User talk:Andrewa/kayfabe

A question re primary and secondary sources

An interesting question was raised by a recent RM at Talk:Luke Harper#Requested move 19 March 2020... what constitutes a secondary source when it comes to kayfabe?

Jonathan Huber is a professional wrestler. As such his stage names have included Luke Harper and Brodie Lee. Our article has see-sawed between those two names, changing about once a year.

I'm not against professional wrestling or our coverage of it. I have always been a particular fan of Killer Kowalski, a heel in kayfabe and a gentleman in real life who was active in Australia as I grew up, and remain so obviously. To me he personifies the professionalism of professional wrestling.

But our coverage risks straying in-universe and often does. It may be worth clarifying how our policies, principles etc relate to this particular subject, and how better to implement them.

I note for example that Jonathan Huber is currently a redlink, despite being the name currently used in the article lead. But it's not even proposed to create the redirect, let alone to move the article to the name used in the lead. [1]

ISTM that one key is clarifying the distinction between primary and secondary sources as it relates to professional wrestling. Andrewa (talk) 16:51, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

I'll just fly this kite... if a source repeats kayfabe using in-universe phrasing, with no mention of the fact that this is fiction, isn't it ipso facto a primary source?

Now note that some use of primary sources is perfectly OK, particularly if the information is encyclopedic but secondary sources are lacking. This is a rare scenario but may well be the one that we are seeing here. Andrewa (talk) 15:45, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

More on that RM

See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Luke_Harper&oldid=948631896#Requested_move_19_March_2020 for some fascinating arguments. I have replied to so many of them that I began to be concerned that it might be seen as tendentious editing. I seem to be a lone voice there.

The main problem that I see is the reliance on primary sources. One editor has commented on one of my posts This seems to me to misunderstand primary and secondary sources. A primary source would be AEW and WWE broadcasts and publicity material. Media covering professional wrestling is a secondary source. [2] I've replied there. The problem is that while some Media covering professional wrestling is a secondary source, that's not enough. Media that just uncritically and in-universe repeat AEW and WWE broadcasts and publicity material would still be primary IMO.

And that brings us back to the question: Are there any reliable secondary sources that describe his latest name change, or for that matter anything of the kayfabe of which it is part? And if not, how much of the current article conforms to wp:BLP? It's a can of worms not restricted to this particular article.

But this article might be a very good example of the problem. See this edit as an example. How typical is it of our coverage of professional wrestlers? How typical is the editor, who arrived recently and has only edited professional wrestling articles so far, of those who maintain them?

Whichever way the RM goes, there is more to this than just the article name seesaw. Andrewa (talk) 16:51, 2 April 2020 (UTC)