Talk:Faith Hilling

Pop cultural references, continuity notes and other details

Please do not add mention of pop cultural references, continuity notes, trivia, or who the targets of a given episode's parody are, without accompanying such material with an inline citation of a reliable, published, secondary source. Adding such material without such sources violates Wikipedia's policies regarding Verifiability, No Original Research, and Synthesis.

While a primary source (such as the episode itself, or a screencap or clip from it at South Park Studios) is acceptable for material that is merely descriptive, such as the synopsis, it is not enough to cite a primary source for material that constitutes an analytic, evaluative or interpretative claims, such as cultural references in works of satire or parody, because in such cases, such claims are being made on the part of the editor. This is called synthesis, which is a form of original research, and is strictly forbidden on Wikipedia, regardless of whether one thinks the meaning of the reference is "obvious". Sources for such claims must be secondary sources in which reliable persons, such as TV critics or reviewers, explicitly mention the reference.

In addition, trivial information that is not salient or relevant enough to be incorporated into the major sections of an article should not be included, per WP:PLOTSUMMARIZE and WP:TRIVIA, and this includes the plot summary. As indicated by WP:TVPLOT, the plot summary is an overview of a work's main events, so avoid any minutiae that is not needed for a reader's understanding of the story's three fundamental elements: plot, characterization and theme. This includes such minutiae as scene-by-scene breakdowns, technical information or detailed explanations of individual gags or lines of dialogue.

If you're new to Wikipedia, please click on the wikilinked policy pages above to familiarize yourself with this site's policies and guidelines.

Content guidelines Re: Nightscream

Can he/she go away? Is that possible? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.178.5.210 (talk) 19:45, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not planning to any time soon, so if you have any problems with the above, or with how I've interpreted or applied them, then please feel free to start a discussion on this talk page.

The information above doesn't come from me, it comes directly from Wikipedia's various policies and guidelines, which you can read on the linked pages. Have I misrepresented those policies or guidelines? If so, then please explain how. Otherwise, do not leave unsigned messages that could be seen as attacks upon other editors. Doing this is a violation of this site's Civility Policy. Thank you. Nightscream (talk) 21:15, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi guys, concerning the above, I understand the point, I just feel the south park wikipedia pages have become pointless. Before, there was all kind of explanations that were quite useful and funny. Most of all to people like me that don't live in the US and then can't understand references to local happenings. Now the Wikipedia pages are just a resume of the episode that we saw, pretty useless.88.114.195.72 (talk) 05:46, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. I don't like in the US either and I don't understand some of the jokes. I used to come to Wiki to read the connections to current US issues and pop culture. Massive ****s like Nightscream ruin it, and I feel awful saying that out loud because, as with most people like him/her, he/she probably gets off on it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.129.128.253 (talk) 12:41, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Explaining every joke is not Wikipedia's role. It's a general knowledge encyclopedia, not a fan encyclopedia. In any event, if you think that not including them "ruins" the project, then it is the above policies and guidelines that do so, and not me, since it was the community who formulated those guidelines long before I ever started editing here.

Again, have I misinterpreted those guidelines? Misapplied? Adhered to them in a way that is not consistent with their intent, as indicated by their language? Do those policies and guidelines linked to above not say what I've indicated that they say? If so, then why not simply explain how? Or do you simply feel that rules do not apply to you when you visit someone else's property, including Wikipedia's Civility Policy, which prohibits attacking other editors as you just did? If you're not capable of engaging in a civil, intelligent discussion about the improvement or the article or this site's rules, then kindly go elsewhere. Continue to violate the site's policies, you risk being blocked from editing. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 16:40, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

You do know that guidelines aren't set in stone, right? Otherwise they'd be official rules and not merely suggestions to follow. Isn't there also a be bold policy? The reason they are just guidelines is because every situation is different. You can't apply one set of rules to every situation. So, yes, while Wikipedia is a general knowledge encyclopedia, it's role is to educate and be a source of knowledge on any particular topic. If others think that in this particular situation the guidelines you quoted should be set aside then the consensus (another important policy of Wikipedia) should rule the day and more information should be included. And no, I won't sign my name with four tildes or sign up with a username to Wikipedia in order to ostensibly be taken more seriously. I don't see the need to follow those suggestions either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.240.174.236 (talk) 18:25, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are not "suggestions".

While it's true that they have to be applied properly, with a modicum of common sense, honesty and decency, and in accordance with the situation at hand, that is not the same thing as simply ignoring them because they prevent you from adding material that suits your whims. WP:BOLD does not prescribe doing so, nor have you offered any explanation as to why they do not apply to these articles, and should be "set aside". You claim that whether unsourced synthesis and pop cultural trivia should be included should be left up to consensus, rather than the policies and guidelines mentioned above. This is a false either/or fallacy, since those policies were written by that consensus. Where else do you think they came from? That very community wrote those guidelines, long before I started editing here, precisely because unsourced original research, synthesis, rumor, editor POV and trivia does not "educate". It's just worthless garbage, and can be more easily found in forums and blog comment sections everywhere else on the Web. We are not going to include what some anonymous IP editor thinks some gag or line of dialogue in an episode is a reference to, based on nothing more than their personal perceptions; such information is completely worthless to a project that actually has standards for its content, and in the quality of the sources supporting that content. If you have a genuine, good-faith argument or bit of reasoning as to why the aforementioned policies/guidelines don't apply to these articles, then make it. If you want to hold a consensus discussion on the matter, then by all means, I support you in starting one. But if you're dead-set on showing nothing but contempt for this site, its policies and the community who formulated them, as indicated by your comment about signing your messages, then don't be terribly surprised if I or the rest of the community feel disinclined to give you any credence or interact with you further. Nightscream (talk) 00:38, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Nightscream I would invite you to revisit Civility Policy, particularly the sectinons on assuming good faith and incivility. While I believe you are generally acting in good faith in that you only want to improve Wikipedia, I believe your last comment here was rather incivil and did not assume good faith on my part.

I have not made any of the arguments that you say I have. I made no claim on including unsourced synthesis or pop culture references. Perhaps you think I was one of the several people who made comments on those issues. It is rather uncivil to dismiss the information they want to include as "completely worthless". I also personally don't support your view that trivia does not educate and is "worthless garbage".

My actual argument had nothing to do with the particular issue at hand but rather on your strict interpretation of guidelines. I repeat, guidelines are not set in stone. This is explained in the opening paragraphs of the main Wikipedia policies and guidelines page, further elaborated on in Wikipedia:NOTSTATUTE (sorry, I'm not particularly good with hyperlinks) and summed up most simple in Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules.

It is the height of incivility to suggest that I show nothing but contempt for Wikipedia, it's guidelines or its contributors (although I did just notice that signing posts in comment sections is a requirement and not a suggestion; I'll sign my signatures from now on). If I have any contempt it is for contributors who think that they are always right, are dismissive of others opinions, are uncivil, and who want to apply guidelines so rigidly even if that means ignoring common sense. I doubt that this generally applies to you, Nightscream, and again believe that you are only applying the guidelines as you see fit so as to improve the article, however I believe that this is the case here. That is why I wrote my comment in the first place.

As for a reason to include pop culture trivia sections to South Park articles, I believe this is a matter of common sense. South Park is a satire; satire requires a subject. For South Park, the satire is of pop culture that may not be evident to all viewers. I can certainly tell you that this is the case for my Polish girlfriend who does not get most of the references South Park makes but even I miss quite a few jokes. It would certainly benefit the South Park Wikipedia articles and those who read them if they were to include a list of the pop culture references that the jokes are based on, regardless of whether they are sourced or not. I would even say that's common sense but we may have different interpretations on that.81.240.172.103 (talk) 15:32, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad to see you've decided to respect talk page conventions by signing your posts, but I hope you can see how your comment above not signing your posts might've appeared to me at the time. I'm hoping this was a misunderstanding between us, and that we can communicate more civilly.

As a newcomer to Wikipedia (correct me if I'm wrong), I'd like to welcome you here, and direct you to Help:Link for info on how to make hyperlinks. In a nutshell, you just put two opening and closing brackets around a word or phrase to link it to the corresponding article of that title, like this:

[[ARTICLE NAME]]

If you want the link to be formatted with some type of text other than that article's exact title, just put a pipe divider after the article name, and then that text, like this:

[[ARTICLE NAME|DIFFERENT TEXT]]

I hope that helps. If you ever have any other questions, feel leave me a message in a new section at the bottom of my talk page.

As for that matter of sourcing, I do not know which arguments you feel I've attributed to you that you haven't, but if you could clarify by pointing to where I've done this, please do so. For the record, however, I do not hold that my positions are dogmatic or absolute. I hold that they are empirical: that is, they're based on evidence and/or reason, and proper application of policies, guidelines and their intent. If you want to falsify those positions, then you have to falsify the arguments I've provided for them.

It is true that they have to be applied with common sense. But that does not mean that you get to apply them here in these articles in a way that merely allows you to include the information that you want to include, and no amount of misplaced citing of WP:BOLD, WP:NOTSTATUTE or WP:IGNOREALLRULES is going to change that.

What you need to understand is that Wikipedia does not originate any material of its own; it merely relates material from sources, rather than creating original material. This goes to the core how to Wikipedia is possible, and how it can replace the traditional expert-based model of the encyclopedia. Whereas traditional encyclopedias are mostly written by experts, Wikipedia is able to bypass that obstacle in employing amateur contributors by requiring them to base their material on sources. Thus, the onus is on those sources, and not Wikipedia's editors. This way, readers can verify the material by tracking it back to its source, and if they wish to vet that material further, they can do so vis a vis that source. But if instead originates from the observation of editors, readers cannot do this. Editors are anonymous, so there is no way to gauge the quality of the material, since we have no idea who the editor is, or what knowledge, experiences, biases or intent he/she brings to the project. Judging each piece of material by consensus would not work for the same reason; the number anonymous persons is merely multiplied, and anyone can create an account (or even discuss from an IP) and manipulate the system. This is why editors are charged with transcribing and paraphrasing material from sources, and not making assertions of their own. Simply put, the project doesn't care what you think some bit in an episode means, or what I think, for that matter. We only care what the sources say. Wikipedia is already fighting to develop a reputation of reliability; it would plummet even further if it opened the flood gates by allowing anonymous nobodies like you or I to include what we "think" is the right interpretation of a fictional work, and yes, that is indeed what original research and synthesis is.

This is not some "strict" interpretation of an obscure statue. It's a fundamental core policy. While something like "the sky is blue" or "Christmas is on December 25" doesn't need to be sourced, any claim about a fictional work that is analytical, interpretive or evaluative, as indicated by WP:PSTS, requires a reliable secondary source, and the meaning behind the content of fictional works, including satire, is precisely the sort of thing that that policy was written to address.

If you're going to say that such policies don't apply in these articles, then you're going to have to present a good argument for it, and I'm sorry, but you haven't. You claim you made no argument about including unsourced pop culture references but then in the last portion of your message above, you spend the last six sentences arguing for precisely this. Why would your observation about South Park being a work of satire mean that it does not fall under the language of WP:PSTS? Is it really your argument that the intent of PSTS is to require secondary sources for evaluative/analytical material but not if it's a work of satire? Why would satire be excepted? You're going to have to mount a better argument than "Me and my Polish girlfriend want it". That sort of thing is fine in fan encyclopedias, but not Wikipedia. Lots of people "want" to see things in Wikipedia that are not permitted for a variety of reasons. But we only include material if it has encyclopedic value, and is supported by reliable sources. Just because you like trivia and pop culture references doesn't mean that it gets included, and citing WP:BOLD, WP:NOTSTATUTE or WP:IGNOREALLRULES isn't going to change that. If you could cite those policies in order to ignore another, fundamental one, then anyone could cite them to ignore any policy or guideline they wanted. Such a practice is merely self-serving, and not tenable.

It should also be pointed out that a lot of the references (not all, but the most salient ones in an episode) can be found in critics' reviews, like those published by IGN and the The A.V. Club. If the people who favor inclusion of this material would find it within themselves to develop a little bit of respect for what the Wikimedia Foundation and the editing community here is trying to accomplish, and roll up their sleeves just a tad, and maybe do some actual work for a change by reading those reviews and relating their content, instead of just dumping incoherently-written, unsourced POV gibberish into an article, and then whining about it when someone politely informs them this site actually has rules that prohibit this, then such additions would be sourced, and of value to readers who care about reliability. Is there some reason they cannot do this? Could it be that, oh, I don't know, that it would require some actual reading and composing of material? Could it be that they don't want to do this because they're lazy? And given how they react when told of this site's policies and guidelines, including the uncivil trolling they engage in, a bit arrogant as well? What do you think the rest of the community make of such people when encountering such behavior?

Also, if you're so new that you're still learning about hyperlinks and signing talk page posts, then don't you think it's a tad bit presumptuous to think you know better about the intent of the site's policies and guidelines than someone who's been editing here since 2005? When I first started editing here, I jumped in and started learning. I didn't tell the community "I don't see the need to follow your suggestions", or pretend that I knew more about the intent behind the site's guidelines than others did.

If you think that this is just my rogue viewpoint, and not the viewpoint of the community, let me know, and I'll request Third Opinion, I can make a Request for Comment, begin a consensus discussion, etc. Nightscream (talk) 02:45, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Cat breading

The article currently makes it sound like South Park invented cat breading. Like Tebowing, cat breading came before the cartoon. Maybe it will end up with its own article, even. Rifter0x0000 (talk) 21:53, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

The article neither states nor implies any such thing. It merely references cat breading as a newer meme. It makes no statement as to who originated the idea. Nightscream (talk) 18:09, 15 April 2013 (UTC)