Talk:The Gates of Hell

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[edit] Decimate the popular references section

From Wikipedia_talk:Trivia:

That should be required reading for anyone participating in this debate. What's said there about Marduk could apply to just about any other article about a deity or other mythological figure:

• Osiris: "In the movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hedwig's song "Origin of Love" mentions Osiris";
• Apollo: "The original classic 1978 Battlestar Galactia series. The main character of the show was called Apollo. Who was an ace Viper pilot (space fighter planes seen throughout the series) and the Captain and strike leader of Galactica's Blue Squadron."
• Quetzalcoatl: "In the computer game Rise of Legends, there is a playable race called Cuotl. There are also air units in this race's army called 'Quetzals'."

Etc, etc, etc, by way of Kokopelli, Ozymandias, Sigurd, King Arthur... (the list goes on). Adopting the Marduk solution (wiping it all off and depositing it on Marduk in popular culture) as general practice would enable such articles to give a much better impression (seriousness, rigor, perspective) than they do at the moment. Bolivian Unicyclist 12:24, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a tenable solution. But, then, this is an encyclopedia, not an indiscriminate collection of information. I think editors are perfectly within their rights to delete random trivia factoids on sight. And I'd caution against avoiding "popular culture" sections altogether; these can be nice additions to articles, provided they are well written, academically sound, and analytical rather than exhaustive. I'm currently reading a book on Jeki la Njambè (sadly, we have no article yet), an oral epic of the Duala people of Cameroon, and the author devotes quite a few pages to interpretations in Cameroonian popular culture. So I guess I'm trying to say: If you've got something intelligent to say about Fujin in popular culture, say it. If all you have is the fact that a character in Final Fantasy VIII is named Fujin, keep it to yourself or put it in the Fujin (Final Fantasy character) article. But ghettoizing these sections to X in popular culture is akin to sweeping the dust under the rug. — BrianSmithson 13:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

This article is basically informative, but its value is being cheapened by references that are basically uninformative. The references do not add to anyone's understanding of the sculpture, and the connections are weak at best. A gate that is large and foreboding is not necessarily a reference to this sculpture. At any rate, we should not forget that the fact that a reference is interesting doesn't make it notable or encyclopedic. With this in mind, I am removing the trivial trivia items from this article. Dekimasu 01:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)