Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Moby-Dick in popular culture

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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 was No consensus, defaulting to Keep. NawlinWiki 18:21, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moby-Dick in popular culture

Moby-Dick in popular culture (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

The article is just a list of loosely related terms, fails WP:NOT#DIR by design. Jay32183 20:30, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Delete Everyone knows that Moby Dick is famous and constantly referenced. We don't need an article about it. --thedemonhog talk • edits 21:00, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete The cultural influence of Moby Dick should be covered by a short section in the main article that places selected examples in context. Piccadilly 22:42, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Given what has been happening with these types of articles (Dr. Strangelove, Ride of the Valkyries, etc), I don't hold out much hope that my voice is going to be heard here, but I find these lists insightful and informative. I think wikipedia is going to be diminished when they are all gone, but the consensus seems to be building that this site is classier without them. Capmango 22:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Give me a break, Wick. I have weighed in with delete on tons of stuff that I personally find interesting, and plenty of stuff that I personally like, and that's clearly not what I'm saying here. Wikipedia has included lists of trivial (but often intriguing) information for years, and now we're on a big purge, and I'm not convinced that Wikipedia will be better off when we're done. We all decide here what does and does not belong in this encyclopedia. Somehow we have decided that if something qualifies as "trivia" then no serious person wants to find out about it. But knowing the trivia about a subject aids in a holistic understanding of the subject, and we are diminishing the value of this encyclopedia by purging it all. Capmango 01:51, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I think we should have a centralized discussion page on the "in popular culture" issue and related ones, because right now it's really cluttering AfD. Morgan Wick 02:05, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I'll add an addendum too. If Wikipedia were a place for every single thing a "serious person" wants to find out about, it would basically be the entire World Wide Web. (I should make an essay, Wikipedia is not the entire World Wide Web.) You say that "we are diminishing the value of this encyclopedia by purging it all" but we're not necessarily purging it. {{Trivia}} says that "content should be integrated into the main content of the article or deleted" (paraphrasing, and emphasis added). That's really the best solution on trivia info. To your larger point, hanging in the background. First of all, consensus can change. But you seem to think the changes aren't good, not that they shouldn't exist at all. What's more, you seem to be basing your opinion in your own sentimental attachment to "in popular culture" articles. WP:NOT#IINFO is policy, and the fact that articles are being nominated for deletion under that policy this late doesn't mean that they aren't warranted. Just because the community has let these pages/sections lie for so long does not, in itself, mean they're acceptable (see WP:EFFORT). Personally, I think this sort of stuff could go into a separate web site, probably even a wiki. And I don't think we should get rid of "in popular culture" sections entirely, but impose a statute of limitations on them. Morgan Wick 03:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
If I have given the impression that my motivation for keeping these articles is sentiment, then I really have not been communicating clearly.Capmango 04:47, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
No, you haven't, at least not on this AfD, where your arguments have come down to "I find these lists insightful and informative" (WP:ILIKEIT and WP:USEFUL), "I think wikipedia is going to be diminished when they are all gone" (subjective opinion, and also comes down to ILIKEIT), "Wikipedia has included lists of trivial (but often intriguing) information for years, and now we're on a big purge, and I'm not convinced that Wikipedia will be better off when we're done" (again, subjective opinion, "we've always had these articles so we shouldn't delete them" - a case of circular logic), and finally, something that at least sounds convincing: "Somehow we have decided that if something qualifies as "trivia" then no serious person wants to find out about it. But knowing the trivia about a subject aids in a holistic understanding of the subject, and we are diminishing the value of this encyclopedia by purging it all." But this also doesn't address the concerns that lists of trivia are, under the status quo, indiscriminate collections of information. And in fact it was these two sentences that was part of the reason why I thought you were !voting on sentimental grounds (though nowhere near as big as your vouching for it on the grounds that "we've always had it"), with your romantic portrayal of trivia - which doesn't really explain how it "aids in a holistic understanding of the subject". You don't think having a list of every single time someone has made a reference to Moby-Dick is repetitive and unnecessary? You really think whatever-barely-notable thing making a passing quote from the book "aids in a holistic understanding of" it, so much that you will fight to the death for it, even though it may have been done a gazillion times before? Do you think Wikipedia needs to have every scrap of information on anything within its pages, no matter how obscure or ridiculously minutious? (Whew, I think I need to calm down. Don't take this the wrong way, 'kay?) Morgan Wick 07:08, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, time for me to give up. What you are hearing is so far off from what I'm trying to say that I don't think trying to rephrase it any more is going to help. If I had any reason to suspect nefarious motives on your part, I would think you were trying to twist my words around on purpose, but since you would have no motivation for that, I'll again assume I just can't communicate clearly. Moby Dick is certainly not that important to me; I don't even like the book.Capmango 07:36, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Nom First vote says "everyone knows about it..." That goes for a lot of things that are legit articles on WP. On these AfDs, I say clean up the minor influences and keep the major Orson Welles adaptations and the like. If it's then too brief to keep as a standalone, merge back into main Moby Dick article. Canuckle 23:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
    • How does that deal with the issue that the article is an indiscriminate collection of loosely associated terms. Becoming shorter and merging it doesn't solve that problem. I don't have a problem with a section on the main article detailing the influence of the work, but there's nothing in this article that will help there because this is just a list. Jay32183 23:47, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge direct adaptations of the novel to Moby-Dick and redirect. The only notable information on the page are the adaptations. If merging that information would make the main article too long, then edit everything but the adaptations out of this article and rename to Adaptations of Moby-Dick. Similar to what was done with Adaptations of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The adaptations of the work are notable. The "oh look, a white whale" spot-every-reference remainder of the article is not. Otto4711 00:28, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge & redirect per Otto. Carlossuarez46 00:43, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong keep, because it concerns a culturally significant book and so can be only improved and will remain relevant. --164.107.222.23 02:54, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Trivia, which these lists and groupings often are, don't generally add any real understanding or meaning to articles. If anything really is significant to the understanding of Moby Dick it can be made part of the main article.--Crossmr 03:00, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep One of the (admittedly few) values of trivia lists is that they can introduce cross-references between seemingly unconnected topics. I agree that Wikipedia should not become a mere list of trivia, and am strongly in favor of keeping trivia lists separate from main articles. However, the almost serendipitous addition of a reverse link from target entries (through "What links here") would appears to add some value to those other entries. For example, the meaningful reference to Pequod in Just Cause (video game) does not appear in that article (yet) -- it only becomes apparent via "What links here" because of the Moby Dick trivia entry. I suggest that this sort of thing subtly improves the encyclopedic nature of WP. JXM 21:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
    • You just gave the very definition of indiscriminate list of loosely associated topics as your reason to keep. That contradicts WP:NOT#DIR. Jay32183 21:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep The adaptations should unquestionably be kept, as even some hard-line deletionists above recognise; those coming out with stuff like "indiscriminate list of loosely associated topics" have presumably not looked at the article. Johnbod 01:23, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep, while its nice to assume that people will assume that Moby Dick is well referenced it is better to have a list that provides specific examples. It would be flawed to chose a few "significant" examples and integrate them into the main article, given the relatively large size of the article (and subsequent difficulty in chosing examples) and the simple fact that the list is not around to add meaning to the Moby Dick article, instead it exists to demonstrate the places where Moby Dick has been mentioned. This article is essential to providing the whole facts about Mody Dick and its influence on society, and it is a fallacy to delete it under the false presumption it is WP:Trivia Guycalledryan 08:42, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
    • The reason I raised for deletion wasn't trivia, it was that the article is a directory of loosely associated terms, which is is and Wikipedia is not. Jay32183 17:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 13:01, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep, per Johnbod. AW 03:35, 9 July 2007 (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.