Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Father Goose (talk | contribs) at 08:29, 11 August 2007 (→The road to official sanction: my near-term plan). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This project was formerly at Misplaced Pages:Relevance, but was moved here due to a dispute over that page's history. Prior discussion of it can be found at Misplaced Pages talk:Relevance.

• Notes on prior proposal & discussion

The prior proposal was substantially rejected at the former location and restarted here. The bulk of the critical discussion was moved to the archive pages. In a nutshell the objections were: (1) that there is no need for a guideline on such an obvious issue or (2) if this issue is to be addressed the topic should be handled in an exisiting guideline. --Kevin Murray 17:21, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

"Substantially rejected" is an unsupported claim, but the above objections were indeed voiced, especially toward earlier drafts of the proposal.--Father Goose 21:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Rationale for this proposed guideline

Recently, several thousand articles were tagged with Template:Trivia. Disputes broke out at both Template talk:Trivia and Misplaced Pages talk:Avoid trivia sections in articles over language to the effect of "remove trivia when it's irrelevant" because Misplaced Pages has no existing guidance on the subject of "relevance". Without delineating common standards for "relevance", this battle is going to rage on indefinitely.

The page that exists at Misplaced Pages:Relevance is a placeholder, directing people to either WP:Notability or WP:Trivia. WP:NOT restricts certain limited classes of material; WP:Notability covers subjects or articles as a whole; and WP:Trivia says to remove irrelevant items. That's all the guidance Misplaced Pages has to offer on the subject of relevance.

This proposal is strictly aimed at laying out common ground on the subject of relevance. It takes no stance on whether any type of material belongs in Misplaced Pages -- it merely offers a baseline for whether material is relevant to a specific subject.

List items

As per the discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Avoid trivia sections, should we include a description of what is relevant for list sections? I feel like the current description of relevance doesn't really allow for things like cultural references.

01:20, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, the changes Dcoetzee and I just made to WP:TRIVIA might take care of that, provided they don't get reverted, but even then we might be able to preserve some of it. In this proposal, I tried to accommodate references-made-by-the-subject with "while the original subject will often have importance to the referring work..." The "impact" requirement for references to the subject is more discriminating: on Howard Hughes' page, The Aviator should stay, but does it really need to mention all those song lyrics?--Father Goose 02:16, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be "...have importance to the work being referred to"? "References-made-by-the-subject" means that the subject IS the referring work. Or I could just be confused, as this is some very abstract language. Equazcion (Talk • Contribs) 03:01, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

If it's confusing I'll have to fix it. Let me see what I can do.--Father Goose 03:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion - choose a different example at the end of section 1.4 "Connection between subjects". Best would be one with no biographical implications - like an earthquake or an aeroplane or train or something. One that was tried before might work-

The Mona Lisa obviously influenced Duchamp's creative decision to construct the "ready-made" L H O O Q. But has there been any back-influence, from LHOOQ to impact upon the topic of the Mona Lisa, the original creative work? (An example from RELdraft 1) or, can a better example be found that does not preempt the following section header (2 Biographical details). Newbyguesses - Talk 00:03, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The ideal examples would be non-biographical, culturally-universal, and describe content that is likely to remain in (or be excluded from) the example article(s). What I'm really looking for is some kind of pop-culture event that unmistakably affected the subject, to demonstrate that "pop culture references" can be relevant, even though usually they aren't. I like the Ford examples because they nail the last two requirements. I'll keep my eyes open for an example that nails all of them.--Father Goose 07:28, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the reason pop-culture reference lists survive is because of the perceived importance of establishing as much notability for an article's subject as possible. Notability can be proved by establishing a subject's influence on popular culture, and references made to the subject in popular culture are proof of that influence. The more pop-culture references, the more influence can be claimed, the more notable the subject appears. This is something Misplaced Pages has fostered by placing importance on establishing notability, and it's not something people will give up easily. Editors have been conditioned to keep as much proof of notability in their articles as possible. Equazcion (Talk • Contribs) 22:23, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

My understanding of pop culture sections is a bit different: I'd say they're common because people like to add pop-culture references that made them aware of the subject to the article on the subject. That's notability of a certain sort, but not how WP:Notability construes it. And the more prominent the subject, the more pop-culture references will accrue, to the point where they can drown an otherwise-good article under dozens of really-not-notable references. World Trade Center in popular culture is a textbook example of this: imagine all those references in the WTC article itself -- absolutely unworkable. I personally don't see a problem with separate "pop culture" articles, as long as they are verifiable and don't from drift their topic, but that's a different issue.--Father Goose 05:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Examples (re Ford)

I think that the Ford example is a poor one, due to the fact that many biographies include a in pop culture section, or something to that effect. It would be acceptable for both Ford portrayals to be included there; although it is correct that only the Chevy Chase one might have any proper use within the article discussing his life.

A lot of the film or actor articles, however, contain numerous random facts about how X, Y, and Z worked together on something, and Z also worked with A, B, and C on another show. (A lot of this is IMDb-cruft anyway). Those facts are largely useless and tangential (with a few exceptions), and might make a better example - among many... Any case, good luck! Girolamo Savonarola 22:34, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Subjectivity

I think that the spirit of this proposal is very good, but it's still very subjective. How can importance be determined? I think it should be explicit that connective trivia should not be considered relevant without an independent source indicating that relevance. --Eyrian 15:11, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Anything that's not verifiable should be removed. If you're talking about something that appeared on a TV show or the like, that is verifiable.

I avoided using subjective terms when it came to specific instructions, and I deliberately avoided giving specific instructions about "what is important to the creative work" because I doubt we could draw up any general rules about that without getting it wrong. For instance, Family Guy makes a million weird references to everything, and an explanation of those references is potentially appropriate in an episode-specific article. But the fact that Fox Mulder drove a Dodge Stratus in the X-Files movie is clearly not important, subjective or no.

I did get specific about "must have an effect on the referenced subject", since that's a very prevalent type of trivia that warrants some guidance beyond "nuke it".

We want to avoid disallowing potentially appropriate things while trying to blast away minor references that anybody in their right mind would remove without any guidance. However, if you think you can come up with more specific wording that won't produce collateral damage, by all means, try.--Father Goose 17:28, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

"But the fact that Fox Mulder drove a Dodge Stratus in the X-Files movie is clearly not important" Hah! If only. No, all the time, I find users pressing for the importance of such references, claiming that they prove that the subject is important. Playing Devil's advocate for a moment, surely, its appearance in a popular film indicates that the Dodge Stratus is a common car in America? Again, looking over the various awful, awful trivia/IPC articles I have, it becomes clear that some people cling dearly to the most trivial of mentions, and that requiring explicit, cited indication of importance is the best way to go. --Eyrian 17:47, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Actually, I meant it wasn't important to Mulder or the X-Files. And you'd have to describe the effect that that specific appearance in the X-Files had on the Dodge Stratus. Perhaps you'd like to tighten the language of the proposal to prevent broader interpretations than that.

I wouldn't go so far as to say citations must be provided: WP:Verifiability is policy, WP:Verified is not. But if people make assertions of "what effect this had" that aren't verifiable, you can toss them, and if they don't make any assertion at all, you can still toss them. You did bring to my attention that mention of WP:V got dropped from the proposal at one point, so I've restored it. The current wording of this proposal has more teeth than I think you realize, but perhaps you'd like to add a few more. Go ahead.--Father Goose 20:03, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I actually really like the way that's worded now. I fully support this. --Eyrian 20:21, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

The road to official sanction

What's the best way to move this along the road to becoming policy/guideline? What else needs to be done? --Eyrian 20:21, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that was a fast conversion. Welcome aboard!  ;-) The most important thing is to demonstrate that there's a consensus for having it as a guideline. I won't attempt to make it a "policy" -- it just isn't one. But that won't make it any less enforceable -- consensus is ultimately what drives authority.

Of the people who have commented on it so far, I count 6 explicit supporters, about 10 neutral/unspecifieds, a handful who didn't like earlier versions but haven't commented on the most recent ones, one opposer (Kevin Murray) who has never commented on the policy itself, and one editor (WikiLen) whose attitude towards it has been convoluted. He's been on vacation but will be back soon, and I'm not sure what he'll have to say about the current state of things.

I wouldn't mind hearing from other editors who contributed to the discussion of trivia over at WT:NOT, especially DGG. I consider his philosophy to be very similar to mine, so if we can get the two of you in agreement over this thing, I'd say we've struck a perfect middle ground.

If I don't hear any reasoned objections to it within the next couple of weeks, I'd be prepared to call it a guideline and see if that gets the cats yowling.--Father Goose 08:29, 11 August 2007 (UTC)