Wikipedia talk:Fancruft/Archive 4

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Fancruftopia

I can think of about two fictional universes whose characters merit articles on Wikipedia -- the Bible and Greek mythology. Kidding! But only a little.

Video game characters? Characters on sitcoms? Articles on any characters, beyond main articles about works of fiction? I'm agin' all of it, and I'd vote "yes" for a policy that said "Characters (episodes, planetoids, robots, chapters in Atlas Shrugged, and Beanie Babies) live in their respective fictional worlds only, not in Wikipedia."

Everyone should read/see/play with works of fiction, and then, for more insight, information, and total immersion in their fictional worlds, start a discussion group -- maybe with real people together in a room. Or on the Internet. Publish a book. Put up a website. Start a fan club.

Fancruft is spam. How productive would it be to focus our energies on factual, useful encyclopedic content (including works of literature and film, but not down to each horse's name and fictional planet of origin)? This is one of the main things that keeps me from contributing money to the Wiki foundation. There's no way I'm paying for more hard drives to get clogged with characters from WWF Smackdown, aliens appearing on Stargate SG-1, or lists of muggles with funny names.

I think this is an awful way of looking at things. We should retain the encyclopedia model in terms of desired quality and NPOV, but not limit content to that which would be found in an encyclopedia. The basic criterion for deleting a page should be as simple as, "Will a significant number of people want to read it, and if they do will they be informed by it?" For a good article about a major character in a reasonably popular work of fiction, the answers are yes and yes. And actually, if the first part is yes and the second is no, that means the article requires improvements to its quality, but not deletion-- unless the needed improvements are so massive it would be easier to delete it and start over. KP 22:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Well said! --maru (talk) contribs 23:40, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. My opinions on "fancruft" are so complex and confusing that I've never really had the time to sit and put it on paper. — Deckiller 23:43, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Send the entire Star Wars/Pokémon/Simpsons/Potter/Anime/Adult Swim/Soap/Real World/Survivor fancruft universe elsewhere. And I love The Simpsons! And Aqua Teen Hunger Force too. But articles on individual Simpsons episodes, or Billy Witch Doctor, is ridiculous. I liked Star Wars a lot, at least the first one. Having articles on Star Wars characters is absurd. It's all original research, not to mention impossible-by-definition to meet WP:NPOV. ("Some think that Lando was forced to encase Han in carbonite, while others feel he was just being vindictive."). The fact that people feel their lives were changed by a Jedi is a reflection of the human race's lack of compassion and contact with itself, not a basis for another "encyclopedia" article.

People shake their heads when there's a news story about a college somewhere teaching Star Wars as Metaphor, or "Parallels Between Dune and the Balkans Situation." If they knew the number of pages on Wikipedia devoted to this stuff, they might suspect that Wikipedia is a giant compendium of pop-culture masturbation, with a few encyclopedic articles in the sciences and humanities.

Don't get me wrong. I spent a lot of time lately on some fiction-based articles, including Burr and Brokeback Mountain. But I'm not writing separate articles on Ennis Del Mar, Jack Twist, their horses, wives, kids, and the rodeo clown in the bar in scene 16.

I'd pay somebody to fork the whole thing tomorrow, and send Fancruftopia(tm) its separate way.

I'm really not a crabby old college classics professor. I'd rather sound like one, though, than a nincompoop who knows more about the third season of Who's the Boss than he does about global warming or what a molecule is. By not banning fancruft, we feed it, and it metastasizes throughout the body Wiki. DavidH 08:24, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

ooooh, nothing is complete without an oh-so-tasteful cancer comparison. Really lets us know how carefully you've thought about this whole thing. Look, if you see a specific article that you think exhibits Granularity Out Of Proportion To Influence, then feel free to suggest it be merged or put it up for deletion. But a statement as broad and sweeping as the one you make here comes off as unbelievably arrogant ("Hey, look, guyz! I can effortlessly sum up the importance of all fiction in the last two millenia in a couple of sweeping paragraphs! Ain't I smart?") and puts off people who might have actually sympathized with a desire to rein in the spread of fancruft on a reasonable basis. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:17, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't trying to be offensive per se, but I take your point and apologize. I see not a few specific articles but thousands out of proportion. As to unbelievable arrogance, I'll wear that shoe. Mainly I thought the rant could be amusing; I'll try to be reasonable when it comes to actual proposals. The hyperbole shouldn't be taken as bad faith and nothing else. -- DavidH 00:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

AF---interesting point, but it understates the problem. Suggesting that DavidH VFD "a specific article" glosses over the real issue, which isn't the occasional extra article here or there, but great gobs of articles on individual games, TV shows, and movies. Look at Cosmic Era Mobile Units, which lists dozens if not hundreds of individual articles on giant robots from a Japanese cartoon show. It's a waste of time to discuss those one-by-one---they are either all worthy of inclusion, or none of them are. --jdb ❋ (talk) 00:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Why is it they must all be notable or non-notable, period? What about a list of them? --maru (talk) contribs 02:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I can't honestly imagine that (for example) TS-MA2mod.00_Moebius_Zero could be notable while ZGMF-X09A Justice Gundam would not be, or vice versa. As to consolidating all of the articles into a list, well, that's also on the table. But any such consolidation would require deleting material (the individual articles aren't exactly stubs), which brings us back to the question at hand. --jdb ❋ (talk) 06:03, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Deleting? Why would you need to delete information when merging into a list? In my experience, the only information lost in merging is usually the categories (since a list doesn't usually have a superset of all its element's original categories) and possibly links to the articles. --maru (talk) contribs 06:41, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

In many of the fancruft articles in question, you would and do lose large amounts of information in a merge because making a list by combining articles without trimming them can result in articles with lengths of 30+ pages. Even when an article tree is admittedly fancruft by almost any definition, merging it into a list can be a bad idea because of the massive size of the resulting list article. In some cases, you are left with 3 options: Deleting a group of well written and painstakingly edited but unnecessary articles, leaving them as is, or scraping them down to the absolute bare bones and combining them into a list.

For this reason, I believe that if a subject itself is notable, any well written subarticles should be kept as well. It's true that no one but the fans will probably ever read those articles, but it is similarly true that because of this very fact they do no harm to the wikipedia. We certainly don't NEED an article on every single Naruto (manga) character, but someone took the trouble of writing them, so someone obviously has an interest in the subject. If those articles meet the other quality standards, is there any need to delete them? If only being of interest to a small proportion of the population is sufficient grounds for deletion, then Wikipedia itself is an unnecessary work.--Tjstrf 21:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Waste of time or not, I have one request to people involve in this project. Someone start to put several pages in Cosmic Era Mobile Units on AfD per this project. While I respect your point of view, this person made these nomination seperately, divide in several small groups, daily. Please keep them in single page and wait to see vote result. I can accept whatever result to be, but thislooklike he's just trolling. Plus, most of this person's contribute is AfD nomination (see Special:Contributions&target=Brian+G.+Crawford) with only few article edit. My opinion on subject, while merge closely relate entry (like all Dagger or Astray MS) into single article make sense, merge all of them into single list is unbearable. Some are very different from other and should be keep seperate.L-Zwei 19:27, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with L-Zwei. I'm a fan of the series in question also. I've got to say that specifically pointing out one universe as cruft gives the series a bad name which is most likely why Mr. Crawford has started on his "cruftsade" on Gundam, which is by the way not a show with samurai robots with colored car fenders, and wouln't stop until someone makes him. Rappapa 7:16 PM, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

"I can't tell you what fancruft is, but I know it when I see it" -Drdisque 06:40, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

One problem I have with getting rid of Fancruft is that if you're at all interested in anything that is related to the topic of the cruft, reading it can be very entertaining and informative (even if the information isn't very useful). I don't consider myself to be a big Star Wars fan but I sat down and read the entire article on all the forms of Lightsaber combat, who uses them, how they work, etc etc. For a person with a couple hours to burn and a laptop and wireless connection, finding a low-bandwidth, free site like Wikipedia with large amounts of information about a wide range of scientific, literary, cultural, biographical and theoretical topics can be highly entertaining and satisfying. Problem is, what you consider to be interesting obviously ranges from one person to the next. I could care less about pretty much anything related to dance or football, for example. Is my interest or lack thereof any more or less important than somebody else's? Somebody above said that your opinion, online polls, etc etc, aren't reliable sources to use. So until someone can do a massive survey without the aid of the internet to prove a topic isn't interesting or relevant, you don't know what the general population thinks about it. I propose keeping Fancruft on Wikipedia if only because it can be very entertaining, and Wikipedia being what it is, chances are high that it will be thorough and reviewed by at least several people. It also allows for a look at what from that fancruft is real (especially for science fiction), all from within the comfortable and nicely styled walls of Wikipedia. --Twile 20:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

"In Popular Culture"

A phenomenon that upsets me is the way that an otherwise excellent article can be cruftified by the inclusion of an In Popular Culture (or similar) section. Suddenly every film, TV show or videogame which makes reference to the subject of the article gets listed. See troll, giant panda and many others. Keeping the cruft down in these articles becomes a major task, and one risks upsetting people when drawing the line between notable examples and cruft.

In such sections, I think it is best to document general trends rather than specific cases, and having a policy of only one example per trend. That is what I am trying to do in the Undead article, which has attracted a lot of fancruft in its time. BreathingMeat 22:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Examples

The article currently contrasts 87 articles on Gundams with "a single article on Moby-Dick." This is now an unfortunate comparison, as Wikipedia has articles on Moby Dick, Queequeg, Ishmael (Moby-Dick), and the Pequod (Moby-Dick). I suspect keeping a permanent example there may be impossible, since well-meaning contributors will fix the lack of articles we implicitly criticize. Nonetheless, I suggest we change the example to one that is true. A few minutes of thinking and checking lead me to suggest Paradise Lost might be a good example. I'm going to be bold and make the change now, but it's rather arbitrary and I'm not at all attached to it. ^L_Wizard @ 07:40, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Argument for the sake of argument

I propose that Wikipedia: Fancruft is a fancruft page for Wikipedia. Jtrainor 13:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

You are hereby blocked for self-reference. You must not climb the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man to protest your block. Just zis Guy you know? 13:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Wha? Jtrainor 13:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I think he's joking around with you. I am quite frankly amazed that we actually have an essay/joke page called that though. --tjstrf 14:28, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Fancruft = Deletion

If an article has "Fancruft" you delete it... So you remove all the information regarding to that article because you as an admin don't understand? An encyclopedia is for collection of information. Okay I get that you want the information to be as clear as possible, but by deleting it you get rid of the information and Oh get people pis*ed of so they never return to wikipedia and thus never re-contibute viable information. Good Policy. I Have been donating a lot of Hours to Kiddy Grade and all its sub-articles. SO many pages have been deleted, and the only thing that I have done is move information around, I haven't changed ANYTHING (apart from the fact its in a different place and that I have added pics and infoboxs). I didn't type anything and all the effort I have made into using the cumbersome wikiscript to get these boxs to work nicely and to get the pictures up so they arnt "Illegal" and then to just see whole articles up for deletion because someone cant understand what it says. Maybe if people stopped sticking their noses everywhere and gave me (AS THE ONLY PERSON bothering with this article) time to improve it, which is exactly what I am trying to do, then I will. All the admins patrolling around the article and telling me it needs improving is so F****************** annoying.

This "Fancruft" this is a way of improving articles, and as a principle that is fine. But I am doing that already, and its annoying, and if I delete the fancruft notice, as it gets in the way and doesn't let me see what the article will look like, the article is deleted.

User:Geni and User:Stifle are those doing this.

--Crampy20 18:11, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank *goodness* you didn't forget Salyut the spaceship in the list of non-human characters in List of Kiddy Grade characters. So often we forget about the spaceship characters in history. Today, no one even remembers the name of Abraham Lincoln's spaceship. --Tysto 20:05, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Here here. I too have spent a lot of time on articles only to see them nominated to be deleted, with half of the votes being "Delete as Fancruft" and similar crap. People need to understand that just because they think something in Fancruft doesn't mean it should be deleted. Even if it is in fact Fancruft, this is not a guideline or a policy, it's a heavily opinionated essay. "Delete as Fancruft" is just as valid of a vote as "Delete as boring" in that neither of them are policies and both of them are subjective. The thing that makes me really sick is to see all the people who seem to delight in removing Fancruft, especially game stuff. They feel they're doing Wikipedia a great service, and make it into a fun little game, congratulating each other on deleting pages which took hours and hours to write. This has got to stop. --Twile 16:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

These are all pages legible for fancruft or deletion or merging, or listation simple because well, policy.................. Abra Absol Aerodactyl Aggron Aipom Alakazam Altaria Amaldo Ampharos Anorith Arbok Arcanine Ariados Aron icuno Azumarill Azurill Bagon Baltoy Banette Barboach Bayleef Beautifly Beedrill Beldum Bellossom Bellsprout Blastoise Blaziken Blissey Breloom Bulbasaur Butterfree Cacnea Cacturne Camerupt Carvanha Cascoon Castform Caterpie Celebi Chansey Charizard Charmander Charmeleon Chikorita Chimecho Chinchou Clamperl Claydol Clefable Clefairy Cleffa Cloyster Combusken Corphish Corsola Cradily Crawdaunt Crobat Croconaw Cubone Cyndaquil Delcatty Delibird Deoxys Dewgong Diglett Ditto Dodrio Doduo Donaphan air ite Dratini Drowzee Dugtrio Dunsparce Dusclops Duskull Dustox Eevee Ekans Electabuzz Electrike Electrode Elekid Entei Espeon Exeggcute Exeggutor Exploud Farfetch'd Fearow Feebas Feraligatr Flaaffy Flareon Flygon Foretress Furret Gardevoir Gastly Gengar Geodude Girafarig Glalie Gligar Gloom Golbat Goldeen Golduck Golem Gorebyss Granbull Graveler Grimer on Grovyle Growlithe Grumpig Gulpin Gyarados Hariyama Haunter Heracross Hitmonchan Hitmonlee Hitmontop HoOh HootHoot Hoppip Horsea Houndoom Houndour Huntail Hypno Igglybuff Illumise Ivysaur Jigglypuff Jirachi Jolteon Jumpluff Jynx Kabuto Kabutops Kadabra Kakuna Kangaskhan Kecleon Kingdra Kingler Kirlia Koffing Krabby Kyogre Lairon Lanturn Lapras Larvitar Latias Latios Ledian Ledyba Lickitung Lileep Linoone Lombre Lotad Loudred Ludicolo Lugia Lunatone Luvdisc Machamp Machoke Machop Magby Magcargo Magikarp Magmar Magnemite Magneton Makuhita Manectric Mankey Mantine Mareep Marill Marowak Marshtomp Masquerain Mawile Medicham Meditite Meganium Meowth Metagross Metang Metapod Mew Mewtwo Mightyena Milotic Miltank Minun Misdreavus Moltres MrMime Mudkip Muk Murkrow Natu Nidoking Nidoqueen NidoranFemale NidoranMale Nidorina Nidorino Nincada Ninetales Ninjask Noctowl Nosepass Numel Nuzleaf Octillery Oddish Omanyte Omastar Onix Paras Parasect Pelipper Persian Phanpy Pidgeot Pidgeotto Pidgey Pikachu Piloswine Pineco Pinsir Plusle Politoed Poliwag Poliwhirl Poliwrath Ponyta Poochyena Porygon Primeape Psyduck Pupitar Quagsire Quilava Quilfish Raichu Raikou Ralts Rapidash Raticate Rattata Rayquaza Regi Relicanth Remoraid Rhydon Rhyhorn Roselia Salamence Sandshrew Sandslash Sapleye Sceptile Schuckle Scizor Scyther Seadra Seaking Sealeo Seedot Seel Sellow Sentret Seviper Sharpedo Shedinja Shelgon Shellder Shiftry Shroomish Shuppet Silcoon Skarmony Skiploom Skitty Slaking Slakoth Slowbro Slowking Slowpoke Slugma Smeargle Smoochum Sneazle Snorlax Snorunt Snubbull Sol Spearow Spheal Spinarak Spinda Spoink Squirtle Stantler Starmie Staryu Sudowoodo Suicune Sunflora Sunkern Surskit Swablu Swalot Swampert Swinub Taillow Tangela Tauros Teddiursa Tentacool Tentacruel Togepi Togetic Torchic Torkoal Totodile Trapinch Treecko Tropius Typhlosion Tyranitar Tyrogue Umbreon Unown Ursaring Vaporeon Venomoth Venonat Venusaur Vibrava Victreebel Vigoroth Vileplume Volbeat Voltorb Vulpix Wailmer Wailord Walrein Wortle Weedle Weepinbell Weezing Whiscash Whismur Wigglytuff Wingull Woobuffet Wooper Wurmple Wynaut Xatu Yanma Zangoose Zapdos Zigzagoon Zubat Bardock Panbukin Seripa Toma Totapo Broly Bio-Broly KingVegeta Nappa Paragus Raditz SonGokū Tullece Vegeta Saegi Kollifum Bra FutureTrunks Pan SonGohan SonGokūJr Trunks VegetaJr Fusions Gogeta Gotenks Vegetto Gotan Onio Honey ZFighters Kuririn Yamcha MutenRōshi(Kame-Sen'nin) Tenshinhan Chaozu Uub Supporters Bora Bulma Bulma'sMother Chi-Chi DrBrief GrandpaSonGohan Gyū-Maō Lunch Marron MrSatan Sno Upa UranaiBaba Videl Yajirobe RedRibbonArmy ColonelViolet CommanderRed ColonelSilver GeneralBlue GeneralWhite Hasuki LieutenantCaptainDark SergeantPurple AdjutantBlack OtherVillains Taopaipai Mai Musuka Bongo Pasta JagaBada DrKori Tsuru-Sen'nin KingGurumes Minor Angela Chico Chyao Ebichiyu Fan-Fuan Ginger GrandmaHakkake Karoni KidKatsu KingKuruesu Lime Lime'sCaretaker Maron Minto MousseFamily PricessMiisa Pigero Piroshiki Pizza Paoru QueenHi Romu SuperOne Tanmen Yuzukā Paris Coco GyosanMoney NatadeShaman Olive GinkakuandKinkaku Puck AerobicsWoman AkiraToriyama Doctor&Nurse Erasa Farmer Banzan Smitty IdasaandIkose'sMother JingleVillageChief KenpauKa Mutaito Sharpner Shen Yamhan ZTVAnnouncer HumansFromtheTenka-ichiBudōkai Announcer Bacterian CaptainChicken Idasa Ikose Jewel JackieChun Killa KingChapa Kirano MightyMask WildTiger Namu Noku OtokoSuki Pintar Panpoot Ranfan Umigame Oolong Pu'ar Karin Shū CaptainYellow Alligator Dinosaur Gregory HaiyaaDragon HikuiBird Inoshikachyou Jinku Yoodon Konkichi PteranodonFamily Bee BearThief CarrotMaster Bubbles BabyGamera KingoftheWorld Blackcat Iruka(Dolphin) NekoMajinZ Giran Chairman Man-Wolf SaberTiger BigFish Freeza KingCold Coola Kurīza Tophenchmen Kewi Dodoria Zarbon Soldiers Appule Orin BlueberryandRaspberry Dodoria'sElite Gi'nyuSpecialCorps Non-combatants Malaka Planthorr Coola'sArmoredSquadron Dore Neizu Sauza Miscellaneous Cell PiccoloDaimao PiccoloDaimaoRelatedCharacters Cymbal Drum Piano Tambourine Kami-sama PiccoloMaJunior NamekiansencounteredonNamek Cargo Dende Saichourou Moori Nail LordSlug Jinzō'ningen#(ArtificialHuman#) Jinzō'ningen#(Android#) SuperJinzō'ningen#(SuperAndroid#) Jinzō'ningen#(Android#) Jinzō'ningen#(Android#) Jinzō'ningen#(Android#) Jinzō'ningen#(Cyborg#) SuperJinzō'ningen#(ArtificialHuman#) Jinzō'ningen#(Cyborg#) Jinzō'ningen#(Android#) Jinzō'ningen#(Cyborg#) Cell CellJr OtherJinzō'ningen DrUiro(DrWheelo) DrUiro'sTeam BioMen DrKochin Ebifuriya Kishime Misokatsun OtherJinzō'ningen Giru BioWarriors Metallic MonsterBuyon KaizokuRobo Babidi Bibidi Buu Dabura MajinGrunts PuiPui Spopovich Vegeta Yakon Yamu Kami Dende MrPopo EmmaDaiō GozandMez Annin TheKaiōandKaiōshin DaiKaiō EastKaiō NorthKaiō SouthKaiō WestKaiō DaiKaiōshin EastKaiōshin NorthKaiōshin SouthKaiōshin WestKaiōshin RouDaiKaiōshin Kibito Kibitoshin AkaneKimidori AoiKimidori AraleNorimaki DaigorouKurigashira MeganeButa GajiraNorimaki(Gatchan) HighKingNiko-Chan KinoniSarada KurikintonSoramame MidoriNorimaki OboChyaman Pagosu PisukeSoramame SenbeNorimaki Suppaman TarouSoramame TsukutsunTsun TsurutenTsun TsururinTsun TurboNorimaki MiscAliens Aruhua-jins Atla Bun Emi GhostUsher Esau KingMoai Lemlia Ozotto Pilaf PrincessSnake Saibaimen Shula Tsufuru-jin Urdo Yardrat Yeni ZacroandRaiti Zeshin AliensfromtheAno-Yo-IchiBudōkai AlienAnnouncer Arqua Caterpy Chapuchai Froug Maraikoh Midoren Paikuhan Stote Tapkar Torbi AliensfromtheGrandTour Bebi DrMyū CardinalMutchyMutchy Mutchy Dolltaki Doma DonKee Gale Ledgic Lenne Lood Mamba EC Natto Para-ParaBrothers Shusugoro Sugoro Zuunama AliensfromMovies DrRaichi GarlicJr Garlic GarlicJr'sTeam Ginger Mustard Nicky Salt Sansho Cashew Vinegar Gasuteru Hatchyak Bojack Bojack'sTeam Bido Bujin Kogu Zangya Janemba Lucifer Igor Hiredugarn Shamosei-jins Tapion Minoshiya Tullece'sTeam Amond Cacao Daīzu RakaseiandRezun LordSlug'sTeam Angira Wings Gyosh Medamotcha Zeeun UranaiBaba'sFighters Akuman DraculaMan InvisibleMan Myra Necromantic_bells Nine_Bright_Shiners Disreputable_Dog Mogget Orannis Tokimi Tennyo_Masaki Airi_Masaki Rea_Masaki Azusa_Jurai Funaho_Jurai Misaki_Jurai Minami_Kuramitsu Z_%Tenchi_Muyo%% Nagi Mayuka Minagi Sabato_%Tenchi_Muyo%% Jaken Ah-Un Goshinki Juromaru Kageromaru Entei_%InuYasha% Myoga_%InuYasha% Tatarimokke Midoriko Kaijinbo Gatenmaru Gakusanjin Goryomaru Shiori_%Inuyasha% Taigokumaru Bokusen%on Setsuna_no_Takemaru Menomaru

Its annoying to have people fiddling with articles. --Crampy20 16:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

That list would be the entire Category:Pokémon, and a few other articles, I assume? Well, if you want to nominate them, you can, but I don't think you'd be able to get past the hordes of angry editors who wrote those pages. Probably the easiest way to avoid the allegation of fancruft is to be a good writer. If you are able to do your character summaries in a pleasant and relatively brief fashion, the article will be much more easily accepted as a useful contribution than an 80,000 word fractal-esque detailing of their every motion like you find in many articles. --tjstrf 18:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, in your case, you have the opposite problem, your articles aren't long enough to justify their own existance and don't make the necessary claims to notability even though it should be posible. It's still an issue solveable by better prose though. --tjstrf 18:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The legibility of fancruft is useless at most. And in actuality, i dont have a problem with short articles, as i haven't written a single article from zero. And wikipedia encourages stubs, I am NOT wrong there, so there is not problem with short articles, don't try and make that claim.

My argument with fancruft is that it isn't policy and it leads to deletion of articles. For Kiddy Grade my intent is to write a article with good character pages, whereas if you look at any Pokemon Pokemon article, they are all pretty much pointless, whereas a Mod with a God Complex thinks that the Kiddy Grade articles are pointless. Apart from that, I can't tell if you agree with this or not, you are not talking about fancruft, but my articles.--Crampy20 18:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Man, if you are really having a problem with deletion, just be proactive and forestall their efforts by merging the articles into a list of characters. --maru (talk) contribs 13:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

He can't, actually. They are in AfD, merging them would violate the idea that AfD'd articles stay until a decision is met. Also, Crampy, Wikipedia encourages stubs, but only for articles that should exist to begin with. Articles that could be included as a section of a list do not meet that criteria.--tjstrf 13:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, one more thing: These aren't "your" articles. You don't WP:OWN them. --tjstrf 13:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh. I thought they were being threatened with AFD, not that they were already in AFD. (And technically, he does own the copyright to his contributions, so in a sense he does own those articles...) --maru (talk) contribs 13:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, they're under the GFDL, but I possess an equal amount of "ownership" to any subsequent versions if I simply go make an edit on the page. I was referring to own in the sense of control. In other words, he's being all uptight about something he wrote, not noticing the consensus > individual principle. --tjstrf 13:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not necessarily legal ownership, there's a sense of ownership with things that you worked on. Sure, you don't have control over them like you do with, say, an ice cream cone that you own, but you still feel bad when somebody says your contributions aren't... contributing... to a large knowledge pool. (ack, forgot to sign) --Twile 14:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Tjstrf, i don't claim to own them, in this situation, as the only editor, i have to act as if I do as there is NOONE else. I WANT people to help i WANT people to make contributions. Please don't argue about affective ownership, agree about the uselessness of this essay being treated as policy. --Crampy20 16:03, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey now! Someone spent a lot of time and effort on this essay, and I'm sure they feel bad when you claim it's useless. Catch my drift here? As for this being treated as policy, well, I think in most cases the problem is with the application, not the essay itself. The point of the essay is simply this: don't make articles for every single thing that ever happened in whatever your area of personal obsession is. And the entire purpose of essays is that they be invokable, not as policy, but as a pre-existing and supported interpetation of the policy. --tjstrf 17:26, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Problem is, it's just a blur line between acceptable well detail article and obsessed fanboy's rant. I were pissed by both type of idiot who 1.)simple put AfD on any article (regardless of it's content) that he doesn't interesting under this essay (User:Brian G. Crawford seem to be good example), and 2.)put massive obvious info and speculation in article he obsessed with. Both can be quite annoy. I agree that this essay is good and need, but sometime it's heavily opinion-base.L-Zwei 18:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. The easiest way to tell them apart are whether they use encyclopedic tone, and the presence or absence of speculation. Also, large bloated trivia sections just scream "fancruft" to me, but that might just be my own view. In other words, the quality of the writing can make a good distinguisher. --tjstrf 19:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

No, the easiest way to tell them apart is if they have reliable secondary sources. I have some sympathy with people who spend ages working on an article on fictional minutiae, but in the end that's very clearly not what Wikipedia is for. This is supposed ot be a general encyclopaedia. There are sister-projects which are more inclusive, for example not requiring WP:NPOV, or you can always fork the database under GFDL. But in the end it's not Wikipedia's "fault" that fictional minutiae don't belong here, it's just how it is. Just zis Guy you know? 19:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

A question: Which, in your opinion, is a better source for an article on fiction? The fictional work itself, or a fansite/blog posting about the work? If the first is unacceptable due to being a primary source, then the second would nearly always be unacceptable for reasons of verifiability. (especially if you aren't allowed to check it against the fictional work) --tjstrf 19:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Additionally, if you read the reasoning behind prefering secondary sources, you will find that they are better than primary sources because they are interpetable by those who are not experts, and are published by a reliable press. When dealing with, for example, novels, the issue of expertise is not really applicable. They are also a published work. Finally, since they record events which took place in the mind of the author, they can be considered a transcript. If they are a published, edited, transcript, then they a reliable source by the same virtue as published court transcripts are considered reliable. So, while a work of fiction may not be a secondary source, it does meet the criteria for usable primary sources as laid out in the guidelines. Even if you consider fictional works in the same light as self-published works, they would still be a valid source. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Self-published sources in articles about themselves. --tjstrf 19:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)