Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fight Club in popular culture (2nd nomination)

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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 delete per WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE. The most important references can be added to the parent articles (novel, film, or both), but does not require a repository of its own, complete with other mundane and inconsequential references. —Kurykh 21:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fight Club in popular culture

AfDs for this article:
Fight Club in popular culture (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Delete - still an indiscriminate colletion of information, a directory of loosely-associated bits of trivia, chock full of original research and very short on sources. Seeks to capture any reference to Fight Club the novel or Fight Club the film, or any reference to the rules of Fight Club, or anything with a name that sounds like Fight Club, or (my personal favorite) characters with the same name as a character in Fight Club when something else in the same episode unrelated to that character also reminds an editor of Fight Club. The listed items have nothing in common beyond the passing reference. The last AFD closed no consensus, largely based on the supposed impact that FC has had over the last several years. However, a massive sprawling list of every time anyone on a TV show, film, book, video game or whatever says something Fight Club-y tells us nothing about Fight Club, nothing about the fiction the reference is from and nothing about the real world. Defenders of the article have had several months to turn the article into something other than an enormous mess and have not done so. Time for this to be deleted. Strongly oppose in advance the inevitable suggestion to merge any of it into the article for either the novel or the film. It is worthless as a stand-alone article and it is equally worthless as a section of another article. Otto4711 19:56, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Again, if you see any far-fetched unsourced relations, then get rid of them. The list tells the reader exactly the "supposed impact that FC has had over the last several years." There are more sources on this impact, which I will be adding to the introduction throughout this discussion. What it tells us of the real world is the various connections between media through inspiration and popularity. The listed items do not need to be closely related to each other because this article is about "Fight Club in popular culture", not "extraneous connections between the various items that have referenced Fight Club in popular culture". As this is a list, readers aren't expected to go top from bottom, but skim to items that are relevant to their interests. What it also tells us about Fight Club is which aspects of the novel or film have more memorability than others in terms of the porportion of times they have been parody. Calling the article worthless is as subjective as calling it useful. –Pomte 20:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can you point out to me where exactly it says that lists are somehow not subject to policy because people aren't expected to read them from top to bottom? Can you point out to me where it is exactly that it's written at all that people are expected not to read lists from top to bottom? Can you cite a reliable source that indicates, to take the first item off the list, that Ryan Lavery of All My Children's going to a fight club is in any way a reference to the film or the book,? If so, can you cite a souce that explains how All My Children is so closely associated with, to take the last item off the list (I read the list from top to bottom), the comic book The Mighty Thor that they should be on the same list, and while you're at it could you cite a reliable source that the "variation" on the FC line from the comic book was actually a variation on the line and that it was an intentional reference to Fight Club? Can you explain what having a variation of a line from the movie in a comic book tells us about the movie or the comic book or the real world? Is there a source that backs that up? Otto4711 21:30, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lists are subject to WP:LIST and WP:SAL. Do you think people read the established List of countries, Deaths in 2007, or lists of episodes from top to bottom? Can you show how the first death is related to the last death other than that they occurred in the same year? Where does it say in policy or guidelines that lists have to uphold such demanding standards? No, I can't tell you anything about All My Children or The Mighty Thor, but I intend to find out. I'm perfectly fine with you removing those entries in the mean time, and I think I've already replied with my view on the relevance of these items and the real world. Incidentally I've also added a bunch of film/novel-inspired real world fight clubs that talk about the real world. –Pomte 22:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let's talk about policy then. WP:NOT#IINFO says "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information", not that "Wikipedia cannot contain articles that some editors believe are indiscriminate collections of information". This article does not fall under any of the rejected types of articles listed in WP:NOT#IINFO. While Wikipedia itself is discriminate in choosing which articles to accept, this does not mean the articles themselves act the same way. Articles only have to be sufficiently discriminate such that they do not run into unmaintainable lengths. This article has obvious criteria for inclusion and lists items with plenty of discrimination. None of the types of articles under WP:NOT#DIR apply here either. The article is not a directory by nature; it can always be converted to streamlined prose, which takes a lot of effort and frankly I don't think it's worth it. WP:OR can always be removed, and isn't a problem inherent with this topic. WP:V is what I'm working on right now. –Pomte 23:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The items listed at NOT#IINFO are not and should not be read as an exhaustive list of the only possible types of articles that can be considered indiscriminate. Thos are the types for which consensus has been acheived but that does not mean that IINFO doesn't still apply to every article and that other specific aricles don't violate it. NOT#DIR is violated because this is a collection of items that are loosely associated. The inclusion of the same or a similar line of dialogue in a bunch of different movies or TV shows don't make for a strong association amongst those movies or TV shows. The fact that some examples of this type of loosely associated items is offered in the policy does not, again, mean that th examples are or should be read as an exhaustive list of all the types of articles that fall under it. Otto4711 03:55, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Obviously NOT#IINFO is not exhaustive, but as you implied there is no consensus on this particular type of article, so we have to focus on exactly what makes this particular list unworthy, and your answer seems to be NOT#DIR. NOT#DIR is not violated because "there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic..." Some of the items are known for and heavily associated with the fact that they reference Fight Club, while others are already famous by themselves but also contribute to the topic at hand. The list is like a reference table, which is explicitly allowed. –Pomte 05:11, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sorry, but the notion that any TV show or movie or whatever on that list is more famous because it quotes a line from Fight Club is ludicrous. There is not one item on that list that, if you asked anyone about it, would garner a response of "it quoted Fight Club" as among the top hundred reasons why it's famous or notable. "Oh yeah, Corner Gas? That was that show that had a passing reference to Fight Club in one episode!" Not hardly. Otto4711 12:23, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Those belong to the part where I said "...while others are already famous by themselves but also contribute to the topic at hand." School for Scoundrels is known for being a rip-off, from the numerous reviews I've found. All English commentary on Slagsmålsklubben refer to it as meaning "the fight club". Some of the real life fight club articles (such as Princeton University and The Real Fight Club) would take a darker tone if they weren't inspired by the film. One of the only things Through a glass productions is known for is their remix parody. The song "Cute Without the 'E' (Cut from the Team)" doesn't seem to be notable by itself other than the fact that its music video re-enacts Fight Club scenes. The only thing non-Greek readers currently know about the Greek SuperSport FM radio program called Fight Club is that it is called that and samples the Tyler Durden in its intro. Looking at the article for Nashville's Pirate Radio immediately conjures an image of the film. Of course, most of the TV shows and movies listed do not increase in popularity due to referencing Fight Club, but they do get people talking about it (contributed by the nature of the "you do not talk about..." meme), and they provide a counterweight to those listed above for a comprehensive look at the various formats that make references and what types of references those are. If someone is familiar with Corner Gas, then they can relate the quote to the show's general sense of humour. I can always dumb the TV/film lists into one curt list sentence with a footnote verifying each. It would also be interesting to research on any effect of the TV/movie/mass media hype on the real life fight clubs. –Pomte 17:54, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This is an extremely widely alluded-to and parodied film. The sheer volume of quotation and allusion evidenced here justifies the existence of a separate article. Note also that the earlier AfD on this article was as recent as this February, and nothing much has changed since then.

    I generally tend to think that the claim that articles that collect and categorize allusions to one published work of popular culture in another, that they are "unreferenced", is without merit, at least as a sweeping generalization of the content of the article. What these lists of allusions are, in fact, are self-referencing. - Smerdis of Tlön 21:02, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • The fact of the film's popularity does not mean that every single reference to it or things that are similar to it collected together makes for an encyclopedic article. And the fact that the article has not changed much since the last AFD is a large part of the point. The article has been given four months to improve and address the concerns brought forth in the nomination and that hasn't happened. As to the entries being self-referential, even if one accepts without question that every such self-reference serves to establish the existence of the item, they do not serve to establish the relationship betweeb the item and the other items on the list, the item and Fight Club, or the item and the real world.Otto4711 21:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE. Even if not for that, this article is very poorly referenced. If a given episode of "All My Chldren" has a Fight Club reference, then by all means give us the original broadcast date of the episode where that happened. That goes for every other example cited in this indiscriminate list too. Take the more truly notable ones that are referenced and merge them into the main article.--Ace of Swords 22:11, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Fight Club IS popular culture. "In popular culture" is usually a way of spinning off useless and unencyclopedic trivia, and most "in popular culture" articles should be shot on sight. This is nothing but trivia, and Wikipedia is not a trivia guide. --Charlene 22:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete because this is a directory of indiscriminate details that have no attributable real-world context. It's essentially trivia in disguise, and trivia should be avoided in not just sections, but as whole articles. If prose could be written based on attributable sources that offer commentary on the film's impact -- and not the firsthand observations of the editors themselves -- then such an article will be welcome. This does not appear to be the case at all, and I doubt that tagging the article with clean-up tags will procure anything similar to my suggestion. As with the growing trend of giving "Entity in popular culture" articles the boot lately, this article does not have any encyclopedic value to preserve. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 22:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Inclusion trends pave way for deletionist trends, whereas the latter breeds itself. I am the sole active maintainer of the article and have been gradually sourcing it over several months, so nevermind ineffective cleanup tags. I would do what you prescribed, but consider that commentary about the film's impact belongs in the film's article first and foremost. Prose may eventually be written once the firsthand experiences are verified, which is in progress. Regarding IINFO and DIR, see my response above. –Pomte 00:00, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would absolutely welcome attributable commentary about the film's impact on popular culture on the film article itself. However, I have to agree with Otto's counterpoint, "The notion that any TV show or movie or whatever on that list is more famous because it quotes a line from Fight Club is ludicrous." The list itself is synthesized to put forward the argument of Fight Club's impact in popular culture. These items are "See for yourself" original contributions, with editors taking a viewed item and adding it here to "further" the argument of the article. There is no explicit commentary talking about the film and its cultural impact; the commentary is being created by the editors themselves, saying, "Look, the book/film was referenced in these TV shows, so it has impacted that specific medium." This isn't unquestionable 1+1=2 logic -- it's subjective because no cultural standards are defined without any kind of attributable commentary offering independent perspective on the topic. It's basically original research. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 13:07, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • About Otto's counterpoint, I responded above. Sources have talked about Fight Club's impact in pop culture, as you should be aware from your own research. I'll look for more to dissipate SYN/OR concerns. The argument is not being furthered by the list; the argument warrants the list. –Pomte 17:54, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of course it is; all encyclopedias contain a bunch of trivial facts about things, whether in prose or list form. WP:TRIVIA (a style guideline) says nothing about what trivia actually is, only that it should be integrated. –Pomte 05:11, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Also, WP:TRIV describes trivia as "lists of isolated facts, often grouped into their own section labelled "Trivia", "Notes" (not to be confused with "Notes" sections which store footnotes), "Facts", "Miscellanea", "Cultural references", "Cultural depictions", "Subject in popular culture", "Other information", etc." Also, it says that only relevant items should be integrated: "Some entries may be speculative, or factually incorrect, and should be removed; others, such as "how-to" material, may fall outside Wikipedia's content scope policies. Some entries may be more specific to other subjects, and should be moved into articles covering those subjects. Other entries may be too tangential, minor, or irrelevant for mention at all." Emphasis mine. María (críticame) 13:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS works when we're talking about the whole nature of encyclopedia articles. There was an edit war on the intro WP:TRIV,[1] and the intent of the addition was not to necessarily delete.[2] Most of the items currently on the list are relevant to the topic, not tangential because they clearly fit under the inclusion criteria. Determining which references are minor is too arbitrary a process for me to undertake with the consequence of limiting what readers see, though others are welcome to give suggestions. –Pomte 17:54, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. If I were to make an article "list of things that are blue", it would be just about as relevant and useful as this one. The purpose of articles is to increase the reader's understanding about the subject. Reading a laundry-list of a hundred times a quote or scene or meme is parodied is not informative. This entire article's informative content could be reduced to "Fight Club has been frequently referenced in popular culture". In order to be relevant, popular culture elements must be shown to have an important connection to the article subject, encompass a substantial reference, and be cited. That is not done here. --Eyrian 08:50, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 08:59, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete if pop culture trivia lists about Middle-earth, ET and The Godfather got deleted, why not Fight Club, a far less popular film? Alientraveller 10:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Did any of those films cause people to beat each other up? Were they are verifiable as this one? I honestly don't know, because I can't read those articles now. There is a severe lack of discussion about issues specific to this article here. –Pomte 17:54, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete same as above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kessingler (talk • contribs) 08:57, June 21, 2007
  • Delete in agreement with everyone else. ...in popular culture articles are glorified trivia lists full of useless, trivial, unencyclopedic material that has no place on the parent article or on its own. Although sourced, this article is no exception. A great deal of the material is coincidental similarities. Yes, I agree that the film and novel are awesome and that people love referencing it. No, it doesn't belong on Wikipedia. María (críticame) 13:44, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Useless" is as convincing as WP:USEFUL. Most sentences in the encyclopedia can be construed as trivia; it comes with being a resource for all sorts of knowledge. However, trivia becomes coherent given context, and context is being provided in the introduction. Which references are coincidental similarities? They don't just happen to reference Fight Club; many of the sources verify the reference or the intent of the creator. –Pomte 17:54, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I apologize; regard "useless" and concentrate instead of "unencyclopedic," meaning WP:NOT. As for coincidental similarities, my little eye spies "The track "Roll Us a Giant" from B.P. Empire EP (2001) used Chloe's words, "I am in a pretty lonely place" among several others that have no overt reference to Fight Club. I do admit, however, that there's enough "the first rule..." jokes to bury someone alive. It comes down to indiscriminate information and lack of notability, both of which plagues this article and therefore goes against guidelines. María (críticame) 18:34, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • As Infected Mushroom (creator of B.P. Empire EP) is a psychedelic trance act, it's more than likely that "I am in a pretty lonely place" is used as a sample of the character Chloe from the film Fight Club. This should be evident to anyone clicking a few links. I haven't gotten around to verifying this particular entry yet, so you may wish to do it yourself. Notability is asserted by the introduction. The information is quite discriminate; every entry is supposed to be a reference to Fight Club. Refer to my arguments above about that interpretation of WP:NOT#IINFO. –Pomte 02:52, 23 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Fight Club in popular culture has not been able to exercise any sort of notability as an article. Under WP:NOTE, "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. 'Significant coverage' means that sources address the subject directly in detail, and no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than trivial but less than exclusive." (Bolding is mine.) Furthermore, the note for that particular passage says, "Note 1: Examples: The 360-page book by Sobel and the 528-page book by Black on IBM are plainly non-trivial. The one sentence mention by Walker of the band Three Blind Mice in a biography of Bill Clinton (Martin Walker. "Tough love child of Kennedy", The Guardian, January 6, 1992. ) is plainly trivial." (Bolding is mine again.) There is no notability established by providing an indiscriminate list of trivia. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 18:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • While I haven't yet stumbled upon any sources that focus solely on the subject, there are sources that talk about pop culture in general and cite Fight Club as a non-trivial example. Many of the references listed are more than one-sentence mentions; any clearly trivial mentions can be removed. If someone reads the lead-in, I think it justifies to them the existence of the rest of the page. Every step of the claim is sourced, so there is no original research/synthesis. –Pomte 02:52, 23 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - as per other lists "In Popular Culture" passing through here recently. A brief one or two sentence mention in the main film article should suffice, and then this list of trivia and non-encyclopaedic content can sail off into the sunset. - fchd 19:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. Carlossuarez46 22:32, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per all the above. It is a completely unnecessary article, there's nothing in it that's notable, nothing in it that would need to be put in the article about either the book or the movie. Millancad 05:07, 22 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - It is relevant to note here that the term "indiscriminate" was removed from WP:NOT to avoid this sort of confusion. –Pomte 03:28, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, although I don't know enough about this subject to say whether this article contains trivia or inadequate sourcing, I find it overall to be quite impressive (this is due in part to a large amount of work done recently). The topic is certainly encyclopedic, and sources of adequate (though not ideal) quality exist, so no grounds for deletion are apparent. -- Visviva 08:40, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. It's an indiscriminate collection of information. Only a handful need to be in the parent article under 'cultural impact'. Commendation for the sourcing, but this really is trivia and is beneath us. The JPStalk to me 22:01, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The parent article is Fight Club. That's where primary discussion should take place. And the editorial decision is easy: use the ones that are verified as significant by being referenced in independent sources. --Eyrian 20:19, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, most of the things in the sections "General references in popular culture works" and beyond are not independently verified. Most have no reference, and most of what remains are self-verified (for instance, a Thottbot link for the World of Warcraft link). And a large (cited) popular culture section is not a violation of WP:WEIGHT; it seems to me that a movie's cultural impact might well be one of its most significant aspects. --Eyrian 20:38, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • It seems your position is selective merge, not delete as bolded above. Long articles about a distinct subtopic ought to be split off according to WP:SUMMARY, especially if there is no single parent article. People will not want this at Fight Club (film). Note that I have not begun verifying large sections of the listed items as most of the opposition is concerned about the nature and justification of the list rather than its verifiability. I've removed the Thottbot link, though Thottbot is more reliable for this type of existence claim than independent publications that merely report what sites say, and may be useful in conjunction with some independent source that relates World of Warcraft to Fight Club as a whole. Feel free to remove other self-verification, and I'll be sure to look for independent sources in the future. –Pomte 08:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - My opinion is still delete, and after reading this last comment even more so. This is not a long article about a distinct subtopic, this is a list of disparate references that have varying degrees of relation to a film and/or a book. And as for "People will not want this at Fight Club (film), well so what? If it's related to the film, either put it there or delete it. What "people" are you talking about? Do they have any inflated worth or say in what goes into such an artcile above any consensus? - fchd 09:02, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Fight Club in popular culture (and society)" is a distinct subtopic of "Fight Club", just as "Plot summary of Fight Club" or "Critical reception of Fight Club" are subtopics, except those shouldn't have articles by themselves. Incidentally, Fight Club (novel), Fight Club (film), Fight Club (video game) etc. are also distinct subtopics of the general topic Fight Club, and this article deals with all of those.
Sure the references relate to the film, but some of them relate to the book as well and as long as there exist references that are verifiably reference either the film or the novel without specifying which one, it doesn't make sense to have them at either Fight Club or Fight Club (film). If you actually want to delete this content, then don't say "either put it there or delete it". That's clearly merge or delete. The "people" I refer to are two who regularly contribute to Fight Club (film), both established editors and you can ask them to elaborate. There's no consensus here to "put it there" anyway. –Pomte 12:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, topic is encyclopedic and this is one of the better "in popular culture" lists I have seen on Afd recently. Remove the entries that are indiscriminate, and require quality sources for the rest. Deleting the good with the bad will only mean that they come back again in similar proportions to the current article or worse. John Vandenberg 13:11, 26 June 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.
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