Talk:Animal Farm in popular culture

message: In the second book of Twilight; New Moon, Bella Swan mentions Animal Farm as an easy subject matter in Chapter 4, on top of page 99.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dragnier (talk • contribs) 05:42, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Twilight

message: this article should be cleaned up and merged into Animal Farm--camr nag 19:26, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, and I've taken the liberty of pulling the refs with no apparent significance as I indicated I would months ago. Doniago (talk) 13:45, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge 

message: Given that the lack of refs has been noted as an issue for over two months now, is there any reason the alleged-but-unsourced references shouldn't be deleted? If this was any other article or there would be less extensive removals involved I wouldn't even bother asking. Doniago (talk) 05:16, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Finally got around to doing this. Doniago (talk) 13:46, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Lack of Sourcing

message: This is silly. This "script" if it is real was found on someone's college user page. What could be more original research than that? Either the "jcurtis" who wrote the script and uploaded it on his bw.edu site, or the editor (possibly the same person) who searched for it and found it? That is original research anyway you slice it, unlike say, the box of DVDs of Oz season 2, which one can buy and read the title of episode seven on. That, in comparison, is something that is self-evident and not even research, let alone "original research". The scope of this article should be to alert the reader (likely a student reading the book for the first time) the full depth and breadth of George Orwell's creation's reach. And by being arbitrary in denying Oz's place for a silly made-up and only selectively-enforced rule is not the right way to go about things. JesseRafe (talk) 03:35, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: As we have noted above, yes, we agree this article is in poor shape. Active Banana  (bananaphone 17:20, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  some guy at Baldwin-Wallace college as a reference? 

message: As evidenced on the Talk page, there has been significant debate regarding what items are appropriate for inclusion in this article. That conversation and a request at WP:DRN failed to draw significant comment from neutral editors. Opinions from uninvolved editors would be welcome. Doniago (talk) 11:05, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I for one am pleased with the current direction of the article, Neby. The main issue Medeis and I were having with Doniago's wholesale edits/deletions was the lack of understanding the difference between primary and secondary sources. I agree that passing references should not be included, but any and all thematic references that also have the title (therefore do not require interpretation, which would be Original Research) should be here, as their own source, without necessarily any secondary sources. JesseRafe (talk) 17:53, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  Neby has taken the needed step of verifying the sources themselves.  This is necessary whether we have a reference to an original work or to a secondary source.  μηδείς (talk) 18:15, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

text: Thank you, but I disagree. You suggest it's appropriate to include "all thematic references that also have the title (therefore do not require interpretation...)". There were several such inclusions here but they did not stand examination. They were misleading to the general reader. Some of them had been misleading the reader for a long time. Unless we are in the business of digging traps for unwary high school students, we should demand the same standards here as we do in the rest of Wiipedia: don't just observe a coincidence, find and refer to a reliable source that asserts there is a connection. NebY (talk) 20:29, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I would add that without reliable sourcing there's also (in most cases) no way to establish that these references are intentional references to Animal Farm. Just because someone says, "Some people are more equal than others", doesn't mean they're aware that they're quoting anything, much less Animal Farm in particular. Doniago (talk) 13:51, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

text: I thought about doing so, but I was attempting to avoid exacerbating what was already proving to be a contentious situation. Animal Farm is almost 45K right now while this article is almost 3K; per WP:LENGTH moving this information back in wouldn't be unduly increasing the size of the parent article. Off the top of my head I'm pretty neutral as to whether it's better to merge this or keep it as a standalone, though I will agree that this article seems somewhat unconventional, and IMO it became tangential enough that when experienced editors were needed to offer feedback it was difficult to solicit feedback without going higher up the ladder than I would have preferred. Doniago (talk) 13:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is appropriate to include in this article? 

message: Having recently edited the article, I may not count as an "uninvolved" editor any longer. What's more, I'm about to edit it again, removing the listing of Animal Farm by The Kinks. I fear whoever included it was unfamiliar with The Kinks and had not even read the article here on the album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, describing the theme of the song as "bucolic escape" in a "concept album lamenting the passing of old-fashioned English traditions," let alone read the lyrics:
"I'll take you where real animals are playing
And people are real people not just playing
Its a quiet, quiet life
By a dirty old shack
That we called our home
I want to be back there
Among the cats and dogs
And the pigs and the goats
On animal farm"
This highlights a problem with these listings. An author does not acquire a lien on a phrase by using it as a book title, however famous it may become; other writers can use the phrase quite independently without making a reference. If as editors we rely on coincidence and our own reading of primary sources, we will lead the reader into error. We need to substantiate our claims and we cannot do that by original research; we need secondary sources.
Similarly, I must excise the recent addition "In the August 14, 2011 Pearls Before Swine strip, Rat writes a book where sheep rebel againist their farmer very much like the book. But, they flee when they see he has shears." The claim that this brief cartoon is "very much like" Animal Farm is the judgement of the editor. That one editor perceives a similarity does not mean that the strip's creator explicitly inserted a direct reference to Orwell's Animal Farm. It's possible, sure; it's equally possible it's a reference to a modern children's book about farmyard animals, or even to The Strike At Shane's (possibly by Gene Stratton-Porter). We don't know what Stephan Pastis has read or whether he was referring to anything he's read. The claim needs substantiating.
I realise that substantiation by secondary sources might be difficult in several cases listed here. However, there is also a wider point as to whether a reference to Animal Farm should be more than passing to be worth including here. If a camera pans across a stack of books and one is Animal Farm, is that a reference worth recording, any more than a sighting of a branded cola bottle or hamburger? If we were clear about this we might not even have to consider whether some cases were truly references. NebY (talk) 16:53, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I for one am pleased with the current direction of the article, Neby. The main issue Medeis and I were having with Doniago's wholesale edits/deletions was the lack of understanding the difference between primary and secondary sources. I agree that passing references should not be included, but any and all thematic references that also have the title (therefore do not require interpretation, which would be Original Research) should be here, as their own source, without necessarily any secondary sources. JesseRafe (talk) 17:53, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  Neby has taken the needed step of verifying the sources themselves.  This is necessary whether we have a reference to an original work or to a secondary source.  μηδείς (talk) 18:15, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

text: Thank you, but I disagree. You suggest it's appropriate to include "all thematic references that also have the title (therefore do not require interpretation...)". There were several such inclusions here but they did not stand examination. They were misleading to the general reader. Some of them had been misleading the reader for a long time. Unless we are in the business of digging traps for unwary high school students, we should demand the same standards here as we do in the rest of Wiipedia: don't just observe a coincidence, find and refer to a reliable source that asserts there is a connection. NebY (talk) 20:29, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I would add that without reliable sourcing there's also (in most cases) no way to establish that these references are intentional references to Animal Farm. Just because someone says, "Some people are more equal than others", doesn't mean they're aware that they're quoting anything, much less Animal Farm in particular. Doniago (talk) 13:51, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

text: I thought about doing so, but I was attempting to avoid exacerbating what was already proving to be a contentious situation. Animal Farm is almost 45K right now while this article is almost 3K; per WP:LENGTH moving this information back in wouldn't be unduly increasing the size of the parent article. Off the top of my head I'm pretty neutral as to whether it's better to merge this or keep it as a standalone, though I will agree that this article seems somewhat unconventional, and IMO it became tangential enough that when experienced editors were needed to offer feedback it was difficult to solicit feedback without going higher up the ladder than I would have preferred. Doniago (talk) 13:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Threaded discussion