[WikiEN-l] Culture glut

Fri Mar 11 12:20:31 UTC 2005

I agree with you completely, and most of these sections should be
deleted.   It is one thing for Wikipedia to be the online Encyclopedia
of Popular Culture with articles on every Pokemon character, TV
episode, forgotten (or never known) song or CD, every obscure corner
of every fictional universe, etc, etc, ad absurdum, ad nauseum.  But
when all this starts bleeding into other articles, it becomes  a major
problem and makes Wikipedia look like it has no sense of proportion at
all.

Your example of [[Nuclear weapons]] is perfect.   If there were a
section on public opinion about nuclear weapons, which would be quire
reasonable to have, and there were some movie, book, or other item of
popular culture  that had a significant impact in influencing this
public opinion, then the book, etc, should be mentioned, of course.  
But just a list under "in popular culture" listing movies and books
that nuclear weapons in them, is ridiculous.    Next thing you know,
there will be a section in the article "Nuclear Weapons In Star Wars",
describing the use of nuclear weapons in Star Wars, and so forth.  
The article is currently missing this important aspect of nuclear
weapons.

Perhaps the "solution" is just to concede that Wikipedia is really
just the online encyclopedia of popular culture, throw in the towel,
and delete the 20% of so of it that is about reality.   You know
off-topic stuff like [[Nuclear weapons]].

Seriously, how does one go about deleting these sections?   Someone is
going to insist that it is "removal of information" and , therefore,
vandalism to remove them.

On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:18:58 -0500, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a strong bias to admit. I can't stand the "In popular culture"
> heading that certain articles have, which  which become a hodgepodge
> list for every time a major historical event or theme is mentioned in
> a TV show, movie, Japanese cartoon, video game, rock song, or science
> fiction novel.
>