Wikipedia talk:Fancruft

message: Because of the ban on fancruft, pretty much every major fictional universe with a serious fanbase has its own Wiki. Every single Star Trek article links to the corresponding article on Memory Alpha. The articles are usually pretty much identical, though Memory Alpha usually has more detail that anyone searching for a minor Star Trek character like Willard Decker or T'Pau (Star Trek) probably wants to know. To me, this just seems like a wasted duplication of effort and an inconvenience to readers. Provided it were technologically feasible, I'd like to see these special-purposes Wikis integrated as subsets of Wikipedia. I guess my real question is: why bother having an entry on Wikipedia for these sorts of things at all, if a superior entry (ie, appealing more to the tastes of those who wish to find it) exists elsewhere? -Anþony 05:10, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A problem I encounter long ago. Lets me express why it isn't alway a good idea to get rid of article only becuase there's external Wiki existed. While I have no problem with external Wikis with well-organize staff, some aren't good as it should be. If external Wiki existed for whatever fiction, I would want to see it more reliable with staff who keep de-speculation and hoax from articles. If it isn't good enough, contributors here most likely ignore it. And sometime the contributors at extarnal Wikis even copy stuff from here, Wikipedia. And I can tell you, have your article deleted because someone copy your own stuff and put it in minor site leave nothing but bitter taste. In short, I think it's nice idea if we trimmed down some articles and put link(s) to external Wiki with better information offer, but deleted it only because there is external Wikis on the subject is bad.L-Zwei 05:37, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We've tried this with WikiFur. The trouble I've found is that people sometimes delete the links because they're to another wiki. More often, of course, they just delete the articles here because they are viewed as being on non-notable topics. Perhaps a better approach is to write summary pages that link to the other wiki for more information, but then you end up with articles filled with interwiki links. I wouldn't mind that so much, as it dissuades trivial recreation of the articles here on Wikipedia, but I just know people are going to view that as undue promotion of a wiki that doesn't meet Wikipedia's expectations of verifiability. The only reasonable solution I see is some kind of interwiki search engine that presents results when an article is not found, but warns explicitly that the site is a different site from Wikipedia, with different rules. GreenReaper 08:13, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fancruft's impact on external Wikis 

message: Such as the Brokeback Mountain awards page, and Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky career achievements pages. People who come here may not be aware you can even do this. If this isn't done fancruft can become like an infection or virus which spreads incessantly killing the host page. See this previous version of Dwyane Wade for an example (go to the bottom Awards/Honors section). Quadzilla99 07:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: I propose adding a section explaining (or suggesting) how and when you should create a subpage

message: see Talk:Unending —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.72.144.19 (talk) 19:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: fancruft alert

message: A rewrite of WP:FICT is being proposed at Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)#Rewrite proposed. Needs polishing, clarification, and so on, but it's a start. — Deckiller 22:04, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: WP:FICT rewrite

message: Quote "This is primarily due to the fact that things labeled as fancruft are often poorly written, unreferenced, unwikified, and non-neutral - all valid reasons for deletion." No - these are all valid reasons for editing! Articles don't get deleted just because they are unwikified, for example. 81.92.18.58 (talk) 22:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:Be bold!  I've fixed it, but the sentence could probably use some expansion as to why such articles can be deletion-worthy. -- Ddxc (talk) 08:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Valid reasons for deletion, Not 

message: Ive proposed this for a guideline on count if it is put as a guideline it would make articles with a fan basen more professional.EE 01:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: *Both of which have so far miserably failed at keeping unsuitable stuff at bay. Everyme (was Dorftrottel) (talk) 16:54, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Because there is no consensus as to what "unsuitable stuff" is. BreathingMeat (talk) 05:31, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Also, if everything was always left to so called "professionals" nothing would ever get done. The British were the "professional" colonizers of America, but in the end the "fans"(Americans) won out because they knew better than some fools thousands of miles away. I would agree that in some cases there are groups of people who are waaaaaay to deeply into a subject and they take it to seriously, to the point of being unhelpful, but in most cases, the fans are just more knowledgable, and if they throw in information not interesting non-fans, so F---ing what? If it is in fact so unbelievably repugnant to your way of tastes/that broomstick up your ass, then click the magical "back" button on your browser and forget it was there. It is not your job to decide who is giving "too much information". Nor is it anyone's. Until the internet "runs out space" leave the couple extra sentences about random factual trivia alone. Zell65 (talk) 16:34, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

text: *OK. If you'd just tell your founding fathers to keep their World of Warcraft trivia inside the video gaming domain and out of the Giant Panda article that'd be fine with me. BreathingMeat (talk) 21:15, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed Guideline 

message: Since removing of Fancruft is going to cause problems and potentially pressure people into resigning out of disgust, which I did when I had chosen to quit as an official user it will just create a potentially unstable working environment. Personally I think of conducting a verifiability test and moving what can be proven to a separate Wiki would be a good choice since it can give what both sides of the conflict want and help with dealing with Wikipedia's criticism especially since the one thing I value more than keeping these article that people call Fancruft on Wikipedia is to move them to an appropriate site since many of these Wiki's are in bad shape and could use the help. -71.193.181.210 (talk) 00:37, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Another way of dealing with Fancruft

message: I think this essay contains some good info, but is unnecessarily complicated.  Basically I think many new and existing articles/sections simply fall under this straight forward and effective description: 
::"Has excessive trivia, irrelevant praise, criticism, lists, or collections of links"
There's no need to introduce the "cruft" term which is foreign to most users.  What is the purpose of describing it as hacker neologism, when you can succinctly use the description above?   There's also no need for all the other cruft and Star Wars/Star Trek references.  This essay comes across as being very hacker-ish, Sci-Fi focused, when something like excessive trivia/praise can apply to pretty much anything.  
Don't you think it would be more effective to just say "Has excessive trivia, irrelevant praise, criticism, lists, or collections of links" rather than having to explain what cruft means?   
Futhermore, I don't understand why WP:FANSITE redirects to wp:external links, while WP:FAN goes here. 
I find many articles in need of cleanup where the fansite tag seems appropriate, but I don't like this as the landing page. 
Perhaps the best thing to do is just create a new essay for WP:FAN and let this one stay? I don't know. 
Thank You
--Omarcheeseboro (talk) 14:48, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:FAN]] redirecting here 

message: I added "pejorative" to the first sentence. Ikip (talk) 11:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: I added "pejorative" to fancruft is a term

message: The positive aspects section basically says "the upside to calling something 'cruft' is that it encourages people to improve the article so it's not deleted".  No.  There are better (and more official) ways to point out that an article needs improvement (eg. referring to Wikipedia:NOT) without resorting to the ambiguous and confronting term 'cruft'.  There are no positive aspects to calling an article cruft that cannot be better achieved in other ways. I believe the "positive aspects" section should be entirely removed. --Irrevenant [ talk ] 13:15, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of "Positive aspects" section. 

message: This article mainly discusses fans of movies or TV shows but I'm running into pages of musicians and musical groups that include extremely long lists of every single song/record the artist contributed to and even every single TV appearance the artist has made. Clearly a lot of work went into compiling all of this and, as a nonfan, I'm reluctant to pick and choose what is important and which is of interest only to hardcore fans. 
Also, on some actor's pages, there is a list of every single TV appearance the actor made which, in some cases, can lead to a list of 50 or 60 titles, making the page resemble IMDb rather than an encyclopedia entry. Are there guidelines about this? 69.125.134.86 (talk) 13:14, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose it all just ends up being guided by WP:V - if there isn't a reliable source to verify that a particular fact is true then it really can just be removed. Otherwise, it seems like WP:INDISCRIMINATE applies. §everal⇒|Times 15:46, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about music? 

message: Soooo...basically, we should strive to avoid fancruft in articles, yet not use the TERM fancruft to describe fancruft, because that might seem pejorative, thus violating WP:CIVIL and potentially earning you a block.
Sweet. So glad we have these well-organized essays around to clarify things. Bravo Foxtrot (talk) 04:40, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, this essay does miss the point a bit about the term 'fancruft'. What seems like more of a WP:CIVIL violation (and a violation of common courtesy, for that matter) is to use the term to absolutely dismiss any idea without further discussion. Usage of term itself shouldn't be offensive unless it is used in an uncivil context. §everal⇒|Times 14:31, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: More often than not, I've seen editors blank entire sections or even entire articles stating "Blanked..Cruft" or something like that.  The use of the term "Cruft" (which in some connotations literally means "garbage") is in itself uncivil.  To blank entire articles without a word of discussion is even worse...yet it does happen. -O.R.Comms 02:25, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pejorative, violates WP:CIVIL? 

message: There should be more discussions about video game cruft, especially with the GamerGate controversy.  Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 02:20, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I've found video game articles coming under quite a bit of attack lately.  The entire policy on game articles needs to be reviewed.  Too many articles are being essentially blanked under the term "Revert..Cruft".  I am certainly not the one to start the battle, but I think it does need to be discussed. -O.R.Comms 02:25, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I must agree. Inclusionists' and deletionists' views should both be considered and for each case, a thorough discussion is needed.  Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 02:25, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about video games? 

message: I'm posting this here as this appears the right place to discuss the issues of Fancruft. :-) I must admit that I've not been aware of this term or its usage in Wikipedia before yesterday, so I'm new here. 
It has been suggested to me by editor Coretheapple in the  Discussion area of a current GA reassessment that the review be brought to the attention of a wider audience. The article in question is Hyacinth Graf Strachwitz; no specialist World War II knowledge is required to be able to contributed to the GAR. 
The article has been described as "Fancruft" by the editor who suggested I seek more opinions, while another editor described it as ""Nazi Fancruft". 
I would welcome a review of the article to see if it still meets Wikipedia:Good article criteria and whether it should be retained or delisted as a Good article. I would also welcome any feedback you'd be willing to share. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:57, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It might be fancruft to me, despite it not having to do with a fictional work.  Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 00:25, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  GAR input sought; possibly Fancruft related 

message: I ran across Major characters in The Railway Series from the books The Railway Series. Even though it is primarily sourced I could see some importance from a children's point of view. I also saw Wikipedia:WikiProject Thomas and a Should I create an article, or not? section that includes "...it is not necessary to create a new article for every single place, person and concept in the stories.". I saw an AFD for Minor characters in The Railway Series and thought, "now it is spreading" and then ran across the unsourced The Small Controller also at AFD. 
There is the unsourced (single source but dead link) Annie and Clarabel, the single primary sourced only Bertie the Bus, the unsourced (reference is to a general site about a Sikorsky S-55 helicopter and nothing on the subject) Harold the Helicopter, and the primary sourced Terence the Tractor. 
The railroads are the single primary but dead linked North Western Railway (fictional) that is complete with an almost full page drawing of the fictional railway, the large general sourced (no inline citations) Skarloey Railway, and the rest, Culdee Fell Railway, Arlesdale Railway, Mid Sodor Railway (totally unsourced), and The Sodor & Mainland Railway. I can add the totally unsourced and ambiguously named The Other Railway and there are most likely others. 
I think this "list" of articles on fictional characters has gotten out of hand and should be added to the other examples already in the essay. Otr500 (talk) 13:14, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles about fictional works 

message: This essay assumes that fancruft refers to whole articles. I usually come across it as sections or factoids within an otherwise viable article. Would anybody object if I rephrased parts of the essay accordingly? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:08, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sections and factoids 

message: Hi all,
Is the statement "information that is trivial and of importance only to a small population of fans" supposed to be read as "a small population" of all fans who are likely to read a given page, or "a small population of fans" across the entire Wikipedia readership, and in either case how is that measured? For context, how does Fancruft apply in the context of a section intended as an article appendix? As an example, this former edit of a page covers the details of a specific class of Australian locomotive. At the end was a section for "model railways", which I thought was reasonably concise (while the table was collapsed). Putting aside issues of other policies e.g. WP:Promotion, WP:OR, WP:NOTACATALOGUE etc. for the sake of this discussion, was it correct to remove the section on grounds of WP:Fancruft?
Anothersignalman (talk) 18:27, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fancruft as portions of articles?