Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-01-09 List of characters in the Firefly universe

Who are the involved parties?
Editors of the Firefly (TV series) character articles. Among the editors who participated the most in the content dispute are:
 * User:Cheeser1
 * User:Eusebeus
 * User:Guest9999 (no further statements in the last 30 days, but initiator of the AfD, see below)
 * User:Lquilter
 * User:Maratanos
 * User:Plange
 * User:Sgeureka (mediation initiator)

What's going on?
The articles for Firefly characters were group-nominated for deletion in November 2007 for nonnotability, original research, fancruft, and failing a fiction MOS, but the AfD closed in a no consensus to merge. The AfD closer started a discussion thread at Talk:Firefly_(TV_series), but no consensus has been found since. It should be noted that only one character article was reasonably improved to meet Notability (fiction), which like other notability guidelines decides what gets an article and what doesn't. The other character articles still fail all guidelines of the AfD deletion rationale, plus a few more (see Talk:Firefly_(TV_series)). Attempts to boldy fix the articles by merging to have them meet Notability (fiction) were reverted several times. The length of the merge discussion makes improvement actions through non-merging seem unlikely. Note the final decision of recent arbcom case, specifically the remedy to urge parties to work collaboratively and constructively. Editors arguing against a merge while not improving the articles neither work collaboratively and constructively to resolve the underlying content dispute. – sgeureka t•c 22:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

What would you like to change about that?
Basically to have these articles meet Notability (fiction), especially Notability (fiction). That can either be achieved by merging or by encyclopedic improving. And encyclopedic improvement is not happening, so it's best to merge until someone does. – sgeureka t•c 22:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Mediator notes
While I am involved in the EPISODE/FICT debate, I'll be as neutral as possible in this case.

While WP:FICT is a disputed guideline, it is not without merit. It quotes some long-standing policies, such as WP:NOT and WP:N. It asks for "real-world context". I don't particularly think that's hard to do. I know for a fact the show is on DVD as it's on my Amazon wishlist. The episodes also have commentary tracks. The show also has a companion guide by Whedon.

While they may not be seen as secondary sources, as required by WP:N, people tend to leave character articles be when there is sufficient real-world context. If you really want secondary sources, I did a search on Amazon UK, and found the below results:

 

That's seven books dissecting Firefly and Serenity. Thus the characters are most likely notable. The problem is, the articles right now don't particularly show they are.

Also, do a Google News search for Firefly. While the vast majority maybe pay-only, there will be some free interviews with either Whedon or the cast members about the characters, or some reviews that criticise or applaud some characters.

So, I have some suggestions editorially:

Suspend the debate about merging the articles for three weeks (that is, until February 1). During that time, please, both sides work on the articles so they are of a quality comparable to say, Martha Jones. Buy the books, comb the news archives, and try as hard as you can to improve the articles. You'll get a lot more done instead of formulaic WP:SIZE/WP:DEADLINE vs. WP:N/WP:NOT#PLOT debate.

Thanks, Will (talk) 17:09, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Re to sguereka - yes, seven weeks is a long wait. You can't say that people haven't had time to improve the articles. But the request for improvement applies to both parties. While the burden of evidence doesn't rest on you, it doesn't mean you shouldn't help to cleanup. Also, WP:DEADLINE, which gets cited in these cases, wasn't written to give articles permanent stay of execution. If neither side can cleanup after a concerted effort, maybe it's best to merge. Will (talk) 23:30, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Discussion
Some of the articles have been improved. Others are in the process of being improved. All participants in this discussion are well aware of the potential improvements. The merge is totally unnecessary, and those who advocate it have decided that their opinion is automatically that of "global consensus" and that they are the ones who decide that their opinion "global consensus" overrules the discussion that ended in "no merge." --Cheeser1 (talk) 23:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC) A remark I find disingenuous albeit from an editor I highly respect. The improvements have not contributed substantially to bringing the articles in question up to the standard elaborated at WP:FICT which notes that fictional concepts are notable if they have received significant real-world coverage from reliable sources. No significant real-world coverage has been provided to suggest notability. As a result, the best result would be a merge. It is true that a significant body of opinion has coalesced at the local talk page against such a merge. But such opinion has not changed the global consensus that continues to exert a requirement for real-world significance to be adduced in order for individual episode articles to exist. Since Wikipedia's policy on consensus is clear that consensus is sitewide, not local, I find the use of qualifying quotation marks mystifying. Until consensus changes, it is clear that these articles should be merged. Eusebeus (talk) 04:48, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Once again, appealing to "global consensus" (quotation marks are used because you two keep saying it, whereas I don't believe you really represent global consensus) instead of discussing the facts at hand: the discussion brought up a number of sources and valid rationales against merging. The only rationale I've seen, still, in favor of the merge is that "things haven't been fixed yet" and "global consensus says do what I say." Accuse me of being disingenuous if you want, I'm just trying to provide an explanation of what's going on that isn't from your point of view. Unless you want to declare yourself and sguereka neutral parties in this dispute. --Cheeser1 (talk) 05:02, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The articles are under development, and the two of you are impatient. I have absolutely no interest in letting non-notable articles sit around on Wikipedia. There is no room for improvement and usually no one takes the time to even clean them up. But there was an extensive discussion in which the two of you decided you spoke for "global consensus" and were going to tell us that our rationales didn't matter. New sources were provided. Doesn't matter. Room for expansion was delineated. Doesn't matter. Editors pointed to two of these articles that had been fixed. Doesn't matter - well, I guess except your list of articles to merge got shorter. People are working to fix this stuff, but not fast enough or you, and you've decided to step in and do what you want based on some "global consensus" that you claim to represent. You are certainly allowed to point to community accepted standards, decisions, etc. But you don't decide how they apply in every case. By demanding that we challenge the global consensus in order to not merge, you have already assumed that our position disagrees with it. That's circular logic! I believe that keeping these articles separate and allowing them to get fixed up as time goes on is in agreement with global consensus. That is why this dispute is stuck. --Cheeser1 (talk) 05:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Sceptre, I am not doubting that real-world content exists for these articles; the articles for Mal Reynolds and Derrial Book have already proven that. But what I am doubting is that these remaining articles will be "fixed" to meet WP:FICT any time soon, as the only editor (User:Plange) actually improving the Book article came late to the debate and understood that promises need to be followed by actions. The other editors in favor of keeping have done nothing non-trivial. Your suggestion to suspend this debate for a few more weeks is reasonable, but I regularly pointed out the passed weeks during the merge debate with nothing happening, such as after two weeks and three weeks. Seven weeks is definately enough to tip off anyone's patience and require some actions to be done instead of keeping to listen to promises.

I feel the approach to have both sides work on the articles works a little against WP:BURDEN and especially against those wikipedians just trying to cleanup. E.g., (only speaking for myself here) although I have watched Firefly (on DVD), I am not a hardcore fan, have no idea about the internet structure concerning that fandom, have no books and will not spend money on obtaining those, and have no access to any non-online stuff as the show didn't even air in my country. Browsing for online sources would cost time which I rather choose to spend on adding real-world content to my articles to prevent their merging or deletion (and I have much work ahead fo me). Additionally, I have already worked hard on an article encompassing all characters of a multi-award-winning show that lasted for 24 episodes (and FF only lasted for 14 plus a movie and some additional franchise), and I fail to see why the FF characters can't do the same, especially with the little amount of current real-world content. I hope this is not interpreted as that I work against the editors in favor of keeping; I rather encourage them to improve the articles as they have much easier access to sources. Worst case: the articles get merged, and if someone has so much real-world content to add that a character section gets too long, the character can be spun-off into his own article again. – sgeureka t•c 23:15, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Re Sceptre: I am trying to help in cleanup by merging, mainly because FF is a show I somewhat care about (I rarely edit anything that I don't know out of fear to screw up). I realize that many people don't (yet) see merging as a form of cleanup/improvement, but I have (almost) only had good experiences with it for my article topics. In the few cases where a merge wasn't such a good idea in the end, it is easily undoable, but even so, I don't think this will be the case for FF characters. – sgeureka t•c 01:00, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I support merge for two reasons: (1) I am not, frankly, convinced that there is sufficient real-world notability for the individual characters. The "improved" articles on Mal and Book are thinly referenced. Roughly a third of the substance is about "relationships", which would be much better handled on an article that would be about characterization, generally. As it is, if each and every individual article followed this model, we would have multiple redundant sets of information that would certainly be frequently inconsistent. "Casting" is similar -- especially when actors were originally considered for one part and then went to another, it's best to have a show's "casting" info all together. (2) Even if there is, it hasn't been shown yet. But we can write a nice article about "characterization on Firefly", discussing (a) Whedon's approach with ensemble casts (citable, discussed in relation to his other works, and not easily doable on any one article about individual characters), (b) influence of actors and writers on characterization; (c) interplay between scripts & stories, tv series & movie, on character arc & development; (d) individual characters.  Properly conceived, the "character profiles" would be the least significant part of such an article. That would be an encyclopedic article on this topic; not simply a prose-style databank of character entries. Then, if and when (citable, referenced) information about any one individual character is unbalancing the article, we can export that character to its own article and write a summary style section about that character to return the main article to balance. --Lquilter (talk) 02:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, guys. I'm really confused at this point. I would probably be willing to merge the articles, in all honesty, if I thought it would be beneficial. But the problem is that regardless of whether or not I think that would be beneficial to the articles (I haven't made up my mind yet, either), I don't see how it has anything to do with the policies and guidelines some of you are citing. I've said it once, I'm saying it again. Notability does not require itself to be established within the article itself. That is certainly preferable, but Sceptre points out that there are seven books dissecting the series, which leaves me somewhat doubtful that notability has anything to do with a merger. Perhaps the articles, once merged, would miraculously start getting improved, but at this point I see little to support that hypothesis. It seems more likely given the things that Sgeureka and co. have said that it would mostly involve deleting content and then letting the articles rot. A merger makes even less sense given suggestions made multiple times to exclude particular articles from the merger as being better than the others. Maybe that makes sense in the crazy Wikipedia bureaucracy everyone seems to want this to be. But I see notability in two ways, both of which must be balanced against each other. There is notability externally, the significance placed on particular characters or topics by the outside community, and then there is internal notability, which measures the significance placed on particular characters and topics by the people directly involved. Thus we may have some sort of measure by which Malcolm Reynolds and Derrial Book are more notable externally, but this must be directly balanced against the fact that the other seven characters are given the same notability internally: they're all in the opening credits, they're all in almost every episode. In this light, it is nonsensical to merge some characters and not others. It's all or nothing, guys. One last note, by the way. I've never really been that fond of all these rules, because I really do think that making sure the articles are helpful and informative is more important. From all that I've seen, in a large variety of cases this includes significant treatment, if not exclusive treatment, of in-universe information. Maybe that's not the official focus, but it's definately a focus and I will fight a merger to my dying breath if I think important in-universe information would be excised by a merge. So let me just say that if someone can convince me that merging these articles will actually lead to significant improvement, I'll be happy to merge. But right now it seems too much like people want a merge to hide the low-quality content rather than to get rid of it by means of improvement. Wow. I'll stop talking now. --Maratanos (talk) 21:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * But right now it seems too much like people want a merge to hide the low-quality content rather than to get rid of it by means of improvement. Right. And that's also what WP:FICT suggests in WP:FICT. User:Masem recently made a comment at WT:FICT that has my wildest support: "...we allow Spoo in its present state and discourage articles like J.R. Ewing in its present state. [...] I'm pretty confident that there is enough information to support a standalone JR article, but until such information is added, WP is improved by merging it with other characters." Obviously, no FF character can compete with J.R., so make of this as you will. – sgeureka t•c 14:26, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia needs an article to assert its notability, not just for the subject to be notable. Example, there's a local band called Embrace who, among other things, performed England's 2006 World Cup anthem. If someone created a page saying "Embrace is a Brighouse-based band", it would be deleted although the band is notable. If someone created it sating "Embrace is a Brighouse-based band notable for their hit album The Good Will Out and performing the World Cup anthem 'World at Your Feet'", it wouldn't. The easiest way to assert such notability is by adding sources independent of the show. Will (talk) 15:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved party - I would like point out that this case is way above what is being discussed here. Please see this centralized discussion as well. There is currently this case, an arbcom case, and admin noticeboard, several RfC's, and various other discussions taking place. A solution needs to be had to fix this and all issues need to be looked at or this will never end and more arbcom, noticeboards, cabals, and RfCs will continue to be called. --User: (talk) 16:38, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I know that I will be able to make the improvements to the articles (as shown with the ones I already started on) to make them meet guidelines, as there are plenty of secondary sources out there on all the characters, but I would like other editors who do not want to see the merge to help me out. I created guidelines on WP:FIREFLY over a year ago that should help out. I have basically no time to devote on this until after Feb 5th (does that give it away that I'm heavily involved in a presidential primary race that is sucking up all free time?!), at which time I will be happy to get these articles up to speed. My understanding of the guidelines is that a merge should only happen if it has been proved that an article will never be able to not be a stub... I've shown that these articles can be from an out-of-universe perspective and be a full article in its own right.... --plange (talk) 23:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, the only reason Mal and Book are better was that, yes, for Mal it was because he's the captain, but after that, Book is not the next major character and it was pure coincidence that I picked up that article to improve next. If I had to pick just one other, I'd say it was River....--plange (talk) 04:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * River actually appeared in more works than all the other characters, for that matter -- she was in the viral marketing River Tam sessions, and along with Mal was really the central figure of the film. --Lquilter (talk) 22:50, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * To respond to some of the points above, I note (1) no efforts have been made to improve the quality of these articles. No real-world notability has been asserted, the overlong plot summaries remain and the trivia and other in-universe details has not been expurgated. (2) With respect to plange's efforts to demonstrate real-world significance, I appreciate her efforts (man, she got a barnstar from Yannis!), but it seems that much of that content is just fancrufty (sorry for the loaded term, but I think it fits) trivia, gussied up to masquerade as real-world context. The fact remains that there is NO real basis for asserting that Derrial Book has real-world importance. I think, as a result, that this merge should be carried through as proposed. Bottom line: consensus is global & plot summaries and trivia are strongly discouraged; arbcom cases and centralised discussions are not going to make these longstanding requirements for encyclopaedic standards go away. Eusebeus (talk) 22:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It's Feb 1, and these are the changes to the character articles after 10 weeks of merge debate: Zoe, Washburne, Inara, Jayne, Kaylee, Simon, Book. Mal and River were not part of the original AfD and hence weren't up for the merge debate, and Book has significantly improved (at least from my perspective) that I did not include him in further merge considerations. So, while (as I explained above) I did not help in improvement of any of these articles, I have still been pretty busy with other fiction-related articles for which I have more easier access to real-world-content sources (see my userpage). I applaude plange for his work on Book, but the little progress on the other articles just proves that a merger brings these articles in line with WP:FICT faster than good faith in laissez faire. I'll wait for Sceptre to make a final announcement before actions are taken. – sgeureka t•c 09:06, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd be lenient on Book and Inara - they do have non-powers-that-be sources and references, although I would like to see them used more, but they have shown that they are discussed in reliable secondary sources. Will (talk) 10:10, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * As said before, Book's article is fine for a start, and I'd have left it alone anyway. But for Inara, since her source is just given as an External link, not an inline citation, there is technically no harm to move the source in a merge until someone actually wants to discuss the source (potentially allowing the de-merge again). Even if I leave Inara out for now, can the merge be performed in the next few days? With some of the FF fans claiming that the articles are fine as they are, I'd rather have the objective result of a medcab case backing up the merge actions. – sgeureka t•c 16:02, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Book's fine and fiction stubs are allowed. And yes, there is nothing wrong with an Inara merge until the paper is actually used as a citation. Will (talk) 16:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know how medcab cases work. This one is still open, and Sceptre as mediator hasn't really given a green light one way or another. So, (1) can I perform the merge and (2) enforce to keep them merged as long as no encyclopedic treatment is apparent, or (3) do I risk becoming another party in the current arbcom case if I revert possible reverts of the merger? – sgeureka t•c 17:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Never mind. It seems arbcom will punish anyone who dares to cleanup articles, with blocks, so I'll wait till the arbcom case is over (two weeks?). It may be that the updated WP:FICT will also have lost its proposed/disputed tags then, making it even clearer that most of the FF character articles in their current form are not acceptable. – sgeureka t•c 17:16, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The arbcom case is slowly coming to a close, the proposed WP:FICT is moving to accepted guideline (again), so I guess it is time to reconsider how to proceed. Almost all of the articles of questionable demonstrated notability or lacking encyclopedic treatment have not changed (much) for the better, in Zoe's case even for the worse (more WP:NOT and WP:OR). Kaylee Frye has improved with a few added sources, but it is troubling that six sources are solely used to source two seemingly-noncontroversial sentences in the intro. So, after 3.5 months, I'd finally go ahead with the merge in a week or so (everyone but Mal, Book and River, who was never included in the AfD of the following merge proposals for unknown reasons), without prejudice to have articles revived if someone wants to write an article in line with policies and guidelines. – sgeureka t•c 19:27, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Wow, another month passes and still nothing. I'd like to weigh in again.  We really should probably not do anything until WP:FICT is passed as a guideline again.  Policies about verifiability and original research aren't relevant, and the general notability guideline is too vague and doesn't really cover the intricacies of fiction.  That said, there's a couple other issues here.  Multiple references have been made by various parties to the fact that very little improvement has been shown in the article.  I would like to propose that all of us, except plange, are complicit in the guilt of this.  The three-week timeframe only works if we actually do something in the three weeks.  You can't use the absence of work done on the article as evidence that no work CAN be done.  We've just all been busy with other stuff, and some of us don't have the money to fork over to buy the secondary sources.  That said, I'm all in favor of getting this thing over with, and unlike some of the other parties, I'm willing to compromise.  A merger would be fine by me under the following assumptions:
 * That no significant content be excised from the articles during the merge. A compromise merge would not be used as an excuse to excise significant content.  Obviously some summary is necessary and some of the characters are simply plot synopses at this time, but attemps MUST be maintained to summarize rather than abridge.  The issue at contention is that the individual characters may not be notable enough to merit their own articles, not that the article content is objectionable.
 * That all characters be merged into one article. This would include all nine stars, as well as all guest stars and anyone else currently located in "List of Characters in the Firefly Universe".  Obviously the 9 stars would have a larger section about them, but at no point does this compromise condone the patently ridiculous notion of merging Zoe, Wash, Jayne, Inara, Simon, and Kaylee but leaving Mal, Book and River alone.  The reason given for this is clearly a flagrant abuse of the "Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy" policy, which overrides any notability concerns.  Especially egregious in such abuse is the notion of failing to merge River simply because she wasn't part of the AFD debate.  Use common sense, people.  Common sense tells you that readers are gonna think we're idiots if they stumble across pages for two minor stars and the protagonist when the other 6 major characters, some of which have more screen time than Book and River.
 * That effort be continuously made by all parties to the best of their abilities to improve the articles after the merge and split them again if the original reasons for the debate disappear. Unfortunately, I feel as if this is unlikely because the majority of the people involved in this debate are contributing very little to the articles in question, seeming to prefer rather to use the bureaucracy to further their own private agenda at the expense of the quality of the articles.
 * That no action be taken before WP:FICT is finalized, or before local consensus is reached. This compromise is offered in good faith on the assumption that all parties can agree to it.  It should not be carried out on the basis of some arbitrarily determined "global consensus" used to claim that everyone on the wiki would agree with you, if only you could ask them.  It should not be carried out before WP:FICT is finalized because the new guideline may make this entire argument obsolete (specifically, the clause about secondary sources claiming that understanding of the element is necessary is worth looking at.  We may not be able to find secondary sources discussing in depth the real-world content of each character, but I suspect you will find numerous secondary sources claiming that understanding of each of these characters is important to the understanding of the show as a whole.)
 * Maratanos (talk) 02:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I've been busy with school recently. I am also still working on my many open merge proposals from December till February where arbcom so nicely put a wrench in my gears. I will/can put more time to the FF characters as time allows (I haven't forgotten about them), but some FF articles require extra trimming, and this takes extra time if the job is to be done properly. – sgeureka t•c 08:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I recognize that most of us are busy and have other stuff we want to do with our time. The beef I had was just that some of the people were claiming that the fact that nobody was working on the articles meant they weren't notable, even though THEY weren't working on the articles themselves.  It's essentially a conflict of interest where they were using their own busyness as a reason why the characters weren't notable via the fact that no work was being done.  If I had actually seen active cooperation on improving the articles from both sides of the debate (as opposed to pretty much neither) I would be a lot more inclined to believe the argument that a merger would improve the quality of the articles.  I recognize, of course, that I am guilty of this sin.  I have limited cash, as do we all, and I suspect that the Firefly fans that buy the books of commentary are mostly not the same Firefly fans that work on the Wikipedia articles.  I certainly don't fall in the former category.  As such, there's not really a lot I can do to help the supposed problem of lack of cited sources.  No worries, Maratanos (talk) 02:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
 * To put this into context from my perspective (this is not intended as finger-pointing): Since November, I have worked on establishing the notability of at least six Stargate articles including what are now two GAs and one GAN (the others will follow as time allows). I have also finished the merger/redirecting of almost 300 Stargate episodes and several dozens of other SG articles. There wasn't much active collaboration from anybody. And although SG is one of my fave shows, I am as strict with SG articles that don't pass WP:FICT, as I am with FF (or any other show for that matter). So, I am not using my business to not work on FF, but I am busy because I spend my wiki-time merging/improving/expanding those topics I am most interested in and which I have much fan material for (i.e. SG; like you I don't have much material for FF). The net gain for wikipedia stays the same: More articles that pass WP:FICT, and way less articles that don't. – sgeureka t•c 10:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Call for Close. Pleas for more time and resources are not that convincing to me here. Let's restate the basic issue: per our policy on WP:NOT, Wikipedia articles on published works (such as fictional stories) should cover their real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's development, impact or historical significance, not solely a detailed summary of that work's plot. This applies both to stand-alone works, and also to series. A brief plot summary may sometimes be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic. I think we all agree on that. We can also agree that, at present, few if any of the Firefly characters conform to this standard. Per the ongoing discussion at WT:FICT, several developments are emerging that are relevant here: (1) the plot guideline is not going to be deprecated. (2) Spinout list articles are, however, considered a good compromise, even if they, too, contain little more than plot and details. (3) Merge is not delete. In the event that information emerges that allows for the individual character articles to be rewritten from a primarily real-world perspective, they can be resuscitated. At this point, however, I feel we should get a decision down on the table. As sgeureka noted above some time back, no real advances have been made to resituate the emphasis of these articles from in-universe to real-world and that remains the basic requirement for fiction-related articles. Eusebeus (talk) 07:54, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I already got "permission" from Sceptre/Will to merge some time ago, but I just never actually started. But since this issue really requires closure, I'll just put my other merge proposals on hold and do some work here. – sgeureka t•c 08:21, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * For transparancy, see Talk:List_of_characters_in_the_Firefly_universe. – sgeureka t•c 08:21, 4 April 2008 (UTC)