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This page documents an English Misplaced Pages notability guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.

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This page in a nutshell: Topics within a fictional universe are notable if they have received substantial coverage in reliable secondary sources. Non-notable information should be deleted only when other options have been exhausted.

For articles about books and films, rather than characters and locations therein, please refer to the guidelines Misplaced Pages:Notability (books) and Misplaced Pages:Notability (films).

Misplaced Pages:Notability (fiction) covers the notability of characters, items, places, and other elements within a work of fiction.

Defining notability for fiction

This guideline is a detailed extension of two excerpts:

From Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not#PLOT:

Misplaced Pages articles on published works (such as fictional stories) should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's development, impact or historical significance, not solely a detailed summary of that work's plot. A brief plot summary may be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic.

From Misplaced Pages:Notability:

A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.

For articles about fictional concepts, reliable secondary sources cover information such as sales figures, critical and popular reception, development, cultural impact, and merchandise; this information describes the real-world aspects of the concept, so it is real-world content.

Based on this reasoning and the above excerpts, fictional concepts can be presumed notable if they have received substantial coverage in reliable secondary sources.

Individual articles dealing with fictional works or topics need to demonstrate real-world notability, backed up by reliable sources. This guideline is aimed to provide considerations for writing about fictional topics or elements of a fictional work. Manual of Style (Writing about fiction) describes in more detail considerations for writing about a fictional work itself.

The real world context of fictional topics should be the principle focus of the article. Articles written from an in-universe perspective, such as plot-summaries or character biographies & development are typically discouraged. Even when fictional elements have established notability, excess detailed plot information is strongly discouraged, as it can place undue weight on the in-universe details over the real-world aspects. While fictional topics should provide readers with an appropriate context of their fictional setting, it is important to ensure that the main focus of the article remain its real-world impact.

Dealing with fiction

Articles dealing with a work of fiction (a book, movie, television series, video game, or other medium) should be able to readily demonstrate notability by citing critical reception, sales figures, development, and other information from secondary sources, with additional support from primary sources such as interviews with the creators of the work. Such information is often called "real-world" or "out-of-universe" as it describes the work's effect or impact on the real world. Writing about a fictional work is more fully defined in Writing about Fiction.

To support the understanding of the work's notability, it is generally accepted to provide a limited plot summary of the work. For longer works or those in episodic or serial format, it may be necessary, as part of the plot summary, to provide additional "in-universe" information on individual characters, the setting, or unique terms and concepts that only exist within the fictional universe. Normally, these fictional elements are described as part of the plot within the main article for the fictional work.

Notable Topics

In some cases, such in-universe fictional elements may be able to assert their own notability as describe below. These notable topics may either transcend the context of the original fictional work, or may only be notable in the context of the work of fiction. In these cases, it is very reasonable and recommended per summary style to create new articles for these aspects, along with the demonstration of notability. Examples of such articles include Superman, whose notability is demonstrated in works well beyond his original appearance, and Prince Hamlet, where notability of the character within the body of fiction is well established. At times, grouping of fictional elements of a list may led to better discussion of the real-world aspects of the elements; Characters of Final Fantasy VIII, while describing the major characters through in-universe style, contains notability aspects discussing the creation and popularity of the entire character cast.

Notability for such topics is based on Misplaced Pages's general notability requirement, which is based on Misplaced Pages's inclusion policy. For a fictional topic to be notable, the topic's real world facets must be presented through reliable secondary sources and, at times, through certain primary sources. Primary sources should only be used if they represent non-self-published commentary and remarks by the creators of the world on the topic's development or reception. Such primary sources include interviews with the creators or DVD commentary on a movie or television show. Example of such articles include Featured Articles Troy McClure and Spoo which use both a combination of secondary and appropriate primary sources (commentaries and responses from the creators of the fiction) to demonstrate the real-world notability of these fictional elements.

Articles with demonstrated notability should contain minimal but sufficient plot information to establish enough information on the topic to understand its notability. For example, articles on fictional characters should not provide a complete biography or appearance list of the character, but instead should discuss the character's general growth in the fictional work or works.

Summary style approach

In other cases of articles on fictional works, even with limited discussion of in-universe elements, the main article may become too long. In this case, it is appropriate to also use summary style to create sub-articles to remove some details from the main article page. For fictional works, these sub-articles are typically lists of characters or other elements from the fictional universe that typically do not demonstrate notability on their own and rely on the notability of the main fictional work. These articles exist to help provide minimal but sufficient background for a complete understanding of the main work of fiction or any other notable sub-topics that may extend from it while aiding in following Misplaced Pages's manual of style.

Such non-notable sub-articles that list specific elements of a fictional work are appropriate for Misplaced Pages, but they should be written towards the following requirements:

• Creation of such sub-articles should be agreed to be consensus of editors. If information can be trimmed, moved to Wikia or another wiki, or removed, these steps should be undertaken first before the sub-article is created.
• They should be written in a manner that is appropriate for summary style - they describe the work of fiction that they belong to and clearly indicate what aspect of the fictional universe the article covers.
• They should concisely provide details of the topic or topics covered in the work - just because the sub-article is given more space to grow does not mean that excessive plot summaries or ficitional character biographies are appropriate.
• As with all other Misplaced Pages articles, these need to be verifiable, must possess no original research, and must be written in a neutral point of view.
• They should be written in a manner that, if notability or real-world consideration of those elements were available, that information could be easily added to the article.
• Editors of the article should continue to strive to make good faith efforts to locate notability/real-world information for the article's topic after the article's creation from appropriate reliable sources.

Articles that fall into this category are nearly always "lists of", particularly of characters, items, and locations of the fictional universe. Very rarely should a singular item (one character for example) receive a similar treatment: either that element has demonstrated its own notability and thus has its own article, or otherwise it should be grouped with comparable elements of the fictional universe, or be described in the main article on the work of fiction. Splitting a singular fictional element into a separate sub-article does not follow from summary style.

Editors are cautioned to not immediately create such sub-articles that lack notability, even if such articles exist for a similar fictional work. Instead, editors should fully develop the main article on the fictional work first, locating sources of notability that apply both to the work and fictional elements of the work. Through this process, it may become evident of fictional element groups that have their own demonstrated notability and can be split off into their own article. Once the full article on the fictional work is completed and notability aspects possibly split off, only then should editors consider using summary style to split off fictional elements lacking demonstration of notability into sub-articles. This process will help prevent creating articles that will be heavily disputed due to lack of notability.

Depth of coverage

When writing articles on fictional elements of a fictional work when lacking demonstrated notability, one must consider to what depth that coverage of the fictional works that these sub-articles should provide. The sum of such articles for a fictional work should not be of undue weight with available real-world notability information that is available for the topic. The depth of coverage will also be a function of the length of the work. A singular work of fiction (such as a single movie, a book, or video game) should never require a sub-article to list non-notable fictional elements per summary style. On the other hand, a book, TV, or video game series may benefit by having a few common fictional element lists that can help to provide suitable background and supplementary information for each work within the series.

Articles on fictional elements with undue weight of in-universe information

Articles on fictional elements, even with significantly demonstrated notability, should use concise "in-universe" plot descriptions that do not outweigh the real-world notability of the article. Plot information can be derived from primary sources, but must be verifiable by anyone sufficiently familiar with the work, must not contain original research and must be written in a neutral point of view. As plot and additional in-universe content increases, meeting and maintaining all three requirements can be difficult, and thus, in line with what Misplaced Pages is not, articles on fictional works and elements should only briefly describe the work.

While there are no exact guidelines to how much plot information or to what depth of coverage should be given, some projects (such as WikiProject Films and WikiProject Television have adopted a "100 words for every 10 minutes" approach; this may or may not apply to other forms of media but can be used as a guideline to guide other writing. More examples can be found by examining articles on fictional works and elements at both Featured Articles and Good Articles.

If you encounter an fictional article that contains excessive in-universe content relative to the demonstrated notability, consider the following steps for improving it:

• Discuss your concerns on the article's talk page. Alternatively, tag the page with {{in-universe}} template, but it also suggested to further discuss your concerns on the page.
• Be bold and trim the article to reduce the amount of in-universe detail.
• Commonly for fictional elements, there may be several articles that, if merged, would provided a better article with a more concise presentation of in-universe elements than in separate articles without losing the demonstration of notability, for example, a set of characters from the same fictional work, or a team or group within that work. In such cases, a merge of such articles should be proposed.
• If there is an existing external wiki for the fictional universe, consider moving the excessive plot details from the Misplaced Pages to the appropriate page on the external wiki prior to performing any of the above steps.

Pages with excessive plot information should never be put up for deletion unless their notability cannot be demonstrated, as described below.

Articles on fictional elements lacking demonstration of notability

If you should come across an article on a fictional element that does not demonstrate notability or is not written in an appropriate summary style from its main work of fiction, the following steps should be taken in order to try to improve the article's notability. Please note that the lack of demonstrated notability is not a criteria for speedy deletion, nor is there any deadline to improve such articles.

• If, by good faith, you believe the article will never have a chance of demonstrating notability or cannot be merged elsewhere, place the article up for proposed deletion. An article about a character in a TV show that only appeared on-screen for a few seconds and is never referred to otherwise is very likely non-notable, however, by using the proposed deletion process, someone may be able provide the required notability. If you are unsure about
• If you can provide such information on real-world facets or notability, be bold and include it in the article.
• Inform the editors of the article on the article's talk page of your concern about the lack of notability. This can also be done by tagging the article with the {{notability}} tag on the article page, though it is recommended to discuss your concerns with the editors as well in this case. If many such articles within the same fictional universe exist in a similar state, attempt to find a project or task force page for that fictional work and let the editors there know your concerns. If possible, suggest routes for the editors for merging or moving the information should notability and real-world information be difficult to find.
• Once informed or tagged, if no good faith efforts to seek out or include notability information are made within a reasonable editing timeframe (typical no less than a month) determine what should be done with the article:
  • If the article can be grouped with an existing article or other articles on the same type of fictional elements, suggest a merge via discussion. This may require that information be trimmed from the article. If articles are merged, leave redirection pages in their place to the appropriate page.
  • If an existing wiki or Wikia for the fictional topic exists, suggest transwiki'ing the information. Again, articles that are moved should be replaced with redirection pages.
  • If both of the above options have been considered and determined to not be possible, only then consider recommending the article for deletion. However, this should be considered as the final resort for any article that otherwise does not violate any other Misplaced Pages policies. It may be necessary to approach a larger group of editors (a parent Wikiproject or the like) to help obtain consensus prior to placing the article up for deletion.

Remember that if an article is merged or moved to a different wiki, and later information to help demonstrate notability or real-world impact is located, the article can be recreated; as long as the article is not deleted, the article text as before the merge/move will still exist.

Relocating non-notable fictional material

Wikibooks, Misplaced Pages's sibling project, contains instructional and educational texts. These include annotated works of fiction (on the Wikibooks:annotated texts bookshelf) for classroom or private study use. Wikisource, similarly, holds original public domain and GFDL source texts. See Wikisource:Wikisource and Wikibooks. One possible action to consider is to make use of all of the Wikimedia projects combined: to have an encyclopedia article about the work of fiction on Misplaced Pages giving a brief outline, a chapter-by-chapter annotation on Wikibooks, the full source text on Wikisource (if the work is in the public domain), and interwiki links joining them all together into a whole. However, Wikibooks opposes in-universe books, so it is not an appropriate place to transwiki large quantities of in-universe material.

Fictional material unsuited or too detailed for Misplaced Pages can be transwikied to the appropriate Wikia, such as Final Fantasy Wikia and Wookieepedia. Other sites, such as Gaming Wiki, may also accept material. Transwikied material should be edited to meet the guidelines of specific wikias; do not just copy and paste. The Wikia Annex is a staging area for transwikied material and a place for non-notable fictional material that does not have another home; the original Misplaced Pages versions will also be stored there.

See also

• For examples of high quality fiction articles, see the articles that have been rated as Good and Featured.
• Misplaced Pages:Guide to writing better articles#Check your fiction
• Misplaced Pages:Television episodes
• Misplaced Pages:Fancruft
• WikiProject Novels guidelines on plot summaries
• WikiProject Films guidelines on plot summaries
• WikiProject Soap Operas guidelines on character articles

Notes

1. However, non-notable fictional element articles should not be left unchanged for long periods of time. Such articles, particularly those considered to be "fancruft" do not directly harm Misplaced Pages, but their presence can encourage newer editors that may not be familiar with all policies and guidelines to write equivalent articles for similar elements in the same work of fiction, or a style style for a different work of fiction, using the existing non-notable articles as examples of allowable articles. Editors are encouraged to be bold to improve such articles if no changes or good-faith efforts are made in a reasonable time frame after an article's notability is brought into question.

• Misplaced Pages notability guidelines