On 20/10/06, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Earle Martin wrote:
I think Phil is speaking from having read numerous fictional character articles, not implying that his feelings stem from this incident. (I happen to agree with him; the amount of blithering fancruft is astonishing.)
Yet he's using this incident as his "excuse" for it. If this incident itself had nothing specifically to do with his proposal and he was just tossing in an old dream of his, why was it initially focused on just Marvel comics characters?
Because a wise man once said, "Pick the low-hanging fruit." Everything has to start somewhere, jihad on fancruft included.
There's reasons why BLP is "ruthless" with regard to biographies of living people and those reasons are completely inapplicable to biographies of fictional characters. If you want to propose being equally "ruthless" for fictional characters I want to see a reason that's just as strong.
I thought having an encyclopedia that didn't suck was a pretty strong reason. Do I need to elaborate on what I think that entails? I hope not; I would have thought it was fairly self-evident.
Also, the definition of "fancruft" is far less clear than the definition of "libel." I'd want to see something solid and widely accepted for that as well.
Okay, then, I'd like to throw that one out to the list, but I'll start with: unnecessarily verbose, gushing and hyper-detailed recitation of trifling details about a fictional element, contributed with a reverence better reserved for factual information. (Or, in the terms that I prefer, the dull and witless prattling of socially-impaired nerds, but that's only my opinion, and not a recommendation for policy wording.)
On 10/21/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
Also, the definition of "fancruft" is far less clear than the definition of "libel." I'd want to see something solid and widely accepted for that as well.
Okay, then, I'd like to throw that one out to the list, but I'll start with: unnecessarily verbose, gushing and hyper-detailed recitation of trifling details about a fictional element, contributed with a reverence better reserved for factual information. (Or, in the terms that I prefer, the dull and witless prattling of socially-impaired nerds, but that's only my opinion, and not a recommendation for policy wording.)
-- Earle Martin
The thing is "unneccesarily verbose", "gushing", "trifling details" make the whole term subjective. Where one finds even finds a mention of comic book character verbose, not everyone will agree. You can't treat fancruft until there's a proper objective definition of what it is.
I'll suggest you shouldn't go in more detail with a fictional character than you'd go with the bio of an living person. When you mention "the dull and witless prattling of socially-impaired nerds" it's clear you already set a very high standard for fictional content. And I don't see why the standard should be any higher than with non-fictional stuff. It's just as much part of our daily lives.
Mgm
Earle Martin wrote:
On 20/10/06, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
There's reasons why BLP is "ruthless" with regard to biographies of living people and those reasons are completely inapplicable to biographies of fictional characters. If you want to propose being equally "ruthless" for fictional characters I want to see a reason that's just as strong.
I thought having an encyclopedia that didn't suck was a pretty strong reason. Do I need to elaborate on what I think that entails? I hope not; I would have thought it was fairly self-evident.
We already _have_ content policies that require fictional character articles to "not suck." They're the same content policies we have for biographies of living persons. The only difference is that BLP says we have to apply those content policies with the utmost speed and efficiency, because serious harm can come from some such policy violations on articles about living persons.
It is not at all self-evident that the same sort of harm can come from having articles that "suck" on fictional characters. If our article on Peter Parker claims he's gay, is he going to sue Wikimedia Foundation for libel or get fired by a homophobic J. Jonah Jameson?
Earle Martin wrote:
On 20/10/06, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Earle Martin wrote:
I think Phil is speaking from having read numerous fictional character articles, not implying that his feelings stem from this incident. (I happen to agree with him; the amount of blithering fancruft is astonishing.)
Yet he's using this incident as his "excuse" for it. If this incident itself had nothing specifically to do with his proposal and he was just tossing in an old dream of his, why was it initially focused on just Marvel comics characters?
Because a wise man once said, "Pick the low-hanging fruit." Everything has to start somewhere, jihad on fancruft included.
Jihad is normally associated with religious fanatics.
There's reasons why BLP is "ruthless" with regard to biographies of living people and those reasons are completely inapplicable to biographies of fictional characters. If you want to propose being equally "ruthless" for fictional characters I want to see a reason that's just as strong.
I thought having an encyclopedia that didn't suck was a pretty strong reason. Do I need to elaborate on what I think that entails? I hope not; I would have thought it was fairly self-evident.
I'll save you the problem of embarassing yourself with an elaboration. An encyclopedia that doesn't suck recognizes that different people have different ideas about what is important, and respects them for that. What could be more self-evident than that.
Ec
On Oct 21, 2006, at 10:38 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I'll save you the problem of embarassing yourself with an elaboration. An encyclopedia that doesn't suck recognizes that different people have different ideas about what is important, and respects them for that. What could be more self-evident than that.
It may be that my point has gotten lost amongst the rhetoric here. Personally, I'd vote to keep any article on a costumed character in Marvel or DC with appearances in multiple issues. The problems are not in terms of what is important.
The problem is... well, let's pull up a solid midlist Marvel character - Speedball. 1603 word article. Only 500 words of that pertain to the real world instead of the fictional world of the comics. That's the problem. Fancruft is in many ways a poor choice of terms for this. Especially since it's not even necessarily the case that the information itself is the problem. The problem is that virtually the entire article was written so as to pertain to the Marvel Universe, with occasional citations of issue number.
It's not a problem unique to any area, either. I'll wager that any fictional text that has spawned articles about its individual characters has at least one article like this. (Oddly, the exception to this seems to be Pokemon, where all of the articles I've glanced at [Admittedly just a sample] take an out-of-universe perspective.)
Best, Phil Sandifer sandifer@english.ufl.edu
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
Phil Sandifer wrote:
On Oct 21, 2006, at 10:38 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I'll save you the problem of embarassing yourself with an elaboration. An encyclopedia that doesn't suck recognizes that different people have different ideas about what is important, and respects them for that. What could be more self-evident than that.
It may be that my point has gotten lost amongst the rhetoric here. Personally, I'd vote to keep any article on a costumed character in Marvel or DC with appearances in multiple issues. The problems are not in terms of what is important.
The problem is... well, let's pull up a solid midlist Marvel character - Speedball. 1603 word article. Only 500 words of that pertain to the real world instead of the fictional world of the comics. That's the problem. Fancruft is in many ways a poor choice of terms for this. Especially since it's not even necessarily the case that the information itself is the problem. The problem is that virtually the entire article was written so as to pertain to the Marvel Universe, with occasional citations of issue number.
It's not a problem unique to any area, either. I'll wager that any fictional text that has spawned articles about its individual characters has at least one article like this. (Oddly, the exception to this seems to be Pokemon, where all of the articles I've glanced at [Admittedly just a sample] take an out-of-universe perspective.)
And Doctor Who. Don't ever forget that our Doctor Who articles are amongst the best for their real-world perspective, eg. [[Dalek]].
On 21/10/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
The problem is... well, let's pull up a solid midlist Marvel character - Speedball. 1603 word article. Only 500 words of that pertain to the real world instead of the fictional world of the comics. That's the problem.
Surely one would expect that an article on a fictional character would feature far more information on the character itself (within the fictional world) than on real world things (character development, &c.)? I haven't looked at the article, but I would say that a 2:1 ratio is pretty damn good.
On 21/10/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Jihad is normally associated with religious fanatics.
Only by the ignorant. People who have actually spent any time reading about the subject rather than listening to the spoutings of tabloid newspapers and Fox News pundits will be aware that jihad takes a multitude of forms, the foremost of which is spiritual jihad within oneself, the crusade against sin and sloth. [0] We need a crusade against sloth. Our sloth is sloth of editing, which leads to articles fairly groaning at the seams under the load of their excess verbiage.
An encyclopedia that doesn't suck recognizes that different people have different ideas about what is important, and respects them for that. What could be more self-evident than that.
I disagree thoroughly. WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information, remember? If we respected everbody's different ideas, it would be.
An encyclopedia that doesn't suck contains material that has been agreed by consensus to be relevant and useful.
[1] If only there were some kind of online reference I could point to on this. Oh, wait, there is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad#Greater_and_lesser_Jihad
Earle Martin wrote:
On 21/10/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Jihad is normally associated with religious fanatics.
Only by the ignorant. People who have actually spent any time reading about the subject rather than listening to the spoutings of tabloid newspapers and Fox News pundits will be aware that jihad takes a multitude of forms, the foremost of which is spiritual jihad within oneself, the crusade against sin and sloth. [0] We need a crusade against sloth. Our sloth is sloth of editing, which leads to articles fairly groaning at the seams under the load of their excess verbiage.
I suppose that a crusade is just as socially acceptable among Muslims as a jihad is among Christians. Sloth as one of the [[Seven deadly sins]], dates back to the seventh century, as does Islam. I take due note of your modern seventh-century solutions to these problems.
An encyclopedia that doesn't suck recognizes that different people have different ideas about what is important, and respects them for that. What could be more self-evident than that.
I disagree thoroughly. WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information, remember?
Our comic book aficionados would disagree that they are indiscriminate in their treatment of the subject.
If we respected everbody's different ideas, it would be.
Wow! There goes a pillar!
An encyclopedia that doesn't suck contains material that has been agreed by consensus to be relevant and useful.
Ultimately, yes.
[1] If only there were some kind of online reference I could point to on this. Oh, wait, there is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad#Greater_and_lesser_Jihad
Excellent! It establishes that you were preaching the lesser jihad whereby thes comic book articles would be conquered by the sword, instead of having people examine their own motivations for expanding these articles.
Ec
On 21/10/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I suppose that a crusade is just as socially acceptable among Muslims as a jihad is among Christians.
I can only conclude that you are trolling me, and consequently I shall skip your next few paragraphs.
Excellent! It establishes that you were preaching the lesser jihad whereby thes comic book articles would be conquered by the sword, instead of having people examine their own motivations for expanding these articles.
No, I was espousing the greater application of discipline by editors as part of Wikipedia's collective mind. "Whereby these comic book articles would be conquered by the sword" is an absurd straw man. What, and then they would be converted to, say, articles about Hemingway? No, don't even bother answering that question.
Earle Martin wrote:
On 21/10/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I suppose that a crusade is just as socially acceptable among Muslims as a jihad is among Christians.
I can only conclude that you are trolling me, and consequently I shall skip your next few paragraphs.
My apologies I thought I was only feeding a troll. I couldn't resist the temptation to respond to the introduction of the concept of jihad. The reference to the lesser and greater jihad was a fantastic opportunity for me to inform myself about an element of Islamic theology. Connecting this with sloth inspired me to look into the origin of the theology of the seven deadly sins; I learned something else. It was disappointing to realize that I was only dealing with poetaster theology.
Some of us who feed trolls should also know when to stop.
Excellent! It establishes that you were preaching the lesser jihad whereby thes comic book articles would be conquered by the sword, instead of having people examine their own motivations for expanding these articles.
No, I was espousing the greater application of discipline by editors as part of Wikipedia's collective mind. "Whereby these comic book articles would be conquered by the sword" is an absurd straw man.
A further apology for crediting you with the ability to understand the metaphorical. I have the bad habit of forgetting that fundamentalists have this problem.
What, and then they would be converted to, say, articles about Hemingway? No, don't even bother answering that question.
Thank you, I won't discuss Hemingway.
Ec
On 22/10/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
It was disappointing to realize that I was only dealing with poetaster theology.
Congratulations, you've demonstrated to us that you are erudite. Have a cookie.