Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)

Speaking of three prongs...

How does this proposal apply to the article King Triton? I would say since the character has appeared in three notable films and two notable videogames, the character is well-known — so an article about the character is fine.

The problem with the "new" FICT is that it's the same as the old FICT — this bizarre demand of "real-world coverage." All these arguments at FICT seem to stem from Deckiller's proposal that was created June 5, 2007. Later, in July 2008, Deckiller said "I created a monster!" If you compare User:Deckiller/Notability (fiction) as it looks now, to FICT as it looks now, you are left with the same result — editors looking at FICT and redirecting/merging/nominating for deletion everything they can find "lacking the necessary real world coverage" — which nobody ever agreed was a requirement for an article in the first place.

If the goal is to get the Valen article deleted or merged into a list with no pictures or transwiki'd to babylon5.wikia.com, I would say this proposal does a good job — but I don't agree with any of those goals and I don't see how that makes Wikipedia a better encyclopedia. --Pixelface (talk) 23:23, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

• You may find you are in the minority in describing a requirement for "real world coverage" as bizzare. As for the subject itself, it may be a good example of an article that FICT would keep but the GNG would not. I'm sure that someone, somewhere has made some connection between the king triton of Little Mermaid and various greek mythic figures (even if only to say that Triton is a disneyfied amalgam of them), that would certainly satisfy a connection to the outside world. Protonk (talk) 23:29, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Pixel, if you don't have anything positive or constructive to add to the guideline... --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 23:44, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Read my second sentence again. When I think prongs I think tridents; who carries a trident? Poseidon, Triton — both arguably fictional characters. King Triton is a fictional character and a spin on Triton, and has appeared in multiple fictional works. Don't act like there's no dispute about "real world coverage." Look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ego the Living Planet, it was snow kept. Look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Black Mesa Research Facility, which you nominated for deletion. It closed as no consensus. S@bre later redirected it. Now there's no article on Black Mesa, and yet we have the article Halo (megastructure)? What's the logic in that? Look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, which you nominated for deletion. I provided "real-world coverage" there, which you can see here. I agree, a character article is more likely to be kept if it provides real-world coverage. But it's never been a requirement to have an article. --Pixelface (talk) 04:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
      • The Black Mesa merge is actually a good one. It discusses the important parts of the concept/facility without getting into minor things, like what jobs go there or what the different departments do. Sceptre ^(talk) 04:39, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
        • Locations of Half-Life is okay I guess, but there was no consensus to delete the standalone article even when it had information about personnel. Masem suggested a merge, S@bre agreed, Masem changed to keep, and after there was no consensus to delete (or merge) the article, S@bre s'merged it months later. The location is the primary setting of four Half-Life videogames, the first of which won over 50 game of the year awards. The setting was revolutionary at the time. The article should answer the question "What is the Black Mesa Research Facility?" That fictional location is well-known enough to stand alone; it's just easier to persuade people to keep when it's presented alongside other locations. --Pixelface (talk) 21:55, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
          • I think we should be more encouraging for people to delete problem material (synthesis, original research, etc, and not just in fictional articles) instead of letting it stagnate. To be honest, I actually kind of trust S@bre's judgement on this; he (along with Gary King) did get quite a lot of the HL articles they could to FA/GA. Maybe as the main setting of the original, it could do with another paragraph or two, but it does look a lot better. Sceptre ^(talk) 09:03, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
• For the sake of argument: King Triton - passes prong 1, may pass prong 2 (I have only seen the movie and can't comment about his involvement in the series), fails prong 3 left and right. I think the FICT sentence "Editors may consider whether the fictional subject could be treated as a section or part of a parent article or list instead of a standalone article" applies, as this character can nicely be covered in a List of characters. I'll also note that while you are certainly entitled to your opinion, the rest of your comment is similar in style as the second and third points of concern in your RFC. – sgeureka ^t•c 23:58, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
  • And that's the key thing that we need to walk away with here: failure to meet FICT (the three prong test) does not mean we cannot cover that topic at WP, it just should be part of a larger coverage that reflects the limitations that failing to meet the three prong implies (eg if prong 3 is failed, then we only can cover from the primary source, which means a short summary on a character list or the like). --MASEM 00:05, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
    • I think there is no one-size-fits-all solution. I think Species of StarCraft is quite good, but I could understand a reader wanting 3 separate articles for Terran, Zerg, and Protoss. I mean, articles for those were created over 6 years before the species article. But merging them just means there's a stronger chance of the information being kept — which is what people wanted anyway at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Protoss and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zerg.
    • Just because one approach works well for some articles, that doesn't mean we need to replicate it sitewide. Larger coverage can mean separate articles. If people want separate articles on Wolf and Sheepdog, or Beaky Buzzard, or Witch Hazel, that's fine. We shouldn't be forcing short summaries in List of Looney Tunes characters on editors and readers via this (potential) guideline. Same with Category:Characters in The Lord of the Rings.
    • But then you have List of Pulp Fiction characters. I maybe would have argued merge or redirect in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vincent Vega because the character only appears in one film, but it's a well-known role of John Travolta, the role revived his acting career, and there are plenty of film reviews that have analysis of the character.
    • I think the number of fictional works a fictional topic appears in, how well-known the fictional topic is, if a character is a main character, if an actor is well-known for portraying the character, if an actor won an award for portraying the character, if other fictional works make references to the fictional topic, if a list would be too long — all matter, or should at least be considered.
    • FICT should just say that articles are more likely to be kept if the article cites real-world coverage, not say that real-world coverage is a requirement for an article. --Pixelface (talk) 22:12, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
• I think folks are missing the WP:POTENTIAL here, not just the current state. There's DVD commentary on this guy, even if there isn't very much in the article. Given some time and effort, we'd have a solid section on reception and development. In practice, there's a good chance we'd keep it. And we'd probably keep it according to this guideline. I'd say this guideline is a pretty accurate way of describing the kinds of things that escape deletion, despite failing WP:N on a strict basis. Randomran (talk) 00:22, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
  • That I agree with, and in terms of practical application of FICT, the situation (presuming this got to AFD) is that someone would just have note that the DVD commentary exists and talks about the character in more than just passing, as to satisfy the third prong and thus allow this article to be retained and expanded. (Which is why, I think, we need to remember that AFDs need to assume good faith that sources can be filled in if someone says they exist and shows likely evidence of such. We don't need to add this explicitly to the draft as this is just part of the AFD process in general). --MASEM 00:29, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
  • (ec) Having listened to countless DVD audio commentaries to get something juicy about a character for a wiki article, I can just say that you're putting too much hope in such a source. :-) But I agree that if this article was AfDed right now, the most drastic I would !vote in this case is keep to consider merging. But not because of FICT, but because there is a huge amount of character articles with way less notability to be deleted/redirected/merged first. – sgeureka ^t•c 00:31, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
    • I suspect this would help too. We can all rejoice that the guideline and current practice aren't too far apart. Randomran (talk) 00:36, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
      • IMDB i have just been told is not generally a reliable source... so I'm not sure on that last one.じんない 05:40, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
        • He means the movie documentary, not the IMDB page. Protonk (talk) 06:21, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• In answer to Pixelface's original question, I would say that as it stands, the article fails the Real-world coverage test out of the three prongs. In every instance, you can ignore the other two prongs, as importance = WP:ILIKEIT, and any arguements for or against a work or element being important/unimportant is just POV, and cannot be proven or disproven without the evidence provided by an article's content passing the real-world test.
  Going back to the real-world test, the only content worth considering is the statement cited from the DVD commentary, namely "The reason for his constant clashes with Ariel, according to the film's directors Ron Clements and John Musker, is that both he (Triton) and Ariel are strong-willed and independent". I am not sure that this statement can be considered sufficient on its own to pass the real-world test, because it does not reveal any significant real-world information...beyond what is revealed in the plot of the fictional work. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:39, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• I agree that this statement, by itself, wouldn't be enough. But the fact that there's an entire documentary about the film and that there *is* DVD commentary means that there would have to be at least a hand full of sentences of real world information. In fact, there is probably a hand full of real world information on trivial characters and inanimate objects as well, hence the need for the other two prongs. Randomran (talk) 18:15, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• In the very end, Gavin is right that all that matters is evidence, not presumption. The DVD commentary and supplemental material could be really resourceful, or not at all, no-one knows without checking (at which point the evidence can as well be provided in the article). At the moment when someone announces his doubts in good faith that the third prong can ever be satisfied, it is time for interested editors to provide that evidence over the next few weeks/months, or accept the merger. Most stand-alone fiction articles need a good trim for fancruft anyway, and merged articles can always be spun out again if sources are found later on, so no harm done. – sgeureka ^t•c 20:24, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• • • • That 19 minute documentary probably has some development information. But that information is a bonus, and probably just consists of "Well, we took The Sea King and altered the character for dramatic effect." King Triton is well-known (notable) because he's a main character in a film that was the 13th highest grossing film in North America in 1989 -- which grossed even more money internationally, the film became the highest-grossing animated film at the time, and the character has appeared in two additional films, two videogames, a television series that ran for 3 seasons, a Broadway musical, and the character is probably the most well-known adaptation of The Sea King from Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid. Then you have Characters of Disney's The Little Mermaid for minor characters. He's a major character that appears in multiple notable fictional works. People create articles for well-known fictional characters. --Pixelface (talk) 20:52, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
        • Which is why the first and second prongs are just as important as the third. A major work or franchise, or a key character that cannot be excluded from a plot summary of the work, weight heavily on keeping an article on a fiction character. The fact that the commentary adds the character's influences (the real world aspect), even if it is just a brief mention of its influence, seals the deal. --MASEM 21:35, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
          • I cited game reviews during Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hazardous Environment Combat Unit and that didn't "seal the deal." If people think a fictional work is important, and people think a character is important within that work, and there's coverage of that character, the probability of the article actually being deleted will decrease. But I think that this proposal requiring coverage is a bad idea.
          • If someone reads this (potential) guideline and starts going through Category:Looney Tunes characters and starts nominating them all for deletion for "lacking the necessary real world coverage", I'm guesssing they'd all be kept, especially if it's a group nomination. If they're nominated for deletion separately, forcing people to research all of them in five days, the probability of a few of them being deleted increases. That's why people who want to remove stuff from Wikipedia make salvos like that, to overwhelm people and create a timesink so they can divide and conquer. This (potential) guideline should not encourage that sort of behavior, as it has in the past. --Pixelface (talk) 00:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
• To Pixel's above rather pointless arguments: Halo (megastructure) meets all three prongs of WP:N. There is scholarly work on the subject, specifically how such a ringworld would function, how it would be constructed, and where it would orbit a gas giant on the magnitude as the one seen in the games. There's scholarly discussion on the comparisons to other fictitious ringworlds such as those by Larry Niven. There's developer discussion on how it evolved from a massive hollow planet to a ring-shaped installation. As the settings of three bestselling video games, it is important. Just because I've been busy working on improving other articles doesn't mean that it doesn't meet this guideline or others. Elements in the Halo universe that did, for example Forerunner were merged into Factions of Halo as only the Flood and Covenant from the universe met the GNG and had sufficient content for a featurable article. Can you please stop the WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS arguments? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 21:43, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Noting that this proposal is similar to past FICT proposals that have failed is not pointless. And noting that people create articles for well-known fictional elements is not pointless. We have the article Halo (megastructure) because Halos are well-known (notable) fictional locations, like you said, the settings of three bestselling videogames. It's obvious that Bungie was influenced by the novel Ringworld. And Halos are well-known ringworlds. The Black Mesa Research Facility is a well-known fictional location as well. There are over 55,000 articles in Category:Fictional, some of the over 750,000 articles in Category:Fiction. And yet the Fiction article has no sources whatsoever; Wikipedia is a work in progress. If this guideline is grouping fifty-five thousand or three-quarter-of-a-million articles together and saying they all should be dealt with in a similar fashion, why is talking about articles in that group considered a bad thing? Isn't this proposal trying to enforce consistency? --Pixelface (talk) 01:27, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
    • I don't think the proposal is trying to enforce consistency. It is just trying to find some reasonable ground that describes best practice relatively well. David is upset because much of your original post had to do with your repeated demand that "real world coverage" requirements be removed. That theme in policy discussions involving you is ongoing and I think David wanted to forestall a repeat of the NOT/PLOT/N/WAF discussion here. In my opinion he was right do stop it though I disagree that you are trolling--I don't think you are at all. My position is that "real world coverage" or "real world connection" of the subject (as phil notes below) is easily the most acceptable prong of the three. Of the small set of people commenting on this proposal so far, it has been almost unanimous in support of requiring some real-world connection. I can imagine (but cannot speak with certainty) that this would extend were the guideline proposed to a wider audience. Also, I don't think that "real world" requirements are as onerous as you suggest. We don't demand that some character influence the course of history, just that verifiable evidence exists on the subject beyond what can be gleaned from summarizing the plot. Developer commentary, thematic connections, and so forth all meet that. And, frankly, it provides a much better decision rule than describing a fictional element as "well known". Who knows of Black Mesa? How are we to use that assumed common knowledge to determine if a subject is fit for inclusion without extending wikipedia's already significant systemic bias? Protonk (talk) 03:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
      • The third "prong" says "Real-world coverage: Significant, real-world information must exist on the subject, beyond what is revealed in the plot of the fictional work." That's not reasonable ground, that's the same warmed over FICT from the past. I know you mean well, but you didn't comment at the RFC on FICT in April, and the RFC on FICT in June. The requirement for "real world coverage" in this proposal makes this FICT the same as the old FICTs that failed. How does this proposal differ from those past proposals?
      • Real-world information is not the same as real-world coverage. Alec Guinness portrayed Obi-Wan Kenobi; that's a fact. Obi-Wan Kenobi is a well-known (notable) fictional character — so well-known in fact, that Alec Guinness hated all the attention he got for the role. Alec Guinness also protrayed Herbert Pocket and Fagin and Henry Holland (a role he was nominated for Best Actor for) and Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson (a role he won Best Actor for) and Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago and George Smiley and the Earl of Dorincourt and the Charles Dickens' characters Jacob Marley and William Dorrit (a role he was nominated for Best Actor for).
      • Real-world coverage is considered strong evidence of notability. Pointing to real-world coverage is used to persuade people who have never heard of a topic that the topic is notable. But if I've heard of Chaos Space Marines or Genestealers, and I have (and I've never even played the tabletop game or any of the videogames), I don't need to be persuaded with "real world coverage" that they're notable. People didn't need "real world coverage" to think that Wikipedia should have an article on Ego the Living Planet.
      • Requiring real-world coverage is biased against non-English fictional works, when English-speaking users don't know the language where the coverage exists. Inclusion guidelines shouldn't describe best practice — they are the lowest bar. Say "Articles are more likely to be kept if they cite real world coverage" — okay. Say "Real world coverage must exist..." — not okay. You'd keep out some comic book character drawn by a teenager where people would say "non-notable" anyway, at the expense of thousands and thousands of articles people would never say "non-notable" unless FICT was telling them to. This is a guideline. It should list evidence of notability for fictional topics. Developer commentary doesn't make a fictional element notable. It's just background information for something they made up.
      • Who knows of Black Mesa? Oh, probably anyone who bought one of the 9.3 million copies of Half-Life that have been sold. The content disclaimer says: "Wikipedia's coverage is based on the interests of its volunteer contributors. Readers should not judge the importance of topics based on their coverage in Wikipedia, nor assume that a topic is important merely because it is the subject of a Wikipedia article." And here we have this proposal telling people to judge the importance of the fictional work, and the importance within the fictional work. Is Black Mesa "important" in the game Half-Life? In my opinion yes. Is Black Mesa "important" in the history of first-person shooters? IMO yes. Is Black Mesa important in the history of Valve Corporation? IMO yes. But is Black Mesa important in the grand scheme of things? No, not really. But the location is well-known. Is there a reason to believe that someone would ask "What is Black Mesa?" Yes. Topics on Wikipedia aren't required to be well-known, but excluding well-known topics for lack of coverage doesn't do anything to counter systemic bias. The WikiProject on countering systemic bias focuses on adding omitted things to Wikipedia, not removing other articles. And regarding bias, the results of UNU-MERIT survey on users may become available sometime in January. --Pixelface (talk) 23:22, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Pixelface - I would point out that the threshold is not "real-world coverage in the article" as such, but rather that it be possible to write real-world coverage. Finding sources that can be used to establish real-world coverage is and ought to be sufficient to avoid deletion. A lousy article on a topic that we can write a good one about should stay to be expanded.

Now, on the other hand, a subject about which there can be *no* significant real world coverage? That probably should be deleted. Why? Because it will never be good enough to meet basic content standards in the area of fiction. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:38, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• In answer to Pixelface, the arguments you make are justifable, but consider the possibility that just because a character such as King Triton features in multiple versions of the The Little Mermaid, it does not make him important or notable per se, and your assertions that he is are your point of view. Some evidence that he is notable may be added to the article at some point in the future, but in the absence or non-trivial real-world commentary about the character, you have to admit this is a presumption on your part, and as such, think it possible you may be mistaken.
  In fairness to you, I can understand why you have such strong views about the importance of this character, and I admit many editors share your commonly held view that a character that features in a famous film, play or video game (or all of these), or may have been adapted for the screen by a well known author (although we don't know who in this case) or film production company (Disney) should automatically presumed to be important or notable. However, in the absence of non-trivial real-world sources we cannot presume this because importance, like notability, cannot be presumed to be inherited.
  Consider why your opinion may turn out to wrong about this character, in the sense that he may not be notable or important: it may turn out that the commentators and critics of the film might not share your view. For instance, King Triton might appear in several scenes that are notable or important, such that the important ficitional element in the film might be a particular scene, rather than the character. Only evidence in the form of non-trivial real-world sources can determine this - sometimes the obvious assumption may not turn out to be the case at all.
  As Phil Sandifer correctly points out, there is no point in having articles about King Triton or any of the scenes he appears in, or any other fictional element he is associated with unless there is sufficient coverage from commentators or critics to write a decent encyclopedic article. If we ignore this concern, we risk creating hundreds of content forks that either duplicate the same information (at best) or collectively provide little encyclopedic coverage (worst case). Despite the fame or notability of the film, I stick by my view that, at this time, the article King Triton does not provide any significant real-world information...beyond what is revealed in the plot of the fictional work. For this reason, I believe a merger with the article The Little Mermaid (1989 film) would be appropriate until such time as the more content can be found, as there would be no loss of encylopedic coverage if the article was merged. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:15, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Gavin here, at least for individual fictional items (I would not say the same for lists, but this proposal is not currently covering them anyway). Give a reasonable time for anyone to come up with real world coverage, and if not articles such as this should be merged back into a list or main article. There they may warrant anything from as much to their own section to 1 line. In this case, without the commentary from the DVD, I'd say 1 line would suffice....maybe a bit more up to short paragraph at most.じんない 22:21, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

• • The importance or unimportance of King Triton is an opinion, and everyone's entitled to their own. But one synonym of notable is well-known. I think it's safe to say that King Triton is a well-known fictional character, recognizable by many, many people — in the millions. There are 509 articles in Category:Disney characters; the articles are already here. And I've never created an article for any fictional character. Now, someone may hate Disney movies, but I think they'd have to agree that many of those characters are well-known. All of the fictional works that King Triton appears in have been reviewed, and I'm sure reviewers made note of King Triton. I don't see why a film or game review would be uncitable in a character article. The information in the King Triton article could be put in the The Little Mermaid (1989 film) article, but then the information about where else the character appears would be out of place. The information could be put in the Characters of Disney's The Little Mermaid article, and it looks like it even was on January 16, 2008, but another editor expanded the King Triton article, and it was recreated August 11, 2008. Editors designated Characters of Disney's The Little Mermaid for minor characters, probably because the information about King Triton, Ursula, Ariel, Prince Eric, and Sebastian made the article too long. The information could be put in Characters of Kingdom Hearts#Atlantica (and the link to King Triton there even points to Characters of Disney's The Little Mermaid#King Triton but that link is no longer good) but again, the information about the other fictional works King Triton appears in would be out of place. A separate article doesn't mean King Triton is more important than another topic without an article, or as important as another topic with an article, the article is just a way of organizing the information pertaining to that specific character. I don't think I've ever supported having an article for a character that has appeared in one film, unless the film is an adaptation of a novel or previous work, or unless the character is particularly iconic. Two films or more, and I'm more likely to support an article. --Pixelface (talk) 00:39, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
  • And I didn't look until now, but searches on Google, Google News, Google Books, and Google Scholar turn up several sources that mention King Triton. But those sources aren't why King Triton is well-known; I think you'd be pressed to find people familiar with any of those sources. Those sources exist because King Triton is well-known, having been a major character in the highest grossing animated film at the time, having appeared in multiple fictional works, and even having an eponymous carousel at Disney's California Adventure Park. I'll leave whether The Church of Goofy is the root of all evil to Kathleen Madigan. --Pixelface (talk) 00:50, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
• I don't know much about King Triton, but I agree with Pixelface that the real-world tine of the putative fork is bizarre. I just looked at the Encyclopedia Britannica's article about the play Macbeth and there's little about the real world there - it's mostly straight plot. So far as I can see, this real-world requirement has been added simply to exclude coverage of fiction as a matter of prejudice and dislike. It therefore fails our policies WP:CENSOR and WP:NOTLAW and so must be stricken. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:46, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
  • There is no sneaky conspiracy to prevent fiction being covered, just a fairly open and transparent discussion on how to do it well. Accusing people of being motivated by dislike and prejudice just because you don't like the way consensus is going is pretty poor form. Your example of MacBeth is a bad one anyway because it tremendously easy to find substantial proof of real world significance. It's the existence of such proof that is the requirement whether the sources are currently incorporated in the article or not. Reyk _YO! 23:11, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Please do not use the word "conspiracy" — especially if someone has not claimed one. There is no question that some editors who try to remove fictional topics from Wikipedia are motivated by dislike and prejudice. Macbeth is a well-known fictional character — that is why Wikipedia should have an article about him. You could make an argument that there should be no separate article for the character Macbeth because the character should be covered in the play article, but the Lady Macbeth article looks decent, and the article for the character Macbeth could be improved in a similar way. You could put analysis of the play in the play article, and analysis of the specific character in the character article. You could also list all the notable actors who have portrayed Macbeth, or at least the ones who are most well-known for portraying Macbeth. --Pixelface (talk) 06:59, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Copy what Reyk said. And I'd add a reminder to WP:AGF. People are working hard on this compromise, and accusing them of censorship is pretty rude. Randomran (talk) 23:25, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

• This is not hard work of the sort required to create an article - research, balance, sourcing and the like. From what I've seen, it's just the self-indulgent expression of personal opinion by the usual suspects who represent no-one other than themselves. This is my point: that when people such as Gavin endlessly demand real-world content, they are just stating their own opinion - there is no objective or NPOV basis for this requirement. What you have to do to make any of this stand up is demonstrate how requiring real-world content improves the encyclopedia. Without such support, the rule-making collapses per WP:IAR. Now, I have produced some objective evidence by referring to an independent and encyclopedic source. I do this because it is what one is constantly called upon to do when writing articles - find sources to back up one's statements. So, where is the source to support this three-pronged test? I was flipping through a Christmas book of mnemonics when shopping and one of them was a mnemonic for the important features of fiction - setting, character, plot, theme, etc. The real world did not feature in this list and this is another objective, real-world demonstration of the point. Moreover, I'm not the only person who opposes the real-world requirement - I'm just chipping here to support the indefatigable Pixelface. Phil Sandifer seems like-minded too and I especially respect his opinion because he actually works with this stuff and so has an objective real-world requirement for fiction :). Colonel Warden (talk) 23:49, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

• Listen, you're entitled to your opinion. I'm just reminding you to assume good faith, and to not attack people. The real-world requirement isn't based on "prejudice", or "censorship". It's based on good faith efforts to find a compromise to WP:N that lets us achieve the same spirit of reliable, independent secondary sources without actually having reliable, independent secondary sources. Randomran (talk) 00:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
• Colonel, if you're going to appeal to an authority like the Encyclopedia Britannica to support your personal opinions, you'd better be sure it backs you up. Encyclopedia Britannica has articles like MacBeth but you'll never find them including the sort of article on minor aspects of fiction which you are so fond of. Do you know why? You'll probably say it's because the Encyclopedia Britannica has space constraints that don't apply to Wikipedia, but that's only part of it. The paper encyclopedia is run by a group of expert editors whose task it is to carefully decide what subjects to write about and which not to write about, and undoubtedly real-world importance forms a large part of their considerations. So that claim that real-world relevance doesn't matter to Encyclopedia Britannica is false. It's all irrelevant anyway. We are not the Encyclopedia Britannica: we are an encyclopedia that is written by the readers, we have issues of quality and credibility unique among encyclopedias precisely because we don't have an oligarchy of experts to tell us what to do- so we need to make those decisions ourselves through discussion, compromise and consensus. And that is what this discussion is doing. You are welcome to speak your mind; what you may not do is attempt do derail a productive conversation just because you don't like the direction it's going or accuse people of having the wrong motivations just because their idea of a good encyclopedia differs from yours. Reyk _YO! 01:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• No, again you are ignoring policy - in this case WP:NOTDEMOCRACY. Establishing consensus for a guideline is not a matter of establishing a tiny plurality of opinion by "expert editors". The only test for all this work is: does it improve the encyclopedia? I have yet to see any objective evidence presented that a "real-world" test has any objective claim to do this. I contrast this with the other two prongs of the fork. These are both based upon the idea of importance. Now we might have trouble agreeing upon what's important but these are both reasonable guidelines in that important topics, by definition, are important and so focussing upon them may reasonably be said to improve the encyclopedia. So, if we have an important work of fiction and a character is important to it because he is the protagonist, say, then nothing further need be said. Of course, real-world evidence will be required to establish importance if this is challenged but this is a matter of verifying the first two tines of the fork, not a separate, independent fork. Perhaps this is mainly a matter of presentation. I suggest that the real world point be rolled into the first two forks as a matter of verification. Colonel Warden (talk) 06:56, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• Just because a work is important and the character is important does not mean an article that has the potential to be encyclopedic can be written; such an article doesn't have to start off super polished, but if one cannot find anything else besides what the primary source says about the character, these articles tend to attract original research in the way of theories, speculation, trivial references, and the like that are inappropriate for any WP article and make them look like fandom pages. The presence of real world or out-of-universe context helps to establish more than just primary sourced information and makes for a read that will be more useful to a reader that may never encounter that work of fiction but has to know what a certain character is for research purpose. If this can't be done, that doesn't mean we can't cover that element, just that we restrict our coverage to brief summary in the context of the larger work itself with redirects for searching. Nothing is lost in terms of the breadth that we cover, only the depth to which we cover it to, and that's because we are not an collection of indiscriminate information. --MASEM 07:11, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• Wikipedia already has a policy against "original research." Every article tends to attract "original research" — that's the result of Wikipedia letting anyone on the planet with access to the Internet contribute to Wikipedia. And don't throw the word "encyclopedic" around. I don't know of anyone here who writes encyclopedias for a living. So we're all pretty much making it up as we go. No encyclopedia I know of has an article on Pinky and the Brain or Elmyra Duff or Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. If Wikipedia volunteers decide that since the characters in Guitar Hero have no real backstory and so there shouldn't be a list of those characters on Wikipedia, fine. King Triton is a major character in multiple fictional works. You can find analysis of the character (Inventing the Child: Culture, Ideology, and the Story of Childhood by Joseph L. Zornado (2001), page 163: "King Triton's "correction" of Ariel with his fire-throwing trident is, in some respects, a rape scene.") — but to include that in the King Triton article would be ridiculous. Who is Joseph Zornado and why should I care what he thinks about King Triton? When people look up "Winston Smith" on the Internet, they want to know "Who is Winston Smith?" Not, "What did Erika Gottlieb write about Winston Smith?" What did George Orwell write about Winston Smith? Jimbo Wales did say "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information." But that's a plain truth. All kinds of decisions are made about what information to include and what not to include in Wikipedia. That heading in WP:NOT used to say "Wikipedia is not a general knowledge base", but that was changed because Jimbo says. If one of Wikipedia's strengths is the breadth of topics it covers and the depth of information it contains — and I think it is — why should we limit the depth of information in an article? Different readers desire different levels of detail. "It is up to the reader to choose how much detail to which they are exposed." Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. The UNU-MERIT survey on users asked about breadth of topics and depth of information, and I would be very interested to see the answers to those questions. We are not here to decide if subjects are important or not. But if Les Miserables is a well-known novel and Cosette is a major character in Les Miserables, and there's a good chance that someone would ask "Who is Cosette?" — that is why Wikipedia should have an article on Cosette. Does the Cosette article look like a "fandom page"? I don't even know what that means. I don't see drawings of Cosette by fans in the article. I don't see Cosette fan fiction in the article. I don't see photographs of fans dressed up like Cosette in the article. --Pixelface (talk) 00:14, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• WP:NOTDEMOCRACY says consensus should be established through editing and discussion. Since that is exactly what I advocated in my earlier post, and since it is what we are doing here now, it is obvious that I am not ignoring it. You, however, are in clear violation of WP:READANDUNDERSTANDTHEPOLICIESYOUINVOKEBEFOREUSINGTHEMINANARGUMENT (if there was such a thing). Reyk _YO! 07:27, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
• The objective basis is right out of Wikipedia:POLICY#Sources_of_Wikipedia_policy. We're documenting an actual practice here, not the practice as any of us would prefer it to be. You're here advocating for a standard that would not reflect the current deletion practices. We delete/redirect/merge main characters all the time. Randomran (talk) 07:31, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• I don't agree that the real-world test is currently significant in places like AFD. All that matters is notability per the GNG (i.e. good sources) and importance (i.e. support from numerous editors who consider the topic to be important). So, this test does not represent current practise. I'm speaking here from my personal experience of debating numerous AFDs such as Thumper, Zuckerman's Famous Pig and Teletubbies say Eh-oh!. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:01, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• You do realize that the GNG is much stronger than what this proposes? The GNG requires significant coverage in secondary sources; all this asks is for some tidbit of real-world info that could come from the creator/developer themselves alongside assertions of importance in the work. I can't tell the case with Thumper (which one, that's a disambi). The other two are musical songs, not elements of fiction, and thus would not be covered, save for the weak case of ZFP, which the version that was merged shows coverage of the song but not the fictional concept. Note that we've not wiped WP of the coverage of it, it's got its own section which probably can be expanded some, but that's definitely the case of a topic that yes, we should cover, but will never reach the quality standard we are looking for, and thus should be described as part of a larger topic. --MASEM 14:40, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• As far as I can tell, most of the Thumpers have been deleted/redirected. The only one that hasn't is Thumper (Bambi), and that one not only meets this guideline... it meets WP:N. Colonel Warden will be pleased to know that anything that meets WP:N is still notable. This just offers an alternate way to assert notability without reliable, independent secondary sources. Randomran (talk) 16:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
• You do realize that the GNG is inclusionary, not exclusionary? The GNG does not require significant coverage in secondary sources. It says "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." It says "If a topic", not "Only if a topic...." There's a difference. "If a man is the richest man on Earth, then he is presumed to be notable" — not — "Only if a man is the richest man on Earth, then he is presumed to be notable." You do realize that you've been an administrator for over a year now? Find an admin coach Masem, please. I beg you. Do you realize that the "GNG" is made up out of thin air and should be treated with common sense? What is the "quality standard" we are looking for? The quality of an article about a topic has nothing to do with whether Wikipedia should or should not have an article about that topic. --Pixelface (talk) 01:52, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• In answer to Colonel Warden, the need for real-world coverage is absolute. Remember, the three-pronged test has been developed as an inclusion criteria for topics that don't pass WP:N on the first pass. Normally topics that fail to meet the requirements of WP:N usually fail one or more of Wikipedia content policies, and in the case of fictional topics, this means that they usually fail WP:NOT#PLOT. In order to provide guidance that steers editors away from creating plot only articles, WP:FICT needs to emphaise non-trivial real-world content is the key to writing articles about fiction that are encyclopedic. Remember, articles that are comprised of plot summary or in universe speculation are not encyclopedic, and WP:FICT needs to focus on encylopedic content, and to discourage fancruft.--Gavin Collins (talk) 09:43, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

• No Gavin, it is not "absolute." When you write an article, cite your sources, don't include your personal opinions, and present the information in a fair and neutral way. What articles about fiction have you written? Drow — which you called "the Norse Scottish term for a Troll"[1] Interesting... --Pixelface (talk) 02:15, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• From the perspective of writing articles about fiction, the need for real-world coverage is absolute if you don't want the article to be deleted. You can cite as many sources as you like, but if they don't provide any real-world coverage, then the article is not encyclopedic and probably fails WP:NOT#PLOT. I have seen many articles merged or deleted despite the fact that they pass WP:V because they fail WP:NOT#PLOT. The only way to avoid this outcome is to cite real-world coverage. In answer to your question, I don't think I have ever written an article about a fictional topic, but I have changed the perspective of the article Kender from in universe[2] to real world[3], and it is much improved as a result. Although the notability of this topic is debatable, I doubt it whether it will be deleted in my lifetime. --Gavin Collins (talk) 22:09, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Several combined replies to PF and others

This may be a tangent, but I strongly feel that while the way we've come to the various guidelines that deal with notability and the like, while set by what's been created in the past, needs a massive tear-down and rebuidling to account for what we (all of WP) know better. Policies and guidelines convolute terms and meanings that can lead to numerous different interpretations that lead us to problems - "notability" more than any other. It's a combination of inclusion and style, and that is very very wrong.

I'm trying to figure out a way to get us to a point that all topics, though primarily fiction, can be treated in a fair and reasonable manner that seems obvious without creating a massive ruleset, yet still accomplishing the goals of WP. Stepping back, if WP was actually a printed work, limited by the same basic tenets specifically by WP:IINFO, then one can imagine that an article on a work of fiction (say a TV show) would include: overall premise, list of characters, including details on the main characters, a list of episodes with a description of each episode (including any specific creation and reception for an episode), the concept and development of the show, public reception to the show, and the legacy of it; all details of what I think most would agree is comprehensive coverage. Subtopics of that show such as characters, major concepts, and episode titles would be crosslinked from the index to make finding them easier. Of course, for most TV shows, there is no way all this information would fit onto a single electronic WP page, so we should have a way to be able to split this coverage across numerous pages. The problem is is that between all the various policies, there really isn't. Sure, we do have WP:SS, but then you run into problems with the convolution between "article" and "topic" with areas in WP:NOT and WP:N. Sure, our article on this TV show can be broken down, but because of how some of the policies are presently interpreted, not all parts would necessarily survive. We can strive to find ways to justify supporting all parts, which is one aim of this FICT, as well as the effort to make sure that non-notable lists should be acceptable, but that's bandaids on top of bandaids.

We need a major restructuring of alot of our policies to support this type of approach better. We need inclusion guidelines to tell us the broad range of topics we want to cover, which does include every major and minor fictional character and every episode. At the same time, we have to be practical that we want to maintain WP's mission to be verifiable and avoid indiscriminate information, meaning that just because we are including every character and episode doesn't mean we're going to give them each their own article - but we do need an established and accepted means of making sure these are fairly covered in the larger context of the work and using redirects as our crosslinked index to make discovering this information better. Unfortunately, this job to decide this is being done by WP:N which is being used as both inclusion and article delineation guidelines. To correct this is no simple policy change but instead has to be something propagated through a large number of policy pages, so it is not going to happen overnight. That is what we collectively should be aiming for given the past two years of discussion on fiction - the same concept can be applied to nearly every other field, so it's certainly not treating fiction as a special case.

So ultimately, FICT in the present form is going to attempt to do the job desired: help to define cases for fictional elements that allow them to have articles if they have a chance to develop further. We obviously still need to figure out the case when we cannot develop the fictional element further beyond from the primary sources (aka the non-notable lists), but that's a separate goal to be handled at a different time. We want to make sure characters and episodes are included but only when there's more than just the primary source to talk about them as to help us aim towards a high quality encyclopedia. --MASEM 12:36, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we need to restructure Wikipedia policies and guidlelines at all, because they are designed to facilitate the creation of articles that contain encyclopedic content that is more than just "verifiable and avoid indiscriminate information". Also you are mistaken that WP:N is being used as both an inclusion and a deletion policy; what goes on at AFD is basically an assessment of what is or is not encyclopedic. We can only develop articles on fiction if there is significant overage (i.e. the source address the subject matter directly and without recourse to original research) and real-world coverage (that offers more than just details of the plot of a fictional work); this is the only way forward to a uality encyclopedia. --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:41, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Real-world coverage

King Triton though is not the protagonist in the movie, Ariel is; nor his he the principal antagonist, Ursela is. Therefore without some signifigant real-world criteria I'd say that the 2nd prong is also week. Yes, he is a main supporting character, but without some strong real-world evidence, stronger than for those i listed above, his coverage is better represented in a list. It does not need to be lengthy. If the DVD commentary devotes a segment on him rather than a blub, that could be enough.じんない 00:47, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I think removal of fiction articles is a major culprit in the slowdown of wikipedia editors/editing. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:56, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that interpreting causality is a hopeless venture without some serious data. I likewise think that it is near impossible to invent a scenario where wikia exists but WP:N does not and imagine what the results would be then. Even further I wonder if the diaspora of editors and articles to Halopedia, Lostpedia, etc. isn't a net positive for coverage of those shows. But all of that is beside the point. Protonk (talk) 01:11, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Well it's certainly a net positive for Jimmy Wales, Angela Beesley, and Gil Penchina. --Pixelface (talk) 02:19, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

A quick reminder that this discussion is distracting us from finally proposing this guideline to the wider public. It all boils down to "Can or should a character who may be notable, have an article until non-subjective real-world notability is established?" If we can agree that it's our goal as wikipedians to improve the encyclopedia, then we automatically have two options - either improve a bad subarticle to an acceptable standalone article when FICT-non-compliance gets noted, or (trim&)merge the bad subarticle into an acceptable list. I am sure there's something in there for every editor (if not - why not then?), and the initial question becomes a non-issue. Can we move on soon, or do we want to go in circles for a while longer? – sgeureka ^t•c 03:14, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Going in circles is fun. ^_^

But seriously, it sounds like this has sparked enough of a contention that at least a line or two should be added. Might do so myself if I can find the right place.じんない 03:19, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It has been answered in my opinion. FICT, like every other notability guideline, applies to the subject not the article. If we think that some evidence exists indicating all three prongs are met, good. If not, no go. I know in practice the state of the article matters--a poorly formatted and referenced article faces a grim fate at AfD while a sharp and footnoted article of equal notability will be quickly kept (usually). If we are waiting on research or speculation, I'm sure the AfD would treat it like we treat subjects which are awaiting sources, delete it until the sourcing shows up. Protonk (talk) 04:25, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of going in circles, how does this proposal differ from the FICTs under discussion at the RFC on FICT in April, and the RFC on FICT in June? Go ahead and present this proposal to the wider public; I just think you will end up with the same result as summer 2008 — with no consensus and then editwarring over the essay/historical/proposed tags. How does this proposal differ from past proposals that failed? --Pixelface (talk) 04:26, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

That's an easy question. Those versions of fict were focused on declaring classes of articles worthy of inclusion regardless of the subject. So we spent a lot of ink on "spin out" articles and "episode" articles and so forth. Further the actual text of the guideline (here it is in april) was just a mess. I mean read that and tell me what the guideline says about articles? In 2 sentences or less. You can't, because it is all over the place. What would we have found consensus to enact? The current version of fict is slimmed down, talks little about content and talks a lot about subjects. I think it is a superior text to the past versions. Protonk (talk) 04:34, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Now compare the current proposal to FICT as it existed on June 3, 2008, when it was proposed for global acceptance and was opposed by a majority of editors. Note how often "coverage" was mentioned in that proposal. The current FICT is half as short, but still mentions coverage several times, and completely ignores whether a fictional element may be well-known. How would the current FICT apply to Fictional history of Spider-Man, which has survived two[4] [5] AFDs?

My views may be in the minority among editors who have commented on policies and guidelines, but I think my views about major characters or iconic characters or characters that have been around for years or characters appearing in multiple fictional works are shared by many more editors who have written and edited fictional character articles, and may not have ever commented on a policy or guideline.

Consider the results in these AFDs for articles in Category:Marvel Comics supervillains: Blizzard (comics), Ego the Living Planet, Halflife (comics), Mammomax, Mathemanic, Melter, Mister Negative, Morlun, Omega Red, Plunderer, Ringer (comics). There was no consensus to delete any of those.

Consider the results in these AFDs for articles in Category:Coronation Street characters: Roy Cropper, Molly Compton, Teresa Bryant, Kirk Sutherland, Bill Webster, Ashley Peacock, Claire Peacock, Rosie Webster. There was no consensus to delete any of those. And that was before people figured out that six of those were nominated by a blocked user, who commented in several of them. Coronation Street has been around for almost 50 years and the 7,000th episode is going to air soon.

The question is not whether you or I understand this proposal, but whether editors notorious for redirecting/merging/AFDing fictional topics will. I'll read a policy or guideline saying add real world coverage and I'll look for sources and add it to the article. Other people will read the same policy or guideline and try to get rid of the article altogether. --Pixelface (talk) 05:45, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I still don't think the discussion of "main" or "well known" or anything like that is the subject of this guideline. It likewise isn't a reasonable policy proscription. We can't write a policy that will get consensus that says "every main character of a show gets an article". Or "every show gets a "list of..." article". We already know there isn't consensus for that. All we are trying to do here is make an incremental step toward widening what coverage we do give. And it is incremental. Of all the fiction articles we have, this guideline probably applies to <10% of them. But it is a reasonable step. It is a step that has rough approval from people on either side of the debate. And it is a step that is consonant with most of the policies and guidelines on the subject as written.

That being said, nothing we write here can stop someone from either ignoring this guideline or reading it maliciously. We note multiple times that sourcing needs to exist on a subject not in the article, but that won't stop people from ignoring it, just like they ignore it now. Protonk (talk) 06:16, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

And that's part of the issue here - this guideline should not be telling people what to do - it is only an assessment tool. If articles are going to AFD, there are processes that should be done (though not required) such as what's outlined at WP:BEFORE, in as much as those other process-oriented documents describe them, but we don't want to make that FICT, WP:N, or other SNG's job for the issues of weighing down the text. We obviously do want to keep track (if this is made a guideline) if there are repeated abuses of it so that we can adjust its language in either direction to stem those off but as Protonk stated, if there is a persistent editor that wants to merge or create articles, FICT's not going to be what stops him. (And knowing this is probably PF talking about TTN, and the fact that a recent proposed "E&C3" case was closed pending the confirmation and practices of this FICT, it makes sense to see what happens in a couple months should this become a guideline to see if TTN is using this as a basis to determine if there's any action to go forward on him). --MASEM 06:54, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This (potential) guideline is not an assessment tool; this is not FACR. It should be telling editors what is considered evidence of notability for fictional elements. Editors decide if Wikipedia should have an article about a topic at AFD, and it's fine if people give their opinions that a work is important or a character is important at the AFD, because it's okay to give your opinions at AFD. What's not okay is people at AFD saying "No, no, your opinion doesn't count, because WP:FICT says..."

Nobody is required to read any policies or guidelines before they make an article on Wikipedia. So the guideline will only be read after the fact. "Why is there an article on Spider-Man, but the article about a comic book character I created myself keeps getting deleted?" "Well, nobody thinks your character is notable and nobody can find any evidence of notability..." "Well what's considered evidence of notability?" SNGs tell editors what is considered evidence of notability for certain topics. All kinds of people have misapplied FICT in the past — I'm talking about any editor who redirects/merges/AFDs articles for "failing" FICT. It was Gavin.collins who nominated Zerg and Protoss for deletion[6] [7] "per WP:FICT" — as if nobody has ever heard of Zerg or Protoss. FICT is not a test that articles "pass" or "fail." If there's a persistent editor who wants to redirect, merged or delete every fictional topic they can find, FICT should not enable them. You've already revealed your bias, when you said "I do believe that TTN's ultimate goal is correct..." (That was an answer to a question by a user who was banned at the time by the way, and is here again now, unfortunately...) --Pixelface (talk) 08:42, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

"unfortunately"? You're railing against consensus there ;) nb: I've never heard of "Zerg or Protoss" — and didn't bother opening the links. fyi, I posed you a question at your RfC. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:17, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

This is a notability guideline. "Well-known" is a synonym of notable[8]. This is not a policy; it's a guideline. Nobody's suggesting we create a policy that says "every main character of a show gets an article." But the articles are already here. Editors, out of no coordination, spontaneously and independently created articles for major characters of fictional works — although that may have something to do with Wikipedia is not paper on meta, which said as far back as seven years ago "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. Every episode name in the list could link to a separate page for each of those episodes, with links to reviews and trivia. Each of the 100+ poker games can have its own page with rules, history, and strategy. Jimbo Wales has agreed: Hard disks are cheap." The talkpage there shows that someone else wrote "There is no reason why there shouldn't be a page for every Simpsons character" and that Jimbo Wales said "I agree with this one completely." but it is difficult to tell where the original discussion took place. Perhaps on Nupedia. Maybe someone made it up. Although the discussion appears to have actually happened — in September 2008 Jimbo Wales said "The Simpson's anomaly is probably my own personal fault..." and "my own views have changed substantially" — which is no surprise really, since Wikicities (now called Wikia) was founded in late 2004 and it generates revenue from articles on all kinds of fictional elements.

What do you think is the goal of this guideline? What do you think are the two "sides" in the debate? Whether a fictional element is notable or non-notable? Whether a fictional element should have an article or not? Whether a fictional element should have an article, or be an section in another article or list, or be a redirect? There are all kinds of ways to write this proposal so it can't be read maliciously. Past versions of FICT were ignored all the time, because they didn't have actual consensus in practice among the majority of editors. Consider the AFD for Travis Bickle. What's the point in writing another FICT that won't have actual consensus in practice? --Pixelface (talk) 04:23, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the old guideline suffered from bloat and scope creep, and was based on the notion of presumed notability. This one is cleaner, and it relaxes the sourcing requirements to allow stuff like developer blogs and DVD commentary to help satisfy the inclusion standard. Randomran (talk) 07:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The other way is that this reflects observed behavior at AFD and other places when articles are up for discussion, instead of trying to create guidelines. Yes, the three prong test is new, but when this was reviewed by editors involved, it was clearly the right set of considerations that made or break an article at AFD; the language has only been tweaked to prevent gaming the system either way for notability purposes. --MASEM 14:43, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Which AFDs? --Pixelface (talk) 08:20, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Final comments

As I said on various talk pages, this proposal seems to be nearing consensus, so I wanted to make sure there was a well-publicized final round of comments so nobody got blindsided. This proposal has its origin in an attempt to write a fiction notability guideline that was descriptive of the sorts of reasoning that led to articles being kept or deleted on AfD, as opposed to one that tried to argue from first principles. At this point it's been thoroughly worked over by a diverse crowd, but we want to make sure it has wide consensus before we tag it as a guideline.

I know that notability of fiction articles is an extremely divisive subject, with strong feelings on each side. I would point out, however, that the hardline inclusion/exclusion positions, at this point, clearly do not enjoy consensus. The best we are going to come to is a middle ground. I would ask, thus, that you evaluate this proposal not in terms of whether it's everything you want, but in terms of whether it seems like a livable compromise in a long-standing and divisive dispute.

Thanks. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:19, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Here's a thought for application I just had when browsing some articles: what would FICT do when applied to character pages such as List of James Bond henchmen in Casino Royale (I think I was involved in an AfD for a similar topic, which is why this spurs my curiosity now). Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 16:47, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

We are specifically avoiding the issues of lists pending the resolution of the RFC at WP:N, which, even though there's suggested support of non-notable lists of the example nature you give, we don't want to make any presumptions on that. Should the WP:N RFC confirm that we can make such lists, we were planning to address this in a separate guideline. --MASEM 16:49, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Lists quickly looked like an area that could derail getting consensus on major points of agreement. So we've punted on that. I'm not thrilled with the decision, but it was clearly the necessary thing to do to get guidance in place on the issues we have consensus on. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:56, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Here. Probably need a header box on WT:N for this. --MASEM 17:30, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Right, I can't believe I forgot about that discussion... show's how long this thing's been going on :P We really should put that somewhere when inviting comments, then. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 18:14, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Where's the notability guideline RFC that's discussing such lists? I don't see it at WT:N; am I missing something? — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 17:23, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Err, see the comment I made about (must have mistyped this, but don't want to derail the thread) --MASEM 18:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

"Pending the resolution of the RFC at WP:N"? Aervanath posted the results in October — 2 1/2 months ago. It's over. What pending resolution are you talking about? You and Randomran have been stalling for weeks. --Pixelface (talk) 08:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Aervanath's posting of the stats and obvious conclusions was to simply close the RFC, Randoman has someone else (who I don't know who it is) who is not involved at all working on what the consensus means, instead of just reporting the numbers. The critical evaluation of all the comments is going to be needed to make sure that non-notable list summaries that would help curtail some of the fiction-related issues would be appropriate per consensus. --MASEM 11:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

David Fuchs, you nominated List of James Bond henchmen in Die Another Day for deletion, and the consensus was keep. I believe you said "it doesn't matter there's other shitty articles like this." The consensus at the AFD for List of James Bond henchmen in The Living Daylights was also keep. So if we were describing practice at AFDs, FICT would say that so far there's no consensus to delete any lists in Category:Lists of James Bond henchmen. --Pixelface (talk) 09:01, 10 January 2009 (UTC) (added to 09:07, January 10, 2009)

A random thought from a regular contributor to fictional-subject AFDs: I'm not entirely convinced that the three prong test has consensus in anything like all situations. One common situation that I don't think it covers is character articles describing major characters that appear in multiple notable works; my experience at AFD seems to be that such articles are mostly kept, regardless of whether any "real world" information is available for them. At a minimum, there does not seem to be consensus to delete. Recent examples include Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gil Hamilton, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ponder Stibbons and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bloody Stupid Johnson. These three articles fail the three prong test, to all appearances. These characters' only importance is that they are important to understanding a major work of fiction. There is no real-world information in their articles, nor was there suggestion that any could or would be included in the AFDs for them. Yet, there was apparently no consensus to delete them. Therefore, I can only conclude that the test described in this proposal does not entirely reflect consensus. There are major exceptions to it, apparently in cases where only the first two items are satisfied, there are multiple works involved, and the works in question are *particularly* notable. There may well be other cases. JulesH (talk) 20:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

That's a flat misreading of all three quoted debates. Each of those could have been closed as "merged, two were closed as "no consensus". I'll go further to say that the chief source of "keep" comments seemed to be a bare assertion of importance rather than some claim that characters in multiple works are kept more frequently. This guideline (see the section above) takes pains to avoid the "multiple works==keep" problem because there has been no consensus to create such a broad plank in the past. Protonk (talk) 20:26, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. That said, given that Gil Hamilton appears to be the main character of a popular SF series, I would be shocked if sources from reviews (SF fandom is very, very diligent about having published reviews of stuff), interviews with Niven, etc could not be found. It might require recourse to (*gasp*) actual paper, but commentary discussing him directly is surely available. The other two are trickier, but seem to me to fall into a middle category that is, generally, kept or deleted based more on the happenstance of who shows up than on any actual principle. I think you're hard-pressed to make a serious argument that there is a consensus for an article like Ponder Stibbons to exist. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Not to mention AfDs ≠ consensus. People show up for the AfD's they feel strongly about; that's going to give you a skewed view of what people find acceptable. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 20:59, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

This guideline will (hopefully) also be used for merger debates and helping decide when to spin out. Just because a "bad" article survives an AfD, doesn't mean that it shouldn't be merged, and just because a character meets all three prongs (e.g. Brother Justin Crowe), doesn't mean he must be spun out now. FICT leaves enough wiggle room for editorial consensus when the prongs are only somewhat met or could reasonably be met in the near future. – sgeureka ^t•c 22:19, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• In answer to Phil Sandifer, I don't think we can roll out WP:FICT as a guideline just yet. I still believe that the test for "Importance within the fictional work" is too subjective. Although this is just my opinion (contested by many editors I note), there is precedent for giving consideration to this view. Article inclusion criteria based, not on evidence, but on editors' opinions tend to get dropped over time - see Wikipedia talk:Notability/Historical/Importance#Policy, guidelines, and human bias. Basically WP:IMPORTANCE was dropped as a basis for article inclusion ans was replaced by WP:N on the grounds that "importance" was a concept "so vague that whether any article meets it can be debated endlessly", and was replaced by WP:N which relies on evidence provided by the citation of reliable secondary sources. I think that "Importance within the fictional work" is too vague, and can be automatically discounted as a test becuase every element of fiction passes it. I feel a rewrite of the three pronged test is still necessary before we can go to RFC to obtain wider support for this proposed guideline. I will try to draft an amendment over the next few days. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree JulesH. That's the same thing I've been talking about, major characters that appear in multiple notable works. There was no consensus to delete in any of those AFDs. Regarding the "three prongs", if people think a fictional work is "important", and people think a character is "important" within that work, and if there's outside coverage of the character, the probability that the article will be kept increases. If there's no outside coverage of the character, or if the article doesn't cite any at the time, the probability that the article will not be kept as is increases, but it doesn't mean that the article will be deleted. That's what we should be describing. --Pixelface (talk) 09:23, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

For purposes of trying to figure this out, what would be a "major character that appears in multiple notable works" that would likely otherwise fail the proposes version of FICT, namely by missing the third prong? --MASEM 11:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Non-Independent Sources

Where to start; I've been trying to get a grip on the threads here and on the new page yonder, but things still seem rather in-flux. I liked the restored version re "Systemic bias" but note that it was cut, cut again, and is now gone again. I share the concerns expressed about the "Independence" section which are now off in archive 41. The view that non-independent sources can in anyway serve to establish notability plays right into the marketing efforts of commercial pop-culture. Just because 'disc 2' had a bit on such and such, doesn't count. Relying on non-independent sources only serves to promote products.

The core of the long-running notability dispute is really not about 'fiction' — it about mass produced commercial product that is nominally in the realm of 'fiction'. Note that the flash points are the usual TV E&C, D&D monsters, video game characters, comic books, &c. Fiction is a far larger container; nobody is seriously asserting that Lady Macbeth is inappropriate for inclusion. See Pride and Prejudice; it's a work of fiction, yet only two of the characters have stand alone articles (which I'm going to now watch for WP:POINT violations). See Moby-Dick; only two characters with articles. Now go look at the coverage of one of the modern commercial properties; you'll likely find dozens of characters and better than a hundred episodes (or spells, or fictional islands; "whatever"-cruft). The whole nature of such franchises is deliberately open-ended; they'll keep turning the crank so long as the target audience responds to the programming. Editors rail about mentioning Wikia as a COI, yet most of the flash point articles are little more than puff-pieces for corporate properties.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:04, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the problem with this section is that it reads like a personal essay, and does not provide any guidance per se (see my comments at WT:FICT#Systematic bias for my viw on this). Whilst I share your concerns about commercial bias, I feel that we make have the perfect antidote which is to insist that articles on fictional elements cite non-trivial real-world content. In my experience, articles that are based on marketing material tend to be trivial in content and their style is over reliant on in universe perspective. Because most fancruft is written from an in universe pespective, I feel that the real-world test will filter out most of the marketing flap copy, and any other bias is amply covered by WP:UNDUE. I agree that WP:FICT may not specify what is and is not independent, but this is a broad editorial issue covered in depth elsewhere by a variety of Wikipedia policies and guidelines. I would recomend you reverse your last edit, because I feel this section contains too many unsupported statements to be included in this guideline. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:33, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe I missed a few of your comments here while I was composing mine, above. And we're discussing this in three sections now. Above, I said it could use a trim, as Phil said in his edit summary. I do feel that the parts about commercialism and fanish devotion need to be in here somewhere. These are core to the issue. Phil is in North America, right? It's just dawn there and he should have a chance to comment. I'm not sure where the others are, but feel that time for talk should be allowed. That said, I have little more time, as it's into evening here. nb: I'm quite strong on the idea of independent sources. Marketing departments are skilled at crafting their guff and every DVD set is packaged with the bonus disc of 'goodies' (none of which counts here), and fan-sites and magazines are hardly independent; they're typically advertising-driven. Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:52, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This is exactlty the issue this new draft of WP:FICT is designed to address, namely that it is based on a compromise regarding sourcing. For a long time now, the sticking point was the requirement that a fictional topic should only have its own stand alone article if it was supported by reliable secondary sources as evidence of notability. For most inclusionists, WP:GNG is too narrow to be applied to fiction, so we have broadend the inclusion criteria to allow inclusion of topics supported by other sources which may be questionable, provided the content is non-trival and real-world in both content and perspective.

I would agree that the question of systematic bias is a risk if the sources are not independent, but I am basing my willingness to compromise on premise that if the content of an article is non-trival and real-world, then it will approximate the content of an article which cites reliable secondary sources. I know it is is a gamble, but the issue of bias is dealt with in depth at WP:NPOV, so I don't feelWP:FICT needs to have a whole section on this issue - I would like to keep the guideline as short as possible.

I am therefor proposing that we get rid of the section "Systematic bias", as I object to its opinions which are not supported by evidence. I don't mean to be critical of Phil as a person and I think his views are perfectly valid, but I think this section deals with an issue that is best discussed and debated here on the talk page, rather than being inserted into the guideline itself. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:35, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

That would be a hell of a compromise; and presumptuous, too — building-in an exception to the overall guideline? What's next, allowing unreliable sources? Huge numbers of articles already get away with citing trivial mentions. The content on 'disc 2', or the official site, or in the Official Guide to …… will certainly be not trivial; the PR-machine is relentless. And, of course, *all* the episodes and characters are important to the marketing director, so none will be omitted from the non-independent sources. WP:NPOV is really not about in/out-of-universe POV or independent/non-independent sources (in the sense used here), so that's not going to work well :(

Jack Merridew 13:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

You may be throwing the baby out with the bath water. The fact that this guideline is focused on non-trivial and real-world coverage is a huge stride forward in my view. Previous drafts of WP:FICT attempted to widen the inclusion criteria by providing exemptions from WP:N for spinoffs and lists, but the cost of ignoring the quality of coverage was too high for them to obtain broad support. Since non-trivial real-world content is required to write an encyclopedic article, and WP:UNDUE aready provides a check against using sources that promote one viewpoint, then I feel that an article that meets WP:FICT should be encyclopedic and be over reliant on one source. The example I would cite is the article Kender about a fictional race, where the creators' commentary provides most of the article's content. Although the creators are not an independent, the non-trivial real-world coverage does provide some some intersting insight into the development and context of Kender from the persepective of them as fictional characters, not from an in universe perspective which treats them as if they were real. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Then we just throw out the bath water; if the tub is then empty, there was no baby to begin with. Of course, the non-trivial real-world yada, yada will stay. And non-independent sources are fine for providing icing, but they're inappropriate as notability/inclusion criteria. Without independent sources, it's all icing and no beef. And that's about as appealing as such an article would be.

( And please, don't let them know that fictional means not real ;)

Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:05, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of characters in Pride and Prejudice: An article for Elizabeth Bennet was created 27 July, 2005 by an IP. An article for Fitzwilliam Darcy was created 21 February 2005 by Roy da Vinci. An article for Mr. Bennet was created 14 October, 2005 by Banana04131, but it was merged 3 September, 2007 by Pairadox. An article for Mrs. Bennet was created 3 August, 2006 by George cowie, but it was merged 3 September, 2007 by Pairadox. A redirect for Jane Bennet pointing to Pride and Prejudice#Jane Bennet was created January 15, 2008 by Andrei Iosifovich. A link to Pride and Prejudice was first added to the William Collins disambiguation page on 1 November, 2005, but it looks like it was accidentaly removed 1 January, 2009 by Emerson7. An article for Charlotte Lucas was created 15 October, 2005, but the article was overwritten by an IP on 23 October, 2005 to be about an actress on Bad Girls. The article for Georgiana Darcy was redirected 27 January, 2007 by Cbrown1023 after an AFD where the nominator and 2 other people referred to WP:FICT, although DGG argued to keep saying "For this novel, perhaps all characters are notable." So FICT is partly to blame for there not being that many articles for characters in Pride and Prejudice. --Pixelface (talk) 09:26, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

←A related concern; the "Real-world coverage" prong states;

"Sometimes this real-world perspective can be established through the use of sources with a connection to the creators of the fictional work, such as developer commentary."

Ah… no. The creators and their cohorts will always have self-serving things to say; it's money in their pockets; it's part of the marketing campaign. As I just said above, this can add icing and can be useful for developing an article once inclusion criteria are met via independent commentary (non-trivial real-world yada, yada…)

Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:18, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

If we take this out, then we might as well drop back to the GNG. This is one of the key things that we've argued that needs to be in this to meet with how AFDs get kept - we can't use the developer's comments to assert importance (that's the self-serving part), but as long as their information does not fail the cautions of self-published sources, a statement that establishes something about the character is at least sufficient to show that there's a likelihood of being more real-world coverage elsewhere, and the topic should be retained as an article. Mind you, as the guideline suggests, if the topic can't be developed further beyond that one piece of information, further editorial steps such as merging to a larger topic can be done. --MASEM 15:25, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I have no issue with using such developer commentary as a source for details like why some character's hair was done-up in such-and-such a way, but this is listed under 'test for notability' and to use the source for this purpose amounts to allowing absolutely everything that has a marketing effort behind it. The 'elsewhere' you refer to would seem to be someone commenting on the developer commentary. Coupled with the fan-view that it's all important gives us a recipe for unrestrained inclusion. There's always plan b. Jack Merridew 05:24, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

god damn it. This conversation was already happening, but got manually archived. Now we're starting all over again. This is how users get marginalized and don't get to continue on this stuff. The last thread on this was archived less than 18 hours after the last comment, by a user involved in that discussion but who didn't like that multiple editors were opposed. This bad faith behavior isn't worth me sticking around for. This entire policy should be shit-canned. ThuranX (talk) 05:36, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I noted that; see the plan b links above. Jack Merridew 05:56, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Resorting to ArbCom to set policy or guidelines is a bad bad bad idea. They don't want to see it. Yes, there are noted objections to some statements in this, but there is a general agreement from the last month and a half to build this to where it is, and we're at a point where we need to put this into the working hands of editors and assume they'll work with it in good faith - if there are problems, we retool it, including this aspect. --MASEM 06:07, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I know they don't want to hear it. I'm sorry I'm chipping-in late in this process. There was, I'm sure, a lot of discussion. The core issue wp is facing is it's own scale; there are too many articles for the clueful to keep track of. The ratio of articles to active admins is something like 2500:1. A great many editors (and in this case, ya, I'm thinking fans), never read a Wikipedia name space page; they just edit as their urges tells them to. This proposal seems less a compromise than a hijacking by fans. The scalability issue affect discussions such as this one; this talk page is changing faster than I can read it. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:38, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I said all this sort of stuff a few days ago, didn't get a reponse, phil used that lack of a reply from him to archive the thread. To recap - non-independent soures are highly likely to be POV - if still involved, then highly PRO-topic, and if disenfranchised by business deals gone awry, then highly ANTI-topic. Neither's acceptable, and while I concede that Kender shows good applications of Developer material in covering the development section, the article has little NON=creator material to substantiate the notability of the Kender, though there are some comments from reviewers. Further discussion of that article belongs there. However, I am with Jack. we've got good, solid, and fairly high standards for notability now; many articles on WP, if held to those standards, would probably fail. Opening the gates wider by lowering the standards so drastically is a bad idea.

I'll go one further. Looking at the systemic bias language below, I'd argue the same effect occurs for modern topics and the amount of creator-spew we see. No dvd goes out now without multiple commentary tracks, many, many movies have adaptations, novelizations, 'movie versions with new pictures!', and so on. Websites are cheap, and so is talk, that's why there's a lot of it out there. This is all a lot of bulk to point out for 'evidence of notability', but it often has little heft, being fluff and hot air. Wikipedia relies more, and well it should, on the few hard nuggets provided by critics, analysts, and so on. ThuranX (talk) 07:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The point of this guideline is not so much to establish what is a good article but instead to set a bar that shows sufficient evidence that an article on the fictional element can be developed more verses the case where the article can only be based on the primary source and thus should be described in an article on the larger context of the work instead. The first two prongs make sure we're not dealing with someone's youtube video of the week, or a character that appears for all of one second on screen. The third requires use to carefully use WP:SPS to make sure we're not stretching for anything tangible to keep.

On the issue with DVD commentaries, the fact that the distribution studio put any effort into assembly that, even if they paid just a $10/hr lackey to compile it from old interview tapes, means the studio at least has some interest, and this is better than having the creator blog about it.

Still, the key thing here is that this is a preliminary bar to retain an article if there's something likely there. If through editorial decisions the amount of information cannot improve, then it still likely that the article should be merged, but in this fashion, we default to keeping an article to try to give it time to improve rather that be heavy handed and remove them. --MASEM 11:55, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

But DVD commentary is no different than the creator blogging about it, except that the creator can blog in real time, and on a DVD has to prepare a commentary, though often not even that happens. As for the key thing here, the key thing here is that this entire guideline introduces the 'EVENTUALLY IT WILL COME' rationale for keeping everything, making it, effectively, the antidote to any deletion attempts. At worst, we'll suffer merges, unless something has nothing to merge to, then we're stuck with a lousy non-notable article which cannot be improved, but cannot be deleted because enough editors think something may eventually be said about it. Unfortunately, AfD handles all this stuff quite well now. Editors go out, find a couple skimpy bits of notability, and integrate them, and then point out that there's a veneer of notability, and agree to clean out the cruft. We get a clean stub-like piece, and move on. I see no reason to adjust that to allow for a 2500 pokemon articles because the pokemon company publishes guides to pokemons, and/or licenses other companies to produce the 'official guides to pokemons'. books by the pokemon people about pokemon do not establish notability, they establish that 9 year olds have fat enough allowances to generate a profit there.

When, instead, we get a critique of the 'glassdildo pokemon' in the New York Times, establishing that the Pokemon company has jumped the shark, or they screwed over an artist, who pulled a little mermaid on them, then we can note that one pokemon in the article on Pokemon, and the article on controversies about pokemon. Real World Coverage is the ONLY kind that matters. No one doubts that creator commentaries are great for expanding an article once there is notability established but w msut not revise the rules to put the cart before the horse. ThuranX (talk) 15:18, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I find it incredible that we are even having this discussion. 99.99% of the time, a DVD commentary isn't at all independent of the creator ... it's by the creator, an associate of the creator, or an employee of the creator. The remaining .01% is for unusual cases, and generally on classic movies: a reviewer commenting on a film produced in the 1930's by a now-deceased director. Can they be used as sources for articles? Certainly. As sources of notability? Not a chance. I understand the need for being a little looser than the GNG to get some kind of resolution, but treating a DVD commentary as an independent source in order to get there is ridiculous.—Kww(talk) 15:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Amazing

It seems disputed that independent sources are better than non-independent ones. Jack Merridew 09:06, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Are you aiming for the GNG only? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 09:08, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I have no issue with the idea of a subject specific guideline. I have a number of serious concerns about this specific proposal that can be summarized as 'too loose' or ( 'the fans strike back' ;).

I am quite amazed that you're objecting to the notion of preferring independent sources. Non-independent sources inherently have a conflict of interest. Jack Merridew 11:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Systemic bias

I just noticed that this section has dropped out somewhere along the line. No idea when or where. Does anyone happen to remember who cut it and why? I'd forgotten all about it until I went to answer the question above about a couple of AfDs, and was going to point to it because it dealt with the issue that characters from works of fiction with dedicated fandoms are disproportionately (and inappropriately) likely to survive AfDs, and that this is not desirable. I suspect it should go back in, as it provided a really useful hedge against presentism and sci-fi bias, but I have no idea when or why it got cut, so I don't know if we've discussed this. But without it, I'm hard pressed to come up with a convincing answer for why this policy stands up to a complaint like Jules's above. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Aha. Found the old language. It had some obvious problems that were going to be jumped on, so I took one pass at it. I think something along these lines is needed - both to remind people that a Google Search is not sufficient to decide that real-world perspectives do not exist, and to remind people that sci-fi topics have devoted fans who will show up en masse and skew AfD results. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:02, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It was probably removed because it was too much like an essay, and too long. But I agree we should say something here. Let me take a stab at a more concise version. Randomran (talk) 21:05, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think I removed it. I don't have a problem with it going back, but it is sort of a non-binding statement. Protonk (talk) 21:20, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the new version looks better. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 21:57, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• In answer to Phil, I think the section on Systematic bias reads like a personal essay, not like a guideline, and you might wish to reconsider your approach of inserting long personal statements into the guideline without canvassing support on the talk page before hand. In my view, statements of opinion not supported by facts should not be added to guidelines, e.g. "If one were to judge purely based on the availability of secondary sources, one could be forgiven for thinking that science fiction is by far the most important fictional genre in existence". This might make an intesting topic for personal research, but in my view, it is just not suitable for a Wikipedia guideline. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:12, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

It could use a trim, sure, but it seems to me that it was added back and multiple editors then cut it to pieces. The part you're objecting to came in along the way somewhere. Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

"Significant"

This word is debatable and should be removed. "Real world information in reliable sources" is sufficient as it suggests that the article needs out of universe context as covered in multiple reliable sources. Adding "Significant", which can be interepreted subjectively, just creates problems. What is significant, ten dissertations? Are two scholarly journals significant? Or say something like "Real world information from reliable sources that can be used to write Reception and/or Development sections." Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• If you'd like we can link directly to the footnote in WP:N talking about significance. That's what we mean. As for your last suggestion, if a fictional subject is covered by a reliable source it doesn't need to appeal to this guideline to be included. Protonk (talk) 22:15, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, please do. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Ok. Protonk (talk) 22:19, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Might be clunky, but this is the link. The addition of the phrase came out of an earlier dispute over use of "developer blogs", where Gavin suggested that the medium itself might result in trivial coverage (it took a while before we saw eye to eye on that). We decided that allowing dev blogs specifically was important but that some statement had to be made regarding the depth of "coverage". Protonk (talk) 22:23, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
      • Well, say you have a review of a game or film in a magazine that devotes a whole paragraph or two focusing on a character, and you have another published review that does so, i.e. you have the articles that are about the work of fiction as a whole, yet within the reviews spend a good deal of time on characters or weapons or what have you and as such you can compile from multiple of these reliable secondary sources enough information to construct a Wikipedic reception section and in some instances even development sections, even if it's from general reviews of the game or movie, if that counts as significant, then okay, that's fine. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:28, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
        • I think that will always be up for discussion and the nature of the reviews will vary considerably, but if we have reviews of Game XYZ that mention character ABC, we should be ok for keeping them as a standalone article. That all depends on the substance and nature of the review. There are an awful lot of reviews out there that say "Character XYZ is a plucky sidekick" or words to that effect and little else. The result on those kinds of articles is pretty mixed. But once something has gotten coverage enough to meet the GNG, its inclusion is out of the remit of this guideline. Protonk (talk) 22:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
          • I think the term is well-understood - the point is if the source is really talking about the element rather than talking around the element. A review that dedicates a paragraph to one character is sufficient for the character's real-world significance. A review that lists mentions the character in passing is insignificant. --MASEM 22:43, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
            • Okay. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:46, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
• This is always going to be a point of contention, the same way as "important to the fictional work" will be a point of contention. There's no bright line test and people are going to have to discuss it. To me, it's "more than a stub section". I think other people put more emphasis on the quality of the information. But in general, we know it's more than one or two sentences. From WP:N: ""The one sentence mention by Walker of the band Three Blind Mice in a biography of Bill Clinton is plainly trivial." It's going to be easy to decide if there's a whole book, and easy to decide if there's only one sentence. Everything in between will be subject to consensus. Randomran (talk) 22:48, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Because I fail at grammar

• "Significant real-world information must exist on the subject's development and reception beyond what is revealed in the plot of the fictional work."

Should there be a comma between "significant" and "real-world" since significant describes the information and not the world? Protonk (talk) 22:53, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I think I learned that there should only be a comma if you can replace the comma with an "and". However, "Significant and real-world information must exist" sounds wrong. – sgeureka ^t•c 23:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I thought commas were only needed when you had three adjectives. Will ask a grammar expert on this. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 23:09, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

According to Diana Hacker's A Pocket Manual of Style, Fourth Edition (Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004), "Use a comma between coordinate adjectives, those that each modify a noun separately." The example she gives is "Patients with severe, irreversible brain damage should not be put on life support systems." Notice the comma between "severe" and "irreversible". See pages 65-66 of her book. Yes, I actually keep grammar books on hand... Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 23:15, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) A comma would be required. "significant" seems ambiguous. Do you mean significant as in a notable fact (as opposed to trivial ) or in the amount of information (as in, "He found a significant amount of money in is bank account")? Dabomb87 (talk) 23:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

See the section immediately preceding this one. Like "notability", "significant" is a term on wikipedia that has evolved to have a specialized meaning. Here we mean that a more than passing reference has been devoted to a subject--the exact definition is left ambiguous on purpose. Significant obviously includes book or monograph length mentions and obviously excludes one-line mentions but what is in between is a grey area. Protonk (talk) 23:21, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I could have dug into my style guides, but I think most of them are about MLA/APA/Chicago technical nuances. although in retrospect they might have mentioned it. That's a yes on the comma, right? Protonk (talk) 23:19, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, a comma is needed. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:50, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Where is the new discussion?

I arrived here from {{cent}} ready to comment on this proposal (I like it), but there is a lot of old discussion here. Could someone tidy up the talk page and update the links so that people arriving here are directed to a section where new discussion can take place? Carcharoth (talk) 01:14, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

By your command. :) Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:22, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Ooh. Still a lot to read. Thanks. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 01:30, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

GNG and SNG

Random comment before I forget. The hardcore notability afficionados are easily recognised by their use of GNG and SNG. Would it be possible to shift a leetle bit towards stating what these terms mean? They confused the hell out of me when I first saw people using them (in a sentence replete with other acronyms). The first time I really felt WP:WOTTA had hit me. Carcharoth (talk) 01:33, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

• Would you mind making some of the changes? Part of the problem with being an AfD trench warrior is it makes it difficult to spot that kind of language. I would do a poor job of writing this with fresh eyes. Protonk (talk) 05:35, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

• I agree. Using terms such as GNG without adding a link is confusing. Reference to SNG is more problematical, as this term refers to all of Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines except WP:N. Perhaps this indicates that WP:N should be raised to the status of policy? --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:54, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Availability of research

Appologies to Randomran, who created[9] this section out of the wreckage of the section on Systemic bias. I have been bold and deleted it, on the grounds is vague, verbose, disparate and provides no useful guidance (in my view, anyway). My main objection is to the following statement:

"Articles should be evaluated based on their potential to meet this notability guideline, rather than whether they meet this guideline at present"

I am not sure what guidance this section actually offers. What does it mean by potential? Does this mean we should presume unconditionally that a topic will meet this guideline because WP:ILIKEIT? It is not clear how we judge an article's potential. I think we are moving away from the idea that a topic may be presumed to be important or notable if there is evidence cited to support this presumption, towards the idea that a topic can absolutely be presumed to be important or notable on the basis of pure speculation about the topic's potential. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:31, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

• See the Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)#Systemic bias section above. I agree with you insofar as you claim that the verbiage provides no useful guidance but I'm indifferent as to its presence in the guideline. Protonk (talk) 10:52, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I've just restored the "Systemic bias" as is was all of, what, yesterday? Now that we've had the BRD, cycle, how about talking it out. Jack Merridew 11:16, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

That's supposed to be a pretty uncontroversial statement about how we apply virtually all our content guidelines. (e.g.: If something is NPOV, we don't delete, but make it NPOV. If something is OR, we don't delete, we do some research and verify. Same thing for notability: fix it... if you can. We only delete when it's fundamentally impossible for it to meet the guideline.) It should probably be clarified rather than removed. Randomran (talk) 11:38, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

If that is what you meant, then this is covered in detail at WP:ATD and does not need to be restated here. I know that Phil and Pixelface are very keen to link WP:FICT with what goes on at WP:AFD, but we need to keep the inclusion criteria seperated from article deletion seperate in our minds, because they are seperate processes which don't always follow each other. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:04, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I have no objection to the piece Gavin blockquoted, given the clarification. Determining 'possibility' may vary by editor, though. I would have no objection to that being re-added. I've been bold enough for one day, and don't think this proposal should be such a fast-moving target. As to the 'linkage' … I guess I've not read enough threads, yet ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:23, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Qualifying my above comment; I have no objection assuming the guideline finds its way out of the woods to solid ground (i.e. independent sources &c.). Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:44, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I have a problem with it—what does it mean to have the "potential" to meet this guideline? This page boils down to the three pronged test—importance of work, importance within work, and real-world coverage. Notice that none of these depend on the current state of the article. So if the article's current state is not a factor, I understand the "potential to meet" the guideline as: "This article is important within the work, but is not an important work, and has no real-world coverage. However, there are rumors of a film adaptation to be completed in five years, which would lend importance to the work and create real-world coverage. Thus, this article does not meet this guideline, but has the potential to meet it (in five years or so)." That's not a situation we want to create. Since the three-pronged test is completely determined without respect to the current state of the article, the article subject should either pass or fail this guideline at the time of evaluation. I suspect this was not the intent of the sentence, naturally, but that might be the way it's interpreted. Notability cannot be changed through article editing, whereas NPOV, OR, and other Wikipedia rules can. Pagrashtak 14:08, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

The issue here is that the threshold is not actually finding the sources, but indicating their likelihood. The equivalent statement in WP:N is "When discussing whether to delete or merge an article due to non-notability, the discussion should focus not only on whether notability is established in the article, but on what the probability is that notability could be established. If it is likely that significant coverage in independent sources can be found for a topic, deletion due to lack of notability is inappropriate unless active effort has been made to find these sources." I think a similar statement is even more important here, because there is a terrible bias towards just doing a Google search and calling it a day. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Again, I think you are mixing chalk with cheese. What this guideline is saying is that inclusion criteria for stand alone articles whether there is non-trivial real-world content to write an article. What this guideline is not saying whether or not you should or should not delete articles, as this is decided at WP:AFD, and we are allowing the scope of this guideline to creep beyond inclusion criteria into the realms of deletion criteria. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:42, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that's a false dichotomy. Do you really think anyone reads a notability guideline without seeing deletion criteria in it? Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:49, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

It's more a matter of staying to scope. One of the lengthier sections of the previous FICT was what to do with non-notable articles. We shouldn't be saying "how" to do anything here, this is only a means of assessment. WP:DP, WP:AFD, and numerous other guidelines prescribe advice on what should be done before and during AFD, and they do refer to the likelihood of meeting notability, not whether at the exact moment of AFD if notability is shown. In the generally handling of fiction articles, that's a great piece of advice, but not for specific determination of meeting the three prongs. We should make sure WP:WAF has information on this process, however, since that's a more appropriate place for it. --MASEM 14:53, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm really skeptical that a place other than a notability guideline is the right place for discussions of deletion. People are going to come to this guideline for deletion advice. I mean, they just are. But even still, I think the basic observation that recentist and fannish bias need to be combatted in evaluating the prongs is important. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:06, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Whilst I admit the connection you suggest is undeniable, I agree with Masem as WP:FICT is about article inclusion not deletion. Although Wikipedia policies and guidelines are indeed an influence on AfD debates, WP:FICT is just one such guideline, and we don't need to repeat the content of Wikipedia:Deletion policy in every single guideline and policy just because they are an influence on each other. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:21, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

No. But we're not talking about the entire content of the deletion policy. We're talking about, effectively, two sentences that warn against a particularly pernicious tendency. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:34, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that in the real-wiki, inclusion criteria and deletion criteria are flip-sides of the same coin. And the observation that fannish bias exists and is a problem needs to be faced and included. As to recentism, I expect so, too. Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:25, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Please feel free to draft a new section entitled "Deletion criteria" if you wish, but be warned that any requirement along the lines that non-notability must be proven will not get my support.--Gavin Collins (talk) 16:07, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

That's not what I meant; one can't prove a negative. The burden of proof is on those desiring to include something. Cheers, Jack Merridew 16:18, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. On the other hand, the burden of proof is merely finding reason to believe that the guideline *can* be satisfied. Similar language exists in WP:N, and I feel strongly that this aspect should be reflected here as well. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:48, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

If you set the bar deep enough in the floor, finding 'belief' should present no obstacle. Frankly, I'm not seeing any barrier to inclusion here. Jack Merridew 05:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Considering that the issues of scalability have come up elsewhere before (e.g. there is one episode per week, 5 main characters per show, but only one quality-concerned fan editor for every ten highly notable shows), can I suggest that the line is extended to:

"Articles should be evaluated based on their potential and likelyhood to meet this notability guideline in the future, rather than whether they meet this guideline at present."

If it's obvious that fans make considerable progress to cleanup their mess (e.g. The Simpsons Wikiproject), why should FICT slap their wrist? On the other hand, there are so many bad episode stubs of once highly notable shows whose fandom has mostly moved on to the next show, but where a group of devoted leftover fans will vocally obstruct any attemps of lossfree mergers into lists, but who will also not improve the "standalone" articles. Since AfDs backfire in such cases because of some Google Hits, wikipedia is doomed to keep the bad stubs for a long time until those leftover fans have (hopefully) moved on as well. The term "likelyhood" is intentionally vague and could apply to any time period. – sgeureka ^t•c 17:05, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Self-reply because I may be onto something (or not): This would also work with the current practise of notability-tagged fiction subarticles and also our King Triton discussion. If his article has been tagged for lack of (demonstrated) notability for a year, it's obvious that the likelyhood of future improvement is also minimal, and that he should be merged. Spinning out an article again once FICT is met is never a problem. – sgeureka ^t•c 17:16, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Again, that sentence sounds like it's OK to make an article on a non-notable subject if the possibility exists that it will become notable in five, ten, or one hundred years. Pagrashtak 21:42, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

How about "Articles should be evaluated on their potential, and on the likelihood that sources could be found that would satisfy the three-prong test." That avoids the "maybe someday" problem while still making clear that presentist/fannish bias is unacceptable. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:15, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This statement is still not clear whether it relates to article inclusion or article deletion. If I was a pair of fresh eyes, I would have no idea what this statement refers to. --Gavin Collins (talk) 22:48, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I think I've got a clear version in the page atm. Thoughts? Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:59, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

You cut all the wrong parts :( This way, you are building-in a systemic bias towards works with a devoted fan base. It is becoming clear to me that this version of FICT has seriously confuses the dedication of fans with notability. Jack Merridew 05:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no direct link between this and AFD. It simply says we shouldn't conclude that something is non-notable based on its current state, if there's legitimate potential out there. We should clarify this so this doesn't mean "it will be notable when it suddenly increases in popularity 2 years from now", but "it already IS notable, just that we need to give someone time to WP:PROVEIT and WP:AGF that they can (for now). But otherwise, it doesn't say what we do with the non-notable article. We can do any number of things: delete it, redirect it, merge to the series, merge it to the work, merge it to a list... but we don't say what to do here, as we shouldn't. But to say that a notability guideline shouldn't tell people how to decide if something is or isn't notable is like saying medical school shouldn't tell you how to diagnose somebody. Randomran (talk) 23:07, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Mostly agree, but practically speaking, the inverse of inclusion is exclusion; the implications are there and can't be avoided. Jack Merridew 05:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• I have amended this section to clarify is subject matter by renaming it Articles that don't meet the inclusion criteria , which reads as follows:

A topic on an element of fiction that meets all three of the above criteria may qualify for a standalone article, but an article that does not meet these criteria is not necessarily a candidate for deletion. In evaluating whether an article satisfies this guideline, one should consider not only the present state of the article, but also the likelihood that sources exist that could satisfy this guideline. Remember that all Wikipedia articles are not a final draft, and should not be deleted on the basis that it fails this guideline if a there are reasonable grounds to presume that evidence exists to satisfy all three criteria. Note that an article that features significant real-world coverage will rarely be deleted.

I don't think the points about systematic bias provide any guidance per se; in my view this issue might be of interest on this talk page, but unless we are proposing specific remedies or advice, then I don't think it has a place within the guideline. Having said that, I feel this amendment addresses the issues about deletion policy raised by Phil and Randomran. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:43, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I thought we were all opposed to making this about deletion, including you. I'm not comfortable changing this to add guidance about when to delete. Randomran (talk) 18:10, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• Then please feel free to delete the entire section Articles that don't meet the inclusion criteria [10] if you think that is acceptable to everyone, as I have only included it as a courtesy to Masem and Phil Sandifer. --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:06, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Real-world coverage 2

This section needs to be bold, underlined, italic, red, big, and flashing. Stifle (talk) 11:55, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Imagine a box with a thick dashed border, too ;) Jack Merridew 12:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Pity we can't incorporate the sound of an air raid siren for even more emphasis. Reyk _YO! 21:56, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Clarify first prong

Looking at the three-pronged test, the second and third prongs give a succinct explanation immediately after the introductory phrase: What does "Importance within the fictional work" mean? The subject should be an episode or non-cameo character that is important or central to understanding the work as a whole. What does "Real-world coverage" mean? Significant, real-world information must exist on the subject, beyond what is revealed in the plot of the fictional work. That's great. The first prong, however does not. What does "Importance of the fictional work" mean? It doesn't really say. A statement like "The subject should have cultural or historical significance" is needed, or whatever phrase is deemed appropriate. I'm not trying to change the intent of this section, just clarify it. Pagrashtak 21:52, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we might want to re-arrange it so that "more than notable" becomes the crux of the test. E.g.: a notable work will have an article... but a "more than notable" work might support some spinoffs. Randomran (talk) 23:09, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Three-pronged test for Elements of Fiction

As it stands, I feel that the test for "Importance within the fictional work" is not a test at all, as passing is a matter of personal opinion, and I have already discussed elsewhere why it is impossible to fail the test of importance. I have therefore drafted some modifications to the three pronged test, and I would beg your indulgance by giving it your attention. I feel this version has a better chance of getting through an RFC, as I think outside editors will quicky pick up on the the fact that the importance test is too vague, and as such risks the whole proposal getting shot down. One change is the requirement that the fictional topic has to be the subject of "significant coverage", an idea stolen from WP:GNG.

The proposed amendment to the Three pronged test (to be renamed the "Three-pronged test for Elements of Fiction" is as follows:

Works of fiction, such as books or movies, are presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article if they are notable, i.e. they are the subject of non-trivial coverage by reliable and independent sources.

The inclusion criteria for derivative articles that feature elements of fiction (such as characters or episodes) is not limited to reliable and independent sources, provided that topic can pass the following three pronged test:

• Notability of the fictional work: Elements of fiction may qualify for the their own standalone article if the fictional work from which they are derived cite evidence of notability, on the grounds that the related coverage may go into greater depth about fictional elements than where the notability of a work of fiction is unproven.
• Significant coverage : The sources should address the subject directly in detail, and no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exclusive subject. Examples of significant coverage could include: creative influences, design processes, and critical, commercial, or cultural commentary. Sometimes significant coverage can be obtained through citing sources with a connection to the creators of the fictional work, such as developer commentary. Merely listing the notable works where the fictional element appears, their respective release dates, and the names of the production staff is trivial and is not considered to provide the significant coverage needed to write an encyclopedic article.
• Real-world coverage: real-world information must exist on the subject, beyond what is revealed in the plot of the fictional work. Topics which are the subject of coverage that is over-reliant on a perspective that is in universe or are solely comprised of plot summary do not qualify for their own article.

It is general consensus on Wikipedia that articles should not be split and split again into ever more minutiae of detail treatment, with each split normally lowering the level of significant real-world coverage contained in an article. What this means for elements of fiction is that, while a book or television episode may be notable, it is not normally advisable to have a separate article on every fictional character, episode, or scene that appears in a work of fiction, such that the coverage is trivial or contains only trivial detail or information about the plot. Where there is insufficient significant real-world coverage for standalone article, it may be better to feature material about that fictional element in the article on the overarching topic (such as the fictional work itself) or a related topic (such as the author) that cites evidence of notability, rather than creating a content fork that duplicates coverage of the fictional element in another article.

A topic on an element of fiction that meets all three of the above criteria may qualify for a standalone article, but an article that does not meet these criteria is not necessarily a candidate for deletion. Remember that all Wikipedia articles are not a final draft, and should not be deleted on the basis that it fails this guideline if a there are reasonable grounds to presume that evidence exists to satisfy all three criteria. Note that an article that features significant real-world coverage will rarely be deleted.

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 commend this version to you in the hope that we can get rid of the subjective test of "importance", an idea which was also jettisoned for the same reason just before the concept of notability was created. --Gavin Collins (talk) 00:40, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Gavin, we've heard you state the same concerns over the last two months. Given how satisfied the rest of the editors here seem to be with this version, trying to change its tone (making it as restrictive as the GNG) is not going to help. Mind you, I'm well aware that should this be a guideline and become abused, we'll need to come back to the drawing board, but at this point, we should not be changing this beyond tiny wording fixes and then see if its acceptable to the rest of the WP population. --MASEM 02:19, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, you're going to have to propose something other than removing the "importance" requirement. I'm still not persuaded it's a bad thing to have, only that we need to find ways to prevent abuse and WP:ILIKEIT. Randomran (talk) 03:21, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you in most every way, Gavin, but frankly it's time for realpolitik to come into play. However misguided I think Phil &c. are, the only way we're going to be able to regulate and remove a good chunk of the crap is going with what we've got now. I'll settle for that (for now... *evil laugh*) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 04:15, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I've just read through both the current section on the project page and the above and for the most part, prefer the above. I find the language in the first bullet (Notability of the fictional work) rather contorted, but that's just a nit. The whole notion of offering an exemption to the overall notability guideline is a fatal flaw. This will never fly in the real-wiki.

"Some articles on fictional subjects, however, may not meet the general notability guideline."

If the above is the case, then we're at end-of-discussion: Not appropriate for inclusion as a stand-alone article.

Jack Merridew 07:04, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

There have been a lot of good (and bad) proposals in the last 12+ months to make FICT "better", but most of them ended in "I have an even better proposal". And this is an endless and exhausting process. While Gavin makes some points I agree with, I know that there are going to be editors who'll just hate these points, and we'll never get things done. For that reason, I'll refuse to provide input into potentially good proposals when they go beyond proposing a little tweak here and there. Let's see if the current proposal has consensus before we start discussing a proposal that changes everything that we've been working towards to in the last 2 months. – sgeureka ^t•c 12:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

My understanding is that this change is virtually the same as the current draft, but we use the three prongs to establish importance, rather than have a test for importance as one of the prongs. The problem I have with the importance test is, even if a fictional element is important (which they all are), how do you know you have enough encyclopedic coverage to write an article? The answer is if you have enough significant real-world coverage to write an article, then you have your proof that fictional element is important right there, which is more or less the same as the third-prong in the current version. I have drafted this on the basis that this fits in with Masem and Phil's thinking and its effect is the same as the current draft and is no less restrictive. The only difference is that 3-prongs work by spliting the real-world test into two parts: "significant coverage" and "real-world coverage". --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:57, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

You're arguing from the point that FICT helps decide when to spinout new articles and that prong 2 will be viewed (and abused) as a stand-alone prong. Other editors are arguing from the perspective that for years, the old FICT allowed articles to be created just based on the merits of prong 2 and that this can't just be abolished with a snap of the fingers. As much as I think that eventually, prong 1 and 3 are the only prongs that matter, this guideline will not gain consensus from collaborative inclusionists if there isn't at least a transitional common sense prong (prong 2), which will likely be phased out eventually anyway when the current mess has been cleaned up either through mergers or encyclopedic expansion. We shouldn't forget that FICT is not a sledgehammer guideline of vision, but a guideline of consensus in practise, and at the moment, importance within the fictional work is a (but not the) deciding factor in AfDs and some merge discussions, no matter how hard this may be to swallow for some mergist and deletionist editors. – sgeureka ^t•c 16:27, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

My feeling is as follows. Below is a list of AfDs I've participated in since September. If the guideline would support those that I argued to keep at worst being merged and redirected with the edit history intact, then I support it. If it would result in any of those being redlinked then I can't:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Auraya of the White (I argued to keep and added to the article, which was merged)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eddie Quist (my keep argument and rescue efforts directly persuaded some to argue to keep, which was the end result)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flatpoint High School (Strangers with Candy) (I argued to keep; the result was no consensus)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Isla Nublar (3rd nomination) (again, an article I defended in a previous nomination that I once again argued to keep and once again improved as well that was kept in the end)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Isla Sorna (3rd nomination) (I argued to keep this article that I had argued to keep at length in its previous nomination and once gain greatly improved the referencing and out of universe content of the article; the result was "no consensus")

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of problems solved by MacGyver (3rd nomination) (I argued to keep and although the article was initially deleted after a proactive and productive discussion with the deleting admin, he restored the article and allowed me to merge content to the main article on the series; our efforts were upheld at Deletion Review)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional swords (2nd nomination) (I argued to keep and the close was no consensus leaning towards keep)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of SD Gundam G-Generation F mobile suits (I argued to keep, merge, or redirect this article that I created; the article closed as a redirect with the edit history intact)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mesogog (my keep argument and rescue efforts again bore fruit)

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_Coltons (I argued to keep and made some improvements to the article; article was kept and now we have a better article thanks to my efforts)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tony Cunningham (Tony & Friends) (I argued to delete and it was deleted)

So, if this draft says Tony Cunningham is deleted, fine, but the ones above that closed as keep should still be closed as keep and those that closed as merged would still be closed as merge; however, if the wording would cause any more of the above to be outright deleted, then I cannot support it. Merging and redirecting is a fair and reasonable middle ground in most instances and we have to allow for that as a compromise as much as possible. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:08, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem is (and maybe this is just part of the much larger issue) is that we're only deciding on what fictional elements should be represented as full topics, with the presumption that if the topic fails one of the prongs but not all three, that topic should be merged and discussed elsewhere (eg the topic is still covered but just not to the full extent of its own article.). Unfortunately, we have (purposely) not discussed lists as merge target as this is a related, but very different contentious issue. I can see that overall all this should be discussed together, but realistically, we need to make baby steps, to make sure this is ok, and then address other aspects once we know we've got a track that's acceptable.

(To the point of this, I think all of the above save for the MacGyver problems and the Gundam suits confirm the general approach here - those articles that were kept met all 3 prongs, the merged ones didn't; the two lists aren't really covered, but there is an aspect of the lack of second prong importance here as well as third prong failure, but again, this proposed version isn't really targetting how we deal with lists presently.) --MASEM 18:24, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think if we can agree on what the inclusion criteria for stand-alone topics are, then I agree that will have taken a small step forward. However, the second prong of the test as it stands still does not work because it is self-referencing; we still need to eliminate self-referencing arguments from our guidelines because they don't stand up to peer review. This is why WP:IMPORTANCE was dropped as inclusion criteria in favour of WP:N; notability is evidenced based, which is why it has stood the test of time. I still think we need to eliminate the second prong, and split the real-world test into two parts as I have proposed. Alternatively, we could proceed with what we have got, but sooner or later someone will notice that the test for importance has not got enough clothes to stand on one leg (forgive the mixed metaphors). --Gavin Collins (talk) 22:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I flatly do not accept the third prong as a requirement, nor does I think the current consensus accept it: it's a step backwards into rejecting good articles. The division into articles is purely a matter of convenience for assisting editing and understanding. Topics in fiction do not need real world importance,or real world coverage--it is enough if the fictional work itself can be shown to have real world importance. the importance of fictional elements must be judged within the fiction itself. It is better of course, if there actually is real world comment on it, and even the occasional real world significance, but there does not have to be independent real world "notability"--the notability, the importance, the significance, the need for encyclopedic coverage, the appropriateness of encyclopedic coverage, of fiction is as fiction. The basic criteria are the importance of the fiction the importance of the element, and the availability of sourced content. Everything else is a bonus.

The simplest way to accommodate the third prong to consensus is to word it:"It is desirable for real world information....

There are some problems with the second prong, too, which needs to expressly make the allowance that the fiction itself is an obvious source for description and obvious uncontroversial common sense conclusion. gain, I think the consensus now holds that, and in many other subjects that fiction.

It would really be a shame to see all the good work that is gone into this wasted. The current version is an over-compromise with the forces of reaction, and will not help in the goal of keeping in good material. (that is, assuming one thinks that the detailed coverage of important fiction is important in Wikipedia. If one doesn't think that, then fork a version of Wikipedia without fiction, for we are unlikely to find a compromise with such a viewpoint. Such a version, as i see it, would have been appropriate to an encyclopedia in the 18th century, when fiction was considered a borderline respectable mode of activity, both for reading and writing. 100 years ago, an encyclopedia would have accepted novels; in 1950, film. I have my own views about the importance that some other forms ought to have for civilized people, but I won't reject the ones i don;t like--history has shown the total unwisdom of such narrow-mindedness. DGG (talk) 07:29, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with most of this. We on the stricter side have made most of the concessions and compromises in this debate (remember that this proposed guideline is much less stringent than WP:N), but I for one won't budge on this: the third prong is important to ensure an acceptable standard of article and must stay in. The division of content into articles is more than just an arbitrary division done for convenience- rightly or wrongly, an article will inevitably be perceived as an individual, independent unit, one that covers a topic that should be considered as a topic in its own right. And therefore a good article will tell you what the subject is, how it came to be and, importantly, why anyone should care. And please don't try to present the pro third-prong viewpoint as a desire to exclude detailed coverage of fiction- we just want to see it done properly. The goal is not to remove or exclude good articles but to curb the proliferation of poor and trivial ones. Reyk _YO! 08:56, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with Reyk, as without substantial real-world coverage, you can't write an encyclopedic article. As regards the test for "Importance within the fictional work", I don't think DGG's comments that "the importance of fictional elements must be judged within the fiction itself" make the test any clearer. Whether an fictional topic is important or not is a matter of personal opinion, which cannot be added to the article itself. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:05, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• That's actually inconsistent with historical encyclopedic traditions. If you look back at the 18th century enclopedias, you will see whole articles written entirely based on primary sources. Heck, even Britannica has those yearly issues with essays in them. This idea of substantial secondary sources is something perceived, but does not reflect the real history of encyclopedia writing. But the whole key is what you say in your last sentence. Whether a topic is important or not boils down to personal opinion; I would much rather err on the sdie of retaining knowledge and being a more comprehensive reference guide than degrading our usefulness and relevance. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 14:47, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Outside of Wikipedia, anyone can write an encyclopedic article on the basis of personal opinion, and the point you are making is that they contained a lot of knowledge and acted as comprehensive reference guides as a result. Things have changed since the 18th century in the sense that, although we still rely on expert opinion, we can ask them to disclose their sources. Whether an fictional topic is important or not is a matter of personal opinion, but if evidence of importance is provided (preferable by citing expert opinion), then we don't have rely on original research to establish importance. --Gavin Collins (talk) 18:53, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• I would say any character who appears in a film as well as game or game as well as comic is notable because of the billions of fictional charcters in existence a much smaller fraction can lay such claims. Thus, a practical measure of notability should not just be secondary sources, but instances in which a character, location, weapon, etc. appears in different kinds of fictional mediums as well. Published strategy guides should also count as reliable sources as not every game has published strategy guides that cover characters and weapons (I can think of many games that I wish did...). Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 21:52, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Three Options instead of three prongs

Instead of three prongs, we need three options. This is a simple enough rewrite:

Some articles on fictional subjects, however, may not meet the general notability guideline. For these articles, a fictional element of a notable work should be handled in one of three ways:

• Deletion, if no suitable parent article exists.
• Redirection to a suitable parent article, if no out of universe material is present.
• Merge to a suitable parent article, if a small amount of out of universe material is present.

"Does not meet GNG" means "We can't support a full article on it." Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:30, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem with this proposal is that it does not broaden the inclusion criteria for fiction, which is what Phil and Masem are seeking. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:46, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

That's not a bug, it's a feature ;) Jack Merridew 04:45, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

That second prong

I've been trying to let this discussion go on without interference from me in the hopes that some progress could be made that way. I do have to object to the laxness of the second prong. I understand what it's getting at, but it is so subjective that it will lend itself to abuse. There has to be some independent assertion of importance of an item before it can get an article. The first prong can be met by nearly any fictional work that isn't fan-fiction. As it stands, the third prong can be satisfied by things like DVD commentaries, because no one insisted on independent sourcing in the third prong. Now, the second prong is a license to create an article on anything that gets mentioned in a DVD commentary, because there's no requirement that the importance be established by anything but the article creator's opinion.

If you want to back off of a detailed examination in independent sources, and allow a passing mention in independent sources to qualify things for articles based on the first and third prong, I'll bite my tongue. But if something wasn't important enough for any independent source to even mention, it's not important enough for an article.—Kww(talk) 03:06, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually we spelled out some examples of what isn't allowed to help take care of just "anything" meeting the second prong.

The subject should be an episode or non-cameo character that is important or central to understanding the work as a whole.

I would probably go further and change cameo to minor and episode to element. If anything in a guideline ever needed an example, this prong may actually need some explicit examples of what would not pass it.じんない 03:17, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• As Masem states, I have been voicing the same concern as Kww for several months. Since it can be argued that any element of fiction is "Important within the fictional work" (otherwise it would not have been created), then the only independent way of establishing this is through the third prong via real-world coverage. In my view, it is impossible to find an example of a fictional element fails the second test. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:26, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think that's only true if your reading of the second prong stops at the title. I mean, I don't see many people mounting a persuasive argument that the captain's chair is central to understanding Star Trek. Or even, frankly, that you can't really understand Pokemon until you have a deep grasp of Clefairy. People may insist that the captain's chair or Clefairy meet the second prong, but I do not think they will persuade anybody, and I do not think that crazed fans of the sort who will assert that Clefairy meets the second prong are going to vote delete no matter what policy we set up. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:55, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• I don't want to leave room for wikilawyering, and I think a requirement of some completely independent mention of the item, no matter how brief, is necessary. We have editors on the inclusionist side that have resorted to faking claims of threats against themselves, edit-warring policies and guidelines, and lying in edit summaries in efforts to keep bad articles, and I don't want to leave any handy tools for them around. I'll back away from multiple direct and detailed examinations in the interests of keeping the peace and getting somewhere, but I'm not willing to back off so far as not requiring any mention at all.—Kww(talk) 16:06, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• One thing I have found over the years is that there is no way to take the tools away from the crazed wiki-lawyers. What we can do is give them to sane people. I think this does a good job of providing a good framework for reasonable discussion. But look, an editor who is faking claims of threats, edit warring, and lying in edit summaries isn't going to be fixed by a policy. They're a pathological case that needs to be banned. And they're going to remain just as toxic no matter what this page says. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:21, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• This is good sense. I think that we have to agree that "importance", subjectively judged and asserted without 'hard' evidence, is a factor in what gets deleted and what does not. I refuse to make this a sufficient condition for inclusion (as Pixelface is arguing for, though we should listen to his examples), but I am ok with it being a necessary condition. Protonk (talk) 16:46, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• I agree that "importance" is subjective, which is why I think requiring one external source to assert it, no matter how briefly and tangentially, is necessary. That's a hell of a step back from "direct and detailed examination in multiple independent sources", but goes a long way towards providing some objective foundation.—Kww(talk) 17:23, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• Well, we still require some secondary sources for prong 3. Which is explicitly and repeatedly laid out. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:33, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• I see a requirement for secondary sourcing, but not for independent sourcing.—Kww(talk) 17:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• Ah. You said external, which points you towards secondary. Independent, I think, is too far - it sets the requirement at finding a specific source, as opposed to the likelihood. I think, going that far, we lose the already tenuous support this has among the inclusionist side (who are, it should be noted, in general more hesitant on this talk page than the deletionists). And I'm not convinced, as a practical matter, that independence is needed on AfD. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:51, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• It would allow articles like Bulbasaur to exist, and I can't imagine accepting a lower standard than that.—Kww(talk) 17:55, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

(EC)It isn't. To provide an example. Characters of Smallville doesn't have but maybe 2 independent sources (and they are really only used for a single sentence statement), while the rest uses sources that were created from the owners of the subject (i.e. companion books and DVD commentary). You cannot beat the level of real world content in there, but out of like 150 sources (there are 300+, but half of them are just links to filmographies to show that an actor appeared in an episode) only 2 are independent of the subject. I don't believe there is an AfD out there that could delete that article legitimately.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:58, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

(unindent, responding to Bignole) True, and "two" is two bigger than "zero". All I'm asking for is "one". I'm not asking for a length restriction, a detail restriction, a context restriction, or a content restriction ... just a demonstration that at least one independent source has mentioned the topic.—Kww(talk) 18:09, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, let's be fair, WP:N surely allows Bulbasaur to exist. But here's the thing - let's imagine a character of a clearly notable television series. The character is a major character, appearing as a credited regular in every episode of the series. Substantial discussion by the writers on DVD commentaries means that the article has a lengthy section about development and the character's thematic role in the overall series. Would such an article be deleted? Under the current situation - with no further guidance - I think such an article would survive. Without recourse to fanboys, I think such an article would survive. So I'm loathe to set the bar such that it wouldn't. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:17, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Bulbasaur doesn't pass WP:N, never has, and probably never will. If you can find a direct and detailed examination in multiple reliable sources that are independent of Nintendo, you'll be the first, and people have been searching for years.—Kww(talk) 18:42, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. On a 'list of Pokemon characters' article ,Bulbasaur could be distilled down to 'Bulbasaur is a small blue creature with a plant on its back, Bulbasaur is regularly used throughout the series by Ash. He has appeared in amny of the video games and product tie ins associated with Pokemon. He has been described by one critic as 'blah blah blah'. The rest is cruft. ThuranX (talk) 18:52, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes. I'd not considered the fact that Nintendo Power can't be used in this instance. Though that's a bit of a technicality here, truth be told. Regardless - Bulbasaur seems to me a normal example of what is kept. Some decent in-universe information, a strong case for importance in the work, the work is notable. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:06, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Meh. One think I've discovered is that WP:N is, in that respect, the most adverarial of all guidelines toward our editing base. It has to be, because it removes some genuine shit from the encyclopedia. but it also gives us the situation of Bulbasaur where a halfway decent article can be written, yet it is filled with "cruft". I would prefer that FICT let us write that article so long as we can set a guideline that gives us the end result: due weight, WP:NOR, and WP:NOT. IF you recall, that is the function of the GNG--not to demand that an article have external sources. That is the means by which the GNG accomplishes its function of meeting core content principles. If we make a guideline that meets those ends but lets us have an article on bulbasaur without cognitive dissonance, good. Protonk (talk) 19:14, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Which is why I would tend to want to shape this guideline to allow it, but don't want to drop further. Bulbasaur has at least been mentioned by independent sources, so adding a sentence to the second prong to the effect of "To be deemed important, the topic of the article must have been mentioned in at least one independent source" is a guideline that Bulbasaur would readily pass, but would exclude things that are even less notable. "At least as notable as Bulbasaur" harks back to the old Pokemon test, and that had a certain merit.—Kww(talk) 19:22, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm trying to imagine an article that would persuasively pass the three prongs but not have a *mention* in an independent reliable secondary source. I can't think of one. What sort of article do you see this guideline as keeping incorrectly? Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. I feel the same way. Most of the examples we came up with ended up having at least one mention. But I think that misses the point (IMO) of the guideline. My support for this guideline stems from my understanding that the mechanism by which the GNG determines notability isn't fair to fictional subjects. Independent source coverage of fictional elements is idiosyncratic at best--bearing no relation to internal importance or continuity. We accept this arbitrary result because the guideline is so effective and (relatively) objective otherwise. To me, FICT is a way to fill in those gaps--while still demanding some coverage so the article isn't buried in OR. Protonk (talk) 19:28, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

That's a point of disagreement: I think the GNG is 100% fair to fictional topics. My support for this guideline comes from a desire simply to see the argument be over with. I've lost the war, and I'm trying to negotiate an acceptable surrender. I've asked for one point, and both of you state that you don't think the criteria I'm asking for will ever make a difference. I don't see the objection.—Kww(talk) 20:35, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

My objection is that it adds a requirement of content to a guideline that is currently a set of requirements about availability. That is, it adds a point that amounts to a hoop to jump through, but does not seem to actually filter anything that existing hoops don't. That's just going to serve to delete articles that could have passed the guideline. Plus, instruction creep is bad - if we can get by with three prongs, a fourth prong should be avoided. If I thought any of the three existing prongs could be cut without affecting what is and isn't deleted, I'd cut those prongs to to get to as simple a guideline as possible. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:54, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

As well, I noted over 20 independent sources in the Smallville article, about 10 from TV Guide, some NYTime non-episode summaries, some interviews from a couple of non-WB run fan sites, AOL, E Online, and more. I also note that with all that material collapsed into one article, it makes for a good article. Imagine however, that each character had an article, as if we'd cut that one page into many. Almost all would be easy candidates for AfD. This is exactly was I said here a few says ago. When Notability at the per-character level fails, it can built built in a list-article like the Smallville one. Separately, those are about zilcho, but seen together, the repeated real world content in interviews shows some level of notability for the actors and characters portrayed; and makes a case for an aggregate level of notability. ThuranX (talk) 18:21, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

OK - so before we continue on this independence argument, kww - can you show me an article that A) Satisfies this proposal, B) Lacks any independent sources for its subject, and C) Would probably get deleted at AFD? Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:51, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

To provide a real-world example, Phil, I would have to sit down for hours researching. I'm sure that at least one of the 490 Pokemon could be argued past all three prongs, but given that even the starters can't find good independent sources, there's bound to be a zero-mention among the more minor ones. I'll provide a hypothetical instead: DVD commentary by a makeup designer on a science fiction movie documenting that the aliens were inspired by a someone in an old freak-show. Clearly real world info, the first prong is passed by pretty much any movie that was actually released, and someone will argue that that particular race of aliens is key to understanding that movie. My addition would block the article on an objective basis, without it, we are into an argument. Bear in mind my perspective ... I only nominate articles at AFD if they fail objective criteria, because I don't have the inclination to argue subjective ones. It's pretty rare that I even bring up a subjective criterion at AFD. As written, the second prong gives me nothing to go on at all. If you don't believe that the negative situation will ever occur, what's your objection to including it?—Kww(talk) 20:35, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I suspect your DVD commentary example is a good one for me here. Yes, someone will argue that it's essential to understanding the movie. But on the other hand, I don't think that'll be terribly persuasive to people. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:50, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

As long as we have our "no consensus equals keep" tradition, it doesn't have to be extremely persuasive. People tend to fall in line behind objective criteria, and be swayed by pretty crappy arguments in their absence.—Kww(talk) 00:57, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Where is Notability proposal for fictional subjects?

Hello, I clicked on a link in the "Centralized discussion" box at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 January 9. The link promised "Notability proposal for fictional subjects." However, I don't see a proposal. Can someone tell me where the proposal is, and change the link so that it brings other readers to the proposal? Thank you. Fg2 (talk) 03:37, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

This is the proposal. Please take the tiem to read through the article (policy), and the talk page. It's a lot, but it's worth it. ThuranX (talk) 03:58, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, but that's a lot to ask. I don't see a proposal. It must be distributed among many places. It's not organized in a form that I can understand. Fg2 (talk) 04:01, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

More specifically, it's at WP:FICT (while this is the talk page for it, that would be the project page). --MASEM 04:05, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. In that case, it would be much clearer if the link led to the proposal, as the link text states, rather than to the talk page, where readers search for a proposal that's not there. That would be very helpful. Fg2 (talk) 04:12, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, the link leads to the discussion, see. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:50, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly the problem. The link says it leads to a proposal, but it leads to the discussion. Editors read through the discussion looking for a proposal, and don't find one. Please change the link to lead to the proposal. Fg2 (talk) 21:44, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The proposal is that we enact this as a guideline. Do you want us to link to a poll? Protonk (talk) 23:27, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I think what he means is there should be a clear spot, i.e. poll/vote etc., here on the talk page for those who get directed here. Maybe have a brief (very brief) intro paragraph telling the reader they are on the talk page of a proposed guideline, to read over it and come back and vote or comment on whether they think it should be accepted. If possible, be nice if it was at the top of the talk page.Hooper (talk) 23:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Nah, nothing that elaborate. All I ask is to change the link so it points to Wikipedia:Notability (fiction). It's as easy as that. Or, a clear opening section here on the discussion page (right below the templates) containing a header saying "Proposal" and something like "We propose to make Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) a guideline." would be fine instead, if the link points to it. It doesn't have to be any more than that. That way people who come here from centralized discussions can see where the proposal is, instead of getting lost in prongs. Fg2 (talk) 03:29, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

An observation about tightening standards

Scrolling up through the discussion since I last checked in, there's a couple of pushes for "why don't we just use the GNG" or "this should be removed or tightened because there are people who will think anything passes it."

I wrote this guideline about the arguments that were proving persuasive to reasonable non-partisans in the inclusion debates. I did not write it to try to shut down radicals on either side of the debate. Part of this is that there's no way to do that. If what you want is a guideline that will get Pokemon fans to vote delete on Pokemon articles, the guideline is going to have to read "All Pokemon articles will be deleted, and dissent is not permitted." And even then, you'll have to block to enforce it.

I think the important question to ask, when looking at, say, the second prong is not "How will a rabid fan use this," because that's not a useful question - the rabid fans will vote keep. Period. They will ignore this guideline, so what it says doesn't matter for them. The question is whether a rabid fan who is insisting that Clefairy is crucial to the understanding of Pokemon is going to persuade someone who would otherwise have voted "delete."

And I have a hard time believing that's the case. I think this guideline does succeed at that ask - it documents well the arguments that are actually persuasive - the swing arguments. Which is all it can do. We cannot hope to stop the fanboys. They are a problematic chunk of editors who are going to ignore anything that tells them to stop.

What we can do is empower reasonable people. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:18, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

This little statement makes this entire proposal seem like a Deletionist tool and really weakens a chance for many of us "swing votes" to accept it. This really just put me off. Hooper (talk) 17:03, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Only if you're actually looking for a reason to be put off. I think Phil is actually arguing that this guideline doesn't give deletionist a better tool, and doesn't allow fanatical editors who are biased in their opinions to be all willy-nilly with their article creation either. I think Phil was trying to say that this guideline is structured so that people who are normally on the fence will have a clearer idea of what constitutes a reason to have an article on an element of fiction - thus, hopefully, making those people on the fence actually have a clean side to take (instead of just voting with the crowd because they really are not sure because they don't know the topic that well).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:10, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. I mean, I'm firmly on the inclusionist side. And I'm similarly pessimistic that this guideline will stop mass AfD nominations of articles that don't fall afoul of this policy. I don't think the extremeists on either side are going to be happy with a compromise proposal, and the most pathological of those extremists are going to ignore it. But we don't write policy for the pathological nutjobs. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:15, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The truth is that if this guideline fails, deletionists will still rely upon WP:N which hasn't been successfully changed, removed, or relaxed. Deltionists have no incentive to compromise, because our guidelines already reflect what they believe. Most non-notable fiction articles (at least within WP:VG, which is my area of focus) are being deleted, redirected, and merged generally in accordance with WP:N. Which is why there's no downside for pushing WP:FICT to become more like WP:N: either it's a guideline that echos WP:N, or it's a failed guideline that leaves WP:N in its place. Randomran (talk) 18:08, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, if this proposal fails, we'll remain in an anarchic state, the arbcom will take an episodes and characters case instead of deferring to the community which is making progress, and the status quo of inconsistent deletion dominated by fanboyism will remain. Which is distinct from WP:N. :) Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

If there's anything I'm learning from the stubborn people on either side, it's that maybe they like the anarchic state. It turns every article into a WP:BATTLEGROUND, which gives them something to do. Randomran (talk) 18:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

No lie. Protonk (talk) 18:52, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

It's interesting that the inclusionists see this as a deletionist plot, when the weakening of notability, above, would instead allow any material at all to be proof of notability, even the creator's own assertion, so long as he publishes it. this policy guts WP:N. It would be enough, under this policy, for me to webpublish a poem, then go to a poetry forum and say 'this poem is really good and should be read', then come here, write a page about he poem and cite my own forum posting as legit. That's not notability, it's a web-wide walled garden effect. If anything, this weakening of standards opens the door to every character from every episode of every show to an article by virtue of having appeared at all. Man in blue hat and green jacket in background of scene 14, episode 14, season 8 of Law & Order: Special victims Unit would be 'notable' because someone was there. this is absurd. The Smallville article referenced by Bignole is a good example of the proper solution for so many fiction situations. One well written, nicely referenced article, about the entire cast of the show, with a few main characters getting independent articles. Why can't we strive toward that model on all shows? ThuranX (talk) 18:48, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• No, it wouldn't be enough. Works of fiction are covered under the GNG or some accepted SNG. We don't cover works of fiction. Likewise it doesn't open the door to "every character ever". If anything, the third plank demands some comment from creators on the subject (or from sources in passing). And frankly I think we are just assuming that "fanboys" will run roughshod over planks 1 and 2. Protonk (talk) 18:51, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Indeed, even if your poem inside a work, that would not be enough because all you've done is verify that your poem exists and we explicitly say verification is not enough.
  • There is only so much one can to stop those on the extremes. You can give advice and examples, but anyone determined to do something will always find a way to do it.じんない 18:59, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Though if it's unclear that this does not apply to works of fiction but fictional elements, that should be clarified... Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:26, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Even so, though, the same applies. We shouldn't have an article on an element of a fictional work because that work's creator pushes it. The work's creator has an interest in pushing his stuff, that's exactly why we don't accept sources that aren't independent like corporate press releases or autobiographies. Non-independent sources don't show notability, they just show marketing. It's independent and reliable sources that show notability. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:28, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Independent sources still show marketing - they show that it's profitable to publish on this - that the fans of this are the sorts of fans with disposable incomes and a willingness to buy more stuff. I mean, yes - it is theoretically possible that the writer of a work that well exceeds the bare minimum for notability would self-publish reams of real-world commentary on key aspects of the fictional work to game the system and cause the creation of articles on all of the characters of that fictional work. On the other hand, those articles would be well-referenced articles on significant elements of a major fictional work, with ample real-world commentary. I don't care if the system is gamed so long as we still win. :) Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

But we get into circular logic here. Notability is a means to an end of a factual, verifiable and neutral encyclopedia. And notability hasn't always meant "independent, reliable sources". More importantly, it we reject this guideline we just have to consign ourselves to more cases where articles get kept for basically meeting the standards laid out in FICT but we insist that the GNG is binding. Protonk (talk) 19:44, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

But the GNG is NOT binding, it's a guideline. And this seeks to be a conflicting guideline. It would be far better for all of wikipedia to make WP:N a policy, instead of a guideline. ThuranX (talk) 20:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Except that won't happen. It's a guideline and not a policy because it's at best only suggested what makes a source notable; too many exceptions to the rules exist. It would also get problems with people trying to wikilaywer WP:IGNORE to not be able to override it, which is already a problem in some cases.じんない 20:34, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

If you are suggesting we explicitly say that the GNG is not applicable at all to articles about fiction or fictional elements, I would support this. We would still need escape clauses in case something which looks absurdly minor for some reason was the subject of serious major discussion, but we should base what we include on what is important. Despite the statement at WP:N, I think the closest equivalent normal word to Notability is actually Importance. What I think would happen is not that we would have more or fewer articles, but that we would have articles with a greater degree of appropriateness and encyclopedic content. I am not interested in tightening or loosening standards, but in better content. DGG (talk) 22:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's a good idea. I mean, if something is outright notable even though it fails prongs 1 or 2, we shouldn't delete it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:33, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll oppose without reservation a statement that the GNG should be ignored for classes of articles. This is a very measured attempt to expand our coverage beyond the GNG, and I'm happy with how it goes about doing it. Saying that fiction doesn't need to be under the GNG is too much. Protonk (talk) 23:26, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Revoking the GNG is asinine. Without any community accepted form of control, we'll get a hundred thousand pieces of shit that cannot be AfD'd, because there's nothing to look to for a standard. There may be exceptions to the GNG, but as a whole, I don't think there really ought to be. As I've said before, collapse things which are just the wrong side of notable into a bigger article, like the Smallville link above, and delete the complete crap, and hew tightly to the GNG. I've yet to see a reason why we can't just push that to a policy. The only people interested in avoiding WP:N are people who are either fans or fanatics of their topic, and see it as 'if their dumb crap goes, mine will too', or who want to exploit it for POV shove, like the Fringe Science and self-marketing crowds. WP would be better off with WP:N as a policy. ThuranX (talk) 01:07, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree in theory, but in practice that just continues an unpleasant war. I think the concept of carving out a limited exception to allow some kind of leeway for fiction articles is a good one. It does worry me that I can't get people to agree that at least one mention in an independent source is necessary. That puts me in the "oppose" column for this version of the guideline, which is a shame. I'm willing to compromise, but to not require any independent sourcing at all doesn't seem to be a compromise at all.—Kww(talk) 01:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that those arguing for higher standards are the ones making most of the concessions and compromises. Reyk _YO! 02:14, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

And it seems to those arguing for inclusion that they're making most of the concessions. This seems to me evidence that we've hit a fairly equitable compromise. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:49, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent)Kww, I think you're flat out wrong. the 'unpleasant war' is between people who know how to write for research papers and formal, non-fictional material, and those fans and enthusiasts of shows who want everyone to know about their favorite aspect. Only one of those viewpoints is correct. No one is arguing that all fiction must go, but we cannot maintain, at any level of quality 2500 pokemon articles, in addition to one for every yuhgiho, digimon, and so on card game/sales pitch cartoon character out there. Not every character in every book (see the macguffin example from discworld below), needs an article. Fans of that show forced a no consensus/default keep for an article about a character no one ever saw in the series! There's no real content there, and it's a damn macguffin, a deus ex situation, and they kept it? Any relaxation of high standards will result in a wider-open valve in the GIGO plumbing. This sort of thing is absurd. I LIKE fiction, the only GA I've ever taken credit for was fiction (I've contributed to others, but I don't keep track), but it needs to be well and solidly sourced. Much of the fiction content of WP cannot meet any reasonable burden of WP:N. The solution is NOT to lower the bar till it does, but to raise the quality of the project by merging and folding together articles into ones that establish a modicum of Real World notability. Don't gut the rules, enforce them more. It can be done. ThuranX (talk) 07:01, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Kww and ThuranX, I agree with you entirely, but I believe the test for "Real-world coverage" is such an important improvement in requirements of this guideline that it is worth compromising on other issues. Until recently, real-world coverage was considered to be a mere issue of style, and as a consequence, this guideline skirted around it. If we can agree on this issue alone, I feel we have made a major breakthrough, and I would ask you consider compromise on independent sourcing. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:03, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Gavin, the two are inseparable. Real World Coverage must come from independent sources, otherwise it's essentially the same concept as a walled garden. A creator bombastically pumping up his work isn't a neutral source, nor is he 'real world', because hes' directly tied to the topic. ThuranX (talk) 21:25, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• In abstract terms, I would agree with you. But having helped rewrite the article Kender which is not independently sourced, I had an ephiphany on the Road to Damascus (if that is the right phrase, or is it a mixed metaphor?), which I will share with you. In practical terms, if you are connected with a work of fiction (say you are the author, agent or publisher), the temptation is to provide coverage that is in universe and trivial, just in case you give your target market the impression that the work of fiction you are promoting requires above average intelligence to understand (e.g. it is high-brow, and my be considered boring by some). Press releases and flap copy therefore seldom provide any insight into works or fiction for this reason (thank heavens for WP:NOT#PLOT), because parties with an interest with a work of fiction don't want to provide any context, analysis, criticism or commentary about the work just in case they disuade consumers from buying their product. However, once an non-inedpendent source (like the author or developer) writes something significant and real-world about their creation, it almost forces them to be honest about their work. At least that is what happened with the creators of Kender - they wrote a significant real-world but honest commentary about their creation (how it was developed, for what reason they were created and the problems they encountered in doing so). In my view, once coverage is significant and real-world, I think we don't have to worry whether the source is independent or not. However, I may be naïve in my assessment, and I always think it is possible that I may be mistaken, but I think you too should consider this - can you think of an article that contains significant real-world coverage that is not encyclopedic? If so, does it matter whether the source is independent or not? I think you may be confusing the two concepts - perhaps you believe that only significant real-world coverage can come from an independent source. I no longer do. --Gavin Collins (talk) 22:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Gavin, Kender is a well-written, well sourced article (my compliments, all fiction articles should be so well composed) but one that fails to make solid arguments for notability. Few sources are independent of the company; one interview and one review of computer games. Surely there must be a few interviews with Hickman, Weis, Grubb, and others about them? My point, though, is that the majority of sources there are about making Kender look interesting, because that leads to more sales for TSR/WOTC. I know I seem draconian about this, but, and I hate to use this phrase, a bright line precludes the slippery slope which non-independent sources present to us. I admit that the Kender article is a GREAT report on them, in the style of a character study or book report; but it fails to assert a significant notability, and could easily be merged to one of the appropriate articles about D&D or Krynn or Dragonlance. I know the setting, I was a teenage Dragonlance dork. But I have to look at this as an editor and writer, and I still can't see the notability. Now to go find my old copy of Weasel's Luck. Ah, nostalgia. ThuranX (talk) 00:33, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• I agree that Kender is an article that provides little, if any, evidence of notability, as it cites only one independent secondary source, and that citation is not substantial. However, the significant real-world coverage it contains does approximate the coverage from reliable secondary sources. This is why I can compromise on the issue of indepenedent sourcing if it means keeping Masem and Phil Sandifer on board: I think the requirement for substantial real-world coverage is an effective means of maintaining the quality of article content, and in terms of the quality of guidance this represents, I think this give this version of WP:FICT an advantage over earlier proposals.--Gavin Collins (talk) 09:18, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Gavin, you seem to be incapable of understanding my point. Allow me to emphasize here: THERE IS NO SIGNIFICANT REAL WORLD COVERAGE IN KENDER. There is creator commentary, publication history stuff, and so on, but it's all sourced back to NON-Independent sources. It's got 'in the novel' material, and it has 'in the studio of the writer' material, but it's got no 'out in the marketplace of ideas' materials. Creator material fails as a substitute for a solidly established level of notability outside the garden. You have the creators waxing poetic about their own genius and how it can be seen that Kender was cleverly conceived, but SO what? Where in that article does anything demonstrate that Kender matter to people outside of Kender writers? We don't even have a set of critical reviews of the novels, pointing out some unique facet of the race, or even of specific members of the race. The closest we get is a line about being like hobbits, which is of course the point of the race. The article needs independent sources to bring us taht viewpoint that Kender matter. ThuranX (talk) 01:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

It isn't notable, but it would very easily survive AfD. Guidelines are suppposed to be descriptive, so if this one can preclude an AfD that isn't going anywhere, great. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:30, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• I beg to differ from ThuranX. The significant real-world coverage sourced from creator commentary is about the creation and development of a fictional character, which is what you would expect to find in an article about a fictional character (but is sadly missing from most such articles), even if it was independently sourced. I agree that there is no 'out in the marketplace of ideas' type coverage in this article, but I would not expect it anyway because that is usually a matter dealt with relation to works of fiction such as books or movies, which is the medium though which characters get such exposure.
  Although I agree that there is no independent sourcing to demonstrate the importance of the Kender as a ficitonal element, the commentary from the authors approximates what you would expect to find from an independent source on a similar topic. I think we risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater on this issue: just because a source is not independent, it does not mean that coverage from that source is promotional per se. I admit the overall purpose of writing the commentary is promotional in the broadest sense, but since nobody does something for nothing, even independent commentary can be seen to a promotional in some way. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:31, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding importance within the fictional work

There's been some concerns about this second prong - particularly that any article can satisfy it. I'm skeptical of this - it seems to me that one is hard pressed to argue that Clefairy is essential to understanding Pokemon, or that Buzzy Beetles are essential to understanding Super Mario Brothers. But people seem very much afraid of the arguments that could be marshalled for topics such as these by fanboys, and particularly afraid that these arguments might be persuasive.

Can someone give an example? I'd like to see exactly what sorts of arguments that a minor element is essential to understanding a work of fiction people are afraid of, to see if there's a way to tighten the prong to deal with these bad arguments. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:59, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• How about this? Reyk _YO! 05:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Well, if one does hold that he's not essential to understanding the work (I honestly have no idea, since I'm not a Discworld fan), that one still seems to me to fail prong 3 rather abjectly. That said, I take your point that frequency of mention is too easy an argument for this prong. I'll tighten the language up a bit, including some explicit anti-frequency wording. That should ward off that approach. Any others? Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
    • At least one of the Discworld novels, Going Postal, hinges on one of Johnson's inventions. But to argue that this justifies a whole article on the guy seems absurd to me. Reyk _YO! 09:15, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • There. I've tightened it, making it clear that the threshold is that the element must be central enough to be necessary to understanding the work as a whole. I also altered the "appears in every episode" example, as it was, I think, misleading. Does anyone still see spurious arguments to address this prong that would be problematic? Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:23, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Another list. This one shows different level of characters within the same work being argued that they should be merged.じんない 06:05, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, but I'm on a strict "no comments on list proposals" rule, because otherwise the fragile consensus we've been building for months breaks. :) But the arguments I'm seeing for keeping unmerged there seem to me to be ones about the *worth* of the character in an artistic sense, as opposed to ones that satisfy the second prong. In fact, I think the second prong could probably persuasively be used to shoot those arguments down. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Examples? Try Yorick and Oddjob. The former still exists as a separate article while the latter has been redirected to a list. I consider this redirection to be disruptive since it is my strong opinion that Oddjob is essential to a full understanding of the work Goldfinger and I would expect to have little difficulty in supporting this. Yorick provides an interesting counter-example in that the character appears only in one scene, in the indirect form of his skull, and yet is well-recognised as an important element of the story. The Yorick article seems to be fine but Oddjob clearly needs rescuing. I shall attend to this in due course but leave matters as they are now in order to preserve understanding of the example. Oh, and another example which comes to mind is Figwit. That was taken to AFD but is now a good article nominee. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:11, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

  Not all consolidation is disruptive. For example, the Oddjob merge isn't disruptive (though I think it may have real-world potential, along with Jaws). When someone redirects an article on a major character to the fictional work, without trying to summarise that major character, it may be disruptive (depending on whether a description is already there or not). In actual fact, with Figwit, you've given an example of something that may pass prongs 1 and 3 (LOTR is a seminal work, and real world information has been incorporated into the article), but is a bit dodgy on prong 2. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:04, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

  Alas, poor Yorick… now needs watching for the pointy-minded. Oddjob certainly seem well covered in that list, so I see no issue with that redirect. Figwit is an excellant example of fanwank — an EILF, it would seem. Thanks.
  Jack Merridew 11:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Importance within a fictional work seems like something that's always going to be subjective to a degree, I don't think the example given in the current guideline ("the character is one of the main characters for the entire series") is particularly helpful as what defines a main character would seem to be the crux of the issue. Is Neville Longbottom a main character in the Harry Potter series? He appears in every book and plays an important role but there is obviously at least one "tier of importance" above him. Guest9999 (talk) 10:31, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• In answer to Phil Sandifer, there is no way to tighten the test for "Importance within the fictional work" to counter the argument that every element of fiction is important. Every element of fiction is important in someway, otherwise it would not have been created in the first place. The reasons why we need to get rid of the test for "Importance within the fictional work" are threefold:

1. The idea that you can somehow objectively test for "Importance within the fictional work" is mistaken, because importance it is such a vague and subjective concept;
2. Any arguement that a fictional element is important or unimportant is a self-referencing because there is no guide on fiction which makes such distinctions, and even if there was, not everyone would accept its authority;
3. You can't very a test for relative importance, because comparing one fictional element with another (within or between works of fiction) is like comparing chalk and cheese. Sure, you can say that one Pokemon character is more important than another, but by how much? How can you verify this? Clearly the idea of relative importance makes no sense, as there is no such measure (like degrees) that can be verified.

The bottom line is that if you make a claim that something is important, then you have substantiate that claim with evidence, and no amount of hearsay, personal opinion or even persuasive argument can provide a substitute for evidence.--Gavin Collins (talk) 11:52, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

If we were leaving it at "importance within the fictional work," I'd agree with you, but that's not all the prong says. I tend to think that essentialness to understanding the work as a whole is less vague. No? Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:57, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I would guess that Neville Longbottom would not get deleted. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:57, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• But why? Because he is "important within the fictional work"? The article says he is "a secondary character" (although even this claim is not substantiated), but whether a secondary character is important, slightly important or unimportant can't be verified. Sooner or later we will have to agree that "importance" can't be defined or quantified in an objective way.--Gavin Collins (talk) 15:24, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• One of the reasons he would be kept is that he's a fairly major character. Another issue here - and this is why I originally stressed that the three prong test was not three hurdles to clear, but something taken as a whole, is that doing exceptionally well on one prong can (and will) bootstrap another. We tolerate articles on characters that are less important to Harry Potter than we do for characters that are similarly important to Final Fantasy? Why? Because Harry Potter is of greater cultural significance. This is perhaps something that we need to look at restoring to the proposal - the note that the prongs are not just pass/fail - all three need to be addressed, but addressing one exceptionally can compensate for weakly addressing another to a degree. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:35, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Since this article cites the author as saying he is a "significant" character, that is some evidence that the character passes the test for "importance within the fictional work". But if I had to rely on your opinion alone, then whether he is important or unimportant is a matter of personal opinion, not fact. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:27, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Remember the goal...

It is getting very frustrating to watch this version of FICT get torn apart in the same way that my earlier version was - the fact that some feel it's too soft while some feel it's too harsh on fiction topics while most everyone else feels its ok implies that it is a middle compromise and solution - moving it in either direction from this point to satisfy either side is making it less compelling. It is particularly worrisome given a recent ArbCom refusal to heard a E&C3 case with knowledge that this FICT was close to being put into active use.

It needs to be stressed that we are not trying to create anything new here, but instead mimicking the general behavior that presently happens at AFD and other places when fiction elements are brought forth. Yes, this means that articles are kept based on the strength of the "importance in the work" alone, but it also means articles are merged/deleted when they lack any significant real-world coverage. At the present time, we want to secure a FICT that follows consensus, not to create the consensus to be followed.

At some point, there needs to be a trust of good faith that if we affirm this version mimicks current processes, then those that both create fiction element articles as well as those that go about attempting to merge and delete them will use this guideline (which again, is very loosely prescriptive, not descriptive nor requirements) to continue to go about what they do but in a manner that goes with the spirit of this. If one or two don't, that's a problem to be solved by behavioral dispute resolution, but if there's a much larger scale of abuse either way (eg the definition in the second prong is twisted in all sorts of manners to assert that any character is "important", or if editors attempt to demand much stronger evidence of real-world details than the basics that the third prong is looking for) then we come back here and try to fix it. The problem right now is that it is impossible to tell which way this may be off (if it is) because the encyclopedia has been operating without a working FICT for a year and a half, using a bunch of other policies and guidelines to substitute; putting this compromise out and seeing how it works in practice is really the best solution to making sure this works.

Thus the only thing is to make sure that all editors reviewing this see this as a compromise position - not the positive they feel that FICT needs to be at, but one that is balanced between the inclusionists and deletionists position. This FICT is not going to make all fiction elements go away as it clearly allows for many many cases of where articles can be kept (and of course, this doesn't mean topics that fail this aren't covered); similarly this FICT is not intended to allow for rampant creation of fiction element articles as there are three prongs that must be satisfied. What should be going on now is trying to tweak any language that allows this guideline to stay true to the core portion that's been in discussion for two months but to try to help stem the concerns of those either side of central (eg the changing of the wording of the second prong to define better what "importance to the work" is.) What we should not be doing is drastically altering this guideline - if for some reason this fails to gain consensus we can certainly then change the core aspects, but lets wait to see what happens before derailing the work from the last two months on this.

Now, that said, the only major cavaet on all this is that we are only describing a test for notability but not what to do once satisfied or not, and that's where I see additional problems coming into play - all this is related to what I see are much larger issues of how inclusion, notability, article vs. topic, and a host of other policy/guideline issues have been convoluted from several years of buildup to get here. Without trying to address the problem of notability in general being both an inclusion guideline and a style guideline (as to describe what topics get articles), maybe we need to have addressed some changes at WP:WAF at the same time at least to describe what happens when a fiction element fails the three prongs. We did purposely choose to ignore the issues of non-notable lists, which I still believe is the right course, but we may end up in a case that what this version of FICT shows is only half the picture that editors expect to see when we describe notability for fiction, and we'll have to actually spend the time to work out the non-notable list issue in conjunction with this. I don't know if we need to do that, but that's the only failing I see right now, and one we chose to ignore purposely to get this out first. I certainly don't expect that if/when this is marked a guideline instead of proposed that we will never be coming back to it, but for the present, it is the best we can do without significant change to fiction-related policies/guidelines or some other general WP policies to start with. --MASEM 13:14, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• I disagree that we are mimicking the general behavior that presently happens at AFD and other places. Rather, it is a matter of fact we are drafting the inclusion criteria for fictional topics. It has become clear to me (if not to you) that the test for "Importance within the fictional work" does not work, so whether it has been here for a month or more won't make it any better. If we agree on a compromise, I think you will agree it has to at least work in order to get through the process of peer review. If you can come up with another test that can be verified objectively, I am right behind you. But right now, I suggest we ditch the "importance" test, and split the "real-world test into "Substantial coverage" and "Real-world coverage" on the grounds that this is evidence of importance that can be objectively verified. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:38, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • The only reason it's not working for you is that you are failing to take good faith into account that consensus (not one single editor) will be able to decide what the importance to the work is. For example, the Video Games project has already determined that things like weapons, common enemies, and the like are not generally important enough to even be covered as a list, much less as individual articles, save in very rare cases (BFG 9000, and even that's a weak case). I am reasonable confident and have good faith that other projects can work out their own standards. I believe the anime project has, and the D&D project has had to do the same. But again, this is happening at the level of consensus, not a single editor. --MASEM 15:47, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, BFG9000 gets through better under the current wording. The BFG9000 is, I think, clearly central to understanding Doom's cultural importance. :) (Similarly, exceptionally iconic enemies - Goombas and Koopas from Mario are the two that spring to mind - should probably get through.) Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:52, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

That said, this may be a point to suggest consulting the relevant WikiProjects for subject-specific guidance on what a key element of the work of fiction is. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:53, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• In answer to Masem, when you say consensus will be able to decide what the importance to the work is, I think you really mean the personal opinions of more than one editor will be able to decide what is and is not important. Even if I was to agree with you that this guideline should mimic what goes on at AFD, the test for "Importance within the fictional work" will not work in this environment, for where you have editors with conflicting personal opinions, there is no way of resolving their disagreement, unless you can prove or disprove their views. This guideline should be providing a mechanism that helps resolve these disputes baed on opinion, not to make them more intractable. The only way to establish whether an element of fiction is important is to provide evidence of importance. Also, please also consider the advantage of having an evidence best test: evidence of importance can be used to write an encyclopedic article, but personal opinion is not allowed by WP:OR. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:09, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Consensus and good faith. We cannot be descriptive with this guideline (much less any guideline or policy), and while you may want objective evidence for everything, there are going to be cases where common sense has to come into play as well. --MASEM 16:20, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Consensus and good faith was once the basis for a belief that the world is flat. Evidence in the form of citations is what is need to write an encyclopedia.--Gavin Collins (talk) 16:30, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oh come now, we aren't removing a requirement for citations. Protonk (talk) 16:50, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Just the independent ones.—Kww(talk) 16:52, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Touche. The only reason I don't want to add that is because (frankly) the "multiple" portion of the GNG doesn't seem to apply in practice. If an independent source covered a fictional element, keeping it would be uncontroversial. Where the margin lies is right beyond that. Protonk (talk) 17:25, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm troubled by this whole "opinion" line of thought, as it seems to suggest that opinions just spring fully formed at random. Yes, there's no bright line test for importance to the fictional work. But that's not equivalent to the suggestion that there's no standards whatsoever. People are going to respond on this one within a relatively predictable range, and there are clear arguments to be marshalled for a claim of importance. Which is why, above, I wanted to focus on what sorts of arguments people saw as problematic. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:17, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Mimicking an aspect of society doesn't validate it. Millions acquiesced to segregation, knowing it was wrong but going along with it anyways, to preserve older feelings of superiority. Doesn't make it right. The independent citations requirement cannot be removed. It WILL open the door for cruft and crap. If you think there aren't editors here chafing at the bit to race out and create 50,000 moronic articles on things like Flintstone Technology, Jetson Technology, Pokemon breeding habits, and The crumbs that fall from Chowder's mouth, you are wrong. We need a bright line against that to start from, and having an independent source, even one, to establish notability, is that bright line start. It'd be even better if we could call for two, to prevent sarcastic jokes and off the cuff one-liners from a writer from being interpreted as real notability, but I know that makes too much sense to ever work here. One Indepent Source MUST be found. ThuranX (talk) 18:27, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Jesus. Let's try and hold back from the comparisons to segregation. Protonk (talk) 18:28, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Ok; the crowds loved the witch burnings, public executions and the gladiatorial games. Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:30, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• Given that we're trying to mimick the status quo that's happening right now - and that these articles either aren't being created in massive droves, or if they are created, they are deleted at AFD - this version of FICT is sufficient to prevent them. (And yes, Protonk is right that the comparison to segregation is inappropriate in this). --MASEM 18:45, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with Phil Sandifer that opinions don't just spring fully formed at random. What I am asking is that the source of those opinions needs to be provided in their support. I think it is reasonable to ask for evidence that an element of fiction is important. --Gavin Collins (talk) 18:39, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oh. OK, that's fine. I can take care of that problem. Have a look at the current wording - I think it makes clear that even though this is not a bright line distinction, it is also not "I like it." Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:47, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• I see alot of conflict in the current version:

Importance within the fictional work: The subject should be an episode or non-cameo character that is important or central to understanding the work as a whole. Assessing the importance involves researching commentary from reliable sources on the topic. The work itself can also indicate importance to some extent, but avoid original research or comparisons. Focus on indisputable facts (e.g. "the character is one of the main characters for the entire series") to prove importance, rather than personal opinion. Mere frequency of appearance or mention in the work does not satisfy this prong - it is necessary to show that understanding of the subject is essential to understanding the work, not just on the level of plot detail, but in terms of its artistic, cultural, or historical significance. In all cases, a clear explanation with evidence of what the element contributes to an overall understanding of the work is necessary - bald assertions of importance are insufficient.

Firstly the idea that a topic on fiction has to be about an episode or non-cameo character is too limiting - what happend to unimportant artifacts like Excalibur?Secondly, the statment that "Assessing the importance involves researching commentary from reliable secondary source on the topic is a bit pointless: why research if you can cite the sources? This is a bit like saying, "I know there is evidence that this topic is important, but I am not going to show it to you" (i.e. I am going to sulk). Thirdly, the statement "In all cases, a clear explanation with evidence of what the element contributes to an overall understanding of the work is necessary" still means that a bald assertions of importance is acceptable, so long as it drawn out and verbose (i.e. my opinion counts because it can only be expressed in big words). This test still does not work because it is based on subjective opinion (that can't be proven) about a concept ("importance") that is too vague to define. --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:21, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the word "importance" as much as I could work it out, as I think it's serving as a bit of a red herring. I've also removed the "research" bit. I'm sympathetic to you on episode or non-cameo character. Randomran just reverted a change to this, though, so I'd want to hear from him before re-fixing this. I'm not sure what, if anything, can be done about the "drawn out and verbose" critique. It seems there like you want a bright line test - I don't think one is appropriate. But is the current version at least an improvement,i n your eyes? Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:39, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

To say that Excalibur is "not important" is to admit ignorance of its impact, and therefore forfeit any right to make rules on whether or not it should be allowed. Hooper (talk) 21:52, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Saying "episdoes and non-cameo characters" is a way of guaranteeing that the "importance" prong is not abused with mere assertions of WP:ILIKEIT. It acts as a filter, so we're not including everything that you see at someone's developer blog -- which might include virtually anything. Cameo characters, joke characters, inanimate objects, and other nouns should probably still meet WP:N. They're the exception and not the rule. I feel pretty strongly about this, as if we remove it Gavin's worst concerns become true: the second prong becomes a meaningless test that everything passes. Randomran (talk) 22:00, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi; I have a brief comment here. Saying "episodes and non-cameo characters" seems, to me, to make the proposal sound like it mainly deals with television and movies... maybe "episodes and recurring aspects in the work (such as non-cameo characters)". That way, it would also apply to locations, items, etc. within the work.

Also, I'm not sure if this has already been discussed (too many archives to look through!), but if an article, like Kender, passes prongs 1 and 3 without a problem, but completely fails prong 2, would that mean that it fails the test? If it's a relatively minor aspect of a major game/movie/book/etc., and consists mainly of real-world coverage, would it still pass the test because of prongs 1 and 3? Thanks. -Drilnoth (talk) 03:14, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I've always been a proponent of using the term "fictional element", as it encompasses characters, episodes, and the like. As for your Kender example. To me, prong 3 is the strongest prong. If you satisfy that prong (I mean it as the real world coverage is abundant, and not some minute paragraph of information), but the element itself is not that major to the fiction then I would say you have to ask one question: "Can this exist on the parent page without making that page too large, or causing this subject to lose the strength it has on its own?"  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:17, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

If the test for "importance within a fictional work" was a test that every element of fiction could pass, the new version does not seem to be a test at all:

Role within the fictional work: The subject should be an episode, non-cameo character, or other fictional element that is central to understanding the work as a whole. This is best judged via commentary from reliable sources on the topic. The work itself can also be used for this to some extent, but avoid original research or comparisons. Focus on indisputable facts (e.g. "the character is one of the main characters for the entire series") to prove the importance of the subject, rather than personal opinion. Mere frequency of appearance or mention in the work does not satisfy this prong – it is necessary to show that understanding of the subject is essential to understanding the work, not just on the level of plot detail, but in terms of its artistic, cultural, or historical significance. In all cases, a clear explanation with evidence of what the element contributes to an overall understanding of the work is necessary – bald assertions of significance are insufficient.

My reading of this version is that a fictional element qualifies for a standalone article if...it is a episode, non-cameo character, or other fictional element! --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:11, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

..."that is necessary to understanding the work as a whole [...] not just on the level of plot detail, but in terms of artistic, cultural, or historical significance [...] bald assertions of significance are insufficient". I don't see how outside your cynical, asinine reading of this everything is allowed. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 09:43, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• Perhaps I have not explained myself clearly. The previous version used the test for "importance within a fictional work" as one of the inclusion criteria for a stand article, but this was too vague and subjective criteria to be defined. Now the test is whether an element of fiction is "an episode, non-cameo character, or other fictional element that is central to understanding the work as a whole". No matter how you qualify this criteria, every element of fiction meets this requirement. I can't think of a single fictional topic that could fail this test, becuase every element of fiction is central to understanding the work as a whole, othewise it would not have been created in the first place. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:00, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Gavin, I think you are confusing "understanding the work as a whole" and "understanding everything about the work". The first, which is what the guideline uses, is about being able to understand the basic idea of the work. Would an article on James T. Kirk cause me to not understand Star Trek as a whole if it were to be removed (speaking of course that it had the real world coverage to satisfy prong 3)...I would say most definitely, because you cannot understand the most basic of ideas behind Star Trek without talking about James Kirk. Now, would it inhibit your understanding of House if we didn't have an article on the patient from episode 56? Not in the least. So, I disagree with your assertion that every fictional element could pass this test. Being important to understanding the work as a whole does not equal being important to understanding every minute aspect of the work.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:30, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• You make a valid point, but this issue goes back to my earlier arguement that you can't measure importance, or make comparison between characters when it comes to their relative importance (now relabled "important or central to understanding the work") without making a highly subjective judgement.
  Taking your hypothetical example of the patient from episode 56 from the series House (TV series), in my view the patients are actually "quite important" to each episode, because the lead characters are focused on diagnosing their medical conditions. When I argue that they are "quite important" (either individually or as a group), I think I have provided you with reasonable justification (from my point of view at least) for a standalone article if we ignore the the fact (for a moment) there is no content for such article.
  Note that it is fairly easy to argue that an element of fiction is "important or central to understanding the work", because without that element, the whole work may or may not fail to work as a narrative, and pretending that characters can or can't be removed or substituted without loss of understanding is a matter of personal speculation.
  The problem with making relative distinctions between characters such as primary, secondary or some other category in terms of importance is that this is even more subjective. What unimportant to you may be very important to the fans, for reasons such a particularly attractive actor might play the patient from episode 56. For instance, if you have a look at the discussion Why Is Cameron More Important?, you can see that this character has been the subject of several redirects when the article was totally unsourced. Only by providing evidence of importance can you resolve such disputes, and this is what this guideline should be saying, rather than making opinion the benchmark for importance. --Gavin Collins (talk) 13:19, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• Responding to User:Bignole. Thanks; that's pretty much what I thought, but I wanted to be sure.
• Respond to others regarding the "episode, non-cameo" thing. When I posted, it didn't have the fictional elements listed there; it was added since then. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:25, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
• Gavin, what you are basically describing - demanding importance be shown by sources - is applying content guidelines to the editing process, and that is not a proper use of the guidelines. For example, when writing any article on WP using any types of sources but lets say they are all secondary, I have to engage in WP:OR to write it, synthesizing my own words and language (since we can't copy directly) to represent what the secondary sources say. Is that a violation of OR? No - it's understood that editors have to have to employ a non-interpretive translation of the sources to write an article, such as long as the end content doesn't employ OR, that's fine. Decisions on whether a fiction element topic is "important" fall into the same class of edits - at the end of a day we need an article that isn't indiscriminate and passes WP:V, so we want sources to help support the V part, but you are never going to find a source that says "this is not an indiscriminate topic", instead we use editors' judgment to make that assertion, with simple rules of thumb to help. With the third prong this makes sure we have articles that are indiscriminate and have appropriate sourcing. In both cases, this is not done in a vacuum, this is a wiki so all such edits can be checked and changed if determined to be misused. Basically, the decision of "importance" is something that is done behind the WP curtain before it is presented to the reader and thus doesn't have to meet the general content guidelines that apply to writing text in mainspace. --MASEM 14:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• I would have to disagree with you on your first point. The test for importance is not dissimilar to notability in that it can be proven by citing evidence, and what I am proposing is that substantial real-world coverage is the evidence of importance. If importance were just a matter of opinion then it really has no bearing on whether a topic is suitable for inclusion or not, since someone will hold an opinion as to whether this or that character should have its own article. As you point out, these opinions can't be included in the article itself, so we need substantial real-world coverage anyway if not to provide evidence of importance but to write the article itself. In any case, editors' judgment cannot be the basis for inclusion criteria, otherwise there would be no constraint on the creation of content forks which repeat what has been said else where. We have to have a substantive test that helps identify what is and is not a fork, and opinion can't be the basis for that test. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:12, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• But opinion is used throughout guidelines to make choices that aren't obviously bright lines. WP:N requires "significant coverage in secondary sources". "Secondary sources" is certainly a bright line, but what is "significant"? We can point to cases that certainly are, and cases that certainly aren't, but there's a lot of ground between the two, and thus opinion is used to determine when the significance threshold has been passed. Same with potential synthesis of facts per WP:OR - sometimes the synthesize is plainly obvious and thus allowed, while other times it's OR/POV to include it, and opinion (at the wiki scale) is used to decide when the line is crossed. Same with this version of FICT - some elements are clearly important, some clearly aren't, but there's a wide range that may fall between that, and thus opinion is used to make the final decision. Guidelines are meant to be prescription, and having clauses that allow for editors' opinions to make the final choice are perfectly appropriate - as long as the resulting article still meets the goals of WP. --MASEM 15:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• Opinion is used to evaluate the evidence, sure, but as this test stands, no evidence is required to support the claim that an element of fiction is "important" (or "is central to understanding the work as a whole", as it has been relabeled by Phil Sandifer). Your statement that "some elements are clearly important, some clearly aren't, but there's a wide range that may fall between that, and thus opinion is used to make the final decision" does not provide any useful guidance at all, as every person will have a different opinion on this matter. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• There is evidence - the work of fiction itself in addition to any sources that might (but not always) be there for the element. And it's ok if every person has a different opinion on whether a topic is important - its consensus that drives the final decision. If a guideline does not have a point where it calls out for editors' opinion, then it is doing something wrong because guidelines are not descriptive. --MASEM 16:21, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• An element of fiction is important because...it appears in the work of fiction itself? I am sorry guys, this prong does not work. --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• Instead of advocating for removing the prong, perhaps you might gain more traction and support if you found a way to fix the prong? Don't tell me we can't say straight up what *isn't* important, even if it's hard to come up with a test for what *is* important. Randomran (talk) 21:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• That is the point - it can't be fixed because you can't test an element of fiction to see if it is central to understanding the work, as this is too vague and too subjective a concept to define it objectively. The only way forward in my view is as follows:

An element of ficiton is presumed to be central to understanding of the work and therefore important enough for inclusion in Wikipedia as a standalone article if if the fictional work from which they are derived cite evidence of notability (i.e. the test for "importance of the work"), the element is the subject of significant coverage (the "Significance" test) and real-world information must exist on the subject (the "Real-world" test).

This is a simple rehash of my earlier proposal, Three-pronged test for Elements of Fiction. I think this is a better way forward than having a test for whether an element of fiction is central to understanding the work. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:30, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

You can at least set a base-line minimum.じんない 09:37, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you can. Remember the concept of what is "central to understanding of the work" is purely subjective. There is not a baseline that will work in every case. My view is that this prong will be starting point for many disputes based on differences of opinion. --Gavin Collins (talk) 07:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

No it isn't "purely" subjective. It may be "largely" subjective, but there are clearly some things that aren't "central" to understanding the work.じんない 09:10, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

reality check: how to compromise

This guideline can be distilled down to a simple trade.

• Inclusionists concede that real-world coverage is necessary for an article.
• Deletionists concede that real-world coverage need not come from independent journalism or scholarship, but from developer commentary. (Official blogs and diaries, DVD special features and commentary, documentaries approved by the marketing department.)

Both sides make a concession to the other side, in order to meet in the middle.

So what if you don't like that compromise?

Then you're going to have to come up with a different compromise. And it's a two way street. You can't just say "I believe this should mimic WP:N as closely as possible". You can't just say "I think we should write fictional articles from primary sources". You have to give away something to people you disagree with. You cannot say "we should do X", unless you concede "but I'll let you do Y".

And what if you don't want to make any concessions at all?

Then we're going to keep on seeing articles deleted/redirected one-by-one, on the basis that they lack reliable third-party sources. (Take a moment and imagine all the articles that have been deleted in the past year if that helps.) And we're going to see other articles kept whenever a group of hardcore fans reach the critical mass to reach no consensus. (I'm sure you can remember a few of those too.) And every single article will continue to be a WP:BATTLEGROUND.

Those are your choices. Sign onto this guideline. If not, find something else you can give to the other side. If not, then I guess you're allowed to insist that you have the "one true vision" for the ideal encyclopedia, but it will only allow the scattershot of deletion to continue. Randomran (talk) 18:57, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Baloney. There's no need to compromise. WP:N should be policy. If it is, then the need for this entire farce is obviated. As for the 'TRUTH' invocation above, I like how your call for compromise is 'Do it MY way or you're wrong'. It's simple. Without Independent Sources, there's no proof of notability. Of course the developers' feel it's notable, they're biased; they invested time, money, life into their work. Their Official Blog takes two hours to set up, and does NOTHING to make them more notable. If anyone can argue convincingly why an author's own blog defines notability, i'm open to hearing it, but I don't think there's such an argument. If a film has made it to DVD< odds are good there's some independent sources; in the rare cases there are none, there's a reason for it. It wasn't notable enough to take notice of. ThuranX (talk) 19:05, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

....You guys could just stop arguing over something that most the community will just ignore anyway....just a thought. Hooper (talk) 19:07, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying you have to compromise. But if you don't, you're going to see a lot of articles kept that don't meet WP:N. Randomran (talk) 19:08, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure, as long as said developer commentary is sufficiently thorough enough (e.g., we're looking for something on the thoroughness of this); that is, we can do at least 65-35 on IU-OOU material. Sceptre ^(talk) 19:17, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

That's not thorough, it's trivia! that's nonsense, and has NO bearing on the notability of the series, nor episode. It's one of those technical glitch things that happens on any series. So what? You can't use that to establish the notability of the episode at all. it's really 'notable' that due to a production mistake/misunderstanding, the drum based background music was switched for one DVD release? No. It's not. ThuranX (talk) 19:32, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I said "thoroughness", not the topic. McCreary does write good, adequately long essays about the series' music. And if all you're here to do is kick in your heels and refuse to compromise, don't post here. That goes for the inclusionists too. Sceptre ^(talk) 19:40, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Two points:

• I fail to see how reducing from "direct and detailed examination in multiple independent, third-party sources" to "some kind of mention in at least one independent third-party source" isn't a compromise.
• I don't care at all about real-world impact coverage. Once you've managed to prove notability, I think people should go ahead and describe the thing the best they can. If someone can adequately source the internal operation of a BFG9000], that's fine to add, once it has been determined that there should be an article about the BFG9000 at all.

—Kww(talk) 19:49, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Hm. I'm really, really not liking that image. Back in the 80s, there were a bunch of unlicensed hint guides for Nintendo games - books full of tricks and tips. A lot of enemies and the like are going to get some mention in those books. If that's the threshold, then we open the door to a flood of in-universe crap. I'm much more comfortable with the syllogistic reasoning that if the fictional work is extremely notable, the element is solidly important to the fictional work, and some real-world perspective is available (such that it's possible to write an article that at least rudimentally meets our policies) the article probably isn't going to be enough of a train wreck to delete.
• I mean, when you get down to it, our deletion policy amounts to "we delete shitty articles with no hope of improvement." Any inclusion guideline amounts to an attempt to quantify that sentiment. I think the three prong test, as it stands, does a better job than this independence idea. I mean, I'm open to having my mind changed here - what is an article that passes the three prong test but should be deleted because of a lack of available independent sources? Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:02, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
• I see you're trying to compromise in good faith. But you'll have to ask inclusionists why they don't think coverage in one reliable third party source is fair. But to state the obvious, it's probably still too close to WP:N for their liking. Randomran (talk) 20:49, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not even asking for coverage ... just mention.—Kww(talk) 21:08, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think if we can agree that real-world coverage need not come from independent journalism or scholarship, then we can bring the inclusionist in on a compromise. I am in favour, because the requirement for significant real-world coverage represents a big improvement in this guideline, as it encourages better quality articles. As for the importance test, I can take it or leave it as it is ineffectual in any case. --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:32, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

And I oppose this, because it allows self-published materials to become an assertion of notability. I've never argued against creator content being used to flesh out the development/production sections of articles ,but it's not sufficient for establishing notability. It can't be, by the definitions and our rules about no self-promotional materials. ThuranX (talk) 22:36, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

While you may believe this, the WP:N RFC resulted in the support of subnotability guidelines allowing to define what types of sources can be used for notability (per B.2). Thus, to allow the use of non-independent sources seems to be in line with this --MASEM 22:52, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I see someone said above that "WP:N should be the policy" but WP:N is not policy in the first place, but a general guideline with provision for exceptions. fiction s a whole general class of things is an exception. DGG (talk) 22:40, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Randomran, that's a false choice. Wikipedia:Dispute resolution suggests a survey. I suggested a survey to Masem in June — six months ago — and I wrote one up in October. I also asked Phil Sandifer about it in October. Phil Sandifer said it was too long and too demanding. 39 minutes later, Phil Sandifer created User:Phil Sandifer/Fiction proposal. Then on November 21, Phil Sandifer unprotected[11][12] WP:FICT and moved his proposal over — and Phil's version of FICT is the one we are currently discussing. --Pixelface (talk) 09:40, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I started a thread here about the survey on October 14, 2008. David Fuchs, Masem, Collectonian, and Phil Sandifer commented. I'll start a new thread about it below. --Pixelface (talk) 09:44, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

And so we're back to square one. When you say "WP:N applies unconditionally to fiction", you achieve the same result as saying "fiction is completely exempt from WP:N". Okay, you get the comfort of knowing you're right, but that won't stop every AFD from becoming a WP:BATTLEGROUND of WP:N versus a few pockets of fans. Sometimes entire categories will be deleted, and sometimes a slew of articles will be stonewalled by a group of fans. I hope people are comfortable with that kind of chaotic outcome, because that's what happens when you insist on a hard line without any concessions. Randomran (talk) 22:47, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course, I'm not sure that a hard line view that is openly unwilling to compromise is one that is meaningfully working towards consensus. When one is holding one of the most extreme views in a discussion and is unwilling to budge from it, there are limits to how much one's voice counts in decision making. Wikipedia's decision making process is not hostage to extreme partisans. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:08, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

there remains room to compromise in one of two manners:

1. admit that the applicability of WP:N to fictional elements is undetermined and that each case is determined ad hoc
2. accept that notability in the case of fictional elements depends upon importance of the element and of the fiction, and that less important ones should be merged. Such was the original intent of the 2-prong test, until it became diverted by attempts to deal with the WP:N GNG.

If it isn't clear, I strongly support the second. We can then come down to finding the way to decide on what degrees of notability merits an article. (Actually, I think it's the concept of "article" that makes the compromise difficult. We should really be saying that the amount of content depends upon the importance of the element and of the fiction and the available material; we could more easily agree on how to divide it up if we accepted that the amount of content should be moderately extensive, but not to the extent of a fan wiki. if we're going to have very sparse content, it doesn't matter whether we give the paragraphs the dignity of separate articles. )DGG (talk) 03:54, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to wander a bit into philosophical land here, because I strongly disagree with your last sentence. I really dislike extremely short articles. To go to a non-fiction example, I really dislike short articles about five different singles from an album, and then having a sixth article about the album. All five single articles wind up with discussion of the artist and discussion of the album, usually a reference to two or more of the other singles, and the album article winds up repeating half of it. To make sense of everything and fact check it, I usually wind up with seven or eight tabs open, and then trying to figure out why three of the articles say one thing, two say something different, and two others have something completely different. If people would focus on presenting an album with six singles as a logical cohesive chunk, all that information would have better context, be easier to understand, easier to fact check, and not scattered all over the hell. Fiction's the same way: is a BFG9000 article easier to understand inside the context of the game, or not? 99% of the time, these articles would be better merged, and denying them an article isn't denying them importance, it's recognising that information about them only makes sense in a very specific context.—Kww(talk) 04:27, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Kww, you misread me. I am saying that the main point is not to have very sparse content on important topics, not that its better to have it in separate articles. I even agree with you that if we must have almost content-free coverage of something, because there's nothing much to say, it is better not to do it in separate articles. The only reason for keeping an almost empty article on a fictional topic separate is because it can and should be promptly expanded. I'm saying I do not want to fight for separate article particularly, that's not the point. The point is to have full content. I am willing to accept almost ny degree of combining article.s I am not will to accept cutting content. I want a full description of each major characters role in a story, but where it's located doesn't worry me much. What does worry me, is when people cut the content back to nothing under NOT PLOT. Ads I see it, NOT PLOT only means that the coverage of the topic of a fictional work as a whole should be more than plot. DGG (talk) 23:16, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Ding — I agree with a lot of what you're saying here; see my other comments hereabouts. Inclusion criteria is about whether an article warrants a stand-alone article, not about the appropriateness of having any coverage at all. We may still differ on the depth of coverage that is appropriate for an element and what's 'important', but my core concern is the proliferation of poor quality articles. The fanboys need to be pushed towards fewer articles where they will of necessity have to refine their work and build upwards, not outwards. The core issues with opening the floodgates to billions and billions of non-notable articles are a) widespread mediocrity and b) scalability issues that adversely affect the project as a whole. Cheers, Jack Merridew 05:44, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• Once again, I have to bring you back down to reality. The most important part of a compromise isn't saying "this is what I want", but saying "this is what I'm willing to give up." If you're not willing to give up anything -- as an inclusionist -- there will be no compromise. And WP:N will continue to be the only guideline we have, and we will continue to see articles deleted one by one, even if a few fans can occasionally "save" an article that doesn't meet WP:N for a few months or so. Randomran (talk) 04:29, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

This is a false choice. Notability does have to come from significant coverage in reliable independent sources; someone else taking note. If you remove that you open the floodgates to millions of articles about every trivial element of every pop culture franchise. You'll be granting gravitas to press releases, DVD commentaries, bonus discs, official fansites and author sites. The big players will crank out exactly what is needed to meet this proposed guideline. Wikipedia is big; coverage here is valuable to the big franchises (and to the wanna-be-big). Anyone think the marketing directors won't tailor their campaigns to cover the low bar being proposed here?

re some of the above; larger articles are better articles (32kb was quaint; ignore it). That notability being required for a stand-along article results in pressure to cover elements in a higher level article is a good thing — it results in better articles.

If the fans flood an Afd with a great many 'keeps' that amount to ILIKEIT, they should be discounted; If you'd like us to give something up, I'll offer this:

• Wikia.com — Find and collaborate with people who love what you love.

They can have it all. Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:11, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Although I find the notion to be hilarious, if marketing directors do crank out developer commentary, merchandise, and all that other fun stuff, it's indicative enough of real world impact and its bound to get note. And no, this doesn't open the floodgates. Stuff that is still too trivial for coverage gets shot down by prong two because at a certain point, there's not a whole lot you can write about something. The Fable 2 guidebook had an entire section devoted to developer commentary on how they designed dungeon textures, trees, and stuff like that. Tree (Fable 2) is not going to get much traction to be kept at AfD no matter how much developer commentary in the world exists for it. I can live with stuff in the gray zone past this being kept so long as we have an objective criteria here to use. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 07:51, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

If they're doing their job well enough and their, ah, product is not an utter dud, and they do get taken note of (by someone else; someone independent), then they pass WP:N; but if that doesn't happen, they've still put their blather out and that alone is worthless re notability.

• See Tree (Fable II)

Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Depends on the quality of their blather. If I can write a decent paragraph on conception/design/influences, I can live with it. Slaving ourselves to NOTE isn't really the best path here. IMO, take the compromise and go with it. We're ultimately better off with the guideline than reverting back to the NOTE/NOT#PLOT/WEIGHT wars that haven't resulted in anything constructive. And why the link to a nonexistent page? — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 09:46, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

The marketing types write high quality blather. A marketing guy I knew once offered a joke;

How do you know when a marketing guy is lying? His lips are moving.
(could easily be a recycled lawyer joke)

I am quite aware that reasonable people on the inclusionist side will make reasonable edits per this and other guidelines; they'd make reasonable edits absent these, too ( i.e. they're reasonable ;)

However, anyone can edit and that includes the unreasonable; they will run with a loose guideline.

I have no problem with such sources being used by editors such as yourself using said blather to write your decent paragraph. Nothing about this proposed guideline helps you do this or impedes your doing it; that's just editing.

I do have an issue with the carefully crafted words of sources that are not independent being used to determine 'notability'. Fundamentally 'notability' means that someone took note; this means someone else.

link was just a joke.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:36, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Notability of the work on the whole still has to be demonstrated by independent sources; once this is done, what is the issue with sourcing details from non-independent ones? We should be aiming to give readers as complete an understanding of the notable works we discuss as is possible by summarising the information from available sources. We do this by writing a top level article on the work, and then breaking out sub-articles using WP:SUMMARYSTYLE in ever increasing detail. This allows casual readers to view articles at the level of detail they are interested in without having to go into unnecessary detail, but provides more details for those who are more interested in the topic. This seems to me to be an ideal compromise in terms of how our articles should be structured -- what, exactly, is wrong with this vision? JulesH (talk) 10:15, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:SUMMARYSTYLE also advises that articles should not be spun out unless the new article can demonstrate notability on its own merits. The fact is that creating an article is an implicit assertion that the subject is covered as an independent in is own right, not merely as part of the coverage of a greater whole. In the case of articles spun out from their parent because of length this is usually not a problem; if there's so much to be written about a subtopic that it can no longer fit in the parent article then there's almost always some real-world information to justify treating it as an encyclopedic subject in its own right- or it's a vast mound of fancrap that should never have been allowed to reach those proportions and should be trimmed severely. Reyk _YO! 10:29, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Except that isn't followed at all. You won't believe many times I've nominated non-notable/POV forks for AFD and had an influx of "keep itz sourced eleventy one". Even though the article title isn't the subject of sources; it's the parent article... Sceptre ^(talk) 06:55, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Question: why does the subject of the article need to be the main subject of the source? WP:N does not require this; it only requires that the sources exist, are reliable and address the topic in non-trivial depth. I've seen this argument in AFDs, and I really do wonder why it's even relevant. JulesH (talk) 09:43, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I think what Sceptre means is that sources which are only relevant to the parent article are being used to "source" the fork. I've seen the same thing myself, particularly in AfDs for fiction. Reyk _YO! 20:00, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

10,000,000,000 non-notable articles. Jack Merridew 10:36, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Ignoring your hyperbolic number, yes. Articles that do not meet WP:N, but clearly have the support of the community given that, despite as systematized an effort to remove them as I have ever seen on Wikipedia, they're still there. You can point to WP:N all you want, but policy literalism isn't how we roll here, and the material evidence that the community *does not apply WP:N* as written to fiction articles, and that applying WP:N as written *does not have the consensus of the community* stops that argument dead.

I mean, this no retreat, no surrender approach is nonsense. You place yourself outside of the debate. When you openly say that you're unwilling to moderate your position or consider the evidence of what the community actually does in practice, you're out of the debate. You can howl all you want, but you're just the nutter howling on the sidelines, not someone whose view can meaningfully be considered when talking about consensus.Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

It is not my fault that legions of fans are disrupting reasonable AfDs. Yes, they want their trivial articles. When they show up at a discussion with little more than ILIKEIT, they are the ones who should be viewed as on the sidelines.

It is not too much to ask that some independent source have commented on something in a non-trivial way to justify an article. Really, it's a big internet, there are a lot of books and reputable publications in this world. And you want to allow articles on subjects that no one but the folks who wrote it have much to say about? Isn't that it?

Really, take it to Wikia. That's what it's for. Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:55, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

If you assume that anyone who disagrees with your desired result is part of a disruptive legion, you're not really going to come to conclusions that are useful for the purposes of discussion and consensus. I carefully avoided looking at the "legions of fans" circumstances - in fact, when I wrote the first draft of this, I expressly called for being careful in areas where there are a lot of devoted fans, as they can skew results. But the fact of the matter is, reasonable, non-fanboy people are persuaded by arguments other than WP:N. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:07, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Phil, your comments about Jack are not civil. Just because an editor has a different opinion from your own, it does not invalidate them or their viewpoint. Lets just take each arguement in good faith, consider it strengths and weakness, rather than labeling them right or wrong. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:12, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Calling a number of editors "disruptive" merely for expressing their viewpoint at an AFD isn't civil either. I think that's the only point Phil Sandifer was trying to make. And let me add, insisting by WP:N might make Jack feel good, but it's not going to stop the "fans" who are "disrupting" AFDs and ultimately keeping the article. Randomran (talk) 16:15, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Given how thoroughly we disagree, I suspect you know I don't consider disagreement with me to be invalidating. My objection is that, unlike you, Jack seems unwilling to budge his position, and, in fact, is dismissing those who support keeping articles he wants deleted as a "legion of fans" who should be ignored. I do think that if you're a hard partisan who isn't going to budge your viewpoint or compromise, Wikipedia policy making is not the place for you. Because it depends on middle ground, consensus, and compromise. And I think, as a practical matter, there are limits to how much such approaches can factor into decision making, because it's important not to let policy be held hostage by the extremes. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:19, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't lump anyone who disagrees with me into one 'legion'. I am well aware that there are reasonable people about with whom I disagree. Look, I've seen you about on this site for four years; you're a reasonable person, but I don't agree with you about this. I see serious issues of scalability with the WMF projects. 2,700,000 articles is already a problem. I've also seen this problem on other language 'pedias (and Indonesian television is just awful).

Too many of the pop-culture areas are flooded with low-quality articles. Sure, that content can be improved, but the TVs in this world are cranking out 'content' 24/7. The issue of inclusion criteria is about granularity; coverage of all this content will be better if more of that coverage is in fewer, but higher quality, articles. If you open the floodgates to non-notable subjects you will just allow the creation a great number of of low quality articles. All that can be said for a great number of fictional elements amounts to plot summary; that's easy rote typing that requires little analysis and composition, and the legions have their heads in-universe. Limiting the flat growth of a topic area will result in better coverage because they will have to build up in fewer (better) articles, not out in an infinite number of poor articles. Cheers, Jack Merridew 16:33, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

We have to live with the fact that content is being generated at a rate faster than can be cataloged by anyone but fanboys. Wikipedia exists partially because it recognized that. Encyclopedias that relied on people disinterested in the subject matter (or paid) didn't have near the breadth of coverage. Also, LOLBULLETS. Protonk (talk) 16:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

That would be the lunatics running the asylum ;) That road leads to the project fragmenting into private fiefdoms. If groups want to secede from the project fine (great, in some cases) → Wikia.com.

I have no real issue with many of these trivial elements getting some coverage; "Bullet bill" is a list entry, which seems about right; he had an article, once, which was bad. Breadth of coverage is not the same as an infinite number of stand-alone articles. Too many in the Fiction-Fan Legion will only write shitty little in-universe articles. They need to be hauled, kicking and screaming, no doubt, in the direction of writing more appropriate coverage; specifically: fewer, but higher quality, articles.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:37, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

(Oudent) Bullet edit war. :) Protonk (talk) 16:45, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Bullet bill. Protonk (talk) 16:48, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

My bitch about bullets amounts to this; they muddy the indenting and the two styles should not be mixed. Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:37, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I know. I just wanted to razz you. I have no problem with you changing my default formatting (either all bullets or all colons) as need be to keep it formatted. :) Protonk (talk) 15:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Fiction survey 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On October 23, the RFC on N closed. Your request for extension was archived by Rlevse on October 24 after Stephen Bain and FloNight rejected the request and no other Arbcom members commented. On October 27 I asked you about the survey I wrote, on October 28 you said here that "I support a survey along these lines...That said, I think this survey is far too long, and far too demanding, and that it is not likely to work." 39 minutes later, you created User:Phil Sandifer/Fiction proposal. On November 21, you used your admin tools and unprotected[13][14] WP:FICT and moved your proposal over and added a note to {{fiction notice}} — and your "pronge" proposal is what we are all discussing now. --Pixelface (talk) 09:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copy-edit

The guideline needs an extensive audit by multiple users, but perhaps it should wait until this guideline gets some stability? In other words, perhaps it's futile to do it at all? — Deckiller 18:09, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• I don't think auditing is futile at any point. We've been mercifully free of serious edit wars on the page for some time. Major changes to the scope or thrust of the proposal need to be discussed, but most anything else can be changed. If there is a problem, someone is liable to gently revert it. Protonk (talk) 18:18, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

General opinions

After a very quick skim, the only major issue I see is that the section dealing with non-notable topics is far too short and basic: it makes no mention of options such as merging and transwiki. Overall, this is a nice incarnation of the original proposal, and the format is much better than the outline-based approach we had to start with back in '07. I'll have to give it a closer read, remembering that I'm a relic who has had minimal contact with Wikipedia for more than a year. — Deckiller 18:14, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• What would you like to add to that section? I know we removed some of the merge/transwiki material in an attempt to avoid apparent bias on the subject. We didn't want to have the guideline say "merge!" or "transwiki!", we just wanted to say, "here are the limits of inclusion, editorial actions are not governed by notability". that being said, I would love to have some input on how we could illustrate the non-deletion options available. Protonk (talk) 18:20, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
• I think we purposely removed this because to keep this on task and to scope of determining notability for fiction elements. Describing what to do with non-notable elements is more process than notability accessment, so it's likely better on the WP:WAF page. Furthermore, since we've yet to have a clear conclusion on the usability of non-notable lists of fiction elements (pending the RFC on WP:N), it's best not to go into it here. --MASEM 18:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Well, merging does not necessarily imply creating Cruft Lists. Correct merging is a matter of combining material into a broader topic that could assert notability, whether it be a broad "setting" or "cast of characters" article or the main article itself. (Or simply redirecting to the main article for the sake of honoring the work of the users instead of just deleting it.) It's not really biased to mention those options, since there aren't really any other options. Aside from that, I guess the consensus has shifted regarding the focus of the guideline; I'll have to read WAF and see what's changed over there. — Deckiller 18:29, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
    • It is not biased to mention the options, but it does weigh down the proposal (this was about 1/3rd of the previous FICT), and confuses matters. We want this to be read so users understand when they can create or justify a standalone article on a fiction topic - once you've made that determination for or against, there's plenty of other policy (but most importantly WAF) to describe the next steps to writing. It just simplified matters for discussion to get to the core of the matter and work from there. So it was a conscious choice here to avoid that discussion just for ease of getting to the core matter and getting that through. --MASEM 18:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
      • It's indeed unfortunate that the Wikipedia community cannot handle a more complex guideline. But judging from our experience with the first rewrite back in 2007, you're right. — Deckiller 03:42, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
• This page shouldn't mention transwiki, like you changed it to in August 2007. By the way, how's 'cratting and adminning over at the Wikia Annex workin' for ya? Any good articles sent your way lately? --Pixelface (talk) 09:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Huh...

Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines

VGSCOPE is a guideline. I didn't know that. Protonk (talk) 18:25, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

It worked for many years and produced some of Wikipedia's best articles at the time. Perhaps consensus has shifted over the last year or two. — Deckiller 18:30, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Is there anything in particular, Protonk, or that you just didn't know it (just looking for a purpose to the comment)? --Izno (talk) 18:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't know, and I was operating in crafting this guideline with the idea that VGSCOPE was a wikiproject suggestion. It is good to know that their (very sensible) suggestions are accepted as guidelines. Protonk (talk) 18:38, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting; I've just read the section;

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines#Inappropriate content

and note that they've got:

• Non-notable articles and spinouts: Avoid creating new articles on non-notable topics. A notable topic must receive significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. A smaller article should only be split from a larger topic if the new article would itself be notable.
• Numerous short articles: One large article usually provides better organization and context for a topic. Don't create multiple small articles when one larger compilation will do. The ideal article is neither too large nor too small.
• Excessive fictional details: A concise plot summary is appropriate to cover a notable game, character, or setting. Information beyond that is unnecessary and should be removed, as articles should focus on the real-world elements of a topic, such as creation and reception.

Now the real-wiki may not actually be doing this, but this might well be considered a precedent that this proposed guideline should hew more closely to. Cheers, Jack Merridew 05:01, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Renaming "importance within the fictional work"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

hmm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time to work on articles

This is about as good of a compromise — as close to middle ground — as we're going to get. Everyone needs to should, in my opinion, cut their losses and get back to article writing.

As for my issues, most of them can be directed toward WAF (and many of them have already been merged into it). — Deckiller 04:49, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

If I may, I'd like to ask one quick question before this is closed. I did read the article first. Would not "Fan Reaction" and "Reception" be considered acceptable sections on the articles? I'm seeing some of these sections being deleted completely, with edit comments like: "fan boy stuff like this doesn't belong", "cruft is not acceptable", etc. As long as references are provided to fan reaction, or critics reviews ... I thought material such as this was acceptable. I'm not trying to argue any points, simply get clarification. Thank you for your time. Ched (talk) 17:49, 13 January 2009 (UTC) (rm space) Ched (talk) 17:50, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely! Reception sections are key to encyclopedia articles, and even more important than some of the fictional elements. Reception is what lets us know its place in the world; it's really what lets us know it's truly notable. Of course, the sources should be reliable and accurate; fan blogs or gameFAQs forums are unacceptable, but professional sites with a formal editing staff and a reputation for accuracy and quality will work. — Deckiller 18:03, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The opinions of particular professional reviewers do not seem especially important since they are individual personal opinions. The more people that are involved in providing a rating or judgement then the more weight we should give to it. Box office or viewing figures seem a good objective test. If a piece of fiction has sold a million (copies, downloads, tickets, whatever) then ipso facto it has been noticed by at least a million people and this seems adequate evidence of notability. This is well-recognised in the field of popular music (a million sales = a platinum record) and the principle is easy to extend. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:13, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh absolutely. Professional reviews are usually needed only for a few things: context (explaining elements of the gameplay, perhaps), examples of praise and criticism, and as part of an overall rating chart. That's mainly for video games, though; I know that music and film handle reception a little differently. — Deckiller 19:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Sales/viewership/etc is fine for works of fiction but unfortunately when you come down to characters and other elements, the measurement isn't the same. In this case, we want reliable sources to explain why the characters/elements are notable, with those reliable sources being scholars that study such works or established reviewers that comment on such works. Of course, not every fiction element is going to have such aspects, but this is the best we'd like to have if it exists for a fiction element. --MASEM 19:25, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

A recent relevant example is Teletubbies say Eh-oh!. This is a single which sold over a million copies and yet Collectonian took the article to AFD. She was, I gather, wanting the topic to be merged with the main article on Teletubbies. Episodes of major shows like Dad's Army and Scrubs seem similar. These are repeated endlessly and attract millions of viewers and yet some insist that articles about these obviously notable elements should be merged away. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:35, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The teletubbies song falls outside of FICT, as it's a song, not a element of fiction (even if sung by fictional elements) As for regardless prime time TV shows, of course they get watched by millions, that's the benefit of being shown in prime time. Showing something is notable is to explain why it is more important for people to know than comparably similar items. So a show getting 1 million people in viewership at prime time is nothing - on the other hand, 20 million is rather significant, so maybe there's something to be said about modifying WP:EPISODE to include these things compariable to WP:MUSIC's album sales. Of course, viewership isn't the only way something can be shown to be notable; a show with less than a million viewers at prime-time may be reviewed critically well ("best show no one saw"). --MASEM 01:59, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the outdent, but this is kind of a suprefluous tangent. I saw Deckiller's comment about WAF, here and I think elsewhere, and he's beaten me to the punch that WAF also warrants some more looking at. I think some of the content/sourcing disagreements on this talk page really might be better addressed under WAF's wider umbrella. That is all; carry on. --EEMIV (talk) 02:24, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

FICT in practise in the long run

Let's see if FICT has any merits in practise in the long run. Besides the three prongs, it says that "Editors may consider whether the fictional subject could be treated as a section or part of a parent article or list instead of a standalone article, but notability guidelines do not delimit content. No part of this guideline is meant to preempt the editorial decision of content selection and presentation." So if an article passes prong 1 but (seemingly) fails prong 2 and 3, it will likely be merged into a list (or redirected if the list already summarizes the subarticle) if there is consensus or at least lack of opposition to do so. For episodes and characters, this is usually done for groups of articles.

But what happens after that merger? For example, after a long time (e.g. a year later), a group of editors comes together (in good faith or in bad faith) and nearly unanimously agrees that the merged set of articles should be unmerged, even though the restored articles would exhibit all the old wrongs (failing WP:N, WP:NOT#PLOT, WP:WAF, WP:RS, WP:OR, and the proposed FICT). None of the editors voting to unmerge shows any intention to fix these issues, and it's not entirely clear if the issues can be fixed in the first place. Based on numbers, the editorial decision thus points to an unmerge. Since the article issues remain, the articles are back to square one, and having the prongs accomplished nothing. So, do the prongs apply to merged articles as well? Does the number of editors make an editorial decision, or only if they make arguments that are in line with FICT? (This question came up in relation to Talk:Stargate_SG-1#Straw_poll:_Unmerge_the_stargate_episodes.) – sgeureka ^t•c 20:22, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

This does not apply to lists (due to not wanting to take that on at this time), nor to main articles as those are assumed to already be GNG or SNG compliant. If not, then any spinoff articles should also fail. Therefore if an article was merged/deleted and later was recreated in (almost) the same fashion, the article would be remerged/deleted given precedence. Even if the element in the work became more central to the work as whole in that year (thus meeting prong 2 now as well), it would still fail prong 3.じんない 21:09, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

And what happens when the legitimacy of precedence is disputed at well (in good faith or bad faith)? – sgeureka ^t•c 21:16, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Then they have to show how the article meets the third prong (and possibly the 2nd), or alternatively how it can meet the GNG or another appropriate SNG.じんない 21:18, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• Perhaps if we add some sort of warning, then the concerns of sgeureka might be addressed. For example, how about this paragraph, which mimics WP:BK:

It is general consensus on Wikipedia that articles should not be split and split again into ever more minutiae of detail treatment, with each split normally lowering the level of significant real-world coverage contained in an article. What this means for elements of fiction is that, while a book or television episode may be the subject of significant real-world coverage, it is not normally advisable to have a separate article on every fictional character, episode, or scene that appears in a work of fiction, such that the coverage contains only trivial detail or information about the plot. Where there is insufficient significant real-world coverage for standalone article, it is advisable to merge the article into the overarching topic (such as the fictional work itself) or a related topic (such as the author), rather than creating a content fork that duplicates coverage of the fictional element in another article".

Is this the sort of guidance that would address this issue? --Gavin Collins (talk) 01:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Articles that don't meet the inclusion criteria could be made to state that or something similar. Maybe it needs to be moved to a more prominent position?じんない 15:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments on draft

Comments were requested, here are a few - based on this version of Wikipedia:Notability (fiction):

• The "Three-pronged test for notability" is confusing, because the first applies only to the work as a whole, the second only to "in-universe" elements and the third to either the whole work or "in-universe" elements. Hence the whole work cannot satisfy the second criterion. --Philcha (talk) 21:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
  • The three-pronged test for notability is used only for the in-universe elements. — Deckiller 21:33, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
• In the same section, "the artistic or cultural importance of the fictional work" needs re-writing to avoid "high-brow" interpretations of "cultural". for example a "high-brow" would not consider Buffy the Vampire Slayer culturally important, but would be out-of-step with most of the world. So the phrase "artistic or cultural importance" just invites edit wars. --Philcha (talk) 21:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
  • It's unavoidable. I would argue that Buffy has a great deal of depth, as do many 'low brow' works. But I can just as convincingly argue that the GI Joe cartoons from the late 80s don't have the same level of depth. I can also point to depth by noting amount of scolarly coverage of the work (of which Buffy has a lot and 80s kids cartoons have less), nature of non-scholarly reviews, and creator commentary. some works are shallow, some are shakespeare. Shakespeare isn't more culturally important because it is highbrow, it is more culturally important because it rewards close reading and links the text to thematic elements. Works that don't do this honestly leave us with less to say about them (that doesn't fail NOTDIR and NOTPLOT). I prefer it remains in. Protonk (talk) 18:16, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• In the 2nd criterion of the same section, "The subject should be a fictional element that is central to understanding the work" looks very debatable. for example a running gag may be a well-known and -loved feature of a series, and may have entered the language, but is not "central to understanding the work". To take another example (possibly a sub-type of running gag) Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft and Starcraft games are well-known for the humorous responses that units make when clicked, especially if one clicks the same unit several times without giving it orders - but you can understand the games well enough without them. --Philcha (talk) 21:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• See all the discussions above about this. No policy/guideline can stop someone who is determined to be a fanatical inclusionist or deletionist.じんない 22:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• I like the the treatment of "Reliability" - "a source may still be considered reliable without these strict content controls. Wikipedians can determine whether a source meets our guideline on reliable sources through consensus." "These strict content controls" are often a fiction, for example video game reviews in big-name mags are notoriously written under very tight deadlines and there is evidence that they are subject to commercial pressure from advertisers. OTOH the best fansites and blogs know much more about their favourite than all the reviewers put together. I hope you can make ""a source may still be considered reliable ..." stick, although I am not optimistic. --Philcha (talk) 21:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
• I like most of section "Independence" especially its emphasis on "avoids corporate promotion and adheres to a neutral point of view" and its acceptance that "self-published sources such as author or developer commentary" may be valuable(see my previous comment).
• However in the sentence "Some care, however, must be taken to ensure that the distribution of fictional articles avoids corporate promotion and adheres to a neutral point of view" the phrase "the distribution of fictional articles" mystifies me. --Philcha (talk) 21:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• I believe that last part is refering to the fact anyone can come and make an article on wikipedia, even companies, and they could they try to wikilawyer that because the work is fictional and the information is from their commentary DVDs or whatnot, that means it's perfectly fine to have 50 articles about every minor element that is talked about.じんない 22:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Second prong

Looking at old versions of the proposal, I found some language that might be suitable for fixing the second prong. In an earlier version, we discussed tendencies with regards to episodes, characters, and other stuff, noting in the other stuff section that we were more skeptical of it, while remaining fairly permissive on episodes and major characters.

What if - as a variation on Randomran's whitelist idea, we noted in the second prong that episodes of and major characters of works of fiction are allowed, assuming that prongs #1 and #3 are met, and that other stuff must show exceptional importance to the fictional work as a whole?

Thus we leave importance debates only for the stuff that is already going to be marginal and hotly debated, and we note that the burden of evidence is on showing importance.

Language can be honed as needed - I just wanted quick comments before I try to write it up. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:04, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Obviously I'm supportive of this idea. But to address concerns that we're going from "too lax" to "too strict", we'd want to make sure that this doesn't exclude inanimate objects or cameo characters that have coverage in reliable secondary sources. The "other stuff" wouldn't be blacklisted, but um... "grey listed", and they could pass the rest if they have have independent coverage. Randomran (talk) 00:10, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

What if we explicitly mention the option of passing WP:N in that sentence. Something like "Other fictional elements that do not pass WP:N on their own must show exceptional importance to the fictional work as a whole." Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:24, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I still think if we are going to do an example of a whitelist, we need one for blacklist as there has been more concern about "anything" being able to be justified as "central to the plot". Minor characters are usually good examples, even if they pass the other two prongs.じんない 00:35, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm okay with a white and/or black list, so long as we have an exception whenever something meets WP:N. The importance prong could say "for an element to be important, it should be an X, a Y, or covered in reliable third-party sources". That helps us avoid being too absolute. Randomran (talk) 00:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I still think we need to leave a swath of stuff up for debate, even if it's debate without clear bright lines. We're dealing with an awful lot of articles here, and while we can set up "has some real-world content" as a standard we want for all articles, I'm really uncomfortable with setting up any sort of blacklist. There's too many articles for me to feel confident that we're not screwing over a set of 100 or 200 articles that should exist. If the price of that carefulness is that we have to deal with debates over whether or not the Starship Whatever is central to understanding Amazing Space Adventures, that's a price I think we have to be willing to pay. It's enough to, in those cases, say that some really persuasive evidence of importance is going to have to be presented.

I'm more concerned with "main character" and "episode" actually, as a whitelist. Would episodes be taken to mean issues for a comic book? Would "main character" be used to delete anyone who didn't appear in the credits of a television series? White and black lists set up hard and fast rules, and I've never seen a hard and fast rule in a deletion debate that wasn't abused.

I mean, I still do not see this as a real issue. Yes, fanboys are going to declare that everything is important and thus everything should be kept. But the most pathological of fanboys are also going to ignore this guideline and just vote keep. It's better to have the means to deal with limit cases sensibly than to waste time trying to legislate nutcases into sanity.

I mean, I'm willing to grant that episodes and main characters can be white listed. But I want to make sure that it's possible to argue the case for other things. And if we use the word "episodes," I want to make sure there's a footnote so that individual media WikiProjects can define what an episode means for them (so that, for instance, comics can set the episode threshold at "plot arc" instead of "issue.") Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that's a fair point on the black list. There are always exceptional cameo characters or objects that might be quite notable. So let's avoid the black list, and go with a white list. On that list, we should have major characters (non-cameo might be a lower threshold, if you prefer), television episodes, and comic book storylines. The white list should also include a general provision for "anything covered in reliable third-party sources", which will let anything be notable in theory. Randomran (talk) 02:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Well I don't think this'll pass with just a white list as more of the complaints have been about how easy it would be to pass rather than how easy it would be to delete. However, I do think we should have a whitelist. The whitelist should especially not have a broad sweeping statement of "anything covered in reliable third-party sources" if we refuse to do a blacklist as it will just give fuel to fire of inclusionists.じんない 03:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I think what we want is somewhere between major and non-cameo, but I'm not sure how best to describe that line. Roughly, I'd say that the line is somewhere around Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter, but I'm not sure how to quantify that to the general case. So to be clear, we have an episodes and characters white list, an explicit note that WP:N always works as well, and a note that other "exceptionally central" fictional elements are also OK? Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm comfortable erring on the side of inclusion, and setting the bar at "non-cameo" (or "non-minor" or "recurring non-minor"). Again, the goal isn't to turn the gray area into a bright line, but to just set the line at the bottom of the gray area. (Of course, if you can find a better way to phrase it, then by all means.) I might also add that the "exceptionally central" part should be made into "essential", or just left to "anything that is covered in reliable third-party sources". That's how we have an article on the BFG9000. Randomran (talk) 20:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Well for those non-minor non-cameo appearance, non-1-time, non-incidental item (such as an unremarkable weapon in a game) we could note that it could reiterate that it may still qualify for inclusion other other notability guidelines.じんない 20:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with non-cameo, then, I suppose. I still think an essentialness test is needed, though - while the BFG passes WP:N, I think it's important that we try to minimize the pool of articles that pass WP:N but not this, and that the BFG can readily pass an essentialness test (as it is a particularly vivid encapsulation of the attitude and style of Doom, which is a central part of Doom's cultural legacy). Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:32, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The test for "essentialness" is significant coverage in reliable independent sources. It's not ideal, but it's the best test of importance we have thus far. Again, the BFG9000 would be just a gun if it weren't for the fact that it attracted a buzz as a "big fucking gun". The coverage followed from its being an iconic part of the series. If we combine that general "coverage in reliable independent sources" test with a specific "white list" for non-cameo characters and episodes, I think we'll have a prong that's reasonably precise. Maybe it won't be a bright line, but at least it will give us a control against weak WP:ILIKEIT or WP:ITSUSEFUL arguments. Randomran (talk) 22:50, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• A test based on some sort of evidence should work. I don't think a test based on white and a black list will work, anymore than a test of whether a fictional element is more chalk or cheese. If Excalibur is important/essential/central to understanding the work , then you can argue so too is every fictional weapon. Only a test based on some sort of evidence will provide useful guidance, so we can drop requirements that an element of fiction has to be "non-cameo" or "non-stock". --Gavin Collins (talk) 00:08, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so I think I'm getting this.

I read through the draft and skimmed this page a bit. Instead of addressing anything specific, I have a question: by this guideline as it is right now, where do articles like World of One Piece, Dune Universe and World of Naruto stand? IIRC before now there's never been much clarification on any fiction articles besides characters, so articles about the setting of a story(more specifically, the settings of exceptionally long series that are fairly complex and play a huge role within it) were always left in some sort of vague limbo. These easily meet #1 and #2 of the three-pronged thing, but what about #3? How can a setting have specific real-world notability through third party sources?- Norse Am Legend (talk) 03:52, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

A question we purposely left off of this, as these would all fall under the idea of lists of non-notable elements, which seemed to have support from the WP:N RFC but that we have decided to hold off on trying to approach pending a third-party review of that and a deeper workthrough on that point. Mind you, settings can have real world sources (see Locations of Half-Life for one case) but it is rare. --MASEM 04:02, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

agreed that it is wise to discuss characters first; I think most of us would agree that whatever is the place for character articles, the place for articles about backgrounds and settings would be slightly more restrictive--but not at all impossible, especially for combination articles such as the ones you mention. And there has certainly been consensus that the really significant places and objects with a major role in the plot of really major fiction can be worth articles. How far down this should go is the actual question.DGG (talk) 04:39, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd say at a minimum any long running fictional series that has a world built around it beyond the confines of the main works that vastly differeniates from our own world either because of its entirely made up, or its set in a made-up parallel universe. Star Wars is a good example of what would likely fall under that criteria while Friends is a good example of what wouldn't.じんない 04:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

However, that reads like a fan-based argument. Instead, consider Camelot. Here's a setting which has featured in dozens of iterations of the myth, by numerous authors over 1200 years or more, applied to a presidential era, refers literarily to a lfawed paradise, or one where a fall from grace is impending, and so on. It's got notability and real world referentiality in droves. Where has someone used "dude, it's like if we were in the star wars universe and had 'the force' and lightsabers'" outside of possible ironic pop culture jokes or fans' own homes? I've seen references to politicians as being like Vader or the emperor, but those belong at those articles. A setting is an element of fiction like any other, and should be required to demonstrate some level of notability external to the fiction, and acknowledged by a source independent of those who profit from the fiction. ThuranX (talk) 01:38, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Further: I would suggest we reduce the proposal to just say 'Any Element'. Any element of the fiction, character, prop, setting, can be judged by the same criteria, so why differentiate only to unite a line later? As for settings, Why not create 'The Setting of Star Wars' as an article, group the in universe summary of each planet there, the creator content, and the real world notability? If you treat each work as having a setting, instead of 'a seedy cantina', a magic university, an orbiting tactical ttraining platform', and so on, then your'e actually more llikely to build up a sizable stack of real world notabiltiy fro mreviewers wh oset up the premise using their own words to explain where this story happens? ThuranX (talk) 01:43, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe element is the best. And yes, any article, including univerise or setting ones should suffice real-world coverage either though commentary on it or the use in other things. Note that, in my example above, Star Wars would also be able to meet that criteria as it certainly has such DVD or developer interviews and has been used as a basis for other non-related works, so I think it is still a good example. However my point was, even if the setting of Friends was also similarly inspiring it likely does not need it's own seperate article as it doesn't really need a seperate article to allow for understanding of the work as a whole that couldn't be summed up in a section.じんない 03:33, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

One line should be removed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No 'trousers rolled' for me, thank you

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• See also; The Library of Babel#Themes

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

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

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

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

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

Find and collaborate with people who love what you love.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

@Phil: That was my meaning.

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

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

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

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

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

Normal Again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The fact is this Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) is going to be used by "bullies"[15][16] 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"[17], 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.[18] 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 propose a novel solution

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's been discussed before.[19][20] - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:29, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Articles for Wikia

• Wikipedia:Articles for Wikia

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

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

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

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

Oh, I quite agree that demonizing deletion is inappropriate. Content by authors is routinely deleted by editors; it's what blue pencils are about (now there's a Redirect for Discussion; see [21]).

User:Inclusionist took it to;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independent sources

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I will quote myself:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In answer to Kww, if you are seeking a bright line test that will avoid getting bogged down in subjective discussions of importance, trivial coverage is not the way to go, even if it is independent. I have seen many AFD arguments made along the lines of WP:ILIKEIT supported by trivial citations; for example Colonel Warden rolls out this argument all the time[22]. In my view, substantial real-world coverage from any source (with the exception of spam) is superior to trivial content, even if it does not come from an independent source. Again, I recomend you agree to compromise on this issue of independence, and I offer this example.
In my experience, 95% of articles on fictional elements fail WP:N and contain little in the way of substantial real-world coverage. For instance, few of the characters from such well-known works such as Lord of the Rings or Star Wars cite reliable secondary sources, except perhaps Gandalf) and the featured article Jabba the Hutt. Most of the substantial real-world coverage about Jabba the Hutt actually comes from sources which are not independent, as you will see from the section on character Concept and creation. My view is that when it comes to substantial real-world coverage about fictional elements, it is less likely that independent sources can be found, as sources close to their creation and development are not, by definition, independent. Looking at the rest of the article, I think quite a lot of independent sourcing is actually trivial, and has little to do with the character itself.
In conclusion, I think the insistence that independent sources makes sense for works of fiction, but for elements of fiction, this requirement is very onerous. My view is that substantial real-world coverage provides is a bright line than clearly disguishes topics that are notable (or at least could be) from those that are not notable, and will never be. I would ask ThuranX, Kww, and Jack Merridew to reconsider their position. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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