Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)/Archive 15

message: I'd like to propose that when we bring the proposed rewrite to the wider community we also add to it the proposition of a noticeboard along the lines of WP:FTN.  I don't think the participants on this talk page are that far apart in our ideals, and I think we'd all watch the noticeboard and we could offer our opinions and involve ourselves in disputed articles and edit them to improve them in line with our editing policy and WP:CONSENSUS, and we could also hash out merge discussions there in a more central area than individual article talk pages which could help tpo take the strain off at afd.  I know this was tried at WP:EPISODE, and it was thought it needed wider consensus if memory serves, so I think if we add the idea to WP:FICT and generate discussion on it and make it a stop in the resolution of disputes such as the one which led to the recent arbcom case.  We need a central area where we can discuss the underlying issues and work out where the real consensus is, and we need to take the load off of afd where it isn't needed.  Appreciate thoughts. Hiding T  12:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm all for that.   We don't need to go as far as a portal/wikiproject, but I can see including AfD and merge requests for fictional works and topics. --MASEM 14:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Sounds good to me. -- Ned Scott 19:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

text: As long as it can be kept active (people commenting on multiple discussions constantly instead of just a few here and there), and everybody goes into it knowing that most of the articles that pass through it will probably be merged or redirected, it can probably work out pretty well. TTN (talk) 21:10, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  No, people would (rightfully) be going into it actively preventing a merge or redirect, likely instigated by a drive-by tagger. People will want to talk about their opposition to the merge / redirect, which will be ignored by those that wanted the merge in the first place. And then, when that happens, people will complain, and we'll be in the same situation as we're in. I still think my "tags go away if the tagger doesn't do work on the page" plan is the best. Scumbag (talk) 21:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Discussions on the potential board will be based in policies and guidelines, so if people are just there to complain, they will just be given links to alternative wikis and suggestions on how to edit the new information. TTN (talk) 21:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

text: it might work as long as we avoid a situation where "everybody goes into it knowing that most of the articles that pass through it will probably be merged or redirected," The articles will be dealt with as they are appropriate. If it becomes a device to keep or delete almost everything, or to fight between those two alternatives,  it's no advance over the present situation. DGG (talk) 03:13, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: it will just be another place for endless debates and everything will end up going through AFD just like is happening now. ALso the TTN stalking is getting really annoying. Ridernyc (talk) 03:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposing a noticeboard 

message: Most articles for the main characters within the Firefly universe do not meet WP:FICT, and still don't after a merge discussion was initiated through AfD, later on the talk page, several weeks ago. Local consensus has still not been found. Bold attempts to merge the articles and transwiki have been reverted several times, and wikilayering without any actual improvement is order of the day. Hence I have started an informal medcab at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-01-09 List of characters in the Firefly universe. If WP:FICT is discouraging AfD or redirect/merge-revert-revert-etc cycles, it should reconfirm its proposed actions there quite easily, or it can be marked as historical if it can't even get non-notability-establishing character articles of a shortrun (yet admittedly popular) TV show merged after all these good-faith measures. – sgeureka t•c 22:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Just remember that the current revision is not yet been posed for wide consensus yet.  I don't know if this would affect that case, however. --MASEM 23:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: At the time the merge proposal was initiated, the current guideline still had consensus. Your latest draft, which seems to have significant support from both inclusionists and deletionists so far, would suggest a merge also, so I don't expect the outcome of the case to be influenced by the current discussions here at all. – sgeureka t•c 23:41, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-01-09 List of characters in the Firefly universe|Informal MedCab]] for character articles within the Firefly universe 

message: Diff from #7a to #8 Full #8  -no significant changes beyond adding language for individual characters/episodes inspired by WP:EPISODE.
I know of two editors that appear to have major disagreements with this (Nydas due to issues of more popular fandoms seeming to get better treatment over any other type of fictional work, and Peregrine Fisher concerns about if FICT is even needed).  I understand both POVs, but I think resolving them is not solely an issue with FICT; Nydas' concerns reflect wider systematic bias, while Peregrine's reflect more how FICT fits into everything else and if it is really needed, both which are wider WP issues.  
I am going to start requesting more eyes to look at this through WP:VPP, WP:N and various fiction-based Wikiprojects; if you know a project that I don't hit, please set a request there as well.  This is not meant to get consensus, but as a last check to make sure there are no significant issues not addressed before going for global consensus. --MASEM 16:23, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Suggest also to request at  and its various project talk pages. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 18:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

text: While most of it is okay, I object to the entire "Dealing with non-notable fictional topics."  It is very obviously a reaction to the massive clean up effort among certain article types (like TV and anime).  It is practically a check list of the complaints from the fandom that have resisted those clean up efforts and are trying to get WP:EPISODE axed.  It gives the impression that no more bad fictional articles should ever be deleted (which is blatantly wrong), and rather editors should just be patted on the head and just given forever to fix up article that really can't ever meet the guidelines.  Let the current WP:FICT guideline on that aspect stand.  It already spells things out well and properly notes that non-notable stuff can be deleted if the other options can't be done (including if they can't be done because rabid fans refuse to allow a merge to happen without an AfD basically "ordering" it).  AnmaFinotera (talk) 19:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Draft #8 - ready for wider review 

message: About the the proposed version of the guideline.
in-universe and out-of-universe are writting perpectives, and don't define the "kind of content", which is defined either as real-world content or fictional content. One of the issues that make this choice of words confusing is the fact that it is possible to write fictional content (a plot summary for example) from an out-of-universe perspective instead of from an in-universe one.
For now, I'll go ahead and change "in-universe" to "finctional" where appropriate. Kazu-kun (talk) 21:11, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to me that the writing perspective is what is intended. For example, if I say "Mario lives in the Mushroom Kingdom", that is in-universe content. I am talking about Mario as though I were in that universe. I would not call it fictional content—the sentence is real. Pagrashtak 21:38, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the point is that Mario is a fictional character who doesn't really "live" anywhere - at least not in the sense that you (I assume) and I do. [[Guest9999 (talk) 21:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Kazu-kun is correct here when it comes to notability - we want real-world notability instead of fictional notability.  I will, however, point to writing about fiction which is where writing in "in-universe" vs "out-of-universe" and is covered more there.  --MASEM 22:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you're missing what I'm saying. I agree that we want real-world notability and not fictional notability. In this edit, the phrase "If there is an imbalance of in-universe information in an article..." is changed to "If there is an imbalance of fictional information in an article...". To me, "fictional information" means information that is fictional, or information that is not real. An article with in-universe content is real—it exists in the real world and I'm reading it on a real computer. It's not fictional, it's just in-universe. The Necronomicon, on the other hand, is a fictional book and contains fictional content. Kazu-kun was right to change some of the wordings to "fictional", but I disagree with some of them. Am I stating this clearly? Pagrashtak 06:20, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right too :-).  In describing the content (on balance/depth of coverage) it's the amount of "in-universe" vs "out-of-universe" detail that should be balanced.  The concept of "real world" vs "fictional" refers to the notability aspect, not content. --MASEM 06:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  In-universe content? 

message: I don't quite grasp the distinction being made between the two sections Notable topics and Summary style approach. They seem to be saying more or less the same thing, but going about it in different ways. Are they talking about how to deal with splitting out independently notable singletons and sets, respectively? or what? I find it confusing, as written. (Aside from this issue, I like the proposal a lot. It's grown a lot of clarity, the past month.) —Quasirandom (talk) 01:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The first section deals with topics that have their own demonstrated notability; they can sit by themselves, they rarely are at issue for deletion, etc.  The other section deals with using summary style to split off non-notable sections of a topic - validating their existence despite not having notability on their own, but presenting the information in an appropriate Summary Style.  Maybe renaming them may be better  "Notable topics - Individual Articles" and "Non-notable topics - Summary Style Sub-articles" to make the difference clear.  Suggestions on making this clear are appreciated. --MASEM 01:37, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't like the idea of calling the section "non-notable".  Even though a child article is probably not independently notable, it seems ungood to call it such, as the instinctive reaction on hearing of such a thing is "DELETE IT!".  I agree the term "Summary style articles" is also a bit confusing though.  Perhaps something like, "Size-motivated content forks", "Child articles" or just "Sub-articles" would be better.  I have no strong preference in any direction. -Verdatum (talk) 01:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a problem--I have 2 suggestions 1/"notability related to the matin article" or 2/ "notability dependent on the main article"DGG (talk) 08:57, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Go on. It's entirely possible that -- for instance -- a soap opera or a comic with a large ensemble cast will require an extra character article for any kind of adequate description. A blanket ban on sub-articles without multiple non-trivial et cetera would disregard the sub-articles' significant and occasionally vital capacity for organization. --Kizor 09:35, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Trying to make sure about your point: we are not preventing the general "list of characters" that relies on the main article to establish notability - that type of article has been and will be (but more explicitly stated) reasonable.  But this part of your quote: will require an extra character article for any kind of adequate description is the one that I may be misreading but I want to check on.  If you are talking about expanding the details of a single character (itself non-notable) from a list of non-notable characters, this is strongly not what we want.  This is more covered in "depth of coverage" - if you have so many fictional details of that character that it seems to make sense to break it off into summary style from a character list, you likely have too many fictional details and have an imbalance of fictional info.  We don't need to give complete fictional biographies to help understand the characters in context of the notable work.   It is not that there will never been the need for a non-notable sub-article on a singular aspect of the fictional work, but really needs to be demonstrated well that the need is present. --MASEM 14:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: On the topic of summary style lists, can we possibly add something that clarifies to those that will just skim the section that not every work will need a list of x? I can see tons of people using it to say that every single video game or Saturday morning cartoon will require a separate list. TTN (talk) 14:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This goes with the comments in the previous talk section about how to write fictional appropriately (and thus can also be addressed in WP:WAF, and is sorta implied by the notation of SS, but I can see adding "Such sub-articles should not be created until they are needed." --MASEM 14:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sort of talking about the people just looking to wikilawyer or the people that don't really read these in depth rather than those that would actually read through WAF. I was sort of thinking of just a bold message "This section should not be used to argue over creating new lists. Editors should discuss the relevance of the..." or something of that nature to keep people from citing it without actually reading it. TTN (talk) 14:51, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

text: (to DGG) I'm not sure we want to call it "notability related to the main article", because we also have transcended notability cases (eg Superman).  Maybe the easiest thing to do is to simply spell it out in the section name: "Notable topics merit individual articles" / "Sub-articles for summary style"? --MASEM 14:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I like those two headings. Especially with the caveats mentioned above. —Quasirandom (talk) 14:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Query about the Demonstrating Notability section of the current draft 

message: This is a good point to look back to.  I've thought about this more and I can see where DHowell and others are coming from.  I know WP:PSTS is under some flux at the moment, but if one takes the definition of secondary sources as "Secondary sources are references that draw on research and other references to make interpretive, analytical, or synthesized claims, or create a general overview.", then a reliable in-universe source that takes a minor character and creates a whole novel where that character is significantly features, extrapolating from the few roles that character had on the original fictional work, could be considered secondary, and thus can be used for notability.  Mind you, this needs to be a significant expansion on the character (such as the Dax book); if it's just the minor character appearing again and getting a few more lines but otherwise no "interpretive claims", then its primary and not appropriate.  Basically, such works would nearly need to be exclusively about that character to be an appropriate secondary in-universe source.  
I would throw one caution into the works: WP:NOTE requires "significant" coverage.  One such source is not significant coverage, but can be part of the overall notability demonstration.  The Dax article being a weird case (due to being a Trill), the single mention in the book and possibly on DS9 to Dax's other hosts is not enough to give those other host/trill forms enough notability for their own page; alternatively, it would make sense to incorporate those into a "Dax" page that includes the show's two forms along with brief mention of the other forms. --MASEM 14:56, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "With a good amount devoted to the fan favoritism of the character." Problem here. How exactly do we source the fan response to a character when we are not treating fan sites or non-professional reviews  as valid sources? The guideline does not seem to clarify this yet. Dimadick (talk) 22:06, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be though reliable sales information or press statements from the publishers.  --MASEM 22:14, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sales information only reflects on the popularity of any given work of fiction or series of them. Not on how the audience reacts to an individual character featured in it. How is the publisher aware of the opinions of fans is beyond me. Fan letters and e-mails? Dimadick (talk) 23:11, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The only way "fan opinion" can be measured is through reliable, third-party sources. You couldn't measure it from a fansite, because you're limiting your measurement to only the people that frequent that website. Most polls are not reliable because they tend lack reliability and don't represent the sample they claim to accurately. Meaning, if a fansite held a poll and 500 people voted, it probably wouldn't be a representative sample of fans for whatever show they were asking about. It's the same reason we don't use IMDb's "user ratings", because most of the time they suffer from vote stacking and lack of representation. That is why we always lean to more reliable approaches like financial measurements. Sometimes sources come alone, like news organizations, that report on the "huge following of fans" that a fictional topic has, but most of the time they don't.   BIGNOLE   (Contact me) 23:23, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Secondary In-universe sources (section break)