Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Picture of Dorian Gray 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 delete. Interestingly enough, the keep arguments provided just as many reasons for deleting as the delete arguments. —Doug Bell talk 22:14, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The Picture of Dorian Gray in popular culture

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

A meaningless collection of WP:TRIVIA about The Picture of Dorian Gray. This should be deleted as an article bound to be an indiscriminant collection of information per WP:NOT, and because it is not, and will never be, properly sourced and fact checked. This article has already been tagged for merger from November 2006 but such an action would simply place unsourced trivia into a good article. The Picture of Dorian Gray article already has very well referenced and encyclopedic sections on allusions from other works and on film, television, and theatrical adaptatations. "In popular culture" articles are a bad idea and citing the precedent of Articles for deletion/Aleister Crowley in popular culture. MLA 06:59, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. Yes, a lot of it is crap. If I remember correctly (and anyone interested can check the diffs), I contributed a lot of the crap to it. Any crap that I did contribute came straight out of the article on the novel or that on the character (amazingly, the latter exists as a separate article). My reasoning: a large and vociferous contingent WP editors stand on their rights to insert trivia, whoops I mean contemporary cultural references, to WP. Without this article, the article on the novel or character or both would be stiff with it, as (it seems) every tenth popster who's gazed in the mirror, contemplated his own (real? imagined?) beauty and vaguely remembered what his sister told him about PFG as her A-level text has made a "reference" to the novel or the dude. Well, I thought, let them have their own little playpen. But maybe I was wrong. -- Hoary 07:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak delete. Perhaps we should have "Wikipedia is not a playpen"? Anyway, keeping indiscriminate collections of trivia out of main articles is definitely not a valid reason to have an article. (What of Wikipedia in popular culture, I wonder?) – Qxz 09:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not indiscriminate - it is a very focused and targeted in scope. To say it is indiscriminate requires some justification, not just stating an opinion. -- Stbalbach 21:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete - not every fact is of encyclopedic importance, despite a tendency to think that it is. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Moreschi Request a recording? 10:44, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Which facts, exactly, do you think should be removed and why? Why do you think the article is indiscriminate? Listing movie/literature/play/music re-makes is perfectly acceptable on Wikipedia, including in featured articles, it is not indiscriminate or open ended. -- Stbalbach 21:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete - Trivia list that is really a strong case of WP:NOT per Moreschi. Trivia lists like this should be avoided and I cannot see any sense in a merge to the The Picture of Dorian Gray article - Peripitus (Talk) 11:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * How is listing derivative works "trivia"? This is important information for anyone tracking the cultural influence of a work. -- Stbalbach 21:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete - most of this is original research, as the "references in popular culture" have clearly been spotted by the article's authors from primary sources and are not referenced from secondary sources. Also fails WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information. The only part of this article that is valid is the list of film and TV adaptations, which belongs in its own article under List of movie and TV adaptations of The Picture of Dorian Grey. Everything else should go. Walton monarchist89 12:28, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Rename to List of adaptations of The Picture of Dorian Gray to preserve edit history and cut the rest. Cultural influence is nicely covered in the main article.  &mdash;Cel  ithemis  13:00, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment In one hand, the article could be deleted, but then people would add the trivia stuf to the main articles again. Plus articles like this can be good, for instance Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc. Garion96 (talk) 13:02, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete is first choice, based on how WP is not for indiscriminate lists or directories of every appearance of a fictional character in pop culture ever. This minutae does not belong in its own article or in the main article and editors of the main article need to be vigilant about removing it instead of just dumping it off on another article. Would support a sourced article for adaptations. Otto4711 13:28, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Celithemis. While most of it is absurdly trivial, this page appears to be the only account of the film adaptations of the novel, which are encyclopedic (or at least as encyclopedic as any film, and we have thousands of such articles). That being said, feel free to treat this as a delete, I suppose, for consensus building purposes (I hate it when articles are kept due to a lack consensus from vote-spilitting, especially when there is a strong consensus to not keep the article). We can probably retrieve the encyclopedic parts and edit history after deletion. -R. fiend 14:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep current manifestation of the article, under its new name and without all this "I think Nancy on Eight is Enough said the words 'Dorian Gray' once" crap. -R. fiend 17:19, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep - wow I am really amazed at this vote. How many "in popular culture" articles do we have on Wikipedia? It is a well known fact you can't stop editors from adding this stuff it is a veritable daily flood - "In popular culture" articles is an essay, not a guideline - it represents one opinion and IMO an idealistic and impractical one. No one is going to actively engage in edit disputes on a daily basis trying to keep popular culture junk out of articles, it is not worth the time or effort - in reality, no one does it and so the popular culture sections just keep growing like weeds. The only solution is to segment this stuff out and keep it out of the main articles. IMO the real problem here is people trying to delete the "in popular culture" articles over some idealistic notion of what Wikipedia should be, without taking into account pragmatic realities.  -- Stbalbach 14:56, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I am amazed every time that someone wants to keep one of these articles giving a variation on "people are gonna do it anyway" as a rationale. People are going to put up hoax articles anyway, so let's keep those. People are going to unwitingly enter false information, so let's keep it because we can't stop it. People are going to vandalize articles and put up articles on non-notable topics and do all sorts of things and there's nothing that can stop them, so why try? Otto4711 15:20, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hoax articles and false information are clearly against policy. If something is notable or not is a much more difficult challenge - what is trivia to you is notable to someone else, otherwise they wouldn't have added it! The guidelines about trivia and notability are guidelines, not policy, and much more difficult and have to be judged on a per-case basis. Surely you must recognize this reality of Wikipedia, notability and trivia are subjective. Yes, people will add it anyway, that is a fact. I've been here 4 years and I've tried every method possible to discourage people from adding junk and the only method that works is to isolate it out of the main article space. Attempts to delete in popular culture articles are well meaning and understandable but will not work in the long term. It just creates cycles of add/delete, either in article sections, or in AfDs. -- Stbalbach 16:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * See proposed policy addition at WP:NOT talk page regarding "...in popular culture" articles. Otto4711 17:18, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:V i kan reed 17:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Verifying film and TV adaptations is a simple matter of checking IMDB that could take 10 minutes, hardly reason to delete the entire article. When the title of the work says "Picture of Dorian Grey" there is a certain amount of Good Faith that the work is what it claims to be.-- Stbalbach 21:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep as per Hoary's arguments (if he is, in fact, arguing to keep this article) and those of Stbalbach. Pathlessdesert 21:18, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually I'm not, no. -- Hoary 09:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep as per Hoary and Stbalbach. Geuiwogbil 07:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I never said "keep". -- Hoary 09:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Rename to Adaptations of The Picture of Dorian Gray. No, not limited to film and TV, as for all I know there could be an opera (consider Zemlinsky's Florentinische Tragödie) or other full-blown adaptations. These would not include whatever's on the A-side of the first and perhaps only single by Swindon's 47th most famous band, Freddie and the Forgettables. And if something is worth doing, it's worth doing in a proper article, not a mere list. Delete anything that isn't an adaptation of PDG. -- Hoary 09:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per Stbalbach. Kolindigo 06:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong keep per Stbalbach and per WP:SUMMARY. This topics is notable enough, with substantive material. A brief summary section of pop culture references in the main article on The Picture of Dorian Gray and a link to this subarticle is a good way to organize the material.  --Aude (talk) 22:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete These lists are messy research notes rather than encyclopedic articles. Greg Grahame 20:24, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That's a general opinion (which I strongly disagree with) that doesn't address the specific facts contained in the article. It's not messy, nor is it "research notes" - articles like this are a part of Wikipedia, many have strong followings and easily survive attempts at AfD, there is no general rule against them. -- Stbalbach 21:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Move to List of adaptations of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and remove the music section. As Hoary says, there's no reason not to have THAT list.  This is not really that indiscriminate in its actual content although it contains a few nn passing references that must absolutely be removed.  However, the title implies that anything referring to Dorian Gray might be okay, and that should be discouraged.  Mango juice talk 13:36, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. The article has been significantly changed. It is renamed to List of adaptations of The Picture of Dorian Gray and many entries have been deleted and cleaned up. -- Stbalbach 16:23, 26 February 2007 (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.