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Definition of Notability

There are no hard and fast rules for notability. However, the below may be used as guidelines.

  1. Literary figures who have their own entry in Benet's (ISBN 0713649852) are notable.
  2. Magazine articles about the character (not the actor) would imply notability.
  3. If the character has crossed genres (book to movie, game to movie...) this would imply notability.
  4. Characters whose names are generally not known to fans are not notable unless the character is well known by another title.
  5. Very minor characters are not notable even if they cross genres.

Example

  • Lara Croft emerged as a game character, this game has had several sequels and but now has several movies dedicated to her. None of the other characters are notable however.
  • For Halloween (film) Laurie Strode appears as the main character and is in several sequels. The movie in question is of historical importance. However "Smith's Grove-Warren County Sanitarium" while it appears in multiple Halloween Movies has no substantial screen time and thus is not a notable place.
  • For Psycho also of historical importance, Norman Bates has become a well known character possibly overshadowing Anthony Perkins. Marion Crane (played by Janet Leigh) is mostly known as "the girl in the shower" and thus doesn't achieve enough notability to warrant her own page. Note it is Norman Bates's cultural influence not his appearance in the poorly known sequel that justifies his inclusion.
  • Bernardo says the very first line in quite possibly the most famous English language play of all time yet is not notable since his role is very minor.

Ramblings of a burning out editor

I'm honestly torn here. We have some major issues in policy and guidelines, especially for fictional stuff.

  • Plot summaries. I agree that summaries and articles explaining the plot should go into their respective article, unless they are encyclopedic enough without cruft. Mythology of Final Fantasy X explains the fictional world of Final Fantasy X, and is essensially a sub-article of Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2. However, it encompasses a lot of topics in an encyclopedic manner without original research and excess information. In that sense, it's fine to have articles like that, as opposed to Star Wars Battle articles, which deal with conflicts from an episode of the cartoon or a scene from the book. That sort of information can easily be put into the synopsis, whereas something like Mythology of Final Fantasy X can not. There is a real fine line here; it is very hard to define it. So, in conclusion, I support a case by case basis when it's close, but not when someone goes and nominates everything for fun.
  • Lists. Ah, lists. My philosophy on lists is that: "if the topic is notable to receive its own section on the main page (or emphasis in the synopsis), it can be the topic of a list of minor things." For example, Plants in star wars isn't exactly notable, but a merged article with the various ships is. In Xenosaga, the protagonists, antagonists, and minor characters each have their own list. Lists also serve as an emphasis to compress information and delete the cruft inside, since nobody wants a long and winding list with excess information. And yes, lists serve as cruft magnets. Instead of fans putting all the information into a series of 200+ lists, they can insert it into the list. This contains the cruft and allows for the future possibility of an encyclopedic article spawning (say, for example, List of terms in Xenosaga and List of star ships in xenosaga to Technology of Xenosaga).

WP:FICT number four is very important, but, let us remember that there are cases where notability allows for spider articles (as with history articles and whatnot). The key is that the spider articles must be devoid of excess synopsis and cruft, and more into a neutral look with plenty of citations and outside perspectives. That is the true test to see if something can pass WP:FICT number four. — Deckiller 22:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

lists of non-notable characters

Wow, we're allowed to create lists of EVERY person/place/concept/thing in a fictional work? That's going to spiral upwards in a hurry, isn't it? -- nae'blis (talk) 21:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I propose starting a discussion to determine how better to specify what is and isn't included in this policy. hoopydinkConas tá tú? 02:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I looked back through the history of the page, and it seems to have actually had that last line "all characters, races, places..." even when I read it it back in November 2005. I don't think the style guides have enough eyes on them at times to accurately judge like this. One thing that did change was the title of the section, from "Minor characters" to "Non-notable minor characters", which I think is a serious expansion of scope. Minor characters who interact heavily with major characters are notabler, for example, whereas the barmaid from Chapter 3 who brought him his amaretto sour probably isn't. -- nae'blis (talk) 18:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Surely if a minor character is non-notable it should not be in WP at all. Or are they worthy of special treatment because they are fictional characters, rather than non-notable entities which exist in the real world? Zargulon 00:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that it shouldn't be in Wikipedia at all. It's one thing to mention a name vs going into that character in detail. -- Ned Scott 01:06, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Should a non-notable character have a sentence? A paragraph? Zargulon 05:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Zargulon has a good point. What makes the barmaid in A Knights Tale any more worthy of inclusion on a list in Wikipedia, than the barmaid at Buffalo Wild Wings last night that I met here? They have the same impact/notability... -- nae'blis (talk) 14:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I think it is safe to say that such characters won't be included on any list. But I think the non-notable criteria is meant to cover characters that may appear only once in a storyline, say for one episode or a couple of paragraphs in a novel, but still have an impact on the plot, or, as in the case of MotDs in anime, are notable as a group but not as individuals. --TheFarix (Talk) 00:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
With respect, that's what I wish would happen, but the actual text of the guideline says (and has said for months more than a year): The list(s) should contain all characters, races, places, etc. from the work of fiction... I'd be all in favor of changing it to something between "notable" (which maybe is too high a bar for lists of minor fictional characters) and "all". -- nae'blis (talk) 00:39, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Then how do you suggest rewording it? Maybe something along the lines of "The list(s) should contain characters, races, places, etc. that have an impact on or contributes to the storyline or on other notable characters, either as an individual or as part of a group, with links to those that have their own articles."
I actually would actually like to avoid using terms like significant because it leaves too much to an editor's individual interpretation and would ultimately cause more problems then adding it would solve. --TheFarix (Talk) 01:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Another thought would be to also switch to the term semi-notable instead of non-notable. --TheFarix (Talk) 01:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, I don't think either 'significant' or 'semi-notable' are the solution here (we can't even agree on what 'notable' means on Wikipedia). Maybe something about length of appearance, chapters/books/episodes they appear in, something objective... but probably impossible to determine. 'Minor' would actually encompass what I'm after, if we just removed the exhortation to put ALL characters/places/animals/items in the list. In my world, said barmaid doesn't even rise to the level of minor, just incidental. -- nae'blis (talk) 19:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Why not go back to the original wording:

  1. Major characters (and places, concepts, etc) in a work of fiction should be covered within the article on that work of fiction. If the article on the work itself becomes long, then giving major characters an article of their own is good practice.
  2. Minor characters (and places, concepts, etc) in a work of fiction should be listed with short descriptions in a "List of minor characters." This list should reside in the article relating to the work itself, unless either becomes long, in which case a separate article for the list is good practice.

Of course, you still have to leave some sort of escape hatch to allow overly large sections on a minor character to be split off into its own subarticle. But I also think it is good practice to have major characters on a list when their content isn't long enough to justify a separate subarticle but the entire character list is too large for the base article. --TheFarix (Talk) 20:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

On another thought, I have to ask, is the subject we are discussing really a problem? I'm thinking in some ways, this discussion is similar to WP:BEANS by attempting to head off a problem that doesn't really exist. --TheFarix (Talk) 21:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, while I've seen it happen (listing insanely trivial characters, etc), I've also seen it get cleaned up. Doesn't seem like a major issue. -- Ned Scott 23:39, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Looking at the guidelines overall, it says that all fiction is notable except for fanfiction, self-published fiction and fiction published through vanity press. The rest of the guidelines talk about how to organize fiction articles. If there is any modifications that needs to be done to the guidelines, that is probably the part that need clarification and placed further up at the top. --TheFarix (Talk) 00:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Summary

This section should probably be rewritten to stress one of the more important rules about articles on fictional subjects, which is to not write the article primarily from within the perspective of the fictional world. Far too many of our articles on fictional characters are just biographies of imaginary people, which are not encyclopedia articles. 24.136.38.121 03:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Concern over this guideline

I think this guideline is discouraging stubs and now is being used primarily to mass merge stub articles and hence is a violating Wikipedia:Stub. --Cat out 11:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Good point, it isn't even policy. Maybe I should AfD it. It is useless and causing far too many articles to disappear even though it ISNT policy. --Crampy20 14:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I hole hardedly support the deletion of certain fiction articles. For instance, we do not need an article about every starship mentioned on star trek. However this issue is already addressed without the existance of this guideline.
Keiichi Morisato, a major character in Oh My Goddess! series has a stub article. It would be senseless to merge that article to Oh My Goddess! or create a list for the Oh My Goddess! characters. Keiichi has been around the scenes since 1988, probably longer than some wikipedians. He also appeared on 5 ova episodes, one anime movie, and over 36 anime episodes. Sufficive to say he is more than notable.
The definition of fiction isn't of course limited to star trek and anime related articles. For instance Skuld (Norn), and Skuld (princess) are fictional characters from norse mythology. It would be senseless to merge them under Norse mythology.
--Cat out 15:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
What also makes this matter more stupid is that and admin, with no Anime knowledge, stated that Kiddy Grade was a minor anime, and doesn't truly deserve more than one article. Not only was the admin wrong about this fact but the admin proposed many of its pages for AfD. A GHit count compared Kiddy Grade to Ah my goddess, show that in fact Kiddy Grade is supposedly more important and famous than Ah my goddess, even though ah my goddess is arguably more popular. This twisted logic may cause the articles to be deleted. And it is a gross use of power.--Crampy20 15:43, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Anything deleted can be undeleted so I am not particularly concerned with the ongoing deletion[ism] spree. I am more concerned with people using this policy as a hobby to merge/afd/delete random stub articles related to fiction.
If stub articles about fiction is not welcome on wikipedia, that must be clearly stated somewhere. If they are welcome, there is no need for this guideline. One or the other must go.
I also oppose merging stub articles into lists. Lists are not ment to be a conviniant place to dump info from stub articles. A featured list is expected to link to full articles with more detailed info.
--Cat out 16:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
What are the sales numbers for Kiddy Grade, especially in English-speaking countries/English-dubs? Ghits for anime and fiction in general are unreliable, as the subjects themselves are covered extensively by fans online, who them try to argue that such such online notoreity is evidence of importance for an article here. This guideline never says that we shouldn't have separate pages for characters, just that we shouldn't go overboard with it. -- nae'blis (talk) 20:47, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
English wikipedia was never intended to be about topics as they are viewed from an american or british perspective. Just because something hasnt appeared in the us (such as the Israeli-Lebanon war which hasnt spread to an english speaking country yet) doesn't mean we shouldnt give it a great deal of coverage. If something is popular strictly in Uganda it is definately notable enough. --Cat out 03:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, it is the English-language encyclopedia, so I think English-language dubs of cultural importations would be an important factor to know. As it stands, the article on Kiddy Grade makes no claim to notability. We require it of musical groups and works, why not anime? Phenomenal success in the native country could certainly be notable; see Curse of the Golden Flower. In any case, I'm not sure what the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict has to do with this, as it's all over the English-speaking world's news... and fictional characters/works generally aren't. -- nae'blis (talk) 03:40, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
The implication of this guideline isn't restricted to anime. I'd prefer a broader discussion though I will compare anime and other fiction works frequently.
Something notable in Japan and unheard of in the US/UK is more than notable enough to be on wikipedia. Any suggestion disagreeing with that is unnaceptable. I believe we agree on that.
I think it is bad taste to mesure notability with ratings or number of sales. I don't think Oh My Goddess! is more notable than norse mythology (as OMG sells more). Any work mass produced is notable enough to be on wikipedia in my view. So long as copyrights are not violated a detailed coverage of the work should only be encouraged on wikipedia.
This guideline is unnecesary as Wikipedia:Notability covers everything intended by it. All cases of notability should be investigated on a case by case basis. This guideline discourages growth with unnecesary number of AfDs (air recap episode mentioned below is one example).
--Cat out 03:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
This -
Abra Absol Aerodactyl [...list of all pokemon...] Gatenmaru Gakusanjin Goryomaru Shiori_%Inuyasha% Taigokumaru Bokusen%on Setsuna_no_Takemaru Menomaru
Is just a small list of some articles from some shows that should, under many many many many polices be deleted. yet why aren't they?
--Crampy20 16:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Please do not flood talk pages. Instead you can summarise all that to "Every pokemon have their article" or something. Dont make the discussion difficult. --Cat out 03:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Why isn't every article copy-edited? Just because something hasn't happened yet doesn't prove anything. -- Ned Scott 00:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

These articles need to be merged because they inevitably are going to lead to duplicate plot summary, trivia, and wholly unencyclopedic and OR-ish character analysis ("Personality" sections, for example).

CCat, can you tell me something one might say about Keiichi Morisato (I love OMG) that wouldn't be plot summary or analysis of OMG? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:08, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

What do you want me to say? I can give you a phisical appearance but you already know that by heart as per your comment. I can give you info about his character how helpfull he is, how many times he has managed to dial heaven etc... Which non omg appearances he has made (such as on comercials). How much is he liked by the fans (there is an ongoing poll on TBS about this). Information about the seiyu and voice actors... which of the episodes he appeared (well for his case all but for say Skulds case not all). Obviously the coverage can be vast.
Same aplies to many charatcer articles which are currently stubs. People should not be merging such articles. I do not mind if people merge random starships from star trek which made a cameo appearance at best such as the USS Galaxy.
To get to the point:
If you find articles (particularly stubs) on fictional characters (and places, concepts, etc.) you may want to be bold and merge them into an appropriate article or list.
Statements like above discourage stubs. A nav template can be used to organise information just as easily which is the sensable thing to encourage if the concern is organisation.
--Cat out 04:22, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
So there's nothing you can say about him that isn't plot summary or description of OMG?
This guideline encourages you to merge stubs that can't ever become proper encyclopedia articles, because they'll forever be dupe content or OR-ish analysis of a fictional work. Not seeing the problem. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Can you define duplicate content? Suggesting that Jean Luc Picard lost his heart whena nasucan stabbed him on his character page is a duplicate of a plot summary. You cannot create a biography for any character unless you have duplicate content. I should be able to say that keiichi once (and temporarily) possesed angels. I see nothing wrong with that. The article collects information spesific to the character. --Cat out 04:45, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Seems like a good reason not to write biographies for fictional characters unless those plot summaries are needed to lend sufficient context to some other content. In fact, we even have a guideline discouraging writing descriptions of fictional characters like biographies. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
"Statements like above discourage stub" this is not the same as discouraging information being added. Having information better structured, while keeping all the information, would be a good reason to discourage stubs. Not simply because they are stubs. -- Ned Scott 04:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Keep this guideline

I think we should keep this guideline, it was created from the consensus of Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Minor characters, and has some very good logic. Remember, this is a guideline, it's NOT a policy. Not every fictional article can properly be applied to this or that, there's always exceptions. However, the vast majority of fictional articles benefit from guidelines like these. I am completely opposed to the idea of removing this guideline. This suggestion seems to be more out of frustration about Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Recap episode (Air episode) than legitimate concerns. -- Ned Scott 17:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem with this guideline is the very fact that 1. No-one treats it as a guideline but policy and 2. No-one treats it as a guideline. It is used as a reason to delete possibly 100's of articles per week when it isn't a legitimate reason and a guideline, it isn't used as one, because people write about what they are interested in, not wether or not the person is notable, it is their interest. People don't decide what articles to write on wether or not he/she/it is notable, so why should we delete articles based on that fact?
Also your point that people actually read guidelines is unfortunately stretching it. Most people are aware of these things only after 1.) their article is threatened by a guideline being treated as a policy or 2.) when they ask for a peer review or put the article in a collaboration. The very fact that so few articles follow any specific layout guidelines is apparent. --Crampy20 21:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Heh, I keep hearing that argument when someone wants to remove a guideline. Yes, some new users are mistaken about the differences between guidelines and policies, but deleting them because of that confusion is not a good idea. If we have to do something to make it clearer that this is just a guideline and not a policy, then lets do that. Hell, I wouldn't have a problem with some big bold letters that says "this is a guideline, not a policy" at the top. -- Ned Scott 00:58, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Even if you delete this as a guideline do you really think that people will not vote keep or delete based on whatever they want? That is how wikipedia works, your vote is your own. More to the point, even without a guideline here votes using this sort of logic as the reason will not be discounted by the closing admin because notability in general is still around and still considered a good reason for a vote and people are generally allowed to decide for themselves what is notable. Dalf | Talk 21:42, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
A guideline on Wikipedia is not just a 'layout suggestion', but something below policy that has been generally agreed on. As such it should carry weight in AFD (and does, I believe), and the fact that not everyone buys into it/is aware of it isn't a reason by itself to get rid of it. Educate rather than castigate, eh? -- nae'blis (talk) 21:47, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Educate instead of castigate? I'm sorry, but people are here to write articles not play around with the whims of wikipedia. I see that people will use similar logic, but admins and users who propose the original AfD will not be able to under policy. And as soon as an article is up for deletion, wether or not it is kept, it leaves a bad taste in people's moves and they either leave or contribute less often as they would of done if they were left alone. I am not suggesting no policy, far from it, but i do not support this guideline because it encourages articles that people have put too much effort into to be deleted. It can almost be taken to being malicious if an admin that has a God complex comes along, and there are too many of those.
It isn't about a vote, its about the article appearing on AfD in the first place. And about it carrying weight, it does, but mostly for the wrong reasons and also when it is too late. Another problem with AfD is that people don't read all the comments and in their ignorance come to bad decisions, make a point, even though it has already been countered x2. --Crampy20 21:55, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

(unindent) Let's start over. What is your intent, to get rid of this guideline so that we can have more fictional articles? In recent days, this has been cited repeatedly as a reason to keep numerous lists, articles, stubs and fictional topics in the encyclopedia. If we remove it, then we're back to "every man for themselves" and AFD will become even more contentious than it already is. When I said "educate, not castigate", what I meant was to refer to this guideline in your keep arguments, when it applies, so that knowledge of it will become more widespread and less spurious deletion requests will be made. I'm worried that you're too close to the debate right now, having some of your work under the scrutiny of AFD, and I want to make sure I'm understanding your intent/feelings correctly. -- nae'blis (talk) 22:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I can choose wether or not to be emotional about something. This has nothing to do with my work. But everything to do with people donating great work and having it deleted and people being annoyed out of writing for wikipedia. Unfortunately in the UK its late, and i need to get up early tomorrow. Ill follow this through soon. --Crampy20 22:48, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
As nae'blis has stated, WP:FICT has been used far more often to keep fiction articles from being deleted rather then as a reason to delete fiction articles. Also, the guidelines provide a healthy track for fiction articles to grow. But when a fiction subarticle is created before the contents is ready for it, then it is very much at risk of an AfD. Fortunately, many of the editors that watch for AfD articles will just recommend that the subarticle be merged back into the original or sometimes merge a number of articles into into a "List of" article to keep things on the right track. --TheFarix (Talk) 00:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

If someone has nominated an article for AfD, it's probably because they just feel it's fancruft, and they may or may not have even seen this guideline. I seriously doubt that this guideline is significantly convincing editors to delete stuff. And if this is the case, then that is a situation where this guideline could help keep good articles from being deleted, whether in it's current form or in an update.-- Ned Scott 00:58, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Look, I will recreate that recap episode you 'graciously' gotten deleted. More so it will be a featured article when I am done with it. This proposition here however has nothing to do with that.
Any concensus on wikipedia can be reversed in a month. This entier section is unnecesary as the previous section is already discussing the guidelines necesity.
--Cat out 03:40, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I am not an admin, I alone cannot delete an article. If you wish to overturn consensus then the burden is on you to make a convincing argument, or at least demonstrate some potential. In regards to an episode article about a recap episode, I fail to see any potential at all. You are indeed welcome to try to change people's minds on that, but what you are suggesting is a volition of WP:POINT. "Any consensus on wikipedia can be reversed in a month." Consensus does not just "expire" like that. Like I said, it can be reasonable to revisit issues or to re-attempt an article, but don't do things to spite other editors. -- Ned Scott 03:49, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
No concensus does not expire but it can be reversed. I take that AFD very personaly given you have ignored the mediation attempt. --Cat out 04:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
You shouldn't take it personally at all, that is a big part of the problem here. I could see your point if I had been the only person to move for a deletion, but I wasn't. Take the Kiddy Grade AfD for example, someone did nominate it for deletion, and deletion is inappropriate for those articles. It's pretty clear that some, if not all of those articles, will remain as articles, and at "worse" will be merged. No article content would be lost in that case. Clearly the system "worked" in this situation, where someone thought something wasn't notable and was wrong. This information will be kept, because it isn't up to one person. -- Ned Scott 04:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I see useless handwaving here, in lieu of an actual problem with this guideline.

Can someone tell me what the problem with this guideline is? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

This guideline is been used as an excuse to merge/delete stub articles on fictional characters. As it stands its discouraging stubs especialy with #1 and #2 under section titled "Fiction in Wikipedia".
People are also using it to set time tables for people. If a stub article does not grow to a full article status people start discussion mergers on occasions just a week after the creation of the stub articles.
--Cat out 04:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
This guideline isn't an excuse to merge stub articles on fictional characters; it advises that you merge stub articles on fictional characters unless there's too much to say. Usually, if there's nothing to say but plot summary, that isn't the case. (And you should merge them, as 99% characters don't have any substance other than as components of the works in which they appear. This isn't a notability thing; they're just not separate topics unto themselves.)
Can you offer an example of a user citing WP:FICT as a reason to delete something other than the Kidy Grade AFD where everyone but you and Crampy says, "No, don't delete, merge"? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:14, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Kidy Grade is an adequate example pointing the problem. Another example is User:Kunzite who states "I like to merge stuff per WP:FICTION" on his userpage. Also see his comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Recap episode (Air episode). I was "going too far" by creating stub articles (Talk:Town (Air episode)).
I cant work on an enviorment which people constantly work to delete merge articles. The people do not contribute to the articles themselves at all.
--Cat out 04:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
You're taking things personally again, and taking my comments out of context. I'd be willing to see your point, but wreak-less stub creation should be discouraged. Also, I completely disagree with the idea that people only contribute to stub articles and not "main" articles. This seems to be your main reason for making stubs? -- Ned Scott 04:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
When you come across a page full of information, you are less likely to improve it. That is why stubs exists. By nature they request expansion.
When I placed all episode summaries of Oh My Goddess! on the article page no one improved them. When the stubs were created with the episode list, a number of people (annonymous contrubutors) expanded the articles, thats the beulty of stubs and why mergers are problematic.
If concern is organising info, a nav template and/or a category is more approporate to navigate. A list of characters can still exist linking to larger articles. Individual articles give me the liberty to use infoboxes for example which is all about organising information.
--Cat out 04:55, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
First, expanding an article for the sake of the infobox is a HORRIBLE idea. Infoboxes are nice little extras, they are NOT article content. Your theory on article expansion is extremely and deeply flawed and seems to be the root of our disagreement. Also, your golden child example fails as well. I'm not doubting that anyone can't write a large portion of text about any given topic, no matter how minor. Just because you saw growth in those articles does not mean that they're good articles. Even the larger episode articles are.. very lacking in quality.
When I come across a large article I am not less likely to improve it. I'm not here to speculate on editor motivation, especially on flimsy and unproven theories.
However, this is all besides the point. You are trying to argue article structure not based on notability, but it being a method of article growth. Your objections aren't about notability at all. -- Ned Scott 06:16, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Infoboxes are not "nice little extras". They of course are article content just like everything else. See: Help:Infobox. I am uninterested in debating the usefullness of infoboxes with you as its beyond the scope of this debate. Infoboxes are far from being decorative.
You are again setting timetables on how fast articles are to grow. If an article has the potential to grow into a full article, no one should be standing in the way with redundent mergers etc which is precisely why this guideline is in the way. An article can stay as a stub before an interested party expands it, time period increases as the topic becomes obscure to english speakers such as anime which should be only logical and expected. That neither makes anime non-notable nor any less significant. Our diference as wikipedia comes with our coverage of obscure topics.
It is posible for comic characters have full articles. Lets investigate Superman as an example. As of 2001 (edit history prior is lost) Superman was a bare stub low in quality. As of 2006 Superman is a featured article. Stubs do grow into full articles over time. In the scope of this guideline, Superman is expected to grow in Marvel Comics (or whatever). It is unpractical to require articles grow on a single page to the point that the page is overflowing with information prior to breaking it apart. No one is required or expected to create a full featured article in one edit.
I can bet 100$ that Keiichi Morisato and/or Belldandy will be a featured article by 2011 (it had taken superman 5 years to grow) assuming they are not merged as per this guideline trated like policy on occasions.
I'd like to point out the symbolism behind the featured article star. It stars as a very tiny star that gets larger with larger and larger additions.
--Cat out 12:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Notability is an essay (expressing the opinions and ideas of some Wikipedians ) not even a guideline. Notability should be established as a case by case basis either through afds or other methods not through a guideline applying to a vast number of topics. --Cat out 12:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Comparing Superman to OMG is an insult to Superman, but that's besides the point. Superman is a character that is beyond the original series, and has had countless stories and series about him. There is a HUGE difference between Superman's notability and that of any OMG character. This is something that is obvious and can be seen, so when Superman is a stub it was obvious that the article would grow. If you could make a convincing argument for any to-be-merged anime character that is on the level of Superman, then go ahead, but I haven't heard any convincing arguments whatsoever. Like I said, splitting to stubs only for the sake of "article growth" is an unproven theory and undermines logical article organization. You seem to be the one who's new to guidelines, because I think everyone on this talk page knows what a guideline is and that guidelines don't trump all discussion. Case-by-case is assumed with guidelines, and if not, then we can make a statement in the guideline that promotes case-by-case discussion for gray areas.
No one is setting a time limit, those accusations are absurd. I'm sorry you feel oppressed, but this is not about you. When you are with a minority opinion and you have a weak argument, this is what happens. The fact is that this guideline is not stopping any article from growing. People might cite it because it helps them summarize things that they would have concluded with or without the guideline. You can't blame the "example". -- Ned Scott 18:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I hence am isulting Superman may he crash my car... Notability on wikipedia is a binary concept. Either something is notable or it isnt. If it isn't notable it is to be deleted.
The unproven theory is exactly how superman grew. Nothing and I mean absolutely nothing should stay in the way of stub articles with a potential to grow. Weather its fiction related or not. Also, please define logical article organisation.
I do want to note that wikipedia is not a burocracy.
--Cat out 14:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I think Cool Cat and Crampy20 have specific situations that are causing their objection. -- Ned Scott 04:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: Proposal

My desire is that this notion be used in the proper manner, not to delete it. Let me make myself clear.

And a new heading to the page entitled "Usage" or such. (What follows below is my proposal)

---

1.) Notbaility is not policy, meaning you cannot use it as an exclusive reason to delete or merge an article based on the subject matters notability.

2.) Notability is a guideline, meaning that the structures of an article that it suggests is just a possible way of organizing an article. This is of course to an editors disgression. An article does not have to follow this guideline, it is just a way of making an article more readable.

3.) Notability can be used as a reason to delete or merge an article when coupled with another reason i.e. lack of content or fancruft.

4.) Notability can also be used on AfD, seeing as every vote is ones own decision. But notability cannot be used on TfD or RfD exclusively.

---

Obviously, this is a better way of going about deciding what to do instead of arguing endlessly and telling people that they are doing this because they were affected by it. Which is neither here nor there, it doesn't change anything.

--Crampy20 12:22, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I kinda agree. Notabilty is an important criteria but should be exercised on a case per case basis and not as per "WP:FICT". Something that has been mass produced such as Oh My Goddess!, Superman, Belldandy are more than notable enough. --Cat out 12:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I feel this guideline is good as-is, should be interpreted strongly, and that it's a great way to clear a lot of inappropriate stuff off of the project. --Improv 13:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't object in clearing inaproporate fancruft and other nonsense as per Wikipedia:Notability. Boundaries of notabilty must be vaigue and as you point out should be interpreted strongly. Comlpete agreement there.
The guideline is too spesific to leave room for interpretation. Entier thing can be summerised to "stub articles for fiction is bad and must be exterminated".
I however object to panic merging/afding of stub articles etc as per this guideline. It should be established that stub articles are fine and do not have to be merged.
--Cat out 14:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
It has been established, for major characters, that separate articles are fine. Ensemble casts are a little more difficult, but please step back and read the entire guideline. Without it, many people would have an even more free hand to delete your work (I'm a fan of fiction articles as well, don't get me wrong, but some have no future as separate pages). -- nae'blis (talk) 14:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
As I see it we agree on many points. I have no objection of the deletion of pages that have no future of growing. If this guideline was used in that manner I would have no problem with it. But people are using this guideline as an excuse to indiscrimantly merge stub articles or get them deleted (or at least make an effort to this end). Counsider these points:
  1. Is it inaproporate to start a serries of stubs for a spesific tv series or for the characters that appeared there given there is the more than a potential of expansion.
  2. Is it approporate to AfD pages such as Ah! Grab Your Dream With That Hand! (which will be expanded really soon)
--Cat out 14:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Stop interpreting this as a way of getting rid of notability, it isn't. Take a step back and look, I am suggesting to include boundaries, this currently includes little to none, it isn't typed very well as it is anyway. Please don't comment on the idea but what i have suggested to include. Like I said, this isn't an argument about notability but restrictions on notability. --Crampy20 15:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Dude, calm down, he was responding to CC, not you. -- Ned Scott 18:03, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I wasn't angry :) --Crampy20 11:21, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Was I supposed to be angry instead? ALso please do not abriviate my nick, it gets confusing. --Cat out 14:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Like I had said before, I'm not opposed to making it clearer that this is a guideline and not a policy, but there's too many redundant / needless statements in this proposal. We only need to point editors to what the difference is between a guideline and a policy, such as WP:GUIDELINE#The differences between policies, guidelines, essays, etc., which explains it all. Look, there will always be new people, but new people can learn. You can't have knee-jerk reactions to guidelines like this. As far as I'm concerned, this is not a wide-spread problem, and probably doesn't warrant any updating to the guidelines at all. But, like I said, lets just point editors to the differences between policy and guideline. Not only that, but if ANY article has been wrongly nominated for an AfD then one only needs to state those arguments, as you have done here. AfD is apart of the process, it's not some horrible monster to be avoided at all costs. -- Ned Scott 18:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I dont see how the proposal doesn't do that, apart from the links. --Crampy20 11:21, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is NOT a burocracy. An AfD is to be avoided unless absolutely necesary just like any other process. With that backlog, AfD is a monster to be avoided. Do you have any idea what kind of a backlog afd has? --Cat out 14:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose proposed changes and my own thoughts

I totally oppose the suggested changes to this to the guideline without gaining input from RFC from the community. What we have here is a handful of editors who want to create a single page for every single minor character in a television series. Yggdrasil_(Oh_My_Goddess!), Lord of Terror, Hijiri, Potato (Air), Sora (Air), Minagi Tōno etc, you can look in the directories at Category:Manga and anime characters by series. They argue that this policy is opposed to "stub" articles. That's nonsense. Stub articles are articles which are to be expanded or even merged in secondary pages. This is not just part of the realm of fictional characters on Wikipedia. It happens for other articles on the same topic. (i.e Share taxi used to be split up into several other articles" bush taxi, matatu, danfo, etc. until it was merged.) The argument that we're not giving editor enough time is also nonsense. This one is two years old: Yggdrasil_(Oh_My_Goddess!), this one is a year old: Lord of Terror -- to me, there that is more than enough time to expand an article. Those in opposition to this article also argue that the "main article" is being deleted or that we're losing valuable information. This is also not true. The only thing that's being removed is redundant things like "XYZ is a character in a manga by ZXY and an anime produced by studio 123."

Those in opposition to this guidline also have argued that articles should not be merged because it is easier to include the ammount of pictures that the author wants in the article. I assume this means that they will not have room for all of the pictures they want to include in the character articles. This is a problem. We should not be creating articles simply for the sake of decorating them with 5 favorite screen shots from the anime. This is a blatant violation of the WP:FU policy.

Also: Not all articles should be merged. There are some that are large enough to stand on their own. Because there is one article in a series that is viable on its own, that does not mean that all articles on all minor characters (or episodes) should have their own dedicated pages.

The legnths of some of these articles that people are opposed to merging because they're too long, aren't even that long. The cited Keiichi Morisato article would fit well within a list of characters if we stripped out the superflous infobox and turned the trivia into beautiful prose. (A goal of the wikipedia.)

This guideline could use some small tweaking to reflect the latest addition to WP:NOT which reflects on the writing of fictional articles: "Plot summaries - Wikipedia articles should not act solely as a summary of the plot of a work of fiction, but should offer comprehensive, summarised plots in conjunction with sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's achievements, impact or historical significance within the article, or as part of a series of articles per Wikipedia:Article series." Additionaly, since these are essentially part of a seires of articles advice from Wikipedia:Article series and Wikipedia:Summary style should be added as a requirement on how to create navigation boxes and properly summarize character articles. (Which is something, as an anime editor, I know we do not do well.)

Finally, I find it hard to assume good intentions with an editor who said "I love the smell of napalm. :)" in response to another editor's reply to a posting my views of these matters all over Wikipedia. This one user, in particular, has a bad case of WP:OWN. example here. --Kunzite 13:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

You see the philosophy is just flawed and this is exactly what I am complaining about.
If an article is short that does not mean it has to be merged. Mergers should only be considered if the article has no potential of growing. You are NOT to set timetables for editors. If you think an article isnt growing fast enough, feel free to expand it.
Furthermore wikipedia is not a burocracy. Guidelines and even policies are often vaigue and are open to interpretation.
--Cat out 14:16, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Read WP:STUB: "Note that small articles with little information may end up being nominated for deletion or be merged into another relevant article." It's not that I'm asking to have an article deleted, or even to remove content from the article. I'm also not dictating the time limit. NOTHING prevents any expansion from happening when the article is included as a section along with other similar articles.
I, personally, don't think that some of these articles can be expanded at all without going deep deep into the realm of fancruft. I'm asking that we NOTcreate articles for series of every single bit of minutia that is related to a particular series. That's what you do. It's contrary to wikipedia policies. Stubs are supposed to be a temporary type of article. Merging is one way to create better articles. You philosophy goes against several tennants of wikipedia and you seem not to even grok the concept of a stub. --Kunzite 15:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
There is, however, a reasonable expectation that articles will eventually grow toward their intended best size and shape, and if it hasn't changed in half a a year, we are allowed to evaluate it for suitability. Just because not all stubs undergo this process does not mean they must be allowed to continue linger; stub-hood is, in my opinion, a temporary state, as evidenced by the template's exhortation to expand the article. If no one responds, perhaps it's because there's nothing more to say. -- nae'blis (talk) 14:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, no issue there. Let me elaborate, sometimes certain articles are best kept as stubs. Superman is one example. It obviously grew. Stub articles should be encouraged and this policy as it is now is doing exactly the opposite. Basicaly all I am saying is people should not be holding a stopwatch just to merge articles.
I think it is safe to say Keiichi Morisato while at a pathetic shape now, has more than a potential to grow to a much much larger sized article if not featured. However, I am having difficlty finding people in assisting me in expanding Oh My Goddess! and its related articles even though this series is one of the most notable manga lasting this long. Anime and manga related articles hence can use the extra wait as it is more of an obscure topic compared to stuff popular among english speaking people.
--Cat out 15:17, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Anime is not more obscure an it is very well covered on wikipedia. That's not a valid arguement. Question: What would prevent people from expanding it if it were included in a list of other articles? What would prevent it from being moved into its own page when it becomes long enough to warrant it? That's not "holding a stopwatch", I'm sorry. --Kunzite 15:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I have a question of my own, why is this constant insistance on merging articles to lists? This isn't the first time, same happened on the air related articles. Someone even said I was going too far for creating the stub articles. One of them was even nominated for deletion and was deleted in the aftermath. The nomination was conviniantly started while I was on vacation. --Cat out 16:22, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Things happen when I'm on vacation. I don't see that as a reason to complain. My reasons were spelled out in "recap" episode AfD and here. --Kunzite 20:43, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Kunzite, many pages on Wikipedia survive changes just fine without an explicit RFC. People edit where and how they want, and so far it's not exactly been a one-sided discussion, but plenty of back and forth among even the five or so participants, and some exchange of ideas, even. That said, your response here was extremely well-reasoned and clear, so thank you for adding it. :) -- nae'blis (talk) 14:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I was requesting that no major changes to this guideline be made with an RFC. It a bit more than changing a page. In regular articles changes happen daily and the vast majorities don't need RfCs. --Kunzite 15:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but I specifically said pages, not articles. Guidelines (and even policy) can and are tweaked without a wiki-wide poll of opinions; in my opinion, it's the longevity of the change that creates the better consensus, rather than trying to enfranchise every user on every issue. -- nae'blis 16:11, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Furthermore wikipedia is NOT a democacy. Polls are often frowned upon unless the expected desicion is binary. (delete/keep etc) --Cat out 19:00, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I certainly did not call for a vote or poll. I called for additional people to participate in the commenting and concencus building process before major changes are this useful guideline are made. That's what a "request for comment" is for... --Kunzite 20:43, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Very well said, Kunzite, I completely agree. -- Ned Scott 18:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: RE: RE: RE: RE: Proposal

Everyone, please take a step back. None of you are even tackling the problem, you are just taking the discussion to such deep levels you aren't even talking about Notability anymore.

Notability works on the reasoning that is used by a lot of wikipedians, this reasoning, while not explicitly wrong, is "do we really need this article?" [1] This is asked in talk pages, in AfD, in revert wars in merges, splitting and so on. The person who always asks this is someone who considers a particular character, series, book, episode, person, school, business, conglomerate, law, noun, letter, disambiguation, meaning, or group minor or inconsiderate. When asked to expand on this they either use an excuse that it is a waste of space [2], needless [3], unimportant [4] and so on. Now obviously, there are SOME articles that are truly pointless. For instance an article that is created just to eliminate a red link and contains all the information on it's page from the page it was linked from. Or a page with 20 or less words. There are few of those, they are always put up for deletion and always deleted. Which is a good thing, those ARE wastes of space. But many articles every day, that hold plenty of information, links or pictures and that DO comply with core polices are deleted or merged every day under the excuses above, that the subject matter is not considerable enough to have a reason to keep in it's state as was. If we REALLY think about this, there is no reason to merge any article unless there are -100 words on the page, each article takes 1-10kb on the servers, which is nothing, the servers handle 2000 requests a second and cope just fine on articles 30-60kb in length, which doesn't include all the pictures or infobox rendering. The next reason is needless. Well, under that argument i could call every userbox needless, what purpose do they serve that can't be served just by writing it down? They don't, so unless you want to use that argument, sacrifice pretty much every personalization on your user-page, I know I wouldn't like to. The next argument is unimportant, which is in the gamut of this argument.

To start with a nice dictionary [5] definition, unimportant is not important or noteworthy. Noteworthy means to deserve attention [6] or is worthy of notice (worthy also means o have value). So if we take this and conclude. Articles are being deleted simply because they do not attract enough interest. Okay this is in turn interesting. There is no way we can prove that an article does not attract enough attention. I know wiki software quite well, and there is no page hit log anywhere. A Ghit may help state that the article subject isn't famous, but that by no means tells us that it doesn't attract page hits. And even that is flimsy, it doesn't matter how much page hits a page has, does it? If we take this to the extreme, we would forever be deleting pages, until we only have 1,000 note-worthy ones left, or the ones with the most page hits, and even then, we don't even know what those are.

All this is still inconclusive, the arguments most use are flawed and also come from people who don't understand the subject matter, which is a problem. After all this, Notability is still just a guideline, and by adding restrictions, we can tell people who are using this subject on this page in the wrong, that they are using it in the wrong manner and then whatever they tried to do can be reverted. Because Notability, isn't a valid argument. --Crampy20 17:44, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Notability is a valid argument, but only in context. It seems to me that you are really pointing out flaws in the deletion process rather than with this guideline. No guideline is perfect, and I've even seen policy used for ridiculous reasons for deletion. Can someone use this guideline incorrectly and result in a good article's deletion? yes. But the same can be said for every guideline and policy on Wikipedia. You can't fault a good guideline because some editor was mistaken. The benefits of this guideline and others clearly outweighs, by a large margin, these unfortunate situations. I believe the situation would be much worse without such guidelines, rather than better. I fail to see a problem that warrants these suggestions. -- Ned Scott 00:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Your opinion on notability is unimportant, as is mine. You have shot yourself now stating that Notability is imperfect. If you can see that, surely you can see that improving it is a good thing. You don't seem to understand that I want to keep Notability also, and that I want it to be used in the right context, stop arguing about it and agree to help make it better. --Crampy20 10:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
I was under the impression that you were still calling for the removal of this guideline all together. I'm not sure I understand your statement about me shooting myself (it's shoot yourself in the foot, by the way). I don't see how I should have to agree with you in-order to improve anything. If I disagree with you then I disagree with you.
My point is that it can be a problem, but it is not unique to this guideline. What you are describing is a problem of how some editors might view any given guideline. Your "beef" is with the deletion policy, not this guideline. -- Ned Scott 10:36, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Your arguments are not applicable to this situation. No one has claimed that the reason we merge articles is to save space on the wikipedia. Brining up the deletion of userboxes is a red-herring. Other complaints you mention are better brought up about the deletion process. (It may also be worth noting that in this week's Wikipedia Signpost one of the higher-ups with the foundation suggested more stringent notability guidelines.
You seem to be bitter at the person who suggested that Kiddy Grade was not a notable anime. He was proved wrong in the AfD and the content has been. The system worked. It may not wind up in your prefered format, but the system worked. --Kunzite 22:09, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
If you follow the links you will see i am right about merging. In terms of userboxes, i am making an example. I followed that link, It's just a random email that has no consequence to this. And also, wether or not I am bitter about anything has nothing to do with anything, just because i disliked this it doesn't mean i am being unreasonable. You may as well not typed that up. --Crampy20 10:31, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Examples section

What is this supposed to show? There is no real consistency to it, and it seems to codify our unfortunate bias for geek-oriented texts (Star Trek) over classics (Karamazov). Phil Sandifer 00:48, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

That's because the problem is mainly IN the "geek-orineted" articles. If "A Rose for Emily were a television drama, there would be an entire page devoted to the sexuality of Homer Barron. It would be best to find an army of literature nerds to help type up the minutia of Tolstoy and Shaw. --Kunzite 05:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler tag usage

I thought I'd let editors here know that revisions are being proposed and discussed for WP:SPOILER and its templates at Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning/guidelines. This is a result of the (still open) RfC going on at Wikipedia:Spoiler warning/RfC. Any input and collaboration between fictional guidelines is welcome and encouraged. -- Ned Scott 03:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Who did this?

WHo got rid of my article on Leroy? Mr. Nobody

Nobody deleted it, it's simply been redirected and included in List_of_experiments_from_Lilo_&_Stitch#6-Series (look near the bottom of that section for Leroy). -- nae'blis 20:37, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
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