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An attempt to ban images from character lists

There are a few editors who have taken an extreme interpretation of the guideline portion of WP:NFC to mean that images are banned from any list or group article regarding characters. This has never had consensus, and directly conflicts with what is allowed per WP:NFCC. When I raised this issue with User:Betacommand, his suggestion was to break WP:FICT and simply split the characters into independent articles, which has no bearing on WP:NFC. I strongly encourage everyone to get involved at WT:NFC. -- Ned Scott 06:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Yet another reason why I'm no longer wasting my time with this aspect of Wikipedia. It's just not worth it anymore. — Deckiller 17:56, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
The solution here is to simply revert Betacommand. He's wrong and that's all there is to it. Jtrainor (talk) 09:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
No, not exactly. Betacommand is right about some of these lists, but the problem is him (and others) treating all of them the same simply because they say "list of" or are a group of more than one character. And it is true that we should be using group pictures when we can. -- Ned Scott 09:52, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I think part of the problem is that Betacommand is unaware of consensus to put characters into list articles rather than individual articles. He seems to advocate breaking them out into individual articles and then using a fair-use image or two in each article. To me, it is another example of an editor that thinks to rigidly regarding their interpretation of guidelines. They are "cleaning up" in good faith, but it does little for cooperative improvement. Ursasapien (talk) 11:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree in principal with the view thatimages are banned from any list or group article regarding characters, otherwise there will be a problem with image galleries being created. I believe the current concensus it that they are not allowed, and I can't think of a reason why they should.--Gavin Collins (talk) 13:23, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
The fact that the image is critically discussed or illustrates a critical point within the list? ie the very reason fair use law was created in the US? Hiding T 13:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Is the image critically discussed, or is the character critically discussed? There's a difference, and most character lists that I see hold almost no critical discussion they are mostly just plot details about the character.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Can't tell if this is a response to me or not, but I should point out I was posting in response to Gavin's assertion that he "can't think of a reason why they should" be allowed in articles. I tend to agree with you Bignole, but I don't agree with Gavin. Where images are used in complaince with policy they should be allowed. Some of our featured lists use images in the correct manner, and I would hate to see them arbitrarily removed. Hiding T 14:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Just as a note, there, the debate no longer is saying that "all" images from lists must be removed (actually, even the updated wording in WP:NFCC didn't say this, but BetaCommand/Hammersoft were deleting all images without question, which of course leads to the concern of removing all images from any list). --MASEM 15:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a huge overlap between images in character lists and non-notable lists of characters, making this issue particularly fun for me :-P. I do not want to intermix WP:FICT with WP:NFCC but I will say that the idea that non-notable lists of characters should be written in summary style (that is brief descriptions of these characters), and part of that support for summary style is that we don't fill the list with lots and lots of non-free images - you wouldn't do that if the list was in the main article, it wouldn't be done in a section. Some images are fine, but I think there's some balance between "none" and "every item has a picture". --MASEM 14:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Another cute puppy picture
I aggree with Masem, and in in response to Hiding, if WP is to comply with fair use guidelines, then arguably usuage should be limited without exception. The reason is that a lot of editors like to add their favorite images to articles they have an affinity too; its a bit like adding content without citations: its easy, cheap (in terms of time and brainpower), and you feel like you are making a contribution to Wikipedia without making much effort. The downside is some articles (like Star Trek and List of dog breeds) are getting inundated with dispensible pictures. I feel this is an area, like WP:SPAM where you have to be firm otherwise WP is going to be knee deep in starship and cute puppy JPEGS. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
That's not what you said up there. I'm the one supporting the policies and guidance we have. You are the one going further. I have absolutely no idea what you mean by limited without exception. I'm of the opinion we use images in line with WP:FUC. We have an editing policy which shows us how to improve our articles. Hiding T 16:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
If someone can challenge the fair use rationale of an image, in that it really isn't needed, then they can do so, but there's never been a blanket ban of non-free images from lists or group articles.
Before this little incident took place, I was involved in a similar situation on Clow Cards. If you look at the edit history, you'll see me trying to fight off other editors who wanted to add even more images than the list had at the time (which I had cut in half, simply from a quick clean up). I had even removed more unnecessary images from very minor characters when I was blocked by pissed off admin who was mad at an unrelated issue (unrelated to the article and unrelated to me, as I later found out). I was promptly unblocked, but too drained at that point (and frustrated with image extremist on both sides) to continue the work right then. I've since saved all of the images to my hard drive, and eventually I plan on picking out about eight of them, with help from other editors on the talk page to serve as examples. These "cards" are a major element of the manga and anime, and contain a number of examples in both concept, artwork, and character. I am confidant that I can make strong fair use rationales for all of those images that are more than just "identifying X". (although I do think identification for some concepts, depending on the context, can be seen as fundamental information that should be included.) -- Ned Scott 07:36, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposing a noticeboard

I'd like to propose that when we bring the proposed rewrite to the wider community we also add to it the proposition of a noticeboard along the lines of WP:FTN. I don't think the participants on this talk page are that far apart in our ideals, and I think we'd all watch the noticeboard and we could offer our opinions and involve ourselves in disputed articles and edit them to improve them in line with our editing policy and WP:CONSENSUS, and we could also hash out merge discussions there in a more central area than individual article talk pages which could help tpo take the strain off at afd. I know this was tried at WP:EPISODE, and it was thought it needed wider consensus if memory serves, so I think if we add the idea to WP:FICT and generate discussion on it and make it a stop in the resolution of disputes such as the one which led to the recent arbcom case. We need a central area where we can discuss the underlying issues and work out where the real consensus is, and we need to take the load off of afd where it isn't needed. Appreciate thoughts. Hiding T 12:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm all for that. We don't need to go as far as a portal/wikiproject, but I can see including AfD and merge requests for fictional works and topics. --MASEM 14:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. -- Ned Scott 19:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
As long as it can be kept active (people commenting on multiple discussions constantly instead of just a few here and there), and everybody goes into it knowing that most of the articles that pass through it will probably be merged or redirected, it can probably work out pretty well. TTN (talk) 21:10, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
No, people would (rightfully) be going into it actively preventing a merge or redirect, likely instigated by a drive-by tagger. People will want to talk about their opposition to the merge / redirect, which will be ignored by those that wanted the merge in the first place. And then, when that happens, people will complain, and we'll be in the same situation as we're in. I still think my "tags go away if the tagger doesn't do work on the page" plan is the best. Scumbag (talk) 21:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Discussions on the potential board will be based in policies and guidelines, so if people are just there to complain, they will just be given links to alternative wikis and suggestions on how to edit the new information. TTN (talk) 21:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
it might work as long as we avoid a situation where "everybody goes into it knowing that most of the articles that pass through it will probably be merged or redirected," The articles will be dealt with as they are appropriate. If it becomes a device to keep or delete almost everything, or to fight between those two alternatives, it's no advance over the present situation. DGG (talk) 03:13, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
it will just be another place for endless debates and everything will end up going through AFD just like is happening now. ALso the TTN stalking is getting really annoying. Ridernyc (talk) 03:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Contemporary culture is "lucky"

Assuming Masem meant 'Internet culture', s/he is correct. It's especially lucky for us, that a guideline drafted by us would just happen to make sure that our favourite fiction would have a much easier ride. Especially when we bend the rules to allow creator Internet posts to be permissable sources, no matter how trite or whimsical.

I would suggest that the 'good-or-featured-within-a-month-or-else' attitude is unduly harsh on pre-Internet fiction. Finding printed sources is difficult and may involve spending money. It doesn't help that our mindset revolves around the existence of fans who can be cajoled into improving the article. A lot of the time, popular and important fiction has no 'fans' whatsoever.--Nydas(Talk) 19:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

He :-)
Also, part of what "good faith efforts to improve the article" implies is that, say your article gets tagged as being non-notable but you know info isn't on the web, and as you're the only major editor and being a volunteer effort, you may not have time to go to the library or the like to do that research, but you know that you can. As long as you, the working editor, acknowledge "Ok, I see it's not-notable, I will try to get some information locally but my time is limited" as a result of being tagged, WP:AGF states that no one should then merge away or delete the article. If, a month later, nothing has changed since that acknowledgement, the wanna-be merger/deleter should ask if any progress is being made and wait for a response. There is no deadline, but there should be evidence that some improvement is trying to be done; a lack of any response to a "notability" tag or similar notification within some time period (a month?) should be taken as a lack of effort to improve the article, and thus the merge/transwiki route should then be taken. --MASEM 19:26, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
A lot of our under-represented fiction has zero major editors. There's no-one to fix it up. How many editors (especially new ones) have the confidence to stand up to fiction deletionists, anyway?--Nydas(Talk) 19:34, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
In that case, again with the concept that the last thing we want to do is delete information, is to take the content to the Annex and redirect the article appropriately. If someone later comes around, is interested in that topic area, and can provide notability information, it can be easily restored. But again, prior to such steps there should be a reasonable amount of notification; we don't want a "Hitchhiker's Guide" situation where the notice was only posted at Alpha Centauri and it was discovered too late for anything to be done. A reasonable editor that wanted to move such stuff would also seek out projects and task forces that those items would fall into and check there as well, but that's not a requirement. --MASEM 19:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
In other words, a mountain of paperwork. The average editor will never be able to tackle all that, and the average fiction deletionist will ignore it. A better solution would be to resolve to cover important fictional characters even if our current demographic is incapable of providing information about them.--Nydas(Talk) 20:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
This is the problem we've gotten into in that there is too much non-notable material on WP that has been generated by editors long since gone from the project or no longer have interest in it, and newer editors that which to streamline the content per newer consensus. I'm not saying that every article needs an editor to maintain it to be kept, but clearly if given fair warning and no one makes any edits or GF attempts to help the article, and the article fails to meet policy and guidelines, removing it is an acceptable solution; we only ask that the information be thrown to the Annex if there is useful content to be saved. This is true for all topics, not just fictional ones, and only seems to hit fictional ones more because the demonstration of notability is not as easy to perform as it is for most other topics. --MASEM 21:06, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Stubs are acceptable content on WP. It is a good idea, even, to have an incomplete article: people will be encouraged to improve it when they see it, and they will not find it missing and try to write another that may well be worse. The way to getting better content is to improve what we have.DGG (talk) 22:40, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Not all content can be improved. Your suggestion is to leave pages as they are in the hopes that one day, maybe someone will have information that will make them better? I might as well create a page about myself, because one day I may just be famous enough for Wikipedia to have a good article about me.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:52, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
A stub can be acceptable permanently, if it indicates notability--even if it is unreferenced. Once something has been created and read/watched/played, critical work appears. Once you will have done something notable, then it is reasonable to make an article, because you will be discussed. Until you have, it won't be, because nobody will ever discuss you. If a character is minor and in a work generally considered to be unimportant, then I agree with you it is unreasonable to make an article, but just include it in a more general one. I have never supported articles about really minor characters in works that are not of the greatest importance. (Every character at all in Shakespeare has been discussed, but probably nothing else has such a density of secondary literature.) It is of course difficult to tell what works will be considered of importance in future generations--it was decades before any serious criticism on tolkien began to appear. So I would actually be rather conservative about this--only if the character is of importance or the work significant enough, can the material can be expected to appear.
At present, most of the material that does exist is very difficult to access--there are no indexes for pre-internet informally-published material on popular literature, the way thee are for, say, Elizabethian poetical miscellany, or the most minor surviving medieval musical manuscripts. Only the largest libraries have the material. You or i could easily challenge in a hour more articles than we could research in a year. We should build on what we have, and encourage others to do so. We are probably not the brightest or most dedicated people who will ever work on this material in WP, nor will any but a very few of us devote our full life's attention to it. I must admit something here: I have no likelihood of ever working on articles on most subjects covered in wikipedia, including the ones I want to read about. It's a community project. DGG (talk) 01:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Explain how you show notability without sources? If you put something in Wikipedia, and you don't source it, it can be and usually is removed on the spot. You cannot claim it's notable without showing the sources to back up the claim. As for minor characters, I see you use the idea "if the works [the character is a part of] is considered unimportant", I don't know if you mean if their role is unimportant or if the show/book/etc etc is not that popular. Either way, it doesn't matter if they were a minor character in Star Wars, every character must show notability beyond simply saying "[s(he)] appears in all the works". Number of appearances is not a criteria for inclusion, unless their number of appearance is itself notable, even then...if there is nothing else to say about the character other than they appeared in a work of fiction then they probably don't need an entire article devoted to them. You're saying leave them be and they'll get fixed. I say, trim the fat and lets start working on the real meat first. When we can say that the articles that clearly are notable are in good shape, then I think we should worry about these minor articles that have lived in the cracks for so long, never asserting any notability (and possibly never going to). Also, there is no excuse for not asserting notability, not even the "only the largest libraries have the sources needed to show notability for some topics", because there's always someone that has access to those sources. It seems to be a common theme that editors believe the only sources are the ones they find on the internet, but the best sources are the ones you find in the library. Anyone in college has access to tons of peer reviewed journals and many other sources. Anyone with a public library has access to some of the same information (not all, but I'm sure a pretty good amount). There is no excuse for not asserting notability. If you don't do it, then one must assume that it cannot be done. The proof is in the pudding, and if you cannot show it then we cannot just go out on a limb and assume it exists. Claims are not verifiable, that's why they're claims.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 01:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Ok, so you support the deletion of J.R. Ewing? He's the main character in an important 80s soap opera, but the article is bad, and is unlikely to be cleaned up for years. Wikipedians are overwhelmingly ignorant of this sort of fiction, and once the article has been redirected, you've set a high hurdle for anyone who wants to improve it. At the very least, they'll have to know how to undo redirects, possibly file a DRV (more paperwork) and fend off the fiction deletionists. --Nydas(Talk) 09:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
<bad mood>Good. Maybe someone ready to do that just might be ready to write something worth a crap.</bad mood> In all reality, though, yes, exactly. There should be a hurdle. Don't just write something, write something worthwhile. Cutting and trimming is something every good editor does, and well, we're all editors. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Following the guidance of the proposed guideline, this article would not be deleted, but as a first step merged to all the other Dallas characters ( which I note have their own article) into a "List of Dallas characters", appropriate in non-notable summary style, moving the long list that is currently on the main Dallas page to that. The editor that does that would not necessarily improve any of the text, but simply group all those articles together into one (maybe two). Redirects would still exist: someone typing "J.R. Ewing" would still find the same info on him. This is exactly the type of case where the "merge" suggestion in "how to deal with non-notable fiction" is meant to handle. --MASEM 14:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
If you merge trash, you will get a dump. Given the pitiless hounding of the Warcraft lists, there's no reason to assume that the same won't happen with a Dallas list. Twenty year old soap operas aimed at women are probably even lower on the pecking order than MMORPGs.
Whenever Wikipedians discuss fiction, they instinctively retreat to their comfort zones of Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, anime and video games. Romance fiction (which accounts for 50%+ of all novel sales in the US) never gets a mention. Instead of facing up to our institutional ignorance, we're burying it. Like Victorian quacks, the fiction deletionists insist it's all got to be chopped off.--Nydas(Talk) 21:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Hang on. You aren't suggesting articles on all the Mills & Boon books? :-/ Carcharoth (talk) 23:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Not all of them, though there are probably important ones that we should cover. We should certainly cover romance novels by major authors released by major publishers, they're bound to have been reviewed by women's magazines. Very important ones should have character sub-articles. There's no point getting snobbish about romance when we've got a couple of thousand articles about pulp sci-fi and fantasy novels.--Nydas(Talk) 10:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
The only way to remove this area of fiction bias altogether is to state that a fictional work gets exactly one and only one page, no episode lists, no notable characters, etc. That, I'm pretty sure, is not going to happen. Furthermore, we cannot counter the bias that editors bring in that we have large focuses on fictional works over scientific and historical works.
If an article is in a shape that does not work without our policies and no one is actively editing it, it is completely appropriate to remove that article; in the case of fiction, the content likely can be saved. --MASEM 22:33, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
We can maintain a relaxed attitude towards pre-Internet and poorly-covered-online fiction, like we do for developing world topics. This is more in line witb WP:NPOV and will attract editors that have an interest in these areas, leading to a long-term improvement.--Nydas(Talk) 10:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
NPOV has nothing to state about the overall distribution of topics that are covered on WP - no one can force anyone to work on something they aren't interested in. We have a systematic bias towards modern works simply because most of us have "experience" with them and thus can write more comfortably towards it. What we want to encourage is people to work on other areas outside their comfort zone so that the systematic bias is reduced.
However, if we did treat less-popular, older works that may have print but not internet coverage, we create special classes of articles. Remember that this entire WP:FICT rewrite is due to the fact that people think fiction gets treated different (some saying it gets too much favoritism, other says it gets singled out). I truly believe that the rewrite align the dealing with fiction with the dealing of any other topic in order to remove any special status compared to other works. It is not wise not appropriate to create a sub-class or exception for certain types of fiction articles simply because that resources cannot be found through a google search. Instead, we make sure that the method of handling all fictional articles accounts for the fact that information is not always readily available and may take time to research, and thus assume good faith improvements to demonstrate notability. --MASEM 14:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
We're on completely different wavelengths. You are wrong to conflate 'modern' and 'popular' with 'available on google'. Google doesn't cover a lot of modern, popular fiction particularly well, and neither do we. Generally speaking, we only cover modern, popular fiction well if it also has a 'fandom'.
Treating certain classes of articles differently is the done thing on Wikipedia. It's why WP:N is only a guideline. There's nobody rushing around merging Indian politician stubs into lists or redirecting African town stubs. Other, better notability guidelines have additional criteria for notability (awards or chart success or whatever), this one should as well.--Nydas(Talk) 22:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Just like, say WP:BIO, we are not changing what NOTE means - we are only clarifying (as a guideline) common ways to demonstrate notability (in this case, we consider 'real-world' information above all else, which is not stated in NOTE (but comes from PLOT), and say that a fictional work must have this shown through development, reception, or similar information, in order to be included. --MASEM 22:58, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
You've still not explained why this guideline can't change what WP:N means; most (all?) other notability guidelines do this. WP:MUSIC allows musicians that have released two or more albums on major labels, WP:BK allows books by extremely notable authors, WP:FILM allows 'landmark' films, etc. They do this because it makes Wikipedia better.
I've already made my views on WP:PLOT clear above; it's a list fragment which follows on from this page, using it as a basis for anything is putting the cart before the horse.--Nydas(Talk) 23:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
And each of those additional guideline do not surplant "significant coverage in secondary sources", they enhance that specifically for that field, though there is an assumption (a strong one, but still an assumption) that by meeting those requirements, a topic will also have appropriate sources to back it up. I will note all 3 have the cavaet of saying "The topic is generally notable if...", meaning that even if an article mets those requirements it may still be deemed non-notable due to lack of sources or other aspects.
And remember, PLOT both preceded FICT as well as is policy rather than the guideline that is FICT. --MASEM 23:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
But you won't countenance similar assumptions for fictional things? A major character from a long-running and popular series can be assumed to be notable, even if sources are difficult to find. And how does this tie into your '1.5 sources' idea? Is Wikipedia best served by a guideline which allows Spoo but forbids J.R. Ewing?--Nydas(Talk) 00:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Read what those say: these are a first step to demonstrating notability, but are not guaranties of such. Additionally, all of these are about real world items - notability demonstration is much more likely in these cases.
We do say something to the same that major characters and individual episodes "may" be notable, but to avoid too much PLOT, we require the real-world notability.
The current statement on your last point is that we allow Spoo in its present state and discourage articles like J.R. Ewing in its present state. I have no inclination to try to improve the JR article, but I'm pretty confident that there is enough information to support a standalone JR article, but until such information is added, WP is improved by merging it with other characters. --MASEM 00:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
From a logical point of view, it's impossible to prove that sources don't exist, so an award is all that will ever be needed. From a practical point of view, it is unlikely that Wikipedians will consent to terminating award-winning musician articles, just becuase google doesn't spit out the answers. Your first step is the only step.
If our guidelines allow a nano-plotpoint from a mostly forgotten sci-fi show, whilst not allowing a major character from a massively successful and long-running soap opera, then our guidelines have failed. Let's not kid ourselves that Spoo has any real sources; any non-notable topic can be made to dance the little blue number fandango. Wikipedia is harmed by the destruction of fiction stubs and start-class articles, since it will drive away editors who can help and solidify our institutional bias.--Nydas(Talk) 14:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

(indent)

Turning that argument the other way, what if all real world topics could only have one page? Who decides what's on the page? How do you handle pages about sports teams or groups of people doing assorted activities? How would you resolve a dispute over whether an article about a particular person violated the rule about one page per topic?

I'm sorry, but that idea is an extremely silly one and could never ever work. Jtrainor (talk) 22:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, did no-one notice the categories had gone missing from J. R. Ewing? I tracked it down to this edit. Looks like the trivia was replaced by excessive plot. I've restored the trivia, as it is more interesting than the plot. The categories should never have been removed. Seriously, though, the article does need some TLC. Carcharoth (talk) 23:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

(to Nydas) I don't edit Star Wars, Star Trek, or Doctor Who articles, but I do edit anime articles, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Anime and manga seems to contradict what you've just said. -- Ned Scott 07:39, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Informal MedCab for character articles within the Firefly universe

Most articles for the main characters within the Firefly universe do not meet WP:FICT, and still don't after a merge discussion was initiated through AfD, later on the talk page, several weeks ago. Local consensus has still not been found. Bold attempts to merge the articles and transwiki have been reverted several times, and wikilayering without any actual improvement is order of the day. Hence I have started an informal medcab at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-01-09 List of characters in the Firefly universe. If WP:FICT is discouraging AfD or redirect/merge-revert-revert-etc cycles, it should reconfirm its proposed actions there quite easily, or it can be marked as historical if it can't even get non-notability-establishing character articles of a shortrun (yet admittedly popular) TV show merged after all these good-faith measures. – sgeureka t•c 22:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Just remember that the current revision is not yet been posed for wide consensus yet. I don't know if this would affect that case, however. --MASEM 23:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
At the time the merge proposal was initiated, the current guideline still had consensus. Your latest draft, which seems to have significant support from both inclusionists and deletionists so far, would suggest a merge also, so I don't expect the outcome of the case to be influenced by the current discussions here at all. – sgeureka t•c 23:41, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Firefly isn't popular, it has a devoted fanbase. Big difference.--Nydas(Talk) 14:38, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Draft #8 - ready for wider review

Diff from #7a to #8 Full #8 -no significant changes beyond adding language for individual characters/episodes inspired by WP:EPISODE.

I know of two editors that appear to have major disagreements with this (Nydas due to issues of more popular fandoms seeming to get better treatment over any other type of fictional work, and Peregrine Fisher concerns about if FICT is even needed). I understand both POVs, but I think resolving them is not solely an issue with FICT; Nydas' concerns reflect wider systematic bias, while Peregrine's reflect more how FICT fits into everything else and if it is really needed, both which are wider WP issues.

I am going to start requesting more eyes to look at this through WP:VPP, WP:N and various fiction-based Wikiprojects; if you know a project that I don't hit, please set a request there as well. This is not meant to get consensus, but as a last check to make sure there are no significant issues not addressed before going for global consensus. --MASEM 16:23, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Suggest also to request at
  • Literature portal

    • and its various project talk pages. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 18:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

    While most of it is okay, I object to the entire "Dealing with non-notable fictional topics." It is very obviously a reaction to the massive clean up effort among certain article types (like TV and anime). It is practically a check list of the complaints from the fandom that have resisted those clean up efforts and are trying to get WP:EPISODE axed. It gives the impression that no more bad fictional articles should ever be deleted (which is blatantly wrong), and rather editors should just be patted on the head and just given forever to fix up article that really can't ever meet the guidelines. Let the current WP:FICT guideline on that aspect stand. It already spells things out well and properly notes that non-notable stuff can be deleted if the other options can't be done (including if they can't be done because rabid fans refuse to allow a merge to happen without an AfD basically "ordering" it). AnmaFinotera (talk) 19:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

    In-universe content?

    About the the proposed version of the guideline.

    in-universe and out-of-universe are writting perpectives, and don't define the "kind of content", which is defined either as real-world content or fictional content. One of the issues that make this choice of words confusing is the fact that it is possible to write fictional content (a plot summary for example) from an out-of-universe perspective instead of from an in-universe one.

    For now, I'll go ahead and change "in-universe" to "finctional" where appropriate. Kazu-kun (talk) 21:11, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

    It seems to me that the writing perspective is what is intended. For example, if I say "Mario lives in the Mushroom Kingdom", that is in-universe content. I am talking about Mario as though I were in that universe. I would not call it fictional content—the sentence is real. Pagrashtak 21:38, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
    I think the point is that Mario is a fictional character who doesn't really "live" anywhere - at least not in the sense that you (I assume) and I do. [[Guest9999 (talk) 21:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)]]
    Kazu-kun is correct here when it comes to notability - we want real-world notability instead of fictional notability. I will, however, point to writing about fiction which is where writing in "in-universe" vs "out-of-universe" and is covered more there. --MASEM 22:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
    I think you're missing what I'm saying. I agree that we want real-world notability and not fictional notability. In this edit, the phrase "If there is an imbalance of in-universe information in an article..." is changed to "If there is an imbalance of fictional information in an article...". To me, "fictional information" means information that is fictional, or information that is not real. An article with in-universe content is real—it exists in the real world and I'm reading it on a real computer. It's not fictional, it's just in-universe. The Necronomicon, on the other hand, is a fictional book and contains fictional content. Kazu-kun was right to change some of the wordings to "fictional", but I disagree with some of them. Am I stating this clearly? Pagrashtak 06:20, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    You're right too :-). In describing the content (on balance/depth of coverage) it's the amount of "in-universe" vs "out-of-universe" detail that should be balanced. The concept of "real world" vs "fictional" refers to the notability aspect, not content. --MASEM 06:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

    Needs to be more explicit on how to handle fictional elements as well as works

    Most of the guideline deals with handling fictional works, but there needs to be clear guidelines on the creation of articles on fictional elements (such as settings, characters, etc. etc.) Articles broken off per WP:SUMMARY need to themselves be able to stand alone under the same guidelines. For example, an article about a Star Wars character should have as much real world context as the article on the actual film. If the such context does not exist, then the character should not have their own article. All such characters should be handled by SHORT descriptions in list articles, which can accumulate details on minor characters, and should be constrained to very short (1 paragraph) descriptions. The basic framework should be:

    1. Create article on work
    2. Expand article on work
    3. When article on work gets too big, break off smaller list articles dealing with plot elements (characters, settings, locations, etc.)
    4. When a character/setting/plot element has enough real world context in reliable sources to support their own article (i.e. the charcter themselves is the subject of multiple, reliable, real-world works), then and only then should the article be created.

    Keeping this framework in mind, will help decide when and how the daughter articles should be created under WP:SUMMARY-style. List articles of characters should be given precedence over individual character articles, for example, and characters that lack real-world context should be merged/redirected back to the MAIN article (for situations where the main article is of a reasonable size) or to the LIST article (for situations where the main article has become too large). --Jayron32|talk|contribs 22:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

    The above comments refer to the proposed version not necessarily the current one... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 22:32, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
    This issue is better addressed at WP:WAF (Writing about fiction) which will (er, really should) receive a similar update to address the summary style issue and appropriate approach. Prior to the rewrite, the issues were co-mingled on both pages, this provides a better/cleaner separation. --MASEM 22:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I for one really like it, it is clear as to what the criteria is, and even a suggested process of improving or removing fictional content that is disputed, which is a good idea, and also makes clear that even sub-articles must comply with fictional notability, so it seems all around stronger. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 23:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I haven't yet completely scrutinized this change, merely scanned the diffs, but so far, I'm extremely impressed with this proposed change. Addressing the concept of sub-articles is, in my opinion, vitally important to establish a guideline.
    I also very much like the above idea by Jayron32. It should stress that sub-articles should evolve only as splits from the main article, as opposed to creating an overkill of fresh independant articles. Don't begin creating sub articles until needed for size reasons unless independent notability can be clearly established (and then do so upon creation of the new article, obviously). Even in the case of size splits, it'd be a good idea to make mention of it in the discussion page of the main article.
    I believe someone created a discussion template tag that establishes an article as a sub-article of an existing parent. Perhaps it would be good to enforce this as a guidline to establish an unambiguous bond between parent and child articles. This may further aid in avoiding frivolous AFDs.
    I think this slightly blurs the line between WP:FICT and WP:WAF. I don't have a particular problem with that, but I'll have to review both again more closely before I say more. I expect plenty of nitpicky details will need to be worked out as there is a lot of new content here, but a lot of that will probably take place more easily if/when this proposed revision is moved into the main page. I applaud these efforts. -Verdatum (talk) 01:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    I like the idea of having a template, for use on the talk page, that explicitly links subarticles split off for size reasons back to the parent article. That would be useful in several ways. —Quasirandom (talk) 14:56, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    Way back I created/suggested {{in-universe rationale}} - though now, there may be a better name for it. --MASEM 15:06, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    Aha, I thought I remembered such a template. It's Template:SubArticle, as discussed in WT:Notability#Notability and size splits. There also exists Template:Main. -Verdatum (talk) 16:48, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    That could work -- the only thing I see wrong with it is that it appears to be used on the content page, but describes something that is part of WP's "backend" (a result of style and talking), thus potentially not being something you want to show. If it were a talk page template, that would be different, but its usage suggests otherwise. (I have no problem with this idea, we just need to make it work right.) --MASEM 16:53, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    Agreed -- it'd be better as a talk-page-header-box than a hatnote. —Quasirandom (talk) 18:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

    Query about the Demonstrating Notability section of the current draft

    I don't quite grasp the distinction being made between the two sections Notable topics and Summary style approach. They seem to be saying more or less the same thing, but going about it in different ways. Are they talking about how to deal with splitting out independently notable singletons and sets, respectively? or what? I find it confusing, as written. (Aside from this issue, I like the proposal a lot. It's grown a lot of clarity, the past month.) —Quasirandom (talk) 01:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

    The first section deals with topics that have their own demonstrated notability; they can sit by themselves, they rarely are at issue for deletion, etc. The other section deals with using summary style to split off non-notable sections of a topic - validating their existence despite not having notability on their own, but presenting the information in an appropriate Summary Style. Maybe renaming them may be better "Notable topics - Individual Articles" and "Non-notable topics - Summary Style Sub-articles" to make the difference clear. Suggestions on making this clear are appreciated. --MASEM 01:37, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    I don't like the idea of calling the section "non-notable". Even though a child article is probably not independently notable, it seems ungood to call it such, as the instinctive reaction on hearing of such a thing is "DELETE IT!". I agree the term "Summary style articles" is also a bit confusing though. Perhaps something like, "Size-motivated content forks", "Child articles" or just "Sub-articles" would be better. I have no strong preference in any direction. -Verdatum (talk) 01:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    This is a problem--I have 2 suggestions 1/"notability related to the matin article" or 2/ "notability dependent on the main article"DGG (talk) 08:57, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    Go on. It's entirely possible that -- for instance -- a soap opera or a comic with a large ensemble cast will require an extra character article for any kind of adequate description. A blanket ban on sub-articles without multiple non-trivial et cetera would disregard the sub-articles' significant and occasionally vital capacity for organization. --Kizor 09:35, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    Trying to make sure about your point: we are not preventing the general "list of characters" that relies on the main article to establish notability - that type of article has been and will be (but more explicitly stated) reasonable. But this part of your quote: will require an extra character article for any kind of adequate description is the one that I may be misreading but I want to check on. If you are talking about expanding the details of a single character (itself non-notable) from a list of non-notable characters, this is strongly not what we want. This is more covered in "depth of coverage" - if you have so many fictional details of that character that it seems to make sense to break it off into summary style from a character list, you likely have too many fictional details and have an imbalance of fictional info. We don't need to give complete fictional biographies to help understand the characters in context of the notable work. It is not that there will never been the need for a non-notable sub-article on a singular aspect of the fictional work, but really needs to be demonstrated well that the need is present. --MASEM 14:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    On the topic of summary style lists, can we possibly add something that clarifies to those that will just skim the section that not every work will need a list of x? I can see tons of people using it to say that every single video game or Saturday morning cartoon will require a separate list. TTN (talk) 14:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    This goes with the comments in the previous talk section about how to write fictional appropriately (and thus can also be addressed in WP:WAF, and is sorta implied by the notation of SS, but I can see adding "Such sub-articles should not be created until they are needed." --MASEM 14:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    I'm sort of talking about the people just looking to wikilawyer or the people that don't really read these in depth rather than those that would actually read through WAF. I was sort of thinking of just a bold message "This section should not be used to argue over creating new lists. Editors should discuss the relevance of the..." or something of that nature to keep people from citing it without actually reading it. TTN (talk) 14:51, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    (to DGG) I'm not sure we want to call it "notability related to the main article", because we also have transcended notability cases (eg Superman). Maybe the easiest thing to do is to simply spell it out in the section name: "Notable topics merit individual articles" / "Sub-articles for summary style"? --MASEM 14:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
    I like those two headings. Especially with the caveats mentioned above. —Quasirandom (talk) 14:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

    Lack of participation

    I read this on the Community Portal page today: "A proposal and discussion at Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) regarding where consensus lies is worried that there is a lack of participants in the debate. All participants in Wikipedia are welcome to engage in the debate and outline their position in the hope that broad community consensus will be found."

    I am glad this topic is being considered here. I find entirely too many articles about minor characters in (to my mind) non-notable TV shows, computer games and faddish fantasy fiction fooferaw.

    And I applaud those taking part in this conversation and wish you well. It is, however, very difficult to read through all the verbiage although some of you have made valiant effort over the past few weeks or so to boil it down. Good luck, and I really mean that!

    Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:52, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

    I came here for the same reason, but this discussion is far too long and complicated for anyone to parachute in suddenly. All I can do is offer my general philosophy: it is clear from Wikipedia fancruft, the evening news, and world history, that people have a hard time distinguishing reality from fantasy. (E.g. pick whichever religious book or sect you hate most and look at how many people believe in it...) Bluring the line between fact and fiction in Wikipedia damages the educational mission of the project, and attempts to dilute the fiction notability guideline is the wrong way to go. If something wasn't notable enough to receive significant coverage in independent sources then it doesn't belong here regardless of how popular it was, and promotional material is not a good substitute for analysis. I'll vote for a proposal to that effect, even though we say we don't do votes, because we always wind up voting anyway. And I think that most people from outside the fiction community would vote the same way.--Yannick (talk) 04:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

    Ideally we'll take the proposals from Hiding and Masem and others, and come up with something that most of us on the talk page can agree with. Then we'll present the ideas to the greater community in a cleaner format, so that users new to this discussion can get a good feel for things without having to hunt through all the past discussion. -- Ned Scott 04:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
    Dear Ned Scott: This makes a lot of sense, and I thank you. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 21:21, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

    Where people can help

    While we're still editing the text, I think we're getting the spirit that (as I'm reading the room) seems agreeable to the present group of editors reading it. However, we really need both good and counter-examples to support this. Examples we'll need to agree on but examples nonetheless. I'm more concerned with good counter-examples - pages that are not written to this standard that are either being merged or AfD - specifically we want to "rescue" the text of those articles as subpages here so that we can point to them in the guideline. And it would be nice to have coverages of examples from movies, TV shows, and other literature in addition to what we presently cite, just so there's enough broadness to demonstrate how the guideline can apply. --MASEM 14:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

    I don't understand. Would you like to see more examples for a bad article that was turned into a GA with some effort (Boone Carlyle from old), many poor subarticles that, in a merged state, can establish notability (Races in Farscape, although the article still needs major trimming/cleanup, then major expansion), or poor subarticles that were merged and then improved to a state where they could be broken out again (Ben Hawkins and Brother Justin Crowe merged into Characters of Carnivàle, now)? Many merge discussions and AfDs, which I try to keep track of, have significantly improved the presentation of fiction-related material, so I may help here if I knew what you were looking for. – sgeureka t•c 15:18, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
    Those would work too, where we have the before "unacceptable" versions and the final "acceptable" ones. We just need to make sure there's consensus on the examples that the "after" articles are meeting what we're trying to scope out. --MASEM 15:24, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
    The notion that lists of fictional characters are a Good Idea should be de-emphasised. No-one seems to know whether they're notable or not, leaving us open to Final Fantasy good, Warcraft bad situations. The false sense of equality created by lists is also a problem, the guideline should mention this.--Nydas(Talk) 15:57, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
    I may be misinterpreting what you're saying but this seems to go against what we've previously gotten as a good middle ground. Or are you saying that outright stating that "character lists without notability are acceptable" is a bad direction since it can bring on cruft, and that the language should be more about carefully considering the need for a character list that lacks notability before creating one? --MASEM 16:21, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
    The ambiguous notability of character lists invites a biased approach, hence my comment about Final Fantasy good, Warcraft bad. There's no real difference in notability between List of Warcraft characters and Characters of Final Fantasy VIII, but one is deleted, the other is featured and (wrongly) used as a benchmark. The only difference is our bias.--Nydas(Talk) 17:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
    Unfortunately the Warcraft article has been deleted, but based on its 2nd AFD, there is a major difference between what is purported in Warcraft (all in-universe, no notability demonstration) and the FF8 one (which includes creation, reception, and other real world factors). But these still fall into different "classes" of fictional element articles and thus aren't comparable. Again, as the Warcraft article is gone, its impossible to judge if it would be the type of article that nicely fits as an acceptable list article in the new guideline we're trying to propose or not. It sounds like it was excessively plot heavy from the AfD, which would be problematic. --MASEM 20:30, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
    If you look at the FFVIII characters article, the bulk of the out-of-universe stuff comes from a girl gamer site. If the FF franchise was lower on the pecking order, it'd be called a fansite. Similarly, the reception info would be declared 'redundant'.
    The Warcraft characters could conceivably be sourced to the same level as List of Halo characters: i.e. from spinoff novels and art books. That may not be very good, but it certainly exceeds the low standard set by the Pokemon lists and the Digimon articles.--Nydas(Talk) 23:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
    Part of your complaint sounds like it points back to TTN and others that take the approach of AfD first, improve later, which as I think we agree, is the wrong approach to deleting with non-notable fictional articles. I will argue that while the most oft-cited ref on the FF8 page is that FLARE site, there's enough from other reliable sources to truly demonstrate notability of the characters. Can the Warcraft characters get this way? Maybe, I don't know enough of that game to be able to tell. I understand the concerns that there's an implicit hierarchy of information based on the size/makeup of the fanbase, but each article needs to be judged on its own, and if the notability information just wasn't there for the Warcraft article, I can understand why it was deleted.
    However, and this goes to the larger debate (not just to Nydas): here is a case of an article where the editors were "notified" (via AfD) that notability wasn't demonstrated, and assuming good faith of the requesting editor, that no significant efforts were made within a month prior to the second AfD to correct the lack of notability. Now, I completely agree that this process (AfD, wait, AfD again) is not what we want to promote. However, assuming the first step a month before the second AfD was instead a message on the talk page and a notability tag, do people consider this a fair warning that something needs to be done about the notability of the article before other editors attempt to do something about it? Not sure AfD was the right (transwiki to delete would have been better), but certainly, in how I read the 2nd AfD arguments, it seems completely fair. --MASEM 23:31, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
    Articles 'standing on their own' invites special treatment for Wikipedians' favourite franchises. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS should be ignored (and ideally, deleted), since it encourages and sustains violations of WP:NPOV, a core policy. The idea that 'a month went by with no improvement, therefore deletion' is another idea that applies only to fiction. Like OTHERSTUFF, it is an attitude that should be dispensed with for reasons of neutrality. Look at the J.R. Ewing article. It's terrible, and it won't be cleaned up in a month no matter how much it gets tarred and feathered, yet the character is indisputably important and iconic.--Nydas(Talk) 21:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
    What neutrality? Articles on fictional subjects continue to be treated as pariahs and keep getting deleted with disturbing frequency. On accusations of not founding academic sources on them. J. R. Ewing is as likely as any other to get his article deleted unless we can find a published book dealing with him. Meanwhile we keep articles like Gilbert de Gant, Earl of Lincoln though they have no sources for over a year now, not much edits in three years and no evident importance other than being a peer. Seems to be a consistent double standard. Dimadick (talk) 21:48, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
    First, we shouldn't confuse the governing of fictional articles with the governing of people articles (i.e. J.R. Ewing falls under this guideline, not Gilbert de Gant). The simple fact that fiction articles are being "harrassed" more than any other type of article is not a reflection of them being treated differently than any other article, but a reflection of the fact that fiction articles have a much larger group of editors who are active. If it was the other way around, and all the articles on non-fiction were being deleted while fiction articles were just wasting away for years with no activity, it would be the same argument over there. Also, who told you that you had to have "academic sources" for J.R. Ewing? That is not a requirement of notability, or Wikipedia. They are certainly some of the better sources, but not they aren't required to show notability.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:58, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
    Both types of articles are still subject to the same guidelines when it comes to sourcing them. As for who told me, "Wikipedia:Reliable sources" asks for "third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". The "third-party" seems to invalidate sources immediately involved with the character and likely biased. Including almost anyone involved with creating or promoting said character. The "reputation" seems to only fit academic sources as they are arguably the only ones with such standards when it comes to fiction. Dimadick (talk) 22:55, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
    Some information that is consensus-agreed appropriate for notability w.r.t. to fictional works (based on past discussion, AfDs, and articles that have succeeded to FA/GA) is developer and creator commentary, and absolutely true, that will never be third-party. But this is similar to the use of autobiographies in articles specifically about the person that wrote them. However, we also want more than just those sources; notability information like sales and reception are nearly always third party and thus help to build a more reliable article. This sorta makes sense: we cannot simply state something is notable based on what the creator/developer said; obviously that allows someone to game the system (albeit a long tail route). --MASEM 23:12, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
    Let's say you have an article on a fictional character, and you have about 30kb of readable prose and it all concerns the creating of the character and other similar information that comes from primary sources like the creators. You won't have to worry about the article being deleted, because it's clearly got enough real world content in it; it won't be merged because almost no article (unless it was a stub) could support an additional 30kb of readable prose to its size. Now, if you have a couple of sentences of "production-esque" information, then you don't need a separate page for that. As far as sources are concerned, a newspaper would be considered a third-party source with a reputation for fact-checking. Most, not all now because I've seen some crappy sources pop up, of what you find in Google News search are good sources to use. The type of information that is being looked for is coverage by those third-part sources. In the case of TV shows it's reviews of the show, or documentation of how well the show does in ratings (i.e. I mean an article on the popularity and not simply a number, because a number doesn't mean anything without context when you are talking about establishing notability). For fictional characters, it could be a film/tv reviewer and analyzes the character's personal traits. That isn't an academic source, but it's certainly a third-party source that is giving you more than just a Q&A with the creator. There are lots of other types of sources that aren't academic (though, peer reviewed journals are probably the best thing you'll come by when it comes to notability and reliability of sources).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

    Secondary sources for in-universe information

    I'm still concerned that the new draft of the guideline still doesn't seem to allow for secondary sources providing in-universe information to establish notablity. An argument I see repeatedly on AfD is that published companion guides or derivative novels don't count as secondary sources to establish notability, if they don't give any "real-world information". But if this guideline is not meant to be more restrictive than the general notability guideline and the policy on plot summary, then this is an inappropriate reason to reject such sources. The notabiliy guideline asks for "significant coverage in reliable sources", but nothing in that guideline requires the coverage to be about "real-world information" or the coverage to be from a real-world perspective. Similarly, the plot policy requires real-world context and information, but nothing in that policy requires that information has to come from secondary or independent sources. Also, nothing in the plot policy or notability policy says we can't comment about what secondary sources say about plot elements. That is real-world information and real-world context, even if it is all sourced to "in-universe" secondary sources. DHowell (talk) 01:13, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

    What makes a "derivative novel" a secondary source at all? Could you, for example, consider a volume in "The Man-Kzin Wars" to contain commentary on "Ringworld"? A "Star Trek" novel to contain commentary on a Star Trek episode? Where would you draw the line?Kww (talk) 01:17, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    This echoes my concern: derivative works are somewhere between primary and secondary, but do no support real-world notability (on the other hand, the existence (but not information from) of a large line of derivative works such as tie-in novels can help demonstrate notability.) Companion guides can be used but they have to go beyond just reiterating the plot and talk about real-world notability of the work to be usable (several do). Of course, I would also argue that if a work has either derivative works or companion guides, the work is already notable somehow.
    If you're talking support of a fictional element, such as a character, then unless there is additional mention of real-world notability, both these types of sources are going to be primarily in-universe, which can be used for support there, but alone don't establish the level for real-world notability. Say a Trek: TNG book has a character "Q42" that is the main character in the book and appears nowhere else, it's pretty much all about him in the TNG universe. Assuming the books were even canon, the need to mention this character would be unlikely since it's limited to one appearance - maybe if the plots of books are briefly summarized (like episode lists) he'd appeared there. Now, on the other hand, say this character was so popular despite one appearance that the books sold like hotcakes and that fans wanted to see him again. Now we're back to talking about the real-world aspects, and assuming there are reliable sources to show that, then great, we can give the book its own article with a good amount devoted to the fan favoritism of the character.
    Remember that this guideline is more about following WP:PLOT with WP:N in mind - in-universe information is not discourage but should be the last thing to be added to the article once notability is established. --MASEM 01:47, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    If it is true that "if a work has either derivative works or companion guides, the work is already notable somehow", then why not make that a notability criterion? That's what is typically done in other subject-specific notability guidelines—when an objective criterion that is a likely indicator of notability is found, and may be easier to prove than the often-elusive "significant coverage in secondary sources" (e.g. when those sources are off-line and not in the posession of involved Wikipedia editors), we allow it as a criterion and assume that better sources will be found eventually. DHowell (talk) 03:18, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    Also, I'm not concerned about a minor character that appears in one book and nowhere else. But if "Q42" were a minor character which made a short appearance in a single episode of TNG, and this character was expanded upon in several novels, I would say that makes the "Q42" character notable. Do you agree or disagree? DHowell (talk) 03:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    Notable to be included in a list of minor characters (using said works to state why its notable in-universe), but not as its own article - as there's no discussion of the real-world notability of the character. Real-world notably is pretty much a requirement for an article that covers only one character or a fictional element.--MASEM 04:02, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    The existence of several published novels going into depth on what started out as a minor character in a television series is not real-world information? Descriptive commentary on how each of the novels' authors expanded on the character is not real-world information? If a character is important enough that a mainstream publisher felt that several novels about the character were worth publishing, why does that not establish "real-world notability"? Do publishers and novel authors not exist in the real world? DHowell (talk) 04:44, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    This starts getting into a sliding slope problem: how many such novels are needed to make it "notable"? Now, hypothetically, if the publisher really wanted to explore this minor character further, they may have likely made a statement or something equivalent to say that this line of books were to be made to follow more about this character; that's real-world notability without question.
    See, I'm having problems with this idea of a secondary source providing in-universe information and thus making it real-world notable. Let's take the "Lifes of Dax" book in the Dax article. I am not familiar with the book, but based on what the page states, I'm going to guess that it involves using known info about Dax from the show (primary in-universe), and appropriate extrapolation to fill in missing details. This makes it immediately its own primary source in addition to the Trek source because it is creating new information (not analysis or critical commentary on it). This would also apply to the possible Q42 case (barring direct real-world evidence), since the novels would also be creating new information. Basically, I'd be worried allowing this pass because I would not be surprised if such individual articles that only use that type of information will be quickly sent to AfD (even if we tried spelling it out in here). I want to try to figure this out, but I cannot envision a case where such a work does already add in appropriate secondary real-world information and thus isn't necessary to prove out the in-universe stuff, or it basically acts as more primary work and doesn't help demonstrate notability. --MASEM 05:24, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    In reply to Kww, I would absolutely consider those works to be secondary sources. They are primary sources in relation to the stories contained within them, but they are secondary in relation to the original works and the referenced elements contained within Niven's original Known Space stories and novels and the original Star Trek series. Where I would draw the line is somewhere above non-notable self-published works of fan fiction, and below clearly notable works such as the Man-Kzin Wars and several Star Trek novels. DHowell (talk) 03:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    From what I understand, the problem here is that DHowell doesn't think that these sources are considered "real world information". When someone references another work, such as a theatrical adaptation of a TV show (it's happened in anime a bunch of times), that is considered real world information. -- Ned Scott 02:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    It's not me that doesn't think that, it's based on comments I see in AfD: e.g. this comment or this comment for attempts to dismiss these types of sources as establishing notability. DHowell (talk) 03:18, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    I see. You are very correct, those are two good examples of things that do help to establish notability. Maybe we should put something in here to clarify this. -- Ned Scott 03:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    Do that adequately in Masem's draft and I will support it as a guideline. I will enthusiastically support it if the availability of published derivative novels or companion guides which significantly cover the subject (real-world or in-universe) is added as a notability critierion explicitly. DHowell (talk) 03:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    This is my line of thinking when I look at the Dax example: We have an entry for Dax with basic information in DS9. Then we also say that the character(s) of Dax is also the subject of a novel, and give additional summary of the novel. Then, while being careful of OR, we can even give very basic comparisons such as a few sentences like "in the book Dax differs from the show.. " And since there is a book, there's a chance there might be a review on the book that can also be used. All said in and done, look at the amount of information, and if it can justify its own article. I suspect yes, since this is also a character played by more than one actor, and because of the Star Trek fanbase there's likely to at least be some interviews with them or some comment from them, and possibly the writers as well, etc. Although I do see that specific Daxs have their own articles, so my example might not be ideal, but you get the general idea. -- Ned Scott 05:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    Yeah, secondary published sources like this can help support notability. However, one has to be careful about the nature an extent — simply being in a derivative work, like a novel or comic book, does help with real-world notability. However, if they are a significant part — like a main character, then there should be press material about this, and you can mesh it together into something which indicates notability. One just wants to avoid something like "Minor character 15 appears in episode 7 of season 3 and in the novels X and Y". --Haemo (talk) 08:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    and if its major character, it will always be at least mentioned in the reviews, even if the ref has not yet been put in the article. Some of the people we rely on for adding information on these topics are not very good at sourcing. They should certainly be taught how to do it, but the way is not bey deleting he information they contribute. When the references are found, we can add them, and we'd have more time to do so if we didnt have to continually defend the articles' or the contents very existence. DGG (talk) 08:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
    there is plenty of time during the AFD debate to show sources. People do this all the time. Ridernyc (talk) 08:58, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

    Secondary In-universe sources (section break)

    This is a good point to look back to. I've thought about this more and I can see where DHowell and others are coming from. I know WP:PSTS is under some flux at the moment, but if one takes the definition of secondary sources as "Secondary sources are references that draw on research and other references to make interpretive, analytical, or synthesized claims, or create a general overview.", then a reliable in-universe source that takes a minor character and creates a whole novel where that character is significantly features, extrapolating from the few roles that character had on the original fictional work, could be considered secondary, and thus can be used for notability. Mind you, this needs to be a significant expansion on the character (such as the Dax book); if it's just the minor character appearing again and getting a few more lines but otherwise no "interpretive claims", then its primary and not appropriate. Basically, such works would nearly need to be exclusively about that character to be an appropriate secondary in-universe source.

    I would throw one caution into the works: WP:NOTE requires "significant" coverage. One such source is not significant coverage, but can be part of the overall notability demonstration. The Dax article being a weird case (due to being a Trill), the single mention in the book and possibly on DS9 to Dax's other hosts is not enough to give those other host/trill forms enough notability for their own page; alternatively, it would make sense to incorporate those into a "Dax" page that includes the show's two forms along with brief mention of the other forms. --MASEM 14:56, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

    "With a good amount devoted to the fan favoritism of the character." Problem here. How exactly do we source the fan response to a character when we are not treating fan sites or non-professional reviews as valid sources? The guideline does not seem to clarify this yet. Dimadick (talk) 22:06, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
    That would be though reliable sales information or press statements from the publishers. --MASEM 22:14, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
    Sales information only reflects on the popularity of any given work of fiction or series of them. Not on how the audience reacts to an individual character featured in it. How is the publisher aware of the opinions of fans is beyond me. Fan letters and e-mails? Dimadick (talk) 23:11, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
    The only way "fan opinion" can be measured is through reliable, third-party sources. You couldn't measure it from a fansite, because you're limiting your measurement to only the people that frequent that website. Most polls are not reliable because they tend lack reliability and don't represent the sample they claim to accurately. Meaning, if a fansite held a poll and 500 people voted, it probably wouldn't be a representative sample of fans for whatever show they were asking about. It's the same reason we don't use IMDb's "user ratings", because most of the time they suffer from vote stacking and lack of representation. That is why we always lean to more reliable approaches like financial measurements. Sometimes sources come alone, like news organizations, that report on the "huge following of fans" that a fictional topic has, but most of the time they don't.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:23, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
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