Hey everybody, I stumbled across another wikipedia mirror with an odd copyright notice so I thought I would ask people on here what they thought.
The site is: http://www.speedylook.com/
The content of the site appears to be a machine translation of the french wikipedia (into english). The copyright notice at the bottom reads: "(c) 2007-2008 speedlook.com; article text available under the terms of GFDL, from fr.wikipedia.org" Which is technically correct but seems to me potentially misleading.
Also, I'm just curious as to why on earth they have decided to do this. Why host an (awful) machine translation of the french site when you could just as easily host the english wikipedia content? What gives? Does anyone have any idea?
- Andy
2008/12/11 Andrew Famiglietti afamiglietti@gmail.com:
Also, I'm just curious as to why on earth they have decided to do this. Why host an (awful) machine translation of the french site when you could just as easily host the english wikipedia content? What gives? Does anyone have any idea?
- Andy
Hosting the English wikipedia will get you hammered with a duplicate content penalty so you tend not to rank very high in search results. In theory a machine translation of French would avoid that.
On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 4:14 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Hosting the English wikipedia will get you hammered with a duplicate content penalty so you tend not to rank very high in search results. In theory a machine translation of French would avoid that.
-- geni
From the Astronomy article: "The astronomy is the Science of the
observation of the stars, seeking to explain their origin, them evolution, their properties Physique S and Chimique S."
I get the "higher search-results" argument, but I don't see how anyone would ever possibly use this for anything. This is Time-Cube level of internet stupid.
--Oskar
I get the "higher search-results" argument, but I don't see how anyone would ever possibly use this for anything. This is Time-Cube level of internet stupid.
If you can get high up in search results you can get decent advertising revenue whether your site is comprehensible or not.
Avoiding making this a de facto RFC on a given article...
I've been getting into a fairly nasty feud on a popular culture article in which I added an "academic criticism" section, summarizing articles I could find on the subject.
This seems to me well-supported by numerous policies. But it has proven inordinately contentious, and contentious in what seems to me particularly pernicious ways - the articles (from peer-reviewed journals) have been compared to blog posts and fancruft, declared non- notable (not that notability determines article content), and the sections have been accused of being jargon-filled (which, they are, yes, but we're dealing with criticism in the humanities. It's jargon- filled, and the jargon doesn't translate to everyday words easily, or else we wouldn't use the jargon).
I'm very, very troubled by this, for a number of reasons. For one thing, it seems to me to cheapen Wikipedia, miring us in the everyday and the simple. I am unable to think of anyone who would seriously criticize an encyclopedia for excessively covering peer-reviewed, academic scholarship. Covering academic criticism of any subject should be a goal for us. It should be the goal for us.
But apparently this position is not only not widely held, but an incredible minority position.
Am I crazy? Did I just get a bad bunch of people conversing on the article, such that I should spill the article name and get the sanity brigade on it? Or are we really of the opinion that peer-reviewed academic criticism is a non-notable perspective on a subject?
-Phil
Diffs or it didn't happen!
:)
Michel
2008/12/11 Phil Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com
Avoiding making this a de facto RFC on a given article...
I've been getting into a fairly nasty feud on a popular culture article in which I added an "academic criticism" section, summarizing articles I could find on the subject.
This seems to me well-supported by numerous policies. But it has proven inordinately contentious, and contentious in what seems to me particularly pernicious ways - the articles (from peer-reviewed journals) have been compared to blog posts and fancruft, declared non- notable (not that notability determines article content), and the sections have been accused of being jargon-filled (which, they are, yes, but we're dealing with criticism in the humanities. It's jargon- filled, and the jargon doesn't translate to everyday words easily, or else we wouldn't use the jargon).
I'm very, very troubled by this, for a number of reasons. For one thing, it seems to me to cheapen Wikipedia, miring us in the everyday and the simple. I am unable to think of anyone who would seriously criticize an encyclopedia for excessively covering peer-reviewed, academic scholarship. Covering academic criticism of any subject should be a goal for us. It should be the goal for us.
But apparently this position is not only not widely held, but an incredible minority position.
Am I crazy? Did I just get a bad bunch of people conversing on the article, such that I should spill the article name and get the sanity brigade on it? Or are we really of the opinion that peer-reviewed academic criticism is a non-notable perspective on a subject?
-Phil
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On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 3:26 PM, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipedia@zog.org wrote:
Diffs or it didn't happen!
Have the folks on the lists forgotten how to use contribs:
You can easily find examples in Phil's contrib history. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tori_Amos&diff=prev&oldid=...
On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 3:38 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
You're right, but so are they. Scholarly works in this field are just opinion, sophisticated opinion, but still, just opinion.
[snip]
But thats, arguably, all anything is.. Some opinions are more widely held, or are held by more credible or identify people.
Academic citations in Wikipedia are reasonable and should be expected. Peer reviewed works are going to, on average, be of greater quality than blogs or mass media. Without a careful analysis of the situation and with my experience with Phil's good judgment on these kinds of issues, I'm inclined to support him.
Michel wrote:
Diffs or it didn't happen! :)
I see the smiley, so perhaps I shouldn't come back with a serious response, but this interests me.
It is very, very difficult to discuss a general issue on this list. If you (1) provide a specific example, people immediately dive in on the specifics of the example, and conclude either that it wasn't a problem after all, or that you (who brought it up) were overly emotionally involved and need to take a step back. But if you (2) try to leave the specific example out, to force the discussion to remain on the more interesting general issue, people don't want to think about it at all, except to insist on a specific example, at which point goto (1).
2008/12/11 Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com:
Michel wrote:
Diffs or it didn't happen! :)
I see the smiley, so perhaps I shouldn't come back with a serious response, but this interests me.
It is very, very difficult to discuss a general issue on this list. If you (1) provide a specific example, people immediately dive in on the specifics of the example, and conclude either that it wasn't a problem after all, or that you (who brought it up) were overly emotionally involved and need to take a step back. But if you (2) try to leave the specific example out, to force the discussion to remain on the more interesting general issue, people don't want to think about it at all, except to insist on a specific example, at which point goto (1).
The problem is in defining what the general issue is, often people create issues where there are none by selectively describing one specific example (even if they refused to say what that example is). Without analysing the example yourself you can't work out a) if there is a general issue or b) what the general issue is. In fact, you generally need a few examples for that, one doesn't help much.
There's a limit to how much I can comment if you don't want to give the specific example (your summary of the events will undoubtedly be incomplete and biased by your opinions - that's always the way with this kind of thing). What I will say is that the important principle here is that of "appropriate weight". Academic criticism in peer-reviewed papers is certainly appropriate for inclusion in an article, but you have to make sure you don't give excessive weight to the criticism compared to the rest of the article. As for jargon - you should at the very least link all uses of jargon, if we don't have an article on the concept you'll have to define it yourself. To some extent it isn't always possible to write for the layman (I edit mathematical articles sometimes and that's a problem we continually face), but every effort should be made to do so. You are summarising the criticism, so you don't need to be quite as precise (although you mustn't misrepresent the author - it's a difficult balance), which means you can use less well defined mainstream terms rather than jargon in places.
Avoiding making this a de facto RFC on a given article...
I've been getting into a fairly nasty feud on a popular culture article in which I added an "academic criticism" section, summarizing articles I could find on the subject.
This seems to me well-supported by numerous policies. But it has proven inordinately contentious, and contentious in what seems to me particularly pernicious ways - the articles (from peer-reviewed journals) have been compared to blog posts and fancruft, declared non- notable (not that notability determines article content), and the sections have been accused of being jargon-filled (which, they are, yes, but we're dealing with criticism in the humanities. It's jargon- filled, and the jargon doesn't translate to everyday words easily, or else we wouldn't use the jargon).
I'm very, very troubled by this, for a number of reasons. For one thing, it seems to me to cheapen Wikipedia, miring us in the everyday and the simple. I am unable to think of anyone who would seriously criticize an encyclopedia for excessively covering peer-reviewed, academic scholarship. Covering academic criticism of any subject should be a goal for us. It should be the goal for us.
But apparently this position is not only not widely held, but an incredible minority position.
Am I crazy? Did I just get a bad bunch of people conversing on the article, such that I should spill the article name and get the sanity brigade on it? Or are we really of the opinion that peer-reviewed academic criticism is a non-notable perspective on a subject?
-Phil
You're right, but so are they. Scholarly works in this field are just opinion, sophisticated opinion, but still, just opinion.
Fred
On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 2:21 PM, Phil Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Avoiding making this a de facto RFC on a given article...
Not knowing what article you were talking about, (which is helpful in some situations) my expectation in a reader-role with wikipedia is that articles would have a criticism section if there is significant criticism. I think if there is peer-reviewed criticism I would always consider it significant. So, the addition of a section like this in principle I think is good.
After seeing the diff linked, and the fact that this is the Tori Amos article, yes, I think your audience/local-editorship for this article is probably significantly non-standard, more opinionated, and motivated than most subjects. Tori fans are an interesting demographic.
2008/12/11 Judson Dunn cohesion@sleepyhead.org:
After seeing the diff linked, and the fact that this is the Tori Amos article, yes, I think your audience/local-editorship for this article is probably significantly non-standard, more opinionated, and motivated than most subjects. Tori fans are an interesting demographic.
That's the nicest phrasing of "many are such extreme nutters even the other Tori fans don't want them in their houses" I've seen so far.
- d.
Lol, Phil, have you not read [[Wikipedia:Sword-skeleton theory]]? This sort of position is almost default for many. Readt that essay, do.
CMOdi profanum vulgus et arceo.> From: snowspinner@gmail.com> To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:21:27 -0500> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anti-intellectualism> > Avoiding making this a de facto RFC on a given article...> > I've been getting into a fairly nasty feud on a popular culture > article in which I added an "academic criticism" section, summarizing > articles I could find on the subject.> > This seems to me well-supported by numerous policies. But it has > proven inordinately contentious, and contentious in what seems to me > particularly pernicious ways - the articles (from peer-reviewed > journals) have been compared to blog posts and fancruft, declared non- > notable (not that notability determines article content), and the > sections have been accused of being jargon-filled (which, they are, > yes, but we're dealing with criticism in the humanities. It's jargon- > filled, and the jargon doesn't translate to everyday words easily, or > else we wouldn't use the jargon).> > I'm very, very troubled by this, for a number of reasons. For one > thing, it seems to me to cheapen Wikipedia, miring us in the everyday > and the simple. I am unable to think of anyone who would seriously > criticize an encyclopedia for excessively covering peer-reviewed, > academic scholarship. Covering academic criticism of any subject > should be a goal for us. It should be the goal for us.> > But apparently this position is not only not widely held, but an > incredible minority position.> > Am I crazy? Did I just get a bad bunch of people conversing on the > article, such that I should spill the article name and get the sanity > brigade on it? Or are we really of the opinion that peer-reviewed > academic criticism is a non-notable perspective on a subject?> > -Phil> > _______________________________________________> WikiEN-l mailing list> WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Are you a PC? Upload your PC story and show the world http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/122465942/direct/01/
It feels to me that the arguments being made by those opposed to this content is that it's "out of scope for the article", and that putting this information in somehow violates our guidelines about undue weight, since nobody but a couple of academics cares about it and it's irrelevant.
I find both quite troubling. "Undue weight" doesn't mean "Remove all academics from popular culture articles because fans don't care, and fans outnumber academics 10,000:1".
Attempts to define an article's scope as excluding academic content are also problematic.
-Matt
It feels to me that the arguments being made by those opposed to this content is that it's "out of scope for the article", and that putting this information in somehow violates our guidelines about undue weight, since nobody but a couple of academics cares about it and it's irrelevant.
I find both quite troubling. "Undue weight" doesn't mean "Remove all academics from popular culture articles because fans don't care, and fans outnumber academics 10,000:1".
Attempts to define an article's scope as excluding academic content are also problematic.
-Matt
Actually that argument is quite similar to those who felt inquiry into the factual content of Sicko was outside the scope of the article.
Fred
I'm a bit on the fence, but my gut feeling is that an article principally about a pop-culture subject, should be mainly... pop-ish (to coin a term).
We are not an "academic" encyclopedia, we are supposed to be representative of the entire world, which is why we include our subjects warts.
I don't see any reason why this article should *not* mention academic criticism, keeping in mind that that represents a very tiny minority view of this subject. The simple fact that it's "academic and peer-reviewed" does not trump UNDUE. We solely defined that category for the purposes of RS, not related to UNDUE at all.
Will Johnson
We get articles rejected at afd every day because there is no outside criticism. To then have criticism rejected because it is academic is a denial of the standards we use for all other subjects, and an expression of the same attitude: popular culture is a subject not worth serious attention, whether in an encyclopedia or in the world.
Scholarship in the arts is not primarily "opinion", but analysis based on study of the primary sources, the same fundamental approach used on all other subjects.
Sometimes it will be aesthetic opinion, but why is that invalid? So is the opinion of popular critics. if there is "consumer- level" criticism it should be included as well. All responsible opinion on the arts is valid,whether informed by scholarship, love of the art, or both.
On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 6:35 PM, wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
I'm a bit on the fence, but my gut feeling is that an article principally about a pop-culture subject, should be mainly... pop-ish (to coin a term).
We are not an "academic" encyclopedia, we are supposed to be representative of the entire world, which is why we include our subjects warts.
I don't see any reason why this article should *not* mention academic criticism, keeping in mind that that represents a very tiny minority view of this subject. The simple fact that it's "academic and peer-reviewed" does not trump UNDUE. We solely defined that category for the purposes of RS, not related to UNDUE at all.
Will Johnson
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On 12/12/08, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
Scholarship in the arts is not primarily "opinion", but analysis based on study of the primary sources, the same fundamental approach used on all other subjects.
[/snip]
You're right--and I guess this issue brings us down to the fundamental rhetorical question asked by Larry Sanger: does Wikipedia tolerate academic(s| opinions)? The answer tends to be no--because some people, who tend to be the most vocal people and ironically seem to have the most time on their hands, have got it into their heads that years of study don't help someone to become more knowledgeable and to produce better scholarship.
Perhaps there's an underlying issue that needs to be solved here.
--Thomas Larsen
On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 7:43 PM, Thomas Larsen larsen.thomas.h@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/12/08, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
Scholarship in the arts is not primarily "opinion", but analysis based on study of the primary sources, the same fundamental approach used on all other subjects.
[/snip]
You're right--and I guess this issue brings us down to the fundamental rhetorical question asked by Larry Sanger: does Wikipedia tolerate academic(s| opinions)? The answer tends to be no--because some people, who tend to be the most vocal people and ironically seem to have the most time on their hands, have got it into their heads that years of study don't help someone to become more knowledgeable and to produce better scholarship.
Perhaps there's an underlying issue that needs to be solved here.
--Thomas Larsen
There are conflicting issues here.
On one hand, there is anti-elitism / anti-intellectualism present in some corners of Wikipedia. When found it should be Burned with Fire.
On the other hand, numerous academics have failed miserably to engage with Wikipedia on our terms - which is NOR, RS, etc. "Because I said so" is no more valid for a Professor than for Joe 6-pack... The professor is more likely to be correct, but he's no more verifyable when he says that, and we have no way of knowing if the Professor really is who he/she claim they are.
I've had good luck by asking academics to think of this as another place they have to provide references and supporting citations, and asking them to think of this as a general interest publication rather than as a research journal... write survey overviews, etc.
I will happily ask an academic who stubbornly Just Doesn't Get the need for references and citations to publish somewhere else. This does not make me anti-intellectual. It makes me pro-encyclopedic. Some academics are not cut out for writing general overview articles / textbooks / talking to the public about their work. They generally fail in Wikipedia, too.
Hi,
On 12/12/08, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On one hand, there is anti-elitism / anti-intellectualism present in some corners of Wikipedia. When found it should be Burned with Fire.
On the other hand, numerous academics have failed miserably to engage with Wikipedia on our terms - which is NOR, RS, etc. "Because I said so" is no more valid for a Professor than for Joe 6-pack... The professor is more likely to be correct, but he's no more verifyable when he says that, and we have no way of knowing if the Professor really is who he/she claim they are.
I agree with you here--I feel, though, that our way of dealing with academics who violate NOR/RS/etc. should be slightly more sensitive. Saying "that's our way of doing things, do it this way or leave" obviously is very offputting to academics and, quite understandably, deters them from becoming contributors. Far more constructive is a calm approach that explains _why_ NOR/RS/etc. are good principles for an encyclopedia.
Most true academics (excluding fake people who claim to be academics, of course) know encyclopedic standards pretty well, I think. After all, original research doesn't tend to get into Encyclopedia Britannica ...
Cheers,
--Thomas
On Dec 11, 2008, at 11:01 PM, Thomas Larsen wrote:
I agree with you here--I feel, though, that our way of dealing with academics who violate NOR/RS/etc. should be slightly more sensitive. Saying "that's our way of doing things, do it this way or leave" obviously is very offputting to academics and, quite understandably, deters them from becoming contributors. Far more constructive is a calm approach that explains _why_ NOR/RS/etc. are good principles for an encyclopedia.
Most true academics (excluding fake people who claim to be academics, of course) know encyclopedic standards pretty well, I think. After all, original research doesn't tend to get into Encyclopedia Britannica ...
On the other hand, it could do to shore up some of our standards in this area too. As it stands, there are parts of NOR that are absolutely laughable from a literary studies perspective, most obviously the part that says that primary sources can be used for descriptive claims but not interpretive claims. (Many literary scholars - indeed, probably most who are at all prominent in the field these days - would hold a view that there is any sort of reading that is not also an interpretation, so banning interpretation is nonsense.)
We also do have to recognize that our standards of use of primary sources are, in general, far, far past what most academics would consider "original research." There are many, many observations I could make about works of fiction that would be considered far too obvious to be worth publishing in any journal, but that still fall afoul of NOR. That's a problem when it comes to soliciting academic contributions.
Though some of this is that we are unusually hostile to humanities academics, for, I think, structural reasons. (Very few of our policies were written with humanities topics in mind)
It's an area where we could definitely improve.
-Phil
There are conflicting issues here.
On one hand, there is anti-elitism / anti-intellectualism present in some corners of Wikipedia. When found it should be Burned with Fire.
On the other hand, numerous academics have failed miserably to engage with Wikipedia on our terms - which is NOR, RS, etc. "Because I said so" is no more valid for a Professor than for Joe 6-pack... The professor is more likely to be correct, but he's no more verifyable when he says that, and we have no way of knowing if the Professor really is who he/she claim they are.
I've had good luck by asking academics to think of this as another place they have to provide references and supporting citations, and asking them to think of this as a general interest publication rather than as a research journal... write survey overviews, etc.
I will happily ask an academic who stubbornly Just Doesn't Get the need for references and citations to publish somewhere else. This does not make me anti-intellectual. It makes me pro-encyclopedic. Some academics are not cut out for writing general overview articles / textbooks / talking to the public about their work. They generally fail in Wikipedia, too.
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com
Bald assertions of authority by persons with academic credentials are unacceptable. They are required to cite reliable sources same as anyone else and, if they are competent, should know the literature in their field.
Fred
On Dec 11, 2008, at 11:51 PM, Fred Bauder wrote:
Bald assertions of authority by persons with academic credentials are unacceptable. They are required to cite reliable sources same as anyone else and, if they are competent, should know the literature in their field.
Sure. But on the other hand, we should recognize that the nature of "the literature in their field" differs from field to field. Frankly, NOR was written for a field more like chemistry than like literary studies. And that poses a problem.
-Phil
On Dec 11, 2008, at 11:51 PM, Fred Bauder wrote:
Bald assertions of authority by persons with academic credentials are unacceptable. They are required to cite reliable sources same as anyone else and, if they are competent, should know the literature in their field.
Sure. But on the other hand, we should recognize that the nature of "the literature in their field" differs from field to field. Frankly, NOR was written for a field more like chemistry than like literary studies. And that poses a problem.
-Phil
That's all I'm asking in this general discussion, recognition that there is a problem.
Fred
On Dec 11, 2008, at 11:59 PM, Fred Bauder wrote:
That's all I'm asking in this general discussion, recognition that there is a problem.
Sure, but you seem to think it's a problem with literary studies, and I think it's a problem with Wikipedia. :)
-Phil
On Dec 11, 2008, at 10:43 PM, Thomas Larsen wrote:
You're right--and I guess this issue brings us down to the fundamental rhetorical question asked by Larry Sanger: does Wikipedia tolerate academic(s| opinions)? The answer tends to be no--because some people, who tend to be the most vocal people and ironically seem to have the most time on their hands, have got it into their heads that years of study don't help someone to become more knowledgeable and to produce better scholarship.
I think this is misleading to some extent - we are generally more tolerant, i think, of scientists. Part of this is that the standards of publication in the sciences are different - my sense is that it is normal to, every few years, publish review articles that sum up work in an area, and that definitive compilations of existing information are considered valuable. Also, scientists tend to have a unitary consensus - that is, on the vast majority of science, there is a single view about how it works.
Humanities academia is messier - we don't publish overviews of existing work nearly as often, so accounts generally need to be stitched together from multiple sources. We do not tend to come to definitive conclusions - there is no single consensus view of a given novel. So the use of sources to provide an overview is harder - there are more synthetic leaps that need to be made to create an overview.
Part of this is that our policies were not written with the humanities in mind. Another big part is that our policies are shaped heavily by who showed up in the early days of Wikipedia, and that means that they are shaped heavily by a techno-libertarian philosophy that has been, historically, very hostile to postmodernism, and thus, by extension, very hostile to humanities scholarship. It is the case, frankly, that Wikipedia, on a policy level, has a systemic bias against the humanities.
-Phil
On 12 Dec 2008, at 03:43, Thomas Larsen wrote:
The answer tends to be no--because some people, who tend to be the most vocal people and ironically seem to have the most time on their hands, have got it into their heads that years of study don't help someone to become more knowledgeable and to produce better scholarship.
Erm. Then what does?
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com
Matthew Brown wrote:
It feels to me that the arguments being made by those opposed to this content is that it's "out of scope for the article", and that putting this information in somehow violates our guidelines about undue weight, since nobody but a couple of academics cares about it and it's irrelevant.
I find both quite troubling. "Undue weight" doesn't mean "Remove all academics from popular culture articles because fans don't care, and fans outnumber academics 10,000:1".
It's a judgment call, though, which despite being an academic myself I can see often going the other way. If there has been a journal article or two on a popular rock band, is this automatically worth citing in the article? I would say no. If there's a significant body of literature discussing the subject, then I'd consider that worth mentioning. But if there's only been a handful of isolated articles on the subject, they'd have to be pretty influential / widely cited articles to be worth summarizing without giving undue weight.
I mean, I've personally published journal articles about [[WarioWare]]. Do I think it's worth adding a section to that article summarizing my work? Well, no---in the scope of a general article on WarioWare, my handful of not particularly influential articles would be given rather undue weight to be mentioned.
-Mark
By that standard, you would say, if there has been a critical review or two, it is not worth putting in until there have been a greatman ycritical reviews. I think it's almost the other way around: when there are a great many, we select the most important--in both cases.
It is still rare that there is any serious academic work on a popular culture topic (though popular musics seems to be one of the topics that has relatively more such work than many other areas). this is no reason to ignore what there is. Obviously, there is work that is relatively trivial and work that is ore important--but this is true in all types of work on all subjects.
Perhaps your work is important, perhaps not. Someone other than you is the best judge of that either way.
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 8:33 PM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Matthew Brown wrote:
It feels to me that the arguments being made by those opposed to this content is that it's "out of scope for the article", and that putting this information in somehow violates our guidelines about undue weight, since nobody but a couple of academics cares about it and it's irrelevant.
I find both quite troubling. "Undue weight" doesn't mean "Remove all academics from popular culture articles because fans don't care, and fans outnumber academics 10,000:1".
It's a judgment call, though, which despite being an academic myself I can see often going the other way. If there has been a journal article or two on a popular rock band, is this automatically worth citing in the article? I would say no. If there's a significant body of literature discussing the subject, then I'd consider that worth mentioning. But if there's only been a handful of isolated articles on the subject, they'd have to be pretty influential / widely cited articles to be worth summarizing without giving undue weight.
I mean, I've personally published journal articles about [[WarioWare]]. Do I think it's worth adding a section to that article summarizing my work? Well, no---in the scope of a general article on WarioWare, my handful of not particularly influential articles would be given rather undue weight to be mentioned.
-Mark
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