Wikipedia talk:Pokémon test

Karen (Pokémon)
You know, all these doofy minor human characters in Pokémon are slated to be merged; it's just that there's so many of them that it's slow going.

If you want a long-lasting example, I would suggest sticking with Bellsprout; I don't think I'll be able to get that merged any time soon, unlike Karen (Pokémon). - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:07, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Credit?
Some credit would have been nice, you know. User:Hiding/Pokemon test. Hiding Talk 21:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:OWN
I wrote this essay and I'll keep it the way I like, thanks


 * If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:45, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Oops. Matt Yeager ♫ ( Talk? ) 02:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I've merged the page histories. That should solve any issues over credit, and I note that Matt suggested this on the 21 December 2005, 21:32 (UTC so I can't see him objecting. Hiding Talk 15:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Examples of the Pokémon test in action
Have the quoted users been asked permission to post their usages of the Pokémon test? If not, it may cause offense to be taken. -- Gray  Porpoise Phocoenidae, not Delphinidae 13:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * They licensed them under the GFDL. Hiding Talk 18:45, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Straw Man
Might this be seen as a version of the Straw Man logical fallacy? humblefool&reg; 02:34, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, and also argumentum ad odium. Articles should stand on their own; one should neither keep an article because we have similar articles, nor delete an article because we do not have similar articles. Judge on merit, not principle.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  14:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Please explain
I'm still not clear why each of the 493 Pokemon characters seems to be exempt from the notability requirements for verifiable, reliable independent sources which are cited to justify the deletion of articles everyday in AfDs, such as (recently) college choral groups, churches, professors, books, authors, other persons living or dead. The articles cite sources showing that the Pokemon franchise overall is notable, but for individual characters, all I see are original research where someone has noted things themselves, and game guides from the vendor of the franchise. Notability of the franchise does not automatically confer notability on each thing related to it. Why do Pokemon characters get a pass? Is it just ILIKEIT? Is it exemot from demonstrating sources to show notability because there is a project?Edison 15:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Surprisingly, this isn't the best place to discuss this! This talk page is to discuss changes to the Pokémon Test essay, which is written about the phenomenon that each Pokémon has its own article.  You might have better luck discussing this at the Pokémon Collaborative Project's talk page, which is where a lot of people concerned with and focused on Pokémon articles discuss such things.
 * In the past, actually, your issue has arisen several times recently in the PCP. The problem was that even if we did decide to merge the Pokémon articles, there didn't seem to be a practical method of merging them.  --Brandon Dilbeck 19:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh my, that was funny. Wow, I'm in awe, Señor Dilbeck. ;) Matt Yeager ♫ ( Talk? ) 23:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * See this first discussion and a later discussion from the PCP for more about this. --Brandon Dilbeck 00:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Drake & Josh test
Look at the multitude of Drake & Josh related articles, eg. Treehouse (Drake & Josh episode). If ever a range of articles brought Wikipedia to shame, those articles do, even more so than the Pokémon articles do. --Ezeu 00:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh wow, how embarrassing! I think that hardly deserves its own article!  Look at the airdate: "January 21th, 2007".  lol  --Brandon Dilbeck 01:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Pokémon test may soon be moot
Last month, there was this (now archived) discussion at the Pokémon Collaborative Project. The discussion was mainly about the questionable notability of nearly all of the Pokémon species and that much of the material in the articles should be considered cruft. A proportion of the members of the WikiProject are convinced that all the articles about Pokémon should be merged, and to that effect, a prototype merged list was created. This activity precisely counters the argument of the Pokémon test. It is interesting that many people may continue to cite the Pokémon test in AfD discussions without realizing how increasingly doubtful the notablilty of each Pokémon is. I just thought that this might be an interesting point to add to the essay. --Brandon Dilbeck 00:51, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The pokemon test has in fact been moot for quite some time, as it is essentially an example of WP:AADD (e.g. "otherstuffexists" and so forth).  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  09:52, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Month after month even Pokemon fans admit that the 493 individual fictional creatures lack the multiple independent sources needed to establish notability, yet month after month there are 493 long individual articles written based on original research from people watching the cartoons, or from the game guides published by the franchize owner (hardly independent) or from fans' websites (not reliable). And every month articles about schools, manufacturing companies, public libraries, shopping malls and college choral groups are summarily deleted because they lack sources meeting WP:ATT to shown their encyclopedic notability. And still people grumble when anyone says "How come we keep all these Pokemon articles without meeting basic standards fort what belongs in an encyclopedia?" Pokemons only satisfy the "ILIKEIT" standard.Edison 13:04, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * If you truly believe that, I'd suggest you nominate a few random Pokearticles for deletion. Wikipedia works by consensus, after all.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  13:11, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, maybe not more than one. No need to flood the system to make a WP:POINT, after all. Matt Yeager ♫ ( Talk? ) 22:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Is there a collection of outcomes of AFDs for pokemons? If fans who usuallu don't watch deletion debates come swooping in to say KEEP like fans of other projects do (sometimes in response to canvassing via newsletters or IRC alerts) then they would all be kept. If they were judged on their merits in accord with WP:N or WP:ATT then only the more notable would be kept. And I expect the nominator might be castigated for WP:POINT or for disruptive editing, however justified the nom. Touch someone's hobby and you touch a hornet's nest. Edison 22:58, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Everything is someone's hobby. I seriously doubt you'd be castigated or anything. A long time ago I made a proposal to merge pokemon stubs, and the reaction by pokemon-fans was generally very nice and constructive, and this resulted in many pokearticles being improved. Compare this with the nastiness that used to occur when anyone nominated a school article for deletion, I think you'll see that, ironically and unexpectedly, pokemon-fans are more civil and mature than people who go to school.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  08:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Er, in any case, the Pokemon creature articles are getting merged soon (for the most part). Regardless that the Pokemon Test was moot from the beginning, should it at least be noted on this page that the 493 articles will soon be reduced in less-than-half?  You Can't See Me!  03:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I still count almost 400 articles under Category:Pokémon species by generation. Any update on the merger proposal? --Dystopos 15:25, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I thought of this myself too. The Pokemon articles are in limbo right now, with lists of Pokemon and lots of merging going on.-h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 11:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

When we have a picture like, something must be... well... Marlith  T /C  03:11, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Examples = good?
Aside from the fact that most similar pages do not have random citations of arbitrary users that mention the page, the quotes are probably misleading in that I suspect at least two of the quoted users of sarcasm here. I'd be in favor of removing them. Why do you need an example of citing a page anyway? We all know how to cite pages.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  08:09, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * That makes some sense, I dunno...  Matt Yeager   ♫  (Talk?)  05:29, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Simpsons argument
I've noticed from time to time that in deletion discussions people sometimes tend to make an argument very similar to the Pokemon test, referencing the fact that every episode of The Simpsons has it's own argument. Is there grounds for mention? Calgary 06:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Not particularly. I can think of any number of sets, fictional or no, each element of which has its own article.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  12:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Despite concerns about WP:BEANS, looking at some well know things that COULD have articles for each element: Rock, paper, scissors: no game-specific articles on the three possible things a player can throw: Zero for three. Monopoly (game): No articles for the various properties and squares, except so far as they have real world bases, such as "jail" or "Reading Railroad." Zero for forty. Tarot: Articles for each of the 21 "trump cards" or Major arcana. No articles for each of the 56 "minor arcana" cards. Playing cards: Eight articles for face cards by name and for suits, but as for specific cards only found Ace of spades. No overall coverage such as articles for "5 of clubs" or "Queen of Hearts." So 1 out of 52 possible articles.   So in these other realms, even though the game itself (or the deck of cards) is extremely notable, this has not led to methodically creating a stub article for each element, even though such articles could be equipped with little succession boxes to say what card comes before and after the 5 of clubs, however satisfying it can be to keep creating such articles (kind of like knitting one row after another). This is even though references in print and in popular culture could be found for most any card: "5 of clubs" gets 11,800 Google hits, has 463 articles in Google news archive, 113 refs in Google books , and 40 refs in Google scholar . The implication would be to have articles only for the more notable Pokemons, which have substantial coverage in independent and reliable sources, but that the notability of the overall franchise does not imply notability for each element of the set, and that the encyclopedia can get along fine with a list or table such as there is for Monopoly properties and playing cards. Edison 14:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * That's a funny list, but pretty much irrelevant (of course I could counter with such things as "every single nobel prize winner", "every single naturally-occuring atom" and "every single village in the USA", scoring 100% out of however much).
 * What actually matters is how much information is available on the topic; we merge overly short perma-stubs into lists. One can write a lot more about any random Simpsons episode than about any random playing card.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  14:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The arbitrarily chosen sets I looked at are not comparable to chemical elements, each of which unquestionably has journal articles, books and chapters in chemistry books written about them, or Nobel prize winners(ditto). Nor is it comparable to villages, which have no notable superset. Someone created a bot which made an article for every present US village and hamlet, and people brought in articles from the 1911 Brittanica about practically every then-existing village in the world. By analogy, we could create articles about every hamlet thet ever existed in the world (since notability is permanent), even if it became a ghost town in 1850. The things I looked at are cases where the superset is notable, but not all of the set member are notable enough to have articles, like Pokemons. (edited)Edison 17:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, and the point remains that what actually matters is how much information is available on the topic; we merge overly short perma-stubs into lists.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  07:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Wha?!
What Is the POKEMON IN THIS WIKIPEDIA?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rolandhelper (talk • contribs) 07:05, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

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This essay implies it is a fallacy to set up equal standards, but gave no reasons. Honestly, who'd really agree to an essay that says "once upon a time, this idiot used the Pokemon test, and then this other idiot used it too. The moral of the story is that equal standards are wrong." 173.180.202.22 (talk) 01:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

This page makes no sense
Why are each of the cited examples regarding sometihng that is WAAAAAY less notable then any Pokemon? For example: a stop on a train line?! And this doesn't even appear to be referencing a large train line, like Chicago, but rather some small train line in a non-major city and each individual stop on that line. Even in Chicago or New York, there is hardly anything notable about most individual subway stops. Yet, walk into a room of 100 people, and 100 of those people will have heard of Pikachu, 99 will have heard of Nidoran, and at least half will have heard of any random Pokemon from Gen1 or Gen2. The amount of people who will have heard of this train stop, unless they both live in that town AND frequently take that train from that line, will be 0. All of the other examples are similarly extremely less notable then Pokemon. If these are the common types of arguments that are made, where anyone reading the comment can clearly see that they are referring to something obscure or something far less well know then the "other article" they invoke as reasoning for it, then this article explaining that is not at all necessary, because, well, anyone reading it will automatically know that their argument is not legitimate due to the citing of a far more famous thing in their alleged "comparison". ~Rayvn 11:08, 12 May 2015 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by RayvnEQ (talk • contribs)


 * Oh yeah, I mean who has heard of Penn Station, or Grand Central? Or Kings Cross for that matter? I mean, compared to Nidoran - ESPECIALLY if you walk into a room at Poke-Con! However, in the real world (that many humans inhabit), Kings Cross is just ever so slightly more famous than Nerdoran. Surveying a room full of imaginary people exactly like yourself is a poor way to get any kind of perspective. This kind of argument really illustrates how Wikipedia's deletion policy is so infamously poor and overly-aggressive. Drcchutch (talk) 22:16, 15 November 2015 (UTC)