Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)

Proposed change to the guideline

This proposed change is to address the problem of many notable fiction articles do not have reliable secondary sources. One example of this is the Naruto Uzumaki article. Clearly notable but have no RELIABLE secondary sources what so ever. In the case of fiction articles, there is only one source of infomation - and that is the creaters and "databooks" released by them and many other secondary sources are derivitive of this(fan sites). This change aims to makes fiction articles that have been rated as high on the notibility scale exempt from deletion for the lack of secondary sources and/or secondary sources themself as obviously content relased as primary sources(ie, the databooks, from the creates) are obviously accurate. For an article to be exempt, it must be rated high on the notability scale by the wikiproject that is part of or have majority consenus(ie, a vote) Af648 02:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose The problem is that these ratings would give fans a blanket assurance that their favorite articles won't be deleted, and fans could (would?) tag all their articles with top-importance. It's IMO better to enforce guidelines like before with "if you can't or won't provide reliable third party sources, non-notability has to be assumed and this article will likely not be kept". If annoyed fans can find sources, great, add them to the article, improving it in the process. And I am not worried over mistakenly deleting really notable fiction articles; fans are saving them by what appears to be vote-stacking anyway. – sgeureka ^t•c 03:07, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that there little or non secondary sources for notiable fiction articles. Of course the notability rating would have to just and fair. And vote stacking wont count during afds anyway. What the change is trying to protect as articles that ARE important that lack secondary sources. See the example Naruto Uzumaki article. Af648 03:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

If a topic has little or no secondary sources, it is not suitable for a separate wikipedia article. (I just read this comment by User:Shoy, which summarizes the points quiet nicely). What I see in Naruto Uzumaki is a huge violation of Wikipedia is not a plot summary and No original research. A good rule of thumb is to have 50% plot summary (preferably less), and 50% conception/production/reception/merchandise info. Except for the shortish (and hardly sourced) Design section, Naruto Uzumaki is almost only sourced by primary sources, and anybody at WP:GA or WP:FA (what all article should strive for) would advice you to massively trim the plot. And while I do realize that manga/anime/cartoon fans have a hard time to cover their favorite subjects in detail (because there aren't that many sources to begin with), it is not impossible to write awesome articles - have a look at The Simpsons's Troy McClure. – sgeureka ^t•c 04:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

What i'm trying to say is not that articales do not need reliable secondary sources but for some there topics are none. In the case of Troy McClure, the is from the Simposons, if you do a google search, half of the results are objective, reliable secondary sources as it has many popular culture references where are there are almost none for the the character Naruto - all fan sites. Af648 05:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

"... where are there are almost none for the the character Naruto - all fan sites."...Which means exactly that the topic is not notable for inclusion in Wikipedia, which is exactly what WP's definition of "notability" means. "The Simpsons" has been reviewed, being a prime time American-produced TV show, much more critically in English works than the licensed, sub/dubbed Japanese produced cartoon shown on a cable network. Thus, there is precedence for having more information about The Simpsons in-universe materials than there is for Naruto's in-universe details. WP is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and "notability" is the line that decides what is appropriate for inclusion. Note that this doesn't mean that Naruto the anime/manga is not notable - the series and its real work aspects (DVD releases, sales, etc.) are sufficient for supporting the series within WP, but because the universe within Naruto has not be critically analyzed through reliable sources, the inclusion of excessive in-universe fictional detail makes no sense. Remember, WP's definition of notability does not consider "importance" or "fame" or "popularity", so even though a character may be the favorite of millions through fan sites and forums boards, that's not reliable to include WP which is trying to build a verifiable source of general encyclopedic information.

Also, be aware that there does exist a wiki-type site that can be linked through WP where you can expand on these details without worrying about notability, through Wikia (Naruto specifically at [naruto.wikia.com naruto.wikia.com]. We encourage you to keep all the details at those sites, but the main space of WP must meet the goals of the Foundation. --MASEM 05:25, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Af648, the guideline already has a note to allow what you've proposed. "To a limited extent, sub-articles are sometimes born for technical reasons of length or style. Even these articles need real-world information to prove their notability, but must rely on the parent article to provide some of this background material (due to said technical reasons)."

In a situation like Naruto Uzumaki, the title character in a series that has been going on for about 8 years, having his own article isn't that much of a stretch. I haven't seen the show or read the manga, so I don't know if the same can be said for any of the other characters, but for the main character it would not surprise me. That being said, I think it's actually unlikely that there are no reliable secondary sources for Naruto Uzumaki. There more than likely is such sources, but likely in places people didn't think to look (other than the internet, and other than in English). -- Ned Scott 05:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

• Support Any new media, i.e. any work that has been published or broadcast on the past 5 years will be lacking in academic coverage and reliable secondary sources. As an example, our team looked extensively for it, for months, in English, Japanese and even Norwegian for those elusive secondary sources for 10 years old game bestseller Final Fantasy X (and managed to find some[1]) but it was hard as hell. Earned us an FA, but fact remains that a fictional work needs TIME to be featured in "reliable secondary sources" no matter how popular or ground breaking it is. Should that fact keep all new fiction away from Wikipedia ? I believe it would be a darn shame. Were we printed in paper we could justify that newer works just "didn't fit the encyclopedia publishing date", but being the only real time, live update encyclopedia, Wikipedia's power to provide better coverage to new media is so great - and witnessed by us all - that I think it is almost a crime to limit Wikipedia to old moldy media. There are plenty of venues that cover old media. Wikipedia's unique nimble, agile reliable covering of newer works was one of it's powers and I will be sad to see it go just because we saddle ourselves with a self imposed demand for old moldy secondary sources that we already know won't be there for newer material Renmiri 05:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

PS: There is a Final Fantasy Wiki at Wikia, very thorough and very successful, so as a FF fan I couldn't care less if Wikipedia covers the games well or not. My games are very well covered elsewhere. My vote here is as Wikipedian, as I believe not having comprehensive material on one of the top selling video game series in the past 20 years or on Naruto, a wildly popular manga, or on Babylon V a groundbreaking TV series, would make Wikipedia a poorer encyclopedia. Renmiri 06:07, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

A damn shame indeed, and this is the fate of many topics that don't have sources. Fiction does not get special treatment when it comes to those kinds of things. But this is besides the point, in that we are looking for sources so that we have real world information. We are comprehensive with our topics in relation to the real world, not in relation to the fiction itself (that is, besides a basic understanding of the plot, etc). -- Ned Scott 06:25, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

PPS: Since when fans - people who care deeply for a topic and want to see it well covered here - have turned into the enemy at Wikipedia ? Amazing -and sad - how this place has changed since 2006! Renmiri 06:07, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I would be very interested in hearing an answer to this question, or further discussion on the topic. --Kizor 06:20, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the people who are behind this guideline are not fans? This has nothing to do with being a fan of fiction or not, or editors vs other editors. -- Ned Scott 06:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Just read the comments above, like these ratings would give fans a blanket assurance that their favorite articles won't be deleted, and fans could (would?).... Anti fan bias is blatant in several comments here. And it saddens me, this used to be a place that respected editors who were passionate about their topics. Renmiri 05:53, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that as soon as an editor tries to follow and enforce guidelines/policies, he (in this case I) comes across as having an anti-fan bias. I have taken my fourth fiction article to GA/FA yesterday, so I'll hardly have any anti-fan sentiments, as I am a big fiction fan myself. What I can do however is point people to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Episodes where countless people are arguing, "But I added the Nielson rating and a TV.com review to the other 20kB of Plot, so how dare evil user [censored] merge/redirect this episode per WP:NOT#PLOT, WP:FICT, WP:TRIVIA, WP:QUOTE,...? Edit-warrrrr!!!" It's not far off to assume that at least some of these devoted fans would rate their episode articles with top-importance if that can save them from becoming redirects in the absense of other measures. – sgeureka ^t•c 12:53, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Heh, there has always been a worthy effort to keep Wikipedia free of fancruft but the methods and attitude have changed a lot since 2006. In our team we personally took the fancrufty stuff and it's editor to Wikia or Wikbooks and helped the material get a home there. We treated people with respect, something I have not seen much of it lately, not to theres and not to me personally (not this discussion here, a prior incident). In 2006 even the word fancruft was frowned on, nowadays you see blatant stuff like above, where fans are talked about as being fanatic mobs that won't rest until they put their articles, in - gasp - a free wiki that is for billed as for anyone (lol!!!). I'm just lamenting the loss of the Wikipedia I knew and loved. This new Wikipedia saddens me, with every fictional article littered with self righteous "cleanup" tags from people who never wrote or edited.. :( < /end rant > Renmiri 23:43, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Your team? Last I checked I was an active editor in 2006, and last I checked I just spent a few hours today importing more articles to wikia:digimon. We encourage redirection over deletion so we can easily retrieve content for transwiki or article resurrection. This very guideline has a much stronger emphases on finding this content a new home than it did in 2006. I can't speak for every editor you've interacted with, the ones who really helped develop these guidelines that you are here to complain about, are not the people you think they are. You want to talk about lame ass stuff like "the Wikipedia I knew and loved" go somewhere else. Drop the drama act and think about the situation for a moment. Wikipedia has always been a harsh place, we've always had people on both extremes, and the grass was always greener on the other side. -- Ned Scott 01:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry about that last comment. I think I might be missing the same thing you're missing from time to time, perspective on the situation. From your perspective things have gotten much "worse", and I don't want to argue with you, I want to show you that things have gotten better. -- Ned Scott 01:30, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Never meant to say all who oppose this proposed guideline are evil. Deckiller, who has proposed a rewrite here, for instance, was a member of the project team I was on. He is a very nice guy and I consider him a friend and a superb editor. He and I opened a wiki at wikia to be a repository of articles for transwiki or article resurrection, for places that don't have a wikia yet. But guys like Deck are leaving in droves, while jerks are staying, at least from my perspective. Which really saddens me. Relax, I'm not accusing you of anything. The very fact that you are going through the trouble of transwiking articles and caring about fangirls like me shows that you are not like the jerks I'm talking about. Renmiri 14:57, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm a comparably new editor, so I have no idea how wikipedia once used to be. But what I can say with absolute certainty is that respect goes both ways. I like to think respect for wikipedia's policies and guidelines is essential to make it the best it can be. But when there are dozens of fans screaming murder at the few editors actually trying to uphold wikipedia's guidelines and policies, I am not in favor of further softening policies/guidelines just so that guideline-ignorant fans can happily run wild. (Maybe my time with the episode article discussion just gives me the wrong impression in this matter, who knows.) – sgeureka ^t•c 02:36, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

...but fact remains that a fictional work needs TIME to be featured in "reliable secondary sources" no matter how popular or ground breaking it is. Should that fact keep all new fiction away from Wikipedia ? I don't have the impression at all that new fiction is kept away from wikipedia, in the temporary absense of secondary sources or not. Creating new articles to cover the plot extensively however should be limited to providing context for information from secondardy sources. It's not important for the general reader what a character did and what happened to him, but why (intention of the writers) he/it did.

I think that if you wish to take an article to GA or FA, you'll realize pretty quickly that the plot is not important at all. For example, I'll be taking my fourth article (Characters of Carnivàle) to GA/FA in a few weeks, and although I had originally planned to take some of the plot weight off of List of Carnivàle episodes by going into more plot detail in the Characters article, I still haven't got around to do that. Several main(!) actors still have only one or two lines of plot summary, and the article already hits 80kB. Furthermore, I'll probably trim the plot (what little there is) in the Characters article before I massively add to that. Why encourage fans even more to write up the plot when it will most likely be deleted anyway when the article gets improved to GA? (Compare the article Brother Justin Crowe with the first paragraph of Characters of Carnivàle#Brother Justin Crowe; that his section may be long enough now to be spun out again is besides the point). – sgeureka ^t•c 16:17, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Strongest possible oppose. There is no need for a relaxing of the guideline. Obviously notable subjects like the Naruto series and Final Fantasy series are incredibly well-covered in numerous independent sources. Very often, reliable sources are difficult to find online. However, there are a vast number of periodicals that deal with anime and video games, for example. It may require a subscription to an online periodical service or a trip to the library to access the magazine stacks. However, there are certainly plenty of sources available. There's no need to weaken the guideline, just a need to use some sense and better research practices. Vassyana 19:52, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

• This isn't a vote, but this is the wrong place to discuss this anyway. That would be at WP:V, which pretty unequivocally states that "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." (emphasis added) That's pretty unequivocal and very true. If you want to write long, primary-sourced plot articles, there are Wikias available for that. They don't go here. Articles here about fictional works should cover them from an out of universe perspective, and that means using out of universe sources. If there is little or no secondary material about a work, it doesn't belong here yet, it belongs on a fansite or Wikia. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:02, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
• My advice to Af648: Learn Japanese. If you want to write about elements of Japanese popular culture, you'll have lots more luck finding useful secondary sources if you search materials written in the language of the element you're researching. — Brian (talk) 02:30, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

We had a fluent Japanese speaker / reader on our team and it was still hard to find the much vaunted reliable, third-party sources for a 10 year old game. With new media works it's like a catch 22, you find reliable sources they get tagged as much too "in universe", if you find 3rd party material it gets tagged as unreliable. People seem to forget that academic material goes through a lot of bureaucracy to get approved as course material. It is simply an unrealistic expectation to demand academic coverage for media works that are not at least 10 years old. Anime and manga periodicals are not exactly treated as "reliable" here. And when you get the Game publisher's own material you get told it's too "in-universe". Renmiri 05:47, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

You're one situation should not be used to open the floodgates to tons and tons of dreck sourced from fan pages. If something is notable and needs its own article, we use secondary sources to establish that that is the case. If there are no secondary sources, the item does not need its own article. I'm glad you are able to draw on a Japanese speaker's talents, but I think a great many of the people who complain about not being able to use fan sites and the like are not even trying to search in other languages. Unfortunately, it may simply be a waiting game with some topics. You just might not be able to get that FA star for your article on the series that came out last week, but that's a price I'm willing to pay for reliability. — Brian (talk) 05:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Or to put it more bluntly: If those sources don't exist yet, don't write the article yet. Wait until they do. If they never do, never write. That article doesn't have to happen now, or ever. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:29, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I hesitate to weigh-in on this discussion, believing that Deckiller has a point when he says this is an "impossible-to-solve debate." Nevertheless, I feel compelled to object to Seraphim's line of reasoning. IMO, the black and white demand "secondary sources = article/few or no secondary sources = no article" are thoughtless. It has the net effect of a zero-tolerance policy. We don't have to think about whether a subject is notable and come up with a rationale argument, all we have to look at is secondary sources or no secondary sources. I think we apply a higher standard to fiction and fiction-related articles than any other article in WP. Many articles regarding highways have few sources, and most of the sources they do have simply say the highway exist - not comment on the notability of the highway. I think we can afford to look at fictional articles on a case by case basis. Have faith, the chaff will eventually be sifted out. Ursasapien (talk) 09:29, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed 100%. I think though that his position really goes to the core of what I'm saying here: New media, should it be covered by Wikipedia ? I believe that Wikipedia's web nature and it's "anyone can edit" policy makes it the PERFECT match to be a powerful source for information in newer works, fiction or non fiction. Yesterday's episode of CSI or Al Gore's Nobel peace prize - last week's news - can be covered in Wikipedia today, thoroughly, comprehensively and properly. What other encyclopedia or reference work can do this ? Not one. Even on line Britannica can't do it, because of all the red tape. Let's not make Wikipedia into a red tape heaven, let's use it's powerful and innovative policies to be the best source for all topics, be it new or old Renmiri 10:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The problem comes when you define what a best source for all topics actually means. As soon as someone triangulates a better position than WP:AFD from Wikipedia is not paper and Wikipedia is not indiscriminate, we'll be fine. Until then, happy editing. Hiding Talk 11:25, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The reason we want sources is so we have real-world information. An article about a highway is something already in the real world, so you can't really compare the two. Sourcing the plot itself is never a problem, so that is not what we are looking for. -- Ned Scott 01:35, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying, Ned, in a sense. I fully support fiction being written about using an "out-of-universe" tone and being more than simply a plot summary. I just believe strongly that a work of fiction is a "real-world" thing and notability for a particular fiction-related article should be able to be established by the number of readers/viewers/purchasers. Once notability is established, a decent stub article can be made by including information about the author/producer/etc. along with a plot summary (not a rewrite of the entire fictional work). I think Renmiri has a good point about WP's ability to keep up with this information and document things in an encyclopedia that were never available before. Ursasapien (talk) 07:58, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

We're mixing up issues here. Rarely have I seen an article that covers a fictional work put for deletion ("work" being book, a complete TV series, a movie, a video game, and whatnot) - there are certain clean-up aspects such as merging of individual books into a single series article, but generally it is still acknowledged that the published works are notable. The release of such a work is generally notably by itself, and particularly for modern works, its easy to find and source this information. Mind you there's still a level of notability covered by WP:N that must be met - I'm not going to put up a page about a local cable channel show, for example, unless it has earned some national coverage - but in general, "published" fictional media is notable. The other side which is the issue that we've been discussing, is the fictional elements of that work, and how notable they are to be able to merit their own articles - this is where we've been contesting this issue for several months. This is an area where some newer media may not have as much analysis or criticism or the like to support having subpages for individual fictional elements compared to older works. Notability must be demonstrated for a topic, it cannot be assumed that just because the work is notably popular that the characters or other fictional elements of the work are also notably popular. However, once notability is demonstrated, it never goes away. --MASEM 14:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

People are still going on about this? Here's some advice to all of you: edit some non-fiction or blatantly notable topics. Take a break from this impossible-to-solve debate. — Deckiller 05:53, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment, I would say that this 'proposal' is the situation we have now. Fancruft with weak wikipojects gets deleted, fancruft with strong wikiprojects stays put.--Nydas^(Talk) 20:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not really sure how to interpret your comment. Are you saying this is a gaming-the-system kind of thing, or a we-let-it-slide-because-there's-evidence-people-are-going-to-deal-with-it-and-make-it-better thing? (don't get me wrong, as I have seen evidence of both examples) -- Ned Scott 20:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Gaming the system is closer to what I mean, though ultimately the only 'system' which really matters is winning AfD votes. Fancruft with powerful Wikiprojects, experienced editors and admins behind it can be kept more or less indefinitely. Look at the Spoo AfD; the keep voters are overwhelmingly experienced editors (and quite a few admins too). It's not a conscious process, just an unconscious reflection of our inbuilt bias towards certain topics.--Nydas^(Talk) 21:43, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

And you say there's no bias against fans Ned ? /that is just soo typical. A strong wikiproject with experienced editors tends to produce QUALITY articles, of course those articles stay. As they well should. Weak wikiprojects might be lucky enough to have one dedicate genius but odds are the articles are poorly written, poorly sourced and out of shape. Yet instead of going for the obvious conclusionm Nydas blames fans and tars all fiction articles as "fancruft". By it's nature, the current system already ensures that weak articles that get deleted merited deletion and the articles that stay deserve to be kept. Nydas seems to be looking for a silver bullet to delete all articles he dislikes the topic, be they done by experienced editors or not. How typical of a mindset that treats fans as the enemy! Renmiri 04:45, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

It's NOT quality which matters, but notability. Poorly written, poorly sourced and out of shape articles are not supposed to be deleted just for that. Similarly, articles with good formatting and lots of little blue numbers do not automatically entail a keep. But you seem to be arguing that this is the case.--Nydas^(Talk) 08:45, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a dynamic project - the level of quality for articles can, will, and has changed over the lifetime - this means that some articles that were Featured or Good articles may fail the new standards and are effectively demoted; similarly articles created by large Wikiprojects of experienced editors may need to be merged, trimmed, or deleted because the guidelines and policies of WP change. Mind you, there are review procedures for all of these: not one person can mass remove large swathes of fictional element articles without either being reverted or being put through consensus.

The point I think Ned is making is that when these articles from long-standing wikiprojects are brought to light per new guidelines, there's a majority of votes to keep it because of partial ownership ideas - they've worked hard to get that article to that state prior, and in most cases don't see the need to change it to met new guidelines. However, it is necessary to point out that majority is not the same as consensus if the wider WP consensus is against that majority (eg it violates consented policies and guidelines) (Of course, that said, while a previous version of this guideline was consented, the current one is still up in the air pending several other actions).

Basically, this is not a war against fans, this is attempting to convince those dead-set in certain ways that consensus can change and that new notability guidelines make may some articles less qualified than before - this happens not only in fictional works but real-world and other more practical arts and sciences categories - its just that because of WP's unique nature, the bulk of these seem to be fans of fictional works. --MASEM 05:13, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

That is indeed a very good point Masem. This newly found worshipping of Notabilty above all, for instance, wasn't here last year. I myself lost an editing discussion when (oh the irony!) I proposed to merge a marginal article about an obscure minigame. I was told that even if it wasn't notable it still was important, for completeness. I can understand and respect that, what I can't really swallow is the lack of civility and the zealot stance those disputes are taking shaoe nowadays. But meh... maybe it was just my personal experience Renmiri 14:04, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

In that case there really wasn't a WikiProject behind the article, and Spoo is it's own weird existence. Any editor is going to hesitate on supporting deletion on something that was once an FA, and is really well written. Like I said, Spoo is just a really weird article, and an example of how we try to define notability. I think Spoo exists because we were so focused on getting real world information that when we got it, we didn't expect to have it for such a minor topic.

I do know what you mean, though, and there is always some form of bias in all of us. Surely there are many AfDs that get a lot of supporters for one way or the other based on their own personal taste, but such an issue is not nearly as extreme as the picture you've just painted. -- Ned Scott 01:02, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Very true. AfD is a rather political, often arbitrary process. It makes me think of "Is This Anything?" from Letterman's show.--Father Goose 03:56, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

This may have been raised previously, but I can see one potential reason to include articles on main characters in fictional works even without readily available secondary sources: elimination of redundancy. Imagine, for instance, that we didn't have any secondary sources to support an article on the fictional character Spider-Man. Without that article on Wikipedia, every article on books, comic books, television series, movies, or any other media featuring that character would have to contain at least some backstory and description of the character to give the article context, whereas now we can just link there. This may be an analogous situation to the Naruto Uzumaki article described above. Imagine The Hound of the Baskervilles, for example, if the first main paragraph of the article had to be devoted to explaining who Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were. JavaTenor 17:01, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

While eliminating redundance is of course always desirable, this doesn't mean that a separate article needs to exist. For example, Ben Hawkins (main character of Carnivàle) redirects to Characters of Carnivàle#Ben Hawkins, which works great for the article series. (FYI, he has established enough notability for a separate article, but he may not have enough material overall to become a good article, so the decision to merge him was purely editorial.) – sgeureka ^t•c 17:48, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

That's certainly fine (and in many cases the best solution), as long as the relevant "list of characters" article is not also deleted. JavaTenor 17:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• SUPPORT Non-editing users of wikipedia expect it to contain "The sum of all human knowledge" as Jimbo Whales once said. These non-contributing users of wikipedia do not care a tinker's cuss that there is a star trek wiki, and monty python wiki or whatever - they come here because they believe they can find everything they need to know about ANY topic - as it should be. They do not goto Google and search for "Naruto Uzumaki wiki" the come to wikipedia and expect there to be a consider article detailing the character: Naruto Uzumaki. Reliability? Reliable sourcing is used to provide verifiability - who better to check the facts of a fictional universe than the (rabid?) fans of said universe. Notability? Notability is not only established by the presence of reliable sources, it is pretty much accepted that all highschools are notable, because they affect the lives of many people. Fiction does this as well, just look at the star trek conventions, the people dressing up as characters from movies and they go and see them etc. Wikipedia needs to contain articles like this, people deleting apparent "fancruft" just because they personally don't believe that it "deserves" an article page, and then hiding behind bureaucratic policy quote are cowards. This is not meant to offend, but I am yet to see a reason for not including these types of articles that does not involve someone quoting WP:NOTABILITY.. I would like to quote my own, two infact - WP:NOTPAPER and WP:IGNORE. If an article is annoying you, that nice, go and make a nice cup of tea and hit the random article button again - and have a nice day while someone who wants to find out information about that topic you just left is actually able to. - Fosnez (talk) 13:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Um, if it contains the "Sum of all human knowledge", then you should really be advocating for a change to What Wikipedia is not, because it's clear there that "the sum of all human knowledge" doesn't actually include everything you can think of. There are restrictions on what can be added. Sorry, but Red #434 in Star Trek does not deserve his own article.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:19, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
    • "Sorry, but Red #434 in Star Trek does not deserve his own article" - Why not. Give me one reason why we can't have an article on every character that has ever been. If someone has the time to write them, well who are we to stop them - just because we think it is not "worthy" of an article... Fosnez (talk) 02:46, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
      • Because Wiki is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Also, what would stop you from writing an article about yourself? Who are you? How are you noteworthy? Red #434 is in an episode for 10 minutes before he's killed; then he's never mentioned again. That means it isn't noteworthy. Sure, if his character received significant coverage from reliable sources, he should have an article. But simply existing is not a reason to have an article. Also, I don't believe that Jimbo meant we should have an article on everything, when he said that part about "sum of all human knowledge", I do believe there is a limit to what should be considered "knowledge" and what is down right "trivial".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 02:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
        • Red #434 was nominated for deletion in April, but got kept (quite resoundingly). --Nydas^(Talk) 09:03, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
        • Firstly, as Nydas has pointed out above - Quod erat demonstrandum. Secondly, you cannot decide what is trivial, noone can. Somebody thought that Mzoli's Meats was not trivial, and other people who would have never visited the place thought it was, and there was one almighty shitfight about it. As I have said before, yes there should be limits to can be included, but we are currently FAR short of Jimbo's goal - why do you think there ARE so many "fancruft" articles, could it be, perhaps, that people think that this is knowledge that should be included? A central source of knowledge for the entire planet to refer to? Edited by people who are experts in the field? (I.E. the fans) These articles are actually FAR less likely to contain error because they are attended to by the people who love the subject. Until the recent spate or deletionism that is sweeping wikipedia like a plague, I would come here to read up on the Lore of a tv series or games, but now I have to refer to google and sort through the websites with more ads than content... If I understand Jimbo's dream, it is that if the human race were to disappear tomorrow, and an alien race were to find a complete copy of the wikipedia, they would have a complete understanding of us as a species - this HAS to include our Lore, or it is just a set of sterile bullet points, with no examples of actual culture. Fosnez (talk) 11:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
          • Nice try fellas, but "Leslie" appeared in 56 episodes of Star Trek, and not the "single episode" example that I provided. Your rebuttle has not water in this case. Also, you should go to the interview where Jimbo gives that quote, because he also talks about something else, and that's sourcing. He considers it an imperative, and that we should do it more. Guess what, we have a policy here that says if it isn't sourced then it can be removed on the spot. We also have a policy on plots, so you cannot have an article that's just a plot, and nothing else. Since you cannot interpret things for the character you cannot include your own "expert" opinion. Oh, and most importantly, this is "Notability (fiction)". Nothing can be changed on this page that will contradict what is one the general notability page, which is clear that all articles must have significant coverage from reliable third-party sources to establish their notability, and inclusion on Wikipedia. Or, as has been said, what will stop every person in the world from making an article about themselves?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:05, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
            • • • Excuse me but I happen to know Jimbo Wales loves video games and does consider them worthy of coverage. I was there at Wikibooks when the issue got discussed and that is one of the most puzzling things to me, to see Wikipedia deletionists targeting game fans, and IMHO going against his wishes. Renmiri (talk) 03:21, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
• Okay, and since when did Jimbo's opinion actually mean anything other than yours or mine? Jimbo doesn't dictate what goes on Wikipedia. He can pull the plug when he wants, I'm sure, but nothing on this site is on here strictly because Jimbo says "it should be". Regardless, as valued as his opinion is anyway, what you are quoting is Jimbo talking about game walkthroughs on Wikibooks, not about the inclusion criteria as it pertains to fiction on Wikipedia.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:45, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Tall words for someone who just disputed a quote by Jimbo Wales on the prior comment. The quote in Wikibooks is very relevant here because it does show his unequivocal support for including video game information on his wikis. His problem at Wikibooks was the charter he had to abide by for Wikibooks to receive public grants, i.e., articles and topics at Wikibooks have to be part of an academic course. This is not the case at Wikipedia yet you guys seem to want to know better than Jimbo. Renmiri (talk) 06:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Um, I think you are taking his words out of context. No where in there did he say, "I love video games and I think we should have as much information about what happens in a video game with its characters." He merely stated that he wished they could have walkthrough guides on Wikibooks. In no way did that translate to fictional character histories on Wikipedia. Please re-read his statement before making grossly negligent interpretations over here. Thank you. (P.S. I like video games too, does that mean anything? No. The fact that he likes anything has no bearing on this encyclopedia. Jimbo is not God. Jimbo's opinion on whether a movie should have an article, if it fails notability does not change the fact that it fails and thus does not get an article). To better clarify my point, if Jimbo came here today and said "are fictional topic articles need to no criteria for inclusion; we should have an article on every character no matter how minor," we still would not follow his opinion. Jimbo's opinion does not dictate policy or guidelines, consensus does. On Wikipedia, he is just another editor (granted one that can pull the plug if he so chooses, but still just an editor). He has to abide by all the rules we do. That means that we respect and welcome his opinions, but they are of no more value than yours, mine, or any other editor on Wikipedia. Everyone is treated equally (supposedly, I'm sure some people get treated crappy).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:48, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
      • Hehehe, No where in there did he say, "I love video games and I think we should have as much information about what happens in a video game with its characters." except in the second paragraph where he says I am an advocate of free culture. I love video game books. I think that people should be passionately writing books about video games in a collaborative manner. These can be walkthroughs, these can be textbooks about the sociological phenomena of games, these can be textbooks for game programming, these can be user manuals, these can be joke books, these can be fan fiction, these can be all kinds of cool and interesting things that I have not imagined, and that none of us have yet imagined,... You are welcome for the English Reading 101 lesson you thanked me for. And a piece of advice: You should respect Jimbo and his vision, without him there would be no Wikipedia for you to strut around grandstanding Renmiri (talk) 14:29, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
• Um, let's see. "I love video game books"--that's from Jimbo. Exactly where does that apply to Wikipedia? Nowhere. "I think people should be passtionately writing books about video games"--Jimbo again. Where does that apply to Wikipedia? Nowhere. Please stop confusing his discussion about Wikibooks, with this discussion about Wikipedia. They are two different locations, governed by different sets of rules. If my next statement is too difficult, please ask and I'll explain further, but: He is not talking about fiction on Wikipedia. He is talking about Wikibooks, and fiction in general. Otherwise, if he was referring to Wikipedia then his "opinion" would be in direct contradiction to the What Wikipedia is not policy. Lastly, please show me where I said that I do not respect Jimbo's opinion. I don't believe I ever said that. I have actually, carefully stated that Jimbo could close this place down if he wished, which alludes to the fact that I'm quite aware that it is because of him that we have Wikipedia. That being said, his opinion is no greater than anyone else's that edits this site, when it comes to articles in question. What I wish is that editors find real rebuttles to guidelines and policies, and not misquote or misunderstand what Jimbo says. Hell, I think there should be a rule, simply put, Don't Quote Jimbo period. Find your own arguments, because most of the time people are misusing what he says in an effort to justify what they think. We have notability requirements for a reason, because not everything in the world is worth noting beyond a couple of sentences of information. Plain and simple.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 18:44, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
• Renmiri, I think you are misinterpreting that post on Wikibooks. But I won't engage in this kind of Jimbo exegesis. If you think it's of any relevance, why not post a message on his talk page to find out what he thinks about fiction on Wikipedia? --B. Wolterding (talk) 14:01, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • • • • • • Answer me this then, why do you think there are so many "fancruft" articles. Fosnez (talk) 13:49, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
              • Two reasons: first, the present version of general notability requirements ("significant coverage in secondary sources") is less than a year old; previously, it was just a concept which was very subjective, and thus easily allowed the inclusion of such fancraft articles. Secondly, it is a combination of writing by example and a certain amount of satisfaction and enjoyment for a new editor to come along and help to fill in information missing on his/her favorite show or fandom, certainly when we have a good chunk of The Simpsons information here. People want to write what they know and WP provides them that outlet. Thus, fancruft type works tends to be kudzo-like - it can grow at a much faster rate than it could be managed. Because of both of these, we are trying to help educate editors that there is a standard that pretty much pushes most fancruft to Wikias, though allows for those elements that can be described as notable to remain. --MASEM 14:45, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Current wording

I'm pretty satisfied with the current wording; although it raises the bar by accepting only secondary sources instead of merely "real-world content", it provides a reasonable exception for subarticles. It's about as close to a compromise as we can get without changing other policies as well. — Deckiller 20:52, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, in theory, real world information normally comes from a secondary source. -- Ned Scott (talk) 21:21, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

My recent addition was undone by a user who felt it was an "unnecessary edit". The fact is simple: it's inefficient to clog AfD with dozens of cases of articles that could be cleaned up; there are other steps before AfD. If we decrease AfDs, then we can have greater focus on each case. Making it clear that AfDs for situations that clearly fall in the merge/redirect/transwiki considerations will help this concept.

S/he also felt my "trigger boys" comment was uncivil—perhaps it was a frank statement, but deletion should always be a last resort. Besides, when have I not been civil? — Deckiller 22:31, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

In a perfect wiki-world, going the AfD route would indeed be inefficient. But when it comes to fiction-related articles, it is not uncommon that good-faith merge discussions (for notability, OR, extensive plot etc.) end after several weeks with local fan consensus outvoting guidelines. And while the necessary secondary information will still not be added, the plot summaries for popular topics grow bigger and bigger. I may sound a little non-AGF-y here, but it seems to me that a wiki-wide and 5-day-long deletion discussion sometimes brings results much faster with more appropriate results, making the necessary merge/cleanup process more efficient than the traditionally recommended let's-discuss-it-first way (unfortunately). Openly encouraging people to only go to AfD when there is really no chance is like saying that fiction articles should never be AfDed. Spoo has already demonstrated that the tiniest piece of bare notability has a chance to grow into a fully fleshed article with the right devotion, but devotion is exactly what lacks to bring the other 99.5% of barely notable topics to something encyclopedic. – sgeureka ^t•c 23:10, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

That attitude will inevitably accelerate Wikipedia's bias. Not all fiction has 'fans' to be cajoled into improving the article. I bet if someone nominated Isola, the fictional city district in Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels, it'd get deleted, just because it's in a genre that Wikipedians aren't interested in.--Nydas^(Talk) 09:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I hope it will inevitably accelerate Wikipedia's bias to be a well-written and -sourced encyclopedia instead of a poorly conceived and speculative fansite, and that's good. And Isola would likely be merged or deleted for being non-notable, not because it lacks fans; other non-notable fiction articles just have the advantage of mass fan-backing inspite of violating existing guidelines and policies, but should, rationally speaking, be merged/deleted just the same. (There is currently an AfD sweep of location lists of notable games/TV shows that often ends in deletion on the ground of missing real-world notability. A stubby article about a fictional location would have even less of a survival chance in AfD, and if you can merge it somewhere to avoid an AfD, the better. I am doing the same with fictional things I care about.) – sgeureka ^t•c 10:50, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

You can hope all you want, but AfD 'sweeps' will inevitably lead to a worsened bias against fiction that doesn't involve spaceships and dragons. You consider Spoo to be of borderline notability whilst writing off Isola. If the setting of a long-running and influential series of crime novels is less notable than a fictional food mentioned seven times in a half-forgotten 90s sci-fi TV show, what hope is there that we can even point in the right direction when it comes to fiction?--Nydas^(Talk) 21:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I have never watched Babylon 5, and I have never heard of these crime novels (forget fictional settings in these novel), so I don't know what their respective popularity is (which many people often mistakenly interpret as notability). But wouldn't you agree that Spoo is better written and better sourced than Isola, and that Spoo at least attempts to establish some notability? (For what it's worth, I recommended merge in the Spoo AfD for lack of notability). If topics of vague notability don't want to encourage an AfD against them, they should simply not be stand-alone articles. If some of them have too much fan-backing despite opposing policies and guidelines, then that's too bad for both wikipedia and the article (which often stays in a poor state after the AfD). I believe that it is much better to have fewer articles that are all well written and with great sources, than having dozens of unmanageable articles that are flooded with guideline/policy breaches. Unfortunately, many fans prefer quantity over quality, but I don't know why. All I can do is try to let my arguments and contributions speak for themselves. – sgeureka ^t•c 00:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Spoo violates just about every policy or guideline you could care to mention. It's sourced from usenet, it's packed with original research and it's written from a fan's point of view. Isola is just a stub, there's a limit to how bad it can be.

Your hand-wringing over the fans is not encouraging. Oh well, we can't get Adam Mitchell deleted, let's go and delete something we've never heard of instead, it's probably not notable.--Nydas^(Talk) 09:21, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Enough people at FAC once thought that Spoo was inline with existing guidelines and policies (and FAC can be torture). Recent attempts to degrade its article status were unsuccessful (unfortunately) because significent amounts of people still believe it meets all guidelines. I am not saying that Spoo deserves its own article (I think it doesn't), but I say its better written and better sourced than Isola (which has no sources or other secondary information), and that more people (not necessarily me) are willing to look the other way in this light. And it is not my intention to "hand-wring[] over the fans", as I as a big fan of fiction won't battle with myself. But this is an encyclopedia, so all there is is "hand-wringing over encyclopedic content". If an article doesn't have encyclopedic content (read: real-world content) at all after a sufficient time of AGF has passed (and just plot is not considered encyclopedic per WP:NOT#PLOT), the article probably shouldn't exist and may be taken to AfD for community review, as simple as that. – sgeureka ^t•c 11:57, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Spoo doesn't meet any guidelines, the keep votes were just along the lines of 'keep - notable' and 'important within the fandom'. Wikipedia's usefulness is not served by an outcome which will see all fancruft except admin-sanctioned fancruft deleted, along with genuinely notable stubs like Isola. If we can't get our fan admins to see sense, then should we really be targetting 'weak' fiction articles at all? It'll be creating an institutionalised violation of neutral point of view.--Nydas^(Talk) 09:09, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, now I see where you're coming from, and actually agree with what your premise, just not with your conclusion. There have been some recent AfDs of extremely popular games which (surprisingly but justly) resulted in a delete (e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dwarves (Warcraft), followed by Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Playable races in the Warcraft series), and this hopefully sets some kind of accepted precedent. There is also an arbitration case (Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters) that hopefully sheds some light into whether guideline/policy-based cleanup efforts in articles can be reverted back to their guideline/policy-ignoring state. In the worst case, these procedures at least increase awareness of the issue at hand. In the long run, I anticipate en.wiki to grow closer (but never go as far) to de.wiki, which deal with fiction articles this. Anything else prevents wikipedia from maintaining at least some encyclopedic standard. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:16, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

That's the standard line, but I do not see any reason for the fan admins to relent. Warcraft is not a good example, it's not an admin favourite like, say, Doctor Who or Babylon 5 are. I have nominated Adam Mitchell for deletion, let's see what happens.--Nydas^(Talk) 12:21, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

The arbcom case is only about how editors acted when applying these guidelines, and won't be a debate about the guidelines themselves. -- Ned Scott 01:48, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't tell if this was a general comment for interested readers, or a reply to me to "set me straight". :-) If it's the former: true. If it's the latter: I know, and I hopefully didn't imply anything else. – sgeureka ^t•c 02:48, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

It was in general :) -- Ned Scott 06:49, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

(indent)

Sgeureka, your attitude towards AfD is actually counter to policy. AfD is NOT supposed to be used just to get people to clean up an article. Jtrainor (talk) 17:41, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know exactly to which of my statements you refer, or where I gave the impression that this is what I believe, sorry. Dozens of articles (of any kind, also fiction) are AfD'ed every day for failing notability guidelines, and if they still don't abide by it at teh end of the AfD, merging and/or redirecting is a very possible outcome (intro of WP:AFD). If editors want the article to become a separate article again, then they have to give it a proper encyclopedic treatment/expansion. The assumed "cleanup" you speak of is therefore only "true" if you believe that a sub-topic deserves its own article to begin with. (And I think it only does if notability and/or other substantial secondary coverage have been explicitly demonstrated, which is exactly what this guideline already says.) If discussions fail due to too differing opinions, AfD is currently the only other convenient option to determine a consensus to which everybody has to abide. – sgeureka ^t•c 18:33, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Wait a minute, when did we decide that secondary sources were the only criterion for notability? The sub-article provision is dandy, but this seems a bit extreme to me... I mean, fiction tends to be produced by firms that own copyright to the fiction in question, and all contents therein - if the copyright holder possesses all content of the fiction from a legal stance, won't this make usage of reliable secondary sources nearly impossible? I'm all for broadening coverage of fiction from as wide a spectrum as possible, but sometimes that just isn't possible. If our notability criterion no longer includes "real world impact", this is going to get very ugly... MalikCarr (talk) 00:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Secondary sources for notability is in WP:N. And as you mentioned, this is exactly why the bulk of fictional content on WP is not notable by this stance - if the only information about the works are what the fictional work creators/producers provide and fan content, the work is likely not notable in real world. This already is causing a huge impact, which is why we are trying to carefully word the changes to this guideline to direct how fiction articles should be approach and does go against unstated long-standing WP policy --MASEM 01:24, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Hang on now, that doesn't exactly make sense. If you can't find "sales figures" "critical commentary" "cultural significance" and "merchandising" in a published, third party, peer-reviewed source, but said items obviously exist and have been documented, it's not notable? Hogwash. MalikCarr (talk) 22:43, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

To put it bluntly, yes. This is why the bulk of the fictional elements articles on characters, locations, items, etc, as well as individual episodes or volumes of a work are not WP-notable and thus being merged, trimmed, transwikied, or deleted, and why we're trying to carefully allow for subarticles for very rare cases. --MASEM 01:04, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I would say that this is where the "guideline" part comes into play here. There likely are articles that don't have secondary sources, but good quality real world information from primary sources (DVD commentary, "official" guides [do official guides count as primary?], etc) that we will generally tolerate, depending on the content. However, for general situations, we should be aiming for secondary sources to mine our real-world content. -- Ned Scott 04:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Well that's not so much of an issue - I could demonstrate real world impact of fiction <X> by citing merchandising <A>, < B> and <C>, article in magazine <D>, video games by other publishers <E> and <F>, and appearances in unrelated fiction (as tribute or homage, whatever) <G>, but if this information isn't available in a reliable third-party publication, a strict interpretation of guideline would suggest the topic isn't notable regardless. Forgive me for being a pessimist, but while your statements do seem to be perfectly reasonable, I can't help but see this wording being used to slash the perfectly well-sourced articles you speak of (primary and maybe secondary as well, just not published or peer-reviewed) as though they were no better than the wads of unsourced and OR-ridden rubbish that honestly deserve to go just because they're atrocities against grammar and sentence structure (I think you know the ones I'm talking about). It seems like a dangerous precedent to set. MalikCarr (talk) 09:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Secondary sources don't have to be print-published or peer-reviewed, but they do have to meet reliability requirements - personal blogs or self-published forums cannot satisfy secondary sources. That said, in your example, it really depends on how all those sources support the fictional element X. Generally it is the exception that the sources do provide enough to establish notability, and unfortunately I would say most articles on fictional elements on WP are lacking demonstrated notability. However remember that lack of notability alone is not grounds for speedy deletion: if an article is found non-notable, it should be brought to AfD, content merged into larger articles likely about the work of fiction itself, or as we're trying to suggest, list-of articles that are appropriate for summary style writing. --MASEM 15:25, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:V says that reliable sources should appear "in reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Again, the rational editor shouldn't interpret this in the most literal sense (e.g. a reference to a Newtype magazine article as being inadequate because it's a "fan magazine" and thus unreliable), but I can't help but feel that draconian editors, especially the "deletion first" crowd who view the PROD and AfD as their first, best, and only tool to improve articles, are going to use this to their advantage. It just seems like we're making demonstrating the notability of fiction <X> excessively difficult. Maybe this is a backlash for all the garbage fiction articles out there (and let me be the first to say there are quite a few), but this strikes me as being kind of excessive... MalikCarr 03:27, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

That is absurd! A fan magazine is a perfectly acceptable source of reliable information for a game. Outside of The Onion and tabloids that proclaim Bush twins are aliens there are very little widely circulated publications that are purposely deceitful. Reliability on publications should be assumed, just as we assume good faith on our editors here, we should assume they used good faith when looking for sources. This treating of game fans as the enemy is against Wikipedia's guidelines and even further, against what I see as Wikipedia's "spirit", the wish to be a place anyone can contribute. Renmiri (talk) 03:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

BTW, if anyone wants to join my peaceful protest against deletionists, add Template:User fedup to your user page. Renmiri (talk) 03:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Please see the policy about self published sources. If it's an official magazine, then you have nothing to worry about. If it's a self published fan magazine, then it doesn't meet criteria for sourcing. This is why we don't cite fan websites as well.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:59, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Altered WP:PLOT to cover fiction in general

Yesterday I rewrote WP:NOT#PLOT to cover limitations on fiction writing in general, emphasizing the fair use issues that underscore it. Surprisingly, the changes have received little response so far, so I'd like to solicit feedback from those who patrol this page, as the issues addressed here are largely the same. Maybe I'm opening a can of worms, but by the time I mentioned the fair use issues, I figured I might as well point out that they apply to all aspects of our fiction coverage. I hope the paragraph as rewritten summarizes the issue correctly, but let me know at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Delete "plot summaries".

Separately, if the changes there are adopted, we'll have to alter the opening of this guideline to reflect the changed text.--Father Goose (talk) 05:19, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I have changed the quote at the begining of the page to match the new wording. [[Guest9999 22:44, 2 December 2007 (UTC)]]

I see your version there has not been accepted. I think that was the right decision, for it takes an outrageously long plot summary to really exceed fair use; it's usually a minor consideration compared to other factors. DGG (talk) 03:01, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's under discussion on the talk page, and last time I checked it wasn't being rejected. Hiding T 13:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

This deletionism mentality is getting really, well, stupid.

I thought I'd beat a dead horse further by putting this out there. I can see deletionism being used for merging subjects that don't require their own articles and deleting incredibly unnotable things, but the outright purging of tons information is asinine, especially information that is greatly contributed to and well maintained. As I recall, a few of the Naruto "List of jutsu" articles were consistently in the top 100 articles viewed on the entire project and have existed for quite some time, yet they were deleted. The existence of these articles wasn't harming Wikipedia at all and obviously lots of people found them helpful as opposed to generally awful fansites, so why were they deleted? According to logic they shouldn't have been, but due to a mixture of "flexible" Wikipolicies they were deleted anyway. This is only one notable example of many cases where the "Laws of Wikipedia" trample over logic and the userbase for the shared views of a few people. This needs to cease. - 4.154.232.12 (talk) 00:29, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

"Notability" is not the same as "popularity". Mind you, such popular content should be moved to Wikias before being deleted, but if the topic is non-notable by WP's standards, it should not have an article here. --MASEM 00:38, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Why not ? Notability means importance to people. So does popularity. The poster above is quite right, this deletionism is ruining Wikipedia as a source for new media, which BTW consists the bulk of Wikipedia hits. You guys are trying to make a new media vehicle into a dusty moldy book. Renmiri (talk) 03:35, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

If we used "popularity" or "importance" as a guideline for article inclusion, it would be very difficult to apply appropriate reliable secondary sources needed by verification. Requiring demonstration via reliable sources sets a bar for inclusion that is better than "Well, I think this should be in WP". --MASEM 04:08, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Ironically, the verifiability issue is exactly what's wrong with all these new Wikias being created. WP standards and passionate, elitist fan ediors is what kept all this "non-notable information" reliable and well kept, without them the information is nothing but typos, useless junk and fan bias. Have you been to the Naruto Wikia? Honestly it's godawful and useless for looking indepth into anything, and now that these aforementioned "List of Jutsu" articles are deleted a lot of other Wikipedia sections and articles on the subject make no sense. Someone (in)advertantly ruined any hopes of well written internet content on this series for no reason.

Admittedly, the aforementioned Jutsu articles were quite long and didn't require a list of every single attack in the series, but they could have been trimmed dramatically and kept for the betterment of the rest of the Naruto articles. Another similar issue is the deletion of the "Tales of the Abyss terms"(Or something similar to that) article. It was a small article that defined a lot of the convoluted, in-universe terms in the game so the other related articles could be understood better, it was deleted for being "game guide" content despite not having anything to do with progressing through the game. I fear for the day when other "glossary of terms" articles for more complicated subjects are deleted . - The Norse (talk) 23:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

History of this guideline

I'm always amazed when I see people citing 'WP:FICT' as a reason for deletion of articles on characters or railing against efforts to 'change' it to support keeping articles on major fictional characters and/or lists of minor ones. This guideline was created based on the consensus at Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Minor characters that major characters should be covered in the article on the story they appear in or their own article, and minor characters should be covered in a list article. Indeed, a summary was copied from that discussion to form the starting point for this guideline. There have been efforts to redefine and adjust things back and forth ever since, but nobody is trying to 'change' this guideline to allow lists of minor characters and the like... it was created specifically to validate the existence of such in Wikipedia. --CBD 15:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

For the record, the longstanding consensus above remained active on this page until it was re-written in August. The page has been continuously disputed and edit-warred over ever since. --CBD 15:58, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

That deletion policy discussion was held back in 2005; since then, around May of 2007, the general notability guidelines (which this must be a subset of) have since changed to require significant coverage in secondary sources as the measure of notability (see about this edit for when that langauge was introduced) The edits on this page have been to try to allow for the concept of major character lists that likely will never meet that notability guideline on their own (though editors are encouraged to still do so) as being sub-articles of the work of fiction itself. However, this cannot extend to single character pages that are only discussed in in-universe style, or lists of minor characters. This is a further extension of WP is not to be used for excessive plot details which many of the latter two articles qualify as. --MASEM 16:08, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, there have been efforts to change the notability standards... but I think you are wrong to treat those as 'settled decisions which this guideline must conform to'. We've seen plenty of AfDs where people disagree with the new standards... that demonstrates a lack of consensus support for them. The consensus that lists of minor characters from fiction are notable enough for inclusion may not be the 100% it was in that 2005 discussion, but it is still a strongly held view by a significant portion of the community. There has been no demonstrated consensus to the contrary, and indeed several instances where this consensus has been re-affirmed. --CBD 16:24, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

The consensus on the new notability guidelines can be found starting around here in the archived discussion for WP:N. Yes, I know that not *this* guidelines page, but we cannot supercede what was determined over there. Once that guideline was established, that basically meant that any character of list of character page without demonstratable sources for notability should be merged, moved, or deleted. Not WP:FICT's decision. The edits here since that point have been to first make this guideline in line with WP:N (that is not by consensus, that's a requirement), and then to try to help migrate as much of the existing fictional pages into where they appropriate: either give them notability, move them to a transwiki, or in the very careful case, allow them to exist as a sub-article per summary style guidelines (and which is where we have appeared to reach a consensus though other factors are still in play). In general, this means that single character pages or list of character pages are generally non-notable. Remember, when people cite WP:FICT they are indirectly citing WP:N, and that's the guideline that is behind non-notable pages. If you feel that WP:N is too restrictive, you should really take it up there.

(I should point out that a new fair-use issue is also being bubbled up through some pages, in that published works that cite, solely, in-universe details without critical commentary or analysis have been subject to, and lost, lawsuits on copyvios. This issue is still in question, but it gives much more weight to fictional character pages that include appropriate details to satisfy WP:N instead of those that are strictly in-universe.) --MASEM 16:55, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

It's been done before, and although I know there are many reasons not to, is there perhaps an option here to poll the community one way or the pother as to whether WP:N and sub-pages have consensus? Just to get the matter settled one way or the other for the here and now? Would all sides agree that it may be best to get some sort of idea as to the strength of the consensus through a widely advertised poll? Hiding T 17:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Note the prior precedence with the polls at Wikipedia:Poképrosal/Poll and Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal. Hiding T 17:38, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Again, I can't agree with your claim that a perceived consensus that "list of character pages are generally non-notable" at WP:N trumps the longstanding consensus here that they generally are notable enough for inclusion. 'Geography' of where a consensus discussion takes place is irrelevant. All that matters is what the community as a whole agrees upon. Either there IS consensus for something or there isn't... and this looks very much like the latter. Ultimately, trying to push through something for which there isn't consensus based on claims of 'more important consensus over there' is always going to be pointless. People disagree... and they 'vote down' Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Spoo anyway, no matter how loudly you proclaim that there is 'consensus' that they shouldn't. Because there isn't any such consensus. Hiding's suggestion of a widespread vote / discussion might be worthwhile, but in general I'd hope that we could see that 'things alot of people strongly disagree with' do not have 'consensus' without need of any such poll. --CBD 18:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

It should be clear that there has never been a consensus/vote on "list of characters"; the consensus I pointed to was for notability being defined as by coverage in secondary sources. Now, it would seem to me that by common sense that a list of characters that lack any references or real-world discussion and not written in the approach of being a sub-article thus lacks significant coverage in secondary sources, and therefore is non-notable; to say otherwise trumps WP:N which is not appropriate. I'm certainly not saying that one can't take a consensus on this specific issue of character lists being notable, but remember, majority is not the same as consensus - I would be in denial to say that a straight-up vote would not favor character lists, but the results are based on the admins closing it and their evaluation of the arguments presented. --MASEM 20:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

You know, I'll have more respect for this line of thinking when List of Shakespearean characters: A-K is nominated for deletion because of lack of notability. Note the lack of secondary sources? Notability guidance tells us an article is worthy of note if a consensus of Wikipedians feels it is, but closing admins often skip that part. It's also funny how majority is never the same as consensus except when we think it is? I mean, if it is a minority view that WP:N is a guideline, and further, if it's a minority view that WP:N holds sway in a deletion debate over actual policy, at what point has corruption set in if an admin closes in favour of a minority position held by a minority of editors. We already have templates which allow stacking of a debate. It has really just become a farce. At some point someone has to see the flaw in asserting that even though more people disagree with WP:N as representing a consensus, their opinions are discounted as not knowing what they are talking about. Sorry if this comes across overly strong, it is just starting to become really frustrating. As someone who helped craft a lot of notability guidance, it appears I had a whole different idea of what the goal was to everyone else. Hoist by my own petard. Hiding T 20:37, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh come on, that list you cited has vast potential of being a very well written article with scholarly citations from the vast works of people who have written about Shakespeare, so you may want to avoid an example that so clearly vindicates current policy while trying to criticize it. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 19:01, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

And here's the nub. It really is a we like it decision. Either this guidance is flawed because it states that List of Shakespearean characters: A-K should be deleted, or both myself and Judgesurreal are wrong in believing a consensus of wikipedians would close any deletion debate on the list as speedy keep. This guidance has become too prescriptive, because people want to use it to bash articles they don't like. Instead of doing that, trust the wiki process. I've argued for a long time that we should set up a fiction noticeboard to allow editors from both sides a chance to work together and reach a consensus. Consensus isn't about one side shouting louder than the other, or trimming away at a guideline until it has altered beyond use, meaning and repair.[2] Hiding T 22:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

List of Shakespearean characters: A-K has obvious potential to pass WP:FICT, so that really is a bad example. -- Ned Scott 23:00, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hiding, I think you didn't get the point. There must be shelves of secondary (and out-of-universe) literature about Skakespeare's plays, written throughout the centuries. So many secondary sources in fact that an AfD would be closed immediately. Still we manage to treat these characters in only two lists! On the other hand, I've come across quite a lot of articles on characters in comics, novels, video games, without even the slightest hint to any secondary sources existing. All those articles did was re-telling the plot of the fictional works. They fail WP:N, therefore. Now is this a "we like it" argument, as you state? For me, it's at least an attempt to get somehere near a neutral standard. --B. Wolterding (talk) 23:05, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

No, I get the point. It's my point. The point is that a consensus of Wikipedians decide what gets kept and what gets deleted at afd, not this page. What is all this talk of failing a page? When did consensus get determined by referring to a page that has been edited away from common practise rather than the consensus of Wikipedians? When did one group of editors get to enforce their view over others in complete disregard of a policy, WP:CONSENSUS? When did guidance trump policy? Who decided it was secondary sources? Yes it's an I lik it argument. Just because you've built a page which lists your favoured conditions, it doesn't mean you've moved the debate away from I like it. All you're saying is "I like my articles to contain references to secondary sources. Oh, but not those secondary sources, more reliable ones. No really reliable, and there have to be lots of them, and other encyclopedias have to have subjects of this sort and...". It's I LIKE IT. Chicken with gravy on top is still chicken. Hiding T 23:16, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

totally disputed?

I see no consensus at all for the recent changes here. i propose one of four courses:

1. . Mark it as rejected
2. . Add a totally disputed tag to the guideline
3. . Restore it to the earlier state
4. .Quickly improve it to reflect consensus.

Normally, I'd say 4 is the best course, if we could do it. I am about to make minimum changes that I think necessary. Perhaps they can be accepted as a starting point. and others can fix up the remaining disputed details.If not, I will look for an earlier version that did have some sort of consensus. If I can't find one, I will go to 2. If we cant settle the dispute, it will have to be #1, for a guideline must have consensus. . DGG (talk) 21:02, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I hope you're not claiming that because you have witnessed a very small part of Wikipedia (fans of fiction uninterested in encyclopedic improvement) complain about this that there is somehow a lack of consensus. A comparable number of people also complain about the general notability guideline; should we mark that as rejected also? TTN (talk) 21:07, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

But that's the root of the problem. Trying to decide what sort of encyclopedia Wikipedia is. Is it a more up to date Brittannica, or is it something else. For most people, it's somewhere between not paper and not an indiscriminate collection of information'. We need to consensually agree on a definition, not stamp a definition onto people who disagree. I think that's in spirit with both m:Foundation issues and User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles. What is encyclopedic improvement? Who gets to decide. Why can't the opinions of fans be considered? Is it better to present as much information as we can in an encyclopedic manner, or to limit the information which can be presented to within certain constraints? Are we here to inform and educate, or are we here to declare what can and can't be learnt? Those are the underlying issues facing us, and I think we should all be honest and accept that. This isn't about enforcing our personal view of Wikipedia, it is about learning to accept other people's views and find a compromise we can agree on. Wikipedia belongs to everyone. This isn't about only x is of value, this is about people might like to know x, what#s the best way of telling them. Hiding T 21:22, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a tertiary source that mainly relies on secondary information. This is reflected in most other polices and guidelines. Most fans are not interested in that, so their opinions are irrelevant. That is the reason that Wikia and other sites exist. TTN (talk) 21:28, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your first two sentences, but find your second two objectionable. I can't quite agree that we get to dismiss the opinions of people with whom we disagree. Most fans are interested in using secondary sources. They also believe that we can be broad in using primary source to expand our coverage for greater clarity. Hiding T 21:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

We're talking about the people that dispute this guideline, not anyone that is a fan of fiction, which would include myself and many other people here. If they are only interested in having ungodly amounts of plot information, then what do they have to contribute to a discussion? That kind of information belongs on Wikia. TTN (talk) 21:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather allow people who dispute this guideline to speak for themselves and engage with them than accept your characterisation of their opinions, with all due respect. I dispute this guideline, and I also dispute your characterisation of me. I have no interest in ungodly amounts of plot, I have argued strongly against it to the point of adding a section to WP:NOT specifically relating to plot. However, I am also of the opinion that this guidance is deeply flawed when it is used to justify the deletion of articles split from larger ones, or enforce the merge of an article back to a parent from which it was split for space considerations, or to drive people away from Wikipedia. Hiding T 22:03, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

If they want to actually discuss like this instead of "yelling" and crap, then they are free to do so. I said "most fans", so there are obviously exceptions. If articles are removed, then they have no reliable sources and there is no strong assertion for them existing. If they do not exist, the articles are only plot and OR, so of course they're going to be merged or deleted. If you're saying that plot only articles are fine, you're going to need to change WP:N before this one. TTN (talk) 22:33, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure you read me correctly. I stated above that I have no interest in ungodly amounts of plot, I have argued strongly against it to the point of adding a section to WP:NOT specifically relating to plot. I disagree that articles on subtopics of fictional works have to be plot regurgitations, and I disagree that articles are removed for having no reliable sources. Typically these articles are removed based on I don't like it or I'm not sure it should exist. I'd rather not characterise the opinions of people I disagree with in such a manner. I'd just rather look to build a consensus, based upon all sides conceding ground. Hiding T 22:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

As I said, there are exceptions to my description. If there are no reliable sources, everything has to do with the plot. Personality sections, descriptions of the characters, and all that come directly from the plot, so they are no better than it (and also, they are mostly original research). Anyways, I cannot speak for others, but the reason that I have redirected upwards of five thousand articles is because they do not meet our standards, not because I do not like them. Though, I would say that is the same kind of bad generalization that you're accusing me of. TTN (talk) 22:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

You see, where you state you have redirected because articles do not meet our standards, I would say that that is doing it because you are not sure they should exist. But you are right, I should avoid generalisations. I am sorry, I had not meant to caricature you in such a way, and I did not want to drag your own conduct into it. That's being dealt with elsewhere and is not my concern. I believe you did what you did because you thought it was the right thing to do. I simply also believe that Wikipedia is a collaboration, and that means we have to listen to other people even when we disagree with them and we have to agree a way forwards together. I think we need to respect as many opinions as is possible in building our guidance, this one included. As long as we maintain a NPOV, the rest we can work out a consensus on. Hiding T 22:52, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by "you are not sure they should exist"? Most articles on fiction are purely plot info and trivia. They do not assert notability, and they do not show any sort of promise for the future. As they are only redirected, they can be brought back when sources become available. That is the best way to deal with them. It's not because I'm weary about their necessity. Anyways, you forget that a good chunk of these people have no interest in discussing. They want everything covered here and that is it. That is another reason for them to be ignored. TTN (talk) 23:00, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

The definition of notability (WP's inclusion policy for topics) is based on making sure that WP meets its goals of being a verified, reliable source of information. To do that, topics must have coverage in secondary topics. This is what determines what should be included and what should not be. This is why notability in WP's sense is not the same as importance, popularity, or the like; it is a much more defined measuring stick and thus reduces questionable inclusions.

Remember, at the same time, we are encouraging people to transwiki their materials to Wikia, where there's none of these issues on what can be included or not. We provide those includes in the relevant works so they can still go and learn more about that topic beyond what an encyclopedic treatment can provide. --MASEM 21:31, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

You don't need to tell me what our notability guidance is supposed to do. However, it is anything but objective, as detailed at WP:NOPE. The definition of notability was drafted so that new editors would have some guidance as to what to consider when creating an article. It was for fresh concepts, for new articles. It was not intended to limit the splitting of articles, to stem the natural branching of knowledge. It was never intended to state that only sections of an article with huge tracts of coverage in secondary sources should be split off; it was intended to state that we are an encyclopedia. As to what decides inclusion in Wikipedia, that is a consensus of Wikipedians, nothing more and nothing less. That's a foundation principle. Closing against a consensus based on a particular intepretation of policy or guidance is gaming the system. Wikipedia was founded on doing the right thing. It wasn't founded on operating a closed shop. Hiding T 21:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I had to revert this change:

For articles about fictional concepts, reliable secondary sources can be discussions of the work, plot, setting, or and characters in an academic or popular context-- this discussion, occurring in the real world, is "real-world context." It can also include secondary works that cover information such as sales figures, critical and popular reception, development, cultural impact, and merchandise; this information describes the real-world aspects of the concept, so it is real-world content. such reliable sources for these are those appropriate for the material being discussed. They will always include books, magazines, video programs, and other published media. They can also include appropriate internet discussion media, to the extent that they are accepted for the subject. The actual plot and characters and background of the fiction can be described from the fiction itself, documented to the extent necessary for clarity.

This statement supersedes both verification and original research by changing the definition of secondary sources which does not allow for most of those aspects.

If you really believe this guideline is disputed, place a disputed guideline on it. There has been concensus of the past editors of this page to the current version, but yes, that not necessarily is Wiki-wide. However, I strongly recommend not rewriting the guidelines until more discussion has taken place. --MASEM 21:18, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• Can you explain how it violates WP:V and WP:OR please. It's long been held that internet discussion media is a suitable source for certain things, with a very narrow definition of certain things. Hiding T 21:24, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• Internet forums are self-published, and therefore neither reliable (how do we know who is posting what?) and non-verifiable. They can be used as primary sources on top of secondary sources, but cannot be used for the sole support of a fact. --MASEM 21:31, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• That's not established policy. Have a read of WP:V, both the section on Self-published sources (online and paper) and the section on Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves. I was involved in a lot of the discussion regarding drafting those sections, and what you state does not represent the consensus that emerged. We can use a self-published source to support a fact. We have a featured article which does so. Hiding T 21:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Hiding is right here--the current guideline certainly accepts primary sourcs. and certainly in some cases accepts internet forums. There was consensus there. They are widely used for appropriate articles, and accepted at AfD--when appropriate. If you wish to challenge this consensus , do so, and we can mark those guidelines also as disputed. DGG (talk) 21:45, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• The second section you mention can never apply to fictional works (fictional characters cannot write about themselves). On the other hand, while it is true that the first section you mention allows for some self-published sources:

Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.

(bold mine) means that all those USENET posts by JMS about Babylon 5 can be used to support fictional elements of Babylon 5, but a regular fan's post that describes an element cannot be used, as a fan (except in very rare extreme cases) cannot be considered an established expert on the topic. --MASEM 21:47, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

If you wish to assert that the author of a fictional work is not in some sense the work itself, then I respectfully disagree and state that of course the second section applies to fictional topics. As to your regular fan's posts, you already indicate that there are cases where they can be used, so I see no value in arguing any further since we both agree. Hiding T 21:56, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

JMS is the creator of Babylon 5. He is not a fan. --MASEM 21:58, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Could you explain the relevance of this comment. Hiding T 22:04, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I may have misinterpreted what you stated (I thought you had referred to the example I gave as being a fan, my mistake). However, I do not agree that we agree that a fan's post can be used arbitrarily; I agree they can be used but the case is extremely rare. If a fan's post is to be used, it has to be readily acknowledged and very obvious to people outside of that community that what that fan says is as good as coming from a creator or equivalent (I know there's such as person for Doctor Who, but that's the only example I've ever heard of). The vast majority of fans are not at this level of reliability, and thus the bulk of fan-created materials, even if its accurate and broad in coverage, cannot be used because the source is not reliable. --MASEM 22:12, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, we already agree that the opinion of fans can be used, so I can't see any value in arguing the toss that they can't. Seems redundant. Hiding T 22:17, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I doubt that informal jokey forum posts from, say, the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender would be 'allowed' as canonical sources. Babylon 5 gets special treatment because we have a lot of B5 fans (including quite a few admins).--Nydas^(Talk) 22:37, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather save discussions on specific sources to deletion debates on the specific articles. That's their proper context and rightful place of examination, not here. Here is supposed to be a guide on rough areas of what to do and what to look for, not attempts to wiki-lawyer a tight and rigid straight-jacket of a policy which allows no room for people to think and engage and discuss and reach a consensus. AFD is a forum for debating an articles inclusion. This talk page and the guidance it discusses is for something different. As I have said before, it is redundant to argue over minor clauses relating to points on which we already agree. Hiding T 22:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

The B5 thing is indicative of a larger systemic bias. I'd prefer a guideline which either has little wiggle room or lots of it, otherwise the end result will be unbalanced coverage of things important to Wikipedians.--Nydas^(Talk) 10:15, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I am glad for the agreement that at least we must consider sources on their own merits. (But it doesnt have to come from a creator--just from a responsible critic accepted as such by the community, whose views could be published more conventionally if the field were one discussed in conventional publication.--I think that's the sort of "fan" you have in mind. ) Nobody is proposing accepting the contents of everything in every open forum as reliable .DGG (talk) 22:19, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with DGG here. What disappoints me most is the fact that article content and scope and potential is tossed aside in relation to this guidance. It is treated by some on Wikipedia as being an inviolate policy, when it is at best a loose guide. Articles should be evaluated on their own terms. A deletion debate should examine the article, not the guidance, and it should determine what the article is discussing, how it is presenting its information and where it is getting its information from. Our own opinion of whether Wikipedia should cover a topic should not influence the debate, which is what WP:N and sub-pages allows. Hiding T 22:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Hiding, you're right--it should be presented as a guideline giving alternatives, not as a guide to AfD debates. I should have done it that way, too. That's the way other guidelines are done. then the AfDs consider the applicability. But we still need to agree on the alternatives. DGG (talk) 22:30, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Alternatives

Here's how the guidance read in early August[3]:

Articles that do not show notability can be kept for a short time, merged, moved elsewhere, or deleted.

• The article can be kept if an obvious potential for notability (i.e. an availability of real-world content from reliable sources) is shown, or such information is added to the article. If this obviousness is challenged, the sources should be shown or included.
• Parts can be merged to a notable article to provide better context. If material is merged, the article is not deleted per the GFDL. In-universe information should be condensed and removed as necessary, and meaningful real-world content should not be deleted. If the article becomes too long and a split would create a sub-article that does not establish its own notability, then the content should be trimmed.
• The article is transwikied to a suitable Wiki (such as Wikia or its Wikipedia Annex) if the above options are unavailable. The article is then redirected to the most relevant article to preserve edit history for the transwiki.
• The article can be deleted only if the above options are either redundant or unavailable.

Articles that have potential to show notability should be given reasonable time to develop. To avoid this problem, do not split or create content unless the new article includes substantial real-world content (and ideally an out-of-universe perspective) from the onset. Editors must prove that there is an availability of sources covering real-world information by: providing hyperlinks to sources detailing real-world information about the topic; outlining a rewrite, expansion, or merge plan; and/or gaining the consensus of established editors. Otherwise, the article will be subject to the options mentioned above. Place appropriate clean-up tags to stimulate activity and mark the articles as sub-par (but with potential).

Articles that are too small or narrow in scope — even if they are notable — should be merged into a larger article to avoid disorganization and a potential overload of plot summary.

• How does that grab people? Hiding T 22:47, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• How is that any different than the current wording? TTN (talk) 22:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• Compare the first sentence in each version:

Articles that do not show notability can be kept for a short time, merged, moved elsewhere, or deleted. against Deletion discussions for articles that do not provide evidence of the notability of their subject should be guided by the following principles. Can you not see the difference in approach, tone and paths being offered? Why is it a foregone conclusion an article will end up at AFD? Hiding T 22:55, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• If that's your main issue, how about we change it to "Merge and deletion discussions for articles..." and update the rest accordingly? Any that would be kept for a short time would fall under ones with an asserted potential for sources, so those would fit in the above section. TTN (talk) 23:13, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I really like the wording, and the guide aspect of it, as it directs people in plain english on what to do with notability issues, such as finding out of universe references and things. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 18:12, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I support any rewording that makes it clearer that deletion is not the only option. In the proposed old/new rewordings, it also becomes clear that the guideline/recommendation for "Non-notable topics" applies to merge discussions also, in the hope that AfD can be avoided after all. – sgeureka ^t•c 22:00, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

• Hiding, are you saying that my original July rewrite was a better approach? If so, I agree. — Deckiller 04:44, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Core of the argument

Based on what is above and thinking about it for a time, I think we're on a somewhat common page on what we're trying to achieve, it seems to me that it's more the issue that this page is cited chapter and verse in AfD discussions without considering other options, or that people immediately jump to move an article to AfD without giving the editors time to try to improve notability via discussion/template addition. The old version that is currently up, I'd argue, says pretty much what we were trying to say, but less prescriptively ("you should do this" instead of "you must do this"). By both versions, a list of minor characters that lack demonstrated notability still must be "dealt with" (merge, transwiki, or deleted), so there's no change in the requirements. --MASEM 23:33, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• I disagree with the assertion that a list of minor characters that lack demonstrated notability still must be "dealt with" (merge, transwiki, or deleted). Until List of Shakespearean characters: A-K, sourced entirely from primary sources is deleted, I think we all have to agree that it is not the case that a list of minor characters that lack demonstrated notability still must be "dealt with" (merge, transwiki, or deleted). Hiding T 23:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• How about List of Rookie Digimon (Part 1) (AfD)? Or the other 18 Digimon lists? (if anyone is wondering, they all now have a new home on Digimon Wiki). -- Ned Scott 23:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
• I may not agree with how the Shakespeare article is grouping characters, but I'm pretty sure that one can find plenty of secondary sources to describe a large number of the characters from Shakespeare works. There's a resumable presumption of notability with that simply from the scholarship level of Shakespeare works. The same can't be said of many modern anime works, but I do agree this doesn't mean you slap an AfD on it without persuing other approaches first. --MASEM 23:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

The current version highly discourages using AfD, and encourages alternative outlets... -- Ned Scott 23:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Disagree entirely. It is quite heavily slanted towards deletion as shown in the section preceding this one. Hiding T 23:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I got my wires crossed and was thinking of WP:EPISODE, which does say to avoid AfD. My bad. -- Ned Scott 05:33, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Had my wires crossed again. As Deckiller points out in another part of this discussion, it does specifically discourage article deletion. However, I would not mind emphasizing on that. -- Ned Scott 23:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

tagged as "proposed"

As "disputed" refers only to mainspace, i have used the tag "proposed" following the suggestion of MASEM. I know he;d rather that his view on what it should be would be the accepted one, but it isnt, any more than it seems mine its.

I will develop mine further on a subpage.

And I invite anyone who thinks possible to prepare a minimal guideline that we can all agree on temporarily, to try and do so. It will have to omit the disputed points, of course. The proposed one as desired by MASEM and supporters can then become a subpage. DGG (talk) 22:27, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:FICT is our inclusion criteria for when sub-topics of a work of fiction should be split into a sub-article. If people want to argue about how other people abuse it in AfD, that's one thing, but I'm getting a little tired of people going after the guideline for things it does not promote. -- Ned Scott 23:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm tired of people stating this page does not advocate deletion for articles that do not provide evidence of notability' when it quite specifically does. Deletion discussions for articles that do not provide evidence of the notability of their subject should be guided by the following principles. There are no alternatives to nominating for deletion listed. This page guides that an article which does not provide evidence of significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject should be listed for deletion automatically. Hiding T 23:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

If you want to change some wording, go ahead, but the point of it all is to encourage real-world information. Real world information is not normally found in the fiction itself. -- Ned Scott 23:51, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I thought that was what the manual of style at WP:WAF was for. Do we need two pages doing the same thing? Hiding T 23:54, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

This is the inclusion criteria for articles themselves, rather than the recommended writing style. Yes, it overlaps in many areas, but the point is that the existence, or even just the potential of real world information is needed before making another article. -- Ned Scott 23:56, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

That being said, a single page might be feasible, or some other kind of reorganization, an idea that has been tossed around here from time to time. -- Ned Scott 05:34, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Um..."The article is deleted if the above options are either redundant, unavailable, or inappropriate. To avoid inefficiency, editors should only nominate articles that clearly fall into this category.[7]". That's actually nicer than the other notability criteria. Also, most of this page deals with "alternatives to nominating for deletion"—take a look at the "dealing with fiction" and "relocating..." sections. — Deckiller 19:53, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at how the section on non-notable topics begins. Don't read any further because you've already been told to go to afd and list it. The whole section is slanted towards deletion or listing of the article. Note how prescriptive this guidance is, dictating the only reason why an article can be kept at afd, something which conflicts with WP:CONSENSUS and WP:DP. That's far too aggressive a description of when articles are kept, too. this coverage is explicitly referenced in the deletion discussion. That's just nonsense. It's long standing practise that if a consensus of Wikipedians believe that the sources exist, that is enough. There doesn't have to be explicit referencing, there just has to be enough people stating their belief that sources can be found. That's because Wikipedia has no deadline, and the idea is that we grow articles from small seeds. We don't always expect them to be planted as mighty oaks. This guidance conflicts with common practise and policy and needs rewriting to better fit both. Hiding T 20:08, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

And it seems people are still forgetting the wording that does allow for those extra character articles, when they are necessary: "Sub-articles are sometimes born for technical reasons of length or style. Even these articles need real-world information to prove their notability, but must rely on the parent article to provide some of this background material (due to said technical reasons).[3] In these situations, the sub-article should be viewed as an extension of the parent article, and judged as if it were still a section of that article. Such sub-articles should clearly identify themselves as fictional elements of the parent work within the lead section, and editors should provide as much real-world content as possible." -- Ned Scott 23:56, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

that's the wording with which I started. Let's now think of a way to say that they are a preferable way of dealing with groups of minor characters--one page for all of them, as paragraphs. Then we can go on to say its the preferable way of dealing with plot elements. Not just acceptable for technical reason, but preferable if the article is at all complicated or the work of fiction important. If we get that far, we can keep going on the other mary disputed points. I think some of them are even more critical, but lets start somewhere. DGG (talk) 02:19, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

It's still a technical or style reason, though. In theory, we could make just one large article, but we don't prefer one massive article, and there are cases when a character or element is shared by more than one work, etc. As TTN said, it sounds like you want improved wording, rather than disputing the guideline itself, which I am all for. -- Ned Scott 05:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

This "dispute" has been concocted by users who do not wish Wikipedia to have encyclopedic standards and want article kept no matter how bad they are, and the fact that several users disputing the policy on this page have recently fought "tooth and nail" to keep articles in blatant violation of both WP:FICTION and WP:WAF indicates that the efforts to dilute the standards should be strongly discouraged. This is not a fan encyclopedia or a gameguide, and fictional things need to have actual roots in real life, otherwise there is zero quality control, and Wikipedia will be as bad as people already contend it is. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 18:40, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand you. Could you clarify as to whether you are including me in that statement. As an editor who has created and helped draft a number of notability guides, the WP:PLOT section of WP:NOT and relevant sections of WP:V, but who also disputes this guidance as it stands, I completely reject your baseless attempt to colour the debate in this manner and your false accusations and attempts to impugn my character. Rather than attempt to derail this debate with such dismissive tones towards your fellow editors, would it not be better to actually follow WP:CONSENSUS and engage with the issues at hand. Note that consensus can only work among reasonable editors who make a good faith effort to work together to accurately and appropriately describe the different views on the subject. At the minute I would ask all editors engaged in reaching a consensus to disregard your statement, which obviously isn't in keeping with our policy. Hiding T 19:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Woah woah, very sorry if I wasn't clear, I was referring to DGG, since I feel that as he could not prevent the deletion of many Elder Scrolls related articles, he instead came here and tagged the whole fiction policy as disputed, which angered me. I simply am here to put in my thoughts, which are that the policy should not be loosened to include articles with no coverage other than plot recitation, because it reduces our encyclopedias quality. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 14:33, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Is that what this is all about? -- Ned Scott 04:23, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Nope. Not on my part, and I resent the implication. Although a trawl through User:Judgesurreal777's contribs suggest he also has a position to protect. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Hiding T 15:48, 11 December 2007 (UTC) Stricken, that came out snide and is irrelevant. Apologies. Hiding T 15:50, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Ahem

It would seem that the problems here (once again) stem from people who try to write guidelines that don't reflect how Wikipedia works, but reflect how they would LIKE Wikipedia to work. You'll find that the former approach leads to stable guidelines (like this one used to be) and the latter leads to repetitive arguments. >Radiant< 20:01, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

With that logic we wouldn't need any guidelines for notability, or anything, for that matter. It is because these articles have become such a problem that such guidelines have come to exist.

The other flaw in your logic is that you are assuming people here really are disputing the guideline itself. Again and again, I only see people nitpicking at a few words, and no one disputing the spirit of the guideline. The guideline itself has a section made to protect lists of characters and other such typical sub-articles that don't always include real-world information, but are a key part to understanding other articles on the topic. -- Ned Scott 23:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are so angry about, but what you accuse me of has nothing at all to do with what I just wrote. >Radiant< 11:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't angry.. From your "once again" comment I assumed you were referring to the last time you wanted us to re-evaluate the consensus here. -- Ned Scott 04:21, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Excuse a little irony here, but with the same arguments we could reject e.g. WP:NOT#PLOT: As a matter of fact, Wikipedia is a collection of plot summaries - just that it shouldn't be. So, drop that section from the policy? --B. Wolterding (talk) 23:16, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

That depends on whether those are the exception or the rule, and what happens to such summaries once regular editors notice them. >Radiant< 11:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Exceptions of the rule - well, I don't have precise statistics, but when I find one of these plot summary articles, I can usually spot a dozen or a even a hundred of similar articles within less than a minute, so they can't be so exceptional... and my suspicion is that, once a regular editor sees them, he usually ignores them since cleanup seems rather hopeless, both for the sheer volume and for expected resistance by "fans". (E.g. there are some very sad examples of attempts to clean up TV episodes.) What we need, in my opinion, is a clear description of the target - not of the current state (which is rather poor when it comes to articles about fiction). --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Tag wars don't help

What's the point of warring over the tag. Either there is a dispute or there isn't. Trying to define what a dispute is is just beyond belief. Can people please have a look at WP:CONSENSUS and edit within that context, rather than simply disrupting. Solve the issues with the page rather than fight over a tag. Hiding T 22:22, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite

Okay, I pulled huge tracts of text from WP:SS, WP:DP and WP:N to better establish what I think is common practise on Wikipedia at the present. The truth of the matter from where I'm standing is that we don't really have hard rules on what we keep and what we don't. It's all down to the vagaries of afd on any given day, in all honesty, and really that's the way it should be. Consensus can change, and it should be allowed to change, and we shouldn't seek to straitjacket it. Please edit the text, please amend it and hammer it and adjust it and tweak it and work out what to whittle and what to keep. Please don't revert it away though. Let's get to a consensus through respectfully editing our way there in small steps, not giant leaps. If we can. Nobody wants articles which simply regurgitate plot, but to the left of that is a huge field in which we don't have to plant a flag so much as mark out rough boundaries in which to respectfully agree to disagree and let consensus emerge the best way it can. Through discussion and editing. Hiding T 00:03, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)/proposed-12-9-07. -- Ned Scott 00:14, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Excellent, though perhaps a little bit too much of "sources are the holy grail of Wikipedia" shouting and too little "there's some editorial judgement" for my taste. Can you include a reference to consensus or exceptions to the rule somewhere, preferably in the first section? Something like "Note that lack of sources does not exclude any notability at all, just as the availability of sources is not 100% conclusive evidence of its notability" - but then better written. User:Krator (t c) 20:37, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

The point isn't as much about sources as much as it is about the existence of real-world information. If you have real-world information, you have a source for it. -- Ned Scott 05:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the current proposal drowns out the main issues of why we have WP:FICT in the first place. It's not that I disagree, but the focus is lost, and even text unrelated to this dispute has been removed.

From what I understand there are two parts that are "in dispute". One is about the secondary sources having to be independent. I can see softening this point as long as we still emphasize real-world information. We're so desperate for real world information that we're often forgiving when the bulk of it comes from DVD commentary and production notes. It's also not as much of an issue considering most of these articles are not actually independent from their parent in the first place. It will make little difference for the really problematic articles.

The other part is to further advocate other alternatives over deletion. I totally agree with this, but we must be careful to not encourage people to simply game the system, and such advice might need it's own page altogether since there's so much of it. (I've been wanting to write one for transwiking, since the current information we have really isn't useful.) This seems more of an organizational issue, rather than if it's something we agree on or not. -- Ned Scott 04:14, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, well.. maybe .. *reads proposed rewrite again, thinks about it*.. maybe it's not really an issue for having the alternatives on WP:FICT itself. It's the end of the day, forgive me if I'm not making sense, but hopefully my evaluation of what is disputed is somewhat relevant. :) -- Ned Scott 05:33, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

• For me what needs to be recognised is WP:SS and the nature of lists. I'm a lurker on a list used by academics writing about comics, and many times one academic will ask, hey, which superheroes use magic, or which superheroes have broken the fourth wall? These seem to me to be perfectly useful lists which we could entertain creating, but which many people feel have no place in an encyclopedia because they are not notable. My opinion is that when not notable and useful for research conflict, useful for research wins. I also think we need to rethink how notability applies to articles split in keeping with summary style. You talk about not wanting to open a back door, but there is no back door to be opened. AFD is the only place to settle the issue. At the moment people have bolted the front door through this guidance, they have effectively gamed the system because they can just turn up at a deletion debate and say delete per WP:FICT. That's not on, pure and simple. Deletion debate is supposed to debate the article, not the guidance. If people can just state that WP:FICT declares that this article, viewed in isolation, having no sources must be deleted, then they've won. Because they edited a guideline to fit their thinking, not to reflect community practise. Community practise is that we split articles when they get big, and at some point there's a middle ground. We don't want articles on Superman's toe nail clippers, but Superman and the Presidency is a possible article listing story-lines where Superman has considered a run at the Presidency. I'm not saying it should exist, I'm saying that if it did exist, the deletion debate should focus on the merits of the article rather than the lack of sourcing. We get into a grey area of policy and guidance when discussing fictional works, and I think guidance should recognise that. Deletion debates should consider the article. Articles are not deleted because they fail notability guidance, they are deleted because after debate a consensus of Wikipedians agree they should be. We need to make that a lot clearer. Notability is subjective, after all, regardless of what guidance says. And it has moved. Every time on article got kept that someone didn't like, they tweaked the guidance. It's moved from an article needing coverage in a third party source to needing six mentions in works authored by these five critics and published by these two universities in American English, which also appear on this list at the bottom of my filing cabinet. Well, almost, but you take the point. Most people agree there is a grey area. If there is a grey area, we need to admit it. To not do so allows the side that denies it exists to have the upper hand, something which is not only unfair, but is against policy. Wikipedia should do the right thing and admit there are areas which we all agree to disagree on, and that we all agree to disagree at WP:AFD and make our best arguments there and respect whatever consensus follows. For examples of breath-taking closes at afd recently, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of planets in Futurama which completely disregards WP:CONSENSUS and WP:SS, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/D.O.O.P., which again does the same. This is about maintaining a level playing field. There is a reason why WP:N and the like are not policies, and it is because they do not have the authority of being foundation issues. They do not guide us to our WP:PURPOSE, they rather guide us when we debate. They do not have the primacy of being able to trump WP:CONSENSUS. If consensus forms that guidance can be ignored, it can be. The onus then falls on those who wish to see guidance followed to build a new consensus. That's how Wikipedia works. That's per policy. This guidance does not at present reflect that. I'm not interested in seeing this article deleted or that article deleted, I'm quite happy chipping in to a deletion debate and I respect whatever the consensus is. I want everyone to do the same, to respect WP:CONSENSUS and m:Foundation issues. The "wiki process" is the decision mechanism on content, not this guideline. Our goal with Wikipedia is to create a free encyclopedia--indeed, the largest encyclopedia in history, both in terms of breadth and in terms of depth. We also want Wikipedia to become a reliable resource. At the minute we are deleting articles not because they are unreliable, but because we do not like them. Just because some have tailored guidance to meet their definition of I Do NOT LIKE, it does not mean we can gloss over the fact that they DO NOT LIKE IT. If the article reliably records facts, increase the breadth and depth, then it deserves to be treated with respect at an AFD and have its debated and deliberated for 5 days. All anyone wants is a fair hearing. Hiding T 11:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Notability has only been moved once around this last May due to restating the requirements for notability as being significant coverage in reliable secondary sources - it is a much stronger objective requirement; there is still subjectiveness to "significant" and "reliable secondary sources" but that's sets a bar for any article on WP to make. It does impact fictional elements much more, since the bulk of these articles are written on primary sources only, but we cannot loosen the requirement for one area only. The only reason it may seem like the goallines keep moving for notability is that some of the visible articles are being pointed out as lacking notability. Adjusting all of WP for notability issues is going to be a slow process with a lot of resistance.

Also remember this new notability guideline is based on consensus. The list of Futurama planets deletion shows how consensus is supposed to work: it is not based on majority, but based on discussion and the strength of arguments, including other guidelines and policies that have consensus already. Few of the "keep" votes for that AfD referred to any existing policy and were mainly variations on WP:ILIKEIT. And while we are trying to allow for summary-style split of lists to exist without strong notability demonstration, it must be obvious that it's not just a list for list-sake, but instead should be a list that was broken out of the main article due to size and summary style concerns. Lists of minor characters, various settings, etc. generally are not written in a concise overview of a work of fiction unless they have received additional attention elsewhere.

At the end of the day, while we want WP to be an academic tool, it is not meant to be the end-all, be-all resource for academics. I won't ask how comics and academics work together in your case, but I do know that if I were to do a report only founded on an encyclopedia, I would not get a good grade/result/performance for that report. An encyclopedia should not be the only source you consult for research, but can be the first one that you hit, and a properly written one would give you enough guidance as to where to turn to next for more details. Our notability guideline promises you that: an article build on coverage in secondary sources is going to give you a handle of secondary sources that you can use to research further beyond what an encyclopedia treatment of the topic can provide. We may not list explicitly what superheroes use magic or who have broken the fourth wall, but if written appropriately, WP's coverage of comic book hereos should give you links you can follow up on that. Same with technical topics, same with philosophical topcis, same with historical topics. People mistake much of what WP founding guidelines to mean we are a end-all be-all of human knowledge, which is both impractical and impossible to maintain; instead, we are meant to be the best tertiary source out there. --MASEM 14:31, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The notability guidance has moved more than just last May, but perhaps I have a longer memory. I can remember putting the guideline tag on it. As to notability being based on consensus, no it isn't. It's based on shouting down opponents. Every time someone tries to change it, they are pointed off. Every time people disagree with it, they are told it has consensus, regardless of the fact that a vast number of people disagree with it. It's just that those people's opinions aren't considered of merit. And the List of Futurama deletion close is not how it is supposed to work. Please re-read WP:CONSENSUS. A small group of editors can reach a consensual decision, but when the article gains wider attention, others may then disagree. The original group should not block further change on grounds that they already have made a decision. A small group of editors rewrote WP:FICT, I know I was one of them, and a larger pool rejected it. The smaller group were allowed to triumph. That's wrong. Consensus can change. That's the policy for determining consensus, not WP:FICT or I agree with this guidance, so poo to that policy. I'm not going to bother responding to your assertions on doing a report founded only on an encyclopedia since at no stage did I suggest anything of the sort. And I would like to see where it states in policy that we cannot explicitly list what superheroes use magic or who have broken the fourth wall. Such lists are discriminate and can be sourced. No issues with WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR or WP:NOT. As to whether we can loosen the guidance in one area, of course we can. Why else do we have sub-pages listing criteria for individual topics?

All that said, you have missed the main thrust of my argument, which is that we all agree grey areas exist. Why are we not therefore honest enough to admit it. Why is this page so strict, and why is any attempt to rewrite it resisted or shunted off to one side? Who is trying to protect what position, and for what? I am well aware of the positions on Wikipedia, and I am well aware that this page as it currently reads does not represent consensus, but that there appears to be a concerted effort to prevent amendments to it or to tag it as disputed. I think some users have to examine their actions here and work out whether their best interests are Wikipedia's. Thanks for listening. Hiding T 15:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't disagree that the consensus guideline states that, but that is aimed for when a significant change to an article, guideline, or other non-process page is suggested. For AfD, admins are to look at rough consensus to determine what the discussion of the AfD brings up. Again, from that : "Consensus is not determined by counting heads, but by looking at strength of argument, and underlying policy (if any). Arguments that contradict policy, are based on opinion rather than fact, or are logically fallacious, are frequently discounted." That is what occurred at the futurama planet list. The closing admin followed the process correctly.

A list of superheroes by power type approaches being indiscriminate info as well as being a directory. Making a list just because you can make a list is not always a good choice of action.

Again, I point that what WP:FICT now says is logically what must follow from the change in WP:N. We had (via consensus a few months ago) had a balance of allowing sub-articles written in summary style to exist on their own, as a strict reading of WP:N would not allow such to exist. Sure, there's a gray area, but its very narrow gray area and we have provided a route to make sure all other avenues were explored before that point. I agree that it did strongly suggest "delete any non notable article before trying other routes" and rewriting the guideline to have editors attempt any other route first is the right direction so that namedropping WP:FICT at an AfD should not be status quo. But if you're more concerned that WP:FICT sets the bar too high for fictional articles, then the proper place to be discussing this at is at WP:N, because the core of WP:FICT (WP:N + WP:PLOT) does not change from WP:N just because the work is fictional. --MASEM 15:22, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Rough consensus tells us this, to use the whole quote, Wikipedia policy, which requires that articles and information be verifiable, avoid being original research, not violate copyright, and be written from a neutral point of view is not negotiable, and cannot be superseded by any other guidelines. I would state that that was disregarded in that afd, when a guideline was placed above policies. Guidelines do not come into play, and the closing admin placed a few above policies. Also, to my eye the article had sources and was written more out of universe than in. But this isn't WP:DRV.

A list which discriminates on what it includes cannot by definition be indiscriminate, and I will resist any attempt to state otherwise. Not being a directory directs us to Wikipedia:Lists_(stand-alone_lists)#Appropriate_topics_for_lists which to me states that list of uperheroes is bad, but list of superheroes who break the fourth wall is allowable.

As to where I should be discussing this, please don't pass me back to WP:N, because WP:N states Substantial coverage in reliable sources constitutes such objective evidence, as do published peer recognition and the other factors listed in the subject specific guidelines. My emphasis. This is the right place for the discussion, per WP:N. At the moment this guidance is flawed. Everyone here seems to agree on that. Maybe we should stop arguing about that and start attempting to fix the problem. I've tried and been reverted, so I'm not sure how next to go forwards. This guidance needs to address summary style articles, which can draw from the parent article more detailed topics and expand the coverage. Superman is notable. Superman's powers are notable. Superman's allies are notable. Superman's enemies are notable. How deep do we go. It can't be enough to say we need outside sources on every single sub-article. No-one wants articles on characters which have appeared a handful of times in seventy years, but seventy years is a lot of time. There's a lot there to discuss which may not have significant coverage in a number of sources, but may have some coverage in one source. I know why our guidance was amended to ask for significant coverage in a number of whatever it is, it was as much to do with people appearing in one news story which gets written about in all the papers. But that doesn't mean we have to close all the doors to stop the horse escaping, just the ones the horse will fit through. We're allowed to tighten guidance for one area only, but we're never allowed to loosen it for one area only. Where's the much vaunted level playing field, the "do the right thing", the community spirit? Hiding T 15:44, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I would strongly advocate if you feel incorrectly about the list of futurama planets being deleted that you add it to WP:DRV. My gut feeling is that it will be denied, but consider it at least 1 or more additional opinions of what notability should be defined as.

For other factors beyond WP:N we can certainly add others (WP:BIO is a good example for additional notability for persons), as long as they don't reduce the requirement of WP:N. What you are suggesting, that allowing fictional elements to go with only primary sources, is violating that. I will point out that we have this section in the present guideline (which we came to after a good deal of discussion):

Sub-articles are sometimes born for technical reasons of length or style. Even these articles need real-world information to prove their notability, but must rely on the parent article to provide some of this background material (due to said technical reasons).[3] In these situations, the sub-article should be viewed as an extension of the parent article, and judged as if it were still a section of that article. Such sub-articles should clearly identify themselves as fictional elements of the parent work within the lead section, and editors should provide as much real-world content as possible.

This allows for some cases of articles with only primary sourcing, but when it naturally falls out from larger articles - this is comparable as to why episode lists exist as separate pages - because it makes the main page too large. However, this is a practical limit of how much sub-articles can go, and that's why this is somewhat strong language - otherwise people wikilawyer around it. --MASEM 16:25, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to go to WP:DRV, that's not my style or my point. And I'm fed up of people talking about wiki-lawyering, it always seems to be wiki-lawyering when you don't agree with it, but consensus when you do agree with it. The section you quote has already been used at afd to state the opposite of what you state it means, so something is wrong somewhere. Rather than attempt to close cat flaps to stop horses bolting, why can't we just let afd set our limits instead of tweaking this guidance to fit our preferred version of I don't like it. Do people not trust Wikipedians and admins to do the right thing? Hiding T 17:05, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Can you point to an AfD where the quote from the current phrase was used in the way you suggest it was? Understand how it is being used "improperly" from the intent can help us make it better. Also, AfD is not where consensus or policy/guidelines are built , that's where they are to be applied though application or discussion may lead to the formation of new guidelines or improvements on others. As previously suggested, if the concern is that this policy is being misused in AfDs, then lets look through the various AfDs, or ones in progress (where we can see the article) and thus work on improving the language.

But again, I'm going to point out that by the AfD process, the list of Futurama planets was closed out and deleted correctly (IMHO). I'm mentioning this one because this is a two-pronged aspect: one, it has to do with this guideline, so there's questions to try to fix it, but the other is that as you suggest, the process was not followed correctly. If similar AfD's are also two-pronged, it is going to be difficult to improve this one without understanding what mistakes, if any, were present in the other AfDs. I'm not saying to take all AfDs to to DRV, but the futurama planet one is a good one that shows where an obvious minority outweighted the majority (though again, I believe this to be correct process for AfD). If it is shown to be a mistake, then there may be good reason to loosen this guideline some more. --MASEM 17:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I've already pointed out how that close was incorrect per WP:CONSENSUS and [[Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators. If you think they are wrong, I suggest you discuss changing those on their respective talk pages. Sadly I have only recently started sorting afd debates so I don't have the one I referred to above to hand, but it does exist. As to afd not being where consensus is built, I think you are so wrong on that score and that prior precedence, policy and practise disagrees with you too that either I am misreading you or I am not, and there is little value in arguing the point. I will return instead to my main point. This guidance is currently drafted to advocate deletion, and is drafted tighter even than WP:N and I would like to return to an earlier version which is not and better reflects community consensus and practise. Hiding T 18:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

(←) I agree that we need to make sure that if an editor sees an article that lacks notability, the first step is not AfD it. Going back to Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)/proposed-12-9-07, I see no major problems in this, it sticks deletion as the last effort that should be done to an article failing merging and transwiking. (I've made a few edits to make sure deletion is the last subject on the table, and that non-notability is not criteria for CSD). --MASEM 18:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Can someone answer this for me?

Why do we even need this guideline. If a fictional article passes all the core polices it will automatically pass notability. This guideline just confuses the issues and there will never be consensus on it. A bunch of articles get deleted so people run in here and change it, then it starts causing problems in AFD and people come in here and change it back. It is an issue that is way to large to ever be handled by this guideline.

Anyway back to the main point, if an article can pass the test of WP:V, WP:OR, WP:RS, and other policies it will automatically be notable. If people want to deal with the issues raised by WP:PLOT and other policies that restrict fictional content then they need to deal with the policies themselves and not write a guideline. Ridernyc (talk) 14:46, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Referring more to the general WP:N, the keep language added that differs from WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:RS is "significant coverage". I can certainly make an article that is comprised of non-significant aspects of a work that meets V, OR, and RS (say, adding whom the voice actors are for a list of characters in an animated work), but this is not significant coverage of the topic in secondary sources. Adding that language is what sets WP:N apart from those. In the specific case of WP:FICT, we also add in WP:PLOT as an corroborating guideline to WP:N that basically says that nitty-gritty details of a fictional work are not notable nor appropriate for WP and should not be included. --MASEM 15:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Why does this guideline exist? When I first read it around June/July 2007, several months after I had set foot on wikipedia and wanted to expand the extremely poor wiki coverage of an unpopular TV show, I was looking for guidance on how an article should look and when to break out a subarticle etc. Even before its major rewrite, this guideline summarized consensus on key policies and guidelines (and pointed me there for more detail) to get me started so that I wouldn't need to be afraid of AfD. Unfortunately, the fewest editors actually read this guideline before starting fiction-related articles, which results in this guideline being used more in AfD than in article creation. – sgeureka ^t•c 15:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The guideline is basically unreadable to someone who's not familar with Wikipedia. At the very least, it should contain common deletion outcomes like fanfic, fictional objects and minor characters getting deleted.--Nydas^(Talk) 15:39, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Isn't that already happening with WP:FICT#Notes? Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes doesn't mention any fiction outcomes, although an old version of WP:FICT linked to Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Minor characters and Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Middle-earth items. Maybe an essay can be written as a rough summary, and linked from here. – sgeureka ^t•c 15:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

There were examples of what was good and what was bad, but there were removed/condensed, or the like because the old examples (pre May 07 rewrite of WP:N) were no long good examples. We were talking about adding examples back in, and certainly this is not a bad suggestion.

The problem mentioned above about editors editing before reading guidelines is why, for fiction, there is a strong goal of trying to make this policy known. If I'm a new editor, wanting to write about my favorite show, I'm likely going to see the depth that certain shows (The Simpsons) have gotten and think, "Oh, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, and my show needs that too!". Unfortunately, there's no requirement for an editor to read relevant policy, so the better way to approach this is to make sure that while other stuff may exist, the way its written meets policy/guidelines, so that new stuff, when written, will likely be the same. --MASEM 16:09, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that editors exist who created that other stuff before this guidance was written and adopted and in some instances refuse to accept this guidance has consensus since it was never common practise and still isn't. So there's a huge fault line running through Wikipedia, and nobody seems willing to try and find some common ground. My personal opinion is that this guidance is too tight and you won't get editors following it until it is loosened. We've got a lot of editors at the comic project who have been here a long time and don't agree with this guidance as it stands/gets interpreted. It's hard enough getting WP:WAF adhered to, although that's new too it builds off of Check your fiction at guide to writing better articles or where ever it is. Hiding T 17:17, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Of course, it could be that the plan is to drive off those other editors and then it doesn't matter. That has been suggested to me, semi-seriously. Hiding T 17:18, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Examples

There's some sorting going on at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting which might prove useful for sourcing examples. Have a look at:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Anime and manga/Deletion Archive
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Comics and animation/archive
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Science fiction/archive
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Literature/archive
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Film/archive
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Fictional characters/archive

Those should offer some indication of where Wikipedia is at. Hiding T 22:44, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Notability and special effects

Imagine two TV shows. One is a sci-fi show with a devoted fanbase, the other is a romantic sitcom with a non-devoted fanbase. Both have similar ratings, win similar numbers of awards and get similar amounts of mainstream media coverage. Both shows have a character of medium importance. In the sci-fi show, the character is an alien who is created with prosthetics and computer effects. In the sitcom, the character a regular human. The sci-fi show's fanbase creates a fertile market for supplementary material (including out-of-universe stuff about the alien), whilst the sitcom may get one or two guidebooks if it's lucky.

Does the alien character deserve an article more than the human?--Nydas^(Talk) 16:05, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, assuming that the alien character has coverage of that character in secondary sources; particularly information about how the actor has to be prepped for the role, that's all secondary sources directly relating to that character. --MASEM 16:09, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Even though it's arguably a violation of neutral point of view? Would you support deleting obscure Indian politicians because we can't get them to the same standard as obscure US politicians? --Nydas^(Talk) 16:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

WP can only report on what's out there. If an editor purposely ignored one aspect of a topic despite information in secondary sources, that can be considered a bias, but if there's nothing out there to pull information from, there's not much WP can do. Mind you, there is a language issue here, as this is the english version of WP. I would suspect that if you ask the same question if we were on the Hindi WP, the info for the US politician would be the one for deletion. An ultimate goal is to translate all pages of all WP to all other languages, so at some point, a Hindi/English literate person could help translate sources from Indian papers and the like and make that Indian politician sufficiently notable. However, without either the translation help to identify sources or english-based sources, that article would likely be deleted or merged. --MASEM 16:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

English is widely spoken in India. Sources are hard to come by for socio-economic reasons.--Nydas^(Talk) 16:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

While it is a bias, it is not one under Wikipedia's control. --MASEM 16:59, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is. We just say that every elected official can be covered, since we can establish that they exist. Our policies, which rough consensus should be declared using, state that our articles can report what they can source. Guidance, which does not trump policy, declares that there has to be independent sources in loads of different sources of substantial length, but that can be ignored. We have it within our power to do whatever we want as long as we do it in a neutral manner and all loosely agree. If it improves Wikipedia and doesn't breach WP:NPOV, we are allowed to do it. Hiding T 17:23, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

• To address the example here, I would suggest you write comprehensive articles about both to the best of your abilities in keeping with WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR and run them through GA and onto FA. If they are well written and inform readers, you can generally build a case that WP:IAR applies in an AFD. People want to see encyclopedic articles, and usually won't delete them when they see them. We had a famous hoax that lasted ages because it was written so well. Hiding T 17:26, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Another stab

Okay, I've had another stab, merging the current version with the original rewrite Of July and with WP:N. I hope this is more acceptable to all than the last rewrite. Again, have at it as you will. Hiding T 18:48, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

This is my concern (I think we're on the same page, just language/presentation): "contain substantial real-world content from reliable primary and secondary sources." in the first section can be read (if one blindly ignores the bolding) that primary sources are sufficient; there's also cases that one may not be able to have primary sources that describe real-world content. Basically, we know:

• Secondary sources are necessary and required
• Primary sources are neither, but can be used as well.

I'm thinking to make the language clearer is "contain substantial real-world content from reliable secondary sources with additional support from appropriate primary sources.", which gets both points above across. --MASEM 18:59, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

My fear is the idea that editors will see "primary" and automatically assume that means you can write the article based soley on what happens in the fictional element (which creates original research in most cases), instead of sourcing from things that are considered "primary" -- like interviews with the director, writers, artists, actor, etc etc...and all the other primary sources there are.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that that contradicts WP:V, which makes no mention of primary and secondary sources, and supercedes this guidance. I would hate to see this guidance move away and further from established policy, that violates other policies as above. Hiding T 19:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the problem is covered in the section of WP:V on "self-published and questionable sources": Material from self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources in articles about themselves, so long as ... the article is not based primarily on such sources. Then only thing that needs to be made clear is that an artist talking about his own creation is, depending on the circumstances, either self-published or questionable.Kww (talk) 20:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec)That's not true. An artist being interviewed in a reputable source is still primary source but is not questionable nor self-published as defined at WP:V. Hiding T 20:18, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

You don't think such cases are "promotional in nature"?Kww (talk) 20:25, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec) No. Why, do you? An interview is as good as the interviewer, and if it is published in a reliable, third-party source with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, then it's going to be fair game even thought it is primary source. Interviews are often useful for revealing things that may otherwise have remained unknown. For example, see Tony Blair#Blair's religious faith. Hiding T 20:44, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Depends on context. An interview by, say, Billboard Magazine talking to Bono after a Grammy win is certainly not promotional; on the other hand, if a record label "published" an interview with a band under their label about an upcoming CD release, there's certainly question of promotion. In generally, a good interview is actually a secondary source as the interviewer is the one synthesizing/analyzing/etc the questions and answers; as long as the interviewer is sufficiently reliable and independent of the work, it should qualify. --MASEM 20:33, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I would be extremely suspicious of an article about Bono that was primarily derived from interviews with Bono. Certainly, an article about the average Disney channel show that was derived from interviews with Disney's tightly controlled stable of stars wouldn't pass the sniff test. Questionable may be a bit strong, but I think the concept needs to be applied in this context.Kww (talk) 20:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't. You're looking to stop horses by locking cat flaps. If it will fail the sniff test, take it to afd and let afd do its job. Let this guidance support policy rather than extend it. Hiding T 20:55, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec) There may be some disagreement what a "primary" source is. If it's the work of fiction, then no, it does not establish notability and would just work against either WP:NOT#PLOT or WP:OR. If it's the authors/creators of the fiction in sufficient coverage, then yes, notability is established. Reliable secondary sources already establish notability per WP:N. Personally, I don't care what sources are used as long as its real-world information from reliable sources. – sgeureka ^t•c 20:16, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Even though I have not really contributed in the above discussions, I must say that I think the rewrite was very good and has my support. But since the guideline moved away from immediate deletion, then this should also be reflected in the notability tags. {{notability|fiction}} (and {{notability|episode}}) suggest that the ultimate end for non-notable fiction elements is deletion. If someone can figure out these intricate templates, they should definately rewrite them because the templates' high visibility and orange warning color just shouts AfD. – sgeureka ^t•c 20:16, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Good point - you're right that that template does not suggest other courses of action. --MASEM 20:35, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I've started a discussion on that point at Template talk:Notability#Tweak suggesting it actually record what Guide to deletion states if it is going to "per" it. Hiding T 20:45, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Again, please make large scale changes to a proposal subpage, especially when you've come here to complain about how changes are being made without a consensus. -- Ned Scott 22:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

• Can you please stop reverting the page. There's discussion on the talk page documenting what we are doing here and four editors have been involved in the rewrite. Please don't tell me what I've come here to complain about, you've obviously misread me somewhere along the line if that's what you think my issue is. It's a wiki, we're following the wiki process. If you have issues with the additions, please make your case. Half of it is drafted in from WP:N and makes the page better meet Wikipedia:Guide to deletion so shouldn't be objectionable. Hiding T 23:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

• Four editors.. and you have the nerve to say that the dozens of other editors who worked on the current version don't have a consensus. Wikipedia uses a consensus process, and you don't get to blatantly toss that out the window just because it's something you don't like, and because you're being impatient. -- Ned Scott 23:05, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Gee, I thought consensus could change. Since I was one of the dozens of editors involved before, I'm at a loss to understand why I was right then and wrong now. And make it five editors, I note the main author of the rewrite agreed up above. The page is basically a restoration of the July rewrite with additional material from WP:N. You have yet to state any areas of the rewrite you wish to discuss, so I can't see a way forward until you do so. Let us know when we can edit the page or you are willing to discuss the rewrite. Hiding T 23:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

• I'm completely with Ned on this. It is premature to introduce the changes you have made, since it raises some core concerns about making the definition of notable material rather more lithe. That is problematic. Any changes need to be brought here and systematically subjected to review before passing to the main page. Eusebeus (talk) 23:09, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

  • In what sense does it make the definition more lithe? Hiding T 23:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Core issues

Since this was drowned out by rantings, I'll put it in its own section:

From what I understand there are two parts that are "in dispute". One is about the secondary sources having to be independent. I can see softening this point as long as we still emphasize real-world information. We're so desperate for real world information that we're often forgiving when the bulk of it comes from DVD commentary and production notes. It's also not as much of an issue considering most of these articles are not actually independent from their parent in the first place. It will make little difference for the really problematic articles.

The other part is to further advocate other alternatives over deletion. I totally agree with this, as do a lot of us here, but we must be careful to not encourage people to simply game the system. Such advice might need it's own page altogether since there's so much of it, but we'll see. -- Ned Scott 22:58, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Deletion at the bottom

Masem, can you confirm that you were happy for deletion to be put to the bottom, and all other options be detailed first. That's in keeping with WP:N, which is the language I pretty much copied in. Hiding T 23:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that taking it to AfD for deletion due to lack of notability should be taken as the last resort if the article cannot be dealt with in one of the other ways describes, and should be as clear as possible to that degree in the guideline. --MASEM 23:46, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so if we look at mirroring WP:N with something like the following:

“ If an article fails to cite sufficient sources to demonstrate the notability of its subject, look for sources yourself, or:

• Ask the article's creator for advice on where to look for sources.
• Put the {{notability}} tag on the article to alert other editors. To place a dated tag, put a {{subst:dated|notability}} tag.
• If the article is about a specialized field, use the {{expert-subject}} tag with a specific WikiProject to attract editors knowledgeable about that field, who may have access to reliable sources not available online.

If appropriate sources cannot be found, consider merging the article's content into a broader article providing context. Otherwise, if deleting:

• If the article meets our criteria for speedy deletion, one can use a criterion-specific deletion tag listed on that page.
• Use the {{prod}} tag, for articles which do not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, but are uncontroversial deletion candidates. This allows the article to be deleted after five days if nobody objects. For more information, see Wikipedia:Proposed deletion.
• For cases where you are unsure about deletion or believe others might object, nominate the article for the articles for deletion process, where the merits will be debated and deliberated for 5 days.

”

Would that work? We could add in stuff about transwiki. Hiding T 23:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Something like that. Reasonable steps should be:

1. Tag with notability and discuss on article talk page (particularly if the concern is non-obvious). If the concern can be more detailed, add the appropriate tag (I don't believe "expert-subject" applies here.
2. Wait some time (2 weeks to a month) for any replies. If there is good faith effort by editors to demonstrate notability but not completed at the end of this, allow them more time. (there is no deadline).
3. If there is no response to the notability tag or notability cannot be demonstrated, consider two options which should be determined by consensus:
   1. If there is a broader topic that the article can be merged into, or a series of similar articles that can be merged into a list with higher probability of being notable, do that. Follow proper merge procedures for this
   2. If a merge is not likely possible, then consider transwiki the material to an appropriate wikia or the holding area for unsorted wikia material.
4. If none of the following are possible, or there is no consensus for merging or transwiking, only consider bringing the article to AfD as a last resort.

Something like that. --MASEM 00:11, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Non-notable topics

Articles that have potential to show notability should be given reasonable time to develop. To avoid this problem, do not split or create content unless the new article includes substantial real-world content (and ideally an out-of-universe perspective) from the onset. Editors should be prepared to demonstrate that there is an availability of sources covering real-world information by: providing hyperlinks to sources detailing real-world information about the topic; outlining a rewrite, expansion, or merge plan; and/or gaining the consensus of established editors. Otherwise, the article will be subject to the options mentioned below. Place appropriate clean-up tags to stimulate activity and mark the articles as sub-par (but with potential).

Articles that do not show notability can therefore be kept for a short time, merged, moved elsewhere, redirected or listed for deletion. If an article fails to cite sufficient sources to demonstrate the notability of its subject, look for sources yourself, or:

• Ask the article's creator for advice on where to look for sources.
• Put the {{notability|fiction}} tag on the article to alert other editors.
• If the article is about a specialized branch of fiction, use the {{expert-subject|PROJECT-NAME}} tag with a specific WikiProject to attract editors knowledgeable about that field, who may have access to reliable sources not available online.

If appropriate sources cannot be found, consider merging the article's content into a broader article providing context. For instance, articles on minor characters in a work of fiction may be merged into a "list of minor characters in ...". If there is a suitable project other than Wikipedia which may cover the topic in question, consider a transwiki. An article can be transwikied to a suitable Wiki such as Wikia or its Wikipedia Annex. The article is then redirected to the most relevant article to preserve edit history for the transwiki. Otherwise, if deleting:

• If the article meets our criteria for speedy deletion, one can use a criterion-specific deletion tag listed on that page.
• Use the {{prod}} tag, for articles which do not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, but are uncontroversial deletion candidates. This allows the article to be deleted after five days if nobody objects. For more information, see Wikipedia:Proposed deletion.
• For cases where you are unsure about deletion or believe others might object, nominate the article for the articles for deletion process, where the merits will be debated and deliberated for 5 days.

How about that? I know you don't think expert specific applies, but I'm thinking of instances where the article is new, it may not have shown up on the radar of other interested parties as yet. But that's a quibbl we can go one way or the other on. Anything else there that needs to be tweaked? It's mostly a merge of what we've got now woth what we had in the rewrite and what we have at WP:N and WP:GTD. Hiding T 10:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Many points disputed

There are more than two points at issue.

first, with respect to significance:

1. . The meaning of the term 'real-world significance" Does it mean primarily the authorship, sales, reception, or does it includes discussion in the real world about the plot, characters and setting?
2. . The meaning of "in-universe" Does the mean anything talking about the universe of the fiction, or does it mean only the prohibition about writing in a fan-fiction fashion as if the universe of the fiction were actual reality\?
3. . The extent of plot information. is this to be minimal, or detailed, or somewhere in the middle.? Should the rule be that it should not predominate mean that it should not be more than 50%, or that it should not be 95%?
4. . The source for information about the plot and characters and setting. Must this come from secondary sources, or should it come , alternatively or even preferable, directly from he work of fiction? If so, is this an exception to the basic rule about primary sources, or does the current meaning of the rule in general permit primary sources in such situations?
5. . The source for secondary information. Must it come only from conventionally published sources, or may it includes information from accepted informal sources appropriate to the type of material? If so, is this an exception to the rule, or the interpretation to which the practice is heading over material in general?
6. . Do we treat all material the same, ir do we recognize the differences between different types of fiction? Do we ignore academic sources talking about popular culture, or take account of where the actual critical literature is? do we ignore the significance of a work in formal or informal culture, or pay special attention to the iconic works of film and literature--and computer gaming?

Then, with respect to structure:"

1. . The basic principle that each work of fiction should have a single article. Or should we instead have the number of articles appropriate to its importance and the extent of material available?
2. . should major characters only have a separate article in special cases, or should all individual major characters in major works have a separate article? Should this depend upon formal sourcing, or should we assume that major characters in such works will always have a substantial critical discussion?
3. . Should we just mention the names of the less important characters in important works, or a listing, or should we write combination articles with a substantial section to each of them, length according to how much there is to say? Does this apply to all minor character, or in some exceptional works, such as Shakespeare, is there sufficient critical discussion that essentially every named character can justifiably have an article?
4. . Is setting and background relatively unimportant, as compared to plot and character, or does this represent at least as important aspects of works, and to be discussed on the same principles as character? Does the geography of major imaginary worlds merit only a general discussion, or should major settings be presented in appropriate detail? Do the minor settings just get listed or ignored, or do they merit sections of a combination article for the more important works fof fiction?
5. . Are the details of setting and cultural cross references unimportant, or are they part of the essence of at least some forms of fiction such as film? Do we treat all such works equally , or emphasize strongly the settings used in major works of fiction, and the major settings used in multiple works? Do we need secondary sources explicitly treating each such element, or can we use the same primary sources we would use for plot and character?
6. . Do we deal with excessive size by compressing the treatment, or dividing the article? If there are too many minor characters to devote a paragraph to each, do we shorten the paragraphs, or find some way of separating them into two or more articles?
7. . Do we rely on specialist wikis for all specific details, or do we try to make WP self contained, using specialist wikis only for the true minutia that only specialized fans discuss (e.g. , the speculative detailed genealogy of Frodo's relatives)?

further, with respect to procedure"

1. . Do we just let AfDs settle everything including article structure, or do we keep editing questions to article or project talk pages?
2. . Do we follow the majority of whomever is present at a particular discussion, or do we attempt to form a stable and generally acceptable consensus?
3. . Do we renominate for deletion articles that have already obtained consensus to keep , or do we spend our time writing and improving articles?
4. . If we cannot obtain consensus on details, do we argue till we have them, or do we attempt to get consensus on more general points?
5. . Do we attempt to write policy so our favorit works get the treatment we want them to have, or do we look more generally at all media and genres?
6. . Do we depend only upon formal sourcing, or also upon importance?
7. . Do we delete on the basis of no response to tagging after a time, or do we accept that growth is slow and irregular? Do we thing of deletion as a trivial concern, or do we recognize that it is much easier to build upon existing stub articles?
8. . Do we accept failure of routine attempts at sourcing though tools like Google Scholar, or do we accept that sourcing in this area is sometimes difficult, and that nothing should be considered unsourcable until the popular and academic materials have been thoroughly examined?

I have tried to write it so the alternative in each clause is my preferred position, but at the least, each point i have raised here is a point where i think we do not yet have agreement. i strong dislike any attempt to pretend we have agreement on one particular person's position otherwise. Ned does not recognize the degree to which his views do not have general acceptance--not just about details, but about general principles. However, i do very strongly agree with him on the practical advisability of trying to get at least some general rules on which we might have agreement, and reserve the details for another place, possibly in the format of examples presented explicitly as an essay. DGG (talk) 00:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Real world information

1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia grounded in the real world. Sales, reception, reviews and interviews (and other ways we discuss the fiction in the real world) all seem to apply.

2. in-univierse- originally meaning a perspective of writing, we've also used the word to simply describe the plot itself, and the importance of things as seen if the plot were real.

3. Hard rules about the exact amount of plot information are likely to be too stiff for a general guideline on fiction. I like to think of it like this: we give the fundamental understanding of what the story is about, and what goes on. Our job is not to retell the work of fiction, but to use summaries to give the fundamental information and to give context for other examples. The longer a work is, the more I can see fundamental information being justified. When you start adding real world information, you can justify even more summary. There are some guidelines used by some WikiProjects about a number of words per minute (for shows and movies). Maybe some of those examples can help guide, without hard rules.

4. I'm not sure I follow you here. The first source is normally seen as the fictional story itself. We don't have sourcing problems for plot summary, and citing the work of fiction itself is more than acceptable. Since we want real-world information, we obviously look to other sources, since the story itself is fictional.

5. I would stay away from fan-sites and keep closer to WP:RS. There are some exceptions from time to time, but this is an issue of verifiability.

6. I'm not sure what you're trying to say in this section. This seems like a repeat of question 5.

Structure

1. The number of articles can't be decided arbitrarily like that. Like with anything else, the number of articles is more likely dependent on the amount of appropriate information, and how to present that information, which can and does change for many different works of fiction.

2. same as 1

3. same as 1

..... ok this is all just asking for things we can't decide arbitrarily. No matter how badly you want it, you don't get a generic green light to make a set number of articles for fiction.

It's simple, yet not simple, because it's a guideline and not a bible. When you want to make additional sub articles for a work of fiction, you need real-world information to justify it. In some cases we bend a little for unique plots, or ones that have great cultural and historical impact, or that have simply been around for a long time, but the same idea applies. -- Ned Scott 01:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll respond to some points in particular below, but I will respond to the procedural issues in general. We need to recognize that some classes of article will probably never be acceptable. An article summarizing a single issue of a manga or a single episode of a TV show will only be an acceptable article in an extremely small percentage of cases. It's reasonable to treat these as essentially "shoot on sight" ... if they don't assert some reason that the episode or issue has some extraordinary outside impact, redirect them the moment they appear. Articles summarizing series, seasons, genres, etc. can be given a lot more latitude. On to your points.

• The meaning of the term real-world significance Does it mean primarily the authorship, sales, reception, or does it includes discussion in the real world about the plot, characters and setting? Primarily reception, but I would generally prefer the plot summary and character descriptions to come from secondary sources.
• The meaning of "in-universe" Does the mean anything talking about the universe of the fiction, or does it mean only the prohibition about writing in a fan-fiction fashion as if the universe of the fiction were actual reality\? Writing in a fan-fiction fashion as if the universe of the fiction were actual reality,
• The extent of plot information. is this to be minimal. Absolutely minimal. Needs to be sufficient to understand the response and criticism, but no more.
• The source for information about the plot and characters and setting. Secondary sources only. It should never come directly from the editor watching the show or reading the book. That violatesIt is extremely easy for such things to violate WP:OR.
• The source for secondary information. Must it come only from conventionally published sources Yes. Verifiable, conventionally published sources.
• The basic principle that each work of fiction should have a single article. Or should we instead have the number of articles appropriate to its importance and the extent of material available? I think that most TV series should have a series article and another article per season. Novels generally get an article, and manga series generally get an article. So I guess, yes, appropriate to its importance.
• should major characters only have a separate article in special cases If the character gets written up in secondary sources as the primary topic of articles, then fine, give him an article. If it's only in the context of articles about the movie or series as a whole, then no. Hawkeye Pierce had articles written directly about him, with the show as a backdrop, and Alan Alda would talk about him individually. The same can't be said for most characters on most TV shows.
• Do we rely on specialist wikis for all specific details, or do we try to make WP self contained WP should not try to be self-contained in this aspect at all. Specialist wikis are where detailed descriptions of Pokemon monsters, every student in South Park, and every boyfriend in Sex and the City belong.

Kww (talk) 01:47, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

• The source for information about the plot and characters and setting. Using primary source doesn't violate WP:NOR which states as follow: We can make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, but we are not allowed to make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source, unless such claims are verifiable from another source. We can use primary source to describe a fictional character or setting. To interpret, analyse or assert anything other than the description is what you need secondary source for, the reliability of that source judged in line with the level of the assertion per WP:V. So you can sat Bilbo Baggins was a hobbit who lived in a hole in the ground and found a ring. If you want to assert Baggins was gay you'd need to source an academic paper or essay in a large national paper. If you wanted to assert that Bilbo coveted the ring, you can use the work itself. Whether these things belong in an article is up to editorial judgement, not guidance or policy. Such things are content disputes and dispute resolution should be followed. Hiding T 10:33, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Edited my statement to correspond to reality. I still believe that directly summarizing a plot easily drifts into original research with just a few poorly chosen adjective. One man's "god-fearing minister" is another's "deluded religious fanatic."Kww (talk) 17:20, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I can summarize all my answers by comparing a fiction-related subarticle to any similar Featured Article and argue from there. In fact, I approach any article as in how far its content would currently contribute to making the whole multi-article topic a Featured Topic. That may make me a valuable contributor or an illusionary fool. Now, if you look at the video game Kingdom Hearts (Featured Topic for the whole series), you'll notice that it can cover its whole in-universe elements in 4 articles (plus 6 for the individual games). Compare that to any popular TV show that literally has 10+ articles for characters (almost all consisting of fictional biographies), 50+ episode articles with almost nothing but plot, and a variety of other articles like fictional machineries, Lists of planets, Lists of fictional brands, List of relationships, or fictional organizations. If I were to project how much material there was to turn the existing information into a Featured Topic, I'd get maybe 8-10 articles like with KH. And one may now compare that to 70++ poor articles and say why this guideline would/should encourage the latter and not the former approach. The only thing that I think can/could/should be improved in this guideline is in respect to procedure, where, objectionable as it may be, AfDs bring results faster and more clearly than endless discussions among fans that accomplish little to nothing (unfortunately). So, about the Procedure:

• 1. First tag and raise discussions, then go to AfD if nothing happens after a few weeks (to avoid gaming the system, which unfortunately happens too often to be ignored).
• 2. The majority only counts if they can provide reasonable proof that the issues of an article are and/or can be actively worked upon.
• 3. If some time has passed without improvement (my estimation: three months), then the old AfD consensus is void. Remember that a trim&merge is often preferable to another AfD, but this only works if local consensus collaborates.
• 4. Discuss the main points first (notability), then proceed with minor points (plot depth, sourcing) if notability has been established. If notability has not been established, then plot and sourcing deficiencies are even worse.
• 5. Neither. Try to think if the article can achieve at least GA (updated rules). If it can't, it shouldn't exist. If it can't any time soon except for crystal-ballery, merge.
• 6. The sourcing decides how much we can write. The sourcing doesn't need to be traditional; it can also be podcasts or forum posts and blogs by the producers, to name a few. Obviously, main characters are allowed to have more plot coverage than minor characters etc.
• 7. Depends. If there is no hope in making the article encyclopedic, deletion is alright (this often happens with lists). If it's just uncertain if sources exist for an in-universe-notable element, I prefer to merge/redirect anyway until individual notability can be established.
• 8. My experience says anything can be sourced with enough determination, but it's the job of the people in favor of keeping to provide these obscure sources, not the other editors. Again, tagging/discussion first, then proposing merging/redirecting/userfying, then AfD'ing in such a case unless it's a hopeless case (e.g. when even the "mother" article cannot establish notability as a merge target, as happened with the individual Warcraft(?) races).

– sgeureka ^t•c 03:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with basically everything you have written. However I still question whether or not these are notability issues or policy issues relating with fiction. I really do not think this is the place to be dealing with these issues. Ridernyc (talk) 03:52, 12 December 2007 (UTC)#

It's terrifying that certain Japanese RPGs (at best, a genre of medium importance) are taken as the 'standard'. The Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy articles are not that great. They rarely use offline sources, they inflate their references with dialogue fragments, criticism is usually muted, cool-looking promotional artwork is always preferred and large in-universe sections are commonplace.--Nydas^(Talk) 09:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

What's really terrifying is that this RPG is the only fiction-related Featured Topic for a whole series, and that therefore no other other standard exists. Still, I've been actively working on making Carnivàle, an obscure and convoluted 24-episode TV show, a Featured Topic also, and if everything works out, we'll have another standard example with 4 articles covering everything by the middle of January. I don't think that it will have a major impact on the fiction-related wiki scene, but I hope it inspires at least some editors. Because, as I said, 70+ articles can only be worse when there simply aren't that many sources (and fans, including me, often completely overrate the number of usable sources). – sgeureka ^t•c 10:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

7 out of 26 featured topics are fiction-related. That's pretty high, probably underscoring how little interest there is in featured topics generally.--Nydas^(Talk) 18:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Most featured topics cover lists of something, and, as I said, there is only one FT that comprises the whole multi-article topic. And I believe many fans would like to showcase their favorite TV show/movie franchise/video game as a FT, but showing that you have 250 articles instead only 200 is so much easier than actually working on the problem, which is getting rid of extensive in-universe information and finding and adding real-world information. But we're getting further away from the point of this discussion. – sgeureka ^t•c 18:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Interesting to see the different points of view. I agree that many of these are not strictly notability issues, but they are all points that have been raised in the present discussion or in some of the proposed policies. Each of these would appropriately take a separate discussion at some length, here or elsewhere. sop, even that essentially everything needs discussion, how shall we proceed? Are there any issues where we can agree? Then we can write a page containing only those, and say that everything else is not yet arrived at consensus. And then continue. Frankly I am not sure we haver anything agreed except that we should have articles on notable fiction, and they should be sourced in some manner , and not written from a perspective pretending them to be reality. DGG (talk) 04:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I think fictional notability is not a valid sub-catagory for general notability. Everything I would write for Notability fiction would just be a rehash of notability. Lets face you can sum in up in one sentence. "A fictional subject is considered notable if it has been discussed in a real world context by multiple secondary sources." That's it right there. all the rest of the debates have nothing to do with notability. Ridernyc (talk) 05:01, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

That works fine until you start splitting articles in line with WP:SS, at which point you have to consider finer balancing. How detailed do we want to get. Do we only want to detail aspects which have received coverage in "multiple secondary sources", or would we be happy with a sub-article based on a combination of primary and secondary sourcing? Our policies aren't this tight, so I'm not sure our guidance needs to be. Topics tend to get included if they survive an afd. Topics tend to be worthy of note where they receive coverage outside of Wikipedia and themselves. But exceptions exist, and the main thing to be considered at deletion debates is whether the article improves Wikipedia or not. It is far better to reason that an article should be deleted because you're not sure it's within our remit than to reason it should be deleted because if we allow this, we allow that. Articles are to be considered on their merits. That's always been a principle of Wikipedia. We allow exceptions to our guidance and policies when we collectively decide that Wikipedia is improved by ignoring those guidelines and policies. People need to learn to trust afd and Wikipedia and other editors rather than attempting to rig guidance so it suits their view. Some of us can't see a harm in well written encyclopedic treatments on topics like Spoo, and we have to reflect that. Hiding T 10:08, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

again policy issue and not a notability issue and should not be handled by this guideline. You will never be able to quantify these situations. Things are going to be handled through AFD no mater what this guideline says. Ridernyc (talk) 14:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Again, prior to all the changes, the guideline had that - a subarticle could be broken out per WP:SS as long as it was determined by consensus of the main article editors to be the best option, and that the article is written in guidance with SS, with good faith effort to maintain the page to all of WP's other policies/guidelines and effort to demonstrate stand-alone notability of the topic. Basically, this means that if you're writing about a TV show and including a list of characters is too large for the main article, then when agreed upon a new article is created. This clause does not mean that if a new work of fiction come along you want to write about that you don't go and create the sub-articles for characters before or concurrent to the main page, since the amount of fictional detail you will go into between the main and sub-articles should not unbalance the amount of real-world notability. This is also a function of the length of the work of fiction - a single movie or video game should not dedicate more than 700-1000 words to the plot (in line with how Films and TV projects do things) and should not have sub-articles at all unless the sub-topics have notable coverage, while a long running TV show will likely benefit from a sub-article about characters, unique terms to the series that come in various plot descriptions, and the show's setting; again, while notability in these may be not be available, there's a more probably chance of establishing notability for longer series. A single character or fictional element never get their own page unless the character/element has demonstrable notability.

But the key point again is that any sub-article should either be able to demonstrate its own notability as a separate topic of the main article (that is, secondary sources that may talk how well a film was received may make no mention of characters; this would NOT be a valid source for character notability), or otherwise must be carefully agreed to and written in a way to be broken out as a sub-article per SS. (I even offered a template that could be used to tag such articles on the talk page,similar in concept to a fair-use rationale, as to discourage aggressive editors from AfD'ing such articles away immediately.)

I agree that what we try to rewrite here has to consider articles like these, but I would surmise that Spoo's status is not commonly agreed-to aspect among editors (I disagree it satisfying notability or the guidelines I propose above), and should be treated as a special case; instead, we should look to efforts elsewhere for guidance (such as the reduction of each pokemon into short list instead of a page for each) --MASEM 15:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree Spoo is an exception, but I think at some point we have to come out and say Spoo is an exception, because otherwise people will just keep saying, what about Spoo. Before Ned reverted everything the second time I was about to add a reference to Spoo being an exception made by a number of Wikipedians based on its encyclopedic treatment of the topic. I also agree with everything you've written. The original WP:FICT was written mainly to deal with Pokemon. We had a huge poll on the issue. Hiding T 16:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

A number of people disagree about Spoo being an example of an article we except, so it would not have been wise to add it to the guideline as an exception. This is another example of why you shouldn't be making widespread changes without a consensus. -- Ned Scott 17:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Meh, I just add it and see if it files. If it doesn't then it gets discussed and we all know where it stands. What I always find interestoing is that because some people don't agree with Spoo being an exception, even though it is, we aren;t allowed to mention it, but when some people disagree that this page is a guideline, they aren't allowed to change it. It's almost like there are different standards in operation. Either Spoo is an exception or it is not an exception. If it is not an exception, then we should base the guideline on it. Almost everyone agrees Spoo is an exception, it's just the people who wish ot was deleted don't want to mention it in case it encourages people. What they seem to miss is that by not telling people that it is an exception, people think it is the norm and thus they seek to emulate it. Still, it's a no win situation. I wish you all the best with it. Hiding T 00:35, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Spoo's defenders have never claimed it was an exception.--Nydas^(Talk) 10:55, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I know they haven't said it, but when you compare Spoo's FAR and AfD reviews to say several other AfDs on characters/elements lacking notability, the general consensus seems to be the same (the topic is non-notable for lack of secondary sources), yet Spoo has passed both for some reason (neither closing admin states what this is beyond passing). I have not seen any other article of that nature that has received an equivalent analysis of its notability-ness and yet stay (compare with the delisting of Bulbasaur which was done, which I believe is tied with the general change in the notability requirements because of the heavy reliance the article had on primary sources).

Basically, when I consider what everything else is being proposed or various concerns with fictional notability and set up a framework in my mind, Spoo always fails to follow that frameowrk. Mind you, the system is allowed to have exceptions per WP:IAR, so basically I'm saying that we should not try to write the framework around Spoo but instead around the general process for most articles. --MASEM 14:13, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

--MASEM 14:13, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

• I have updated the proposal to address some of DGG's points, where they refer to notability. It's my personal view of course. Feel free to edit where you disagree. --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Rejected?

Since it seems very clear that there is no consensus on multiple issues with this guideline shouldn't we change this to rejected? At this point I'm not even sure if we have a consensus on what we disagree on. The only thing there seems to be agreed upon is no one is happy with this guideline, no mater what changes are made. This discussion has taken place here, at the village pump, and at WP:N on various occasions over the past few months and the only thing I have seen is that no one can agree on anything. Ridernyc (talk) 15:11, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone involved thinks that the core of the guideline is incorrect - it's either that it needs more guidance as for its application or it needs more discussion on a rationale procedure to handle non-notable works that doesn't promote AfD as the first step. WP:N + WP:PLOT gives the core of the guideline - that cannot be changed.

I would say that those involved in trying to support articles from going to AfD to make sure to get an idea of the history of the article and bring it to light if the article was AfD'd without any warning or with minimal time to make changes, pointing out that WP:FICT does not advocate deletion unless other routes have been taken (which the present page states, and what we're trying to make crystal clear in a rewrite.

(I'd also be worried that if this was marked rejected, and other editors started noticing that, we'd have a flood of fancruft. Again, the core, being WP:N + WP:PLOT, is a logical continuation - its the details of implimentation). --MASEM 15:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

If this guideline is rejected, then people will just go to AfD directly, citing WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:N, possibly also WP:OR and WP:V/WP:RS, making the goals of those who opposite its current state much harder to achieve. Finding a middleground that encourages discussion before going to AfD is wanted here, although you can never punish those who take a more direct approach to prevent gaming-the-system discussions. – sgeureka ^t•c 15:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I think some sort of guidance has support, even if I don't think this page as it stands does, and I think disputed is the right tag. Most of us want to see a push towards the middleground sgeureka identifies. However, if we can't find that middleground, then an historical tag might make more sense. Hiding T 16:15, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we have tried to reach the middle ground and it never works. The main problem I have is with this guideline being changed constantly. If we want conversations to take place instead of AFD the guideline needs to be stable and stay the same for months. You can't have a guideline that changes 3-4 times a month. If anything this is forcing things to AFD. I personally have stopped citing this guideline due to the edit warring. Any middle ground will always be fought over. And as I have pointed out before most of this is and should be covered other places such as WP:WAF the sub-article argument is not a notability issue. Ridernyc (talk) 16:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The sub-article is made a notability issue by those people who nominate and delete such sub articles based on lacking notability. Hiding T 16:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I understand and agree that technically, there is nothing in WP:FICT that changes from WP:N. However, I strongly believe that fictional notability is an area that needs a large amount of guidance for both new articles and existing articles, above and beyond the guidance that WP:N outlines or the scope of WP:WAF (which is a MOS). We just need to start a rewrite, propose it to the community at large, and get it in place ASAP. --MASEM 17:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree that the sub-article problem is not a notability issue. While subarticles are in principle covered by WP:SUMMARY, the summary style approach is often so much overstressed for fictional topics (dozens of plot-only subarticles for one work of fiction) that we need additional guidance here. --B. Wolterding (talk) 19:52, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

You say it's a notability issue but then talk about real world context of articles, notability and real world context of sub-articles have nothing to do with each other and should not be dealt with in the notability guideline. Ridernyc (talk) 20:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

It is laughable to think that WP:FICT is rejected just because of the recent ranting on this talk page. Stop. and. think. A great many of you have become down right impatient, expecting instant and completely satisfactory results. Also, many of you seem to forget that a consensus does not mean getting everything your way. Most of these issues we don't have disagreement on, but we don't agree right away on how to word them. Stop freaking out and getting all over-dramatic. -- Ned Scott 17:51, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, when we do come across stuff that a lot of people can't agree on, we often counter that by giving more vague advice and letting editors sort out the details on a more case-by-case basis. Personally, this is why I think WP:FICT does look the way it does, because the more exact you try to make it the more people start to disagree with things. We don't have a rule saying what exactly you can or cannot write about, but instead we try to guide the thinking of the editors and get them to view the articles from the perspective of the real world.

I'm sorry for being a bit harsh in these discussions, but everyone needs to stop panicking and/or being so pessimistic about all of this. We all pretty much agree on is finding more alternatives to AfD for these articles, even the ones that don't really have a home here. We don't necessarily agree on arbitrary guidelines like how many articles should be made for each subject, but we can give examples and at least get people thinking of different situations. A few different times I proposed a "gray area table" example that was similar to what is seen on WP:CANVAS#Types of canvassing and WP:BADLINKS#Link assessment table (maybe with more than one table for more than one type of article).

This also goes back to some discussion a while ago when the "sub-article for style/technical reasons" part was added. There was a lot of talk about re-evaluating all of our fictional guidelines, WP:FICT, WP:WAF, WP:EPISODE, and seeing how they relate to each other. Not to mention the current arbcom case (that I'm a party of) that talks about the community's need to find ways to deal with these articles. These are on-going issues that we are trying to figure out, and they are not disputed issues simply because we haven't figured out all the answers yet. Thinking about these things as disputes only builds up the non-existence dispute in our minds. -- Ned Scott 18:32, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the core of this guideline is good, but it has a major deficiency in its wide-open treatment of sub-articles.

As per a previous discussion in October, the sub-article issue is a problem because it provides a big loophole in the basic principles of WP:N. Para 2 of Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)#Notable_topics should simply be deleted. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:21, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

You've got it wrong. Para 2 draws directly from deletion policy, and since policy supercedes guidance, WP:N must be the page which is in error and needs to be deleted. Hiding T 00:38, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

How to proceed

I'm a bit puzzled by the above discussion. A number of detailed points have been brought up, at least partially referring to notability. But actually on the core questions, I do not see so much disagreeement that we could not find consensus - apart that some have expressed that they want to abandon the WP:FICT guideline altogether.

What we can do

If somebody's honestly interested in a substantial rewrite of the guideline, I don't see why not to start now. We might set out from Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)/proposed-12-9-07 or from a fresh copy of the current guideline, as you prefer.

I intend to help with this rewrite, but I have a more general essay that talks about the way forward here. In a nutshell, the general way forward is:

• Good Wikiprojects
• Time... Don't hurry people and try to remain sensitive to their feelings at all times while you discuss. If you don't, you easily offend people and then its harder to get them to listen to you.
• Revival of the TV Review process
• Good rules on what is simply NOT acceptable. This is where the rewrite of this guideline comes in.
• A "new episode" watchlist/recent changes list

Ursasapien (talk) 10:13, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Good points in general - in particular, I agree with the third one, some kind of formal process is needed, only that I would see it a bit more broadly based, as mentioned below. However that will be a rather large chunk of rock to move... --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:37, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

What we probably cannot do at this time

I see a few issues around the guideline, related to process questions, that are maybe too heavyweight to be dealt with at this time. Let me name them nevertheless (and please tell me what you think of them).

• Transwiki: The current guideline emphasizes the transwiki option, but we don't have a proper process for it, neither on the technical nor on the organizational side. Additionally, the process is not really under Wikipedia's control (which wiki will accept content? in which form?). Perhaps we should emphasize the transwiki option less, for the time being.

• AfD: Whatever we do with articles about fiction, there will be controversies. That applies in particular when reducing content, which often seems to be necesary. Currently the only reasonable procedural option we then have is AfD. But the AfD process has many shortcomings (as you all know). I honestly think that we need an "article series for discussion" process. But that's far out of scope for a simple guideline change, of course. --B. Wolterding (talk) 21:21, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

While it's true that those two things will unlikely be fixed with a simple rewrite, perhaps the guideline should actually just say "the community is looking for ways to deal with these situations" so people at least know it's something we're working on fixing? Just a thought. -- Ned Scott 00:08, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

agreed on this one, if only to show we didnt accidentally forget about it. But we do have a article series for discussion process, as WikiProject workgroups. DGG (talk) 01:10, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, the transwiki option is being considered at the Village pump in regards to the ethical issues surrounding linking from the free site to the for-profit site. Ursasapien (talk) 06:15, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

There's no ethical issue about it. Any site meeting WP:EL can receive such a link, and by our own nature, even more so to other GFDL projects. Anyone can transwiki our content at any time, not just Wikia. Take a look at Meta:Interwiki map, where we support a very large number of external sites that meet the relevant criteria. -- Ned Scott 06:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

However, (as you know from participating in the discussion) the ethical issue surrounds whether Jimbo Wales free, charitable site should direct increased traffic to his ad-supported sites, directly increasing revenue to him. There is also the issue of giving a PageRank boost to Wikia, again greatly increasing revenue directly to Jimbo. You can not just lightly dismiss this issue (nor is it a hugely dramatic conflict of interest). Ursasapien (talk) 07:51, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I can when the issue has been beaten to death already. Jimbo didn't make any of these templates and he didn't add any of these links. The PageRank thing seems nothing more than an oversight, and a bugfix report will take care of that. Google is for profit, IMDb is for profit, heck, we are probably helping the people who write and sell fictional works make more money by providing articles for those works. Wikipedia barely gets enough money as it is with donations, and we're a lot larger than Wikia, and better known. It would pretty much be impossible for Wikia to exist based on donations like we are.

And like I said before, Wikia is not given any special treatment for being Wikia. There are a lot of other wikis out there that we support, as seen on Meta:interwiki map. -- Ned Scott 08:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I truly do not want to sidetrack this discussion. Nevertheless, I stand by my statement that there is an inherent, though inadvertant, conflict of interest. The issue is not that Wikia makes money, but that Jimbo heads up both projects. The PageRank oversite (which is special treatment by the way) needs to be fixed and Jimbo probably needs to be made aware of the perceived COI and he can deal with it how he sees fit. I just think this needs to enter the equation as we consider how much to promote transwiking.

As a side note, your nonchalant response to this issue suprises me, considering your austere interpretation of some of the other guidelines. Ursasapien (talk) 08:27, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

It can't be a conflict of interest if Jimbo doesn't have control over who is linking what and where. That simply falls outside of the definition of conflict of interest. Third parties (being us as editors) make these decisions without any incentive to support or oppose Wikia or any other site. -- Ned Scott 09:08, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I see where you are coming from. I guess I work in a field where conflict of interest can occur whether intentional or not. As a professional, I am supposed to declare any thing that even has the potential of being percieved as a conflict of interest. Again, I do not thing this is a major issue but one that must be entered into our consideration. Ursasapien (talk) 09:37, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The discussion about how to transwiki material is important, I agree, but it is far from clear that we can create a specific process. It is necessary to inform editors what wikia is, but in many cases the information here already exists at wikia to one degree or another. It would be hard to create a one-size fits all solution that editors could reference. Anyone who has the time to figure out how to add material to WP can add it to Wikia after a few minutes browsing around, so I don't think we need to be overly concerned with spoonfeeding. A description of how to carry material over may be useful. The issue about conflict of interest is, in my view, a canard. It has been much rehashed at the pump and mostly what I see are a small number of editors who cannot let the issue go; consensus view currently has no interdiction on linking to wikia and arm-waving about COI is misplaced. Eusebeus (talk) 15:44, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, that's more or less my point - it would be rather difficult to make transwiki a proper process, for several reasons. The utterly complicated description at Meta just underlines that. And as said, it's not only our decision what to transwiki, it also depends on the target wiki's decisions. On my part, I therefore count the transwiki option as "unavailable" by default and skip that step in the "Non-notable topics" section. I just feel that we should perhaps remove it from the standard workflow, handling it in the "Relocating non-notable fictional material" section only, separate from the rest. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:31, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

• So the propose that we're proposing now is:

1. If you see an article lacking notability, contact the editors by talk page or tagging
2. If no reasonable good faith effort to correct in a reasonable time frame, then either:
   1. Suggest a merge with existing article that either already demonstrates notability, or with other articles into a list of similar topics that can be treated in sub-article context, following appropriate merge processes
   2. If no reasonable merge target is possible, present the article for AfD, with the possible suggest to transwiki the material (if transwiki is mentioned here in AfD, someone who knows the process may be able to step forward to help move things).
3. If reasonable good faith to correct notability is shown, do nothing, check back after a reasonable amount of time.

Thoughts? --MASEM 17:55, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

With the exception that any article dealing with a single issue of a manga or comic, or a single episode of a television series be redirected as the first step. These can be presumed as being non-notable, and the onus is on the creating editor to prove otherwise.Kww (talk) 19:47, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd be careful with stating redirection as a first step - this is equivalent to deleting (save that the content can be retrieved w/o admin assistance), and is partially why people are screaming "deletionists" due to this guideline. Finding an article on one episode of an episodic work that does not have demonstrated notability should follow the same route - let the editors know there's a problem, wait for good faith to improve, and in this case, merge with redirection to a (presumably existing) list of episodes for that work.

I would consider a case where WP:PROD can be invoked for patently obvious non-notable fictional elements that would even not make a merge (say "Superman's toenail"). I say PROD and not CSD because someone may be able to say why this is notable beyond what you, the PRODing editor, may be aware of, and thus step in with a hold-it to prevent its auto-deletion. But again, this needs to be patently obvious, and appropriate action would be taken against editors abusing that aspect. --MASEM 20:32, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Problem is that as fast as TTN has been shoveling, the episode articles keep piling up. An individually notable television episode is as scarce as hen's teeth, and there is no reason to bother with even a prod cycle for the overwhelming majority of them. Nothing prevents people from making an episode article without notability concerns in the rare instances that it is possible, and causing a little burden there is preferable to creating a burden on the majority case.Kww (talk) 20:47, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I completely understand, but if we're trying to write this policy to be fair and avoid cries of "deletionism" (what prompted this whole rewrite), we need to use the same procedure for any fictional element, whether it be characters or episodes. I agree the onus is on the editors that make a new article shows notability very early in the writing process, so maybe we can include that for articles created after some date (when this goes live?) such fictional articles that fail to demonstrate notability can be PROD'd immediately (pointing back to this guideline in the PROD reasoning). --MASEM 21:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

What are the odds that the 'scarce' notable episodes will be overwhelmingly for Wikipedians' favourite shows?--Nydas^(Talk) 21:23, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Quality (and Potential) of Wikias and Episode Pages

I would like to question whether Wikias can ever be an effective solution for information moved from Wikia. The mere fact people have had to give me links on talk pages (in response to my complaints about the reduction of information to about three lines of text) to a Wikia (and that there were no obvious links on Wikipedia itself) proves in my mind that the Wikia system doesn't work, added to which is the fact that the Wikias are unlikely to be as updated or have such a large userbase (or quality of articles), that Wikias (in general) lack any support by Firefox search bars or similar useful apps, that the page formats are awful, and collapse completely when the page is beyond about three printer pages in length (in both Firefox and IE, the former of which is practically unusable), and the unlikelyhood of them appearing in a decent position in search engine rankings.

I find it amusing that pages such as episode pages are considered poor quality when they are far more readable than many other pages, in particular those on scientific subjects that seem to assume that (apart from the summary, in most cases, which is normally easier to read but more limited than the article) the reader has a full knowledge of every subject mentioned, which simply defies belief in terms of research. Wikipedia is a fantastic resource, but this continual deletion of information seems to be taking away its primary benefit over other encyclopedias, that being that you can type in a topic you are looking for and in 99.9% of cases there will be an article for it that at least acts as a reasonably up-to-date NPOV (which is particularly useful on subjects otherwise plagued with bias if they were to be searched for on Google) starting point for further learning.

Due to the amount of effort required (and the impossibility for those who aren't admin) to return a page from deletion, and the ease with which pages are deleted without consideration, Wikipedia is losing that usefulness. Even a single seperate (but listed at the bottom of the main page alongside Wikinews, Wikiquote etc.) wiki for TV, Games and etc. culture would've been a better move. It seems very strange that episode pages (always a useful resource for myself) are reduced to a summary, completely useless in practically all cases. I understand that articles should be merged if they do not justify their own page, but why on earth is most of the content on the merged page taken away in the process, including (ironically) real world info which is always used as an argument by those who justify the process. The Wikia argument, as I've mentioned above, holds no water in my mind. Websites such as IMDB, and TV.com have distracting adverts, or require a subscription for detailed information, or simply lack any decent information on a subject. Wikipedia, by the way it works, excels at this sort of information. Splitting people into 'fans' and 'non-fans' and labelling them will get us nowhere at all.

I suggest that either linking is improved for inter-wikia problems (which still causes problems regarding quality), or (as I suggested) a single wiki for all TV and modern media info made, or that Wikipedia should reincorporate this information and it should once again be possible for people to use Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia for finding out unopinionated and unbiased information, rather than to find three lines of text that any website on the web could write and that may as well not exist at all. Thoughts?

(I created this new section because I couldn't for the life of me figure out where this should fit in on the page itself, if there is somewhere else on this page it should be, move it.) --Riche (talk) 20:26, 13 December 2007 (UTC)