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Template:Fiction notice

Glossary of termsFor the purposes of discussions on this page, the following terms are taken to mean the following. This is just a glossary. Where any guideline and this conflict, please defer to the guideline or edit this glossary to bring them in line: Notability ("WP:N") refers to whether or not a topic is presumed to meet Misplaced Pages's content policies and may have its own standalone article. The term is not a reflection of a topic's importance or merit; rather it used in the sense that the topic has been noted in published commentary from reliable sources independent of the topic itself. General Notability Guideline ("GNG") refers to the inclusion criteria in WP:N itself, that may indicate the notability of any topic. Failure to fulfil the GNG may mean a topic is not notable. Subject-Specific Notability Guidelines ("SNGs) are notability guidelines such as Misplaced Pages:Notability (fiction) ("WP:FICT") and , Misplaced Pages:Notability (books) ("WP:BK") which apply the principles of notability to particular subject area. Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) ("WP:WAF") is a style guideline that requires articles to describe fiction and fictional elements from the perspective of the real world, not from the perspective of the fiction itself. WP:PLOT is part of Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not, which says that "Misplaced Pages articles should not be plot-only description of fictional works" and requires articles to be improved to provide more balanced coverage that includes real-world context.

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next step

People are somewhat divided on whether to abandon this proposal. Some people never liked it to begin with, but others simply don't know what the next step would be if we decided to change it based on feedback. My question to both camps -- whether you think this proposal is a failure or not -- is what proposal do you think *will* gain consensus on Misplaced Pages? How will that new consensus proposal differ from what we have now, and/or what will be the new starting point?

If nobody can come up with anything with a lick of hope, I think the #Proposal_to_gain_more_support_from_the_community had some merit, especially when you examine the number of people who just wanted a simpler guideline. I'm not sure we're going to gain much more support with different inclusion/exclusion balance, because I think we're pretty close to the center of public opinion. The number of "too inclusionist" !votes roughly balanced out with the "too exclusionist" !votes.

We've beat the "failure" issue to death. If this is a failure (whether catastrophic or marginal), then what do you think will succeed? Randomran (talk) 14:09, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:N, which has recently reestablished that is has support from the community in general. Fram (talk) 14:46, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this guideline can be marked as fail. Although I agree with Fram that WP:N is effectively the default guideline (if I understand him correctly), if it did, I don't think this will happen because we do have a big problem with most articles on fiction offering little, if any encyclopedic coverage. WP:FICT will become a guideline in some form, as there is a real needs to address the dual real-world/fantasy world nature of fictional coverage, and WP:WAF is to far removed from article inclusion to provide guidance on this issue. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:41, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

• Do you not think you're going at this backwards? Why not describe what people are doing. They're merging stuff into lists, and breaking stuff out when they can source enough material. There are a large number of good articles being written as you continue to discuss this. Put it to bed. It doesn't matter any more. If you want to capture consensus, just tell people to go read WP:N. People have moved on from this fight, they've learnt how to use WP:N and they're starting to source stuff in great sources. If you want to be of any use, start listing sources where people can get info from. Point them to DVD commentaries, point them to established authors, point them to credible blogs, point them to online reportage, point them to old print magazines, point them anywhere. For roleplaying, point them to Dragon and White Dwarf. For comics point them to The Comics Journal and Wizard. For television, point them to TV Zone, for science fiction point them to Starburst, for fantasy point them wherever it is you go. These sources exist. They can be summarised. Go tell them to do it, go tell them to summarise, to cite their sources, to cite any opinion to a recognised expert, to build encyclopedic articles. Just don't get all stuffy and tell them not to write something unless fifty newspapers and academically published authors have written 5000 page treatises on the Bat-Signal. If it is sourced, if it is verifiable, we'll make a purse out of it. We'll place it where it is useful, where it is verifiable. If we stop thinking of this page as a barrier and start thinking of it as a gateway, we'll be on the right track. Move on. Hiding T 21:08, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I'd like to think this guideline was making an attempt to describe what people were already doing. The problem is that a lot of people don't really like what we're already doing, so they'll insist upon "fixing" the current behavior where articles are being "improperly" kept/deleted in a "disruptive" way. Hence no consensus for the guideline, or at least the version that existed a month or so ago. Randomran (talk) 22:22, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
    • Consensus is not unanimity. This guideline worked best and had a strong consensus back when it told people that some fictional characters get articles if they warrant it, and that those that don't warrant it will be merged or deleted. When people wanted to start working out which characters warranted it, the problems started. Go back to the simple stuff. You know the best solution might be to simply re-state Misplaced Pages:Verifiability. When working out which fictional concepts to cover in Misplaced Pages, please bear in mind that if no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Misplaced Pages should not have an article on it. What more could you possibly add, or want to add? Why make it so complicated? Why give people a reason to argue. That already has consensus, so it is the end of the argument. There's nothing to disagree with, and nothing to expand upon. Got a dispute over a given article? Use the article talk page, tag the article appropriately and look for merge targets or consider prodding. We don't need to be here. Move on. Hiding T 22:35, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
      • I don't think that line in WP:V that came about after you proposed it actually has community-wide consensus. --Pixelface (talk) 04:08, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
        • Ok, if you are correct then you should easily be able to remove it, shouldn't you? So I look forwards to that working out. Hiding T 09:35, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
          • Re-stating yourself is easy. But removing things from policy nowadays is actually more difficult than you might think. Consensus to remove & consensus to be policy are two different beasts. I believe in the latter, not the former. Although one editor did express an opinion in this thread that that sentence did not belong in V, as well as this thread. Some people seem to enjoy creating new 27b-stroke-6's for Misplaced Pages. Personally, I look forward to Harry Tuttle's arrival. I'll disengage again now. --Pixelface (talk) 07:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
    • Perhaps rather than trying to set-up extra sets of guidelines we need to revert back to the previous version and make it more of a guide to help people deal with the question of notability in fiction based on solutions/precedents that editors have come up with. The let people use their common sense/consensus in AfDs, merges, etc. based on the broader guidelines, like WP:N and WP:V. Primary sources are fine but don't establish notability (for example a creator saying on their blog that a character was based on specific people/ideas), if am article is failing on WP:N then start a merge discussion to merge it into an appropriate article (so a character would go to a "minor characters" list), etc. People's time would be better served discussing how to deal with problematic articles (as Hiding and I are for comics) and assembling resources that can be used (again as we've been doing here: WP:CMC/REF, because there are a lot of resources out there it is often that people haven't gone out looking for them and this helps). (Emperor (talk) 22:44, 24 March 2009 (UTC))
      • Exactly. Maybe, if you want to move this forwards, start telling people how to judge the reliability of a source with regards fiction. Point out that dvd commentaries are perfect reliable sources for creator opinion and production details, as are reviews. Point out that print magazines are good reliable sources. Caution people to consider bias; for example an actor suggesting the character he is portraying is an important protagonist may be beefing up his role, and that a reviewer, historian, scholar or creator is better placed to source an opinion on importance to the work from. Point out that blogs by respected writers are reliable sources of opinion. Point to statistics as reliable sources for what they measure, point to the established websites that cover a field and have gained credence within the relevant field. Tell people how to evaluate a source and discern the reliability of what it says. That's a potential way forwards. Hiding T 22:49, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
        • To some extent you're right: there is no problem, because we have WP:V and WP:N and even WP:OR that all make third-party sources a requirement. But there's a problem when a small but significant group of editors completely ignore these basic consensus principles. They insist there is no consensus for these principles, and it's frustrating to ask them what there *is* consensus for, because they often propose ideas that have even less support than what we have now. So we end up with this ferocious WP:BATTLEGROUND that spills out onto AFDs, and DRVs, and ANIs, and even ArbCom. Coming up with a standard for which characters we keep or delete was an effort to save people a lot of agony. Randomran (talk) 23:39, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
          • This would seem to imply this was supposed to be a solution to much broader problems and with such a wide aim you are always going to fall short. This can't really hope to "fix" a problem with a small group of editors over core guidelines. Especially if they haven't been compromising. I have to say I am surprised as I've found most editors perfectly open to having the guidelines pointed out to them and any ongoing problems can be sorted out through a consensus in the relevant project. It may be there are disfunctional projects but that would have to be dealt with in a different way by addressing the issue directly. As I say above assembling resources and help can go a long way to heading these issues off at the pass, because there are sources out there. Equally, establishing structures that can help preserve information can go a long way to mollify a lot of concerns (a lot of articles that fail tend to be an infobox/image with a over-abundance of plot which can usually be trimmed down to a size where merging to an overview article is viable. I can name names but I'm sure we've all seen dozens of such articles) - a lot of the concern is about the loss of important information. Of course, it may be some people just love acres and acres of in-universe plot with no sources but they have to be few and far between (and would be better directing their main attentions to specific Wikia projects) but such efforts will leave them in a tiny minority and ultimately the bottom line is we have to work with a consensus. (Emperor (talk) 02:18, 25 March 2009 (UTC))

You people are all arguing over what to carve into a dead tree and what sign to hang on it, completely forgetting that you each have a bag full of seeds slung over your shoulder, and your own land. --Pixelface (talk) 04:03, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was just about to say the same thing. How many times have I seen a new section on this page that says "next step"? I think the next step is to give it a frigging rest, jeeze. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 04:06, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow, you didn't read a single word I wrote. Jeez. Hiding T 09:30, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I did read it, so I read it again to make sure we were thinking the same thing. It sounds like we are both tired of watching this conversation wander in the same unproductive circles. The same rejected solutions, the same unhelpful repetitions, all that fun stuff, and none of it has done anything for this proposal except to frustrate a lot of people. If this is going to go anywhere, then everyone needs to take a step back, take a deep breath and a chill pill, and come back at it in a month or two with some new ideas, not slightly rephrased old ideas, because the old ideas didn't work the first time. And hopefully you're right, maybe in two months everyone will realize that WP:N and WP:V really were sufficient all along, and this page really could be marked as historical. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 14:49, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I keep playing around with this idea in my head for making more than one "guideline" (basically quasi-essays or whatever one wants to call them) and having WP:FICT cover the major ones. Kind of like a summary page that says "some people feel this way, some other people feel this way", etc. Misplaced Pages is too big to get everyone to agree on the same thing when it comes to something like this. It was pretty hard to get everyone to agree when we weren't nearly as big. Allow good advice and arguments to stand for themselves, and see what people take from that. The tags on the page don't matter that much, but the ideas do.

In other words.. put everything out there and see which ones people actually use over time. I don't know if that will work or not, but it's an idea. -- Ned Scott 07:27, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

• I've just restored the essay tag per this discussion and the one above it. I can only see Randomran and Gavin interested in working up a proposal. Maybe they'd be best doing it in user space? The consensus seems to be to move on. Hiding T 09:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I think most people have grown so tired of active FICT proposals that they have indeed moved on. Maybe WP:N is sufficient for most fiction discussions now, but I guess that this or another new FICT proposal can/will be discussed in 6 or 12 months again if it's still necessary then. I am fine with FICT as an essay for the foreseeable future. – sgeureka 12:21, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
    • I think it would be useful to see if FICT-as-essay helps. One facet of the issue is that TTN hasn't done any edits since 2008, and the most recent fiction todo has been the South Park episodes, so it's hard to judge then and now because more than one thing has changed. --MASEM (t) 13:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
      • I can certainly live with restoring the tag, as much as trying to press forward with refining this proposal. I'm just trying to understand what "moving on" means. If "moving on" is just going to be a return to the WP:BATTLEGROUND of a clump of editors enforcing our current guidelines, and a bunch of other editors insisting the guidelines don't apply to them, then we're going to repeat a lot of the same problems that most of these same users hate. A return to the battleground means that someone *is* going to need to put together a new proposal a month or so from now, after things have cooled down. Randomran (talk) 15:20, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
        • Moving on would mean that we put this all behind us, and just work out ways to work together. We already have the tools to avoid Misplaced Pages becoming a battleground; they are at WP:CONSENSUS, WP:AGF and WP:CIV. Anyone who escalates a situation to one of hostility should either be talked to calmly, explaining the situation, or ignored. For more help see the dispute resolution process. There is no need for a proposal, there is simply a need for editors to learn how to collaborate. That's what move on means. It means move on and work in article space rather than project space. Hiding T 16:10, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
          • Exactly. As I noted, the only major "fire" in terms of fiction of recent was over at List of South Park episodes and I think I helped suggested a workable route forward from that that no one seems to be upset about (it's a good faith assumption approach on both sides). If it escalates, then we'll have to decide what to do then, but until things clearly fall out of balance, I think it makes sense to let this go, keep it an essay for good (but unactionable advice) and go from there. --MASEM (t) 16:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
          • I'm willing to give it a try. If some conflicts escalate, I may have questions for both of you, to try your more optimistic approach. Often discussions degenerate into a non-collaborative spirit, even if people hide behind pleasantries and cold "logic". Randomran (talk) 18:06, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
• I don't agree with Hiding's views about converting WP:FICT into an essay. In my view we have got to the point where I think there is a general realisation that we can't give fictional topics special treatment that would involve an exemption from other Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines, or making new ones up that are not based on objective evidence. I can understand why Hiding would now like to ditch this proposal now we have reached this point. All of the arguements in favour of providing exemptions have been tried and refuted, and now we have to build a guideline which addresses which fictional topics are suitable for inclusion - those that are subject of real-world coverage from reliable secondary sources that might be presumed suitable for an standalone article in Misplaced Pages - whilst explaining why those topics that don't are not encyclopedic. I still think we have an important mission to accomplish, and I invite editors who are interested in fiction as an important subject area to continue in discussions that will result in this proposal being rebased. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 20:16, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I have changed the tag (again), as this is not a proposed guideline any longer. A new proposal may be made someday, but the current text is clearly a rejected proposal, and to continue to tag it as a proposal after almost everyone agrees that there is no clear consensus (although it had considerable support) for it is incorrect. Fram (talk) 07:38, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

It is still a proposed guideline, regardless of the tag. The idea that "almost everyone agrees that there is no clear consensus" is debateable; if the last RFC is anything to go by, love it or hate it, it is still of huge interest to the editorial community. I personally would not tag it as failed: it is a bit premature to bury this guideline while it is still alive. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:13, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

No Gavin. Almost everyone agrees that the result of the last RFC was a clear "no consensus", even though it has the interest of some people (that's why we're here). You can always formulate a brandnew proposal, but it is incorrect to label something which has, after countless discussions and an RFC, failed to gain consensus, as a proposal. There is a day when something ceases to be a proposal and becomes a failed proposal, and that day has come for the current WP:FICT. Fram (talk) 08:26, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

So? The discussions are on going. Quit if you want. I invite interested editors to stay on and continue to make amendments until we do have a working guideline. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you start a new proposal (from scratch or based on this one) somewhere else (userpage, sandbox, subpage of this page, ...), get some initial discussion and thoughts on it, and then present it again to the community, instead of continued tinkering over a dead horse? People agreeing that this is no longer an active guideline proposal include (from the last two sections on this talk page alone) Ikip, Phil Sandifer, Masem, Hiding, ThuranX, NickPenguin, sgeureka, Ramdomran and me. Peopl claiming that this is still an active proposal seems mostly to be limited to you alone. Whether it is a failed proposal or an essay can be debated, but to mark it as an active proposal is both ignoring the RFC and the majority of comments made since. Fram (talk) 10:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Since WP:FICT is the site the proposed inclusion criteria for fiction, I don't see any reason why we need to have an alternative venue. Masem regularly writes alternative drafts to WP:FICT, but in the end he has to bring it here for discussion, since this is the forum where changes to the proposed guideline have to be discussed. I still don't understand why tagging this proposal as an essay or "failed", when it must be obvious to you that discussions are ongoing and they certainly have not stopped for sure. Unless you are keen to sabotage the ongoing discussions (which I don't think is your intention), then lets continue.
If you look back through the archived discussions, you will see there have been frequent proposals to mark this guideline as failed when one or more participants is not happy for what ever reason. What you really need to do is say why you are unhappy; what aspects of the current proposal you are unhappy with and why they don't work for you. Marking this disucussion as "failed", "essay" or "historic" will not get your grievances addressed - you have to roll up your slieves and make your complaints explicit. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:01, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

No, first you need a fresh proposal, then you can tag it as proposal. To keep a rejected proposal around as "proposal" is useless. Why I am unhappy is irrelevant; this proposal has failed to get the consensus behind it. I am not convinced that we need a WP:FICT, but I am always willing to discuss a new proposal. Until then, I want this page to reflect the current status, not what it may become someday. Fram (talk) 12:06, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I have a fresh proposal being tabled under Inclusion criteria: Moving Forward. You can tag WP:FICT as anything that you want, but the reality is that discussions will continue on the basis that this is a proposed guideline, even if you don't want to discuss the specific issues behind your general complaint that it has "failed". --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

What "specific issues"? It has failed to get a consensus. What more should I discuss? I repeat, I don't see the need for a separate guideline. However, if and when a new text has become polished and mature enough to be considered a "proposed guideline", I'll take a look at it and give my opinion of it, just like I have done with this one. For now, let me just correct your vision that I tagged it because 'I considered it failed, and instead give you the text of the tag: "This proposal has failed to attain consensus within the Misplaced Pages community. A failed proposal is one for which a consensus to accept is not present after a reasonable amount of time, regardless of continuing discussion." This tag describes exactly the current situation and your reality that "discussions will continue". What's the big problem with it then? Fram (talk) 13:50, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Or a better way to say it, I think it's pretty much impossible at the present time to objectify how to we should consider the treatment of fiction element articles, beyond that the more you meet the WP:GNG, the more likely they will be kept if challenged at AFD. The discussion from Phil's proposal showed that there was always a devil in the details due to inconsistencies. Should we try to work those out now? No, but that's not saying we'll never try again. --MASEM (t) 14:09, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

See, I don't think we need any more guidelines, per se - something with a strict breakdown of how notability applies to fiction. To be honest WP:GNG pretty much covers the bases. Instead something more like an essay might be better: explaining to people how to source things, what is good for what and how we can WP:PRESERVE information. Personally I want something that will help improve the articles and/or information we have not a set of criteria we can point to which demonstrates to people why the article is failing WP:N and needs to be deleted/merged (which most people can already interpret as it applies to fiction). I'd rather take a less antagonistic/confrontational approach which tends to only alienate people and polarise opinions. What it does is put some of the responsibility on to the relevant projects - to establish sources that can be used (and what they are good for - for example, the TV project might have information on viewing figures, good places to find reviews, information about what DVD commentaries can be used for, etc.) and establish structures/procedures that can absorb articles that fail notability (often in AfDs you run into no consensus when the option is either keep or delete but if you can provide an alternative it makes the discussion easier and more likely to end in a consensus). A compromise between radically inclusionist and deletionist standpoints, which could ultimately benefit the project as a whole (there are clearly times when material needs to be deleted but a lot of times there is borderline content that you'd not want to lose but can't really justify keeping). I've been discussing this with a few people here in relation to the Comics Project and we are working on this kind of thing. An essay format would allow us to draw together thoughts and ideas about what people have found works best - in improving failing articles as well as the best ways of dealing with those that aren't. (Emperor (talk) 23:07, 26 March 2009 (UTC))

Many editors speak of a compromise in these discussion about the inclusion criteria for fiction, but it always seems that the only thing that result in is compromised quality. Fiction is one of the subject area that desperately needs a guideline as most articles in this area fail WP:NOT and WP:N. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:34, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

"Biography" of fictional characters

Well there seem to me to be 3 main elements where we could go next. First is to start figuring out a way to include lists which was planned eventually. The second is to find a way to incorpeate works of fiction themselves. Both of these seem to be assumed by a small, but signfigant number of people who commented on the RFC or this page. Because it specifically doesn't deal with those elements I believe we may be losing members there. We can also try and remove any information on how to write an article except to note that it shouldn't just be plot info and punt that over to WAF.じんない 21:50, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:WAF is an interesting guideline, but it is a "style" rather than an inclusion or content guideline, which offers a real-world perspective as a "nice to have", when in fact it is rather important when considering whether a topic is suitable for inclusion as its own standalone article. For instance, it would be possible to create an article that is entirely comprised on in universe plot summary which passes WP:N, but the result would be an article which did not contain any encyclopedic content that would still fail WP:NOT. A major breakthrough in this draft is to add to the article inclusion criteria the requirement to include sources that view fictional topics from a real-world perspective. I think eliminating this requirement (if that is what you are proposing) would therefore be a mistake. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 23:49, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps then WAF needs to be redone at the same time as it seems to violate core polices from that perspective. My point was though we could note that it needs independant reliable sources to demonstrate real-world perspective, but then leave it at that. We can also define what sources could be used to meet the second prong, such as director commentary for characters and episodes. The difference comes with phrases like "Although part of coverage of a fictional subject is a concise plot summary, an article written entirely from primary sources is a warning sign that the subject might not meet the three-pronged test above." That seems to be crossing the line and telling people how to write the article, not what constitutes notability of fictional elements. Removing phrases like that, redirecting to WAF and cleaning up WAF to conform with core policies and guidelines is likely to garner more consensus as some reasons given why the proposal was too beurocractic was it had too much of a load-bearing nature.じんない 00:34, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

This version removes talk about how to write the article without actually removing the impact of notability and the importance of sourcing.じんない 00:48, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Since we now seem to agree to the time being to put this as an essay, should we start seeing where we could gain most consensus? Perhaps we should start seeing how to incorporate lists since we weren't doing it before because of the pressure to become guideline. Right now that pressure is off.じんない 17:27, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the best step forward is to address how deep we should be covering fiction more under WP:WAF than here, with a notability standard possibly falling out of that. Are character lists and episode lists (standalone or not) always required? How do we write the "biography" of a fiction character? When we define what the shape of a fictional work coverage should be, we can then maybe define better notability standards for both articles and lists. --MASEM (t) 17:47, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Should I create a section there to discuss that or continue here?じんない 17:52, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

You can't write the "biography" of fictional character, that would be synethesis and in any case would be probably be over reliant on an in universe perspective to offer any tangible encyclopedic coverage. On the other hand, you could cite a broad range of real-world commentary from reliable secondary sources that would provide the context, criticism or analysis that can't be found on sites like Wookieepedia. Now that would be good. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 21:29, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure you can, just as you write a biography of a real person, by summarizing available sources, which for some characters may be across several different works of fiction. That said, a biography of a fictional character alone is not enough to justify an article (that's why we ask for real-world information), and nor do we want a fine level of detail. --MASEM (t) 21:41, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

You can't write a biography from summarising available sources: they have to be reliable and independent from the primary source, which is something Masem knows, but seems reluctant to state for some reason. Don't forget also, Masem, that you can't write a biography of a fictional character as they don't exist. It is all too easy to fall into the trap of writing about fictional elements as if they existed, which is what this proposed guideline is focused on; the inclusion of topics for which there is sufficient real-world coverage from reliable secondary sources to write an encyclopedic article from. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

You are mixing up our requirements for verification, for notability, and for avoiding original research. Information in articles needs to be from reliable sources, this does include the primary source. However, we need more than just the primary source for articles, that's what notability tells us. And we can't analysis the primary source beyond summation without the aid of secondary and independent sources. However, there is absolutely no restriction otherwise that primary sources can be summarized to create, for example, a fictional character history as part of a more complete article that has further in-depth analysis of the character; the only cautionary flag that needs to be raised here is WP:SYN. Of course, the summarizing of primary sources can be augmented by independent sources, but this is not always possible. The primary sources are verifiable. Just as plot summaries are accepted parts of complete articles on fiction works, a brief character history is acceptable in a article on a clearly notable character. --MASEM (t) 22:19, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

As Masem said, you can use primary sources to state facts such as age, occupation, etc. of a character if it's mentioned in the actual story. That is verifiable. Saying that because they are a doctor they have a PHD could be considered synthesis though as a fictional world may have fictional rules.

However just using primary or non-indenpendant sources is not enough for an article. Reliable third-party sources are still needed.じんない 22:25, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Apologies to Masem, I must have forgotten to mention synthesis as a potential pitfall. I am glad that he agrees with me that reliable secondary sources that are independent of the primary source could be allowed, at the very least, to augment a plot summary. But surely if an article were to be comprised of plot summary only, surely if would fail WP:NOT#PLOT, and if all of the sources cited were not independent, the the article would fail WP:NPOV? How would you avoid this "double bind"? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:37, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not. An article that consists of a character biography written with all other considers of WAF, V, RS, and NOR but lacks anything outside the bio is likely to be deleted as per NOT#PLOT. But if I have a reception or development or analysis section, I can still write a character history that itself only relies on primary sources and not violate any other policy. That's what I meant when suggesting the WAF approach - how best to compose a character "bio" as part of a larger article on the character or what else would need exist in addition to the primary-sourced "bio" to make the character article appropriate for WP. --MASEM (t) 22:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

What if that fictional character, say, appeared to support an objectionable political viewpoint, like anti-Semitism. How would you write a character history that itself only relies on primary sources? Does that mean you can't have articles about such characters if citing reliabe secondary sources that are independent "is not always possible"? Or would you allow such articles? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 23:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure Masem and Jinnai have their own views... but secondary sources are always helpful for a character bio section, they're just not necessary. You can write it from primary sources. But while you could have a section written entirely from primary sources, there are many guidelines and policies that come out against entire articles based on primary sources. So yes, some independent sourcing is a must... but an article need not be 100% independently sourced. Randomran (talk) 23:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

If the fiction character or other aspects of the fiction do not explicitly state the character is anti-Semitic, despite all the asides and other states that fall in line with that, we cannot summarize and make that last leap of faith without a secondary source. Recent example: Persona 4 has a character that pretty much is gay, but that word nor any equivalent is used in the game. He's stated to be scared of girls but that's it; going from that to "being gay" is synthesis. From a summary perspective, we could only say his social identity is confused. However, there are secondary sources that assert that he is gay, and that's been used to assert the character is gay or appears to be so (the company that made the game stated they left it open). But if that source did not exist, I would not be able to say that. That's why its always good to keep plot sections short - the longer they run, the more likelihood something like this could slip in there. --MASEM (t) 23:44, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Even given Masem's point though, you couldn't directly go out an say he's gay. That would be saying that someone knew better than the creator what he was creating, which is impossible. You could say he appears to be gay or has gay-ish tendencies (i think there is a word for that...), but if the neither the primary source nor the creator (in this case the company or the writer/producer) do not say anything then you cannot. Fictional items are a bit different from real-life and therefore to use secondary sources as sythesis can only be done as a qualified nature, even by experts, because they cannot know what the creator was thinking. The exception is if they interviewed the creator. Pyschology studies can and have been done on characters, but if you read them they never really outside state anything as abosulute unless it was observable.じんない 23:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

In other words, what you and Masem are saying that without reliable secondary sources that are independent of the primary source, you cannot create a stand alone article that discusses controversial characters based on primary sources alone. On this point, I must agree with you, as I think there may be an underlying misconception that probably has not been stated explictly up to now; since most fictional elements are relatively harmless and uncontraversial in nature, there is no need to apply rigorous inclusion criteria in all cases, a misconception I do not support myself. Of course this premise breaks down when fictional characters are based closely on real-world persons. For instance, most people would recognise Amon Goeth as being an evil anti-Semite, but how could you describe a fictional adaptation based on him from primary sources? In order to disucss any historical novel with a contraversial charcter such as Schindler's Ark, or any work of fiction for that matter, surely it is clear that only coverage from reliable secondary sources independent of the primary source offer the only possibility of balanced article? It seems to me that there may be an underlying misconception that fiction is unbiased, and that the requirements for balance, independent sourcing and real-world perspective can be obtained from "verifiable plot" summary, when in fact they can't. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:53, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

There's two issues here, that need to be separated. The first is the assignment of any controversial description to a fictional character or aspect from primary sources. Whether anti-Semitic, gay, racist, whatever, either the primary source needs to explicitly state that, or a secondary source affirms that; it is OR otherwise to assume that because, for example, a character is shown to have an intense dislike of a former friendly character after learning that he is Jewish that first character is anti-Semitic. This is where, more importantly, secondary sources that evaluate and analyze works can help, but they aren't needed. If no secondary sources are there to establish the connection, the connection cannot be made.

The second aspect is balanced coverage per NPOV. If the story in the work of fiction is already politically charged (say Song of the South), then just like our policy on spoilers, we cannot change that POV in describing the plot itself; it is what it is and it is not our place to rewrite it to be politically correct or balance the POV that the work itself gives. Now, if that work itself gains controversy (from independent sources), then our NPOV policy steps in and says that we need to cover both sides of it through third-party sources. This would be the same for an individual character or other fictional aspect should that also occur.

It is still possible to write a plot summary with the consideration of the above but without using secondary or third-party sources. The plot summary just has to avoid making any synthesis or OR, and needs to stay with the same POV that the original work had. --MASEM (t) 13:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your only part of your first point, that only secondary sources can be used evaluate and analyze controversial fictional elements, e.g. to identify Amon Göth's character (played by Ralph Fiennes in the film) as a rabid anti-Semite. However, I part company when you say that secondary sources "can help", i.e. that they are optional; I would say that they are a necessity in these circumstances, and really are a mandatory requirement. To simply sumamrise the plot from the perspective of Göth's character as he appears in the primary source can't provide balanced coverage, compared with the real-world person - there is just no context to make any judgement about him. It is far better to not have an article about fictional element if no real-world context from relaible secondary sources can be found.

With regard to your second point, I agree that we cannot change the POV of the book or film itself, but simply to write a plot summary from the perspective of character without providing any context from reliable secondary sources is asking for trouble, particularly for contraversial characters. As stated on the talk page for the article Uncle Remus from Song of the South, "While the Uncle Remus stories are amusing, it doesn't take into account that race relations cast into a comedic form were easier to believe and accept as the real thing". I can't vouch for validity of this statement, but I would say this would be a one of many important question that you would expect to be addressed in an encyclopedic article about a contraversial character. Again I would argue that it is far better to not have an article about fictional character if no real-world coverage from relaible secondary sources can be found, because without such sources, the topic's coverage is encyclopedic without them.

Overall I would conclude the for these reasons, reliabable secondary sources that are independent from the primary source are a necessity, not just niece to have:

This page in a nutshell: If a fictional topic is the subject of significant real-world coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, then it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article in Misplaced Pages.

In conclusion, I don't think you can have balanced encyclopedic coveage of ficitional topics unless WP:FICT follows this approach. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 14:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you're using a narrow exception to invalidate the whole rule. "Halo begins when Master Chief awakens from his cryogenic sleep... he goes on to fight the Covenant." That can entirely be verified in primary sources. See WP:PRIMARY for more information, which says that we can use primary sources to verify all kinds of facts. However, it also says we can't use primary sources to make interpretations. WP:V and WP:OR also say that we use more reliable sources for material that is likely to be challenged, including controversial claims. Or synthesis, for that matter, which is clarified in WP:SYN: making original links between a fictional character and a real one is original research to push a point of view. If you're the first person to say "so and so is based on such and such, who was an anti-Semite in real life", then you probably shouldn't add it. But this isn't a reason to require secondary sources for every single verifiable claim. If you disagree, go ahead and change WP:PRIMARY, but I doubt you'll get consensus for it. Randomran (talk) 16:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Randoman has what I was trying to get at; if the primary source does not state that Amon was anti-semitic despite a list of actions and statements that the character states that fall right in line with that, we cannot make that leap of logic to call him that. Only a secondary source can be used to establish that. There are some more descriptive elements that can be summarized without inference, but anything that is potentially charged or challenged, typically dealing with character motivations and intentions, needs to either be stated with support from secondary sources, or can't be stated at all if only using the primary source to summarize the plot. --MASEM (t) 16:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you on along a broad front: only those reliable sources that are independent of the primary source that address the subject directly in detail using the real-world as the primary frame of reference, and no original research is needed to extract the content, should be used to label characters as having certain subjective characteristics. However, where I differ from Masem is that these sources are a necessity in themselves and are more than just helpful. Plot summary on its only simply regurgitates the primary source without providing any context, and hoping that it will result in balanced coverage is simply naive, and from an intellectual standpoint is defective and deficient, which is one of the reasons why WP:N requires more than just primary sources to provide objective evidence of notablility. Going back to the earlier example of Song of the South invoked by Masem, you just can't give characters like Uncle Remus the encylopedic coverage they deserve using only primary sources, since primary sources don't provide any real-world context about the circumstances in which the author (Joel Chandler Harris) created the characters, or provide any commentary about the society which the author sought to portray. WP:FICT has to move away from the idea that we can justify a standalone article using primary sources as a point of reference as part of the three prongs, since a work of fiction is written from the in universe perspective of the author, and the only way to write an encylopedic article about fiction is to start from real-perspective in which author's point of view is subject to comentary, criticism and analysis. Plot summary is a good servant but a poor master, since it is is useful if it augements coverage from reliable sources that are independent of the primary source, but it result in failing WP:NOT#PLOT is used on its own. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 21:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying that an article about a fictional character can be sourced only to the primary; we've already agreed that some real world aspect is necessary. What I'm trying to assert is that given that all other parts of the character's article help it to meet notability requirements, the sourcing the character's bio can be only sourced to the primary, but cannot engage in original research or POV-skewing and requires secondary or third-party sources to make claims that aren't explicitly stated in the work. Most likely if such sources are needed, they will help meet notability guidelines, but not always. Basically, these are two separate but often overlapping issues. Which comes back to my original point, when I say we should explore WAF as to how to write character bio's this is meant to be assuming that either the character bio is part of an article on larger coverage of the work of fiction, or that hte bio is supporting a single article about the character that has more information about the character's notability. --MASEM (t) 22:29, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Again I disagree, because you can't write a biography about a fictional person - they just don't exist, and think you are falling into the trap of relying on an in universe perspective as a point of reference. Fictional characters form part of a work's narrative and it requires original research to extract only those parts of the primary work relating to a particular character. For instance, the article about Uncle Remus only makes if it contains real-world commentary, crtiticism or analysis from reliable secondary sources that are independent of primary source as his role has already been summarised in the article about the work from which he is derived. On the one hand a concise plot summary is appropriate as part of the larger coverage of a fictional work, but to then use original research to extract a "bio" of a character from that summary seems to me to an example of be spliting a work of fiction again into ever more minutiae of detail treatment, with each split normally lowering the level of significant real-world coverage contained in an article. With each split there is a loss of context, so I can't support your views on this issue. It is clear that the only those characters that are subject of real-world coverage from reliable secondary source that are independent of the primary source can be presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article. Those that don't are merger candidates, since there is more encyclopedic coverage in the article about the fictional work if it provides more context than the standalone article about a character that provides none. To paraphrase Jinnai's earlier statement, Although part of coverage of a fictional work is a concise plot summary, an article about a fictional element written entirely from primary sources is a clear indicator that the topic does not satisfy the inclusion criteria for a standalone article. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 07:54, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Broadly you are both right. In some instances it is possible to provide a "biography" of a character, where primary or secondary sources already have. But for a stand-alone article, generally the article should rely on independent sourcing and be written from an out of universe perspective. But that's already enunciated in WP:PLOT, WP:N and WP:WAF. That's why I feel this page is redundant. We already have what tools we need, we just need to coach editors on how to use it. We shouldn't be arguing amongst ourselves here, we should be improving articles by finding and adding sources wherever possible. Hiding T 12:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

• Again I disagree. Biography is about living persons (hence "bio"), not fictional ones ( "fictography"). It is possible to write a fictive biography, but that is a seperate literary genre which is why I think why Masem's viewpoint is at least suggesting that original research, which it not allowable elsewhere in Misplaced Pages, could be acceptable for fictional characters. Although these issues are enunciated elsewhere, they need to be brought into this guideline. If I amend Jinnai's earlier statement again, I think this will become clearer when it is added to WP:FICT:

Although part of coverage of a fictional work is a concise plot summary, an article about a fictional element written wholly from an in universe perspective is a clear indicator that the topic does not satisfy the inclusion criteria for a standalone article.

Because of the dual nature of fiction which is covered from both a real-world and an in universe perspective, we clearly need a guideline, as there appears to be a lot of misunderstandings about this issue, even amoungst seasoned contributors to these discussions :p --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 14:48, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Again, let's start from the point that we assume we have an article about a fictional character because notability is met; the focus here is on the "biography" section of that article - not the greatest term, but reflects a summary of the character's history throughout the fictional works that they've appeared in. Constructing such a summary/bio from the primary works in of itself is not original research much in the same way summarizing a real person's life from first and third-party sources is. There is the potential to introduce OR and POV to this (again, if Amon is never explicitly stated to be anti-semitic despite numerous actions towards that, we cannot explicitly call him that if we only rely on the primary source), and that is often done when summary/bios are written purely from a fan perspective or in-universe approach. But this can happen in any article outside of fiction as well, it's a matter of which WP editor and what their ultimate goals are that might cause this to happen. Now, a summary/bio of a character can be enhanced by the addition of secondary sources to affirm inferences that could not be made due to OR/POV, and to third party sources to affirm more contentious facts about a character, but as long as the OR/POV line is not crossed, a summary/bio that accurately condenses the primary sources is completely appropriate in this case.

The point here is that the general act of summarizing sources (fictional character or otherwise) in itself not a violation of original research - that's how this entire encyclopedia is built. What is the problem is when certain edits step over the line and inject OR and POV into the summary. For fiction, directing people towards out-of-universe writing and focusing less on in-universe aspects of fiction is what helps prevent and/or catch OR/POV violations in the summation of the primary source. --MASEM (t) 15:13, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Gavin's not totally wrong, though. It is nearly impossible to summarize a character without committing some original research. One reader's "pious minister" is another reader's "deluded religious fanatic" or "manipulative con artist". I was surprised to discover in high school that my teacher and I had read two entirely different books named The Scarlet Letter, and that came about primarily because of our worldviews: she saw Dimmesdale as a good man tortured by his sin, and I saw him as an inherently evil man that was mildly insane. We could never agree on an interpretation of the book, primarily because we held diametrically opposing views on the value of religion in society. That's why I prefer to see even plot summaries and character descriptions that are rooted in reliable secondary sources ... I note, for example, that the Misplaced Pages article follows my teacher's perspective, and it does so by quoting a reliable literary critic.—Kww(talk) 15:33, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Same problem can happen real articles too. Adjectives and adverbs should be used very sparingly when writing articles for exactly this reason unless it's clearly given by sources. And yes, there's been a recent trend to at least assist plot sections with secondary sources whenever they can be used, but I would say we're a long way from requiring them (namely that but for a few types of fictional work, the full plot is rarely discussed to any length). --MASEM (t) 15:40, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why you'd write anything other than "priest who undergoes some physical or mental anguish". That's what's verifiable in primary sources. And this is a problem that occurs for secondary sources as well, by the way, as people are trying to find the most neutral and descriptive way to summarize what someone actually said, rather than trying to push a point of view. Interpreting sources (or, to put it better, un-interpreting sources) is just part of what we do. The best way to do it is by WP:CONSENSUS. Randomran (talk) 15:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I think Masem and Randomran are trying to paper over the cracks in their arguments. Of course there is a difference between summarising the primary work (to provide context) and engaging in original source to describe a character, but the divide is very clear, not blurry as they suggest. For a start, you can't write a biography about a fictional character (I think you should acknowledge this guys!) since they are not nor never were alive (nor even human in scifi adventures), so constructing a biography from a fictional work is clearly original research, because it is a contradiction in terms!.
Think of it this way - constructing a "biography" about a fictional character is orginal research, since it involves cherry-picking scenes and events from the primary source which only affect that character, and stacking them up in a way that makes it appear that the character has a seperate existence. From the perspective of the primary work, fictional characters are an inseperable part of the narrative, they can't standalone because they are part of larger work. Sure, you can summarise the work as whole, but once you focus on a specific character, you move from plot summary which provides context about the the fictional work to a form of original research that provides none. The only context in which you can discuss or describe a fictional character as being seperate is in terms of the real-world commentary received from reliable secondary sources that are independent of the primary work, i.e. if a character is the subject of real-world commentary then it does existence but only as a ficitonal topic. I admit this is a very subtle distinction, but you have to realise that the way we think of fictional characters is itself a type of literary trope can be misleading; although we are used to describing them as existing, they only exist as having human characteristics in our minds, but in a enclcyclopedia, they can only exist as topics that are discussed fictional constructs. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I acknowledge calling them "bio"s is misleading, but we can't ignore the fact that such "bio"s are part of character articles with otherwise established character notability. See both Homer Simpson and Superman, two FAs. The former has a very brief but summary description of Homer that pulls from episodes; the latter has a bit more depth (both "character" and "powers" sections) but it is also supported more by secondary sources. In both cases, we are pulling highly summarized details from a vast number of sources (more than 200 in both cases) to present the basics to establish the rest of the article in context. Not every character article may have the wealth of secondary information about that, but we know that needs to be there for the article to be there, but the "bio" aspect - whether we call it "biography", "role within the work" or whatever, is also part of these articles and needs to be exactly a brief summary of the character. The counter to this, which I completely agree is inappropriate in its depth, is something like Hiro Nakamura (the character from Heroes); the character passes the notability guidelines (there's creation infomration, and I'm pretty more secondary can be found) but here's where the "bio" approach is bad; it's not that any of this is original research, but it doesn't summarize, it lists out each action. That's why these sections should be more summary of the role. --MASEM (t) 16:40, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I am glad that you acknowledge calling them "bio"s is misleading, but it is the intent to constuct a biography about a fictional character that is the problem, not how "biography" is labeled. I say again, you can't construct such biography without using synethesis; such a biography does not exist in the primary source, so creating one is original research. The same principle applies to secondary sources as well - unless the source itself contains a "fictography", then the construction of one is still original reasearch, because the plot is distorted when it is used to create little "sub-universes" in which only the character inhabits. In the example of Homer Simpson, it is clear that what is happening is that coverage from more notable topics such The Simpsons series itself, or notable episodes therefrom, are being "recycled" to create this form of synthesis. This form of synthesis is most clear from the article Characters of Kingdom Hearts, where the primary sources are cited so you can see how the synthesis is formed: narrative and events are used to construct identities for the characters that are seperate from the game, but the game does not provide this information directly. What this article does is to construct a series of literary tropes that create the illusion that the characters do exist seperately by using synthesis, when in reality the narrative and events cited were created as part of the overall game. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 17:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

That kind of strict interpretation of WP:OR is completely inconsistent with the actual policy on WP:PRIMARY sources, and does not apply to numerous featured articles that make liberal use of primary sources. Of course, these are featured articles because they also have reliable third-party sources, but these kinds of sources are most important for information about development and reception. Randomran (talk) 17:37, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

To put the record straight, WP:PRIMARY supports the use of primary sources to describe the plot about a work of fiction. Just to remind you plot is the primary sequence of events, summarizing it it is used to provide context. Nowhere in WP:PRIMARY does it say that plot can be selectively sliced and diced to provide coverage a about an element of fiction; this type of synthesis can at best described as "fictography", which is a literary genre, not legitimate form of encyclopedic coverage. Whilst I acknowledge your point that summarizing or rephrasing source material without changing its meaning is not synthesis, selectively slicing and dicing the plot so that the primary sequence of events is, the effect of which is primary function of summarizing the plot - to provide context - is lost. This is an important point, because allowing prohibiting synthesis in the form of fictography is what seperates Misplaced Pages from Wookieepedia. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Wookieepedia was created upon the suggestion of the WMF Board of Trustees. At the time, Angela and Jimbo Wales were both on the board, and both founded Wikicities (which was later renamed Wikia), which hosts Wookieepedia. Much Misplaced Pages content was moved to Wookieepedia because of a user (who was later banned) nominating scores of Star Wars related articles for deletion.

What separates Misplaced Pages from Wookieepedia is that Wookieepedia exists to generate a profit and Misplaced Pages (supposedly) does not. Wookieepedia also does not have any policies or guidelines that advise users to move content to Misplaced Pages, as far as I know. Yet Misplaced Pages, strangely enough, has a policy and a a guideline which advises users to move content to a for-profit wiki founded by Jimbo Wales. It's rotten. --Pixelface (talk) 04:06, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

As best as I can tell, no WP policy page says material not suitable on WP should be transwiki'd to Wikia - if any policy/guideline does say this, it is always to a GFDL-compatible wiki (which, btw, if that wiki is GFDL, the information can be moved back to WP if it meets our standards - transwiki works both ways). There are some examples of possible wikis that include Wikia sites, and some projects may point specifically to a Wikia site for that added information, but no policy/guideline page says "transwiki to Wikia" for exactly the reason of making sure that it doesn't give the appearence that our policies are aiding in filling Wales' wallet. If you do know of one that says this specifically (again, not as an example), that needs to be found out and fixed. --MASEM (t) 04:43, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Fiction and Primary Sources

Gavin, it sounds to me like your trying to argue that WP:PRIMARY should not apply to characters. That somehow, even if they already meet WP:N, the use of primary sources to state anything is wrong. If that's not the case, please describe when you think it would be appropriate. If not, well then you should take your argument to WP:V because it holds no ground here for stating facts, which is what we have been trying to get across to you. Not synthesis, facts.じんない 22:29, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Again you have fallen into the trap of describing fictional characters in terms of "facts" that can be summarised from the primary source that don't contain any factual biographical detail at all, they contain fiction. If you want to get real-world facts, you have to cite real-world commentary from reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject matter, othewise risk creating synthesis. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 23:35, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The "fact" that Romeo and Juliet kill themselves, that Dorothy's travels to Oz were all a dream, or that Spongebob lives in Bikini Bottom are all facts - they're facts about the works or elements of fiction, but those facts are written down or on film or whatever and are otherwise fixed points. The primary work (ignoring translation errors) clearly states these. Now, we agree that from notability, we can't just fill an article with facts taken from the primary work and call it good, but at the same time, there's nothing wrong with using a reasonable number of such facts to describe the work or element in context to help the reader. --MASEM (t) 23:45, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Even with secondary sources, you always risk creating synthesis. The question is whether you do create synethsis, or whether you don't. You can spot when someone is actively interpreting a work of fiction, rather than passively observing and summarizing it. That's the line. It doesn't mean we disbar primary sources. And indeed, we don't. See WP:PRIMARY, or see featured article Master Chief (Halo) which makes liberal use of primary sources. While I understand and respect your standards, they're much higher than anyone else's in the entire community. Randomran (talk) 23:47, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Gavin, that is a fringe idea of the interpretation of WP:V and therefore unlikely to get enough support for anyone to warrant compromising to meet that standard.じんない 23:55, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

It is not a fringe interpretation, and I can demonstrate the issues which you are trying to skirt over, or perhaps don't understand. The key problem with in universe coverage of a topic is that it is not factual, and therefore not reliable. This is the nature of fiction - the characters and events are a fictional construct whose objective is to support some sort of narrative; fiction was never intended to be a used as a source real-world coverage for an encyclopedic article, as the "facts" which it contains are not verfiable.
To illustrate this point, I would draw your attention to debate about whether a proup of non-human fictional characters could be described as a race which occured during Kender mediation. To cut a long story short, Kender were described as a race in versions of the article prior to mediaton, which was a fairly fundamental misunderstanding, because there is no real-world source available to support this crackpot idea and it would be impossible to write an article along these lines. Some editors insisted on using the term "race" on the basis that this was what was used in the primary source, but they were failing to understand that the primary sources are fictional, not factual. The issue was resolved when we agreed on using the correct real-world term fantasy race, which is type of literary trope known as a Metonymy. The point I am making is that fictional coverage taken primary source is not reliable because it is not rooted in the real-world, where characters are discussed in terms of literary convention.
Another example that fictograhical articles are original research is illustrated by the section on the so called "fictional origin" of Kender. The primary sources provide at least two distinct "creation" type myths to explain their fictional origin, but who can say there are not more, some of which may contradict the others? None of these so called facts can be verified from the primary source if they are contradictory. This illustrates the main problem with "biographies" of fictional characters is that the contributors to these articles are forced to interpret the literary intentions of the authors, and to fill in the gaps or plaster over contradictions. It may be legitimate for authors to use fictography as a legitimate of literary genre, but for contributors to articles to use a type of literary genre to write articles it is clearly a form of original research. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:53, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

You've wandered towards the end there. When you say that "The primary sources provide at least two distinct "creation" type myths to explain their fictional origin, but who can say there are not more, some of which may contradict the others? None of these so called facts can be verified from the primary source if they are contradictory." Your last sentence seems to state that it is not a fact that two fictive origins have been given, when clearly that is a fact. It also appears to have launched into an in-universe model of thiniking, since it seems to be indicating that within the fictive universe more origins may exist. That's speculation, and has no p;lace in our universe, where the primary source would verify only tow origins had been published. And the end of the first sentence isn't addressing the issue either, because it applies to anything. Just because we have a source which states x, we can never guarantee that there may also be a source which states y. Other than that, I don't disagree. I avoid a fictive bios for much the same reasoning. Hiding T 11:05, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

A work of fiction is reliable only for the coverage of in-universe aspects of the work of fiction. So while our current policies and guidelines point to editors to maintain an out-of-universe approach towards writing about fiction (in that yes, it is true that Kender are a fictional race, and not simple a race), details on specific in-universe aspects can still be summarized from the primary source, augmented by secondary/independent sources whenever possible. The second point about being two origin myths - well, the same thing can happen with non-fictional articles as well. I would suspect that articles on many extraterrestrial phenomena like black holes and quasars do not include every possible theory as to the creation of these phenomena, and nor is it our place to try to align the theories so they all work nicely. In the Kender example, it would be perfectly valid to spell out the two myths for creation (presuming these were in-universe myths thought by the characters) and not attempt to make any assessment of which is correct - that's valid use of WP:V - but any attempt to merge the two or correct their differences is OR unless independently sourced. Again, a lot of what you have against using the primary source for fiction can occur everywhere else by poor editors and lack of working towards consensus and editing standards. The only aspect that fiction introduces is the potential to treat the in-universe as occurring as a real-world event, and that's just a matter of avoiding certain writing style, not sourcing. --MASEM (t) 12:14, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

You're talking past each other. Have a look at Kender, I think you'd both be on the same page. Hiding T 13:48, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• Sorry Gavin, but I think you're alone on that strict interpretation of WP:OR. WP:PRIMARY, a section of WP:OR, contradicts almost everything you're saying. "Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims", and, "an article about a novel may cite passages from the novel to describe the plot." You're going to have to make changes to our actual policy. And then you're going to have to systematically use the revised version of WP:OR to argue to demote featured articles such as Cortana, Flood (Halo), Master Chief (Halo), Bart Simpson, Homer Simpson, Pauline Fowler, Batman, Superman, Jason Voorhees, Jack Sparrow, Jabba the Hutt, Palpatine, and Padmé Amidala. If you get that far, then yes, we'll remove any suggestion that you can rely upon primary sources from this essay. But don't be surprised if you have trouble building a consensus for any of that. Randomran (talk) 15:47, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• Yhat's what I've been trying to say. While he is certainly entitled to his opinion, any gudeline must follow policy. WP:V and WP:OR clearly allow for primary sources to say descriptive things. Now the amount of in-universe detail may be up for interpretation, but at least some in-universe information is needed to know the context of the subject the article is about.じんない 21:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• You're not listening to Gavin. And you can take Batman and Superman off your list, because they don't breach the points Gavin is discussing. Gavin is firmly behind using primary source to make descriptive claims. But his point is that it often involves speculation to rationalise primary source. Like I say, if you actually look at the article Gavin is discussing, Kender, then I think you'd find you are on the same page. This is why WP:FICT gets bogged down. Nobody actually listens, you're all too busy defending positions which are not under attack. Hiding T 08:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Isn't Gavin the one who was asserting in the past that Kermit the Frog wasn't a fictional character?... - jc37 08:36, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

In the sense that Kermit the Frog is a piece of cloth, yes he was. I think again, that debate foundered because people were not listening to each other. Gavin's point was that Kermit the Frog isn't real, so shouldn't be talked about as if he was real. The problem was, most people are already on that page. What Gavin wanted to get across is that you can't write Kermit the Frog did this, and Kermit the Frog did that, because Kermit the Frog doesn't do anything. He's a work of fiction. Now the area of debate is at what level do our readers suspend their disbelief, and we can start talking on the level that everyone knows Kermit is fictional, so we can discuss Kermit being seen to do this and that. It's kind of like how Superman is just lines on a page, or better yet The Treachery of Images. I tend to disagree with Gavin over issues of consensus more than anything else, but I think Gavin thinks we disagree over a lot more. I want this stuff to be written about as it exists to us, not how it would exist if it were real. I support plot summaries, and I support utilising plot in an article, and I don't think an article should be deleted just because it is solely or mostly plot. But I do think it should be improved. Hiding T 12:01, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• In answer to Jinnai's opening question, I am not against the use of primary sources in articles about fictional characters, since primary sources are very useful for providing context in support of real-world commentary from reliable secondary sources which are independent. I think we are agreed on this point, and I think this is the approach that, for the most part, has been adopted in the article about the fictional characters called Kender - where a primary source is cited, it is identified as such to distinguish it from the real-world coverage. The only problem with that article is that real-world commentary (from the creators of Kender) is not independent of the primary source, but that is another issue.
  Where I think we disagree is that the use of primary sources which are not being used to provide context for real-world coverage. As Hiding makes clear, to rationalise the primary source involves speculation. When writing about fictional elements, primary sources provide context to real-world commentary, but not "facts". Primary sources are good servants, but bad masters. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not sure what you're even proposing anymore. You're saying we can use primary sources for fictional characters and such. I can't really agree or disagree with whether they're better servants or masters. Obviously we want people summarizing a work, rather than analyzing it. And WP:OR already states that explicitly. So what's the problem? Randomran (talk) 04:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

• What is being proposed is to have inclusion criteria which are consistent with this dissussion, as I think we are agreed on this position:

If a fictional topic has received significant real-world coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article.

Up to now, it has been argued that the above statement is just a restatement of WP:N, but this is ignoring the key issue with fiction that every article needs to be underpined by real-world coverage, otherwise it risks failing WP:NOT#PLOT. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

The version of this that failed passed PLOT. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 09:50, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• That's what I'm trying to figure out. WP:OR, which is policy and this at most would be adopted as a guideline, states that "Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages from the novel to describe the plot, but any interpretation of those passages needs a secondary source." That clearly uses an example of something generally used without context as fictional: "novel". That means in Kender, the "fictional origin" section uses declarative statements about the origin itself. It clearly by the tone "fictional" denotes that this isn't real. However for a higher class article to look at for comparison, Sasuke Uchiha would be better. It goes into his background, but it starts out mentioning he is a fictional character and it is reinforced by a "creation and concept" section. Furthermore the images themself also as visual representations that further clarrify this is a fictional character as animated people don't exist in the real-world. While the section on his character is possibly done more in-universe, the rest of the page already gives enough context that this is a fictional character. As if that weren't enough, the first paragraph in the character section starts with the statement that Sasuke exists in the Naruto Manga.じんない 14:04, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• Whilst I appreciate that WP:OR allows an article about a novel to cite passages from the novel to describe the plot, it was never intended to give licence to slicing and dicing the individual episodes and scenes in order to construct a narrative sequence viewed from the "perspective" of one charcter. Attempting to view plot from the perspective of a fictional character is speculation. Although descriptive claims may be made to describe the plot of a work of fiction, the Sasuke's Character outline goes beyond describing the plot to performing a complete rewrite of it, using a perspective and narrative sequence that has been synthesised. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:25, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• By that same logic, we would be able to only use a biography of a real person (which does not exist for many) to write the article on that person instead of bringing together a plethora of other reliable sources about that person to summarize that article. Again, breaking down sources (primary, secondary, whatever) and reassembling them to provide a summary of the sources without introducing OR or POV is exactly what an encyclopedia is supposed to. Now, I do agree that whenever it is possible that when doing this for fiction that real-world information from sources be brought in for better support, but it is a long-standing consensus that it is not required per Jinnai's quote from WP:V. (This works on the assumption that notability is demonstrated elsewhere in the article). --MASEM (t) 15:35, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
• The fact remains that we can, and we do, and the guidelines let us. Summarizing the parts of a plot that pertain one character is no more synthesis than summarizing the parts of a history book that pertain to one country. Summary is not synthesis. Randomran (talk) 16:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• In answer to Masem, you are mixing up the logic of the real-world with a fantasy world perspective. Sure, you could use primary sources to construct a real-persons biography, but that would be legitimate since they exist in real-time. In the world of fiction plot runs to a different timetable and the perspective is chosen by the author. Fictography is a useful metafictional device, but it is not encyclopedic. Your analogy is not valid. In answer to Randomran, citing primary sources to provide context to real-world coverage is legitimate, but writing fictography is synthesis. If you want to see an example of primary sources being used to construct a fictography of a fictional country, read the article Silverymoon and you will see what I mean. Primary sources are good servants when they provide context in support of real-world commentary, but in this article they have become the "master" source with the result that they no longer provide a summary of the plot, they are being used to construct a synthesised story with an entirely different fictional perspective. This is synthesis in its worst form, but not much worse than the Sasuke's Character outline, in that they both try to present the "fictional facts" outside of context of the primary sequence of events described in the fictional work. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:19, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• That's a question of execution, rather than anything being inherently wrong with primary sources. History of East Asia sucks too. But somebody will reference it, improve it, discuss it... There's nothing inherently wrong with selectively summarizing a source to focus on one specific aspect of a topic -- whether you're choosing the relevant parts of a primary OR secondary source. A consensus of editors believe that these kinds of articles can represent the best that Misplaced Pages has to offer, including Cortana, Flood (Halo), Master Chief (Halo), Bart Simpson, Homer Simpson, Pauline Fowler, Batman, Superman, Jason Voorhees, Jack Sparrow, Jabba the Hutt, Palpatine, and Padmé Amidala. Randomran (talk) 16:28, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

This conversation is running in circles (I don't think we're going to convince Gavin, nor vice versa) and I've gone to seek more help on the issues of OR/SYN on WT:OR (here). --MASEM (t) 16:43, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• In answer to Randomran, its more than a matter of execution. I think summarising the plot provides context for works of fiction, but chopping up the plot summary and reordering it for articles about about characters is synthesis. Maybe we will have to agree to disagree on this issue. But when I read articles like Silverymoon, I can tell there is something wrong with the way the primary sources are being used, related to taking episodes and scenes out of context from the primary sequence of the plot as written by the author. Perhaps this is too fine a point to be grasped, but changing the perspective and focus of a fictional work to create a fictography and then presenting the result in such a way as if it was fact is a way of contructing a pretend article. This is analagous to playing with dolls or toy soldiers and pretending that their actions are real. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:56, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• We're going to have to agree to disagree. It's not just that what you find wrong is happening all over Misplaced Pages. It's also that what you find wrong is resulting in articles that are considered to be among the best (top 1%) of articles on Misplaced Pages. You're still entitled to your opinion, obviously. But until more people see things your way, it's probably not appropriate to use it as a part of this essay. You might have more luck persuading people by taking those articles to the featured article review, or modifying our policy on WP:OR. Randomran (talk) 17:11, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• I will accept that it may be onerous to insist that primary source should be used to provide real-world coverage of fictional in every case. However, I think we are agreed that if a fictional topic has received significant real-world coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, then it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:22, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

• I don't think anyone denying that last point for notability purposes (in as far as we're considering this right now). --MASEM (t) 15:25, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
• Nobody here disputes WP:N, and an article that meets the guideline is surely notable. This essay is something a little different though. Randomran (talk) 15:52, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Related sources

A thought occurred to me today after the discussions at WP:PLOT. What we could perhaps look at is an umbrella approach. We've got a fictional topic, say Buffy. Buffy is a notable topic. Now within coverage of Buffy, we've got independent sources, primary sources and related sources. Independent sources are going to be newspaper articles and the like. Primary source is the work itself. Related sources are creator commentary and interviews and the like. So here was my thinking on the umbrella approach: If the topic meets WP:N, the topic gets an article. When coverage of the topic gets overly large, areas which have sufficient coverage in related sources get a spin out article. Yes, it is subjective, but if we term it as multiple reliable related sources we could be onto something. If there are trivial related sources, like actor x says he thought his bit part was central to episode x, tough. You're not under the umbrella. So it's kind of, notable topic per WP:N gets article. Element within a notable topic with minimal coverage in independent sourcing but multiple coverage in related sourcing can be spun out per WP:SS if size constraints become an issue. Element within a notable topic with no independent sourcing, minimal coverage in related sources does not get article, but is merged back to a suitable article on either a related element or notable topic. It's a potential way forwards? I appreciate it bears some similarity to the three prongs, but I think it may be short enough and not require reams of explanatory text. Where an article doesn't meet the criteria we could just direct people to both the editing and deleting policies. Have we got something here? Hiding T 15:32, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not really comfortable with the idea that any old thing can be split out. First, it seems kind of WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Second, it also risks avoiding the necessity of WP:THIRDPARTY sources, which are required by multiple policies. Randomran (talk) 15:52, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the minimum a policy calls for is a third party source. As to indiscrimate, it doesn't meet that either, because we are discriminating. And I haven't, anywhere, said any old thing can be split off. I've laid out fairly objective conditions which should be met before something can be split off. So either I'm not communicating that properly or something else is happening. Hiding T 16:14, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

So long as we take care of the minimum policy on third-party sources, I'm okay with it. As for indiscriminacy though, it's a problem in practice. It's easy to expand a section, any section, and it's almost as easy to find information on development for that section (for video games especially). I'd be more comfortable if we had discriminate classes of things that sometimes get spun out, if there are related sources (and at least one third party source). Say, "A list of characters or episodes is acceptable as part of the coverage of a fictional work. If a section about characters or episodes becomes sufficiently large, with information in related sources, it can be spun out into its own topic." Right now we treat episodes and characters as being a little more worthy of detailed articles about their plot. But articles on inanimate objects or events we don't, because they usually end up going into detailed physical descriptions, or game guide information, or what have you. Randomran (talk) 16:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

We're talking past each other. I also disagree with you in some respects. In comics it's preferable to split out sections on objects and events than it is on individual issues, because there is better sourcing available on the former, so each medium requires different handling. That's what I was trying to achieve with my thinking. I think a notability guideline which seeks to cover all of fiction should not limit itself only to those which are episodic in nature, but should try and offer guidance which can be better adapted to suit a case by case approach. There's more to fiction than television and video games. And I'd already pointed out that detailed physical descriptions and game guide information wouldn't be considered related sources. They are primary source. Such sourcing wouldn't be suitable upon which to base an article on, per WP:PLOT. Hiding T 16:45, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic that comic books have their own needs, and organizing by episode doesn't make as much sense as organizing around a concrete event or sequence of events. But physical objects are easy to list in a video game, let alone moves. And, unfortunately, they're the kind of thing that does get coverage in developer diaries, outlining how they balanced the rocket launcher, or how they texture mapped the rocks. Which is why I'd prefer to be conservative and focus on one or two discriminate classes of articles that can still be good articles with relaxed standards, and let the other ones be settled with good old fashioned Notability. Randomran (talk) 16:49, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Like I said, if there are trivial related sources, like actor x says he thought his bit part was central to episode x, tough. I'm sure that could be tweaked to read If there are trivial related sources, like developer x says he thought his work texture mapping the rocks was central to the game, tough. But again, we're talking past each other. It's quite clear we want the same thing, I just can't work out how to put that into words. Hiding T 16:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I think most of us in the middle of the debate have a good sense about what should have an article and what shouldn't... beyond the articles that are allowed by WP:N. It's just tough to articulate. You want to give the seal of approval to a few solid fiction articles, but you don't want to open the flood gates. We'll have to think about how to get there. Randomran (talk) 17:18, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Hiding, I don't see how coverage of fiction can be improved by allowing topics that are only cited in questionable sources as this goes against the spirit of WP:V. Since fiction is a well sourced subject area, I don't see how this proposal could be of benefit, unless you have specific examples to illustrate how anythng less than reliable secondary sources could be provide useful encyclopedic coverage. Afterall, if a source is trivial or not-reliable, then the likelyhood is that the coverage it offers is going to be poor. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:30, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Failed or essay

This is no longer a proposal. There is no consensus, despite it being on the burner for longer than any other proposal in the history of Misplaced Pages. The wording of the {{Failed}} template spells it out:

This is a failed proposal. Consensus for its implementation was not established within a reasonable period of time. If you want to revive discussion, please do so below or initiate a thread at the village pump.

I'll repeat the text: A failed proposal is one for which a consensus to accept is not present after a reasonable amount of time, regardless of continuing discussion.

That neatly sums up the situation here. There is no consensus. The amount of time given has been more than reasonable. The continuing discussion is going nowhere, and has to stop at some point. Regroup, rethink, and come back with a NEW proposal. Meantime, give this one a rest, and stop calling for RfCs and Central Discussions.

There is the option of going for {{Historical}}

This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump.

Or {{essay-project-note}}

Template:Essay-project-note

Or {{essay}}

This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Misplaced Pages contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Misplaced Pages's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

My feeling for some time is that this should be tagged as {{essay-project-note}}, as the good work will remain, and people can still consult it for guidance. I'll be bold and tag it as such, as we have reached a point where discussion is not making progress, and some action needs to be taken to end this. SilkTork * 22:08, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Reasonable also is also flexible. Per the scope of the proposed guideline and it's previous history, that it hasn't reached consensus yet I doubt this is failed. If after another 6 months it still hasn't I might be more inclined. Reasonable also holds that when we have exhausted all known avenues to gain consensus. We haven't. We srill have some I listed right above at a minimum.じんない 22:25, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

As I've said above (e.g. ) reverting back to an earlier version and using that as a basis to build more of an essay about notability in fiction seems the best approach. If we did that then {{essay-project-note}} seems the ideal approach. (Emperor (talk) 23:11, 26 March 2009 (UTC))

I think the essay is something that people will be able to live with, since there is a wide amount of support for this guideline, and a lot of the opposition isn't based on disagreement but based on hostility to rule creep. That said, I'd also support continuing on with this proposal, since I still don't think anyone has shown a worthy alternative. And likely, if no one offers a worthy alternative after a couple of months, I think we'll ultimately end up with some kind of improved version of the current proposal. Randomran (talk) 23:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I second that. This is an important proposal if the length and depth of the discussion is anything to go by, and is likely to continue to be so. However, this is more than just a talking shop, as I think the contributors to this proposal want to provide useful guidance to other editors, not just express their own personal opinions. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 23:35, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I suspect a lot of us have been meeting such issues and are developing ways to deal with these issues within the respective projects. I see this as drawing the general principles together into one place where they might help others deal with them when they run into them (so we don't go reinventing the wheel). Personally I'd like to see ways of improving or preserving things that are not a complete notability failure, as it is this grey area, especially in fiction that seems to be the sticking point. (Emperor (talk) 23:43, 26 March 2009 (UTC))

Failed is my first choice, but I know enough editors support this effort, and I respect that, so I think essay, in whatever form is a good comprimise. Ikip (talk) 02:06, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Ikip on this. {{Failed}} is my first choice since this allows falling back to WP:V and WP:NOTE. I question keeping this version of WP:Notability (fiction) as an {{Essay}} because it would be a conspicuous contradiction of policy, ignoring the requirement for third-party sources under some circumstances. However, if it is felt that progress can be made toward a more broadly acceptable compromise under a different header template, then okay whatever. Next discussion please. / edg ☺ ☭ 12:49, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

An essay tag would still mean that the fallback position is NOTE and V, but it does state that there's some truth that these (or at least NOTE) is not held absolute at AFD. It gives honest, but unenforceable, advice about how to write a fiction element article to avoid the swath of AFD. --MASEM (t) 13:19, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

{{essay-project-note}} is for notability essays created by WikiProjects. It doesn't apply here. --Pixelface (talk) 07:55, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

And it all started back in mid-2007 with my initial draft... I basically stopped participating in the discussion by September of that same year, and I guess none of the variations since have been able to strike a compromise. A real pity, and something we should be ashamed of. — Deckiller 02:51, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Failed is my first choice as well, but out of respect for all the hard work that's been put into it (even though personally this proposed guideline has been the bane of my existence for some time), I think it should be tagged as an essay. Steve Crossin /₂₄ 03:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Failed or essay are both fine by me. Fram (talk) 07:43, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a guideline that eventually needs to be established. However, if taking it off the "proposed" burner would take the pressure off and allow some creative work to be done, then by all means keep it as an essay til we have something better to propose. I agree, I don't think all avenues have been exhausted. Have we considered appointing a committee or small group to work on this, perhaps we would have more success if there weren't a hundred voices talking at once and pages of conversations to read every day. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 10:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• I can't see a committee working. That was tried before with a a few participants working up a proposal to present to the community. My impression is that it failed because of one comma. That should demonstrate to everyone the ridiculousness of the situation and the need to move on. The page was fine until people saw a need to bring it in line with WP:N. To my mind that rather missed the point that WP:N already existed, so we didn't need to make a second one. WP:V, WP:PLOT, WP:WAF and WP:N are already in existence. From memory, we started from WP:NPOV, and that wasn't enough, so we added WP:NOR and WP:NOT, and then that wasn't enough, so we added WP:V, and then that wasn't enough, so we added WP:FICT, and then that wasn't enough, so we added WP:PLOT and that wasn't enough, so we added WP:N, and that wasn't enough, so we added WP:WAF, but that wasn't enough, so we rewrote WP:FICT, and then that didn't work, so we added WP:PLOTSUM, but that didn't solve everything so we... We're just arguing over the same line in the sand. We just keep moving further down the beach. It's pointless. There's no guidance that is going to work beyond telling people to debate the issue civilly on any given article and reach a consensus. All the guidance in the world and more is already there. One more page will solve nothing. Deckiller's proposal was fine in theory, but failed in practise per two arbitration cases. The problem's started when everyone insisted their way was the best way forwards. The best way forwards is different for every single article. Give it up. Go work on articles, work out what to merge, what to delete and what to keep, and see if people agree with you, and accept it both when they do and when they don't and don't be a dick about it either way. That would go a long way to solving all the issues. Hiding T 11:33, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I think I've found a good compromise. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 20:39, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Time to get started on Misplaced Pages:Notability (llamas) then. --MASEM (t) 21:47, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I see it as failed myself, llamas, aside. However, the work of many pro-fict and con-fict editors in this discussion is to be praised and appreciated, as it shows the processes of Misplaced Pages have not been petrified with age. It lives! Schmidt, 23:29, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• It is hard to tell just what part of it haas fairled, in which version, or what which reason. Some of what is said here is generally accepted, some is disputed. Marking it as failed might be incorrectly taken to indicate the entire line of thought was rejected as an approach, which is not the case. Thus an essay tag is best -- probably the one for essay--notability DGG (talk) 22:31, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

8 out of 10 llamas which expressed a preference.... Discussion has been up for over 5 days, and consensus is for an essay tag, and people have either suggested "any essay tag" or the notability essay tag. I'm removing from the cent template and marking the page with the notability essay tag. SilkTork * 07:21, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

An essay that "contains the advice...on how notability may be interpreted" is a proposed guideline in all but name. We can always run an RFC to formalise its status if need be.

--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 07:32, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I have changed the tag to the simple "essay". The previous tag suggested that different projects actually endorsed the page, but it is not clear to me which projects this would be. Fram (talk) 07:42, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Llamas

Funny, this is what a Man in Black replaced the essay tag with:

This page is a thing. It's not a policy, and we're reasonably sure it's not a llama, but beyond that nobody is quite sure. Perhaps people can't agree on what it means. Perhaps people can't even agree on what it says. Perhaps people on Misplaced Pages really enjoy arguing about abstract concepts. All in all, it's quite confusing, and you'll probably be better off just reading about llamas instead.

Ikip (talk) 06:43, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. I'm fairly sure this page is in fact a llama. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 12:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Cuidado llama! --Gwern (contribs) 13:23 29 March 2009 (GMT)

I don't know about this page being a llama, but it certainly attracts a lot of drama llamas. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 15:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Good for a laugh, and probably some truth to it. Let's move onto more serious matters though. Randomran (talk) 18:03, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

"Either Jones owns a llama, or Brown is in Boston...." — Deckiller 15:50, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

This page is the Misplaced Pages equivalent of a Pushmi-pullyu; some editors are not sure if it Failed, Historical or just an Essay, but they can't agree because they are not looking at this Proposal from a real-world perpsective.

Perhaps this is better? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I quite like both suggestions. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:27, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

is there interest in keeping the old proposal as an essay? or moving to something different?

Recently, User:Gavin.collins made pretty substantial changes to the essay. They resembled proposed changes from this discussion, which had no real support let alone consensus, back when this was still a proposed guideline. Now that the proposal is more essay than guideline -- it's the advice of one or more Wikipedians -- to what extent should it continue to reflect the old proposal? Would others rather take a kick at the can with something different?

I do think that there is some value to keeping the essay, because it's "the closest thing to a consensus guideline besides WP:N". But if enough other people want to move on and have this essay advocate for something noticeably different, I don't want to be the only editor holding this essay back. (Personally, we may as well just re-state WP:N with some qualifiers if we don't see much value to keeping the non-consensus proposal as an essay.) Randomran (talk) 13:30, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this page — whatever specific version is on top at the moment — represents any consensus; the pushmi-pullyu comment sums things up. This page will move on and this version will be in the history; that's the nature of a wiki. Recall Hiding's suggestion;

• When working out which fictional concepts to cover in Misplaced Pages, please bear in mind that if no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Misplaced Pages should not have an article on it.

How about we copypasta that to the page and give it a reasonable nutshell? I'd be fine with reasonable bits based on WP:N, too (not checked that talk-war, lately, but mean the long-standing 'N'). G'day, Jack Merridew 13:46, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that simplifies it too much. There are a lot of points in the failed proposal that approached a consensus but there's too much fine print to have gotten it there; as such they should be leave as an essay to provide that type of guidance. --MASEM (t) 13:59, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I can certainly see building it up a bit from there, or somewhere near there. I don't think locking this down with essay-status is appropriate long term; someday there will be a consensus guideline (or policy) on this issue and it will be on yon page. If anyone wants to fork this as an essay elsewhere, fine. I believe starting over with something small and based on long-held consensus is the best route forward. Build from there as discussions proceed. G'day, Jack Merridew 14:18, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

(EC) I didn't read anything about those changes that weren't in line with this essay's general values. I say let the essay evolve rather than stay the same, that's why we have a page history. I still think this page could be significantly shorter tho. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 13:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Man, you guys are chatty Cathies. The old Deckiller/Phil Sandifer proposal is here. I started something rudimentary. Feel free to shape it into any hooved ruminant you choose. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 14:25, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea of a fresh start. Chapter 2. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 14:53, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll defer to the consensus. If folks want to just move passed it and develop the essay, let alone a new proposal, go ahead and do your thing. Randomran (talk) 15:57, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Eventually it is going to be a proposed guideline - like earthquakes in Italy, the next RFC is only a matter of time. We have covered a lot of ground in our discussions over the last months and many new lessons have been learned. I feel agreement is due soon. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:34, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree 100%. The last thing I'd say is some cool-off time would probably help. I think virtually any proposal would be rejected now, just because people are a little exhausted. I've got nothing but patience though. Randomran (talk) 16:36, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

As it stands, this proposal - which amounts to a restatement of WP:N - has clearly failed to win consensus, and does not seem to me to be offerable as a good faith, serious proposal. I have replaced it with a simple description of the current situation. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:01, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, although people have tried scrapping the GNG entirely, one proposal that hasn't been tried is just going straight for WP:N. It's not like pursuing the middle has resulted in a significant gain in support (maybe 10%) from the previous proposal, with 20% of editors still treating the proposed compromise as too exclusive. On the other hand, a solid 20-30% of editors felt the compromise was too inclusive, and too complex. WP:N might have more support than the compromise. Not that I'm holding my breath that it will work. But if people want to try it out, the worst thing that can happen is we rule it out, and people are forced to admit that we need a middle ground. Randomran (talk) 19:12, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

This has been tried - it explicitly failed to find consensus in the RFC. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:15, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a link? I'm not saying I'm optimistic, but just that it hasn't been tried. If only for the sake of a reality check, it might be healthy to let them try and fall flat on their face. There's a good faith chance it could pass with support, unless you have an RFC where applying WP:N to fiction was rejected. Randomran (talk) 19:23, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

It was your RFC - Misplaced Pages:Notability/RFC:compromise. The idea that every spin-out article of a work of fiction needed to satisfy the GNG had less consensus than this proposal did. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:18, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

You know, I would have loved to have closed that RFC properly if people could look passed their own narrow points of view. It seems that even so much as interpreting what other people meant with their !votes allows people to inject the same tired points of view into the debate, refusing to acknowledge that the numbers mean what they appear to mean. I agree with your interpretation of that RFC: there's not much chance that the GNG applies strictly to WP:FICT. But despite what you and I think, there's always the power of denial. I'm sure there are people who look at the RFC and *maybe* recognize that notability doesn't apply to all spinouts, but then turn around and say say "yeah, but you can't tell me that this exception to notability applies by and large to fiction". That's why there really would be value to closing that RFC properly: hidden between the numerical reaction to individual proposals reveals a few principles that have consensus, and a few approaches that are simply non-starters. But unfortunately, any independent party I've contacted to read through the RFC has fallen through. I'd like to think that what you said was a principle that became obvious from the RFC though: that it's evident that notability neither applies to no or all spinouts, but rather applies to a discrete class of "some", especially when it comes to lists. Randomran (talk) 05:45, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

@ Phil: You're too focused on TV. This page is supposed to be about all fiction. As I said a while ago, this is not about fiction, it is about TV episodes & characters; it is about pop-culture cruft — stuff that has been aggressively marketed at a target audience that shows up here, in all good faith, and serves as unwitting pawns of the marketing types. To properly sort this guideline, I still believe that a distinction needs to be made between fiction such as The Bard's, and the Buffyverse. These are merely two examples drawn for the prior discussion, but we all know the blocks of 'fiction' these refer too. There is certainly a lot of divergence of opinion on where to draw the line. I am tempted to boldly move your note to Misplaced Pages:Notability (TV episodes & characters), but will hold-off. In order to progress, this discussion needs to address the real subject that is at issue; it's not about universally-accepted-as-notable-fiction. Let's deal with the issues separately.

• Misplaced Pages talk:Notability (fiction)/Archive 42#Non-Independent Sources
• Misplaced Pages talk:Notability (fiction)/Archive 48#This isn't about fiction

G'day, Jack Merridew 08:52, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Phil, I would agee with that WP:N is not a set of inclusion criteria that attracts support when applied to fictional topics, but neither have the altenatives to WP:N have obtained widespread support. In my view all the alternative proposals have failed through having the same achilles heal - they were based on subjective inclusion criteria, at the heart of which was an editor's personal opinion as to why a particular topic should get its own standalone article. The alternative proposals that have been discussed on this talk page (Spinoffs/outs, FEAPOLT, Consensus) have been based on inclusion criteria that tried to get around the requirement for objective evidence. I agree with Randomran we have to write a draft that does not try to evade WP:N, and agree with Jack that we have to look at fiction as a whole, not just elements or works. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:41, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the "look at the whole of fiction" is a bit of a red herring. We don't have significant disputes over the inclusion of details of Pride and Prejudice, so notability criteria in that area seem like instruction creep. The point is to solve the problem we have - disputes over popular culture articles. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:49, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this is necessarily what is meant; I think the idea that once a work of fiction's notability is established, what are the steps and to the degree that fiction elements from that work are to be discussed and when should they be broken out to a separate article, such that the coverage of work of fiction is appropriately complete with not only a description of what happens in the work but also the reception/creation/etc. aspects --MASEM (t) 14:52, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

IMO, a reading of the RFC on this proposal is that the balance isn't going to get much better. Maybe a little more inclusive, but not much more if we want to keep most of the people who basically like notability. I think our best bet is to simplify. Accomplish roughly the same balance with fewer rules. But at this point, I'm willing to try anything, even if we're going to rule out everyone's pet proposal by trial and error until folks realize that only the center remains (wherever it is). Randomran (talk) 14:59, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

So Misplaced Pages:Notability (fiction) should say that for much of fiction, WP:N is the applicable bit; however, for fiction (pop-culture) we may need something else, something that would need to be hashed out. Now, right-off, that raises the question of why might we need something else? Why should there be any sort of lowering of the bar here? Frankly, that's the core of this dispute and I feel it amount to an WP:ILIKEIT argument. Second question is why should elements of fiction get a special case write-up? If the SigCov in IndRS in there, folks are on solid ground. If not, it is fancruft. G'day, Jack Merridew 15:24, 10 April 2009 (UTC) (ec w/rand (distracted by an email))

Because there isn't a consensus to treat fiction the same as everything else. It's pretty much as simple as that. But if you want to propose that WP:FICT = WP:N, I think you should. It would be a learning experience, at the very least. Randomran (talk) 15:41, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the real prerequisite is to gain a clear consensus on the proper role of an SNG. That was not apparent during that RFC, and really shapes what can be said in WP:FICT. If viewed as additions and extensions, pretty much anything goes. If viewed as a list of exclusions, the content is extremely restricted. If viewed as "source clarification", it's restricted again, but in a different way, because it's hard to truly contradict WP:N in the name of "clarifying sources". I think it's going to be hard to ever gain a real consensus on content unless you can gain a real consensus on the role the guideline plays.—Kww(talk) 15:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

It's late here, so brief and then I'm off. In a nutshell, why do the fiction/pop-culture fans assert that that material warrants an exemption? It seems to me that much of it boils down to an acknowledgment that the sources et al just aren't there, that they want whatever included anyway, and so the rules need a special case because that's the only way to get what they like immunity from Da Button. G'Night, Jack Merridew 15:56, 10 April 2009 (UTC) ec w/kww

I certainly agree that fictional topics don't need special treatment, such as an exemption from the WP:N. There is just no point in constructing an exemption from good quality sourcing - fictional topics benefit from being the subject of high quality coverage from a greater number and a wider range of reliable independent secondary sources than any other subject area. There is a lot of high quality sources just waiting to be harvested, and more is becoming available on the internet all the time. So you might ask, what is the point of having WP:FICT at all? The reason is as follows:

It is general consensus on Misplaced Pages that fictional topics should not be split and split again into ever more minutiae of detailed treatment, with each split lowering the level of significant real-world coverage contained in an article. This means that while a book or television series may be the subject of significant real-world coverage, it is not normally advisable to have a separate article on every fictional character, episode, scene or chapter that appears in a work of fiction, such that it contains only trivial information, plot summary on its own or coverage that is over reliant on an in universe perspective.

I won't go into the many reasons why many editors have an intense desire to split fictional articles in this way, but perhaps the desire to split fictional topics is associated with the imersive characteristic of fiction which provides the imputeus to act out or re-live fictional works - one of the reasons why fiction is the most popular form of narrative. However, the issue which WP:FICT needs to address is when that spliting is of benefit, in the sense that it provides encyclopedic coverage, or when the spliting is not beneficial, when it gives rise to WP:FANCRUFT. The difference is real-world coverage vs. fantasy-world coverage, which is why I have been proposing for some time time now that this guideline follow this approach:

This page in a nutshell: A fictional topic that has received significant real-world coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article.

The other issue why this approach is important is to provide a defence against WP:NOT at WP:AFD. Even well sourced topics can fail WP:NOT#PLOT if they are merely plot summary; it is important to understand that WP:N is not sufficient as a set of inclusion criteria on its own. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 17:09, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

What if we admit that it is the case that there's really no special lower bar for FICT, that WP:N satisfies, but at the same time realizing WP:N is only as strong as a guideline, and consensus at AFDs will override it? In this way, we can focus on WAF and help people style articles that will likely not be targets of AFD, including when and how to split articles, figuring out how to deal with lists, and so forth? --MASEM (t) 20:03, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

This seems a sensible approach; there really is no grounds to lower the bar for the pop-stuff. And while I realize that N is only a guideline at the moment and that AfD-consensus sometimes runs off the rails, I hope that some form of WP:N makes it to policy status at some point; see my view on that form bellow. If they wrote fewer 'articles' that were not in-universe, fewer of them would be taken to the block. G'day, Jack Merridew 07:17, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

In response to the age-old "why does popular culture warrant an exemption" question, I can only ask my own - given that we have shown over several years that we can accurately and thoroughly cover these aspects of fiction, and given that they provide actual utility and value, why should we delete them? Because Jack Merridew thinks they're useless cruft? Is that really the core of the argument?

For all the trumpeting of compromise, it seems worth laying down something of a line in the sand. The following seems to me inarguable:

1. Since its inception, Misplaced Pages has allowed articles on details of popular culture to be developed.
2. These articles are oft-used and amount to some of our most-read articles.
3. These articles are generally accurate, or at least no more inaccurate than any other subject area.

A proposal that increases their accuracy, increases their depth, and increases their usefulness is a good proposal. I am perfectly willing to accept that the threat of deletion is a useful motivator in improving the articles.

However, the fact remains - the articles we have are accurate, informative, and useful. Any solution that does not aim to preserve and improve that is not a compromise, and is not acceptable. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:05, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I've no problem with the concepts of "accurate, informative, and useful", but I will point out that most articles on fiction, these are only "accurate, informative, and useful" for someone that has some passing knowledge of the work. To make these encyclopedia-friendly, they need to be "accurate, informative, and useful" to any reader, and that means we have to take a far-off, out-of-universe view of the works, and that where most fiction articles fail. That's not to say any in-universe details are bad and need to removed, and not that we can't expand more once we've satisfied "accurate, informative, and useful" to the general reader. It's just that there is a lot of pre-existing articles on WP in a poor state and new editors continue to want to add more that retain that state. --MASEM (t) 20:15, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Usefulness is specifically not a criterion for keeping articles.—Kww(talk) 20:33, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest that when you have stopped considering utility to your users as a criterion in decisions, you have successfully crawled beyond the point where two hands and a flashlight can possibly recover you.

I would also suggest that specialization is not a problem in and of itself, and that if we are going to purge articles because they require a minimum of a passing knowledge of the work, there are a ton of math and science articles that are far, far more serious offenders than fiction. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:09, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I must agree with Kww - Masem's argument has used before, but carries no weight in the absence of objective evidence. In answer to Phil, you too should re-evaluate your arguments for the same reason. What you are really saying is:

1. Since its inception, Misplaced Pages has allowed articles on details of popular culture to be developed, i.e.WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS;
2. These articles are oft-used and amount to some of our most-read articles, i.e. WP:INTERESTING;
3. These articles are generally accurate, or at least no more inaccurate than any other subject area, i.e. WP:NOHARM.

All of these arguments follow well trodden paths which have used time and time again, plus, of course, their closing point: if you don't believe what Phil/Masem are saying, then thousands of articles will be deleted - and it will be your fault! I just don't subscribe to this line of thinking and with good reason: WP:FICT is primarily a set of inclusion criteria, not deletion criteria. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 21:18, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Er, you misconstrued what I said - I don't agree with Phil's point about usefulness being a basis to keeping articles; or at least, in terms of "usefulness" we're talking about them being as a useful research article for any general reader, not for someone to figure out it was Episode 34 when Major Character A was killed. However, you also need to realize that it's not objective evidence that retains articles, it's consensus. Having objective evidence helps a great deal, but at the end of the day, if consensus says to keep an article that violates a number of guidelines (such as lacking evidence of notability) but otherwise true to remaining policy, then it stays. --MASEM (t) 21:40, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Niether is WP:INTERESTING a criterion for keeping articles. See if you can come up with an original argument for dumping WP:NOBJ. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 21:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Guidelines are always secondary to consensus. That was the entire point of Phil's last draft of FICT - sometimes AFD produces results that are complete against guidelines but are kept. --MASEM (t) 21:46, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, Masem. Putting the phrase "I think it is the consensus view that..." in front of the arguments to be avoided in deletion debates does not make your arguments original nor valid. Claims that a topic is "notable/useful/popular/interesting/accurate/should be kept by consensus" must adhere to Misplaced Pages's policy on verifiability. In the case of notability, it is not enough to simply assert that a topic meets a criterion without substantiating that claim with objective evidence. These other criteria which you and Phil have pulled out of a hat are not supported by any objective evidence, and if they were, they would effectively be a restatement of WP:N in all but name. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 21:54, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I know that's a very ideal situation, that we require objective evidence every time for notability, but the fact that many AFDs close without it and that the last RFC on notability established that it is not standardized enough to be policy means that notability is as flexible as consensus allows it to be. It would be great if we could define more concrete rules of fiction elements that include objective evidence of notability that may be different than the GNG but still establish sourcing, but as the RFC here on FICT showed, to do that would require a lot of minute details being spelled out and otherwise creating a long useless document. We tried a more holistic approach with Phil's version and it fails when people wanted more details and then those details became points of arguments. Based on this, the best we can say on fiction is that consensus at AFD is the only determination with what is kept, but with the reminder that WP:N is considers a strong guideline that is followed and articles that fail to meet WP:N will likely but not always be deleted. And why a claim that there are no objective sources per WP:N at an AFD is likely going to weight more than a claim that "it's interesting and useful" -- but not always. WP:N is a baseline but it is fuzzy and appropriately so. That's why consensus leads policy and guidelines and not the other way around. Again, I stress that the last RFC on WP:N where it was suggested to make WP:N policy failed strongly - that's why we cannot be so focused on objective evidence but instead what is the best resulting articles that we want to get out from fiction elements to have included in WP. --MASEM (t) 22:10, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations, Gavin. You can cite essays in support for your points. Do you have an actual reason why we would want to change course and start removing accurate content that is actually used by our readers?

My point is not that the articles are interesting. Lord knows I don't find most of them the slightest bit interesting. My point is that they are informative. That people actually do *use* them. To learn information. If we discard that as a reason for doing something, we've discarded 'being an encyclopedia" as a reason. The fact that some idiot added "interesting" to a bullshit essay on arguments to avoid during deletion debates (and that is, incidentally, the single worst essay in the Misplaced Pages space) does not actually remove the fact that, as an encyclopedia, we are supposed to provide people with information. The statement "we should really stop providing people with this information" is an extremely weighty one for an encyclopedia. It generally needs an exceedingly good reason such as "the information is wrong," "the information is biased," etc.

Reference to "notability" for something that is known by millions of people does not pass the sniff test.

To this day, the advocates of heavy deletion of fiction have provided nothing resembling a shred of argument as to why we would want to stop providing accurate, useful information. They have cited essays, they have stamped their feet, and they have insulted people, but they have yet to give a single solitary reason that does not boil down to their own preference for mindless following of rules over actually providing a service to people.

So when we speak of compromise, please understand that my not demanding you (and I speak here of the deletionist side in general, and not Gavin who has shown himself to be far more reasonable than this) be banned from the project as the toxic cancer that you are is my first and largest concession. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:39, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Sheesh, 20Kb since last night. Was that all of the Evil Deletionist Cabal that you're so graciously deigning to allow to not be banned? ;) Seems you just called an entire block of editors a toxic cancer.

So, re Phil's three points:

1. You are arguing for a grandfather clause; i.e. we've been getting away with non-notable cruft for too long to be held to the rules; Bollocks to the rules!.
2. WP:POPULAR && WP:USEFUL; just because the proles like it is not grounds to consider something worthy of inclusion — the notion of notability is intended as an objective means of determining worthiness for inclusion.
3. {{totally disputed}} (someone know where that went?) — A core problem with the plot summary that is so common in many of the pop-culture/fiction 'articles' is that in the process of summarising the plot, many are engaged in a form of original research. They get to decide just what bits are important and how to interpret what a plot arc means. This is not their job; it's the job of the writers of the reliable independent sources — when they exist. <opinion>Many writing plot summary are doing so as a form fan fiction</opinion>

They call it TV programming for a reason; it's manipulative. They seek to influence behaviour and ways of looking at things, to make things seem more important than they are. There is no such thing as Must See TV. We do not have the issue of vast quantities of minutiae with most genres of fiction, only with a subset.

Millions of couch potatoes drooling slack-jawed as they gobble down their Poppycock does not make some element of fiction, say the Naugahyde covering on the back of the smaller Phaser models in Star Trek, worthy of inclusion here.

As to the argument that “Jack Merridew″ doesn't like it — sure, there's lots I don't like, but much of it is inarguably notable and reasonably sourced; such things are appropriate for inclusion, irrespective of my opinion. It's the highly questionably notable and bogusly sourced stuff that should meet a higher bar.

Strict adherence to WP:N is the center-ground; the other direction is raising the N-bar to define Independent as independent of the genre entirely, defining Reliable sources as those that are, you know, really reliable, Significant coverage as actually in-depth. WP:FANCRUFT is a pox on this project.

G'day, Jack Merridew 07:00, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Phil and Masem, the guideline is not about article deletion, it is about article inclusion. The accusation that thousands of articles will be deleted as a result of amending this guideline is nonsense. Deletion is a matter of peer review at WP:AFD; we can't proscribe what editors should or should not do with articles that don't meet policies and guidelines.--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:30, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

How does deleting so-called "fancruft" improve Misplaced Pages?

Having stayed away from this discussion for a while, I'd like to inject my two cents once more. I reject the idea that we should not keep articles that are useful, interesting, harmless, and supported by precedent and consensus, simply because there is an essay which says those arguments by themselves don't work very well in deletion debates. The converse position of this is that Misplaced Pages should ignore precedent and consensus and be useless, boring, and harmful. The absurdity of the converse position I hope is self-evident. You can cite all the policies and guidelines you want, but Misplaced Pages is not paper is still policy, consensus is still policy, preserve information is still policy, and ignore all rules is still policy. So given that, my question is: How does deleting and removing accurate, descriptive, informative, useful, interesting, and widely-read and widely-edited "fancruft" improve Misplaced Pages, or help us to maintain Misplaced Pages? Answer this question without quoting or referencing the Misplaced Pages namespace, and use objective evidence please. DHowell (talk) 01:19, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Conversely, Misplaced Pages is not plot is still policy, no original research is still policy, and verifiability is still policy. We don't—or shouldn't—make exemptions for fictional articles. If information is verifiable and not original research, I'd try to preserve it. For example, look at Seth Cohen. As I've never watched the O.C., I don't know what that article is talking about. I, as a reader, would be totally confused. Sceptre 02:12, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

If you don't watch the show, you wouldn't be looking for that article to begin with, and thus not confused at all. You normally don't stumble upon an article you aren't searching for, unless you were just looking for something to delete. There has been so much pointless destruction of long standing and well read articles in recent times, its absolutely sickening. Some people took it upon themselves to do everything they could to wipe out things they didn't like, without most people even realizing what was going on. We need a proper vote for all wikipedia users, to decide what should be and what shouldn't be allowed. Otherwise, whatever small number of deletionists keep guideline articles on their watchlists, and keep any reasonable changes from being made, will keep having their way. Remember, the policies and guidelines were determined by a very small percentage of wikipedia user. And consensus does protect some articles, usually those with a large enough fan base to defend them, from getting deleted even while identical article for less popular series are deleted. And see this? http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Dragons_of_Summer_Flame Even though being on the bestsellers list doesn't count for notability, and its suppose to meet all other guidelines, most people still say the article should be kept, even without third party media coverage. So there are some times when reason prevails, over wikilawyering. But too often the only people around at the time to participate in the deletion discussions, are those who want to delete everything they can get away with. Thus the reason we need to change policy itself, to demand a general election, so that we can find out just what the majority of wikipedia users really want, and then go with it. Dream Focus 03:28, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Whoa!! Assume good faith! I normally stumble upon many, many articles I'm not looking for, and to assume an editor does so for the explicit purpose of finding an article to delete is very poor faith! Several random (stumbled upon), low-quality articles I've found not meeting standards/policies I've reconstituted to do so, and some I've nominated for proposed deletion or AfD.

For what it's worth, I find the Seth Cohen article to consist wholly of culled snippets of plot lacking any relevance or connection to me the reader, when it should. Further, the article has no cited sources, although as I feel the editors involved meant to be citing primary sources, I've additionally tagged the article with {{primary sources}}. — pd_THOR | 04:04, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't watch the show either, but I am not confused by the Seth Cohen article. If someone made a reference to Seth Cohen, and I had no idea who he was, this article gives me enough background and information to get a general idea of who the character is, and gives me enough information to find out more if I so desire. What is not understandable about this article? It could use improvement, sure, but that is true about most of our articles. What exactly would Misplaced Pages gain by the deletion of this article? By the way, minus points for both of you for failing to answer the question without referring to Misplaced Pages policy. DHowell (talk) 05:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Excessive coverage of fiction threatens the free content mission for Misplaced Pages; the more indepth we cover fiction, the more likely it will be considered as a derivative work, and thus burdened by IP that invalidates the free content mission. We admit we use some (WP:NFC) non-free content, but that's rationalized that's part of WP's educational goals. And while it's not an issue until Mike Godwin says so, there is also the issue that too much in depth coverage can lead to true copyright problems and potential lawsuits - but again, this is a far-displaced effect and only occurs if we break the free content mission to start with. And speaking of the educational goals: Knowing what a character did in every appearance of a show is not helpful - but at the same a brief description of the character is not unwarranted, and if that character is a significant figure from the work, then we can talk about that more. I don't believe more are fighting to wipe plot summaries and character descriptions from WP, but give them the appropriate weight for an educational text. --MASEM (t) 04:10, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but Mike Godwin has already said something on this, and what he said does not agree with you. See here. And I do think that at least some editors are fighting to wipe plot summaries and character descriptions from WP, or at least anything beyond a few sentences per work or character. DHowell (talk) 05:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

That's why I said that the actual copyright/legal aspects are not an issue until Mike says so. But philosophically, free content is still harmed by excess coverage (that's something Mike's not going to be able to provide legal advice on). Of course, people have subjective opinions by how deep coverage needs to go before the coverage becomes non-free content, but there's limit that is unstated but acceptable. No one is going to sue WP for breaking our free content mission, but the project should be considered a failure if we break it too much. --MASEM (t) 05:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Though it is repeatedly asserted, I've never been convinced by the argument that fair use "harms" or "breaks" the free content mission. Free content with fair use is still free content, and here's the kicker: because it is free content, you are free to remove the fair use content in your own copy and redistribute the "pure" free content to your hearts content. Fair use doesn't make free content "less free". It can, however make copyrighted content more free, by being fairly used in a free content context. Isn't this in line with the mission to "collect and develop educational content under a free license"?

Nevertheless, few have been arguing to remove plot summaries or reduce fictional coverage because of the free content mission. Look at the above arguments, they find an article about a fictional character "confusing" and "lacking relevance to me, the reader". But why their lack of ability to understand such an article should translate to not allowing anyone else to read or edit such articles here is incomprehensible to me. I wonder if they feel articles like supergravity or conjugate prior should be deleted for being largely incomprehensible to the average Misplaced Pages reader? DHowell (talk) 08:44, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

That's why free content is mostly philosophical - unless the Foundation comes down and issues an edict on how we approach content (such as they have with BLP and images/audio file NFC), it's where the consensus determines things to be a problem in terms of the mission. I see too deep a coverage being an issue, others don't.

But let's get to the other aspect I talk about and that's the "educational" aspect. I completely agree there are some hard math/science articles that are out there and presume deep knowledge of the topic before starting. In this fashion, there is just as much a problem with math/science articles as there are for a large number of fiction articles - they are not written for the layreader. And in the same fashion, cleaning up these articles to a point where we agree they meet the educational goal of the mission such that they are understood by all without getting too far into the weeds, and more importantly establishing context for the reader, may result in a good article - or it may result in the article being reduced from a 64k text that is mostly details to one or two usable paragraphs and thus difficult to assert the need for a full article. The only reason there's not a rash of math deletions is that they only represent on the order of 1,000 articles, while fiction is closer to 100,000 articles, a much larger scale.

Which brings around to the key point - there are deletionists that want almost no fiction covered, and then there are people like myself that want to see fiction covered as broadly as possible but in a way that meets the goals of WP. A fiction topic that fails notability does not mean we don't cover that topic but instead figure out where to include discussion of that topic on WP that helps the reader the most. WP should include coverage of every major and minor character and every episode and the like from fiction (starting on the premise that the work is notable of itself) - but at the same time, that doesn't mean each one of these needs an article. And that's a point that's difficult to get across to those that want more fiction coverage and sometimes assert that merging content or creating redirects is equivalent to deletion. --MASEM (t) 13:06, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

When a multi-paragraph plot summary, sometimes along with several other "real-world" details (often dismissed as "trivia" by some), is reduced to a sentence or two in a list article, it's easy to see why people might think of this as "equivalent to deletion." We tend to have a binary decision-making process here regarding fictional components, either a component is notable, and we can describe and cover it in great detail, or it's not, and it is reduced to a small mention with at most a few sentences, if it's covered at all. We need to change this binary notable/not-notable mentality if we are to ever hope to have any consensus regarding fictional coverage. Then there is the problem that list articles often get deleted because of the argument that no reliable source covered "the list" and therefore it "fails WP:N." DHowell (talk) 03:07, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Those sections of what you're calling "real-world" details often are trivia or worse, unsourced. (eg, these are often references to the topic from other works, or references to other works by the topic. These aren't bad but they need to be sourced or otherwise they are original research (this was a recent point of discussion at either WP:V or WP:OR, can't remember which). I'd be more convinced there was a problem if such articles with these lists that are truly legitimate per sourcing and not-original research if there were examples where they ended up merged. But still, it is not deletion; as long as the redirect is made, the edit history is still there and future research may allow recreation. --MASEM (t) 03:20, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Our original research policy does a poor job of distinguishing between true original research and things which are obvious to any reasonable person familiar with the sources and without specialist knowledge. If a fictional character says "to be, or not to be", I don't need a secondary source to tell me that is a reference to Hamlet. If pointing this out is considered "original research", then the original research policy is fundamentally flawed. But removing unsourced observations is not the only problem, often truly independently verifiable information is removed for being "too trivial". Also, I agree that merging and redirection is infinitely preferable to outright deletion; it infuriates me that the episodes and characters ArbCom cases are used as an excuse to bring things to AfD rather than boldly merging and redirecting, or starting merge discussions. TTN's problem was not boldly merging or redirecting, it was doing so repeatedly over other editors objections and proceeding at a pace which editors could not reasonably challenge. DHowell (talk) 04:26, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

But that's how original research works - the problem is that the patently obvious to those that are aware of the references is not the same to the lay reader that is not familiar with the work itself. Mind you, there is some relaxation that some unequivocal cases can be stated, but there is also a slippery slope that if you allow too much unsourced references to other works, you start getting lists that grow without end because of a very loose and tenuous connection.. But on your second point if there is significant sourcing information that is being removed as to call for deletion, it would be good to have an example; that shouldn't be happening. --MASEM (t) 04:38, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

If you're not familiar with the sources, you have no business judging something as "original research". Too much information in an article is a problem solved by better organization, not necessarily by deletion. There is a reason References to Hamlet is a separate article from Hamlet, and Phrases from Hamlet in common English is also separated. As for an example of sourced information being up for deletion, see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of Buffyverse objects. DHowell (talk) 05:13, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, yes you do right to judge original research - our policy on verifability puts the burden of proof of evidence on those that want to keep it if a fact, even if it is obvious someone familiar with the work, is put into question. Yes, it would be completely asshole-ish to hit a list of points like that References to Hamlet and demand sources for each and every thing on there (that's likely fait accompli, however, at the same time, we need some - that article is significantly lacking sources to show that. --MASEM (t) 05:30, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

The verifiability burden is to cite a source; once the source is cited, the burden is on the challenger to actually read the source and demonstrate why the source is inadequate, or does not support the claim. And that "asshole-ish" behavior happens all the time, and we have no policies or guidelines which adequately discourage or curtail it. DHowell (talk) 05:44, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I am not convinced either and agree with you that Masem’s agreement about free content and copyright is something of Curate's egg, othewise there would be many legal proceedings regarding ficitonal topics being instigated against Misplaced Pages, but there aren't. In answer to your last question, I think am in agreement with you about these science based topics: my own suspicion is that if you don’t find an article like supergravity or conjugate prior comprehensible, it is probably an indicator that they may be fringe theories, on the basis that if the topic has not been written about in terms that are understandable to a layperson, then the threory behind it probably has not emerged fully into the mainstream. Such theories can be considered notable when it has been referenced extensively from sources that are independent of the theory, and in my view, that only happens when the theory is more widely accepted as evidence by sources that are easier to understand (this is a ver personal view, so don't quote me). The need for independent sources is just as important for fiction, for the same reason - coverage can be manufactured by sources who are close a particular subject, but outside of this narrow circle, there would be no evidence to suggest that a topic would be worth having its own standalone article.
However, whether they or any articles on a ficitonal topic should be deleted is beyond the scope of these discussion, as this proposed guideline is not about article deletion per se. There is a detailed discussion in the archive (Notability & Deletability) that covers this ground. The bottom line is that the deletion debates conducted at WP:AFD are an entirely seperate process, and there is no direct link between them and these inclusion criteria being proposed here.
To back to your opening question, I think the Misplaced Pages existing policies and guidelines do allow topics are useful, interesting, harmless, provided that they are notable as well.--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:53, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Gavin Collins, while most of what you say is sensible, your "if you don’t find an article like supergravity or conjugate prior comprehensible, it is probably an indicator that they may be fringe theories" is a mistake:

• Many WP:RS are written in terms and styles that are difficult for non-specialists. Nevertheless their topics are notable and not fringe theories.
• Maths and theoretical physics are particulary difficult in this respect, as there are virtually no plain-language terms that adequately express the meanings of ideas in these fields, and they are also very much "progression through the levels" subjects, where one needs a good understanding of the less advanced topics in order to understand the more advanced ones. --Philcha (talk) 12:08, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I can't disagree with you. This is why fiction is such a well sourced subject area; even books and journals about fictional from academic sources are reasonably accessible to a person without specialist knowledge. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 14:05, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

But another aspect of fiction, which makes primary sources in fiction different from primary sources in many other subject areas, is that most ficional works themselves are reasonably accessible to a person without specialist knowledge. Unlike specialist mathematics and science topics, which might take years of study to fully understand, most fictional topics are understandable with a few hours of reading or watching the subject. If you truly don't understand the Seth Cohen article, that is remedied by watching a few episodes of The O.C.. Which is probably one reason academic coverage of fiction, other than classic fiction, is lacking: Why need to study things that are relatively obvious to the average person with access to the primary sources? That lack of coverage doesn't make them not notable.

To address your earlier point, you are ignoring reality if you think this guideline can be written without considering deletion and AfD at all. An inclusion guideline, unless it says we can include everything, can not help but also be an exclusion guideline. Regardless of what this guideline says, "Delete, fails WP:FICT" will be a common argument in AfD, and so this guideline needs to address that. Each of our policies and guidelines work in the context of all of the others, a point made clear in a recent discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Editing policy regarding the policy to preserve information. DHowell (talk) 03:07, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

(To Masem) What makes summarizing a work of fiction any different from summarizing a work of non-fiction (like a biography, or a newspaper article, etc)? Zagalejo^^^ 19:18, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

There is no difference. An article about a notable non-fiction work should not simply be a recounting of what the work says, but instead the context for why the non-fiction was created, its reception and legacy. The non-fiction work is a primary source for itself and doesn't establish its own notability. --MASEM (t) 20:09, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I didn't phrase that question clearly. I wasn't actually concerned with articles about non-fiction works. I was really asking about articles that make substantial use of the non-fiction works. Like, say, an article about a historical figure that use a single biography to source several paragraphs (perhaps because that biography is the only source for much of the information). Or an article about a current event that paraphrases the bulk of a newspaper article. Would those be a problem, from a free content standpoint? (Let's just assume that the sources are impeccable, and present no problems with regards to WP:RS or WP:NPOV.) Zagalejo^^^ 20:20, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

IANAL but I know you can't copyright facts - so the writer of an article that reports on a factual event cannot claim IP on the event, only on their version of the text (and of course, copyvios are disallowed to start), so a summary of the facts from a non-fiction work cannot be derivative. Of course, author embellish and add their opinion and analysis, and in the same manner with fiction, if we detail these aspects too much, we start impeding on derivative works and problems with free content, which is why we typically limit such to short but exact quotes from the source to justifying things. It is more murky than fiction, where the entirety of what's written is IP protected, but still possible. --MASEM (t) 20:55, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Rationale for deletionism

m:Deletionism#Rationale for deletionism ( which is not in the Misplaced Pages namespace ;)

• Some articles complicate indexing. For example, having articles on the many unnoteworthy individuals named John Anderson makes it difficult for readers to find the article about the relatively famous US presidential candidate with that name.
• Similarly, the presence of obscure subjects in lists and timelines makes it more difficult for readers to find key people and events.
• Some articles cover topics too obscure for the wiki process to work. For example, a topic where only a few dozen people have firsthand knowledge (or any knowledge at all) is unlikely to see expansion or error correction by anyone but the original author.
• Deletionists may believe that the presence of uninformative articles damage the project's usefulness and credibility, particularly when casual visitors encounter them through internet search engines or Misplaced Pages's "random page" or "recent changes."
• Some deletionists argue that allowing small, uninformative articles to remain promotes poorly-written "drive-by" articles, and that by deleting them writers will be more likely to make informative, well-written articles for their first edit.
• Articles on obscure topics, even if they are in principle verifiable, tend to be very difficult to verify. Usually, the more obscure, the harder to verify. Actually verifying such articles, or sorting out verifiable facts from exaggeration and fiction, takes a great deal of time. Not verifying them opens the door to fiction and advertising. This also leads to a de facto collapse of the "no original research policy", which is one of the fundamental Misplaced Pages policies.

copypasted by Jack Merridew 09:12, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I note the smile in the first line of Jack Merridew's post. In that spirit I recommend humorous responses, hoping to laugh these arguments out of court. --Philcha (talk) 10:59, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree as they have been reproduced here as sort of a wind-up. There is no point discussing their validity, as they fall beyond the scope of WP:FICT, which is intended to provide gudiance on topic inclusion, not to provide mandatory instruction on article deletion. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:57, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• If you are looking for a president, then why not add the word "president" to your search? Finding a person is rather simply. And how many people have exact names? If its an actor, add in the word "actor" to the search, or write in what they are known for, and you can easily find them.
• You can make your own list and timelines to show what information you believe is valid. How many people use timelines anyway? And can you ever agree on which things are notable enough to be included, and which are not? Even just listing every notable thing that happened one year, would make a list too long, I'd imagine.
• Sometimes stubs grow, sometimes they do not. No need to go deleting all of them.
• If they were searching for anything educational, then they'd find something credibility by any standards usually. But most of the hits are for popular culture, and sex(they have a pie chart somewhere showing what gets the most hits). And when you are looking for information about a series, most people want more than just a brief boring one paragraph description you could find anywhere. Misplaced Pages became popular because it was a casual(that's what wiki means) encyclopedia, not some strict boring standard one. And can we find out how many people have ever clicked the "find random article" option? You could easily set it to only find a random article which has been given a good rating, or is about a certain topic of interest to them.
• Deleting the smaller articles prevents growth of those articles, and drives away new editors. Many articles started off small, and grew to greatness in time. The overwhelming majority of people aren't going to write out an entire article in a sandbox somewhere, before starting it.
• No original research, is used as an excuse to try to delete a lot of articles on fiction topics. You can't have all articles just have quotes from notable third party reviewers, and nothing more. You need information, and you can only get that by reading the book or watching the series. That makes almost every fact mentioned in any article, to be original research, doesn't it?

Dream Focus 13:22, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

On the "WP has become a casual encyclopedia", that's a chicken-egg problem. When WP first started, and notability wasn't an issue, people created articles on every character and episode they could (most still exist). This, of course, would drive search results and lead people to think they could find information on WP about any episode or character. Of last (last two-three years) editors have been swinging the pendulum back the other ways, insisting on more rigid standards for fiction that would invalidate the need for most of these articles, as despite what it is being used for, the goal of WP is not be a "causal" encyclopedia, it's to be an educational one. Now that pendulum may have swung too far in favor of excessive deletion, but it is starting to swing back in favor of trying to keep as many fiction articles but rationalizing that while we can address the in-universe aspects and satisfy those looking for "causal" information, the parts that make the articles appropriate on WP - the development, reception, legacy, and influence - are what maintain the educational encyclopedia approach - which doesn't have to be boring (I don't consider either Homer Simpson or Superman to be such). The balance is not yet fixed, and that pendulum still moves, but its clear that consensus is not going to allow for large numbers of fiction topic articles sourced only from the primary that ramble on on in-universe details as there might have been ok back before 2006. --MASEM (t) 13:39, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

RE: Excessive coverage of fiction threatens the free content mission for Misplaced Pages; the more indepth we cover fiction, the more likely it will be considered as a derivative work, and thus burdened by IP that invalidates the free content mission.

This is a slippery slope argument. Editors who bury and delete other editors comments ignore the very real benefits of having fictional characters and episodes: more editors, and more readers, which contributes to a better encyclopedia, and more money for the project. Slippery slope distant probabilities from laymen (non-copyright attorneys), who attempt to dictate their view on all of wikipedia based on vague threats, and alienate thousands of potentially beneficial editors in the process, pale in comparison to the real, everday benefits that Misplaced Pages derives from these articles today. Ikip (talk) 14:29, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

The bottom line is that while Misplaced Pages has been criticized by some for having too much "popular culture" coverage, others have praised it for this coverage. The fact is, Misplaced Pages is both a "casual" encyclopedia and an educational one. These aspects do not need to conflict. And popular culture draws readers, which draws editors, editors which may graduate from covering "popular culture" to covering topics in other fields of interest, and editors which may be useful in other areas such as cleaning up articles, doing research, or fighting vandalism. Removing or reducing the bulk of this popular culture coverage drives away editors, thus harming our coverage in other areas which these editors might have special knowledge, and reducing the total number of active editors makes Misplaced Pages harder to maintain. This is one big reason why I find deletionism against popular topics harmful. DHowell (talk) 03:58, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

WP's goal is not to be "casual", it is to be educational - this doesn't prevent pop culture topics, but it does state they should be written in a manner for educational uses. WP's goal is to be an encyclopedia that any one can edit, but it is not a goal to draw as many editors as possible; we already have enough problems with vandals and the like - there is a matter of "too many cooks" here.

Basically, while you're right that pop culture topics can sit alongside articles on history, science, and so forth, they have to be consistent with how the rest of WP is written. Fiction articles cannot have special exemption because a lot of people like the way it is covered in that fashion as that biases fiction. We know that some fiction can be covered in a consistent manner with other topics, so it's not that its impossible - but it's just not the way that most editors that write fiction-related articles tend to write as. --MASEM (t) 04:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

We should however draw as many editors as possible who are willing to make positive contributions in good faith, and that means not deriding and deleting their initial contributions as "fancruft" and "unworthy". The "too many cooks" problem happens because some cooks aren't willing to collaborate with other cooks, and are constantaly deriding and criticizing, instead of helping and educating. And while you see us as trying to create an "exemption" for fictional content, I see fiction already being treated differently, in that topics and articles in many non-fictional subject areas are allowed to remain and grow with far less sourcing that what is continually demanded for fictional content. DHowell (talk) 05:40, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

To address the "Rationale for deletionism" arguments:

• I admit I was a bit surprised to find John B. Anderson so far down the list of John Andersons in the disambiguation page, but if deletionism is the solution, does that imply we should delete every article about a person who happens to share the name of someone more famous? Do we delete Howard K. Stern because of the existence of Howard Stern? Delete Paul Simon the politician because of Paul Simon the singer? And who is more famous, Vanessa A. Williams or Vanessa L. Williams? George H. W. Bush or George W. Bush?
• Wouldn't that be better solved by having overview timelines listing key events, and more detailed timelines listing more events, or perhaps having specialist timelines listing key events in certain fields? (e.g. 1999 in film, 2006 in television)
• We have many articles about subjects which no one has firsthand knowledge, which is of course why we rely on secondary sources for most of our topics. I understand not wanting to cover subjects which are only known to a few people, and which no one has covered in reliable sources. However, we also have subjects for which millions of people have first-hand knowledge, but they get deleted because no-one considered "reliable" enough or "independent" enough has covered the subject. This makes no sense to me.
• If you're clicking "random page" or "recent changes" and expect to always see great things, I'd say that is a problem with your expectations. It is the opinion of many that excessive deletionism is also damaging the project's usefulness and credibility, and this opinion is documented in serious, reliable sources. On the other hand, criticisms of excessive coverage often come in the form of comic strips and humor articles.
• Many useful, educational articles started out as "small, uninformative articles". And the vast majority of edits to Misplaced Pages are "drive-by" edits. Very few editors are willing to write a fully fleshed out article from scratch, and discouraging "drive-by" edits which are nonetheless incrementally useful will make Misplaced Pages much harder to maintain, because few editors will actually be writing and editing the encyclopedia.
• Articles which are "difficult to verify", but nonetheless verifiable, are actually in my opinion one of the most useful aspects of Misplaced Pages. Anyone can do a Google search on well-known topics and find information, but the editors who go beyond this and actually make some real effort to find obscure information from obscure sources should be encouraged, not discouraged from doing so. Of course we need to do a better job of encouraging people to cite their sources, but I don't see how deletionism helps this. DHowell (talk) 03:58, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Because Misplaced Pages is an Encyclopedia about things in the real world. When we cover works of fiction and elements of those fictions, it is in the context of the real world. -- Ned Scott 04:03, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Should we delete our articles on ghosts, unicorns, and fairies, then? Fictional things known to millions often have more significance to the "real world" than many ancient kings and tiny villages in third-world countries. DHowell (talk) 04:46, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

You didn't mean to say that the Third World is not very significant in the Real World; right? I mean, it is, to us…

• Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Countering systemic bias

Sheesh, Jack Merridew 05:42, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Nowhere have I argued to delete articles on villages in the Third World, which are obviously significant to a significant number of people. But how is covering every village in the Third World fundamentally different from covering every episode of Stargate Atlantis, which is also significant to a significant number of people in the real world? DHowell (talk) 05:57, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Every village in every country in the world is notable; they're real, are documented in reliable sources; most TV episodes et al are shite some hack writer pulled out of his ass on a deadline. The difference is that the former is significant to reliable, independent sources; the latter are typically only significant to fans and brand marketing managers. G'day, Jack Merridew 06:43, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Poll: autoformatting and date linking

This is to let people know that there is only a day or so left on a poll. The poll is an attempt to end years of argument about autoformatting which has also led to a dispute about date linking. Your votes are welcome at: Misplaced Pages:Date formatting and linking poll. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 09:42, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Bring back the history

I realise that the original WP:FICT has been moved. Could it be restored again so that the history remains intact? At the moment, the archived discussions are pointing to the wrong project page. The move is making it very painful for navigation, as all the archived discussions currenltly link to Misplaced Pages:Notability (fiction)/Deckiller-Sandifer. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:54, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. We need the history. I suggest strongly that A Man in Black reverts his bold edits immediatly. Ikip (talk) 14:40, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

That is odd that the history wouldn't be moved also. Makes it look like you are hiding something. Dream Focus 20:29, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Could I have a more concrete example of what you mean? Whether or not the old page is moved to a subpage, all of the archive links are going to obsolete anyway if a new proposal is started here. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 00:08, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

This makes it very confusing on where the page history has gone. Can someone please preform a hist-merge? -- Ned Scott 03:39, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Histmerge done. Please let me know on my talk page if there's anything else I can do--I don't watchlist this page. Jclemens (talk) 04:13, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you kindly. -- Ned Scott 04:37, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

• Inactive project pages