[WikiEN-l] Rethinking Fictional Topics

Fri Nov 17 04:30:20 UTC 2006

There is some good stuff in your fiction essay, but I would rather see
it incorporated (along with the fiction notability guideline) into the
existing WP:WAF; I think support is building for combining WP:FICT and
WP:WAF (and to whatever extent it isn't already covered, WP:NOT) into
a general guide for writing about fiction.

I don't particularly like the way the issue is framed in your essay
(diegetic vs. non-diegetic).  Even aside from the jargon aspect, I
think that talking about this issue in terms of in-universe and
out-of-universe perspective better captures the spirit of what a
Wikipedia article on fiction should be like.  Diegetic information can
be legitimate encyclopedic content on its own in some circumstances;
your framing of the issue implies that plot summaries are generally
inappropriate, except as background or support for specific
non-diegetic information.  Unless we think that (as some have argued)
plot summaries are inherently a copyright violation, I'm opposed to
trying to kick plot summaries out of Wikipedia.  Limiting them, as
WP:WAF advocates, seems like the most sensible approach.

Focusing on diegesis also emphasizes the text or artifact of the
fiction, to the seeming neglect of broader out-of-universe context
(e.g., the contexts of creation and reception, related works, etc.).
At least according to the article "Diegesis" and as described in your
essay, non-diegetic means aspects of the fiction itself that is not
diegetic; i.e., the extradiegetic and metadiegetic levels, the domains
of literary criticism and interpretation.

On the other hand, I love the Captain Kirk paragraph; that might make
a better first section for WP:WAF than the current one.

Yours in discourse,
ragesoss

On 11/16/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2) Coherent policy
>
> Our policy on fictional topics is currently spread across an MOS
> page, a notability guideline, and [[WP:NOT]]. This meant that policy
> on fictional topics often had to be explained anew every time.
> Furthermore, the explanations at several points were less than
> satisfying, and did a poor job of showing why these policies are good
> ideas, making them seem arbitrary and ripe for ignoring.
>
> To this end, I've, with the help of several people, worked on this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phil_Sandifer/Fiction_essay
>
> It's a fairly compact proposed guideline that offers a good
> explanation of how to deal with fictional topics. Virtually
> everything in it comes from other guidelines, though the explanations
> are often redone. I'd like to move it into the Wikipedia namespace
> soon and get consensus as a guideline, so any comments before I do
> that would be appreciated. Expect it to exist as
> [[Wikipedia:Fictional topics]] soon - I'll post again here when it does.
>