Talk:Fame

Please move all details about and discussion of instances of Fame to appropriate pages. +sj+ 00:47, 2004 May 7 (UTC)

But information about fame itself could do with improvement too - July 6 2004

Old unsigned talk

your challenge:

• differences between film and series
• the plot of the film
• cast and crew film
• cast and crew series
• fame was a spring board for ...
• ... got rejected by Fame (Madonna for instance)
• how did it fit in the late 70s / early 80s?
• ... ?
• .. ?
• ... ?

Fame (disambiguation)?

The Wikipedia reader searching "Fame" is offered this page, just in case one is looking for "Fame... the name of a reality television talent-competition broadcast on NBC as of 2003." Meanwhile, there is a Wikipedia entry Celebrity but no entry on Fame save this one. Distinguishing the two: would that be elitist? --Wetman 12:08, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

== A lot is known about fame, psychologists and others have spent time and money finding out plenty. But apparently Wikipedia doesn't recognize fame even as a subject of cognition, much less study. How astounding.

== I agree with the above!! Why is there no article about fame itself? I surely don't know enough to write it, but all these psychologists must!

== Stumbled across this topic and would like to contribute this:

1. When you are famous, more people know you than you know.

2. When you are famous, you can pick up the phone and you will be switched through to those who have a say instead of being told by the telephonist that x is not in and please leave your number.

3. When you are famous, there will be replies to your letters.

4. When you are famous, events that occur in your life will be worth mentioning in the media. 144.136.179.100 (talk) 03:57, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

• I've just written up a stub for a "Fame" article here so as to cover a wide definition of the word fame and have moved previous content to "Fame (disambiguation)". Previously the disambiguation page claimed that "Celebrity" was the central meaning of "Fame" which only covers a fraction of the story. Gregkaye (talk) 08:14, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
  • My revision of the article was just undone without comment being made in the talkpage and with the comment on the revision that "this is topic is already covered at Celebrity". The topic of famous (and not infamous) people is covered by Celebrity. Many other aspects of fame are not. Gregkaye (talk) 12:36, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I reverted you, as seen here, here and here. Like I stated in that second and third diff-link, the topic of fame is already covered at the Celebrity article. There will be too much duplication trying to have a Fame article, just so that we have an article that extends beyond people and rather applies to things as well. Furthermore, celebrity is a synonym for fame, and both terms usually refer to people. What you are doing by creating a Fame article is creating an unnecessary WP:Content fork, which is to be avoided for the reasons that WP:Content fork states. Per WP:Content fork, we should strive to keep aspects of a topic in one article instead of causing readers to go to multiple articles...unless necessary. Your Fame article would exist solely so that it can extend to objects or times in history, even though fame usually does not extend to those things. And considering that there is already a Celebrity article to cover the topic of people being famous, there will be substantial duplication about the topic because of the Fame article's existence; that is, unless a WP:Hatnote is placed at the top of the Fame article pointing people to the Celebrity article for fame specifically regarding people. If you want to cover non-human aspects of fame and the topic of being infamous (being infamous is still being famous), which you clearly do, then a better option would be to expand the Celebrity article to include non-human aspects and the topic of being infamous or (in the case that you would need to start a WP:Merge discussion) transfer all of the material from the Celebrity article to the Fame page and cover people and things being famous and/or infamous on the Fame page. However, there is also the Famous disambiguation page to worry about, since famous, like fame and celebrity, refer to the same thing; see this discussion. And, finally, your Fame article was completely unsourced and uncategorized; you should not be placing the WP:Burden on someone else to essentially create the article for you. If I had not re-redirected the article, someone else would have eventually re-redirected it. Flyer22 (talk) 13:00, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree completely with Flyer22. Gregkaye, there's nothing wrong with starting a stub article, but it is very wrong to copy and paste the contents of the pages to effect a move. If you think a stand-alone article about Fame is possible, I'd suggest either using the draft namespace or starting the stub with a title such as Fame (concept) or something similar. Then, you can propose a requested move to establish consensus that the article about concept should displace the disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 13:35, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

And for the record, we do have an Infamy article. Flyer22 (talk) 13:44, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

But the problem is that celebrity far from being the only synonym for fame. Fame is a broad term. Celebrity is narrow. The word celebrity has a starting dictionary definition of "A famous person" and this definition is then further narrowed "especially in entertainment or sport". Even in regard to people Hitler was a famous person and so Britain's Yorkshire Ripper. They are not people I would celebrate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregkaye (talk • contribs) 13:55, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Gregkaye, I don't know what else to tell you other than what I told you above. I gave more than one option above. And the definition of celebrity clearly does not only apply to people, as the current lead of the Celebrity article also relays. In addition to the starting definition you gave, the starting definition for celebrity is often "the state of being famous or celebrated." Does celebrity usually apply to people? Yes. But like I stated, so does fame and famous. Is celebrity significantly more restricted to people than fame or famous? Yes. But that does not take away from what I stated above about your article creation. Flyer22 (talk) 14:07, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

And again regarding infamous people, such as Hitler or Jack the ripper, we have the Infamy article for that. Flyer22 (talk) 14:11, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

You make some interesting points. You are right in saying that the starting definition for celebrity is often "the state of being famous or celebrated" and and its clear that celebrity is a major subsection of fame. But its not the only one and this gets completely ignored in the article titled "fame" There are others. I first got involved with this page after reading the question above "Why is there no article about fame itself?" This view is supported in the discussion that you mentioned. The only other contributor pointed out that "The Great Wall of China, for example, is famous without being a celebrity." and that "Celebrities are a subset of those things which are famous." In my article I wrote a list of some of those things as: people (obviously, but also) places, events, situations, dates, victories, disasters, discoveries, equations, works of literature, music and art, fictional characters and fictional. Following this list we can note that: Everest is a famous mountain, the Marianas Trench is its famous depression, the 4th July is a famous date, The Battle of Agincourt was a famous military victory, the discovery of Penicillin was a famous scientific discovery, E=MC² a famous equation, Macbeth is a famous play, Ode to Joy is a famous piece of music, the Mona Lisa is a famous painting, Hamlet is a famous fictional character and Middle Earth is a famous fictional place. Not one of them is a celebrity. As it is the Wikipedia page on "fame" gives an inadequate account of the meaning of the term and what really worries me is that a Wikipedia article has long been left in a state where it misrepresents the content of its title. My basic attempt at a revision acknowledged its need for improvement. Perhaps its beginning might be adapted along the lines of the following: Fame is the state of being widely known which is most often applied to people who are then frequently regarded as being "celebrities". Other applications that the term can cover include: organisations, places, events, situations, dates, victories, disasters, discoveries, equations, works of literature, music and art as well as a range aspects of fiction including: fictional characters and places. Gregkaye (talk) 16:56, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I would also define celebrity as being a major synonym of fame or even a principle synonym of fame. I would have difficulty in saying that a meaning or a definition of fame is celebrity because a person or thing cannot be fame in the same way that they can be a celebrity. While a person can have both the meaning and definition of the two terms are different. At the moment the Fame article describes: Celebrity, its principle meaning Gregkaye (talk) 17:17, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

The Fame page is not yet an article. And you changed the way it initially defines the term, as seen here and here, which I'm fine with. I gave three options above for the page coverage matter. Did you consider them? I stated: "Considering that there is already a Celebrity article to cover the topic of people being famous, there will be substantial duplication about the topic because of the Fame article's existence; that is, unless a WP:Hatnote is placed at the top of the Fame article pointing people to the Celebrity article for fame specifically regarding people. If you want to cover non-human aspects of fame and the topic of being infamous (being infamous is still being famous), which you clearly do, then a better option would be to expand the Celebrity article to include non-human aspects and the topic of being infamous or (in the case that you would need to start a WP:Merge discussion) transfer all of the material from the Celebrity article to the Fame page and cover people and things being famous and/or infamous on the Fame page."

So in the case of keeping the Celebrity article, there's the WP:Hatnote option if a Fame article is created and is not simply an unsourced stub that will assuredly be re-redirected (if not by me, then by someone else). You seemingly don't like the second option -- expanding the Celebrity article to include non-human (and non-human animal) aspects since the term celebrity is so often restricted to referring to people. But there is also the third option of having the Fame page be the primary article for covering all things famous (except disambiguation matters of course), including the celebrity aspect (and if you go that route, you should start a WP:Merge discussion at the Celebrity article talk page). In either case, humans are the main subject; in other words, the topic of fame or celebrity is a matter that is applied to humans far more than any other subject. Therefore, I think that this material should be covered all in one article, with a section about non-human aspects. Flyer22 (talk) 17:51, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

And I already pointed you to the lead of the Celebrity article, which notes that the term celebrity can refer to non-human animals and famous fictional entities; the lower part of that article covers famous fictional characters. You might also want to start a WP:RfC on this matter for wider input. I'm not about to keep debating you on this. Flyer22 (talk) 18:02, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I hear your argument about content forking. The Celebrity article does a very good job at detailing aspects of Celebrity life such as the implications of fame. A Fame article can largely be founded as a knowledge based topic. The contributor above at 7 January 2011 associated fame with psychology. I would further postulate associations with sociology, publicity, education and information transference systems. Obviously a Fame article would need to make suitable links to synonyms of fame like Celebrity and subsections of fame like infamy as well. (Any subject that is infamous is also, by definition, famous. It is well known). A fame article could deal with links in the same way as any other Wikipedia article. In a short fame article there would just be a link and in a longer fame article there would be a summary of a content with a Main article: link placed after the title. There are benefits in having a Fame article underneath its Fame heading however short that article may be as such an article would give potential editors the freedom to edit. Various editors would then be able to decide which article any given section of information is best placed in. The reason for my involvement is that I was contributing to articles that dealt with famous fictional characters. I would have liked to have made a link to an article on the topic of fame but not to an article that presented a single definition of fame as celebrity and then went on to present a long list of irrelevant links before getting to a sparse "see also" section below. As far as the relationship between the two articles are concerned my view is that many famous people (including a number of sports people, many scientists and most politicians etc.) are not primarily defined as being celebrities. When making comments about them people would more often simply say "he/she is famous". Beyond this my personal opinion is that, when a powerful and far reaching organisation like Wikipedia does something like presenting all famous people as celebrities then it is changing the definitions of language. Certainly there will be a potential for content forking if an article on fame is installed but all editors will be able to decide where information is best placed. The most important issue is accuracy I wrote a brief stub which has now been edited down and, as Bokonrad suggested, has been entered under "Draft:Fame". It is appropriate that I mention on this talk page that, whether it is based on the draft content presented or on something else, I think some sort of article should be added. Gregkaye (talk) 07:26, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22is%20not%20a%20celebrity%22 Gregkaye (talk) 07:30, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't agree with the inclusion of your stub. I stand by what I stated above, and it seems that you are not listening to all of what I stated above. For example, you keep repeating the ways that some subjects may be famous but not celebrities, as if I only suggested that the topic of fame only be covered at the Celebrity article. I presented you with good options above, and you also have the option of starting a WP:RfC on this matter. Clearly, more opinions are needed if you are going to continue to insist on your stub. Flyer22 (talk) 08:43, 24 June 2014 (UTC)