Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/M1911 in popular culture

M1911 in popular culture

I am nominating the following "Firearm X in Popular Culture" pages, because Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, specifically, it is not a directory of prop appearances. Moreover, these articles incur severe WP:V problems. Visual confirmation is often insufficient; there is often debate over which model of M16 is represented; short of commentary from the prop staff, these lists violate WP:V and WP:OR.

This follows the AfD's Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of firearms in films, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_firearms_in_video_games, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/M16 rifle in popular culture.

While I cannot rule out the existence of an item of pop culture that prominently featured a firearm in the way that Top Gun featured the F-14, none of these rise to the occasion. Even if it were, it would deserve a 1-liner in the main article. A wholesale list of prop appearances is irrelevant and often speculative. What's next? Honda Accord in popular culture? Ikea furniture in popular culture? I am willing to accede that a reliable source may make a statement about the ubiquity of some firearm in a film; such a statement should go in the original article.

These are not articles. That much is clear. A comprehensive list is unmaintainable, difficult to verify, and ultimately original research unless the prop director can be quoted on the matter. Visual confirmation does not satisfy WP:V, as evidenced by the debates over what a weapon was. (is that a MAC-10 or a lookalike? Which Beretta did he carry? Who cares?)

Can they be converted to lists or categories? Given the severe verifiability problems and notability issues, I say not. Do we need a category for each prop?

Up for co-nomination are:

I am nominating these together because the criteria for deletion applies equally to each. Mmx1 01:44, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Added 17:00, 28 September 2005

Heckler & Koch MP5 in popular culture
Beretta 93R in popular culture
FN P90 in popular culture (recently reverted from a redirect)

Another editor brought these to my attention. The same arguments pro/con apply equally unless there are individual objections below.

Recommend Delete and protect against recreation as they appear to be popular steamvalves. --Mmx1 02:01, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Useful list, although I'm sure for what. --Mysmartmouth 02:56, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have created some of these articles, and my reason for doing so was to keep this kind of trivia out of the main firearm/weapon article. If any pop culture section is left in a firearm/weapon article it tends to grow out of control as every video-gamer wants to put their favourite game in, same thing with movies. If we just delete these references as and when they are put it in leads to revert wars and the whole thing just becomes a never ending maintenance issue on the articles. Some say "only leave in the references which are somehow iconic or significant", but of course that's entirely subjective as to which are iconic or significant. The solution which seemed to work best was to create the separate articles for pop culture refs, so that they could just grow and all the gamers and film buffs would be happy but the main article would be left alone. Not ideal - I agree that this stuff shouldn't be in at all, but it WILL keep being put back in the main articles unless you give them somewhere else to put it. So I say Keep unless someone has a better solution to the problem of pop culture cruft. Riddley 03:10, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hence my recommendation for a protection against recreation template on these pages. Point them to that and this AfD discussion. A better solution that has worked well on the aircraft pages was to establish a wikiproject consensus [1], which established itself in the wikiproject guideline on contentWikipedia:WikiProject_Aircraft/page_content. These guidelines have stifled many potential edit wars. How about we take it up before the general Wikiproject Military History?--Mmx1 03:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I absolutely agree that a consensus policy in the project which we could point to would be essential if we are to "police" the main articles to keep the trivia out. Riddley 03:39, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Brought it before the Military History wikiproject: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Popular_Culture. Fire away. --Mmx1 04:01, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all per nom. Arbusto 03:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per Riddley's recommendation.Orca1 9904 03:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)Orca1_9904[reply]
Delete Trivial nonsense. I realize weapons fetishists love to seek out where their particular favorite gun was used in a film or anime, but it's just not important. Keep out all the pop culture references, unless it is something truly iconic like James Bond using the Walther PPK. --Junky 03:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete them all per nom. Listcruft. Nuke the sites from orbit, it's the only way to be sure. --Dennisthe2 05:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Non trivial pop culture references should be OK in articles, just use common sense.--Peta 05:32, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete alll per nom. TJ Spyke 05:48, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment (Neutral). I agree that this is not encyclopedic, not notable, etc., and shouldn't be in a separate article. But I have seen similar things in other articles. The "Messiah" article once had a section on "Jewish Messiah Claimants" that eventually wound up taking up about 3/4 of the article with a list of nobodies. The result was that people stopped contribting useful information until the list was split into a separate article. Deleting the articles and protecting against recreation will simply restart the problem in the main articles. RickReinckens 06:42, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete this and all lists of random objects appearing in random series. It's not encyclopedic or necessary, and hopefully this AFD also discourages similar lists in the articles for the objects themselves. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:19, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Merge and redirect any articles that have high-profile mentions of the weapon in the film/show/book that can be verified from published sources (not watching film in question). Delete the others. Mgm|^(talk) 09:59, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is a legit spinoff from the main article. Pop culture articles spun off from regular articles are well established on Wikipedia. They almost always survive deletion, or they get merged back and spun off again. Billy Blythe 10:05, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Really? I'm not seeing any previous AfD keeps on these.

--Mmx1 10:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, protect from recreation, etc., etc. This belongs on the NRA's website or something, not wikipedia. Ultra-Loser ^{Talk | BT sites} 13:21, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and all its friends. These deserve, at most, subsections in other articles. If a particular appearance is important then write an article on it, but comprehensive lists aren't useful. Orpheus 15:22, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per above. This is crap disguised as substance.UberCryxic 15:04, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
KeepThe U.S is a gun-ocracy, so this is an important topic.Edison 16:09, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete ALL per above. Naconkantari 16:10, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all after checking that any genuinely notable (and sourced) references exist in the parent articles (merge if any are needed). WP:NOT a trivia collection. Barno 17:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep - Wikipedia will eventually evolve into a bastion of ALL information, great or small. Yes, that includes a biography of every person named "Bob Jones" in the world. There will be 1,000,000,000,000 articles on Wikipedia one day. This list is a perfect example of information that is highly useful to those who truly care about it (for example, gun enthusiasts who are curious about references in popular culture). Ignore all those who wish to suppress information, for they are akin to the book burners of the past. Inclusionist Wikipedians, UNITE! - Cloudreaver 18:57, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Amen brother! I second that wholeheartedly. Orca1 9904 19:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)Orca1_9904[reply]
Delete Not only do many of the articles contain trivial and often unverifiable information, many of them contain next to nothing! Marcus22 20:50, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete—Unencyclopedic. Isn't there a gun buff site or wiki where this energy can be redirected? —Michael Z. 2006-09-28 21:11 Z
Keep Since when are comprehensive lists a bad thing? It's not like we're debating a list called 'Record of Homer Simpson's burps on The Simpsons'. This does have substance, and I'm tired of deletionists monopolizing everything. 76.18.163.141 21:38, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Original research (just for starters).--Glendoremus 23:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Keeps the gun pages from getting overshadowed by these lists. I think that a particular objects existence in popular culture is notable. They should be referenced though. AmitDeshwar 00:38, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]