User talk:DGG/Archive 0.33

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I have in the last couple of days called for keeping a plot summary for Les Miserables, Angel (TV series) and Buffy (TV series) because the Hugo novel is important in popular culture, and one hears references to it or to situations and characters in it, but no one should have to plow through the endless turgid prose and meandering plot. The TV series are quite different. The plot article provides an overview of the plot arc for the season, which is an emergent property not found in the extremely short capsule summaries for each episode. I am opposed to having detailed, scene by scene plot summaries of every comedy, drama, and cartoon, but a well written overview of series with season-long plot arcs seems quite encyclopedic. These do not relate every event from every episode. I know there is a bias against keeping an article because it is "useful" (heaven forbid anyone should ever find something "useful" in Wikipedia), but if I've heard about a TV show like "Lost" with a complex plot line, knowing the history of the show helps make the next episode comprehensible and entertaining. Seeing one sentence about each episode of a show which has been on several years does not give the reader/viewer the "big picture" like the 2 TV plot guides do. I feel that WP:NOT strongly needs a revision to this effect, but I am all too aware that a cabal will smite down anyone who tries to change a policy without "consensus" when it only takes one or two doctrinaire editors to object and deny that consensus and revert the change. Consensus can also be shown by a set of AFD outcomes. Other TV shows like this might be "The Sopranos," "X-Files" or any other long running series wherein there are plot arcs beyond the individual episode. In contrast, many comedies, cop shows, westerns like "Gunsmoke", and even juvie sci-fi series like "Lost in Space" had pretty much stand alone episodes, with little or no carryover of plot elements from one episode to the next. The fallback position is to call for the season-arc episode guides to replace the existing series-long episode guides in articles about such shows as "Buffy" or "Angel." Shows like these two have been the subject of reviews and conferences with scholarly papers read, and there have been books written about each season, so one could add as many references as necessary to satisfy any requirement that the content be reference based and not OR. Edison 16:26, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

There are 100 references for the main Buffy the Vampire Slayer article. Major references for the plot arcs would be the series of books called "The Watcher's Guide". These are reliable, but arguably not independent, since they have ties to 20th Century Fox. But there are lots of fully reliable and independent sources about the larger plot arcs, also listed as refs at the Buffy main article, such as DVD reviews at Rotten Tomatos, many of which are from legitimate sources such as Salon, which has editorial supervision and identified reviewers (as opposed to fan reviews)., for instance . There is the whole Buffy studies which lists academic works on the series, for those who are more into it than casual watchers such as me. Edison 17:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I saw your comment on the Notability page. So I take it you'd rather see something like this for television show episodes, rather than something like this? BIGNOLE (Contact me) 00:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I posted this on the TfD as well, but I really wanted to make sure you saw my reply:

DGG, I can't stress this enough, these tags were never meant to be used like this. They were never meant to be added in mass without the tagger looking at the articles and doing some initial evaluation. Abuse of the tool should be addressed, deleting the tool because one user over did it is not a good thing, and just screws everyone else over. The discussions themselves are now being held on individual "list of episodes" articles, instead of a centralized area, and these tags are a way to help more people collaborate with the process. By deleting these templates you are only making that small group stay small. A new idea will always start small, but on Wikipedia things like that grow extremely fast. If you snipe the process before it has a change to get off the ground, then people won't be able to find it. The first template was nominated for deletion before a single episode article even got reviewed. -- Ned Scott 05:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I have come to oppose the entire project, because of the demonstrated effect it has already had on articles. I think the reasonably extended presentation of content of a primary source is appropriate--though I agree that it should be accompanied by analysis. I particularly dislike the method that is being applied-- that the correct policy that there should be both presentation and analysis is being addressed not by adding content discussing the material, but by removing material presenting it. I do agree however, that some of the existing discussions were over-detailed. I agree with merging individual episode articles. I do not agree with deleting their basic content, and such is the practical effect of the tag. DGG (talk) 17:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I respect that and all, think about things like WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:WAF. It's not that, it would be nice to have real world information, but rather, we require real world information. This "project" was started as a way to find potential in episodes, rather than taking them to AfD. You seem to be blaming to the process because no one can find the potential, or even something to hint towards the potential.

You said: "that the correct policy that there should be both presentation and analysis is being addressed not by adding content discussing the material, but by removing material presenting it. "

Did you stop to think, maybe there wasn't anything to add? -- Ned Scott 03:56, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

And as far as merging goes, I haven't been watching the closure themselves that much, but stuff should be merged that can be merged. I'm sorry if anyone is not doing this, and if you have any specific review in mind I'll volunteer to clean up the mess myself. -- Ned Scott 04:05, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

fair enough, and I've had these discussions end up in joint projects before. Even afds sometimes end that way. its the way things should go.

(and I was about to send:

for video shows and the like, the question of finding material is relative tricky for me, because I myself am neither willing nor qualified to find the material, and it's uncomfortable making bare assertions of the existence of material. (though i think the plot of these shows does tend to be discussed in both specialist publications and often newspapers, for at least the most prominent--certainly for shows like the Sopranos. And they also are increasingly discussed in academic writing on popular culture--but the discussion inevitably comes several years behind. But in this part of the field I'm a consumer, not a producer--I want to read the material, not write it. The only area of pop culture where there is good material of this sort in the articles is rock music, where many easily available publication do analyze it, and the followers know about them.

However, for something where I know the research methods a little better, and where it was challenged, I did find it--Les miserables. There were at least a hundred articles in Google Scholar that clearly discussed the plot, and I was able to select 5 or 6 where the titles made it really evident.

Had i done a serious job with professional indexes and non-english sources, I could have found many more. And from these the critical material could be written. But WPedians are not that great on academic writing, as you know, and it will be a while until the work gets done. I would not remove the articles in the meantime. i would keep, and add.

had those challenging spent the time on adding material to the articles where possible, instead challenging them and removing them, it would have been a start. Of course, had those defending them spent half their arguing time on adding, it would have been better as well. The tendency at AfDs in general on all topics of people to say there is material, and cite it at length at at the Afd, but put off adding it to the article doesn't help. Anyone can edit, and most are lazy about it. I'd love to have a rule that one could not place an afd without documenting where one had looked. I wont delete a speedy or expired prod until i've confirmed the absence for myself. (I'm talking generally here, not this project in particular, and certainly not you in particular.) DGG (talk) 04:24, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I would tend to agree that a teacher would and should insist on the student looking at the book itself. That's because any self-respecting teacher would have the student writing a secondary source—a research paper or the like.

On the other hand, this is intended to be a tertiary source. It's intended to be a collection of the reliable and verified research of others from looking at primary sources, not our own work in that vein. Sometimes, primary sources can be used for some supplemental material with secondary ones being used for the main bulk, if purely descriptive claims are made. But in everything, we should be mirroring secondary sources, not second-guessing them. If a reliable source says something I believe to be wrong, we go with the source, not me. By the same token, if secondary sources don't write about a given subject at all, or a given aspect of that subject, we should mirror that—by not writing about it at all. Students in class are intended to be the original author and first publisher of their work. (If they're not, they'd better hope to have a dumb teacher!) That's not the idea here at all. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure there. I think it's good we tend to require secondary sources, just because of our nature as a tertiary source. I guess I just don't see "List of times X got mentioned somewhere" as of particular relevance to that, it seems to fail indiscriminate information collection. (I'm aware that's significantly overused, but here it really does seem to apply.) I think the cultural influences of works are better done by citing works that actually speak to how the work has influenced culture, rather than just saying "X seems to have been influenced by Y" with nothing to back that up. In some cases that is a purely descriptive statement which doesn't need secondary sourcing (for example, to state that Weird Al's "Like a Surgeon" is a parody of Madonna's "Like a Virgin"), but in a lot of cases it steps over the line into original synthesis if no one's actually studied it and come to that conclusion. I think what TV Guide or other secondary sources do there is allow more elaborate conclusions to be placed in and sourced, where it would be original research to draw them ourself. If that can't be done, and it's basically just a list of "Family Guy spoofed X one time, and so did The Simpsons", I guess I fail to see the value. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh no, I'm certainly not saying "never notable". (WP:IDONTLIKEIT is just as invalid as WP:ILIKEIT, and mirroring, not second-guessing, sources applies just as much in the other direction). There's tons of material, for instance, on the cultural impact of shows like The Simpsons, South Park, and even some soap operas. I'm sure articles could be written on those subjects and sourced perfectly well. But a good article on that subject would go far beyond "A was mentioned in X, Y, and Z." Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Well I will definitely take it down a lot after this batch, it is a lot after all, and it is very hard to defend 100+ deletions at once :) And to try to discuss intelligently each one, well.... I agree more spaced out would be better. Judgesurreal777 04:23, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

thanks for understanding --for one thing, it looks like some of the combination articles may be heading for keep--and then it would make it easier to discuss the others. I agree that many of them dont look like they need much in the way of discussion--that's part of what i meant by "discuss intelligently". DGG (talk) 04:27, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello, I recently returned from an editing hiatus of sorts, and decided to go back to work on some of the articles I had been working on previously. I was just looking through your profile and thought that you might like to contribute to the Fan fiction article, one of my prior favorite frustrations (heh) which could probably use someone of your experience and interests looking at it. I'm especially keen on seeing the early history of printed derivitive works improved, which seeing as it goes back to at least the 18th century, I thought sounded like it might be right up your alley. I also think we still have a bit of a dearth of academic references and mentions in modern times, despite the increasing interest in fan fiction in academic circles in recent years. You sound like you are a LOT better at digging this stuff up than I am, and the history really does seem to be rather interesting. Just thought I'd bring it up, in case you were interested. :) Any extra set of eyes looking at the article would be much appreciated! Runa27 21:42, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Well I am sorry if you took offense to it, but I mean to speak just as a wikipedian, and about that I am deathly serious. Your arguments seem to indicate you do not understand the notability policy with regards to fiction, and there is nothing wrong with that per se, as it is a very difficult policy to get at first. Some of my early experiences on wikipedia involved writing in-universe unnotable articles on my favorite fictional topics, but eventually I realized what the threshold for inclusion was, and eventually I had to transfer some of those articles to fan wikis and delete them from here. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 01:30, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

If you want to convince me I am ignorant, yes, this is the place, not AfD. I don't mind in the least, because I intend to do something similar--not that you're ignorant though, just that you're wrong. As far as I can see from the talk page, all aspects of N:Fiction continue to be disputed. Many of the things it relates to on, such as the distinction between primary and secondary sources, seem to be disappearing, and almost everything in WP:NOT is also challenged from all directions. I expect ongoing discussion at AfD will be the way to modify them all to what they ought to be--the flexible practice that will be the consensus once wpedians in general understand the implications, and accept the need of accommodating the 21st century.

Our directions at WP seems opposite. When I first came, I was somewhat startled by what seemed the absurd detail of the SF and game and video articles. I then realized that they were in fact the core of Wikipedia, and that detail properly organized aids understanding. I want good full plot and character and background summaries--not for the benefit of the fans, who will use the specialised wikis, but for those who want to find out about these things without prior immersion in them. If anything, most WP articles were not really adequate, and the problem was not detail but quality and lack of skill in the writing--especially the incomprehensible blow-by-blow plot summaries. Nor do I do not defend long articles about clearly minor individual characters; I prefer summary style and lists for the really minor topics. What I want in WP is better quality, not narrower coverage.

In-universe I interpret as meaning the sort of fan articles which pretend that it isn't really a game, but the real world, and goes on variations from there. I think plot and characters and background in fiction can & should be sourced from the fiction itself, and notability determined from even the most non-conventional sources. So I advocate what within our core principles I think ought to be the consensus. You've been here a few months more than I have, but I think I've been doing enough work at AfD to know the different opinions--and certainly been here long enough to see them change, sometimes for the better. AfD, for all its faults, is free from OWN. I like to deal with many subjects, so I don't join all the discussions--how could anyone, at least anyone who thinks it wrong to use a copy and paste argument -- only those where I think I might make a difference or have something particular to add, or where I am particularly bothered by a string of indiscriminate deletions or overconfident arguments. I sometimes regret taking time from my true interests to defend articles on subjects I don't really personally care about, but I know that what I do really care about is regarded by many as of very minor importance, and the way to get comprehensive coverage is to accommodate all interests. DGG (talk) 03:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Just about all the TES articles, including the ones that were good and sourced, just got wiped out by admins. See problem is, hardly a consensus was reached, most articles tied keep v delete and everybody seems to blindly following the mantra that it isn't notable because it isn't on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. These articles should be reopened and the discussion should continue, I thought progress on a compromise was being made until they were deleted. They seemed to jump to deletion instead trying to improve or establish notability, in fact not one of them even tried to find something that suggested notability, I did but no one cared. Please A little help would be great. Articles deleted so far, Black Marsh, Morrowind (province), Cyrodiil.TostitosAreGross (talk) 00:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC) The best strategy here will be to concentrate on saving the ones not yet deleted. Try to save a few. Deletion review can be undertaken if there ever is consensus; at the moment it will just open up too many fronts. Please see the talk page for WP Fiction for the current almost total lack of agreement. I'm not at this point sure there is any common idea at all on what the policy is or ought to be. I also suggest joining in the discussion there--my current position you will see, but it amounts to an admission that we have no agreement. But the people who like the currently one-sided wording are trying to deny it there is even conflict, and are finding themselves fighting to say that there isnt any. DGG (talk) 02:14, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I get what you are saying, I'm fighting the deletions tooth and nail, but I don't care that much about some the remaining ones. Cyrodiil was one best articles and it got deleted despite heavy resistance, it was 6 vs 6 in keep/delete. I don't know if there is anything I can do, I keep saying that we can work together to improve the articles to be like argonian but they don't seem confident it can be done.TostitosAreGross (talk) 02:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

My advice is that the best chances for deletion review are the combination articles on minor characters, etc. If you think Cryodil is sourceable further, good, but I must tell you i havent the least idea of where video games are written about, though Im trying to learn. I do know there is no point whatever going to DR without a very strong case. 6-6 in something like this is not alone sufficient to say it should be nonconsensus unless you can prove the ones discarded as not according to policy were according to policy. You might want to enable your email or use mine, by the way. I cannot handle adequately more than a few concurrent discussions. DGG (talk) 02:27, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

You participated in this AfD, so I thought you might be interested in the close Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of planets in Futurama. Rather a surprising result I'd say. Though a fair few of the Keeps were somewhat dubious and unsigned. RMHED (talk) 20:06, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

yes, combination articles like this would seem the rational way to go. And the close was, counting the bold ones only, , at a rough count 28 to 8. That would seem a good case for deletion review-- I think it would be better if someone other than me brought it. I see you did not participate in this one. But I think you do not accept my argument that combination articles are the reasonable compromise, so i respect your fairness in this note. DGG (talk) 02:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

== Ye Art Cordially Invited to the Annex ==

Hello, My good Fellow, listen and I shalt telleth Ye a Tale of a Wiki that well comes All Manner of Articles relating to Fiction. What is This wonderful Place of Fantasy, You ask? It is the Annex, Haven to All fiction-related Refugee Articles from Wikipedia.

Before nominating or proposing a fiction-related Article for Deletion, It is My sincerest Hope that Ye import It to the Annex. Why do This, You wonder? Individuals have dedicated an enormous Amount of Time to writing These Articles, and ’twould be a Pity for the Information to Vanish unto the Oblivion where only Administrators could see Them.

Here is a Step-by-Step Process of how to Bringeth Articles into the Annex:

Ye shall need at least three Browser Tabs or Windows open. For the first Tab or Window, go to Special:Export. For the second, go here. (If Ye have not an Account at Wikia, then create One.) Do whatever Ye want for the third.
Next, open the Program known as Notepad. If Ye haveth It not, then open WordPad. Go to “Save as,” and for “Encoding,” select either “Unicode” or “UTF-8.” For “Save as type,” select “All Files.” For “File name,” input “export.xml” and save It. Leave the Window open.
Next, go to the Special:Export Window at Wikipedia, and un-check the two small Boxes near the “Export” Button. Input the Name of the Wikipedia Article which Ye wish to import to the Annex into the large Field, and click “Export.”
Right-click on the Page full of Code which appears, and clicketh on “View Source” or “View Page Source” or any Option with similar Wording. A new Notepad Window called “index[1]” or Something similar should appear. Press Ctrl+A to highlight All the Text then Ctrl+C to copy It. Close yon “index[1]” Window, and go to the Notepad “export.xml” Window. Press Ctrl+V to pasteth the Text There, and then save It by pressing Ctrl+S.
Now go to the Special:Import Window over at the Annex. Clicketh on “Browse…” and select the “export.xml” File. At last, click on “Upload file,” and Thou art done, My Friend! However, if It says 100 Revisions be imported, Ye be not quite finished just yet. Go back to Wikipedia’s Special:Export, and leave only the “Include only the current revision, not the full history” Box checked. Export That, copy the Page Source, close the “index[1]” Window, and go to the “export.xml” Window. Press Ctrl+A to highlight the Code all ready There, press “backspace” to erase It, and press Ctrl+V to pasteth the new Code There. Press Ctrl+S to save It, then upload once more to the Annex. Paste {{Wikipedia|{{PAGENAME}}}} at the Bottom of the imported Article at the Annex, and Ye art now finally done! Keepeth the “export.xml” File for future Use.

Thank Ye for using the Annex, My Friend — the Annex Hath Spoken 01:30, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

But let this not divert us from what i consider the real work--improving the articles right here and now on wikipedia, defending the defensible ones when they are nominated for deleting, having a say at guideline pages to ensure that the few with a POV do not impose their will on the wider community, and rewording the parts of WP NOT and other policies that are used inappropriate by the zealots. One comprehensive encyclopedia, is what WP is supposed to be, and we should hold to it. And see my note at the top of the page about access to text of already-deleted articles. If everyone who cared about this articles actually worked on one a day, and participated intelligently in a few AfDs even outside their main interest in an even-handed manner, and did not let policy changes take place by default, we can then use the Annex for the truly unimportant but interesting details--the important ones will be where they belong, on wikipedia. DGG (talk) 03:21, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi David. I noticed your comment at the talk page of WP:FICT: "what consensus means: consensus is something that everyone can live with, though they may not altogether agree with it." - I agree with that, but I can't quite see what it had to do with my comment that you seemed to be replying to. Was that a misplaced comment, or did you have other things to say as well? Carcharoth (talk) 11:01, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I was discussing generally the possibility of having --or not having --consensus for either FICT or NOT#PLOT. I dont think there is any version of FICT that everyone is willing to live with; With NOT PLOT (and perhaps NOT NEWS, and possibly NOT INDISCRIMINATE, there may be not really consensus for the present wording. (Not that I would propose deleting them, just editing them to a more flexible version.)DGG (talk) 17:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Regarding this comment: Maybe we mixed up two distinct points. The first is that all information in the article should be verifiable. The other is that there should not be only in-universe information.

Obviously, any in-universe information taken from a primary source can be verified through those same primary sources (but as a matter of fact, proper citations even of primary sources are rare enough in e.g. Star Wars articles). I for one believe that some real-world context is necessary as the foundation of an article, and that plot details should only serve to illustrate the subject matter. User:Dorftrottel 09:37, January 26, 2008

I think the no in-universe rule means only that there article cannot be written in the style that does not acknowledge that the work is a fiction--as in the typical fanfiction continuation of a story. I for one believe, along with I think the great majority of the world, that the essential element of a fiction is the plot. I agree that some real-world content is necessary to anchor it. A good article will have balance. A poor one should be improved. An article about some aspect of a fictional universe is in essence a subarticle, and need not itself have much real-world content if the group of articles on the fiction does. I agree that the article under discussion is not written well, and the tone should be altered. And I certainly agree that the sources are not well cited in this and the majority of similar articles. But that does not affect the notability. The effort should be devoted to improving the articles, not removing them. incidentally, I consider you one of the most reasonable people on the other side of the discussion,and if it were just you & I, we could probably reach a compromise. DGG (talk) 16:00, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, no in-universe is not a strict rule since it's formulated in a MOS subguideline rather than policy. Incidentally, the core of the current WP:WAF was rewritten by myself a while back. One of the things I was trying to achieve was to promote an approach of good-faithed education as to proper writing style and usage of sources. This also includes that (in my opinion, which had a clear consensus at WT:WAF at the time) in-universe does not simply mean that e.g. the first sentence doesn't include the clarification fictional.

Here, I tried to establish a threshold (it's still in WAF) for what constitutes in-universe. I see now that the word effort in that sentence may be suboptimal. Assuming good faith, I'll wager that most in-universe writing is due to editorial negligence rather than any —conscious, anyway— effort.

Many have no idea that an image caption that reads "Darth Vader and Obi-Wan during their lightsaber duel on the first deathstar" is the epitome of in-universe writing. Most people simply never learn to analytically distinguish between medium and narrative. On Wikipedia, we should (as in must) always carefully differentiate what exactly we are writing about. In-universe writing essentially denotes every single failure to distinguish these aspects. (The image caption should imo read something like "A scene from Episode IV, depicting a/the lightsaber duel between etcpp".)

To that effect, real-world content/context means any effort to always clarify, in the best interest of an encyclopedic treatment of the subject matter, what aspect of a work of fiction is being discussed in each section.

At any rate, in-universe is a difficult issue, that's why it poses such a problem particularly in areas where people are attracted by the opportunity to write about their favourite popcultural subject — and, assuming some bad faith this time, to simultaneously validate their own mental horizon. That's also why some seem so vigorously opposed to any form of encyclopedic threshold. It challenges and, in their own perception, threatens them in their (possibly adolescent) limited worldview.

The fact that we live in times where mutual education has practically ceased to exist as a gesture of social interaction, and that people dwell on anti-intellectual pride and celebrate egalitarianism makes it doubly hard to address any of these issues anywhere. Which contains a bitter irony imo, since Wikipedia's declared mission is to provide knowledge. Now we have the problem of Eternal September, with a constant influx of people who have really no interest at all in learning anything new here. As I said, some just want to validate their own narrow horizon by writing about things as trivial as their own thoughts. I don't want to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out.

I happen to believe that especially on Wikipedia, we need to educate each other about editorial standards, and that we should encourage and teach (and in the process learn more, ourselves) each other to develop and maintain an attitude of professional enthusiasm as opposed to the prevalent fan enthusiasm (which, yes, is also a good thing since it brings most people here in the first place, but they need to here about standards, too).

As you can see, these are issues I have ~~wasted~~ spent some thoughts on. I don't claim to know how best to approach all of this, whether in individual situations or in general. But I'm absolutely positive that something must be done to address these things.

Now for something you wrote: "I for one believe, along with I think the great majority of the world, that the essential element of a fiction is the plot." — The majority of people is stupid (that's my bleak contention... on my bad days anyway), and I believe you're not one of them. Think about it for just a second: Would you say that a joke is funny independently of who tells it? Clearly not. It's the telling that matters far more than the joke itself. What kind of adjectives does the joketeller use? What about his bodylanguage and facial expressions? What about his timing? And so on.

A summarisable plot can be transported in a manifold of different ways: film, book, comic, live storytelling etcpp. But it's the singer, not the song, so to speak. It's the way the plot (the storyline) is being interpreted and told.

In-universe writing omits all of that, or rather: it avoids the hard work that analysing even the simplest of story elements can bring with it when done properly, in favour of placing undue weight on one single aspect, the plot, which happens to be easily verifiable as long as you don't try to include any real-world context.

An article about a fictional universe should discuss its properies, with the real world as the primary frame of reference. This can e.g. entail aspects of the writing, directing, or production. For everything else, Wikia offers a sensational opportunity to write free from any encyclopedic demands about any aspect as much as you like. But Wikipedia articles cannot do that.

Most plots by themselves are not sufficient subject matter to write an article about. And even an article about a plot (as opposed to an article about a work of fiction) that is independently notable, should always and only discuss the plot from a real-world perspective. It's possible, given sufficient secondary sources.

As to the arguably here and there possible improvements: Having looked around a bit, I don't see enough sources to turn e.g. Jaina Solo into a proper encyclopedic article according to my hopefully not so arbitrary standards as detailed above.

Wow, enough for now. This is one long post. But I'd rather explain my views to a single person in great details in the hope of building a bridge than spend the same time and effort participating in a tar pit like this one. User:Dorftrottel 20:13, January 26, 2008

Hold this space for my answer--but the real world exists also.

#. #. #. #. DGG (talk) 21:51, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Partially as a result of your vote to keep the article, the AfD resulted in "no consensus". Since you are convinced that Wikipedia should have an article on Jacen Solo, please stand by that and help get this article to the bare minimum encyclopedic standards. This includes a complete rewrite from a non-in-universe perspective, accompanied by reliable, third-party secondary sources.

If however the article has not been brought up to this bare minimum within the next 4 weeks, I will consider resubmitting it for deletion.

Regards, User:Dorftrottel 02:41, January 30, 2008

thanks for the warning. My guess in that in 4 weeks the consensus will recognize that this sort of article is acceptable,with notability as part of the notability for the series. Not that it shouldn't be improved, by those who are interested in the subject. I see that the next-to-last so called !vote at the Afd was a delete by an anon who said "he doesn't actually exist. Therefore, all traces must be erased from Wikipedia, before we run out of space." No closer is going to listen to that sort of argument. DGG (talk) 04:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I posted a quick question on your comment on this AfD. Since I doubt you watchlist every AfD you comment on, I thought I'd let you know I'd really appreciate the favor of an answer. (FWIW, I think merging is appropriate, too, there's just not much real content to merge).--Fabrictramp (talk) 13:32, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Your question was "Are you saying to spin out the existing section into a new article, or to merge these into the existing sections on characters and locations in the series article?"

Looking at some of these and also the sections in the main article, I would judge that the one-line descriptions in the main article are most of them inadequate, and the long ones in the separate articles most of them excessive (as is usually the case for series such as this). I do not defend the writing of articles in the manner of some of those nominated here--but I also want to see enough information to understand the interrelationships. I can understand why those who want adequate discussions support separate articles, when i see the extreme reduction of material that usually takes place after a merge.

And thus I suggest the compromise solution of an combination article for the characters (and similar ones for other elements of the series) that will be intermediate--with possible separate articles for a few of the most important if the series is important enough for there to have been some third party material on them. The problem in these discussions is that the choice is usually between two extremes. In a group project, where there are incomptible strongly held points of view, the only long-term solution is a compromise--but a fair one, no tone that will be subsequently distorted. The actual size will need a discussion, uninfluenced by set POVs. DGG (talk) 15:18, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the thoughtful answer!--Fabrictramp (talk) 15:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi saw that you removed the prod from the above article and plan to maybe expand it. With regard to any future possible prodding of the article, I do believe it is important that there are two articles to distinguish Oliver Twist the character from Oliver Twist the book, as seems to be quite standard in other similar articles (Hamlet for instance). As you have seen the article about the character clearly needs some work doing on it. I will also try to add to it maybe once you have had chance to add content? Thanks. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 22:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Other instances like this have been challenged in the past, and I hope to get to it before the deletionists start attacking it. But don't wait for me--add what you can find now. I think a section on cultural references mighty be relevant--most popular culture use of it is about the character, not the book. DGG (talk) 00:40, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi David, in case you're interested, Tangerines has moved Oliver Twist (character) on a long way now. Well worth keeping! - Fayenatic (talk) 13:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Nice to see we can occasionally agree on something! --Orange Mike | Talk 17:33, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

List of wealthy fictional characters looks hopeless to me—what do you think? Bongo matic 07:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

add references with quotations from the works, and it wont look so hopeless at all. DGG (talk) 08:46, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, I added an item (no references), but someone else nominated it for deletion— have to say, that upon further reflection, I think it has to go (despite its cuteness). Please add your views at the AfD. Bongo matic 00:02, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

yes, its not a good job, but the topic is a possible one. Some day, if I am never needed at afd, and people accept a compromise at WP:FICT, .... DGG (talk) 00:50, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I follow the following strategy. I tagged almost all articles for notability per WP:FICTION. After some weeks/months I prod for deletion all the articles that are less than 5 lines and have insignificant history. All the others I convert them to redirects as you suggested. I didn't tag all the articles altogether to give a chance for people to improve them or express their disagreement. It seems nobody really make significant edits to these articles. Moreover, same names really mix things up. If you check the redirects for the characters, they are usually refer to real person names. One idea it would to create disambiguation pages or something like that. But does it worth for most of these characters? Do we need to have loads of redirects that all will just redirect back to a list of characters ? -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:10, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I've made a comment at WT:FICT just now, asking for input on this more generally. The current wording of WP:FICT says to delete if the role is only for a few seconds--which I certainly agree with. For anything more than that, I'd suggest redirection is better, since someone might well want to look this up. I was not aware you were already redirecting that for the characters where there was significant content, but I'm afraid some admin might get there first and delete regardless & thus destroy the distinction you are carefully making. I recognize the advantage of listing them, & prod does do that--perhaps you could screen them after 4 days & do the redirects then? (merging is also a solution, but thats up to the people who know the series--sometimes the characters will already have enough information merged, sometimes not. But doing a proper merge takes a good deal of time. ) whether to draw the line on the basis of the length of the present article, or the apparent importance of the character is an interesting question. I'd pick on the basis of the character, since there are many longish articles on really trivial characters and vice versa. If it was an over-short article on someone worth a little more, it at least preserves the information in the history.

As for the possibility of confusion, this occurred to me also. The name can be disambiguated with the phrase (fictional character) which seems the usual phrase. Personally, I'd do this in all cases for all fictional characters, but the MOS says not to, until a conflict arises. If you agree with me about this, maybe we can try to change it--I think it would clarify matters for readers. As for the Thomas Sweeny, I'm writing an article on the politician at this moment. DGG (talk) 15:27, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for writing the article about the politician. I don't even know the guy. I am just searching though the redirects to check for problems. If you checked the discussion on User talk:Hiding about Damon Grant you will see that I am not doing blind prodding. Also check the talk page in the List of Brookside characters. But these Brookside articles were created altogether 1-2 years ago and the majority just provides the name of the character, the actor and the years it appeared. The same information is already in ht List of Brookside characters (again without citation but this is the least). I left 3-4 articles I believe they need merge as well as I did to more ten some weeks ago. 2 articles I think can also remain as articles. But I really don't believe that we must have redirects for every single characters. Do Pokemons have? The most dangerous here is that these names may get confused with real person names and that's what bothers me. Thanks for dedicating some time to discuss these issues. I have to admit that I became a bit lazy at the end in tagging correctly my prods and/or explaining my actions. Friendly, 15:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

real person names is a problem, and, as I think I said, we should change the MOS. The concerns with inadvertent effects on living persons should be enough reason. This person was notable enough that an article can solve it, but there will be hundreds possibly for most character names who aren't. And even for the notable ones, we seem to be missing thousands of articles on even current US state legislators.

what I actually advocate about characters:

. For really major fiction, every major character gets an article on the assumption that the criticism will discuss them in a significant way, every named minor character gets a redirect to a list of characters which will contain somewhere between an identifying phrase and a paragraph.
For other important fiction, the major characters are discussed in a combination article with redirects; the minor ones just listed with redirects.
For unimportant fiction, the major ones get redirects to a combination article if there are a lot of them, or to just the article on the work if there are a few. The others are unmentioned. Anyone important enough to have the name in a reasonable-size plot summary needs a redirect.

Dividing things up between the classes isnt a sharp division, a continuous scale of possibilities, proportional to the importance of the work, and the amount of material. For example, I'd say every named character in Hamlet gets an article--there are not all that many of them. (to illustrate, a famous modern play was deliberately written about the two least important), For Tolkien, though certainly important, there are too many characters, and only the major ones get separate articles. For a typical serial in television, there are a great many characters of variable importance, and i'd use combination articles and lists for almost all of them. (I have not the least idea whether Brookside is considered important.)

(Looking at List of Pokemon characters, all the 493 species seem to have redirects, going mostly to category articles.)

I am not an extreme inclusionist about separate articles for characters and other fictional elements; I tend to !vote delete on at least one or two each day at AfD. But I will admit my inclusionist feelings are stimulated by the less reasonable people in the other direction. (if it isn't obvious, I do not at all consider you among them) At this point, after all the trouble and arbcom, I would go slowly and step by step in all of this. Although there's been an inordinate amount of general discussion, sometimes careful work with examples clarifies things better. DGG (talk) 19:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

well, it's amazing what you can learn at WP. I went and read the articles, and found that, in addition to being very popular for many years, this is in fact an historically important show in the development of the genre, with a god main Wikipedia article explaining how and why. So I followed up on the characters, and saw that some were central to long arcs of the plot, some were less, so , but still of enough significance to be mentioned in the general article on the series, and some not enough to be mentioned there, but just among the miscellaneous people caught in the various episodes of violence that made the series distinctive. So I deprodded one or two articles, changed many to redirects, and deleted some, accordingly. Further discussions on how to handle these should probably go on the talk page for the main article, but I'm hesitant to say too much, having only read about the series, and never actually seen it. DGG (talk) 01:35, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I respect you approach. Since you convert some articles to redirects I would like to ask you to add {{R to list entry}} if the redirect links to a list (it would be nice you you redirect to the first letter of the character's surname as well) and {{R from merge}} if the redirect is a merge.

If you create a DAB page, check Frank Rogers for correct tagging. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 08:30, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but given that each appears to be little more than a "monster of the week" for this series, redirecting makes about as much sense to me as, say, creating redirect pages for, say, all the suspects from various episodes of Law & Order. Still, if you think there's a better way of dealing with these, I'll go along with it. Thanks. --Finngall ^talk 18:41, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Took another look, and I think you were right in the first place. Since these aren't mentioned in any main article, & they do seem very minor, there is not much point in doing redirects. If anyone every does write a proper article or a section on them, then the redirects can be added easily enough. so as the PRODs have just expired, I've begun deleting them. DGG (talk) 20:16, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Did you re-direct the article on Sanctuary (Skulduggery Pleasant) to Skulduggery Pleasant? --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 12:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

As an less destructive alternative alternative to the proposed deletion, placed by User: Judgesurreal777. The PROD had expired, and, as reviewing administrator, I thought the deletion too drastic a step & declined to delete it. You had been notified, but had not removed the tag, as you would have been entitled to do (It's only speedy tags which the author cannot remove). Further options are completely up to you. If you want to revert, you're perfectly entitled to--what I did was not an administrative action, but just an edit, which anyone can revert. But be aware that in this case Judgesurreal might want to take it to AfD, and you will have to defend it there; I am not sure that you will succeed unless you can find some good references that discuss the government in particular, not just the book. You are also perfectly free to merge part or all of the content anywhere you think appropriate. If the redirect is to the wrong place and you want to change it, you can do that too. I did it as I did to give you the option of how to proceed. See WP:FICT for some unbelievably long discussions of how to handle these articles--there seems to be no real consensus. (You'll find a summary of my own views above on my talk page.) If I can help you with any of this, let me know.DGG (talk) 16:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you DGG. I seem to remember I did remove the PROD template and subsequently explained my reasons for having done so on the discussion page. Is there any way I can take the matter to AfD? --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 18:11, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

If you want it to have a full article just revert the change to a redirect. Just undo the last edit--but say what you are doing. You do not have to take it to AfD. It is up to Judgesurrreal or some other editor to take it to AfD if they want to delete it, or to challenge you on the talk page if they want to change it back to a redirect. I just alert you to consider the strong possibility that if they do take it to AfD, the consensus will be to delete the article--it often is. My personal advice to you is to leave it as a redirect until you can actually find some good 3rd party published references discussing it as an important element in the work; then and only then change it back , and add the references. But you do not have to follow my advice. I myself do not plan to try to delete it or to change it back to a redirect, but I think other people will & without some actual references they will probably succeed. DGG (talk) 21:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you again. I think I shall copy it to my user page then change it to a redirect whilst I work on it. --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 22:17, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Do you suggest that we remove the prod? If you believe the article can be improved I have no problem with that. Please be bold and remove the prod or create a redirect. I won't push it for AfD. Friendly, Magioladitis (talk) 00:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Do you believe that more than 100 characters of the Young and the Restless should have their own article? I really believe that much information can be presented in a better way without having some many article around. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

no, i dont believe that. In fact, ive just been deleting prods for various people in other soaps. I think that since they are a search term they should have a redirect unless they are totally trivial as in being only in one episode in a minor way. I went to the trouble of forcing myself to read the plot of one UK soap to see which ones were totally trivial. I'm not eager to do another. Those who care about the subjects should. The default should, I continue to feel, be combination articles with between 1 sentence and 1 paragraph on each. But since there are magazine article at least that discuss these works, there just might be secondary sources that discuss the characters too, in a sufficiently substantial way for actual articles. At this point I am opposed to any deletions if there might be a chance that there will be such articles until they have been properly looked for. But I'm sure not going to do it in a range of subjects I personally consider at best uninteresting and more usually deplorable. All I can realistically do is help keep the article here for others to work on. Suggestion--nominate for redirects & I won't even notice, tho I think it better to merge. At least that keeps the content in the history for others.

I have mentioned elsewhere that my first sight of these articles with their over-extensive and unclear plot summaries almost made me into a deletionist. Then I realised that the remedy was to have them be of a reasonable length, and reasonably well written. DGG (talk) 00:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I have formulated this plan into my mind: A few articles for characters who are really important and we can find real world information, many redirects with notable characters to the List of characters, an organised List of characters with short summaries of the character's profile and delete the rest.

If you see that some prods are unreasonable please convert the article to a redirect but don't just decline them because the chaos will remain. Friendly, Magioladitis (talk) 00:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

In general I have been converting to a redirect. The few I havent, are because I think they might make adequate articles because of their apparent major role in the plot. What you can do, correspondingly is just to convert them to a redirect yourself instead of nominating for prod in the first place. Or instead of AfD--the redirect gets them out of the way so they dont look ridiculous, and still keeps them available for people to build on if they want to do the work. DGG (talk) 02:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

If you check the discussion in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Johnston Green, I supported redirects/merging against deleting. But it seems some users are even contesting this option, supporting the existence of articles without any real world information. I agree that redirects are good because people have the opportunity to really improve an article in their Sandbox and then read it in Wikipedia but I looks like if I add tags for merging everyone will ignore them unless the show is still active. Check another case that I had to go to an Afd requesting merging since none touched the article for a whole year: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dominic Santiago. Conclusion: If I just go for redirects without first prodding it's easy for some other users to claim that there is no consensus for that. Prodding reveals article's real importance in some sense. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

As for merging, you dont have to wait indefiniteliy until someone shows up, this possibility has been provided for as follows: If you place a merge tag, using the mergeto and mergefrom templates,and explain it on the mergeto talk page, and add a listing to Wikipedia:Proposed mergers, and contact some of the major or most-recent contributors--and there is still silence after about two weeks, then go ahead and perform the merger. Most non-obvious merges are in fact done this way without discussion. See WP:MERGE. If it challenged it has to be discussed, if there's no consensus use Third Opinion. If anyone changes it back per WP:BRD, then they & you need to discuss it similarly. As for Prod, remember that only a few really active people watch things like the list of articles to be prodded--I wish more people would do so.

Incidentally, I dont know that show, but judging from the Wikipedia description of the plot, she would seem like a major character, and the article does talk about outside criticism and discussion of her. DGG (talk) 15:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding previous conversations on Brookside characters, in which you have indicated interest, please see the above article. Hiding T 14:13, 7 May 2008 (UTC). Commented there extensively, to summarize my general views on such articles. DGG (talk) 14:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I would like to thank you for your comments in these AfDs. It seems that if we discuss we can really clean fictional characters articles and create some good ones. It seems we are in the middle of an edit war between deletionists and inclucionists and many actions lack of common sense. Friendly, Magioladitis (talk) 21:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

since Arb Com did not take the responsibility to give a little more guidance, people are trying to see how much they can get away with, in the hope of setting policy by wearing out the other side. (The deletionists in fact almost managed this a while back, with popular culture.) Every proposal on the policy pages for compromise has been sabotaged by someone refusing to bend, so I am beginning to feel reluctant to make moderate proposals lest they be considered a sign of weakness. At one current AfD, in fact, someone said they refused to be bound by a workgroup's policy, when it was one of the few policies which had reached a state of compromise. DGG (talk) 22:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I feel that the work at Wikipedia:Plot summaries is a proposal for a guideline and should be tagged as such, which I did the other day. Tagging it has it causes it to appear in the list at Category:Wikipedia proposals. It seems to me that some people are trying to work around the processes by removing the tag. However, I have ultimate faith in your good judgement. Do you share my concern? Thanks! --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree it should really be tagged with something, but let's not argue about it as well--we have enough actual problems & debates over tagging are what really get away from the point. Is it a guideline separate from WP:FICT? or is it a special part of MOS:FICT. Logically, its a special part of MOS. But on the other hand, that sort of hides it in the general MOS morass. Perhaps it is better to keep it as a peripheral discussion, but I'm open to suggestions. More important, -this subject is now essentially being discussed in at least 4 places. It will be hard enough to get agreement at one, let alone 4 simultaneously. I can't follow them all myself, not unless I want to do nothing else here at all. And there seems to be no agreement whether to work from WP:PLOT down, or from MOS up. Even more important, can you think of any method to reach compromise, except for one side trying to wear out the other? DGG (talk) 14:47, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

(1) I feel better that you are aware of the tagging issue and I'll stay out of it. (2) Having the discussion in 4 places is inefficient , but I don't know of a solution. (3) I don't think that a solution for controlling content can be "legislated" since there is no real method for enforcement, short of the methods used for enforcing BLP, which is itself problematic. Theoretically, guidelines only document actual practices at WP, but since there is no consistency in practice, it follows that there could be no consistent guideline written. I think that it needs to be left to the editors at the individual pages to determine the content of plot summaries. Good luck, and I'm happy to chat about this more if you'd like. --Kevin Murray (talk) 15:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

copied from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Santangelo family

Merge the individual character articles into the article on the family. The books are notable enough to have articles on individual ones, but since they seem to be a connected series, the articles on the characters will pull the information together in a helpful way. I doubt the books are so notable that articles on the individual major characters are justified, but a combination article with redirects is the way to go. Wikipedia should provide the necessary information so that if one looks for a fictional character, one finds the information. That's the purpose of an encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 15:59, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, there is no consensus that fiction articles should focus on real-world content. As the long and inconclusive debates at WT:FICT and multiple other places have shown, some of us think exactly the opposite--that articles on fiction should focus on what is notable about the fiction, which is usually the fictional content, including characters and setting as well as plot. The real world context is necessary--it is what distinguishes us from a fan site. For spin-off articles, there is no ned for real world context if that part is covered in the main article or other sections, but obviously for a section on technology formation about the creation & design of the props is extremely valuable, and you should include it as fully as sources permit. Try for a balanced article. Plot recapitulation is appropriate, but only to a limited extent, to set the context for the use of the setting elements; there's no point in duplicating details covered elsewhere. Sources are naturally needed for in-universe aspects as well, as for everything in Wikipedia, so I urge you to source the various parts of the technology article from specific instances in the fiction, and, if possible, from specific sources written about the fiction--which could well be reliable blogs, which are the usually most reliable sources for these subjects. Don't be inhibited by those who want to limit coverage--this is a comprehensive encyclopedia, and as much relevant content that can be sourced is not just acceptable but desirable.DGG (talk) 04:09, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm rather surprised to see you making keep arguments based upon I know nothing about this or the content but I'm guessing it's important. I'm especially surprised that an admin would do such a thing. Take this example here. You understanding of the subject is so limited that you seem to think that Khrone is a character, which he isn't. He's simply an explanation for an aspect of the gaming system that is used in warhammer 40k. So I just don't get it - why are you even voting in AFDs where you are explicitly stating that you are just making wild guesses (and guesses based on your misunderstanding of the material). --Allemandtando (talk) 16:11, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Please look more carefully--I am saying that if the main work is important, which I gather it is from the amount of material added and the many Wikipedia people interested, then the subarticles are justified. I leave open the possibility that the game itself may not be worth writing much about--not that I have actually seen anyone making that argument for Warhammer 40K. The reason I qualify this way is that I sometimes do give what I consider to be expert evaluations of things I do know a good deal about about where I think I understand and can explain in full detail the analysis that leads me to that conclusion--and people often say that they treat my analysis as such and !vote on that basis. . But in this case I write as an ordinary wikipedian with no special knowledge, and I want to make that clear. I give my opinion based on the evidence presented in the article and the discussion. It will be a sad day when we leave the game articles to the mercy of those who are fans of the game. Anyone can edit, and anyone can give an opinion, but in doing so, I find it preferable not to claim more than I know. Since the article lede says that "Khorne is one of the four major Chaos gods. Like his brother gods,.." I treat him as a character. I see from the rest of the article that in this game that gods can also be treated as more abstract forces, but in any fictional setting one normally refers to them as characters regardless of the actual nature of their fundamental existence. In discussing the Bible, we use "He" despite the Gospel wording that "God is a spirit." I'm not analyzing in depth, but not making wild guesses either. DGG (talk) 16:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

In reply to your comment on ANI, just posting here so we don't go off-topic again:) "As for a separate wiki, the easy way is to set up one that will screen out articles from an inclusive one. Veropedia is something of that idea. If anyone wants to set up a non-pop culture version, and can think of an algorithm, the rest is easy enough." I actually like popular culture, I just am very keen on notability. And deleting articles can be dangerously addictive, it has to be said.:) The problem with Fred/Crufty was always how he went about it- rude edit summaries etc. Sticky Parkin 01:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

this would need to be a rather l o n g discussion. In fact, it already has been, and in many places. But you're right if you imply we have all to some extent been talking past each other--at least I hope so, for then there might be a solution. I recognize that many of the relatively deletionist people for these articles do in fact like the subject. So why? From what you say, I conclude that you are stuck upon thinking that the concept of notability in the Wikipedia sense comes first, and how we make an encyclopedia depends on having it as a principle--rather than the correct view --as I see it-- that the basic thing is what we want to make of an encyclopedia, and we should adjust the rules to what we want. The foundational principles are those which are necessary to make it an encyclopedia, andI doubt we'd have any quarrel there except upon detail. Now, does the notion of an encyclopedia imply some selectivity? A few people seem to think not, but I disagree with them--I agree with you that it does, that the nature that is expected of any such work of reference implies not being a 1:1 map of the world (in the sense of Swift and Borges) but a selection of what is to some degree worth knowing about--potentially at least, recognizing that nobody can or will want to know everything (unlike, say, Diderot). The question then, is what would a person in the world--any person who can read English--want to know, that they might reasonably look for in a work of reference called a universal encyclopedia. I follow the principle of what was in the end of the 18th century called a Conversation-dictionary, the German language's first encyclopedia in 1796, "Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon" -- the information a person will want in discussing any of the topics of interest in whatever part of the human world he might find himself: to discuss a sport with fans, a game with players, politics with those interested in public affairs of whatever country, medicine with those who want to talk about it, fiction with those who have read it. In each case amateurs: not the details of running that are of concern among actual runners only, or a game among those engaged in the middle of a round, or Brooklyn politics in a Brooklyn clubhouse, or medicine among doctors, or a book among those preparing a new edition. If a friend wants to discuss his latest medicine for arthritis, I should be able to find here the nature & status of the drug. If someone talks about a candidate for Congress, I should be able to find out something about him. If I speak to a schoolchild who wants to eagerly talk of the characters in his favorite serial, I should be able to come here and find at least the name and general role of any character he might mention. Not enough to be an expert, but enough to participate in a conversation. (And there is a limit--if the child wants to talk about his personal best friends, he's going to first have to tell me something about them--not even he will expect me to know them.) Until you realize and accept this, you will want only a selection of our true encyclopedia. Not Wikipedia, but the Really Important Part of Wikipedia. And you can attain it easily enough--let us all write what we each feel others might need, and you can then take what you want of it. DGG (talk) 02:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Sticky Parkin referred me to this discussion in a nice post on my Talk page. I've been saying for quite some time that the encyclopedic project is not one of inclusion/exclusion, but of categorization. The true "sum of all human knowledge" is larger than Wikpedia, but there is no rigid boundary between them. Currently, there exists knowledge, worthy of the name, that we exclude from Wikipedia. There are whole categories of knowledge, considered reliable enough for use in legal decisions, that we exclude rather artificially, simply because we haven't figured out how to decide if it's verifiable or not. (Sample, from common law: testimony is presumed true unless controverted. Read the Rules of Procedure for about any U.S. State.) What's "testimony?" Well, for starters, it can't be anonymous, because whether it is reliable or not (controvertible) depends partly on the history of the individual, and "controverted" may include impeachment of the source. But the presumption is that it is true. Apply this to Wikipedia and what would we see? Something quite different, I'd tell you! We'd need classes of editors, and real-world identity editors might have privileges that others don't, by default. Just as knowledge exists in hierarchies of notability and probity, so too should editors. I'm quite sure that many, seeing this, would imagine some monstrous bureaucracy, tracking the errors of all editors so as to adjust their probity quotient. There could be highly efficient ways of establishing hierarchies that are bottom-up, DGG, you've seen this before from me, but my goal, right now, isn't to make a specific proposal, only to note that we have painted ourselves into a corner. We need to start looking at the project from different perspectives, and the battle between inclusionists and deletionists is a sign that we haven't found the synthesis, a sign that we haven't looked deeply enough.

In order to start to look deeper, we must overcome, first of all, one major obstacle, the rampant incivility that prolonged conflict over some of these issues has engendered. I am now trying an experiment, in Routemaster, after an edit war which resulted in blocks for three editors. I'm sitting like a smiling gorilla there, absolutely intolerant of incivility, but absolutely welcoming to all editors, including some who might easily be considered trolls (and have been by other editors), at the same time as I tell the editors who are upset by the "trolling" or "POV pushing" that I can understand why. It is far too soon to tell, but the results of a few days have been better than I expected. Uncivil editors haven't changed their spots, and they will continue, perhaps, to need reminders, but I've made it very clear that when I'm warning, I'm not waving a big stick, I'm actually trying to help them get what they want, and, several times now, they have simply ceased the problem behavior. It's tricky, and I'm learning every step of the way, but, as an example, instead of dropping a warning on an editor's Talk page, the standard practice, I'm putting it in article talk, making it general where more than one editor is involved, and then, sometimes, deleting the warning, when it can be done, laving minimum trace. I'm hoping that the involved editors, seeing this, will realize that I'm not being a bully, for if I were a bully, I'd be placing red warnings on their Talk pages, going to AN/I, etc. Rather, I'm demanding -- firmly and civilly -- that editors cooperate and negotiate what they want, simply by not tolerating anything else, remaining as neutral as I can, and attempting to exemplify what's needed. Wish me luck.--Abd (talk) 19:26, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I was looking through deletion reviews to see if other articles with histories are up for deletion and I found: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Commander Dante. I made a quick internet search to find out what was out there, and I found four items quickly. Perhaps this is a rush to judgment? Or if he was part of the one page that was deleted, perhaps that page is brought back and he is merged there along with these sources? I don't know. I don't know the topic, or know much about how people feel. I just made a quick search and it seems to suggest the above. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:20, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

What you are seeing is part of a systematic campaign to destroy the coverage of fiction on Wikipedia. The strategy is attack simultaneously pages on the individual characters, the combination pages, and the coverage of plot and characters in the main article or to reduce it to one or two spare sentences--essentially leaving the barest facts of publication ~~without~~ with only the least possible mention of what the fiction is about. As you notice, trying to get any compromise will be defeated by removing the compromise pages. This immediate part is a concentrated effort on as many article on that game as possible, but it's nothing against the game in particular, just a wider systematic campaign on books, video series, films, games, and anything which can be thought of as similar; This is not limited to "popular" culture -- there have been similar attacks on Tolstoy & Shakespeare--the the ones I first spotted. Nor is it limited to the periphery that fewer people know about--it's been done on Lord of the Rings and even Harry Potter.

I have never played this or similar RPGs, which is all the more reason I want to be able to find information on them. Now I know what other people talk about. Oddly, the people deleting these articles are often fans of the games or fictions involved. [material redacted-DGG]

Myself, I like strategy games, & the first article I rescued at WP was on one of the weapons in Civilization II, and I highly recommend it to any student of history. Under any realistic conditions, the Greeks always beat the Persians. I've also spent a long time over years replicating Manhattan in several versions of Sim City--always failed over the impossibility of managing adequate transportation for something of that shape and intensity--Doesn't work no matter how much money you give yourself. I consider these as important as any formal study, and a good motive for it. It is possible to love and understand the value of both Austen and Heyer.

I came here in large part to defend coverage of traditional topics, and soon realized that this required defending the right of everyone to extensive coverage of their own hobby. They're the parts of what make up a comprehensive encyclopedia.

As a practical help , please add your references to the AfD discussion--the way to go is to put them somewhere at least so they'll be in the history for later use. DGG (talk) 17:16, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I added five. Some will need to go through the reliable source process, but it seems that there are some review sites that look over these products. I would be willing to help out finding sources in the future. I'll keep an eye on the situation. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:27, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

(to DGG) There's a growing rift in Wikipedia that commonly makes itself known at AFD. For the most part, both sides are pushing each other farther apart. I would like to remove this divide without making anyone change his or her position. Whenever you use words like "destroy" and "attack" to describe good faith actions, or attempt to psychoanalyze others ("lack of intellectual self-confidence", "inner contempt", "inwardly somewhat ashamed") you are effectively shutting down any chance for a reasonable discussion. We have no hope of resolving this issue until editors on both sides (and I know, work is needed on both sides) are willing to commit to rational discussion and let go of the impression that the other side is out to destroy Wikipedia. Pagra shtak 13:39, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

That's not what I think, or what I said. I see that there are various groups of people who want to sharply diminish to the point of destruction our coverage of various particular types of material. For other examples, there are those who would end the overlap with Wikinews and not cover current events at all, or who would deal with BLP problems by not including any BLP, or would not cover people in one or another particular field unless they are famous, not just notable. There are, more to the point, those who object to any coverage of fictional plot, and those who have openly declared they want to reduce the coverage of fiction to the minimum. None of these proposals would destroy Wikipedia, but they would destroy or essentially our coverage in the areas involved. And here are people who believe in the eternal fundamental sacredness of 2RS=N, and think it a core principle. These just might destroy the flexibility and relevance of the encyclopedia in general, not just particular fields.

As for motivation, even though this is on my own talk page, not in WP or article talk space, and presented frankly as speculation, I should not have said what I did, and I've redacted it. (for the most I've said in WP space, see and , where I said that "Such a nomination shows a determination to sharply reduce the encyclopedia's coverage of contemporary culture.") (I notice I've !voted delete for an number of town libraries. Looking at my own motivation, it's specifically because I do not want to seem too aggressive in my own subject.) But it's my attempt to account for those people who want to claim as unsourcable material they have not tried to source. For an example of what can be done to source material claimed to be unsourcable, see OR's comment just below.

I wish to attain a stable compromise. The first step in doing so is to stake out clearly the starting positions. Mine is that we should cover all published fiction with wide readership (etc) , as fully as will be understandable to those who are not fans of it and not familiar with the work. as much as the general reader might possibly like to know. For too long people with this position have countered the people who want minimal coverage by saying we want a moderate amount, in the hope of a compromise that will alllow at least a little more than minimal. It's time we said what we meant, while being prepared to reach a compromise in the true middle. It's been my observation that in discussions like this the closest polite approach to absolute frankness is helpful, if it can be kept impersonal. If I've come too close to personal, I was wrong to do so. DGG (talk) 17:57, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The part about "destroying Wikipedia" was meant to refer to sentiments in the conflict in general, not you specifically—I can see I didn't write that very clearly, I apologize. I don't recall you saying such, but I have seen comments like that, or very close to it, coming from both sides of this. I realize this is your talk page and you have great leeway, but hurtful speculation is still hurtful, even if not directed at editors by name. I suppose I should stake out my position then? I believe, in part, that Wikipedia should not cover a subject unless there is enough raw material to create such an article that is verifiable and written from a Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. To that end, an article's subject should have significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. If the sources are not reliable, we obviously shouldn't use them. If all sources are primary, or associated with the subject/publisher/author/etc., then the article cannot be NPOV, as it will reflect the point of view of the creator or the fictional setting. If the coverage is not significant, we will not have enough material for a full article, and the subject would probably be better represented in the context of a larger setting. That is, the article is probably best merged.

Regarding your reference to OR's source searching, you can see Craw-Daddy's response at the AFD. Sources presented at AFD commonly fail one of the tests I've mentioned above—reliability, independence (secondary, not primary), or significance. A review of the game that mentions Dante off-hand is a good source for a higher-level article, but doesn't provide a lot of raw material for something this specific. The Blood Angels codex is a great source for the Blood Angels article, but it is not sufficient by itself. The article will never be NPOV if independent sources cannot be found to complement it. A fan site's comments about Dante are great, but it's just some guy on the web where anyone can say just about anything. Pagra shtak 18:58, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I have redacted further--you were correct in what you said about my comments on motivation--it was not appropriate even on my talk page. My apologies for the impatience I showed above--I did come too close to personal. As for the general issue, I agree with you about the need for V and NPOV, but I disagree with you about the use of primary sources for uncontroversial descriptive content, which does not affect POV. The work itself is the most reliable source for the plot and characters--the interpretation of them must of course be based on secondary sources, and all too frequently it is not. What these articles need is more careful writing in general--and that's why I get impatient when I see the relatively good ones be nominated for deletion. DGG (talk) 19:12, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks—no hard feelings. I'm not disagreeing with you about using primary sources for certain content. If we were to have an article on the Blood Angels, I would absolutely expect to have their Codex be a source, and at least one section would be largely dependent on it. I'm just saying that the Codex by itself is not enough to warrant an article. If you're writing an article on a book, the plot section shouldn't require any sources beyond the book itself, as long as you don't have any analysis there. I would expect other sections, though, to be largely or completely referenced to secondary sources. Pagra shtak 20:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

so then, if there is enough content to write an article, on what basis to you say we shouldn't? If you accept the sources, then there are two usual ansewers--1/the article would have to be limited to plot, a violation of not plot--to which I respond that the article can to be seen as a spin-off article for the entire game, and that is not limited to plot, and 2/that for some reason it's not important enough by itself. I'll agree that is possible, but how are we to decide? Please don'tsay by independent sourcing, for you've just agreed that the primary sourcing is reliable enough. And supposing that it were agreed that it is not important by itself, shy should we not then include as full information as possible in a more general article? As I see it, that's the critical point--the division into articles is really just a format question at heart--whether we want to have a small number of large articles, or the other way round. The important thing is the content. Why should there not be a mnerge, included all the content that can be sourced from the reliable primary source? DGG (talk) 22:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I think you're putting words in my mouth. I never said we shouldn't write an article when we have enough content. I'm saying that primary sources by themselves are not enough content. I'm all for merging, believe me. In fact, you can check out List of Star Control races for evidence of that, where I've been cutting down and merging about thirty articles practically by myself. I could have easily nominated them for deletion, and it probably would have been successful. In fact, one had already been deleted. It has since been restored and now has a section in the list. And, of course, comments like "Wikipedia does not have a 'Slash and Burn' policy. Pagrashtak might, but he is not Wikipedia, as much as he may think he is." are the thanks I get from some for trying to strengthen those articles against deletion (and, in the case of Mycon, restoring deleted content). Sorry to vent on your talk page like this, but sometimes I feel like I'm getting hammered on from all sides. If I nominate something for deletion, I'm yelled at for ruining Wikipedia and my user page is vandalized. If I try to merge, I'm told I'm destroying organization and creating a huge mess. If I redirect, I'm reverted. If I cut down excessive plot details/game guide information/in-universe writing, I'm reverted. Not too long ago I saw a huge list of fictional character articles that consisted of in-universe information, most did not have any secondary sources, and some did not have any references whatsoever. So I tried what I thought was a gentle approach. I picked one article, tagged it with In-universe and Notability. I couldn't get even that to stick. Someone changed a section header and claimed that took care of the in-universe problem. Notability was removed with the standard "important character in this game" argument, even though I pointed out that Wikipedia:Notability says we needed secondary sources. I said on the talk page that the article needed some out-of-universe information and secondary sources, and that a merge might be a good option if that couldn't be added. I explicitly said I wasn't looking for deletion and that I would have used PROD or AFD if I were trying for that. In response, I was accused of "whining" and "threatening". The word "crusade" was brought up. I was called a hypocrite. I got the standard "this article should have lower standards", "why don't you improve the article then?", and "guidelines apply to scientific articles, not fictional character articles" arguments. Again—I'm not meaning to say that you are doing all this. Just trying to convey that I feel like I'm hitting a brick wall every way I turn, which is why I am so desperate to arrive at a place where we can all get something done with a minimum of hassle. I've seen too many people get burned out over this. I'm the type of guy who usually takes things in stride, like Le Grand Roi. I think I can stick around, and I know he will. But I'm tired of seeing other editors (on both sides) getting fed up and leaving. Pagra shtak 17:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

first, for the specifics I apologize for the rewording but I was specifically trying to narrow down on an exact statement--I knew you wouldn't agree completely, and I wanted to find out where and why. so you think primary sources alone are not enough to justify an article, and the question is why are they not? Do you think perhaps that spin-off articles are not acceptable? Or do you think that N=2RS is the basic controlling policy without exceptions? You say above that WP:N requires secondary sources, but this is not policy, only a general guideline, and (in addition to the fact that all policy needs interpretation and all guidelines admit exceptions), this one specifically says that it is only general and will not apply in all cases. Do you agree with that part of it? (Incidentally, I don't agree with keeping the general notability guideline at all, except as a backup if there is no other possible standard, for I think it leads to absurd inclusions as well as deletions, but that's another discussion. My key objections to it are about other topics than fiction.) Or do you think that, although they might be acceptable, and although we can make exceptions, it would be better practice in general for us not to write articles this way, for some other reason?

More important, much more, is the point about being attacked from both sides, which is certainly true. As I mentioned above, there are in fact those who want to decrease the content on these topics to the minimum possible, and since they sometimes state exactly that, it's not maligning them to say this. They have in the past shown , and continue to show, that they will find reasons to reject any possible compromise. At the beginning, I tried offering compromises on-wiki or off, in the hope of settling this, and found that though they agreed to compromise, nothing except their own views was actually acceptable to them, and if i suggested otherwise, they broke off discussions. If any would like to try again, this page and my email are open. I think I've explained why, in order to deal with this attitude, those of us who support even moderately extensive coverage of fiction will generally try to preserve almost anything that can be reasonably preserved, as the only hope of getting a balance. Now, I am reluctant to discuss individual topics on article talk pages, for I often am not very familiar with the fiction in question--that in fact is the very reason I support full coverage, but I don't sometimes know enough to explain except as a general principle why some particular thing is important. DIscussions there should be left to the knowledgeable. And since many people reasonably don't participate on talk pages where they are similarly uninterested in the particular topic, the people who oppose such content and are willing to do so there are the more easily able to attack it in detail, (I have no hesitation in saying attack is the right word, and I think what you have said above about your own experiences proves it.) I see no way to resolve this except a stable compromise. The only way at present I think it possible to attain one is to hope that new people will join in the discussion.

Myself, I would much rather leave the topic of popular fiction and work on things I do care about, but, as I have explained elsewhere, many of the topics I do care about are those that interest only a relatively small number of people, or have difficulty in sourcing because of the limitations of the internet or the narrow definitions of RSs, and general inclusionism and tolerance, together with a broad acceptance of whatever pertinent sources are the most reliable for the topic, is the best way to get content on these subjects. If we can broker a compromise that is acceptable generally, I remain willing to try, but i am not optimistic. However, I am pretty persistent myself, and intend to continue working towards this indefinitely, though not always with my full attention. Editors leave for various reasons, after all, and we cannot expect everyone who likes to work on Wikipedia to continue to do so indefinitely--that they are fed up with a particular topic is not the only reason--only a minority of active people remain really active more than 18 months or so. There is, after al, life beyond Wikipedia, not to mention other wikis. I've tried some, but i find that this is the most promising. DGG (talk) 18:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't say 2RS=N is a hard-and-fast rule. That ignores the subjective nature of notability. A subject mentioned very briefly and trivially in two reliable sources would not make notability—we require significant coverage. On the other hand, I could consider a subject with only one reliable secondary source notable if the coverage is comprehensive and in-depth. I don't put much credence in the "only a guideline" argument. True, it's not a policy, but guidelines are still to be followed unless there is a very good reason to not do so. I would never put the "External links" section above the lead and then claim that Wikipedia:Layout is only a guideline, if you'll allow me to make a silly example. If you're only swayed by policies, we can do that too. Wikipedia:Verifiability states, "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." Suppose we have articles about Super Fun Game and the protagonist Captain Super Fun, and there aren't any reliable secondary sources for CSF. You might argue that CSF is a spinoff article of SFG. I would probably reply that if you wrote so much about the plot of SFG that you had to break part of it off into another article, you've most likely written too much about the plot. Because, (everyone's favorite!) Wikipedia is not a plot summary. If the plot is covered succinctly, the need for the separate article will probably disappear. To come at it from the policy angle, if no reliable, third-party sources can be found for Captain Super Fun, Wikipedia should not have an article on Captain Super Fun. Pagra shtak 19:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

We are not totally dependent on the wording of either guidelines or policies, both of which we can change. We can have the kind of an encyclopedia we collectively want to have. Once we know what we want to do, we can adopt whatever rules will get us there. (That does not mean IAR. I don't hold with using IAR as a rule, except to deal with something obvious but that happens not to have been foreseen. I mean we should see what we want, and write the rules accordingly.) Some policies are more basic than others, but the only ones absolutely necessary for it to be a WMF project is avoiding copyvio and libel as defined by the Foundation. Everything else is negotiable. I consider NPOV and V as very basic, more basic than the others, but they need a great deal of interpretation, as the noticeboards make it evident. Rulemaking is done in two ways: by deciding of policies and guidelines formally, and by deciding in practice on how to use them. Actual practice is as basic as specifically written rules, as in all human communities--even though some have been known to claim otherwise, in my opinion to give the illusion of social cohesion.) I remind you of the totally disputed interpretation of NOT PLOT, which does not even say no plot summaries, but no treatment of a fiction that is entirely plot summary, a very much weaker criterion.

The problem, of course, is getting consensus, for we have no clear way of determining it. It's accepted that a supermajority is necessary for policy and guidelines, but the extent is not specified, there is no mechanism for closure, and a small determined majority in practice can block decision. AfD dependent upon the vagaries of a voluntary jury system, abetted by the lack of any requirement to notify the editors involved, the presence of oodles of undeclared meat and sockpuppets, and made totally erratic by the practice of letting any admin make a decision, regardless of fixed opinions, based on whatever decision rules he chooses to follow, permitting them if they choose to ignore consensus altogether in favor of whatever they regard as the more important of conflicting policies. True there's an appeal system, but it is so complicated as to have very limited participation and even vaguer decision rules, with domination by a few self-selected regulars. (I say this non-pejoratively, because I participate in as many as possible myself.) The culminating absurdity is the declared refusal to follow precedent--except of course when people choose to do so.

So don't base things upon either current rules or current practice--we need to decide what we want to do. So I ask you again, why can we not write an article on Captain Super Fun, even if there are no formally reliable third party sources? We can still verify everything in it. Why do you think what you state should be policy? And then I remind you how much fun we can have deciding what counts as "reliable"--one can argue the possible interpretations of that word to include or exclude almost anything. What should; we do, is the question. No divinity, even the foundation, ordains 3rd party sources, let alone a particular repertoire of them. We can decide what we want to do. This is a wiki. DGG (talk) 23:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

When it comes to fictional matter, encyclopedias should have real-world information. Impact, reception, that sort of thing. That is not possible with primary sources alone. That's what I want to read, and it's what I want to do. Basic plot points should be present too, but they should be concise and not dominate the article.

I think we're starting to go in circles. I've been down this road before: not notable -> but that's just a guideline -> verifiability is policy -> policy can change. Yes, policy can change, but there's no sense even bringing that up unless you can actually change it. In the mean time, we have to assume it's consensus and abide by it. If we can't use policies in debates, we can't debate anything other than "should we have copyvios and libel?" Pagra shtak 02:33, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Let's go back one step. I think the paragraph above this demonstrates my point. You say that " encyclopedias should have real-world information. Impact, reception, that sort of thing. That is not possible with primary sources alone. That's what I want to read," but that's not what I want to read about unfamiliar fictions. What I want to know about fictions that are unfamiliar to me is what happens in the fiction. I look them up here so I can find out what people are talking about. That to my mind is one key purpose of an encyclopedia. For finding out details of publication and the like, library catalogs and sources like IMdB do as well as we do. The important thing about fictions to me, and I think to most people who aren't deeply involved in them as fans or scholars, is the fictional contents: the plot characters and setting, and that's what I think the encyclopedia should cove. Now, there are a few fictions I am a fan (or perhaps even a student of), and for these I do want to know all the details. If we have people who can cover them, we should cover this fully-- also -- but the basic part of a fiction is, after all, the plot. Sure, if I look up an episode of the sopranos I missed, I want to know when it was shown and who were the actors. But my real purpose here is to find out what happened so I can keep the continuity. For a Wodehouse story, on the other hand, I more or less know what happened in each, and I am more likely to want to find out in just which collections it was published, and the detailed differences between the US and UK editions. Writing too--I like the challenge of clearly explaining something complicated, like a fictional plot; collecting critical views is less interesting to me, though I'm glad others want to do it. The thing about an encyclopedia is to be encyclopedic, to include everything different people might want. You want to meet your needs, I want to meet everyone's. You therefore quote what policy supports your position, and i quote what supports mine. (Please realise I'm not using "you" pejoratively or personally, just following up on your remark here for clarity). If we radically don't agree, and those holding your view are unwilling to allow the validity of the interests of other people, we will not find a compromise, and I will try to explain the more comprehensive position so newcomers will see the virtue of it, and the ambiguities of the rules be interpreted broadly, not narrowly. As I say at the top, of my user page, I am not so sanguine as to think I am likely to convert my opponents. DGG (talk) 03:01, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say it's what everyone wants to read. You said the wiki should be what we want it to be, so I'm telling you what I want it to be—I can't speak for others. And if you'll notice, I also want plot to be covered, so I don't see where the conflict is there. I will say, though, that your wish to meet "everyone's" needs is foolhardy. There are a significant number of readers who would like Wikipedia to be a game guide, contain cheat codes and strategy, contain original fiction, cover original research, be a social networking site, or contain dictionary definitions. Simply put, we cannot and should not meet everybody's needs. An encyclopedia is not a replacement for everything. Some things are better left to strategy guides, dictionaries, and other reference sources. If you think Wikipedia exists to "include everything different people might want", well you've missed the mark, simply put. Pagra shtak 16:04, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

You'll excuse my continuing this--it's not to quarrel, but because I think this an interesting discussion & that you sum up the arguments well, giving me a good occasion to respond comprehensively. I do not want the encyclopedia to contain just what interests or might interest me. If i did, I would choose to eliminate several large classes of material, such as pornbio, and wrestling, and beauty contests, and reality shows, and motor sports, and the more I look, the more other groups I will find. I can think of no conceivable occasion where I would not rather confess ignorance of these than know what people were talking about. But anything which any English speaking person might want to know about to understand things they were not specialists in, that belongs. Not game guides, because that is relevant only to those who play the game. Descriptions of characters in a game, yes, because people talk about these pretty generally, but not the details of how to play, which only the players bother with. Original fiction (and original writing in general, no, because an encyclopedia is about subjects, not an anthology of them specifically. For example, actual Fan fiction writing belongs elsewhere, but if any becomes popular enough that people talk about it, I expect to see it described here. Just like I don't expect to see the source code for PGP here, but I do want enough of a description that any computer literate person can understand how it works, and if this involves includes some key portions as illustrations, thats OK too. I don't want enough of a description of a university to serve as a student handbook, but enough for people to compare with other universities. I don't want a description of a town that includes every store, because nobody not in that town will care, but I do want some description of anything there that might interest visitors from elsewhere. Not every professor in a university, but every one that someone outside that university might want information on. So I'm not a complete inclusionist, because I think it should still look like what people consider an encyclopedia to be. It's not a replacement for everything, or every reference book, but an encyclopedia is intended to be a complete reference book for general information on everything of possible interest to non-specialists. The rule is that if someone might talk about it to someone not in his immediate circle, you should be able to go to it and find enough to seem intelligent, though not an expert. (The totally inclusive position has some merits too, but for practical usefulness would require a modular layered structure that has not yet been developed, though certainly possible.) DGG (talk) 17:45, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

That sounds mostly reasonable. I also want to include things that don't interest me, naturally. Descriptions of characters are getting into some uncertain territory. Some characters I would want in separate articles, some I would not. Most characters are better described in the article about the main work. Pagra shtak 20:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

ok, back to specifics then: the current problem is-as you pointed out in the beginning--that if merged people then try to remove the content. The true problem is of course getting people to write better articles on them, and to make an attempt to find sources for interpretation--this is usually possible, though getting people to do proper sourcing at Wikipedia is a much more pervasive problem than just in fiction. I like the overlap of plot in character articles-for a major character in a series, the best way of understanding what is going on can be through describing their continuing roles, not by looking at fragments in each episode article. Episodes are, well, episodic, just as book chapters are, and not meant to be seen in isolation. Main articles on complicated fictions get too long and confusing, and so can a single characters article. The question here is overall formatting of WP, and it won't be solved at AfD. We could either have many short articles, of a smaller number of long ones--possibly very long ones, like the multi-hundred p. articles in the old EBs. In principle the two are equivalent, but I think for the time being we are stuck with relatively short ones, because the readership threshold for dial up is still at between 32 and 64k, and we cant cut ourselves off from that very important part of the audience. Also, at present, the most that can e hoped for from most authors here is good short articles, though there are encouraging examples, such as the Charles Darwin group. Ideally, the entire Wikipedia should be restructured as a database of material that could be recombined in multiple ways. As a guess, i think that will be for the next generation internet encyclopedia. It is of some interest that the NIH is compelling publishers to prepare journal articles in XML to be stored in such a fashion for their PMC database, but even they still do nothing with them except output them as conventionally looking articles. DGG (talk) 20:54, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I looked through the previous AfDs and they seem to be based on a lack of third party sources. I looked at the merge suggestions, and I think that "Dante" could be merged into the old Blood Angel page (I don't know what it looks like, because its deleted I think). I went looking on Amazon for products related to it. Here are the ones I could spot quickly: 1. Novel series, 2. Video Game, 3. Earlier version of the Video Game, 4. Not sure, 5. Book series. Related to these products, I found reviews: 1. On Codex Blood Angels, 2. Preview? but needs to be checked as a reliable source, 3. Another review, 4. Video Game review, 5. A Wikipedia page that says the Bloodquest book won an award, 6. Movie in production for that book, 7. Another review of that book. I'm tired and it takes a lot of work to hunt through every variation and check these pages. However, shouldn't 12 links be enough to establish some notability? Ottava Rima (talk) 14:22, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Please read. Depending on the outcome of the Commander Dante page, I will ask for both pages to be placed in my user page (merged together) and I will start putting the sources together to try to create a version of the page that is acceptable. After that, I will go through the undelete process, but I will need some guidance when it comes to that. Hopefully, a page looking at the subject from its real life perspective, with dates of publications, product information, histories of appearances in various media, critical responses to those appearances, it will win approval. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi there. I noticed that you made a contribution to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Snotling indicating that you think the article should be kept. Your comments don't appear to address the fact that no mention of the Games Workshop "snotling" can be found in reliable, third-party, published sources. As the AfD debate has been relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached, I thought you might like to elaborate on why you think the article should be kept, bearing in mind WP:RS. Many thanks. -- JediLofty ^User_Talk 14:43, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

You have confused Notability and verifiability. For subjects of this sort, V can be done through primary nonindependent sources. The notability of the characters and settings is irrelevant--if the main article is notable, we may divided the total content however is convent purely as a editorial question--only the overall topic need show notability, not the subarticles. The wording of the WP GNC,. N=2RS, has confused many people--but its just a back-up in case we cant figure out whether a subject we do not understand or have no criteria for is likely to be notable. DGG (talk) 00:56, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, due to it's complete lack of notability , I would say the void, or oblivion, or non being. Do you have a better idea of where to merge a large non-notable article like this? Judgesurreal777 (talk) 05:11, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

at the worst to Eldecraft Worlds, but prefereably to characters iof ... , or Locations in ... , or whatever. Theyr're part of the story and the setting. I'll compromise by saying they are not important enough for separat articles in WP if you wi compromise that they get covered in some manner. If they fit in the main article fine, if not divide. Im not claiming they are worth individual articles, and items of content don't need to be notable, just relevant. The characters are settting for a story is at least relevant' to the story. You're turn to speak: will you compromise, or no? I like to get my way accepted, but I also like peace, and I like it enough to compromise. though not enough to surrender. Your choice. DGG (talk) 05:30, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I notice your presence at the contested article about Bubbles which has provoked: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement#Eusebeus. Perhaps you have some knowledge of the matter which may help. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:02, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

and perhaps what I said wlll be of some help. DGG (talk) 15:46, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Look, I pretty much share his true policy goals: we should provide full coverage proportional to the importance of the fiction, of anything a general reader is likely to want to know about fictional characters and elements, but not including the true game-guide level, with the details that can only be understood or needed if you actually play the game, and not including the fan fiction that extend and fantasizes about the stories--unless of course one such actually become notable. If my young cousin wants to talk about WoW, Wikipedia should give me enough so I can sound intelligent. If the main work is important enough, every significant character in it is worth discussion, and every named character is worth mention. Whether it's in separate articles is irrelevant, but if in combined articles it should still be adequate treatment. (I see I will have to explain adequate treatment--I can explain it better if fiction than games--I mean every individual scene, if it's as important as a play by Shakespeare, and many of the individual lines of dialog. I do not mean every subplot in a relatively unimportant children's series, and I recognize the difficult of doing it coherently with the incoherent very long running soap opera. If someone mentions a character name as their favorite character, I should at least find out here what show it was on and the general role.

Some of you guys writing here disagree with that, and as we will not convince each other, I try to convince enough new-comers. Failing that, I will try to make the best compromise possible -- if people are willing to compromise in good faith.

Now, an editor we have been discussing perhaps did not understand that a compromise is best obtained by taking strong, but not absurd positions, and that not everything is worth fighting over. If on a scale of importance running down from 1st level to 10th, I want down through 8 and you want only down through 3, I will argue perhaps for 9 to get a position established, but not 10, and I will discuss with someone who argues for only 2 for the same reason of bargaining tactics as mine, but not with someone who has doubts about even the top level. If one asks for everything, one sounds as unreasonable as the people who want nothing, and there's no basis to negotiate. For those who wants no substantial treatment of fictional elements at all, I have no basis to compromise, just to persuade other people that they are wrong. Myself, for fiction article I argue for keep if I think it has a chance, and for compromise otherwise. I have no basis for work with someone who will never compromise, but argues for deleting in all cases. He often offered to compromise --go back and read the last month of so at AfD. Those who claim inability to work with him I judge as unable to defeat his good arguments and not sensible enough to ignore the bad ones.

I havent mentioned notability and sources. I consider them either obsessions or excuses. The material for fictional characters is the work itself. First we decide what we want to do, and then we make rules to get it. V is a standard, but RS depends on the subject. I've looked at some of the sources he's been adding; some are good, some not (as for editing generally by most people on most subjects). Some good ones get rejected by people who will ask for sources because they think there will be none, and then reject everything shown on one reason or other because what they really mean is they don't want the article. The notability is the work. The elements of a work are what make for its notability--the notability is composite. It's not "inherited"--what "not inherited" is a good argument for is fan fiction, which doe have to be separately notable. Not everyones riff on the Potter characters is notable, though I know some pretty good ones. (from another genre of fiction, Tom Jones began as Shamela, a hostile riff on Pamela.)

As for Kww's argument here about damage, I disagree with it. I am willing to discuss indefinitely with polite people who take defensible positions, argue rationally, work in good faith, and know when to stop. One could argue the last point is the usual problem, with him and with some others. My problem with the parapsychology people, for example, is that some are not in fact willing to compromise in good faith, and do not always argue rationally. I will talk about it forever with the others. There is only one response to a bad argument, is a good one. The audience will be convinced. If you fail to do so, your argument is not adequate, or your position indefensible in the present setting. The opponent may not be in good faith, but the newcomers are. If someone keeps repeated poor arguments, the sensible debaters ignore him. If someone presents bad arguments, and you abuse or ban him, your damage your own case in the view of any sensible beholder. There is however a case for stating strongly but politely positions that will not be adopted in the hope of setting the groundwork for the future. People supported Tolkien as serious literature worthy of academic study in the 1950s. People argued in the 1820s to abolish slavery in the US, and it was right that they did so--the next generation built on the arguments. Christians presented their arguments by 50 AD, & it became the state region 300 years later. People who leave because they don't win arguments are going to leave from any wiki they do not control; people who leave because they are treated impolitely can be prevented by behaving politely. The first step to civilized discourse is to stop using clubs, and the second to stop using insults. (they don't bother me personally, since I started in usenet days, when things were even worse., but the manner here would bother anyone new to it.) DGG (talk) 13:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Look, I pretty much share his true policy goals: we should provide full coverage proportional to the importance of the fiction, of anything a general reader is likely to want to know about fictional characters and elements, but not including the true game-guide level, with the details that can only be understood or needed if you actually play the game, and not including the fan fiction that extend and fantasizes about the stories--unless of course one such actually become notable. If my young cousin wants to talk about WoW, Wikipedia should give me enough so I can sound intelligent. If the main work is important enough, every significant character in it is worth discussion, and every named character is worth mention. Whether it's in separate articles is irrelevant, but if in combined articles it should still be adequate treatment. (I see I will have to explain adequate treatment--I can explain it better if fiction than games--I mean every individual scene, if it's as important as a play by Shakespeare, and many of the individual lines of dialog. I do not mean every subplot in a relatively unimportant children's series, and I recognize the difficult of doing it coherently with the incoherent very long running soap opera. If someone mentions a character name as their favorite character, I should at least find out here what show it was on and the general role.

Some of you guys writing here disagree with that, and as we will not convince each other, I try to convince enough new-comers. Failing that, I will try to make the best compromise possible -- if people are willing to compromise in good faith.

Now, LGC perhaps did not understand that a compromise is best obtained by taking strong, but not absurd positions, and that not everything is worth fighting over. If on a scale of importance running down from 1st level to 10th, I want down through 8 and you want only down through 3, I will argue perhaps for 9 to get a position established, but not 10, and I will discuss with someone who argues for only 2 for the same reason of bargaining tactics as mine, but not with someone who has doubts about even the top level. If one asks for everything, one sounds as unreasonable as the people who want nothing, and there's no basis to negotiate. For those who wants no substantial treatment of fictional elements at all, I have no basis to compromise, just to persuade other people that they are wrong. Myself, for fiction article I argue for keep if I think it has a chance, and for compromise otherwise. I have no basis for work with someone who will never compromise, but argues for deleting in all cases. LGC often offered to compromise --go back and read the last month of so at AfD. Those who claim inability to work with him I judge as unable to defeat his good arguments and not sensible enough to ignore the bad ones.

I havent mentioned notability and sources. I consider them either obsessions or excuses. The material for fictional characters is the work itself. First we decide what we want to do, and then we make rules to get it. V is a standard, but RS depends on the subject. I've looked at some of the sources he's been adding; some are good, some not (as for editing generally by most people on most subjects). Some good ones get rejected by people who will ask for sources because they think there will be none, and then reject everything shown on one reason or other because what they really mean is they don't want the article. The notability is the work. The elements of a work are what make for its notability--the notability is composite. It's not "inherited"--what "not inherited" is a good argument for is fan fiction, which doe have to be separately notable. Not everyones riff on the Potter characters is notable, though I know some pretty good ones. (from another genre of fiction, Tom Jones began as Shamela, a hostile riff on Pamela.)

As for Kww's argument here about damage, I disagree with it. I am willing to discuss indefinitely with polite people who take defensible positions, argue rationally, work in good faith, and know when to stop. One could argue the last point is the usual problem, with LGC and with some others. My problem with the parapsychology people, for example, is that some are not in fact willing to compromise in good faith, and do not always argue rationally. I will talk about it forever with the others. There is only one response to a bad argument, is a good one. The audience will be convinced. If you fail to do so, your argument is not adequate, or your position indefensible in the present setting. The opponent may not be in good faith, but the newcomers are. If someone keeps repeated poor arguments, the sensible debaters ignore him. If someone presents bad arguments, and you abuse or ban him, your damage your own case in the view of any sensible beholder. There is however a case for stating strongly but politely positions that will not be adopted in the hope of setting the groundwork for the future. People supported Tolkien as serious literature worthy of academic study in the 1950s. People argued in the 1820s to abolish slavery in the US, and it was right that they did so--the next generation built on the arguments. Christians presented their arguments by 50 AD, & it became the state region 300 years later. People who leave because they don't win arguments are going to leave from any wiki they do not control; people who leave because they are treated impolitely can be prevented by behaving politely. The first step to civilized discourse is to stop using clubs, and the second to stop using insults. (they don't bother me personally, since I started in usenet days, when things were even worse., but the manner here would bother anyone new to it.) DGG (talk) 13:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

If you're wondering why people like myself like to utilize AfDs more than discussions for fiction, fans and extreme stalker inclusionists often make it impossible to do anything. They can stall the process forever and only something binding like an AfD can help. Also, the articles are often too bad to merge, so that's 100% out of the question. Personally, I like to utilize redirects for pretty much all fiction articles, but people complain that I'm trying to "circumvent the system" by doing that and demand that I use AfDs. TTN (talk) 18:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Just as a preliminary, a person who has an interest in a subject and follows all major changed proposed within it is not a stalker. I do that to the extent I can for all fiction, though limits of practicality force me to deal with the most drastic changes only. A person who were to follow the work you are doing in this subject field is also not doing wrong, using you as a guide to what is worth looking at. A stalker would be someone who follow you around to make difficulties for whatever you might choose to do, in any subject whatsoever, regardless of the merits. Incidentally, and FWIW, I do not routinely check your user contributions. But if I were to do so,and then follow a certain class of actions on certain topics, I would be using the user contribution list for the purpose intended. You and everyone here can do just the same by me, whether or not I like the results. We work in public. For someone who does not want their works opposed or criticised, this isn't the place. I am aware of at least one of the people who you designate as stalkers, but it is not so--if you were to do work that was not in his field of interest, he would not follow you there. If you wish to refactor that word, you may.

as an aside, I follow my own advice. when I come across articles that ought to be redirection and the redirection is obvious, I redirect them. I've done several hundred by now. Because I limit myself to the obvious, nobody has yet challenged any. If anyone would, I would just let them revert it, for they may be right, and there are all too many indisputable ones to do. I usually don't merge but only propose it, because those who know a fiction best will be able to do it the more accurately. And if someone objects, then I assume I may have made a mistake, and propose some that I hope nobody objects to. There are quite enough.

anyway, I have checked the pages on your latest batch of your most recent proposals, and I so far have found none where you have proposed a merge or a redirect. In fact, the discussion pages are empty altogether. Furthermore, you have made no edits there except the afd nomination. So you must mean you are nominating for afd because you predict that a merge or redirect would not be accepted. Sometimes I have seen some people's proposals for afd stating that they are brought there bcause a merge has been rejected. That is a fairer way of proceeding.

Your meaning as I understand it is, that because the people most interested in a subject often reject your suggestions at article pages, you are trying at afd instead. That's forum shopping at best. More than that, because the people most interested in the material are found at an article talk page, and many people besides that show up erratically at afd, the results of an afd have a certain degree of randomness. I dont don't think anyone could claim more than 80% accuracy for how disputed afds are concluded. And since afds can be repeated, there's a high probability of getting anything deleted if one tries often enough, just from random variation regardless of the merits. Because of this, AfD procedure is biased toward deletion. Is that why you like it?

There are indeed some articles with nothing worth the merge (usually because the content has already been included) But I have yet to see a fiction article about a named character or setting where there's no reasonable redirect. The only reason you might want to do this at afd rather than by discussion is that the afd is sometimes done as a delete and redirect rather than a redirect--and this destroys the history, leaving nothing for someone to build on. In that case, you are choosing to ignore the possibility of improvement. If that's what you intend, I suggest you give an argument in the afd nom. why a delete would be superior to a redirect. (If you're talking about OR content, we don't delete when someone adds OR to an article, just revert it. leaving it in the history. We only delete the edit for libel or outrageous vandalism. This should apply to an article too).

So, if you mean in good faith what you have said above, when you nominate for afd, and some editor suggests a merge or a redirect, at least as an alternative, why do not you change you nomination to say that such would be OK. or even withdraw the nomination (if there is no support for keeping the article)? You could cite the afd discussion on the talk page as support.

I offer you a way of working together: propose here a few redirects or merges, and I will then suggest or support the ones I agree with as joint proposals from you and me. Let's see if they get opposed after that. Take care, of course, that if they are a redirect there is enough material in the article to give a reasonable amount of information on the topic, and if a merge that it not be a destructive merge, but one that preserves a reasonable amount of the content. DGG (talk) 21:17, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll respond to that sometime later, but just to target one point: I wasn't calling you a stalker. I'm talking about the people that have nothing better to do than be antagonistic by reverting bold redirects for no exact reason. Two to four people acting just like that was one of the main reasons for much of my edit warring. TTN (talk) 21:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I recognize that, and apologize if it read that way. I was just using myself as an example in explaining why checking on a particular course of action on a particular type of article, by watching someone known to do just that, is not stalking. It followed exactly the principles of BRD. for further discussion by others, see the Arb Com case. Reverting everything you did anywhere would have been stalking. DGG (talk) 21:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I find this discussion between you both very interesting. I have to admit that many times I thought that a redirect would solve things better. For some period I tagged articles with merge tags or used talk pages without any reply for months (even for a year! Maybe DGG remembers that from another discussion we had). After discussing with DGG, I thought that after tagging if I don't have any reply I can be bold and convert to redirects. Then I notice something really annoying, anonymous IPs keep reverting redirects, removing tags without any obvious reason and without any summary. Right now, I am using AfD more as a safety net to have a consensus. I am worried that even if I place merge tags, someone is going to revert them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

well, if you watchlist them, just put them back. Nobody seems to do this to mine, but perhaps that's because I pick the most obvious ones, usually out of prod patrol, and say explicitly I am doing it as an alternative to deletion, which sort of gives a hint... But what you and TTN say reflects 3 related and very real problems that I recognize also, and that have been concerning me since I have come here:

The ambiguity of merge closes. Our saying that merge & redirects are varieties of keep does not really meet the situation. There are destructive merges, merges which include in some content, and merges which insert the whole (any of which can be sensible or otherwise,d epending on the situation) And redircts can be before a delete or after them, & it makes quite a difference. In the past, most redirects at afd have been without deleting the history; now some people say delete and redirect, to destroy it--which, again, may or may not be a good idea.
The difficulty of both permitting the easy reconstruction of improved articles (and of preventing the reconstruction of bad ones. This sort of thing takes judgment, only in theory part of Speedy G4 for reconstruction. (Let's defer considering deletion review, the quagmire of Wikipedia process, from which all normal people keep far away. Or the reality of asking the admin: a closing admis who may have stretched things a little to delete may not be all that sympathetic to reconstruction either. 1000 active admins with 1000 different standards is not the way to get consistency.) And consider the asymmetry between delete and keep closes, where a keep can be repeated endlessly. Consider a worthy article--if there is a 90% chance of a correct close at Afd, then the chance of keeping it after 4 afds is only 66%. Given WP surviving long enough, anything can be deleted by random chance. This is of course compensated for by the chance of reinserting a bad article and getting away with it. Neither are processes to be encouraged.
The lack of good process for deciding on article content. We do discuss this at AfD, because there's no other good place for general attention. The noticeboards help, the Projects help, the policy talk pages help, but there are too many places and nobody can pay attention to all to them. I do not know how to do this right, but I do know we're doing a pretty lousy job of it now. I shouldn't say "lousy" really , becaues sometimes it does work. The word, once more, is "random."

The question I ask, is to what extent do people want to solve them, or to what extent is everyone really trying to do anything which will get the decisions on whatever it is they are concerned about go their own way? Let me put it this way: would you prefer on some general type of article here consistent decisions the way you think is wrong, or decisions that are half of them right and half of them wrong? (I'm not addressing specifically TNN and Magioladitis, but myself as well, and everyone.) DGG (talk) 01:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Drove by this one. I'm a big fan of stability, myself. The reason I tend to take hopeless articles straight to AFD, bypassing PROD or bold redirection, is because it helps in making the change (or lack thereof) semi-permanent. If I redirect, people usually undo it. If I get an AFD result of redirect, I can make it stick, and even get the redirect protected if there's trouble with zombie articles. If I use PROD, people usually recreate the article, but if it was deleted by AFD, I can get the article G7'ed, and get the recalcitrant editor blocked if he persists.

About 10% of the time, I find (as in the tragic case of Bulbasaur) that despite the fact that the article is beyond all hope, there is a large cadre of editors that want it. When that happens, I know to leave it alone.

I do the vast majority of my editing on the Disney Channel stuff, a role I wandered into through vandalism reversion. Most of the editors are children, and really don't deal well with policies and logic. Discussions on talk pages are fruitless, because there is no getting through to an angry Miley Cyrus fan that not everything that Cyrus has ever done or said needs to be chronicled in great detail on Wikipedia. AFD is the only place I can go that takes the discussion to the level of adults that read and understand policy, and actually have a desire to work on Wikipedia as a whole. It's pretty telling that I essentially never see the active editors on the articles I nominate for deletion actually say anything at the AFD ... I can watch 20 editors come and go, adding rumored tracklists for imaginary albums, breathlessly reporting the blog rumor of the week about what the title of Jordan Pruitt's next album is going to be, and nary a one clicks the link and argues that the article should be kept.

Is there a better way? Sure, but it involves something that will never fly: actually trying to objectively apply policy to article content, and be willing to abide by the results, and deal harshly with editors that consistently violate it. I've watched TTN, and it's painfully obvious that the people that resurrect the articles he redirects don't care at all about policy. We can write all the guidelines and policies we want, and they will make their decisions based on their own personal interest in the topic. We need to get that mindset to stop. We need to get people to understand that if policies and guidelines are resulting in the deletion of their favorite articles, they need to try to get the policy changed, not edit war against redirects and merges one article at a time.

Kww (talk) 04:10, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with about half. I agree that: many of the video and fiction and film articles are written by children (and adults) who do not understand the difference between describing a plot and characters and setting so one can understand, and simply transcribing everything they see. But AfD doesn't fix it, because if the fiction is actually notable, the bad writing stays. If you and I went about fixing them instead of arguing about them, we could get somewhere. I try a bit, and I know you do also, and some others, but it's long and hard--while deleting is too easy. Get rid of them, and then we don't have to work on them, that's our temptation. The question of what fictions are of such little importance that they're not worth describing in detail is a real one, and I've advocated for some time making a distinction between those to be treated in detail and those not. But this never got anywhere, because people kept writing too much about whatever they happened to like--and because people tried to delete the detailed articles from even the most important fictions. I also agree that we have no good way of enforcing good content--but its not just a matter of enforcing guidelines, its agreeing on them. By and large, the best approach so far is the Video Games content guideline--that's the sort of detail necessary to specify, though I don't agree with every bit of it. The root of this problem is our reliance on BRD, a sure way to promote conflict and discourage compromise. But since that's ingrained here as if we intended deliberately to butt our heads against each other as an activity of choice, I'm not sure what to do except to urge you and everyone to be willing to set some necessarily arbitrary rules that none of us can expect to completely like--this at least channelizes the problems.

I agree that that people ignoring the afds except for us regulars is a problem, particularly in this field--perhaps it has to do with the excessively formal standards we've trapped ourselves into using, Or perhaps the variability in result, the tendency of pileons to affect results, and the reversals in successive afds--people on all sides can feel that struggling is hopeless. The problem is made worse of course by bringing too many to argue at a time and to give vague rationales--you mentioned TTN, and he's certainly not helping here. I think his indiscriminate redirects and merges and afds are making things much worse. But then you know how strongly I oppose what he does about this. He should stick to using his skills on improving not deleting content. You brought up his name. I wouldn't have. How can one side compromise when the other thinks compromise is removing everything, even the redirects?

I've offered him, and I offer you, to jointly sponsor some difficult merges. I've offered other people this too, but its always failed because my idea of a merge is preserving content if possible, and other people have wanted to eliminate as much content as possible on these topics and leave only skeleton articles, the barer the better about the fiction itself. I got into this because people wanted to apply that to the sort of 19th century fiction I know and care about. If that's what some want, I'll continue trying to persuade people that it's no more in the interest of the encyclopedia than eliminating BLPs. some people actually do want that. DGG (talk) 04:55, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I pretty much no longer work on fiction. It's just too frustrating, and the opportunities to try to edit war my way through are pretty strong. I do a lot of single merging (contrary to popular belief, WP:MUSIC doesn't say "every single released by every artist in the world needs an article"), and I'm pretty strict with myself about maintaining the content.

In the fiction world, I will argue strongly that TTN (who started this thread, which is why I brought him up) may be prolific, but he is far from indiscriminate. I've always been pretty impressed with his ability to sort wheat from chaff. He used to do a lot of redirecting and merging, and when I reviewed his work after the controversy started, there were only a few spots where I thought he cut too far, and numerous spots where he found something salvageable in a spot where I would have just swung an ax.

In terms of a system, I think we need to stop thinking of AFD as content deletion. What AFD should result in is an agreement that we cannot have an independent article on this subject. The content should get frozen, protected as a redirect, and the information should be redistributed. That redistribution effort might wind up deciding that all the information was useless and we can eliminate the original article entirely, but generally, bits and pieces will find homes. I think a "deleted article information redistribution Wikiproject" would be something that might actually work, and calm some of the feelings that people have when they see an article deleted.Kww (talk) 12:50, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

As for independent articles, I agree our concentration of the question of articles vs. parts is excessive, as compared with the more important question of content. Whether we are to have many small articles or fewer large ones, in this subject and in others, is primarily a matter of format. Good encyclopedias in paper have been written either way. However, there are some key considerations that do have to be taken into account about the medium of a wiki:

Articles longer than a certain size cannot be easily read by the fairly large group of people who rely on low-speed connections. The customary point is 32 kB, but that is almost certainly too restrictive. But the content of all the material on, say, Star Wars, is too long for one practical article.
The reading style on the web seems more suited for smaller articles--there's a lot of research that people's attention span on the web is shorter and their reading less careful. for a very recent review,see Bauerline in the Chron Higher Ed. Review (not sure its free-I can email a copy if you ask me).
The problem of indexing of article sections remains. Links to them are not stable.
The much greater prominence of full article titles on Google and other search engines is a fact. We are not a subsidiary of Google, but use from search engines is important to our users.

and about us specifically:

In practice at Wikipedia, condensing into large articles for these subjects has almost always been accompanied by great loss of content. It's more than bits and pieces which should find homes.
Short articles encourage new contributors. Long ones need careful dedicated accepted management, with a way to encourage new contribs to add needed sections. We depend on attracting naive contributors, for people learn.

As I said, if you want to try a proper merge and accept a compromise view of content you will have my cooperation.

More generally, our article based approach is obsolete. A proper 2.0 approach is a database of modular content, that can be arranged and rearranged in various formats. It's technically possible, and some organizations have actually implemented approaches to this--notably PubMedCentral, which looks like articles but is actually an XML database of content elements. DGG (talk) 16:54, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

If you feel the need to make the same comment in every single AfD, I suggest that you attempt get the deletion policy changed to make a previous discussion mandatory. While your overall point is somewhat valid, you're really out of your element here. You don't seem to have much experience with dealing with rabid fans of a series, so you can't really judge how things should work. The happy "hold hands and hug" method works with some things, but it is not applicable to most aspects of fiction on this site. You're obviously free to vote to keep articles based on your own perspective, but please do not argue that these AfDs are inappropriate unless you can cite something specifically stating such. TTN (talk) 19:07, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

But it isn't mandatory if you want to delete. It is mandatory if you want to merge if there is any possibility of disagreement. Since your rationales are talking about separate articles, then it sounds to me that you really want to merge, in which case you should propose a merge.o. I have offered to Kww, and I offer to you, my help in merging articles on minor characters if they aren't destructive merges. I consider many of the articles excessive detail, such as one I was about to comment on, Jacques Blanc, and if you want to shorten that or similar ones a reasonable amount, I will back you there also. I am reluctant to do it myself for many of these if its more than just tightening the prose. (for that one, a reasonable amount might be down to 50%, but not 10%.) Like Kww, I consider the problem with the writers of these articles lack of writing skill and possible immaturity, not rabid devotion, and I will support teaching them by example. As for experience, as I told you earlier, though I haven't done it anywhere as much as you, I have been redirecting selected articles on truly minor characters for some time when they come to my attention, and nobody has ever complained to me about it. I suppose I ought to go back and see if they have been reversed, but I doubt it. If they have, I may ask you for some help with them.

As I've said, i started in on this when people tried to delete reasonable articles on major characters in some of the most important classic fiction--I know it wasn't you, but that's what first got me interested. And yes, i succeeded in rescuing one game article when I found references, but it was to an article about a weapon that was also one in real life & the real life equivalent was what I knew about, and called my attention to it. And then I looked at some of the articles on episodes of shows I did know about with a complex plot, and found their merged sections ridiculously short of what was needed for any comprehension. Had there been only reasonable amounts of merging and even deletion, I would probably not have noticed at all. But just as excessive articles attract unfavorable attention, so does excessive merging or deleting.

I agree with reduction of the excess as a principle, though it is likely that you and i have a different idea of what is reasonable. If we can compromise that, we might get somewhere with the articles, rather than fighting each other. We won't convince each other, but there should be some zone in common, both for separate articles for major and combined ones for minor characters. And one sentence in a list for trivial. I have sometimes even made what I think are just barely justifiable expedients, such as redirection when it was a little more than trivial, because I didn't feel confident about shortening--in the hope that someone would expand it s mention on the list a little. You surely recognize the feeling--there are so many of these articles. There are two ways to deal with that: one is by improving them, and the other is removing them. I have pretty strong feelings about which is better, but I do consider merging properly a good way of improving. DGG (talk) 19:58, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I nominate these articles with the idea of having them deleted and I use merge tags when I want them merged. When nominating articles for deletion, I generally find them to either be completely redundant or irrelevant. For example, Jacques Blanc is a character that appears in only one video game. The article already has a plot section, so merging anything into it would be pointless. As I have stated, I would redirect just about everything if I could. Unfortunately, it is unreasonable to do so at this time. While redirecting in small patches does work, even the most minor characters of a popular series will be argued over forever. Just in case you haven't noticed, I have been proposing mergers and redirecting a few articles here and there. TTN (talk) 20:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The merges are appropriate and the closings are in line with both WP:MERGE and WP:CONSENSUS. They are upheld by the anime and manga project and by the dragon ball task force. They have already been completed and the merge closings were already upheld by another administrator. Your comments have only throw more fuel on a fire that had already started dying down and I don't see why you felt compelled to come do that? -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 17:42, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I came because I saw the discussion at DRV. (I was not canvassed by anyone--as you must realise, I watch DRV quite consistently). The conclusion there was correct, that it needs to be discussed at the article page. So I did just that. I'm sorry if you don't like what I said, but that's the way discussions go. According to WP:MERGE, there has to be "clear agreement" to merge. I do not think 3 merge out of 7 is is clear agreement in any sense of the word. I didn't add my !vote, I just made my own evaluation of the discussion. If another admin disagrees, that's why we have more than one admin; none of us are dictators and none of our individual judgments are final. You will note I did not revert the 2 merges I commented on, though I think they totally misinterpreted WP policy about the meaning of consensus in this context, but left it for someone else. If this has reopened the issue, that was exactly what I intended--acting against agreement like that is something that needs to be looked at. As far as I know, no admin has authority to definitively terminate a merge discussion, or make any other final decision on content. Anyone, admin or not, can disagree with it. DGG (talk) 18:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)ionists - good for you. Thank you for your help again, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:45, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

"No evidence that there was even a suggestion to merge, before an attempt to delete it." -- yup fair enuf, it didnt occur to me, i'll bear it mind next time. cheers Mission Fleg (talk) 05:52, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

If you ever need support in persuading people, just let me know DGG (talk) 21:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

ok, will do. thanks. Mission Fleg (talk) 02:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I still can't see the article on Cell I'm contesting on the deletion review page, it is only visible on the page for October 9th, not on the main deletion review page... do you know how to fix this? One admin tells me it's there, but I can't see it.JJJ999 (talk) 06:59, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
fixed.

Is it really acceptable for a newly begun attempt to build consensus on the talk page about Cell to be closed like this? the close of the deletion review cited the ability to go to the talk page to discuss this further, which is how Cell got reviewed so much in the first place. It seems absurd that this should stop because some editors find it "a distraction". I find much of what happens a distraction, but that's no basis to stop it.JJJ999 (talk) 05:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

without getting into the question of what should best be done in this particular case, there needs to be some mechanism for actually reaching a decision and sticking to it. As you have noticed, Wikipedia is not very good at this. To the extent we manage to attain such a system, those who lose an particular argument, however unhappy with it, need to accept the result. One needs to work on two aspects: first, making sure the actual decisions are faot with representative participation and reasonable methods for appeal to the wider community; and second, establishing some rules so it does not get perpetually challenged. As an analogy, however disastrous the 2000 US presidential election, the results are now history. As you probably know, I deal with this problem on Wikipedia by working on some many things that something is always coming out right. We must not give up the principal of continuing to value equity, and thus must be able to come back another day on another matter. Even if one's whole life is improving Wikipedia, there are many fronts to work on. I am not planning to revisit this one.

One of the advantages of not having many supporters at your RFA is that there are fewer people to thank at the end. You didn't vote support, but I'm leaving this on your talk page because I thought the lack of an opposing vote was conspicuous. I choose to interpret that as a sign of respect. If I'm wrong, you don't need to tell me.

I'm going to try to interpret this resounding defeat as a statement that I should choose my words more carefully in the future, and remember that every statement I make gets recorded forever, just waiting to get carefully transcribed onto my next RFA. I would go insane if I believed that it was repudiation of what I truly meant: that no editor should consciously and willfully ignore guidelines and policies, and editors that repeatedly do so should not be rewarded for or supported in doing so.

I'm sure I'll get back to full speed editing soone, because, after all, , every day, and in every way, I am getting better and better.—Kww(talk) 05:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Lord O has opened a mediation case on the AfDs on Cell and Tien, if you could go to comment there as one of the parties who dealt with the last issue to arise from this, that would be appreciated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2008-10-07_Tien_Shinhan and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2008-10-08_Cell_(Dragon_Ball) JJJ999 (talk) 00:30, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Since there has been no further discussion on Tien's page, and the current consensus (discussions for which began in mi September) is for keeping him, I attempted to close the discussion as "keep", which seemed fair since a) Collectonian and others have not made any more comments in a while, and nor has anyone else, and b) they have closed many other merge discussions with far less time. Without offering any rationale Collectonian has undone my merge close. I don't really feel like a long series of arguments and reversions, perhaps you can intercede and decide whether to close it. I can't for the life of me see what the point to keeping it open is, when they've added nothing in weeks, and when the other merge discussions were all closed.JJJ999 (talk) 23:13, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

It now seems she is trying to disregard all the input that was made only weeks ago, because she doesn't want to have to factor it in. This is obviously inappropriate. I find this comical, because it is the exact opposite of the argument she made for the Cell AfD, that because it has just been decided to merge, it was too soon to revisit it. Strangely Collectonian thinks now is fine to revisit Tien though...JJJ999 (talk) 23:18, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course, JJJ999 decided that the FIRST discussion that he had invalidated is now a keep because it supports his views. Also, I specifically noted that I undid his "close" because of this and because he changed an existing close and other people's remarks. He is also completely disregarding the AfD which came after the first didscussion and closed with a specific note to discuss the merge on the talk page rather than a firm keep or delete. Rediscussing is fully appropriate in this case where the first discussion was invalidated completely (so it doesn't count at all), and the AfD while heavily leaned towards merge did not close as such but did not close as keep either. Also, you may want to note that JJJ999 is once again engaging in forum shopping and canvassing over this issue and already making new personal attacks. He is also inappropriately duplicating HIS version of the first Tien merge discussion in the new discussion despite the original still being on the same page and easily readable above (and a link to said discussion in the new discussion) -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 00:44, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

You closed that discussion as merge. I challenged the result. 2 Admins overturned it. Discussion resumed. You were unhappy with the way the discussion was going, so to circumvent it you went to AfD. the AfD called for discussions to resume on the talk page. It certainly didn't call for the old discussion to be abandoned. It's a flat out lie to suggest you closed the discussion. Indeed, you left the "merge discussion" link on Tien's page, and when I removed it you undid my revision (and then pupported to create a "new" discussion). You also asked various admins (unsuccessfully) to have the AfD discussion added on to the merge discussion on the talk page. Nice try.JJJ999 (talk) 00:51, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Moving this reply over to the new discussion. Stop the damn forum shopping and reporting in FOUR places. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 00:59, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

You've said the same thing basically repeatedly. I'm saving myself the time of having to retype my replies. It's not forum shopping, because I think it's clear the Cabal was abandoned, and indeed I was amazed something (finally) happened there.JJJ999 (talk) 01:00, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Only because you did your usual canvassing and posting the same thing everywhere. But I'm sick of it and have moved my remarks to the current discussion. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 01:01, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I have proposed a reasonable compromise. I will not insist on previous views being factored in, or even appealing the decision on Tien when it is made, provided that 1 full month is given for the merge discussion. It should be a real discussion, not just a "who is around to vote this week" job. Perhaps it will be recreated with better sources at a future point though.JJJ999 (talk) 01:11, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

As noted on the list talk, I do not see any valid reason to wait a full month. AfDs only run 5-7 days, and as such two weeks is more than enough time for the discussion, which is also the approximately amount of time suggested by guidelines. It is also a week LONGER than folks are given to fix an article in a GAR or FAR. Those are far more extensive processes than a simple discussion. Any active editors would certainly be online within one week, if not two. Waiting a month just draws it out excessively. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 01:17, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Then it sounds like there is no consensus to merge, because I'm factoring in both the AfD and the merge discussion, which make this a snow keep for at least a month.JJJ999 (talk) 02:58, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't. Just let the new discussion run...unless of you course you want to stop it because so far you are the only person to say anything close to keep (and even then, you actually just said you opposed the discussion). -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 03:18, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

suggestion

Why is this discussion here at all? Probably because different parties think my view might be helpful, since I have not really taken any strong position in the discussion. the reason I have not is that:

I have no particular preference whether the material on this character in the game is integrated into the main articles or not. I do not think it a matter of principle, like I do having separate articles for the key characters in major fiction. Major fiction it may be,but unless i totally misunderstand he is not a key character. I also think as a matter of principle we should not have separate article on trivial characters, but unless I misunderstand, he is more than trivial. So I don't see how it matters very much.
what matters is that the content be appropriate, and that it be logically arranged.
1. As for appropriateness, i think a description of the nature of all significant characters is helpful to understand, and a reasonable recapitulation of the plot is necessary and appropriate to do so --indeed, in some cases, the description of the plot can be usefully organized around the characters, as in most soap opera. I also am quite positive that this description can be taken from primary sources and often should be in preference.
2. As for arrangement, I think the current organisation of the Dragon Ball material unhelpful. It is appropriate only to a fan wiki, where the readers already know approximately what it is all about. The multiple versions of the material all of them discussed here separately make it impossible for the outside general reader, like myself--who has never actually seen any of the versions--to know what they are about in the first place, what the interest in them is, or what aspects of them are important or changed in the various series. I find it all a jumble. Nor does the separate presentation of the characters help. They are interesting and comprehensible not in themselves, but in relation to each other, & treating them individually creates a surprising amount of duplication and confusion.
3. What is needed is an article on dragon ball characters, written in summary style, with the key ones discussed in separate articles if there is sufficient material to do so. I gather that the changes in the various versions provide enough material to discuss, but i am not sure that the minutia of this is really important. What came in what box in what language may be out-of-universe, but it is still of fan interest only.
4. I suggest therefore that the people discussing it here, who I gather do understand and appreciate the material, try to write one good long combination article discussing the characters in this series, combining all the material. Upon looking at it, then we can decide how to break it up. Personally, i thin k the most useful way to break it up is a combined alphabetic list, followed by groups of characters by function (or, in other fictions, family or the like). Keeping related material together helps the general reader. If you already know it all more or less, and are just checking for details, any arrangement will do if the material is there.
discussing what content goes in Wikipedia is worthwhile; discussing how to arrange it is less important; arguing over how to discuss it is getting rather lame; arguing how long the discussion need or where it should be held is lamest of all. (FWIW, if the question is content, policy is that there is no closure--and merging is held, rightly or wrongly, to be a content question. I am not sure either of these is necessarily a good way to do things, but that is another matter & not for discussing now. The current policy for both is clear.

I have made a suggestion for how to proceed: I urge that all present discussions be closed without prejudice and that you figure out how to do the work of making good content on all the characters, compromising all necessary points but in the direction of relatively extensive treatment, and then let us look at it in one piece and decide what needs doing in terms of arrangement. We need some of of breaking the deadlock on these articles without resorting to random decision making by relative persistence and local strength of numbers. DGG (talk) 03:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I would guess the discussion is here because JJJ999 thinks you will support him in his complaints because you agreed that those to merger closures were not fully a consensus to merge, so he believes you are his ally. I agree with you on the arrangement, and on the need for one central character article. That is List of Dragon Ball characters and we agreed that it was best to first deal with any needed merges before attempting to get the list cleaned up, sourced, etc. Eventual goal being something like List of Naruto characters (which completely disagrees with your suggestion, but it is an FL list and goes more in-line with the overall project preferences). I disagree with you on the need to close present discussions in the list, however. That is allowing fans to disrupt a very long term and on-going clean up process by refusing to allow the necessary discussions that go along with that to happen. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 03:57, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

sometime when a discussion has reached a impasse, it helps to stop , take a breath, and start again after a short break, in the hope that people will realise in the interval the virtues of cooperation. It does prejudge the issue, and it give a way of saving face. i've seen it work many times, here and elsewhere. I additionally meant to point out that there will be much less opposition to combining articles if people are confident that significant content will not be lost. But this is not the place for me to explictly support a particular side. BTW, I dont know why you think I would dislike the Naruto list. DGG (talk) 04:12, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

That's why I waited awhile to start the new discussion, but it didn't help. There also is a merged version available for viewing (see the AfD). I didn't mean to imply wou would dislike the list, just that it isn't done the way you were suggesting. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 04:18, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I asked DGG because they were reasonably fair in some earlier decisions I noted, and because he has no vested interest in anime or manga discussions. I don't think you waiting for about a week and resuming discussion is consistent with the claimed "need to respect the AfD before revisiting the issue" argument you have made vis Cell, and I think if you plan to do it so soon then the merge discussion should be left open a month. The reasoning is obvious. People keep voting and voting and discussing on this issue, and sooner or later they turn around and think "that's the last vote". They assume they don't need to address this again, and again, only a week later. If you feel confident the article lacks support, then agree to leave it open long enough for a real discussion. either that, or incorporate the views of the previous (very recent) discussion. I can't see how disregarding them, or taking the views of this particular week, is consistent with consensus. If that's your approach you can hardly be surprised if I revisit Cell and Tien next week, because it seems to be your attitude. That as long as there was doubt then the whole thing can be re-opened in a week.JJJ999 (talk) 04:28, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Wrong, the Cell decision was extremely clear in both the AfD (closed as merge) and all of your follow up attempts to revert it. Tien is not clear. As you yourself have argued repeatedly, the first discussion had no clear consensus. The AfD was heavy towards merge, but didn't close that way so really no consensus again. As such, revisiting the discussion is appropriate because, again, no consensus has been decided. A month is NOT needed to have "real" discussion. 2 weeks is more than enough time, at which point I will ask an admin who has not weighed in themselves to close it as they see fit. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 04:38, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, Cell was "clear" in the previous AfD too, and it was "clear" in the subsequent merge discussion, but you still took it to AfD again. Assumedly you won't mind a little down the track when I revisit this issue too. A 4 day close is not clear, and discussion in future was invited on the close. Tien was unclear on the merge you closed, but a clear keep after others like myself came to comment. The AfD is judged on how it closed, not how you feel it closed. It closed as a no delete or merge, so that's what it was. Revisiting the discussion means going back to the discussion we had, that was never closed. Not trying to repeat the process of AfD in merge form all over again, which is what a 5 day merge discussion will amount to. 2 weeks is closer to what is acceptable I admit. If you don't ask before 2 weeks, I'm much more inclined to not dispute the decision.JJJ999 (talk) 05:16, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

It was not clear in the subsequent merge, and the other AfD was months old. And yes, if you bring up the Cell discussion within another week or two, I (and I suspect many others) will mind, particularly if nothing new is added to the discussion (i.e. the discovery of a ton of significant coverage in reliable sources ). Tien was not clear. You engaged in canvassing, which negated the discussion. The AfD did not close as no merge, it just closed as no deleted. The closing admins comments are very clear. Revisiting the discussion means starting a new one, not attempting to find consensus in a messed up earlier discussion that was tainted by canvassing. As I said, I won't ask for anyone to close for at least 2 weeks. Never intended to do it any sooner anyway. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 06:13, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

To call the earlier discussion on Tien "tainted by canvassing" is ludicrous. It was already 4-3 in favour of keep when you closed it, then others who had not spoken to anyone like myself came and objected, then 2 admins and a random added their voices to the protest. I didn't even arrive until after your erroneous merge. The merge was overturned, and the discussion free to resume (you chose not to participate again). How that is "canvassed", even under your absurd definition, is mysterious at best.JJJ999 (talk) 06:28, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

You feel the new comments should be included in the discussions. Those comments came after your canvassing, which multiple admins also told you was what you did. In either case, you've agreed to allow the new discussion to go for at least 2 weeks and accept the results of the closing admin after that, yes?-- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 13:45, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I feel 2 weeks is closer to the amount of time which is appropriate. If almost nobody makes any input by then, I may feel differently. In any case, I am going to save the article for future editing purposes, and if it is improved to a certain standard, I will explore restoring it at a future point.JJJ999 (talk) 22:34, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it is time to stop talking about how to hold the discussion, and just get some additional views on the content? I've given mine on the list talk page. It would really be more productive to go back to discussing the issue itself, than to argue about what past discussion did or did not have consensus. Since consensus can always change, and no Wikipedia decision isever final, that's not going to get anywhere defintie. Discuss the issue of this page, settle it one way or another and get on to something else at least for the time being. This is not the place for it. At least on my own talk page, i can close a discussion. DGG (talk) 23:13, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll respond to that sometime later, but just to target one point: I wasn't calling you a stalker. I'm talking about the people that have nothing better to do than be antagonistic by reverting bold redirects for no exact reason. Two to four people acting just like that was one of the main reasons for much of my edit warring. TTN (talk) 21:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I recognize that, and apologize if it read that way. I was just using myself as an example in explaining why checking on a particular course of action on a particular type of article, by watching someone known to do just that, is not stalking. It followed exactly the principles of BRD. for further discussion by others, see the Arb Com case. Reverting everything you did anywhere would have been stalking. DGG (talk) 21:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I find this discussion between you both very interesting. I have to admit that many times I thought that a redirect would solve things better. For some period I tagged articles with merge tags or used talk pages without any reply for months (even for a year! Maybe DGG remembers that from another discussion we had). After discussing with DGG, I thought that after tagging if I don't have any reply I can be bold and convert to redirects. Then I notice something really annoying, anonymous IPs keep reverting redirects, removing tags without any obvious reason and without any summary. Right now, I am using AfD more as a safety net to have a consensus. I am worried that even if I place merge tags, someone is going to revert them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

well, if you watchlist them, just put them back. Nobody seems to do this to mine, but perhaps that's because I pick the most obvious ones, usually out of prod patrol, and say explicitly I am doing it as an alternative to deletion, which sort of gives a hint... But what you and TTN say reflects 3 related and very real problems that I recognize also, and that have been concerning me since I have come here:

The ambiguity of merge closes. Our saying that merge & redirects are varieties of keep does not really meet the situation. There are destructive merges, merges which include in some content, and merges which insert the whole (any of which can be sensible or otherwise,d epending on the situation) And redircts can be before a delete or after them, & it makes quite a difference. In the past, most redirects at afd have been without deleting the history; now some people say delete and redirect, to destroy it--which, again, may or may not be a good idea.
The difficulty of both permitting the easy reconstruction of improved articles (and of preventing the reconstruction of bad ones. This sort of thing takes judgment, only in theory part of Speedy G4 for reconstruction. (Let's defer considering deletion review, the quagmire of Wikipedia process, from which all normal people keep far away. Or the reality of asking the admin: a closing admis who may have stretched things a little to delete may not be all that sympathetic to reconstruction either. 1000 active admins with 1000 different standards is not the way to get consistency.) And consider the asymmetry between delete and keep closes, where a keep can be repeated endlessly. Consider a worthy article--if there is a 90% chance of a correct close at Afd, then the chance of keeping it after 4 afds is only 66%. Given WP surviving long enough, anything can be deleted by random chance. This is of course compensated for by the chance of reinserting a bad article and getting away with it. Neither are processes to be encouraged.
The lack of good process for deciding on article content. We do discuss this at AfD, because there's no other good place for general attention. The noticeboards help, the Projects help, the policy talk pages help, but there are too many places and nobody can pay attention to all to them. I do not know how to do this right, but I do know we're doing a pretty lousy job of it now. I shouldn't say "lousy" really , becaues sometimes it does work. The word, once more, is "random."

The question I ask, is to what extent do people want to solve them, or to what extent is everyone really trying to do anything which will get the decisions on whatever it is they are concerned about go their own way? Let me put it this way: would you prefer on some general type of article here consistent decisions the way you think is wrong, or decisions that are half of them right and half of them wrong? (I'm not addressing specifically TNN and Magioladitis, but myself as well, and everyone.) DGG (talk) 01:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Drove by this one. I'm a big fan of stability, myself. The reason I tend to take hopeless articles straight to AFD, bypassing PROD or bold redirection, is because it helps in making the change (or lack thereof) semi-permanent. If I redirect, people usually undo it. If I get an AFD result of redirect, I can make it stick, and even get the redirect protected if there's trouble with zombie articles. If I use PROD, people usually recreate the article, but if it was deleted by AFD, I can get the article G7'ed, and get the recalcitrant editor blocked if he persists.

About 10% of the time, I find (as in the tragic case of Bulbasaur) that despite the fact that the article is beyond all hope, there is a large cadre of editors that want it. When that happens, I know to leave it alone.

I do the vast majority of my editing on the Disney Channel stuff, a role I wandered into through vandalism reversion. Most of the editors are children, and really don't deal well with policies and logic. Discussions on talk pages are fruitless, because there is no getting through to an angry Miley Cyrus fan that not everything that Cyrus has ever done or said needs to be chronicled in great detail on Wikipedia. AFD is the only place I can go that takes the discussion to the level of adults that read and understand policy, and actually have a desire to work on Wikipedia as a whole. It's pretty telling that I essentially never see the active editors on the articles I nominate for deletion actually say anything at the AFD ... I can watch 20 editors come and go, adding rumored tracklists for imaginary albums, breathlessly reporting the blog rumor of the week about what the title of Jordan Pruitt's next album is going to be, and nary a one clicks the link and argues that the article should be kept.

Is there a better way? Sure, but it involves something that will never fly: actually trying to objectively apply policy to article content, and be willing to abide by the results, and deal harshly with editors that consistently violate it. I've watched TTN, and it's painfully obvious that the people that resurrect the articles he redirects don't care at all about policy. We can write all the guidelines and policies we want, and they will make their decisions based on their own personal interest in the topic. We need to get that mindset to stop. We need to get people to understand that if policies and guidelines are resulting in the deletion of their favorite articles, they need to try to get the policy changed, not edit war against redirects and merges one article at a time.

Kww (talk) 04:10, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with about half. I agree that: many of the video and fiction and film articles are written by children (and adults) who do not understand the difference between describing a plot and characters and setting so one can understand, and simply transcribing everything they see. But AfD doesn't fix it, because if the fiction is actually notable, the bad writing stays. If you and I went about fixing them instead of arguing about them, we could get somewhere. I try a bit, and I know you do also, and some others, but it's long and hard--while deleting is too easy. Get rid of them, and then we don't have to work on them, that's our temptation. The question of what fictions are of such little importance that they're not worth describing in detail is a real one, and I've advocated for some time making a distinction between those to be treated in detail and those not. But this never got anywhere, because people kept writing too much about whatever they happened to like--and because people tried to delete the detailed articles from even the most important fictions. I also agree that we have no good way of enforcing good content--but its not just a matter of enforcing guidelines, its agreeing on them. By and large, the best approach so far is the Video Games content guideline--that's the sort of detail necessary to specify, though I don't agree with every bit of it. The root of this problem is our reliance on BRD, a sure way to promote conflict and discourage compromise. But since that's ingrained here as if we intended deliberately to butt our heads against each other as an activity of choice, I'm not sure what to do except to urge you and everyone to be willing to set some necessarily arbitrary rules that none of us can expect to completely like--this at least channelizes the problems.

I agree that that people ignoring the afds except for us regulars is a problem, particularly in this field--perhaps it has to do with the excessively formal standards we've trapped ourselves into using, Or perhaps the variability in result, the tendency of pileons to affect results, and the reversals in successive afds--people on all sides can feel that struggling is hopeless. The problem is made worse of course by bringing too many to argue at a time and to give vague rationales--you mentioned TTN, and he's certainly not helping here. I think his indiscriminate redirects and merges and afds are making things much worse. But then you know how strongly I oppose what he does about this. He should stick to using his skills on improving not deleting content. You brought up his name. I wouldn't have. How can one side compromise when the other thinks compromise is removing everything, even the redirects?

I've offered him, and I offer you, to jointly sponsor some difficult merges. I've offered other people this too, but its always failed because my idea of a merge is preserving content if possible, and other people have wanted to eliminate as much content as possible on these topics and leave only skeleton articles, the barer the better about the fiction itself. I got into this because people wanted to apply that to the sort of 19th century fiction I know and care about. If that's what some want, I'll continue trying to persuade people that it's no more in the interest of the encyclopedia than eliminating BLPs. some people actually do want that. DGG (talk) 04:55, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I pretty much no longer work on fiction. It's just too frustrating, and the opportunities to try to edit war my way through are pretty strong. I do a lot of single merging (contrary to popular belief, WP:MUSIC doesn't say "every single released by every artist in the world needs an article"), and I'm pretty strict with myself about maintaining the content.

In the fiction world, I will argue strongly that TTN (who started this thread, which is why I brought him up) may be prolific, but he is far from indiscriminate. I've always been pretty impressed with his ability to sort wheat from chaff. He used to do a lot of redirecting and merging, and when I reviewed his work after the controversy started, there were only a few spots where I thought he cut too far, and numerous spots where he found something salvageable in a spot where I would have just swung an ax.

In terms of a system, I think we need to stop thinking of AFD as content deletion. What AFD should result in is an agreement that we cannot have an independent article on this subject. The content should get frozen, protected as a redirect, and the information should be redistributed. That redistribution effort might wind up deciding that all the information was useless and we can eliminate the original article entirely, but generally, bits and pieces will find homes. I think a "deleted article information redistribution Wikiproject" would be something that might actually work, and calm some of the feelings that people have when they see an article deleted.Kww (talk) 12:50, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

As for independent articles, I agree our concentration of the question of articles vs. parts is excessive, as compared with the more important question of content. Whether we are to have many small articles or fewer large ones, in this subject and in others, is primarily a matter of format. Good encyclopedias in paper have been written either way. However, there are some key considerations that do have to be taken into account about the medium of a wiki:

Articles longer than a certain size cannot be easily read by the fairly large group of people who rely on low-speed connections. The customary point is 32 kB, but that is almost certainly too restrictive. But the content of all the material on, say, Star Wars, is too long for one practical article.
The reading style on the web seems more suited for smaller articles--there's a lot of research that people's attention span on the web is shorter and their reading less careful. for a very recent review,see Bauerline in the Chron Higher Ed. Review (not sure its free-I can email a copy if you ask me).
The problem of indexing of article sections remains. Links to them are not stable.
The much greater prominence of full article titles on Google and other search engines is a fact. We are not a subsidiary of Google, but use from search engines is important to our users.

and about us specifically:

In practice at Wikipedia, condensing into large articles for these subjects has almost always been accompanied by great loss of content. It's more than bits and pieces which should find homes.
Short articles encourage new contributors. Long ones need careful dedicated accepted management, with a way to encourage new contribs to add needed sections. We depend on attracting naive contributors, for people learn.