Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)/Archive 46

Third prong editing question.
IT currently reads:

"Significant, real-world information must exist on the element, beyond what is revealed in the plot of the fictional work. Examples of real world content include: creative influences, design processes, and critical, commercial, or cultural impact. Sometimes this real-world perspective can be established through the use of sources with a connection to the creators of the fictional work, such as developer commentary. Merely listing the notable works where the fictional element appears, their respective release dates, and the names of the production staff is not sufficient. An article with a verifiable real-world perspective that establishes real-world notability will rarely be deleted."

I think it should read:

"Significant, real-world information must exist on the element, beyond what is revealed in the plot of the fictional work. Examples of real world content include: creative influences, design processes, and critical, commercial, or cultural impact. This real-world perspective can be established through the use of sources with a connection to the creators of the fictional work, such as developer commentary. "

Thoughts? I don't see this as a change that would impact too much opposition/support above, except that opposition that feels we are too verbose. Protonk (talk) 01:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that's a substantial change. It's important to clarify that a list of works/release dates/authors is not really the significant real-world information we require. Randomran (talk) 02:01, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * But isn't that noted in the first sentence? I realize that a list of examples isn't exclusive, but it would seem pretty descriptive. Protonk (talk) 02:08, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Authors and appearance dates aren't revealed in the work. But they're data that can be found for even the most trivial works of fiction. Randomran (talk) 02:20, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Whoops. That's my mistake.  I meant the second sentence. Protonk (talk) 02:32, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm worried about people substituting a list of authors for the design process, and a list of releases for commercial impact. Randomran (talk) 02:56, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * We can probably laterize this specific point, but I don't think that is a big fear of mine. We certainly do have a lot of the "it happened so it needs an article" crowd, but that doesn't seem to prevail at AfD. Protonk (talk) 02:59, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that we should not be this overspecific at this early a date. Protonk's version is much better DGG (talk) 04:43, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

(←) In cases where consensus is hard to determine, as here, it is better for a guideline to say less, at least at first. Consensus can then develop through the normal editing process. I don't have a strong view on the "Merely listing..." sentence, but the final sentence is inappropriate: guidelines should not and cannot predict what will happen as a consequence of their existence. They are meant to describe pre-existing consensus, not prescribe it, and to inform and advise editors, not tell them what they can or cannot do. Geometry guy 12:12, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

First prong tinker
I just noticed that Notability (books) sets itself up as a modification of WP:N, not as an alternative. Although WP:N is encapsulated in its methods of passing, this set up what was, for me, a slight problem with the first prong - it was demanding that a work significantly exceed a guideline that does not necessarily apply to it. I tinkered to have the wording reflect significant exceeding of the relevant guideline to deal with this, as well as reinserting the use of "popularity" that seemed to assuage some fears about this prong. I tried to do this while still stressing the importance of sources, but if anyone wants to clean it up further, go ahead. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:01, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the change is helpful. The other major change needed, in my opinion, is the move/ retitle so its clear this policy addresses elements in fiction and not the works themselves. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Make sure you drop by the "poll" here: Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(fiction) and let us know what you think the title should be. Protonk (talk) 19:00, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Multiple Participations in Art seems notable-qualifying to me.
I got dragged here kicking and screaming, with nary the least clue as to how one should vote for a new guideline. I could read 13 seemingly related articles and their ever-fraught talk pages ("Dear sir, you are, without any doubt, a rogue, a rascal, a villain, a thief, a scoundrel and a mean, dirty, stinking, sniveling, sneaking, pimping, pocket-picking, thrice double-damned no-good son-of-a-bitch.", followed by "Did not!!" and "Uh-huh!!" and "You've been reported for violating STRANGE-INITIALS!", and "I note from your contributions that you're rilly just a shill for the left-handed Eskimo plumbers cartel."). Alternatively, I could just say a) that I like the proposal I read, and would actually advocate a slightly stiffer one on my bad days, and a slightly weaker one on my good ones, and b) for me the key question is, on moderate days, "has this fictional element played a role in more than one work of art?" If the answer is yes, it's a no-brainer for me that the element deserves a page.

And so but anyway, shouts out to my dead David Foster Wallace, and how would I vote? --GPa Hill (talk) 00:41, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I would like to point out that Ma Kent's scissors have played a role in more than one work of art. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 00:43, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * How do we word that to account for cases where the character transcends the work (or outlives the work) and the cases where sequels are just being milled out or characters added to something for promotion? Or as AMiB notes, how do we account for characters or elements that just are in multiple works owned by one author/company? I think there was some discussion in the FICT archives about this. If we did add something, we would add it to the second prong. Questions like this are partially why the second prong was kept somewhat vague. Interestingly enough, I think the first iteration of the guideline included the very provision you mention.  I'm not endorsing it explicitly, but it was there.  Protonk (talk) 00:47, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Concerns about intent, reach and clarity

 * "The subject should be an episode or recurring character that is central to understanding the fictional work." Central to understanding the work? What kind of criteria is that? Is Lando Calrissian central to understanding the Empire Stikes Back? Is C-3PO? Why is this criteria in the guidelines, who decides this and on what basis? Yikes. Should we only include albums that are "central to understanding" the music of a band? Hi everybody! :) ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Right here. Though I'll note that both Lando and C3PO meet the GNG and therefore won't be impacted by this guideline. All we are doing is suggesting that if sufficient independent sourcing for an element doesn't exist, we can still have an article on that element if it meets this guideline. this is carving a small exception out from the GNG. Protonk (talk) 18:59, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This is the one area of the proposal that bothers me most—if independent sources document it, I don't see why it needs to be central to anything. The Jade Knight (talk) 20:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If we take video games as an example, there are independent sources that will likely list details of guns, levels, etc. which are important from the gamer's perspective but rarely central to the work (there are rare exceptions). As we are not a game guide, we don't include thus unless their notability is demonstrated more fully by the GNG.  Mind you, we're talking about an article dedicated to a fictional element - topics that aren't central to a work of fiction can still be documented, but they should not likely be their own article. --M ASEM  21:02, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * And actually this part is even worse :"a work of fiction must be of particular cultural or historical significance. This requires significant external sourcing for the work itself, well beyond the basic threshold of the general notability guideline. Those sources should present clear claims for the artistic or cultural importance of the fictional work." Sources have to say a piece character or episode has cultural importance? Seriously? ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:55, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That refers to the work of fiction, not the character. so Star Wars has been covered by more than the minimum sources required for the GNG, we can apply this guideline.  Joe's Barely Notable Webcomic has not--the characters in there would have to meet the GNG to have their own articles. Protonk (talk) 18:59, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Lando Calrissian, as applied to the three prongs. 1) Star Wars is unambiguously of significance, pass. Lando is a recurring character who not only appears in the films, but also in many novels, including being the main character of a set of them. It's a weak pass, as it's conceivable that one might be able to discuss the films without a link to the page, but the number of appearances including as a central character suggest that it can meet this prong. Finally, there's the criteria for real-world information. The article currently fails this prong horribly, however there is good evidence that it can pass this easily. For example, in literally one search, I found information from Ebony that Billy Dee hoped that this role would be his breakout role where he could meet a mixed-race audience. Not much, but looking through other sources there's plenty of fodder to sift through. It passes. Bingo. Fears alleviated? -- Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 19:03, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * IMHO Lando Calrissian seem an example of strong pass of the 2nd prong: the 3+3 movie are only a (very-very-very) little part of Star Wars narrative universe, and (as also you write) Lando is a central character of many other opera (es The Adventures of Lando Calrissian novel trilogy from Del Rey Books), and is quite obvious that the main character of a series of novels (or comics), is "central to understanding the fictional work".--Yoggysot (talk) 20:35, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Lando Calrissian, mind you, has an obvious potential to meet the third prong. It's arguably his most famous role, and whenever he cameos as himself, there's often a Star Wars reference. Sceptre (talk) 21:03, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment Thanks all for the replies, but I am still concerned about "central to understanding the fictional work." Lando Calrissian is not central to understanding the movies. But I think he's a character that we would want to have an article on, even if there weren't sources and these other fictional works where he's a main player. And that's only ONE of three prongs!


 * Secondly, the "must be of particular cultural or historical significance" is not only subjective, but good luck finding sources that actually SAY that a subject is culturally important. I've read a lot of articles and only very rarely do they assert whether a work is culturally significant, and when they do it's almost always a matter of opinion rather than objective criteria. I can't imagine applying the "cultural significance" and "central to understanding" criteria to other subjects. I think I understand what people are trying to accomplish with the criteria, but it doesn't seem to work.


 * And finally, and maybe this is the core of the problem, I don't see the wording of the guideline making it clear that this is an exemption and intended to allow major fiction subjects that don't meet existing guidelines to slide through. It seems very tight. If this is meant to allow major elements of notable fiction to pass maybe that should be made explicit? Fictional elements in 1984 recently passed because editors determines they are significant and from a very notable work (as I recall the sourcing was a bit thin). But how do you write that into a guideline? Does it depend on popularity? Being published or released by an established mainstream business or organization into prominent venues? What are we trying to exempt and what exactly are we trying to exclude? ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:05, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I suspect that the "of cultural signficance" part of the first prong is going the way of the dodo. My guess is that when we find a good way to say "the work must do more than meet the GNG", we will change it.  As for the appearance of the guideline, it wasn't intended to be a wide door.  It was intended to allow editors a better way than IAR to have articles on major elements of a work.  We tried hard to ensure that the language didn't afford people the opportunity to exploit it, so we might have erred on the side of caution in the wording.  where that can be cleared up, it should be. Protonk (talk) 22:14, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Isn't this about fictional works that don't meet the general notability guideline? If it meets the general guideline there is no issue is there? I thought this effort is to lay out guidelines for works that have cultural significance and influence may not have secondary sources available to meet the usual standards. No? I would be interested in examples that would be affected by this guideline. It's not clear to me what exactly is being addressed. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:26, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This isn't about the works themselves. The books, films, etc. are all covered at least by the GNG.  And for elements within those works, you are right: if it meets the GNG this guideline doesn't matter.  What we are looking for are elements of works of fiction that don't themselves meet the GNG.  So (just for the sake of argument, lets assume that no third party sources existed about Lando Calrissian) we take that element (the character, lando), find that he's relatively central figure to the fictional universe (again, this is relative.  He's not Luke but he's in multiple movies, at the center of a lot of exapnded universe material, etc.), that we have some non-plot info (from any of a hundred licensed books on the subject, which aren't technically independent from the content creators), and write the article.  Another good example that actually meets this is Horus Heresy--a pretty central element in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but one that has almost no discussion in independent sources.  If you look at the world of fictional articles, there are hundreds of articles that we don't AfD but which violate the GNG.  We are sort of ignoring the rules on those, which is fine, but means that things tend to be applied haphazardly.  Sometimes the articles get kept.  sometimes they get deleted.  It all depends who is voting at the AfD and who closes it.  We are trying to iron that out a bit.  That's what we are trying to do. Protonk (talk) 22:34, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * (refactored) I agree with child. It's not clear to me either what exactly is being addressed.Ikip (talk) 23:27, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I refactored the title on this thread to make it less provocative. Some of my concerns about the guideline have been addressed with recent tweaks (like the cultural significance above and beyond part) and if the guideline itself is moved to an "elements of fiction" title, I think I'd be willing to see how/if it works. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Concerning Lando Calrissian, here's how I would approach the subject at an AFD, using this proposal as guideline, and only in reference to The Empire Strikes Back (because the books make this too clearly a keep): I would first ensure the work is particularly notable (it is). Then I would ask myself whether a reasonably detailed plot summary of the film could be written without discussing Calrissian.  I would conclude it couldn't; his betrayal of the main characters to the Empire followed by redemption as he attempts to save them is a major turning point in the plot and should clearly be included.  Therefore, I would conclude that understanding the character was essential to understanding the film.  Finally I would ask what real world information existed, and of course there is plenty. JulesH (talk) 12:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Good article status
Notability guidelines concern whether an article should be included in the encyclopedia or not. They have no business articulating what has to be done in order to raise the article to good article status. An article is listed as a good article if, in the reviewer's opinion, it meets the good article criteria. Period. I have attempted to remove the digression from the proposal, but have been reverted. Please fix this. Thanks, Geometry guy 20:14, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what is broken. there is a discussion of this exact point above, which was ongoing when the RfC started.  A number of editors are trying to come to some agreement over how to best articulate the point that this guideline dictates a minimum threshold.  Running roughshod over them isn't fixing it. Protonk (talk) 20:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with GeoGuy's changes, as while for me concerns about GA or FA are important (quality over quantity), FICT is to say what can be an article, not what should. -- Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 20:34, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The guideline is not attempting to dictate any part of the GA or FA process, but instead point to the fact that the ultimate goal is to have every article at a quality defined by the GA and FA process; articles that have no chance of doing this on their own should be merged to larger topics that will likely have a better chance of reaching that. --M ASEM  20:35, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Should, but it's no guarantee that they will: see my attempted merge of Myst Online: Uru Live to Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, for example. It's best left to editor discretion, and that's what the guideline should say. -- Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 20:44, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I appreciate that this was included in good faith to encourage article improvement, but it was an unnecessary digression and contained the implicit assertion that some articles on fictional elements may not be eligible for good article status even though they are entitled to exist. Note that my edit was a minimal attempt to remove reference to GA while retaining other aspects of the paragraph. It does not mean I think the paragraph is optimal, or even agree with it. Indeed I prefer Goodraise's version of the proposed guideline anyway (again with the reference to content review cut). Geometry guy 20:55, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree, the process of getting an article to Good Article status is altogether a seperate process, and is only remotely connect with article inclusion criteria. I think what is being articulated in a roundabout fashion is that there is a heirarchy of sources, at the top of which sit reliable secondary sources . What this guideline is trying to say (but does not), is, in the event of their being a dispute about the inclusion of a particular topic (such as a dispute about a which of two articles might be a content fork, for instance), then the topic with independent sourcing is likely to treated as being superior to the one that is not (all other things being equal). --Gavin Collins (talk) 22:08, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Though it should be noted, there is a non-trivial strand of thinking on inclusion issues that "if it can be made into a good article, it should be included." So to say that GA issues are irrelevant to inclusion is, to my mind, wrong. Potential is a huge part of inclusion issues, and an article without any potential is a hard sell for inclusion. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:29, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well GA status itself changes as well. GA status now is not the same as it was 3 years ago and probably won't be the same 3 years from now. じん    ない   23:31, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If independent sourcing ever stops being needed for GA status, I'll remove the mention to it in between bits of hat. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * "Potential" is an issue to be sorted out within the notability guidelines. GA is a content review process. It is not about endorsing what should or should not be in the encyclopedia. If you feel this "nontrivial strand" is exerting a contrary influence, please provide diffs and I will comment there (aka whip ass :) accordingly. Geometry guy 23:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * GA marks that an article is, well, good. If an article cannot possibly be good, we oughtn't have it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok. I can see the point. We (Gavin, Phil, Random, David, myself, and others) have spend a considerable time around this guideline. We have grown accustomed to its quirks and understand where sections stand in for principles. As such, it is very hard for us to see that the wording could be confusing or unclear for readers who haven't been working at this feverishly for months. I support the change to remove the GA bit...mildly. the point being that we don't want a situation where topics are split and split again just so that some subject can have an independent article--the language about the GA was meant to speak to that. I am willing to support small changes to the guideline to straighten out possible kinks and prevent opposes based on "it is too complicated". As such, I can support this change. Protonk (talk) 01:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that there is no reason to mention GA/FA quality in this guideline. The purpose of WP:FICT is to help us decide what is and isn't a suitable topic for this encyclopedia, and I don't think saying "If the article can't be done well some time in the future, consider not doing it at all" is in any way a helpful thing to say. Reyk  YO!  01:03, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I continue to prefer to leave it in, especially since it was a change that brought several people on board, and the objections seem to me somewhat spurious - I'm deeply unsympathetic to people who think this guideline is too complicated. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

What the fuck? All that work to get a compromise, and the closest anyone gets to it is immediately dismantled? Fine. Then if the GA/FA clause is out, I insist that Independent Reliable Sources be readded immediately. Otherwise all we've got is 'anything goes and anything stays'. Gutting that means there's never a barometer to measure against, no standards of any sort even presupposed, and we have an essay that completely fellates the inclusionist mindset of everything's notable. ''STRONGEST POSSIBLE OBJECTION'. ThuranX (talk) 02:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There is still the requirement of works published for development information. Not every single item is going to have that. Also their is still the test of importance and if you think a 1 episode character from a 200+ episode show could pass as "central to the plot" you misunderstand the entire definition of importance. じん    ない   02:44, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * He does have a fair point, underneath the rather startling incivility. The GA issue was a needed concession to a significant viewpoint. I don't really see a persuasive argument for its removal - yes, GA is a separate process from notability. But an article that cannot be improved to GA status is likely to be deleted, no? Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If it's the "good article" mention that bothers people, I would be happy enough to try a phrasing that avoids it: something like
 * While this guideline documents a presumption of notability, eventually, that presumption must be satisfied. Our guidelines on sourcing and our policy of verifiability all demand some level of third-party sourcing. Should it prove impossible to locate such sources after a good faith effort to provide them, the article will be subject to merging or deletion.
 * That's the version that avoids mention of "good article status", and I think people can see why the "good article" version was chosen as a compromise... it reads much more softly.&mdash;Kww(talk) 03:01, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not just sourcing...I may have to go pull up an FA discussion on notability in regards to a certain hurrican article that was really short, but I think a key factor that came out of that was also "comprehensiveness". Basically, we have no specific policy or guideline on quality; the closest is WP:IMPERFECT, though the FA/GA process represent elements of that.  We need to say something along those lines. --M ASEM  03:04, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that sourcing isn't the only issue ... that's why I didn't complain about using it as the justification even though all I had been pushing for was sourcing. That's a twin-edged sword, though. While it brings in a lot of other issues, those other issues seem to be an obstacle to acceptance. My personal judgement is that it was a sound compromise, though.&mdash;Kww(talk) 03:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thuran...you don't really have a lot of capital to demand compromises. And also, I'd think strongly about claiming this is some sort of inclusionist blow job, as colorful a metaphor as that is.  From the distribution of support vs. wikistance, we seem to get a lot more "ZOMG, no" opposes from inclusionist than deletionists.  I'm as perturbed as anyone about some of the demands made midstream here, but we've got to step back and say that we don't own this and that concessions made between parties then don't necessarily bind our hands now. Protonk (talk) 03:13, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * (Kww)I think that's much better since a lot of articles will never make it to GA status since they may never be nominated by a signifigant contributor to go through the arduous process. I do have to take note however with 1 part, "the article will be subject to merging or deletion." This makes it sound like it will inevitably happen, which is twisting the truth since a lot of articles that reach B-class are not merged or deleted. じん    ない   03:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, to be fair, "ignored and nobody tried to improve it for ages" clearly does not qualify as an effort to improve it to GA status. The issue is that someone tried and the topic just wouldn't support that kind of expansion and improvement. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:30, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No, i'm talking about someone who didn't want to go through the long (and it can be very long for some articles) process of GA status. B-class assessments and peer reviews are much quicker and a person may consider that good enough if it meets this guideline. Per WP:GAN you really aren't suppose to do "drive by nominations" either so if another editor came along and couldn't get a hold of the primary contributor, then the article may never get to GA status, even if it has potential.
 * Furthermore, once an article reaches B-class through legitimate review (ie not a primary contributor) it becomes a lot harder to delete or merge it. じん    ない   03:38, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * "Capital to demand compromises"? I've got as much capital as you do... Unless you're pulling rank to get your way? Is that it? a subtle 'i've got a badge nudge? ah. well, if that's what this has come to, I can only continue to oppose it bluntly, in all forms short of a requirement fro independent reliable sourcing to establish notability, as I've always done. ThuranX (talk) 06:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No. I just haven't spend my time here shitting on people trying to come to a compromise.  It has nothing to do with the tools.  "Capital" refers to Political capital.  If you are going to storm in here and say that this is some sloppy bj for inclusionists you don't get to demand content changes.  People are going to ignore you. Protonk (talk) 06:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I pressed for this clause namely just to encapsulate this: "if you improve the article and the independent coverage is so limited that you can't make it into a quality article (whether GA/FA/whatever), then the material is better merged." However you care to phrase that will float my boat. In the end, the entire point of keeping articles with FICT whose real world context is solely developer commentary is to allow for articles that can feasibly be improved to some higher level of quality to be kept. If you hit a wall and there's literally nothing more you can write about a subject to bring it to XYZ quality status, then it should be merged. I fully understand that editors with decent enough research and writing skills to bring articles to GA/FA don't grow on trees, and that articles are going to sit for a while with those couple sentences of developer commentary, but if someone can look at that article and say, "we really can't improve it past this because the coverage is so limited," then it should be merged. — sephiroth bcr  ( converse ) 09:38, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not a genius. But I can't help but feel there's another way to say the exact same thing without referring to good or featured article status. Randomran (talk) 15:32, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Something like "Articles who have not shown consistent improvements and do not already have significant independent sourcing may be merged if it is felt to help both the quality of both." じん  ない  19:07, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Possibly I did not make myself clear enough. The two sentences "Although an article with no independent sources may meet the minimum threshold to avoid deletion, independent sourcing is necessary to reach good article status. Articles that resist good-faith efforts to improve them to good article status, including the search for independent sources, are often merged into other articles." are illogical and irrelevant nonsense. The first sentence comes pretty close to defining a new class of articles which can exist (i.e., not be deleted) but are not eligible for good article status. That's unacceptable. The second sentence makes no sense. How does an article resist good faith edits? By crashing the servers every time someone clicks the edit tabs? How it prevents editors from searching for independent sources is even more mysterious. Even other editors can't do that. Finally the sentence informs us that such misbehaving articles "are often merged". According to whom??

The logic that content review processes have anything to do with whether an article should exist or not is staggeringly weak. However, when I read through a guideline with prose so bad that if it were an article at GAN, reviewers would fail it immediately, perhaps I should not be surprised that the logic employed is just as weak as the writing.

Reading this thread, I see that the real reason that nonsense like this has been inserted is to bring on board some with an entrenched deletionist position, when an actually relevant statement might be offensive those with an entrenched inclusionist position. Sorry, if this is the best you can do, then you're forever going to be stuck with WP:GNG and AfD consensus (case law). There's simply no point in having a guideline that is malformed by infighting rather than an attempt to reflect a coherent consensus position. Geometry guy 19:09, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * You were clearer before. Now you're just being silly. This proposal does not establish a class of articles that can neither be deleted nor attain good article status - the existence of articles that survive AfD but are not good articles does that. And your confusion over the idea of an article resisting efforts to improve it is puzzling to me. Is the trope of personification new to you? "resists efforts to improve it" is a shorter way of saying "that is still poor quality after efforts to improve it to a high quality article, and where the lack of improvement comes not because of the poor quality of the efforts but rather because the article simply cannot be improved significantly, and particularly when those efforts involve searching for independent sources." We could unpack all of that, but honestly, "resists efforts to improve it," through the mild use of figurative language, seems to me to accomplish all of that. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:27, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * But you can not afford to be in any way ambiguous with the wording or meaning of this proposal if it has hopes of being understood and used properly. Hooper (talk) 19:39, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's really ambiguous, though - what other meaning do you see "articles that resist good-faith efforts to improve them" as possibly having? Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Articles that survive AfD are still eligible to become GAs if (at some point in the future) they meet the criteria. If articles without independent sources are entitled to exist, they are eligible for GA status if and when they meet the criteria. The words "third party" and "independent" do not appear in the criteria.
 * And yes, the sentences are ambiguous. My charitable interpretation of the confusing prose before your comment was: articles which are not improved towards good article status by editors adding independent sources are likely to be merged. I imagine this is what entrenched deletionists want from this. What they want to hear is that articles without independent sources are temporary, and will eventually be merged unless such sources are found. If that is what you mean, say it. If it isn't what you mean, make that clear. If you want to fudge the issue, say nothing, and leave it to case law at AfD.
 * You haven't responded to my comments about the underlying reasons for this fudge. I only ask that you do not use GA as a proxy for it. Geometry guy 20:47, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Although you are right that "independent" does not appear in the GA criteria, it seems to me to appear indirectly - the standards for any fictional subject would include a reception section as part of comprehensive coverage. Reception sections require independent sources. So the statement remains true. And indeed, after significant searching, I could not find a single GA that did not have independent sources. And your charitable interpretation is far from what was meant. What is meant is that an article that can't be better sourced than the minimum and can't improve to GA status (as a rough pick of something that is not that hard to achieve, and also is an external judgment, which is helpful) is likely to be merged, but that on the other hand saying "Not enough sources, merge" is not sufficient - one has to actually do the work to try to find them. If you can think of a more efficient way to get this across, I'm open to suggestions. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:11, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * "Comprehensive coverage" isn't a GA criterion either. Neither is a reception section. Should Lando Calrissian have a reception section? What should it say?
 * As for suggestions, I have already made several in this thread. So far they have led nowhere. Geometry guy 21:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry that I did not go and look up the exact wording of the GAC to see that the magic word was "broad in its coverage" and not "comprehensive coverage." However, a quick survey of fictional character GAs does show that they all have reception sections, or have blocks that could readily be relabeled as reception sections. So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that yes, reception is part of comprehensive... sorry, broad coverage. I'd be very, very surprised by a fictional character article that has GA status and no reception information. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * As for suggestions, reading through the thread, I'm not seeing where you've proposed better wording for what is trying to be said here. Maybe I'm missing it. Could you do me the favor of recopying whatever your proposed fix for this section is? Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * (ec) The best fix would be to delete these sentences. I have proposed generic other fixes, but I am neither a deletionist nor an inclusionist, so you'll have to tell me what concerns these sentences are supposed to address. Geometry guy 23:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * "Comprehensive" vs. "broad" is one of the key distinctions between FA and GA. Now that you have learned that distinction, you might consider commenting with a less sarcastic tone. You can make whatever mistakes you like on a talk page (and you still have avoided addressing the underlying reasons for these crap sentences). What you can't do is expect draft guidelines which show no understanding of other processes to be accepted by the community. The limb you are on is very weak. Consider retreating before it snaps. Geometry guy 23:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If you were incapable of making the assumption that I was referring to the "broad coverage" section of GAC when I used a term that would normally be considered a synonym, I have to say, I think you're being too pedantic to usefully talk to. Harping that I did not say the magic word when my intent and meaning were relatively easy to intuit is, frankly, irritating nitpicking that makes me wonder if your issues have any substance, or if I just happen to be failing to use some other magic word. Abracadabra? Alakazam? Klaatu barada nikto? Ah well.
 * In any case, I indicated the point of the sentences several times above, but here goes again: The three prongs exist to show articles that have sufficient potential to make deletion unwise. Several people - Kww was one of the most vocal - expressed the (frankly reasonable) concern that articles might pass the three-prong test but actually not be improvable beyond that. The problem is, in such cases, one has to distinguish between articles that have simply sat unimproved for a long time (which is fine) and articles that actually can't be improved (which is not). We also need to define improvement in a reasonably objective fashion. GA status was chosen because it was objective, a significant mark and a relatively easy bar to clear. A and B-class articles don't work because there's not the same objectivity. If you have an idea for a way to deal with the issue of articles that cannot be improved beyond their current state that maintains objectivity, the issue of sourcing, and the fact that the standard of proof is a real, good-faith effort to improve them, go for it. I'm happy to look at better language. But the sentences cannot be cut without a replacement - they deal with an important point. And I don't, off-hand, see a way to deal with the issue you're raising (which seems to amount to "I'd rather this page not mention GAs," since you don't seem to be saying there's anything inaccurate about the claim that independent sourcing is needed to reach GA status in practice). If you have wording that you think would work, I continue to be eager to hear it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * To be fair, I've never been particularly involved with the GA or FA processes, but it's fairly clear to me that there's a big difference between "comprehensive coverage" and "broad coverage". Comprehensive coverage would mean that every angle that is considered important or relevant is covered; broad coverage would mean only that a reasonable proportion of those angles are covered.  Therefore, it seems clear to me that a fictional element topic could meet GA requirements without a reception section.  Obviously the article would have to include some elements that were not plot summary in order to meet the requirements, but this could (for example) be a 'history of development' style section sourced to non-independent sources. JulesH (talk) 12:40, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * How about:
 * "Although an article with no independent sources may meet the minimum threshold to avoid deletion, independent sourcing is necessary to reach good article status. Articles that resist good-faith efforts to improve them to good article status, including the search for independent sources, are often merged into other articles. Effort should be made to find appropriate reliable, independent sources. Remember that both our guideline on reliable sources and our policy on verifiability call for articles to "rely on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. "


 * Becomes:
 * "Although an article with no independent sources may meet the minimum threshold to avoid deletion, our policy on verifiability call for articles to "rely on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Articles that resist good-faith efforts to improve them, including the search for independent sources, are often merged into other articles. Effort should be made to find appropriate reliable, independent sources."


 * I understand the complaints about the guideline speaking outside its remit. I also understand the complaint that we appear to be setting up two hurdles.  The first, the three prongs, the second, some "requirement" that articles become good articles.  Here I think we can demur from enshrining what we think current practice is and speak more simply.  We want articles to rely on independent sources, but the bare minimum set by this guideline doesn't mandate it. Protonk (talk) 23:38, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

(←ec) The problem that we're having here is that it's vaguely clear that an article that only relies on primary sources, or even mostly primary with one or two weak secondary sources, will likely at some level as editors try to improve it. Since we ultimately want every article on WP to be perfect, recognizing that's not going to happen for a few good decades, we need to figure out what the rationale would be to encourage editors to recongize when an article that only can be sourced to mostly the primary source and a trivial amount of secondary material will not pass GA or FA - but there may be failure point before that. Maybe a better point is to use the example assessment table to state that such articles will have a more difficult time being assessed higher than a C-class (as that table calls out fiction elements with only in-universe information), instead of specifically calling out the GA process as GGuy is concerned about. --M ASEM 23:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Although I have many concerns about this part of the proposed guideline, I am generally happy with a move, as suggested by Protonk, towards citing policy rather than content review processes: in this case policy says it pretty well. I am against using WP:ASSESS, as that is whole other can of worms. Geometry guy 23:51, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * My problem with that wording is that it is unclear to me that "third party" and "independent" are synonyms, and doubly unclear to me how those differ from "secondary." The closest thing to defining "third-party" that WP:V does is a link in the sources section to the PSTS section of NOR, which makes me think that third party is meant as a synonym for "secondary," especially since the equivalent sentence in NOR is "Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources." The problem is that DVD commentaries and the like are clearly secondary sources, and thus seem to me likely to be third party sources. And the people whose objections this language is meant to address are worried about independent sources, not secondary sources. Unfortunately, "independent source" is a term used on one policy page - WP:N. So we're left grasping for synonyms and empirical data, since there is a lack of a good policy page to point to here. I'm really loathe to point to WP:V to do it, because I think that equating third-party with independent is inconsistent with WP:V. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:09, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Somewhere in this morass, Hiding and Kww had a discussion about that. We could do better than what V does with third party, I agree.  Although I would argue that "third party==independent".  I think we might want to look back through the guideline to make sure that we are clearly and consistently using "third party" and "secondary" where they are appropriate. Protonk (talk) 00:37, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm going to be pretty firm on the concept that a "secondary" source is completely separate concept from "third-party" or "independent". Secondary is based on the relationship between the source and the thing being described, "third party" and "independent" describe the relation between the creator of the source and the creator of the thing being described. DVD commentaries by the creators, writers, editors, publishers, whatever are certainly secondary, but not third-party.&mdash;Kww(talk) 00:55, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * And I'm pretty firm in disagreeing with you, because I'm already skeptical enough of the creator/work link, little yet the corporate owner/work link as a major issue. And, beyond that, looking at WP:V, all evidence on that page is that it's talking about secondary sources (which, otherwise, it doesn't mention at all, which is baffling). This seems to me at best a matter of controversy, caused in part by the existence of three policy pages (N, V, and NOR) that all use, basically, different terms to describe what are clearly closely related concepts. But I think that, if nothing else, treating WP:V as essentially restating WP:N backdoors WP:N as policy when WP:N is clearly (and by consensus) a guideline. I mean, I'm willing to agree to disagree with you on this point, but like you, I'm reluctant to see the other side of this debate enshrined as a guideline. :) In any case, addressing Geometry Guy here, you see why moving away from GAs is a bit of a problem here. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:06, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * GA is not a crutch to lean on when WP:V makes you weak in the knees. Geometry guy 01:32, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Nor is it being used that way - it's being used as a clear marker of quality that, empirically, seems to involve independent sources. And encompasses other issues too, which is nice, as independent sources are not the only reason for a merge. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:45, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Wait. I was under the impression that we did consider secondary to mean works commenting on primary material (...that's a sloppy def. but we get the point across) and "third party" to mean independent from the creator/owner.  Is that not the case? Protonk (talk) 02:05, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd say the most neutral answer to that question is "I don't have a goddamn clue." It's an extremely vague bit of a policy that, like most of our policies, was not written with fiction in mind at all. Since resolving that issue seems, shockingly enough, actually harder than resolving notability and fiction, trying to get around the problem is desirable. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That's certainly what the terms mean. People can argue that the policy doesn't say what the author meant it to say, but that's a different issue.&mdash;Kww(talk) 02:37, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * People can also, quite reasonably, argue what "party" means as a concept when applied to works of fiction. I think the policy is far from clear here. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:42, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, what happens when we just treat the words as they are intended to be used here? "Secondary source" may be hard to define completely but it is relatively easy to delineate with respect to a particular fictional work.  Let's take the Calvin and Hobbes 10th Anniversary collection.  It is a partially annotated work by Bill Watterston.  The comics themselves, insofar as wikipedia is concerned, are the primary work.  For the purposes of our guidelines, the annotations and commentary by Watterston could be considered secondary material.  Someone studying C&H could obviously mine his commentary as a primary source, but that is not a distinction which is productive to explore in the guideline.  That said, you would have an awfully hard time convincing me that Bill Watterston, speaking in those annotations, is an "independent" or "third party" voice on Bill Watterston the artist of those panels.  That is more a function of who he is, rather than where he speaks--Martin Garnder, speaking in the The Annotated Alice, is certainly independent of Lewis Carrol.  My takeaway is that secondary sources are removed from the narrative of the work in question.  Third party sources are usually also secondary (with the exception on parallel narratives or re-imaginings), but secondary sources are not necessarily "third party" simply due to their removal from the narrative.  Independent should also (this is asserted without proof, but I can gin up some if needed) be considered intellectually independent from the creator and copyright owner.  someone writing DVD copy for Paramount cannot be considered an independent source on Paramount movies.  Again, this is asserted without proof, NBC, FOX, Viacom et al. are so large and nebulous that if we were to travel back the web of parent companies we would be eliminating plenty of literally independent sources for some perceived taint.  We have to exercise some reasonable judgment.  I think that reasonable judgment leaves us with a good outcome: Subjects with 0 secondary sources will never pass, subjects with secondary sources but no independent sources may pass, depending on their relationship to the work itself, but they may be merged or re-arranged at some point (in other words, the guideline isn't a permanent ward), subjects which have some independent coverage (but not enough to meet the GNG) and meet the other prongs are golden. Protonk (talk) 03:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure - but I think there's a better case that Watterson is third-party for, say, Hobbes. Notability, as people seem to like to say a lot, is not inherited. It's not clear to me that partyhood is either. I mean, we should remember, the independent sources issue was hugely contentious, and this was a very tenuously reached compromise. The underlying issues aren't settled. Any alternate compromise needs to also avoid trying to make a claim about the underlying issues. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:24, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think that case can be made with regard to WP. I mean, I can't think of a single human being who is less of an independent source on Calvin and Hobbes than Watterson. John Reiner is more of an independent source on The Lockhorns, as he has only been 'helming' it for part of its run. Whoops, and it's Watterson, no "t".... Protonk (talk) 03:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree he's not independent for Calvin and Hobbes. I'm less certain he's not independent for a given character of Calvin and Hobbes. Degree of ownership and advantage gained by promotion are, for me, factors here. I recognize that this is a controversial position, but on the other hand, the issue is not settled. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:46, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

How's this: "This guideline identifies articles that can likely be improved over time. Part of that improvement is the use of independent sources, which should be actively sought out. Articles that do not improve, particularly in terms of sourcing, despite active, good-faith efforts to improve them, are often merged. Remember that both our guideline on reliable sources and our policy on verifiability call for articles to "rely on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. "

Same basic thrust, avoids the GA reference. Kww - does this still satisfy your issues? Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * So long as no one Humpty Dumptys the meaning of "independent", I'm fine with it.&mdash;Kww(talk) 17:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Halftime score
I just spent some time sorting and crunching comments, and figured I'd give a rough snapshot of where we stand.


 * In raw numbers, we are running slightly but significantly more in support than opposition.
 * The opposition sorts neatly into several categories:
 * Too strict/too lenient: These categories are to be expected. At the moment, they are roughly even, with "too lenient" slightly ahead, but also including some votes that are clearly opposed to notability in general.
 * Too confusing: This is a significant bloc - equal, about, to either side of the strict/lenient divide.
 * Just wrong: There are also a decent number of votes that oppose the guideline for things it simply doesn't say - people who are reading the first prong as going beyond WP:N, people who say the guideline requires no secondary sources, etc. A related category is people who simply don't want a fiction notability guideline, and don't think its necessary - which seems to me problematic given that the arbcom has all but begged.
 * Other. There are a few comments I just couldn't quite classify. Some are sane. Others aren't.

To my mind, the people who oppose the guideline for things it doesn't say are a wash - they at best are evidence that there may be a complexity problem with the guideline. Similarly, as long as the lenient/strict numbers are in rough parity and the proposal enjoys broad support, I am inclined to treat that as an expected group on each side of the debate that will never be satisfied. This is a controversial issue, and any belief that we will please everyone is mistaken.

That leads me to believe that the biggest issue is complexity. There are some who want to strip the guideline down to just bright line rules. This seems to me an unsupportable overreach - no other guideline makes a move like that, and I'm hesitant to establish that (frankly controversial) precedent on an already controversial subject. But on the other hand, cleaning up and clarifying things probably is helpful.

At the moment, if the RfC were to end right now, I would say that we have a few days work of clarifying and cleaning up the language to do, but that there is sufficient support to promote it after some effort is made to address those concerns. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:04, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I was was reading over the RfC and I got pretty much that impression as well. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 03:13, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Please could I ask you how long I have to reply here if you're looking at ending this RfC please? I wanted to comment. :( Whitehorse1 03:17, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Take your time, this will last at least a few more days. Protonk (talk) 03:18, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I appreciate it. Still mulling over the things proposed, so wanted to make sure of turning up to share any thoughts before it being too far along to contribute. :) Whitehorse1 03:37, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah. Plenty of time - I don't think we're shutting this down any time soon. I just figured that going through and tallying up where we were so far would be useful. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That's why this section is called "Halftime score". じん    ない   03:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, as it is half-time, don't we need a little of the boss? Protonk (talk) 03:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * What we need is a liberal serving of popcorn. --Izno (talk) 03:46, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Halftime? ... I was kind of hoping for the 2-minute warning ;) But seriously, what does happen once the RfC closes? Providing consensus is to move forward, what is the next step?  — Ched (talk) 04:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Naw. We let things simmer down a bit.  We try and work through the feedback from the RfC, make some compromises, and see if we can satisfy enough people.  At some point we can ask a neutral party to determine if we can mark this as a guideline.  Don't want to pull a Jimbo just yet. :) Protonk (talk) 04:41, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Note to closing administrator 54% support, 38% oppose. Don't measure the drapes just yet. didn't Jimbo approve flagged revisions with a 60% support to 40% oppose? "Erik Möller, the Deputy Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, previously stated that "a very large majority, at least two thirds, is generally necessary" Ikip (talk) 08:35, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * WP is not a democracy, the number of votes don't matter, only the strength of the arguments. --M ASEM 10:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Is WP:Democracy aimed at myself, or the editors above, or both? :) Ikip (talk) 11:20, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed. If this were a vote, we'd have set it up to use support and oppose sections and numbered comments. But even if it were a vote, I'd have a hard time counting opposition based on things the proposal clearly doesn't say. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:02, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it's worth setting up a list on a subpage, with a list of diff's pointing at the votes we think are based on lack of comprehension? It might help us crystallize our thoughts about what points are frequently misunderstood, as well as providing us with a list of people to contact after we've made text adjustments to try to accommodate the problem. I agree that monkey wrench votes need to eventually be discarded, but I'd rather try to get a meaningful oppose/support out of these people after their confusion has been cleared.&mdash;Kww(talk) 15:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think Phil's reading of the RFC is bang on. I'd conclude that we'd lose more support than we'd gain by loosening *or* tightening our standards. But I think we can gain a lot of support by making it more concise. Not just for those who like concision, but for those who misread and misinterpreted what we've put together. If there's anything I've learned writing documentation, it's that a longer explanation is often worse. People don't like reading "how-to"s. They want to get on with it and apply it. Randomran (talk) 15:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The trick, though, is that this isn't just documentation. It's a compromise forged among multiple diverse viewpoints. It is easy to come in afterwards and miss that, but it is the case, and I think it's substantive. I don't think the proposal would have met with the support it has if it didn't explain itself. The three-prong test by itself wasn't going to be a workable compromise. If the explanation is contradictory, or if it contains a vague hedge that we knew what meant, but didn't explain, that needs to be cleared up. I remain ambivalent on whether that will increase or decrease its size - but since, as inclusion guidelines go, it's a bit, though not hugely on the short side, I can see it going either way without problem. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd also note, at present, on strict vote counting between support and oppose due to complexity, the numbers are running at almost 7:1. Which is to say, although a significant number of people have concerns about the complexity of the guideline, we should remember that they are a substantial minority compared to those who support it as is. In rushing to please those who are unsatisfied, we should keep in mind the large number who like the current version. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:40, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * RE: and comments directly above. WP:RFC "RfCs are not votes. Discussion controls the outcome; it is not a matter of counting up the number of votes."  Ikip (talk) 18:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Please try to not be difficult for the sake of being difficult. I'm not sure where Phil is getting the 7:1 number, but WP:CON would suggest that at the 7:1 ratio we really can take a rough consensus from numbers. Protonk (talk) 18:26, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, that's just support vs. opposition due to complexity - support vs. oppose in general is considerably closer. My feeling is that the "too complex" and "unclear" view is one that needs to be taken seriously and looked at, but that on the other hand we should remember it is still a minority view, and that there is a difference between addressing it and rewriting the guideline. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:29, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Protonk, I appreciate your comments, but I respectfully disagree. I did not originally bring up flagged revisions as a bad example of accepting a guideline when there is no consensus. this proposal currently has even less support than flagged revisions. Ikip (talk) 18:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, my comments related to your response to phil directly above. We are basically close (in numbers) to the flagged revisions debate.  As I've noted, it would be inappropriate for someone (especially someone who favors FICT) to announce that it has consensus.  But what Phil is saying is the opposite of that.  He's saying that we can make changes to the guideline based on the feedback from the RfC to satisfy a number of the concerns.  More importantly, he's saying that once those concerns are satisfied (That is, the people who are willing to compromise are onboard), we can move ahead because the number of people who support, are neutral or would support if the guideline were clarified far outweigh the number of people who oppose (Even if we include the people who oppose because of an apparent misunderstanding of the guideline).  At that juncture we can talk about strength of arguements and moving forward to some agreement. Protonk (talk) 18:44, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The RFC reveals concerns, some which we can address, some which we can't. The substance of inclusionism/deletionism is something we can't address without destroying the balance. But I have reason to believe that we'll gain support by making this guideline shorter and less complicated, and lose very little support if we do it properly. Most folks are skimming as is. Randomran (talk) 20:41, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Another thing that needs to be noted is that there has been canvassing against this proposal, with at least one editor targeting article talk pages in a way that clearly violates WP:CANVAS. Little that can be done to close the barn door, but it should be kept in mind in reading the results. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:39, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Who has been canvassing / votestacking? They need a stern warning, or worse. Randomran (talk) 20:41, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * In reading that section carefully, if a notice to editors who may have reason to be concerned, pro or con, is friendly, worded neutrally and not pushing one view over another, it is acceptable. However, since this proposal does affect so many editors, and hundreds or thousands of articles, perhaps a mainpage notice of this ongoing discussion would bring in some neutral points of view.  Schmidt,  MICHAEL Q. 21:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Selective targeting of editors is problematic, as is mass posting. Both have gone on. It's hard to tell what kind of impact it had, and I don't want to make a big fuss about it, but we should be aware of the issue in reading the RfC. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * One of my concerns with using "notability" is how editors use it in practice in AfDs. See, for example, this "argument" in and AfD.  Seriously, the Power Ranger are not notable and anyone who thinks they are "needs to get a life"?  That's where I am lost with AfDs, i.e. this viciousness bordering on personal attacks, which we have seen before in such nominations as Articles for deletion/List of fictional swords or with the creation of the single-purpose User:Tottering Blotspurs.  It is thus hard to see notability used in practice for much else than "I don't like it" style of unfriendly, non-arguments given these examples (and most of us here could cite countless more, some even more antagonistic and provacative).  People can and should be able to write, "Delete as I am unable to find sources to verify this article's content" rather than "Delete as cruft, lol" or the other nonsensical, nonserious statements we see calling for deletion that frequently accompany a "non-notable".  Of course not all arguments to keep are measured statements, but I tend to see "non-notable" used in this aggresive "I don't like it" manner that makes me really not want to argue to delete, just as I don't want to argue to delete something when anyone else has made some mocking "it's cruft" style of non-argument.  Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 22:04, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a user with two-dozen edits, most of them to a help desk, and a username composed of mashing their fists on the keyboard. They are not representative of anything. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 22:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Which is why I referenced comments by three different accounts. I can if necessary list a number of such comments, because I see these sorts of things all the time.  Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 23:52, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Basically, people are jerks and make bad arguments. Some portion of those people are arguing for delete. Two possible conclusions can be drawn: one, arguments to delete are for jerky and dumb, or two, jerky and dumb people make all sorts of silly arguments.
 * Banging the "notability is only ever mentioned by irrational people, see all these irrational people doing it!" drum isn't useful for anything except as an example of an irrational argument. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 23:56, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * But what they do is use the subjective term "notability" to sound as if their "I don't like it" has some kind of authority, when in these cases and many others it's more of a personal standard of notability and not a reflection of any guideline. As such Wikipedia:Inclusion standards (fiction), Wikipedia:Inclusion criteria (fiction) or something along those lines sounds far less subjective and will be harder to use in the unfriendly manner of the exampels above, i.e. "Delete, because unfortuantely, this article does not meet our [{Wikipedia:Inclusion criteria (fiction]] as we are unable to verify its content through reliable secondary sources" is far more compelling than "Delete as nnotable cruft", which means, "nnotable" by what standard?  Personal standard, etc.?.  Best, --A NobodyMy talk 00:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * And people with two brain cells to rub together brush them off as flakes with empty arguments, if their arguments are indeed empty. The problem is that you just gave two sentences that mean exactly the same thing, only one is stated in a way that offends you personally. "I'm offended by the term non-notable" is unfortunate for you, not terribly relevant to anyone else. - A Man In Bl♟ck  (conspire - past ops) 00:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, there is a whole category of "editors against notability" with userboxes and the like and even editors who proposed non-notability instead just as there have been comments at various places on this page proposing a rename akin to my suggestion as well, so it is relevant to dozens of editors who have participated in this and other discussions. I am not proposing anything new, rather thinking and agreeing with their earlier made suggestions on this page and elsewhere as it offends a lot of people.  Cheers!  --A NobodyMy talk 00:19, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I thought you were talking about people misusing "notability", not completely unrelated things that happen to also have to do with notability. A barrage of non sequitors doesn't serve in lieu of an argument, and I think I'm done encouraging this. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 00:22, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed, people misuse "notability" becasue it is a word that lends itself to subjective use and interpretation and as such we get confused used of it in practice. Some use it based on reading an actual guideline, but many also use it based on a purely subjective or personal concept of what is and is not notable.  Thus, as a means of diminishing this problem, if we using something that is more authoritative and cannot be confused with a subject term, we will be better able to distinguish between misleading use of the other term.  If someone says "non-notable" does that mean not personally notable or not notable per some guideline page?  We don't know, because many times people do not link to a notability page or elaborate on their stance.  Now, if someone says, "does not meet our Inclusion criteria" then it seems far less subjective and is unlikely to be confused with some shorthanded "non-wikipediainclusioncriteria".  Best, --A NobodyMy talk 00:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It seems you have a large task ahead of you in renaming a whole group of guideline pages and reeducating the community. Good luck. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 00:30, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Take care!  --A NobodyMy talk 00:33, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I hate seeing poor arguments in AFDs, and I've always disliked the term "notability" because it could bring arguments that aren't related to Wikipedia's version of notability. I much prefer something like "Inclusion criteria". Having said that, it is the responsibility of the admin closing the AFD to dismiss arguments that apply guidelines incorrectly. --Bill (talk 22:19, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, though, we have had numerous AfDs like the above or perhaps not as harsh, but where you then get a slew of drive by "per noms" and "it's cruft" votes (I have come across a large number of accounts whose sole edits are in effect going down the list of AfDs with "votes" like these) rather than arguments and maybe a couple of keep arguments that note improvements/sources, what have you, but it looks on a quick glance as if a majority (not a real consensus) vote in that snapshot in time five day discussion somehow reflects a consensus to delete. And I have indeed seen admins close such discussions as delete (fortunately, some of these are overturned in DRVs, but still).  Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 23:52, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I want to close the door on this. This has nothing to do with FICT.  nothing.  We could write any kind of guideline we want and people would make silly arguments.  You say yourself that people misinterpret the GNG or ignore it in AfDs.  That sucks.  We can't fix that within the bounds of FICT.  All we can do is give some means for the diligent and interested among us to argue persuasively about fictional subjects. Protonk (talk) 23:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * We could instead use something that does not leave open so much subjectivity, i.e. "Inclusion criteria (fiction)". This way, it is apparent that if someone refers to this guideline it is not subjective, it is clearly about inclusion criteria, scope, standards, whateevr of our project.  And as such then when someone comes up with a "non-notable", it will be apparent that is just a subjective "not notable to me" whereas a "does not meet our Inclusion criteria (fiction) will be the actual guideline based argument.  Notability is a subjective term and regardless of what is actually on this guideline's page, it has and will be used subjectively.  Now, does not meet Wikipedia's "inclusion criteria" does not have that same air of subjectivity.  Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 00:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That's still not related to this guideline. There was a proposal to rename notability to "inclusion criteria" a few months ago.  It had my full-throated support.  But I didn't support it because "notability" was subjective and "inclusion criteria" was objective.  That's a misconception.  "Notability" is a crappy word to choose (it beats "importance") because it has a wide connotation distinct from its encultured meaning here.  That means that we say "notability" meaning "meets the GNG or SNGs" but people who don't think that way think notable means "Worthy of notice; remarkable; memorable; noted or distinguished."  That is a confusion due to non-shared assumptions, not due to subjectivity.  If we rename Notability "inclusion criteria", subjectivity just creeps in at a lower level.  But.  That's still not related to WP:FICT. Protonk (talk) 00:24, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It's relevant, because it's a suggestion to rename specifically this guideline. By the way, do you have a link to the past discussion, it would probably be best if I could just read that and see what was said for clarity.  Thanks!  Best, --A NobodyMy talk 00:30, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, the "notable" half of the guideline name isn't changing unless WP:N changes. The discussion itself was Wikipedia_talk:Notability/Archive_27. Protonk (talk) 02:51, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks as that actually shows that the community was pretty divided, i.e. there actually is a good deal of support for a rename of the main guideline other than "notability." Best, --A NobodyMy talk 18:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

A small update here, in the last 24 hours the "oppose as too strict" crowd, counting those who are opposed to notability outright, has grown to almost double the "oppose as too lenient" crowd. I don't think that's a huge problem, but it does suggest to me that as we work out sticky or unclear bits, we probably need to be very, very careful not to make the guideline any stricter. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:55, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. To be honest, the main reason I am hesitant to support at this time is that some of the supports say they support because they think this will allow for removal of "cruft" and I cannot support anything that actually encourages people to use WP:ITSCRUFT style of non-arguments.  Best, --A NobodyMy talk 18:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If you support the proposition, you should support it. No one is going to look back and say "I said CRUFT, and it won the day".  the people that think of all fictional articles as cruft are going to continue to do so.  Nothing we can do about it. Protonk (talk) 18:17, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It would be nice if you provided pointers to your previous allegations of canvassing. Then we could analyze whether that growth was legitimate.&mdash;Kww(talk) 18:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Next step
Next Step: Hi folks. Pardon the intrusion, but I want to join in too. I haven't contributed anything yet (other than that vote thing several screens up). The reason I haven't added my thoughts is: 1.) I didn't want to step into a big pile of crap as a new guy. And, 2.) I'm not really up to speed on all the diffs yet, and hate when I say fooling things. My question now is, where does this "proposal" go from here, and how can I contribute? Ched (talk) 02:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Basically, you can just join in the conversation; that's what I did a few days ago, and it wasn't that hard. Don't worry about knowing everything, just look at each section at a time.
 * As to where the proposal goes, I think that their will be a formal Request for Comment soon so that we can determine whether or not to make it into a guideline. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:53, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You can skip the archives, but get familiar with what's currently on the page, then figure out where you stand, and then get involved. ThuranX (talk) 03:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think we really know what to do for sure now. In the last 1.5 years I never thought we could reach a compromise, and haven't thought about what to do now.  I'm leery of drawing in a lot of opinions that haven't gone through this with us.  People who want to include way more or way less may think they can get their way by opposing.  A couple of years ago, I thought I'd come in here, make a few good arguments, and get NOTE deprecated.  How wrong I was. ;-) - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It's tricky to jump into a discussion this heated and long. The debate has lasted more than a year. Maybe since the dawn of Wikipedia. It's not uncommon for an outsider to say "I can't believe you guys are still arguing about this -- the solution is so simple!" But the solution isn't simple. Everyone who has come in with a magic bullet has been shut down by one faction or another.
 * I think the key is to look at what you see, and ask two questions: (1) what would I like to change to make this guideline more effective, and (2) will that change gain this proposal more support in the long run? If you've thought those two questions through, then suggest a change. The worst thing that happens is people jump down your throat and say it's a terrible idea, or that it already was suggested before. But even from there, you can start to ask questions like "can you explain why you are opposed to my suggestion?" If we can understand each other's goals (roughly, more quantity of coverage versus more quality of coverage), then we can find compromises that speak to both sides of the fence. Randomran (talk) 03:16, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, for better or for worse, I'll jump in (maybe not at the deep end of the pool yet though). First, I'll assume that nothing done here changes or supersedes the main stuff at WP:N or WP:V and so forth.  Second, I'm a sci-fi and fiction in general fan, and I'll assume most folks here are in one way or another.  My personal views on include/delete are that I'd rather see articles improved as opposed to deleted - that's not to say I want an article on what Worf's favorite foods are.  Since I came in about the time of the page delete thing, ... I'll only say that all people get mad and frustrated, and all people make mistakes - and I'll leave it at that.


 * Now, my first thoughts on the first things about white lists and black lists: I'd be afraid that people would make use of those types of things to look for loopholes, or battle over minor points. I know that policy has to be specific in many cases,  but some times the more "points" you add, the more it mucks up the spirit and intent of a policy.  Well, hope I didn't step on anyone's toes too bad for a first shot, and I'll be back as I read more through this talk page.  Carry on, (but don't throw anything at the new guy yet - he still has his back turned.. lol) Ched (talk) 04:38, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No, this doesn't supersede WP:V. Verifiability is policy. As for WP:N, it may depend upon who you ask. There may be an effort undertaken to clarify WP:V and/or adapt it to community practice (as policy/guidelines follow practice), but that is likely a long-term project because any change, and sometimes even minor, change to WP:V can be contentious and something like this is bound to be.
 * I think though it needs to be as all this guideline is doing is addressing base essentialls of notability for fiction and in a compomise fashion that does not really get at the real issue. じん    ない   04:45, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think this guideline as written will help improve articles alot more than no guideline. AfDs are going to remain the crapshoot they've always been, but at least people will have a better idea of how to improve articles. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:49, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, either way enacting this as a guideline will be like changing Monetary policy--there is a big time lag between changing the regime and the results. It will take a while for people to realize that this is a guideline, that it speaks to fiction well and that it can help guide debate on some marginal articles. Protonk (talk) 06:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Which is why I noted that we should address the problem with lack of clarification with WP:V above with regard to fiction and the way most fiction articles are written and base notability on. The effects of that would be more quick, but it's like getting a bill passed through U.S. Congress. じん    ない   06:32, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, it's definitely one of the primary things that's encouraged me to edit movies and such. I appreciate all the work you guys have put into this.  Even if everyone doesn't always agree on the finer points, I see it as a definite "plus" to Wikipedia. Ched (talk) 07:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Randomran, if you haven't looked at any of the talk page archives, you really should.


 * Since the dawn of Wikipedia? No. Since Radiant! began writing at Fiction in March 2005, so he could cite himself in VFDs. Radiant! has had his thumb in over 59 policies and guidelines.


 * Since Centralized discussion/Television episodes began in October 2005. Since Wikipedia:Fiction was renamed Notability (fiction) in December 2005. This talk page was first archived on June 25, 2006.


 * The discussion on this talk page really increased in July 2006 &mdash; that's clear back in Archive 2 (it's at 43 now). It went from 39 edits in June 2006 to 109 edits in July 2006.


 * On April 4, 2007, TTN made his first comment at WT:FICT. This thread on TTN's talkpage is related to that.


 * The activity jumped again in June 2007. It went from 25 edits in May 2007 to 113 edits in June 2007.


 * In June 2007, Deckiller created User:Deckiller/Notability (fiction). On August 10, 2007, Deckiller moved it over. That's clear back in Archive 4. Then things really started moving. --Pixelface (talk) 11:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The debate about inclusion/exclusion of fictional things is older than WP:FICT. The implications of malfeasance on Radiant's part are not only ridiculous, as common practice was to call something a guideline and if nobody shot it down it would become one, but also a hell of an ancient grudge to still be carrying around. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 12:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * First, it's not a grudge. Second, it's not "ancient." How long do you think Wikipedia is going to be around? There certainly were VFDs before FICT. But is the debate about fictional things older than NOTPAPER? That's from January 2002 &mdash; when the English Wikipedia had about 20,000 articles. The English Wikipedia currently has 2,724,449 articles. What Wikipedia is not mentioned Wikipedia is not paper as far back as March 2003.


 * It's not an "ancient grudge", it's a matter of fact. After Radiant! rewrote NOTE in September 2006 and tagged it a guideline after 16 days, Radiant! edit-warred over the guideline tag. That's a fact. If common practice was to make something a guideline if nobody shot it down &mdash; well, N was shot down. Radiant! currently appears in the top 20 editors of at least 62 policies and guidelines &mdash; that's more than anyone else on Wikipedia.


 * When NOTE was rewritten, I didn't even know about it &mdash; I was busy editing articles. So the idea that I have a grudge is ridiculous. The only reason Fiction was renamed Notability (fiction) in December 2005 was that an editor named Jiy wanted a common naming scheme for several guidelines. I found out about all this after the fact. A few months ago, I made a timeline to make sense of the development of Wikipedia's notability guidelines &mdash; and I'm still not finished. --Pixelface (talk) 01:20, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Things seem to have died down, so why don't we take whatever the next step (RfC?) is. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure an RfC is needed. I see a straw poll a large number of comments, the majority of which came from outside the bubble, as it were. They are overwhelmingly in favor of the guideline. There is still some caution about independence. I think we should work out the final version of the "independence" compromise that we were working on a few sections above, put it in, tag it as a guideline, and get on with our lives. I don't think another round of polling and comments is going to get us anything that the last few rounds didn't. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Great, up to the "tag as a guideline and move on" part. I stick by my initial point, I started that straw poll to be informal and it was never intended to supercede any official requirements for getting a new guideline promoted. There have been changes to the guideline since then, and we're still looking to make some more. When we are "done" (i.e. no major changes, unless otherwise specified in some official capacity), then I think we need to reissue the page for critique by the community as a whole (i.e. re-notify all of the relevant projects, etc). They need to know what the "settled, compromised" version of the guideline looks like before we assume that just because they agreed before they still agree now. Secondly, it does nothing but prove certain editors right if we say "let's just tag it and bag it, the straw poll proved this is golden by the community", when we were arguing initially that the straw poll was to help us figure out if people liked the general idea the guideline was promoting.   BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  19:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep. This has been too arduous a task to then have people bitching in three months that it was decided by a dozen editors that formed a super-secret cabal, pretended to bicker amongst each other, and ramrodded it through. Process is a pain in the ass, but I think it's necessary here.&mdash;Kww(talk) 20:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I would much rather over do it, than not do enough. If you don't do enough then you are inevitably going to have editors show up and say, "this didn't have real consensus, because only a few people knew about it". I'd rather have enough evidence to suggest that we went far beyond the call of duty when getting this thing publicized and receiving feedback for it (feedback beyond "Wikipedia shouldn't have guidelines, because everything is notable").   BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  20:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The straw poll was informal. On the other hand, guideline tagging does not require a vote. WP:NOTDEMOCRACY and all. We've bugged the projects and pages, what, two times already in the past two months? What is a third time going to actually get us? I mean, if I saw a likelihood of new comments, that would be one thing. But we've kept this open for a really long time, and solicited a lot of comments. This is not an under the radar proposal by any measure. I think excessive process invites rules-lawyering. We have a proposal that seems to enjoy wide support. We can point to the depth and breadth of the consensus via the straw poll and via the fact that editors on radically different sides of the debate are OK with this. At this point, I feel like the burden of proof is on people who think this doesn't enjoy consensus. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree w/ Kww. There isn't a rush and whatever process we need to go through in order to demonstrably show that this wasn't a parochial discussion we should undertake.  I'm not worried that rules lawyering will sink the process.  My vote is that we should let the straw poll sit for a while (say, a few more days), then start an RfC.  At the end of that RfC (doesn't have to be a vote necessarily), we can mark this as a guideline. Protonk (talk) 21:11, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think there is a rush, honestly, because frankly, we needed this guideline a year ago. But more to the point, if we're going to solicit yet another round of comments (after the previous final round of comments), I want to have a clear idea of what, exactly, we're looking for that we don't already have. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:16, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * (multiple edit conflicts; this reply may seem a little out of place...) Speaking as a participant in the Attribution development process, I'd suggest caution in claiming a consensus until everything you can do to verify it has been done. I still feel the general consensus (i.e., the one that includes the thoughts of those who don't regularly involve themselves in policy discussions) is probably a little more to the inclusionist side than this proposal represent (although maybe that's just my own bias showing through -- I really still don't understand why, if something is important to understanding a notable work of fiction it should not be included because we lack 'real world' information about it).  But it does represent a better balance point to start from than the current status quo, AFAICT. JulesH (talk) 21:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There has to be an RFC to see if this proposed guideline can stand up to external criticisim. Without it, the credentials of WP:FICT will always be in doubt. --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It appears to me that there has already been significant comment from people uninvolved in the guideline's formation. What sort of external comment are we seeking beyond that? Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, for one, telling people that a straw poll outcome won't result in ratification then ratifying the guideline immediately afterwards doesn't look Kosher. We aren't hurt by waiting a bit, making an RfC and just saying: "Can you live with this as a guideline?  Are there reasons it should not be enacted?  Will this help the encyclopedia?" then moving forward.  If we don't do that, we run the risk of some inclusionists or deletionists (pick whichever side is your personal villain) delegitimizing this guideline from the very start.  We want to be able to say "Here is the RfC.  Here is the discussion.  Here are the points we advertized and the people who participated".  It is bureaucratic but I don't want to get in a fight 2 months from now over whether or not this had consensus in the first place. Protonk (talk) 21:34, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The straw poll was presented as an effort to figure out the outstanding issues. One was identified - a need to nail down the matter of independent sources. Since then, an agreement seems to have been basically reached on that point. Which brings us to the point where we're looking at what makes a guideline a guideline. An RfC after two rounds of comments and a straw poll is an extraordinary step, far outside what past guidelines and notability guidelines have entailed. I still don't see why it's needed, or what we gain that we do not already have. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree that there is a rush. We needed this guideline a year ago, but the horse is out the gate, as it were.  There is nothing to be gained from claiming consensus early and everything to be lost. Protonk (talk) 21:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There is, however, considerable risk, to my mind, of a death by a thousand papercuts approach. This is something I've seen in past policy discussions - ideas with broad support fail because suddenly twenty narrowly different competing ideas are presented, often by people who are quick to offer one line comments proclaiming viewpoints, but slow to spend a lot of time on an issue. Decisions are made by those who show up. Lots of people have shown up already, and that speaks for a lot. Given the fact that the straw poll shows lots of comments from people from outside the discussion, what, exactly, are we looking for in an RfC? Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:32, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, we could wait a few days, if people think that would help. I think we're ready for an RfC and notification of the relevant projects now, though.  I don't think we're going to get more than a couple more supports or opposes, and a question or two, in the next few days.  We didn't get much yesterday.  I do agree we should dot our i's and cross our t's, though.  This page is guaranteed to attract very strong opinions in the future, like it always has. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 21:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * So we format the RfC just like the straw poll. It isn't hard to enter in to that discussion saying that the form and function of the guideline will probably change little and that many minor details have been disputed over dozens of times. Just like the straw poll we want to establish a broad base of support for this guideline. Again, there is nothing magical about an RfC. No one is likely to come in to the discussion and add something hitherto unknown to all of us. What it will do is give some good claim to legitimacy. Protonk (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I'm not sure as to what should be done; technically an RFC is the way to go, but that could result in, as Phil put it, "death by a thousand papercuts." When I first saw the straw poll saying that it wouldn't "make or break" the guideline, I was assuming that most if not all of the input would be from people already involved in the discussion... I hadn't been expecting the amount of outside input that there was. I'm not sure if that additional input should be made "official" and this turned into a guideline or not. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:45, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Our policy on policy doesn't say we need an RFC. It just says we need input from people who didn't write the proposal, and we need to address their concerns as best we can. We got some conflicting feedback: some wanted a stricter guideline, some wanted something more permissive. But we did get input from outsiders, and we did tweak the proposal in ways that both sides could live with. We do have a consensus by most measures, and there are guidelines and policies that have been FAR less rigorous than what we've already done here.
 * That said, I agree with most people that there isn't much value to a guideline if people are just going to deny it. I'm sick and tired of people saying that *policy* like WP:V or WP:OR doesn't have consensus, let alone our guidelines on fiction. I'd rather try to remove all doubt than to try to just squeak this by, because I don't want people to have any excuse to outright ignore the guideline.
 * However, if we're going to go with a wide RFC, we need to get more than people who have an opinion on fiction -- we need people who have opinions on Wikipedia wide policies, because this guideline does tow the line in contradicting WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:RS. (Or at least, a few people have a reasonable belief that it does, which is reason enough to get their comment.) Randomran (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Think it's safe to BE BOLD and turn this into a full guideline with the changes presented above regarding independent sources? -Drilnoth (talk) 21:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I actually agree with Phil that it would be safe to tag this as a guideline, because we have a lot of outside input in the strawpoll, and we really did respond to most of the criticisms as best we could, without taking a hard position on anything. But if we did, a lot of people would still ignore it. I don't think they could detag it, but I think the WP:BATTLEGROUND would largely continue. The only way to avoid the battleground would be to do a wide RFC and remove all doubt. Randomran (talk) 21:49, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * CENT then? or village pump policy? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 22:00, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Why don't we drop a note on VPP that we're about to tag it as a guideline, and see if anyone goes nuts. If they don't, we can probably assume that we've basically gotten to the point where we're at the minimum level of outrage possible. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that's the minimum we should do. If we go that route, we should explain where the initial proposal came from, and the steps that were undertaken to get feedback/criticism and improve it. Randomran (talk) 22:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Village_pump (policy) Adjust as needed. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * One thing to consider knowing how the previous FICT (my version) failed. We are likely going to get people thinking this too strong, and a number of people thinking this is too weak.  We need to be ready to accept the fact that if those numbers and arguments are relatively equal (as it was in the case of the previous FICT) but a strong majority/case can be made for acceptance of this, then we need to be ready to assert that this has consensus given the fact that there will be irreconcilable differences between those other two extremes.  I'd be hesitant to say that on the RFC for my FICT as it was 50% supporting, and 25%  against for being too strong, 25% against for being too weak, but any more in favor and we'd have to go with it as the best solution to move forward. --M ASEM  00:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I specifically didn't point them to the poll because of this. I think your 50/25/25 is probably close to reality, so we'll need to discuss it with them so they can (hopefully) understand the compromise. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If we do go with an RFC, we should probably allow people to oppose in two categories: too weak and too strong. That will tell us if we have a consensus -- if we have the most balanced approach we can expect to achieve. And to reduce the impact of strategic voting, we should also let supporters chime in as too weak versus too strong too. Someone shouldn't get more voice just because they opposed -- people who support should also be permitted to state their preference and be counted, in the event of failure. Randomran (talk) 01:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If we do a vote, that's how we should do it. Votes don't require that much thought on the part of the participant, though.  I think I would prefer just directing people here for discussion.  Discussion requires (or quickly bestows) a large amount of background information.  I think that's what we need so that this isn't derailed, and derailed by people who might have supported if they knew more. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:42, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

You know, just as a side note we received just short of 50 comments for the previous RFC. We already have 34 supporters, with only 7 people in opposition in the straw poll above. We've made people into administrators with less support. Randomran (talk) 02:22, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I posted a note on the watchlist notice discussion board. Please go tweak my proposed language or comment there so we can get a notice for a lot of editors to see this. Protonk (talk) 01:45, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Also added to CENT, removed the old notice. Protonk (talk) 01:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The straw poll above wasn't about tagging this a guideline. How about you contact everyone who commented at that RFC Randomran? --Pixelface (talk) 11:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Nah, I think it shows wide support from independent editors. No need. But the RFC is underway anyway. Randomran (talk) 15:28, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Independent sourcing language
Uh, guys, before bringing this to RfC, wasn't there a relative consensus to add the language concerning independent sourcing (see Phil's edit)? We can fix the language a bit, but seeing the discussion above, I think everyone was pretty amenable to it. — sephiroth bcr  ( converse ) 02:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, good call. I'm ok with that. Protonk (talk) 02:50, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I already did it right before I noticed this discussion. I included the link to WP:PRESERVE that Phil and another editor seem to have agreed on and no one objected to.&mdash;Kww(talk) 02:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think the amendment is adds anything substantial, and is sure to be edited out eventually, since the wording is vague and verbose, and offers no guidance per se, and this whole section could easily be boiled down to one sentence: "Effort should be made to find appropriate reliable, independent sources, as an article with no independent sources is unlikely to be a very good one." I think this is the core compromise that we have established so far (although I could be mistaken). --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Except that sentence doesn't cover it. The point is, that if an article still has no independent sources after a long term effort to find them, it will be merged and then deleted (they usually survive one AfD - down to 'we might find sources' - but rarely survive another, unless the topic is popular, in which case there will be sources, and those are usually added thanks to the long term effort). A le_Jrb talk  16:51, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That is true sometimes...most of the time the result of the AfDs has a lot more to do with the centrality of the element to the fictional work than independence (though plenty of AfDs do follow the path you describe). As a bare minimum for inclusion we are looking for non-PLOT information.  I think the balance we strike in the guideline (read both the prong and the "independence" section) is a good one. Protonk (talk) 16:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

In a nutshell
From my experience at WP:N, getting the wording right for the nutshell is difficult, because it must mean all things to all men. I propose the following to kick this process off:

Note that keeping the nutshell short is the trick - brevity is everything, although this is alway at the risk of being too vague).--Gavin Collins (talk) 16:20, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * How about this? -- Goodraise (talk) 16:46, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Goodraise is much closer to the mark, IMO. But I'll let other people comment to see what the concerns are. Randomran (talk) 16:48, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I would say for simplicity and the most wikipedic in practice, "If a work or element of fiction has received real-world coverage in reliable sources, then it satisfies the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." Best, --A NobodyMy talk 17:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That is not a summary of the proposal, far from it. -- Goodraise (talk) 17:25, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The proposal can be rewritten accordingly, or just drop some of the "significant"s. Best, --A NobodyMy talk 17:31, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That's not helpful.  Pagra shtak  19:26, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * A Nobody, a nutshell is intended to summarize a page in a sentence or two. Your proposed nutshell, as Goodraise has pointed out, is not a summarization of the proposed guideline. To suggest that we harmonize the two by altering the proposed guideline instead of finding a more suitable nutshell is to undermine the hours and hours of work put in by numerous editors in the attempt to forge a compromise. As such, I see your comment as a call to start from scratch, which I do not find to be helpful. I am telling you this because I hope it will help improve the quality of this discussion. I wish I could offer a wording suggestion for your suggested nutshell, but since it does not summarize the proposal, only a complete rewrite could fix it.  Pagra shtak  21:48, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I of course agree with you that having notability guidelines are not helpful for building a paperless encyclopedia and that Notability/Historical/Non-notability/Essay better reflects the actual will of the community, i.e. the thousands (millions?) of article creators, writers, and readers who create, write, and come here for articles on elements of fiction but do not comment in such discussions as these; however, we are trying to come up with some kind of compromise for the time being and as such I wouldn't fault anyone in this thread for offering their ideas of wording changes. Mine is primarily that I see in the one version above the word "significant" repeated three times, which is obvious and unquestionable overkill.  Cheers!  --A NobodyMy talk 20:25, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You know very well that isn't what I meant. Your attitude and the coy manner in which you "misinterpret" things as you just did above is what is not helpful.  Pagra shtak  21:11, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Then make a constructive suggestive of your own, because the above does not add anything worthwhile to this discussion. I expect better from admins.  If you do not have anything helpful to add of your own, then do not reply to someone else's suggestion with a terse and unhelpful response.  If you do have an alternative suggestion or agree with the other proposals, then say so.  Regards, --A NobodyMy talk 21:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll take this to your talk page, but you shouldn't expect anything special from admins because we're not special.  Pagra shtak  21:23, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not interested in unproductive discussions. Gavin.collins made a suggestion, Goodraise made his suggestion, I made mine.  If you disagree with my wording, fine, offer an alternative, but making some kind of one liner that suggests an assumption of bad faith with my suggestion is counter productive.  I hoped in my reply to you that it would steer back to the actual discussion here, i.e. the wording of the "in a nutshell section" and not a needless and unwarranted personalization of things.  If you would like to cordially discuss this wording, I am happy to do so.  If not, then I am not interested in having a last word or escalating things for no worthwhile reason.  So, if you do have suggestions on the wording, great, if not, take care!  Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 21:29, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Does that mean you are refusing to discuss this in the thread I started on your talk page? I apologize that my comment comes off as a one-liner. I've struck it and replaced it with a lengthier comment that better explains why I started this in the first place. If you want to delete this back-and-forth up to that and start over I won't object. I still would like to talk to you on your talk page in either case, though.  Pagra shtak  21:48, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks for clarifying. Perhaps rewriting the proposal at this stage would indeed be unconstructive, but my main suggestion is that the "in a nutshell" repeats one word "significant" too much, i.e. I think there's a less verbose way to say the same thing without seemingly like we're overdoing use of one particular word.  And yes, I have replied on my talk page; however, I will be on the road for over an hour and then when I get to my destination finally have dinner.  So, I will not be able to return to either thread for at least a few hours and as such lack of further replies should not be read into.  So, just in case I don't log back on until Saturday, have a nice night!  Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 21:53, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply. When you said you were "not interested in unproductive discussions" I didn't know if that was in reference to your talk page or not. Objecting to the repetition of "significant" is valid criticism if only from a readability point of view, which was partly the reason for my nutshell suggestion below.  Pagra shtak  22:13, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I meant that I did not want this exchange to devolve into you and I just criticisizing each other in either thread and am pleased that we are back on track. I will look at your suggestion below momentarily.  Best, --A NobodyMy talk 02:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Goodraise's nutshell works for me. Protonk (talk) 17:17, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I like the second one. (Goodraise) ... (to be honest, I was beginning to think "Put it in a nutshell?... we couldn't put this in a barrel without a bottom"). Ched (talk) 17:42, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I was thinking No, this is me in a nutshell: "Help! I'm in a nutshell! How did I get into this bloody great big nutshell? What kind of shell has a nut like this?". :) Protonk (talk) 17:45, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't like that new proposal. It basically destroys what the intent of article itself. An element can only be notable enough to be spun out if spinning it out doesn't cause the main article to fail GNG. じん    ない   17:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I am still concerned that the "secondary source" issue will be taken the wrong way by editors that do not believe developer comments are secondary. I'm not saying that we aren't adhering to secondary sources, because it is in this guideline, but without weighing down the nutshell about how we consider what are secondary sources, it is too tempting a target for those that have a chip on their shoulder against fiction.   Mind you, that's my concern, but if others feel its fine, great, leave it there. --M ASEM  17:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * What about just laying it down without specifying the test itself?

-- Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 19:27, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You usually have a lot of good ideas for making things more concise. But with all due respect, that's a pretty lousy nutshell. You might as well say "this is the notability guideline for fiction. read the fucking guideline yourself." We should actually try to summarize the test. Randomran (talk) 20:46, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * But they should read the fucking guideline :P Whatever, I'm more worried about the meat. You guys fight the nutshell battle. -- Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 20:48, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * All this talk about nuts and meat make me feel it's time to step back from this thread and time to have dinner instead! Take care for now and good luck! :)  Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 21:02, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * "this is the notability guideline for fiction. read the fucking guideline yourself" Am I wrong for desperately wanting this to be the actual nutshell? :) Protonk (talk) 22:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Here's another suggestion, to have more options to throw around. I would also suggest that we consider expanding "GNG" to "general notability guideline" in the nutshell.

 Pagra shtak  21:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Seems fine to me, though so did goodraise's nutshell. Protonk (talk) 23:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It still does not address my concerns. Something like:

じん   ない   22:28, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It would be so much better to present this proposed guideline as a clarification or expansion of the general notability guideline, rather than an exception, addition, or contradiction to it. Can anyone come up with a nutshell which does that? Geometry guy 23:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If we view the GNG as exclusive (as in, it says what can't be notable), then this is an exception. If we view the GNG as inclusive (as in, it says what can be notable), then this is an expansion.  there is no wording of this nutshell that will cause both those who view it as exclusive and those who view it as inclusive to treat this as an expansion. Protonk (talk) 01:03, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * A nutty nutshell - tasty! Joking aside, please consider this: WP:FICT provides inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article, so we have to mention this in the nutshell, at the very least. Also, I am not sure we have to mention WP:GNG at all, because this is dealt with in the body of the text. Here is my second attempt:


 * It seems to me that writing a nutshell that is going to achive consensus is going to be difficult, because the last sentence dealing with sourcing is the most contentious. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:17, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This is a little disheartening if we cannot even agree on a nutshell. Gavin, I think you're absolutely right that we don't need to mention the GNG. If something meets the GNG it never has to come here—but we can link to it subtly:


 *  Pagra shtak  15:47, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think we should note, in the nutshell, that fictional elements meeting the GNG aren't excluded by the proposal. That's a big source of confusion in this guideline and I don't want the nutshell to perpetuate it. Protonk (talk) 17:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that is better, but something about the "significant" word still seems a hang up for me, as I see some interpreting it too strictly, i.e. some can and probably will from past experience claim that "significant' means multiple books written specifically on the subject, whereas to me if even two journal articles are devoted to a topic it is significant coverage for our purposes. It should be understood that sources that only mention the character in a sentence, i.e. that verifies it only is not enough to write an article, but any reliable secondary sources, regardless of the focus of the article that we can use to actually write a paragraph on reception and a paragraph on development should count as significant as in the grand scheme of fictional characters the number who are never even referenced in reviews of the primary works let alone mentioned in a development or reception since is far greater than those that are and as such any ones for which we can make a reception and development section should be kept.  Best, --A NobodyMy talk 17:46, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think we need to get hung upon the term "significant" which is dealt with in detail over at WP:N. However, I agree that Pagrashtak's version is an improvement, which I suggest tweeking as follows:


 * Let me know what you think of this version. --Gavin Collins (talk) 13:49, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Because I'm a stickler—real-world coverage is not the same as coverage of real-world information. A detailed plot summary as part of a book review is real-world coverage of fictional events but not coverage of real-world information. I still prefer "may be presumed notable" to "may satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article". It's more concise and has the benefit of referencing the title of the page.  Pagra shtak  20:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Nick's edits
Thumbs up from me, in general. Thanks, Nick. I'm making this section for comments/reversals of specific changes made today (not exclusively by Nick). Hopefully it stays empty (absent praise), but if it doesn't, at least it can stay clear. Protonk (talk) 22:35, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * LOL. Thanks, copyediting is fun. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 22:42, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah I'm generally pleased with the changes. It's possible I may have missed something, but I think everything has become more clear, and redundancies have been removed. Randomran (talk) 22:44, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * This looks much better. -- Kraftlos  (Talk | Contrib) 23:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I've not commented here before, though I have been following the discussions on and off for several days. After reading the guideline several times, I think there are still a number of problems with the text. For instance (based on this version):
 * The first para should provide a clearer explanation of what the guideline is about. Using the first para of WP:NB as a template, may I suggest something like:
 * Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) is a proposed guideline intended to be used by Wikipedia editors to decide whether an element of fiction should or should not have an article on Wikipedia. An element of fiction is (1) an individual component of a serialized work, such as a television episode or a comic book storyline, or (2) an element in the fictionalized world, such as a character or setting. This guideline does not cover…


 * Here's a tentative rewrite of the start of the second para:
 * Any work of fiction that meets the general notability guideline (GNG) already satisfies the inclusion criterion for a stand-alone article. Any element of such a notable work that itself meets the GNG will also satisfy that criterion. Other, non-GNG-compliant elements of a notable work of fiction may be presumed to be notable if they meet the three-pronged test…


 * There are references to "author commentary", "developer commentary", and "creator commentary". I assume these all refer to the same concept, so the same term should be used throughout.
 * The second prong seems to say that episodes and recurring characters don't need to have their significance verified in commentary from reliable sources, unlike "other essential elements of the work". I don't know if this is the intention, but the third prong appears to contradict that anyway: "Significant real world information must exist on the element". If I'm confused and wrong about this, its unlikely that I'm the only one.
 * In that third prong we have the terms "real-world coverage", "real-world information", "real world content" and "real-world perspective", as well as "real world facts" in the nutshell, "real world coverage" (no hyphen), "real-world content" (with hyphen) and "real-world perspectives" elsewhere. Since these all probably refer to similar concepts, can they not be tidied up?
 * The first sentence under the heading Three-pronged test for notability could be shortened to:
 * Articles on elements of fiction are generally retained if they meet these three conditions:


 * In the Sources and notability section, the term "fictional subject" seems to be used when "element of fiction" is meant.

Hope this helps. —S MALL JIM   01:20, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Taking a closer look in a sec. On first pass the second paragraph lede rewrite seems off.  I don't think we need to belabor the point about the GNG.  But let me take a look at the current language to be sure. Protonk (talk) 01:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * comment about the GNG. In the last month or two the coverage of reviews of individual fictional episodes in Google News has considerably increased. This is part of their project to scan and include all newspapers of whatever size they can get permissions for. I anticipate that this project will soon make nonsense of the GNG in this and many other fields, because there will be almost nothing for which there will not be references. At that point, the modes of argument will switch: the inclusionists will be arguing for sources, and the deletionists for intrinsic notability. I'd suggest not tying us too closely to the GNG. DGG (talk) 07:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You're accusing people of not acting in good faith, based on predicted actions. That's kind of crappy to do. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 07:22, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No, he's suggesting that in response to changing circumstances, people will change their opinions on tests for valid articles so that the articles they believe should be included pass the test while those they think shouldn't will fail. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and I certainly don't mind admitting that I've evaluated this proposal on the basis of what class of articles it agrees & disagrees with my opinions on. It certainly isn't an accusation of bad faith to suggest that editors might have clear subjective ideas of what should be included; I think we all do to some degree or other. JulesH (talk) 11:55, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Not really. He's suggesting that "deletionists" will look for an excuse to delete content they don't like and that once sourcing goes away as an excuse we will decide to switch to "intrinsic notability".  The assumption is that I want articles to be sourced because I don't like certain topics, not because...I want articles to be sourced.  That's an assumption of bad faith. Protonk (talk) 14:36, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * DGG's comment doesn't mention particular editors so it's a case of "if the cap fits, wear it". There are certainly editors who oppose inclusion of specific topics purely because of their nature.  For example, see Articles for deletion/Eglinton Bus Garage (2nd nomination) in which it currently seems apparent that some editors don't like the idea of an article about a bus garage.  My impression is that this attitude is one of the primary drivers of deletionism.  It becomes particularly problematic when applied to cultural topics because these are so much a matter of taste.  WP:MUSIC is a good example of a guideline which nicely sidesteps this by focussing upon objective measures like gold records, prizes and charts and one can imagine the chaos if music were instead judged by phrases like "artistic impact" or "cultural reception" which we currently have in WP:FICT.  These weasel words are unacceptable as they promote a kulturkampf which is quite the wrong approach. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:28, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we should judge articles about fictional characters and elements by whether there has been substantial coverage in sources that are independent of the creators of this fictional character or element?&mdash;Kww(talk) 18:22, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't buy your first point. If I say "all inclusionists are crazy jerks", it may be assumed that I'm speaking about inclusionists and that I'm making a disturbingly broad generalization and personal attack (if not directed explicitly).  It is not an acceptable stance to say "Well, if you are an inclusionist and not a crazy jerk, then what right have you to be offended?"  I'm honestly good and tired of hearing of how much of an elitist I must be for arguing that we should follow the GNG because it is basically good guidance.  I'm good and tired of hearing about how my arguments are probably pretexts for my real beliefs and that when my pretexts cease to allow me to practice my elitism, I'll change them.  And I say "I" because we all, anyone who wants to delete something because of WP:N, get tarred with that.  the same brush gets used to paint us all. Protonk (talk) 19:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I see where you are coming from, DGG, as I do see a lot of the claims of "non-notable" really being "I don't like it," i.e. even when secondary sources are presented and notability established to say even the bulk of editors in an AfD, you might still have one or two in the discussion who refuse to acknowledge the presence of reliable sources and will probably continue to do so. Best, --A NobodyMy talk 19:29, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

"Articles that don't meet the inclusion criteria" section
The first paragraph of this section seems entirely redundant to me. The concept it discusses is adequately covered in the lead section, plus it is basically a circuitous paraphrase of the section in WP:DELETION that states that "[i]f the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion." Perhaps we should merely restate that rule in the same terms, rather than use a new phrasing that adds nothing other than potential for misunderstanding? JulesH (talk) 13:15, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * This section exists as a reminder to editors that this guideline does not make deletion mandatory for those articles that fail its inclusion criteria, and on that basis, it should be kept. --Gavin Collins (talk) 13:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The lead is supposed to be a summary of what's said in the body. This is one time that redundancy is acceptable. Randomran (talk) 16:22, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Rename guideline?
User:Politizer made a helpful suggestion above, and I just wanted it to get a little more attention. See here:.

Basically, people have had the misconception that this would affect fictional works in general, and it's led to confusion, if not opposition. We ought to rename this so it focuses on fictional elements. e.g.: Notability (fictional elements) or Notability (elements from fictional works) or Notability (plot elements) ... Randomran (talk) 16:53, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

In my view, the terms "works of fiction" and "elements of fiction" are rather broad, ill-defined and so can be used inter-changeably in some instances. For example, a novel is considered to be a "work of fiction", but what if it is part of a series, such as a trilogy (e.g. The Foundation Trilogy) - is it then an "work" or is it an "element"? I think the answer is that in depends on the context in which the work or element is being addressed. Take another example: is The Monkey's Paw a work of fiction because it is a self-contained story, or is it an element because it is only one story in a anthology of short stories? My view is that the terms are interchangeable, and that we don't need to make an too much effort in this guideline distinguishing between the two. --Gavin Collins (talk) 17:00, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * From recent edits, I can observe some conflict regarding the common understanding of what falls within the scope of this guideline - Works or Elements? I was party to a discussion some time ago regarding scope and another regarding the preamble, and my views have changed somewhat since then.
 * There are also those that consider "episodes" or other individual publications of serialized works (aka manga volumes, etc.) to be the works. --M ASEM 17:52, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I guess in theory anything could be an element if it's part of a greater whole. That means if it cannot be merged into anything else within reason that falls under WP:FICT, it is a work. If it can, it could be seen as an element or work. An element is clearly something that isn't published on its own though. じん    ない   17:54, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * An element is something which is indivisible. It may well be published on its own - the episodes of a series are published separately, for example.  The components form a hierarchy which may have many levels, e.g. Seven of Nine - Scorpion part 1 - Season 3 - Voyager - Star Trek - Science Fiction.  The guideline should be independent of the level of abstraction as different media and works have different structures. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Col here. I was on wikibreak when the change from "element" to "character/episode et al." happened.  I would support a return to the word element, so long as we could define it clearly. Protonk (talk) 18:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe the safest way of putting it is that this discusses fictional subtopics? That is, topics that are a subset of a particular fictional work? This is just a rename, and not really a rewording of the guideline. Just that "Notability: Fiction" suggests to a lot of people that this is about the fictional works themselves. Randomran (talk) 19:15, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Randomran on this point. "Notability: Fiction" is a terrible name for this guideline. ANY name that clarifies that this is specifically for subtopics, elements, whatever you want to call them, would be a big improvement. cmadler (talk) 20:26, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * What about Notability (fictional elements) じん    ない   21:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * LOL! Sounds too much like a guideline for Kryptonite and other Fictional elements. Notability (Elements) sounds too much like a guideline for electric kettles and toasters. Stick to the knitting in my view and keep it as Notability (fiction) on the grounds that it is a name that describes it best. Alternatively just call it Notability (knitting) if you leaning towards a random naming schema--Gavin Collins (talk) 21:55, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, some people are pretty confused about what this means for fictional works. We've even had a few people who've opposed this guideline on the basis that it affects the notability of fictional works -- which is a misunderstanding of the guideline. So the current name *doesn't* describe it best. We've been using elements throughout the guideline. So fictional elements would be an improvement. If not "fictional elements", then "fictional subtopics"? Or "plot elements"? Randomran (talk) 22:00, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Notability (fictional elements within fictional works) then? じん    ない   22:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * In answer to Randomran, I think WP:FICT can be applied to works and elements equally, but in practise it is easier to find sources whose subject matter is a film or a book because they have dual personality: they are both works of fiction and have real-world presence as well. Therefore, it is a lot easier to find sources about a book that actually exists (e.g. Lady Chatterley's Lover), whereas a work or element of fiction is purely fictional by definition, and because real-world discussions about fictional topics tend to be more abstract by nature, that makes it harder to find in reliable secondary sources for them (e.g. the character of Lady Chatterley's Lover, Oliver Mello). --Gavin Collins (talk) 22:22, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * While I would agree that it could be used for the main article as well, that would seriously alter the scope of this proposal and possibly invalidate any consensus reached by the RfC. じん    ない   22:30, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Jinnai is right. We've gone out of our way to make sure this guideline is about fictional elements. We've just done a bad job of summarizing that, and setting that tone right in the title. That's why people are confused. Randomran (talk) 22:59, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Notability (fictional elements). This is project space. It doesn't matter whether it sounds good to outside readers. We have guidelines about weasels and peacocks already. What matters is that regular Wikipedia editors understand what the guideline is about. Geometry guy 23:29, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Notability (fictional elements) seems fine. Though there probably isn't a rush on changing the name. Protonk (talk) 23:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Please move it back, it makes no sense. These guidelines work for both works and elements of fiction, terms which are interchangeable. Please restore WP:FICT to its former location as Notability (fiction). --Gavin Collins (talk) 00:55, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Gavin. Reyk  YO!  00:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Reverted. I support the name change, but this isn't really the best time. Protonk (talk) 01:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Seeing as people are commenting on the RFC based on confusion, I would say now is the best time. Unless someone can take a time machine back to before the RFC started. A rename helps clarify the purpose and scope of this guideline. Randomran (talk) 02:29, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Randomran. The longer we wait, the more damage we cause either by people assuming this covers main articles or people opposing it because they are confused due to the naming, fiction, and the implied directive, fictional elements within a work. じん    ない   02:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If, at the end of this process, the closer (whoever it may be) assigns people who oppose solely on a misapprehension of the guideline as "oppose" rather than neutral, we have bigger problems. Already the proposed name has gone from (fictional elements) to (elements of fiction).  I think we should move slowly, rather than quickly on this. Protonk (talk) 03:50, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * (outdent) What was wrong with the proposed name Notability (elements of fictional works)? I liked that one, and it seemed pretty clear to me (then again, it was my idea, so of course it made sense to me).  At least, I think it does a better job than the other ones of clarifying that this is not about works themselves. Polit i zer talk / contribs 07:13, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That is just the point, this guideline covers works and elements of fiction, so a change is not necessary. As "works" and "elements" are terms that can be used interchangeably because they are terms are not clearly defined such we can say for sure where an element starts, a work ends, there is no point in trying to seperate them. If you read the discussions I have cited at the start of this section, you will see this issue has been discussed before, and this issue is not so clear cut. A classic example is a television episode - is it a work or an element of fiction? You can argue that individual episodes, such as a pilot episode could be classed as a standalone work of fiction. However, it is difficult to argue that subsequent episodes are standalone works, because they are both elements of a larger ficitional work whilst at the same time are part of an ongoing television production. Unless you can cite a reliable secondary source that suggests that elements of ficition are entirely seperate and are not interchangeable from works of fiction, then I propose this guideline covers both works and elements. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I did read the discussions above, and I agree with you that trying to draw a line between work and element is difficult in the case of episodes/installments of serialized works. But other than that, I think it's pretty clear-cut (with elements being part of the fictional universe, and works being part of the real world).  My understanding from other comments above was that the three prongs in this proposal had to do with whether or not there should be an article about Joe Schmo character from some TV show, comic, etc....not about the works themselves.  As I and many others have said above, some of the standards (specifically prong 1) are probably fine for fictional characters or other elements, but far too strict for fictional works (there are lots of notable books, movies, comics, etc., that do not have "cultural or historical significance" but have a following, have won numerous awards, have been widely reviewed, etc). Polit i zer talk / contribs 14:31, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * They guideline says that this guideline does not cover works of fiction as a whole. All three prongs discuss elements, and not fictional works. Most people are happy with the inclusion criteria for fictional works. The more challenging area is the elements of these fictional works, which is exactly what this guideline was designed to address. Randomran (talk) 15:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know when works of fiction was dropped from the preamble and why. Although it may appear I indroduced the wording that includes both workds and elements, in actual fact I was restating a much earlier version which also shows this guideline covers both. I am clear in my mind that both works and elements are covered by WP:FICT for how can you not have one without the other? --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:44, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think what people are saying is just that different guidelines should apply to each. Works of fiction get their notability from real-world significance; elements of fiction get it more from significance to the work/universe.  It's one thing to write an article about some random webcomic that has gotten some reviews here and there (might be notable), and entirely another to write articles on all the characters in it (those would probably get redirected or deleted). Polit i zer talk / contribs 23:02, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You're right that the issue of whether a television episode is a work unto itself is potentially up for interpretation, except that the introduction already deals with that via the language a few sentences before the "it does not cover works of fiction" distinguishing between installments of a serialized work and a work as a whole. Yes, we are using work of fiction to refer to the top-level domain of a given franchise. I'll agree there's still a few limit cases, generally having to do with minor releases of a huge multi-media franchise. What does one do with a series of eight Star Trek novels, for instance. Are they covered by the book notability guideline, by this guideline as a series, or by this guideline as eight separate novels? But I think the first prong saves us most of the angst here, because it neatly cleans up issues of components of minor series - unless the series of eight novels substantially exceeds its notability guideline, the individual novels will fail the first prong. A footnote clarifying the issue for broad franchises like Star Trek might be warranted, though. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm curious. How does this interact with comics? On one hand, you have obvious top-levels: either character-based franchises or serial comics. But when do you start coming under this guideline? Stand-alone short series that are a part of a character-based franchise? (Any summer comic event, for example. And how are such stand-alone series that are part of a franchise different from ones which are not, or ones which cross over multiple franchises?) Story arcs? Individual issues? How notable does a comic franchise need to be before it merits more atomized treatment? When talking about superhero comics, when is a character/team franchise that spins off separate from the original? What about anthology comics, where any article about one of the anthology's serials won't be covering as much of the real-world detail since the anthology has its own article? What about anthologies with a few noteworthy serials and some not-so-noteworthy serials?

WP:COMIC, while a diligent project that takes WP:N fairly seriously, hasn't really dealt with any of this, and WP:FICT may or may not apply, it isn't clear. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 23:47, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a hard question and honestly it is questions like that which cause me to prefer this more ...nuanced (or muddied, or confused, pick your adjective) approach. What is a top level work and what is an element would be a subject of discussion.  I would consider the Kree-Skrull War an element of the marvel universe (or an element of the various comic series).  Although...in an unfortunate consequence of hierarchy, you could also consider Operation: Galactic Storm, an Avengers series wholly about the Kree-Skrull war, as a distinct work.  No guideline (IMO) is going to say "this is a distinct work"  "this is not".  None should.  We should defer to COMICS, VGSCOPE, WEB, etc.  Although I would argue that we can lay some basic guidelines down (having much to do with the nature of the overall work itself and with the team behind it), we want to tread lightly. Protonk (talk) 23:55, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Protonk is right, this is a hard one for comics - also related is what one does with a series that has had multiple versions - we're up to the 4th or 5th separate comic book series to be called The Punisher at this point. Are they all individual works? For the most part, this phrasing was calibrated for television, with the assumption that TV series = work, episode = element. Coming up with the equivalent divisions for other media is probably better outsourced to WikiProjects, but a footnote to this effect, with some guidance on how we expect those divisions to be made (so as to deal with any WikiProjects that might take this as an opportunity to game this guideline) is probably warranted. This should probably get broader input than it will this far up - I'll start a new section later tonight with proposed wording and let it get hacked at. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:18, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Once we try to split works of fiction from elements of fiction, you have a problem. Comic series is only one example of where a work of fiction is split into installments, of each viewed as individual elements, or as standalone works. Others include television programmes, radio shows, newspaper columns and even blogs. It is not clear where an element starts and a standalone work begins. Since the inclusion criteria of this guideline can be applied to both, I don't think we have make an effort to differentiate between the two.--Gavin Collins (talk) 11:33, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I think we should avoid this ambiguity by defining "elements" strictly as not containing any of these things: it should be restricted to characters, settings, objects and other similar elements found in works of fiction. I think subdivisions of a work of fiction (e.g. episodes of tv series, individual films or novels in a series, individual stories in a collection, even chapters of a novel if somebody wants to start creating articles on those) should be handled by a separate guideline, or by WP:BK or WP:GNG until such a guideline is written. JulesH (talk) 12:05, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your honesty, but it is not practicle to have seperate guidelines for every type of fictional work. Just becuase we have guidelines on films and books, it does not mean we should have guidelines for podcasts, magazines, comic strips, radio plays, operas, or stories transmitted orally. There is no ambiguity about the scope of this guidline if we are clear it covers fiction as a unified subject area. If anything, seperating elements from works of fiction will lead to confusion. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:45, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Protecting this guideline for the next couple weeks?
Given the fact there's a lot of chefs trying to play with this guideline and making it difficult to keep track of the version we're trying to get consensus on, would anyone be drastically opposed to full protection of the guideline page for at least a week, maybe two, with changes being suggested above added only after confirmation is stated? I know there's admins involved and they would technically be able to edit still, but I think too much editing right now is muddying the waters to determine if this has consensus or not. --M ASEM 01:12, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm opposed. Seems that regular editing and discussion can tamp this down.  I don't want to give people the impression there is an edit war going on and I don't want to make changing the guideline impossible. Protonk (talk) 01:19, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm also opposed. When RFCs prompt changes, that's a feature of the RFC process, and not an inconvenience. We have to roll on and adapt. Randomran (talk) 02:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Support it seems that my Request for stability is falling on deaf ears. I agree with Masem "too much editing right now is muddying the waters". It is difficult enough for participants in the RFC to read and understand WP:FICT on the first pass, let alone keep up with the amendments, and I feel that frequent changes is making it necessary to invest a lot of time to follow what is going on, and ultimately will end an edit war and accusations that WP:FICT is not stable. I would prefer to go back to the version at the start of the RFC for reasons I have stated above lest we invalidate all the earlier RFC comments, but I would support a freeze as an alternative. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:52, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose as well. Part of the point of this RfC is receiving feedback from people who have not seen the guideline, and making changes accordingly. — sephiroth bcr  ( converse ) 09:55, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I also don't want to lock this. If this is a big concern, use an oldid for discussion.  Pagra shtak  15:37, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose the 110 changes shows there is a lack of consensus. Ikip (talk) 12:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Mark as WikiProject essay and withdraw proposal to become a guideline
Essays that attempt to become instant guidelines through straw polls rather than widespread usage and acceptance tend to fail and end up marked with a failed tag (failed) and are cast aside in this bin (Category:Wikipedia rejected proposals) where they lose credibility. Better to tag it for what it is - essay-project-note a WikiProject essay on notability. Then if over time it gains widespread consensus it will be accepted as an official guideline.  SilkTork  *YES! 01:52, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Mark it as a failed blow job for Inclusionists. Phil Sandifer and his inclusionist army kept out any reliable sourcing, and now even the standard that articles are expected to improve, or they can be deleted is lost to his backup battalion of Inclusionist stormtroopers. ThuranX (talk) 02:26, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Are the personal attacks really necessary? Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:48, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Lawl. Yeah.  Phil marhsalled all of those inclusionists who supported the article in droves...  Come on now. Protonk (talk) 03:40, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, the guideline is arguably in use. The goal was to write something that reflects what happens at AFD. Randomran (talk) 02:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It does show widespread use per AfD and compromise from the most extreme parts on both sides. じん    ない   02:41, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * An RFC to determine if there is consensus to promote this is very different from a straw poll. We could count votes, but instead we're using the provided feedback to try to address all major issues.  --M ASEM  02:47, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but no thanks. If your deep read of WP:FICT is that it was an essay that attempted to become a guideline through an instant straw poll, you need to pay an awful lot more attention. Protonk (talk) 03:14, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * User:SilkTork makes an excellent procedural point. Compare, for example, WP:ATA, which is commonly referred to at AFD but which is still an essay.  Attempting to promote WP:FICT by means of a poll rather than by gradual usage and acceptance is explicitly contrary to our policies WP:NOTDEMOCRACY and WP:NOTLAW.  The current draft should therefore be left to mature.  We may then observe whether it has achieved consensus as a guideline by observing what happens in practise. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This proposed guideline was built by watching and evaluating what does happen in practice, namely how AFDs of fiction element articles are closed. Mind you, no prongs were mentioned but instead it was trying to qualify why, in some cases, fiction element articles that clearly failed the GNG were kept.  From that, the three prongs were constructed (four initially, but one was dropped.)  The rest was mainly the addition of cavaets to align the rationales with other policy and guideline to make sure that all sides of the editors heavily involved were (as best we could) satisfied with it.  If this was a fresh guideline that was to introduce drastic change in WP practices, I agree with leaving it proposed, namedropping it, and seeing about adoption, but this guideline truly did follow the mantra of "consensus drives policy" and thus we are only trying to make sure the codification of that is acceptable. --M ASEM  11:02, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not agree that this guideline was constructed from existing practise. My impression is that more important inputs were the personal views of the small number of editors who drafted it and top-down, prescriptive reasoning from other articles such as WP:WAF and WP:PLOT.  I saw insufficient use of examples and statistics to support the view that it is based upon existing practise. Colonel Warden (talk) 11:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Phil can probably go into more detail but his initial draft with initial edits was based on his observations on AFD. Most of the core group that have edited this agree; once that was set, rewriting and addressing points from the higher policies was then made to keep it consistent with the rest of WP.  No, we didn't do any actual stats collection or the like, but numerous AFD closures were tossed out as "how does this fit" or the like, and we worked those in.  --M ASEM  14:04, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It's also not as if someone just magicked this up in their userpsace last month. Elements of this have already been various policy, guidelines and criteria.  We aren't so much foisting something new on wikipedia as bringing something back.  Furthermore, in the intervening months where FICT has not been a guideline, we have had a surfeit of discussion.  There are dozens of full length discussions on the archived pages, many relating to the version of the guideline which is current.  We aren't substituting polling for discussion (and the 'poll' above seems to have generated some helpful feedback, as well).  We aren't bringing some 'new' essay into the WP world (hell, we've been having to tell people that FICT is an essay in AfDs for most of 2008, because they keep citing it).  As such I'm not inclined to agree that Silk's analysis is "excellent". Protonk (talk) 17:29, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Support marking as essay and historical Ikip (talk) 12:10, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * ThuranX, I am apalled at your comments. Ikip (talk) 12:10, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * My mistake. I saw a straw poll on what appeared to be a new essay called Notability (fictional elements). I hadn't realised it was the old Notability (fiction) proposal that had been temporarily renamed. It is useful to have guidance on how to write about fiction - though we already have that with: Manual of Style (writing about fiction) and Notability (books) and Notability (films). Looking at what this page is attempting to do beyond what we already have, and it's clear that this page is looking to provide guidance on articles about "elements" of fiction. It's a complex area and depends on various factors that would need individual judgement at the time of the discussion, or special WikiProject input and guidance. That's fine, and it does group together and list those WikiProject essays that already attempt to guide editors on content. Where I'm not convinced is that the guidance should be become formulaic and used as a shortcut in AfD discussions. This page has been around a long while, and has been marked "rejected" and "historical" several times. It has been pulled from the bin and dusted off several times. Given the history of this page, and that it has historically not gained consensus, and that it has had the rejected tag removed several times (against policy), does indicate that a less contentious route for it would be to mark it as a WikiProject essay and allow people to consult it for the advice contained here.  SilkTork  *YES! 17:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

scrapping the first prong
The watchlist RFC is on hold. Seeing as RFCs are supposed to provide commentary, rather than up-vs-down support, we have an opportunity to improve this guideline based on feedback. I'd say the inclusionist "kill all notability guidelines" and deletionist "WP:N needs to be enforced more strictly" camps roughly cancel each other out. But there is another group of opposition who fall into neither camp, as they simply find this guideline confusing. This group of "confused" people can be divided into three sub-camps: I think we need to go beyond copy-edits to address this. Three prongs *are* too much, when all other guidelines can be distilled to one simple principle. "Verify stuff", "use reliable third-party sources", "don't push points of view", "we're not censored". This one is three principles in one, plus other exceptions and clarifications. The best "beyond copyediting" idea I can think of is dropping the first prong: the importance of the fictional work. This prong has attracted the most confusion and misreading. It's by far the least important and easiest to pass, so it doesn't have too much value. And since we've started to reintroduce the value of independent sources in this guideline, we probably have a better way to reign in trivial articles than the first prong anyway. Besides, an episode or recurring character with real-world coverage should at least be merged, even in cases where the work isn't particularly important (e.g.: fails the first prong). I'm not sure we need it, especially as the guideline has evolved. Randomran (talk) 05:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Those who misinterpreted the guideline and opposed it for inaccurate reasons. (e.g.: "this guideline lets us use unreliable sources", "this guideline is stronger than WP:N")
 * Those who freely admit they are confused or put off by it, because it's vague, long, and/or contradictory.
 * Those who can understand the guideline, but find it tedious to apply in AFDs. Especially for novice or casual editors. People who think new rules should be short and simple.
 * I second this. It's really not a good way to determine notability. WesleyDodds (talk) 06:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * An alternative approach without sacrificing what we've worked is as follows:
 * Stating that FICT is basically taking the GNG and clarifying the types of sources we use (eg dev comments), and that we're still talking WP:IMPERFECT articles akin to how WP:MUSIC does it; it may not be as a strong a line as MUSIC et al, but it's a line that can be passed
 * Note that, not as a requirement but in general, elements from weakly notable works or very minor plot elements generally are covered in parent articles, are not given separate articles.
 * That is, we could say something along the lines:
 * Elements of fiction (which includes both in-universe details of a work of fiction, and, for serial works, serialization of that work such as episodes or printed volumes) are presumed to be notable if they have [dropping significant here on purpose] coverage in secondary sources. For elements of fiction, secondary sources should provide information on the element's creation, influence, reception, and legacy.
 * Editors are cautioned that elements of fiction from works that lack cultural impact or legacy tend to not have articles on their own, instead discussed in the parent work. Similarly, elements of fiction that are not essential to the plot of the work are often covered in the work's article instead of a separate article.
 * It's a bit wordy but I think captures the points we're been making (the three prongs are effectively still there). --M ASEM 06:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That's better. WesleyDodds (talk) 06:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree. I think it's wishy-washy, and doesn't actually set a bar anywhere. It completely discards independence - Kww and ThuranX will categorically reject it on those grounds, and it wouldn't surprise me if we lose Gavin on it too. Dropping significant lowers the bar considerably. I'm hard-pressed to think of articles that fail this. Which, I mean, as an arch-inclusionist who does not want to see any episode or major character article deleted, yay. Wonderful. But this won't fly. And I think it actually ends up being worse for use at AfD. At least with the three-prong test the strange editors who like to leave excessively jargony, short comments can say "fails prong three of FICT" and move on. This... resists citation in a way that will please virtually no one.
 * Which is sad. I mean, I like it better. I think it's a beautiful field of ambiguity that provides guidance and principle without providing bright line tests. I think it's great. It'll never fly. It'll lose ground from what we have now. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:19, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I am opposed to this. Removing it in favor of independent sources, frankly, means we should scrap this proposal and use WP:N. Which we know, in practice, means we should have fiction notability be a continual edit war and battle ground. Either we're creating an alternate track to the GNG or we're not.


 * Now,. of the three "oppose due to complexity" categories, the first one I simply have trouble taking seriously. I cannot believe that the people who are saying things like "The guideline does not require secondary sources" have actually read the guideline with any care, since it explicitly says otherwise. So, honestly, that category of opposition? My feeling is, cross it off. It's the risk of an RfC - you get careless comments. Part of interpreting an RfC is figuring out the signal to noise ratio.


 * That leaves the second two categories - which, between them, amount to a relative handful of comments. So we should not treat this as a tidal wave of opposition. The supporters vastly outnumber those who are confused by the guideline. Heavy reworking of the guideline in the face of that is inappropriate, and will lose support, starting with mine.


 * Of them, I have some serious issues too. A 10k guideline - the third shortest notability guideline - is not too long. It's not. Anyone who says it's too long is being ridiculous. As for the confusing, contradictory parts, I see very few of those that have been pointed out, and those that have, we've gone and fixed with straightforward copyedits. And the idea that the three prong test is too much? Please. Notability (numbers) and Notability (organizations and companies) both apply approaches similar to this one.


 * That leaves the "Too hard to use at AfD" crowd. Which, well, tough. It's hard. The "it's too hard to use on AfD" comment isn't a complaint about the guideline. It's a complaint about the community. This is an incredibly fractious, contentious issue. The idea of a guideline that can attract support from both sides of the issue while being simple and easy to use on AfD and preventing unwieldy discussions is a chimera. I'd like a guideline like that too. And a pony for Christmas. I'm not getting either, though.


 * We've done huge work in the last 48 hours simplifying, clarifying, and streamlining this guideline. We've made concessions and adjustments as substantial as any that have been given to any side of this debate.


 * This proposal has an unprecedented level and diversity of support for a notability guideline on fiction. At the end of the day, we have to accept that there's a real limit to how much support can be generated for any single position in this debate. And honestly, at this point, this guideline already has more support than I thought possible.


 * It's not going to get any better than this. Last, best hope and whatnot. No more restarts. No more bold, new ideas and directions. A guideline that looks basically like what we have now, or an unending battleground that gets settled by the arbcom. Those are the options. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:14, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If people are saying that the guideline is "it's too hard to use on AfD", that says something about its usuability, and editors need to be able to utilize this guideline effectively. Aside from that, I feel the guideline could use far more specifics. It's too short and too broad. WesleyDodds (talk) 06:18, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I mean, I never really thought "it's one of our shortest notability guidelines" was a selling point, but with Club Brevity around, I kind of felt obliged to give that one up. But I honestly cannot imagine this being hard on AfD. "Fails prong 3 of FICT" will be the new "Delete nn." It'll be great. I mean, what do people what? We don't have a magic wand to wish the controversy away. This is a hugely controversial point. Hell, WP:N is a hugely controversial point. Have you ever looked at how it got its guideline status? It was edit warred over for two weeks, with no vote, and less harmonious consensus than this has. I mean, we're not going to do better than we are now. It doesn't get better than this on highly contentious issues. We need to stop dreaming that there's some magic solution waiting to be found. There's not. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:27, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I actually think some of the past revisions of this page were more useful as guidelines. This guideline proposal has been stripped down and summarized so much that, as you pointed out, if you alter or remove the prong test, then it real is redundant to the GNG. I really don't see the current version as the best solution possible, and I wouldn't support something simply because "we're not going to do better than we do now"; that just strikes as defeatism to me. One of the positives of the RFC is that you can get an influx of new ideas and suggestions. WesleyDodds (talk) 06:33, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I am inclined to wonder if the guideline is better now or in an earlier version. I worry that we've tried to appease too many minor complaints at this point. There just aren't that many people complaining about confusion. And this isn't going to be a universally palatable guideline. It's a controversial issue. Eventually there's going to come a point where someone has to gird their loins and say "Screw it, it's a guideline." Which is basically how we got WP:N - the fundamental guideline everyone is referring to here. There was no vote there. It was, frankly, rammed through. We're already doing wildly better than the process to establish a supposedly fundamental and uncontradictable guideline. I really, really have no qualms about our process at this point.
 * Honestly, looking at the RfC, it's clear to me that the basic approach is the best one we're going to get. I'm inclined to wind down the RfC, return to the core group that has formulated this, and, with what we learned from the RfC, come up with the best version of this that we can and tag it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm opposed to this as well. We've gotten a lot of feedback, not much of it has been "I understand the guideline and think that the first prong is either superfluous or harmful". Maybe the first prong isnt' binding. I don't know. But it seems to be reasonable. Apart from the risk of confusion, I don't know what the problem is. Also, once we cut the first prong, what stops us from cutting the second (it is arguably more fuzzy than the first)? then we are left with "has some real world info that is verified by a secondary source". Not much of a fiction guideline. Protonk (talk) 06:29, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think we should use examples to explain things. They can quickly convey info.  Maybe not articles, but "secondary sources i.e. DVD commentaries" (if that's what we decide).  A few links to versions of articles might actually be good too.  I think this would vastly reduce misunderstandings. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:56, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Stick the word 'independent' in from of Secondary Sources, return the 'significant', due to the inclusion of episodes, because otherwise a TV Guide listing becomes grounds for notabiltiy of each episode, like "...are presumed to be notable if they have significant coverage in independent secondary sources", and I'm on board. ThuranX (talk) 06:54, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * And that makes this stricter than the GNG (the inclusion of "independent".  We can't add that if its not in WP:N. --M ASEM  07:04, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, and just playing devil's advocate here, the reason that this is proving so difficult is that it's not a good idea? I've been plowing through the archives, and some threads keep emerging.  It had been noted that this is now being derided as both too inclusionist and too strict.  While "everyone equally unhappy" is often a sign that a sloution is near, I'm not seeing this here.  And (no offense to Protonk here) if he isn't sure if the first prong is binding or not, who is?  Is there an exit strategy here? -  brenneman  10:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Its not like I'm unclear whether or not it is binding in the guideline, but whether or not it actually causes us to delete or keep articles. The term "binding constraint" was a tip to Constraint (mathematics).  I would also argue that a solution being derided as both too inclusionist and too strict is pretty close to where you want to be in a compromise.  Compromise usually means "everyone kind of unhappy" not "everyone happy".  If we have a community that is defined by a sharp political split along this fault line and we don't want to privilege one side or the other, the solution will cause both extremes to find it distasteful.  Ever notice why there is more talk than action aboud bipartisanship in washington?  It isn't because there is some magical solution out there that makes both sides happy. Protonk (talk) 14:28, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I really, really oppose scrapping the first prong. By requiring the main body of work to pass the GNG by a mile, we guaranteed that there are third-party sources at least about the context and environment the character is set in. If we drop it, the flood-gates open to any obscure work that the developer blogged about. You all can tell I'm biting my tongue so hard it's bleeding, and this is one of the things that keeps me going ... at least the main body of work has to have substantial independent sourcing. And people, don't misread me ... I don't mean secondary, I mean independent. Removing the first prong would allow the creation of entire groups of articles based on nothing but developer commentary, and that is wholly unacceptable.&mdash;Kww(talk) 14:54, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What if we supplemented what we remove? We drop the first prong, but we also add a caveat that "articles without independent sources are generally merged into another notable article". We would remove one control, but add another control in its place. Randomran (talk) 16:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The only reason I've been able to handle weak language like "are generally merged" is that umbrella provided by the first prong. I come from the stance that articles without independent sources should always be deleted or merged, and I have a hard time stomaching a guideline that tries to carve out an exception. The larger the exception, the harder it is. Allowing character articles from works that are themselves scarcely notable is too large of an exception.&mdash;Kww(talk) 17:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Just for the sake of brainstorming... What if we dropped the first prong, but had stronger language that "articles that meet these two prongs but fail WP:V for a lack of third-party sources should be summarized and merged into another notable article." My goal is finding a simpler way to accomplish roughly the same thing. Fewer prongs, same quality. Randomran (talk) 17:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "The watchlist RFC is on hold." How is the rfc on hold? The RfC tag is still on the page. Thanks for the clarification. Ikip (talk) 17:10, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, you mean: MediaWiki_talk:Watchlist-details Ikip (talk) 19:51, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Approaching this from the standpoint of the GNG
Given the above discussion, I put some thought into exactly what we are doing with this to be actually necessary to include if we otherwise consider the GNG to be otherwise the default notability guideline for fiction (that is, do we really need FICT). Note that I'm considering the the GNG to be "a topic is presumed to be notable (and thus appropriate to have an article) if it has significant coverage in secondary sources)". I came up with three strong distinctions: Of these points, 1 and 2 are restatements of what we had with the three prongs version, but simply put in the light of the GNG instead of built from the ground up.  The three aspect, I'm a bit disappointed I can't figure out how to make it more objective, but I think the RFC results show that we really can't and only warn that articles that over-detail on a work of fiction will tend to be merge/deletion targets.  Thus, we could write the bulk of the current proposal from scratch with emphasis on the basis still being the GNG (to satisfy those deletionists) but that we're clarifying that creator commentary is considered secondary, while presuming that if there's some real world information for a fiction element, it is sufficiently notable to have a page (though editorial merging can still take place). --M ASEM 15:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) The term "secondary source" is not changed but instead clarified that this can include creator commentary in addition to normal independent and/or third-party sources, with careful warnings about self-published sources.  There are editors that do not feel creator commentary is a secondary source, and would outright consider articles only written from primary and from creator commentary to fail this point.  Thus, we need to describe what are considered secondary sources for fiction elements (a point that seemed to have consensus at the WP:N RFC), and thus this points to "coverage" being the "real-world" information about development, influences, analysis, reception, and legacy of the fiction element, some which only can be gleaned from the creator.
 * 2) In the same vein as other subnotability guidelines (ala WP:BIO) we apply an approach that the article may not immediately fully meet the GNG when initially created, but, as per WP:MUSIC, It is not enough to make vague claims in the article or assert (a fiction element's importance) on a talk page or AfD page -- the article itself must document notability.   Thus, the "significant coverage" part is weakened in this light, and instead we want just "non-trivial coverage" (which can mean, simply, one source) such that authors of these articles on fictin elements have a good chance at working on improving them instead of forcing merges too early.  This is not a means to allow articles to stay with only one source (even a developer source) forever, and has been argued, if articles, given time and good faith effort to improve, cannot grow to meet other policies/guidelines like WP:V, merging/deletion may still occur.
 * 3) Because some treatments of fiction can become highly detailed depending on the level of enthusiasm behind the editors (with extensive effort to address the first two points above any way they can), we do need to employ limits.  Our limits are determined to some extent by WP is not a collection of indiscriminate information and summary style (with possible a helping of undue coverage), and basically has to be considered advice, not so much guideline.  That is, elements from works of fiction that otherwise meet the above points, while the work itself lacks significance (being barely notable) likely don't need to be split from the parent work and can be covered there.  Similarly, elements that are not critical to understanding a work or cannot be expanded beyond a few paragraphs should not be split out to separate articles even if they also meet the above points.  Our advise should strongly suggest merging of these types of fiction elements to the parent work article (using redirects always).  The discussion on the RFC shows that its hard to give this point real teeth (a strong line) that can be used, but I think we can advice that editors should look to the parent work's size and the size of the element in consideration and determine if a merge is in order.  All I think we can really do on this point is caution and warn that this types of articles are generally frowned upon and will be seen for AFD or merging unless these really do meet the GNG.
 * No fair saying you approach it from the perspective of the GNG and then rewriting the GNG. It really says (emphasis mine) If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article..."Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject....&mdash;Kww(talk) 15:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree with Kww here, even if the two of us don't agree on what this guideline should read. Regardless of what we write here, the GNG is crystal clear on what sorts of sources allow us to presume notability. Protonk (talk) 15:47, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, I got that wrong. I meant to state this as coming from any other SNG, but noting how close we are to the GNG.  In otherwords, we can view FICT as an SNG but with only one specific criteria, "non-trivial coverage in a secondary source", with the same stipulations that the other SNGs have (it's neither sufficient to say they exist without evidence, and all other policies and guidelines hold for article quality).  It is just that our criteria is close - but not exactly - what the GNG gives, but that is by design, but so is the case for the other SNGs. --M ASEM  16:18, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Why not call the three prongs "pillars" instead? Then instead of seeing them as something to jab at articles with, they can be seen as something to build them on (c.f. WP:5). Or alternatively refer to "legs" and call it the "tripod test" because it will only stand if all three legs are present and stable. —S MALL JIM   23:20, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The GNG isn't the issue. I didn't bring this up because of a substantive issue with what is or isn't notable. I brought it up because a lot of opposition is based on this guideline being too complex. (Which is not the same as being too long or badly written.) Dropping the first prong isn't a matter of people disagreeing with the first prong, but a matter of people hating WP:BUREAUCRACY. Three prongs is a lot of red tape. We're not just talking about applying three tests to every article, but offering three different issues to argue about in an AFD. It's going to be a mess. Now imagine throwing a newbie into an AFD, with all the talk about prong this and prong that, and you failed one prong, and you think you met the other prong but you didn't because you're not reading it correctly. There isn't a single other guideline this annoying on Wikipedia. If we can find a way to drop the prong without sacrificing quality, we should do it. We'll gain a lot of support just based on improved clarity and usability. Randomran (talk) 16:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think if we had a way to drop the prong in the first place, we would have. Wasn't the whole issue before this was put up for adoption that the guideline only worked when all prongs were met? That's the whole point; if we're dropping a prong, we are changing the guideline completely; there's no simple way around that. -- Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 19:53, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No doubt, we would be changing it. But not to become more strict OR more inclusive. Rather, to achieve roughly the same balance, with fewer, simpler rules. Randomran (talk) 20:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * A tripod may have greater stability than some other structures, but I find that I am able to stand just fine on my two legs. While it's good brainstorming, I'd like to avoid forced metaphors. -Verdatum (talk) 18:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Abandoning prongs
The more I edit this page, the more I see that this guideline boils down to a handful of long sentences. The most (only?) important point here is that elements of fiction can bypass the GNG if they have secondary sources, thereby letting them have an article. Everything else in this proposal is just an extension of this or repetition from other guidelines. There is an easier way to say this than a test.

If I was to be so bold, I would condense the third prong into the Sources and Notability section, then blend the last paragraph o the intro with the first two prongs and the Articles that don't meet the inclusion criteria section. This would probably leave it at about half the length, but it would cease to make this guideline a checklist and make it more of a guiding light. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 00:05, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * When the test has three parts (really four parts, since we add other stuff about independent sourcing later int he guideline), you kind of appreciate a checklist format. But I think we should try to get the test down to two parts. When it's that short, you *can* afford to make it into prose, rather than a checklist. Randomran (talk) 00:10, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That seems like a rather dramatic refashioning for what is, all told, a relative minority of objections. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It is absolutely critical that the work itself have extensive third-party sourcing. Please don't minimize the importance of that. I am somewhat surprised that people believe three tests makes the guideline hideously complex.&mdash;Kww(talk) 00:20, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I have trouble taking the complaint seriously, honestly. Nobody seems to be able to explain what it is that's so confusing. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I believe, that I made myself clear. -- Goodraise (talk) 01:16, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I mentioned a few things in my feedback comment. Whitehorse1 01:04, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not yet certain that we have enough support to call what we have a consensus. These are minority opinions we might be able to appease without losing the overall inclusion/deletion balance. Three separate tests is confusing to understand... and even once people understand them, they're tedious to apply. We're talking about something that has to make for a reasonable AFD discussion. There's a whole group of opposition who simply doesn't want people wikilawyering over three separate factors... plus Wikilawyering over some of the other nuggets tucked in here, like "merging when there aren't independent sources". Randomran (talk) 01:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The problem is that there isn't another one-factor test: WP:N has the best one, and that is exactly what people are trying to expand on. Prong one is critical before allowing any expansion into gray areas of notability, or people will try to expand every obscure one-shot anime under the sun. Without the second prong, we'll have articles on the "third guard from the right" in Antigone. Without the third prong, we'll get articles that consist of nothing but plot summary.
 * If we really want to short the thing, change the first sentence of the third prong to Significant real-world information must exist on the element, at least some of which must be derived from sources independent of the creators of the work. Then the whole remainder of the guideline which serves to explain things can be scrapped. The more I look at it, I see three simple tests with a complicated explanation, not a complex test.&mdash;Kww(talk) 02:16, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you're onto the right track. We can't get down to one prong -- that's WP:N. But if we're going to drop a prong, we need to build in some strength somewhere else. We've already created a de facto fourth prong, by saying "independent sourcing is necessary". Since we already have that, why do we really need the first prong? That will prevent people form expanding every obscure one-shot anime, unless they've truly made an impact enough to attract independent notice. Randomran (talk) 02:54, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * But how does that simplify anything? Just because you knock three to two doesn't mean the force of the first prong has been lost, according to your plan—so it's no less confusing, and has the possibility to be more. -- Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 02:58, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The force is still there, but the prong is not. We've simplified it. We've removed an item from the checklist. Take a look at the RFC. Look at how many of the oppose !votes come from people who, in good faith, think that three prongs plus explanations are tedious, bureaucratic, and wikilawyer-ish. Who dread the very idea of turning fiction AFDs into a three dimensional battleground. If we can win their support without changing the force of the guideline, then we should do it. We do that by simplification. Randomran (talk) 03:03, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not think the language regarding independent sources amounts to anything like a de facto fourth prong. The three prongs are things that there must be affirmative evidence of in order for an article to exist at all. Independent sources, ultimately, there has to be evidence against - i.e. an active, real search for them that fails. That's a key difference. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It's in the guideline, and thus it becomes a factor in peoples' arguments about whether there should be a stand-alone article. We have 3 prongs plus, whether we like it or not. If we didn't, then I could remove that part about the independent sourcing and still garner the same support. But you know that's not true. It means something. It counts. Randomran (talk) 03:18, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure. It counts. So does the language about preserving content, article potential, and all the other stuff that isn't a prong. It's still not a prong. I mean, that was the compromise, in a nutshell - independence went in, but simple lack of independent sourcing was not a reason for deletion. The whole compromise was that it wasn't a prong. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:31, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (outdent)There isn't really an end to this reductionism. If we drop the first prong, we have only the second (importance to the work) and the third (secondary sourcing that denotes a real world connection). At that point we may drop the second as "fuzzy" or "editor determined" (both defensible positions that I don't happen to agree with). Then we have the third prong which merely requires secondary sourcing (not independent sourcing) and some rw connection. At that point we lose everyone left of Kww unless we reword the third prong to be the GNG. then why didn't we just have the GNG in the first place. So I'm against this. three is fine. there is some symbolic stability in threes. The first prong lets us know that some preponderance of independent sources have discussed the work in detail--this means that they are likely to have discussed an important element of the work at least in passing. the second prong supports the first but also supports the foundations of this guideline:that we don't delete major characters but we may delete or merge minor characters. the third prong requires that we have verifiable evidence of some RW connection from secondary sourcing--it doesn't mandate independent sourcing but does provide a strong hedge against editors hoping to bluff their way around the first prong. All three together provide a cogent exception to the GNG. Separated and turned into bullet points or condensed into single paragraphs they are just a word salad. Please, please consider this when attempting to mollify some of the critics of this proposal. Protonk (talk) 03:15, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well how do we gain a consensus without mollifying some of the critics? Randomran (talk) 03:18, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying that we mollify none of them. But I am saying that dumping the first prong isn't the solution, as it messes up the rest of the guideline.  Each of these requirements rest on each other in important ways.  If the guideline is going to look anything like it does today, then that is the form it has to take.  If it isn't going to, then we should think strongly about going back to the major/minor list/main/spinout older form of the guideline.  That has the disadvantage of being arbitrary and too generous to relatively nn works, but it was simpler to apply.  We are at a (*sigh*...hate that phrase) tipping point here.  Up to this point, simplicity was being gained with each reduction, when you kick out one of the three legs, the rest tumble.  We don't gain simplicity from that next edit.  We lose force and coherence.  Any smaller and we need to abandon this form and pick another.  I don't think we want to do that just yet. Protonk (talk) 03:28, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * :Shrug: I think we're already there. Support has stalled around 60/40, with a lot of opposition based on the tedium of a "three prongs plus details about sourcing" guideline. We have to start simplifying the form, instead of just copyediting and shortening the language. But obvious it depends on how you read the RFC, and how far the RFC still has to go. At what point do we have enough evidence that we can decide whether this guideline has a consensus, and (if not) determine how to modify the guideline to gain a consensus? Randomran (talk) 03:34, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Ok, so what about instead of abandoning prongs, we change one of the prongs? What about if we get rid of the first prong, and find an alternative criteria? -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 04:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I prefer abandoning the prong system myself, because I feel it has lost sight of being clear and useful for a guideline. Now's a time to try something new. WesleyDodds (talk) 05:10, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Protonk that we loose force and coherence by dumping the prongs. This guideline works best by leading us through the inclusion criteria in stages, in the same way that WP:GNG is broken down 5 or more important definitions (and lots of footnotes) to explain how it works. The fact that Phil Sandifer and Masem have boiled down the inclusion criteria to three prongs, each one of which builds on the other, is a stroke of genius in my view. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:48, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Simpler Instructions
My pass at preserving the language of the prongs while simplifying the instructions is at User:Kww/fict.&mdash;Kww(talk) 12:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Shorter != simpler. Randomran (talk) 15:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

What's the difference between the third prong and the Sources section?
Is it just me, or do I not see one? In a bit of a round about way, they're both talking about the need for at least some secondary sources. I don't see why they can't be drawn together. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 00:34, 4 February 2009 (UTC)