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A tidy way of handling "popular culture" references

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Process is evil

Steve Bennett

23 Aug 2006 23 Aug '06

8:02 a.m.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succubus I quite like the tidy "References to succubi in modern times" section. There's just a single sentence on each reference, with the name of the TV show or whatever in bold. I would not be ashamed to see more sections like this. Steve

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Alphax (Wikipedia email)

23 Aug 23 Aug

9:37 a.m.

Steve Bennett wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succubus I quite like the tidy "References to succubi in modern times" section. There's just a single sentence on each reference, with the name of the TV show or whatever in bold. I would not be ashamed to see more sections like this.

It's not tidy, it's ugly and inconsistant. To top it off, there's a notice at the top saying "For usage of the succubus in popular culture, see [[Succubi in fiction]]" - so what the bloody hell is this section even doing in this article? -- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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Bogdan Giusca

10:14 a.m.

AWe> It's not tidy, it's ugly and inconsistant. To top it off, there's a AWe> notice at the top saying "For usage of the succubus in popular culture, AWe> see [[Succubi in fiction]]" - so what the bloody hell is this section AWe> even doing in this article? I've seen worse: The content of this article used to be in [[The Raven]], a large part of it was about pop culture... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raven_in_popular_culture

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Steve Bennett

11:22 a.m.

On 8/23/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote:

It's not tidy, it's ugly and inconsistant. To top it off, there's a notice at the top saying "For usage of the succubus in popular culture, see [[Succubi in fiction]]" - so what the bloody hell is this section even doing in this article?

Heh, I missed that. The perennial problem: there are 50 X. It would be good if the article had about 5 X. But which ones? Some of these lists of references could be interesting, but if they were turned into actual [[List of references to Y in popular culture]] they'd probably get AfD'ed. Steve

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Oldak Quill

11:26 a.m.

On 23/08/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Some of these lists of references could be interesting, but if they were turned into actual [[List of references to Y in popular culture]] they'd probably get AfD'ed.

Different references are interesting to different people. I think making these seperate "List of references to..." would be a great way to handle the problem. It is a lesser of two evils. -- Oldak Quill (oldakquill(a)gmail.com)

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Guy Chapman aka JzG

1:39 p.m.

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 12:26:43 +0100, "Oldak Quill" <oldakquill(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Different references are interesting to different people. I think making these seperate "List of references to..." would be a great way to handle the problem. It is a lesser of two evils.

But likely to be indiscriminate. The first bar of Dies Irae is the sound played when you kill minor character X in browser game Y, and so on. It doesn't exactly advance the sum of human knowledge. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

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David Gerard

1:47 p.m.

On 23/08/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 12:26:43 +0100, "Oldak Quill" <oldakquill(a)gmail.com> wrote:

>Different references are interesting to different people. I think >making these seperate "List of references to..." would be a great way >to handle the problem. It is a lesser of two evils.

But likely to be indiscriminate. The first bar of Dies Irae is the sound played when you kill minor character X in browser game Y, and so on. It doesn't exactly advance the sum of human knowledge.

OTOH it's a very popular line of stuff to add. - d.

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Guy Chapman aka JzG

2:50 p.m.

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 14:47:12 +0100, "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> But likely to be indiscriminate. The first bar of Dies Irae is the > sound played when you kill minor character X in browser game Y, and so > on. It doesn't exactly advance the sum of human knowledge.

OTOH it's a very popular line of stuff to add.

Popular with whom? The people who already knew it? Or people who have never played that browser game and never will? Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

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David Gerard

3:05 p.m.

On 23/08/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 14:47:12 +0100, "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

>> But likely to be indiscriminate. The first bar of Dies Irae is the >> sound played when you kill minor character X in browser game Y, and so >> on. It doesn't exactly advance the sum of human knowledge.

>OTOH it's a very popular line of stuff to add.

Popular with whom? The people who already knew it? Or people who have never played that browser game and never will?

The people who add this stuff to articles way out of proportion to the actual subjects of the articles. Your task now: assume you can't hold back the locust swarm with a policy edict; say something to *convince* them this is not a good idea. - d.

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Guy Chapman aka JzG

3:40 p.m.

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 16:05:44 +0100, "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

The people who add this stuff to articles way out of proportion to the actual subjects of the articles. Your task now: assume you can't hold back the locust swarm with a policy edict; say something to *convince* them this is not a good idea.

Quicker just to rangeblock AOL :-) Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

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Peter Jacobi

6:48 p.m.

"David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

The people who add this stuff to articles way out of proportion to the actual subjects of the articles. Your task now: assume you can't hold back the locust swarm with a policy edict; say something to *convince* them this is not a good idea.

"Buy your own servers!" -- or would that be "OK, we'll buy our own servers"? Anyway, whoever becomes the trunk, I very much assume that this will be one fissure in the forking to come. [[User:Pjacobi]] -- "Feel free" – 10 GB Mailbox, 100 FreeSMS/Monat ... Jetzt GMX TopMail testen: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/topmail

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Gregory Maxwell

6:58 p.m.

On 8/23/06, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

The people who add this stuff to articles way out of proportion to the actual subjects of the articles. Your task now: assume you can't hold back the locust swarm with a policy edict; say something to *convince* them this is not a good idea.

Follow De's lead and retire the text that says 'anyone can edit' in favor of 'Good writers always welcome'? ;)

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Matt Brown

4:23 p.m.

On 8/23/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 14:47:12 +0100, "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

OTOH it's a very popular line of stuff to add.

Popular with whom? The people who already knew it? Or people who have never played that browser game and never will?

Popular with those adding it, I would imagine. -Matt

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Guy Chapman aka JzG

5:21 p.m.

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 09:23:44 -0700, "Matt Brown" <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> Popular with whom? The people who already knew it? Or people who > have never played that browser game and never will?

Popular with those adding it, I would imagine.

So are garage bands. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

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Steve Bennett

7:35 p.m.

On 8/23/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

But likely to be indiscriminate. The first bar of Dies Irae is the sound played when you kill minor character X in browser game Y, and so on. It doesn't exactly advance the sum of human knowledge.

It could be somewhat ordered. Start with whole books, movies or TV series that are named after, or totally based on the thing. Then TV episodes, signifcant parts of movies etc. Then really well known references (eg, when the Simpsons deliberately "spoils" the Empire Strikes Back is a pretty well known moment, even for the Simpsons). Then the "anything goes" section. Delete the "anything goes" section every 6 months. Steve

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14 comments

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participants (9)

Alphax (Wikipedia email)
Bogdan Giusca
David Gerard
Gregory Maxwell
Guy Chapman aka JzG
Matt Brown
Oldak Quill
Peter Jacobi
Steve Bennett