Talk:List of appearances of the Moon in fiction

What is this article intended to be?

Chiswick Chap, is this intended to be a navigational list, provide information about the examples, or provide information about the overarching topic in general (trends and whatnot)? The sourcing required depends a lot on that—if it's meant to be a purely navigational list, it might not be necessary to cite any sources at all. The optimal layout is of course also different depending on what the article is meant to accomplish. TompaDompa (talk) 18:37, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

It's a normal navigational list, so it can rightly contain any number of linked articles, each of which is an example; and it is not obliged, contrary to the tag, to explain in detail with secondary sources the theory and practice of each subtopic, as a text article would be, so I do think the tag is misplaced. I'm personally of the persuasion that every claim should be cited in a list, as the links to articles are to Wikipedia, "not a reliable source". You are right that some other editors have a different view, which is that a navigational list can indeed rely on Wikipedia and it's all-the-other-articles' problem if their sourcing is cruddy-to-absent. I can sort of see why they'd think that, but of course it'd be disastrous if that view became widespread, or we'd have thousands of cruddy lists. Oh, so we do. Better look out some sources. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:44, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

My point was that if it is only a navigational list (i.e. just links to the articles on the works, the list equivalent of Category:Novels set on the Moon and related categories), the sourcing only needs to verify that each entry is indeed a work of fiction where the Moon appears (and that's only strictly speaking necessary if its inclusion is WP:CHALLENGED), but if descriptions of the works are to be included then we need a much higher standard of sourcing, namely that which is outlined by MOS:POPCULT: the sources need to be on the overarching topic, not about the entries themselves. TompaDompa (talk) 19:19, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Indeed. Let's just start with a nav-list, it may gradually improve from there. I shall accordingly remove the tag now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:06, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Nearly three years later, I think it's safe to say that the list has not improved from its initial state. The vast majority of the entries remain unsourced, as do their descriptions. Seeing as this is not in fact a purely navigational list, sources are required. I have consequently re-added the maintenance templates (and backdated them). We may compare this with the old version of Stars and planetary systems in fiction, which similarly contained a long list of entries with these kinds of descriptions—an approach that was rejected at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stars and planetary systems in fiction in favour of rewriting the article from scratch and eventually splitting it in two: extrasolar planets in fiction and stars in fiction. TompaDompa (talk) 17:03, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

A month later, no further improvement in the state of the article—but we have further precedent in rejecting these kinds of lists: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of stars and planets in fiction, where a recreated iteration of the above-mentioned list version of stars and planetary systems in fiction was again rejected (and outright deleted this time). TompaDompa (talk) 21:34, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

This is a functional page for those looking for a nice list of appropriate fictional mentions. Chiswick Chap saved it, and there is nothing broken here. TompaDompa's pages are fine reads academically, and that is their function. They are not quick-read lists like this of entries which are sourced at their articles, and it would have been nice to keep all of these quick-read lists (as it is nice to have this one to remind us of what used to be). Randy Kryn (talk) 23:19, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Well said. The list has a plain job, and it does it properly. Chiswick Chap (talk) 04:06, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

No, it does not. It is not a proper navigational list—if it were, it would not contain unlinked or WP:REDLINKED entries. Nor is it a proper informational list—if it were, it would not contain a bunch of unsourced content. If it's meant to be either of those, it needs a major overhaul. What it is is a TV Tropes list—a bunch of editor-selected works with editor-written descriptions based on editors feeling "this should go on here"—which would be fine on TV Tropes but is not appropriate here. What are the criteria here—is it supposed to be all works of fiction the Moon verifiably appears in, or just the notable (in the sense of having a Wikipedia article) ones, or just the major ones (in some other sense), or what? There has clearly not been much thought that has gone into the overarching construction of this list article.

But let's see if we can't get to understand each other's perspectives better. @Randy Kryn and Chiswick Chap: would you say that this old list version of stars and planetary systems in fiction was likewise a functional list, and if not, what's the difference here? TompaDompa (talk) 06:13, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Attribution

Text and references copied from Moon in fiction to List of appearances of the Moon in fiction. See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:04, 27 December 2021 (UTC)