Talk:Dogs Playing Poker

Initial post

Intriguing how much those 2 paintings just sold for (over half a million US$)! In preauction estimates, they were anticipated to bring $30,000-$50,000 each. Shows how important they are to our (alleged) culture! Elf | Talk 20:51, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I recently saw what I think was a Gary Larson cartoon showing a series of "prototypes" for the painting, involving snakes, chickens and cows. Can anyone confirm that I am not mistaken, I would like to add this to the popular culture section but I want to check my facts first.

A Friend In Need

It seems like, most of the time, when one of these paintings is seen in pop culture, it's A Friend In Need that they use. An example of this would be on the TV sitcom Roseanne. Perhaps this information should be included in the article.

Agreed --Magallanes 01:18, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Computer Game

There was a computer game based on the paintings.

Which one? 200.117.37.221 23:30, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Cheers

I seem to remember an episode of Cheers when Sam was at Robin Colcord's house and saw one of the paintings. He laughed until Robin said it was an original. No idea what episode sorry - SimonLyall 05:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Ownership of paintings

Are they all in private hands, or are any on exhibit anywhere? Шизомби (talk) 23:54, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Entire series pictures

I noticed that we only had one of the series up as a picture in the article and it is listed as PD if the rest are in the same time period and hopefully PD shouldn't we have thumbnails of the set up, obviously it's not necessary but considering that some are more famous than others (which ones are more famous is a judgment we shouldn't be making probably) encyclopedically we should show them all. Cat-five - talk 09:21, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

In popular culture section removed

[1] in case anyone goes looking for it. I have mixed feelings about such sections. The more references there are or the more notable the things making the references, is noteworthy, though such things can start to dwarf the actual content of the article. References that are themselves notable (the references have been reported on) ought not to fall afoul of this, but may be harder to find. Шизомби (talk) 01:15, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Not sure you should be removing or adding anything simply based on mixed feelings. There are probably guidelines on this that should be consulted rather than personal opinion.198.108.84.126 (talk) 16:55, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I re-deleted it. It's trash. There are more professional ways to state that the series is influential without listing every damn video game or Simpson's parody. Secondary sources that discuss the more noteworthy appearances (not that merely list them as primary sources) can add understanding, but amateurish, banal listings of every mention is just stupid. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a database. --Animalparty! (talk) 20:20, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Some of the items are notable and worth keeping, but many are minor trivial. Maybe a removal of many and then expanding a few to focus on major or more notable mentions. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:17, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: how do you know they're notable and worth keeping? How is an appearance in an episode of That '70s Show any more or less noteworthy than an allusion in the videogame Undertale? How does it help the reader understand the paintings' impact? Are we making encyclopedia articles or indiscriminate waste-bins of factoids to satisfy OCD trivia nerds? Read WP:TRIVIA and WP:POPCULTURE. "In popular culture" sections, by and large, are a blight on Wikipedia (they can be done right, but mostly are not). The only popular culture appearances worth mentioning, per WP:ONUS, WP:PROPORTION, and tenets of good writing, are ones that have been significantly discussed by secondary and tertiary sources. A respectable professional-quality article would simply state something to the effect that the Dogs Playing Poker imagery has deeply permeated American culture, being widely reproduced and parodied, with a few choice examples as discussed in authoritative sources (books, not blogs). --Animalparty! (talk) 04:29, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Hello Animalparty. On an important level, Dogs Playing Poker may actually have the most popular culture mentions and impact of any painting series. Monet's Water Lilies and his other series are well known, and van Gogh's series are as honored as Monet's, yet they are not repeatedly used throughout the years and across many forms of communication and entertainment as popular culture and societal reference points. Dogs Playing Poker has gained most of its notoriety from the consistent use of the paintings and the meme in popular culture. I think the only question is how many examples to use, and I'd say that quite a few should in order to give adequate examples of that portion of the overall influence of the paintings. Removing the section, as has been done twice before, or vastly reducing it in numbers or to a couple sentence descriptor, removes this important topic-related impact. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:08, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Well, it was still here when I visited the page and I'm glad it was. In fact I was more disturbed by the suggestion that it should be removed. An encyclopedia is a source of information, and covers (clearly) matters that are of interest to people ... a wide variety of people. Some of these matters are deep, serious stuff and some, like this article, refer to items that are amusing and whimsical. The guidelines for material in one area are surely not the same as those for other areas. Please: a little less of the starch collars in corners of the 'pedia like this. 24.87.154.112 (talk) 22:18, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm tired of this... this... gosh-darn class bigotry, and I'm not inclined to keep putting up with it

Indeed, in my view, it's more than just the starch collars. It's the 4,000 Gucci suits, the tweed jackets with the leather elbow patches, the white shoes, the top hats, the lab coats. In other words, it's egregious bourgeois snobbery, which is shot thru the Wikipedi, and is actually class warfare, and it's time to fight back. it's the Wikipedia, not the Snobopedia. Class prejudice is of a kind with race prejudice and sex prejudice, and my support is frayed of catering only to High Culture of the attitude If an entity is mentioned in a Bejamin Britten opera then we simply must include it, musn't we Hector? Hardly anybody listens to Britten operas, but those who do are important people. RAH-THA, Cordelia! Whereas, if an entity in mentioned in a programme on the television machine that the maid watches -- well, infra dig, Bunny.

Well I could go on, and I will presently, but in broader venues. Herostratus (talk) 22:45, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Inconsistency in numbers?

I noticed that in the summary it says there are sixteen paintings in the series, but then in the titles list there are seventeen paintings listed. If I knew which was right I would edit the other! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.180.192.10 (talk) 09:56, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

References to it in new Media ?

Would it be good to have such a section? Please feel free to add a few and then put it in the article. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkMsSIjQXxo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.83.229.66 (talk) 19:51, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Policy discussion in progress

There is a policy discussion in progress at the Manual of Style which affects this page, suggesting that the capitalization of "like" should be removed from the title of these paintings. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — LlywelynII 14:44, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

In popular culture section revisited

In the discussion above, there was no policy-based argument presented that justified keeping the "In popular culture" section. There were, however, a guideline MOS:TRIVIA and a well-regarded essay WP:POPCULTURE cited as justification for removal.

While I agree with Animalparty that popular culture sections are a blight on Wikipedia (having largely replaced trivia sections after a concerted effort by the community to banish them from articles), I don't agree that the section should be removed. Rather, it needs to be culled.

Recently, QuietCicada attempted to do just that,[2] removing some unsourced trivial entries as well as one cited to a primary source. Randy Kryn restored the material with an edit summary justification that amounts to hand-waving. I agreed with the removal, so I removed it again, because the WP:BURDEN for including these hadn't been met. Then Randy Kryn began edit-warring. For that material to be included, consensus needs to happen here first. The material shouldn't be restored without providing valid reasoning grounded in any policy or guideline. We don't need WP:INDISCRIMINATE lists of facts (and that is a policy). ~Anachronist (talk) 00:38, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

If there is an ideal article for an WP:IGNOREALLRULES celebration this is it. Almost the entire notability of the painting rests on their place in popular culture. In other articles the section provides valued societal value. Yet here it honors the continuing growth of the cultural role of these artworks. In order to maintain and not harm Wikipedia, WP:IAR would ignore the need for full citing in this section and treat it like a plot section in a film article - non-cited until proven incorrect. You know why non-cited plot editing works? Because readers and other editors catch the errors. As far as I know the existing examples have not been challenged by anyone as incorrect, and maybe on this topic they should stand until such a claim. Please read the talk discussion above which, for some reason, Anachronist did not join in on. Some editors love the popular culture phenomena aspect of Dogs Playng Poker, that is evident in the above discussion. Hopefully it will be in this one as well. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:02, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

This isn't in any way similar to a plot section in a film (or book) article; that's a non-sequitur argument. A plot summary is verifiable simply by reviewing the primary source. A plot summary isn't a detailed description of every trivial thing that happens.

In my 17+ years on Wikipedia, I have never had to invoke IAR. That's a cop-out.

I didn't join in the prior discussion because I didn't see it until today. It's that simple. And that discussion has no consensus grounded in any policy or guideline.

We aren't discussing the existence of the popular culture section here. I agree it should exist.

Arguing about the correctness of the entries is also a non-sequitur. Nobody has said that they aren't correct.

We are discussing a few trivial unsourced or poorly sourced entries that violate the WP:INDISCRIMINATE policy and the WP:POPCULT guideline, which explicitly says "cultural references about a subject should not be included simply because they exist." I have not seen any valid justification for inclusion of these, or countless other trivial cases. ~Anachronist (talk) 03:37, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

The Far Side cartoon descriptor, and a couple others now removed, show how deep into the culture the paintings have reached. They are instantly recognizable, as people immediately "get" The Far Side joke without it having to be explained to them. Video and card games aren't my strong suit, but apparently gamers seem to find the examples important for the same reason - recognizing a societal touchstone. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:47, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm sure you could say the same thing about several other examples that were never added. That isn't a rationale for inclusion. The fact that the paintings have reached deep into the culture isn't in dispute. We don't need to list every example, we don't even have a requirement to list such examples, but we do have actual guidelines that require us to omit such examples. The list could even benefit from further removals, by removing examples equivalent to trivial mentions, in which the painting isn't a central focus or persistent presence in the cultural work.

How about establishing some objective inclusion criteria for this list? All high-traffic list articles have such criteria, typically described on the talk page (List of common misconceptions comes to mind as the most visible and has the strictest criteria I know of). A mere depiction of a painting somewhere isn't sufficient. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:10, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

@randy kryn: a mostly unsourced list of the paintings' appearances is not part of a good article. ltbdl (talk) 12:19, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

In this case it is. As discussed above, the essence of Dogs Playing Poker is in its popular culture references, they create its traditional and recognized notability. Using known cultural touchpoints is necessary for this page, and an exception should be made for unreferenced but unarguably correct instances, per WP:IAR (using them greatly defines and improves the understanding of this topic and thus improves Wikipedia). Randy Kryn (talk) 12:23, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

except it doesn't greatly define and improve the understanding of the topic? ltbdl (talk) 15:43, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

None of the points against inclusion in this discussion have been refuted, and arguments in favor have not been grounded in any policy or guideline. We can have an "in popular culture" section, but we need inclusion criteria. I propose:

1. The entry's main topic (the videogame, novel, movie, song, whatever) has its own standalone article on Wikipedia.
2. The entry's main topic article mentions Dogs Playing Poker.
3. The entry includes a citation to a reliable secondary source, mentioning Dogs Playing Poker in the context of the entry's subject.

Any "in popular culture" item meeting those criteria wouldn't have anyone arguing to delete it. At the moment, none of the entries in the section that was recently removed met any of those criteria. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:52, 17 February 2024 (UTC)