Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)/Archive 10

message: As "disputed" refers only to mainspace, i have used the tag "proposed" following the suggestion of MASEM. I know he;d rather that his view on what it should be would be the accepted one, but it isnt, any more than it seems mine its. 
I will develop mine further on a subpage. 
And I invite anyone who thinks possible to prepare a minimal guideline that we can all agree on temporarily, to try and do so. It will have to omit the disputed points, of course. The proposed one as desired by MASEM and supporters can then become a subpage. DGG (talk) 22:27, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:FICT is our inclusion criteria for when sub-topics of a work of fiction should be split into a sub-article. If people want to argue about how other people abuse it in AfD, that's one thing, but I'm getting a little tired of people going after the guideline for things it does not promote. -- Ned Scott 23:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm tired of people stating this page does not advocate deletion for articles that do not provide evidence of notability' when it quite specifically does. Deletion discussions for articles that do not provide evidence of the notability of their subject should be guided by the following principles.  There are no alternatives to nominating for deletion listed.  This page guides that an article which does not provide evidence of significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject should be listed for deletion automatically. Hiding T  23:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you want to change some wording, go ahead, but the point of it all is to encourage real-world information. Real world information is not normally found in the fiction itself.  -- Ned Scott 23:51, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought that was what the manual of style at WP:WAF was for.  Do we need two pages doing the same thing? Hiding T    23:54, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the inclusion criteria for articles themselves, rather than the recommended writing style. Yes, it overlaps in many areas, but the point is that the existence, or even just the potential of real world information is needed before making another article. -- Ned Scott 23:56, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That being said, a single page might be feasible, or some other kind of reorganization, an idea that has been tossed around here from time to time. -- Ned Scott 05:34, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Um..."The article is deleted if the above options are either redundant, unavailable, or inappropriate. To avoid inefficiency, editors should only nominate articles that clearly fall into this category.[7]". That's actually nicer than the other notability criteria. Also, most of this page deals with "alternatives to nominating for deletion"—take a look at the "dealing with fiction" and "relocating..." sections. — Deckiller 19:53, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Take a look at how the section on non-notable topics begins.  Don't read any further because you've already been told to go to afd and list it. The whole section is slanted towards deletion or listing of the article.  Note how prescriptive this guidance is, dictating the only reason why an article can be kept at afd, something which conflicts with WP:CONSENSUS and WP:DP.  That's far too aggressive a description of when articles are kept, too.  this coverage is explicitly referenced in the deletion discussion.  That's just nonsense.  It's long standing practise that if a consensus of Wikipedians believe that the sources exist, that is enough.  There doesn't have to be explicit referencing, there just has to be enough people stating their belief that sources can be found.  That's because Wikipedia has no deadline, and the idea is that we grow articles from small seeds.  We don't always expect them to be planted as mighty oaks. This guidance conflicts with common practise and policy and needs rewriting to better fit both. Hiding T  20:08, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

text: that's the wording with which I started. Let's now think of a way to say that they are a preferable way of  dealing with  groups of minor characters--one page for all of them, as paragraphs.  Then we can go on to say its the preferable way of dealing with plot elements. Not just acceptable for technical reason, but preferable if the article is at all complicated or the work of fiction important.  If we get that far, we can keep going on the other mary disputed points. I think some of them are even more critical, but lets start somewhere.  DGG (talk) 02:19, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's still a technical or style reason, though. In theory, we could make just one large article, but we don't prefer one massive article, and there are cases when a character or element is shared by more than one work, etc. As TTN said, it sounds like you want improved wording, rather than disputing the guideline itself, which I am all for. -- Ned Scott 05:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Sorry, I'm not sure I understand you.  Could you clarify as to whether you are including me in that statement.  As an editor who has created and helped draft a number of notability guides, the WP:PLOT section of WP:NOT and relevant sections of WP:V, but who also disputes this guidance as it stands, I completely reject your baseless attempt to colour the debate in this manner and your false accusations and attempts to impugn my character.  Rather than attempt to derail this debate with such dismissive tones towards your fellow editors, would it not be better to actually follow WP:CONSENSUS and engage with the issues at hand. Note that consensus can only work among reasonable editors who make a good faith effort to work together to accurately and appropriately describe the different views on the subject. At the minute I would ask all editors engaged in reaching a consensus to disregard your statement, which obviously isn't in keeping with our policy. Hiding T  19:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Woah woah, very sorry if I wasn't clear, I was referring to DGG, since I feel that as he could not prevent the deletion of many Elder Scrolls related articles, he instead came here and tagged the whole fiction policy as disputed, which angered me. I simply am here to put in my thoughts, which are that the policy should not be loosened to include articles with no coverage other than plot recitation, because it reduces our encyclopedias quality. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 14:33, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is that what this is all about? -- Ned Scott 04:23, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope. Not on my part, and I resent the implication.  Although a trawl through User:Judgesurreal777's contribs suggest he also has a position to protect. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Hiding T  15:48, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  tagged as "proposed" 

message: There's some sorting going on at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting which might prove useful for sourcing examples.  Have a look at:
* Wikipedia:WikiProject Anime and manga/Deletion Archive
* Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Comics and animation/archive
* Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Science fiction/archive
* Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Literature/archive
* Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Film/archive
* Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Fictional characters/archive
Those should offer some indication of where Wikipedia is at.  Hiding T  22:44, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Examples

message: Imagine two TV shows. One is a sci-fi show with a devoted fanbase, the other is a romantic sitcom with a non-devoted fanbase. Both have similar ratings, win similar numbers of awards and get similar amounts of mainstream media coverage. Both shows have a character of medium importance. In the sci-fi show, the character is an alien who is created with prosthetics and computer effects. In the sitcom, the character a regular human. The sci-fi show's fanbase creates a fertile market for supplementary material (including out-of-universe stuff about the alien), whilst the sitcom may get one or two guidebooks if it's lucky.
Does the alien character deserve an article more than the human?--Nydas(Talk) 16:05, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, assuming that the alien character has coverage of that character in secondary sources; particularly information about how the actor has to be prepped for the role, that's all secondary sources directly relating to that character.  --MASEM 16:09, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Even though it's arguably a violation of neutral point of view? Would you support deleting obscure Indian politicians because we can't get them to the same standard as obscure US politicians? --Nydas(Talk) 16:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP can only report on what's out there.  If an editor purposely ignored one aspect of a topic despite information in secondary sources, that can be considered a bias, but if there's nothing out there to pull information from, there's not much WP can do.  Mind you, there is a language issue here, as this is the english version of WP.  I would suspect that if you ask the same question if we were on the Hindi WP, the info for the US politician would be the one for deletion.  An ultimate goal is to translate all pages of all WP to all other languages, so at some point, a Hindi/English literate person could help translate sources from Indian papers and the like and make that Indian politician sufficiently notable.  However, without either the translation help to identify sources or english-based sources, that article would likely be deleted or merged. --MASEM 16:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: English is widely spoken in India. Sources are hard to come by for socio-economic reasons.--Nydas(Talk) 16:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While it is a bias, it is not one under Wikipedia's control. --MASEM 16:59, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes it is. We just say that every elected official can be covered, since we can establish that they exist. Our policies, which rough consensus should be declared using, state that our articles can report what they can source. Guidance, which does not trump policy, declares that there has to be independent sources in loads of different sources of substantial length, but that can be ignored. We have it within our power to do whatever we want as long as we do it in a neutral manner and all loosely agree. If it improves Wikipedia and doesn't breach WP:NPOV, we are allowed to do it. Hiding T  17:23, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability and special effects 

message: Since this was drowned out by rantings, I'll put it in its own section:
From what I understand there are two parts that are "in dispute". One is about the secondary sources having to be independent. I can see softening this point as long as we still emphasize real-world information. We're so desperate for real world information that we're often forgiving when the bulk of it comes from DVD commentary and production notes. It's also not as much of an issue considering most of these articles are not actually independent from their parent in the first place. It will make little difference for the really problematic articles.
The other part is to further advocate other alternatives over deletion. I totally agree with this, as do a lot of us here, but we must be careful to not encourage people to simply game the system. Such advice might need it's own page altogether since there's so much of it, but we'll see. -- Ned Scott 22:58, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Core issues 

message: Articles that have potential to show notability should be given reasonable time to develop. To avoid this problem, do not split or create content unless the new article includes substantial real-world content (and ideally an out-of-universe perspective) from the onset. Editors should be prepared to demonstrate that there is an availability of sources covering real-world information by: providing hyperlinks to sources detailing real-world information about the topic; outlining a rewrite, expansion, or merge plan; and/or gaining the consensus of established editors. Otherwise, the article will be subject to the options mentioned below. Place appropriate clean-up tags to stimulate activity and mark the articles as sub-par (but with potential).
Articles that do not show notability can therefore be kept for a short time, merged, moved elsewhere, redirected or listed for deletion. If an article fails to cite sufficient sources to demonstrate the notability of its subject, look for sources yourself, or:
*Ask the article's creator for advice on where to look for sources.
*Put the  tag on the article to alert other editors. 
*If the article is about a specialized branch of fiction, use the  tag with a specific WikiProject to attract editors knowledgeable about that field, who may have access to reliable sources not available online.
If appropriate sources cannot be found, consider merging the article's content into a broader article providing context. For instance, articles on minor characters in a work of fiction may be merged into a "list of minor characters in ...".
The 1st Battle of Sarapin summarized a portion of the plot for the game Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. Relevant information was merged into the plot synopsis of the Galactic Battlegrounds article, and the 1st Battle of Sarapin link now redirects there.
Alyosha Karamazov is a major character from the novel The Brothers Karamazov. He is covered comprehensively in the Brothers Karamazov article, and the Alyosha Karamazov link redirects there for convenience due to lack of real-world content.
 If there is a suitable project other than Wikipedia which may cover the topic in question, consider a transwiki. An article can be transwikied to a suitable Wiki such as Wikia or its Wikipedia Annex. The article is then redirected to the most relevant article to preserve edit history for the transwiki.
The Xenosaga lists on planets, terms, and organizations had no chance of showing notability, so they were transwikied to the Xenosaga Wikia and redirected to the main Xenosaga page.
 Otherwise, if deleting:Wikipedia editors have been known to reject nominations for deletion that have been inadequately researched. Research should include attempts to find sources which might demonstrate notability, and/or information which would demonstrate notability in another manner.
*If the article meets our criteria for speedy deletion, one can use a criterion-specific deletion tag listed on that page.
*Use the  tag, for articles which do not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, but are uncontroversial deletion candidates. This allows the article to be deleted after five days if nobody objects.  For more information, see Wikipedia:Proposed deletion.
*For cases where you are unsure about deletion or believe others might object, nominate the article for the articles for deletion process, where the merits will be debated and deliberated for 5 days.
List of Star Destroyers was deleted because it was not written in an encyclopedic manner and failed to show real-world importance. The information was already available on Wookiepedia and a merge was considered unnecessary, so deletion was the suitable option.
How about that?  I know you don't think expert specific applies, but I'm thinking of instances where the article is new, it may not have shown up on the radar of other interested parties as yet.  But that's a quibbl we can go one way or the other on.  Anything else there that needs to be tweaked? It's mostly a merge of what we've got now woth what we had in the rewrite and what we have at WP:N and WP:GTD. Hiding T  10:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Non-notable topics