Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/University of Cambridge 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. ✗ plicit  00:10, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

University of Cambridge in popular culture

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

Another potentially notable topic that is sadly just a mostly unreferenced list of trivia in the TV trope like style (even IF sources exist, which I couldn't confirm WP:TNT would be needed first). Many position are not even WP:SIGCOV-related, and fail the ORish inclusion criteria in the lead ("some notable examples of references to Cambridge" - notable according to whom?). Sample terrible entry: "In The Good Companions (1929 novel) by J. B. Priestley, the character Inigo Jollifant is introduced as a Cambridge graduate.". Or "Missee Lee (novel 1941) by Arthur Ransome The title character is a former Cambridge student. " Sigh. This catalogue of trivia failsWP:IPC, WP:GNG, WP:NLIST, WP:INDISCRIMINATE, WP:TRIVIA, WP:OR, and mostly, WP:V. Note that while University_of_Cambridge exits it is just as bad and probably needs to be removed as well. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 09:20, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Popular culture, Education,  and United Kingdom. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  09:20, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  09:22, 16 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep. If this is a "potentially notable topic that is sadly just a mostly unreferenced list", the appropriate solution is to improve the article rather than delete it. And if the nominator believes "in popular culture" articles should not exist - which seems to be the case given the number of them nominated lately - suggest opening a project discussion on that point rather than nomming them one by one. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:45, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Popular culture is a perfectly valid topic, and I've written or rewritten some related articles myself. But a TV trope-like list of trivia is good for nothing but WP:TNTing. There is nothing that we can salvage here, and its very existence scares people from working on this topic in a proper way. What was acceptable a decade+ ago is not acceptable today. You are welcome to rewrite it if you care, but please follow best practices. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:20, 16 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete. A grab bag of connections to the university, however tenuous or weak, fails WP:NLIST. Fictional students or alumni? Good material for a trivia contest, not for a list. Clarityfiend (talk) 12:24, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete - Poorly sourced list of non-notable (and in some cases, extremely tenuously related) trivia. There is not a single source presented here that actually discusses the topic as a whole or justifies the splitting off of it to a separate article. The main University of Cambridge article also already has a "Popular Culture" section that, while poorly sourced and needing some cleanup itself, further illustrates the lack of a need of a split. Rorshacma (talk) 16:19, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment I don't much care whether the good material from this list is merged into the University of Cambridge article, or whether this list is tidied and becomes 'main article' for Uni Cambridge in popular culture, but both would benefit from knowledgeable pruning. There is a tendency to cram anything that so much as mentions Cambridge into the list. The list would be more useful, in my view, if it focussed on things that really focus on Cambridge. For example, Bridget Jones' diary hardly hinges around Cambridge, whereas Ransome's Missee Lee very much does, although not a single minute of it is set there: the whole premise of the story wouldn't have worked had it not been for Missee Lee's hankering after her golden years of English University Education and marmalade. The subject of this list/article should be kept, somewhere. The current list is almost TNT-able. But on the whole, I'd prefer a really good, selectively-deletionist clean up. The difficulty is that no single editor is likely to be able to assess all the items in a list this size. Elemimele (talk) 17:44, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete: The sheer amount of trivia and original research makes this list unsalvageable. Furthermore, Wikipedia is neither Fandom nor a Jeopardy! answer sheet. Instead, it is an online encyclopaedia. None of this list's content is encyclopaedic. Therefore, it needs to be destroyed. &#8213; Susmuffin Talk 22:58, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep and Improve - The article should be about the university in popular culture, as the title suggests, and not include the city or alumini. As far as sourcing is concerned, much of it doesn't require any because novels and films are their own primary source for the plot.--Ykraps (talk) 06:04, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Popular cultural articles certainly can't be self sourced as plot. Per MOS:POPCULT, "Cultural references about a subject [...] should not be included simply because they exist. Rather, all such references should be discussed in at least one reliable secondary or tertiary source which specifically links the cultural item to the subject of the article. This source should cover the subject of the article in some depth; it should not be a source about the cultural item which merely mentions the subject." See also WP:NOTPLOT, WP:IPCV and this 2015 RFC on the topic Cakelot1 (talk) 12:54, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete as mostly trivial and unsourced. Cakelot1 (talk) 12:57, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 10:13, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete as lacking any secondary reliable sources, thus failing all of our core policies, WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:NPOV, as well as what Wikipedia is WP:NOT. Wikipedia articles are not mere plot details, and it's possible that there is a deeper analysis of the university and how it's portrayed in fiction. But there would be almost nothing to WP:PRESERVE from the current malformed article. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:15, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete - for now, as an unnecessary content fork. Merge the referenced copy back to an "In popular culture" section in the main article and when a referenced IPC section gets too large, then fork it. Establish reasonable criteria that doesn't include every name drop that ever existed. Our essay on "In popular culture" sections seems to indicate that unless there is an academic or journalistic source discussing why Mr. X in book or movie Y graduated from Cambridge, you don't include it. As one of the oldest universities in the world, if an author is just randomly assigning a school to character, there's a good chance it might be Cambridge. Unless the author has discussed the why for a particular character's educational choices in real life, that isn't encyclopedic content for an article on a university OR for a content fork from one. TLDR version:  Article is an unneeded content fork, per WP:FORK.174.212.236.66 (talk) 17:14, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per Wikipedia is not TV Tropes. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 01:20, 23 April 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.