Talk:Jigglypuff

RFV discussion: August 2011–February 2012

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Jigglypuff

Trademark; specific character from the Pokémon range of children's toys. Needs to meet WT:BRAND. Equinox ◑ 13:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

RFV-failed. - -sche (discuss) 06:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

RFD discussion: May 2020–April 2021

The following information passed a request for deletion (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Jigglypuff

My concern about this entry is that it relies on an entirely in-universe definition and citations simply refer to this in-universe character. We do have Pikachu though, but I'd vote to delete it too. If we could have this entry, why don't we have Kirby, or Link, or heck, even Mario? I'm sure you could find similar citations for those. PseudoSkull (talk) 22:36, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Delete. You mention Kirby, Link, Mario... people are so short-sighted that they think only "their" toys count. When you think about it neutrally and take a step back, there have been millions of toys and game characters, not just the ones that are popular on YouTube etc. Many of them have been occasionally mentioned in a book without a whole lot of context. It's just out of scope; delete; Wikipedia has reams and reams of stuff about toys and characters. Equinox ◑ 14:50, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Actually a pet peeve of mine is that (America-centric) gamers think the history of video games was basically: Pong, Mario, Doom, [everything modern]. Equinox ◑ 23:29, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Also, a disclaimer: Pokémon are not "my toys". I have never played the Pokémon video game, although I have been exposed to the anime episodes which my 1988-born brother watched, videotaped, and rewatched incessantly. Khemehekis (talk) 08:51, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

The above seems to ignore WT:FICTION, and rather provides arguments with no obvious bearing on CFI but rather seem to argue in favor of policy change, or maybe rather a policy override. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:48, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Delete: doubt that it satisfies WT:FICTION. — SGconlaw (talk) 16:29, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Delete, per Equinox. The simple discussion of this entry makes me drowsy. ;) Tharthan (talk) 06:57, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Keep per evidence in the entry. For instance, 'And when your body type is "Kirby" or "Jigglypuff", finding a style that is meant for your shape is next to impossible' does not seem to be in universe, nor does 'They sleep when you on the mic, you're fucking Jigglypuff'. It depends on what one means by "independent of reference to that universe" (WT:FICTION). And then things get lexicographically interesting when one notes French Rondoudou and German Pummeluff. For further calibration, one may look at Wiktionary:Criteria_for_inclusion/Fictional_universes, where an example quotation supporting inclusion is e.g. "[...], was rapidly becoming the Darth Vader of Japanese baseball." --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:45, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

There's another thing: The criterion "independent of reference to that universe" seems to pertain to common nouns and such, not to proper names, although that is merely implicit in there being a sentence covering "names of persons or places from fictional universes", which uses a different criterion, namely "shall not be included unless they are used out of context in an attributive sense". --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:13, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

What on earth do you, @Dan Polansky:, think that "you're fucking Jigglypuff" means, without reference to a Pokémon? Shall we have an entry for "Bill Gates" because someone said I look like Bill Gates? Equinox ◑ 14:50, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

@Equinox: There sure is a reference to Pokémon, but is it "in universe reference" or, rather, is it true that "they are used out of context in an attributive sense"? I'd think the latter is true and relevant, and a distinction between "X is B" and "X looks like B" should be maintained and the "X is B" taken as a stronger attributive use of B where B is a proper name. And what does "was rapidly becoming the Darth Vader of Japanese baseball" mean without reference to Darth Vader, an example from that very policy? Bill Gates is not covered by WT:FICTION, but if he were, he would be inclusion worthy per the example given by the policy, via e.g. "Edison was the Bill Gates of his day." --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:03, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Note I am arguing in terms of policy, not in terms of general inclusion-worthiness driven by my taste. In disregard of CFI, I would say, "Jigglypuff" is a single word attested in use, has pronunciation and non-trivial translations => let's include it. It is lexicographically marginal but so are all the species names that can be included. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:09, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

If you think "is a single word attested in use, has pronunciation and non-trivial translations" is really on its own justification for inclusion in a proper dictionary, I'm just staggered. But I think whoever publishes Harry Potter, and hundreds of other kiddie books, might want a Czech translator. Equinox ◑ 15:41, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

I do think that it is a justification for inclusion in a ridiculously inclusive dictionary. And a dictionary that includes all the place names that we do and will (all the village names if I get it right), all the two-word species names that are attested, all the names of chemicals, you name it, is a ridiculously inclusive dictionary. By the way, I would not really miss Jigglypuff, and I don't care about Pokémons; I miss Tolkien's Shelob, in Czech Odula. By another way, it is in the slogan: all words in all languages. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:22, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

From yet another angle, Wikipedia's article is about the Pokémon, Wiktionary's entry is about the word Jigglypuff: how do you pronounce it, etc. Is Jigglypuff fit for an encyclopedia proper? I don't really think so, but the thing is, Wikipedia is ridiculously inclusive, covering all manner of popular culture that many would consider unfit for a serious encyclopedia. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:27, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

If having a pronunciation is enough then we should include every commercial trade name? pls Gooby... Equinox ◑ 20:50, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

If you see that it's ridiculous then you should be arguing against that ridiculousness because being ridiculous is inherently a bad thing for a reference work. If you just wanna say "well we're shit, so let's dump another ton of shit on top" then umm. Equinox ◑ 20:52, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

I did not say having a pronunciation is enough; I required attestation, which requires three independent uses, and I mentioned translations. That is a much stronger filter. I would admit that making even stronger filter is up to a meaningul discussion, but what I reject is the idea that if something stems from popular culture, it should therefore be excluded.

I have spent a lot of effort to make Wiktionary better, and I do not want to make it "shit". Let it be accurate, let it provide very extensive coverage of terms but only in so far as existence can be verified and let it dispense with genuine cruft such as certain absurd image captions and absurd quotation identifications. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:03, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Keep: What does Scheherazade mean without reference to 1001 Nights? The entry seems to pass WT:CFI.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:41, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

After reading the quotations, there may be some value in keeping a definition that boils down to “Someone/something that is similar to the Pokemon Jigglypuff in some way” (with the actual definition detailing the properties that may be shared between the refernt and the fictional creature). We have similar situations in Nazgul (the first def; the second is a different deal) and сталкер (stalker) (the second def).

Out of the current citations, the only ones I find convincing for such a definition are 2007 and 2015. As for the definition as it currently stands, delete as it doesn’t pass WT:FICTION IMO. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 19:00, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

I should point out that the 2016 cote (the rap lyrics) fits this criterion too. According to this page, "Jigglypuff linen" means that the linen in the van is ponk, the color of Jigglypuff. Khemehekis (talk) 03:54, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

WT:FICTION does not say anything about definitions, only about names. The name has to be used in an "attributive sense", but CFI does not say that such a sense should be put on the definition line. Indeed, I find a practice where the proper-noun definition is replaced with some kind of invented common-noun definition unwise and not based on the practice of other dictionaries concerning fictional entities. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:03, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Keep: various uses that aren't in-universe. (@Dan Polansky, Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV: and I added some more) Being a reference to the Pokémon universe doesn't disqualify it IMHO, you're not going to remove all the generic trademarks either. Alexis Jazz (talk) 00:31, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

As the creator of this entry, I'm going to !vote strong keep. It meets WP:FICTION, as none of the cites except the "swelled in size" one give any indication to those who don't already know it that Jigglypuff is from the Pokémon universe. They would have to look it up. Also, it's important to note that the word "Jigglypuff" in English (and "Purin" in Japanese) refers to both the famous anime character and an entire species of Pokémon, a species with possibly millions of individuals on Earth (or whatever planet the Pokémon universe is set on). So it's not just a proper name.

Why does this matter? We aren't Bulbapedia. Moreover, we aren't Wikipedia. Why is WP:FICTION relevant? This is a dictionary. Tharthan (talk) 15:57, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

At first I read this and thought, "How is it not relevant?" But then I saw Chuck Entz' comment below. Chuck Entz is correct: I meant WT:FICTION. Khemehekis (talk) 22:28, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Also: why not have Kirby, Link, or Mario? As for character names in general . . . two-part names identifiable with a human ethnicity (like Harry Potter, which is an English first name combined with an English surname) need to be used figuratively, for the same reason we can't have a Walt Disney entry (until someone finds the perfect three cites at least), but we have lots of one-word person's names, like Confucius, Aristophanes, or even the Biebs or the Trumpster. Jigglypuff, even when referring to the character rather than the species, is one-word. Khemehekis (talk) 06:13, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Keep. Passes WT:FICTION. The cites demonstrate that this is used figuratively to refer to things with Jigglypuff-like attributes, i.e. rotund, pink, sleep-inducing. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 09:36, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Delete. Doesn't seem to pass FICTION to me, at least from the current cites. I don't see the lexicographic argument here at all. Ƿidsiþ 10:53, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

I get the sneaking suspicion, as Equinox seemed to also suggest in his "Delete" vote, that a lot of the people (though not all) demanding that this be kept are really just saying "I want my preferred beloved character to have an entry in this dictionary!" Listen, I'm a long time POKéMON aficionado myself. Played all main series games (aside from "Let's Go, Pikachu!" and "Let's Go, Eevee!‎") from Generation I up through Sword & Shield. But "Jigglypuff" simply is not entry-worthy here on Wiktionary. I mean, people are bringing up WP:FICTION despite this being Wiktionary, even! Come now, let us cease this silliness. Tharthan (talk) 16:08, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Quite the contrary -- it seems to me that the people !voting "keep" are making arguments based on Wiktionary policy -- it meets WT:FICTION (for which "WP:FICTION" was a thinko). Conversely, most of the deletors are making arguments based on things extrinsic to Wiktionary policy (and, as I mentioned above, words like Jigglypuff and Pikachu refer to both individual characters and species, like naming your cat Cat). It's like the extremists among Wikipedia's deletionists who, deep down inside, really want to delete articles on as many pop culture topics as possible because they hold a grudging conceit that topics that aren't traditional encyclopedic sobjects don't belong in an encyclopedia (they would get them all deleted if they had their way, but Wikipedia has a "Wiktionary is not paper" point at WP:NOT, to which this attitude runs contrary). Similarly, would you find Pokémon-related words in a traditional dictionary? No, but Wiktionary isn't paper. We have neologisms (though not protologisms), hotwords, obscure slang, misspellings, proper names, place names (including minor villages), specialized jargon that wouldn't make the cut for Merriam-Webster unabridged or the OED because they're paper, transient slang, and even brand names and terms from fictional universes, and we have policies like "3 durably archived uses from 3 different sources spanning over a year", WT:FICTION, and WT:BRAND to guide this otherwise radical inclusionism. Khemehekis (talk) 00:08, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

I see, so if someone wants to delete an entry that has your pet pop-culture character (which is naturally out of scope for Wiktionary) they are an "extremist". Good to know. Also, I notice that you keep confusing Wikipedia and Wiktionary in your comments. ("WP:FICTION, "Wiktionary is not paper") Need I remind you that these are separate projects? Something that might fly at Wikipedia might not fly here on Wiktionary, and vice versa. And something might be worthy of a Wikipedia article covering its subject, but not be worthy of a Wiktionary entry.

Hotwords, if I recall, get deleted if they don't end up eventually getting citations that extend beyond one year. Neologisms are something that most dictionaries these days have. I fail to see what is special about us having entries for... 'obscure slang', as you put it. The Misspelling entries are there to redirect people to the correct spellings. Place names are in no way comparable to arbitrary entries on this or that POKéMON. As with "obscure slang", specialised jargon doesn't seem particularly out of place. I'm not sure why you are mentioning it. Tharthan (talk) 19:42, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

As for I see, so if someone wants to delete an entry that has your pet pop-culture character (which is naturally out of scope for Wiktionary) they are an "extremist". Good to know., you misread my comment. I was stating there is an underlying similarity between Wiktionarians who argue for deleting Jigglypuff because it's "just out of scope" and the extremists among Wikipedia's deletionists (the people who want to delete pop culture articles from Wikipedia, not Wiktionary, BTW). Not everyone who wants to delete an article is an extremist; the extremists are the people at the extreme end of the deletionist spectrum who, if they had their way, would delete all articles that aren't traditional encyclopedia topics from Wikipedia, including Pikachu, Britney Spears, and Traci Lords. They are out there. Luckily for the rest of us, those attitudes will hold no sway in an AfD, because Wikipedia has notability guidelines in addition to other policies, including "Wikipedia is not paper".

As for "(which is naturally out of scope for Wiktionary)", we have the page Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion, which spells out what is in scope and what is out of scope. Tthe citations for Jigglypuff clearly confirm it as meeting CFI, specifically the Wiktionary:Criteria_for_inclusion#Fictional_universes section, so what the "just out of scope" people are really saying is, "It seems weird to have this because it's not the kind of word someone would normally expect to find in a dictionary". WT:FICTION does state that characters in fiction should only be included if their names are used figuratively (like using "a Pippi Longstocking" to refer generically to any lass with red hair and freckles, or calling a real-life person who scales buildings a Spider-man), but, as I have mentioned before, the Pokémon species words refer to both species of Pokémon and individual characters belonging to that species. There's only one Mario, but Pikachu can mean either the electric rodent Pokémon #25 or Ash Ketchum's Pikachu. As a result, we have an A Dog Named Dog trope. The appropriate analogy here would be entries like Klingon, Dalek, and Wookiee. Ash Ketchum or Zippo (the individual Charmander in Pokémon) would not belong here unless people started speaking figuratively of "Ash Ketchums", but Pikachu, Jigglypuff, and Squirtle (the only three WT:FICTION-compliant Pokémon species I've found so far) do. And yes, there are only three (as of now, before someone starts a slippery-slope argument about "Do we really want to include all 800+ Pokémon species?") It's about Wiktionary policy, not about whether someone just must have their favorite pop-culture character in here. Personally, I think Omanyte is an awesome Pokémon species, but I wouldn't dream of creating an Omanyte entry today, because there just aren't any citations around that meet WT:FICTION.

The underlying similarity in question is that both the "just out of scope" deletors here and the extremist deletionists on Wikipedia is the "not traditional encyclopedic/lexicographic material -> doesn't belong in Wikipedia/Wiktionary" reasoning. Of course, the people who disagree with the inclusiveness of Wiktionary inclusion policy might dominate with their numbers, and then we could have a jury nullification, so to speak, and see "Jigglypuff" deleted.

Wiktionary includes lots of types of words that would never appear in your average paper dictionary: Twitler, Goracle, pedosaur, Poochie-fication, esquilax, Arianator, Belieberism, conperson, aatheist, Aspieness, Crohnie, /b/tard, lulzfag, Caturday, Schmucksville, chocogasm, Pippi Longstocking, carebear, ghost piece, FemShep, Eeveelution, Torygraph, purrfect, Boraga, Ceqli, wonderfool, or even Juventus. On the other hand, Wiktionary agreed to delete icup because it failed to meet the pillar of meaningful use, and even xesturgy, since it was a dictionary-only word. George W. Bush doesn't belong in Wiktionary either, since it's a firstname-lastname combo.

Yes, it's true that Wikipedia and Wiktionary have different policies. Usenet is considered a reliable source for Wiktionary attestation purposes, but not for Wikipedia purposes. On the other hand, everyone agrees that Angela Merkel deserves a Wikipedia entry, but she wouldn't be eligible for Wiktionary. Fictional species like Pikachu (which you have voted to keep before, BTW) are potentially eligible for both projects. And by the way, "Wiktionary is not paper" is an official Wiktionary policy: see Wiktionary:What Wiktionary is not.

Yes, hotwords get deleted if they don't last a year, but most dictionaries won't include hotwords at all, since those dictionaries are paper (although Merriam-Webster made an exception for COVID-19 and related words this year). The OED normally waits seven years after the first use of a word to include it. As for place names, I'm not saying they're comparable to Pokémon, I'm just mentioning the names of small towns as an example of something Wiktionary would have but paper dictionaries would not. As for obscure slang and jargon, Merriam-Webster has a policy requiring words to be used across many kinds of texts in order to be included. It has a "Words we're watching" feature, but even then it acknowledges that those words do not meet the Merriam-Webster criteria for inclusion -- yet. You won't find conworld, stim, nor oligosynthetic even in Merriam Webster's Unabridged. Even words as familiar as Nigerian scam and basement-dweller are missing. Khemehekis (talk) 21:52, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

To be fair, it looks like the reference to WP:FICTION is an error for WT:FICTION: the "WP:" prefix only works at Wikipedia, and w:WP:FICTION is about notability, while the argument here is about fictional universes. That said, it's important to keep straight the difference between referring to the fictional universe without explicitly mentioning it vs. being independent of the fictional universe. If, hypothetically, a professional wrestler took the name Sauron because they claimed to be the "Lord of the Ring", that would be an in-universe reference- one wouldn't know that there was a connection between the terms "Sauron" and "Lord of the Ring" without knowledge of Middle Earth. On the other hand, calling someone Sauron to say that they're a master of evil might not be an in-universe reference at all. It all revolves around whether Jigglypuff in these quotes is an abstract epitome of certain characteristics or a Pokémon character being alluded to because it's known to have those characteristics. It's often hard to tell, but the distinction goes to the core of WT:FICTION. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:05, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

• Keep - Dentonius (my politics | talk) 15:58, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

• Delete. J3133 (talk) 18:19, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

• Ugh, 'weak keep, mainly per Dan and Khemehekis; though the citations of Jigglypuff are more "independent of reference to that universe" than could be said for Pichu, I agree that this becomes a blurry distinction here. I agree with Dan that a proper noun definition would be more appropriate. I must admit I'm somewhat swayed by the nontrivial translations, although the translation target criterion of course cannot apply here. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 11:19, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• Delete. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 10:50, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• Keep. (2015 quote with quotation marks and 2018 quote as "Jigglypuff from the Pokémon series" aren't good though.) --幽霊四 (talk) 12:59, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

• Well, with all the citations WordyAndNerdy has added, it looks as if we've got a completely universe-independent definition and ample evidence that Jigglypuff has entered cultural canon of the Anglophone world. Have a look at the citation page! I don't think anyone would want to delete it now. Khemehekis (talk) 10:14, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• Weak keep - while I love the little guy, I'm not totally sure her/his name has entered the English language outside of the Pokemon community. I have to admit some of those citations are convincing, although others mention Pokemon or things from Pokemon such as Aprijuice. Cheers! Facts707 (talk) 00:56, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

No consensus to delete. After nearly a year on this board, keep votes slightly outnumber delete votes, and sources have been noted as a basis for finding this to have entered the lexicon. bd2412 T 04:55, 19 April 2021 (UTC)