User talk:Leflyman/Not a fansite

This is a work area for the proposed "Wikipedia is not a fansite" addition to What Wikipedia is not policy. This is not the actual poll. Please make changes/corrections you feel appropriate, or discuss this proposal below. When "finalised" this will be added as an actual poll to the discussion at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not

Straw Poll on "Wikipedia is not a fan site" addition

The section below contains proposed wording for the poll. Please feel free to offer alternative language, corrections or other improvements-- you may also use the discussion area below this section; however, please do not "vote" here.

Seeing as how I initiated this discussion in November, which had a good deal of response, I'll now offer some more concrete language, with an Opinion Survey. As such a "straw poll" is an attempt to gauge consensus, it is non-binding, and does not have a definitive number/percentage for enactment. I'll close the discussion in two weeks, and follow the suggested course by participants in the survey.

Please sign your name using four tildes (~~~~) under the position you hold, possibly adding a brief comment. If you are neutral, but wish to record a comment, please place it under "Neutral/Comment." Extended commentary should be placed below, in the section marked "Discussion".

PROPOSAL: Add the following under the What Wikipedia is not (below "Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files")

Wikipedia is not a fan site

Wikipedia is not a fan site, or a forum for fans of a particular fictional or real-world subject to discuss their interests.

Although Wikipedia contains extensive information on a variety of fan-related topics, the aim is to generate encyclopedic content of interest to general readers. Wikipedia should not be used as a replacement for the numerous other Internet resources available to fans, such as discussion forums and newsgroups; chat rooms; email lists; or other fan Web sites and wikis. Special care should be taken that information added to articles on fan topics,

1. Is not purely trivia (or fancruft) and is of importance to the subject, beyond a limited scope;
2. Adheres to the requirements of verifiability and reliability, by providing sources for content other than fan Web sites or publications;
3. Does not speculate about possible outcomes, meanings, reasons or connections, where such speculation is based on Original Research or mere personal opinion, and can not be sourced;
4. When dealing with fiction, follows the guidelines for fictional style and fictional notability.

• Support
• Oppose
• Neutral/Comment
• Discussion

Discussion of proposed wording

Please discuss ways that the proposed wording may be improved below

• I think this proposal and initiative is far more important to Wikipedia's overall future and credibility than some may realize, given that the weakest areas in the whole body of articles tend to be in the popular culture articles. But, I'd like to explore rewording the first bullet point, since "merely trivia" and "fancruft" are terms that are both imprecise and incendiary. I'd like to get closer to specifying the same idea in such a way that will help move the needle towards a spirit of professionalism. For example, as the Encyclopedia article puts it, "Works of encyclopedic scope aim to convey the important accumulated knowledge for their subject domain." --PKtm 20:38, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
• I like that you've kept this short and to-the-point. My only suggestion is to be more specific on what constitutes "merely trivia." We recently discussed "trivia" in Talk:Episodes of Lost (season 2)#Trivia running rampant? - you might want to take some of the ideas that came out of that discussion and combine it with what you have here. My fear is that "Is not merely trivia (or fancruft) and is of importance to the subject, beyond a limited scope;" could be read much too broadly, and overzealous editors could use it to arbitrarily delete anything.--Danflave 20:49, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
• The proposal is very good, but I think we need to add a sentence that says how Wikipedia differs from fansites. I'm thinking something along these lines: "Unlike fansites, Wikipedia's goal isn't to have the most information or to have it first, but to have the best information that complies with Wikipedia policies." I'm sure something similar to this appears somewhere else in WP:NOT, but when referring anonymous or new editors to this policy I think it would be best to have it spelled out very simply.--Jtrost 00:37, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
• The proposal is very succinct and eloquent (as most of your writing is, I might add). However, there are a few terms which may cause ambiguity. For example, while fancruft is well-defined on Wikipedia, "merely trivia" is not - you could possible copy the phrases we used on the Lost page and add them to line one. On line two, instead of listing the sources not allowed, why not enumerate the allowed sources, e.g., publications and press releases by the owner of the article's topic? As for line three, one can source speculation from fan forums - add something such as "and can not be sourced from the allowed sources listed on line two". The fourth line is very clear.
  
  It would also be nice to write a short explanation after the four reasons as to why - i.e., state that Wikipedia's purpose is to provide a free, up-to-date, and reliable encyclopedia, not to serve as a forum for fans or a playground for vandals. --Mathwiz2020 01:45, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: Thanks to all for the suggestions. I'll take a look at what we came up with for LOST regarding trivia. However, if you haven't yet, please take a look at the page (classified as an "essay", rather than official policy/guideline) on what might be referred to as "trivia" on Wikipedia. I've left it a bit vague intentionally (although, I've changed it to say "purely trivia" versus "merely") because I expect it to be the discretion of editors on particular fan articles as to what counts as trivia and what is excessive. Perhaps a statement as to that should be in order?
  
  Would someone like to offer suggested rewording for the first item about trivia, as that seems to be the one most of concern. In the alternative, is is something that needs to be stated; or is there a more concrete way to explain what would be "excessive" trivia? --LeFlyman 02:00, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
• I too am having some difficulty with the wording on the first one, in two parts. First, is the use of "purely trivia". Second is the general wording of the whole line. I think we can get around the second of these because the first item is actually stating two separate ideas: 1.) No fancruft & 2.) Info added should be important to and relevant to the topic being discussed. We had a great example of the second in the past two days: the repeated reinsertion of the material on Rose & Bernard on the Lost page. As far as the first entry, I'd split it up as follows:

1.) Is not purely trivia (or fancruft)

2.) Is of importance and relevance to the subject of discussion

We can then address the wording of these lines. Since Wikipedia:Trivia and Wikipedia:Importance are neither a guideline nor a policy, we'd have a hard time being persuasive, because there are always people who will deliberately misread intent if the wording is weak in any way, as shown in the first discussion on this. We'd need to more accurately state at what point something crosses the line from interesting point to trivia. In essence, trivia should be considered a statement that's halfway between an interesting point and crufty overindulgence. It's in a nebulous grey area... but if it's to be included as part of the proposal, it needs some more distinct delineation.

We can begin by looking at a concrete example: Walt's words in "MoS, MoF". What is the most appropriate way of dealing with something that we know meets criterion 2, but would vary in its meeting criterion 1 based on personal preference and level of detail included. There's three varied ways to put this, with what I think they represent after:

• Show the interesting point, while avoiding "detail": "Walt speaks incoherently" --> Interesting point
• Show the interesting point, and add "detail": "Walt speaks backwards" --> Trivia
• Show the interesting point, and belabor it: "Walt speaks backwards, saying "X" --> Cruft

In my opinion, we cross the line from interesting point to trivia, and thus inappropriate material, the moment we begin introducing things that contribute little or nothing to the average person's enjoyment. The scene in this example was important not because of what Walt was saying, but the fact that he manifested in the middle of the jungle dripping wet. It doesn't matter one whit what Walt was actually saying... or even that he was speaking backwards, unless you're trying to decode Lost.

And that's where the distinction can be made, and where we can shut down those who would say "Well, you should remove all science info as trivia then, too" and the like. Wikipedia is not meant to be a place used to "decode" or "speculate" on what's there. When people begin doing that, they're moving away from raising interesting points and toward original research, even if the results are factual and true. We're not talking about lowering standards for science articles, but raising standards on articles so they're more like the scientific articles, where all the data is relevant, factual, verifiable, and informative to the topic (as I've tried to do on mineral pages I've worked on). People who come to Wikipedia to understand chalcanthite aren't coming to decode anything, they're coming to obtain key information important to the most fundamental knowledge of the topic, and they're free to specialize their knowledge from there to any degree using other resources. As an extreme example, people coming here would be glad to find out that chalcanthite is highly poisonous and water soluble... meaning don't play with it near water you plan on drinking. What they'd probably not want to see on the page is a description of the death that ensues. That's an example of "too much info". The same applies to fictional things like Lost: people come to Wikipedia to obtain fundamental information, in the fashion of an encyclopedia, and then can proceed from here if they want to jump down the rabbit hole and actually try decoding Lost... to the fansites, whose job it is to be a congregational resource for wild speculation, crazy theories, and surprising trivia for those who wish to go in that direction.

I hope that makes some sense... it's a bit late. Baryonyx 07:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, it does and it doesn't. Let me play devil's advocate here for a second. Baryonyx writes, We cross the line from interesting point to trivia, and thus inappropriate material, the moment we begin introducing things that contribute little or nothing to the average person's enjoyment. Well, the average person's enjoyment may in fact be heightened by having it actually explained that Walt isn't just speaking incoherently, but a) it's backwards speech, and b) it says blah blah. I watched recaps of Lost with a person recently who hadn't seen any of the series (a first-timer, in other words), and when we got to that particular scene, she was rabid to find out WHAT Walt was saying.

A better example might be if someone posts that this or that scene was filmed in a specific bar in Honolulu or whatever. This would have absolutely no relevance to understanding the show, and is pure ancillary interest to core fans.

Again, I don't think we can/should use the words "trivia" or "fancruft" at all in the policy. They don't bear much weight, especially with newer folks, and thus they don't help our cause to cite them. I've been trying to think of some alternative phrasing, and have not yet been subject to a flash of insight on this . --PKtm 23:03, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

PKtm: I think what you're saying was already discussed when we had the trivia running rampant poll. We decided that trivia should exclude technical errors and behind the scenes information. Why not just copy+paste those bullet points in place of number 1? Jtrost 01:32, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

PKtm: Having re-read my whole statement, I think the key point I'm trying to make is the difference between information that is used in the interpretation of Lost, vs. the general information available to a viewer through the show, with no further digging intended. That is, information should be counted as trivia that is used to decode Lost. This information is the purview of fansites for a variety of reasons, not least of which are the sheer quantity of such info and because such data is frequently unreliable unless or until it's commented on by the creators. Note that there's a distinction between this and the story elements we've included on the front page: these are observations on trends within the series, with no information on whether or not they're actually key to figuring out the mysteries behind the show (though, I'm still uncertain of what value they are overall). This idea that trivia information is that which is occasionally fan-derived, but used for the general purpose of solving the series, can be extended to other series, as well, so though Lost just happens to be the pizza we've picked for discussion (since we're all editors there), these same ideas are equally applicable to shows like Veronica Mars, 24, The Sopranos any show where in fan derived informational content intended to figure out the arcs of the series is significant. Similarly, this can be extended across to other works of fiction that spawn similar behaviors, such as The DaVinci Code or the Harry Potter series. Baryonyx 19:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• Neutral. I don't think "fancruft" and "trivia" are properly defined to really make it universally understandable. What is trivia to some, may not be trivia for others. "Purely trivia" doesn't really help here. In fact, that just confuses me even more. Where do you draw the line? Off the top of my head, I would rather remove that wording and discuss additions in content to Wikipedia as having to add sort of value pertaining to the subject that readers would find interesting or useful (for lack of better phrasing). The rest of the proposal here seems to be nothing more than restating Wikipedia policy and guidelines that are already in place. I think the general idea with what you're trying to achieve is good, but most of this could probably be solved with one small, but really good addition to "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information." Just a thought. K1Bond007 07:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Comments by Josiah Rowe

Thanks for letting me know about this, Leflyman. I think that the distinction "not a fansite" is a useful one, as long as it is made clear that this doesn't mean that fan-related material is to be excluded from Wikipedia. Your proposal below does that, but I think it could be a bit stronger, so as not to give the ultra-deletionists more ammunition. Perhaps the opening paragraph could be rephrased to something like:

Wikipedia contains information on a broad range of topics, including subjects which are of interest to fans. Fan interest is not an argument for or against inclusion of information in Wikipedia. The goal of all Wikipedia articles is to generate encyclopedic content of interest to general readers. Wikipedia should not be used as a replacement for the numerous other Internet resources...

Points 3 and 4 are excellent, and should be non-controversial. I've got a few small quibbles with 1 and 2, though.

1. I agree with PKtm and K1Bond007 that including the word "fancruft" is probably more trouble than it's worth. If the proposal is clear enough about what is and isn't encyclopedic, we can just put a "see also: Wikipedia:Fancruft" at the end. I think that "purely trivia" is a useful and clear wording, though.
2. I'm uncertain about the proposal to exclude fan-based publications and websites entirely. It's important to exclude unreliable gossip or crystal-ball predictions, but some fan publications provide well-researched and reliable content. For example, in Doctor Who fandom (which is what I know best), Doctor Who Magazine is quite reliable, especially in its Archives which provided comprehensive coverage of all the stories from the original series. There's also a range of reliability within fan websites. In Doctor Who fandom, Outpost Gallifrey is The Times (reliable), while Eye of Horus is The Sun (unreliable).
   
   Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Using online sources says to use caution when citing individuals' web sites, but that "rare exceptions may be when a well-known professional person or acknowledged expert in a relevant field has set up a personal website using his or her real name." I'd say that on the subject of Doctor Who, Outpost Gallifrey's Shaun Lyon is such an acknowledged expert. I'm sure there are similar examples in other fandoms.
   
   Perhaps it might be better to have the second point read something like:

• Adheres to the requirements of verifiability and reliability, by providing sources for content which are widely regarded as accurate and accountable.

That would allow a consensus of editors in each field to determine what's appropriate and what isn't (which is what we do, or should be doing, in non-fannish subjects). Just because something has been published for the fan market doesn't mean that it's not reliable or verifiable. Excluding information from Doctor Who Magazine from Doctor Who articles would be like excluding information from Sports Illustrated from basketball articles.

Similarly, a blanket ban on "fan publications" could be interpreted as excluding books like this and this from Buffy the Vampire Slayer articles, even though they're aimed at the intersection between fan and academic communities and could be very useful sources for articles like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and social issues.—Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Comments by Leflyman

All excellent points. Clearly, the issue of "trivia" is a sticky bit. I'm digesting the various comments, and will float some alternatives to wording.

Some quick, and incomplete thoughts:

K1Bond007: You are correct that much of the material is a restatement of other policies; that's what nearly everything in What Wikipedia Is Not does. As I point out below, "this proposal aims to consolidate the disparate policy elements that would clarify why content that might be appropriate to a fan site would not be appropriate to Wikipedia." In other words, to provide a reference that one can point to for new enthusiastic editors who might want to add every bit of info they've come across on their favorite fan site. (Which seems to be the latest trend on the Lost articles, and I expect in other fandoms, too).

Josiah: I agree that "publications" isn't clear; the inserted it with the intent to refer to fanzines and newsletters, as opposed to printed periodicals that meet "reliability" standards. If it's a problem, the mention of "or publications" can be removed. Fan websites, however, should perhaps be clarified to refer to "personal-type" fansites, of which there are countless numbers on everything under the sun. My feeling is that Wikipedia should not be in a position to judge the quality of one fansite versus another, thus the expectation should be that only "official" sites or traditional news sites should be used for background and news. Fan sites which conduct interviews with individuals mentioned in articles can be quoted, of course. One thing of note that we should keep in mind, the proposal doesn't just speak to fictional fandom, but should also be general enough that it deals with real-world interests, such as sportsfans, or celebrity fans.

More as it comes to me... (thanks again!) --LeFlyman 04:33, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Comments by Nagle

Wikipedia needs a better way of dealing with popular culture generally. A big chunk of Wikipedia replicates Gracenote and IMDB. Wikipedia has tens of thousands of album and song articles, but they're not organized into a searchable database. Similarly, Wikipedia has many movie articles, but IMDB does a better job in that area. Such database-type info belongs in a real database, not a manually maintained mess of links.

Then there are the fan universes, starting with Star Wars/Trek/Gate and continuing through all those collectable card sets designed to suck money out of kids' pockets. Wikipedia has an article for every Pokemon. That stuff belongs elsewhere. Even though there's an entire Wookiepedia for Star Wars, there's way too much Star Wars detail in the main Wikipedia.

What's needed is a better place to put all this stuff, so that it can be moved out of the main Wikipedia. That's the real problem. We need Wikipedia Popular Culture, with both a wiki and structured databases for info like albums.

Once we have that, and a "transwiki" system that works, the fan material can be moved in bulk. That's the way out of this mess.

Original discussion

This is a duplicate of the discussion held at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not, please do not add to this, as it is for reference only

Proposed addition: "Wikipedia is not a fan site."

As one of the editors involved in the constant battle to clean up articles about fan-favorite Lost (TV series), I've found that many new users are confused about the level of detail appropriate to encyclopedic content, versus fan content. I've used the refrain "Wikipedia is not a fan site" repeatedly, and think it's appropriate to state explicitly. Last year, another editor floated a similar suggestion, regarding sports fans.

Under such "not fan site" category would be the rubric of other fannish activities, such as: inclusion of extreme trivia; speculations on future events; archiving multiple promotional images; and chat-room like commentary on Talk pages (as I mentioned above). A note that Wikipedia is not "spoiler-free" might likewise be appropriate.

Thoughts? —LeFlyman 20:02, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

For me, the issue is not necessarily even detail, but rather the tone and nature of coverage, and the audience for which it's written. The problem with a 'fansite' article is that it is useless to someone who doesn't already know about the subject. An encyclopedia article is written for the non-expert.

My concern for listing this in WWIN is that it will add legitimacy to the 'delete, fancruft' crowd. Fancruft generally needs merging and intensive editing, not deletion. Matthew Brown 20:24, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I think like many things, it's a case-by-case basis as far as cruft goes. There's a subjective line between important detail and excessive minutia. I agree that editing is preferable, when deletion is unwarranted, but we need a policy basis for reigning in the excesses of certain individual fans. In the end, it comes down to the consensus of editors on a particular set of articles as to what level of detail should or shouldn't be included; having this in WWIN would provide guidance in reaching that consensus. —LeFlyman 20:49, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Writing policy to "provide guidance in [reaching] consensus" would be the Wikipedia version of "legislating from the bench." I agree that it has more to do with the nature of the coverage than the detail. For example, "speculation about future events" falls squarely in the "original research" and/or "lack of verifiability" categories. — David Remahl 21:13, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Most of this is already covered under other policies in this page. I'm not sure the instruction creep is worth it. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 22:05, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. Good point about the instruction creep, Matthew. The Literate Engineer 22:08, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

• You're quite right in that much of the proposed addition is connected to established policies-- as is nearly everything in "What Wikipedia is Not." For example, The first two sections, "Not a paper encyclopedia" and "Not a dictionary", merit expansion on their own separate policy pages. "Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought" is a restatement of "No Original Research." Likewise, "Wikipedia is not a propaganda machine" is derived from both NOR and WP:NPOV policies. As with those, this proposal aims to consolidate the disparate policy elements that would clarify why content that might be appropriate to a fan site would not be appropriate to Wikipedia. Such a differentiation is as valuable as pointing out that, "Wikipedia is not a free host or webspace provider." — LeFlyman 23:41, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I support anything that makes wikipedia's content simultaneously more academically selective and more accessible for non-experts. This proposal seems to do that. The Literate Engineer 20:34, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

• Going back to Lost and, more specifically, Episodes of Lost (Season 2), the real problem is that people are using Wikipedia as a crystal ball. Since this is already banned, why not just add a fourth item to the crystal ball section that says something like: "Wikipedia is not a repository for speculation on minor future events such as the plot of a future television episode, the outcome of a future sports game, etc." I do agree, though, that the Lost article should be cut down to only past episodes and official press releases from ABC. — MATHWIZ2020 ^{TALK | CONTRIBS} 00:33, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I hope that we will hold all topics to the same standard. Broad, deep coverage of science, art, literature and pop culture, all, of course, rigorously verified and sourced should be our goal. Trollderella 00:49, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

A pleasure to agree with you. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:08, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

• I agree with Leflyman's proposal and with The Literate Engineer's take. However, I'd also like to note that this is something I think is particularly important to state specifically. From games to movies to TV series, the line between what is crufty fan-site material and what is "essential information" may be blurry, but there are some real standards that can be easily teased out from common sense and editing effort. After these standards are determined, the editors who have worked hard to do this should have an explicit reference to the rules... citing the policy on speculation, NPoV, and others frequently isn't enough. Stating explicitly in the rules that "Wikipedia is not a fan site" would be a great assistance, because most people with familiarity with the Internet have probably seen a fansite, and know how it is different than an encyclopedia. The problem this proposal aims to fix, while directed initially at our never-ending battle over at the Lost pages, is, in my research, enough of a problem across Wikipedia that, regardless of its overlap with other standards, it needs to be explicitly stated. Baryonyx 03:10, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Nonsense - not unless you want to say Wikipedia is not a science enthusiast site and start deleting details on scientific theories. If it's verifiable, neutral and not OR, it's in. Trollderella 03:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

• There's a difference between being a mere enthusiast and being someone who adds excessive, extraneous and non-encyclopedic trivia. The task of writing useable articles requires that editors differentiate between what goes in and what stays out. There's an overwhelming amount of information about every single thing in the world, and not all of it can be included here. The aim of any encyclopedia is to synthesise the important elements, and provide a jumping off point for those who want to research a topic more fully. At some point, perhaps Wikibooks will become the veritable "sum of all human knowledge" and supersede all the world's libraries and Web pages— but Wikipedia isn't the place to put everything. Fans have numerous resources available to present material that isn't appropriate to being included here, from Web sites to discussion forums to fan clubs and newsletters. My proposal is to clarify why we shouldn't be attempting to be a substitute for fan sites— who have a specific, extremely detail-interested audience, which isn't the general audience that Wikipedia serves. —LeFlyman 17:28, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I support the addition of this item to WP:NOT, but only on the basis that a fan site basically never is NPOV (not on the basis that fan sites have excessive detail.) — David Remahl 18:07, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Well what you're really asking for is that we hava a policy on NPOV then. Thankfully, we already do! No need for more rulecruft! Trollderella 01:27, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not really asking for anything, but WP:NOT exemplifies other policies (including NPOV), for example "Wikipedia is not a propaganda machine". — David Remahl 15:07, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I support LeFlyman's proposal, strongly; I believe that "not a fan site" deserves to get special policy mention, after seeing the constant barrage of fan-like material getting added/deleted on the Lost article. It's nothing at all like saying Wikipedia is not a science enthusiast site, because that's not been a problem across Wikipedia, as is the fan site issue. -- PKtm 00:55, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I was waiting to get comments to point out that Wikipedia does have a section of guidance in line with this proposal at Wikipedia:Fancruft, whose contents seem to support the proposition that "Wikipedia is not a fan site." —LeFlyman 04:57, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• Disagree What you call mere Trivia is history data.

Fan data is most of the time the same as historical data, as long as they don't add rumors, or half truths, Getting fans to give information about their favorite artists is a very good source for authors. --Masssiveego 03:04, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Definition of "fansite"

I think part of the controversy involving fansites and wikipedia's relationship to them is that wikipedia can't seem to agree on a definiton of a fansite. I see two definitions. The first, which seems to be wikipedia's definition, is simply a site created by fans, which is pretty much any unofficial site. The second definition (which seems to be how this proposal defines it) is a site with content that caters to hardcore fans instead of the average casual person (extreme detail/cruft/discussion/speculation). Problem is, by wikipedia's own definition, the pop culture sections of wikipedia are fansites for all intents and purposes. They aren't official sites, and the content is put in place by fans. I agree with the intent to keep the cruft level on wikipedia low, but it seems a bit futile to try and distance wikipedia from "fansites" when the difference isn't that great. I generally like your proposal, with the exception of the term "fan site" (if you can believe that). --Milo H Minderbinder 14:14, 1 November 2006 (UTC)