Wikipedia talk:"In popular culture" content/Archive 4

Interestingly enough
"Biographies of living persons should not have trivia sections. Instead, relevant sourced claims should be woven into the article."

The BLP policy already carries an admonition similar to what we are trying to create here. I wonder how that made it in. :) Protonk (talk) 16:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * That line is basically just a repetition of WP:TRIVIA, though with greater stringency. I'm inclined to agree with having less tolerance for trivia sections in BLPs as opposed to other articles, due to the unsourced entries they tend to attract.
 * IPC sections are not quite the same issue; they can be legitimate stand-alone sections that can't be woven into other parts of the article.--Father Goose (talk) 03:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The problem with IPC sections
....at its worse is that they are invariably OR. Someone sees something.... says "hey, thats from XXXXXX", and pops the sighting into the corresponding Wikipedia article. They are not referencing anything except their own eyeballs, and the only significance they can cite is the fact that they saw it. For an IPC section to step past OR it would need to reference some substantial reliable sources as to that particular subject's "pop culture influences". It looks to me like IPC sections should be deleted until a reliable source can be cited. Implying that something has a popular cultural influence by citing a series of trivial examples is simply synthesis 75.196.79.160 (talk) 05:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC) 75 guy

In popular culture template
The Trivia template is used on the "In popular culture" sections of many articles. Since the trivia template calls for all information in the section to be relocated to other sections or deleted, it does not really address the problem of a "In popular culture" section which is too exhaustive, but should still exist in a condensed form. I believe a variation on the Trivia template should exist for such "in popular culture" sections with the text somewhere along the lines of:


 * This "In popular culture" section may contain trivial information. Please remove non-notable entries.

On a related note, I propose that a hidden comment like " " becomes standardly added to the beginning of in popular culture sections.--Marcus Brute (talk) 05:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I like the hidden comment proposal, and any additional tags that have usefulness. One question, do you think we should introduce a new term for the notability of content within an article (ie. WP:NNC) versus the notability of an article itself? I've been using noteworthy for content of an article versus notability for the articles themselves. But that's just my own thing. Perhaps the template you're proposing should link directly to WP:NCC though since it's specifically about that subsection. - Owlmonkey (talk) 08:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think you have your links mixed up. WP:NCC is Naming conventions (comics). Please clarify.--Marcus Brute (talk) 06:00, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Bah, I meant WP:NNC not WP:NCC. Sorry about that, and thanks for catching the error. - Owlmonkey (talk) 18:06, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think both of those ideas are great. However, I'm not sure WP:TRIVIA should be linked, or at least, not like that. I would probably make it something like this:


 * This "In popular culture" section may contain too many minor references. Please remove non-notable entries, and reorganize this content.


 * I'm not sure what the general consensus is on adding in comments to articles. There are certainly a lot of articles with IPC sections. At the very least, the message would have to be short to avoid adding excessive length to a whole bunch of articles. What kind of example would you use for the comment text?-- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 19:18, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I created an IPC template, located at . It will still sort tagged article to Category:Articles with trivia sections, rather than make a new category. I've started adding it to a handful of articles that have excessive sections, but feel free to change the template wording. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 05:05, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Where oh where has my trivia section gone?
Has everyone read this page?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Trivia_and_Popular_Culture/Discussion

Here are some interesting external web sites concering trivia. http://www.neatorama.com/2008/03/22/wikipedias-identity-crisis-keep-or-delete-trivia/ http://billso.com/2008/03/18/should-wikipedia-include-trivia/ http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10789354 http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10789354&mode=comment&intent=readBottom http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10789354&mode=comment&intent=readBottom http://www.includipedia.com/blog/2008/03/10/inclusionists-versus-deletionists-on-wikipedia.html http://www.includipedia.com/ http://www.includipedia.com/wiki/Includipedia:About http://www.includipedia.com/wiki/Main_Page http://blog.shankbone.org/2008/12/22/trivia-section-on-wikipedia--an-american-dad-christmas-illustration.aspx http://www.impactlab.com/2008/03/24/wikipedia-identity-crisis-part-2-keep-or-delete-trivia/ http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080111152140AA8xEth http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiTrivia Ozmaweezer (talk) 04:11, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

More notions
I've been working on some stuff in my userspace. Thoughts? DS (talk) 00:16, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
 * And here's more. / edg ☺ ☭ 04:21, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Simpler checklist for inclusion
WP:XKCD has a simple checklist which can be used to differentiate between obviously useful and obviously useless IPC links. The sections above give some examples related to xkcd, which is a perennial problem when it comes to things like this (tragically parodied perfectly by xkcd itself, to no avail). How about importing that checklist here, and coming up with a similar set of examples? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:44, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I've gone ahead and imported the core of WP:XKCD here, as the material in there is generally applicable to all pop culture material and not just xkcd. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:27, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

where from here?
Forgive my ignorance, but how, if at all, can this good essay be nominated/considered for elevation to policy? DavidOaks (talk) 17:11, 20 March 2010 (UTC)


 * What do you specifically hope that that would achieve?--Father Goose (talk) 22:01, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Having an actual policy (as opposed to an essay/opinion) would make it easier to get the fancruft out of so very many articles. But my question also comes out of simple curiosity about policy-forming procedures. DavidOaks (talk) 20:41, 27 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, a given page is generally only adopted as policy (or a guideline) when its advice is very widely agreed upon. The subject of "fancruft" is hotly contested on Wikipedia (what is considered to be excessive, and how it should be handled), so getting broad agreement on what should be done about it is pretty unlikely to happen.  What we've got instead is some practical advice on the subject, in the form of this page, with no hard-edged rules.  That's probably the closest thing to "agreement" we'll get for the foreseeable future.--Father Goose (talk) 22:49, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Covers of songs
Let's take as a given that a certain song is notable, and has a decent Wikipedia article about it. Under what circumstances should that article discuss or list covers of the original song? I would propose that the mere fact that a cover version exists is not notable, and exhaustive lists should be deleted. If, however, the cover can be described as having had some notable impact that merits discussion, then it should be included. What are the group's thoughts? --M @ r ē ino 19:27, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * See WP:NNC; notability does not limit article content. Your argument, as currently phrased, is self-defeating. I see no reason why a verifiable cover of a notable song by a notable group would ever be excluded. To pick one example, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds covers the Shatner and Elton John versions, but not The Hooters' rendition.  If a cover is done by a non-notable group, on the other hand, I don't see nearly so strong a case for inclusion. Jclemens (talk) 19:40, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Suggest massive renaming
The term "popular culture" is rather discriminative and demeaning, not to say restrictive. I suggest to undertake systematic renaming of the sections into a more neutral title, mentioned in this page, "Cultural references" or something else, e.g., "Influence on culture". If you agree, I would suggest to say something to this end into this page. I think this retitling will better serve to efforts of cleanup fom pop-trivia.

Also, I am wondering, whether it is time to promote this page to the status of "guideline", because IMO this page is full of common sense. Yceren Loq (talk) 01:42, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It may be full of common sense, but you wouldn't believe how many IPs add crap like this to articles. I hate seeing articles about musicians with a 20 entry list of all the tv shows that their songs had a 20 second clip in.
 * It would be great if this was an official guideline but you can always use the basic wp:v --CutOffTies (talk) 16:55, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

"Non-Notable"?
Re this sentence in lead: "When poorly written or poorly maintained, however, these sections can devolve into indiscriminate collections of trivia or cruft. They should be carefully maintained, as they may attract non-notable entries" -- Is it proper to use a link to WP:Notability for this purpose when the "notability" in that link refers to notability of topic, not content? To quote WP:Notability directly: "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not directly limit the content of an article or list. For Wikipedia's policies regarding content, see Neutral point of view, Verifiability, No original research, What Wikipedia is not, andBiographies of living persons."(emphasis is WP's, not mine) Seems to me "non-notable" should be replaced with NPOV, VERIFY, NOR, etc.Shirtwaist (talk) 11:53, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You're correct--notability limits whether or not we have an article on something, not the content of any given article. Jclemens (talk) 15:13, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

A point I feel is cogent to the essay
An editor whose name I have sadly forgotten had a great point on a talk page the other day and I think it might warrant inclusion. Many "perpetual sources" for in popular culture sections (such as Family Guy and The Simpsons, who seem to reference EVERYTHING at some point) are quite exclusive to America. Making proliferation of sections filled with cultural in-jokes and trivial mentions an example of systemic bias and an example of, arguably, POV. By removing content that is only meaningful to a narrow subset of our audience (that doesn't actually add anything to the encyclopedia as a whole) we improve readability and inclusiveness without losing much of anything. HominidMachinae (talk) 07:42, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Um, no. Should we take out articles on other obscure topics because they're only of limited interest? You're proposing that some topics are more equal than others: math good, Simpsons bad.  Realize that regardless of universality, popular culture is widely studied.  The main problem with IPC content is that most Wikipedia references to IPC events are simply primary references, not secondary. Jclemens (talk) 14:45, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * No, what I'm saying is that what the essay already cautions against is bad for an additional reason: trivial non-notable items added based on US-centric pop culture only trivialize (no pun intended) the encyclopedia.  Loading articles with unreferenced non-notable mentions hurts the relevancy of the articles without adding a thing.  When pop culture sections are sourced and contain only significant, relevant examples (per the excellent XKCD example in the article) they help someone even without advance knowledge of the culture providing the reference understand the impact and importance of the article topic.
 * To clarify, I'm not proposing changing a thing, but this is, in my opinion, a significant reason that pop culture sections should be subject strictly to sourcing and the 'significant coverage' requirement of WP:RS and avoid becoming mere trivia. HominidMachinae (talk) 18:36, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You think pop culture trivializes the encyclopedia. To be fair, others agree, but I also know plenty of early adopters who loved the way that if one needed to educate one's self on a pop-culture reference with which one was not familiar, Wikipedia would fill you in.  That level of cultural education has been largely eviscerated because it's "not encyclopedic" or "trivial" which are code words for "something you care about that I do not."  Part of the IPC compromise is that entire reams of IPC references can be spun off into other articles so that those who consider such as trivia are free to not look at them, while those who value such can find them easily with a one-click wikilink.  One of the biggest problems with Wikipedia is people trying to impose their own ideas on other people who don't share them. Jclemens (talk) 20:33, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't agree. Let me state up front that I am in general agreement with the principles of the guideline as it is currently written. That said, I don't think there's any benefit to adding anything about US-centric references to the guideline. If a pop culture reference is trivial (and here I am using "trivial" as shorthand for "not meeting any of the criteria for a good pop culture reference"), it should be removed regardless of whether it is US- (or other country-) centric or global in nature. If a pop-culture reference is non-trival, it should stand, even if it is US-centric. If a pop-culture section seems overly US-centric as a whole, the solution is to add more non-trivial references from other countries, not to delete the US ones. And if there are no non-US non-trival pop culture references, that's useful to know too, as it may indicate that the topic is much more widely known within the US than without, and the pop culture section is US-centric because the topic itself is US-centric. I'd wager there's many more US movies and TV shows and books set in Denver than non-US sources, so a (hypothetical) "In Popular Culture" section in the Denver article would, by its nature, have mostly if not entirely references from US sources, and that's perfectly fine. OTOH, if a popular culture section in the Liverpool article consists primarily of non-trivial references from US sources, it could do with the addition of non-trivial references from UK-based media, but the existing non-trivial US references should not be removed. Chuck (talk) 14:59, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

My view
If popular culture references are the only thing to give an article subject notability then they should be included. If the subject is notable in its own respect then they shouldn't because they add nothing. Cull them wholesale. A lot of otherwise decent articles have become an indiscriminate collection of information because a lot of their content is just random mentions in other media. I see these sections as a cancer that without restraint and taken to their logical conclusion would lead to WP being nothing more than a list of things randomly mentioned on some TV programmes with some occasional facts attached. An extreme view, yes, but I see it happening to individual articles and it's starting to creep. d a n n o 21:51, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * From my own (anecdotal) experience, this seems to be the consensus view among active wikipedians. The inversion of this view seems to be common among readers.  I've lost count of the number of readers (not editors) I've met who are happy to see that pop culture info about something is available on wikipedia or dismayed to see it deleted.  I'm not suggesting we make a policy on the basis of my limited experience, but just be aware that our desire as editors to build a reference of which we are not ashamed isn't shared with readers (who generally don't see shame in pop culture references). Protonk (talk) 22:07, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * How to bridge that gap? Occasionally I see popular culture references that add a viewpoint to an article but by and large it seems to be product x/person y/place z was mentioned by programme X/comic Y/singer Z. Worst of all is "was mentioned vaguely in epsiode 17 of season 8 of a series that peaked at 100k viewers". Is there a point where we take the view of not giving the people what they want but what they should get? Sounds harsh, but if we're attempting to build a serious encyclopedia then I think that ultimately it comes down to that. Does it make us look a bit po-faced? Yes. But if people want a fansite then there are plenty out there for them to fill with as much trivia as they see fit. d a n n o  22:23, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The best way to bridge the gap is to lighten up about it. Cancer... Really?  Gotta say, that's a tad hyperbolic. If it's verifiable, it gets included. If it grows to be unmanageable because people add stuff unpredictably, edit it into a format that makes sense and reads better. Do be sure to read WP:NIME any time you feel like something Must Be Eliminated from Wikipedia. Jclemens (talk) 22:31, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * there is no good one answer, hence the proliferation of essays. :) The pat answer is to wait for secondary sources.  That's good as a first cut, so long as we allow for DVD commentary and the like to serve as sources in some cases.  A better answer is to edit the article judiciously. Don't cut everything out but when you can't do anything but resort to a bulleted list, you might want to cull the references.  The problem with saying "if you want a fansite, go elsewhere" is that people will eventually listen.  They will leave and we have fewer people trying to build an encyclopedia.  Also remember that "building a serious encyclopedia" should have emphasis on encyclopedia, not serious. Protonk (talk) 22:32, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * And THAT's not a particularly good answer either. Per WP:NNC, secondary sources (that is, notability) aren't required for the facts in an article, just for the main topic as a whole.  So, one doesn't need a secondary source to cite Wayne's World (film) using Bohemian Rhapsody, even though I'm sure that several exist for that particular intersection. Jclemens (talk) 22:37, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not a great answer, but it is good as a first pass. There are plenty of references which do appear in the secondary literature (and there is a huge literature on films and TV in the US).  Start from there and build out, as is appropriate to the article subject. Protonk (talk) 22:59, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Protonk I take your point, although it still seems counter-productive to let stuff in that will presumably be removed if the article is to get to GA or FA status (I can't recall seeing such an article with a lot of random pop culture refs although happy to be proved wrong). I'm by inclination an inclusionist and I've seen articles disappear from here that I would have happily kept, but I do feel that once something is here then the content should earn its keep as it were. Jclemens - thanks for directing me to an opinion piece written by...you. ;) d a n n o  18:19, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * You're absolutely welcome. Not surprisingly, I do tend to be the biggest promoter of opinion essays I've written; the entire reason I write them is because it's at least the third time I've had to make a particular argument, so I decide to write it up formally, vs. attempting to recapture the magic of my rapier wit multiple times. Jclemens (talk) 01:37, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Blogosphere implosion.
I just caused it. MatthewFortuneW. (talk) 03:52, 27 September 2012 (UTC) Matthew Wells- September 26, 2012

WP:IINFO
Would someone who thinks that WP:IINFO should be referenced anywhere at all in this essay please provide a plausible argument based on the content of what it actually says in that policy section?

Furthermore, would anyone (same or different) like to justify how the WP:CRUFT linkage is at all appropriate in light of WP:CRUFT? Jclemens (talk) 03:18, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * "merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia. To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources" seems quite applicable to the content discussed in this essay, as does most of the CRUFT essay. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:57, 24 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Because your overly strict, word-for-word reading of is not the consensus viewpoint on Wikipedia. This has been demonstrated many times on many different discussion pages. You go in guns ablazing over WP:IINFO with the narrowest of interpretations and most other editors just do not agree with you. WP:IINFO is not meant to be interpreted literally as a prohibition against three specific things. So please, stop getting your feathers ruffled everytime somebody challenges you on this, because there are a lot of editors who do not agree with you, and your reading does not have the backing of a consensus on here. You are fine to have your own view point, but please do not make the mistake of thinking that this is how the policy is administered.


 * Most editors view IINFO as a generic prohibition against unencyclopedic fluff. It can and should be mentioned within this essay because it is one of the key policy tools editors have at removing useless junk lists of culturecruft of this variety. The policy is appropriate to cite and highly relevant to this topic. It should most certainly be referenced within this article.  Them From  Space  22:14, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If what you say is true, then seek to have it changed. You've been railing against what the policy actually says for... how long now? And yet, you pretend the introduction to the three very specific cases is normative, when it was never developed that way. We've been over this ground again, and again, and again... yet you want the policy to mean what you think it means, without any actual change to align what it says (which matches what *I* believe it means) with what you think it means. Jclemens (talk) 01:25, 25 May 2013 (UTC)


 * What Nikkimaria and Themfromspace said. --John (talk) 22:23, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Magical Negroes
If anyone has any thoughts to offer on Talk:List of Magical Negro occurrences in fiction I'd appreciate hearing them. I'm concerned that for this kind of list it may be appropriate to have more than one citation per entry. Thanks! DonIago (talk) 18:21, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Replied there. Short answer: you're wrong. Jclemens (talk) 20:47, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see how a person could be right or wrong simply for having a concern, nor do I see how adding that here was intended to be productive, but thanks for your reply. DonIago (talk) 20:51, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Like I said, short answer. Long answer "The hypothetical problem you raise is already addressed by other policies, and thus there's no need to add another bureaucratic rule to cover an entirely uncommon situation".  Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 23:19, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Plot summaries
It would be helpful for this page to have some guidance on a common pattern of "in popular culture" usage, which is to detail works of fiction in various media which use an article subject as a plot background. For example, the article on the 1918 flu pandemic details some novels, movies and television dramas that use the pandemic in their plots.

Aramando (talk) 11:30, 27 January 2015 (UTC)Aramando

Removing "notable" from this page
Notable and non-notable are being used on this page in several places to reference article content, rather than entire articles. I propose these be rewritten to something else, like "encyclopedic", to avoid confusion with WP:N, which only applies to the question of whether a topic deserves its own article. Any objections? Jclemens (talk) 07:37, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree that the term is confusing and should be switched out, as the real-world meaning of notability and WP:Notability are two different things. I edited the page to remove the confusion. Feel free to change this if you don't like my word choice.  Them From  Space  19:10, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Yep. Though there (as of today) a mention or two of this word in there that actually do have the Wikipedia jargon meaning, on purpose.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:31, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * FWIW, when referring to article content I try to use "significance" rather than "notability". DonIago (talk) 06:07, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia in popular culture
Do we have an article like this somewhere for keeping track of references to Wikipedia in other media, particularly in many-episode TV series?

Even if this is an area that it not deemed noteworthy enough for a main article space, it seems like something we could do here in the Wikipedia section.

For example in "Un-vetted" the star Blythe Baxter comments "I knew I should have cross-checked factopedia", clearly parodying Wikipedia, when she believes Mona Autumn spent a year in the mountains, but it turns out she never came and just sent her assistant who stayed less than an hour. Little Charmers also has the protagonists consult "Spellipedia". We could separate references like this which use similar names indirectly referencing Wikipedia from other references which directly cite it without changing the name. 184.145.18.50 (talk) 23:05, 7 March 2016 (UTC)