Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yale 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. --Coredesat 03:20, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yale in popular culture

Yale in popular culture (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Delete - a seemingly random collection of fiction set at or near Yale, trivial mentions of Yale, fictional characters who go or want to go to Yale and fiction set at schools which supposedly resemble Yale. A directory of unassociated topics of no encyclopedic value. Otto4711 13:55, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Delete. Just a random list. Shabda 14:18, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • merge and redirect to Yale - Yale in fiction and popular culture, after deleting all the trivial mentions that serve to do nothing except promote American TV shows and movies. This isn't "Yale in popular culture", it's "TV shows and movies that mention Yale" - and that makes it an indiscriminate list. "X in popular culture" articles may be very useful when written properly - but around here they always seem to get bloated out into lists of TV shows, without any non-trivial mentions from third-party reliable sources to prove that the mention is somehow notable for something. This article does have a couple good "Yale" mentions (see the "other" section), though they're still unattributed; perhaps those can be merged to the main article, and all the TV crap can be purged? AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 14:57, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment-- is there already and article about Yale in fiction and popular culture?
  • Keep. (COI: I am the creator of the article.) The nomination is paradoxical in suggesting that this list is a "seemingly random collection," but then identifying that the connection in all cases is that the references pertain to Yale. Wikipedia maintains "in popular culture" lists, such as Wikipedia in popular culture, a B-class, High-importance article. (I am not invoking the WP article in a "simply because the WP article exists, we should allow the Yale article to exist" manner. Instead, I'm referring to it as a means for comparison.) Like the Yale in popular culture article, the Wikipedia in popular culture article is a list of referents to Wikipedia. Unlike the Yale in popular culture article, the Wikipedia in popular culture article is more discriminating, better-referenced, and fleshed out with illustrations. Consequently, I can understand a recommendation to clean-up, adding references and cutting incidental references to Yale, but I do not think that deletion is necessary. I believe the list is too long to reasonably merge back into the Yale University article, which itself is already very long. Antelan talk 15:13, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep Since author indicates that he/she will try to clean this up, I vote to keep. Sorry, but an article about Yale in pop culture needs to be a lot better than this. The biggest problem with IPC articles is that they include every mention of the subject, based on the erroneous assumption that if it's demonstrated that something is mentioned a lot, its significance will be obvious. Sadly, that kitchen-sink optional approach ends up making the subject seem silly. And this is YALE you're talking about, second only to Harvard as America's premier university, deserving of better than a generic pop culture article. God forbid that this would be merged into the main article. This is Yale, not Yazoo Community College. Mandsford 15:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
comment - The biggest problem with IPC articles is that they include every mention of the subject is where you identify what I think is the problem with all these lists. If the author pared this down to the notable references to Yale in popular culture, the references that themselves have garnered verifiable non-trivial third-party mention in reliable sources, well... that would work. It would work right until 30 users came along and added back all the 5-second mentions in movies and TV shows that the author just pared out. This would require high maintenance to be an encyclopedic article; but, in that case, why should we have IPC articles to begin with? What purpose do they serve? AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 16:02, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • The purpose they too often serve is as a garbage dump for material that has no place in the main article for the subject. The main article accumulates "references" like the ones in this list, of fictional characters who went to Yale or people who say "Yale" on-screen or the like and, rather than dealing with it in the main article an editor splits it off into a separate article called "X in popular culture." I don't know if that's what happened in this specific instance but that seems to be the general rule of how it goes. The tide seems to be turning against these sorts of articles, however, as evidenced by Category:In popular culture losing about a third of its article content and several of the subcats also being cleaned out in the last couple of weeks. People seems to be beginning to grasp that bare lists of "look at the thing in the thing!" references are unencyclopedic. I'm hoping frankly that this will lead to a change in the culture that such sections in articles are nothing but glorified trivia sections and they come to be viewed with the same sort of disfavor as trivia sections are. Otto4711 16:51, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - It appears to me that this article was carved off from Yale University in order to prevent that article from growing excessively large. Merging it back into that article would merely recreate the problem with excessive length. If there is a continuing trend to delete "in popular culture" articles such as this one, Wikipedians are going to be reluctant to put this information into separate articles, with results that will not be pretty. I agree with others that the article needs improvement (for example, how can "Yale in popular culture" be discussed without mentioning Doonesbury?), but that's not a reason to delete it.--orlady 18:04, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Your argument boils down to better here than there which is not a reason for keeping the articles. If it doesn't belong in an encyclopedic treatment of the subject in the main article then it doesn't belong in a split-off article on its own. Wikipedians should be reluctant about putting this stuff in separate articles and they should be equally reluctant about accepting it in main articles. Otto4711 18:09, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • To the contrary, I am reacting to comments to the effect that this should be moved to an "In popular culture" section of Yale University. The university article is 63 kilobytes long; this is one of at least four articles that have been split off from the university article, not because their subject matter was not worth including in the article, but because the subtopics lent themselves to splitting off. --orlady 21:47, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. This is nothing more than a trivia section presented as a stand alone article. Delete all trivia. What is the point? SilkTork 20:54, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Total junk glorified trivia section that thinks it's an article. Biggspowd 21:35, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
since when does WP not write about "culture junk"? The glory of WP is that it covers all of it. Notoriously, one persons junk is another's deeply meaningful art. We cover all of what people care about that way. Some people find baseball teams relevant, some people find pokemon relevant, some Opera, and for these and for everything else there are millions who think that such indication is a sign of immaturity or arrogance. Now, the things their works are about are relevant too. The allusions they make in their works are relevant too. that is what culture is about. It's not justthe main themes--those who say that have never thought about how art is made. A book is about a main theme, but the art consists of the detais, of wat is referrred to , of the suggestions that it has for the reader. DGG (talk) 05:24, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep on the condition that it be completely rewritten to discuss (and not list) the history of the representation of Yale, which does have notability (and is quite sourceable, mind you). Article might need renaming before or afterwards. CaveatLectorTalk 02:03, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
    For the rename, are you thinking something along the lines of "Yale in culture" or "Yale's influence on culture" or something like that but better-phrased than what I can think of at the moment? Antelan talk 02:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree that ..in popular culture is fairly lame, and does indicate an inclination to collection really trivial stuff. Yale's influence on culture is a different matter entirely--Yale's influence on culture is the influence of the work done at Yale and by Yale graduates in the arts and other fields of civilized endeavor. We don't have any real articles of this orientation for any university, besides what's implied in the unviersity articles, and lists of X university people, and it would be a good series--an excellent idea--but it's separate. This article is on the effect that popular knowledge of Yale has on cultural artifacts--things written about Yale, or using Yale as a symbol, or as a theme. It is by the total accumulation of these themes that popular culture--contemporary culture-- is built. DGG (talk) 05:28, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete These are not movies or shows about Yale, but the university plays a very minor part in the plot, hence its a list of loosely associated items Corpx 04:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep It is not just the main subjects. the power of art, popular or highbrow, is in the associations. Writers--even writers of computer games--use the details for a reason, and learning an art is not mainly learning how to pick themes, but to pick the details to illustrate the themes. If someone refers to Yale, they have a reason--when Wodehouse wrote "You're what every father would want for his daughter--a millionaire, a Yale man, and a football player" he had a reason for picking Yale, besides the rhythm of the sentence--by association with both millionaires and football, and as a university his English audience would at least have heard of. By seeing how other authors use it, we build up the picture of culture. To say that the theme only of a work is important is a very superficial reason of what culture is about--that's not why we care about art, or how art is done.
The place for accumulating knowledge about this is Wikipedia. Gathering is not OR; only interpretation is. Even if WP is the not the place for the work, it's the place to collect the sources. I don't want to do this work, but I don't want to destroy the sources for it. I am as a librarian horrified by the speed at which we are destroying access. I will still have access as an admin, and the material should certainly be transferred to another wiki--I can help with that but do not have the time to work on it or organize it-- and it is unnecessary--it could have been kept right here.
The question is how to build these up. The current way of deleting them first is so much the wrong way to go, that it is about this that I am arguing this. I have things both at WP and in the RW I should be doing rather than defending or rewriting these, things I could do much better than this. So let us preserve this, and then improve it. Let us see if every one of these trivial references can be sourced and integrated. If we care about WP, let us preserve the content, even if it takes more than 5 days to do so. Every argument here comes down to "keep, and edit." DGG (talk) 05:25, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Eesh, DGG, look at what you just wrote: "Let us see if every one of these trivial references can be sourced and integrated." Wikipedia is indeed a place to collect sources! Wikipedia is a place to grow articles larger and larger until we have the sum total of all human knowledge! I agree with you! I'm your friend! But I guess I must have a different definition of "knowledge", which disincludes "using a word in a cartoon that refers to e.g. a university, usually done in passing or just in order to establish that this person is e.g. a snob or e.g. a snob from Harvard". Wikipedia shouldn't be a collection of pop-culture trivia collected from Hollywood movies and FOX Network cartoons, should it? AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 15:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
my meaning of course was that "trivial references," are not truly trivial--that they put all together illuminate culture, as argued above. Culture is not made of major works only. -- look at your example-- snobs are from Harvard, proverbially, but not in the same sense from Yale -- this has a meaning, which does not necessarily a function of the actual percentages, but the perception of the universities involved, which in turn affects the further use in art which is what determines what is sometimes called a meme. It is Hollywood --for better or worse -- which defines American culture, as viewed from elsewhere, and cartoons and video which define it in America. We should make these articles better, so you will be able to read them and understand. DGG (talk) 08:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
If we truly care about WP then perhaps we should try to set a little bit higher of a standard than "ooh, someone done said 'Yale' in a movie!" for including something. Otto4711 18:36, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Otto and DGG: Yes, probably. The more I read DGG's replies, the more I can see the merit in his position; and the more I read your replies, the more I see the problems inherent in IPC articles. Considering how much IPC content there is on Wikipedia, maybe this should become a major meta-discussion instead of being hidden here at AfD? It looks like both of you have good points, and you both have high standards for Wikipedia content; but I think IPC sections within the main article can get a much better, scholarly, treatment than these standalone IPC articles which editors admit they're forking out like crazy - probably because they're often no more than a list of trivia without context or (third-party referenced verifiable) interpretation. I dunno, if you do start a policy discussion somewhere, let me know, cos I'd be interested in seeing what the result is. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 14:40, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Fictional Yale alumni would indeed go very well in here. Hadn't thought of that. These discussions can yield improvements, if people think constructively. DGG (talk) 08:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Not nominated for any reason other than the words "popular culture" in the title. Contrary to some folks' impressions, there is no Wikipedia policy against having popular culture lists. RandomCritic 15:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
But there are, several. WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:N have to be satisfied, first. After that, WP:NOT goes into a lot of detail about what we're not supposed to have, and WP:NOT#INFO specifically covers "indiscriminate lists". AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 16:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC) -
  • comment Here's another problem with "in popular culture" articles: they end up being America-centric, with extreme WP:BIAS. Do we get to see "pop culture references to Yale" from Russian cartoons, or from Pakistani movies, or from Chinese TV shows? No. It ends up being a list of trivial references from trivial American mass media, most of which will be forgotten 5 years from now - unless the TV show goes into syndication, in which case it'll still die after 20 years. And in any case, you still won't have a third-party source asserting that the cartoon's/TV show's/movie's mention of Yale is notable. A "Cultural significance of Yale" article would probably be great, as would a "cultural significance of manatees"; but an "...in popular culture" article always ends up being a list of every time an item is used in a TV show just because its cachet allows a bad script-writer to establish a plot detail in fewer words. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 21:17, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
another excellent suggestion for improvement--I believe I mentioned the somewhat different use by a British writer to show his stereotyped Americans. By all means let's get the uses elsewhere--let's see whether the French, the Italians, the Chinese refer to Yale and how they do. Let's see what other cultures make of it. It will soon justify several articles. By all means let's write similar articles for universities in other countries, and themes significant there. what does the Sorbonne mean to americans as distinct from Frenchmen? There's a lot to do, once we decide to improve and not discard. I suppose we owe thanks to Otto for inducing this discussion of how to do justice to the subject. DGG (talk) 08:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Of course, then we'll also need articles like "Guangdong in Chinese popular culture" and "Technical University of Mumbai in Indian popular culture" and "Pyramid of Khufu in ancient Egyptian culture". Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'd like reading those articles: but it does imply article multiplication. And doesn't solve the problem of policing all the articles to ensure quality analysis like in the Jabba The Hut article's section on popular culture, instead of "in the movie Wu Ye Li Xe, the protagonist Lo Fan comes from Guangdong". AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 16:52, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep, improve and possibly rename per CaveatLector. A decent, properly sourced article could doubtless be written about the portrayal of Yale in fiction, how Yale is used as a signifier of prestige, etc. I'm sure that some cultural-studies type somewhere has written at least a monograph on the subject, if not a whole book. There might also be some useful content in this, which discusses Yale as a real-world signifier of privilege and may include discussion of fiction; not to mention the use of Yale in both fiction and non-fiction, from God and Man at Yale to Chloe Does Yale. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:39, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
was waiting for someone to mention that one. About as definite an indicate of noteworthiness as one can find. DGG (talk) 08:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
This must obviously be in reference to Chloe Does... ;-) Antelan talk 16:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete or Merge—Yale is notable, but this article doesn't assert that Yale in popular culture as a whole is notable. As it stands, it's a loose jumble of fictional appearances, which is unencyclopedic per WP:NOT. Citing WP:NOT#PAPER is incorrect; WP:NOT#PAPER states that it only works if the article doesn't violate anything else on the policy page. — Deckiller 14:25, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Deleting this is absurd. I can't imagine what reason one could have to delete this article unless it's a desire to delete indiscriminately everything that ends with "...in popular culture". I wonder if whoever nominated this for deletion knows that the word "Yale" is in the title of this article? Michael Hardy 23:01, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I wonder if you understand that the inclusion of the word "Yale" in an article's title is not a free pass? Did you have any sort of argument other than 'for the love of God, this is Yale we're talking about?' because the notability of Yale does not extend notability to every time Yale is mentioned anywhere. Otto4711 12:58, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't think that Michael was saying that it did — I think he was merely noting that Yale is a university with a very clear and important role in American culture, and that an encyclopedic article could be written on the subject of that role. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 16:53, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep and rewrite. Clearly a worthwhile topic for an article but structured as a disconnected list.--Mantanmoreland 15:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Week Keep needs a rewrite but is worth a keep.Harlowraman 00:45, 13 August 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.