Talk:Apollo 11 in popular culture

Merging with Apollo 11
To be honest I think a page like this would constantly lack content, and as such I propose the merging of this article into Apollo 11 as a subsection. Please voice your opinion and I'd be glad to work something out.

-- Python (Talk to me!) 14:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC) -- Python (Talk to me!) 23:26, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's been decided against, however this article needs to be worked on to be turned into a good article.

Tagging speedy deleteion
The whole article looks like trivia........one thing is having huge trivia section in an article, and another thing is a whole page.........yes, the page has some references, but it still does not assert exactly why is important...I dont think this article can look any better. THROUGH FIRE   JUSTICE IS SERVED!  03:31, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * This article apparently is the trivia section of Apollo 11... Maybe it was created here in order to escape notice there. ;-) Someone who attends to "Apollo 11" should rescue from here whatever good bits they care about and work those into the main article.  Then I'd support Angelofdeath's proposed speedy remedy. Hult041956 17:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC) (made corrections inline to my own comment Hult041956 17:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC) )

I agree that this section needs to be merged into the Apollo 11 article in a "pop culture" subsection. Everything this article discusses is entirely dependent upon the Apollo 11 mission. A good rule of thumb for merger is that any article created by adding a prepositional phrase after a previously created article (i.e. "Apollo 11 in popular culture" created from "Apollo 11") should be included in the general article itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.56.4.113 (talk) 19:25, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Quite the contrary, this article is supported by citations and was created in 2006 by consensus as a home for non-mission related, popular-culture-related aspects of Apollo 11. It's hardly hidden, the link to it is at the top of the see also section at Apollo 11. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Moreover this article asserts its own notability in the header: The mission's wide effect on popular culture was anticipated and since then there have been a number of portrayals in media along with incidental stories and folklore. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:22, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

File:Land on the Moon 7 21 1969-repair.jpg to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Land on the Moon 7 21 1969-repair.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on July 21, 2017. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2017-07-21. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 04:29, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Jeff Hawke mention
A recently added comic book mention was reverted and seems applicable in some form. It and the comic frame mentioned are included in the Jeff Hawke page, with the relevant information portrayed in the image: "In the final frame of strip H1760, the 21 November 1959 edition of the British sci-fi comic strip Jeff Hawke, a plaque on a stone commemorates the first landing of a human on the Moon on 4 August 1969. The prediction was off by two weeks as Apollo 11 landed on 20 July." The strip number doesn't seem needed, but the information seems of interest. Maybe in a new section called 'Applicable predictions' or 'Coincidental predictions', or at least a 'See also' mention? Randy Kryn (talk) 21:21, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
 * If sources outside of Wikipedia cover it, it would be fine to add it. But we shouldn't do our own original research of things we find that are otherwise unnoted. Wikipedia is not our vehicle to not points that we think the world should know. TJRC (talk) 22:52, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Here's a Courier page which is one of many items appearing when googling "Jeff Hawke moon landing". Question may be where to add it, as it isn't directly related to Apollo 11. Would a "Coincidences" section be applicable, or a link to its section at the Jeff Hawke page (I'll add the source there as well). Pretty good prediction 10 years out, missing by two weeks would have got the cartoon creator a good payday in Vegas. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:17, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
 * That's certainly a good source.


 * Maybe we need a section along the lines of "anticipation in pre-Apollo media", including this and other well-sourced examples. The similarities ("Columbiad"/"Columbia"; launch from Florida; United States project, etc.) from Verne would be another noteworthy candidate. (Hey, Space View park in Titusville, Florida even has a marker for the Columbiad's launch site in the Historical Marker Database.) TJRC (talk) 23:54, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Nice idea. Interesting and well titled section plan. With at least these two or three examples the section feels good as a further page uplifter. Probably should go at the end unless you're looking at a chronological lineup, which could work as well. I've never heard of that Jeff Hawke cartoon and the illustrated panel, came as a nice surprise. Wonder if its free use limit would extend to this page. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:04, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Finally got around to it. Nothing sacred in my first cut, feel free to improve on it (or better yet add other examples). TJRC (talk) 02:13, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Mass deletions
We've recently seen numerous deletions of material from this article with the canned edit summary "Per MOS:POPCULT, entries need to be sourced to a secondary source that discusses the topic of this article (i.e. Apollo 11 in popular culture), not just the work".

I don't object to these deletions in principle, however, in many cases it is not difficult to find the appropriate references and add them. That doesn't mean that an editor who objects to the lack of appropriate sourcing can do nothing; but immediate deletion is too extreme, and does not appear to be in consensus with the other editors of this article. (While MOS:POPCULT reflects a Wikipedia-wide consensus of how these items are to be sourced, it does not reflect any consensus of how issues with it are to be addressed; nothing in that guideline suggests mass-deletion.)

I am proposing that we address the issues here -- and there are many -- with a scalpel rather than an axe. Some of the things being deleted, such as this one, were pretty easily verified. Deletion rather than flagging is an overreaction. If you object to inclusion of material like this, please tag it with a citation needed flag to allow other editors to rectify it. If it goes unresolved for a year or so, it can be removed. Mass removal without providing an opportunity to rectify the situation does not improve the article.

TompaDompa, your edit summary that I am "missing a large part of the point" is off-base. I understand what type of references need to be included; and I think both the references I've added and the edit summary on items I've deleted, as well as the discussion above regarding the Jeff Hawke addition, show that I'm mindful of the type of referencing required. I don't object to adding the  parameter to the cite request -- in fact, I think that's a good idea, and your edit adding it is an improvement -- but please don't presume that other editors who have been editing Wikipedia for years do not understand its guidelines as well as you. TJRC (talk) 19:39, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I didn't mean any offence, and I apologise for any I've caused. I took your addition of a fact tag—in combination with your use of this source and this source to support the Transformers: Dark of the Moon entry even though it would to my eye be unreasonably charitable to describe either as MOS:POPCULT-compliant coverage—to mean that you thought what was lacking was verification rather than MOS:POPCULT-compliant sourcing (it's also worth noting that the section itself was already tagged as relying too heavily on primary sources). That was perhaps jumping to conclusions on my part.As for cleaning up the article, these kinds of TV Tropes-style lists are rather an embarrassment for Wikipedia, and they have been infamous for years (this well-known xkcd comic poking fun at them is from 2008). Tagging the entries and then waiting an entire year before removing them is quite a half-measure. It would be much better to remove all the entries that don't meet the sourcing requirements and then build the section from the ground up (preferably in prose form—there's a reason MOS:POPCULT recommends prose in lieu of lists) based on sources that are actually adequate for the purpose. That's an approach that has already been successful at several other articles, including Earth in science fiction where the effort resulted in the article being able to reach WP:Good article status after having been nominated for deletion back when it was a TV Tropes-style list (see WP:Articles for deletion/Earth in science fiction (2nd nomination)) for being, well, an absolute embarrassment and a prime example of what Wikipedia is WP:NOT supposed to be. TompaDompa (talk) 22:37, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * TompaDompa, you're right. This article doesn't have to be this bad, but it is. Only things with proper secondary sourcing should stay--and this kind of s**t is not acceptable either. Drmies (talk) 00:55, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Good removals on the video game mentions, those seemed minor. But one person's trivial and minor are another's encyclopedic valuable and important to the historical record. This page is about the important topic of Apollo 11 in popular culture, and almost all of its entries rise above trivial mentions and are well-sourced at their links. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:13, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
 * That's quite a change in position from "entries all seem fine". Anyway, one person's trivial and minor are another's encyclopedic valuable and important to the historical record is precisely why we are not supposed to make that judgment call ourselves, but rather leave it to the sources. We are to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject per WP:PROPORTION. That's sources about the topic (Apollo 11 in popular culture), mind you—it's perfectly possible for the depiction of Apollo 11 in XYZ to be a major aspect of XYZ (and thus something that should be mentioned at the article for XYZ) but only a WP:MINORASPECT of the topic of Apollo 11 in popular culture and thus not something that should be mentioned here. We assess this by looking at what the sources on the topic of Apollo 11 in popular culture have to say about the depiction in XYZ. Hence, as said, Only things with proper secondary sourcing should stay. TompaDompa (talk) 13:02, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
 * If only we could pay to work on this article--he'd have this thing in tip-top shape in no time. Drmies (talk) 14:00, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I've done a fair bit of work on similar topics myself (e.g. Immortality in fiction and Moon in science fiction), as has (e.g. the aforementioned Earth in science fiction and Hyperspace). TompaDompa (talk) 14:23, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Obviously, I support pruning the TVtrope poorly referenced lists of 'media which mention the topic'. Glancing at the article, I'd support removing the entire section 'Portrayal in media', which could exist as a properly referenced (with secondary sources) prose-analysis. The current list of trivia is just... bad. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 19:00, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Fallout 3
Regarding : The cited source says the broad sweep of history in the Fallout universe resembles ours right up to the end of World War 2. It's only after 1947, when transistors were popularized in our world but not that of Fallout, that divergence begins, and only in the 1960s that those differences becomes significant. so I don't think the IP editor was out of line in saying that the game is set in an alternate timeline that diverges from reality shortly after World War II. Your edit summary kind of gives me the impression that you mistook my addition of a maintenance tag to this new entry for re-adding an identical tag that you had removed previously to a different entry. The PC Gamer article is also not remotely the kind of sourcing MOS:POPCULT mandates. TompaDompa (talk) 03:15, 12 December 2021 (UTC)