Talk:Garden gnome/Archives/2012

Schwau resin

What is schwau? A type of material? A trade name? A typo? It's not a word in my German dictionary, nor can I find any definition of schwau that makes sense in this context. --ABehrens (talk) 16:24, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

This mighty strange sequence of characters originated over at the article Gnome, from which this one was split off. It has even been noticed before at Talk:Gnome#schwau?. The "word", if we want to call it that, was inserted there on November 12, 2008 by an anonymous user editing via an IP in Malaysia. How this nonsense could survive that long is beyond me. I've removed it. Lupo 15:37, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

P.S.: the only other mention of this funny "word" that is not just a mirrored version of our article is here, but maybe even that mention was inspired by our usage of it. Lupo 15:37, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Protection from evil sorcery?

"...produced for the purpose of ornamentation and protection from evil sorcery...". Really? I will take that out, unless someone can provide a cite for it. Wardog (talk) 18:26, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Popular culture

Please see Wikipedia:"In popular culture" content: "When properly written, such sections can positively distinguish Wikipedia from more traditional encyclopedias. They should be verifiable and should contain facts of genuine interest to the reader. Detailing a topic's impact upon popular culture can be a worthwhile contribution to an article, provided that the content is properly sourced and consistent with policies and guidelines, such as neutral point of view, no original research, and what Wikipedia is not."

The random listing of recent pop culture inclusions of gnomes does not "detail" anything, much less the impact of garden gnomes on popular culture. It is not sourced. Part of it did have a citation to a blog, which I have removed.

"When poorly written or poorly maintained, however, these sections can devolve into indiscriminate collections of trivia or cruft. They should be carefully maintained, as they may attract non-notable entries, especially if they are in list format."

The listing is indiscriminate. It is not a selection of inclusions of garden gnomes in popular culture reflecting aspects of their influence on pop culture. It is a list of movies and books the editor could think of that include gnomes. It is a list of those and nothing more.

I'll let it ride for a bit, then (failing improvement of the section and/or policy-based discussion to the contrary) remove it again. Thanks. - SummerPhD (talk) 01:37, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Now a few of the individual items are sourced, Stil, "When poorly written or poorly maintained, however, these sections can devolve into indiscriminate collections of trivia or cruft. They should be carefully maintained, as they may attract non-notable entries, especially if they are in list format." This is still an indiscriminate list and nothing more. - SummerPhD (talk) 15:00, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

The IP who added this section has repeatedly reverted my removal of the section as well as another editor's removal. PLEASE review the guidelines at Wikipedia:"In popular culture" content. This is an indiscriminate list of occurrences. For an encyclopedic "In popular culture" section, we need reliable sources discussing garden gnomes in films, books, etc. Sources that merely confirm that garden gnomes appear in whatever game, movie or whatever are not sufficient. The guideline in question makes this quite clear, IMO. - SummerPhD (talk) 16:29, 30 August 2012 (UTC)