Wikipedia talk:Fancruft

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This page was nominated for deletion on 8 January 2007. The result of the discussion was Keep.

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• /Archive1 (November 2004-November 2005)

Contents 1 Is this fancruft? 2 Atlas Shrugged 3 The Entire Range of Human Knowledge 4 Sciencecruft 5 A useful distinction 6 Redirect from article space 7 Unbalanced or juvenile? 8 Fans of the fancruft 9 Listcruft merged 10 Punk'd 11 Fancruftopia 12 "In Popular Culture" 13 Examples 14 Argument for the sake of argument 15 Fancruft = Deletion 16 Multi-wiki system 17 Quality of Wikipedia. 18 Fancruft's Own Satire 19 Fancruft's impact on external Wikis 20 When fans tip the scale 21 I propose adding a section explaining (or suggesting) how and when you should create a subpage 22 Merge 23 fancruft alert 24 WP:FICT rewrite 25 Valid reasons for deletion, Not

[edit] Is this fancruft?

I'll be honest. As something of a fanboy myself, I tend to like the articles which, by definition, would be considered fancruft - the entries on videogame characters.

What annoys me, though, is when overzealous fans make connections where there is none. For example, we recently had to edit quite a lot of Final Fantasy character pages, because one or two Digimon fans had gone though to each one, explaining the minute and, frankly, ridiculous "resemblances" between completely unrelated FF and Digimon characters. Also, the Corpse Bride article has a paragraph comparing it to the anime Urusei Yatsura, when there is virtually no real connection between the two. This is what I consider fancruft. I suppose these fans mean well; they seem to think the world of the particular series that they've latched onto. But it bugs me that they think that their nebulous fan connection has any legitimacy to it.

Should this be added to the definition of fancruft? "Coincidental resemblances or connections between unrelated media, series, stories or characters is not considered encyclopaedic"? --Marcg106 03:36, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

If they can find some sort of support in canon for their interpretations, then let them have at it. If they're speculating, the problem isn't the fancruft; it's the speculation. Fancruft forever! Salva veritate Rogue 9 00:04, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

"Coincidental resemblances or connections between unrelated media, series, stories or characters" is a good description of this phenomenon, and I would say it is clearly unencyclopedic and belongs in the category of original research. __ø(._. ) Patrick("\(.:...:.)/")Fisher 01:07, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Atlas Shrugged

I've removed this example, because I think it's actually an example of a different phenomenon. Chapter-by-chapter analysis is, by its nature, original research or POV, and very likely both. However, in the case of an extremely influential book like Atlas Shrugged, I can absolutely concieve of 87 different articles on various critics and critical essays on the book that are NPOV, sourced, etc. In fact, I think such a series of articles would be truly impressive.

Furthermore, I think the scale is different - as massive a tome as Atlas Shrugged is, there is considerably more written in the Star Wars universe - it is thus somewhat logical, at least, that the Star Wars universe would need more articles to cover adequately. So I don't think the case that what was done with Atlas Shrugged is generalizable is as solid as it needs to be to be a banner example here. Phil Sandifer 17:26, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Um... no. The Jungle, that was an "extremely influential" book. Atlas Shrugged... not so much, outside of freshman dormitories. --phh 18:41, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't say it was a good book. Just influential. As I recall, it came in just after the Bible, for better or for worse. I suspect worse. Phil Sandifer 18:43, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

...and just ahead of The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck, suggesting that that particular survey may not really be something we'd want to cite as an impartial analysis of literary influence. My point is that for any given piece of fancruft you will find people who say that their fancruft is different from all the rest because theirs is important. If it didn't inspire that kind of outsized devotion it wouldn't be fancruft in the first place. Anyway, I don't think it matters that much and I'm late to the party anyway, but I do think the AS cleanup was pretty generalizable as an example of dealing with fancruft. --phh 19:08, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

My point is merely that the standard for fancruft is not "There are no more than X words to say about this subject and you have said Y," but rather "what you have said is idiotic." Phil Sandifer 19:22, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Entire Range of Human Knowledge

Wikipedia is like an Walmart of knowledge in a sense. I use Wikipedia as my "one-stop-shop" for just about anything I want to find out. I feel this is one of the strongest points of Wikipedia, and in this aspect it is infinitely superior to any paper encyclopedia, nearly anything imaginable is documented to some extent. It is quite an opinionated statement to say that Wikipedia should strive to be like a profesionally published encyclopedia. Whenever there is anything that I'm curious about or wish to learn more about, the first place I would check is Wikipedia, and as of yet it has not disappointed me. If there isn't sufficient detail in the article itself, there is almost always links, both internal and external to places where I might learn more, and it has any basic information I need on a topic without ever having to leave my desk. The primary set of complaints seem to be more along the lines of trivial or non-encyclopedic. Here is the definition of an encyclopedia:

encyclopedia

n : a reference work (often in several volumes) containing articles on various topics (often arranged in alphabetical order) dealing with the entire range of human knowledge or with some particular specialty

Is "fancruft" somehow outside "the entire range of human knowledge" now? I'm fairly certain that Wikipedia wasn't meant to only be a reference to "some particular specialty" so I take the former definition. Let us remember what an encyclopedia is, and not merely a comparison to other "traditional" encyclopedia. Despite how often it is brought up, the random page button is not the way anyone seeking specific information will use an encyclopedia. One does not open random pages of Britannica to look up information on Napolean Bonaparte (pardon my spelling) until one eventually succeeds. When a person visit www.wikipedia.org they do not see the "random article" button on the front page, instead they type in their desired search query, and wikipedia returns the article or list of possible articles pertaining to what they are looking for. That is the beauty of disambiguation pages, and if at some later date those pages become too long, they themselves may be categorized into separate pages, allowing still more information to the user while still providing an intuitive way to find what they are seeking. Adding more knowledge does not make Wikipedia significantly more cumbersome. I believe (and this is my opinion but I'm fairly certain of it) that most would be more disappointed to look for an article only to find that it doesn't exist, than too look for an article and find that there are links to similarly named articles, but that quick browsing of their short description quickly points them to their desired article.

Just 2 days ago I was researching for my Sociolingustics paper on "internet language" and found one of the article that I used was being considered for deletion. Information to be used in a college paper was under consideration for deletion. Any well written article can and probably will be of importance to someone at some time. Deleting such articles does not further the cause of creating a compendium of "the entire range of human knowledge". Instead of removing articles that may not seem to be pertainate, isn't the more important issue that we should add to the articles that are? I do not disagree that there should be standards such that information is presented in a meaningful manner, but the including of trivial information does not impede this. --141.140.121.70 19:58, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I very much agree with this user. To the extent possible, I want to find information on anything I'd like to know about in Wikipedia. There might be some subjects that really have so little interest not to warrant a page. Certainly, if I wrote an autobiography of my ordinary life, that would warrant deletion (covered by the vanity page policy), as would discussion of a character in a book that sold only 50,000 total copies or something. But if someone wants to write a summary of some or all of the episodes of any TV series that survived long enough to have more than 10 (a round number thought-- basically half a season or more), more power to them. Those who want to know have the reference, and those who don't care don't have to (and won't) read the page. KP 01:07, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I also wholeheartedly agree with this. Consider the nature of Wikipedia, and why it's different form conventional encyclopedias. Why would you not find an article about something obscure that doesn't matter to a huge number of people, possibly with a great deal of detail, in a regular encyclopedia? Why am I unlikely to find a list of the Districts of Ogrimmar in the Encyclopedia Britannica? What would make that appropriate for a Wikipedia-style encyclopedia? Conventional encyclopedias are made for the purpose of spreading knowledge at a price. To be completely sure that the content is refined and professional, people have to be paid to go over it. Obviously busy editors can't check whether all the information about Ogrimmar was correct, so even ignoring the physical limitations of traditional paper encyclopedias, there just isn't the time or energy for the pro's to do it all. This is not the case with Wikipedia. There are people who will spend hours on end every day reviewing articles of interest to them, or just tagging poorly written ones, or fixing things and removing those tags, and never see a dime for it. They don't mind. They enjoy it. Maybe they're not certified professionals, but through the peer review of a handful of half-capable people the end result can still be a pretty good article. Why else might not our Britannica friends write about Ogrimmar? Maybe it's something that goes out of style and mind so quickly that they wouldn't be able to get it out in time. Wikipedia does Current events. Or maybe it's just not professional to write about Ogrimmar. Wikipedia users are basically anonymous, and every teacher and student knows (all too well) that Wikipedia is not a citeable, professional source. Just let Wikipedia be what it is, instead of trying to constrain it to the standards of a different breed on Encyclopedia. I would also think that the fact that a person is deeply interested enough in a topic to bother writing about something is, more often than not, indication that there might be other such people out there who would be interested in reading it. And if not, who cares? So you've got an article that takes up a couple KB of text space and 0 KB of bandwidth because nobody is interested enough to read it. I wasted 100 times as much space and infinitely more bandwidth than that article by uploading a picture at 500 KB when I could've decreased the quality to 250 KB. If the problem is that the articles are crappy quality, misspelled, ill-formatted, uncited pieces of garbage, then the problem is the quality and not the subject. Maybe some people have and will put up and never update short articles (or worse yet, long, redundant articles laden with mechanical errors). That doesn't mean they're all like that. Stereotyping and saying "Well fancruft articles are sometimes/always/often poorly done!" is counterproductive because then you all those grammar-hating, obsessive fanboys and fangirls trying to tell you just how st00pid they think you are. Give everyone a break and make better use of your time by working to improve their articles. I think that badly written content is a mutually agreeable and easily combatable enemy. I recommend that this Fancruft essay be replaced with "Fancruft is the shiz, just write it well plz." (Just kidding on that last bit...) --Twile 19:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem, I think, is that the frequently poor quality of articles on obscure topics is directly related to the fact that not many people are interested in them. The WP idea is not that everybody is a brilliant writer or editor--but that the wisdom of many people, added together, can create a brilliant encyclopedia. If you don't get the many people, you don't get the brilliance--usually. Nareek 20:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

And the problem, I think, is that instead of allowing the brilliant writers and editors who want to write on obscure topics do just that, people try to lump stuff together as "fancruft" which "frequently" is "poor quality". Now I have no problem with tagging things for improvement, or contacting the original contributors and ask that they clean it up, or even *gasp* fixing it yourself. That's the nature of the Wiki. The thing that perplexes me is how something can be reasonably be nominated as an article for deletion on the premise that it is fancruft, if as you said, the article is obscure enough to not attract motivated writers and editors. The person putting it up as an AfD obviously stumbled across it somehow, is it so hard to think that some Wikipedian with an equal or greater sense of duty might come across it due to looking for it? --Twile 20:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

An encyclopedia covers information throughout the entire range of human knowledge, yes, but it doesn't contain the entire entirety of human information (something which is, indeed, virtually impossible and improbable). The purpose of an encyclopedia is to give a detailed and professionally written overview of a subject, and point the reader in the direction of more in-depth texts. This applies to virtually every work with "encyclopedia" written on it, from Encyclopedia Britannica to The World Encyclopedia of Comics. --FuriousFreddy 00:55, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sciencecruft

While I understand that the term is used sarcastically, I have no difficulty imagining what sciencecruft would be. Just because a paper is accepted at a conference, does not mean that it belongs in an encyclopaedia. — ciphergoth 09:10, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A useful distinction

There was a useful point made in a Village Pump discussion about fictional universes a while back--about the difference between encyclopedic discussion of popular culture and fan-style cataloguing:

There is no problem with covering the subject matter of fictional characters on Wikipedia. The problem is instead how they are covered. It is mostly done with very little context—no attempt to firmly tie everything that is said to be true about the character to the works of fiction in which they are depicted. See Radioactive_Man_(Marvel_Comics) for an example of this flaw; excepting the word "fictional" in the intro sentence and the infobox details, the article is written as if the subject were real. No reference is made in the article text to a single writer, artist, or even comic book issue or title. See also the "character history" of Spider-Man, which starts with summarizing a plot about his parents having been spies that was not written until after over thirty years of publication history. These articles merely paraphrase fiction rather than describe it, and appear to be written from a fan perspective rather than a cultural historian.

Compare those with Captain Marvel, a recent featured article, or Superman. Both summarize the history of the characters in the real world, revealing the "facts" of fiction according to that framework. We need a very clear set of guidelines to make sure all articles about fictional characters are written in this manner. User:Postdlf 23:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Your point is well-taken, but remember that wikipedia is always incomplete; perhaps the author an article such as the Radioactive Man article did not have access to the sources needed to discuss the real-world context in very much depth. That doesn't make the character or plot information unencyclopedic in and of itself, it just means that the article needs to be fleshed out. Deleting the article destroys any chance it has of attracting more information141.211.168.175 23:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I think making this distinction clear in Wikipedia policy would be a very good idea. Nareek 06:50, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Heartily seconded - this would make good official policy, though I would be sorry to see San Serriffe rewritten in this style :-) — ciphergoth

Agreement from me, as well. Regulars at Featured Article Candidates regularly object to articles about fictional characters and things due to those articles' frequent failure to treat the subject as a cultural artifact in the real world. And when the articles are written from the perspective of the real world, fictional cruft constantly creeps in. See, for example, Donald Duck, which tries to assert the character's "real name" based on a throwaway gag in one cartoon short (for a time, this information was in the first line of the article!). Or Goofy, which does much the same thing based on the television series Goof Troop. I've had to repeatedly revert similar additions to Daffy Duck (in one cartoon, Daffy jokingly says his middle name is "Dumas"). Quite frustrating! — Amcaja 19:30, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect from article space

Fancruft in the article space, redirects here. I thought that this was a no-no. As the article recognizes that "fancruft" is a Wikipedia neologism, referring to it in the article space might be inappropriate.

I did a google search on "+fancruft -wikipedia", and not many hits come up that don't reference Wikipedia (or a mirror) in some useful context. (The word is being used more and more outside of Wikipedia, but perhaps not enough so that it warrants an article...) --EngineerScotty 02:44, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unbalanced or juvenile?

Discusion to be held here. Should it say "displays a lack of balance" or "looks juvenile to newcomers?". Let's not get into an edit war, please. Deckiller 02:51, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I am temperamentally inclined always to side against someone who tries to get their edit in by revert-warring, but in this instance I think I have to plump for the latter. "displays a lack of balance" simply prompts the question - why should it be balanced? But "it makes us look silly" is fair enough. And that sentence is not trying to state the truth, but to accurately represent one point of view.

I must add that you did the right thing bringing the discussion to here - and emphasize that User:JosephBarillari did the wrong thing in simply re-inserting his edit repeatedly without discussion. — ciphergoth 04:02, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

My apologies if people think I hadn't discussed the matter. I justified my changes in the edit summaries. jdb ❋ (talk) 05:37, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

My preference would be for "unbalanced" and "inconsistent (levels of detail and coverage)" with the image we try to project as a competitor with EB et al- juvenile has connotations more along the lines of pages dealing with how totally sweet chicks and breasts are, or how ninjas can totally flip out for no good reason and so ninjas are the most awesome creatures God ever created, so awesome that a ninja once flipped out on God himself... but I digress. The problem is simply one of coverage, with some deprecated areas receiving more attention than others. Let's not engage in name-calling. And I can't say that glibly deprecating the work of thousands of editors is all that good a thing, either.

Besides, describing Wikipedia as hopelessly crufty is not a little insulting to our readers- we wanted an Encyclopedia written by, for, and of its readers, the better to serve them. And may the gods help us, we got it. --maru (talk) contribs 06:21, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Maru. "Unbalanced" is the, er, more balanced term. — Amcaja 12:56, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I rewrote it to avoid the issue entirely. jdb ❋ (talk) 07:04, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Out of curiousity where in the world doesn't an exhaustively comphrensive article about a Red hedgehog count as juvenile?

Those portions of the world where people don't snidely dismiss as worthless good and comprehensive articles on subjects they happen to not subjectively find worthwhile. -- Gwern (contribs) 18:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

More to the point, since when does a juvenile interest, in the sense of a children's hobby, make something juvenile in the psuedo-moral sense? --tjstrf 19:01, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Even more to the point, calling fancruft juvenile is a generalization. — Deckiller 19:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fans of the fancruft

I'd like to add something to the page about sentences (and they are extremely common in WP) that begin "Many fans believe that" or "Popular response to this is" or anything that cites the Internet fan community as an authority without any verification (e.g. The Secret War of Lisa Simpson, Criticism of Halo 2, The Division Bell). The presumption that an online fan community is representative of general opinion is a significant problem with fancruft, and seeing as these types of pop culture articles aren't about to go away it's probably worth pointing out how they could be improved rather than just deleting them when they're particularly peripheral or egregious. Ziggurat 08:19, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Kill these when you see them. Phil Sandifer 18:42, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Those are weasel words, and there's a whole 'nother project page dedicated to them and their removal. And, yes, please slaughter these mercilessly and e-pinch the people who have added them. "Some/Many fans believe" and such are ususally just a way of someone adding their personal opinion to an article, and trying to disguise the fact. --FuriousFreddy 01:45, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Huh? That's a HUGE overgeneralization. Huge. To me, the question would be whether (a) what comes after "some fans believe" is really an opinion of some fans (even a definite minority) rather than just the writer, and (b) whether alternative interpretations are also included and given fair treatment. The writer may not know every alternative interpretation that has significant support, but those can simply be added rather than throwing the whole concept out. I can also imagine a case where there are so many interpretations of something that it would take up half the article to list them, but that's the exception and not the rule. KP 00:58, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree somewhat with KP. For instance, I'm still trying to find time to track down SPECIFIC references for a number of the theories (which I HAVE seen both in online fan communities and occasionally, in academic papers) mentioned regarding what is or is not fan fiction. These theories ARE out there - I just haven't been able to get around to finding non-LiveJournaly sources to show who in the fan community or especially who in the academic community supports each theory. And I'd rather they be there for now (though admittedly, perhaps with a Citation Needed tag here and there) than not be there at all. Articles such as this are in a state of flux, somewhere between "crap" and "decent article"; the point being that as balanced a range of views and facets as possible be shown, but (the mark of a good or great article) be well-written AND well-sourced. People are working on the latter, especially. Runa27 03:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I had a similar problem with these "weasel words" recently in an article, concerning a bootleg of demos vs. the finished official album (major artist, but won't distract by naming them, it's not important to the point).

I knew for a fact that "some fans" (no idea how many, but more than "hardly any") prefer the rough 'n' ready boot to the officially polished jewel, and felt I had to say so, or I'd be committing a WP:NPOV error. I trust everyone here would agree there.

However, "...some fans..." was the only NPOV construction I could come up with. "Many fans" would've been way OTT and POV - a complete distortion. But "a few fans" would've definitely misrepresented the situation the other way, as if "no one really liked it except a few nutcases" - not true at all, and so more POV and distortion. And using a different word to "fans" woulda just made the NPOV situation worse (I wasn't discussing "record-buying folks in general", as most would be unlikely to have heard the damn boot at all, and I certainly couldn't categorically state what Joe Public thought on the issue anyway).

So, it was a bootleg, and I was definitely talking about "fans", no question - so I used "fans". And the number of "fans", in the interests of NPOV, was "some" - not "none" (a lie), not "most" (distortion, POV), not "a few" (dismissive tone, POV), but "some".

In that particular context, I couldn't get any more "neutral" than "some fans..." - I ain't saying "nearly everyone" and I ain't saying "a few losers" either. I am therefore expressing a NPOV. To say "ah to hell with it, those are weasel words, can the whole discussion" would've been a far worse POV crime (since I knew critical reception of the bootleg was significant to its history) than keeping what I wrote.

And, for the record, I like both the boot and the real album, but would always favour the official one if ever pressed, no question.

So if someone was to announce to me with a deft flourish that my use of "some fans..." proved categorically that I was pushing my own POV, well - that person could not possibly be more wrong! :-)

BTW, I had other verifiable sources to cite who also preferred the boot, so I didn't lose any sleep over my use of "some fans", but I do think it is clear that "weasel words" are sometimes something of a requisite of NPOV writing, not an anathema to it. "Ban them all now!" is a bit simplistic and naive... and maybe a bit POV in itself. IMO, of course... --DaveG12345 05:30, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Listcruft merged

Listcruft merged per request. Deckiller 03:37, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

The following is the archive of a concluded discussion. Please do not modify it. The result of the discussion was do not merge. Stifle (talk) 22:41, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I am de-merging this again, to allow for proper discussion. The merge request was on the page for less than a day. I think that Listcruft and Fancruft are distinct subjects, and merging them is not appropriate - especially as someone calling up Wikipedia:Listcruft gets diverted to this page, where the information they're actually looking for is more than a full screen down the page. Stifle 20:44, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I oppose merge. The two are separate and distinct. Just zis Guy you know? 10:20, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. Combining the two seems unhelpful. Nareek 16:00, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that they should not be merged. Listcruft is a different sort of problem. — Amcaja 16:08, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The above is the archive of a concluded discussion. Please do not modify it.

[edit] Punk'd

Hi. Sorry to bother you, but I'm having some trouble on the Punk'd article. An unregistered user named BigBang19 keeps re-inserting material into the article that is irrelevant, poorly worded, etc. I've tried posting a message on that article's Talk Page, but he has not responded. Because he had no User Page, my message to him was the first one on it. If you could check out the bottommost section on the Talk Page and chime in with your two cents on his revisions, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. Nightscream 05:52, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fancruftopia

I can think of about two fictional universes whose characters merit articles on Wikipedia -- the Bible and Greek mythology. Kidding! But only a little.

Video game characters? Characters on sitcoms? Articles on any characters, beyond main articles about works of fiction? I'm agin' all of it, and I'd vote "yes" for a policy that said "Characters (episodes, planetoids, robots, chapters in Atlas Shrugged, and Beanie Babies) live in their respective fictional worlds only, not in Wikipedia."

Everyone should read/see/play with works of fiction, and then, for more insight, information, and total immersion in their fictional worlds, start a discussion group -- maybe with real people together in a room. Or on the Internet. Publish a book. Put up a website. Start a fan club.

Fancruft is spam. How productive would it be to focus our energies on factual, useful encyclopedic content (including works of literature and film, but not down to each horse's name and fictional planet of origin)? This is one of the main things that keeps me from contributing money to the Wiki foundation. There's no way I'm paying for more hard drives to get clogged with characters from WWF Smackdown, aliens appearing on Stargate SG-1, or lists of muggles with funny names.

I think this is an awful way of looking at things. We should retain the encyclopedia model in terms of desired quality and NPOV, but not limit content to that which would be found in an encyclopedia. The basic criterion for deleting a page should be as simple as, "Will a significant number of people want to read it, and if they do will they be informed by it?" For a good article about a major character in a reasonably popular work of fiction, the answers are yes and yes. And actually, if the first part is yes and the second is no, that means the article requires improvements to its quality, but not deletion-- unless the needed improvements are so massive it would be easier to delete it and start over. KP 22:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Well said! --maru (talk) contribs 23:40, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. My opinions on "fancruft" are so complex and confusing that I've never really had the time to sit and put it on paper. — Deckiller 23:43, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Send the entire Star Wars/Pokémon/Simpsons/Potter/Anime/Adult Swim/Soap/Real World/Survivor fancruft universe elsewhere. And I love The Simpsons! And Aqua Teen Hunger Force too. But articles on individual Simpsons episodes, or Billy Witch Doctor, is ridiculous. I liked Star Wars a lot, at least the first one. Having articles on Star Wars characters is absurd. It's all original research, not to mention impossible-by-definition to meet WP:NPOV. ("Some think that Lando was forced to encase Han in carbonite, while others feel he was just being vindictive."). The fact that people feel their lives were changed by a Jedi is a reflection of the human race's lack of compassion and contact with itself, not a basis for another "encyclopedia" article.

People shake their heads when there's a news story about a college somewhere teaching Star Wars as Metaphor, or "Parallels Between Dune and the Balkans Situation." If they knew the number of pages on Wikipedia devoted to this stuff, they might suspect that Wikipedia is a giant compendium of pop-culture masturbation, with a few encyclopedic articles in the sciences and humanities.

Don't get me wrong. I spent a lot of time lately on some fiction-based articles, including Burr and Brokeback Mountain. But I'm not writing separate articles on Ennis Del Mar, Jack Twist, their horses, wives, kids, and the rodeo clown in the bar in scene 16.

I'd pay somebody to fork the whole thing tomorrow, and send Fancruftopia(tm) its separate way.

I'm really not a crabby old college classics professor. I'd rather sound like one, though, than a nincompoop who knows more about the third season of Who's the Boss than he does about global warming or what a molecule is. By not banning fancruft, we feed it, and it metastasizes throughout the body Wiki. DavidH 08:24, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

ooooh, nothing is complete without an oh-so-tasteful cancer comparison. Really lets us know how carefully you've thought about this whole thing. Look, if you see a specific article that you think exhibits Granularity Out Of Proportion To Influence, then feel free to suggest it be merged or put it up for deletion. But a statement as broad and sweeping as the one you make here comes off as unbelievably arrogant ("Hey, look, guyz! I can effortlessly sum up the importance of all fiction in the last two millenia in a couple of sweeping paragraphs! Ain't I smart?") and puts off people who might have actually sympathized with a desire to rein in the spread of fancruft on a reasonable basis. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:17, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't trying to be offensive per se, but I take your point and apologize. I see not a few specific articles but thousands out of proportion. As to unbelievable arrogance, I'll wear that shoe. Mainly I thought the rant could be amusing; I'll try to be reasonable when it comes to actual proposals. The hyperbole shouldn't be taken as bad faith and nothing else. -- DavidH 00:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

AF---interesting point, but it understates the problem. Suggesting that DavidH VFD "a specific article" glosses over the real issue, which isn't the occasional extra article here or there, but great gobs of articles on individual games, TV shows, and movies. Look at Cosmic Era Mobile Units, which lists dozens if not hundreds of individual articles on giant robots from a Japanese cartoon show. It's a waste of time to discuss those one-by-one---they are either all worthy of inclusion, or none of them are. --jdb ❋ (talk) 00:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Why is it they must all be notable or non-notable, period? What about a list of them? --maru (talk) contribs 02:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I can't honestly imagine that (for example) TS-MA2mod.00_Moebius_Zero could be notable while ZGMF-X09A Justice Gundam would not be, or vice versa. As to consolidating all of the articles into a list, well, that's also on the table. But any such consolidation would require deleting material (the individual articles aren't exactly stubs), which brings us back to the question at hand. --jdb ❋ (talk) 06:03, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Deleting? Why would you need to delete information when merging into a list? In my experience, the only information lost in merging is usually the categories (since a list doesn't usually have a superset of all its element's original categories) and possibly links to the articles. --maru (talk) contribs 06:41, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

In many of the fancruft articles in question, you would and do lose large amounts of information in a merge because making a list by combining articles without trimming them can result in articles with lengths of 30+ pages. Even when an article tree is admittedly fancruft by almost any definition, merging it into a list can be a bad idea because of the massive size of the resulting list article. In some cases, you are left with 3 options: Deleting a group of well written and painstakingly edited but unnecessary articles, leaving them as is, or scraping them down to the absolute bare bones and combining them into a list.

For this reason, I believe that if a subject itself is notable, any well written subarticles should be kept as well. It's true that no one but the fans will probably ever read those articles, but it is similarly true that because of this very fact they do no harm to the wikipedia. We certainly don't NEED an article on every single Naruto (manga) character, but someone took the trouble of writing them, so someone obviously has an interest in the subject. If those articles meet the other quality standards, is there any need to delete them? If only being of interest to a small proportion of the population is sufficient grounds for deletion, then Wikipedia itself is an unnecessary work.--Tjstrf 21:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Waste of time or not, I have one request to people involve in this project. Someone start to put several pages in Cosmic Era Mobile Units on AfD per this project. While I respect your point of view, this person made these nomination seperately, divide in several small groups, daily. Please keep them in single page and wait to see vote result. I can accept whatever result to be, but thislooklike he's just trolling. Plus, most of this person's contribute is AfD nomination (see Special:Contributions&target=Brian+G.+Crawford) with only few article edit. My opinion on subject, while merge closely relate entry (like all Dagger or Astray MS) into single article make sense, merge all of them into single list is unbearable. Some are very different from other and should be keep seperate.L-Zwei 19:27, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with L-Zwei. I'm a fan of the series in question also. I've got to say that specifically pointing out one universe as cruft gives the series a bad name which is most likely why Mr. Crawford has started on his "cruftsade" on Gundam, which is by the way not a show with samurai robots with colored car fenders, and wouln't stop until someone makes him. Rappapa 7:16 PM, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

"I can't tell you what fancruft is, but I know it when I see it" -Drdisque 06:40, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

One problem I have with getting rid of Fancruft is that if you're at all interested in anything that is related to the topic of the cruft, reading it can be very entertaining and informative (even if the information isn't very useful). I don't consider myself to be a big Star Wars fan but I sat down and read the entire article on all the forms of Lightsaber combat, who uses them, how they work, etc etc. For a person with a couple hours to burn and a laptop and wireless connection, finding a low-bandwidth, free site like Wikipedia with large amounts of information about a wide range of scientific, literary, cultural, biographical and theoretical topics can be highly entertaining and satisfying. Problem is, what you consider to be interesting obviously ranges from one person to the next. I could care less about pretty much anything related to dance or football, for example. Is my interest or lack thereof any more or less important than somebody else's? Somebody above said that your opinion, online polls, etc etc, aren't reliable sources to use. So until someone can do a massive survey without the aid of the internet to prove a topic isn't interesting or relevant, you don't know what the general population thinks about it. I propose keeping Fancruft on Wikipedia if only because it can be very entertaining, and Wikipedia being what it is, chances are high that it will be thorough and reviewed by at least several people. It also allows for a look at what from that fancruft is real (especially for science fiction), all from within the comfortable and nicely styled walls of Wikipedia. --Twile 20:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "In Popular Culture"

A phenomenon that upsets me is the way that an otherwise excellent article can be cruftified by the inclusion of an In Popular Culture (or similar) section. Suddenly every film, TV show or videogame which makes reference to the subject of the article gets listed. See troll, giant panda and many others. Keeping the cruft down in these articles becomes a major task, and one risks upsetting people when drawing the line between notable examples and cruft.

In such sections, I think it is best to document general trends rather than specific cases, and having a policy of only one example per trend. That is what I am trying to do in the Undead article, which has attracted a lot of fancruft in its time. BreathingMeat 22:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

The article currently contrasts 87 articles on Gundams with "a single article on Moby-Dick." This is now an unfortunate comparison, as Wikipedia has articles on Moby Dick, Queequeg, Ishmael (Moby-Dick), and the Pequod (Moby-Dick). I suspect keeping a permanent example there may be impossible, since well-meaning contributors will fix the lack of articles we implicitly criticize. Nonetheless, I suggest we change the example to one that is true. A few minutes of thinking and checking lead me to suggest Paradise Lost might be a good example. I'm going to be bold and make the change now, but it's rather arbitrary and I'm not at all attached to it. ^L_Wizard @ 07:40, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Argument for the sake of argument

I propose that Wikipedia: Fancruft is a fancruft page for Wikipedia. Jtrainor 13:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

You are hereby blocked for self-reference. You must not climb the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man to protest your block. Just zis Guy you know? 13:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Wha? Jtrainor 13:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I think he's joking around with you. I am quite frankly amazed that we actually have an essay/joke page called that though. --tjstrf 14:28, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fancruft = Deletion

If an article has "Fancruft" you delete it... So you remove all the information regarding to that article because you as an admin don't understand? An encyclopedia is for collection of information. Okay I get that you want the information to be as clear as possible, but by deleting it you get rid of the information and Oh get people pis*ed of so they never return to wikipedia and thus never re-contibute viable information. Good Policy. I Have been donating a lot of Hours to Kiddy Grade and all its sub-articles. SO many pages have been deleted, and the only thing that I have done is move information around, I haven't changed ANYTHING (apart from the fact its in a different place and that I have added pics and infoboxs). I didn't type anything and all the effort I have made into using the cumbersome wikiscript to get these boxs to work nicely and to get the pictures up so they arnt "Illegal" and then to just see whole articles up for deletion because someone cant understand what it says. Maybe if people stopped sticking their noses everywhere and gave me (AS THE ONLY PERSON bothering with this article) time to improve it, which is exactly what I am trying to do, then I will. All the admins patrolling around the article and telling me it needs improving is so F****************** annoying.

This "Fancruft" this is a way of improving articles, and as a principle that is fine. But I am doing that already, and its annoying, and if I delete the fancruft notice, as it gets in the way and doesn't let me see what the article will look like, the article is deleted.

User:Geni and User:Stifle are those doing this.

--Crampy20 18:11, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank *goodness* you didn't forget Salyut the spaceship in the list of non-human characters in List of Kiddy Grade characters. So often we forget about the spaceship characters in history. Today, no one even remembers the name of Abraham Lincoln's spaceship. --Tysto 20:05, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Here here. I too have spent a lot of time on articles only to see them nominated to be deleted, with half of the votes being "Delete as Fancruft" and similar crap. People need to understand that just because they think something in Fancruft doesn't mean it should be deleted. Even if it is in fact Fancruft, this is not a guideline or a policy, it's a heavily opinionated essay. "Delete as Fancruft" is just as valid of a vote as "Delete as boring" in that neither of them are policies and both of them are subjective. The thing that makes me really sick is to see all the people who seem to delight in removing Fancruft, especially game stuff. They feel they're doing Wikipedia a great service, and make it into a fun little game, congratulating each other on deleting pages which took hours and hours to write. This has got to stop. --Twile 16:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

These are all pages legible for fancruft or deletion or merging, or listation simple because well, policy.................. Abra Absol Aerodactyl Aggron Aipom Alakazam Altaria Amaldo Ampharos Anorith Arbok Arcanine Ariados Aron icuno Azumarill Azurill Bagon Baltoy Banette Barboach Bayleef Beautifly Beedrill Beldum Bellossom Bellsprout Blastoise Blaziken Blissey Breloom Bulbasaur Butterfree Cacnea Cacturne Camerupt Carvanha Cascoon Castform Caterpie Celebi Chansey Charizard Charmander Charmeleon Chikorita Chimecho Chinchou Clamperl Claydol Clefable Clefairy Cleffa Cloyster Combusken Corphish Corsola Cradily Crawdaunt Crobat Croconaw Cubone Cyndaquil Delcatty Delibird Deoxys Dewgong Diglett Ditto Dodrio Doduo Donaphan air ite Dratini Drowzee Dugtrio Dunsparce Dusclops Duskull Dustox Eevee Ekans Electabuzz Electrike Electrode Elekid Entei Espeon Exeggcute Exeggutor Exploud Farfetch'd Fearow Feebas Feraligatr Flaaffy Flareon Flygon Foretress Furret Gardevoir Gastly Gengar Geodude Girafarig Glalie Gligar Gloom Golbat Goldeen Golduck Golem Gorebyss Granbull Graveler Grimer on Grovyle Growlithe Grumpig Gulpin Gyarados Hariyama Haunter Heracross Hitmonchan Hitmonlee Hitmontop HoOh HootHoot Hoppip Horsea Houndoom Houndour Huntail Hypno Igglybuff Illumise Ivysaur Jigglypuff Jirachi Jolteon Jumpluff Jynx Kabuto Kabutops Kadabra Kakuna Kangaskhan Kecleon Kingdra Kingler Kirlia Koffing Krabby Kyogre Lairon Lanturn Lapras Larvitar Latias Latios Ledian Ledyba Lickitung Lileep Linoone Lombre Lotad Loudred Ludicolo Lugia Lunatone Luvdisc Machamp Machoke Machop Magby Magcargo Magikarp Magmar Magnemite Magneton Makuhita Manectric Mankey Mantine Mareep Marill Marowak Marshtomp Masquerain Mawile Medicham Meditite Meganium Meowth Metagross Metang Metapod Mew Mewtwo Mightyena Milotic Miltank Minun Misdreavus Moltres MrMime Mudkip Muk Murkrow Natu Nidoking Nidoqueen NidoranFemale NidoranMale Nidorina Nidorino Nincada Ninetales Ninjask Noctowl Nosepass Numel Nuzleaf Octillery Oddish Omanyte Omastar Onix Paras Parasect Pelipper Persian Phanpy Pidgeot Pidgeotto Pidgey Pikachu Piloswine Pineco Pinsir Plusle Politoed Poliwag Poliwhirl Poliwrath Ponyta Poochyena Porygon Primeape Psyduck Pupitar Quagsire Quilava Quilfish Raichu Raikou Ralts Rapidash Raticate Rattata Rayquaza Regi Relicanth Remoraid Rhydon Rhyhorn Roselia Salamence Sandshrew Sandslash Sapleye Sceptile Schuckle Scizor Scyther Seadra Seaking Sealeo Seedot Seel Sellow Sentret Seviper Sharpedo Shedinja Shelgon Shellder Shiftry Shroomish Shuppet Silcoon Skarmony Skiploom Skitty Slaking Slakoth Slowbro Slowking Slowpoke Slugma Smeargle Smoochum Sneazle Snorlax Snorunt Snubbull Sol Spearow Spheal Spinarak Spinda Spoink Squirtle Stantler Starmie Staryu Sudowoodo Suicune Sunflora Sunkern Surskit Swablu Swalot Swampert Swinub Taillow Tangela Tauros Teddiursa Tentacool Tentacruel Togepi Togetic Torchic Torkoal Totodile Trapinch Treecko Tropius Typhlosion Tyranitar Tyrogue Umbreon Unown Ursaring Vaporeon Venomoth Venonat Venusaur Vibrava Victreebel Vigoroth Vileplume Volbeat Voltorb Vulpix Wailmer Wailord Walrein Wortle Weedle Weepinbell 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Coco GyosanMoney NatadeShaman Olive GinkakuandKinkaku Puck AerobicsWoman AkiraToriyama Doctor&Nurse Erasa Farmer Banzan Smitty IdasaandIkose'sMother JingleVillageChief KenpauKa Mutaito Sharpner Shen Yamhan ZTVAnnouncer HumansFromtheTenka-ichiBudōkai Announcer Bacterian CaptainChicken Idasa Ikose Jewel JackieChun Killa KingChapa Kirano MightyMask WildTiger Namu Noku OtokoSuki Pintar Panpoot Ranfan Umigame Oolong Pu'ar Karin Shū CaptainYellow Alligator Dinosaur Gregory HaiyaaDragon HikuiBird Inoshikachyou Jinku Yoodon Konkichi PteranodonFamily Bee BearThief CarrotMaster Bubbles BabyGamera KingoftheWorld Blackcat Iruka(Dolphin) NekoMajinZ Giran Chairman Man-Wolf SaberTiger BigFish Freeza KingCold Coola Kurīza Tophenchmen Kewi Dodoria Zarbon Soldiers Appule Orin BlueberryandRaspberry Dodoria'sElite Gi'nyuSpecialCorps Non-combatants Malaka Planthorr Coola'sArmoredSquadron Dore Neizu Sauza Miscellaneous Cell PiccoloDaimao PiccoloDaimaoRelatedCharacters Cymbal Drum Piano Tambourine Kami-sama PiccoloMaJunior NamekiansencounteredonNamek Cargo Dende Saichourou Moori Nail LordSlug Jinzō'ningen#(ArtificialHuman#) Jinzō'ningen#(Android#) SuperJinzō'ningen#(SuperAndroid#) Jinzō'ningen#(Android#) Jinzō'ningen#(Android#) Jinzō'ningen#(Android#) Jinzō'ningen#(Cyborg#) SuperJinzō'ningen#(ArtificialHuman#) Jinzō'ningen#(Cyborg#) Jinzō'ningen#(Android#) Jinzō'ningen#(Cyborg#) Cell CellJr OtherJinzō'ningen DrUiro(DrWheelo) DrUiro'sTeam BioMen DrKochin Ebifuriya Kishime Misokatsun OtherJinzō'ningen Giru BioWarriors Metallic MonsterBuyon KaizokuRobo Babidi Bibidi Buu Dabura MajinGrunts PuiPui Spopovich Vegeta Yakon Yamu Kami Dende MrPopo EmmaDaiō GozandMez Annin TheKaiōandKaiōshin DaiKaiō EastKaiō NorthKaiō SouthKaiō WestKaiō DaiKaiōshin EastKaiōshin NorthKaiōshin SouthKaiōshin WestKaiōshin RouDaiKaiōshin Kibito Kibitoshin AkaneKimidori AoiKimidori AraleNorimaki DaigorouKurigashira MeganeButa GajiraNorimaki(Gatchan) HighKingNiko-Chan KinoniSarada KurikintonSoramame MidoriNorimaki OboChyaman Pagosu PisukeSoramame SenbeNorimaki Suppaman TarouSoramame TsukutsunTsun TsurutenTsun TsururinTsun TurboNorimaki MiscAliens Aruhua-jins Atla Bun Emi GhostUsher Esau KingMoai Lemlia Ozotto Pilaf PrincessSnake Saibaimen Shula Tsufuru-jin Urdo Yardrat Yeni ZacroandRaiti Zeshin AliensfromtheAno-Yo-IchiBudōkai AlienAnnouncer Arqua Caterpy Chapuchai Froug Maraikoh Midoren Paikuhan Stote Tapkar Torbi AliensfromtheGrandTour Bebi DrMyū CardinalMutchyMutchy Mutchy Dolltaki Doma DonKee Gale Ledgic Lenne Lood Mamba EC Natto Para-ParaBrothers Shusugoro Sugoro Zuunama AliensfromMovies DrRaichi GarlicJr Garlic GarlicJr'sTeam Ginger Mustard Nicky Salt Sansho Cashew Vinegar Gasuteru Hatchyak Bojack Bojack'sTeam Bido Bujin Kogu Zangya Janemba Lucifer Igor Hiredugarn Shamosei-jins Tapion Minoshiya Tullece'sTeam Amond Cacao Daīzu RakaseiandRezun LordSlug'sTeam Angira Wings Gyosh Medamotcha Zeeun UranaiBaba'sFighters Akuman DraculaMan InvisibleMan Myra Necromantic_bells Nine_Bright_Shiners Disreputable_Dog Mogget Orannis Tokimi Tennyo_Masaki Airi_Masaki Rea_Masaki Azusa_Jurai Funaho_Jurai Misaki_Jurai Minami_Kuramitsu Z_%Tenchi_Muyo%% Nagi Mayuka Minagi Sabato_%Tenchi_Muyo%% Jaken Ah-Un Goshinki Juromaru Kageromaru Entei_%InuYasha% Myoga_%InuYasha% Tatarimokke Midoriko Kaijinbo Gatenmaru Gakusanjin Goryomaru Shiori_%Inuyasha% Taigokumaru Bokusen%on Setsuna_no_Takemaru Menomaru

Its annoying to have people fiddling with articles. --Crampy20 16:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

That list would be the entire Category:Pokémon, and a few other articles, I assume? Well, if you want to nominate them, you can, but I don't think you'd be able to get past the hordes of angry editors who wrote those pages. Probably the easiest way to avoid the allegation of fancruft is to be a good writer. If you are able to do your character summaries in a pleasant and relatively brief fashion, the article will be much more easily accepted as a useful contribution than an 80,000 word fractal-esque detailing of their every motion like you find in many articles. --tjstrf 18:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, in your case, you have the opposite problem, your articles aren't long enough to justify their own existance and don't make the necessary claims to notability even though it should be posible. It's still an issue solveable by better prose though. --tjstrf 18:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The legibility of fancruft is useless at most. And in actuality, i dont have a problem with short articles, as i haven't written a single article from zero. And wikipedia encourages stubs, I am NOT wrong there, so there is not problem with short articles, don't try and make that claim.

My argument with fancruft is that it isn't policy and it leads to deletion of articles. For Kiddy Grade my intent is to write a article with good character pages, whereas if you look at any Pokemon Pokemon article, they are all pretty much pointless, whereas a Mod with a God Complex thinks that the Kiddy Grade articles are pointless. Apart from that, I can't tell if you agree with this or not, you are not talking about fancruft, but my articles.--Crampy20 18:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Man, if you are really having a problem with deletion, just be proactive and forestall their efforts by merging the articles into a list of characters. --maru (talk) contribs 13:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

He can't, actually. They are in AfD, merging them would violate the idea that AfD'd articles stay until a decision is met. Also, Crampy, Wikipedia encourages stubs, but only for articles that should exist to begin with. Articles that could be included as a section of a list do not meet that criteria.--tjstrf 13:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, one more thing: These aren't "your" articles. You don't WP:OWN them. --tjstrf 13:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh. I thought they were being threatened with AFD, not that they were already in AFD. (And technically, he does own the copyright to his contributions, so in a sense he does own those articles...) --maru (talk) contribs 13:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, they're under the GFDL, but I possess an equal amount of "ownership" to any subsequent versions if I simply go make an edit on the page. I was referring to own in the sense of control. In other words, he's being all uptight about something he wrote, not noticing the consensus > individual principle. --tjstrf 13:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not necessarily legal ownership, there's a sense of ownership with things that you worked on. Sure, you don't have control over them like you do with, say, an ice cream cone that you own, but you still feel bad when somebody says your contributions aren't... contributing... to a large knowledge pool. (ack, forgot to sign) --Twile 14:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Tjstrf, i don't claim to own them, in this situation, as the only editor, i have to act as if I do as there is NOONE else. I WANT people to help i WANT people to make contributions. Please don't argue about affective ownership, agree about the uselessness of this essay being treated as policy. --Crampy20 16:03, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey now! Someone spent a lot of time and effort on this essay, and I'm sure they feel bad when you claim it's useless. Catch my drift here? As for this being treated as policy, well, I think in most cases the problem is with the application, not the essay itself. The point of the essay is simply this: don't make articles for every single thing that ever happened in whatever your area of personal obsession is. And the entire purpose of essays is that they be invokable, not as policy, but as a pre-existing and supported interpetation of the policy. --tjstrf 17:26, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Problem is, it's just a blur line between acceptable well detail article and obsessed fanboy's rant. I were pissed by both type of idiot who 1.)simple put AfD on any article (regardless of it's content) that he doesn't interesting under this essay (User:Brian G. Crawford seem to be good example), and 2.)put massive obvious info and speculation in article he obsessed with. Both can be quite annoy. I agree that this essay is good and need, but sometime it's heavily opinion-base.L-Zwei 18:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. The easiest way to tell them apart are whether they use encyclopedic tone, and the presence or absence of speculation. Also, large bloated trivia sections just scream "fancruft" to me, but that might just be my own view. In other words, the quality of the writing can make a good distinguisher. --tjstrf 19:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

No, the easiest way to tell them apart is if they have reliable secondary sources. I have some sympathy with people who spend ages working on an article on fictional minutiae, but in the end that's very clearly not what Wikipedia is for. This is supposed ot be a general encyclopaedia. There are sister-projects which are more inclusive, for example not requiring WP:NPOV, or you can always fork the database under GFDL. But in the end it's not Wikipedia's "fault" that fictional minutiae don't belong here, it's just how it is. Just zis Guy you know? 19:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

A question: Which, in your opinion, is a better source for an article on fiction? The fictional work itself, or a fansite/blog posting about the work? If the first is unacceptable due to being a primary source, then the second would nearly always be unacceptable for reasons of verifiability. (especially if you aren't allowed to check it against the fictional work) --tjstrf 19:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Additionally, if you read the reasoning behind prefering secondary sources, you will find that they are better than primary sources because they are interpetable by those who are not experts, and are published by a reliable press. When dealing with, for example, novels, the issue of expertise is not really applicable. They are also a published work. Finally, since they record events which took place in the mind of the author, they can be considered a transcript. If they are a published, edited, transcript, then they a reliable source by the same virtue as published court transcripts are considered reliable. So, while a work of fiction may not be a secondary source, it does meet the criteria for usable primary sources as laid out in the guidelines. Even if you consider fictional works in the same light as self-published works, they would still be a valid source. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Self-published sources in articles about themselves. --tjstrf 19:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Multi-wiki system

Somebody needs to make a better Wikipedia without a mountain of craptastic rules. I agree that information should be verifiable and not invented, but the sorts of restrictions they put on it are absurd. For example, to classify something as verifiable, you have to be able to access it from a public library or internet connection. So if you wanted to quote the President's State of the Union address, for example, I couldn't quote the broadcast on TV, or if I were there I couldn't cite that either. No, I'd have to use a transcript or quote from another website. Nor could I cite something from a TV episode, movie, game, or anything like that. It's gotta be verifiable instantly by anyone who cares to check (and really, how many people checking info quickly verify the sources?). Throw in the strong dislike for "cruft" by some actively AfD'ing people and you've got something that is nearly a one-stop-shop for all your information needs, but excludes lots of fiction or self-published materials. It'd be really nice to have a bunch of Wikis tied together under "one roof" and just have a number of versions for each page. Say you look up "Counter Strike", by picking on that page which version you want to view, you could go between Wikipedia (Summary from an outside-universe perspective), Uncyclopedia (humorous and satirical views), Wikicruft (all your little details and info for the really interested reader), Wikiquote (notable quotes) and lots of other established Wiki____ cites, each version with its own criteria for what is and isn't permissible. The reason that would be better than it is now, with all these sites separated, is that there seems to be a much greater tendency for people to click the wiki links than external links, which can be plagued with pop-ups, flash ads, strange fonts, a new organizational style of information, and other website inconsistencies. Putting them on one page would ensure a quality of site design and reliability at the very least, and would be akin to offering multiple takes on a particular topic. Whether you're interested in the general summary of something and its real-world applications, or the finer details of what it is, or a comedic look on its various attributes, etc →etc, you could get them all from the comfort of one composit Wiki. --Twile 20:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The citation and verifiability rules do exist for a reason, you know: they stop people from flooding the articles with junk they made up. How did this become a debate over verifiability anyway? --tjstrf 20:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Because the verifiability rule heavily impacts this fancruft. Much fancruft relates to games, TV shows, and the like, which are generally only verifiable through themselves or fansites (which aren't reliable sources). --Twile 20:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The far easier solution is to simply redefine what verifiable sources are in the context of fictional universes. Or attempt to retrain everyone to not summarize or describe fictional universes, and to instead simply write that the work exists. However, the latter option leaves a lot of problems still, in the form of having an article on, for example, King Arthur, in which you can mention the scholarly disputes over how accurate the tales are historically, but not what the tales actually say. Plot summary is necessary to even understand why 1984 mattered, do we have to cite book reviews in order to describe the plot? --tjstrf 20:36, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

My rule of thumb is that, if more than about half of the article is sourced only through the fiction itself, and not through secondary analysis, creator commentary/interviews, reputable criticism, and other sources to establish production details and/or impact on other fiction or culture, then there's an imbalance. Wikipedia: Manual of Style (writing about fiction) lists these types of sources and more as suggestions for writing fiction-related articles with sufficient context. Some plot summary is fine, usually, but it's bad if most or all of the article is just a rehashing of the story. — TKD::Talk 20:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's what I find really funny about the Wikipedia approach. We're trusted to stitch together information from a variety of sources, being sure to give them a fair and balanced representation, being neutral and professional. But we're not allowed to tell what happens in a work of fiction because obviously we're going to misrepresent it; instead we have to use websites and critical essays from the so-called experts in order to present information. Us Wikipedians can combine forces to synthesize articles from sources of varying quality, languages, and viewpoints, but if we were to observe and tell you the color of the car James Bond was in, or the number of times George Bush had to stop for rounds of applause, then we'd obviously get the information wrong. Also... Writing About Fiction is a terrible manual of ever one was made. Pick your favorite movie. How many things can you think of from that movie which were important and notable from the perspective of that movie, but not from the outside world? Not everything significant in fiction can be described in terms of what inspired it from the real world, critical response to it, and a quote from a library book. The reason I came up with what someone dubbed a "Multi-wiki system" is that it would allow these "but it's unencyclopedic! </whine>" people to simply highlight a section of a crufty article and say "This section has been blanked out from the main article per its inside-universe perspective. Please transfer to the associated Cruft page" instead of mass deletions resulting in countless lengthy arguments and angry fans who have nothing to show for dozens of hours of collaborative editing. You'd have your basic page, your in-depth page, your humorous page, and more. A variety of tones and approaches, working to collectively record a great deal of human knowledge, from Aardvarks to Zelda. --Twile 21:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Upon further investigation, it seems that this idea was somewhat conceived of in Archive 1 of this talk page. They had the idea for different versions, called... what was it... Encyclopedia Fancruftia and Encyclopedia Universelia, or something to that effect. Basically a way to let enthusiast "cruft" exist while also presenting a professional encyclopedia "outside-universe" appearance. --Twile 23:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the in-universe/out-of-universe distinction laid out in WP:WAF is crucial, but I disagree that avoiding using the fiction as a primary source is the key to staying out of universe. In fact, the key is to constantly remember (and remind the reader) that you're talking about a story, film, game etc., and not about things that happened in the real world. And one of the best way to do that is through quotation from the original source.

An article about a fan-beloved subject that explains where the information about the universe comes from and documents it through quotation is so much more useful for fans and non-fans alike than a Guide to Middle Earth-style article that pretends the universe is real. That to me is the distinction between fancruft and non-fancruft. Nareek 11:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It depends what you need the information for. If you're writing about something for academic purposes, then you're right, the outside-of-universe approach is more useful as it allows you to analyze the work and maintain an outsider perspective. Then again, because you can't cite Wikipedia anyway, that becomes a minor point. If you're reading because you want to have fun, expand your knowledge on a topic, or clear up technologies/characters/events, then the inside-universe approach is essential. And let's face it, not every fictional universe is easy to follow or understand. Having a resource where you can find all that information on one site, edited and linked intelligently to related sources and articles, is a very useful asset. See, I'm not doubting Wikipedia's need to maintain outside-universe for the particular tone and approach they're going for. I'm simply recognizing that inside-universe perspectives can be very useful and interesting as well, and it would be convenient and eliminate lots of "Delete per fancruft" arguments if there were inside-universe and outside-universe versions for articles. Think about how they do different languages now, it would be something like that. You can have an article in German, or in English, or Spanish, and each one is for a different audiance. Granted that's generally because of nigh-impassable language barriers, but it still shows that it's a doable system. --Twile 21:03, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

When you write, "If you're reading because you want to have fun, expand your knowledge on a topic, or clear up technologies/characters/events, then the inside-universe approach is essential," I think you're illustrating a common misconception about out-of-universe--one that the proponents of the out-of-universe perspective have done a lot to foster.

Out-of-universe doesn't mean avoiding talking about the things in the universe--it means talking about those things from outside the universe, i.e., from the perspective of people reading a book (watching a film, playing a game, etc.). You're not an explorer describing your travels through Middle-Earth, you're a reader describing a book that you've read.

That doesn't mean you can't talk about the technologies, characters and events in the book (though people have tried to join the plot summary argument with the out-of-universe argument, unfortunately in my view). You just have to talk about them as things in a book--e.g., "In the first story in the series, 'I, Robot', Isaac Asimov introduces the positronic brain, a type of artificially intelligent computer which he describes as being 'programmed to obey three laws'." (I'm making this up, btw.)

This tells you both what the technology is, how it's described by the writer, and where it was first described--which I would say is better both from the point of view of the WP purist, the student (who can indeed benefit from Wikipedia, even if they have to recheck the quotes themselves) and to the fan, who if he's a true fan wants to know how his beloved universe was created brick by brick.

Look, if you're a Star Wars fan, it makes all the difference in the world whether a fact occurs in one of the movies (and which one of the movies), in a novelization or in a comic book. I'm a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos, and if an article doesn't say whether a Great Old One was invented by H. P. Lovecraft or August Derleth, in my view it's basically worthless.

In short, WP should take an out-of-universe perspective because it's the right thing to do for the fans. Among other reasons. Nareek 21:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Here are Wikipedia's own examples: For in-universe, they have "In Star Year 8891 the Slibvorks of Blastio were infected with the Kroxyldyph virus by a bio-warfare special operations unit on a clandestine mission. The unit, acting under the leadership of Commander Sam Kinkaid and without the approval of Star Command, rewrote the Slibvorks' DNA and caused their skin to turn blue." For outside-universe, it is "In the later series, a larger budget allowed for more extensive special effects makeup. The Slibvorks were now depicted as having blue skin, a stark contrast with their appearance in the earlier series. The writers explained this by adding a genetic misfortune into the backstory of the Slibvorks. According to the current series bible, this occurred in Star Year 8891, between episodes 5.14 and 6.0. This was later expanded into the novel The Trouble with Kroxyldyph by Honda MacHinery. The novel follows the adventures of a bio-warfare special operations unit on a clandestine mission to infect the Slibvorks with the Kroxyldyph virus. The unit, acting under Commander Sam Kinkaid's leadership and without the approval of Star Command, rewrites the Slibvorks' DNA. The change in skin color is one of many unintended side-effects." Now, it would seem to me that it's not just about mentioning where the information came from. If that's the case, then I should be able to revert a bunch of the Kushan articles by simply inserting "It is told in the Homeworld Manual that..." before the main bodies of text. No, it looks like the Outside-Universe stuff wants you to relate everything to the here and now, like what in the real world inspired it, how people reacted to it, sales, popularity, critical assessment, the development of the narrative, and who played each role.

In regards to saying it's best for everyone, I still have to disagree strongly. It is not best for the fan. Just because you're a fan of something doesn't mean you already know everything about it, those people had to get their knowledge from somewhere too. I for one consider myself a fan of the Star Trek: Voyager series, but by no means a walking encyclopedia on the knowledge. And besides... if somebody already knows all of that information, they'd have no strong motivation to read a Wikipedia article on it. Now, I'm not arguing whether it's right or wrong for the main Wikipedia articles to be in-universe, although it would make sense that things stay out-of-universe for a consistent tone with the many non-fiction articles. What I'm arguing is that it would be a good idea to have alternate versions for the very crufty stuff, as well as Uncyclopedia-ish versions and more. With the crufty stuff, you don't have to constantly remind the wreader that you're dealing in fiction, the reader knows this. You don't have to constantly strive to make the article relevant to the real world, that's what the main article is for. Rather, you delve deep into the works of fiction and treat it as if it is real. Do you have any reason why THIS wouldn't be a good idea? --Twile 15:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, keep in mind that fancruft often appear as speculation. And from my experience, speculation is mostly written from out-of-universe view. Like "As seen in..., it's possible that..." or "It's consider to be the best by most fan." or "Also widely known as insert weird name here at insert name of fan forum here." So written from out-of-universe doesn't guarantee non-fancruft.L-Zwei 06:58, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

L-Zwei is correct, fancruft is not the same as in-universe perspective, it's the same as badly written excessively detailed articles. Which often includes in-universe perspective. --tjstrf 08:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quality of Wikipedia.

Fancruft is growing in breadth within Wikipedia, and will be the death of any attempts to have Wikipedia seen as a reliable, professional reference work...and making it yet another poorly-written website. Unless a forceful group seriously decides to put a foot down and reign this insanity in, there's really no point in taking Wikipedia seriously anymore. --FuriousFreddy 01:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Fact is, even serious topic still unreliable. People can made mistake even in serious topic like historical events. I don't support fancruft, but not agree that we need a forceful group seriously decides to put a foot down and reign this insanity in. It would be must better if we just have a normal group of people to keep this place fun to read without ruin its quality.L-Zwei 06:07, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

We need both. Somehow, barriers need to be set on just how much information on the same subject is enough. For example, as I mention below, we have thousands of articles on The Simpsons: articles on every episode, all characters, locations, etc. Now, if someone were to do the same for, say, The Jeffersons, I just know problems would arise. Heck, I don't even think 20/20 would be allowed the Simpsons treatment. --FuriousFreddy 00:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

And who decides what fancruft is? The term is increasingly applied to anything that particular person may find personally distasteful. Jtrainor 07:02, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

It may be applied to that, but, as the userpace article this talk page is connected to tells us, "fancruft" is supposed to mean "a selection of content is of importance only to a small population of enthusiastic fans of the subject in question." Like, if we have the article on Whatever Fictional Property, and then we start having articles on every character that ever walked into any panel of the comic or shot of the TV show/film, articles on [the characters have had], articles on [show's opening credits], [driven by characters in the show], etc. (I mean, I've enjoyed The Simpsons as much as most people...but damn.). A lot of crufted-up articles are written the writer requires that you actually knew the group members, or at least already knew everything about them. They often fail to properly explain the subject matter to a general audience, because they really don't serve the interests of informing that general audience: they serve the interests of informing/impressing their niche circle of enthusists. --FuriousFreddy 00:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that's one of the worst arguments people make. "Oh no, all of this extra content is ruining Wikipedia! Normal people won't take us seriously because nobody could understand that an enthusiast might write pages about their favorite food, variety of toad, or videogame!" Look. Just because Wikipedia has some articles about games and fiction and such doesn't make it bad. That's like saying that nobody will take the Internet seriously because you can find blogs, porn, and viruses on it. To the end user, Wikipedia is not about what they don't care about, it's about what they are interested in. You don't search for stuff that you don't care about. You search for stuff you're interested in, plain and simple. The only way that Joe B Average even realizes that there is an article for a map in an obscure game or some other fancruft is: 1) He presses the Random Article button and finds something random; 2) He sees a wikilink and clicks it, taking him to the crufty page, and forgets the location of the back buttons and Backspace key.

If Wikipedia was meant to be a professional reference site, we would be hired for having admirable working skills and we'd be getting paid. You ever see the main Wikipedia page in English? "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." That's what they're aiming for, a knowledge base that has citable information and is presented in a format that people agree is unbaised and polished. If you don't want to take Wikipedia seriously, then fine. You won't be missed. Fortunately there are millions of people who are interested in providing all the fun, useful, and interesting information to keep this place going without you.

And just so you know, there are already people and I think groups who take pleasure in the deletion of fancruft. They seek it out, delete it, congratulate each other, and occasionally give each other barnstars for it. --Twile 20:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Is it unthinkable that something can be good quality because it's done by volunteers? If so, then we should all give up now and just go and join Everything2. The fact is, if it weren't for guys tearing out all the fancruft there would be articles so deeply mired in references to The Simpsons and World of Warcraft that the USEFUL information would be all but impossible to find.

I am not opposed to there being Wikipedia articles on video games, TV show episodes etc - in fact I welcome them. The problem, as I see it, begins when the articles that aren't about popular culture start to get crowded with barely relevant and frankly boring contributions that dilute the valuable information and detract from the readability of articles. BreathingMeat 20:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, for some strange reason, good chunks of Everything2 are starting to look a lot better in quality than similar-sized chunks Wikipedia. Perhaps it lends itself to a different audience? Or perhaps it's just not as heavily covered by the media? --FuriousFreddy 00:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Twile, you misunderstand. Added information is one thing, but reams of information on niche subjects such as animated cartoons are just not a good look for the project. There is a definite tone and style used in professional-grade writing (which is what every article in the entire Wikipedia should be striving for), and a good bit of this crufty stuff lacks it. It's not the fact that these subjects are being covered; it's that they are being covered wrong and in extreme excess. The Simpsons is covered across literally hundreds of Wikipedia articles; meanwhile, The Cosby Show, a program of at least comprabable (if not exactly equal) historical importance, is covered in seven. Roseanne, another such program, is covered in one. Not that Cosby or Roseanne necessarily require thousands of articles; actually, the truth is that The Simpsons doesn't require thousands, either.

Wikipedia is (or, at least when I joined, it was) intended to be a reliable refrence of acceptably professional quality, not a repository for random information, and not a message board for teens and young adults. Were this not true, there would be no processes for cleanup, peer review, etc. Also, were it not true, I wouldn't have wasted my time doing research to try and fill the gaping holes in Wikiepdia's coverage (primarily coverage of African-American culture, history, and music, which, before I and some other editors started here, was next-to-destitute). I highly doubt a lot of the current editos even do much encyclopedia reading, and some of them don't seem to have ever even taken basic English composition classes. With a project this large and heavily promoted/covered, you can't just b.s. around. "Encyclopedia" is not a word to be taken lightly.

If Wikipedia is indeed destined to become primarily a lowbrow database for pop culture trivia of interest to 18-to-34 white American males, and not strive to be anything greater, then I wouldn't want to be missed. I'll just have to try and not feel bad for the uninformed people who pull this site up thinking it a worthwhile reference, and also not to think ill of the people who drug a good idea through the mud. --FuriousFreddy 00:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

No way are there thousands of articles on WP about The Simpsons--not unless all but a few hundred of them are not in the category Category:The Simpsons. Nareek 01:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Just went and did an estimate. It's somewhere between 700 and 800, so I edited above. Hundreds isn't much better better than "thousands" in this argument (it's only somewhat less ludicrous). This brings back my whole question of "is every episode of a TV show important enough for coverage in a general-purpose encyclopedia?" --FuriousFreddy 01:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Why is it "ludicrous" to have in-depth coverage of The Simpsons? It's arguably the single best work of art produced by television; it may well what people a hundred years from now think of when they think of late 20th century culture. It's watched and talked about by tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people. People pay money to buy reference works that cover every Simpsons episode--why shouldn't WP provide such references?

I see less justification for some other topics that are extensively covered on WP. But people are always going to write articles on the things that interest them, and WP is always going to reflect that. You point out how it doesn't resemble print encyclopedias; that's true, and it never will. It is its own creature, which is what makes it fascinating. Nareek 02:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like BreathingMeat brought up a good argument of "diluting" current good articles with references to other stuff, but I think this can be addressed and to some degree, is already. An example of this is Giant Panda. It talks about the actual animal for most of the article, and contains the "diluting" stuff such as references to anime, movies, and videogames in the Pandas in Popular Culture section. This way, someone who doesn't care about where pandas are depicted and how can skip it (although it's already towards the end of the article) and people who are interested in that know where to go. Similarly, Cryonics is popular in games and movies, so you'd expect it to be littered with crufty crap. Without having read the article, I can see there's a Culture section that talks about where Cryonics are shown in popular entertainment, and like with the Panda article, it's at the end of the page (save for the notes, references, etc which go last). By doing this, "good" articles can now have a central focus on the real-world definitions and applications of whatever the Wikipedia article in question is about, while still providing a set place where crufty references can be made. Pi has its Fictional References section which is analagous to the Popular Culture section. Point being, stuff can be contained and it won't spill out into non-related articles if done properly.

As far as importance, Wikipedia doesn't have an established guideline on that, as it's very subjective. I honestly don't care about what happened in the 13th century because history doesn't interest me, rather I prefer to live in the here and now and care more about games and fiction. For other people it's the exact opposite. Due to the practically limitless number of articles that can be written and the speed with which the Search function works, it's possible to cover both. The notion of a well-formatted site on which you can find up-to-date information on whatever pleases you is quite a good one; if Wikipedia isn't meant to be such a one-stop-shop for free, organized and peer-edited information, then I'd like to see a similar site but which attempts to catalogue information on all branches of knowledge and exploit the bandwidth and capacity of modern electronics to hold information as in-depth and linked as people are willing to go. --Twile 21:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that even though the crufty stuff in (for example) the Giant Panda article is contained within a "pop culture" section, it still detracts from the professionalism of the article to have it there. The tone of the article changes when you reach one of these lists: the writing becomes more disconnected, the facts become boring and irrelevant to most readers, and it just leaves a bad impression. This is why I like to keep "pop culture" sections general, and light on specific examples. Someone wanting to learn about giant pandas might be interested to learn that they often appear in anime and kids' shows. They probably would not be so interested to read of every appearance they have made in such shows. BreathingMeat 00:08, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a silly argument, quite frankly. The current way of doing "pop culture" sections is to list of places that you can find the topic of the article being referenced. You want it shortened and simplified? Do you want it to say:

Pop culture

Pandas are present in a number of movies, games, logos, jokes, and anime series.

Because that's really the only way to shorten it. How about another example? "Telekenisis is an ability in many science fiction stories, films, and games." That information is basically useless, because it's usually common knowledge. Now, it might be overkill to make a list of every musical, literary, and spoken reference to "God", but it might still be useful to point out a handful of the more notable occurences if the topic in question is very popular. Might I also point out that a list of things within an article isn't bad? Depending on the nature of the section, a list might be best. Say you want to know about the acting career of Tommy Lee Jones or some Kill Bill Trivia, a list is a good way of expressing the otherwise unconnected topics, especially when each point is a few words to a few sentences in length. I personally think that the usefulness of having such lists more than makes up for the "change in tone" which a person suffers through when they read through the entire section by accident. --Twile 17:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Please don't make a straw man of me. There is obviously a lot more that can be said about pandas in popular culture than that: Pandas as a symbol for the fragility of nature, similarities and themes common to panda characters in anime, pandas as advertisements for Chinese restaurants or culture, and maybe other things that I don't know about because I am not an expert in panda appearances in media. Any of these things could be written about intelligently and informatively, using notable examples embedded in the prose, instead of a raw list of bullet points.

I don't think it is necessarily helpful to list other places where the topic of the article is referenced. The "What links here" tool is a better way of obtaining such a list. Obviously there are exceptions to this, and a list of films in which an actor has appeared is a good example. I just don't think it's a good format for pop culture sections. BreathingMeat 22:37, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fancruft's Own Satire

SomethingAwful just made a clever little satire of Wikipedia's more crufty articles (and dotted with litte "citation needed"s as well!). I thought it was good fun. Anyone else read it yet? Quantum Geek 207.35.41.4 03:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fancruft's impact on external Wikis

Because of the ban on fancruft, pretty much every major fictional universe with a serious fanbase has its own Wiki. Every single Star Trek article links to the corresponding article on Memory Alpha. The articles are usually pretty much identical, though Memory Alpha usually has more detail that anyone searching for a minor Star Trek character like Willard Decker or T'Pau (Star Trek) probably wants to know. To me, this just seems like a wasted duplication of effort and an inconvenience to readers. Provided it were technologically feasible, I'd like to see these special-purposes Wikis integrated as subsets of Wikipedia. I guess my real question is: why bother having an entry on Wikipedia for these sorts of things at all, if a superior entry (ie, appealing more to the tastes of those who wish to find it) exists elsewhere? -Anþony 05:10, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

A problem I encounter long ago. Lets me express why it isn't alway a good idea to get rid of article only becuase there's external Wiki existed. While I have no problem with external Wikis with well-organize staff, some aren't good as it should be. If external Wiki existed for whatever fiction, I would want to see it more reliable with staff who keep de-speculation and hoax from articles. If it isn't good enough, contributors here most likely ignore it. And sometime the contributors at extarnal Wikis even copy stuff from here, Wikipedia. And I can tell you, have your article deleted because someone copy your own stuff and put it in minor site leave nothing but bitter taste. In short, I think it's nice idea if we trimmed down some articles and put link(s) to external Wiki with better information offer, but deleted it only because there is external Wikis on the subject is bad.L-Zwei 05:37, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

We've tried this with WikiFur. The trouble I've found is that people sometimes delete the links because they're to another wiki. More often, of course, they just delete the articles here because they are viewed as being on non-notable topics. Perhaps a better approach is to write summary pages that link to the other wiki for more information, but then you end up with articles filled with interwiki links. I wouldn't mind that so much, as it dissuades trivial recreation of the articles here on Wikipedia, but I just know people are going to view that as undue promotion of a wiki that doesn't meet Wikipedia's expectations of verifiability. The only reasonable solution I see is some kind of interwiki search engine that presents results when an article is not found, but warns explicitly that the site is a different site from Wikipedia, with different rules. GreenReaper 08:13, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] When fans tip the scale

The bad thing about fancruft, is that articles such as the ones in World of Warcraft are nearly impossible to either delete or merge, whenever there is any voting, fans of the game overwhelmingly vote for Keep, or no consensus is ever reached. What should be done in such cases?, should those little articles about every little detail in the game stay just because they can dubiously survive a delete vote? (thus proving to be somewhat important), should a special voting be called upon?. This whole issue is intriguing in that sense, id like to hear some ideas on this. For more info heres a nice link [1] , notice how fast the no consensus was called upon (in less than a day). My all time special favorite article that was somehow not deleted was the "corrupted blood" article, the discussion can be seen here [2].

Why should one article be treated differently from another in an AfD debate simply because of the content? Jtrainor 14:55, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Because of the importance of the content, but i see your point.

[edit] I propose adding a section explaining (or suggesting) how and when you should create a subpage

Such as the Brokeback Mountain awards page, and Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky career achievements pages. People who come here may not be aware you can even do this. If this isn't done fancruft can become like an infection or virus which spreads incessantly killing the host page. See this previous version of Dwyane Wade for an example (go to the bottom Awards/Honors section). Quadzilla99 07:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

This would be useful, as using this essay as an excuse to remove reasonable content needs sorted. Bowsy 18:39, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

Wikipedia:Listcruft is just an extension of this article. It should be merged with this page or the two pages made into one page dealing with cruft. Any objections? Bowsy 13:14, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Listcruft is independent of fans. One is a general phenomenon related to a certain datastructure (lists) which for some reason people love to add to, and the other refers to the activities of certain subgroups of people. --Gwern (contribs) 21:17 20 February 2007 (GMT)

Then should they both be merged under the heading "Cruft"? Bowsy ^{(review me!)} 19:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Not unless the existence of two separate pages on cruft is so repugnant that it may only be suffered to exist as a single consolidated page on all things crufty. --Gwern (contribs) 21:29 23 February 2007 (GMT)

Oppose. Listcruft is quite a bit different from fancruft, and too common to be part of the fancruft article. -- BlastOButter42 ^See Hear _Speak 04:00, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this would be entirely appropriate to make one Cruft page because cruft is an abstract concept just used by editors as a way to try and get things they don't want on Wikipedia off it. Better to keep stuff like that in one place. Bowsy ^{(review me!)} 09:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Oppose. First, fancruft warrants its own essay if there are policy issues specific to it and not other types of cruft, which I think is true. Second, based on my experience, it is a notable phenomenon within the wikisphere. __ø(._. ) Patrick("\(.:...:.)/")Fisher 01:19, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] fancruft alert

see Talk:Unending —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.72.144.19 (talk) 19:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] WP:FICT rewrite

A rewrite of WP:FICT is being proposed at Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)#Rewrite proposed. Needs polishing, clarification, and so on, but it's a start. — Deckiller 22:04, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Valid reasons for deletion, Not

Quote "This is primarily due to the fact that things labeled as fancruft are often poorly written, unreferenced, unwikified, and non-neutral - all valid reasons for deletion." No - these are all valid reasons for editing! Articles don't get deleted just because they are unwikified, for example. 81.92.18.58 (talk) 22:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:Be bold! I've fixed it, but the sentence could probably use some expansion as to why such articles can be deletion-worthy. -- Ddxc (talk) 08:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)