Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture (second nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 02:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture
• Articles for deletion/Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture (second nomination)

Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

The original AfD for this article proved very controversial. Stated briefly, many members of the Wikipedia Mathematics community felt deprived of the opportunity to share their views and expertise in the discussion. DRV determined that a relisting was in order to satisfy those concerns. Deletion is on the table here (as many feel the article violates WP:NOT), as are creative solutions (merging, etc.) that might make use of the content in a different way. Xoloz 03:35, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

N.B. - the article was extensively rewritten during the discussion below, and many of the comments refer to earlier versions of the article, and not the current version. Please bear this in mind when reading through the comments. Carcharoth 12:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete, along with any "It appeared here, and here, and here, and here, and..." articles. Those are indiscriminate collections of trivia, not encyclopedia articles. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:41, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, relisting this is a joke and an abuse of DRV (not by Xoloz). Michael Hardy didn't like the fact that this was deleted properly by consensus so he created a fuss and alerted people he knew would support him. The whole thing stinks. Ironically, the article doesn't even deserve all this attention, it's the standard IPC list of "spot the phrase" in TV, films, songs, etc. WP:NOT#IINFO and WP:NOT#DIR. (Insert funny joke here comparing the Infinite monkey theorem to the way these types of articles are put together). Crazysuit 03:56, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment The statement above is dishonest and abusive. It does not look like a good-faith attempt to participate in this discussion. Michael Hardy 04:37, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • "Alerted people I knew would support [me]"?? Bullshit. "Crazysuit", if you're here to pick fights, you don't belong here and will get banned. Michael Hardy 04:48, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - WP:NOT, trivial list of trivials. -- KTC 04:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment A significant number of articles in Wikipedia are lists of trivia. Case to the point:Battle of Stalingrad in the media.(Igny 04:54, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

• Comment - And a lot of those trvial lists ought to be deleted too. KTC 05:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Battle of Stalingrad in the media is not a list of trivia. That list includes extremely notable examples, and is informative and educational. It is a good resource for anyone wanting to read about the battle, or watch films or documentaries on the battle. I suspect the video and board games trigger the warning signals, but if those can be verified, they shouldn't be ghettoized. Please don't think 'delete' before considering options such as: (a) improving the article; (b) trimming the article; (c) merging the content back to the main article. Delete should only be considered after these options have been tried. Carcharoth 10:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. Run-of-the-mill pop culture article with no explanation of its actual significance to pop culture. The long and painful process to relist this didn't produce any new material to solve this issue. Someguy1221 04:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete unimportant, irrelevant trivia. Violates WP:NOT#IINFO. --Eyrian 04:21, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment Could you please clarify? irrelevant to what? unimportant for whom?(Igny 04:58, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

• Keep (1) This mathematical proposition is widely known primarily because of its transmission in popular culture rather than because of its transmission in the classroom. (2) It aids the reader whose knowledge of the matter is vague in the understanding of allusions in literature. (3) The story about it published in The New Yorker in 1940, listed in this article, was found worthy of inclusion in the four-volume World of Mathematics, generally held in high regard. If in its present form it is not good enough, it can be edited. Michael Hardy 04:37, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• I feel reluctant to pontificate on articles to which I have no intention to contribute. However, I don't agree that all items in the article are trivia and hence should be deleted. For instance, the great writer Borges apparently has a short story in which this is a central plot element. I think this is such a strong connection that it transcends the trivia category. I hope that people will read the whole article before concluding that it's all trivia. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 05:01, 11 August 2007 (UTC); edited slightly 10:48, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - See comments by Quale below. The article as it stand is a trivial list, and or a list of trivals. If the subject on popular culture is significant, then there should be an article written in prose citing reliable sources on why its been significant. In the case of example such as Borges that you mentioned, the content should rightly go into the The Library of Babel article, because that's where it is significant, with a link to Infinite monkey theorem where a reader can find out more on the topic if wished. A summary on significant or noted appearance on popular culture can also appear in a section on the Infinite monkey theorem article itself. The list however, is just a list of trivial. -- KTC 05:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • AfD is not about the article as it stands. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:13, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• • Agreed. It should be about the article as it could be, and as it is at the end of the AfD. Carcharoth 08:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. The first AFD result was arrived at correctly. The page can and should be edited—anything important or non-trivial on it should be edited into the main article and this page should be deleted. In particular, mention of a New Yorker story that was reprinted by Newman should go in the main article, not ghettoized in a "... in popular culture" page. These "in popular articles" are most often a bad idea and non-encyclopedic unless the the effect or significance of the subject on popular culture has been studied and has WP:RS sources. Sure, the infinite monkey theorem has appeared in pop culture a lot. What is needed are WP:RS reliable sources that examine what these mentions tell us about pop culture or the theorem. This requires secondary sources, not primary sources. The Foxtrot comic strip is a reference to the fact that the theorem was used in that strip, but that primary source alone doesn't make an article unless a reference can be found that describes the significance of the theorem's appearance in a comic strip. Quale 05:03, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• I strongly oppose merging these trivia into the main articles. An example. Battle of Stalingrad in the media was part of Battle of Stalingrad for quite long. Many people have argued (unsuccessfully) to delete it from there because it is somewhat offending to see reference to games in that article. Eventually I moved that list to its own article and it made both camps happy.(Igny 14:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

• Trim severely and merge. The article subject is as valid as any other in popular culture content. However, It is nonsensical to list every passing reference to the theorem, as they are far too numerous and have no secondary source material. Once the listcruft is removed, only a very few items should remain, hopefully resulting in an uncontroversial merge. ~ Booya ^Bazooka 05:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete or merge - the article already amply appears to cover most of the major popular uses of it. This collection of trivia is a disservice to the well-written attempt to give the popular culture of it an encyclopedic treatment in the original article. Perhaps a very short "modern use" section could be trimmed out of this collection of trivia and added to the article. --Haemo 06:11, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete or trim severely and merge. Most of the trivia is just OR, but I'm sure there's one or two sentences that deserve a mention in the main article. Singularity 06:23, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Don't merge. I don't really care if it's deleted or not (the main reason I'm commenting here is that I supported overturning the first AfD at DRV). But I don't want this content in the main infinite monkey theorem article -- I thought it was a huge improvement when it was split off.
• (continuing remarks) I will say on that point that the essay WP:BHTT is just wrong. This sort of content really is Better Here Than There. When the content is off in its little corner with a long name and few incoming links, the usual deletionist arguments about cluttering of indexes and damage to WP's reputation lose most of their force, and the content is available for those who really want to find it, which surely has some value. --Trovatore 07:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Of course, its "little corner" could be a page that's not on Wikipedia. I've heard there are actually other webhosts out there. Now if we're going to say better there than here, I'd be entirely inclined to agree. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:59, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
    • The point, as a practical matter, is that the AfD voters, following their triumphant deletion, go off to seek another victory, and aren't generally going to be around to help keep the content from creeping back into the main article, or argue with those who put it there. Whereas if the spinoff article exists, one or two editors can generally get away with moving the content there, and those who want to add it will generally accept that. So I say again, the essay is just wrong. Sounds good but doesn't work. --Trovatore 08:06, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Unfortunately, that's exactly how these "...in popular culture articles" work. See WP:IPC for more information. This meaningless trivia should be kept in check in the main article, and not allowed to grow without any kind of restrictions Corpx 08:10, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Note that [[WP:IPC] is again an essay, not policy or guideline. However this time I find myself largely approving of the essay (at a brief glance) in descriptive terms. Note that the essay is primarily descriptive and does not come to a conclusion as to whose arguments are better.
        • My feeling, clearly, is that the first group of arguments, the pro-spinoff ones, are better. Yes, the spinoff is likely to be extremely crufty. But the cruft does much less damage there. In the end it's a net win. --Trovatore 08:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per list of trivial mentions that are strung together in a list form. The first AFD ran for well over a 10 days and everyone had plenty of time to chime in. I do not think this should've been re-listed Corpx 08:05, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete - Serious metions of this in pop culture are rare if existent, we don't need a list of jokes based on a quasi-serious theory, there is also the fact that the Trivia articles almost always represent a encyclopedic problem based on their nature, its better to delete it before we have a list that is to long to handle. -- Caribbean~H.Q. 08:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - a polite request to not close this per WP:SNOW until everyone has had a chance to contribute to the discussion. WP:IPC says: "If properly sourced and consistent with policies and guidelines, popular culture articles can attain quality and be a quality part of a topic." I intend to edit the article to provide the necessary sources (secondary source talking about the cultural phenomenom, not primary sources to examples of the phenomenon), and to bring the article in line with policies and guidelines. This will hopefully demonstrate what might be possible. This will likely invalidate most of the delete votes above and below, which is unfortunate, but I think editing an article to improve it is better than deletion. WP:AfD says: "If you wish for an article to be kept, you can improve the article to address the reasons for deletion given in the nomination. You can search out references, and diffuse the deletion arguments given using policy, guidelines, and examples from our good and featured articles. If the reasons given in the nomination are addressed by editing, the nomination should be withdrawn by the nominator, and the deletion discussion will be closed by an admin." Possibly there will be insufficient content once the editing has finished, in which case a merge of what remains may be the best solution. I intend to start the editing tomorrow, and invite those participating in the debate to contribute. Thanks. Carcharoth 09:23, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • As a start, what do people here think of this PDF? It includes material like "The Internet is home to a vast assortment of quotations and experimental designs concerning monkeys and typewriters." and "Monkeys with typewriters” jokes reveal themselves to be one of the ways the mathematically minded like to take an ironic look at their own work and its astounding effects.". I also found Mathematics and Literature, which apparently mentions the Infinite Monkey Theorem (could someone with JSTOR access provide a quote of the relevant bit?) This took about 10 minutes to find, so there is probably more out there. Carcharoth 09:45, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
    • It's in an image caption: "The mathematician's obsession in extending a simple thought (having chimpanzees reproduce great literature by chance using typewriters) to absurd limits (calculating how long it would take for "Dear Sir" to appear) is the source of ridicule in Russell Maloney's Inflexible Logic [28].This illustration is reproduced from How to Take a Chance by Darrell Huff, illustrated by Irving Geis," It doesn't make much sense without the picture, I'm afraid. There is also a discussion about Borges' stories. Do you want me to send you the PDF by email? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:13, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Possibly, it depends on what I find elsewhere. For the moment, it would be best if you and others who can access it, use it as a source for pointing out that the topic of 'mathematics and literature' has been studied in a serious manner. Carcharoth 08:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• There is some merit in in popular culture segments as it reflects the impact outside of mathematics of a particular theorem. References to 1729 (number) are few so that they all deserve a mention. When the number of references become large, such as here, the significance of each reference diminishes. Some of the references are significant, such as borges The Library of Babel, which has been studied by philosophers in some detail, other less so. The question is where should the line between trivia and significance be drawn. WP policies could be brought in here, if a particular occurrence has third party sources discusses it then its worth including. If not then its trivia. Applying this rigiriously would result in a smaller section. On the whole I would say trim and merge including only those where there is third party sources. --Salix alba (talk) 09:35, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete The justification given in the article, "...an unusual case of a mathematical proposition that admits a precise statement and proof being widely known among non-mathematicians because of its transmission through popular culture..., is a poor excuse for creating a never-ending list of examples of usage. If this is the justification, then a half-dozen examples are enough to illustrate the point. There is also no attempt to explain the significance - if any - to pop culture. I am open to change if the article is edited in such a way to address these points (just drop a line on my talk page). --Malcolmxl5 11:28, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep This article is nearly the same as many other articles on Wikipedia. Compare with Batman in popular media, Battle of Stalingrad in the media, Christmas in the media, Media in Grand Theft Auto, and many others (just search for the damned in media). Unless you cite me a policy which addresses all of these "popular" lists, and begin treating these lists without discrimination, I vote for keep. But I believe you are not strong enough to fight them all in bulk, so you are taking on them one by one, right? (Igny 14:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

• WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS and WP:WAX are not valid arguments. Otto4711 15:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Say it to a whole category of this other stuff, Category:In_popular_culture.(Igny 16:33, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

• Some of us have been. --Eyrian 16:40, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Indeed, some 40% of the articles in that article have been deleted in recent weeks, along with chunks of the content of various of the subcategories. Otto4711 16:53, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep or merge. At least some of this content is encyclopedic. Most of the notability of the Infinite Monkey theorem rests on its circulation through popular culture, so some of this content needs to be somewhere. However this article as it stands needs work (but of course that is not a valid reason for deletion). I think we should follow Carcharoth's suggested way forward, and see what can be done with this article to improve it, discarding bits that cannot be sourced. After which we should see what remains. If there is only a small amount of quality content, then it can be merged, otherwise it should be kept as its own article. Many of the problems mentioned above are valid but fixable. Articles that can be fixed should be. Paul August ☎ 15:05, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - yet another dump of every time someone mentions a bunch of monkeys typing. The notion that this should have been kept to allow people from a particular Wikiproject or community weigh in is ludicrous. Commenting on AFDs is not a right. They have the same chance as anyone else to speak up during AFD and if they didn't for whatever reason that's too bad. I was on vacation for a week in April and I didn't get to comment on any AFDs. Should I get have everything relisted? Otto4711 15:54, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • How is that last comment relevant to this discussion? You're posting the wrong forum. This page is supposed to be about whether the article should be kept. Michael Hardy 17:59, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
    • It's a direct comment about the wheelwarring that generated this new waste of time. --Calton | Talk 05:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, hope the closing admin will righteously disregard the vote, then. Along with all other comments not addressed to the suitability of the topic for a Wikipedia article. Charles Matthews
        • Trying to use special pleading to rig the vote is pretty much a bad idea. --Calton | Talk 13:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all non-encyclopedic content, which is almost everything. Information like "Online there is a game mocking the theorem called "Mojo the Monkey", in which a monkey types random keys that show up on the screen. When the monkey types an actual word, you highlight it and save it to the website's server and highscore list" is really non-encyclopedic. Jakob.scholbach 15:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Weak delete. I would like to see an article that, through appropriate secondary sources such as this paper, explores the history and development of the infinite monkey idea in literature and popular culture. This article isn't it, and without secondary sources the aggregation of references that it represents must be regarded as original research. —David Eppstein 16:05, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep after Carcaroth's revisions. I still would like to see a greater emphasis on secondary sources and a lesser on primary, but the organization as a timeline of cultural transmission of ideas, rather than as a grabbag of factoids, is a big improvement. —David Eppstein 17:44, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete (redirect) and perhaps merge a tidbit or two to Infinite monkey theorem which already has a section on the popular culture around the theorem. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:46, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I am still not convinced that this needs a separate article. I'd prefer that the most relevant facts about this theorem in popular culture be just in a section of the article about the theorem itself. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:35, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. There could be a good article written on this topic, but this isn't it, and the material here won't help that article get written. -- Dominus 18:40, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. I have reconsidered. Carcharoth has put forth a plan for fixing the article, and I don't think it's my place to say that the material here is useless until I see what Carcharoth can make of it. -- Dominus 19:41, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete This is essentially a list, but not one which identifiably serves the purposes of lists on Wikipedia. I reckon that if any of the entries are sufficiently notable, they can be absorbed by the culture section in Infinite monkey theorem. --Mark H Wilkinson ^{(t, c)} 18:45, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep or merge per Paul August. Also, as an observation, there seems to be a "crusade" of sorts this summer by a few users to get rid of all the popular culture articles, so I wonder if instead of all of these AfDs, a larger, special discussion should take place first somewhere in which a general consensus could be reached, i.e. a special one time discussion or something. Maybe another great idea would be to outright replace something like the negative sounding What Wikipedia is Not with a more positive What Wikipedia Is! Anyway, just a suggestion. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 18:51, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - the title of that paper, "Mathematics in Literature", has got me thinking. Maybe there is a better way to approach this, which is to have articles such as Mathematics in literature, Mathematics in film, Mathematics in music, Mathematics in popular culture. Does that sound feasible? Of course, properly sourced article, as opposed to lists of trivia, in case anyone wants to jump in and misunderstand what I am proposing. Carcharoth 23:17, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

We do have Category:Mathematics and culture with some rather neglected articles such as Mathematics and art. Films are fairly well covered, with articles on most of films with significant mathematical content. I've placed this article and the other maths in popular culture article in the category. There is certainly scope for a Mathematics in popular culture article. --Salix alba (talk) 09:02, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. The full list of such articles I was able to find seems to be: Mathematics and art, Music and mathematics and Mathematics and architecture. Regarding films, I fear some of the people participating in this debate might not appreciate List of films about mathematicians. Could those commenting here on the unfeasibility of Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture, please give their opinions on the feasibility of a future Mathematics in popular culture article. NB. Such 'visualization', in an attempt to determine the potential of an article in its 'best' state, is an important part of AfD. If anyone participating at AfD can't do such visualizations, then their AfD !votes are merely commenting on the present state of an article, not its potential (or lack of potential) for improvement. Carcharoth 13:26, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete unless Carcharoth manages to add sufficient references about the infinite monkey theorem in popular culture can be found. Lists of popular references to the theorem are not suitable for Wikipedia. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:20, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Although the article has been significantly improved, I still don't see WP:RS that it's a cultural phenomenon. That seems to be what's necessary for the article to be retained. I believe such sources exist, but I believed sources existed for another article which was recently deleted, so perhaps my opinion shouldn't count. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:59, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete now that the mathematicians have added their say, it isn't any different from a minimally sourced laundry list of things that to someone's POV and OR reference or kinda relate to the subject at hand. However, the article can be morphed into the proof of the theorem, if we just kept adding all content from articles that get speedy deleted as nonsense, it will end up as a FA. This should occur in someone's user space (I think there was a volunteer last time) rather than posing as encyclopedic content. Carlossuarez46 00:01, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete as another listcruft trivia article with some merge of the sourced elements.--JForget 02:36, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep per Michael Hardy and Paul August. Mathmo ^Talk 02:40, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I feel that it is important to keep popular culture articles because they inherently demonstrate the notability of the parent article while at the same time keeping the parent article more streamlined. Mathmo ^Talk 03:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Strong Weak Delete - Putting stuff together like that satisfies OR. Wikipedia is not for OR. Brusegadi 02:53, 12 August 2007 (UTC) It needs better sourcing. The strongest link you have is the one under external links; but that site could be owned by anyone, including the creator of the article. Unless better more reliable sources are found, the article verges on OR.Brusegadi 03:05, 12 August 2007 (UTC) My plea for deletion was based on the fact that the source I viewed as strong seemed unreliable (eg. it could have been written by the person who started this article.) Yet, you do have a source so in the name of good faith I will change my view. Finally, I feel that the article can be cleaned and you should try to find a couple more sources. Brusegadi 03:30, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Zillionth edit conflict: Not OR, any more than all of wikipedia is OR. Mathmo ^Talk 03:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep This is a notable popular culture meme and deserves an article in Wikipedia. Nondistinguished 04:35, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Because...? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Because it fulfills the criteria laid out for us for deciding what a notable subject is: WP:N. Nondistinguished 13:00, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. As with most of these articles, there is no encyclopedic reason to be trying to list as many examples as can be found. In theory, the concept of the Infinite Monkey Theorem as it appears in popular culture could be the subject of an article, but given that no one apparently studies this topic outside of Wikipedia, I don't think this belongs. In other words - while sources may be able to prove that individual entries are accurate, there are no secondary sources at all on this topic, or even that discuss it significantly. Therefore, this topic isn't notable. As to merging: please don't merge - what to include at Infinite monkey theorem should be up to the editors of that page. Mangojuice^talk 04:49, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Of course, I mean that sources are lacking that deign to discuss whether or how the infinite monkey theorem is important to popular culture. Surely, there are many that discuss the "theorem" itself. Mangojuice^talk 04:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Trim and then either refactor into the main article or keep depending on the substance of what remains. --Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 05:44, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. So it turns out that specialist viewpoints of the "math community" is "I like it", and to confuse this subject with that of infinite monkey theorem. Yet another random list of factoids. A simple paragraph or two in infinite monkey theorem, explaining its actual impact, should suffice, and unless concrete evidence emerges that User:Carcharoth's faith-based plan has any actual substance, my opinion will remain unchanged. --Calton | Talk 05:55, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. Please WP:AGF. I like to think I'm in the "math community", and I !voted delete unless sources commenting on the relevence of the theorem in popular culture can be found. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 06:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Seconded. A number of mathematicians have said delete, including me. --Mark H Wilkinson ^{(t, c)} 07:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• What makes you think I haven't WP:AGF? Michael Hardy's big claim in the DRV which brought about this waste of time was premised on exactly that allegedly special knowledge the "math community" was supposed to bring to the table, and so far it's been bupkis. --Calton | Talk 13:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Having a wider discussion isn't necessarily a waste of time, even if all it reveals is that those who know mathematics won't necessarily love this kind of trivia more than those who are merely house trained. --Mark H Wilkinson ^{(t, c)} 14:11, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep People, please look at this article again--it specifically discusses the applicability to popular culture, with several dozen well sourced examples. I don't think one of the really weak pop culture articles would have been relisted (or even taken there). The people who think this encyclopedic are not trying to defend lost causes, or to say that everything with the subtitle is presumed notable. (unlike those who seem to say that everything of the sort is presumed non-notable). This is used --and often reasonably correctly at that-- as a key element of the popular understanding of probability. DGG (talk) 07:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

For those who would like to discuss the in popular culture articles in a more general forum, I have posted at the Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion#In_popular_culture_articles.--Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 07:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• • Comment Based on what you say, I did look again, but I guess I'm not seeing what you mean? The article isn't a general discussion of the thing's impact on popular culture, and I can't find anything that does discuss the impact of this on popular culture. The only sources I see are basically the "sourcing" of mentions to a primary source. If there were any source which actually discusses this concept in relation to pop culture, I'd change to keep in a second, but right now it looks like a short original research intro followed by "It appeared here, and here, and here, and...". If a pop culture article is composed of more than half bullet points or other form of laundry list, and there aren't any sources listed that discuss the thing's impact on popular culture, it's generally unimprovable and a trivia collection. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:50, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. The article can obviously be improved, and I applaud some of the specific ideas brought forward to do that. AfD should address primarily the suitability of a topic for a Wikipedia article. This topic is perfectly good for an article. Those commenting on the current content please think this through. Charles Matthews 07:15, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep or possibly merge. This does not seem to be the normal "in pop culture" list, and actually has some noteworthy information. I was actually surprised. -- Ned Scott 07:16, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Last time I checked, the content had already been de facto merged to Infinite monkey theorem. The reason I keep pointing this out is that two edits have since been made to the popular culture content in that article, which makes a nonsense of my plan to edit the material at a different location. Sure, the edits can be integrated with the spin-off article, but it just makes this that much harder. Carcharoth 08:44, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Correction, four edits: [1], [2], [3] (that one is a substantive change), and [4]. There have also been edits made to the article after it was restored following the DRV: [5], [6], [7]. Before I start on editing Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture, I'm going to synchronise the content and then remove the content from Infinite monkey theorem, and leave a note on the talk page explaining my reasons why. Carcharoth 08:59, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - since this appears to be a high-profile AfD (I'm hoping that people who vote delete on lots of popular culture articles will return here and see this), I'm posting details of a journal that does discuss popular culture, and is a good place for sourced discussion and commentary: The Journal of Popular Culture. From this page, we can see that it has been published since 1967. There is a free issue available at the moment to those who don't have a subscription to back issues (like me). It is the February 2007 issue. It has an example of Harry Potter and the Functions of Popular Culture. (Warning: after a certain time has elapsed, this 'free' issue will likely become 'subscribers only' again). Of course, there will be many cases where "one source does not an article make", and papers like this should be used to buttress existing popular culture subsections, rather than separate articles, and the lists of trivia will still need to be ruthlessly pruned to notable examples only (my rule of thumb is whether you could write a Wikipedia article on the example). Carcharoth 09:42, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Update - I've been adding dates where available, as a prelude to investigating each entry on the list. Some entries are too general to have dates, or will require further investigation. This initial stage will be followed by searches for independent commentary of the form "look at this example of the infinite monkey theorem", illustrating the spread of the topic. I'd also urge people here to look at this site (the article's bibliography), and what it says about the usefulness (or not) of the collection:

  "What is wrong with this page: 1. It relies too much on WWW documents; 2. It relies too little on the printed word; 3. It should have a citation for each decade between Eddington and the present, instead of a zillion silly citations from the last year or two."

  Much of those comments apply to this article in its current state. I will note though that many of the seemingly trivial examples are nothing of the sort, and many are not mentioned in the article on the subject. That is something that should be done (importing the examples and their references outwards if the article is deleted). The article has also greatly expanded on the list by Jim Reeds (which says it was last updated in 2000), and both lists would be fertile ground for anyone wanting to submit a paper to The Journal of Popular Culture... (I know, that's no argument for keeping it on Wikipedia). Anyway, back to searching out more details and verifying what is there, before looking for sourced commentary to justify it (the last part). Carcharoth 10:33, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all "X in popular culture" articles and subsections. Factoids of this kind that cannot be worked into the main article such as to add real value there have no place in an encyclopedia at all. They should be deleted from the main articles, and there is no reason for them to reappear in a trash-can article of their own. –Henning Makholm 10:36, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Now that is an extreme viewpoint! :-) I do understand where you are coming from, but you maybe forget that some subjects have such a long history that any sections detailing that history may need to be spun off into its own article (I'm not saying that is the case here). Additionally, subsections sometimes deal well with aggregating examples until they can be integrated into either the article, or into other Wikipedia articles. Have a look at Ernest Rutherford#Impact and legacy. "Named after" is an example of something that can get out of hand, but can often be justified. Booker T. Washington is another interesting example. His article has "Numerous high schools and middle schools across the United States have been named after Booker T. Washington." - and this links to Booker T. Washington High School and Booker T. Washington Middle School. To my mind, the Booker T. Washington solution, which uses disambiguation pages, is elegant. To use some examples with a longer history, have a look at Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, Cultural depictions of Julius Caesar and Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great. Let me be frank here and ask you whether you found those last three articles informative and educational (you may have to ignore the trivial additions that haven't been removed yet). If you don't, it may surprise you to learn that many people do find that sort of article informative and educational. Another example would be Ptolemy (name), which is a mish-mash of a disambiguation page, the history of a name, and some more trivial references (down the bottom). It may be that the same information can be presented in the separate articles, but many articles on Wikipedia present the same information in different packages. This repackaging of information is sometimes a bad thing, but sometimes it is perfectly acceptable and increases understanding on the part of the reader. So in essence, your view can be rejected as over-simplistic, as there are many exceptions to what you propose. The point is that good sourcing to secondary literature is needed, not blanket removal of certain classes of information as unacceptable. Carcharoth 12:02, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Sourcing does not make the individual factoids notable (notability is distinct from verifiability; something can be easily verifiable without being notable). If there is respectable secondary literature that provides a scholarly overview and assessment of the impact some concept has had in popular culture, then that information certainly belongs – but where it belongs is in the main article! However, nonwithstanding the possible existence of such secondary sources, an indiscriminate list of random occurrences does not belong in an encyclopedia, neither in the main article or in an "X in popular culture" article. Since neither kind of information belong in a "X in popular culture" article, there is nothing that does belong there, and therefore it has to go. (I might also add that the current Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture contains none of the overview and synthesis material that one might expect to find in secondary sources, so deleting what there is now loses nothing of that kind). –Henning Makholm 22:18, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of all this. I realise that reading through the entire AfD may be a bit much, but I'll quote what I said in the previous subthread (and elsewhere): "Anyway, back to searching out more details and verifying what is there, before looking for sourced commentary to justify it (the last part)." But I'm also now wondering how "in popular culture" articles compare to "timeline of" articles. The former would seem to be about a topic in popular culture, and would therefore, as you say, require secondary literature that assesses the existence and characteristics of the cultural phenomenon. The latter (the timeline idea) would seem to be merely a history of the topic. There are plenty of sources out there that survey the history of the topic, and mention specific examples, without being comprehensive. Would extending such a timeline, with sources that clearly state that some dateable event is an example of the phenomenon (without explicitly discussing the impact or nature of the cultural phenomenon) be OR? Also, there are many sources that make clear that this is a phenomenon. I'll explain some more in a separate post, as you seem to be more responsive that some here, and I'd appreciate an objective assessment of the sources I've gathered that may address the "secondary literature" concerns. Carcharoth 23:50, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've finished assessing the secondary sources. Please see Talk:Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture#Assessing the sources. Comments here (for those participating) would be great. Thanks. I'm also posting this at the end as well, to make sure it doesn't get lost in the noise, so you can reply down there if it is easier. Carcharoth 01:30, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - As with many (though not all) IPC articles, the contents of this article clearly warrant its notability and special meaning independent of traditional wiki-guidelines. Any article can be called a collection of loosely associated information -- look at the Bush article for instance, which talks about Bush the cheerleader and then goes on to detail his position on social security. Policies like WP:N were not meant to apply to all of 2 million+ unique articles; that's why we have WP:IGNORE. If the contents of the article are substantially notable (keeping in mind that WP:N has no application to article contents, so we have to use a bit of WP:SENSE), and they are meaningfully connected to a common theme (Inf. monkey theorem IPC), then that topic is notable whether or not someone has written a book with an identical title. — xDanielx^Talk 11:59, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep; crappiness is a natural part of the article improvement process. -- Visviva 15:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Even more strongly than I said the first time Delete pop culture article. abuse of DRV. The few relevent worthy things are duplicated in the main article. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 17:01, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • • How exactly could this be an "abuse of DRV" anyway? Note:
      • First there was the accusation of wheel warring when the article had been made to appear to have been improperly speedily deleted, but this DRV would still have happened if that had not.
      • Then someone decided to go ahead and reopen the discussion without DRV; if they had not done that, this DRV would have happened earlier.
      • Then there was deception by one of the people who claimed to support reopening the AfD without going through DRV. But this DRV would probably have happened anyway here.
      • Then we have someone saying I alerted people I knew would support me. I had notified two WikiProjects that this disussion was happening, without urging them to vote "keep" or to vote "delete", and somehow someone thinks I knew they would agree with me, as if they were slaves subject to my orders. How could I have known anything of the sort?
      • Then we have people thinking that this AfD discussion is an appropriate forum for those accusations. That is clearly improper. Michael Hardy 00:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Those reasons are all irrelevant. Obviously articles about popular culture can be encyclopedic. Whether DRV was abused or not is clearly beside the point. Inappropriate duplication of material can be dealt with. Paul August ☎ 17:46, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely wrong, they are quite relevant. This article was deleted once with a clear overwhelming consensus for deletion. Pop culture articles are sometimes encyclopedic: this one clearly is not. It's a duplication of material elsewhere, in a valid article, which means we don't need this tripe. And now we're in a ridiculous abuse of process, initiated because of a wheel war from someone who believes that doing so is perfectly ok. This article needs to go. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 19:52, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

If' there was a clear overwhelming consensus for deletion among the few somewhat confused people who weighed in that discussion, or even a clear overwhelming consensus for deletion among well-informed people, that's not relevant to this present discussion. And how many times are you going to repeat your "delete" vote, thus creating an appearance to anyone counting them that there are more of them than there are? Michael Hardy 19:58, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

This verbal sparring is not helping anyone's case. The hyperbole on both sides is rather transparent and should stop. Both sides have elucidated their opinions, and now is the time to let others speak.—Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 20:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Cronholm. SWATJester has only voted once, so I think Michael has misunderstood something there. SWATJester may not realise, but his comments seem to imply that he is saying "this article needs to go because there was an abuse of process" (please correct me if that is not what you meant). Regardless of whether there was an abuse of process or not, it is incorrect to make the article pay for that hypothetical abuse of process. If the article has been improved or greatly changed, SWATJester, Michael Hardy, and others need to be able to step back and view the article with fresh eyes, and to disregard the emotions they may feel about this. Carcharoth 20:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Exemplary of the bad faith involved here. I've voted once. I'm pretty sure basic counting skills are required by admins.⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 22:02, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, maybe you voted once; I actually relied on the fact that you said "the first time". Michael Hardy 00:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment. You wrote "Even more strongly than I said the first time Delete". You have only voted once in this AfD so you must refer to another place (maybe DRV since you didn't vote in the first AfD), but maybe Michael assumed you referred to an earlier vote in this AfD. PrimeHunter 23:11, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I was referring to DRV. Checking before making such allegations would have been nice though. Especially since after making such an outrageous claim the response is maybe you voted once. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 05:44, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• For the record, SWATJester's first edit to this page was to opine "Delete" [8]. Then in response to a comment of mine, he changed "Delete" to "Even more strongly than I said the first time Delete" [9]. It seems clear to me that "the first time" refered to his first edit here. Paul August ☎ 18:04, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
  • It seems clear to me that "the first time" referred to his edits elsewhere. Why are you mentioning this, Paul? You haven't vindicated anyone. SWATJester still only "voted" once, despite the seeming hasty accusation that he voted more than once. --Iamunknown 07:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I wasn't trying to vindicate, just clarify. Paul August ☎ 14:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Is it a coincidence that Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc is about to be delisted from the featured status? Is it the first step to ultimate deletion per the same reasons as brought up here? (Igny 18:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC))
  • I would say the nomination for delisting is not related at all, apart from the nominator being someone who has voted delete for 'in popular culture' articles in the past, and that I've been mentioning Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc as a good example of a list article of this type. But that is an occupational hazard of pointing to good examples in ideological clashes like this. That list certainly does need improvement, but I ask you: read the article, and then come back here and say whether you have learnt anything or not. On the specific question, de-featuring simply means it no longer meets the required standards for featured lists, not that there should not be a list article on the topic. Do note that list articles are somewhat different in their requirements and structure compared to prose articles. See Wikipedia:Lists, and Wikipedia:Featured list criteria. The main criteria is that the list be: useful, comprehensive, factually accurate, stable, uncontroversial and well-constructed. For two other examples of cultural lists, of a different sort, see List of cultural references in The Cantos and List of cultural references in The Divine Comedy - which are essentially glossaries for their respective works. Not a common type of Wikipedia article, and essentially the converse of the 'in popular culture' articles, but still informative and educational. Carcharoth 19:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Further update - I'm making slow progress, as I'm still in the verification stage. I have eliminated some entries as unverifiable or peripheral, but I also found other examples in the process, and I've found plenty of sources to use for verification. I also found several examples of independent, secondary sources discussing the history of the infinite monkey theorem and mentioning several of the examples on the list. The best one so far was this one. The progress so far is charted at Talk:Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture (the bottom three sections as at the time of writing). The other big change is turning this into a list of dates. My feeling is that if the original research concerns prove difficult to overcome, it would be feasible to limit this material to the rigorously verifiably ones, restructure it even further by date, and move it to Timeline of the infinite monkey theorem. For examples of how timeline articles are constructed on Wikipedia, have a look here. An example of a featured timeline is Timeline of tuberous sclerosis. What do people here think of the Timeline of the infinite monkey theorem idea? Carcharoth 20:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I am not opposed to it, and since you are the primary editor I say be bold if there is no opposition...What exactly would happen to this AfD if such a change was made?—Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 20:39, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

We may find out... :-) Seriously, given a few more days of editing I'll have come to the end of what I can achieve, and at that point I'll present the new article and ask for a reassessment. In the past when I've done this, the closing admin has relisted the AfD, though I can understand why dragging the process out still further may not help here. As far as I know (I don't really try and salvage articles at AfD very often - it is a mostly thankless task), editing of articles at AfD is OK, but merging and/or moving shouldn't be done while an AfD is in progress (this can be very frustrating at times, especially when merge is a blindingly obvious answer and you see wave after wave of unthinking delete votes from people who may not even be aware of how merging works). Anyway, we will see. Oh, and I don't consider myself the primary editor, just the current editor, and I'd be deliriously happy if others joined in to help. Carcharoth 23:50, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Trim and merge. Besides being an editor interested in Infinite monkey theorem, I'm also the primary author of the guideline Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections. The first thing I'll say is that this is clearly not a trivia section, in the sense of an unorganized and unfocused lists of facts - quite a bit of apparent effort has gone into categorizing and organizing this list. On the other hand, section forking of this sort is bad, removing essential context and motivation from the primary article and creating a new article that can't stand on its own without the background of the primary article. The best solution is to remove any particularly tangential or insignificant references and merge back into the main article. We should also be careful of the references that aren't explicit references, as some of these may constitute OR. Dcoetzee 21:45, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Final update (for today, anyway). Please see Talk:Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture#Assessing the sources for a collection of secondary literature on the topic. Any problems, please discuss here for the benefit of those participating in the AfD. Carcharoth 01:30, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. As most of the "X in pop culture articles" go, it has no encyclopedic discussion on the topic of this theory and its use in popular culture, but rather is a list of times it has appeared in a movie, a television program, and so on. If a few examples of this in the parent article would be cluttering it up because it doesn't belong there, it doesn't belong here either. Trivia is trivia. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 02:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Would you be willing to return in a few days time and see what the article is like then? Even in its current state, I'd disagree that this is trivia. Take a look at WP:TRIVIA: "What makes a section "trivia", regardless of its name, is that it contains a disorganized and unselective list. A selectively-populated list with a narrow theme is not trivia, and can be the best way to present some information..." (my emphasis). I have also just finished gathering secondary sources (see Talk:Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture#Assessing the sources), and intend to use these secondary sources to write a proper introduction to the article, which is now more like a timeline than a list of trivia. Do you see how the changes this article is undergoing are illustrating the difference between disorganised, random collections of unsourced trivia, and a tightly-focused thematic survey based on rigorously sourced examples backed up by overview discussion in secondary sources? Carcharoth 02:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I wrote the quote above and agree that it's not trivia, but still favour merging strongly - whether or not the list is trimmed. The popular culture references and description benefit from colocation - the references provide the explanation of notability and source of interest, while the description provides background that explains why the references are in fact references. A person reading just the description would think, "why do people make such a big fuss about this?" A person reading just the references would think, "Huh? Monkeys and typewriters, what's all this about?" These shouldn't be separated.
    • As for trimming, I find it difficult to quantify what makes an entry notable or insignificant, but I think it has to do with some combination of how important the reference is to the work as a whole, the impact of the work as a whole in popular culture, how explicit the reference is, and how vivid or detailed the portrayal is. This is something that can be worked out on talk pages through the usual process. Dcoetzee 04:28, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
      • I'm not quite sure I understand your colocation comments. If you mean put the references on the talk page into the article, of course that will happen during the course of my rewrite. If you mean the text and its references should be colocated with the main article, I'd be happy to do that (with the usually size caveat), though there is at least one editor of the main article who wants to 'ghettoize' the list rather than maintain it. My feeling is that if this becomes a full timeline (my favoured solution), it will be too long for the main list, and should be placed in a separate article. The introduction (which I haven't got round to yet) would then, of course, briefly describe the IMT, as well as linking back to that article. Carcharoth 11:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
      • We should really avoid lists that don't have clear inclusion criteria. Yes, I suppose, a number of editors could try to reach a consensus as to whether or not the Colbert Report reference belongs in the list. But that would be a waste of time, especially considering that there are dozens of other references to be considered as well. So many editors get involved in discussions (like, hey, this one, and the previous AfD, and the DRV) over something very unimportant. This is why we shouldn't have lists with vague inclusion criteria. And also, normally, this kind of judgement is the kind of thing we leave up to the authors or reliable sources, but in this case there are none to draw on. Mangojuice^talk 06:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Actually, the inclusion criteria would be (fairly) simple. The examples would need to contain a reference to either monkeys on typewriters/keyboards, or another form of random generator, producing a work of literature (usually Shakespeare, but sometimes "a great American novel", or the Bible, or in some cases an infinite library). References purely to monkeys typing, or to a single monkey typing, would not make the cut, unless independent sources opined that it was such an example. You can see two examples on the talk page that were rejected as 'peripheral'. The Colbert Report example easily makes it into such a list, as it refers to lots of monkeys typing, and refers to Shakespeare and other works of literature. The trivial examples can be excluded by a criteria saying that the example needs to link to a Wikipedia article in some way. If the publisher, author, comedian, show, book, or whatever, doesn't have a Wikipedia entry, the example is considered trivial, unless the entire example is about the IMT - this would allow examples such as the short stories heavily based on the concept to be included, but would exclude Mojo the Monkey and Desencyclopedie (no articles on them). I will trim the list on this basis, and on the points that Dcoetzee raises (important to the work as a whole, impact on popular culture, explicitness, vividness and detail). Carcharoth 11:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
      • All of which must be documented via independent sources. --Eyrian 04:32, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Documentation by independent sources is required to establish notability for individual entries, but not to verify the example. There are many facts included in articles on Wikipedia that would fail your strict notability criteria, but which are accepted as part of a larger article on a topic that is considered notable. Official sources (which are not independent) or independent sources are adequate to verify the examples:[10], [11], [12], [13], [14]. The notability of the topic as a whole is established by independent publications documenting the history of the topic: [15], [16], [17]. Carcharoth 11:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I know this is not a !vote, but for those who want a quick snapshot of community opinion at this time, there are appx 23 people saying delete, appx. 10 saying keep, and appx 5 saying something else, mainly "trim and merge" . These numbers are only approximations, based off two quick run throughs at the time of making this edit. They do not reflect the strength of the deletions or keeps (for example, a strong delete with a good argument might hold more sway than a weak keep because of a false argument.) These numbers are presented to give you a quick snapshot of where the community's views lie in a nutshell. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 05:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
  • As you note, that is opinion "at this time". My rewrite is not yet finished, and I would have appreciated it if you had acknowledged that. Furthermore, trim and merge is identical to keep in terms of the page history being available (delete loses the page history), so if you want to play with the numbers, that comes out at 23-15, which is 60% delete. For balance, I think it is only fair to also point out that a strong keep with a good argument might hold more sway than a delete that expresses concerns that may or may not have been addressed by a rewrite of the article. Carcharoth 10:04, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

  Comment (Actually an AfD is a "!vote"; it is not a "vote".) It is worth remarking that the volume of opinions, and their diversity, is considerably greater than in the original AfD. This corroborates the wisdom of the DRV decision, that the AfD should begin anew to allow more interested parties to participate. I also point out the irony of lambasting keep votes as ILIKEIT, while many of the delete votes are severe IHATEIT: they are generic opposition to IPC ("in popular culture") content. Since at this moment the likely outcome appears to be "No consensus; keep by default", perhaps those violently upset by the existence of the article should augment their opinions by suggestions for improvement should it remain. I don't see anyone advocating a sprawling mass of trivia; but popular culture is too important to ignore. (How many millions of dollars worth of velvet paintings of Elvis Presley have been sold?) --KSmrq^T 10:23, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

  About the !vote issue, people may get confused because WP:!VOTE and WP:VOTE direct to the same location, and there is no explanation there of what !vote means. Carcharoth 11:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

  Also, I implied it was silly to play the numbers games, so I won't give actual numbers, but my reading of the !votes yields quite different figures to those supplied by SWATJester. Whether the (now out-of-date) tally is left there, updated, expanded, or removed, I'm happy to leave up to SWATJester, unless others have strong opinions. Carcharoth 12:15, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete, trivia, not encyclopedic. >Radiant< 09:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

  Comment Such statements are considered unhelpful. To quote from WP:UGH: "… some editors hate trivia, but what constitutes trivia is a subjective opinion and as things stand there's no concrete policy setting down what is and is not trivial, nor is there a policy stating that trivia should be deleted. … Arguments that the nature of the subject is unencyclopaedic (for example individual songs or episodes of a TV show) should also be avoided in the absence of clear policies or guidelines against articles on such subjects." --KSmrq^T 10:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

  • To quote from an actual policy instead of that essay you're citing from, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. HAND. >Radiant< 09:59, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

    If you do not wish to make a substantive argument, that is your choice. However, the policy you cite mentions only five prohibitions (by consensus), and trivia is not among them. And since it is precisely discussions like AfD that determine what is and is not appropriate for this encyclopedia, your "not encyclopedic" claim is circular reasoning. The purpose of the essay is to help editors like you be more effective in AfD discussions. As it correctly states, there is no consensus on what constitutes trivia, nor a consensus on what is appropriate. We are trying to establish a consensus with respect to this article, and !votes like yours are not helpful. I am not denigrating your opinion, nor those who would equivalently say ILIKEIT; I am trying to help you help us reach consensus, by stepping beyond a popularity contest. --KSmrq^T 22:21, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Not all trivia entries are subjestive, in any case if this survives it needs severe cleanup, no one will argue that one five second mention in Family Guy is not trivia. - Caribbean~H.Q. 10:59, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I would argue that it meets the inclusion criteria I am proposing, in the same way that the Simpsons entry does, ie. it contains a clear reference to the theorem: "Put enough monkeys in a room with a typewriter, they’ll produce Shakespeare". This quote is from the official show website: [18]. It also vividly illustrates the concept. A list with inclusion criteria should not automatically be considered trivia. See the comments by others above. Carcharoth 11:10, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Interesting illustration of the tension between teleological and mechanical explanations of natural phenomena. DavidCBryant 11:45, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, cleanup (and possibly rename). If the truly trivial references are removed and the article is improved using the secondary sources Carcharoth mentions, it will be worth having. Interested editors should have that opportunity. Once it is cleaned up, maybe it should be renamed to Infinite monkey theorem in culture or something -- it should have an analysis of "high" culture such as literature, not just "popular" culture. -Fagles 17:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. An admixture of trivial content is no reason to delete an article that contains notable content. While I agree that most of the references from the last decade or two, especially, ought to go, the development of this idea in various texts over such a long period beforehand is certainly notable. Carcharoth's collection of secondary literature provides proof of this if any is needed. Wareh 18:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep In addition to the reasons Michael Hardy & Paul August have given, I believe the efforts of Carcharoth to rescue & improve this article is tangible proof that this subject should be kept. Carcharoth is an established & respected (well okay, more respected than me) Wikipedian, & if he is willing to spend the time & effort to address concerns about "trivia" & "primary sources" raised here to make this a valuable article, then we should respect his efforts & good faith. -- llywrch 20:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the vote of confidence, llywrch, it means a lot. I feel I should add a caveat though, making clear that I would be the first to say that any discussion on Wikipedia should be about the substance of the debate and the issues, not the people involved. The rewrite should be judged on its own merits, regardless of who wrote it or how much time was invested (though I do tend towards a liberal view on userfications if someone really wants to try and work on something that was deleted). I'm also careful to try not to get too invested in an article. Even if this one does get deleted, the equally important thing has been the discussions that have taken place here. And speaking of time invested, not a lot of time has been invested tonight, so far. I have the overall plan still in mind, so I will finish up tomorrow or the day after. Carcharoth 22:22, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
    • You bring up a good point, Carcharoth. I haven't commented in this AfD as to the fate of the article, and I do not currently intend to comment, but I am strongly in favor of userfication if the closing administrator decides that the consensus is that it should be deleted. The article has improved significantly under yours and others work, and I think it could improve further (and possibly meet the more rigorous standards of inclusion of some editors) with more work. If it is to be deleted, userfication, and later content review, is in order. --Iamunknown 07:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Always glad to offer a compliment, Carcharoth. However, my point is that when an established or respected Wikipedian undertakes the effort to rescue an article considered for deletion, then it's only fair that we give her or him the time & a minimum of pressure to finish the effort. Hopefully, the end result will not only be an article worth keeping but a valuable one, too. And I hope this is a principle that the closing Admin will agree with, too. -- llywrch 18:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Just read the current revision of this article. What a turn-around. IMHO, if it survives AfD, I feel that it should seriously be considered for Featured Article status! Adequately footnoted, with numerous examples (perhaps a little too many examples), & all it requires are a few more images -- preferably under Free Use licenses. -- llywrch 22:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
        • In which specific category should we nominate it as a featured article? "Culture and society"? "Mathematics"? Maybe both? Maybe one or more others? Michael Hardy 22:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Delete because Wikipedia is not a directory of loosely-associated entries. The article fails to make any claim of notability through independent, secondary sources to reflect the phenomenon's impact in popular culture. The information is not verifiable in providing any real-world context about each occurrence. "1989 - In the comic strip Dilbert, Dogbert tells Dilbert that his poem would take 'three monkeys, ten minutes'." So what? What does this provide in an encyclopedic sense? Look at this PDF that I found: "The Internet is home to a vast assortment of quotations and experimental designs concerning monkeys and typewriters. They all expand on the theory often attributed to Henri Poincaré which contends that if an infinite number of monkeys were left to bang on an infinite number of typewriters, sooner or later they would accidentally reproduce the complete works of William Shakespeare (or even just one of his sonnets)." This is the kind of content that needs to reflect this subject, and depending on how much of this significant coverage of the topic is available, the content should be included at Infinite monkey theorem until it needs to be spun off per WP:SS. Listing random mentions is just not encyclopedic, and there needs to be real-world context behind it to qualify for Wikipedia. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 15:31, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • You do realise that you've just found one of the sources I'm using in my rewrite, right? :-) Have a look at Talk:Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture. At the moment, people are commenting on an article that is in the process of being gutted and rebuilt from the ground up. It will look significantly different when I've finished with it. I will be using the quotes given on the talk page that talk about the examples, along with some quotes of the examples. Another thing to note is the distinction that could be drawn between an article about the theorem in popular culture, and a timeline on the history of the theorem. If you change the title to "timeline of the infinite monkey theorem", does that subtract the need to find sources that talk about the impact, rather than sources that talk about the history (I have several of the latter, but only one or two of the former). Carcharoth 16:31, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• To reiterate, I feel that my argument still stands despite the revisions. I do not believe, per the reasons I have given, that it is appropriate to subjectively preserve passing mentions of this topic just because it has been covered significantly elsewhere. It seems to be a form of synthesis in which the significant coverage is provided in a certain manner, then original contributions are made to further back this stance. The article is still inherently a trivial list, and I think that only the significant coverage of independent, secondary sources about this topic should be kept. Entries like a segment on The Colbert Report or a sentence in a Dilbert comic provide no real-world context for this topic. This is a topic that is broad -- perhaps too broad -- for true article development, as the topic could range from the core of a fictional novel all the way to a passing mention in the lyrics of a song. I would strongly suggest keeping any preservable items in the main article, which is not that long, and I presume that the popular culture items were spun off because of their length. What seems best to do is to remove any and all original contributions like the examples I've mentioned, unless the concept is inherently notable (like a book with this concept at the core, as opposed to passing mentions). —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep with reservations, pending the overhaul currently being performed by Carcharoth. However, the textual part (before the list) needs to be expanded, with references to secondary sources if possible, and the list severely trimmed, based on more stringent, perhaps, impact based, inclusion criterion.

As Paul August and others have commented above, the Infinite monkey theorem has a somewhat special status, since, unlike most mathematical results, the general public is quite aware of the statement of the theorem through popular culture references (and not through formal education). Hence the article should not be summarily deleted solely on the basis of being an "IPC" type entry. Also, given the low quality of the artilce Popular culture (which, for example, uses the term synonymously with pop culture in the lead, then gives multiple conflicting "definition", yet fails to make clear whether literature is covered under any of them), it may be best to remove the word "popular" from the title. Arcfrk 19:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• comment moving the article would certainly be in order, but that is of course a separate discussion. I note that those bringing these deletion are not bothered by the title, but the contents. But it certainly would deal with a more widely shared general impression of lack of seriousness. DGG (talk) 19:46, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete nn topic, total trivial fork. We need to make overview articles, not include every thing that has ever happened. This is total cruft. Violates various aspects of WP:NOT and turns this place into a total joke. Biggspowd 05:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
  • It is not an indiscriminate list - see the talk page for rejected ones. Lists with clearly defined, non-trivial criteria are acceptable. Oh, and still being rewritten, though the latest rewrite got unavoidably postponed. Carcharoth 07:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Is this rewrite going to justify having a separate article from the main theorem article? --Mark H Wilkinson ^{(t, c)} 08:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Popular culture, or any culture, offends some editors. So does eating meat; but that does not mean meat is inedible. This article is at least as important as its parent article, if not more so. Frankly, the theorem is a minor observation in mathematics, but the idea behind it is powerful, and has clearly had a lasting impact on the public consciousness. This article documents that impact; and as Carcharoth is showing, beyond the countless allusions to the theorem there are also numerous solid sources of comment about its use. Finally, consider the famous lines
   Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
   The proper study of mankind is Man.
    — Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, Epistle II, line 1 (Emphasis added.)
  To reject consideration of the expression and influence of ideas among ourselves is hardly worthy of a great encyclopedia. --KSmrq^T 07:35, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Having read the debate with interest, and also considering the article on its own merits, it is much better than many "X in popular culture" articles, and is a well-sourced reference for the development of a notable meme. Gandalf61 10:35, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Weak delete, WP:TRIVIA. CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:01, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't know how you intend to justify a deletion using WP:TRIVIA when that guideline recommends against deletion of trivia sections, in favor of integration and reorganization. Dcoetzee 23:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
    • It supports integration of trivia sections, not articles. The content of the article is simply WP:NOT what should be in Wikipedia -- though it is nicely organized. A closer look has made me change my vote to a solid delete. CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:53, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Notable, well-written, relevant, and extremely well referenced. —METS501 (talk) 23:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

  Which revision of the article are you looking at? In the current one I still only see an indiscriminate list of random occurrences of the concept. No encyclopedic content is evident here. It is still true that encyclopedic content about the subject might be produced at some time in the future, but if so, it will belong in the main article, and not in an "X in popular culture" trashcan. –Henning Makholm 23:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

  I'm looking at the revision dated 18 August... Looks much better than the current one. :-) More seriously, I am still planning to add that sourced introduction. I suppose now would be as good a time as any, as I think the 5 days are nearly up (feels less than five days, for some reason). Carcharoth 00:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

  The unencyclopedic cruft-attractor of a list that occupies the page now must go. Then the hypothesized "sourced introduction" can be added to the main article, where it belongs. –Henning Makholm 00:20, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

  The introduction is now finished. There is a footnote giving the criteria for the list, and (after tightening the list up some more) I will happily watch the article to prevent cruft accumulating again. I actually think that when an article is in good shape like this, it discourages the addition of cruft. ie. badly-written article attract cruft, but people are more reluctant to dump stuff on articles that have been worked on. That's my theory, anyway. Would you be happy to test the theory with this article? Carcharoth 03:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Final update - well, when I say final, I still hope to be able to continue working on this article after the AfD closes! :-) What I want to do here is just bring things up-to-date. During the course of this AfD, I've been doing lots of work on the article (and also on the talk page), gathering sources, trimming the list, verifying some examples, rejecting others, and gradually building up towards a reasonable introduction and summary on the topic, using secondary sources. In the course of around 100 edits to the article, from 12-16th August, I've rewritten the article from this to this. The change can be seen here. I hope that, with the introduction in particular, I've managed to address some of the concerns raised at this AfD, and I hope that even those who disagree with the idea of such articles will agree that the article has improved. Please take the time to read the article again, with fresh eyes, to look over the sources and footnotes, and to comment either here or at the article's talk page. Thanks. Carcharoth 02:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Note to closing admin: One of the major additions to the article was the introduction, which was added after all the comments and !votes above, including those that talk about the revisions being insufficient. In other words, those that came back to assess the state of the article later, didn't reassess it in its final form. I would be grateful if this could be taken into consideration in the closing decision. My initial comments on my plan to rewrite the article during the AfD can be found here. Carcharoth 03:08, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Everyone should be asked whether the new form of the article is a reason to reassess their opinions. Michael Hardy 05:11, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep - I have some academic background in maths, but I'm not inclined to denigrate such kind of sociological studies, though the article can be imoved (=some of its content deleted).Doktor Who 11:16, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. An easily sufficient number of references demonstrate that the monkey thing has widespread impact in popular culture. As content has moved back and forth with Infinite monkey theorem, deletion would violate GFDL. --SmokeyJoe 13:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. The existence of cut-and-pasted content in another article's history is not a GDFL concern, and could always be fixed. Someguy1221 23:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Reluctant keep. Well, the lead section is much better now - and it really is what "In Pop Culture" articles should have been from the beginning, and Carcharoth deserves a lot of credit for taking the time to try and make something encyclopedic out of this. I still find the bulk of this article objectionable, as there is no reason to include so much trivia in the form of "Here's as many instances of the theorem showing up in film/tv/etc that we can find". The list should be pared down to a few salient examples instead of attempting to catalogue every sundry reference. Nevertheless that is an editorial decision, and the effort to bring this up to at least acceptable inclusion standards has been made. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 15:50, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. Whatever the outcome, I'd like to see at least a few references to literary works based on the whole "infinite monkeys" concept, especially the 1970 short story "Been a Long, Long Time" by R. A. Lafferty. — Loadmaster 18:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep – although I could also live with "merge back onto main article". The topic itself is definitely worthy of encyclopedic attention. The article needs more work, but – thanks to the hard work of Carcharoth – is acceptable in its present form.  --Lambiam 18:24, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. The infinite monkey theorem exists, and as has been pointed out above by Carcharoth, its impact in popular culture has been documented to a certain degree. So, in some way or another, popular culture needs to be included in Wikipedia. There are two options: keep the article separate, or merge it to Infinite monkey theorem. Now, there is no way to merge them without making the trivia overwhelm the mathematics of the theorem itself, so keep them separate to accomodate Summary style. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.