is still only makes up a small chunk of this site. Anyways, this guideline only covers things that are explicitly created as fiction, such as the cartoon character. Gods are obviously different, so they fall under other relevant projects. Why do you keep bringing that up anyways? If it's supposed to be some sort of argument, it's not doing much for you. TTN (talk) 01:21, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- You said "Go poll some people working with Ancient Egypt, military related topics, and celestial bodies just to start off. Come back if you find that a majority believe that all fictional topics, major and minor, deserve the same amount of coverage." So I pointed you to the content disclaimer which says just because a topic has an article, that doesn't mean it deserves the same amount of coverage on Wikipedia as something else — it doesn't mean it's as important or more important than any other topic. How many articles on Wikipedia do you think are about topics related to fiction? And asking about gods is just a question, it's not an argument. As someone currently under editing restrictions, you're sure one to talk about forcing extreme opinions on the site. And I don't think "broad statements" like "I do find it funny that the opposers think that their whole "everything it notable" ideal still has any chance in hell." are doing much for you, personally. --Pixelface (talk) 02:01, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- That argument was mainly targeted towards Grand, who has an inclusionist ideal ten times more extreme than your own. It wasn't really meant to apply to anyone else. The reason for my restrictions were due to some "gritty" editing tactics and some unnecessary bias towards one side, not because of any editing views. My views are hardly extreme, considering what I'm actually working with is fairly stable. You guys (just not to confuse anyone, this is towards one group of opposers, not all of them), on the other hand, are trying to uproot various core policies and guidelines, so that they support your views. TTN (talk) 02:36, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- You said "Go poll some people working with Ancient Egypt, military related topics, and celestial bodies just to start off. Come back if you find that a majority believe that all fictional topics, major and minor, deserve the same amount of coverage." So I pointed you to the content disclaimer which says just because a topic has an article, that doesn't mean it deserves the same amount of coverage on Wikipedia as something else — it doesn't mean it's as important or more important than any other topic. How many articles on Wikipedia do you think are about topics related to fiction? And asking about gods is just a question, it's not an argument. As someone currently under editing restrictions, you're sure one to talk about forcing extreme opinions on the site. And I don't think "broad statements" like "I do find it funny that the opposers think that their whole "everything it notable" ideal still has any chance in hell." are doing much for you, personally. --Pixelface (talk) 02:01, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- What does that have to do with this? I didn't state that fiction was more or less important than any of those. I stated that, while fiction seems to be large from this scope, it is still only makes up a small chunk of this site. Anyways, this guideline only covers things that are explicitly created as fiction, such as the cartoon character. Gods are obviously different, so they fall under other relevant projects. Why do you keep bringing that up anyways? If it's supposed to be some sort of argument, it's not doing much for you. TTN (talk) 01:21, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- It would be interesting to see what would happen if we polled the site. Because the reality is that many of the same handful of accounts that are anti-fiction in these sorts of discussions here and in AfDs seem a minority considering the combination of those arguing in support of fiction articles, plus the thousands who created and edited fiction articles, and the maybe millions who come to this site looking for those types of articles. Those working on other topics are probably just ambivalent and more interested in focusing on improving the areas they do care about. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 17:48, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Please go poll the actual majority of the site before claiming that we're somehow the minority. Despite how large the area of fiction appears to be on this site, it it actually fairly small compared to the big picture. The majority that you speak of is also a fairly small chunk compared to the actual number of users on this site as well. Go poll some people working with Ancient Egypt, military related topics, and celestial bodies just to start off. Come back if you find that a majority believe that all fictional topics, major and minor, deserve the same amount of coverage. TTN (talk) 13:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- TTN, who in the Oppose section said "everything is notable"? --Pixelface (talk) 00:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- It was just a broad statement to cover your and other's interpretations that most fictional topics are worthy of coverage despite not meeting our actual standards. TTN (talk) 00:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- The standards of Wikipedia is not paper, verifiability, no original research, neutral point of view and the editing policy? I've never said "most" fictional topics should have articles. But it's totally ridiculous to redirect the Luke Skywalker article for not meeting this proposal. --Pixelface (talk) 02:01, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- You have argued in support for minor episodes and minor characters, which basically equals most fictional topics. I don't think that anyone has ever implied that an article with actual potential needs to be redirected. It is obvious, given the other Star Wars featured articles, that Luke Skywalker has potential. TTN (talk) 02:36, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- The standards of Wikipedia is not paper, verifiability, no original research, neutral point of view and the editing policy? I've never said "most" fictional topics should have articles. But it's totally ridiculous to redirect the Luke Skywalker article for not meeting this proposal. --Pixelface (talk) 02:01, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- It was just a broad statement to cover your and other's interpretations that most fictional topics are worthy of coverage despite not meeting our actual standards. TTN (talk) 00:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- Extreme personal opinions that go against the point of this site like a minority of editors telling the majority of the community what isn't notable? The whole "everything is notable" allegation is itself faulty too when myself and many others who oppose below have both argued and even nominated to delete more articles than I have seen some argue to keep. Please remember to assume good faith here and not make implied insults against your fellow editors. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 04:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Support good enough balance between both sides, with enough guidance to keep most current merge/delete discussions on track where appropriate, while also still allowing more traditional elements like a major character list, episode list, etc. -- [[::User:Collectonian|Collectonian]] ([[::User talk:Collectonian|talk]] · [[::Special:Contributions/Collectonian|contribs]]) 02:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Support - it's as good as it'll get. It's been under construction for too long now. Sceptre (talk) 09:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Support even though this guideline is less than optimal and would probably doom to perdition articles that I think deal with notable topics. This is the best that we're likely to get at present, and some guidance is definitely needed. Differences of opinion can be hammered out in the normal course of editing the guideline. Deor (talk) 18:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Support. The previous guideline that was originally rejected brought about a lot of problems, such as the Pilotbob issue and the E&C issues both 1 and 2. This new guideline allows a little leniency so that these issues don't arise, while at the same time, bringing about a standard that keeps our content as encyclopedic as possible. For that reason, I support this becoming a guideline. Sasuke9031 (talk) 00:43, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- Support. Good enough compromise for either sides. Seraphim♥Whipp 14:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- Support, individual articles that seem to fail the guideline can always be kept at AfD by a suspend-all-rules argument. It is important to stop the endless debate. Blast Ulna (talk) 01:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Oppose
- Among other problems, this encourages the contortion of content into suboptimal organizational structures in order to avoid creating "non-notable articles". To put it another way, if we are going to include content in any case (and I think we are likely to, and hope we do), notability is a bad principle around which to organize content. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- Can you point to or describe a hypothetical example? I do agree that there are wikilaywering games that can be played with notability (fictional or not) and I think in cases that I believe you're describing, those require further discussion. I will point out that after making sure FICT is accepted, the next step is to reflect these changes, including content organization directly, in WP:WAF - we are just trying to set out what notability is here. --MASEM 23:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- Most of our "list of minor..." articles are an example of this. In most cases the sections of these lists do not complement each other; it is just a bunch of small articles stuffed into one page. In practice, this can lead to bad consequences. I took a couple seconds to discover List of New Order Jedi characters; one of these guys is named "Penin, Rosh". Unfortuately Rosh Penin links to a totally different article, or does right now. If we are going to have information about this guy, we may as well let our readers find it. If the content about this character were simply filed under his name, as an ordinary person would expect, this sort of problem would never come up. It's a reasonable question whether the list or a collection of minor articles would be a more useful way to organize this information, but I don't believe that notability is a useful concept in helping us make the decision. The issue ought to have more to do with how readers would prefer to consume this information. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- Fixed. But this is not a problem of a notability guideline, but of poor editing choices. The alternative is to let WP:N deal with non-notable characters, which will often mean deletion (i.e. I guess this would be even less desirable for most people.) – sgeureka t•c 23:47, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- It is indeed a problem of poor editing choices but the existing guidelines often force people to make bad decisions. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Ultimately this provisions for notability stems from WP:WAF#Summary style approach, which states For fictional works, these spinout articles are typically lists of characters or other elements that usually rely on the coverage of the parent topic, and may lack demonstration of real-world coverage through sources dedicated specifically to those elements. Taemyr (talk) 00:12, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- No doubt; the problem is endemic to our coverage of fiction, which is generally getting worse, if your measure of quality is how well we address the demands of our readership. I'm not opposing because this is breaking dangerous new ground but because it is further codifying bad practice. It is worth taking a look at [2]. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Completely valid point - however, without having to make anyone wade through talk pages, the overall goal of this rewrite was to reflect current practice, which is to neither reduce or increase the coverage of fictional topics. This is, after all, a guideline, and the last thing we're doing is trying to set a standard. You are correct in that this is codifying a practice, but it is codifying the current practice, and that's (at this point) all we hope to gain by gaining global consensus that this reflects current practice. Now, if that current practice is wrong, there needs to be a much larger discussion about it; WP:FICT is not the battleground for that (as we've had discussed many times in the past). As to your earlier point on allowing readers to find information, redirects and disambigs are cheap, and we should not be afraid to use them so that people, looking for a minor character, don't get a list of search results but instead the article and section that talks about that, or at worst, a disambig or hatnote page. We can still serve that purpose with list articles. --MASEM 00:39, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- We can serve that purpose with lists and redirects, but we are more likely to make errors, as in this case. If the list structure provided benefits to offset this, that would be one thing, but there really are few such benefits in most instances. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, with anchors and the like, a list of characters and with appropriate redirects to the specific sections will, to the reader, be as clean as possible without having to create separate articles. A point that describes what the attempt here well is that there are those that was 0 articles on fictional characters in WP, there are those that want X articles (X being the number of fictional characters in existence). What is a balancing middle group is to allow log(X) articles on such characters through the use of lists so that we are still providing this information while having maintainability of a smaller number of pages. As discussed below, more specific guidance on how to make these lists useful and like is needed, that's outside this scope but would be a next step. --MASEM 12:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- I don't understand why a single 100-page article would be more maintainable than 100 1-page articles; the main determinant of how hard pages are to maintain is the total number of edits that have to be monitored, which should be similar either way. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- It only takes up one entry on someone's watchlist (as opposed to 100 entries, and there is a practical limit to watchlist sizes), and in the case if there's 100 characters, either there's a page that links to all 100 characters (at which point, why not make it a list) or the page may be hard to find - unless one person consistently edits them, it can be very easy to lose track if its not well linked. Mind you, I'd have a hard time arguing that 100-entry list is appropriate - you'd still likely split that up to 2 to 4 pages, depending, but then this is where navboxes are useful for helping to keep linkages. Furthermore, it is easy to compare entries on the same list to make sure there's a balance and appropriate flow and no repetition. --MASEM 02:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:The_Simpsons_characters is one bookmark. Much of the time, a list is meant to link to individual articles, not replace them. You may want to look at WP:CLN. --Pixelface (talk) 22:30, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- Watching 1 article vs. 100 articles is a wash if the 1 article is edited 100 times as often, which we would expect. Again, the load of maintenance primarily relates to the number of edits that need to be dealt with, which is likely to be similar with any method of organization. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:21, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- It only takes up one entry on someone's watchlist (as opposed to 100 entries, and there is a practical limit to watchlist sizes), and in the case if there's 100 characters, either there's a page that links to all 100 characters (at which point, why not make it a list) or the page may be hard to find - unless one person consistently edits them, it can be very easy to lose track if its not well linked. Mind you, I'd have a hard time arguing that 100-entry list is appropriate - you'd still likely split that up to 2 to 4 pages, depending, but then this is where navboxes are useful for helping to keep linkages. Furthermore, it is easy to compare entries on the same list to make sure there's a balance and appropriate flow and no repetition. --MASEM 02:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I don't understand why a single 100-page article would be more maintainable than 100 1-page articles; the main determinant of how hard pages are to maintain is the total number of edits that have to be monitored, which should be similar either way. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, with anchors and the like, a list of characters and with appropriate redirects to the specific sections will, to the reader, be as clean as possible without having to create separate articles. A point that describes what the attempt here well is that there are those that was 0 articles on fictional characters in WP, there are those that want X articles (X being the number of fictional characters in existence). What is a balancing middle group is to allow log(X) articles on such characters through the use of lists so that we are still providing this information while having maintainability of a smaller number of pages. As discussed below, more specific guidance on how to make these lists useful and like is needed, that's outside this scope but would be a next step. --MASEM 12:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- We can serve that purpose with lists and redirects, but we are more likely to make errors, as in this case. If the list structure provided benefits to offset this, that would be one thing, but there really are few such benefits in most instances. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Completely valid point - however, without having to make anyone wade through talk pages, the overall goal of this rewrite was to reflect current practice, which is to neither reduce or increase the coverage of fictional topics. This is, after all, a guideline, and the last thing we're doing is trying to set a standard. You are correct in that this is codifying a practice, but it is codifying the current practice, and that's (at this point) all we hope to gain by gaining global consensus that this reflects current practice. Now, if that current practice is wrong, there needs to be a much larger discussion about it; WP:FICT is not the battleground for that (as we've had discussed many times in the past). As to your earlier point on allowing readers to find information, redirects and disambigs are cheap, and we should not be afraid to use them so that people, looking for a minor character, don't get a list of search results but instead the article and section that talks about that, or at worst, a disambig or hatnote page. We can still serve that purpose with list articles. --MASEM 00:39, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- No doubt; the problem is endemic to our coverage of fiction, which is generally getting worse, if your measure of quality is how well we address the demands of our readership. I'm not opposing because this is breaking dangerous new ground but because it is further codifying bad practice. It is worth taking a look at [2]. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Ultimately this provisions for notability stems from WP:WAF#Summary style approach, which states For fictional works, these spinout articles are typically lists of characters or other elements that usually rely on the coverage of the parent topic, and may lack demonstration of real-world coverage through sources dedicated specifically to those elements. Taemyr (talk) 00:12, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- It is indeed a problem of poor editing choices but the existing guidelines often force people to make bad decisions. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Fixed. But this is not a problem of a notability guideline, but of poor editing choices. The alternative is to let WP:N deal with non-notable characters, which will often mean deletion (i.e. I guess this would be even less desirable for most people.) – sgeureka t•c 23:47, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- Most of our "list of minor..." articles are an example of this. In most cases the sections of these lists do not complement each other; it is just a bunch of small articles stuffed into one page. In practice, this can lead to bad consequences. I took a couple seconds to discover List of New Order Jedi characters; one of these guys is named "Penin, Rosh". Unfortuately Rosh Penin links to a totally different article, or does right now. If we are going to have information about this guy, we may as well let our readers find it. If the content about this character were simply filed under his name, as an ordinary person would expect, this sort of problem would never come up. It's a reasonable question whether the list or a collection of minor articles would be a more useful way to organize this information, but I don't believe that notability is a useful concept in helping us make the decision. The issue ought to have more to do with how readers would prefer to consume this information. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- Can you point to or describe a hypothetical example? I do agree that there are wikilaywering games that can be played with notability (fictional or not) and I think in cases that I believe you're describing, those require further discussion. I will point out that after making sure FICT is accepted, the next step is to reflect these changes, including content organization directly, in WP:WAF - we are just trying to set out what notability is here. --MASEM 23:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
- Needs to clearly allow for television episodes for which reviews exist and lists of fictional weapons and characters, especially those with appearances in multiple media, i.e. if it appears in toys and TV or movies or games or comics then it is notable. Should also link to User:GlassCobra/Essays/What Wikipedia is. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 01:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Going into specifics per media is not a goal of this guideline. TV episodes with reviews are covered in the general approach, assuming the reviews are reliable secondary sources. List of characters are covered because characters are generic to all fiction. The issues of weapons, however, needs to be left to more specific guidelines, otherwise this becomes too burdered in details. The linked essay is not appropriate as it is written in a strong POV approach and not appropriate for inclusion in a guideline. (The fancruft essay is included because it attempts to be less biased and give an all-around approach to what the term is and how to handle it ) --MASEM 02:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Any use of "cruft" is inherently not a neutral or objective point of view. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 03:24, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Strangely, I find myself agreeing with Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles on this point: this guideline fails to address works of fiction that are serialised or presented in episodes. Clearly this guideline does go into the specifics of media: it is filled with examples of films, and books, particularly in the section Elements of fiction, where it mentions awards, rankings, and sales figures. What is so disappointing about this guideline is that it does not address comic series or television episodes at all. In my view, this is a huge omission.--Gavin Collins (talk) 08:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Episodes and other parts of serial works are mentioned under Elements of Fiction and one example is a television episode. There is no need to call out any more specific guidance for episodes or similar serial elements. --MASEM 12:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Any use of "cruft" is inherently not a neutral or objective point of view. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 03:24, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- I have a concern with this: the whole issue with lists. In all honesty, many sub-character lists end up becoming incredibly stagnant, as the information for them as a result may end up even worse than the individual articles were before the list status, as much can get cropped to simply "make it fit". The Pokemon lists are in effect just this: a mass reduction in information, and no real effort to sustain notability or improve any of it. Compounding this a little is that in order for such lists or even partial lists to reach FL status, every element on there has to be addressed in some form, which can be an insanely daunting task, especially since most of the characters aren't notable to begin with; in effect the point of improving the article becomes somewhat moot as it'll not get anywhere. Now I'm not recommending every character there deserves it's own article, nor am I saying transwiki the whole lot (I'm rather opposed to that idea due to the "sweeping under the rug" feel it has). But some better handling of the lists should be handled at this point before this policy is adopted because right now they're no better than dumping grounds.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 03:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Valid points, but again, not to make people read through the talk pages backlog, but we do agree that guidance on how to write list articles is needed, it is just not appropriate for a notability guideline (KISS principle). WP:WAF is due to include this information. Also, the idea of lists is that they aren't dumping grounds, but a well-written encyclopedic' non-notable list can compliment a notable work of fiction's coverage. --MASEM 04:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Also will add that I don't think everyone expects that such lists will likely reach FL; however, it has been shown that lists in these specific styles can be shown to be notable (typically applying to the group, not the elements of it) for some works and thus allowing these lists to go to FL or even FA. Thus, these seem to be the right groupings that have the most potential to be improved on. --MASEM 12:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- some better handling of the lists should be handled, we are all ears. The current guideline is representing current practice, but I don't think anyone is extremeley happy about it. If you have a better suggestion for how to handle these lists then please make it. Taemyr (talk) 13:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Also will add that I don't think everyone expects that such lists will likely reach FL; however, it has been shown that lists in these specific styles can be shown to be notable (typically applying to the group, not the elements of it) for some works and thus allowing these lists to go to FL or even FA. Thus, these seem to be the right groupings that have the most potential to be improved on. --MASEM 12:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Valid points, but again, not to make people read through the talk pages backlog, but we do agree that guidance on how to write list articles is needed, it is just not appropriate for a notability guideline (KISS principle). WP:WAF is due to include this information. Also, the idea of lists is that they aren't dumping grounds, but a well-written encyclopedic' non-notable list can compliment a notable work of fiction's coverage. --MASEM 04:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with Kung Fu Man that this proposed guideline gives undue weight to lists non-notable characters and other elements of fiction by making them exempt from WP:N. This guideline does not need to provide guidance on the content of lists; this is covered in a comprehensive fashion at WP:LIST. The FEAPOALT section which states that "If consensus on a fictional element is that it is of unproven notability, editors should seek to retain the information where it can improve the encyclopedia"' is clearly nonsense; no where else in Wikipedia does it say that topics of unproven notability should be retained. The rest of this section in direct conflict with WP:N by providing exemption for lists of non-notable elements from the requirements of the General Notability Criteria. The FEAPOALT section proposed guideline needs to cut out althogether, so that this guideline is more focused on providing a concise definition of notability for fictional elements, rather than going the other way by providing exemptions from the GNC.--Gavin Collins (talk) 08:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Again, notability is to be applied to a topic, not to an article. If a topic is shown to be non-notable, that does not mean we don't cover it, but instead it should be presented in the context of a notable topic as per WP:N. The limited exceptions for character and episode lists as supporting articles for the topic about the work fall within this line, as well as Footnote #8 of WP:N, as well as being the most common result of AFD's involving characters and episodes so describes current practice. WP:LIST may describe some aspects of lists, but to the points Kung Fu Man was stating, there needs to be more guidance on style and balance and the like for list of fictional elements than what LIST provides in general in terms of MOS. --MASEM 12:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- I disagree. If a topic is not notable, we don't need to cover it per WP:N. Providing exemptions from WP:N has no precedent in Wikipedia, and fictional elements are no different.--Gavin Collins (talk) 14:00, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, we don't need to cover anything. However, per WP:NNC, we can certainly cover anything if it is in the context of a notable topic. WP:UNDUE comes into play as well, but that never says "don't mention it at all ". SamBC(talk) 14:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Specific quotes from WP:N: These notability guidelines only pertain to the encyclopedic suitability of topics for articles but do not directly limit the content of articles.; Verifiable facts and content not supported by multiple independent sources may be appropriate for inclusion within another article.; If appropriate sources cannot be found, consider merging the article's content into a broader article providing context.; Notability guidelines give guidance on whether a topic is notable enough to be included in Wikipedia as a separate article, but do not specifically regulate the content of articles (with the exception of lists of people [10]). The particular topics and facts within an article are not each required to meet the standards of the notability guidelines; instead, article content is governed by other policies and guidelines, such as the policy requiring Verifiability and the guidelines covering the use of reliable sources and of trivia sections. I think it's pretty clear that WP:N allows for coverage of non-notable topics as long as they are not given the preceived importance that having their own separate article for that single topic entails. --MASEM 14:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- It does, but FEAPOALT reverse this by exempting groupings of individually non-notable elements can from GNC. Articles like List of New Order Jedi characters are therefore exempt. As Kung Fu Man states earlier, by exempting them, they will remain stagnant and there is no impetus for improvement. FEAPOALT needs to come out, or otherwise WP:FICT will be a lame duck from the start; instead of offering guidance on how the article can be improved to meet the requirements of WP:N, you have created a class of articles that need never be improved.--Gavin Collins (talk) 15:41, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Gavin Collins, I see your point and agree fully. However, I urge you to consider the pragmatic side of things as well. Adopting this guideline would be very helpful to this area of Wikipedia, as it takes a compromising stance. Note how all the people in this oppose section have some form of extreme (in the statistical, not in the moral sense) position in the discussion. The reason why we need this is that the current anarchy creates a lot of fights, which among other things, led to the effective topic ban of a user (TTN) who was aiming to do the right thing. See also my support vote above. User:Krator (t c) 15:45, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- From a pragmatic side of things, WP:FICT does not work if it creates a class of articles that exempt non-notable fictional elements from WP:N, which goes against current practise and consensus. WP:FICT cannot overide WP:N, otherwise this draft guideline will simply be ignored, regardless of its status, or whether I put my name to it or not. You can ignore this warning, but if you look at articles similar to List of major artifacts in Dungeons & Dragons, they are being nominated for deletion at AfD because they fail WP:N, or for other reasons (such as failing WP:NOT#PLOT or WP:OR) which are symptomatic of them failing WP:N). If the FEAPOALT section is not cut from this guideline, then it will be ignored. There is no consensus for an exemption for WP:N anywhere else in Wikipedia. --Gavin Collins (talk) 22:45, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- If anything, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of major artifacts in Dungeons & Dragons shows that there is no consensus to strictly apply WP:N to lists of fictional items, whether they are collectively notable or not. FICT is not saying anything to the contrary, but that doesn't mean that we can't revisit this issue in half a year again. Until then, FICT in its current form seems to be the best compromise we can achieve (for now). – sgeureka t•c 23:37, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- We had a long discussion and a previous RFC that clearly showed that NN lists within certain bounds are acceptable, and even footnote #8 of WP:N spells it out. Those bounds pretty much were limited to two classes: Character lists and episode lists. The list you point to above does not fall in either, and thus is a reasonable candidate for deletion. However, if you look at any fictional character AFD, nearly all of them, if the article is determined non-notable, ends with a redirect to a list of characters. This is current practice. Of course, if this does get accepted, and people start abusing that section with lists left and right, then we will readdress the issue, but we've discussed this point over and over and most agree this section needs to be here to reflect current community consensus.
- Remember that WP:N is not policy. It is a guideline, and the GNC is not a absolute rule that must be followed. This means that WP:N applies to most, but not all topics and articles because it is a guideline and allows for flexibility within other policy and current practice (FICT is a guideline too). If you feel notability needs to be enforced absolutely, then you need to get it established as policy (which I strongly doubt will ever happen).
- Also remember this is consensus, not an attempt to get 100% agreement which is very unlikely. If there's enough acceptance of this policy by consensus but you're not on board, it is not going to stop to wait for your disagreements to be resolved. --MASEM 23:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- I agree that the notability criteria are not enforeceable directly, for there is no direct relationship between WP:N and the outcome of deletion debates, which are a matter of local consensus. Although WP:N is a guideline and not policy, it does provide the basic criteria by which all articles and lists are directly or indirect judged. Non-notable content, whether it is in lists or articles, will always be at risk of deletion and it is down to contributors to cite reliable secondary sources in order to provide evidence of notability. With regard to List of major artifacts in Dungeons & Dragons, I don't think the outcome of the AfD debate will be deletion, but since the list does not cite reliable secondary sources, it fails WP:N and its encyclopedic merit is open to question. The FEAPOALT section attempts to side step the issue of notability by providing an exemption for such articles from GNC, but this won't work, as this section is not a defence against the deletion of non-notable content agreed upon by consensus at AfD. I agree with you that 100% agreement is never possible, but there is already consensus that non-notable material can be nominated for deletion, as there is no evidence that lists of non-notable fictional elements are acceptable if they fail WP:N, but they are kept if local consensus demands it.
- on Masem's interpretation of footnote 8 of WP:N, I think he may be under a misundertanding about lists and their function. A list in is best described an appendix to a notable article or group of articles, not a dumping ground for non-notable content. I think there may be undue weight being placed on footnotes, and a disregard for notability criteria which both lists and article need to meet. --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- A single AFD may by local consensus, but given that the support of using nn lists as merge targets is a extremely common result of AFDs that span numerous fictional areas, I'm pretty that there is tentative global support for that. Also, do note that fn #8 falls specifically in the section about dealing with non-notable content; the footnote exactly describes this practice. --MASEM 12:39, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- A more common result is that lists of non-notable fictional elements are being deleted - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of masks in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. FEAPOALT will not stop this. It should come out.--Gavin Collins (talk) 13:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- But that type of list is not covered by that section; it is neither characters nor episodes. AFD-result guidelines clearly shows support for these specific two types; any other type is undeteremined and as such impossible to put into words. --MASEM 13:36, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Merging smaller topics into a list has the effect of increasing the probability that the list itself can meet applicable policies and guidelines (largely due to increasing the number of potential sources). However, it does not guarantee that this is the case. Is it plausible that it is generally easier to source characters and episodes than, say, masks? Jakew (talk) 13:45, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- I would say yes; if we look at Featured Articles and Lists, there's plenty of examples of character and episode lists, but little else pertaining to fiction. Episodes, at worst when grouped by season, may gain critical response that wasn't there before when such shows are released on DVD, or in post-season wrap-ups by television critics. The characters as a whole are likely to have more information on their development collectively and how the whole cast was received. This doesn't mean every character or episode list may end up as such, but there's a pattern that usable there. Lists of weapons, items, terms, planets, etc. from fictional universes may have the potential to be notable, but from historical data, we have very few examples to go on. One case I do know of is Weapons of Resident Evil 4 before it was redirected could readily claim notability, however, the core element of the list, the list of weapons and the meat of the article, ventured into WP:NOT territory (WP is not a guide, particularly for games); ultimately it was determined that the notability aspects could be folded into the main article to provide a more encyclopedic treatment of the weapons. So once you get away from characters and episodes, lists of other fictional elements tend to skew the coverage of the in-universe aspects of the work too much. --MASEM 14:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm. I'm just wondering whether there might be an acceptable compromise here. For example, what if we were to say something like: "In general, while an individual character or episode may not be independently notable, it may be easier to establish notability when such articles are merged into a list. Care should be taken, however, to ensure that the list article is suitable for inclusion." Any thoughts? Jakew (talk) 16:47, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- I don't know if that necessarily compromises with what Gavin is asking for (no nn-lists at all), but it is worthwhile I think to include that such nn-lists should only be content that is appropriate to WP, in light of WP:NOT, specifically we are not a directory, guide, manual, or textbook. --MASEM 16:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Sorry, I phrased that poorly. I intended that "suitable for inclusion" would include the general notability guideline, in addition to WP:NOT, WP:V, etc. Please correct me if I'm wrong, Gavin, but I think you're specifically arguing against non-notable lists, so emphasising that notability is still required would at least partly alleviate your concerns. Is that correct?
- The theory I'm going on is that a blanket statement that lists of characters are ok would create a contradiction with WP:N (as well as other policies & guidelines). However, a statement encouraging merging into such lists because they are more likely to conform to the general notability guideline would create no such contradiction. Jakew (talk) 17:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with you, as lists of characters are not notable unless evidence is provided somewhere that they are, and we can never get around this. However, lists are useful as appendicies, which is why they are widely used. As it stands, the section FEAPOALT contradicts GNC. As a result this section represents the Achilles Heel of this proposed guideline. It is fundamentally flawed, as it runs contrarty to WP:N, and probably goes against other guidelines too, like WP:NOT. I don't know that merging article or lists of non-notable characters would make it more likely that they would meet the requirements of WP:N because of the reasons I have stated earlier: it is actaully very hard to demonstrate that a run of the mill character is independently notable of the work of fiction from which they are derived. Articles about many famours characters (such as Frodo Baggins) don't demonstrate evidence of notability at all, and those that do (such as Gandalf) are exceptions on Wikipedia. Most of the articles about characters that do demonstrate notability tend to be synonymous with the work of fiction, such as a notable film, in which they feature (e.g. The Terminator, Superman). Although merging articles or lists of non-notable characters won't make them compliant with WP:N, it might make them more useful if they presented as appendicies to articles demonstrate notablity, in which case deletion is less likely. However, once it becomes clear that a list has no encyclopedic value, it will get get deleted for failing WP:N or WP:NOT, and FEAPOALT won't protect bad articles or lists from deletion, despite the exemption it seeks to provide. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- In answer to Jakew's question "it plausible that it is generally easier to source characters and episodes than, say, masks?", it is generally very difficult to source characters, episodes or masks, because in order to do so, you have to effectively show that the element of fiction concerned is independently notable from the primary source. In my experience more than 90% of all articles or lists on fictional elements are of unproven notability; even many featured articles are of unproven notability. For example, out of all the characters out of the famous The Lord of the Rings books and films, only the article on Gandalf cites more than one reliable secondary source, whilst there are no reliable secondary sources cited for any of the Characters of Kingdom Hearts, neither jointly or severally. Masem's view that Lists of weapons etc have the potential to be notable is either naive, or is based on wishful thinking. Generally lists of fictional elements like List of major artifacts in Dungeons & Dragons orList of New Order Jedi characters are of unproven notability, and will remain deletion candidates unless evidence of their notability can be found. The section FEAPOALT will not protect them from being nominated for deletion, because the primary criteria for a list or an article to be included in or excluded from Wikipedia is directly or indirectly contained in GNC. As it stands, WP:FICT is going in a direction that is against Wikipedia concensus that notability is the most important criteria for judging encyclopedic merit.--Gavin Collins (talk) 16:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- There's no reliable sourcing in Characters of Kingdom Hearts?? That's probably one of the best examples of how to write and source a notable set of fictional elements. Yes, not every character list can be like that but by pointing people to that type of article, we can ask them to mimic as many aspects as they can to provide the right amount of encyclopedic coverage. --MASEM 16:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Amazingly, there are no reliable secondary sourcing that could be used that the one or more of the characters are notable outside the video game from which they are derived. Most of the sources are primary sources taken from game itself, from promotional material issued by the game creators or self-published sources from fansites, forums and blogs. Of the reliable secondary sources cited in the article, all of their subject matter relates to Kingdom Hearts itself: the characters are mentioned in passing. Outside the game, not one of the sources cited actually demonstrates that a single character or a group of them is independently notable; evidence of this is that sourcing for the article Kingdom Hearts is -virtually the same as for Characters of Kingdom Hearts.-Gavin Collins (talk) 09:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- The whole point of the reception section is that the characters as a whole are notable. If there was sufficient reception for a single character, then they would have their own article, hence the section in FICT concerning character lists. And what about the reception section does not pertain to the characters? Graphics, voice acting, the inclusion of both Disney and Final Fantasy characters, and so on are all relevant to the characters. Also, show which sources are not reliable, as I frankly doubt the article made it through WP:FAC without that being addressed. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 10:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Alas the receiption section only cites reivews of Kingdom Hearts, so there is no evidence that the characters are notable outside of the game. A mention of a character within the context of a game review is not evidence of independent notability for the character per se. Its a fine point I know, but it all boils down to the fact that the characters cannot inherit notability from the game in which they feature - they have to "stand on their own feet". If the references cited were soley about the one or more of the characters, I would have to agree with you, but they don't. Outide of the reviews of the game itself, they are not mentioned anywhere except by Questionable sources.--Gavin Collins (talk) 10:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- That's ludicrous. Of course proper reception of the characters is found in the reviews of the games they were featured in. Of course it's valid. They're not inheriting notability; if the reviews never mentioned the characters then we wouldn't be having this argument and it wouldn't be a FA. The reviews specifically mention the characters and elements concerning the characters in the general review of the game. It does not detract from the fact that it is significant coverage that satisfies WP:N, as if the reviewers are going out of their way to make specific mention of the characters, then coverage of the characters is acquired. By your logic, anything that is not the game itself shouldn't have an article, which is blatantly false. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 10:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- The evidence is there for you to see: the reviews clearly show that it is the game as a whole, not the characters that are notable. They are just one aspect of the game that has made it sucessful. Other elements, such as game design, graphics, gameplay, levels, weapons, vehicles, as well as the characters contribute to the notability of the game. The reviews are about the game, not the characters per se. Not one reliable secondary source singles them out on their own. Clearly this a dispute that can run and run, so we will have to agree to disagree on this point. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- If far more people disagree with you than agree, will you agree to disagree and let it go, accepting that consensus is against you? SamBC(talk) 11:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- In the case of Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Riverwind/1, I believe there was a similiar disagreement about notability and lack of reliable secondary sources. I think if Characters of Kingdom Hearts were to go for article reassessment, there is an outside chance it might loose its featured article status. Whether others would share my viewpoint on this issue, I could not judge - consensus is both local and global.--Gavin Collins (talk) 11:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Given that the KH article relatively recently (end of 2007) passed FAC, and there have been no major shifts in policy since, I would seriously doubt that people would question the appropriateness of the sources to demonstrate notability. The sources of Riverwind are much different as the only non-primary sources were annotations from the writers (which is in general agreement here: that information alone is not sufficient for notability). If you think that the sourcing for KH is insufficient, you are setting an extremely high bar that makes it nearly impossible to write about fictional elements. --MASEM 12:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think the reviewers of the article must have been intimidated by the 77 citations in the article, as it is very hard to see the wood from the trees. However, it is not me that "sets a high bar", it is just very difficult to find reliable secondary sources the for fictional characters. All the secondary sources cited in Characters of Kingdom Hearts provide notability for Kingdom Hearts rather than the characters themsleves. Simply put, ficitonal characters don't inherit notability. I am not setting higher standards, just pointing out to you that the reviews are about the game, not the characters.--Gavin Collins (talk) 14:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, there are a large number of sources, but even a causal glance will be able tell a lot of them are primary, and thus I'd expect that those evaluating sources considered this. But more importantly, there is no cardinal rule that says that an external source that talks primarily about one aspect lending to its notability cannot also be used for notability of another aspect. Spot checking the reviews sourced, this seems appropriate: the "characters" (not individual ones) are mentioned not in passing but in several sentences or a paragraph, and as mentioned in separate independent sources, met the general notability requirement. --MASEM 14:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- A review of a game (or book, or film, or TV show) can make reference to a character (or other element) without it being simply a "passing reference". If there is a section of a review discussing a character, or a small number of characters, then that is non-trivial coverage of the character. If there's a box-out for a character, then that is non-trivial coverage. You don't need a whole article/book/chapter to be on a specific thing for it to be "non-trivial coverage" of that thing. It needs to be more than a casual passing reference, that's all (well, slightly more, perhaps, but not much more). You also seem to be rather disparaging the reviewers, and they generally take the job pretty seriously. SamBC(talk) 14:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Masem is right that there is no cardinal rule, but it is clear from the reviews that they are game reviews, not character reviews. Note the citations quoted are indeed "passing references" to the game characters. I think this issue needs to be discussed elsewhere, but because there are no reliable sources which address the Characters of Kingdom Hearts directly, the notability of this subject unproven, or at best very weak, because this is a classic case of WP:NOTINHERITED. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Then bring it to WP:FAR. Honestly, you're being very disparaging towards the FAC reviewers, specially the notion that they were "intimidated" by the large number of sources, which is nonsense. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 20:15, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Gavin makes a good point. NOTE prohibits that Kingdom hearts article, and just about every other List of Characters article. It sounds like if enough people support these changes, that will be what allows these article to live, not their references. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 21:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Then, by all means, take it to AfD. I absolutely guarantee you it will fail. That's part of the reason for the guideline as it stands - it codifies what is the status quo concerning this character lists, especially at AfD. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 21:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think the reviewers of the article must have been intimidated by the 77 citations in the article, as it is very hard to see the wood from the trees. However, it is not me that "sets a high bar", it is just very difficult to find reliable secondary sources the for fictional characters. All the secondary sources cited in Characters of Kingdom Hearts provide notability for Kingdom Hearts rather than the characters themsleves. Simply put, ficitonal characters don't inherit notability. I am not setting higher standards, just pointing out to you that the reviews are about the game, not the characters.--Gavin Collins (talk) 14:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- The evidence is there for you to see: the reviews clearly show that it is the game as a whole, not the characters that are notable. They are just one aspect of the game that has made it sucessful. Other elements, such as game design, graphics, gameplay, levels, weapons, vehicles, as well as the characters contribute to the notability of the game. The reviews are about the game, not the characters per se. Not one reliable secondary source singles them out on their own. Clearly this a dispute that can run and run, so we will have to agree to disagree on this point. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- (unindent a bit)I don't want it deleted, it's just interesting what an actual application of NOTE to fictional topics would do. I'd like to see minor characters allowed in lists, and major characters allowed their own articles. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 21:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- I do too, but that doesn't mean we simply ignore WP:N, WP:WEIGHT, and WP:NOT#INFO. The line has to be drawn at some point. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 00:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- From a pragmatic side of things, WP:FICT does not work if it creates a class of articles that exempt non-notable fictional elements from WP:N, which goes against current practise and consensus. WP:FICT cannot overide WP:N, otherwise this draft guideline will simply be ignored, regardless of its status, or whether I put my name to it or not. You can ignore this warning, but if you look at articles similar to List of major artifacts in Dungeons & Dragons, they are being nominated for deletion at AfD because they fail WP:N, or for other reasons (such as failing WP:NOT#PLOT or WP:OR) which are symptomatic of them failing WP:N). If the FEAPOALT section is not cut from this guideline, then it will be ignored. There is no consensus for an exemption for WP:N anywhere else in Wikipedia. --Gavin Collins (talk) 22:45, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- I disagree. If a topic is not notable, we don't need to cover it per WP:N. Providing exemptions from WP:N has no precedent in Wikipedia, and fictional elements are no different.--Gavin Collins (talk) 14:00, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Again, notability is to be applied to a topic, not to an article. If a topic is shown to be non-notable, that does not mean we don't cover it, but instead it should be presented in the context of a notable topic as per WP:N. The limited exceptions for character and episode lists as supporting articles for the topic about the work fall within this line, as well as Footnote #8 of WP:N, as well as being the most common result of AFD's involving characters and episodes so describes current practice. WP:LIST may describe some aspects of lists, but to the points Kung Fu Man was stating, there needs to be more guidance on style and balance and the like for list of fictional elements than what LIST provides in general in terms of MOS. --MASEM 12:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose I'm not sure how to interpret this line: "Such sources can include creators' commentary and interviews regarding the work or topic, bearing in mind the restrictions if the work is self-published." So... would DVD commentaries count as self-published? If not, what sorts of things are prohibited? Zagalejo^^^ 01:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- They teeter on the edge, but for benefit of the doubt, such would be sufficient for notability; the argument, for me, is that DVD commentary is typically "time-delay" once-removed analysis of the work, they are still technically primary, but can provide analysis and development details; the "creators" of the work really aren't publishing it. This is counter, say, me writing my self-published work of fiction, then adding a separate "commentary" document, then attempting to say that's notable from that source alone. It is important to note that we still are looking for "significant coverage" -a DVD commentary can help, but it alone is not significant coverage. --MASEM 01:44, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Ah, okay. I do think that DVD commentaries are often the most significant source for behind-the-scenes info. For example, very little production information was known about any individual Simpsons episodes before the DVDs started coming out. In any case, I still think that section should be clarified, because if this becomes a full-fledged guideline, people are going to be quoting it like it's holy scripture. Zagalejo^^^ 01:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- I've added a footnote to this statement to explain that self-pub sources, alone, are not sufficient for notability, but do help with it when present with other sources. If you feel it needs rewording along the above lines, please edit appropriately. --MASEM 05:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, now it looks like that whole section has been changed... *shrugs* Zagalejo^^^ 17:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- A new concern: I'd like to see some specific examples of sources that would demonstrate notability for individual fictional characters or individual episodes of a serial work. Give me something concrete to work with. Zagalejo^^^ 18:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Are you looking for specific examples of articles (which there are in footnotes) or specific examples of sources, and when you say specific, do you mean down to a citation for a specific character/episode, or something more general? If anything, this might warrant a section below to talk about good specific examples - however, I want to be careful to say that only those examples are allowable, because notably may come out from out aspects. --MASEM 18:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Examples of specific sources, such as a particular journal article about a fictional character or a good review of a television episode. Full citations would be good, and it would be even better if the sources are available online. (And no, we shouldn't say that these are the only acceptable sources, but I'd like some idea as to what people's ideal sources would be.) Zagalejo^^^ 18:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Are you looking for specific examples of articles (which there are in footnotes) or specific examples of sources, and when you say specific, do you mean down to a citation for a specific character/episode, or something more general? If anything, this might warrant a section below to talk about good specific examples - however, I want to be careful to say that only those examples are allowable, because notably may come out from out aspects. --MASEM 18:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- I've added a footnote to this statement to explain that self-pub sources, alone, are not sufficient for notability, but do help with it when present with other sources. If you feel it needs rewording along the above lines, please edit appropriately. --MASEM 05:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Ah, okay. I do think that DVD commentaries are often the most significant source for behind-the-scenes info. For example, very little production information was known about any individual Simpsons episodes before the DVDs started coming out. In any case, I still think that section should be clarified, because if this becomes a full-fledged guideline, people are going to be quoting it like it's holy scripture. Zagalejo^^^ 01:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- They teeter on the edge, but for benefit of the doubt, such would be sufficient for notability; the argument, for me, is that DVD commentary is typically "time-delay" once-removed analysis of the work, they are still technically primary, but can provide analysis and development details; the "creators" of the work really aren't publishing it. This is counter, say, me writing my self-published work of fiction, then adding a separate "commentary" document, then attempting to say that's notable from that source alone. It is important to note that we still are looking for "significant coverage" -a DVD commentary can help, but it alone is not significant coverage. --MASEM 01:44, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose - Give the readers what they want, which are detailed individual articles. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 05:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, that is not the compromise that is seeked (sp?) after by this specific guideline. We cannot have it that specific way because then we run very much afoul of the parent guideline of WP:Notability. --Izno (talk) 06:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- More importantly, what readers want runs aground of what WP's mission is, to be a free-content encyclopedia, and unbridled fictional coverage without appropriate commentary fails that. We however should be not afraid to utilize extrenal wikis to supplement WP's coverage.--MASEM 06:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Wow, it's funny when you come across people who have so diametrically opposed views of Wikipedia from your own. Basically what you're saying is that Wikipedia's mission is to be an encyclopedia, not actually useful to the majority of people using the internet? We do have Britannica for that, you know. Ford MF (talk) 13:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- (ec)I know. We should have some policy that takes readers into account, but of course they don't vote. NOTE was created to stop articles on garage bands and other things we shouldn't have articles on. Millions of readers and thousands of editors would agree with this. Where NOTE fails is with fictional topics. Forget about what NOTE allows, we should create an optimal guldeline here and NOTE editors can come fight over it here if they want. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 06:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- That's ad populem. An optimal guideline would certainly include individual articles, but again, we come to the question/issue of "How best can we make this sub-guideline work with WP:N while also satisfying readers' presumed wants and needs?" As Masem said, external wikis are a helpful supplement to this guideline. --Izno (talk) 06:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- (ec) Considering that FICT is derived from NOTE, I don't see that happening. It's been common practice for a while now that any articles on individual subjects (aka characters, episodes, etc.) need to assert their own notability, while a central list is fine. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 06:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- I don't think ad populem applies to something that is opinion and is trying to represent a groups opinion. FICT is the sub-guideline that applies to fiction and if we want to make it looser or tighter than NOTE, that is allowed. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 06:36, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- The problem is that editors want to have FICT looser and tighter at the same time. Neither party has been able to convince the other side in the past few months, so the best that FICT can do is compromise, or leave it all to WP:N (which would be desastrous for fiction inclusionists). – sgeureka t•c 07:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, generally, in response to Peregrine Fisher, we should be sticking to NOTE. This guideline should clarify, but under no circumstances attempt to change, by loosening or tightening, how the requirement for multiple nontrivial independent sources applies to fiction articles in particular. In this particular case, non-notable things may be mentioned in appropriate context on articles for subjects which are notable. That is a perfectly acceptable solution, since notability does not restrict article content, only what may be the subject of a full article, and is often workable and appropriate for articles on fiction. Really, it's an excellent solution, and I hope to see it implemented soon in other areas, like albums and athletes. I think merging really is a better solution for non-notable articles than deletion, but it must be made crystal clear—something must be done with them, they cannot stay, not as full "articles" which serve really as no more than fansites. Fansites belong on Tripod, not Wikipedia. Seraphimblade Talk to me 13:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- So the Luke Skywalker article serves as nothing more than a "fansite"? The Luke Skywalker article[3] belongs on Tripod? --Pixelface (talk) 02:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, generally, in response to Peregrine Fisher, we should be sticking to NOTE. This guideline should clarify, but under no circumstances attempt to change, by loosening or tightening, how the requirement for multiple nontrivial independent sources applies to fiction articles in particular. In this particular case, non-notable things may be mentioned in appropriate context on articles for subjects which are notable. That is a perfectly acceptable solution, since notability does not restrict article content, only what may be the subject of a full article, and is often workable and appropriate for articles on fiction. Really, it's an excellent solution, and I hope to see it implemented soon in other areas, like albums and athletes. I think merging really is a better solution for non-notable articles than deletion, but it must be made crystal clear—something must be done with them, they cannot stay, not as full "articles" which serve really as no more than fansites. Fansites belong on Tripod, not Wikipedia. Seraphimblade Talk to me 13:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- The problem is that editors want to have FICT looser and tighter at the same time. Neither party has been able to convince the other side in the past few months, so the best that FICT can do is compromise, or leave it all to WP:N (which would be desastrous for fiction inclusionists). – sgeureka t•c 07:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- I don't think ad populem applies to something that is opinion and is trying to represent a groups opinion. FICT is the sub-guideline that applies to fiction and if we want to make it looser or tighter than NOTE, that is allowed. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 06:36, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- How does the fact that readers want articles on soap opera characters "run aground" of Wikipedia's mission to be a free content encyclopedia? How does that "run aground" of the Wikimedia Foundation's mission statement? --Pixelface (talk) 02:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- From the mission statement: The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop neutral educational content under a free content license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. Extensive coverage of fictional works without analysis or out-of-universe context is not "neutral educational content". In addition, the summary of copyrighted published works are derivative works - which while not a copyright issue that we need to legally be aware, they still are non-free content, and thus inclusion must be offset by fair use provisions - again, analysis and out-of-universe context. --MASEM 02:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Masem, are you a lawyer? --Pixelface (talk) 00:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- And if the source for the analysis in an article is copyrighted, isn't a summary of that analysis also "non-free content"? So you're saying non-free content (a summary of a copyrighted fictional work) + non-free content (a summary of a copyrighted article that analyzes that work) = free content? All contributors to Wikipedia agree to license their contributions under the GFDL. That is the free content license we use. Now, I've argued in the past that plot summaries are non-free content too. But that was based on my layman's understanding of WP:FAIR, but Wikipedia does not give legal advice. That was also before Father Goose contacted Mike Godwin and I read what Mike Godwin had to say. Wikipedia is not receiving takedown letters for fiction articles as far as I know. Now, I am not a lawyer, but it's my understanding that content on Wikipedia is provided as an educational tool, a teaching tool — and that's what we're doing and that counts as fair use. We're providing neutral educational content under a free content license. If your claim that "Extensive coverage of fictional works without analysis or out-of-universe context is not "neutral educational content"." is true, wouldn't that also apply to list of character articles? List of episode articles? Wouldn't that also apply to copyrighted news stories? Take any article from the Main Page that's in the In the news box. Take 2008 French Open for example. Aren't the broadcasts of that copyrighted? Aren't the news stories about it copyrighted? Again, I am not a lawyer but it's my understanding that copyright covers the particular expression of a work, not the ideas behind it. It's legal to reformulate ideas in your own words. So please stop talking about "derivative works" in some effort to install fear, uncertainty, and doubt in people commenting on your proposal. --Pixelface (talk) 19:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- The issue with free content, and the issue with copyright violations, while both based on US copyright law, are two very different problems. All the points you describe, including the discussion with Mike Godwin and so on, are the copyright infringement side. I am not talking about that at all; Mike Godwin said to not worry about, so it makes no sense to talk about limiting fiction due to FUD over copyright. Free content is meant to be unbridled by any copyright concerns. However, to be comprehensive, we need to include non-free content, but we have been tasked to keep this to a minimum as best to present a topic. You are right that the ideas are open: one cannot stop me from writing a story about time travel just because another author used the concept. However, to retell not the idea, but the work itself at any level of detail is a derivative work that only the copyright holder has the right to make; this applies to news reports and sports games and pretty much everything else today not tagged with an open-source license. Again, to be clear, I am not talking about the FUD of copyright lawsuits over derivative works, I'm specifically looking at how this impacts free content. For us to use non-free derivative works in a free-content encyclopedia, we need to minimize its amount and amend it with (the unfortunately vague term) "critical commentary", which, for most works of fiction, can include development, reception, influence, and the like, the "real world context" of the work. The lists of characters or episodes are fine is that these are considered in context with the main article on the work itself; it has only been split off per WP:SIZE. The same logic applies to how we cover news stories, sporting scores, and the like. --MASEM 03:52, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oh, so a summary of copyrighted critical commentary is not a derivative work as well? Care to explain derivative works some more to everyone here, or are you done playing Internet lawyer? --Pixelface (talk) 10:12, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- The issue with free content, and the issue with copyright violations, while both based on US copyright law, are two very different problems. All the points you describe, including the discussion with Mike Godwin and so on, are the copyright infringement side. I am not talking about that at all; Mike Godwin said to not worry about, so it makes no sense to talk about limiting fiction due to FUD over copyright. Free content is meant to be unbridled by any copyright concerns. However, to be comprehensive, we need to include non-free content, but we have been tasked to keep this to a minimum as best to present a topic. You are right that the ideas are open: one cannot stop me from writing a story about time travel just because another author used the concept. However, to retell not the idea, but the work itself at any level of detail is a derivative work that only the copyright holder has the right to make; this applies to news reports and sports games and pretty much everything else today not tagged with an open-source license. Again, to be clear, I am not talking about the FUD of copyright lawsuits over derivative works, I'm specifically looking at how this impacts free content. For us to use non-free derivative works in a free-content encyclopedia, we need to minimize its amount and amend it with (the unfortunately vague term) "critical commentary", which, for most works of fiction, can include development, reception, influence, and the like, the "real world context" of the work. The lists of characters or episodes are fine is that these are considered in context with the main article on the work itself; it has only been split off per WP:SIZE. The same logic applies to how we cover news stories, sporting scores, and the like. --MASEM 03:52, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- From the mission statement: The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop neutral educational content under a free content license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. Extensive coverage of fictional works without analysis or out-of-universe context is not "neutral educational content". In addition, the summary of copyrighted published works are derivative works - which while not a copyright issue that we need to legally be aware, they still are non-free content, and thus inclusion must be offset by fair use provisions - again, analysis and out-of-universe context. --MASEM 02:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- (ec)I know. We should have some policy that takes readers into account, but of course they don't vote. NOTE was created to stop articles on garage bands and other things we shouldn't have articles on. Millions of readers and thousands of editors would agree with this. Where NOTE fails is with fictional topics. Forget about what NOTE allows, we should create an optimal guldeline here and NOTE editors can come fight over it here if they want. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 06:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Strongest possible oppose. First off, the guideline is simply too long. It's also confusing. It doesn't present a compromise. It appears to represent the point of view of a handful of editors, out of over 7 million. I like lists too, but what is this obsession with redirecting articles to lists? And I'm interested in how Masem defines "global consensus." When the RFC on WP:EPISODE was started by Maniwar, Maniwar contacted a whole heck of a lot of people on their talk pages. In my opinion, the "global consensus" is that readers want articles on every episode of South Park. Readers want an article on Lenny Leonard. Readers want an article on Luke Skywalker. Readers want articles on comic book characters. They even want articles on soap opera characters and even soap opera storylines like Storylines of EastEnders (2000s). They don't give a crap what IGN thinks about a character. Coverage doesn't make something notable. Notability is just a perception. It's a subjective opinion. When someone says something is notable, they are saying they think it's worth their attention. That's it. When someone says something is not notable, more often than not they mean they've never heard of it. "Notability" is not some objective reality. Is the character Luke Skywalker not notable because the article doesn't contain any citations? No, it just means the article doesn't contain any citations. I have a question for this guideline's supporters. How should the current version of WP:FICT be applied to the Luke Skywalker article? The Cosette article? The Lenny Leonard article? The The Seven-Beer Snitch article? The Electra article? I'm curious. --Pixelface (talk) 01:39, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- You seem to have a problem more with WP:N's dictum that coverage from secondary sources is required more than anything with this guideline. And naturally it represents the view of not all of Wikipedia because that's expected. Heck, if we followed popular demand, I would be writing an article on how awesome my room is. We're not here to cater to popular demand, as it's an encyclopedia, not a fansite for whatever someone wants to include. I don't give a crap about most of the stuff on Wikipedia, but I recognize that it's part of an encyclopedia. Harping about notability in general isn't really warranted here. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 04:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- WP:N doesn't require secondary sources. It says topics should be notable. And it says secondary sources are one way of providing evidence of notability. You act like secondary sources are the only way. And FICT doesn't have to follow N. WP:N itself says "A topic is presumed to be sufficiently notable to merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below, or if it meets an accepted subject-specific standard listed in the table at the right." And no offense, but nobody cares about how "awesome" your room is. You're right, this is an encyclopedia project, but it's edited by volunteers and people don't get paid to edit. So who do you think spent most of the time working on the List of Naruto chapters (Part I) article? Fans of Naruto or non-fans? And I can throw around the "fansite" word too. Like, what are all these images[4] you've uploaded? Did you upload those because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia or because you're a fan of Castlevania, Naruto, and Bleach? I actually support keeping the articles you uploaded those images for, but the supporters of this guideline would be happy turning the articles into redirects and deleting the images as orphans. And pointing out that "notability" is just an opinion actually *is* warranted here. This is a notability guideline, so why is talking about the concept of "notability" out of place? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but Wikipedia is also not paper and also not a bureaucracy. What does WP:FICT say should be done about the Orihime Inoue article? The Byakuya Kuchiki article? The Kenpachi Zaraki article? You think they should be put in a list? You think people can't give their opinion whether a character is notable or not? Do you want editors going around redirecting nearly every fictonal character article "per WP:FICT" as if it was a policy? --Pixelface (talk) 23:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Of course it isn't required, but it's how a great majority of topics assert notability. If something has won an award, is featured in multiple media, or so on, then it follows that it receives coverage as a result; ergo, it is the easiest method of determining the notability of a topic. And naturally those interested in whatever subject material they are working on have a vested interest in whatever they are working on, but that does not mean that they do not respect our policies and guidelines. For instance, plenty of the articles I've uploaded images for have been redirected or deleted. Am I going to overturn the decision made by consensus because I like the page and because I took the time to put an image on it? Of course not. If we aren't going to respect consensus, then there's little point in collaborating here. In any case, talking about notability in general is inappropriate here because this is talking about a sub-guideline of NOTE that is derived from it, and you're attempting to undermine what basically is established consensus. Your concerns are more pertinent for WT:N than this particular guideline, and you aren't really presenting anything actionable in regards to this particular guideline. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 00:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- "Of course it isn't required" Um, you just said "WP:N's dictum that coverage from secondary sources is required" So which is it? Why are you trying to dictate consensus over every fictional character article, every fiction book article, every fiction TV show article, every fiction TV episode article, every fiction film article, every game article, and possibly every article dealing with myths and legends — from this page? Do you know how policies and guidelines get written? Editors make them up. And in this case, FICT is a horrible idea. Go ahead and look through the 31 archives of this talk page and tell me what the consensus is. Why are you trying to override the consensus among article editors on article talk pages? This may be a notability proposal, but it doesn't have to be *based* on WP:N. If WP:N was all you needed, what's the need for a FICT guideline? And WP:N is not "established consensus." It's just an excuse people use to make it look like their personal opinion of "nn" carries some weight because WP:N has a guideline tag on it. Speaking of "actionable", how about you actually apply FICT as it's written to any one of the multiple articles I've mentioned. I oppose making this proposal a guideline. If Masem has spent over a year re-writing it, he's wasted his time. Now would you like me to come up to the Support section and argue with you up there? --Pixelface (talk) 01:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Required unless consensus dictates there exists sufficient grounds for it to be considered notable in the absence of enough coverage. And honestly, your rant concerning NOTE and the work that has been hammered into this guideline is rather appalling. And yes, it has to be based on NOTE, as we derive the rest of the notability guidelines from it. Are you going to go ask WP:MUSIC, WP:BK and so on and so forth be thrown out? And until NOTE has a disputed tag on top and it's being challenged, then it will be implemented and followed. You've basically stated you don't like this guideline because you think the concept of notability is bad. Again, I point you towards WT:N, where your discussion is pertinent. I don't really see much point in continuing this, as your stance presents something that's neither actionable or really able to be reconciled with. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 01:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- "Of course it isn't required" Um, you just said "WP:N's dictum that coverage from secondary sources is required" So which is it? Why are you trying to dictate consensus over every fictional character article, every fiction book article, every fiction TV show article, every fiction TV episode article, every fiction film article, every game article, and possibly every article dealing with myths and legends — from this page? Do you know how policies and guidelines get written? Editors make them up. And in this case, FICT is a horrible idea. Go ahead and look through the 31 archives of this talk page and tell me what the consensus is. Why are you trying to override the consensus among article editors on article talk pages? This may be a notability proposal, but it doesn't have to be *based* on WP:N. If WP:N was all you needed, what's the need for a FICT guideline? And WP:N is not "established consensus." It's just an excuse people use to make it look like their personal opinion of "nn" carries some weight because WP:N has a guideline tag on it. Speaking of "actionable", how about you actually apply FICT as it's written to any one of the multiple articles I've mentioned. I oppose making this proposal a guideline. If Masem has spent over a year re-writing it, he's wasted his time. Now would you like me to come up to the Support section and argue with you up there? --Pixelface (talk) 01:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Of course it isn't required, but it's how a great majority of topics assert notability. If something has won an award, is featured in multiple media, or so on, then it follows that it receives coverage as a result; ergo, it is the easiest method of determining the notability of a topic. And naturally those interested in whatever subject material they are working on have a vested interest in whatever they are working on, but that does not mean that they do not respect our policies and guidelines. For instance, plenty of the articles I've uploaded images for have been redirected or deleted. Am I going to overturn the decision made by consensus because I like the page and because I took the time to put an image on it? Of course not. If we aren't going to respect consensus, then there's little point in collaborating here. In any case, talking about notability in general is inappropriate here because this is talking about a sub-guideline of NOTE that is derived from it, and you're attempting to undermine what basically is established consensus. Your concerns are more pertinent for WT:N than this particular guideline, and you aren't really presenting anything actionable in regards to this particular guideline. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 00:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- WP:N doesn't require secondary sources. It says topics should be notable. And it says secondary sources are one way of providing evidence of notability. You act like secondary sources are the only way. And FICT doesn't have to follow N. WP:N itself says "A topic is presumed to be sufficiently notable to merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below, or if it meets an accepted subject-specific standard listed in the table at the right." And no offense, but nobody cares about how "awesome" your room is. You're right, this is an encyclopedia project, but it's edited by volunteers and people don't get paid to edit. So who do you think spent most of the time working on the List of Naruto chapters (Part I) article? Fans of Naruto or non-fans? And I can throw around the "fansite" word too. Like, what are all these images[4] you've uploaded? Did you upload those because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia or because you're a fan of Castlevania, Naruto, and Bleach? I actually support keeping the articles you uploaded those images for, but the supporters of this guideline would be happy turning the articles into redirects and deleting the images as orphans. And pointing out that "notability" is just an opinion actually *is* warranted here. This is a notability guideline, so why is talking about the concept of "notability" out of place? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but Wikipedia is also not paper and also not a bureaucracy. What does WP:FICT say should be done about the Orihime Inoue article? The Byakuya Kuchiki article? The Kenpachi Zaraki article? You think they should be put in a list? You think people can't give their opinion whether a character is notable or not? Do you want editors going around redirecting nearly every fictonal character article "per WP:FICT" as if it was a policy? --Pixelface (talk) 23:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- The proposed notability guideline on fiction is supposed to be grounded in the general notability guideline: that notability depends on significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. You're not just arguing to trash the proposed guideline, but to trash the consensus that has existed at WP:N for years. In good faith, you're entitled to your opinion. But how is anyone supposed to buy this argument that you represent the "global consensus" on this proposal when you don't even acknowledge the consensus on an actual guideline at WP:N? If you honestly believe you represent the global consensus, go ahead and change WP:N. You should have no problem if your support is as overwhelming as you believe it is. But if not, the only reasonable thing to do is to base WP:FICT on WP:N. Any proposal that doesn't begin with WP:N just isn't helpful. Randomran (talk) 07:15, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- The only way you can say that NOTE has conensus is to say that the few editors who frequent NOTE overrule the thousands of editors actually edit articles. The arguments in favor of a strict intrepretation of NOTE when it comes to fict are basically because NOTE and NOT say it must be so. This is a weak argument when you consider the number of editors involved. If every 100 editors who edit in a way not consistent with NOTE and NOT were counted as equal to one policy wonk, it would be obvious that they do not have consensus. I'd like to see some arguments other than XXX has consensus. We can come up with countless articles where 100,000+ readers read it and didn't have a problem. Again, countless articles where 100+ editors didn't have a problem. We cannot find a policy or guideline page that outlaws these articles where 100+ editors did not have a problem. Give me some numbers/reasons why a few policy wonks should overrulle thousands of editors and millions of readers. If the only thing you can come up with is copyvio, then that's already a policy with support. What other truly widespread support is there? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 07:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Do you see NOTE being rewritten and massively opposed? For every person that goes to an AfD and claims it's "NN", "not notable", or "fails WP:N" (which is the case for a majority of AfDs), they're following the guideline. In the absence of opposition, there is consensus. Until there's a disputed tag on NOTE, then the onus is on you to show that there's significant opposition to it, not the people supporting it. If the opposition that you claims exists to it did, then we would have hell of a lot more non-notable articles at WP:AFD that are kept, which is definitely not the case. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 09:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- I do see it massively opposed on AfDs. Hopefully someday a small fraction of those people will take an interest in NOTE and it will get that disputed tag. The disputed tag is already on the fiction notability page, obviously. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 14:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- WP:N is a fundamental guideline that has had consensus for years. The same as other guidelines. Would the eager editors who add their friend's garage band invalidate the notability requirement? Would the numerous editors who engage in edit wars invalidate the three revert rule? Would all the editors who add in links to their fan site or favorite opinion piece invalidate the rule against spam and advertising? What about all the people who add elaborate criticism sections based on their personal grievances? Yeah, there are people all over wikipedia breaking rules that have huge consensus. But wikipedia is not an anarchy. You haven't shown that there are more people who oppose the notability requirement than there are editors who want to add advertisements, point of view, and engage in edit wars. But even if there were this massive opposition that you claim, should they really be allowed to destroy guidelines that have served us for years without so much as a discussion? My point: if someone wants to have a go at reforming WP:N, then reform WP:N. But until then, these guidelines should at least acknowledge WP:N rather than ignoring it as if it never existed. Every discussion about WP:FICT must be compatible with the guidelines we actually have, not the guidelines you wish we had. Randomran (talk) 14:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- But it totally lacks community support in practice, which is why so many editors make these articles, edit them, and myself and others defend them in AfDs. Saying they are breaking rules is to assume bad faith as most editors get welcome messages and all that link to the guidelines and so if we assume good faith then these editors simply interpret the policies in such a manner that like myself see that most of the works of fiction actually are suitable for Wikipedia. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 17:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Nobody was assuming bad faith. I was saying these people broke rules and made mistakes. Good faith isn't an immunity card. Wikipedia is not an anarchy. People who disregard fundamental wikipedia guidelines in good faith aren't implicitly rewriting the rules. Just because you edit war for what you see as the good of the article, it doesn't mean we overturn the 3RR. Just because you promote your fansite with the good faith belief that it truly is a great fansite, it doesn't mean we disregard rules against advertising. Just because you have a good faith belief that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim terrorist and you're trying to protect the world against Islamofascism, it doesn't mean everyone can inject their point of view for the enjoyment of anyone who shares that point of view. If you have a problem with the other guidelines, revise them. Otherwise, I'd caution against giving undue weight to any opinion that insists on creating guidelines that contradict one another. Randomran (talk) 17:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- People are not automatically "disregarding" anything, rather they interpret and understand Wikipedia in such a manner that allows for the inclusion of these articles. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 18:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- You have no evidence of that. None of these "interpretations" are compatible with WP:N, indicating disregard rather than interpretation. Randomran (talk) 18:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- I see nothing that suggests these interpretations are incompatible with our notability guidelines. If I did, I wouldn't argue for the inclusion of the articles. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 18:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- How do you deal with the general notability guideline, that requires notability to be established by reliable sources that are independent of the subject -- and goes into great detail about what independent, reliable, and so on all mean? It sounds to me like you're arguing that the notability guideline essentially doesn't exist because several editors act that way. That's the furthest thing from a fair interpretation of the guideline. Randomran (talk) 20:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- By focusing on finding those sources rather than on just declaring they can't be found. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 20:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Please assume good faith. Most people who declare they can't be found are saying so because they actually, in good faith, tried to find them to the best of their ability. If people are in error about those sources, then your grievance is with the editor themselves -- not the notability policy, and not this proposed guideline. In fact, this proposed guideline is very clear that improving an article requires some attempt to find those reliable sources that are independent of the subject. I would support efforts to make this more clear, but not to disregard the notability requirement. I very much agree with the spirit of WP:INSPECTOR, but then I also agree with WP:N in word and in spirit. Randomran (talk) 20:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- I don't doubt that some do indeed do quick Google searchs for sources, but Google is not the end point of research. I have found and added many unchallenged reliable secondary sources that appear in journals and magazines without online public archives. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 20:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Either way, at some point people have to weigh a decision on the evidence they have, not the alleged evidence some claim may still be found. I would entirely support a guideline that formalizes some of the things we just talked about: that there should be a good faith effort to find some sources, and that articles should be given time -- it may even be a good idea to explain what amount of time is appropriate. I think the proposed guideline does this to some extent, but it could be more clear. But we can't remove the part of this guideline that is based on the general notability requirement: you need independent and reliable sources on the subject of the article in order to demonstrate notability. Randomran (talk) 20:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:There is no deadline, so who arbitrarily decides based on what evidence there is when the article is not sufficient? So long as there is a realistic chance of additional sources turning up, we should allow our editors a lot of leeway here. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 21:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- You're right. It's not about a deadline. It's about making a reasonable and educated estimate as to whether that article is notable at present. I believe it's easier to make this estimate when you've had some time to observe the article, see how it's been edited, tagged it for its notability problems, and seen if it's realistic that this problem can be resolved. But at a certain point, you can make an intelligent estimate. "I've tagged it, nobody's done anything, I took a quick look myself, and I'm pretty damn sure it's not notable". And then there's the AFD discussion itself, where people more well versed in the subject than you might have a better idea of what to look for -- and it only takes one person to pull up references to put a stop to it. But again, we're talking about mechanics and process. It sounds to me like you actually agree with the guidelines, just that you don't want to see them used too early. I agree with that. Do you support the guidelines otherwise? Randomran (talk) 21:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Good faith and reasonable editors can look at an article see that it’s not being improved and nominate it for deletion only to have someone come along and find sources and improve articles that others could not find sources for. Please consider Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jan Yanehiro, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Centurion (Scarrow novel), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/King Kong in popular culture, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of tomboys in fiction, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Me and the Pumpkin Queen, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/99 Ways to Die (song), etc. All I am saying is that more effort should be made into helping improving and referencing the articles and that a lot of times the claims that sources cannot be found or that there is no notability are just not true even when made in good faith and because of that, it is important that we approach many articles as works in progress and allow our editors the benefit of the doubt when they do believe the article has potential, but that the likely sources are in publications not available on the internet and that take considerable more time to find. Given the articles I have even helped reference and fulfill notability concerns in AfDs, I reckon a lot more that are deleted after a mere five discussion in which a half dozen or so editors declare it can’t be improved also could and should have been saved as well. So, to some extent I obviously agree that many of these articles should be improved and that they should be better referenced. Where I disagree is the assertion that they cannot be improved or referenced and that a lot of time spent removing them could actually be spent improving them. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 22:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- So basically, you don't have a problem with the guidelines... you just think they should never ever be used to justify an AFD. Randomran (talk) 07:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Good faith and reasonable editors can look at an article see that it’s not being improved and nominate it for deletion only to have someone come along and find sources and improve articles that others could not find sources for. Please consider Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jan Yanehiro, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Centurion (Scarrow novel), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/King Kong in popular culture, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of tomboys in fiction, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Me and the Pumpkin Queen, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/99 Ways to Die (song), etc. All I am saying is that more effort should be made into helping improving and referencing the articles and that a lot of times the claims that sources cannot be found or that there is no notability are just not true even when made in good faith and because of that, it is important that we approach many articles as works in progress and allow our editors the benefit of the doubt when they do believe the article has potential, but that the likely sources are in publications not available on the internet and that take considerable more time to find. Given the articles I have even helped reference and fulfill notability concerns in AfDs, I reckon a lot more that are deleted after a mere five discussion in which a half dozen or so editors declare it can’t be improved also could and should have been saved as well. So, to some extent I obviously agree that many of these articles should be improved and that they should be better referenced. Where I disagree is the assertion that they cannot be improved or referenced and that a lot of time spent removing them could actually be spent improving them. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 22:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- You're right. It's not about a deadline. It's about making a reasonable and educated estimate as to whether that article is notable at present. I believe it's easier to make this estimate when you've had some time to observe the article, see how it's been edited, tagged it for its notability problems, and seen if it's realistic that this problem can be resolved. But at a certain point, you can make an intelligent estimate. "I've tagged it, nobody's done anything, I took a quick look myself, and I'm pretty damn sure it's not notable". And then there's the AFD discussion itself, where people more well versed in the subject than you might have a better idea of what to look for -- and it only takes one person to pull up references to put a stop to it. But again, we're talking about mechanics and process. It sounds to me like you actually agree with the guidelines, just that you don't want to see them used too early. I agree with that. Do you support the guidelines otherwise? Randomran (talk) 21:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:There is no deadline, so who arbitrarily decides based on what evidence there is when the article is not sufficient? So long as there is a realistic chance of additional sources turning up, we should allow our editors a lot of leeway here. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 21:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Either way, at some point people have to weigh a decision on the evidence they have, not the alleged evidence some claim may still be found. I would entirely support a guideline that formalizes some of the things we just talked about: that there should be a good faith effort to find some sources, and that articles should be given time -- it may even be a good idea to explain what amount of time is appropriate. I think the proposed guideline does this to some extent, but it could be more clear. But we can't remove the part of this guideline that is based on the general notability requirement: you need independent and reliable sources on the subject of the article in order to demonstrate notability. Randomran (talk) 20:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- I don't doubt that some do indeed do quick Google searchs for sources, but Google is not the end point of research. I have found and added many unchallenged reliable secondary sources that appear in journals and magazines without online public archives. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 20:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Please assume good faith. Most people who declare they can't be found are saying so because they actually, in good faith, tried to find them to the best of their ability. If people are in error about those sources, then your grievance is with the editor themselves -- not the notability policy, and not this proposed guideline. In fact, this proposed guideline is very clear that improving an article requires some attempt to find those reliable sources that are independent of the subject. I would support efforts to make this more clear, but not to disregard the notability requirement. I very much agree with the spirit of WP:INSPECTOR, but then I also agree with WP:N in word and in spirit. Randomran (talk) 20:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- By focusing on finding those sources rather than on just declaring they can't be found. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 20:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- (unindent a bit) If editors who merged and nominated articles for AfD improved articles to an equal extent, it would be much easier to find some middle ground. It's all volunteer so there's no way to enforce anything like that that I can think of. I've heard a few people say some of our problems are an editor problem, not a guideline problem, but if they can do what they do with in good faith, which they can, it means the guidelines need to be adjusted. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 07:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I understand your point, Peregrine, but I continue to believe that is something we can't realistically fix with this specific page. If what's on this page is good advice, and we can agree (to some reasonable extent) on that, then we can actually do something about how people handle the situations. Right now we're in a big traffic jam, waiting for WP:FICT to be dealt with. For example, we still have WP:EPISODE to fix up, but we're mostly waiting for WP:FICT to become somewhat stable. -- Ned Scott 07:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Thank you for understanding, common ground is a good thing. If we can make this page so it allows for optimal orginization of fictional topics, which I doubt we can since it would involve some articles being about single non-notable subjects, then that would be great. If we could make users who redirect say, 100 episodes of Scrubs, establish notability for 5-10 of those articles (and it is possible) then that would also be great. Since we can't do anything like what I just mentioned, I think the best thing to do is probably get rid of FICT so the real discussion can take place at NOTE. It seems to me that to get a FICT anywhere close to what I would like, and what represents actual readers and editors on the ground, this discussion needs to take place at a higher level. In my opinion there have been a number of well reasoned arguments for loosening FICT, and they're pretty much all countered with "that's against NOTE." The whole support section ingnores the conflict with NOTE. I guess if NOTE and NOT were changed to even allow what the support votes are supporting, I might support as well. Until then it's really ignoring the problems with our policies and guidelines when it comes to fiction. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 08:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Then your points are better represented at NOTE and NOT. Yes, it would be great to cover every single episode, character, and so on for all these media, but realize that that a line has to be drawn since NOTE and NOT still stand. So long as they do, this guideline must respect what NOTE and NOT currently dictate. Now, if you were to change NOTE and NOT, then by extension, you would have the ability to alter this guideline in order to make it more permissive. If the support for changing NOTE and NOT exists per your statements, then feel free to go change them. However, trying to argue against this guideline using the version of NOTE and NOT that you want is a bit silly, no? And note that the guideline as it stands actually does lend itself towards being more permissive than what the current situation is. If this doesn't pass, then you're going to end up with people bulldozing articles at AfD while citing NOTE and NOT#PLOT, while if FICT passed, you would have a merge or a tag-and-wait situation present. And it still doesn't stop you from going to NOTE and NOT to change it to your liking if the current version of FICT passes. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 08:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Thank you for understanding, common ground is a good thing. If we can make this page so it allows for optimal orginization of fictional topics, which I doubt we can since it would involve some articles being about single non-notable subjects, then that would be great. If we could make users who redirect say, 100 episodes of Scrubs, establish notability for 5-10 of those articles (and it is possible) then that would also be great. Since we can't do anything like what I just mentioned, I think the best thing to do is probably get rid of FICT so the real discussion can take place at NOTE. It seems to me that to get a FICT anywhere close to what I would like, and what represents actual readers and editors on the ground, this discussion needs to take place at a higher level. In my opinion there have been a number of well reasoned arguments for loosening FICT, and they're pretty much all countered with "that's against NOTE." The whole support section ingnores the conflict with NOTE. I guess if NOTE and NOT were changed to even allow what the support votes are supporting, I might support as well. Until then it's really ignoring the problems with our policies and guidelines when it comes to fiction. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 08:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I understand your point, Peregrine, but I continue to believe that is something we can't realistically fix with this specific page. If what's on this page is good advice, and we can agree (to some reasonable extent) on that, then we can actually do something about how people handle the situations. Right now we're in a big traffic jam, waiting for WP:FICT to be dealt with. For example, we still have WP:EPISODE to fix up, but we're mostly waiting for WP:FICT to become somewhat stable. -- Ned Scott 07:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- How do you deal with the general notability guideline, that requires notability to be established by reliable sources that are independent of the subject -- and goes into great detail about what independent, reliable, and so on all mean? It sounds to me like you're arguing that the notability guideline essentially doesn't exist because several editors act that way. That's the furthest thing from a fair interpretation of the guideline. Randomran (talk) 20:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- I see nothing that suggests these interpretations are incompatible with our notability guidelines. If I did, I wouldn't argue for the inclusion of the articles. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 18:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- You have no evidence of that. None of these "interpretations" are compatible with WP:N, indicating disregard rather than interpretation. Randomran (talk) 18:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- People are not automatically "disregarding" anything, rather they interpret and understand Wikipedia in such a manner that allows for the inclusion of these articles. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 18:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Nobody was assuming bad faith. I was saying these people broke rules and made mistakes. Good faith isn't an immunity card. Wikipedia is not an anarchy. People who disregard fundamental wikipedia guidelines in good faith aren't implicitly rewriting the rules. Just because you edit war for what you see as the good of the article, it doesn't mean we overturn the 3RR. Just because you promote your fansite with the good faith belief that it truly is a great fansite, it doesn't mean we disregard rules against advertising. Just because you have a good faith belief that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim terrorist and you're trying to protect the world against Islamofascism, it doesn't mean everyone can inject their point of view for the enjoyment of anyone who shares that point of view. If you have a problem with the other guidelines, revise them. Otherwise, I'd caution against giving undue weight to any opinion that insists on creating guidelines that contradict one another. Randomran (talk) 17:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- (redent)One of my main talking points lately has been that this compromise is prohibited by NOT. I know that this is more permissive, and that's a big reason why I won't support it when it has no teeth. The ultimate goal in my opininion is to change NOTE, NOT, and whatever else hinders us in our coverage of fictional topics, as agreed upon by the masses, not policy wonks. Supporting something prohibited by NOT, without changing NOT, is silly. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 09:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- It's not really prohibited by NOT#PLOT, which states that "a concise plot summary is appropriate as part of the larger coverage of a fictional work" and I construe "larger coverage" to indicate the lists that we're justifying in terms of WP:SS, WP:WEIGHT and WP:SIZE, which is the compromise point that has been taken by FICT. It doesn't contradict NOT#PLOT but rather clarifies more specific cases on how it is applied. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 09:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- But it totally lacks community support in practice, which is why so many editors make these articles, edit them, and myself and others defend them in AfDs. Saying they are breaking rules is to assume bad faith as most editors get welcome messages and all that link to the guidelines and so if we assume good faith then these editors simply interpret the policies in such a manner that like myself see that most of the works of fiction actually are suitable for Wikipedia. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 17:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- WP:N is a fundamental guideline that has had consensus for years. The same as other guidelines. Would the eager editors who add their friend's garage band invalidate the notability requirement? Would the numerous editors who engage in edit wars invalidate the three revert rule? Would all the editors who add in links to their fan site or favorite opinion piece invalidate the rule against spam and advertising? What about all the people who add elaborate criticism sections based on their personal grievances? Yeah, there are people all over wikipedia breaking rules that have huge consensus. But wikipedia is not an anarchy. You haven't shown that there are more people who oppose the notability requirement than there are editors who want to add advertisements, point of view, and engage in edit wars. But even if there were this massive opposition that you claim, should they really be allowed to destroy guidelines that have served us for years without so much as a discussion? My point: if someone wants to have a go at reforming WP:N, then reform WP:N. But until then, these guidelines should at least acknowledge WP:N rather than ignoring it as if it never existed. Every discussion about WP:FICT must be compatible with the guidelines we actually have, not the guidelines you wish we had. Randomran (talk) 14:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- I do see it massively opposed on AfDs. Hopefully someday a small fraction of those people will take an interest in NOTE and it will get that disputed tag. The disputed tag is already on the fiction notability page, obviously. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 14:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Do you see NOTE being rewritten and massively opposed? For every person that goes to an AfD and claims it's "NN", "not notable", or "fails WP:N" (which is the case for a majority of AfDs), they're following the guideline. In the absence of opposition, there is consensus. Until there's a disputed tag on NOTE, then the onus is on you to show that there's significant opposition to it, not the people supporting it. If the opposition that you claims exists to it did, then we would have hell of a lot more non-notable articles at WP:AFD that are kept, which is definitely not the case. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 09:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Why is it supposed to be grounded in WP:N? We can come up with different standards for different topics. WP:N itself says "A topic is presumed to be sufficiently notable to merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below, or if it meets an accepted subject-specific standard listed in the table at the right" Notability does *not* depend on "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject." If that's present, it's likely that people will agree it's notable. That's one way of providing evidence of notability. If that's not present, that doesn't mean anything. Go read WP:N again. I never claimed to represent global consensus. But if you want to find out what "global consensus" is, you should probably look at some of Wikipedia's 2.4 million articles. You should also try actually *applying* FICT as it's currently written to some of those 2.4 million articles and see if editors actually agree with what you're doing or if they oppose it. For example, what does WP:N or WP:FICT suggest regarding the Guile (Street Fighter) article? --Pixelface (talk) 01:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- When it comes to specific notability guidelines, they can be more strict than the general notability guideline, but not less so. As for Guile, he's probably notable because he's probably been given significant coverage by reliable sources that are independent of the Street Fighter series. I'd have strong reason to believe there are references that can assert notability. Randomran (talk) 07:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- That doesn't actually make sense when you consider the quote "A topic is presumed to be sufficiently notable to merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below, or if it meets an accepted subject-specific standard listed in the table at the right". If they had to be more strict, then it would say "and" rather than "or". The "or" implies that meeting a subject-specific standard means that it doesn't have to meet the GNG, and several more specific guidelines allow for notability without requiring significant coverage (such as books and films being notable if they win awards). Nowhere does it say that subject-specific guidelines must be more strict than the GNG. SamBC(talk) 12:53, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, I think that you are both right, and that WP:N needs clarification on that issue. Randomran's interpretation is the only one that makes sense to me, but Sambc is correct in terms of what a literal reading says. The problem with Sambc's interpretation is that it gives unreasonable power to a wikiproject. If the (purely hypothetical) Irving Forbush Genealogy project decided that being named "Forbush" conferred notability, then they could create an article for every Forbush in the world, and there wouldn't be much anyone could do to stop them. Kww (talk) 13:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- The way I've read it (and not saying my way is right, but seems to be consistent with subnotability guidelines) is in the sense that other guidelines can supercede the GNC, but only if, first, it is an objective measurement, and second, the most common result of meeting that guideline will still result, ultimately, in an article with reliable, independent sourcing that is related to its notability. I point to WP:MUSIC's criteria for musicians, where the first one is the GNC, but the rest are all objective standards that I can easily see leading to sourcing of some type.
- I've mentioned that we've tried to think of cases of the same type of fictional works as alternatives, but unfortunately either the approach is not objective (say, if I say major character of a notable work is presumed notable, "major" is a subjective term) and/or that sourcing in most cases is limited to the primary work only. We've explored that with the only possible leeway being major awards, and even that is a careful balance, because most awards are given to the actors or the creators of the characters, and not specifically to the character itself, though there is some implied notability here. I'm not saying there aren't any, but that's been part of the brainstorming of this guideline for the past year and has proven unsuccessful in providing such alternatives to the GNC for fictional works that still end up meeting the general concept of notability. --MASEM 13:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, I think that you are both right, and that WP:N needs clarification on that issue. Randomran's interpretation is the only one that makes sense to me, but Sambc is correct in terms of what a literal reading says. The problem with Sambc's interpretation is that it gives unreasonable power to a wikiproject. If the (purely hypothetical) Irving Forbush Genealogy project decided that being named "Forbush" conferred notability, then they could create an article for every Forbush in the world, and there wouldn't be much anyone could do to stop them. Kww (talk) 13:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- No, Randomran, you're wrong. You're saying that a topic can have "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" and still not meet one of the notability guidelienes? The various notability guidelines have all kinds of different criteria a topic can meet. Go look at WP:ACADEMIC, WP:ENTERTAINER, and WP:MOVIE for example. Significant coverage is sufficient evidence of notability; it's not a requirement. --Pixelface (talk) 01:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- That doesn't actually make sense when you consider the quote "A topic is presumed to be sufficiently notable to merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below, or if it meets an accepted subject-specific standard listed in the table at the right". If they had to be more strict, then it would say "and" rather than "or". The "or" implies that meeting a subject-specific standard means that it doesn't have to meet the GNG, and several more specific guidelines allow for notability without requiring significant coverage (such as books and films being notable if they win awards). Nowhere does it say that subject-specific guidelines must be more strict than the GNG. SamBC(talk) 12:53, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- When it comes to specific notability guidelines, they can be more strict than the general notability guideline, but not less so. As for Guile, he's probably notable because he's probably been given significant coverage by reliable sources that are independent of the Street Fighter series. I'd have strong reason to believe there are references that can assert notability. Randomran (talk) 07:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- The only way you can say that NOTE has conensus is to say that the few editors who frequent NOTE overrule the thousands of editors actually edit articles. The arguments in favor of a strict intrepretation of NOTE when it comes to fict are basically because NOTE and NOT say it must be so. This is a weak argument when you consider the number of editors involved. If every 100 editors who edit in a way not consistent with NOTE and NOT were counted as equal to one policy wonk, it would be obvious that they do not have consensus. I'd like to see some arguments other than XXX has consensus. We can come up with countless articles where 100,000+ readers read it and didn't have a problem. Again, countless articles where 100+ editors didn't have a problem. We cannot find a policy or guideline page that outlaws these articles where 100+ editors did not have a problem. Give me some numbers/reasons why a few policy wonks should overrulle thousands of editors and millions of readers. If the only thing you can come up with is copyvio, then that's already a policy with support. What other truly widespread support is there? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 07:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- You seem to have a problem more with WP:N's dictum that coverage from secondary sources is required more than anything with this guideline. And naturally it represents the view of not all of Wikipedia because that's expected. Heck, if we followed popular demand, I would be writing an article on how awesome my room is. We're not here to cater to popular demand, as it's an encyclopedia, not a fansite for whatever someone wants to include. I don't give a crap about most of the stuff on Wikipedia, but I recognize that it's part of an encyclopedia. Harping about notability in general isn't really warranted here. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 04:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose. I think Christopher Parham has said pretty much all I want to say. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
WeakOppose I do think some definable standards need to be applied, but I'm not sure this is the way to do it. There's a huge divide around here about what kind of articles are and are not notable. This policy seems to be heavily slanted to curtail the activities of the "pop culture" set of editors (for lack of a better group title). There must be a better compromise than this. AniMate 22:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)- I would argue that this is not an attempt to curtail pop culture coverage but to make sure that is treated in an encyclopedia manner (and again, we should not be afraid to defer to wikis for more details on pop culture that don't work under WP's mission and policies). However, I will ask, either why do you feel this curtails on pop culture, or from a different approach, what do you feel needs to be added to achieve a better compromise? --MASEM 23:15, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- First off, I hate this side of things, because sometimes all a contributor wants to do is give an opinion andnot have someone try and talk them out of it. Secondly, deferring to other wikis strikes me as an awful idea. First off, we'd have to figure out a way to determine which wikis are and are not acceptable. Can you imagine how awful that would be? Wookiepedia is arguably the best known entertainment wiki out there, and a great place for Star Wars articles. However, there are some pretty second or third rate wikis out there as well, and that is being generous. How do we gauge the quality of these wikis? Will it be as divisive as judging the quality of which articles should remain on Wikipedia? Probably. Can we offer the same protection and community values to hard working contributors whose work has been deemed "not ready for primetime"? The more I think about it, the less I like this idea. AniMate 00:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- We're trying to get a compromise that everyone finds suitable, so asking for clarification on what you find wrong with the guideline so he can make corrections is perfectly fine. And the only reason we're including other wikis in this guideline is that there exists wikis on more specialized topics in which non-notable topics here, or many topics that would normally fail WP:NOT can be sent to. Yes, some of these wikis are in bad shape, but transwiking is preferable for these editors in most cases rather than outright deletion, which they would be subject to normally. In any case, whatever wiki they are sent to ultimately comes about in the individual AfD, and consensus usually doesn't result in a transwiki decision. If this guideline is passed, we would actually see a spike in "merge" !votes rather than an increase in "transwiki" !votes. Anyways, for articles "not ready for primetime", editors who want to work on them are free to work on them in their userspace for practically as long as they like, and any administrator would be happy to provide a copy of the deleted article for this to work. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 00:51, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- First off, I hate this side of things, because sometimes all a contributor wants to do is give an opinion andnot have someone try and talk them out of it. Secondly, deferring to other wikis strikes me as an awful idea. First off, we'd have to figure out a way to determine which wikis are and are not acceptable. Can you imagine how awful that would be? Wookiepedia is arguably the best known entertainment wiki out there, and a great place for Star Wars articles. However, there are some pretty second or third rate wikis out there as well, and that is being generous. How do we gauge the quality of these wikis? Will it be as divisive as judging the quality of which articles should remain on Wikipedia? Probably. Can we offer the same protection and community values to hard working contributors whose work has been deemed "not ready for primetime"? The more I think about it, the less I like this idea. AniMate 00:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I would argue that this is not an attempt to curtail pop culture coverage but to make sure that is treated in an encyclopedia manner (and again, we should not be afraid to defer to wikis for more details on pop culture that don't work under WP's mission and policies). However, I will ask, either why do you feel this curtails on pop culture, or from a different approach, what do you feel needs to be added to achieve a better compromise? --MASEM 23:15, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- STRONG Oppose. Per above. The problem I have with this is that some people actually use the notability guidelines as an excuse to just obliterate and merge everything left and right. Several content and all the hard work people put into articles are lost when uncivil gutter trash just show up just to enforce these guidelines and assimilate everything in their path, even going as far as calling them "vandals" when they try to make simple edits to the page instead of helping them, and for what? Just so they could reach "GA" or "FA" status. BAH! The notability guidelines, in my opinion, only served as a catalyst for a battleground of uncivilty and unnecessary fights to keep all of this information. ZeroGiga (talk) 03:04, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Editors do need to realize they don't own articles and their efforts can be removed - being upset at the loss of editing work is not fruitful; however, that is why need to encourage the use of wikis so that this hard work isn't lost (and as long as merging is done, it's still there in the history). As for uncivil editors sending things to AFD, that's a behavioral issue - editors that do engage in uncivility need to be reported if that's a problem (such as TTN, I'm guessing). --MASEM 03:15, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Speaking of incivility. I find the irony behind statements such as "uncivil gutter trash" rather hilarious. If you want people to take you seriously, try not to insult them when you try and make your point. Second, other than speedy deletion, it takes consensus to delete an article (it takes that to merge it as well). Whether someone is using FICT (or any other guideline for that matter) as a means to delete or merge a page is irrelevant to the fact that consensus must support such a thing. Now, if it's blatantly obvious the subject shouldn't have a page, then 40 editors saying it should--when all it has is a plot summary--isn't going to change that fact either. Consensus isn't about how many peole say "yes" or "no". If you have a problem with people misusing the guideline (or a policy for that matter) then take it up with the editors (or the community); don't blame the guideline for the trouble caused by a few editors. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 03:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- The truth is, without FICT, people already use NOTE (and NOT#PLOT) to merge/redirect/delete fiction articles in masses quite successfully, and even a {{rejected}} tag on FICT wouldn't miraculously stop that. Some people may have problems with NOTE and NOT#PLOT, but FICT is the wrong place to discuss their merits. (The easiest solution would be to start an RfC at NOTE to turn its guideline status into an essay or something, but I imagine this proposal would be shot down quickly like the RfC to remove NOT#PLOT. And we're back to what FICT currently says.) – sgeureka t•c 07:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I have to agree with this statement. I generally hate when people argue with oppose or support !votes, but sgeureka's comment really needs to be pointed out. If we implement this proposal, a lot of work by many contributors will be lost. Frankly, this seems to be a divisive proposal mostly about curbing popular culture articles and proving that certain editors on one side of a conflict are right. I wish I could propose a "stay on your side of the playground" guideline, but petty politics and drama will always be an unfortunate factor here. Are these articles really detrimental to the encyclopedia? No. Do they need guidelines? Yes. Is setting up a system to delete the contributions of our fellow Wikipedians the right way to go about getting said guidelines the right way to go about this? Absolutely not. There are thousands of articles in this encyclopedia that desperately need to be improved. Instead, many are here to play in the worst part of Wikipedia: the deletionist vs the Inclusionist bullshit... and that is what this is. So, as I don't have any power to make a guideline: I will just ask all of you to play on your side of the playground, improve all of the articles that need to be improved, and to just support each other. This advice won't be heeded, but a Wikipedian can hope. Can't he? AniMate 09:31, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think you misconstrued what he was trying to say. He was saying that if this proposal does not go through, then people are going to bulldoze articles using NOTE and NOT#PLOT with practical impunity. If this guideline passes, then we get a situation that is more permissive, not stricter. If anything, it will reduce possible conflict. And for your "stay on your side of the playground" idea, it isn't what Wikipedia really is about. There will always be voices on either side of the issue and in the end, we have to abide by whatever consensus dictates, or Wikipedia doesn't work. Also, there's really no "fences" that separate the editors here - we share the same community and articles sans any sort of impediment, and we have to cooperate. There is always conflict and to every conflict, there has to be some form of resolution. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 09:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Um, FICT is based in part on NOT#PLOT and NOTE. And the RFC on NOT#PLOT is to determine whether PLOT has consensus, and it doesn't. You don't need to demonstrate consensus to remove a section of policy that doesn't have consensus. It needs consensus to be policy in the first place. So don't claim "the RfC to remove NOT#PLOT" was "shot down." When PLOT has been removed from NOT, the removal has been reverted by parties of E&C1 and E&C2, and that includes you. --Pixelface (talk) 23:19, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- This RFC appears to support that some statement that "Wikipedia articles are not just plot summaries" has support; the exact language was in question, but the concept appears to be strongly supported by those that responded. --MASEM 23:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- You continue to ignore other statements made by people outside of that section at WT:NOT, just like you ignored them when you performed three reverts to WP:NOT and re-added PLOT three times — probably because this misguided proposal of yours relies on PLOT. I've pointed to lots of articles that are simply plot summaries. There does seem to be some support that articles ought to be more than plot summaries, which is why such wording belongs in WAF and not under WP:IINFO. --Pixelface (talk) 00:12, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- Policies are supposed to be mostly stable, with significant changes being discussed before the change is made (or, if made and reverted, discussed to determine consensus for the change). It was removed once and reverted; at that point, there needed to be discussion about it before removing it again. Consensus doesn't disappear and policy doesn't become broken because some editors believe a line shouldn't be present. That's why rationale discussions about changes to determine if they fit into existing policy are key for making sure policies and guidelines reflect policy, and the removal of PLOT without gaining consensus had to be reverted once it was reverted once. Again, please remember to be civil and not attack the editors. --MASEM 00:33, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- You continue to ignore other statements made by people outside of that section at WT:NOT, just like you ignored them when you performed three reverts to WP:NOT and re-added PLOT three times — probably because this misguided proposal of yours relies on PLOT. I've pointed to lots of articles that are simply plot summaries. There does seem to be some support that articles ought to be more than plot summaries, which is why such wording belongs in WAF and not under WP:IINFO. --Pixelface (talk) 00:12, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- This RFC appears to support that some statement that "Wikipedia articles are not just plot summaries" has support; the exact language was in question, but the concept appears to be strongly supported by those that responded. --MASEM 23:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- I have to agree with this statement. I generally hate when people argue with oppose or support !votes, but sgeureka's comment really needs to be pointed out. If we implement this proposal, a lot of work by many contributors will be lost. Frankly, this seems to be a divisive proposal mostly about curbing popular culture articles and proving that certain editors on one side of a conflict are right. I wish I could propose a "stay on your side of the playground" guideline, but petty politics and drama will always be an unfortunate factor here. Are these articles really detrimental to the encyclopedia? No. Do they need guidelines? Yes. Is setting up a system to delete the contributions of our fellow Wikipedians the right way to go about getting said guidelines the right way to go about this? Absolutely not. There are thousands of articles in this encyclopedia that desperately need to be improved. Instead, many are here to play in the worst part of Wikipedia: the deletionist vs the Inclusionist bullshit... and that is what this is. So, as I don't have any power to make a guideline: I will just ask all of you to play on your side of the playground, improve all of the articles that need to be improved, and to just support each other. This advice won't be heeded, but a Wikipedian can hope. Can't he? AniMate 09:31, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Editors do need to realize they don't own articles and their efforts can be removed - being upset at the loss of editing work is not fruitful; however, that is why need to encourage the use of wikis so that this hard work isn't lost (and as long as merging is done, it's still there in the history). As for uncivil editors sending things to AFD, that's a behavioral issue - editors that do engage in uncivility need to be reported if that's a problem (such as TTN, I'm guessing). --MASEM 03:15, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose I support the well-reasoned points made by Christopher Parham above. The proposal also fails WP:CREEP and WP:BURO. Such long and tendentious rule-making is contrary to our principles, being an elitist concept which is explicitly hostile to the contributions of ordinary editors who typically work upon such topics. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- There's a reason why this has been under editing for more than a year: every time we got close to what we thought met current practice as to establish a baseline, someone would bring up another point that had to be addressed; at least 4 times there was a complete tear down and rebuild of these. In order to accurately reflect today's current practices and to make sure that editors at the extreme ends of the inclusionist/deletionist spectrum were happy, we had to include all the various clauses and the like, because that's exactly how the situation with fiction is being dealt with presently: there is no one simple answer that can be applied across all fiction topics. The reason we're asked to get consensus on this version is to make sure we then have an acceptable baseline that we can then try to work on changing it into someone simpler that may go against the grain and thus would require much more discussion; we need something stable for FICT however while this occurs. It is not meant to be hostile because we are not preventing coverage of topics, simply trying to make sure how and where these are covered are appropriate for an encyclopedia. --MASEM 10:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Strongest possible oppose per all those before, because the guideline is too long, and because the setting up of secondary-source requirements would be to essentially hand a club to editors to obliterate large swaths of Wikipedia's terrain, from, oh, 99% of our comic book-related articles, to pulp-era mystery and fantasy heroes, to more recent serial characters like V. I. Warshawski. Ford MF (talk) 13:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Without FICT, you will still be bound by secondary source requirements from WP:NOTE. And this does not prevent coverage of these topics, but asking them to be presented as part of notable topics. For example, the V. I. Warshawski article would be better presented by talking about the series of books either on their own page (presuming that some of the books are notable, or the series itself), or within the Sara Paretsky page, with appropriate redirections to make the information readily available; wherever the series is covered , you can explain the characters briefly and any other aspects common to the books. --MASEM 13:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I respectfully, but with the greatest disturbance, disagree. Fictional characters are a unique case, and aren't WP:BLPs, and aren't ever going to be. In most cases, the work is the coverage. That forum editorial quoted above, Why Wikipedia is Deleting the Wrong Articles is 100% dead on. Category:Dungeons & Dragons magical beasts, or comic characters, or TV characters, aren't ever going to get secondary coverage unless they're Mary Tyler Moore, and deletion and merge pogroms against these things drive readers away, damage the project's long-term viability, and frankly create a hostile atmosphere to the editors who work on these articles (which, face it, constitute an enormous amount of traffic here), and whose stuff gets tossed out largely because of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. If Wikipedia's mission isn't primarily to be encyclopedically useful to its readers, its mission is nothing but a stupid social experiment. Ford MF (talk) 13:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Question. How do you want to write a neutral article that does not violate WP:NOTE, WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:OR if you don't have any secondary coverage? If you dismiss these accepted policies and guidelines along with a few others (WP:GUIDE, WP:TRIVIA and WP:RS) as IDONTLIKEIT, and if you consider others' defending these rules as hostile, it may be you who mistakes wikipedia's mission, not the others. – sgeureka t•c 13:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Sgeureka, do you think the Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky article violates NOTE, PLOT, and OR? Do you see the word "notability" anywhere in the Wikimedia Foundation mission statement or the five pillars? Have you read WP:IAR?? Is Wikipedia a notability project? How does "notability" fall within Wikipedia's mission, considering that Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia? --Pixelface (talk) 00:32, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- WP is supposed to be useful by providing "neutral educational content". This is not to say that most modern fictional is not appropriate to that, however, there's a point where it is appropriate to talk about modern works and elements thereof and how they have been influenced or have influence the world in an educational approach, and where it is not appropriate to give a complete biography of a fictional character straight of the primary source. I'm not saying we are trying to strike anything that cannot be considered educational, but when we do step away from that mission goal, we need to make sure that what is being covered is treated in the same fashion that the educational content is given as, which means that keys policies like NOT, V, NOR, and NPOV have to be followed. Characters and other aspects that can only be covered by the primary work should be covered in the discussion of the primary work (presuming the work itself is notable), at the level to establish who and what these characters are. And again, I note that we have offsite wikis that can take information that doesn't meet the educational content goal and interlink with those to provide complete coverage. --MASEM 13:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Question. How do you want to write a neutral article that does not violate WP:NOTE, WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:OR if you don't have any secondary coverage? If you dismiss these accepted policies and guidelines along with a few others (WP:GUIDE, WP:TRIVIA and WP:RS) as IDONTLIKEIT, and if you consider others' defending these rules as hostile, it may be you who mistakes wikipedia's mission, not the others. – sgeureka t•c 13:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I respectfully, but with the greatest disturbance, disagree. Fictional characters are a unique case, and aren't WP:BLPs, and aren't ever going to be. In most cases, the work is the coverage. That forum editorial quoted above, Why Wikipedia is Deleting the Wrong Articles is 100% dead on. Category:Dungeons & Dragons magical beasts, or comic characters, or TV characters, aren't ever going to get secondary coverage unless they're Mary Tyler Moore, and deletion and merge pogroms against these things drive readers away, damage the project's long-term viability, and frankly create a hostile atmosphere to the editors who work on these articles (which, face it, constitute an enormous amount of traffic here), and whose stuff gets tossed out largely because of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. If Wikipedia's mission isn't primarily to be encyclopedically useful to its readers, its mission is nothing but a stupid social experiment. Ford MF (talk) 13:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Without FICT, you will still be bound by secondary source requirements from WP:NOTE. And this does not prevent coverage of these topics, but asking them to be presented as part of notable topics. For example, the V. I. Warshawski article would be better presented by talking about the series of books either on their own page (presuming that some of the books are notable, or the series itself), or within the Sara Paretsky page, with appropriate redirections to make the information readily available; wherever the series is covered , you can explain the characters briefly and any other aspects common to the books. --MASEM 13:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose, the elements within the FICT guideline are widely open to interpretation, which has been seen at numerous debates at AFD etc. e.g what is an independent source, how significant a mention is significant etc. Thus to make a concrete guideline from fluid elements seems illogical. Much information of vital articles is, in and of itself, non-notable, yet may be forked out when an article grows to a large size, eg diseases with a treatment of x subpage etc. These are dictated by size and depth of material rather than an extraneous notability which acts as a cull of material, which I feel is not in the interests of wikipedia or its readers. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I believe that the general notability guideline already defines that information. So, you may want to check out WP:NOTE. Read the first section, and then follow the sources at the end of each sentence to the bottom of the page for a more detailed explaination. Short of simply copying and pasting that information, there isn't much that needs to be said. We link to WP:NOTE when we define how this guideline classifies notability. Depth of material can split a page, but the material should not be simply plot information, or you run the risk of creating a page that does not but provide a free alternative to watching/reading/listening to some fictional program. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 13:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Also, note the suggestion below to provide concrete examples of what are good sources for fiction notability. That would address the first points. Mind you, regardless of how much we actually spell out, what happens at AFD is still going to be a subjective determination, that is the nature of the process. What we need to do is step back a notch from the aggressiveness of some editors like TTN to require significantly more coverage; we need to be less BITEy at AFD and give more good faith benefit of the doubt that if there's a couple weak notability references, then deletion is not called for. The problem is that is something we can help line up by helping to spell out good sources, but really cannot control from FICT's standpoint. --MASEM 13:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose Too much dislike onto a subject is not helping here. Yes people look to WP for details on series/literary works and the characters/actors involved. In my mind when looking at any article we need to look at three major aspects: 1) Does the reader benefit? 2)Does the writer benefit? 3)Is the subject (or others) harmed by it? If No 2 outweighs No 1 it is spam. No 3 mostly applies to BLP issues but could be construed to commercial interests which in the most case are actually not harmed by those articles but furthered. Agathoclea (talk) 15:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Honest question: In how does this relate to anything that FICT says? FICT doesn't mention dislike, spam, harm or how readers and writers benefit from articles. – sgeureka t•c 16:56, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Which is maybe the problem. Ford MF (talk) 17:01, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Honest question: In how does this relate to anything that FICT says? FICT doesn't mention dislike, spam, harm or how readers and writers benefit from articles. – sgeureka t•c 16:56, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose Basically, I agree with Christopher Parham and KungFu Man above. Also, I see no reason why Wikipedia should avoid lengthy articles on specialized topics of interest to only a handful of readers, as long as those articles are of good quality and contain accurate information. rb000 (talk) 15:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose. I can't tell you how often I've plugged in the name of a character from some corner of fiction I don't normally delve into (YA lit, or an obscure comic book character, or a game...) & been pleased to have something pop up. I also have to admit that I've been drifting away from the project as perfectly reasonable articles I've found have all been up for deletion. I realize that a fiction policy on notability is a tricky subject. Things like characters, plot element, & the like are not often discussed in third-party arenas. This makes arguments for inclusion difficult, despite the fact that, such as in The Leader mentioned below, they are long-standing & viable characters. Furthermore, the arguments for lay-out have a lot of weight; making a sub-article for a page that has grown too long & clumsy suddenly puts that content in jeopardy. Fundamentally, Wikipedia should be useful. Wikipedia can be bigger than any encyclopedia that came before. I certainly don't think that notability should go out the window, but I think notability needs serious consideration. Because Wikipedia is user-generated, it doesn't have to be as limited. I don't have any answers for policy, but I don't think that being more restrictive in response to the short comings of restriction is the solution. --mordicai. (talk) 16:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- This version of FICT does not change the fact you will be able to still put in a character name and have something come up - it just won't be its own article but instead part of the coverage of the work it is in or a list of characters from that work, and hopefully, a link to a wiki with more information. Redirects are cheap, and there's no reason we cannot catalog all those fictional characters so they are all still searchable within WP. And (to both Mordicai's, Rb000's, and Agathoclea's points) while WP can grow, it's free content mission is a priority - that is a limitation in how far we can take the discussion of fictional elements when there are no secondary source to provide fair use provision of derivative works. That doesn't mean we can't talk about the characters, but they have to be in context of a larger topic (typically the work itself) where we can provide the alternative sources needed to justify the use of derivative works. (And just again to clarify, this does not mean we are protecting WP from copyright lawsuits or the like, but instead the philosophy of what free content is.) --MASEM 16:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Your solution sounds like turning Wikipedia into a search engine & an index. Linking to a site that isn't Wikipedia? Now THAT sounds like a bad idea; once it gets out from under our umbrella, we really have no say in the reliability (as Sephiroth BCR poinsts out) or content of the site. & how big & sprawling is, lets say, the Marvel page going to get? We'll just stash all the content that doesn't pass the new notability guidelines under it in a big list of hyperlinks? Saying that an article will lie fallow is all well & good, but I'd rather have a stub NOW than nothing later. --mordicai. (talk) 17:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Again, wow, your philosophy of free content doesn't look anything like mine. So...talking about it is okay, but a separate article in the namespace isn't? Merge with preservation of content 1) will create preoposterously enormous articles (since what you're saying is a work's primary article should more or less be be the sole repository of ALL information related to it), and 2) will create unnecessary redundancy, since comic book characters, at least of the major companies (and to a lesser extent television characters), appear in a shared universe instead of in a specific work. Would the Leader's character career be spread out among the Hulk, Avengers, Captain America, Namor and Thing articles? How is that useful for any reader? Ford MF (talk) 16:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Obviously there needs to be a WP:SIZE allowance, and thus that's the reason why lists of character (which themselves do not need to show notability as they support the main articles) are considered appropriate. Then, as I pointed out below, if there are characters that cross universes, but are effectively the same character, {{see also}} can be used to point between lists, including adding more information about a character if there are significant differences between them. Also it should be noted that the length of several of these comic characters is too long and information will need to be trimmed, but what is there presently can be placed at a wiki to provide more information without weighing down WP.
- The reason to avoid a separate article is first, this approach is not easily maintainable (see the first oppose viewpoint); today, you may all agree to watch the articles, but in a year, how many editors will still be around? Second, editors tend to fill the glass as much as they can, and as its generally easy to write about in-universe details for a work you love, these blank slates fill up very quickly, and to a point where the free content issue becomes a problem; it is much easier to keep the plot aspects of characters to a limited amount when they are all in the same list to compare and contrast with. --MASEM 17:09, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Uh, what exactly do you mean by weighing down Wikipedia? I'm serious, because some of your concerns seem to stem from an unstated harm that such articles do to Wikipedia. (Nevermind that having information about one item on several pages all connected with five or six SEE ALSO tags could only possibly make things more difficult for readers.) Ford MF (talk) 17:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Per the free content mission, we need to strive to minimize the use of non-free content, which includes derivative works in the absence of additional context to meet fair use requirements. It's not an issue with disk space, its an issue with the amount of non-free content that's not justified with fair use. --MASEM 17:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Could you point me to the "free content mission" that forbids fair use material? Do you work as a lawyer for the Wikimedia Foundation? Are you a Wikia employee? You keep throwing around the term "derivative work", but it's just more FUD. You suggest that these "derivative works" don't qualify as fair use here, and suggest we link to for-profit wikis, but how could wikis like Wikia be allowed to make money off so-called "derivative works"? --Pixelface (talk) 02:32, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- Per the free content mission, we need to strive to minimize the use of non-free content, which includes derivative works in the absence of additional context to meet fair use requirements. It's not an issue with disk space, its an issue with the amount of non-free content that's not justified with fair use. --MASEM 17:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Uh, what exactly do you mean by weighing down Wikipedia? I'm serious, because some of your concerns seem to stem from an unstated harm that such articles do to Wikipedia. (Nevermind that having information about one item on several pages all connected with five or six SEE ALSO tags could only possibly make things more difficult for readers.) Ford MF (talk) 17:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Again, wow, your philosophy of free content doesn't look anything like mine. So...talking about it is okay, but a separate article in the namespace isn't? Merge with preservation of content 1) will create preoposterously enormous articles (since what you're saying is a work's primary article should more or less be be the sole repository of ALL information related to it), and 2) will create unnecessary redundancy, since comic book characters, at least of the major companies (and to a lesser extent television characters), appear in a shared universe instead of in a specific work. Would the Leader's character career be spread out among the Hulk, Avengers, Captain America, Namor and Thing articles? How is that useful for any reader? Ford MF (talk) 16:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I have a problem with the confluence of WP:N and WP:RS as it applies to fiction. Should not the fact that TV show X has N+1 fansites serve to establish its notability? In the absence of any sort of web sockpuppetry campaign, of course it should. Fansites are truly legitimate coverage for the *notability* of a fictional topic. They may or may not be accurate about other facts (e.g., bios of the actors/artists) and those factual items should be subject to more traditional definitions of acceptable reliable sources, but notability for fiction should be establishable via fansites and other SPS. No one would seriously propose that SPS be used for chemical compounds, scientific theories, or historical biographies, of course. Jclemens (talk) 16:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Fansites don't pass WP:RS. That's the bottom line. Also, your last statement is quite hypocritical. Fansites for fiction and not for "higher" material? The only "higher" criteria we have to maintain is WP:BLP and there's no reason good, reliable sources should be used for fiction. In any case, your argument is suited for WT:RS, not here. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 17:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Is WP:RS more about WP:V or WP:N? Serious question, to which I believe the answer is 'V'. I think you misunderstand my argument--it's not about a higher standard of verifiability for everything but fiction, it's about a more flexible and fiction-friendly standard for notability. Jclemens (talk) 17:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- And VERIFY talks quite clearly about the quality of sources that have to be used. See WP:SOURCES. Your stance diminishes fiction by allowing for sources of a quality much lower than what is commonly used for other types of articles. Again, the proper venue for your issues is at WT:RS, not here. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 17:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think you're missing Jclemens's point; the suggestion isn't that fansites be an acceptable source for the content of articles on fictional elements or works, but that they be acceptable as evidence of notability. SamBC(talk) 17:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, that sums my issue up nicely, thanks. Jclemens (talk) 21:48, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think you're missing Jclemens's point; the suggestion isn't that fansites be an acceptable source for the content of articles on fictional elements or works, but that they be acceptable as evidence of notability. SamBC(talk) 17:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- And VERIFY talks quite clearly about the quality of sources that have to be used. See WP:SOURCES. Your stance diminishes fiction by allowing for sources of a quality much lower than what is commonly used for other types of articles. Again, the proper venue for your issues is at WT:RS, not here. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 17:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Is WP:RS more about WP:V or WP:N? Serious question, to which I believe the answer is 'V'. I think you misunderstand my argument--it's not about a higher standard of verifiability for everything but fiction, it's about a more flexible and fiction-friendly standard for notability. Jclemens (talk) 17:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Your solution sounds like turning Wikipedia into a search engine & an index. Linking to a site that isn't Wikipedia? Now THAT sounds like a bad idea; once it gets out from under our umbrella, we really have no say in the reliability (as Sephiroth BCR poinsts out) or content of the site. & how big & sprawling is, lets say, the Marvel page going to get? We'll just stash all the content that doesn't pass the new notability guidelines under it in a big list of hyperlinks? Saying that an article will lie fallow is all well & good, but I'd rather have a stub NOW than nothing later. --mordicai. (talk) 17:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I don't recall advocating linking. The presence of a number of blog entries or fansites googleable on the Internet doesn't mandate their inclusion into Wikipedia--anyone who wants to question the notability of a fictional character can do a quick google and see what the 'buzz' is (or isn't) about a fictional topic. I don't see it as the end of the world. Jclemens (talk) 17:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Sorry Jclemens-- I meant to reply to Masem's "or a list of characters from that work, and hopefully, a link to a wiki with more information" comment. So much formating, so many indents, arggg! --mordicai. (talk) 04:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- I don't recall advocating linking. The presence of a number of blog entries or fansites googleable on the Internet doesn't mandate their inclusion into Wikipedia--anyone who wants to question the notability of a fictional character can do a quick google and see what the 'buzz' is (or isn't) about a fictional topic. I don't see it as the end of the world. Jclemens (talk) 17:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Fansites don't pass WP:RS. That's the bottom line. Also, your last statement is quite hypocritical. Fansites for fiction and not for "higher" material? The only "higher" criteria we have to maintain is WP:BLP and there's no reason good, reliable sources should be used for fiction. In any case, your argument is suited for WT:RS, not here. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 17:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose. I continue to think this is a misguided approach that neither addresses what our readers seem to want, how best to preserve the accurate and quality information that is often in these articles. Furthermore, I think the push towards deletion implicit in this guideline makes very flawed assumptions about the availability of sourcing, and that the existence of a notability guideline wrongly focuses efforts on cleanup instead of on working to find better sources, which are often trivial to find. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose. The conditions for verifiability are too stringent for some categories of popular youth/underground/alternative/counter culture. The great D&D/RPG debate is one case in point. The problem is that the subjects of this genre and similar ones, although they may have a vast fan base and be a significant manifestation of popular culture (and what is wrong with that?), get little exposure in authoritative venues of establishment culture. Few D&D novels, no matter how good they are, are likely to be reviewed by the Times Literary Supplement or the New York Times Review of Books. So, although the topic may be of great importance to many people outside the mainstream of established culture and deserve an article because of this, it can be difficult to find sources that are verifiable by the criterion required by the policy. Such sources will exist only when the subculture has time to make an impact on mainstream culture. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:50, 8 June 2008 (UTC).
- Oppose, allowing "subject-specific" guidelines is a tremendous loophole. Either there's enough independent coverage to warrant an article, or there's not and we merge/redirect/delete. We don't need any creep beyond that, or beyond the guidance of verifiability, for that matter: "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." Any subject-specific guidelines should be intended as helpful pointers toward when such significant source material is more likely to be found, not as exemptions to the requirement that such source material must, in fact, exist. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:15, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- The use of "subject-specific" guidelines where it is means deferring to other established sub-notability guidelines, as opposed to deferring to WikiProject-level guidelines or the like; if this needs to be more explicit in the text, that can be done. It should be noted that we do want to keep WP:V and the GNC of WP:N as sepearate concepts - "third party sources" and "secondary sources" often overlap, but they are not the same. --MASEM 03:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not even for "established" sub-guidelines, and please let's not let Wikiprojects anywhere near them, Wikiprojects in fiction tend just to be fan clubs. Even wider ones, though, tend to be problematic, since people tend to see them as "Let's keep this article that passes the sub-guideline even if independent sources demonstrably do not exist", rather than "Let's write a guide to help people figure out when secondary sources are likely to exist, but keep it clear that they're still required." That tends to cause the problems I stated above—we end up keeping garbage articles that don't belong here. I'm rather afraid of the same happening here. We really should have some quality control to ensure that our articles are educational, and not simply entertainment or fan material. (That's not to say they can't be educational and entertaining, and indeed the best articles would be, but no articles should serve pure in-universe entertainment purposes.) That means sticking to areas where appropriate secondary sourcing exists to write an out-of-universe article, and not going into any more detail than such sources support in that style. I would, however, support if we make it crystal clear that sub-guidelines absolutely cannot allow an article if significant independent out-of-universe sourcing does not in fact exist, and may only be created to help editors determine when such sourcing is more likely to be found. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:53, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- You couldn't be more wrong about WikiProjects and the communities extremely widespread support for sub/sister-notability guidelines. I lost count after about 500 for the number of articles WP:DIGIMON transwikied. WP:ANIME is another great project that doesn't keep stuff just because they're fans of the work. Same for WP:STARGATE's past cleanup and many others. WP:POKEMON turned most of their individual articles into lists, for both the monster characters and the TV episodes.
About sub-guidelines, did you know that WP:FICT was a guideline before WP:N was? Do you think there's even a snowball's chance that editors would support deprecation of most of our sister-notability guidelines? -- Ned Scott 23:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)- The only reason WP:ANIME enforces it is because Collectorian and The Fairix think they WP:OWN the project and keep trying to ram perfectly good articles through afd. Fairix was recently pwned on the ACML over the issue. A few other deletions swarm in, who will vote down anything and everything whether they know anything about the subject matter or not, and bang, article gone. Because normal people won't be stalking the article on a daily basis, and may not even know the article is up for afd until its suddenly gone. As to transwiking WP:DIGIMON, its pretty much an exile to the ghetto - I'm never going to think to look up some obscure "transwiki" website, and neither is anyone else. Snarfies (talk) 14:18, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- If you think those two are the only reason WP:ANIME is the way it is, then you are entirely unaware of the project's true history. As for the Digimon Wiki, we're getting first page search rank results off of Google, and maintain tons of cross links between Wikipedia and DW (to discourage recreation on some article for Wikipedia, and to encourage appropriate additions to Wikipedia when they're made to DW). You'll never have to think about which wiki it's on, because you'll be guided to that information from Wikipedia and from Google. -- Ned Scott 04:32, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
- The only reason WP:ANIME enforces it is because Collectorian and The Fairix think they WP:OWN the project and keep trying to ram perfectly good articles through afd. Fairix was recently pwned on the ACML over the issue. A few other deletions swarm in, who will vote down anything and everything whether they know anything about the subject matter or not, and bang, article gone. Because normal people won't be stalking the article on a daily basis, and may not even know the article is up for afd until its suddenly gone. As to transwiking WP:DIGIMON, its pretty much an exile to the ghetto - I'm never going to think to look up some obscure "transwiki" website, and neither is anyone else. Snarfies (talk) 14:18, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- You couldn't be more wrong about WikiProjects and the communities extremely widespread support for sub/sister-notability guidelines. I lost count after about 500 for the number of articles WP:DIGIMON transwikied. WP:ANIME is another great project that doesn't keep stuff just because they're fans of the work. Same for WP:STARGATE's past cleanup and many others. WP:POKEMON turned most of their individual articles into lists, for both the monster characters and the TV episodes.
- I'm not even for "established" sub-guidelines, and please let's not let Wikiprojects anywhere near them, Wikiprojects in fiction tend just to be fan clubs. Even wider ones, though, tend to be problematic, since people tend to see them as "Let's keep this article that passes the sub-guideline even if independent sources demonstrably do not exist", rather than "Let's write a guide to help people figure out when secondary sources are likely to exist, but keep it clear that they're still required." That tends to cause the problems I stated above—we end up keeping garbage articles that don't belong here. I'm rather afraid of the same happening here. We really should have some quality control to ensure that our articles are educational, and not simply entertainment or fan material. (That's not to say they can't be educational and entertaining, and indeed the best articles would be, but no articles should serve pure in-universe entertainment purposes.) That means sticking to areas where appropriate secondary sourcing exists to write an out-of-universe article, and not going into any more detail than such sources support in that style. I would, however, support if we make it crystal clear that sub-guidelines absolutely cannot allow an article if significant independent out-of-universe sourcing does not in fact exist, and may only be created to help editors determine when such sourcing is more likely to be found. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:53, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- The use of "subject-specific" guidelines where it is means deferring to other established sub-notability guidelines, as opposed to deferring to WikiProject-level guidelines or the like; if this needs to be more explicit in the text, that can be done. It should be noted that we do want to keep WP:V and the GNC of WP:N as sepearate concepts - "third party sources" and "secondary sources" often overlap, but they are not the same. --MASEM 03:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose per Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(fiction)#Summary_of_opposition_so_far points 1, 2, 6, 9, and 11. Snarfies (talk) 10:56, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose per Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(fiction)#Summary_of_opposition_so_far points 1, 2, 7 and 11. --Maitch (talk) 12:58, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose I made little edit here in en.wiki, but I'm an editor in it.wiki and many times i use page on fictional topic to create or translate the Italian version (sorry for my bad English), so I it can help i want so say my opinion (i don't know if there is a requiment in number of edit to participate in RCF discussione like in it.wiki for deletion, i search for it, but don't found nothing). I'm not very expert with al those Acronyms used before, so i refer only to two fundamental rules to support my opinion. Wiki is not paper use a real world and a fictional example to show what is wikipedia, look at the fictional one "...detailed subtopics and sub-subtopics enrich Wikipedia with information. There is no reason why there shouldn't be a page for every Simpson character, and even a table listing every episode, all neatly cross-linked and introduced by a shorter central page. Every episode name in the list could link to a separate page for each of those episodes, with links to reviews and trivia.". This Meta essays explain well what is the scope of wikipedia: it doesn't limit the coverage of the subtopic of a notable topic (The Simpson) to the real word impact of every singe (reasonable) subtopic, but simply say that of this clearly notable topic we can have every single (reasonable) subtopic type (characters or episode in the example). The first pillar reiterate the concept: we are "an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general encyclopaedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs: for popular (notable) fictional topic (TV series, comics or games of major publisher, etc...) there are usually specialized "encyclopedias/guide/alamacs" (sometimes published by the same publisher, maybe because they don't want to lose control on their intellectual property allowing other secondary source to write and speculate about it, sometime licensed, sometimes by independent publisher) that cover quite all their sub-topic (characters, places, settings, timeline, ecc...), many times also with large in-universe style section (ie the Star Wars Del Rey Books/Random House guide, or the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe for Marvel Comics). So following Wiki is not paper and 1' pillar it's clear (at least to me) that we must have general article on fictional topic for generic readers (the real world poker exemple "a 100-page thesis on poker is useless to someone who merely needs an article summarizing the basic rules and history of the game"), but are "worthy of note" also specific article (wikilinked in the first) similar to those on specialized encyclopedias ("a normal encyclopaedia is to provide the reader a brief overview of the subject, while a reference book or text book can explain the details. Wikipedia can do both."), independently to the coverage of these subtopics in generic mainstream secondary source (that usually don't go so specific). You can say "if this subtopic is so notable, why there isn't generic mainstream secondary source? why they don't go so specific?", the answer is the same of "why, if (9970) 1992 ST1 or N-acetylglucosamine-1-phosphate transferase or Fernbahnhof Düsseldorf Flughafen are notable, they are only referenced in generic Directory (databases) or institutions that is closely linked with these topic and not in generic mainstream secondary source?": when the topic is so specific (a single asteroid, a single enzyme, a single train station, a single comic character, a single spaceship of a SF saga) there are only specialized source, and these is more and more linked with the subject (the report of the observatory that discover the asteroids, the study of the professor of biology that use the enzyme, the rail operator web site, the guide of the comics publisher, the episode guide produced by a licensed publisher with the commentary of the screenwriter). In these cases the more verifiable source (and in some case the only with a deep coverage) are those (almost) "primary sources", so these source must be used to establish if a topic or a subtopic is worthy of note, also using their importance (a comic character that is reviewed only in a obscure web fan-blog is clear different in notability from a recurrent villain that appear for years in a dozen of story of a major publisher of comics and have both a voice in the official guide and in all of the unofficial fan-guide of that narrative universe, regardless the fact that none of the two have an explicit review on the New York Times or have a book specific on thir editorial life).. If it work for real world topic (asteroids, train stations&C), why it need to be forbidden for finctional topic? For recent the fictional topic, contrary to asteroids or other specialized subject, in some country there are also the intellectual property problem, that limit the existence of completely independent secondary source, so they are very difficult to found also when the notability is explicit to those who know the topic. A last thing IMO the transwiki advice in Relocating non-notable fictional material can lead to a misinterpretation of what wikipedia is, we are here to write page that contain information on a topic, we aren't the Open Directory Project or google that link to website that contain information about the topic. --Yoggysot (talk) 03:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- Really excellent point about how the more specific a subject gets, the narrower the field of sources to cite. It's great to hear from other-language Wikis on stuff like this, too. Ford MF (talk) 04:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose I typically like to write my own response, but Seraphimblade has said it perectly above. In brief, if it doesn't meet WP:N, then it shouldn't be included. However, I might depart from SB on the need to broaden WP:N a bit. --Kevin Murray (talk) 22:05, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
- WP:N is not a "higher authority", it is only a guideline on one possible way to establish notability. -- Ned Scott 23:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Comments
- The major WikiProjects dealing in fiction should probably be notified that this has come under the scope for community comment. I've already left a note at WT:VG, but I think WT:TV, and WT:WikiProject Books would appreciate the courtesy gesture. In fact, I noted that TV also has it noted in the template up top... --Izno (talk) 04:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- A note should be left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Soap Operas and WT:ANIME as well. --Pixelface (talk) 01:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- To borrow from FAC, can we demand that oppose !votes need to be actionable to be considered? (Unless, of course, it is the goal of the opposers to forever stall the acceptance of this guideline.) Everyone is entitled to their opinion, so this is not why I bring this up. WP:NOTE#cite_note-7 supports the more inclusionist view to allow lists of less-notable elements (whatever this means), and WP:LIST makes no specific mention about the requirement of notability in lists. On the other hand, e.g. WP:N, WP:UNDUE and Featured lists suggest that there is a cut-off point (wherever that may be). In this light, basing oppose !votes on that FICT needs to be much more lenient or much more tighter is a matter of preference (e.g. quantity vs. quality), and many (not all) oppose !votes do in fact cancel each other out and thus become inactionable. I'd also like to point out (again) to the more inclusionist-minded fellow editors, that if FICT does not get picked up, people will just use WP:N and WP:NOT#PLOT to successfully bulldoze articles at AFD, which is in stark contrast to the encouraged tag-wait-merge approach of FICT. – sgeureka t•c 08:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Precisely. I originally used the old version of WP:FICT to support the merging of articles into lists and related items, and with that gone, I more frequently have to !vote "delete" using NOTE and PLOT. And yeah, the opposes should indicate at least why they dislike the current format. Saying that you don't like it because you don't like notability period isn't really actionable, while opposes that are looking at specific elements or similar are fine. We should end this discussion with something feasible that a rough consensus supports. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 09:03, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oh, so the 5 to 10 pages of replies between oppose commenters is not enough? --Pixelface (talk) 00:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Guidance on NN List Style/Format
A few editors have commented that the lack of style and formatting and content guidelines for limited cases of non-notable lists of characters and episodes may be problematic towards this. I will point out that we had such guidelines in this document previously, but given that they were not a function of notability but style and the like, they were decided to be pulled out to WP:WAF, and subsequently, they have been removed from there by others. I don't disagree we need guidance on these, however, notability guidelines are not the place to introduce them.
To that end, I propose, not so much in this language, but just a general overview of what that guidance was/should be for making sure NN lists are developed to the best they can be encyclopedically. List of episodes already has pretty good guidance at the TV project, but characters and other possible breakouts are a different matter. But in general for character lists:
- Lists should be structured to present major characters first and foremost over minor characters; however, if there are also logical groupings of the characters per the fiction (good guys vs bad guys), then the order should be presented as such, but still major > minor/recurring within the groups. If such lists grow too large, splitting to sublists by a logical grouping
- Major characters should be given 2-3 paragraphs of text, minor and reccuring 1-2 paragraphs.
- The article's title and lead should clearly define the work, provide enough context of the work to allow the list to be understood without necessarily reading the main article on the work of fiction. A list of Jedi characters from Star Wars should briefly explain what Star Wars is and what Jedi are in the lead before progressing to the characters. If groupings are used, brief introductions to those groups should be included.
- Character details should not be approached biographically or in-universe, but instead the importance of the character in the work: what his/her role is, major impacts on the character's growth from others or vice versa, and so forth. Presumably the plot of the work is summarized elsewhere so there should be minimal overlap of character details with plot details
- Actors and voice actors should be included for characters that have such.
- Though such cannot be sourced to secondary sources (by being non-notable), they should still be verifiable, citing primary source material, and should not engage in original research and point-of-view writing style.
- The use of intra-page {{anchor}}s, redirection, and disambs should be used for all elements on the lists; every major, minor, and recurring character should be the target of a direct or disamb. wikilink, even if that's still a redirect, a mention on a disamb page, or in part of a hatnote.
- Non-notable Character lists should not include every possible character from a work but should be limited on major and minor or reccuring characters; for purposes of clarification, minor characters are assumed to make multiple appearances within the work but are not the focus of the work. One-shot, cameo, or other bit characters should only be mentioned if they have some significant impat on the plot, and in this case, should be described as part of the work's plot section instead of being given within a separate list.
This is not meant to be exhaustive, but I want to be clear that these NN lists were envisioned to meet guidelines like this to avoid them become unmaintainable. --MASEM 16:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- Masem, I'm a bit confused by your wording. Are you proposing introducing style/content guidelines for lists within this guideline? If so, can you explain why such points would go here and not in WAF? If similar points were removed from WAF by others, should not the discussion take place there? (I'm not up to speed on the WAF talk, forgive me.) As a compromise perhaps this could be written up as an Essay and then linked to by both pages? In this manner, it can remain a controversial aspect without diminishing the overall reflection of consensus held by either article. -Verdatum (talk) 17:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- No, these would not be a part of this guideline, they would be a part of WAF. (They were deleted from WAF because this guideline was still proposed and it wasn't needed to write them out). I'm suggesting them here as these are the types of guidance that would be added to WAF once FICT is accepted, as to help alleviate the concerns of those worried about letting these lists run free without additional guidance. --MASEM 18:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- I find the idea of a style guide or List non-notable ficitonal elements very amusing. For starters, which editor in their right mind would claim that a list they have created contains only non-notable elements? You would have to be a complete chump to say "look, I have created a list of elements which are non-notable, so I have styled it accordingly!", as that would be an invitation for deletionists to go into a feeding frenzy. I think having a style for material destined for deletion is a bit like putting more colourful outfits on the victims of Auto de fé.--Gavin Collins (talk) 20:32, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- Ha! Nice to get a guffaw out of this page for a change. Ford MF (talk) 20:37, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- No, these would not be a part of this guideline, they would be a part of WAF. (They were deleted from WAF because this guideline was still proposed and it wasn't needed to write them out). I'm suggesting them here as these are the types of guidance that would be added to WAF once FICT is accepted, as to help alleviate the concerns of those worried about letting these lists run free without additional guidance. --MASEM 18:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
"Minor" lists
This seems to be the biggest "change" to WP:N this sub-guideline has to offer. The only concern I have is with lists of "minor characters". While they obviously fit with this proposed guideline, I think having lists of "minor" anything is stretching WP:GNG a little too thin, and I think this specifically could be looked at. --Izno (talk) 05:52, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
To specify, I mean something such as the example list above. They are "extended universe" characters, and while I have no opinion on the contents of said article itself, it seems that such lists will be the most "slippery slopey" of them all. Having a list of characters that only appear in one game of the series? Again, seems to be stretching WP:N/GNG a little too far.
There should (in my opinion) be something in the guideline that says (if the guideline doesn't already) that such lists become too specific and must establish notability through the method of most articles (eek, mentioning the subset we're creating here!), by using reliable secondary sources to establish real world notability in a verifiable way. A cutoff must exist, else (as pointed out above) this guideline ends up ignored by both the masses of deletionists and the inclusionists. --Izno (talk) 06:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- I see what you're saying - and I think the guidance for cutoffs would be written out with the above list points and put into WAF; the general guidance here is if the list can be shown to be notable, we could care less if it's incredible detailed, but once you get to NN lists, editors need to be very judgemental about the cutoffs. Separate lists of major and minor characters from a TV makes sense. A list of main and reoccuring characters in a video games makes sense. But if the character appears only once in the series or works, it is better explained in the main article about that specific work, or in the plot of the work, as opposed to a list of single-shot characters (for example Frank Grimes is a character in one episde of the Simpsons - note that there's no article for him nor in a list, but a disamb to the episode with him in it.) This type of cutoff info can be included, but I will note again that we're trying to keep this guideline specific to notability, and this cutoff for lists is more a style guideline. --MASEM 06:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- It's impossible to define a global/universal cut-off. What we can do is help guide people in the right direction, and we can probably do that best with simple examples. -- Ned Scott 07:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with Izno: the only way to establish notability for lists of fictional elements is by citing reliable secondary sources. A list of main and reoccuring characters in a video games does not always make sense if they are not notable; otherwise the article could end up placing undue weight on non-notable elements.--Gavin Collins (talk) 11:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- A list of minor characters would violate WP:AVOIDSPLIT and WP:NNC -- particularly the part about undue weight. If someone could establish their notability, they would be included in the main character article: which leads back to the same conclusion, that there should be no "list of minor characters". There should be a single article about all characters, with due weight to the importance of each character in the series. Even if the WP:FICT guidelines are silent on this point, the other wikipedia guidelines are not. Randomran (talk) 21:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- For some works, putting all the characters in a single article would really be lengthly, take, for example, the Simpsons (mind you, characters from there are notable, but lets assume that's not the case). At some point, per MOS, we need to break this list apart. Now, I can see the point that if the line was along major/minor characters, that can create a conflict (though again, WP:NNC does specifically mention grouping minor characters to lists); if the split was along more along the lines of some natural grouping within the body of work, or at worst, sectioned by alphabetical character name, would this be appropriate? --MASEM 21:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- A list of minor characters would violate WP:AVOIDSPLIT and WP:NNC -- particularly the part about undue weight. If someone could establish their notability, they would be included in the main character article: which leads back to the same conclusion, that there should be no "list of minor characters". There should be a single article about all characters, with due weight to the importance of each character in the series. Even if the WP:FICT guidelines are silent on this point, the other wikipedia guidelines are not. Randomran (talk) 21:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- I suppose there would be nothing wrong with a split along alphanumeric lines in theory, but I this would probably violate policy in practice. I think The Simpsons is an excellent example of how this would work in practice. The series has existed long enough that several of the main characters are notable enough to earn their own articles. That's what you would split out from the main article (Homer, Bart, Lisa), rather than an alphanumeric split. If a different series managed to accumulate that many characters without the same level of notability, it's more likely you'd just reduce the amount of excessive plot details in the article, not to spin out a non-notable article.
The fact that we deal with this on a case-by-case basis is reflected in the proposed guidelines: we want to avoid non-notable articles, but we also want to avoid an excessive amount of non-notable fictional detail in otherwise notable articles. In my limited experience, the need to split a character article has to do with a badly written article rather than too much encyclopedic information for a single notable article. Randomran (talk) 22:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- I suppose there would be nothing wrong with a split along alphanumeric lines in theory, but I this would probably violate policy in practice. I think The Simpsons is an excellent example of how this would work in practice. The series has existed long enough that several of the main characters are notable enough to earn their own articles. That's what you would split out from the main article (Homer, Bart, Lisa), rather than an alphanumeric split. If a different series managed to accumulate that many characters without the same level of notability, it's more likely you'd just reduce the amount of excessive plot details in the article, not to spin out a non-notable article.
- It is never appropriate to break out a single fictional element article that cannot show notability; that is a position most agree on with no problem. The issue comes into play is that WP:SIZE and Summary Style suggest that long articles have spun-out articles (which of course is fine), but for most fictional works, the most logical point of this is the list of characters; development, plot, and reception fit like a glove, but after a brief summary of the top level characters in the main work, the rest of the non-notable character details (and for the purposes of discussion, let's assume that they are very concise and written in an appropriate manner) need not be in the main article though are still useful to have around. There is also the point that these lists should only be broken out if there is sufficient need to do so, or more importantly, if you start a topic on a new work of fiction, the first step is not to go creating a "List of characters" articles; that should only fall naturally out of the main article due to size. Of course, determining if this was considered in looking at the history of the article can be very difficult to do.
- What I think we'll see if this all works out is that we'll ask people to relook at their nn-character lists and just make sure they are not being used as ways to go into gazillion details of the characters. In the overall scheme, these articles should be evaluated in that sense as if they were still in the main article, which one can consider: does this section fit encyclopedically, does it match the style that the rest of the article is, is there undue weight, is there ways to trim further without losing coverage of characters as long as they are important to the work? It's a balancing act, and not going to happen overnight. --MASEM 23:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- You're not saying anything I disagree with, so I think we're close. I think the best way to explain my point is in reverse. Let's say we had two lists of characters articles, sorted alphanumerically. I have a strong belief that after a clean-up of content that is inappropriate for wikipedia, the articles would be small enough and suitable for a merge into a single character article. But in theory, I suppose it's possible that you could have a well-written article about many characters that is simply too big... I just suspect that if there's really that much notable information on all those characters, there's a decent chance that some of the individual characters are notable. Randomran (talk) 23:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Remember that to an extent, you have to consider reader comprehension as well. There's only so much information you can excise before you have to start sacrificing reader comprehension for the sake of size, and in that case, a split-off may be appropriate. In this context, it is possible to reach a state where a single character list would simply be too long, and a "minor" (or whatever cutoff you care to utilize) may be appropriate, something especially apparent in the case of long-running series. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 23:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- This might be a point where we recognize that the cases allowed for characters may be the best we can say for now, and assuming this is accepted, we just watch and see if the specifics of what should be in lists be expanded or reduced based on input. Given all that's going on, I think that these lists are exception is hitting the dartboard, but likely not a bullseye. --MASEM 00:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Remember that to an extent, you have to consider reader comprehension as well. There's only so much information you can excise before you have to start sacrificing reader comprehension for the sake of size, and in that case, a split-off may be appropriate. In this context, it is possible to reach a state where a single character list would simply be too long, and a "minor" (or whatever cutoff you care to utilize) may be appropriate, something especially apparent in the case of long-running series. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 23:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- You're not saying anything I disagree with, so I think we're close. I think the best way to explain my point is in reverse. Let's say we had two lists of characters articles, sorted alphanumerically. I have a strong belief that after a clean-up of content that is inappropriate for wikipedia, the articles would be small enough and suitable for a merge into a single character article. But in theory, I suppose it's possible that you could have a well-written article about many characters that is simply too big... I just suspect that if there's really that much notable information on all those characters, there's a decent chance that some of the individual characters are notable. Randomran (talk) 23:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- MASEM, I think I must not be understanding you: you seem to be saying both "It is never appropriate to break out a single fictional element article that cannot show notability" AND "that should only fall out naturally do to size" Which of the two represents your position? . I don;t actually agreewith either of them, but I'd like to understand which one I'm arguing against. DGG (talk) 04:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Those are two different positions. The second point first is that if, say, a new work of fiction is created and appropriate to cover on WP, the first and only article that should be created is the article on the work of fiction itself. This would include lists of characters and other plot-related information in addition to other aspects. Over time, the article may then grow too large, at which point it is then appropriate to consider a split. We should be discourage the behavior where a new fiction work comes along and someone races to create a list of characters in that work while the primary article on the work is stub-like or incomplete. This is not to say lists are bad, but they really only should be created as a split in the natural growth of the article. Of course, presently, there's a lot of non-notable individual articles and the like from the creation of WP, so in these cases, unless it clearly can be done in the main article, the merge to a separate list makes sense, even possibly as a staging area to move the list into the main article.
- Which gets back to the first point; a single character or other aspect of fiction that cannot be shown to be notable should not get its own article, though the concept should still be covered in a larger grouping or a notable article. That is not saying there isn't a case, but if the size of the articles gets large and the only logical split is a non-notable element, there are several options to consider first that may make more sense (including trimming, grouping it into an appropriate list, and the like). --MASEM 05:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- If we allow for minor lists, then I will support as there's no really valid reason for a comprehensive paperless reference guide with thousands of editors not to have them or be able to maintain them when clearly there is legitimate interest for them. Minor lists are totally compatible with the more important spirit of our policy and guidelines as interpreted in broad practice. The main thing is that we need to do away with this limited, unacademic, and unencyclopedic concept of basing our coverage on the subjective "notability". After all, "All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings." - Denis Diderot explaining the goal of the Encyclopedia Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 17:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Citrouilles, just because you don’t like the rules Wikipedia was founded on doesn’t mean you can decide to ignore them and pretend like they don’t exist. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 17:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, we can per Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. Plus, the rules that Wikipedia was founded on are that we combine "general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs" and our founder said, "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." Thus, an honest and legitimate interpretation of our "rules" is that we can indeed ignore those that conflict with making our project a better reference guide and in reality the whole "notability" thing conflicts with what an encyclopedia and alamanac actually is. Encyclopedias and almanacs catalog human knowledge. There is no really valid reason barring running out of disk space why something that gains hundreds of new accounts daily cannot or should not cover fictional topics without being burdened by some members of the community's more limited vision of understanding of this subjective term "notability". Obviously the community does NOT agree on what is and is not notable and I would much rather ere on the side of pleasing the majority of editors, readers, and donors than eliminating stuff that some do not like for whatever reason. So much time is spent challenging articles as not notable or unreferenced that could be spent referencing these articles or improving those articles the editors do care about. Imagine what we would accomplish if we channeled this energy into trying to bring articles to good and featured status instead. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 17:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Citrouilles, just because you don’t like the rules Wikipedia was founded on doesn’t mean you can decide to ignore them and pretend like they don’t exist. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 17:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Congrats. You infuriate me to no living end. I can parrot quotes from people all day long too. That doesn't help jack-shit. Disk space is not the issue here, stop pulling a straw-man. Guess what? I do channel my energy into getting articles to good and featured status. But the articles we are talking about will never become even GA because they are piles of non-notable fiction material! You say that "wah, evil deletionists get rid of articles before they get improved," but that's not the issue here. If I had a nickel for every time someone invoked WP:IAR... oh wait, since I can ignore rules, I'll delete your userpage, talk page, block you indefinitely, and trash every article you've ever worked on. Will that make you happy? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 17:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- If we allow for minor lists, then I will support as there's no really valid reason for a comprehensive paperless reference guide with thousands of editors not to have them or be able to maintain them when clearly there is legitimate interest for them. Minor lists are totally compatible with the more important spirit of our policy and guidelines as interpreted in broad practice. The main thing is that we need to do away with this limited, unacademic, and unencyclopedic concept of basing our coverage on the subjective "notability". After all, "All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings." - Denis Diderot explaining the goal of the Encyclopedia Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 17:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- David Fuchs, take a time-out. You have to wonder what someone who believes in the far-reaching scope of "ignore all rules" is doing on a rule proposal page anyway. Randomran (talk) 18:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- You make several weak or invalid points here. How can anyone really say "never" regarding these articles? Did we know any work of Shakespeare at the time would eventually be replayed as multiple films centuries later? To say "never" is to crystal ball and speculate. You say they are "non-notable", yet others disagree. Thus, the term is subjective and so long as some believe in good faith that they do have a place here, I would much rather help them out and have some potential of accomplishing something positive in the process. Please don't put words in editors' mouths. I for one do not use hyperbole by calling anyone "evil" and nor would I swear at anyone either. I hope that you can maintain civility and decorum in these discussions. People can disagree without devolving the discourse in such a manner. Ignore all rules applies to how we edit in order to benefit the project, not to obviously pointed behavior as you suggest. Working to improve articles that some editors believe in good faith do indeed belong here is hardly comprobable to going on a rampage attack against someone else's work and efforts. If you have worked on good and featured articles, then I am happy to see that, but why not allow others to do the same with the articles they care about? Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 18:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Maybe one day some random character from some random game will become notable. But if he isn't at present, he doesn't belong on Wikipedia. When he does have multiple, non-trivial 3rd party sources, then someone can recreate the article. But keeping crap around which doesn't meet notability is not what wikipedia's guidelines and policies are for. I don't agree with hastily deleting articles where full research has not been done to see whether there are sources- but I search my library's catalog, Google News, ProQuest, Amazon, and the greater web- and if there's nothing there, then the article fails to demonstrate notability, pure and simple. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 18:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- The problem is that web searches are not the end all of research. The appropriate reliable secondary sources for video game characters would be GamePro, Electronic Gaming Monthhly, GameInformer, etc. and not all of their articles turn up on regular internet searches. It is much easier to have a base article to begin with and to add to it then to keep deleting it and forcing editors to start over constantly. And again, I and others think it inconsistent with academic and encyclopedic tradition to base coverage on "notability." We are cataloging human knowledge after all. Moreover, there are articles on topics that mean nothing to me, but I still wouldn't call them "crap". And just to reiterate, I have argued against the inclusion of hoaxes, how tos, original research, and other unconstructive stuff and some deletionists even appear on my list of nice Wikipedians. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 18:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- At some point, we need some line to say where we cover things to avoid becoming an indiscriminate collection of information and an unmaintainable encyclopedia. For works of fictions and their elements, we know we aren't going to have an article about the main character of little Timmy's (age 5) creative writing assignment, but obviously we are going to want to talk about Hamlet in great detail in its own article. There's the extremes , and so some reasonable line must be draw, a line that is as much as objective as possible for coverage in its own article. That line presently at or around the existence of secondary sources, because that helps us to meet V, NOR, and NPOV in the best manner possible.
- But, more importantly to your point, notability should not be a limitation on what we cover, only a limitation of the importance we give a topic by allowing it its own article. Character lists from works of fiction, treated in an encyclopedic manner, should be part of the coverage of the work on WP, and whether contained in the work's article or as a supporting list should be allowed; editors just need to make sure that such lists are well-organized and conform to other policies. Other types of lists may be allowed; in the same sense that character lists are allowed, coverage of other fictional elements should be ok, but we also need to be wholly aware of what types of content are not appropriate by WP:NOT.
- And on another aspect, there's a reason why FICT here goes into detail about how to deal with non-notables, because there are people that are quick to suggest the deletion content that uncontentious is completely appropriate within the context of the work itself. I've also suggested the idea of allowing deletions to be postponed to allow for more time for sources hunting should the AFD be the first request for notability demonstration.
- However, we also need to be suggesting editors to not split off or create articles on singular non-notable fictional characters until there is sufficient notability is there. Users have sandboxes to work in, and there will be coverage, albeit limited, of the character in the main article space, but existing users should be aware that article notability will be called into question and should strive to make sure they have notability in a article when putting into main space on day one. New users, of course, will not know this, but thats why we need to take less BITEY routes of helping them improve it. --MASEM 19:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- The problem is that web searches are not the end all of research. The appropriate reliable secondary sources for video game characters would be GamePro, Electronic Gaming Monthhly, GameInformer, etc. and not all of their articles turn up on regular internet searches. It is much easier to have a base article to begin with and to add to it then to keep deleting it and forcing editors to start over constantly. And again, I and others think it inconsistent with academic and encyclopedic tradition to base coverage on "notability." We are cataloging human knowledge after all. Moreover, there are articles on topics that mean nothing to me, but I still wouldn't call them "crap". And just to reiterate, I have argued against the inclusion of hoaxes, how tos, original research, and other unconstructive stuff and some deletionists even appear on my list of nice Wikipedians. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 18:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- I did have a long reply written to this, but I decided it wasn't worth it. I'll just limit myself to what Le Grand does a lot: quoting another user's opinion. The difference though, is that this user is somewhat more important than practically every other Wikipedia user. Le Grand, please also read and fully understand WP:IAR? as well, IAR is not a get-out clause for everything simply because you disagree with using notability. That's all I'm going to say on this discussion (as I'm sure people here will try to bend Jimbo's words to their views to override notability requirements and I frankly can't be bothered getting involved in that sort of discussion), this guideline has been tampered with so much over the last year or so, having been degraded from a guideline, its just far easier to work on the spirit of WP:NOTE. Its this sort of debate that has driven the likes of Deckiller and many other fine and established editors from participating as much or as enthusiastically anymore, not to mention damaging Wikipedia's credibility. -- Sabre (talk) 18:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- So Jimbo Wales said "An encyclopedia is not an in-universe fan guide."[5] Is anyone here saying that an encyclopedia *is* an in-universe fan guide? And could you quote the part of the five pillars that mentions "notability"? When Wales responded to T.Neo (who created WikiProject Fancruft), Wales said "I generally try to stay out of it." — and well he should, because his for-profit wiki runs on fiction content. Have *you* read WP:IAR?? IAR means if FICT prevents you improving Wikipedia and creating an article about the character Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky, FICT should be ignored. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy and rules are not the purpose of the site. And I'm quite interested in what exactly you think damages Wikipedia's credibility. Personally, I think it might have something to do with the fact that anyone can edit (anonymously I might add) and the Wikipedia:General disclaimer says "WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY", but maybe that's just me. --Pixelface (talk) 02:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- It does not need IAR to justify detailed and extensive coverage of fiction--rather the principle that the people in wikipedia make the rules they wish to follow. the only true limitation is the general concept that it be a contemporary free online open content encyclopedia, and that has a very broad meaning. It does imply a certain selectivity of coverage, but it does not say where the line should be drawn. I don't see it as a line, but a zone, and the extent of coverage will depend upon the importance. The readers and the users and the editors are the same here--that's the meaning of open content, and the zone will therefore be set where they want it, not where any theoretical speculations about where it ought to be from anyone of us. It's clear they want it in most subjects very broad, and I think that inherently open content implies that--for it must be broad enough to allow for all who wish to contribute. the limitation that it be an encyclopedia does require verifiability, and the conflict between that and "anyone can edit" is indeed the tricky part & where the tension and difficulties come. (I see the solution is that the more skilled will guide the others.) But preconceived notions of what is notable and what is not, based upon printed works or conventional academic curriculums, are inappropriate here. I speak as one who has worked all my life within the formal academic system: that's how I know that this is different. Each has its natural role, and the nature of user-generated content is comprehensiveness. If in doubt of importance, we leave it in, for it might be. With paper it was different. with a time-limited college course, not everything can fit and some things are more important than others. we have neither limitation. I'll just mention that GRC is also a part of the formal academic system, though still rather junior. Good academics know their limitations. Wikipedia should remain Wikipedia. The idea of waiting until there is some preconceived "sufficient" notability is not part of its appropriate context. Anyone who wishes to do that, should stay with the conventional media. For that matter, some of the opponents of the coverage of fiction are in fact devoted fans of the very fiction they do not want to include in detail. I see it as a bias--to them it is a game, so it cannot be important. But what they do is not my particular game, so I can recognize it to be as important as other human activities. Paradoxical negative COI, is what I call it. DGG (talk) 05:06, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- So Jimbo Wales said "An encyclopedia is not an in-universe fan guide."[5] Is anyone here saying that an encyclopedia *is* an in-universe fan guide? And could you quote the part of the five pillars that mentions "notability"? When Wales responded to T.Neo (who created WikiProject Fancruft), Wales said "I generally try to stay out of it." — and well he should, because his for-profit wiki runs on fiction content. Have *you* read WP:IAR?? IAR means if FICT prevents you improving Wikipedia and creating an article about the character Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky, FICT should be ignored. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy and rules are not the purpose of the site. And I'm quite interested in what exactly you think damages Wikipedia's credibility. Personally, I think it might have something to do with the fact that anyone can edit (anonymously I might add) and the Wikipedia:General disclaimer says "WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY", but maybe that's just me. --Pixelface (talk) 02:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Examples of appropriate sources for notability of fictional elements
Per suggestion of User:Zagalejo above, I recommend that we identify a few examples of what are good qualified sources for notability of fiction elements, pulling from better articles. We should make sure to cover the gambit, from academia to print to web sources, as well as for the different types of elements (characters, episodes, etc.) and information (development, reception, etc.) I think if we can identify 5-6 good examples as a footnote to the guideline, that might help clarify what to look for. We still can point to FA/GA articles as well as a more broader approach, but some directly here on the page couldn't hurt. --MASEM 20:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- I'd be glad to help out with this:
- It is usually inappropriate to explain strategies, but the "lurking" exploit in Asteroids is an exception because it changed the way developers test their games for exploits.[1]
- It is usually inappropriate to describe game items in detail. But describing the portal gun from Portal is necessary to understand the game, and has significant coverage in reliable game news reports.[2]
- That's where I'd begin, since a lot of my focus is on video game articles. Randomran (talk) 20:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, I've got a question Masem. Does FICT cover games, like, oh I don't know Bitin' Off Hedz? --Pixelface (talk) 02:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Technically no - there's no creative story behind it, so it falls to WP:TOYS (pending) or WP:N, and I will admit that it's likely not notable. If someone puts the page up for deletion, I won't stop it - of course, a better option in line with notability is to group all the Cheapass Games into a list, linking to notable ones like Kill Dr. Lucky and summarizing the rest.
- Also please be aware that dragging out everyone's past articles and trying to use them against them, among other things, is approaching tendentious editing that is becoming disruptive in this discussion. For example, this question to me is not even related to this thread. We know you feel passionately against this, having that opinion is fine. Work with us, as instructed by ArbCom, instead of fighting every step of the way. --MASEM 02:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- My question *is* related to this thread. You said "We should make sure to cover the gambit, from academia to print to web sources, as well as for the different types of elements (characters, episodes, etc.) and information (development, reception, etc.)" So I asked if games fall under FICT. Do you personally think that game is notable? Do you realize that editors can use their own judgement to determine if an article is neutral or not? So why shouldn't they be able to use their own judgement to determine if a topic is notable or not? So paper games don't fall under FICT but some videogames do? All videogames? All videogame characters? Some game characters? Toys with a backstory fall under FICT, but toys without a backstory fall under TOYS? The game Dungeons & Dragons falls under FICT, but the board game Scotland Yard does not? I'm truly wondering about the scope of this guideline. I can ask about any article I want. This is a discussion. Does FICT apply to mythology? Greek gods? The Loch Ness monster? Various lake monsters? Bigfoot? The article God, depending on one's point of view? Now, speaking of "tendentious editing", would you call it tendentious editing if an editor argued to delete every article about a fictional character in a game because a biography of a living person they had written was deleted? Would you call it tendentious editing if an editor went around redirecting thousands and thousands of articles because they were upset an article they were interested in got deleted? Asking about the scope of this proposal is not disruptive. You've chosen a pretty broad topic to write about with your proposal. I'm not trying to use articles against you. Nobody owns any articles, not even the ones they've created. And I've provided input at many places. But ArbCom did not designate a place for the parties to discuss like I suggested, so there have been discussions at AFDs, article talk pages, WT:EPISODE, WT:FICT, WP:FICT/N, WT:NOT, WT:AFD, WT:Plot summaries, Wikipedia talk:Postponed deletion, WT:N and probably WT:WAF. If a television episode is not from a documentary series, does EPISODE or FICT apply? Or WP:SERIAL? This proposal flies in the face of Wikipedia is not paper and Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. It flies in the face of the five pillars that says "Wikipedia does not have firm rules besides the five general principles presented here." And you weren't listed as an involved party of the E&C2 case, Masem. But I find it very interesting that the only people who put PLOT back into NOT after the first revert were involved parties of E&C2...and you — and all were present on the E&C2 case pages. You want to find out if a fiction subject is worthy of notice? Bring up the question at the article's talk page. Realize that "worthy of notice" is just a personal opinion. Realize that "significant coverage" is not the only way to suggest notability. Personally I think you seem to have bitten off a little more than you could chew with this proposal. --Pixelface (talk) 21:58, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- Please remain civil. This is supposed to be a discussion to find a consensus, not who can shout the loudest. My point was that this section was "examples of good sources for notability", and you bring up "is this article notable?" That is not helping to reach consensus, and since the article you picked was one I know I worked on way back, you are singling out the editors and not the concepts behind the discussion. The only editor who's actions may need to be brought into question is TTN per the E&C case, but given this a project talk page, he's completely within bounds to comment here freely. --MASEM 22:08, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- My question *is* related to this thread. You said "We should make sure to cover the gambit, from academia to print to web sources, as well as for the different types of elements (characters, episodes, etc.) and information (development, reception, etc.)" So I asked if games fall under FICT. Do you personally think that game is notable? Do you realize that editors can use their own judgement to determine if an article is neutral or not? So why shouldn't they be able to use their own judgement to determine if a topic is notable or not? So paper games don't fall under FICT but some videogames do? All videogames? All videogame characters? Some game characters? Toys with a backstory fall under FICT, but toys without a backstory fall under TOYS? The game Dungeons & Dragons falls under FICT, but the board game Scotland Yard does not? I'm truly wondering about the scope of this guideline. I can ask about any article I want. This is a discussion. Does FICT apply to mythology? Greek gods? The Loch Ness monster? Various lake monsters? Bigfoot? The article God, depending on one's point of view? Now, speaking of "tendentious editing", would you call it tendentious editing if an editor argued to delete every article about a fictional character in a game because a biography of a living person they had written was deleted? Would you call it tendentious editing if an editor went around redirecting thousands and thousands of articles because they were upset an article they were interested in got deleted? Asking about the scope of this proposal is not disruptive. You've chosen a pretty broad topic to write about with your proposal. I'm not trying to use articles against you. Nobody owns any articles, not even the ones they've created. And I've provided input at many places. But ArbCom did not designate a place for the parties to discuss like I suggested, so there have been discussions at AFDs, article talk pages, WT:EPISODE, WT:FICT, WP:FICT/N, WT:NOT, WT:AFD, WT:Plot summaries, Wikipedia talk:Postponed deletion, WT:N and probably WT:WAF. If a television episode is not from a documentary series, does EPISODE or FICT apply? Or WP:SERIAL? This proposal flies in the face of Wikipedia is not paper and Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. It flies in the face of the five pillars that says "Wikipedia does not have firm rules besides the five general principles presented here." And you weren't listed as an involved party of the E&C2 case, Masem. But I find it very interesting that the only people who put PLOT back into NOT after the first revert were involved parties of E&C2...and you — and all were present on the E&C2 case pages. You want to find out if a fiction subject is worthy of notice? Bring up the question at the article's talk page. Realize that "worthy of notice" is just a personal opinion. Realize that "significant coverage" is not the only way to suggest notability. Personally I think you seem to have bitten off a little more than you could chew with this proposal. --Pixelface (talk) 21:58, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Summary of opposition so far
It's still too early to tell where this RfC is going, but I'll summarize below what FICT is currently opposed for (based on each initial oppose !vote, which may be counted as several points; the support !votes and all comments are neglected here). Some of the points may help us to improve FICT although there has most often not been any explanation how. Other points would be called inactionable if this was an FAC. – sgeureka t•c 17:01, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- 6x notability is a bad way to organize content
- 2x FICT needs to allow articles where sources exist but haven't been added to the article yet
- 1x FICT needs to address lists better
- 1x FICT needs to disallow nonnotable lists of elements
- 1x FICT needs to clarify what sources are accepted and which aren't
- 5x WP:ILIKEIT and WP:USEFUL are more important than WP:NOTE; NOTE can be dismissed in favor of other practises
- 3x FICT is too long and confusing; CREEP and BURO
- 1x FICT is not a compromise at all
- 3x FICT is too much against popular culture, or would be used to reduce such content
- 1x FICT encourages incivility and unnecessary fights
- 2x FICT may reduce the amount of information that is otherwise accurate and of good quality (probably referring to in-universe information, i.e. WP:WAF and WP:UNDUE)
- I would say the guideline as is cannot be particularly accommodating to either the "hang notability" or "death to lists" sentiments above, but if nothing else the long and confusing aspect should definitely be taken care of... Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 14:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I would say it remains damnably mum on how to address an article about a character such as The Leader*, who has been a veritable fixture in the Incredible Hulk comics since the Hulk's creation (well, two years after, in 1964), but who realistically speaking has no secondary sources that are not trivial. The straw man argument the "support" voters seem to be promulgating is that those in opposition are arguing to "hang notability". This is untrue, or at least a misrepresentation. I think what most of us are saying is that recurrence and persistence in fictional media is notability. WP:NOTE is not a philosophical end in itself, it is a necessary real-world approximation of a magic rule that would keep important stuff in the encyclopedia and exclude useless stuff. It is a tool, and it needs to be flexible in certain areas (although fictional characters is the only one I can think of) or it's simply broken. Ford MF (talk) 14:43, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- *I just picked the leader off the top of my head, but it could have been any one of thousands of articles that would easily survive any AfD by virtue of common sense, but which could not possibly fulfill a guideline such as this. Ford MF (talk) 14:48, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- There is the argument that a persistent character through a notable series is possibly notable, but this is why FICT is also based on WP:PLOT and WP:UNDUE. That article, including the appearences in other media, is all about the plot of the character through the series, which is not appropriate content. We should not be giving a character's full biography through a work, but simply summarize key aspects of the character and major influences on the overall plot. I am presuming there's a number of other Hulk villains (same argument applies if you picked a different character and a different series), so it completely appropriate to place all these characters within a list, so that they are still covered, but in a manner more appropriate for a free content encyclopedia, as part of the coverage of the Hulk comic. (that said, I do know that comic universes are terribly mish-mashed as one foe from one may "slip in" to another work, but there's no harm in having {{see also}} links in one list to point to the entry in another). --MASEM 15:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I would have to say that even though they haven't commented here (I only found this page myself just today), the vast weight of editors who created the nearly 3500 articles in Category:Marvel Comics supervillains, Category:Marvel Comics superheroes, Category:DC Comics supervillains, and Category:DC Comics superheroes (the overwhelming majority of which fail this proposed guideline) disagree with you about what is "appropriate content". And that's just comics. A consensus of usage, the behavior of the editors who most deal with fictional character content, who may or may not ever pay attention to project pages such as this, should count for at least as much as a debate with, comparatively speaking, a tiny handful of participants. Ford MF (talk) 15:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- If you're going to attempt to bring numbers in to this, please remember that fiction is only one small category of articles on this site. If you were to poll everyone else, you would likely find that the editors that created and worked on those articles are also a minority. You also have to take into account that numbers mean very little when at least 80% of that content is unsuitable per all the other policies and guidelines of this site. TTN (talk) 15:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Er, that's kind of what I mean. That you find 80% of that material inherently deletable (and honestly I think the percentage would be much higher, by this guideline) doesn't count for much when the material persists, a comparatively large body that ebbs and flows but largely endures by common consent. Not to paraquote the loathsome Forrest Gump, but Wikipedia truly is what Wikipedia does. Go ahead and AfD tag those 2800 articles and see how that works out, if you really want to see a consensus on what material is appropriate for inclusion. Ford MF (talk) 15:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- The only reason that fiction has reached this state is because of lax standards over a number of years. It doesn't represent any sort of consensus or actual common practice. The actual consensus has existed in our policies and guidelines, and they are reflected in our good in featured articles. AfDs are subject to many different variables, so they are not really able to work like that. You can take three characters that are nearly the same, have one kept unanimously, one deleted unanimously, and one fought over for various reasons. It can only work on small scale, and it cannot really determine a larger consensus. TTN (talk) 15:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Lax standards? You mean like WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV? Listen, just because the Duke Nukem 3D monsters article was deleted, that doesn't mean you have to take it out on everyone else. Policies and guidelines don't derive their power from being written down. If those policies and guidelines don't actually describe common practice, they're just imaginary rules decided upon by a few editors. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Wikipedia is not Mao. You think a few E&C parties supporting this guideline means it represents consensus? Yeah, consensus among them. You're right, you can take three character articles and have three different debate results. But you want to weigh the dice in your favor with some made up rules. The supporters of this guideline are trying to dictate whether any and all fictional topics in existence are "worthy of notice." You're trying to make 7 million people do what you say? Give me a break. Do you seriously need outside coverage to tell you that Superman is notable? Mickey Mouse? Hello Kitty? And does FICT apply to myths and legends? Mythical creatures? Mythical heroes? The world origin myths of indigenous people? You want to find out if FICT has consensus? Then go apply FICT to every Simpsons episode article and South Park episode article right now and see what happens. Heck, see how many of the supporters can agree what to do with the articles Luke Skywalker, Lenny Leonard, and Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky. --Pixelface (talk) 20:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- By lax standards, I mean that the above were not applied throughly enough to the articles. There is also the fact that standards have just been changed over time. We had several fictional characters featured at one point, even though the articles were mostly junk. Now they aren't featured, and many are redirects. Back when I voted in that AfD, I was blissfully unaware about the true purpose of this site, so whatever you're trying to imply is very wrong. The rest of your comment is the usual straw man junk and some of your other pointless arguments, so I will not bother responding to it. Please try to find something new to present. TTN (talk) 21:43, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, I may as well. Numbers are completely irrelevant. Neither of us can use them to actually make a point. We can guess, but in the end that's all it ends up being. You can say people writing junk equals a consensus, though I say that our featured articles show a consensus. I know that those are notable because they have the obvious potential for outside coverage, which is how we define notability here. Don't like it? Oh well for you. If the case isn't obvious, we give it time. I assume myths and legends fall under whatever wikiproject covers their country of origin or something like that. You know as well as anyone that that example is BS. The Simpsons have shown that most of their articles will end up being at least GAs, and the South Park episodes require an episode by episode look. And either way, numbers do not form consensus. Luke obviously has potential given the other Star Wars FAs. Lenny is on the edge, asking the Simpsons project to take care of that would work. The last would probably need to be tagged and looked over by an expert or just merged outright if none of the other characters show any obvious potential. Seriously, get some new arguments. TTN (talk) 22:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- Lax standards? You mean like WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV? Listen, just because the Duke Nukem 3D monsters article was deleted, that doesn't mean you have to take it out on everyone else. Policies and guidelines don't derive their power from being written down. If those policies and guidelines don't actually describe common practice, they're just imaginary rules decided upon by a few editors. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Wikipedia is not Mao. You think a few E&C parties supporting this guideline means it represents consensus? Yeah, consensus among them. You're right, you can take three character articles and have three different debate results. But you want to weigh the dice in your favor with some made up rules. The supporters of this guideline are trying to dictate whether any and all fictional topics in existence are "worthy of notice." You're trying to make 7 million people do what you say? Give me a break. Do you seriously need outside coverage to tell you that Superman is notable? Mickey Mouse? Hello Kitty? And does FICT apply to myths and legends? Mythical creatures? Mythical heroes? The world origin myths of indigenous people? You want to find out if FICT has consensus? Then go apply FICT to every Simpsons episode article and South Park episode article right now and see what happens. Heck, see how many of the supporters can agree what to do with the articles Luke Skywalker, Lenny Leonard, and Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky. --Pixelface (talk) 20:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- The only reason that fiction has reached this state is because of lax standards over a number of years. It doesn't represent any sort of consensus or actual common practice. The actual consensus has existed in our policies and guidelines, and they are reflected in our good in featured articles. AfDs are subject to many different variables, so they are not really able to work like that. You can take three characters that are nearly the same, have one kept unanimously, one deleted unanimously, and one fought over for various reasons. It can only work on small scale, and it cannot really determine a larger consensus. TTN (talk) 15:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Er, that's kind of what I mean. That you find 80% of that material inherently deletable (and honestly I think the percentage would be much higher, by this guideline) doesn't count for much when the material persists, a comparatively large body that ebbs and flows but largely endures by common consent. Not to paraquote the loathsome Forrest Gump, but Wikipedia truly is what Wikipedia does. Go ahead and AfD tag those 2800 articles and see how that works out, if you really want to see a consensus on what material is appropriate for inclusion. Ford MF (talk) 15:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- (ec)Unfortunately, WP is not a democracy, we are built on consensus, which means that editors do need to be aware of policy and make compelling arguments (instead of simply voting) of why something should change or should not be changed, with those arguments compared against existing policy and guidelines that have consensus. In this case, we are trying to offer FICT that falls in line with the established NOTE and PLOT. Yes, this makes those articles they've created a problem, and while we've had arguments like this in the past in bringing WP:FICT to this point, no one has yet brought forward an argument that challenged FICT's approach to support those types of articles beyond, basically, WP:ILIKEIT. I am not trying to shut this argument down - however, we need something more compelling than the vast number of editors that write those articles (and trust me, I've tried to brainstorm any other argument to make this work without success), and the only other ways I can see to allow a different approach is if we got rid of PLOT or NOTE, neither which is likely to happen. But it is important to get additional input; maybe one of those other hundreds of editors on comics articles has the magic bullet that allows such articles to exist despite PLOT and NOTE. That's why editors serious about improving WP in ways they see better should not ignore policies and guidelines and what goes on behind them. We need those types of editors to comment here if there is some way to argue for the support of those types of articles, if they really believe they should exist. --MASEM 15:24, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Perhaps I erred in being specific. Perhaps I should have been asking how exactly we can be arguing about a guideline that targets the vast majority of an entire class of articles (most articles on characters from novels, comics, TV, video games, &c. fail this guideline, as currently written, miserably) as undesirable? I get that people feel the need to put a quality valve on our content, but excessive rules lawyering and more Wiki-bureaucracy is not a good response to these concerns. This guideline is entirely indiscriminate, so basically all we're having is WP:ILIKEIT/WP:IDONTLIKEIT arguments. Ford MF (talk) 15:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I can only speak for myself, but I think the argument is between WP:ILIKEIT/WP:NOTE. I'd never try to clean out content simply because I didn't like it. We're basically arguing about a guideline that's firmly in place that we can't change here. It's not productive. It might be more productive to move the discussion up the ladder to WP:NOTE. Randomran (talk) 15:43, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Perhaps I erred in being specific. Perhaps I should have been asking how exactly we can be arguing about a guideline that targets the vast majority of an entire class of articles (most articles on characters from novels, comics, TV, video games, &c. fail this guideline, as currently written, miserably) as undesirable? I get that people feel the need to put a quality valve on our content, but excessive rules lawyering and more Wiki-bureaucracy is not a good response to these concerns. This guideline is entirely indiscriminate, so basically all we're having is WP:ILIKEIT/WP:IDONTLIKEIT arguments. Ford MF (talk) 15:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- If you're going to attempt to bring numbers in to this, please remember that fiction is only one small category of articles on this site. If you were to poll everyone else, you would likely find that the editors that created and worked on those articles are also a minority. You also have to take into account that numbers mean very little when at least 80% of that content is unsuitable per all the other policies and guidelines of this site. TTN (talk) 15:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I would have to say that even though they haven't commented here (I only found this page myself just today), the vast weight of editors who created the nearly 3500 articles in Category:Marvel Comics supervillains, Category:Marvel Comics superheroes, Category:DC Comics supervillains, and Category:DC Comics superheroes (the overwhelming majority of which fail this proposed guideline) disagree with you about what is "appropriate content". And that's just comics. A consensus of usage, the behavior of the editors who most deal with fictional character content, who may or may not ever pay attention to project pages such as this, should count for at least as much as a debate with, comparatively speaking, a tiny handful of participants. Ford MF (talk) 15:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- There is the argument that a persistent character through a notable series is possibly notable, but this is why FICT is also based on WP:PLOT and WP:UNDUE. That article, including the appearences in other media, is all about the plot of the character through the series, which is not appropriate content. We should not be giving a character's full biography through a work, but simply summarize key aspects of the character and major influences on the overall plot. I am presuming there's a number of other Hulk villains (same argument applies if you picked a different character and a different series), so it completely appropriate to place all these characters within a list, so that they are still covered, but in a manner more appropriate for a free content encyclopedia, as part of the coverage of the Hulk comic. (that said, I do know that comic universes are terribly mish-mashed as one foe from one may "slip in" to another work, but there's no harm in having {{see also}} links in one list to point to the entry in another). --MASEM 15:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- *I just picked the leader off the top of my head, but it could have been any one of thousands of articles that would easily survive any AfD by virtue of common sense, but which could not possibly fulfill a guideline such as this. Ford MF (talk) 14:48, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- There are a bunch of people who genuinely want to overturn WP:NOTE. I'm not sure what we can do about them but ignore them as asking for something we can't do here, and redirect them to Wikipedia talk:Notability. As a precisionist, I'm trying to find a compromise between the extreme inclusionists and deletionists at both ends. We need workable standards about what belongs in the encyclopedia. I could live with a more relaxed version of the notability requirement if there's another workable standard in its place. But then someone should try to actually make efforts to change WP:NOTE, rather than pretending we can just ignore it in all cases. Randomran (talk) 15:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I would say it remains damnably mum on how to address an article about a character such as The Leader*, who has been a veritable fixture in the Incredible Hulk comics since the Hulk's creation (well, two years after, in 1964), but who realistically speaking has no secondary sources that are not trivial. The straw man argument the "support" voters seem to be promulgating is that those in opposition are arguing to "hang notability". This is untrue, or at least a misrepresentation. I think what most of us are saying is that recurrence and persistence in fictional media is notability. WP:NOTE is not a philosophical end in itself, it is a necessary real-world approximation of a magic rule that would keep important stuff in the encyclopedia and exclude useless stuff. It is a tool, and it needs to be flexible in certain areas (although fictional characters is the only one I can think of) or it's simply broken. Ford MF (talk) 14:43, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
(!@#$!@# ecs) I would add WP:OTHERSTUFF to the list of opposes, based strictly off the ensuing conversation. If articles which aren't suitable for the content of Wikipedia haven't been tagged for cleanup/review/deletion, then that is because we haven't gotten around to it yet, not because of some known consensus. --Izno (talk) 15:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I did a round of a lot of video game articles recently and found most of the weapon/location/item articles had already been cleaned up. The character stuff is a little trickier, but at least it's tagged, and a lot of characters HAVE demonstrated notability. I can't speak for the other wikiprojects. Randomran (talk) 15:48, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I don't think it's trivial or to point out that even profoundly obscure fictional characters without any secondary sources routinely, and easily, pass AfDs because of persistent appearance in notable media. There is clearly a consensus, at least at AfD, that recurrence in notable media confers notability on characters to some degree. Ford MF (talk) 16:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- That's not compatible with WP:NOTE, though. The WP:GNG defines sources as "secondary sources", meaning that primary sources like movies, TV, games, and comics can't be enough to assert notability. You need journals, books, news that analyzes or synthesis the fictional work itself. I'm not saying this is written in stone. But I'm saying that we can't have contradictory guidelines between WP:FICT and WP:NOTE. Something has to give. Randomran (talk) 16:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, the GNG is broken when it comes to fictional characters. Isn't that why we're here debating all this? Ford MF (talk) 16:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Some people are here because the GNG doesn't apply well to fictional characters (and other elements), and seems to forbid too many of them (I'm in that camp, slightly). Others want this guideline because they want the GNG to be rigidly applied to such things (and the current draft has fallen more their way, but at least it preserves most of the content). SamBC(talk) 17:06, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Also, as Pixelface smartly points out above, WP:N itself states that the GNG are not absolute criteria. Ford MF (talk) 17:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Indeed; as I read it, WP:N defines notability as the characteristic of being "worthy of note" and then gives the GNG as one way to demonstrate it. SamBC(talk) 17:06, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, I read what you wrote on the Notability talkpage, and I agree with the interpretation that holds that GNG is one way to determine notability. More to the point is that I strenuously disagree with the camp that holds the GNG to be absolute and a personal club to be used against articles. It's essentially a tool for expulsion against which no appeal is possible, under the current wording (I admit I have not seen previous versions of this page). Ford MF (talk) 17:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- There were various suggestions for non-GNG criteria for determining notability of fictional elements, but all were opposed strenuously. The proponents backed down out of, as far as I can tell (and I'm one of them) a combination of fatigue and a desire to encourage compromise. Suggestions included: characters/elements that are major elements of multiple notable works (to encourage consolidation of information) and awards for the specific element (examples were given for film characters and RPG settings, but dismissed). I think there were others, but those are ones that I suggested and/or supported. SamBC(talk) 17:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC) (to clarify the multiple works thing: this was not meant as multiple works in a single series or franchise, or adaptations of an original work, just to remove the most obvious objection to it before someone makes it SamBC(talk) 17:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC))
- The GNG defines the most consistent way to define notability and the one most widely implemented. Yes, you can assert notability in other ways, but you should have a damn good reason for ignoring the GNG. In the case of the comic book characters that Ford MF is mentioning, I think the accepted status quo is that these characters have been present in serialized media for a pretty long time; ergo, sources probably exist, which is probably true. Also, part of the concerns of those who are defending the GNG in this discussion can be alleviated through a more thorough implementation of WP:WAF, and pushing these comic book characters from a in-universe standpoint into something more like Superman, Batman, or Captain Marvel (DC Comics). I think the major point of contention has its origins in the manner in which these articles are written rather than their ability to assert notability. As such, FICT isn't going to change the current status quo on the matter, and a more thorough application of WAF can fix the headaches on both sides. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 17:22, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, I think you're even nearer the mark than you realise. I've recently been working closely (and unusually amicably) with one of the editors who has been perceived as very anti-fiction-coverage, and I think I'm beginning to understand the disagreement more clearly. That's not to say that it isn't still a disagreement, but it's not the one that we think it is. The most extreme point seems to be not that fictional topics shouldn't be covered, but that every ounce, every sentence, every clause should be real-world perspective, and for preference no in-universe content (not even perspective) except where it is necessary to understand real-world content. This could be seen as "we should cover the coverage, not the fiction itself". Now, I don't agree with that, but it is, frankly, easier to understand and work with than "fiction should not be covered". Plus it's always easier to resolve a disagreement once everyone realises what they're disagreeing about. SamBC(talk) 17:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- While I think you're right about that, I also think it amounts to the same thing, since I think the default for the overwhelming majority of fictional-character articles is "no outside sources". It's also worth mentioning that commentary about a character is kind of useless if it is made in the absence of, as you say, "in-universe content", which I'd say in almost all cases is necessary to describe the character in a properly encyclopedic manner. All the articles cited above as "good" fictional character articles (e.g. Batman and Superman) feature lengthy in-universe histories. Ford MF (talk) 17:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Again, I'm not saying in-universe content is bad. On the contrary, it is necessary for the topic to be comprehensive and should be included. My point is that a great deal of these articles talk about the in-universe content from an in-universe perspective that is not appropriate, and makes it much easier to justify deletion per NOTE and NOT#PLOT. A better application of WAF to present the material alleviates some of these concerns, as if you present the in-universe context from a real-world perspective and with real-world context, then it becomes harder to justify deletion. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 17:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- While I think you're right about that, I also think it amounts to the same thing, since I think the default for the overwhelming majority of fictional-character articles is "no outside sources". It's also worth mentioning that commentary about a character is kind of useless if it is made in the absence of, as you say, "in-universe content", which I'd say in almost all cases is necessary to describe the character in a properly encyclopedic manner. All the articles cited above as "good" fictional character articles (e.g. Batman and Superman) feature lengthy in-universe histories. Ford MF (talk) 17:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Certainly, I'm not suggesting that in-universe content should be excised everywhere, but rather that it be presented in the manner shown by WAF. It definitely doesn't have to be punctuated with real world context in every sentence, but it shouldn't treat the subject from an in-universe perspective. Like I said, you alleviate a ton of the problems here by more adherence to WAF and presenting the topic better. It becomes much easier to apply NOTE and NOT#PLOT to an article that contains nothing more than an in-universe perspective (not in-universe content, but perspective and the manner of presentation), and much more difficult to justify deletion when you have a well-written article that presents the in-universe content from the real-world viewpoint dictated by WAF. FICT doesn't change this. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 17:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, I think you're even nearer the mark than you realise. I've recently been working closely (and unusually amicably) with one of the editors who has been perceived as very anti-fiction-coverage, and I think I'm beginning to understand the disagreement more clearly. That's not to say that it isn't still a disagreement, but it's not the one that we think it is. The most extreme point seems to be not that fictional topics shouldn't be covered, but that every ounce, every sentence, every clause should be real-world perspective, and for preference no in-universe content (not even perspective) except where it is necessary to understand real-world content. This could be seen as "we should cover the coverage, not the fiction itself". Now, I don't agree with that, but it is, frankly, easier to understand and work with than "fiction should not be covered". Plus it's always easier to resolve a disagreement once everyone realises what they're disagreeing about. SamBC(talk) 17:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- If you go into the trenches on it again, let me know, as I would be interested in participating in a discussion. I agree with the vibe I'm picking up that much of the problem is with Notability over-all & not just Notability (fiction). GNG is a useful tool, but I think we're seeing it sort of SkyNet into a stranglehold that I (for one) don't think is helpful to this project. --mordicai. (talk) 17:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I started a section at WT:NOTE on this, which has so-far not gained responses. Discussion there would be most welcome, whether you agree or disagree with either my interpretation of the situation (as expressed there) or my opinion on how it should be read. SamBC(talk) 17:31, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- This is exactly the kind of action that needs to be taken. Good luck. Randomran (talk) 17:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I started a section at WT:NOTE on this, which has so-far not gained responses. Discussion there would be most welcome, whether you agree or disagree with either my interpretation of the situation (as expressed there) or my opinion on how it should be read. SamBC(talk) 17:31, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- The GNG defines the most consistent way to define notability and the one most widely implemented. Yes, you can assert notability in other ways, but you should have a damn good reason for ignoring the GNG. In the case of the comic book characters that Ford MF is mentioning, I think the accepted status quo is that these characters have been present in serialized media for a pretty long time; ergo, sources probably exist, which is probably true. Also, part of the concerns of those who are defending the GNG in this discussion can be alleviated through a more thorough implementation of WP:WAF, and pushing these comic book characters from a in-universe standpoint into something more like Superman, Batman, or Captain Marvel (DC Comics). I think the major point of contention has its origins in the manner in which these articles are written rather than their ability to assert notability. As such, FICT isn't going to change the current status quo on the matter, and a more thorough application of WAF can fix the headaches on both sides. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 17:22, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I'm totally fine with putting together a workable standard based on coverage in multiple kinds of media. Not that I'd go to bat for it, but I wouldn't oppose it if that's how the GNG evolved. Call it the "multiple media test", that runs parallel to the current notability test. But as of now, notability is measured in secondary sources (that are also reliable, independent, etc.) This is the kind of thing that has to go all the way up the ladder, to WP:NOTE. Seriously, guys. If you want to make it happen, go there and make it happen. But don't just ignore the guidelines we have now. It would be absolutely nonsensical and disruptive to have contradictory guidelines. Randomran (talk) 17:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- There were various suggestions for non-GNG criteria for determining notability of fictional elements, but all were opposed strenuously. The proponents backed down out of, as far as I can tell (and I'm one of them) a combination of fatigue and a desire to encourage compromise. Suggestions included: characters/elements that are major elements of multiple notable works (to encourage consolidation of information) and awards for the specific element (examples were given for film characters and RPG settings, but dismissed). I think there were others, but those are ones that I suggested and/or supported. SamBC(talk) 17:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC) (to clarify the multiple works thing: this was not meant as multiple works in a single series or franchise, or adaptations of an original work, just to remove the most obvious objection to it before someone makes it SamBC(talk) 17:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC))
- Yeah, I read what you wrote on the Notability talkpage, and I agree with the interpretation that holds that GNG is one way to determine notability. More to the point is that I strenuously disagree with the camp that holds the GNG to be absolute and a personal club to be used against articles. It's essentially a tool for expulsion against which no appeal is possible, under the current wording (I admit I have not seen previous versions of this page). Ford MF (talk) 17:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Indeed; as I read it, WP:N defines notability as the characteristic of being "worthy of note" and then gives the GNG as one way to demonstrate it. SamBC(talk) 17:06, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, the GNG is broken when it comes to fictional characters. Isn't that why we're here debating all this? Ford MF (talk) 16:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- That's not compatible with WP:NOTE, though. The WP:GNG defines sources as "secondary sources", meaning that primary sources like movies, TV, games, and comics can't be enough to assert notability. You need journals, books, news that analyzes or synthesis the fictional work itself. I'm not saying this is written in stone. But I'm saying that we can't have contradictory guidelines between WP:FICT and WP:NOTE. Something has to give. Randomran (talk) 16:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Kyaa had a comment here, which he's refactored. Please carry on. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 06:51, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Bottom up
I'm interested as to if the other wikiprojects have their own project guidelines in place concerning how to apply WP:NOTE. I know the video games wikiproject does. This might help give us a better idea of how to build up the overall fiction guideline on notability. Randomran (talk) 15:51, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- And also besides a few voices the VG Project actually seems more united behind the guidelines, but I doubt that can be scaled up without falling to pieces. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 19:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- WP:TV (of which I am part) is pretty much a backwater place that just hosts all the FACs and FLCs; it has a handful of low-activity task forces and also has some MOS guidelines, but it mostly just points to FICT, WAF and EPISODE for advice. My other fiction wikiproject, WP:STARGATE, had become pretty much inactive by the time I started editing Stargate articles in October 2007 (it was a total mess with hundreds of nn articles), and when I boldly exchanged all its ancient intra-project guidelines with the the TV MOSes, FICT, WAF and EPISODE, no-one complained. There are only a
handfuldozen of nn SG articles left that are not merged/redirected yet and therefore should fear AfD, the others are articles that could easily reach GA through expansion, or are lists. – sgeureka t•c 19:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Tiny matter of detail regarding RFC
Does anyone have any objections if I break out the Support and Oppose sections via "Statement by USERNAME" to make replying easier? --MASEM 02:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- That makes sense to me. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
An observation
I think it is important for every editor to recognize from the !voting above that there are three positions being taken here. In general, they are:
- We cannot weaken the GNC at all / content must be sourced for notability etc.
- Notability is insufficient for fiction / fictional elements can be sourced from the primary works, etc.
- The position that FICT currently attempts to make.
I want to make it clear that there are significant numbers in both of the first two groups, both making reasonable points based on policies and the like; in other words, going off what the opposes give, I can't tell if we should push FICT one way or another (the last group is in pretty fair balance with either of the others) I'm not trying to said any side is currently showing better consensus, but I think it needs to be clear that we have a non-ignorable number editors at both the far extremes of what this proposed guideline suggests. Somehow, we have to find a way to move forward and get something on notability for fictional topics, but that means that we have to find a way to make those extremes agree to something at the midpoint; those at one end need to recognize the concerns of those at the other, and vice versa. To me, unless there is significant policy change elsewhere, the present FICT needs tweaking, and figuring those tweaks out may be necessary in order to reach the middle position that is best represented here. --MASEM 04:06, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- We don't have to at all. We have a perfectly good general notability criterion, and any attempt to weaken it just invites more garbage. This guideline should mainly focus on the question "The following solutions are available to take care of fiction articles which are not notable: merge to parent work of fiction, merge to list, redirection, and deletion. Under what circumstances is each such solution best?" Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- Maybe the one thing both sides agree on is that this page cannot decide the issue. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 04:37, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- That guideline (WP:N) says that articles are considered notable if they meet the GNG or an accepted subject-specific guideline. Saying "get rid of the subjet-specific guidelines" is pretty much as radical as "get rid of WP:NOTE". SamBC(talk) 11:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- How about we mark it as rejected so the discussion can take place at NOTE, which seems to be the appropriate level. One side says NOTE doesn't work, the other that NOTE cannot be amended by FICT. Either way it seems like a discussion that has to happen at NOTE. I think we'd gain eyeballs, which is good, and arguments could be judged by their merits. This page generates a lot of heat, but if the issue cannot be decided here it cannot generate much light. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 04:32, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- The alternative is for people to start an RfC at NOTE right now to seek the removal of the GNC. Depending on the outcome, wikipedia either has to reconsider one of its most fundamental inclusion criteria, or any current general objection of NOTE here doesn't really influence the coverage of fiction (i.e. either FICT gets adopted with sufficient closeness to NOTE, or FICT gets rejected and NOTE decides fiction notability from then on). – sgeureka t•c 05:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- There's a much broader RFC at NOTE right now that could help clarify things so the GNG can have its place, and subject-specific guidelines theirs. There's no specific action suggested, but there could easily be once there's some indication of what the general view on the interrelation of V and N actually is. So far, it seems that most don't think that N is a conseuquence of V, or the it is a way of ensuring V (although it helps with that. SamBC(talk) 11:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- The alternative is for people to start an RfC at NOTE right now to seek the removal of the GNC. Depending on the outcome, wikipedia either has to reconsider one of its most fundamental inclusion criteria, or any current general objection of NOTE here doesn't really influence the coverage of fiction (i.e. either FICT gets adopted with sufficient closeness to NOTE, or FICT gets rejected and NOTE decides fiction notability from then on). – sgeureka t•c 05:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- As for the "non-ignorable number editors at both the far extremes of what this proposed guideline suggests", I'd like to repeat arbcom's words that editors are urged to work collaboratively and constructively with the broader community and the editors committed to working on the articles. I am not expecting anyone to take these words to heart, but retaining extreme positions makes collaboration very hard indeed. – sgeureka t•c 05:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- I don't believe that expecting articles to be in keeping with NOTE, which has been a longstanding guideline despite frequent challenges, verifiability, which is cited as part of the first pillar, and the defined scope of the project, another longstanding policy, is in any way an "extreme" position. Just as nonfree image cleanup met some opposition, plot summary cleanup will as well. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it or that doing so is in conflict with the defined scope and mission of the project, which is as an educational reference, not a fan guide. That doesn't mean we shouldn't work collaboratively, because of course we should. The question here, however, is "What is an extreme position?" If one argued against using a neutral point of view in a given article, that would be an extreme position, even if also something of a popular one. Similarly, arguing that a relatively large class of articles should be allowed to violate content policies is a rather extreme position, arguing that they should follow those policies is not. The question we should be asking is not "Should fiction articles be required to follow the standard content policies?" Rather, it should be "What is the best way to bring fiction articles in line with the standard content policies?" Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:31, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- The best way to bring fiction articles in line with current guidelines is to delete 99% of them. Editors don't agree that that would be a good thing, which is why this page should be marked as rejected. The two sides are basically "ignoring thousands of editors ain't right" vs "ignoring our guidelines (and their thousands of editors) ain't right." Let's take the discussion to where it really matters by rejecting this page. We've split this discussion among a bunch of pages before (repeatedly) like doing an RfC for fiction, but the discussion elsewhere always pales to the discussion here. A rejected notice here and a move to NOTE would quickly solve that problem. On the other hand, if you like NOTE's status quo and the arguing here, then dividing the conversation works wonders preventing any changes to NOTE, or showing that NOTE should be applied as written (allowing us to get on with our work). - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 07:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- As said before, there is nothing to stop you from questioning the consensus behind NOTE right now. But that that needs to happen there, not here. – sgeureka t•c 07:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- (ec) Since the main part of FICT is built on NOTE (an obviously related guideline, some would say parent guideline) and NOT#PLOT (policy), all positions that significantly undermine or significanlty go beyond NOTE and NOT#PLOT are extreme. What is signicant? Refuting the existance of NOTE and NOT#PLOT, or making them stricter than their own wording. In both cases, discussions to make them stricter/looser need to take place there, not FICT. FICT just brings together consensus practises, and doesn't create new practises (except encouraging merging instead of AfD, which I hope won't be held against it). – sgeureka t•c 07:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- What's stopping me is that we tried it recently and dividing the conversation into many places didn't help people in expressing their views and replying to other's views. Again, if nothing can be said here that contradicts NOTE and PLOT, then we need to get rid of this page so the conversation can take place at the relevant pages. Seems simple to me, although other's don't agree. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 07:52, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- The RfC to remove NOT#PLOT from WP:NOT was working fine in parallel to the discussions at FICT, so I don't expect NOTE/GNC to be any different. Also, the difference between NOTE and FICT is that NOTE demands reliable secondary independent sources in significant amounts to establish notability ("inclusion"), while the current version of FICT pretty much just asks for reliable real-world information, which can be also come from the producers (who aren't independent). Plus, FICT calls for merging, while NOTE seems to encourage AfD. I see a rude awakening coming for fiction inclusionists if they seriously believe they will be better off with NOTE than with the current FICT, or that NOTE (or NOT#PLOT) will get amended to allow Jake Morgan his own article. – sgeureka t•c 12:03, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- What's stopping me is that we tried it recently and dividing the conversation into many places didn't help people in expressing their views and replying to other's views. Again, if nothing can be said here that contradicts NOTE and PLOT, then we need to get rid of this page so the conversation can take place at the relevant pages. Seems simple to me, although other's don't agree. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 07:52, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- (@Seraphimblade) I am only saying that relative to what we (those helping to edit FICT) have found from a year+ worth of work, the extreme positions are those that are at the opposite sides of spectrum of solutions and are about as far apart as possible; they are not the political type of extreme where being so far to the end of the scale the points are dismissible. Both extremes in this case have completely valid and non-ignorable points. The issue is that those fighting to keep the extremes are looking at the middle ground (a point that FICT is trying to define) and trying to pull it back to their side, without looking beyond that middle ground to see that the other side is doing exactly the same.
- All this is a content dispute: we can't take it to ArbCom (I very much doubt they'd want to see another fiction-related case anyway). The only other authoritative group we can turn to I believe is the Foundation to set a mandate, and that make turn out disasterous for one side or both. The reason we have FICT as it is is that it is a middle ground that attempts to keep the key points that both sides want: the allowance for expanded coverage on fiction beyond just the work while keeping the amount of it limited to prevent excess non-notability. But if neither extreme is willing to move to a position towards the other, then maybe we do need to basically turn to a greater power to end this dispute once and for all.
- However, it should be important to note that FICT and NOTE are guidelines, and to have to bring in as close to an outside third party as we can get to resolve a guideline issue seems like using a sledgehammer to drive in a thumbtack. Colonel Warden said it best: notability should be based on common sense, and same here with FICT; it was written this way to reflect common sense as best as possible. The problem is that there are editors that wikilawyer policy and guidelines to their benefit, and thus while FICT could probably be summed up in one common-sense paragraph, it needs to explain all these different aspects to a level of detail that is necessary to prevent it from being twisted one way or another - demands that users that began to dispute FICT way back last year complained about and thus necessitating its rewrite. But because its a guideline, it leaves open room for exceptions that may not exactly spelled out in it. Should FICT as present be accepted, we'd watch what those exceptions (verified through AFD or other discussion) end up being, and then amend FICT to specifically call out such exception if they follow certain patterns. The main point is that FICT is trying to point out where the middle ground and make it as reasonable a solution that either extreme can see as acceptable without fully accepting the viewpoint of the other extreme. --MASEM 12:52, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think you "observations" are are a substantial misrepresention of Wikipedia policy and concensus. The idea that Notability is insufficient for fiction / fictional elements can be sourced from the primary works, is just not supported. I have never seen an article that was deleted which cited reliable secondary sources amoung the dozens of AfD debates I have particpated in. WP:FICT needs to reinforce that only reliable secondary sourcing makes for Good Articles, because without them, they will be filled superfical and trivial content at best, like List of New Order Jedi characters. --Gavin Collins (talk) 20:14, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- And I think that comment was a substantial violation of WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. People disagree with you; that doesn't make them wrong, much less malicious. SamBC(talk) 20:24, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- Again, the comment is not about exactly what positions the extremes have, it is the fact that there are two extremes diametrically opposite with equally strong arguments for their POV and against the other POV (at least to myself, I believe I'm somewhere between those). That's why ignoring what the other extreme is stating and trying to pull the middle ground closer to one side is not going to ever get consensus. --MASEM 20:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- Which is why we don't have consensus, and probably never will, on this page when the discussion needs to happen at a higher level. Why don't we see what kind of consensus we have for marking this page as rejected. Maybe we can could consensus on rejecting this and moving the discussion to NOTE? Probably not, but who know. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 06:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Rejected wouldn't be the correct tag at all, because there are a lot of concepts that WP:FICT represents that are true. We're having trouble wording those concepts, but they're still true. I do agree with you that some of WP:FICT won't likely get consensus in the near future, which is why I've tried to encourage us to be vague on those areas. People are mad that we say "yes you can make a list" and seem to forget that was a compromise so we didn't have full articles for every character under the fictional sun. Some people are mad that we don't specifically say what can be created. WP:FICT can not and will not solve all our problems, nor will it make everyone happy. We need to stop expecting it to do so. -- Ned Scott 07:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- There are some useful concepts, but I keep seeing arguments that this isn't a page that can make a decision about "X." It seems like it would be more fruitful to reject this page and then recreate it if we want after we've discussed this at a higher level. Even if we had real consensus here that individual articles aren't OK, but lists are OK, with say 20 editors backing it, I don't think it would take very many editors at the next level up to force us back to no consensus by saying we're violating NOTE or NOT. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 07:46, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Our goal should not be to decide for every situation on when to create an article or a list, but rather to guide an editor with useful advice. Like I said, when it comes to stuff that we, a) don't have exact consensus on, and b) know that one size won't fit all, that we should be vague to reflect that. It's frustrating when you're not given a clear "can I do this or not" response, but the fact is that we really can't say that and have it be true for every situation. -- Ned Scott 06:29, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think you "observations" are are a substantial misrepresention of Wikipedia policy and concensus. The idea that Notability is insufficient for fiction / fictional elements can be sourced from the primary works, is just not supported. I have never seen an article that was deleted which cited reliable secondary sources amoung the dozens of AfD debates I have particpated in. WP:FICT needs to reinforce that only reliable secondary sourcing makes for Good Articles, because without them, they will be filled superfical and trivial content at best, like List of New Order Jedi characters. --Gavin Collins (talk) 20:14, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- The best way to bring fiction articles in line with current guidelines is to delete 99% of them. Editors don't agree that that would be a good thing, which is why this page should be marked as rejected. The two sides are basically "ignoring thousands of editors ain't right" vs "ignoring our guidelines (and their thousands of editors) ain't right." Let's take the discussion to where it really matters by rejecting this page. We've split this discussion among a bunch of pages before (repeatedly) like doing an RfC for fiction, but the discussion elsewhere always pales to the discussion here. A rejected notice here and a move to NOTE would quickly solve that problem. On the other hand, if you like NOTE's status quo and the arguing here, then dividing the conversation works wonders preventing any changes to NOTE, or showing that NOTE should be applied as written (allowing us to get on with our work). - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 07:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- I don't believe that expecting articles to be in keeping with NOTE, which has been a longstanding guideline despite frequent challenges, verifiability, which is cited as part of the first pillar, and the defined scope of the project, another longstanding policy, is in any way an "extreme" position. Just as nonfree image cleanup met some opposition, plot summary cleanup will as well. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it or that doing so is in conflict with the defined scope and mission of the project, which is as an educational reference, not a fan guide. That doesn't mean we shouldn't work collaboratively, because of course we should. The question here, however, is "What is an extreme position?" If one argued against using a neutral point of view in a given article, that would be an extreme position, even if also something of a popular one. Similarly, arguing that a relatively large class of articles should be allowed to violate content policies is a rather extreme position, arguing that they should follow those policies is not. The question we should be asking is not "Should fiction articles be required to follow the standard content policies?" Rather, it should be "What is the best way to bring fiction articles in line with the standard content policies?" Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:31, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Brainstorming: An alternative proposal
Although this RfC is ultimately not a vote, supports and opposes have been coming in in almost equal numbers for the past seven days, and this seems unlikely to change. Per #Summary of opposition so far, the reasons for oppositions are varied, sometimes uncollaborative, sometimes helpful and unhelpful, and sometimes perfectly valid. I still maintain that keeping FICT around is more desireable than tagging it as {{rejected}} (which has the negative connotation that no-one agreed with it, instead of that just not enough people expressed their support), but I am beginning to not fool myself any longer that people will suddenly somehow agree with this (my) view. But I just remembered the solution of the much-fought-over Wikipedia:Attribution, which says as its header:
As long as WP:NOTABILITY and WP:NOT#PLOT (and WP:OR and WP:WAF) enjoy the widespread support they currently have on wikipedia, the essence of the current FICT stands. In AfD and merge proposals, people can achieve the same results as FICT by simply citing WP:NOTABILITY and WP:NOT#PLOT (this has been done since December 2007 anyway). FICT will work as a citable essay-ish crossover of the policy and the guideline, but will not have a guideline tag itself (this pedantic difference may be enough for people to switch from oppose to support).
The other alternatives are to (1) accept that RfCs are not a vote, and ignore any inactionable or cancelling-each-other-out opposition, (2) open an RfC at NOTE to remove/change the GNC and work from the results there (leaving FICT un-rejected during that time), or (3) {{reject}} FICT (not {{essay}}-tag it) and leave the notability of fictional elements solely to the GNC, which may/will be desastrous for the majority of current fiction sub-articles because deletion-minded editors will exploit that no significant reliable and independent sources exist for most fictional elements (their articles often happen to be sup-par with little hope for improvement). The RfC will still be open for some time, but brainstorming can't hurt. – sgeureka t•c 11:55, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I like giving it the ATT method. Nice idea :) Sceptre (talk) 12:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I like this too. It also gets us around the issues of which parts of this do and don't belong in a notability guideline. Percy Snoodle (talk) 12:04, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I have no problem w/ this approach and the RFC at NOTE - though I'm afraid that NOTE could end up in the same place in terms of overall dissent. The only benefit is that there may be even more eyes on it. --MASEM 12:22, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- What's the point in creating something that's not actually citeable as proof of anything in an argument? Ford MF (talk) 12:39, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, people cite essays all the time; it doesn't mean that their argument is "proven", it means that the essay contains the argument they want to make, and it's not worth reiterating it all. SamBC(talk) 13:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I just meant that retaining it as an essay (and calling it a "summary" of the other guidelines) would almost certainly lead to its being cited as, e.g. Delete per X, when clearly there's no consensus about what X actually means. It lends a kind of legitimacy to it that the community is rejecting, or "non-consensusing", if you like. Ford MF (talk) 13:56, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, people cite essays all the time; it doesn't mean that their argument is "proven", it means that the essay contains the argument they want to make, and it's not worth reiterating it all. SamBC(talk) 13:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- What's the point in creating something that's not actually citeable as proof of anything in an argument? Ford MF (talk) 12:39, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I have no problem w/ this approach and the RFC at NOTE - though I'm afraid that NOTE could end up in the same place in terms of overall dissent. The only benefit is that there may be even more eyes on it. --MASEM 12:22, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I like this too. It also gets us around the issues of which parts of this do and don't belong in a notability guideline. Percy Snoodle (talk) 12:04, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I like the ATT-style plan, and I think the current RFC at note might actually lead to something that will affect the way the fiction-related arguments move in future (if it leads to anything at all). SamBC(talk) 13:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Another approach I just thought of: what if we flipped the intent of this RFC, for purposes of something like the above suggestion, as to get consensus if FICT accurately depicts what is currently the general process by which fictional topics are dealt with, modify it as necessary for any significant points brought up, thus it could be called a guideline but with a huge top caveat that other discussions may change this in the future and thus should be used with a grain of salt. Or add a "Current Practice" section or something. It's basically the above, but still showing that some aspect had consensus and thus should not be ignored.
- Now, I'm specifically saying "does this reflect current practice", not "is this guideline ideal to you?" Arguments like "It weakens the GNC" or "It doesn't allow for coverage of popular characters" are not appropriate for this specifically; we are trying to summarize what all involved can bring to the table about the typical fates of fictional element articles, and not what you'd like to see in the guideline. This may mean we have to add language like "Articles on fictional elements without proven notability have unpredictable results at AFD and should be treated on a case by case basis." Again, getting this gives us a guideline that should prevent NOTE being heavily applied to fictional topics should this be degraded to less than anything than a guideline. Once any further discussion from NOTE arises to suggest FICT changes, we can then make them from there. --MASEM 14:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, per (for example) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kirigi (DC Comics), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Melter, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ego the Living Planet, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Plunderer, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Omega Red, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Morlun, &c., &c., no, the proposed guideline doesn't entirely reflect actual practice on the Wikipedia. Ford MF (talk) 14:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- If WP:FICT is not GNC compliant then it can't be a guideline and so this approach will fail; it will remain a proposed guideline, based on what some editors would like it to be, rather than what can feasibly work, and because there are no other criteria to apply to fictional elements other than GNC, WP:FICT has to align itself closely with WP:N. Masem's assertion that "Articles on fictional elements without proven notability have unpredictable results at AFD and should be treated on a case by case basis" can easily be explained by the fact that guidelines do not always prevail where local consensus overrides them --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:53, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, that seems a fairly unsupported assertion, but the current RFC at WT:NOTE should give us a better idea as to what "GNC compliant" actually means. So far, it seems there is little support for notability being determined solely through the current GNG, or even through the current GNG with subject-specific guidelines offering either tips or further restrictions. It's early days, though. SamBC(talk) 15:03, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- As I said, if we need to change what is given to state that fictional elements without sources for notability have unclear fates at AFD, then we change that, as to establish that that is the currently accepted practice, regardless of what NOTE or other policies and guidelines say. Again , and to Gavin's point, we keep in mind that meeting GNC is great, but currently accepted practices goes beyond that, and thus treated on case-by-case. --MASEM 15:09, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- If WP:FICT is not GNC compliant then it can't be a guideline and so this approach will fail; it will remain a proposed guideline, based on what some editors would like it to be, rather than what can feasibly work, and because there are no other criteria to apply to fictional elements other than GNC, WP:FICT has to align itself closely with WP:N. Masem's assertion that "Articles on fictional elements without proven notability have unpredictable results at AFD and should be treated on a case by case basis" can easily be explained by the fact that guidelines do not always prevail where local consensus overrides them --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:53, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Re: "Current Practice". I fear quite a few people are not aware of current practice. E.g., I know 17 of the current 21 supporters (mainly from AfD and merge proposals, more rarely from AN/I and the E&C cases), but only 10 of the current 22 opposers, some of them only from one memorable encounter (i.e. they appear to be editing in a walled garden or do not really participate in wikiwide fiction-related procedures). If we still want to give everyone's opinion equal weight, then walled-garden editors will distort the results significantly. Thinking about it, we may already have such a situation... And it's also true that fiction AfDs can be quite a gamble (especially for highly popular subjects), and nothing we say at FICT can stop that. – sgeureka t•c 15:27, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Defining what is "Current Practise" seems to vary by editor. In my view, we should have a set a guidelines built on Wikipedia wide principles, knowing full well that their application will always be out of step with local consensus. I think Masem is implying that guidelines should be changed to reflect local consensus, which is a pragmatic way of looking at the current situation. Both viewpoints have their pitfalls.--Gavin Collins (talk) 15:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- You're missing the point of what I am trying to do. I want to have a consensus that FICT (with whatever necessary changes have to be made) is a statement of fact that currently this is how fictional elements are handled, simply to then say "there's the FICT guideline, let's see how NOTE and other discussions work out". It would not provide any conclusion that implies that there is something wrong with doing certain types of articles one way or another if the general handling of those articles is unclear from group knowledge.
- What I'm expected that with a few small rewrites is that the only section is changed is the non-notable section, and this would be to make clear that lists of non-notable elements (particularly characters and episodes) are generally acceptable, and that singular element articles have to be determined case by case; in either case, notability via sources would help a lot. Does stating this go against NOTE, FICT, NOT, or other guidelines? Yes, certainly. Is this an accurate reflection of what happens on WP now? Yes, certainly. Would that reflect the guidance that everyone wants? Heck no. it is only meant to serve as a placeholder guideline that neither confirms or denies these types of articles being acceptable, pending resulting discussion at AFD. Once it is determined by the notability discussions if there is more or less leeway, we can then adapt this to meet that requirement. But this at least gives something that provides guidance without making it look like it's rejected. --MASEM 17:51, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- As for this particular specific, I think it needs additionally the concept that it must be more than a bare list, but include a suitable amount of discussion--we will then of course have the problem of defining suitable, but I think we'll reach a compromise. DGG (talk) 20:36, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- In answer to Masem, I am not missing the point at all. local consensus is just that, its local and focused on the issues relating to a particular medium (such as comics) or work of fiction which a particular group of editors is focused. Generally that is a healthy thing, but even in big groups, people can loose sight of the bigger picture, such as Wikipedia guidelines. In order to ensure that fiction remains congruent with other areas of Wikipedia, I think WP:FICT needs to stay close to GNC. What I think Masem is talking about is starting a new enyclopedia where WP:N is not important, where the rules change every few months to meet the requirements of local consensus, which is what you have been doing with all the recent "goldfish" editing.--Gavin Collins (talk) 21:32, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- You are still missing the point of my suggestion. It should be crystal clear that your viewpoint is completely and diametric opposed with other viewpoints, as I pointed out above. Neither viewpoint has been shown to be wrong per core policies, and both are well built on that. That means there's a strong difference of opinion that needs to be further investigated at NOTE and other pages as it's larger than just FICT; it is clear it is not going to be resolved here However, to just let FICT go as rejected is probably more disastrous to trying to work out those points, since effectively only NOTE now exists to handle fictional works, and despite the fact you may be believe this to be right, the fact that there is opposition to that would inflame the situation. The proposed idea started here is to consider what is at FICT right now as a lame duck that's not going to get consensus as a proposed solution to this. Instead we admit that and strictly rewrite the necessary parts of FICT to exactly detail what is fact right now: the fate of many non-notable fiction element articles at AFD is undetermined, as the rest of the advice in FICT is pretty much spot on par given that no one specifically called out the other parts (outside of being length). This presents FICT as a guideline in general, but leaves out exactly how to handle non-notable fictional elements because right now that is a huge unknown and any attempt to define it breaks down into the discussions that can be seen here and on NOTE. If FICT is written as basically a matter a fact, and the consensus agrees, despite their personal opinions and feelings if this strengthens or weakens coverage of fiction on WP, we then at least have a guideline that is mostly useful for what can help define notability for fictional elements and how to deal with their cleanup and merging, but leaving wide open to case-by-case studies if non-notable fictional elements should get articles or not.
- What I'm trying to impress is that I know that written like this, saying, at best, that fates of such articles are undefined, is the only way to map yours and others view that the GNC is absolute, and the views of others that the GNC is bunk for fictional articles and should be ignored; and then we can point to pending discussion elsewhere that are attempting to resolve it. However, I believe that most recognize that it is presently a fact that it is a coin flip for how fictional element articles survive AFD, for every one where that you can provide where the non-notable element was deleted, I'm sure someone can provide one where it was kept, and vice versa. So it is clearly the case that we can't say how non-notable articles are defined, and that's all I want to try to nail down via consensus so that there is a stable guideline at FICT. --MASEM 22:04, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, per (for example) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kirigi (DC Comics), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Melter, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ego the Living Planet, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Plunderer, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Omega Red, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Morlun, &c., &c., no, the proposed guideline doesn't entirely reflect actual practice on the Wikipedia. Ford MF (talk) 14:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- The guidelines aren't a "bigger picture", and they have no mantric power. They are tools that help us construct an informative, useful encyclopedia. If there is an element of the guidelines that is retarding verifiable, useful content, then that is a problem with the guidelines. The argument you seem to be making is that our guidelines deserve more fidelity than our content. Ford MF (talk) 21:41, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- A good half of the opposition to FICT is based on opposition to WP:NOTE, and people's insistence that the General Notability Guideline doesn't reflect wikipedia wide consensus. I think the most sensible thing to do is to contest WP:NOTE and see if it budges. Wherever the consensus moves it -- whether people are trying to eliminate it entirely, or relax it slightly -- will inform how WP:FICT is ultimately written. So to break down the procedure: (1) Contest WP:NOTE, and build a consensus. (2) Rewrite WP:FICT, based on the consensus at WP:NOTE. (3) Do a new RFC on the rewritten version of WP:FICT. (4) Only give weight to those comments on WP:FICT that acknowledge the consensus at the rewritten WP:NOTE. Randomran (talk) 22:22, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I'm agree with what Masem is saying, as well as with Randomran's last statement. I think that a rejected (for now) tag is the most likely way to move the conversation to the appropriate place (NOTE). I'm not sure though: a rejected tag may just inflame the discussion here or marking it with something else may move the conversation to the correct place better. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- I kind of like the concept proposed here, but I think it would swing the pendulum the other way too much. There are a great deal of articles that are "protected" because WP:FICT introduces the idea that there are situations where a page might not pass WP:N, but still be appropriate. We might have trouble expressing which pages this applies to, but we can at least state that there will be such situations. -- Ned Scott 06:54, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- In answer to Masem, I don't think WP:NOTE will ever change to accomodate a different treatment for fiction because:
- it is such a well established guideline, and has a great deal of respect throughout Wikipedia, so any attempt to change it will run into opposition from Wikipedia vetrans, administrators, academics and students;
- attempts to single out fictional topics for special treatment in order to make WP:N more inclusive are bound to fail on the grounds that the principal of notability applies as much to fiction as to the sciences, business, biography or any other subject area; WP:N is directly or indirectly the best defense against bad content being added to Wikipedia;
- there are probably more reliable secondary sources about fictional topics in existence than another subject matter, because in addition to extensive academic coverage, fiction is covered widely in newspapers, magazines and on the web. I think this whole inclusionist vs deletionist debate can be boiled down to whether editors have bothered to research their chosen subject matter or not before creating articles: reliable secondary sources are available if we only look;
- if articles are being kept or deleted, it is not because WP:N says so, it is because there is local consensus in AfD debates.
- I therefore disagree with his approach which involves editing WP:FICT over and over again in attempt to somehow find compromise with editors who oppose the application of WP:N to fictional topics. I don't see how goldfish editing can get around WP:N at all. The only way to get agreement is to write a guideline that sticks closely to WP:N and other policies such as WP:NOT and guidelines such as WP:RS - making up exemptions will not work if there is an over arching guideline or policy with which WP:FICT is not in full agreement. Lastly I fundamentally disagree with his approach that somehow we need to change WP:FICT to reflect what is going on in AfD debates, as this is a classic example of the tail wagging the dog. AfD is a process that operates within the context of guidelines and policy, and what goes on there is influenced by them, not vice-vice versa. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- It is possible for consensus to hold that a guideline "sticks to" NOT and other guidelines/policies without it sticking to your interpretation of them. SamBC(talk) 10:26, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Not ready
The changes over the first section of the article at several hands in the last day or two make a perfect demonstration that there is no real consensus on even the basics. There was a well intention insertion "must satisfy the general notability guideline" -- but this does not actually have any prior consensus at all, and is an addition at a critical place. I substituted a phrase that at least was used previously (in the nutshell). I do not agree that the general notability guideline is applicable here. This is a specific notability guideline with its own requirements. If the general guideline were sufficient, there would be no reason for the entire guideline here at all. The wording was in fact contradictory: The paragraph said first that they "should pass the general notability guideline " and then said "is presumed to be notable if it meets the general notability guideline, the guidelines presented here, or the guidelines specific to its medium.". These are completely incompatible statements. I thank Masem, Ned, and Gavin between them for demonstrating that there is no consensus for even the most basic part of this guideline. I am perhaps prepared to accept the statement that the alternatives apply for lack of any agreement on what actually does apply. Personally, though, I think its time we got rid of the general notability guideline, that 2RS=N, because it has become meaningless due to the great number of qualifications that have become needed ino order to prevent absurd results; I think the only thing maintaining it is the prospect of certain disagreement over what would replace it. At the least we should word this guideline so it is independent. DGG (talk) 02:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- It should stay "real-world context from reliable sources", which I will note is not exactly the same as the GNC. Ned introduced that in some edits, I don't know where from, but reverting it to that phrase is better. I disagree that this is a basic disagreement because there was no edit warring over it, and the version proposed was "real-world context". --MASEM 02:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- That first section is poorly developed. WP:FICT does not dictate if we make a parent article for a notable book, tv show, or video game. Notability for the work itself does not require reception and production notes. Obviously we should include that information, but we are not going to delete a parent article for lacking that information. The notability is demonstrated in other ways.
- WP:FICT isn't about the parent/work article, it's about the sub/spinout articles. I brought this up weeks ago for this very reason. Reception, production information, and other things that give real-world context, are elements that justify further coverage in other articles.
- I think some users are confused here. That first section does not effect the rest of the guideline, it only effects the parent article. -- Ned Scott 05:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I certainly am confused. You have just said that a/WP:FICT isnt about the parent article, and b/the first section only affects the parent article. Both cannot be correct. How about finding a wording that makes the distinction, that the parent article must demonstrate real world notability, but the other ones need not do so. DGG (talk) 00:13, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- WP:FICT isn't about the parent article, but some people wish to pretend that it is. From a realistic standpoint, if you want to know if a TV show, book, movie, etc, should get an article or not, WP:FICT gives no useful advice. Since some editors felt that there should be some mention on the work of fictions themselves, we are stuck with the section (for now) which is clearly marked as only pertaining to the parent article. Forgive me if I wasn't clear. -- Ned Scott 07:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- It's not a matter of pretense; many editors refer to WP:FICT in AFDs on works of fiction, so it needs to cover works of fiction. However, the current section could definitely use major improvement. Percy Snoodle (talk) 08:33, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- WP:FICT isn't about the parent article, but some people wish to pretend that it is. From a realistic standpoint, if you want to know if a TV show, book, movie, etc, should get an article or not, WP:FICT gives no useful advice. Since some editors felt that there should be some mention on the work of fictions themselves, we are stuck with the section (for now) which is clearly marked as only pertaining to the parent article. Forgive me if I wasn't clear. -- Ned Scott 07:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- With regard to DGG's view that "its time we got rid of the general notability guideline", I would have to ask the question, for heaven sake, why would you want to do this? I like his maths equation (2RS=N) - I think that is really cool.--Gavin Collins (talk) 09:44, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I certainly am confused. You have just said that a/WP:FICT isnt about the parent article, and b/the first section only affects the parent article. Both cannot be correct. How about finding a wording that makes the distinction, that the parent article must demonstrate real world notability, but the other ones need not do so. DGG (talk) 00:13, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- The question I have, with rgards to DGG wanting to get rid of the NOTE guideline, is when? Why do we have to have a notability clause? What does it save us from? Padillah (talk) 12:28, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Real world
While I'm here, let me mention my perplexity at the constant references to real world in relation to this topic. When we talk of many topics such as philosophy and pure mathematics, we are no longer in the real world but in the world of ideas and abstract concepts. My impression is that this usage is mere prejudice, the philistinism of Mr Gradgrind. But I find that we have no proper article on this notable fictional character and so shall put that right... Colonel Warden (talk) 09:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- We have tried "out-of-universe" as an alternative for "real world" but the problem is that that word overlaps with the concept of "in universe" vs "out of universe" style; thus, there's an explanation of what is meant by real-world for the purposes of the guideline. If a better description of what this type of content can be calls simply to remove the possible confusion, great. --MASEM 10:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Having gotten started on Gradgrind, I find that Hard Times is good reading:
'You are to be in all things regulated and governed,' said the gentleman, 'by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with it. You are not to have, in any object of use or ornament, what would be a contradiction in fact. You don't walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don't find that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. You must use,' said the gentleman, 'for all these purposes, combinations and modifications (in primary colours) of mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is taste.'
Colonel Warden (talk) 12:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- LOL. I think my reference to real-world is used in the context of content that is cited in articles. As you know, the holy grail of Wikipedia guidlines is the citation of reliable secondary sources. However, there is a tendancy, when editors are under preasure (such as AfD debates), to game the system by using reliable secondary sources which only make trivial reference of the subject in passing, usually from an in universe perspective. This frequently happens to fictional elements which are often not the primary subject of reivews or academic journals, but which are mentioned in sources about an over arching topic. Say for example I was a big fan of Mr Gradgrind, and I wanted to prove he was independently notable. I would create an article called Mr Gradgrind, and cite quotations which only mentioned him passing, say by indirectly quoting from the primary source, or refer to source, such as an academic journal which discusses the book or the author. By doing this, I could pretend that Mr Gradgrind is notable, when in fact there is no real evidence that he is. However this is mistake: it is not Mr Gradgrind who is being quoted, it is the book Hard Times or the author Charles Dickens. Sometime subjects are dressed up to look as if they are notable, by quoting trivial, passing sources, or quoting portions of reliable secondary sources which quote the primary text. Nice try Colonel Warden! --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:10, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- Wow, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Having Pip or Thomas Gradgrind referenced in pop culture, on the Daily Show or the Gilmore Girls or just in passing by the rare bird who actually reads is a perfectly reasonable and plausible event; they are major characters of major literary works in English that tons of people are forced to read in high school and beyond (personally Hard Times is my favorite Dickens), and redirects to the main work essentially offer no practical help to the reader who says "Someone called that guy a "Gradgrind". I wonder what that metonymy means." Because all we'd have for that person is the Hard Times article. The information offered must be proportional to the information sought, if it is to have any value to the seeker. Sometimes you want to read a book on George Washington and sometimes you want to read an encyclopedia entry. What a reader doesn't want to do is sift through Great Expectations when all they want to know wtf Pip's deal was. That there isn't a discrete entry for each of the main characters of GE is ridiculous and acting like we're paper. There must be a point when our contributors here must stop and ask themselves what it is, exactly, that notability guidelines are for, and why so many people take their obeisance in current form to be an end in itself; the spirit of which is I believe deeply violated by deleting Pip or redirecting it to Great Expectations. Ford MF (talk) 17:06, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- Again, I point out that we can directly point people to a section of an article or list with redirects, so typing "Gradgrind" in the search box goes right to the character description.
- But, there is an aspect here in that I would expect that because of the academic coverage of a work like Great Expectations, that its just a matter of finding existing sources for those characters from their academic coverage. Mind you, this may suggest that for works covered in academic sources, characters may be notable. --MASEM 18:42, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- This also suggests that there are no television characters who are notable, as academia hasn't gotten around to TV for things other than, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And I'd say there are far, far more notable television characters than Oz (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and yet Oz enjoys the accident of having been discussed but more than just a few scholarly articles (even if they're not reffed in the article), largely because academics who dig Buffy is kind of a thing. This doesn't mean Buffy characters are more notable than other recurring television characters, just that academics have a hard on for them. Ford MF (talk) 19:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- And sometimes people claim that such references are "in passing" when they aren't (and sometimes the opposite, I'll agree); a character, element, or whatever doesn't have to be the primary focus of a piece of writing to be a non-trivial subject of it. Oh, and the "LOL" and "nice try" are testing the edges of civility a bit, there. However, more to the point, I think you'll find that Colonel Warden was actually saying that the text in question is relevant to this debate, not indicative of Mr Gradgrind's notability. Oh, and last question, if Gradgrind isn't notable, is, say, Phillip Pirrip (aka Pip)? SamBC(talk) 10:15, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- I agree that a review does not have to about the subject matter specifically if it is to provide content that is non-trivial and real world in order to provide evidence of notbility, but I can't recall a single instance of an article "piggybacking" this way. As regards Gradgrind or Pip, I can't prove they are are non-notable, but it is usually damned hard to find evidence that fictional characters such as these (like 90% of fiction elements) are notable as most of the reliable secondary sources will relate to the over-arching work, which is usually the medium (book or film) in which they were presented. Amazingly, even David Copperfield (character) and Uriah Heep (David Copperfield) are articles of unproven notability.--Gavin Collins (talk) 16:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- This is generally because the editors couldn't imagine anyone would challenge them on notability. Any study guide to the books (and there are plenty) will have at least a chapter on major characters, with in-depth coverage of these major characters. SamBC(talk) 17:02, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- This example pretty clearly illustrates that AFD or merge discussions should focus on potential for in-depth coverage or whatever the hell the current wording is, not the current state of the article. The article on David Copperfield is in dreadful shape, but could clearly be improved. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 18:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- This is generally because the editors couldn't imagine anyone would challenge them on notability. Any study guide to the books (and there are plenty) will have at least a chapter on major characters, with in-depth coverage of these major characters. SamBC(talk) 17:02, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- Like Sambc, many people assume that many fictional characters are notable, or will be proven to be so over time, but the evidence is against them at the moment. However, with the availability of internet, and more museums and universities being asked to make their archives available online, maybe messrs. Copperfield, Heap, Pirrip & Gradgrind (sounds like a firm of City Lawyers) may be articles that demonstrate notability in the distant future. However, for characters from less notable works written by less notable authors, the possibility of finding reliable secondary sources is remote. Even for minor characters of major works (like The Gravediggers from Hamlet), the possibility of finding non-trial real-world content is an outside bet. --Gavin Collins (talk) 19:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- WP:N defines notability no more specifically than "worthy of note". How then do you assert that these are not notable? The GNG gives one method of determining that something is notable, not the only method, and not a method of determining that something is not notable. Oh, and please don't amend your posts for more than typos after people have replied; I know in this case the changes weren't very substantive, but it's just not polite. SamBC(talk) 20:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- I cannot prove they are not notable. However, there is no evidence that they are.--Gavin Collins (talk) 22:44, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- Just noting that regardless of whatever method we're using to determine notability, the onus is on those who want its inclusion to demonstrate notability. Trying to prove the opposite is impossible - you can't prove something isn't notable, as it's a negative proof. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 23:06, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- Notability is supposed to be a common-sense guideline, not a matter of mathematical or legal proof. When it is suggested that Dickens characters are not notable, we are leaving the real world and going to some other place such as Bizarro world, Topsy-turvy land or the Negative Zone :). Colonel Warden (talk) 09:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC) (No topsy-turvy land article? Another hole to be filled...)
- That's because, in that particular case, we can easily enough say "Literary sources most certainly exist which cover and analyze the characters of Charles Dickens in an out-of-universe, in-depth fashion." I would be willing to bet a pretty good sum of money that the preceding statement is true of all major Dickens characters and probably a lot of the less major ones. On the other hand, in terms of some random comic, manga, or TV show, we can't reasonably make such a strong assertion. There might be, but in that case, we need to see them. If there aren't, we're covering in more depth than our sources support, so we need to merge upward. Seraphimblade Talk to me 13:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- If we're going to take a hardass approach for manga and comics, it should be applied equally to Dickens and Shakespeare. There is no get out of guidelines free simply because they're the product of dead old white men. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 14:05, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- For once, Kyaa the Catlord and I agree on something. It's much easier to find sources for Dickens characters, so there is no reason to build the stub prior to having them. A root problem is that people create articles in the wrong order ... no one should create a stub and pray for sources, it should be "find the bare minimum of sources, and then create the stub."
Kww (talk) 14:19, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- Kyaa, the whole point of the guideline is to have one set of rules for all fictional subjects. Manga is hardly being singled out. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 14:59, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- In text, I agree. In practice... I completely disagree. Manga, anime and television programs are being treated in a manner that is not being done to the characters in Shakespeare's works. There is an observable bias against "modern" pop culture. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 16:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- The bias issue has been brought up before (Look in the archives for Nydas' disagreements for example), and I agree, it is a bias, not only between classic and modern literature, but also between large fan base modern fiction (Star Trek/Wars, etc.) vs any other type of modern literature. However, when we look at WP as a whole, our content is always biased to the volume of reliable independent sources are behind it. New York City is going to get tons more coverage than, say Hell, Michigan. This is not to say that a reanalysis of what are considered reliable and/or secondary sources for modern fiction isn't a possibility as to widen what base there is for reliable sources as to reduce this bias, but we do need to be very careful that we don't weaken sourcing requires to make this approach. --MASEM 18:02, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- Like Sambc, many people assume that many fictional characters are notable, or will be proven to be so over time, but the evidence is against them at the moment. However, with the availability of internet, and more museums and universities being asked to make their archives available online, maybe messrs. Copperfield, Heap, Pirrip & Gradgrind (sounds like a firm of City Lawyers) may be articles that demonstrate notability in the distant future. However, for characters from less notable works written by less notable authors, the possibility of finding reliable secondary sources is remote. Even for minor characters of major works (like The Gravediggers from Hamlet), the possibility of finding non-trial real-world content is an outside bet. --Gavin Collins (talk) 19:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- I agree that a review does not have to about the subject matter specifically if it is to provide content that is non-trivial and real world in order to provide evidence of notbility, but I can't recall a single instance of an article "piggybacking" this way. As regards Gradgrind or Pip, I can't prove they are are non-notable, but it is usually damned hard to find evidence that fictional characters such as these (like 90% of fiction elements) are notable as most of the reliable secondary sources will relate to the over-arching work, which is usually the medium (book or film) in which they were presented. Amazingly, even David Copperfield (character) and Uriah Heep (David Copperfield) are articles of unproven notability.--Gavin Collins (talk) 16:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- You are sadly mistaken if you believe that our coverage of Shakespeare is somehow a double standard. We've disproven this argument time and time again, and I'm starting to think an FAQ should be created for it. Classic works are not called classic for nothing. Things that Shakespeare did with some of his characters were the building blocks for thousands of characters for hundreds of years. -- Ned Scott 07:10, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I can't believe I'm saying this, but so what? What you're essentially saying is that we should only cover topics that would warrant a place in the syllabus of a 101-level college course, not based on what people are actually interested in? Ford MF (talk) 11:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- FYI Monty Python is now entering the academic syllabus in the UK. See The Dirty Fork. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- As is Alan Moore in the U.S. That doesn't mean that Monty Python wasn't notable 25 years ago, before uppity adjunct professors thought them worthy of academic mention. Ford MF (talk) 12:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Then it just turns into a WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS argument. I haven’t bothered tagging or AfDing lots of crap articles that don’t meet notability requirements mostly because a bevy of vested interest editors come by and swamp the nom. It’s hardly dependent on what the subject is, although I never have bothered looking up any Shakespeare articles on the wiki… Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 16:47, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- (To Ford) Popularity does not equal notability. Nor are we using college syllabus for our inclusion criteria. I could care less what they teach in college, because the fact is that Shakespeare's characters have large scale real world impact, far more than your average TV character today. That doesn't mean those characters won't inspire and impact just as much as Hamlet or MacBeth, but we can't predict the future. They haven't yet had the same impact, but someday they might have that cumulative impact. -- Ned Scott 06:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- Other crap exists is a great argument when it comes to whether or not to delete an article, however, we need to look at common practice when we create guidelines and policy. What WILL be used in the, forgive me, real world of article creation? Having high aspirations is commendable, but setting up rules that only lead to disappointment is somewhat... silly. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 17:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- And yet the amount of GA and FA articles about fiction are growing at an increasing rate, and the number of extremely detailed plot summaries are decreasing even faster. Common practice is not what you believe it to be. -- Ned Scott 07:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- The latest Doctor Who serial was especially good and so I've been watching the relevant articles such as Silence in the Library which are quite busy. My impression is that the editors working on these articles care little about sourcing and secondary, real-world analysis. Such analysis does exist, as I saw some good reviews in my morning newspaper. What the working editors care about most is to record the in-universe aspects of the episode, especially the time-travel "spoilers". My impression then is that there is still a big disconnect between the editors that work on such articles and the editors that work on guideline pages. The effort going into this page would be better devoted to project work or the construction of better templates and other devices which prompt for material such as sources. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, that's an interesting point you raise. Initiatives to educate editors I think would be more effective and less bitey than creating new sticks with which to bash their contributions out of existence. Ford MF (talk) 13:59, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Education is always great, though you are always going to get editors, when they learn about well-established (eg, not FICT in the present state) policy/guidelines they don't like, get all frustrated and potentially harmful (particularly if they learn IAR). However, the other thing to consider is that policies and guidelines should also reflect collected editor wisdom; if every existing WP editor today disappeared tomorrow, the policy and guidelines should continue to allow the work to grow, albeit with a small speed bump, as new editors come on board and review the records of document. Fewer policies and guidelines are always good, but when something has been a point of contention in the past (and no question fictional articles have been) it makes sense to document how best it was resolved. --MASEM 14:16, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- And by that you must mean, "how nothing was resolved". Ford MF (talk) 15:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- If we all disappeared tomorrow unreferenced articles about fiction would continue to proliferate, much as they do now. We're not going anywhere, but I think we need to attempt to judge the opinions of general fiction editors and summarize them in our guidelines if we actually want something that could stand without us, although at this level at least, that has been rejected. As an aside, someone, somewhere said that your (Masem's) work on FICT may have gone to waste. I don't think so, it's just that actually enshrining the true consensus on fiction looks like a multi-year process. Like the arbcom process, attempts at conflict resolution must be made before going to the next step. It would be great if you could help guide this discussion as it progresses, hopefully to the next level. I think the current version(s) of this page have pretty accurately described the consensus on what experienced editors such as ourselves (FICT policy wonks basically) think is best: redirect articles to lists (possibly enforced by reverts). We're starting to see that is only one step in the process, though. I would like to see this discussion moved up (forcibly if necessary) to the next level. We can fight about it for a while (1 year? or maybe we're gaining steam?) and then either we attract enough attention to put the issue to bed or we do some sort of watchlist notification like WP:ATT did to basically just take a vote. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- The lesson that I draw from the case of Silence in the Library is that the editors working upon the article do not look for secondary sources because they already have the best possible source fresh in their memory and recorders - the work itself. This is the key point: that in the case of fiction, the work itself is usually definitive. This logically follows from its fictional nature which is sui generis, since the work is fabricated without any necessity of objective truth. The only sources which appeal in such cases are those from the author which explain mysterious or undeveloped portions of the story. Tolkien is the paradigm of this, since he provided abundant background material for his stories. Critics and deconstructers of the work are of less interest as sources because their comments are secondary and usually just a matter of opinion. We should not regard commentators upon titans like Tolkien and Dickens to be more important than the authors themselves. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:57, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I'm sure an almost equal amount of editors would support articles for local bands that don't have sources, or any number of topics. What editors want isn't as important as Wikipedia's core concepts. Almost any local band can get some mention in a local newspaper about an upcoming performance, and would count as a reliable source to say they existed, but you'll still have a heck of a time making an article about that band without it being brought to AfD.
- And by that you must mean, "how nothing was resolved". Ford MF (talk) 15:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Education is always great, though you are always going to get editors, when they learn about well-established (eg, not FICT in the present state) policy/guidelines they don't like, get all frustrated and potentially harmful (particularly if they learn IAR). However, the other thing to consider is that policies and guidelines should also reflect collected editor wisdom; if every existing WP editor today disappeared tomorrow, the policy and guidelines should continue to allow the work to grow, albeit with a small speed bump, as new editors come on board and review the records of document. Fewer policies and guidelines are always good, but when something has been a point of contention in the past (and no question fictional articles have been) it makes sense to document how best it was resolved. --MASEM 14:16, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, that's an interesting point you raise. Initiatives to educate editors I think would be more effective and less bitey than creating new sticks with which to bash their contributions out of existence. Ford MF (talk) 13:59, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- The latest Doctor Who serial was especially good and so I've been watching the relevant articles such as Silence in the Library which are quite busy. My impression is that the editors working on these articles care little about sourcing and secondary, real-world analysis. Such analysis does exist, as I saw some good reviews in my morning newspaper. What the working editors care about most is to record the in-universe aspects of the episode, especially the time-travel "spoilers". My impression then is that there is still a big disconnect between the editors that work on such articles and the editors that work on guideline pages. The effort going into this page would be better devoted to project work or the construction of better templates and other devices which prompt for material such as sources. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- And yet the amount of GA and FA articles about fiction are growing at an increasing rate, and the number of extremely detailed plot summaries are decreasing even faster. Common practice is not what you believe it to be. -- Ned Scott 07:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- However, for my own self, it isn't about the sources as much as it is about the real-world information. If all the information came from one source, generally I could care less. The main point is that we want something that isn't just a recap of what you see when you read or watch a work of fiction. Trying to replace that experience is not only a fools errand, but a bit insulting to the work itself. What we want is the information you don't know from just experiencing the work and a reasonable recap to put that into perspective (as well as give a fundamental background on the work). -- Ned Scott 06:46, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Licensed vs Self-Published
This is something I've been meaning to bring up for a bit in relation to a few things, but does a character's weight in licensed material factor into their notability? To better give an example, anime based off Capcom material (for the most part) with their hand not directly in the production of said material, or even better as far as Capcom goes, the live action movie. Capcom themselves didn't publish these and only allows their properties to be used in them, so do they count outside of the material of self-published material in terms of showing a character is used as a recognizable element in the anime/film?--Kung Fu Man (talk) 22:06, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- Perhaps we should look at "independent" (for the sake of argument) as it relates in Statistics; that is, one event has an effect on the other. In this case, the spinoff material would not be independent of the original product, so thus Capcom press releases on the spinoff items would not be considered fitting the GNG's secondary sources requirement. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 23:12, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Hammer some changes home
Many of the opposition have rejected this version, obviously. Many opposes deal not with fiction in particular but with the very concept of notability; I'm trashing all those opposes because they can't be dealt with here; I suggest those who disagree with the guideline should bring up their points in a general notability page, because such changes dramatically affect not just fiction. However, there are some points we can address, some quite simple, of which I want to bring to the attention:
- 2x FICT needs to allow articles where sources exist but haven't been added to the article yet
Simple solution:
- "If an editor provides sources which prove notability at a talk page discussion or AfD, those sources should (at a bare minimum) be added to an external links section of the article in question. No article which meets notability criteria but whose article does not reflect this should be deleted."
I think it's kinda common sense, but this is what we should be doing ideally. If someone finds sources at AfD which meet WP:N, that should be the end of it, really. But at a bare minimum we should add those sources to the article, not just leave the AfD saying, "yes, someone get on this at some time." Would that assuage those who opposed based on (at least in part) the above? --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 13:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Who ever brings up sources in an AfD and then doesn't add them to the article? Ford MF (talk) 13:32, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I have seen a few instances where new sources are demonstrated at the AfD page, but not added to the page in question, but not frequently. I prefer using separate notes and bibliography sections, so that redundant but independent sources of information can be listed in the bibliography section, which is typically called the "reference" section by custom at WP. However, I don't think that this needs to be handled within the notability infrastrcuture -- it can be handled in the directions for AfD procedures. --Kevin Murray (talk) 13:41, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I have seen many instances in AfD of editors claiming they have found reliable secondary sources, but they turn out to be nothing of the kind. I would oppose such a change, as it would encourage widespread gaming in AfD debates.--Gavin Collins (talk) 15:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Me too. It's kind of embarrassing. Fortunately, admins seem to have gotten wise and ignored these kinds of groundless assertions. Randomran (talk) 16:01, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- How much of that is getting wise to gaming the system, vs. just simply assuming that those who claim to have unproduced sources are crying wolf? The latter will almost always be less frequent than the former, but not nonexistent in any sizeable sample size. Jclemens (talk) 17:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I will bring up my concept of postponed deletions again as this seems appropriate. The idea is that an editor during an AFD may request more time to find sources or whatever else cited for deletion in an article, but is given a 4 week time limit to do so. After four weeks through a page partol, the article would either be ok'd or put up for AFD again, with no postponing period given save in some rare cases. This helps to prevent the system from being gamed. --MASEM 17:58, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think this is a really reasonable proposal. Not that it should be confined to a specific time period. There are no deadlines on wikipedia. Instead, it's simply about how sure we are that something belongs in wikipedia or not. As time goes on, we become more sure. If we're more sure it's notable, we give it more time. If we're more sure it's not notable, we give less. But I am entirely sympathetic to the notion that AFDs are sometimes put up too soon, or without fair warning to editors who might not be aware of notability concerns. Randomran (talk) 18:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- If you don't put a timeline, you end up back at someone playing a game. That said, all that is needed is improvements, not perfection; if you can find one good source, that should be enough and the re-AFD shouldn't be started; if you found a source but it's in a different library that you can't get to, that's good faith effort to get it, so more time should be given. But if after 4 weeks and nothing has been done to the article towards the issue raised, well, that's a case where the original deletion was likely merited. --MASEM 18:32, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I have encountered a number of deletionist admins (those who are in fact listed in the deletionist category) who do seem to close AfDs in part because of bias against the article, i.e. in cases where the discussions were leaning toward keep or no consensus. Just as I have seem too many groundless assertions of "non-notable". My biggest concern with the misuse of "notability" guidelines in AfDs comes from my job as educator and historian and it is that a lot of what I see is in effect the electronic equivalent of book burning. To suggest that some knowledge is somehow not important is just unacademic and unencyclopedic. I am of course not talking about hoaxes, how tos, libel, copy vios, essays, etc., all of which I think we can agree should be deleted, but I see articles that do have reliable sources deleted under this bizarre idea that only things that pass a handful of editors' ideas of what's notable per an encyclopedic. Now those wanting to delete "in popular culture" articles, fictional characters, video game weapons, television episodes, family members of celebrities and politicians, etc. may think they are doing a good thing and have honest intentions, but the fact is that it is saying some knowledge is unimportant, which goes against everything any scholar and any encyclopedist should stand for. We discriminate against nonsense and lies, but there is no really good, logical, or valid reason why we cannot or should not cover some of these other items that a half dozen odd of the same editors in AfDs want deleted when others in the same AfDs argue to keep, plus maybe hundreds who created and worked on the article, and thousands who come here looking for the article. Some seem to think that Wikipedia will be better maintainable, but so then some just self-appoint themselves as the determiners of what knowledge is worthwhile, which is itself suspect. Some seem to think that if they delete articles that they don't like, then the editors will instead work on articles that the noms and per noms do like, which is naive and wrong. Article creators and contributors whose articles keep getting deleted will just leave the project. If we humor them, maybe they will branch off onto other "more important" articles, but if we keep insulting them authoritatively and paternalistically, they won't. As far as comedians or blogsters whose job is to be sarcastic and critical, who cares what they say about our inclusion of certain topics; after all, some of the sites I can't link to here actually mock us for deletionism. It baffles me as to why anyone would rather devote his or her energy to deleting articles that are not hoaxes, libel, essays, how tos, or copy vios, rather than trying to build up those articles he or she does believe are worthwhile. Imagine how much time spent on AfDs that end in no consensus or keep could have been spent cleaning up an article to bring it to good or featured status or protecting articles from vandalism! Sincerely,--Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 16:44, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I can't think of any response to this that does justice to the alarmist, hyperbolic, and divisive nature of what you just said. If you start ranting about deletionists, book-burning, and how deleting things is a waste of time, consider the possibility that you're no longer talking about this guideline, but instead rehashing the ages-old inclusionist/deletionist nonsense that never really has anything to do with anything and never goes anywhere productive. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- Divisive is nominating and arguing to delete articles that a vocal minority of the community is against. Alamarmist is thinking there's some urgent need to do so on something that does not have a deadline. Hyperbolic is the false and subjective claims of "non-notable" used in so many AfDs. If we stop using overly restrictive guidelines and devoting our time to them, then we may actually be able to go somewhere productive, but so long as time is indeed wasted deleting verfiable material, we need to address this reality for what it is, because it gets to the point of this guideline, i.e. that it lacks consensus in such a clear manner that maybe we should not have a guideline that suggests we cover fiction based on notability as that is not a historically valid criteria for what an online encyclopedia is. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 16:59, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think divisive is not recognizing the superiority of myself, a star-bellied sneech! Clearly any guideline that does not recognize my inherent superiority is flawed and lacks consensus. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 17:01, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- For better or worse, "sneech" is a new one to me. So, I'll internal link it in the hopes that we have an article. :) Regards, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 18:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- It's a cool story. Check it out at The Sneetches and Other Stories although I'm not sure what the critics say about it. ;-) - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- For better or worse, "sneech" is a new one to me. So, I'll internal link it in the hopes that we have an article. :) Regards, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 18:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think divisive is not recognizing the superiority of myself, a star-bellied sneech! Clearly any guideline that does not recognize my inherent superiority is flawed and lacks consensus. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 17:01, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I have seen a few instances where new sources are demonstrated at the AfD page, but not added to the page in question, but not frequently. I prefer using separate notes and bibliography sections, so that redundant but independent sources of information can be listed in the bibliography section, which is typically called the "reference" section by custom at WP. However, I don't think that this needs to be handled within the notability infrastrcuture -- it can be handled in the directions for AfD procedures. --Kevin Murray (talk) 13:41, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think its useful to discuss general principles from time to time in these discussions. Otherwise we tend o stray away from the basic concepts of building an encyclopedia. It's like a US citizen should read the US Constitution every few years--it puts things in perspective. DGG (talk) 20:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC).
- This is kind of like the concept of "reasonable potential" that WP:TV-REVIEW tried to use. -- Ned Scott 06:37, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Break it up
Lets break WP:FICT down into sections and concepts and find out what parts have consensus. It might be helpful rather than trying to find consensus for the entire document all at once. A lot of people, both supporting and opposing, have different reasons than other editors who are supporting or opposing. A lot of people have a problem with how WP:FICT is used in things like AfDs, but that might just be unintentional. And lets find out where most of us agree at on things, kind of like setting a "minimal" for certain concepts. -- Ned Scott 06:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- Your proposal seems to make sense: Might I suggest table format for this, with notes below? We really cannot afford repeating the complete argument (above) for every smaller section. G.A.S 06:48, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- I'm throwing ideas around in my head about how we might format something like this. A table with comments sounds like a good idea. -- Ned Scott 06:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- Do you/we want to do that while the RfC is still running, as kind of a sub-RfC? With the recently started discussions at NOT#PLOT and NOTE and some alternate proposals here, it can be argued that we're already spreading ourselves thin. (Too many good ideas, too many opinions to consider, too few people to keep everything together and on focus.) – sgeureka t•c 07:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think we've talked about what this page can say, and the end result is that this page cannnot determine what we want it to determine. Whatever will move the discussio to where it will actually matter needs to done. We agree on anything that doesn't involve deleting/redirecting articles. We don't agree on when to delete/redirect an article. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:43, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think this is a good idea for when the NOTE RFC is done. If someone wants to start prepping it off this page, though, that might be useful. SamBC(talk) 08:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- I don't think this is really necessary (though I don't see harm in doing it); I think from the summaries it is clear that the section that is at issue is about non-notable elements. Some believing it is too lax, some believing it does not allow enough. Taking either side, defining notability for works and for elements via sources seems fine and non-disputed, the primary discussion is do we or don't we allow more than that for notability evidence. --MASEM 13:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- At the very least I'd rather us show what does have support, rather than all-or-nothing. I think it would help in the short run. -- Ned Scott 01:22, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
- 1/4 of people on this RFC disagree with WP:NOTE. There's not much point on commenting on WP:FICT until we can figure out what the true consensus is on WP:NOTE. I think this is a decent idea, but not yet. Let's do a RFC on WP:NOTE for now. Randomran (talk) 15:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think the current RFC at WT:NOTE should help clarify things sufficiently, if it manages to get anywhere – and I think things look promising for that. SamBC(talk) 15:26, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- Meh, I've never been moved much by what happens at WP:NOTE. I know a lot of people have made a big deal about how NOTE is a "higher" guideline than WP:FICT, but I've always seen it as a "general alternative" instead. NOTE was an essay when FICT was a guideline, after all. I really don't think that trying to make one-size-fits-all is the direction to take. -- Ned Scott 01:22, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Under the assumption of NOTE that GNC is not absolute...
I realize this part hinges on the current discussion at WT:NOTE if the general notability criteria is only just one way to describe a notable topic, thus allowing for cases where fictional elements may have their own article despite the lack of secondary or real-world sources. (Thus, those that feel the GNC is absolute should realize that insisting it is for this discussion is not helping.)
First, I am also going to assume WP:PLOT remains policy, however, I would encourage that it be read "The coverage of a published work on WP should not consist solely of a plot summary." Coverage here implies that a work may have many articles underneath it as supporting the main work. Thus, if I wrote several articles about the Harry Potter books explaining the plot, the characters, the concepts, the locations, etc, but make no mention of real-world aspects about the works themselves (how they sold, their impact, etc), that would be considered a violation of plot. This does not apply to specific elements of a work of fiction, though there is no harm when such details can be applied.
That said, if it is agreed that GNC is not the only measure of notability (it is a guideline after all), then I suggest that we consider specific classes of fictional element articles that are ok to have their own article, as an alternative to the GNC for notability. These can include, but are not limited to :
- Major and minor/recurring characters of a notable serial work/franchise
- Episodes/chapters/volumes of a notable serial work
- Primary/Significant locations of a notable work (eg, Springfield for The Simpsons, Sunnydale for BuffyTVS, etc.)
- Primary/Significant objects of a notable work (the Stargate for Stargate SG-1, etc.)
Any other case should be appropriate as a list within the main work or as a supporting list (eg, characters from a single video game, cameo characters from a notable serial work) , if needed at all.
However, I pose two cavaets as a way to keep these in check: First, it is expected that these articles should be written to encyclopedic standards (V, NOR, NPOV and other considerations withstanding, and if the GNC can be met, great, but not required); failure to do so is not means for deletion, but if in the long run the majority of these articles edited or created after this point turn out to be full of in-universe, "fan"-type content and fail to do a good job at educating the non-fan reader, it will be time to revisit this policy and reconsider if this is really helping to improve the encyclopedia. I would say, pending all other discussions and consensus to this, that 6 to 12 months after that point, there will be another RFC to ask "Do these guidelines help WP?". If the fact that these articles have been allowed but they have generally all been of low quality, we may need to significantly reconsider allowing these. Call this an "experiment" just to see if this really works.
The second cavaet is that though a fictional element may meet the above guidelines for its own article, this does not always mean a separate article is warranted. If all you can write about a major character in an encyclopedic manner is one paragraph, it makes more sense to merge that content to a list of major characters or to the main work itself. In other words, while such articles would be technically allowed, it would be hoped that editors can see that merging, not deletion, of the content to a larger context can provide a better encyclopedic article, and thus should not take offense when someone suggests a merge of an article of this type with others in the hopes it provided better encyclopedic content, particularly if the articles are presently in a poor state per the above. There are also cases where going into any more detail for a specific fictional element will cause it to fail WP:NOT's other provisions besides PLOT, and thus may be a case where content can be merged. Individual WikiProjects may also set guidelines that limit some of these cases, only to provide equivalent coverage for all articles of that type (the case I'm thinking of is the list of video game weapons, which the VG project has determined is not appropriate; not that weapons can't be talked about when they are notable (by GNC) or a key plot element per above, just that this is not the case for the majority of video games).
Again, all this is built on the assumption that the GNC is not absolute. If it is determined by global consensus that the GNC holds, then obviously this can't work, but given that NOTE is a guideline, I don't believe it will end up that way. --MASEM 15:46, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- Even if the GNG is not absolute, it's not to say it authorizes dozens of parallel guidelines that essentially circumvent it. (e.g.: one small wikiproject says "the GNG says that it's just one take notability, and we say that everything is notable".) It's possible that the GNG is out of step with the community, but a realistic solution is that we revise it at the general level. Balkanization of the guidelines into a bunch of specific guidelines should be a last resort, since it reduces clarity, and increases the possibility of contradiction and inconsistency. Randomran (talk) 15:57, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with Randomran's analysis, because this proposal is flawed on two counts. Firstly, your assertion that WP:NOT#PLOT "does not apply to specific elements of a work of fiction" is a complete misrepresentation of this policy. Secondly, there is no class of fictional elements that should be given an exemption from WP:N "as an alternative to the GNC for notability", because If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.--Gavin Collins (talk) 16:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- Agreed, but that's also assuming that there is no consensus to override or change WP:NOTE from the way that it's been for years. In good faith, I invite people to really hash this out at WT:N. Randomran (talk) 16:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- We kinda are, but we need a way to completely move the conversation there. Like marking this Historical and bringing it back after we've figured stuff out at NOTE. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- Technically, as this never had consensus (it was always proposed), historical isn't right. If we simply want to depreciate it after the RFC here is up, I think the suggested essay tag like WP:ATT above is the simplest answer, as it still provides suggestions for discussion purposes without being a valid AFD reason while NOTE discussion continues. --MASEM 19:09, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not sure exactly which tag would be best. Note that ATT is having issues with its template. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 20:29, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- Ok, now here's an idea, in combination with the previous section of figuring out which parts have consensus. If we just mark the non-notable section as "disputed" (which it truly is) and the rest of it (notable works, notable fictional elements, how to deal with non-notable works, and moving information) remains as it is, which, I believe, is a very accurate reflection on the RFC, that would serve the purpose I want to do: leaving the section disputed means it should not be read as the Bible come AFD discussions, and leaves sections that regardless of the NOTE discussion are still quite valid and useful to have. What my fear is that leaving FICT marked with something like "historical" or fully "disputed" or "rejected" effectively means "ignore this completely" and will incite inclusionists/deletionists battles that are worse than we have now. Then once NOTE is resolved, we can reopen considering of how to fix that disputed section. --MASEM 23:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- I'll wait to hear from more people about the best thing to do. I think marking part of this disputed will just keep the conversation here, but we'll see. If the argument "this page cannot contradict NOTE" keeps being used instead of why notability is a good way to judge fiction and has consensus, then I'll go back to advocating rejection. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
- I like that idea, but there are so many things that have to happen and work out first (ending the discussion at NOTE, Ned's proposal) that we can't do more than keep this in the back of our brains. – sgeureka t•c 05:36, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
- I disagree with Masem's idea that somehow WP:NOTE will change so that fictional topics can have special treatment - either I am missing some information, or it is wishful thinking on Masem's part. We have to draft WP:FICT within the bounds set by other core policies and guidelines, not change them to fit in with the latest thinking. Most of the core policies and guidelines have been around for years, but the fundamental changes to WP:FICT that have lead to the last RFC have only happended in the last 6-months. --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:44, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Guidance on writing guidelines
Before we set out on redrafting WP:FICT, I would like to propose that we write the new version will be shorter and easier to understand. In my view, the current versionof WP:FICT is too long, verbose and deals with far many aspects of fiction that are not directly related to notability. I think we should consider applying the following principals to the new draft:
- WP:FICT is a guideline about the notability of fiction: in order to keep it brief, we need to ensure that it is focused on notability. Topics indirectly related to the notability of fiction, such as style issues dealt with by WP:WAF, say, could be omitted altogether, dealt with in passing or an appropriate link provided. Otherwise undue weight will be given to topics that are once, twice or three times removed from the notability of fiction, which is currently obscurring the focus of the guideline;
- The practise of using footnotes in guidelines should be phased out. A guideline where the detail is in the small print is not a unified guideline, but a patchwork of statements that provide opportunity for conflict and ambiguity. In the current draft, footnotes are being used to qualify or amplify certain sentences: in my view, this is unnecessary, as this should be done in the body of the text itself. If the matter is not important enough to go in the main body of the text, it should not be in WP:FICT at all. If footnotes are used, they should only do so if an external reference is cited;
- The guideline needs to be supported by an examples page. Up to now the guidlines contain difficult to understand terminology and abstract concepts, which has lead to ambiguity about what is actually being discussed. In tandem with the guideline itself, we need to give specific examples of a "work of fiction" or an "element of fiction", so we know exactly what we are talking about in practise as well as principle. If there are any defects or ommissions in our thinking, this will become more obvious. Also, if we use a shared set of examples, this will provide us with a shared understanding of the guideline.
I hope we can avoid the mistakes of the past by applying some of these points to our work going forward. --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:37, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
- If you take a look at WP:NOTE, there's really just two meaningful sections: notability of articles, and notability of content within articles. If you take a look at WP:MUSIC, they don't go with the abstract "work of music" or "musical element" and instead get real specific: bands, writers, albums, songs. They probably don't mention anything else because articles about Mick Jagger's dancing or Jay-Z's use of the word hustler need to qualify for notability the same way as anything else. WP:MUSIC and WP:NOTE are both well written because of how they're organized. My instincts tell me that WP:FICT should be organized as follows: (1) A brief section on articles about characters/factions, (2) a brief section on articles about locations/settings, (3) a brief section on content within articles. Short, sweet, specific. Randomran (talk) 15:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Pride and Prejudice
It seems that it is difficult to settle this putative guideline because our opinions are subjective and there is no objective method of resolving the differences. Reference is made to Wikipedia policies but these are unsatisfactory because Wikipedia is not a reliable source and so those policies are themselves subjective. And we have metarules such as WP:IAR and WP:BURO which undermine the very idea of rulemaking. The possibilty that we might achieve consensus on such weak foundations seems a vain hope.
The usual method of resolving content issues in our articles to refer to reliable sources and follow them. So why are we not doing this in this case? Yesterday, I borrowed a scholarly work upon a piece of fiction from someone who has worked as a professional editor. They had a wide selection and I chose Pride and Prejudice - an analysis of the famous work by Jane Austen. This is "written by acknowledged literature experts for the specific needs of advanced level and undergraduate students. ... will also be of interest to the general reader". This then is surely a good model of how we should treat a notable piece of fiction.
The book is 136 pages long. These are divided as follows:
- 4 - Contents
- 3 - Introduction
- 2 - Synopsis
- 1 - Character list
- 59 - Detailed summaries of each chapter
- 17 - Characters
- 1 - Locations
- 11 - Themes and Critical Issues (e.g. Marriage and love)
- 5 - Narrative techniques, style and language (e.g. the use of irony)
- 9 - Textual analysis - a critique of three passages
- 4 - Background: literary, historical and biographical
- 5 - Critical history: reception, contemporary approaches and other reading
- 5 - Chronology
- 2 - Glossary of literary terms
- 1 - notes on the authors
What seems noteworthy is that the bulk of this material is what would be disparaged here as plot. The amount of real world material is comparatively small and it is matched by a fair amount of opinionated analysis. The introduction seems especially useful because it instructs us on how to approach and write about such a work of fiction:
- You will need to read the novel more than once. Start by reading it quickly for pleasure, then read it slowly and thoroughly.
- On your second reading make detailed notes on the plot, characters and themes of the novel. Further readings will generate new ideas and help you to memorise the details of the story.
- Some of the characters will develop as the plot unfold. How do your responses towards them change during the course of the novel?
- Think about how the novel is narrated. From whose point of view are events described?
- A novel may or may not present events chronologically: the time-scheme may be a key to its structure and organisation.
- What part do the settings play in the novel?
- Are words, images or incidents repeated so as to give the work a pattern? Do such patterns help you to unerstand the novel's themes?
- Identify what styles of language are used in the novel.
- What is the effect of the novel's ending? Is the action completed and closed, or left incomplete and open.
- Does the novel present a moral and just world?
- Cite exact sources for all quotations, whether from the text itself or from critical commentaries. Wherever possible find your own examples from the novel to back up your opinions.
- Always express your ideas in your own words.
This seems to be good advice but is somewhat at variance with the advice of others here. But the difference is that this advice is pedagogically authoritative. If we presume to advise editors on how to write about such topics then we need such reliable sources to validate and verify our opinions. Otherwise they may fairly be dismissed as mere pride and prejudice, eh?
Colonel Warden (talk) 17:43, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
- Wikipedia doesn't have to be a reliable source for its own guidelines to matter. Even the metarules are to avoid instruction creep and to allow for exceptions when justified: not to call for the blanket abolition or circumvention of guidelines. Our guidelines are based on policies, other guidelines, and consensus. Not on what outside sources tell us to do. Randomran (talk) 17:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
- (ec)We discussed this over at WAF a year or so ago, and noted that reliable sources almost always describe plots in-universe. Some small changes were made to reflect this, but there's a large anti (popular) fiction bias held by a small number of editors, who also happen to be dispraportionately represented on the policy and guideline pages. That's why well reasoned arguments like yours above fall on a lot of deaf ears, countered by IDONTLIKEIT cloaked in selective policy/guideline readings. I feel that reason will ultimately win the day, but it's going to take a lot of work unfortunately. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:58, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
- (I just finished reading the novel, and have Pride and Prejudice (1995 TV serial) on GAC at the moment.) The problem I see is that the listed questions are a good guide to write essays ("back up your opinions", "express your ideas"), but essays get deleted here all the time because they are by their very essense not neutral. What we can certainly do at wikipedia is to collect what literary themes authorative people have observed (and cite the people), and collect information how a fictional work has influenced other works. In turn, the plot can be summarized in more depth if need be. But this is going into WAF territory, since P&P has tons of sources for notability. – sgeureka t•c 18:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
- There's absolutely no problem (and really, I don't think classical literature is where FICT currently fails, just that we probably don't have editors that have made or cleaned up such articles) with having themes, analysis, and other similar secondary information that's reliably sourced serve as the means of notability; we want to have the article avoid reading like Cliff Notes, but that information is sufficient. Characters from these works likely can be treated in the same fashion. --MASEM 19:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
- In answer to
MasemColonel Waldren, your statement that "Reference is made to Wikipedia policies but these are unsatisfactory" is just your opinion. As regards your text book on Jane Austen, its clear the students are being asked to write an essay based on primary source, not a Wikipedia article. See if you can find a book on writing an article citing reliable secondary sources, that would be more useful.--Gavin Collins (talk) 22:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
- The advice given is to write from both: "Cite exact sources for all quotations, whether from the text itself or from critical commentaries. Wherever possible find your own examples from the novel to back up your opinions." This seems properly consistent with our general goals. And you fail to address my central point here - what value is there in a guideline or policy if it is not backed up by some external authority? If this is not done then all we have is the opinion of a handful of editors.Colonel Warden (talk) 06:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
- You probably mean Colonel Warden above (the original poster), Gavin. --MASEM 22:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
- the general advice is good for the purpose of doing an academic analysis, "to appreciate contrasting interpretations of the text and to develop their own critical thinking." The key difference is that we are not interested in the original critical thinking, at least in the article--the distinction between academic writing and writing an encyclopedia. And, some of these discussions were in fact stimulated by efforts to delete articles about major characters of great depth and complexity from central works of the classic english and russian literary traditions. When I came here in 06, people were doing that continually, while the most expansive sort of inappropriate detail about minor video episodes was tolerated--where the plot & characters, if analysed, would prove trivial to other people in the more fundamental sense of the word. the balance has changed somewhat, but the moral is that we need to accept the different fields of interest. DGG (talk) 03:49, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
- I would go along with DGG on this issue. The statement from the book about Jane Austen cited by Colonel Warden that students should "Wherever possible find your own examples from the novel to back up your opinions" would be described as a form of original critical thinking known in Wikipedia as synthesis. The reason why we can't allow synthesis to become the norm is that if everyone were allowed to write an article without Wikipedia guidelines, there would be continous disagreements about whose point of view should be allowed to prevail, and which ones should be discarded. Now I am not saying that reliable secondary sources are not free of opinion or bias, but at least the process of researching and writing reliable secondary sources has gone through the process of peer review. In articles where they are cited, editors and readers can indentify the source of opinions and bias in articles, and make their own judgement about Pride and Prejudice. As the Colonel points out, there is no external authority in Wikipedia to back up guidelines or policies on this matter, so we have to enforce these ourselves, but it is for our own benefit, and there is a payoff for doing so.--Gavin Collins (talk) 08:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
- In answer to
Failed proposal
A failed proposal (AKA:rejected) is one for which consensus for acceptance has not developed after a reasonable time period. Consensus need not be fully opposed; if consensus is neutral or unclear on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal has likewise failed. It is considered bad form to hide this fact, e.g. by removing the tag. Making small changes will not change this fact, nor will repetitive arguments. Generally it is wiser to rewrite a failed proposal from scratch and start in a different direction. Quoted from WP:Policy. After a year without consensus, and 10 days of RfC discussion we need to consider WP:Snow and call it a day. Too much energy is being expended here. --Kevin Murray (talk) 00:34, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- Being a pedant here: its original acceptance to me suggests we can't tag it as failed. Historical, or disputed-and-proposed are better. Sceptre (talk) 00:45, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- It was deprecated then proposed, thus, historical would only apply to the earlier format. If you want we could go back to the consensus version and then tag that as Historical. --Kevin Murray (talk) 00:47, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- As long as it's understood it's historical - given that the old version I'm thinking off is probably very heavy in favor of one side of this dispute, but that because it's historical it should only be taken with a grain of salt, if any. --MASEM 00:50, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- Also, it's bad form to fail a guideline you voted on. Sceptre (talk) 00:53, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- As long as it's understood it's historical - given that the old version I'm thinking off is probably very heavy in favor of one side of this dispute, but that because it's historical it should only be taken with a grain of salt, if any. --MASEM 00:50, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- It was deprecated then proposed, thus, historical would only apply to the earlier format. If you want we could go back to the consensus version and then tag that as Historical. --Kevin Murray (talk) 00:47, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
This is just fussing with the reality, and playing games with nuances to perpetuate a conflict. This in the end was rejected. We bury bodies so they don't continue to stink and infect the living. Since our practice at WP is to not delete failures, the next best thing is to mark this festering corpse as rejected and move our energy elsewhere. Removing the tag specifically controverts policy as it specifies that removing the rejectred tag is "bad form". --Kevin Murray (talk) 00:55, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
I reverted the {{rejected}} tag. Try to have some more discussion about it first, and see if you can come to an agreement on an appropriate tag. In the mean time, nothing is hurt by keeping it the way it is. AvruchT * ER 01:00, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- Er, how much more were you thinking? I'd say the discussion above indicates a pretty unambiguous failure to attain consensus. Ford MF (talk) 01:23, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- SNOW doesn't apply to 50-50 splits. Never has done, never will do. Sceptre (talk) 02:08, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, I was referring to discussing the tag, not the policy itself :-). AvruchT * ER 02:12, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
People need to stop freaking out. I've said over and over, we need to stop treating this as all-or-nothing. When you've got people opposing and supporting for entirely different reasons you have to stop and think about what's going on here. We're not on a deadline, and like it or not, this is an issue we have to deal with. Moving the discussion won't change the arguments, which have pretty much gone unchanged, regardless of what the guideline actually said. -- Ned Scott 02:31, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Merge and redirect to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)#Notability and undue weight
I think a better solution than {{rejected}} would be to merge the little that is uniquely useful to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)#Notability and undue weight, applying Gavin Collins’ three points under Wikipedia_talk:Notability (fiction)#Guidance on writing guidelines. Keep it simple. Don’t repeat what is already clear in WP:N or elsewhere in WP:WAF. Give up on footnotes. Create and prominently link an examples page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:25, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- The problem with that approach is that I can see those that are against any type of WP:N requirement will start fighting over that section of WAF, and we'll end up making that disputed over that point. --MASEM 01:58, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
I have no objection to using Joe's idea to preserve the better aspects of this, but I don't see that as being mutually exclusive to marking this as a failed proposal. --Kevin Murray (talk) 02:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Lets keep WP:WAF out of this. -- Ned Scott 02:28, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- To my reading, there is a lot of WP:WAF type stuff presently in WP:FICT. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:51, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- Perhaps a more relaistic sequence is: (1) let this fail; (2) anything that is needed to complete WAF can appear in WAF. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:39, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
New survey prep
I'd like to make a new survey to help us understand what individual parts or concepts of WP:FICT might have support, as an alternative to what has become a sort of "all or nothing" approach. My idea is to take each section of the proposal and allow people to comment on it or simply give a 1-5 type rating (like strongly agree, agree, don't care/neutral, disagree, strongly disagree). In addition to doing this for the current proposal, I'd like to do the same thing to a few past versions of the guideline/proposal. I don't want to over-complicate things, so I want to narrow it down to maybe the current version and three other versions. At User:Ned Scott/FICT I've pulled out a few that caught my eye as I trolled through the history, and I'm looking for help on narrowing down which ones to use for the survey, or even changing them to another or similar version. Any other thoughts or ideas are also welcome. -- Ned Scott 01:17, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think this is a mildly helpful approach. Another important thing we can find out: is this guideline controversial for what it says, or what it doesn't say? Randomran (talk) 02:23, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- That's a good point. I noticed comments in the RfC gave the impression that at least some editors were opposed because FICT lacked guidance in certain areas, or left some things too open. -- Ned Scott 06:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
A poll idea
I don't know how many people saw the poll for adding a new C-class for the assessment scale that got a huge number of !votes that was added for the watchlist notification (ultimately pointing to here. I propose that we create a similar poll, basically !voting to get a !majority to determine basically where how we deal with fiction sits. I think it's gotta be more than a two sided option, but I don't want too many options to bog down choices. Exactly what question to ask, I'm not sure, but I think this is the only way we are going to break this issue. --MASEM 05:37, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- We're not gonna break this issue until we figure out if WP:NOTE actually reflects consensus. I think it does, but a small minority of editors don't. Maybe I'm wrong and this is actually a huge groundswell. But we won't know until they offer a proposal to change the notability guideline, and we see how much support there is for it. From there, we can start to work on WP:FICT in a way that reflects the notability guideline -- whether it's changed or not. Randomran (talk) 06:00, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- We should get our ducks in a row and do some sort of watchlist notified vote. It doesn't seem to be that big of a deal lately, there's one or two of them every week. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:20, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- Just to get the fighting started: if you ask people if they support NOTE, they'll say yes. If you ask them about actually applying it to certain articles, they'll say no. Towns, counties, animals, etc. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs)
- Here's a common example of why NOTE is broken, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hwang Jin-i (TV series). The actual notability of the article is irrelevant, the outcome is determined by the editors who happen upon the AfD. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:54, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- Funny, that was snowball kept not 20 minutes after you posted. What outcome were you expecting? --Izno (talk) 08:23, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- Here's a common example of why NOTE is broken, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hwang Jin-i (TV series). The actual notability of the article is irrelevant, the outcome is determined by the editors who happen upon the AfD. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:54, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- The problem right now is that the talk at NOTE is going nowhere, as because it applies WP-wide, they're having difficulty trying to allow for fiction to get 'special' treatment. At this point, there's now discussion of why even have the sub-guidelines.
- The reason that I think poll on how we cover fiction would be helpful is that it breaks and/or confirms the log-jam there (possibly), by showing that, say, if the !majority want larger coverage of fiction than what the GNC allows, implying that notability (or more specifically, inclusion in WP) is not just determined by GNC, and justifying the use of subguidelines. Alternatively, it may be held that GNC may need to be strictly enforced, which basically means sub-guidelines should be minimized. Thus, we would be, to some extent, solving two problems: how we deal with fiction, and how strict we should be to the GNC. --MASEM 12:35, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think the NOTE discussion isn't logjammed, just stalled. I'm going to kickstart it again when I'm done with some stressful and intensive stuff at work, so either tonight or tomorrow (BST, aka UTC+1). SamBC(talk) 13:09, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
Reality and policy
Per WP policy: "A failed proposal (AKA:rejected) is one for which consensus for acceptance has not developed after a reasonable time period. Consensus need not be fully opposed; if consensus is neutral or unclear on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal has likewise failed. It is considered bad form to hide this fact, e.g. by removing the tag. Making small changes will not change this fact, nor will repetitive arguments. Generally it is wiser to rewrite a failed proposal from scratch and start in a different direction." People who continue to remve the failed tag are in direct violaioin of WP policy. How much more clear could the policy be? --Kevin Murray (talk) 12:36, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think people are disagreeing on the "unlikely to improve" part; disagreeing that the situation here is unlikely to improve. SamBC(talk) 13:07, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- I also don't think it's been a reasonable time period. The discussion only hit a boiling point recently, and there needs to be a reasonable time to allow a compromise to be hammered out. Randomran (talk) 15:07, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- I would agree as the RfC: Proposing WP:FICT for global acceptance has not been open for more than 30 days, and so it is still open to comment, and following on from that some sort of debriefing and review. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:15, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- Fair enough the RfC has not been open for long but I'd like to express a bit of an overwhelmed feeling in trying to contribute here. This talk page is 467k. Is there a way to make this discussion a little more managable? Padillah (talk) 16:02, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- I also don't think it's been a reasonable time period. The discussion only hit a boiling point recently, and there needs to be a reasonable time to allow a compromise to be hammered out. Randomran (talk) 15:07, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- Someone ought to archive some of it. And maybe even put some of it in a hide-able window type-thingy. Two things I have no clue how to do on wikipedia. Randomran (talk) 16:04, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
The policy says "reasonable time period." What is reasonable? Can we set some type of goals? --Kevin Murray (talk) 16:08, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
- You're not being helpful, Kevin. Please stop trying to tag this as rejected. -- Ned Scott 06:31, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- 30 days seems a reasonable period. We shouldn't let this process become like the European constitution - rejected again and again but still pressed by Eurocrats who won't take No for an answer. Colonel Warden (talk) 06:36, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- There is still a great need for notability guideline on fiction, so unless you are putting forward a formal proposal that this guideline be rejected, I must agree eith Ned. --Gavin Collins (talk) 07:21, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- Indeed. Even if the current version is rejected, we'll still be using this same page to propose another version (which could be entirely different from the last). -- Ned Scott 07:43, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- What is the great need? The point of WP:BURO and WP:CREEP is that we are not here to create guidelines in ever greater detail. A putative guideline such as this therefore needs to justify its existence. My impression is that, insofar as there is a problem, it is a general one: that editors routinely create articles without sources and there is no good mechanism for improving the sourcing of such articles. This is commonly a problem with science and maths articles, say, (see First law of thermodynamics) and not a special problem for fiction. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:24, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I believe that it may be time to just mark this as rejected.
This guideline predates the general notability criterion. It was originally created as a tool with which to beat those who argued that fictional works don't need to be referenced to sources that aren't themselves fictional works. That's happening now, whether we have WP:FICT or not; even the most inclusionist arguments are "This could be the subject of outside commentary." "Well, we can reference to the book/movie/show/game" just isn't flying any more.
While I broadly support the intent and current wording of this guideline, let's just let it go for a while. WP:N has it covered. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:47, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- Precisely. The guideline was a weaker compromise with which to assess notability. If it's not wanted...then fictional articles will have to pass notability requirements according to WP:NOTE, which is a lot stricter. Seraphim♥Whipp 11:09, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- NOTE isn't as strict as some people think. NOTE is not a test that articles either pass or fail. NOTE says topics should be notable, and says here's a way of giving evidence a topic is notable. If an article doesn't have that evidence (like, say, the article First law of thermodynamics) that doesn't mean the topic is not notable. NOTE doesn't specify how many people a topic should be notable to. From the beginning, NOTE should have said "If you create an article and editors think the topic is not notable, there's a good chance the article will be deleted." But for whatever reason, NOTE says topics should be notable. Here's a question: Is the guitar notable? Do you have your answer in mind? Did you have to look at the Guitar article or NOTE to come to the conclusion you did? Citing "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" is one way of suggesting to people who know nothing about a topic that a topic is notable. That's it. And what "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" means is wide open to interpretation. Is water notable? Is the sun notable? Notability is one of those things where people know it when they see it — and if they've never heard of something, they're more skeptical. If someone has never heard of something, or is totally unfamiliar with a topic, "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" may convince them that the topic is notable. It may not. NOTE says notability requires objective evidence. But that's where NOTE is wrong. There is no objective evidence of notability, only subjective opinions. --Pixelface (talk) 15:04, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think your post is a great example of the differences between real-world notability and WP notability. Things that have real-world notability are not necessarily things that have WP notability; the two concepts should not be confused. For example, within a small community the high school principal might be extremly notable but that does not mean he should have a WP article. There has to be a way to filter out topics that really don't need stand-alone articles and WP:NOTE is the best we have. Karanacs (talk) 15:13, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- This is probably a discussion better on WT:NOTE, but I just posted something there that basically, I think trying to fit the GNC to all topics to determine inclusion is not a useful solution. If we can resolve that point there, what FICT would need to contain would be much clearer. --MASEM 15:19, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think your post is a great example of the differences between real-world notability and WP notability. Things that have real-world notability are not necessarily things that have WP notability; the two concepts should not be confused. For example, within a small community the high school principal might be extremly notable but that does not mean he should have a WP article. There has to be a way to filter out topics that really don't need stand-alone articles and WP:NOTE is the best we have. Karanacs (talk) 15:13, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- NOTE isn't as strict as some people think. NOTE is not a test that articles either pass or fail. NOTE says topics should be notable, and says here's a way of giving evidence a topic is notable. If an article doesn't have that evidence (like, say, the article First law of thermodynamics) that doesn't mean the topic is not notable. NOTE doesn't specify how many people a topic should be notable to. From the beginning, NOTE should have said "If you create an article and editors think the topic is not notable, there's a good chance the article will be deleted." But for whatever reason, NOTE says topics should be notable. Here's a question: Is the guitar notable? Do you have your answer in mind? Did you have to look at the Guitar article or NOTE to come to the conclusion you did? Citing "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" is one way of suggesting to people who know nothing about a topic that a topic is notable. That's it. And what "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" means is wide open to interpretation. Is water notable? Is the sun notable? Notability is one of those things where people know it when they see it — and if they've never heard of something, they're more skeptical. If someone has never heard of something, or is totally unfamiliar with a topic, "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" may convince them that the topic is notable. It may not. NOTE says notability requires objective evidence. But that's where NOTE is wrong. There is no objective evidence of notability, only subjective opinions. --Pixelface (talk) 15:04, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think it is time to tag it with {{historical}} if the RFC doesn't turn up a consensus. The reason why I'm removing your tagging is because you're a partisan voter in the above RFC and tagging as such is inappropriate per WP:COI. Besides, I don't believe something that passed once before can be failed. Sceptre (talk) 11:16, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- I would not oppose the historic tag if it brings closure with less effort and frustration, and is done soon. However, I think that the failed tag is more definite and the emotional aspect of this process needs more finality. Regardless, the main theme I perceive in comments here is that WP:N as written is not satisfying a great many of the participants. How can we address this together? --Kevin Murray (talk) 13:44, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- "Failed" is inaccurate though: Failed is for guidelines that have been proposed and failed. Historical is for guidelines that had been proposed, passed, but later consensus became unclear - FICT is more the second than the first. Sceptre (talk) 13:48, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- Sceptre, as I said above, I won't dispute your tagging this as historical if you do it soon and we achieve closure. Cheers! --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:11, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- If you count !votes, the numbers are roughly 50% for this middle-of-the-road solution, 25% for it being too strict against fiction, 25% for it being too lax for it. The problem is that those two groups of 25% have not provided suggestions of how to improve this to their liking that makes it even worse for the other group. We either need to 1) completely ignore one of these groups and develop a guideline that meets 75% of the support which to me is not an ideal solution but may be the only way to get something through or 2) convince these groups they need to understand the pressure on the other side of the middle solution and help refine this solution to not necessarily satisfy them 100%, but at least concede on some of their ideals in order to gain near-100% support for this. Mind you, a lot also rests on the NOTE discussion, if the general notability criteria is irrefutable or not for any sub-notability guideline; if it is, it's clear where this would need to go, if not, then we have a different direction to take this. --MASEM 14:07, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- "Failed" is inaccurate though: Failed is for guidelines that have been proposed and failed. Historical is for guidelines that had been proposed, passed, but later consensus became unclear - FICT is more the second than the first. Sceptre (talk) 13:48, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- I would not oppose the historic tag if it brings closure with less effort and frustration, and is done soon. However, I think that the failed tag is more definite and the emotional aspect of this process needs more finality. Regardless, the main theme I perceive in comments here is that WP:N as written is not satisfying a great many of the participants. How can we address this together? --Kevin Murray (talk) 13:44, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Who cares? Tag it {{silly}} for all I care. The point is that the goal of the original guideline has been accomplished, so we're just dicking around here. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 13:57, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- Masem's analyis is not entirely complete; if WP:FICT does not conform with with WP:N, then it just won't work. Once it becomes compliant with WP:N, we are back on safe ground and we can move forward. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:35, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- The issue at NOTE right now is whether it should be read that topics should meet the GNC or any subject-specific guideline, or that topics should meet the GNC and any subject-specific guidelines; the former is much less restrictive, and the latter is very restrictive. From FICT, this basically forces how we revise this in two ways; if less restrictive, then we can outline cases of fictional elements that can be talked about; if more restrictive, there's almost no need for FICT, but probably should spell out that only GNC-met elements can have articles. --MASEM 16:27, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- ^ Esquire, February 1981
- ^ Bramwell, Tom (2007-05-15). "Portal: First Impressions". Eurogamer. Retrieved 2007-10-05.
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