Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)

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"[1][2] 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"[3], 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

Okay Jack Merridew, I'll bite. So Wikipedia should only cover your tastes in fiction? Shakespeare and William Golding yes, Doom and Oh My Goddess no?

Thanks for linking to that column by Garrison Keillor. But I disagree with your interpretation of it. Keillor starts off by saying "more Americans than before are reading novels and short stories." Some of that can probably be traced to Harry Potter. And yet when books like Harry Potter become wildly popular, and get people interested in reading novels, there's a backlash. Some of that backlash is from "guys who like to play video games in which you shoot people and spatter their blood on the wall." Half of US adults are gamers. Keillor said "A deep-down aversion to a-r-t is one big reason half of America stays away from fiction." So yeah, there'll be people who stay away from Jane Austen thinking it's artsy fartsy. But also, 1 out of 7 adults in the US have low literacy skills.[4] But Wikipedia can have articles about Jane Austen characters *and* Harry Potter characters *and* videogame characters. If Niko Bellic is a well-known character, why shouldn't there be an article about him? If readers want articles for characters in Pride and Prejudice, why shouldn't there be articles about them?

Keillor said "Fiction is my cash crop." He makes fun of film noir all the time, just like he did in his article. Does that mean we should gut Wikipedia's coverage of film noir? Does that mean we should redirect Guy Noir to another article or a list? No. It means we should educate people and answer the question "Who is Guy Noir", or, "What is film noir?" (although the second question is a little trickier). I listen to Garrison Keillor when I want to fall asleep. I've never really cared for A Prairie Home Companion, but that doesn't matter.

I was never forced to read "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", but even if you don't like a creative work, you can still find parts of it you do like (or could even apply to Wikipedia itself):

Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question…
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

So how should I presume?

And how should I presume?

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin

Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

Garrison Keillor called The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock a "small dark mopefest of a poem" and said "Poems are easy...But nobody reads poetry, thanks to T.S. Eliot" because students were forced to read it in school. Keillor wrote "old Tom led a million writers down the path to writing reams of stuff that nobody wants to read" saying, "And we got the idea that Literature is a Downer." You could even cite those quotes and add them to the article. But not all fiction is literature.

You're right, not all fiction is the same. That's what this is about more than anything — people holding up their noses at some fictional work or area: Star Trek? Doctor Who? Star Wars? Halo? Lost? Heroes? South Park? Family Guy? Babylon 5? Coronation Street? EastEnders? Neighbours? Home and Away? D&D? Bionicle? Pokemon? Television? Comic books? Movies based on comic books? "My taste is fiction is better than yours." People are entitled to their opinions, but whether a person doesn't like a particular area of fiction is irrelevant when it comes to having an article about it. Now, I hesitate to bring any articles up since the last time I brought up an article (about a character that happens to appear in Kingdom Hearts, a game I have no interest in whatsoever), you went around removing Category:Kingdom Hearts characters from articles. But here I go.

The core of the dispute is fan wars. Fans of cycling vs fans of Bionicle. Fans of Halo vs fans of Half-Life. People without television vs people with television. Fans of Naruto vs fans of Warcraft. Fans of Haydn vs fans of Friends. Fans of Dragonball Z vs fans of everything else. Fans of cricket vs fans of D&D. Fans of Meerkat Manor vs fans of Xena: The Warrior Princess. Fans of V for Vendetta vs fans of Babylon 5. Fans of imageboards started by teenagers vs fans of Pokemon. Fans of USENET vs fans of L. Ron Hubbard. Fans of Oryx and Crake and A Confederacy of Dunces and The Library of Babel vs fans of Die Unendliche Geschichte and Fahrenheit 451 and 1984. As if a person couldn't like them all.

Some people may even say "What's so great about Shakespeare"? Keillor wrote "People naturally want to be seen as sensitive persons of exquisite taste...", and that also applies to what you just wrote. Do you think Shakespearean plays were not the pop culture of its day?

People do have different tastes in fiction. But we're not here to decide if Lady Macbeth is more important than Darth Vader. We're here to provide information in a neutral way for people wanting to learn about various topics. If someone wants to know who Lady Macbeth is, we can tell them. If someone wants to know who Darth Vader is, we can tell them. If someone wants to learn about The Hero with a Thousand Faces, we can tell them. If someone wants to learn about Understanding Comics, we can tell them. If someone wants to learn about Amusing Ourselves to Death, we can tell them. If someone wants to learn about The Society of the Spectacle, we can tell them. If someone wants to learn about The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture, we can tell them. If someone wants to learn about Against Civilization, we can tell them.

Wikipedia does have alot of articles about "modern commercial properties", but so what? Wikipedia is not Encarta, Wikipedia is not World Book, Wikipedia is not Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. Every Wikipedia is a reflection of the interests of its volunteer editors. But just because there's an article about something on Wikipedia doesn't mean it's actually important. We're not here to decide if Godzilla is more important than King Kong. We can cover both, and be neutral about it. If Bulbasaur is more well-known than some 19th century paleontologist, why shouldn't Bulbasaur have an article? Because it's a cartoon character? Because of some belief that cartoons are for kids? You might as well say Wikipedia shouldn't have an article for all the Oz books because they were written for children. You could say "But it's just Pokemon." But the mature, adult thing to do would be to describe it in a neutral, detached way. Every group of people has their myths and legends and stories.

By the year 2130, everyone here will be dead. The Babylonians are dead, but Marduk is immortal. The Sumerians are dead, but Enki and Gilgamesh are immortal. Arjuna is immortal. The ancient Egyptians are dead, but Osiris is immortal. The ancient Romans are dead, but Hercules is immortal. Homer is dead, but Odysseus is immortal. Aesop is dead, but the boy who cried wolf is immortal. King Arthur is immortal. Beowulf is immortal. Izanagi is immortal. Coyote and Raven are immortal. Miguel de Cervantes is dead, but Don Quixote is immortal. Cinderella is immortal. Shakespeare is dead, but Othello is immortal. Victor Hugo is dead, but Jean Valjean is immortal. Charles Dickens is dead, but Oliver Twist is immortal. Mary Shelley is dead, but Frankenstein's monster is immortal. Mark Twain is dead, but Tom Sawyer is immortal. Jules Verne is dead, but Captain Nemo is immortal. Bram Stoker is dead, but Dracula is immortal. Leo Tolstoy is dead, but Pierre Bezukhov is immortal. H. G. Wells is dead, but Martians are immortal. L. Frank Baum is dead, but the Wicked Witch Witch of the West is immortal. Robert Louis Stevenson is dead, but Long John Silver is immortal. Rudyard Kipling is dead, but Mowgli is immortal. J. M. Barrie is dead, but Peter Pan is immortal. James Joyce is dead, but Leopold Bloom is immortal. George Orwell is dead, but Winston Smith is immortal. Alexandre Dumas is dead, but Edmond Dantès is immortal. Herman Melville is dead, but Ishmael is immortal. Oscar Wilde is dead, but Dorian Gray is immortal. Charlie Chaplin is dead, but the Tramp is immortal. Johnston McCulley is dead, but Zorro is immortal. Ub Iwerks is dead, but Mickey Mouse is immortal. Ayn Rand is dead, but John Galt is immortal. H. P. Lovecraft is dead, but Cthulhu is immortal. Gregory Peck is dead, but Atticus Finch is immortal. Alex Raymond is dead, but Flash Gordon is immortal. Jimmy Stewart is dead, but George Bailey is immortal. Jack Kirby is dead, but Captain America is immortal. Ian Fleming and Barry Nelson are dead, but James Bond is immortal. Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris are dead, but Aquaman is immortal. Alec Guinness is dead, but Obi-Wan Kenobi is immortal. William Hartnell and Richard Hurndall are dead, but the First Doctor is immortal. Lucille Ball is dead, but Lucy Ricardo is immortal. Fred Gwynne is dead, but Herman Munster is immortal. Charles Addams and Raul Julia are dead, but Gomez Addams is immortal. Phil Hartman is dead, but Troy McClure is immortal. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and Christopher Reeve are dead, but Superman is immortal. Will Eisner is dead, but The Spirit is immortal. Arthur C. Clarke is dead, but HAL 9000 is immortal. Those characters will outlive us all. Yes, probably even Pikachu and Bulbasaur and Nemu Kurotsuchi. So let's put things in perspective. People die, but their stories live on. The artifacts they create, remain — at least for a while anyway.

I grow old… I grow old…
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

The person known as Shakespeare is dead, but the plays remain. Garrison Keillor will be dead one day too, but A Prairie Home Companion and Guy Noir will remain. Everyone likes a good story. And not everyone likes the same stories.

You're not going to win any friends by calling someone else's topic of interest "cruft" — which is codergeek jargon anyway. You're only going to paint a big target on your interests. That doesn't do anything to counter "systemic bias." You don't counter systemic bias by removing articles — you counter it by adding omitted things to Wikipedia. Over one in four articles on the English Wikipedia falls under Category:Fiction. Are television shows, videogames, and comic books mass produced? Yes. Is that a bad thing? No — they're mass produced because they're in-demand, they're popular. But when something becomes popular, it also becomes popular to dismiss it. Does it improve Wikipedia to remove things that are popular? No. Can it be maddening when people argue to keep an article about some pop culture thing you think is inane, yet people argue to delete an article about a topic you think is important? Yeah. But there's no accounting for taste.

If you want to complain about article after article for episodes (or spells or fictional islands), you can blame Jimmy Wales for saying over seven years ago "I agree with this one completely" when someone wrote "There is no reason why there shouldn't be a page for every Simpsons character, and even a table listing every episode, all neatly cross-linked and introduced by a shorter central page" It snowballed from there. Whether Wikipedia should have an article for every character in the D&D Monster Manual is debatable, but if a character is well-known, why not? Should Wikipedia have an article for every character in Satan Burger or Electric Jesus Corpse? In my opinion no, we don't even have articles for those books; but we can always take a survey.

I'm one of the editors who thinks it's fine that we have an article for Imaginationland Episode I (and 2, and 3) and I think it's fine if editors want to include a list of all the fictional characters that appear in the episode, and I think it's fine if all those fictional characters each have articles. Then there are some editors who want to re-enact the story, and walk into Imaginationland wearing a suicide vest.

Getting rid of articles about fictional topics does not bring respectability to Wikipedia. Isn't Wikipedia the website where teenagers upload pictures of their own ejaculate for the Semen article? Isn't Wikipedia the website that made a woman who shot her husband the COO and in charge of their finances? Isn't Wikipedia the website where the founder used to run a porn search engine and used Wikipedia donations for massages and steak dinners? Isn't Wikipedia the encyclopedia that lets anyone edit? There's a reason that libraries don't let people write in their encyclopedias. The floodgates have always been open. "Anyone can edit."

You said you've seen the future and Wikia is it? If a certain topic can be forced off Wikipedia to Wikia (say, World of Warcraft), there's nothing stopping people from forcing any topic to Wikia.

• Step 1. Create a wiki with banner ads, call it a "free webhost", suggest a Wikipedia editor make a Star Wars wiki there, rename the webhost "Wikia" (like "trivia")
• Step 2. Start dismissing every fictional topic on Wikipedia as the work of "fans" — call it "fancruft" or "fanwank" or doubleplusungood, whatever chaps your guy
• Step 3. Profit

Whether Wikipedia will remain or be swallowed up by Wikia is unclear. What if someone told you "Take it to indonesia.wikia.com, Jack. Wikipedia is not a travel guide." You would say "No. This belongs on Wikipedia, not Wikia." You would say "237 million people live there. It's a real place. The country has the fourth largest population in the world. It's infinitely more important than Buffy Summers or Sunnydale." But we're not here to judge importance. An average episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was watched by 4 to 6 million when it first aired. So it's understandable if someone is familiar with Normal Again, but has never heard of the novel Command Decision. Over ten million people play World of Warcraft. If anyone wants to learn what an Ogoh-ogoh is, Wikipedia can tell them. If anyone wants to learn about who Buffy Summers is, we can tell them. The reader can decide for themselves which they think is more important.

Whether the Fourth Doctor is more "important" than Vicky Pollard or Ali G is the actual "fanwank." Tom Baker is notable for playing the Fourth Doctor, Matt Lucas is notable for playing Vicky Pollard, and Sacha Baron Cohen is notable for playing Ali G. Those fictional characters are a large part of why those real people are notable to begin with.

If something becomes popular, it later becomes just as popular to make fun of that popular thing. It's just a backlash against popular culture or geek culture. But as if anyone but geeks give a crap about all the different "flavors" of Linux. But that's okay, we won't discriminate against Linux distros just because geeks are interested in them. Geek self-hatred or geek guilt is not going to improve Wikipedia.

In April 2006 Lore Sjoberg wrote in WIRED "Wikipedia is the largest and most comprehensive collection of arguments in human history" — and that was over 2 1/2 years ago. He wrote "As an unexpected side effect of being the perfect argument space, it's also a pretty good place to find information about all the characters from Battlestar: Galactica." People can make fun of the show all they want; I've never seen it. Maybe Lore Sjoberg actually likes Battlestar: Galactica, I don't know. He said "An article about me is up for deletion! What can I do to keep this from happening?" and said "honestly your best bet is to get a role on Battlestar: Galactica." Now someone could read that and think "We need to get rid of all the character articles for Battlestar: Galactica." Or they could read it and laugh — because it's funny.

Wikipedia has over 15.7 million pages. Around 2.6 million of those are articles. Over 80% of Wikipedia is non-articles. If you picked up a volume of Encyclopedia Britannica and only 1 out of every 5 pages was an entry, could it really be called an "encyclopedia"?

Your userpage has a link to Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an MMORPG. Why should anyone take you seriously if you think Wikipedia is an MMORPG and you've created at least 9 roles to that end? — like rolling a new D&D character every time (which you don't seem to care for). Yeah, "Wikipedia is an MMORPG" is one metaphor you can choose from. The Library of Babel is another. Try some other models. I would say you'd make a great Guy Montag, but then someone would respond "That article fails chapter WP verse ALPHABETSOUP in the Epistle of Jimbo" — without realizing that they've joined a cult. Or you could entertain the possibility that the Ministry of Truth may have begun as a volunteer project. And "mebbe" realize (oh, I'm sorry, "realise") that one day you'll be dead too. There's a certain sense of satisfaction that comes after rescuing an article from deletion.

Some people are here to play games, some people are here to work. Some people do both. One person may be taking Wikipedia seriously at the time, and another person may not, and when they cross each others paths, they're bound to irk each other. Some people act with professionalism at all times, some people have a little fun, some people make serious points and jokes in the same breath.

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.

Wikipedia is about free information. We're here to share information. Complaining that the English Wikipedia has articles that reflect the interests of its volunteers is like complaining that you're seasick from being on a ship in the ocean. It comes with the territory. What are people who speak English, have Internet access, have enough free time, and who aren't bored to death by HTML markup and wikicode interested in? And people should start calling them "entries" anyway, instead of articles. When you say "Macbeth is an important piece of fiction; episode 117 of Buffy the Phallus Slayer is not", I can only think of Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television. And I've never liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But you merely traded one glowing screen for another, Jack.

I would say that your current username is the most apt of all the ones you've chosen (besides shadow puppet), but then someone might wonder "Who is Jack Merridew?" — and the article is just a redirect. Why shouldn't we have an article about Jack Merridew? You could say that if someone wants to know who Jack Merridew is, they should read the novel, or watch one of the two films based on the novel. But we don't say "read it yourself." You could say, look at the article for the novel or films. But what if someone wants to know specifically who Jack Merridew is and what he does? (and see why "Jack Merridew" is such an strikingly appropriate username for you). William Golding is dead, but every time a new reader picks up Lord of the Flies, Ralph, Piggy, Simon, Sam and Eric, Jack, and Roger are reborn. You could say that The Coral Island is the "vision" of Wikipedia, but Lord of the Flies is the actuality — this talk page included.

I know you think Americans ruined Bali when they came in their planes, but on Wikipedia, NPOV is expected of all editors when it comes to articles. Leave your bias at the door. But whatever. Keep trying to force your TV-lacking POV across Wikipedia. If an article you write gets deleted and "meanwhile endless articles on popular culture are extant", why be mad at those articles? "Why did people create articles about popular things?" Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? That's like me going to the Bahasa Wikipedia and complaining that "endless articles on Indonesian popular culture are extant." I went there and clicked on Random article a bunch of times and almost every article had zero references. But that's okay, since Wikipedia is not finished. Nobody gets paid to edit here. We're all volunteers. We're all making it up as we go.

No, be mad at the people who wrote NOTMEMORIAL and the people who misinterpret it. It's asinine that someone can nominate an article for deletion umpteen times, yet none of Wikipedia's 300+ policies and guidelines can be nominated for deletion once. So people have created a situation where rulecruft can grow and grow and grow, like "kudzu" (to quote a gamer "who like to play video games in which you shoot people and spatter their blood on the wall"). Deleting an article doesn't free up any space on Wikipedia's hard drives. It only makes it so non-admins can't read the article and learn about the topic.

But this is TL;DR right? Like War and Peace? Maybe a friendly editor from the UK using Tiscali can summarize (oh, there I go again, "summarise") it for you. Or maybe a Green Lantern/Smallville/Freddy/Jason/Dark Knight fan can cut it down and remove all the wikilinks, like he removed them from the War and Peace article. A person can like War and Peace *and* The Dark Knight — you know, "dastardly deeds by dark despicable men, and/or some generous blood-spattering" and all that. Tell me Jack, is Les Miserables an important fictional work? What's more important, there being no consensus to delete Plot of Les Misérables or some strict dogma about FICTNWAFPLOT? NOTPAPER came first. And that doesn't even need to be written down; it's a plain truth.

So now who's going to redirect the Fiction article for "failing FICT"? — meanwhile, this page generates archive after archive after archive... ("most comprehensive collection of arguments in human history..."). You could just redirect this talkpage to The Forever War.

Wikipedia can answer the question "What is an orange?" But reading Orange (fruit) and eating an actual orange are two vastly different experiences. You can't really know what an orange tastes like from reading Wikipedia.

To lead you to an overwhelming question…
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

Everything on Wikipedia is a description. Three blind men describing an elephant. There is the ideal of "neutral point of view" and then there is the Rashomon effect.

"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."

Wikipedia is like a map. But a map is not the territory. When you go to a restaurant, the menu is not the meal. People can enjoy a meal without reading a menu; people can still read the play Macbeth if Wikipedia had no article about it. That doesn't mean we should throw away the menu. Maybe someone wants to read the menu, even if you don't want to.

TL;DR? I just turned into a big fish. If someone asks me to remove this comment, I will gladly remove it. --Pixelface (talk) 13:25, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

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

I've removed the collapsible box. --Pixelface (talk) 12:09, 28 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)

Thanks for reading it. But I think the chances of us meeting are zero. And it's not an arch-inclusionist manifesto, whatever that is. Reading it may make you think I support articles for any and every fictional topic, but that's not true. Do we need separate articles for Chicken Licken, Henny Penny, Goosey Loosey, and Foxy Loxy? No. Do we need a separate article for Max in Where the Wild Things Are? No.

You said some fiction is more important than other fiction. But that is all subjective. When you wrote "Macbeth is an important piece of fiction; episode 117 of Buffy the Phallus Slayer is not", you were showing your taste in fiction. Someone doesn't have to write about an episode in order for the episode to be notable. Someone doesn't even have to write about Macbeth for Macbeth to be notable. The play is still performed after hundreds of years. How many people are aware of it? Maybe there shouldn't be a article for every character in War and Peace or Pride and Prejudice, but what about the main characters? What about characters that notable actors are well-known for portraying?

At one point, Tolstoy told Chekhov that he couldn't stand Shakespeare's plays. At one point, Anton Chekhov wrote "I divide works into two categories: those I like and those I don't. I have no other criterion. And if you were to ask me why I like Shakespeare and do not like Zlatovratsky, I would be unable to answer. Maybe with time, when I grow wiser, I'll acquire a criterion, but in the meanwhile all discussions on what is and is not artistic wear me out." Personally, I know more about Chekhov than Chekhov. That's pop culture for you. If popular culture stuff is popular with readers of Wikipedia, why take that away? We can offer what the masses want in addition to what's "important." If you want to only provide what you consider "encyclopaedic", then I have some good news for you Jack:

On January 22, Claire Sweeney of Sydney wrote[5] on Times Online that Encyclopaedia Britannica launched a "new online version where users can contribute and edit content", saying the move "takes it head to head with Wikipedia", but "catering to a different type of crowd." Sweeney wrote "all submissions will undergo a strict vetting process and may or may not make the cut." Britannica's president Jorge Cauz compared people using Wikipedia as their only source of reference to people who eat McDonalds every day. That's one analogy.

But will Britannica 2.0 have an article about the fictional character Ronald McDonald? How about Morgan Spurlock? (a guy who really did eat McDonalds every day — and filmed it, and then spun off a reality show from it)

Will Wikipedia have an article about Ronald McDonald after this proposal? How about Hamburglar? At Talk:McDonaldland, three people supported a merge: Petaholmes, Pd THOR, and Jerem43. The Hamburglar article was redirected, but other editors unredirected it. Then RJC redirected it again. Is Hamburglar "important"? No, not really. I suppose the character is important to McDonald's Corporation. It's important when speaking of McDonald's advertising and McDonaldland. Hamburglar is a notable advertising character — like the Trix Rabbit. Are you familiar with the Trix Rabbit, Jack?

The Trix Rabbit is notable. So is Bugs Bunny. And Tweety Bird. And Wile E. Coyote. One began as an advertising character, and the others began as cartoon characters, later used for advertising. But are they "important"? Trix Rabbit is important to General Mills and Nestlé. Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, and Wile E. Coyote are important to Warner Bros. Is knowing who those fictional characters are, actual knowledge? Is it important to know? Is it stuff people should know? That's a matter of opinion.

You're right, not every bit of information is important — but isn't that up to the reader to decide for themselves? Wikipedia can't teach people to survive in the wild or drill wells in Africa for clean water — you know, actual important stuff, because of policies like WP:NOT#HOWTO. So you end up with alot of trivia.

Articles for Wikia? How about Articles for Britannica 2.0? How many of Wikipedia's featured articles do you think would make the cut at a real encyclopedia that's been around for more than a decade? --Pixelface (talk) 00:02, 25 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)

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.[6] 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.[7] - 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)

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 it 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[8] 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)

With all due respect to Aristotle, I don't think there is any such heirarchy exists in the real-world as whether characters are more important than other elements is a matter of opinion, not fact. Sometimes non-characters do take center stage in a plot and can be more notable than any character, e.g The Monkey's Paw. I think "Elements of Fiction" is the best terminology to use in this guideline, as it is a relatively neutral term. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:16, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a case where we really ought defer to normal practice. Characters are kept more often than other articles. There are reasons for this. This guideline should not be used to try to change AfD practice. Characters are held to a lower standard of proof in this guideline because, well, characters are held to a lower standard of proof. m:Descriptivism is key. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:19, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with Phil here. In 99% of cases, it's the characters that are central. In 1% of cases, another element such as an inanimate object will be central, but the only way to prove that will be commentary from reliable third-party sources. Randomran (talk) 16:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I continue to disagree, and see no reason to differentiate between characters and other elements, since it's all fictional parts of the fictional story, it should be treated equally. The Ring or the Sword are both central to the plot of their tales, and both have some amount of real world coverage. and no one's argued that, but suggest that a minor Character from LOTR NOT get a page because he's less notable and less covered in RS than the ring, and we have a problem? that's a hypocritical double standard, and doing things wrong because wiki's been doing wrong makes no sense. Id that were really the responsible ethic, we'd still have slavery. If it's wrong, don't do it. ThuranX (talk) 02:25, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I actually agree with Gavin and ThuranX here; even if it is true that in 99% of cases the characters are central, that is not a reason to distinguish them from central non-character elements. Also, why are we talking about episodes in this guideline when we already have an episode guideline that covers them? Episodes are not elements of fiction, they are seperate fictional works which are part of a series of fictional works. DHowell (talk) 05:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

That's a distinction that is becoming increasingly unhelpful. Are each of the "webisodes" in Lost: Missing Pieces a work of fiction to be considered independently? Is each episode in a serial drama a distinct work of fiction? A non-serial drama? A sitcom? Where they meet the GNG it doesn't matter but if they don't, would it be unreasonable to judge them based on this guideline? Also I think FICT is just mirroring VGSCOPE in the "episodes/characters" decision--though I am happy to soften it if it will make people happier. Protonk (talk) 05:12, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Would changing the current prong to read, "The subject should be an episode, recurring character, or other major element that is central to understanding the fictional work. Other elements of the work are appropriate too, but only if their significance is verified in commentary from reliable sources. Notability requires evidence, and bald assertions of significance are insufficient." be a good compromise? It would still have more weight in regards to characters, but more easily make provisions for other elements. -Drilnoth (talk) 13:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

With so many people worrying about articles without reliable third-party sources, I think you'd be just as likely to have people removing the exemption altogether. "An article on an episode, character, or major element is appropriate only if its significance is verified in commentary from reliable sources." With people pulling in both directions, I think it's best to stay exactly where we are now. Randomran (talk) 14:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay; just thought I'd mention it as an idea. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:09, 26 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[9]. 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)
• I've no problem with this saying "real-world", that itself is fine for what I consider to be an acceptable short-term guideline - we want to encourage getting to independent sources, however, that is a much more difficult barrier. From what I've seen, if there are dependent real-world sources (ala developers blogs) there's a good chance there is independent coverage, but the latter is much harder to find, generally requiring print literature searches. Requiring "real world" sources will still have some fiction elements merged or the like after sufficient application of this guideline, but nowhere near the number by requiring "independent" sources at this immediate time. --MASEM 16:09, 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[10]. 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)

Forget AFD Phil, as we are trying to write inclusion criteria, not deletion criteria. We can't avoid discussing the requirement of WP:V about independent sourcing. The question is how do we forge a compromise by bringing it into this guideline (even if only as a disclaimer)? --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Forget AfD... in a discussion about inclusion criteria? What? Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:55, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we have already made a lot of concessions about your concerns, which are address in the section WP:FICT#Articles that don't meet the inclusion criteria. We can't reverse engineer WP:FICT to reflect what does or does not happen at WP:AFD - that would be an example of the tail wagging the dog. Regardless of how well sourced an article is (e.g. a content fork), it may still get deleted by consensus, so we can't use AFD as a precedent for inclusion criteria. Instead we have to take our precedent from existing policy. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

OK. In which case we open the (basically undealt with) question of what "independent" means for fiction. Which there is already a section for. So let's discuss it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:11, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

OK then. Lets start with the statement "Articles on fictional elements that meet this guideline, but cannot be shown, through a long-term, good faith effort, to have independent sources, may be merged elsewhere to better present the material in the article. ". Could you compromise on this disclaimer? --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:28, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Phil Sandifer is the least of your problems on this disclaimer. The question is if other inclusionists are going to let the second prong effectively become WP:N. Randomran (talk) 17:10, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that articles may be merged elsewhere, but I see little evidence that independent sourcing is generally the test used to do it. It looks to me like one can get GA status with barely any of the independent sourcing Kww seems to want. Which makes me think that slightly less - that is none - is not really grounds for anything. At least, of that sort of independent sourcing. But I think the reason that's OK for those GAs is that they have lots of real-world perspective, interviews with creators, etc. Which makes me think that it's more likely that non-fictional and non-promotional sources are considered independent for fiction articles. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:13, 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)

Phil, I realize you're upset, and everyone is trying to console you, but if you cannot accept that GAs need independent sources, then that's simply being dense. Sasuke Uchiha has independent mention (1, 2, 3, 4) and to characterize that as "no substantive use of independent sources that creators are not involved in" is silly beyond words. And in any case, Sasuke was one of my earliest character GAs, and quite a few reviews have popped up between now and then that can expand the article (1, 2, 3). Really, go read WP:GA. If there's an article on a fictional subject there without independent sourcing, I'll be nominating it for WP:GAR. The concept that independent sourcing is necessary in these articles is painfully obvious to anyone who has actually worked on them. It doesn't have to constitute a majority of the sources by any means, but if you can't write a decent section on reception/cultural impact/whatever, then you don't get a GA. Simple as that.

And apologies to Kww for replying to this split thread, but as he brought up one of my articles, I felt obligated to respond. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 20:45, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Appropriateness of sectioning

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)

• If making sure that we're accurately describing the processes this guideline governs is avoidance, I suppose, you're right, but I don't see how that follows at all. And it has nothing to do with being cornered - when a point is introduced in the middle of a section with half a dozen indents in a discussion between Kevin and me, it does not seem to me to be a point that is presented for widespread views. When a point is introduced in a new section, it seems to me an attempt to get wider comment on the idea. Because, honestly, I want to hear from more than Kevin on this. And where the discussion was previously happening, I wasn't going to. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:48, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

The discussion on this page is extremely rapid, and poorly organized. It is not only understandable, but downright inevitable that discussion threads will be overlooked, and arguments will be rehashed. I believe the solution to this is to describe the arguments made, and the responses to the arguments made in a proper summary style, not unlike a quality Wikipedia article. I've tried to write such a summary before (User:Verdatum/FICT FAQ) but it is severely out of date. The discussion moves too quickly here, I've been forced to stop watching it due to the time sap it became. But if all sides can properly collaborate and self moderate a summary, the casual followers can stay up to date on the core of the various arguments without having to follow the back and forth discussion needed to render them. I believe a similar thing occured and manifested itself as pages on the various editing philosophies (deletionist, inclusionist, etc.) during the Deletion Wars; this is the same thing, only on a more microcosmic scale. -Verdatum (talk) 17:45, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Done

I am done here. The unfortunate arrival of multiple users who seem to have taken "make personal attacks against Phil and troll him" to be the optimal strategy for ignoring actual practice on AfD and retaining their Pure and Holy Right to WP:BATTLEGROUND an area of the encyclopedia they don't like.

The level of bad faith that has been displayed over the last few days is disgusting. The last straw, fwiw, was the insistence on derailing an attempt to look at the concept of "independence" and what it means for fiction with a thinly veiled personal attack. Never mind the fact that, to date, nobody has shown a single example of an article that satisfies this guideline but that would be deleted.

Fuck it, Proposal failed. It's tombstone should read "Killed by Kww and ThuranX." Good work, guys. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:31, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that you can simply just delete the proposal outright, given that so many have put forth their own effort into shaping it and would like to see it eventually made official.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:46, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I apologize. That was an overreaction to say the least. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:49, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I have asked for a 24-block to placed on Phil Sandifer with immediate effect. Deleting WP:FICT is completely out of order. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:52, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. It was. However, I have to say, I wonder where you were when ThuranX made this edit: [11] - one that is just as flagrant a violation of policy. Since then, it has been open season on me, with ThuranX and Kww engaged in a tag-team series of accusations of bad faith and outright personal attacks. The deletion was out of line. But for God's sake, it's not even close to the majority of the problem. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:55, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I fight my own battles against incivility as well[12], and so should you if you have not done so already. --Gavin Collins (talk) 17:03, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I apologize for missing Sephiroth's totally inappropriate comment when it was made. My point remains - this proposal has been derailed by toxicity, where good faith efforts to explore points and find agreement are immediately blasted as bad faith. The proposal will not find consensus while ThuranX and Kww are engaging in the tactics that they are. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Let it go. Move on. Get back to work. Randomran (talk) 17:06, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

That's the point, though - I attempted to start a thread to look at what seems to be a major point of disagreement - what constitutes independence. I went and looked at GA to try to figure out what sorts of articles and reliance on independent sources are needed to make GA. For my trouble, I got "You're using bad faith debate tactics" from Kww. I'd love to get to work. But it's going to take the people who oppose this guideline - of which there are, so far as I can count, two - actually working instead of trolling to do it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:09, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Kww has a valid point, we have covered this issue in depth several threads already - see WT:FICT#Independent sources for example. If only for a moment you could see things from his perspective, you would see he has been making valid points - e.g. That second prong. My understanding is that you don't accept this guideline should not have inclusion criteria that require the citiation of independent sourcing. So somehow we have to bridge the gap. I don't think that will be difficult, if we hammer it out in one thread, rather than starting the same discussion from scratch all over again. --Gavin Collins (talk) 17:30, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Let's just take this thing to some forum where broad comment can be received. I don't think it pays enough attention to independent sources, but it pays enough attention that people can't claim that the guideline obviates the need for them. So long as no one attempts to add language that implies that material provided by people involved with the creation of the work can be classed as independent, I won't push for stronger mention.

Phil, I recognize that I brushed up pretty damn near NPA there, but please take to heart that if frequently when you get involved in these debates your opponents wind up angry and foaming at the mouth, that's a problem, and not one that belongs solely with your opponents. I find discussion with you exhausting because of the constant restarts, and I'm not the only one that has commented on it.—Kww(talk) 17:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I think everyone had a chance to blow off some steam. Try not to let it happen again. Assume good faith, and no personal attacks. If discussions get long and repetitive, it's only because it's hard to get to the core issue. Progress is slow. Randomran (talk) 20:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Phil, if you weren't so obviosuly gaming the consensus and talk page expectations, people wouldn't get sick and tired of you. I'm proud to accept your resignation from this proposal, and happy to see it die in favor of the already stricter policies like NOTE and RS. Good luck editing articles in the future. ThuranX (talk) 02:19, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

What did I miss? It must be lost somewhere in the dialogue that never ends. Deleted? O RLY? This is a heated issue and I'll not get bent out of shape by some rough comments or rash deletions; not condoning, either. The simple truth of it, is that there's really not a consensus here. Look to the root meaning of 'notability' - it requires that someone else have taken note. Any attempt to circumvent this will fail. Wikipedia should not be leading the charge to cover things; we cover what others have covered. Jack Merridew 08:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Starting Fresh

Ok, let's start this fresh and without dredging up old crap. First, let's all realize that any single person saying "I won't support this guideline because it says 'blah blah blah'" does not mean that this guideline doesn't have consensus, cannot achieve consensus, and/or is in otherwise bad shape. Everyone is entitlted to their opinion, but no one opinion decides anything. That being said, I would like to call for an informal straw poll (informal, as in it doesn't mean that the guideline will or won't get promoted, this is for our benefit) on who supports the general principle that this guideline is proposing (i.e. if you don't like a specific word, but like everything else then you support the guideline. If you like everything but the fact that the doesn't push for independent, third-party reliable sources as the primary means of establishing notability then you probably don't support this guideline). I say I'd like to see an informal straw poll because I feel like most of us are getting lost in needless arguments and we are losing track of how each of us actually stands with regard to this proposed guideline. All we need is a "Support"/"Oppose" and maybe a single sentence explaining the specific nature of your opinion (we don't need a paragraph explaining why you think aspect A sucks). I believe that from their we can start tackling each criticism one-at-a-time, instead of this free-for-all jabbering fest that has become this talk page.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 18:01, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Support

1. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:02, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Phil, I am concerned about your recent disruption of wikipedia 1 hour 29 minutes before this poll, which may have effected the legitimacy of this poll.Ikip (talk) 13:24, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Apparently Bignole, who started the poll, was not concerned. I would bring the matter up with him - I'm merely here as a participant in the poll. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:13, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

1. Gavin Collins (talk) 18:05, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
2. As said above, I favor pushing this thing out for public comment as it stands. As long as no one attempts to add text that attempts to redefine independence, I won't push for stronger mention of it.—Kww(talk) 18:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Ched (talk) 18:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC) - I'm in favor of finding a way to get items "included" in Wikipedia, even if it is "Fiction"
4. Wholeheartedly. I want to also note that Kww's and Gavin's opposition has been (in the main) serious and substantive. Likewise, despite his recent outburst, Phil's defense of it (in the face of all ranges of opposition) has been honorable. Protonk (talk) 18:17, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
5. I'm amazed. I never thought a reasonable compromise could be made on this. I would like to see a stronger mention for independence, but as long as what is currently in the article is not further watered down I can live with this. Karanacs (talk) 18:28, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Support as a necessary means to begin further discussion of how to improve fiction coverage on WP. --MASEM 18:40, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
7. I support(ed) Nov2007's FICT, Masem's FICT proposal and Phil's FICT proposal. It's unlikely that any future minor changes will prompt me to switch to the oppose camp. – sgeureka ^t•c 18:55, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
8. Broadly support; I think it needs work in the particulars, but a good idea. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 18:59, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
9. I have quibbles (particularly with regard to the "Independence" subsection), but I think it's time that the opinions of the broader community were sought on this. Deor (talk) 19:11, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
10. Support - I think prong 1 would be sufficient simply with the work meeting WP:GNG, but on balance I think this is pretty good. --EEMIV (talk) 19:17, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
11. Support - Probaby as good as it can get. Let's jump on this. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:21, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
12. Support. I think that this is a great proposal as-is and really don't think that it could improve much without drastically changing the entire proposal. -Drilnoth (talk) 19:26, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
13. Unlikely to change if it hasn't done by now. Sceptre ^(talk) 19:29, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
14. Looks pretty good to an uninvolved editor. Hal peridol (talk) 20:05, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
15. While I could find some quibbles, this compromise looks good enough to move on. Pagrashtak 20:06, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
16. per Karanacs. Eluchil404 (talk) 20:11, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
17. I'm genuinely a little worried about the second prong, which allows us to assume all episodes and recurring characters are important. But in combination with the other prongs (the work has to be important, and the character / recurring episode needs real-world coverage), this is precise enough to aviod WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE and WP:NOT#DIRECTORY. I'm not sure we can swing one way or another without losing people. Randomran (talk) 20:26, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
18. I still take issues that the proposal seems to think characters are more inherently important that non-characters, but that's only a minor issue.じんない 20:28, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
19. Although I still don't see why there are problems with this, I support the rest as it stands. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 20:47, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
20. Not taken part in this, but as it is currently written and so long as "Alternatively, any element of a fictional work that meets the general notability guideline is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article" stays in the nutshell then I am fine with this guideline. Davewild (talk) 20:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
21. Although I dislike the well beyond the basic threshold of the general notability guideline quite strongly indeed , the rest of it looks good. I assume removing the "well" would probably open a can of worms. But given the history of this, I'm really impressed and feel I should support. Nice job folks.Hobit (talk) 20:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
22. Weak support as a base for improvements. We certainly need a guideline. Corrections can always be made. Guidelines must not contradict stronger polices like WP:V and WP:NOR but make them more explicit in the fiction area. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
23. Reyk _YO! 22:09, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
24. Nifboy (talk) 23:25, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
25. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:45, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
26. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 05:11, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
27. Sounds reasonable.  Sandstein  08:14, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
28. Perhaps a stronger line on independent coverage would be appropriate, but I mostly approve of this current revision. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 09:51, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
29. I lean towards supporting this proposal. I am personally in favour of not having such a firm independent sources requirement for fiction topics which, if I have read it correctly, this proposal provides. For example, comprehensive development and release information is commonly available directly from the producers of the content (something like a DVD commentary). I believe this proposal will help sort out the issue of presenting information that has plenty of reliable secondary sources, enough to build an article's worth of information, but fewer third party ones. --Bill ^{(talk|contribs)} 14:34, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
30. Themfromspace (talk) 22:10, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
31. Weekly supporting it. I'm concerned that the proposed test of notability is apparently independent of the notability of the work in question; I feel strongly that the more notable a work is, the easier it should be to satisfy it. In the case of highly notable works, I feel we should be able to ignore the requirement of real-world information; if something is important to the understanding of a highly notable work, then we should cover it, whether or not there is any real-world information available to report. In the case of minor works, I feel the importance and volume of real-world coverage available would need to be higher. But, this provides a base to work from, and I am in general agreement with the rest of the proposal. JulesH (talk) 22:23, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
32. An admirable example of compromise and consensus building. Jfire (talk) 21:50, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
33. It's not what I'm good at, but it looks right, and I'm impressed with the breadth of support. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:50, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
34. I've been passively following this. The independent sources issue is significant, but this potential guideline would be a step forward in handling these cases. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 15:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Hooper (talk) 18:40, 23 January 2009 (UTC) - This proposal is well written and well done, however, I just don't see a true use for it other than to give members of the deletion-inclusion war one more peg to hang a hat on. We have guidelines already and this just seems to add to an already convoluted mass of policy. Well written, but unnecessary for the whole of wikipedia imo.
2. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:49, 23 January 2009 (UTC) Fails our core policies of WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV.
3. Ikip (talk) 21:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC) oppose this essay and oppose this strawpoll. I oppose this essay because of the consequences of this essay, hundreds of articles will be merged or deleted. Since I disagree with notability for several reasons, I disagree with this article too. The biggest reason i oppose this essay is the effect these rules have on new contributors. I oppose this strawpoll because only a handful of editors which are involved in this discussion in the first place are taking part. I hope editors will only use this strawpoll "for our benefit" only, not to use as an indication of "consensus" when opposing views arise. Kraftlos, this is absolutely is a tool which editors will use to delete articles, just like this straw poll is now being used and will be used as consensus
   "I added a link to the extant WP:CENT notice, I don't see anything wrong with coasting off the feedback solicited two weeks ago"
   This debate has its origins in the 2004-2005 television episode mass deletions. Where a group of editors decided to delete dozens of pages of editor's contributions.

   Other than the fact it is (not) an essay, I'd say that your concerns are how it currently occurs already, and that this "essay" would make it more likely and not less likely that certain articles will remain independent of possible merge targets. Further, as I understand it, the straw poll is merely to get an idea from the people who have been watching the page about whether this should move a step further toward becoming a guideline, or if there really are major sticking points rather than quibbles (no offense to any of the quibblers!) about wording. --Izno (talk) 21:46, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

   This isn't a tool so people can delete more articles; it's a guideline which will greatly clarify how to handle notability in the context of fiction. Keep in mind that there's lots of us that are following the discussion but not participating, its not just the voices of a few here. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 09:49, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   I'm sorry I thought this was a poll, not a discussion where we can question each others rationals underneath each other, if that is the case, I will start commenting above too. Kraftlos, Izno please refactor out your comments to the above support section, not here. You can remove these comments of mine asking you to do this too. Ikip (talk) 12:02, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   I'm sorry that you thought it wasn't a discussion. Every talk page is. If you don't want to respond to questions and comments on your "vote", then don't. This isn't a formal debate where you will lose arguments you don't respond to. It's just a straw poll. If you want to comment, comment. If you don't, don't. Please don't make a big deal out of it. Protonk (talk) 13:29, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   But I never said I was in support of the proposal. Nor of the straw poll. My attempt was to convince you that your argument was irrational considering that it wasn't really applicable to this situation. I should have noted before that if you dislike notability as a principle, you should take it up where it will do the most good, which is certainly not here. --Izno (talk) 18:12, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   "But I never said I was in support of the proposal. Nor of the straw poll." Your selective edits here, your user page, and your edit history says otherwise, so do you identifying with these editors below, "we're just looking for input".

   RE: "irrational" Interesting way to assume good faith of the current contributors...Ikip (talk) 18:23, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   You needed to look me up to debate with me? I'm sorry you thought you needed to do that, since you still haven't responded to the particular points I've presented you. *shrug* --Izno (talk) 18:33, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   This is the way this works on other polls, I don't need to refactor my comments. Sorry the whole page is a discussion. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 18:40, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

4. Raven1977^{Talk to me}_{My edits} 22:52, 23 January 2009 (UTC) The "Real-world coverage" prong states that real-world coverage can include "the use of sources with a connection to the creators of the fictional work". That seems to go against the whole concept of reliable sources, and encourage future conflict of interest editing, not to mention that it is in opposition to the part of the General notability guideline which defines reliable sources as being secondary sources. (see here).
5. DHowell (talk) 04:40, 24 January 2009 (UTC) Subjective enough to drive a fictional truck through; supposedly attempts to codify existing practice, but existing practice is completely dysfunctional; demands "real-world" coverage but ignores the fact than an element can be notable solely based on significant plot-oriented commentary and analysis in reliable sources; ignores WP:V's requirement for at least some third-party sources. This guideline will simply be another tool which, due to its subjectivity, will be wikilawyered by many participants in debates to argue for their preferred outcome, which will be generally unchanged by the existence of this guideline. I find it odd that I, generally falling on the inclusionist side, am agreeing with some of the objections raised by those who would problaby be considered to follow an exclusionist persuasion, such as Kww's objection that there ought to be a requirement for some independent sourcing (though less than that generally thought to be required by WP:N), and Gavin's objection to basing this guideline on AfD outcomes which represent a local, not a general consensus. DHowell (talk) 04:40, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
6. The guideline's three prongs, which the guideline is premised upon, omit entirely the word 'independent', and the later section on it specifically excuses fiction articles from needing actual Independent Sources, instead changing the definition of INdependent to mean 'and dependent is independent too'. The language about how there's no danger of promotional influence or Profit motivation in Fictional subjects is naive at best, and deliberate obfuscation to lower the threshold of inclusion to zero. Cannot accept any version which doesn't require at least one truly independent notable Reliable Source. ThuranX (talk) 05:48, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
7. Interesting way to ignore a previous and rather cogent discussion. And more interesting in that so many "supports" jumped on board so quickly. Of course, no one would ever consider this a method of vote stacking... or would they? Who was "notified" of this "fresh" poll.... and how? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 16:22, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   Interesting way to assume good faith of the current contributors... Currently, the only notifications I've seen about this particular poll have been on WP:CENT and WP:AN/I. At the moment, we're just looking for input from the people who have seen those two locations, as well as those who are watching the page in some form or another. Was there any particular reason to oppose how the proposal looks, or only on the belief that there's been vote-stacking?
   Further, I'd say that those who are supporting are doing so because they have been working together toward the common goal of putting together a guideline which helps to describe how the idea of fictional articles reacts with the idea of articles which are notable. --Izno (talk) 18:12, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Michael is just Wikipedia:Call a spade a spade "To call a spade a spade is to describe something clearly and directly. Rather than using oblique and obfuscating language, just "tell it like it is."

Disrupting wikipedia: Wikipedia:AN/I#Disruption_of_wikipedia_to_push_an_unpopular_policy. This poll is as legitimate as its predecessor, Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Television episodes, where a small group of editors in support of that policy, out wrote opposition. Ikip (talk) 18:23, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment

I know this is just a straw poll, and we don't decide *anything* by vote. But I'm a little worried that the way it's set up, it will give more voice to the opposition than it will to the supporters. Many of the supporters -- Gavin Collins and Phil Sandifer most notably -- have made huge concessions to find common ground with each other. It would be a shame to ignore the fact that these people, too, have strong preferences. But they've been big enough to let their personal preference take the back seat. So if this straw poll ultimately gives us information (criticism) that helps us redesign the guideline, let that criticism come from supporters too. I don't want people voting strategically, with the belief that their opposition will let them shape this guideline more than their support. Because it won't. That's not how Wikipedia and consensus-building works. Randomran (talk) 20:35, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

My thought process when I started it was to see where people currently were with the page. I'm glad to see such overwhelming support for the current version, but the second part of my thinking was to see what exactly people have against the guideline so that maybe we could tackle each issue one-at-a-time and that we not be drown into debates on countless subjects all happening at the same time (and thus we loose track of where we were going when we were trying to fix any issues). From what I can see from the opposers, it doesn't appear to be problems with aspects of this guideline, but merely them opposing the idea of even having this guideline. I would like this informal straw pole to maybe go until tomorrow, and if there appears to be nothing in the opposition that is fixable (i.e. We cannot address someone saying, "we don't need this guideline" with any magical edit to the wording), then I would argue that we should leave the page as it is (if that is the consensus) and move on to a formal process of getting this made official (i.e. going through all the necessary steps, and not simple changing the tag and hoping no one disagrees).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:23, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Haven't we already gone through those steps? Wikipedia:POLICY#Proposals says we should advertise for feedback, and then look for consensus. We got some feedback 2 weeks ago, we made some changes, and now we have the strawpoll. My main worry if we prolong this discussion is that we start getting drive-by votes that don't help us reach a consensus, and stealth-canvassing that leads to a skewed perspective. Randomran (talk) 22:31, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Can someone by chance please post an example of say an ongoing discussion of a fictional character, list, etc. and whether or not it would or would not meet this current wording? I would be happy to either support or oppose, but I would like to see an example of something that would or would not and I mean something that would be say on the fence as obviously an article on Mario or Sonic would just as obviously a hoax would not, but say an article under discussion that is perhaps not the subject of dissertations, but does have out of universe coverage in multiple reliable secondary source reviews. Thanks! Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:36, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

(To Randomran) Well, I'm not saying "Supporters don't leave your feedback as well", I'm just saying don't leave a whole paragraph detailing everything you don't like. My primary concern is getting an official guideline for fiction out and operation. Clarification and adjustments happen to guidelines and policies all the time, but they don't have to shut down the whole operation just to handle them because they never change the spirit of the guid/pol., they just clarify details. That is what I want to find out, is if there is consensus approval for the basic spirit of what this guideline lays out.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I think that straw poll will help us figure that out, but it won't necessarily tell us how to gain more support. After all, responding to the opposition might lose us some supporters. Randomran (talk) 22:55, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

To "A Nobody". You are looking for the black swan. Part of what we see is a selection problem. We can't list as an example what was never nominated and vague notions like "importance to the work" and "significance of the work" lend a lot to an article never being nominated. I can think of a few (Naturally, I can also think of several counter-examples, but we will leave them out for now). Horus Heresy, which was not deleted effectively because we aped the aspects of this guideline in practice. Space Battleship Yamato (spaceship), which actually (eventually) found real sources, but most of the opposition to deletion came from importance grounds. Rogue Squadron hasn't been nominated for deletion (that I can see), but it certainly rides the ragged edge of the GNG (assuming that we discount "fictionalized encyclopedias" as non-independent, I know you don't, but bear with me). Wedge Antilles provides a good example of a character who may meet the GNG but was kept due to his central nature to the expanded universe (borrowing from EEMIV's rationale). Going back to Warhammer 40,000, we deleted dozens of Space Marine chapter articles while not nominating Space Marines (Warhammer 40,000) or Imperial Guard (Warhammer 40,000)--from my rather extensive research on WH:40K, I can't say that those would meet the GNG (in depth coverage was thin on the ground). Most of those articles I've listed easily meet this proposed guideline and have the benefit of being kept in contravention to the GNG (or not nominated in the first place. Does that help? Protonk (talk) 22:49, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the rpely. What about something like now merged Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna, i.e. these have been nominated three times now. Would this guideline at least support the bold merge that just happened or outright keeping as separate articles? Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 23:01, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure, to be honest. My first impulse is to argue that settings are usually less 'important' than characters or elements in a serialized work. I don't actually know anything about the "creator commentary" as regards those settings (the third prong), but if there is a lot of it, I'm sure that they might make a good compromise case. As for supporting/condeming mergers, we really are hoping to avoid that issue here. The WP:N RfC showed that there is a lot of division regarding mergers, lists and "classes" of "safe" articles ("all major characters of all works are notable", etc.). I hope we can sidestep some of that debate. If those articles were kept at AfD and merged later on, I don't want to have this guideline interpreted as a necessary step to endorsing or condemning that merger. Protonk (talk) 23:18, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I probably wouldn't be as vigorous defending those Warhammer articles at present as I did previously. I skip a lot of the fiction debates anymore that I don't seriously believe I can do much with so that when I do argue in any any more it means more, i.e. not just a simple "he argues to keep" everything, but rather "if he's arguing this determindly to keep, well, maybe he's on to something". So, to me something like those islands are notable because they appear in numerous successful games, movies, novels, and comics (and in the case of Isla Nublar was even recreated in the real world as one of the Islands of Adventure for people to visit and thus are referenced in reviews of games, novels, movies, comics, and amusement parks. They thus have to merit coverage in some manner or other. Characters of islands that only get one appearance in something, maybe not so much, but maybe at least worthy of a redirect. Now, lately I have seen (to my shock) articles concerning fictional characters from even works by Charles Dickens, which means even if the current states of the articles is not up to snuff, we are still talking about subjects that are have been adaptated into films (thus reasonable chance of being cited in film reviews) but are at least studied by students in high school and college literature courses and anaylzed in scholarly publications. Even seemingly minor characters in some authors' works have been written about in scholarly contexts and are legitimate search terms to high school and college students studying those texts. I have similarly scene some out of universe information on characters adapted from The Wizard of Oz played by mainstream actors/actresses on the proverbial chopping block even though they are discussed not simply in Entertainment Weekly, but by The New York Times and The Washington Post. I can concede one-off characters that are only referenced in the primary work or specialized publications in passing as deletable or better yet redirectable, but Dickens and Baum characters being nominated for deletion rather than improved as they can and should be or at least merged and redirect for the time being is another story. We should at least be able to agree on these and if this does support those, then I can support this. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 23:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I can fully answer that for you. Part of the problem (as I noted above...somewhere...) is that the topology of articles on wikipedia usually doesn't match the topology of coverage of the subjects. We tend to chunk fictional subjects into preset categories where the work itself may not support such a categorization. To wit, This Side of Paradise has a list of characters (And even supports Thomas Parke D'Invilliers as a sub-article) but we should really treat Princeton as a distinct subject within the book. For some Dickens novels, a separate article for a character may be appropriate, or it may not. We cannot unilaterally say that Estella Havisham deserves an article and Hiro Protagonist does not--the atomistic importance of those characters will vary between works. In some cases a summary of the character's life may be superfluous to plot summary and critical commentary on the work. In other instances, the characters themselves wholly comprise the work--see Encounters with the Archdruid for a good example, which while non-fiction, the entirety of the 'story' stems from the characters themselves. And again, cases where the characters themselves are analyzed by third party sources don't fit this guideline. They are kept by the GNG (though we can't force editors to scour all possible sources when either creating these articles or nominating them for deletion). Someone like Fitzgerald has works which are covered endlessly (see the 13th Annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference as one example). Shylock has (at least) a full book written just about him. For all of those cases this guideline is mute and superceded. Protonk (talk) 23:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 16:47, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there is some real world information about design and impact from reliable sources... so in theory, it's notable. That said, this guideline tries to be silent on merges, to avoid upsetting either side of the inclusion/exclusion spectrum. Just as much as we can merge stuff that's not quite notable, we can also merge stuff that's just barely notable -- but that's always an editorial decision that can go in any direction depending on consensus. Randomran (talk) 23:21, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I suppose my reply above also sort of applies here to so, rather than copy and paste, please see above. I appreciate the reply as well (please don't think I'm ignoring your comment by just saying see above). Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 23:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Those Dickens characters would surely meet this guideline, let alone the WP:GNG. Randomran (talk) 00:11, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Yet somehow they still got nominated with at least one delete "vote." Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 16:47, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately there are people on both sides of the spectrum who ignore our guidelines. They love to WP:IAR when it comes to their agenda, and it seems their reliance on WP:IAR just inflames the other side to do the same. It's a vicious cycle. Coming up with a new guideline can do a little bit to dampen that, although I think there will always be outliers. Randomran (talk) 17:10, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I have seen a few "arguments" in the discussions concerning the Baum and Dickens characters that really make me have to suspend disbelief, because in these cases we're talking about characters many of us had to study in high school and college and that have been written about for a hundred odd years, i.e. that at worst can and should be merged and redirected as if we don't cover characters studied in high schools and colleges then we are really moving away from the whole point of being a reference guide/encyclopedia. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:33, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Pilot (The Sopranos) is in bad shape. Mind you, in its WP:IMPERFECT state, I'd still venture to say it meets the WP:GNG because it's such a huge series and there's bound to be coverage of it in some third-party source. But let's assume that it didn't, because CNN and BBC just didn't care at the time. It would still pass this version of WP:FICT. It passes the first prong because it's part of an important, critically and commercially successful series. It passes the second prong because there's presumed importance for episodes. And it passes the third prong because there is DVD commentary about the episode -- despite the fact that it hasn't been added to the article. But once again, this guideline allows for WP:IMPERFECTIONS (as do all guidelines), so long as there is reason to believe that those imperfections can be fixed and are not inherent to the topic. Randomran (talk) 22:55, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Part of the reason for the quietness on merges is often these merges direct to list pages, which this guideline is not qualifying at this time.じんない 23:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

What is "the general principle that this guideline is proposing"? Or rather, what is the general principle that this proposal is proposing? The nutshell? The "Three-pronged test for notability"? I can't support or oppose the general principle if I don't know what we're talking about. Should there be an inclusion criteria or an exclusion criteria for fictional things? Sure. Should the current proposal be it? No. So do I oppose? --Pixelface (talk) 01:57, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

• I can tell you my general feeling about the guideline. The basic idea is that the GNG gives us an inconsistent picture of fictional subjects. Some works of fiction may have very idiosyncratic coverage, resulting in a distribution of sub-articles which bears no resemblance to their importance within the fictional work. Because all articles on fictional elements are inherently subordinate to a notable fictional work, we should widen our coverage of them slightly to allow for a sensible portrayal of the work as a whole. Insofar as a fictional element has some verifiable facts connecting it to the outside world (some thematic connection, some outside impact, some technological change, the list goes on), is important to the portrayal of the work as a whole and is part of a significant (and notable) fictional work, we should have an article on it. That's it. Protonk (talk) 04:56, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

This is not an inclusion guideline - really, this is a guideline of what is the minimum requirement for a fiction element to have its own article. There is technically no fiction inclusion guideline - we are only limited by WP:IINFO and it's application in some projects (such as WP:VG's WP:GAMEGUIDE caution). Inclusion is not the same as having an article dedicated to that topic, however, and that's the point here - if the topic can meet the three prongs (important work, relevance in the work, and real-world information) then we should encourage an article on it as there's a good chance it can then be improved further to be a good quality article with more sources. If it can't, then the topic should still be covered elsewhere (but that's the other part of the equation we've not yet touched; one step at a time).--MASEM 14:18, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

On the general dislike for this guideline for the fact that we do not require independent sources, and yet the necessity to avoiding having a large fraction of articles on fiction to immediately fail should that be added and FICT made a proposal: I've stated before that all prongs in the test are not objective; the first is the most objective, the second a bit less, and the third the one that will likely be debated the most if AFD comes up, and unfortunately the one that is difficult to nail down. What we likely need to make sure that is stated is that independent sources on real-world information are weighted much more heavily in favor of evaluating the third prong than dependent sources, and that if the only real-world information is from a dependent source, we should expect such articles to be challenged. The one concession that this FICT then asks from those that want tighter requirements on fiction (specifically making sure we try to address WP:RS) is the fact that given the uncertainly of handling fiction over the last 2 years and that many of the 100,000s of fiction articles that have been around, we are only asking that the editors of these fiction articles are given the benefit of the doubt that with even a reasonable statement of real-world info from the developer that that's sufficient to retain the article at the present time, allowing both editors to find more information to expand the articles without any 7 day AFD rush, and to allow us to help craft overall better approaches to how fiction works should be organized to still cover all the fictional element aspects without the large number of articles when they aren't really necessary (per editorial decisions). The three prongs will still mark a good number of fictional articles as not being standalone, but not an overwhelming number for editors interested in keeping to handle (per fait accompli) nor a difficult barrier to make sure it cleared in the 7-day AFD should it be brought there. We are still going to drive fiction coverage to strongly consider the use of reliable sources, but right here, right now, that is not the time to try to enforce it - we need a lot lot lot more work to develop the bigger picture of what that should be, and it will go much more smoothly with this FICT set to avoid any present uncertainty and hostility towards the guidelines and policies. --MASEM 14:18, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Section break

Is there a policy that states that descendant guidelines cannot make special exceptions? This has been bothering me a while because people keep citing other policies saying that this one would "violate" x policy. I think it clearly states that guidelines should be treated with "common sense and the occasional exception", so I don't see why what we decide here would be overridden by any existing policy if we decide that certain things can be notable that wouldn't meet WP:N. Doesn't a guideline/policy have that authority to make that occasional exception? Fiction seems like an exceptional case for the reasons described in the policy. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 19:03, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:IAR. :) -Drilnoth (talk) 19:06, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:BURO. :) Protonk (talk) 19:06, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:POLICY asks "does the proposed page contradict any existing guidelines or policies? If so, it should not be promoted to guideline or policy status. Consider leaving a note about the proposal on the talk page of any guideline or policy it contradicts." Randomran (talk) 19:08, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Whether or not the language in FICT "violates" V is up for debate, of course. Protonk (talk) 19:12, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed - it depends heavily on precise interpretation of "rely," and "third party," to say nothing of the assumption that articles that do not currently rise to that standard are subject to deletion. So saying that it contradicts WP:V seems to me to... overstate the case. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:22, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:V says "if no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." Not to say that this is conclusive, though. So far it looks like there's good support for the guideline even with the "independence" issue lingering. But if it looks to be a real sticking point, we might want to solicit some feedback from people at WP:V. I'm not convinced we need to as of yet, though. Randomran (talk) 23:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Especially since we have generally agreed upon language below that satisfies Kww's objections, at least. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:41, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I thought that was the case, but I didn't know where to go for the exact wording. It wouldn't make sense to have policies and guidelines contradict each other. I think prong three adequately meets WP:N. I don't read the sections after the three-pronged test as excusing articles that don't meet WP:N, it seems to me like its just restating what was said above and how that works in practice. The wording could use a little work, but we're on the right track. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 04:07, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

A little restatement of V inside the prong section might be a good idea. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:12, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Votes suck

Votes suck.

Once upon a time, this guideline was about organizing fiction articles. Now, it's a battleground for which sliver of marginal articles to delete or not delete, and the reasoning for doing so completely lost in "Well, we have to enforce this!" or "We have to enforce that!" or "I oppose this other guideline so I'm making a hard line here!" Trying to simply mirror AFD's schizophrenic, election-like results isn't a good way to propose a method for improving the encyclopedia. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 01:18, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree that we need to find a good way to organize our coverage... especially for fiction. But this guideline isn't about organization. It's about inclusion. I think in the long run, we'll need to have another discussion about when to use other organizational tools, such as lists, and merges. But I think it would be better to settle one issue than to fail at two issues simultaneously. Randomran (talk) 01:25, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Inclusion doesn't matter except insofar as it's part of organizing articles. Half of the opposition to deleting these articles is that they could be merged or reorganized, and this argument will swamp pretty much any attempt to delete as long as someone's paying attention. Until we have a plan for organization and level of detail, then no, nothing that would happen in an "inclusion" guideline is relevant or important. Bottom-up fixes aren't solving things. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 01:40, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I admit we are kind of playing the drunk looking for his keys under the lamppost. But this compromise is pretty reasonable and at least when people reflexively cite WP:FICT (They did even through the months where it was fully protected and marked clearly as an essay, and even before then when it was variously marked "historical", "failed" and "essay" and subject to constant edit warring) they will be pointing to a guideline with some community support. I wish we could be as good as WP:VGSCOPE (which does a damn good job of the organizational end of things), but this is all we've got. Protonk (talk) 05:02, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

It's an attempt at a compromise to build something from nothing before. Something we can agree upon is better than nothing we can agree upon and when you have at least some stability as the ultimate baseline, you can start to move forward getting more ideas about what to merge, how to format, etc. But when you have something as broad, as diverse and as subjective, so controversial as the whole of what this covers, you have to start small.じんない 05:29, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

It's not a discussion of anything relevant. It won't move us toward a system of organization, just delete or save from deletion some articles on the fringe. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 08:00, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

• Ya, Votes Suck — This talk page rolls along at 10 new pages a day and some people feel it has consensus? No way. I don't see concessions from the include-everything side, I see another take on fait accompli i.e. hundreds of thousands of non-notable articles exist and they must be defended against reason. Independent, reliable sources, commenting in a significant way, are required for any reasonable concept of 'notability' or you're just offering ILIKEIT in a new dress. Jack Merridew 07:57, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Deletionism is often called exclusionism, and for good reason. Not only are wikipedians who delete excluding ideas, they are excluding potential editors too. The majority of the pages deleted are by new editors. These are new editors who could contribute so much to wikipedia, but instead, they are told in a million ways, their contributions are worthless. Journalists have written countless articles about deletionist policies, and they are universally negative.

Editors who delete are not only exclusionist, they are conservative traditionalists too. I personally think the problem with editors who delete is that they have a 20th century notion of what an encyclopedia is. They remember the 24 box set of dusty encyclopedias in the basement, and think wikipedia should be the same way. They think, every Pokeman character wasn't in encyclopedia "P" when I' was growing up, and it shouldn't be on Encyclopedia wikipedia either. They don't seem to grasp what the irrepreprible harm their deletions are causing to the image and the long term viability of wikipedia.

Editors who delete insist that other editors fix the problem, instead of fixing the problem themselves.

The Economist magazine quoted a 2007 study which shows that edits are decreasing, and blamed "self-promoted deletionist". This is much more than a battle over the second episode in the second season of Frasier, this is what the Economist called, "The Battle for Wikipedias Soul" and the battle over new editors contributing here. Ikip (talk) 17:09, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Now I'm a conservative??? Please see WP:NPA. Jack Merridew 04:09, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, Jack can always try his hand at writing an encyclopaedia at Britannica 2.0. --Pixelface (talk) 22:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

You're a funny guy Jack. Wikipedia lets anyone create an article on anything, over seven years ago Jimbo Wales agrees that there is no reason why there can't be an article for every Simpsons character because Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, in September 2006 Radiant! rewrites N, and then you claim "fait accompli" when people create articles? If "notable" only meant "noted", as in, written down, you may be right. But it doesn't. I don't need "independent, reliable sources, commenting in a significant way" to know that dresses are notable. They're ubiquitous. --Pixelface (talk) 22:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Ikip, Jack, Pixel, take your catfight elsewhere. No one here cares. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 06:18, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

This is going to be what every AFD is going to look like if this is in any way ambiguous, BTW. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 06:25, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Visibility proposal

After reading Ikip (talk · contribs)'s mention above about editors who are really involved in the articles not nesseccarily voicing their opinion, do you think that we should leave a message at WikiProject talk pages whose articles are likely to be affected by this? Just a thought for more input. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:45, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

See my reply to Ikip. --Izno (talk) 21:47, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Drinloth, I'm sure that people would be happy if you composed a neutrally worded message and left it on talk pages for fiction-related wikiprojects (anime, star wars, VG, DnD, and so forth). WP:CANVASS allows for that. The more people we get here who have never seen this talk page before, the better. Protonk (talk) 21:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

How about:

• Hi! There is currently a straw poll at Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction). Since this proposal may influence some of the articles covered by this project, any input there would be helpful to help build a consensus regarding the proposal. Thank you. ~~~~

-Drilnoth (talk) 21:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Might want to intro what the poll is for. Also, this would be a good start to it. --Izno (talk) 21:59, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather not do any canvassing whatsoever. There's a real risk of votestacking (which is a form of WP:CANVASSING) if we only solicit feedback from people who are passionate about fiction. It's probably best to stick with the visibility we already have. Randomran (talk) 22:01, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. CANVASS allows for a neutrally worded message to be posted to wikiproject noticeboards (aside from some ones like WikiProject:Deletion and WP:ARS). Besides, AMiB and "A Nobody" are both equally likely to read WT:VG. We are going to get partisans posting here either way (not to imply that either of the two previously mentioned editors are especially partisan). Protonk (talk) 22:04, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree w/ Izno, it should make clear that all we want is some confirmation that we are basically on the right track, not final approval. Protonk (talk) 22:02, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we need to go to other forums, then, for the sake of getting people with no opinion on the actual content, but on the guideline itself. WP:OR, WP:V, and WP:N all play a central role in this guideline, and it would be valuable to get input from editors who frequent those pages. (I wouldn't go so far as to get feedback from WP:CORP or WP:NPOV, which play a lesser role.) WP:CENT would be a decent forum too. But really, I think we've already gotten enough visibility. There's a chance we may need more feedback in the future, and we don't want to wear out our welcome. Randomran (talk) 22:08, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd want to keep this off CENT for now (because given the ~6-10 words we get to explain things on the template, we may not be able to give the impression that this poll is just a preliminary snapshot. But I think that going to WT:V/N/NOT/NOR would be fine, too. Once we get the wording down, we just copy/pasta. Protonk (talk) 22:15, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I can live it so long as we get both kinds of audiences (from both policy-oriented and content-oriented forums). Although, like I said... I'm not sure advertising a straw poll is helpful, considering the straw poll is already of questionable validity. It's supposed to facilitate discussion, and we risk losing the benefits if it degenerates into drive-by voting. Randomran (talk) 22:19, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a need for more intermediate polling. We are so close to being at the line where any change hits a hot button where one side or the other absolutely will not give, more mini-polls and the like will just lead to more frustration and flaring tempers. Temporarily freeze it, and take it to as final of a consensus-measuring place as you can. If it passes, it passes.—Kww(talk) 22:27, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Looking at those who have weighed in, I'm seeing a good number of comments from people who haven't been that involved in the discussion, and a good number more comments already, in a few hours, than many guideline straw polls get. I'm inclined to think we're doing just fine on input levels as it is. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Phil Sandifer. Further feedback would need a wide, wide net in order to avoid introducing biases here. I don't see anything wrong with coasting off the feedback solicited two weeks ago. Randomran (talk) 22:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I just thought I'd bring it up for discussion. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:19, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

• I added a link to the extant WP:CENT notice. I hope no one minds. Protonk (talk) 23:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Disruption of wikipedia to push an unpopular policy

I also posted a modified version of this on ANI.

Great way to advertise the proposal you worked the most on Phil, (51 edits main page, 300+ edits talk page).

Lets look at the most recent timeline:

1. Phil Sandifer "boldly" tags the page as a guideline, despite objections.[13]
2. Kww reverts Phil.[14]
3. 16:32, 23 January 2009, Phil deletes the page, with a personal attack: "Proposal was killed by trolling and personal attacks by Kww and ThuranX"[15]
4. 16:36, 23 January 2009 supporter of policy, User:EEMIV reports Phil to AfD
5. 16:42, 23 January 2009 User:Gavin.collins, a strong support of Phil writes a Straw man argument: "I propose an immediate 24-hour block for Phil Sandifer who deleted WP:FICT on the grounds that his unnecessary action has set an unfortunate precedent."
6. 16:46, 23 January 2009, Long time supporter Sgeureka undeletes the page.[16]
7. 16:49, 23 January 2009, Long time supporter Sgeureka here: "Restored. Tempers have been running high at FICT for over a year, but deletion was unnecessary and was likely just the result of a moment's overreaction on Phil's part."
8. 18:01, 23 January 2009, Strong supporter Bignole starts a straw poll, stating "informal, as in it doesn't mean that the guideline will or won't get promoted, this is for our benefit" Bignole is not the first person to comment on the straw poll:
9. 18:02, 23 January 2009 Phil Sander is the first person to support the straw poll
10. 18:05, 23 January 2009 Galvin Collins, who 1 hour and 17 minutes before was calling for Galvin to be blocked, is the next person to vote support, along with the other editors above.
11. 23:41, 23 January 2009 Despite Bignole's statement, that this is not an official poll, Protonk, posts a WP:CENT notice "Notability proposal for fictional subjects"
12. 18:30, 23 January 2009

As politics teaches us, there is nothing like a crisis (in this example a page deletion) to stir up opinion and unite a group of people, forcing them to decide, notice how the "troll" KWW fell in line and voted for the proposal?

I notice that Phil was the very first person to comment on the straw poll, one minute after supporter BIGNOLE posted it and one hour 29 minutes after Phil blanked the page.

I notice that EEMIV reported Phil, a supporter of this policy, and that Gavin.collins, a strong supporter of this policy added a Straw man argument.

I notice that Protonk's (another supporter #4) then advertised/canvased the proposal on ANI.

I will not be responding to comments here, I made that same mistake recently. Ikip (talk) 13:18, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

• Assume good faith. I had a longer post but I won't bother. Protonk (talk) 13:26, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

• Link to AN/I discussion for reference: [17]. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:35, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

• I am not entirely sure on what this section is attempting to suggest. A vast conspiracy including me, Bignole, EEMIV, Gavin, Protonk, and Sgeureka? Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:16, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

• Remember Phil, you are sworn to secrecy - you should never reveal the existence of the Evil Inclusionist/Deletionist^® Cabal in case our consipiracy to achieve world domination is discovered! --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:40, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

• Yeah. I'm trying to imagine something that the six of us could actually agree to conspire about. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:42, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

• I'd caution against jokes regarding The Cabal et al. It has become a bit of a classic personal attack, paramount to accusing someone of wearing a tin-foil hat. I admit, I also do not understand the conclusion this post of Ikip's is attempting to draw forth. I do find it a bit sad that page deletion did have the effect of catalyzing action in some form of another (e.g. The deletion log showed up nice and loud on my watchlist, causing me to investigate the events leading up to it). Deleting a heated argument with the specific intent of sparking notice by other casual watchers would be grounds for a block of some sort, but I have no reason to believe that was the case here. Wikistress can overtake even the best of editors. The actions following the delete look pretty standard. Whatever admin caught the delete first would undoubtedly have undeleted it. A 24 hour break is prefectly appropriate for a reasonable and well-intending editor who experiences a moment of lost temper and irrational action. The straw poll was suggested long before the delete. And everyone is entitled to their opinion in a poll. The presence or absense of valid arguments on one, both, or neither side is the far more important thing to be discovered through straw polls. It's a method of enumerating issues that are yet to be resolved. I see no conclusive evidence of straw-man arguments. I feel that as long as one is voicing a genuine concern which has not yet been fully rebutted by a counterargument, even if it is a concern you do not personally share, it's welcome on the table. If instead he's making up a lousy argument that is easily countered, then it will be effectively ignored, and the floor will remain open for well-formed arguments. Doing anything less would be ad hominem or appeal to authority. -Verdatum (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Independent sources, again

I'm just bringing this up since the majority of "oppose" !votes in the straw poll appear to be regarding the lesser requirement for independant sources needed by this guideline. I am posting here to try and start further discussion on the topic so that a consensus on it may be better reached.

It is my understanding that WP:V and WP:REF were written with the real-world in mind. Certainly many aspects of the real world -science, mathematics, literature, you name it- must have reliable, independent sources to establish notability. However, there aren't usually such sources for elements of fiction. If there are discussions of character, locations, or anything else, it is typically just a paragraph or two in a more comprehensive review or article about the topic... an article on The Office (US TV series) will probably only have a paragraph or two, if any, on Michael Scott (The Office). I also doubt that anyone is going to write a full article or review about Michael's role in the show.

So, then, it would seem impossible for many articles about fiction to meet WP:V and its related policies. But many of them do deserve to have their own article, because they are important parts of a work which has received widespread attention... it is essential to understand Michael Scott to understand The Office. In this way, simply being an important part of the work might be enough. However, entirely in-universe articles aren't generally wanted, so having real-world commentary, even if it comes from primary sources, will make the article much better and better establish its notability. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:48, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I would prefer a stronger requirement for independent sources than this guideline calls for, but it isn't actually in violation of WP:V or WP:RS. Not many argue that all sources need to be independent in any arena, including fiction. Some use of primary sources and related secondary sources, such as DVD commmentary, is acceptable, just as it is permissible to quote Albert Einstein in relationship to the Theory of Relativity. The question is only how much of an article can be based purely on such sources. Arguing from personal belief and interpretation, I believe that the majority of any article should be from independent sources, or they cannot be said to "rely on reliable, third-party, sources" as required from WP:V. However, I recognise that that view does not represent common practice or common interpretations. Many articles on Wikipedia that are considered "good" are a mix of independent and dependent sources, and the dependent sources frequently provide over half of the material. However, an article that does not contain any independent sourcing is unacceptable, as it is a clear violation of WP:V and WP:N. The prongs do not contain any language stating that such articles are acceptable, and the text under independence points readers at WP:RS and WP:V. It is my view that the guideline should be clear that articles that contain no independent sources can be granted only a temporary reprieve from deletion, and that such articles must ultimately be brought in accordance with WP:V or be deleted. Phil obviously disagrees quite strenuously with my position on that.—Kww(talk) 15:12, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, given that I can find good articles that have two lines sourced to independent sources, I'm inclined to think that at least for fiction the deletion threshold is going to be significantly lower. I am fine with noting that independent sources are necessary for an article to progress to good article status, and that articles that are simply unable to progress to that status after a serious and good-faith effort to improve them are often merged elsewhere. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:21, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Just thought I'd comment as someone totally uninvolved. WP:V requires that an article rely on third party sources. In practise, so long as there are some of these sources, an article is probably fine. For fiction - one would probably be fine. The current proposal, however, states that (emphasis mine) ".. an article with no independent sources may meet the minimum threshold to avoid deletion..." - there isn't really two ways about it; this is a contradiction to WP:V, and whatever the guideline says, when it contradicts a policy, such articles will almost certainly be deleted if they get pulled to WP:AFD. To help prevent this happening to new users, I'd suggest that line be changed. If and when this goes up for 'promotion' to an actual guideline, I would oppose on those grounds. Ale_Jrb^talk 15:26, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting; I'd read that line as ".. an article with no independent sources may meet the minimum threshold to avoid deletion..." I hadn't thought of it with emphasis on the first part. Maybe a rewording to : "... an article without any independent sources will likely be deleted or merged..."? -Drilnoth (talk) 15:33, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that an article that otherwise satisfies this guideline will likely survive multiple passes at AFD based on the hope of finding sources, and may survive indefinitely. Any language inserted needs to accomodate this reality. Sepiroth BCR has tried and I have tried, but the language hasn't stuck.—Kww(talk) 15:41, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

But we get back to the "spinout" problem, which is (I've grown to learn) the basis for fictional article exceptionalism. Every fictional element could theoretically me summarized in the 'main' article for the notable work. What we are trying to say with this guideline is that the GNG is a poor tool to use in organizing the editorial decision of creating/merging spinout articles. We don't want an article on Cloud Strife's dog (Final Fantasy VII), but we may want an article on Cloud Strife. This guideline allows us to do that without demanding that the specific fictional element be the subject of detailed coverage in independent sources. Protonk (talk) 15:37, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Why do you think an article would be acceptable for Cloud Strife but not Cloud Strife's dog? (if there is such a thing — I don't know, I've never played Final Fantasy VII). --Pixelface (talk) 23:13, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think he had a dog, but his "girlfriend" was Aerith Gainsborough, a main character in her own right. His parents weren't mentioned and he didn't have children. So I just said "dog". I was just trying to pick some element of the game that would be maddeningly trivial to anyone (including fans) and where presentation of that element as a stand-alone article would not illuminate the reader's understanding of the work as a whole. If you'd like we can replace it with any trivial element of the work. Protonk (talk) 04:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

This gets to the entire crux of the problem and it is not an easy fix. If we strictly limit fiction coverage to exactly requiring third-party sources of the same nature as most other fields, the coverage of it is radically curtailed beyond the broad inclusion criteria that WP suggests (based on all other current guidelines, eg the spinout issue). At the same time, total disregard for any sources outside of the fiction's universe leads to a level of coverage that is simply too broad. Determining to what level fiction should be covered has not yet been readily accessed - you either have people coming from the point of policy, or the point of "everything should be included", and there's been no strong effort save for a few to establish what the middle point could be. This middle point may require us to restate policy, but policies and guidelines follow consensus, not the other way around. If, after lengthy discussion and agreement, we come to conclude that to cover fiction appropriately for WP's mission, we need to disregard what WP:V and WP:RS say about independent and third-party sources, then we'll need to figure out how to word those better.

The thing is, this discussion has not yet occurred, and when it does, it's not going to be two weeks to come to a decision. It is a several month effort as I see it, and during that time we're still going to have edit wars over fiction. FICT as it now stands is a temporary effort to establish a safe baseline, neither too strong or too weak on fiction, to get people to the table and talk about it further. Adherence at the present time to policy and guideline does not make sense as long as we are aware this is not a permanent version, only reflecting the "now" for the next 1 to 2 years while the larger picture is resolved. This is a growing pain, not any radical shift. --MASEM 15:46, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the deletion of articles without independent sources, such articles often survive AfD as well - Ponder Stibbons and Jesse Aarons are two that have survived in the last few months that I quickly found. Both, fwiw, would fail this guideline, but other articles do not seem to me likely to. Luke Skywalker lacks sources straight through, little yet independent ones, but is clearly not going to be deleted. Rincewind is similarly unlikely to face deletion. Any attempt to delete either would likely be speedy closed as querulous, in fact.

Meanwhile, on the episodes side of the ledger, Launch Party and An Khe (The West Wing) both have GA status with two sentences cited to independent sources. It would be very unusual for articles that have only slightly worse sourcing than a good article to be candidates for deletion.

I agree that independent sources are important. And I'm all for adding some clear endorsement of them to the proposal. However, I think we need to base any such endorsement on actual documentable practice. Which is, I think, a good deal weaker than "articles without independent sources will likely be deleted or merged."

I would suggest, looking at practice, that the following statement is true: "Independent sourcing is necessary to reach good article status. Articles that resist good-faith efforts to improve them to good article status are often merged into other articles." Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:57, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I understand your point, but not all articles are going to be tried to improve to GA-Class. I'm hesitant to imply that articles about fictional elements need to be GA-Class or better or they'll get merged. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:11, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. I tried to phrase it so that the issue was that they resist efforts to improve them, as opposed to that they are not GA class - that is, that the test is not only that they are not GA class, but that someone tried to make them GA class and failed. I mean, I'm also hesitant about having an article be deleted that is GA class save for the need for two more sources, each of which will be used for one sentence. An article that is two sentences away from GA is not a deletion candidate. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:16, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Bear in mind that for some of us, those two sentences were the only possible salvation for an article that we were willing to tolerate for a while in the hope that someone could fix it. I'd rather insert "Independent sourcing is necessary to reach good article status. Articles that resist good-faith efforts to improve them to good article status, including the search for independent sources, are often merged into other articles", but I could live with your proposal.—Kww(talk) 17:19, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with re-iterating that independent sources are a key part of those efforts. I'll put the language in the independence section of the proposal. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:33, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

It is nonsense to assert that we can't get a higher standard because 'policy follows practice'. Those two 'GA" class articles are barely A quality, and certainly the Office article ought to be delisted. Its' a big plot article with almost zero real world material beyond what's taken off the production notes of the DVD. It's not even written well. Ponder Stibbons is another lousy, thoroughly unsourced article; that it survived AfD is proof, again, that we need a higher standard to point to. That higher standard is a NEED, not suggestion, for independent sourcing. It's out there for truly notable fiction. Hemingway, Steinbeck, Vonnegut, Dickens, Cervantes, King, Straub, Asimov, van Vogt... all of these authors of fiction and their works have real world notability and real world sources. Discworld isn't that notable, and clearly, neither is that character. I don't understand why so many people who claim to understand scholarly writing are thoroughly incapable of understanding the need for independent sources. It's truly mind-boggling. The only thing I can come up with is that Phil Sandifer wouldn't have a major or a potential degree if he couldn't synthesize whole cloth the perceived importance of his childhood memories into papers, which can't be done with an independent sources demand. (above, he said he doesn't use them when he writes his papers.) ThuranX (talk) 16:13, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

"Discworld isn't that notable?" Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:16, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

(And I say that as someone who thinks that Ponder Stibbons is crap and fails this guideline spectacularly.) Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:17, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Can't say I see it being anything but another Xanth or Robert Aspirin series. It's comedic Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Our article certainly doesn't establish it as a major influential work in its' genre. ThuranX (talk) 04:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

That'll teach you to trust Wikipedia then. Pratchett is one of the best-selling authors in the UK - I believe, prior to Harry Potter, he may have been the #1 author in fact. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:02, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of what you feel should be done (and I actually agree with you about deleting or at least merging some of these articles)... the fact remains that you're gonna have a hard time doing it, and so would I. It's not like the nominator didn't point to WP:N and say "hey! this article needs third-party sources." They did so, and most people came in and said that didn't matter. In practice, third-party sources aren't always necessary. Policy changes come from documenting actual good practices and seeking consensus that the documentation truly reflects them. Guidelines are descriptive, not prescriptive. I admire your faith in our guidelines, but if you think they can turn lead into gold, you're wrong. It's time to embrace the fact that there are some fictional articles can survive indefinitely without reliable third-party sources. This guideline just tries to figure out the where and when, so that AFDs don't degenerate into WP:ILIKEIT. (Which, they already have.) Randomran (talk) 16:48, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

There are two main problems at those AfDs. The first, as you stated, are the fan runs, especially on more popular subjects. The second are that the closing admin does not ignore fan ILIKEITs that have no basis and demand actual substantial sourcing, but rather treat the AfDs as a vote. Legitimizing such will just make it harder to counter. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:35, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Hell, if this proposed guideline reflected actual practice, the guideline would read "Wikipedia has no standards for the inclusion of coverage of fiction, and the core policies of WP:V and WP:NOR do not apply. It is a playground for enthusiastic punctuation-deprived fanboys, and a breeding ground for OR and editorialising. AfDs are a vote in which a single ILIKEIT statement can counter two or three well-reasoned arguments. The occasional fiction-related article may occasionally be deleted if it's really, really, really bad, but this depends on who happens to wander by the AfD. Anyone who systematically attempts to clean up the sewage is likely to provoke savage hostility, character assassinations and endless RfCs." Reyk _YO! 21:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

It's true - if we were to exactly mirror AfD, the guideline would read "Roll a d6. If it is a 1, speedy the article. on 2-4, merge. On 5, keep, on 6, delete." However, it is possible to look at the articles that seem to swing borderline AfDs - i.e. the ones that seem to be persuasive enough to make a difference in amongst the madness. Which is basically what this guideline tries to do. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:46, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

The situation for AFD voting does get pretty sad. Take a look at the answer to question 4 on my RFA, and look at Casliber's reaction to it. He actually opposed on the basis that I wouldn't count votes on AFDs. He was elected to arbcom two months later.—Kww(talk) 22:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

In any case, was there anything wrong with Phil's addition? I'd be happy with it, and it would more or less alleviate my concerns over the independent sourcing issue. And to Drilnoth, we're not saying that all articles on fictional subjects need to be GAs or they're merged, but rather they have the potential to be GA, and thus we retain them. It's why something like Luke Skywalker has stuck around despite the article is pretty bad. GA is just a useful minimum bar to use, as generally, stuff on fictional elements that have independent sourcing can pass GA (unless it's barebones independent sourcing on a really, really trivial subject in which case it's merged, but that's the exception and not the norm), and it's much easier to argue for retaining a GA on a fictional subject than a crappy article on the same subject. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 22:55, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Gotcha. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:56, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes.—Kww(talk) 23:01, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

As one of those who opposed the straw poll earlier, to answer sephiroth bcr's question, Phil's proposed addition to the guideline would push me toward a support. I also think you (sephiroth bcr) summed up what notability (of any topic really) should be quite well: as long as the article has the potential to be a GA, it should be included. Raven1977^{Talk to me}_{My edits} 23:42, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

We should leave FICT as it is for a while, so all the comments are on the same version. Then hopefully we'll know what to tweak. I'm cautiously optimistic about this. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 23:49, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed with Peregrine; leave it as-is for awhile for input. Regarding the possible change, I think that it is essentially good. I'd rather see "necessary to reach good article status" changed to "necessary to create a quality article, including Good and Featured Articles," and "efforts to improve them to good article status" be changed to just "efforts to improve them," but those are mainly personal preferences. I just feel like the wording Phil added implies that a non-GA article about fiction is pretty much sure to be deleted/merged. -Drilnoth (talk) 03:30, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this might be a way forward (but I agree to let it sink in), but the only caution I would say if language like this is added is that is has to be clear that fiction element articles that lack independent sources but otherwise pass this guideline should be given time and good faith effort to improve. Asserting that independent sources are necessary to get articles to quality is fine but people may use that to come down hard on fiction that may be imperfect now but could be improved. --MASEM 06:05, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Masem. It has to be clear that to write good articles such sources are needed, but not be put up for AfD without given proper time, including from those who propose it --and quick deletes based on the lack of such sources should generally not be allowed. I also think if that wording should emphasize we should merge relevant information rather than outright delete it.じんない 07:25, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with such a proviso - the issue is that if someone has actually gone looking for independent sources and failed, there is a problem. And I'm willing to accept that. As for stressing merging, would linking "merge" to WP:PRESERVE work? Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:29, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, because PRESERVE gives indications, although vague, what can sometimes be trivial, ie stuff that might normally fail the 2nd prong outright. As long as it does that and mentions that speedy deletion should almost never be done. I'd also go so far that even and AfD should only be placed some months after a tag, disucssion or perhaps merged if it fails at a GAN for lack of independance (after atleast some attempt to search by those who suggest it), noting what might in particular be wrong (a general {{notability}} tag is not always clear to new users).

My concern for such strong wording about when to delete/merge is simply that if it is not placed in, someone will randomly stumble across an article and tag it for deleteion is the fact that such practices have caused serious drop in the number of editors and these articles are often made by fans -- new users most of the time -- completely unfamiliar with how Wikipedia heirarchy of rules work, which they shouldn't have to be to just start typing an article about a game character they like. We should encourage new editors because a lot of them come to edit stuff like this, not railroad them.じんない 19:51, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I like the recent change. I thought I wasn't going to (as we had already extracted plenty of concessions from all sides), but I like it. I may make some minor (syntax and tone) changes, but as PG suggests, I will avoid making any substantive changes to it. Protonk (talk) 20:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Re:Above straw poll

Although editors have continued to state this straw poll is non-biding above. Thank you Lets all keep in mind this guideline:

Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion

Even when a straw poll is stated to be non-binding, sometimes people decide afterwards that they should nevertheless do what the majority wants, in effect retroactively treating the straw poll result as binding. While it is reasonable to ask other editors to consider majority opinion during the course of the debate, no straw poll may ever be used to force minority opinion editors to accept a majority opinion.

Thank you :) Ikip (talk) 15:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I do not think that anyone could seriously argue that there has been a paucity of discussion of this proposal, but thank you for the reminder. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:00, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

We've confirmed admins with far less support. I agree polling is not a substitute for discussion. But I think it shows that many of the disagreements over this proposal are minor, and people can live with the lingering issues. Randomran (talk) 16:27, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Phil. There isn't really a shortage of discussion. Protonk (talk) 17:23, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

breadth of viewpoints

I hate to get off topic and start discussing editors. But consider this the opposite of WP:NPA. I've heard people repeatedly offer that this proposal comes from a minority viewpoint. It's true that Phil Sandifer put together the starting point for this proposal. So let's start with him.

• Phil Sandifer lies squarely on the inclusion side of the spectrum, and has pushed hard to relax the notability requirement.
• Masem was a big champion of the old proposal, which was undone by opposition on both ends. Including opposition by Phil Sandifer.
• Protonk's views are complex, but I've found I agree with him the most out of anyone here (and even then, it's not all the time). He's had disagreements with Phil Sandifer too, on this very proposal.
• Gavin Collins has occasionally overstepped the line in "enforcing" WP:N. His (good faith) efforts to make this guideline as tight as WP:N have been rejected, but not due to a lack of trying.
• Kww is so hardcore into WP:N that he once proposed that SNGs can only make it *more* restrictive, and *never* more inclusive. (He also gracefully conceded this is a minority viewpoint.)
• I'm not sure where Sgeureka stands, but I think he's eager to just have an actual guideline so we can get on with it.
• Peregrine Fisher is an inclusionist who would rather have more articles.
• Drilnoth is a hardworking inclusionist, and I just wanted to point out his fantastic work with Peregrine Fisher on Drizzt Do'Urden.
• Me personally, I've butted heads with Phil Sandifer a number of times. I pride myself on being a precisionist, which means I try to delete/keep based on quality/potential, not my personal tastes. I've started several AFDs, and they almost always result in deletion/redirection -- and I withdraw when it appears I've made a mistake, and someone finds sources. I also try to improve articles on fictional elements when it's possible to fix problems that would otherwise be reason for deletion.

Every one of those people has come out in support of this guideline. If you weren't so "blessed" as to be called out on this thread, it's only because I think I've made my point: it's damn near a miracle that these people all came together and basically support the proposed version of WP:FICT.

How did that happen? Because we didn't just drive by and say "oppose". If we honestly believed that our opinion had more consensus than anything here, we had the courage to step into the ring, and prepare to defend it. It was a battle royal. Some ideas survived, some ideas got thrown over the top rope. The only ideas that survived were ones that were fair to all reasonable viewpoints. The other ideas, we had to be mature enough to drop them when people wouldn't accept them.

So when someone drives by and says "this proposal only represents a minority viewpoint", excuse me if I scoff. You obviously haven't tried to propose something that everyone can live with. Randomran (talk) 18:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

PS: pardon me if this thread digs up old wounds. But that's part of the point: we don't get along, we don't agree, but we can live with this guideline. Randomran (talk) 18:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Nice summary. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 18:32, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Aww...I don't get an entry in the WP:FICT cabal :( But in all seriousness, good summary. Any notion that this isn't a compromise between people with widely different viewpoints is sadly mistaken. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 19:38, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Don't feel sad, not everyone is so popular. :pじんない 20:43, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry guys. :) Randomran (talk) 20:53, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

What? Ikip listed me as part of the cabal, and I get no summary at all? ThuranX (talk) 01:59, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry. Summaries are for supporters only. :) Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the belief that legitimate SNGs cannot expand notability isn't too small of a minority ... if you dig though the actual reasoning at Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise(instead of the chart at the top), you will see that around 40% of Wikipedia believes that to be true, even though many believe in the concept of the SNG providing a temporary reprieve while sources are sought. The phrasing of that set of questions caused a lot of scattering. My truly hardcore act was proposing "article describes a single episode of a television show" as a CSD criterion.—Kww(talk) 21:00, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. But either way, it's kind of impressive when you include your name with some of the others, don't you think? Randomran (talk) 21:55, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Well even so it's clearly a minority view.じんない 21:59, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

We collectively compromised. :) Let's not dig into any debate about how much support our individual viewpoints have. Randomran (talk) 22:03, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Randomran, over 1 out of 4 articles on Wikipedia fall under Category:Fiction. Wikipedia has over 150,000 editors who have made at least 1 edit in the last month. So if someone drives by and says this proposal only represents a minority viewpoint, I would understand. --Pixelface (talk) 22:40, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Well i feel at this point the difference in terms of what denotes an "independent" source is better handled at WP:V and imo should be brought there due to the amount of articles on Wikipedia covered by Category:Fiction and its descendants.じんない 22:59, 25 January 2009 (UTC)B

You missed the thrust of what I was saying. No doubt, ~150,000 > ~30. But those ~30 range from inclusionists to deletionists. You're going to have a hard time getting those different viewpoints to find some common ground they could agree upon. But they did, and this is the result. Most viewpoints were represented here. Naturally the viewpoints at either end of the spectrum weren't accommodated, but that would be impossible without disrupting the compromise. (Let alone disrupting other policies.) Randomran (talk) 00:44, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Anything left before this moves from proposal to actual policy?じんない 02:28, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

To approach the various (fiction?) wikiprojects and say, "it's good to go. weigh in". --Izno (talk) 03:14, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

We already did that, actually. The guideline appears to have stabilized since the notification a couple of weeks ago. Randomran (talk) 03:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. I'd say the guideline was rather in flux since the last notification, and hasn't really had a chance to settle down until the last couple of days. One more time should do it, and if we don't see anyone more, than someone adds the guideline tag, and we settle into business. --Izno (talk) 03:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Pixel, that's besides the point. We have no idea what any of their views on this proposal would be. WP:CON recognizes that only a small fraction of editors participate in any discussion. Even large scale polls (like the one for ROLLBACK, Flagged Revisions, or arbcom elections) rarely get responses from more than a thousand editors. Protonk (talk) 04:02, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Jinnai, the next step is the process is to seek some form of approval for WP:FICT by proposing an RFC. Ideally we would want a stable version of this proposed guideline to be put forward at this point, but I can't say when that will be achieved as this depends on the number of serious objections which some editors may have the current draft. My view is that if an editor does have a serious proposal for change, they will seek feedback for their proposed amendment on this talk page here. I don't approve of the goldfish style of editing, whereby this guideline is nibbled at and nobody can remember why the previous version needed to be changed.--Gavin Collins (talk) 10:02, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

advice on "list of xxxx characters" page

Can someone provide guidance on what information should be included (or excluded) for an individual character's entry on a "list of xxxxx characters" page? Many that I have run across seem to merely reiterate the plot from that character's point of view. Where is the line drawn between "characters from a film/book" and "characters in the story's universe" that may have been introduced in other medium outside of the primary story? What should the articles really contain? (I see from above that this may be an extension of earlier discussions, so feel free to repoint me to those as necessary) Thx! SpikeJones (talk) 23:20, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

A list of characters is going to contain plot summaries. There's no avoiding that because they're fictional characters. What the list should contain is a matter for the article talk page. --Pixelface (talk) 23:24, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

We're not deciding on that now. We're trying to get some other things ironed out first. For some of the best character lists, look at Characters of Carnivàle or List of characters in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow, which are both featured. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 23:28, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Will do, thx for the prompt replies. SpikeJones (talk) 23:38, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

You can get some ideas on how to make a list "featurable" by looking at those. But keep in mind that not all lists will make it to the Main Page, and it's perfectly fine if they don't. --Pixelface (talk) 23:53, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

The guideline is pretty silent on lists as of yet. But all the other content policies apply to lists, including WP:NOT. Randomran (talk) 00:45, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The basic question is how much information there should be--I see two different sorts of lists. First, the type which is a combined article for less than fully notable characters, or for notable characters where it was decided as a matter of style and convenience to combine a number of otherwise very short articles. in which there would typically be the asme mount of material as in a short article, with similar guidelines, with the added proviso that some effort should be made to avoid duplication of material between adjacent sections. The other type is one that lists all the characters, including those with separate articles--or which lists only the truly minor characters for whom one could never justify separate articles. This should give a sentence or two of identifying information. DGG (talk) 02:51, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Per above, we're not going to dwell on lists yet to not add another controversial item to this guideline. IMO, a character list is generally warranted so long as the character cast is large enough and the plot character-intensive/large/deep/whatever enough that understanding of the series is impaired without an explanation of the characters. To use a video game analogy, the majority of first-person shooters probably don't warrant character lists while a good chunk of role-playing games probably do. The more involved the characters are in the game, the more likely they are to be mentioned in third party sourcing in any case, although most AfDs has a relative consensus that most character lists are appropriate when necessary for understanding of the plot. Any other list of fictional elements is generally inappropriate; the necessity of independent coverage rises with more tertiary plot items, as they stretch what WP:NOT#PLOT allows and the whole list becomes a form of undue weight. A list of fictional locations is generally not acceptable for instance. Anyhow, this is a discussion for another time and place. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 03:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Thank you all for your insights. I agree that it may be premature or unnecessary to have a formal guideline on this particular question. I was hoping to trim a ton of fat from the List of Cars characters article (and then move from there to other articles using similar philosophies). The Cars universe has dozens of cars, some caught briefly on film but not named until toy/game products came out. The primary question, in this case, is whether the article should be limited to those characters identified in the film's credits, or would any/all characters in the entire universe qualify for inclusion? SpikeJones (talk) 04:33, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting you bring up List of Cars characters SpikeJones. That was the list that brought TTN to comment here in the first place — back in April 2007.[18][19] --Pixelface (talk) 12:03, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Next step

Next Step: Hi folks. Pardon the intrusion, but I want to join in too. I haven't contributed anything yet (other than that vote thing several screens up). The reason I haven't added my thoughts is: 1.) I didn't want to step into a big pile of crap as a new guy. And, 2.) I'm not really up to speed on all the diffs yet, and hate when I say fooling things. My question now is, where does this "proposal" go from here, and how can I contribute? Ched (talk) 02:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Basically, you can just join in the conversation; that's what I did a few days ago, and it wasn't that hard. Don't worry about knowing everything, just look at each section at a time.

As to where the proposal goes, I think that their will be a formal Request for Comment soon so that we can determine whether or not to make it into a guideline. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:53, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

You can skip the archives, but get familiar with what's currently on the page, then figure out where you stand, and then get involved. ThuranX (talk) 03:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we really know what to do for sure now. In the last 1.5 years I never thought we could reach a compromise, and haven't thought about what to do now. I'm leery of drawing in a lot of opinions that haven't gone through this with us. People who want to include way more or way less may think they can get their way by opposing. A couple of years ago, I thought I'd come in here, make a few good arguments, and get NOTE deprecated. How wrong I was. ;-) - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• It's tricky to jump into a discussion this heated and long. The debate has lasted more than a year. Maybe since the dawn of Wikipedia. It's not uncommon for an outsider to say "I can't believe you guys are still arguing about this -- the solution is so simple!" But the solution isn't simple. Everyone who has come in with a magic bullet has been shut down by one faction or another.
• I think the key is to look at what you see, and ask two questions: (1) what would I like to change to make this guideline more effective, and (2) will that change gain this proposal more support in the long run? If you've thought those two questions through, then suggest a change. The worst thing that happens is people jump down your throat and say it's a terrible idea, or that it already was suggested before. But even from there, you can start to ask questions like "can you explain why you are opposed to my suggestion?" If we can understand each other's goals (roughly, more quantity of coverage versus more quality of coverage), then we can find compromises that speak to both sides of the fence. Randomran (talk) 03:16, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, for better or for worse, I'll jump in (maybe not at the deep end of the pool yet though). First, I'll assume that nothing done here changes or supersedes the main stuff at WP:N or WP:V and so forth. Second, I'm a sci-fi and fiction in general fan, and I'll assume most folks here are in one way or another. My personal views on include/delete are that I'd rather see articles improved as opposed to deleted - that's not to say I want an article on what Worf's favorite foods are. Since I came in about the time of the page delete thing, ... I'll only say that all people get mad and frustrated, and all people make mistakes - and I'll leave it at that.

Now, my first thoughts on the first things about white lists and black lists: I'd be afraid that people would make use of those types of things to look for loopholes, or battle over minor points. I know that policy has to be specific in many cases, but some times the more "points" you add, the more it mucks up the spirit and intent of a policy. Well, hope I didn't step on anyone's toes too bad for a first shot, and I'll be back as I read more through this talk page. Carry on, (but don't throw anything at the new guy yet - he still has his back turned.. lol) Ched (talk) 04:38, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

No, this doesn't supersede WP:V. Verifiability is policy. As for WP:N, it may depend upon who you ask. There may be an effort undertaken to clarify WP:V and/or adapt it to community practice (as policy/guidelines follow practice), but that is likely a long-term project because any change, and sometimes even minor, change to WP:V can be contentious and something like this is bound to be.

I think though it needs to be as all this guideline is doing is addressing base essentialls of notability for fiction and in a compomise fashion that does not really get at the real issue.じんない 04:45, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this guideline as written will help improve articles alot more than no guideline. AfDs are going to remain the crapshoot they've always been, but at least people will have a better idea of how to improve articles. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:49, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, either way enacting this as a guideline will be like changing Monetary policy--there is a big time lag between changing the regime and the results. It will take a while for people to realize that this is a guideline, that it speaks to fiction well and that it can help guide debate on some marginal articles. Protonk (talk) 06:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Which is why I noted that we should address the problem with lack of clarification with WP:V above with regard to fiction and the way most fiction articles are written and base notability on. The effects of that would be more quick, but it's like getting a bill passed through U.S. Congress.じんない 06:32, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's definitely one of the primary things that's encouraged me to edit movies and such. I appreciate all the work you guys have put into this. Even if everyone doesn't always agree on the finer points, I see it as a definite "plus" to Wikipedia. Ched (talk) 07:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Randomran, if you haven't looked at any of the talk page archives, you really should.

Since the dawn of Wikipedia? No. Since Radiant! began writing at Wikipedia:Fiction in March 2005, so he could cite himself in VFDs. Radiant! has had his thumb in over 59 policies and guidelines.

Since Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Television episodes began in October 2005. Since Wikipedia:Fiction was renamed Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) in December 2005. This talk page was first archived on June 25, 2006.

The discussion on this talk page really increased in July 2006 — that's clear back in Archive 2 (it's at 43 now). It went from 39 edits in June 2006 to 109 edits in July 2006.

On April 4, 2007, TTN made his first comment at WT:FICT. This thread on TTN's talkpage is related to that.

The activity jumped again in June 2007. It went from 25 edits in May 2007 to 113 edits in June 2007.

In June 2007, Deckiller created User:Deckiller/Notability (fiction). On August 10, 2007, Deckiller moved it over. That's clear back in Archive 4. Then things really started moving. --Pixelface (talk) 11:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

The debate about inclusion/exclusion of fictional things is older than WP:FICT. The implications of malfeasance on Radiant's part are not only ridiculous, as common practice was to call something a guideline and if nobody shot it down it would become one, but also a hell of an ancient grudge to still be carrying around. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 12:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Things seem to have died down, so why don't we take whatever the next step (RfC?) is. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure an RfC is needed. I see a straw poll a large number of comments, the majority of which came from outside the bubble, as it were. They are overwhelmingly in favor of the guideline. There is still some caution about independence. I think we should work out the final version of the "independence" compromise that we were working on a few sections above, put it in, tag it as a guideline, and get on with our lives. I don't think another round of polling and comments is going to get us anything that the last few rounds didn't. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Great, up to the "tag as a guideline and move on" part. I stick by my initial point, I started that straw poll to be informal and it was never intended to supercede any official requirements for getting a new guideline promoted. There have been changes to the guideline since then, and we're still looking to make some more. When we are "done" (i.e. no major changes, unless otherwise specified in some official capacity), then I think we need to reissue the page for critique by the community as a whole (i.e. re-notify all of the relevant projects, etc). They need to know what the "settled, compromised" version of the guideline looks like before we assume that just because they agreed before they still agree now. Secondly, it does nothing but prove certain editors right if we say "let's just tag it and bag it, the straw poll proved this is golden by the community", when we were arguing initially that the straw poll was to help us figure out if people liked the general idea the guideline was promoting.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Yep. This has been too arduous a task to then have people bitching in three months that it was decided by a dozen editors that formed a super-secret cabal, pretended to bicker amongst each other, and ramrodded it through. Process is a pain in the ass, but I think it's necessary here.—Kww(talk) 20:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I would much rather over do it, than not do enough. If you don't do enough then you are inevitably going to have editors show up and say, "this didn't have real consensus, because only a few people knew about it". I'd rather have enough evidence to suggest that we went far beyond the call of duty when getting this thing publicized and receiving feedback for it (feedback beyond "Wikipedia shouldn't have guidelines, because everything is notable").  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

The straw poll was informal. On the other hand, guideline tagging does not require a vote. WP:NOTDEMOCRACY and all. We've bugged the projects and pages, what, two times already in the past two months? What is a third time going to actually get us? I mean, if I saw a likelihood of new comments, that would be one thing. But we've kept this open for a really long time, and solicited a lot of comments. This is not an under the radar proposal by any measure. I think excessive process invites rules-lawyering. We have a proposal that seems to enjoy wide support. We can point to the depth and breadth of the consensus via the straw poll and via the fact that editors on radically different sides of the debate are OK with this. At this point, I feel like the burden of proof is on people who think this doesn't enjoy consensus. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree w/ Kww. There isn't a rush and whatever process we need to go through in order to demonstrably show that this wasn't a parochial discussion we should undertake. I'm not worried that rules lawyering will sink the process. My vote is that we should let the straw poll sit for a while (say, a few more days), then start an RfC. At the end of that RfC (doesn't have to be a vote necessarily), we can mark this as a guideline. Protonk (talk) 21:11, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I think there is a rush, honestly, because frankly, we needed this guideline a year ago. But more to the point, if we're going to solicit yet another round of comments (after the previous final round of comments), I want to have a clear idea of what, exactly, we're looking for that we don't already have. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:16, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

(multiple edit conflicts; this reply may seem a little out of place...) Speaking as a participant in the Wikipedia:Attribution development process, I'd suggest caution in claiming a consensus until everything you can do to verify it has been done. I still feel the general consensus (i.e., the one that includes the thoughts of those who don't regularly involve themselves in policy discussions) is probably a little more to the inclusionist side than this proposal represent (although maybe that's just my own bias showing through -- I really still don't understand why, if something is important to understanding a notable work of fiction it should not be included because we lack 'real world' information about it). But it does represent a better balance point to start from than the current status quo, AFAICT. JulesH (talk) 21:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• There has to be an RFC to see if this proposed guideline can stand up to external criticisim. Without it, the credentials of WP:FICT will always be in doubt. --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• It appears to me that there has already been significant comment from people uninvolved in the guideline's formation. What sort of external comment are we seeking beyond that? Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• Well, for one, telling people that a straw poll outcome won't result in ratification then ratifying the guideline immediately afterwards doesn't look Kosher. We aren't hurt by waiting a bit, making an RfC and just saying: "Can you live with this as a guideline? Are there reasons it should not be enacted? Will this help the encyclopedia?" then moving forward. If we don't do that, we run the risk of some inclusionists or deletionists (pick whichever side is your personal villain) delegitimizing this guideline from the very start. We want to be able to say "Here is the RfC. Here is the discussion. Here are the points we advertized and the people who participated". It is bureaucratic but I don't want to get in a fight 2 months from now over whether or not this had consensus in the first place. Protonk (talk) 21:34, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• The straw poll was presented as an effort to figure out the outstanding issues. One was identified - a need to nail down the matter of independent sources. Since then, an agreement seems to have been basically reached on that point. Which brings us to the point where we're looking at what makes a guideline a guideline. An RfC after two rounds of comments and a straw poll is an extraordinary step, far outside what past guidelines and notability guidelines have entailed. I still don't see why it's needed, or what we gain that we do not already have. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that there is a rush. We needed this guideline a year ago, but the horse is out the gate, as it were. There is nothing to be gained from claiming consensus early and everything to be lost. Protonk (talk) 21:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

There is, however, considerable risk, to my mind, of a death by a thousand papercuts approach. This is something I've seen in past policy discussions - ideas with broad support fail because suddenly twenty narrowly different competing ideas are presented, often by people who are quick to offer one line comments proclaiming viewpoints, but slow to spend a lot of time on an issue. Decisions are made by those who show up. Lots of people have shown up already, and that speaks for a lot. Given the fact that the straw poll shows lots of comments from people from outside the discussion, what, exactly, are we looking for in an RfC? Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:32, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, we could wait a few days, if people think that would help. I think we're ready for an RfC and notification of the relevant projects now, though. I don't think we're going to get more than a couple more supports or opposes, and a question or two, in the next few days. We didn't get much yesterday. I do agree we should dot our i's and cross our t's, though. This page is guaranteed to attract very strong opinions in the future, like it always has. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 21:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

So we format the RfC just like the straw poll. It isn't hard to enter in to that discussion saying that the form and function of the guideline will probably change little and that many minor details have been disputed over dozens of times. Just like the straw poll we want to establish a broad base of support for this guideline. Again, there is nothing magical about an RfC. No one is likely to come in to the discussion and add something hitherto unknown to all of us. What it will do is give some good claim to legitimacy. Protonk (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• Our policy on policy doesn't say we need an RFC. It just says we need input from people who didn't write the proposal, and we need to address their concerns as best we can. We got some conflicting feedback: some wanted a stricter guideline, some wanted something more permissive. But we did get input from outsiders, and we did tweak the proposal in ways that both sides could live with. We do have a consensus by most measures, and there are guidelines and policies that have been FAR less rigorous than what we've already done here.
• That said, I agree with most people that there isn't much value to a guideline if people are just going to deny it. I'm sick and tired of people saying that *policy* like WP:V or WP:OR doesn't have consensus, let alone our guidelines on fiction. I'd rather try to remove all doubt than to try to just squeak this by, because I don't want people to have any excuse to outright ignore the guideline.
• However, if we're going to go with a wide RFC, we need to get more than people who have an opinion on fiction -- we need people who have opinions on Wikipedia wide policies, because this guideline does tow the line in contradicting WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:RS. (Or at least, a few people have a reasonable belief that it does, which is reason enough to get their comment.) Randomran (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I'm not sure as to what should be done; technically an RFC is the way to go, but that could result in, as Phil put it, "death by a thousand papercuts." When I first saw the straw poll saying that it wouldn't "make or break" the guideline, I was assuming that most if not all of the input would be from people already involved in the discussion... I hadn't been expecting the amount of outside input that there was. I'm not sure if that additional input should be made "official" and this turned into a guideline or not. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:45, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• • Think it's safe to BE BOLD and turn this into a full guideline with the changes presented above regarding independent sources? -Drilnoth (talk) 21:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
    • I actually agree with Phil that it would be safe to tag this as a guideline, because we have a lot of outside input in the strawpoll, and we really did respond to most of the criticisms as best we could, without taking a hard position on anything. But if we did, a lot of people would still ignore it. I don't think they could detag it, but I think the WP:BATTLEGROUND would largely continue. The only way to avoid the battleground would be to do a wide RFC and remove all doubt. Randomran (talk) 21:49, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

CENT then? or village pump policy? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 22:00, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Why don't we drop a note on VPP that we're about to tag it as a guideline, and see if anyone goes nuts. If they don't, we can probably assume that we've basically gotten to the point where we're at the minimum level of outrage possible. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that's the minimum we should do. If we go that route, we should explain where the initial proposal came from, and the steps that were undertaken to get feedback/criticism and improve it. Randomran (talk) 22:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village_pump (policy)#Reviving_Wikipedia talk:Notability_.28fiction.29 Adjust as needed. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

One thing to consider knowing how the previous FICT (my version) failed. We are likely going to get people thinking this too strong, and a number of people thinking this is too weak. We need to be ready to accept the fact that if those numbers and arguments are relatively equal (as it was in the case of the previous FICT) but a strong majority/case can be made for acceptance of this, then we need to be ready to assert that this has consensus given the fact that there will be irreconcilable differences between those other two extremes. I'd be hesitant to say that on the RFC for my FICT as it was 50% supporting, and 25% against for being too strong, 25% against for being too weak, but any more in favor and we'd have to go with it as the best solution to move forward. --MASEM 00:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I specifically didn't point them to the poll because of this. I think your 50/25/25 is probably close to reality, so we'll need to discuss it with them so they can (hopefully) understand the compromise. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

If we do go with an RFC, we should probably allow people to oppose in two categories: too weak and too strong. That will tell us if we have a consensus -- if we have the most balanced approach we can expect to achieve. And to reduce the impact of strategic voting, we should also let supporters chime in as too weak versus too strong too. Someone shouldn't get more voice just because they opposed -- people who support should also be permitted to state their preference and be counted, in the event of failure. Randomran (talk) 01:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

If we do a vote, that's how we should do it. Votes don't require that much thought on the part of the participant, though. I think I would prefer just directing people here for discussion. Discussion requires (or quickly bestows) a large amount of background information. I think that's what we need so that this isn't derailed, and derailed by people who might have supported if they knew more. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:42, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• I posted a note on the watchlist notice discussion board. Please go tweak my proposed language or comment there so we can get a notice for a lot of editors to see this. Protonk (talk) 01:45, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Also added to CENT, removed the old notice. Protonk (talk) 01:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

You know, just as a side note we received just short of 50 comments for the previous RFC. We already have 34 supporters, with only 7 people in opposition in the straw poll above. We've made people into administrators with less support. Randomran (talk) 02:22, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

The straw poll above wasn't about tagging this a guideline. How about you contact everyone who commented at that RFC Randomran? --Pixelface (talk) 11:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Independent sourcing language

Uh, guys, before bringing this to RfC, wasn't there a relative consensus to add the language concerning independent sourcing (see Phil's edit)? We can fix the language a bit, but seeing the discussion above, I think everyone was pretty amenable to it. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 02:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oh, good call. I'm ok with that. Protonk (talk) 02:50, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• I already did it right before I noticed this discussion. I included the link to WP:PRESERVE that Phil and another editor seem to have agreed on and no one objected to.—Kww(talk) 02:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• I don't think the amendment is adds anything substantial, and is sure to be edited out eventually, since the wording is vague and verbose, and offers no guidance per se[20], and this whole section could easily be boiled down to one sentence: "Effort should be made to find appropriate reliable, independent sources, as an article with no independent sources is unlikely to be a very good one." I think this is the core compromise that we have established so far (although I could be mistaken). --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Request for stability

Until the RFC is over, I would request that editors refrain from making amendments, both big and small, so that other editors can comment on the current version which was last edited by Phil Sandifer at 17:34, 24 January 2009[21]. I propose this on the ground that any amendments will tend to invalidate the comments made by contributors to the RFC, even if the amendments are well intended.
I realise that it is difficult enough to agree on the current version on the basis it can always be improved, but I feel we should hold back until all comments are in and then address the issues raised. If there is an administrator capable of freezing this version until the RFC has ended, I feel this would be of benefit. The last thing I would like to see is an edit war break out simply because everyone thinks that the gates are about to close, whereas the reality is that lots of amendments will be made after the RFC in any case. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Reverted back. That particular set of material had consensus to be added before the RfC was brought forth, as I noted here. That said, I agree that no other changes (aside from non-controversial prose/grammar fixes) should be made in the meantime. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 12:04, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with your approach. Since the amendments don't make any substantial change to the guideline, I can't see the benefit, as it never going to be final version in any case. My proposal still has merit, because all I am asking is to hold back for a short while as a matter of courtesy, as it is difficult for the participants to comment on a moving target. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Final adoption as a guideline

Template:RFCpolicy This is an Request for comments on the final adoption of WP:FICT as a guideline. A straw poll showing broad, informal support is above. This proposed guideline represent months of compromise between editors across the inclusion spectrum. As a compromise, it will not mirror your exact feelings about fictional subject notability. If you support this guideline, please tell us why. If you oppose this guideline, please tell us why. If you are ambivalent, well, tell us why if you can be bothered. :) If you have already told us why in the dozens and dozens of threads above, you can probably just tell us you support the adoption of this as a guideline. Protonk (talk) 01:39, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• I might add... you are allowed to support this even if it's not your ideal choice. If you do decide to swallow your pride and support this, feel free to let us know what you would prefer. Randomran (talk) 02:18, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support, though it is far from my ideal choice. In a perfect world, I would see a much stronger emphasis on third-party sources. In this world, I think that stronger emphasis would alienate too much of the inclusionist camp for this guideline to achieve consensus.—Kww(talk) 02:46, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Not enough support of independent sources, and unlike Kww, I find that makes it unacceptable. We can certainly leave WP:N to solve it, as well as improving awareness of sourcing requirements and helping to support closing admins who ignore fan runs with no idea of where independent sources will be found. Sources need to be independent. That means not from the creator or those involved with the fictional work. This runs directly counter to that. If there were more an emphasis on merging inappropriate content, this might work. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• support because we have to finish this process sometime. I suppose the neutrality is shown bey the fact that, like Kww, i support though I actually find it basically unacceptable also, for of course exactly the opposite reason of Kww and Seraphimblade. Fiction is fiction, and its importance within fiction is sufficient to justify an article if there is sufficient material. I think the only real solution is a total rewrite of the general concept of Notability, which I think a self-imposed straightjacket, which ought to be replaced by the two distinct concepts of 1. Important enough for coverage in a separate Wikipedia article. and 2. suitable for a separate rather than a combined Wikipedia article. However, i don;t think we can afford to wait for that. Seraphimblade and I have some common ground in preferring merged content, but it would not be "inappropriate" content but content that while appropriate is not suitable for a separate article for some practical reason. What will need continued defense is the suitability of full and detailed content on these subjects, whether merged or separate. DGG (talk) 03:37, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support - I personally don't see a reason for need for independent sourcing of the second prong and development commentary imo should be enough in almost every case since the policies and guidlines of WP:V, WP:N, WP:RS were never really written with fiction in mind (those exceptions being so few they'd likely not be good articles anyway). However, I'm willing to say that it's a starting point that is a compromise as close as we can get. We also need a functioning WP:FICT as well.

• EDIT: I also don't like that it gives character articles less need for justification than other elements because of AfD, yet also critizies other practices done in AfD. Sounds to me like a double-standard is being applied with reguard to character articles, but it's not enough to hold up an entire guideline over on minor point.じんない 03:41, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• This is a good compromise. I think that we have balances two elements (independence and importance within the work) in a way that doesn't strangle editors attempting to expand coverage of fictional subjects but doesn't turn our fictional articles into walled gardens or linkfarms. The guideline that has come out of the process is reasonable, short and direct. One reason why I resist suggestions like seraphim's is because the old fict was basically similar in content to this (in some respects) but attempted to do to much. This is just a notability guideline. As such, I support its adoption. Protonk (talk) 03:50, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• This doesn't solve the problems. It compromises along the wrong lines, making it simultaneously too inclusionist and too deletionist. It doesn't protect articles that need protecting and protects articles of little value. A notability guideline to solve this problem is essentially wrongheaded. Simulating AFD is similarly wrongheaded; AFD as a whole is too heterogenous to be consistent or logical. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 03:53, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support - Although, I don't like this bit about "good or featured articles". Notability has no place in determining what the "quality" of an article. Notability is for determining whether the topic should have an article. Although I like the idea of independent sources, I see people throwing this sentence back in the face of editors that go through GAC or FAC with articles that primarily use information sourced from the people responsible for making the fiction (i.e. IMO, Characters of Smallville is two shakes away from a potential featured article, but you won't find but less than a handful (maybe 3) independent sources in a list of 170+ sources). I think that whole paragraph, with regard to the "quality" of the article, is creeping a bit too far into MOS territory. I also believe that maybe a statement to the inverse of "and a subject can still be notable based on the reasonable belief that adequate evidence of notability exists." should be made. To clarify, here we say, "If you can show that the sources might exist then the article can stay", but I also believe in the philosophy of, "if it isn't notable now (i.e. you cannot provide the sources immediately) that information can be moved into a user space and developed until the point comes that the sources are provided". It seems unfair to say, "you can keep it if you can argue that there could be some sources", and not say, "if there are no sources immediately available, you can move it into a user space for the time being until said sources can be acquired". This is clearly something for the particular discussion group to decide for that topic, but I think the option needs to be made clear that sometimes we cannot just "let it be for now".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• The point of that paragraph is that articles entirely without independent sources (but pass the current guideline due to having developer commentary) don't pass GAN/FAC and thus should be merged in the long run if no independent sources are found, as the articles can't move up the assessment chart. I absolutely agree that only a handful of independent sources (for conception/development/reception/etc.) are needed, and that they don't need to constitute a majority of the sources in the article, but this points to the editorial decision of merging to better present material that has no hope of passing GAN/FAC. It also implies that "a subject is notable on the reasonable belief that adequate evidence of notability exists" because we keep stuff based on its potential to reach GA/FA (i.e. obviously notable stuff like Luke Skywalker), and it's easy to argue that independent sourcing likely exists in that case. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 10:33, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Somewhat on the fence, i.e. not sure how it would be implemented, but if everything I argued to keep that is listed at User:A Nobody/Deletion discussions would at worst be merged or redirected with edit history intact, I can support. If anything that I argued to keep on that list would be redlinked or have the edit history deleted, then I can't support. I'd like to support as a compromise, although I still think "notability" is an anti-wikipedic concept (verifiability is sufficient for a paperless encyclopedia; notability strikes me too much as subjective, elitist, and such). So, it depends how it is used in practice, which I guess I would have to see in actual discussions. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 04:11, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• On the fence as well. I feel that too easily this could lean either way, and as it stands is too loose for both sides but I'm unsure if until put into practice just how the policy is used. I do believe however that for a lot of editors this may come back to bite folks in the posterior.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 04:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Generally support: This guideline was built primarily on the premise of what was actually going on at AfD, rather than being the sort of idealistic fluff that generally gets lobbied for at WP:N et al. Making sense of AfD and giving it a frame of reference is more valuable than trying to affect it on a wide scale. Nifboy (talk) 04:33, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support as per Kww and DGG. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:53, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support - I'd like to throw notability out the window when it comes to fictional topics, but this is the best compromise. It's taken over a year of heated debate to get here, and we should seize this chance and get back to writing the encyclopedia. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:32, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose I feel uneasy when a guideline uses phrases like "well beyond the basic threshold of the general notability guideline", because I see no reason to have fictional topics follow any stricter criteria than other subjects. Also, I don't like the "three-pronged test". Rather than requiring an article to fulfill all three criteria, it would be better to make it similar to WP:BAND, i.e. fulfilling at least one of them should be sufficent. SoWhy 07:40, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
  • But BAND and FICT cover two different things. The only thing to talk about with articles under BAND is real world information because you aren't talking about fictionalized bands. With fictional articles, by your logic, if they meet the criteria of "being something important to the fictional element" (like say, the pilot episode), they might still not have anything beyond a plot to say about the episode itself (depending on the series). In such a case, we don't need a separate article just to rehash a plot summary, as we generally have other pages that already discuss the plot of the pilot.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:44, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose The 'This page in a nutshell:' section doesn't appear to reflect the guideline's actual content:
  • The link to WP:PLOT seems out of place given that this doesn't clearly support the linked text (which I find confusingly worded) - this could be changed to 'For an element of a fictional work to qualify for a stand-alone article, reliable sources must be available to demonstrate that it is an important aspect of an important fictional work and provide information about the element's development or reception. Plot summaries alone are not sufficient.'
  • the 'Three-pronged test for notability' calls for third-party sourcing "well beyond the basic threshold" of WP:N but the second dot-point states that "self-published sources such as author commentary" are suitable sources for establishing notability, when these are explicitly ruled out by WP:N and not mentioned in the three-pronged test as being suitable. Nick-D (talk) 07:50, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
    • You have a valid point: 'This page in a nutshell' has to be amended, and has been overlooked. However, I don't think this is a valid reason to oppose on its own, as the nutshell section will be brought up to date soon. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose It does not conform to our core principles and policies of verifiability, neutrality and no original research. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't really understand this oppose, as you've mentioned it before and I believe that it isn't anywhere close to accurate. How does it not conform to V and NOR? I don't believe anywhere on this page does it suggest that editors write their own commentary (thus WP:NOR is not an issue). It clearly states that it requires reliable sources (which satisfies WP:V). As for this neutrality thing, again, not really seeing where it states we should be one-sided and only publish what we like. As a matter of fact, I think in the "Independent sources" section it clearly states that the article must adhere to WP:NPOV. So...what are your real reasons for opposing this potential guideline, because you've stated these before I have a hard time believing that you really believe that these are problems with this guideline (at least, I haven't see statements in the guideline that back up those issues).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:44, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support Fictional elements should only get articles when they are beyond notable or when there is a good (WP:NOT and WP:WAF) reason to spinout. The current FICT version represents a good rule of thumb for this. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Weak support. While having this guideline is better than having no guideline, I have concerns about its exact implementation. It seems to me that any fictional topic that is essential to the understanding of a work of notable fictional work should be covered. That's a basic part of the process of writing an article on that notable work. This guideline disallows this information, even if it is accepted as important to understanding the work as a whole, if no "real world" information is available. This requirement makes no sense to me. But it is still better than not having a guideline to work from, so I will support it. JulesH (talk) 08:53, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

  Isn't any fictional topic that is essential to the understanding of a fictional work already covered in the article on the fictional work? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 09:04, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Weak support, but for the opposite reason to JulesH. I think that the guideline may not be strict enough, but if the "real-world notability" section is properly applied, it'll do. Stifle (talk) 09:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support on the basis that it's worth a try. We can always come back to the drawing board if need be. Hiding T 10:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support – per Kww. Much better to have this rather than not have it. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 10:24, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support as I see this version of WP:FICT as a huge improvement on earlier versions, because one of the inclusion criteria for a standalone article about an element of fiction is the requirement that it must include significant, real-world information about the topic. This means that elements of fiction must be covered in an encyclopedic fashion (which has a real-world focus), rather than treating them purely as elements of plot (which has a fantasy-world focus). Therefore this guideline binds together the existing consensus at policy and guideline level (e.g. WP:NOT#PLOT,WP:WAF), but still leaves editors free to cover an element's role from a plot perspective if it can be demonstrated that the element of fiction is central to understanding the fictional work. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support per Machiavellian principles. Like many I would rather screw FICT altogether and make GNG the policy here, but until pigs fly (or all the inclusionists get lives and leave us to toil in geekdom :P) this is a sensible compromise that should reduce the amount of crap on-wiki. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 12:48, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support, albeit reluctantly (I do prefer WP:N as well), and per User:Hiding above. The interpretation of guidelines in actual discussions differs sometimes widely from the intention of the guideline and the participants in the creation of it (as I witnessed with earlier versions of WP:ATHLETE). Fram (talk) 13:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support IMO - It does not contradict WP:N, but it does elaborate and expand the ability to document non-real items. Example: while a movie may be fiction, the fact that it was made and distributed is a real life event - this (if it were a guideline or policy) would explain the proper procedures for writing about that event. Ched (talk) 13:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Flawed, but workable, and certainly better than having nothing at all. We see a dozen articles at AfD each day that have to deal with the issues presented here, and a consistent framework will make for improved articles. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 14:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support, just as I did in the straw poll above. Certainly it isn't perfect, now will it ever be. I think that it is a good compromise between both inclusionists and deletionists, and I don't really see how it violates any core policies. WP:RS might be the only one, but FICT still says that reliable sources are needed to produce a quality article and that without them articles are likely to be merged. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:39, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support. I like the reduced requirement for independent sources. In my experience with fiction articles it is possible to create a comprehensive write-up from an out of universe perspective with reliable secondary sources from the developers while having few independent sources. This is usually true in the case of character lists (and often main characters). There may be an official website confirming basic character information and DVD commentaries or companion material that provides detailed background info on production, sales, etc.. The result is a solid article which may not have the substantial independent coverage of the GNG, but has the potential to be well written article. What's more is that I think this is good middle-ground between people who think notability must be completely proven and people who think notability is completely inherited. --Bill ^{(talk|contribs)} 14:41, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose as per above. (more later) Ikip (talk) 15:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)