Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Librarians in popular culture (3rd nomination)

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 no consensus. W.marsh 01:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Librarians in popular culture[edit]

Wikipedia is not a collection of indiscriminate information Will ^(talk) 22:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This article just needs a little clean-up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.187.225.10 (talk) 14:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete If info such as "Debbie gets friendly with a librarian in Debbie Does Dallas (1978)" isn't indiscriminate, loosely associated OR, I don't know what is. Totally unencylopedic. Spellcast 01:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Although a good article on the portrayal of librarians could be written, this one isn't it. It's heavy on original research, and like the stereotypical IPC article, it's a list of occasions where someone saw a librarian on television or on a movie screen. Shhhh!!!! Mandsford 01:57, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~. It looks like a list rather than a discussion of Librarians in popular culture. I hope they could make a Librarians IPC article like this one. This one was Afd'd as well but survived with flying colors.--Lenticel ^(talk) 10:18, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as another in an unfortunately seemingly never-ending bunch of "articles" that are nothing but "spot the reference and run to the computer" trivia lists. WP:NOT#IINFO, WP:NOT#DIR, WP:TRIVIA. Otto4711 13:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, as the article already passed two AfDs, is well-organized, and contains both references and external links that demonstrate verfiability and the existence of reliable secondary sources about the topic. Improve yes, but no real need to delete. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 18:05, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete the number of afds does not matter. What does matter is the fact that over 85% of this article fails WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:NOT. ALKIVAR™ ☢ 18:27, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Solidly notable, just needs improvement. it is not trivial, as claimed. every time you nominate it,it just gets better. feel free to go dig up the reliable sources on these too, that is just needs improvement. --Buridan 20:10, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Needs sourcing but is a totally decent article. Has plenty of secondary sources and is not just a list or a collection of trivia. Jessamyn (talk) 21:42, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The unfortunate traditional image of librarians in pc. is notable, and worth discussing, and there are more than enough sources for a general discussion to be added. The individual items are most of them notable, though there should be some sorting out of the ones that are about libraries rather than librarians. We discussed this sufficiently in april, when it was a keep--a keep at a time when most articles of this sort that were challenged were not kept, as compared to now. Some of the comments above seem to imply that no articles of this sort can ever be encyclopedic; this is a fringe view, and there is no policy to support that. Other arguments say that a specific item is not appropriate. That's for editing. To delete lists because individual items are erroneous is a essentially to delete all lists--which, once more, is opposed to WP policy. One of the !delete comments is that a better article could be made, to which the WP policy response is sodoit. DGG (talk) 23:25, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok I'll change my vote to Weak Keep (not because I want to improve the article directly but because I want to cite WP:SOFIXIT next time with a clear conscience) Maintainers of this article, I will give you three references, you do the rest. If you don't, the article gets deleted. I'm coming from a different background so you're on your own here. a journal article, a SLA association talk, and an abstract--Lenticel ^(talk) 05:38, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We discussed this sufficiently in April - let's look at the arguments advanced in April:

"I'm having trouble seeing how this nom doesn't apply to the whole category or other article sections spread throughout WP. Although this list is not encyclopedic (or complete) in the traditional sense, to me it typifies the sort of valuable (and at times wacky) information that Wikipedia houses." IOW, WP:WAX and WP:ILIKEIT coupled with a total disregard for the policy objections;
"[T]he article...should always be marked for improvement first, unless the article is total crap." There is no basis in policy for this opinion;
"If it were a reasonable delete, there woud be no reason for the stressed words above." Completely meaningless argument;
"The function of such 'popular culture' articles (and sections), is to provide a place for people to put indiscriminate information, with which they might clutter up genuine articles." Which is flat-out not true.

Along with the customary claims of notability with nothing offered to back it up and the usual earnest protestations that the article can and will be cleaned up, only to find that six months later the article is in even worse shape than it was before. Not to mention the simple fact that consensus can change. The keep arguments were poor then, they are poor now. The article was terrible then and it's terrible now. Otto4711 17:07, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. This is a list of films and television shows which have librarians in them. It provides little to nothing in the way of encyclopedic context and is wholly based on original research. RFerreira 00:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 01:07, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Easy delete via WP:NOT and WP:NOR. Xihr 01:08, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete An unqualified disaster of random, unverified factoids. Raymond Arritt 01:09, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Article should be improved through regular editing. I haven't read anything that suggests that this article can't be improved and, in fact, references have been unearthed to assist in sourcing material. I have a friend who's a librarian - he's cool and his geeky brain probably knows all this stuff but I have wikipedia to turn to to find it as well as answer so many other questions. Benjiboi 12:22, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Regular editing" would be to delete all of the "this one time I saw a liberrian in a movie" references, which would leave, well, nothing. Otto4711 13:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

that would be editing for otto's empty encyclopedia. for wikipedia, on the other hand, notable and verifiable matter. these are verifiable, these are notable, they could use some more citations and perhaps a bit of trimming or perhaps just a massive expansion. --Buridan 14:12, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, I'm sorry, but it is not notable in the slightest that, for instance, In A Very Brady Sequel, Roy Martin (Tim Matheson) informs Greg Brady (Christopher Daniel Barnes) that he should date someone more of his "own speed", suggesting a librarian as an example. Otto4711 15:07, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

here again you choose one weakest example, why not choose a stronger example to build your strawman? why not use say neal stephenson's librarian which is clearly notable as a model of google earth and is just lacking citations. or perhaps any other of the notable ones. That you can find listcruft in any list is not surprising.... it just means it needs marked for cleanup. afd is not a process to foce cleanup. --Buridan 16:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here again you make the blanket assertion that "these are notable" and then, when I point out an example that isn't notable you cry "straw man." Don't get upset at me when you make an assertion and get challenged on it. Otto4711 17:11, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

well, if you provided some evidence of universal non-notability that woudl be something, but... what you do is choose a weak example and say.. non-notable, other things are clearly notable, they have their own articles, so they must be. now, what links them together is this list. the list includes things that do not have their own articles, but the notability of the list is clear. that you try to delete these 'popular culture' and 'in fiction' articles is remarkable because you try the same tactic. --Buridan 20:51, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And here you exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding of notability. Yes, many of the things that have librarians in them are notable. However, they are not notable because they have librarians in them. Even the things that are actually about librarians (as opposed to simply including the word "librarian" in the script) are not notable because they have a librarian in them. They are notable because they are the subject of reliable independent sources. The notability of a book, film, TV show, whatever does not impart notability onto every single aspect of that book, film, etc. Otto4711 18:49, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

they are notable if enough of the material relates to notable material and constitutes a relationship that is notable in itself. in this case that is met. and yes otto, sometimes notability does transfer. my argument is that this list brings together notable things in a notable relationship and supports that with other materials. it needs some citations, true, just like dammit janet, but that's all it needs. mark it for improvement and move on. --Buridan 05:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - this is an encyclopedia, not a book of trivia. --B 14:22, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment what is trivial to one person can certainly be encyclopedic to another. let's hope other editors have the good will and grace to save whatever trivial information you find of interest for when you look to wikipedia for answers and inspiration. Benjiboi 14:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is really nothing more than an emotional appeal to the discredited argument that Wikipedia should be about everything. Wikipedia is not, and is not designed to be, about everything. Otto4711 15:09, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

no, but it is supposed to be about all knowledge... this contains notable knowledge.--Buridan 16:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"There was a librarian in a scene off a TV show" is not knowledge. It is information. Wikipedia may be about all knowledge but it is not about all information. Otto4711 03:31, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

wrong again, check the definition of information, any the definition of knowledge, then verify against any of the basic theories of knowledge in wikipedia, or elsewhere. this might be a basic confusion... and a huge problem. if you don't know what knowledge is.... then you clearly can't understand what belongs in wikipedia, thus your tendency to propose to delete things that are knowledge. --Buridan 14:01, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete this list of random librarian appearances. Otto4711's got it right when he says "this one time I saw a liberrian in a movie". 138.88.170.131 16:32, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment A lot of energy spent arguing here should have been used to transform the article's list into a discussion (putting my refs into the external link section doesn't count). I have learned that the best way to get back at a deletionist is not to win an argument with him but letting him eat snow. That way you will get a better article and an extra perk of humiliating your opponent, even a for extra ownage.--Lenticel ^(talk) 23:53, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, Yes, libraries are common in real life and used in movies/tv once in awhile. It does not mean that it is encyclopedic just to have a giant list of times libraries/librarians have been shown on tv. Also keep in mind a wide precedent against "in popular culture" articles, with this list of 200+ deleted articles [1] Dannycali 02:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Not as a giant list of every time librarians have been shown - it should be well weeded - but many of the entries are notable and the topic is certainly a notable one: it's the subject of:
- "The Hollywood Librarian", dir. Ann Seidl (2007) (reviewed in various professional journals)
- What's Harry Potter Doing in the Library? Depictions of Young Adult Informati... , Jennifer Burek Pierce, International Association of School Librarianship. Selected Papers from the ....2004; pg. 73
- Librarian Stereotypes in Young Adult Literature, Michelle Peresie; Linda B Alexander, Young Adult Library Services; Fall 2005; 4, 1, pg. 24
and once I've incorporated these into the article I'll look for more. --Zeborah 05:21, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've now added some commentary to the article, and added four more useful-looking references to the talk page. I found these in the bibliography of the Peresie and Alexander article; further research is bound to find more, as they made it clear this was a reasonably well explored topic. --Zeborah 08:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, but continue improving it. The new sourced content discussing stereotypes of librarians in the arts makes it clear that this is a worthwhile topic, not just a list of indiscriminate information. Additional work is needed to remove the trivial list entries and expand the discussion of the nontrivial entries.--Orlady 18:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is absurd, just because there were a few low-selling books/articles about stereotypes does not mean there should be a separate "article" like this about the subject. It makes WP into a total joke, and will never be taken seriously with garbage lists disguised as articles. Dannycali 02:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is references which determine notability, not people's opinions about the subject of the article. To reject an article for having only non-notable content and no general discussion, and then continue rejecting it when some of the content is already shown to be notable and references for a general discussion are provided, is a way of deleting everything one personally does not care about. N is verified by RSs, and published books and academic journals count. DGG (talk) 04:54, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I mentioned any book; Seidl's work is a movie. The others are scholarly papers, I've listed others on the article talkpage as well, and will find more if I have more time than the AfD will last. That I've found 7-odd scholarly articles (in just a cursory review of the literature, so as I say there'll be more) specifically on the topic of librarians in popular culture, yes, *does* make it a notable topic worthy of an article in Wikipedia. That's what Notability is. I am however happy for the 'garbage lists' themselves to be deleted by anyone who has more time than I do. --Zeborah 05:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The articles quoted by Zeborah above prove that the topic is notable. The lists could use trimming and turning into prose, though. --Itub 12:10, 17 October 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.