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Article sub-pages

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(from Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_46#Article_sub-pages)

Can pages in article space have subpages (such as Water melon/subpage), or are the forward slashes automatically converted into textual data? SharkD (talk) 04:49, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

No real subpages in the mainspace, sorry. Subpage-enabled namespaces are marked as such here. WODUP 04:55, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
You can use slashes fine, it's just that the result is not considered a subpage. More info: Help:Subpage, mw:Help:Subpages. —AlexSm 05:05, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
I see that "hierarchical organisation of articles is discouraged." I was thinking this might be useful in cases where articles are too long, but the "split" articles don't meet notability requirements, and are instead supposed to inherit the notability of the parent article. Oh well. SharkD (talk) 05:21, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Years ago, this feature was enabled in the main namespace, and in Wikipedia's early years, it was a common way of organising information, but it led to awkward titles and the creation of article forks written from a particular POV, so it was decided to abandon the subpages system. Warofdreams talk 08:59, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Do you have an example of an article where you believe "notability" is a concern? — CharlotteWebb 14:37, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Not off the top of my head. But I remember the issue being brought up a couple of times in WikiProject Video games and in AfD discussions. SharkD (talk) 03:26, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
It seems there's a new article on the topic. SharkD (talk) 04:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Let me rephrase that, do you have any examples of sub-pages, or distinct topics begging to be split onto separate pages, which may be in need of a more canonical title? — CharlotteWebb 13:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
You may want to take the issue to the discussion page I linked to (also, see here). I haven't been following along, but the whole point of the discussion seems to revolve around whether some articles may inherit the notability of the parent topic (or, rather, whether rules can be bent in some cases). I don't particularly like the idea, but I am suggesting that sub-articles may potentially constitute a separate class (i.e., not a "real", self-contained article) where this is the case. SharkD (talk) 16:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Even if there was a consensus to use file-directory style titles, I don't see how the "notability" guideline would be interpreted differently. On the other hand "notability guidelines and common sense" go together about as well as "water and oil", "vinegar and baking soda", or "bleach and ammonia" (as opposed to "fish and chips", "peaches and creme", or "vodka and orange juice"), so really g-d knows what would happen in that case. Seriously though would this mean Christianity in the United States would be under "United States/Religion/Christianity" or under "Christianity/Places/United States", or under something else I haven't thought of? — CharlotteWebb 16:52, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
In this particular case Hamlet (character) would probably be preferable. — CharlotteWebb 13:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't quite see the connection in what you're saying. The existence of the article, Hamlet (the play, not the character), does not lend itself to the categorization scheme you suggest. I.e., placing the Hamlet article in Category:Characters in Hamlet isn't particularly sensible. SharkD (talk) 16:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Alright so maybe you mean to use Hamlet/Act 1 instead of Act 1 of Hamlet, Hamlet: Act 1, Hamlet, Act 1, Act 1 (Hamlet), or Hamlet (Act 1). I don't see how this would make things any easier or why anyone would expect it to have any effect on "notability" guidelines. — CharlotteWebb 16:52, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
One area where I could see such a thing used is in List-type articles. They're not really articles (they have no prose, and don't explain anything), yet they have some encyclopedic value. For instance, a list of things in Topic X could appear in X/List of Y in X. However, I wouldn't want to see this done, either. I'd rather see a separate namespace be used for lists (I think this would be a good idea) than resorting to this option. SharkD (talk) 19:30, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Phil's Notability RFC A.1.2

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Proposal A.1.2 Spin-out articles are treated as sections of a larger work

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(from Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise/A.1)
Proposal: Sub-articles of a notable parent topic are permissible when the same content could realistically be expected to appear in the parent topic's article, if length and structure were not an issue (i.e. the content is relevant to the notable topic, verifiable, and encyclopedic - not original research, speculative, instructional, or indiscriminate).


Rationale: Long standing guidelines like WP:SS, and principles like Wiki is not paper, encourage comprehensive encyclopedic treatment of articles. When acceptable content becomes unmanageable in one article, deleting that encyclopedic information should not be Wikipedia's reaction. Rather, the content should be split apart across multiple articles. Sometimes this can create sub-articles that are on topics not inherently notable (receiving significant coverage in a third party source). This proposal allows the good information to remain on Wikipedia while discouraging an "inherited" mentality. A neighbor's dog is not suddenly notable, nor deserves an article, because both Dog, Poodle, and Earth are notable. Content on the neighbor's dog would never pass the litmus test of being in those articles in the first place.
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Support A.1.2
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  1. While I wish that, were viewpoints being added to the RFC in part due to my complaints about the lack of correspondence between them and views actually proposed, someone might run wording by the people proposing them, I, generally speaking, support this approach, provided it is coupled with the development of a system to adequately manage sub-articles from both a technical and editorial standpoint. I should be open, I'm working on developing a proposal along these lines at User:Phil Sandifer/Branching. One aspect, to address Nifboy and Protonk's concerns, would be that sub-articles shouldn't be AfDed - consensus to merge should be found on the talk pages of the articles. I'm still working to address Kww's concerns, but currently lean towards all or some proposals to branch articles going through a "Branching proposals" page to get community support before the branching begins. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:20, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
  2. Weak Support - while I wholeheartedly support a holistic approach, I share Protonk's concerns about how it would play out at AfD. Nifboy (talk) 02:03, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
  3. Support - Somewhere in this direction is the answer. Not sure how to implement it, though. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
  4. Support While not perfect, somewhere along this line lies the logical path. --Speedevil (talk) 12:24, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  5. Support Sometimes a sub-article exists for technical reasons. This is not a free pass for anything and everything, so guidance is needed.. It's just really tricky to nail down. -- Ned Scott 03:53, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
  6. support While there may be limits to this, as long as there are no problems with original research this is more or less what we should do. JoshuaZ (talk) 18:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
  7. Support per my argument above; we should not be disincentivizing people to create reasonable-length articles. --R27182818 (talk) 02:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  8. Support parallels my thoughts on aritcle length etc. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  9. Support Seems a reasonable approach, albeit no different to current policy. Greg Locock (talk) 04:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  10. Support the split off article should be considered as part of the parent article and treated as if it were as subsection of that article. Dbiel (Talk) 04:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  11. Support I think spinouts should be considered notable as long as their main article is notable (of course), as long as they have an obvious main/spinout relation to the parent article (for example if the spinout is linked via a {{main|*****}}-tag from a section in the parent article), and as long as they have enough reliable sources to conform completely with WP:V.·Maunus·ƛ· 04:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  12. Support for the same reasons I gave for A.1. Spin-off articles are created because Wiki standards frown upon super-long articles, so topics are routinely split off so that they may be covered in more detail. 23skidoo (talk) 05:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  13. Support Someone once described Wikipedia as an onion. You can keep peeling away to find more detailed information. I like that image -- wish I could remember who came up with it! Zagalejo^^^ 05:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  14. Support - No change required We do this already at United States and most country articles with no apparent issues. The status quo is fine, though - No new policies needed. The current notability guidelines and WP:NOT already help prevent the downside of this, where the topics that get split are titled and focused in a manner that leads to "stuff made up one day" accusations. MrZaiustalk 05:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  15. Support In my mind, the only test for inclusion to Wikipedia should be "Can a Reliable Source be found to back up the article." I am therefore in favor of lowering notability requirements in any way possible. --Falcorian (talk) 05:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  16. Support, but only with the establishment of defined limits. Specifically, I support that these articles be allowed under the purview of a purely descriptive guideline (i.e. not wholly reliant on notability) in which we analyze what classes of "spin-out" page do and do not have consensus by looking at AfD precedent. It's not the ideal solution, but as shown by other guidelines such as Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) it can be made to work when the writing of a normal, principle-based guideline fails. --erachima talk 07:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  17. Support, I don't think we should limit the amount of text that can be written about a topic. --Aqwis (talk – contributions) 07:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  18. Support - this proposal offers the right level of control over the content of spin-off articles. Let's face it, you shouldn't be able to create a spin-off article with no reliable sources at all - a paragraph in a main article shouldn't be allowed to stand on such a basis. AlexTiefling (talk) 09:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  19. Support. Per WP:SS and WP:NOTPAPER. Wikipedia articles are in practice constrained to less than 20 printed pages or so, but yet much more than that can be written about many topics. If a topic has had 800-page books published about it, we can aim for more than 20 pages! Yet any random 20-page slice of a book might not look "notable" (i.e., publishable) when taken out of context of the larger work. The same goes for our subarticles and lists. --Itub (talk) 09:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  20. Support The perfect solution - separates the issue of notability from format choice. SP-KP (talk) 09:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  21. Support This is by far the most sensible approach. It ensures that the information WP contains is encyclopaedic without limiting the amount of information we publish. Waggers (talk) 09:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  22. Support. This allows lists like "Notable people who live in such and such place" which can get very long for populous places. Binksternet (talk) 10:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  23. Support. This allows for natural expansion without restricting coverage or distorting an article due to over large subsections. A re-word of caveat such that articles falling under this criteria should have to pass scrutiny under NPOV closely so as to avoid POV forks, and that significant good sourcing is present so support the content. --Nate1481 10:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  24. Support Seems a most sensible approach and in my experience the most in line with general historical practices on Wikipedia. older ≠ wiser 11:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  25. Support for the same reason as A.1. Spin out articles should only exist when the main topic has so much content that it spills into a second article because of length. So the main article should be notable enough to have plenty of reliable sources, which means that there should be enough sources to adequately source the spinout. I can't imagine a scenario where there theoretically isn't enough reliable sources for the spinout. If the content is off-topic it should be removed and spinout reconsidered. Royalbroil 12:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  26. Support This already goes on, opposing this proposal means supporting overly long articles or supporting the deletion of information.--EchetusXe (talk) 12:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  27. Support As stated above by the many editors.. I won't restate. Morphh (talk) 13:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  28. Strong support - Wikipedia is not paper, but that's not the only reason. Some topics can only receive sufficient coverage on Wikipedia if they are split into many articles. There's no reason to trim a broad topic just to satisfy WP:SS if the trimmed version offers clearly insufficient coverage. Wikipedia is the sum of all human knowledge, and not an online version of Britannica. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 13:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  29. Strong Support what Hockey^ said. Wikipedia's main limitation is in presentation of information, not the actual volume of information.--Marhawkman (talk) 13:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  30. Strong suppory Coming a little late to the party I think, and most of the good protestations have already been taken. As a means to keep large topics from becoming uselessly obese articles, this is only sensible. Ford MF (talk) 15:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  31. Strong support. This is very well-put. It is an embarrassment to the project that there is no WP:COMPREHENSIVE; this is one step towards fulfilling that unfortunately neglected goal. This proposal serves the needs of Wikipedia's non-regular-editor users far better than current practice, because it allows for manageable expansion of content such that any detailed or specialized topic may be covered robustly. Chubbles (talk) 15:31, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  32. Support as intrinsically expected under current consensus. Jclemens (talk) 15:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  33. Support this is the way that makes best sense and is/will be most obvious and transparent to the average editor. Mfield (talk) 16:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  34. Support On balance ok. Davewild (talk) 16:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  35. Support - Not a fan of the WP:SIZE policy. Encyclopedic content should be retained in some form and this suggestion works for me. JaakobouChalk Talk 17:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  36. Support If reliable sources exist, then sub topics should exist even if the topic itself would not support an independent article. --Trödel 17:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  37. Support The whole concept of notability guidelines is hurting Wikipedia, not helping it. Hans Persson (talk) 17:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  38. Support with most of my comments from A.1.1 still being valid. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:31, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  39. Support, I like the idea of being able to have sub-articles for main articles that are too long; however, I don't like the "inherited" aspect of option 1. —the_ed17— 18:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  40. Support As long as we are saying that "A subarticle's requirement for notability still exists, but is held to a lower standard as long as the primary article is verifiable and sourced" then I would agree that a somewhat lower standard is fine. Having NO sources would not be. If properly done, would be a benefit to the encyclopedia, making many articles more readable, while allowing you to drill down on specific facts. PHARMBOY (TALK) 21:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  41. Support Making a marked designation between a page and an article, such that an article can span multiple pages allows WP:NNC to be supported without concern of WP:SIZE. -Verdatum (talk) 21:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  42. Support so long as the main article is referenced below the title - this allows a spot for overeffusive detail that would otherwise clutter the main article, but may, in some instances, be valuable to some users. One must distinguish between the two scopes of 1) verifiable facts and 2) notability of subject. Subarticles do valuable service to main articles and should exist with 1) even though 2) may be lacking. István (talk) 21:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  43. Strong support I have encountered many such cases. Nergaal (talk) 21:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  44. Support. This is how I have understood spinout articles all along.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  45. Support; a good formulation of the concept that notability shouldn't prevent us from organizing our content in the most effective way possible. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  46. Support. Length in particular is a big problem for me, because my computer takes too long to load and edit very long articles. Wiki is not paper. ~AH1(TCU) 01:03, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  47. Support Though I see the potential for abuse. Specific policies should be referenced to define what is encyclopedic so that sub-articles are not held to a lower standard than the main article. Wronkiew (talk) 02:02, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  48. Support Much better suggestion. Pretty much the same argument as Pharmboy. -- Highwind888, the Fuko Master (talk) 02:06, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  49. Support - this is how it should always be. Exit2DOS2000•T•C• 02:55, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  50. Support This seems like a reasonable compromise. As Pharmboy observed, this means spin-out articles still have some standard of notability, but the standard is more flexible. WeisheitSuchen (talk) 03:39, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  51. Support – I've had issues defending places and ONEVENT criteria. By citing this clause, it would help contain needless merge issues when notability of a person despite ONEVENT claims (eg Manu Sharma) is clearly established. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:51, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  52. Support It is critically important that Wikipedia policies allow the creation of spin-offs in order to prevent articles from becoming unduly large. It is also inevitable that some spin-offs will be lack stand-alone notability, but are important elements of the whole parent article. In order to foster the orderly splitting of large articles, it must be possible for some split-offs to exist that would not be individually notable. (For example, some of the fictional characters in Doonesbury probably are not notable by themselves, but others are. The quantity of content that ought to be included in articles about the characters is too large for a single article covering all Doonesbury characters. In order to allow/foster the maintenance of articles about particularly important characters, it becomes necessary to have articles about each of the individual characters.) However, the splitting of an article should not be allowed to justify long articles about non-notable topics. Accordingly, it is reasonable to judge the notability and scope of split-off articles on the basis of the question "Would this content be appropriate in a subsection of the parent article, if there were no practical constraints on article length?"--Orlady (talk) 14:30, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  53. Support. Spin-offs are sometimes necessary to maintain a comprehensive treatment of a matter without the page length skyrocketing. Admiral Norton (talk) 15:06, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  54. Strong support from the standpoint that anything that helps retain subjects that are only referenced via New/Alternative Media sources can only help improve the depth of the Wiki. BcRIPster (talk) 21:25, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  55. Support per Orlady's well-reasoned argument.--S Marshall Talk/Cont 01:38, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  56. Support I agree Orlady's argument states it very well (D.c.camero (talk) 06:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC))
  57. Support Support as per Orlady. Ingolfson (talk) 07:44, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  58. Support --Technopat (talk) 11:12, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  59. Support Material in a spin off article should be treated to the same standard as material in a main article. This version avoids the poor wording of A.1, which could imply that spin off articles are treated less strictly than the same material in the main article (see my comment above). Mdwh (talk) 15:32, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  60. Support I believe this is what we do already. At any rate, it's how I have been dealing with subpages. RJC TalkContribs 17:12, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  61. Support We should encourage articles to be small because this suits our online readership, especially those using mobile devices. They are also easier to create and edit. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:01, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  62. Support While not perfect and still liable to abuse, this seems like the best path. It is very important that this policy is not an invitation to original research. While I question a lot of content I find in wikipedia, I think erring on the liberal side regarding notability is probably the right path. philosofool (talk) 23:43, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  63. Support As someone who errs on the side of tagging {{notability}}, it seems to me that content is generally notable if it is (actually or in spirit) the target of a "see main article:" in the notable parent. I would tend to tag for merge instead of deletion if the subpage's content were relevant but not quite notable enough for its own main article. chrylis (talk) 05:41, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  64. Support - Policy rightly states that notability need not be established for every detail of a particular topic to be included in Wikipedia. Good article design dictates that long articles should be broken up into sub-articles as appropriate. Information should not suddenly go from being proper encyclopedic material to verbotten knowledge simply because of geography. If a topic is established to be notable then it is notable... regardless of how the information about it is organized. The 'notability' guidelines have been mis-used to limit 'depth of coverage' on clearly notable topics. This removal of information we know (and can now demonstrate through page traffic statistics) people want access to is the very opposite of what the 'notability' guidelines are supposed to be about. --CBD 10:49, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  65. Support - Sounds reasonable without being too permissive or too restrictive. --Willscrlt (Talk) 16:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  66. Strong Support Agreed, sounds very reasonable and gives us a decent guideline. However, this will be open to interpretation which can be abused, but I can live with that. Timmccloud (talk) 19:57, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  67. Support - Reasonable, big-picture approach. Bearian (talk) 20:38, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  68. Support - It does risk a glut of niche pages that have no use, but still, I think this is the best approach. It's simple and doesn't make the process any more obtuse, but it's still constructive. -D (talk) 23:00, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  69. Support - sort of I think - the wording is a bit confusing If the content is notable and encyclopedic enough then it makes no difference whether it is in the main article, a section, or a sub article. But what is a sub article anyway? It is just a main article about a narrower topic? Peet Ern (talk) 07:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
  70. Support. This is reasonable. As long as everything is encyclopedic and sourced, it doesn't really matter whether it's a standalone article or just a section. GregorB (talk) 09:54, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
  71. Support I don't see how this is different from 1.1  Grue  17:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
  72. Strong support as per Orlady --Lova Falk (talk) 18:29, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
  73. Support. If the content meets the quality standards mentioned in the proposal then the parent article's assertion of notability should be taken into consideration. It's worth mentioning again that if the article only has bulk due to OR and is unverifiable then it doesn't get a free pass as a spin-off. Bill (talk|contribs) 22:39, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
  74. Strong support per my statement in the previous section. AfD hero (talk) 21:24, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
  75. Strong support. But we would need to get much more serious about deleting unverifiable information and articles. Shinobu (talk) 12:51, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose A.1.2
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  1. Oppose: Still appears intended to permit entire articles to exist that are sourced only by primary sources, so long as there are third-party sources for the parent. Every article, even those designated a sub-article, has to stand on its own feet in terms of notability, and rely on independent, third-party sources. I'm willing to tolerate some limited lists, but this opens the door for becoming a TV Guide on steroids combined with a video game and anime trivia guide.Kww (talk) 22:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
    Would your opposition stand if a system for managing sub-pages (I prefer the term to sub-articles, since the whole point is that the sub-article is not an article) were developed such that they could be efficiently managed from both a technical and editorial standpoint? If so, what would you consider to be essential aspects of that system? (And I am not looking for the answer "each sub-article should prove notability," which is just denying the basic premise of reconceptualizing what we consider an article to be. I'm looking for "What do you consider necessary to prevent an article from becoming a trivia guide? Put another way, what prevents any given article on any given topic from becoming a trivia guide internally without creating spin-off articles? Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
    The reliance on secondary sources is the primary tool for prevent this kind of unwelcome expansion. If third-party sources have considered an element to be notable, then it usually isn't a problem to include, so long as those third-party sources aren't trivia guides themselves. That's one of the reasons why I favor interpreting "relies on third-party sources" as meaning that I should be able to find most of the information in an article in third-party sources, with primary sources used only to provide such information as necessary to make it the information derived from third-party sources comprehensible. We went down this path with Gunsmoke before: if we wound up in the end with 2 pages of critique of Gunsmoke as a series and 500 sub-articles, one per episode, with a plot summary and cast list and a picture, that resulting 502 page article doesn't rely on third-party sources: it overwhelms the third-party material with first-party. I actually wouldn't oppose your sub-article system so strongly if I didn't know that that 502-page article was your goal.
    I also consider it important to not view sources designed to be exhaustive as conveying notability. That's why I oppose using atlases, censuses, and Complete Guide to Ballpeen Hammer 70000 type books as demonstrating notability. Once the work has being exhaustive as its guide, it becomes useless for judging the relative importance of things.
    In short, if an article is structured around presenting information found in multiple, independent sources, while preserving the relative prominence of that information as found in those sources, trivia problems become, well, trivial. If an article is structured around multiple editors' view of the original source material with no overarching guidance as to importance, trivia problems become insurmountable.Kww (talk) 00:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    That's not what I'm asking, though - I'm asking what tools and methods you would see as necessary to simultaneously satisfy WP:NOT#PLOT's demand that we offer a concise plot summary as part of our larger coverage (remembering that concise means brief but comprehensive) while also maintaining appropriate article balance. Put another way, our coverage of fictional works demands concise plot summaries - what tools do you see as necessary to keep those plot summaries in balance with the rest of the coverage? Pretend that we never split articles - that there were no size limits, and a 5 MB article on a work of fiction was considered perfectly acceptable in theory. How would you want to control the balance of that article? What would you see as necessary to do it? Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:48, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    I would enforce the concept that the total size of plot summaries must be well under half of the aggregate size of the article, with some wiggle room around simple word count as a measure. If that means emphasising the "brief" aspect of concise while sacrificing the "complete" aspect of concise, that doesn't bother me. I honestly don't believe that 99% of individual episodes warrant mention in an encylopedia, much less a plot summary, and I think that looking for information in truly independent sources bears that out. Look how much of the articles we have on episodes today are derived from commentary tracks on DVDs, and those don't count as independent third-party sources at all. Aside from fan-sites, no independent source finds detailed plot summaries to be a necessity. Series tend to be notable, episodes not so much, and there is generally no reason to provide a plot summary of individual episodes to discuss a series.Kww (talk) 01:03, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    I point out that articles can reach good article status with 42% of the article being plot/character info, suggesting that an enforced "well under half" rule is probably too high a bar for the basic question of inclusion (where we ought to set the bar well, well below "good article status"). Which is fine - you're perfectly entitled to the view that we have the bar too low for good articles, and that an article with 42% of the article plot/character info shouldn't have GA status, but the point remains - I think this view is far outside of current practice, and unsupported by current policy. I hope you'll consider working your view up into a full policy proposal so that it can gain consensus or not. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:06, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    You conveniently neglect that the sub-article version of Gunsmoke would have been 500/502 plot, or roughly 99.6% plot. If you think a 50% guideline is stricter than current consensus, it's still a hell of a lot closer than 99.6%.Kww (talk) 01:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    I did not neglect it - I have not looked at the Gunsmoke articles in any state, and have no opinions whatsoever on their quality now or previously. I agree that 99.6% is clearly an unacceptable number. But without seeing the articles and being more familiar with the available sources for improving them I could not comment on what the best course of action with an article in that state would be. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    Don't get too wrapped up in Gunsmoke, it's just an example. Since your plan is to have an article page for every episode of every series ever produced, with the episodes hiding from deletion under the notability of the parent series, the problem is inevitable. Once a series hits 20 episodes or so, the resulting aggregate article is going to be dominated by those plot summaries. Once a series has been running for five or six years, the series article is reduced to a coatrack for the plot summaries. If you want leeway to view aggregate articles as one article for notability purposes, you have to view the article that way under the other polices as well. Taking your example of Buffy, there are 144 episodes. What are you going to write about the series that is going to be substantially larger than 144 plot summaries? And why? Sure, I laughed when Oz was fascinated by the eyes of the cheerleading award in Season 3, because I remembered that Amy's mother's soul got trapped in the statue back in the first episode. Is documenting this kind of connection between episodes really the goal of an encyclopedia? Or is it the responsibility of a Buffy trivia guide?Kww (talk) 13:58, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    That's not my plan, actually. My plan is to have concise coverage of the plot of any fictional work that we consider notable, and to solve the problem of splitting it into the 60k chunks we call "articles" once we see what that coverage consists of. Episodes are a pretty good way of doing that for some shows, but not for all shows. Is Buffy likely to hit the 50% line? It'll be tough. Easier for Buffy than for some shows, because of the depth of academic response, but still tough. But, as I've shown looking at good and featured articles, I don't think your 50% line is well-supported by policy. And I think it runs against the general spirit of the project. For the vast majority of fiction, you're absolutely right - plot summary shouldn't be 50% of the article. But for extremely long serialized works you run into a problem where a work with equal cultural impact to a major motion picture has a wildly, wildly more complex plot. I'm uncomfortable with the attitude that a hard numeric rule should hold supremacy over a small subset of our 2.5 million articles has a big chunk of information necessary to encyclopedic understanding of the topic but best understood via primary sources. Situations like that seem to me to be why we have IAR - because a hard and fast rule - especially one interpreted as a simple pass/fail number - is unlikely to apply correctly to 2.5 million articles. I think that the peculiarity of extended serialization is a clear special case where we either have to accept that the general rule doesn't apply well here, or we have to decide that this category of topics gets less comprehensive coverage than topics of comparable notability. For me, the choice to discard the general rules is transparent. But I don't want to discard them in such a way as to allow an endless flood of fancruft. The point isn't that our content rules don't apply to fictional articles - it's that extended serial fiction poses one very specific problem in providing comprehensive coverage, where one aspect - plot - often takes much more space to explain than it does in other articles. Which is why I want a solution that starts from the question "what would comprehensive coverage of this topic consist of," then develops that coverage, then solves the problem of article splitting last, not first. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:58, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    (undent) Kww, I think a good way to view the argument is this: let's say we have an article (aggregate or otherwise) on a notable series, Fooey. Fooey became very popular while still in it's first season, but only had 8 episodes. The 3rd party commentary on this great fictional work easily outpaced the two-paragraphs or so given to each episode, satisfying a 51/49 majority. The summaries are well-written, don't contain speculation/excessive detail/OR. The second season of Fooey is just as popular, however because the show's been out now for a couple years, less press exists, however more is likely to come should this prove long-running (case in point, Buffy). This goes on for 5 years - oops we've run over the 51/49 majority line. What your argument seems to be is that in order to preserve this split, we should cut out information that before, was alright to have. I think Phil and others believe that since this info was good in the first place we shouldn't remove it - making the article patently less informative - in order to satisfy an arbitrary limit. -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 13:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
  2. Weak oppose. Basically, this is moving in the right direction. However, I do not think that setting up a general principle like this one for spin-articles is a good idea. As a default position, I would say that a spin-out article needs to be able to stand on its own as if the parent article did not exist. In most cases this means that significant non-primary source coverage needs to be available. One should be able to perform a mental experiment of sorts: would it be possible to establish notability of the subject of a spin-article (sources, depth of coverage, etc, whatever is required by the applicable SNGs) if the parent article was not there? This does not necessarily mean that there always needs to be sufficient coverage of the spin-article subject that is independent from the parent subject (although in many cases I would want to see that). Things of this nature need to be worked out by specific SNGs that can properly take into account significant differences between various topics and, as necessary, set up specific exceptions and exemptions. I do think there may need to be exceptions to the "default position" stated above and that they need to be defined by relevant SNGs. I personally have little interest in fiction-related articles and am quite indifferent on the topic of episodes and characters that seems to be so controversial here. I do accept that it would be fine for a relevant SNG (presumably WP:FICT) to simply define some exceptions and declare that certain (well defined) elements of fiction are deemed notable once some specific WP:V requirements are met. I do not object to that sort of thing being done on a case-by-case basis in individual SNGs (in fact it is necessary to do this with some non-spin-out topics as well). But setting up a general principle like A.1.2 applicable to all topics everywhere is too inclusive for my taste and would, in my opinion, be a mistake. Nsk92 (talk) 14:14, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    genereally speaking, can you give a non-fiction example of why this could be disatrous? -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 13:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
  3. Oppose. If something can "realistically be expected to appear in the parent topic's article", then it can certainly be expected to be attributable to reliable, secondary sources, thus proving notability on its own. If we amass material from, say, primary sources, so that it does no longer fit into the (technical) limits of a Wikipedia article, the way to go should be shortening and summarization, not splitting. --B. Wolterding (talk) 19:28, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    Given that the target maximum size for an article is 60k, this puts a very, very sharp limit on the scope of plot summaries that effectively means we abandon plot summaries for long, serialized works. More broadly, I don't see the logic for making a technical limit (60k) become an editorial limit (depth of coverage). Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:32, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    B. Wolterding, other existing guidelines appear to disagree with you, specifically, WP:SS, but also the spirit of WP:NOTPAPER. -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 13:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
    I'd also like to point out that Notability doesn't apply to content. -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 19:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
  4. Oppose A retread of the "Every spin-out is notable". I doubt this "Does it belong in the parent article?" approach will work in practice. I have found in AfD that some people want every last detail in Wikipedia. Taking a "Wiki is not paper, so I can write as much as I want" approach to fiction also introduces copyright problems. There is a market for Star Trek episode summaries, Star Wars vehicle statistics, and other such fancruft. Without independent sources, it becomes harder to claim fair use. --Phirazo (talk) 19:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    This proposal does not seem to me to be supporting copyvio. And yes, the market exists for Star Trek, Star Wars, Buffy... but what about non-genre shows? I mean, clearly we need controls on a scheme like this, but I really don't see why conrtols would be so hard to develop here, but so easy for AfD, which is clearly having tremendous trouble handling fiction deletion as well. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:06, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    I'm not sure what you mean by "genre", but if you mean sci-fi, there is enough of a market for Seinfeld trivia for the producers of Seinfeld to sue the publishers of a Seinfeld trivia book. Merely parroting the plot of any fictional work, regardless of the genre, is a copyright violation. There needs to be critical analysis. This can come from two places: secondary sources, or the editors' own opinions. The latter is original research. --Phirazo (talk) 03:38, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
    Castle Rock vs. Carol is a poor example - we are not for profit, have educational, not entertainment purpose, do contextualize the information with real-world information. We do include production, transmission, and casting information. We draw from DVD commentaries, reviews, interviews, and whatever else we can have. We are, simply put, not parroting the plot, but providing plot as contextual background for the discussion of a fictional work. So long as we work generally instead of providing excessive and trivial detail, and provide overall context I see no reason why we'd fall afoul of it. The basis for comparison is marginal at best. A concise summary (as mandated by WP:NOT#PLOT, and as opposed to a focus on trivial detail) contextualized as part of overall coverage of the cultural phenomenon (as opposed to focusing wholly on the fictional world as the SAT did) and in the realm of criticism and academic commentary (which we are, and which Castle Rock vs. Carol specifically noted as areas where the fair use would not weigh towards the copyright holder) is, by all appearances, fine. We ought not let copyright paranoia based on no serious legal insights by an actual lawyer get in the way of our basic mission of providing encyclopedic coverage of information. The fact of the matter is, a concise but thorough plot summary is part of that for works of fiction. We need to be careful about copyright concerns, but there's a mile between careful and paranoid. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
    Just to add a point here: about 4 months ago a statement from WP's lawyer, Mike Godwin, basically stated that there's no reason to bring up any fears of copyright due to too much plot, thus copyright concerns should not be a factor; that's not to say to concern how plot summaries, which are derivative works and thus are non-free material, interact with WP's "free content" mission, and why we should strive to keep plot information to what is necessary in conjunction with appropriate commentary and additional information to justify its use. --MASEM 04:12, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
    thanks Masem... this approach is meant to reinforce the difference between relevant details, and indiscriminate information. When I see an article that lists every move Pikachu (sick of Star Wars refs) can learn, you might say it's bad because it's "cruft", or "too much plot". But I see indiscriminate information. People can still be shot down at AFD for excessive detail, which is a much better argument than using inflammatory words like "fancruft". As for your fair-use worries, that gets reduced to us simply having any encyclopedic coverage on a notable fictional topic being at-risk - because there's a market for it. And besides, we shouldn't do/not do things because of such-and-such law, that's why Wikipedia has lawyers. -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 13:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
    I'm not saying that anything's at risk (legally) due to non-free concerns, just in the same vein as we consider non-free images as being appropriate per NFCC - and while contested non-free images stay around while they are discussed and no one is suing WP for having them - we should make sure non-free plot summaries are similarly considered (the NFCC could easily be matched one-for-one in how we consider plot summaries). Part of this is done by WP:NOT#PLOT; a bare plot summary with nothing else to support is an unjustified non-free media and should be deleted or, better yet, shortened and amended with real-world context as to justify the need to include non-free media and to better achieve the free content portion of the mission. But, definitely, until we get a warning from Mike Godwin or the Foundation, we are free to develop the guidelines without concern of any possible legal recourse at this time. We just need to be fully aware of WP's mission and make sure we stay true to it. --MASEM 14:05, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
    I'm aware of your point :) I was trying to respond to 2 parties at once. -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 19:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
  5. Oppose I agree with Phirazo that this proposal is a virtual rehash of "Every spin-out is notable", which I fundamentally oppose on the grounds that notability cannot be inherited/presumed/acknowledged in the absence of reliable secondary sources. Every article and spin-out must be able to stand on its own feet when it comes to GNG, otherwise we are giving sub-articles special treatment, despite the fact there is little or no difference between them and ordinary articles. There is a subtle difference with this proposal and A.1, namely that a spin-outs would be allowed if "the same content could realistically be expected to appear in the parent topic's article", but it seems to me that only so called "expert opinion" can make this judgement call, as there are currently no agreed rules or mechanism to identify when or where notability could be inherited/presumed/acknowledged in this way. It seems to me that if every article and sub-article cites reliable secondary sources about their subject matter, then every editor can make merger or deletion decisions without "expert" assistance when it comes to dealing with duplicate articles or content forks, examples of which are The Terminator, Terminator (character), Terminator (character concept) and Terminator (franchise). --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:30, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
    I am struggling to figure out how, if expert opinion would be needed to figure out if content could be expected to appear in the parent article, we are capable of writing articles at all. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:32, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
    You've mentioned this split very often, for all intents and purposes, the character concept and franchise pages are "Lists" without using the word exactly. The former listing the robot characters, the latter listing fictional works, if renaming them as lists would make them better, than go ahead. And same goes with other "content forks." That information can likely be merged or (like in this example) be taken care of with other non-GNG guidelines. -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 13:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
  6. Oppose - same again - effective notability guidelines are necessary to prevent cruft. PhilKnight (talk) 11:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
  7. Oppose - this is still just 'all articles are exempt from WP:N' in disguise. Percy Snoodle (talk) 08:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
    I actually find that assertion rather superficial. This proposal reinforces verifiable, relevant, encyclopedic information where the other one did not. This effectively prevents several types of garbage articles from being created. -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 19:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
  8. Oppose with a "but". As others have noted, this is going more into the right direction than proposal A.1.1., but it unfortunately leaves the definition of relevance and encyclopedicness to fanboy opinion again. E.g. I confirm User:Protonk's observations about the discrepancies of Doctor Who versus Warhammer 40k articles when AfDs and mergers come up for crappy spinouts. If a spinout article cannot prove its relevance and encyclopedicness outside a main article directly through significant third-party sources, or non-trivial and reliable real-world info in the case of fiction (I am talking at least strong C-class quality here), there simply is no reason to have a spinout article (I am excluding lists in this argument). If WP:NOT#PLOT was as well-respected as WP:GAMEGUIDE to determine unencyclopedicness at the core, I'd show more willingness to adopt a proposal along this line here. – sgeureka t•c 15:18, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
    the core diff between GAMEGUIDE and PLOT is that one is explicitly forbidden, while the other is explictly allowed. We are then left to our own devices to figure out what the "right amount" is. But then you don't feel that we can still keep articles under control with WP:V, WP:IINFO and other content guidelines/policies? -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 19:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
  9. Oppose. This blanket policy is too wide to be applicable in all cases. NVO (talk) 12:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
    as in... -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 19:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
  10. Oppose: My reasons are virtually the same as opposing 1.1: this would open the floodgates to a lot of non-notable and verifiable sections. Treating sections as articles and articles as sections solves nothing, and perhaps makes the problem worse. Yes it's easier to delete a poorly written section than it is to delete a poorly written article. But then it's also easier to bring it back. I think this would create a lot more edit warring, as opposed to the finality that comes from an AFD for an entire article. Keeping all articles to a specific WP:SIZE has a way of enforcing WP:UNDUE and WP:NNC that we don't over-cover certain topics. If someone writes a section with lots of appropriate sources, of course it's notable, and of course it belongs in Wikipedia with its own large article. But if someone writes a gigantic section with zero appropriate sources, why should we offer it some vague umbrella of protection because it's related to some other topic? Once again, WP:AVOIDSPLIT combined with WP:SIZE is highly important to keep an appropriate quantity and quality of coverage for Wikipedia. I'd be open to making specific exceptions for specific kinds of articles, but this is a mess. It's a technical change that doesn't fix "notability is inherited", and arguably may even make it worse. Randomran (talk) 20:59, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
  11. Oppose this proposal is a sugar-coated version of 1.1. Erik the Red 2 ~~~~ 02:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  12. Oppose because this blanket statement could lead to possible Weight problems, especially with BLPs. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  13. Oppose per my opposal to the first case. Themfromspace (talk) 02:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  14. Oppose. The wording here is unclear but nonetheless, either it is asking for allowing sub-articles to not meet WP:V,WP:NPOV, and WP:NOR, which is a no-go, or it is needless instruction creep. DoubleBlue (Talk) 03:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  15. Oppose. I was almost behind this one until I read the part of the rationale that says "Sometimes this can create sub-articles that are on topics not inherently notable (receiving significant coverage in a third party source)." Sorry, no. "Sub-articles" are articles too, and are subject to exactly the same proof-of-notability requirements as every other article. —Angr 06:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  16. Oppose per Angr. sephiroth bcr (converse) 07:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  17. Oppose This is a thin edge of the wedge approach. IMO all articles need to meet the same criteria, regardless. Nick Thorne talk 08:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  18. Oppose This has the same problems as the previous suggestion. --Blowdart | talk 10:14, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  19. Oppose. Jepp, nicer wording, but really no different from 1.1.Yobmod (talk) 10:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  20. Oppose - Similar to 1.1, it encourages unsourced spin-offs to appear. --:Raphaelmak: [talk] [contribs] 11:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  21. Per Gavin.collins. Stifle (talk) 12:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  22. Oppose I actually agree with this in theory, but I feel that if made a policy or guideline it would open the door to tons of misinterpretation and wikilawyering. At best, this is a common-sense (but unneccessay) restatement of existing policy/practice. At worst, it's a disruptive wikilawyer's wet dream. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  23. Much the same as 1.1 really. Sandifer's commentary simply makes me more convinced that this would result in yet more amateur[ish] exegesis. Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  24. Strong Opppose - THis is virtually the same thing as the first proposal, which is also fundamentally flawed. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 15:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  25. Oppose. Same reasons as for the first proposal: Part of the decision process to break out a section of a parent article into a stand alone article should be the notability of the topic. If the topic does not meet notability requirements but is too large for the parent article, that might be an indication that the section itself needs trimming. SilkTork *YES! 15:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  26. Oppose, almost identical to previous proposal. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  27. Oppose If there is enough information on a subject in sources outside of Wikipedia to allow a subsection of an article to become large enough to merit its own article, then notability is already established. If the sources don't exist, then the subsection is simply filled with speculation and personal analysis, and should not be that long in the first place. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  28. Oppose Seems the same as the first proposal. Per above. --Banime (talk) 16:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  29. Oppose per Banime, Angr, Kww. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 17:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  30. Oppose, although I don't agree it's identical to A.1. Concur with KWW and Jayron32, among others. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  31. Oppose. This sounds reasonable, but it still leaves too many doors open for the pop cruft pushers. If we were only dealing with reasonable encyclopedists, it would be different. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  32. Oppose per many of the above. Just because a topic is notable does not mean any section on its own would be notable. --Explodicle (T/C) 18:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  33. Oppose same rational as my comment for A1 above.--Salix (talk): 19:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  34. Oppose same reason as my comment for A1 above. Every article would have to be independently notable.-- Alexf42 21:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  35. Oppose, still not a well-formed proposal. Basically this needs to become a version of "not indisciminate" that really gets to the point. It is not true that if one example is good, 20 examples would be justified; nor that if one quote from a historian is good, a quote farm article would be good. And so on. We would still need the ideas "this is for Wikibooks, this is for Wikiquote or Wikisource, this is for Wikia". In fact encyclopedias have always been selective, and we should also note that following academic sources in formulating topics is a strength of our current approach, rather than a weakness. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  36. Strong Oppose. A spin-off article is an article. Having two sets of standards for the same thing (article) is a recipe for disaster. --Regents Park (sniff out my socks) 21:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  37. Oppose. I agree that the wording "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" sounds too strong, making apparently impossible that a sub-topic is inherently notable. But on reading the expanded definitions of words at WP:N, I understand that the spirit of that rule is not that strict, and it is reasonable to require that from any nontrivial article, spin-out or not. Maybe the wording should be made less drastic, but I don't think there should be any difference between main and spin-out articles (except in the case of trivial lists; see my support vote for A.4). -- A r m y 1 9 8 7 ! ! !  23:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  38. Strong Oppose For the same reason as for my opposition to proposal A1. "when the same content could realistically be expected to appear in the parent topic's article" presents a hypothetical that would invite abuse. No, drop proposal A1.2. -- 69.183.102.174 (talk) 00:49, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  39. Oppose too openly worded, notability isnt/shouldnt be inherited. Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopedia not a tabloid newspaper. We dont need articles on every one of Britney's boy friends nor do we need to chase a pregenant actress down the street to get a photo for an article on her pregenancy. This is about Wikipedias credability and reducing the verifiability of information isnt going to do that. Gnangarra 01:10, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  40. Oppose I'm with Randomran. Iterator12n Talk 01:32, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  41. Oppose It's really proposal A.1 in sheep's clothing. --John Nagle (talk) 06:55, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  42. Oppose This is an attempt to game the system using WP:SS as a loophole to avoid WP:N, rather than attempting to use the two in conjunction. Jay32183 (talk) 09:00, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  43. Oppose If the section is large enough to be spun out into its own article, then it should already be well-sourced enough to meet notability requirements on its own. If it isn't, then it should be pruned down to a more manageable size, not spun out.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 12:10, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  44. Oppose - same reason as A.1. ITAQALLAH 14:12, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  45. Oppose. A3 is a better formulation. VG ☎ 15:19, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  46. Nothing to oppose oppose. This statement is essentially vacuous, as notability concerns a topic not an article, and it makes no difference whether the material is covered in a section or an article as to whether the topic is notable or not. The idea that certain types of articles only need to demonstrate their notability as if they were sections in another article makes approximately zero sense, unless it is simply an excuse for not providing a reliable secondary source which refers to the topic. The latter, is, of course, in violation of WP:V. Furthermore, this proposal concerns the extremely ill-defined notion of a "spin-out" and the even more unhelpful term "subarticle". Is History of biology a spinout of biology, history of science, both, or neither? Can it defer its demonstration of notability to either of these articles - certainly not! Geometry guy 15:30, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  47. Oppose - If an article is getting too large or there is a section of an article which is being considered for a spin-out, it should also be considered for deletion, "trimming the fat" as it were. If notability for that section can be asserted, a spin-out is appropriate. If not, the information should be better-summarized and specific, trivial details should be removed. —  X  S  G  18:23, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  48. Oppose – nothing wrong with splitting an article, each spin-off should include third party sources establishing the notability of the subject. . . dave souza, talk 18:32, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  49. Oppose. In practice this would be no different than option A.1. What is the measure of indiscriminateness? ~ Ningauble (talk) 22:33, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  50. Oppose. Worse than the first option. Why would we want a whole class of "sub-articles" that are somehow less important and thus less in need of notablity that "real" articles? Every article needs to be notable on its own. maxsch (talk) 02:16, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  51. Oppose This doesn't seem to be a major change from the current arrangements, but I don't see anything wrong with the principle that each and every topic of an article must be notable in isolation. If something is only notable in relation to something else, then writing so much about it that it is too long for the main article probably violates WP:UNDUE and shouldn't be encouraged. Nick Dowling (talk) 08:43, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  52. Oppose If the subjects of such spin-offs don't have enough RS to be notable in their own right, it's unlikely that they should have been in the parent article in the first place. This kind of spin-off also invites padding-out. -- Philcha (talk) 10:19, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  53. Oppose, better than A.1.1, but still problematic, in that it would be quite easy to manipulate and abuse to make sure that articles are kept on the flimsiest of notability pretexts. Lankiveil (speak to me) 10:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC).
  54. Oppose. Unfortunately this still opens the door to cruftsmanship. Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:21, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  55. Oppose I agree with the sentiments above": this leaves too much room for unencyclopedic cruft. Eusebeus (talk) 13:46, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  56. Oppose - Some editors use this as a subterfuge to bypass WP:UNDUE. Thanks, but no thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:12, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  57. Oppose The article may have got it's evidence from other articles but may be something completely different Woodnot talk
  58. Oppose: Basically a weasely way around the "inherited notability" issue. I could only see this even being a consideration in an article longer than 100K, in which case there should certainly be sections with enough third-party sources to be able to be split into independent articles. A truly comprehensive article will have third-party sources for most of its sections, and therefore this would ideally be a non-issue. If it can't stand alone, it shouldn't be made to stand alone. The reader is not well-served by this approach, as these subjects would be presented independently of the "parent" topic which provides the necessary context. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:24, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  59. Oppose - This assumes inherent (or inherited) notability, and unfortunately editing patterns are such where once an article has been spun out, it needs to be dealt with separately as something that stands on its own. If that cannot happen, the article should not be spun out. MSJapan (talk) 02:29, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  60. Oppose. No practical difference between this and proposal A1, which, as was pointed out earlier, is insane. HiDrNick! 12:17, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  61. Oppose.The intent seems to be to allow something not currently viewed as notable. If indeed the spin-off met all the conditions listed, it would be notable under the current rules, but then the argument will be about conditions. No thanks to this end run. Smallbones (talk) 14:02, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  62. Oppose. Each article should stand by itself. Don't force the reader to jump back to a Main Article to determine the Notability of the sub-article. Yours in Wiki-dom, GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:55, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  63. Oppose. This still leaves the difficulty with trivia and truly made up things. If a sub article is to trivial to have sources, it is unhelpful. True <> encyclopedic.Obina (talk) 20:43, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  64. Oppose. Same objection as to the first proposal really. If the sub-article "could reasonably be expected to be included in the main article" then surely the main article's refs support the sub. The sub can have these copied into it (trivial effort required). If the refs do not support what is going in the sub, then it would not have been legitimate to put the material in the main article either. Signing retrospectively SpinningSpark 22:27, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
  65. Oppose Each and every article should stand on its own, which means all supporting refs that are found in other "parent" articles, etc need to be duplicated. The possibility of editing of the "parent article" which would remove the refs that made the sub-article sourced just makes this point more persuasive.  DDStretch  (talk) 22:54, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  66. Oppose. - We don't need to open the floodgates just yet. Spin off's that really need a page are already covered in the current notability guidelines, and being a guideline it allows for exceptions when there is something that deserves an article that doesn't meet the guidelines. Matty (talk) 00:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
  67. Oppose Seems the same as the first one, all articles need to meet the same criteria. BigDuncTalk 09:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
  68. Oppose. Agree with the comment above mine, that there's no meaningful distinction between this option and the previous one. I am strongly in favour of the "Wikipedia is not Paper" policy, and I am firmly of the view that we should give coverage in as-much-depth-as-Wikipedians-are-prepared-to-offer on encyclopedic topics. However, a topic ceases to be appropriate for inclusion at the level of detail where reliable secondary sources cease to exist, and that's where the GNG breaks off, also. AndyJones (talk) 12:26, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
  69. Oppose - Wikipedia is not paper does not mean anything other than we don't have a size limit. If the content being split off is real world information, then sure that's fine. Unfortunately, that usually is not the case with fiction related articles, where editors seem to think that when they have 20kb of plot prose about a character then that character must need to have its own article. This is not true, nor should it be made so.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:09, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Neutral A.1.2
[edit]
  1. Moved from Oppose This is moving in the right direction, but it leaves us with WAY too much fighting in the trenches. the problem we face with sub-article notability is almost exclusively in the fiction world and it is dealt with in the breech, over and over again, at AfD. Right now we have an easy to interpret general guideline which is obviously a square peg for the round hole of fiction articles. I don't want to replace it with an inchoate instruction which leaves us to argue over "reasonable" and WP:SIZE. We will end up doing the same thing then as we do now. Some fictional topics (Star Wars/Star Trek/Dr. Who) will be vigorously defended and kept regardless of the guidelines. Some fictional topics (Warhammer 40K, video games, anime stuff) will be defended by a small clique of individuals and deleted steadily in accordance with guidelines. Honestly, nominate a Dr. Who article and look at the shitstorm that you reap. Then nominate a 40K article of the same disposition (unsourced for 2 years) and wait for the crickets. Granted, sourcing is possible for most Dr. Who stuff, but you get the point. We need a guideline that offloads that discussion from AfD. AfD needs to be a narrow discussion on the particular merits of an article with regard to the guidelines and policies for inclusion accepted by the community. It should not be a proxy debate for Notability each time. I oppose any policy to change the notability requirements in such a way that the burden of debate is shifted further on to the editors and admins at AfD. Protonk (talk) 01:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    To be fair, I agree with you. As I said in my support, unless we come up with a viable system to handle the expansion of articles from a technical and editorial standpoint, this proposal would be a disaster. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:45, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    I guess I should rightly move this to neutral, as my opposition is based more on an application sense than a philosophical sense. Protonk (talk) 01:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    What would you think of having sub-articles not be AfDable, but rather demand consensus to merge on the talk page of the article? (Which is something we need to work out - what to do with talk pages of sub-articles) And, to balance that, having a Proposals for Branching page where many (if not all) proposals to branch articles would be discussed before being implemented, possibly coupled with a whitelist of branches that are generally acceptable? Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:08, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    Take a quick look at this Deletion policy proposal. I think that would dovetail nicely with a branching discussion. The proposal went stale after a while but I think the basic idea was sound. I'll take a look at the branching idea in a bit. Protonk (talk) 02:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    I like that. I think that better instilling an ethic of "deletion is an extreme measure" and "making content easy to access for future use is a good thing" is an important goal. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    I've been thinking about it in the opposite direction, an Articles for Merge/Redirect page to get fictional subjects out of the notoriously hostile environment that is AfD, by taking the option for D out (because hiding the history is really a formality and some 90% of these articles have really obvious redirect target). Nifboy (talk) 02:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    Well that policy (in the end that it eventually resolved to) sort of did that, without creating a new board. Subarticle goes to AfD. The AfD goes the 5 days with the option of merging or moving to a merger discussion. The AfD is closed with a timed, community enforced merger discussion. IF that discussion fails to reach consensus, the article gets deleted. If it does, it is merged. Kinda takes time but most fiction articles that go to AfD aren't really the kinds of articles where an extra 10 days of discussion damages WP. Protonk (talk) 02:52, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
    An interesting and compelling rebuttal. And I would love it if half of my AfD discussions weren't tiny notability battles, but I don't think a one-size-fits-all rule system is possible. Even a little. As with obscenity, there is always going to be a degree to which notability is in the eye of the beholder. The GNG are, I think, mostly right on, but they break down in the face of a very large class of articles. For fictional subjects they often fail to adequately separate the wheat from the chaff, plain and simple. The problem is that works of art (which is what we are talking about here) are going to be elusive in nature and subject to wide interpretation. And when dealing with them, codified rule systems aren't going to give you great internal consistency (see also MPAA ratings). It's like trying to formulate a rule to guarantee common sense. Ford MF (talk) 15:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  2. Neutral I like where this is going. There needs to be something to better define a sub-article. But this is far to open interpretation and will lead to more even problems unless something more specific is came up with. Charles Edward 12:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  3. Neutral - I would support it if the proposal said that such spin-outs were themselves notable aspects of the parent topic. I'm not sure whether that's implied by or deliberately excluded by the statement. --EEMIV (talk) 21:20, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  4. Neutral - On it's surface, this seems to be a restatement of why we have sub-articles in the first place (when full discussion of some sub-topic would make the parent article overly long, we summarize the the sub-topic in the parent article and create a sub-article to discuss the sub-topic in more detail). However, to fully support the proposal, I think we would have to make it clear that a) the sub-topic does need to be summarized in the main article, and b) the sub-article needs to establish that the sub-topic is notable in and of itself. Blueboar (talk) 14:55, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  5. Neutral. I agree with Blueboar (above). For this to work, it must apply only to articles that are summarized in the parent article, and the article must still be sourced and generally notable. However, I think it some ways this proposal is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Rather than preventing the deletion of relevant subpages (which, if done properly, should be notable enough on their own already), I believe it will only lead to the promotion and increase of non-notable articles, particularly about elements of fiction (television series and movies, in particular). Mr. Absurd (talk) 00:47, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
  6. Neutral I think that if we assume good faith in the creation of the spin-out, nearly all spinouts are probably notable; however, even so, a spinout could be on a non-notable aspect of a notable subject: Fidel Castro - notable; Cars driven by Fidel Castro, Exercise habits of Fidel Castro, Fidel Castro's opinions about North Dakota, and List of television shows watched by Fidel Castro, not notable but perhaps interesting... Carlossuarez46 (talk) 01:37, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
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