Talk:List of films based on sports books

message: I don't think that the Harry Potter books can seriously be classified as "sports books". WHat does anyone else think? I have tried to remove them (as have at least one other editor) but the removals were reverted. I think that without references to reliable sources that describe the Harry Potter books as "sports books", including them here constitutes original research. I would be interested to know what other editors think.--BelovedFreak 09:22, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The Harry Potter books should be excluded. None of the books have sports as the primary subject matter. Erik (talk | contribs) 11:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed with not including them. The books include sporting events, but those are not the primary topics the books revolve around. Andrzejbanas (talk) 12:29, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: This list (and others like it) are silly and subjective.  For example, since when is The Sun Also Rises a sports book?  Yes, it features the running of the bulls, which plays an important role and may even serve as some sort of analogy, but that's not what the book is about.  The characters spend more time fishing than in Pamploma; is it a fishing book as well?  Really, the entire list needs to be culled and cleaned.  Right now it borders on just "here's a list of films based on books that vaguely feature sports (real and fictional)".  Pointless. María (habla conmigo) 12:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you think it would be better to request merging and redirecting to List of sports films? The "based on sports books" criteria is overly granular. I'm not seeing any similar list that is not related to this Wikipedia list, just the typical lists of sports films. Erik (talk | contribs) 14:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Merging/redirecting may be the best course of action, depending on whether or not there is anything that won't simply be duplicated when doing so.  However, my point above was that it's not simply a matter of mis-categorization of "sports books/films"; I see similar issues with the articles listed at List of films based on war books, List of films based on arts books, etc.  These lists work on the misinterpretation on what classifies these particular types of works.  For example, The Naked Civil Servant (film), the biopic about Quentin Crisp based on his autobiography, contains perhaps two minutes about his work as a life model, and plays a minimal role in the book itself; it's not in any way an "arts book", and yet it's listed as if it is.  This is what I meant by problematic, subjective lists.  They create tenuous categorizations for films and books, with little or no referencing to prove what makes them "sports", "arts", or "war" works.  I've seen similar complaints about these articles before, but I'm not sure if anything has been done to fix them? María (habla conmigo) 14:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the comments so far. I agree that merging may be one solution. Some work has been done to try to clean up these lists, and you can see some discussion (as well as all the lists affected) at User:Nihonjoe/Films and User talk:Nihonjoe/Films. The work done so far by User:Nihonjoe, User:*Kat* and me has been to address formatting issues, remove the most obviously unreliable references and to remove unsourced WP:OR commentary. I do agree though that there are bigger issues with notability and classification, and perhaps some of these lists should not exist (at Wikipedia anyway) at all. There have also been huge ownership issues with the primary contributor, User:Varlaam. I have repeatedly tried to engage Varlaam in discussion about these lists (going back to March) but he/she has not appeared to be willing to discuss the problems so far.--BelovedFreak 15:10, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: What Belovedfreak wrote. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 15:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I am aware of the historical issues with the lists, though it is hard to follow up because it's a set of articles typically outside my purview. I will be happy to provide input and assistance with clean-up, so please message me on my talk page if you need an additional opinion or set of hands. Erik (talk | contribs) 16:01, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

text: So, what ought to be done? Delete? Merge? Remove all entries except those that have references to RS that state that they are based on a sports book (or war, or arts or whatever is relevant to the list)?--BelovedFreak 09:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Harry Potter