Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)

Fiction survey 2009

One of the things Wikipedia:Dispute resolution suggests is a survey. Back in mid-October, I wrote up this survey and 4 people at this talk page commented on it. Now I am bringing it up again. Please edit the questions, anyone, everyone. Blank the page if you want. Rewrite the whole thing if you want. Thank you. --Pixelface (talk) 09:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

We may need to use something like this if we fail to gain consensus due to the second prong ("importance to the work") if it leaves it to vague for the majority. Something like this can then be used to be fully explicit about what types of fiction elements are considered "important", so that those can be treated here (I'd expect episodes and major characters), but that means all others immediately fail the second prong and can only be shown to be notable through the GNG (eg having significant coverage in secondary sources). This (explicitly writing what is important per the second prong) is not an ideal solution because of the fact it doesn't allow for borderline cases. Given where we are now, being close to getting consensus on this version, the survey would have to be next should that completely fail. --MASEM 14:27, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

(ec) A survey, just to get more opinions, might be a good idea; maybe with a watchlist notice. This proposal has been active for well over three years, and some more input would probably help quite a bit in brining it closer to a resolution. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:28, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

We've technically had two surveys "recently", the RFC to try to pass the old version of this FICT that failed (but showed that the solution was close to the middle given equal and offsetting dissents from both sides of the issue), and the RFC at WP:N that tried to gauge how strong WP:N was with respect to spinout articles and lists in response to trying to figure out fiction issues. Both led to this version of FICT now. --MASEM 14:47, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, I have trouble, giving Pixelface's past engagement with this proposal, taking this "You know what we need, a survey" suggestion seriously, particularly given that he last made it, if I recall, moments after the last RFC closed. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:20, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

No Phil, you recall incorrectly. And what RFC are you talking about? The RFC on FICT started by Masem on June 3, 53 minutes after I mentioned the rejected tag to him? Or the RFC on N started by Randomran that closed on October 23? I suggested a survey here on October 14, after Thebainer rejected your request for extension regarding TTN. Although I did mention it again in Novembet and December.

For those who don't know, in October, you made a request to extend the restrictions imposed upon TTN during E&C2. On October 9, arbitrator Stephen Bain rejected the request and said "One has to begin with the observation that the community has failed to produce a notability guideline particularly for either television episodes or fictional characters." So on October 14, in my attempt to develop such a notability guideline, I wrote up a draft of the survey that I had suggested to Masem clear back on June 10, and started a thread about it here, which was dead at the time. David Fuchs, Masem, and Collectonian commented. Also on October 14, I added a note about the survey to {{fiction notice}}, Collectonian reverted. A week later, on October 21, I re-added a note about the survey to {{fiction notice}}, Collectonian reverted. I re-added, Collectonian reverted. I wanted people to be aware of the survey so they could offer their input and edit it before it went live, unlike when Randomran started the RFC on N. Also on October 21, I asked arbitrator Stephen Bain about the survey, and got no response. On October 22, I started a thread about the survey at the village pump, and two people did comment on the talk page of the survey.

On October 23, the RFC on N closed. Your request for extension was archived by Rlevse on October 24 after Stephen Bain and FloNight rejected the request and no other Arbcom members commented. On October 27 I asked you about the survey I wrote, on October 28 you said here that "I support a survey along these lines...That said, I think this survey is far too long, and far too demanding, and that it is not likely to work." 39 minutes later, you created User:Phil Sandifer/Fiction proposal. On November 21, you used your admin tools and unprotected[1][2] WP:FICT and moved your proposal over and added a note to {{fiction notice}} — and your "pronge" proposal is what we are all discussing now. --Pixelface (talk) 09:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Given your past temper tantrum over the Valen article, it's really quite odd watching you create a proposal that would wipe that article out. --Pixelface (talk) 09:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Equal and offsetting dissents? The FICT in June was opposed by a majority of editors. And I wouldn't call the RFC on N a "survey", more of a horrible multiple choice test with no E) None of the above. And if you want to know what led to this version of FICT now, see my reply to Phil Sandifer. --Pixelface (talk) 08:50, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the survey will help. First, it's byzantine. The average editor won't participate, and we'll never agree on how to read the results. Second, it focuses on the type of content without talking about quality. I don't doubt there are a few weirdos who want to delete all fiction (and a few more who want to keep it all). But most people are in the middle, and don't have a strong opinion on *all* fiction. They just want articles to have reliable, independent secondary sources. Which brings me to the final point. The survey will attract people who have opinions on fiction, but you wouldn't get much participation from people who have strong opinions on WP:V, WP:OR, WP:NOT, and WP:N. In all our policies and guidelines, there's a strong consensus to avoid articles based entirely on primary sources, let alone unreliable sources, or official press releases and advertisements and such. (Although, for the record, this guideline would relax the last one. A careful summary of arms-length self-promotion would be considered the least of all the evils.) Randomran (talk) 16:29, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• Its not only byzantine in scale, its jesuitical in complexity as well. its one holy mother of a survey. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:38, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather not have a survey. We are still trying to read the chicken bones from the WP:N RfC, which (although heavily disputed) was well put together. We don't need another. Protonk (talk) 16:46, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• Move to User:Pixelface/Fiction Survey 2009 draft and ignore ;) Jack Merridew 16:48, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I've rewritten the survey and it's at User:Pixelface/Fiction Survey 2009. I would appreciate any feedback on its talk page as well as any edits to the survey. --Pixelface (talk) 03:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Renaming "importance within the fictional work"

Considering that this prong has caused some confusion, perhaps it should be renamed to more clearly represent what it is talking about. Something like "Importance to understanding the work as a whole"?じんない 01:00, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• Renaming doesn't fix the problem, that 'importance' is left to editors to determine (functionally). Protonk (talk) 01:06, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
• Yeah, this needs more than a rename. It needs to become more objective. The test has been floating somewhere between vague and useless, and frankly I think it's gotten worse in the past week. Randomran (talk) 01:30, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Feel free to roll it back then. I was trying to meet some of Gavin's objections, and he still seems unhappy, so if people think it's gotten worse, undo the changes. :) Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
    • I think we need consensus for either a "white list" or a "black list". This is the prong where we should say "it must be X, Y, or Z" or "it cannot be A, B, or C". I think that's the only objective standard that's going to work, besides reliable secondary sources. Randomran (talk) 02:51, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
      • That's unfortunate. We are stuck with a choice between an unworkably subjective statement and an inflexibly rigid standard. Part of the problem is that not all fiction is made the same. Most works of fiction fit poorly into wikipedia's mold of "intro/history/plot/reception/criticism" article structure and "List of Characters" sub-articles. Some characters are stand-ins, some are deep and nuanced, some work well outside the narrative and some are inexplicable outside of the work. We have no functional rubric to judge when a list is purely enumerative and when it enlivens the description of the whole work. But I can't say that importance should be tossed out, because then we just have the first plank (pretty much ILIKEIT) and the third plank. We might as well just do Kww's compromise at this point. Protonk (talk) 03:04, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
        • Aren't there some things we can say are *never* important... or that are so seldom important, that when they are they will probably meet the general notability guideline? Randomran (talk) 05:06, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
          • Doesn't the list already descrbe some? Cameo appearances I believe was on the list at one time.じんない 07:43, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
            • Someone removed it. But that's exactly the kind of "black list" I think we should have. (And it wouldn't be pure black: a cameo that has lots of coverage in reliable secondary sources would still meet WP:N.) Randomran (talk) 08:01, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
• Actually, I can see where this is an issue. A silly, two-paragraph article could satisfy everything except this prong, and we all know it's better off in a larger, broader article. Generally speaking, the broader a topic, the most significant it is. I feel the only way to handle it without breaking compromise is to take it case by case. — Deckiller 05:13, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

One way to apporach it would be to make a sub-paragpahs similar to Video game content guidelines. This would give a couple examples for each type, those we would deem worthy, those we wouldn't and those that would be taken on a case-by-case basis. We would have to look back on previous disccussions to see what clearly is in the first two categories or come to a consensus here.じんない 07:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, a black list, a white list, and a gray list. Stuff we agree is usually unimportant (save WP:N), usually important, and those that can only be ascertained by consensus. Randomran (talk) 08:01, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• The problem is what is important to one editor will be unimportant to another, and the use of examples won't stop the prong "Role within the fictional work" being the source of disputes. In my view, if you can't define objectively which fictional elements are central to understanding a work of fiction in just a few simple sentences, then we have no alternative other than to drop or replace this prong. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:45, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• That seems like your trying to undermine the whole concept of this article. Not everything has objective measures to qualify it, even for those that use objective criteria, subjectiveness plays a role, else we would not have WP:IGNORE and WP:IMPERFECT. By creating a white list, black list and grey list removes the argument of the editor's perogative in most cases because it gives clear examples which others can refer back to should a dispute arise.じんない 13:24, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• Apologoies, but I am not trying to undermine the process of discussion, I just think it is a dead end. Even with examples, I feel the concept of what is or is not "central to understanding the work" will be disputed endlessly. --Gavin Collins (talk) 13:31, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I do not think that a white and black list is going to work. I think we're better off with a vague prong that will be the subject of debate than any attempt at a bright line test, which is going to lead to larger messes. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:44, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

That's why we might have a "narrow black list" or a "wide white list". The idea wouldn't be to set the bright line between unimportant and important, but to have a filter that gets rid of the plain and obviously trivial. (e.g.: If we'd argue about whether a 6/10 is important enough, then the white list would say "anything above 4 out of 10 is important"... or vice versa "anything below 3 out of 10 is unimportant". We don't try to be precise, but we try to have some kind of filter here.) Randomran (talk) 16:40, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The prong should still remain vague, but ought to give explicit examples (the black and whiteslists) where the line clearly can be drawn (but still allowing for exceptions). We've already mentioned episodes and main characters as likely passing, while one-time cameo characters extremely rarely do (if any?). Now, if this guideline doesn't gain acceptance because the second prong is considered too vague, the next step is to do something like what Pixelface has suggested, outlining exactly in more detail what specific elements meet or fail this prong. I don't like that approach if we have to do it as it going to bloat this guideline and people will game it much more than the current second prong, but it is the next obvious step to take. --MASEM 17:15, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Phil and Masem, a vague prong will not provide guidance that would help resolve eiditorial disputes. On the other hand, I think using lists of ficitonal elements as examples (whether narrow or broad) is not workable either, as making comparisions between, say, fictional characters in different works, or comparisosn of characters with fictional weapons would be like comparing chalk with cheese. Again, I call on the participants of this discussion to come to their senses, and recognise that this prong does not work. I can appreciate that accademics and commentators frequently identify characters or scenes in work of fiction as being "central to understanding the work", but they do so as a way of structuring their analysis or as a jumping off point for literary criticism or discussion. However using such personal judgements as a benchmark or filter won't work in an objective way that can be applied to this guideline. I have proposed that importance should be established by passing the three prong test, rather than being one of the tests itself, and I think this is the only way forward. --Gavin Collins (talk) 17:17, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Removing this prong would be a disaster, because not everything with real coverage in a game developer blog is notable. Randomran (talk) 17:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The white list, IMO, would be "non-cameo characters and episodes". Why not just apply this guideline to those two things? We automatically filter out inanimate objects, verbs/moves/attacks... The kinds of things you see in developer blogs that probably aren't important. It adds some much needed clarity to the prong. Randomran (talk) 17:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather err on the side of risking excessive inclusion than setting up a hard line test that's going to be used to bully out articles. One thing that I've run into on other notability guidelines - even ones that explicitly say that WP:N is also a route to inclusion - is that failing the guideline is cited even when WP:N is satisfied. There was a very lengthy and contentious AfD on an athlete who failed WP:ATHLETE but passed WP:N, and many people stuck to "Delete, fails WP:ATHLETE" even though WP:ATHLETE says that it's an alternative to WP:N.

If we make a white list, by default anything not on the white list would be on a black list, and that black list would be cited as a reason to delete in all cases. It will get used as "Weapons are inherently non-notable per WP:FICT."

I asked, some time ago, if anyone could point to the sorts of problematic arguments they saw coming as a result of this prong. Nobody really gave any examples of arguments that might gain serious traction inappropriately. Is it possible that fears over the vagueness of this prong are unfounded? Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:58, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

We can be very specific that something that passes WP:N will pass WP:FICT regardless of whether it meets the three prongs. The entire reason we have notability guidelines is because virtually anyone who worked on an article will say it's important. Randomran (talk) 18:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but it's less clear to me that there's going to be widespread and problematic confusion on AfD between "I think it's important so ha" and "here is what this element contributes to the overall work, and why it is important." Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:32, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

If the consensus says it's important, then it's important. That's a real problem when a lot of people come out of the woodwork and essentially say WP:ILIKEIT. It becomes enough to stonewall any cleanup, even so much as a merge. Randomran (talk) 18:49, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Phil's point that these prongs will be used to subvert WP:N. For example, at the recent AFD for Lying Bastard (a spaceship), I found some independent sources of literary criticism which had something to say about this ship. TTN dismissed these on the grounds that the sources were discussing the plot and so there was no real-world content. AFAIC, the real-world test is completely unacceptable for this reason. If we have good independent sources which discuss the plot, setting, characters, theme and other internals of a piece of fiction then the matter is notable, regardless of whether there is any real-world aspect to these details. Such commentary is quite normal for a piece of fiction since the most important thing about a piece of fiction is whether it works as fiction - telling an entertaining and engaging story. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:00, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

More generally on the issue of importance, it seems likely that this discussion is just recapitulating old arguments which were explored when WP:N was created. Surely the point of the construction of WP:N was to arrive at an objective test - the existence of independent notice of the topic. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:00, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

And note that the word cameo does not mean unimportant - quite the contrary. It means that the portrait is a distinctive miniature and so is of greater standing than a minor part. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:00, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad we have agreement that independent notice in reliable third-party sources is enough. We need to curtail abuse by both hardcore inclusionists and deletionists. In the latter case, this is just a matter of saying "alternatively, a element that passes the general notability guideline is notable, regardless of how it stands up to the test at WP:FICT." Randomran (talk) 19:11, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Cameo apperance does not mean important enough for it's own article, unless that article can support itself per the GNG or SNG. For example, an author writing about a fictional fantasy world and having a minor character from the Harry Potter series appear for 1 brief scene does not constitute something that would pass the 2nd prong.

Also, we should be able to say "minor characters", "one-time characters" "incidental plot items" should be an easy black list that could help clarify some basic bottom line that doesn't meet notability by their very nature and on the other hand, principle protagonist or antagonist in a major work (one that was among are on the top sales lists worldwide) would be ones to include because of recognition factor, asumming the 3rd prong can be met. FE: It would be hard to say that Link is not a well recognized character around the world. And his real-world coverage by reliable sources is slim (those polls are not authorative or worse, not even reliable since FE the GameFAQs ones can be ballot-suffed). However, by sheer recogniztion factor alone and with the two remaining awards to meet the 3rd prong, plus the importance of the Zelda series impact to video games it, this is a kind of article that should easily pass.じんない 19:37, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I am happy witht current draft of this prong. In order to establish that fictional element is "central to understanding the work", it is suggested that commentary from reliable sources on the topic is the best way to judge this. I think that this recomendation releases me from complaining that this test is subjective, now that some sort of evidence is required. --Gavin Collins (talk) 22:08, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• I like where we were going here. But I'm starting to have second thoughts about the word "cameo". Maybe it's too technical, or maybe cameo refers to something more specific than any old minor character. But I do think we need to clarify this prong still. Even if there are aspects of the current prong that are good, it's buried in a lot of other fluff. Randomran (talk) 15:33, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

hmm

Doesn't WP:PRESERVE trump this, since it's policy, while this is a guideline? Jtrainor (talk) 04:30, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

This doesn't override that. This is meant to describe when fiction elements get articles. If they don't merit it, they can be covered elsewhere in the context of the work itself. --MASEM 04:33, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

No, all it means is that if the information article is deleted, it should be preserved unless it meets one of those exceptions. This can be done a number of ways.じんない 07:51, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

If an article is deleted, its content is obviously not preserved. WP:PRESERVE is a policy which is routinely violated by failure to observe WP:BEFORE. Such action is blatant disruption. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:PRESERVE is also deficient. Suppose you ran across Phone directory for New York City, a list of phonebook entries for the city. This is a pretty clear-cut case of something that is not suitable for Wikipedia, per WP:NOTDIRECTORY #2. However, WP:PRESERVE tells me I should attempt to preserve this information instead of removing it. None of the "what to do instead of removal" part has a suitable remedy, and a phone directory doesn't appear to be covered in any of the exceptions. Pagrashtak 21:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. It would fall under "irrelevancy" in the manner that Wikipedia is not a directory listing. That list merely helps clarify it.じんない 15:45, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Then WP:PRESERVE is basically meaningless. By definition, any article that is deleted has been deemed not suitable for Wikipedia, and could thus be called "irrelevant". Therefore, deleting an article does not violate PRESERVE by definition. PRESERVE boils down to "don't remove anything unless it needs to be removed", which should be painfully obvious. Pagrashtak 16:35, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

One line should be removed

Near the end is the statement: "An article that features significant real-world coverage will rarely be deleted." I've seen enough AFDs to prove that statement wrong, specially with regards to fiction. Suggest rewording or simply not going there. It's a global statement that can come back and bite someone later. 23skidoo (talk) 19:21, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I know we're talking about deleted material here... but can you recall any examples? In my experience, real-world information goes a long way. Randomran (talk) 19:37, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I would reword it as "An article that features significant real-world coverage will not be deleted." Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 19:50, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

That invalidates the first two prongs. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

No article with significant real world coverage should be deleted. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 19:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd agree with you to the extent that an article with real coverage in reliable third-party sources should never be deleted. But since this guideline is going to start accepting non-independent corporate promotions like developer blogs and DVD commentary for "real world coverage", we do need to have the other two prongs as a control -- just to avoid bias towards a corporation who has generous publicity on their fictional works. Randomran (talk) 20:26, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I haven't seen articles with real world info deleted. They're ususally kept. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 20:38, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Peregrine and Randomran. I would be interested to see if 23skidoo can back up his assertion with some examples, otherwise I think he may be mistaken. My experience is that articles that are all plot summary get deleted or are written from an in universe perspective get deleted as these are the badges of fancruft. Significant real-world coverage is the badge of an encyclopedic article, and that is what Wikipedia is about. --Gavin Collins (talk) 22:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I have seen articles about fan fiction that some eighth grader made up get deleted. It is common for them to have real-world information, such as the creator, the source of inspiration, plans for future works, etc. To suggest that they should not be deleted on these grounds is absurd. Pagrashtak 16:44, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

"When articles successfully feature both notability and real-world coverage, they become very difficult to delete, because they have passed the major tests of inclusion." Why skimp on the facts, or on the outcomes? ThuranX (talk) 01:30, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

About the only time I could say it might be deleted or merged is if it has one review or the like. However, we've addressed that already as generally not being enough.じんない 03:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

No 'trousers rolled' for me, thank you

This issue got some significant real-world coverage today. No, not this proposed guideline; Garrison Keillor's column today was about tastes in fiction. On one hand there's the sort of fiction that he places under the umbrella 'art' and the other he sums up as 'BLAM BLAM BLAM'.

"She looked out the window and saw the reflection of her own pale face against the drifted snow."

"Read my book, buttface," said the novelist standing in the dim doorway of Brad's garage. "Pick it up and read it." "I ain't gonna read your book, it's got a lot of weird words like 'languid' and 'luminous' in it," said Brad. He wondered if that was a real gun in the novelist's hand. It was. BLAM BLAM BLAM. Blood spattered all over the garage and his workbench. Blood glittered on the gunstock that Brad had been sanding for his shotgun. He wouldn't be sanding it no more. No sir.

"Read my book," the novelist said. "Are there breasts in it?" asked Brad. "Oh just grow up," the man sneered. He didn't notice Brad's left hand reaching under the workbench for the .357 Magnum he kept taped there for just this eventuality. "I'm a serious novelist," the man said quietly, "and I've won many awards." But those awards weren't going to save his skin from some serious perforation now. No, sir. BLAM BLAM BLAM.

"You got a problem with that?" said the poet. The columnist turned. He saw a beautiful woman with a gun in her right hand. Her long auburn hair hung down over her pert breasts. "You wrote this?" he said. "The part about looking out the window and seeing your pale reflection against the snow?" She nodded. He was going to say that hers was a reflection he wouldn't mind seeing himself. But he never got that chance.

• http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/14/opinion/edkeillor.php

The issue, of course, is that not all fiction is the same. People are all het up about the 'importance' of a piece of fiction. Well, ya, some fiction is more important than other fiction. Macbeth is an important piece of fiction; episode 117 of Buffy the Phallus Slayer is not.

Is this the class of 'importance' being discussed here? No, but, yeah, but, no, but...

I see the core dispute as being one of undue weight; sure, some unimportant stuff warrants some coverage, but the important stuff is more important.

This current proposal is an attempt to make the wiki safe for the unimportant stuff; things like the importance of push-up bras in the Buffy franchise. I'm all for covering important fiction in depth; less important fiction should get less coverage and unimportant material should get little or none. The view that everything should be covered in fawning detail is a threat to the project; the mass-produced pop-culture material is, in effect, endless. Mebbe 10,000,000,000 non-notable articles was a bit of hyperbole; Wikipedia is not finished, but if you open the floodgates to endless non-notable fancruft, it will be.

• See also; The Library of Babel#Themes

Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:36, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Jack asserts above that Macbeth is important while Buffy is not. This view is incorrect for at least three reasons:

1. Shakespeare's plays were the popular entertainment of the day. Age has given them some lustre but they still come across as comparable with current works. For example, I saw Hamlet the other day. I had not seen a full production before and so was a little surprised to find it quite similar to an episode of Blackadder - full of bawdy and sarcastic humour with much "antic" behaviour. The stars included David Tennant and Patrick Stewart and I found their performances to be less convincing than their roles as The Doctor and Jean Luc Picard. I expect that outstanding shows like Doctor Who and Star Trek will endure and Buffy seems to be in the same award-winning class.
2. The objective importance of these entertainments seems comparable, as measured by audience size and economic value. Artistic quality is not an objective measure per the dictum, de gustibus non est disputandum.
3. Wikipedia is the encylopedia that anyone can edit. This core principle mandates a catholic and tolerant approach to content. Self-appointed arbiters of taste wishing to impose their own variety of intellectual snobbery and censorship should find another project which is more constrained.

Colonel Warden (talk) 11:20, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

As I've said before, I've seen the future and Wikia.com is in it;

Find and collaborate with people who love what you love.

Jack Merridew 11:36, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

There is a Shakespeare Wiki at Wikia but it seems a sorry thing. Your proposition that we should transwiki articles such as Macbeth there and then delete them from Wikipedia seems to be either pointless busywork or worse. One of the main functional benefits of Wikipedia is the easy interlinking of topics so that above I am easily able to refer to multiple topics within the same sentence. The more topics that it contains, the greater the power of this effect. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I made no such suggestion and you know it. Wikia's for fancruft. Jack Merridew 12:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikia seems to be for anything and everything: for example, one of the biggest Wikias covers Psychology at a professional level, regarding itself as superior to Wikipedia in its standards. But, by their nature, Wikia wikis are insular and divisive - the very opposite of encylopaedic. I shall continue to work here since one Wiki is more than enough and I prefer a wide-ranging selection of topics. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:03, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Glad you see that you are familiarizing yourself with Wikia's range of sub-domains; I'm sure it will prove useful to you in your future. Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we should get into a debate about relative importance of specific fictional elements, as this is a matter of personal opinion, and we could discuss this for all eternity and not form any agreement. In response to Jack Merridew's fear that this guideline will "open the floodgates" to fancruft, my current view is that it does not permit the type of coverage common on fansites such as Wikia. The requirement for substantial real-world coverage is the quality check that will ensure only topics that can support an encyclopedic article should be included, as fancruft is mainly made up of trivial and in universe plot summary.

More interesting, the question now arises, how will ths guideline influence AfD debtates? Although the notability requirements have been relaxed, I think this guideline offers a lot more clarity. I estimate that 95-99% of all articles on fictonal elements fail WP:N due to lack of sourcing, so the three prongs will have a big influence on these debates. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:38, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Gavin Collins is absolutely right - WP:N rules, and editors' opinions about whether something is "art" are irrelevant. --Philcha (talk) 11:53, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

That's what independent sources are for. Jack Merridew 11:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The current requirement for significant real-world coverage from reliable sources should be enough to filter out the most blatant promotional material, as I have explained before. I think we can agree on this point, then the road to compromise is open before us. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:03, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Independent sources are necessary. You're missing the inherently promotional nature of everything that originates with the creators of mass-market pop-culture. They spend more on promotion than on content. Jack Merridew 12:33, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Jack, this has seriously been argued ad nauseam, and bringing it up repeatedly in different sections is not furthering the discussion. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 12:54, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

(EC with outdent)Buffy episode 117 is worthy of inclusion if, and only if, it's notable, as established by independent sources. Same for Macbeth, which passed that test probably a couple hundred years ago, if not even further back. I was thinking about this last night. Independent sources matters, because it debunks assumptions about things we might not find notable. Consider how often a band is notable, and why. Sonic Youth is a great example: Here's a band never played on the radio, except occasional college radio shows, which reach a limited audience. Their album sales aren't stellar. Critically, however, they are highly respected and well regarded. And more importantly, the list of bands who cite them as influences is huge. That's the measure of importance, the effect on others in the real world, documented neutrally. It's why I can't let go of Independent sourcing. ThuranX (talk) 12:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Jack and ThuranX, I accept your points made earlier at WT:FICT#An observation about tightening standards. However, I still think you can get good encyclopedic coverage from sources that are not independent (although Kww also dispute this - see above). If coverage passes the "significant real-world" prong of the test, then I don't think you have anything to worry about, as this prong is a suprisingly good "quality-control" test. As the great bulk of promotional material about fictional elements is in universe (e.g. Plant creatures)), I think this prong will be weed out the topics that are souced from inherently promotional coverage. Perhaps we can find some more examples were there is compromise. One example (from Hamelet) that would benefit from commentary to establish importance would be The Gravediggers. It is not well sourced as it stands, but many editions of the play contain a commentary which would not ordinarily be classed as independent for this reason. Unlike flap copy, which tends to be trivial, most classic texts are accompanied with an introduction or a commentary from the publishers. I would invite you to compromise on independents sourcing because it opens some interesting possibilities. --Gavin Collins (talk) 13:09, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Gavin Collins, I think you're mixing meanings of "independent" here. I took Jack Merridew's (12:33, 15 January 2009) and ThuranX's (12:57, 15 January 200) comments to mean effectively "objective", having no axe to grind - and I agree 100% on that. Commentaries in editions of Shakespeare are a different matter as they have no motivation to promote Shakespeare (he's long dead, his works are long out of copyright). The real "product" there is the commentary, but that's no different from e.g. a book by an expert on Cambrian fossils. --Philcha (talk) 13:24, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

@Phil: That was my meaning.

@Gavin: That way madness lies. You can get details from non-independent sources; the horse's mouth, if you will. But that's only appropriate once there's some, independent taking-of-note. Everything the horse says is promotional; there are billions of dollars at stake. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

That's not entirely true. On a number of levels. J. Michael Straczynski is undoubtedly the horse's mouth for Babylon 5, but he makes very little money off of it, as it's corporate owned and under a bizarre Hollywood accounting mechanism. So when he writes about production details, or does a DVD commentary, it's not because he makes big money off of the DVDs. He doesn't have any residuals payments on DVDs.

This is not an unusual situation. Much of the non-independent material - I would say virtually all of it that provides any significant real-world perspective - is not promotional as such - it's add-on. That is to say, for instance, the Grey's Anatomy Writers Blog does not seem to me to exist to get people to watch Grey's Anatomy. Nobody who is interested in reading that blog does not already watch the show. It's about providing something to the already existent audience.

Now, there's still something commercial there, I'll readily grant. But that's true elsewhere as well. Publication is always a commercial act. But it does not seem to me to always, or even usually, be promotional. Which is a key difference. We could specify non-promotional in the non-independent sources section if this would help. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Wait a moment, it already requires that the sources be non-promotional. Where is the actual issue here? Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:48, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Normal Again

When I started this thread, I picked on Buffy randomly; I picked #117 merely as a number.

• List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes lists
• Normal Again as the 117th episode

So I looked. It has one source, the creator and head writer; Macbeth has 30. The article has no iwlinks, while Macbeth has 36. Any question here? Jack Merridew 13:40, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• A quick search on Google Scholar turns up 48 hits for the Buffy episode. What I noticed is that the Shakespeare project has few featured articles and Macbeth isn't one of them - it doesn't even seem to be a GA. All this policy wonking isn't helping - huge amounts of talk and edits to no useful purpose. Last I heard, 25% of Wikipedia is now policy cruft and climbing... Colonel Warden (talk) 14:26, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Philcha, commentaries in classic works are not inherently promotional but they are provided as a means of promoting a particular edition, and I am not sure they can always be classed as being independent or secondary. I think a similar quality of coverage may be obtained from substantial real-world coverage that is not independent, like an author's commentary. Looking at the example given by Jack, the article Normal Again attempts to establish the episode as being central to understanding the work, but I don't think this claim is substantiated sufficiently to pass either the "Role within the fictional work" or "Real-world coverage" tests. Although it is claimed that this episode is the "ultimate postmodern look at the concept of a writer writing a show", is a bald assertion that is not supported by substantial arguement or commentary. It would be interesting to hear what other editors think about whether this article meets the three pronged test. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:32, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I find arguments that A) this proposal opens the floodgates to fancruft in a way that the current battleground approach to AfD doesn't, and B) coverage of fictional subjects will spell the end of Wikipedia too silly to take even remotely seriously. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:26, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• I am not sure you being fair, Phil, the main problem is that 95% of all articles on elements of fiction fail WP:N at the moment, so I think in a way, the floodgates have been opened and the current coverage of fictional topics is relatively poor comapared with arts based subjects. The concerns of Jack, ThuranX and others are highly relevant to this discussion and your comment is ignoring the tendancy by the majority contributors to treat fiction in a non-encyclopedic fashion. This guideline does address these issues, which is why I invite everybody to consider this draft as a workable compromise. If there are now any sticking points, I think we need to work through them with the use of examples, so we don't get stuck on abstractions and generalisations, and to propose workable solutions if something is lacking. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:01, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• And I am all for improving the fictional content. Aggressively. In fact, once we get this passed, my next project is going to be to try to formulate a way to get fiction articles improved. However, it's ridiculous to suggest that this guideline exacerbates the problem, and preposterous to suggest that the end of Wikipedia is nigh. Hysteria is not a legitimate response here. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:04, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Gavin, until you've got some verifiable stats, your constant use of the phrase "90/95 percent of fiction articles fail WP:N" statements are just more abstractions and generalizations, as you yourself put it. Hooper (talk) 16:06, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I've been misrepresented above, so I'll correct: I've never argued that no encyclopedic content can be derived from non-independent sources, just that you needed at least one independent source to confirm notability.

To address Phil's argument that that an objective test for the second prong isn't necessary, I submit that he is ignoring the role of the closing admin and the amount of discretion he feels comfortable exercising. When an admin is faced with clear-cut denial of an existing guideline (i.e. I don't care if the guideline says you need at least one mention in an independent source, I think that Grooming of Bert and Ernie's Eyebrows is critical to understanding Sesame Street ), an admin feels reasonably comfortable ignoring that !vote. The fewer objective standards a !vote violates, the less comfortable an admin is discounting it. When there are no objective standards, a large percentage of admins will fall back on simply counting !votes. That's inexcusable, and a clear violation of WP:NOT#DEMOCRACY, but we all know it's true.—Kww(talk) 16:05, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Kww, the whole point of this compromise draft is that the three pronged test widens the inclusion criteria for elements of fiction to bridge the differences between inclusionist and deletionists (in simple terms) by not relying soley on the GNG alone. You have hit the nail on the head regarding the need for evidence that a fictional element is important enough to pass the second prong, but I don't think that source has to be independent if it provides substantial real-world coverage, as the difference between the two in practise not much in terms of quality. But if you insist that the source has to be independent, then we are virtually back to where only reliable secondary sources are acceptable, which Masem and Phil have always opposed as being too restrictive, and no compromise can be reached. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I think a good way of looking at this compromise is that it breaks WP:N apart into a few little pieces. WP:N does a few things by requiring reliable third-party sources. One, it prevents articles written solely from primary sources; two, it makes sure that topics have real-world context; and three, it makes sure articles are basically important. This new proposal breaks that apart so we're not trying to accomplish all of those things through reliable third-party sources. Real-world context can come from arms length sources such as DVD commentary and developer blogs, which also happen to be secondary sources (although they're not independent). But the stuff that's covered in DVD commentary also has to be basically important (e.g.: "it's an episode of a critically/culturally/commercially important series" and not "it's a polygon that developers agonized over in a critically/culturally/commercially important video game"). Measuring notability through three different "prongs" does make it a bit messy, but it achieves the same spirit of WP:N without the same limits. That's the compromise. Randomran (talk) 16:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Media coverage of wikipedia's deletion policy and notability guidelines is unanimously, universally negative.

In a scathing editorial which reflects this universal distain, New York Review of Books journalist Nicholson Baker writes:

"...a lot of good work—verifiable, informative, brain-leapingly strange—is being cast out of this paperless, infinitely expandable accordion folder by people who have a narrow, almost grade-schoolish notion of what sort of curiosity an online encyclopedia will be able to satisfy in the years to come."

I strongly agree with Nicholson Baker, and think that the exclusion of so much is extremely harmful to the future of wikipedia.

The fact is this Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) is going to be used by "bullies"[3][4] to delete newer editors contributions. The vast majority of deletions are new editor contibutions, whose very first edits are the article which is being deleted. The Economist theorizes the reason why users' activity on the site has been falling since October 2007 is because of the "self-appointed deletionist guardians"[5], many which post here.travb (talk) 20:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

It’s certainly an opinion worth consideration.

Wikipedia’s policies (WP:NOR in particular), the emphasis on secondary sources, and these difficult notability criteria are all important. Wikipedia must not allow itself to become a workshop for the development of fandom or even the pseudo scholastic creation of fictional, in-universe compendia, which in the end amount to derivative works or the original fiction, which even if not strictly illegal, is a bad idea.

However, just because original research, including the synthesis of commentary derived solely from the fiction itself is not the goal, it doesn’t mean that deletion is the answer. Articles begin in poor form and get improved. Newcomer contributions begin with what the newcomers “know”, and with time, these newcomers contributions develop. Even if the early contributions are destined to not survive in the article that reaches “good article status”, they are steps, they should be welcomed, and to delete them is to insult and label unwelcome the potential future experienced editor. I have watched Harry Potter articles turn from fan forums into good articles – this happens, if you are patient. Most of those articles could have been deleted in there early days

Deletion is not a good answer to early contributions, AfD is a poor method of editorial review, and “notability” anything is and will remain as a matter of policy. Questions of fictional content should be directed to the improvement oriented WP:WAF. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:08, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

(Later, edit conflict) RE: Gavin Collins is absolutely right - WP:N rules, and editors' opinions about whether something is "art" are irrelevant. --Philcha (talk)

This is so ridiculous. Who decides what is notable? "people who have a narrow, almost grade-schoolish notion of what sort of curiosity an online encyclopedia will be able to satisfy in the years to come." "Notability" is decided the same way as "art" is.

RE: I'm sorry, I find arguments that A) this proposal opens the floodgates to fancruft in a way that the current battleground approach to AfD doesn't, and B) coverage of fictional subjects will spell the end of Wikipedia too silly to take even remotely seriously. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:26, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Phil Sandifer, A) is a falacious slippery slope argument and B) the opposite is actually true, I agree with The Economist: that draconian rules actually make the future of wikipedia less certain. travb (talk) 22:17, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Articles need to prove that there's a real reason to read them, a real reason for others to read them, to exist in the first place. Independent sourcing establishes notability. that a few writers look at wikipedia and see that it SHOULD become an indiscriminate pile of possible information is irrelevant; by one of those cited's own admission, he's in love with the text of his own mind, and thus, can be summarily discarded as a neutral voice on the operations of WP. Further, he's a rampant inclusionist, so of course he'll editorialize that those of us who can actually write serious papers and do research are just draconian snobs and bullies, with no real purpose here. Nice of you to link in a multipage ad hom against an entire vein of WP thought. NO point in arguing anymore if that's the level the inclusionsts have to sink to - linking in Ad Hominem screeds against their entire percieved opposition. ThuranX (talk) 23:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Cutting in, I'd just like to say I laughed pretty hard at the senseless elitism displayed here. This really should be looked down upon. A good summary of this would be "If thousands of people want information regarding something from this project, they can be damned if that something's importance is argued by a few dozen guys on the internet circlejerking to what their own shared ideal of what an unscholarly enyclopedia website should be." The really humorous part is how apparently anyone with the view that this website isn't paper and should ideally strive to reach its full potential, including published columnists, is a filthy, pathetic "inclusionist". Way to use that scathing wikilexicon with tact. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 01:32, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

So we should have an article on anything at all, regardless of quality, veracity, or importance to anyone, just because we aren't paper? ThuranX (talk) 03:35, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course not, that'd be dumb and Wikipedia would be like Urban Dictionary, filled with billions of unmanageable articles about that one kid in your math class you hate and lists of hair care products used by that one co-star of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The issue here is that a lot of well written, objective, verifiable and popular articles are being rampantly deleted just because they lack "independent sources". In reality, someone looking up details on a major aspect of a fictional work here doesn't care if an editor on some website thinks "it looks cool"(such sources have been the sole grounds for keeping articles put up for AfD or merger, in the face of dozens of sources considered to be "too primary", like published magazines specific to the subject), nor does such a source even establish a sense of notability; it's nothing more than trivia to a person interested in the article's actual content. In my ideal little fantasy world, fiction article inclusion would be based solely on prongs #1 and #2 here with higher standards for writing and sourcing. The only real opposition argument to this is seems to be that thing where people are slapping an "undue weight" label on all of fiction, which is bullshit. You can find useless three-sentence articles on this site about the five thousand different kinds of rain forest insects and Eastern European provinces with <4000 residents no one's ever heard of, but throw on the alarms if someone finds an un-tertiary sourced 15kb article about a major fictional character that happens to attain ~60,000 hits a month. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 01:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Notability isn't just about excluding unimportant stuff. It's actually a pretty low threshold in terms of importance: Wikipedia is about anything that a reliable, independent source has written about. If someone independent and reliable hasn't written about it, then we don't cover it. Really, notability is just meant to prevent the kind of subjective articles that had begun to plague Wikipedia as it rose in popularity. Articles became subjective in that they were original research, full of opinions and original theories, and with a lot of detail that was unreadable and even harder to verify. This was a problem across the whole encyclopedia. Maybe you don't care when it's fiction, but you should care when we're talking about Christianity and Islam, or Fascism and Democracy, or Genocide and Human Rights. This isn't a playground. I remember it used to be that a featured article was merely well-written. But now, sourcing is required. Why? Because Wikipedia became popular enough that people would contaminate it with self-serving crap. WP:N is just a natural extension of our basic sourcing requirements. If we didn't call it "notability", we'd still have a "minimum sourcing requirement" to prevent people from abusing Wikipedia. It's the price to pay if you want to have an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, but that is also worth any modicum of respect. The proposal being championed by Phil Sandifer is very reasonable. It still requires sources at every step of the way, and still prevents people from using Wikipedia as a vehicle for original research and analysis. But if people take the position that we need to go back to the way things were in 2006, a compromise is going to be impossible. We can't have an encyclopedia without a reliable research policy. Randomran (talk) 23:18, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll bite

I've restored the full post in the box Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:26, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Keillor's column went right over your head. This is the key part: He wrote "But what readers really want is the same as what Shakespeare's audience wanted - dastardly deeds by dark despicable men, and/or some generous blood-spattering and/or saucy wenches with pert breasts cinched up to display them like fresh fruit on a platter. It isn't rocket science, people." And if Wikipedia readers want that (take a look at the top 1,000 viewed articles), Wikipedia can provide that information — for free, without advertising. That applies to Macbeth as much as it does to episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

(I've removed my extremely long reply (diff), but the oldid is here if anyone wants to read all 4000+ words of it. I've left in the paragraph I think is most relevant.) --Pixelface (talk) 16:54, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Pixel it is only a matter of time before the banhammer comes back Jack's way. Please don't do things like this or it swings your way too. Hooper (talk) 13:34, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I know you? Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:21, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh I'm sure someone will mention that diff at my user RFC.

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

--Pixelface (talk) 17:00, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow. Ya, too long; but I just read it. You know, I'd probably enjoy meeting you and having some discussion. If you ever come to Bali, I'd agree to meet-up. Half the US adults are gamers? No wonder the sky is falling.

So, where to begin? You seem to think that I think this is about my opinion about what should be included; nope. Not my view, not yours, and not that of the legions of fans either. See my comments about independent sources; it's up to them. If someone without a dog in the fight, who is writing as a 'reliable source', in a non-trivial way that can be verified (yada, yada; we need an inline template for the boilerplate) then we should have non-trivial coverage about it. And no, that doesn't necessarily mean a stand-along article; I don't think that every character in War and Peace and Pride and Prejudice should have an article. Now there is likely enough good (yada) sourcing to do it and if enough editors are interested in first building the main articles up to the point where solid stand-alone should be split off, then fine. But more articles does not equate to better coverage.

The argument recurs that the 'readers' want the pop-culture stuff; so what? Is the goal simply to offer what the masses want? Or are we here to offer what's "encyclopaedic", what's "important", the stuff that they should (according to the Indy-yada-Sources) know; there is a difference between knowledge and information. Not every bit of information is important, even if it's popular; if we were to focus on that, we would be a project a lot more closely related to Jimmy's first site.

"It isn't rocket science, people."

Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:21, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I propose a novel solution

I think the clear solution to the problems above, is instead of just having Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion (AfD's) is having Wikipedia:Articles for Userfication (AfU's) also, if articles fail WP:Original Research, WP:Notability and/or WP:Verification, then the article is sent to Wikipedia:Articles for Userfication (AfU's). If the community decides that the article is not notable enough, it is moved to a userpage.

Only if the article has WP:BLP, copyright issues, or any other legal issues which may jeopardize the whole project, is the article put up for Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion (AfD's).

The userpage solution is what solved the template wars of 2005 and 2006 Wikipedia:Historic_debates#Meta_templates. I think if articles were userfied instead of deleted, there would be much more support for the notability guidelines, and contributions might just begin to rise again. travb (talk) 22:26, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Silly suggestion. Not every editor wants to keep a copy of a deleted page in their userpage, so it's unfeasible from a practical perspective. Next, any user that wants a userfied copy to work on already gets it with no questions asked so there are no problems there either. To top it all off, this is not the place for this type of discussion. Take your proposal to WP:VPP for the proper venue. 32.142.203.89 (talk) 22:48, 15 January 2009 (UTC) Sephiroth BCR posting from his iPhone

There is a problem with the deletion process, which fiction elements suffer the worst under, but it is not limited to that, and that is the fact that 1) it is restricted for the intent for deletion despite the fact that a valid outcome is "merge with redirect" and 2) there is absolutely no requirement that an article have any warning before the AFD 5 day period starts to know it needs improvement. There are a lot of ways it could be improved that would help give editors more time and more notification before the 5 days countdown to help improve articles before they are deleted or merged. But the other thing is that we shouldn't be looking, as some do, as the deletion of the topic completely off WP - since AFDs can result in merges, coverage is still retained of these topics.

However, little of this has to do with this FICT - this FICT is not describing a process, but instead a rationale when full articles on elements of fiction are warranted. Note that this FICT does not say what topics should be included in any capacity (article on their own or part of a larger article), so we're not trying recommending any disclusion of any topic. --MASEM 23:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• I know this proposal is off topic, but I think it's an important one. Deletion reform will make a lot of people happy and will solve the problem indirectly. I think AFD should become "Articles for Discussion" and we should put a lot more emphasis on other outcomes than deletion, such as merging, redirecting, and userfying. A lot of AFDs have already evolved that way. A large number of AFDs from all editors close as merges, as people try to find a compromise between inclusion and outright deletion. Randomran (talk) 23:20, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
  • That seems like a good idea. Watchlist here we come. ;-) - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 23:39, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Randomran's proposal, and MASEM's remarks about AfD(eletion). The current AfD(eletion) process generally ignores WP:DELETE's statement "If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion". The press comment cited above makes the reasonable point that newbies are the main victims and we are probably losing people this way. In addition I've seen AfD(eletion) used as harassment in the course of vendettas.

I will concede that a lot of the articles that pass through AfD(eletion) are rubbish and should be deleted, but I only know of one case where the option of improvement was taken seriously. --Philcha (talk) 23:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Another idea is to allow linking to wikias in the external link sections for information we deem to irrelevant to be in Wikipedia itself.じんない 00:09, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh lord, please no (this applies to all of the above suggestions). AfD already allows for outcomes other than deletion if that's how the discussion goes; further bureaucracy doesn't have any practical advantage to the encyclopedia, and the only strong supporters of any such proposals have historically been editors opposed to deletion in its entirety. And external links to useful sources are already permitted; links to wikias of absolutely no established credibility are disallowed for very good reason right now. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:17, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

AFD do allow for other outputs, but the input is expected to be a want for deletion. Making the D into Discussion as to have the input to include merges, massive cleanup needs, and the like, would allow more visibility on these processes that are generally limited to editors that have a vested interested in the article and who are the least likely wanting to improve the article. --MASEM 00:31, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed the conotation of AfD is the article needs to be deleted, not merged or redirected.じんない 00:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

And it would be much less bitey to newbies. Deletion sounds permanent, but if the AfD page discussed options like userfication, they might not get so sad. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:53, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

... and it would be more consistent with Wikipedia:Categories for discussion and Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion. There's a million reasons to do it. Randomran (talk) 01:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

It's been discussed before.[7][8] - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:29, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I read this one. It looks like the only major objection is that "discussion" would increase the volume of AFDs. I don't think it would in practice. And if it did, I think the consensus would be intelligent enough to deal with it. Randomran (talk) 01:54, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, you'd have my support if you want to start a discussion there. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:00, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

And mine. --Philcha (talk) 06:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

To my knowledge, my original proposal has actually not been proposed before, a cosmetic name change, "Articles for discussion" is not the same as creating a new way of handling articles, "Articles for userfication". Changing the name is not going to change the problem, editors are going to continue to delete articles which simply should be cleaned up. Again I propose:

1. If articles fail WP:Original Research, WP:Notability and/or WP:Verification, then the article is sent to Wikipedia:Articles for Userfication (AfU's). If the community decides that the article is not notable enough, it is moved to a userpage.
2. if the article has WP:BLP, copyright issues, or any other legal issues which may jeopardize the whole project, is the article put up for Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion (AfD's).

I am going to post this suggestion on WP:Deletion policy, with Village pump links. travb (talk) 09:02, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

re Wikipedia:Articles for Userfication/Wikipedia:Articles for Discussion;

nah, might as well make a suggestion of delete a violation of CIVIL; a thoughtcrime. There is nothing wrong with deleting things, it happens every day and for good reasons. Sure, the project will continue to net-grow, but we should be focused on quality not quantity; the arc of growth (2.7 million articles) is surely at a stage where building up as opposed to out is often the best option. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:16, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Articles for Wikia

• Wikipedia:Articles for Wikia

While we're throwing redink about, there is a logical derivation of WP:TRANSWIKI above. The idea would be that extant articles (or blocks of articles) that do not meet inclusion criteria, and thus should not be here, should have a place to go per WP:PRESERVE. Implicit in this would be that whatever inappropriate content would be deleted here and the onus of performing the move would have have to fall upon editors with an interest in the material's preservation and who have bothered to learn there way about that fansite. This could be folded into Articles for Deletion; i.e. !votes of Delete to Wikia …reasoning. Other fan-wikis, too, of course. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:16, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

You people do realize that creating redundant processes when AfD already can result in userfication or transwikiing is a bit too much? And FWIW, "Articles for discussion" gives the impression that it's peer review rather than a deletion discussion. Sheesh, people have overblown sensibilities over the mere fact there's the word "delete" anywhere. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 09:30, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I did say it could be folded into AfD. Also, see my comment above about attempts to criminalize the word 'delete' (thoughtcrime). The issue is simply that there is a lot of content that is more appropriate to a fan-wiki; if folks love it so much, they can preserve it there. Given that most users here have no knowledge of Wikia (or wherever), the 'Editors from Wikia' will have to come and get it. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:38, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Ugh, there should be an equivalent of Godwin's law for comparing removing content or deleting stuff to 1984 practices (as much as I like that book). In any case, Pagrashtak nails the primary issue: WP:PRESERVE is basically deficient and never followed because it's impractical. There will always be information that simply doesn't get kept because we shouldn't cover it; this truism goes beyond fictional subjects. If people really followed PRESERVE in practice, then we would violate WP:WEIGHT in practically every instance. In any case, all of these discussions are going away from the point of this page — discuss FICT and its problems. Anyone seeking to undertake their noble crusade to change AfD can take it to WP:VPP and WP:DEL. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 09:51, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I quite agree that demonizing deletion is inappropriate. Content by authors is routinely deleted by editors; it's what blue pencils are about (now there's a Redirect for Discussion; see [9]).

User:Inclusionist took it to;

• Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#Deletion wars: I propose a novel solution

For the Evil Deletionist^® Cabal, Jack Merridew ^{Evil Deletionist Cabal} 10:26, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Hahaha, very good. FYI, make the image in the sig a one-time thing, as people will call you out for a WP:SIG violation if you continue using it (although I assume this was to enhance the "Evil Deletionist" measure :D). — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 10:47, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

this user is a sock puppet No sig issue here; I used ~~~~~ (timestamp) after the text of my post which included a link to my user page and a {{click}}; Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:25, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

It is worth noting that we do not have license compatibility with much of Wikia, and often cannot simply transplant content. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:02, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

You'll have to forgive my ignorance, I don't have a lot of Wikia experience, but wikia:help:Help:Copying from Wikipedia says "Copying from Wikipedia to a Wikia wiki is permissible because both use the same license." Pagrashtak 16:59, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't know. If there are issues with proper licensing mebbe someone will care to sort them out; I'm fine with inappropriate content simply being deleted. It is also worth noting that a lot of fans will not think twice about doing the copypasta thing anyway. Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:56, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Independent sources

Getting back to our earlier discussion about sourcing, I think the current sticking point is in the second prong, and the debate is whether the importance of a fictional element can be established through significant real-world coverage from reliable sources which are or are not independent - independent sourcing seems to be issue on which we need to get agreement. My understanding so far is that Masem and Phil Sandifer have conceded that that a fictional element is best judged as being central to understanding the work via commentary from reliable sources on the topic. ThuranX, Kww, and Jack Merridew are insisting not only should those sources be reliable, but also independent.
I have argued that as long as the sources provide significant real-world coverage, there is little difference between sources that are independent and those that are not, with the exception of inherently promotional material (which fails WP:SPAM in any case, and need not concern us). In my view, the key to inclusion is the provision of significant real-world coverage, because that is what encyclopedic articles are made of.
However, this view is disputed on the grounds that coverage that is not independent is not fit as a basis for inclusion, because it is self-referencing, and its reliability is questionable because it is promotional in nature, even if not inherently so.
Perhaps if I can come up with articles examples of significant real-world coverage that is not independent that would be acceptable, would that help break this impasse? --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:10, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

The example I had in mind is commentaries in editions of Shakespeare and also of Latin and Ancient Greek authors. For example if E.R Dodds says something about about a passage / scene / character / motif in his OUP edition of Euripides' Bacchae, that's plenty good enough. That kind of commentary is easily distinguished from blurbs and other WP:SPAM.

OTOH there are grey areas, e.g. I'd be interested to see what others think of Mike Resnick's intro to a special edition of some of James White's work (Mike Resnick (1996), "Introduction", The White Papers, NESFA Press, ISBN 0-915368-71-4, retrieved 2008-12-18) --Philcha (talk) 11:30, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Just clarification, one more time: I am requesting that there be at least one mention of the topic in an independent source, not mandating that any significant coverage come from independent sources.—Kww(talk) 12:03, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

So would you please clarify. Would you regard E.R Dodds's commentary in his OUP edition of Euripides' Bacchae as independent, and why? Would you regard Mike Resnick's intro as independent, and why? Are there any other types of case that need to be considered? --Philcha (talk) 12:10, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

A notable academic that has been recruited to write a forward for the fiction that he is considered to be an expert on? I would be very surprised if you could find such a case where the item had never been discussed in an independent publication by that author. If you could, I would be more inclined to invoke IAR than to make the guideline support such an unusual case.—Kww(talk) 15:30, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how that answers my questions. Please clarify. --Philcha (talk) 16:00, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, "no", but please read the long answer to see the justification for that stance.—Kww(talk) 16:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• In answer to Kww, what is the point citing of "mention of the topic" if the third prong makes it clear that such trivial content is insufficient? I think Kww might consider dropping the requirement for independent sources, if all he is seeking is trivial or cosmetic evidence of notability.--Gavin Collins (talk) 13:18, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• What I am seeking is a bright-line test that lets us quickly discard of articles when the supporters are playing games. I don't want AFDs to always get bogged down in subjective discussions of importance, and I don't want admins to have to close AFDs where all arguments have been subjective. Real-world discussion does not equal importance, and, as I've said earlier, isn't a big deal to me at all. Being noticed by the real world is key, and that's what an independent source validates.—Kww(talk) 15:30, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

In other words you want it to be easy to delete articles or content and hard to defend them? A straight answer this time, please. --Philcha (talk) 16:00, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Please don't imply that I am evasive. I can be accused of numerous things, but rarely evasiveness. I want it to be easy to delete unsuitable articles, and hard to defend unsuitable articles. I view a complete lack of independent sources as proof of unsuitability.—Kww(talk) 16:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

My problem is that this moves the discussion from one of potential to one of actuality. I don't want to see rafts of articles deleted because they lack sources that could be found if people were looking. I mean, here's the problem from my perspective - let's take comics as an example. There's a dozen or so editors who work hard to improve coverage of superhero comics topics. But there are many more who write articles. Now, if I come to a superhero comics article - even a poorly written one - usually a large amount of what is there is usable, or the basis for a good article. Even if it's totally rewritten, having an old article there to revise is tremendously helpful. And so, as someone who wants to improve the coverage in this area, my ideal would be if every article that we could have a good article on exists in a usable, if not good form. Which is why I oppose a test on current form of the article, and prefer one on potential of the article - though harder to judge, it is by far the more important test. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:22, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

AFD is last-chance time. The article shouldn't have been created without a source. It shouldn't have survived PROD without a source. If, during the 5-day period of an AFD, no one can find a source, the article should be deleted. If there's a real chance of finding a source in a reasonable amount of time, userfication is plausible. If you are writing from scratch and an old version of an article used to exist, you can always have that userfied as well.—Kww(talk) 16:29, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

That's a wholesale revision of our notability and deletion processes. They are explicitly supposed to be about potential. If you want to refocus them entirely on actual present content, you should be on a different page. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

There are a lot of philosophical statements in the policies and guidelines that agree with you, I can't deny that. Looking at the actual outcomes of AFDs, the only place where that argument has consistently held sway is in geographic places, and even there they have at least a speck on a map or a line in a census to go on (equivalent to my request for "at least one mention"). In general, if articles are unsourcable, they tend to be deleted.—Kww(talk) 16:41, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

It has been my experience that a clear argument for why sources are likely to exist, especially when coupled with an explanation for why Google didn't find them, will usually result in an article's being kept. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:44, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Even if that's true (a point which I don't concede), why shouldn't people at least have to make a persuasive argument as to their probable existence during an AFD?—Kww(talk) 17:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Kww is looking at it from the wrong end. WP:DELETE explicitly says improvement is preferable to deletion. Hence the burden of proof lies on those who wish to delete an article. So for example I'd expect to see what they Googled for, i.e. Google link including search terms. --Philcha (talk) 17:21, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, and more to the point, because once one is arguing about the probable existence of sources, it seems much easier to argue about these prongs, which are, I think, more easily thought through, and lead to a similar set of results. I'm still curious of an article that meets these prongs but that you think should be deleted. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:26, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I will quote myself:

To address Phil's argument that that an objective test for the second prong isn't necessary, I submit that he is ignoring the role of the closing admin and the amount of discretion he feels comfortable exercising. When an admin is faced with clear-cut denial of an existing guideline (i.e. I don't care if the guideline says you need at least one mention in an independent source, I think that Grooming of Bert and Ernie's Eyebrows is critical to understanding Sesame Street ), an admin feels reasonably comfortable ignoring that !vote. The fewer objective standards a !vote violates, the less comfortable an admin is discounting it. When there are no objective standards, a large percentage of admins will fall back on simply counting !votes. That's inexcusable, and a clear violation of WP:NOT#DEMOCRACY, but we all know it's true.

I'm not highly concerned that articles that legitimately meet these prongs will be kept. I'm worried that the process, with its inherent bias towards inclusion, will be abused to keep bad articles because people argue that they meet these prongs. I want one simple objective test to prevent that. One that you have stated you think is "unnecessary", but have failed yourself to provide examples of articles that should be kept, even though that test could not be met.—Kww(talk) 17:40, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

An "inherent bias towards inclusion" would be a pleasant change. AfD's currently have an inherent bias towards deletion, despite WP:DELETE. May I remind you that independent WP:RS consider deletionism harmful. --Philcha (talk) 17:45, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we need to recognize that the third prong will also be considered subjectively just as the other two prongs are, and its the relative weight of all three prongs that determines whether the topic should be an article or not. Having only a non-independent source weakens the third prong but doesn't necessarily fail to make FICT - one then has to look to the other two prongs. Take a non-independent source about a character (the only real-world source it has) that says the developer named the character after his own dog. If this character was the main (title character, even) of a 20+ yr prime time sitcom, thus strongly satisfying the first and second prongs, I'd expect the article would likely be kept with a weak third prong. But if the same source is for a minor character of a tv show that lasted all of 3 episodes before being canceled, thus a weak first and very weak second prong, the likelihood of that article being retained is very low. Basically, both independent and dependent sources meet the third prong, but independent sources strengthen it.

Remember that the goal of this FICT is not to determine what is a good fiction article - it is to help assert what aspects of a fiction element will likely go on to make a good fiction article as to not have the article merged back elsewhere with impunity. There's still potential editorial considerations that can come into play later after potential expansion has been tried and failed; in the case above of the character of the 20+yr show, if after working with sources for some time and finding nothing else to support it, I may still consider merging the article with other characters of the work to make it cohesive. FICT is only providing a first pass "should this be an article" based on the strength of what can be said about the element, and not so much what its ultimate quality can be. --MASEM 15:26, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm trying to decide if I see a strong argument for the case that centrality to the fictional work requires independent sources. Put another way, if I am watching an episode of Buffy, and Joss Whedon says on a commentary track that he considers the Hellmouth to be thecentral metaphor of the series (which I don't think he has, but one could make an argument for it), does this satisfy criteria?

For me, it does. Why? Because Joss Whedon has nothing to gain by pushing the Hellmouth over the library, the Bronze, or anything else in the world. He is not independent of Buffy as a whole. But for the purposes of figuring out something's importance within Buffy, he is independent - he does not benefit meaningfully from the Hellmouth's importance relative to the Bronze or visa versa.

The current restriction on non-independent sources - that they be non-promotional - seems to me sufficient to address the concerns in this area. No? Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

No, because it would include DVD commentaries and developer blogs, which are absolutely not sufficient to establish notability.—Kww(talk) 16:07, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I feel like we're going in circles. Given the existence of real-world commentary, and the unambiguous notability of the work as a whole, what is problematic about using a DVD commentary for information on the notability of a specific aspect of the work? What does independence gain us in terms of the second prong? Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Objectivity. An objective test that we can say "yes" or "no" about, and not argue in circles during an AFD. AFDs have an inherent bias towards inclusion, in that the article is kept if no consensus is reached. Combine that with a completely subjective test, and there is too high of a risk of bad articles being kept.—Kww(talk) 16:15, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, but that's the thing - when it comes to importance *within* the work, it seems to me that the creator is objective. He has nothing to gain one way or another if Willow is more important than Xander. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:26, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I see 'notability' as inherently being something that implies 'someone else'. A non-independent source is not taking note, it is touting. They are fine for details, but not for meeting inclusion criteria. Cheers, Jack Merridew 16:24, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

But again, this notion of independence was designed for corporations and self-promotion. I really do not see how Joss Whedon talking about elements of his work is a comparable situation. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:26, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Look, I know nothing of 'Joss' save stumbling onto him yesterday. He's the creator/head writer: he gets checks if this stuff does well. COI. In an ideal guideline, I'd be looking for sources independent of the genre; i.e. NYTimes, and the like. I don't think I'm ask much. Cheers, Jack Merridew 16:32, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

First of all, your view of Hollywood accounting is a bit naive - creators often get jack if their show sells on DVD. Second of all, yes, he has some benefit if Buffy as a whole does well. But I don't see how, in terms of the second prong, which is what I'm talking about here, he benefits by pushing the importance of individual elements of the work. That's what I'm asking here - how is independence an issue for the second prong? Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:37, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

They get a boost in reputation, it gets them in the door for the next gig. It's not just who you know, it's who knows you. Or of you. You're asking that a person 'inside' gets to assert what's important. It is in their interest to cast that net wide. Your whole second prong is skewed towards television episodes and characters (both words in there, as I write this); most fiction isn't episodic at all; they're one-off works (except, of course, the mass-produced commercial pop-culture prolefeed;). Kevin offered 'objectivity' — non-independent sources lack this. Cheers, Jack Merridew 05:13, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm trying to figure out how saying thing X in this work is a central metaphor boosts the reputation of the creator. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:44, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

With a biased source, you never are sure what the motive is. If the next money-making move is to release the "Amy's Mom" brand of cheerleader trophies, complete with moving eyeballs to enhance your next cheer-camp award ceremony, who knows what might show up in the DVD commentary for that episode of Buffy? With non-independent sources, you have to assume every statement is tainted by greed.—Kww(talk) 01:27, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Kww, if you are seeking a bright line test that will avoid getting bogged down in subjective discussions of importance, trivial coverage is not the way to go, even if it is independent. I have seen many AFD arguments made along the lines of WP:ILIKEIT supported by trivial citations; for example Colonel Warden rolls out this argument all the time[10]. In my view, substantial real-world coverage from any source (with the exception of spam) is superior to trivial content, even if it does not come from an independent source. Again, I recomend you agree to compromise on this issue of independence, and I offer this example.
In my experience, 95% of articles on fictional elements fail WP:N and contain little in the way of substantial real-world coverage. For instance, few of the characters from such well-known works such as Lord of the Rings or Star Wars cite reliable secondary sources, except perhaps Gandalf) and the featured article Jabba the Hutt. Most of the substantial real-world coverage about Jabba the Hutt actually comes from sources which are not independent, as you will see from the section on character Concept and creation. My view is that when it comes to substantial real-world coverage about fictional elements, it is less likely that independent sources can be found, as sources close to their creation and development are not, by definition, independent. Looking at the rest of the article, I think quite a lot of independent sourcing is actually trivial, and has little to do with the character itself.
In conclusion, I think the insistence that independent sources makes sense for works of fiction, but for elements of fiction, this requirement is very onerous. My view is that substantial real-world coverage provides is a bright line than clearly disguishes topics that are notable (or at least could be) from those that are not notable, and will never be. I would ask ThuranX, Kww, and Jack Merridew to reconsider their position. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

My ears are burning. Regarding the search of mine which Gavin cites - for the Buffy episode discussed above - what I saw there showed me that, as a practical matter, it would be a snap to defend such an article at AFD and it would be quite feasible to bring the article up to FA status. Since our guidelines are supposed to reflect actual practise, then this guideline should recognise this reality. Moreover, please note that our policies such as WP:PRESERVE and WP:BEFORE trump mere guidelines. If an article title gets numerous mentions, trivial or not, then this indicates that this title is a useful search term and so deletion is not appropriate since the article could be merged or redirected per WP:BEFORE. Deletion is usually harmful to the project since it tramples upon the contributions of good faith editors in an unhelpful way, spoiling both the contributions and the good will upon which Wikipedia depends. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:28, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:DELETE, WP:GD and WP:BEFORE? So how come the place is crawling with deletionists? --Philcha (talk) 18:42, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that there are all that many deletionists. It's just that they are obviously concentrated at hotspots like AFD and this policy discussion. I looked at the Buffy project earlier and there were 50 or so editors signed up for that. I doubt that any of them would support deletion of the article in question and the same finding could presumably be multiplied by numerous other projects. Talk of consensus when such masses of editors have little to no representation here is absurd. The more puzzling thing is why the inclusionists are not better organised. I suppose that the best of them are too busy at places like DYK and GA/FA review, on top of the hard work of actually writing articles. And I suspect that most inclusionists have a sunny disposition which makes them disinclined to be embroiled in endless conflict. So, what we're dealing with here is the power of the dark side, you see... Colonel Warden (talk) 19:05, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

You need to cut out that talk about which side is the "dark side". Facetious or not, your pattern of accusing an entire part of the community of being "bad" is a complete failure to assume good faith and represents a breakdown in WP:CIVILITY. Most of all, you will make compromise impossible in a practical sense if you keep attacking people you disagree with. Randomran (talk) 19:12, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Call it yin/yang or say horses for courses, if you prefer. The point is that deletion-related activity will obviously attract people with a deletionist disposition and so you have a systemic bias if you just canvas these. Another interesting attribute of editors that I've noticed is that mathematicians/computer scientists seem to be over-represented. My theory is that such types find the syntax of Wikipedia editing comfortable and that they have perfectionist tendencies which make them impatient with policies like WP:IMPERFECT. One see the results in that major topic areas such as women's fashion are dismissed or neglected while abstract mathematics is documented in infinitesimal detail. Fiction suffers from this bias, I fancy. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:09, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

How about we avoid divisive labels altogether? Colonel, are you calling WP:BEFORE a policy up above? As far as I can tell it's not even a guideline, let alone policy. If you want to bring up the subject of routinely violated policies, let's not forget WP:BURDEN. Pagrashtak 20:17, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Without commenting on your view of the systemic bias, my only issue is WP:AOBF. You've gotta stop doing that. Randomran (talk) 20:39, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Let me tell you a story, as Max Bygraves was wont to say. I recently expended some effort at Teletubbies say "Eh-oh!". Collectonian took it to AFD and KWW opined that the topic was too slight to be worthy but the consensus was otherwise and the article was kept. Having improved the article, I gave DYK a try for the first time and the article was duly featured on the main page. I then tried a GA review, again for the first time. It didn't quite pass but another push should do it. Now, here's the interesting thing. In the course of the GA review, a passel of other editors got involved and they have been busy discussing moving the article, which has now happened. What animated them was not the content of the article or the details which we need to make it a GA. No, what they really cared about was whether the title of the article should have quotation marks in or not! And I see the same sort of thing at Big Ben where editors fulminate about the title of the article rather than its content. My take on this form over function stuff is that Wikipedia is crack for pedants - the kind of people who obsess over the position of a comma. The discussions here have something of this quality and so more perspective seems needed. Ideally, we would get the consensus of thousands of readers and editors by a wide poll but I don't know if there are any mechanisms or precedents for this. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:56, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• Just to point out the facts: in Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Teletubbies_Say_Eh-Oh! I stated that the article met minimum standards for retention, but my personal inclination was to merge it. I will also point out that the GA review] was far from a close call. Don't be fooled by Colonel Warden's accusations of "personal attacks" contained in the AFD ... I had simply requested that he be blocked until he agreed to stop using deceptive edit summaries.—Kww(talk) 05:10, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree here: We should be biasing to include topics, dealing later with the issues of figuring out if an article for that topic is appropriate or not after passing an initial "sniff" test (as I believe this FICT offers). We can later applying editorial decisions to determine if a topic may be better covered in a larger article if that article barely passes FICT. --MASEM 18:44, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Pagra, WP:DELETE is a policy, WP:GD is the guide that claims to cover AfD, both explicitly instruct editors to looks for ways to improve articles before moving to delete them, and there is hardly any sign on AfD that that happens.

I would not go so far as describing deletions in general as "the dark side", but I have seen AfD used for harassment. --Philcha (talk) 20:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. WP:ATD is another policy link which says much the same. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:38, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Colonel Warden, you may be interested in Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion#Secondary_proposal:_AFDiscussion, where WP:DELETE, WP:GD and WP:BEFORE are also relevant (thanks for WP:BEFORE) --Philcha (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• If there's no concession on the independent sources issue, then we're back to WP:N. A compromise is a two-way street. People on the deletion side concede that there are other ways to provide real-world information, and people on the inclusion side concede that research is essential to proving an article is encyclopedic. If one side insists that the other side has to make all the concessions, there will be no compromise, and there will be no guideline. All you can do is pat yourself on the back, knowing that you stuck to your "principled" position... but AFDs will continue to be a futile battleground where articles are kept and deleted based on who shows up.
• One important thing to keep in mind: real-world information is insufficient for notability by itself. Game developer blogs will go into a lot of detail about how they rebalanced the polygons for trees, or tweaked the hitpoints of a minor enemy repeatedly. This post from Soren Johnson would not justify an article on "Flags of Civilization 4" That's why we have the first and second prongs: the element has to be important too, in addition to having real-world information. Randomran (talk) 18:59, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Randomran, whilst I might agree that substantial real-world coverage is not sufficient on it own, remember that we also have a requirement provided by the second prong that some coverage must be cited from reliable sources. Since blogs are a form of self-publication, on their own they are not sufficient to pass the three pronged test. As it stands, I think making a requirement for substantial real-world coverage from reliable sources is actually quite stringent, and most articles on fictional elements don't even meet this requirement, which is why I am hoping ThuranX, Kww, and Jack Merridew will still consider compromise on the basis that this version of WP:FICT is resonably strong without the need for independent sourcing.
In answer to Colonel Warden, I would ask him to consider the fact that there is a real need to merge, if not delete content forks, and we need a reasonably stong guideline in order to do so. Where we have two or more articles covering more or less the same topic, we have duplication, and the potential to create POV forks from these duplicates. We have to have some mechanism to identify which article is a fork, and which is not. In these circumstances, a set of inclusion criteria that can be used to resolve content disuputes would be indispensible. Although this guideline is not about deletion per se, it does have to be stong enough to resolve such disputes, which I think even a hardline inclusionist should welcome.
The example I would give to illustrate this point is the Terminator multiple content fork, made up of The Terminator, Terminator (franchise), Terminator (character) and Terminator (character concept). Ignoring the fact that The Terminator is about a work of fiction, rather than element of fiction, each article provides a detailed exposition of the same fictional character, and between them more or less cover the same subject matter. The problem with identifying which is the "genuine article" is that all currently fail WP:N, so it is hard to identify which of them might be content forks. The benefit of this version of WP:FICT is that if one or more editors where to contribute substantial real-world coverage from at least one reliable source, then that would identify the which one meets the inclusion criteria for a standalone article.
The follow on point I wish to make is that if everyone can agree that this guideline provides a set of inclusion criteria that, at the very least, can address the problem of content forks, then I think we are all in a win-win situation if we can all consider supporting this version of WP:FICT. I admit this is a fall back position, but I think it is worth making a compromise for. --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:18, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

The Terminator seems typical of modern fictional franchises which spawn huge amounts of material which are difficult to cover concisely. That franchise has yet to terminate and there could be a lot more to come - have they done a crossover with AvP yet? Anyway, it's like those articles we have on developing news stories such as Joe the Plumber which take some time to settle down. We should take a long perspective on such things, rather like the characters in Anathem which I'm reading currently. Wikipedia has centuries in which to work on this but it will never be finished. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:19, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Gavin Collins is optimistic about eliminating content forks, as content forkers (careful with pronunciation!) will soon learn to borrow from each other enough citations to establish WP:N without reducing their own POV. If you find 2 or more well-sourced content forks on much the same topic, it may not even be desirable to merge them, as they may validly present the subject from different perspectives, e.g. history books often have chapters "reign of X", "reign of Y", "rise of the bourgeoisie", "reign of Z". --Philcha (talk) 21:49, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

It is not correct to say without qualification that blogs are not reliable sources in many cases. it depends on the subject, and the blog. It has already been generally accepted that for science fiction in particular there are certain blogs that are in fact considered as RSs, and articles based on their use seem to survive AfD--and in other areas like politics, and computers, and the like, similarly. They've been used successfully in some academic fields also. I think they'd be accepted now in any field at all where the reliability of the blog could be shown--and I've seen it demonstrated successfully by people here asserting their knowledge of this. (OR isn't ok for an article, but it is for an argument about an article.) I think it may therefore prove easier than some people expect to find usable 3rd party independent sources for a great many fictional topics. DGG (talk) 04:49, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this discussion derailed somewhere about 10,000 words ago. Back on topic, why aren't we just leaving Prong #2 up to case-by-case consensus? Though they'd help, a third-party opinion shouldn't be needed to verify that Gundams are an integral part of a Gundam series. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 02:37, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

If the test were to rely on "consensus" alone (which in actual fact boils down to the personal opinions of one or more editors), it would not be a test at all, as it is possible to argue that every fictional element "is central to understanding the work" if no evidence to support this assertion is required - see why it is impossible to fail the test of importance for an earlier discussion. The bottom line is that some form of evidence in the form of a citation needs to be provided to demonstrate that the requirement of Prong 2, otherwise this prong becomes a licence to spam articles that are not sourced. The current draft says that a citation from a reliable source is sufficent to establish whether an element of fiction "is central to understanding the work". The debate is whether that source should be independent as well. ThuranX, Kww, and Jack Merridew insist that an indendent source is required, but this narrows the inclusion criteria for a standalone article to the extent that we are back to the position where this guideline becomes almost the same as WP:N. Although this would not be a bad thing in my view, we cannot reach a compromise. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:27, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I have been asked to provide an opinion here, although I have not been involved in these conversations. My understanding is that this entire discussion is about notability criteria for what is included, and not ow sources are to be used, which is a different matter, one of NOR. The first prong seems to be to a be good criteria for determining notability, as long as "independent" is defined to mean "independent of the original production of the text in question," i.e. not the author or, in the case of film or video, director, producer, DP or editor etc. I do not understand "independent" to mean in a separate publication nor do I think that is a good idea; critical commentary on a Chekhov play that is physically bound in the same WW Norton edition of the same play remains independent commentary.

As to the second prong, it seems to me that if the author (director, etc) claim that a particular passage, character, or theme are notable elements of the work, then it is very likely that some independent (as I understand it) critic or commentator will have said the same. In this case I would consider it notable. But I would want confirmation by an independent source meaning someone not involved in the production of the text. My mom thinks I am a genius. Alas, an encyclopedia should not leave these things in the eyes of the producer! Slrubenstein | Talk 15:29, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

When it comes to fiction though, importance within a work cannot be so easily determined independently. Such comments made by outsiders for most works not given to scholarly review would fall under, if used here, of WP:ILIKEIT. Someone notable says, "Yea I really liked the character X. I think they're memorable." Even though that character was only there for 1 scene in a lengthy work, that comment becomes more valuable than the critical evaluation an author gives.

Don't get me wrong, the author clearly can't distiquish that his book as a whole is worthy of inclusion and if it's not, then it's implausable to think that an element would be.じんない 15:39, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Character Pages, and Equipment Pages

I believe the current wikipedia policy is that if the main article is too long, then a side article should be created to hold that information. There are Character List pages attached to most series, as well as side articles for Episode List, and Manga Chapter list. What about equipment pages? Are the weapons and other equipment, in a series where it is key part of it, justified for having a page? Or should it be deleted outright? Does everyone agree we have a set policy on this, to avoid arguments on the AFD pages? In the case of Card Captor, the page dedicated to the many Clow Cards in the series and what they did, was deleted. In an active AFD discussion, the list of Gantz equipment, moved to a side page because it was deemed the main article was too long, is deemed unnecessary by some, while I believe it is key to understanding the series. Every bit of information listed for the suits, etc., helps people understand what this series is about, and different than other series where people run around fighting aliens or whatnot. Battlestar Galactica has articles dedicated to just the Battlestars themselves, their weapons, and other information about them. What is acceptable, and what is not? Dream Focus (talk) 12:41, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Essentially, the fate of such articles is presently unclear. These would be the type of lists of non-notable fiction elements, and is a question we'll try to address after this as there's no clear way to go about it, but, generally (and this is by no means binding, just suggestive):

• "Universe of" or similar articles that describe any unique features of the fiction's setting, which can include special equipment or the like is generally allowable
• Detailed lists of the specific items in the series, however, once generally described, are often avoided.

The best example to compare what you seem to be asking about is the list of Pokemon monsters, where all but a handful are described only in that table, with the ones that meet this FICT guideline having a page. The other side to consider is if you're talking about about a video game, game guide-type material should not be included - again, talking about weapons and equipment in general is fine, but specialized lists are not good.

But again, there is nothing yet binding in WP policy or guideline regarding these at the present - we are working towards addressing that. Just because other pages exist of that format doesn't mean that for another fiction series the same type of pages will be ok, so if you do create these, realize they may still be deleted. --MASEM 12:57, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The equipment page I made is for the Manga only, since the game used something totally different. How long until a set policy can be voted on? Couldn't they have a general election, where all wikipedia users voted on a list of things, and those rules went into effect? Or as the years go by, and the same exact situations keep coming up, do people just keep on discussing it, without anything ever getting resolved? Dream Focus (talk) 13:15, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

First, WP is not a democracy - we don't hold votes to decide content issues, we build consensus. Which relates to the second point - in the early days of WP, such an article would have probably been accepted no questions asked, but as the work matures, we are looking to try to improve articles while retaining as much content as possible, and, particularly with fiction, there are certain details that, while the general picture looks fuzzy, we have determined by consensus that aren't appropriate to cover in great detail. That said, when we're going to get around to deciding on these articles, I've no idea. We're focusing on the general fiction aspect to start to avoid muddying the issues. The only advise is that the more the article is in-universe and lacks real-world sources, the more likely that it will be considered for cleanup and ultimately removal if it can't go anywhere else, but there are exceptions to this rule of thumb. --MASEM 13:20, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Consensus means a handful of people around at the time will decide everything, since the overwhelming majority of people will never get involved in any AFD discussion. Most articles nominated for deletion seem to be nominated and voted on by the same people, none of which were elected. If a different group were around that day, the consensus could shift the opposite way. You almost never have every single person agree on whether something should be deleted or allowed to remain, and they all have different reasons for trying to get rid of something, often based on their personal beliefs on what wikipedia should be, or their interpretation of the various incomplete and often changing policies. This is not a good way to have things done. We need a set of rules set down for things like this. Dream Focus (talk) 13:32, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

There's an active debate on deletion issues at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion. Hopefully it will lead to an RfC ("Request for Comment"), i.e. community-wide debate, and hopefuly that will redress the balance. --Philcha (talk) 14:05, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

list of legitimate reference sites/publications

Shouldn't there be a list somewhere of exactly which media sources are considered to be legitimate for a reference for something? When the question of notability came up, this would make it a lot easier to determine, we able to simple search those specific sites. I suggest creating a list which people can add to and discuss for this purpose. This would be especially helpful in determining the notability of something not officially released in English yet, since many sources normally referenced for such things, do not review them until that happens. For example, I recently searched for a manga by its Japanese name, and the name of its author, on Google. I got plenty of results for it, but don't know how to narrow my search, since I don't know the names of any Japanese newspapers or other sources that might review manga, and be considered a valid reference, so I can't narrow my search down. Dream Focus (talk) 13:25, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

First, this is probably a better question in Reliable Sources, but also, such a list would be way too long. Individual Wikiprojects may have advice on what are considered reliable sources for articles under their purview. --MASEM 13:29, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Opportunity for compromise v Threat of Statemate

I feel that the chance for compromise is slippling away. Please correct me if I am wrong, but Phil Sandifer and Masem may be happy to endorse the current draft. If there are editors who feel that it is not acceptable in its current form, then I would ask them to prepare an alternative draft. It seems to me that a version of WP:FICT that the current sticking point is the requirement for an element of fiction to the subject of reliable and independent sources. If the current draft were to be changed to reflect this view, then I think it would have the same effect as making the incluison criteria the same as WP:GNG. Although I have argued that WP:GNG is a very good inclusion criteria for a long time, I am prepared to compromise on the basis that this guideline requires that articles on fictional elements have to contain substantial real-world coverage, which I think makes this proposed guideline quite strong and and give clear guideance. If we can't agree on this version then I fear we have reached stalemate, which I feel is disappointing, considering how much agreement we have obtained on the content (99% at least) on this version of WP:FICT. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:37, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Compromise is one phrase away:

• * Role within the fictional work: The subject should be a fictional element that is central to understanding the work - for instance, an episode or a main character. This is best judged via commentary from reliable sources on the topic, but must be confirmed by being mentioned in at least one independent source. Focus on indisputable facts (e.g. "the character is one of the main characters for the entire series") to prove the importance of the subject, rather than personal opinion. Mere frequency of appearance or mention in the work does not satisfy this prong – it is necessary to show that understanding of the subject is essential to understanding the work, not just on the level of plot detail, but in terms of its artistic, cultural, or historical significance. Bald assertions of significance are insufficient.

I haven't seen anyone explain why requiring this confirmation would place a genuine obstacle in the path of any legitimate articles.—Kww(talk) 15:44, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

That makes the 2nd prong stronger than the 3rd, which, while not the GNG's "significant coverage", is still in the wrong direction. --MASEM 16:05, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support This wording, which maintains the importance of a neutral source demonstrating notability. ThuranX (talk) 16:22, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support — Jack Merridew 10:51, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• emend; throw 'significantly' and 'reliable' in there, too. Jack Merridew 10:54, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I object to this. The 'possible eventuality' that an element of fiction will be seen as notable by independent sources isnt' enough. ANYTHING has a possible eventuality of happening, even me shitting gold doubloons tomorrow. However, we don't do 'MAYBE' here, and we shouldn't. We should only accept that IF an element has real, independent coverage, it is notable. This 'compromise' is the same premise that gavin and others have operated under the entire time, just phrased in a slightly new way. I have yet to see one logical argument explaining why Fiction should be given a lower threshold than non-fiction, and why a threshold of ' anyone's written about it, even if their praise can make them money off the topic' is ok. Oppose this compromise. ThuranX (talk) 16:13, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

On top of that, you've yet to really answer any of the questions about what independent sources add to the issue of the second prong. This becomes random very quickly - if all that is needed is a mention, one rapidly wonders how to work a citation to a passing mention into an article without it being artificial, poor writing to satisfy an arbitrary hurdle. Unless you see articles that would be excluded by this addition that would not be under this guideline, I continue to ask why you're adding a procedural hurdle for the sake of a procedural hurdle. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:23, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not adding a procedural hurdle for the sake of a procedural hurdle. I'm compromising. I'm reducing the requirement for sourcing of fictional articles to accommodate the realities of commentary on fictional topics. I'm retaining one objective requirement for notability to avoid being bogged down in subjective arguments on every AFD that comes along for articles on trivial topics, because the best way to dismiss a topic as trivial is to demonstrate that no-one unassociated with the topic has ever noticed it. Releasing a new guideline is not going to usher in a golden age of quality fiction writing. Many articles on many topics, fictional and otherwise, are crap. We need to be able to delete crap expediently and with a minimum of fuss. Independent notice is required of all topics in Wikipedia, and has proven to be one of the simplest ways to sort out topics that are hoaxes or are of only parochial importance.

People seem to be debating this as if I'm trying to add a requirement. I'm not. I'm simply saying that while I can support reducing existing requirements, I cannot support the complete elimination of requiring independent sourcing for topics. People that are demanding complete elimination of the requirement are the ones that are failing to compromise. I can see a need for reduction, but people should stop demanding elimination and then accusing me of failing to compromise because I think they are going too far.—Kww(talk) 16:51, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

If you can answer some of the issues I raise in the section below, I think that would be helpful - I'm specifically wondering about the "mention" criterion as it stands - how that would work, whether it's a helpful addition to the policy. I'm not saying you're not compromising - I'm saying your proposed language has problems for me. If we can resolve those problems, that will be good. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:53, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

My issues with independence

Since this seems to be the major stumbling block right now, here are the issues I see with the independence clause that I need some reassurance on before I can support it.

1. It adds a restriction with no content - to date nobody has pointed to an article that would be kept under this guideline but deleted under the new one. That simply adds hoops to jump through instead of content. Procedural red tape does not improve policy. What does this requirement add, in a practical sense, to the guideline?
2. It encourages bad writing - if sources that merely have a trivial mention need to be cited, articles need to be restructured around citing a source that is irrelevant to the content of the article. How is an article improved by citing a source that merely mentions the subject of the article?
3. It excessively de-emphasizes potential in favor of actuality, creating an arbitrary hoop that articles must clear in the present. Our deletion and notability processes are actively centered on the potential of articles. Focusing them on present requirements makes inclusion a matter of fulfilling requirements on a deadline. It seems to me that this requirement would increase the vulnerability of fiction articles to mass deletion campagins that overwhelm the abilities of editors in that area to make improvements. This would result in the loss of numerous articles that could be kept with minor effort simply by spreading the attention of those who will make that effort too thin. If we go this route, there needs to be a clear protection in place against mass deletion campaigns.

If I can see some sort of addressing of these three issues, particularly the third, I might be able to support this change. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:37, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with Phil that the point of this FICT is to try to keep articles that, given more time can have the potential to be of encyclopedic quality but lack it in the present. The issues of importance and stronger reliance on sourcing should be something addressed higher up the editing process, specifically recommending merges and the like to deal with topics that otherwise have very little information about that. --MASEM 16:47, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm... I thought the point of this FICT was to provide a compromise position that all parties of the fiction debate could agree on so that this constant fighting could cease.—Kww(talk) 16:53, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. And I'm saying, OK, your proposed language - I can deal with it in theory, but there are some details that need to be worked out. Hence negotiations continue. I mean, I think it's a silly, arbitrary requirement. But honestly, if it's accompanied by something that prevents the biggest problem with it - that it is a license for mass deletion campaigns that will be exceedingly difficult to respond reasonably to - I could probably live with it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:56, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

• I tend to agree with Phil that the requirement for independent source is arbitrary if the independent source is trivial. I don't understand why trivial content is so important to writing an encyclopedic article. On the other hand, WP:GNG does require independent sourcing, it is just that we are trying to widen the inclusion criteria just a little bit to reach a compromise position. If it does not work, we can can always discuss the issue of independent sourcing after we have tested this version of WP:FICT. That seems a positon we could all agree to. --Gavin Collins (talk) 17:06, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

First point: standards do not equal red tape. Providing an objective method of discarding bogus arguments is crucial to any effective guideline. WP:NSONGS standard that a song must chart, win an award, or be covered by multiple artists is wonderful: I can propose songs at AFD knowing that there is a 99% chance of deletion, or know not to bother with AFD because there is a 99% chance of retention.

Second point: a single citation rarely necessitates a restructuring of an article. Hell, it could go in a "See Also", if necessary.

"Potential sources" has always been a weak argument, and there is no particular reason to accommodate it explicitly in the guideline. If there is a truly substantial chance of an independent source existing that is somehow invisible to people looking for it at AFD, that argument can be brought forth in AFD discussion. If the person arguing that case is persuasive, then the AFD will either result in a deadlock or a keep. This isn't CSD land, where articles get deleted without any discussion. As for "overwhelming article creators", I'm not even asking that the source contain any particular kind of information. The tricky part in the current rules is that the information contained in independent sources can't be plot summary information, which requires a lot of sorting and combing to find a suitable source. If the topic of an article can't even be found in an independent plot summary, how important can it actually be?—Kww(talk) 17:09, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I understand - you're looking for trivial mention in independent sources. If you wanted substantial mention, I'd object more, but trivial mention is at least sufficiently easy that I think it is merely not a change to what articles can and can't pass the guideline. But my issue is this - even if finding such sources is easy, when dozens of articles are being nominated a day for deletion, having such a hoop to jump through on all of them is a massive time sink - time that could be spent improving articles instead of jumping through hoops.

If the mass AfD problem can be solved, and if we can agree that these trivial mentions go on the talk page, not the article page, I think I'm OK with it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:13, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Technically, the sourcing only needs to be demonstrated to exist during the AFD discussion, I think. I wouldn't try to encode a talk-page exemption. A good objective standard goes a long way towards preventing AFD nominations. I don't waste my time nominating singles by The Cheetah Girls (recording artists) for the simple reason that they pass the objective criteria, so I know that my personal opinion that they are unimportant artists that have failed to produce any important works is irrelevant. The same would apply here: if the standard for including Drag Strip is to find an independent source that mentions him, I'd look for them before nominating. For all that everyone complains about WP:BEFORE, most people nominating things for AFD have taken the time to look for sources— the disagreement is over whether those sources are sufficient.—Kww(talk) 17:25, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

No, no - I'm saying "put mention of the source on the talk page." Not an exemption so much as a "please don't contort prose to cite trivial sources." And I think the problem of mass AfDs is, frankly, a reality. Let's be blunt here, in fact - fiction articles are the subject of a mass AfD campaign right now. I am concerned that a requirement for article content (as opposed to judgment on the subject) will overwhelm fiction editors who could otherwise actually be contributing content. One of the defenses against this, normally, is that articles are considered based on potential - so the often far faster process of explaining the subject's significance is sufficient. This is a useful defense against mass AfDs. If we eliminate that defense, given that mass AfDs are a real problem, we need some counterbalance. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:30, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I have not proposed a requirement for article content, merely a requirement that the process of explaining the importance be confirmed by existence of an independent source. I'll agree that far on potentiality ... if the existence of a source can be demonstrated at AFD, actually working that source into the article can be deferred. —Kww(talk) 17:36, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I am unconvinced that this adequately solves the Mass AfD problem. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:45, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I haven't seen any AfD discussions in which Kww was involved, but I've seen AfDs where supporters of deletion made no attempt to improve the article, even when the sources were already known. --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Which is shameful. This is the major problem here - we've tuned this guideline, in numerous places, to be hostile to fannish inclusionists. We have been less careful in tuning it against people who actually want to gut this area of content, despite the fact that they exist. That's fine - I think the guideline is strong enough in this area that I'm not worried. But this proposed addition throws off that balance. If we go the independence route, we have to counterbalance it to keep the larger balancing of this guideline intact. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:45, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem is not any particular notability guideline, it's that AfDs systematically ignore WP:DELETE's statement that improvement is preferable to deletion and deletion should be the last resort. See the discussion / debate / fun at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion. --Philcha (talk) 18:01, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

..."hostile to fannish inclusionists"? I have a hard time seeing that. It's nearly a complete concession to them.—Kww(talk) 20:24, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The third prong prevents the creation of articles on topics that can only be described in-universe. --MASEM 20:30, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, real world content is already a major one. On top of that, we took serious pains to keep the second prong from being an inclusion-fest, and sanded off every line people thought could be abused. Frankly, the real-world requirement, as it is, is going to lead to a complete bloodbath of articles. But at least that's a substantive one, and one where everybody I know of who works seriously on fiction articles can at least support the idea behind it. The idea that trivial mentions are encyclopedically relevant in any fashion? I'd say it's a bit more obscure. If we're making that a requirement, we should at least make sure that it's not the grounds used for mass nominations.

What if we moved the focus from actual presentation of sources to something that makes it less about jumping through a hoop (and thus makes dealing with AfDs less than a tedious finding of obvious sources) to something substantive? For instance, if we used a test for the second prong along the lines of "would be mentioned in any overview of the work," continuing to whitelist episodes and main characters (as AfD clearly does)? Since the first prong requires more-than-bare minimum coverage in secondary sources, this ends up being synonymous with what you want without requiring what amounts to a third grade homework assignment every time someone nominates an article for deletion (which, let's face it, people routinely do without making the barest effort to see if nomination is appropriate).

Or we can start blocking people for bad AfD nominations. But until that is the case, I oppose the requirement of tedious busywork for keeping articles in the face of idiotic AfD nominations. (And yes, "find an independent source that has a mention of this episode or character" is tedious busy work. It's a scavenger hunt, not encyclopedia writing.) Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:35, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Kww. this makes the bar so damn low, the only way to make it lower is to remove the 'independent sources', at which point AfD can shut down, and I can find a new hobby. If there's no measure against which to judge notability, wikipedia will simply fill up with third-rate articles that fanboys fill pages of WP:LAME fighting over. (Did the overworked korean studio accidentally paint one cell the wrong color, or do some transformers have a mostly unused ability to randomly flicker one limb to a new color, but do it without explanation? If the former, is it legitimate trivia to explain in which frame that color change happened? If the latter, is the tiny transformers board that talks about it a reliable enough source for WHY it happens?) Fuck it. If no one's talking about what you want to write about, then it ought to be deleted. Otherwise, we can all write articles about our cats, our carpets, our driveways and our neighbors' sweaty grunts during sex that can be heard from the street in summer when their window are open. Removing the IndepSou Clause revokes WP:NOT, NOTE, and RS. ThuranX (talk) 21:46, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

You can't have your cake and eat it, too. I was trying to set the bar at the lowest threshold I could stomach. If that creates the problem that it can be met with trivial sources, that problem can be easily fixed. I would be happy to make sure that the mention in an independent source was fully encyclopedic by saying "the importance of the topic to the central work must be affirmed in at least one reliable source independent of the work itself". Still lower than WP:N by a long shot.—Kww(talk) 22:09, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

What is wrong with "would be mentioned by an overview of the work?" It accomplishes the same thing, given the first prong, without the busywork requirement?

I'm trying here to come up with something that satisfies your concerns about objectivity without creating a pedantic requirement that amounts to busywork rather than substantive or productive requirement. I mean, what exactly is added by someone doing the leg work to find a trivial mention in an independent source? Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:34, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Because there is a yawning chasm between an Encyclopedia Britannia overview and a Encyclopedia of the Star Wars Universe overview and different people have seen both as reasonable definitions of "encyclopedic overview" on Wikipedia. Licensed encyclopedia-like works (there's my biases in plain view, folks) will often go into greater detail, but that detail often is original fiction exclusive to that licensed work or a summary of other works, often works too minor to bear mention. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 23:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, but this seems to me something that can be worked around via wording - "a reasonable reader would expect to see mentioned in an overview of the work aimed at people unfamiliar with it." Fannish completist sources are blocked out on that wording. Continue tinkering as you see fit - my goal here is that we get, basically, what a multi-page feature in a magazine on the show would be reasonably likely to mention. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:15, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Everyone considers themselves a reasonable reader. The "different people who have seen both etc." above is a spectrum of more-or-less reasonable people. And when you say magazine...remember that both Time and Starlog are magazines, and I've seen both cited in articles. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 23:23, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

"this seems to me something that can be worked around via wording" There's as plain an admission to looking for a means to game whatever rule we come up with. I can't really take Phil as working in good faith anymore. Every day I read this, it reads like WP:FLAT more and more - I see new ways of forcing the same thing through. ThuranX (talk) 07:30, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Far from it. I think there's likely a standard MiB and I would both agree on here - that is, a sort of overview that we're both willing to grant that if a character were mentioned in, it would be sufficient for the second prong. The question is figuring out how to describe it so that someone else, not part of this discussion, understands what we're talking about. Which is a question of wording. For instance, I tend to think that the idea of an introductory overview of a work aimed at people unfamiliar with it is a concept that, while it probably doesn't have 100% agreement on what means, at least has about 80%. If we set the threshold at "would be mentioned in an introductory overview of a work aimed at people unfamilar with it," I would guess that 80% of people will agree on whether a given fictional element meets that threshold, and 20% will be crazy. That, to me, makes it a decent test. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:14, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)It is NOT pedantic busywork. It is a requirement that proof is furnished that the desired topic is not just the mastubatory fodder of some fanboy inclusionist. What is gained is a bulwark against speedy deletion on grounds of spam, lack of notability, 'crapimadeupwhilestonedinmybasement' (I forget the link for that), and demonstration that a reasonable article can be written about the topic without simply reproducing the walled garden coverage provided by internal commentaries and 'official guides to...' . It's that simple. Proof that the topic really does matter. Most of the examples you've given so far aren't legitimate, by the way. Any show popular enough to be released on DVD has almost certainly already been reviewed, discussed, and so on in the entertainment rags, the newspapers and so on. Why is it such a problem to expect that those seeking to create an article do a little research first? Should articles really be written by people just writing from memory or their own Ideas? There goes WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, right out the window with all the others we'd have to throw out under this "guideline". I would like to know, flat out and simple WHY this requirement constitutes an unbreachable wall against new articles, as you claim. ThuranX (talk) 22:51, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

If there were no articles on fiction out there right now, sure, asking for people to research before expanding would make sense. But we're not at that situation. There's probably in the order of 100,000's of articles relating to fiction created during WP's growth that lack the type of sourcing we'd like now that we're trying to figure out what to do with. This FICT should give us a quick thumbs up/down to tell us if these articles should stay by giving us a quick judge of the sources and the importance of the topic. An article that barely passes all three prongs should be kept, but only in the tentative sense - editorial sense should be used to judge if an article should be moved to a larger article pending the lack of any new information. (Side note: I wonder if it would be worthwhile to tag it with some type of editing cleanup recommendation tag to say that this might be better covered in a larger body of text, not quite as drastic as the current tags, but something that anyone interested in fiction cleanup can use to try to help with). --MASEM 23:03, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes! Exactly. We have hundreds of thousands of articles. Some of them are useful starts for good articles. Some of them are crap. What we need is to effectively go through and sort them into the two piles. A standard that deletes articles on topics that could be good articles with the available sources today and that would be useful starts for a good article is a bad standard. No article that is both a useful start and on a topic that we would want an article on should be deleted. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:28, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Why is it useful to go find a newspaper article where a character has been mentioned in passing? What does finding such an article do to improve our coverage of the subject? Answer that and you may have something - at least, something more than incoherent screaming and swearing. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:01, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Because it's a standard higher than nothing. It's a compromise between "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article" and "If a topic is of sufficient importance in the fictional context, it is presumed to satisfy the etc. etc." - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 23:04, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes. If our inclusion guideline were just prong two, I'd oppose it too. What I don't see is how trivial coverage improves an article that otherwise meets all three prongs. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:11, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

It's not a separate new standard, it's a description of the bare minimum required to meet the third prong. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 23:16, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think independent sources are needed for the third prong, though. I mean, if I were doing an episode of Grey's Anatomy, I'd figure the Grey's Anatomy Writer's Blog is a more useful source for writing a section than any review of a TV episode I've ever read. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:20, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

And the Grey's Anatomy Unofficial Fan Site might be useful as well. That's an entirely different project, though, and cramming it ill-fitting into this one is the contentious issue. (Again, my biases plain to see.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 23:25, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but when you're equating the blog of the writers of the show to an unofficial fansite, you're kind of off the reservation. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:58, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Why are fansites bad sources for establishing importance? Because they are too close to and have too much of an interest in the subject. How are authors different? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 00:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

At least the writer's blog is a reliable source. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:12, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Its authority is reliable, its objectivity is not. You're an academic, you understand the difference. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 00:14, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Wait, so is this proposal mention in some independent source, not necessarily a reliable one? Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

More WP:FLAT techniques. restating the issue as if confused, to introduce a false choice, not between his misunderstanding of your point and his new understanding of your point, but between his way and his way. Now the source need be ONLY reliable OR independent. I'm sick of this fucking gaming. Stop playing games, Sandifer. You know full well what's being called for here. Independent, reliable sources. One at minimum, more if possible. YOU ARE NOT STUPID, STOP BEHAVING LIKE WE ARE. ThuranX (talk) 07:34, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Please be civil. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:39, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I am. I am also being blunt, which is the necessary antidote to Phil's Civil POV push behavior. Read WP:Flat and you'll see what I'm talking about. There's an awful lot of the techniques described being applied, and it makes me think FLAT is a BEANS problem. ThuranX (talk) 07:45, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

You are being so ridiculously incivil and so ridiculously lacking in any assumption of good faith that it is not possible to carry on a useful discussion with you. Please come back to this page when you're done acting like a child. Thanks. Phil Sandifer (talk) 08:06, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm being as civil as one can be to a Polite POV pusher like yourself. You refuse to simply understand the CONCEPT of independent sourcing for Fiction articles. You continue, in what must be disingenuous behavior, since, judging by your published papers (linked on his userpage), you clearly can write and do research, to act completely mystified by the idea of demanding independent reliable sources for establishing the notability of a Fictional element, even going so far at one point here to ask 'do we want independent or reliable', implying that those of us asking for both must be confused. It's way past AGF, you are being an obstructionist. When backed into a corner, you simply restart the argument in a new section, phrase it slightly differently, and say 'I'm just trying to understand all this, it's Soooooo confusing'. You're not confused, you're laughing your head off at how you're keeping us running in circles. You can see full well here that there is not going to be any further concession from those demanding higher standards; you've gone from multiple in depth reliable independent sources discussing the topic to 'one independent reliable source Mentioning it'. If an inclusionist fiction-crufter can't find that, tough shit. But that's not enough for you. We've seen you move the goalposts further and further away form compromise. At one point, it was integral to the narrative based on creator-added content and other materials created by the producers of the work. gradually that was opened to anything the creator says anywhere matters to the story, and below, you move it to 'anything a fan would expect to see'. You keep pulling your side of the discussion further and further from the center, trying to see how much closer to your position we'll move, and you've found the limit and yet you continue to demand more. Bluntly, NO MORE. No more moving the bar. No more pushing back the goalposts. No more disingenuous playing at confusion and clarification, or restarting the debate when too many people make good arguments against your position. There is no further compromising, and I'm not the only one who is sick and tired of trying to make this work. It cannot work, and it's that simple. ThuranX (talk) 14:52, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Phil, I'm not as angry as Thuran is, but I'm really getting the feeling that my time is being wasted. A source with no authority isn't useful for anything. An unobjective source isn't useful to establish importance/notability/what-the-fuck-ever-term-we're-using-now because they have too much of an interest in the subject. The idea behind requiring at least one independent source is that if nobody has ever seen fit to publish an article or other work on the subject, Wikipedia should not be the first. This is older than WP:N; it goes all the way back to Uncle G's "On notability" essay. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 01:28, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Such trivial independent sources would be deleted during the normal course of editing by most cases as being what they are, trivial, thus removing the fact that the use of such sources could even denote for kww that is had such independance because of their very nature of being trivial. So an editor removing a source for that legitimate reason of being trivial mention could easily get that same article moved into AfD because it didn't have a source of independance on the list now. Sure, someone could go and cite that and it might be saved, but that's wasted effort that helps no one, all because everyone would be following the guidelines as they see fit. And if it happens once, it's certain to happen more times, for other articles, if not the same one over and over, just because that need for 1 trivial independant source that could be a proffessional reviewer stating a personal opinion of "I thought that character was the most notable." and nothing more.じんない 08:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• In anwer to A Man In Black, I think you make a valid point that Wikipedia should not be the first to cover a topic that has not been cited elsewhere. However, for me this is a formality, on the basis that if the creators of an element have provided substantial real-world coverage as required by the third prong, then independent sources are highly likely to follow in the future. Substantial real-world coverage is likely to originate from the creators first, which is then used by independent commentators to build on subsequently. My analogy is the snowball effect: once the ball is rolling, the depth of coverage will increase. If we don't require independent sourcing as an inclusion criteria but insist on substantial real-world coverage instead, we broaden the number of topics that qualify for their own article, but without a reduction in content quality.--Gavin Collins (talk) 14:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

A couple alternatives

In the thread above, we've got a couple of concrete suggestions. I want to break those off (not to kill the thread above, but to start discussing particulars)

1. Kww's added language requiring an independent source.
2. My proposed language requiring that the element "would be expected by a reasonable reader to be mentioned by an overview of the work" (tinker wording as needed)
3. A proposal requiring more than a trivial mention in an independent source
4. Try the guideline out as is, and if we have an inclusion problem with the guideline of articles where the independent source requirement can't be fulfilled, deal with it then.
5. Form a better plan.

I'm OK with 2 or 4, personally. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:45, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

CLOSE THIS NOW. STOP GAMING THE GOD DAMNED SYSTEM. EVERY FUCKING TIME WE TRY TO TALK ABOUT THIS, YOU RE-PRESENT THE ENTIRE NUT OF THE ARGUMENT AGAIN IN A NEW SECTION, FORCING US TO JUMP THROUGH THE FUCKING HOOPS AGAIN. CLOSE THIS SECTION NOW. ARCHIVE IT. DEAL WITHTHE FUCKING QUESTIONS ABOVE, AND STOP GAMING. ThuranX (talk) 22:52, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

• Cruise control for cool, eh? Protonk (talk) 22:54, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
• I figured the above section would be a good section for generating ideas, and this one would be a good section for figuring out which ideas work or can be combined - the above for a free-wheeling discussion of the issues, this one for the practical question of discussing proposals. I apologize if this idea has offended you, as it obviously has, but would suggest that perhaps your tone is less than helpful in seeking a compromise. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:10, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Ignoring the above, I've been gone for a while and it seems like we are working in circles around the notion of requiring an independent source. I agree w/ Gavin and Phil (!) that a trivial mention from a single independent source is worthless. But I also see where Kww/Gavin are coming from: subjectivity makes this guideline difficult to use and toothless. I don't have an answer. I can't think of one. I don't want to do "one non-trivial independent source" because that is basically what we have now (really, if we had one actual significant tract of a RS devoted to a subject, we keep it). Maybe that's better. But I don't know. It still doesn't jive with the outcome I want (reasonable, internally coherent coverage of fiction that doesn't piss off fans but doesn't make wikipedia into a fansite). I don't know how much I'm adding, but I'm stumped. Protonk (talk) 22:58, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. I mean, my goal here is this - I regularly use Wikipedia to check basic facts about works of fiction I'm mentioning in passing, or to figure out if something is sufficiently interesting or relevant to what I'm researching that I want to follow up on it and watch/read it. For that, basically, I need a plot description that summarizes the whole plot, but is concise enough to follow (some of our plots are too long to be useful - I get lost in details when what I want is the big picture), I need an account of major characters, and I need anything else that's a big major concept of the work.

I don't need coverage of weapons or cameo characters, I don't need exhaustive plot detail. For extremely lengthy serialization (basically TV and comics) there's some tricky bits in plot detail, but it comes down to how to adequately break the summary down to component parts. I have no particular attachment to individual episode articles except inasmuch as it's sometimes the best way to get the job done.

I am rather tired of my striving for this position being labeled as radically inclusionist, but so be it. It is, I think, a practical goal most of us can get behind. I'll take whatever policy accomplishes it. The question is which of these options does the job. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:10, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

It's not a radically inclusionist stance, but you've cast many nets for tuna that also come back with dolphins. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 23:16, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The real disservice we do to readers when we have 23452345 separate articles on fictional sub-subjects is not the proliferation (not paper and all) but the fact that any relevant facts are scattered and buried under plot summary and haphazardly duplicated and organized in no reasonable fashion. Quibbling over WP:N-style standards of "notability" still misses the main issue: separating FICTIONAL NOUN who are themselves their own topic from FICTIONAL NOUN who are inextricable from the work of fiction in which they appear, and curbing the proliferation of the latter without in any way impairing the former. Using the oooooooooooooooooooooold Wikipedia:Fancruft standard, allowing Superman while merging John Galt. But until attitudes change to look at FICTIONAL NOUN as a part of the fictional work in which it appears, to take emphasis off of IC presentation to focus on RL roles, and to look less at continuities and more at works of fiction, then this is all just rearranging chairs, you know?

BTW, less the caps I kind of agree with Thuran, we know where you stand, SS, no need to repeat it in its own new header. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 23:16, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

If you know where I stand, you're well ahead of me - I started the section in a large part to try to sort among the various options that were being batted around in the above thread and focus on the goal of picking a way forward instead of yet another discussion about principles. Which seems to have failed, instead making this a thread about my starting threads. I'll resist the temptation to try again with a new thread. :) Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:22, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

(eC)I agree that our current methods of how fiction is presented and organized is poor, and unfortunately an extension of the initial rapid growth of WP. We as a whole know better know of what we want fiction to be -- or at least , the bounding box is better. At the same time, I agree with Phil's position that there's no reason we cannot provide the higher level details of a piece of work, organized in a way to make sure the real-world aspects are not lost while still thoroughly and concisely covering the work for both those that have never read that work of fiction and those that are fanatic about it. These goals do not have to be counter to each other -- I have a rather grand vision of how this all can come together without sacrificing any of the mission or goals of WP and without putting fiction under the bus or on a pedestal.

This is just not going to happen with one fell swoop. There's too many longstanding principles that take a lot of time to wrap heads around to make sure it is comfortable change.

The point here is that this version of FICT represents a first step - or even a second or third considering the past. A clean point on this step is the results of the WP:N RFC that showed some consensus to the concept that the sourcing for notability can be defined by the SNGs, and that's pretty much what this FICT has, in addition to further requiring the element to be more than a background element. If we can agree with this FICT, the next step is to tackle lists and supporting articles (which is a whole other battle). Once we get that, we can start talking about modifying WAF a bit more to describe better how to organize all the elements under the umbrella of a fictional work to achieve a concise, but thorough, description of the work of fiction including its in universe elements that does not marginalize any work of fiction, but neither creates leeway for fiction to expand the same way it did as it was in the past. But these are steps - it will probably take a year+ to get through them all. Let's take it one step at a time, and establish a starting point between "zero sourcing" and "GNG-required sourcing". --MASEM 23:27, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

But that's a clear statement of purpose that is not served by a subjective standard that appeals to a reasonable reader! That's a goal that is served by a standard that is "You must pass this bar or you're gone" for the absolute lowest-value articles. Your goal is served by a standard, any standard that obliterates only useless articles while saving possibly too many. That goal is why an inane standard like "at least one independent source" is useful. It dynamites the lowest-value articles (written by fans, based only on the interpretation of the subject or the authors' commentary) while retaining everything else.

If we're working on progressive new standards to slowly remove the lowest value articles, stop and reassess, remove again, reassess, and repeat until only articles of value remain, then airy standards that appeal to general readers and cast too wide a net will not serve our goals. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 23:33, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Again, if there weren't 100,000s of fiction articles that existed already, I'd be agreeable to a higher standard. But we have what was created in the past, and the fact that most of these likely aren't tended to by any editor means that if we apply the "independent source" metric to most of them now, we've be doing a lot of deleting. I'd rather see us take this step (which will still send articles to deletion for failing this, just not as many), and then work on how to better organize fiction one other aspects have been determined and put in place, than wiping a lot to start and forcing us to rebuild. --MASEM 23:48, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

That won't happen. Any solution that differs too far from the status quo simply won't get enough support to be implemented. The risk is not that useful articles will be deleted in spades, but rather that the guideline will hit a wall of indifference and not actually see use. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 00:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The status quo amounts to "if the show is sci-fi and has enough fans, all articles are permitted, but otherwise, no." Masem's description actually sounds reasonably close to this. :)

In seriousness, as soon as we get this passed, my next project is going to be to try to create a practical mechanism to get real improvement in an area of articles.

As for indifference, I'd argue that's what's happened to WP:N for fiction. But in that case - why don't we go with option four above - try this guideline as is, and if we're getting an excess of crap articles kept, tighten as needed to get the desired results? Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:21, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Because once it's approved, it can't get changed again without a large majority in favor of changing it. There's no way to shorten the leash once it's lengthened.—Kww(talk) 01:12, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

So we be creative - we agree that we're giving it a three month trial. If, after three months, there are concerns about what is being kept or deleted based on this guideline, we agree that we revisit the entire issue. I'm willing to agree to an explicit trial so that the leash-shortening, if needed, is not so difficult. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

You know guys, if I'm understanding Kww correctly, the mere mention of something in an independent source isn't really that big of a requirement. Name drops occur all the time and this solves the second prong problem of subjectivity by creating an objective method of measuring importance. IMO, a simple name drop in an independent source is seen as often as the same in developer commentary, so it's not that big of an increase. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 00:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, but in some ways that's my concern - if it's a mere mention, it doesn't really add any information to the article. So finding it becomes more a homework assignment than a real attempt to improve the article. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:42, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

2 cent from a lurker: if an article "should meet three conditions" (all 3, at least to some level) and the 3rd condition ask explicitly for "Significant, real-world information must exist on the subject", an article that pass this (3), will have is subject also almost certainly "being mentioned in at least one independent source", so put this last condition in the 2nd IMO is redundant.--Yoggysot (talk) 04:43, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not redundant, as the "real world information" currently asked by the guideline can be developer commentary or another non-independent source.

@Phil: meh, fair enough. The majority of the time there's a name drop, it's plot summary of some sort, so I suppose there would be something that could be sourced in the article, but then again, such a source would probably be excised in the course of regular editing for being trivial. Quite the conundrum. I think a key issue here is that there's a natural limit as to how much you can actually write on a subject while staying within our guidelines, so stuff that we would consider trivial and not pass the second prong would be increasingly exposed as time goes on as an item of rather limited material. In that case, merging becomes appropriate, as it's the better way to present the material, regardless of its notability. A rather easy test is that if something doesn't have enough material to make GA (which has quite the low bar), then it's probably better off merged. I'm clueless how to quantify this in the second prong though. Thoughts? — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 07:41, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• • I actually agree with Phil Sandifer that the "trivial mention in an independent source" doesn't prove anything. It has almost nothing to do with importance. Significant coverage in the form of a paragraph? Absolutely. But a review that says "there is something really satisfying about killing the final boss with a shotgun" does not validate an entire article about the shotgun from Resident Evil. Importance has barely anything to do with whether or not you get a trivial mention. Randomran (talk) 07:40, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

this false choice shit is absurd, and distracting from the main issue. #1 and #2 exist separately from each other and not in any form of opposition. #1 is about what kind of source is required by those Phil classifies as Deletionists, and #2 is about what Inclusionists would use to determine Notability. No false choices. Close this section, stop gaming the system, and sort this shit out. ThuranX (talk) 07:38, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're even talking about. Phil Sandifer (talk) 08:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you do. "Option 1", which you attribute to Kww, is a question of should we require independent sources. #2 is should we assume the minds of others and include anything that a fan might want to see because a fan thinks it's important. #1 specifically addresses sourcing, #2 addresses what a standard for notability should be if we ignore sourcing of any sort and go to a fan-based model. they aren't compatible as either/or, because one is about a level of sourcing, the other's a world where sourcing is irrelevant. It's not a legit choice. Would you rather have soup or cook in the kitchen would be equivalent. They look related, both are about prepared foods, but it's not 'soup or salad'. Inclusionists just want soup brought to them. ThuranX (talk) 14:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Randomran the "trivial mention in an independent source" doesn't prove anything.. Ikip (talk) 15:42, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Time to move on people

Ok, I left these discussions awhile ago because I frankly got tired of hearing the same people rant about the same shit (pardon my French). I respect everyone's opinion, but there comes a time when you need to let it go and move on. That time is now. We've all heard each other more than a dozen times. As I read the guideline right now, it seems rather well put together. I'm not saying it is perfect, but it's better than the sum of its parts. I believe we need to go ahead and do our "mass mail-out" to get this thing over and done with. We're bickering over these details when we have no idea what the majority of the community are even going to think about them. Let's stop the bickering and start the presses. Go ahead and notify the village pumps, noticeboards, etc. It's time to get this guideline up and running, in one form or another.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:03, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this, and even assert that we should seek CENT to make sure no one else sees any red flags, and then apply this for three months, planning to come back and review what really did happen at AFD and elsewhere as a result of this new guideline, and decide then if editors do use all three prongs as envisioned, or if people are gaming the system (for example, stretching the intent of the 2nd prong) and requiring us to rewrite any of them with more prescriptive language. --MASEM 16:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that a trial with an explicit agreement that we will revisit the issue if people feel like the guideline has been used to keep inappropriate articles is a very good idea. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:10, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

How will we measure that inappropriate articles have been kept? If it's been kept in accordance with the guideline, then by definition it's appropriate. Randomran (talk) 17:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm willing to treat that as personal opinion - if people think the guideline is being used to keep articles that ought not have been kept (in a general sense - i.e. that it was undesirable to create a policy that allowed keeping), we can look at them. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:24, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I am not aware of any precedent for a trial guideline. I suspect that achieving widespread consensus to have a trial of a guideline would be as or more controversial than the guideline itself. What are we really saying? "We are going to pretend to agree for 90 days, and then go back to the previous version (which I don't think you will find broad consensus for), or "We'll pretend to agree for 90 days, and then leave the trial guideline in place while we argue over changes", which I would oppose tooth-and-nail as the equivalent of a high-school boy's promise to only put it in a little bit.—Kww(talk) 17:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

(ec) there is no precedence, and even if there were, it is simply a way to ease the minds of those who are unsure. A "trial" is not a "trial", because once the proposal is removed it will never be a proposal again. The same editors above will say it has consensus, and that will be the end of it. This is simply a way to push the guideline forward, despite disagreement on its substance.

I think CENT is a wonderful idea, once editors hash out the issues above. Ikip (talk) 17:59, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

There's no recent precedent - we did, quite a while ago, implement a procedure called quickpolls on a trial basis. But I'm perfectly willing to have a clear agreement among those of us working on implementing this guideline that we're implementing it on a three month trial, and that afterwards we'll look at any cases people have of articles that were kept or deleted that should not have been and, if there is not a consensus that those articles were appropriate or desirable results, we will rewrite the guideline as necessary to fix those problems. It's an unconventional move. But, well, we can rewrite the rulebook if we think it will be helpful. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:08, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, we can see that there remains clear, reasonable disagreement. What is unclear is whether or not this disagreement can be resolved through the authoring of any change to this guideline. In that event, one option may just be to create (and advertise) a straw poll asking people if the guideline as written should be adopted. I'm uninterested in putting the guideline through any sort of "trial" phase (for various reasons, chief among them that it would be confusing as hell). Protonk (talk) 18:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we can make a trial work - I think you only need a few ground rules to have it be sane. A three month window, a page where anyone can log outcomes they think were undesirable outcomes, and an agreement among all or most of us that in three months we'll look at those cases, figure out which ones have a significant sense were bad outcomes (I'm thinking anything that has less than 2/3 support that the outcome was the right one), and make whatever changes are needed to the guideline to fix those problems.

I mean, not only do I think it's workable, I think it's necessary. We're dealing with thousands of articles at once, and dozens of editors who will be applying this guideline. There's no way to predict with great accuracy how things will work. What we need is field data to see if, for instance, the independence issue is one that actually affects things. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that at the end of the "trial" period, unless there's strong consensus to change it, this goes forward. That's exactly the same thing that would happen if the proposal was adopted, isn't it?—Kww(talk) 18:26, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps. That said, I doubt you and I differ that much on the actual question of what articles should be deleted. In fact, I'm guessing that, all things being equal, you, me, Randomran, Gavin, Masem, and Protonk would all vote the same on fiction AfDs with about 90% consistency. So I'm guessing that there's not going to be, in three months, a lot of disagreement on what needs to be fixed. Indeed, I'll say that, for me at least, I think that if this guideline as written does lead to inappropriate keeps, it's going to need strengthening well beyond mention in an independent source (which I don't think excludes any character or episode of any TV show, for instance). Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I share concerns with both Kww and Ikip. Strangely enough, they're on opposite ends of the inclusion spectrum. But they both agree: once it's adopted on a trial basis, we're going to remove the "proposed" tag, and it's going to be hard to find a consensus to put it back. If we go ahead on a trial basis, we should be honest and admit that we're approving the guideline as is. Randomran (talk) 20:29, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Kww, Ikip, randomran and anyone else who opposes this as a backdoor for establishing a new status quo on the sly. I also note: No one's pointed out: If we 'approve for a trial', then any fiction article created during this trial period would need to be reassessed at the end of the trial, whereupon i have NO doubt many, many wikipedians would cry foul if deleted, arguing that most new editors couldn't understand the trial period thing, and thus would be driven away/penalized unfairly, and inclusionists would argue to keep all the new articles on that very basis, defaulting us to a permanent state of accepting the 'no sources needed' variety of this proposal. ThuranX (talk) 20:33, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. In which case we're stuck with either the current proposal or a modification. Clearly the "trivial mention" idea is a non-starter. Anyone else have an idea that addresses these concerns? I still suspect we could work out a usable test along the lines of "would be likely to be mentioned in an overview of the work aimed at someone unfamiliar with it" that has much of the same effect without requiring the finding of largely not-useful sources. Or we can go as is - to date, nobody has presented an article that would be kept under this guideline that they think should be deleted. If I had some idea of what sort of articles we were worried about, it would be a lot easier to find more ideas for how to deal with this problem. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:40, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I made an edit to the second prong based on what we talked about last week. As an olive branch to the deletionist side, we require commentary in reliable sources to establish the "role". But as an olive branch to the inclusionist side, there is a presumed "role" for episodes and recurring characters. Of course, the role isn't enough by itself, and the other two prongs need to be met too (e.g.: real world coverage). Randomran (talk) 20:48, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

This whole "trial basis" has nothing to do with the actual tag of the guideline. The idea of the "trial" is to see what needs to be tweaked. It's clear that the consensus is that we need something here, the only disagreement we have is over the fine details of what is specifically being said in the guideline (which primarily is attributed to the second prong). What we need is a working guideline that may or may not need some fine tuning in 3 months. I highly doubt there is going to be anymore abuse with this guideline as it exists than there already is with no guideline in place (i.e. when people use NOTE as the basis for whether to keep, merge, or delete an article).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Nice work. That is a good version of the second prong. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Given that we understand that "trial for 3 months" is effectively promoting this to a guideline but with the understand we will revise the language as needed after 3 months - or even unpromote it if it just outright doesn't work - then there's a few things that would be good to track:

• A list of all fiction-related AFDs with their target results (placing any pages that get deleted to some userspace so we can review what they looked like when deleted)
• Article counts now and in 3 months (and if necessary/desired, every month) of the major fiction categories to get an idea how many articles are created/deleted

I'm sure there's some other "easy" stats to track but we should consider that for helping with the 3 month re-assessment. --MASEM 21:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

To make sure I am clear about this, are people suggesting making this a full guideline before it is approved by the wider community?

Again, a "trial" is not a "trial", because once the proposal is removed it will never be a "proposal" again. The same small group of editors will say it has consensus, and that will be the end of it. A "trial" is simply a way to push the guideline forward, despite disagreement on its substance.

I suggest keeping it a "proposal", have a straw poll, for more views to be submitted, then a full CENT.

Wider community support is vital. Especially since many of the editors here are going to point to this guideline as a de facto license to delete and bury other editors contributions across wikipedia.

Like all policy page talk pages, this talk page tends to be an echo chamber, full of editors who support the policy. It is no secret that Masem, Phil Sandifer, Bignole, ThuranX, Protonk all have generally the same opinion about this proposal, and all have the same point of view about notability. Correct me if I am wrong (I haven't completed the study of the edit history of this page yet), these 5 editors have the most edits on this proposal and on this talk page. Like on other rule pages, this concentration of like minded editors runs the very credible risk of a false, echo room consensus.

Since I clearly have radically different views from these editors, I await the inevitable chorus of denials. Ikip (talk) 02:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Some of those editors have widely different opinions, if that matters. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:52, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Certainly nothing comes to mind when I try to think of a point of agreement between Phil Sandifer and ThuranX.—Kww(talk) 02:56, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

To Ikip's first comment. I don't believe any of us are saying we just make this a guideline and then see what happens. What we are saying is that we go through the formal processes and see if the guideline passes. If it does then we take it on as a "trial" basis (most likely because most general purpose editors don't frequent the pages that usually get notified of new proposed guidelines...they just stick to their articles), and we see how pages are handled for the next three months. In that time we chronicle all articles that are deleted, merged, and created and we re-assess all of them so see if the guideline wording needs tightening or loosening with regard to the practical use of it in the "daily life" of Wiki articles.

In response to the personal attack. First, I'd like to say that I have 7 people in front of me when it comes to edits to this talk page (and that goes all the way back to 2007), and the top 4 people editing this talk page are 400+ edits (I'm at 233...234 if you include this one). When it comes to the actual guideline page, I have a total of 16 edits. So, please keep your personal attacks to yourself (yes, I take it as such because you were attempting to slander my name by pigeon-holing me as some crazed deletionist...P.S. next time take a look at my editing history - I have created and developed many fiction-related articles, including episode articles for TV shows. I'm frankly already annoyed by the prejudgement attitude you've been giving me since the WP:EPISODE discussion...Yes, I did see your first comment to me when I started this section). How about we leave petty differences at the door and let's focus on the important things, like how to get this page operational and in agreement.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:11, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Darn, I missed the top ten.[11] Masem, Gavin's gaining on you. What ever happened to Ned. Seeing those old names makes me wistful. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:21, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Ikip, I WHAT? I have the same ideas about notability with Phil Sandifer? I've edited that policy page almost the most? I don't think I have even TOUCHED the policy page, and Yes, I've been active here, but I highly doubt I'm the most active by far. You need to re-read this talk page, and think carefully before misrepresenting me here again. Further, your 'correct me if I'm wrong', followed by your blanket statement that our replies will be 'denials', makes your entire comment into a smear and personal attack against every single person you enumerated in your list. Get your facts straight. ThuranX (talk) 12:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the process of approval, as I have noted before, the process for elevating a page to guideline status has not generally been straw poll followed by centralized discussion followed by god knows what - usually someone decides to be bold and, based on the consensus on the talk page, tag the page as a guideline, and it stays that way. There is no precedent for a sort of massive sitewide poll on an inclusion guideline. And we've already done a centralized discussion on this, so I don't see another one being particularly productive. (As well as two very wide rounds of comment solicitation.) There's not much more to promote. Pretty much, we have what we have.

At the moment, by my rough counting (and I may be missing people) we have, on this page, four people opposed. Their proposed change - requiring mention in an independent source - currently seems a nonstarter among everyone else.

The question, frankly, is whether that's substantial enough opposition to mean that this doesn't have consensus. For me, right now, I'm hard-pressed to say it is. Part of that is the fact that I have increasing difficulty believing in the good faith of some of the editors objecting. Another part is that, to date, nobody has pointed to a single article they think this guideline would allow keeping that they do not think should be kept.

At this point, unless someone can point to an actual example of a page this would lead to the undesirable keeping of, I think we can tag it and move on. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I would like to see some examples. This guideline (pretty much, but in favor of deletion) accurately reflects actual AfDs and their outcomes. Examples from the other end are plentiful. I've been working on Drizzt Do'Urden, which wouldn't pass the GNG. It's about a character who has starred in about 15 NYT best sellers (and a ton of other stuff), but which there doesn't really exist two substantial independant non-trivial sources. It might borderline pass, depending on how one feels about author interviews. I can come up with much more borderline cases that could never be deleted, if that would help. I don't think examples, pre adoption of this guideline, are going to change any minds though. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:37, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I have increasing difficulty believing in the good faith of people who don't all agree with me. Let's leave the grandstanding at the door.

I don't want to handwave at a "silent majority," but guidelines are arguments. Arguments that convince everyone stick, arguments that fail to convince don't. Right now, we just don't have an argument to say "Well, WP:N's requirement of multiple independent sources shouldn't apply here, because..." We may have some attempts at that, but this just doesn't have what it needs to convince. So, yeah, we can say it passes here, but I'm opposed not only because I don't like it, but because it also won't fly.

I suspect that it will take a more elegant compromise than some quibbling over the number and sort of sources. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 04:39, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe in the good faith of numerous people who don't agree with me. I am more skeptical about people who shout and scream at me. In any case - what I really want to see, at this point, is any articles people are specifically concerned that this guideline wrongly keeps or deletes. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:42, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

There are already wrong keeps. One, Drizzt Do'Urden, was brought up above. Very little sourcing, and I can't really find any, but it seems to stick around. Should be covered in the parent work(s). Ego the Living Planet is another example. A whole article "sourced" to comic books is...well, nothing I probably should say, but certainly unacceptable. I'm afraid that such a guideline would legitimize these. Another example is Bulbasaur, and indeed most Pokemon, since there's usually some type of commentary on these just because of the way people lap that up. Kakashi Hatake. Aang. Fire Nation. I could go on and on and on, give me most fictional works that haven't already gotten cleaned up. And I haven't even gotten past anime and comics to other types of shows, movies, or video games yet. What we need is notability. That's more than just verifiability. It's saying "Hey, several sources with a reputation for fact checking and writing quality material and who don't have an interest in pushing this stuff chose to write about it." In a very real sense, that's verification that something is notable—have those whose time and space is valuable, and must pick and choose what they turn their attention to, chosen to write a good deal about it? If yes, it's notable. If no, it's not. Doesn't get any simpler than that. That's why primary sources don't and shouldn't count. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:04, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Looking at Bulbasaur, Drizzt, and Ego, I see articles that need some cleanup, but I don't see articles that I think there's a consensus to delete. Even if this guideline were rejected and we were to stay with the status quo, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find consensus to delete those articles. Looking at Ego, for instance, I see that there was an AfD less than a year ago that overwhelmingly said to keep it. Kakashi Hatake is a good article. So I'm not that concerned about legitimizing those articles - in the eyes of the community, they appear to already be legitimate. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:13, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Torchic used to be featured, and eventually got cleaned up. If we don't legitimize, cleanup can take place, even if there is fan involvement. If we do, it still eventually will as fan enthusiasm wanes, but it takes longer. You may not be worried about legitimizing those, but you asked for articles someone besides you is concerned about legitimizing. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:26, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

To my mind, the worst problem to clean up is massive chunks of in-universe information. Requiring out of universe information, as this guideline does, seems to me to be a huge help. Honestly, as it stands, Ego would have a hard time passing this - there's very little in-universe content in it. But also, I have trouble with the idea that articles that overwhelmingly survive AfD are a problem. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:40, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Drizzt, source two, the Allbusiness.com review from 2004, page two establishes notability to my satisfaction. The magazine specifically states, and i paraphrase here 'Drizzt is popular enough a character to push 9 books of a franchise to the top of the NY Times best seller lists'. That works for me as an independent source establishing notability, and I'd vote keep comfortably on any AfD for the character. ThuranX (talk) 13:05, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I'm pretty impressed that even a small group of editors with widely different views on notability were able to work together on a guideline that they could all live with. It was initially put together by an inclusionist. It was edited by numerous people, some more in the middle, some even at the other end of the inclusion-deletion spectrum. I'm surprised Gavin Collins and Phil Sandifer can both basically live with the same proposed guideline. And I guess I can see why Phil Sandifer warned us about "drive-by voting". It's easy for any run of the mill inclusionist to say "oh my god I hate notability guidelines", just as it's easy for any run of the mill deletionist to say "there is no guideline that will be as great as WP:N". But if they actually forced themselves to incrementally collaborate and design a guideline using the WP:BRD process, it would probably look a lot like this. And that's how consensus is reached. Not by two sides bashing each other over the head with their ideal proposals. But by incrementally building a proposal up together using the WP:BRD process. Randomran (talk) 05:52, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

(EC) Not judging Ego on this, but many times AfDs are smothered with biased opinions (whether to delete or to keep), based on the particular community of editors that see the AfD. If you were to take some element in The Simpsons universe and create an article that even you agree should not exist, you'll find that getting it deleted with the very active Simpsons Project editors would be...well, let's just say you'd have an easier time keeping a snow cone from melting in Hell. The same can be said for articles on obscure fiction (like some direct-to-dvd movie) where the article is in poor shape (e.g., would probably pass this guideline by the skin of its teeth, but it's so subjective that it could go either way), with only a few editors following it, and a group of deletion-happy editors see it and AfD the article with ease.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 05:52, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm well aware. Though that AfD was more overwhelming in its keepiness than normal. I'm not sure why, except perhaps that Ego is such a fantastically weird concept that he sticks out over similarly notable weird Marvel ideas. In any case, I think as it stands the article fails prong three, but that it would be not-hard to fix that. (I know that a recent issue of Marvel Adventures called "Ego the Loving Planet" got numerous favorable reviews, for instance.) Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

This is where context comes in. I've seen a lot of AfDs and Merge discussions that ended with "we have these sources (insert link to Google) that show it is notable". The catch is, do the sources actually talk about what the article is about. In your example, do the reviews cover Ego the Planet, or do they only just cover the comics that he appears in? If it's the former, great. If it's the latter, than you cannot legitimately extrapolate real world info from sources that actually talk about your subject matter in the degree that you require. This seems to be an issue with a lot of articles. Ironically, if you look at the AfD for Ego you'll see that a couple people did just that, showed links to the Google sources and said "we just need time". Here we are today and the article hasn't really changed. At what point do we say "time's up"? You cannot say never, because at some point the sources have to be provide to show that they are legitimate sources, and not misguided attempts to skate by. Regardless, this is something we need to see in practice. Right now we're doing nothing but hypothesizing what might happen, but we need to know what is happening. The only way to do that is get this guideline out in the field.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 06:07, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

In this case, at least, the comic was widely praised for its use of an unusual character in an inventive way, so we have a fair amount on Ego.

As for time's up, I'm working on a push for comics specifically (in part as a trial for a wider idea I have) to, essentially, hit bad summaries and sections with an "improve or die" challenge - not in the five day sense of AfD, but on a longer scale. We'll see how that works. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:10, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Ego the Living Planet would be a delete base on this guideline. It's a good example of how this guideline is in the exclusionist side of actual AfDs. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:14, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I know I'm banging a drum about "This isn't the way to do it", but "the comic was widely praised for its use of an unusual character in an inventive way" says to me that we need an article on the comic that was praised, not a character that was in the comic that was praised. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 06:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

My point, I hope, is that your problem is not that this guidline would give that article a free pass, but that it was kept at all. We're trying to be mildy descriptive of AfD outcomes, and I don't see that one as using this guideline as free pass. If this guideline allows "the comic was widely praised for its use of an unusual character in an inventive way" as enough, then I guess it would be descriptive. I think this guideline is tighter than that, though. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:34, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I can get multiple reviews of most issues of comic books in the last few years - it seems to me undesirable to write issues about all of them, though. This seems to me a case where editorial judgment serves usefully as a finger on the scale. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Sort of. Much as I would like it to, "Cover fictional things as part of the work and not subjects of their own" hasn't had enough traction to move general opinion in the way that "On Notability" did; hell, look at how hard it is to get people to cover fictional things as part of the real world and not a fictional universe. In my experience, successful compromises of policy or contention over principles are solved when someone steps forward and suggests or implements an idea so good that both sides accept it. "Everyone likes it" compromises work. This, however, is a "nobody likes it" compromise, one which is equally distateful to all. I don't see that getting enough support to go anywhere.

We're trying to make a guildeline that simulates AFD results without ever addressing why those AFD results turn out as they do (enthusiasts swamp everyone else). Unsurprisingly, it's not going terribly well! - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 06:44, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Not joking: do we say that entheusiasts shouldn't be counted? What do we do to bring our quidelines into line with practice? I like your reasoning, though. It kind of shows tha problems we have. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 08:01, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Re: Ego the Living Planet... Sometimes I scratch my head in wonderment as people go through abstract discussions, when we should actually be looking for sources. There's some small amounts of coverage on Ego here, where it talks about the character being created during an overall creative phase where Jack Kirby was infatuated with the universe. This book puts the character in the context of the counterculture and alternative press at the time. This resource points out the deadpan irony used by the band Monster Magnet in making references to the character. There's enough here to write a scant section on real-world development and impact. That signals that there must be coverage in print media... after all, it's a comic book character from 1966. I'm not even into comics and I could pull this up in about 2 minutes. Randomran (talk) 06:55, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

We are in a vicious circle, that we're trying to build FICT based on AFD results that are presently decided in the absence of a working FICT. Which is why we need to see how a FICT is used practically at AFD to judge if it actually works or not. --MASEM 06:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding comics, I actually just propsed a 'minor list of $company characters in comics' page ,to absorb characters like Ego and Porcupine. ThuranX (talk) 06:29, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I know myself and probably a good handful of others agree we need "list of" pages, we are going to wait to actually spell those out better once we've gotten FICT on the ground and that we review the RFC from WP:N to assure that such lists meet those concerns. --MASEM 06:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Eh, as far as AfDs and relative consensus goes, most lists of "minor characters" tend to be deleted, as they fall into NOT#PLOT/NOT#INFO/WEIGHT issues much easier. Just as a random aside; I know we're not tackling lists here. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 13:06, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

OK. So in any case, we all seem to agree that as it stands Ego fails this guideline. Any other examples people want to discuss? Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:45, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

... sigh. Articles are WP:IMPERFECT. I fixed it up with some research, even though I don't know a damn thing about the subject. Randomran (talk) 17:57, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes. I was fairly sure Ego could pass. But I was also willing to say that in its current state it didn't. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:22, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Some are, but unless there is more to this character than is presented, I would still say the current state could easily be merged into a "list of" article. First, the "History of Apperances" is virtually a listing of the prose information in "Fictional character biography" - so that's needless really. "Powers and abilites" should be covered in the "biography" section. Tighten up the prose in that section to be a little less wordy and you got a few sold paragraphs that would be perfect for a "List of" article.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 18:23, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

It's possible that the information would be coverable by a merge, but I'm skeptical - I think there's room for expansion of the out-of-universe stuff as well. Certainly it is near a point where I think it passes this guideline in its current version. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:56, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Compliments to Randomran and Phil on the cleanup of Ego, The Living Planet. amazing what two guys on the side of the freeway can do for litter. and references. ThuranX (talk) 22:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Actually, I think something that's *almost* notable has something in common with something that is *barely* notable: it should be merged into a broader article. If there's a ton of research, you should be able to write at least one article, maybe even multiple articles. But in this case where the research is borderline, it's the kind of article that could be summarized down to 5-10kb. However, this FICT guideline is silent on merges exactly for that reason. Merging isn't just a compromise for something that's not notable, but sometimes an editorial decision for how to better organize our notable content. Randomran (talk) 00:59, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

To kind of veer this back on track from the living planet, the question is whether or not to do a "trial". I think that it's too much of a "everyone be happy" admission. Either we push this through or not, but running trials isn't an effective way to actually observe the policy (I can see AfD's now: "FICT is just a trial right now, so it would be unfair to delete this and then 2 weeks later bring it back." or something similar). I of course agree that if people bring substantive evidence from AfD or elsewhere that editors are using this guideline in a way not intended, than we should reevaluate and tighten language where needed, but that should be once we've gotten the first stable and accepted guideline. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 22:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. In which case, for me, the main outstanding issue is whether there's something visibly wrong with what this guideline would or wouldn't keep. Which, at the moment, it seems like is not the case. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:26, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

It seem OK in its existing form, but I think any objections to the current draft can't be ignored, as they will be magnified at RFC, which I think must be the next step. I don't think we can push it out on a trial basis, as this guideline that needs strong support from day one. I think we are close to agreement.--Gavin Collins (talk) 14:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

One thing I'd like to see is an informal straw poll. If this is going to get rejected, we need to know *why*. The poll should be simple, with four options: "Too strict, reject", "Somewhat strict, but accept", "Somewhat loose, but accept", "Too loose, reject". The worst thing that can happen is not that this guideline gets rejected, but that you have two different sides claiming it was rejected for two contradictory reasons. Randomran (talk) 16:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

That sounds good. Why don't we link to that poll at the top of FICT. It's viewed a few thousand times a month.[12] - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:19, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• So many viewers! You are such a popular guy, Peregrine. It is probably your photo on your user page - women just can't resist a beard. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

In an attempt to see if efficiency trumps democracy, I'm going to attempt a shot at boldness and guideline tag the proposal, on the grounds that, to date, nobody seems to actually find any articles they think it comes to the wrong decision on, and see if it sticks.

Of course, if anybody sincerely thinks they can get a result more to their liking through other means, they should feel free to revert. But I suspect that, regardless of opinions of where the guideline is compared to our personal preferences, we do basically recognize it as what's going to happen. So let's see if it sticks the easy way. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:34, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

"prong"

I know there are bigger disputes. But can we use a word other than "prong"? I think it's been a useful shorthand as we've been working on it. But for it to be a real guideline, we should use another word. "Three factor test?" "Three step test?" Randomran (talk) 17:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think I called it the Five Pointed Palm Exploding Heart Technique once to get Phil's goat. I'm ok with factor, less so with steps (As it isn't serial). But I can take it or leave it. Protonk (talk) 18:03, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• *shuffles about, looks at floor* ...I kinda like prong, meself... --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 18:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it can safely be said that no one's really that upset about the word prong, but we could go military and talk about platoons, or go from the prongs of a deer's antlers to the points of a buck, or the three cards in the monte... or, since it's their tenth anniversary, we could name them blossom, bubbles and buttercup, after the powerpuff girls. Or we could leave it and focus on the problem of whether or not the fan's judgment of notability is enough. ThuranX (talk) 18:09, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• I always liked prong. It's a normal term in judicial decisions that create tests on deciding whether something is obscene or copyright infringing or whatever. It seemed the appropriate term for what we're doing here. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:10, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, "prong" seems just fine to me. Would also circumvent any future confusion from folks who've only been peripherally following. — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 18:36, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

If I'm alone on this one, I can let it go :) I just thought there might be a better term, that sounds less like WP:JARGON. Randomran (talk) 20:25, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Branch, possibly, or point. Otherwise, I think prong works suitably (I think it works beautifully, even!); I think you could probably add it to the glossary subpage, which is transcluded at the top of this page. --Izno (talk) 21:41, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

"Prong" is fine by me.—Kww(talk) 02:58, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Reducing archive time

Since the list of topics seems to be growing more than shrinking, i set the days to 7 (from 10). The 10-day was set before this was made as public as it is currently.じんない 08:32, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• I changed the bot archive time, which, for some unknown reason is different from the displayed archiving time. Fooled me the first time, too. Protonk (talk) 18:06, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Trial period

Since this isn't an "everyone is happy" guideline, we are at an impass it seems, but the relative impass is only one 1 minor issue, not the argument of the guideline as a whole I, and some others, think a trial should be done. I think it needs to be stated that this trial should be conducted for at least 30 days, possibly longer (especially if we get statements in AfD like "well WP:FICT is only on a trial basis till day X..". This way we can extend it as well if those are the type of arugments that are being used to keep/delete content to better get a sense of what this article would do for long-term.じんない 23:43, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem with trial guidelines is that guidelines aren't rules but instead arguments that doing it such-and-such way is better. "Well, it's a guideline, so you'd better follow it" just doesn't fly. This work isn't legislation; it's documentation or evangelism. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 00:51, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

It's true, but it is more than a mere suggestion, it's a suggestion you should be able to substantiate a sound reason why it should be ignored. The criteria isn't necessarily as strict as a policy, but ignoring it because you don't like it is not good enough reason. An essay on how to do something is closer to a general suggestion.じんない 01:00, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the trial is an empty gesture. If we have a trial, then we have a guideline. We're using it. How do you prove it's being used inappropriately? If it's being used to keep too many articles, or delete too many articles, either way there will be enough people who like it exactly the way it is to prevent it from going back in the box. Let's be honest: if we let it out of the box, there's no going back. Only small changes are possible. Randomran (talk) 01:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

You don't mark a page a guideline as a "trial." You wait until there's consensus to mark a proposal a guideline, and then you mark it a guideline. --Pixelface (talk) 01:05, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Randomran. You can't really have a "trial" of a guideline the same way you can have a trial of FlaggedRevs because you're asking editors to adhere to a page that may-or-may-not-be a guideline; no one would be under any sort of duress (nor should they) to follow it. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 01:19, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Alright, it was a suggestion since others had brought it up. If there seems to be a clear indication that it isn't a good idea, then I'll withdraw the proposal. It doesn't solve the problem though of a sticking point on the 1 tiny issue keeping this article in limbo.じんない 01:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I see two tiny issues. But I think the two issues are from two opposing viewpoints. Meaning there's a good chance they cancel each other out. ... of course, then there's the possibility that the two opposing sides get together on shared opposition to this guideline. The way we prevent that from happening, of course, is asking them to explain why they oppose it. If an equal number of people say it's too strict as they say it's too loose, then that proves this is probably the best compromise we can get. Randomran (talk) 01:34, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. And I'll add to that, I'm willing to take a "doesn't matter how the sausage gets made" approach here - if there are minimal objections to what articles would and wouldn't actually be kept, I think we're in pretty good shape. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:37, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd go a step further. This is the way sausage gets made. Love it or leave it. Nobody's going to get their ideal proposal. The people who actually worked on this guideline didn't get their ideal guideline either. But forced to talk to each other and find common ground, this is the best we could do. Don't knock the sausage if you can't make something better. Randomran (talk) 02:27, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I am, at this point, reasonably persuaded against a trial. I think we're all sensible and relatively on the same page about what this guideline should do. If we're seeing problems, I suspect we can come to a good consensus on fixing it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

What about single-appearance characters?

I hate to throw this in while discussions seem to be winding down, but this is something that's been irking me for a long time: do characters who only significantly appear in a single work actually merit independent articles? For example, George Bailey is the main character of a well-known film, but there's nothing about him, fictionally or in the real-world, which is relevant and non-trivial that cannot be adequately covered within the It's a Wonderful Life article. It makes sense to create a character article (or character listing) when significant quantities of information are no longer directly correlated with a single source material and cannot be otherwise collected at a single article. Thoughts? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 05:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

For the most part, there does not seem to be consensus for articles on characters in individual films that do not satisfy WP:N independently (which Bailey, to be fair, clearly does). Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

For the non-notable ones, you can always cover them in the main article. But George Bailey is most certainly notable, even by WP:N's standards. I think it's easier for a recurring character to be notable. But anything with reliable third-party sources will be notable too. Randomran (talk) 05:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but the question is should we allow a clearly deficient and merge-worthy article simply because we can continue to find notability in smaller discrete parts? I don't see why we need the Bailey article, and if anything, it has the potential to dilute the strength of both itself and the film's article by splitting off, leading to redundancy and potential inequitable article development. This would be avoided if the editors were working together on the same article. Since we are discussing a SNG, why are we defining a character's notability solely by GNG? My proposal is that character articles need to be justifiably unable to be acceptably merged into a source article before they can meet notability. Another good example is the bevy of Monty Python and the Holy Grail character sub-articles - is it really better for the development of the film's article that these articles have been split off? Why can't their information be merged into the film article, and if so, why would one then need to keep these sub-articles? My point is that endless splitting simply because notability can be said to exist is not necessarily in the best interest of either article if we are aiming towards long-term article development. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 05:45, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you in principle that sometimes it's better to have one great article than several small bad ones. But that's an editorial decision. This guideline explicitly says:

• "No part of this guideline is meant to preempt the editorial decision of content selection and presentation; for example, a topic may meet all three prongs above, but may be decided by consensus to be better covered in the article on the work of fiction itself instead of a separate article if there is limited information available."

I think it's important that we say exactly that. No more, no less. Randomran (talk) 05:54, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Yea, the situation described is exactly something to avoid in this guideline beyond the caution above, but worth detailed consideration in WP:WAF. Mind you, I agree with what Girolamo states, but I'd rather err on allowing more articles and then coming back as editorial corrections to merge, than to limit articles to start. --MASEM 06:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I guess we're coming from different perspectives. I feel that the atomization of articles has already hurt Wikipedia and editing quality immeasurably, and is only more likely to create further problems of maintenance and down the line, especially as we start to hit scalability limits (which may have already happened, based on some project-level data). I feel that sub-articles need to be that which had to be split - mitosis, if you will - instead of sui generis. However, I appreciate that not everyone may agree. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 06:22, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I think you might have a point. But then the cat is already out of the bag due to other guidelines. If you ever put together a proposal that offers a guideline of when to summarize and merge (sort of a balancing guideline to WP:SPINOUT), let me know. Randomran (talk) 06:30, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

A similar question came up when one-off Doctor Who companion Astrid Peth (who only appeared in "Voyage of the Damned") was first AfDed and then proposed to be merged. Consensus was no, her article should remain. (I'd only !vote to get rid of her article if it was poorly written and structured. But it isn't, so I don't care either way.) – sgeureka ^t•c 11:20, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• In answer to Girolamo Savonarola, the article George Bailey does not cite an sources that provide evidence of notability, and I agree if plot summary is the only coverage, then the article should be merged into It's a Wonderful Life. Phil Sandifer and Randomran may be correct in their assertion that this character is notable if sources can be found to back up this claim. However, they might be mistaken, in the sense that critics and commentators may haved focused their attention on the performance of James Stewart (actor) and ignore the fictional character altogether, in which case the character might be non-notable. I don't think that we should automatically allow a clearly deficient and merge-worthy article in the absense of reliable secondary, as this is a matter of personal judgement not fact.--Gavin Collins (talk) 12:42, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Girolamo, I have had similar thoughts, but I think that, in a case like George Bailey's, though devoid of it now, there's enough notability that attempts at cleanup could be made first, then, failing that, a merge, in the hopes it'll gestate back to a full mitosis split. In the case of others, like Holy Grail, it's probably better to merge them all back, and then hope for a mitosis.

I've seen references to George Bailey as an 'everyman', in the context of both Stewart's acting and Christmas movies, and discussion about what his character means, so I 'know' evidence of his notability and real world content's out there. Not so much with the MP characters. Though I've seen a few pop culture joke references to the film, using the characters, I haven't seen much particular discussion of the characters themselves not attached to a write-up of one of the actors, and usually more along the lines of 'and he played the cowardly Sir Robin' or some such. Such sources should be used to support the brief character description in the main article. It does have to be a case by case basis, and I think you found great contrasting examples. ThuranX (talk) 12:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

It depends. I'm generally against having articles for film characters that appear in one film — unless... an actor is quite well-known for the role, the character is fairly iconic, or if the film is based on a previous literary work. Speaking of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains: --Pixelface (talk) 21:20, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

100 Heroes and Villains

	Heroes	Villains
1	Atticus Finch (present)	Hannibal Lecter (present)
2	Indiana Jones (present)	Norman Bates (present)
3	James Bond (present)	Darth Vader (present)
4	Rick Blaine (redirect to Casablanca film article)	Wicked Witch of the West (present)
5	Will Kane (redirect to High Noon film article)	Nurse Ratched (present)
6	Clarice Starling (present)	Mister Potter (present)
7	Rocky Balboa (present)	Alex Forrest (redirect to actual person Alexander Forrest)
8	Ellen Ripley (present)	Phyllis Dietrichson (present)
9	George Bailey (present), kept after AFD	Regan MacNeil (present)
10	T. E. Lawrence (actual person)	The Queen in Snow White (present)
11	Jefferson Smith (redlink)	Michael Corleone (present)
12	Tom Joad (redirect to The Grapes of Wrath novel article)	Alex DeLarge (redirect to A Clockwork Orange novel article)
13	Oskar Schindler (actual person)	HAL 9000 (present)
14	Han Solo (present)	the xenomorph in Alien (present)
15	Norma Rae Webster (redirect to Norma Rae film article)	Amon Göth (actual person)
16	Shane (redlink)	Noah Cross (redirect to Chinatown film article)
17	"Dirty Harry" Callahan (present)	Annie Wilkes (present)
18	Robin Hood (present)	Great white shark in Jaws
19	Virgil Tibbs (present)	William Bligh (actual person)
20	Butch & Sundance (actual people)	Man in Bambi
21	Mahatma Gandhi (actual person)	Eleanor Iselin (present)
22	Spartacus (actual person)	the Terminator (present)
23	Terry Malloy (redirect to On the Waterfront film article)	Eve Harrington (redirect to All About Eve film article)
24	Thelma & Louise (both redlinks)	Gordon Gekko (present)
25	Lou Gehrig (actual person)	Jack Torrance (present)
26	Superman (present)	Cody Jarrett (different actual person, but mentions the film White Heat)
27	Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein (actual people)	Martians (present)
28	Juror Number 8 (redlink)	Max Cady (present)
29	George S. Patton (actual person)	Reverend Harry Powell (persent)
30	Luke Jackson (redlink)	Travis Bickle, kept at (AFD)
31	Erin Brockovich (actual person)	Mrs. Danvers (redlink)
32	Philip Marlowe (present)	Bonnie and Clyde (actual people)
33	Marge Gunderson (redirect to Fargo film article)	Count Dracula (present)
34	Tarzan (present)	Dr. Christian Szell (redirect to Marathon Man novel article)
35	Alvin York (actual person)	J.J. Hunsecker (redlink)
36	Rooster Cogburn (redlink)	Frank Booth (present)
37	Obi-Wan Kenobi (present)	Harry Lime (redirect to the The Third Man article)
38	The Tramp (present)	Caesar Enrico Bandello (redlink)
39	Lassie (present)	Cruella de Vil (present)
40	Frank Serpico (actual person)	Freddy Krueger (present)
41	Arthur Chipping (redirect to the Goodbye, Mr. Chips novel article)	Joan Crawford (actual person)
42	Edward J. Flanagan (actual person)	Tom Powers (different actual person but links to The Public Enemy film article)
43	Moses (Biblical figure)	Regina Giddens (redlink)
44	Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (present)	Baby Jane Hudson (present)
45	Zorro (present)	The Joker (present)
46	Batman (present)	Hans Gruber, deleted at (AFD) although consensus was merge
47	Karen Silkwood (actual person)	Tony Camonte (present)
48	the Terminator	Verbal Kint (redirect to The Usual Suspects film article)
49	Andrew Beckett (redlink)	Auric Goldfinger (present)
50	Maximus Decimus Meridius, deleted by Nihonjoe at (AFD) "per FICT"	Alonzo Harris (redirect to Training Day film article

(That table could be out of date, I made in January 8.) George Bailey was kept at AFD, Travis Bickle was kept at AFD, Hans Gruber was deleted at AFD (although it appears to me the consensus was to merge), and Maximus Decimus Meridius was deleted at AFD "per FICT." FICT shouldn't override editor views at AFD though. --Pixelface (talk) 21:20, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Good table (might be good to color-code those that are true single-shot verses recurring or based on a real person). I think when I spot check the one-shots that have articles (such as Jack Torrance) is that there is a lot of duplication of plot from the original work. Even if notability is assured by GNG or this FICT, I would think that editorially, I would consider the size of the current film article and how one can reduce repetition of information between a movie plot and the character's bio. On the Maximus article, this version of FICT would allow it (the inclusion on this list meets the 3rd prong and 1st and 2nd are clearly met) so there's an expectation of further discussion, but again, editorially, Gladitor (2000 film) isn't terribly long to include more discussion that may come from Maximus. --MASEM 21:33, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I took the table from the article AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains and modified it. I suppose I could add colors to it. All articles about characters are going to duplicate material from the fictional work article to some extent. There's nothing wrong with that. Jack Torrance is a major character that appears in multiple works. On the other hand, Travis Bickle only appears in Taxi Driver, but the American Film Institute named the character the 30th best film villain. The AFI also said a quote by the character was the 10th best movie quote. The article was kept at AFD — but was redirected 5 weeks later by Otto4711.

Frank Booth only appears in the film Blue Velvet. But it's a memorable role of Dennis Hopper, and it (supposedly) revived his acting career. The AFI named the character the 36th best film villain. And Premiere magazine named one of his quotes one of the 100 greatest quotes in cinema.

Gordon Gekko only appears in the film Wall Street. But Michael Douglas won an Oscar for Best Actor for the performance. And the AFI named the character the 24th best film villain. Gordon Gekko was an icon of the '80s in the United States. And other fictional works have referenced the character.

You can organize information in several ways. It's possible to find what film critics have written about Maximus Decimus Meridius and include that in the Gladiator (2000 film) article; or you can include it in an article about the character; or you can include it in both. The character is a well-known fictional general. I don't see a big problem with repetition of information between articles. Hard drives only get cheaper. With that character, I may have argued to redirect, but the AFI list could sway me. That's third-party coverage. --Pixelface (talk) 22:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure, that's what I tried to implied: every character (excluding the ones based on real life persons) qualifies under the new FICT for an article, the third prong being easily met by the existence of this list, and no questions on meeting the other two. A separate discussion (appropriate to WP:WAF) can be made as to when it may be better (not at all due to notability, but strictly for trying to improve article quality) to keep such characters to the movie's article, when they could be separate, or some other means.

On the plot duplication, its moreso a matter of a character that's in a single work (or a work and its adaption in other media) - the character's bio is bounded by that work, thus the plot of the work will give you the bio of the character. On the other hand, when the character appears across several works, a bio can be made that hilights key points of the various works that contribute to it, but does not duplicate to the point of redundancy. (for example, I've noticed the various "Heroes" character articles, such as Hiro Nakamura, do not attempt to summarize but instead just chronologically list out what happens to the character. This can be improved, but again, this is unrelated to its notability (I'm pretty damn sure they meet the guidelines with some work), but instead a WP:WAF issue to be addressed later. --MASEM 22:48, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• Do any of the articles in this list pass WP:FICT as it stands? --Gavin Collins (talk) 23:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Tagged

I've made an attempt at guideline-tagging this. My hope is that, given that nobody has pointed to an article they think this would lead to the wrong result on, we can all accept this as a compromise that works in practice and not worry excessively about the sausage making process.

I'd encourage people not to revert simply because they prefer a different way of tagging it as a guideline. That's the point of being bold. If we're all sufficiently OK with the outcome of this being a guideline to not revert, well, it's a guideline.

Of course, if there are serious objections and people want a more formal process to see if those objections are sufficient to constitute a lack of consensus, OK. Remove the tag, and we'll go from there.

But I'm optimistic, given that we all seem to at least be OK with what articles this keeps and deletes, that this will work.

And, of course, as I have said, if anyone starts finding cases where this is used to produce bad AfD results, by all means, let's get them fixed. Guideline tagging is not the end of the process - just the end of the part of the process that can be accomplished without trying the guideline out and seeing what it does in the field. If there are parts that don't work, I, at least, want to fix them. And I think, given how successful we've been at finding common ground up to this point, we're more than capable of doing so. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I will say, I am surprised by the swift reversion, without further comment, from someone who has essentially abandoned the discussion for the past 48 hours. Especially from someone who was also largely absent from the discussions that formed this guideline.

I had hoped to see a swift explanation of why he thinks this lacks consensus, what articles it would wrongly keep or delete, and/or what process he would prefer to tag it as a guideline. But half an hour after his revert, it seems that no explanation or re-engagement with the discussion is forthcoming. How disappointing. Perhaps he is working on a lengthy, thought out response, and has been for half an hour. In which case, by all means, delete this comment, and accept my apologies for the edit conflict. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:18, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry that a 48-hour break from sheer frustration appears to be abandoning the discussion. I've made it clear why this guideline is unacceptable. I've provided two different versions of the language. Insert one or the other, and I'm fine. Don't, and I'm not. WP:RS is explicit: "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" I'm willing to go along with a guideline that attempts minimal compliance with that guideline. I'm not willing to go along with a guideline that ignores it.—Kww(talk) 18:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Your proposals were widely rejected, and not just by me. And you've yet to point to a single article that you think should be deleted that this guideline would keep. A lone example would go a very, very long way here. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

For extremely small values of "widely", you might be right. This guideline is in violation of WP:RS. You need to fix that. You may have problems with my efforts at compromise, but that doesn't eliminate that problem. WP:RS is a well established guideline, and a subguideline can't just ignore it.—Kww(talk) 18:40, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• Phil, if you try to rush this through, it won't work. This proposal has to go to RFC first in any case. --Gavin Collins (talk) 18:34, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• I strongly disagree with that statement - I can find no precedent for it in notability guideline formation past. This has been very widely advertised and discussed. I do not think yet another round of comment requesting is needed. Those of us who are involved in the discussion can finish the matter. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I find Phil's attitude combative, and for me to think that is saying something. Phil, people here have real lives, and you know many editors are quite interested in this discussion. To assert that people have left it after 48 hours of NOT replying is absurd bad faith, and you know it. For you to premise an attempt to push this forward based on one of your opponents shutting up for 48 hours is equally bad behavior. In the USA, we've had a Monday holiday, making it a three day weekend for many people, and additionally, the Inauguration of a new president, which for some made it a four day weekend. To leverage peoples' real lives and weekends into an excuse to push your version forward is really just saying 'I don't care about other opinions at all, I want to get MY way!!!' and it makes me inclined to oppose you because it's you, and find reasons to oppose you later, just to throw a wrench into the works. For you to further say 'we don't need no sticking comments' is equally preposterous. I suggest you seriously take yourself a 48 hour breather. We'll be here when you get back, we're not going to run off to Jimbo with it. Go cool out, think a bit about how many of your research papers would stand up without independent sources, and then come back to us. ThuranX (talk) 00:35, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

/eyeroll. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

That's the best response you can give, Phil? You're treating anyone who doesn't agree with incredible disrespect, and when this is pointed out, you 'eyeroll'? Are you a 13 year old on your myspace page, or someone actually try to accomplish something, as an adult, with other adults? ThuranX (talk) 00:51, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm treating someone who swears at me and makes personal attacks with mild disrespect. There's a difference. And I'm treating someone who abandons a discussion while continuing to edit, then reverts and doesn't explain the reversion or rejoin the discussion for half an hour, and indeed makes edits elsewhere before dropping by with... I wouldn't even call it disrespect. Mild admonishment? At best? Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

No, you're being widely disrespectful and manipulative. ThuranX (talk) 03:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

You lost the moral high ground a while ago. Try going a thread without personal attacks and you might at least get a foothold back. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:58, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

• To be frank Phil, you have do this sort of thing all the time. No wonder other editors get annoyed at you.--Gavin Collins (talk) 09:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we're done here. If you'd like to berate Phil Sandifer further, I suggest User talk:Phil Sandifer or WP:RFC. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 09:21, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Compromise wording

Repling to Kww and others that have this concern: Let me offer a suggested added wording to the top of this policy that may help (which is along the lines of what the other SNGs imply (though not explicitly stated)

The following guideline provided a first-pass evaluation of the notability of fictional elements, allowing editors to determine if there is likelihood for an article on a fictional topic to be developed further. It is expected that such articles ultimately should meet Wikipedia's other policies, include verifyability and the use of reliable, third-party sources. Articles on fictional elements that may meet this guideline but cannot be shown, through long-term good faith effort to meet other policies may be better incorporated into a larger topic.

That is, like the other SNGs that allow you to prove notability by a single source, it is expected that they should be expanded further. In the same vein here, and to acknowledge that there is a lot of pre-existing fiction articles that a hard edge rule would likely wipe out, we want this to be a sniff test and make sure that if there's a chance that it can be improved, let's not be too harsh right now (that's one of those supporting fiction have been harshly against, the rush to delete it). We do have to acknowledge that we hope fiction editors recognize if you can only say one real-world aspect on a fictional element that merging to a larger subject will help out. --MASEM 18:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Strengthen it, and I might bite. As a starter, how about Readers of this guideline are specifically cautioned that WP:RS states that "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Any article, including those on fiction, that do not include third-party sourcing may be deleted as a result of that guideline.—Kww(talk) 19:04, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I oppose such wording as overly and needlessly restrictive as the reputation of sources is debatable. Do we consider The New York Times reliable even though we know of the Jayson Blair scandal? Sometimes sources that allegedly have a sound reputation for reliable can be wrong where a source with arguably a weaker reputation winds up being correct. Where do we draw the line with the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy? How can we prove that for every source? The last part is also problematic in that one can argue to delete such articles when the sources actually do exist and are easily found and thus improvement rather than deletion is the path to be taken. My concern is improveable articles being deleted. Potential matters as much as current state. Many of our good and featured articles were in poor shape for months or even years before someone or someones dedicated actually referenced them. Even the most notable of fictional character articles had humble beginnings, see for example this and this (as a side note, it is interesting that Sonic had an article in 2001 versus Mario whom I would contend is more notable only in 2002...). And a year later in 2003 the article on Mario still wasn't even referenced. No here we have two of the most recognizable fictional characters of video game history that have branched off into comics, films, etc. that went many months before being referenced in a manner that meets those guidelines. I would have hate to have seen the articles deleted rather than improved. It takes time to build an encyclopedia and so long as we have evidence that an article can be improved we should either improve it or leave it open for someone to come along and improve it as happened in these examples rather than just jump on deleting it. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 19:10, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Presuming you are talking about Kww's suggestion, I have to agree - we're balancing DEADLINE with 6 years of accumulated fiction articles. We don't want a version of FICT to cause an army of TTN's to wipe out numerous fiction articles. I'd rather imply that in the long term they may not be kept, but in the short term we want to keep but encourage their growth to avoid the possible long-term fate. --MASEM 19:18, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think either is good. If all the references here are from say developers blogs, dvd commentaries we undermine the use of them by that statement to show notability. We already have a statement saying that even if they met all 3 prongs, it may still be best to merge them. We are talking about stuff here that may never have more than passing trivial real-world citations that may none-the-less be essentiall to the understanding of the work as a whole and if merged or deleted with violate wikipeida's goal by diluting it's encyclopedic value on a topic.じんない 19:24, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, part of my thinking is that presenting FICT now is only half (or less) of the larger picture of dealing with fiction on WP. We still need to come back and determine if non-notable lists are appropriate, how to update WAF, and the like. Right now (say, at least for the next year or so) we should aim to help retain fiction elements that may have a chance of going beyond the basics of FICT and meeting the GNG in whole, being more forgiving. Once we've come to a satisfactory conclusion on how non-notable lists could be handled or the like, and let all this filter through for a while (again, the year or more) we can come back and start impressing on editorial decisions to make better articles by merging topics that have weak notability on their own but may be better as grouped, or similar choices. We don't want to revoke the notability that this FICT grants, but we need to be aware that while meeting FICT does merit an article, it doesn't always require one (the same caution on MUSIC and BK). --MASEM 19:34, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. One of the things I most want out of these inclusion debates is to prevent the already excessive flood of damage brought on by TTN from becoming so widespread that efforts to improve fiction articles are completely derailed. I would like to be able to work on processes and approaches to improving articles without the threat of imminent deletion hanging over the bulk of the subject area. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I am unconvinced that anyone who wrote RS had fiction even slightly in mind when they wrote it, so I'm not completely convinced the issue is germaine. I think you'd be very, very hard-pressed to garner a consensus even that fiction articles that meet WP:N need to constrain plot information and information based on secondary but first-party sources based on the amount of coverage in independent sources. I see far more evidence, looking at what articles are allowed to survive and what expansions to articles are allowed to take place, that WP:RS needs to be changed to accommodate fiction than the reverse.

I remember, in a past iteration of this debate, pointing to featured articles that were more than 50% plot summary, and finding good articles with an even higher percentage. So on the face of it, any attempt to implement these standards on fiction is absurd. And I think we need to resist the temptation to use this guideline to try to move the goalpost on what fiction articles should be. I think giving up on that approach, in fact, is what led to the compromise as it stands - the fact that the vast majority of us were willing to set aside our own preferences on what fiction articles should be in favor of a description of current practices. The proposed addition feels to me like an attempt to bludgeon practice into a desired shape rather than an attempt to describe consensus.

I am forced to feel, once again, like what is needed more than anything is an example of the sort of article that this guideline would undesirably keep. Absent such an example, I am inclined to think that this is an attempt not so much to veto the guideline but to veto the community's current practices on fiction articles. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Well I do not know if it is understiable, but List of One Piece characters has a massive merge around the time this policy really began to start taking shape, before it looks anything like it is now. All of the protagonists, with the exception of the principle character, Luffy were merged (and he was kept largely on the basis of sheer world iconification). While some of those merges would clearly have failed even this guideline, a number based their real-world notability on creative mention of characters by the author himself or polls about the characters, or their attacks from the manga itself. The sources came from the books in a seperate section like responses to letters he got from fans or sometimes from other books. Those sources were deemed to not be WP:RS material and thus without any "signifigant" independant source of real-world notability, they were merged.じんない 20:07, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

The one I just looked at - Tony Tony Chopper - looked to me a poor but likely salvageable article. Some real-world information, though I'm skeptical that it passes the "significant" benchmark. It was borderline - as it stood, merging doesn't seem to me to have been unwise from a quality perspective, but on the other hand, spinning back out may also not be unwise. This gets to the importance of having a merge/lists guideline as well, but that is, as they say, another fight. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:18, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Chopper was probably one of the worst ones. Nami as well (no refs for her). I'm thinking more of Zoro, who also had a lot of controversy over his name change in the US (and as a sidenote Wikipedia as well) that was noted, and to a lesser extent, Franky.じんない 20:25, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. I mean, for the most part, it looks to me like decent articles on the subjects can be written. The question of what we do with non-decent articles that are sitting where decent articles could be is a messy one that requires a list/merge proposal. But I don't feel like I have a good handle on a way forward there yet. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

But it addresses the very issue I am talking about: characters that were not sourceable to third-party sources were deemed insufficiently notable for an article. That's a fairly standard practice, pretty much directly traceable to WP:RS. Creating a new list guideline will address the next hurdle: what on earth do we do with lists that don't contain any third-party sources. In the meantime, articles with no available third-party sources are frequently/usually (I'm not going to run an exhaustive search today) merged on the basis that without independent sources, there isn't sufficient evidence of notability.—Kww(talk) 20:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the part that they are merged/deleted. My point is that some of them clearly had evidence from semi-independent sources that would have qualified as the guideline stands now. Not all of course, but some. One of those, Zoro, had real-world impact, but nothing that could meet WP:RS though.じんない 23:03, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I usually don't bother replying to User:A Nobody, but I will this time: how on earth can pointing to an existing guideline be restrictive? Do you believe that the existence of this guideline somehow makes WP:RS disappear as if by magic? That this guideline supercedes WP:RS?—Kww(talk) 20:22, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Pointing to an existing guideline in a manner not normal for notability guidelines has effects that ought be taken seriously. I, at least, am troubled by it, in no small part because it suggests to me an expansion of WP:N to the deletion of articles that are not good enough *yet*, which is a troubling change. I am not sure what a restatement of WP:RS in a notability guideline does beyond that. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

It makes it clear that this guideline does not exist in a vacuum: it can make whatever statements it cares to about sources, but it cannot override existing, established guidelines. You don't believe that this guideline is capable of overriding or supplanting WP:RS, do you?—Kww(talk) 20:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, as I said, I am skeptical that there is a consensus for the application of RS you're advocating on fiction articles. But my larger issue is that more directly relevant guidelines like WP:WAF are linked at the bottom, not restated verbatim. If you want to add RS to the links at the bottom, I'm fine with that. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Reading it over, I can see that it can be read as encouraging deletion. How about Readers of this guideline are specifically cautioned that WP:RS states that "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Any article, including those on fiction, that do not include third-party sourcing are at risk of deletion on that basis." The other guidelines may be more directly related, but I don't think there is particular tension between this guideline and those guidelines. This guideline and its supporting discussion comes so close to attempting repudiate WP:RS with respect to fiction that the tension deserves highlighting. Additionally, I'd like to point out that I'm tacitly agreeing to accept the wording of the prongs intact, so long as you are willing to insert such a notice.—Kww(talk) 21:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you point to an example of an article that meets the three prongs but has been deleted on the basis you describe? Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you explain why you never address my points directly, and instead ask me to perform a search of AFDs and perform a theoretical analysis of how they might have gone had this guideline been in existence when the AFD was active? I don't don't see how any particular AFD is relevant to the question of whether you think this guideline can override or supplant WP:RS, nor do I think you can reasonably deny that articles are frequently deleted due to a lack of third-party sourcing.—Kww(talk) 21:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Because I don't, at this point, find the theoretical discussions of policy interactions useful or interesting. And I do not see the benefit of noting that there is a risk of deletion on the basis of lack of third-party sources unless there is, well, a risk of an article that would otherwise be kept by this guideline facing deletion on the basis of lack of third party sources. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:54, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

It's called "compromise", Phil. Something I'm desperately attempting to accomplish.—Kww(talk) 22:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Phil has a point. He has only asked for 1 such article, not a whole list, which is not much to ask. We don't write guidelines or policy based upon theory, but consensus and realistic outcomes.じんない 23:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. I mean, I'm looking for some sense that this guideline has serious shortcomings in accurately identifying what will and won't be kept. I'm racking my brain to try to imagine a circumstance where an article on an episode or significant character of a high-profile work of fiction that has significant real world perspectives would be deleted. And I honestly cannot imagine such a case. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I actually like Masem's proposal. The reality is that an article that passes FICT by the skin of its teeth will either be exposed as an item of limited content or be properly expanded as it tries to move up the assessment chart (to WP:GAN for instance). Regardless of how much provisions GA makes for short articles, reviewers won't pass an article on a fictional subject through GAN with developer commentary as its sole source of real world context. At that point, it's better to merge the article somewhere. By doing this, we're acknowledging the need for independent sourcing that provides real world context, as the article will ultimately need it as it goes down the road, but we're still setting the bar low with the developer commentary to allow fictional subjects that might have a chance at moving up the assessment chart to stay. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 23:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a compromise can be reached on the requirement for independent sourcing by saying that it is prefereable rather than mandatory, e.g.

Other essential elements of the work are appropriate too, but only if their significance is verified in commentary from reliable sources, ideally from reliable sources that are independent of their subject matter.

I don't think Kww and ThuranX are right to insist on independent sourcing every instance, as such sources may only provide trivial coverage in some instances. Therefore, should independent sourcing be mandatory in all cases? I think this phrasing is useful, because it sets the high standard required by WP:GNG in the event of an editorial dispute, but still cuts some slack to editors to want create a standalone article using substantial real-world coverage but without independent sourcing in the first instance. --Gavin Collins (talk) 00:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think what Kww and ThuranX are pointing to is that independent sourcing will ultimately be necessary as the article moves up the assessment chart. No GAN reviewer will pass your article if the only real world context is developer commentary. The whole point of FICT is to ensure that articles that ultimately have the potential to expand and move up the assessment chart are kept. As I pointed out above, those who cannot (or in other words, items that barely pass FICT and are exposed as items of very limited content outside an in-universe context) will be applicable merge targets. This is why I like Masem's proposal, as it's a practical guideline that illustrates what the article ultimately will need as it goes forward. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 00:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Sephiroth, that's a part of it, but I really do believe that things are only worth writing about here, if they've been shown to be worth talking about in the arena of the public discourse, which can only be demonstrated by someone who doesn't stand to profit from the subject writing about the subject and presenting it to a wider audience. That's only demonstrable to us by the citation of independent sources. I've already stated that I'm willing to be flexible on the 'list of characters who cannot sustain a page' pages, because I understand that some amount of context matters, and that trying to give all that context with dependent clauses (I. E. - Jimmy, a one legged quadruped sailor ninja zoning boy, is the younger brother of VebbleBetty, the object of the main character's affections, and who happens to be a two legged quadruped firefighting pyromaniac flea.) is hard to do. I'm not willing to give up independent sourcing. I've stated this plainly many times ,but it keeps coming under attack, or restated with the other side confused as to what that could possibly mean. It means no acceptance of a compromise which lacks an RS clause. How much more clear can I be? ThuranX (talk) 00:48, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I concur that we shouldn't have articles on things that don't have independent sourcing, but I think lowering the bar here in regards to inclusion and putting Masem's proposal above noting that independent sourcing will be required allows more articles with a chance of moving up the assessment chart to stay. If you have a decent paragraph on developer commentary, one is inclined to believe that the article can be expanded in the future. If say three or four months after an AfD in which an article with developer commentary is kept due to the current FICT shows no signs of improvement, then people can point to FICT and say, hey, now it's time for a merge because there's no hope of further expansion that shows more real world context and allows the article to move up the assessment chart. In this case, a merge to a list – a concept I fully agree with; current consensus is pretty clear on keeping character lists regardless of notability and focusing only on whether it's necessary for understanding of the series or not – becomes a desirable option to better present the material. On the other hand, that same article could be expanded to adequately meet NOTE and have the potential to move up the assessment chart and beyond. As such, the guideline acknowledges that articles have the potential to be notable based on a loser criteria, but accepts that when that potential fails to manifest itself, we look for better ways to present the material. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 00:58, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

But those merges are often fought, tooth and nail, by the fan-editors. Then we have to 'compromise' which only occurs if we reset the grace period, then they insist on AfD again, 4 month grace, merge, revert, 'compromise', and so on. If instead we make the bar for those articles higher 'provide reliable independent sources now or it's merged', either the article is immediately fixed, or it's merged. without argument. It's not an insurmountable bar for an article to pass, and if it can't then up-merge it immediately. What' so hard about that? 01:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Fan editors are going to fight hard against any merge effort no matter what guideline is present. They don't care about whatever is placed here. Requiring reliable, independent sources is not going to deter them in the slightest. Trying to argue otherwise is plain silly. And in any case, these merges are much more compelling (to a sane, logical editor, which this – and all guidelines – are predicated towards) when you can say that the article had the chance to expand and demonstrate its potential in three months than in the five days mandated for an AfD. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 01:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Having a different viewpoint or vision of our project does not mean someone is "insane" or even illogical. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:40, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that's not what he said. Either respond to the point of the entire paragraph, not any one individual statement which you extrapolated meant something which could be completely different, or don't respond at all. Otherwise, "Sincerely" won't be taken sincerely, to be honest. --Izno (talk) 01:47, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Then read it again, because "to a sane, logical editor" clearly implies that someone thinking otherwise is thus an insane, illogical editor and given that the paragraph starts out with "Fan editors," the implication is that the "Fan editors or not sane or logical because they purportedly "don't care about whatever is placed here", which is debatable as different people have many different motivations. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:51, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Take your bad faith crap elsewhere. If you have nothing to contribute to the discussion of the content of this guideline, then don't bother to post. You're not helping the current discussion in any fashion at all. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 01:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I encourage you to maintain civility as suggesting those who disagee with you are somehow mentally deficient is not conducive to a constructive or mature discourse. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:56, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

And I encourage you to either say something relevant towards this guideline or don't bother to post. If all you have to contribute is to squabble about word choice, then you don't have anything constructive to post. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 02:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Making implications about those you disagree with is not constructively constributing. Do not bother to post incivility and respond to requests to avoid incivility with more incivility. That's the bottom line, now let's get back to actually discussing the content of the proposed guideline and please in the future avoid subtle digs at opponents. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 02:08, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I was freely discussing the proposed guideline until you decided to start an irrelevant tangent. Thanks for telling me you're going to stop this meaningless crap. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 02:11, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Again, you can discuss the guideline without suggesting that only those who agree with your viewpoint are sane and logical and continuing responding as such doesn't bring us back to discuss the guideline, which I guess I'll be the one to do as that's what we're trying to get at a compromise, and there's no need to needlessly add to the hostility by making any digs at all. Anyway, time to watch Lost. Take care! --A Nobody^{My talk} 02:14, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

There is much to comment on here - perhaps most obviously the slippage between what is worth writing about here and what is worth talking about elsewhere. This is, after all, the heart of the problem. Nobody here is actually naive enough to believe that a major character in a long-running and popular television show is not significant in a general sense. Nobody seriously doubts that every credit level character in a television show that lasts more than a full season has been talked about in the arena of public discourse.

The problem is that the link you play as so obvious - that this talking is demonstrated by writing - is far from obvious. This is where the central problem with fiction articles and inclusion comes from - nearly everybody on Wikipedia has, in their gut, a basic sense that the deletion of a character known to millions of people as "non-notable" is a decision that can only be made on the wrong side of the rabbit hole. The test you cite - that it is talked about in the arena of public discourse - is exactly the sniff test that your entire argument fails so abjectly.

Kww, in an earlier comment, alluded to the fact that there is some philosophical language in notability guidelines about deletion being a last resort, and about judging the potential of an article rather than its current state, but that actual practice falls somewhat short. I would respectfully suggest that the statement in WP:RS that "articles should rely on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" is a similar piece of language. It's miles from actual practice, and with good reason - reliable, third party, published sources, while invaluable, do not translate at all neatly into anything resembling encyclopedic coverage of a topic.

Which is obvious once one thinks about it. After all, no legitimate school in the world simply hands students a stack of textbooks and says "There you go, then." Knowledge is, in fact, communicated through a combination of secondary sources, primary sources, and oral tradition. The statement in WP:RS you harp upon is a fantasy. Simple as that.

Which isn't to discount the importance of third party sources. They matter. But look, you're not going to find, on Wikipedia, consensus to delete an article on a major character of a highly notable fictional work that has significant real-world perspectives. You're not. And you and Kww both know that, I suspect, which is why you constantly fail to produce a single example of an article that passes this guideline and shouldn't.

I mean, come on. This massive problem with the guideline that you're willing to hold the line on, and you can't actually find a single article it affects in a way that is contrary to community consensus? We're supposed to take that seriously? Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Your response to every comment we make is this call to distracting busy-work. 'Go read all of Wikipedia, and get back to me. I'll be here shoving this through against consensus while you're gone, cause, it'll take more than 48 hours to read it all, and that's my official cut-off for who is involved, so we'll be done when you get back, now go!' Why don't you just think about how any good wikipedia article is like a research paper. How many of those can you pass without reliable sources? NONE. ThuranX (talk) 01:21, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I've done plenty of research papers where little to no useful independent commentary existed on the popular culture works in question. So your statement is more than a bit baffling to me. I'd also suggest that if you have to read the whole of Wikipedia to find an article that is actually a problem under this guideline, it's not a problem. I mean, come on - if this matter is worth the fuss you're making, I'd assume you had something in mind. Are you really saying you're raising this fuss even though you're completely unaware of any articles it affects? Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:31, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm well aware of the way these requirement impact debates. You are trying to pass a guideline that contradicts the basics of good article writing. Good articles have independent sources. It really is that simple. If there isn't an independent source, it isn't a good article, and should not be kept. You are implicitly trying to remove that requirement, and refusing to acknowledge that it is a requirement. You are attempting to ignore one of the prime levers used to delete substandard articles. You had a point that my first pass at compromise didn't really work acceptably, so I'm not too torqued about that. You haven't presented a single reason not to acknowledge the impact of WP:RS that doesn't rely on your personal distaste for applying it to fictional articles. We've had a few other people object to mentioning it not based on denial of its impact, but out of personal disagreement with it. If you want to remove the requirement for independent sourcing, go try to modify WP:RS in that direction and just watch the shitstorm that occurs. WP:RS is a major guideline. Its impact cannot be evaded or ignored. If encoding it in the prongs of this test is so offensive to you, then acknowledge its impact in the text. If you think supporters of mandatory independent sourcing represent some tiny little subset of Wikipedia, then go ahead and take this through an RFC or similar process. Without acknowledging the requirement for independent sourcing, you will lose, and, if you just try to stamp this thing as having consensus, I'll start the RFC process myself.

Remember that the reason that this has been lingering for so long as that many people look at at statements of yours like already excessive flood of damage brought on by TTN and cringe, because we believe that he did something that was absolutely necessary and desirable. What you need to figure out is the way to get the significant section of Wikipedia that thinks that independent sources are necessary on board without alienating the ones that view WP:RS and WP:N as evil. Otherwise, you are never going to hit the support percentages necessary to pass a widespread vote, and stalemate will remain the order of the day. Stop worrying so much about trying to convince me that independent sources are unnecessary: it's a given that they are. Don't try to paint me as participating in bad faith again: I'm not, and you really pissed me off the last time you did that. Worry about how to acknowledge that need for independent sourcing without alienating your fan base. I proposed two variations of two different solutions. If you think they all suck, fine ... suggest an alternative. But don't try the argument that no change is needed ... that's a non-starter. WP:RS isn't gone, you can't erase it, and it will still be brought up in AFDs.—Kww(talk) 03:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Enough of this. If this guideline is so far from community consensus, find me an article it would keep against community consensus. If you can't find one, don't claim community consensus backs you. It obviously doesn't. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:21, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

And you wonder why I need the occasional break and you make ThuranX foam at the mouth. Stop ordering me around, and read what I say instead of acting like I am your servant. I'm not saying that I represent consensus. You probably represent more of the community that I do, and I'm not attempting to deny that. What I am saying is that you aren't at the 80% or 90% support you need, because there is a significant chunk of Wikipedia that views reliance on independent sources as mandatory. You want a big tent? Fine ... figure out how to expand it. You aren't there yet.—Kww(talk) 11:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

No shit. Thanks, Kww. ThuranX (talk) 22:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Deletion decisions are made at well under 80/90%. For a descriptive guideline, it seems to me the standard is not personal agreement (hell, I personally disagree with this guideline), but accurate description of the functional consensus. If you don't have any case that this does not accurately describe accepted practice - and it is increasingly clear that you do not - to my mind you have no case of significance here and are stonewalling. The tent needs to expand exactly as far as needed to accurately describe what goes on. Any further and expansion is, frankly, impossible, because you'll start losing people on one end as you gain on the other. You've seen the reaction your proposals have gotten - even if I were to stand aside in my objection, the guideline would, on the whole, lose support rather than gain it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:41, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Research papers aren't really a good comparison, because research papers imply original research and use of primary sources as a research paper typically advances a thesis, whereas encyclopedia articles generally do not advance a thesis, although traditionally, there have been numerous instances in which encyclopedia articles actually were based entirely on primary sources, especially the oldest ones from the Enlightenment where they went with whatever was available even factually inaccurate claims about "the new world" and such. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:40, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I originally jumped in to help push this guideline forward because I felt that the GNG failed as a tool--the GNG should allow us a neutral method to ensure we cover subjects without UNDUE/NOR/NOT problems. While by and large the GNG works (Even for fiction), it results in spotty coverage of fictional elements regardless of their importance to the fictional works. As such, I'm not sure that a compromise which retains a requirement that a subject see significant coverage from an outside source is one that I can accept. I implore those of you who oppose this proposal on the basis of expected outcomes--more articles on cruft, less depth in the main articles, endless wikilawyering in AfDs--to separate the outcome from the mechanism. To explain, I like (somewhat) the result of the GNG being applied to many subjects. We eliminate hundreds of spammy permastubs from something like Super Robot Wars--this outcome is ok with me. But the means to get there runs against my interpretation of how we should be moving toward an outcome. Rather than determining which content was relevant to the subject and appropriate for inclusion we applied a blunt object to the issue, WP:N. For Super Robot Wars, the outcome would have been the same (probably), most of the "characters" were stand-ins for toys and most of the episodes were without any lasting significance. But for something like Lost, Space Battleship Yamato, or DikuMUD (to name a few), we would probably lose some content important to the encyclopedic presentation of the whole were we to scrub the sub-articles with the GNG. More importantly, the mechanism for determining their retention would be utterly disconnected to the internal (to the work of fiction) structure of importance. So...what's my point? Don't sweat the outcomes, because we won't have too much impact on them. Second, consider that each subject requires some subject specific determination of importance or relevance--ignoring this is partially what makes wikipedia so frustrating to outsiders brought into our deletion debates. Protonk (talk) 01:59, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Protonk, and it's why I'm not really happy with any compromise wording. It doesn't solve the problem: fiction articles are badly organized. Inclusion/exclusion is just one part of organization, and as long as we're quibbling about which sub-subject needs its own URL we're missing the point. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 02:15, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Let's be honest. "Reliable independent secondary sources" is WP:N. If you're promoting that as a requirement, then you're not here to compromise. You're here to enforce WP:N. Randomran (talk) 04:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Would Kww be willing to drop the requirement for independent sourcing if the second prong were to say "significance is verified in commentary from reliable sources whose purpose and tone is not inherently promotional"? --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:11, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

*sigh* To an extent, "reliable independent secondary sources" goes beyond WP:N simply because as we attempt to improve the article and move it up the assessment scale, you ultimately will need independent sources to make a comprehensive article. As I've repeated myself frequently, no article on a fictional subject whose only real world context is developer commentary is going to pass WP:GAN. The sole goal of FICT in regards to keeping stuff that is less-than-notable under the GNG that has the potential to show notability per the GNG, which all SNGs inherently imply when they create different criteria. At some point, that potential is either vindicated or the article is exposed as having limited content, and as such, a merge is an applicable solution. Masem reflects this quite well in his proposal, so I'm surprised it isn't getting more traction. To Phil, Protonk, and Randomran, acknowledging that you do need independent sourcing down the road is part of compromising with the GNG, and with Masem's proposal, you won't end up with a TTN-esque rampage across fictional subjects and instead you can allow a good-faith effort to improve the article to demonstrate its potential (or lack thereof). — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 12:28, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Gavin, as I've said (buried above and below), I'll accept the text of the prongs as is as long as the guideline contains an explicit statement that it doesn't override the requirement for independent sources contained in WP:RS, and that editors need to take it into account. I'd accept a pointer to WP:V and its text If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it as well. There is a very real tension between what you are trying to do here and existing global policies and guidelines. GA and FA aren't going to happen without independent sources, and the "there will be sources someday" argument is really only good for the first AFD. I think Masem's version is a bit weak, and have proposed a stronger warning. Others are welcome to try to shoot the middle.—Kww(talk) 12:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Sephiroth BCR, I think that an topic that is the subject of significant real-world coverage, then the article content is likely to be almost as good as if the topic met all the requirements of WP:GNG, with the exception of independent/third-party sourcing. However, WP:V makes it clear that independent sourcing is not something that is needed down the road: if a topic is not the subject of independent sourcing, then it seems to me fails WP:N.
So in answer to Kww, perhaps some concession towards your standpoint is appropriate. I liked the approach to this version of WP:FICT from the begining because Phil Sandifer was honest and upfront about his desire to widen the inclusion criteria, rather than subvert them. Perhaps if we ammend the opening paragraph to say that "Topics covering elements within a fictional work are more likely to meet the requirements of notability guideline if their coverage meets these three conditions:". --Gavin Collins (talk) 13:09, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Radical compromise proposal

One of the problems with this attempt at a guideline is that it seems more subjective than the general notability guideline. Such a subjective guideline will likely result in more confusion and battlelines being drawn in the realm of editing fictional topics. While the the other subject-specific notability guidelines have appeared to been drafted in order to make it easier to determine if something is notable, this guideline actually seems to make it harder. Subjective tests like "importance of the fictional work" and "role within the fictinoal work" gives relatively little guidance to help people come to an agreement on what actually meets those tests and what doesn't. Even the "real-world coverage" test has some subjectivity—for example, is extensive commentary and analysis of a specific plot element by multiple independent scholarly sources considered "real-world coverage"? Or will an article based solely on such sources end up deleted for failing the "real-world coverage" test?

In my opinion, the fictional element notability guideline should fall along the format of the other subject-specific guidelines: it should provide provide clear, relatively bright-line tests which are more objective than those in WP:N (while still allowing general notability per WP:N to be shown where the bright-line tests fail).

It seems that, besides the subjectivity of the prongs, there are two big objections to this current proposal: One, that it imposes a "real-world" coverage requirement, which would tend to reject things that are clearly notable but lack substantial "real-world" coverage; and two, that it lacks an "independent" coverage test, which might allow articles about things that lack general notability but have a lot of promotional material published about it. A reasonable compromise might be to loosen the "real-world" coverage requirement, while imposing a minimum "independent" coverage requirement.

Here is my proposal:

A fictional element of a notable work of fiction is notable if it meets any one of the following tests:

• It is the subject of significant real-world coverage from multiple independent reliable sources.
• It is the subject of significant commentary or analysis from multiple independent reliable sources.
• It is the subject of significant commentary, analysis, or real-world coverage from its creators, developers, producers, or owners, and, it has been mentioned in at least one independent, reliable, and notable source.
• It signficantly appears in multiple notable works, and, it has been mentioned in at least one independent, reliable, and notable source.

This would reject elements which might have a lot of non-independent published material but hasn't been at least noticed by at least one reliable and notable source (this is in essence Kww's compromise); while allowing elements which do have significant independent coverage but all of it is about the plot itself rather than its real-world impact (which is what I think DGG and Colonel Warden have trying to get at); and allows that ever-subjective "importance" to be shown by the existance of either significant coverage from the developers or significant appearance in multiple notable works, along with at least one mention in an independent reliable and notable source (this keeps out elements from non-notable fan-fiction, etc.).

While "significance" is still subject to subjective debates, I believe it is less subjective than "importance" and is simply the same test we have in the general notability guideline; we can use the same precedence and consensus to determine significance in this guideline as we do in that guideline.

The important thing about my proposal is that it ensures there is significant coverage somewhere (i.e., enough to write a reasonable article) while ensuring that there is some independent coverage in a notable source (even if it is trivial). If The New York Times mentions a plot element, even trivially, it is clearly that it has been "noticed", and if we can find enough material to write a verifiable article (whether that is from independent sources or sources affiliated with the work), it seems that we ought to be able to have an article. DHowell (talk) 00:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I mostly like this, but I'm not sure what you mean by "real-world" coverage. In the context of WP:WAF, what it means is that you should deal with fictional objects as part of the real world, and thus focus on their conception, creation, critical/popular reception, and impact on other works, not on things like the intricacies of fictional canon or their place in a fictional universe. There's no such thing as non-real-world reception in an independent reliable source; no source that doesn't exist could possibly be reliable. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 00:18, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm using "real-world" in the sense that people seem to use it in AfD; I don't really like this term in a notability guideline but its ubiquitousness seems to require that it be explained somewhere. I'd have no problem with eliminating the "real-world" language and combining the first and second test into one (which would then simply be a restatement of WP:N), but there seems to be a common, but in my opinion mistaken, belief that independent sources which analyze a fictional element from an in-universe perspective are unacceptable to establish notability, as opposed to those sources which analyze it from an out-of-universe perspective and discuss conception, creation, impact, etc. However, in my opinion how the sources analyze the subject is irrelevant, the test should be how significantly they analyze it. If several scholarly sources analyze Cosette as a character within Les Miserables, that should be enough to show that the subject is notable. In such a case the existence of "out-of-universe" information about Cosette should be a non-issue (whether or not it could be found in this particular instance). DHowell (talk) 04:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Sources need not be notable, only reliable and secondary, as with the fourth of the options... Other than that, and I could be wrong, but this sums up Fict pretty well. Others may disagree of course. --Izno (talk) 00:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm only requiring sources to be notable where a mere "mention" is required as opposed to significant coverage (which may be from non-notable independent reliable sources). DHowell (talk) 04:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I like this. I like how the fourth condition establishes a good notability for items like the One Ring, Excalibur, and Camelot. As for the 'real World Coverage' question, I read that as 'coverage of the technical/production/promotional efforts of the cast/crew/team/writer, as opposed to recapping the plot in a simple book review, or some speculation on the in-universe plot happenings.', Which is acceptable to me. Notable sources just means the "independent" 'pokemon fan review' isn't notable because it's turned out 500 copies quarterly on a xerox machine at the gas n go.ThuranX (talk) 00:26, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Reliable primary sources are also acceptable for encyclopedias. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this manages an unfortunate feat of being the worst of both worlds. On the one hand, it is far too numbers-crunchy, using sourcing of the article as a hard metric. Though it is clearly the case that sourcing matters a lot on AfD, I think the drive towards objectivity in notability guidelines is a mistaken one - yes, AfD is messy process sometimes. That is not necessarily undesirable.

On the other hand, it seems to me blind to article content. By reducing an article to its sources list, it ignores the state of the article and its potential for improvement. And I am, in the end, unconvinced that this is actually a metric many editors use on AfD.

I also continue to think that the "mention" criterion is a complete trainwreck of a criterion. At best it is so gameable as to be meaningless, and at worst it is an open incentive towards bad writing.

In the end, I don't see it as an improvement. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:30, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Alright, then let's toughen that up. Change 'mentioned' to 'discussed', where 'discussed' means ' was the topic of one or more paragraphs'. That should make 'mentioned' much harder to game. ThuranX (talk) 01:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Then it seems to me not to accurately describe existing practices in this area. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:31, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Be specific, Phil. Why is it bad to make criteria which are more objective? How does this ignore the article's potential for improvement? It should ignore the article's present state, because notability is how we determine whether a topic is suitable for an article, not whether an article's content is suitable. The latter is the purpose of WP:WAF. As far as metrics used on AfD, in my experience, when sources are found (as no sources would generally lead to deletion), they discussion revolves about how "non-trivial" (significant) they are, how "out-of-universe" ("real-world"), and how "independent" they are. All are addressed in my proposal. The "mention" requirement is of course insufficient by itself, which is why it must be accompanied by significant coverage, either by the creator/developers of the fictional work itself, or by other fictional works which significantly use the element being discussed. DHowell (talk) 04:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Eh, I dislike this. Your first two points are basically the GNG, which the present guideline already acknowledges. Point three is basically the current guideline with the "one trivial mention in independent source" comment, which has basically been discounted because it doesn't add anything significant to the article itself. The fourth is arguably the worst, as being present in multiple media isn't necessarily an indication of notability (take for instance your typical anime character, which can be present in a manga, anime, video game, TCG, OVA, light novel, film, and so on and such forth) and the "one trivial mention" thing again. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 01:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course the first two points are the GNG, but in fewer words than the present guideline and (in my opinion) better explained in the context of fictional elements. And the trivial mention in an independent notable source isn't there to necessarily add content to the article, but to add an extra test to establish notability by acknowledging that an independent notable source has taken notice of the topic. It is an extra test to establish whether the significant coverage that does exist, in non-independent sources or sources with in-universe coverage should be used to create an article. It is also meant to replace the highly subjective three-pronged test that the current proposal is creating. DHowell (talk) 04:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, here's a challenge for all who object to this proposal. Find a specific fictional element that you think should not have an article, but passes one of these tests; or find a specific fictional element you think should have an article, but fails all of these tests. Then lets compare whether they fail or pass the current WP:FICT proposal, and whether they fail or pass WP:N, and whether there is a consensus about whether they should or should not have an article. DHowell (talk) 04:48, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

John Galt. Unquestionably notable, has no business being its own article as it's not a topic that is in any sense extricable from Atlas Shrugged. It's the main reason I'd say notability is a red herring. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 04:51, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

And home to such earthshaking information as "whoisjohngalt" can be entered as a cheat code in the video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. It accelerates research speed on unit improvements. Does that count as "real world information"?—Kww(talk) 04:58, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The article is awful, but doubtless it could be made to show notability, and arguably it does now. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 05:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

So you'd want to delete an article that is "unquestionably notable" because it is supposedly not "extricable" from the fictional work? I'm not sure how this example helps when there seems to be a pretty strong consensus for notability as a general inclusion standard. Would you propose throwing out WP:SS as well as WP:N, or do we throw out WP:SIZE, or would you suggest that topics which are not "extricable" from some parent topic shouldn't be covered at all, or should only get a small mention, if anything more would make the article too long? DHowell (talk) 05:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Inclusion/exclusion is only part of the larger issue of organization, and the obsession with inclusion/exclusion has snowed any hope of making progress in the area of organization. I wouldn't suggest deleting it, I'd suggest not having an article on it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 05:47, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I actually agree with you in a sense, that we are overly obsessed with inclusion/exclusion and could do a lot better job of organization (though I disagree with you in that I think there should be an article on John Galt, though we could certainly do better than the existing article). Personally, if I had my druthers I'd eliminate WP:AFD as a solution to that problem—if we limited deletions to WP:PROD and WP:CSD and forced editors to come up with solutions other than deletion for problems of non-notability, original research, unverifiability, "fancruft", etc., we probably would come a long way towards better organization of content. But given that AfD does exist, what can we do to make the discussions more meaningful and likely to come to a consensus, and less of a battleground of inclusion vs. exclusion? DHowell (talk) 06:00, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

AFD's main purpose right now, as far as I can tell, is the only place where organization is handled that isn't completely run by the inmates. I can't remember the last time a merge happened over the objection of a handful of determined enthusiasts, for example. It's just a shame that AFD aggravates the obsession with inclusion/deletion, by having no other forum for discussion of organization. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 06:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

"Run by the inmates"? That sounds a bit divisive and not quite conducive to working a collaborative editing environment. One could easily see other editors saying that that AfD is "run by the inmates" and that deletions and merges are railroaded through by "a handful of determined deletion enthusiasts". Didn't we have a whole Arbcom case about things like this? By the way, I'm sure you are aware we have plenty of other forums for discussion of organization of fictional material: there are whole WikiProjects dedicated to it. Of course if you are going in with the attitude that they are all "run by the inmates" then I wish you good luck in trying to form any kind of consensus. You could always start your own WikiProject—perhaps "WikiProject Encyclopedic Organization"? DHowell (talk) 03:55, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Gundam Mk-II would likely be kept under such wording as it appears in multiple works, but isn't all that notable.じんない 05:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

So why, exactly, isn't Gundam Mk-II "all that notable"? DHowell (talk) 05:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

It is just another in a list of Gundam. Unlike the original or even MS-06 Zaku II (from the same series) it was not really used for the basis of any other Gundamm, atleast anymore than those that are a list or main article page. Nor is it's real-world connections outside the Gundam series any more notable than the others (in fact some on lists probably have higher notability).じんない 07:06, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Bear with me, because I'm actually rather unfamiliar with the whole Gundam series, so tell me, do all the Gundam suits appear in 6 or more separate works? Have all of them made appearances on late night talk shows? Is there really no information in that article that notably distinguishes this Gundam suit from any other Gundam suit? DHowell (talk) 04:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

In answer to DHowell, I think your proposal would work very much like a scatter gun, which suggests to me that it would lead to lots of editorial disputes if we were to adopt it. The reason I say this is that articles of marginal notability will probably succeed in passing parts of each one of the tests, so it won't be clear cut whether a particular topic wholly passes or wholly fails the tests as a group. Although some editors like Masem may suggest that this is a good idea because a test which is based on multiple incluision criteria reflects the process of consensus building, I don't think this approach can be applied in practise. Where there are a wide range of tests, it will make it more difficult to identify content forks that duplicate the coverage provided by genuinely notable topics, because any variation in test results could be used to hide the fact that the content fork is not a distinct topic. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

"Scatter gun" is about how I'd describe the current approach to dealing with fictional elements, with many articles getting merged, deleted, or kept pretty much at random depending on things like who shows up at AfD and who happens to be around editing the articles, and editorial disputes galore. I don't see that changing much with the current proposal, and I'd think my proposal would go along way to making the disputes based more on objective criteria and less on random opinions. Content forks can always be dealt with without even needing to refer to a notability guideline; no one is saying that because a topic is notable there must be a separate article, but editors wishing to merge notable topics need to persuade a consensus that the topics should be merged, rather than trying to use guidelines to wikilawyer articles into complete nonexistence. DHowell (talk) 04:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

suggesting a straw poll

Further upthread, I suggested we go with a straw poll. Not as a tool to reach consensus, but as a tool to see where everyone stands, so we can further develop the guideline. To repeat what I said upthread:

If this is going to get rejected, we need to know *why*. The poll should be simple, with four options: "Too strict, reject", "Somewhat strict, but accept", "Somewhat loose, but accept", "Too loose, reject". The worst thing that can happen is not that this guideline gets rejected, but that you have two different sides claiming it was rejected for two contradictory reasons, leading us towards the same old no consensus discussions.

We can iron out the details. But does anyone see this as harmful to the process? If nothing else, I'm hoping it can give us more information. Randomran (talk) 05:03, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

What about "Misses the point, reject" or "Doesn't address underlying problems, reject" or "Seeks to mirror current practice without addressing current practice's underlying reasoning, reject"? Polls suck. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 05:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

We could throw in a fifth option, and we probably should. But then again, if this guideline misses the point, maybe you're at the wrong guideline. I don't walk over to WP:CIVILITY and complain that it doesn't address the underlying problem of good research. Why are you expecting this guideline to give editorial guidance about when or when not to merge? This is just a baseline, and explicitly says that other content policies have to do some of the work too. This isn't a magic bullet. Randomran (talk) 05:09, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Not really interested in arguing the reasoning behind my stance here. My point is simply that too strict/too loose/just right doesn't cover a number of stated problems with this, including my own. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 05:51, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. A fifth option of opposition for other reasons should be incorporated into the poll then. Randomran (talk) 05:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Woo. Miscellaneous. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 06:06, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure that "too strict/too loose/just right" is the best way to judge this. This is not a guideline based on ideology - it's one based on an attempt to actually read the consensus of AfDs. I mean, if I'm answering that straw poll, the guideline is too strict. I wanted a looser one. Gavin's answer is probably too loose.

But I think we both agree that the guideline does accurately describe how AfD actually works.

I'd do the straw poll as follows:

Does this proposal accurately reflect the community's general tendencies in including and deleting fiction articles?

If not, is it because it is too inclusive, or too exclusive?

Either way, please provide an example of an article where this guideline suggests an outcome incompatible with what the community would decide.

This, I think, has the useful function of ruling out "No, because I don't like the community's habits" decisions on the extremes of both camps (And I am not just targeting the deletionists here - I know of at least one inclusionist whose opposition to this guideline is, I think, untethered from considerations of community practice). Policy formation should not be about editors deciding "fuck the community, I'm right." Opposition requires more than a vote to be taken seriously - it requires evidence. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:19, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that's a fair way of doing it too. That said, even people who "accept" this guideline should indicate whether they fall on the more inclusive/exclusive side. Just because you live with it, it doesn't mean we shouldn't account for your real preference. Although this guideline is not based on ideology, I think a lot of opposition is. The only way to bring them around is if we show them that they're not going to win a purity test. They're going to have to move to the middle in order to find a consensus. Randomran (talk) 06:28, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I feel like the "too inclusive/too exclusive" question is a rehash of the RFC. We have a sense of where the community is on that - it's a more or less dead-even split.

But perhaps this as a staw poll?

1. Does this guideline reflect community practice on inclusion of fictional subjects?
2. If not, is it too inclusive or too exclusive? Provide an example of an article it decides wrongly on.
3. Would you personally prefer this guideline be more inclusive or more exclusive?

Three questions. One to call the question, and two to be used if #1 does not indicate consensus. With, of course, an introduction stressing that #1 is not an up/down vote on the guideline, and that all three questions need to be answered. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:33, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we have a sense of the split at all. Or at least, if you and I do, then most other people don't. That's how we end up with people coming in here and saying, without grounds, that "my views are consistent with most of the community". I think the strawpoll helps us pin that down, so the people at the extremes have to admit that we won't get anything close to a consensus without reaching for the middle. A survey-style open-ended questionaire is tedious and cumbersome. A simple multiple choice question is the only way to go. Too inclusive versus too exclusive. Even the "accept" votes should be divided into exclusive/inclusive camps to say "yeah, I can live with it, even though I would prefer it go another way." Randomran (talk) 06:57, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Alright I'll be the one to break the ice and start the poll.

1. Yes, as close as possible. The arguments made here are what AfD usually happens because firctional elements cannot, for the most part, be neatly objectively met. Sometimes, such as minor or cameo characters, the consensus is almost always to delete, or sometimes merge, while major characters in notable works are always kept, even if they lack independant RS at the time because of sheer recognizability.
2. NA
3. Neither, I classify myself as a Precisionist.じんない 07:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

A straw poll is a good idea, AMiB has a valid point about the breadth of possible responses, but we don't want to bewilder people with choices. Something like: Approve generally, disapprove generally, Approve/Disapprove with caveats, and Misc. (which can include responses like "huh?") should be fine. That's only four options (but it sticks both the approve partially and disapprove partially in the same category. That may be a feature, not a bug, if we want to look for compromise ideas from that column. Protonk (talk) 10:02, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

• As an addendum, I think we will be much better off with an up/down vote or "put your name in this column if you feel this way" poll. I understand the reasoning behind asking people their stances and motivations but if we are looking for wider particpation we need to make it easy to comment. This will result in some drive-by voting, but that's a drawback I'm willing to suffer. Protonk (talk) 10:06, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
  • I think it's important to know generally which direction people would rather pull this guideline (e.g.: towards tighter quality controls, versus more articles on more topics), even if they approve. Like I said above: the worst thing that happens isn't that this gets rejected, but that this gets rejected and people can't even agree upon why. I'm tired of two completely opposite sides saying "we don't have a guideline because you failed to represent us". Randomran (talk) 16:58, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
    • I think a poll is a sound idea and wonder if we should set up something like Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions/Trial/Votes for this guideline? This way, the community won't feel as if this guideline is being imposed upon them by only a handful of editors and moreover it will allow for a far greater gauge of consensus, i.e. because way more editors contribute to the fiction articles affected by this guideline than have actually commented in these discussions. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 19:57, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Ok, so... No, too strict / No, too permissive / Yes / No for other reasons, unsure, neutral, misc How about those four options? Protonk (talk) 20:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
      • I think we need "Yes, but it's a little strict", "Yes, but it's a little loose". Why? Because I think people will abuse the straw poll in bad faith otherwise. If deletionists plug their nose and say "yes", then inclusionists can game the poll by swarming the "no, too strict". (Or vice versa.) Without having two "yes" options, we actively discourage a compromise. There's every incentive to say "no no no, more like how I want it!" Randomran (talk) 08:15, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

It remains my conviction that this guideline should be passed on the grounds it was presented - its description of practice, not its allignment with preference. In the straw poll proposed, I would oppose this guideline - if I am judging based on my preferences, it is exceedingly restrictive, and deletes articles that could be improved. If this is a preferences based decision, in the face of others who I know will hold the guideline hostage to their preferences, it seems to me the rational choice to counterbalance that.

On the other hand, this shouldn't be a vote. It should be about consensus and describing practice. A straw poll based on whether this accurately describes practice, where one must make a case for that claim one way or another, seems to me a fundamentally more useful device. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

• Well, as the main said, you can wish in one hand and...well, let's not finish that, we know where it goes. ;) I think that referring this back to "practice" doesn't help us. I can see that the logic behind some positions (or some meta logic behind priors in debate) roughly mirrors this guideline. But I don't think that we can gain consensus that way. We are left saying "This guideline matches community practice so well that we can't think of an AfD which would be closed differently were it in force" or "This guideline matches community practice, except where it doesn't" We can't (functionally) poll and review past AfDs to determine where consensus actually lies. And if we did, my strong suspicion would be that it lies with the GNG except where a vocal minority protects a fictional element or where heterogeneity in closes gives us "no consensus", "keep" and "delete" outcomes for functionally identical subjects (see the various WH:40K deletion debates for good examples).
• Also, in asking for an affirmative change, we need to convince people that the current system suffers for a lack of clarity in fictional notability.
• Finally, we don't want to be too confusing. Asking uninvolved wikipedians to slog through the minutia of this debate in order to determine if the guideline matches practice is too much. We should have a simple presentation and a simple question. Flagged Revisions is (IMO) a bad example because it was confusing as hell and the "trial" provision seemed unnecessary or vague. This should be simple. "Does this work for you? Yes/No" Protonk (talk) 23:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Overriding guidelines

My reaction to Phil probably got lost up there, so I am going to try one more time. Despite accusations to the contrary, I am not saying "fuck the community", nor am I claiming that my views represent the community. What I am saying is that my views represent a significant sized group that views independent sourcing as mandatory. Are we 80% of Wikipedia? No. But are we more than 20-25% of Wikipedia? Absolutely. I've offered compromise after compromise, and have even said that I will agree with the text of the prongs, as is, so long as an explicit statement is made that this guideline does not override or negate WP:RS. The opposition to that one astounds me, because I don't think that most of you think that this guideline is capable of overriding WP:RS. Take your straw poll, but don't take it in a little corner. You'll get a majority, I have no doubt of that, but it will be a simple majority, not enough to point at and claim consensus.—Kww(talk) 12:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

You have a valid point. If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. Although this guidleline does not explicitly provide an exemption from this requirement, it is silent on the requirement for independent or third party sourcing.
However, since we are dealing with article inclusion criteria, which is based on the presumption of notability, can you come to a compromise by presuming a topic is notable if it is the subject of significant real-world coverage from reliable sources, on the basis that such coverage prepares the way to independent coverage in the future?
If this propostion does not meet your requirements, is there any compromise proposal that could? --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:37, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the disclaimer approach is probably the best compromise. I don't like to call out the presumption issues explicitly, because I've never been comfortable with the "well, we'll keep it for now because there must be a source out there somewhere". If that's where you are aiming, then be very explicit that the thing being sought is the independent sourcing, and, if the independent sourcing is never found, the article will eventually have to be merged or deleted, per WP:V and WP:RS.—Kww(talk) 13:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

In which case the doors to compromise solution are still open. If we can proivde some sort of disclaimer to the three pronged test, then it will be explicit that this SNG is not trying to subvert or gain exemption from any other Wikipedia policy or guideline, and we can perhaps keep you, ThuranX, Bignole and Jack Merridew as supporters of this proposed guideline. I added a suggested disclaimer[13] in the hope that it will stick. If anyone has an objection, could they replace it with a better soluiton rather than just revert? --Gavin Collins (talk) 13:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I've taken it to an even more basically descriptive level - articles meeting the three-prong test are generally kept. This much seems true. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:06, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Care to explain how that change had anything to do with inserting a disclaimer that this guideline does not grant any kind of exemption to WP:RS?—Kww(talk) 15:02, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure why anyone would think it did. Is RS in the department of serving as an inclusion guideline now? Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:30, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that if we try to please your 20% of Wikipedians, we probably lose another 20% of Wikipedians who actively hate WP:N. And requiring reliable independent secondary sources is straight out of WP:N. Requiring coverage in reliable, independent sources brings this guideline back to what we already have. A compromise isn't going to be something that makes one side happy and pisses the other side off. It's going to be something that both sides begrudgingly live with. Randomran (talk) 16:47, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm conscious of that problem, which is why I have been trying to find the minimal nod to WP:RS and WP:V that I can, and have been leaving WP:N conspicuously out of the discussion. Remember that my personal stance is that in each article, the amount of material derived from independent sources should greatly exceed that derived from dependent sources in order to fulfill the "rely on" clause of WP:RS. I'm not asking for anything that even approaches that. I'm bending as far over backwards as I can.—Kww(talk) 17:06, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand. Bringing reliable third-party sources into this guideline isn't a minimal nod. It's full penetration. It's WP:N. Randomran (talk) 17:58, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I think what we're trying to ask to be understood here is that the inclusionist side for fiction have been harshly critical of efforts to clean up fiction using the present status of articles -- which 2 or 3 years ago may have been more acceptable but as WP has matured, is no longer considered a good baseline -- given that usually a merge will target a large number of articles at once, thus what eventually prompted ARbCom to their fait accompli comment from Ep&Char2. Thus, how fiction should be approached is in a major state of flux, not just due to the lack of a working FICT but to other issues. Because there's a significant large percentage of fiction articles on WP, asking for immediate cleanup to meet more general guidelines like WP:RS or WP:N is asking for a nice little civil war. We'd like to corral fiction editors to consider the wider guidelines so they can still discuss their favorite topics in a manner appropriate for WP and making their work appear to be just as good as those articles as in any other field where WP:RS and others have little difficulty in being met. To get there is a series of little steps; this FICT is the first. I fully acknowledge it fails WP:RS for the most part, but key to keep in mind is that WP:RS is a guideline, not a policy - there is more flexibility here. That doesn't mean fan sites and forums become standards for sourcing, as we're still restricting real world information to either creator information (who should be considered reliable in talking about the work they created) and any normal independent third-party source. That's the right step, and will give time for fiction editors to establish the likelihood that their articles can be improved, and thus getting to our goal of improving how fiction is covered and helping to get it to the same quality of information deliverance as any other topic. That's all I think this guideline is asking for those on the deletionist side - to realize that fiction clean as they would like it is a long long road, and providing useful milestones like this FICT will encourage fiction editors to move with it instead of resisting it. --MASEM 18:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm way short of WP:N. My last suggestion was Readers of this guideline are specifically cautioned that WP:RS states that "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Any article, including those on fiction, that does not include third-party sourcing is at risk of deletion on that basis." Hack down and replace from there, bearing in mind I'm not advocating changing your prongs.—Kww(talk) 18:20, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Explain to me how you're way short of WP:N? Randomran (talk) 18:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Roughly, "an article that doesn't manage to incorporate third-party sources for at least part of the information presented is at risk of deletion" vs. "the main thesis of an article must be supported in multiple independent sources, and those sources must address that main thesis directly and in detail." That's a big difference.—Kww(talk) 18:29, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Er. Anyone who detests WP:N so much they'd leave the project is long gone. WP:N has been around for quite a while now. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 18:02, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about the people who detest WP:N enough to leave the project. I'm talking about the people who are openly ignorant towards it, leading to lot of tense AFDs, and a handfull of AFDs that will never result in anything other than keep, despite a lack of reliable third-party sources. Randomran (talk) 18:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this guideline overrides RS. For one, RS describes sources which may be used in an article, not articles which may be included. And, forgive me if I am wrong, but independence from a subject is not a RS criteria. All this guideline is saying is that creator commentary may be treated along the lines of SPS and used to determine importance of a fictional subject and verify factual claims about real world information. There was a plank in Phil's original guideline that overrode RS (it argued that some notable review sites should have reviews of fictional subjects included). that was the subject of some bitter debate, but it isn't in the proposal now. I pushed for it to be left out on the specific grounds that we were not to rewrite RS. So I'm not sure where this particular point of contention springs from. Protonk (talk) 18:09, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:RS states "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". WP:V, a policy, is stronger: "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."—Kww(talk) 18:20, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

How about we just add "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." That's easy to meet, instead of whatever percentage "rely" implies. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:26, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Son of a gun. How did I miss the big, bolded third party in there all this time. :) Ok. But now we get back into the Ouroboros of the "sub-page" debate. All fictional elements are putative daughters of a notable work. Presumable, SIZE and topical considerations keep the sub-articles from being merged into the main article. How far to we stretch the devolution of notability in this case? The WP:N RfC clearly shows us that the community rejects "all spinouts are notable" and "no spinouts are notable" while favoring some flavor of "some spinouts are notable". Can't we accept this guideline as some clarification of when those spinouts may be notable? Protonk (talk) 18:30, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm actually surprised to hear Peregrine Fisher volunteer to add something about reliable third-party sources, since I thought he identified as an inclusionist. But if inclusionists and deletionists can both live with that, then we're making progress. I'd encourage Peregrine Fisher to add something about this, either as a fourth prong, or as part of an existing prong. Randomran (talk) 18:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how you missed it either, Protonk. Isn't that kind of where some variation of my suggestions take us? These prongs are basically insisting that the main body of work is considered to be important, and I don't think anyone is denying that WP:N applies to the main body of work. That's why we at least consider articles on Captain Kirk and HAL-9000, because the main work is notable. I'm essentially restricting spinouts to articles that get some third-party discussion, even if they don't meet WP:N. Phil had a point that my "mere mention" rule was pretty abusable. Pointing over at WP:RS and its demand for third-party sourcing should get over that problem, and phrasing it as "at risk" keeps the demand level low.—Kww(talk) 18:47, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Be WP:BOLD then. Add a new prong, or tighten up the second prong with reliable third party sources for everything. See if it sticks. Randomran (talk) 18:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:BOLD is for non-controversial changes. This talk page is evidence that no good-faith editor could consider the change to be non-controversial. I included my suggestion above ... do you have specific comments on it?—Kww(talk) 18:57, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't personally care at this point, as I'm more interested in reaching some kind of compromise than pushing my own preference. Obviously, I've lived with WP:N long enough that requiring third-party sources is something I can live with. Can other people live with it? I don't know. But it looks like you have the support of Peregrine Fisher on the inclusionist side. You also have the backing of everyone who likes WP:N. You should give it a shot and see if it sticks. Really. Randomran (talk) 19:07, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

V is a policy, and we're not going to get past it too well. Not totally consistent guidelines? Welcome to wikipedia. We have enough work here without trying to unify everything. Phil is right that small mentions probably wont improve the article a lot, but I think it would help us to set the bar close to real AfDs. Has Bulbasaur been mentioned? Yes. Has every Pokemon ever been mentioned? No, but some of them have. Maybe Pokemon 345 has a lot of production info, but has never been mentioned in a third party source. Well, then this guideline might be on the exclusionary side, but these will be very rare occurences. If we say an article must "rely" on third party sources, that just sounds like NOTE to me. And I think others could read it that way. Or at least, it won't discourage editors from nominating articles that will be kept, which is what I'd like to see. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:11, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:SPS, which is a part of WP:V that "For example, material may sometimes be cited which is self-published by an established expert on the topic of the article, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." which is exactly what a developers blog is. As long as that person is considered an expert having been published by another third-party publication. That's why I don't think that any other information is needed, so long as that member can be shown that. Yes it does say that if it "is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so[,]" but it doesn't say it has to have been.じんない 21:26, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. While this proposal suggests that developers are suitable as experts per SPS on their games (and treats their expertise as a sufficient hedge against their incentive to promote their work), that isn't immediately clear from a reading of SPS itself. This is the primary functional change proposed by the guideline. I just want to make sure that distinction is clear. Protonk (talk) 21:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

• FWIW, I'm ok with Kww's disclaimer. Protonk (talk) 21:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not, it makes it sound that this guideline is somehow, unlike every other guideline out there, subordinate to another guideline. It should be subordinate to policy, not other guidelines.じんない 21:44, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, the phrasing is taken literally out of WP:V. I would think that it is subordinate in that sense. We clearly treat it as subordinate to the GNG (in some sense). Protonk (talk) 21:47, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

My problem is that it is conspicuously out of place. It is, essentially, inserting a sentence that amounts to "feel free to ignore this guideline and impose a higher standard." Again, absent a shred of evidence that this higher standard has consensus, I do not think it is appropriate. I remain of the opinion that the lack of a single example of an article that this guideline would come to a result contrary to community practice effectively renders this line of argument pointless. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:07, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

You are arguing that WP:V and WP:RS aren't backed by consensus? Feel free to start a discussion to modify them.—Kww(talk) 00:22, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm arguing that the claim that articles that otherwise would pass this guideline would be deleted false, and asking you to provide evidence for it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:29, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I will not engage in the game of searching for AFDs in order to differ in opinion with you about the correctness of the outcome and what impact different changes might have. I've said so many times, and say so again ... the demand you keep making is completely irrelevant and inappropriate. Please stop making it. On the other hand, do you really feel that articles that violate policy will evade deletion indefinitely if they follow this guideline instead? Or why do you think the word "immediate" was so inappropriate?—Kww(talk) 00:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I do not think that an article about a major recurring character in a prominent work of fiction that has substantial real-world coverage will be deleted. I have seen no evidence that this statement is untrue. And so I think that the claim that such articles risk deletion is untrue. They don't. The word "immediate" is problematic to me because it seems meaningless. In what future do they face deletion? What is this displaced scene in which, by implication, such articles may be deleted? What guidelines govern this mediate deletion? What community is party to it? Are you? Am I? Who here (if anyone) engages in this deletion? And where does this mediate future's claim to an immediate existence spring from? Is it a historical inevitability? Such unbounded, displaced prolepsis seems impossibly muddy to me. If we must dabble in the future, let us at least inform ourselves about it from the present. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:03, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

First, I hope that you aren't saying that the purpose of this guideline was to devise a technique for articles that violate fundamental policies to indefinitely resist deletion attempts. That would border on intentional disruption. As for the notion that policy-violating articles eventually have their policy violations catch up with them, that's easy to demonstrate. I'm not about to do the analysis of hypothetical AFDs being rerun against articles I can't see with editors that I can't talk to using guidelines that did not exist at any of the multiple AFDs. These should suffice for the underlying concept that policy-violating articles frequently meet a bad end despite being rescued a time or two by the promise of improvement:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Colt (Supernatural) (3rd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Simtropolis (3rd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tia Bella (3rd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ashley Juggs (3rd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Snaps (game) (3rd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Captain Obvious (3rd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Emmalina (3rd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Veronica Finn (3rd nomination)

—Kww(talk) 02:06, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

With the exception of one example, none of those are fictional. And as for that example, I cannot imagine The Colt, at this point, being deleted. User:Banazir/The Colt (Supernatural) seems, at a glance, to meet WP:N outright, never mind this guideline. (I don't know the state when the article was deleted) So, basically, you continue to fail to show that consensus exists to delete articles that satisfy this guideline now, in the future, or at any point. Unless you can show that articles that satisfy this guideline - this specific one - are actually at risk to deletion, then it is inappropriate to declare in a guideline that such articles are at risk of deletion. I don't think this is a terribly controversial statement. In fact, it seems almost tautologically true - we do not delete articles that we do not delete. Do you think that we do delete articles that meet this guideline? If so, what articles are these?

I mean, I really think this is a completely reasonable question to ask. You believe that some articles of a certain type - ones that meet this guideline - are at risk of deletion. I am asking you to show me one such article before inserting a claim to this effect into the proposal. I do not think this terribly burdensome. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:06, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, The Colt looks like a really unfortunate case as I look at it. Significant improvement, including several added sources, took place after the last comment in the AfD. And I'm sure there's more - Television Without Pity recaps the show, and I'm sure has commented on The Colt. So there's another source. Ugh. What an unfortunate situation. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:17, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Your failure to imagine deleting The Colt (Supernatural) isn't particularly compelling. It certainly was deleted, only three months ago. Primary arguments for deletion? "This article does not display notability through independent sources" and "Anything sourced should be in the series article, but the sources are all trivial mentions of the weapon, not enough to show independant[sic] notability". The first AFD closed as "no consensus", second AFD closed with a need to "improve citations", and, when the third AFD rolled around, it was killed because no one had found independent sources that examined the item in question directly and in detail. They don't quote the "directly and in detail" language, but they denigrate the mentions as trivial. Now, did it meet this guideline? Prong 1, certainly. Prong 2, I'd say "yes" ... key item in the operation of the show. Prong 3? Not so much, but that could be repaired via DVD commentary detailing what gun they copied, why a Colt .45, etc. Clearly repairable. Now, had they repaired prong 3, would this article be kept? I'll bet not: "This article does not display notability through independent sources" would still apply.—Kww(talk) 05:01, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. If there was a bunch of OOU info from DVD commentaries and the like, I'm pretty sure it would have been kept. Look how hard it was to delete with nothing. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:53, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Which is the reason that I resist these trips to "go find an AFD that meets that condition." We disagree, and there's no way to determine who's right and who's wrong. I think it may have survived AFD 3, but AFD 4 would have been inevitable, and, eventually, with no good outside sources, it would have been merged or deleted.—Kww(talk) 12:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Certainly in the last state, I think the Colt fails this guideline - it does not meet the second prong. On the basis of this guideline, I would say delete the article. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

That said, upon looking at the section on "independence," a reminder about RS does seem appropriate there. That said, I continue to oppose a claim that articles without independent sources might get deleted. Until some evidence that this description of deletion process is accurate - that an article that satisfies this guideline but lacks independent sources would find consensus to delete - that statement seems to me factually wrong. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that is fine as FICT is being used a minimum threshold, beyond allowing commentary from authors as "experts" for spinout articles to meet WP:V.じんない 00:45, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Why shouldn't that standard apply to all elements?じんない 06:28, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

This guideline does not provide any guarantee that articles will be deleted or not, as this is an outcome decided at AFD by local consensus, so I don't think we should treat this guideline as if it directly affects these outcomes - that would be an example of tail wagging the dog. We still have to devise wording that will satisfy most interested parties, and I feel we are very close. Please consider once again the following lead to the section Three-pronged test for notability that might be acceptable to everyone:

"Per the general notability guideline, a topic is presumed notable for a standalone article if it is the subject of non-trivial coverage by reliable and independent sources. Topics covering elements within a fictional work are more likely to meet the requirements of notability guideline if their coverage meets these three conditions..."

I don't think Phil's revert brought us anywhere nearer compromise, because it did not bring us any closer to resolving the issue that a guideline as it stands does not meet the basic inclusiion criteria of WP:V. If we admit that by passing the three pronged a fictional work are more likely to meet the requirements WP:N, then we have got this issue covered, and everybody can support this guideline. Do I have any supporters this disclaimer? If not, what is the wording that will bring this together? --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:28, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Will this ever actually become a guideline?

This has been proposed for well over three years, and at this point conversation seems to just be going around in circles. Most of the changes recently have been relatively minor... the "role within the fictional work" prong was renamed and rewritten, but seems to mean essentially the same thing as "importance within the fictional work" did. Additionally, I see this being referred to as if it were a guideline in various AFD discussions and talk pages. Why don't we just make it official? If something isn't quite right after the guideline is made, it can be discussed here and changed if there is consensus.

I think that general consensus is that the current version is acceptable. Does anyone think that it is the best it could be? No. But it seems like both inclusionists and deletionists can compromise on the current version, and most of the current discussion is about minor changes or major rewrites... the former of which can be discussed later if needed, and the latter of which I doubt will gain any traction.

Just my 2 cents. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:21, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, there have been years of attempts at compromises. But this one is relatively recent, from the past 3 months. Will this ever become a guideline? It depends on whether we can find a tent big enough to include inclusionists and deletionists. Unfortunately, expanding the tent in one direction tends to shrink it in the other. I don't think both sides have realized they need each other yet. Randomran (talk) 16:51, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to see it sorted out as well, Drilnoth. As you can see from the half-gig of discussion though, it's uphill all the way. ThuranX (talk) 22:15, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Recurring element vs. character

After this revert, I thought that the second prong's wording needs to be discussed more. The way I see it, major non-character elements of the world (such as a major continent or the item that is important in a similar way to the One Ring) should have their suitability determined the same way as characters; the current wording would seem to indicate the characters are generally more important or worthy of inclusion than other things. In other words, why would (theroretically) the One Ring need reliable sources and Frodo Baggins not? -Drilnoth (talk) 16:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Because "shotgun from Resident Evil series" would probably need reliable sources, and Frodo Baggins wouldn't. Something like the One Ring would be covered in reliable third-party sources easily, like most exceptional inanimate objects would be. Randomran (talk) 16:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I have subscriptions to various video game magazines and I have found that a number of reviews, previews, and interviews, actually do cover the weapons in out of universe detail with comparisons to real world weapons and their influences from other games. A few times, Electronic Gaming Monthly and others have even had whole sections on just weapons including top ten style of lists or I recall one with an interview with an actual weapons expert who talks about the historic origins of various video game weapons. One thing I have noticed in this regard is that in some instances, I have seen a game character or weapon referenced in multiple articles in multiple paragraphs (i.e. not just in one sentence) in say the previews in Electronic Gaming Monthly and Game Informer and then yet again months later in the actual reviews or even in side features, which means we might have say four references in reliable published sources that are not necessarily also online and what concerns me is if we were to delete the article by just doing a Google source when someone like me is able to find the published sources. I am of course always willing to help in that regards, as I did for example, at User_talk:A_Nobody/Archive_2#Request. As I read my magazines as they come, I actually keep a note book in which I jot down the page numbers of all the out of universe mentions of fictional characters and weapons and then add the sources here whenever I get the chances. I have pages and pages in my notebook still to do, which means there are a tremendous amount of published reliable sources for at least video game characters and weapons not necessarily found on Google, but that would meet our guidelines. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:28, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that WP:N is adequate, due to the tremendous amount of reliable third-party coverage on these topics? Randomran (talk) 17:56, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

• Elements of fiction encompasses more than just characters and episodes, or fictional weapons such as Excalibur, but also ficitonal locations like El Dorado or Elysium and ficitonal artifacts like Magical objects in Harry Potter, and famous scenes such as The Gravediggers in Hamlet. I think the term "elements of fiction" is more apporpriate. --Gavin Collins (talk) 18:29, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

"elements" is preferable. Wikipedians have the bad habit of chunking descriptions of fictional works into rigid categories: episodes, characters, setting, etc. In most cases, the thematic hierarchy of the work itself will not match ours. Protonk (talk) 18:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

And almost always the article written based on these sources is a really tenuous web spun from offhand mentions in articles about other things, with one brief semi-promotional source at its heart. Almost always this info, when useful at all, would be better off included in the main article, since any description of "the shotgun from Resident Evil 4" is less about that shotgun itself and more about RE4 anyway. Going out of the way to protect these articles (which pass WP:N anyway) isn't necessary or useful or even needed. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 18:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The guideline already says "Other essential elements of the work are appropriate too, but only if their significance is verified in commentary from reliable sources". Randomran (talk) 18:36, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, but that would seem to imply that a main character (such as J.D. (Scrubs)) does not necessarily need any reliable sources because he is a major character in an important work; common sense then determines that that is true, although it is essential to add reliable sources as soon as possible. On the other hand, any item or location seems to need reliable sources to pass this guideline, even if it is obviously a major part of the work the way a character is. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:14, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I suggested the same thing a few days ago, and thought we'd settled the use of elements with reasonable agreement. anyways, I definitely feel that Elements is the appropriate term for the guideline, so support there. (at least we're getting some agreement.) ThuranX (talk) 22:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

It has always been my opinion that characters or episodes are no more worthy of inclusion that other items just because they are characters or episodes. That statement seems to indicate the opposite. Gundam would likely have, if anything the mecha being more notable, in general, than most characters. I do think in this case we should tell the reader to refer to the approrpriate Wikiproject for ideas what elements are generally considered acceptable spinoffs and what are not.じんない 22:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The are (on the whole) more worthy of inclusion because more can be written about them. 90% (totally made up percentage, but it's in the right ballpark) of the non-character (and non-theme) elements of fiction can be dispensed with in an encyclopedic summary of the fictional work. Most of the time, a giant stomping robot is just a giant stomping robot. A [[:File:GunbladeopeningFFVIII.jpg|gun/sword/housing development] is just a gun/sword/housing development, regardless of how "cool" it looks. Characters drive works of fiction. Their actions imbue the story with life. Without them (or, alternately, with characters which are merely stand-ins or cliches), there isn't much to tell about the story. And, if you want to refer people to projects, note that VGSCOPE argues against spinning out items and such. Protonk (talk) 23:02, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

True, but there are times when a non-character drives the plot more than a character. The One Ring is a good example. More than that though, some non-character elements have ramifications beyond that, like Gundam (mobile suit) which has spawned numerous copies and parodies and become iconic for those mecha you refer to and is more notable in for it's real world impact that the hero Amuro Ray, which is what the story, as you say, is suppose to revolve around. Therefore I do not think making characters be acceptable to WP:FICT. Those elements that should be notable should be left to the various wikiprojects.

I would oppose anything that tries to allows character more of a "free pass" simply because they are characters, which is what it is currently. If they can't stand on their own as just an element of the fictional work like a cool weapon, let them be merged or deleted.じんない 02:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the guideline is biased towards characters. On the other hand, so is AfD, so I don't find this bias troubling. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe AFD wouldn't be as biased towards characters if this, once it is a guideline, isn't. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps. But I don't think that trying to use this guideline to reshape community practice is going to gain consensus, really by definition. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

So, to be clear: Phil, you oppose use of 'element' instead of 'character'? How do you propose we measure the things currently being discussed for characters for other parts of a fictional story, then? Do we create another guideline? ThuranX (talk) 03:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

That question didn't entirely parse for me. I think you're asking how I propose we measure non-characters or episodes in terms of the second prong? If so, I would suggest you read the sentence after the one under discussion. It says "Other essential elements of the work are appropriate too, but only if their significance is verified in commentary from reliable sources." Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:11, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

And why shouldn't characters be held to the same standards?じんない 07:47, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

If I had to guess how Phil would respond, I think he'd say "because they aren't held to the same standards". And he'd be right. In practice, a well-written character article can escape WP:N at AFD... a well-written article about inanimate objects, or special moves from a game, or weapon lists -- WP:N is enforced pretty strictly. As for my personal reason, I just think we have to throw *some* kind of bone to inclusionists, without opening the floodgates to piss off the deletionists. This is what a compromise looks like: recurring characters are held to a lower standard. Randomran (talk) 08:10, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Seems to arbitrary when their are series where the inanimate object is more central to the plot than the characters.じんない 12:13, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Just to clarify my position, I'm not asking for this just so that there can be more articles about less-notable fictional elements; rather, I just want everything to be treated equally. There are surely plenty of stories, like Lord of the Rings, which focus more on an object or location than on a character; in that case, I'd think that the object or location would be "main" and not necessarily need as good a sourcing to be kept, but maybe the characters would need the better sourcing right away. I'm just trying to balance things out; the main topics of a book/game/show/film should all be treated equally, regardless of what they are, and the more minor topics should also be treated equally, just in a different way. A secondary main character, with the current proposal, may be easier to include than an article about the world in which the story takes place, even if the story is designed more to explore the world than to focus on a specific characters actions. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I would disagree that Lord of the Rings focuses more on the One Ring or on Middle Earth, for one thing. But the logic, as I see it, is this - traditionally, in narrative literature, characters are viewed as more important. This goes back to Aristotle, who prioritizes character only after plot in his hierarchy of elements of drama. To make a case that this is upended - that an object or setting is central in the same way that a major character is - one needs a more exceptional level of sourcing. Because basic understandings of literature suggest that characters are usually central, it requires less to persuade people that they are. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:11, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

pulling in two different directions

We have two sides pulling in two different directions.

• Kww edited the guideline so that all articles on elements require reliable independent secondary sources.
• Drilnoth edited the guideline so that any article on an element can escape the requirement of reliable independent secondary sources, so long as the element is central to understanding the work.

Both sides were reverted. If I had to speculate as to why they were reverted, it's because they were pulling away from the middle ground that we have now. What we have now is that *some* elements (recurring characters and episodes) can survive without reliable third-party sources. *Some* is smack dab in the middle between *all* and *none*.

Funny enough, we also have two separate threads, which argue for completely opposite outcomes:

• This thread - where Kww insists that this guideline will be obstructed if it ignores the requirement of reliable third-party sources.
• This thread - where Drilnoth argues that we should exempt all fictional elements from the requirement of reliable third-party sources, for consistency's sake.

I think both of them raise legitimate arguments. But I'm passed the point where I'm backing one horse over another. I now only care that both sides confront each other, civilly, and hash the issue out... and let the issue die when all is said and done.

Let's settle the second prong once and for all. Are reliable third-party sources are required by some, all, or no fictional articles? Randomran (talk) 08:05, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

All. I think we have a lot of wiggle room in terms of degree and extent. I think there's a pretty widespread consensus that the "direct and detailed examination in multiple sources" is an excessively strong standard to apply to fictional articles. WP:V is policy, but the exact meaning of "relying" on third party sources has never been established, and it's pretty clear that articles that are constructed primarily around non-independent sources with a few independent references routinely survive AFD. I don't think there's a consensus that "none" is an acceptable level of coverage, though. BTW, I'm nearly happy. Sepiroth BCR and I have both tried to insert language pointing out that without independent sources, the article will likely survive initial AFDs but ultimately be merged, but those have been removed. There's a pretty solid pointer to WP:V and WP:RS, and I might be persuadable that it's sufficient.—Kww(talk) 13:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, we can wiggle in two ways - we can nudge the number/substantiveness of independent sources. But that's easy to game. Or we can nudge the notion of independence a bit - which also makes sense. The notion of independence was designed to deal with promotion. But things like the Grey's Anatomy Writer's Blog, or DVD commentaries aren't promotional. I am unconvinced that the writer of a TV show analyzing an episode or character of that show is not independent in the spirit that we wrote that rule. So to my mind, by requiring substantial real-world perspective, which must be sourced to non-primary sources, we are satisfying the same purpose that "independent" was supposed to satisfy. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I think independence is pretty close to a black-and-white issue, and there is no way to classify input from the writer of a show as "independent". Attempting to nudge it that way games the underlying concept of notability ... that it comes about from people not associated with a thing having noticed it. I've got no objection to using such material in an article, but not to fulfill requirements for independent sourcing.—Kww(talk) 15:21, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

The idea that a major character of a television show watched by millions of people has gone unnoticed fails to pass the sniff test, though. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:30, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) On a practical level, fictional elements that are not recurring characters need independent sourcing upfront to survive at AfD simply because it's easier to make arguments for main characters in a series. An example would be say Jutsu (Naruto) (shameless plug :D), which boasts both conception and reception and passes the GNG, let alone FICT. Take away the conception and reception sections though, and in an AfD, it's extremely difficult to argue for keeping it due to the seeming triviality of a very specific fictional element. Now, take Naruto Uzumaki and shave away the conception and reception sections, and in an AfD, it's much easier to argue that the titular character of the series gets an article due to his importance within the series. It's easy to see how characters are generally more important than other fictional elements. If a fictional element is that essential to a certain series, then it often comes out in the independent sourcing reviewing the series. Now, it's not to say that there aren't exceptions and certain fictional elements are more important than characters in some cases, but in the grand majority of series, the characters take prominence. As this applies to the second prong, I'd argue that the onus is on less-than-prominent fictional elements to show notability over important elements of the series (hence the note in the second prong that importance is usually quantified by external sourcing).

All that said though, while I don't have a problem with the way the prongs are set up, the need for independent sourcing at some point needs to be acknowledged. Let's face it. The main character of a series is arguably the most important fictional element within the series, but if all the real world context the article has is three lines of developer commentary, it doesn't have a chance in hell of passing WP:GAN (and beyond). The only reason to keep stuff that passes FICT with developer commentary is that we believe in the potential of the article to demonstrate independent sourcing down the road, as that's what is necessary to move up the assessment scale. I tried to add this, which I think is fairly lenient. It allows for the potential argument in the first AfD with developer commentary to fly, but in successive AfDs, the notion that the article is limited and simply can't be expanded because no independent sourcing is available to come up. At that point, it's merged because that's the better way to present the material (in a list, main series article, or otherwise). It also prevents the "OMG TTN-rampage" that people are so worried about here (although I don't really know why this is a problem, considering that using NOTE/NOT#PLOT/NOT#INFO is far stronger than the current version of FICT). — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 13:03, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I've tried to make this clear in discussing this but I believe that we have to treat this version of FICT as an intermediate stepping step to establish a baseline as to engage in further discussion of how to improve the coverage of fiction overall on WP without having inclusionists upset at TTN-type cleanups, while securing the confidence of deletionists that we're not going to explode into millions of new articles on fiction. We need to come back and readdress lists of non-notables (whether to include or not) and to reaffirm the best way that works of fiction and the elements therein should be addressed (WAF and other guidelines/policies). As long as we don't pretend that this guideline is written in stone and will last WP forever, and instead treat it as an affirmation of what happens at AFD, codified to point people to understand it is an agreed summary of AFD behavior and thus should be replicated as long as the status quo remains unchanged, then I think we should be able to accept some of this failings. The lack of requiring WP:RS or how we are defining the second prong to make sure we include enough but not too much can be seen as temporary "short term" (year+) bandaids in order to bring the various sides of the arguments on fiction coverage to the same table and work on getting a better larger picture. --MASEM 13:21, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand, we can't ignore the requirements of WP:V: If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. We can't plead for special treatment for fiction - that would be to create an editorial walled garden. What we need is a disclaimer along the lines I am proposing[14]. If anyone has an alternative suggestion, please make it known. But to ignore independent sourcing althogether won't get the compromise we are so close to. --Gavin Collins (talk) 13:31, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, again, if we were to apply WP:V (alone) right now to fiction, we'd have a lot of angry inclusionists as we'd likely be wiping out 25% or more of fiction articles in one swoop. This is not to exempt fiction in the long term from being dealt with in the same fashion as any other field, but instead to help guide fiction towards that goal in the short term. Remember that consensus drives policy and guidelines, and that may mean that we may need to have WP:V altered if there is strong support down the road to change it. But that's very long term, I don't want to go there just yet; in the short term, we need to recognize that some fiction articles survive AFD without meeting WP:V's third-party requirement, but are kept based on the expectation they can; that's all this guideline attempts to reiterate is that meeting the three prongs is an indication the element has a good likelihood of being encyclopedic, and likely not a target for merging or deletion in the short term. Long term, we can't promise that protection. --MASEM 13:49, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

• I disagree, as what goes on at WP:AFD is not controlled by WP:FICT, but by local consensus. Usually aricles on fiction that fail WP:N get deleted because they fail WP:NOT#PLOT. However I do agree with you that an article with significant real-world coverage is the way to go. If you don't like my propsoal for a disclaimer, what is your alternative suggestion? --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:38, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

• I've already tinkered your disclaimer, and I believe that version both stands and deals with the issue - it does not attempt to offer any commentary on overriding another guideline - it simply notes that articles that pass the three pronged test are not generally deleted. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Certainly it is the case that, on AfD, character articles survive more easily. I think this is also explainable rationally - characters, in narrative, tend to be the elements of the fiction that get things done - that interact with the world, advance the plot, etc. Aristotle, in the earliest systemic treatment of fiction, valued characters uniquely highly as fictional elements, and we continue in his tradition.

It is also the case, as far as I can see, that articles that have significant real-world perspective, and are about major elements (generally episodes or major characters) of extremely notable works of fiction do not get deleted. This also seems rational. "Non-notable" is an awfully hard adjective for most people to ascribe to something that is known by millions of people. So long as we can cover it from a real-world perspective, and thus it's a valid topic to begin with, such an article won't be deleted.

Part of this may be a misunderstanding of what this guideline is. It's not a guideline that was formed via the common ground of desired outcomes of AfDs. It's one that was formed by looking at what actually happens on AfD, and asking repeatedly "OK, but would an article like this actually be delete?" I am happy to agree to either Kww or Drilnoth's changes, but I need to see an argument based on community practice, not on their personal preferences. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

• Your tinkering with my wording actually removed the disclaimer[15]. It seems to me that not making an explicit reference to independent sourcing is not going to get us any near compromise, as evasion is not honest way to deal with this issue. I suggest you reconsider my proposal again. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:24, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Hm. OK, but in that case, I think we need to have a discussion we initially deferred about what constitutes independence. See new section below. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I have a really hard time understanding how anyone can deny that it's common for an article to be given a chance to improve its sourcing on the first couple of AFDs, but eventually be deleted in later AFDs when those sources have never been located. That's a pattern that is common across all topics.—Kww(talk) 15:29, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

The issue, for me, is that I am unconvinced that an article that meets this guideline is going to be viewed as needing improvement to avoid deletion. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

You being convinced is not necessary to achieve compromise, Phil. You really need to learn how to let your personal objections go, and accept that others disagree with you, and that accommodating their changes makes things go faster. You are now at the point of arguing what other's views would be, even though you know that you have people talking to you in this very debate that would view an article lacking in independent sources as needing improvement to avoid deletion, know that we would raise such views in AFDs, and would nominate such articles on that basis. What more do you need to know?—Kww(talk) 15:36, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

This is rich. You have no concept of how many of my personal objections I've let go here, clearly. "Now at the point of arguing what other's views would be?" Now? This entire proposal is about that! This entire proposal is about trying to get away from personal objections and deal with what actually happens on AfD. So when I say "I am unconvinced that an article that meets this guideline is going to be viewed as needing improvement to avoid deletion," what I mean is "I have looked at many AfDs of fiction articles, and haven't seen one where an article that satisfies this guideline is deleted, so I do not think the statement that they would be deleted is accurate." My opinion is not the warrant of the claim - the fact that I've actually bothered to look at the evidence is. Now, where is your evidence? Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Independence

The notion of "independent" sources has a muddy history in Wikipedia, but as far as I can tell, it was intended to eliminate the use of advertising to prove notability, and to be a functional synonym for "secondary source."

What is therefore tricky is whether a DVD commentary, an interview, or something like the Grey's Anatomy Writer's Blog is independent of an element of a work of fiction. Certainly none of those sources are promotional in the traditional sense. So I'm not convinced they don't satisfy the spirit of "independence."

Looking at GA, the amount of independent sourcing needed beyond those is minimal. I can find GAs that use independent sources only for very brief reception sections. At a glance, Sasuke Uchiha seems to me to have no substantive use of independent sources that creators are not involved in.

Looking at the promotion of articles to GA, it seems to me that for the purposes of fictional articles, commentary by creators that was not made for explicitly promotional purposes constitutes an independent source. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:29, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I propose that everyone ignore this attempt to restart an argument under a new heading. It makes for a horrible debating style, and can be easily mistaken for an attempt to wear down one's opponents by simply restarting an argument over and over until one's opponents give up. Not that I would accuse Phil of such a thing, of course.—Kww(talk) 15:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I missed the substantial discussion of this question elsewhere. If there's a broad discussion about this topic already underway on this talk page, please, point me to it. I would, after all, hate to appear to be arguing in bad faith. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:35, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

• I guess its a way of avoiding being cornered. Also, talking about WP:AFD and WP:GAN is a way of avoiding the issue of how we can compromise on the wording of WP:FICT. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:44, 23 January 2009 (UTC)