Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not

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[edit] Moved the bit about plot summaries to Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, or textbook

I think it better fits there. After all, everyone agrees Wikipedia is not a guidebook to the plots of all the works of fiction and fictive things ever published, yes? Is it better that Wikipedia articles should not read like plot summaries, or that Wikipedia articles are not simply plot summaries? Hiding T 11:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I am not comfortable with any changes that Hiding has been making to this policy since he removed WP:NOT#PLOT section altogether at the begining of May.I don't beleive that he should be using policy page as his personal sandbox, or as a soapbox to canvas support for his agenda of policy changes that do not have widespread support. It seems to me that his edits are an attempt to down-grade, water-down and generally mess up this section. Where is there evidence that any of these changes is warranted or justified? I think Hiding has been through this process before, and I think if he wants to get rid of this section, then he should do so explicitly, not try and do it 'by the back door'. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) If its going to be moved there, I think it should be expanded to further emphasis Wikipedia is not a guide to the fictional series at all and should not include extensive character guides with one-episode and minor characters, excessive in-universe information on locations/settings, or any of the other crufty stuff people like to put in. Wouldn't mind also seeing guide more explicitly updated to clarify "not a game guide" but that's another issue. I also must partially echo Gavin, though I think it is possibly more of Hiding attempting to make a point and, like most of us, sick of certain people continuing to stir up this issue hoping to wear everyone down until they get their way.Collectonian (talk) 12:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Which is what (re)started the whole plot debate when someone offered up again my suggestion that WP is not a study/fan guide. However, there are two ways PLOT can be taken:
  • We can say it should not be a study/fan guide, which does make it more appropriate alongside guidebooks and textbooks. However, that approach to PLOT was not well accepted, in that exactly what is a study or fan guide to a work is unclear. This would be a significantly shift in the approach to published works if treated like this.
  • We can say more towards the absolute fundamental aspect of PLOT, in that we do not simply regurgitate plot information for published works; topics covered only in this manner are indiscriminate information. This is truer to the current accepted version of how PLOT is normally used.
Of these two, I think we should be keeping PLOT in IINFO's section, since implying PLOT is not a study or fan guide by grouping it with the other "guide" NOTs, and this enforces a view that I don't think has been sufficiently tested in the waters to make policy yet, while the IINFO approach of PLOT is more ingrained. It is not that the guidelines don't approach this themselves, but I don't think there's enough consensus to support this particular means in policy. --MASEM 13:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
Gavin, the image to the right demonstrates how consensus is formed on Wikipedia, and I would hope refutes any claims you make against my behaviour. To Collectonian, no I am not making a point. I would also suggest that if you want to expand the policy, you should do so per the flowchart I have presented. Also, if you are echoing any of the baseless accusations levelled at me by Gavin, then I suggest that instead both of you concentrate on discussing ways to document current best practise on Wikipedia rather than attempting to impugn my better nature or second guess my motives. I simply want to build a consensus in good faith regarding the way an encyclopedia treats plot summaries, considering all reasoned points of view. All the best, Hiding T 13:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Apologies Hiding, if I have a bad faith opinion of you, it is because I don't agree with what you are doing, and I its true I should not be judging you as a person on that basis. Feel free to make as many edits to any policy or guideline as frequently as you wish, regardless of any opposition from me. However, my view is that WP:NOT#PLOT should not have been moved out of the "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" section, since an article that comprises purely of plot summary does not contain any context or analyis that a guide (like a movie guide) would. If Hiding can provide some sort or reasonable explainaiton as to why he thought the moving WP:NOT#PLOT out of this section was logical or at least marginally sensible (other than "I think it better fits there"), then would he do so now. --Gavin Collins (talk) 19:01, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
    • without prejudice to where it should appear, I restored Hiding's version of the text--Collectonian was not supported by consensus in removing the entire section, and Ned Scott restored to an earlier more restrictive version that did not have consensus either. As for location, I don;'t think it make much difference. Personally, I think Hiding's placement is more logical--right next to the section of lyrics which has roughly similar problems. I'd leave the placement issue be for the time being and see if we do actually have consensus on the wording. This topic is being discussed in so many places that it is extremely confusing--so confusing that I stopped commenting for a while as I could not keep track of it all.. The way to simplify the discussions is to get a general statement here that--admittedly--could support various interpretations--and then discuss the interpretations as a guideline elsewhere.DGG (talk) 15:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I for one disagree with what you have done DGG. I don't see that you have a monopoly over logic or consensus. Your changes make the situation more confusing, and I do not see what you have done helps. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Actually, no, I didn't remove the section (and never would, as I firmly support it), I just undid Hiding's move which is what had absolutely no consensus. I also agree with Ned's restoration because it is fustrating to have it keep changing when this is a policy pages, and really is shouldn't be changed at all until consensus can be reached.Collectonian (talk) 15:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Given this discussion, perhaps we should put some kind of "dispted" template at the top of the project page to indicate the lack of consensus. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 15:38, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Why on earth would we do that when its only one single item disputed? Putting a disputed on the whole page would just be asking for beyond all kinds of unnecessary trouble, just like the crap happening because WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE are "disputed" and so people are running around trying to claim its invalid and should be completely ignored. Collectonian (talk) 15:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • This is really growing out of proportion. It all started as a content dispute on a few article talk pages and AfDs, then guidelines began to be marked as disputed, then it's arbcom, and now it's disputing policies accompanied with soapboxing. No, thanks. (This is not aimed at you, LGRdC, but a certain trend here is undeniable). – sgeureka t•c 16:08, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
IS there a tag for one section of a policy page being disputed--I could not find one. It would seem useful, and I will make one if necessary, adapting the one for the article along the line of of the one used for articles. DGG (talk) 19:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, {{Disputedtag|section=yes}}. -- Ned Scott 21:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
On the more general matter Sgeureka raises, since this policy page was being cited in the article discussions on dozens --probably hundreds -- of article talk pages and AfDs, and the guideline discussions kept referring to it as a limitation of what the guideline could read, and it seemed from those discussions that the policy did no longer have consensus as originally worded, it was reasonable, inevitable, and indeed necessary to discuss it. Consensus on policy can change,and when it does, we discuss it on the policy talk page. Where better? DGG (talk) 19:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

We've had a ton of discussion about this. Ever since the beginning of Wikipedia it's been clear that we wanted to be more than just a plot summary (again, this doesn't mean we can't have them). If you guys want to freak out because of some recent discussions on this particular talk page, then get a grip. Wikipedia is more than this talk page, and that section doesn't suddenly lose support because a hand full of Wikipedians have their panties in a bind. -- Ned Scott 21:16, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

You're right Ned. There have been a ton of discussions about this [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]. There's even a discussion in the archives about moving PLOT under GUIDE instead of IINFO. From Archive 17 to Archive 6, there are only two archive pages where PLOT is not discussed, 14 and 12 (which is devoted to Jimbo's NEWS addition). And many people in the archives have favored removing the PLOT section. It's obvious that Wikipedia is more than a plot summary. However, the Plot summaries portion of this policy was added in July 2006. That's over 5 1/2 years "since the beginning of Wikipedia." WP:NOT#PLOT says editors cannot create articles with just a plot summary. WP:NOT#PLOT says articles like Cosette and Baldrick and Lenny Leonard and A Star Is Torn are content not suitable for an encyclopedia. PLOT is ignored in AFD debates[21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26]. PLOT simply does not have the consensus required to be in policy, so it needs to be removed. --Pixelface (talk) 08:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
It has consensus. Your examples of articles with "content not suitable for an encyclopedia" are good exampels of why we need PLOT. Cosette gives no indication of the importabce of the character, the impact she had, and so on. The same goes for Baldrick. Lenny Leonard is a collection of quotes and trivia. A Star is Torn has no information one would expect in an encyclopedia. Reception? Impact? Production history? Does that mean that any of these articles should be deleted? No, but they need very serious reworking, and PLOT helps in enforcing this if needed. As for your AfD's: History of For Better or For Worse was deleted after the DRV, so not a very good example. The lists of characters were kept because individual character articles would violate PLOT, and people accepted this as a compromise. Plot of Naruto I was an AfD of 2006. As some people say, consensus can change.. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Storylines of EastEnders (2000s) was a no consensus, needs to improve closure, not really going against WP:PLOT there... Looking at recent discussions involving PLOT, let's take a look at the April 30 discussions. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Mandalorians was a merge, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marv Merchants, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WcDonald's, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cameron McIntyre (Coronation Street) were deleted. Nothing which could fall under WP/PLOT was kept as far as I can see. For April 29, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mas Amedda was kept because real world information (with sources) was added; so PLOT was not ignored here. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rule of Two was a no consensus. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Springfield's state again was kept because the article had a section with real world information. So looking at some recent AfD's, it seems to me that PLOT has a fairly good consensus, indicating that articles without real world information regularly get deleted or merged. AfD is not an exact science, so exceptions will happen, but to claim that there is no consensus for it based on some rather old AfD's, some of which don't even support yçur position, is not really consistent with what actually happens. Plot should stay in WP:NOT and if needed be strenghtened, to discourage articles which contain little real world information. Fram (talk) 09:43, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
It has consensus? Which revision? [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] [89] [90] [91] [92] [93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98] [99] [100] [101] [102] [103] [104] [105] [106] [107] [108] [109] [110] Did you happen to notice that WP:NOT was just protected for edit-warring over PLOT? Is that your idea of consensus? You said "Does that mean that any of these articles should be deleted? No..." but WP:NOT is a list of things Wikipedia is not. It's linked to from the deletion policy. Things that appear in WP:NOT are things not suitable for an encyclopedia. PLOT is a reason for deletion. History of For Better or For Worse was deleted even though there was no consensus to overturn at the DRV. Read through it. A plot summary was split off[111] from the For Better or For Worse article and it was taken to AFD when a {{merge}} tag would suffice. And lists that contain plot summaries and nothing else still violate PLOT, and yet the list was kept. PLOT was given as a reason for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Storylines of EastEnders (2000s) and people said keep anyway. Is there anything in WP:NOT that could be merged into another article? Original inventions? Propaganda? Advertising? Sales catalogs? How-to guides? Unverifiable speculation? Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Mandalorians had nothing to do with PLOT. Those other 3 AFDs you link from April 30 were for notability concerns, something which has nothing to do with WP:NOT. And the AFDs you link to from April 29 were also about notability, again, not this policy's concern. I suppose you could say "articles without real world information regularly get deleted or merged", but that's related to WP:N, not PLOT. And I'm not just referring to AFDs when I say PLOT has no consensus. Look through the archives of this talk page going back to Archive 6. Look at the posts further up this talk page. PLOT actually doesn't discourage articles that contain little "real world information." New contributors don't read this policy before they create articles. PLOT says plot-only articles are NOT ALLOWED. So it's a reason in AFD nominations. It turns a cleanup issue into a forced cleanup issue. When someone nominates an article like Plot of Les Miserables for deletion, people say that PLOT should be changed. The closing admin ignored their arguments and deleted the article when there was no consensus to delete. The article was taken to DRV 2 days later. There wasn't actual consensus to endorse the deletion in that DRV either. But Xoloz endorsed the deletion yet restored the article anyway. Do you think the Cosette article needs to be deleted or expanded? If it needs to be deleted, PLOT belongs in NOT. If it needs to be expanded, PLOT belongs in WAF. How about the Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky article? If PLOT has consensus, please tell me what the consensus for PLOT to say is. --Pixelface (talk) 12:35, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
You don't have to go back to 2006 and 2007 all the time, you know... Anyway, you are using flawed logic. Some people dispute the wording of WP:PLOT, so a discussion is going on to find the best wording (with some people arguing for complete removal): sibce it takes some time to find the exact wording, it means that there is currently no consensus for the actual phrasing, although from discussions here it is patently clear that there is quite a wide agreement that PLOT should be included, and what its meaning should be. "Is there anything in WP:NOT that could be merged into another article?". Well, yes: dictionary definitions, and news reports. But if it makes you happy, we can change "plot summaries" to "mere plot summaries", to bring it in line with "mere collections of external links": Wikipedia does have external links, despite this policy. I believe the policy is quite clear to most people (thos not trying their hardest to get it removed altogether at least): while articles on notable fictional subjects can have plot summaries as an integral part of the articles, we shouldn't have articles that consist mainly or solely of plot summaries. This is reflected in the AfD's I listed: articles which consisted of plot summaries (WP:PLOT) and had no obvious chance of being rescued by including real world information (WP:NOTE) were deleted, the others were kept or merged. PLOT does not exist in a vacuum, it has to be interpreted and taken into account in combination with other policies and guidelines. But it looks to me as if there is a pretty clear consensus for this, even though some borderline cases will always exist (just like with every policy). Compare the list of Mandalorians AfD listed above with the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mandalorian, and you'll see what I mean. As for Les Misérables: it was deleted, and the plot summary in the main article is all we need. Having discussion about apolicy, and having a number of people disagree with a policy in one discussion or another, does not mean that the policy no longer is consensus based or should be removed completely. I have seen people disagree with WP:V, WP:NOTE, WP:BIO, WP:OR, WP:COI, WP:EL, WP:NPOV, WP:FRINGE, ... when those policies and guidelines went against their preferences, but they are still all valid. That PLOT is being discussed and finetuned is a good thing, but I have seenb no indication that it doesn't represent the consensus. Fram (talk) 13:33, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
You're right, I don't have to go back to 2006 and 2007 to show that PLOT does not reflect consensus. I can quote people from this very talk page that have commented within the last few weeks. There is not "quite a wide agreement" that PLOT belongs in NOT. PLOT no longer has consensus. Father Goose said "This is more a style issue than a content issue, so the appropriate place for it is arguably in a guideline, not in a content-exclusion policy."[112], DGG said "More generally, NOT PLOT as it is written does not belong in NOT--policy should be general principles, not the details found there."[113], 23skidoo said "I agree with those who feel this is better suited for MoS rather than trying to pigeonhole it into a policy that, technically, is intended to supress content."[114], Eubulide said "I object to treating plot details in a different way than other types of sourced information in WP." and "This is done only for plot summaries and nobody gave an explanation for this exception. If an article is missing real-world context, the reasonable approach is to add such context, not delete the rest."[115], SmokeyJoe said "I think WP:NOT#PLOT, as written, belongs in WP:WAF."[116], Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles said "We should remove the plot section of what Wikipedia is not."[117], Hobit said "I'll chime in by saying I don't think issues of plot summary should be here."[118] and Hobit later said "I think at the least WP:PLOT lacks consensus and shouldn't be here" [119]. Plvekamp said "The article on Winston Smith fails WP:NOT. Therefore, it should be deleted. Anyone willing to prod it? If not, then it seems to me that you agree that that WP:PLOT is a MoS issue, not a WP:NOT issue. Please address this point, anyone." Wassupwestcoast said "I believe the current version contradicts the 'no original research' and 'verifiability' policy. In other words, if an editor can write a 'plot summary' from good secondary sources outside of the work itself, then why not? I'm certain one can write a very good article on the plot of Hamlet from scholarly sources." DHowell said "WP:NOT#PLOT should be removed" and "The problem with WP:NOT#PLOT is not necessarily how it is worded, but how it is used. Because the deletion policy gives WP:NOT as a reason for deletion, it is used in AfD and DRV debates as a reason to delete, rather than improve, many articles about notable published works." Ursasapien said "This is a style issue that can be improved by editing, not a content issue per se." and "Secondly, we should not create or amend policy in an attempt to force editors to write excellent articles on the first try." and later said "I also believe that a valid argument can be made that this is a manual of style issue." Quasirandom said "Responding to "But the whole reason that WP:NOT exists is to guard against types of content which are not encyclopedic and do not demonstrate notability" above in a thread that doesn't allow for easy assertion: If that's the case, then it would be better to not be indirect, but instead directly say, "Articles about works of fiction that only summarize the plot do not demonstrate the notability of the work." At which point, however, it doesn't belong here but in WP:N." Peregrine Fisher said "While all the ramifications of PLOT were ignored, it had consensus/momentum. As soon as it was applied, we had massive edit warring and arbitrations. There's one type of consensus when something is applied and not challenged, and there is another type of consensus when something is challenged as soon as it is applied. PLOT's consensus is the second kind."
I realize that Wikipedia has external links. Could you point me to an article that currently exists that is all external links? An AFD for an article composed of all external links that resulted in no consensus to delete? So this policy is quite clear to you and those that think PLOT belongs in NOT but it's unclear to those who want to remove PLOT, is that right? Why exactly should we not have articles that consist mainly of plot summaries? Articles like Baldrick and Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky? Those articles qualify as content not suitable for Wikipedia? In those AFDs you listed, PLOT was not given as a reason for deletion. You're right, PLOT does not exist in a vacuum. It came from WAF, and that's where it belongs. If PLOT is some attempt to turn WP:N into policy, it *really* doesn't belong in NOT. And I certainly didn't see a consensus to merge at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mandalorian. Plot of Les Misérables was deleted when there was no consensus to delete it. In that AFD, people were saying PLOT should be ignored clear back in July 2007. And WP:NOT was protected today because PLOT does not have consensus, or do you think edit wars equal consensus? --Pixelface (talk) 16:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
"WP:NOT was protected today because PLOT does not have consensus," I'm going to start a list of every time you say something so mind-blowingly stupid and false. Do you think the protecting admin gives a crap about the dispute? No, they protected it because there was an edit war over the wording (which didn't even change the spirit of the text). Damn it, Pixelface, the adults would like to have a nice conversation now, could you please knock off all the nonsensical ranting. -- Ned Scott 11:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Ned, would you please have another reading of the civility policy (a policy which has far more consensus than WP:NOT#PLOT) and consider rephrasing your response to Pixelface to be more in line with that policy? The adults would indeed like to have a nice conversation now. Thank you. (Feel free to delete this response after you have rephrased your comment above.) DHowell (talk) 23:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Ned, if you think edit wars indicate consensus, fine, believe that. But the protecting admin *does* "give a crap about the dispute."[120] [121] [122] [123] [124] [125] [126] [127] [128] [129] [130] [131] [132] [133] [134] [135] [136] [137] [138] [139] [140] [141] [142] [143] [144] [145] [146] [147] [148] [149] [150] [151] [152] [153] [154] [155] [156] Black Kite was an involved party of E&C2, and Black Kite DRV'd the History of For Better or For Worse article in the hopes of setting some "precedent." Now, maybe Black Kite wasn't involved the dispute over whether to put PLOT under GUIDE or not, but it's evident from Black Kite's participation on this talk page that Black Kite is not an uninvolved admin in all this. Care to address anything else I said? Any of the other comments I cited? Care to tell me how the Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky article (oldid) is content not suitable for Wikipedia? --Pixelface (talk) 10:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)


While there doesn't appear to be consensus to remove PLOT from wikipedia, there also doesn't seem to be consensus to keep it in NOT#IINFO. Moving it to WAF seems like the best thing to do to me, although I'm sure we could include it in a number of places. It could be moved to the guideline section, but that doesn't really change anything. I don't think it should be above FICT or NOTE, since it contradicts both and is supposed to outrank them. The best fiction consensus we've had so far is the one over at FICT concerning lists, which is currently prohibited by PLOT. And things like an article on the plot of Hamlet would obviously meet NOTE, but would be prohibited by PLOT. You could say the Hamlet plot should have analysis, but that's a writing style/improvement suggestion, not a reason to delete a hypothetical well sourced article on it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 00:54, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The core concept of PLOT needs to stay in NOT (and policy): We do not cover topics of published works with only plot summaries and the information therein of the work's content. The current wording (which may be the "wrong" wording when the page was protected) says Wikipedia treats fiction in an encyclopedic manner; discussing the reception, impact and significance of notable works. A concise plot summary is appropriate as part of the larger coverage of a fictional work. I see nothing against how FICT or NOTE works against this, because there's nothing about the article level, only the topic level. But, I can see us trying to make the language as clear as possible for this point. --MASEM 01:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
It says work, and it says article. "Current consensus is that Wikipedia articles are not simply" vs. "larger coverage of a fictional work." If we agree that FICT has as good a consensus as we're going to get right now (and it seems to), then that should be reconciled here. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:13, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
I would certainly challenge that FICT has any consensus other than a lull from people being tired at the end of the academic year. the only reason NOT PLOT has any consensus at all is that it can be interpreted in so many different ways to fit whatever argument one likes. DGG (talk) 02:38, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't know if FICT has true consensus or not, but since the deletionists (less Gavin) and inclusionists have at the minimum agreed to something that's prohibited by PLOT, PLOT should be changed to reflect this. Wherever the true consenus lies, it isn't at a hard and fast rule that WP articles are not plot summaries. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 03:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
WP:PLOT is left open to reflect consensus, which is, in fact, that we don't have a one-size-fits all definition. What we do have is the spirit, the attitude, that our coverage of fiction should be with real-world context. -- Ned Scott 04:59, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is WP:NOT#PLOT reason to delete?

But how are we supposed to make a sentence without pushing the letters around? You can't arrange them on the counter and carry them to the fridge and stick them up, because people argue over who gets to carry them. The consensus seems to be that WP:PLOT stay in the indiscriminate information section. I'm not really interested in moving it again, that looks like it will be counter-productive. I am interested in what it should say though. I think the consensus is that Wikipedia articles are not simply plot summaries. That would indicate we need more than a plot summary, so I guess the nest step is what we need. Looking at our featured articles, what we desire in something we call our best work is discussion of the reception and the like. So I guess the consensus is with the current wording. Would that be correct? Is that best practise? Does that get us to the goal of writing an encyclopedia? Of course, I'm assuming that our featured articles represent what we think of as encyclopedic, whilst all other articles are merely working drafts we are attempting to get to that standard. Would that be correct too? If it is, I think the consensus is with WP:PLOT. Are there examples of featured articles which don't have anything but plot summary? The next problem to address is that of deletion. Maybe we need to add something to Arguments to avoid in deletion debates, along the line of article consists solely of plot. That's not a reason to delete. A reason to delete would be article unlikely to ever consist of anything except plot summary. Hiding T 09:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Some articles are simply plot summaries (Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky[157]); some articles are not (Pauline Fowler[158]). Are you saying that plot summaries merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make them suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia? Featured articles may have reception information, but do stubs have to be featured articles on the first revision? Wikipedia is a work in progress. I don't think all articles have to be able to be FAs one day. WP:NOT is the lowest bar for inclusion. It's not the featured article criteria. If you've been describing best practice and saying everything that's not best practice is NOT suitable for Wikipedia, I think that's a problem. The five pillars says "Although it should be aimed for, perfection is not required." Saying that everything below best practice is not suitable for Wikipedia goes against the editing policy. Do I think the Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky article represents best practice? No. Do I think it should be deleted? No. WP:NOT#PLOT *is* used as a reason to delete. Is it common practice to delete articles that are solely plot summaries? Perhaps, but it's also common practice that there is no consensus to delete articles that are solely plot summaries. You can't add something to the essay WP:ATA and expect people to follow it. If you think an article consisting solely of plot is not a reason to delete, I don't think WP:NOT#PLOT belongs in this policy. Or you could try inserting language to that effect into WP:NOT#PLOT, like Kyorosuke did[159], an edit that was not discussed beforehand on WT:NOT. I don't think proposals like Wikipedia:Postponed deletion are a good solution. You said "A reason to delete would be article unlikely to ever consist of anything except plot summary." Do you still think a plot summary plus an infobox violates PLOT? --Pixelface (talk) 06:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Good points. I tend to think an article which can only ever be plot summary and an infobox is probably not suited for Wikipedia, and will tend to vote! delete because I don't like them, but I'm astute enough to know I only do so because I don't like them, (see WP:PTN) and if the consensus is that such an article should be kept, then hey, Wikipedia is a big place, I don't have to look at it. So let me, if I can, cut to the chase; we're looking for a wording that would incorporate the spirit of something like: consisting solely of a plot summary is grounds for expansion and cleanup, not deletion? Hiding T 15:12, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Not quite that language; this is different from an article that passes NOT but may be poorly written, lacking sourcing (but is otherwise verifiable) and other details, where cleanup without considering deletion is the correct answer. Cleanup should first be attempted (and that implies that notification that the article needs cleanup has to occur) and only deleted after a reasonable amount of time when shown that PLOT cannot be met by the topic. --MASEM 16:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky is a part of a larger coverage of work for War and Peace, which NOT#PLOT allows for. -- Ned Scott 06:26, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I'd disagree with this interpretation as that opens a big can of worms for less notable characters in less notable works of fiction (where is the cut-off point?). But if someone would AfD this character's article, I have no doubt that it would either be expanded to meet WP:NOT#PLOT, or it would at worst be merged, not deleted. Concerns that not meeting a strict interpretation of NOT#PLOT results in deletion may be justified at times, but there is no automatic correlation as soon as a certain potential is there. – sgeureka t•c
WP:NOT#PLOT is not an exact definition for an article to meet. On a per-issue discussion, however, editors should discuss if that additional plot summary is required for some other real-world context, on that article or on another. If the additional summary isn't needed, then it should be deleted, trimmed, etc. -- Ned Scott 05:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
So History of For Better or For Worse is not part of Wikipedia's coverage of For Better or For Worse? Plot of Les Miserables is not part of Wikipedia's coverage of Les Miserables? PLOT allows for articles that are solely plot summaries? WP:IINFO says "Wikipedia articles are not simply", not "Wikipedia topics are not simply." Even among people who think PLOT should stay in NOT, they don't seem to agree whether the restriction against sole plot summaries applies to individual articles or topics in general. --Pixelface (talk) 03:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
If that additional summary was needed for real-world context, either in those articles directly or another, then they should have been kept. If it was just coverage of plot that wasn't required for real-world context, then I see nothing wrong with their deletion. -- Ned Scott 05:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Just because an article, this instant, fails any part of NOT (including PLOT) does not mean the article should be deleted; nor does it mean there's anything wrong with this policy. However, the problem is, as I've pointed out before, behavioral: there are editors that see something that violates NOT, and immediately walks it to AFD without giving it a chance. I've put an idea out to correct part of this (allowing concerned editors to request a postpone AFD for four weeks to allow them to show that it does not fail NOT). I've put it out there, it seems to have interest, so this takes care of the fact that someone may nominate an article without any input to the editors of the article, allowing the editors to correct it. (and no, its not expected in four weeks to have perfection either - just that any issues with NOT or other deletion reason can be shown to be no longer valid) Still, we need to help editors get away from the mindset that AFD should be the first step in content dispute. That probably means some stronger wording changes at Deletion Policy and making sure some editors don't abuse that part of the system. This applies to all parts of NOT, not just PLOT.
In NOT, we need to make the point stronger that for all suggestions in this list (not just PLOT), that we are evaluating the article and/or/both its topic in its ultimate state, not its immediate state. This is why AFD should not be a first step of content resolution, because some articles can be cleaned up or improved to remove any issues with NOT. If something fails NOT right now, such as examples given above, are those reasons for deletion? No, of course not, however, they cannot remain indefinitely in that way. Authors or wikiprojects should be notified that the article fails, and time granted to bring the article to some agreement with NOT (perfection is not required, just demonstration it can met the concerns of NOT). Only, if after time and good faith effort that the article cannot be shown to pass NOT should AFD be brought into play, and even then, that may attract some more eyes to help fix it. However, I completely agree 5 days is not enough time to fix certain problems. Again, right now there's a behavioral problem that the first step is commonly not done; there are editors that jump the gun with shades of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, and we have the situation where we have now where NOT's listings are considered combative and argumentive. My proposed deletion is a bandaid, but not the cure: we need to make sure that it is clear that failing NOT right now should not be a reason to delete; only in the case where the article cannot be shown to pass NOT should it be then considered for deletion; we then need to make sure editors that send articles to AFD as the first step are aware this is not the best approach to dealing with such contact.
Notice that I didn't say anything specific to PLOT because these problems are consistent across all of NOT; PLOT just tends to be the most visible. But the intent of what I'm trying to say applies to PLOT clearly: if a topic dealing with a published work or element within cannot ultimately be shown to pass PLOT, then it should be deleted. A topic on the same that is only a plot summary and an infobox of easily-discovered data, right now, should not be deleted. That doesn't mean it can sit in that state forever: if I feel it needs to be improved, tagging and notifying authors that there's a problem, and then giving them time to correct, is the right first step; if they no effort to improve in reasonable time, and as a good editor I've looked to see if that's truly the case (that there's no other information that can be added to expand the article beyond a plot summary), only then should I consider an AFD. The only "gotcha" here compared to other aspects of NOT is that PLOT should be applied at the topic level; we allow lists of characters and lists of episodes that are plot-only (though in some cases, they can be more than that), but these articles are considered as part of the larger coverage of the published work's topic. If I cannot show, when prompted, that I can talk about the published work in more than just plot summary (including these supporting articles), then the entire topic should be deleted including its supporting articles. However, when we start talking individual characters or episodes or other individual aspects of the work's internal universe, giving these concepts their own article no longer makes them supporting, but instead become treated as their own topic; if ultimately you cannot show these individual aspects can be talked about in more that just plot summaries, they should be deleted. This approach right now is not well reflected in the current wording, though it is there by spirit, and we should consider rewriting PLOT to reflect it better.
There is nothing wrong with the concept behind PLOT, and it should stay in NOT; the consensus here seems to show that if the best ultimate possible state a topic can be brought to is simply a plot summary, the topic should be deleted. But we have two problems to make sure this is clear:
  • Make sure that it is clear via NOT and DEL/DP that the instantaneous state of the article failing NOT is not a reason to delete, it is what ultimately the article can be that should be considered. For this purpose, we need to allow time to move from that instantaneous state to what the ultimate state could look like, but we do not expect perfection, merely the good faith efforts that NOT is passed.
  • Make sure that PLOT is given at the highest level description: topics should not be only plot summaries, moving exactly what material (NOTE/FICT) and how it can be added (WAF) to help a topic satisfy PLOT and NOT.
(And I will cavaet that when I say "deleted" in any of the above, this includes merging appropriate content to larger articles and/or transwiking material to off-site wikis, leaving appropriate redirections behind.) --MASEM 14:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I think WP:NOT#PLOT is a good reason to delete an article, and I don't think that this consensus, as evidenced in many AfD debates, can be overruled. --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
  • What consensus? You think there is consensus that WP:NOT#PLOT is always a good reason to delete an article, despite the evidence against this being consensus on this talk page alone, even among people who believe that WP:NOT#PLOT is an essential part of policy? And despite the evidence on this talk page alone which points to a lack of consensus in many AfD debates? You believe that such a nebulous "consensus", evidence for which you assert but fail to demonstrate, cannot be overruled, despite policy which says the opposite? I respect that you have strong opinions about this matter, but I believe that to claim that your opinions have consensus and cannot be overruled is a just a hop, skip, and a jump over to the M:MPOV. DHowell (talk) 00:37, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How to tweak WP:PLOT

Pixelface has suggested up above that we tweak WP:PLOT somehow to make it clear that an article consisting solely of plot is not a reason to delete, pointing to this edit [160] as an example of how to word it. I think that's a very good point which is best made in our editing policy, so to better make this fit with that policy, how should we amend the current wording? How about "A concise plot summary is appropriate as part of the larger coverage of a fictional work, and in keeping with editing policy where at all possible information plot summaries should be so integrated in an encyclopedic manner"? Hiding T 09:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

If an article fails any part of WP:NOT (or indeed any other core content policy), then the question is whether it can be fixed or whether it should be deleted, and WP:PLOT is no exception. In general, it is preferable to fix the problems with the article, but sometimes deletion is exactly the right thing to do. Again, that's true in general, and is not specific to PLOT.
If we need to clarify the "fixable" issue then we need to do so for all types of content issues. It may be more appropriate to amend WP:DP#Reasons for deletion, and perhaps add a reference to editing policy there. It's a mistake to create a special case for plot summaries. Jakew (talk) 11:14, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
That's an idea. How would we amend WP:DP#Reasons for deletion? I think a lot of this stems from the fact that there has been some sort of movement on Wikipedia to dress some opinions as objective rather than subjective. It is of course objective that an article consists solely of plot. It is of course subjective that it should be deleted because of this to improve Wikipedia. Hiding T 11:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Clearly we should change the deletion policy and create WP:Plot summaries, as well as change WP:AFD and institute WP:POSTPONE in order to support WP:FICT instead of simply removing a bad idea that never had consensus to begin with from policy. Clearly. --Pixelface (talk) 22:20, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
This is clearly true. You cannot make sweeping judgements. Some plot-only articles can clearly be improved to be encyclopedic, some are suitable for merge to another article, whilst some are plainly untenable. It is the last of those three which means that WP:PLOT can be a reason for deletion, but may not always be so. What we must not do is remove PLOT from the reasons for deletion completely, because that's clearly a slippery slope regarding the rest of WP:NOT. There is an argument that such untenable articles can generally be deleted through failure to meet WP:V, but that's a separate issue. Black Kite 12:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
<ec> Well, here's the problem I have, and I think this is still true. We don't delete because of WP:PLOT, we delete because of WP:CONSENSUS. We nominate because of WP:PLOT. An admin has to weigh a debate, determining rough consensus in an impartial manner, looking at underlying policy. Now it appears that WP:PLOT is being utilised in this form as a reason to delete, in ignorance of WP:EP, which indicates we should preserve information. Maybe we need to decide which policies it is that an admin bows to in closing a deletion debate. Looking at WP:EP, it would indicate WP:OR, WP:V, WP:BLP and WP:COPYRIGHT are the policies which decide information which should be deleted, but not WP:NOT. Thoughts? Hiding T 13:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
The problem with AfD at the moment is that "rough consensus" is being obscured by large amounts of block voting on the most tenuous of policy-related reasons (or more often, no reason at all). It is getting very difficult for many admins to wade through this morass of non-votes, many of which ignore WP:V and WP:OR, never mind WP:NOT. Black Kite 13:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
To be honest I've ignored afd as much as I can for something like 18 months now. I became very disillusioned with it and realised participation wasn't mandatory. You'd have to wonder what would happen if we ignored afd altogether. Imagine if we only deleted through CSD and PROD. Maybe more cleanup would happen? We'd perhaps keep articles in a better shape. It is a thought. Maybe we would need a "Is this a hoax page", and some sort of deletion process for contentious biographies, but beyond that? Hmmm... food for thought... Hiding T 13:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
AFD is still needed: it should however be the last step in dispute resolution, not the first. There will be fundamental disagreements if a page, after all good faith efforts are exhausted, meets NOT or NOTE or similar policy, say, only one secondary source is found to show a work being notable, which begs if that is "significant coverage". This isn't a CSD case, and the PROD would be contested. Assuming that there's been dispute resolution before this point, AFD is a proper venue to get more input on whether appropriate policies have been made. Mind you, there are problems when you have tried DR, and you present an article for deletion where tons of keep votes without policy backing get put on; we need to have closing admins carefully evaluation and fully explain their actions so that even if an article is deleted, those that filled the box with "keep" don't feel disenfranchised. (eg: "While there were a lot of "keep" votes, they did not comment on the original nom's question of the article's notability.") But that's more a behavioral problem at WP:DEL than at WP:NOT. --MASEM 14:05, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
You've preloaded the debate by asserting that such a page should be deleted. This is why afd may be broken. Hiding T 14:11, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
My argument could go both ways: maybe there's a group that completely want to delete a topic based on IDONTLIKEIT grounds (see things like Homoepathy). The point I was trying to make is regardless of the state of the article, AFD is a necessary step in dispute resolution; if we allow for CSD and PROD, we need AFD to handle contested cases. The problem I agree is in line with the above: that AFD is too often used as a first step, and too many AFD via PLOT with the intent of delete, when really the step should have been to work with the page editors to either avoid failing PLOT by adding information, or finding a suitable merge point to retain information. Are there still times where AFD is needed in cases of topics failing PLOT? Sure: say someone creates a character article for a character already described in reasonable detail on a list of characters, and ultimately the article can't be shown to expand more than just a plot summary. At that point, it is assumed that deletion of the content is fine since it's already present, but a redirect should be left in place. However, such cases should be rare.
Maybe what is needed is a more formal "Articles for Merge" process than the one we have presently, which specifically should be used with PLOT-failing articles instad of AFD. In otherwords, there would be a central point for all such discussions and run in the same manner as AFD, though people should be !voting "Keep" or "Merge" or variations thereof. --MASEM 14:27, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand what your suggestion is intended to achieve, Masem. If deletion is a valid outcome in an "Articles for Merge" process, then it would serve exactly the same function as AfD (with, perhaps, less focus on deletion, so it may have merit in this respect, but why limit it to PLOT?). On the other hand, if deletion is not a valid outcome, then there would be no effect if the consensus at AfD would have been to keep or merge, but exactly the opposite of consensus if the outcome at AfD would have been to delete. Jakew (talk) 15:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, not making myself clear. We have a problem that AFD can often result in generally four outcomes instead of three: keep, delete, and no consensus are three of them, and the three expected, but merge is the fourth option. If AFD is being used properly as a last resort of dispute resolution, the merge suggestion should have happened much much sooner in the process (though there are likely times the nominator is genuinely unaware of a proper merge target). We are stating that articles that fail PLOT and only fail PLOT should not be deleted, and thus the whole process of using AFD to end up at a merge point taints the process, because it gives the wrong impression of what should be done to the article. Instead, I argue that if we create a specific AFMerge process akin in every regard to AFD, save that the only three general outcomes are keep, merge, and no consensus, we provide a better route for details with articles that may fail PLOT, because the concept of "delete" never comes into the picture. --MASEM 15:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying. I agree that there is a problem with premature nominations to AfD, and I think that problem needs to be solved in some way, but I'm not convinced that special-case processes for one particular problem is the solution. I think it's more of a band-aid solution, and one that may cause more problems than it solves.
I think it's safe to say that articles that fail PLOT usually fail other policies as well, and I'd guess that it's probably rather rare for an article to fail PLOT, have little hope of ever meeting PLOT, and yet only fail PLOT. If sufficient secondary sources are available to (potentially) meet WP:V and WP:NOR, then it is overwhelmingly likely that out-of-universe material can be written. Similarly, if the available sources can only support in-universe material, then it is probable that the article will also fail WP:V, etc.
But, for the sake of argument, some thoughts about such an article. First, I think such a situation is probably quite rare (in the vast majority of cases, it's likely that other policies and guidelines will also apply), and I wonder whether it's worth creating a special process for a rare event. Second, I'm having such difficulty in imagining such an article that I can't honestly say that the article should not be deleted. I think it should certainly be considered as a possible option, and I suspect that it would be a mistake to make such an outcome impossible. Jakew (talk) 15:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
If something fails PLOT, it's likely failing NOTE/FICT, easily. (Hypothetical question: can something fail PLOT and still meet NOTE/FICT? ) Alternately, by making the topic meet PLOT, you are generally then satisfying it for NOTE/FICT as well, and to that extent, also WP:V; any other failures of the article at that point are likely due to writing style and making sure to watch for problems in NOR and NPOV. A big complaint of naysayers of PLOT (such as Pixelface) is that there is a strong tie between it and notability, yet notability is not policy. Can we separate these better? I don't know, I'm just throwing it out. But the key here is that most of the time, PLOT and NOTE are tied together presently; once you make it to pass one, you've likely passed the other and there are rarely other policies that cannot be fixed with standard cleanup, removing the need to AFD.
As for the AFMerge idea, it has wider applications beyond PLOT-type articles. Mind you, I'm pretty sure the idea is not new. We basically need to have it clear, somehow, that citing PLOT, ultimately failing NOTE as a reason for deletion is not good. Deletion, strictly, means that we should not cover any aspect of that topic at all. Rarely this is the case that we want to delete the coverage of a plot-based item, instead opting to reduce the amount it is covered and placing it in better context if the element itself cannot pass PLOT -- effectively merging content. AFDs should not be used as they are now with plot-based articles to try to end up with a merge decision, because you are presenting the option of "deletion". As suggested, PLOT-failing articles likely never should go to
We still need some form of wide-participation dispute resolution for PLOT-type articles. The current merge process unfortunately does not attract a lot of attention as AFDs do; unless you advertise it to an interested project page, you only have the person interested in the merge and the editors of the page. At that point gaining consensus can be rather difficult because you're dealing at the local level. Say you're the one suggesting a merge and you know that the merge is appropriate by policy but you cannot get those editors to move. Even if you get a larger opinion at a project, this type of situation can be very difficult to bulge, and likely will end up in an edit war if neither side relents. Presently, the next step is to take it to AFD, but as I've noted, this is the wrong attitude. This is exactly where the AFMerge idea would be better; you can now go from local consensus to global consensus in a manner that suggests that you don't want to remove that material, just help better with its encyclopedic presentation. --MASEM 18:16, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Interesting comments. It's true that WP:PLOT and WP:NOTE are closely related, but so too is WP:V. As I (and others) have stated previously, WP:V in particular implies WP:N, and in most cases any argument based upon WP:N can be rephrased as an argument based upon WP:V and WP:NOR (if there are sufficient reliable sources to write a verifiable article, the subject probably meets WP:N). In a sense, then, the underlying principles of notability are already policy. I'm not sure if it's possible to separate the policies and guidelines, which are after all intended to be understood as a whole. So yes, WP:PLOT and WP:NOTE are closely linked, but if we were to remove WP:PLOT from the equation, there would still be a policy basis for WP:NOTE, and in most cases one could still make notability-type arguments on the sole basis of policies (as opposed to guidelines).
Hypothetically, I suppose, one could propose that we amend WP:V and WP:NOR as well, but this raises the question of why one would want to. "PLOT shouldn't be a part of NOT because NOT is a reason for deletion and so article X might be deleted" is not, by itself, a compelling argument. Nor is "the requirement for secondary sources shouldn't be a part of WP:PSTS because WP:NOR is policy and so article X might be deleted". Neither of these arguments are remotely compelling unless one starts from the assumption that article X shouldn't be deleted. Similarly, "WP:NPOV needs to be rewritten so that I can rewrite the King George article to explain my theory that he was actually a sentient carrot" isn't very compelling unless one starts from the assumption that such an assertion ought to be made. So the question, to my mind, is this: what is so important about article X (or the class of articles like X) that means that they should be kept? And is there sufficient support for that view that we should rewrite PLOT, V, NOR, etc. in order to accomodate it?
Regarding the AFMerge idea, I think it's rather interesting, but I wouldn't like to see it as the only option for PLOT-type problems, because I think that deletion is often (though far from always) the correct approach with these articles. Nevertheless, when merging is appropriate it would be very good, as you say, to have an effective mechanism for getting more eyes and more input from the wider community. A couple of ideas spring to mind, in addition to AFMerge. The first is that perhaps WP:PM could be enhanced or restructured in some way so as to get more attention? The second is that perhaps we could have a NOT/Noticeboard, similar to WP:NOR/N and WP:RS/N? I'm not sure whether either of these are any good, but I thought they were worth mentioning. Jakew (talk) 21:27, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I think it's somewhat inaccurate to bluntly state that "we should preserve information". It depends on the information, and whether it is appropriate encyclopaedic content. If inappropriate content was added, there's no particular reason to keep it, and keeping information just because someone added it is counter to the goal of creating a quality encyclopaedia. WP:EP actually states: "For text that is beyond hope we will remove the offending section to the corresponding talk page, or, in cases in which the article obviously has no redeeming merit whatsoever, delete it outright. The decision to take the latter action should not be made lightly, however." Whether or not pure plot summaries fall into the exceptions listed in WP:EP#Preserve information (I would argue that they tend to be duplicative and OR), I think it's a mistake to think that WP:DP is automatically invalid because of perceived inconsistencies with WP:EP. Jakew (talk) 13:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Give the two lists of reasons to delete at WP:EP and WP:DP, I think it is inaccurate to describe an assertion of inconsistency as perceived. I'd also point out I am not contending DP is invalid, only that the inconsistency exists. I'd be curious how you square the two lists; for example notability makes no appearance in WP:EP. It's almost like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. I'd be curious as to how we decide which hand has primacy. As to your argument regarding plot summaries being OR, that's not supported by policy. Oh, and it isn't inaccurate to describe our mission as being one of preserving information. Unless you believe Wikipedia will only be complete when all information has been removed. Hiding T 13:38, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I guess I don't see a major inconsistency because I view WP:EP#Preserve information as a non-exclusive list (ie., it includes, but is not limited to...) I suppose that if I viewed it otherwise then I would probably agree with you. Additionally, I view "preserve information" as applying primarily to within-article editing, not to the deletion process. Intuitively, it makes much more sense to me to view DP as definitive when it comes to valid reasons for article deletion.
Notability is a combination of two issues: i) whether it is possible to meet the requirements of WP:V and WP:NOR (ie., are there enough sources out there to support a theoretical fully-sourced article), and ii) relevance to an encyclopaedia (note that "irrelevancy" is an exception to "preserve information" and that WP:RELEVANCE discusses WP:N and WP:NOT). Hence, in my analysis, WP:N is largely an explanation of existing policy for convenience, while notability is not explicitly listed in EP, it is implied.
Finally, on a philosophical note, the purpose of the project is to create an encyclopaedia. Creating and preserving encyclopaedic information is essential to that goal, but so too is removing unencyclopaedic information (the difficulty, I admit, is agreeing how to distinguish between the two). Jakew (talk) 13:58, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Intuitively I would expect WP:DP to explain how we delete. What we delete I would expect to be at WP:NOT, intuitively, but that's Pixelface's main bone of contention and is where we cam in. This whole argument is based on subjective intuitions, and we can go around in these circles all day, it doesn't really help. The broad point is that we have no clear definition of what an encyclopedia is. An 18th century encyclopedia of butterflies would look different to a 20th century one. Is one more encyclopedic than another? At least we agree this is a subjective decision. Hiding T 14:09, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
But is is a perfectly good reason for deletion if there doesn't exist enough third party verifiable information in reliable sources to make a balanced article that is not mostly plot summary. So the question shouldn't be what does the article have now, but how much out of universe verifiable information exists. If enough out of universe information doesn't exist in reliable sources to make the article mostly out of universe and only a little plot summary, then yes it should be deleted. That's just a basic synthesis of WP:V, WP:NOT, and the other content policies. - Taxman Talk 12:58, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Is it? That seems to be enacting WP:N as policy, not guidance? I'd agree it is a good reason to argue for deletion, but not a reason which should trump other opinions. It seems to be attempting to violate WP:NPOV. For example, if all that has been written on a subject in reliable sources is glowing, we don't refuse to summarise it because there is no criticism to counter balance. If all there is to say about a work is that it exists, and to describe it and classify it, where is the harm in that? How are we breaching our observance of a neutral point of view? Surely having inclusion standards in some sense violates the ability to maintain a neutral point of view, a fundamental principle? Jimmy made this point himself once, saying we wouldn't discuss Flat Earthers or some such in Earth, but we could discuss such theories in their own article. Look, cards on the table, the argument really seems to boil down to What improves the encyclopedia best, deleting or retaining verifiable material? Let's not make the flawed assumption that our policies mean anything, they're just words we wrote and rewrite as we go, it's all made up. What's the goal. That's the heart of the debate, how expansive are we. Are we deletionist or inclusionist. Can we find a middle ground which doesn't consist of robotic automaton, enslaved to subjective notions. Hiding T 13:11, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
If it is only verifiable to itself then it is not verifiable, that's basic application of WP:V. That's what what I said above boils down to. And yes, I would argue that irrespective of what we have written for our policies WP:V is at the core of what makes a good encyclopedia and what makes an encyclopedia worth using. In any case it is policy, and bedrock at that. That's why I've always argued we don't even need WP:N because WP:V already covers what we need. If people simply discussed whether subjects had enough third party verifiable sources to make balanced articles we'd never need to argue about notability again. - Taxman Talk 14:54, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, I think I'm the man who suggested the third party sources addition to WP:V, so I can remember when that wasn't a policy, but then I remember when WP:V wasn't policy, and we were still an encyclopedia. I'm not sure it is bedrock; WP:NPOV certainly is, but WP:V? It's hard for me to take as bedrock something I proposed, since it's just something I made up one day. The trouble with bedrock is how we interpret it and what it all means. WP:PAPER is bedrock. Deeper bedrock. There's a division deep within Wikipedia that we have never truly solved. Because all that policy, all that bedrock really is, is just words we made up. And they mean whatever we want them to mean. Some people argue that including plot summaries makes us the good encyclopedia we are. The whole point about us is we're here to build an encyclopedia. Nobody ever thought to work out what sort of encyclopedia, because we were never meant to be the enyclopedia. Something else was. The good content was going to get published somewhere else. We lost sight of that, or dropped that idea, but we never replaced it with anything else. Wikipedia itself didn't start out as the encyclopedia. It's the place where we write the encyclopedia. It's also become the encyclopedia, but it is still also the sandbox. We can keep whatever we want in the sandbox, but not whatever we want in the encyclopedia. The place is split into factions on so many points it's hard to decide what we are. There really are no objective statements here, WP:IAR makes that clear if nothing else. We do whatever is best to build a NPOV encyclopedia. We're here to "to present a fair, neutral description of the facts". Incidentally, I think the third party sources grew from the original formulation of WPNPOV; Perhaps the easiest way to make your writing more encyclopedic is to write about what people believe, rather than what is so. If you can't source what people believe, you can't write about it. Hiding T 16:14, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
No offense, but you didn't exactly just make it up one day. It's basic scholarly attribution. And the it's just words we made up one day can be just a really convenient way to ignore policies that have extremely wide community consensus on what we want this project to be. I realize some people want to make this a fan site, but luckily WP:V is here to stay. - Taxman Talk 17:20, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Why would it cause offence? Obviously I took it from somewhere. The point is, until it was added it wasn't policy, and there is quite a large amount of policy and flotsam and the like which somewhat contradicts it. Ignoring the fact that we made all this up entrenches the point of view that none of this can be changed and that we could make this a fan-site if consensus wants. I don't endorse the idea that we should be, I merely wish to point out that these arguments are circular. We need better reasons than "because". If we forget why we have these things, from my point of view we don't deserve them, because we can't defend them. Is there a reason we can't be both a fan-site and an encyclopedia? Hiding T 17:30, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, and it's fairly easy to establish from the verifiability policy. And since there are long established and well thought out reasons for the verifiability policy, your arguments are kind of pedantic. We just don't need to rehash the reasons every time. The only conflict is in trying to make Wikipedia into something it doesn't need to be. There are lots of fan sites out there, it's just that this isn't one. - Taxman Talk 17:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
That's what I love about this place. You try and engage with people so that the issues can be seen to be discussed and you get called a pedant. This place was made up as it went along. It means only what we want it to mean. You don't need to tell this stuff to me. You need to find a better way of telling it to the editors out there with different opinions, editing in a different way, because by WP:CONSENSUS they have an equal right to have voice and be heard. Apologies for wasting everyone's time. Hiding T 20:04, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I didn't call you anything. I referred to your arguments. It's an important difference and was done specifically not to refer to you as a person. What your argument did was to set aside strong consensus to repeat that it can change. Of course it can change, but that also doesn't change that it is there and has valuable reasons behind it. - Taxman Talk 02:27, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
An interesting question seems to be at the heart of this turn of discussion. At what point do we determine that consensus has changed, and "how much" of a consensus is needed to determine this? And if you think this is an arbitrary thought, check out the current "controversy" concerning the deciding of consensus at Wikipedia talk:Autoconfirmed Proposal/Poll#Closed. And this is from what would ordinarily seem to be a fairly straight-forward poll. So how many would we need to join the discussion to "invalidate" WP:V? When I consider the mess that was made during the WP:ATT discussions, I'm not sure that any discussion can ever be strong enough to "overturn" an existing policy. And here's the "fun" part: My understanding is that "policy" isn't necessarily what's on some policy page, but rather current practice, or something "endorsed" as "good practice" by the community. So what do you think? Can the community overturn policies? Is it theoritically possible? Is it concretely possible? Or will they get blocked/censured for contravention of those self-same policies? - jc37 03:46, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
yes, this is a policy page, and the appropriate thing to discuss here is what we want the policy to be. Obviously, we can decide on the policy we want--we are not bound by what might have existed on the page before. I think Hiding is right, that material of even very great detail can be verifiable, even a good fan site can have a very large part of its contents accurate and verifiable, even to the extent that it might become a RS in its own right. The question of exactly what counts as verifiable is a guideline from RS, and can be discussed there. The policy question of whether we should go into great detail is a matter of consensus. At present, its clear that consensus is somewhat divided, and I dont think there's really a firm supermajority either way. Therefore, the appropriate thing to do on a policy page is to admit the fact, and leave the question open. DGG (talk) 01:26, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] PLOT and NOTE overlap?

I had this thought based on the above discussion between me and Jakew on the AFMerge idea. Basically, this is a question to make sure we know how much, if any, there is overlap of PLOT and NOTE, and if there's a way to possibly separate these to a degree.

Lets consider an article on a fictional character (though this reasonable applies to any such fictional element or work). For purposes of discussion, the article is only about that one character, so it is important to note that the topic is the fictional character.

Now there are two p/gs that apply to this (warning, descending into some modern math concepts...):

  1. PLOT: The topic needs to include other information in addition to a plot summary, otherwise should not be an article. Let us call this other information as Set A.
  2. NOTE/FICT: The topic must show some information to be worthy of coverage as a single topic (otherwise we're going to merge it). Some information is Set B.

I'm starting from the assertion that these are two different statements. One states that being encyclopedic we simply don't allow topics to be only covered by plot summaries, the other states that we only include information if there's more than just primary and trivial information about it.

Now, I propose trying to consider the following cases (I will assume that there are things that work in Set A that also work in Set B, so that the intersection of the two sets is not the null set).

  1. Set A is exactly equal to Set B - If this is absolutely true, then we need to admit that PLOT and NOTE are the same, or more specifically that for purposes of published works, NOTE/FICT is policy, or that we weaken PLOT to a guideline. Neither of these seems like a good result from this.
  2. Set A is a subset of B - There may be aspects of notability demonstration that do not make an article more than just a plot summary. One could call Cliff Notes of works of fiction secondary sources at times as they do analysis the plot, so we can surpass NOTE, but as this is just more plot summary, albeit in a different writer's opinion. (This is just an example and can be shown to be different) This may be better because the policy statement is more restrictive with the guideline being more open.
  3. Set B is a subset of A - There may be information more that just the plot summary that can pass PLOT, but this information is not sufficient to pass NOTE. Here, I'd use the examples of director commentaries, which have the unfortunate problem of being primary sources yet more than just plot information (but again, my example to be proven in a different manner).
  4. "Some Set A are not B, Some Set B are not A" - This, personally, is where I think the correct overlap lies: there's elements that make things more than just plot summary that don't make it notable, there's notability demonstration that doesn't help to be more than just plot summary. However, I am opening this for further consideration.

What does this all mean? Depending on how other sees this, this tells us what we should be able aiming for in PLOT; do we specifically mention notability or should we try to prune it out? If of the above cases, case 1 and case 3 beg that topics on published works must mention notability, while neither case 2 or 4 require that it be mentioned, or if is, mentioned in a different clause as being a significantly different concept as plot-only articles. --MASEM 13:13, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Fascinating analysis, Masem. I would mostly agree with you, I think: point 4 is the correct overlap. I would put it like this: PLOT tells us about the kind of information that should be included, whereas NOTE tells us (broadly speaking) about the amount of external coverage. To a certain extent, PLOT implies NOTE, but because this is true of other policies (esp. V), I don't think we need to view this as a "problem".
From the narrow perspective of deletion discussions, I would characterise the relationship as follows: applying V and PLOT together, we expect the eventual state of the article to be such that a fully-sourced article can be written with detailed coverage of out-of-universe information, in addition to in-universe aspects. This leads us naturally to NOTE, but they add some clarification - when we evaluate coverage in potential sources, we need to evaluate whether those sources will enable us to meet PLOT.
From the wider perspective of content creation, PLOT is important in that it gives a brief overview of the kind of coverage we want in WP, and what should be avoided. Just as with other WP policies, PLOT gives people information about how to write good articles. We need to bear this in mind. I'm concerned that we shouldn't get lost in the "deletion" perspective and forget about the article-building value of this policy. Jakew (talk) 14:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
It's hard to tell NOTE and NOT apart anymore, there are 14 mentions of notability on this policy page. A bunch of them explicitly making it policy. According to NOT, NOTE is policy with regard to original inventions, memorials, sales catalogs, travel guides, scheduled and future events, future history, plot summaries, and news reports. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 16:20, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Which begs the question, should NOTE and NOT be as tied as they are? Mind you, I'm looking at PLOT specifically, but there may be cases, particularly for future events, news reports, memorials, and original inventions, where one must show something is notable to be included. Other cases, like catalogs and travel guides, and arguably plot summaries are more on content, and thus notability is a separate (but valid) issue.
I also still want to state that we can call that for certain aspects (say, news events) where notability is required per NOT (not NOTE), but what defines notable left best to the guideline.
These are really subtle issues (content verse coverage), but given the various discussions, its clear that a lot of the confusion and arguments over PLOT and related aspects are related to how we word this language. --MASEM 19:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, exactly the problem. Its a little absurd to have what is in effect our policy on notability expressed indirectly in the negative terms of this policy page. It's more conducive to confusion than to the clarification of how to write for Wikipedia. I think two steps need to be taken. First, this page needs to be divided between the "community" policy and the content policy. the behavioral policy is appropriate for NOT. The content policy needs to be restated in a positive page, which would amount to the principles of notability. Problem is, I do not think there is any real agreement on that part--another reason to separate out the community policy,which is something I think there is true consensus on. Lets narrow down the areas of disagreement so we can work on them. DGG (talk) 03:18, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
It already has sections for conent and community, and I don't think rolling the content ones into NOTE or something similar is going to fly anytime soon, or it's already there. I do think we should leave notability to NOTE, since I think it was proposed to be a policy and there wasn't a consensus for that. I don't know, it's pretty convoluted. NOT keeps saying WP is not X, except when X is notable. If NOTE was removed from this, about half of it would be see NOTE, plus some stuff like DIRECTORY, DICTIONARY, GUIDEBOOK and some others that pass NOTE not but not NOT, - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:41, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Does WP:PLOT apply to mythic stories?

Some editors have recently suggested that we should have separate articles on at least some individual mythic stories. Would WP:PLOT apply to prevent going into great detail regarding these stories, or would it be permissable to recount at least the most important myths in detail? My personal guess would be that these stories might be better contained in their entirety at WikiSource, but that is a comparatively uneducated view. John Carter (talk) 16:12, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I fail to see what would prevent articles on individual mythic stories, since most of them have been analysed to death. Therefore I must be missing something. The full text of the myths themselves would be better at Wikisource, yes, although how you'd decide on which version I don't know. Hiding T 16:17, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • WP:PLOT says "Wikipedia treats fiction in an encyclopedic manner; discussing the reception, impact and significance of notable works. A concise plot summary is appropriate as part of the larger coverage of a fictional work. " If you can name a myth or folk story that has an article with no information other than a re-telling of the myth, then yes, it would apply, but because myths and folk stories are by definition culturally significant, then I would be very surprised to find an article about a myth that is unable to provide any encyclopedic information. Calgary (talk) 04:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I could imagine articles for mythic stories that have, at the very least, inspired a great deal of other works. That alone would justify some coverage on Wikipedia, even if those articles don't directly have a lot of real world context presented on the same page. I believe this is in spirit with the concept that the greater topic can justify this additional summary, because you'll likely have incoming links from other articles. However, at the same time, I'm hard pressed to think of an example where it would be hard to find some real world context that one could put directly on the same page. -- Ned Scott 05:44, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Opinion versus Fact

An interesting problem has become apparent as I have looked over the various articles, and I hope you will allow me to present this issue to you all for your consideration.

As I understand it, an encyclopedia is a document that presents information on many subjects. It cannot be simply for the presentation of facts. Therefore, by that definition, it must be allowed to include opinions as well as facts.

While you may or may not agree with this statement, I am confident that it can be seen as self-evident by virtue of the fact that many individuals, as well as peoples, are written about in such documents, and their comments are listed as quotations and/or as general beliefs. As such these have historically required no proof. They are simply included as statements about such individuals or groups, whether true or not, factual or not, and generally accepted or not, because they exist.

I believe that it is disturbing and off-putting when some "editors" think it is their responsibility to change someones' contributions simply because they don't agree with it. That just seems wrong, and is obviously unfair.

One of the basic pillars of the project should be that, particularly if anyone can contribute, that all positions must be included in a subject for it to be considered as exhaustive. Therefore, the rule should be that anyone can contribute by adding in another opinion or viewpoint without fear of deletion. After all, isn't that the purpose of an encyclopedic work?

An extreme example of this would be when dealing with a distasteful topic, such as white supremacy. Is it not true that those who adhere to that philosophy actually exist, hate other races, see them as lesser in species rating and use derogatory statements against them? Would it not be correct to state the philosophy as they see it, rather than as the rest of us see it? Without doing so, the documentation of the subject is incomplete and inherently misleading.

If Wikipedia is to become accurate and exhaustive, then it must become inclusive to all ideas as long as each different opinion is kept to separate paragraphs and/or sections. Without this methodology, Wikipedia will continue to be untrusted and viewed as specious.

Thank you very much for you kind consideration.

KitchM (talk) 23:16, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the page you want to look for is Wikipedia:Neutral point of view which describes the need to present articles in a balanced and proportional manner. Note: The page explicitly does not say that all points of view must be presented equally. Fringe points of view get coverage proportionate to their acceptance. Nor does the page say that those holding a particular philosophy must be portrayed in the the same way that they would describe themselves. Our mission is to strive for objective balance to the maximum degree humanly feasible.
However, there is also a potential misunderstanding in your comment. The opinions of Wikipedians do not matter at all and have no place in the body of the encyclopedia. Encyclopedias are, by definition, tertiary sources - we synopsize the writings of others. A well-sourced and relevant opinion by a noteworthy or historical figure may be appropriate for inclusion in the encyclopedia. But we present it as the demonstrated fact that so-and-so said thus, not as an opinion. An opinion entered by an editor in his/her own name has no place here.
Hope that helps. Rossami (talk) 02:00, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
If something does not have to be presented “equally”, then one may question the idea of balance and proportion. Of course, there are two meanings to “equally” as it may apply here. One is that it gets equal time or amount of coverage. That would raise the question of who it is that makes such determinations.
Another meaning is that a subject gets mentioned at all when other similar subjects are mentioned. Let us assume that you meant the latter.
By using that meaning, one would be saying that they are going to make a judgment call on what they think most people believe, or what they personally believe is the value of the subject.
Without a poll, the first cannot be decided with any degree of legitimacy. Without the recognition by some “authority” the second has no relevance. So, who's to say? You? Me?
Your second point seems to indicate a particular bias that is built in to the process. Fairness would dictate that Wikipedia make that a clearly stated position on the home page. There is, for instance, a huge difference between a liberal, a conservative or a non-biased point of view. One would hope that Wikipedia takes the last one, but your implication is clearly otherwise. I hope that is not the position of the majority.
It should be pointed out that I am sorry if I have led you to misread my comments. It was never implied that Wikipedians (and I am not sure who they are, so please be patient of this newbie who is still learning the private lingo.) would be the ones giving opinions. More correctly, the editors of an encyclopedia simply include the opinions of those about whom they are writing. That must obviously be the source of any opinions stated.
And since a majority of what is included in the Wikipedia have no source stated, there is little that anyone can claim with any degree of wide acceptance as proving that opinions which are included only come from some “noteworthy or historical figure” (whoever that is, and the definition of such being judged by whom?)
Hence, we are back to my original points. - KitchM (talk) 04:55, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Here's how it actually works. We have a principle called the "neutral point of view." If this principle represents a genuine consensus of the Wikipedian community, then it is possible to build an encyclopedia. What happens is that articles on controversial topics will contain reasonably fair, well-referenced descriptions of the important mainstream points of view, tied to reliable sources.
Reasonable editors who hold one of the points of view in the article will concern themselves mostly with the question of whether their own point of view is fairly presented, and whether the article leads a curious reader to more information about that point of view. They will not fuss too much about the presence of other points of view in the article, because they are not concerned about suppressing other points of view, only about making sure their own is fairly represented. They will not try to measure proportionate balance with precision because that doesn't matter; all that matters is whether their own view is adequately presented.
Thus, if there is an article on "the shape of the world," and if I believe the world is round, I'll accept an article that includes the flat-earth theory as long as the article fairly presents the round-earth theory, and also mentions that it is the mainstream theory among astronomers and geologists (back this up with a suitable reference, of course).
If the article's balance is reasonable, I won't fuss about it. Only if the article's balance is so grotesquely unreasonable that it fails to include the round-earth theory at all, or includes it only to mock it, or fails to mention that it is the mainstream theory, will I fuss about it.
If the general community of editors pretty much all feel this way, then articles can be reasonably stable--include roughly the same content next week as they do this week--and are likely to be perceived as reasonable by the outside community. Progress is possible, and an encyclopedia is possible.
On the whole, points of view that are held by substantial minorities will tend to get more than proportional exposure under such a system, because the amount of space it takes to adequately describe a point of view depends on logic and the English language, not on the number of people holding that opinion.
Conflicts arise when people try to use Wikipedia as a promotional vehicle for points of view that are held only by tiny numbers of people. In this case, the measuring stick is whether that point of view has had enough written about it in reliable sources that can be referenced.
If the general community of editors does not accept the principle of the neutral point of view, then progress is impossible, and you will have articles that never settle down but are simply unending edit wars that oscillate between one extreme and other. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:32, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP:NOTMSDS

This is quite a narrow topic, but many articles on chemicals have (or had) lengthy "safety" sections largely duplicated what you can find in an MSDS. I would like a new bullet point at Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, or textbook summarizing Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chemicals/Style_guidelines#Safety. What do you guys think? --Rifleman 82 (talk) 10:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP is not a forum

Wikipedia is not a forum, however I think there should be one - A place for wikipedia editors to chat or talk etc. I'm not sure if this is relevant or not but... munchman | talk; 12:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I notice that someone has recently added an explicit Wikipedia is not a forum policy subheading to the Community subsection. I don't think I agree with the placement of this for a number of reasons. First of all, it is generally agreed that article talk pages are not for the purpose of general discussions, but rather only for discussing the subject of the article, this is already amply covered by the WP:FORUM policy under the Original thought section. Secondly, I find the acceptable use of the article talk page to be far too narrow, as one is only now permitted to discuss issues related to the comprehensiveness or neutrality of an article. What about other content, such as style, accuracy, possible copyright violations, and so forth? I think the scope of the article talk page should be left somewhat vague, in order to facilitate any possible use in order to benefit the article or encyclopedia as a whole (see WP:IAR). Thirdly, it is overly facile to say that Wikipedia (as a whole) is not a forum, and that all interaction must directly benefit some article. There are some more forum-like aspects to the encyclopedia, such as the reference desks and, especially, userspace. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 16:16, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Just another note: this is a fairly major edit, in my opinion, and doesn't seem to have been discussed here. Are there any thoughts about this besides my own objections? siℓℓy rabbit (talk)
It was already covered sufficiently so those edits should probably be removed. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 00:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Shouldn't some things here be more relaxed?

I often hear users say that anything that cannot be found in a paper encyclopedia shouldn't be here but doesnt any user think that the whole point of an encyclopedia which anyone can edit should be that you have more freedom in what it contains than a paper encyclopedia? Otherwise we just end up recreating a less reliable version of a paper encyclopedia. Tbo 157(talk) 14:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

No! We are trying to create the bigger, better, more global and less Anglocentric version of what a combination of all the paper encyclopedias would be if they could. Too much "relaxed" attitude encourages the crap festival that has padded our article count with endless unnoticed hoaxes, garage bands, vanity spam, gamers' trivia guides, recentist media piffle, etc. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:05, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
If that is what we are trying to create, then why is there so much scepticism about the reliability of Wikipedia as a source with many education institutes in the UK banning it as a source of research. Thanks. Tbo 157(talk) 17:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Because we're a compendium, and the students should be going to the places toward which a properly-cited article will point them. (The same is true of a paper encyclopedia; my department wouldn't let me use the Encyclopedia Britannica as a source for a footnote in most scholarly contexts.) --Orange Mike | Talk 18:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
How reliable do you think Wikipedia is and to what extent can it be used as a source? Alot of people do claim it is less relaible than a paper encyclopedia as it can be edited by anyone. What are we trying to achieve? Tbo 157(talk) 21:01, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Wait, and here I thought wikipedia was not paper. :-P --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure, with 5,000,000 editors, most of them untrained, there are some not-so-high-quality articles. However, there are many articles that are better than what you can get from a paper encyclopedia. I've gone looking for sources on articles only to find we already had more content that was better cited than my would be sources. Don't know what education is like these days, but by the time I was in high school mubledy-mumble years ago, we were told to find other sources besides encyclopedias. The encyclopedia should be a quick reference and a starting point. Cheers, and happy article building. Dlohcierekim 04:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia is not a crystal ball

The section states "Individual scheduled or expected future events should only be included if the event is notable and almost certain to take place". However, in the case of the Russian presidential elections in 2008, the winner was almost certain about half a year before the election. I was tempted to change this, but didn't. Does this policy include a need to be politically correct, despite filling the criteria of being "almost certain"? :)

I'm mainly pointing this out, as the above policy would technically allow for such edits. HJV (talk) 02:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes. We cannot say that that person "won" the election, though it would be completely appropriate to include relevant news articles that claimed the victory "would be" virtually guaranteed, as long as it was approached in a neutral manner; the analysis that claim that type of information occurred in the past and thus not a future event. --MASEM 02:45, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A radical way of rethinking WP:NOT

Based on thinking about PLOT and how other sections of NOT work, I've come to realize that as NOT is worded, it is trying to say a heck of a lot that apply to three very different types of concepts: what content is not to be included at all (inclusion guidelines), what approach to writing about content is not to be used (style guidelines), and what types of behavior are not acceptable (behavioral guidelines). There are some that overlap but for the most part each specific point (like PLOT) can be classified into one of these. Now, I know its great that we nave this page we can point new editors to, saying "ok, this is what WP is not" and its nice and concise in that fashion, but because all of these are combined, in the current inclusionists/deletionsists atmosphere, remedies that work for class of the above are being pushed for other classes where that type of remedy is inappropriate. In other words, there are some that see any failure of NOT to be a reason for deletion, for example. (Failing PLOT, the most common example, is not necessary a reason for deletion, but instead should be improved or cleaned up) The problem is that the specific instances of the above are all mixed up in NOT that it makes it hard to see the difference between them.

I'm not sure exactly what the right way to fix this is, if it can be fixed or not, nor expecting this to be turned around quickly, but I'm trying to put this out there to see how others feel. My first thought is to reorder this page to have a major section on each of the above, then describe the proper remedies to resolve those before introducing them all. For content not to be included, that would be along the path of deletion, while content in poor style should go in the path of editing improvements, for example.

But this also leads to the fact that for the first class, improper content, we really do lack an inclusion guideline. We have what is not appropriate but here in NOT, and we have one case of what is, as per WP:NOTE, but that leaves a large hole between the two without any guidance. Thus, to some extent, another possible way to deal with this is that we create three separate policy pages based off NOT, one becoming the inclusion policy page (with what is and is not appropriate, relying but not citing NOTE for guidance), one being a page for improper editing behavior, and the rest (the style problems) probably left here. However, that means we do have to separate these elements and that may be a more difficult barrier to get over.

Again, I'm not sure yet what the answer could be here. I'm just trying to brainstorm if there is a way to improve NOT to make it easier to appreciate and understand how content that fails NOT will be dealt with, that possibly be variable depending on the type of content. --MASEM 14:19, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:NOT#PLOT should really only concerned with content issues and this could be rectified by a simple statement such as

"Wikipedia articles on fictional topics should offer real-world context and sourced analysis, not solely a plot summary".

In my view, the current wording is a watered down version of the policy wording compared with last year's version, and now includes the wishy-washy statement that "A concise plot summary is appropriate as part of the larger coverage of a fictional work". Since this statement neither proscribes or prohibits content per se, it seems to say that plot is a style issues, and should be dropped in my view. This would be the most straight-foward way to clarify the wording. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Two points:
  1. That clause was added because people were interpreting the old wording as meaning that no plot summaries should exist.
  2. Masem's not talking about WP:PLOT, Masem's talking about all of WP:NOT.
Hope that helps. SamBC(talk) 17:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Sambc said what I basically what I was going to say: I just want to think about all of NOT (PLOT is called out specifically, but every clause should be considered). I don't dispute anything stated here as policy, but I think there's a better way to organize it that may make this easier to understand. --MASEM 19:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I think Masem may be on to something here, but I'm very uncertain as to how it should actually be done. What seems to be the ultimate and (somewhat) obvious conclusion of this would mean at least slight restructuring of most WP policy/guidelines. Note that I say restructuring, not actually changing. I don't see any need (as part of this) to change what any policy says. However, the idea of having a "root" policy page for content, behaviour, and inclusion makes sense, that each call to other policy and guideline pages while stating the "first principles" that the policy and guidance is based on. To some extent these things already exist, but consolidation and rationalisation will make them easier to understand. It will also help to distinguish between content policy and inclusion policy (inclusion is at the level from article to topic, content is mostly below the level of article). How to go about it, well, that's a harder question. SamBC(talk) 10:04, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't think you can get much clearer or more concise a guideline than WP:NOT. Why fix it, if it ain't broke? --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I have for some time wanted to do this, but the first step is divide the behavioral and the content guidelines--there is much more agreement on the behavioral ones,and I dont think we'd want to weaken them. They are fundamentally different: the behavioral ones talk about the project, the content ones about the encyclopedia. Ideally the second step would be to find something we can agree one, but we may be stuck with gnomic utterances. for example:

as for the fiction, perhaps we're getting close-- how about : "Wikipedia coverage on fictional topics should include real-world context and sourced analysis, as well as plot summary". The key point of disagreement is "articles" vs "coverage" -- what goes in particular individual articles is indeed a style guideline. What goes or doesnt in Wikipedia as a whole is a matter of policy.

But I'd go a good deal further--the content guidelines should be worded as positives, and the page called Content Policy. DGG (talk) 00:15, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Elaborations on "Wikipedia is not a traditional encyclopedia"

user:Yvwv recently added what I thought were some fairly non-controversial additions to this page. They were promptly reverted with the comment "Discuss major policy changes on the talk page first." While I think the section on "not quality-assured" needed a rewrite to describe the controls that we do have instead of the traditional academic controls, I thought it was a reasonable draft and appropriate to boldly make. It did not seem to me like the kind of major change that needed weeks of discussion first. What am I missing here? Rossami (talk) 16:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The only change I saw being "bad" relatively was that the first top level heading was changed from "Style and Format" (which aligned with "Content" and "Community" headings) to "Wikipedia is not a traditional encyclopedia". These top levels should stay consistent, but the rest of the changes seemed positive and non-confrontational. --MASEM 17:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, Wikipedia is not a lot of things. It is not a brick, for instance. But we don't have that in the policy here. The issue is, why are each of these new additions needed at the policy level? Policies are supposed to be followed by all editors at all times. Keeping this in mind, let's look at the new additions one by one.
  • The "Not quality assured" section. Saying that the information on Wikipedia is unreliable seems contrary to WP:V. There already is a general content disclaimer. Furthermore, what is the purpose of having an encyclopedia at all if it is unreliable by design?
  • I also question the need to say that "Wikipedia is not proprietary." I have less of a problem with this, but I wonder what the need is in this policy. We already have the Wikipedia:Copyright policy for this, and it is much more detailed. Is there anything to be gained by having it reiterated here?
  • Finally, the section on writing for a global audience, while a good idea, is a far cry from being a policy-level matter. Perhaps an editorial guideline is a better place of this kind of thing. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 02:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposing WP:FICT for global acceptance

Following the long discussions about the rewording and/or removal of NOT#PLOT here last month, the editors of the currently disputed/proposed guideline WP:FICT (which combines WP:NOTABILITY and WP:NOT#PLOT) believe it is ready for global acceptance and ask for input at WT:FICT#RfC: Proposing WP:FICT for global acceptance. – sgeureka t•c 18:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Not a soapbox

Do we need to add a section about not being a soapbox to warn against the worlds ills? I'm thinking of the people who create WP:BLP violations about not notable individuals as a sort of public service announcement. You name a heinous crime/offense and someone will come up with someone who has committed it, and come here to tell the world. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 04:43, 8 June 2008 (UTC)