Wikipedia talk:Fancruft/Archive 5

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Archive 5

Multi-wiki system

Somebody needs to make a better Wikipedia without a mountain of craptastic rules. I agree that information should be verifiable and not invented, but the sorts of restrictions they put on it are absurd. For example, to classify something as verifiable, you have to be able to access it from a public library or internet connection. So if you wanted to quote the President's State of the Union address, for example, I couldn't quote the broadcast on TV, or if I were there I couldn't cite that either. No, I'd have to use a transcript or quote from another website. Nor could I cite something from a TV episode, movie, game, or anything like that. It's gotta be verifiable instantly by anyone who cares to check (and really, how many people checking info quickly verify the sources?). Throw in the strong dislike for "cruft" by some actively AfD'ing people and you've got something that is nearly a one-stop-shop for all your information needs, but excludes lots of fiction or self-published materials. It'd be really nice to have a bunch of Wikis tied together under "one roof" and just have a number of versions for each page. Say you look up "Counter Strike", by picking on that page which version you want to view, you could go between Wikipedia (Summary from an outside-universe perspective), Uncyclopedia (humorous and satirical views), Wikicruft (all your little details and info for the really interested reader), Wikiquote (notable quotes) and lots of other established Wiki____ cites, each version with its own criteria for what is and isn't permissible. The reason that would be better than it is now, with all these sites separated, is that there seems to be a much greater tendency for people to click the wiki links than external links, which can be plagued with pop-ups, flash ads, strange fonts, a new organizational style of information, and other website inconsistencies. Putting them on one page would ensure a quality of site design and reliability at the very least, and would be akin to offering multiple takes on a particular topic. Whether you're interested in the general summary of something and its real-world applications, or the finer details of what it is, or a comedic look on its various attributes, etc →etc, you could get them all from the comfort of one composit Wiki. --Twile 20:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The citation and verifiability rules do exist for a reason, you know: they stop people from flooding the articles with junk they made up. How did this become a debate over verifiability anyway? --tjstrf 20:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Because the verifiability rule heavily impacts this fancruft. Much fancruft relates to games, TV shows, and the like, which are generally only verifiable through themselves or fansites (which aren't reliable sources). --Twile 20:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The far easier solution is to simply redefine what verifiable sources are in the context of fictional universes. Or attempt to retrain everyone to not summarize or describe fictional universes, and to instead simply write that the work exists. However, the latter option leaves a lot of problems still, in the form of having an article on, for example, King Arthur, in which you can mention the scholarly disputes over how accurate the tales are historically, but not what the tales actually say. Plot summary is necessary to even understand why 1984 mattered, do we have to cite book reviews in order to describe the plot? --tjstrf 20:36, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

My rule of thumb is that, if more than about half of the article is sourced only through the fiction itself, and not through secondary analysis, creator commentary/interviews, reputable criticism, and other sources to establish production details and/or impact on other fiction or culture, then there's an imbalance. Wikipedia: Manual of Style (writing about fiction) lists these types of sources and more as suggestions for writing fiction-related articles with sufficient context. Some plot summary is fine, usually, but it's bad if most or all of the article is just a rehashing of the story. — TKD::Talk 20:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's what I find really funny about the Wikipedia approach. We're trusted to stitch together information from a variety of sources, being sure to give them a fair and balanced representation, being neutral and professional. But we're not allowed to tell what happens in a work of fiction because obviously we're going to misrepresent it; instead we have to use websites and critical essays from the so-called experts in order to present information. Us Wikipedians can combine forces to synthesize articles from sources of varying quality, languages, and viewpoints, but if we were to observe and tell you the color of the car James Bond was in, or the number of times George Bush had to stop for rounds of applause, then we'd obviously get the information wrong. Also... Writing About Fiction is a terrible manual of ever one was made. Pick your favorite movie. How many things can you think of from that movie which were important and notable from the perspective of that movie, but not from the outside world? Not everything significant in fiction can be described in terms of what inspired it from the real world, critical response to it, and a quote from a library book. The reason I came up with what someone dubbed a "Multi-wiki system" is that it would allow these "but it's unencyclopedic! </whine>" people to simply highlight a section of a crufty article and say "This section has been blanked out from the main article per its inside-universe perspective. Please transfer to the associated Cruft page" instead of mass deletions resulting in countless lengthy arguments and angry fans who have nothing to show for dozens of hours of collaborative editing. You'd have your basic page, your in-depth page, your humorous page, and more. A variety of tones and approaches, working to collectively record a great deal of human knowledge, from Aardvarks to Zelda. --Twile 21:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Upon further investigation, it seems that this idea was somewhat conceived of in Archive 1 of this talk page. They had the idea for different versions, called... what was it... Encyclopedia Fancruftia and Encyclopedia Universelia, or something to that effect. Basically a way to let enthusiast "cruft" exist while also presenting a professional encyclopedia "outside-universe" appearance. --Twile 23:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the in-universe/out-of-universe distinction laid out in WP:WAF is crucial, but I disagree that avoiding using the fiction as a primary source is the key to staying out of universe. In fact, the key is to constantly remember (and remind the reader) that you're talking about a story, film, game etc., and not about things that happened in the real world. And one of the best way to do that is through quotation from the original source.

An article about a fan-beloved subject that explains where the information about the universe comes from and documents it through quotation is so much more useful for fans and non-fans alike than a Guide to Middle Earth-style article that pretends the universe is real. That to me is the distinction between fancruft and non-fancruft. Nareek 11:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It depends what you need the information for. If you're writing about something for academic purposes, then you're right, the outside-of-universe approach is more useful as it allows you to analyze the work and maintain an outsider perspective. Then again, because you can't cite Wikipedia anyway, that becomes a minor point. If you're reading because you want to have fun, expand your knowledge on a topic, or clear up technologies/characters/events, then the inside-universe approach is essential. And let's face it, not every fictional universe is easy to follow or understand. Having a resource where you can find all that information on one site, edited and linked intelligently to related sources and articles, is a very useful asset. See, I'm not doubting Wikipedia's need to maintain outside-universe for the particular tone and approach they're going for. I'm simply recognizing that inside-universe perspectives can be very useful and interesting as well, and it would be convenient and eliminate lots of "Delete per fancruft" arguments if there were inside-universe and outside-universe versions for articles. Think about how they do different languages now, it would be something like that. You can have an article in German, or in English, or Spanish, and each one is for a different audiance. Granted that's generally because of nigh-impassable language barriers, but it still shows that it's a doable system. --Twile 21:03, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

When you write, "If you're reading because you want to have fun, expand your knowledge on a topic, or clear up technologies/characters/events, then the inside-universe approach is essential," I think you're illustrating a common misconception about out-of-universe--one that the proponents of the out-of-universe perspective have done a lot to foster.

Out-of-universe doesn't mean avoiding talking about the things in the universe--it means talking about those things from outside the universe, i.e., from the perspective of people reading a book (watching a film, playing a game, etc.). You're not an explorer describing your travels through Middle-Earth, you're a reader describing a book that you've read.

That doesn't mean you can't talk about the technologies, characters and events in the book (though people have tried to join the plot summary argument with the out-of-universe argument, unfortunately in my view). You just have to talk about them as things in a book--e.g., "In the first story in the series, 'I, Robot', Isaac Asimov introduces the positronic brain, a type of artificially intelligent computer which he describes as being 'programmed to obey three laws'." (I'm making this up, btw.)

This tells you both what the technology is, how it's described by the writer, and where it was first described--which I would say is better both from the point of view of the WP purist, the student (who can indeed benefit from Wikipedia, even if they have to recheck the quotes themselves) and to the fan, who if he's a true fan wants to know how his beloved universe was created brick by brick.

Look, if you're a Star Wars fan, it makes all the difference in the world whether a fact occurs in one of the movies (and which one of the movies), in a novelization or in a comic book. I'm a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos, and if an article doesn't say whether a Great Old One was invented by H. P. Lovecraft or August Derleth, in my view it's basically worthless.

In short, WP should take an out-of-universe perspective because it's the right thing to do for the fans. Among other reasons. Nareek 21:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Here are Wikipedia's own examples: For in-universe, they have "In Star Year 8891 the Slibvorks of Blastio were infected with the Kroxyldyph virus by a bio-warfare special operations unit on a clandestine mission. The unit, acting under the leadership of Commander Sam Kinkaid and without the approval of Star Command, rewrote the Slibvorks' DNA and caused their skin to turn blue." For outside-universe, it is "In the later series, a larger budget allowed for more extensive special effects makeup. The Slibvorks were now depicted as having blue skin, a stark contrast with their appearance in the earlier series. The writers explained this by adding a genetic misfortune into the backstory of the Slibvorks. According to the current series bible, this occurred in Star Year 8891, between episodes 5.14 and 6.0. This was later expanded into the novel The Trouble with Kroxyldyph by Honda MacHinery. The novel follows the adventures of a bio-warfare special operations unit on a clandestine mission to infect the Slibvorks with the Kroxyldyph virus. The unit, acting under Commander Sam Kinkaid's leadership and without the approval of Star Command, rewrites the Slibvorks' DNA. The change in skin color is one of many unintended side-effects." Now, it would seem to me that it's not just about mentioning where the information came from. If that's the case, then I should be able to revert a bunch of the Kushan articles by simply inserting "It is told in the Homeworld Manual that..." before the main bodies of text. No, it looks like the Outside-Universe stuff wants you to relate everything to the here and now, like what in the real world inspired it, how people reacted to it, sales, popularity, critical assessment, the development of the narrative, and who played each role.

In regards to saying it's best for everyone, I still have to disagree strongly. It is not best for the fan. Just because you're a fan of something doesn't mean you already know everything about it, those people had to get their knowledge from somewhere too. I for one consider myself a fan of the Star Trek: Voyager series, but by no means a walking encyclopedia on the knowledge. And besides... if somebody already knows all of that information, they'd have no strong motivation to read a Wikipedia article on it. Now, I'm not arguing whether it's right or wrong for the main Wikipedia articles to be in-universe, although it would make sense that things stay out-of-universe for a consistent tone with the many non-fiction articles. What I'm arguing is that it would be a good idea to have alternate versions for the very crufty stuff, as well as Uncyclopedia-ish versions and more. With the crufty stuff, you don't have to constantly remind the wreader that you're dealing in fiction, the reader knows this. You don't have to constantly strive to make the article relevant to the real world, that's what the main article is for. Rather, you delve deep into the works of fiction and treat it as if it is real. Do you have any reason why THIS wouldn't be a good idea? --Twile 15:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, keep in mind that fancruft often appear as speculation. And from my experience, speculation is mostly written from out-of-universe view. Like "As seen in..., it's possible that..." or "It's consider to be the best by most fan." or "Also widely known as insert weird name here at insert name of fan forum here." So written from out-of-universe doesn't guarantee non-fancruft.L-Zwei 06:58, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

L-Zwei is correct, fancruft is not the same as in-universe perspective, it's the same as badly written excessively detailed articles. Which often includes in-universe perspective. --tjstrf 08:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Quality of Wikipedia.

Fancruft is growing in breadth within Wikipedia, and will be the death of any attempts to have Wikipedia seen as a reliable, professional reference work...and making it yet another poorly-written website. Unless a forceful group seriously decides to put a foot down and reign this insanity in, there's really no point in taking Wikipedia seriously anymore. --FuriousFreddy 01:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Fact is, even serious topic still unreliable. People can made mistake even in serious topic like historical events. I don't support fancruft, but not agree that we need a forceful group seriously decides to put a foot down and reign this insanity in. It would be must better if we just have a normal group of people to keep this place fun to read without ruin its quality.L-Zwei 06:07, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

We need both. Somehow, barriers need to be set on just how much information on the same subject is enough. For example, as I mention below, we have thousands of articles on The Simpsons: articles on every episode, all characters, locations, etc. Now, if someone were to do the same for, say, The Jeffersons, I just know problems would arise. Heck, I don't even think 20/20 would be allowed the Simpsons treatment. --FuriousFreddy 00:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

And who decides what fancruft is? The term is increasingly applied to anything that particular person may find personally distasteful. Jtrainor 07:02, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

It may be applied to that, but, as the userpace article this talk page is connected to tells us, "fancruft" is supposed to mean "a selection of content is of importance only to a small population of enthusiastic fans of the subject in question." Like, if we have the article on Whatever Fictional Property, and then we start having articles on every character that ever walked into any panel of the comic or shot of the TV show/film, articles on [the characters have had], articles on [show's opening credits], [driven by characters in the show], etc. (I mean, I've enjoyed The Simpsons as much as most people...but damn.). A lot of crufted-up articles are written the writer requires that you actually knew the group members, or at least already knew everything about them. They often fail to properly explain the subject matter to a general audience, because they really don't serve the interests of informing that general audience: they serve the interests of informing/impressing their niche circle of enthusists. --FuriousFreddy 00:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that's one of the worst arguments people make. "Oh no, all of this extra content is ruining Wikipedia! Normal people won't take us seriously because nobody could understand that an enthusiast might write pages about their favorite food, variety of toad, or videogame!" Look. Just because Wikipedia has some articles about games and fiction and such doesn't make it bad. That's like saying that nobody will take the Internet seriously because you can find blogs, porn, and viruses on it. To the end user, Wikipedia is not about what they don't care about, it's about what they are interested in. You don't search for stuff that you don't care about. You search for stuff you're interested in, plain and simple. The only way that Joe B Average even realizes that there is an article for a map in an obscure game or some other fancruft is: 1) He presses the Random Article button and finds something random; 2) He sees a wikilink and clicks it, taking him to the crufty page, and forgets the location of the back buttons and Backspace key.

If Wikipedia was meant to be a professional reference site, we would be hired for having admirable working skills and we'd be getting paid. You ever see the main Wikipedia page in English? "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." That's what they're aiming for, a knowledge base that has citable information and is presented in a format that people agree is unbaised and polished. If you don't want to take Wikipedia seriously, then fine. You won't be missed. Fortunately there are millions of people who are interested in providing all the fun, useful, and interesting information to keep this place going without you.

And just so you know, there are already people and I think groups who take pleasure in the deletion of fancruft. They seek it out, delete it, congratulate each other, and occasionally give each other barnstars for it. --Twile 20:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Is it unthinkable that something can be good quality because it's done by volunteers? If so, then we should all give up now and just go and join Everything2. The fact is, if it weren't for guys tearing out all the fancruft there would be articles so deeply mired in references to The Simpsons and World of Warcraft that the USEFUL information would be all but impossible to find.

I am not opposed to there being Wikipedia articles on video games, TV show episodes etc - in fact I welcome them. The problem, as I see it, begins when the articles that aren't about popular culture start to get crowded with barely relevant and frankly boring contributions that dilute the valuable information and detract from the readability of articles. BreathingMeat 20:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, for some strange reason, good chunks of Everything2 are starting to look a lot better in quality than similar-sized chunks Wikipedia. Perhaps it lends itself to a different audience? Or perhaps it's just not as heavily covered by the media? --FuriousFreddy 00:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Twile, you misunderstand. Added information is one thing, but reams of information on niche subjects such as animated cartoons are just not a good look for the project. There is a definite tone and style used in professional-grade writing (which is what every article in the entire Wikipedia should be striving for), and a good bit of this crufty stuff lacks it. It's not the fact that these subjects are being covered; it's that they are being covered wrong and in extreme excess. The Simpsons is covered across literally hundreds of Wikipedia articles; meanwhile, The Cosby Show, a program of at least comprabable (if not exactly equal) historical importance, is covered in seven. Roseanne, another such program, is covered in one. Not that Cosby or Roseanne necessarily require thousands of articles; actually, the truth is that The Simpsons doesn't require thousands, either.

Wikipedia is (or, at least when I joined, it was) intended to be a reliable refrence of acceptably professional quality, not a repository for random information, and not a message board for teens and young adults. Were this not true, there would be no processes for cleanup, peer review, etc. Also, were it not true, I wouldn't have wasted my time doing research to try and fill the gaping holes in Wikiepdia's coverage (primarily coverage of African-American culture, history, and music, which, before I and some other editors started here, was next-to-destitute). I highly doubt a lot of the current editos even do much encyclopedia reading, and some of them don't seem to have ever even taken basic English composition classes. With a project this large and heavily promoted/covered, you can't just b.s. around. "Encyclopedia" is not a word to be taken lightly.

If Wikipedia is indeed destined to become primarily a lowbrow database for pop culture trivia of interest to 18-to-34 white American males, and not strive to be anything greater, then I wouldn't want to be missed. I'll just have to try and not feel bad for the uninformed people who pull this site up thinking it a worthwhile reference, and also not to think ill of the people who drug a good idea through the mud. --FuriousFreddy 00:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

No way are there thousands of articles on WP about The Simpsons--not unless all but a few hundred of them are not in the category Category:The Simpsons. Nareek 01:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Just went and did an estimate. It's somewhere between 700 and 800, so I edited above. Hundreds isn't much better better than "thousands" in this argument (it's only somewhat less ludicrous). This brings back my whole question of "is every episode of a TV show important enough for coverage in a general-purpose encyclopedia?" --FuriousFreddy 01:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Why is it "ludicrous" to have in-depth coverage of The Simpsons? It's arguably the single best work of art produced by television; it may well what people a hundred years from now think of when they think of late 20th century culture. It's watched and talked about by tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people. People pay money to buy reference works that cover every Simpsons episode--why shouldn't WP provide such references?

I see less justification for some other topics that are extensively covered on WP. But people are always going to write articles on the things that interest them, and WP is always going to reflect that. You point out how it doesn't resemble print encyclopedias; that's true, and it never will. It is its own creature, which is what makes it fascinating. Nareek 02:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like BreathingMeat brought up a good argument of "diluting" current good articles with references to other stuff, but I think this can be addressed and to some degree, is already. An example of this is Giant Panda. It talks about the actual animal for most of the article, and contains the "diluting" stuff such as references to anime, movies, and videogames in the Pandas in Popular Culture section. This way, someone who doesn't care about where pandas are depicted and how can skip it (although it's already towards the end of the article) and people who are interested in that know where to go. Similarly, Cryonics is popular in games and movies, so you'd expect it to be littered with crufty crap. Without having read the article, I can see there's a Culture section that talks about where Cryonics are shown in popular entertainment, and like with the Panda article, it's at the end of the page (save for the notes, references, etc which go last). By doing this, "good" articles can now have a central focus on the real-world definitions and applications of whatever the Wikipedia article in question is about, while still providing a set place where crufty references can be made. Pi has its Fictional References section which is analagous to the Popular Culture section. Point being, stuff can be contained and it won't spill out into non-related articles if done properly.

As far as importance, Wikipedia doesn't have an established guideline on that, as it's very subjective. I honestly don't care about what happened in the 13th century because history doesn't interest me, rather I prefer to live in the here and now and care more about games and fiction. For other people it's the exact opposite. Due to the practically limitless number of articles that can be written and the speed with which the Search function works, it's possible to cover both. The notion of a well-formatted site on which you can find up-to-date information on whatever pleases you is quite a good one; if Wikipedia isn't meant to be such a one-stop-shop for free, organized and peer-edited information, then I'd like to see a similar site but which attempts to catalogue information on all branches of knowledge and exploit the bandwidth and capacity of modern electronics to hold information as in-depth and linked as people are willing to go. --Twile 21:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that even though the crufty stuff in (for example) the Giant Panda article is contained within a "pop culture" section, it still detracts from the professionalism of the article to have it there. The tone of the article changes when you reach one of these lists: the writing becomes more disconnected, the facts become boring and irrelevant to most readers, and it just leaves a bad impression. This is why I like to keep "pop culture" sections general, and light on specific examples. Someone wanting to learn about giant pandas might be interested to learn that they often appear in anime and kids' shows. They probably would not be so interested to read of every appearance they have made in such shows. BreathingMeat 00:08, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a silly argument, quite frankly. The current way of doing "pop culture" sections is to list of places that you can find the topic of the article being referenced. You want it shortened and simplified? Do you want it to say:

Pop culture

Pandas are present in a number of movies, games, logos, jokes, and anime series.

Because that's really the only way to shorten it. How about another example? "Telekenisis is an ability in many science fiction stories, films, and games." That information is basically useless, because it's usually common knowledge. Now, it might be overkill to make a list of every musical, literary, and spoken reference to "God", but it might still be useful to point out a handful of the more notable occurences if the topic in question is very popular. Might I also point out that a list of things within an article isn't bad? Depending on the nature of the section, a list might be best. Say you want to know about the acting career of Tommy Lee Jones or some Kill Bill Trivia, a list is a good way of expressing the otherwise unconnected topics, especially when each point is a few words to a few sentences in length. I personally think that the usefulness of having such lists more than makes up for the "change in tone" which a person suffers through when they read through the entire section by accident. --Twile 17:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Please don't make a straw man of me. There is obviously a lot more that can be said about pandas in popular culture than that: Pandas as a symbol for the fragility of nature, similarities and themes common to panda characters in anime, pandas as advertisements for Chinese restaurants or culture, and maybe other things that I don't know about because I am not an expert in panda appearances in media. Any of these things could be written about intelligently and informatively, using notable examples embedded in the prose, instead of a raw list of bullet points.

I don't think it is necessarily helpful to list other places where the topic of the article is referenced. The "What links here" tool is a better way of obtaining such a list. Obviously there are exceptions to this, and a list of films in which an actor has appeared is a good example. I just don't think it's a good format for pop culture sections. BreathingMeat 22:37, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Fancruft's Own Satire

SomethingAwful just made a clever little satire of Wikipedia's more crufty articles (and dotted with litte "citation needed"s as well!). I thought it was good fun. Anyone else read it yet? Quantum Geek 207.35.41.4 03:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)