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Shortcuts: WP:POPCULTURE WP:IPC

This page in a nutshell: "In popular culture" sections should be carefully maintained and contain sourced examples demonstrating a subject's cultural significance. Per Wikipedia's summary style, when sections grow excessively long they can be split into subarticles, but this should be done with caution.

Many articles about subjects with broad cultural impact have sections titled "In popular culture", "Cultural references" or "In fiction", which exclusively list references to the subject in popular culture. When these sections grow excessively long some Wikipedians spin them off into separate articles in order to declutter the main articles.

There is ongoing debate about this issue. Some claim that such lists distinguish Wikipedia from more traditional encyclopedias in a good way, are verifiable if properly written, and contain facts of genuine interest to the reader that wouldn't otherwise become known. Others claim that they are trivial cruft, give Wikipedia a bad reputation, and are poorly maintained. Detailing the impact in popular culture can be a quality part of a topic when this kind of content is properly sourced and consistent with policies and guidelines. However these lists can attract non-notable entries and should be carefully maintained.

[edit] List content

"In popular culture" lists should contain verifiable facts of interest to a broad audience of readers. Exhaustive lists are discouraged, as are passing references to the article subject. For example, a city's article may list films, books or television series in which the city is itself a prominent setting, and a musician's article may list television series or films in which the performer has made several guest appearances.

When fictional characters are modeled after other people or characters, they should be included when the connection is identified in the primary source or attributed by a secondary source. Monuments dedicated to or locations named after a subject should be included.

However, passing mentions in books, television or film dialogue or song lyrics should be included only when that mention's significance is itself demonstrated with secondary sources. For example, a passing reference in film dialogue may be notable if the subject of that reference themselves responds to it in a public fashion—such as a celebrity, or a government official from a city, publicly expressing pleasure or displeasure at the reference.

Although some references may be plainly verified by primary sources, this does not demonstrate the significance of the reference. Furthermore, when the primary source in question only presents the reference, interpretation of this may constitute original research where the reference itself is ambiguous.^[1] If a cultural reference is genuinely significant it should be possible to find a reliable secondary source that supports that judgment. Quoting a respected expert attesting to the importance of a subject as a cultural influence is encouraged. Absence of these secondary sources should be seen as a sign of limited significance, not an invitation to draw inference from primary sources.

In determining whether a reference is notable enough for inclusion, one helpful test can be to look at whether a person who is familiar with the topic only through the reference in question has the potential to learn something meaningful about the topic from that work alone. For example, if a movie or a television series has been filmed in a town, the viewer is seeing a concrete representation of what the town actually looks like at street level — but if the town is merely mentioned in a single line of dialogue, the viewer hasn't learned anything except that the place exists.

[edit] Guidelines for cleanup and formatting

[edit] Content formatting

Information in lists should be presented in a logical and understandable way. Related items should be grouped together and the article should flow. Alphabetical, regional, date, media type and other forms of organization should be applied, and where possible, lists should be avoided in favor of prose.

[edit] Cleanup

Sections or articles that list too many non-notable popular culture or fiction references may be tagged with {{in popular culture}}, {{cleanup}}, {{cleanup-section}} or {{fictionrefs}}. In many cases an excessively long section can be trimmed by removing entries unlikely to have verifiable evidence of significance. Entries that make only passing reference to the subject can usually be removed.

[edit] Creating "In popular culture" articles

Per Wikipedia's summary style guidelines, when "In popular culture" sections grow excessively long they are split into subarticles. This allows the main article to stay at a reasonable length and focus on the most essential aspects of its subject. The new article is usually called "X in popular culture", "Cultural references to X", "Cultural depictions of X", or "X in fiction". Many of these articles can be found in Category:In popular culture. Advantages of this split include:

1. The main article stays at a reasonable length.
2. It keeps the main article focused on the most essential aspects of its subject.
3. Editors are better able to maintain the main article if extraneous information is kept away from it.
4. Editors of a featured article or good article have one fewer reason to fear it losing that status.
5. Further addition of popular culture content can be discouraged with HTML comments in the areas of the article where cultural references are usually added, e.g. <!-- Dear editor: Please do not add cultural references to this section, and instead add them to the article [[X in popular culture]]. -->

However, it is important to use caution in splitting out such articles. If you do make such a split, please

1. Attempt to pare the section down first. In some cases, the section is not so much a new article as it is just bloated. In others, the section should be split off, but paring down the section first will help the new article stand on its own. In addition, if there are any items in the section that can be integrated with the main article, try to do this before splitting, because it is unlikely to happen afterwards.
2. Before splitting, familiarize yourself with some of the precedents found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Popular culture. Be sure to read the debates, don't look only at the outcomes. Don't split the section out if you think it would likely get deleted.
3. Take responsibility for the new article. If you are considering creating a new article only to keep material you view as undesirable out of the main article, realize that this approach has been tried before, and can often backfire. One common pattern in such a circumstance is that the new article degenerates to the point where it gets deleted, and then the same content builds up in the main article again: the problem in the end remains unsolved and in the meanwhile, editor time is wasted.

[edit] See also

• {{in popular culture}}
• Wikipedia: Avoid trivia sections
• Wikipedia: Handling trivia
• Wikipedia: WikiProject Biography/Core biographies/Cultural depictions of core biography figures
• Wikipedia: WikiProject Deletion sorting/Popular culture
• Wikipedia: WikiProject Popular Culture

[edit] External links

• "Wikipedia's pop culture addiction" (14-pages). From CNet. April 10, 2007
• Strip #446 of the webcomic xkcd. ^[2]

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Not Another Teen Movie references John Hughes, naming the high school where the movie is set "John Hughes High School." Inclusion of this particular reference, which requires little more than a familiarity with John Hughes movies and a DVD player, is probably not contentious. Other references that may be more opaque or subtextual, such as Sideshow Bob's underpinnings should be drawn from secondary sourcing.
2. ^ References to xkcd in "In popular Culture" sections are discussed in their own essay (see Wikipedia:Xkcd in popular culture).