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 keep. However, I do implore editors here to actually add those sources that pass WP:RS so that the notability is established in the article, rather than just this AfD page. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:48, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Rage comic[edit]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Through three pages of Google, I could not find enough sources to show that this article passed GNG, and that the sources passed V and RS. The sources I did find were mostly blog posts, forums, etc. that do not demonstrate notability. I did find some other sources, such as the following:

Josh Wolford (2 November 2011). "Teaching The English Language With Rage (Comics)". WebProNews. Retrieved 18 November 2011.

is not reliable. People can contact WebProNews "with [their] credentials and examples of what [they] might write here. The content is user-generated, and therefore unreliable. Furthermore, in WebProNews' ToS, they state that "WEBPRONEWS MAKES NO WARRANTY ... THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE ... ERROR-FREE...". Because the website does not assert that the content it publishes is accurate, it fails WP:V.

Laura Hudson (1 November 2011). "Rage Comics Face Found in Testicular Ultrasound". ComicsAlliance. Retrieved 18 November 2011.

Andy Khouri (11 November 2011). "86-Year-Old Veteran Chronicles His Life in Heartwarming Rage Comic". ComicsAlliance. Retrieved 18 November 2011.http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/11/11/86-year-old-veteran-rage-comic/

is not reliable either. According to the site-specific ToS, there are no terms of service at all. According to the ToS for the owner, AOL, "For general information, discussion, and entertainment purposes only and [AOL] make[s] no representations or guarantees about the truth, accuracy, or quality of any content". Because the website does not assert that content it publishes is accurate, it fails WP:V.

Know Your Meme: "Rage Comics". Retrieved June 14, 2011.

is user-contributed. A discussion here has a general agreement that it is mostly not reliable. Masem (talk · contribs) said "[Know Your Meme] is far from the editoral site we would expect. Yes, there are paid moderators that improve entries to valid them as memes, but because 90% of the content is from users (effectively a stricter wiki but a wiki nevertheless), its hard to draw the line between the editors and the users on that site. It should be avoided as a source if possible". User-generated content fails WP:RS. However, the reference leads to a video, which is supposedly "made by the actual employees". There was a general agreement in the discussion that the videos were reliable enough to be used as references for "for basic facts about a meme". At most, this is one source, which is not "multiple" as expected by the GNG.

Because the article does not pass the GNG and is not supported by verifiable and reliable sources, it should be deleted. →Σ τ c. 03:36, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Essentially no RS will ever provide a warranty that their content is accurate. If they did, they could be sued into bankruptcy by hundreds of people claiming reliance interests if they ever made a mistake. The sources may have other problems, but their disclaimers are no indication of inaccuracy per se. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 04:15, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions. —Tom Morris (talk) 06:18, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, although I commend the nominator on his diligence. About the sources you have contested,

Know Your Meme videos which are produced by paid know your meme staff have been vetted as RS by the RSN.
ComicsAlliance alliance has an editorial staff and paid contributors. That is a RS to me. It is used in at least 50 other mainspace articles (see link search). That attempt to go to the AOL terms of service is an interesting attempt to discredit the source, I have never seen it before and Σ should be complimented on his ingenuity, but I don't buy it. That argument would seemingly disqualify AOL news.

I would also like to present the following reliable sources:

Brenna Ehrlich. "Get Out Your Rage With the Cheezburger Network’s fffuuuuu Rage Guy Site". Mashable, 7/20/2011.
Robert Quigley. "Hot Topic Pulls FFFUUUUUUU T-Shirts Following Devious 4chan Ploy (Update)". Geekosystem, 11/18/2011.
Kim LaCapria. "4chan cows Hot Topic into pulling ‘Rage Guy’ shirt in record time". The Inquisitr, 11/18/2011.
Kim LaCapria. "Update: Hot Topic changes mind, will continue to sell ‘Rage Guy/Race Guy’ shirts". The Inquisitr, 11/20/2011.
"Tambrahm humour goes virtual". Indian Express, 7/27/2011.
Kevin Morris. "Making rage comics? Just fine with this English teacher". The Daily Dot, October 2011.
Kevin Morris. "Forever Alone? Not with rage comics on Reddit". The Daily Dot, October 2011.
Kevin Morris. "Redditors riot over rage comic fiasco". The Daily Dot, August 2011.
Kevin Morris. "Rage animations are all the rage on Reddit". The Daily Dot, November 2011.
Kevin Morris. "Like rage comics? You'll love rage novels". The Daily Dot, September 2011.
Elise Moreau. "Rage Faces: Internet Meme Faces and Funny Memes". About.com.
Colin McGann. "Geekin’ It: Rage Guy Faces". State Press Magazine, 3/7/2011.
Ann Hoevel. "The Know Your Meme team gets all scientific on teh intarwebs". CNN, 10/11/2011. (minor mention).
Christina Caldwell. "Big Business: Comic books and fantasy emerge as the pop culture epicenter of the internet age". Colledge Times, 5/27/2011. (minor mention)
James Twigg. "Upvoting UB". The Spectrum, 9/15/2011. (minor mention)
"Je pátek, čas na... NAVŽDY SÁM!". Reflex Magazine, 5/20/2011.
"Revue du web #97". Les Inrockuptibles, 5/10/2010 . (minor mention)

Let me just say that the quality of this article has degraded some since I left it. JORGENEV 08:31, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Excellent work. I too must commend you on your diligence. However, I would like to point out the following:

Five of the links above were written by one person for one organisation. If those alone were used, I do not think one person repeatedly covering the same thing would demonstrate notability.
Two of the same links above were written by one person for one organisation. If those alone were used, I do not think one person repeatedly covering the same thing would demonstrate notability.
From the Geekosystem disclaimer, Geekosystem publishes news, information, gossip, rumors, conjecture, opinions, analysis and commentary. Geekosystem includes original, created, fictional, reported and edited content as well as unmoderated reader posts and/or comments containing the personal opinions of readers on a wide range of topics. The information set forth herein may not necessarily be accurate or current. This is a far worse source than the ones I assessed above, as Geekosystem does not routinely moderate, screen, or edit content contributed by readers. That Geekosystem states that it does not check user-contributed content at all strongly shows that if fails RS.
There are no Mashable terms of use, which is something very unprofessional. Based on that, it is impossible to assess its reliability, and as such, it is a questionable source. Thus, it does not pass V. Furthermore, Mashable accepts user-generated content. That and the fact that it is impossible to assess for reliability, makes the Mashable link fail RS.
From what I could see, the Indian Express article above was about a specific website that distributed rage comics. I also discovered, that in the disclaimer, THE CONTENTS, INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, PRODUCTS, FEATURES AND SERVICES PUBLISHED ON [ibnlive.in.com] MAY INCLUDE INACCURACIES OR TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. If the site does not have the editorial oversight to even copyedit their content, or even check that it is completely accurate, it does not have the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy as seen in RS.
I could find nothing regarding editorial oversight for The Inquisitr.

→Σ τ c. 02:47, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

CNN also makes no warranty that its content will be "error free" (see 6.A). I don't think you method for determining if a source is reliable or not is a good one. JORGENEV 02:58, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how looking up the terms of service is the final arbiter for the usefulness of a source. Jorgenev points out a perfect flaw in this thinking. The sources certainly vary in quality, but not according to what their lawyers wrote in the ToC. --Qwerty0 (talk) 01:07, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, about geekosystem, the phrase from their disclaimer that you use to discredit it is talking about their comments section! Geekosystem is used in many articles, and has previously been used successfully as an RS for notability in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pioneer One. JORGENEV 03:18, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Jorgenev. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 18:04, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See my response to Jorgenev. →Σ τ c. 02:47, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Okay, you found some more sources. But nothing in those I looked at make me feel this is anything more than a passing non-notable fad-like thing. Eeekster (talk) 02:08, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't call something that has been popular for four years 'passing'. As for your conclusion that reliable sources are irrelevant to the issue, I am not sure what to say. JORGENEV 02:15, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have assessed the above links, and for the most part, do not believe they are reliable. →Σ τ c. 02:47, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have assessed your method of assessing reliable sources and concluded that your method also disqualifies CNN. JORGENEV 03:07, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete WP:42 WP:NN Eta-theta 02:16, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I have to agree with Σ all the way. The credibility of these sources are questionable. I commend your excellent work, Σ! Rotorcowboy (talk) 07:52, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Some of those sources cover Hot Topic, a massive retailer, had shirts of this meme. The Hindu mentions this as a notable internet meme [1]. Dream Focus 00:07, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Σ, at a certain point it starts to look like we're searching for reasons to ignore a multitude of references to this phenomenon. What is all this terms-of-service-trawling? Look through the terms of service for all the major news organizations. See if they don't disclaim responsibility for inaccurate information. I'm sorry this is a thing from the internet. Sometimes internet things become significant. --Qwerty0 (talk) 00:58, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete A non-notable Internet meme and subculture. As Σ pointed out, none of the given sources are reliable enough. The Hot Topic debacle is rather irrelevant, as they sell all kinds of pop culture junk and memes one time or another. If rage comics deserve an article, why not advice animals, Philosoraptor, etc? Even our image macro article is up to debate. — Kieff | Talk 08:55, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a bit of a slippery slope argument, isn't it? Advice animals, philosoraptor, etc aren't such a significant, widely circulated and noted phenomenon. Maybe they will be some day, but right now they aren't. So we don't include them. --Qwerty0 (talk) 04:37, 28 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, causa sui (talk) 21:28, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep — So-called 'poor references' or not, rage comics are at least as notable as many of the other things on Category:Internet_memes ~ neko-chan :3 (talk) 22:45, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:43, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Good amount of coverage in reliable secondary sources. — Cirt (talk) 10:07, 1 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Jorgenev. CallawayRox (talk) 16:24, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Jorgenev's list of sources that do not assert notability? →Σ τ c. 05:10, 7 December 2011 (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.