The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. W.marsh 14:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bad Boys of Computer Science[edit]

Bad Boys of Computer Science (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

This article about a no lonoger published webcomic meets almost no standards. Their are no refrences even from the webcomic page. The text on the page is written poorly. A major cleanup is needed of all webcomics as I am sure their are more that need to be deleted than just this. The Placebo Effect 14:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Webcomics-related deletions. -- Sid 3050 14:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete no references, no notability. - Francis Tyers · 16:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Jefferson Anderson 22:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as blatant cruft. This fails to meet even the questionable standards which are plaguing other webcomic-related discussions. NetOracle 06:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment The fact that a webcomic is no longer published has no bearing on whether or not it meets notability standards, and an AFD is not a substitute for a cleanup tag. Balancer 14:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, my search at the library has turned up no sources, let alone any suggesting importance. That the webcomic is no longer published is worth noting as it is unlikely that a defunct webcomic is going to gain new coverage in multiple non-trivial reputable sources. -- Dragonfiend 16:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, that would still not be relevant to the basic question of notability. Speculation on whether or not the topic would become notable in the future doesn't answer the question of whether the webcomic has at some point before now met the standards for notability. That said, I'm going to tentatively say weak delete on the basis of lack of any evidence for notability (I haven't found any either), and ask the contributors to the article[1] if they can provide any non-trivial sources. I'm not of the opinion that a mention in a notable webcomic qualifies, but it seems polite to include them in this discussion. Balancer 17:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • That the webcomic is no longer published is worth noting as it is unlikely that a defunct webcomic is going to gain new coverage in multiple non-trivial reputable sources. --Dragonfiend 18:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Repeating an invalid argument does not make it any more true. Please read WP:N again and see if you understand why I have told you that the fact that a comic is defunct is wholly irrelevant to the AFD process. If not, perhaps you should refrain from involvement in notability-based AFDs until you have remedied your understanding of WP:N. Balancer 18:21, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Thank you for sharing. That the webcomic is no longer published is worth noting as it is unlikely that a defunct webcomic is going to gain new coverage in multiple non-trivial reputable sources. --Dragonfiend 18:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • And repeating yourself again still doesn't turn your invalid argument valid. Speculation as to whether or not a topic may be written about in the future is not at all relevant to the question of whether or not the topic is notable. If you have any real argument to make to this effect - bearing in mind that a defunct comic can easily be notable, and that an active comic can easily be non-notable - I recommend you take it to user talk rather than further clutter up this AFD. Balancer 19:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • Thank you for sharing. Sometimes editors think it's a good idea to keep an article because, for example, it is tied to an event just around the corner which may lead to verifiable info from reputable sources. Whether or not you, in your self-appointed role as validator of AFD discussions, believe that to be an idea worth expresing, that type of "wait and see" idea probably isn't worth exploring here with "This article about a no longer published webcomic [which] meets almost no standards." In other words, that the webcomic is no longer published is worth noting as it is unlikely that a defunct webcomic is going to gain new verifiable coverage in the multiple non-trivial reputable sources which will allow us to cover this topic from a neutral point of view without delving into original research, or any of our other standards which this article currently doesn't meet. --Dragonfiend
• Abstain I don't see any notablity here, but I do see some SERIOUS BIAS against webcomics when I see "A major cleanup is needed of all webcomics" given as a specific reason for this AFD. I think that the nominator of this AFD needs to do some serious explaining for this remark before the AFD is to continue. I also see that other wiki editors who have also been identified as biased towards webcomics notablitly have chimed in with deletes. Please read Wikipedia:Fancruft - cruft is not a reason for AFD in itself, just a contributing factor. Please show other reasons for AFD. Timmccloud 00:10, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment I did not mean to make it sound like I hold a bias. My view is that too many webcomic authors make an article on their webcomic when it doesn't meet nobility standards. The Placebo Effect 00:36, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • comment The author didn't make the entry to my knowledge, it was made several years after he had quit. In it's day it was a popular comic, noted as 'groundbreaking' by Mac Hall as commented in a previous deletion-discussion, referenced often in many other notiable strips... I don't know if that meets the standards or not for notiability since I'm not sure if other webcomics count (I think they should, there wasn't much else around at the time to judge notiability) but it's not just some author tooting their own horn. 22:53, 14 February 2007
• Keep This article has already been nominated for deletion once, and the end result of that attempt was keep. Given that the comic was determined to be notable shortly after the article was written, I think any argument that it is not notable should have more substance than "I did a search at the library and didn't find anything". A Google search of "bad boys of computer science" yields about 600 hits. Even a cursory examination of the results provides additional research leads, namely the web-comics Avalon and Sexy Losers. You may have to actually ask a member of the web-comics community to determine whether this comic was notable, if you are not a part of that community. Do the research to attempt to improve the article. If, despite your best efforts, you cannot find evidence of notability, document your search efforts on the talk page, then start the AFD process. Do not leap to that stage from the perspective that all webcomics suck, this article sucks even more than most webcomic articles, and Wikipedia should purge it as unworthy to be read. Deletion should not be the first option for someone who does not care to provide the effort to improve the article in any way; it should be the option of last resort for a topic that cannot meet standards, even when improved as much as humanly possible. 216.165.132.250 15:46, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Past performance doesn't guarantee future success. Look at the GNAA. It went through 18 AFD's before it was deleted. The reason I nominated this was because all the sources I found were other Webcomics, which I believe doesn't qualify as a good enough source for another webcomic. The only webcomic's that I believe that should be shown here are the ones that have published books are have had newspaper articles written about it (like Megatokyo). I don't believe all webcomics suck, but if it their are no reliable sources outside of webcomics, then I believe this has to go. The Placebo Effect 17:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think that, as of 2007, print-based sources are better determinants of notability than either web-based sources or first-hand personal interviews. The major reason why Wikipedia is so successful is that there are no "gatekeepers" for information: anyone can add or edit the content. If you require that notability be documented in a restricted medium, you are just moving the gatekeeper around to the back door. Also, I don't think BBoCS is comparable to GNAA in regard to the AfD process. Perhaps you could find a more fair comparison than the article for a trolling organization that has a racial slur in its title. In my opinion, the best sources for determining the notability of a web-comic are the people that are involved in that community, and comic authors are de facto leaders. They network amongst one another as much as print comic authors. Do you recall Blondie and Dagwood's anniversary, wherein most of the comics in your local newspaper paid tribute to the long-running print comic by drawing crossover comics? 216.165.132.250 21:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Their are gate keepers on information. That is the reason why their is Speedy Deletion and AFD. And no one used the crossover to cite information in Wikipedia. Plus, that was covered in various newspaper articles, namely "multiple non-trivial sources". The Placebo Effect 21:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Then the bone of contention here is whether other web-comics constitute a non-trivial source in regard to other web-comics. In my opinion, they are non-trivial. The people that read web-comics know which ones they like, and the authors, being drawn from the same pool of people, tend to like the same things. So in lieu of polling hundreds of readers (as may be seen from an archive from some sort of web-comics meta site, like Keen or BigPanda), a handful of webcomics authors may constitute a representative sample. Additionally, if you are too quick to label a newspaper as a non-trivial source, you may not be keeping your subscriptions current, as the presence of paid reporters and editors does not seem to be sufficient to keep pointless tripe and blatant political bias out of my local newspapers. There is good reason why print newspaper circulation is declining in the U.S., and that is because the "gatekeeper" model is no better at providing quality information than the free-for-all of blogs, boards, and wikis. The only advantage the media establishment currently holds over the internet mob is freer access to "newsmaker" people. They can get interviews with presidents and CEOs. But this is not an obstacle here. Many web-comics authors publish their e-mail addresses. If you want to prove non-notability (and in my opinion that burden of proof is on you, as this is an appeal to an earlier determination of notability), then ask some of these people if "Bad Boys of Computer Science" was notable way back in 2002. If you don't know who to ask, then perhaps you shouldn't be making judgements of notability at all. 216.165.132.250 22:09, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Also, the issue of whether the Blondie anniversary crossovers were used as references in Wikipedia is not relevant. If there were no other information available on Blondie whatsoever, the crossover comics alone would have been sufficient to establish its notability. I consider print-comics authors to have great credibility in regard to the importance of other print-comics. The same principle holds for web-comics. In contrast, there is no intrinsic measure of credibility in a fluff newspaper article whose author has never heard of a web-comic until his editor told him to write an article about them for the Sunday edition. But that reporter will still actually do enough research on the topic to fill a certain number of column-inches before flapping his jaw about it. 216.165.132.250 22:25, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Fails WP:NOTE & WP:WEB, does not meet WP:WAF and WP:RS. Additionally its defunct status makes any notability gain unlikely.Freepsbane 18:34, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. This subject lacks sufficient independent sources to produce an article complying with NOT an indiscriminate collection of information, and NOT a publisher of original thought. Con reports are teenage-blog-level unreliable, and the other material is trivial in the extreme. Tim McCloud is quite right about biases though. My bias against including material which can't be supported by reliable sources is very strong indeed, and Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are similarly biased against made up stuff. This can't be attributed to anyone but the editors who created it and is indisputably WP:NOT material. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:54, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.