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 redirect to Blank Label Comics.--Alf melmac 14:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Starslip_Crisis[edit]

Starslip_Crisis (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

The page fails to follow some Wikipedian guidelines, such as this one (#5: where is the significance? Nothing of merit is listed), and this one (no significant coverage, no awards of merit, etc.). As well, even admins have been quoted as saying that the previous AfD nomination was valid in its criticisms, even if the person starting it did so for improper reasons. FJArnett 03:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC) — FJArnett (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

In addition, this nomination seems to have been requested by Straub himself here, where he said that he doesn't wish the article to remain on Wikipedia because he "wouldn’t want anyone to think the people running Wikipedia’s webcomics project knew anything about the strip". In addition, another commentor posted the following:
"Here’s hoping Starslip gets well and truly deleted, it’s not like they actually know about your comic anyway, they just want to reinstate it to save face and pretend they aren’t as close minded as you proved them to be".
(Note: the preceding is just for informational purposes so that other editors can make their own decisions - I'm not taking this as a bad-faith nom at all). ~e.o.t.d~ (蜻蛉の目•話す•貢献) 03:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To zandperl: being referred in a trivial way from Penny Arcade does not make it notable. It's like claiming that I'm notable because my name was briefly mentioned in a couple of articles published in notable newspapers. bogdan 09:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can you speak on why it is not? If you were being honest here, you'd admit that you're destroying information because you can... and perhaps because you're a tad bitter over the author's stunt. If winning awards at the WCCA doesn't establish notability in webcomics then nothing does. And don't even think of turning that around to say that no webcomics are notable because many clearly are; otherwise, there wouldn't be so much controversy over the current deletion spree. Rogue 9 01:04, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, in your opinion the New York Times article is trivial, as are all the other sources. That doesn't make them trivial, and I don't think the article is on shaky ground. The article meets our Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Are you suggesting our policies have less worth than our guidance? Hiding Talk 09:53, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please don't twist my words. New York Times is not a un-reliable or trivial source in my opinion. Try to read the arguments carefully. There is nothing more than a transient mention of the webcomic in the sources. It should be non-trivial as is explicitly stated in our guidelines. And yes, policies are more important than guidelines; but please familiarise yourself appropriately. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 10:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not twisting your words, and please don't accuse me of doing such. You wrote "The awards themselves are on a shaky ground for inclusion. Only trivial sources have been provided." I took that to mean the whole of your words were talking about the awards. And I am well aware of the difference between policy and guidelines. However, if you believe I need to familiarise myself with them, perhaps you should stop relying on them, since I wrote the guidance and had a hand in the policy, and I would hate to think I wasn't familiar with something I wrote or that people were relying on something that was written by someone not conversant with policy and guidelines. Hiding Talk 10:13, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, in your opinion the New York Times article is trivial, as are all the other sources. Your own comment Yes, the sources provided for the article are trivial and not worthy of substantiating articles with. If you think they are, then you are confusing Wikipedia with Usenet or some other public forum. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 10:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • And your point is? First clarify to what your statement "The awards themselves are on a shaky ground for inclusion. Only trivial sources have been provided." refers, and then we can establish whether I misunderstood your meaning or not. I take it to mean, as I stated above, that "the whole of your words were talking about the awards". Is that not the case? If not, I would suggest that at any rate I have established to what my words apply. As to what I am confusing Wikipedia with, nice words but perhaps you are confusing Wikipedia with your own personal playground if you think that it is only your opinion that is important. I do hope you don't dismiss everyone who disagrees with you in such a manner. I'm not going to get into a debate over sources until you clarify for me what sources you referred to with your statement "The awards themselves are on a shaky ground for inclusion. Only trivial sources have been provided." Hiding Talk 10:26, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I must apologise for the previous statement, I did not intend to assert myself on you. In my opinion, these awards are neither notable enough to be included on Wikipedia nor should they be used to assert and substantiate the notability of a webcomic, purely based on them. I hope I make myself clear here. I believe if you are rooting for the article because they have been mentioned in the New York times, the argument is not valid. As there is only a trvial mention of the WCCA in the article, which is not enough to make it notable for inclusion. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 10:36, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Apology accepted. I'm still unclear as to what we are discussing. Are we discussing Starslip Crisis, which has not been mentioned in the NYT; or the WCCA, which has, and which you assert is a trivial mention and which I assert is not, and which you further assert should not merit inclusion since it fails a guideline, and which I further assert should merit inclusion since it meets policies. If we are discussing the latter article's deletion debate, I suggest we don't do it here. If you want to make the case that the WCCA aren't of enough value to ascribe notions of notability outlined at WP:WEB, go ahead. I'd merely point out that the important points are the policies, and that what needs to be examined is whether the article meets Wikipedia:Verifiability. This isn't the place to discuss subjective notions of triviality regarding the sources of an article not up for deletion here. Hiding Talk 10:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The grounds for meeting WP:N for an article are in general stricter than the grounds for something being well known. The fact that the WCCA clearly meet those grounds, of course, means that the frequent attempts to conflate "notable" and "well known" on webcomic AFDs in relation to the WCCA are inappropriate. If we conflate "notable" and "well known," then clearly this is a notable comic because it is well-known. Do you understand that? Balancer 09:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Well known"? No one outside of a very small fraction of certain online subcultures seems to even be aware of those awards. They certainly don't seem to garner much media attention. One of their administrators says that "Problems with the WCCAs [include] making people aware of them, getting people to care about them ... People didn't know when the WCCAs were happening, despite [his] repeatedly pointing out that we needed to take serious steps to get the word out about them."[5] --Dragonfiend 09:48, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would say that a very significant fraction of those regularly reading webcomics that have won WCCAs are aware of the WCCAs... which in itself constitutes a rather large number of people if you start adding up readership figures. They do not garner much media attention off the internet, but do garner a fair amount of attention on the internet. Just not as much as they'd like; call webcomic artists demanding attention whores as a community if you like. See search engine results, a prime indicator of net attention, which show the WCCAs coming up higher on a number of interrelated searches than the mammoth Eisners and Reubens (e.g., the basic comics+awards search), sometimes even outranking the perennial Usenet-favored Squiddies. Balancer 10:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pointing to search engines is a moot point. We are not dealing with blogs, fan-cruft and the silly things users do online and then create forums and galleries on them. We need solid and reliable sources, which this article unfortunately does not possess. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 10:12, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again, you conflate notability with being well-known. Pointing to search engines is (mostly) a moot point in establishing notability. It is, however, a very direct way of establishing how well known something is. Google is in general a very good indicator of how prominently something features on the internet. The WCCAs clearly are well-known. Balancer 10:21, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since the WCCAs are clearly well-known, and independent by the standards of awards commitees everywhere, then WP:WEB applies to give clear notability to Starslip Crisis on the "awards" clause. Balancer 10:23, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • How do you get "clearly well known" out of "Problems with the WCCAs [include] making people aware of them, getting people to care about them ... People didn't know when the WCCAs were happening ... we needed to take serious steps to get the word out about them." This award is small time and relatively unkown and the people running it readily admit to it. --Dragonfiend 10:28, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't get it out of that. I got it out of independent criteria, not the blog of some administrator who thinks the project they work on isn't getting enough attention. Clearly he thinks they deserve to be better known; also clearly it is already well-known. Read more carefully next time. Balancer 11:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm interpreting them as subsidiary to policy. I don't like to give more weight to a guideline than to a policy. The policies are the key, in fact to quote from WP:V,Wikipedia:Verifiability is one of Wikipedia's three core content policies. The other two are Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles. Now I can't see a mention of notability there, I can't see that those notability guidelines form a part of what should "determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles", so forgive me if I ignore them somewhat. I think that's what policy dictates me to do, but if I have it otherwise feel free to enlighten me. Hiding Talk 20:49, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, I don't agree that much can be fleshed out from the primary sources. There has to be enough third party sources to build an article. Then add a small portion from the subject itself. - Taxman Talk 12:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, so what are we saying? Stubs are no good? Surplus to requirements? What do we do with them, merge them to where the information may be useful? Delete them? What are we doing here, what's the goal? An encyclopedia of the stuff we consensually agree we like? Where's the line? It's not a black and white issue we have here, is it, it's light and shade, and we dapple our canvas with care. What do we need? What is enough. Because it changes daily. We know this comic strip exists, but that's not enough. We can verify it exists, easily, but that's not enough. We can verify a point of note, that it was one of the first Blank Label Comics. But that's not enough. How do we decide what is enough? How do we explain to people who don't get it that that's not enough? Is it enough to say, look, go read that page over there, that's why? Does that work when that page doesn't really get specific? Or do we need to take the time to work out what isn't enough? What do we do when there is some merit for the information somewhere? I mean, we agree there's merit in a mention of the strip being made somewhere on Wikipedia, right? So should we explain that sometimes, until there's enough material to work with which allows us to write from a full neutral perspective, when there's enough sourcing to allow us to balance different point of views, when there's enough to seed an article and allow primary source material in, then the time is right? Do we allow primary source to build an article? And should we explain that sometimes we do allow articles to rely more heavily on primary source? And try and work out what the difference is? It's not easy working these ideas out, and we should never pretend it is. We shouldn't pass people off on poorly written guidance. We shouldn't even parrot it. We should take the time to consider the best thing for the article. We should listen to the article. Where does this article want to be? What do the independent sources tell us about this article? They tell us it is by Kristofer Straub and it was one of the strips with which Blank Label Comics launched. So it makes sense to include the information there. And if a stub isn't enough here, to allow people to digest that snippet and decide where they want to go first, either to Blank Label Comics or to Straub, then we've got to work out where to redirect it. We've got to take the time to work these issues out. Or we are just a headless bureaucracy. And I don't believe in that Wikipedia. I don't believe in a Wikipedia where we try and score points, where we just battle our position, where we fight and call each other names. I believe in a Wikipedia where we at least try and understand each other, and work towards a consensus, an outcome where we can all point to something conceded and something gained. Where we can share war stories and laugh. Where we build an encyclopedia. Is that fair enough? Hiding Talk 20:49, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I just find some of the above arguments hopelessly overwrought. I have been following the debate from the external websites where this issue is being discussed (the "crusade" within wikipedia to delete webcomic articles). They are right, the Wikipedia itself is not notable. Its a joke as an "encyclopedia" when 50% of the time (90% all stats are made-up), any major article I look up has a chance of being polluted by some bored grade school kid vandalism. I say, WP:NOT#PAPER in this case and just move on. --Eqdoktor 19:25, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I love it how not enough reliable sources to build an article is considered shaky grounds. That's got to be the saddest thing for the progress of the quality of our project I've heard in a long time. - Taxman Talk 20:17, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I love how you think there aren't enough reliable sources. That's the point of dispute here; you can't just assume that there aren't enough reliable sources and then use that as evidence that there aren't enough reliable sources; that's simply begging the question. Rogue 9 04:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually the evidence is that no one has been able to produce any reliable references other than one line mentions and the reliability of those sources is not beyond reproach. If you can provide the needed reliable references we're all listening. If you can't, we need to delete. - Taxman Talk 14:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • no, deletion is not the only solution. Merging would be the right move here, since we have reliable sources to allow a one line mention in a larger article. Hiding Talk webcomic warrior 14:45, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • You don't see it, do you? Okay, fine, I'll spell it out: The deletion process is hopelessly corrupt. Any tomfool can put an article up for deletion, and can apparently also make ten sockpuppets to vote for delete because for some unfathomable reason, it seems that delete voters aren't checked. It takes just a few people to take the hard work of a dozen or potentially scores of editors and just make it disappear. And when you're supposed to be making the sum of human knowledge, that is ridiculously counterproductive. Rogue 9 07:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, no I don't see it. There is no ballot box to stuff, so it doesn't matter how many not-a-votes some fool casts. What matters is the strength of the arguments, and in the previous discussion the sockpuppets made a bunch of goofy arguments for deletion (never been to a convention, bad alexa rank, etc.) that were shot down in favor of the policy-based comments from actual editors. It doesn't matter if a goofy sock puppeteer nominated the article for silly reasons; his reasons were pushed aside and the article was deleted for good reasons -- this article, then as now, does not meet our content policies. Sure, this is the encyclopedia any idiot can pass the time by making up 20 imaginary friends for himself to talk to, but that doesn't change the fact that WP:NOT a web directory, and we don't have enough verifiable information form third-party reliable sources to write a neutral article on this topic without slipping into original research. --Dragonfiend 07:31, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please link to those reliable sources that provide enough material to write an article. - Taxman Talk 13:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your interpretation of the core content policies are at odds with both their spirit and the letter. There is nothing ambiguous about needing multiple reliable third party references. There are two paths we can go by, yours which amounts to almost no efforts to set minimum information quality standards and the other which will ensure high information quality. - Taxman Talk 13:24, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mine results in no degradation of information quality. Yours results in an "encyclopedia" that will only be paid attention to by the people who choose to spend their time catering to the increasingly complex, irrelevant, and bizarre rituals that have evolved to support its existence. Multiple third party sources do establish (tautologically) that a subject is notable enough to be mentioned in third party sources, and thus "deserves" an article... but once such notability has been established for the topic of the article, there's nothing gained by using those sources exclusively for the body, as some are saying. "Okay, so this subject comes up in multiple third party sources. Clearly it's worth mentioning. But there's not enough information in these sources for the article to say anything useful. Delete!" It's a pointless, double-layered notability test that would only make sense if Wikipedia was under severe space constraints. The fact is that accepting a third-party source's information about something non-contentious, like say, the characters in a fictional work does 'nothing' to improve the quality or reliability of information as opoposed to going straight to the primary. Their ultimate source is the first-party source. Reliable third-party sources have fact checkers, you say? They go back to the first-party source, too. The core content policies are unambiguous that simply accepting first-party information is not original research in and of itself, and while a lot of rather dense shrubbery has sprung up surrounding the relatively simple and workable ideas in the core content policies, "Ignore All Rules" trumps everything if the rules aren't making wikipedia better. This silly game of "Well, even if you and I and anybody with a mind to do so can go check out the page and verify that the information is accurate, that doesn't make the information verifiable." is just that... a silly game. Whether ones cites a primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary, or googolnary source... the citation still comes down to nothing more than editor saying, "Well, I read this stuff right here, in this source that anybody can go check out if somebody wanted to contest it." On the other hand, if somebody wanted to put in their take on the Jungian symbolism behind Starslip Crisis and said "Just look at the strip... it's all there!", THAT would unambiguously be original research... saning (yes, I said "saning"... imagine a verb, "to sane.") down the content policies needn't open the much-feared flood gates to reams of unverifiable speculation as some people need to fear, any more than acknowledging that in the Brave New World that has such online fricking encylopedias in it web-based notoriety really IS notability will turn Wikipedia into a directory of crappy Geocities pages. Alexandra Erin 01:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Policy and reasoning are out the window when I like it and I don't like it comes around. Hopefully the people that don't appeal to policy will be ignored. Only when that happens can we move to deletion discussion where policy is the deciding factor. To the extent the discussion here has been around interpretations of policy, its' been productive. - Taxman Talk 13:24, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nope, WP:POINT is more than sufficient in this case. In my bolder, more active days I would have killed this nomination the moment I saw it, process wonks be damned. There's been way too much grandstanding over webcomics lately, and going for an AfD so soon after the last one is just continuing that trend. It's disruptive, and that trumps the comparatively trivial squabbling over inclusionist and deletionist ideals. This could have been dealt with by continued discussion on the related talk pages. A redirect could have even been hammered out there without the need for an AfD. But instead we get this. It's disappointing. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 16:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Are we trying to claim that the author of the comic is not considered an expert on his own comic, and thus his own comic isn't considered a usable source at all?
because, from WP:OR -
that would be the only valid reason for denying the use of the comic itself as a source. It does not violate WP:RS, WP:V, or WP:OR unless you argue that an author isn't an expert on his own work, because we have a single, reliable source, so long as we do not draw any interpretations from it. It would make a small article, but not any smaller than the less well-known fictional books or movies we have on the site.
Under Wikipolicy, an article CAN be written from the comic. It is incorrect to say that it can't. The question is whether one SHOULD be written - ie, notability. Or, if you'd like to make a sweeping statement, whether we should have articles that are little more than book summaries. Both of those are perfectly legitimate debates to have, but one that I have no interest engaging in myself. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 29.138.2.170 (talk • contribs).
Like I said, there are legitimate arguments to be made, but they aren't WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:RS. Though I'd enjoy seeing you argue WP:OR and WP:RS. 129.138.2.170 03:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)Someone who doesn't want to be associated with this debacle[reply]
Comment edited for vertical space. Also, this is the Starslip Crisis deletion discussion (take two), the El Goonish Shive deletion discussion is this way. —xyzzyn 03:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the long comments, I should have done that myself. I'm not certain I understand your comment, though... Never mind, I figured it out. Guess I need to be keeping better track of which webcomic author is which, sorry again 129.138.2.170 03:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)same person[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.
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