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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Star-lists (talk | contribs) at 01:45, 18 September 2016 (→Sturgeon's Law with respect to WP:FAC). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Science fiction story?

There is a science fiction story called 90% of Everything by ???. --Anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mav (moved from article) (talk • contribs) 23:11, 22 May 2002

Supposed corollary

I heard once of a supposed corollary: 99% [sic] of everything on the internet is crud... —Preceding unsigned comment added by MartinHarper (talk • contribs) 10:03, 6 December 2002

That should be 99.999999679998654% of everything on the internet....87.194.30.174 (talk) 00:23, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Original word was "crap"

If memory serves me correctly, Harlan Ellison wrote in Again, Dangerous Visions that Sturgeon's original quote contained the word "crap:" a reporter asked him, "Mr. Sturgeon, isn't it true that 90 per cent of science fiction is crap?" "Sure, 90 per cent of science fiction is crap. But then, 90 per cent of everything is crap." (Perhaps someone who owns the book could confirm this?) -- HarmonicSphere 00:43, 22 September 2003 (UTC)[reply]

Copyvio

The contents of the entry seem to be a word for word copy of the definition in the Jargon File (http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/S/Sturgeons-Law.html) Is this ok? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anirvan (talk • contribs) 04:37, 1 July 2004

Applications of the law

Not only is 90% of everything crap, 90% of the applications of Sturgeon's Law are crap. "Know Sturgeon's Law. Apply it recursively." DS 17:29, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

DS is on to something I myself have noticed. Sturgeon's Law/Revelation, if true, leads to paradox. It only applies in 10 percent of cases!Smiloid 09:41, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rename page?

This article begins by stating "[Sturgeon's law] is sometimes confused with Sturgeon's Revelation: 'Ninety percent of everything is crud.'" then goes on to mainly discuss the revelation, and confuse it with the law. Maybe the page should be re-named? (I'm not sure how to go about doing that myself.) -- AliasXIII 21:58, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Most modern uses of the term "Sturgeon's Law" are definitely referring to the statement that "90% of everything is (crud|crap)". The OED lists that definition now, too: "A humorous aphorism which maintains that most of any body of published material, knowledge, etc., or (more generally) of everything is worthless: based on a statement by Sturgeon (see quot. 1958), usually later cited as ‘90 per cent of everything is crap’." (OED as of 2005-12-14, notated as "draft entry June 2004").
I've quickly noted this at the top of the article, but some further restructuring is probably in order. Perhaps a section talking about the origins of the term in the Revelation but the bulk of the article using it unambiguously?
--Dyfrgi 22:15, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Law / Revelation controversy

There's clearly some controversy as to whether the name Sturgeon's Law should be used for the "90% ..." observation. Equally clearly, this article as it stood was taking the side that it shouldn't.

I've rephrased it to be less outspoken. While the distinction between Sturgeon's Law and Revelation is an important one, and it is important to have a separate name for each, the fact that what most people who have heard the term understand as Sturgeon's Law is actually the Revelation is an important one that we shouldn't just dismiss out of hand. To do so violates NPOV.

I've changed it to say that it is 'more correct' to call this observation the Revelation. The article then continues discussing it using that name. I think this statement is justified, as this is clearly the name Sturgeon himself used to refer to it. But to imply that it is wrong to call it Sturgeon's Law flies in the face of the common usage, which in questions of language and naming is generally the wrong thing to do. JulesH 15:10, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So the author's description is no more valid than any random moron's? Descriptivism over reason again. The problem is that the title of the article and the redirect are reversed. --Ampwright (talk) 05:36, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization

This article is named "Sturgeon's law" (lower-case l), but the article text consistently uses "Sturgeon's Law" (upper-case l) as well as "Sturgeon's Revelation" (upper-case r). Which is it? Should the article be renamed or the text changed? By the way, Sturgeon's Law already redirects to Sturgeon's law. Ehn 11:10, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It should Sturgeon's Law.
Knowing that common nouns should not be capitalised in article titles, some Wikipedians will hypercorrect by failing to capitalise those nouns in article titles that generally are common nouns but in this instance are proper nouns. It looks to me like that's what's happened here. Binabik80 17:13, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, the list of scientific laws named after people consistently uses lower-case l. Why should this be different? Ehn 14:44, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sturgeon's Law with respect to WP:FAC

Some have suggested that Sturgeon's Law applies well to the featured article process on Wikipedia, as 90% of articles don't make it. Is this notable for inclusion in the article? — Scm83x talk 03:46, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That would probably be a violation of Wikipedia:Avoid self-references, specifically "While we're often inclined to mention the Wikipedia community that we are all part of, as well as the website features we use in creating the articles, these confuse readers of derivative works. In particular, do not refer to the fact that the page can be edited, do not refer to any Wikipedia project page or process, do not use specialized Wikipedia jargon (e.g. "POV" in place of "biased"), and do not refer to any link in the sidebar or along the top of the screen, such as the talk page, What links here, or history. Remember, articles are part of an encyclopedia, not part of the Wikipedia project being used to create them." The 'Featured Article' process wouldn't mean much to a non-Wikipedian. Ziggurat 03:58, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. A "no" and link would have sufficed. We're not all newbies ;-) at least not anymore... — Scm83x talk 04:51, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Heh, sorry. I do tend to overexplain things. It all dates back to that time twelve years ago when... ;) Ziggurat 19:58, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't say this is an over-explanation. While not everyone is a newbie, there are plenty of newbies, or near-newbies like myself, who read these pages. I'm glad to learn there has been a decision to discourage self-referential commentary. The great majority of readers would not be interested, I would suppose.Star-lists (talk) 01:43, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bell curve?

"If there is any difference in "desirability", the bell curve of a normal distribution predicts that most experiences will involve average desirability, with roughly equal occurrences of excellence and gross inadequacy." I disagree: I think it would tend to follow a Pareto distribution with 20% of the books in a genre accounting for 80% of the worthiness of the genre as a whole. I think this is probably closer to what Sturgeon had in mind. NeonMerlin 15:40, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative phrasing

Some years ago I heard Mr. Sturgeon speak at the local library. A fan in the audience asked him what the “official” percentage should be. He confessed that over the years he had used 90%, 95%, and 99%. He said that he no longer remembered the percentage he used when he first coined the phrase. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.170.48.252 (talk • contribs) 10:46, 25 July 2006

Explanation of the Law

Even if there is no redirect, an explanation of the Law as opposed to the Revelation should be present. Notably, does "nothing" mean "there does not exist such an entity" or "the entity of nothingness"?

I went and checked the story in which the Law first appeared, which was republished in the 2003 book "And Now the News...", the relevant pages of which (97-99) are in turn archived on Google Books. Reading through the source, it seems very clear to me that the intended meaning of the phrase is that, "There does not exist an entity which is always absolutely so." I'm not sure exactly how to move this into the article, or even whether it belongs in the article in the first place (though the section on this original quote does seem remarkably sparse). But hopefully it answered your question, in any case.--Philomory (talk) 03:09, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Application

Is it worth writing nine crap novels to force some-one to write a good one?

Changed Revelation -> Law

I went ahead and rewrote parts of the article from the point of view that it is almost always the "90%" meaning that is intended nowadays when people use "Sturgeon's Law". I left in the information about Sturgeon saying that originally the phrase meant "Nothing is always absolutely so", but that hasn't gained any traction as an adage and I think that it is now of historical interest only. Mike Christie (talk) 10:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted Justification section

I deleted the following text from the article, as it lacked references, states speculation as fact and reeks of original research. If anyone disagrees please tell me why. Pyreforge 09:30, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Justifying Sturgeon's Law

If there is any difference in "desirability", the bell curve of a normal distribution predicts that most experiences will involve average desirability, with roughly equal occurrences of excellence and gross inadequacy. Sturgeon's Law is an observation that once humans are exposed to excellence, mere average desirability is disappointing.[citation needed] The more proper formulation might be something like "80% of everything is crud, and 10% of everything is crap." If one either defines crud to include crap, or else defines excellence and crap to each be about 5% of all experiences, then "90% of everything is crud" would be true.[citation needed]

However, most human affair involving individual participation do not follow a normal curve, but rather a Pareto distribution, where 20% of the individuals are responsible for 80% of the activity--however defined.

Alternative phrasing

Sturgeon's Law is often cited using crap or shit instead of crud but "shit" is more commonly used.

Conclusion: Approximately 41.8 percent of the above sentence is crap. —phh (t/c) 17:39, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Corollaries

The second corollary ("Except crap. One hundred percent of crap is crap.") is an exception, not a corollary. I'm not sure if the first one needs to be there either, but the second one is just incorrect. --206.248.165.237 (talk) 03:57, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On second thought, since the first "corollary" is described in the interpretation section, I've removed the section altogether. Here is the edit if this needs to be un-done: [1]. --206.248.165.237 (talk) 04:00, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another Name

I was introduced to this rule of thumb under the name "DeCamp's Law", after L. Sprague De Camp, the author. Might I suggest there be a cross-reference to that name? Jimwelch4 (talk) 23:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC) --Jimwelch4 (talk) 23:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If we have a reliable source for that name, sure, we can add it. Where did you see it under that name? Mike Christie (talk) 23:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another corollary

I just cut this: " For the more cynically inclined, there's also Smith's corollary to Sturgeon's Law -- Sturgeon was an optimist" as unsourced; it can be readded if we find a source. Mike Christie (talk) 11:36, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Third law?

I've seen this referenced once or twice elsewhere:

STURGEON'S THIRD LAW: It is not possible to assemble a device containing small parts without dropping one of those parts in a deep pile carpet.

But I have no idea if there's any real validity to it or if it's something someone tacked on along the way. Can anyone source this quote any earlier than the collection "Science Fictionalisms" (1992) referenced here: http://unfutz.blogspot.com/2007/04/3089898-life-among-1s-and-0s.html ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.112.84.40 (talk) 21:57, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-Joke: Ammendments to Sturgeon's Law

Sturgeon’s Law: “90% of everything is crap.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Law)

Sturgeon’s Law Prime: “90% of all laws are crap.”

Surgeon’s Law Prime-prime: “90% of all laws about laws are crap.”

Surgeon’s Law Prime-prime-prime: “90% of all crappy laws about laws are crap.” —Preceding unsigned comment added by MikeRozak (talk • contribs) 08:37, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Should be "meta-law"... AnonMoos (talk) 10:36, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"See also" section

Good, concise article. In this spirit I suggest removing the link to the "Long tail" article, which appears to describe a interesting concept, yet still finding its contemporary acceptance (per its end-Dec 2010 version). Nrlsouza (talk) 07:06, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I removed it, and also removed Pareto principle, which was already linked in the main article. Mike Christie (talk – library) 12:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 2011

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus to move. 20:31, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Sturgeon's Law → Sturgeon's law – Relisted. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:08, 30 August 2011 (UTC) WP styles avoid over-capitalization, and this title is an outlier among eponymous laws (see List of eponymous laws). We should fix it back to where it was before it got capitalized in 2006 (see section above about that). Dicklyon (talk) 19:07, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.


Requested move 11 February 2014

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: rename. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:05, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Sturgeon's Law → Sturgeon's law – Consistency with other articles about eponymous laws. Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:23, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

Discussion

Any additional comments:
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
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