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Plot summaries

I have in the last couple of days called for keeping a plot summary for Les Miserables, Angel (TV series) and Buffy (TV series) because the Hugo novel is important in popular culture, and one hears references to it or to situations and characters in it, but no one should have to plow through the endless turgid prose and meandering plot. The TV series are quite different. The plot article provides an overview of the plot arc for the season, which is an emergent property not found in the extremely short capsule summaries for each episode. I am opposed to having detailed, scene by scene plot summaries of every comedy, drama, and cartoon, but a well written overview of series with season-long plot arcs seems quite encyclopedic. These do not relate every event from every episode. I know there is a bias against keeping an article because it is "useful" (heaven forbid anyone should ever find something "useful" in Wikipedia), but if I've heard about a TV show like "Lost" with a complex plot line, knowing the history of the show helps make the next episode comprehensible and entertaining. Seeing one sentence about each episode of a show which has been on several years does not give the reader/viewer the "big picture" like the 2 TV plot guides do. I feel that WP:NOT strongly needs a revision to this effect, but I am all too aware that a cabal will smite down anyone who tries to change a policy without "consensus" when it only takes one or two doctrinaire editors to object and deny that consensus and revert the change. Consensus can also be shown by a set of AFD outcomes. Other TV shows like this might be "The Sopranos," "X-Files" or any other long running series wherein there are plot arcs beyond the individual episode. In contrast, many comedies, cop shows, westerns like "Gunsmoke", and even juvie sci-fi series like "Lost in Space" had pretty much stand alone episodes, with little or no carryover of plot elements from one episode to the next. The fallback position is to call for the season-arc episode guides to replace the existing series-long episode guides in articles about such shows as "Buffy" or "Angel." Shows like these two have been the subject of reviews and conferences with scholarly papers read, and there have been books written about each season, so one could add as many references as necessary to satisfy any requirement that the content be reference based and not OR. Edison 16:26, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

There are 100 references for the main Buffy the Vampire Slayer article. Major references for the plot arcs would be the series of books called "The Watcher's Guide". These are reliable, but arguably not independent, since they have ties to 20th Century Fox. But there are lots of fully reliable and independent sources about the larger plot arcs, also listed as refs at the Buffy main article, such as DVD reviews at Rotten Tomatos, many of which are from legitimate sources such as Salon, which has editorial supervision and identified reviewers (as opposed to fan reviews)., for instance [1]. There is the whole Buffy studies which lists academic works on the series, for those who are more into it than casual watchers such as me. Edison 17:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Episodes

I saw your comment on the Notability page. So I take it you'd rather see something like this for television show episodes, rather than something like this?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 00:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Episode review TfD

I posted this on the TfD as well, but I really wanted to make sure you saw my reply:

DGG, I can't stress this enough, these tags were never meant to be used like this. They were never meant to be added in mass without the tagger looking at the articles and doing some initial evaluation. Abuse of the tool should be addressed, deleting the tool because one user over did it is not a good thing, and just screws everyone else over. The discussions themselves are now being held on individual "list of episodes" articles, instead of a centralized area, and these tags are a way to help more people collaborate with the process. By deleting these templates you are only making that small group stay small. A new idea will always start small, but on Wikipedia things like that grow extremely fast. If you snipe the process before it has a change to get off the ground, then people won't be able to find it. The first template was nominated for deletion before a single episode article even got reviewed. -- Ned Scott 05:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I have come to oppose the entire project, because of the demonstrated effect it has already had on articles. I think the reasonably extended presentation of content of a primary source is appropriate--though I agree that it should be accompanied by analysis. I particularly dislike the method that is being applied-- that the correct policy that there should be both presentation and analysis is being addressed not by adding content discussing the material, but by removing material presenting it. I do agree however, that some of the existing discussions were over-detailed. I agree with merging individual episode articles. I do not agree with deleting their basic content, and such is the practical effect of the tag. DGG (talk) 17:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I respect that and all, think about things like WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:WAF. It's not that, it would be nice to have real world information, but rather, we require real world information. This "project" was started as a way to find potential in episodes, rather than taking them to AfD. You seem to be blaming to the process because no one can find the potential, or even something to hint towards the potential.

You said: "that the correct policy that there should be both presentation and analysis is being addressed not by adding content discussing the material, but by removing material presenting it. "

Did you stop to think, maybe there wasn't anything to add? -- Ned Scott 03:56, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

And as far as merging goes, I haven't been watching the closure themselves that much, but stuff should be merged that can be merged. I'm sorry if anyone is not doing this, and if you have any specific review in mind I'll volunteer to clean up the mess myself. -- Ned Scott 04:05, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

fair enough, and I've had these discussions end up in joint projects before. Even afds sometimes end that way. its the way things should go.

(and I was about to send:

for video shows and the like, the question of finding material is relative tricky for me, because I myself am neither willing nor qualified to find the material, and it's uncomfortable making bare assertions of the existence of material. (though i think the plot of these shows does tend to be discussed in both specialist publications and often newspapers, for at least the most prominent--certainly for shows like the Sopranos. And they also are increasingly discussed in academic writing on popular culture--but the discussion inevitably comes several years behind. But in this part of the field I'm a consumer, not a producer--I want to read the material, not write it. The only area of pop culture where there is good material of this sort in the articles is rock music, where many easily available publication do analyze it, and the followers know about them.

However, for something where I know the research methods a little better, and where it was challenged, I did find it--Les miserables. There were at least a hundred articles in Google Scholar that clearly discussed the plot, and I was able to select 5 or 6 where the titles made it really evident.

Had i done a serious job with professional indexes and non-english sources, I could have found many more. And from these the critical material could be written. But WPedians are not that great on academic writing, as you know, and it will be a while until the work gets done. I would not remove the articles in the meantime. i would keep, and add.

had those challenging spent the time on adding material to the articles where possible, instead challenging them and removing them, it would have been a start. Of course, had those defending them spent half their arguing time on adding, it would have been better as well. The tendency at AfDs in general on all topics of people to say there is material, and cite it at length at at the Afd, but put off adding it to the article doesn't help. Anyone can edit, and most are lazy about it. I'd love to have a rule that one could not place an afd without documenting where one had looked. I wont delete a speedy or expired prod until i've confirmed the absence for myself. (I'm talking generally here, not this project in particular, and certainly not you in particular.) DGG (talk) 04:24, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Primary source only articles

I would tend to agree that a teacher would and should insist on the student looking at the book itself. That's because any self-respecting teacher would have the student writing a secondary source—a research paper or the like.

On the other hand, this is intended to be a tertiary source. It's intended to be a collection of the reliable and verified research of others from looking at primary sources, not our own work in that vein. Sometimes, primary sources can be used for some supplemental material with secondary ones being used for the main bulk, if purely descriptive claims are made. But in everything, we should be mirroring secondary sources, not second-guessing them. If a reliable source says something I believe to be wrong, we go with the source, not me. By the same token, if secondary sources don't write about a given subject at all, or a given aspect of that subject, we should mirror that—by not writing about it at all. Students in class are intended to be the original author and first publisher of their work. (If they're not, they'd better hope to have a dumb teacher!) That's not the idea here at all. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure there. I think it's good we tend to require secondary sources, just because of our nature as a tertiary source. I guess I just don't see "List of times X got mentioned somewhere" as of particular relevance to that, it seems to fail indiscriminate information collection. (I'm aware that's significantly overused, but here it really does seem to apply.) I think the cultural influences of works are better done by citing works that actually speak to how the work has influenced culture, rather than just saying "X seems to have been influenced by Y" with nothing to back that up. In some cases that is a purely descriptive statement which doesn't need secondary sourcing (for example, to state that Weird Al's "Like a Surgeon" is a parody of Madonna's "Like a Virgin"), but in a lot of cases it steps over the line into original synthesis if no one's actually studied it and come to that conclusion. I think what TV Guide or other secondary sources do there is allow more elaborate conclusions to be placed in and sourced, where it would be original research to draw them ourself. If that can't be done, and it's basically just a list of "Family Guy spoofed X one time, and so did The Simpsons", I guess I fail to see the value. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh no, I'm certainly not saying "never notable". (WP:IDONTLIKEIT is just as invalid as WP:ILIKEIT, and mirroring, not second-guessing, sources applies just as much in the other direction). There's tons of material, for instance, on the cultural impact of shows like The Simpsons, South Park, and even some soap operas. I'm sure articles could be written on those subjects and sourced perfectly well. But a good article on that subject would go far beyond "A was mentioned in X, Y, and Z." Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

AFD's

Well I will definitely take it down a lot after this batch, it is a lot after all, and it is very hard to defend 100+ deletions at once :) And to try to discuss intelligently each one, well.... I agree more spaced out would be better. Judgesurreal777 04:23, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

thanks for understanding --for one thing, it looks like some of the combination articles may be heading for keep--and then it would make it easier to discuss the others. I agree that many of them dont look like they need much in the way of discussion--that's part of what i meant by "discuss intelligently". DGG (talk) 04:27, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Fan fiction article

Hello, I recently returned from an editing hiatus of sorts, and decided to go back to work on some of the articles I had been working on previously. I was just looking through your profile and thought that you might like to contribute to the Fan fiction article, one of my prior favorite frustrations (heh) which could probably use someone of your experience and interests looking at it. I'm especially keen on seeing the early history of printed derivitive works improved, which seeing as it goes back to at least the 18th century, I thought sounded like it might be right up your alley. I also think we still have a bit of a dearth of academic references and mentions in modern times, despite the increasing interest in fan fiction in academic circles in recent years. You sound like you are a LOT better at digging this stuff up than I am, and the history really does seem to be rather interesting. Just thought I'd bring it up, in case you were interested. :) Any extra set of eyes looking at the article would be much appreciated! Runa27 21:42, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment I made

Well I am sorry if you took offense to it, but I mean to speak just as a wikipedian, and about that I am deathly serious. Your arguments seem to indicate you do not understand the notability policy with regards to fiction, and there is nothing wrong with that per se, as it is a very difficult policy to get at first. Some of my early experiences on wikipedia involved writing in-universe unnotable articles on my favorite fictional topics, but eventually I realized what the threshold for inclusion was, and eventually I had to transfer some of those articles to fan wikis and delete them from here. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 01:30, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

If you want to convince me I am ignorant, yes, this is the place, not AfD. I don't mind in the least, because I intend to do something similar--not that you're ignorant though, just that you're wrong. As far as I can see from the talk page, all aspects of N:Fiction continue to be disputed. Many of the things it relates to on, such as the distinction between primary and secondary sources, seem to be disappearing, and almost everything in WP:NOT is also challenged from all directions. I expect ongoing discussion at AfD will be the way to modify them all to what they ought to be--the flexible practice that will be the consensus once wpedians in general understand the implications, and accept the need of accommodating the 21st century.

Our directions at WP seems opposite. When I first came, I was somewhat startled by what seemed the absurd detail of the SF and game and video articles. I then realized that they were in fact the core of Wikipedia, and that detail properly organized aids understanding. I want good full plot and character and background summaries--not for the benefit of the fans, who will use the specialised wikis, but for those who want to find out about these things without prior immersion in them. If anything, most WP articles were not really adequate, and the problem was not detail but quality and lack of skill in the writing--especially the incomprehensible blow-by-blow plot summaries. Nor do I do not defend long articles about clearly minor individual characters; I prefer summary style and lists for the really minor topics. What I want in WP is better quality, not narrower coverage.

In-universe I interpret as meaning the sort of fan articles which pretend that it isn't really a game, but the real world, and goes on variations from there. I think plot and characters and background in fiction can & should be sourced from the fiction itself, and notability determined from even the most non-conventional sources. So I advocate what within our core principles I think ought to be the consensus. You've been here a few months more than I have, but I think I've been doing enough work at AfD to know the different opinions--and certainly been here long enough to see them change, sometimes for the better. AfD, for all its faults, is free from OWN. I like to deal with many subjects, so I don't join all the discussions--how could anyone, at least anyone who thinks it wrong to use a copy and paste argument -- only those where I think I might make a difference or have something particular to add, or where I am particularly bothered by a string of indiscriminate deletions or overconfident arguments. I sometimes regret taking time from my true interests to defend articles on subjects I don't really personally care about, but I know that what I do really care about is regarded by many as of very minor importance, and the way to get comprehensive coverage is to accommodate all interests. DGG (talk) 03:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Just about all the TES articles, including the ones that were good and sourced, just got wiped out by admins. See problem is, hardly a consensus was reached, most articles tied keep v delete and everybody seems to blindly following the mantra that it isn't notable because it isn't on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. These articles should be reopened and the discussion should continue, I thought progress on a compromise was being made until they were deleted. They seemed to jump to deletion instead trying to improve or establish notability, in fact not one of them even tried to find something that suggested notability, I did but no one cared. Please A little help would be great. Articles deleted so far, Black Marsh, Morrowind (province), Cyrodiil.TostitosAreGross (talk) 00:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC) The best strategy here will be to concentrate on saving the ones not yet deleted. Try to save a few. Deletion review can be undertaken if there ever is consensus; at the moment it will just open up too many fronts. Please see the talk page for WP Fiction for the current almost total lack of agreement. I'm not at this point sure there is any common idea at all on what the policy is or ought to be. I also suggest joining in the discussion there--my current position you will see, but it amounts to an admission that we have no agreement. But the people who like the currently one-sided wording are trying to deny it there is even conflict, and are finding themselves fighting to say that there isnt any. DGG (talk) 02:14, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I get what you are saying, I'm fighting the deletions tooth and nail, but I don't care that much about some the remaining ones. Cyrodiil was one best articles and it got deleted despite heavy resistance, it was 6 vs 6 in keep/delete. I don't know if there is anything I can do, I keep saying that we can work together to improve the articles to be like argonian but they don't seem confident it can be done.TostitosAreGross (talk) 02:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

My advice is that the best chances for deletion review are the combination articles on minor characters, etc. If you think Cryodil is sourceable further, good, but I must tell you i havent the least idea of where video games are written about, though Im trying to learn. I do know there is no point whatever going to DR without a very strong case. 6-6 in something like this is not alone sufficient to say it should be nonconsensus unless you can prove the ones discarded as not according to policy were according to policy. You might want to enable your email or use mine, by the way. I cannot handle adequately more than a few concurrent discussions. DGG (talk) 02:27, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Futurama

You participated in this AfD, so I thought you might be interested in the close Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of planets in Futurama. Rather a surprising result I'd say. Though a fair few of the Keeps were somewhat dubious and unsigned. RMHED (talk) 20:06, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

yes, combination articles like this would seem the rational way to go. And the close was, counting the bold ones only, , at a rough count 28 to 8. That would seem a good case for deletion review-- I think it would be better if someone other than me brought it. I see you did not participate in this one. But I think you do not accept my argument that combination articles are the reasonable compromise, so i respect your fairness in this note. DGG (talk) 02:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

== Ye Art Cordially Invited to the Annex ==

Hello, My good Fellow, listen and I shalt telleth Ye a Tale of a Wiki that well comes All Manner of Articles relating to Fiction. What is This wonderful Place of Fantasy, You ask? It is the Annex, Haven to All fiction-related Refugee Articles from Wikipedia.

Before nominating or proposing a fiction-related Article for Deletion, It is My sincerest Hope that Ye import It to the Annex. Why do This, You wonder? Individuals have dedicated an enormous Amount of Time to writing These Articles, and ’twould be a Pity for the Information to Vanish unto the Oblivion where only Administrators could see Them.

Here is a Step-by-Step Process of how to Bringeth Articles into the Annex:

1. Ye shall need at least three Browser Tabs or Windows open. For the first Tab or Window, go to Special:Export. For the second, go here. (If Ye have not an Account at Wikia, then create One.) Do whatever Ye want for the third.
2. Next, open the Program known as Notepad. If Ye haveth It not, then open WordPad. Go to “Save as,” and for “Encoding,” select either “Unicode” or “UTF-8.” For “Save as type,” select “All Files.” For “File name,” input “export.xml” and save It. Leave the Window open.
3. Next, go to the Special:Export Window at Wikipedia, and un-check the two small Boxes near the “Export” Button. Input the Name of the Wikipedia Article which Ye wish to import to the Annex into the large Field, and click “Export.”
4. Right-click on the Page full of Code which appears, and clicketh on “View Source” or “View Page Source” or any Option with similar Wording. A new Notepad Window called “index[1]” or Something similar should appear. Press Ctrl+A to highlight All the Text then Ctrl+C to copy It. Close yon “index[1]” Window, and go to the Notepad “export.xml” Window. Press Ctrl+V to pasteth the Text There, and then save It by pressing Ctrl+S.
5. Now go to the Special:Import Window over at the Annex. Clicketh on “Browse…” and select the “export.xml” File. At last, click on “Upload file,” and Thou art done, My Friend! However, if It says 100 Revisions be imported, Ye be not quite finished just yet. Go back to Wikipedia’s Special:Export, and leave only the “Include only the current revision, not the full history” Box checked. Export That, copy the Page Source, close the “index[1]” Window, and go to the “export.xml” Window. Press Ctrl+A to highlight the Code all ready There, press “backspace” to erase It, and press Ctrl+V to pasteth the new Code There. Press Ctrl+S to save It, then upload once more to the Annex. Paste {{Wikipedia|{{PAGENAME}}}} at the Bottom of the imported Article at the Annex, and Ye art now finally done! Keepeth the “export.xml” File for future Use.

Thank Ye for using the Annex, My Friend — the Annex Hath Spoken 01:30, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

But let this not divert us from what i consider the real work--improving the articles right here and now on wikipedia, defending the defensible ones when they are nominated for deleting, having a say at guideline pages to ensure that the few with a POV do not impose their will on the wider community, and rewording the parts of WP NOT and other policies that are used inappropriate by the zealots. One comprehensive encyclopedia, is what WP is supposed to be, and we should hold to it. And see my note at the top of the page about access to text of already-deleted articles. If everyone who cared about this articles actually worked on one a day, and participated intelligently in a few AfDs even outside their main interest in an even-handed manner, and did not let policy changes take place by default, we can then use the Annex for the truly unimportant but interesting details--the important ones will be where they belong, on wikipedia. DGG (talk) 03:21, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Consensus at WP:FICT

Hi David. I noticed your comment at the talk page of WP:FICT: "what consensus means: consensus is something that everyone can live with, though they may not altogether agree with it." - I agree with that, but I can't quite see what it had to do with my comment that you seemed to be replying to. Was that a misplaced comment, or did you have other things to say as well? Carcharoth (talk) 11:01, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I was discussing generally the possibility of having --or not having --consensus for either FICT or NOT#PLOT. I dont think there is any version of FICT that everyone is willing to live with; With NOT PLOT (and perhaps NOT NEWS, and possibly NOT INDISCRIMINATE, there may be not really consensus for the present wording. (Not that I would propose deleting them, just editing them to a more flexible version.)DGG (talk) 17:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Jacen/Jaina Solo

Regarding this comment: Maybe we mixed up two distinct points. The first is that all information in the article should be verifiable. The other is that there should not be only in-universe information.

Obviously, any in-universe information taken from a primary source can be verified through those same primary sources (but as a matter of fact, proper citations even of primary sources are rare enough in e.g. Star Wars articles). I for one believe that some real-world context is necessary as the foundation of an article, and that plot details should only serve to illustrate the subject matter. User:Dorftrottel 09:37, January 26, 2008

I think the no in-universe rule means only that there article cannot be written in the style that does not acknowledge that the work is a fiction--as in the typical fanfiction continuation of a story. I for one believe, along with I think the great majority of the world, that the essential element of a fiction is the plot. I agree that some real-world content is necessary to anchor it. A good article will have balance. A poor one should be improved. An article about some aspect of a fictional universe is in essence a subarticle, and need not itself have much real-world content if the group of articles on the fiction does. I agree that the article under discussion is not written well, and the tone should be altered. And I certainly agree that the sources are not well cited in this and the majority of similar articles. But that does not affect the notability. The effort should be devoted to improving the articles, not removing them. incidentally, I consider you one of the most reasonable people on the other side of the discussion,and if it were just you & I, we could probably reach a compromise. DGG (talk) 16:00, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, no in-universe is not a strict rule since it's formulated in a MOS subguideline rather than policy. Incidentally, the core of the current WP:WAF was rewritten by myself a while back. One of the things I was trying to achieve was to promote an approach of good-faithed education as to proper writing style and usage of sources. This also includes that (in my opinion, which had a clear consensus at WT:WAF at the time) in-universe does not simply mean that e.g. the first sentence doesn't include the clarification fictional.

Here, I tried to establish a threshold (it's still in WAF) for what constitutes in-universe. I see now that the word effort in that sentence may be suboptimal. Assuming good faith, I'll wager that most in-universe writing is due to editorial negligence rather than any —conscious, anyway— effort.

Many have no idea that an image caption that reads "Darth Vader and Obi-Wan during their lightsaber duel on the first deathstar" is the epitome of in-universe writing. Most people simply never learn to analytically distinguish between medium and narrative. On Wikipedia, we should (as in must) always carefully differentiate what exactly we are writing about. In-universe writing essentially denotes every single failure to distinguish these aspects. (The image caption should imo read something like "A scene from Episode IV, depicting a/the lightsaber duel between etcpp".)

To that effect, real-world content/context means any effort to always clarify, in the best interest of an encyclopedic treatment of the subject matter, what aspect of a work of fiction is being discussed in each section.

At any rate, in-universe is a difficult issue, that's why it poses such a problem particularly in areas where people are attracted by the opportunity to write about their favourite popcultural subject — and, assuming some bad faith this time, to simultaneously validate their own mental horizon. That's also why some seem so vigorously opposed to any form of encyclopedic threshold. It challenges and, in their own perception, threatens them in their (possibly adolescent) limited worldview.

The fact that we live in times where mutual education has practically ceased to exist as a gesture of social interaction, and that people dwell on anti-intellectual pride and celebrate egalitarianism makes it doubly hard to address any of these issues anywhere. Which contains a bitter irony imo, since Wikipedia's declared mission is to provide knowledge. Now we have the problem of Eternal September, with a constant influx of people who have really no interest at all in learning anything new here. As I said, some just want to validate their own narrow horizon by writing about things as trivial as their own thoughts. I don't want to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out.

I happen to believe that especially on Wikipedia, we need to educate each other about editorial standards, and that we should encourage and teach (and in the process learn more, ourselves) each other to develop and maintain an attitude of professional enthusiasm as opposed to the prevalent fan enthusiasm (which, yes, is also a good thing since it brings most people here in the first place, but they need to here about standards, too).

As you can see, these are issues I have wasted spent some thoughts on. I don't claim to know how best to approach all of this, whether in individual situations or in general. But I'm absolutely positive that something must be done to address these things.

Now for something you wrote: "I for one believe, along with I think the great majority of the world, that the essential element of a fiction is the plot." — The majority of people is stupid (that's my bleak contention... on my bad days anyway), and I believe you're not one of them. Think about it for just a second: Would you say that a joke is funny independently of who tells it? Clearly not. It's the telling that matters far more than the joke itself. What kind of adjectives does the joketeller use? What about his bodylanguage and facial expressions? What about his timing? And so on.

A summarisable plot can be transported in a manifold of different ways: film, book, comic, live storytelling etcpp. But it's the singer, not the song, so to speak. It's the way the plot (the storyline) is being interpreted and told.

In-universe writing omits all of that, or rather: it avoids the hard work that analysing even the simplest of story elements can bring with it when done properly, in favour of placing undue weight on one single aspect, the plot, which happens to be easily verifiable as long as you don't try to include any real-world context.

An article about a fictional universe should discuss its properies, with the real world as the primary frame of reference. This can e.g. entail aspects of the writing, directing, or production. For everything else, Wikia offers a sensational opportunity to write free from any encyclopedic demands about any aspect as much as you like. But Wikipedia articles cannot do that.

Most plots by themselves are not sufficient subject matter to write an article about. And even an article about a plot (as opposed to an article about a work of fiction) that is independently notable, should always and only discuss the plot from a real-world perspective. It's possible, given sufficient secondary sources.

As to the arguably here and there possible improvements: Having looked around a bit, I don't see enough sources to turn e.g. Jaina Solo into a proper encyclopedic article according to my hopefully not so arbitrary standards as detailed above.

Wow, enough for now. This is one long post. But I'd rather explain my views to a single person in great details in the hope of building a bridge than spend the same time and effort participating in a tar pit like this one. User:Dorftrottel 20:13, January 26, 2008

Hold this space for my answer--but the real world exists also.

#. #. #. #. DGG (talk) 21:51, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Jacen Solo

Partially as a result of your vote to keep the article, the AfD resulted in "no consensus". Since you are convinced that Wikipedia should have an article on Jacen Solo, please stand by that and help get this article to the bare minimum encyclopedic standards. This includes a complete rewrite from a non-in-universe perspective, accompanied by reliable, third-party secondary sources.

If however the article has not been brought up to this bare minimum within the next 4 weeks, I will consider resubmitting it for deletion.

Regards, User:Dorftrottel 02:41, January 30, 2008

thanks for the warning. My guess in that in 4 weeks the consensus will recognize that this sort of article is acceptable,with notability as part of the notability for the series. Not that it shouldn't be improved, by those who are interested in the subject. I see that the next-to-last so called !vote at the Afd was a delete by an anon who said "he doesn't actually exist. Therefore, all traces must be erased from Wikipedia, before we run out of space." No closer is going to listen to that sort of argument. DGG (talk) 04:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Question at AfD

I posted a quick question on your comment on this AfD. Since I doubt you watchlist every AfD you comment on, I thought I'd let you know I'd really appreciate the favor of an answer. (FWIW, I think merging is appropriate, too, there's just not much real content to merge).--Fabrictramp (talk) 13:32, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Your question was "Are you saying to spin out the existing section into a new article, or to merge these into the existing sections on characters and locations in the series article?"

Looking at some of these and also the sections in the main article, I would judge that the one-line descriptions in the main article are most of them inadequate, and the long ones in the separate articles most of them excessive (as is usually the case for series such as this). I do not defend the writing of articles in the manner of some of those nominated here--but I also want to see enough information to understand the interrelationships. I can understand why those who want adequate discussions support separate articles, when i see the extreme reduction of material that usually takes place after a merge.

And thus I suggest the compromise solution of an combination article for the characters (and similar ones for other elements of the series) that will be intermediate--with possible separate articles for a few of the most important if the series is important enough for there to have been some third party material on them. The problem in these discussions is that the choice is usually between two extremes. In a group project, where there are incomptible strongly held points of view, the only long-term solution is a compromise--but a fair one, no tone that will be subsequently distorted. The actual size will need a discussion, uninfluenced by set POVs. DGG (talk) 15:18, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the thoughtful answer!--Fabrictramp (talk) 15:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Oliver Twist character article

Hi saw that you removed the prod from the above article and plan to maybe expand it. With regard to any future possible prodding of the article, I do believe it is important that there are two articles to distinguish Oliver Twist the character from Oliver Twist the book, as seems to be quite standard in other similar articles (Hamlet for instance). As you have seen the article about the character clearly needs some work doing on it. I will also try to add to it maybe once you have had chance to add content? Thanks. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 22:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Other instances like this have been challenged in the past, and I hope to get to it before the deletionists start attacking it. But don't wait for me--add what you can find now. I think a section on cultural references mighty be relevant--most popular culture use of it is about the character, not the book. DGG (talk) 00:40, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi David, in case you're interested, Tangerines has moved Oliver Twist (character) on a long way now. Well worth keeping! - Fayenatic (talk) 13:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

"Webisodes" and the like

Nice to see we can occasionally agree on something! --Orange Mike | Talk 17:33, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Wealthy fictional characters-- opinion?

List of wealthy fictional characters looks hopeless to me—what do you think? Bongomatic 07:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

add references with quotations from the works, and it wont look so hopeless at all. DGG (talk) 08:46, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, I added an item (no references), but someone else nominated it for deletion— have to say, that upon further reflection, I think it has to go (despite its cuteness). Please add your views at the AfD. Bongomatic 00:02, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

yes, its not a good job, but the topic is a possible one. Some day, if I am never needed at afd, and people accept a compromise at WP:FICT, .... DGG (talk) 00:50, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

List of Brookside characters

Hi. I follow the following strategy. I tagged almost all articles for notability per WP:FICTION. After some weeks/months I prod for deletion all the articles that are less than 5 lines and have insignificant history. All the others I convert them to redirects as you suggested. I didn't tag all the articles altogether to give a chance for people to improve them or express their disagreement. It seems nobody really make significant edits to these articles. Moreover, same names really mix things up. If you check the redirects for the characters, they are usually refer to real person names. One idea it would to create disambiguation pages or something like that. But does it worth for most of these characters? Do we need to have loads of redirects that all will just redirect back to a list of characters ? -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:10, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I've made a comment at WT:FICT just now, asking for input on this more generally. The current wording of WP:FICT says to delete if the role is only for a few seconds--which I certainly agree with. For anything more than that, I'd suggest redirection is better, since someone might well want to look this up. I was not aware you were already redirecting that for the characters where there was significant content, but I'm afraid some admin might get there first and delete regardless & thus destroy the distinction you are carefully making. I recognize the advantage of listing them, & prod does do that--perhaps you could screen them after 4 days & do the redirects then? (merging is also a solution, but thats up to the people who know the series--sometimes the characters will already have enough information merged, sometimes not. But doing a proper merge takes a good deal of time. ) whether to draw the line on the basis of the length of the present article, or the apparent importance of the character is an interesting question. I'd pick on the basis of the character, since there are many longish articles on really trivial characters and vice versa. If it was an over-short article on someone worth a little more, it at least preserves the information in the history.

As for the possibility of confusion, this occurred to me also. The name can be disambiguated with the phrase (fictional character) which seems the usual phrase. Personally, I'd do this in all cases for all fictional characters, but the MOS says not to, until a conflict arises. If you agree with me about this, maybe we can try to change it--I think it would clarify matters for readers. As for the Thomas Sweeny, I'm writing an article on the politician at this moment. DGG (talk) 15:27, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for writing the article about the politician. I don't even know the guy. I am just searching though the redirects to check for problems. If you checked the discussion on User talk:Hiding about Damon Grant you will see that I am not doing blind prodding. Also check the talk page in the List of Brookside characters. But these Brookside articles were created altogether 1-2 years ago and the majority just provides the name of the character, the actor and the years it appeared. The same information is already in ht List of Brookside characters (again without citation but this is the least). I left 3-4 articles I believe they need merge as well as I did to more ten some weeks ago. 2 articles I think can also remain as articles. But I really don't believe that we must have redirects for every single characters. Do Pokemons have? The most dangerous here is that these names may get confused with real person names and that's what bothers me. Thanks for dedicating some time to discuss these issues. I have to admit that I became a bit lazy at the end in tagging correctly my prods and/or explaining my actions. Friendly, 15:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

real person names is a problem, and, as I think I said, we should change the MOS. The concerns with inadvertent effects on living persons should be enough reason. This person was notable enough that an article can solve it, but there will be hundreds possibly for most character names who aren't. And even for the notable ones, we seem to be missing thousands of articles on even current US state legislators.

what I actually advocate about characters:

1. . For really major fiction, every major character gets an article on the assumption that the criticism will discuss them in a significant way, every named minor character gets a redirect to a list of characters which will contain somewhere between an identifying phrase and a paragraph.
2. For other important fiction, the major characters are discussed in a combination article with redirects; the minor ones just listed with redirects.
3. For unimportant fiction, the major ones get redirects to a combination article if there are a lot of them, or to just the article on the work if there are a few. The others are unmentioned. Anyone important enough to have the name in a reasonable-size plot summary needs a redirect.

Dividing things up between the classes isnt a sharp division, a continuous scale of possibilities, proportional to the importance of the work, and the amount of material. For example, I'd say every named character in Hamlet gets an article--there are not all that many of them. (to illustrate, a famous modern play was deliberately written about the two least important), For Tolkien, though certainly important, there are too many characters, and only the major ones get separate articles. For a typical serial in television, there are a great many characters of variable importance, and i'd use combination articles and lists for almost all of them. (I have not the least idea whether Brookside is considered important.)

(Looking at List of Pokemon characters, all the 493 species seem to have redirects, going mostly to category articles.)

I am not an extreme inclusionist about separate articles for characters and other fictional elements; I tend to !vote delete on at least one or two each day at AfD. But I will admit my inclusionist feelings are stimulated by the less reasonable people in the other direction. (if it isn't obvious, I do not at all consider you among them) At this point, after all the trouble and arbcom, I would go slowly and step by step in all of this. Although there's been an inordinate amount of general discussion, sometimes careful work with examples clarifies things better. DGG (talk) 19:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

well, it's amazing what you can learn at WP. I went and read the articles, and found that, in addition to being very popular for many years, this is in fact an historically important show in the development of the genre, with a god main Wikipedia article explaining how and why. So I followed up on the characters, and saw that some were central to long arcs of the plot, some were less, so , but still of enough significance to be mentioned in the general article on the series, and some not enough to be mentioned there, but just among the miscellaneous people caught in the various episodes of violence that made the series distinctive. So I deprodded one or two articles, changed many to redirects, and deleted some, accordingly. Further discussions on how to handle these should probably go on the talk page for the main article, but I'm hesitant to say too much, having only read about the series, and never actually seen it. DGG (talk) 01:35, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I respect you approach. Since you convert some articles to redirects I would like to ask you to add {{R to list entry}} if the redirect links to a list (it would be nice you you redirect to the first letter of the character's surname as well) and {{R from merge}} if the redirect is a merge.

If you create a DAB page, check Frank Rogers for correct tagging. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 08:30, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

prods

I may be wrong, but given that each appears to be little more than a "monster of the week" for this series, redirecting makes about as much sense to me as, say, creating redirect pages for, say, all the suspects from various episodes of Law & Order. Still, if you think there's a better way of dealing with these, I'll go along with it. Thanks. --Finngall ^talk 18:41, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Took another look, and I think you were right in the first place. Since these aren't mentioned in any main article, & they do seem very minor, there is not much point in doing redirects. If anyone every does write a proper article or a section on them, then the redirects can be added easily enough. so as the PRODs have just expired, I've begun deleting them. DGG (talk) 20:16, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Why ...

Did you re-direct the article on Sanctuary (Skulduggery Pleasant) to Skulduggery Pleasant? --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 12:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

As an less destructive alternative alternative to the proposed deletion, placed by User: Judgesurreal777. The PROD had expired, and, as reviewing administrator, I thought the deletion too drastic a step & declined to delete it. You had been notified, but had not removed the tag, as you would have been entitled to do (It's only speedy tags which the author cannot remove). Further options are completely up to you. If you want to revert, you're perfectly entitled to--what I did was not an administrative action, but just an edit, which anyone can revert. But be aware that in this case Judgesurreal might want to take it to AfD, and you will have to defend it there; I am not sure that you will succeed unless you can find some good references that discuss the government in particular, not just the book. You are also perfectly free to merge part or all of the content anywhere you think appropriate. If the redirect is to the wrong place and you want to change it, you can do that too. I did it as I did to give you the option of how to proceed. See WP:FICT for some unbelievably long discussions of how to handle these articles--there seems to be no real consensus. (You'll find a summary of my own views above on my talk page.) If I can help you with any of this, let me know.DGG (talk) 16:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you DGG. I seem to remember I did remove the PROD template and subsequently explained my reasons for having done so on the discussion page. Is there any way I can take the matter to AfD? --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 18:11, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

If you want it to have a full article just revert the change to a redirect. Just undo the last edit--but say what you are doing. You do not have to take it to AfD. It is up to Judgesurrreal or some other editor to take it to AfD if they want to delete it, or to challenge you on the talk page if they want to change it back to a redirect. I just alert you to consider the strong possibility that if they do take it to AfD, the consensus will be to delete the article--it often is. My personal advice to you is to leave it as a redirect until you can actually find some good 3rd party published references discussing it as an important element in the work; then and only then change it back , and add the references. But you do not have to follow my advice. I myself do not plan to try to delete it or to change it back to a redirect, but I think other people will & without some actual references they will probably succeed. DGG (talk) 21:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you again. I think I shall copy it to my user page then change it to a redirect whilst I work on it. --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 22:17, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Phillip Chancellor III

Do you suggest that we remove the prod? If you believe the article can be improved I have no problem with that. Please be bold and remove the prod or create a redirect. I won't push it for AfD. Friendly, Magioladitis (talk) 00:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Do you believe that more than 100 characters of the Young and the Restless should have their own article? I really believe that much information can be presented in a better way without having some many article around. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

no, i dont believe that. In fact, ive just been deleting prods for various people in other soaps. I think that since they are a search term they should have a redirect unless they are totally trivial as in being only in one episode in a minor way. I went to the trouble of forcing myself to read the plot of one UK soap to see which ones were totally trivial. I'm not eager to do another. Those who care about the subjects should. The default should, I continue to feel, be combination articles with between 1 sentence and 1 paragraph on each. But since there are magazine article at least that discuss these works, there just might be secondary sources that discuss the characters too, in a sufficiently substantial way for actual articles. At this point I am opposed to any deletions if there might be a chance that there will be such articles until they have been properly looked for. But I'm sure not going to do it in a range of subjects I personally consider at best uninteresting and more usually deplorable. All I can realistically do is help keep the article here for others to work on. Suggestion--nominate for redirects & I won't even notice, tho I think it better to merge. At least that keeps the content in the history for others.

I have mentioned elsewhere that my first sight of these articles with their over-extensive and unclear plot summaries almost made me into a deletionist. Then I realised that the remedy was to have them be of a reasonable length, and reasonably well written. DGG (talk) 00:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I have formulated this plan into my mind: A few articles for characters who are really important and we can find real world information, many redirects with notable characters to the List of characters, an organised List of characters with short summaries of the character's profile and delete the rest.

If you see that some prods are unreasonable please convert the article to a redirect but don't just decline them because the chaos will remain. Friendly, Magioladitis (talk) 00:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

In general I have been converting to a redirect. The few I havent, are because I think they might make adequate articles because of their apparent major role in the plot. What you can do, correspondingly is just to convert them to a redirect yourself instead of nominating for prod in the first place. Or instead of AfD--the redirect gets them out of the way so they dont look ridiculous, and still keeps them available for people to build on if they want to do the work. DGG (talk) 02:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

If you check the discussion in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Johnston Green, I supported redirects/merging against deleting. But it seems some users are even contesting this option, supporting the existence of articles without any real world information. I agree that redirects are good because people have the opportunity to really improve an article in their Sandbox and then read it in Wikipedia but I looks like if I add tags for merging everyone will ignore them unless the show is still active. Check another case that I had to go to an Afd requesting merging since none touched the article for a whole year: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dominic Santiago. Conclusion: If I just go for redirects without first prodding it's easy for some other users to claim that there is no consensus for that. Prodding reveals article's real importance in some sense. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

As for merging, you dont have to wait indefiniteliy until someone shows up, this possibility has been provided for as follows: If you place a merge tag, using the mergeto and mergefrom templates,and explain it on the mergeto talk page, and add a listing to Wikipedia:Proposed mergers, and contact some of the major or most-recent contributors--and there is still silence after about two weeks, then go ahead and perform the merger. Most non-obvious merges are in fact done this way without discussion. See WP:MERGE. If it challenged it has to be discussed, if there's no consensus use Third Opinion. If anyone changes it back per WP:BRD, then they & you need to discuss it similarly. As for Prod, remember that only a few really active people watch things like the list of articles to be prodded--I wish more people would do so.

Incidentally, I dont know that show, but judging from the Wikipedia description of the plot, she would seem like a major character, and the article does talk about outside criticism and discussion of her. DGG (talk) 15:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Debbie McGrath

Regarding previous conversations on Brookside characters, in which you have indicated interest, please see the above article. Hiding T 14:13, 7 May 2008 (UTC). Commented there extensively, to summarize my general views on such articles. DGG (talk) 14:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi. I would like to thank you for your comments in these AfDs. It seems that if we discuss we can really clean fictional characters articles and create some good ones. It seems we are in the middle of an edit war between deletionists and inclucionists and many actions lack of common sense. Friendly, Magioladitis (talk) 21:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

since Arb Com did not take the responsibility to give a little more guidance, people are trying to see how much they can get away with, in the hope of setting policy by wearing out the other side. (The deletionists in fact almost managed this a while back, with popular culture.) Every proposal on the policy pages for compromise has been sabotaged by someone refusing to bend, so I am beginning to feel reluctant to make moderate proposals lest they be considered a sign of weakness. At one current AfD, in fact, someone said they refused to be bound by a workgroup's policy, when it was one of the few policies which had reached a state of compromise. DGG (talk) 22:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Plot summaries

I feel that the work at Wikipedia:Plot summaries is a proposal for a guideline and should be tagged as such, which I did the other day. Tagging it has it causes it to appear in the list at Category:Wikipedia proposals. It seems to me that some people are trying to work around the processes by removing the tag. However, I have ultimate faith in your good judgement. Do you share my concern? Thanks! --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree it should really be tagged with something, but let's not argue about it as well--we have enough actual problems & debates over tagging are what really get away from the point. Is it a guideline separate from WP:FICT? or is it a special part of MOS:FICT. Logically, its a special part of MOS. But on the other hand, that sort of hides it in the general MOS morass. Perhaps it is better to keep it as a peripheral discussion, but I'm open to suggestions. More important, -this subject is now essentially being discussed in at least 4 places. It will be hard enough to get agreement at one, let alone 4 simultaneously. I can't follow them all myself, not unless I want to do nothing else here at all. And there seems to be no agreement whether to work from WP:PLOT down, or from MOS up. Even more important, can you think of any method to reach compromise, except for one side trying to wear out the other? DGG (talk) 14:47, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

(1) I feel better that you are aware of the tagging issue and I'll stay out of it. (2) Having the discussion in 4 places is inefficient , but I don't know of a solution. (3) I don't think that a solution for controlling content can be "legislated" since there is no real method for enforcement, short of the methods used for enforcing BLP, which is itself problematic. Theoretically, guidelines only document actual practices at WP, but since there is no consistency in practice, it follows that there could be no consistent guideline written. I think that it needs to be left to the editors at the individual pages to determine the content of plot summaries. Good luck, and I'm happy to chat about this more if you'd like. --Kevin Murray (talk) 15:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

individual characters

copied from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Santangelo family

• Merge the individual character articles into the article on the family. The books are notable enough to have articles on individual ones, but since they seem to be a connected series, the articles on the characters will pull the information together in a helpful way. I doubt the books are so notable that articles on the individual major characters are justified, but a combination article with redirects is the way to go. Wikipedia should provide the necessary information so that if one looks for a fictional character, one finds the information. That's the purpose of an encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 15:59, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

technology and setting

FWIW, there is no consensus that fiction articles should focus on real-world content. As the long and inconclusive debates at WT:FICT and multiple other places have shown, some of us think exactly the opposite--that articles on fiction should focus on what is notable about the fiction, which is usually the fictional content, including characters and setting as well as plot. The real world context is necessary--it is what distinguishes us from a fan site. For spin-off articles, there is no ned for real world context if that part is covered in the main article or other sections, but obviously for a section on technology formation about the creation & design of the props is extremely valuable, and you should include it as fully as sources permit. Try for a balanced article. Plot recapitulation is appropriate, but only to a limited extent, to set the context for the use of the setting elements; there's no point in duplicating details covered elsewhere. Sources are naturally needed for in-universe aspects as well, as for everything in Wikipedia, so I urge you to source the various parts of the technology article from specific instances in the fiction, and, if possible, from specific sources written about the fiction--which could well be reliable blogs, which are the usually most reliable sources for these subjects. Don't be inhibited by those who want to limit coverage--this is a comprehensive encyclopedia, and as much relevant content that can be sourced is not just acceptable but desirable.DGG (talk) 04:09, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Recent AFD comments

I'm rather surprised to see you making keep arguments based upon I know nothing about this or the content but I'm guessing it's important. I'm especially surprised that an admin would do such a thing. Take this example here. You understanding of the subject is so limited that you seem to think that Khrone is a character, which he isn't. He's simply an explanation for an aspect of the gaming system that is used in warhammer 40k. So I just don't get it - why are you even voting in AFDs where you are explicitly stating that you are just making wild guesses (and guesses based on your misunderstanding of the material). --Allemandtando (talk) 16:11, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Please look more carefully--I am saying that if the main work is important, which I gather it is from the amount of material added and the many Wikipedia people interested, then the subarticles are justified. I leave open the possibility that the game itself may not be worth writing much about--not that I have actually seen anyone making that argument for Warhammer 40K. The reason I qualify this way is that I sometimes do give what I consider to be expert evaluations of things I do know a good deal about about where I think I understand and can explain in full detail the analysis that leads me to that conclusion--and people often say that they treat my analysis as such and !vote on that basis. . But in this case I write as an ordinary wikipedian with no special knowledge, and I want to make that clear. I give my opinion based on the evidence presented in the article and the discussion. It will be a sad day when we leave the game articles to the mercy of those who are fans of the game. Anyone can edit, and anyone can give an opinion, but in doing so, I find it preferable not to claim more than I know. Since the article lede says that "Khorne is one of the four major Chaos gods. Like his brother gods,.." I treat him as a character. I see from the rest of the article that in this game that gods can also be treated as more abstract forces, but in any fictional setting one normally refers to them as characters regardless of the actual nature of their fundamental existence. In discussing the Bible, we use "He" despite the Gospel wording that "God is a spirit." I'm not analyzing in depth, but not making wild guesses either. DGG (talk) 16:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

pop culture-free wiki

In reply to your comment on ANI, just posting here so we don't go off-topic again:) "As for a separate wiki, the easy way is to set up one that will screen out articles from an inclusive one. Veropedia is something of that idea. If anyone wants to set up a non-pop culture version, and can think of an algorithm, the rest is easy enough." I actually like popular culture, I just am very keen on notability. And deleting articles can be dangerously addictive, it has to be said.:) The problem with Fred/Crufty was always how he went about it- rude edit summaries etc. Sticky Parkin 01:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

this would need to be a rather l o n g discussion. In fact, it already has been, and in many places. But you're right if you imply we have all to some extent been talking past each other--at least I hope so, for then there might be a solution. I recognize that many of the relatively deletionist people for these articles do in fact like the subject. So why? From what you say, I conclude that you are stuck upon thinking that the concept of notability in the Wikipedia sense comes first, and how we make an encyclopedia depends on having it as a principle--rather than the correct view --as I see it-- that the basic thing is what we want to make of an encyclopedia, and we should adjust the rules to what we want. The foundational principles are those which are necessary to make it an encyclopedia, andI doubt we'd have any quarrel there except upon detail. Now, does the notion of an encyclopedia imply some selectivity? A few people seem to think not, but I disagree with them--I agree with you that it does, that the nature that is expected of any such work of reference implies not being a 1:1 map of the world (in the sense of Swift and Borges) but a selection of what is to some degree worth knowing about--potentially at least, recognizing that nobody can or will want to know everything (unlike, say, Diderot). The question then, is what would a person in the world--any person who can read English--want to know, that they might reasonably look for in a work of reference called a universal encyclopedia. I follow the principle of what was in the end of the 18th century called a Conversation-dictionary, the German language's first encyclopedia in 1796, "Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon" -- the information a person will want in discussing any of the topics of interest in whatever part of the human world he might find himself: to discuss a sport with fans, a game with players, politics with those interested in public affairs of whatever country, medicine with those who want to talk about it, fiction with those who have read it. In each case amateurs: not the details of running that are of concern among actual runners only, or a game among those engaged in the middle of a round, or Brooklyn politics in a Brooklyn clubhouse, or medicine among doctors, or a book among those preparing a new edition. If a friend wants to discuss his latest medicine for arthritis, I should be able to find here the nature & status of the drug. If someone talks about a candidate for Congress, I should be able to find out something about him. If I speak to a schoolchild who wants to eagerly talk of the characters in his favorite serial, I should be able to come here and find at least the name and general role of any character he might mention. Not enough to be an expert, but enough to participate in a conversation. (And there is a limit--if the child wants to talk about his personal best friends, he's going to first have to tell me something about them--not even he will expect me to know them.) Until you realize and accept this, you will want only a selection of our true encyclopedia. Not Wikipedia, but the Really Important Part of Wikipedia. And you can attain it easily enough--let us all write what we each feel others might need, and you can then take what you want of it. DGG (talk) 02:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Sticky Parkin referred me to this discussion in a nice post on my Talk page. I've been saying for quite some time that the encyclopedic project is not one of inclusion/exclusion, but of categorization. The true "sum of all human knowledge" is larger than Wikpedia, but there is no rigid boundary between them. Currently, there exists knowledge, worthy of the name, that we exclude from Wikipedia. There are whole categories of knowledge, considered reliable enough for use in legal decisions, that we exclude rather artificially, simply because we haven't figured out how to decide if it's verifiable or not. (Sample, from common law: testimony is presumed true unless controverted. Read the Rules of Procedure for about any U.S. State.) What's "testimony?" Well, for starters, it can't be anonymous, because whether it is reliable or not (controvertible) depends partly on the history of the individual, and "controverted" may include impeachment of the source. But the presumption is that it is true. Apply this to Wikipedia and what would we see? Something quite different, I'd tell you! We'd need classes of editors, and real-world identity editors might have privileges that others don't, by default. Just as knowledge exists in hierarchies of notability and probity, so too should editors. I'm quite sure that many, seeing this, would imagine some monstrous bureaucracy, tracking the errors of all editors so as to adjust their probity quotient. There could be highly efficient ways of establishing hierarchies that are bottom-up, DGG, you've seen this before from me, but my goal, right now, isn't to make a specific proposal, only to note that we have painted ourselves into a corner. We need to start looking at the project from different perspectives, and the battle between inclusionists and deletionists is a sign that we haven't found the synthesis, a sign that we haven't looked deeply enough.

In order to start to look deeper, we must overcome, first of all, one major obstacle, the rampant incivility that prolonged conflict over some of these issues has engendered. I am now trying an experiment, in Routemaster, after an edit war which resulted in blocks for three editors. I'm sitting like a smiling gorilla there, absolutely intolerant of incivility, but absolutely welcoming to all editors, including some who might easily be considered trolls (and have been by other editors), at the same time as I tell the editors who are upset by the "trolling" or "POV pushing" that I can understand why. It is far too soon to tell, but the results of a few days have been better than I expected. Uncivil editors haven't changed their spots, and they will continue, perhaps, to need reminders, but I've made it very clear that when I'm warning, I'm not waving a big stick, I'm actually trying to help them get what they want, and, several times now, they have simply ceased the problem behavior. It's tricky, and I'm learning every step of the way, but, as an example, instead of dropping a warning on an editor's Talk page, the standard practice, I'm putting it in article talk, making it general where more than one editor is involved, and then, sometimes, deleting the warning, when it can be done, laving minimum trace. I'm hoping that the involved editors, seeing this, will realize that I'm not being a bully, for if I were a bully, I'd be placing red warnings on their Talk pages, going to AN/I, etc. Rather, I'm demanding -- firmly and civilly -- that editors cooperate and negotiate what they want, simply by not tolerating anything else, remaining as neutral as I can, and attempting to exemplify what's needed. Wish me luck.--Abd (talk) 19:26, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Commander Dante

I was looking through deletion reviews to see if other articles with histories are up for deletion and I found: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Commander Dante. I made a quick internet search to find out what was out there, and I found four items quickly. Perhaps this is a rush to judgment? Or if he was part of the one page that was deleted, perhaps that page is brought back and he is merged there along with these sources? I don't know. I don't know the topic, or know much about how people feel. I just made a quick search and it seems to suggest the above. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:20, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

What you are seeing is part of a systematic campaign to destroy the coverage of fiction on Wikipedia. The strategy is attack simultaneously pages on the individual characters, the combination pages, and the coverage of plot and characters in the main article or to reduce it to one or two spare sentences--essentially leaving the barest facts of publication without with only the least possible mention of what the fiction is about. As you notice, trying to get any compromise will be defeated by removing the compromise pages. This immediate part is a concentrated effort on as many article on that game as possible, but it's nothing against the game in particular, just a wider systematic campaign on books, video series, films, games, and anything which can be thought of as similar; This is not limited to "popular" culture -- there have been similar attacks on Tolstoy & Shakespeare--the the ones I first spotted. Nor is it limited to the periphery that fewer people know about--it's been done on Lord of the Rings and even Harry Potter.

I have never played this or similar RPGs, which is all the more reason I want to be able to find information on them. Now I know what other people talk about. Oddly, the people deleting these articles are often fans of the games or fictions involved. [material redacted-DGG]

Myself, I like strategy games, & the first article I rescued at WP was on one of the weapons in Civilization II, and I highly recommend it to any student of history. Under any realistic conditions, the Greeks always beat the Persians. I've also spent a long time over years replicating Manhattan in several versions of Sim City--always failed over the impossibility of managing adequate transportation for something of that shape and intensity--Doesn't work no matter how much money you give yourself. I consider these as important as any formal study, and a good motive for it. It is possible to love and understand the value of both Austen and Heyer.

I came here in large part to defend coverage of traditional topics, and soon realized that this required defending the right of everyone to extensive coverage of their own hobby. They're the parts of what make up a comprehensive encyclopedia.

As a practical help , please add your references to the AfD discussion--the way to go is to put them somewhere at least so they'll be in the history for later use. DGG (talk) 17:16, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I added five. Some will need to go through the reliable source process, but it seems that there are some review sites that look over these products. I would be willing to help out finding sources in the future. I'll keep an eye on the situation. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:27, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

(to DGG) There's a growing rift in Wikipedia that commonly makes itself known at AFD. For the most part, both sides are pushing each other farther apart. I would like to remove this divide without making anyone change his or her position. Whenever you use words like "destroy" and "attack" to describe good faith actions, or attempt to psychoanalyze others ("lack of intellectual self-confidence", "inner contempt", "inwardly somewhat ashamed") you are effectively shutting down any chance for a reasonable discussion. We have no hope of resolving this issue until editors on both sides (and I know, work is needed on both sides) are willing to commit to rational discussion and let go of the impression that the other side is out to destroy Wikipedia. Pagrashtak 13:39, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

That's not what I think, or what I said. I see that there are various groups of people who want to sharply diminish to the point of destruction our coverage of various particular types of material. For other examples, there are those who would end the overlap with Wikinews and not cover current events at all, or who would deal with BLP problems by not including any BLP, or would not cover people in one or another particular field unless they are famous, not just notable. There are, more to the point, those who object to any coverage of fictional plot, and those who have openly declared they want to reduce the coverage of fiction to the minimum. None of these proposals would destroy Wikipedia, but they would destroy or essentially our coverage in the areas involved. And here are people who believe in the eternal fundamental sacredness of 2RS=N, and think it a core principle. These just might destroy the flexibility and relevance of the encyclopedia in general, not just particular fields.

As for motivation, even though this is on my own talk page, not in WP or article talk space, and presented frankly as speculation, I should not have said what I did, and I've redacted it. (for the most I've said in WP space, see [2] and [3], where I said that "Such a nomination shows a determination to sharply reduce the encyclopedia's coverage of contemporary culture.") (I notice I've !voted delete for an number of town libraries. Looking at my own motivation, it's specifically because I do not want to seem too aggressive in my own subject.) But it's my attempt to account for those people who want to claim as unsourcable material they have not tried to source. For an example of what can be done to source material claimed to be unsourcable, see OR's comment just below.

I wish to attain a stable compromise. The first step in doing so is to stake out clearly the starting positions. Mine is that we should cover all published fiction with wide readership (etc) , as fully as will be understandable to those who are not fans of it and not familiar with the work. as much as the general reader might possibly like to know. For too long people with this position have countered the people who want minimal coverage by saying we want a moderate amount, in the hope of a compromise that will alllow at least a little more than minimal. It's time we said what we meant, while being prepared to reach a compromise in the true middle. It's been my observation that in discussions like this the closest polite approach to absolute frankness is helpful, if it can be kept impersonal. If I've come too close to personal, I was wrong to do so. DGG (talk) 17:57, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The part about "destroying Wikipedia" was meant to refer to sentiments in the conflict in general, not you specifically—I can see I didn't write that very clearly, I apologize. I don't recall you saying such, but I have seen comments like that, or very close to it, coming from both sides of this. I realize this is your talk page and you have great leeway, but hurtful speculation is still hurtful, even if not directed at editors by name. I suppose I should stake out my position then? I believe, in part, that Wikipedia should not cover a subject unless there is enough raw material to create such an article that is verifiable and written from a Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. To that end, an article's subject should have significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. If the sources are not reliable, we obviously shouldn't use them. If all sources are primary, or associated with the subject/publisher/author/etc., then the article cannot be NPOV, as it will reflect the point of view of the creator or the fictional setting. If the coverage is not significant, we will not have enough material for a full article, and the subject would probably be better represented in the context of a larger setting. That is, the article is probably best merged.

Regarding your reference to OR's source searching, you can see Craw-Daddy's response at the AFD. Sources presented at AFD commonly fail one of the tests I've mentioned above—reliability, independence (secondary, not primary), or significance. A review of the game that mentions Dante off-hand is a good source for a higher-level article, but doesn't provide a lot of raw material for something this specific. The Blood Angels codex is a great source for the Blood Angels article, but it is not sufficient by itself. The article will never be NPOV if independent sources cannot be found to complement it. A fan site's comments about Dante are great, but it's just some guy on the web where anyone can say just about anything. Pagrashtak 18:58, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I have redacted further--you were correct in what you said about my comments on motivation--it was not appropriate even on my talk page. My apologies for the impatience I showed above--I did come too close to personal. As for the general issue, I agree with you about the need for V and NPOV, but I disagree with you about the use of primary sources for uncontroversial descriptive content, which does not affect POV. The work itself is the most reliable source for the plot and characters--the interpretation of them must of course be based on secondary sources, and all too frequently it is not. What these articles need is more careful writing in general--and that's why I get impatient when I see the relatively good ones be nominated for deletion. DGG (talk) 19:12, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks—no hard feelings. I'm not disagreeing with you about using primary sources for certain content. If we were to have an article on the Blood Angels, I would absolutely expect to have their Codex be a source, and at least one section would be largely dependent on it. I'm just saying that the Codex by itself is not enough to warrant an article. If you're writing an article on a book, the plot section shouldn't require any sources beyond the book itself, as long as you don't have any analysis there. I would expect other sections, though, to be largely or completely referenced to secondary sources. Pagrashtak 20:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

so then, if there is enough content to write an article, on what basis to you say we shouldn't? If you accept the sources, then there are two usual ansewers--1/the article would have to be limited to plot, a violation of not plot--to which I respond that the article can to be seen as a spin-off article for the entire game, and that is not limited to plot, and 2/that for some reason it's not important enough by itself. I'll agree that is possible, but how are we to decide? Please don'tsay by independent sourcing, for you've just agreed that the primary sourcing is reliable enough. And supposing that it were agreed that it is not important by itself, shy should we not then include as full information as possible in a more general article? As I see it, that's the critical point--the division into articles is really just a format question at heart--whether we want to have a small number of large articles, or the other way round. The important thing is the content. Why should there not be a mnerge, included all the content that can be sourced from the reliable primary source? DGG (talk) 22:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I think you're putting words in my mouth. I never said we shouldn't write an article when we have enough content. I'm saying that primary sources by themselves are not enough content. I'm all for merging, believe me. In fact, you can check out List of Star Control races for evidence of that, where I've been cutting down and merging about thirty articles practically by myself. I could have easily nominated them for deletion, and it probably would have been successful. In fact, one had already been deleted. It has since been restored and now has a section in the list. And, of course, comments like "Wikipedia does not have a 'Slash and Burn' policy. Pagrashtak might, but he is not Wikipedia, as much as he may think he is." are the thanks I get from some for trying to strengthen those articles against deletion (and, in the case of Mycon, restoring deleted content). Sorry to vent on your talk page like this, but sometimes I feel like I'm getting hammered on from all sides. If I nominate something for deletion, I'm yelled at for ruining Wikipedia and my user page is vandalized. If I try to merge, I'm told I'm destroying organization and creating a huge mess. If I redirect, I'm reverted. If I cut down excessive plot details/game guide information/in-universe writing, I'm reverted. Not too long ago I saw a huge list of fictional character articles that consisted of in-universe information, most did not have any secondary sources, and some did not have any references whatsoever. So I tried what I thought was a gentle approach. I picked one article, tagged it with In-universe and Notability. I couldn't get even that to stick. Someone changed a section header and claimed that took care of the in-universe problem. Notability was removed with the standard "important character in this game" argument, even though I pointed out that Wikipedia:Notability says we needed secondary sources. I said on the talk page that the article needed some out-of-universe information and secondary sources, and that a merge might be a good option if that couldn't be added. I explicitly said I wasn't looking for deletion and that I would have used PROD or AFD if I were trying for that. In response, I was accused of "whining" and "threatening". The word "crusade" was brought up. I was called a hypocrite. I got the standard "this article should have lower standards", "why don't you improve the article then?", and "guidelines apply to scientific articles, not fictional character articles" arguments. Again—I'm not meaning to say that you are doing all this. Just trying to convey that I feel like I'm hitting a brick wall every way I turn, which is why I am so desperate to arrive at a place where we can all get something done with a minimum of hassle. I've seen too many people get burned out over this. I'm the type of guy who usually takes things in stride, like Le Grand Roi. I think I can stick around, and I know he will. But I'm tired of seeing other editors (on both sides) getting fed up and leaving. Pagrashtak 17:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

first, for the specifics I apologize for the rewording but I was specifically trying to narrow down on an exact statement--I knew you wouldn't agree completely, and I wanted to find out where and why. so you think primary sources alone are not enough to justify an article, and the question is why are they not? Do you think perhaps that spin-off articles are not acceptable? Or do you think that N=2RS is the basic controlling policy without exceptions? You say above that WP:N requires secondary sources, but this is not policy, only a general guideline, and (in addition to the fact that all policy needs interpretation and all guidelines admit exceptions), this one specifically says that it is only general and will not apply in all cases. Do you agree with that part of it? (Incidentally, I don't agree with keeping the general notability guideline at all, except as a backup if there is no other possible standard, for I think it leads to absurd inclusions as well as deletions, but that's another discussion. My key objections to it are about other topics than fiction.) Or do you think that, although they might be acceptable, and although we can make exceptions, it would be better practice in general for us not to write articles this way, for some other reason?

More important, much more, is the point about being attacked from both sides, which is certainly true. As I mentioned above, there are in fact those who want to decrease the content on these topics to the minimum possible, and since they sometimes state exactly that, it's not maligning them to say this. They have in the past shown , and continue to show, that they will find reasons to reject any possible compromise. At the beginning, I tried offering compromises on-wiki or off, in the hope of settling this, and found that though they agreed to compromise, nothing except their own views was actually acceptable to them, and if i suggested otherwise, they broke off discussions. If any would like to try again, this page and my email are open. I think I've explained why, in order to deal with this attitude, those of us who support even moderately extensive coverage of fiction will generally try to preserve almost anything that can be reasonably preserved, as the only hope of getting a balance. Now, I am reluctant to discuss individual topics on article talk pages, for I often am not very familiar with the fiction in question--that in fact is the very reason I support full coverage, but I don't sometimes know enough to explain except as a general principle why some particular thing is important. DIscussions there should be left to the knowledgeable. And since many people reasonably don't participate on talk pages where they are similarly uninterested in the particular topic, the people who oppose such content and are willing to do so there are the more easily able to attack it in detail, (I have no hesitation in saying attack is the right word, and I think what you have said above about your own experiences proves it.) I see no way to resolve this except a stable compromise. The only way at present I think it possible to attain one is to hope that new people will join in the discussion.

Myself, I would much rather leave the topic of popular fiction and work on things I do care about, but, as I have explained elsewhere, many of the topics I do care about are those that interest only a relatively small number of people, or have difficulty in sourcing because of the limitations of the internet or the narrow definitions of RSs, and general inclusionism and tolerance, together with a broad acceptance of whatever pertinent sources are the most reliable for the topic, is the best way to get content on these subjects. If we can broker a compromise that is acceptable generally, I remain willing to try, but i am not optimistic. However, I am pretty persistent myself, and intend to continue working towards this indefinitely, though not always with my full attention. Editors leave for various reasons, after all, and we cannot expect everyone who likes to work on Wikipedia to continue to do so indefinitely--that they are fed up with a particular topic is not the only reason--only a minority of active people remain really active more than 18 months or so. There is, after al, life beyond Wikipedia, not to mention other wikis. I've tried some, but i find that this is the most promising. DGG (talk) 18:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't say 2RS=N is a hard-and-fast rule. That ignores the subjective nature of notability. A subject mentioned very briefly and trivially in two reliable sources would not make notability—we require significant coverage. On the other hand, I could consider a subject with only one reliable secondary source notable if the coverage is comprehensive and in-depth. I don't put much credence in the "only a guideline" argument. True, it's not a policy, but guidelines are still to be followed unless there is a very good reason to not do so. I would never put the "External links" section above the lead and then claim that Wikipedia:Layout is only a guideline, if you'll allow me to make a silly example. If you're only swayed by policies, we can do that too. Wikipedia:Verifiability states, "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." Suppose we have articles about Super Fun Game and the protagonist Captain Super Fun, and there aren't any reliable secondary sources for CSF. You might argue that CSF is a spinoff article of SFG. I would probably reply that if you wrote so much about the plot of SFG that you had to break part of it off into another article, you've most likely written too much about the plot. Because, (everyone's favorite!) Wikipedia is not a plot summary. If the plot is covered succinctly, the need for the separate article will probably disappear. To come at it from the policy angle, if no reliable, third-party sources can be found for Captain Super Fun, Wikipedia should not have an article on Captain Super Fun. Pagrashtak 19:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

We are not totally dependent on the wording of either guidelines or policies, both of which we can change. We can have the kind of an encyclopedia we collectively want to have. Once we know what we want to do, we can adopt whatever rules will get us there. (That does not mean IAR. I don't hold with using IAR as a rule, except to deal with something obvious but that happens not to have been foreseen. I mean we should see what we want, and write the rules accordingly.) Some policies are more basic than others, but the only ones absolutely necessary for it to be a WMF project is avoiding copyvio and libel as defined by the Foundation. Everything else is negotiable. I consider NPOV and V as very basic, more basic than the others, but they need a great deal of interpretation, as the noticeboards make it evident. Rulemaking is done in two ways: by deciding of policies and guidelines formally, and by deciding in practice on how to use them. Actual practice is as basic as specifically written rules, as in all human communities--even though some have been known to claim otherwise, in my opinion to give the illusion of social cohesion.) I remind you of the totally disputed interpretation of NOT PLOT, which does not even say no plot summaries, but no treatment of a fiction that is entirely plot summary, a very much weaker criterion.

The problem, of course, is getting consensus, for we have no clear way of determining it. It's accepted that a supermajority is necessary for policy and guidelines, but the extent is not specified, there is no mechanism for closure, and a small determined majority in practice can block decision. AfD dependent upon the vagaries of a voluntary jury system, abetted by the lack of any requirement to notify the editors involved, the presence of oodles of undeclared meat and sockpuppets, and made totally erratic by the practice of letting any admin make a decision, regardless of fixed opinions, based on whatever decision rules he chooses to follow, permitting them if they choose to ignore consensus altogether in favor of whatever they regard as the more important of conflicting policies. True there's an appeal system, but it is so complicated as to have very limited participation and even vaguer decision rules, with domination by a few self-selected regulars. (I say this non-pejoratively, because I participate in as many as possible myself.) The culminating absurdity is the declared refusal to follow precedent--except of course when people choose to do so.

So don't base things upon either current rules or current practice--we need to decide what we want to do. So I ask you again, why can we not write an article on Captain Super Fun, even if there are no formally reliable third party sources? We can still verify everything in it. Why do you think what you state should be policy? And then I remind you how much fun we can have deciding what counts as "reliable"--one can argue the possible interpretations of that word to include or exclude almost anything. What should; we do, is the question. No divinity, even the foundation, ordains 3rd party sources, let alone a particular repertoire of them. We can decide what we want to do. This is a wiki. DGG (talk) 23:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

When it comes to fictional matter, encyclopedias should have real-world information. Impact, reception, that sort of thing. That is not possible with primary sources alone. That's what I want to read, and it's what I want to do. Basic plot points should be present too, but they should be concise and not dominate the article.

I think we're starting to go in circles. I've been down this road before: not notable -> but that's just a guideline -> verifiability is policy -> policy can change. Yes, policy can change, but there's no sense even bringing that up unless you can actually change it. In the mean time, we have to assume it's consensus and abide by it. If we can't use policies in debates, we can't debate anything other than "should we have copyvios and libel?" Pagrashtak 02:33, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Let's go back one step. I think the paragraph above this demonstrates my point. You say that " encyclopedias should have real-world information. Impact, reception, that sort of thing. That is not possible with primary sources alone. That's what I want to read," but that's not what I want to read about unfamiliar fictions. What I want to know about fictions that are unfamiliar to me is what happens in the fiction. I look them up here so I can find out what people are talking about. That to my mind is one key purpose of an encyclopedia. For finding out details of publication and the like, library catalogs and sources like IMdB do as well as we do. The important thing about fictions to me, and I think to most people who aren't deeply involved in them as fans or scholars, is the fictional contents: the plot characters and setting, and that's what I think the encyclopedia should cove. Now, there are a few fictions I am a fan (or perhaps even a student of), and for these I do want to know all the details. If we have people who can cover them, we should cover this fully-- also -- but the basic part of a fiction is, after all, the plot. Sure, if I look up an episode of the sopranos I missed, I want to know when it was shown and who were the actors. But my real purpose here is to find out what happened so I can keep the continuity. For a Wodehouse story, on the other hand, I more or less know what happened in each, and I am more likely to want to find out in just which collections it was published, and the detailed differences between the US and UK editions. Writing too--I like the challenge of clearly explaining something complicated, like a fictional plot; collecting critical views is less interesting to me, though I'm glad others want to do it. The thing about an encyclopedia is to be encyclopedic, to include everything different people might want. You want to meet your needs, I want to meet everyone's. You therefore quote what policy supports your position, and i quote what supports mine. (Please realise I'm not using "you" pejoratively or personally, just following up on your remark here for clarity). If we radically don't agree, and those holding your view are unwilling to allow the validity of the interests of other people, we will not find a compromise, and I will try to explain the more comprehensive position so newcomers will see the virtue of it, and the ambiguities of the rules be interpreted broadly, not narrowly. As I say at the top, of my user page, I am not so sanguine as to think I am likely to convert my opponents. DGG (talk) 03:01, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say it's what everyone wants to read. You said the wiki should be what we want it to be, so I'm telling you what I want it to be—I can't speak for others. And if you'll notice, I also want plot to be covered, so I don't see where the conflict is there. I will say, though, that your wish to meet "everyone's" needs is foolhardy. There are a significant number of readers who would like Wikipedia to be a game guide, contain cheat codes and strategy, contain original fiction, cover original research, be a social networking site, or contain dictionary definitions. Simply put, we cannot and should not meet everybody's needs. An encyclopedia is not a replacement for everything. Some things are better left to strategy guides, dictionaries, and other reference sources. If you think Wikipedia exists to "include everything different people might want", well you've missed the mark, simply put. Pagrashtak 16:04, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

You'll excuse my continuing this--it's not to quarrel, but because I think this an interesting discussion & that you sum up the arguments well, giving me a good occasion to respond comprehensively. I do not want the encyclopedia to contain just what interests or might interest me. If i did, I would choose to eliminate several large classes of material, such as pornbio, and wrestling, and beauty contests, and reality shows, and motor sports, and the more I look, the more other groups I will find. I can think of no conceivable occasion where I would not rather confess ignorance of these than know what people were talking about. But anything which any English speaking person might want to know about to understand things they were not specialists in, that belongs. Not game guides, because that is relevant only to those who play the game. Descriptions of characters in a game, yes, because people talk about these pretty generally, but not the details of how to play, which only the players bother with. Original fiction (and original writing in general, no, because an encyclopedia is about subjects, not an anthology of them specifically. For example, actual Fan fiction writing belongs elsewhere, but if any becomes popular enough that people talk about it, I expect to see it described here. Just like I don't expect to see the source code for PGP here, but I do want enough of a description that any computer literate person can understand how it works, and if this involves includes some key portions as illustrations, thats OK too. I don't want enough of a description of a university to serve as a student handbook, but enough for people to compare with other universities. I don't want a description of a town that includes every store, because nobody not in that town will care, but I do want some description of anything there that might interest visitors from elsewhere. Not every professor in a university, but every one that someone outside that university might want information on. So I'm not a complete inclusionist, because I think it should still look like what people consider an encyclopedia to be. It's not a replacement for everything, or every reference book, but an encyclopedia is intended to be a complete reference book for general information on everything of possible interest to non-specialists. The rule is that if someone might talk about it to someone not in his immediate circle, you should be able to go to it and find enough to seem intelligent, though not an expert. (The totally inclusive position has some merits too, but for practical usefulness would require a modular layered structure that has not yet been developed, though certainly possible.) DGG (talk) 17:45, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

That sounds mostly reasonable. I also want to include things that don't interest me, naturally. Descriptions of characters are getting into some uncertain territory. Some characters I would want in separate articles, some I would not. Most characters are better described in the article about the main work. Pagrashtak 20:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

ok, back to specifics then: the current problem is-as you pointed out in the beginning--that if merged people then try to remove the content. The true problem is of course getting people to write better articles on them, and to make an attempt to find sources for interpretation--this is usually possible, though getting people to do proper sourcing at Wikipedia is a much more pervasive problem than just in fiction. I like the overlap of plot in character articles-for a major character in a series, the best way of understanding what is going on can be through describing their continuing roles, not by looking at fragments in each episode article. Episodes are, well, episodic, just as book chapters are, and not meant to be seen in isolation. Main articles on complicated fictions get too long and confusing, and so can a single characters article. The question here is overall formatting of WP, and it won't be solved at AfD. We could either have many short articles, of a smaller number of long ones--possibly very long ones, like the multi-hundred p. articles in the old EBs. In principle the two are equivalent, but I think for the time being we are stuck with relatively short ones, because the readership threshold for dial up is still at between 32 and 64k, and we cant cut ourselves off from that very important part of the audience. Also, at present, the most that can e hoped for from most authors here is good short articles, though there are encouraging examples, such as the Charles Darwin group. Ideally, the entire Wikipedia should be restructured as a database of material that could be recombined in multiple ways. As a guess, i think that will be for the next generation internet encyclopedia. It is of some interest that the NIH is compelling publishers to prepare journal articles in XML to be stored in such a fashion for their PMC database, but even they still do nothing with them except output them as conventionally looking articles. DGG (talk) 20:54, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I looked through the previous AfDs and they seem to be based on a lack of third party sources. I looked at the merge suggestions, and I think that "Dante" could be merged into the old Blood Angel page (I don't know what it looks like, because its deleted I think). I went looking on Amazon for products related to it. Here are the ones I could spot quickly: 1. Novel series, 2. Video Game, 3. Earlier version of the Video Game, 4. Not sure, 5. Book series. Related to these products, I found reviews: 1. On Codex Blood Angels, 2. Preview? but needs to be checked as a reliable source, 3. Another review, 4. Video Game review, 5. A Wikipedia page that says the Bloodquest book won an award, 6. Movie in production for that book, 7. Another review of that book. I'm tired and it takes a lot of work to hunt through every variation and check these pages. However, shouldn't 12 links be enough to establish some notability? Ottava Rima (talk) 14:22, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Please read. Depending on the outcome of the Commander Dante page, I will ask for both pages to be placed in my user page (merged together) and I will start putting the sources together to try to create a version of the page that is acceptable. After that, I will go through the undelete process, but I will need some guidance when it comes to that. Hopefully, a page looking at the subject from its real life perspective, with dates of publications, product information, histories of appearances in various media, critical responses to those appearances, it will win approval. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Snotling

Hi there. I noticed that you made a contribution to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Snotling indicating that you think the article should be kept. Your comments don't appear to address the fact that no mention of the Games Workshop "snotling" can be found in reliable, third-party, published sources. As the AfD debate has been relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached, I thought you might like to elaborate on why you think the article should be kept, bearing in mind WP:RS. Many thanks. -- JediLofty ^User_Talk 14:43, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

You have confused Notability and verifiability. For subjects of this sort, V can be done through primary nonindependent sources. The notability of the characters and settings is irrelevant--if the main article is notable, we may divided the total content however is convent purely as a editorial question--only the overall topic need show notability, not the subarticles. The wording of the WP GNC,. N=2RS, has confused many people--but its just a back-up in case we cant figure out whether a subject we do not understand or have no criteria for is likely to be notable. DGG (talk) 00:56, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Eldercraft Worlds should be merged to...

Well, due to it's complete lack of notability , I would say the void, or oblivion, or non being. Do you have a better idea of where to merge a large non-notable article like this? Judgesurreal777 (talk) 05:11, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

at the worst to Eldecraft Worlds, but prefereably to characters iof ... , or Locations in ... , or whatever. Theyr're part of the story and the setting. I'll compromise by saying they are not important enough for separat articles in WP if you wi compromise that they get covered in some manner. If they fit in the main article fine, if not divide. Im not claiming they are worth individual articles, and items of content don't need to be notable, just relevant. The characters are settting for a story is at least relevant' to the story. You're turn to speak: will you compromise, or no? I like to get my way accepted, but I also like peace, and I like it enough to compromise. though not enough to surrender. Your choice. DGG (talk) 05:30, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Episodes and Characters

• I notice your presence at the contested article about Bubbles which has provoked: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement#Eusebeus. Perhaps you have some knowledge of the matter which may help. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:02, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

and perhaps what I said wlll be of some help. DGG (talk) 15:46, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

=my own view on compromise and fiction articles

Look, I pretty much share his true policy goals: we should provide full coverage proportional to the importance of the fiction, of anything a general reader is likely to want to know about fictional characters and elements, but not including the true game-guide level, with the details that can only be understood or needed if you actually play the game, and not including the fan fiction that extend and fantasizes about the stories--unless of course one such actually become notable. If my young cousin wants to talk about WoW, Wikipedia should give me enough so I can sound intelligent. If the main work is important enough, every significant character in it is worth discussion, and every named character is worth mention. Whether it's in separate articles is irrelevant, but if in combined articles it should still be adequate treatment. (I see I will have to explain adequate treatment--I can explain it better if fiction than games--I mean every individual scene, if it's as important as a play by Shakespeare, and many of the individual lines of dialog. I do not mean every subplot in a relatively unimportant children's series, and I recognize the difficult of doing it coherently with the incoherent very long running soap opera. If someone mentions a character name as their favorite character, I should at least find out here what show it was on and the general role.

Some of you guys writing here disagree with that, and as we will not convince each other, I try to convince enough new-comers. Failing that, I will try to make the best compromise possible -- if people are willing to compromise in good faith.

Now, an editor we have been discussing perhaps did not understand that a compromise is best obtained by taking strong, but not absurd positions, and that not everything is worth fighting over. If on a scale of importance running down from 1st level to 10th, I want down through 8 and you want only down through 3, I will argue perhaps for 9 to get a position established, but not 10, and I will discuss with someone who argues for only 2 for the same reason of bargaining tactics as mine, but not with someone who has doubts about even the top level. If one asks for everything, one sounds as unreasonable as the people who want nothing, and there's no basis to negotiate. For those who wants no substantial treatment of fictional elements at all, I have no basis to compromise, just to persuade other people that they are wrong. Myself, for fiction article I argue for keep if I think it has a chance, and for compromise otherwise. I have no basis for work with someone who will never compromise, but argues for deleting in all cases. He often offered to compromise --go back and read the last month of so at AfD. Those who claim inability to work with him I judge as unable to defeat his good arguments and not sensible enough to ignore the bad ones.

I havent mentioned notability and sources. I consider them either obsessions or excuses. The material for fictional characters is the work itself. First we decide what we want to do, and then we make rules to get it. V is a standard, but RS depends on the subject. I've looked at some of the sources he's been adding; some are good, some not (as for editing generally by most people on most subjects). Some good ones get rejected by people who will ask for sources because they think there will be none, and then reject everything shown on one reason or other because what they really mean is they don't want the article. The notability is the work. The elements of a work are what make for its notability--the notability is composite. It's not "inherited"--what "not inherited" is a good argument for is fan fiction, which doe have to be separately notable. Not everyones riff on the Potter characters is notable, though I know some pretty good ones. (from another genre of fiction, Tom Jones began as Shamela, a hostile riff on Pamela.)

As for Kww's argument here about damage, I disagree with it. I am willing to discuss indefinitely with polite people who take defensible positions, argue rationally, work in good faith, and know when to stop. One could argue the last point is the usual problem, with him and with some others. My problem with the parapsychology people, for example, is that some are not in fact willing to compromise in good faith, and do not always argue rationally. I will talk about it forever with the others. There is only one response to a bad argument, is a good one. The audience will be convinced. If you fail to do so, your argument is not adequate, or your position indefensible in the present setting. The opponent may not be in good faith, but the newcomers are. If someone keeps repeated poor arguments, the sensible debaters ignore him. If someone presents bad arguments, and you abuse or ban him, your damage your own case in the view of any sensible beholder. There is however a case for stating strongly but politely positions that will not be adopted in the hope of setting the groundwork for the future. People supported Tolkien as serious literature worthy of academic study in the 1950s. People argued in the 1820s to abolish slavery in the US, and it was right that they did so--the next generation built on the arguments. Christians presented their arguments by 50 AD, & it became the state region 300 years later. People who leave because they don't win arguments are going to leave from any wiki they do not control; people who leave because they are treated impolitely can be prevented by behaving politely. The first step to civilized discourse is to stop using clubs, and the second to stop using insults. (they don't bother me personally, since I started in usenet days, when things were even worse., but the manner here would bother anyone new to it.) DGG (talk) 13:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

=my own view on Roi

Look, I pretty much share his true policy goals: we should provide full coverage proportional to the importance of the fiction, of anything a general reader is likely to want to know about fictional characters and elements, but not including the true game-guide level, with the details that can only be understood or needed if you actually play the game, and not including the fan fiction that extend and fantasizes about the stories--unless of course one such actually become notable. If my young cousin wants to talk about WoW, Wikipedia should give me enough so I can sound intelligent. If the main work is important enough, every significant character in it is worth discussion, and every named character is worth mention. Whether it's in separate articles is irrelevant, but if in combined articles it should still be adequate treatment. (I see I will have to explain adequate treatment--I can explain it better if fiction than games--I mean every individual scene, if it's as important as a play by Shakespeare, and many of the individual lines of dialog. I do not mean every subplot in a relatively unimportant children's series, and I recognize the difficult of doing it coherently with the incoherent very long running soap opera. If someone mentions a character name as their favorite character, I should at least find out here what show it was on and the general role.

Some of you guys writing here disagree with that, and as we will not convince each other, I try to convince enough new-comers. Failing that, I will try to make the best compromise possible -- if people are willing to compromise in good faith.

Now, LGC perhaps did not understand that a compromise is best obtained by taking strong, but not absurd positions, and that not everything is worth fighting over. If on a scale of importance running down from 1st level to 10th, I want down through 8 and you want only down through 3, I will argue perhaps for 9 to get a position established, but not 10, and I will discuss with someone who argues for only 2 for the same reason of bargaining tactics as mine, but not with someone who has doubts about even the top level. If one asks for everything, one sounds as unreasonable as the people who want nothing, and there's no basis to negotiate. For those who wants no substantial treatment of fictional elements at all, I have no basis to compromise, just to persuade other people that they are wrong. Myself, for fiction article I argue for keep if I think it has a chance, and for compromise otherwise. I have no basis for work with someone who will never compromise, but argues for deleting in all cases. LGC often offered to compromise --go back and read the last month of so at AfD. Those who claim inability to work with him I judge as unable to defeat his good arguments and not sensible enough to ignore the bad ones.

I havent mentioned notability and sources. I consider them either obsessions or excuses. The material for fictional characters is the work itself. First we decide what we want to do, and then we make rules to get it. V is a standard, but RS depends on the subject. I've looked at some of the sources he's been adding; some are good, some not (as for editing generally by most people on most subjects). Some good ones get rejected by people who will ask for sources because they think there will be none, and then reject everything shown on one reason or other because what they really mean is they don't want the article. The notability is the work. The elements of a work are what make for its notability--the notability is composite. It's not "inherited"--what "not inherited" is a good argument for is fan fiction, which doe have to be separately notable. Not everyones riff on the Potter characters is notable, though I know some pretty good ones. (from another genre of fiction, Tom Jones began as Shamela, a hostile riff on Pamela.)

As for Kww's argument here about damage, I disagree with it. I am willing to discuss indefinitely with polite people who take defensible positions, argue rationally, work in good faith, and know when to stop. One could argue the last point is the usual problem, with LGC and with some others. My problem with the parapsychology people, for example, is that some are not in fact willing to compromise in good faith, and do not always argue rationally. I will talk about it forever with the others. There is only one response to a bad argument, is a good one. The audience will be convinced. If you fail to do so, your argument is not adequate, or your position indefensible in the present setting. The opponent may not be in good faith, but the newcomers are. If someone keeps repeated poor arguments, the sensible debaters ignore him. If someone presents bad arguments, and you abuse or ban him, your damage your own case in the view of any sensible beholder. There is however a case for stating strongly but politely positions that will not be adopted in the hope of setting the groundwork for the future. People supported Tolkien as serious literature worthy of academic study in the 1950s. People argued in the 1820s to abolish slavery in the US, and it was right that they did so--the next generation built on the arguments. Christians presented their arguments by 50 AD, & it became the state region 300 years later. People who leave because they don't win arguments are going to leave from any wiki they do not control; people who leave because they are treated impolitely can be prevented by behaving politely. The first step to civilized discourse is to stop using clubs, and the second to stop using insults. (they don't bother me personally, since I started in usenet days, when things were even worse., but the manner here would bother anyone new to it.) DGG (talk) 13:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

AfDs instead of merge discussions

If you're wondering why people like myself like to utilize AfDs more than discussions for fiction, fans and extreme stalker inclusionists often make it impossible to do anything. They can stall the process forever and only something binding like an AfD can help. Also, the articles are often too bad to merge, so that's 100% out of the question. Personally, I like to utilize redirects for pretty much all fiction articles, but people complain that I'm trying to "circumvent the system" by doing that and demand that I use AfDs. TTN (talk) 18:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Just as a preliminary, a person who has an interest in a subject and follows all major changed proposed within it is not a stalker. I do that to the extent I can for all fiction, though limits of practicality force me to deal with the most drastic changes only. A person who were to follow the work you are doing in this subject field is also not doing wrong, using you as a guide to what is worth looking at. A stalker would be someone who follow you around to make difficulties for whatever you might choose to do, in any subject whatsoever, regardless of the merits. Incidentally, and FWIW, I do not routinely check your user contributions. But if I were to do so,and then follow a certain class of actions on certain topics, I would be using the user contribution list for the purpose intended. You and everyone here can do just the same by me, whether or not I like the results. We work in public. For someone who does not want their works opposed or criticised, this isn't the place. I am aware of at least one of the people who you designate as stalkers, but it is not so--if you were to do work that was not in his field of interest, he would not follow you there. If you wish to refactor that word, you may.

as an aside, I follow my own advice. when I come across articles that ought to be redirection and the redirection is obvious, I redirect them. I've done several hundred by now. Because I limit myself to the obvious, nobody has yet challenged any. If anyone would, I would just let them revert it, for they may be right, and there are all too many indisputable ones to do. I usually don't merge but only propose it, because those who know a fiction best will be able to do it the more accurately. And if someone objects, then I assume I may have made a mistake, and propose some that I hope nobody objects to. There are quite enough.

anyway, I have checked the pages on your latest batch of your most recent proposals, and I so far have found none where you have proposed a merge or a redirect. In fact, the discussion pages are empty altogether. Furthermore, you have made no edits there except the afd nomination. So you must mean you are nominating for afd because you predict that a merge or redirect would not be accepted. Sometimes I have seen some people's proposals for afd stating that they are brought there bcause a merge has been rejected. That is a fairer way of proceeding.

Your meaning as I understand it is, that because the people most interested in a subject often reject your suggestions at article pages, you are trying at afd instead. That's forum shopping at best. More than that, because the people most interested in the material are found at an article talk page, and many people besides that show up erratically at afd, the results of an afd have a certain degree of randomness. I dont don't think anyone could claim more than 80% accuracy for how disputed afds are concluded. And since afds can be repeated, there's a high probability of getting anything deleted if one tries often enough, just from random variation regardless of the merits. Because of this, AfD procedure is biased toward deletion. Is that why you like it?

There are indeed some articles with nothing worth the merge (usually because the content has already been included) But I have yet to see a fiction article about a named character or setting where there's no reasonable redirect. The only reason you might want to do this at afd rather than by discussion is that the afd is sometimes done as a delete and redirect rather than a redirect--and this destroys the history, leaving nothing for someone to build on. In that case, you are choosing to ignore the possibility of improvement. If that's what you intend, I suggest you give an argument in the afd nom. why a delete would be superior to a redirect. (If you're talking about OR content, we don't delete when someone adds OR to an article, just revert it. leaving it in the history. We only delete the edit for libel or outrageous vandalism. This should apply to an article too).

So, if you mean in good faith what you have said above, when you nominate for afd, and some editor suggests a merge or a redirect, at least as an alternative, why do not you change you nomination to say that such would be OK. or even withdraw the nomination (if there is no support for keeping the article)? You could cite the afd discussion on the talk page as support.

I offer you a way of working together: propose here a few redirects or merges, and I will then suggest or support the ones I agree with as joint proposals from you and me. Let's see if they get opposed after that. Take care, of course, that if they are a redirect there is enough material in the article to give a reasonable amount of information on the topic, and if a merge that it not be a destructive merge, but one that preserves a reasonable amount of the content. DGG (talk) 21:17, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll respond to that sometime later, but just to target one point: I wasn't calling you a stalker. I'm talking about the people that have nothing better to do than be antagonistic by reverting bold redirects for no exact reason. Two to four people acting just like that was one of the main reasons for much of my edit warring. TTN (talk) 21:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I recognize that, and apologize if it read that way. I was just using myself as an example in explaining why checking on a particular course of action on a particular type of article, by watching someone known to do just that, is not stalking. It followed exactly the principles of BRD. for further discussion by others, see the Arb Com case. Reverting everything you did anywhere would have been stalking. DGG (talk) 21:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I find this discussion between you both very interesting. I have to admit that many times I thought that a redirect would solve things better. For some period I tagged articles with merge tags or used talk pages without any reply for months (even for a year! Maybe DGG remembers that from another discussion we had). After discussing with DGG, I thought that after tagging if I don't have any reply I can be bold and convert to redirects. Then I notice something really annoying, anonymous IPs keep reverting redirects, removing tags without any obvious reason and without any summary. Right now, I am using AfD more as a safety net to have a consensus. I am worried that even if I place merge tags, someone is going to revert them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

well, if you watchlist them, just put them back. Nobody seems to do this to mine, but perhaps that's because I pick the most obvious ones, usually out of prod patrol, and say explicitly I am doing it as an alternative to deletion, which sort of gives a hint... But what you and TTN say reflects 3 related and very real problems that I recognize also, and that have been concerning me since I have come here:

1. The ambiguity of merge closes. Our saying that merge & redirects are varieties of keep does not really meet the situation. There are destructive merges, merges which include in some content, and merges which insert the whole (any of which can be sensible or otherwise,d epending on the situation) And redircts can be before a delete or after them, & it makes quite a difference. In the past, most redirects at afd have been without deleting the history; now some people say delete and redirect, to destroy it--which, again, may or may not be a good idea.
2. The difficulty of both permitting the easy reconstruction of improved articles (and of preventing the reconstruction of bad ones. This sort of thing takes judgment, only in theory part of Speedy G4 for reconstruction. (Let's defer considering deletion review, the quagmire of Wikipedia process, from which all normal people keep far away. Or the reality of asking the admin: a closing admis who may have stretched things a little to delete may not be all that sympathetic to reconstruction either. 1000 active admins with 1000 different standards is not the way to get consistency.) And consider the asymmetry between delete and keep closes, where a keep can be repeated endlessly. Consider a worthy article--if there is a 90% chance of a correct close at Afd, then the chance of keeping it after 4 afds is only 66%. Given WP surviving long enough, anything can be deleted by random chance. This is of course compensated for by the chance of reinserting a bad article and getting away with it. Neither are processes to be encouraged.
3. The lack of good process for deciding on article content. We do discuss this at AfD, because there's no other good place for general attention. The noticeboards help, the Projects help, the policy talk pages help, but there are too many places and nobody can pay attention to all to them. I do not know how to do this right, but I do know we're doing a pretty lousy job of it now. I shouldn't say "lousy" really , becaues sometimes it does work. The word, once more, is "random."

The question I ask, is to what extent do people want to solve them, or to what extent is everyone really trying to do anything which will get the decisions on whatever it is they are concerned about go their own way? Let me put it this way: would you prefer on some general type of article here consistent decisions the way you think is wrong, or decisions that are half of them right and half of them wrong? (I'm not addressing specifically TNN and Magioladitis, but myself as well, and everyone.) DGG (talk) 01:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Drove by this one. I'm a big fan of stability, myself. The reason I tend to take hopeless articles straight to AFD, bypassing PROD or bold redirection, is because it helps in making the change (or lack thereof) semi-permanent. If I redirect, people usually undo it. If I get an AFD result of redirect, I can make it stick, and even get the redirect protected if there's trouble with zombie articles. If I use PROD, people usually recreate the article, but if it was deleted by AFD, I can get the article G7'ed, and get the recalcitrant editor blocked if he persists.

About 10% of the time, I find (as in the tragic case of Bulbasaur) that despite the fact that the article is beyond all hope, there is a large cadre of editors that want it. When that happens, I know to leave it alone.

I do the vast majority of my editing on the Disney Channel stuff, a role I wandered into through vandalism reversion. Most of the editors are children, and really don't deal well with policies and logic. Discussions on talk pages are fruitless, because there is no getting through to an angry Miley Cyrus fan that not everything that Cyrus has ever done or said needs to be chronicled in great detail on Wikipedia. AFD is the only place I can go that takes the discussion to the level of adults that read and understand policy, and actually have a desire to work on Wikipedia as a whole. It's pretty telling that I essentially never see the active editors on the articles I nominate for deletion actually say anything at the AFD ... I can watch 20 editors come and go, adding rumored tracklists for imaginary albums, breathlessly reporting the blog rumor of the week about what the title of Jordan Pruitt's next album is going to be, and nary a one clicks the link and argues that the article should be kept.

Is there a better way? Sure, but it involves something that will never fly: actually trying to objectively apply policy to article content, and be willing to abide by the results, and deal harshly with editors that consistently violate it. I've watched TTN, and it's painfully obvious that the people that resurrect the articles he redirects don't care at all about policy. We can write all the guidelines and policies we want, and they will make their decisions based on their own personal interest in the topic. We need to get that mindset to stop. We need to get people to understand that if policies and guidelines are resulting in the deletion of their favorite articles, they need to try to get the policy changed, not edit war against redirects and merges one article at a time.

Kww (talk) 04:10, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with about half. I agree that: many of the video and fiction and film articles are written by children (and adults) who do not understand the difference between describing a plot and characters and setting so one can understand, and simply transcribing everything they see. But AfD doesn't fix it, because if the fiction is actually notable, the bad writing stays. If you and I went about fixing them instead of arguing about them, we could get somewhere. I try a bit, and I know you do also, and some others, but it's long and hard--while deleting is too easy. Get rid of them, and then we don't have to work on them, that's our temptation. The question of what fictions are of such little importance that they're not worth describing in detail is a real one, and I've advocated for some time making a distinction between those to be treated in detail and those not. But this never got anywhere, because people kept writing too much about whatever they happened to like--and because people tried to delete the detailed articles from even the most important fictions. I also agree that we have no good way of enforcing good content--but its not just a matter of enforcing guidelines, its agreeing on them. By and large, the best approach so far is the Video Games content guideline--that's the sort of detail necessary to specify, though I don't agree with every bit of it. The root of this problem is our reliance on BRD, a sure way to promote conflict and discourage compromise. But since that's ingrained here as if we intended deliberately to butt our heads against each other as an activity of choice, I'm not sure what to do except to urge you and everyone to be willing to set some necessarily arbitrary rules that none of us can expect to completely like--this at least channelizes the problems.

I agree that that people ignoring the afds except for us regulars is a problem, particularly in this field--perhaps it has to do with the excessively formal standards we've trapped ourselves into using, Or perhaps the variability in result, the tendency of pileons to affect results, and the reversals in successive afds--people on all sides can feel that struggling is hopeless. The problem is made worse of course by bringing too many to argue at a time and to give vague rationales--you mentioned TTN, and he's certainly not helping here. I think his indiscriminate redirects and merges and afds are making things much worse. But then you know how strongly I oppose what he does about this. He should stick to using his skills on improving not deleting content. You brought up his name. I wouldn't have. How can one side compromise when the other thinks compromise is removing everything, even the redirects?

I've offered him, and I offer you, to jointly sponsor some difficult merges. I've offered other people this too, but its always failed because my idea of a merge is preserving content if possible, and other people have wanted to eliminate as much content as possible on these topics and leave only skeleton articles, the barer the better about the fiction itself. I got into this because people wanted to apply that to the sort of 19th century fiction I know and care about. If that's what some want, I'll continue trying to persuade people that it's no more in the interest of the encyclopedia than eliminating BLPs. some people actually do want that. DGG (talk) 04:55, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I pretty much no longer work on fiction. It's just too frustrating, and the opportunities to try to edit war my way through are pretty strong. I do a lot of single merging (contrary to popular belief, WP:MUSIC doesn't say "every single released by every artist in the world needs an article"), and I'm pretty strict with myself about maintaining the content.

In the fiction world, I will argue strongly that TTN (who started this thread, which is why I brought him up) may be prolific, but he is far from indiscriminate. I've always been pretty impressed with his ability to sort wheat from chaff. He used to do a lot of redirecting and merging, and when I reviewed his work after the controversy started, there were only a few spots where I thought he cut too far, and numerous spots where he found something salvageable in a spot where I would have just swung an ax.

In terms of a system, I think we need to stop thinking of AFD as content deletion. What AFD should result in is an agreement that we cannot have an independent article on this subject. The content should get frozen, protected as a redirect, and the information should be redistributed. That redistribution effort might wind up deciding that all the information was useless and we can eliminate the original article entirely, but generally, bits and pieces will find homes. I think a "deleted article information redistribution Wikiproject" would be something that might actually work, and calm some of the feelings that people have when they see an article deleted.Kww (talk) 12:50, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

As for independent articles, I agree our concentration of the question of articles vs. parts is excessive, as compared with the more important question of content. Whether we are to have many small articles or fewer large ones, in this subject and in others, is primarily a matter of format. Good encyclopedias in paper have been written either way. However, there are some key considerations that do have to be taken into account about the medium of a wiki:

1. Articles longer than a certain size cannot be easily read by the fairly large group of people who rely on low-speed connections. The customary point is 32 kB, but that is almost certainly too restrictive. But the content of all the material on, say, Star Wars, is too long for one practical article.
2. The reading style on the web seems more suited for smaller articles--there's a lot of research that people's attention span on the web is shorter and their reading less careful. for a very recent review,see Bauerline in the Chron Higher Ed. Review (not sure its free-I can email a copy if you ask me).
3. The problem of indexing of article sections remains. Links to them are not stable.
4. The much greater prominence of full article titles on Google and other search engines is a fact. We are not a subsidiary of Google, but use from search engines is important to our users.

and about us specifically:

1. In practice at Wikipedia, condensing into large articles for these subjects has almost always been accompanied by great loss of content. It's more than bits and pieces which should find homes.
2. Short articles encourage new contributors. Long ones need careful dedicated accepted management, with a way to encourage new contribs to add needed sections. We depend on attracting naive contributors, for people learn.

As I said, if you want to try a proper merge and accept a compromise view of content you will have my cooperation.

More generally, our article based approach is obsolete. A proper 2.0 approach is a database of modular content, that can be arranged and rearranged in various formats. It's technically possible, and some organizations have actually implemented approaches to this--notably PubMedCentral, which looks like articles but is actually an XML database of content elements. DGG (talk) 16:54, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

If you feel the need to make the same comment in every single AfD, I suggest that you attempt get the deletion policy changed to make a previous discussion mandatory. While your overall point is somewhat valid, you're really out of your element here. You don't seem to have much experience with dealing with rabid fans of a series, so you can't really judge how things should work. The happy "hold hands and hug" method works with some things, but it is not applicable to most aspects of fiction on this site. You're obviously free to vote to keep articles based on your own perspective, but please do not argue that these AfDs are inappropriate unless you can cite something specifically stating such. TTN (talk) 19:07, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

But it isn't mandatory if you want to delete. It is mandatory if you want to merge if there is any possibility of disagreement. Since your rationales are talking about separate articles, then it sounds to me that you really want to merge, in which case you should propose a merge.o. I have offered to Kww, and I offer to you, my help in merging articles on minor characters if they aren't destructive merges. I consider many of the articles excessive detail, such as one I was about to comment on, Jacques Blanc, and if you want to shorten that or similar ones a reasonable amount, I will back you there also. I am reluctant to do it myself for many of these if its more than just tightening the prose. (for that one, a reasonable amount might be down to 50%, but not 10%.) Like Kww, I consider the problem with the writers of these articles lack of writing skill and possible immaturity, not rabid devotion, and I will support teaching them by example. As for experience, as I told you earlier, though I haven't done it anywhere as much as you, I have been redirecting selected articles on truly minor characters for some time when they come to my attention, and nobody has ever complained to me about it. I suppose I ought to go back and see if they have been reversed, but I doubt it. If they have, I may ask you for some help with them.

As I've said, i started in on this when people tried to delete reasonable articles on major characters in some of the most important classic fiction--I know it wasn't you, but that's what first got me interested. And yes, i succeeded in rescuing one game article when I found references, but it was to an article about a weapon that was also one in real life & the real life equivalent was what I knew about, and called my attention to it. And then I looked at some of the articles on episodes of shows I did know about with a complex plot, and found their merged sections ridiculously short of what was needed for any comprehension. Had there been only reasonable amounts of merging and even deletion, I would probably not have noticed at all. But just as excessive articles attract unfavorable attention, so does excessive merging or deleting.

I agree with reduction of the excess as a principle, though it is likely that you and i have a different idea of what is reasonable. If we can compromise that, we might get somewhere with the articles, rather than fighting each other. We won't convince each other, but there should be some zone in common, both for separate articles for major and combined ones for minor characters. And one sentence in a list for trivial. I have sometimes even made what I think are just barely justifiable expedients, such as redirection when it was a little more than trivial, because I didn't feel confident about shortening--in the hope that someone would expand it s mention on the list a little. You surely recognize the feeling--there are so many of these articles. There are two ways to deal with that: one is by improving them, and the other is removing them. I have pretty strong feelings about which is better, but I do consider merging properly a good way of improving. DGG (talk) 19:58, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I nominate these articles with the idea of having them deleted and I use merge tags when I want them merged. When nominating articles for deletion, I generally find them to either be completely redundant or irrelevant. For example, Jacques Blanc is a character that appears in only one video game. The article already has a plot section, so merging anything into it would be pointless. As I have stated, I would redirect just about everything if I could. Unfortunately, it is unreasonable to do so at this time. While redirecting in small patches does work, even the most minor characters of a popular series will be argued over forever. Just in case you haven't noticed, I have been proposing mergers and redirecting a few articles here and there. TTN (talk) 20:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

List of Dragon Ball characters

The merges are appropriate and the closings are in line with both WP:MERGE and WP:CONSENSUS. They are upheld by the anime and manga project and by the dragon ball task force. They have already been completed and the merge closings were already upheld by another administrator. Your comments have only throw more fuel on a fire that had already started dying down and I don't see why you felt compelled to come do that? -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 17:42, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I came because I saw the discussion at DRV. (I was not canvassed by anyone--as you must realise, I watch DRV quite consistently). The conclusion there was correct, that it needs to be discussed at the article page. So I did just that. I'm sorry if you don't like what I said, but that's the way discussions go. According to WP:MERGE, there has to be "clear agreement" to merge. I do not think 3 merge out of 7 is is clear agreement in any sense of the word. I didn't add my !vote, I just made my own evaluation of the discussion. If another admin disagrees, that's why we have more than one admin; none of us are dictators and none of our individual judgments are final. You will note I did not revert the 2 merges I commented on, though I think they totally misinterpreted WP policy about the meaning of consensus in this context, but left it for someone else. If this has reopened the issue, that was exactly what I intended--acting against agreement like that is something that needs to be looked at. As far as I know, no admin has authority to definitively terminate a merge discussion, or make any other final decision on content. Anyone, admin or not, can disagree with it. DGG (talk) 18:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)ionists - good for you. Thank you for your help again, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:45, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Danni Quee

"No evidence that there was even a suggestion to merge, before an attempt to delete it." -- yup fair enuf, it didnt occur to me, i'll bear it mind next time. cheers Mission Fleg (talk) 05:52, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

If you ever need support in persuading people, just let me know DGG (talk) 21:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

ok, will do. thanks. Mission Fleg (talk) 02:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Cell

Cell (Dragon Ball) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (restore | cache | AfD) I thought you could fix the formatJJJ999 (talk) 01:58, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• I still can't see the article on Cell I'm contesting on the deletion review page, it is only visible on the page for October 9th, not on the main deletion review page... do you know how to fix this? One admin tells me it's there, but I can't see it.JJJ999 (talk) 06:59, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• fixed.

Cell add on

• Is it really acceptable for a newly begun attempt to build consensus on the talk page about Cell to be closed like this? the close of the deletion review cited the ability to go to the talk page to discuss this further, which is how Cell got reviewed so much in the first place. It seems absurd that this should stop because some editors find it "a distraction". I find much of what happens a distraction, but that's no basis to stop it.JJJ999 (talk) 05:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

without getting into the question of what should best be done in this particular case, there needs to be some mechanism for actually reaching a decision and sticking to it. As you have noticed, Wikipedia is not very good at this. To the extent we manage to attain such a system, those who lose an particular argument, however unhappy with it, need to accept the result. One needs to work on two aspects: first, making sure the actual decisions are faot with representative participation and reasonable methods for appeal to the wider community; and second, establishing some rules so it does not get perpetually challenged. As an analogy, however disastrous the 2000 US presidential election, the results are now history. As you probably know, I deal with this problem on Wikipedia by working on some many things that something is always coming out right. We must not give up the principal of continuing to value equity, and thus must be able to come back another day on another matter. Even if one's whole life is improving Wikipedia, there are many fronts to work on. I am not planning to revisit this one.

All is for the best, in this, the best of all possible worlds

One of the advantages of not having many supporters at your RFA is that there are fewer people to thank at the end. You didn't vote support, but I'm leaving this on your talk page because I thought the lack of an opposing vote was conspicuous. I choose to interpret that as a sign of respect. If I'm wrong, you don't need to tell me.

I'm going to try to interpret this resounding defeat as a statement that I should choose my words more carefully in the future, and remember that every statement I make gets recorded forever, just waiting to get carefully transcribed onto my next RFA. I would go insane if I believed that it was repudiation of what I truly meant: that no editor should consciously and willfully ignore guidelines and policies, and editors that repeatedly do so should not be rewarded for or supported in doing so.

I'm sure I'll get back to full speed editing soone, because, after all, , every day, and in every way, I am getting better and better.—Kww(talk) 05:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Tien and Cell issues

Lord O has opened a mediation case on the AfDs on Cell and Tien, if you could go to comment there as one of the parties who dealt with the last issue to arise from this, that would be appreciated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2008-10-07_Tien_Shinhan and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2008-10-08_Cell_(Dragon_Ball) JJJ999 (talk) 00:30, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Tien (again)

Since there has been no further discussion on Tien's page, and the current consensus (discussions for which began in mi September) is for keeping him, I attempted to close the discussion as "keep", which seemed fair since a) Collectonian and others have not made any more comments in a while, and nor has anyone else, and b) they have closed many other merge discussions with far less time. Without offering any rationale Collectonian has undone my merge close. I don't really feel like a long series of arguments and reversions, perhaps you can intercede and decide whether to close it. I can't for the life of me see what the point to keeping it open is, when they've added nothing in weeks, and when the other merge discussions were all closed.JJJ999 (talk) 23:13, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

• It now seems she is trying to disregard all the input that was made only weeks ago, because she doesn't want to have to factor it in. This is obviously inappropriate. I find this comical, because it is the exact opposite of the argument she made for the Cell AfD, that because it has just been decided to merge, it was too soon to revisit it. Strangely Collectonian thinks now is fine to revisit Tien though...JJJ999 (talk) 23:18, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course, JJJ999 decided that the FIRST discussion that he had invalidated is now a keep because it supports his views. Also, I specifically noted that I undid his "close" because of this and because he changed an existing close and other people's remarks. He is also completely disregarding the AfD which came after the first didscussion and closed with a specific note to discuss the merge on the talk page rather than a firm keep or delete. Rediscussing is fully appropriate in this case where the first discussion was invalidated completely (so it doesn't count at all), and the AfD while heavily leaned towards merge did not close as such but did not close as keep either. Also, you may want to note that JJJ999 is once again engaging in forum shopping and canvassing over this issue and already making new personal attacks. He is also inappropriately duplicating HIS version of the first Tien merge discussion in the new discussion despite the original still being on the same page and easily readable above (and a link to said discussion in the new discussion) -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 00:44, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

You closed that discussion as merge. I challenged the result. 2 Admins overturned it. Discussion resumed. You were unhappy with the way the discussion was going, so to circumvent it you went to AfD. the AfD called for discussions to resume on the talk page. It certainly didn't call for the old discussion to be abandoned. It's a flat out lie to suggest you closed the discussion. Indeed, you left the "merge discussion" link on Tien's page, and when I removed it you undid my revision (and then pupported to create a "new" discussion). You also asked various admins (unsuccessfully) to have the AfD discussion added on to the merge discussion on the talk page. Nice try.JJJ999 (talk) 00:51, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Moving this reply over to the new discussion. Stop the damn forum shopping and reporting in FOUR places. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 00:59, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

You've said the same thing basically repeatedly. I'm saving myself the time of having to retype my replies. It's not forum shopping, because I think it's clear the Cabal was abandoned, and indeed I was amazed something (finally) happened there.JJJ999 (talk) 01:00, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Only because you did your usual canvassing and posting the same thing everywhere. But I'm sick of it and have moved my remarks to the current discussion. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 01:01, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I have proposed a reasonable compromise. I will not insist on previous views being factored in, or even appealing the decision on Tien when it is made, provided that 1 full month is given for the merge discussion. It should be a real discussion, not just a "who is around to vote this week" job. Perhaps it will be recreated with better sources at a future point though.JJJ999 (talk) 01:11, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

As noted on the list talk, I do not see any valid reason to wait a full month. AfDs only run 5-7 days, and as such two weeks is more than enough time for the discussion, which is also the approximately amount of time suggested by guidelines. It is also a week LONGER than folks are given to fix an article in a GAR or FAR. Those are far more extensive processes than a simple discussion. Any active editors would certainly be online within one week, if not two. Waiting a month just draws it out excessively. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 01:17, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

• Then it sounds like there is no consensus to merge, because I'm factoring in both the AfD and the merge discussion, which make this a snow keep for at least a month.JJJ999 (talk) 02:58, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't. Just let the new discussion run...unless of you course you want to stop it because so far you are the only person to say anything close to keep (and even then, you actually just said you opposed the discussion). -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 03:18, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

suggestion

Why is this discussion here at all? Probably because different parties think my view might be helpful, since I have not really taken any strong position in the discussion. the reason I have not is that:

1. I have no particular preference whether the material on this character in the game is integrated into the main articles or not. I do not think it a matter of principle, like I do having separate articles for the key characters in major fiction. Major fiction it may be,but unless i totally misunderstand he is not a key character. I also think as a matter of principle we should not have separate article on trivial characters, but unless I misunderstand, he is more than trivial. So I don't see how it matters very much.
2. what matters is that the content be appropriate, and that it be logically arranged.
   1. As for appropriateness, i think a description of the nature of all significant characters is helpful to understand, and a reasonable recapitulation of the plot is necessary and appropriate to do so --indeed, in some cases, the description of the plot can be usefully organized around the characters, as in most soap opera. I also am quite positive that this description can be taken from primary sources and often should be in preference.
   2. As for arrangement, I think the current organisation of the Dragon Ball material unhelpful. It is appropriate only to a fan wiki, where the readers already know approximately what it is all about. The multiple versions of the material all of them discussed here separately make it impossible for the outside general reader, like myself--who has never actually seen any of the versions--to know what they are about in the first place, what the interest in them is, or what aspects of them are important or changed in the various series. I find it all a jumble. Nor does the separate presentation of the characters help. They are interesting and comprehensible not in themselves, but in relation to each other, & treating them individually creates a surprising amount of duplication and confusion.
   3. What is needed is an article on dragon ball characters, written in summary style, with the key ones discussed in separate articles if there is sufficient material to do so. I gather that the changes in the various versions provide enough material to discuss, but i am not sure that the minutia of this is really important. What came in what box in what language may be out-of-universe, but it is still of fan interest only.
   4. I suggest therefore that the people discussing it here, who I gather do understand and appreciate the material, try to write one good long combination article discussing the characters in this series, combining all the material. Upon looking at it, then we can decide how to break it up. Personally, i thin k the most useful way to break it up is a combined alphabetic list, followed by groups of characters by function (or, in other fictions, family or the like). Keeping related material together helps the general reader. If you already know it all more or less, and are just checking for details, any arrangement will do if the material is there.
3. discussing what content goes in Wikipedia is worthwhile; discussing how to arrange it is less important; arguing over how to discuss it is getting rather lame; arguing how long the discussion need or where it should be held is lamest of all. (FWIW, if the question is content, policy is that there is no closure--and merging is held, rightly or wrongly, to be a content question. I am not sure either of these is necessarily a good way to do things, but that is another matter & not for discussing now. The current policy for both is clear.

I have made a suggestion for how to proceed: I urge that all present discussions be closed without prejudice and that you figure out how to do the work of making good content on all the characters, compromising all necessary points but in the direction of relatively extensive treatment, and then let us look at it in one piece and decide what needs doing in terms of arrangement. We need some of of breaking the deadlock on these articles without resorting to random decision making by relative persistence and local strength of numbers. DGG (talk) 03:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I would guess the discussion is here because JJJ999 thinks you will support him in his complaints because you agreed that those to merger closures were not fully a consensus to merge, so he believes you are his ally. I agree with you on the arrangement, and on the need for one central character article. That is List of Dragon Ball characters and we agreed that it was best to first deal with any needed merges before attempting to get the list cleaned up, sourced, etc. Eventual goal being something like List of Naruto characters (which completely disagrees with your suggestion, but it is an FL list and goes more in-line with the overall project preferences). I disagree with you on the need to close present discussions in the list, however. That is allowing fans to disrupt a very long term and on-going clean up process by refusing to allow the necessary discussions that go along with that to happen. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 03:57, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

sometime when a discussion has reached a impasse, it helps to stop , take a breath, and start again after a short break, in the hope that people will realise in the interval the virtues of cooperation. It does prejudge the issue, and it give a way of saving face. i've seen it work many times, here and elsewhere. I additionally meant to point out that there will be much less opposition to combining articles if people are confident that significant content will not be lost. But this is not the place for me to explictly support a particular side. BTW, I dont know why you think I would dislike the Naruto list. DGG (talk) 04:12, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

That's why I waited awhile to start the new discussion, but it didn't help. There also is a merged version available for viewing (see the AfD). I didn't mean to imply wou would dislike the list, just that it isn't done the way you were suggesting. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 04:18, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

• I asked DGG because they were reasonably fair in some earlier decisions I noted, and because he has no vested interest in anime or manga discussions. I don't think you waiting for about a week and resuming discussion is consistent with the claimed "need to respect the AfD before revisiting the issue" argument you have made vis Cell, and I think if you plan to do it so soon then the merge discussion should be left open a month. The reasoning is obvious. People keep voting and voting and discussing on this issue, and sooner or later they turn around and think "that's the last vote". They assume they don't need to address this again, and again, only a week later. If you feel confident the article lacks support, then agree to leave it open long enough for a real discussion. either that, or incorporate the views of the previous (very recent) discussion. I can't see how disregarding them, or taking the views of this particular week, is consistent with consensus. If that's your approach you can hardly be surprised if I revisit Cell and Tien next week, because it seems to be your attitude. That as long as there was doubt then the whole thing can be re-opened in a week.JJJ999 (talk) 04:28, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Wrong, the Cell decision was extremely clear in both the AfD (closed as merge) and all of your follow up attempts to revert it. Tien is not clear. As you yourself have argued repeatedly, the first discussion had no clear consensus. The AfD was heavy towards merge, but didn't close that way so really no consensus again. As such, revisiting the discussion is appropriate because, again, no consensus has been decided. A month is NOT needed to have "real" discussion. 2 weeks is more than enough time, at which point I will ask an admin who has not weighed in themselves to close it as they see fit. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 04:38, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, Cell was "clear" in the previous AfD too, and it was "clear" in the subsequent merge discussion, but you still took it to AfD again. Assumedly you won't mind a little down the track when I revisit this issue too. A 4 day close is not clear, and discussion in future was invited on the close. Tien was unclear on the merge you closed, but a clear keep after others like myself came to comment. The AfD is judged on how it closed, not how you feel it closed. It closed as a no delete or merge, so that's what it was. Revisiting the discussion means going back to the discussion we had, that was never closed. Not trying to repeat the process of AfD in merge form all over again, which is what a 5 day merge discussion will amount to. 2 weeks is closer to what is acceptable I admit. If you don't ask before 2 weeks, I'm much more inclined to not dispute the decision.JJJ999 (talk) 05:16, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

It was not clear in the subsequent merge, and the other AfD was months old. And yes, if you bring up the Cell discussion within another week or two, I (and I suspect many others) will mind, particularly if nothing new is added to the discussion (i.e. the discovery of a ton of significant coverage in reliable sources ). Tien was not clear. You engaged in canvassing, which negated the discussion. The AfD did not close as no merge, it just closed as no deleted. The closing admins comments are very clear. Revisiting the discussion means starting a new one, not attempting to find consensus in a messed up earlier discussion that was tainted by canvassing. As I said, I won't ask for anyone to close for at least 2 weeks. Never intended to do it any sooner anyway. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 06:13, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

To call the earlier discussion on Tien "tainted by canvassing" is ludicrous. It was already 4-3 in favour of keep when you closed it, then others who had not spoken to anyone like myself came and objected, then 2 admins and a random added their voices to the protest. I didn't even arrive until after your erroneous merge. The merge was overturned, and the discussion free to resume (you chose not to participate again). How that is "canvassed", even under your absurd definition, is mysterious at best.JJJ999 (talk) 06:28, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

You feel the new comments should be included in the discussions. Those comments came after your canvassing, which multiple admins also told you was what you did. In either case, you've agreed to allow the new discussion to go for at least 2 weeks and accept the results of the closing admin after that, yes?-- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 13:45, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I feel 2 weeks is closer to the amount of time which is appropriate. If almost nobody makes any input by then, I may feel differently. In any case, I am going to save the article for future editing purposes, and if it is improved to a certain standard, I will explore restoring it at a future point.JJJ999 (talk) 22:34, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it is time to stop talking about how to hold the discussion, and just get some additional views on the content? I've given mine on the list talk page. It would really be more productive to go back to discussing the issue itself, than to argue about what past discussion did or did not have consensus. Since consensus can always change, and no Wikipedia decision isever final, that's not going to get anywhere defintie. Discuss the issue of this page, settle it one way or another and get on to something else at least for the time being. This is not the place for it. At least on my own talk page, i can close a discussion. DGG (talk) 23:13, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll respond to that sometime later, but just to target one point: I wasn't calling you a stalker. I'm talking about the people that have nothing better to do than be antagonistic by reverting bold redirects for no exact reason. Two to four people acting just like that was one of the main reasons for much of my edit warring. TTN (talk) 21:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I recognize that, and apologize if it read that way. I was just using myself as an example in explaining why checking on a particular course of action on a particular type of article, by watching someone known to do just that, is not stalking. It followed exactly the principles of BRD. for further discussion by others, see the Arb Com case. Reverting everything you did anywhere would have been stalking. DGG (talk) 21:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I find this discussion between you both very interesting. I have to admit that many times I thought that a redirect would solve things better. For some period I tagged articles with merge tags or used talk pages without any reply for months (even for a year! Maybe DGG remembers that from another discussion we had). After discussing with DGG, I thought that after tagging if I don't have any reply I can be bold and convert to redirects. Then I notice something really annoying, anonymous IPs keep reverting redirects, removing tags without any obvious reason and without any summary. Right now, I am using AfD more as a safety net to have a consensus. I am worried that even if I place merge tags, someone is going to revert them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

well, if you watchlist them, just put them back. Nobody seems to do this to mine, but perhaps that's because I pick the most obvious ones, usually out of prod patrol, and say explicitly I am doing it as an alternative to deletion, which sort of gives a hint... But what you and TTN say reflects 3 related and very real problems that I recognize also, and that have been concerning me since I have come here:

1. The ambiguity of merge closes. Our saying that merge & redirects are varieties of keep does not really meet the situation. There are destructive merges, merges which include in some content, and merges which insert the whole (any of which can be sensible or otherwise,d epending on the situation) And redircts can be before a delete or after them, & it makes quite a difference. In the past, most redirects at afd have been without deleting the history; now some people say delete and redirect, to destroy it--which, again, may or may not be a good idea.
2. The difficulty of both permitting the easy reconstruction of improved articles (and of preventing the reconstruction of bad ones. This sort of thing takes judgment, only in theory part of Speedy G4 for reconstruction. (Let's defer considering deletion review, the quagmire of Wikipedia process, from which all normal people keep far away. Or the reality of asking the admin: a closing admis who may have stretched things a little to delete may not be all that sympathetic to reconstruction either. 1000 active admins with 1000 different standards is not the way to get consistency.) And consider the asymmetry between delete and keep closes, where a keep can be repeated endlessly. Consider a worthy article--if there is a 90% chance of a correct close at Afd, then the chance of keeping it after 4 afds is only 66%. Given WP surviving long enough, anything can be deleted by random chance. This is of course compensated for by the chance of reinserting a bad article and getting away with it. Neither are processes to be encouraged.
3. The lack of good process for deciding on article content. We do discuss this at AfD, because there's no other good place for general attention. The noticeboards help, the Projects help, the policy talk pages help, but there are too many places and nobody can pay attention to all to them. I do not know how to do this right, but I do know we're doing a pretty lousy job of it now. I shouldn't say "lousy" really , becaues sometimes it does work. The word, once more, is "random."

The question I ask, is to what extent do people want to solve them, or to what extent is everyone really trying to do anything which will get the decisions on whatever it is they are concerned about go their own way? Let me put it this way: would you prefer on some general type of article here consistent decisions the way you think is wrong, or decisions that are half of them right and half of them wrong? (I'm not addressing specifically TNN and Magioladitis, but myself as well, and everyone.) DGG (talk) 01:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Drove by this one. I'm a big fan of stability, myself. The reason I tend to take hopeless articles straight to AFD, bypassing PROD or bold redirection, is because it helps in making the change (or lack thereof) semi-permanent. If I redirect, people usually undo it. If I get an AFD result of redirect, I can make it stick, and even get the redirect protected if there's trouble with zombie articles. If I use PROD, people usually recreate the article, but if it was deleted by AFD, I can get the article G7'ed, and get the recalcitrant editor blocked if he persists.

About 10% of the time, I find (as in the tragic case of Bulbasaur) that despite the fact that the article is beyond all hope, there is a large cadre of editors that want it. When that happens, I know to leave it alone.

I do the vast majority of my editing on the Disney Channel stuff, a role I wandered into through vandalism reversion. Most of the editors are children, and really don't deal well with policies and logic. Discussions on talk pages are fruitless, because there is no getting through to an angry Miley Cyrus fan that not everything that Cyrus has ever done or said needs to be chronicled in great detail on Wikipedia. AFD is the only place I can go that takes the discussion to the level of adults that read and understand policy, and actually have a desire to work on Wikipedia as a whole. It's pretty telling that I essentially never see the active editors on the articles I nominate for deletion actually say anything at the AFD ... I can watch 20 editors come and go, adding rumored tracklists for imaginary albums, breathlessly reporting the blog rumor of the week about what the title of Jordan Pruitt's next album is going to be, and nary a one clicks the link and argues that the article should be kept.

Is there a better way? Sure, but it involves something that will never fly: actually trying to objectively apply policy to article content, and be willing to abide by the results, and deal harshly with editors that consistently violate it. I've watched TTN, and it's painfully obvious that the people that resurrect the articles he redirects don't care at all about policy. We can write all the guidelines and policies we want, and they will make their decisions based on their own personal interest in the topic. We need to get that mindset to stop. We need to get people to understand that if policies and guidelines are resulting in the deletion of their favorite articles, they need to try to get the policy changed, not edit war against redirects and merges one article at a time.

Kww (talk) 04:10, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with about half. I agree that: many of the video and fiction and film articles are written by children (and adults) who do not understand the difference between describing a plot and characters and setting so one can understand, and simply transcribing everything they see. But AfD doesn't fix it, because if the fiction is actually notable, the bad writing stays. If you and I went about fixing them instead of arguing about them, we could get somewhere. I try a bit, and I know you do also, and some others, but it's long and hard--while deleting is too easy. Get rid of them, and then we don't have to work on them, that's our temptation. The question of what fictions are of such little importance that they're not worth describing in detail is a real one, and I've advocated for some time making a distinction between those to be treated in detail and those not. But this never got anywhere, because people kept writing too much about whatever they happened to like--and because people tried to delete the detailed articles from even the most important fictions. I also agree that we have no good way of enforcing good content--but its not just a matter of enforcing guidelines, its agreeing on them. By and large, the best approach so far is the Video Games content guideline--that's the sort of detail necessary to specify, though I don't agree with every bit of it. The root of this problem is our reliance on BRD, a sure way to promote conflict and discourage compromise. But since that's ingrained here as if we intended deliberately to butt our heads against each other as an activity of choice, I'm not sure what to do except to urge you and everyone to be willing to set some necessarily arbitrary rules that none of us can expect to completely like--this at least channelizes the problems.

I agree that that people ignoring the afds except for us regulars is a problem, particularly in this field--perhaps it has to do with the excessively formal standards we've trapped ourselves into using, Or perhaps the variability in result, the tendency of pileons to affect results, and the reversals in successive afds--people on all sides can feel that struggling is hopeless. The problem is made worse of course by bringing too many to argue at a time and to give vague rationales--you mentioned TTN, and he's certainly not helping here. I think his indiscriminate redirects and merges and afds are making things much worse. But then you know how strongly I oppose what he does about this. He should stick to using his skills on improving not deleting content. You brought up his name. I wouldn't have. How can one side compromise when the other thinks compromise is removing everything, even the redirects?

I've offered him, and I offer you, to jointly sponsor some difficult merges. I've offered other people this too, but its always failed because my idea of a merge is preserving content if possible, and other people have wanted to eliminate as much content as possible on these topics and leave only skeleton articles, the barer the better about the fiction itself. I got into this because people wanted to apply that to the sort of 19th century fiction I know and care about. If that's what some want, I'll continue trying to persuade people that it's no more in the interest of the encyclopedia than eliminating BLPs. some people actually do want that. DGG (talk) 04:55, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I pretty much no longer work on fiction. It's just too frustrating, and the opportunities to try to edit war my way through are pretty strong. I do a lot of single merging (contrary to popular belief, WP:MUSIC doesn't say "every single released by every artist in the world needs an article"), and I'm pretty strict with myself about maintaining the content.

In the fiction world, I will argue strongly that TTN (who started this thread, which is why I brought him up) may be prolific, but he is far from indiscriminate. I've always been pretty impressed with his ability to sort wheat from chaff. He used to do a lot of redirecting and merging, and when I reviewed his work after the controversy started, there were only a few spots where I thought he cut too far, and numerous spots where he found something salvageable in a spot where I would have just swung an ax.

In terms of a system, I think we need to stop thinking of AFD as content deletion. What AFD should result in is an agreement that we cannot have an independent article on this subject. The content should get frozen, protected as a redirect, and the information should be redistributed. That redistribution effort might wind up deciding that all the information was useless and we can eliminate the original article entirely, but generally, bits and pieces will find homes. I think a "deleted article information redistribution Wikiproject" would be something that might actually work, and calm some of the feelings that people have when they see an article deleted.Kww (talk) 12:50, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

As for independent articles, I agree our concentration of the question of articles vs. parts is excessive, as compared with the more important question of content. Whether we are to have many small articles or fewer large ones, in this subject and in others, is primarily a matter of format. Good encyclopedias in paper have been written either way. However, there are some key considerations that do have to be taken into account about the medium of a wiki:

1. Articles longer than a certain size cannot be easily read by the fairly large group of people who rely on low-speed connections. The customary point is 32 kB, but that is almost certainly too restrictive. But the content of all the material on, say, Star Wars, is too long for one practical article.
2. The reading style on the web seems more suited for smaller articles--there's a lot of research that people's attention span on the web is shorter and their reading less careful. for a very recent review,see Bauerline in the Chron Higher Ed. Review (not sure its free-I can email a copy if you ask me).
3. The problem of indexing of article sections remains. Links to them are not stable.
4. The much greater prominence of full article titles on Google and other search engines is a fact. We are not a subsidiary of Google, but use from search engines is important to our users.

and about us specifically:

1. In practice at Wikipedia, condensing into large articles for these subjects has almost always been accompanied by great loss of content. It's more than bits and pieces which should find homes.
2. Short articles encourage new contributors. Long ones need careful dedicated accepted management, with a way to encourage new contribs to add needed sections. We depend on attracting naive contributors, for people learn.

As I said, if you want to try a proper merge and accept a compromise view of content you will have my cooperation.

More generally, our article based approach is obsolete. A proper 2.0 approach is a database of modular content, that can be arranged and rearranged in various formats. It's technically possible, and some organizations have actually implemented approaches to this--notably PubMedCentral, which looks like articles but is actually an XML database of content elements. DGG (talk) 16:54, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

If you feel the need to make the same comment in every single AfD, I suggest that you attempt get the deletion policy changed to make a previous discussion mandatory. While your overall point is somewhat valid, you're really out of your element here. You don't seem to have much experience with dealing with rabid fans of a series, so you can't really judge how things should work. The happy "hold hands and hug" method works with some things, but it is not applicable to most aspects of fiction on this site. You're obviously free to vote to keep articles based on your own perspective, but please do not argue that these AfDs are inappropriate unless you can cite something specifically stating such. TTN (talk) 19:07, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

But it isn't mandatory if you want to delete. It is mandatory if you want to merge if there is any possibility of disagreement. Since your rationales are talking about separate articles, then it sounds to me that you really want to merge, in which case you should propose a merge.o. I have offered to Kww, and I offer to you, my help in merging articles on minor characters if they aren't destructive merges. I consider many of the articles excessive detail, such as one I was about to comment on, Jacques Blanc, and if you want to shorten that or similar ones a reasonable amount, I will back you there also. I am reluctant to do it myself for many of these if its more than just tightening the prose. (for that one, a reasonable amount might be down to 50%, but not 10%.) Like Kww, I consider the problem with the writers of these articles lack of writing skill and possible immaturity, not rabid devotion, and I will support teaching them by example. As for experience, as I told you earlier, though I haven't done it anywhere as much as you, I have been redirecting selected articles on truly minor characters for some time when they come to my attention, and nobody has ever complained to me about it. I suppose I ought to go back and see if they have been reversed, but I doubt it. If they have, I may ask you for some help with them.

As I've said, i started in on this when people tried to delete reasonable articles on major characters in some of the most important classic fiction--I know it wasn't you, but that's what first got me interested. And yes, i succeeded in rescuing one game article when I found references, but it was to an article about a weapon that was also one in real life & the real life equivalent was what I knew about, and called my attention to it. And then I looked at some of the articles on episodes of shows I did know about with a complex plot, and found their merged sections ridiculously short of what was needed for any comprehension. Had there been only reasonable amounts of merging and even deletion, I would probably not have noticed at all. But just as excessive articles attract unfavorable attention, so does excessive merging or deleting.

I agree with reduction of the excess as a principle, though it is likely that you and i have a different idea of what is reasonable. If we can compromise that, we might get somewhere with the articles, rather than fighting each other. We won't convince each other, but there should be some zone in common, both for separate articles for major and combined ones for minor characters. And one sentence in a list for trivial. I have sometimes even made what I think are just barely justifiable expedients, such as redirection when it was a little more than trivial, because I didn't feel confident about shortening--in the hope that someone would expand it s mention on the list a little. You surely recognize the feeling--there are so many of these articles. There are two ways to deal with that: one is by improving them, and the other is removing them. I have pretty strong feelings about which is better, but I do consider merging properly a good way of improving. DGG (talk) 19:58, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I nominate these articles with the idea of having them deleted and I use merge tags when I want them merged. When nominating articles for deletion, I generally find them to either be completely redundant or irrelevant. For example, Jacques Blanc is a character that appears in only one video game. The article already has a plot section, so merging anything into it would be pointless. As I have stated, I would redirect just about everything if I could. Unfortunately, it is unreasonable to do so at this time. While redirecting in small patches does work, even the most minor characters of a popular series will be argued over forever. Just in case you haven't noticed, I have been proposing mergers and redirecting a few articles here and there. TTN (talk) 20:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Tien (again)

Since there has been no further discussion on Tien's page, and the current consensus (discussions for which began in mi September) is for keeping him, I attempted to close the discussion as "keep", which seemed fair since a) Collectonian and others have not made any more comments in a while, and nor has anyone else, and b) they have closed many other merge discussions with far less time. Without offering any rationale Collectonian has undone my merge close. I don't really feel like a long series of arguments and reversions, perhaps you can intercede and decide whether to close it. I can't for the life of me see what the point to keeping it open is, when they've added nothing in weeks, and when the other merge discussions were all closed.JJJ999 (talk) 23:13, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

• It now seems she is trying to disregard all the input that was made only weeks ago, because she doesn't want to have to factor it in. This is obviously inappropriate. I find this comical, because it is the exact opposite of the argument she made for the Cell AfD, that because it has just been decided to merge, it was too soon to revisit it. Strangely Collectonian thinks now is fine to revisit Tien though...JJJ999 (talk) 23:18, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course, JJJ999 decided that the FIRST discussion that he had invalidated is now a keep because it supports his views. Also, I specifically noted that I undid his "close" because of this and because he changed an existing close and other people's remarks. He is also completely disregarding the AfD which came after the first didscussion and closed with a specific note to discuss the merge on the talk page rather than a firm keep or delete. Rediscussing is fully appropriate in this case where the first discussion was invalidated completely (so it doesn't count at all), and the AfD while heavily leaned towards merge did not close as such but did not close as keep either. Also, you may want to note that JJJ999 is once again engaging in forum shopping and canvassing over this issue and already making new personal attacks. He is also inappropriately duplicating HIS version of the first Tien merge discussion in the new discussion despite the original still being on the same page and easily readable above (and a link to said discussion in the new discussion) -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 00:44, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

You closed that discussion as merge. I challenged the result. 2 Admins overturned it. Discussion resumed. You were unhappy with the way the discussion was going, so to circumvent it you went to AfD. the AfD called for discussions to resume on the talk page. It certainly didn't call for the old discussion to be abandoned. It's a flat out lie to suggest you closed the discussion. Indeed, you left the "merge discussion" link on Tien's page, and when I removed it you undid my revision (and then pupported to create a "new" discussion). You also asked various admins (unsuccessfully) to have the AfD discussion added on to the merge discussion on the talk page. Nice try.JJJ999 (talk) 00:51, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Moving this reply over to the new discussion. Stop the damn forum shopping and reporting in FOUR places. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 00:59, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

You've said the same thing basically repeatedly. I'm saving myself the time of having to retype my replies. It's not forum shopping, because I think it's clear the Cabal was abandoned, and indeed I was amazed something (finally) happened there.JJJ999 (talk) 01:00, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Only because you did your usual canvassing and posting the same thing everywhere. But I'm sick of it and have moved my remarks to the current discussion. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 01:01, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I have proposed a reasonable compromise. I will not insist on previous views being factored in, or even appealing the decision on Tien when it is made, provided that 1 full month is given for the merge discussion. It should be a real discussion, not just a "who is around to vote this week" job. Perhaps it will be recreated with better sources at a future point though.JJJ999 (talk) 01:11, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

As noted on the list talk, I do not see any valid reason to wait a full month. AfDs only run 5-7 days, and as such two weeks is more than enough time for the discussion, which is also the approximately amount of time suggested by guidelines. It is also a week LONGER than folks are given to fix an article in a GAR or FAR. Those are far more extensive processes than a simple discussion. Any active editors would certainly be online within one week, if not two. Waiting a month just draws it out excessively. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 01:17, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

• Then it sounds like there is no consensus to merge, because I'm factoring in both the AfD and the merge discussion, which make this a snow keep for at least a month.JJJ999 (talk) 02:58, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't. Just let the new discussion run...unless of you course you want to stop it because so far you are the only person to say anything close to keep (and even then, you actually just said you opposed the discussion). -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 03:18, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

suggestion

Why is this discussion here at all? Probably because different parties think my view might be helpful, since I have not really taken any strong position in the discussion. the reason I have not is that:

1. I have no particular preference whether the material on this character in the game is integrated into the main articles or not. I do not think it a matter of principle, like I do having separate articles for the key characters in major fiction. Major fiction it may be,but unless i totally misunderstand he is not a key character. I also think as a matter of principle we should not have separate article on trivial characters, but unless I misunderstand, he is more than trivial. So I don't see how it matters very much.
2. what matters is that the content be appropriate, and that it be logically arranged.
   1. As for appropriateness, i think a description of the nature of all significant characters is helpful to understand, and a reasonable recapitulation of the plot is necessary and appropriate to do so --indeed, in some cases, the description of the plot can be usefully organized around the characters, as in most soap opera. I also am quite positive that this description can be taken from primary sources and often should be in preference.
   2. As for arrangement, I think the current organisation of the Dragon Ball material unhelpful. It is appropriate only to a fan wiki, where the readers already know approximately what it is all about. The multiple versions of the material all of them discussed here separately make it impossible for the outside general reader, like myself--who has never actually seen any of the versions--to know what they are about in the first place, what the interest in them is, or what aspects of them are important or changed in the various series. I find it all a jumble. Nor does the separate presentation of the characters help. They are interesting and comprehensible not in themselves, but in relation to each other, & treating them individually creates a surprising amount of duplication and confusion.
   3. What is needed is an article on dragon ball characters, written in summary style, with the key ones discussed in separate articles if there is sufficient material to do so. I gather that the changes in the various versions provide enough material to discuss, but i am not sure that the minutia of this is really important. What came in what box in what language may be out-of-universe, but it is still of fan interest only.
   4. I suggest therefore that the people discussing it here, who I gather do understand and appreciate the material, try to write one good long combination article discussing the characters in this series, combining all the material. Upon looking at it, then we can decide how to break it up. Personally, i thin k the most useful way to break it up is a combined alphabetic list, followed by groups of characters by function (or, in other fictions, family or the like). Keeping related material together helps the general reader. If you already know it all more or less, and are just checking for details, any arrangement will do if the material is there.
3. discussing what content goes in Wikipedia is worthwhile; discussing how to arrange it is less important; arguing over how to discuss it is getting rather lame; arguing how long the discussion need or where it should be held is lamest of all. (FWIW, if the question is content, policy is that there is no closure--and merging is held, rightly or wrongly, to be a content question. I am not sure either of these is necessarily a good way to do things, but that is another matter & not for discussing now. The current policy for both is clear.

I have made a suggestion for how to proceed: I urge that all present discussions be closed without prejudice and that you figure out how to do the work of making good content on all the characters, compromising all necessary points but in the direction of relatively extensive treatment, and then let us look at it in one piece and decide what needs doing in terms of arrangement. We need some of of breaking the deadlock on these articles without resorting to random decision making by relative persistence and local strength of numbers. DGG (talk) 03:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I would guess the discussion is here because JJJ999 thinks you will support him in his complaints because you agreed that those to merger closures were not fully a consensus to merge, so he believes you are his ally. I agree with you on the arrangement, and on the need for one central character article. That is List of Dragon Ball characters and we agreed that it was best to first deal with any needed merges before attempting to get the list cleaned up, sourced, etc. Eventual goal being something like List of Naruto characters (which completely disagrees with your suggestion, but it is an FL list and goes more in-line with the overall project preferences). I disagree with you on the need to close present discussions in the list, however. That is allowing fans to disrupt a very long term and on-going clean up process by refusing to allow the necessary discussions that go along with that to happen. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 03:57, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

sometime when a discussion has reached a impasse, it helps to stop , take a breath, and start again after a short break, in the hope that people will realise in the interval the virtues of cooperation. It does prejudge the issue, and it give a way of saving face. i've seen it work many times, here and elsewhere. I additionally meant to point out that there will be much less opposition to combining articles if people are confident that significant content will not be lost. But this is not the place for me to explictly support a particular side. BTW, I dont know why you think I would dislike the Naruto list. DGG (talk) 04:12, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

That's why I waited awhile to start the new discussion, but it didn't help. There also is a merged version available for viewing (see the AfD). I didn't mean to imply wou would dislike the list, just that it isn't done the way you were suggesting. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 04:18, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

• I asked DGG because they were reasonably fair in some earlier decisions I noted, and because he has no vested interest in anime or manga discussions. I don't think you waiting for about a week and resuming discussion is consistent with the claimed "need to respect the AfD before revisiting the issue" argument you have made vis Cell, and I think if you plan to do it so soon then the merge discussion should be left open a month. The reasoning is obvious. People keep voting and voting and discussing on this issue, and sooner or later they turn around and think "that's the last vote". They assume they don't need to address this again, and again, only a week later. If you feel confident the article lacks support, then agree to leave it open long enough for a real discussion. either that, or incorporate the views of the previous (very recent) discussion. I can't see how disregarding them, or taking the views of this particular week, is consistent with consensus. If that's your approach you can hardly be surprised if I revisit Cell and Tien next week, because it seems to be your attitude. That as long as there was doubt then the whole thing can be re-opened in a week.JJJ999 (talk) 04:28, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Wrong, the Cell decision was extremely clear in both the AfD (closed as merge) and all of your follow up attempts to revert it. Tien is not clear. As you yourself have argued repeatedly, the first discussion had no clear consensus. The AfD was heavy towards merge, but didn't close that way so really no consensus again. As such, revisiting the discussion is appropriate because, again, no consensus has been decided. A month is NOT needed to have "real" discussion. 2 weeks is more than enough time, at which point I will ask an admin who has not weighed in themselves to close it as they see fit. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 04:38, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, Cell was "clear" in the previous AfD too, and it was "clear" in the subsequent merge discussion, but you still took it to AfD again. Assumedly you won't mind a little down the track when I revisit this issue too. A 4 day close is not clear, and discussion in future was invited on the close. Tien was unclear on the merge you closed, but a clear keep after others like myself came to comment. The AfD is judged on how it closed, not how you feel it closed. It closed as a no delete or merge, so that's what it was. Revisiting the discussion means going back to the discussion we had, that was never closed. Not trying to repeat the process of AfD in merge form all over again, which is what a 5 day merge discussion will amount to. 2 weeks is closer to what is acceptable I admit. If you don't ask before 2 weeks, I'm much more inclined to not dispute the decision.JJJ999 (talk) 05:16, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

It was not clear in the subsequent merge, and the other AfD was months old. And yes, if you bring up the Cell discussion within another week or two, I (and I suspect many others) will mind, particularly if nothing new is added to the discussion (i.e. the discovery of a ton of significant coverage in reliable sources ). Tien was not clear. You engaged in canvassing, which negated the discussion. The AfD did not close as no merge, it just closed as no deleted. The closing admins comments are very clear. Revisiting the discussion means starting a new one, not attempting to find consensus in a messed up earlier discussion that was tainted by canvassing. As I said, I won't ask for anyone to close for at least 2 weeks. Never intended to do it any sooner anyway. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 06:13, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

To call the earlier discussion on Tien "tainted by canvassing" is ludicrous. It was already 4-3 in favour of keep when you closed it, then others who had not spoken to anyone like myself came and objected, then 2 admins and a random added their voices to the protest. I didn't even arrive until after your erroneous merge. The merge was overturned, and the discussion free to resume (you chose not to participate again). How that is "canvassed", even under your absurd definition, is mysterious at best.JJJ999 (talk) 06:28, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

You feel the new comments should be included in the discussions. Those comments came after your canvassing, which multiple admins also told you was what you did. In either case, you've agreed to allow the new discussion to go for at least 2 weeks and accept the results of the closing admin after that, yes?-- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 13:45, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I feel 2 weeks is closer to the amount of time which is appropriate. If almost nobody makes any input by then, I may feel differently. In any case, I am going to save the article for future editing purposes, and if it is improved to a certain standard, I will explore restoring it at a future point.JJJ999 (talk) 22:34, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it is time to stop talking about how to hold the discussion, and just get some additional views on the content? I've given mine on the list talk page. It would really be more productive to go back to discussing the issue itself, than to argue about what past discussion did or did not have consensus. Since consensus can always change, and no Wikipedia decision isever final, that's not going to get anywhere defintie. Discuss the issue of this page, settle it one way or another and get on to something else at least for the time being. This is not the place for it. At least on my own talk page, i can close a discussion. DGG (talk) 23:13, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

TTN and merges

I don't know if he's told you specifically, but the main reason TTN nominates articles for deletion when merging might be a possible valid outcome is because he's tried merging and redirecting in the past but has gotten reverted and vilified for it. Stifle (talk) 13:19, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

He's said so. And sometimes, he's been correct, that good merges he suggested have been rejected at the article. But for many of them they were not good merges, and they've been properly rejected. He should handle these rejections via the proper route of dispute resolution. I've offered to give 3rdOs, but he's never asked me or anyone. Others do ask me, including I think you, and my 3rdOs are often to merge, sometime to the great annoyance of the people who are trying unrealistically to prevent the merge. Instead, he goes to afd--since he cannot get the articles the way he likes, he tries to delete. Not the same motivation as those who try to delete bios of themselves they find unflattering, but the same effect. Of the recent groups of deletes, many of them are merges that nobody would object to, and where, any reasonable outside comment would strongly support. So you are saying that because he would lose a merge request some of the time, he tries instead to delete all of the time.

His merge requests would probably have less opposition in any case if they weren't usually destructive merges, with major loss of content. Let's not fool ourselves--it's the content he opposes. He wants to have as little description of character and plot as possible. I want to have as much as is encyclopedic. There should be some room for compromise there, but actions like his show clearly he will refuse all compromise. That's why I consider them uncooperative editing. I've been criticized for calling it stronger words.

It's at heart OWNership. He wants to OWN an entire broad topic area. That's an impractical goal, besides being contrary to the spirit of a wiki.

You understand the spirit better, and I could and do sometimes work with you--we'd reach some sort of compromise. But the most useful thing you could do in this situation is try to moderate him. DGG (talk) 15:49, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Deprod

Hi! I noticed that you deprodded both Robin Scorpio and Patrick Drake and Zand-i Wahman yasn. I'd like to discuss both of these with you so I can figure out if I want to bring these to AfD, merge, etc.

First, Robin Scorpio and Patrick Drake is no longer just a copy of Robin Scorpio and Patrick Drake like it was when I first PROD'd it, but I don't see the point in having an article on their relationship. Is their relationship notable enough that it requires a whole separate article? And is there a precedent for having pages for important relationships? My reasoning for the deletion has changed, but I still feel it should be deleted.

Second, Zand-i Wahman yasn does not mention anything about being a classic as you claimed in your deprod. Do you have sources for that? Furthermore, the page seems to be partially copied from the linked page, which I hadn't noticed when I originally PROD'd the page.

Sorry for asking so many questions, but I legitimately want to know if I PROD'd incorrectly so I can fix my PRODing techniques. Thanks! DARTH PANDA^duel 01:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Let's start with the less disputable one--the book. The link given is to a PD source--1880. Traditional sacred texts are almosyt by definition classics. As for referrences, see Google Scholar & G Books[4], [5] under just one of the forms. Its a good idea to do such a search for unfamiliar topics. the only real qy is the name, which needs attention from a specialist--there are many alternatives, & I don't know the language. Its even possible it may be here already under one of the variants.

Characters--the proper treatment of these is much disputed, and therefore not suitable for WP:PROD, which is useless for disputed matters since anyone can remove the prod. For a representative assortment of incompatible views, see any day's AfD discussions. The extreme view on one side is they should never have articles unless convention RS works have been written clearly about them not in context of the show; the extreme on the other is that any named character should have an article. I take what I think a middle position--that it depends on the importance of the show and the character, as well as the sourcing, with the default for well-known shows being a merged combination article for the characters. see the section at WP:AFD about alternatives to deletion--I think most people would agree that at the least such characters should have redirects pointing to the show or a character list. If that's what you want, the proper place to discuss that is on the talk page for the character with a mention on the talk page for the show. If you think that some of the information about their role in the show should be preserved, then what is appropriate is a merge. For this, see WP:MERGE for how to tag and discuss. See how the other characters in the show have been handled, to see if there is a good lis to merge to. -- tho you may well find they have been handled in totally inconsistent ways. DGG (talk) 01:45, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I can understand the book now. I disagree with the view of WP:NB, but that's a discussion for another day. List of fictional supercouples also sets the precedent for Patrick Drake and Robin Scorpio‎. Sorry for bothering you, and thanks for the help! DARTH PANDA^duel 19:20, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Fiction Survey 2008

DGG, in today's ANI thread that Masem brought against me, you said "Constructive would be a discussion of what was actually wanted." In June I suggested to Masem a series of fill-in-the-blank questions we could ask the community. On October 14, 2008, I turned those questions into a survey in my userspace. On October 22, 2008, I solicited input at the proposals section of the village pump. Do you think such a survey would be potentially constructive? I would appreciate any feedback you may have at WT:FICT, or on the talk page of the survey. You're also free to edit the survey itself if you would like if you think any improvements should be made. Thank you. --Pixelface (talk) 00:19, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I shall take a look, but what would help most of anything you could do at this stage is to promise to stop reverting policy pages. Doing that sort of thing will lead to a deteriorating situation, not just for you, but more generally. DGG (talk) 03:06, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

My general feelings about this is to use a combination article for all non-principal characters except for truly major or classic fiction. For those who thing WP:N meaningful in this context, individual ones in such a list need not be Notable--there is no such requirement for indiviual items of article content. WP:OR and WP:V do not apply, a suitable descriptive content can come from the fiction itself. As for keeping a separate article for such characters, at this point in discussion it does not really make sense until there are significant real sources. Let's work towards a compromise on these. I am reluctant to consider every character in every show individually here at AfD or other venue, if we can get a general rule. What gets a combination article, what a separate one, is basically just a matter of organization. To call it notability is a misunderstanding of what WP:N ought to be used for. The idea of a "separate article" being a big deal one way or another for closely related topics is very PRINTY, and not appropriate for Wikipedia. DGG (talk) 18:27, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Your comment on AfD for Saleem Sinai

Hi DGG

I was pretty surprised by your comment on WP:Articles for deletion/Saleem Sinai, in particular where you write "not just ignorance, but an assumption that everyone else will remain ignorant also, and a determine to keep it that way." This remark--and thecomment overall--seems to me inconsistent with WP:NPA and WP:AGF (for starters).

Aside from the civility (and venue) point, do you really think I'm "ignorant" for thinking that the contents of a substantially overlapping 19-sentence article should be incorporated into a main article pending there being too much information to avoid being separated out? If you read my comments, nowhere did I suggest that any information about the character should be removed from the encyclopedia (which would seem necessary for the perpetuation of ignorance), and in several comments explicitly stated the opposite.

If you think that people looking for information on Saleem Sinai won't start at Midnight's Children, you have a different conception about how people use encyclopedias--and you may be right and I may be wrong (and in any event, a redirect would render a complete solution for anyone who searched for the character name). But the idea that putting information in one rather than another article means that I am "determined" that "everyone else" should "remain ignorant" is absurd.

As an administrator, you are looked up to, and your actions on WP serve as an example. I know we have differed (and agreed) on various points in the past, but you are personalizing this disagreement in an entirely inappropriate fashion.

Rgds

Bongomatic 07:09, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi DGG. I don't mean to pile on here, but I actually had an edit conflict with the comment from Bongomatic. I just wanted to let you know your comment comes across as being a little STRONG. I just wanted to let you know that in case that wasn't your intention. I'm sure you could rephrase it if you so desire. I hope you won't mind my commenting here. I'm not telling you what to do and I respect your freedom to express yourself as you see fit. Take care. ChildofMidnight (talk) 07:16, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

The comments about ignorance are in fact the carry over from other nominations and are not actually particularly appropriate to your argument. I have just removed them.

But in connection with your nomination, please notice the present content of the article. I think the potential for expansion has been fulfilled, especially by the section on the character as a metaphor for India--a subject on which I find a few dozen Google Scholar hits as well. DGG (talk) 16:58, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

The guideline (sensibly, in my opinion) suggests that until the character information becomes too unwieldy to include in the main article, it should be so included . . . as mentioned in my previous comment to you, even with the expansion, that threshold doesn't seem yet to have been crossed. Bongomatic 17:01, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello, DGG. You have new messages at Bongomatic's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Besides size, there's another reason for separation: if it can stand on its own as an article from its own notability--and I think it does that already, and that the topic certainly does, and will for all major characters. See further WP:SUMMARY, which discusses in some detail how to deal with the problem of where people will look. The link from the main article will lead people to the subarticle. WP does not use full hypertext, but it can & does rely on links, much more conveniently than articles in print encyclopedias could rely on cross references. Size and organization are as I see them reasons for splitting even if the article could not stand on its own. I will add an expanded discussion of the general question at the AfD. I think the rational way of handling topics, and the amount of space and detail we should have, depends on their importance. The division into articles is a matter of style and convenience (the only absolutely limiting factor is download speeds on poor connections.) I have no real objections to merging articles on minor characters or on characters in minor fiction, or on minor topics generally. I'd have less objections to merging into general articles if people did not then try to delete the material--just as they did on popular culture until consensus changed, as I think it is changing on fiction. I wouldn't care as much about this whole question except when it extends into major characters of classic works (in whatever genre)--and that is why I took particular exception to the nomination of this article. DGG (talk) 17:54, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Articles on characters in popular shows and movies

What do you make of these? At first I thought the encyclopedia should be kept "tidy", but it seems like there is ample interest in these various characters. Many articles on Wikipedia contain original research, but if the articles are encyclopedic and peer reviewed (by various fans) it seems futile and counter productive to try and eliminate them all. Am I missing something? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Perry_the_Platypus#Perry_the_Platypus ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:49, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Let me tke this convenient opportunity to give my general approach to fiction:

1. The proper approach is that children's fiction and cartoons aimed at them are as significant culturally as those aimed at adults, and that major artists and creative groups are as significant in one field as another. In particular, all Disney characters are significant as the work of a major artist group--initially in US culture, now in world culture. The serious consideration is not whether the articles are to be kept separate, but what the content will be. As for keeping separate, to my mind , the common sense distinction there is clear: it should depend on the importance of the fiction and of the character. Arbitrary factors such as the nature of findable mention in outside sourcing are not the important ones--for characters such as this, it will depend more upon the diligence of wikipedians than anything else, for all topics such as this are included with the range of popular interest and academic concern also. Relying upon things like this as a measure of "notability" is a counsel of despair, when we can't find any rational basis related to the actual topic. For these topics--significance of the artist, the work , and the character are just such rational distinctions. (Yes, I am indeed arguing that the GNG is irrelevant for fictional characters. V is still relevant--but V does not necessarily require secondary sourcing--if the work itself is available to examine the role of the characters, it meets V.) But back to the important point: the sort of detailed coverage in this section is exactly what is appropriate to a moderately important character such as this is moderately important fiction: an episode by episode analysis. As for plot, this is the level at which plot of such fictions ought to be covered--and it is usually clearer to do it right here, at the character level, as well as the episode level, they complement each other. As for duplication, we are NOT PAPER, and can duplicate as convenient for the reader--storage capacity is not the problem and hasn't been for years now. it was perhaps not realised 10 or even 5 years ago the extent to which such matters are now past a technological transition, As for referencing, yes, it would be good to have exact timings, but if the sourcing is down to the episode level, implicit in the text as it is here, it meets the requirements.,
2. As for OR, the sort of description here is pretty obvious and I do not think represents forbidden synthesis; as external critical work accumulates, it can be extended. The very act of summarizing or even of quoting inevitably represents a certain amount of OR or synthesis. For plot and related obvious matters in fiction, the use of the original work itself is fully accepted, and giving obvious and transparent motivations is not OR,but simple reading. Where they are the sources of critical dispute, that can be sourced.
3. Now, what does seem absurd is to say the extent of coverage of this should be similar to that of say, Mickey Mouse, and the answer is that the article on MM should be greatly extended--because of the potential length, as a group of subartcles. I wanted to give an example of why this sort of topic is significant; there's a famous science fiction story in which a roll of cinema film of a Mickey Mouse film is the one surviving record of human culture after an ice age, and is discovered by later explorers--I think is was meant ironically as a comment on the limits of archeology, but I can see wider relevance than the author intended. I'm sure someone here will recognize the author--but this should have been in an extensive article on MM in popular culture, or MM in scientific fiction but we have no such article--just a very incomplete section that does us no credit. Or is our indexing at fault?
4. More generally, it seems to many people here somehow undignified to have a treatment of these subjects on a par with classic fiction. the answer here, as I think is obvious I am about to say, is to increase the coverage of classic fiction. The only reason we don't is the lack of people to write the article, and whereof people here do not write, thereof we cannot have articles. In the meantime, we should do what we do have editors who are interested. (anyway, attacks of characters in classic fiction continue as well--Kipling characters have recently been under similar attack--and he was a Nobelist. Currently, really astoundingly, the principal character, Saleem Sinai in the principal Rushdie novel, is still up for deletion, though it does look like a SNOW KEEP closing, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Saleem Sinai-- and "In 1993, the "Booker of Booker" Prize was awarded to Salman Rushdie for Midnight's Children (the 1981 winner), for being judged the best novel to win the award in its first 25 years" [6]. So I guess the problem is a little deeper. some people here don't think fictional characters are ever notable, which must correspond to their not thinking fiction important, or respectable, or worthy of a serious encyclopedia. I can understand that feeling at the time of the 1913 EB, though even then it was passing--the Modern Language Association had been founded 30 years earlier. What are they wanting? WP, the electronic equivalent of an 18th century encyclopedia. Would be an interesting project, of course, to try to replicate something in the spirit of Diderot, and if anyone starts one, I might be interested. But perhaps they think what is notable about fiction is its externals--the manner of publication ,the subsequent critical reception, questions about the authorship. Those things are important. But they're not the reasons why fiction isimportant, or the reason why people come here for such topics, not the reason fiction is read, or studied: it's the plot, as shown by the characters. In the classic statement of E. M. Forster's Aspect of the Novel, "the fundamental aspect of the novel is its story telling." Or. in David Lodge's more recent Art of Fiction, "novels are narratives" ` DGG (talk) 22:20, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. I see you don't have much of an opinion one way or the other.  :) I'm kidding of course. Long live the ducks (especially Daffy, Huey, Luey and Dooey (sp?).

I basically agree with your arguments, unless the pop-culture coverage is somehow limiting or diminshing the coverage of more educational (don't blast me here, but I think natural science or history has some greater relative value in terms of knowledge building than Mickey) articles. But as this isn't a paper encyclopedia, so unwieldiness doesn't seem to be an issue, I'm okay with including pop-culture. Now, who's a good deletionist to ask? I want to hear both sides. Also could you clue me in on what GNG and V are. I'm more familiar with DVD and TV.ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:49, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

The GNG is the General Notability Guideline from WP:N, that the basic guideline for being notable enough to include is that there be two distinct reliable 3rd party secondary sources talking in a substantial way about a subject. It has the great advantage of being applicable even to things one does not in the least understand, or wish to understand. But it inevitably tends to be interpreted as "2 sources one can easily find in an unsophisticated search on Google ", or "two sources that are already in the article". I think it's close to nonsense. It depends on the accidents of sourcing and how hard one works, and what resources one has,not on the subject. Using it, one must conclude there are many more things from before 1900 notable now than 5 years ago, before google Book Search had started. And that many more things will be notable 5 years further on, after Google finishes digitized all the local newspapers. But I must admit it's actually rather clever, for in many cases it does correspond to common sense. and in many it doesnt; So we have all the draconic injunctions of NOT to limit it back down to reason when common sense says it's trivial, and all the limitations on what exactly counts as a reliable secondary source for this purpose.

WP:V is Verifiability, one the the actual basic policies--unlike Notability which is only a guideline. Verifiability is the reason people can use an encyclopedia like ours in the first place. Unlike Brittanica, we're not edited by authorities, who can state facts on our own knowledge and responsibility as confirmed by our positions in the outside world. The are many such encylopedias on the web also, such as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Phlosophy, whose suaries of philosophical topics are authoritative because of the distinguished authorship of its articles and the stature of its editors. To a limited extent, that's also the idea of Citizendium--that authors of the content are not authorities, but the revisers and approvers of the content are supposed to be. So for us, we need to give sources so people know we haven't invented it altogether,or are giving unformed personal impressions. I agree with those who think we do not observe it very well, in a number of directions. First, many of our articles are in fact unsophisticated impressions. Others are summaries of whatever old internet source of ancient textbook is at hand, or based on accepting anything in print as being correct. We have general principles for this, which admit a wide range of sources for verifiable content. The actual effective guidelines for this are the decisions at WP:VNB, the verifiability noticeboard, one of the Wikipedia mechanisms which works quite well. But for a great many articles, they aren't being used. The opinion there has firmly stated fort he last two years that primary sources--the work itself--is the appropriate source for what can be directly directly observed. Plot of fiction is an obvious example (it had previously been argued that this had to be taken from published book reviews and the like, a view firmly rejected as giving less reliable information.) The rule is verifiable not "already verified". We do not remove content because it has not been sourced. We can challenge it as not being sourced, and insist that people find sources. The only time we do remove content without sources immediately if challenged is controversial BLP, because of the possible harm that can be done. Otherwise, proposals to remove unsourced content as a matter of course have been firmly rejected. But ultimately everything does need to be sourced, and it is the primary responsibility of the people writing the articles.

Now, for another point you raised. I don't see why our popculture coverage it should be limiting for other topics . The argument that it is limiting would be that it discourages seriously-minded people from writing more serious articles. What might discourage seriously minded people is the immaturity of these articles as they exist--and also the immaturity and over-simplistic nature of many other Wikipedia articles. But many of the other academic people besides myself here strongly support these articles, . My own feeling is that its the people who do not understand the serious nature of the academic study involved who dislike them--the fans, who think that all such material must be inherently fannish. As for seriousness, perhaps the works of the human imagination are the true focii of civilization more than the more mundane world. History and science are important perhaps in a different sense. But I very much wish we had better articles on history and many of the sciences (I think we do fairly well on some of them). The hope is that people seeing their subjects not being covered sufficiently will come and cover them. What is limiting our coverage now is the need for so many people to go to such great lengths defend articles when they could be writing.

Its not about being a deletionist in general--I am very much of a deletionist about self-advertising, or matters of WP:MEMORIAL. as for fiction, the only good deletionist is a deletionist who has been converted. Find someone at afd whose arguments you respect--or at least someone who makes an actual argument. :). DGG (talk) 23:53, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to answer my inquiries in detail. I have read your comments and will likely return to consider them a couple more times. Take care.

FYI: Saleem Sinai is saved for the time being, I thought his struggles here were in good keeping with his character. It seems he's always fighting to be kept in one piece. A child born into the tumults of history, as I recall, even in the internet age. But it's been a while since I read that book, so I forget many aspects of his character. ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:23, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh and make sure the bits you cut out of the Platypus discussion aren't lost. Post them here so they get archived. I'm kind of serious, see what a bad influence you are! I think they would be good to include as part of this discussion. ChildofMidnight (talk) 05:54, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

They aren't lost. In fact they are right here above on the page, in my answer to you yesterday. and they'll be used elsewhere. And copied to my fictional and in popular culture talk archive 12:12, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

episodes and chapters

(from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elementary School Musical (which was kept after the nomination was withdrawn)

Just a final comment. episodes are usually not like chapters! Chapters can not stand alone, in any sense whatsoever; they're basically pauses. Episodes in contrast are written to have some degree of internal closure, to be viewable by themselves--you won't know the background, you won't appreciate the motivations, but you will know at least the resolution or deliberate non-resolution of the particular incident. Look at the descriptions--this is almost always the case. In most good books, if you skip a chapter, you usually miss something necessary to understand the action and as things go on, you get more and more confused. Episodes are usually written with enough hooks backwards to explain the continuity. They more resemble & I think derive from the structure of comic books, which is why there is such an easy translation between those media. (There are of course other possibilities--the structure of those 19th century novels published as weekly chapters usually do not stand alone--they are not true episodes. ) The traditional form they most closely resemble is connected short stories. My favorite example is Wodehouse, with stories using the same repeated characters. Thats why we almost never have articles on individual chapters of novels--there are very few where it would make the least sense, even if a particular chapter is famous for its particular artistry or complexity of development. DGG (talk) 22:22, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Fair City characters

First an apology that I sent 2 articles for AfD that fast. I agree that the show is notable. No doubt for that. But as you can see there is a List of Fair City characters and a List of recurring and minor Fair City characters. Having 50+ articles with no real world information is terrible. In the cases I tagged I couldn't even find the actor's name!

I can help in creating some better List of character articles but I really can't make it if every time a new separate article for a character of uncertain notability pops up. I waited since April 13 to just merge some articles of List of Dirty Sexy Money characters! Just to be sure there will be no doubts. I checked the links and there is a big mess with links coming from living people. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:01, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

As you say,there are places to merge them to. so the solution is to merge them. (In this case, judging by the article on the show those two places should be combined, as there are no specific principal characters in the usual sense.) But the very existence of combination articles on minor characters implies that the major ones when there are any should have separate articles. Even merge them intact if necessary, and then cut them down later. And if people are currently adding articles, explain to them that they would do better to add sections. We could avoid the naming problem entirely by always using the name of the show or book for fictional characters. That's against the current MOS rule, unless there's a conflict, so we would probably do well to change it. Please help me do something systematically with these, but nominating for prod or afd as individual ones are made is not a stable solution, and is probably the lease efficient way of any. DGG (talk) 18:42, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

New Fiction proposal

Just a heads up, a proposal I informally made a while ago has now been formally offered at Wikipedia:Notability (fiction). The aim is to identify a pragmatic approach that reflects what is actually done on AfD, as opposed to an ideological approach. So while it's unlikely to appeal to partisans on either side, I think it represents a good and workable compromise. Any comments at Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction) will be greatly appreciated. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:21, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposals for Fair City articles have begun

Hello again. I've started the merger proposal. My idea is that the best target page for the characters' info (in basic one or two paragraph form) is the List of Fair City characters article. I've opened a discussion on that article's talk page with further rationale and explanation, as well as the first article I'd like to discuss. I've left a request at the wikiproject soap opera talk page, as well as the talk page of the article's author, letting them know of the idea and discussion as well. I'd also appreciate your input of course, as a neutral party. Thanks! Raven1977 (talk) 19:55, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Fiction notability

Hi DGG,

I've skimmed across that proposal at Wikipedia:Notability_(fiction) and overall it looks pretty good. However, the previous version of that page is hard to find now. Could you please reinstate a link to whatever was the version before you made the changes until the proposal is accepted? - Mgm|^(talk) 08:59, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll check it in the morning, & sert up a link to compare, --after adding some a few more comments and changes. . DGG (talk) 09:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Deletion review for List of Universal Century technology

An editor has asked for a deletion review of List of Universal Century technology. Since you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedy-deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Stifle (talk) 12:38, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

AFD

Sorry but I forgot to email you. I completely forgot these AfDs because I 've been doing other things in Wikipedia. I was planning to email you just to say that the reason I am sending these for AfD it's because I don't think they should be included in any "List of characters" article. I understand the reason that you reverted the prod and I am ok with that. I acted a bit hasty to send everything for AfD immediately but it seems if I don't something immediately I am forgetting it. I discovered this today. I am ok with List of characters for notable TV series (millions of people have seen at least an episode) but not for every video game (how many have played the game or read a review?). Sorry again but it seems I am spending much time in Wikipedia the last days. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:29, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, interesting argument. Have you made it at the AfD. I think it is reasonable that non-playable characters in a video game can be regarded as mere part of the scenery, notable only under exceptional circumstances,, just like characters in a film who have no lines to speak. I'm not clear about these particular ones. DGG (talk) 23:48, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

One thing it bugs me: Right now it's easier to be included in Wikipedia if you are a fictional character who appears in two pages of a web graphic novel (I am referring to some of Heroes graphic novel characters) than if you are a professor in a University (you have to pass WP:PROF). One more thing: In many list of TV series characters it has been some kind of agreement like that characters that appear in less than 2 episodes are not referenced (see Heroes and Lost for example. The limit is three episodes I think). For video games it seems to be no limit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:06, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

It's hard comparing across fields that widely apart. As for WP:PROF, essentially every full professor in the top 50 or so research universities worldwide would qualify--its just a matter of writing the articles. But more people want to work on popular fiction. for that matter, classic works are even worse served. But the success of WP:PROF was that we managed to get it away fro the GNG, into guidelines that made sense for the subject. I think that if people would stop trying to delete major characters in major fiction it would be much easier to merge the others. But when some people insist on removing them all, others will defend them all. (and, to be fair, vice versa). If you have any idea for breaking this deadlock, just let me know. DGG (talk) 03:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Sourcing of lists in fiction

I'm interested to know why you feel that lists of characters or merged articles don't require third-party sources. There doesn't seem to be any policy or guideline exempting them, or at least none that I can find. Stifle (talk) 15:55, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

as for content, I think the information about the in the work itself meets the standard of WP:V and WP:RS. But I imagine you are talking about notability. I don't see how one can logically say such a list is or is not notable in the usual sense--if the items in it are not quite notable, what sort of evidence of notability would apply? I imagine you would be looking for a comprehensive book "minor characters in SYZ" limited to the minor characters, but such works are very rare--it may be a logical way to write an encyclopedia, but not usually a separate book, where one would usually cover all the characters. So they are usually covered in the references and reviews of the main work, and that should always be available. I consider that sufficient sourcing for notability. I agree with you that the people writing the articles don't do sufficient work to find these, but this is primarily because of the extremely poor indexing coverage for most of these materials. Only novels and plays and motion pictures really have the necessary formal academic apparatus as yet. But this does not mean that sources of some sort do not exist. (and for classic fiction, there are always sources with substantial coverage of major characters) I will usually base my argument on one or more of the above considerations.

Additionally, I think the proper coverage of plot for many serials should be organized around the characters, not the episodes, and so I do not object to large sections in the character articles if this is the clearest way to present it. We can tolerate duplication. (In paper, avoiding duplication was of critical economic importance, but i don';t see it as being anything worth the avoiding here.) The more important question is to write it clearly and concisely. It's not all that easy to do. I think for most of our writers is easier to do this is separate pieces than as part of a large organized article.

But as a practical matter, I am w eager to find any compromise at all on arrangement which will still provide proper coverage. If you want to write one big article on each fiction, and still give the necessary 3 or 4 good paragraphs of coverage to each significant character, explaining their role in the action, that's OK with me. For major characters even, it could be included--but the length and detail of these sections would be similar to that of the present better-quality articles on characters. I also do have my biases in the sort of genres i consider more interesting and worthwhile. But the strengths of Wikipedia at present are almost inversely proportional to my own interests, and we should build on them. The only difficulty here is that for many of the genres we are discussing, I have not the knowledge or interest to actually work on the articles. I've never willingly seen a soap opera, or played a modern RPG.

But in a broader view of things, I think the concept of notability with its emphasis on separate articles is useless altogether, and is an outmoded survival of the way paper encyclopedias are of necessity organised. We should rather think about what content should be included, and how it should be arranged as complementary questions, the first being the more important.I think it is particularly irrelevant for fiction, and I will probably start arguing this. As for popular fiction, I think the content needed is detailed comprehensive coverage, and the standard for how much coverage for a work is the importance or popularity of the fiction. This should include a discussion of every character in proportion to its importance in the fiction. How to group them is secondary, and there are many equivalent solutions. It fundamentally makes no difference if they are separate articles or not, as long as the right material is included. (For a future rework of the software, I see it as a a database, where one could group the separate checks of material as one pleased. We are not using most of the features of the available software, because we are still fixated on having it look like a conventional encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 16:36, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

User:TTN

Since you have had repeated experience with this user's AFDs like, I thought I'd contact you. This user's AFD behavior is appaling especially how he refuses to bundle nominations in the same universe for which he uses identical reasonings. He also continually fails to consider the option to merge or redirect without intervention of deletion and makes no evident efforts to look for sources himself (there's a difference between unverified and unverifiable), instead preferring to force the issue by nominating for AFD (which causes a 5-day deadline for improvement) and which is specifically considered to be improper.

The articles in question might well require care, merging or even deletion, but the way he goes about it is unneccesarily terse and bitey.

I think it's time to launch an RFC. Would you consider helping gather evidence and supporting it? - Mgm|^(talk) 15:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Before you start, you might consider seeing how the RfC/U on Gavin.collins goes first, since different facets of the same issue are involved.DGG (talk) 17:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Tommy Vercetti

I am a little curious to know how you propose this article could be improved, or if you would simply recommend merging it into the Vice City character list. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 18:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

working on this--you know what happens if you get me started doing a comprehensive argument for something.....DGG (talk) 05:34, 8 December 2008 (UTC) -- finally finished --

1. First of all, at the very least, it can be redirected to the list of characters if consensus can be obtained for doing so--a named character redirect is a very reasonable redirect. I think there is no instance of a specifically named playable human character from a major game where this is inappropriate and straight deletion would be preferable..
2. Merging is always worth considering. Looking at the section on him in the character list, it is considerably shorter than for the other principal characters--appropriately so at the moment, for it has a separate article. If it did not, content should certainly be merged to at least match the other characters.
3. But Vercetti is the single playable character and therefore by far the more important than other characters who merely interact with him as programmed by the game. A playable character is necessarily the character the person playing the game is expected to identify with--and this relationship with the principal character is stronger in games than in other forms of fiction, and is the very basis of the interest in RPGs. Furthermore, in this particular game the player's likely identification with Vervetti is particularly noteworthy, for I see from the other articles on the game, that it has been the matter of substantial published criticism.
4. In terms of actual content, the material is sourceable. The plot section of the main article on the game is sourced to specific dialog, and obviously so can the actions of the character. I'm not sure this is necessary for every statement, but it probably should be done for selected key points--it both confirms the accuracy of the article and gives the reader a sense of the nature of the game. The material will also have secondary sources. As the

Now, some general considerations not strictly to the point of this particular article:

1. The question now arises of duplication. In a work of any sort with a single main character who is more than a passive observer, the description of the plot necessarily centers around him, and it would seem possible for the sections to be combined. Possible, yes, but I do not see why it should be done and why the material can not be to some degree repeated. One would never do this in a paper encyclopedia, because of the expense. One of the advantages of NOT PAPER is we can duplicate as much as we choose for clarity of presentation or organization, as the expense is trivial--the only problem is that with man subjects there is difficulty updating in more than one place, but this is a relatively static subject.
2. aWe have been much too focused on the concept of the separate article, rather than content in general-- on the "page"--another archaic failure to really recognize we are NOT PAPER. It fundamentally does not matter whether or not things have a separate "article"-- they need appropriate content, which can then be arranged in various ways. We already have content within articles of many people, real or fictional, that are not separately notable. We could equally perfectly well have a suitable amount of content: from one sentence to thousands of words-in separate chunks, the question is really how much detail to give, depending upon both importance and sourcing. Wikipedia does not make full use of most of he potential features of hypertext, let alone sophisticated database-centered systems. In the simplest way, within the existing system, we could transclude; in a more complicated way, we could have multiple approach points, and modules of content, and an individual user could choose the presentation. (For example, they could choose to see an article with the descriptions of all the protagonists of the different games of the series together for comparison.) But I certainly don't propose trying to restructure this for a single article now--my guess is that it should be a compelte rewrite of the software, and i would hope to see it by perhaps 2011 or 12. Besides the software, we would need much greater human attention to quality and style of writing and arrangement--I don't think most of our contributors would find it an easy transition. DGG (talk) 23:42, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zabat

A friendly question on your !vote at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zabat. Could you clue me in as to why you think AfD is the wrong venue to discuss this deletion? Just trying to figure out what you're seeing that I'm missing. Thanks!--Fabrictramp | talk to me 01:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The discussion of what to do with the article does not belong on afd. To nominate for deletion is an assertion that neither a merge nor a redirect would be suitable. If one wants to delete, and it would appear that it might be, one should present some argument directed to that, but no such argument is presented or claimed. In fact, the exact opposite is said in the nomination "does not deserve any separate coverage" (my italics) Thus, its the proposal for a merge--and a merge would make sense for the article in my opinion also--I agree with TTN there and would support such a merge in a discussion--as I have frequently told him in similar cases. But merges on this topic are at least potentially controversial. and need discussion, if only to determine how much to merge. The discussion of these would properly take place on the article talk page (or the talk p of the article proposed to merge to, or a workgroup.) Certainly it has often been argued that a merge or a redirect is not suitable, either because the content is already merged, or that it is too trivial for even a redirect--but no such assertion was made. Please take a look at the nominators talk page, to see his frank exposition of his intentions and plans for removing such articles by any device whatsoever, no matter how ill suited--and his current pursuit of the method of removal by redirects without prior discussion or consensus or the attempt to gain such--actions for which he had previously received a topic ban. DGG (talk) 02:21, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I didn't get that out of it, but in rereading it, I can see that interpretation. (And just reinforces my opinion that we need a central, well visited place to discuss controversial redirects.)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:54, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, it was for edit warring over such redirects. WP:BRD is still perfectly fine to utilize. I really don't know how everyone gets so confused over it. TTN (talk) 02:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you like BRD. I take it you wont mind if all of them are R'd. Remember my willingness to support you in good merges if you need support, for ones you ask about first. DGG (talk) 02:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

If they're reverted, they'll just be put up for deletion, which I feel to be the only way to effectively deal with articles that don't need to be merged. TTN (talk) 02:52, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Not sure how a "no consensus" close somehow translates into a go ahead and "redirect" (see [7], [8], and [9]) without gaining consensus for such action on the article's talk page after the AfD closed. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 03:30, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

DGG, don't take this the wrong way...but are you actually reading the articles and voting on their merits as stand alone subjects or just voting because it's TTN? The above statement you made there, as much as I'd like to assume good faith, seems to imply it's just because "it's him" and he didn't clear it with you first. [Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lying Bastard This AfD seems to support that too], in which the source cited was actually a very brief mention of a ship in a genre where such ships are commonplace.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 11:01, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

in general, about 90% of the articles proposed for deletion by TTN are indeed articles with serious problems, about which something should be done. In some cases, its merely a rewrite to encyclopedic standards; in mot cases, its a merge of some amount of the content; sometimes, if the content is already there sufficiently, its a redirect. Occasionally the subject is so utterly minor there shouldn't even be a redirect--and when I see one such, i normally do go and !vote delete. But In general, when I say keep and discuss merge elsewhere, or the like, i do not mean that the article should be kept in its current form. I mean just what I say, that afd is not the place, and that the first step is to not delete the article, and the second is to discuss how to merge it. As I mention above, I am perfectly willing to help support good merge proposals if hey run into opposition. I've usually not been asked, because the proposals that run into opposition are usually not good proposals, but proposals eliminating most or all of the content, which i would rarely support. That in my opinion is probably why TTN has to go to afd for them, because he is trying to enforce under threat of deletion what he would not be able to get consensus for if presented straight-out.

for the batch of articles on these fictional weapons, I think the articles are , as they stand, inappropriate for Wikipedia as separate articles, and I usually remember to say as much every time. They are fairly well done, but as written out in full, they belong on a specialized wiki. But some sort of summary of them on a suitable combination page seems to me suitable for Wikipedia. And that's what I mean by my comments there.

the reason I try to comment on every one is because if people do not bother to comment, it appears like the deletion proposal has consensus. It is wrong to swamp process and hope people get tired of reply. It is much easier to give a list of a dozen common things frequently wrong with articles, without specifics, than give an adequate defense against each. I find doing so an utter nuisance. There are better ways of doing this, but they require compromise. . The proof to me that the nominator(s) will presently not accept compromise is, that when they do get merged to list articles, the lists are then nominated for deletion. If they are merged then to the main article, that part of the content is removed. Obviously there is a basic disagreement about how much detail on fictional content is appropriate in wp. Either one side will drive the other out, or we can compromise. I do not expect to totally like whatever the compromise will be, but I don't expect to. I have yet to see from those wanting to cut back on such content a willingness to negotiate a compromise in good faith. DGG (talk) 04:02, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

What do you make of all of these nominations for articles in actually different states (some have sources, some do not, yet they all get the same no sources claim) and with different degrees of notability (some are more notable than others and yet they all are commented on as if their notability is equal) all having the exact same wording in the nominations? Do you think the individual merits of these articles are being considered when articles with different degrees of sourcing and notability get the same copy and paste nomination "rationale"? The best is the whole "no current assertion for future improvement of the article"; anything that is not a hoax can be improved. Do we need someone to say (assert) somewhere that he/she will improve an article explicitly or is it generally understood that Wikipedia is a work in progress and thus pretty much all articles are expected to be improved over time? Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 03:40, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Transformers

We seriously need a policy that explains exactly when, where and how much primary sourcing is acceptable or for that matter how much plot detail is too much (that would deal with this whole drama immediately). That said: the main issue with the articles is that they were based entirely on primary sources. If you can improve on those, by all means do. I think undoing the merge would be very unproductive. Try referencing material and merging it along until the time it becomes to large and needs its own entry so you can split off because of space concerns. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:54, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I have sometimes been tempted to actually edit these articles, but have usually had the sense to refrain--it would be an interesting experiment in using general skills to work on a subject concerning which I am totally ignorant--except for what I've learned by watching these articles. An editor in its real world meaning, after all, is supposed to be able to do just that. (The most I've done is condense some plot summaries here and there, while hoping that I'm not accidentally leaving out the key part that the naive original editor failed to emphasize.) This leads to a reasonable question, which is why then do I care about these articles at all? Two reasons: An encyclopedia is supposed to be encyclopedic and cover more than any one persons interests--keeping in mind the range of people who use Wikipedia. But the reason I even get to this topic at all, is because I discovered attempts to try to delete the relatively detailed articles on the classic fiction and sci-fi I really do care about (some of what I call classics, to be sure, is what some other people think as junk.)

almost as you say, though, we need a guideline (I doubt we will ever have the greater consensus needed for policy). In the meantime, let's not pretend we already have one, and its the one we individually want. I doubt we ever will have even a guideline, unless we compromise. I appreciate being given advice about what will satisfy some opponents, but I think some will not accept articles on fictional details regardless of sourcing. They just don't think it's worthy of an encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 01:39, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/King Cold (section)

worse yet In this case, changing to a redirect was tried 3 times: in Oct 2006], again in Dec 2006, and yet again in May 2007, when it was incorrectly called a merge. (And all 3 times by TTN. the present nominator) This disruptive sequence shows why a proper reasonable merge works better than a redirect--it satisfies whatever need there is for an article.

New articles Septimus Heap (character) and Jenna Heap

Hi DGG, We have created these articles with real world notability, reviews and development. I would like you to please give your comments on the articles and rate these articles. "Legolas" (talk) 06:24, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Gwen Grayson

Pleased to have the advice. I want to work through the WP:WWF backlog as quickly as possible which means making quick judgements, hoping that I will improve as I go along. I have in the past often suggested a merge instead of deletion, and have voted to keep articles when I could see that sources might appear, so will have another look in this case. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I did check the notability guidelines for film (nothing relevant said about characters) and for fiction. For fiction one of the criteria is: "Real-world coverage: Significant, real-world information must exist on the subject, beyond what is revealed in the plot of the fictional work." That doesn't seem to be present at the moment, but of course it may turn up now the article is flagged for rescue. Also, I assumed that AfD could result in a redirect, but now I think that perhaps I must always tag for merge instead unless I think a redirect is not needed. I've been reading and re-reading the deletion policy and everything associated, but more guidance would be appreciated. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:36, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

As you may have noticed, the guidelines for fictional characters are bitterly disputed at present: I'll give here a summary of what i think is the status, not the way I'd really want it, but the effective status, trying to be fair about the different views. I do not consider separate real world coverage necessary for major characters, and neither do many people at afd. As a result, some articles have been kept without it, and some deleted because they do not have it. Guidelines often lag behind AfD results; an afd must end somehow, but a significant minority who disagree prevents the revision or establishment of a guideline. In practice it depends to a good deal on the recognition of how important the character is.

There are no agreed guidelines whatsoever for the degree of notability for characters in a combination article on "characters of X... ", and the argument that they do not need to be individually notable is usually accepted. Minor characters normally go in a list. A list of characters can be combined with the main article, & size is accepted as a significant consideration in this decision.

Obviously any character with a list or combination entry needs a redirect from their name. Very minor characters (in a film or video, usually characters without dialog who have no particular role in the action; in a game, non-playable characters with purely decorative background roles & no significance to the actual play) do not even need to be listed or given a redirect.

As a side issue, there is no requirement that the source for information about anything direct and factual in fiction be as secondary source, not the fiction itself, though this is needed for matters of opinion and is disputed with respect to notability.

as another side issue, sourcing in this field is difficult because lack of indexing and access; there is no rule that n article must be sourced in any particular time, and requiring it to be done in the 5 days of an afd does not take account of the nature of the material.

Now, in practice, people asking for deletion of character articles for major characters want one or both of two things: Either they are asking for deletion because they hope to agree on merge as a compromise, while knowing or thinking that they might not get a merge decision at the proper place -- the main article talk page. Alternatively or additionally, they want the least possible coverage of fiction, and only reluctantly accept the idea that they might have to merge, and would rather have no separate mention of characters at all.

Myself, I care about content primarily, and only secondarily about how things are connected into articles. I, in common with most of the editors in the field, and almost all our users, want rather full coverage of fiction, though not actually exhaustive to the degree of a fan wiki, where anything that can be written about is considered appropriate. Therefore I want separate articles for major characters because I have learned that otherwise the content gets reduced. Those who want minimal coverage of fiction tend to go about it as follows: first step is reduction is a combination article; second is to a list; third is to a redirect to a paragraph giving the characters in general; fourth is to say that the characters that matter are adequately discussed in the paragraph on the plot (by that time, the plot too has been whittled down to a paragraph); fifth, to eliminate the redirect because the main article now no longer includes the name, and finally to remove the plot paragraph also as nonencyclopedic. Simultaneously, coverage of the production & distribution and reception will be being deleted as trivia.

What we need, though, is not just content on characters, but good content on characters (and other elements). The present content is either excessively over-exuberant, or reduced to a meaningless teaser. In many cases of either form, they are probably copyviols. this is what we need to work on: quality, not dividing up vs. combining bad material, but improving it. DGG (talk) 20:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much for taking the time to explain. I'm not sure that I fully understand though. I would have thought that the priority would be to cover the works of art themselves rather than all the characters in them. Obviously I can see the point in some cases, e.g Juliet Capulet has a significant academic literature even separate from that on [[Romeo and Juliet]. Even Lewis from Inspector Morse is worth an article because there was a spin-off series on that character. But if the line is not drawn at the point where there are independent sources, then where is it to be drawn? Excuse me for being naive about this, but I haven't worked much on fiction articles. I know there are very active communities working in these fields, but if I am going to make real inroads into the wikification backlog I have to be familiar with the notability threshold in every area. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:43, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

you are correct about priorities. But Wikipedia is not an organized project: it is open to everyone to write about whatever they wish to write about. People tend to write in detail about the details of their favorite things. There's no way of directing it. I personally came here mainly to increase the coverage of some of the less-intensely covered academic topics here, and the only way to accomplish this is to try to recruit others who have similar interests. I became interested in Wikipedia coverage of fiction upon seeing the afd for major characters in Tolstoy and other classic writers--many of which were lost. I soon realized that the way of defending articles on what interested me, was to defend similar articles on everyone's individual hobbies, and to say that no topic however obscure was unworthy of detailed coverage if people were willing to write the articles and material was available--material from any source that there is reason to think accurate, including the blogs that reliable people use for communication in that interest group, and even one's examination of the fundamental works themselves.

There is no inherent advantages in either lumping or dividing articles; the point is content. But experience has shown that often the only way to preserve content on many subjects is to have a separate article, because even easier than deleting an article, is the removal of content. This is especially prevalent in fiction, where there are a number of people who want minimal coverage of fiction in Wikipedia as a matter of maintaining what they think is the fundamental serious purpose of the encyclopedia. They will therefore use the excuse of organization to remove content: the sequence I gave in my last reply is not hyperbola or rhetoric, but plain description of what routinely happens, sometimes on a massive scale. Any of the many Wikipedia procedural devices will be used for this purposes in a variety of ingenious manners. The best defense against this is to maintain the integrity of articles. We can have whatever rules we choose to have, in order to accomplish the fundamental purpose of an encyclopedia--we are not constrained to write an encyclopedia to fit some particular set of rules. To get the appropriate content, we adopt whatever rules we need.

Now, there can be disagreement over whether n encyclopedia like Wikipedia should included detailed coverage of fiction. my view is I that the various forms of fiction are one of the central arts of our civilization, and high in the interests and expectations of the public who make up our audience. Perhaps those who think otherwise want to limit to the subjects of academic study, but even so they have lost contact with it. in 1300 it probably would not have been considered respectable for a general encyclopedia to include English literature at all; in 1600, not English popular drama; in 1800, not novels. In 1900, not musical theater; 1920, not film; 1950, not comics; 1960,not television, 1980, not computer games. We could have a fiction-free fork of the encyclopedia , but who would prefer to use it? DGG (talk) 03:10, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again for spelling it out so clearly. Count me in the pro-fiction camp, and pro popular culture too. I suppose I still do think some rigour is useful, having spent time removing the in-universe tone from Ashley Thomas (the least interesting soap opera character ever) only to realise there are notability guidelines for soap opera characters. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:42, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

your support on the Fiction RfC

Can you explain your reasoning in light of the hundreds of episodes which will now be deleted? Ikip (talk) 15:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Talk page stalker here. You do understand that FICT represents an expansion of what is considered notable, not a contraction, right? That right now the number of fictional elements that are faced with deletion (under just the GNG) is larger than the number which will be threatened with deletion under the new fict? That we are relaxing inclusion standards for fiction specifically? You understand these things, right? Protonk (talk) 15:43, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

you said it not me. I guess both you and Randoman are watching my edits, Protonk, I know your opinion, as you have attempted to control opinion on the WP:FICT. I am interested in DGG's.

I find it difficult to have a polite converstation with someone who supports personal attacks against me. Please allow DGG and I have a conversation ourselves. Thank you.Ikip (talk) 17:53, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

A number of people look at this page from time to time, and "talk page stalker" as used above is an ironic description of something that many of us quite properly do. I watchlist a number of user talk pages myself where material of particular interest to be might appear. I do not currently look regularly at anyone's edits, but sometimes I have when I think there is some good reason--that's legitimate too. This is a page available for anyone's comment, if they keep it polite and to the point, and don't use this page to fight with other editors than myself. Private conversations are better carried out by email. As for my opinion.

Yes, I understand it was intended to be somewhat more inclusive than current standards. The question is whether it offers enough of an expansion, or whether we should keep trying for a better compromise. I cannot say I really like the compromise: I disagree with the emphasis on sourcing as a standard for notability of fiction articles, and, I dislike even more the retention of a criterion for real world notability, which I think totally irrelevant. I've argued both of these points extensively; see above for my recent talk, and in my talk archives on [User talk:DGG/Archive 0.3| IPC & Fiction]] for earlier. I do not propose to reargue it here. I've said it as well as I can say it, and convinced whomever I am likely to convince. The decisive reasons for supporting this I see as the following:

1. The way it works out will be seen at AfD, which is the true test of notability guidelines.

2. I think it perfectly reasonable to merge content on semi-notable fictional characters or background topics; the question is retaining proper content. The page deliberately does not discuss the content of merged articles, and I will certainly only support guidelines or practices that permit reasonably full and detailed descriptions , without the excesses of a fan wiki.

3. I think episode articles re almost always better merged. it helps comprehension, for one thing, in those cases where there is some sequence in the plot. Even for shows without such sequence, it gives a good idea of the nature of the show. (Such articles have in many cases confirmed my guess that the show was not worth the watching. Others might find just the opposite.) the real problem is proper description of episodes. Most of the merged episode articles are far too short, and end in teasers. This is non-encyclopedic, and they need to be rewritten to show the complete plot to the end. Some of the longer episode articles are so overdetailed as to make it impossible for those not very familiar with them already toa ctually follow the main story line. Whether separate or apart, the main thing is to improve the content.

4 The test of a good compromise is that neither side likes it much. Kww's reluctant support was what actually was the final decisive factor.

5 And in any case, we really must settle this issue and work on improving the very poor quality of most articles in these fields. It matters very much to the reputation of Wikipedia that whatever we write about, we write about in a mature way. DGG (talk) 18:13, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your long explanation DGG, you know I really respect and look up to you.

Everyone keeps talking about how their has to be a guideline, you state "we really must settle this issue". Isn't existing guidelines enough?

As soon as this article becomes policy a lot of editors, who didn't know about this RfC, are going to be angry, because self-promoted janitors, are going to take it upon themselves to merge in mass, as has happened before.

You seem tired of talking about this. I was just suprised you supported the proporal, thats all. Ikip (talk) 18:39, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

That existing guidelines are not suitable is shown by the activity at AfD. We therefore either need one that is at least generally tolerable, if we are not to fight every one on first principles and, as has been shown, decide pretty much at random. A hallmark of a good encyclopedia is consistency.

I generally will not oppose merges in fiction of everything but the most important topics, if they do not result in loss of content. If the merges do result in loss of significant content, we will need to develop some system of publicly watching them as prominent as AfD, and carry on from there. Merges after all have virtues: they can be undone rather easily, and the content is at least in the edit history. Thus even your worst case is an improvement over the present. What those who care about episode articles could most usefully do at this point is to improve them. That is what will save content the best. it is very hard to defend bad content. DGG (talk) 20:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Editors are going to use those three prongs as sticks in AfDs, I know they will because they already use notability as a stick. You either do this, this, and this, or the article gets deleted.

I am not only concerned about the articles, I am concerned about the editors too. I won't give you all the statistics and media buzz, because you have probably read it from me alrdady. I want wikipedia to continue to grow, I want new editors to be attracted to wikipedia. Accepting the merge of hundreds of articles not only pisses off current editors, we lose future editors too.

From a marketing stand point this merge behavior is dumb. On most of these articles that we will merge, we are in the top 10 on google. Editors find these articles, and may decide to stay and contribute more.

Everyone agrees that these articles don't ruin the quality of any other article on wikipedia, so why merge them? I just don't see any benefit at all, and that is why I encourage you to change your vote. Ikip (talk) 21:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

So go to the articles on the most important characters and remove the excess and look for sources, and then they are less likely to be merged. I came here to edit, not argue, & I want to go back to it. Just as deletion is the last resort in dealing with problem articles, so is argument the last resort in tryingto save them. The benefit is in having a compromise and avoiding conflict. That matters to me. It ought to matter to you. I really hope it will matter to the great majority. DGG (talk) 21:30, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

thanks, Ikip (talk) 22:13, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Gargoyles characters

I saw your suggestion at List of Gargoyles characters regarding the merger. Personally, I think that the major characters like Goliath, Elisa, Xanatos and maybe Demona could stay if sources could be found, but I'd have no problem with merging the rest. They definitely need sources, but I don't have any idea where to find them except through the actual episodes. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 21:45, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Google News has sometimes worked recently, since they are now doing cover to cover on many newspapers; but the primary work itself is an adequate source for description. There is no need for secondary sources for content in a combination article, just sources that meet V. The FICT compromise, if adopted ,and followed up realistically will clear up a lot of things. Getting sufficiently full content accepted--and written!!-- in combination character and plot articles is much more important than keeping everything as separate articles. DGG (talk) 22:52, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Dwellers of the Forbidden City

Hi there. :) I noticed that you had participated in the deletion review of the module Dwellers of the Forbidden City, and helped to overturn the initial deletion. I just wanted to let you know that today, the article was successfully turned into a Good Article. :) BOZ (talk) 21:51, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

unexpected but wonderful. This could probably be done for essentially any Wikipedia article. When you're ready, there are several thousand similar articles that could be undeleted on this precedent. If you can do 1 a month, and recruit 10 like-minded friends,who each recruit 10 more, we could make this a spectacularly valuable reference site in few years. DGG (talk) 22:23, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't know about that, but I'm glad to have made something worthwhile out of this article which was nearly deleted for good. :) We've also gotten a number of similar D&D module articles up to GA recently. BOZ (talk) 02:40, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Fiction notability

You referenced my position during your comment at WT:Notability (fiction). This is to inform you that due to revisions of the guideline, I have had to switch my position from support to strong oppose.—Kww(talk) 16:57, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

It seems to be the subject of a bit of edit-warring: [10] is the revision to which I refer.—Kww(talk) 17:25, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

remember that the support for the compromise from those on the inclusionist side is only as a compromise. If it wasn't that I would accept almost anything, I wouldn't have supported it. I consider it much too deletionist, but the test of a fair compromise is that nobody actually likes it. If either side presses too hard it will destroy the whole thing, and make it all worse than before. People with one set of views will simply argue that GNG does not apply to components of fiction, and in the absence of any specific guideline, the whole WP:N concept is irrelevant for this type of article --and if enough people agree with this position, the people with the other views will be worse off that with the compromise. DGG (talk) 17:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

why Wikipedians don't agree on episodes

(here, for convenience, as I was writing it for an afd where I decided it does not really apply to the specific issues:
The reasons there is no blanket rule are: First, nobody has every been able to agree on a blanket rule, or even to compromise on this issue. Second , it seems perfectly reasonable to some people including myself that in a series, some episodes are more important/notable/commented on than others. I think that's true for most author's books also. The question is whether it's worth the time debating them. My own preferred compromise is that the default treatment should be to merge, with adequate coverage of each in the merged article. The reason many of the inclusionists on this are not mergists is that in practice the merges almost always result in loss of all significant content, until it becomes an unencyclopedic list. It shouldn't be necessary having to keep full articles when all that's actually needed is to keep the content, but that does seem to be the practical method around here at this time. apparently a few of the deletionists on this issue don't like such a compromise if it means keeping content, because their actual goal is to delete as much content on fiction as possible. Too many articles and also merged content are just teasers, and do not say what actually happens in the plot. This is wholly wrong, merged or separate. WP is not a program guide. DGG (talk) 04:41, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Deletions over consensus: Space Ghost" episodes

Greetings. You seem like a very smart and level-headed admin, which is why I have come to you for advice. Admin David_Fuchs has been going around ignoring concensus at AfD and deleting things based on his own "research and conclusions", as one person puts it. I thought it was an isolated incident with the "Space Ghost" episodes AfD I participated in, but apparently it's not. Please have a look at the last several entries on the bottom of his talk page. This needs to stop! I'm not really sure what the best move is at this point, please advise. AfD hero (talk) 21:13, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I somewhat agree with AfD hero. The problem in that discussion is that not all of those episodes are of the same "notability". Whereas the others on the list can arguably be considered in the same context, Baffler Meal is absolutely not in the same league as the others, because it is the first appearance of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force and even appears on additional DVD releases than the Space Coast episodes (i.e. on the Auqa Teen DVDs). That episode thus is notable in comparison to other Space Goast episodes because it is perhaps the lone Space Ghost episode to appear not just on the Space Ghost DVD release, but also on the Aqua Teen DVD release as a special feature, for being the first appeareance of characters in a franchise that spawned a video game and theatrically released movie, and as such is covered in a variety of secondary sources as a result. Thus, no real opinion on the merges for the other episodes; however, "Baffler Meal" absolutely is a stand out episode that merits its own article and that does indeed have real potential for further improvement. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:05, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Err, we can debate the merits of each AfD all day, but the bigger problem is that we have an admin unrepentantly running around ignoring concensus and deleting stuff. AfD hero (talk) 22:16, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried WP:DRV? It is a great place to get the community to review the deletions an admin has done. Chillum 22:18, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing I can do personally to stop him, you know. The only practical way is first deletion review, to show the closes were in fact wrong, and then if it continues after that, then there are ways to proceed. I watch for the deletion reviews, but start first with the one that makes the best argument. Remember that you will need to show not just that he ignored the consensus, but that he ignored the consensus of good arguments from established editors, and his choice of a rule was unreasonable. The situation which Deletion Review can not currently handle is one like Camberwell Baptist Church, where he made an argument in the closure he should not have made there, and possibly did close contrary to consensus, but there is no real chance the article would actually stand if enough attention were paid. I didn't participate in that one because I thought my !delete wasn't needed. Although I myself think such deletions should be redone, it is very rare for deletion review to overturn a close which actually reaches the acceptable conclusion about the article--that's wrong, but that's what generally does happen here. DGG (talk) 00:50, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The proper course of action in all of these cases is to relist the articles at AfD, and transplant David_Fuchs' arguments from the top down to the comments, then let someone else close. People at DRV usually fail to realize these sort of subtle points and instead treat the DRV as a 2nd AfD, except with a higher barrier for keeping. So I don't think I will bother going to DRV at this point, though if someone else did I would support them. For now I will just wait and keep a watchful eye. AfD hero (talk) 07:25, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Honorverse articles

David, I am a big fan of David Weber's Honorverse novels, basically scooping up each one as soon as it appears (I think I have each and every one of Weber's books). Unfortunately, there is no secondary literature on all of that, and the concepts and characters in these novels (not even the major character Honor Harrington), have any real-world notability. So all these articles, including Mesa (Honorverse) are unsourced and unsourcable. In the absence of sources, they all constitute original synthesis by the editors who wrote those articles. I prodded one of them (Mesa), but you unprodded saying that I should propose a merge. How can we merge unsourced information? As a major novel series, I think it is appropriate to keep the major article (Honorverse) despite the fact that all said previously applies to that article, too. But I don't see how articles like Mesa or Adrienne Warshawski could be salvageable. --Crusio (talk) 11:14, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

First, I agree with you that there are too many separate articles on this general topic. Now, about merging: Material for an article can be taken from the primary source itself, if it is straight description. There is no need of secondary sourcing for uncontroversial non-interpretive content. That takes care of justification for the merge. More generally: Now, you're a fan--has nobody ever published reviews of them? Not even in any of the reliable sf blogs? such blogs have previously been used to support articles. When you say unsourcable, to me that means you have checked every likely print and online source where such reviews might have appeared. Are there no interviews with the author where he may have discussed these books? I think you're more likely to mean that none have come your way that you happen to have noticed. That's what I tend to mean when I say I don;t know of something. I don't say unsourceable unless I have actually done a suitably full search, or when it's one of the few professional topics in the RW where I have an established method for seeing everything published or posted (which in both cases currently rely upon external information services). DGG (talk) 18:59, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I cannot deny that you have a point there, I did not do a full search. I'm an avid SF reader, but I read the novels, not what people write on blogs... There must be some reviews and interviews, but they will cover the outlines of the books and some of the main characters perhaps, not details like Mesa or minor characters like Adrienne. Note that some of the people that wrote all these articles remark on the Honorverse talk page about the lack of sources and also note that there is a separate wiki for this kind of stuff. I don't think that anybody is served by these articles on non-notable fictional entities/characters. The series is notable (there must be some bestsellers here, probably) and should have an article. All the rest should just redirect there (even the article on the main character, Honor Harrington). --Crusio (talk) 22:36, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I Love Money 2, Fair use, spoilers, copyright

I am not sure if you are aware of the full history regarding the copyright and spoiler issues with I Love Money 2.

Issue 1 - In a nutshell, there are several of these VH1 and MTV reality TV programs which have been "quoting" the episode preview summaries as posted on the VH1 and MTV websites. These are typically three to four sentences explaining roughly what to expect in the episode. The "quoting" has been using the "quote" template, complete with citation of the source: See Rock of Love with Bret Michaels for example. However, the issue is that the entire preview summary is being copied and pasted into the quote template, along with the citation. One could argue if this is or is not violation of copyright, since it is only three or four sentences per summary, but it is also 100 percent of the summary. It would be interesting to see some WP policy regarding fair use of text in this instance. The official WP fair use policy is not very specific. On the I Love Money 2 page, these quotations were removed in the past couple days, and now some editors have started trying to write new ones. The quality is poor, and will be difficult to substantially improve due to edit warring, POV problems, etc... It is my understanding that summaries of events in particular episodes do not need to be sourced as long as they are factual accounts of what happened on the show. At least there are no copyright issues with these new summaries, just quality issues. These summaries are under constant attack by vandals who are very impassioned about the show and wish to sway the POV.

Issue 2 - In a nutshell, there has been repeated vandalism where editors try to post competition results from future episodes. Sometimes this is based on meticulous viewing of episode previews to try to see who is or is not in the preview, and hence discern who was eliminated. The more responsible editors watching these pages try to remove spoilers based on "future information" as it is unsourced, crystal ball guessing, original research, ...

I hope this helps clear up the issue. I would be happy to have your input on what constitutes "fair use", e.g. the summaries on Rock of Love Bus with Bret Michaels. Thanks! Plastikspork (talk) 22:20, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

No I was not following this. But about the issues you raise:

1. Copyvio is not just a matter of length--copying or even closely paraphrasing complete episode summaries from an outside copyright site is just plain wrong as copyvio, and there is no real disagreement about this here. Legally, there have been clear decisions that such summaries are protected by copyright. The general fair use rule is that the shorter the original work, which in this case in the summary, the less that can be used. A common academic guide would be 10 or 15%. From material like this, I would be reluctant to quote more than a key line of dialog or interpretation-- in quotation marks, and with a specific source. Using these at all even to a permitted extent without attribution is plagiarism, and not allowed here. The place to discuss this further is WT:COPYRIGHT.
2. It's not a good idea anyway--they are almost never encyclopedic, and usually do avoid giving the results or conclusion of the episode. They tend to be written in a rather distinctive way, for their purpose is to maintain the interest of the audience. They are promotional, and we are an encyclopedia. Using such summaries is a violation of NOT PROGRAM GUIDE.
3. This sort of material absolutely does have to be sourced, like everything here. The special nature of descriptions of fiction and other works is that the descriptions can be taken from the primary source of the work itself--in other words, you can view an episode and summarize the facts (but not the interpretations) on that basis, giving an explicit link to the episode source. Ideally, it will have been preserved somewhere citable, as so many programs are. Specific critical events can appropriately be cited in terms of their location within the program. To write these, one should take notes, with timings included.
4. the extrapolation of future information is OR, and is wrong. But if one can actually say what is in the trailer, and this can stand on its own without further OR, I suppose you could use it-- e.g. "The trailer posted at [whereever] shows that at least A, B, and C return for the next episode." The rule is WP:V, which is basic policy. The sport of guessing should be confined to one's blog or the like, or a fan site that will tolerate this. People have always talked about things like this, for the fun of seeing who it is that guesses right--and that is part of the reason for the great interest in these shows!. The place for it is not Wp. Not even the talk page, because we talk there about the article, not the subject.
5. The problem of quality can be solved only by education and example, which is easy for me to say as i do not intend to work on them myself. But I'm a teacher, and I think all teachers find that the way to teach the stubborn is through patient repetition.
6. It is in any case firm policy of Wikipedia that we do not solve content issues or vandalism by deleting the articles that are prone to them. People keep asking for that at AfD on all sorts of different things that cause difficulties, some much worse than this , and the argument is always rejected.

I hope this helps; copy or refer to it as needed. DGG (talk) 00:04, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

About that Death Note episode

In case you don't have it watchlisted, I posted an inquiry back at Talk:Gamble (Death Note episode) in regards to the article title. And about consensus, is it really needed for a horrible page like that? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:57, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

One can always be bold, but then someone else can always revert. And so I did. If someone reverts it wasn't obvious. If one thinks that someone might revert, it's better to discuss first. I do not object to non-destructive merges for the sake of better organization, or realistic emphasis; in many cases I think nobody reasonably would do so. I do object to destructive merges, without prior consensus. Redirects similarly are not destructive if there is sufficient content in the target article. If there is not, they are destructive. A destructive merge is called an editing change, but it has the practical effect of a deletion. This was a destructive merge. The target was a single line of text in the list. (As a detail, the article was misnamed in the first place, & the target selected without inspection, for it too was misnamed as a non-existent section--as you pointed out, the correct episode name is "Wager".)

The pre-existing article was a very poor quality article, very much more detailed than called for. The material in the list is much too little, A proper compromise is somewhere in the middle. An encyclopedic description of an episode whether in a separate or combination article says what takes place in the episode, not just hints at it. The appropriate length will vary, but both of the present alternatives are outside the reasonable.

We can compromise many of the fiction problems with combination articles, if they are true combination articles. If they are mere listings of episode titles or characters, they are not acceptable compromises. At least, they are not acceptable compromises to those who want reasonably full coverage of fiction. Trying to use such as consensus compromise solutions is only a pretended compromise. Those who want consensus should support proper merges with reasonable preservation of content. DGG (talk) 04:16, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Notability of books

I've noticed you quote WorldCat in AfD discussions when referring to books (i.e., Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Patricia Volonakis Davis). I was wondering how this works. For example, I came across Something Borrowed (novel) when doing NPP and I went to worldcat.org and of course the book is there, but I'm not sure how to use that tool to come to the oh, this book must be notable conclusion? Thanks :) §FreeRangeFrog 01:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

You have to consider the type of the book, its date, and the country it's published in. WorldCat includes about 90% of US & Canadian academic libraries, about half to one quarter the US & Canadian public libraries, most academic libraries in the UK, & scattered libraries elsewhere, To find only 4 or 5 library with a book implies either that it has not been published yet, or that essentially no public libraries bought it. If it were in Bulgarian or even Spanish, this wouldn't have any relevance. If its the sort of book few libraries buy, such as pornography, it wouldn't be relevant. You see if something is notable by comparing it with other similar books. "Gone with the Wind", to take an example, is in over 4000 libraries. This book is in 1100. That's about normal for notable current fiction. What would I conclude if it were 200? I'd have my doubts. But if it has been published 10 years ago, that might means something. You need to allow for time after publication: for fiction most public libraries buy the book right after publication, but dispose of it in 5 or 10 years if it isn't read any more, though academic libraries normally buy more slowly, but keep whatever fiction they buy. If, on the other, hand, it were a nonfiction work on medieval history, 200 is pretty good. If it is poetry, sometimes 100 is good. For this -particular book, there's another strong indication -- I see translation into 7 other languages.

Now, the article is worthless as it stands. The first step is to add some data about the publisher and the date of publication & the library holdings and the translations, referencing it to WorldCat. Next step is to find reviews. For popular works, the easiest way now is to use Google News Archive. (for academic books, Google Scholar) [11]. I see hundreds, including, on the first page ones from USA today, SF Chronicle, Atlanta Constitution, Library Journal, Booklist, etc. i also see a hint that its been made into a film. It's announced for 2011,[12],[13] but not even cast yet, so we can't do an article on the film, but we can mention it if we can find a better source. I suspect the plot summary is copied from somewhere, & probably more should be said--if you can find a decent summary in a review, you can use it as a basis if you rewrite it. People often put in naïve articles about their favorite books. About half the time, they're a lot of other people's favorites also. This is why we don;t speedy them. Good job spotting it as having potential. DGG (talk) 03:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Checking the article on the author, that too needs some sources.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I always felt a little bit on shaky ground when looking at books, but this will help enormously. I had a feeling this particular book was notable based on a cursory search, but I was concerned I was running into some pop culture mirrors and smoke so I decided not to touch it at all. It certainly should be expanded, based on this information. Thanks again. Cheers! §FreeRangeFrog 04:19, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

yes, avoiding the fan stuff and Wikipedia mirrors is the key advantage of using Google News Archive instead of Google. It's made all this sort of topic much easier to work on. DGG (talk) 04:23, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Johnny Bravo

Yes, I agree - I apologise if my comment seemed unnecessarily combative, it certainly wasn't meant to sound that way. Black Kite 21:55, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

so the question then, we ought to approach from first principles is the proper handling of disputed merges and redirects, at least for articles that come to afd. too many conflicts have arisen from this. and the results have been inconsistent, and not always rational. Here more than anything else regarding fiction articles, is the need to find proper compromise--and it isnt just fiction articles, though those presently are the biggest problems. this needs to be considered more generally. I don;t really want to start this tonight--it will get in the way of the RW. Essentially the question is the alternative virtues of a widely-seen and very open discussion at a centralized place, subject sometimes to overbalance with people with general views and to over rapid argument with disputed consensus, and more lengthy discussions at article talk pages, less visible to the general community, and subject to ownership by those with concern for a particular group of articles. For dedicated inclusionists or deletionists, there are advantage in either venue, if one works accordingly. We want something where any advantages will be for those who wish to compromise. A key feature of encouraging compromise is to discourage those who oppose compromise, either in a particular case or for a broad class, from overthrowing such solutions. I have no pre-built solution--any process can be used wrongly & devising new is not likely to work without extensive adjustments. DGG (talk) 22:16, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts

Thanks for your participation in my recent Request for adminship. As an editor I've come to respect in our limited interactions, I doubly appreciate your concerns. Perhaps if you would care to mentor me in any areas in which I would seem to be lacking, I would appreciate that; otherwise, just dropping by to give advice from time to time would be enough to help keep me on the right track. :)

Anyway, I don't know if any of this holds your interest, but if you ever wanted to check out the GA drives on either the D&D project (Gary Gygax, Wizards of the Coast, Dragons of Despair, Drizzt Do'Urden, Forgotten Realms, Tomb of Horrors, Dwellers of the Forbidden City, White Plume Mountain, The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Planescape: Torment, Dragonlance, and Against the Giants so far), or the comics project (Spider-Man, Spider-Man: One More Day, Silver Age of Comic Books, Alex Raymond, Winnie Winkle, LGBT themes in comics, Hergé, and Pride & Joy (comics) so far), discussion should be rather easy to find, and join in if you like. Either way, happy editing. :) BOZ (talk) 13:11, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not really good on GA drives for articles on subjects I basically know nothing about except what I read in Wikipedia. I have no personal interest in most of the fiction I defend. I defend it because the attacks on fiction, as Jack M.'s comment a few sections up shows, are a deliberate attempt to reduce coverage of all popular culture. This is destroying one of the two high points of our encyclopedia (the other is computer technology), and a basic dispute over the nature of the encyclopedia. I too want more coverage of other topics, but this does not require destruction of what is already being done well. The approach you are taking is completely right--to improve the quality of the articles, because many people will understandably not defend low-quality articles.

As for adminship, go slow, and work on inconspicuous places first. We all make mistakes, especially at first, and better they be in the less seen regions. Feel free to ask, here or email, but I see this more frequently. DGG (talk) 15:20, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I certainly appreciate you for what you do around here; if more people did it with your level-headed style, a lot of the drama going on could be avoided. I'm acquainted well enough with Jack from past experience to know all too well what his attitudes towards pop culture are. I've noticed there are basically two types of editors who often seek to delete articles on fiction and pop culture. One sees the notability guidelines as a shield, and the other as a sword. The first group is committed first and foremost to quality of the material presented, and want to see the material improved, and when this seems implausable, they want it to be gone. The second group doesn't like the material in the first place, and will look for any means to denigrate and destroy what others have worked for. It's often hard to tell one from the other, but the first group can actually be quite reasonable. The first group can respect that this material, when done well, is worth showing off and attracts people to the encylopedia; the second group is embarrassed that it's covered at all. I've also seen the argument that people working too much on "non-serious" topics means that people don't work enough on "serious" topics, but then don't people work on what they want to do? If I was here to work on articles about politicians, or science, or geography, or animals, or opera, or whatever, then I would be doing so. If people want serious topics to get better coverage and quality, then they need to get people who are interested in working on those subjects interested in Wikipedia. If hundreds of active editors want to work on pop culture stuff and not "serious" topics, then what are you going to get? But anyway, I digress - I wanted to rant during my RfA but left the topic alone since no one asked about it first. ;) BOZ (talk) 19:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Count me in the "sword" group. I supported you despite your stance on fiction, and as far as I'm concerned you're still dead wrong on it (as is DGG). I'd fight you all the way on it if I hadn't decided that it weren't for the good of my health; I'm now left in the rather unpleasant position of having to watch thin-ice-skating editors like JM do that work, in light of the continual failure of the pro-fiction camp to adequately police itself against its worst elements. I've never understood why it is that pro-fiction editors can't see the bright line between what TVTropes can cover and what we can cover; nor between how Memory Alpha can cover a subject and how we can do it. I am tragically addicted to both sites, and very, very appreciative that they're there for what we can't include. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

But that's just it Chris, why can't we include it? And how is shoddy fiction content a dramatically worse danger than shoddy medical or political content, which has a far greater possible impact on people's views. I hate the hiving off and compartmentalisation of knowledge more than anything. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:18, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

But, why fight? :) Life's too short for fighting over things not worth fighting over. BOZ (talk) 22:24, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

actually, getting a good free comprehensive encyclopedia is worth the fighting. I'm certainly willing to fight if necessary for each of the concepts of good, free, and comprehensive. Free, I think we've gotten there, and I'm not going to quibble about details of licenses; good, everyone here agrees on the concepts of accuracy, sourcing, freedom from promotional material, and fairness--but improving and maintaining this is a continual struggle & always will be, but the only fight is against outsiders who try to subvert these principles; comprehensive--that's the current fight. By comprehensive I mean everything that a moderately educated person with a functional reading command of English could possibly expect to find in something that calls itself an encyclopedia. (not to denigrate the the non-English readers, but all of this holds also for the Wikipedias in their languages). Moderately educated, means the range of beginning high school students, though US college graduates--the place on the scale depending on the topic. The view that we should not cover fiction throughly is as alien to the idea of comprehensive as the view that we should not cover sports thoroughly, or botany, or the Bible, or ancient Greek history. But I don't want to fight with people like Chris, because I'm not all that likely to convince them; better to explain to Wikipedians in general, those here now and those we hope to recruit. Given the inescapable continuing need to struggle for quality, we need to recruit as many good people as possible, no matter what they intend at first to work on. DGG (talk) 22:44, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, you've got that right - there are definitely things worth fighting for, and I agree with where're you're coming from - just don't think some things are worth fighting over (as in quibbling, bickering, quarreling, that sort of thing). One could spend the rest of one's life on the WP:FICT talk page... but, why? :) BOZ (talk) 01:41, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

It's not even on my watchlist, and I usually wait a week or two between visits, because the status of things will be much the same. DGG (talk) 02:29, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

That would be my point. ;) BOZ (talk) 13:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

We can't include it because it is (in general) impossible to do so while maintaining the same perspective as the rest of the encyclopedia. I have absolutely no problem with us having an article on Donatello (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) in principle, but if that is to be the case then I expect that article to present the subject from a real-world perspective and not a fictional one. DGG's "everything that a moderately educated person with a functional reading command of English could possibly expect to find in something that calls itself an encyclopedia" only covers real-world material. To do otherwise is to fail our readers, who should be able to expect that any article is presented from a global viewpoint which concentrates on the important real-world aspects of the subject. In practice, it has been shown that this simply doesn't happen by itself in articles which are predominantly fiction-based. For fictional content to flourish it must be possible to present it from a fictional perspective, which is what Memory Alpha allows. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:35, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

You're probably more in the "shield" camp than you think; the "swordies" would prefer not to even have an article on TMNT itself (not the characters, but the whole thing, because it is pop culture), but have to suffer it because it's notable enough that they can't do anything to get rid of it completely. Now, they can pick it apart all they like, but they know they are stuck with some minimal amount of properly sourced coverage, so they know they have to live with that. I'm implying an actual dislike or disdain for the material itself, not just a feeling that it can't be properly covered and all that encyclotalk about sources and POV and OR. At least, that's how it works in the made up world in my mind. ;) BOZ (talk) 13:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I realise that the deletionist boogieman who AfDs articles which are well-sourced just because he thinks there's too much anime on Wikipedia is a much-loved stereotype, but having been on speaking terms with a number of arch-deletionists I can't say that I've ever seen an example of this. It is certainly the case that some deletionists will consider taking an article which has at least potential for improvement to AfD because in its current state it is simply fanboy flypaper which will get worse rather than better if left alone, but this isn't the same as deleting an article just because it's about a fictional character or whatever. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:11, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I wish you were right. I will take it as an optimistic prediction for the future. DGG (talk) 20:16, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Lists of fictional things

I'm curious. Why should lists of fictional things have a lower bar for inclusion than individual fictional things? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 09:16, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

How are we to handle somewhat less than notable subjects? we give them a subarticle. And the next step down: a paragraph on a list. And then: a mention in an article. This goes for fiction and everything else as well. Consider for example the battles and skirmishes in a war: some of them are worth articles by themselves; some paragraphs in a more general article. Some a mention. If you accept this, then it is the same whether the war is real life or fictional.

The reason for this is that it lets us proportion content to importance. Otherwise we have some things that have full articles, and some things with no mention at all. And nothing in between. This is wrong on both sides, and if they are the only alternative, will lead to an argument of arbitrary decision for every one of them. There is an alternative view: that everything that can be individually identified is worth an article, and the only distinction is long or short. There are two critical problems with this: first, the overhead of managing the several hundred million articles that would result, and the artificial importance it would give to what isn't worth it, which for many things in the RW, would amount to promotion and spam. The only other view is that nothing that isn't very important should be mentioned at all--or if mentioned, not explained. That's not an encyclopedia.

This basically makes me not an inclusionist, but a mergist. Inclusionist and exclusionist lead to conflict, because there's no room to compromise. Between compromise and conflict, I know my choice. DGG (talk) 12:02, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered that there may be other ways to cover not-individually-notable subtopics in ways other than lists or individual articles? Have any satisfactory or unsatisfactory alternatives been proposed to you? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 12:17, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Certain there are, and that's exactly what I am advocating. I mentioned them above: formal subarticles, or less formally, as paragraphs. But to do this, we need the article in which the subarticles are to be merged. For simple subjects, the main article will do, but beyond it it makes for confusion, especially if the sections are more than single paragraphs.: it's essentially a matter of style. The serious question is how much content they should get. This is what I am basically fighting for. i would support a great many more merges if there were some way of guarding against loss of content. But, as you know, controlling the content of an articles and handling disputes over this is one of the things Wikipedia does not do that well for anything but heavily watched articles. DGG (talk) 12:23, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

What is a subtopic? What is not a subtopic? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 12:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I call them sub-articles, by which I mean a named section in an article, with a redirect, and with the redirect included in the appropriate categories. I'm not sure of what to call mention without a named section, and I'm not sure what to do about redirects for them. We can do them, through the use of anchors, but this is not currently a routine technique here--partly because we seem to have no automatic way to mange changes. The question of what deserves what is a matter of degree. DGG (talk) 12:36, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Could you expand on what you mean by "it's a matter of degree"? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 12:51, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

In the case of a character, the more important the character and the more important the work, the greater likelihood of an article. There's usually a clear distinction between principal leading character, secondary named characters, background characters, and un-named ones. How important a work is will always be a matter of judgment, except at the extremes. If it won an Emmy, say, at least some of the principal characters are likely to be worth separate articles, and so on down. At the other end, if it is barely notable as a work, we just need to mention the principal characters in the article, and have no need to even mention the rest. We could draw up a table, but it will always involve a little judgment where to put things, and will also depend asa third factor on the amount of usable material and complexity, keeping in mind that primary sources are sufficient for basic description. How far down to go and for which works can be settled by compromise. If consensus changes either way about how much depth to give to fiction, we can modify the arrangement. Frankly, it seems obvious to me. I am not the one who suggested this--I think MAXEM did. DGG (talk) 13:04, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Why does importance matter? Why does the main character of an important series moreso than the main character of a less important series? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 14:33, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Because that's what users are likely to want information on, & we write an encyclopedia for providing information to users. By importance, I mean other things than just popularity, such as historic or artistic importance, though such importance of the show must of course be shown by the usual second references. There is a place for WP:N, about the show. Are you saying that you =would give just as much coverage to an character from an unimportant show, or that you would give just as little to a character from an unimportant one? In either case, it violates NOT INDISCRIMINATE. In the first, we get an encyclopedia oftrivia, in the 2nd we don't get a comprehensive encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 14:37, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Not all of my questions were necessarily because I held an opposing position. I appreciate the food for thought. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 21:23, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I understood that from the first. We were cooperating in trying to get a clear statement of the position. DGG (talk) 22:23, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

TV episodes

Hi DGG. Apologies in advance for posting here on a topic directly addressed elsewhere. However, I'm interested in your reply only and not those of others who would inevitably pile in there (hey, they may show up here, too).

Even if "popularity is one form of notability" (which I will not address other than to note that many disagree), how does the notability of a series (at some undefined point in time) lead to the irrebuttable conclusion that every episode should have its own article? Bongomatic 21:49, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back to me. I worded it wrong. I support the principle that popularity = notability. I do not think the application of it to every episode of every mildly significant show is appropriate. For almost all, I'd rather compromise of combination articles, and I have amended my reply accordingly. The level of importance/popularity/significance/notability for every episode having an article is as I see it, Star Trek and I Love Lucy and possibly Sex in the City. If we needed a number for just popularity, I'd start anorder of magnitude higher. Proposing 2 million showed a lack of knowledge of the medium. DGG (talk) 04:53, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The proposal at Wikipedia talk:Notability#Voting time. Any television series that has at least a million viewers, may have an article for every episode (wow ... what a section heading!) seems to be that the popularity of the series would be sufficient reason not to delete or merge separate articles on every single episode. This seems to me something that ought to be rejected out of hand.

Your more general observation, which is that popularity implies notability doesn't actually seem to me to be inconsistent with the caveat in WP:N:

It is important to note that topic notability on Wikipedia is not necessarily dependent on things like fame, importance, or the popularity of a topic — although those may contribute.

Indeed, if you ask me (in priviate—I'll deny ever saying this and I expect you to immediately delete this edit in its entirety!), the people who claim that "notability is not popularity" are getting it backwards. The caveat is pointing out that there are notable things that are not popular, not so much that there are popular things that are not notable.

That said, I think that the sourcing-based guidelines for notability are more sensible than arbitrary numerical ones. Bongomatic 10:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure. As you realize, I disagree with the entire thrust of WP:N, and although we have no consensus on having something to replace it with,perhaps we can obtain consensus for changes to particular applications. I agree with you completely though on the meaning of "notability is not = popularity", and I think I have said it somewhere in public several times, and anyone is welcome to quote it as my opinion, , that the meaning is that everything sufficiently popular is notable, and a great many other things besides--things that are either significant in their field, or of historic importance, for example. the proof of this interpretation of yours and mine is that the meaning of "notability is not fame" can only be that things that are not famous can also be notable. Everything famous certainly is. DGG (talk) 18:02, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

plot summaries

Congrats on the barnstar. I'm reaching out to you because I think it's pretty accurate. Whether you're saying something that I agree or disagree with, I think you always act in good faith, and are pretty sincere about seeking common ground.

WP:NOT#PLOT gets a lot of criticism, but there's never enough support for removing it outright. I appreciate that you're not crazy about the policy. As a supporter of the policy, I'll say I'm not crazy about it either. It's vague. Perhaps deliberately so: many efforts to "clear it up" would probably hit a brick wall of opposition. But because of a failure to clear it up, we end up with a policy that's sometimes abused to push forward perverse outcomes.

I've frequently seen you, and perhaps a few other editors, mention that WP:NOT#PLOT is not a reason to cut plot summaries down to teaser-sized bites. I'll tell you that I get pretty frustrated when I see people cutting a reasonable plot summary down to two or three sentences, and using WP:NOT#PLOT as a shield. I think we agree that this is not what Wikipedia should be about. But I'm often surprised and frustrated when people on the inclusionist side fail to pick up on these areas of agreement. If these restrictive policies are as unpopular as the inclusionists say that they are, it should be easy to make incremental changes until we get to a point of balance. But somehow, that never happens. In my experience, it's because inclusionists often try to push proposals that are beligerent towards their opponents, which only alienates people in the middle. This is a strategy that's doomed to failure, because it ends up in no consensus, and no change.

I want to know if you've ever seen anyone propose that we amend WP:NOT#PLOT to say that a concise plot summary is more than a teaser. And, if not, I want to know if you'd be willing to work on and champion such a proposal. If you did, I'd certainly back you up. Randomran (talk) 16:07, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I strongly support NOT PLOT, if qualified properly. I only support removing it if it gets consistently used wrong altogether. The term I tried to get accepted was "concise but adequate". MASEM also tried to get length expectations of the order of 100 to 300 words per episode. All this bogged down in the usual stonewalling. The length will depend on more than FICT factor of importance--also on how much there is to say: some shows are very simple, some aren't. There should be no feeling that the simple ones need be expanded to any undue length to look impressive. My guide is, I missed the episode, and I ask my friend, OK, what happened. Tell me the whole thing as you remember it. (as you remember it--not by consulting detailed notes like you would for a serious academic essay on it.) But unemphasised details that are picked up later in the series need to be included also.

Rhetorically, the reason for the difficulty from the inclusionists is that they are asking for as much as possible in the hope that the others will finally accept a reasonable compromise. Every time there is a reasonably inclusionist compromise offered, it gets compromised down to nothing. Asking for as much as possible is a fair technique in negotiating when the other side asks for as little as possible, and then both parties meet in the middle after all the excessive rhetoric. I've done RL negotiations, and that's an accepted form of bargaining, especially in labor disputes. But where the other side intend to give absolutely nothing, and interprets any compromise as a sign of weakness, there is no way to bargain. A negotiation has to be in good faith, and the sign of good faith is willingness to accept a compromise. Otherwise, negotiations are a pretence, and a delaying tactic only, to try to exhaust the other side. Many Wikipedia arguments are tests of strength. There is a strong feeling among even moderate inclusionists now that in the matter of fiction, the other side will not accept a compromise,and so we need to fight it out each time.

There is a problem with incremental changes. I have seen this used too often to slip through non-consensus positions of all sorts. I have learned to watch for small changes in key policies. But I see nothing wrong with adjusting each part of the network of interlocking and competing policies & guidelines.

This is the reciprocal of what you're saying--I can see it might look otherwise from the other side. Obviously, at WP there is no "party discipline" and I cannot control what others will say. But what I can do if they try to break a compromise is oppose them. At present I do not do it--when they have a weak case, I merely fail to support. (I may say something off-wiki if its particularly weak), I do not oppose them because I honestly think the bad faith at present is mainly 1 or 2 individuals on the other side. For example, although the guideline is now clear that primary sources are usable for plot, people still try to remove plot descriptions on the basis of not having secondary sources. . DGG (talk) 17:02, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we're that far apart, which is the good news. We both support WP:NOT#PLOT, and both worry about it being applied to absurdity. The challenge will be coming up with a qualifier that other people can live with. I don't think "concise but adequate" gets us there, although it's a good place to start. It's just not really clear enough, and replaces the subjectivity of "concise" with the subjectivity of "adequate". I also think that focusing on exact quantities is too stringent, and can be subject to gaming if people try to apply a fixed number to a wide range of fictional genres/types.

I definitely agree that incremental changes can lead to bad outcomes, but it cuts both ways. Incremental change is the most acceptable kind of change. People have a harder time swallowing huge changes like scrapping an entire section (let alone an entire guideline). When it comes to NOT#PLOT, incremental change will be the only way to fix it, hate it or love it.

In terms of negotiation strategy, I've found that the whole "you pick a high number, I'll pick a low number, and we'll meet in the middle" to be a really bad one. In real life, it tends to piss off the other side rather than extract concessions. On Wikipedia, I've seen far too many editors push absurd arguments to defend their viewpoint, and it only serves to undermine their credibility, and create a more belligerent environment. I think both sides have a few editors who are stupid enough to believe that "stubbornness = strength", but the key is that exclusionists/deletionists have the advantage of having guidelines to point to. So yes, for both sides, their stubbornness results in no change... but for inclusionists, no change is a failure, and for deletionists/exclusionists no change is actually desirable. I can't emphasize enough how much this strategy is a complete failure for the inclusionist wing of Wikipedia, no matter how fair or permissible it may be. (And when someone says they are willing to compromise and only presses forward with the same old belligerent self-serving proposals, they cross the line into bad faith.)

I wish I could teach people to negotiate with a little more intelligence, because people are so incredibly bad at it (again, "stubborn = strong"), and fail to achieve anything but get a few high fives from the people who agree with them. It's true that people are going to have to deal with people who show up and say "I oppose anyone who disagrees with me". But the answer to that isn't "me too, so prepare for war". The answer is "well I'm always open to compromise, but it's a two way street. If you won't give on your end, there's nothing I can give on my end, and things are going to keep on going on the way that they're going." First off, to paraphrase something I've sometimes seen you say, "you can't convert them, but you can convert their audience". Rather than trying to address the 20% on either side of the spectrum, you have to keep your hand outreached to the 60% in the middle. And secondly, Wikipedia is an open community, and you're going to have to find ways to "break party discipline" as new editors join a compromise that's in progress. If you're making progress with one or two people, you can't let a belligerent person come in and trick you into saying "well, if you say 0/10, then I say 10/10". You have to ignore them and keep working on those who have a shred of sense.

The best strategy is to make a concession for every concession that you want in return. I'm in the middle, so you've already won me over with the idea of tightening up WP:NOT#PLOT. But for those who taking a hard line, you can still reach out to them. Say "I'm willing to accept language that says 'a concise plot is less than X', but you have to be willing to accept 'a concise plot is more than Y'". At least, that's where I would start. Me personally, I'd be happy to see something like "a concise plot is more than a teaser", although maybe you'd want more. Leave it to deletionists to state what they think a plot should be less than, but hopefully it would be proportional to what you're offering. If they try to walk all over you, it's easy to just take a shot back and turn the negotiation into a war, but if you can keep your hand reached out while standing firm they'll eventually be forced to take it. At least, that's my experience. Randomran (talk) 00:38, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

strategy depends on good will and commonality of purpose. My own personal style when I trust the other side is to say first what I really want and then indicate the range I'll settle for. In practice, not all negotiations succeed. I'm used to environments where a final decision one way or the other must be made, usually by a fixed date, and that is not the case here. I have spent too much time here negotiating settlements between all the people of reasonable feeling, and then had someone come in from the borders and mess it up. Wikipedia seems to go not by compromise, but consensus. The difference is that a consensus is, technically, something all the parties can live with. Not an agreement on the merits of the issue, but an agreement on terms which will stop arguing over the issue. We not discussing this for ourselves. If you and I were writing a a combined episode summary article, we could agree on it. If necessary, we'd agree by doign some a little sparse, and some a little full, but we'd get on with it and do the writing. we're trying something harder, which is to find something that other people can all live with. some ideas tomorrow.

But one thing I want to stop myself from doing , which is to use deletionist or inclusionist in this context. We're not really discussing the inclusion of articles. We're discussing the extent of acceptable content. DGG (talk) 05:04, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you that this isn't really about inclusion/deletion, but somehow the familiar faces end up against each other. I think we *would* have more success if an arbitrator (e.g.: arbitration committee) forced us to make progress: took unreasonable options off the table, took unreasonable editors out of the process, pointed out agreements in principle that would allow negotiations to progress. But we're stuck with all the problems of building consensus, especially someone "coming in from the borders" just when there seems to be a glimmer of hope. I'd like to think that a small group of editors can hang together, though, and try not to get pulled into the partisan lines, and slowly gather more support for a moderate proposal by showing how more extreme proposals cannot succeed. So let's try to brainstorm some ideas. Not necessarily a concrete proposal, but maybe something with a few blanks, or an overall strategy for building one with feedback from a few others. Randomran (talk) 07:52, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• I figure you're busy, but just wanted to check in to see if you had any ideas on how to proceed. We may not need a concrete proposal, but merely a strategy where we can get inclusionists and deletionists to make concessions to one another. In fact, a strategy may be better than a proposal. But I'm curious if you've had any revelations. Randomran (talk) 00:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Havent forgotten. The discussions about how to close the discussion on WP:PLOT have me a little discouraged. 00:24, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it hasn't been the most productive exercise in consensus building. I see that as a challenge, rather than an obstacle. We need to frame the discussion so we don't get into old battles over absolutes: removing PLOT altogether versus keeping it exactly the same. I'm thinking about it too. So you know how to reach me when you've had enough time to think it over, and we'll pool our ideas. Randomran (talk) 00:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

but that's exactly what the last exercise was: an attempt to do it differently, to simply say what usually happens instead of what ought to happen. MASEM had the excellent idea of trying it that way. It was an attempt to get away from absolutes. I don't know that I can do better than him. But as this is a interestingly public but inconspicuous place to talk, I'll have some things in mind. DGG (talk) 01:56, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you talking about this thread? Because I do see an agreement in principle with what Masem was talking about... just that the thread was in the shadow of an editor who had been edit warring WP:PLOT and an ongoing RFC for his behavior. That quickly poisoned the well. It didn't help that Masem's actual proposal was a little too legalistic (e.g.: reference to derivative works), and would have benefited from plainer language. I think we could stand to learn from past discussions, as some have been more successful than others, and I do see hope. Either way, let me know if you have any ideas. Randomran (talk) 02:09, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that was what I had in mind. There's sometimes no stable position between legalistic and vague. DGG (talk) 02:14, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

It's hard, but never impossible. I've seen brilliant scholars articulate complex ideas in simple terms. You could say that "the iterated prisoner's dilemma demonstrates how reciprocal altruism is better for the common good than a pattern of retributive justice". Or you could just say that "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind". Masem didn't get much traction by focusing on copyright versus free content issues. But there was a lot of traction from people (everyone but one) who agreed that we should only scale back detailed plot summaries, and didn't seem interested in trimming everything down to some kind of teaser. I think our biggest challenge is framing the discussion in a way that is clear, and in a way that won't get hijacked by extremes. Randomran (talk) 02:24, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Chancing my arm on NOT PLOT

See what you think of this, it might fly. [14], Hiding T 22:34, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Why shouldnt plot be the dominant element in our articles on fiction? Frankly, I think it often should be. Give me an argument to the contrary. I decided to express this there boldly. [15] DGG (talk) 23:31, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Copyright, scope and consensus. But you know the arguments as well as I do. If you've come to a different conclusion that's your call. I don't think that plot can dominate an article if we are to remain within the law, and I also do not feel it is within our scope for plot summary to dominate our coverage of fiction. I also don't think the consensus is that plot summaries are the dominant reason we cover fiction. But the wind seems to have caught it for the minute. I feel like Charlie Brown, wary of that kite-eating tree. Hiding T 08:10, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Copyright is irrelevant in small summaries (it is indeed a factor for some of the naive contributors who lift them from program guides or other published works, true, it could be done so much to excess as to violate fair use.) Scope, now, I'm asking you why it should not be within our scope. And as for consensus, that's circular: I'm asking you what should be our consensus. At the moment, I would hesitate before claiming real consensus for anything in this area. DGG (talk) 04:53, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Copyright is not irrelevant, because copyright applies to substantiality as well as length. Copyright is always relevant. Regarding scope, I can't think why retelling plot would be the dominant reason to include an article in an encyclopedia. As to what I think consensus should be, I think what's emerging at WP:PLOT and WT:NOT is good for now. No? Hiding T 13:53, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:FICT

I just wanted to mention that you had a pretty solid idea for how to obtain a compromise, and I really want to explore it. But I think it would be much easier to explore if a starting point came from you, instead of just trying to put words in your mouth. You mentioned the idea of accepting some level of strictness on what is permissible for a stand-alone article, but in exchange for a liberal concept of what we write about. This struck me as something that would focus on merging certain kinds of content, let alone making use of lists.

If you don't have a firm idea of what this might look like, there are other ways forward than to just try to push a new idea at WP:FICT. We could discuss it here and now you want. I'd even be willing to help you draft a proposal in your userspace, even if we left a few blanks. I just think you have too many good ideas to let your comments be lost in the whirlwind. Randomran (talk) 19:00, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, but first of all I think we should work on my proposal yesterday at WP:NOT. In the past the relationship between that and WP:FICT has proved a sticking point, because in principle NOT puts a limit on everything. There's a current discussion there where considerable confusion is being shown. If we can't have separate articles per WP NOT, then there's no point discussing them. DGG (talk) 19:56, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that's a good point. I don't think we're going to build a consensus to remove it. Even if people insist that a straw poll shows the policy lacks consensus, they're not going to be able to remove it if they haven't persuaded the other half to let them remove it. That's unfortunately how Wikipedia works, and what consensus means: whether people will let you do something. If you're referring to your suggestion here, then I think you're onto something. I'm going to reply there. But I think the best thing to do is to stop people from making huge proposals, and focus more on incremental improvements. "Here is a slightly softer version of WP:PLOT. Do you think it's an improvement on what we have now?" Repeat that process until we hit something that most people can live with. Randomran (talk) 21:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The main thing I'm aiming for is to get full content. I want an agreement to have substantial but not excessive plot summaries. I don't actually care very much where they go., except that for episodes it's clearer outside the main article. I want substantial information of characters; for major fictions, I think it's best to organize that as a separate group of articles. I want some information on background elements, not the wiki wookipedia does it, with an article for everything. but in reasonable proportion; again, I think its best organized as a separate article or group of articles if there's a lot to say. I don't want the sort of summaries that appear in TV guide, but encyclopedic ones, that say what happened in the plot lines, in detail proportional to the importance and complexity.

The only real reason I've defended most of the individual articles is because its the only way to keep content from being destroyed. I would really rather work from the content end, but at the moment it's impractical, because most of the people who oppose separate articles also oppose full content. They really think an encyclopedia should not cover fiction in detail. I think it should. The answer is to cover it in moderate detail, but they have so far not been willing to compromise, because thy think its a point of principle. They're using the sort of argument that opposed fiction in public libraries in the 19th century.: Wikipedia has a serious job to do, & that's incompatible with coverage of trivial matters. But fiction of various sorts is one the major preoccupations of mankind,, and has always been.

I'm certainly open to a compromise on NOT that would prevent articles being 100% plot. DGG (talk) 21:33, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the "point of principle" goes both ways. I see principled inclusionists and deletionists as a problem, not people to be admired for their "convictions". Consensus-building calls us to a higher principle than our own viewpoints. For every deletionist who tries to demolish an entire section of plot, there is an inclusionist at WP:ARS who sees the rescue tag as an invitation to spam the AFD rather than improve the article. For every deletionist who wouldn't so much as consider a merge of some episodes, there's an inclusionist who would defend even the worst WP:GAMEGUIDE. I honestly believe that if we could exclude these belligerent editors from any discussion, we would already have a compromise. But the fact remains that disrupting an effort to build consensus is not the same as disrupting Wikipedia, even if I sometimes wish that it was. So we don't just need a proposal that will appeal to the people in the middle... but we need a proposal that will be attractive enough that the *reasonable* inclusionists and deletionists won't be swayed by the disruptive efforts of their "principled" allies who actively filibuster any consensus.

I think full content is a totally attainable goal, if there are standards of quality and importance. I think the episode issue will require its own solution, if only because their serial nature requires a distinct solution from other elements of fiction. But as for elements such as characters, I think it's possible to include them on four different levels:

1. The highest tier of characters each get their own article.
2. The second tier of characters are combined into a list.
3. The middle tier of characters are covered in a list within an article on/across the whole fictional series.
4. The low tier of characters are covered in a list within an article on the individual fictional work.
5. The bottom tier of characters are considered trivial, and get at most a one-sentence mention in the article's plot summary.

Ranking content into tiers would have to be based on both quality and importance, which are the two things that WP:N tries to accomplish. If there isn't enough verifiable information to write about that character, then it doesn't need a huge article, and it's not really fair to game that by suddenly throwing in scene-by-scene factoids. Beyond that, there would also have to be some measure of importance, because not every webcomic should be entitled to a whole stand-alone list of characters, let alone individual character articles. But I think a compromise would roughly take the form that I'm talking about above. Randomran (talk) 22:08, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

That's one axis. The other one is the importance of the work. I do not defend elaborate articles for unimportant works. It makes the encyclopedia disproportionate, and gives an excessively amateur look--like at present. Importance is measured within their genre, and is not necessarily the same as popularity. I will not defend an article , long or short, on each Barbara Cartland heroine.

But I would still like to do it not as article, or combined article being the difference, but rather that the highest tier of characters in the highest tier of works gets extensive coverage, and so on down. Whether in a separate of combined article is secondary, and will depend on multiple factors. DGG (talk) 22:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we're largely on the same page so far. I think that you're right that we should decide how much coverage first, and then decide where to include it. I think that points towards a two-step test of some kind.

1. First, we ask "how much good coverage can we find on this character?" By good, we mean some amount of information on its reception, but also a solid plot summary. By implication, that excludes a certain amount of detail, like detailed physical descriptions, a detailed scene-by-scene recap, or an exhaustive list of strengths and weaknesses. The idea I'm getting at is that just because you *can* write 100k about a character, it doesn't mean that you *should*. The level of detail has to be proportional to the amount of verifiable good content, however we define "good".
2. Once we have enough of the right kind of content to make a spinout of decent quality, we then go to the question of importance. Important characters from important works will get their own article. Less important ones will be part of a list, let alone a list within an existing article, and thus a tighter summary may be necessary. This is basically a question of slotting it into the five different categories above. To some extent, I agree with you that the importance of the work itself is part of determining whether the character is important. But I wouldn't want to get too complicated here, either. So even though I'm saying "important" as a stand-in for "in-universe importance AND out-of-universe importance", I also don't want this to turn the guideline into multivariable calculus.

Does that make sense so far? Randomran (talk) 23:02, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Closer to Decision tree learning--and rather than avoid it, that is exactly the way I think of it. DGG (talk) 23:56, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

So I take it that you think this is the good basis for a decision tree? (e.g.: 1, do we have enough good content, and 2, is that good content important enough for an article / list / embedded list?) In which case, we'd just need to discuss how we'd distinguish good content from unnecessary detail, and how we'd distinguish the different levels of importance. Randomran (talk) 00:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but in more detail. The decision on whether we have enough content to write "something", and then the decision how much to write, and then the decision about where to put it. Each of which have multiple stages. But for almost all fictional elements we will have something to write, t because primary source in the fiction is good enough for obvious description of what is there. It isn't necessarily binary. (Actually I would probably express it as a table in the end.) A separate question is how to discriminate: whether numerically, and if so the ranges to use. The virtue of expressing things this way is to be able to consider the factors one at a time, not holistically. Holistic judgements tend to be affected by overall feelings about the material, not objective decisions. You know: I like this game, or its a lousy book, or this looks ridiculous, or too poorly written to be worth reading. Similarly with whether the sources are significant and reliable--there are many factors, and often the decision is not binary: e.g. just good enough till something better comes along. The usual method for doing this is to suggest factors, and discuss their significance, and try to trank them in importance. But not today. DGG (talk) 00:18, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I think we agree in principle. The only thing I'd add is I'd rather err on the side of simplicity, even if that means we sacrifice some accuracy. I worry about having too many factors to look at. But you're also right that if we try to collapse it all together into one holistic measure, it quickly becomes a subjective value judgment rather than an objective test. I think it's fair to leave it there for today. We can pick it up again in a day or so, and try to discuss where to go. Probably a good place to start would be the first aspect: what kinds of information we want or don't want... and then leave where to put it (and, thus, how to limit it based on importance) for a later time. Randomran (talk) 00:59, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• Did you want to try making something in your userspace, just so we have a more tangible way to work out some of our ideas? I think we have essentially a two-step test evolving here. Randomran (talk) 17:01, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

(I would prefer if this discussion be continued here for the moment between just Randomran and myself. Please use a separate section otherwise.)

WP:FICT part 2

Haven't heard from you in a while. I figure you're busy. But I think we may as well start with a basic outline for a guideline on fiction inclusion. We can always fill in the blanks later, when we've discussed the nitty gritty. Want to try something in your userspace? Randomran (talk) 19:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

My current views on at [16]. There is no productive way of working within the present system. There is no useful way of even discussing this in isolation from discussing the removal of WP:N, an approach that has unfortunately been rejected. There is no actual solution within an article-based structure. I will continue to argue case by case until the times comes when Wikipedia is revised or replaced by a proper database-structured encyclopedia, instead of one designed to mimic familiar print encyclopedias people knew as children. DGG (talk) 20:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

However, that doesn't mean I won't try, as a challenge to my virtuosity. But it's discouraging to know it advance that there are not enough people prepared to actually listen to something that might not get them everything they want. . DGG (talk) 20:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

• I hope that you will try. I agree that we need a better process for these kinds of issues, because it affects far too many people to use the normal consensus-gathering mechanisms. If nothing else, I wish someone like ArbCom could kind of fudge the line between policy and conduct by saying "okay, you guys need to stop expecting the moon, and stop hoping that the policy will just go away". But they haven't shown any sign that they will. In the meantime, I think we have a duty to press onward. If nothing else, one more failed attempt will reveal a fundamental process issue.
• But I'm more optimistic. I honestly think that an approach that goes beyond articles (e.g.: including stuff in lists and sections) would be palatable to a lot of reasonable inclusionists and deletionists. Give it a shot. Create something in your user space, and we'll pick away at it slowly, at your leisure. We've got nothing to lose. Randomran (talk) 22:11, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

See below for the attitude that we're up against. It's not a question of writing good rules, it's trying to prevent the use of the rules for obstruction. DGG (talk) 14:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Fictional elements

Could you discuss your recent change to WP:FICT on the talk page? My understanding is that fictional elements can't be dumped into so called "combination article", also known as aggregates - see an earlier discussion for details. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:04, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

there is no can't because we can make whatever rules we need to make, if we want to accomplish something. We can change that rule also. We are already in a situation where we cannot change WP:PLOT because we'd need to change WP:FICT first, and vice versa. Now this makes a third element to keep us from making progress, the guidelines about just when to split into subarticles. So if we can change nothing, because we have to change something else first, how do we proceed? The answer is simple, we change that also. it was a really stupid rule in the first place: if there's too much to say in one article, don't say anything but let some other Wiki handle it. Question, Gavin: do you want a compromise? If so, let's change whatever guidelines necessary to get one. It's our encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 14:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

If you want a quick way to deal with WP:AVOIDSPLIT, it's easy: our new guideline will be the notability guideline for fiction. I have yet to see a unnecessarily restrictive rule here that can't be dealt with for good ends by proper interpretation. DGG (talk) 14:39, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dear Dad

I'm tempted to say "all MASH episodes are notable," but not sure enough of my ground. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 03:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

• • Please don't. They are not that clearly notable enough for individual articles. They are clearly important enough for good substantial sections of combination articles. Even if you think they might possibly be made into adequate separate articles, the present ones are by and large so bad as to not present a good case for defending. Making an encyclopedia is a practical process & takes compromise. Keeping content is a matter of principle--keeping them in separate articles isn't. DGG (talk) 03:10, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

That's 'bout what I figured. Redirects seem perfectly reasonable to me. Dlohcierekim 03:28, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Redirects

Are you really going to make me go through an AfD for an almost improbable search term redirect? And no, I wouldn't "create a section" for one episode characters on a page designed for the more significant characters of the show.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:40, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

RfD, not AfD. And see my answer where I see you first raised the question, at WT:Redirect; you were right to ask it there-- a better place than here to have a discussion, if you want some opinions before going to RfD for these Smallville characters. DGG (talk) 02:52, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Rugrats characters - Please reconsider!

There's no way Rugrats is of more importance than SpongeBob SquarePants. All of the SpongeBob SquarePants characters' articles have been merged into the list of characters pages. And SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly OddParents are also major works. If the decision is not to delete, I will restore articles to individual SpongeBob and Fairly OddParents characters. Marcus2 (talk) 13:44, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

We may want to try to undelete some other character pages also, and probably expand the content of the sections in many combination articles. The central figure of a show is important enough for an article of its own. For most shows, most other characters are not..DGG (talk) 14:22, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Mediation at WP:FICT

I'm suggesting we ask for mediation to help build teh guidance at Wikipedia:Notability (fiction). What I propose is that a mediator be the only person to edit the project page itself and be the one to guide discussion and discern consensus. I've proposed it at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(fiction)#Mediation. As a past participant in the lengthy debates, I'd appreciate your input and hopefully your agreement. Hiding T 10:12, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I will support it, if it includes NOT PLOT and all related policies and guidelines, including those on subarticles. Unfortunately, I think it would only succeed in settling the issue if we had binding mediation. DGG (talk) 15:00, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Images at TV

Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2009 June 4 has the MASH images up for deletion and are holding them to a much higher standard than any episode of South Park. They are requiring that image to be mentioned in news sources. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 06:07, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Your comment at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(fiction) - well said

Just saw your comment on 08:51, 29 May 2009 - excellent! Thanks for taking out precious time to deal with this depressing situation, that a number of editors are so keen on purging fiction articles from Wikipedia. I can sure understand and fully respect if they find the fiction articles to be of such minor importance that they opt not read the articles themselves; but why they so persistently insist on deletion, hindering other people in reading the articles, is a mystery. A sincere appreciation of your work. Power.corrupts (talk) 14:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

-- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 21:36, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

my comment is at the Wikiproject. DGG (talk) 18:49, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thanks you. I have refraised my response, putting this rather black and white, in an attempt to get to the bottum of things. I hope you can take an other look... Thank you. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 22:19, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

inre Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Cheating Scales of Bullamanka

Care to revisit the article and advise? I cannot speak toward the other episodes as they do not all have articles, but I think I made this one a squeeker. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 02:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

good rewrite job, either way. But I have no information about the importance of the series, so it makes it hard to evaluate by the sensible criteria I want to use , Masem's 3-way test: importance of the overall work, importance of the part or element or episode, and sources. . DGG (talk) 04:32, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability and fiction

Drafted an essay, feel free to tinker. I've announced it at the pump, added it to WP:N, will mention it on the mailing list and ask signpost to mention it. I'll whack it on cent, and then I think I'm out of here for a while. It's too exhausting. Hiding T 10:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I did tinker, as you can see. The main change is to specify clearly that WP:N is a guideline, and the GNG is only one part of it, while IAR is policy. Guidelines already intrinsically not only admit of exception, but are written with the intention of there being exceptions. I'm divided between making it a general statement for all articles , or making it specific to fiction--I may try for a combination. Now, I've long known that I ought to do my own, but for some peculiarity I find it easier to rewrite formal statements than to write them from scratch. So I really thanks you for this. If I have expressed something radically different from what you want to say, just revert, and I will move my version to a separate essay. I would like to add a paragraph of alternatives to deletion such as merging--but here I may perhaps diverge from what you want to say, because I've lately become a mergest for many of these smaller topics. When I do write my own, it will be from the standpoint of inclusion of content, not of articles. DGG (talk) 12:51, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Tinker to your heart's content. Masem has already been in and tinkered too, but you should feel free to add or remove whatever you want; I'm a fundamental believer in revising rather than reverting. I doubt you'll diverge too far from me, at heart I've always been a mergist with inclusionist leanings, which I think is not too far from your approach to cause us severe problems. I'll doubt I'll make many more edits to the page; consider it yours to do with what you want, even to the extent of ignoring it to finally write up your own thoughts. I'd truly love to see that, and perhaps even tinker with it if the mood catches me. Saying that, I'm feeling burnt out again, so I'll probably relax and recharge. Hiding T 15:35, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Beloved (novel) characters

While it is of course perfectly allright to remove the prod from Beloved (novel) characters, I think you misunderstood my rationale. You say "if you want a merge propose a merge, not a deletion." But I don't want a merge, I don't think anything in this list of characters needs merging into the main article: the list is completely unnnecessary and cn (and should) go. I may take it to AfD, I haven't decided yet, but I am well aware that if I want a merge, I should not propose the article for deletion. Fram (talk) 06:42, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Fram, since there was no characters section in the article on the novel at all, and our coverage of novels does generally include a list of characters somewhere, I seem to have assumed that was what you intended, though I see now that you apparently meant that the mentions of the principal characters in the plot section of the main article was sufficient. In this particular case the overall coverage of this famous important novel is defective in most respects. In that article , the plot section is not very clearly written; the theme section needs references; the legacy section needs much additional material on the immense influence of the novel; there is no section on the references to the novel in major later fictional works; there is no section on historical accuracy; there is very insufficient information on the publishing history. All of this belongs, both the fictional and the external aspects. And in this case, where the same characters appear also in a previous play, and a subsequent movie--and in a real life case, I think there could certainly be justified articles on each of the major ones also. As one would expect, t here is quite a lot of criticism available, about 200 books,--some of them devoted entirely to this novel including serious academic works as well as student guides--not counting the equal number of theses [17] and the hundreds of articles. If there ever was a case where expansion of a fictional topic rather than deletion is the way to go, it's here. How we arrange the necessary extended coverage into articles is a less important problem. DGG (talk) 16:18, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Arguing against redirects?

Any idea why all the sudden several editors are taking the unusual stance of insisting fictional characters can't even get redirects? I mean, I am sure it is probably coincidence, but it is rather annoying having to waste my time arguing for redirects. Surely there is strong consensus that these type of redirects are complete appropriate and they cost almost nothing. --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:40, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think I do know why:

1. They are afraid the articles will be re-created using the existing information
2. They are even afraid that if the article is deleted (to remove the history) and then the redirect created, that something like that will be restored anyway.
3. They no longer even ask for merges, because with a merge it is not permitted to remove the history: there is no such thing as merge, delete history , & redirect, because it violates the terms of the license
4. In a few instances, they may simply want to remove as much information about fiction as possible. I checked the 18th c Éncyclopedie yesterday on this very point, and their article about novels simply mentions the names of a dozen French authors and a few works, without talking about any of them elsewhere. That's the sort of encyclopedia some people want.

Now, I myself would be extremely happy if some genres of fiction had never been devised in the first place, but, astoundingly, in many cases the people wanting to remove material are fans of the series or the work. They apparently feel that they are wasting time with things that aren't worth talking about in general company. DGG (talk) 17:19, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I just made a question along these lines at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gavilan ElessedilDGG (talk) 17:45, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Points 1 and 2 are good ones. It is unfair (and a waste of time, ThaddeusB) to rely on people checking their watchlists to find reversions of redirects, which occur all too regularly. There should be a mechanism to prevent this without a new consensus.

Otherwise I give a lengthy explanation of my rational in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lokar which I would like your opinion on, either there or (preferably) here. I like to think that if I am in the wrong, I, like DGG, can see my position evolve. Abductive (talk) 23:31, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying on Lokar, but I still thing a "redirect" through disambiguation is better than nothing. In any case, Lokar is the exception - normally these character names only have one possible target. In general, a redirect is better than deletion for several reasons:

• Obviously someone was looking for the material or the page would have never been created
• Pointing new editors directly to a place where the content exists encourages them to edit there and/or spend their time on something else rather than recreating material that exists somewhere
  • Yes, redirecting makes it easier for experienced editors to undo the redirect, but experienced editors are far less likely to do so against consensus than a new editor is to recreate against consensus
  • Additionally, have one's first page deleted is probably the #1 way to scare someone off. Better that they not create the worthless page rather than be crushed when it is immediately deleted/nominated for deletion.
• Adding a page to your watch list costs essentially nothing in terms of time or effort. Additionally, if you wanted to insure the page wasn't recreated the blank page after deletion you'd have to watch list the non-existent page or otherwise keep an eye on it.
  • I have merged and/or redirected more than 100 articles in the last couple months and only 2 or 3 were undone by anyone (and none went through AfD prior to my redirect). If people aren't undoing my BOLD redirect, I really don't think people undoing consensus redirects is a serious problem.
• If a particular redirect is becoming a problem, it can always be protected just like any other page
• Redirects cancan't be hit by "Random article" so there is no risk of someone being pointed to one by accident.

• • • That generally makes sense. Three things; I do find that monitoring my watchlist takes time, a few minutes each time, and over many times it adds up. A reversion rate of 1 or 2 percent per month is 12 to 24 percent per year. And, are you sure that redirects are found by Random article? Abductive (talk) 00:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been more clear. Of course monitoring a watch list takes time, but (at least for me) almost none of that time comes from changes to slow moving articles (or redirects). I have ~1000 articles on my list and probably 90% of the changes come from noticeboards and swine flu articles, as all the rest of my list is slow moving articles - in many cases I am probably the only active editor watching.

My results are perhaps not typical but take at Patrick Star. Even this very prominent redirect has only been undone less than once a month on average. If the page was repeatedly deleted (and not protected) rather redirected, I can quite confidently say it would be recreated more than once a month.

Finally, I meant "can't" that was an unfortunate typo. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:07, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Now is the end of the world if some fictional character doesn't have a redirect? Of course not, but neither should it bother you or anyone else that a redirect exists. It is just sitting there doing no one any harm and if it is helpful to a few people a year, then that is enough to keep it. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:26, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

What do would you guys think if a new popular work of fiction along the lines of Twilight came out, and a user created all the redirects prophylactically? Abductive (talk) 00:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I personally would be fine with that as long as the characters are mentioned by name in the target article. The redirect could always be overwritten if needed. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:34, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

You are probably correct. I think this sort of attitude is a real shame. While I personally care very little about fiction, I do think that for a large percentage of our readers fictional topics are of great interest. It would be a great disservice to remove fictional topics altogether and would surely be a net negative for Wikipedia. I know you are a strong advocate for merging fictional topics in the "characters of"/"places of"/etc type article and I am on the same page entirely. If the information can be covered in one article there is no need for 5, 10, or even 20 stubs with little more than a basic character description. At the same time, there is no reason to delete information that is of interest to our readers just because it doesn't need its own article.

I think the majority (or at least plurality) of editors agree that merging is usually best, but there are far too many (on both sides) that simply refuse to compromise and I don't really understand why. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:30, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

and of course in our system such people can prevent consensus indefinitely. The basic problem which affects every topic lies in our not having a mechanism to get reasonably consistent and stable decisions on content. (There are techniques though for handling very large watchlists, by looking for related changes. What is lacking is some way of filtering so only changes above a certain size are listed. ) But I see many changes in the other direction also--stable agreements to keep content, destroyed by someone going in and changing everything to redirects, or removing large amounts of content from a combination article. The main reason I still support keeping many articles intact even if perhaps better combined is to discourage that. We each think the other side is doing the worse, and it doesn't matter, because both are wrong. A first step would be a rule that BRD cannot be used for redirects and merges--that non-obvious ones MUST be discussed first, with full notice, and consensus. I suppose in equity that should apply to splits also.

Thaddus, the reason why people reject compromise is very simple. Rather than get a situation that consistently gives a result they can accept but do not really like, they prefer a situation where they will get what they want some of the time, even if they will lose others. They prefer chaos to a decision that does not satisfy them. I've heard people say as much in AfD in other topics entirely--their reason for deciding case by case instead of precedent , is that they can at least keep a certain percentage of the articles like X in--or out--even if its a random selection. This general way of thinking is characteristic of young children before they learn how to interact in groups in kindergarten. There's a large number of editors here who never learned. DGG (talk) 00:28, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I would be curious as to what kind of articles tend to suffer was this later deletion of merged material. I personally do a lot of merges, but they are mostly all from 6+ day old PRODs where article being merged is either pretty unlikely to be notable or has very little content (2 sentences or less). I figure it is better to PRESERVE what I can than just let it disappear. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:34, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I hope I'm not like that. Abductive (talk) 00:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

You might want to check your current argument in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gavilan Elessedil, [18] DGG (talk) 01:00, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Since nobody looks at the article, and there are only 42 Google hits, and the search bar and the user's brain will take tham to the article on the novel, I would still prefer outright deletion. What if somebody created an article on a village that the characters visited, but it was not important to the plot or an encyclopedic discussion of the work? How about a stew with a unique name that the characters ate once in the novel? Should Wikipedia have an article, disambig or redirect on every named thing in every fictional work? Abductive (talk) 01:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

It is very hard to define the concept of "important" to the plot. In literature worth the attention, every place named there, even in passing, is included and discussed in works on the subject. There is always a reason for authors writing what they wrote; in good literature it is worth tracing the reasons--it adds depth to the story--the reader, or at least the careful reader, is much intended to make the associations. There has for example, been very extensive work done with Austen's names for people, places, and houses; similarly with Faulkner, or Joyce, or Hardy. Nothing is too trivial for a good writer. I remind you of the extraordinary care that Tolkien gave to this--he constructed a complete legendary history behind ever single name, and discussed it either in the works themselves, or his notebooks. Or the considerable less complicated but still meaningful names in Rowling.

As a librarian, I have learned to assume nothing about users' brains in searching; if they used them the entire profession would be much less necessary. The goal is to set it up so the users will find directly exactly what they no matter how stupidly they go about it. DGG (talk) 02:55, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, but point out that the metric from importance is mention in secondary sources. I've read Tolkien, Rawlings and Brooks, and recall thinking that Brooks was a pale imitation. The paucity of secondary sources on him and his works suggests that his treatment on Wikipedia needs to be scaled back; it seems especially unfair given that minor characters in the Harry Potter series are playing by the rules on their page. Abductive (talk) 03:35, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability and fiction

Wikipedia:Notability and fiction (shortcut WP:NAF) has been drafted per the general consensus at the recent RFC to which you contributed. You are invited to review the essay and to edit it in an attempt to generate a consensus regarding the issue. Hiding T 10:08, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Contested prod (MM ZX characters)

You claim that the article is necessary and requires editing. However, I don't see evidence of that fact. All the characters are summarized in the game article, and since the games are not exactly plot heavy, detailed character summaries aren't necessary. Furthermore, I can't find any notable references. What, then, could possibly save the article?--_{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 21:36, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

1. Primary referencing from the work itself meets WP:V for plot related facts.
2. I don't like to use the word "necessary"--the better term is "desirable".
3. There is no characters section in the main article.
4. The short section on plot in the main articles does not actually include all the characters in List of Mega Man ZX characters.
5. There are two games, and this avoids repeating the material in each--and the List article includes the differences between the role of the characters in the two,
6. The article includes real world information about who voiced the characters that is not present in the main article. Information about the Real Humans taking significant roles in notable fiction needs to be included, or the coverage is inadequate.
7. I think the article has about a 50% chance at AfD, & any article that might have a realistic chance of standing there should be deprodded, so the community can decide, not you and me personally. I have no way of imposing my views on the community. DGG (talk) 22:07, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

List of actors who have played animated characters

Thank you for pointing out that "Usefulness is a relevant criterion for navigational devices such as lists", I could really use a cite of it, if possible.

The AfD was closed 'no consensus' here, challenged by Powers here, reopened here and closed Delete here. King of Hearts looks to me to be letting him/erself be pushed around by Powers. The argument that the AfD should be reopened to allow an editor to insert a last comment is unworkable and unsound. AfD closed, X requests the right to comment, AfD reopened, X adds a final comment, AfD closed, Y requests... When the second closure is considered, it's also having it both ways. Either one believes that it should have been opened to allow comments from Powers, and it shouldn't have been closed before replies to Powers could be addressed, or one believes as I do that it shouldn't have been re-opened for a user to get the last word in the first place.

My comments on User talk: King of Hearts for more on this. (middle paragraph and last sentence also sent to Michael Q) Anarchangel (talk) 03:45, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I see it was reopened. I will comment there. DGG (talk) 20:39, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

You participated in the recent Avatar (Ultima) AFD. You may be interested in the merge discussion.

I'm contacting all those who participated in the AFD for Avatar (Ultima) about a merge discussion affecting that article Talk:List_of_Ultima_characters Dream Focus 03:31, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

DGG, I am wondering, has there ever been a comprimise suggested that we sacrifice all character pages for episodes? i.e. episodes are permitted, but charcters cannot get a seperate page and must be in a list?

If this is a good idea, a eureka idea, (which it probably isn't) erase this edit and push it as your own, because many editors would scoff simply because I suggest it.

I would suggest suggesting it on ARS, and see what my collegues think of it. Ikip (talk) 03:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I would strongly prefer it the other way round. Even at the most restrictive view, some characters are in fact very clearly notable. On the other hand, it should always be possible to easily write an article for a series of episodes. And in any case, don't think list", think "combination article". The solution is to routinely rely on such articles except in special cases, and the locus of debate should be 1/ where to draw the line and , even more important 2/ How much information to include. I would gladly exchange separate articles for substantial coverage in merged articles. At this point, I think most people would accept that, rather than debate the question further. Ikip (talk)

As for for ARS, I have always thought they should concentrate on the best, and exceptional neglected articles on things that surprisingly turn out to be notable, and aim for a very high success rate for those they do work on. Articles are not like swimmers--we do not have to rescue every one. DGG ( talk ) 04:14, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I have gotten some suprisingly postive views on this suggestion. But I know there is little chance of it happening, especially if I said it. 04:21, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Radio Tales

Yes indeed.... the series (or at least those nominated) survived as a speedy keep in September 2008. At that time, Themfromspace must not have been a happy camper. A renomination 5 months later by User:Laurent1979 in February 2009 (Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_German_Student_(radio)) of the entire slew of them resulted in a sadly and overwhelming deletion... the ignored problem with the disruption caused by mass nominations... when babies get tossed with the bathwater... and so much must be done at once that little gets done at all... and what is done is ignored. I argued as diligently as I could, but it seems that in the rather acrimonious AfD, the deletion was preordained. The speedy keep of 5 months previous made absolutely no difference in the discussions. The 2009 AfD discussion is enlightening. Draw your own conclusions. I asked for all of them to be userfied to me. As they sat in my userspace, other editors worked diligently to merge the content as best they could into the Radio Tales article... gratitudes to User:Kainaw, User:American Eagle, and User:Deor in moving the list and as much content from the stubs as was reasonable. 3 months later, when I saw that others had done the merging, I requested deletion of the pages [19]. However.... here is my special contributions page from the timeframe they were userfied... showing the names they were placed under when moved. Surprisingly enough, the userfied talk pages still exist... and so this page may allow undeletion of the articles and subsequent userfication to someone else's userspace. A sad day and a sadder commentary. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 01:51, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

And of course.... 'merge' and 'move' are not the proper terms, as the histories of 63 different articles were not included with the transfer of information. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 01:57, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I see that at the AfD I myself joined in suggesting the merge, based on what seemed to me the excessive detail of the individual articles. (I didn't recall that this was the same group of articles just now) Looking back at them, I continue to think there was excessive detail and repetition for them viewed as episodes. There seems to have been the very peculiar argument used later in the discussion that we were not removing information, since the plots were available in the articles for the original works. Obviously there were always be differences in any dramatization or even reading from the original. The discussion of these differences is just what belongs in an encyclopedia. This shows again that we have no good way of controlling what happens in a merge--and that is what makes all the difference between constructive building of good encyclopedia articles and destruction of them. I am open to suggestions.

1 We might need to require all contested merges, or merges following AfD to be discussed at Wikipedia:Proposed mergers, turning it from a mere list of where discussions take place to a page the equivalent of WP:AFD. The talk pages of individual articles will not get proper attention. I have not proposed it because I think that doing this along with AfD would be too much work for people to follow. I find that I am stretched to the limits to try to look at each of the 1000 afds--rather to each of the 500 among them that I might be able to intelligently consider.

2 We might require the AfD discussion to actually specify what should be merged, and give the closing admin the responsibility to see that it is done right. This would require people to only close if they were prepared to do this: knew enough of the topic to supervise intelligently, were willing to take the time, and did not have any preconceived bias on how they should be done. I am not aware of anyone who really meets all 3 requirements. Everyone who considers the fiction problem sufficiently to understand it has a bias about how the situation should be handled. This is true also of other complicated topics.

3 Committees. A great deal can be accomplished with a designated pair of one person from each position acceptable to the other side. there would have to be an appeal. This would be adding considerable structure Wikipedia, which in general is not a good thing to do. The virtue would be that it would save enough time from repetitive general argument to balance that.

4 Dividing the overall encyclopedia into subject portions, somewhat in the manner of Citizendium, so people need to concentrate only on one or two of them. This will have the same problem as it does at Citizendium--that a group will become autonomous and make editorial decisions that the community as a whole would not support. This has already happening at Wikipedia, where the WikiProject films has a content guideline which prohibits character sections in articles, dividing it up among a very brief plot summary and a list of the cast. They seem to forget that a film is a story, and the technology and business of making it --however fascinating--is secondary to the story--and that for almost all films the aspect of the story of concern to users is the characters--perhaps even more so than other fiction.

5 Accepted compromise guidelines for what to do so we don't have to fight about the general acceptability of articles and structure. I prefer short articles, which I think better suit the average Wikipedian writing skills. But I'd accept long ones, too, with multiple subdivisions. The problem is agreeing how detailed they should be, and i do not see people willing to compromise here. Assuming they did, we have no mechanism for a stable compromise. The strongest we have of informal compromises, schools, still gets challenged once or twice a week & takes careful watching to prevent an aberrant decision that would be used as a precedent. We need an attitude against ownership of policy, where we each accept that some things will be done always altogether wrong, but we leave them alone. I do not immediately see how to develop such an attitude. DGG ( talk ) 04:02, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

In the meanwhile , as a practical matter, it would be nice having some help undeleting & userifying them all for further work, however it works out. Perhaps the best solution would be for Shoessss to become an admin. DGG ( talk ) 04:14, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - Thanks David for your help. I have been thinking about picking-up the lance and tilting at that preverbal Windmill one more time. ShoesssS ^Talk

The individual episodes are still not notable as per our standards, they are much less notable than individual TV episodes, for example. I really don't think they will survive an AfD, especially with Soundout's promotional bent, and I advise against trying to revive them. ThemFromSpace 03:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

We have no agreed standards in this area. There is no consensus that the GNG is relevant, there is no consensus on the wording of the relevant section of WP:NOT. Every possible position has been argued, and disputed. Nobody can predict what will happen at AfD, nor is there any consistency there: unworthy articles have been kept, and worthy ones deleted. But in any case the N criterion does not apply to article content, such as sections of combination articles. The best compromise in most cases will be extensive sections of such articles. We could settle this here and now by agreeing that detailed content is appropriate for episodes of major series , but usually not in separate articles. One side accepts the content is fuller than they would like, the other side that there will not be the individual articles they want. The question then becomes, do we want to fight or to compromise? I think the fiction inclusions are willing to compromise--not because their position is weak, but because they want to be free of fighting in order to improve the content of the episode (and character) material, most of which are in very bad shape, and either too brief & uninformative, or too long and over-detailed. I do not know what the others want, as the current situation seems that they are not willing to compromise on anything that will provide more than the most minimal coverage of plot and character and setting. DGG ( talk ) 04:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Fictional planet deletions

You questioned why I closed these as delete, instead of redirecting as was your suggestion. Firstly, I have no opinion at all on whether these should be articles, redirects or whatever. That said, at the debates I closed, there was a clear consensus to delete in my opinion. The consensus was clear enough that I felt any extra explanation was not necessary. I noted that several apparently similar articles were redirected, however these garnered more debate, and had a consensus to redirect rather than delete. Kevin (talk) 22:32, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

As an example at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hivehom I see: 1/ the nom's argument, which has no basis in policy: "non-notable planet" does not indicate why, "No source given" is not a reason for deletion. 2/My redirect, referring to a related debate where I said "merge or redirect as appropriate, as with the others. Somehow, this process does not seem a good way to sort these out." 3/A comment, saying "(redirect, merge or delete, whatever " 4/ Delete per nom, (which gave no acceptable reason), and per the prev. ed. who said whatever. 5. A delete that said it had no coverage; true, he gave no evidence of looking--but having no coverage is indeed a reason. Counting, 3 people said redirect was acceptable, 3 not counting the nom. said delete was acceptable. Perhaps for consistency you would change them to redirects. Given a number of articles in the essentially identical situation, it shouldn't depend on how many people have energy to join the debate for all of them. I am reluctant to take the time to carry something intrinsically this minor to deletion review. But as it's not protected, I could just enter the redirects--that would lose the history, but there was nothing much in them. Someone who doesn't like it could try G4, whereupon I would say "not the same as the deleted article", or RfD. DGG ( talk ) 01:13, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't notice that there at all. They really should've done all related things together. Of course last time they did that, it ended with keep or no consensus I think. Anyway, was there more than one line in that article? List of Humanx Commonwealth planets and Humanx Commonwealth both have the same one sentence for that planet. If additional information exist, it'd be best to copy it on over. Is there a way to see the total number of people that have ever searched for Hivehom in the search bar? If its a lot, you need a redirect. Otherwise, they'll find it listed in one of the other articles easily enough. Dream Focus 01:20, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I consider the history of searches irrelevant. We need a redirect for material on the basis that it is something for which people might reasonably look. As for doing things separately or together, the problem is to ensure that the matters brought up together are really equivalent. I do not know the fiction well enough to know whether these planets are, or whether some might be background and others central. But a redirect from settings in a major fiction to some combination article seems a reasonable general approach to avoid this sort of fine-tuned decision. DGG ( talk ) 01:36, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• I see a lot of articles in the series have been deleted already. [20] I believe all administrators can look at the deleted content. I'd prefer if you could just restore their history and place a redirect, but if not, could you copy the information from those places, from whenever the history says its at its longest, to the proper article? I started List of Humanx Commonwealth characters and List of Humanx Commonwealth races and copied over what I could already. List of Humanx Commonwealth planets has been around for years, and appears at a glance to be the exact same information filling the main article to overflowing. With that many books in the series, a lot of them notable enough to have their own articles, no reason it shouldn't have its own character list. Dream Focus 02:29, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I do not intend without some consensus to revert the actions of other admins in this field by restoring deleted articles intact into main space. What I can do is furnish you with the text, to use as information and a guide in adding modest amounts to combination articles. The necessary manipulations for merging the edits with proper attribution is rather complicated, and so is userifying them and then restoring them when you have finished and I do not have time to do it properly, so it would be better if I simply emailed them to you, and you rewrote what you used for the combination articles. You can then make the necessary redirects yourself. Please email me from this page to give me the email address you would like me to use, and tell me exactly which articles you need. DGG ( talk ) 02:57, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

You can't just click an option, and put them on my user page, in a side page, history and all? Would this userifying thing only gives me the newest version, correct? Sometimes people mass delete large chunks of an article before sending it to AFD, so there is less to save, and people thus less likely to argue against their attempt at deletion. Haven't seen that happening with any of these articles in this series so far though. Anyway, I'm emailing you now. Dream Focus 16:10, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I might well be willing to do so in other subjects, but in this one I am as always making sure to use admin functions only in incontestable ways. I';ve tried to indicate that above, but I see i have to be explicit. If you want them userified, ask a non-involved admin. DGG ( talk ) 16:54, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

disney

Because there is like the exact same list at List_of_Disney_theatrical_animated_features, therefore, that whole page of Walt Disney Animated Classics is simply not needed. IAmTheCoinMan (talk) 20:04, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

You are correct in your judgment of what was wrong, but we deal with that situation not by deletion but by redirecting the less complete page to the more complete page, and there can then if necessary be a discussion to find consensus for what the title should be. Looking at them. List_of_Disney_theatrical_animated_features, is indeed a little more complete in terms of explanation, so I did the redirect--since it is after all pretty obvious. DGG ( talk ) 20:10, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

The Legend of the Emerald Lady

Was there really a consensus reached that every Nancy Drew book is notable? I'm kind of amazed--can you point me to where this was decided, if it's not too much trouble?Prezbo (talk) 03:12, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

all such series seem to be. The problem is basically that they are all notable enough to warrant a section of an article, and there are so many of them, that it would be a very long article. Wikipedia seems to deal with most such things by making a separate article for each. It is quite possibly the case that there might actually be reviews for every single one of them, & you should check on that with a good children's librarian & not rule it out until you have actually searched. There are a great many more such articles. The last attempt to open discussion on this is at [21], and did not get a response. In any case they would not warrant deletion, for the very least that would be appropriate is redirect to a list of them, by WP:BEFORE and WP:Deletion policy. . Probably it is better to start a general discussion somewhere, and try to get a consensus to merge these until somebody actually wants to work on an individual title. Let me know when it starts. DGG ( talk ) 03:27, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

*FICTION ARCHIVE*