Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)/Archive 5

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Boiling down the issues

As has been mentioned above, there are several issues that this guideline must deal with, some of which are not strictly about notability, and some of which can indeed be contradictory to each other. Each of us here obviously has their own personal priorities in the quality checklist that they want to be emphasized, and if the guideline is to be useful it must reflect all of them. So, in order to really progress any further in this discussion, we need to reach a consensus on what our goals are.

I see 5 major issues relating to coverage of fiction on Wikipedia, all of which must be balanced in high quality coverage and none of which can be significantly sacrificed without losing quality:

All Wikipedia subjects must be notable.
All Wikipedia articles must be readably formatted.
All Wikipedia articles on fiction must be understandable to non-fans.
Coverage of in-universe elements on Wikipedia must be succinct.
Coverage of in-universe elements on Wikipedia must be accurate.

And a 6th issue that has less to do with article content but loads to do with this page:

Wikipedia editors must be educated in a civil manner about best practices.

Can we agree that these are the key points that must be followed in order to have balanced and high-quality articles on works on fiction within Wikipedia? --tjstrf talk 07:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but see an additional point: Plot summary articles with no real world information that goes beyond basic information (which needs to be defined) is not notable. We split articles when we have something encyclopedic to say about them, not because we want to dive into total in-universe detail. Something could meet all five of the points you've made, but still be excessive plot summary (in-universe information) that is unnecessary (isn't notable). The focus and the true value of these articles should be with real-world information, with plot summary giving us our basic background understanding of the works. -- Ned Scott 07:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe that would fall under the basic point that "Coverage of in-universe elements on Wikipedia must be succinct."

How exactly we define succinctness, like the details of all the other basic points there, is an issue we should discuss, but after we have the main points laid out and agreed on. In an ironic twist, we've fallen into the same error as the people who jump into retelling the entire script of episode 6 of their favorite show when the main article doesn't even say who directed it yet: this debate has been going in circles for 100s of KB due to divergence into discussion of minutia before we have our outline decided on. --tjstrf talk 07:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I can understand going at it from that perspective, but then maybe we should say "Coverage of in-universe elements on Wikipedia must be balanced"? I guess I was kind of thrown by the wording, but whatever, I see where you are going with this now. :) -- Ned Scott 08:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Considering that succinct means "as little as possible while getting the point across", saying it has to be balanced is a lot weaker of language than saying it has to be succinct. (Also, balance is a horribly nebulous term.) --tjstrf talk 08:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I suspect this simply needs a better terminology. Excessive plot sections are not a good idea; however, the present wording also objects to a list of characters (etc) with a sentence or two per character, as this has no "real world information" - yet AFD precedent clearly indicates consensual support for the existence of such lists. >Radiant< 08:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

A lot of that comes from the way that numerous policies have completely different and at times illogical effects when their wording is applied to fictional articles. (e.g. some wikilawyers are currently claiming that primary sourced in-universe articles violate WP:V, since a literal reading of that policy suggests that third party reviews are a more reliable source for in universe content than the series canon is.) What we may really need is a Wikipedia:Coverage of fiction guideline that unites the various unique issues about fiction on Wikipedia. --tjstrf talk 08:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
- Fully agreed. As I recall this was one of the big stumbling blocks for WP:ATT. >Radiant< 09:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with TJ's boiled down points, so long as we are going to explain them and have some kind of banner to show everyone (kind of defeats the purpose if we clarify issues and no one sees it other than those that actually visit this page, or like pages). TJ also has a point about saying "balanced", because when I see "balanced" I really see a scale, and to me that means I could write a plot section equivalent in size to my real world information...and if you've seen Jason Voorhees's real world information, that would be a huge amount of plot. At least, that's just how I could see someone abusing the term "balanced" (see Pauline Fowler who has two sections devoted to her fictional life, one written with OOU information and the other strictly IU), even though I really know what Ned is suggesting. What I've seen from character articles, and other like articles, is that editors either do not wish to, or just do not know how to, find real world information and just want to create biographies of IU information. I guess I'm concerned with how we are to "spread the word," so to speak. There's still people that disagree with the television review process (which is basically the merging process, just a little more organized for people to know about it), and even there all you hear is "oh, it's a guideline, we don't have to follow it." I kind of see the same thing here. That, even if we all agree on how to work on the pages, and how and when one should break them down to separate pages, I just don't see anything changing beyond us having an more clarified guideline of practice for these articles to point to. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 12:59, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

For spreading the word, you hit at least one outlet; we make sure the WP Projects that deal with fictional works all the time on board and aware and, actually before that, help review if we do make changes to this or make a "Coverage of Fiction" article (which I'm surprised doesn't have such beyond what already is in some projects). We need to cite why this change is being made; the whole thing about WP:SPOILER and exclusion of the spoiler template is still being debated because there was no clear idea of why change was needed -- it just seemed to happen (to most). If we can root the guideline changes to some general change in policy at WP, that strengthens the case before you have to defend it to those that aren't going to go back and read through the articles. But getting the WP projects on board is almost a necessary first step for the distribution of these changes once they're made. --Masem 13:14, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

One question that comes to mind deals with issues of "succintness" and "notability". As some of you might know, many of the major comics publishers regularly indulge in mind-numblingly long crossovers, some of which include several "notable" events, for instance, the death of Captain America during the Civil War story. Or, alternately, there's the amazing number of potentially "significant" character deaths in Crisis on Infinite Earths; see Crisis on Infinite Earths#Deaths during Crisis, which I don't think lists even close to all the deaths in that storyline, just those that specifically happened in the series itself, and maybe not all of them. I don't object to seeing such developments summarized in a separate section from the plot overview, but the question of how much significant information some of the these articles might have is a real one. John Carter 21:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Forgive me for apparently jumping into the discussion, but I've been offline for a few weeks. I support absolutely the work you are doing to tighten and improve the guidelines surrounding fiction. Unnecessary and poorly developed articles are being created faster than they can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, so firming up central policy is vital, so well done. If a good policy can be developed here that can cover all forms of fiction (books, television, film, comics etc) then it will improve things across the board. I was part of a group that tried to sort things out at Television (focussing on television episodes!), which was not easy and was stalled by a number of mud-slingers. Therein lies your problem, I'm afraid. I went round notifying every relevant Wikiproject and noticeboard I could think of, but very few people were interested in contributing to policy/guideline discussion. We had some support from a few, and a couple joined in constructively, but most people who made the effort to join in were editors trying to justify their own articles (ie against any centralised process). You must notify Wikiprojects, of course, but just don't expect them to jump on board immediately. Better to look upwards to centralised noticeboards and discussions. But come up with a strong proposal first...too many contributors and you get nowhere in your discussions. The stuff above looks good. Format it and run with it for a while rather than waiting for more comments before you start. Let's get something watertight that can be written downwards (into the various media and genres) and will stand up in AfD discussions. Hey, those are my ideas, and they've probably all been said by someone else, in which case forgive my rambling. Good work so far. Gwinva 04:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The sub-article issue

Since Ned Scott requested a discussion on the specific subject of sub-articles, I'll throw in some of what I've been brainstorming.

I see three general "classes" of articles on in-universe subjects that are permissible:

Independent notability. Even if their original work somehow magically became non-notable, we have enough evidence of notability from other sources that this specific element would still deserve an article. It may even be more culturally notable than the source work itself. The classical example would probably be Superman or Sherlock Holmes, but this could also be a page about a character that, while not particularly famous, created a new archetype which has been analyzed in depth by literary scholars (that one chemical superhuman guy that's from a book nobody's heard of, but which created the entire superhero genre), or a fictional location that became the template world for most future high fantasy (Middle-earth), or a fictional representation of a historical figure that became the primary way most people think of him (some of Shakespeare's plays had this effect), or whatever. These are articles that qualify as independent subjects, and the only cases where I'd consider something like an article on a single character capable of supporting its own sub-articles.
Dependent notability. These aren't necessarily notable without their attached work, but do possess real world notability as an aspect of the topic. In other words, because of the work's popularity we have out-of-universe info on them that makes it possible to write a decent quality article. Character articles where we have information on their inspiration and development, lists of episodes with both production information and plot summary, and similar content would fall into this description. These are the minimal level that all in-universe articles should be hoping to become, if it is at all possible.
Utilitarian notability. This is where the "sub-article" justification really comes in. These things aren't notable in the real word, and don't have significant OOU information either, so they normally wouldn't get an article. However, since we need their content to understand an existing out-of-universe article or articles, and that article has exceeded readable length, they are an acceptable split off. This is for stuff like fictional concepts that are ridiculously complex so you can't shove them into the main article without significantly sacrificing readability or accuracy, or the character list for that show that has several hundred episodes so its significant character count is in the dozens and takes 6 pages of text to give even bare-bones context to, or that article on the central location of a 15 novel series that's been split off so that you don't have to endlessly rehash its main points in all 15 book articles. This type of strictly in-universe article shouldn't contain any more content than is necessary to understand its main article. It should be emphasized that these are something to avoid when possible, and that we should not let laziness prevent us from searching for OOU content to add to these pages.

Also, to show my reasoning above, here is the justification for the existence of the "utilitarian notability" class of articles in terms of the 5 key points we agreed on --tjstrf 07:51, 6 September 2007 (UTC):

In an article about a notable subject, if the inclusion of succinctly written in-universe content causes it to become unreadably long, and the in-universe content cannot be further trimmed without sacrificing accuracy or making it difficult for non-fans to be able to understand the article's subject, then sub-articles to contain this content may be split off even if their subjects lack notability in the traditional sense.

Comments? --tjstrf talk 07:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

That is spot on. Put it in the guideline (or at least that is what the guideline should contain). G.A.S 08:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

That's good. Also shows how notability in fiction differs from general notability guidelines. Gwinva 07:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

What happened to lorek's proposal about different degrees of coverage based on the scope of the article/subarticle? I liked that idea... would have saved quite a bit of drama and editwarring over the last six months or so. MalikCarr 09:18, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. Seems to have been deleted (or lost in archiving) What specifically were you referring to? Iorek 11:49, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

If that's reference to what may be appropriate for a long-running TV show compared to a single-shot movie or video game, I think the brief summary captures the essence of that; we can describe rules of thumb in more detail in a guideline page to help to clairify where certain list/sub-articles can be more appropriate, though we must be clear that these are suggestions and should be take neither as example or as rule. --Masem 14:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Excellent summary; two points: First, "non-fan" is not the best wording, I'd use "anyone" , "layperson", or something else to not necessarily imply fandom. Second, I would make sure that the utilitarian notability aspect is not a free ticket to complete describe every fictional element of a work (likely violating WP:NOT#IINFO); when such a list is needed, it should only be elements that directly attribute to the plot description of the notable work.

Now , as I was writing that, I'm thinking to the case of the Pokemon lists that are already been condensed down from individual articles for each pokemon type. But even by the above utilitarian, such a list is overly excessive and possibly another WP:NOT violation. How would this fit in, or are these lists themselves even in violation? (I'm not for or against them, it just came into my head). --Masem 09:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

This is off-topic, but may be a good example: Lists are usually acceptable, due to #1 above (There are more than enough secondary sources to create a list), and due to WP:LENGTH. At least the lead paragraph should focus on OOU content. Have a look at Featured lists for what I mean: The lead paragraphs are almost always exclusively OOU. G.A.S 10:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'll hold off on discussing this more; beyond a few wording changes, tj's captured what I think is a good policy for disucssion and a basis for updated policy, I'll reoffer the pokemon when we actually get to discussion mode. --Masem 13:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I like this tjstrf; perhaps a little stronger wording on trying to get out of universe sources where possible might improve it. Iorek 11:49, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Can we get some examples of what really qualifies as a necessary split off (pages with absolutely no chance of real world information)? It will probably help with trying to implement this, as I believe that we're on totally different pages regarding what is actually necessary. TTN 18:23, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The articles that have this problem the worst are foreign subjects, and old subjects. Category:1980s American television series and Category:Anime of the 1990s are good places to look. We could probably even come up with sources for a lot of this stuff if we could search old newspapers or read japanese, but effectively, we can't. - Peregrine Fisher 18:49, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

We need specific examples of what different people think are acceptable. Unless you're saying that all of those need character lists just because they exist, that doesn't really help sort out anything. TTN 19:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I am in agreement with TTN: examples would be useful. Utilitarian notability seems to me flawed. First, although it contains the word notability, nothing notable needs be asserted. Second of all, we don't get around the problem of the mass accumulation of fan-enthusiasm-driven in-universe detail. I agree, however, that insofar as this justifies episode & character lists (and no-one is arguing to get rid of these even under the current guidelines) and discourages individual articles that fail to assert out-of-universe notability, I like the intent. Eusebeus 19:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The main problem I'm having is with the character lists. If written correctly, sections in the main articles should be able to cover the characters in enough detail. If you combine that with the plot summaries in the episode lists, you should essentially have the level of detail that character lists provide without it being cluttered. There are exceptions to that, but the number really is a lot less than it currently seems. The problem with this proposal is that people are going to ignore that and automatically think that it is impossible to cover the characters accurately in the main article. That is why we need to get discussion going with examples, so we can see where everybody is at this point. TTN 19:32, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I strongly feel that a "list of fictional elements of X" created via the utilitarian notability assertion idea needs to have some talk page template that points to discussion on the main page for "X" that indicates why the list was moved out, as to established the necessity of the utilitarian notability so that, a year later, a whole new set of editors don't come around and delete the list page without question because of "lack of notability". Just an idea... but to the examples, List of characters in The Simpsons (still excessively long winded for my taste) is, by size, too much to put into a main "The Simpsons" article; for simplicity, I would put list of characters across a long series of fiction into a single article as well as per List of characters in the Harry Potter books. Long series don't always require this: I know I spent time to condense much of Pinky and the Brain to keep the characters within the article body, and comic strips like Get Fuzzy and Pearls Before Swine, while having excess minor character sections, can likely keep such character lists within the scope of their article (That is, I do NOT recommend separate list of X for these last three examples). Basically, the separate "Lists of X" will likely come from the longer episode materials , but this isn't a guaranty. --Masem 19:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

As Peregrine mentioned, most of the things that would actually qualify for a "utilitarian notability" exception (rather than being "dependently notable" elements of a work) would be things where we normally could logically expect there to be OOU information about them, but due to the age or origin of the work it's difficult or impossible to find.
One example that comes to mind would be JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. The series is one of the most notable manga ever written. It has been running since 1986, is 800+ chapters long, has had a major influence on later works, its author is a premiere authority and lecturer on manga, etc. etc. etc. Plus, because the series is so long, and especially because the plot and setup fundamentally changed at numerous points in the series, you cannot accurately give even a basic accurate summary of the in-universe elements in the main article.
Normally, this wouldn't be a problem: after all, if the series is so notable, we should obviously be able to find OOU information about its plot and characters, right? Well, in a perfect world we should, but reality isn't always so kind. For all its notability, the series never made it stateside. It has virtually no official presence in English, so you can't find sourced OOU information about its elements without being able to read Japanese. Because of this, its character lists and the like lack any normal assertion of notability in the real world, but can't be removed without significantly damaging our encyclopedic coverage of a notable subject. (I'm not really discussing the current versions of the articles here by the way, since the in-universe articles on JoJo really need to be significantly trimmed from their current state, which has independent articles for incredibly minor characters, i.e. the initial protagonist's dead dog, and its OOU coverage needs majorly expanded in order to really justify even future trimmed and merged IU articles.)
And, just to reiterate, I am not arguing that we have to cover every little detail of fictional universes, hence the point about succinctness of coverage and how these sub-articles shouldn't contain any information that's not directly relevant to understanding an out-of-universe article. --tjstrf talk 20:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't really seem to be a very good example. Seeing as the ideal version of the main article will be fully sourced, the separate series articles will likely be sourced in their ideal versions. Within those, all of the characters specific to a series can be covered within it, and then major topics can be covered within the main article. If split off, those would likely be sourced. Within that, there seems to be no need for any of these special cases. TTN 20:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

But we don't have the ideal version, so we have to live with the best version possible under the circumstances (where we lack all but the most basic of OOU info in English). You make a very good point that, since the main work is broken down into segments, these segments could probably host all or most of the necessary in-universe information for understanding, but even then there are a few shared concepts that I believe would be dealt with best by splitting off. Specifically I would argue for (trimmed versions of) Dio Brando, Jotaro Kujo, and Stand (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure), which all played significant roles in multiple arcs of the story and would be quite difficult to accurately cover in the other articles without restating large amounts of content. This is true of Dio Brando in particular, since, along with the protagonist always being named "JoJo", he's the single thread that ties together the entire work.

However, I believe your specific objection there could be placated if we put into the guideline that where the need for information on in-universe elements could be met within articles containing out-of-universe information, such as pages on the seasons of a television show or the books of a series, this is the preferred method.

Another thing that would be important to mention is that necessary in-universe information is not to be confused with interesting in-universe information. As an example for this, knowing the details of the battles Guts has participated in during the course of Berserk (manga) may be quite interesting, but all you actually need to know about all but a select few of them is that he 1. has been in a ton of battles 2. is a really good fighter 3. hunts apostles. In contrast, you do need to know what an apostle is within the context of Berserk. (Fortunately, this can be defined in the main article.) --tjstrf talk 21:11, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The ideal version idea factors in the fact that it may take a while. It just has to be possible to actually have that version at some point (people mistakenly think that no deadline means that we can wait forever to do the impossible). If sources are not possible at all, then we need to reconsider the organization of the topic. The shared ones are the major topics that I mentioned. Whether they need articles or not would be up to an actual discussion. TTN 21:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I think we're mostly agreed on this point, actually. My point in listing the "utilitarian notability" case is so that we could use it to describe when these split-offs are acceptable as provisional measures, and so that we could then qualify it to say when it was unacceptable (shouldn't be used to dump in minutia), and that the editors should be seeking OOU information to upgrade their status. Basically, to make it so that these pages are no longer in policy limbo, and their fate is no longer dependent on the whims of AfD and which of the contradictory guidelines the closing admin decides should overrule the others. --tjstrf talk 21:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I believe that there are enough external and third party sources that list of episodes and list of characters are notable on their own, or dependently notable. (i.e. where it only goes into as much details as most sources does being major and minor characters (recurring or not), but not once-off characters/victim of the day.)

As such Utilitarian notability would extend to single (major) characters (where the plot archs): usually enough detail are available to describe the character within the universe (See GA Sailor Mercury as an example, as it stands now, with work and OOU content I believe it could make FA class). However, minor/once off characters like this has not even enough in universe content to write a proper lead paragraph, never mind anything else than a short plot summary or trivia.

In shows where everything resets, like Pinky and the Brain, there is no character development (in the story), as such such character articles can never satisfy Utilitarian notability. However, they may satisfy Independent notability, for instance Mickey Mouse.

G.A.S 20:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The sub-article issue (section break)

It seems to me that this has become a fairly nuanced discussion about how to establish grounds for character and other in-universe lists (such as the list of spells from Charmed) such that they can thrive even without O-O-U context (which if I am reading his comments correctly is the point being made above by tjstrf). For practical reasons (length and/or organisation), that is frequently good practice and I doubt there is much disagreement. What editors like myself, TTN, Ned Scott and others (if I can be so bold) still maintain, however is that the guideline as it stands is an effective discussion of what constitutes notability for fictional characters. An article like Gregory House is the poster boy for what is wrong in ficiton articles: huge, packed with minute details from the show, and almost entirely without out-of-universe context. As it stands, that article (and the thousands like it) are prime candidates for redirection to list pages and the current guideline would make such an action both understandable and largely beyond dispute. Eusebeus 21:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

This seems like a good spot for a section break. I'm personally asking myself two questions as I think about this issue:

How do we ensure Wikipedia doesn't give documentation of the elements within fiction higher priority than covering the part of the work that actually exists?
How do we ensure Wikipedia doesn't limit documentation of the elements within fiction to the point that it damages our ability to cover the part of the work that actually exists?

If we could address both of these questions in this policy in a clear fashion that lets us easily educate new users, I think the guideline will be a success. Otherwise, brace yourself for more deletion debates and arguments that end up exceeding the length of the content we were trying to remove in the first place. --tjstrf talk 22:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm probably going to regret this, but eh, I would like to at least be able to continue contributing to the new guideline without accidentally digging my own grave.

Right then. If I recall lorek's proposal correctly, it had a varying standard of notability requirements for articles and sub-articles created under them, under the guise of writing about fiction being somewhat different in fields of notability. This was cool, especially relating to topics of primary and secondary sources as well as verifiability.

One article I've worked especially hard to make look nice and presentable is this guy here, which was saved from deletion during that big article conflagration in January. As you can see it's currently edit-protected, since AMiB and I have been reverting each other all f#&@ing summer. Under his interpretation of WP:V, since there's no independent, published, reliable sources I can cite for this article, it doesn't belong here, or at the very least, I can't include much of the relevant information. This kind of sticks in my craw, since I've found myself in a big of a paradox. Given that all source material is owned by the copyright owners, getting reliable information is virtually impossible if the source must be published and independent from the primary source. Lorek's proposal addressed this conundrum in a fashion that seemed quite helpful, hence my appreciation of it.

Moving right along, the current fit over notability before the article was protected stemmed from the above. My argument was that the thing was notable since there's a ton of merchandise of its likeness out there, both officially licensed goods and then knockoffs that people wanting to make a buck can sell (something about copyright law in Japan making allowances for derivative work being not in violation - I'm not very familiar with the topic). There are very few English-language published, reliable, third-party sources that cover this thing (or practically anything from the franchise as a whole, if you get right down to it), and a strict interpretation of WP:N and WP:V means nothing else I've cited there is actually a reliable source. Grrr. The way I see things, you don't make merchandise of stuff that people don't like - if your company is going to invest X millions of dollars into setting up production assemblies for action figures and plastic models, you've obviously got something that people know and what (and ergo, notability).

In order to avoid having such articles be placed in a technical violation of policy, I am of course interested in guideline propositions that make alotments to avoid this kind of catch-22. MalikCarr 00:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Not necessarily. You may think you have a market but it turns out you don't. I would assume it would be based on how long said products have been marketed, and how many varying models of said product. Disney released a couple seasons of Gargoyles on DVD, but poor sales of season 2 has caused them to stop manufacturing the final seasons, or any replacements for the ones they had released. So, simply making a toy or something doesn't always scream "notability", though it is extremely helpful. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 00:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey, don't go sticking your response in the middle of my rant!

Anyway, it's obvious that a few capsule toys and maybe a figure or DVD release does not notability make. However, I think if you've been making said toys of the things (with regular re-releases) since the 80s and aren't stopping anytime soon, it shows that you've still got a good deal of consumer interest, which I think is a decent indicator that there is some notability. MalikCarr 01:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

You're missing a major point, in that it doesn't matter if you can source plot summary or not. When we want sources, we mean we want real world information. MSN-02 Zeong has practically none, and doesn't belong on Wikipedia. However, there is nothing stopping us from putting this article on Wikia, and having completely integrated links between Wikipedia and Wikia Gundam articles. Hard work does not have to go to waste. -- Ned Scott 02:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Great, now I have another edit war to look forward to. This is what I get for trying to be honest...

Out of curiosity, I'd like to ask how you've decided a B-rated article, with more sources than the main Gundam article itself, is a plot summary. Just humor me. MalikCarr 03:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I see people are rattling the tree over whether wiki should cover fiction, once again. I havn't read the above, but I have to reiterate that it is impossible to cover fiction in the way which most readers of this encyclopedia would want, without giving reasonable coverage to a description of the plot. This debate seems to me to be people trying to create rules which effectively ban writing sensibly about fiction. This is frankly ridiculous. Guys, accept that it is not possible to describe a work of fiction usefully and comprehensively without re-telling the plot. Furthermore, this is frequently most sensibly done using a mixed style where in-universe description is mixed with appropriate real world contextual notes as they apply. But only as they apply. Deliberately re-phrasing things so that every single sentence is grounded in real world context simply makes a description longer and less readable, and insults the intelligence of readers. The only good argument I have seen for not carrying a comprehensive plot description is a legal/copyright one. I see absolutely no argument that including a substantial plot re-telling makes an article worse. It does not, it makes it better, simply as a matter of good coverage. Thus the issue is only to what extend such coverage is legally permitted, and the answer is significantly more than the guideline presently suggests. Now, it seems this argument is overflowing into the realms of whether subordinate articles should exist. Obviously, the correct approach should be one of good organisation of material. If the total amount of available material is too great to sensibly be presented in one article, or good organisation suggests that splitting items into separate articles will make the whole more readable to someone searching for something, then we should have multiple articles. Any other policy is stupidity. Articles should exist because the subject as a whole deserves to exist, and subdivision is a natural and sensible organisation of the information. Sandpiper 00:25, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Policy is the reason we can't dive into unnecessary blow-by-blow information. And statements like "Deliberately re-phrasing things so that every single sentence is grounded in real world context simply makes a description longer and less readable, and insults the intelligence of readers." pretty much tells me that not only have you not read the discussion, but you have not read the guideline either. I can only assume that you thought this is WP:WAF, which is where such a complain would be made (but would still fall on it's face, because WAF does not require every sentence to be OOU.) -- Ned Scott 02:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

No, this guideline is additional to any other policy, and as it stands seeks to extend policy. I was not suggesting including 'unnecessary blow by blow information', but that is a very long way from 'not solely a detailed summary of that work's plot'. I have read this guideline, plus some past versions, and WAF, though goodness knows what it looks like today. The very point I make below is that this guideline should not be prescribing content of an article, yet it does exactly that. Thus we enter into the debate here about what is proper content. In this debate people are arguing for removing sub-articles which deal only with part of a topic. Again, this prescribes what may be in a particular article, despite good organisational arguments why information needs to be spread about. The normal practice in any kind of long work is that information is grouped. This inevitably means there would, for example, be one article dedicated to describing one character and his fictional role. No reason why it should not contain background real world relevant information as well, but on pure organisational grounds it may well be sensible that one article has mostly fictional analysis. Personally, I think repeating the plot is a start, but what is required is explaining the plot. The more sources the better, but this guideline does not currently recognise the importance and need for such an article. Sandpiper 03:20, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

You couldn't be more wrong. It's not Wikipedia's place to explain to you the plot, but to tell you how this fiction was made, how it effected the world around it, and so on. We give plot information to give fundamental information on the topic, as well as to give context and examples for the real-world information. We are not your TV buddy, we are not here to tell you why Rachel broke up with Ross (again), or why Buffy had to go to the fire mountain to get the magic jacket. At the same time, we will tell you that Ross and Rachel have an on again off again relationship, and maybe we'll tell you things like the actor's take on this, or why the writers choose to have these conflicts. -- Ned Scott 03:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

This edit refers: Diff, as well as the one above. Please have a look at WP:N#Notability guidelines do not directly limit article content. If the problem is the amount of in universe detail in an article, the problem would not be solved by preventing sub-articles from being created, or by redirecting current articles.

Also have a look at Wikipedia:Five pillars:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia: Thus the articles must be written like an encyclopedic article. It should not be a plot summary or indiscriminate info.
Wikipedia has a neutral point of view: this is not actually an problem with fiction, but someone should not try to paint an negative or positive picture of an article.
Wikipedia is free content: This basically goes for WP:NOT#PLOT.
Wikipedia has a code of conduct: Do not go about redirecting articles etc just to make a point.
Wikipedia does not have firm rules: You can basically give guidance on what should be in an article and not criteria for disqualification: That is what WP:DP is for.

Also have a look at Wikipedia:Simplified ruleset.

Note that verifiability is listed, but notability is not.
Note that "Be gracious" is listed there — Be liberal in what you accept, be conservative in what you do]]

You would more likely solve the problem by bringing WP:WAF up to date with WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:NOT#INFO, as that is in essence what seems to be the problem with Gregory House. G.A.S 08:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I guess my point is that people should stop using notability to try and get rid of badly written or unencyclopedic articles. There are other rules that governs this e.g. WP:NOT#INFO. G.A.S 08:59, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

paradoxical concept of noteability

The current guideline seems to be saying that a subject is noteable if the article concerned contains a large number of references to real world sources. While this might in practice be the case, surely it is somewhat back to front. Noteability needs to exist before an article can exist at all. The simple fact of the demonstrable existence of such sources out in the real world, which for example might be introduced in a deletion debate, is surely sufficient to establish noteability. Claiming that a large volume of such sources must exist within each and every article is unnecessary and inappropriate for establishing noteability. That is a debate about the content of fictional articles, which I believe is argued elsewhere? The guideline might be worded to say that if an article contains such references, then obviuously it is automatically noteable, but this is a sufficient criteria not a necessary one. It is not appropriate that each and every article related to a particular topic be required to contain such references. Sandpiper 00:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The point of much of the above discussion is that right now, there exists volumes of pages of elements of fictional works (lists of characters, lists of episodes, character pages, location pages, fictional objects, etc.), with the bulk of these not demonstrating their notability to the real world, which conflicted with a strict reading of the current guideline for this page. Most of these are written by fans, for fans, and not in an encyclopedic manual, let alone the issue of notability to the real world. What we are trying to establish with new guidelines is that there are likely times one needs to create a page about fictional elements of a published work where notability of that element out of universe is not there, but should still stand as its own page to meet with WP:MOS guidelines.

There is a time and place for such fictional element articles without significant out of universe references; however, we are trying to write a guideline to help people understand what that time and place is, and why most of the current fictional element pages are very likely to fail this.--Masem 02:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Notability is found with sourced real-world information, not "real world sources" for fictional information. -- Ned Scott 02:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

To veer back to the point I was making here (rather than below, where I am arguing the validity of these criteria), why should it be mandatory that to establish noteability these elements should actually all exist in a particular article, rather than in principle exist although not currently present, or indeed actually dealt with in a companion article. It is surely something of a point of view whether the fictional workings of a star trek phaser are more usefull to encyclopedia readers than the workings of a He-Ne laser. I strongly suspect more people are interested in the former, however fictional they might be. The existence of the phaser is a fact, whether it only exists in fiction, or not. Surely the point ought to be why does it matter that there exists so many pages about fiction? I suspect the number of existing pages reflects the importance of such topics to the average wiki reader. But I repeat, when establishing noteability it is surely only necessary that a subject be noteable, not that its existing article contains proof of this currently. A number of wiki articles are frankly blighted by contributors having to bend over backwards to prove a point like this which a normal encyclopedia would not consider explicitly addressing within the article presented to the public. Sandpiper 03:00, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Whoa whoa, what? A normal encyclopedia will not have the level of fictional articles that Wikipedia allows. Not only that, but if you don't believe articles need to prove something, then you're disagreeing with a fundamental policy. Because of the nature of Wikipedia, we are required to have sources and "proof" in the articles themselves. The fact of the matter is we actually give more slack to fictional articles than any other topic here on Wikipedia. -- Ned Scott 03:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

A 'normal' encyclopedia would not have the coverage found in wiki because it is way too short. If the editors of such a book were released from the constraints of space (as we are), they would have more bigger articles. But they still would not choose topics according to the amount of background information available about them. They would choose to include a work of fiction basically because it was famous, and unthinkable to leave it out. They would choose on its artistic merit, not its context. I assume that fictional articles get more slack because 1) it is acknowledged as necessary, and 2) because a trampling herd of editors reinserts material which is deleted. Hence people continually writing tighter and tighter instructions attempting to remove any mention of plot. It becomes a war, which doesn't help since both sides overreact. Fiction is innately a subject where it is impossible to obtain verifiable facts. I argue for the need to include much more content 'explaining' the plot of a book, yet know perfectly well this is very difficult to find, and when it can be someone else will come along with a contrary opinion. It strikes me as an area where it is essential to minimalise the need for verifiability, because of its impact on good content. wikipedia needs opinion. Sandpiper —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sandpiper (talk • contribs) 04:03, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

"Fiction is innately a subject where it is impossible to obtain verifiable facts" The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth.. " wikipedia needs opinion." Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought.. -- Ned Scott 04:11, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Precisely my point. This needs to be changed in the interests of improving wiki. Not a huge amount, as ever it is always a question of emphasis, which you already admitted. But in this context the way to make wiki better is to spell out a clear exception in the case of fiction.Sandpiper 07:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Comprehensibility

I'm not thick, but the guideline is not easy to understand. Is it intended for wikilawyers or editors seeking helpfull advice? Sandpiper 00:55, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Right now? It's probably intended for the mind of the guy who wrote this revision. The lack of understandability is one of the things we're trying to fix here. --tjstrf talk 01:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you think there is any realistic prospect that those who have supported and included it intend to rewrite it for understandeability? Sandpiper 01:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I would assume so. --tjstrf talk 01:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Then why didn't they do that instead of writing what is here now? I frequently find that when something is written in a confusing way, it is done in order to obscure a lack of valid content.Sandpiper

We sort of already had this discussion earlier on. The policy has been rewritten several times to deal with specific concerns, but in doing so stopped being in accordance with its basic goals. That's what we're trying to fix by discussing what those goals are and how to apply them. --tjstrf talk 02:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's really more like one or two major rewrites. User:Deckiller did most of the work in this last one, and personally I think he did an excellent job. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it is a big improvement over the previous version. -- Ned Scott 02:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I am not quite sure: at least the previous one tried to define what is notable and which is not, and made it applicable to fiction.

I would rather that as far as this guideline does not contradict WP:N, WP:N is also applicable. The current version is basically a copy of WP:N. G.A.S 08:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

As such, information that exists in both versions, should be removed, and it should be made clear that WP:N also applies. G.A.S 13:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

One thing about the comprehensibility: it would really help if the guidelines consistantly spoke of being for "fictional things" (concepts, characters, objects) instead of being for "fiction". In fact, I'd much prefer it if the article was renamed to reflect that. As is, if you don't go past the lead, it looks like it's defining notability for, for ex, novels, rather than for a character in same. —Quasirandom 21:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Guidelines intended to exclude encyclopedic content?

The guideline has a very odd definition of noteability with regard to fiction. If you ask the man on the street if he has heard of a particular work, and he has, then I would say that it is noteable. Sales figures, critical reception, development, all these are supremely irrelevant to the main issue of whether a fictional work is noteable, and despite their existing in vast quantities would not warrant the inclusion of an article about a fictional topic which actually no one on the street was interested in. A real world encyclopedia would not take the approach outlined here, at least not in the general case. All the rules here might be used to argue that an article should exist despite the fact that no one has heard of the work in question, but are otherwise supremely irrelevant. How did this back to front definition come about? It seems to me again, that is is argument about the content of fictional articles, not their noteability and does not belong in this guideline. Sandpiper 01:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

If we don't know what effect it had on the world or even who wrote it, then it's not useful to include. Why are you making a whole bunch of sections anyway? --tjstrf talk 01:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

because I am making separate points which need answering separately. Logical organisation of a debate (as with splitting articles into sub-articles) can be very helpfull to make clear individual points. As to your first point, obviously if there is nothing useful to put into an article then it will be very short. But this is a debate about noteability, not content. I have to say that I never think about what effect a book had on the world when I am choosing one to read. I very much doubt anyone studying a 'classic' for english lit exams does so either. I don't recall it ever being mentioned when I did. Nor its sales, how many editions there were, the authors biography, not even influences upon him. What we did debate was motivations of characters, how they interacted, whether they behaved this way or that, were they good, evil... yet this sort of analysis seems to be rather ignored, despite being what an exam student needs to know, or what interests a casual reader. Sandpiper 01:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Alright, let me try phrasing this differently: Wikipedia contains in universe information because, and to the extent that, it is significantly useful to understanding a notable real world topic. If we don't start by proving that there's a notable real world topic to understand, then we have no grounds for including information on it. --tjstrf talk 02:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you are veering towards the major difficulty with trying to reconcile fiction with other content. Fiction is by definition false and non-real-world. But that does not mean it is wrong to report it. I'm sure lots of other stuff gets reported in wiki which is false, though normally the contributors believe it is true. But this particular falsehood is in fact what everyone is interested in. To devise a policy on fiction which avoids describing that fiction, and indeed explaining it, in the context of its fictional universe, is not only contrary to the expectations of wiki readers, but also contrary to actual real world practice in other situations where fiction is dealt with as an academic subject. I don't disagree that we report real world topics, but the fictional universe within a work of fiction is itself a real world topic. Yet here we have guidelines seeking to ban analysis of the heart of the topic. People are not generally interested in the existence of a book, the type of paper, the binding, but in the nuances of the plot. Professors of english do not debate book bindings (or only peripherally). The heart of their profession is what happens within the story. Sandpiper 02:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Uhm, you're sort of missing the point. Yes, obviously, we need to have in-universe information in our articles on works of fiction. (I only know of 1 or 2 people who are opposed to having in-universe information in any form, and they're obviously on a fringe.) But not beyond the level where it's actually necessary to understanding the subject.

What is that 'undrstanding' level. If you mean, undrstanding the complexities of character interaction, then yes.Sandpiper

Fiction isn't the only area where similar things apply, by the way. Think about articles that describe things that are the result of a process, like food: preparation of dishes has to be discussed, as it's an instrumental part of understanding what the food items are, but Wikipedia is not for recipes. To reconcile this, we have information on how they are made, but not at the level of detail that it qualifies as a how-to guide. --tjstrf talk 03:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Then I think you are mixing your analogy. Surely the equivalent to the story is the finished food, while a discussion of plot would be a discussion of flavour. Preparation of food would equate to the writing process. Sandpiper

Quick point. A significant fraction of pages on fictional elements are violating WP:NOT#IINFO, partially because there is no line drawn for notability. We are trying to make this light a brighter, yet still fuzzy when needed, one for describing the elements of a fictional work. --Masem 03:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

(EC reply to tjstrf) I think that's got to be about the clearest analogy I've seen so far. I would tend to agree in general, one needs some in-universe information (how could one understand Gulliver's Travels without an outline of its plot?). Yet, what the article on Gulliver's Travels should mainly discuss is its real-world context and impact, and its true value is indeed in explaining that, not in its rehash of the plot. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:18, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

No, we have to disagree. The world is not interested in the real world impact of Gulliver's travels. Ok, I exagerate, but this debate has become exagerated. There is absolutely nothing wrong in explaining the context in which Gullivers Travels was written. I welcome it. It is a necessary part of a proper explanation of a work of fiction. But it is also necessary to accept that the majority of readers will consider this a side issue. They may want a a quick synopsis so they know what the book is about. They may want an explanation of the characters within the fictional universe, how they interact. Maybe I misunderstand, and people here agree that this should be part of an article? But my experience both of talking casually about a book, and of studying literture at school, is that this is the most important information about any work of fiction. i also note that the Gullivers travels article has three screens describing the plot, and a couple more summarising major themes. as a whole, the article is not over long, so it doesn't really help us debate whether, for example, the plot description should be moved into an article by itself, were we talking about a written work with 10x the number of pages, or a series. I see no reason why this should not be done if a lengthier description was necessary.

I'm not sure I understood the food analogy. Are you comparing the process of preparing food with the process of writing a book, thus arguing that the coverage of background information about the author, printing etc ought to be limited? Sandpiper 03:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

"...a side issue." No offense, but if this is your view then there's not much point in discussing this with you. Consensus clearly disagrees with you, even among those on this talk page that don't like this guideline. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a soap opera magazine. -- Ned Scott 04:05, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Sandpiper, you're pretty much just wrong on this point. And I'm speaking as a guy who has spent most of his wiki-career writing articles on fiction. The purpose of our articles on fiction is to talk about things notable in the real world, either directly or as necessary information to understand those notable things.

Regarding the analogy, articles about food are another class of article where we shouldn't include every piece of verifiable information that exists. This is because some of it (recipes in the case of food, in-universe minutia in the case of fiction), while quite easy to verify, really has nothing to do with our goals. --tjstrf talk 04:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Sandpiper, I have to agree with Ned Scott and tjstrf on this (and I am one of those who has some real problems with the way the guideline is currently written). If the fictional topic isn't notable in the "real world" then it shouldn't be in Wikipedia. I do believe that notability for fictional topics needs to be seen through a different lens than for non-fictional topics, but that doesn't mean that real-world notability is an irrelevant concept. WP:FICT as it exists today is draconian and in direct conflict with WP:SS, but the concept of having a notability standard is a core WP principle. Fairsing 05:17, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Sandpiper's views are clearly wide of the mark with respect to the main aim of this discussion. Notability must be asserted and while the guideline as written may have some issues, the main tenets that are presented with respect to notability are generally sound in terms of creating and maintaining encyclopedic content. The main challenge now is to find a better way of communicating the intent (and nuancing the strictures) of the current guideline, given some of the specific concerns that have been raised. Eusebeus 05:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

How about something like "a list of characters or list of episodes may be appropriate if real world information causes the original article to become to large." - Peregrine Fisher 06:01, 7 September 2007 (UTC) I'm curious: what is the definition of 'a list', in this context. The implication of a list might be mereely a list of episode titles, whereas what is needed is description of each episode to accompany the title. Surely, that is an article, not a list.

Fairsing, I don't think I was arguing for including non-noteable fiction. I observed that the definition of noteability presented here is extremely narrow and would not be the definition that you would get if you asked someone on the street. Everyone understands 'only include noteable fiction', but I think very few indeed would define it the way it is defined here. Ok, this definition is intended for the purposes of wiki, not real people, but all the same it ought to accord with what an average member of the public would recognise. Wiki editors, particularly ones who happen to only glance at a page like this, are also members of the public. If a page reads like nonsense, then people will treat it like nonsense. The reason this subject is controversial is because there is a conflict here between people writing rules and people writing content. If you want a rule to be expected, then it has to make sense. I don't know if there is a consensus between people here as to what this guideline ought to say, but I am quite sure there is a steep disagreement between what is being proposed here and what is and has been carried out by very many editors. That is an equally narrow view of what coonstitutes consensus.Sandpiper 07:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

An interesting case regarding notability and foreign fiction

Raoh is a character article on the primary antagonist of the 1980s Fist of the North Star manga series. If you look at the article, it reads like just another random badly written cleanup-tagged character page that should probably be merged back into the series's main character list. But wait, Raoh is actually an independently notable subject in his own right! Don't believe me? Read the news story: [1].

So now we have an amusing conundrum, an independently notable fictional element that has next to no available out of universe sources. While we can prove that he's significant, except for the few snippets of analysis present in the news story, we can't really talk about why or how without it being OR. We can, of course, write a character biography that describes all the things he did in the series. But would this be justified? I can see an argument that since the character himself is the notable subject (rather than just the work he's attached to), a large amount of in universe content is necessary to help people understand him. If not, would it be justified if we had more available OOU sources? I don't personally know. As a further puzzle, consider how Raoh's probably been notable for two decades, but we only got an English language source to prove it this year. --tjstrf talk 07:38, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

That article also shows us english centric our notability policy is. It says that in Japan, "for many, manga comics perform the entertainment functions of comedians, soap stars and film actors." When we can't find any sources for the characters in Naruto, it's probably like the Japanese wikipedians having trouble finding sources for articles like Eric Bana [2] or Padmé Amidala [3], which we've gotten up to FA status. - Peregrine Fisher 07:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Truth. There are quite a few magazines in Japan that do nothing but publish articles analyzing every minute detail of the latest anime series. Unfortunately, the only sight we see of them over here in ye olde anglophonia are scans of the pin-up girl pages. ja.wiki doesn't seem to push for sources the same way we do either though, so it's not like we can just make an inter-wiki hop over and grab them. (Even if we could we'd need them translated.) --tjstrf talk 08:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Draft of something. Maybe this page?

I've written a sort of policy draft based on the various points and ideas that have been brought up in the last couple days of discussion, which can be found at User:tjstrf/draft. I'm not sure that the end result is a potential notability guideline though, so much as a general fiction writing guideline that includes notability. The draft is incomplete, but far enough along that I believe a request for feedback would be useful at this point.

My main focus when writing it was to explain the reasons for things as much as possible (educate new users), as well as trying to make it balance the issue of permitting sub-articles while not permitting sub-articles to devolve into endless plot summary. Suggestions, comments, praise, and telling me that I'm a moron that managed to completely miss the point of WP:FICT are all welcome here or on its talk page, but only if those are your sincere opinions. --tjstrf talk 09:05, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Couple points that I see so far (but looks good otherwise).

I would swap the accuracy and succinctness statements. Accuracy is more important that being succinct, in that we can add more words if needed to be accurate. Again, "Dorothy had a dream about her family and friends during a tornado" is succinct, but fairly unaccurate about "The Wizard of Oz"
The succinct clause should be "should be" instead of "must" (via the MoSCoW approach); one of the complaints above is that the policy as currently written is too prescriptive, but of the 5 points, 4 of them are required by WP foundation; the succinctness is what is new to what these say, and just like above, it can be sacrificed to meet the needs of any of the four before it.
For the accuracy statement, I would also add in that statements should be, whenever possible, supported by appropriate in-universe information, OOU information if at all possible. (direct quotes, as per the FFVIII character article, episode numbers, etc., are all appropriate. This likely means that if there's not already a page about the difference between IU and OOU, this needs to be on here).
For all 5 statements, I would make sure that the parent policy we're citing is included in each. You've mentioned them, and the second one points to MOS, etc., but I think we need to have absolute clear showing that these aren't made up rules and follow existing, WP-wide policies on any article in the first place.
I would put real-Wiki examples directly under the types of notability that you have. Superman and ~~Springfield (The Simpsons)~~TARDIS(its FA but its a bit winded) should be examples. I think you're right to include the FFVIII character page, but I think it needs to be more clear that part of the game's OOU notability is the characters, and thus the characters themselves have notability through this (plus this demonstrates the aspect of the third case, where it would be insane to keep all the characters in their own article)
Also think that we need a section to help the users understand how these work when they are either writing about new fiction (to do it right from the start), or revise current fiction works.

--Masem 13:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I think TARDIS may not be the best example because I see a lot of issues with it. It may need to be reviewed, since it reached FA status in 2005 and a lot has changed since then regarding style guidelines. I see sources referenced in mid-sentence (not after punctuation) and a lack of citations throughout the article. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 13:51, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Yea, you're probably right - I think we want to make sure we include a non-character example (to show this policy is not just character-centric), and the ones that I thought would meet this really don't. --Masem 13:55, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, we need more than characters. I think we should all probably go through the FA list and find which ones best represent the most recent acceptance of what FA should be (since some were promoted awhile ago and may need some clean-up to get back to true FA quality). BIGNOLE (Contact me) 14:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

(←)This is generally excellent. As Tjstrf admits, the wording needs tightening up all over, but I would support a descendent of this draft as a replacement guideline. I also have a few points:

Move the definition of fictional articles into its own section
I'd argue the universal use of "fictional topic" rather than "subject"
Conditional tense used throughout - I shall be most disappointed if after getting on for a Mb of discussion we still have imperative clauses in the final wording!
The "what to do with fictional articles" section to be prose rather than bullets - prose is almost impossible to interpret as a checklist to deletion
I would say that the "examples" section should either be expanded or removed - a few examples are worse than none at all. I understand that a search for extra examples may be in progress, which is good to hear.

Happy-melon 14:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I suggest we use this draft as an essay that consolidates all aspects regarding fiction in great detail; and clean up the guidelines to reflect the most important content only (sort of WP:IAR and WP:WIARM). Most of my proposed changes to the guideline does exactly that; but it would allow some more trimming to the guideline to have this guideline reflect some of the similar guidelines' content. G.A.S 08:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I would consider this 'solution' (that is, a partially reworked guideline supported by an explanatory essay) to be a poor alternative to a guideline that is actually comprehensive in the first place. Your modifications, as you freely admitted, are the minimum acceptable to prevent gross misinterpretation of the policy. Far better that we produce a completely new wording that properly addresses the issues. I think that this draft is the best chance we've had yet: I haven't seen anything but constructive comments and support for it. I concur that the wording needs to be focused more closely on notability to the exclusion of other issues. Some of the removed content of the draft would make an excellent addition to WP:WAF. However, I think that our best chance to move this debate forward is to work on this draft, which provides an excellent starting point. Happy-melon 14:10, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Spoo

I have been reading the current discussions with great interest, and I'd like to note that Spoo, an FA article about a not-so-notable fictional topic, is currently AfD'ed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Spoo. Maybe someone wants to comment there also. – sgeureka ^t•c 12:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It's heading for a keep. Let's face it, admins and powerful Wikiprojects can overrule this guideline, meaning that it's only ever going to be used against under-represented fiction.--Nydas^(Talk) 18:51, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that presently it will still remain, but once we revise these guidelines, it would be easy to remove (and that's something we have to accept - many FA/GA articles are going to go bitbucket because of this.

A point that was made in there that needs to be included in these guidelines is that we are describing notability to the general inteneded (NOT CURRENT) Wikipedia readership (eg any English-literate user), and not to the fandom, even if the fandom is very large. A Star Trek PADD may be notable throughout all of Trekdom, which is a pretty large swath of the current WP readership, and if asked, would likely be notable to a majority of the current WP users. However, if we consider the population as a whole, it is not. We need to make that clear that notability is notability in the real world to the general populace. (I think someone before described this idea as "notable" verses "important"). --Masem 19:01, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I have to comment though: the idea of a notability guideline is "if you create an article about X; we will not delete it because it is noteworthy" and not "we delete (or merge/redirect) all non-notable articles. Secondly: this guideline should reflect consensus as to when articles are allowed to remain on Wikipedia; not as to when a few editors think they should remain (or else). G.A.S 21:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I like the idea of toasting GA/FAs from the project with this new guideline version. I thought we were trying to make it more logical and easy to work with, not provide more ammunition for deletion-minded editors. MalikCarr 22:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that we are trying to implement a policy that, based on what I've seen, is against the whims of most of the editors involves on some pages, but is right in line with what the goals of WP are; the concensus would be to keep most of what's out there already (and there's a lot of resistance to changing that). What we need to do is to make it crystal clear these guidelines are to show why editors need to understand fictional notability how it applies to their works. Now, mind you, I'm not saying we mass delete pages; its just that the bulk of that content either has to be merged into a few lines or moved to other wikis or homes; primarily, as it is, it cannot stay on here.

And because WP's criteria for FA and GA do change, we have to accept that by adapting this policy to be in line with current WP goals, current FAs and GAs will no long meet that. Recent changes in verifiability and citations have caused many GAs to become questionable and lose their GA status, so this isn't unprecidented. But, each article has to be taken on a case by case basis to make that determination. --Masem 23:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

And that is the main problem: People confuse policy with guideline. There is a difference. This is still a guideline. Guidelines are followed, policies are implimented.

As to why articles lose their FA/GA status: They no longer meet FA/GA criteri (including verifiability and follow the Manual of Style) a, and are demoted.

Please comment on my proposed changes to the guideline's wording below

G.A.S 23:32, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Forgive me if I'm starting to have second thoughts on this guideline revision. A page ago it seemed like this was an effort to create a more functional guideline, since it is difficult to write about fiction while following a guideline drafted from writing about nonfiction. Now, though, I hear talks about invalidating existing articles by cutting the founding guideline out from under them, and... well. Maybe I've misinterpreted things, but it seems like this is only going to make things worse by furthering the gulf between policy and editors. Have I totally got this back-asswards, or was that the goal all along...? MalikCarr 00:11, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, even before we've touched this guideline, I would argue there's several fictional element pages that have FA/GA status that did not follow the guideline (See TARDIS for example), as the guideline might not have been as tight as it was before. Guidelines change, it would seem reasonable that articles should follows. And plus, I'm not saying we instantly take any FA/GA that fails these guidelines and take away its status, but instead push those articles that fail these new guidelines badly into the FAR/GAR review process and work with editors and reviews to make sure it should or how it can be improved with the guidelines.--Masem 00:41, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I guess this is a good time to quote WP:WIARM:

2 Don't follow written instructions mindlessly, but rather, consider how the encyclopedia is improved or damaged by each edit. (See also Wikipedia:Use common sense.)

3 Rules derive their power to compel, not from being written down on a page labelled "guideline" or "policy", but from being a reflection of the shared opinions and practices of a great many editors. (See also Wikipedia:Consensus.)

4 Most rules are ultimately descriptive, not prescriptive, and they sometimes lag behind the practices they describe. (See also Wikipedia:Product, process, policy.)

Maybe it is time to get the guidelines up to date with consensus; not to get consensus up to date with the guidelines. (Which is one of the reasons I propose the changes to the guideline. G.A.S 08:44, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the kind of rhetoric that got me interested in trying to help with this guideline in the first place. MalikCarr 21:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Bowing out

In case you haven't noticed, I'm bowing out of this debate (at least for the next several days) due to busyness. There's plenty of other people with similar viewpoints, so the debate will obviously continue easily. — Deckill er 12:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Changes already made to the wording

(These edits refers)

Although I admire your bravery in making changes to the active wording at this stage, G.A.S, and I actually agree with almost all of your modifications; I think you're going to tread on a lot of toes in making any substantive changes until this discussion heads towards a consensus. I'd urge you to be very cautious in making changes of any sorts to the wording at this stage. Not that I personally think your edits were anything but beneficial to the wording - it's just that I'm sure there are dissenters and we're getting some nice calm discussion going now! Happy-melon 14:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It might have helped to talk to me personally. Although I have taken great care not to change the meaning of this guideline. G.A.S 15:25, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Changing the guideline at this point remains premature and is disruptive (although not deliberately so, of course) to an ongoing discussion. The wording as it was is useful as a stable reference point in this debate. So let's wait until a general course has emerged before taking remedial steps in altering the guideline. I suggest you revert your changes. Eusebeus 16:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Done. However, short of a complete rewrite, these are the minimum changes required to the guideline (To have it read like a guideline). G.A.S 16:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment

I would appreciate comment as to the proposed changes, as I believe it addresses a lot of the problems editors (including myself) have with the current version. G.A.S 17:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

As I said above, I agree with you in that these are excellent modifications. If this talk page weren't growing like the Incredible Hulk they would be completely appropriate. A few minor style and syntax errors, but a definite step in the right direction. Happy-melon 18:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd like the Lead to be a little more clear about the subject of this article: "This guideline defines notability for fictional things by elaborating on the above excerpts." As is, it sounds like it's talking about defining notability for, for ex, a novel rather than a character in same. And so through the article, being careful never to use "fiction" bare. Otherwise, I generally like the edits. In fact, it'd help if the actual article title reflected this. Is it too late to propose a move? —Quasirandom 21:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I have not actually thought about the title; maybe it should be recommend after the other discussions clear up. I believe "Fictional concepts" or similar would do. Unfortunately, I did not have time to tweak the lead. Thanks, G.A.S 21:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I reviewed the edits and I think they are generally quite good. However, I suggest that the issue of notability be asserted more immediately and directly. What makes fictional articles notable? Real world context that is, itself, evidence of notability as opposed to importance within a notable fictional world (TV show, book, etc...). A large part of this attempted redaction is to provide better explication to contributors whose fan enthusiasm confuses them about what does and does not belong on Wikipedia. Out-Of-Universe context and content is central and should be explained with clarity right off the bat (before dealing with sources, etc...) as a matter of principle. Eusebeus 21:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Correct. How about Within Wikipedia, Notability is an article inclusion criterion based on encyclopedic suitability. The topic of an article should be notable, or "worthy of notice". This concept is distinct from "fame", "importance", or "popularity". in the lead?

As for Out-Of-Universe context and content is central and should be explained with clarity right off the bat: I draw your attention to WP:NNC. This should be (and is) the focus of WP:WAF.

"A large part of this attempted redaction is to provide better explication to contributors whose fan enthusiasm confuses them about what does and does not belong on Wikipedia.". Again WP:NNC. But I doubt such contributors will bother reading this guideline. WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:WAF are sufficient.

Your comment? Thanks, G.A.S 22:00, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Another point for consideration: more on lists

I think we've been tossing "lists of characters" and "lists of episodes" around together in the above discussions but something hit me reading newer comments; we probably should treat "lists of episodes" and equivalent for serialized fictional works separately though in the same notability manner.

For any serialized fictional work (books, tv shows, comics, etc.) one could argue that a "List of (serialized elements)" is actually a non-fictional list, since each is a out-of-universe division of the in-universe story. However, this does not automatically make every such list notable. I would not want to have a "List of Sesame Street episodes", "List of X-Men comics" or "List of Calvin and Hobbes strips", as they would be super excessive. There should be some examples of where episode lists are relevant and appropriate, generally based on if the fictional work has overarching plots, reset buttons, frequency of publishing and so forth. These are not hard set, unfortunately; DragonBall Z (though still excessive) has it right in that it breaks the overall plot into the various Sagas (roughly by season) and doesn't go into episodes, but I would argue that a show like Buffy or Babylon 5 needs to have episode lists despite their being overarcing plots to the entire show (this is also likely because individual episodes are more notably than individual episodes of DBZ).

Again, I'm trying to avoid having a newer editor come along and create "list of X" just because the fictional work lacked that page; such pages should only be written when its within reason per the guidelines above. --Masem 15:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikia

(Not related to the other discussions) Currently a major problem with fiction type articles are that there are no suitable home should they not be notable (enough) for Wikipedia. As such, would it be possible to create a single Wikia for them (e.g. fiction.wikia.. ), instead of one for each series, and move non notable content there? Or are there already such a Wikia? G.A.S 18:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Very good point. The few times I've gone to a wikia link and it's not something that was just imported from Wikipedia a couple revisions ago, it's usually either dead from neglect (which means nobody's reading it) or dead from vandalism. If wikia is going to be used as the semi-official Free Encyclopedia of Fictional Universes That Anyone Can Edit, we really need to get it set up to encourage good writing quality and traffic. --tjstrf talk 19:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that it needs more quality writing and more activity, I do not believe that it should be disregarded for that reason. The same principle is applied to articles linked in a FA article. We cannot control the sub-par quality of an article that is linked in one that is featured, just like we cannot control sub-par quality (or just inactivity) on Wikia. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 20:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe tjstrf's view is if we set such a wikia up, the editing will come by itself. (As opposed to many wikias with a more norrow scope.) G.A.S 20:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Set it up and routinely link to it, yes. This would be another advantage of having one location, since then everyone just has to remember wikia:fiction:ARTICLENAME, rather than wikia:randomcleverwikipunontheseriestitle:ARTICLENAME. Also, if such a system was set up with the same sort of rules as Wikipedia follows, only modified where irrelevant or nonsensical, the editors here would probably be much more likely to accept it as a (pseudo) sister project. (The reasoning behind this being that pointing people to another equally convenient location is probably the only realistic way of kicking our reputation as the internet's leading source on in universe information.) --tjstrf talk 20:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the "rules" would have to be a bit more liberal, otherwise we'd just be creating a second Wikipedia. Obviously we would have to link more frequently, but that goes with dealing with articles that need to be merged with larger topics (like TV episodes or characters). Where we would normally link to a Wikipedia page, we can link to a Wikia page. But again, we cannot make people edit the pages. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 21:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

In the long run a single Wikia for these articles is the most viable option. I also believe that a lot of "In Universe Only" editors will follow the content. G.A.S 21:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The annex was set up for that reason: [4]. However, it still needs some establishing. — Deckill er 19:02, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I am aware of the annex, but it is marked as a temporary home. I meant, as said above by tjstrf, a "(pseudo) sister project." G.A.S 21:24, 8 September 2007 (UTC)