Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Animal Farm in popular culture


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. Editorial decisions are outside the scope of this AfD, so discussion to merge can continue on the article's talk page. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 16:55, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Animal Farm in popular culture

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Seems most of the Animal Farm pages are at AfD today and this one, by far the most unencyclopaedic one, got missed. rectified. delete. Jack Merridew 13:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

The article is a mess of unsourced trivia. The notion of "Animal Farm in popular culture" is not notable and having such an "article" only serves as an attractive nuisance — masses of original research about the supposed meanings of song lyrics. It's a load of dreck unfit for inclusion in an encyclopaedia. Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:25, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions.  -- Jack Merridew 13:27, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions.  -- Jack Merridew 13:27, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 13:46, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Nom offers no rationale for deletion, apart from other related articles are being listed at AfD.  Lugnuts  (talk) 14:38, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I said "unencyclopaedic". I'll expand on that. Jack Merridew 15:25, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep "Something in popular culture" is a standard formula on WP. This one is better than most of the type. Changing the policy and getting rid of them all is also an option, but good luck with that. Borock (talk) 16:17, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep although I would like some commentary, rather than a pure list. Additionally, some entries need to be clarified for verifiability. e.g. which episode of Coronation Street or Top Gear? etc. The JPS talk to me  17:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. I thought we got rid of most of these articles two years ago. While we've kept a few, generally they tended to be magnets for unencylopedic fancruft, which is all we have here. Daniel Case (talk) 17:30, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * actually, we kept about 1/3. Nominations stopped when it became clear the consensus was turning to keep. I look forward to restoring about half of the deleted ones in an improved manner, once its clear that consensus is still strong. A large part of the academic study of both literature and popular culture is made out of studying just these references. For many of them we should by now be able to find excellent sources. DGG (talk) 00:21, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:IPC, although merging back into Animal Farm would also be an acceptable outcome. WP:IPC is designed to minimize such merging/splitting. Jclemens (talk) 17:56, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge back to Animal Farm, removing every entry that isn't specifically sourced, which (as matters currently stand) would be all of them. It's clear that Animal Farm has had an impact on culture, so there surely are some references to be found. However not every single possible connection is necessarily worthy of inclusion. So merge. ++Lar: t/c 19:46, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep a really unexpected nomination. AF is one of the most prevalent references in popular culture, and every one of them can be immediate sourced--to the primary work in which they appear, which is the source for straight descriptions such as this is. A quotation from a song is a source. Adding to  Wikipedia what we see in front of us is not OR.  Secondary sources can probably be found for almost all of them. I agree with Lar that not every possible connection is suitable for inclusion, but all significant reference in notable works are suitable. Only those who disapprove of all in popular culture articles could possibly regard this as unencyclopedic, and that view has been soundly rejected by the community.  I note the nomination also, which seems to indicate a determined attack on all the subsidiary articles for this particular work, since no specific justification was given other than "the most unencyclopedic of all of them" .  DGG (talk) 20:08, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm not sure that if I see "Napoleon was a boar, a crashing bore" in a song lyric that I should immediately jump to the conclusion that the song is Animal Farm influenced. We tend to want to see references rather than just draw inferences. For example, take Pink Floyd's Animals ... Sure, it seems likely the group were so influenced, but why not dig up a reference to an interview with Roger Waters or whoever saying they were drawing from the story, or at least a reference to a critic making that claim? The article as it stands now is unencyclopedic. (but our response to that should be to fix it, rather than nom it for deletion) ++Lar: t/c 20:27, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * agreed detailed citation of that sort should be done when possible--it makes the article much more valuable-- but yes, I think it obvious that the quote you gave is a reference, and that anyone with a memory of the book is expected to recognize it.  DGG (talk) 00:17, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I made that quote up on the spot. So it's clearly synthesis and would have no place in a properly sourced article. Again, cites are needed either from the artist/author/musician stating the influence, or from a critic who spotted it, or to connect something is to synthesise inappropriately. ++Lar: t/c 06:40, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * no, the proper full sourcing is to exxactly where in the work it is--then anyone can check. That takes care of deliberately incorrect entries like your example. DGG (talk) 17:51, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge Back to the Animal Farm article. Most of the items cited in the article are trivial, not encyclopedic. Pastor Theo (talk) 20:56, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's nice not to have all of this crap in the main article.  Although most of it should probably be deleted, it'll keep popping up so it's more realistic to quarantine it in its own article.  Ideally, the article should be improved along the line User:Lar suggests but fat chance of that happening.  —   AjaxSmack   02:52, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * “quarantine” is an apt term for this sort of problem; this “article” is not the place, however, for that; Wikia.com is. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:14, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment — The only bits that are possibly of any significance are Animals, which would be better covered in the main article if sources emerge, and Snowball's Chance. The rest is junk. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:14, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete or merge anything useful back into the main article. The grand majority is useless and cannot be used at all. At most, one or two paragraphs of information can be used in the main article. TTN (talk) 18:31, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. It can definitely be improved with more commentary and citations, but it's interesting stuff of the type I've seen in many Wikipedia articles. --Gloriamarie (talk) 20:57, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. The article is in a pretty bad state, as an assortment of disconnected, mostly trivial, references, but there are definitely enough cultural references to make this a notable subject. One bugbear of mine is that this type of article always has a title "in popular culture". Why not just "in culture", so that we could include such unpopular artforms as opera and ballet? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:35, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Further comment. Someone with more time on their hands than I have might like to look at Google Books and Scholar search results for "some are more equal than others" and "four legs good" to see if there is anything useful there that would help make this a proper article about Animal Farm in (popular if you must) culture rather than just a laundry list. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge back to the main AF article; this is the kind of fictional article I think makes the most sense. Savidan 17:37, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge to the original article. what the hell? did the "in popular culture" section get old enough to have an article on its own? look mom, i have an article!--camr nag 23:55, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Oh, please; this is a random collection of snippits, factoids, and name-drops without any concise subject. I know we're not supposed to call things cruft, but in this case it's calling a spade a spade. Without getting into the nuances of our style guidelines this goes against several of our content policies including WP:V, WP:NOT, and WP:OR and if an encyclopedic article is possible it would need a complete rewrite, scrapping all this triva clutter in the process.  If anybody's willing to do that than be my guest, but what's here isn't worth saving or merging.   Them  From  Space  06:43, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep, although as Phil Bridger pointed out this is currently a very unsatisfactory article. (There are a couple of examples I'd remove because they are either trivial or ambiguous. And why aren't there any examples from the 1950s or 1960s?) -- llywrch (talk) 20:17, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep The wikipedia often documents how much something has influenced popular culture. It deserves its own separate article.   D r e a m Focus  21:07, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.