[WikiEN-l] Sourcing "popular culture" items

[Steve Block]

Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Phil Sandifer wrote:
>> On Nov 9, 2006, at 12:09 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>> I did not say that.  The point is, it is NOT verifiable.  It is  
>>> likely a
>>> copyvio, and the amount of information known about this woman from
>>> reliable third party sources is about as close to zero as you can get.
>>>
>> 1) Are third party sources required here? The classic definition of  
>> NOR said that primary sources could be used so long as they were not  
>> used for "novel" claims. Surely the basics of this article are thus  
>> verifiable via the primary source of the show: her status as a  
>> contestant, when she lost, and a good chunk of her bio were all no  
>> doubt covered.
> 
> Perhaps, although caution is warranted here.  The bios of people on such 
> shows are PR puffery at its worst.  Only the most basic facts can be 
> considered true, I think.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe is a good article about the 
> phenomena with respect to wrestling, where the intermingling of reality 
> and storyline is well known.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_McGee is a friend of mine, and her 
> story should set off alarm bells for anyone writing about "reality 
> television".  The mixing of fact and fiction is substantial in these 
> shows, and generally speaking, the websites of such shows should be 
> regarded in much the same way as websites of fictional shows.  The 
> people appearing on the shows are characters in a storyline.
> 

Jimmy, I might be misreading you here, so I've kept all the above for 
context rather than snipping and missing a facet.  Apologies.

Anyway, what I think you are saying, to me, goes against the grain of 
the verifiability policy.  We aren't supposed to sift the truth from the 
puff, are we?  We simply present information as it is presented in the 
source.  For example, in the instance of Irene McGee, my understanding 
is that you can't edit it to remove inaccuracies which have been 
sourced.   You have to balance it with sources which show the other 
side.  I appreciate there's a grey area with balancing, you don't cite 
one source which lists a DOB as 1926 if 100 lists it as 1976.

So I'm not sure how we go about with articles such as these.  Like you, 
I guess I'd lean towards listing for deletion.  It pains me that too 
many times people paint the afd process as a bad thing.  I think it can 
be an important process that should generate a good discussion about an 
article and whether it should exist.  Perhaps we need to refocus debates 
and base them on the merits of the article, rather than the strict 
application of a formula.  It annoys me to see people argue over the 
meaning of [[WP:WEB]] #3 footnote b, even though I wrote it, because in 
helping to draft the page I was always pushing the idea that the page 
itself wasn't a tool for deletion but a guide for inclusion.

People should not be looking at notability guidance and deleting on the 
basis, they should be for new editors who are considering creating an 
article.  And a deletion debate shouldn't focus on the specific clause 
of a notability guidance, it should centre on the merits of the article. 
  People shouldn't be stating that it fails such and such a clause, they 
should be saying, look, I'm not happy that the sources this article 
cites are strong enough to build an article to the required standard... 
blah blah blah.  I mean, me and Phil lock horns now and again but at 
least Phil debates the point and fights the corner, and I hope he would 
concede the same of me.  What we need is the ability to write guidance 
which tells people that discussion is the best solution, and to keep 
discussing until an agreeable solution is found.


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