The policy Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (aka WP:NOT) should absolutely not include a section on plot summaries. WP:NOT#PLOT {oldid} should not and cannot be policy. The following are some reasons why that is:

--Pixelface (talk) originally written 08:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Notes

  1. ^ These are the six people I count as supports in the proposal thread. Hiding said "any objections to adding the following to Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information?" JzG said "Strong support. It's almost impossible to do a plot summary without either original research or copyvio.." (which isn't true, but okay). Rossami said "I'll support it as well even if it will be difficult to apply." (which is definitely some foreshadowing). MartinRe said "Conditional support." Mwalcoff said "My views are along the lines of Hiding's. I don't think an article should be nothing but a plot summary. But if we're going to have a complete article on a work, I think a plot summary is an important thing to include." At first, Deckiller said "Disagree" and "WP:NOT's major weakness is that its policies leave AfD voters with a black and white view, when that clearly cannot be the case with so many branches of knowledge and styles of articles." (more foreshadowing) But then Deckiller said "Yeah, I like that wording a lot."

    These are the six people I count as not supporting in the proposal thread. Leflyman used "Not going to happen" in his edit summary and said "I think this would be an extremely contentious issue, as the vast slew of articles dealing with television shows, film, books and comics go beyond merely "plot points" into full summaries. I would not be surprised if that's a major chunk of the many articles on fictional topics. For example, the Wikipedia:WikiProject Television episodes is specifically set up to create episode summaries. See, Category:Lists of television series episodes." (that's foreshadowing of E&C1 and E&C2) Leflyman also happened to mention Wikia (possibly since Hiding mentioned WP:WAF in his proposal and WAF has mentioned Wikia ever since Hiding marked it a guideline, or maybe he was just aware of it). Leflyman later said said "Saying it would be "difficult to apply" is a bit of an understatement. I suspect that if this were to be seriously promoted, a veritable rebellion would be fomented on Wikipedia." (more foreshadowing of E&C1 and E&C2) and "Nearly everything on Wikipedia is, in effect, a "summary" so why stop at "plots"?" Will Beback used "yes but no" in his edit summary and said "I agree with the intent of this proposal, but I'm afraid that Leflyman is correct in that there are huge numbers of plot summaries on Wikipedia (most dutifully marked with "spoiler alerts"). It will take more than a change to WP:NOT to make them go away. But I support the effort." I suppose that could possibly be interpreted as support by some people (I support the effort, I agree with the intent of the proposal), but the edit summary ("yes but no") is also telling. Badlydrawnjeff said "I don't mind it in theory, to be honest. But here's the bigger question - is it worth the drama, and does it really improve anything? I'm certainly aware of the OR issues here, but are we really improving the encyclopedia if we remove plot summaries?" I suppose that could also possibly be interpreted as support by some people ("I don't mind it in theory"), but the edit summary "improvement? drama?" and the statement "is it worth the drama, and does it really improve anything?" is telling. Badlydrawnjeff's comment in February 2007, "I've refrained from adding things to policy/guideline pages with less opposition." is also telling. JeffW said "I don't really see that plot summaries break any of the above policies. The article on IBM is a summary of all the information that could be written about IBM. Is it therefore necessarily original research or POV? As for copyright issues, IANAL but I would think plot summaries would fall under fair use." Williamborg said "Oppose — They are wonderfully useful for those who are trying to translate; they often provide the clues missing when you get mired in the original text. Instead of rooting plot summaries out, encourage them to grow into respectable analyses." Tomstar81 said "Oppose — I agree with Mwalcoff and Leflyman on this one. Plot summaries always play a part in character role and development. Striking them down puts a tremendous strain on those of us who try hard to write on fictional characters, which is hard enough as is."

    In summary, in the proposal thread the editors I count as supporting are Hiding, JzG, Rossami, MartinRe, Mwalcoff, and Deckiller. The editors I count as not supporting are Leflyman, Will Beback, Bdj, JeffW, Williamborg, and Tomstar81. Tomstar81 made his comment on August 26, 2006. By that time, Hiding had already added WP:NOT#PLOT to WP:NOT on July 9, 2006. If you don't include TomStar81, and if you don't include the editor who proposed WP:NOT#PLOT, it was supported by five editors and not supported by five editors before WP:NOT#PLOT was added to WP:NOT.

    In February 2007, in this thread, Matthew asked "was there ever an actual consensus to add this?" Badlydrawnjeff, who was there when WP:NOT#PLOT was proposed said "The only relevant discussion appeared to be here, and, I'll be honest, it didn't seem to have much in the way of consensus." Later Matthew said "Okay, so it appears there was never a consensus to add this in the first place."
  2. ^ John254 listed me as an involved party of E&C2 after Corvus cornix started an ANI thread that falsely accused me of "stalking" TTN after he saw me unredirecting Scrubs episode articles. I was unredirecting them since I could see there was no consensus for the redirects on Talk:List of Scrubs episodes. John254 is currently banned. I removed WP:NOT#PLOT from WP:NOT for the first time on March 10, 2008 after I could see that WP:NOT#PLOT did not actually have consensus to be policy (after seeing multiple AFDs where there was no consensus to delete articles that were simply plot summaries (some that were SNOW kept), and based on the controversy that TTN had caused). Editors who have removed WP:NOT#PLOT from Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not have often been hounded by ideologically opposed editors, and editors who have expressed prejudice and negative personal POVs against much fiction in general. Neutral point of view is a policy, and is expected of all editors. Personal tastes and dislike of a certain fictional work should play no part in the decision to keep or delete an article, or the poor decision to hound another editor.
  3. ^ I was blocked twice in 2008[1], both times after interactions with Sceptre, who was an involved party of E&C1 *and* E&C2. After I removed WP:NOT#PLOT from WP:NOT twice on April 16, 2008, Sceptre reported me as a vandal to AIV and I was blocked by AGK. Disgusted, I left Wikipedia. AGK started a block review thread at WP:AN, where multiple editors stated that my edits were not vandalism [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. While I was gone, Sceptre told TTN, another involved party of E&C1 *and* E&C2 that it was "good news" that I left Wikipedia. I came back after a week, found out, repeatedly asked Sceptre about the policy Wikipedia:Vandalism and WP:AIV, Sceptre kept removing my questions, called me a "troll", and then I was blocked for "harassing" Sceptre after Sceptre started this ANI thread about me.