User:Xover/sandbox/2

Notes on framework for populating navboxes

Starting from Romeo and Juliet and its current relative obesity.


 * Central policy elements: WP:V, WP:RS, WP:COATRACK, WP:UNDUE, and WP:ONEWAY.
 * The choice to include a link in a navbox should in some way be based on how high-quality secondary sources treat the relevant connection between the navbox's main topic (here, William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet). This means that if no reliable source makes the connection, the navbox should not connect them either. However, if no reliable source makes the connection, the material should not be included in the article either. Thus a useful proxy is whether the connection is made in one of the articles and is cited to a reliable source.
 * What constitutes "high quality" varies from topic to topic. For Romeo and Juliet the bar is high: there are numerous critical editions from university presses and endless articles from well-respected, peer-reviewed, journals that deal with almost any imaginable aspect of the topic. Thus one should expect to find the connection in at least one such source, even if only implicitly, to support inclusion.
 * The dominant standard should be the one that applies to the navbox's primary subject. So a connection should be made in one of the critical editions or journal articles on Romeo and Juliet, even if the link in question is about a briefly charting pop song or a news story for which the standard for sourcing is Billboard charts, album reviews, or daily news articles.
 * The connection should be bidirectional. That some journalist called some incident "The Romeo and Juliet of X", or likened some person or event to a character from or part of the plot of the play, is a one-way connection. For instance, that (Don't Fear) The Reaper makes references to Romeo and Juliet to illustrate completely independent themes does not mean that the song has significance in the context of the play. However, something like Une Tempête, where a writer appropriates the plot of the play (here, The Tempest) to create a new work (in this case, from a post-colonialist perspective) that the reliable sources on The Tempest mention in relation to the original, would be a good candidate for inclusion.