Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anne Frank in popular culture

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep. --Terence Ong 07:19, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anne Frank in popular culture

This article was split off from Anne Frank as a way to keep the cruft out of the main article. This kind of thing has become a common way to solve the problem of earnest but worthless contributions. I believe that articles like this should never be created, but rather the problem of trivia should be addressed within an article like Anne Frank, without creating a split. Maybe if this information is so important, it should be mentioned in articles like Family Guy or Hilary Duff, as it's got nothing to do with Anne Frank. Mentioning Anne Frank should not confer instant notability. I urge deletion not merging, since the editors of the main article didn't want this stuff. Brian G. Crawford 23:32, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Keep (as per my comment below in reply to Badgerpatrol) Delete - I was the editor who split off the article because I thought the information was not relevent in Anne Frank, but because it was receiving so many edits to that part of the article, I thought there was a strong desire from other users for it to exist. I don't think this obsessive level of trivia collection should be what Wikipedia is about, although I agree that the contributors to it are earnest and well intentioned. I'd be happier to see it, and other similar articles, gone (but as stated below, deleting it may ultimately lead to the trivia section returning to the Anne Frank article, because there are a significant number of editors who are interested in recording this information). I would be appalled and horrified if it was merged back into the article. Rossrs 00:15, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Neutral Comment Keep Isn't it better to retain this page rather than allowing a similar section in the main article? I also dislike such 'trivia' material- but strictly speaking, there's no obvious reason why this kind of stuff shouldn't be in the encyclopaedia in some form. I worry that deleting this article will only lead to a lot of difficult to support reversions from the main Anne Frank article- at least this way, good faith editors have an outlet for entering this kind of information into the encyclopaedia. Is the alternative to bluntly tell them their edits are not wanted? Badgerpatrol 02:44, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

There's no reason to tell them anything. Just delete the trivia when it pops up. Or, if there's a majority of regular editors to articles that approve of trivia, keep it. I don't see why we need to keep edits on when Anne Frank was mentioned in somebody's favorite cartoon, TV show, or song. A reader's understanding of Anne Frank's life is not enhanced in the least by mentioning this trivia. It only serves to trivialize her. Brian G. Crawford 16:30, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Badgerpatrol's comment makes sense to me. I would not like to see this all return into Anne Frank. I don't usually flip-flop but the article is not harming anyone, and I certainly don't have to look at it unless I choose to, so I'm revising my suggestion to "keep". Rossrs 08:49, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Then I'll revise my nomination and say that I'd rather see this stuff merged than kept in its own entry. "Out of sight, out of mind" may work for you, but it doesn't work for me. Brian G. Crawford 16:23, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

No it doesn't "work" for me, but I see keeping the article as the lesser of two evils. There is also justification for having it split from the main article for size reasons, so merging it would greatly increase the size of the original article, which is already quite long. If the subject of cultural references is worthwhile, and I think it is, the problem is the quality of the content rather the article subject itself, so if you feel that it's not necessary to "tell them anything", why not just delete the most trivial from the list, so that the list itself has some relevance? (actually, that would be difficult. I've read through the list again, and I can't see one reference that I think is relevant). You and I agree that the information on the list adds zero to the understanding of Anne Frank, so I don't understand why you would prefer to merge it, and thereby ruin and trivialize a fairly strong FA. Merging should be the last of all options, and in my opinion, the only option that is unacceptable. Rossrs 21:44, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I would prefer to merge it if it is not deleted so that you editors of the Anne Frank article would have to deal with keeping it short and relevant. Splitting this stuff off makes one good article and one piece of garbage and encourages the rampant expansion of the garbage. Brian G. Crawford 01:38, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

"you editors of the Anne Frank article"? Merging information into an article should not be done to deliberately weaken the second article so that other editors "would have to deal with" it. The article should either remain or be deleted, but it should not be merged into another article unless the aim is to improve the other article. For the record, the kindest thing that I can say about this article is that it's nonsensical rubbish, but my aim was to protect the integrity of the Anne Frank article when I split this off because I could see that a significant number of people thought this information was relevant, and they are now conspicuous by their absence. I don't care what happens to this one. Keep, delete - after all is said and done, I'm not going to lose sleep over it either way. But absolutely no way should it be merged. Rossrs 09:43, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

• keep Wikipedia is not paper. Roodog2k 18:05, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

And Wikipedia isn't toilet paper, either. Brian G. Crawford 01:47, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. I agree with the comments above and nomination that this material does not belong in the main Anne Frank article and should not be merged. It might be a worthy article if it actually had analysis behind it rather than being a list of instances in which she was referred to. No prejudice against a serious attempt to write an article on the cultural use of Anne Frank (or her impact/legacy). --maclean25 20:08, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

• Comment; I also think that merging is a very bad idea. This is not a good article, but there is some scope for improvement. I certainly DO NOT agree that good faith edits of this nature (or indeed ANY good faith edits EVER) should be reverted without giving a reason. It would be far better to direct such editors (many of whom may perhaps be new or inexperienced Wikipedians) to a more suitable article. Arbitrarily deleting edits we don't like without giving a reason is not the way to encourage new contributors. Badgerpatrol 23:01, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I regularly remove trivia from articles without saying anything more than that it's irrelevant trivia. As I see it, the only people who benefit from this stuff are the ones typing it it. They get their jollies from that and then leave, and I don't see why we need to wring our hands over it. I think it's best to just delete it and move on. That's what I've been doing, and it's what I'll continue to do. I wish you could agree with deleting this article, but it seems that we have such a fundamental disagreement on what is important that I don't think we will agree. I'm fairly sick of seeing Family Guy references dumped in articles everywhere, and I delete that stuff on sight. Brian G. Crawford 01:44, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's possible that I have a slightly more inclusive view of Wikipedia than you do. I also dislike trivia sections, but I don't see how they are not legitimate edits as per WP policies. Judging by the near ubiquity of 'trivia' or 'pop-culture' refs in 'serious' biographies and articles, it seems not everyone shares my disdain. It's not for us to enforce our own opinions. None of these articles 'belong' to us- it is a community effort, and the views (and edits) of every member of the community acting in good faith are as valid as any other. I see no reason not to maintain the status quo re Anne Frank. All the best, Badgerpatrol 02:30, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Rather than talking about this one article in isolation, it would be great to get a consensus about the use and misuse of trivia in Wikipedia, work towards having a written policy on what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate recording of trivia, and then have something hard and fast to refer people too. It might be a way of gradually clearing all the clutter and debris from many articles, legitimately. At the moment all we can say is "this is irrelevant in my opinion" to which anyone can quite rightly reply "well who gives a ... about your opinion". Wikipedia:Trivia is flawed because it contains a lot of POV terms like "interesting" which is all in the eye of the beholder and impossible to quantify. There's a fair bit of discussion on Wikipedia talk:Trivia but the comments are disorganised and random without either a purpose or a resolution. Just a suggestion, but I think it would be worthwhile directing some attention in that direction, rather than this one article which is going to be quickly forgotten regardless of the result of this discussion. Rossrs 10:01, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with you, Rossrs, there should be a policy that should be followed. I dislike how adversarial this discussion and similar discussions have become, while I realize that I've contributed to this adversarial atmosphere. I just don't see any other way to get my opinion counted. My own view on trivia is that Anne Frank's favorite food or where she got her favorite pen, as examples, would be interesting trivia, while her depiction in market-driven corporate entertainment is not interesting and not needed and is better described as WP:CRUFT. I'd like to be able to reach a compromise on this stuff, because the present situation is intolerable to me and many others, judging from the discussion at Wikipedia:Trivia. I'm tired of being told that my opinion doesn't count in many cases because of some so-called "consensus," and I'm tired of being discouraged from being honest or outright dismissed by people who throw around WP:CIVIL and WP:POINT. That's happened before, although not in this discussion. Rossrs, you want an Anne Frank article cleared of cruft. I completely agree with that. I want that too. Badgerpatrol, you may not like cruft, but you don't want to see anything discarded. That's admirable, but not especially realistic. Besides, everyone is told that if they don't want their contributions edited mercilessly, they shouldn't contribute. Without compromise there's no way to reach a consensus. Is anyone else willing to take others into consideration and compromise? Brian G. Crawford 16:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Brian, I agree with pretty much everything you say, although we are not in agreement about the actual solution to the problem, and that's fine. I want to assure you that I see this discussion as being far from adversarial. On the contrary, it's good that it's being discussed in some detail. Rossrs 23:15, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I also do not see the discussion as being adversarial in any way, except in a dialectic sense. It is always possible to have a robust and forthright discussion (such as this one has been) without being incivil. Fundamentally, I agree with Rossrs that moving towards a clearly-defined policy would greatly help in these situations. I do think that formulating this policy will be very difficult however. If I can just correct a minor point- I personally would love to delete 90% of the 'trivia' or 'pop. culture' sections in Wikipedia articles- but I respect the fact that other people don't necessarily agree, and that editors have put in some effort with these contributions, even if I personally find them to be largely without value. This encyclopaedia is a joint effort, which is why consensus is so important- and consensus means that we won't always get our way on every point. I'm quite sure that everyone is willing to compromise- but personally, I thought in this instance splitting the articles already WAS the compromise position. Badgerpatrol 01:58, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Splitting the article definitely WAS a compromise on my part. It's the only time I've ever felt compelled to do such a thing. It wasn't done lightly and was done mainly because I felt overwhelmed by the number of editors trivialising the article. As one of the two authors of the version of the article that attained "featured" status, I've always kept it on my watchlist and I was affronted that the quotes I'd carefully researched, cited and added from notable people such as Nelson Mandela and Hillary Rodham Clinton talking about Frank's REAL legacy and impact on the world, were being drowned in a sea of Family Guy and Hilary Duff nonsense. Reading, for example, the My So Called Life quote, all I want to do is slap that screenwriter for trivialising Anne Frank in such an inane and so-stupid-it's-offensive manner – how can I convince an editor who thinks something like that is notable enough to put in a Wikipedia article, that it's the worst kind of garbage and has nothing to do with Anne Frank? I've got no policy to refer to - nothing but my own, biased opinion. And not one editor, but several, who all seem to think that "dumbing down" the article is actually improving it. After watching vandalism on this article on a daily basis for more than a year, I've expelled a lot of energy playing the part of "policeman" and it wears you down after a while, so I thought, if people want this rubbish, they win, I'll let them have an article that they can play in. Maybe not a brilliant decision but it's served my purpose of keeping the rot out of Anne Frank, so now it's only the juvenille vandalism to worry about. So in discussing the compromise, I hope this at least clarifies why I split the article - for anyone that's interested. Agree that it will be verrrrrrrrry difficult to reach a general consensus on "trivia". I can dream though. ;-) Rossrs 07:56, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, this seems like a totally reasonable fork article to me. The quality of it is another matter, but that is best dealt with by discussion and editing, which admittedly is much harder work than trying to get something deleted. Mangojuice 19:08, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep as a legitimate article split. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEMES?) 22:56, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
• 'Keep per Badlydrawnjeff. Carlossuarez46 23:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete or merge back. Not good material for its own article; currently little more than an arbitrary list. Stifle (talk) 21:35, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, interesting and useful information. Do not merge back as the Anne Frank article is already 42 kilobytes long. JIP | Talk 11:07, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: Under no circumstances should this be merged into Anne Frank, that's pretty clear. The editors of the Anne Frank article don't want it. Brian G. Crawford 18:45, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I agree with what Badgerpatrol said regarding this matter — Linnwood 20:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.