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.
Keep, if the article creator is allowed to weigh in. Reasons: notability of hosts David Malki ! and Kristofer Straub, consistency of activity since June 2009, affiliation with a company that only publishes works that are deemed notable (that is, by their own guidelines)-- e.g their website has an audience of 100,000 unique visitors per month. I should also note that each live broadcast of the programme tends to have a listenership of around 100+... if that is at all an impressive number. Of course, I have no way to verify this unless someone happens to have screen shots from the live feeds. Also note that this doesn't take into account the audience number of the show's back catalog, which I have no way of ascertaining, although I imagine it's significantly larger. Their first live-audience show was held at The Complex Theater, which I suppose is a venue of note. And then there's the iTunes feature: Go to iTunes Store > Podcats > Staff Favorites and you'll see that it's the third podcast listed. I've been unable to find a way to link to that specific page, though here is iTunes' page for TMH. Teraghast (talk) 00:12, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the article creator is allowed to weigh in. Sorry, I only just now noticed your comments at the article talk page, but I don't think the things you have brought up there and here demonstrate notability. For starters:
Having a notable host/author doesn't automatically make something notable (see WP:NOTINHERITED, which argues that notability is not inherited). Books by notable authors have been put up for deletion in the past (see, for example, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Up to Now (autobiography)); in cases where they have been kept, it was because someone improved the article with reliable sources, not because the authors/creators were notable. Notability comes from substantial coverage in third-party sources, which you have not provided.
The same goes for the point you posted at the talk page, that only "notable" webcomic authors (or, more specifically, authors with over 100,000 visitors per month) are permitted to contribute to the podcast; that's essentially the same type of argument.
It's not true that "topatoco only publishes works that are deemed notable". They have no affiliation with Wikipedia and no "notability requirement" that is comparable to ours; topatoco is a T-shirt and poster selling website that webcomic authors can choose to join. Webcomics that sell things there and do not have Wikipedia articles include Yamiloo, Tiny Kitten Teeth, Seldon (webcomic), Sailor Twain, and more.
Being the #3 selling podcast in one category on one site is, again, not proof of notability; notability comes from substantial discussion in reliable, unaffiliated sources.
On the talk page, you pretty much admitted that all the information available is from the show itself (see WP:Primary sources and, not quite as relevant, WP:IN-UNIVERSE). Since notability comes from coverage in non-primary sources, this pretty much means notability is not demonstrated. And it's not true that there are no reliable sources for webcomics-related stuff; there are tons of webcomics which have Wikipedia articles that demonstrate notability through reliable sources (see Category:Webcomics; some random examples include Dinosaur Comics, xkcd, Questionable Content, Megatokyo—a featured article—, and Gunnerkrigg Court—a [outdated] good article).
Point 2: What? No, the 100,000 number is regards to TopatoCo, not TMH. I've managed to contribute to the podcast, and I'm neither a webcomic artist nor at all notable.
Point 3: Deemed notable by their own opinions; Wikipedia isn't the only entity that can make definitions regarding what is or isn't notable, and at no point did I say that TopatoCo's notability requirement was equatable with Wikipedia's. I figured that fact was apparent, so didn't feel the need to specify "deemed notable, but not necessarily by Wikipedia standards". The point is that TopatoCo is not a vanity press that anyone is allowed to become involved with. Additionally, I don't see how "there are webcomics affiliated with this company that don't have articles here" is an argument of any substance. It's possible that, simply, no one has taken it upon themselves to create those articles (or, perhaps more likely, that they're been deleted). Webcomics (/artists) that sell things there and do have a Wikipedia article include Wondermark, White Ninja, Subnormality, Sheldon, Sam and Fuzzy, Questionable Content, Posterchild, Pictures for Sad Children, Octopus Pie, Maximum Fun, Little Gamers, Jonathan Coulton, Kate Beaton, Gunnerkrigg Court, Jonathan Rosenberg, Jamie Smart, Explodingdog, Dresden Codak, Dinosaur Comics, Christopher Baldwin, Dorothy Gambrell, Buttercup Festival, Brandon Bird, Axe Cop, Alien Loves Predator, and A Softer World. (Oh, and Starslip Crisis, of course.) Which is to say, the vast majority of their inventory.
Point 4: No, it's not, but I feel the need to point out (because I love semantics) that those YouTube videos have the space of time from when they're uploaded to the present moment to acquire those views; this is a number acquired over the space of about an hour and persist for the duration. Not actually making an argument here, just being a jerk.
Point 6: Having your podcast posted on iTunes equals affiliation? And it's not simply an automated list of the best "selling" podcasts; someone working for iTunes specifically listed it because they found it worthy of being featured.
Point 7: Where did I ever say that there are no reliable sources for webcomics? I just said that there aren't, as far as I'd been able to find at that point, any "reliable" 3rd party sources for this subject. However, here are some people talking about it: [1][2][3][4]. Are they reliable enough to be considered appropriate 3rd party sources? If so, where can they be referenced on the occasion that they don't provide any information that would be useful in-article (in which case they could just be cited as sources)?
Also, I did admit, not pretty much. Because in the aforementioned admitting-to, I was arguing for the reliability of the information, not the notability. Because I was then under the assumption that that was what was being called into question re: the lack of 3rd party sources. But if the 3rd party sources are less a matter of information and more a matter of proving "notability", then see above. I'll continue to work the Google mines to see if I can choke out any more, but these things aren't instantaneous. Teraghast (talk) 23:07, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I am not convinced that any of the coverage identified in the article or my own searches constitutes a "reliable source", and the article therefore fails WP:N. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:30, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Hhhhhuuu-vwhelp. I tried. Thanks for helping, fellow TMH fans! I curse your ancestors' ghosts! Well, at least I learned some valuable lessons. Like, that Wikipedia's concept of notability is only tangentially connected to a realistic definition of the term "notability".
And that Wikipedia need to work harder on consistently applying its policies. I didn't want to play the Other Stuff Exists game, because I realized that it would more likely result in the deletion of any cited articles, rather than make anyone say "Oh, well in that case, I guess you're right"... but, oh, I could have totally played the Other Stuff Exists game. Like, for example, a variety of other podcasts. Or a number of minor deities in a here-unnamed pantheon that are lacking sources of any kind, neveryoumind reliable ones-- but not wanting to start a sort of Internet Age Ragnarok-simulacrum, I won't dish. Just saying, though.
Aaand that Wikipedia doesn't realize (or chooses to ignore) that it, too, lives inside the internet, and thus absorbs the same taint of unreliability and unimportance that it seems to find so unsavoury in other internet-based entities.
But mostly that this whole ordeal has herniated all of my discs and that I am clearly not Wikipedia material. This is not the proper use of a deletion page. I need to go lie down now. Teraghast (talk) 09:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In reply to Teraghast (talk·contribs)'s presentation of four sources above: these sources are not third-party reliable sources because they are self-published blogs that have not received editorial oversight and fact-checking. Reliable sources are newspaper, magazine, and journal articles, as well as books. If Tweet Me Harder receives coverage in newspaper articles from two different non-local newspapers, it will pass Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Cunard (talk) 00:08, 12 February 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.