User:Vassyana/fiction

This is a rant; it contains the ranting and raving of User:Vassyana. It is not a policy or guideline, nor an essay, and editors are not obliged to follow it. Discuss it on the talk page, if you have comments.

Fiction on Wikipedia is one of the worst examples of laziness over good standards.

Justification

The direct and heavy citing of the fictional material is most often justified by a supposed lack of sources addressing the topic. Like nearly all such complaints about a general lack of sources, this is usually just not true. (And regardless, if we don't have enough independent sources for an encyclopedic article, we shouldn't have the article.)

Common complaint

Many people commonly complain that it is somehow an undue burden or plainly "unfair" that they should be forced to undertake library trips and research in order to preserve an article or topic. Others put forth a weaker version of this complaint stating that their library is too far away to be practical or that their library has insufficient materials. There are two relatively easy solutions to this problem. Ask WikiProject Resource Exchange for assistance in acquiring sources and ask for an interlibrary loan, respectively.

Plenty of sources

For any given show, even short-lived and relatively unpopular programs, there is a mountain of periodicals that explain the show's principal characters, plot and so forth. Such publications come in both mass-market and industry-orientated varieties. For popular shows, the coverage is intense within those periodicals and also includes numerous books dedicated to the program.

Problems with being lazy

There are OR elements of interpreting character traits and plots involved in directly citing artistic works. There are additionally NPOV concerns regarding what elements of the story and characters are important to cover that cannot ever satisfied by directly citing the primary material. Only a body of independent sources can provide us with sufficient data to determine the balance of information (NPOV) and provide critical analysis or commentary (NOR).

Just ... sad

To be honest, I find this appeal to laziness to be one of the most disheartening aspects of the Wikipedia community. We're supposed to create a high-quality encyclopedia; accommodating those who cannot or will not access quality sources is not the route to take.