Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sgeureka (talk | contribs) at 19:06, 12 May 2008 (→List of Gilmore Girls characters (see characters in the template at the bottom)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

• WP:FRN
• WP:FICTN
• WP:FICT/N

This noticeboard aims to serve as a place to report incidences relating to the merging, splitting, redirection or notability of a fiction topic. Often, such topics can be branched out without due consideration of guidance on plot summaries or the notability of the topic itself. As the guidelines given at Misplaced Pages:Notability (fiction) state, topics dealing with a work of fiction or elements of a fictional work should demonstrate real-world notability from reliable sources. Misplaced Pages aims to reflect academic consensus.

Note that the purpose of this board is not to remove any mention of the fictional topic, but rather to ensure that proper balance is maintained. Misplaced Pages articles dealing with fiction topics aim to reflect both the consensus and the diversity of mainstream academia. Discussion of fiction will depend entirely on their notability and reliable coverage in popular media. Also, fiction should never be presented as "fact."

Before posting a concern on this noticeboard, please try to work out local consensus with the editors of the page in question; you also may wish to seek assistance and consensus of any WikiProjects that the article or topic may belong to, particularly if dealing with several articles at a time. This Noticeboard should only be used in cases where no consensus can be reached, or additional advice or opinions are sought for topics and articles relating to fictional works. Should the suggestions from this Noticeboard fail to resolve the issue, other dispute resolution measures should be taken.

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IPs, arbcom and edit-warring

We all know what the recent arbcom case thought about TTN and edit-warring (i.e. don't do it and be nice to each other). Unfortunately, it doesn't account for the cases where IPs are the ones ignoring policies, guideline and above all discussion. King Dedede and Meta Knight are two such article cases from the Kirby universe, and although a discussion has been set up to keep TTN's redirects up (because the articles didn't have any substancial reliable sources and were full of plot and original research), IPs (or one dynamic IP, who knows) keep edit-warring with established editors (these are just for King Dedele) although they have been told not to do so. AN/I doesn't seem to care, page protection will likely be denied because the edit warring is only real slow, and the IPs are different each time and can't be blocked for disruption (which is where TTN took matters into his own hands, which got him into deep trouble). If User:Seresin, User:Jack Merridew and me keep reverting, I so know that this will be held against us. So what should be done? Ignore the arbcom ruling or ignore the disruption? (For the record, User:Colonel Warden also wants the articles to be revived, but he joined the discussion and isn't edit warring to achieve the goal.) – sgeureka 16:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Just to point out, it is almost certainly the same editor; see this. seresin | wasn't he just...? 16:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I would almost encourage you to take it to AfD. I think the article's pass my low-bar approach to notability and I would vote "Keep", but I think this needs a broader community consensus and I would accept a "Delete" consensus. I think the only way to ensure that there is no more warring is to get community consensus and accept whatever decision is made. Ursasapien (talk) 08:34, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

The articles were merged, so they can't be AfDed. But the IP seems to have stopped at least. – sgeureka 10:55, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

If they stay merged/redirected, there is no problem. If an IP brings it back, then take it to AfD and let the community decide. Ursasapien (talk) 11:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

They would just say, it can't be deleted because of GDFL issues, therefore no admins are required, therefore what are you doing at AfD? (At least that's what happening with other merged articles at AfD.) And the vicious circle continues. – sgeureka 11:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

There needs to be a way to request protection of articles that are merged/redirected as a result of AfD and cannot be deleted. I have experienced a similar problem with the article Planet Express (history) which was merged/redirected per AfD and had the same issue you describe. The page was eventually briefly protected but the issue persists occasionally. Is there a reason admins are unwilling to fully protect pages that are only kept due to GFDL compliance? Any editor wishing to restore it needs to go through Deletion Review anyway so why not protect it until such an event occurs? Stardust8212 14:27, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

GFDL should be our servant not our master. I have seen admins move page histories to the redirect target. I have seen multiple other solutions. If GFDL means we can never delete an article that had some content merged into another, then why has it been done so often? Can we never delete articles? Ursasapien (talk) 05:11, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, as long as the contribution history is kept (which can literally be just a list of editors who edited the page, and when), the GFDL is technically satisfied. One could even use the page import feature at a different wiki and then site that wiki for the full page history (it could even be a non-wiki site). Or, sometimes the content was primarily written by one editor, who could perform the merge, and thus would be attributed to the material (or another editor could do it and mention the author in the edit summary).

Although there likely are a lot of situations where admins are deleting things that contain important page history, but just don't know it. It can get pretty messy sometimes, and there normally isn't a practical way to check for GFDL compliance. -- Ned Scott 07:48, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2 closed on March 10, 2008 so Seresin, Jack Merridew, and Sgeureka shouldn't be edit warring on King Dedede or Meta Knight anyway. What is the matter with you people? --Pixelface (talk) 15:05, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I fully agree. How dare someone revert a trolling IP who on purpose continues to ignore edit summaries? – sgeureka 05:26, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, the "trolling IP" was not instructed to "cease engaging in editorial conflict" by the arbitration committee. However, Seresin, Jack Merridew (who has been blocked indefinitely), and you, Sgeureka were instructed to "cease engaging in editorial conflict" by the arbitration committee. --Pixelface (talk) 09:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

"The parties" either means everyone (including the IP), or just the listed parties. I don't see Seresin, Jack, or me listed as a party anywhere though. – sgeureka

Notability of soap character articles

Hi guys,

I was just recently looking through pages of Misplaced Pages and I came across List of All My Children characters and List of General Hospital characters. I was just curious as to what these lists were, so I had a quick look at each and found it listed every character (I'd estimate there being hundreds of them). I was shocked when I found that almost all of them had a link to their own article. When I looked at a few of these articles, I found they did not have much information in them at all, and definately no "real-world information".

Being from Australia, I do not know of these two programmes or if they are popular or not; I actually don't particularly think much of soap operas at all. I was just curious as to whether all these articles are notable enough to justify there being an article for them all. I have also heard people claim that characters from television shows are automatically notable; perhaps because they are seen and known of by millions of people?

This is funny because I notice that soap operas seem to have articles for their hundreds of characters, while other popular programmes have trouble to keep articles for their short list of current characters (with the same amount or more content in their articles).

Thanks, Daniel99091 (talk) 00:52, 31 March 2008 (UTC).

The individual character articles should likely be merged to the list articles. Even then, I'm wary of the number "major" characters these lists suggest. There is likely some major pruning that needs to be done for these. --MASEM 01:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

There's notable, and then there's proved notable. In American supermarkets there are magazines that discuss the happenings of all the soap operas on a monthly/weekly basis. I've never seen a ref to one of these mags in WP, so it looks like the people who read them and the people who edit WP are different groups of people. Basically, every current soap opera character could be gaining multiple refs each month. The mags aren't google searchable as far as I know and the character articles mostly end up totally unreferenced. You can either attempt to force cleanup with an AfD (deleting characters mentioned in hundreds of issues), or let them sit until the magical day that someone reads/refs the thousands of issues of soap opera guides. Welcome to WP. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:52, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Try asking at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Soap Operas. And feel free to point me to the "real-world information" policy. If the articles say which "real-world" person plays the character, that's "real-world information" by the way. --Pixelface (talk) 14:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

It's real-world information, but it's not "real-world context and sourced analysis", which fiction articles are required by policy to contain. Percy Snoodle (talk) 10:39, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

There's a long discussion going on at WT:NOT, but I've found no consensus for that section to be a part of policy. The "real-world context" addition by Kyorosuke certainly didn't appear to have any discussion beforehand on WT:NOT. --Pixelface (talk) 10:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode and character articles

Some anonymous IPs have reverted the previously-merged episode and character articles related to Aqua Teen Hunger Force. It seems they want to use the recent ArbCom injunction against TTN as encouragement to bring back these articles.

In particular, 68.161.206.86 brought back dozens of ATHF episode articles, while 24.131.17.250 resurrected the two character list articles (List of Aqua Teen Hunger Force minor characters and List of Aqua Teen Hunger Force villains).

I stopped short of reverting everything, and just brought up the concerns on the talk pages. What do you guys think would be appropriate? Kamek (Koopa wizard!) 18:47, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

TTN's bold editing has been biting his contributions in the butt for some time because he didn't create/leave any discussions that we could point to now for consensus. Technically (per WP:BRD), the IPs aren't in the wrong and TTN would need to defend his actions. However, no-one missed the article for four months, so it can be argued that the current consensus is to not have the articles. Hoping that the IPs are not determined to get the articles back by longtime edit-warring, I strongly suggest to undo their un-redirects of the episodes, leaving an edit summary like "Revert. Take it to the talkpage (link) to gain consensus for article recreation." There is currently no consensus about the appropriateness of lists of fictional elements (e.g. character lists), so a merge discussion should take place there, or you can take them to AfD to gain consensus. – sgeureka 23:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Is this where we are discussing reversions of TTN's redirects? I only watch the Scrubs LOE and a couple others but I imagine this is happening periodically. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't know what to do about TTN's mergers/redirects. Most are in-line with policy and guidelines, but he was often boldy editing against strong local fan consensus, which I see as the real problem here. The undoing of his redirects is currently not as significant to make it a problem (and TTN was wrong to bold-merge on occation), but this can be addressed locally for now I guess. – sgeureka 07:59, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd say for now, leave them. If someone who isn't an anon-editor just randomly reverting without a reason, opposes, let them bring it up as a discussion, especially if its been more than 2 months since it was done. TTN's method was controversial and annoyed folks, but I'd say its also a pretty big indication that they weren't completely wrong with those that have gone unnoticed for months now. So I'd say that at this point, those should require consensus AND evidence that those that are being asked to be restored can be brought into compliance with WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE regarding notability via discussion in the main article page. Collectonian (talk) 14:23, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE are totally disputed and a complete mess right now. My advice would be to not point any new editors toward these battlefields. Let's just make sure that any recreated articles meet WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOT. Then we can worry about notability and manual of style issues, understanding that articles can grow from stubs. I think a little communication and education could go a long way at this point. Has anyone approached the editors or left comments on the talk page encouraging them to consider expanding the list of character article, particularly with cited development information? I think some editors, TTN being a prime example, have a decidedly antagonistic approach. Ursasapien (talk) 04:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll leave them for now, and see about trying to improve them if I get a chance, although real-world secondary information will be difficult to find on pretty much any episode (save for the pilot, Rabbot). If an edit war should somehow occur (I doubt it, nobody's reverted the articles back to redirects yet) then I'll consider taking them to AfD for consensus. Kamek (Koopa wizard!) 06:08, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

List of Gilmore Girls characters (see characters in the template at the bottom)

More trouble with merged articles: Some of the/my Gilmore Girls character mergers are getting reverted (and reverted), although the proposal discussion lasted over three months (no-one but one person even cared to comment, and this one was a WP:ILIKEIT vote) and the actual merge happened several weeks ago as well (before and after the injunction). All articles violated WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:OR really really badly. User:Phil Sandifer is not fine with the mergers as of yesterday, didn't seek discussion before reverting the mergers, and has basically resorted to edit-warring despite my encouragement to have him report this incident here (the noticeboard). I'd like to avoid an edit-war at all costs, but my explanations and justifications based on policy and guideline don't seem to be enough. It also seems like another long wikilawyer session is about to begin, which I'd like to cut short by bringing this up here. I have already notified Phil so that he can explain the situation from his point of view. But if this is the kind of counter-behavior that is to be expected and accepted for completed mergers where proper procedure was followed (unlike some of the often-cited TTN situations), I'd rather abandon merge proposals for fiction articles in favor of AfD again so that they can't be resurrected without going through the troubles of deletion review first. – sgeureka 08:06, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I am one of the strongest inclusionist on Misplaced Pages, but I can see where you are coming from. The "References" section is simply a collection of quotes from the show. We can surely do better than that. I would prefer for someone to find proper references that would speak to the real world impact of the characters and leave the articles, but they should not remain stand-alone articles in their current shape. All the same information is in the list article. I am not sure what can be done as far as "enforcement" of merges, but perhaps I can try my powers of persuasion. Perhaps Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles can come up with some decent reference material in the meantime. Ursasapien (talk) 10:11, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

These merges should never have been done - the "consensus" for them consisted of a single commenter who opposed the merges. Several were reverted at the time. To say that any sort of wide consensus ever existed is simply untrue. The character articles are, generally, fairly poor. However to say that this was proper does not seem to me true, and to suggest that the articles cannot be fixed is ludicrous - all seven seasons of the show are out on DVD with numerous directors commentaries offering real-world information on characters, and the show was a critical darling with lots of commentary available. These articles easily can be expanded, it is transparently clear that they can be, and nothing in them violates existing content policies except inasmuch as there's not enough other stuff. Mergism does not fix these. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:49, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Policies and guidelines express standards that have community consensus, and one person cannot annul that on a talkpage. Neither can two people. I have edited according to policies and guidelines (even gave the articles the benefit of a doubt for several weeks and months) and can thus claim to have consensus. I am not suggesting the articles cannot be fixed – I'm suggesting that no one is fixing them (counter evidence anyone?), so I'm fixing them. To my knowledge, only Paris Gellar was reverted once for a good reason, and that was because stupid-me had forgotten to place the merge tag; everything else falls under the previous sentences. And FWIW, I have the DVDs, and AFAIK there is only one (pretty disappointing) director's commentary for the 100th episode. – sgeureka 06:14, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I see evidence that the articles in their current form require edits and improvement. I do not see which policy or guideline mandates their merging in an incontrovertible way. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:15, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:FICT#Demonstrating notability for fictional topics for a start. – sgeureka 07:44, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Note that I said "which policy or guideline," not "which proposed policy or guideline." Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:08, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The wording and the fineprint is proposed, the rest isn't as you can see from browsing the page history. Even July 2007 (maybe even much earlier) said "Major characters and major treatments of such matters as places and concepts in a work of fiction are covered in the article on that work. If an encyclopedic treatment of a character causes the article on the work itself to become long, that character is given a main article." No articles show any kind of encyclopedic treatment, rather the exact opposite per WP:NOT#PLOT. Premise is wrong, conclusion doesn't follow. – sgeureka 09:29, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

• I would have to agree with sgeureka that the demerger is unwarranted. Effectively, the demerger by Phil Sandifer has created a number of articles which do not demonstrate notability. The merger was a method of cleanup for these characters, demerger is not an improvement. If the articles fail WP:NOT#PLOT, WP:SYNTH and WP:WAF, then surely is down to Phil either to improve the articles so these cleanup issues are addressed, or allow the mergers to be reinstated. Its not good enough just to say that there is no consensus for the merger when there is clear evidence that the articles do not meet the requirements of Misplaced Pages guidelines in the first place.--Gavin Collins (talk) 14:15, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

• The only one of those that is an inclusion guideline as opposed to a stylistic guideline is NOR. The other two do not mandate removal, they call for improvement. It is OK to have poor articles - we are a work in progress. Tag them to note their flaws. But neither of those mandate removal, and they should not be construed to mandate removal. They say what fiction articles should do, not what they must not do. The only thing that mandates removal is NOR - if any of the articles are original research then indeed the original research (and possibly, by extension, the article) must go. However, there is no sane application of that policy that would treat these articles as original research. To treat these merges as required by policy is an egregious misunderstanding of policy at best, and a vicious lie being employed to dismiss the work of your fellow editors at worst. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:08, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

• WP:PLOT is a mandate against these articles as well as the general ones in WP:NOTE, in that their ultimate form needs to be more than just plot elements from the work. When there is a large collection of plot-only articles for the same work of fiction, it is generally more accepted to have a list of these than to let them sit as separate articles, and even then, this is a tenacious solution as some editors feel this still violates WP:PLOT and WP:NOTE. Yes, WP is a work in progress, but as part of the editing process, editors are expected to improve articles when others are asking to be bold to remove such due to failure to meet policy. If there is notability information to be found, we are expected to give a good-faith effort for you to find it but you also need to show that effort to include it. --MASEM 21:33, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The wording on WP:PLOT is key, though: "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 and historical significance, not solely a detailed summary of that work's plot." This is a very different statement from the one about, say, dictionary definitions - the issue here is that Misplaced Pages should contain more - it's a policy about addition to articles, not removal. I will leave WP:NOTE be - I do not think it is a helpful injection into this depate, particularly given that the attempt to implement it for WP:FICT has so spectacularly failed to gain consensus. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:39, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

A plot-only should contain more, and if the article can't because that information does not exist, PLOT doesn't mean it could stay around. Remember, PLOT is within What Misplaced Pages is Not, meaning that these are things that should not be in Misplaced Pages. Of course, if you can add notability to satisfy PLOT, all the better.

If you are ready to dismiss WP:FICT due to its prolonged proposed status, then all articles on fictional elements are judged by WP:NOTE, and thus requiring secondary sources. It is very critical to this debate if you are rejecting FICT. (Mind you, we are trying to see if there are special cases where fictional elements may be considered notable without secondary sources, which is part of why the guideline has remained proposed for so long). --MASEM 21:46, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The information clearly exists. This was a critical darling of a show where every season is out on DVD, and each set has troves of documentaries, interviews, and special features to shed light on the creative processes going into the characters. I can get 899 news stories mentioning Lorelei Gilmore from 2001-2004. took me a minute or two to find and has a couple good pull quotes that could be used to flesh out the article. I'd add them and go find more, but I'm strangely disinclined to given the apparent desire to delete any work I put into them and re-merge the articles. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:41, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

You have proven that one character out of maybe 20 exists, nothing more, nothing less. Now it's your job to filter out encyclopedic facts in significant numbers and add them to each article. All articles that don't can be trimmed because of WP:WAF#Notability and undue weight, short articles can be merged seemlessly because they still fail WP:FICT, and that's what happened after giving sufficient time. Since you keep rejecting my ways to improve the encyclopedia (which also happen to be backed up by policies and guidelines), that automatically makes it your turn. So, are you going to do some work, or are you just leaving a mess, hoping that others will do your work for you (which obviously no-one was willing to do in the last four months now)? I'd be happy to see that the former is true. Regards, – sgeureka 09:29, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I am not going to put any effort into the articles while you are actively threatening to delete them, no. That seems a waste of my time. Get off your high horse and find something else to ruin on the project and I'll be happy to put some time into fixing them. But as long as you're actively threatening to delete the articles, no, I'm not going to put in the effort of re-writing them all. It's trivial to find sources for any of them - even if you pick a more minor character like Logan Huntzberger you can readily find interviews like and - both of which will require effort to follow up on and find the full article. You could find all of this too in a trivial amount of time. Now - are you going to back off and let me work on the articles, or are you going to keep bullying and threatening? Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I am puzzled why you want others (e.g. me) to do the work when finding and adding the sources is so trivial and easy. "Threatening" the articles or not, no-one (including you) has ever worked on the articles in an encyclopedic manner, that's why they were proposed to be merged in the first place. Ample time was given to allow volunteers to show up, but no-one did (show up), amplifying the need for merging. If you check back on all your comments regarding these articles, you will notice that you never announced you'd like to fix them, but rather that you don't see the problems with these articles and that you reject my cleanup attemps, even going so far as to edit-war. So I had to assume you ignore policies, guidelines, and proper wiki-procedure. But I am hopeful with your last reply that you're sincere with improving the articles through encyclopedic expansion so that they can stand alone. I'll check back in a couple of weeks for progress. If university is too time-consuming for you at the moment (I know it is for me), I am sure you can live with the merged articles and improve only one article at a time. – sgeureka 15:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I think a display of good faith on your part would be preferable. The articles clearly can be improved. I doubt you have any serious disagreement with that notion, given the availability of sources for the two I showed you. Given that the articles clearly can pass all requirements, it is preferable to have them in place. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to keep the articles, then the burden of proof to show notability is on your end. Now, that said, if you can show reasonable improves to two or three out of twenty characters in a reasonable amount of time, with the resulting articles agreed to have sufficient notability, then other editors should recognize your good-faith efforts to do so (knowing that WP is volunteer work) and allow the other articles to remain, re-evaluating the efforts after a few months. (Editors that don't allow for this would be strongly urged to pause and re-read this discussion and the ep&char 2 arbcom case). Alternatively, work the articles up in sandbox space so they are not challenged at all, and then present them. Either way, you or any other editor that wants these articles is responsible for showing why they should remain, given they have been challenged for some time now. --MASEM 12:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

That sounds very reasonable. I've got a very packed week (my PhD exams are Friday), but I'll start work on these over the weekend, and try to get a cross-section of them (i.e. not the three most important characters) started. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

• In the meantime, I suggest you userfy the articles: I propose that the merger be reinstated, just in case Phil Sandifer is too busy to make improvements other than a merger. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:40, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Phil has said above he will start fixing these articles if I only backed off. I promised to do so for the next few weeks (a month), and now it's Phil's turn to keep his word. I am sure if he finds himself unable to do so, he will be more than glad to hand over his burden to cleanup the articles back to the editors who can (and already did) cleanup the articles instead of him. The merge can be reinstated then, and Phil can continue in userspace at his own pace so that the quality of the encyclopedia is not more strained than it has to be. – sgeureka 12:28, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a single edit by Phil (or anyone else for that matter) in the last month to establish real-world notability of these characters. This makes it five months now since the initial merge discussion started. I am going to redirect all the characters now to the List of characters agin. Should anyone be interested in adding significant amounts of real-world information to a character, he is certainly encouraged to resurrect this one article, but not all at once to leave them in their former bad shape. – sgeureka 14:42, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, the link doesn't work anymore since the articles are all redirected now. But it showed about 15 edits in the last 30 days, mostly by IPs, a cat-bot, and some edits by an editor who made some minor edits and a major one adding an infobox. – sgeureka 16:31, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm the editor who made some minor and major edits recently. I was attempting to fix the articles relating to the characters of Gilmore Girls, but I see now there has been lots of issues regarding this. I was more than willing to take the time to clean-up the articles but if all that's going to happen is a redirection into one article, I'll put my efforts elsewhere. Gospelgal23 (talk) 18:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

If you want to work towards adding sourced and non-trivial real-world content (see WP:GA and WP:FA for many good examples), then please don't be discouraged by the redirection. From experience, you won't need more than one paragraph for each season to summarize the character arc, which mostly already appears in the characters list (that's why they were redirected in the first place). Everything else should be about e.g the casting, the reception, independently-sourced analysis of the character's characteristics and motivation, and maybe mentions in popular culture. This may be fairly easy for the very main characters (Lorelai, Rory), but it will probably be hard work finding sources for everyone else. – sgeureka 19:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

A thought about how to better deal with some fictional articles

Please see here.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Possible theatre guidelines

Saw this on {{RFCmedia list}} and though I would mention it here:

• Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Theatre Whether a guideline or policy should be made encouraging editors to include character lists in all articles about plays.

-- Ned Scott 04:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Character Lists in Play articles

Copied this request over from Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (writing about fiction). Dorftrottel (canvass) 02:47, May 5, 2008

Can someone provide some guidance regarding the make-up of Character lists in Play articles? There is some dispute on this and no clear guidelines. (Unfortunately, we have very clear guidelnes for Film, books, even toys and games, but not for plays.) I see that in your "exemplary articles" list you have several tv series and one film, but no plays. Should character lists be in list form (like in a theatre program or playbook) or in prose (like in the exemplary tv series articles that are listed)? And in complex plays (like Shakespeare) should the character lists be fairly complete, or just the main characters? Or should character sections be placed in a separate article completely and deleted from the main play article? Thanks.Smatprt (talk) 02:29, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

for shakespeare, at any rate, the consensus is (or at least should be) that every named character is notable. Usually multiple articles have been written about even the most minor of them. DGG (talk) 16:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Is this really the consensus? Might anyone else chime in on this question? Thanks Smatprt (talk) 03:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

One of the most ardent deletionists kind of accepted what DGG said, so I guess there is your (current) consensus. Character lists of plays aren't really a problem on wikipedia, so no guidelines have focused on them yet. If as you say there is a dispute, maybe it's time for someone to create a guideline. But I can't help there... – sgeureka 09:08, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

When it comes to classic works, such as those from Shakespeare plays, the amount of real world impact tends to be pretty big. Very few characters have been played, replayed, re-created, interpreted, inspired, etc, as much as the ones he created.

Though, in general, I wouldn't be surprised to see character articles and lists of characters being just as common as the ones we see for other media. These kinds of characters very often will have a lot more real world information simply because the plays have been done in different productions. A TV character normally gets played once, maybe twice, but a character from a play could be played dozens of times, each could have their own impact and critical reception, as well as the thoughts and insight by the actors. -- Ned Scott 05:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Full House characters

So, I am certainly not arguing that the main characters of Full House are independently notable -- especially the lead six. And a List of Full House characters is also useful. But the current state of these articles is atrocious. Pretty much every character article (the actor articles are fine) in the following navbox is rife with original research on the characters' motivations, personalities, and even, in one case, conception, and none of them have any third-party sources whatsoever.

v t e Full House & Fuller House
Characters	Michelle Tanner
Episodes	Full House Season 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Fuller House
Related	The Unauthorized Full House Story

Any thoughts on where to start with fixing this situation? Powers 14:42, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Propose a trim & merge and state your concerns there. Provide interested editors (who would like keeping the articles separate) a link to a character article that you think reasonably passes WP:FICT and WP:WAF (WP:GA has many decent examples, such as Boone Carlyle) so that they know what the articles should strive for. If no one has volunteered after one or two months, or if there is no progress in encyclopedic expanding, start the trim&merge the articles yourself. If there is significant progress from other editors, however, allow for more time. State that merged character articles can always be resurrected as soon as they meet WP:FICT; you can also bribe editors with the outlook of a Good Article (e.g. Characters of Carnivàle) or Featured List (e.g. List of characters in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow). As a rule of thumb, I usually withdraw a trim&merge proposal as soon as there are at least three solid paragraphs of non-trivial real-world information (there are more lower fruit to pick elsewhere). Be aware though that WP:FICT is not "official" again yet. If this causes opposition, either back up your concerns with other policies and guidelines (e.g. WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:V), or wait until FICT is up and running. – sgeureka 15:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I have an even better idea: look for sourced material that does discuss their motivations. That will meet any possible version of WP:FICTION and other WP guidelines. DGG (talk) 16:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Or an even better-better idea: Work on sourcing the merged-character list and only spin-out characters that can support their own article. That way, you have one decent article with potential for more, instead of ten terrible ones that may be unfixable. – sgeureka 16:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

So you all think I should merge, or at least consider merging the articles? I think most of the ones with separate articles deserve one, so proposing a merge seems a bit disingenuous. What if I cleared them to stubs? Powers 02:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

A potential difficulty with that course of action is that another editor will want to AfD the stub because they lack notability. Basically, you (or we) need to establish notability for the articles as soon as possible or consider merging them until we can. There is a decided shift toward immediatism in the WP community, especially those that work on articles about fiction. Ursasapien (talk) 04:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Considering how long it's been since this show's been out (and finished), I think there's a fairly good chance of finding enough real-world context to justify at least some of the major characters. I did a little bit of research for Bob Saget a while back, so I'll see if I can find anything related in that. -- Ned Scott 04:45, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

• This is an interesting case. I am pondering how, exactly, the character of Danny Tanner can be said to have real world significance. At any event, to respond to Ursasapien's remark, I am not convinced that if these are stubified they would necessarily be deleted. 1) Mergeism is not deletion and (2) if the stub includes some kind of nod to real-world impact that should suffice. Indeed, these are less likely to be deleted if they are something more than mere plot summary vehicles. Personally, I think Sgeureka's merge idea is the best idea here. Eusebeus (talk) 13:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
  • To answer your ponderance, the character is referred to often in Saget's standup routines. Just one example off the top of my head; there's probably more. Powers 16:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
    • There needs to be a lot more than that in order to hold an article. And that's more relevant to Bob Saget than the character. Even if it's included, it'd be better to strengthen the list with it anyways. If you want any of these articles to stand, you'll need at least three solid paragraphs of real world information to start off with. TTN (talk) 22:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Three solid paragraphs is a good goal, but as long as the potential is there we should not require those three paragraphs right off the bat. I'm not saying there should be a separate article or not, but just that we do give way to reasonable potential, if it exists. -- Ned Scott 04:45, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Bulbasaur

Bulbasaur is one of the four remaining Pokemon articles left after the other 489 were merged to lists. It has no reason to exist, but it has stuck around for some reason. The main argument to keep it is that it was once a featured article, but that's a moot point because it, like many other fiction articles, were demoted after our standards changed. Many of those have also been merged. The actual topic has nothing to establish notability, and for that reason it needs to be redirected. It has survived a few discussions so far because of wikilawyering, but it would be nice for that to change. I doubt this'll accomplish anything, but it's worth a try. TTN (talk) 22:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

If by "I doubt this'll accomplish anything" you mean "I doubt I will be able to create a consensus to merge this article," I suspect you are correct. However, the article does have some things going for it. It does have some marketing information. The character has appeared in many different mediums, all of which are sourced. It has some creation and conception information. While I agree that the article still has a way to go, it seems to have a good deal of potential. Are four articles about individual Pokémon really hurting the encyclopedia that much?

Misplaced Pages has SO MANY articles that are not in good shape. Only a small percentage of them involve fiction. The encyclopedia only has four articles on individual Pokémon and you want to merge them, while it has thousands of poorly formed articles on biological life forms that have individual articles. Please move on. Perhaps you could begin by reading up on what the term wikilawyering really means. Why not help us out on #Character Lists in Play articles? Ursasapien (talk) 05:56, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

For context, when did WP:POKE become inactive? And where were the most recent discussions about a merger of Bulbasaur? (I remember that there was a lot of hubbub a few months ago, but I didn't care joining then). I must say though that I would not be terribly embarrassed to see the article kept because a certain quality is there, but the article still just repeats what the Pokédex said, and where and when Bulbasaur appeared (i.e. everywhere). Any article for a Pokémon can do that. There are only a few bits of information that make Bulbasaur unique, and I am not sure he needs a separate article just for these bits. TTN, would you merge the article into List of Pokémon (1-20)#Bulbasaur as you see fit, without redirecting the article? That would make it easier for outsiders to see what content there really is (I read B.'s article, but I don't know how much of it is really important or significant). – sgeureka 06:56, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I agree with you (FOR ONCE) TTN. It's not notable enough to stand on its own on this site (Unlike Pikachu, Jigglypuff, and Meowth). It needs FAR more sources and information than just "It's a toy at McDonalds!" & "It's the main star in 2 children books!" to stand out on its own, according to the current standards, correct? Oh, and to Sgeureka, I don't think his current restrictions allow him to merge articles at all, at least, that's how I remember it. ZeroGiga (talk) 11:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it died a few months ago. The discussions can be found on the project page if I recall correctly. The article has already been merged at this point. There is nothing else relevant to add. I believe I can move information over, but I have no real idea. TTN (talk) 14:00, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Bulbasaur is on the cusp of being legitimately spinoutable, I think. With its creation section, it's better than the other 400 odd ones. Sceptre 14:20, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

The only actual information in that section is just your average generic information. The mention about the article is just complete junk that was added to try to make it passable. It just hasn't been removed yet for some reason TTN (talk) 14:34, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

(to ZeroGiga) TTN can in fact merge all he wants, he just can't merge&redirect. (to TTN) The promotional food chain merchandising of the character is not mentioned in the list, neither is the voice actor of the anime, and that B. was a main character of two children’s books (at least that's what I imagine is important to the real world). The ref-sourcing in the article should also replace the {{fact}}s in the list. – sgeureka 15:17, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Unless the merchandise is somehow special, it'd be pointless to list it for each individual one. The same goes for the books (there are various ones with books if I remember correctly). The voice actor information is pretty minor. It doesn't really matter if its there or not. Last time I checked, many of the references were pretty bad, but maybe I should look at them again. TTN (talk) 15:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

a clear example of the continuing all-or-nothing attitude that got us into this to start with. There's no real consensus over these, and the obvious thing to do in that case is to keep the best. This is among the better ones compared to the general run of such articles. so people of good will should simply let the matter rest & work on improving thousands of articles in this subject area that need improving. DGG (talk) 22:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

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