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Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture

• Articles for deletion/Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture
• Articles for deletion/Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture (second nomination)

Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

The original AfD for this article proved very controversial. Stated briefly, many members of the Misplaced Pages Mathematics community felt deprived of the opportunity to share their views and expertise in the discussion. DRV determined that a relisting was in order to satisfy those concerns. Deletion is on the table here (as many feel the article violates WP:NOT), as are creative solutions (merging, etc.) that might make use of the content in a different way. Xoloz 03:35, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete, along with any "It appeared here, and here, and here, and here, and..." articles. Those are indiscriminate collections of trivia, not encyclopedia articles. Seraphimblade 03:41, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, relisting this is a joke and an abuse of DRV (not by Xoloz). Michael Hardy didn't like the fact that this was deleted properly by consensus so he created a fuss and alerted people he knew would support him. The whole thing stinks. Ironically, the article doesn't even deserve all this attention, it's the standard IPC list of "spot the phrase" in TV, films, songs, etc. WP:NOT#IINFO and WP:NOT#DIR. (Insert funny joke here comparing the Infinite monkey theorem to the way these types of articles are put together). Crazysuit 03:56, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment The statement above is dishonest and abusive. It does not look like a good-faith attempt to participate in this discussion. Michael Hardy 04:37, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • "Alerted people I knew would support "?? Bullshit. "Crazysuit", if you're here to pick fights, you don't belong here and will get banned. Michael Hardy 04:48, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - WP:NOT, trivial list of trivials. -- KTC 04:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment A significant number of articles in Misplaced Pages are lists of trivia. Case to the point:Battle of Stalingrad in the media.(Igny 04:54, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

• Comment - And a lot of those trvial lists ought to be deleted too. KTC 05:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. Run-of-the-mill pop culture article with no explanation of its actual significance to pop culture. The long and painful process to relist this didn't produce any new material to solve this issue. Someguy1221 04:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete unimportant, irrelevant trivia. Violates WP:NOT#IINFO. --Eyrian 04:21, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment Could you please clarify? irrelevant to what? unimportant for whom?(Igny 04:58, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

• Keep (1) This mathematical proposition is widely known primarily because of its transmission in popular culture rather than because of its transmission in the classroom. (2) It aids the reader whose knowledge of the matter is vague in the understanding of allusions in literature. (3) The story about it published in The New Yorker in 1940, listed in this article, was found worthy of inclusion in the four-volume World of Mathematics, generally held in high regard. If in its present form it is not good enough, it can be edited. Michael Hardy 04:37, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• I feel reluctant to pontificate on articles to which I have no intention to contribute. However, I don't agree that all items in the article are trivia and hence should be deleted. For instance, the great writer Borges apparently has a short story in which this is a central plot element. I think this is such a strong connection that it transcends the trivia category. I hope that people will read the whole article before concluding that it's all trivia. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 05:01, 11 August 2007 (UTC); edited slightly 10:48, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - See comments by Quale below. The article as it stand is a trivial list, and or a list of trivals. If the subject on popular culture is significant, then there should be an article written in prose citing reliable sources on why its been significant. In the case of example such as Borges that you mentioned, the content should rightly go into the The Library of Babel article, because that's where it is significant, with a link to Infinite monkey theorem where a reader can find out more on the topic if wished. A summary on significant or noted appearance on popular culture can also appear in a section on the Infinite monkey theorem article itself. The list however, is just a list of trivial. -- KTC 05:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • AfD is not about the article as it stands. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:13, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• • Agreed. It should be about the article as it could be, and as it is at the end of the AfD. Carcharoth 08:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. The first AFD result was arrived at correctly. The page can and should be edited—anything important or non-trivial on it should be edited into the main article and this page should be deleted. In particular, mention of a New Yorker story that was reprinted by Newman should go in the main article, not ghettoized in a "... in popular culture" page. These "in popular articles" are most often a bad idea and non-encyclopedic unless the the effect or significance of the subject on popular culture has been studied and has WP:RS sources. Sure, the infinite monkey theorem has appeared in pop culture a lot. What is needed are WP:RS reliable sources that examine what these mentions tell us about pop culture or the theorem. This requires secondary sources, not primary sources. The Foxtrot comic strip is a reference to the fact that the theorem was used in that strip, but that primary source alone doesn't make an article unless a reference can be found that describes the significance of the theorem's appearance in a comic strip. Quale 05:03, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• I strongly oppose merging these trivia into the main articles. An example. Battle of Stalingrad in the media was part of Battle of Stalingrad for quite long. Many people have argued (unsuccessfully) to delete it from there because it is somewhat offending to see reference to games in that article. Eventually I moved that list to its own article and it made both camps happy.(Igny 14:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

• Trim severely and merge. The article subject is as valid as any other in popular culture content. However, It is nonsensical to list every passing reference to the theorem, as they are far too numerous and have no secondary source material. Once the listcruft is removed, only a very few items should remain, hopefully resulting in an uncontroversial merge. ~ Booya 05:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete or merge - the article already amply appears to cover most of the major popular uses of it. This collection of trivia is a disservice to the well-written attempt to give the popular culture of it an encyclopedic treatment in the original article. Perhaps a very short "modern use" section could be trimmed out of this collection of trivia and added to the article. --Haemo 06:11, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete or trim severely and merge. Most of the trivia is just OR, but I'm sure there's one or two sentences that deserve a mention in the main article. Singularity 06:23, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Don't merge. I don't really care if it's deleted or not (the main reason I'm commenting here is that I supported overturning the first AfD at DRV). But I don't want this content in the main infinite monkey theorem article -- I thought it was a huge improvement when it was split off.
• (continuing remarks) I will say on that point that the essay WP:BHTT is just wrong. This sort of content really is Better Here Than There. When the content is off in its little corner with a long name and few incoming links, the usual deletionist arguments about cluttering of indexes and damage to WP's reputation lose most of their force, and the content is available for those who really want to find it, which surely has some value. --Trovatore 07:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Of course, its "little corner" could be a page that's not on Misplaced Pages. I've heard there are actually other webhosts out there. Now if we're going to say better there than here, I'd be entirely inclined to agree. Seraphimblade 07:59, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
    • The point, as a practical matter, is that the AfD voters, following their triumphant deletion, go off to seek another victory, and aren't generally going to be around to help keep the content from creeping back into the main article, or argue with those who put it there. Whereas if the spinoff article exists, one or two editors can generally get away with moving the content there, and those who want to add it will generally accept that. So I say again, the essay is just wrong. Sounds good but doesn't work. --Trovatore 08:06, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Unfortunately, that's exactly how these "...in popular culture articles" work. See WP:IPC for more information. This meaningless trivia should be kept in check in the main article, and not allowed to grow without any kind of restrictions Corpx 08:10, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Note that is again an essay, not policy or guideline. However this time I find myself largely approving of the essay (at a brief glance) in descriptive terms. Note that the essay is primarily descriptive and does not come to a conclusion as to whose arguments are better.
        • My feeling, clearly, is that the first group of arguments, the pro-spinoff ones, are better. Yes, the spinoff is likely to be extremely crufty. But the cruft does much less damage there. In the end it's a net win. --Trovatore 08:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per list of trivial mentions that are strung together in a list form. The first AFD ran for well over a 10 days and everyone had plenty of time to chime in. I do not think this should've been re-listed Corpx 08:05, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete - Serious metions of this in pop culture are rare if existent, we don't need a list of jokes based on a quasi-serious theory, there is also the fact that the Trivia articles almost always represent a encyclopedic problem based on their nature, its better to delete it before we have a list that is to long to handle. -- Caribbean~H.Q. 08:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - a polite request to not close this per WP:SNOW until everyone has had a chance to contribute to the discussion. WP:IPC says: "If properly sourced and consistent with policies and guidelines, popular culture articles can attain quality and be a quality part of a topic." I intend to edit the article to provide the necessary sources (secondary source talking about the cultural phenomenom, not primary sources to examples of the phenomenon), and to bring the article in line with policies and guidelines. This will hopefully demonstrate what might be possible. This will likely invalidate most of the delete votes above and below, which is unfortunate, but I think editing an article to improve it is better than deletion. WP:AfD says: "If you wish for an article to be kept, you can improve the article to address the reasons for deletion given in the nomination. You can search out references, and diffuse the deletion arguments given using policy, guidelines, and examples from our good and featured articles. If the reasons given in the nomination are addressed by editing, the nomination should be withdrawn by the nominator, and the deletion discussion will be closed by an admin." Possibly there will be insufficient content once the editing has finished, in which case a merge of what remains may be the best solution. I intend to start the editing tomorrow, and invite those participating in the debate to contribute. Thanks. Carcharoth 09:23, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • As a start, what do people here think of this PDF? It includes material like "The Internet is home to a vast assortment of quotations and experimental designs concerning monkeys and typewriters." and "Monkeys with typewriters” jokes reveal themselves to be one of the ways the mathematically minded like to take an ironic look at their own work and its astounding effects.". I also found Mathematics and Literature, which apparently mentions the Infinite Monkey Theorem (could someone with JSTOR access provide a quote of the relevant bit?) This took about 10 minutes to find, so there is probably more out there. Carcharoth 09:45, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
    • It's in an image caption: "The mathematician's obsession in extending a simple thought (having chimpanzees reproduce great literature by chance using typewriters) to absurd limits (calculating how long it would take for "Dear Sir" to appear) is the source of ridicule in Russell Maloney's Inflexible Logic .This illustration is reproduced from How to Take a Chance by Darrell Huff, illustrated by Irving Geis," It doesn't make much sense without the picture, I'm afraid. There is also a discussion about Borges' stories. Do you want me to send you the PDF by email? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:13, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Possibly, it depends on what I find elsewhere. For the moment, it would be best if you and others who can access it, use it as a source for pointing out that the topic of 'mathematics and literature' has been studied in a serious manner. Carcharoth 08:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• There is some merit in in popular culture segments as it reflects the impact outside of mathematics of a particular theorem. References to 1729 (number) are few so that they all deserve a mention. When the number of references become large, such as here, the significance of each reference diminishes. Some of the references are significant, such as borges The Library of Babel, which has been studied by philosophers in some detail, other less so. The question is where should the line between trivia and significance be drawn. WP policies could be brought in here, if a particular occurrence has third party sources discusses it then its worth including. If not then its trivia. Applying this rigiriously would result in a smaller section. On the whole I would say trim and merge including only those where there is third party sources. --Salix alba (talk) 09:35, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete The justification given in the article, "...an unusual case of a mathematical proposition that admits a precise statement and proof being widely known among non-mathematicians because of its transmission through popular culture..., is a poor excuse for creating a never-ending list of examples of usage. If this is the justification, then a half-dozen examples are enough to illustrate the point. There is also no attempt to explain the significance - if any - to pop culture. I am open to change if the article is edited in such a way to address these points (just drop a line on my talk page). --Malcolmxl5 11:28, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep This article is nearly the same as many other articles on Misplaced Pages. Compare with Batman in popular media, Battle of Stalingrad in the media, Christmas in the media, Media in Grand Theft Auto, and many others (just search for the damned in media). Unless you cite me a policy which addresses all of these "popular" lists, and begin treating these lists without discrimination, I vote for keep. But I believe you are not strong enough to fight them all in bulk, so you are taking on them one by one, right? (Igny 14:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

• WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS and WP:WAX are not valid arguments. Otto4711 15:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Say it to a whole category of this other stuff, Category:In_popular_culture.(Igny 16:33, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

• Some of us have been. --Eyrian 16:40, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Indeed, some 40% of the articles in that article have been deleted in recent weeks, along with chunks of the content of various of the subcategories. Otto4711 16:53, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep or merge. At least some of this content is encyclopedic. Most of the notability of the Infinite Monkey theorem rests on its circulation through popular culture, so some of this content needs to be somewhere. However this article as it stands needs work (but of course that is not a valid reason for deletion). I think we should follow Carcharoth's suggested way forward, and see what can be done with this article to improve it, discarding bits that cannot be sourced. After which we should see what remains. If there is only a small amount of quality content, then it can be merged, otherwise it should be kept as its own article. Many of the problems mentioned above are valid but fixable. Articles that can be fixed should be. Paul August ☎ 15:05, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - yet another dump of every time someone mentions a bunch of monkeys typing. The notion that this should have been kept to allow people from a particular Wikiproject or community weigh in is ludicrous. Commenting on AFDs is not a right. They have the same chance as anyone else to speak up during AFD and if they didn't for whatever reason that's too bad. I was on vacation for a week in April and I didn't get to comment on any AFDs. Should I get have everything relisted? Otto4711 15:54, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • How is that last comment relevant to this discussion? You're posting the wrong forum. This page is supposed to be about whether the article should be kept. Michael Hardy 17:59, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
    • It's a direct comment about the wheelwarring that generated this new waste of time. --Calton | Talk 05:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all non-encyclopedic content, which is almost everything. Information like "Online there is a game mocking the theorem called "Mojo the Monkey", in which a monkey types random keys that show up on the screen. When the monkey types an actual word, you highlight it and save it to the website's server and highscore list" is really non-encyclopedic. Jakob.scholbach 15:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Weak delete. I would like to see an article that, through appropriate secondary sources such as this paper, explores the history and development of the infinite monkey idea in literature and popular culture. This article isn't it, and without secondary sources the aggregation of references that it represents must be regarded as original research. —David Eppstein 16:05, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete (redirect) and perhaps merge a tidbit or two to Infinite monkey theorem which already has a section on the popular culture around the theorem. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:46, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. There could be a good article written on this topic, but this isn't it, and the material here won't help that article get written. -- Dominus 18:40, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. I have reconsidered. Carcharoth has put forth a plan for fixing the article, and I don't think it's my place to say that the material here is useless until I see what Carcharoth can make of it. -- Dominus 19:41, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete This is essentially a list, but not one which identifiably serves the purposes of lists on Misplaced Pages. I reckon that if any of the entries are sufficiently notable, they can be absorbed by the culture section in Infinite monkey theorem. --Mark H Wilkinson 18:45, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep or merge per Paul August. Also, as an observation, there seems to be a "crusade" of sorts this summer by a few users to get rid of all the popular culture articles, so I wonder if instead of all of these AfDs, a larger, special discussion should take place first somewhere in which a general consensus could be reached, i.e. a special one time discussion or something. Maybe another great idea would be to outright replace something like the negative sounding What Misplaced Pages is Not with a more positive What Misplaced Pages Is! Anyway, just a suggestion. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 18:51, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - the title of that paper, "Mathematics in Literature", has got me thinking. Maybe there is a better way to approach this, which is to have articles such as Mathematics in literature, Mathematics in film, Mathematics in music, Mathematics in popular culture. Does that sound feasible? Of course, properly sourced article, as opposed to lists of trivia, in case anyone wants to jump in and misunderstand what I am proposing. Carcharoth 23:17, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

We do have Category:Mathematics and culture with some rather neglected articles such as Mathematics and art. Films are fairly well covered, with articles on most of films with significant mathematical content. I've placed this article and the other maths in popular culture article in the category. There is certainly scope for a Mathematics in popular culture article. --Salix alba (talk) 09:02, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. The full list of such articles I was able to find seems to be: Mathematics and art, Music and mathematics and Mathematics and architecture. Regarding films, I fear some of the people participating in this debate might not appreciate List of films about mathematicians. Could those commenting here on the unfeasibility of Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture, please give their opinions on the feasibility of a future Mathematics in popular culture article. NB. Such 'visualization', in an attempt to determine the potential of an article in its 'best' state, is an important part of AfD. If anyone participating at AfD can't do such visualizations, then their AfD !votes are merely commenting on the present state of an article, not its potential (or lack of potential) for improvement. Carcharoth 13:26, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete unless Carcharoth manages to add sufficient references about the infinite monkey theorem in popular culture can be found. Lists of popular references to the theorem are not suitable for Misplaced Pages. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:20, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete now that the mathematicians have added their say, it isn't any different from a minimally sourced laundry list of things that to someone's POV and OR reference or kinda relate to the subject at hand. However, the article can be morphed into the proof of the theorem, if we just kept adding all content from articles that get speedy deleted as nonsense, it will end up as a FA. This should occur in someone's user space (I think there was a volunteer last time) rather than posing as encyclopedic content. Carlossuarez46 00:01, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete as another listcruft trivia article with some merge of the sourced elements.--JForget 02:36, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep per Michael Hardy and Paul August. Mathmo 02:40, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I feel that it is important to keep popular culture articles because they inherently demonstrate the notability of the parent article while at the same time keeping the parent article more streamlined. Mathmo 03:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Strong Weak Delete - Putting stuff together like that satisfies OR. Misplaced Pages is not for OR. Brusegadi 02:53, 12 August 2007 (UTC) It needs better sourcing. The strongest link you have is the one under external links; but that site could be owned by anyone, including the creator of the article. Unless better more reliable sources are found, the article verges on OR.Brusegadi 03:05, 12 August 2007 (UTC) My plea for deletion was based on the fact that the source I viewed as strong seemed unreliable (eg. it could have been written by the person who started this article.) Yet, you do have a source so in the name of good faith I will change my view. Finally, I feel that the article can be cleaned and you should try to find a couple more sources. Brusegadi 03:30, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Zillionth edit conflict: Not OR, any more than all of wikipedia is OR. Mathmo 03:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep This is a notable popular culture meme and deserves an article in Misplaced Pages. Nondistinguished 04:35, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Because...? Seraphimblade 04:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Because it fulfills the criteria laid out for us for deciding what a notable subject is: WP:N. Nondistinguished 13:00, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. As with most of these articles, there is no encyclopedic reason to be trying to list as many examples as can be found. In theory, the concept of the Infinite Monkey Theorem as it appears in popular culture could be the subject of an article, but given that no one apparently studies this topic outside of Misplaced Pages, I don't think this belongs. In other words - while sources may be able to prove that individual entries are accurate, there are no secondary sources at all on this topic, or even that discuss it significantly. Therefore, this topic isn't notable. As to merging: please don't merge - what to include at Infinite monkey theorem should be up to the editors of that page. Mangojuice 04:49, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Of course, I mean that sources are lacking that deign to discuss whether or how the infinite monkey theorem is important to popular culture. Surely, there are many that discuss the "theorem" itself. Mangojuice 04:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Trim and then either refactor into the main article or keep depending on the substance of what remains. --Cronholm 05:44, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. So it turns out that specialist viewpoints of the "math community" is "I like it", and to confuse this subject with that of infinite monkey theorem. Yet another random list of factoids. A simple paragraph or two in infinite monkey theorem, explaining its actual impact, should suffice, and unless concrete evidence emerges that User:Carcharoth's faith-based plan has any actual substance, my opinion will remain unchanged. --Calton | Talk 05:55, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. Please WP:AGF. I like to think I'm in the "math community", and I !voted delete unless sources commenting on the relevence of the theorem in popular culture can be found. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 06:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Seconded. A number of mathematicians have said delete, including me. --Mark H Wilkinson 07:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep People, please look at this article again--it specifically discusses the applicability to popular culture, with several dozen well sourced examples. I don't think one of the really weak pop culture articles would have been relisted (or even taken there). The people who think this encyclopedic are not trying to defend lost causes, or to say that everything with the subtitle is presumed notable. (unlike those who seem to say that everything of the sort is presumed non-notable). This is used --and often reasonably correctly at that-- as a key element of the popular understanding of probability. DGG (talk) 07:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

For those who would like to discuss the in popular culture articles in a more general forum, I have posted at the Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion#In_popular_culture_articles.--Cronholm 07:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• • Comment Based on what you say, I did look again, but I guess I'm not seeing what you mean? The article isn't a general discussion of the thing's impact on popular culture, and I can't find anything that does discuss the impact of this on popular culture. The only sources I see are basically the "sourcing" of mentions to a primary source. If there were any source which actually discusses this concept in relation to pop culture, I'd change to keep in a second, but right now it looks like a short original research intro followed by "It appeared here, and here, and here, and...". If a pop culture article is composed of more than half bullet points or other form of laundry list, and there aren't any sources listed that discuss the thing's impact on popular culture, it's generally unimprovable and a trivia collection. Seraphimblade 07:50, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. The article can obviously be improved, and I applaud some of the specific ideas brought forward to do that. AfD should address primarily the suitability of a topic for a Misplaced Pages article. This topic is perfectly good for an article. Those commenting on the current content please think this through. Charles Matthews 07:15, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep or possibly merge. This does not seem to be the normal "in pop culture" list, and actually has some noteworthy information. I was actually surprised. -- Ned Scott 07:16, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Last time I checked, the content had already been de facto merged to Infinite monkey theorem. The reason I keep pointing this out is that two edits have since been made to the popular culture content in that article, which makes a nonsense of my plan to edit the material at a different location. Sure, the edits can be integrated with the spin-off article, but it just makes this that much harder. Carcharoth 08:44, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Correction, four edits: , , (that one is a substantive change), and . There have also been edits made to the article after it was restored following the DRV: , , . Before I start on editing Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture, I'm going to synchronise the content and then remove the content from Infinite monkey theorem, and leave a note on the talk page explaining my reasons why. Carcharoth 08:59, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - since this appears to be a high-profile AfD (I'm hoping that people who vote delete on lots of popular culture articles will return here and see this), I'm posting details of a journal that does discuss popular culture, and is a good place for sourced discussion and commentary: The Journal of Popular Culture. From this page, we can see that it has been published since 1967. There is a free issue available at the moment to those who don't have a subscription to back issues (like me). It is the February 2007 issue. It has an example of Harry Potter and the Functions of Popular Culture. (Warning: after a certain time has elapsed, this 'free' issue will likely become 'subscribers only' again). Of course, there will be many cases where "one source does not an article make", and papers like this should be used to buttress existing popular culture subsections, rather than separate articles, and the lists of trivia will still need to be ruthlessly pruned to notable examples only (my rule of thumb is whether you could write a Misplaced Pages article on the example). Carcharoth 09:42, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Update - I've been adding dates where available, as a prelude to investigating each entry on the list. Some entries are too general to have dates, or will require further investigation. This initial stage will be followed by searches for independent commentary of the form "look at this example of the infinite monkey theorem", illustrating the spread of the topic. I'd also urge people here to look at this site (the article's bibliography), and what it says about the usefulness (or not) of the collection:

  "What is wrong with this page: 1. It relies too much on WWW documents; 2. It relies too little on the printed word; 3. It should have a citation for each decade between Eddington and the present, instead of a zillion silly citations from the last year or two."

  Much of those comments apply to this article in its current state. I will note though that many of the seemingly trivial examples are nothing of the sort, and many are not mentioned in the article on the subject. That is something that should be done (importing the examples and their references outwards if the article is deleted). The article has also greatly expanded on the list by Jim Reeds (which says it was last updated in 2000), and both lists would be fertile ground for anyone wanting to submit a paper to The Journal of Popular Culture... (I know, that's no argument for keeping it on Misplaced Pages). Anyway, back to searching out more details and verifying what is there, before looking for sourced commentary to justify it (the last part). Carcharoth 10:33, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all "X in popular culture" articles and subsections. Factoids of this kind that cannot be worked into the main article such as to add real value there have no place in an encyclopedia at all. They should be deleted from the main articles, and there is no reason for them to reappear in a trash-can article of their own. –Henning Makholm 10:36, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Now that is an extreme viewpoint! :-) I do understand where you are coming from, but you maybe forget that some subjects have such a long history that any sections detailing that history may need to be spun off into its own article (I'm not saying that is the case here). Additionally, subsections sometimes deal well with aggregating examples until they can be integrated into either the article, or into other Misplaced Pages articles. Have a look at Ernest Rutherford#Impact and legacy. "Named after" is an example of something that can get out of hand, but can often be justified. Booker T. Washington is another interesting example. His article has "Numerous high schools and middle schools across the United States have been named after Booker T. Washington." - and this links to Booker T. Washington High School and Booker T. Washington Middle School. To my mind, the Booker T. Washington solution, which uses disambiguation pages, is elegant. To use some examples with a longer history, have a look at Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, Cultural depictions of Julius Caesar and Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great. Let me be frank here and ask you whether you found those last three articles informative and educational (you may have to ignore the trivial additions that haven't been removed yet). If you don't, it may surprise you to learn that many people do find that sort of article informative and educational. Another example would be Ptolemy (name), which is a mish-mash of a disambiguation page, the history of a name, and some more trivial references (down the bottom). It may be that the same information can be presented in the separate articles, but many articles on Misplaced Pages present the same information in different packages. This repackaging of information is sometimes a bad thing, but sometimes it is perfectly acceptable and increases understanding on the part of the reader. So in essence, your view can be rejected as over-simplistic, as there are many exceptions to what you propose. The point is that good sourcing to secondary literature is needed, not blanket removal of certain classes of information as unacceptable. Carcharoth 12:02, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - As with many (though not all) IPC articles, the contents of this article clearly warrant its notability and special meaning independent of traditional wiki-guidelines. Any article can be called a collection of loosely associated information -- look at the Bush article for instance, which talks about Bush the cheerleader and then goes on to detail his position on social security. Policies like WP:N were not meant to apply to all of 2 million+ unique articles; that's why we have WP:IGNORE. If the contents of the article are substantially notable (keeping in mind that WP:N has no application to article contents, so we have to use a bit of WP:SENSE), and they are meaningfully connected to a common theme (Inf. monkey theorem IPC), then that topic is notable whether or not someone has written a book with an identical title. — xDanielx 11:59, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep; crappiness is a natural part of the article improvement process. -- Visviva 15:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete pop culture article. abuse of DRV. The few relevent worthy things are duplicated in the main article. ⇒ SWATJester 17:01, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Those reasons are all irrelevant. Obviously articles about popular culture can be encyclopedic. Whether DRV was abused or not is clearly beside the point. Inappropriate duplication of material can be dealt with. Paul August ☎ 17:46, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

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