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 content itself has not been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself.
The website or content has not won a notable independent award from either a publication or organisation.
The content is not distributed via a medium which is both well known and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster.
You realise that this "proof" is taken from an alleged interview with the artist, not from concrete evidence? They have not been verified and the artist may as well be making them up. - Francis Tyers·13:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we have any reason to doubt that the interview took place. It is part of the information archives of the GEnie Commodore board. Similiarly, the comics are all there for you to see. The claims made by the author are not unreasonable, either - we just don't happen to have copies of the items concerned from 15 years ago to check them (and this does not mean that copies don't exist). GreenReaper19:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I thought this was notable since it is the first comic strip produced exclusively for the Internet. Ashibaka (tock) 20:48, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The first Internet comic ought to be notable, but unfortunately googling for references on this one is difficult. —xyzzyn22:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This should not be moved to Comixpedia, though it should certainly have an entry there. It is exactly the sort of cultural history article that adds worth to Wikipedia. The comic ran to several hundred strips (I have almost 200 just from September 1987 to the end of 1989, and it reportedly ran for over twice that period). Characters from it appeared in the San Bernardino County Sun, TC-128 and Carousel News & Trader (originally the Carousel Trader). At the time it was most active - before the web which the WP:WEB guidelines cover was even invented! - it was distributed on CompuServe, Quantum Link and GEnie, three well-known early online service providers. It had a separate section on at least the last of these. The only reason we still have any of it now is that people thought the comic worthy enough to keep archives of it from over fifteen years ago. GreenReaper05:54, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No proof of any of these. No assertion of notability of the Carousel Trader, or any of the others. In other words a non-notable cartoon published in a series of non-notable bits of paper. They have not been verified and the artist may as well be making them up. - Francis Tyers·13:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
[1] (page 7) gives a circulation of 71934 for The SBC Sun. [2] gives an establishment date of 1894. I’d say this hints at some sort of notability. However, I am far away from any archive of these publications, so I can’t check whether, how and when the comic appeared there. —xyzzyn14:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you were right to ask. I’ve talked to Joe Ekaitis (the artist) and he said his work published in the Sun consisted of editorial cartoons, but no issues of T.H.E. Fox. —xyzzyn19:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Very weak keep, if deleted move anything not already in the Comixpedia wiki there; looks like it’s notable, but really needs better references. —xyzzyn14:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To elaborate, I think the article really lacks references. However, it does seem to be a very early online comic, quite possibly the first, and that makes it notable. Furthermore, the nomination refers to websites, a historically later albeit related matter; my common sense tends towards keeping. Also, if Ekaitis’s book is/becomes notable enough, the whole thing could be merged in Joseph Ekaitis. —xyzzyn19:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: As the article stands, it's a clear delete, however, it looks like the article could be improved if GreenReaper can better track down sources. I'd be satisfied with 1) Keeping this with notability and unsourced concern templates for a few months and then revisiting the deletion issue if necessary, or 2) Deleting it without prejudice toward recreation, moving it to GreenReaper's user space so it can be improved, and then back to mainspace when it is more properly sourced. -- Dragonfiend18:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree quite strongly with your assertion that it is a clear delete. If a topic is worthy (and being the first comic regularly distributed online plus having its own section in GEnie is sufficient for me) but the article is not good enough, that just means the article needs to be improved - which has been the case for just about all Wikipedia articles at some time or another. This one certainly can be improved, and I had intended to do so myself several months ago (that's why I took the time to convert all the images that I have from Commodore format) but managing WikiFur, writing up my reports on a few conventions and the imminent release of Windows Vista have intervened. The latter has not yet happened, which is why I'm still busy. :-)
I'm not really sure where you're coming from with "more properly sourced", either. An interview with the author taken at the time of the comic seem like a perfectly acceptable secondary source (the fact that the interview took place at all is also a measure of notability), and the comic strips and website are good examples of primary sources that can be used to confirm it. It would be nice to have specific references to confirm the specific claims about publication made in the interview. However, WP:V states that such information can be used as long as it is not contentious - and they're hardly claiming to have been published in the New York Times. GreenReaper19:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Since when was a bulletin board a reliable source? Its essentially self-publishing, which is one under vanity-press. I realise you're not going to be able to come up with something from OUP, but come on, surely something notable can do better than a BBS. - Francis Tyers·00:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know, that was pretty much the best there was online at the time, aside from NSFNet . . . and yes, I'd love to have more offline coverage, but it's hard to see who outside their community would have covered one guy "uploading" comics to an esoteric, mostly text-based service that maybe one in a thousand North Americans knew existed at the time. It took twenty years for online content creators to be recognized by Time. Ironically, given that BBS's were community-run, the closest equivalent nowadays would probably be an interview by Wikinews. :-)
Another confirmation of material mentioned in the interview - Spiffy Spring Special '95 is mentioned in a rec.arts.comics.info post, and T.H.E. FOX is listed as one of the comics featured within it. I haven't seen any further mentions of the comic, though the publisher has a few other publications that are available online at Mile High Comics. Note that the comic is not notable because it was particularly good (it's certainly funny, but Joe was not a professional artist at the time, and it is clearly outclassed in technical quality by more recent work), but because it is the first that we can confirm as being regularly distributed online. GreenReaper04:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Again, you have no proof that it was the first. No independent investigation or reliable sources which state it as such. A Wikinews interview would have the same problem. I realise we aren't going to have a published peer-review scientific or historical paper on the likely "first online distributed webcomic". But something independently verified and published by a reputable publisher or collator of cartoons (perhaps a large comic book house) should be possible. The problem is that esoteric here means obscure, and obscure for webcomics generally means non-notable. - Francis Tyers·12:26, 25 January 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.