Talk:Ouroboros

Removal of information in gaming section October 22, 2025

@Gawaon What do you mean "such details will barely be interesting (or comprehensible) for non-players"? There's a load of information that could be characterized as such "barely interesting or comprehensible" details in the other parts of the 'In fiction' section, but I don't see those getting removed! Regarding the source, that's easily fixed, but again, several other entries of this section don't have sources and haven't been removed! This is clearly unfair! 2804:868:D042:5DE5:BD03:609A:E62C:E188 (talk) 12:07, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Fairness is not a relevant criterion here. Maybe I or some other editor will remove older unsourced entries from that section some day; that it hasn't happened so far is no guarantee for the future. New content should always be properly sourced. Old one too, in an ideal world, I'll grant you that – but sadly we don't live there yet. Anyway, if you see anything that's uninteresting or incomprehensible in the context of the article, feel free to remove it. Gawaon (talk) 15:12, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Instead of removing, I always prefer the increase of available information, as I believe a wider range of subjects will be appealing to a wider range of people. Funnily enough, I came to this page after seeing a tech-related meme that mentioned the Ouroboros. Then, as a former player of The Division 2, I found it surprising to not see a reference to it in the section 'In fiction', whereas far more obscure references were found, both older and newer, so that's why I decided to add information to the article. Alas, I find myself diverging from the specifics. My goal here is to engage in a civil, constructive discussion. As such, I respect and accept the decision made, but surely I wouldn't find it fair either for me to remove previous content, work, really, of others, topics that interested them and motivated them to add to the article, whether it is a criterion or not. Thank you for this extended explanation. 2804:868:D042:5DE5:BD03:609A:E62C:E188 (talk) 15:29, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

RE (resident Evil) 5

Resident Evil 5 Resident_Evil_5 the entire plot is finding and destroying the Uroboros virus. Should get a mention? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-16807-13 (talk) 12:22, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

If you have a reliable source for it (independent of the game itself), sure, why not? Gawaon (talk) 14:37, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

delete most cultural references?

According to MOS:POPCULT, quite a lot of the current article should be cleared out or supported by better sources: "The mere appearance of the subject in a film, song, video game, television show, or the like is insufficient; more generally, if sourcing for a given cultural reference is such that a given article would be able to do little more than briefly mention it, then it doesn't merit inclusion in that article at all.[...] If examples are included, they should be drawn from sources that discuss the primary topic rather than being selected arbitrarily." Joortje1 (talk) 13:21, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Personally I'm not keen on the idea, since I think that the burden defined by POPCULT is so high that it's nearly impossible to surpass. If it was taken seriously everywhere, most "In popular culture" or similarly named sections would likely have to be deleted or trimmed down to at most one to two paragraphs. I'd be more generous, maybe trimming entries that are unsourced or whose relevance is unclear, but leaving the rest. Gawaon (talk) 14:40, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

"it's nearly impossible to surpass." This is by design, and it makes most Wikipedia articles irrelevant to the concerns of the readers. It is one of the ways that Wikipedia's quality has declined over the years. Dimadick (talk) 16:20, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

@Dimadick Do you attribute that perceived decline and the irrelevance of most articles to the high standards in guidelines or to the abundance of all-too trivial information in articles?

Personally, I don't mind a few trivial additions or even some straightforward lists, even if 'unsourced' (cultural references tend to explicitly mention the primary source). I actually like to be reminded of the ones I do know, and may sometimes even feel inclined to check out referenced works. But the quality of such entries in wikipedia artciles are often quite poor: they tend to just list some descriptionsof occurances, with more redundant contextual trivia than analytical structure that reliable sources on the topic can offer. Joortje1 (talk) 07:26, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

For instance, the "Film and television" section uses a lot of irrelevant and repetitive text to say that some episodes of popular series use the title or feature the symbol to illustrate well-known themes. It also strings together unrelated references as if each sentence has anything to do with the previous one. And too many references seem too trivial to put any work into rewriting or restructuring. Using only sources on the topic would indeed help to prevent much of the poorly written trivia in such sections. Joortje1 (talk) 07:36, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Fair points, some trimming may be in order. (Though I don't think that having several works covered in the same paragraph is a problem as such – indeed I consider it less annoying than the otherwise common "write a list as a section of paragraphs" format, where such a section consists of multiple very short paragraphs, each covering one work and usually consisting in just a single sentence.) Gawaon (talk) 08:13, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Over the years, I visited articles on monarchs and politicians to learn about their depictions in films, television, novels, etc. Both to see their actual impact on modern culture, and to see where or if I could find these depictions for my own use. Now most main articles mention nothing relevant, and I have to search websites other than Wikipedia to find even the most basic information. What you call "trivia", I call the reasons to pay more attention to that figure. Dimadick (talk) 12:58, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree, if it's like that, things have clearly gone too far. Which is why I'd apply POPCULT with a grain of salt or two. Gawaon (talk) 14:26, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

As said, I also see value in such contributions and I'm quite often more for bold additions than for strict adherence to guidelines and removal of content. My remarks here were actually prompted by some addition to a Muybridge article in which somebody seemed to want to promote some relatively insignificant artist by citing a primary source in which Muybridge was mentioned as an influence. I then wondered how many popcult references here did amount to similar attempts by fans or promotors.

However, this page seems to be a good example where the subject is very interesting and quite notable, but apparently has nonetheless prompted little or no topic-specific studies. It thus naturally depends on a wider range of sources that do address the subject, within other contexts. The page can thus become a useful encyclopedic overview of references, with hardly anything else available. Whether it's about historical, academic or popcult references doesn't even make much of a difference in this regard (at least not if I look at the sources for this page), although the sources for the latter will probably not soon be considered as reliable.

Which criteria might be useful for this page? When is something notable enough? When reliably sourced? Joortje1 (talk) 13:56, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

For example, do we accept this addition? Personally I think we shouldn't, since genius.com only confirms that the lyrics exist, but not that anyone has considered them sufficiently notable to write about them anywhere. Not enough, in my opinion. Gawaon (talk) 14:04, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

The other Music entries are also only sourced to lyrics. Clear examples of mere mentions. Schazjmd (talk) 14:33, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, even though I think that POPCULT shouldn't be interpreted too literally, at least a mention in some music magazine or similar is surely not too much to ask for. Hence I have deleted the section now. Gawaon (talk) 17:51, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Gaming section (again)

Why does the gaming section of this page keep getting smaller and smaller? There's only two videogames included. There used to be maybe ten at some point. I've seen the edit history and most were deleted just because. NoaiRox (talk) 04:09, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

I guess they were deleted due to a lack of reliable sources showing their relevance? If you know such sources, feel free to re-add. See also the discussion just above. How strictly MOS:POPCULT is to be interpreted here might require further discussion in case of disagreement between editors. Gawaon (talk) 07:10, 22 April 2026 (UTC)