Talk:Mermaids in popular culture/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

This list is a grossly improper attempt to shortcut consensus. See the Mermaid talk, the last comment under "cruft list" to see why it was created. Goldfritha 01:32, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

To the contrary, it was a long overdue step to get the article more in line with Wikipedia policy and how every other article on similar topics (see

Sirens in popular culture, for example) is handled. The discussion should be kept to one talk page so we don't have to repeat the same comments two locations. DreamGuy

03:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Check out the discussion on Mermaid. Note that the discussion DreamGuy shortcircuited was not about structure. Goldfritha 00:26, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Edited a few portions of this section, most notably merging the two paragraphs based on the Harry Potter universe and removing a reference to said universe from another paragraph. 69.141.234.101 00:53, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

During the AfD, some editors proposed new titles such as Mermaids in art or Cultural depictions of mermaids. Anyone have further, civil thoughts about this? Canuckle 16:27, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think a rename is appropriate. The current article is mostly just a mishmash of random pop-culture references, and the title fits better than the others. --Eyrian 16:33, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I was much surprised to come back to this article after a few months and see how radically it has been edited. While I agree that it was not well-organized, I think a lot of good work was thrown out, without attempting to preserve what was good. That seems like a lazy approach. I can go and delete the content of a lot of poor articles with ease, but being able to prserve what is good, and convert it to something better, is the mark of a good editor. Really, it should never have been split in the first place, but should have been cleaned up where it was. I will henceforth recognize a similar suggestion to split an article as a disguised lead-in to eventual deletion.

Taquito1 00:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The work, such as it is, has not been irretrievably lost. Go into the history of the page, find a recent l-o-n-g version, copy it, paste it into a text file, edit the bits that you think ought to be readded, stick the result in this talk page and argue for it. -- Hoary 02:15, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Trust me, I won't try THAT approach, not with the slash-and-burn editing style I see evidenced at this article! Tell me, if the title of the article is "mermaids in popular culture", what justification is there for deleting, wholesale, nearly all references to, umm...mermaids in popular culture, as you and that other guy did? DreamGuy was it? Was it disorganized? Well, why not spend some time organizing it, instead of just deleting everyone's work? Or leave it alone if you can't bear to take the time. You and that other fellow are the guys that make it hard to follow the Wikipedia policy, "assume good intent". Your edits, in my opinion, were worse than the typical adolescent vandalism we all see because they were couched in rationales that sounded valid. So the damage gets left unreverted. You think I'm going to work offline and propose edits to you in this talk page after I have seen your work? Sorry, but I am more inclined to just revert back to before you got hold of it.

I have gone to your talk page just now, Hoary, and can see that you've been here a lot longer than me, and seem to know your stuff. I respect that and will adjust my tone in deference to it. I am a professional writer and have to deal with crappy writing from others all the time. I am learning that, almost no matter how bad something is, there is generally some value to it. The material you and DreamGuy deleted represents the considerable effort of a number of people digging up facts and recording them here. While I understand the concept of cruft, I believe the distinction between cruft and a valid article may lie mainly in organization. In other words, cruft is halfway there. Why not go forward, rather than deleting 90% of an article?

(Lest you think I am simply disgruntled, my contributions actually survived your editing, and some even survived DreamGuy's; I feel proud.)

Taquito1 03:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Taq, you're absolutely right. The problem is there are some (read: a lot) of "editors" that are very vehement and bordering on aggresive (read: near-to-threatening) on their wholesale deletion. Their opinion seems to be that if they don't personally like it, the entire bit ought to be deleted.

You had valid points about the article purpose (Mermaids in pop culture) being removed (which doesn't make any sense). I have added all that back in and made some formatting upgrades. It still needs a lot of work, but this should be a good upgrade for now.

Best of luck in continuing to add and upgrade this article! VigilancePrime 04:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't personally like George W Bush, but I haven't suggested the deletion of his article, and if the suggestion were made I'd oppose it. One randomly chosen sample:

Head - A 1968 film starring The Monkees briefly featured two mermaids in the opening "Porpoise Song" sequence, surrounded by psychedelic effects.

Yes. And? -- Hoary 05:37, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Some of it perhaps should come out. Taking one example among many and trying to assert that as reason to delete everything is beyond ridiculous. You're spending too much time and effort on a poorly-conceived argument (one that may be otherwise valid to certain extents if you had any semblance of logic and rationale to it) that could be much better directed in helping the actual article. That's what I tried to do. It's not perfect, but it's better. It's a start. See what you can do with the article constructively. VigilancePrime 05:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Is there really "no semblance of logic or rationale" to the argument that unsourced trivia can be sifted through, improved, sourced, etc., away from an article of what purports to be an encyclopedia and added to that only when ready? (If there isn't, perhaps one of us misunderstands "encyclopedia".) -- Hoary 09:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Not at all; unsourced trivial trivia can be removed, the problem of reasoning is using ONE extreme example and generalizing it to everything. I have said before that some of it should probably be removed, but that doesn't justify deleting all of it wholesale. Each on its own merits, so to speak. VigilancePrime 15:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that this article should never have been split. It should have been left as a paragraph in the original article. There is no need for an encyclopedia to list every single appearance of a mermaid in popular culture. A guy in finland wrote a song about a mermaid? A mermaid appeared in the opening scene of a movie? These are trivial and exhaustive lists of minutia like this are not what an encyclopedia should be about. Of course, the usual caveat applies: That is just my opinion. That being said, if these entries are going to be left in, some of the assertions made about popularity and notability are going to have to have sources. Entries for more obscure items will need references also. --Chuck Sirloin 13:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I gotta say, I am finding scant pleasure in this article. Most of us want, I believe, to contribute to Wikipedia in a meaningful way, big or small. And I believe most of us want to do so within a sensible set of Wikipedia policies. So, I look at this article--Mermaids in Popular Culture--and I look at Wikipedia policy on indiscriminate collections of information, and, yes, this article violates that, frankly. And it does so precisely because it was set up that way--it was stuck out on a limb to eventually be pruned by deletion because there was clear opposition to deleting the material outright from its original location. Now, most of that opposition has moved on, this new article is a sickly orphan, and it will most assuredly be deleted sooner or later. After all, what can be said about 'Mermaids in Popular Culture' that is not either original research or an indiscriminate list? But if the material had been left in its original context, the situation would be quite different, for it would not be an indiscriminate list, but rather a valued part of a bigger article. And here is the key point: I believe there is ample evidence in Talk:Mermaid that it was valued in that context. Is there a Wikipedia policy validating that justification for its existence? Perhaps not, but it is clear to me that what could not be accomplished directly will end up being accomplished indirectly. Enough said. I vote to merge popular culture back into the original article, where it made sense. Taquito1 01:19, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you on that. My only issue above is under the assumption that the article as a whole remains. I think the ultimate best answer would be to merge it back. (And shorten it!) VigilancePrime 02:49, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

How about this: First (i) shorten it; then (ii) source each example, and then (iii) move the result back. VP, you seem to think that the Monkees example I gave above was particularly bad (and I agree that it is); so why not delete it? And that's just one item; plenty more seem vapid to me, though you may disagree. -- Hoary 04:26, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead on that one. I like your overall plan; I think it meets everyone's desires for the page and content. I'm especially glad that we were able to ultimately come to a common stance on this; it speaks highly of us both. (I've seen - and long ago been a part of - disagreements that instead of getting resolved plummeted into mass chaos... to put it nicely.) VigilancePrime 05:55, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

We need to get back to this plan. Any unsourced ones need to get axed and sourced ones tightened. This needs to be made into a narrative instead of a list. Why is each example a good indicator of the impacts of mermaids on culture, etc. As it stands it comes across like crap. "I saw a mermaid statue in the background of a Snoop Dogg video, can we include that?" --Chuck Sirloin (talk) 16:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC)