Talk:Tau Ceti in fiction

Niven

Larry Niven wrote a book called Rainbow Mars, in which all the Martian civilizations imagined by Edgar Rice Burroughs, C.S. Lewis, H.G. Wells, etc., exist together on the same crowded planet. Someone inevitably will write a "Rainbow Tau Ceti," in which all the fictional worlds imagined around Tau Ceti orbit that star. Das Baz 18:34, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

In both Time for the Stars and The Legacy of Heorot, the big predator on the planet is a giant lizard. Maybe they're related?

Maybe the "C" in "Tau Alpha C" stands for "Ceti." 66.99.0.56 16:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC) I think this comment is mine, but I am not certain. It was years ago. Das Baz, aka Erudil 19:16, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The first time I did some editing in this article, there were about a dozen fictional worlds associated with Tau Ceti. By now there are over thirty. Das Baz, aka Erudil 22:45, 4 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Das Baz (talk • contribs) It is absurd to say the comment is "unsigned" when it has both of my signatures, Das Baz and Erudil 18:24, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Tau Ceti is not from Halo, the planet there is called Chi Ceti, that should be deleted... - AvidWriter —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.221.116.142 (talk) 21:39, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Noteworthy?

This

• In Jim Erjavec's The Caverns of Mare Cetus, Tau Ceti is the parent star to a lifeless world that is riddled with spectacular subterranean passages. The Tau Ceti System has thirteen planets and 144 satellites. Mare Cetus is the third planet from Tau Ceti; Novia Cetus, the home planet of the explorers investigating the caverns on Mare Cetus, is the second planet. The novel is set in the year 2165.

is a self-published book. It hardly seems noteworthy enough for inclusion. Opinions? --SandChigger (talk) 03:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Update on Rainbow Tau Ceti

By my latest count, there are at least 39 fictional planets orbiting Tau Ceti. "Rainbow Tau Ceti" will be a huge Saga. Das Baz, aka Erudil 16:52, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

second closest star to the sun

The page states "Tau Ceti is the second closest star to the Sun (after Alpha Centauri A) having spectral class G", which can be misread as "Tau Ceti is the second closest star to the Sun, having spectral class G" which would be wrong. However, it should be read as "Tau Ceti is the second closest star to the Sun having spectral class G", which is correct, since only Alpha Centauri A has spectral class G and is nearer to the sun (see list of nearest stars).

Perhaps some native speaker can change the sentence in a way that avoids this possible misunderstanding? -- Andreas Ley (talk) 10:04, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Someone had changed it to "second closest main sequence" star, which is not true. Sirius and various red dwarfs are closer. Believe I have it correct now. Pekoebrew (talk) 00:52, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Bodacious Space Pirates (the light novel series)…

… is mentioned twice, once under literature and once under comics. Light novels aren't comics (in any way). The comics reference should IMO be removed, however the text there is better, so it should be moved to literature.

If nobody has a good reason why not, I'll do it in a couple of days. As a very occasional contributor, I don't like to make changes without asking first. Lalo Martins (talk) 18:19, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Hm, actually there's a manga adaptation. I'll just edit to make that explicit. And why not do the same for the anime while I'm at it Lalo Martins (talk) 18:22, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Recent deletion of this page (c. 2021-11-20)

The content of this page was recently deleted and replaced with a redirect to Stars and planetary systems in fiction, on the grounds that the editor "[had] not found enough MOS:POPCULT-compliant coverage of this topic to justify a stand-alone article."

There were several distinct and (mostly) unrelated issues with this:

• Although this article was originally split from the Tau Ceti article 15 years ago (!), it's now a subarticle of Stars and planetary systems in fiction — that article contains a section "Tau Ceti" which consists solely of a link to this page. Replacing this article with a redirect there simply created a contentless loop.
• This article is listed in the navbox Template:Astronomical locations in fiction, but was not removed therefrom.
• My reading of MOS:POPCULT does not suggest that:
  • ... the general topic of "Tau Ceti in fiction" would need to have separate coverage, rather than individual items having relevant references.
  • ... the lede of this page would fall under MOS:POPCULT at all.
• This was, arguably, an end-run around properly listing this page on AfD. I don't think WP:IGNORE applies here.

I've since found that this was one of a collection of similar deletions of pages about astronomical locations in fiction by a single editor, and have reverted those which hadn't already been reverted.

(Note: This article previously contained a reference linking to Maia's Kickstarter page; this reference cannot easily be restored due to the blacklisting of kickstarter.com since its original inclusion.)

—Twice Nothing (talk) 20:53, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

I've reverted TompaDompa's changes again, as they've effectively tried the same tactic but from a different angle. They make a good initial point about Popcult, but it's nothing that can't be fixed by checking the source articles in each case. All the entries have articles of their own, and are notable in their own right, so it shouldn't be too difficult to check them to see how relevant Tau Ceti is in each case. Some of the removed entries are already sourced, so may be ok as they stand.

In the past I've been through and removed obvious non-notable entries, but I think this article can be saved. Chaheel Riens (talk) 07:15, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Well, what are you proposing? None of the examples on the page are supported by MOS:POPCULT-compliant sources. We need to have proper sourcing for the content or else there's no article. I have checked my go-to sources (The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Science Fact and Science Fiction by Brian Stableford, and Science Fiction Literature through History: An Encyclopedia by Gary Westfahl) that I've used to salvage similar articles (e.g. Neptune in fiction), and none of them contain significant coverage of the overarching theme (or whatever one would call it) of Tau Ceti in fiction. That doesn't necessarily mean that no sources exist that cover that topic of course, but none have been located thus far. What we currently have is a list that violates MOS:POPCULT in its entirety. What's more, quite a few of these "X in fiction/popular culture/whatever" lists have been brought to WP:AfD recently(-ish) with the same outcome: pure TV Tropes-style lists that enumerate every time X is featured in fiction/popular culture/whatever being rejected in favour of rewriting the articles in prose form based on proper secondary/tertiary sources. See e.g. WP:Articles for deletion/Far future in fiction, WP:Articles for deletion/Eco-terrorism in fiction, WP:Articles for deletion/Earth in science fiction (2nd nomination), WP:Articles for deletion/Space stations and habitats in fiction, WP:Articles for deletion/Supernovae in fiction, and WP:Articles for deletion/Neptune in fiction. The question of whether we want TV Tropes-style lists has been settled—we don't—and this has has been codified in MOS:POPCULT. There's no reason to relitigate this separately for every single article when the obvious course of action is to fix these massive and widespread issues in the same way we have fixed them before with similar articles. TompaDompa (talk) 08:07, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

There's no such thing as a specific "MOS:POPCULT-compliant source[s]" - there's only WP:RELIABLE, and POPCULT confirms this with the phrase "all such references should be discussed in at least one reliable secondary source which specifically links the cultural item to the subject of the article" - it only says the source has to be reliable, not a science fiction based source as yours appear to be. For example, Tau Ceti (video game) (which is probably how I watchlisted this article in the first place) passes inclusion because there is a reliable source that corroborates that the entire game is based and set on Tau Ceti - the game is called "Tau Ceti". It doesn't have to be mentioned in scifi material, any reliable source is sufficient, and many of the entries either already have these - or based on their general notability - shouldn't be too hard to find. Those that can't be found can be removed - I have no bones about that, but I feel mass deletion based on possibly over-restrictive interpretation of policy is not the way to start. Chaheel Riens (talk) 08:57, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

You're mistaken. Per MOS:POPCULT: Cultural references about a subject (for example how it is presented in a movie, song, television show, etc.) should not be included simply because they exist. Rather, all such references should be discussed in at least one reliable secondary source which specifically links the cultural item to the subject of the article. This source should cover the subject of the article in some depth; it should not be a source about the cultural item which merely mentions the subject. The subject of the article is Tau Ceti in fiction. The cultural item is e.g. Tau Ceti (video game). The sources need to discuss the former, not merely the latter. The sources on this article don't. That's what's meant by the sources not being MOS:POPCULT-compliant. None of the entries comply with MOS:POPCULT. All of the entries need to be removed for not complying with MOS:POPCULT or else be adjusted such that they do comply with MOS:POPCULT. I've looked through sources with a high likelihood of providing MOS:POPCULT-compliant coverage of these kinds of topics—as indeed they do for several others such as Neptune in fiction—without finding such coverage. The next step seems obvious to me: cleanup the list so no entries that fail to meet MOS:POPCULT remain. That will leave precisely zero entries at present. Consequently, we don't have enough content for a stand-alone article at present, though we might in the future if sources that provide the kind of coverage that MOS:POPCULT mandates are located. We can't have a list with no entries, and the most obvious redirect target is Stars and planetary systems in fiction. TompaDompa (talk) 09:18, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm kind of coming round to your way of thinking. I don't agree with it, but that's why we have policy - so when there is disagreement there's a policy to decide. I think POPCULT is unnecessarily strict, and could do with broadening slightly - it seems ridiculous that a game called "Tau Ceti", based on Tau Ceti is not a valid entry on an article called "Tau Ceti in fiction". I think the issue for me is based on article title and interpretation - "Pop culture" and "XXXX in fiction" are not necessarily the same thing. "Pop culture" could be as simple as a passing mention, whereas "in fiction" means a broader scope and by definition requires more substantial mention - such as being a plot device, rather than a mention. For this general notability seems to be sufficient. I still stand by my reversions, but I'll think about how to present them as modifications in an attempt to meet the current popcult requirements. Chaheel Riens (talk) 07:36, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that complying with MOS:POPCULT would require an entirely new set of sources to base the article on. There is no way to rewrite the current version to make it MOS:POPCULT-compliant based on the sources we have now, because the sources themselves do not meet the requirements. The reason we have these requirements is that we don't want lists of examples, we want analysis. The essay WP:CARGO explains this rather well: Collecting raw data does not produce an analysis. The raw data can be examples, that demonstrate the analysis. (There are some elephant jokes in elephant joke, for example.) But simply amassing huge piles of them doesn't make an analysis. What makes an analysis is finding the works of experts in the field who have done analyses of the raw data, and then condensing and summarizing their published analyses into the article. (Collecting raw data and then producing our own novel analyses of those data is, of course, original research that is forbidden here.). For now, I don't see any other course of action than redirecting this (I would merge instead, but there is nothing properly sourced to merge). TompaDompa (talk) 01:40, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Revisiting this a couple of years later, I have found two sources that actually do cover the overarching topic of Tau Ceti in fiction:

• Nicoll, James Davis (2023-09-20). "Star Power: Five Classic SF Works Featuring Tau Ceti". Reactor. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
• Liptak, Andrew (2015-07-20). "Visiting Tau Ceti with 4 Science Fiction Authors". B&N Reads. Retrieved 2024-04-12.

Reactor (formerly Tor.com) is a reliable outlet for science fiction and fantasy content, and Andrew Liptak has been published in Clarkesworld Magazine (as well as the aforementioned Tor.com, for that matter) and so should meet WP:SPS. Unfortunately, the combined coverage in these two sources is rather thin, and the sources are themselves listicles, which is less than ideal. As such, I don't think we can use these two sources alone to create a stand-alone article that's up to snuff, but it's a start in terms of locating sources at least. TompaDompa (talk) 20:14, 12 April 2024 (UTC)