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.
Redirect to Hell#In popular culture - A ridiculously broad topic that is in no way suitable for a list. Agreed that the topic is notable enough for a prose discussion in either the main Hell article or a spinout, but this massive list of mostly unsourced and, in many cases, extremely trivial examples of every time Hell has appeared or been mentioned in all of art, literature, and popular culture has to go. The main Hell article actually already has a decent section on Hell in Literature, as well as one on Hell in Popular Culture. I propose redirecting to there for now. If those sections become built up enough with properly sourced prose material, then they can be spun back out into separate articles at that time. Rorshacma (talk) 15:29, 8 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and expand Both the "in literature" and "in popular culture" sections should be combined--as in, what's the bright dividing line?--and expanded. The influence of The Divine Comedy on Christian theology of hell is a topic worthy of extensive discussion. That it influenced the Diablo series of video games is without question, but neither of the sections nor this article do a good job of connecting them. The parallels between The Great Divorce and Ted Chiang's Hell is the Absence of God are remarkable... but we don't even link that piece here. It's clearly a mess, but what's needed is not trimming "cruft" but organizing it sensibly. Jclemens (talk) 16:11, 8 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - While I obviously agree with the overall sentiment of it being a noteworthy topic, what do you think of my suggestion of incubating it at the already-decent sections of the main article before attempting to split it back out again? Rorshacma (talk) 16:34, 8 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think that a "needs work" standalone article is a better magnet for improvement than the absence of an article. WP:TNT theorizes the opposite is true, but that's merely a belief without evidence, hence better characterized as a religious assertion. I'd rather merge the sections from Hell into this and expand from there. Jclemens (talk) 20:01, 8 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There's plenty there that's reliable... it's just primarily sourced to a fictional depiction, hence uncited and without commentary. Remember, individual data elements can be sourced to primary sources. Jclemens (talk) 08:10, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
TNT does not apply, actually. People keep citing that as if it does, but it never envisions the deletion of such content. Jclemens (talk) 08:10, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Could you perhaps explain how if the article's content is useless (including all the versions in history) but the title might be useful, then delete the content to help encourage a new article and Deleting severely deficient articles through the WP:AFD process is grounded in established policy. (both from WP:TNT) fit with your assertion that it never envisions the deletion of such content? For that matter, what about our WP:Deletion policy, which says If an article on a notable topic severely fails the verifiability or neutral point of view policies, it may be reduced to a stub, or completely deleted by consensus at Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion.? TompaDompa (talk) 14:27, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sure: cruft isn't useless. While certain fan theories might fail OR, the point of cruft isn't that V is failed (most factual statements can be sourced to primary sources), but rather it delves too much into minutae without showing how secondary sources engage with it. I suppose some fan theories can violate NPOV, but when you get REALLY into the weeds, it's a division by zero error to find DUE. Oh, and if you dispute "cruft isn't useless", then the follow-up question is, "Says who?" Jclemens (talk) 02:44, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that actually answered my question. Or if it did, it raises the rather fundamental question of just what "such content" meant in your initial assertion. TompaDompa (talk) 03:40, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Everything else about the statement follows from the clause you quoted, if the article's content is useless. You haven't established that it's useless, and cannot, because it is not, in fact, useless. Even the cruftiest cruft can be turned into a quality article through regular editing. Now, it might be more work to do that than most people are willing to invest in, but "useless" it is not. Jclemens (talk) 04:06, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That still does not particularly clarify what "such content" is. I might also point out that WP:TNT explicitly says Sometimes, the damage is fixable, but the effort in doing so dwarfs the effort involved in merely starting over. which would seem to address your point that "it might be more work to do that than most people are willing to invest in". TompaDompa (talk) 04:13, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but an essay doesn't seem to trump deletion policy: improvement or deletion of an offending section, if practical, is preferable to deletion of an entire page and If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page. TNT being at odds with core policy is one of the reasons I find it so unfortunate that people quote it with respect to topics where notability is at issue as if it were in alignment, when it never has been aligned with deletion policy. Jclemens (talk) 03:54, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That you don't agree with WP:TNT and don't think it is in line with existing policy is a completely different argument than saying that WP:TNT doesn't say what the people invoking it think it says. TompaDompa (talk) 08:59, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
TNT is a valid essay, and I never said it wasn't, nor did I say "doesn't count," but rather "doesn't apply." Seriously, go read it: Copyright violations, extensive cases of advocacy, and undisclosed paid sock farms are frequently blown up. [...] While you can edit any page to fix the page content, you can't edit the associations and social history of a page, even if you delete every trace of that page on the wiki. Now, do those statements of the raison d'etre of TNT touch fictional topics in any meaningful way? Jclemens (talk) 02:44, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Non sequitur. We're talking about finite time, writing an encyclopedia in good faith, otherwise every single clause in every article would need an inline citation. Sometimes it feels like some articles get close, but that's simply not reasonable for many less-controversial articles. Jclemens (talk) 03:57, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You say otherwise every single clause in every article would need an inline citation as if that's some outrageous utopia. On the contrary, it is fairly close to best practices. All things considered, the material that does not require inline citations basically amounts to a rounding error. TompaDompa (talk) 08:59, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's funny, but when I have cited graduate-level papers Wikipedia-style, with at least one citation per sentence, and citations after a clause rather than at the end of the sentence, I've been told that I'm citing too densely. It would be interesting to compare citation density at Wikipedia Ideal--which I'm not disagreeing with you about--with the citation density of peer reviewed papers in various fields. Jclemens (talk) 04:00, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're seriously asserting that you challenge the truthfulness of the statement In Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991), the title characters go to Hell.? If you say "yes", then I fail to see how that is not a WP:POINT or WP:CIR issue. Of course you don't dispute the factual nature of that statement: you just don't see it as useful without secondary sourced commentary, which is a different issue and one which neither requires the removal of the commentary-lacking content, nor does it trigger the actual wording of TNT. Try again. Jclemens (talk) 03:54, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to disagree with you on two points there. Removing content which lacks proper sourcing is in fact necessary to bring articles of this kind in line with our WP:Core content policies (in particular, WP:PROPORTION), and—speaking from experience—the effort required to work backwards from existing content that has been added willy-nilly in a TV Tropes style, adding appropriate sources for it while simultaneously maintaining a proper balance of different aspects that reflects the relevant sources on the overarching topic indeed dwarfs the effort involved in merely starting over, which is "the actual wording of TNT". TompaDompa (talk) 08:59, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nice tag team there, but Piotrus still needs to answer. Regardless, to your point, facts without commentary sourced to primary sources are still reliable for those facts without commentary, and if you're going to cite TNT, do be sure to include enough context: the clause you cite is applicable to some articles... but not this one. Jclemens (talk) 03:47, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I might additionally point out that WP:PROPORTION is part of WP:NPOV. If the content does not treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject, then it violates WP:NPOV. TompaDompa (talk) 03:43, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Primary sources adequately verify simple statements of fact, but not interpretation, per WP:PSTS. V is met for such statements, anything that goes beyond that can be fixed by editing. Jclemens (talk) 04:06, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I never said it was unfixable. You asked what part of the content violates WP:NPOV. My answer to that is that prima facie, the entire article does—the article does not appear to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. TompaDompa (talk) 08:59, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's completely beside the point, since reliability isn't the issue here. The issue is WP:Neutrality, which you well know since I've mentioned it in each of my replies in this sub-thread thus far. TompaDompa (talk) 03:53, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I get that you're mentioning neutrality, but I don't see how it's a problem when dealing with such primarily cited fact-only sources. The fact I cited above with respect to Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey doesn't interact with, say, the factoid in the article about Little Nicky. How can that, or any other, non-interaction create a neutrality/NPOV problem for this article? Jclemens (talk) 04:04, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest you read WP:PROPORTION, which I've both linked and quoted above. As I said before: if the content does not treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject, then it violates WP:NPOV. Whether certain aspects are mentioned or not, and how much space is devoted to each of them, is a neutrality issue (as are several other things such as prominence of placement and so on). I'm certain you understand this in other contexts, so why not in this one? TompaDompa (talk) 04:09, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What part of it is disproportionate? You keep not understanding: If everything is primary sourced fact only, it's not disproportionate, is it? NPOV is not a weapon to exclude information if it's all on a level playing field, which it is here. Jclemens (talk) 05:58, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's not how it works; articles are supposed to reflect the relative weight of various aspects as covered by sources on the overarching topic. I am convinced that you understand that a medical article where everything is primary sourced fact only would be problematic from a neutrality perspective. The same thing applies here. TompaDompa (talk) 06:56, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Apples and oranges, since this is not a medical article. Still not seeing that PROPORTION means what you think it means in this context, still not seeing how this article is unbalanced as-is (note: not saying it doesn't have other problems), and still not seeing how, even if it was, that it would not be fixable by editing. Jclemens (talk) 08:16, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that articles based on primary sources do not reflect the balance (relative weighting of different aspects) found in secondary sources, which makes them non-compliant with WP:NPOV. This is as true when the primary sources in question are works of fiction as when they are primary medical research. TompaDompa (talk) 08:26, 15 June 2023 (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.