Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/References to Oscar Wilde in popular culture

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 delete. --Core desat 05:34, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

References to Oscar Wilde in popular culture[edit]

Delete - Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information and Wikipedia is not a directory of loosely associated topics. The items on this list, drawn across every medium, genre and style, have nothing in common beyond happening to mention Wilde, or mention something that resembles Wilde, or happening to mention something that following original research an editor decides sounds like something that Wilde said. Otto4711 12:37, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weak delete per nom. A case of WP:INTERESTING more than anything else.--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 13:16, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It could easily be argued that at least some of what Wikipedia represents is an indiscriminate collection of information (it can also be argued that that is one of Wikipedia's strengths). For instance there are thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of articles about fictional characters that are written as though they are real personages and all of these would have a tough time standing up to the charge that there is not some original research in them. As to this specific article first, hardly an article in Wikipedia has items in it in common except the titled subject matter. Second, when you delete these they often show back up on the page of the original article and this was moved from the Wilde article because of its size in the first place. Third, and most important Wikipedia is a place of learning. The more information and interpretations you have to learn from the better able one is to get an overall view of the subject at hand. I have been learning about Wilde for over thirty years and have found that there are always new things to be discovered. There are several items on this page that I went out and obtained or experienced and each of them had value in increasing my overall understanding of Wilde and the influence that he has had through the years. Now I am not saying that this page couldn't do with some trimming and not every little mention of Wilde's name should rate a place on this page (ie the ref to him in BlackAdder) but it should be there to be worked on by current and future editors.MarnetteD | Talk 13:43, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I feel that Wikipedia should be a starting place for peoples learning about a given subject not the final destination where they say okay I read that and that is all I need to know. Also, Wikipedia is a collective process. Editors (except for the ever present vandals) bring their individual learning and try to create a place where the information presented is enhanced, not dumbed down. Narrowing ones focus is not what any online encyclopedia, and Wikipedia in particular, should be about. If a smaller view is the preferred way of overseeing articles here then we should simply write one or two lines about each subject and move on. As long as one of Wikipedia's tenants is that it is going to be open to all then this kind of page needs to be tolerated. If you want to move Wikipedia into the realm of an Encyclopedia Britannica format of only a few editors being in control then all of this changes, but, if even one user comes out of finding something in one of these pop culture pages that enhances their understanding of a given subject then there value has been proven.MarnetteD | Talk 13:43, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - none of your comments here address the policy violations of the article. First, if another article contains original research, it does not excuse any original research in this article. The proper response to original research is to delete it, not to use it to justify more original research. Second, better here than there is not a valid reason for keeping an article. The proper response to crap information in an article is to delete it, not to fork it off into its own crap article for other people to deal with. Third, the fact that some comic book artist drew a picture of Wilde in a comic book does not tell us anything about Wilde, the comic book or the influence of Wilde in the real world. This sort of page absolutely does not need to be tolerated and any number of similar pages have been deleted in the past for failing to conform to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Finally, Wikipedia is not about everything. Otto4711 14:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am aware that some of these have been deleted and that some have been kept which is why when there was an attempt to delete these en masse it was voted down and it was resolved to look at them on a case by case basis. These items may not tell you anything about Wilde but you are not the only reader of these articles. The fact that he is inspires other artists obviously is an influence on the real world, whether it means anything to you or not, or these things wouldn't exist. Never forget that another of Wikipedia's policies is Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules and policies and guidelines here are an ever changing thing. I am happy to go with the consensus of this vote I just don't feel the need to resort to uncivil language. MarnetteD | Talk 15:13, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

First, I have moved your comment to follow mine. In future your responses should be below the comment to which you are responding to preserve the conversational flow. Second, not one word of my post was uncivil. If you chose to interpret it as such, that is your responsibility, not mine. Finally, IAL is not a blanket endorsement. Otto4711 15:38, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Use of foul language is as uncivil as it gets and it was you who typed it in there is little to interpret after that. As to policy violations when one is putting an article up for deletion one of the steps is to notify the creator of the article and it should be pointed out that this was not done in this case. MarnetteD | Talk 15:42, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're joking. You're all up in arms over the word "crap"? With all due respect, grow a thicker skin. "Crap" does not begin to approach incivility. Hell, oops I mean heck, it's even used in a shortcut or two, for instance WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. There is no policy requiring any notification of the article creator beyond the AFD. It's considered a courtesy but not a necessity, and seeing as how few if any of the articles that I've created or worked on have been reported to me when going through AFD, clearly not one that's followed with anything approaching uniformity, and failure to notify is not grounds for retention. Otto4711 17:47, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can't help what other editors have done in the same situation and it may be considered an option by you but it is in the instructions for putting an article up for AFD, not notifying them shows a lack of good faith and that combined with your constant need to tell other editors what to do continues your inability to show civility.MarnetteD | Talk 23:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, merge back to the article in chief, or move to a subpage of the talk page, anything but delete. AfD is not cleanup. If the section describing Oscar Wilde's impact on later culture becomes cluttered or unwieldy, the right thing to do is to move sections to talk and continue to edit them; not to place information beyond the sight of readers or ordinary editors. - Smerdis of Tlön 14:36, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At no time did I suggest that the problem is "clutter" or suggest that the article is in need of "cleanup" and it is a blatant mischaracterization of the nomination to say so. Your comments do not address the policy violations set forth in the nomination. Otto4711 15:11, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was just speculating that this particular article got forked out of Oscar Wilde the usual way. Even if that weren't the actual history here, it remains the case that deletion is not the only way to deal with any of the policy violations you mention, and that the substance of good faith edits ought to be preserved even if they aren't ready to appear in an article in chief. - Smerdis of Tlön 00:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: If we delete this, the information would show up in Oscar Wilde. Maybe merge.

Comment - as already noted, creating articles to keep garbage out of other articles is not a valid excuse for keeping this article. Otto4711 17:47, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep; does not villate any policies. --164.107.222.23 16:11, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- It clearly violates the WP:V policy. Corvus cornix 21:00, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 17:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 17:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, do not remerge, utterly unsourced, OR. Violates WP:TRIVIA. Corvus cornix 21:00, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete my initial inclination was to keep as Oscar Wilde is somewhat of an iconic figure much reflected in the popular culture. That's as may be; but I cannot find much in the way of RSes reporting that (unlike with Sherlock Holmes on which I differed with the nom), so without RSes to show that this phenomenon is not illusory, it's got to go. Carlossuarez46 21:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete; after reading MarnetteD's lengthy comments (one of the longest I've read in a trivia-related AFD) I was expecting this article to be some great work of encyclopedic value that would set an example to all "In popular culture" articles. As it turns out it's just another indiscriminate list of insignificant references. Masaruemoto 02:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Though I adore Oscar Wilde, the article makes no attempt to provide reliable sources and some entries likely constitute WP:OR. Plus, many of the inclusions are pretty far off in left-field (any allusion to Dorian Gray gets included, for instance). -- Kesh 02:23, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete because Wikipedia is not a directory of loosely associated topics. It does not appear that any of these entries are notable because of Oscar Wilde, and any entry asserting its notability (like "In the film Spider-Man 2, Peter Parker's love interest Mary Jane Watson plays Cecily in a production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Both the film and the play deal with the theme of double-lives") seems to be original research without attribution. If Oscar Wilde's presence in popular culture is to be covered, significant coverage (per notability standards) should be cited on the topic, and not an accretion of trivial mentions using editors' firsthand perspectives to synthesize the prominence of such a topic. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 17:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Just a list of loosely related terms, fails WP:NOT#DIR. Jay32183 20:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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.