Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mount Rushmore 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 but continue cleanup. Article has been improved and there are sources on which to continue that. The work done here and sources indentified counter many of the deletes. As to the draftification during this AfD, if someone prefers to work on it there and then move it back, there's no issue but policy doesn't require it be removed from mainspace Star   Mississippi  13:33, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Mount Rushmore in popular culture

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Another mostly unreferenced TVtropic listcruft, trimmed from the Mount_Rushmore. It has a bit of prose, but due to lack of refs, it's even worse than the list (more obvious OR). Like all similar articles, fails numerous policies, guidelines and like: as an 'in popular culture' article, WP:IPC and MOS:POPCULT/TRIVIA, as a list, WP:NLIST and WP:SALAT, as a potential topic, WP:GNG and  WP:INDISCRIMINATE, due to lack of references, WP:OR, WP:V. While it is not impossible a proper article could be written on this topic, WP:TNT applies to the current OR list of trivia ("In the animated sitcom South Park, there is a picture of Eric Cartman and his mother Liane in the Mount Rushmore in his living room."). That's what TV Tropes is for, folks. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 11:04, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Popular culture,  and United States of America. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  11:04, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Again, why not the Visual arts list. These are sculptures! I've already complained above this on another nom. No, I won't do it myself - YOU do it please! Johnbod (talk) 01:30, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per nomination. --Vaco98 (talk) 11:23, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep, or at worst, move to draft. This zero-effort canned nomination acknowledges that there is prose (though it largely ignores the presence of sources), and acknowledges that "a proper article could be written on this topic", but shows no sign whatsoever of having actually looked at the article. There is a failure of WP:BEFORE. The nom threw a notability tag and a sources tag on it and then immediately nominated for deletion, with no opportunity for improvement to address the tags, which suggests insincerity in the motivation for tagging deficiencies in the first place. If everything that was unsourced was removed from the article, which would take about five minutes, there would still be an article with two dozen sources, but the nom clearly didn't take a close enough look to realize this. Therefore WP:TNT is invoked when the appropriate policy here is WP:NOTCLEANUP. BD2412  T 12:46, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Literally two minutes of searching yielded a Time Magazine article, See Mount Rushmore's Most Memorable Moments at the Movies, and other sources like "Mount Rushmore on the Big Screen" and Mount Rushmore: Myths, Legends, and Facts. BD2412  T 12:56, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * So what? The fact that there are possible sources doesn't mean this mess is rescuable. And two minute search means you didn't even read them, so you are not even saying there are sources, it's just a WP:GOOGLETEST of "I found some sources that sound like maybe they are relevant". Let's assume they are. Again, WP:TNT applies, with no prejudice to anyone rewriting this from scratch now or later. After all, we are not discussing WP:SALTing this, just blowing it up as unredeemable failure of WP:IPC and like, in other words, as an unencyclopedic list of trivia. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 13:00, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Sigh. I did and I explained it all above. If we remove all unsourced content, we just have a smaller mess that still merits TNT. The only "cleanup" applicable here would be a total rewrite, which is just a delete and rewrite but with preserving history for technical reasons of this happening during, not after, AfD. You present no arguments for keeping other than "since the topic may be notable, we should keep it just in case and oh, sure, maybe rewrite". That's a weak WP:ITSNOTABLE. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:58, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Then withdraw your nom and give it a week for your tags to be addressed, and if it's still in poor shape, renominate it. Don't throw a bunch of tags on an article requesting improvements if you have no intention of allowing for improvements. BD2412  T 13:00, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * That's a novel argument. AfD can and usually lasts over a week. I've seen similar article rewritten during that period (I've even done it myself). But I've never seen an article rewritten after it was just tagged. (Ok, maybe it happens once in a blue moon, it's a big project). Anyway, if you want to rewrite it, I am sure we can put this nomination on hold and revisit in a week or two. Or if you need time, we can just draftify this for you. But if you don't feel like rewriting it, and just hope someone will do it, then an AfD has a much better chance of attracting someone than tags. Particularly as IMHO the existing content is not rescuable, so it should not remain in mainspace. Hence the AfD, and not just tags. If I thought this is rescuable, I'd just tag it and I wouldn't nominate this. But again, the only way to rescue this is to blank 99% of this (except the lead and categories) and write something from scratch. A few interwiki links may reappear at the end of such a process, I guess, but it's a deletion. Our only choice is whether it will be SOFT (if someone rewrites it during AfD) or HARD (if they don't). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 13:05, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Upon further review, I am surprised at how much cruft has built up here, and will summarily move this to draft for rewriting. BD2412  T 22:43, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. There are no independent sources to write a suitable article about this topic, as per WP:OR and WP:GNG. There is nothing to WP:PRESERVE from the current version of the article. Even the Time Magazine source is a compilation of primary material without comment, which (at best) could be added as a single sentence to the main article. There is no time limit on these things, and someone is welcome to write a new article that does meet our guidelines. But I would strongly discourage using anything from the old article, as there isn't a single appropriate source in the entire thing. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:01, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete just an unsourced laundry list with nothing worth preserving and no good sources in sight. WP:NOTTVTROPES is in full force here. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 20:30, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment This article was draftified before this AFD discussion was closed. I have returned it to main space. Please do not take action on this article until an uninvolved administrator or editor has closed this discussion. Liz Read! Talk! 01:40, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The move to draft space is orthogonal to the discussion, and can be done irrespective of the outcome of this discussion. As I have de facto withdrawn my "keep" vote, I am not seeing any opinion here that would justify keeping this in mainspace at this point. The encyclopdia is not particularly served by deferral to bureaucracy on this point. BD2412  T 01:53, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I didn't see returning this article to main space as a bureaucratic move. This has become a lengthy discussion that has grown since the article was moved to Draft space and back so obviously there are editors who want to weigh in on this discussion. Moving a page to Draft space effectively closes off a discussion prematurely. I have no probably with AFDs closing to "Draftifying" articles and have done this myself several times, but it shouldn't be a move to derail an active discussion that is going on. It might be the consensus decision to move this article to Draft space but a move, after the discussion was been opened and editors have already shared their opinions, was done prematurely. I have returned articles involved in AFDs from Draft space to main space multiple times in the past but it is usually done by new editors who are trying to bypass a deletion discussion. This situation, however, was different from those incidents. Liz Read! Talk! 05:41, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The discussion would have continued either way; the content in question was still viewable. However, the restoration to mainspace did prompt me to substantially rewrite the article immediately, rather than on the more leisurely schedule of developing a draft, which in turn appears to have turned the discussion around. BD2412  T 06:23, 12 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep per common sense. Picking off long-standing and well-worked on popular culture pages seems to be a "thing" lately. Many editors like and care for these pages. Each page gone is a cultural loss for Wikipedia, and I wish closers would take some control of this process. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:34, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment. I appreciate User:BD2412 starting a rewrite; the current version is an improvement over the mess I nominated, but I am afraid it still needs a lot of cutting down to size (much of the content is still unreferenced or irrelevant). I'd offer to help, but if I, the nom, start removing major chunks it could be bad practice, so I will hold off for now unless BD2412 explicitly gives me permission to do so - instead, I'll just tag stuff with inline tamplates (so any template bombing you see in article, it's probably recent and on me). Currently if this was to be closed I am fine with draftification, but who knows, maybe in a few days this will be improved sufficiently for me to withdraw this nom (which would be a win for everyone).Having just spend half an hour reading and tagging the article, I'll note that it contains three rescuable assertions of notability. First, sadly, missing page, is in the lead: "Because of its fame as a monument, Mount Rushmore in South Dakota has appeared frequently in works of fiction". Much better is the short but properly referenced paragraph "Popularity in media". Then there is this sentence which seems confirmed by the following quote to a RS: "The large carved faces of the monument have made it a target for parodies and other symbolic alterations of its appearance in media. ". Other than that, however, content is either unreferenced, referenced to primary souces (and thus fitting in the bad style of listing all trivial appearances of the topic, whether in prose or in list). Oh, and we have a lenghty, half-referenced, and likely too detailed (undue) section about filming of the scenes of In North by Northwest on the location - which is sadly off topic, as it is not abou MR in popculture, bout about MR role in that one particular movie. That entire section should be probably moved to the article about the movie, with maybe a sentnece summarizing this remaining here, if a all (since, again, this is just a lenghty 'MR appeared in Media X' entry that does not seem to discuss popular culture at a topic). Anyway, the good news is that sources now added/present do suffice to show this is a notable topic, the only issue is 99% of the content had to go (and still about 95% of what remains should be blanked/moved). PPS. All things considered, given how little usable content IMHO we have, a merge of those few sentences about popculture to MR article and redirecting this there for now may be best. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  08:36, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * We have a few days yet before this discussion closes. I have some philosophical disagreements with the proposed removals. I would suggest that everything currently in the article is citable, it just hasn't yet been addressed. While I agree that popular culture articles should not be a grab bag of every instance of the subject appearing in some media, it is appropriate to have examples of specific trends of uses (Mount Rushmore hiding a secret base or the like; a fifth face being added to the monument; the monument being defaced or destroyed), and there are some citations to these instances that are not primary sources. Likewise, the appearance of the monumnent on coins and flags, in particular, is culturally significant. As for the North by Northwest content, I think you underestimate the cultural significance of this depiction, which was itself subject to later parodies in other works. If you remove content from the article, please copy it to the talk page where it can be subject to further discussion. However, I think I have already removed everything egregious. BD2412  T 19:55, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @BD2412 Regarding "there are some citations to these instances that are not primary sources", if the discussion meets WP:SIGCOV then I am fine keeping it. As for importance of things like coins, stamps, whatever, it's OR until we have sources that say so. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:24, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I was going to protest that the coins themselves are the primary source, and the government website listing them is therefore secondary, but it is trivially easy to find books in print discussing the coins, sometimes at absurd length. BD2412  T 18:28, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Books on coins or books on the topic of the article under discussion, Mount Rushmore in popular culture? (Are coins "popular culture"?) After all, we are supposed cover each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject per WP:PROPORTION. That means we have to base the article on sources on the topic of the article, namely Mount Rushmore in popular culture. TompaDompa (talk) 18:42, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * There is no requirement that every Wikipedia article be referenced solely to sources covering only that topic, and that topic as a whole. If that were the case, dozens of GA and FA articles would have to go. However, bearing in mind that a book chapter is an independent unit for source evaluation, yes, these chapters are entirely about coins commemorating Mount Rushmore. BD2412  T 19:19, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * No one said "solely" or "as a whole", but there is a difference between a source on coins discussing Mount Rushmore and a source on Mount Rushmore discussing coins. The latter is appropriate for determining the proper weight for coins commemorating Mount Rushmore in an article about Mount Rushmore in popular culture assuming that coins are actually "popular culture" (and in the section Mount Rushmore if they are not), whereas the former isn't. TompaDompa (talk) 19:48, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think we need a source on Mount Rushmore itself to determine whether commemorative coins are part of popular culture. In any case, they are mentioned in a single line in an article much more squarely focused on iconic appearances of the monument in film and television. Even if it is an edge case, it is not undue, relative to the whole weight of the article. BD2412  T 21:02, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Considering how poorly sourced the rest of the article is (and thus how large a proportion this would take up if the offending content were removed), that this is already included at Mount Rushmore, and that there do not seem to be any sources on the topic of Mount Rushmore in popular culture that cover this aspect (at least none yet located/presented), I think the inclusion here is highly dubious from a WP:PROPORTION perspective. TompaDompa (talk) 22:03, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Indeed, first, coins and stamps are IMHO not pop culture but 'commemoration' stuff, so this should be moved there. I think it's ok to mention their existence using PRIMARY in a commemoration section, but it should be a brief mention. Anything more would be UNDUE. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 06:10, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It occurs to me that this is not really a point relevant to this discussion. Whether the article is kept or deleted does not hinge on this point, and the question of whether commemorative coins are an element of popular culture can better be discussed on the article's talk page. BD2412  T 19:15, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm leaning towards deletion. This is a poorly-sourced TV Tropes-style article, not a proper encyclopaedic article on the topic Mount Rushmore in popular culture. I would rewrite it to fix that issue as I have done with several similar articles (see WP:Articles for deletion/Eco-terrorism in fiction, WP:Articles for deletion/Earth in science fiction (2nd nomination), WP:Articles for deletion/Space stations and habitats in fiction, WP:Articles for deletion/Supernovae in fiction, WP:Articles for deletion/Neptune in fiction, Articles for deletion/Genies in popular culture (2nd nomination), Articles for deletion/Battle of Thermopylae in popular culture, and Articles for deletion/Loch Ness Monster in popular culture (2nd nomination)), but I don't really see the sources to do that with, either here or in the article itself. These three linked above are really not the kind of quality sources we want to use as a basis for a stand-alone article like this, nor are these  which are cited in the article itself (though without links). I thought I had found the solution when I discovered that Mount Rushmore has an entry in the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, but as it turns out the entry is, I guess one could say, Mount Rushmore as popular culture (its history, what it represents to different groups of people, and so on) rather than Mount Rushmore in popular culture (appearances in fiction and whatnot).The underlying problem is that this was initially written as a TV Tropes-style article based on what the editors who wrote the article back then expected an article on Mount Rushmore in popular culture to contain, with rather scant sourcing and a fair amount of WP:ANALYSIS that did not derive from the sources but from the editors. That is entirely appropriate over at TV Tropes, but it's not how to write a proper Wikipedia article.  It also makes salvaging the article in circumstances like these rather difficult, because merely locating sources that verify the existing text inevitably ends up reproducing and compounding editorial biases. What's more, what often happens when somebody does try to salvage an article like this by locating sources is that they find sources for the examples, rather than the analysis. The analysis is of course what's actually important for articles like this, as the essay WP:CARGO notes: Collecting raw data does not produce an analysis. The raw data can be examples, that demonstrate the analysis. [...] What makes an analysis is finding the works of experts in the field who have done analyses of the raw data, and then condensing and summarizing their published analyses into the article. (Collecting raw data and then producing our own novel analyses of those data is, of course, original research that is forbidden here.) The best way to avoid this (and in my view, the proper way of writing articles like this) is to survey the literature on the topic first and write the article based on that; that's how we make sure that we give weight to each aspect in WP:PROPORTION its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. In other words, for this to become a proper article, it would need to be rewritten pretty much from scratch as  correctly pointed out above.Ultimately, I find the case for a stand-alone article very weak. This does not appear to be a topic that has been the subject of in-depth coverage by WP:Reliable secondary/tertiary sources (or at least none that have yet been located). If all the poorly sourced and otherwise tangential/trivial (for instance, some of the North by Northwest stuff is basically in WP:OFFTOPIC/WP:COATRACK territory due to how much weight is given to WP:MINORASPECTS) content were removed, there would be very little quality content left, which would to my eye not merit a stand-alone article. Likewise, I don't see that there is really anything worth merging—I'm not particularly a fan of "in popular culture" sections, but we could always include a short sentence like "The monument has appeared in several films including North by Northwest and National Treasure: Book of Secrets" in the Mount Rushmore section of the main article and more-or-less be done with it. I can't say I see the point of turning this into a draft, based on my observations above about how to write a proper article like this—additional sources would need to be located to write a decent article on this topic. TompaDompa (talk) 22:03, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @TompaDompa I think content relevant to Foo as pop culture is relevant to 'in pop culture' too. So that's a good source for User:BD2412 to check if they haven't. But I'd like to hear them address the OFFTOPIC/COATRACK/MINORASPECTS issue which I raised as well (particularly related to the North by Northwest section)? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:57, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * With respect to the content on the appearance in North by Northwest, I would say that I have improved this section a great deal from the time of the nomination, both in removing excess details and in providing additional quotes and sources for the cultural signficance of that appearance of the monument. I don't have access, that I am aware of to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, but I did find and add a reference to Gladys L. Knight's Pop Culture Places: An Encyclopedia of Places in American Popular Culture (2014), which has an entry for Mount Rushmore including a paragraph section on "Images in Popular Culture", which specifically calls out its appearance in North by Northwest. BD2412  T 16:44, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Courtesy link. TompaDompa (talk) 17:07, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @BD2412 Courtesy link 2. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 08:54, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. Meets GNG, that much is obvious. The rest is noise. Could be merged, but doesn't need to. Hyperbolick (talk) 02:45, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep after reviewing the work being done by BD2412 to fix the issues, which makes me believe this article can be salvaged. Failing that, this can be moved to Draft space per his request so he can continue his work there. BOZ (talk) 16:25, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep GNG is met, arguments for deletion are not policy based. Jclemens (talk) 07:37, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Merge - the several parts identified (mainly by Piotrus) to the main Mount Rushmore article, which could use a solid in the popular culture section. Redirect the rest there. %90 if not more of the content here is trivial or undue.- GizzyCatBella  🍁  19:58, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep It doesn't look like the article has enough un-referenced material to invalidate the whole thing. I don't agree that WP:TNT should be used here, this article is improvable. Swordman97  talk to me  21:57, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. Meets GNG, nom is another barrage of policies that don't apply. Could be merged, but better not too. I hope this crusade will be over soon. Johnbod (talk) 01:27, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * To be fair, the article has been substantially improved since the nom. BD2412  T 01:36, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, thanks! The nomination has not improved though. Despite a request, he has still not added it to the most obvious sorting list, for visual arts. That's becoming a pattern with these noms - far too many policies cited, and not enough sorting lists. Johnbod (talk) 10:51, 12 May 2022 (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.