Talk:Sturgeon's law

message: I heard once of a supposed corollary: 99% [sic] of everything on the internet is crud... —Preceding unsigned comment added by MartinHarper (talk • contribs) 10:03, 6 December 2002
: That should be 99.999999679998654% of everything on the internet....87.194.30.174 (talk) 00:23, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Supposed corollary 

message: If memory serves me correctly, Harlan Ellison wrote in Again, Dangerous Visions that Sturgeon's original quote contained the word "crap:" a reporter asked him, "Mr. Sturgeon, isn't it true that 90 per cent of science fiction is crap?" "Sure, 90 per cent of science fiction is crap. But then, 90 per cent of everything is crap." (Perhaps someone who owns the book could confirm this?) --  HarmonicSphere 00:43, 22 September 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: When Theodore Sturgeon and his wife Jayne stayed at my house in 1978, he was adamant about the point that the word is "crud," not "crap." Gregory R. Bennett (talk) 19:43, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original word was "crap" 

message: There's clearly some controversy as to whether the name Sturgeon's Law should be used for the "90% ..." observation.  Equally clearly, this article as it stood was taking the side that it shouldn't.
I've rephrased it to be less outspoken.  While the distinction between Sturgeon's Law and Revelation is an important one, and it is important to have a separate name for each, the fact that what most people who have heard the term understand as Sturgeon's Law is actually the Revelation is an important one that we shouldn't just dismiss out of hand.  To do so violates NPOV.
I've changed it to say that it is 'more correct' to call this observation the Revelation.  The article then continues discussing it using that name.  I think this statement is justified, as this is clearly the name Sturgeon himself used to refer to it. But to imply that it is wrong to call it Sturgeon's Law flies in the face of the common usage, which in questions of language and naming is generally the wrong thing to do. JulesH 15:10, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So the author's description is no more valid than any random moron's? Descriptivism over reason again. The problem is that the title of the article and the redirect are reversed. --Ampwright (talk) 05:36, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Law / Revelation controversy 

message: Some have suggested that Sturgeon's Law applies well to the featured article process on Wikipedia, as 90% of articles don't make it.  Is this notable for inclusion in the article? — Scm83x talk  03:46, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That would probably be a violation of Wikipedia:Avoid self-references, specifically "While we're often inclined to mention the Wikipedia community that we are all part of, as well as the website features we use in creating the articles, these confuse readers of derivative works. In particular, do not refer to the fact that the page can be edited, do not refer to any Wikipedia project page or process, do not use specialized Wikipedia jargon (e.g. "POV" in place of "biased"), and do not refer to any link in the sidebar or along the top of the screen, such as the talk page, What links here, or history. Remember, articles are part of an encyclopedia, not part of the Wikipedia project being used to create them." The 'Featured Article' process wouldn't mean much to a non-Wikipedian. Ziggurat 03:58, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. A "no" and link would have sufficed. We're not all newbies ;-) at least not anymore... — Scm83x talk  04:51, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Heh, sorry. I do tend to overexplain things. It all dates back to that time twelve years ago when... ;) Ziggurat 19:58, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't say this is an over-explanation.  While not everyone is a newbie, there are plenty of newbies, or near-newbies like myself, who read these pages.  I'm glad to learn there has been a decision to discourage self-referential commentary.  The great majority of readers would not be interested, I would suppose.Star-lists (talk) 01:43, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sturgeon's Law with respect to [[WP:FAC]] 

message: "If there is any difference in "desirability", the bell curve of a normal distribution predicts that most experiences will involve average desirability, with roughly equal occurrences of excellence and gross inadequacy." I disagree: I think it would tend to follow a Pareto distribution with 20% of the books in a genre accounting for 80% of the worthiness of the genre as a whole. I think this is probably closer to what Sturgeon had in mind. NeonMerlin 15:40, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bell curve? 

message: Even if there is no redirect, an explanation of the Law as opposed to the Revelation should be present.  Notably, does "nothing" mean "there does not exist such an entity" or "the entity of nothingness"?
:I went and checked the story in which the Law first appeared, which was republished in the 2003 book "And Now the News...", the relevant pages of which (97-99) are in turn archived on Google Books. Reading through the source, it seems very clear to me that the intended meaning of the phrase is that, "There does not exist an entity which is always absolutely so." I'm not sure exactly how to move this into the article, or even whether it belongs in the article in the first place (though the section on this original quote does seem remarkably sparse). But hopefully it answered your question, in any case.--Philomory (talk) 03:09, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Explanation of the Law 

message: I went ahead and rewrote parts of the article from the point of view that it is almost always the "90%" meaning that is intended nowadays when people use "Sturgeon's Law".  I left in the information about Sturgeon saying that originally the phrase meant "Nothing is always absolutely so", but that hasn't gained any traction as an adage and I think that it is now of historical interest only.  Mike Christie (talk) 10:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changed Revelation -> Law 

message: I deleted the following text from the article, as it lacked references, states speculation as fact and reeks of original research. If anyone disagrees please tell me why. Pyreforge 09:30, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Deleted Justification section

message: :Sturgeon's Law is often cited using crap or shit instead of crud but "shit" is more commonly used.
* "crap" - 18,700 hits
* "crud" - 10,600 hits
* "shit" - 5 hits
Conclusion: Approximately 41.8 percent of the above sentence is crap. —phh (t/c) 17:39, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sturgeon himself used the word "crud" and no other.  He brought this up several times when he was speaking as the Guest of Honor at Norwescon 1 and Toastmaster at Norwescon 3. Gregory R. Bennett (talk) 19:47, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternative phrasing

message: The second corollary ("Except crap. One hundred percent of crap is crap.") is an exception, not a corollary. I'm not sure if the first one needs to be there either, but the second one is just incorrect. --206.248.165.237 (talk) 03:57, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: On second thought, since the first "corollary" is described in the interpretation section, I've removed the section altogether. Here is the edit if this needs to be un-done: . --206.248.165.237 (talk) 04:00, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

text: If we have a reliable source for that name, sure, we can add it.  Where did you see it under that name? Mike Christie (talk) 23:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Corollaries 

message: I was introduced to this rule of thumb under the name "DeCamp's Law", after L. Sprague De Camp, the author.  Might I suggest there be a cross-reference to that name?
Jimwelch4 (talk) 23:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If we have a reliable source for that name, sure, we can add it.  Where did you see it under that name? Mike Christie (talk) 23:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another Name 

message: I just cut this: "
For the more cynically inclined, there's also Smith's corollary to Sturgeon's Law -- Sturgeon was an optimist" as unsourced; it can be readded if we find a source. Mike Christie (talk) 11:36, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Another corollary

message: I've seen this referenced once or twice elsewhere:  
STURGEON'S THIRD LAW: It is not possible to assemble a device containing small parts without dropping one of those parts in a deep pile carpet.
But I have no idea if there's any real validity to it or if it's something someone tacked on along the way.  Can anyone source this quote any earlier than the collection "Science Fictionalisms" (1992) referenced here: http://unfutz.blogspot.com/2007/04/3089898-life-among-1s-and-0s.html ?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.112.84.40 (talk) 21:57, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Third law?

message: Sturgeon’s Law: “90% of everything is crap.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Law)
Sturgeon’s Law Prime: “90% of all laws are crap.”
Surgeon’s Law Prime-prime: “90% of all laws about laws are crap.”
Surgeon’s Law Prime-prime-prime: “90% of all crappy laws about laws are crap.”  —Preceding unsigned comment added by MikeRozak (talk • contribs) 08:37, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Should be "meta-law"... AnonMoos (talk) 10:36, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-Joke: Amendments to Sturgeon's Law 

message: Good, concise article. In this spirit I suggest removing the link to the "Long tail" article, which appears to describe a interesting concept, yet still finding its contemporary acceptance (per its end-Dec 2010 version). Nrlsouza (talk) 07:06, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  I removed it, and also removed Pareto principle, which was already linked in the main article. Mike Christie (talk – library) 12:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "See also" section 

message: :Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *Support or *Oppose, then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.
* Support – it's no more a proper name than any of the other laws named after people; should be l.c. Dicklyon (talk) 03:32, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: In the body of the article, the extended quotation from Sturgeon is attributed to the March 1958 issue of Venture. But the footnote cites the September 1957 issue. The link in the footnote isn't much help, as it just takes you to the Wikipedia article about the magazine.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hand of Tyr (talk • contribs) 18:45, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Which Issue of Venture?  

message: The article says:
:The inverse is obviously also true: if ninety percent of everything is crap, then [...] there must be ten percent that may be worth something.
but only "may".  The fact that 90% is crap does not preclude the possibility that the other 10% is crap too.
Jordan Brown (talk) 19:22, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I prefer Disraeli's forumulation. "Nine- tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense." Might be worth fitting in the article in the Discussion section. 2001:56A:FB4D:5200:B62E:99FF:FEA3:D19A (talk) 03:53, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  90% is crap does not mean 10% is not-crap 

message: I thought I remembered reading that crud refers to products of average, genuinely mediocre quality, not particularly low quality and not completely worthless, but apparently I'm mistaken and crud is synonymous with crap and feces.
Still, I feel that there's a relevant distinction to be made between products of merely average, "middle of the road" quality, which are typically at least technically competent and can still be at least mildly enjoyable (and some might even class them as decent), and those which are offensively bad. In TV Tropes speak, that would be the difference between "So Okay, It's Average" and "So Bad, It's Horrible" (not to be confused with "So Bad, It's Good", which can actually rise to a level of enjoyability that such works might not even be classed among the crud).
You would not exactly give a product of the first type a glowing recommendation, but you would probably also not warn anyone of it the way you'd warn someone of a product of the second type. In short, it's likely that you wouldn't go out of your way to advise anyone on a product of the first type at all.
That both classes tend to be popularly conflated into a single class is evident in the fact that expressions like mediocre and meh, which properly only apply to the first type, are widely understood to be scathing criticisms of a severeness that products like that arguably do not deserve. You might still feel that products like those are a waste of your precious time, but at least they will probably not feel like torture, just forgettable. Like they deserve a single consumption, but exactly no more than that, no repeated readings or viewings or listenings or anything like that – but also not necessarily regret of the type that you desperately want your time back, or wish you'd never even consumed the product in the first place (or stopped earlier). Like the product should definitely come with a warning label. It doesn't just bore you, but it actively makes you angry.
It makes sense that most products by far, perhaps 80% of the whole, are actually of the first, "middle of the road" type, while only the bottom 10% genuinely deserve being called feces (at least that's how I view it). Therefore, a 10 – 80 – 10 distribution: good – average – bad. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:14, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: While minding that the talk page is not a forum, I'll point out that human perception is largely that mediocre works are actually worse than bad ones, because the genuinely bad works are enjoyable by mockery, but the mediocre works are neither good enough to be enjoyable in their own right or bad enough to be worth mocking. The phenomenon where three-star movies are unpopular because audiences selectively watch only the best movies is commonly noted, but I'm unsure if any notable source describe this in a way Wikipedia could cite. 2001:56A:FB4D:5200:B62E:99FF:FEA3:D19A (talk) 04:12, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Average vs. awful 

message: "Sturgeon deemed Sturgeon's law to mean "nothing is always absolutely so" in the story "The Claustrophile" in a 1956 issue of Galaxy."
The citation is simply the story in Galaxy magazine, but Sturgeon's deeming that "Sturgeon's Law" is not in that story (or anywhere else in the same issue of the magazine, that I can find). I also couldn't find a source for that elsewhere online, but haven't dug deeply yet.
From the short story (p. 128):
 – Spida-tarbell (talk) 22:56, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: SF Dictionary entry on Sturgeon's Law quotes Venture Science Fiction July 1957. Checked source, found it as part of his "On Hand: A Book" column, page 78, so I'll add that as a citation. Arcorann (talk) 12:53, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation for "Nothing is always absolutely so" does not verify claim