Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)/Archive 53

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can we decide on an overall approach first?

Right now, we have people trying to push this in a lot of different directions. Some more strict, some more inclusive, some more vague, some more precise, some more simple.

We've actually had a few tangible directions for how to build a better proposal than last time:

1. The idea from AMiB that we drop episodes (at least at this guideline), for the sake of simplicity, and because it will be easier to gain a consensus on one issue rather than many issues.
2. The idea from DGG that we strike a compromise by being somewhat strict about what gets an article, but somewhat liberal about content within articles. This will put new emphasis on merging content without appropriate sources, rather than deleting it.
3. The idea from Gavin Collins to just combine WP:NOT#PLOT with WP:N and be done with it.
4. The idea from Goodraise and Hobit to have an open guideline that identifies the gray area and says "go ahead and offer your subjective arguments about it".

We should commit to an approach first. Otherwise we're going to spend a lot of time tweaking and copy-editing an approach that's fundamentally bad. Randomran (talk) 17:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

• For what it's worth, I could live with any of these approaches, or a combination thereof... except the last one. I think the last one has virtually no value as a guideline. Randomran (talk) 17:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we would have to have the agreement of Goodraise and Hobit to drop the open guideline proposal. My own objection is that a grey area will always an area where personal opinion predominates, and we need to move away that personal opinion towards some form of guidance which is comprehensive, but still flexible. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 19:26, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it will be easier to earn their support if we admit that some flexibility is going to have to be a part of it, whether we like it or not. Even policies like WP:V require us to interpret certain words like "reliable" in certain gray area cases. Randomran (talk) 19:46, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't want flexibility. I will support *any* proposal (no matter how in- or exclusive) as long as it reduces the fighting and/or the frustration of newcomers. As for the ideas above. I have always found it a bad idea to write a general set of criteria for both episodes and characters. I support dropping the episodes so much, I would have suggested it myself if AMiB hadn't beaten me to it. (BTW, my current proposal doesn't mention episodes at all and is perfectly compatible with that idea. Also refer to this post of mine, wherein I explain how such a combination could look like.) However, DGG's proposal is something I don't understand and Gavin's proposal (as far as I understand it) has no consensus or it would already be guideline. -- Goodraise (talk) 20:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

DGG's isn't so much of a proposal, and more of an overall approach. It would require a lot of further discussion, not unlike how people built upon Phil Sandifer's proposal over the course of a few weeks/months. But basically, the last proposal tried to say "these deserve articles, these don't, and we're silent upon actual article content because we've bitten off enough controversy as is." DGG may be right that this may have only created more controversy. Maybe we'd gain more support if we just said, "we cover characters if there's enough to say about those characters, but sometimes that's in the main article itself, sometimes it's in an article about the series, and sometimes it's as a list." There's a good reason to believe that this actually represents something both sides can live with: deletionists have a guideline that lets them prune bad articles without appropriate sources, but inclusionists have a guideline that says their preferred content does get covered somewhere. Randomran (talk) 20:59, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

[EC]As you'd expect, I'm happiest with the last one. We need to provide some guidance. I don't see that the first proposal solves anything per se, but I don't object (though I'd favor "parallel tracks" on the issues. I'm okay in principle with DGG's suggestion but as I recall I thought his implementation wasn't acceptable. Gavin's idea is fine in some ways, but of course I'd want to actually merge into WP:N not just redirect. I would like a better explanation about why the last isn't acceptable. It does have value, it tells people what the consensous is and how to at least think about the issues involved. I don't see, at this time, how we are going to get anything better. Hobit (talk) 20:26, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we have consensus on one issue, which is to drop episodes. I'm going to start there. I'm not into Gavin's proposal either, but maybe we should have a !vote on it. Randomran (talk) 20:59, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

We could merge into the main WP:N, once we work it out here. But I think what we do here may be too specific and detailed for the purpose--we can see when we get to that. There are in any case major advantages to working it out here, so as not to confuse discussion with other points. I'm not sure what you mean by dropping episodes, except to make that a separate question. I am not completely sure about that, because it overlaps. (e.g. characters crossing multiple episodes vs characters in one, etc.; even whether the main description of plot should be episode by episode or character by character.). Actually, I think of all the problems, episodes is the easiest. DGG (talk) 00:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

All the better reason to spin it off. Episodes (and trade paperbacks and chapters and such) are actually things that exist in the real world, so it's easy to understand what out-of-universe commentary might be, and how notability in the GNG sense might be shown. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 01:06, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

We could just as well tackle episodes first. Either way, I think there's a lot of reasons to handle them separately. Even if we end up treating them fundamentally the same, I think it will be easier to deal with the issues separately from a discussion and consensus-building stand point. One issue is controversial enough as is. Randomran (talk) 06:51, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

"Real-world coverage" in the current proposal

(Note: This section deals with this proposal.) To explain my recent removal of the requirement for "real-world" coverage (as requested by Gavin on my talk page) I will unfortunately have to take a much larger swing than I'd like. I will try to keep it short. Here goes:

What does it mean to be "notable"? WP:N states that "notability refers to whether or not a topic merits its own article." That is only a wording on which the community has agreed. How to interpret those words is up to the individual editors. It can be interpreted inclusively ("what is notable should have an article"), exclusively ("what is not notable should not have an article"), or any other way, even against the literal meaning of the words. The point is, we don't agree. If we did, the wording would be more precise. We need to acknowledge that as it stands, notability is some sort crossover between inclusion criteria and exclusion criteria or something yet different, because it is what we agree that it is and right now we don't agree. (Gavin and I even disagree on whether WP:N is consensus or only documents consensus.)

The next thing are SNGs. There is a fairly strong consensus that we need them. What we do not agree upon is what they are supposed to do. Some think they should give alternatives to the GNG. Some think they should interpret the GNG. Some think they should be stronger. Some think they should be weaker.

There is a whole lot more disagreements than these. But let us assume for a second that Gavin and Phil spend a hundred years on this page trying to convince each other of the error of their ways. Even if they eventually agree (be it on either of their current positions or somewhere in between), it would not change anything. The rest of the community would still be where the two are now, in disagreement. The issue is by far too big to be settled by a discussion among a handful of editors followed by an RfC.

We need to make due with what little consensus we have to write a guideline with the help of which a Wikipedia newcomer can actually predict (even if only in the more extreme cases) the fate of an article they have written, consider writing, or consider editing. Once we have such a basic guideline, we can go from there, step by step, instead of building a sky scraper in the open field and then attempting to transport it down town. (In case anyone didn't follow the last RfC, the building broke in half on the way.)

Real-world coverage is an additional ball on the field, an unnecessary ball that nobody really disagrees with. Right now as I'm writing this and as this text is read by others, that ball is sucking up consensus building resources. I do not deny that an article needs more than plot to meet the inclusion criteria. So why do I think the requirement should not be listed? Let us bring up an example where it even makes a difference: Character X from series Y has no real-world coverage what-so-ever but multiple, reliable sources that are independent of the subject have published significant and in-depth in-universe coverage about it. (Right now I can't come up with an example of such coverage... If it even exists.) Let us assume that editor A wrote an article based on these theoretical sources and editor B nominates it at AfD. What would B ground his nomination upon? The article satisfies the GNG but in its entirety fails NOTPLOT, which is why it will be deleted or merged.

So, what do we gain from adding the term "real-world" to FICT in it's current version? Editors would be able to say that the article on character X should be deleted because it fails FICT as opposed to saying that it fails NOTPLOT. (In the previous two sentences, substitute FICT with WP:N and you'll have a description of the current situation.) The addition of that term does not solve a problem. It only alienates potential supporters by making the "upper threshold" stricter than the GNG while the actual (unwritten) inclusion criteria remain the same.

"Real-world coverage" is an intellectual construct that was created to incorporate NOTPLOT into FICT and used as a tool by previous proposals to create a set of criteria which were lower than the GNG by subdividing the coverage of non-third-party and non-independent sources. The current proposal does not attempt to do that and therefor does not need the term to function. And whether this proposal becomes a guideline or not, NOTPLOT would still be policy and would not be overridden.

If you read the text carefully, you will find that (opposed to the last proposal) it does not make an exception for elements of fiction from any current guideline or policy. It only avoids turning away the inclusionists by gathering every single exclusion criteria that can be applied to elements of fiction in a single place. The text is not a set of inclusion or exclusion criteria and if you don't read it as such, I'm sure that even extreme cases such as Gavin and Phil will agree that it both documents (even if not very closely) what is currently happening at AfD and related forums and that it is in line with the currently active guidelines or policies (meaning that it does not attempt to give a free pass from any of them). At the very least, all sides should be able to agree that the text is at worst no improvement over the current situation and that its promotion to guideline status would not hurt the project.

Please note that I will not reply to comments which sum up to statement of and reasoning for a personal opinion on what should be in- or excluded by or from Wikipedia, because these arguments are pointless and doomed to lead nowhere for reasons I described above. Regards, -- Goodraise (talk) 18:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, because WP:NOTPLOT is policy and cannot/should not be ignored, then we need to make sure that any guideline also reflects that reality. Furthermore, there has been significant disagreement on this talk page on what constitutes "independent" sources - I am sure that there will continue to be such disagreements in the future. That makes it even more necessary that we continue to remind editors that "real-world" information is important. Karanacs (talk) 18:24, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

"In my opinion" - This is exactly the point. It is your opinion on what an SNG should do. This line of thinking adds an additional variable (what is an SNG?) to the equation (WP:FICT). Not to mention that it doesn't change anything. ( 5 times 6 times 1 equals 5 times 6 ) And as for the "independent" issue: The disagreement on that line stemmed from the last proposal's attempt at redefining the meaning of "independence" in regard to fiction. An attempt which I found distasteful to say the least. The "upper threshold" as I wrote it was intended to mirror WP:N in meaning, wording, as well as in its usage of words. (BTW, I wouldn't mind if the footnote of WP:N would be linked or copied if that would make it more acceptable.) -- Goodraise (talk) 18:41, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

If it doesn't change anything, and we are required to abide by it anyway, why are you arguing in your edit summaries that there is not significant support for the sentiment? This document is supposed to be aimed very narrowly at fiction. In that respect, then, we should include policy that is also geared toward fiction. If this document's only purpose is to regurgitate the GNG, it isn't necessary. Karanacs (talk) 19:43, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The sentiment that I argue has no consensus is that elements of fiction should be held to a higher standard of notability than other content. You see? This is a matter of one's definition of "notability", not of whether real-world content is required. As for the rest of your post: You're missing the point that the proposal in my last revision is intentionally redundant. I'm not saying that the term "real-world" should never be included nor that it should. I'm just saying, "not now". If we could only get to have a text that stays tagged as guideline for a month (even if that text's status as guideline has no effect on a single article) that would be an improvement over the current situation, because then we would have a guideline that is supported by consensus to which we can slowly make incremental changes instead of trying for the Nth time to go from demoted guideline/essay/proposed guideline/llama/whatever to a document that is supposed to turn the war-zone that is currently the fictional AfDs into tele-tubby land. Because that is what is going on, a wide scale war. You can't turn two warring parties into allies without first making a peace treaty. That is what I'm trying. Direct question: Is it not better to have a guideline that says nothing of consequence but has the chance to grow into one that does, than having a pile of words tagged as nothing with a talk page attached to it that only serves as a forum for two preachers of opposite religions? -- Goodraise (talk) 21:46, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I honestly see no point in having a guideline that completely mimics WP:N (or that is not intended to affect any article). It seems a waste of time to have the community vote on such a thing because a) several RfCs have already affirmed that WP:N has support and b) any incremental changes could make the support die away. We'll still be arguing over the incremental changes, which will make the guideline disputed in extremely short order. And, again, since WP:NOTPlot is policy, what is the point of keeping it out? If adding that is enough to make the text not be supported, then people need to be reminded that policies exist for a reason. Karanacs (talk) 21:53, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

You're assuming that I intend to do a Request for Comment. I do not. Quite the opposite, I think we should avoid that sledge hammer method of promotion. But whatever, with the statement that "If adding that is enough to make the text not be supported, then people need to be reminded that policies exist for a reason." you've made your position quite clear. What you want is not to write a guideline that provides guideance, it's convincing others of your way of looking at things. You people should write essays instead of spamming (yes, that's what you guys do) this talk page. BTW, I would appreciate it if you would stop bolding the word "policy" as that implies that I, who have always supported it as such and quoted it countless times in favor of merging or deleting articles, am not aware of its status, which I find quite offensive. -- Goodraise (talk) 23:45, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

More than NOTPLOT (which I see as an odd duck in WP:NOT, and much better understood as a subsection of WP:WAF), it seems to me that the requirement for real-world coverage amounts to a minimum quality issue - we don't keep articles that suck that badly. But on the other hand, deletion for shittiness is a different process from deletion for notability. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:32, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree, as WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:INUNIVERSE not only compliment each other, but they make common sense: you can't write an article about fiction purely from an in universe perspective, anymore than you can provide balanced coverage about astronomy from a persective that purely reliant on Greek myth. The minimum requirement to defend a topic against deletion for failing WP:NOT#PLOT is real-world coverage from reliable secondary sources, because it is still possible to construct an article on about a notable topic that is purely in universe. If WP:FICT does not include this as part of the inclusion criteria, then it is failing to provide guidance on how to write an encyclopedic topic about fiction, as well as failing to how to prevent fictional topics being deleted at WP:AFD. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 19:16, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you that articles that violate WP:PLOT need to be fixed or removed. But I increasingly do not see this as a notability issue, as making it into one deranges notability into a strange beast that asserts that things known to millions of people are non-notable, and that an article on a much-watched episode of a critically acclaimed television series is non-notable, when an article on a town like Lebanon, South Dakota, which has fewer residents than read Black Market (Battlestar Galactica) in a day, and has days where nobody reads it at all, is fine. That claim is such a bizarre one that it seems to me worth avoiding in favor of other means of handling the root issue, which is the low quality of many of our fiction articles. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:26, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

If a topic fails WP:NOT#PLOT, then it is not suitable for inclusion. This is my a real-world perpective is important for WP:FICT, as topics that pass a set of inclusion criteria that avoid plot only articles makes them suitable for inclusion for a standalone article. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:02, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

A topic doesn't fail WP:NOT#PLOT. An article does. WP:NOT#PLOT does not, in fact, say anything whatsoever about topics. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you have it backwards. NOT PLOT says nothing at all about articles. it only has to do with topics. Look at the wording: The coverage of a fictional work ... Not "each individual article dealing with the fictional work". Even the introduction talks about "articles", that is, the sum of the Wikipedia articles on a work. The only reason it has even the very limited consensus it does is under that interpretation. DGG (talk) 05:32, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

More basically, I ask both or you: why do you even care about the division into articles, rather than content? DGG (talk) 05:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

When I refer to topics, I mean potential articles. Either way, significant real-world coverage is an important inclusion criteria. I hope Goodraise understands where I am coming from. Its not that I want to make it more difficult to write about fictional topics, rather this requirement is needed because of the dual perpectives from which fiction can be viewed: real-world and/or fantasy-world. You can write an article about a fictional topic from a purely real-world perspective (although it would be very dry), but you can't write it from a purely fantasy-world perspective, as such an article would not impart any encyclopedic infomation about the subject matter. Ideally an article would contain balanced coverage that includes both. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 07:39, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

"Its not that I want to make it more difficult to write about fictional topics, rather this requirement is needed because of the dual perpectives from which fiction can be viewed". - In that case, you're on the wrong page. I went on above about how this was partially a matter of one's opinion on what an SNG should do, but your's is apparently way out of sight from the realms of reason. Notability's job is to determine if a good article can be written, not how to do that. If that is really all you want, go to WP:WAF. BTW, the perspective from which an article is written does not depend on real-world coverage. Even if for a given topic exists not a shred of real-world coverage, I can still write it from an out-of-universe perspective. The article will then look like a giant plot summary with lead, but it will be written from the right perspective. I'll repeat that central statement: Even a plot summary can be written from a real-world perspective.
Taking a step back. If the two of us would get to dictate this guideline, if we could agree on its wording, it would not take us long, because our opinions on what should be included in Wikipedia are virtually the same. The reason we find ourselves on different sides of the table is that I realize that our views and our strict interpretations of relevant guidelines and policies have not sufficient support to write FICT in that way. And, most importantly, because I think that not having a FICT that is tagged as guideline hurts Wikipedia. The deletion of a few hundred crufty articles? Who cares! The inclusionist mob protecting their plot summaries like cavemen their fire? I couldn't care less. Opposing sides turning AfD into a battlefield that draggs out to numerous talk pages in heated merge debates and on a regular basis is brought up at ArbCom? I could even overlook that. What I think really hurts Wikipedia is every time a new editor is turned away, because there was no page in the jungle of Wikipedia's guidelines and policies that would explain to them what things they can write and expect to stay on Wikipedia. (I know my current proposal doesn't do that either. It's meant as a first step, not as an ending point.) I don't know if you ever look past these philosophical discussions you're having with Phil and co. but I'm a mainspace editor and I can tell you, people are pissed. And its your fault, your's, Phil's, and all of you who try to turn this page into a dictate on how Wikipedia should look like instead of making it into a place where new editors can find guidance through said jungle with all the countless interpretations of every single tree in it. -- Goodraise (talk) 12:46, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

But we have such a page: WP:N. Fram (talk) 12:57, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

You're kidding right? -- Goodraise (talk) 13:07, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm also a "mainspace editor", I write articles about fiction, and I'm not having any trouble in writing articles that don't get deleted as long as I stick to WP:N and WP:NOT. As I stated below, in response to DGG's new proposal: if people could first indicate where WP:N is insufficient (and not solely for being too strict, but perhaps for being too lax when taken literally), then an attempt to create a WP:FICT which makes it clearer how WP:N should be interpreted for articles about fiction can be fruitful. For the moment, most discussion seems to revolve around "we need reliable independent sources" (i.e. WP:N) vs. "no, secondary sources which are not independent (e.g. DVD commentaries) are sufficient" vs. "popularity is sufficient". As long as there is no consensus that the inclusion guidelines for fiction related articles may be significantly less strict than the GNG, and as long as that seems to be the aim of many editors on this page, then no progress will be possible, I'm afraid. However, that does not mean that editors no longer have any guidance on what to do, and many good fiction-related articles are still being created without any danger of getting deleted. Fram (talk) 13:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

We are both policy savvy editors. It's not the likes of us that I'm worried about. We could even write that kind of articles if we had no guidelines at all. New editors come to Wikipedia every day. They see countless articles which are in direct violation of guidelines (most notably in violation of WP:N). Then they write new articles just like them, only to see them deleted or smerged faster than they can say "other stuff exists". That is a situation WP:N does not explain to them. And while that new editor whose article was deleted turns his back on Wikipedia, that "other stuff" remains in place to confuse the next new editor. - I don't want to make the rules more strict or less strict. I want to get our articles and our guidelines into sync. But it appears every attempt that I make is percieved as a devious inclusionist ploy to overthrow policy. -- Goodraise (talk) 14:13, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

But this has little to do with WP:FICT specifically and is a more general problem, which equally applies to companies, bands, ... There may well be a need to make OtherStuffExists or something similar much more prominent and to warn newbies (or everyone) that Wikipedia contains loads of articles that violate our policies and guidelines, but that we haven't had the chance yet to merge or delete them, but that this doesn't give them carte blanche to create similar problem articles.

I think it's demonstrably more of a problem with fiction articles, because there's a significant group of editors that actively campaign to keep the offending articles. Very few people actively campaign to keep articles about MySpace bands, but many campaign to retain fiction articles that fail guidelines.—Kww(talk) 14:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:NOT#PLOT is an illegitimate policy. It had no consensus to be policy, it has no consensus to be policy, so it cannot be policy. Read User:Pixelface/On NOTPLOT. And many people have explicitly said that WP:NOT#PLOT should be ignored.[1] And much of the talk about "real word" here (and at WT:NOT) can be traced to September 2006, when Kyorosuke changed NOTPLOT to say "articles on works of fiction should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's achievements, impact or historical significance, not solely summaries of that work's plot" without any prior discussion. --Pixelface (talk) 10:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Dear God, your argument against PLOT is Wikia conspiracy theories? Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:10, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I should point out that WP:BB equally applies to policy. Add something, and if it sticks, it's a good idea and is integrated. For example, I didn't get consensus for WP:HA#NOT, but I haven't been reverted for it, and most people see it as a good idea. Sceptre ^(talk) 17:10, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Pixelface's version of events is not the only version of events, either. The historical record tends to conflict with it for starters. Hiding T 12:39, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

You're right Hiding, my version of events is not the only version. Badlydrawnjeff was in the thread where you proposed WP:NOT#PLOT. Here's his version of events, from February 2007: "The only relevant discussion appeared to be here, and, I'll be honest, it didn't seem to have much in the way of consensus." [2] In that same thread, Matthew asked "was there ever an actual consensus to add this?" and later said "Okay, so it appears there was never a consensus to add this in the first place." And you tend to conflict with yourself[3][4], so what else is new? --Pixelface (talk) 11:45, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I've addressed this at WT:NOT, hope that's okay, it seems silly to do it at more than one venue. Me contradicting myself is not uncommon to the point I have a hatnote reserving the right to do it at my talk page. Hiding T 13:36, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Phil, I did mention Wikia in On NOTPLOT (reason #33) (it's all factual and no conspiracy is claimed), but you've conveniently ignored the other 32 arguments. No surprises there. You did afterall write a FICT proposal that would wipe out your precious Babylon 5 character articles such as Valen. Now, would the readers of Wikipedia be better served if those articles remained on Wikipedia or on babylon5.wikia.com? How about if FICT told editors to put those articles on Wikia Phil? --Pixelface (talk) 11:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Notability & Deletion Policy

Let's get down to brass tacks. WP:NOTABILITY and its offshoots are used as criteria for deleting articles, and AFAIK that is part of their original purpose. So in this and similar discussions we need to look at the whole deletion process, not just the wording of WP:NOTABILITY etc. The deletion process often violates WP:DELETE's statement that improvement is preferable to deletion, and many AfD discussions make little attempt to discover whether sources exist that could be used to demonstrate notability. Some articles have been deleted the day they were created, giving no time for the creator or other to add suitable refs, possibly in sections that did not exist immediately after the article was created (for a fiction topic, probably as a bare or even incomplete plot summary). Until the deletion process is reformed, I'll oppose any proposal that increases WP's deletionist tendencies. OTOH I'd quite happily use WP:NOTABILITY as an assessment criterion at a project or GA review, both for its own sake and as an aspect of coverage and neutrality. --Philcha (talk) 12:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I seem to remember discussing this issue in great depth in the section Notability & Deletability and I think it was agreed that a section named along the lines of "Articles that don't meet the inclusion criteria" needs to be added to this guideline. There is a problem with what you say, in the sense that WP:FICT is trying to provide guidance about article inclusion not article deletion. It is important to recognise that inclusion and deletion are distinct and seperate.--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:38, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the hope is to come up with a proposal more relaxed than WP:N, so that it's enshrined that many fictional articles failing WP:N still meet WP:FICT, and thus could not be deleted. But to get there, there would have to be some acknowledgment that some standard is necessary, not the complete absence of a standard. Randomran (talk) 16:41, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Alternative #inf

Elements of fiction, including characters, settings, objects, and its mythos, and episodes or other segments of a serial work generally follow the same criteria to determine if these should receive a standalone article as outlined by the general notability guideline. However, many exceptions occur that are difficult to summarize. Thus, the notability of an element of fiction, should the general notability guideline not be met, should be considered on a case-by-case basis. In general, such elements will quality for a stand-alone articles by meeting the following, in decreasing order of likelihood to justify the need of the stand-alone article:

• Independent secondary sourcing - the more independent, secondary sources that describe the element of fiction in more than passing, the closer the element meets the general notability guideline. More weight is given to sources that describe the "real world" aspects of the element, such as influences, critical reception and legacy, than those that further describe the element in context of the work.
• Creator and developer sourcing - DVD commentaries and interviews with creators of works that describe the inspiration behind the work and aspects of its creation are useful to establish a development section on the element, but may sometimes not be considered enough to justify notability, in light of issues with self-published sources.
• Importance of the work - Elements from groundbreaking fictional works are likely to be kept over elements from "flash in the pan" works.
• Importance within the work - Elements that are important to a work - major and recurring characters will likely merit articles over one-time characters
• Existence of other similar elements of the work - Sometimes, evaluation of the state of other similar element articles from the same work of fiction are considered to keep an article that is otherwise, at the time, not notable. For example, nearly every episode from several seasons of The Simpsons have been expanded and shown to meet notability guidelines, so it is very likely that any new episode of the show will also be the case despite the lack of creator information and reception until after the DVD for that season is released.

As there is no general rule of thumb on how these apply consistently to discussions on the merits of stand-alone articles, the best possible advice for editors of elements of fiction is to avoid creating stand-alone articles until the article can be shown to meet the general notability guidelines. Existing articles that fail to show any these elements should be improved or merged into a larger context instead of tagging them for deletion.

Personally, I would keep this an essay, but I think honestly, without having some study that actually watches what happens at AFD, this is the best we can do. --MASEM (t) 16:32, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Makes sense. Good enough for both sides. Ergo, won't pass. Sceptre ^(talk) 17:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Well I think we tried to do one or two articles like that. Problem is we kind of need that kind of study as policy follows consensus, not policy is dictated from above. It appears to me Gavin seems to think that it is the latter and that once set, it can never should change.じんない 19:18, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't want to sound as if I am dismissing the proposal out of hand because I think putting a new proposal forward is a positive thing to do, but I have two disagreements with this approach. Firstly, I disagree with the fact this proposal is silent on the need for real-world coverage, which I think is the reason why WP:FICT should be an SNG in the first place. In my experience, articles which are do not contain real-world commentary tend to me merged into those that do in order to provide context and a more balanced coverage of the topic. What this propoal is silent on is that real-world coverage is necessary to avoid conflict with Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines.
My second disagreement is the undue weight given to coverage from sources that are not independent of the primary work, and self-published sources, which have special problems that generally make them inadmissable. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:05, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

The RW sources - easy to fix, added to the top factor. However, on the second aspect, it seems to me (which is why I think this is a safe essay, not a guideline) that SPS sources like DVD commentaries are sufficient to retain an article if they are present. Or lets put it this way: throughout all of this, sourcing seems to be the most critical fact - this is not any specific type of sourcing, just anything beyond the primary work itself. Yes, we'd really like independent sources, but even a DVD commentary with relavent information will usually be sufficient to retain an article at AFD. ---MASEM (t) 13:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that's the key issue here. The DVD commentary and the like being used as SPS sources to show notability of an element (not the work itself which almost everyone has agreed cannot be done). Therefore a large scale study to see how it is in practice is handled or some other way to see what the community at large has to say.じんない 22:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

• I'm good with this version too. Probably best as an essay, and you might consider putting the "lower bound" part from the current(?) version of WP:FICT in there too (things below this bar are too short to ride. Yes, I'm proposing a deletionist addition). But I'm good with it. I'd weaken the language at the top given my druthers, but I can accept it as written. Hobit (talk) 13:17, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Preamble: Overall approach

Following on from the discussion of Masem's proposal, I think that real-world coverage is key to whether a fictional topic is suitable for inclusion as a standalone article. I think this goes hand in hand with an important point raised by Masem, namely that the best possible advice for editors of elements of fiction is to "avoid creating standalone articles until the article can be shown to meet the specific notability criteria for their topic". I think this approach should be made in the preamble of this guideline, something along these lines:

It is general consensus on Wikipedia that articles should not be split and split again into ever more minutiae of detail treatment, with each split normally lowering the level of significant real-world coverage contained in an article. This means that while a book or television series may be the subject of significant real-world coverage, it is not normally advisable to have a separate article on every fictional character, episode, scene or chapter derivied from it, such that the coverage gives undue weight to the primary source.

In some situations, where a character, episode or other element of fiction does not meet the inclusion criteria in this guideline, it may be better to feature material about the element in the article about the work of fiction from which it is dervied, rather than creating a separate article for that element. This can also apply for works of fiction that do not meet the inclusion criteria, where it may be better to feature the work in the article about the author if there is insufficient real-world coverage to justify a seperate standalone article.

This text has been cribbed from WP:BK, but I think it sums up the approach we need to take in view of the fact that the less significant real-world coverage there is about a topic, the greater the risk that it will fail one or more Wikipeida's content polcies. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:33, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Real-World Coverage & NPOV

One of the fundamental Wikimedia principles and guiding editorial principle is Neutral point of view; its hard to imagine how Wikipedia could exist without it. When the founders came up this idea, I think they had topics like the History of the Balkans or Cold Fusion in mind, rather than fictional topics. Yet ironically, it is probably fictional articles that come into conflict with WP:NPOV with more frequency than rival ethic groups or fringe theorists, on account of there being more articles about works and elements of fiction. This is because works of fiction are written from one or more points of view, so when an article is written based soley on the primary work, the fictional views of the author are given undue weight. The problem with reading or writing about fictional topics based purely on a primary source is that when "we enter a fictional world, we do not merely ”suspend” a critical faculty; we also exercise a creative faculty. Because of our desire to experience immersion, we focus our attention on the enveloping world and we use our intelligence to reinforce rather than to question the reality of the experience" (see page 9). Wikipedia's mission is about answering questions regarding the reality of experience, and so my first point is that real-world coverage must form part of the balanced coverage of any fictional topic. I think that some sort of tie in with WP:INUNIVERSE should be included within this proposed guideline. Are you with me so far? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 21:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that requiring some level of real-world coverage is a good place to start, even if we're silent on whether it can come from. I think this would accomplish one of the goals of WP:N, which is to ensure good material for writing an article. (We can deal with the other aspect of WP:N later, which is having material that can verify an article's importance.) Randomran (talk) 21:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Bit of a strange choice of articles to use to back your point up. But that said, I agree in outcome, if not in reason. I do not think that in-universe perspective is in and of itself a POV in the NPOV sense. I do think that we tend overly towards authorial intent and the intentional fallacy, but that this does not stem from primary sources as such. (Indeed, most people who pan authorial intent argue that you can't learn anything about authorial intent from primary sources)

I do, at this point, consider creating a strong policy for fiction article content a higher priority than a notability guideline, and wish that we could lay the notability debate to rest for a bit while we nail down content. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:11, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

right!. The worst part about some of the character articles is not that they're separate articles, but that the content is embarrassingly juvenile. People don't mind when they see articles here on very small topics as much as when they see bad content. There's lots of good ways of dividing it up, but the level of content has got to improve. About some other points: the question of how much weight to give to the views of the author about his work, "authorial intention" has gone up and down in critical theory over the last century. (and there's a difference between his expressed views in writing about his own work, and the implied view from the fiction--they are not always the same. We could and should write an article on that, but we're not going to settle it here. I totally agree we should use all available criticism , including both popular and academic discussion, when we have it, and for many types of work that will include web sites that are not formally published. As for fictional worlds, when one reads history or biography, one also uses imagination.--or at least that;'s one of the theories of how one reads. And one certainly uses imagination in thinking about other art forms also. Fiction is no more distinctive here than poetry or music. The distinction between fiction and other things, is there is almost always in describing the plot a single agreed factual basis, which is the text. (leaving aside the ones in multiple authorial versions (e.g. the Blade Runner ending), & some atypical works., (e.g. Finnagan's Wake) One can argue what the book meant--and one needs secondary sources for that, but not about what the plain meaning of the content is. As for minimal RW coverage, an article about fiction such as some schoolchildren write that omits such matters as who the author was and when it was published, and what prizes it may have won, yes, it needs to have that added. An episode article needs to describe the externals of the episode--date of filming, timing, and so on. (Many fan sites do that quite well, by the way, better usually than us) DGG (talk) 01:12, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Phil, the idea is not new that when an article is written based soley on the primary work, the fictional views of the author are given undue weight: WP:INUNIVERSE makes this clear when it says "An in-universe perspective is inaccurate and misleading, gives undue weight to unimportant information". I think we both agree that real-world coverage is a necessary content requirement, and it therefore makes it an important inclusion criteria. I hope I can count on your support in this regard. DGG draws attention to the fact that fiction is very immersive, and for those editors whose sole interest in writing articles is gnerated by immersion, I expect a lot of opposition to this proposal. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I am in complete support of the outcome - de-emphasizing in-universe perspective. However, given that I am skeptical of authorial intent, and outright hostile to the idea that fiction is immersive, I am absolutely and adamantly opposed to enshrining the idea that the work reveals the intent of the author, or that fiction is immersive, as policy, as I think doing so would render all of our fiction coverage POV on the face of it. Although the idea that fiction is immersive or that a text reveals the intent of its author exists, these ideas are not universally accepted in my field, and in fact both are probably minority views, at least among the most prominent scholars. We cannot structure our fiction coverage around those ideas as principles. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

This looks like yet another of Gavin Collins's attempts to enforce WP:NOTPLOT rigidly, this time using WP:NPOV as a pretext. The existing WP:NPOV rules are quite sufficient to handle the situations described here - the author of a work is not an indepedent source and his / her comments should be attributed explicitly by "X said that ..." and / or implicitly in a "Birth of the concept" section. The simple fact is that articles about fiction generally start as plot summaries, and the next addition is usually authors' comments, as these are usually prolific and easily accessible (it's part of promotion). But banning articles from starting this way would force editors to develop first drafts, including "Critical reception", "Influences on the work" and "Influences of the work on others", etc., in some private area - userspace or offline. That would delay and reduce the opportunity for other editors to comment, suggest sources etc. For popular topics, it might even provoke conflicts, if 2 or more editors draft articles on the same subject at the same time - e.g. for a movie or for a book that's topical for some reason. --Philcha (talk) 11:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

You have raised an interesting point about about 2 or more editors draft articles on the same subject at the same time - content forks. If we omit the requirement for real-world coverage from this guideline, it will is not possible to distinguish which of the two articles on the same topic is a content fork without real-world coverage. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:56, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Gavin, you still do not understand what a "content fork" is and I'm thinking you never will. --Pixelface (talk) 12:08, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Criticism is most welcome, Pixelface. Could you enlighten us on what a content fork is and how you would distinguish between them? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:12, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that Philcha was talking about different editors creating articles about the same topic, at the same time, with different titles. Those are not "content forks." Those are just editors writing about the same subject under different titles, unaware that the other article exists. That falls under accidental duplicate articles, which are not content forks. No "forking" has occurred, the articles are parallel. The nutshell at WP:POVFORK sums it up, "Articles should not be split into multiple articles just so each can advocate a different stance on the subject." In order to have a content fork, you have to have an article that advocates a certain stance on a subject, and then an editor splits off an article from that article in order to give a different stance (typically a POV they support). Real-world coverage does not play a factor in determining if an article is a content fork or not. If an article is split off, it may be a content fork — or it may just be a spinout. --Pixelface (talk) 00:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

• when an article is written based soley on the primary work, the fictional views of the author are given undue weight. What on earth does this mean? What are fictional views, for starters? I find this whole argument a blind alley. Undue weight is more related to giving views their due weight in an article, not as a reason for not having an article at all. In fact. WP:NPOV goes so far as to say "Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views." And Jimbo mentions ancillary articles, which lind of kills the idea that ancillary and summary style articles are content forks. You might also want to look at Wikipedia:Content forking#Article spinouts - "Summary style" articles. I don;t think your view is supported either by policy, guidance or by consensus. Hiding T 13:18, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• Certainly agree that what an author writes or whomever inserts the comment into a fictional work is not considered a opinionated "point of view"; it is a fact of the fictional universe that has been written. What the writer writes outside of those works to talk about it is opinion, but once it is published it cannot be changed. --MASEM (t) 13:37, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Hiding, I did say earlier that when the founders came up with WP:NPOV, I think they had topics like the History of the Balkans or Cold Fusion in mind, rather than fictional topics. However, the principal is the same - reliance on just the primary source is to place undue weight one view of the story. I think Masem and Phil know where I am coming from on this point from our earlier discussions regarding Song of the South; to describe a work of fiction purely from the viewpoint of the film can be misleading when perhaps the author intended that the story should be understoon by "reading between the lines". In the case of Song of the South, I think the story is more interesting in the way it deliberately skirts around the reality of life in the Deep South shortly after the American Civil War. But don't take my word for this view, read WP:INUNIVERSE as this explains this issue in a comprehensive fashion. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

You haven't rebutted anything I wrote. You're not looking for the NPOV policy for the reasons I stated above. You're looking for the original research policy. Undue bias has absolutely nothing to do with only using one source. I have no idea what you are referencing with regards Song of the South, but that seems to be a question again of original research, or possibly one relating to verifiability. NPOV is quite clear that "Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views." So if you are writing an article on a work of fiction, it makes sense that the work of fiction itself is a viable source for material. You're point, that we can't base an article solely on that primary source, is actually expressed in WP:NOR, so you are on better ground utilising that policy than strectching one which doesn't express it. Another link of interest is WP:CYF, which I believe contains the text I stole for the first draft of WP:PLOT, that Articles about fictional topics should not read like book reports; instead, they should explain the topic's significance to the work. It's why I am somewhat ambivalent about whether plot stays or goes, the central message is already on Wikipedia, and predates myself and PLOT by a very long chalk. That's why I don;t think we actually need WP:N or WP:FICT. We really just need to use WP:NOR, WP:V and WP:NPOV. Hiding T 15:29, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I appologise if my explaination is not clear, but WP:NPOV is more than just about minority views, it is also about placing undue weight on certain aspects of topic. In the context of fictional topics, putting undue weight on the plot, rather than the real-world aspects is the most obvious failing of a plot only article, and I think would agree that balanced coverage must cover a topic not just from an in universe perspective but also from the perspective of the real world, in which the work of fiction and its publication are embedded. I think WP:INUNIVERSE sums up my views more sussinctly: "An in-universe perspective is inaccurate and misleading, gives undue weight to unimportant information". --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It is not about placing undue weight on aspects, but rather about undue weight on *viewpoints*. Which is key. My problem is twofold. One, I do not think that an in-universe perspective is a viewpoint. (And in this regard, I think WP:INUNIVERSE over-reaches badly. This was never the reason we had INUNIVERSE, and it amounts to an attempt to render INUNIVERSE above reproach despite the fact that its bad reasoning) Two, I do not think that an in-universe perspective has *any* value except inasmuch as it provides context. Using NPOV to limit in-universe writing gives excessive legitimacy to in-universe writing by ensuring that proper coverage requires a certain amount of attention to in-universe matters just as a matter of fairness. So as real-world perspective increases, presumably in-universe perspective would increase to balance the viewpoints and weight. This is a poison pill. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Gavin's proposal

Hello all, I reverted Gavin's changes to WP:FICT and really should have discussed that reversion here first. I feel that:

• The current wording no longer defines the lower threshold but refers to it.
• The current wording redefines terms from WP:N which instead could be referred to.
• The current wording puts to much weight on the upper threshold and not enough anywhere else.
• The definition of "real world" is too specific and not something I agree with.

I'd suggest that this version of WP:FICT is significantly worse than the previous and other proposals by Phil and Masem are better than it also. Hobit (talk) 21:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to revert if need be. The problem I have with reversion is that I think you are missing an oportunity to move forward. For instance, if you feel the lower threshold needs to be expanded, this would be most welcome because then everyone can compare and contrast the upper and lower thresholds and comment upon them, and that is so much more positive than a revert. Secondly, I don't own WP:FICT; I always assume that if there is better wording out there, then hopefully mine or another editors contribuition can be built upon. Lastly, I think that Phil and Masem have interesting views, but I can't imagine any SNG that treats topics differently from Wikipedia's existing policies and guidelines will last, on account that other editors will come along and say "the Emperor has no clothes/Fiction is not entitled to an exemption".--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 21:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

As I've said, my current proposal is not a SNG. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:02, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

meta-discussion

We've got a lot of people putting together proposals before we've even asked how to come up with a proposal that will actually obtain a consensus. I think we need to pick an overall approach. Maybe multiple approaches, and try them one at a time, even if only to rule them out. Possibilities include:

• More inclusive: Although we may alienate people on the exclusive side, it's possible they won't be satisfied with anything less than WP:N anyway. We may reach the "middle" of Wikipedia opinion this way.
• More exclusive: I have a harder time buying that this will take us closer to the middle. But considering there are a lot of inclusionists who will reject virtually any notability guideline outright, and considering that WP:N has stood up time and time again, we may actually gain more support by appealing to a "base" than with an ugly and unappealing compromise.
• Simpler: A lot of people in the RFC opposed it just because it didn't do much to simplify the issue. Rather, it just seemed to make it complicated, with 3 different factors that were all somewhat vague, plus a fourth "hidden" requirement of independent sourcing.
• More open: Maybe we'd be better off if we didn't try to pin anything down at all. But this is the least appealing to me. I don't see the value of it, seeing as this is what we already have, and I don't really want to encourage any more battleground behavior at AFDs. If people genuinely thought this was the best way forward, I could maybe swallow this pill if it still tried to rule out some arguments as completely absurd.

Those are all the approaches I can think of. I can't imagine we'll so much as get a consensus as to what the best approach is. But maybe we can at least pick what approach we'll try next. If you really believe that your opinion is closer to the "true" consensus, then you have nothing to fear from trying an extreme idea, because it will just give a reality check that the idea is in fact as extreme as you think it is. Randomran (talk) 21:09, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

• • fifth possibility: a strict notability policy for individual articles, a liberal one for content within articles. DGG (talk) 21:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm a little intrigued by this idea, but I'm not sure what exactly that would mean. Karanacs (talk) 21:45, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I think DGG is actually hinting at a policy that's more inclusive on a content level, but more exclusive on an article level: something more mergist. Previously, we wanted to avoid those kinds of discussions about merging articles because they would make the guideline more complicated. But I think that if we focused on one aspect of fiction (say, characters, and not episodes), we might be able to keep the discussion and guideline manageable. Randomran (talk) 00:41, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't we then end up back at the issue of when to split? The problem seems to come from the fact that we have a notable topic, we write about it, the article becomes big, we split stuff off, the stuff we split off grows, it becomes a problem for some editors, there's no consensus over whether to merge or delete or keep, Wikipedia becomes a battleground. For me, the key questions are what aspects of a notable topic do we cover? Fiction is a different beast to other fields, because the primary source is usually readily available for information to be verified. We don;t like using primary source in other fields because replicating experiments or becoming a combatant at WWII are hard, so the verification is hard. In fiction, it isn't so hard to verify. Reading the book is not as difficult. Hiding T 10:42, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

"I have heard about this book, what is it about?" In general, fair enough, and we provide that info. But "I have heard about this character, what is it?" is only a valid question when one can reasonably have heard about the character outside of the book (or film or whatever). If all the info on a character is contained within the book and there is no outside discussion, then it makes no sense to have an article on the character: everyone who knows the character has read the book (and then the article is just a plot summary without any added value), and people who have not read the book will never hear about the character. That's why an article like Wang Chen-Yee is useless. At least for a recurring character, there is the weak argument that I can have read book 1 but not book 2, and so I need the background from the article. But this is a character from 1 book, without any real-world significance, without anyone knowing him who hasn't read the book. What's the point? Yes, the info is verifiable from the primary source. So what? Fram (talk) 10:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

That makes sense only in the fact that it assumes people do not hear about characters unless they have read the book. Once you realise people refer to characters in conversation, in passing, that assumption becomes false, and the argument fails, kind of like, as Oolon Colluphid might say, God disappearing in a puff of logic. Hiding T 11:41, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The chance of people referring to Wang Chen Yee outside a discussion of Tintin between people who have read the books is minimal, I believe. And this goes for the vast majority of characters, to stick to this example. We are a tertiary source; we summarize what people may encounter in secondary sources, not whatever they may discuss amongst themselves. This goes for fiction, just like it goes for any other subject. I still have not seen a good argument why fiction needs an exception. "We need an exception or the fiction related articles on Wikipedia will be a battleground" is not a good reason: that's people bullying to get their personal favourites included on a website with high visibility but a different purpose. Are there other good reasons? It's not like there isn't an abundance of tertiary sources about fiction. But looking at some of the episodes in Category:100th episodes (yes, this exists, don't ask me why), articles like Slow News Day could certainly use some more if they don't want to be merged. IF we have too much info on a less notable aspect, we don't need to split it, we need to trim it. Similarly, I can imagine that this is useful for a good understanding of the large book series: but to go into even more detail, like here, is overkill. Any proposed guideline that would make such an article (as it stands) acceptable will probably not be supported by a wider consensus, even if it would get consensus of fiction editing editors( which is far from certain in itself). Fram (talk) 12:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

So we're back to the gray area again, that we should probably merge back to some sort of acceptable medium between too much and not enough? Hiding T 12:30, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Definitely, but the question remains if WP:N = "not enough". For me, it seems that WP:N plus a limited number of list articles (like the list of species I linked to in my previous post, or lists of episodes) should be sufficient to have an indepth coverage of all kinds of fiction without going into too much detail (fansite-like articles, articles which are mostly plot summaries, trivialities, ...). Fram (talk) 12:40, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I can sympathize with people that say that WP:N, as normally applied, generates some bizarre results. I see three factors that contribute:

1. We have editors that argue that it creates a mandate for articles: if one isolated element got analyzed in two sources, then that thing must have an article, and said article can't be deleted. When other elements that are logically equivalent didn't get analyzed, they can't have their own article, and the result is imbalanced coverage. For fictional works with sporadic coverage, this can create some truly lumpy coverage.
2. People use listings in directories as evidence of notability. This is what I think of as "the Simpsons problem". Since The Simpsons is popular enough that there are multiple guides/directories/encyclopedias, every detail of every episode is mentioned in two or three independent sources. The result is extremely detailed, stand-alone articles on topics that are relatively trivial, while less popular shows wind up with List of ... articles. This again creates inconsistent coverage, and breeds resentment from editors interested in less popular works.
3. Editors are generally sloppy about using passing references as sources of notability. Combine that with the above two problems, and you get more inconsistent coverage: one Guide to ... gets published, a few passing mentions occur in other sources, and suddenly there are editors arguing that articles on those passing mentions are mandatory because they also got covered in a guide.

Getting those issues clarified would result in far more consistent coverage of fiction. Generally fewer articles than we have today, but a more consistent level overall.—Kww(talk) 13:48, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Fram, look at what articles link to Wang Chen-Yee. You might think the article is useless, but you are not the only person who reads Wikipedia. That article was viewed 395 times in March[5], 349 times in February[6], and 380 times in January.[7] Wikipedia is bigger than you. The article on Wang Chen-Yee contains information about that specific character. Your claim that "people who have not read the book will never hear about the character" is invalidated by your own comment where you mentioned the character. And you act like humans only communicate through newspaper articles and books. Wikipedia has information on all kinds of things people may talk about. What "exception" are you talking about? The Wang Chen-Yee article needs to be verifiable, contain no original research, and be written as neutral as possible — just like every other article on Wikipedia. You're capable of nominating the articles Wang Chen-Yee, List of recurring species in Redwall, and Pure Ferret for deletion just like everyone else is, and you don't need a guideline in order to do so. --Pixelface (talk) 18:04, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

"everyone who knows the character has read the book (and then the article is just a plot summary without any added value), and people who have not read the book will never hear about the character." Fram, your logic is flawed. You think everyone who has heard of Mickey Mouse has seen at least one film with Mickey Mouse in it? Here's an example: On April 29 on the Yahoo! mainpage, there was a link to an article that mentioned Mildred Montag, and I for one was glad that Wikipedia had an article about the character so I could educate myself. What's the point? Someone, somewhere may ask "Who is Mildred Montag?" The Wikipedia article answers that question. What's the point of having an article about the character separate from Fahrenheit 451#Characters? One could easily put all of the text in the Mildred Montag article into the book article, but with a separate article, the reader doesn't have to load 33K of information they're not interested in to get the answer to their question. The same could be said about all kinds of topics. You can merge Sun into Solar System, you can merge Gordon Brown into Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, you can merge all kinds of articles into other articles, but that doesn't mean you should. --Pixelface (talk) 17:41, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

There's no question that characters such as Mildred Montag should not be represented somewhere in Wikipedia for exactly the reason stated. It should be a searchable term, leaving the question of whether it is a full article or a redirect to an article section in question but either way, the linking to character names of most works should not leave a redlink.

So the question is, what is the value of a separate character article that may not be sourced beyond the primary work compared to a character description in a list (whether standalone or as part of the work itself), assuming that it is the same information in both cases and there is no information lost (in Mildred Montag, the information is short enough that the character list in the article could be expanded). The in-article list is more preferable for several reasons:

• Better context: Stand alone character articles typically do not provide enough information for someone not familiar with the work to understand the relationship of the character to the work. They're great if you are an avid reader/viewer/fan of the work in question and you just need to see that part, but pretty much, that is not well suited to be read by all of WP's potential audience. A list built into an article provides the best place to establish context of both the work and the characters which may be more than the person who is well versed on the work may be wanting but better suits the larger audience of general readers. A standalone list of characters can at least be preceded by appropriate context text to establish the work and the characters in relationship to it.
• Minimize duplication: Stand alone character articles, in order to at least set some context for the role within the work, are almost going to have to duplicate some aspects of the plot to do that. Mildred Montag is not bad in terms of how much is duplicated, but take something like Hiro Nakamura which is nearly repeating of every Hiro-specific scene from across the series.
• Minimize navigation: Reading Mildred Montag, I have to ask, "Who is 'Guy Montag'?" Well, there is a link there, so great, I can find out, but that's one click more than if they were all in the same list. Then I would have to go back and do the same for Captain Beatty. Now, we're on the web, we're not paper, and all that, but we should be keeping in mind that WP does often "freeze" articles and published them on CD and well as having the ability for anyone to make a paper copy of the articles. Those snapshot versions should be as close to self-contained as possible so that readers that use that version don't have to track down numerous pages as needed when they could have been one page.

It's pretty much an issue of content organization moreso than any other facet so that the general reader, not familiar with the core work, can see the entire context of discussion about the character and their relationship to the work on the fully-developed article. Of course, when there is more context than just their role in the fictional work, then it make sense to be able to describe that context in greater detail with separate articles as to allow more discussion of that. It would still be expected that the character that is brought into a separate article is still discussed to the same depth that other characters are in the context of the work. --MASEM (t) 18:27, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

• It sounds to me like people are comfortable with a proposal that tries to balance coverage through merges. That is, rather than focusing on what gets an independent article or not, we try to present a compromise where important but non-WP:notable stuff is neither deleted, nor gets its own article. It's covered somehow, if it meets some lower standard. Would people agree with that? Randomran (talk) 16:39, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

• • I think there is a good goal there, but that a notability guideline is, again, the wrong way to go about it. This becomes an issue, essentially, for WAF - best practices for writing within a fiction guideline. Also, with a hot debate raging on WP:PLOT (which would heavily impact this discussion), I think we're hard-pressed to move in any direction on notability right now. Let's relax a week or two. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:50, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
    • Fair enough. Although just as an aside, let's not get hung up on the word notability. If quality becomes the standard for what gets an article, I don't think that makes this any less of a notability guideline. Indeed, that's a big part of what notability on Wikipedia is supposed to do. Randomran (talk) 18:46, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

sounds like a plan.じんない 00:38, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a three legged horse that will just fall over. It seems to me if you are not standing on the shoulders of giants, you are going to be doing a lot of falling over. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 21:37, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Salvaging the old proposal

Going back a few months, what if we merged "role within the fictional work" with "real world information," and specified that the real world information must be in some way about the object's impact as a cultural object? i.e. no funny anecdotes about filming the episode, but instead information that is about the social, cultural, or artistic impact of the work? After all, we shouldn't care about in-universe importance in the first place (which was always my hesitance about the second prong, such that I almost decided against including it in the first draft). Nor should we care about trivial real-world information. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:07, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Give me a few examples of what you are thinking of here. I would expect most of the discussion on real-world impact to come from independent sourcing, which I think we are trying to deemphasise a bit in the name of compromise. This would also impact the way we handled cast lists. I'm all for claiming that cast lists aren't sufficient real-world information to justify an article, but I suspect that many would disagree with me on that.—Kww(talk) 15:24, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Cast-lists are definitely insufficient, and in at least some past versions of the proposal we specified that, but I think it was cut as part of the over-fetishization of brevity that has plagued the proposal. But what I'm thinking here is that there is a fundamental difference between, say, a bit from a director's commentary that talks about how Actor A played a prank on Actor B on the set of this episode (which is not useful information) and a bit from a director's commentary that talks about the artistic goals of an episode and how it supports major themes of the series. In the former case, you have trivia that does not actually add to the article. In the latter case, you have substantive information.

The larger point is that we cover fiction as a cultural artifact in the real world. In-universe information is valued only inasmuch as it is necessary context for the real world. So with the first prong we demand that the overall work of fiction be notable (and thus have a distinct and measurable real-world impact), and with the second prong we demand that the element contribute in some specific and sourceable way to that real-world impact. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:40, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

That kind of information is precisely what I have in mind when I talk about sourcing the importance of an element to a secondary source, so I agree with you that the kind of information you are talking about is valuable and worthwhile in making an inclusion decision. I think you are stretching a point to describe that as "real-world" information, though. I also agree that the common information on pranks and bloopers is essentially useless.

As for brevity, I tend to agree that the emphasis is misplaced. I think we do need to be more careful to use simple language and sentence constructs, though. We both tend to write using fairly intricate compound sentences. This can lead to precision, but it also leaves us open to mistakes and misinterpretations. The average fiction editor is younger than other editors on Wikipedia, and we need to make sure that any guideline in the area is clear to a junior high school student. Doing that will also make it easier to avoid problems with each other.—Kww(talk) 16:28, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Right. And that kind of information absolutely needs to be taken from a secondary source. I don't think it necessarily has to come from an independent secondary source - in fact, I think if you have the show-runner of a series talking on a DVD commentary about how a given episode really exemplifies the themes of the show, that's probably more significant than two or three random isolated reviewers saying the same thing. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:08, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

We are actually fairly close on all this. So long as we are still dealing in the arena of "elements", and the the overall work has passed WP:N by a mile, I don't have any real objections unless and until people start asserting that this kind of importance test can be bypassed for any class of episode or character. I'm not a strong advocate of "real-world" analysis, though ... I worry more about whether the information is properly sourced than the perspective of the information.—Kww(talk) 19:08, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Whereas for me real-world is the absolute crucial issue, because otherwise we really are hard-pressed to block articles on the minutest details of some of the more obsessively-followed fictional universes. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:12, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I have a concern over video games though. An instruction manual isn't the work itself. Nor is a game guide. But could we really verify the importance of lower roundhouse in Street Fighter because the game guide says "this is an important move to counter high attacks"? I wouldn't really think so. I think I agree with you otherwise, but we'll want to be clear about what we mean. Also, I think we should drop episodes for a later proposal, just for the sake of simplicity. I think that was preventing us from being as clear as we could, because it forced us to try to abstract the language in a way that could cover both episodes and in-universe stuff. Randomran (talk) 19:53, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I would say that countering high attacks is not a meaningful concept outside of the diegesis of the game, and so that is not information focusing on the game as a cultural artifact. I'm torn on episodes, because the same logic works for both episodes and characters. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that will help us when we construct this as a proposal. As for episodes versus in-universe stuff, I think the logic can apply to both, but I think it strains the logic, and I think people will have differing opinions as to whether the logic should apply. I really think that keeping the proposal narrow helps it have a chance of passing. We can always deal with Wikipedia:Television episodes if we have any success with characters and the like. Randomran (talk) 03:49, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I will reoffer an idea that Phil's proposal, removing some language on specifics and altering others, would make a great essay that can sit at a standing FICT that currently describes how fiction is handled, that should be read in conjunction with WP:N when such topics are at AFD. At the present, we seem to be well-balanced between what either side wants and nothing appears to be threatening to tip it and this has been solely on WP:N and the lack of FICT. It should be clear it's not a guideline (but I would expect it to be a essay referred to at AFD if used this way).

This might work in addition to having a "fiction AFD tracking" program to watch how well it works. Maybe we learn more, and can write a stronger statement that we don't know just now and push that as a guideline; maybe the essay needs no changes and can become a rather open and subjective guideline. --MASEM (t) 21:24, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

We have racked these coals looking for a spark of sense, but none have emegered. If there is no verifiable evidence that a topic is important, then it is a poor substitute for notability, which is. We all have pet topics we would like to see covered, or not deleted. But what we don't have is a set of inclusion criteria that can be applied to fictional topics without having to rely of our personal preferences. "Importance" is just the rotten leg of three legged horse that keeps falling over. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 21:41, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

To you maybe; not to the many people that that logically fight to keep such articles when at AFD. "Importance" is clearly a factor - one that can't be qualified (some "important" topics are kept, some "important" topics are not) and thus that's why I think until we can really observe how exactly importance is handled, this should stay an essay. --MASEM (t) 21:48, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course "importance" can't be qualified, quantified or even described by anyone other than you and Phil - and for that reason, I think it is a step back to the Dark Ages. Verfiable evidence, however, is something that every editor can get their head around. Its clean, clear and can be subjected to peer review. WP:FICT needs to be based on inclusion criteria that are not dependent on your point of view, which is what "importance" boils down to. We have tried this approach before and it does not work, and there is no benefit from going down this path. However there is a clear disadvantage - it the inclusion criteria are based on personal opinion, it will not be possible to codify it. So why try and salvage a propoal that does not contain any element of verfiability? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:17, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

If you really insist that this is the standard that will gain consensus, then propose it, and let's have an RFC on it. If you don't honestly believe it will gain consensus, which a lot of us don't believe it will, then it's time to work collaboratively to come up with an alternative. I mean this respectfully and sympathetically: it's time for you to put your proposal to an RFC, or move on. Randomran (talk) 03:52, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that no viable alternative has been put forward over the last 18-months. What proposals that have been put forward have been exemptions for fiction from Wikipedia's existing policies and guidelines.--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 07:01, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

...And the problem with that is? So long as the exception is from the rules, not the principles behind them, then that is a good thing. Principles matter, rules are simply here to record what application of that principle works the most often. One size does not fit all, Gavin. We are not only allowed to, but explicitly encouraged to, make exceptions to the rules if we find cases where legalistic application of policy has bad results. --erachima talk 07:12, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Except that in this case it is the relaxing of rules that leads to uniformly bad results. Reyk _YO! 08:09, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what case you have in mind, but what I'm thinking of is lists. (As far as fict goes, it would mostly be lists of characters and episodes, but per RfC there's no consensus that WP:N applies to lists in general.) In those cases, a legalistic application of N prevents us from improving the encyclopedia by stopping us from presenting information in a readable form. --erachima talk 08:39, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Viable is a question of consensus. Propose it and start an RFC. You'd have my weak support, but not my optimism. Randomran (talk) 19:28, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)Randomran: As for video games, that high-kick example could be notable in talking about if the guide also states why, such as the kick being guaranteed to succeed. In that it become relvent info for anyone wanting to know about the gameplay aspect of the game because it is a broken element that has gotten a secondary-source to comment on how broken it is.じんない 07:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

A notably powerful move may be suitable for coverage when talking about the gameplay, but for an entire stand-alone article? Really? Randomran (talk) 11:41, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

In theory, no. However, if it has caused issues warrantings scholarly review of it then yes. The Corrupted Blood incident in WoW in wow is essentially just a power-move from a boss.じんない 02:37, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Randomran, you're acting as if you're paying for each and every article out of your own pocket. Hard drives only get cheaper. And just think of how many stand-alone articles could take up the space that the piles and piles of useless WT:FICT archives take up. What's the big deal about a separate article? I assume you're referring to articles like Hadouken. Wikipedia's database does not care if text is in a separate article or in a single article. Humans do. --Pixelface (talk) 14:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Userspace table of possible help

I have begun working on User:A_Nobody/Inclusion_guidelines#Table_of_notable_fictional_universes as a means of laying out a table of the most notable fictional universes, i.e. those for which fictional elements appear in multiple media and for which in some cases even universe specific specialized print (not just other wikis, but actual books) exist. Anyway, I invite other editors to edit just that part of the page, i.e. to expand the table by adding any major fictional universe/franchises I left out or any other columns (maybe amusement park rides?) that I included. In cases where a published specialized encyclopedia exists, please cite it in a note. Anyway, I think something along these lines will help us to determine which franchises are the most likely to have sources right off the bat. So, it's there and I hope it is useful. One last note, please do not remove anything from the table as is; please only expand it, or better orgnize it for the time being. I want as the main link the main franchise/universe page. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 00:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Not sure how that helps...I must be missing something. Also, I think you have underestimated how long that list is going to get. What about Lord of the Rings, James Bond, Star Trek (man, you missed Star Trek out!!) Dr Who, Final Fantasy, Babylon 5, Pirates of the Caribbean, Fantastic Four, X-Men...and that's just with a couple of minutes thought.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:49, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

That's in part what I want to see, i.e. how many specific fictional univserses have print encyclopedias and appearances in multiple media, dozens? Or more? Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 00:55, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind that encyclopedias are tertiary sources, and many of them aren't independent of the creator (e.g.: the creator themselves publishes them as sort of an extended instruction manual or advertisement). Randomran (talk) 03:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Nevertheless, they are still reliable for their purposes. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 04:00, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

For verifying some article contents, but not enough to pass some minimums at WP:OR and WP:V. It's at least partially helpful though, I guess. Randomran (talk) 04:10, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

It's a common sense measure of notability, though, as really, only so many of the thousands of fictional universes have print encyclopedias dedicated specifically to them. By the way, check out here for as the article says, "a few notable examples." Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 04:19, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't help an article meet key policies and guidelines (WP:V, WP:OR, WP:RS, to say nothing of the unspeakable guideline that gets too much attention) that call for secondary sources though, let alone third-party ones. And if the encyclopedias are self-published (which some are, although some aren't), then that makes them even less helpful. Like I said, they can verify some content within otherwise acceptable articles, but they're not going to help articles that are fundamentally at risk of deletion. Randomran (talk) 04:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, again, they meet a common sense standard of verifiability and reliable sources. As for original research, that too is really inconsistent with encyclopedic tradition as look at an edition of encyclopedias from back in the day (1700s) that address contemporary topics of the time (such as say newly "discovered" regions of the world or plants and animal species) that are essentially based on primary sources. The writers knew the stuff existed and so went with what they had at the time; it was hardly original research, though. As such, when we deal with contemporary subjects for which perhaps years and years of scholarship has not yet occured, so long as we aren't making a thesis, it's in line with how encyclopedias have traditionally dealt with current subjects. After all, even Britannica has had the book of the year issues that frequently even feature outright essays that almost entirely original research. But god do I feel light-headed... Maybe I'll have some Italian wedding soup... Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 04:49, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I think Masem would support this approach as it dovetails with his proposal that you can include certain topics that are on a "white list". I have doubts about it myself, as it begs the question, if article inclusion is based on a white list of notable fictional universes, what are the inclusion criteria for a topic to get on the list itself? It seems to me that what you might be creating is a set of inclusion criteria (the "white list") within the inclusion criteria for fiction, except that the former is not transparent or stated explicitly. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 07:56, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

This seems to me of some help, though it starts us toward what has been one of the most fiery fights over notability - what constitutes an independent source. My view, as it has always been, is that at the very least officially licensed third party products need to be considered independent, because otherwise one runs into a huge wall due to copyright law alone, which seems undesirable. But this has been fantastically contentious. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:22, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm actually sympathetic to this argument. But all the same, I wouldn't want to give a blanket exception for anything covered in an officially licenced WP:GAMEGUIDE or promotional booklet. If we're going to allow self published sources or closely-affiliated sources to form the basis of an article, then it has to be in *very* select few circumstances ... such as episodes and characters. And even then, not all episodes and characters. (And even then, I'd like to leave episodes out for now, if only temporarily. We can discuss and add them later.) Randomran (talk) 21:33, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

We need not feel too beholden to the consensus lacking WP:GAMEGUIDE, which is really about us not being how tos. Just because something is in a book called a game guide, doesn't mean it is a how to. I have a decent collection of published strategy guides and some are little more than how tos; however, others include interviews, out of universe histories, essays on the game's reception, information on art work concepts and game development, etc., i.e. some of the more thorough books that while technically called game guides go far beyond the walk through sections to include information that we can use for development and history sections of articles. Being licensed and produced by major publishers like Prima or Bradygames makes it all the more reliable. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 21:53, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Again, if you're giving someone a 20% cut of your copyrights to transform your published work of fiction into an encyclopedia or guidebook, do you think they're going to cover things in a proportional and neutral way? Nah, you're gonna tell them to cover everything, in vivid graphic detail. Writing a dozen different articles on a television series by referring to different chapters of an officially licenced book would be like writing an article on each one of Barack Obama's social policies strictly from his ads that were produced by "major advertisers" on Madison Avenue. There's a reason why we require some minimal level of independent coverage. Like I said to Phil, I'd be okay with throwing that out the window, but only if we have some other check/balance in its place so we don't just replicate everything in those officially licenced guides. Randomran (talk) 22:09, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

All the more reason to at least see lists and redirects with edit history intact as a real basis for a compromise. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I definitely agree, at least in principle. Hopefully people can come together and work on a merge/redirect based compromise, instead of stubbornly pitting "strict deletion" versus "stand-alone inclusion". Randomran (talk) 03:24, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE

I've scratched the mention of WP:UNDUE becuase it misrepresents what WP:UNDUE states. I can find no mention of primary sources within that section. However, I did find within that section the following: "In articles specifically on the minority viewpoint, the views are allowed to receive more attention and space". That flat out contradicts the assertions that the guidance is attempting to justify in leaning on the section. The entire section on undue weight is about giving minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views within an article summarising all views. The policy allows for minority views to be covered in their own article. I cannot see how guidance can justify contradicting a policy. What is being looked for is policies stating that articles should rely on secondary sourcing. Those policies are WP:V and WP:NOR. Those are the policies editors should reference in guidance if they want to make such points. Hiding T 09:56, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

That should probably be addressed elsewhere.じんない 10:21, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

What should? Hiding T 10:23, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

That you have a problem with how WP:UNDUE seems to contraditct itself.じんない 20:58, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Expanding the lower threshold

Has anyone a proposal for a lower threshold that can be compared with the upper threshold? Hobbit makes a valid point that current wording puts to much weight on the upper threshold and not enough anywhere else. What principals for article inclusion can be admitted under this heading? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:44, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I may well regret joining in this debate, as it may be there is some past history that I am unaware of, but I do have a few thoughts on the lower threshold.

Leaving aside the odd curiosity where a famous character has sprung from an obscure work, I would say that any discussion of a published/broadcast work would legitimately include some level of detail of the plot, characters, environment etc, without them having to be separately notable. This is not a question if inherited notability - while Captain Ahab stays in the article on Moby Dick he is part of the notability of the book.

When a character (or setting, or plot, or mcguffin) to get out of the article on the book, show, play etc, from my perspective the offenses committed are as much of style as of source. this is a dreadful article about a character, while (in my opinion) this is a rather good one. The difference between them shows the merits of WP:INUNIVERSE, and is wholly a matter of style - the source for the second piece would not really meet any strict standard.

I would therefore have said that as a lower threshold, any article on a character etc must be written from an outside the universe perspective. It must be possible throughout the article to distinguish it from a biography of a real person. That at least might help to stem the flood of bad articles written by fans about their favourite character in a book/show/video game.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:53, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure if that last statement could apply to character background on a very strict level. If you are to tell about their character's background, you have to chonicle it. Even if you continue to use phrases like "In chapter six", "In box seven", "In episode nine" you cannot help but write that section as a background - because it is. And that section is nessasary to the understanding of the article because it provides context to the reader as to why this character may have become important. Why did people review that character in particular, etc.じんない 00:17, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Now I would have said that if you said "Jane's unhappy childhood is described in depth: not until chapter six is she first introduced to Mr Rochester" you have instantly pulled the reader back out of the universe. In describing characters, one can also throw in "like a number of other female characters in Dickens, Amy (Little) Dorrit is the child of parents who were once well off and are now in poverty." OK, that would go down better with a citation, and there aren't the reams of review and theorising out there for some subjects."Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:27, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Have you really pulled them out in the former? I haven't read too many biographies, but I do believe they are written by chapters and a situation similar to that I could easily see appearing in some biographies. As to the latter, that requires other sources to compare or its breaking WP:NOR. If a character gets a review, but no direct comparisons, we can't make them up ourselves.じんない 03:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Elen, it is difficult to agrue that real-world perspective on its own can be used as a criteria for standalone article, because WP:V still requires independent sources. The reason is that sources close to the primary source (authors, promoters, distributers) quite often manufacture coverage of a fictional work in the form of plot summaries to stimulate interest - best described as the literary equivalent of product placement. For this reason, there still needs to be verifiable evidence of notability in the form of reliable secondary sources which are independent of the primary source. However, I do agree with you that real-world coverage is vital to providing balanced coverage of a ficitonal topic. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 07:51, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you're probably right. I was thinking of a lower threshold, and I think I thunk too low.Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:57, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I disagree because a random minor actor talking about someone he doesn't play, he has even less incentive and has more knowledge of the work than someone with an outside view who has no idea generally about the production, or very limited one. That doesn't mean that other voice isn't important, but it's not nessasary to show notability of an element either. The fact a random actor's opinion should carry less weight about someone he didn't play than someone who didn't know the subject matter as well doesn't make sense.じんない 08:11, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I have had further thinking. I may be rehashing old ground here but you can yell at me if I am.

• To establish that a book (or other media leaving aside TV series, for which I'm not convinced this would work) is notable, one of the things one would expect is citation of reviews from reliable sources (so The Times Literary Supplement scores higher than the publisher's website). One way to demonstrate that a character has notability (not is notable, that's a subjective viewpoint) is that the character will be mentioned in reviews. This cannot be the only test, but it could be a useful de minimis particularly for book series. If a reliable reviewer says at miminum that the book features the character, then the character must have obtained some minimum level of notability. This would have the advantage that the evidence shouldn't be hard to find if the book or whatever has notability itself, and it would help weed claims of notability for characters from one-off books - or from series that have a zillion characters only ever referred to in fansites.

Too dumb? Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:36, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal

I have created a proposal at Wikipedia:Fiction for a new policy page discussing fiction issues in general - pulling heavily from WAF, but also from NOT#PLOT and some of the more agreed upon proposals to come up in notability debates. The goal is to create a single policy page that clearly establishes core principles of what it means to write about fiction in an encyclopedia about fact. I welcome comments and criticism at the talk page there.

The goal is not to pre-empt discussions of notability, but to create a clear rule for what fiction articles are - and thus to establish (hopefully) a wide swath of articles that can be dealt with by virtue of the fact that they are simply poor articles outright, thus hopefully alleviating some of the immediate tension and urgency of this situation. We all tend to agree on what a poor fiction article is, and so my hope is that by creating a policy that allows us to deal with poor fiction articles, we can heavily reduce the pool of things under discussion here. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I think this proposal is another attempt to provide fictional topics with various exemptions from several content policies for certain fictional topics, depending whether they are presented as aggregated as articles or lists. The idea that you can have a subject specific policy for fiction is a classic example of a walled garden; effectively it is fork from WP:FICT in the sense that you are trying to construct a set of inclusion criteria without calling it such by calling it "policy", which presumably is a way of elavating its author into the Wikipedia equivalent of Mount Olympus. You refer to this as a "content policy", yet it offers no new principle on content that is not already included in existing policies. If it offers nothing new then I fail to understand its rationale, other than to conclude that it is an essay based on your opinion on the approach to covering fiction. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:21, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Your assumptions of bad faith, coupled with egregious misrepresentations of what I'm saying, are bordering on personal attacks, Gavin. You are usually more reasonable than this. Perhaps you should take a break. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:01, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

More generally, this does not offer any guarantees of article inclusion. It sets up a set of standards for fiction articles, and adds the significant new tooth that these standards are mandatory - that articles that do not meet these standards can be merged or deleted. This is a change from existing policy, and a tightening of it. It, in effect, allows for articles that are all plot summary or that contain no significant real-world perspectives to be deleted for that reason alone. All the while not setting up or undermining a notability criterion, so you can still, if you want, push for the application of WP:N to fiction. So to say that it is somehow a set of inclusion criteria is facetious at best. What it is is a declaration that the guidelines we have for fiction at WAF and NOT#PLOT are mandatory, and that articles that do not meet our standards will be removed. Not tolerated indefinitely while they are "fixed." Fixed or removed. Period. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Well considering already on the WT:Fiction page there is one person who disagrees with you and seems to believe quite the opposite, your argument isn't quite as sound as you make it.じんない 02:48, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. I've got one person howling at me for trying to push a deletionist screed against plot through, and another howling at me that I'm trying to sneak through a loosening of fiction guidelines. I must have gotten the moderate position just right! Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Phil, WP:FICT does not offer any guarantee of article inclusion either. I think you description of Wikipedia:Fiction is virtually the same as WP:FICT except for you keep insisting that it is not a set of inclusion criteria, but some sort of quasi policy. However, if it does not contain any new priniciple that is not already included in Wikipedia's existing policies on content and style, then I think it is fair to say that your proposal is a no more that fork from WP:FICT that is shy of stating what it is. I think you already know that Wikipedia:Fiction was once the pagename for Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) before it was here, which is probably why you have deliberately deleted the prior history. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:53, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Changing what FICT is

It seems to me, increasingly, that we need Wikipedia:Fiction - a general policy on fiction, its role in an encyclopedia that is about fact, what fiction articles are, what they must contain, etc. This should be above WAF in the pecking order - WAF should be a manual of style, whereas this should be a policy, at its core, about the basic problem that fiction is not real, and encyclopedias are about real things. WP:FICT, in theory, should be a redirect to that. Once we've squared away that, I think we'll be in a better position to deal with the notability questions.

I've got a draft of such a proposal at User:Phil Sandifer/Fiction, but I figured I should float it here before going and fiddling redirects to make the proposal formal. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I have my doubts about your proposal which I laid out at User talk:Phil Sandifer/Fiction regarding spinouts, but support your view that WP:FICT should provide guidance on all fictional topics, not just works or elements. This approach does not invalidate or supercede some of the existing SNGs which cover fictional works, e.g.WP:MOVIE is not just about the films as work of fiction (or non-fiction), but also in terms of acting, awards, cinimetography, and direction which all contribute to their notability. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:18, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, my point, more broadly, is that this shouldn't be a notability guideline - that we need a more fundamental policy on fiction first, and then we can ask whether there's a notability issue on top of it. Since the problem seems to me to be that we have a mass of bad fiction articles and little good policy that can be used to clean them up. Not all masses of bad articles that should be cleaned up and deleted are notability issues. And there are many less contentious aspects of the debate than notability - indeed, I think most of my proposal is pretty non-contentious. (Including spin-offs, which I do not intend to supersede any potential notability guidelines).

I think we need a notability-neutral policy, and that we can deal with any remaining notability issues once we have that in place (or separately, if there's a real drive to do so). And that the correct location for such a policy is Wikipedia:Fiction, which is currently a redirect to this page. So I'm asking for permission, basically, to disable that redirect and the WP:FICT redirect, and create a proposal there. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:00, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:FICT is about the inclusion criteria for fictional topics, its not a general essay on fiction. Add a link if you wish to this page, but hijacking WP:FICT for an essay would be to undermine the proposals being made here.

WP:FICT is a TLA redirect created when there was no general proposal on fiction, and it is not an essay. I would, of course, add a link back here on any such proposal, but the most logical destination for a general policy on fiction is Wikipedia:Fiction. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:14, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

What is a TLA? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:33, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Three-letter-acronym. Though FICT is four, it refers generally to our abbreviated page names - NPA, NPOV, N, etc. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:12, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Fiction is real and encyclopedias do cover it (nevermind that encyclopedias did not let anyone edit). This page used to be named Wikipedia:Fiction until Jiy renamed it to Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) on December 12, 2005[8] after this proposed rename on another talkpage. WP:WAF should be nothing (or moved back to Amcaja's userspace) and this talkpage should probably be protected and salted, because basically nothing good has ever come out of it. At various times this talkpage is not about the content of the page at all, but editors various POVs about fiction in general. One would think with so many reams of talkpage archives here, that the fiction article would look better than it does. How would a new editor read User:Phil Sandifer/Fiction and use it to improve Fictional history of Spider-Man or Mildred Montag or Valen? Are you trying to help editors learn how to write better? Which editors have you helped? What articles have you worked on that you can point to as examples? --Pixelface (talk) 14:25, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Pixelface, you are growing tiresome. Please stop behaving like a petulant child. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:37, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

And yet another personal attack. Wasn't there a couple of RfC's over behavior similar to this? Ikip (talk) 16:02, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

When you have one editor who is spamming discussion after discussion with trolling lies, and another who calls him on it, complaining about the latter seems to me to have the wrong end of the stick, so to speak. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:41, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Answer my questions please. Believe me Phil, I'm older than you are and certainly more mature than you are. --Pixelface (talk) 16:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Ask a question that deserves a response and I will happily answer it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:41, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay. Who's your audience? The editors who could endure User:Phil Sandifer/Fiction probably don't need any help writing anyway. How would a "petulant child" use User:Phil Sandifer/Fiction to write better articles? --Pixelface (talk) 17:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of the proposal is only secondarily to educate - Wikipedia:How to write a plot summary is the better example of a guideline to educate. The purpose of this proposal is to codify the stick needed to beat the stupid out of the encyclopedia. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:37, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, so your audience is fascists with delusions of grandeur. Why didn't you say so? So find a stupid editor, have them read User:Phil Sandifer/Fiction and update us on your Manchurian candidate. Alternately, use the "stick" you just made and try and "beat the stupid" out of the Valen article (or, of course, the The Manchurian Candidate article). An update on that would also be nice. --Pixelface (talk) 19:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

My God, Pixelface. How do you even take yourself seriously? Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:07, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Please, gentlemen, enough already. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 19:08, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Enough of Pixelface will be when his trolling is finally met with a well-deserved ban so that he stops injecting his ridiculous paranoia and frothing into serious debates. Sadly, it seems that the community consensus is that there is never enough toxic destructiveness in discussion of fiction. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:53, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Enough of this also, Phil. If you have something you want to say about Pixelface or any other editor, take it to his or her talk page, please. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 07:29, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I've never trolled Wikipedia, Phil. If I was trolling above I would have said "Phil, you can't beat the stupid out of homeless people. So put your stick away or I'll call the police." :) Nobody cares about your little "thesis." --Pixelface (talk) 08:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

A deletionist proposal

Resolved

As someone who generally edits articles on non-fictional subjects, I'd like to suggest a tougher standard.

1. All articles about fictional works must meet the general notability criteria, WP:GNG.
2. Additional articles after the first about a fictional work or series thereof must not only meet WP:GNG, but higher standards apply.
3. Episodes are not individually notable unless the specific episode has attracted significant comment in reliable sources other than sources which regularly review episodes. (Every once in a while an episode of a TV show gets significant attention, and is worth including. Most don't.)
4. Plot summaries are not appropriate to Wikipedia except for works which have attracted significant critical attention from reliable sources, preferably academic ones. Plot summaries must be cited to reliable sources. Writing your own plot summary is WP:OR.
5. Where another wiki with content licensing comparable to Wikipedia exists for a collection of works, reference should be made to that wiki, and its content should not be repeated on Wikipedia. (In other words, send all the Star [Trek|Craft|Gate|Wars] stuff to Wikia.)
6. Proper sources must be cited. Fictional works are not reliable sources about themselves, other than for identification data (author, title, copyright date, cast, etc.)

This is what we do everywhere else on Wikipedia, and it's time for fiction to be brought into line. --John Nagle (talk) 16:36, 8 May 2009 (UTC) (Numbered sections, since they were being referred to by number. --John Nagle (talk) 21:15, 10 May 2009 (UTC))

This is way too much how people were treating fiction before the two ArbCom Ep&Char cases, and too far away from the consensus ranges that we've seen here. --MASEM (t) 16:51, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think this would ever obtain a consensus. Randomran (talk) 17:34, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to hear from people who make most of their edits on non-fiction subjects. Most of the editors who write here focus on fiction articles. Thanks. --John Nagle (talk) 17:57, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to get some less passionate feedback, but it still remains to be seen if something like this would obtain a consensus. Randomran (talk) 18:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Non fiction editors don't really care that much. You can get them to say "use the GNG", but that's pretty much where their interest ends. Of course this is the exact wrong page to reach those people. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't edit fiction much, and basically agree with you. In an ideal world, I'd support you. In this world, I don't think it will fly.—Kww(talk) 18:19, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Quite a few of the editors who write here do not focus on fiction articles. I'm a copyeditor and policy/guideline enforcer first. Usually my entrances into fiction articles are by way of AfD rescue. I much prefer editing/improving industrial topics. So yeah, I feel that, with the exception of policies in place for legal reasons, WP:CONCENSUS is paramount. And I can't imagine this meeting with concensus. The Wikia one would meet strong resistence for license reasons. The claim about Fictional works not being reliable sources is contrary to WP:PRIMARY. For copyright reasons, plot summaries can't come from cited sources without paraphrasing them, and a summary of a summary is hardly useful. Why should higher standards apply for additional articles? That's not true anywhere else. Before we started to push the issue here, there was no explicit ruling on WP:SPINOUT articles; the spinout practice predates the use of the GNG as a touchstone for article inclusion. -Verdatum (talk) 20:27, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure, John. Let's also make sure to get some extra perspectives on the articles you write about. I mean, Aspidistra (transmitter)? Total snooze-fest. Transmitter used in some World War II transmissions? That's it? Yawn. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The plot summary bit strikes me as somewhat extreme. Are you suggesting that if I write an article about a book, that even a few lines of plot summary is unacceptable? -Chunky Rice (talk) 20:40, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose as not the basis of a compromise. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:27, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it's way beyond what we do everywhere else on Wikipedia. For example, that thing about having the meet a guideline above the GNG is a load of crap that wouldn't really fly anywhere else (even on BLPs, sadly). We also shouldn't move GNG-passing content to Wikia; Wikia is deliberately not Wikipedia. However, I'm ambivalent on the sourcing issue, not wanting sources to fictional works deleted entirely, but I do agree that a good 90% of said sources could be get rid of. Sceptre ^(talk) 18:42, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

This would not gain consensus, first because it directly violated WP:PRIMARY and second because it would not gain consensus with enough of those who actually edit fictional articles which is needed to form a consensus.じんない 02:54, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Strong Oppose I make most (almost all) of my edits on non fiction subjects, so I think I meet the criteria. I think one of Wikipedia's strengths has always been its excellent treatment of fiction and games and I see no reason to delete tens of thousands of articles for no particular reason. I'd love it if every episode of every show had an encyclopedic quality article on it. Moreover, fiction and music have been areas that have brought new editors into wikipedia traditionally. Sites that review a show regularly and are accepted widely as experts on those shows are (IMHO) RSes on shows. jbolden1517^Talk 03:01, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

oppose "fiction and music have been areas that have brought new editors into wikipedia traditionally" (jbolden1517 03:01, 9 May 2009) highlights an important point: deletionism does not deter the fan-boys, but almost certainly drives away potential good editors by its biteyness. --Philcha (talk) 06:48, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose - fictional works are reliable sources about themselves, and quoting them has an important place, although of course they do not count for the purposes of notability. ··gracefool☺ 16:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that would work. I think it's too far the other way. And anyone writing a plot summary would have to do it in their own words, so there is an extent to which it will always be 'original research'.Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Points 1, 3, 4, and 6 are all reasonably supportable; I think the plot summary one needs a bit of flexibility; it's long been consensus that plot summaries are needed in articles to give context to the rest of the article; technical 'how it was done' type stuff. I think that it should read that extensive and scene-by-scene plot summaries violate NOT#PLOT, but that precis of the work are needed for context, and the broad strokes aren't likely to be WP:OR so much as stuff that's meant to be understood by the audience implicitly, and isn't overtly defined. Point 2 makes no sense, even to me, and I'm generally pooled with the deletionists. All that's needed for a subarticle is a reasonable amount of good secondary and tertiary sourcing, and enough material to justify spinning it out for space considerations. point 5 Seems way too exclusionary an idea in general. While other Wikias can and do have looser standards of inclusion, creating huge exclusionary stakes seems a dangerous line. Where do we draw the line? Natty Bumpo is the hero of multiple novels; do we eliminate all JF Cooper material to the Cooper Wikia? Do we keep just the author article, jsut he books and author, Just the author, books, and Bumpo but not Uncas? Do we keep Star Trek, but not Spock or Kirk? This is so grey that I think it become redundant and obviated by other ideas you yourself propose, like #1 and my response to #2. ThuranX (talk) 16:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

3, 4, and 6 are utterly unreasonable. Notability cannot be drawn from sources that review TV shows? Where the hell does that come from? Independent, reliable sources don't count if they regularly write about the topic? WTF? 4 is a ridiculous tightening of NOT#PLOT for little to no reason - plot summaries are inappropriate for Wikipedia? I suppose we should ditch the summaries of arguments on books of philosophy, too? I'm as anti-in universe cruft as they come, but give me a break. Plot summaries matter. And 6 - 6 is pure comedy. A work of fiction is not a reliable source on its own plot? That is so far down the rabbit hole as to no longer be connected with reality.

Though it has been pointed out that this proposal will never fly, I would like to point out my conviction that the decision that "we should actively decline to provide information about this subject," when coupled with nothing but a conviction that the subject is unworthy, regardless of clear crowds interested in it, and our clear ability to provide accurate information is an appalling, myopic, offensive, and frankly morally repugnant viewpoint. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:30, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Your neighbor is calling. Now that you're up on that horse, he wants his extension ladder back. Point 3 Means that being listed in TV Guide or your local paper's TV Schedule isn't enough, nor is the daily mini-reviews every damn media based outlet gives to everything on that night, because all that shit is bought-and-paid-for hype. AOL's review of the night's shows to watch is nothing but paid promotional coverage. It doesn't eliminate the NY Times TV Reporter's summary of the season. Point 6 is already in place as the prohibition on reliance on primary sources. And that's right ,it's the same fucking 'director's commentary is of limited use' argument we keep hitting. EVERYONE here gets you, Phil. Your absolutist inclusionism, to the level that sources are irrelevant, is annoying and obnoxious. You've shown absolutely no willingness to consider that this is an encyclopedia, not a 'total respository of everything on the internet'. We have that already, it IS the internet. You repeatedly ignore that we have standards here, acknowledging them only when you want to see them torn down. You aren't interested in actually writing something encyclopedic, you're interested in pursuing your own personal agenda. You've been plain about this for a while, and frankly, I'm really sick of your obstructionism in getting over this. This guideline died in a wide community review, and you continue to try and build one. We have the GNG, and that's ENOUGH. If you can't or wont' do the research to get an article up to the GNG, then tough shit, it's not notable. Please let this thing die already, Phil. ThuranX (talk) 16:46, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

lulzPhil Sandifer (talk) 17:30, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

What would you say that line is, between AOL's review of a movie and Roger Ebert's review of a movie? I agree with the current unwritten rule that (at least, in the areas in which I write episode articles) to assert notability or to be used in an article as part of a "critical reception", the reviewer has to make an honest effort to critically balance aspects of a work instead of just saying "this is the greatest movie I've seen in my life!". Note that I say "reviewer" because there are rare cases (such as "The Stolen Earth", or The Dark Knight where the work is just that good) where a review will be completely positive. Applying said rule, it would exclude people like Kristin Dos Santos who just give works rave reviews without care for any faults (Lost articles tend to exclude her reviews for that reason) but include people like Charlie Jane Anders who, while working for a "blog", is a noted reviewer and at least tries to assess faults in articles (which is why I tend to use her reviews in Doctor Who articles). Sceptre ^(talk) 18:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

For notability, I ask whether the source is a directory: if the source's goal is to list every program that airs on a given night for a given set of networks, the listing conveys no notability, even though it can be used as a source of facts about the program.—Kww(talk) 18:34, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

That is a markedly different standard than the one Nagle proposed. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:39, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I think his was a little excessively restrictive, and I would tighten mine before I offered it as a proposal. Certainly, a source that regularly reviews episodes by searching out the best and the brightest episodes conveys notability, so long as the source itself is notable. A source that chooses its programs to review mechanically does not, the most common example being every show on a group of networks on a given night. A site that reviewed every episode of a group of series would be another case of mechanical selection: because their task is to review every episode, the listing doesn't show that any individual episode is notable.—Kww(talk) 19:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I am uncomfortable with that logic, as it adds a restriction above independent sourcing. The problem I have is that it seems to me to assume that television episodes are inherently non-notable, and thus that extra evidence is needed to establish their notability above and beyond the ordinary. Whereas it seems to me that the reason that, for instance, Television Without Pity reviews every episode of some series is that the series are immensely popular, and people actually pay attention to every episode of it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:26, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the difference is that TWoP are critical (unashamedly so) whereas listings don't tend to be. Sceptre ^(talk) 19:29, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Well yes. Listings are also trivial mention, I would say. The issue I have is that Nagle's proposal - which ThuranX praised as reasonable - was that sources that regularly review episodes are also not acceptable for establishing notability. Which is a ridiculously high bar to set. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:35, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The reason I use the directory analogy is because that's what I'm aiming for. We would never consider a person notable because they appeared in the White Pages for a city two years in a row, because the intent of the White Pages is to list every person in the city. That's the same logic I'm trying to use. In some cases, the analogy is perfect: a directory listing for an episode at tvguide.com doesn't convey any notability at all. Be it an infomercial, today's episode of "Judge Judy", whatever, it gets listed, because TV Guide doesn't apply any discrimination. Other websites may or may not be classifiable as directories. I'm not familiar with TWOP's selection criteria, so I can't offer an opinion as to whether it's a directory or a review. As for your first comment, yes, individual television episodes are inherently non-notable, just like people.—Kww(talk) 19:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

TWoP selects certain shows, but reviews every single episode of those shows. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

In your ear, Phil. I said a few parts of it are reasonable, which is hardly much praise, I said other parts are redundant or self-contradicting, and explained why I thought so. Episodes are no more notable than the series. They should be able to come up with reasonable amounts of RS. A site that reviews everything hardly adds much, though, beyond one point of 'critical reaction'. Episodes should demonstrate why that episode's particularly noteworthy for the series, like 'Most watched show ever on TV, critically praised by every reviewer, and provoking a massive outpouring of letters to the company, yadda yadda, the cast said then XY and Z, and now says AB and C. special shots and scenes required PQR and so on.' Really, using 'TVWOP said it was good.' on every episode's just a backdoor to cruft. We don't need an article on every MASH episode, and shouldn't have them, most are just PLOT bloats. I don't understand why you're so deliberately obtuse about the difference between notable episodes, and non-notable, nor do I understand why, after massive community rejection of this guideline, and lots of comments to let this drop, you just keep hammering away at this stupid notion that fiction deserves a lower standard than the rest of the encyclopedia. Let this failure of a proposal drop already. Come back to it in a few years, if ever. The GNG seems to suffice relatively well. ThuranX (talk) 11:43, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

We should not be critical of sites that regularly review every episode of a TV show - as long as we're talking about a more in-depth review and not just a blurb, and aren't solely focused on that one show. This is akin to any major movie reviewer; of course they will review every major picture release in depth, so we shouldn't discount them on that factor. --MASEM (t) 19:38, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent) What I'm really proposing here are tighter restrictions on spinout articles. TV show article - fine. TV show episode article - needs strong justification as notable. Book article - fine. Book character article - needs strong justification as notable. Fictional planet mentioned briefly in comic book based on SF movie - no way. Notability of the base work does not confer notability on spinoff articles. They have to make it on their own. It's like the Wikipedia policy for biographies - relatives of notable people aren't inherently notable. --John Nagle (talk) 21:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I would think that the majority of people would agree - spinouts on characters and episodes shouldn't occur until they are well-sourced. The problem that we're dealing with is that we have 7 years of existing WP articles that cannot simply be dealt with in a single move and thus requires consideration of how to appease everyone to go forward. --MASEM (t) 21:46, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, well put. If you look at this AfD (for which I am definitely not canvassing btw - taking this argument over there will not help things along one bit) there must be a lot of editors out there who believe that 'it's notable because the book is notable', and don't understand why that argument doesn't work with the current wikipedia policies.Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:54, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

John Nagle's "Notability of the base work does not confer notability on spinoff articles. They have to make it on their own. It's like the Wikipedia policy for biographies - relatives of notable people aren't inherently notable" (21:28, 10 May 2009) is as uncontroversial as motherhood & apple pie. But it's a far cry from what he started this thread with:

• The title "A deletionist proposal" is asking for trouble, and also looks like it supports WP's most controversial and unlikeable ideology.
• "Additional articles after the first about a fictional work or series thereof must not only meet WP:GNG, but higher standards apply" is just plain unreasonable. For example it implies that, because there's an article about Homer's Odyssey, articles about Odysseus , Athene, Poseidon etc. must meet higher standards than Oddyssey. That does not make sense.
• "Plot summaries are not appropriate to Wikipedia except for works which have attracted significant critical attention from reliable sources, preferably academic ones. Plot summaries must be cited to reliable sources. Writing your own plot summary is WP:OR" has so many things wrong with it that it's hard to know where to begin - but I'll try:
  • "except for works which have attracted significant critical attention from reliable sources" is ambiguous at best. A fictional work's notability may be based on non-literary aspects, e.g. historical, philosophical, political, etc. For example Plato's Symposium is fictional, but is arguably of greater interest from the philosophical and historical points of view.
  • "preferably academic ones" is pure intellectual snobbery. For example a good book or film critic's comments about a film try to explain its strengths and weaknesses and are usually far more useful than the attempts of some academic to make the work an exemplar of or exception to some abstruse theory.
  • "Writing your own plot summary is WP:OR" is nonsense - it's no more WP:OR than summarising the views expressed in third-party commentary, which we have to do for obvious reasons.
• "Fictional works are not reliable sources about themselves" is also nonsense. If eminent academic commentator X says that work Y says A, but the text of work Y actually says B, which is the more reliable? --Philcha (talk) 22:26, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

If you think the "intellectual snobbery" you describe is a new thing, you're wrong; it's rampant on Wikipedia. To the point where the opinion of one scholar not many people have heard of is sometimes given the same amount of weight as an entire country. Sceptre ^(talk) 22:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm well aware of rampant intellectual snobbery on Wikipedia, and I'm glad to see we have a low opinion of it. However I think your "To the point where the opinion of one scholar not many people have heard of is sometimes given the same amount of weight as an entire country" goes too far. Even in our "advanced" societies popular misconceptions are common - e.g. models of Dimetrodon are commonly marketed as "dinosaurs". I'd say that academics do not have a monopoly on expertise, academics sometimes get it wrong, and non-academic experts are sometimes more useful. --Philcha (talk) 08:52, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Nagle, I can appreciate your desire to tighten up standards, and I think the Upper threshold will meet your requirements without ammendment. The higher standard that I think you are reaching for is a requirement for significant real-world coverage that is not sourced from tertiary sources, e.g. directories and databases, such as TV guides, which do not confer any notability. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 07:40, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Gavin Collins, you're ignoring the point that John Nagle's proposal is explicitly deletionist. As I've said in previous discussions with you, deletionism is both bitey, as the main victims are contributions by new editors who may become useful contributors with a bit of gentle guidance, and futile, because the fan-boys will always out-number the deletionists. --Philcha (talk) 08:58, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I take you point, Philcha. For instance, I am not sure how the use of plot summary can be restricted (other than the prohibition against plot only articles). I would have thought this was a matter of style, already covered in detial by WP:WAF. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:17, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I have to disagree with just about everything you said, John.

• 1) This was an SNG. SNGs list additional things, besides coverage, that are considered evidence of notability. Coverage is one indicator of notability, is it not the only indicator of notability. And the GNG is a guideline, not a policy, so "musts" are out of the question. Over one-third of Wikipedia's articles fall under Category:Fiction. And I'm betting that most were created before the GNG was a mote in Uncle G's eye. Take for example Baldrick, an article created October 2, 2001 about a character in the television series Blackadder. Do you seriously need The Guardian to tell you what happens in an episode of Blackadder? What is Tony Robinson notable for?
  
  
• 2) Why should higher standards than the GNG ever apply? Coverage is widely considered strong evidence of notability for any topic. You're going to say that even with coverage, some fictional thing is not notable?
  
  
• 3) You can think whatever you want about television episodes, but that doesn't mean the world shares your viewpoint. Episode articles have over seven years of precedent on Wikipedia, not all TV episodes are fiction anyway, Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, there is virtually no reason for a newspaper to review an episode after it has aired (unlike films before they're released), and an episode is a reliable source in and of itself. How can you say a television show is notable yet the episodes that comprise are not notable? If the episodes are not notable, how is the show notable? Wikipedia only has about 8,000 episode articles anyway. Go focus your efforts on BLPs, which can harm real people living on this planet. Bulbasaur will never sue the Wikimedia Foundation. Nobody finds an article about an episode of The Sopranos or Doctor Who unless they go looking for it. And if they go looking for it, Wikipedia probably can and should give them information about it.
  
  
• 4) Fictional works are reliable sources. Who is a more reliable source for Hamlet than Shakespeare himself? If an editor is capable of summarizing a secondary source about War and Peace, they're capable of summarizing War and Peace itself (if they're willing). Plot summaries have always been acceptable on Wikipedia and wishing them away won't change anyone's mind. A plot summary is often the first thing an article related to fiction has. Take The Ant and the Grasshopper for example. Topical sentence, plot summary. That pattern is repeated all over Wikipedia. There's frequently no consensus to delete plot-only articles.[9] It's not original research to say page X of this non-fiction book says such and such, so why would it be "original research" to say page Y of this fiction book says such and such?
  
  
• 5) To say that content on Wikia should not be repeated on Wikipedia is ludicrous. Do you know there's a wiki on Wikia for birds? People can make wikis there for any topic (including Broadcast transmitters). It's a for-profit site founded by Jimbo Wales and Angela Beesley. Jimbo Wales and Angele Beesley suggested the creation of Wookieepedia (for Star Wars stuff) on Wikicities, which they founded, when they were on the WMF Board. (More about that here[10]) Besides, do we say that topics that appears in Encyclopedia Britannica should not appear in Wikipedia? Would you ever propose "Send all the pornstar bios to Bomis"?
  
  
• 6) Fictional works are reliable sources about themselves. Look at some of our featured articles: The Empire Strikes Back, Quatermass and the Pit, Casablanca, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pattern Recognition, etc. To find out what happened in World War II, you've got to find third-party sources. To find out what happened in The Lord of the Rings, you can simply ask Tolkien, since it came from his brain.
  
  

Do you want to know what we do "everywhere else on Wikipedia"? The Human skeleton article had no references for years. The language section of the Human brain article has a total of one citation. The article for the film The Brain That Wouldn't Die has one citation. If you're trying to describe common practice, I don't think you're doing very well. Your proposal sounds to me like the same re-heated FICT leftovers. If you want to say that there needs to be strong evidence of notability for a TV episode before it can have an article, say so. And then list what you consider evidence of notability for such. Then do the same for characters in novels, fictional planets, etc. (An explanation of how The Sopranos is notable but the episodes are not would also be appreciated). If you want to, feel free to answer User:Pixelface/Fiction Survey 2009 on a subpage in your userspace. I wouldn't support articles for every character in The Brain That Wouldn't Die, I wouldn't even support a List of characters article. It would be beneficial to find some common ground. --Pixelface (talk) 08:22, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear that this proposal is a non-starter. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 14:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Notability

In order to move WP:FICT closer to becoming a functional guideline, I propose insert the following text into the preamble which has been cribbed from WP:BK, and is intended to provide editors with some explaination or reasoning behind the guideline itself:

Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) is a guideline that defines the inclusion criteria for topics about fiction, whether their subject is a work of fiction or a fictional element from a work (including but not limited to serialised works that are divided into episodes, and elements such as fictional characters, settings or events).

This proposed guideline may be considered a specialized version of Wikipedia:Notability, which refers to whether or not a topic merits its own standalone article. The term "Notability" is not a reflection of a topic's importance or worth; rather it used in the sense that the topic has been noted in published commentary from reliable sources independent of the topic itself. A work or element of fiction may be a brilliant creation, fascinating and topical, while still not being notable enough to ensure sufficient verifiable source material exists to create an article that meets Wikipedia's content policies.

Works of fiction distributed through the media of books and film are also (but not exclusively) the subject of separate notability guidelines for books and films respectively. Other specific guidelines may be developed in the future. Until then, this guideline may be instructive by analogy.

Notability is not a popular concept so I don't expect this proposal to be accepted without reservations. Although the General notability guideline can be objected to on the grounds that it acts as a restaint on editorial autonomy, its purpose is to enable ordinary editors to identify which topics can be included in Wikipedia, so we don't have to rely on having to get permission from a panel of experts, an editorial board or the Wikipedia Foundation to create a new article. Wikipedia's goal of creating an encyclopedia to which everyone can contribute is supported by notability.

It is all very well to dismiss this approach as "being the same WP:N" or "not having consensus", but we have invested so much time in proposals that have attempted to circumvent the principle of notability without any sucess. I would prefer if this proposa is not dismissed this out of hand without investigating exactly why it would not work, or what alternatives to this wording there might be. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:07, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

That's a quite user-friendly explanation, and I think it's an improvement on the current lead section. However if I were a newbie, I think I'd need more explanation, e.g. (after "to create an article that meets Wikipedia's content policies"; 'scuse the acronyms) "The requirement for reliable sources independent of the topic itself is part of Wikipedia's policy of WP:V. This aims to ensure accuracy and to prevent wars in which different editors push their own points of view." --Philcha (talk) 09:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

"The term "Notability" is not a reflection of a topic's importance or worth;" is a bad idea - WP:NOTE specifically uses the word 'merit', which does denote (or at least connote) importance or worthiness to have an article. We should be consistent throughout wikipedia with the use of words as relate to a particular topic. That is, Notability should mean the same thing in all Notability guidelines, not different ones for different purposes. ThuranX (talk) 21:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I will change it to merit. Us accountants always think of what something is worth, not its merit :p --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's a frightening thought

In this AfD discussion, one of the participants has just argued that an article about a character cannot be deleted because the editors who are fans of the books will riot.

Does that thinking worry anyone else? Is it at all widespread?--Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:05, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

It's an invalid argument. I doubt many worry. I certainly don't. You can't keep people from voting for whatever reason they want. Is it widespread? Yes and no. Yes, because these arguments come from the editors who try to protect articles about their fandom and every fandom that has people write articles about non-notable characters has people who vote for such reasons. No, because the inclusionist mob knows better than making their invalid arguements so transparently invalid. Anyways, I don't see how this is relevant to WP:FICT. IMHO, it doesn't belong here. Goodraise 15:28, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Probably doesn't (delete it if you want to tidy up) but I wondered if this kind of attitude contributed to the difficulty in reaching consensus, or do the fanbois not get involved in the policy debates. Maybe instead of "not a mere plot summary" it should say "not a fan site". --Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:37, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, they don't get involved. They don't because they don't care about the encyclopedia. They just want to use Wikipedia as a free webhost. The difficulty with reaching consensus isn't fanboys or lack of good proposals. (There are many good ideas.) The problem is that there are too many editors who like to fight (at AfD) and to preach (here). They simply don't want a consensus. Goodraise 15:54, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Fairy snuff. I found the arguments advanced at that AfD largely mirrored the discussion here, but there does not seem to be a 'fanboi' element here. I realise of course (now) that it was incautious to have raised this while the AfD was going on, as it could be seen as canvassing, for which there was no intention on my part.Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Fans built Wikipedia. To say they don't care about the encyclopedia....is this one of those milk-curdling comments I've heard about? Article editors generally stick to writing articles, and gravitate to topic areas that interest them (since they don't get paid), while authoritarian power-trippers generally gravitate to policy debates, so they can imagine new and pointless hoops for the proles to jump through and then watch with glee. The problem is that people are trying to impose self-made rules on other volunteers, instead of describing common practice. Many policywonks want to manufacture consent, they're not interested in describing it. That would be populist, not elitist like themselves. --Pixelface (talk) 06:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

C'mon pet. I'm a slash author - I know exactly the good, and the damage that fen can do. Wikipedia may well be built by fans - it certainly couldn't exist without people interested in the topics, but it's not a fansite. There's a reason there's that talkpage template "discuss the article, not the subject". Or were you proposing that we can start the Gwen/Ianto wars here as well?--Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Goodraise, yes it's an invalid argument, but I don't like the term "non-notable characters", it sounds POV and there is no such thing per se, only non-notable articles - as this proposal says, it is the existence of good references that matters. ··gracefool☺ 00:03, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:N defines "notability" as "whether or not a topic merits its own article". It is my POV that not every fictional character merits its own article on Wikipedia. - There are countless non-notable characters. What does not exist are "notable articles". At least I have not yet seen a Wikipedia article about another Wikipedia article. Goodraise 01:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

You're right... I just meant to emphasise the question "What is it that makes a topic merit its own article?" ··gracefool☺ 02:06, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Fans have rioted before, particularly Pokemon fans and webcomic fans. It generally doesn't accomplish or matter much. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 03:40, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I doubted it would, but I did wonder. Fans are often unaware that not everyone else supports their pov.Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:40, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't worry me in the least. But what does worry me is your transparent and completely lame attempt to canvass here for anti-fiction editors to comment in that AFD you created. And what's frightening is that editors like you think "it is not normally advisable to have a separate article on a character or thing from the book" and "the article consists entirely of original research whose only source is the books themselves." It's not original research to summarize a book. And that lead female character appears in five books, and is going to appear in a film, and yet you want to claim the character is "not notable." And what's really sad is that know-nothing goose-stepping editors are becoming more and more widespread. --Pixelface (talk) 06:30, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Wow! Pixelface has been rude to me. Do I get a badge or something? Seriously, I have a friend who writes fantasy novels and publishes them on subscription on the internet. She's written loads of them, all with the same set of characters. Does this make her output notable? When I listed the article the news about the film hadn't hit, and I do agree that would tend to make not just the books but the characters more notable. FWIW I'm pleased that the article has been so significantly improved - A Nobody will tell you that we were actively discussing whether the article was salvageable, or mergeable if not, off AfD. I do agree I made a tactical error not waiting the couple of days till the debate was over before asking the question, but you'll see I actually asked people here not to get involved just because I'd mentioned it (and nobody did AFAIK).--Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Elen of the Roads's starting of this thread was canvassing. I'm no deletionist (check my user page), and have argued elsewhere that deletionism is bad for WP because it alienates editors who could become good with a bit of gentle guidance (not a pipe-dream, I've been involved in such efforts) and futile because there's an infinite supply of fanboys (of all genders). So I can easily understand Elen of the Roads's concern. --Philcha (talk) 08:08, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Lower Threshold

The lower threshold more or less represents the rump of the three pronged tests that formed the centerpiece of the last proposal, Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)/Deckiller-Sandifer. My view of it was that it provided too many exceptions and exemptions from mainstream policy (de-emphaisising independent sourcing was one sticking point) and guidelines (partially exempting characters and episodes from WP:N was another bone of contention. However, the concept of a lower threshold for fiction by which an article could avoid deletion if it meets a certain standard could provide useful guidance in deletion debates. If we could expand the section Articles that don't meet the inclusion criteria and rework the lower threshold criteria, I think this could go a long way to improving discussion of fictional articles that are nominated for AFD. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

So what would you propose as the reworking? I've had a couple of thoughts just pertaining to characters, arising out of the recent AfD on Annabeth

at minimum,

*a character or other element in a book/film must be referred to in a reliable source review of the book/film or

*there must be a reference to the casting of the character in a reliable source. This will establish notability of the character independent of medium.

Still too low?--Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:59, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

We can set the lower threshold to be almost inclusive as you wish, provided it is understood that this provides guidance within the context of deletion discussion, rather than being inclusion criteria per se. At the end of the day, the final decision will be made by consensus, and that this guidance may not have any influence. In answer to your proposal for specific criteria, I think they are quite clever and I think we should use them. They do conflict with the idea that notability is not inherited, in the sense that characters don't inherit notability from either the primary work or from actors who have portrayed them, but within the context of a deletion debate, they make good arguments for merging rather than deleting a ficitonal element. Based on this, this section would look like this:

Articles that don't meet the inclusion criteria

This page gives some rough guidelines intended to be used by Wikipedia editors to decide whether a fictional topic should or should not have an article on Wikipedia. Although articles that do not meet these criterion are generally merged with those that do or deleted, this guideline is not a set of deletion criteria. Although satisfying these notability guidelines generally indicates a fictional topic warrants an article, failing to satisfy them is not a criterion for speedy deletion.

Before proposing that an article is to be merged or deleted, it is important to not just consider whether an article meets these inclusion criteria, but whether it has the potential to do so. Remember that all Wikipedia articles are not a final draft, and an article can be notable if such sources exist even if they have not been added at present.

In addition, no part of this guideline is meant to preempt the editorial decision of content selection and presentation; for example, a topic may meet all the criteria, but may be decided by consensus to be better covered in the article on the work of fiction itself instead of a separate article if there is limited information available.

Articles covering ficitonal elements that are deletion candidates are generally merged or retained temporarily if their coverage can meet some of these criteria:

1. Real-world coverage: To establish real-world importance, or to provide appropriate context for understanding real-world importance, rather than detail the fictional adventures of imaginary characters. Articles writen in the appropriate style, which expand upon relevant points of a main topic to further the reader's understanding, are more likely to find acceptance among the Wikipedia community;
2. Importance of the fictional work: To justify articles on individual elements, the fictional work from which they come must have produced significant artistic impact, cultural impact, or general popularity evidenced by a secondary source;
3. Role within the fictional work: The element must be an important element, and its importance must be verifiable. The importance of characters can be demonstrated when a character or other element in a book/film is referred to in a reliable source review of the book/film, or there is be a reference to the casting of the character in a reliable source.

These criteria are not exhaustive, nor agreed by all, but can help to concentrate debate regarding specific articles and help editors reach conclusions as to how to best organise content.

Note these criteria do not establish notability, but they are good indicators that evidence of notability might be found in the future for an element of fiction. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment. I agree that we must be careful to be clear that the lower threshold relates to deletion debates and not to identifying articles for speedy, also that we must continue to be careful not to suggest that notability is inherited for any character in a book or film (otherwise we continue to risk the 'cast of thousands' appearing all in individual articles). Mention of the character in a review or a casting item is only evidence that the character may be, or may be in the process of becoming, notable, suggesting as you say that more evidence is likely to become available. If, after sufficient time, the evidence has not appeared, it would indicate that a merge is preferrable to just deletion, as there is some minimum level of evidence available.Elen of the Roads (talk) 09:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you have addressed an important issue about notability is not inherited, and perhaps a new section needs to be created to accomodate it, and merged with the following statement:

It is general consensus on Wikipedia that articles should not be split and split again into ever more minutiae of detail treatment, with each split normally lowering the level of significant real-world coverage contained in an article. This means that while a book or television series may be the subject of significant real-world coverage, it is not normally advisable to have a separate article on every fictional character, episode, scene or chapter derivied from it.

This new section needs to reflect the consensus at Wikipedia:Notability (books), which has an important section on Derivative articles which these issues seem to fall under. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Outdenting. I note Ikip's contribution to that consensus [11]. I do think Fict needs to continue the consensus of book - I note your version above is somewhat gentler than WP:BK - is this your proposed wording in entirity, or do you feel more needs to be said.Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:48, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we need to add something along the lines of WP:NRVE to justify this section? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:37, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

It is general consensus on Wikipedia that articles should not be split and split again into ever more minutiae of detail treatment, where each split lowers the level of significant real-world coverage contained in an article. This means that while a book or television series may be the subject of significant real-world coverage, care should be taken when creating separate articles for characters, elements or episodes, to ensure that each topic is notable in its own right.

The threshold for creating a separate article is verifiable notability, not simply volume of information. It is not enough to simply assert that a character, element or episode is notable because the book, film or show from which it comes has verified notability. Notability applies to individual topics and is not inherited – articles about characters etc must substantiate their own claim to notability.

For this reason, it is not normally advisable to set out from the start with the intention of creating a separate article on every fictional character, episode, scene or chapter derived from it. Rather, it is preferable to first establish that the character etc has verifiable notability, then move on to create the article.

Lower threshold Articles that do not meet the inclusion guidelines above may be proposed for deletion. This section gives some guidelines intended to be used by Wikipedia editors to decide whether a fictional topic should or should not have an article on Wikipedia. Although articles that do not meet these criterion are generally merged with those that do or deleted, this guideline is not a set of deletion criteria. Note also that while satisfying these notability guidelines generally indicates a fictional topic warrants an article, failing to satisfy them is not a criterion for speedy deletion.

Getting close? Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:23, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think the derivative works section you have drafted provides excellent inspiration. I have ammended it to read as follows:

Derivative articles

It is general consensus on Wikipedia that articles should not be split and split again into ever more minutiae of detail treatment, with each split normally lowering the level of significant real-world coverage contained in an article. This means that while a book or television series may be the subject of significant real-world coverage, care should be taken when creating seperate articles ensure that each topic is notable in its own right.

The threshold for creating a separate article is verifiable evidence, not simply volume of information. It is not enough to simply assert that an element of fiction such as a fictional character, or a segment of a fictional work, such as episode or scene is notable because the book, film or television series from which it is derived has verified notability. Notability is not inherited since it applies to individual topics, every article about a fictional topic must stand on its own feet in the sense that it must substantiate its own claim to notability.

For this reason, it is not normally advisable to set out from the start with the intention of creating derivative articles for every fictional character, episode, scene or chapter derived from it. Rather, avoid spliting articles if the new article cannot meet inclusion criteria for topics about fiction. Even if the creator of a new article may be sincerely convinced that there is so much information about a certain aspect of a subject that it justifies a separate article, this may lead to the unintentional creation of several separate articles covering the same topic if notability of the new article's subject matter cannot be established.

I think that this section works well on two levels: it provides practical guidance regarding the principles contained in notability requires verifiable evidence and how splitting ariticles may lead to unintential content forks. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:58, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Creating a separate article about a character or episode is not content forking. Yes, if that character/whatever is non-notable, it's still not a good idea to do it, but it is not content forking. --MASEM (t) 13:10, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

It would be if that character already had its own ariticle, or if there was a section about it in the article about the work from which it is derived. Fictional topics can be subject to content forks too, and I think this needs to be part of this guideline if it is to be avoided. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:37, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Articles that don't meet the inclusion criteria

Following on from our dicussions regarding the Lower Threshold, I propose merging these inclusion criteria with the section Articles that don't meet the inclusion criteria. This section is similar to WP:FAILN, except that it attempts to provide some indication of what articlel content may be sufficient to avoid deletion. In reality, it is impossible for this guideline to predict or prevent the process that may result in an article be subject to merger or deletion, because the process is carried out based on the consensus of editors, and is not automatic or pre-ordained. However, it is still useful to provide some ball park approximations of what content is more or less acceptable on a tempory basis whilst the article is being improved:

Articles that don't meet the inclusion criteria

Articles that do not meet the inclusion guidelines above may be deleted. Whilst this guideline is intended to be used by Wikipedia editors to decide whether a fictional topic should or should not have an article on Wikipedia, it should not be used as a set of deletion criteria. Although satisfying these notability guidelines generally indicates a fictional topic warrants an article, failing to satisfy them is not a criterion for speedy deletion.

Before proposing that an article is to be deleted, it is important to not just consider whether an article meets these inclusion criteria, but whether it has the potential to do so. Remember that all Wikipedia articles are not a final draft, and an article can be notable if such sources exist even if they have not been added at present.

In addition, no part of this guideline is meant to preempt the editorial decision of content selection and presentation; for example, a topic may meet all the criteria, but may be decided by consensus to merge the article with an article on the work of fiction itself instead of a separate article if there is limited information available.

Articles covering ficitonal elements that are deletion candidates are generally merged or retained temporarily if their coverage can meet some of these criteria:

1. Real-world coverage: To establish real-world importance, or to provide appropriate context for understanding real-world importance, rather than detail the fictional adventures of imaginary characters. Articles writen in the appropriate style, which expand upon relevant points of a main topic to further the reader's understanding, are more likely to find acceptance among the Wikipedia community;
2. Importance of the fictional work: To justify articles on individual elements, the fictional work from which they come must have produced significant artistic impact, cultural impact, or general popularity described in a secondary source;
3. Role within the fictional work: The element must be an important element, and its importance must be verifiable. The importance of characters can be demonstrated when a character or other element in a book/film is referred to in a reliable source review of the book/film, or there is a reference to the casting of the character in a reliable source.

These criteria are not exhaustive, nor agreed by all, but can help to concentrate editorial discussion regarding the merger or deletion of specific articles and help editors reach conclusions as to how to best organise content.

This is an important role for the lower threshold to perform, rather than using it to create a grey area in which no useful guidance can be crafted. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:34, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I do think this has the potential to be extremely helpful - it won't of course be proof against "delete" !votes by those who wish to maintain the highest standard, but it gives those of a more neutral POV some clear ideas as to a minimum that should really be present, AND it encourages the editor or editors who created the article to look outside the box and into the verifiable world.Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:06, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

going in circles

Instead of taling about fictional emelements in general, a more specific proposal.

1. Characters. Key characters in the most important fiction get separate articles on the assumption that criticism will be found to provide sources for them. Less important characters, or characters in less important fiction, do not normally get separate articles, unless it can be shown there is sufficient third party discussion of them specifically. There will normally form a part of combination articles or lists, with the extent of coverage in them proportional to the importance of the work and the importance of the character in the work. It is is not necessary to show that the individual characters contained in such combination articles meet a definition of notability .or real world significance: their significance is judged in terms of the fiction.
2. Setting elements in fiction will usually be treated in combination articles even for the most important fiction, unless it can be shown there is sufficient third party discussion of them specifically. There will normally form a part of combination articles or lists, with the extent of coverage in them proportional to the importance of the work and the importance of the setting in the work. It is is not necessary to show that the individual characters contained in such combination articles meet a definition of notability .or real world significance: their significance is judged in terms of the fiction.
3. Plot is necessary to be discussed is sufficient detail to provide an understanding of the work. The extent will depend upon the nature and importance of the work. When the work is sufficiently important that there are third party references talking about the plot, or the plot is usually complicated, , it should usually be a separate article. Otherwise, it is discussed within the more general articles. WP coverage of a fictional work should nto be limited to plot, but should deal with plot related elements such as character and setting, with production nd distribution related elements, and with the reception and criticism of the work. The extent of the relative portions and their disposition in subarticles depends on the work. Aneffort whould be made to prevent excessive fragmentation, but also to avoid bvery large clumsy articles.
4. episodes: I def r this part., its too late at night. ,DGG (talk) 07:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Dont agree with (1) - this will just shift the argument downstream. "Of course Oooo is a key character....." and you'll still be there calling for some kind of verification. I'd say the only time this can apply is if the book/film is called after the hero - I'm happy to see that written in if it helps. Most reviews of a work of fiction will identify what the reviewer sees as the key characters, so the chances are the same verification used for the book/film can be used for those characters without anyone breaking into a sweat, and WITHOUT offering the chance for a filibuster on whether Oooo is a key character or not.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:15, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Fine with everything else.Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:15, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

In a nutshell

One of the difficulties of summarising this proposed guideline is to provide a brief description of the inclusion criteria, whilst also explaining their rationale. Because fiction can viewed from both a real-world and an in universe perspective, it is important to emphasise that a standalone article needs to meet both Wikipedia's style and content policies. Since these policies define which topics are welcome on Wikipedia, and provide quality and naming standards, I think this will ensure that this guideline is supports and is supported by those standards that have community consensus at policy level. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:14, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Significant, direct coverage

Slightly off-topic, I think some of the detailed items in "Upper threshold" go too far. For example the pasage about "significant, direct coverage" makes it hard to produce articles about genres, as most sources focus on individual authors and or works - I've seen a similar problme in artciles about video games. --Philcha (talk) 09:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

The requirement for significant real-world coverage that addresses the subject directly in detail using the real-world as the primary frame of reference is intended to provide a test of whether or not topic is a content fork from an article on a similar topic that is the subject of direct coverage. If a topic is only being addressed indirectly, then chances are it is a content fork, such as Terminator (character concept).
In answer to Philcha, when you say "genres", I don't think you mean literary genre but rather an entire fictional universe such as World of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I think the problem of content forks applies to these topics as well, because if there is no direct coverage about "The Universe of XXXX..." or "The World of YYY..", this creates a big problem, since the topic is only covered indirectly, and composing such an article involves stitching related coverage together to form a synthesis. I don't see any alternative to this requirement, otherwise we could end up with lots of articles that fail WP:NPOV. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:17, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

No, I meant genre. I first encountered the problem at 4X (a computer game genre) - see Talk:4X/Archive 1. --Philcha (talk) 12:01, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you might find that Articles on neologisms may be relevant to this and other emerging genres. This may not be relevant to a genre like 4X, but sometimes a genre or a category of fictional works or elements may not be as notable as the works or elements themselves, and so establishing the notability of this topic may prove to be difficult. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:28, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Conversely, if a genre hasn't been the subject of significant coverage, why are you trying to cobble together an article based on references which are chiefly about something else? WP:GNG is designed to discourage writing articles about things nobody has yet written off-WP articles about. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 14:28, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

The common problem of genres, in most subject areas, is that they emerge slowly as instances accumulate, the names are applied retropectively (e.g. "4X" was coined in 1993 but the article that coined the term mentioned instances from several years earlier) and then taken for granted in subsequent writings. So the name of a genre then appears all over the place and where do bewildered readers look for an explanation?

Re "WP:GNG is designed to discourage writing articles about things nobody has yet written off-WP articles about", WP:GNG is a section of WP:NOTABILITY. The heading of WP:NOTABILITY says, "This page documents an English Wikipedia notability guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense and the occasional exception." That text is not written into WP:NOTABILITY itself, it is "inherited" from {{subcat guideline}}, which applies to all guidelines. The fact that WP:NOTABILITY is a guideline and not a policy means it is not one of the Ten Commandments. --14:47, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Myself and Philcha worked on 4X, rescuing it from deletion and subsequently turning it into a featured article. I know people don't like using featured articles as a measuring stick, because it's a pretty high standard. But geez, we shouldn't write and interpret guidelines in a way that would demolish our featured articles. We should actively avoid that. Randomran (talk) 16:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the second paragraph, that's nice, but you don't really address the underlying argument behind WP:GNG. The underlying argument is that we should write about subjects if and only if we have sufficient coverage in reliable sources to write a proper article. If a word is coined but not discussed, that's Wiktionary's business, not ours. I understand that this makes writing some articles more difficult, but this is an intended consequence. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 19:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

No need to "address the underlying argument behind WP:GNG" - it is a sub-section of WP:N and, as part of a guideline (not a policy, a guideline), is subject to the "best treated with common sense and the occasional exception" clause. In bridge terms, the rules allow your ace to be trumped. The most reasonable determinant of common sense would be consensus of a very large number of editors. --Philcha (talk) 20:34, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

But doesn't common sense indicate that if no independent reliable sources have thought something was worth examining directly and in detail, neither should we?—Kww(talk) 20:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. And your creation of GTD-5 EAX indicates that that sentiment is not "common sense." Has the number 5 been written about directly and in detail by independent reliable sources? Somehow I doubt it. Does that mean Wikipedia should not have an article about the number 5? --Pixelface (talk) 02:40, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The number 5? Seriously? It's been written about, many, many, many times. Numerology, mathematics, religion, music, fiction; it'd be easy to make the case that all of the single-digit primes are notable on a level comparable to cheese or dog. The Encyclopedia Britannica has an article on the number 5, FFS.

As for the rest, you just don't like the general notability criterion as our article inclusion standard. That's fine, but it doesn't negate the self-evident fact that the intent of WP:GNG is to limit our coverage to those subjects on which appropriate sources have been written. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 15:41, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think an exception to the GNG is necessary here, because something like this would still have "significant" coverage, IMO. Words like "significant", "direct", and "detail" is as much a question of quality as quantity. An entire book or article about the concept is good, but not necessary. A few succinct statements from independent sources that explain why a topic is important would be significant coverage. If you end up with something really short that's been verified by reliable third-party sources, it's not that the article doesn't meet the GNG. It just means that merging makes much more sense. It just so happens that an article like 4X has so much spotty but significant coverage that you can write a full article on it. Randomran (talk) 20:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

And, as I said, I suspect that's a common feature of genres, especially those that receive little attention from academics. --Philcha (talk) 20:51, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

If you're going to say you have a common-sense exception, you're going to have to explain how it makes sense. You're going to run into a lot of very vaguely-defined genres (especially with video games) that everyone uses as a term, but nobody has really ever felt the need to comment upon as a subject in their own right. Right now, nobody's forcing the issue, but when it comes down to it we can't write much of an article if we're the first ones to try. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 22:22, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

We should cut subjective words like "significant". What is significant? Five dissertations on the topic? Two journal articles? Too much room to debate. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:32, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Its easy to define "significant" as it is defined in WP:GNG: it is coverage that is not trivial. Significant coverage means that sources address the subject directly in detail. Can you think of a better description? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:56, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Gavin Collins, we know that WP:GNG isn't the final word on the subject.

A Man In Bl♟ck, we all know that in real life there are "a lot of very vaguely-defined genres". And not just in video games, but many areas. Popular culture is the most obvious area of rapid change, for example science fiction (whose existence academics have only fairly recently begun to recognise), popular music, movies - but it's also become harder to define terms in "high culture", e.g. "symphony". Wittgenstein had a lot of fun with the overlapping meanings of the term "game", and concluded that natural language seldom draws neat black-and-white boundaries. Physics has had similar issues with wave-particle duality, and quantum mechanics only replaced that problem with another one, how to interpret wavefunction collapse. "Species" is not neatly defined in biology. Etc., etc.

But A Man In Bl♟ck jumps from the lack of precise, universally agreed definitions to "we can't write much of an article if we're the first ones to try". The examples of game and 4X shows that that's nonsense. There's enough written about such subjects for us to work with, it just doesn't come shrink-wrapped. --Philcha (talk) 23:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's just it. What might be trivial to me, may be significant to you and vice versa. Just saying everything in the article must be verifiable through reliable sources is enough. Obviously, we cannot write an article if all the sources do is verify one line worth of content. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 23:34, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it's implied it's not "trivial" in terms of knowledge, but instead "trivial" in terms of the detail that the source gives it. Given a term X that we want to write an article about, we want articles that "X is (something)", affirming what it is, was, will be, like, compared to, and so forth. X needs to be the active noun in these sources about them instead of buried in the descriptive phrasing. The whole source doesn't have to be about X, and maybe only a single sentence provides the information, but it needs to be just more in passing. That's what I think when the term "significant" vs "trivial" is used here in terms of coverage. --MASEM (t) 23:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm okay with changing the language. But whatever language we use, it can't be enough to cherrypick a random statement in a magazine and turn it into the basis for an entire article. Randomran (talk)

I agree that Nobody has a fair point. How do you verify that coverage is significant or non-trivial? WP:N only gives an example that a one sentence mention is plainly trivial, which I agree is not helpful as a definition as is a truism. If anyone can think of better wording, that would be great. What ever the defintion, this requirement is still needed in order to distinguish a content fork such as from a non-fork, so it needs to be improved rather than deleted. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 00:00, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I would not consider a statement in one article non-trivial, but multiple statements in multiple articles is indeed non-trivial. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 00:02, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The test is not the length, but the information provided. A sentence in a reviewing saying "The major characters, such as A, B, and C, are presented realistically" is a mere mention and does not support an article about A, B, or C. A long academic sentence in an authoritative reference book saying "The hero, A, is meant to represent..., derived from ..... " and so on for 200 words or so, might be. A single really authoritative source in an encyclopedia of handbook, such as Gale's Contemporary authors, is sufficient. Any number of non-informative listings is not. DGG (talk) 00:07, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Would it be enough to replace "significant coverage" with "multiple statements?" I'm not sure. I feel like people will interpret that at the bare minimum, where any two sentences about a subject will lead to an entire article based upon it. DGG's suggestion of 200 words might be good, but it also might be too strict, and suspect to WP:GAMEing if people just use very very very very very very very many words. I can't help but think that some amount of gray area is inevitable, which is okay for such a small aspect of the guideline. Randomran (talk) 01:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

"Significant coverage" has the advantage of being already defined by WP:RS. Let's not invent any more wheels than we have to.—Kww(talk) 01:31, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd oppose that change. A subject need not have multiple statements, which is really just as vague (two, or three? four or five? Need they say anything about the topic or jsut be punchlines?), in order to become a stub. Significant is a simple idea to understand. IN any possible citation, does the writer directly address the concept, beyond using the word, or a single dependent clause to define it? If the former, not good for anything, if the latter, wikitionary, if beyond both, then it may be enough for a stub here. It seems Philcha has confused a worthwhile stub with the bloated unsourced crap we sometimes see here. No one's going to toss a well cited stub. It may hit AfD, but anyone examining the sources will probably vote keep if it's legit. ThuranX (talk) 11:38, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't and won't speak for Philcha's state of mind, but I know one point of contention that shows up frequently: the "examination" of a character is in the form of a third-party plot summary. I tend to discard such sources as being evidence of notability, because they are not truly examining the character, they are simply explaining the plot of the surrounding work.—Kww(talk) 13:15, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding us of that Kww. WP:RS says that "Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made". My interpretation of this is that a bald assertion about a work or element of fiction (e.g. "Its fantastic, buy it now!") is not significant, but commentary that is supported by reasoned arguments or that provides useful context is significant, because it advances the readers understanding of a topic, beyond what is written in the primary source.
Whilst I agree with A. Nobody's argument that what is "significant coverage" is difficult to define, I don't think quantative defintion can help to define what is a variable qualitative measure of relevance, which is why I think WP:N adopts the same approach. Sometimes notability can be confered by a single phrase (J'accuse comes to mind) and other times it has to be more substantial in order to differentiate one topic from another, especially where a topic is similar in subject matter to another. What is clear is that content forks such as Terminator (character concept) and Terminator (character) do not contain significant coverage that is sufficient to justify a standalone article - all the content of these articles could be cut and pasted into the other without making any discernable difference in terms of being able to distinguish the subject matter of these articles from each other. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I just text-searched WP:RS and the 2 instances of "significant" in the current version are really about WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE, so I don't think WP:RS gives us much help here.

I think Gavin Collins made some key points, e.g "commentary that is supported by reasoned arguments or that provides useful context is significant" and "Sometimes notability can be confered by a single phrase ... and other times it has to be more substantial in order to differentiate one topic from another, especially where a topic is similar in subject matter to another." Many of the sources at 4X are game reviews that say something like "game G has the typical 4X features of ..." or "as in most 4X games, game G ..." - and there are so many that it's pretty clear which are core features and which may be absent or modified in specific games that are still regarded as 4X. --Philcha (talk) 09:34, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

It may be pretty clear to you which are core features and which may be absent or modified in specific games that are still regarded as 4X, but unless a reliable secondary source can back up such assertions directly, there is always the risk that editors who write genre type articles may be arriving at this conclusion by a process of synthesis. It seems to me that mistakenly assuming the different sources support a single conclusion is risky, when in fact they don't really stack up. Since 4X has been subject to a good article review, I shall presume this is not the case, but it is clear that significant coverage is vital to establishing notability, and avoiding risk of mistakenly engaging in original research. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:10, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree this is tricky territory. All decent WP articles are syntheses, otherwise they probably violate WP:NPOV and / or WP:UNDUE. I think the key sentence of WP:SYN is "Do not put together information from multiple sources to reach a conclusion that is not stated explicitly by any of the sources." The type of subject I've been describing is one where typically each source lists partially-overlapping large subsets of the features that are described as central in the article. In the example, we realised quite early that there were grey areas in the definition, and searched really hard for sources about the difficulties; there were very few of these, none contradicted the elements presented as core items, and the article was open about what was consensus and what was grey area. A topic like this is also tricky for reviewers, but the article's quite extensive Talk pages (understatement!) documented the sources, which ones were used and which were discarded, and how the sources were interpreted and summarised. So reviewers could see how the article got to its condition at the time of the review; and, since practically all the sources were freely available online, the reviewers had more scope for checking the use of sources than in articles that rely mainly on books. If I were reviewing such an article (I've done some GA reviews, and haven't yet had to review one), that's the kind of audit trail I'd hope for; and if it didn't exist, I'd probably build one before starting to comment. --Philcha (talk) 11:18, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Its a frequent problem, but significant real-world coverage not only provides evidence of notability, but provides a genre with the credentials it needs to establish that it is not a neologism. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 14:12, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you agree that what I've just described is sufficient, although admittedly less convenient than a shrink-wrapped description of the genre? --Philcha (talk) 14:36, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I could not comment without reviewing the article 4X in detail. But because it has been reviewed as a Good Article, I presume that the reviewers who made the award thought that your approach was more than adequate.--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Gavin Collins. The reason I raised this is that I've seen attempts to overcook "significant" and claim that a topic is not notable unless at least 1 WP:RS treats it as it main subject (or perhaps one of just a handful of main subjects). One of these made this discussion look quite brief:-) Philcha (talk) 15:44, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not sure if this helps, but safe to say that you have significant coverage if you have enough to create a non-stub article. But something less than that shouldn't necessarily be deleted, because a healthy stub could still be appropriate for a merge. Case in point, I haven't figured out what to do with the article on the Tower Defense genre. Randomran (talk) 15:39, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• Well I agree, in theory. However its possible to create a start article with primary sources as in some cases to reach that level for many wikiprojects you just need to meet WP:V (that doesn't give anyone authority to keep it that way obviously). I think Gavin's idea might be a bit too much, but it needs to be more than a passing comment of "I thought X was the best character ever." or "I like their hairstyle." the key here to me would be either the analysis or it could it be a reason. "I thought X was the best character ever because..." or ""I like their hairstyle because..." because it shows some kind of relationship beyond the media itself. That too must be qualified as "I thought X was the best character ever because they were cool." is just repeating the first statement, however "I thought X was the best character ever because they were the strongest of all the characters." does give relation, even though it is relation within the media, it is outside cristism of the media that has interprative qualities. We can from that statement say that not only has person X said they like them, but we can also say they said they were the strongest character. Unless the media actually said that straight out, we couldn't do that. That's what IMO qualifies as signfigant.じんない 01:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• I definitely agree with you that it's a qualitative thing, perhaps more than quantitative. I also agree that a simple thumbs up or thumbs down isn't enough, but a "why". "One of the most memorable characters" isn't as good as saying "memorable as one of the darkest characters". I'm not sure how to put this into guideline terms, though. Randomran (talk) 03:58, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The requirement for significant coverage from sources that address the subject directly in detail is probably the minimum, below which the wording gets vague and fails to address the risk of creating content forks or neologisms.
Going back to the example of Tower Defense provided by Randomran, it would be easy to create lots of content forks using the same coverage, such as Tower Defense (Genre), Tower Defense (Game), because the article does not contain a definition which can be traced back to a single source that identifies the topic as being any one of these.
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) provides an indication of what is required: Article titles give the reader an idea of what they can expect within an article. If the sources don't to address the subject in the article title directly and in detail, then the sourcing could be open to challenge on the grounds that it is asynthesis. Likewise, if the sources don't to address the subject of the article in detail, then the coverage would be insufficient to proivde the credentials it needs to establish that the topic is bona fide and is not a neologism. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 06:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

That they are required to address them directly is too high of a standard, especially as most ariticles may talk about multiple character, but not all of them, at once. That they single out a few to talk about if it happens multiple times in multiple unrelated commentary should be enough. Requiring completely independant discussion is far too high of a bar as very few characters, even very few world reknown characters, get such treatment, especially if you want to tie in comparison outside the work to the real world that would eliminate 95% of such articles.じんない 06:29, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

You refer to the reqirement for significant coverage as too high of a standard, yet it is a requirement for articles in every subject area made by the need for verifiability, a policy that exists to support the creation of articles without having to request permission from someone else. The requirement can be viewed a restaint on creating articles, but is also a standard that is considered necessary to support the idea of an encyclopedia that everyone can contribute to.--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Something does not have to be addressed directly to be verifiable.じんない 15:02, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

But it does need to be addressed directly to merit its own article. If it has been addressed glancingly, as part of another subject, then we need to deal with it as a part of that other subject, not as a subject unto itself. To bring this back around to fiction, we should not be treating fictional characters as subjects separate from the fiction in which they appear unless the sources do, else we'll be creating reams of excess plot summary, making conclusions not present in the sources, and spreading information necessary to understanding unnecessarily thin. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 15:41, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

A Man In Bl♟ck, I'm no more in favour of "reams of excess plot summary" than you are - the duplication is bound to create inconsistencies and possibly breeding grounds for POV forks, and I'm sure there are several other concrete disadvantages. But I tried a little experiment and found that Hermione Granger, which is now a GA and contains some interesting material about the representation of intelligent girls and about how far Rowling consciously and / or unconsciously uses the character as a mouthpiece, looked like this in mid-2006 - I didn't have the patience to look beyond 5,000 edits in the history to find its beginnig. How would you propose that an article like that should be created and developed, starting from zero? --Philcha (talk) 16:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I think his points are valid and hitting him with WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a good argument in this context. Had any content forks on this topic been created about Hermione, it could well have been merged into another article that was the subject of significant coverage if it had remained in that state. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

This not WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTSs, it's the "no Venus arising from the sea" point that I've made before. To use another metaphor, all swans start life as ugly ducklings - except that on WP the ugly duckling stage seems to last for much longer than it does in nature, see for example "Hermione Granger" in mid-2006 - or the history of the Atom article, which is now FA. How do you expect to get swans without having first to tolerate ugly ducklings for a few years? --Philcha (talk) 17:06, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Alas, not all of us are destined for greatness. Its not every article that turn out to be swans, a lot turn out to be dogs too - riddled with original research or just content forks from the primary work. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 17:53, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Yep, it's like advertising - you don't know which half works, but your business is dead without it. -Philcha (talk) 18:24, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Why do you consider that article to be a swan? The non-plot elements are:

• "Rowling has stated that Hermione resembles her at a younger age, with her insecurity and fear of failure."
• "... described by Rowling as a "very logical, upright and good" character. ... Hermione's name is derived from William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale; Rowling claimed that she wanted it to be unusual since if fewer girls shared her name, fewer girls would get teased for it. Her original last name was "Puckle", but Rowling felt the name "did not suit her at all," and so the less frivolous Granger made it into the books."
• A large description of Emily Watson, which belongs in the Emily Watson article, and doesn't need repeated.
• In The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter, the first book-length analysis of the Harry Potter series (edited and compiled by Lana A. Whited), a whole chapter titled Hermione Granger and the Heritage of Gender, by Eliza T. Dresang, is dedicated to the discussion of Hermione's role in the series and its relation to feminist debates. The chapter begins with an analysis of Hermione's name and the role of previous characters with the same name in mythology and fiction, and the heritage Hermione has inherited from these characters due to her name. Dresang also emphasizes Hermione's parallelism with Rowling herself and how, as Hermione has some attributes from Rowling herself, she must be a strong character.... Philip Nel of Kansas State University notes that "Rowling, who worked for Amnesty International, evokes her social activism through Hermione's passion for oppressed elves and the formation of her 'Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare'"."

That would be a pretty short article, and wouldn't suffer at all from being placed in a parent article about the series.—Kww(talk) 18:07, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree Hermione Granger is not the best GA I've seen, and your suggestion looks reasonable - in the short term. Then some more good analyses of the character are published so the "Hermione" section grows, then quite legitimately grows a bit more as further source material appears - and the "host" article gets bloated. And there are several other characters that deserve the same level of treatment as Hermione - Harry, Ron, Dumbledore, Hagrid, Snape and Voldemort certainly; probably at least half of the Weasley family (as a group, in addition to Ron; they're the family Harry never had, sob!), the Dursleys, McGonagle, the Death Eaters as a group (authoritarian personalities? losers with delusions of übermenschness?), Slytherin House (the bad guys are always more interesting), the Ministry of Magic (JKR really dislikes bureacrats and politicians; and the politics and economics of magical society are curiously vague). So they all get split off into separate articles, and we're back where we started. But it would have been better (in this hypothetical scenario) to avoid wasting time, energy and goodwill on the merge / split debates. --Philcha (talk) 18:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

You are quite the optimist. In practice, what will happen is they will all get split off into separate articles, where the small nuggets of useful information will get drowned in plot detail. Most of the problems with fiction articles would go away if we were ruthless about making sure that plot explanations were smaller than the rest of the article.—Kww(talk) 22:24, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

While on the subject of words, are we using "significant" to mean "of high worth" or "of high volume", as it appears to have different meanings in different parts of the text. I'd like to have a little rewrite to tidy up the language, but I don't want to make the wrong assumption.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 09:50, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

The best approximations of the term significant (or non-trivial) can be seen in the footnotes of WP:N, WP:BK and WP:MOVIE as follows:

1. Examples: The 360-page book by Sobel and the 528-page book by Black on IBM are plainly non-trivial. The one sentence mention by Walker of the band Three Blind Mice in a biography of Bill Clinton is plainly trivial;
2. Non-trivial" excludes personal websites, blogs, bulletin boards, Usenet posts, wikis and other media that are not themselves reliable. An analysis of the manner of treatment is crucial as well; Slashdot.org for example is reliable, but postings to that site by members of the public on a subject do not share the site's imprimatur. Be careful to check that the author, publisher, agent, vendor. etc. of a particular book are in no way interested in any third party source;
3. Trivial coverage, such as newspaper listings of screening times and venues, "capsule reviews," plot summaries without critical commentary, or listings in comprehensive film guides such as "Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide," "Time Out Film Guide," or the Internet Movie Database. Many of these sources can provide valuable information, and point to other sources, but in themselves do not indicate a notable subject. Similar cases of "trivial" publications may include: reviews that are part of a comprehensive review of ALL films in a particular festival, that don't assert anything regarding the notability of individual entries; other forms of comprehensive, non-selective coverage; and some web based reviews by amateur critics who have not established their own notability as critics.

It is actually quite hard to define significant or non-trivial coverage if we had to incorporate elements from all of these guidelines. I prefer the current wording on the grounds that it is short and means what it says, without the need for footnotes (of which I am a great opponent if they don't support citaitons of secondary sources). --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:15, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

OK that's brill, thanks. Sorry, I didn't see this section when I posted at the bottom. In the fourth bullet point (presumed) significant is replaced with substantial - hence my uncertainty. I think that could do with replacing.Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:23, 19 May 2009 (UTC)