[WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary

[Charles Matthews]

Cathy Edwards wrote:
> This is all so interesting - thanks.
>
> I think I have a good idea why BLP are a hot topic of debate in this
> area, but why do you think fiction is contentious - because it's in
> danger of unbalancing the encyclopedia?
>   
[[Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)]] indicates some of the sore points. It 
is not about whether "Pride or Prejudice" is notable: there is no 
problem establishing that to everyone's satisfaction. We do have an 
article [[Fitzwilliam Darcy]]. The kinds of problems that arise in 
general are:

*What if the article on Mr. Darcy were written in an in-universe view, 
in other words not offering the perspective with the fourth wall removed?
*What if [[Category:Jane Austen characters]] got out of hand, with very 
minor characters featuring?
*What if there were not enough critical literature to make articles 
(yet), and people ended up improvising their own theories?

Only the second of these is likely to matter with Janeite Wikipedians. 
We would then say "merge the info back into [[Pride and Prejudice]]". 
That could get too long (it's actually only a sensible 36K). For fiction 
articles that are very long, we are supposed to apply 
[[Wikipedia:Summary style]], in other words put subtopics on separate 
pages. But the notability guide says "notability is not inherited". This 
is where some people get stuck. Minor characters or lesser topics in a 
fictional universe get merged into a page, and can't get moved out again 
unless the subtopic itself is inherently notable.

So (as I understand it, and I'm no expert on this) fiction in general 
can have problems with all three of the bullets; and only for the first 
is there necessarily a decent editorial solution that would satisfy all 
"inclusionist" views.

Charles