Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/TV Tropes Wiki

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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. the wub "?!" 22:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] TV Tropes Wiki

TV Tropes Wiki (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

Fails to pass the threshold of notability - references are primarily to the website itself. External sources include:

  1. The curiculum for a college course (independent, but not a discussion in a reliable source in my mind, and somewhat trivial)
  2. A referral in a notable webcomic. This is not a discussion of TTW, it's a referral to a single page. The author apparently thinks it's a good source, but doesn't say anything about TTW, s/he just links to it.
  3. A reference in the DVD commentary of Lost. Actually a shout-out, not even a referral and certainly not a discussion.

Per WP:WEB, there is a lack of non-trivial discussion in reliable sources to indicate the site has received extensive attention. No awards, no redistribution in newspapers. Page has received trivial attention, not discussion, in some borderline sources. WLU (talk) 18:54, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Comments by trlkly Moved out of AFD nomination and adjusted to refer to points above, WLU (talk) 12:48, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
(Regards point 1) I'm not commenting on the AfD as a whole until I can gather my thoughts. But I think it's hardly fair to call use of a website in a college class that is explicitly about the same subject trivial. In my mind, determining notability is as simple as determining the notability of the school, and the prominence of that class in the school. -- trlkly
(Regards point 2) Maybe I'm thinking about the wrong one, but I believe he gives a glowing review of the site. He also mentions one of the article, which is technically discussing the subject of the wiki. -- trlkly
    • Regards your reply to 1, I wouldn't consider a curiculum, which will probably change or disappear depending on the class' schedule, a notable mention or reliable source. I could be the minority and other contributors could be convinced. Regards your reply to 2, the comic's author is discussing lampshade hanging; he refers to the TV Tropes wiki for context. The point of the discussion is lampshade hanging, not how TTW is a great resource. WLU (talk) 12:48, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete: Fun and useful place -- I edit there myself -- but aside from glowing mentions in two textbook bibliographies all I'm seeing is umpteen-gajillion blog mentions. Doesn't seem to make the WP:WEB-cut. —Quasirandom (talk) 19:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Striking my delete and abstaining -- between the bibliographic citations and coverage in newpaper "blogs" (which as DocumentN notes seem to count as reliable sources) this is no longer clearly outside the wikidefinition of notable. I'm not sure that it's inside it, either, though. —Quasirandom (talk) 19:53, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak Keep. I'm going to fight as hard as I can to keep this article unless someone else can do it for me. The only reason the keep is weak is that I really don't care if the article gets deleted, but I want to be absolutely certain it fails WP:N before deleting it. I think any less is unfair, no matter what the subject. On a side note, does Wikipedia have a way of proposing an article before wasting the time needed to create one? If not, I think it would be a nice feature. I frankly don't like wasting my time if something is most likely to be deleted to begin with. -- trlkly 06:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Forgive me if I'm doing this wrong, but this is my first AfD. Anyways, I also want to point out that, if there are five external references, and three are ELs, then the article is not "primarily sourced" by the wiki. At least, in my opinion. -- trlkly 06:14, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
That does make some sense. TVTropes may not be notable enough, but the concept they espouse probably is. Of course, we have to find sources. Question: Could TVTropes be listed as an EL? Or would that be against policy? -- trlkly 10:04, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
WP:ELNO singles out wikis (#12) as something that is normally not linked. Like most wikis, this one would be of dubious reliability, and probably considered mostly WP:OR were it here. WLU (talk) 10:53, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
A link to the site would be appropriate in an External Links section. I expect that we will have little difficulty finding more relaible sources now that Media Studies is well-established in academia. Colonel Warden (talk) 11:03, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
I hate using this type of argument, but I'd say it's a bit hypocritical to single out wikis like that. I mean, we have templates specifically for putting wikis on pages. Quite a few pages link to sister wikis or other MediaWikis. So if Wikimedia designed it, (or it's sister Wikia gets payed enough for it), then it's okay. I don't think it's fair to assume that, just because it's a wiki, it is most likely dubious. Examine sites on an individual basis, not using the same wiki-stereotype that alarms WP editors. Evaluate the information therein, not the style in which it is presented. That's my $0.02. -- trlkly 13:33, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Wikis would not ordinarily be linked to in External Links, but this one has been cited in the bibliography in more than one textbook. If it's good enough for those, it should be good enough for us. —Quasirandom (talk) 16:40, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete It looks like it might be a fun site, but I cannot find any non-trivial coverage in independent, reliable sources to confirm notability. I have no problems with someone creating a Trope (TV) article and do not care if TV Tropes Wiki has an external link.--FreeKresge (talk) 18:00, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. As there are no reliable sources cited, I am persuaded that the article does not comply with the verifiability policy. Stifle (talk) 18:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. The New York Times cited them in this article: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/new-way-into-prison-and-an-old-way-out/index.html?hp That carries a bit of cache, IMHO. In full disclosure, I am a contributor there, and lately have contributed far more there than here. --HBK|Talk 03:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • That's a blog, not the New York Times. Stifle (talk) 10:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Also not an extensive discussion, it's a weblink to a specific article. The site hasn't received attention, it's been referenced. WLU (talk) 12:48, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
        • I read that as saying "Of course I don't need to introduce TV Tropes, because most of you have probably already heard of it." --DocumentN (talk) 20:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • From Wikipedia:Verifiability: "Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control." Emphasis added. --DocumentN (talk) 19:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Abstaining (Courteously). I'm not a registered user of Wikipedia, nor am I familiar with the dark arcana of WP policy; I'm just a random browser, and I suspect I don't really have a vote that counts here. I just wanted to note that there are dozens if not hundreds of links out of Wikipedia to the TV Tropes Wiki, as footnotes and cross-references, and I wanted to ask: If TVT is "authoritative" enough for Wikipedia to use it as a source/citation, why isn't it notable enough for its own page? --152.138.227.55 (talk) 12:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Guidelines for notability are based on attention and discussion in sources, not authority. The best way to save the page from deletion is to find a reliable source that explicitly discusses TV Tropes Wiki as a whole, not referring to it in a reference. This AFD does not determine if TV Tropes can be used as a source to verify (though as a wiki that's a large-ish can of worms in itself), only if it has its own article. Having its own article would make the site more likely to be used as a source, but so would the site having received attention and discussion within a source that says it's good or bad. WLU (talk) 12:48, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment As a user of both wikis I have to say that the whole Notability can of worms has made Wikipedia far less contributor-friendly thanit used to be. When you can't tell if a new article will be deleted for lack of Notability there's far less incentive to create one in the first place, which is precisely why I prefer the lack of it over at TV Tropes Wiki. I'll continue to use Wikipedia as a serious (?) reference tool but thanks to Notability I will be contributing less frequently than I used to. Lee M (talk)12:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp (talk) 21:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Notability is not a policy. It is a comparatively recent innovation and it is open to us to change or deprecate it if it seems that it is not helping us. I would support such a change. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:34, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep (and it would be deeply ironic if a site which prides itself on not requiring notablity got it's page deleted for not having enough notability). Cassius335 (talk) 13:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep the wiki has adequate citation to establish that other have persons, be it a professor or producer of Lost, have recognized TV Tropes as worthy of citation.-- danntm T C 17:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: I copied this from the talk page, as I think it might be more relevant here. I also made a comment at the end. -- trlkly
The WeirdestInboundLinkOfTheDay may possibly have some things that could be mentioned. There's John C. Wright, at least.
WP:V#SELF currently says "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." Does Wright being a published trope-using author make him an expert in the field of tropes? --DocumentN (talk) 19:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
You'd probably have to verify the fact that he is a trope user from a source that claims it directly, in order to avoid WP:SYN. -- trlkly 22:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Is it even logically possible to write a tropeless novel? Trying to dodge and subvert tropes is after all a trope in itself; authors have been doing it for a long time, and you still need to use knowledge of tropes to do it. --DocumentN (talk) 14:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Not in my opinion. But Wikipedia likes sources, maybe even a little too much. I've seen statements that are logically straightforward removed because of lack of sources. There's got to be someone who has said what you've said, though, so it shouldn't be that big a problem I think that the author's "trope expert" status would useful, if not vital, to source, though. -- trlkly 16:39, 16 May 2008 (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.