User:TKD/Notability (fiction)

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Notability and
inclusion guidelines
Notability guidelines

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Common deletion
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Contents

[edit] Fiction in Wikipedia

For the purposes of this guideline, a fictional element is a describable element of a work of fiction; it includes characters, places, and concepts.

  1. Notable elements in a work of fiction should be covered within the article on that work of fiction. If an encyclopedic treatment of such an element causes the article on the work itself to become long, then that element can be given a separate article.
  2. Non-notable elements in a work of fiction should be merged with short descriptions into a "List of characters" (or locations), or into an overall article on the fictional universe. This list should reside in the article relating to the work itself, unless either becomes long, in which case a separate article for the list is good practice. The list(s) should contain all characters, races, places, etc. from the work of fiction, with links to those that have their own articles in accordance with point #1.
  3. It is useful to add redirects to the article page or list of minor characters, from anything that's listed in there.
  4. It is often informative to include plot summaries (and other spoilers) in articles on works of fiction. However, please keep them reasonably short, as the point of Wikipedia is to describe the works, not simply summarize them. It is generally appropriate for a plot summary to remain part of the main article, not a lengthy page of its own. In some cases, sub-articles and lists are created when the potential for an encyclopedic coverage is hindered by the recommended length guidelines of one article. Please see the Making good use of Wikibooks and Wikisource section below for guidance and examples.

[edit] Encyclopedic treatment

Main article: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)

Encyclopedic treatment of fictional elements may benefit from brief plot summary or backstory to provide context, but the majority of the article should consist of verifiable, reliable out-of-universe information. Appropriate secondary or tertiary sources that nontrivially and encyclopedically discuss the element should be cited.

Encyclopedic treatment may also benefit from out-of-universe primary sources, such as audio commentary and creator interviews, but secondary and tertiary sources are necessary to establish sufficient context of the fictional element outside those involved with the work. Sources that can provide such encyclopedic context includes:

  1. annotated books or screenplays;
  2. behind-the-scenes documentaries;
  3. critical analyses; and
  4. third-party reviews.

By contrast, sources that only trivially discuss the fictional work do not qualify as encyclopedic sources. Such deficient sources include:

  1. plot summary that contains no annotations or analysis;
  2. cast lists;
  3. advertising materials or mere listings of merchandise based on the fictional element (however, discussion of the popularity of such advertising/merchandise would qualify);
  4. in-universe "biography" or backstory; and
  5. instructional material, such as CliffsNotes, manuals, or game guides.

Such sources generally are not reliable in the first place.

[edit] Examples

  • Anakin Skywalker from the Star Wars films is a major character, and the major points of his character are covered in the article, but he is elaborated on in a separate article devoted to the character.
  • Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books is a major character, and has her own article because the main article would get too long otherwise.
  • Alyosha Karamazov from The Brothers Karamazov is a major character, and is covered in the main article.
  • Superman is universally well known and transcends the original work he appeared in, so he has his own article.
  • Horses of Middle-earth is an example of a list that was created from a group of short articles.
  • Zero (Mega Man) is an example of a major character, covered in the game series with respective elaboration in its article.
  • List of Mavericks - Minor characters to the Mega Man X series that have background information, but lack sufficient relevance to the overall plot.
  • Noonien Soong is an example of a minor, but still notable, character in Star Trek: The Next Generation, who has sufficient content to sustain an independent article.
  • The 1st Battle of Sarapin was an article that summarized a portion of the plot for the game Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. Relevant information was merged and redirected into the plot synopsis of the Galactic Battlegrounds article.

[edit] Being bold

If you find articles (particularly stubs) on fictional characters (and places, concepts, etc.) you may want to be bold and merge them into an appropriate article or list. This allows the information to become more organized and easier to access, with a future option of compressing and trimming excess information. However, if you should do so, do not delete meaningful content.

You should obviously remove redundant headers ('this is a fictional character from such-and-such book by such-and-such author') and original research, but you should not summarize or otherwise reduce the articles in question unless the information can be compressed in a succinct manner.

Another option is to evolve lists of terms and events into general encylopedic articles. For some examples, see Mythology of Final Fantasy X and Clone Wars (Star Wars).

[edit] Details

This guideline was created from strong consensus at Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Minor characters and other discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Middle-earth items. It is not official policy, but should be helpful for making a decision on keeping, merging or deleting of fiction-related articles.

If you are unfamiliar with a certain field or are unsure whether some character (concept, place, etc.) should be considered minor or major, please ask around on the relevant talk pages before making radical changes.

Fiction includes books, TV series, films, computer games and roleplaying games, and possibly other sources.

Fanfiction, on the other hand, may well be considered vanity (not by default, but often so), which is grounds for deletion. This includes anything self-published, put on fanfiction.net, or done by vanity press; information about a character in roleplaying or MMORPGs; and computer game mods or custom maps.

Fiction not yet written may be considered speculation (again, not by default, but often so) which is grounds for deletion because Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. This includes not-yet-released books, movies, games, etc., unless there has already been substantial hype and press coverage about the to-be-released item.

See also Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Check your fiction and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction).

[edit] Making good use of Wikibooks and Wikisource

Wikibooks, Wikipedia's sibling project, contains instructional and educational texts. These include annotated works of fiction (on the Wikibooks:annotated texts bookshelf) for classroom or private study use. Wikisource, similarly, holds original public domain and GFDL source texts. See Wikisource:Wikisource and Wikibooks.

One possible course of action to consider, which has already been successfully employed for several works of fiction, is to make use of all of the projects combined: to have an encyclopaedia article about the work of fiction on Wikipedia giving a brief outline, a chapter-by-chapter annotation on Wikibooks, the full source text on Wikisource (if the work is in the public domain), and interwiki links joining them all together into a whole.

[edit] Examples

[edit] Related topics

  • Possible proliferation of fictional-universe-related articles is discussed in the essay Wikipedia:Fancruft and its talk page.
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