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:Articles for deletion/Encyclopedia Dramatica (2nd nomination) - Knowledge

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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. Since this isn't your average AfD, I'll explain this close somewhat in depth. Firstly, going by counting votes (which one of course should never do at AfD), the overwhelming majority want this article kept. However, since this is not a vote count, that is only a contributing factor to the result. Going through the delete votes, there is a clear idea that Encyclopedia Dramatica does not pass two notability guidelines, WP:WEB and WP:N. There is general agreement however, that there is at least one reference that asserts notability, that being this article. So we have proof that it is somewhat notable, if not in multiple sources.

Secondly, there are many votes that simply conflict each other without any proof or evidence of what they are saying, e.g. "Does not pass WP:WEB" and "Passes WP:WEB." Clearly, people have differing views on what an article requires to pass this guideline. And yes, it is just a guideline, not a policy. It does not have to be strictly followed, like, say WP:BLP.

Thirdly, the article was fully protected until 2 days ago, so not allowing any changes to the article could possibly have skewed the debate somewhat.

Fourthly, while many of the websites shown are trivial mentions to some, to others the opinion clearly differs as to what is trivial and what isn't. This is perhaps an issue that should be discussed further on the relevant guideline pages. Additionally, there are going to be more mentions of it out there. Just because they aren't immediately available to you doesn't mean they don't exist.

Fifthly, many of the delete votes do not provide sufficient reasoning for their opinion, e.g. "hate site" is not a reason to delete something. Nor is "attracts drama". Yes, there are similar keep votes, but there are substantially more of people wanting to keep this overall, and in any case the de facto result for these is keep – it's up to the delete voters to prove it isn't notable.

Sixthly, I'll make it clear I do not endorse the content on Encyclopedia Dramatica, particularly its coverage of Knowledge and its editors. As an encyclopedia however, we need to keep a neutral point of view on such issues. We cannot ignore subjects because they are critical of us.

Finally, whilst I have no doubt in my mind I have closed this fairly, I am very sure this will be taken to deletion review. That's fine with me, I know that whichever way this was closed someone would be unhappy. In all, I hope I've done the right thing here. Thanks, Al Tally (talk) 21:02, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

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

Fails WP:NOTABILITY, WP:WEB. Nothing more than an advert for a site which co-ordinates vandalism and attacks Wikipedians and adds little if any encyclopedic value to wikipedia, WP:DENY. Has a few links but they all seem to be trivial coverage or mentions. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. which is clearly noted in multiple notability guidelines. Hu12 (talk) 01:15, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

  • <sarcasm>Of course, Wikipedians would never come over to ED and use it to attack 'fellow' project memebers they have beef with would they? Of course not. You're too good for petty squabbles like that over here aren't you? You're all pure as driven snow.</sarcasm> I know for a fact that Wikipedians use ED to attack admins and users here they don't like. OldDirtyBtard (a TOW cockpuppet stole my nick).--82.156.183.49 (talk) 21:04, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Has been mentioned in a wide variety of news outlets including The New York Times. At some points in the development of the current version of the article, the reference list was actually nearly as long, or maybe longer, than the article itself. Its attacks on Knowledge and Wikipedians are utterly irrelevant; WP:NPOV requires that we cover those who hate us, and/or that we hate, in an evenhanded manner regardless. Opposition to this article seems based more on fear and loathing than on logic. *Dan T.* (talk) 01:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. I repeat the same arguments I had in this discussion few days ago - Knowledge:Deletion review/Log/2008 May 8 - there is a lot of secondary sources, last being the feature article in ninemsn - . --Have a nice day. Running 01:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • comment - ED has a page "ED in the news" with many sources, that proves ED's notablility a little bit more. The site is banned to link, so copy + paste + add the dot
    • encyclopediadramatica com/Encyclopedia_Dramatica:ED_in_the_News --Have a nice day. Running 21:34, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • bloody hell - can we GO three days without an ED debate? can we? --Random832 (contribs) 01:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete Still fails notability test in my mind, mostly trival mentions, no direct coverage. Really a wiki-only phenomenon. MBisanz 01:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep- Encyclopedia Dramatica is a notable website among internet users. The article is well sourced. If Livejournal and Urban Dictionary can have a page I don't see why Encyclopedia Dramatica should be left out of the group. Deathawk (talk) 01:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep - Please explain how the site fails WP:NOTABILITY and WP:WEB. It has a higher Alexa rating than Uncyclopedia. The article isn't an advert in any way, refering to the site as "coarse, offensive, and frequently obscene" (something which would never be allowed in many articles) And by the way, the fact that the site attacks Wikipedians is irrelevant, as WP:DENY isn't policy, and doesn't preclude Knowledge's goal to be an embodiment of all human knowledge. We don't delete the article on Al-Quaida because it gives unwanted attention to terrorists.--Urban Rose 01:26, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Sweet Jesus Keep The place has been covered quite a bit by international news, and I'm sure I can dig up some stuff right now that'll clarify importance even more. Master of Puppets Call me MoP! :) 01:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Tentatively meets notability guidelines, seems to have the potential to moreso. Well put-together and cited, what's all the up-in-arms about? — pd_THOR | 01:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • ED has a series of pages which contain vulgar mocking of several WP editors, and the site is generally highly critical of WP. Thus many editors get up in arms whenever the subject arises. Z00r (talk) 03:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep The scope of the sources looks just fine to me. Not all of them are directly about ED, but there is enough here to indicate that it meets WP:WEB. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 01:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • DELETE Must I explain to you exactly how this site sexually humiliates our editors? I did not want to post here with the terrorist sympathizers, but you forced my hand. Many of their latest articles attack our admin corp. I won't link to it because as of right now it is lesser known, since no one really reads ED anymore because they have realised that doing so aligns them with cyberterrorists. Does that make you feel good? Aiding and abetting sexual humiliation and cyber stalking? Or are you under the impression that a 💕 just builds itself, regardless of whether or not we have editors? I am part of the silent majority and our voice will be heard. If that offends you in some way, I suggest you take a deep look into your soul and find out if you have any empathy for another living, breathing human being. Are you one of these "free speech" nutcases that thinks it is ok to deface the Virgin Mary with excrement or something? Because that is what Encyclopedia Dramatica amounts to. The Voice Of Your Heart (talk) 01:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment You just explained why the article should remain on Knowledge. It is certainly notable if it inspired this sort of response. This is not up for dispute. Jameth (talk) Jameth (talk) 06:53, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • comment Being an atheist, I don't really care about someone defacing the Virgin Mary with excrement or something. Besices, your arguments are like copied from Knowledge:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. --Have a nice day. Running 01:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • ... Sorry, you're calling people who write for that site TERRORISTS? If you present a reasonable rationale for the removal of an article, ED will take it down. I am, actually, one of those "free speech nutcases" that believes people have the right to say what they will without religious fanatics like yourself telling me I'm a hateful sinner for not believing in Jesus and behaving like a "good Christian." What the hell kind of argument was that, anyway? And quite frankly, the articles on some of the admin are healthy to have. Sure, they're crude, rude, and lewd. But you know, I like knowing that some admin are the scariest power-mongers to ever grace the internet. Keeps me from running afoul of them, and I can keep contributing to Knowledge in peace. Plus, it's funny. If you don't think it's funny, don't read it, for the love of Ducks. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean we can't have it. This article is a Keeper. Howa0082 (talk) 01:44, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
        • Comment (To "The voice of your heart") I'm sorry to say this, but people like you shouldn't really be editing Knowledge. You make it blatantly obvious that your only interest in voting "delete" is to further your own personal agenda against that site, not to improve the encyclopedia.--Urban Rose
        • Comment (To "The voice of your heart") You have to be kidding me. Unquestioning loyalty to admins is a terrible stance to take. We are all human, and we all make mistakes. People who are ostensibly entrusted with a common public good like wikipedia should be expected to live up to high standards. Are you seriously going to start defending Erik Möller and how it's ok to advocate for pedophilia now? - DLB —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.23.212.107 (talk) 04:38, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Notable, rather notorious website. Reliable sources demonstrate notability - here's one that devotes an entire article to profiling the site. The article is hardly an advertisement - it's a standard attempt to describe a web service that happens to be antagonistic towards Knowledge. Refusing to print an article about something just because it upsets Wikipedians is somewhere between sour grapes and censorship. If you're going to understand Internet culture, this is a signifigant piece of it.Wikidemo (talk) 01:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Also, Speedy close. Articles ought not to be nominated for deletion while they are fully protected. First, that lets administrators game the system to have the upper hand. The only way to nominate for deletion while under protection is to use the administrative privilege of editing protected articles, so that's using admin tools in a content dispute. Second, the normal process of an article up for deletion is that if there are deficiencies in sourcing, notability, relevance, etc., they can be fixed through the editing process before a decision is made. That can't happen here, so the legitimacy of any result to delete would be in question. Wikidemo (talk) 01:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Non-admins can nominate for deletion by placing the AFD notice on the talk page. That is considered sufficient given page protection. MBisanz 01:37, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
        • On the wikigaming front I'll also note that this passed a deletion nomination less than two months ago. What has changed since then or is this just a second spin of the wheel? Wikidemo (talk) 02:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete (edit conflict x2), as the one who cleaned up the sources earlier today, almost every source there only mentions Dramatica in passing. Two just define it. I don't think Fortuny's use of the site automatically conveys notability on it, only on himself. If he'd done the same on his personal blog, we wouldn't be allowing an article on that blog. Unless someone can produce some true, significant coverage, I just don't see how this site meets WP:WEB, and why we should have an article on a site that's blacklisted from even having its URL posted anywhere. And, as a side note, I have no idea if ED is an attack site or not, never go to it and have never really heard of it before today. So I'm basing my comments purely on the article and its sources. AnmaFinotera (talk) 01:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Your "blacklisted URL" argument only suggests that the URL should be removed from the blacklist, not that the article should be deleted.--Urban Rose 01:50, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • A number of blacklisted sites have articles about them.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikidemo (talk • contribs) 21:00, May 14, 2008
  • Keep. Thoroughly cited; it would be a violation of WP:NPOV to pretend it doesn't exist, and despite the hassles we've had with it, we cover much worse. I don't believe in the "borderline notability means we get to toss neutrality out the window and decide on the basis of IDONTLIKEIT" style arguments for deleting it, and I don't believe that its notability is as borderline as proponents of that argument make out. And as we've just hashed all this out at DRV I don't see what is to be accomplished from doing it all again so soon, so I'm tempted to advocate not just a keep but a speedy keep. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per Collectonian regarding the sourcing issue: fails WP:WEB. Anything Knowledge-related tends to receive enhanced attention in Knowledge discussions. Durova 01:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep It's a good site. Just because some people do not agree with what is being said, doesn't mean it should be removed. 24.150.181.11 (talk) 16:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. Sources mention ED only in passing - cobbling together lots of trivial mentions does not create the level of sourcing needed for an article. Not having an article does not mean pretending that ED doesn't exist, it just reflects that the site doesn't have the depth of third party coverage necessary to meet our inclusion criteria. Needs more extensive coverage before we should have an article about it - not more sources, just one or two more that are actually about ED, rather than ones that simply refer to it's existence. WjBscribe 01:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • What about this one?http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=459249 That's not just in passing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikidemo (talk • contribs)
      • It's debatable whether even that source, which provides more detail than any other we have links to, actually meets the requirement of substantial coverage. You could easily describe this source as providing only a brief summary of the nature of the content or the publication of Internet addresses and site, meaning even this source doesn't meet the requirements of WP:WEB 1 (3). And you need not one but at least two sources that provide "non-trivial" amounts of coverage. WP:WEB demands coverage in multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent Noroton (talk) 02:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
        • For goodness sakes, that's not debatable! It's an article in a major national news outlet devoted entirely to the subject. That "brief summary" thing is meant to discourage using guides to prove notability, not to knock out feature articles because they're written entirely about a website. If triviality is the threshold there are a dozen articles already cited that are not trivial mentions (unless you wish to reinvent what the term "trivial" means). They describe newsworthy events that happened involving ED and got a lot of press. Wikidemo (talk) 02:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • As much as I dislike the subject, there was a clear consensus to recreate at DRV. There is sourcing. Extremely weak keep. Corvus cornixtalk 02:01, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - Fully protecting an article going through AFD defeats part of the purpose of AFD - to allow improvements to the article to demonstrate why it should be kept. Unprotect. Exxolon (talk) 02:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep The notability argument keeps being thrown around, but look at Uncyclopedia's press coverage. It's a bunch of trivial mentions, mostly from other wikis. But that article isn't constantly being put up for deletion. Sometimes notability falls outside the "reliable sources" realm, especially when we have statistics from places like Alexa that show it is a significant site. -Kevman459 (talk) 02:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Speedy close without prejudice to relist after the article is unprotected. How are editors to improve the article, use the ediprotected tag? This will surely slow things down for this timed debate. Regards, NonvocalScream (talk) 02:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep. ED has been mentioned in a wide variety of news stories and meets notability guidelines, even if they are mean to people on the Internet.Dantsea (talk) 02:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete Here are the sources from the article:-
    1. Neva, Chonin. "Sex and the City", San Francisco Chronicle, Hearst Communications, 17 September 2006, pp. p.20.—A trivial mention in a roundup of cyber-prank news stories.
    2. "Privacy", Warren's Washington Internet Daily, 12 September 2006.—Couldn't find online, but judging by what it's cited for, trivial as above.
    3. Dee, Jonathan (1 July 2007). All the News That's Fit to Print Out. Magazine p. 5, 34. The New York Times.—A trivial mention in an article about Knowledge.
    4. Davies, Shaun (8 May 2008). Critics point finger at satirical website. National Nine News.—Not very long and certainly not indepth, but finally, an article about ED.
    5. Douglas, Nick (18 January 2008). What The Hell Are 4chan, ED, Something Awful, And 'b'?. Gawker.com.—Is Gawker.com a reliable source? In response to a reader query, this piece gives a brief into to four different websites, of which ED is one.
    6. "2 Do: Monday, December 26", RedEye Edition, Chicago Tribune, 16 December 2005, pp. p. 2.—Couldn't find online. One of four sources used to cite the assertion that ED has been described as "coarse, offensive and frequently obscene".
    7. Mitchell, John. "Megabits and Pieces: The latest teen hangout", North Adams Transcript, 20 May 2006.—Ditto.
    8. Hind, John. (5 June 2005). What's the word?. The Observer.—A trivial mention in an article explaining "TL;DR".
    9. Cassel, David (8 March 2007). John Edwards' Virtual Attackers Unmasked. AlterNet.—Trivial mention in an article about an e-terrorist group.
    10. Anonymous Protests Outside Scientology Sites. Londonist (11 February 2009).— Trivial mention in an article about anti-Scientology protests; for perspective, www.whyaretheydead.net and www.xenu.net are also linked.
    11. Man Posed As a Woman to Elicit Personal Ad Responses. MSNBC. 12 September 2006.—I wasn't watching TV that day, but see #1 above.
    12. Dibbel, Julian (18 January 2008). Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World. Wired.—Trivial mention (two, to be fair) in an article about internet culture.
    13. Anonymous operation leads to pedophile conviction. Global Television Network.—This isn't actually a reference so much as a hint that one might exist. See also #1.
    After all that, I can't see a demonstration of notability. Only one source really writes about ED, and that piece really is very short. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 02:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • This is a fallacious argument. The reason that the article does not have the best sources available is because it was undeleted yesterday and is protected so noone can improve it. SheffieldSteel should argue on the basis of the reliable sources which can be found to demonstrate the notability of this topic currently, and not the ones which are currently on a write-protected article. The whole point of wikis is that the community can improve badly written or sourced articles, it is fundamentally unfair to judge this article while it is protected. 86.31.102.215 (talk) 10:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Please note that the above comment does not express an opinion as to whether this article should be kept or deleted. Also, I have made numerous edits to WP, and am anonymous here for the sole reason that expressing an opinion on a page like this one means that a certain subset of editors will label one as a 'troll' and cause trouble elsewhere on the wiki. 86.27.233.17 (talk) 06:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
      • It is very likely that these are the only sources that exist, given that large numbers of people help to improve articles related to Knowledge (for obvious reasons) and so there will have been a much bigger effort to find sources for this article. Yes it was undeleted yesterday, but people have been trying to get it undeleted for months and have performed a near-exhaustive search for sources in that time. If you know of any other sources then list them here - this page isn't protected. Hut 8.5 13:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
What's fallacious about the argument is that it labels as "trivial" a major newspaper article that devotes only half of its 898 word length to the article subject (calling its treatment of two different events a "roundup"), dismisses three sources as trivial without examining them because they're not online (actually, at least one is - it's just a pay site and the story leads with a mention of an incident on ED ) on theory that everything else is trivial so these must be too, and dismisses a two minute long story on a national news network that describes a notorious incident on the site as trivial because "I wasn't watching TV that day". Wikidemo (talk) 07:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per above. I also see no major demonstration of notability. seicer | talk | contribs 02:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete as per nom, Collectonian and Sheffield Steel. Looking over the sourcing, only the Nine News source gives anything close to "substantial" coverage, and you need more under WP:WEB or WP:N. Provide more sourcing, change my !vote/opinion. Noroton (talk) 02:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Additional comment: Seven sentences plus examples. That's all the Nine News article has. And they're short sentences. I'd call that approaching substantial, but if that's the best there is, there isn't enough. WP:N clearly requires at least two, the way that guideline is currently written. WP:WEB requires the same. Noroton (talk) 02:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete Not quite notable enough yet. I said to allow relisting at DRV, and now it is. If it had another 1-2 sources like the MSN, I would say keep. Also, more AFDs are at Knowledge:Articles for deletion/Encyclopædia Dramatica (3rd nomination) and Knowledge:Votes for deletion/Encyclopedia Dramatica. Lawrence Cohen § t/e 02:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Permanent Keep... Sweet fuck! I'd say keep! It brings the drama to the internets... The war between TOW and ED is still going on... TL:DR --Creamy! 02:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • This is a common misconception. ED does not hate TOW, we just have issues with some of the hypocrisies shown by members who have been entrusted with sysop status (re: Sceptre, MONGO). Quite a few ED sysops and users (myself included) constructively add things to the wikipedia project. It's the disgust with the factionalism and political alliances that distort objective records of people and events on this "collective" project that we find objection to. We do not represent ourselves to be anything short of ridiculous, your pretentious masquerade as some sort of objective collective of 'all human knowledge' is both laughable and sad at the same time considering your current structure and often idiotic bickering. - DLB
  • Delete. per my nom. Sadly, those arguing for the value of material that is substandard, inadequate and unencyclopedic and suggesting that such articles be kept regardless of those facts damages the credibility and future success of Knowledge. Unfortunatly Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. which is clearly noted in the notability guidelines. Self-promotion and product placement are not the routes to having an encyclopaedia article. Content that does not belong in an encyclopedia is removed.--Hu12 (talk) 02:37, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep: It exists. It is popular. It is moar popular than Uncyclopedia. See here.--Piepie (talk) 02:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Alexa is not an Inclusion criteria. Notability is distinct from "fame", "importance", or "popularity". This is not a valid rationale. --Hu12 (talk) 02:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • So you would deny Toe Fat an entry? --Piepie (talk) 03:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
        • Distinct from notability, yes. But also related to. Fame, importance, and popularity all tend to make things more notable. A high Alexa rank (meaning a huge audience) is, like a high population for a city or a large size or scope of distribution for a product, a listing for a company on a stock exchange, longevity or membership size of an organization, and so on, an indication that something is worth knowing about. It is an argument one can weigh and approve or disapprove, even ignore, but it is certainly not an invalid argument. Deciding on notability is not a rote weighing of article mentions (a standard by which the subject would be clearly notable, with multiple substantial mentions in major news sources) Wikidemo (talk) 07:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep: Just because some Knowledge Editors find the content offensive does not mean it does not exist. I can type in any bizzare unheard of term and bring up an article on Knowledge, but an incredibly popular human website deserves to be deleted because it 'offends'? How about GodHatesFags.com? I demand Westboro Baptist Church articles be deleted because they OFFEND me! Way to go, you tools. - Anonymous — 68.101.8.94 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Keep per nontrivial source http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=459249 Edit:also, http://www.newsreview.com/chico/Content?oid=620760 Z00r (talk) 02:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Per Corvus Cornix. It passed a DRV. There was consensus to recreate. It has sources. RyanGerbil10(Kick 'em in the Dishpan!) 02:54, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep' Notable. Can we please go at least a month or two without having to slog through this tired old discussion? At a certain point, constantly AFDing or DRVing the same article become blatant pointy disruption... --ElKevbo (talk) 03:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. The bias shown by some editors is horrifying. This site clearly meets WP:WEB, anyone saying otherwise is not fooling anyone. Please stop gaming the system by making absurd claims and try to back them up by throwing around links to WP:EPTBOP (Essay Pretending To Be Official Policy); it's rather annoying as I have to follow all the links only to find out it's an essay (not policy, not even a recommendation) that is only loosely related to the subject at hand. Knowledge is not censored for anyone, no matter how offensive the subject might be for you and me. Deleting Encyclopedia Dramatica's article won't magically remove ED from the Internet. Knowledge is supposed to be an encyclopedia with the sum of all human knowledge; removing content just because the large majority of Knowledge's editors strongly dislikes the subject in question is completely unacceptable and makes a mockery out of this project's goals. I'd like to point out that Knowledge projects in other languages have no problems whatsoever with keeping an article about Encyclopedia Dramatica, there are never any "trolls" disrupting the article. In fact, most of the "disruptions" this article suffers from consist of clear wikigaming (removing sources, starting disputes over trivial matters, etc) from people who, for some reason, can't sleep at night as long as we keep a completely innocuous article on some website popular among some Internet subculutures. Please, grow up. Knowledge is not a MMORPG, you don't win experience points every time you get an article you hate deleted. On another note, I'd also like to point out that this isn't the 2nd nomination for this article, it's the 5th. First nomination, (delete) second nomination (keep), third nomination (no consensus, keep), fourth nomination (delete). -Mpontes (talk) 03:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Passes all wikipedia guidelines. JeanLatore (talk) 03:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Close: I don't care to actually say "keep" nor "delete" right now. This nomination was very inappropriate, IMHO. Consensus for this article was just reached a day ago. - Rjd0060 (talk) 03:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • And to clarify my point; The article was restored yes, after there was more agreement to do so (opposed to leave it deleted). The chances of this discussion actually resulting in delete are very slim, if at all existent. - Rjd0060 (talk) 03:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Article meets criteria for inclusion, notability has been established, and the subject is covered in reliable sources. When that is the case, we don't get to exclude something simply because we don't like it. ED exists, and a version of the article has been authored that meets Knowledge's criteria. Let's move on. - auburnpilot talk 03:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Procedural Keep wasn't there something on the talk page saying to wait at least a month before trying to AfD this? Keeping my opinions to myself until such a time that a valid AfD comes up. JuJube (talk) 03:26, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Closing comment on the DRV. "Regarding listing this on AFD, I don't see a clear consensus here that this needs to be done immediately, but nor is there a consensus that AFD should not be used. ". DRV is not AFD, assuming they are is incorrect--Hu12 (talk) 03:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep per AuburnPilot. VegaDark (talk) 03:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep, in my own words at the DRV: passes the requirements, no more no less. –– Lid 03:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Even aside from this article easily meeting policy requirements, it's really bad form to keep renomming an article over and over and over in hopes that one of the AFDs will actually stick. Knowledge isn't censored, and if the website offends you, don't go there! Jtrainor (talk) 03:48, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep as it seems to pass WP:WEB. There are articles that discuss it, in depth. The entire news9 MSN article is devoted to ED. It doesn't make sense to hold ED to a tougher notability standard than every other article simply because we don't like the site itself. Despite what the nom and delete votes say, if we have numerous incidental coverage in addition to at least one FULL RELIABLE SOURCE ARTICLE devoted to site it question, notability really should be considered established. Bfigura 03:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment This is the worst possible timing of an AfD I have ever seen. The consensus on DRV was very strong and the only thing you are going to achieve here is another strong consensus to keep. EconomicsGuy (talk) 04:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep This article is relevant wiki content - I even knew about this popular site long before reading the said wiki article.Gregg Potts (talk) 05:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep, I think this is already notable enough by far. JIP | Talk 05:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep because it seems that a lot of this is just a general sense of hurt being translated into a decidedly biased AFD. There are various terms which could be used to describe this move, but I will say that the reaction more or less verifies claims to notability. --Alex-jon (talk) 05:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • KEEP: notable, higher alexa rank than other websites that have wikipedia articles. dont let past problems between wikipedia and encyclopedia dramatica stand in the way of WP:NPOV. its notable. - Badmachine (talk) 05:15, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Why are we having this deletion discussion just a week after consensus was established here: Knowledge:Deletion_review/Log/2008_May_8? As it stands, the site is notable, even if the sources are trivial, the number of sources is enough to make it notable. --Hdt83 05:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete, notability is not clearly established, and on top of that it's a attack site devoted to trolling Wikipedians. Even though our internet culture coverage is relatively well-developed, there's innumerable things people interested in that stuff could be working on that wouldn't involve giving more attention and visibility to this vicious little website. Why all the energy expended on this one topic, then? It seems likely that the primary drive behind this is coming from ED members, who of course would be doing so purely with the intent of trolling us, to stir up "drama". Delete this and then let's forbid anyone from bringing this up again for at least five years, by which time ED will hopefully be gone and forgotten. Everyking (talk) 05:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • You are obviously projecting your (ill informed) bias onto this article. ED is not 'devoted to trolling wikipedians' despite what you may think. Only the ones who abuse their influence and power. You can go ahead and go on and on about how 'vulgur' or 'vicious' ED is, but all you are doing in the end is painting yourself as prejudiced. ED meets WP:WEB. This has ceased to be a discussion, and has devolved into people airing their dirty laundry, and wanking about how ED is the internet incarnation of Beelzebub. - DLB — 71.135.183.190 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. The preceding unsigned comment was added at 05:54, 15 May 2008 (UTC) (UTC).
  • Keep. The subjects notability is established by multiple reliable sources and most of the "delete" votes are just rants about how ED is a "vile attack site" and "trolls". Continuously resending something you don't like for AFD is, in my perhaps irrelevant opinion, disruption. Nobody of Consequence (talk) 05:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • What about bringing this issue back up repeatedly in spite of past consensus and with complete insensitivity to the feelings of other Wikipedians? That isn't disruption, I suppose? In my opinion, it's easier to argue disruption when the people whose actions are in question actually intend to disrupt the project—do you think it's disruption to oppose people who are trying to disrupt the website? Everyking (talk) 05:50, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • No one is trying to disrupt the project. This whole recent incarnation of the ED article was brought about from agitation within the wikipedia ranks, not ED. It has notable 3rd party sources now, and has had to jump through more hoops than most articles due to its controversial nature. Give it a rest. -DLB —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.135.183.190 (talk) 05:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC) — 71.135.183.190 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Keep, (edit conflict) and I'd like to note that not a single Delete vote has even begun to approach valid deletion criteria. We've had "It's just not notable", "I don't like it", "It offends me"... only argument that has even been valid has been that none of the sources discuss ED in great detail, and that argument was countered by the sheer number of sources that mention ED. McJeff (talk) 05:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep WP:IDONTLIKEIT is NOT a reason to delete. Its sourced and passes WP:WEB. This nom skirts quite close to WP:POINT. LegoTech·(t)·(c) 06:01, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete as I said I would opine when closing the DRV for this. (I closed as "recreate" since that was what the consensus was for, but I did disagree with the outcome.) Basically, I agree with WJBscribe's analysis of the sources here, I think the mentions here and there illustrate some smatterings of notability, but nothing really concrete. While I disagree with Everyking's argument that the website's attack agenda against Knowledge should cause us to delete the article, I think that discriminating between real informational websites and satircal websites is fair. If this were a real informational website, an article based on smatterings of information might be useful enough to justify inclusion since coverage of real informational websites is helpful to academia, but for a satirical website I don't think smatterings is a strong enough basis for an article. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • This strikes me an awful lot like saying that articles about websites we like have one standard to meet and articles about websites that we don't have a different standard. The content of the site shouldn't be a factor indetermining notability. To do so would seem to run counter to WP:NPOV, passing judgment on what content is good and what is bad. -Chunky Rice (talk) 16:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • It's unfortunate that I'm going to have to support Keep. This is a horrible website that I would love to see die in a sea of fire, but it passes our inclusion criteria. -- Ned Scott 06:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep I may not have a million and a half edits on Knowledge, but I still think that this kind of censorship is very un-Wiki-like. Go on all you may regarding lack of definitive sources, but truthfully I've seen stubs (using the "random article") that are ten times worse and are completely unverified or verified by poor sources. If Knowledge is truly to be an encyclopedia, it cannot simply skip over a subject simply because it is unpleasant, insulting, or just plain dumb. Yes, I've read ED, I lurk there quite a bit as I find lots of their articles quite entertaining. I think the article on Wiki is perfectly sensible - it states very plainly that ED is a shock-wiki - and that this AfD is simply a knee-jerk reaction due to some bad blood in the past between the two sites. Knowledge should take an NPOV and remember that, even if ED doesn't look favorably on Wiki, NPOV states that Wiki should take an objective standpoint and not get into an AfD pissing match. My two cents... Froginabox (talk) 06:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep for obvious aforementioned reasons. This Web site is certainly notable. Just because it offends certain Knowledge sysops does _not_ mean that it needs to be excluded from Knowledge. Jameth (talk) 06:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep - Notable project and well sourced article about it. Fact that some people from English Knowledge hate ED is not valid reason for deletion. --Dezidor (talk) 06:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep It passes the criteria for notability, and I think it would be good to realize how the naysayers are basically putting bullseyes all over themselves. Irk Come in for a drink! 06:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep That the site "co-ordinates vandalism and attacks Wikipedians" is largely irrelevant. The sources seem sufficient to me. Also, AfD is not a battle of attrition. Maxamegalon2000 06:51, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep I believe the coverage in reliable sources is sufficient to establish notability. Davewild (talk) 07:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete on the DRV I voted to relist because there was one source treating ED by itself. However, reading WP:WEB, I see that it says "The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works", so it doesn't really pass it, and the re-creation was premature. ED needs a bit more coverture before satisfying notability requirement. --Enric Naval (talk) 07:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep. Has more than trivial coverage in most of the sources, and is the subject of one of them. IDONTLIKEIT is not a valid argument in favor of deletion. NPOV must be restored, and we have to stop this knee-jerk reactionism to do so. That means no more covering it up and hiding it, which is against everything we're for. The selfish actions of a few notable editors who happen to have pages on ED should NOT be able to be fuel for keep its recreation from happening. Celarnor 08:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete just too trivial with no real importance outside wikipedia itself. All the reasons that Corey Worthington should not have been kept apply hear. A mention in the NEWS does not make a subject, person or thing notable. No doubt wikipedia will see this kept and the return of Corey Worthington. I'm still think it and its ilk should be deleted though. David D. (Talk) 08:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - how on earth does this site pass WP:WEB ? Fails criteria 2 (no awards for either the site or its content), Fails criteria 3 (it's not carried independently by a respected medium) and , Fails the remaining criteria. User:SheffieldSteel has shown that the media mentions are almost entirely trivial and/or peripheral. Beyond trivial mentions of them simply existing I cannot see that the required multiple reliable sources have written primarily about them. - Peripitus (Talk) 08:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak keep Many of the sources are weak, but the Craigslist ad controversy, the ninemsn link, and the passing reference in a Knowledge-themed NY Times article seem to squeak it (barely) into notability. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 09:01, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep - The sourcing is quite decent, meeting WP:N/WP:WEB to reasonable standard, and in a broader sense notability is fairly obvious (considering traffic statistics, WP:SET and so forth). I certainly concur with the spirit of WP:DENY, but nuking articles in direct response to misconduct doesn't deny recognition -- it affords it, while simultaneously setting a very bad precedent. — xDanielx /C\ 09:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Speedy Close - Article is protected from editing, Deletion review is inappropriate at this time. --129.67.162.133 (talk) 10:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Speedy Keep - Very well referenced article, and the notability does not appear to be in question. Ecoleetage (talk) 22:01, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

arbitrary section break 1

  • Keep, meets WP:WEB, namely criteria 1 ("The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself"). The North Adams Transcript (look it up here, but you need to pay), ninemsn, Wired and Gawker articles are all non-trivial, at the very least. Please don't speedy close this AFD, allow the discussion to runs its course so nobody can complain. Neıl ☎ 10:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • ninemsn, Wired and Gawker articles are all non-trivial, at the very least. No, Neil, it's not the nature of the source organization that has to be non-trivial, it's the amount of coverage that has to be non-trivial. See WP:N#General notability guideline, especially footnote 2. A trivial amount of coverage is what these sources gave to ED (except for MSN/Nine News, and while that's not trivial, it only borders on being "substantial"). See my comment below for what I found in your North Adams Transcript article. Noroton (talk) 14:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. Insignificant website. Doesn't meet notability standards -passing mentions in tandem with Knowledge don't cut it. - Nunh-huh 10:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep basically per Neil - Wired and Ninemsn in particular are most definitely significant coverage. Viridae 11:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • They are "most definitely" not significant coverage as WP:N clearly defines significant coverage. That Wired article has two sentences mentioning ED and meets the WP:N definition (in footnote 2) of "trivial coverage". You need better sourcing to meet WP:N or WP:WEB notability requirements. Noroton (talk) 15:07, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. As stated a few times above, fails WP:WEB. Far more trouble than it is worth, for such a marginal article. SQL 11:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Notable, NPOV and multiple coverage by WP:RS. User:MilkFloat 11:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)— MilkFloat (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • (ecx2)Keep; "it attacks our editors" (not intentionally quoting anyone) is not a justification for deletion. ninemsn is of the biggest news sources in Australia, and Wired is big on teh interwebs. Meets WP:WEB. Oh, and add the URL, you're violating some portion of the MoS. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 11:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Procedural keep - come back in a few weeks. Sceptre 11:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per User:SheffieldSteel...the "sources" are not compelling enough to warrant an article.--MONGO 12:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Although I think it could probably use a bit of a rewrite as I'm not sure about it being completely Neutral POV and the language seems "off" to me (don't ask me to explain that cause even I'm not 100% sure what I mean). Maybe turn it into a more neutral stub and work on making it a properly encyclopedic article. Stuff like when it was started, name changes, etc. using articles like Wookiepedia and Wiktionary as a template. Jasynnash2 (talk) 12:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep: clearly meets standards for notability. various coverage, sources. Apelike (talk) 12:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep: I mean, this IS an online encyclopedia, right? Not a private, "we-only-post-about-people-who-agree-with-us" site. --Faolchu scatha (talk) 12:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)— Faolchu scatha (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Delete per SheffieldSteel's analysis of the lack of sources available. Hut 8.5 13:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep The article is well-sourced and seems to meet all applicable standards. WP:IDONTLIKEIT is no reason to delete, especially when the exercise of free speech is what people don't like. Kate (talk) 13:26, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep If Knowledge removes this article they should remove all of the other articles that upset different segments of the population. They should also admit to being biased in that case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.58.192.150 (talk) 13:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep per Neil and others.--Cube lurker (talk) 13:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • DELETE : ED is a vehicle for criminal harassment and actual monetary extortion! see here: http://girlvinyl.livejournal.com/461933.html ED frequently has "articles" that are used only for harassment and feature nonpublic personal information, such as resumes, street addresses and other contact information, unauthorized DMCA infringing pictures, etc all in a context of libel. And ED "support" tacitly endorses these illegal activities and gross invasions of privacy, defamation, etc.Em otter (talk) 14:44, 15 May 2008 (UTC)— Em otter (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Keep Although I thought it should go when it was up for Deletion Review, I have to grudgingly admit that the current article looks like a proper article, with refs. Even if there are not many articles discussing ED in depth, it gets quite a number of trivial mentions, which add up to some good sourcing. Merkin's mum 13:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. The current status of this article is such that it satisfied the notability requirements for online sites. The content on the site aside, this would be a no brainer, and objectionable content does not equate to "no article." Xymmax So let it be done 14:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: That North Adams Transcript source: So I read Neil's comment above (10:21, 15 May) calling the North Adams Transcript source, "non-trivial", and I said to myself, "I'm actually going to spend money to buy this article and confirm that there is another source of non-trivial coverage of ED. It's the least I can do to advance civilization." And so I committed $2.95 of my hoarded wealth to buying this non-trivial source for the wealth of knowledge it will bring me about Encyclopedia Dramatica. The entire coverage from the North Adams Transcript: "Encyclopedia Dramatica () really cuts to the chase with a long, blunt, vulgar essay on MySpace that is pretty much on target. Drama, they assert, is what fuels the interaction of teens and drama, obviously, transfers to any online venture that teens make themselves part of." There follows a one-sentence quote from the ED article about MySpace. Two sentences and a quote. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. That's the definition of "trivial coverage", Neil. And that's $2.95 I'll never get to spend again. Noroton (talk) 14:38, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - Per nom, and also this page has caused alot of drama since it was created (edit wars and the discussions in this nom, for instance). Also, I'm very sure this article is just going to attract more ED trolls, and I can already see quite a few in this page. --AAA! (AAAA) 14:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak delete per Sheffield Steel's excellent analysis above. The only reliable, non-trivial coverage based on my own Google News and Google News archive searches was last week's ninemsn article. ninemsn is an Australian joint venture of MSN and the Nine Network television network and it's used widely as a reference elsewhere on Knowledge. Personally, I think this 297-word article, combined with the other passing references, put the subject just under our threshold of notability, however I suspect others may look at it and decide it's just enough. If another news article like it pops up, then I say give this subject an article but until then, delete. --A. B. 15:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - fails WP:WEB. Not need for non trivial mentions in reliable printed sources. Unless more come up, delete.

Most of the mentions given are not very specific to ED, mostly just concerning web culture with a trivial mention of ED. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scanna (talk • contribs) 15:09, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep per ninemsn article which is very, very clearly not non-trivial. --Smashville 15:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • And WP:N and WP:WEB very, very clearly require more than one non-trivial source. Wheres the other one? Noroton (talk) 15:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • This is ridiculous, we are arguing like little children about triviality and non-triviality again and again... yes, there is for example the Gawker.com article - but you are immediately going to reply "HA! That's not non-trivial enough!"--Have a nice day. Running 15:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • WP:N and WP:WEB are guidelines, not policies, so technically they don't require anything. --Smashville 15:56, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
        • No, they require common sense if you want to make an occasional exception. I'm open to common-sense exceptions for the good of the 'pedia, but I haven't seen a good common-sense-exception argument here. Noroton (talk) 16:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
          • I think that if you have one really in-depth source and dozens of trivial mentions from highly notable sources, a reasonable argument can be made that notability is established. And that's all WP:WEB is, really: a guideline to help figure out whether or not an article is notable. -Chunky Rice (talk) 16:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
            • I used to argue just that, based on my reading of WP:N, but now when I look at WP:N, I find it doesn't give me room to say that. I think that guideline has been edited to leave that part out, but I can't find the edit, and WP:WEB doesn't have it either. While you can interpret the MSN/Nine source as one of "multiple" sources giving a significant amount of coverage (a consensus interpretation of something like that is just what a discussion like this is for), you can't interpret any of the other sources as offering a significant amount. Different interpretations of those sources amount to "jury nullification" -- simply refusing to acknowledge that they're insufficient is not good enough. There is certainly enough support here to make a common-sense argument that we should make an exception here, but you need the argument as well, and ultimately you need endorsement of that argument by the closing admin of the DRV that will inevitably follow this discussion. How likely is it that that admin will agree to flout the guideline for the good of Knowledge and its readers, considering all the drama that an ED article will bring? Noroton (talk) 17:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
              • Oh, WP:ORG allows for just that kind of exception you mention, Chunky Rice. That's where it is ("Primary criterion" section), but that guideline doesn't apply to Web sites. WP:WEB takes over. Noroton (talk) 17:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
                • Well, the wiggle room is still there. WP:N basically says that if a subject satisfies the criteria laid out, it is presumed notable. But it doesn't say that a subject that fails to meet them is automatically not notable. You simply need to present a reasonable argument why, even though the subject doesn't meet the WP:N presumption of notability, it is notable. Here, that argument might be "We have one in depth source and many, many other sources with coverage that borders on trivial. Culmultaively, the amount of attention from third party sources is comparable to having two in depth articles." I haven't decided what I really think about this article's notability (it's borderline, for sure), but I think that there are reasonable arguments that can be made in favor of it. The fact that it's spelled out in WP:ORG just goes to show that it is a reasonable argument. Don't get trapped in the specific wording of the various notability policies - that's not what Knowledge is about. It's much more important to follow the spirit, not the letter, of the policy/guideline. -Chunky Rice (talk) 17:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
                  • You're right about the spirit and the letter, but looking closely at the letter doesn't prevent following the spirit, and sometimes it helps. The only problem with following the letter can be contradicting the spirit, and I don't think anyone can say that's going on here. I don't think the word "presumed" in WP:N is something like a "get-out-of-jail-free" card from Monopoly, but more like an acknowledgement that there are ways around the requirements -- ways that are referred to specifically on that page and its links to other guidelines. It's either that or WP:IAR, essentially. "Presumed" also refers to rejecting topics that even meet the notability guidelines for articles, in fact, the word has an entry in Knowledge:Notability#General notability guideline to explain that. In practice, closing admins have a lot of leeway, but taking the WP:ORG argument for a WP:WEB subject is something that grief-averse closing admins tend not to do. Noroton (talk) 18:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
                    • Here's the thing, though. The criteria listed in WP:N and other notability guidelines are not requirements. They are guidelines to help us to determine what is notable and what is not. It's not some sort of firm line where everything on one side is notable and everything on the other is not. For example, let's say that there was a book that was the top selling book in the U.S. for 4 months running, but we only had one in depth source about it. Now, being a best selling book is not listed as one of the criteria that indicates notablity. That doesn't mean that it doesn't indicate notability, though, just that it hasn't been specifically singled out as one. The criteria listed are not the only ways to show notability. I think that's clear in all of them. -Chunky Rice (talk) 18:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
              • The fact that the article would bring drama should have no bearing on the discussion. Trivial mentions plus one non-trivial source is a common sense reason to keep. We have kept articles on a lot less...a whole lot less. In fact, if pretty much any other article came to AfD with this much sourcing, it would probably be a snow keep. But because there's all kinds of wikidrama behind this one, it's being held to a higher standard. --Smashville 17:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
                • Believe what you will. Asserting it doesn't make it so. (Unless you're the closing admin of the DRV ...) If you want the closing admin to make an exception to the relevant guidelines, then it's got to be done for the good of Knowledge, and in that situation, everything will have bearing on the ultimate decision. Noroton (talk) 18:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
                  • Again, a guideline is just a guideline. There is nothing to be "enforced". Requiring that an arbitrary number of sources equals notability (when at least one has been provided) is simply asinine. --Smashville 18:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per SHEFFIELDSTEEL ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep per the ninemsn article. Although that's only one about the website, there are certainly a lot of other sources that discuss it somewhat, and I think that's quite sufficient. In any case, WP:N is a guideline, not policy -- WP:V is the real policy, and there is certainly enough reliable material here to maintain an article, even if it would be a short one. WP:NOT#PAPER, folks: if the topic can be written about reliably, and it is slightly less important than some would like, there just isn't a compelling case to delete it. Mangojuice 15:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment. I think the gawker one is also about the website. And about other sites, too, but its coverage of ED seems nontrivial to me — it's not just a passing mention in an article about some other subject, it's a whole paragraph specifically devoted to describing ED. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak keep. Multiple sources show a breadth, if not depth, of coverage that indicate but not conclusively demonstrate the subject is notable. Procedurally, I'm disturbed by an AfD on a protected article, preventing WP:HEY from working. —Quasirandom (talk) 15:44, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • keep - notable enough. HOWEVER, the article really needs to be kept focused on the website and it's notoriety NOT the actual content (which I find mostly stupid, and occasionally really awful). --Rocksanddirt (talk) 15:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep -- notable, controversial, needs its story told with a NPOV. If individual editors have had problems being harassed, libelled, etc., that's a job for the police; suppressing valid content is not the appropriate way of "fighting back". You wouldn't suppress an article on the Mob because they were after some editor, would you?Orbis 3 (talk) 15:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • omgbbqdramaz -- lucasbfr 16:01, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Does "omgbbqdramaz" mean "keep", "delete", or does it just mean "omgbbqdramaz"? Wikidemo (talk) 18:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - Can we do this when the page isn't fully protected, please? shoy 16:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Neutral, leaning towards delete keep: Possibly probably deserves an article, what with the uproar it has caused in the online community, but I'm not sure if we should have an article about something that dedicates its time to slagging us off. I, personally, don't think ED should even exist, but it does. The article seems OK-ish, but does need to go...... Dendodge .. Talk 16:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. This is obviously all about wanting to delete a page because we don't like the people it's about. Well, guess what? We have Osama bin Laden. Look, anybody arguing that ED is not notable is making a nonsense argument, it has been mentioned in mainstream press. I think those among us who cannot laugh at our own ED pages (assuming we have them) have forgotten that life isn't always a serious endeavor. If somebody were to create a page for me saying something along the lines of "Node_ue is a faggot Wikipedo who is too obsessed with things he knows nothing about, such as Moldova or languages", I wouldn't be upset. That is because I understand the true intention of ED, which is lulz, not being mean and attacking people. It is intended for humor, even if it's a bit mean-spirited. If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we are already dead inside. --Node (talk) 16:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. As mentioned pretty much all over the place above, the fact that this page is fully protected is pretty much going to make any delete get overturned at DRV. So the page should either be dropped to a semi-protect or this AfD should be closed as out of process. --Smashville 16:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • delete. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Rebuttal to the "fully-protected so we can't add sources" argument: Anyone who can find a source can add it right here, and that works just as well. There is no requirement to actually add it to the article mainspace. The closing admin is required to discount all delete votes based on notability if their notability objections are met. Noroton (talk) 16:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

arbitrary section break 2

  • Keep - this article just passed DRV with a fairly strong consensus to recreate. AfDing it within a week of this occurring simply creates 'drahmaz!!!111'; some of the 'delete' arguments have a definite whiff of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Yes, ED attacks Knowledge , but that doesn't mean that it should be denied an article. The article is well sourced, with mentions in mainstream media. Can we please come to at least a semblance of a conclusion on this for the sake of everyone's sanity! RichardΩ612 Ɣ |ɸ 17:04, May 15, 2008 (UTC)
    • Note that it wasn't a week after the DRV closed. It was less than a day. --Smashville 17:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • And it was closed without bias of bringing to AFD. DRV is not AFD, assuming they are the same is incorrect--Hu12 (talk) 17:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
        • I didn't say they were. --Smashville 17:38, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
          • Yes, and bringing it to AfD is close to forum shopping and a violation of WP:POINT. Neapolitan Sixth (talk) 18:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)struck through by administrator hu12 blocked sock account
            • I hope you realize that it looks really bad when you use your admin powers to strike out people's arguments who disagree with you. If you really think that it is the right thing to do, you should get another neutral admin to do so. Z00r (talk) 06:01, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
              • No it doesn't, and no admin powers (on my part) were used. Other impartial administrators blocked this sock. No reason to mischaracterize that fact, to seem somehow unreasonable or improper, when it isn't. I'll AGF in you comment as the note is missing a comma, which may make it confusing. --Hu12 (talk) 06:26, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
            • Not even remotely close to WP:POINT nor is it in the same universe as forum shopping, read the closing DRV comments.--Hu12 (talk) 19:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
              • Why bring it to AfD within days of re-creation if not to have everyone chasing thier tails? Neapolitan Sixth (talk) 19:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)struck through by administrator hu12 blocked sock account
                • Again, as stated above, it was specifically mentioned in the DRV close that this could be taken to AfD. The only reason I made the "less than a day" comment above is that I've seen mentioned more than once that the page had been up for a week. Minor annoyance. --Smashville 19:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
            • Concur: I'm for keeping this, but the DRV explicitly did not rule out an AfD. There's nothing pointy going on here. --Bfigura 19:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. I already added my !vote above, but I wanted to add another point. While I think we can reach a good decision based on the existence of multiple nontrivial sources (and I think both the ninemsn and gawker articles count as such), I think that sort of beancounting misses the point. There are two things we should be thinking about that our guidelines and policies are intended to address: is it possible to write a nontrivial and fully verifiable article about the subject, and is the subject one of sufficient prominence that it's worth our while devoting space to it? Clearly, it is possible to write a decent article — I haven't seen anyone here arguing, as often happens at other AfDs, that the article is full of unsourceable original research. And as for, is it a subject of sufficient prominence? Has any Wikipedian not heard of it? And the Alexa ranks are meaningful for answering this sort of question, too, I think. So I think counting sources and carefully assessing which are trivial and which are nontrivial amounts to wikilawyering when a step back and a look at the bigger picture makes the decision clear. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp (talk) 17:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Keep For frak's sake! This article was only just created and it's already at AfD?!? Several citations with WP:RS. Certainly much better coverage than the recently saved First Internet Backgammon Server. Please apply policy consistently. Give the article some time to grow. Neapolitan Sixth (talk) 17:54, 15 May 2008 (UTC)struck through by administrator hu12 blocked sock account

    • Grow?, the first revision of Encyclopedia Dramatica was 10 December 2004, and has been deleted several time including failing a recent Deletion review in january.--Hu12 (talk) 19:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment' First Internet Backgammon Server has two book sources, which is two more than this article has. It's not a good example of your point. --Dhartung | Talk 19:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • The "book references" are at most one sentence or one paragraph in a particular book about backgammon. Exactly the reasons mentioned here that the sources for ED are not vailid. Neapolitan Sixth (talk) 19:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)struck through by administrator hu12 blocked sock account
        • Above, you said ED had "much better coverage". Now you're implying the coverage is equivalent. Just be sure what you're arguing, rather than flinging dirt at people who disagree with you. --Dhartung | Talk 22:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
          • I was willing to change my mind somewhat, and the FIBS article's sourcing did improve through the AfD. But I still think the sourcing on that article, whose AfD ended with overwhelming consensus to keep, is far less than ED's on a subject that is far less noteworthy. Neapolitan Sixth (talk) 23:37, 15 May 2008 (UTC) struck through by administrator hu12 blocked sock account
    • Comment I should point out that most of the people !voting delete either are the subject of an article on ED or are affiliated with someone who does. This would be a serious WP:COI and these people should recuse themselves from the discussion. In the least these people's comments should be discounted. Neapolitan Sixth (talk) 18:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)struck through by administrator hu12 blocked sock account
  • Keep. This smacks of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Clearly a notable web site, per WP:WEB and cited sources. Klausness (talk) 18:01, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • You fuckers got me out of retirement for this vote. Keep just because we hate something doesnt mean we delete it. Else we'd not have Hitler or Dahmer articles (yes thats right I Godwinned this bitch). Trivial coverage in one source ok i'd buy that argument if that was the only source... but trivial coverage in 15 sources, and an in depth article or two from a few is more than sufficient bar to pass for notability purposes. Find me non trivial coverage of the president of Lesotho oh wait you cant do that either... Seriously way to ruin any potential historical use of this site in 50 years. This is the shit that made me leave.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 18:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Precisely. It would be viewed as preposterous to request an unsourced article on a country to be deleted but we have more stringent standards for topics that offend the ruling clique. That's what makes this place retarded. Oh, and there are those that do miss you though we understand why asking you to come back would be pointless. Neapolitan Sixth (talk) 18:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)struck through by administrator hu12 blocked sock account
  • Neutral I don't care so stop e-mailing me about it asking me to contribute here. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
    • Comment. What a surprise, violations of WP:CANVASS on this AfD. Care to rat them out? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • It's not canvassing. It's an expectation I'll wave the banner and fight the fight. Anything about Æ on Knowledge becomes a war of double standards, hypocrisy and trolling from both sides. Anyone presenting a modicum of rationality is attacked so it's best not to participate. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
  • Keep. The subject meets notability and verifiability standards as well as the WP:WEB inclusion guidelines by extensive coverage through multiple and reliable third party publications. Coccyx Bloccyx (talk) 18:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep There seem to be only three types of argument against this article; noteworthiness, a perceived lack of sources, and WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Now, the first two would be worth debate if they were occurring on their own, but they are both only occurring in combination with WP:IDONTLIKEIT. In fact, the very strength of the opposition to having an article on Encyclopedia Dramatica, and the fact that an AfD is filled every time someone tries to add an article on Encyclopedia Dramatica is in and of itself proof of the significance of Encyclopedia Dramatica. All deleting the article accomplishes is giving the folks at Encyclopedia Dramatica more ammunition to claim that we are biased against them, and that we are letting that bias subvert our values.—rhonan (talk)Rhonan (talk) 18:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep, notable, if only just. I do not find any of the arguments to delete to be based upon anything other than the fact that they don't like it (with, in many cases, very good reason.) This is an invalid AfD- articles should not be nominated while they are fully protected. As such, I support a speedy close. J Milburn (talk) 18:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • wait until ED is demanding money from you to remove libelous content (baseless accusations of pedophilia and worse) alongside your RESUME with your phone number and street address. You would be singing a different tune, had you gone through what I have in the last three years. Em otter (talk) 18:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)— Em otter (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Gawker as a source of a "significant" amount of coverage: Various editors have made this claim. Here's the entire three sentences. Somehow I don't think this is what WP:N means by a "significant" amount: The Knowledge of obscure Internet memes, particularly those on the sites that follow. ED is run like Knowledge, but its style is the opposite; most of its information is biased and opinionated, not to mention racist, homophobic and spiteful, but on the upside its snide attitude makes it spot-on about most Internet memes it covers. However net-savvy you are, ED is edgier, and it will perform 2 girls 1 cup on you to prove it. That's all she wrote. Now tell me with a straight face that it's a significant amount. Noroton (talk) 18:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong delete. Utterly unworthy of an encyclopedic article. Completely non notable outside of the bounds of Knowledge itself - nothing more than a few very passing mentions in newspapers and a single tiny article on an internet news site having a slow news day. In fact, the only reason it even got a mention there was almost certainly because of all the drama on Knowledge over it. Delete it and stop giving them the free advertising. Will (aka Wimt) 19:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • So the source doesn't count because you deem it to be a slow news day? A 300 word article is not "tiny". It's a normal sized news article. But seriously...are we going to start word counting now? --Smashville 19:15, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Yes, I would contend both are completely relevant factors when assessing the notability of something. The idea that a small (and yes, 300 words is small) article being used as filler is equivalent to a large and well planned feature when considering something like notability is silly. WP:N mentions significant coverage, and assessing each article on its merits is essential to judge whether this is achieved. And in this instance, I contend it certainly isn't. Will (aka Wimt) 19:26, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
        • There is no requirement anywhere that a source has to be a 5,000 word feature article. A 300 word article is a standard article. "Non-trivial coverage in reliable secondary sources" doesn't mean "non-trivial coverage reliable secondary sources read by X number of people containing a minimum of X words". --Smashville 19:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
          • Indeed, and if you will take my comment out of context and say I'm enforcing a word limit for sources, it will look stupid. It's also completely pointless. My point was that each source should be considered on its merits, and that not all articles are of equal merit by any stretch of the imagination. Various factors can be indicative in relation to that - and size and reasoning behind the article are two such factors. Will (aka Wimt) 19:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
            • I don't know what exactly was out of context. Your argument in a nutshell seems to be that the article is not feature length and you believe it was a slow news day. Neither of which have any validity on the article. 300 words is a standard news article. It is on a legitimate, reliable news site. Encylopedia Dramatica was the only thing covered in the article, which means it is beyond non-trivial. I agree that not all sources have equal merit...obviously, local sources don't bear as much weight as national, but the argument that a national source doesn't establish notability because the article is standard length as opposed to feature length? I'm sorry, but that just doesn't seem reasonable. --Smashville 19:53, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
              • Well, to keep it simple, do I believe that anything that gets a single article on ninemsn is necessarily notable? No. I agree the mention of it wasn't passing, but whether or not the article is trivial is up for debate. Quite apart from all this of course, there's the simple issue that WP:N specifically suggests multiple non trivial sources (for fairly obvious reasons - lots of completely non notable things have news articles about them every day of the week). For what it's worth, I've just done a passing survey of articles in my newspaper today, and 300 is definitely small, but as I said before, my point wasn't in relation to any kind of minimal size. Anyway, I have better ways to spend my time than to continue to argue this point when our opinions are clearly quite polarised on this issue, but safe to say, I still strongly hold my original opinion that it is non notable. Will (aka Wimt) 20:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep. I'm sorry, but since when has NPOV been thrown out of the window? WP:IHATEIT specifically states that articles shouldn't be deleted simply because it's been decided that nobody likes it. ED is notable, it's been featured in news articles, and it's got more than enough sources compared to many other articles on Knowledge. I don't mean to sound Uncivil here, but if we start censoring just because we don't like ED, then we're going to have to start censoring a lot of other things that editors do not like. Also see WP:CENSOR. --HALtalk 19:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. Passing mentions do not make it notable, and it has a local illusion of notability only because we, especially our editors, are its primary target. That it is one of the most nauseating, despicable, and utterly loathsome sites ever to pollute the internet, should not affect our !votes, but it does baffle me that even though this stinking excrement has been flushed multiple times, there is still a movement to retrieve the turd from the septic tank, without considering that its notability is a local phenomenon only. Antandrus (talk) 19:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • The ninemsn article is clearly not a "passing mention". --Smashville 19:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • True, but it's only one source. WP:WEB and WP:N require multiple sources. Hut 8.5 19:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
        • WP:WEB states nothing about how comprehensive these sources have to be. One fully devoted article and casual mention in several other non-trivial sources should be satisfactory. Neapolitan Sixth (talk) 19:44, 15 May 2008 (UTC)struck through by administrator hu12 blocked sock account
        • Which, as any reader can see, it has. Multiple trivial mentions, a few more in-depth ones and a full feature is more than enough. Celarnor 19:50, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
          • (to Neapolitan Sixth) No, it does exclude trivial mentions. Hut 8.5 19:51, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
            • I think you're confusing the use of the word "trivial". It refers to the prestige of the source used, not how they mention the subject. For example, someone's minor leauge blog would be trivial while the NY Times would be a non-trivial source. Neapolitan Sixth (talk) 20:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)struck through by administrator hu12 blocked sock account
              • "Trivial" has more to do with the depth of coverage. The prestige of the author goes toward whether the source is reliable, a different dimension that we are to consider. The NY Time can still carry a story that is either very short (such as many of the business listings) or one where the topic is mentioned only tangentially. Such coverage would be trivial even though the paper and maybe even that particular story are not. Rossami (talk) 21:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
          • Again, WP:WEB and WP:N are guidelines and therefore do not "require" anything. --Smashville 19:56, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't know why you people are so self-centered to think that criticizing Knowledge is the primary function of ED. It isn't. It's main function is as a wiki for the chans. They just happen to be amused by the drama-centered debates like this one that occur here, so that gets covered as well. It is in no way a local phenomenon. Multiple trivial coverage plus two in-depth articles on the subject would lead to a snowball keep if this was any other subject. Celarnor 19:37, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I will note that if this is deleted, we can no doubt expect this fracas to start all over again at DRV. Jtrainor (talk) 20:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment But if it survives, all the Keep Delete editors will just roll over and play dead. (fixed Noroton (talk) 03:18, 19 May 2008 (UTC)))) Noroton (talk) 22:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • We're no strangers to love. You know the rules, and so do I. Neapolitan Sixth (talk) 20:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)struck through by administrator hu12 blocked sock account
  • Keep. The sheer volume of bile spewed about this article says a lot about its notability in itself. Yes, the sources are in some cases quite trivial but there are rather a lot of them, including at least one that's strongly notability-demonstrating. I really don't think Knowledge's aims are fulfilled by deleting this, even though it is by its own admission a pretty stupid website. ~ mazca 20:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - judging by the sources currently available, while it's a long list it's a very shallow one. I don't feel the current selection of sources is enough to establish notability, and the large focus ED has on Knowledge makes it seem too much like naval-gazing on our part. --InkSplotch (talk) 20:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Large focus? According to their own category page, the two specific-to-Wiki categories contain 402 pages. The 4chan category contains 518. DeviantART has 419. Furries has 508. Memes 563. There are 2192 pages in the People category, some of which may be about Knowledge editors, but definitely not all of them. So your argument of how ED's "large focus" on Knowledge equating to "navel-gazing" is ignorant and utterly wrong. Howa0082 (talk) 21:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Category "Faggotry" has 560. --Hu12 (talk) 21:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
        • That category could use some expansion. Celarnor 21:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
        • So this is a hobbyist website concerning the making of stick bundles? I confess that through my keep arguments, I've never been to the site...but I do like stick bundles...perhaps after work I shall take a gander. --Smashville 21:44, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
          • Underwater stick-bundling. The ED is the largest site devoted to both underwater stick-bundling and basket-weaving. While drunk. ...wait, that's Uncyclopedia. Never mind. Er, besides, weren't size count concerns excised from WP:WEB like aeons ago? (God I need more coffee, but my tummy can't take it. If you see me anywhere near admin tools tonight, give me a shout, OK?) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 19:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
        • I would've mentioned that one too, but I didn't want to offend any gays stick-bundlers

politicians Torontonians reading this discussion. Howa0082 (talk) 21:50, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

    • Yeah, no. ED covers WAY more than just Knowledge. Have a look at it before you start making such judgements. Celarnor 21:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Ignorant and utterly wrong all in one day, how about that? Over 400 categorized pages, and over 700 text matches, including an article on this debate about deleting ED's article from Knowledge. I'm sticking with my previous statement. If it helps, when I say 'large focus' I'm not talking about some mathematical ratio of Knowledge mentions to fart jokes (16 matches). I'm simply talking about the inordinate amount of time ED seems to spend poking at Knowledge, and the obsessive reaction it provokes in Wikipedians. It's not healthy, for us. ED can go talk about Knowledge, 4Chan, Furries or Republicans all they want. --InkSplotch (talk) 02:02, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep I think the debate has come about only because this is ED. If not for the whole drama surrounding ED, it would have been kept. Wouldnt want to colour my own WP understanding based on my POV of ED. Prashanthns (talk) 21:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete (again). While there is slightly more coverage than the last time this came up, the coverage is trivial. Human interest stories on a slow news day. Not enough on which to base a proper encyclopedia article. Rossami (talk) 21:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment: As an administrator of Encyclopedia Dramatica, I would just like to state that we, unlike Knowledge, do not automatically ban users of websites we dislike, simply on the basis of that membership. Wikipedians are free to participate on ED without harassment (although they will receive the normal amount of "hazing" we give our active members). This bias that Knowledge so blatantly holds against ED is hypocritical, drama-inducing, and goes completely against the Knowledge's goals of NPOV and complete reliable coverage. (I ask you to pardon the logical fallacy of my argument, in light of the fact that the same fallacies are being used in arguments pro-deletion of this article.) -- Finney 22:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.71.230.87 (talk • contribs) 22:25, 15 May 2008— 72.71.230.87 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

arbitrary section break 3

The headache will be there either way. Either in maintaining the article, or the fact that next month, when the next article gets written that talks about ED we'll all be back at DRV, then AFD one more time.--Cube lurker (talk) 22:54, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I doubt it will be comparable to having a live article that anyone can edit 24-7. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 23:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Indefinite protection might be a possibility, given the attention-attracting nature (and not always positive attention) of the subject. Gracenotes § 02:46, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak delete The ninemsn article is one step toward satisfying WP:WEB. The other sources listed are questionable, as most of them only mention ED in passing. However, ED is a notorious website with wide recognition across the internet, and I'm sure at some point down the road it will receive more coverage in reliable sources. WP is not a crystal ball, so it might be better to wait for more sourcing before creating this article again. On the other side of the coin, I have to cry foul at nominating a fully-protected article for deletion. Kamek (Koopa wizard!) 22:50, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. A user above (86.31.102.215) requested a more comprehensive database search based on “reliable sources which can be found to demonstrate the notability of this topic.” I believe that is a fair and reasonable request.
These are the results from LexisNexis for a keyword search on “Encyclopedia Dramatica” – a newspaper database that has over 20,000 sources of authoritative news, company, financial and market research data:
  • Mentions anywhere: 3 newspapers, 2 newsletters, 15 registered blogs.
  • In the headline: no articles
  • Major mentions: 2 articles, both registered blogs.
  • 3 or more major mentions: 2 registered blogs.
Because editors will likely ask, the three newspapers that mention the Encyclopedia Dramatica are:
  • Jonathan Dee, “All the News That’s Fit to Print Out,” The New York Times, 1 July 2007, Section 6, p. 34.
  • John Hind, “Observer Magazine: What's the word TL; DR,” The Observer, 5 June 2005, p. 7.
  • Neva Chonin, “Sex and the City,” The San Francisco Chronicle, p. 20.
I cross-checked the results with Factiva and Google News. All trivial mentions, as the above. Google Books offers two hits, both of which appear to be trivial mentions as well as likely false positives. JSTOR and Google Scholar make no mention of the subject at all. The bottom-line is that there isn't really anything to work with.
Overall, I think that the subject (at this time) unfortunately fails WP:NOTABILITY for a Knowledge entry. Sorry, J Readings (talk) 22:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, I'm responding to the request from the anon IP (86.31.102.215). The above search results are the total pool of independent, third-party reliable sources from commonly accepted search engines used for Knowledge good article creation. It would nice if there were more sources generated by these search engines. There simply aren't. J Readings (talk) 23:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
That just proves that the search was faulty - it missed major reliable sources that are already cited in the article. Search engine hits don't prove notability (this subject has about 150,000 of them), and a lack of search engine hits certainly doesn't prove lack of notability. If we wanted to base notability on a search engine we could have a bot do that. Wikidemo (talk) 01:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I disagree. I believe you're referring to a plain vanilla "google" search, correct? That doesn't have anything to do with the pool of independent, third-party reliable sources that I mentioned. Google searches can generate anything from spam to unregistered blogs to personal websites with absolutely no editorial oversight. LexisNexis and Factiva, in contrast, limit themselves to newspapers, magazines, and registered blogs--the former two focusing entirely on our requirements. JSTOR and Google Scholar limit themselves to academic journal articles, the most preferred sources according to WP:RS. Google Books, by definition, limits itself to books. All of these sources comply with editorial oversight and fact-checking whereas a simple google search does not. In fact, it's useful--not because of the hits--but because it helps us to find future material for the article's use that complies with WP:RS. As for the other sources mentioned in the article, frankly, they were neither "major" nor devoted to the subject. Knowledge guidelines require a demonstration of notability based on articles written entirely or mostly about the subject. Unfortunately, the Encyclopedia Dramatica has not enjoyed that kind of coverage yet. Regards, J Readings (talk) 07:45, 16 May 2008 (UTC)\
Thanks for the info on that search - that will be very useful for my usual business of writing articles! But when I referred to faulty methodology, I'm pointing out the obvious fact that it seems to have missed the two of the three most significant sources, both major mainstream news sources that are national in scope: MSNBC and National Nine News (related to MSN). That's not a good hit rate. Better to adjust the test to accurately measure the facts than to deny facts that don't fit the test. Wikidemo (talk) 07:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. Hmmm. Interesting issue. I'm really not part of the WP:IDONTLIKEIT verus WP:ILIKEIT discussion at all. I'm also not persuaded by the other stuff exists on Knowledge argument. Surely, those articles should probably be reconsidered, too. What really concerns me here is that -- with the exception of one, reliable, third-party verifiable source -- we're talking about trivial mentions in articles devoted to other topics, not about the Encylopedia Dramatica itself. That conflicts with WP:N. Like you, I'm primarily concerned about writing a reliably sourced article: what can we use and verify? MSNBC is interesting because it's a television channel. Suppose I'm interested in watching the broadcast, how am I supposed to do this based on the information insufficiently cited? As it happens, LexisNexis provides television coverage for such channels as CNN, so I was hoping to read the transcript. Nothing registered. That's unfortunate because I now have to take the word of whichever editor provided the reference without ever knowing which program it was on, what time of day, the title of the show, and whether the Encyclopedia Dramatica was the actual topic of the broadcast, let alone whether the program even existed. It conflicts a bit with verifiability, doesn't it? Again, it's not about the google hits for me. It's about finding material that complies with policies and guidelines. And it's a shame, really. Personally, I'd like very much to vote "keep" for this article. In good faith, J Readings (talk) 10:13, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Sweet Jesus Keep. Notability and WEB are guidelines, not stuff set in stone. Please stop the insanity. Also, there is an inevitability argument. You know if this is deleted today, this article is going to be here eventually, so might as well be now. What difference does it make? --Dragon695 (talk) 22:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
The difference is that it doesn't currently meet the requirements for inclusion. You may well be right, but we have inclusion requirements for a reason; why should this article be exempt from them? Horologium (talk) 23:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
If we can have an article about Fred Bauder's wiki, wikinfo, then we can have one about ED. I will also point out that this is definitely a reason why IAR was created. Deleting this would be nonsense since it is going to exist at some point. It has a good start and with special attention, it will get better. --Dragon695 (talk) 00:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep for the lulz for the traffic the drama brings to wikipidia.org, making our internets rule all. MickMacNee (talk) 23:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep - I've found plenty of articles on topics that I'd imagine 70+% of the human population wouldn't even care about, and most of them can be found via Random Article. If we have an article on Burford Bulldogs (whose only source leads to a 404 error), then why can't we have an article on ED? Honestly, this bad blood most wikipedos have towards ED is ridiculous. I spend a lot of time reading and editing BOTH ED and Knowledge. After reading the articles on ED about Knowledge's dark, disgusting, and rather shady depths, I became quite disillusioned and decided to avoid dealing with anything major on Knowledge beyond simple spelling fixes and the like, but it's things like this AfD nomination that make me crawl out of hiding and wield my logichammer. In rebuttal to the lack of sources (the only valid delete argument I see here), I direct everyone to that Burford Bulldogs stub, which has only ONE source link which is broken. If ED goes, then so should that stub and others like it. Fucking ridiculous. InvaderJim42  (talk • contributions • contact) 23:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep The arguments for deletion of this article as explained in the March DRV, which were ultimately deemed appropriate, went like so:
  • ED does not have a sufficient number of sources to guarantee an unbiased article.
  • ED carries several hateful, defamatory, and inaccurate articles about Knowledge editors.
I am sympathetic with the second argument, but only in light of the first. If ED is non-notable it would indeed be hurtful to people to have an article for it on Knowledge. It would lend legitimacy to a website which self-admittedly is not interested in telling the truth.
However, if ED is notable and we can write a good article about it, Knowledge would be doing a great service to the people harassed by ED and the world at large. It would provide an unbiased and accurate description of ED, based not on someone's personal opinion or on the website itself but rather on secondary sources, and it would serve to counterbalance the confusion and misguidance that arises from reading ED's description of itself. In short, if it is possible to have a good article, then it is useful to have a good article, so the "never!" argument which is not based in Knowledge's policies should be discounted.
There are now additional sources which both demonstrate ED's notability and certify the NPOV status of the recreated article. Thus, without reservation I submit this opinion and I hope this article will be an excellent example of Knowledge's time-tested policies and goals producing their desired effect on a controversial subject. Shii (tock) 01:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep not only for lulz but its cool to point sh*t to and keep it far from mainspace. Sick of lolcat reminding me that we can't link to external ED, so please keep it in mainspace. -- EhsanQ 01:53, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • (ec with Shii above, agreeing with every word - the only reason I'm posting is because I already typed all of this)

    Close call, this one. The amount of source material that seems to exist is hovering right at the (gray) border between notable and non-notable. Applying the notability criterion to the letter, we need multiple, non-trivial mentions from reliable sources. We've got multiple non-trivial sources, but only one is reliable. We've got multiple reliable sources, but only one is non-trivial. Of course, IAR says, "the letter of the rule is interesting and useful, but always consider: what's the best thing to do, to make the encyclopedia better?"

    I think Knowledge is a little bit better with an ED article than without one, at the present time, and here's why: A Knowledge article can be kept neutral and accurate, and can enable Internet users to make their own decisions about whether they want to visit ED. In other words, we can fulfill our mission to educate. If someone who would be truly offended by their content is wondering what ED is, I think it's good that they can look it up on Knowledge, and make an informed decision that they do, or do not, want to go there. I think that's better than having them Google ED, go straight to it, and be presented with a featured article or picture about something they really didn't want to see.

    The reason to delete an article for non-notability would be that we can't obtain enough reliable information to maintain an encyclopedia article. I don't think that's true in this case; we have enough to maintain a healthy stub.

    In every previous discussion I've recommended we delete the article. This time I recommend keep. -GTBacchus 02:17, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep. Based on the current form of the article, I'm seeing references to the non-trivial third-party sources that WP:WEB and WP:N demands. Once I saw The Observer, that was enough, never mind MSNBC, Global, the Chicago Tribune, etc. I could care less about the content of the site. 23skidoo (talk) 02:36, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. The subject had no claim for notability. The site itself was encouraging vandals for Knowledge. Alexius08 is welcome to talk about his contributions. 02:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Seriously, the nomination itself and the WP:AN post has flared up the WikiDrama a lot. The more WikiDrama we have, the more that editors from both Uncyclopedia and ED are going to make more mean, satrical jokes about us. Period. Probably editors at ED are partying write now because of this debate, and Uncyclopedia is probably too. Look at it this way, editors here are leaving Knowledge right now because of this senseless WikiDrama, so please close this case ASAP.
Face it, if you were to delete every article just because it is based on the harassment of Wikipedians, you would probably delete Myspace, Facebook, Uncyclopedia etc. There is no point in deleting notable websites based on harrassment from vandals and ED editors per WP:IDONTLIKEIT.
To the point, we should keep this article because it has meet the standards of notability (third-party resources) and it has been mentioned numerous times on the news. PrestonH 03:53, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Delete Not notable, not encyclopedic, not worth all the drama. Delete and be gone. --DHeyward (talk) 04:23, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment I don't care whether the article is kept or not, but for those that don't want an article because it would draw attention to the site, the drama over if it should be banned from Knowledge has drawn more attention to it than when it had an article. ED got tons of press coverage and a lot more traffic and visitors after it was banned because due to human nature about things being banned. There was a psychologist who wrote a book about it and I read it, though I don't remember either the psychologist or the book except it might have been slightly related to NLP. If ED hadn't been banned here and everyone arguing about it which has gone on for years, the site would have been less known. William Ortiz (talk) 04:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
    • It's the other way around. The WP article draws EDers here. It brings the drama here as they try to decide what ED content is worth mentioning, etc, etc. I don't really care how much traffic they get but until it's notable and encyclopedic, it's just another non-notable wannabe meme that is simply an inappropriate WP article. --DHeyward (talk) 06:28, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
      • To be fair, we don't know whether drama over deletion debates brings more attention to the site than a simple article would do. As long as we're simply guessing about that, we might as well admit it. -GTBacchus 07:17, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
        • Then Delete and salt and stop having deletion debates. Certainly having an article isn't going to eliminate the drama, in fact it will become a troll magnet. Or improve the encyclopedia. --DHeyward (talk) 13:47, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
          • I don't think that, "delete and salt and stop having deletion debates," an option. If we delete it, it will keep coming back. The site's notability is increasing, not decreasing. It is not necessary that the article become a troll magnet. Let's show that we can be neutral and accurate, even about ED. If we don't act dramatic about it, then it won't be a drama magnet. Let's show that we can deal with trolling attempts in a measured, professional, de-escalatory manner. -GTBacchus 16:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
            • Why do you think we can somehow stop it from being a troll magnet when it's an article when we obviously couldn't control it when it was deleted? we don't have the resources (or desire) to fight the amount of trolling that would will occur with an article. It's much easier to fight it when it's just an administrative action (close deletion debates, delete recreated content, block editors that keep adding it, etc). But deciding whether content should be deleted from the article is much more difficult. This site is simply not notable enough today for an article and should be deleted on that grounds. It's particular penchant for creating drama means that it should be salted as well. --DHeyward (talk) 13:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Keep. The subject is interesting, notable and sourced. Let's not be offended by criticisms. Such sites only increase the popularity of WP.Biophys (talk) 04:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep. I don't know where people got the idea that a supposedly reliable encyclopedia can delete articles because they don't like the subject. If this were anything else, there'd be practically no debate. -Amarkov moo! 06:08, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. We are not in the business of deciding what might or might not interest Knowledge's readers nor should we delete it because it will be an article that'll cause a "huge headache". It's as notable as the all those high schools and highways so I don't see how we can claim to be a NEUTRAL encyclopaedia when this article keeps getting deleted.--Yamanbaiia 06:32, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment This is an abusive process. Everyone participating in it knows that. I am not expecting you to recognise it here but if you have thought about this for even a second, you know that this page would never have been protected or be up for deletion if a) Encyclopedia Dramatica did not attack some wikipedia editors and b) People associated with the site did not sometimes troll this wiki. This deletion debate is clearly an abuse of process. There is not any question of the notability of this site, nor of the need to put a link to the site on its page. This AfD and the discussion on the article's talk page are saddening for a much more important reason however: The majority of the people participating are serious, positive contributors to Knowledge. These people are spending literally hundreds of hours between them splitting hairs over this. I have never vandalized Knowledge or trolled its talk pages, however I know some people associated with Encyclopedia Dramatica and the GNAA. They are euphoric and hysteric over processes like this, for 2 reasons: People on both sides of the debate are spending huge amounts of time fighting each other instead of improving the encyclopedia. If you don't like this article, try and live with it; if you do want to keep it, try and live with its absence. Your time could be massively better spent focussing on something else. Secondly, the trolls absolutely love to see a vocal minority get upset about articles like this, because they know that this is because their trolling has managed to anger and offend. This is the reason trolls get up in the morning. If noone tried to do things like remove this article and the GNAA one, they wouldn't receive positive confirmation that vandalism and trouble-making is still so successful, day in and day out, on some of their targets on this website.
I know that people will respond to this post reasoning and debating the ins and outs of this post. My point is, don't. You are infinitely more likely to have any positive effect if you click 'Random page' on the left, learn about something new and try to improve its grammar/syntax. Or just stand up from your computer and go for a walk.
As pointed out above, I have a reasonably large list of (positive) edits, however I am posting anonymously because I dont want to be tarred with the brush of someone who tried to speak reasonably on this issue. 86.27.233.17 (talk) 07:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep While my personal opinion on this particular website is that it could just as well be blasted to kingdom come (I would not mind to be the one to pull the trigger), it doesnt change the fact that it seems to have received sufficient media coverage to comply to WP:Web. In each and every case deleting this article would meet delete consensus, this consensus would then apply to a major share of the websites that i have allowed to excist either on the fact that they may or seem to be notable, or because there is not enough reason to press a delete. Also, a lot of the DELETE editors seem to take personal offence from the website, which makes it slightly an WP:IHATEIT topic. Excirial 08:04, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Sufficient sources exist. Knowledge covers distasteful subjects if others already have. There's not much to say though. The current version could use some trimming. Several of the references contribute nothing, being non-reputable (blogs) that don't actually say anythig about the subject, just verifying its existence, which is unnecessary. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:32, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep You may not like it, but surprisingly the article is well-sourced, and states WHY the site is notable. ED might slam Knowledge, and honestly I really don't care one way or another if it does, but per WP:WEB this article passes those criteria and quite frankly, that's all I'm looking at. Wildthing61476 (talk) 13:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Sourced, lots of Google hits, well written article and although I hate to invoke WP:OTHERCRAP... --Tombomp (talk) 13:49, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep, per, oh, everyone. Have we not had enough drama yet this week? Either way it rather clearly meets the notability threshold. naerii - talk 14:22, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Consensus was established at the DRV and another AFD nomination is just fanning the flames. Stifle (talk) 14:45, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak keep The sourcing is better but not impressive. seems to be the best and it's really not all that much. I think this article deserves a chance though... there are genuine sources about ED now, let's see how the article looks once people can actually edit it for a while (as opposed to during this AFD, where they can't). --Rividian (talk) 14:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Fucking Strong keep... *sigh* again, another AfD towards ED... I support ED... --Creamy! 15:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Mvuijlst (talk) 19:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

arbitrary section break 4

  • Comment: Just a reminder about some facts No matter how many editors state the contrary, facts are not up for election. No matter how many editors repeat the opposite, these remain facts -- not opinions, interpretations, suggestions, analysis -- just the facts that nobody gets to choose. So to advance the process, it might be best to keep the following in mind:
    1. WP:IDONTLIKEIT is an argument that an essay recommends we don't use in deletion discussions.
    2. WP:ILIKEIT is an argument that the same essay recommends we don't use in deletion discussions.
    3. WP:WEB defines what the notability standard is for articles about websites, giving alternative criteria to WP:N. Any article about a website that either meets WP:WEB or WP:N notability standards should not be deleted for a notability reason. Any article that does not meet those standards is supposed to have a damn good reason for being kept.
    4. You need more than just a bunch of sources to meet the notability standards for either guideline. Both require that The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself. (quote from WP:WEB; WP:N says the same)
    5. In the italicized quote just above, non-trivial is one of the standards that sources have to meet. WP:WEB defines trivial coverage partly as a brief summary of the nature of the content (Criteria section, third bullet)
    6. In the italicized quote just above, multiple non-trivial sources is a requirement.
    7. The MSN Nine Network source has a total of 15 short sentences that describe this website. More than any other source.
    8. The North Adams Transcript has a total of 2 sentences that describe this website.
    9. The Wired article has a total of 2 phrases in two sentences describe it.
    10. Gawker article: 3 sentences on it.
    11. No other source has more.
    12. Notability guidelines are not absolutes. For instance, the phrase "presumed to be notable" is used at the top of WP:N. The word presumed is defined by WP:N: "Presumed" means that substantive coverage in multiple independent reliable sources establishes a presumption, not a guarantee, of notability. So "presumed" isn't a back door for getting out of the notability requirements.
    13. WP:N and WP:WEB are guidelines, not just rules, and they can be treated with common sense and the occasional exception according to the standard box at the top of the WP:N page. The words "occasional exception" are linked to Knowledge:Ignore All Rules which states: If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Knowledge, ignore it. (I'm editing this to add the following:) According to this, ignoring a "rule" is to be done only for this specific purpose.
    14. Consensus from a large number of Wikipedians created the notability guidelines.
    15. There are a large number of Wikipedians here who want to keep ED as an article.
    16. There has been no consensus formed explicitly to overturn WP:WEB or WP:N in this case.
    17. Both sides have made the argument that Knowledge would be better off if their preference were followed.
    18. Knowledge:Deletion guidelines for administrators tells closing administrators how to judge consensus (in the Rough consensus section). It states: Consensus is not determined by counting heads, but by looking at strength of argument, and underlying policy (if any). Arguments that contradict policy, are based on opinion rather than fact, or are logically fallacious, are frequently discounted.
    19. The News Review source has 5 sentences. (((hat tip to User talk:12.32.217.24 post at 17:52, just below; added Noroton (talk) 20:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC))))
    • Given all this, why should Knowledge make an exception to its notability guidelines for this article? (((additional sentence as noted within the comment Noroton (talk) 16:43, 16 May 2008 (UTC))))Noroton (talk) 16:33, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
      • You forgot about this non-trivial article http://www.newsreview.com/chico/Content?oid=620760.--12.32.217.24 (talk) 17:52, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
        • Okay, that's a five sentences article in a reliable but small circulation paper devoted entirely to ED, obvioulsy not trivial. If you look at the context it's not a content summary style web guide, but rather an effort to bring something to the readers' attention - hey, note this. While we're counting sentences, Nina Chonin's article devoted 31 out of 47 sentences (by my count) to a notorious incident that happened on ED. Her extended discussion of a scandal that enveloped the site is non-trivial coverage however you cut it. The Nine News site's 15 sentences are not short - they range from 11 to 39 words, longer than normal. One would be hard pressed to call even 2-3 sentences about a subject "trivial". Newspapers are far more anti-trivia than Knowledge, and their compact stories don't go off on 2 sentence tangents. Content sites are publishers. What makes a publisher notable? Their effect on the world is the reach and scope of what they publish at least as much as the organization itself. Just as the measure of a scholar, newspaper, or artist is their works, not their actions, the same with a publisher like ED. We don't cover the building that houses the server, or the rudimentary Mediawiki software, or even the founders and investors. Instead we cover the content and how it affects people. It's not obvious whether Norton is arguing for or against notability of ED - the list of observations could fall on either side, but I detect some hostility to ED so I assume there is a personal opinion against. I think it's obvious that by the formal notability guidelines WP:N and WP:WEB (which has its problems) ED is notable, hardly open to serious question unless one would wikilawyer the guidelines to the point where they describe something that certainly is not how Knowledge works. We can and often do look beyond the strict rules to answer the basic question - does this material belong in the encyclopedia? Does it help Knowledge present an encyclopedic treatment of the world? That's not overturning or ignoring the guidelines, that's interpreting the matter in light of the guidelines. This question cuts both ways. On the one hand, ED has engaged a lot of people and is obviously a substantial, successful, money-making website (see who advertises there). On the other the content is mostly fluff. Good or bad, funny or not, hateful or refreshing, it's not going to win a Pulitzer Prize anytime soon. Possibly a Webby, which would put this issue to bed. Personally I would say that the encyclopedic purpose of covering the state of the Web and Internet culture favors including this site. I don't know the statistics but I would guess the vast majority of the top 5,000 Alexa sites are covered here. Omission of a major site becomes a gap, not a matter of careful pruning. Wikidemo (talk) 18:21, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
hard pressed to call even 2-3 sentences about a subject "trivial" -- see Fact 5; Nina Chonin's article mentioned ED once as the place where the prankster she was writing about happened to post; What makes a publisher notable? -- see Fact 3; It's not obvious whether Norton is arguing for or against notability of ED, as an expert on what Noroton is arguing, I can tell you that I'm arguing, in that post, for constructive discussion & adherence to WP standards, and I said in my "delete" post that I'd withdraw my opposition if adequate sourcing is found; by the formal notability guidelines WP:N and WP:WEB (which has its problems) ED is notable, -- see Fact 18. Noroton (talk) 20:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Thx for the response, levity, and even-handed approach. I think the discussion is rather constructive and remarkably civil, more so than quite a few AfDs I could point to on uncontroversial subjects. There's that saying "easy cases make bad law". Here, a hard case potentially raises awareness, strong good faith arguments on both sides by experienced, passionate Wikipedians. That lets us stress test the notability guidelines and what they mean, how to use them. Lessons learned are applicable when we question whether a new book, or local celebrity, etc., should be here. Wikidemo (talk) 20:52, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The list starts well, being entirely fact based, but the conclusory statement (why should Knowledge make an exception to its notability guidelines for this article?) doesn't accurately represent the argument. First of all, it's open to debate whether or not the article meets the criteria. Reasonable people can (and do) differ in opinion on this point. Second, even if it does not meet the criteria, as I've said before, that is not an automatic categorization of non-notability. It merely means that the arguments for notability for this article are not explicity spelled out. Presenting those arguments is not asking for an "exception" but rather just an alternate way to demonstrate notability. I think it's disingenous to present that conclusory statement as the only possible conclusion from these facts. -Chunky Rice (talk) 20:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Good point about the final question in my post, but it's an actual, sincere question, not a rhetorical one. If my facts are solid, then I think that question should be answered in order to get the best Keep argument. Since this discussion is supposed to be closed by an admin looking to the best (or at least the "acceptable") arguments on both sides (and discounting others, as per what's cited in Fact 18), then paying attention to facts about the sourcing, facts about policy and facts about what Knowledge says is an acceptable argument should get us into a more constructive discussion. Reasonable people can differ, but the more facts they can mutually agree on will probably narrow their differences and sharpen their logic. Arguments for notability need to be either explicitly spelled out or easily inferred. Presenting those arguments is not asking for an "exception" but rather just an alternate way to demonstrate notability. That depends on the details. Some things are open to interpretation (see my next point), but either the standards in WP:WEB or WP:N are met or they're not, if they're not and you still want to keep, you want an exception. it's open to debate whether or not the article meets the criteria but the criteria aren't open to a whole lot of debate because you can only interpret non-trivial so far before an interpretation looks ridiculous, and the faster we can stop wasting time on counter-factual arguments and unconvincing interpretations, the better. One side's going to lose this, and the more facts we agree on, the less bitter the pill that the losing side has to swallow. Noroton (talk) 21:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I prefer to think of it as we all win (with an improved encyclopedia), just not in the way we expected. I seem to read the notability criteria in a completely different way from you. You seem to think that anything that doesn't meet the criteria laid out is inherently non-notable and therefore requiring an exception (outside of existing guideliens). Whereas I read it as anything that doesn't meet the criteria is of undetermined notability, and requires only a reasonable argument as to why it is notable (within existing guidelines). The other fundamental dispute in this discussion is about what constitutes a non-trivial mention. I will submit that simply counting sentences is a poor way to measure this, as it makes no comment on the actual content of those sentences. -Chunky Rice (talk) 21:46, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • AfD discussions that I've seen, especially the more contested ones, always revolve around what you can explicitly prove meets the standards, or whether your reasonable interpretation of the standards has a consensus. Other arguments can be made, but in a contentious AfD, closing admins look more closely at what can be linked to criteria. But I haven't participated in AfDs that much recently, and I don't participate in all areas. As for sentence count, see my response to Smashville just below. Noroton (talk) 22:18, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
There is nothing in any Knowledge guideline or policy that requires a non-trivial source to have a minimum number of words or sentences. So, given all that you've added, why should we ignore the guidelines merely because of the size of the sources. The ninemsn article and the News Review article are very, very clearly non-trivial. Unless you can show me the focus of those articles is something other than ED. --Smashville 20:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Paying attention to the guidelines means not calling a source "non-trivial" if it resembles a brief summary of the nature of the content. We also have, in Footnote 2 of WP:N: The one sentence mention by Walker of the band Three Blind Mice in a biography of Bill Clinton (Martin Walker. "Tough love child of Kennedy", The Guardian, January 6, 1992. ) is plainly trivial. The way to judge whether something is trivial or non-trivial for WP notability purposes is to consider whether it resembles these two descriptions or whether it more resembles this definiition of a "significant source" at Knowledge:Notability#General notability guideline: "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail " Looking at that definition isn't in the language of WP:WEB itself, but it seems to get us to the spirit of the guideline, and WP:N has influence in this, too. Can you tell me with a straight face that a two-sentence mention in any source is not "trivial"? A three-sentence mention? Five sentences? I mean, we can all agree, can't we, that the word trivial was put into the notability pages for a reason, right? Does the five-sentence source come closer to fitting the description of a "brief summary" or "brief mention" than it does to a source that addresses "the subject directly and in detail"? It isn't the five sentences, which is shorthand for "really short", it's the obvious brevity that we all can see when we click on the link. There's a gray area somewhere. I think it comes with something a bit more substantial than the MSN Nine News source. I don't think you can call any five sentences anything more than a brief mention, because if Knowledge standards were that low, we wouldn't really need standards at all. People who are not straining to keep or straining to delete this article would, I think, tend to think five sentences doesn't cut it. I don't think it's a reasonable interpretation to call it "non-trivial". Noroton (talk) 22:18, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
I've participated in a number of deletion discussions on various topics with an open mind, and I would nearly always consider a five-sentence article about a subject in a major publication, or five substantive sentences on the thing in a longer source, to be a non-trivial mention that would add weight to notability. Not enough standing alone, but something that adds to the argument. I interpret "trivial" to mean exactly that, trivial. It's strain of the language to call five sentences in a newspaper article trivial. Newspapers don't waste words. They rarely spend more than a sentence to say someone died, or founded a company, or is somebody's father. If a newspaper goes out of its way to explain something, and that's the sole point or one of only a few points in the article, that is not a trivial mention. The "brief summary of the content" example is in a sentence that doesn't even parse, but it's apparently meant to discourage web directories. It's not an edict that content is less important than other things. Nowhere do these guidelines say that to be non-trivial is to address "the subject directly and in detail." That's not what non-trivial means, and it would impose a higher standard. If you look at WP:WEB it is not a precise instrument. You just have to read what it says and go with it. We don't get anywhere wikilawyering the Knowledge guidelines by positing that they redefine common words. Examples in Knowledge guidelines are haphazard - the people who write (and often edit war) over the examples are not trying to establish an analytical framework for each example to have a zone of influence, with the outcome judged by which example it is closest to. That's only one of many ways to understand examples, not a rule. The guidelines are not written by lawyers and just don't stand up to that kind of scrutiny. Overall, when an Internet site has articles written about it in several major publications, as with this one, it would be quite a stretch of logic to say that does not fit the language of the notability guideline.Wikidemo (talk) 23:01, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, we're at a point where we disagree on what "trivial" is in this context. I'll leave it at that. wikilawyering isn't about close reading and details, which is inevitable whenever something is hotly contested and guidelines and policies are involved. Nothing wrong with it if you don't lose track of what the guidelines are about. Noroton (talk) 00:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
That's a false argument a) because we aren't even supposed to take the Alexa rank into consideration and b) because if we did, a high Alexa rank (2,250 out of over 100 million) would seem to do the exact opposite. --Smashville 18:48, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
That's the weakest argument in the entire AFD. Even when we did use Alexa as a criteria for inclusion of websites, which was years ago, any site under 5,000 was easilly within what would "justify or connote notability". I'm pretty sure I remember Carlossuarez voting to keep articles on sites with vastly lower Alexa rankings... --Rividian (talk) 23:21, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Don't personally feel the sources stand up to scrutiny, but arguing the point isn't worth the trouble, from the looks of it. Disgusted Keep and watch it fester. For the "lulz," apparently. Tony Fox (arf!) 18:57, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
If you really can't be bothered to argue your point, then posting an opinion which is the exact opposite of what you actually believe is a little silly. It's also a little unfair to say everybody voting keep is doing it "For the lulz". --Tombomp (talk) 19:04, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment I'm not !voting Keep for the "lulz" as you said, but I'm looking at this article objectively and from a NPOV and surprising the soucres offer enough about ED to give it notability. The hell with the drama, it's a notable site at this point. Wildthing61476 (talk) 19:23, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment. Also not voting keep for the "lulz" (I'm guessing that's a variation on LOLs...). Voting because the article is sourced and meets WP:WEB. Honestly never been to the site (I understand there's a good chance of genitalia popping up on my work computer...not something I want to risk at work), so I'm definitely not coming from the WP:ILIKEIT category. --Smashville 19:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The "lulz" is what the ED denizens are getting by having their article up here finally. No comment on the keep voters; I'm sure your reasonings are just fine. I personally feel that the two sources that this is being hung on are insufficient, but it's bluntly obvious that I'm in the minority, so why argue it? It's going to be at the least a no consensus. *shrugs* I'm expressing my opinion. I don't feel we need this article, but if were opening up our definition of "non-trivial" through it, then we're going to have it. Tony Fox (arf!) 20:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
So ED finally has an article on Knowledge, and? Not to be rude Tony, and I know you mean everything in good faith, but why does it matter if the site has an article. The sources give the site just enough notability to be included her and honestly if they are, good for them. It's not a matter of winning or losing a battle with "ED trolls" (not your words, but I've heard the phrase used), it's a matter of doing what's right based on our guidelines. I've been proud to say that when I edit here I check my opinions at the door and try my damnedest to look at everything from a NPOV, and this article is no exception. Wildthing61476 (talk) 20:15, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
See Fact 5 Noroton (talk) 20:43, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
See my response. You're just arguing semantics now. The ninemsn article even has quotes. --Smashville 21:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Apart from the two articles that are devoted to it above, of course... 78.86.18.55 (talk) 23:00, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Two articles, or eight or whatever, constitutes a clear establishment of non-notability. If something is notable it will have hundreds if not thousands of articles about it in mainstream media sources, not just blogs and not just brief mentions in passing. KleenupKrew (talk) 10:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Um you have read WP:N and WP:WEB yes? They say nothing about "If something is notable it will have hundreds if not thousands of articles about it in mainstream media sources". JoshuaZ (talk) 12:27, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
It says "has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works". What constitutes "multiple" and "non-trivial" is entirely a matter of subjective debate, and my two cents worth is two is trivial and multiple means in the hundreds. KleenupKrew (talk) 13:03, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak Abstain Gee, the evidence tells me I should vote keep, but I somehow just can't bring myself to do it. I'm off for a round of golf. 78.86.18.55 (talk) 23:00, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - to inform everyone, I write about it also here - I made another copy of the article to my userspace, so WP editors can edit the article (and making it better) instead of just talking about it. (just look how long this discussion is) - User:Running/Encyclopedia Dramatica --Have a nice day. Running 23:24, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Question: Am I going to get b& if I try and work on it? Shii is an admin here afaik and his subpage on ED was baleeted. --Piepie (talk) 23:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
      • It was, after one of last AfD, but you are certainly not going to be banned. In worst case, the page will be deleted. --Have a nice day. Running 23:59, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
        • Such is the atmosphere of fear and loathing that surrounds any reference to ED around here that people do develop paranoia, sometimes to great extremes, about doing anything even vaguely related to it in fear of getting retaliated against somehow. *Dan T.* (talk) 00:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • keep Meets WP:WEB at this point. In order to be a neutral encyclopedia we cannot remove articles simply because they involve topics we don't like or are difficult to maintain. JoshuaZ (talk) 23:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete: I reviewed the references (that can be viewed online).
    1. SFGate's reference mentions "Encyclopedia Dramatica" on one line and in passing.
    2. The next one gives a 404 error
    3. NY Times mentions it on one line and in passing.
    4. This is the only one that does not have trivial coverage, but it's short
    5. Nearly non-trivial coverage, also short
    6. They're using ED as a reference; trivial coverage
    7. Passing mention, blog, trivial coverage
    8. Passing mention, trivial coverage
    9. Two mentions, both in passing
    Unless I'm missing something from the other sources that can't be viewed, none of these constitute notability. Compare with the similar (sorta) site, 4chan. 4chan's article has over sixty citations (some of which are to archived posts, but those that are not to the 4chanarchive or 4chan's rules are not all just passing mentions. The last reference goes into detail about the site, moreso than any of the references on Encyclopedia Dramatica. I cannot understand how some people view the trivial mentions as reliable sources for the article, allowing the article to pass WP:WEB. As mentioned above by an IP, two articles are "dedicated" to the topic, and these two articles are less than 10 sentences long.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:34, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Second should be probably http://www.newsreview.com/chico/Content?oid=620760 - I made a typo writing that into the article (the link in the article has 6207602 in the end). its fully protected so I cannot directly rewrite it --Have a nice day. Running 00:45, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Then that's three single-paragraph mentions of it. Doesn't change anything.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:56, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
      • "Unless I'm missing something" actually, yes, I think you are. An established print newspaper using, or one might even say "noting," ED as a reference would constitute notability. It was noted. Clearly it has also been noted by a number of people who have visited this very page. ED may be offensive, but it is apparently notable, by the Guardian and by Wikipedians who are offended by it and seek to deny its verifiable and notable existance. Analogrex —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.141.187 (talk) 03:32, 17 May 2008 (UTC) Analogrex (talk) 03:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
        • No, mention or use of something as a reference does not make it notable. If that were the case every time a minor expert were quoted on a topic by a newspaper the expert would immediately become notable. Your notion of notability is not connected to WP:WEB or WP:N. JoshuaZ (talk) 12:27, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    • WP:COI, Dragondragon. There's an article about you in ED namespace. You should've abstained. Same goes for anyone who's voted here who has an article on ED namespace, because we all know why you want no one to know of that site. Howa0082 (talk) 03:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
      • There is no conflict of interest. I'm not saying this should be deleted because I've got a page there, I'm saying that the sourcing here is poor.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Don't be ridiculous, users are perfectly able to make whatever decision they want whether or not ED has attacked or threatened them. I for example am voting for keeping despite there being an ED article on me that's borderline libel. JoshuaZ (talk) 12:27, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Just because it is trolling doesn't mean we shouldn't have an article. Plus, it is better sourced than some FAs... I'm an Editorofthewiki 00:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep; it's amazing how much detail the notability standards can require when we don't like the subject of the article.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Well, notability is the inclusion criterion based on encyclopedic suitability of a topic for a Knowledge article. "source", as used in Knowledge, has three related meanings: the piece of work itself, the creator of the work, and the publisher of the work. All three affect this. --Hu12 (talk) 00:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
      • And the inclusion criteria have rarely if ever been so strictly interpreted.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:28, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
        • It's typical that articles up for deletion discussions get more scrutiny and therefore, in effect, get held to higher standards; it's typical that the more controversial the topic, the more scrutiny the articles get. Your point sounds like a version of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. It's inevitable that there will be articles out there that don't meet our notability criteria and haven't been brought up for AfD yet. Given the system we have, it's inevitable that outcomes will be based, to an extent, on the chance of which editors happen to participate and which closing admins happen to close. The best way of making the process fair and more uniform is by sticking to policies, guidelines, the facts and logic as much as possible. Otherwise cynicism results. Noroton (talk) 21:49, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
          • I'm talking about articles on AfD, which I've seen a lot of. All guidelines get interpreted, and they should get interpreted consistently whether it's Encyclopedia Dramatica or Wikinfo. It is not WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS to say that the same rules that govern WP:AFD on a daily basis should be applied to this AfD, even if one can apply exegesis to interpret the guidelines in another way.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:57, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
            • To the extent that guidelines can be interpreted reasonably, again, you're going to get differences based on who shows up. You can only hope that people are honest about it and that editors and closing admins are consistent in deciding the same way. The Wikinfo AfD is going much worse for that page in terms of proportion of delete !votes, and the delete side has the overwhelming lead in arguments based on policy. A larger number of editors here have made policy-based arguments, which is what's supposed to count. Noroton (talk) 02:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
              • Perhaps the arguments at the wikinfo AfD are weak because some of the more reserved wikipedians are sitting that one out. For what it's worth, I have not participated in the wikinfo AfD because I think the nomination was a little WP:POINTy, nor do I have the experience or tools to be sure it isn't notable. However, the sources given there certainly don't confirm notability and I could not find any better ones after a few minutes looking. So my quick guess is that the main participants there are the more avid among both inclusionists and deletionists (forgive me for using those simplistic terms, I don't mean that as anything but a shorthand), and in that case the deletionists have the better argument. "Policy on their side", one might say. That could be at play here. You might have to disregard half or more of all the sentiments voiced on this page to get to the good arguments, and those arguments have been repeated many times. Wikidemo (talk) 06:36, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Notable website. All sources may not be exclusively dedicated to the topic but there's enough coverage to indicate notability. Bill 01:52, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Abstain. I'm a project participant with four years under my belt. I'm editing from a proxy for fear of retribution. This whole ED vs Knowledge thing has become so ridiculous, those in favor of keeping will soon get an article in a national newspaper as per this (see ED:Knowledge Articles for deletion/Encyclopedia Dramatica) for if this exclusionist nonsense keeps playing out. Get over your biases everyone. --91.143.81.107 (talk) 03:41, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete because it still hasn't made a page about me, despite my best attempts to be controversial -- Gurchzilla (talk) 07:19, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep per the Australian news article about ED and the great number of mentions elsewhere in reliable sources. I notice some references were removed and the page protected so that they couldn't be re-added; perhaps this was done by those with an agenda to get the ED article deleted?--AnonymousUser12345 (talk) 10:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep While I do not like the site, it is very notable and has enough sources --Boss Big (talk) 13:16, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per Collectonian. Passing mentions are not encyclopedic sources. Gamaliel (talk) 14:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

arbitrary section break 5

  • Comment Trivial mentions may satisfy verifiability but they do not demonstrate notability. In other words, based on the sources shown, it is possible to write an encyclopaedic article about this subject; that does not necessarily mean that we should do so. Questions of who does / doesn't like the site, or want the article deleted, serve only to distract from the question of notability. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 17:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. And with this, I issue a challenge: Without using any Knowledge policies to back you up, explain why the article should be deleted. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 18:01, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment: Could you please rephrase the question? My understanding is that editing Knowledge is based on a consensus formed around commonly accepted policies and guidelines. Without them, chaos ensues. Why would we want to ignore policies and guidelines in an AfD? Incidentally, I agree with SheffieldSteel's point (above) that too much time was spent on expressing personal preferences (i.e., WP:ILIKEIT, WP:IDONTLIKEIT, etc.) rather than focusing on legitimate points within the guidelines. Currently, the only real disagreement (as far as I can tell) on the table is the differing interpretations of the word "non-trivial" and "trivial" in the notability guidelines and how it relates to the current list of potential sources in the pool of known independent, reliable third-party sources. Everything else is just unhelpful noise for a closing admin, in my opinion. Regards, J Readings (talk) 18:29, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Is the question basically, "How would deleting the article improve the encyclopedia?"? That seems to be a fair one, seeing as our policies and guidelines exist to document successful ways of improving the encyclopedia. Per Ignore all rules, the power of rules is conditioned on their success in guiding us to improve the project. When they don't do that, they aren't really binding.

That might not be the question that Nwwaew meant, but I think it's one that's worth asking nonetheless. -GTBacchus 18:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Well, first I'd like to say good luck to the brave soul who closes this AfD and is thrust immediately into another DRV (because, really, we know it's coming, right?). Anyhoo, I'm checking to see of the nominator's rationale is valid. Xe says it fails WP:NOTABILITY and WP:WEB, is in violation of WP:DENY, and that it is an advertisement for the subject. I'll assume that if the article is compliant with WP:NOTABILITY and WP:WEB, it adds value to the encyclopedia. So, here we go.
Test Criterion Analysis Result
WP:NOTADVERTISING ...is, um, not advertising... The article seems pretty neutral in its coverage, does not have the tone of an advertisement, and is sourced. Pass
WP:DENY ...denies recognition... WP:DENY is an essay. Knowledge is an encyclopedia, and if it needs to cover websites where trolls and vandals gather to advance that goal, it will. Whether it denies recognition is irrelevant. Pass

WP:WEB (must meet only one criterion)

...has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself... except... edia re-prints of press releases and advertising for the content or site... rivial coverage, such as (1) newspaper articles that simply report the Internet address, (2) newspaper articles that simply report the times at which such content is updated or made available, (3) a brief summary of the nature of the content or the publication of Internet addresses and site or (4) content descriptions in Internet directories or online stores. Please note that I could check only the sources with online links. This is the best: gives enough information that I would call it non-trivial, but not extensive. and provide a only brief summary of the nature of the content. The others only mention the subject or provide a very brief summary. Again, I could only check the sources with online links, but I was only able to see that ED was the subject of one... Fail
The website or content has won a well-known and independent award from either a publication or organization. Not that I've heard. Fail
The content is distributed via a medium which is both respected and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster; except for rivial distribution such as hosting content on entertainment-like sites (GeoCities, Newgrounds, personal blogs, etc.) ED is self-published. Fail
WP:N's General notability guideline ...has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject... "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, and no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exclusive. While and do provide only brief summaries, etc. individually, together with and the minor sources, I think that ED does pass this test. With WP:N, there isn't the restriction that each source must itself be non-trivial, where trivial includes a brief summary etc., and these sources can snowball into significant coverage. Pass
  • As you can see, I haven't been able to assess all of the sources. Whether I would choose to keep or delete the article depends on the coverage by those sources for which there is no link and that I have not seen. If someone else can indicate that the coverage by at least one of those sources would pass WP:WEB criterion 1, the article should be kept. If someone else can indicate that the coverage by at least one of those sources would not pass WP:WEB criterion 1, the article should be deleted. If no one can say what's in those sources, then that information is not verifiable, and the article should be deleted. WODUP 19:08, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    It's pretty obvious at this point that the result is going to be keep, and at a current !vote of more than 2:1 (about 100/40), and this being one of the most discussed AfD's of all time, I don't think a DelRev would be appropriate. Z00r (talk) 19:30, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    Oh, I don't know. I think someone will put it up for DRV no matter what happens. I just have that feeling. WODUP 19:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    ZOOr, see WP:DGFA#Rough consensus. The closing admin will make a judgment call about how much to discount various !votes, someone will inevitably dispute that call and take it back to WP:DRV where it will be hashed out every which way, and then a closing admin there will make a judgment call. If that second closing admin is a knucklehead, we'll get a knucklehead decision. If the closing admin is as wise as Solomon, we'll get a wise decision that a lot of people will call a knucklehead decision. If we make good arguments all along the way and the closing admins listen to them, then we can weight the dice in this crapshoot towards a better decision with fewer people muttering, "Knucklehead!" Which doesn't stop it from being a crapshoot. But nobody promised us a great decision-making method when we got our user names. Noroton (talk) 20:07, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • WODUP, If you think this article passes WP:N but not WP:WEB, then you should conclude that it is notable. WP:WEB is an alternate way of meeting notability rather than an exclusive standard. I don't think an article can pass the WP:N standard without multiple sources that are non-trivial. Noroton (talk) 20:07, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I understand your position, but I haven't seen anything to affirm it. Actually, articles that pass WP:N are only presumed notable while articles that pass WP:WEB are deemed notable. Right now, we disagree on what sources are necessary to pass WP:N, too. I think that the wording of the general notability guideline allows for multiple sources with less-than-optimal coverage to establish significance together where that significance couldn't be established if the sources were taken individually. WODUP 20:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment: I feel at this point ED could have entire articles dedicated to it on CNN, and be one of the most popular websites of all time, and the decision will still be to delete it just because WP:IHATEIT is going to be ignored, and people are going to let their own prejudices get in the way of completing the encyclopedia. As many others said, this is why a good deal of people left the project in the first place, and I hate to agree, but I do. --HALtalk 22:20, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary section 6

  • Strong keep, particularly seeing as how well sourced it is now. This is one of those wiki-things that drives me up a wall. Like WR (the full Lovecraftian name of which must not even be uttered!), most of ED seems like a pack of idiot hyenas to me, but whenever this article gets deleted (for largely politic reasons, it's always seemed to me), and there's something I want to know about it, Knowledge has ... nothing. So I have to go over to the site myself to figure it out (and then I remember, oh yeah, these idiots again). Forcing me to go to ED to find stuff out = WIKIPEDIA FAIL. Ford MF (talk) 22:16, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The feeling's mutual. I had to come over here once for an "All Your Base" gif since ED was getting DDoSd. I felt dirty afterwards. --OldDirtyBtard84.61.12.187 (talk) 00:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Um... "the full Lovecraftian name of which must not even be uttered"? You mean, "Knowledge Review"? Is it really fair to suggest that the attitudes of maybe two or three Wikipedians represent some overall political climate? If you want to defuse the drama around a situation, ironically referring to is as "that which must not be named" seems counterproductive to that end, don't you think? -GTBacchus 22:45, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    I was kidding (mostly). As someone who's been targeted by WR in the past, I sympathize with those who feel threatened by sites like them and ED, but I also think the loudly-singing-with-fingers-in-one's-ears approach to this sort of thing is absolutely for the birds. We're an encyclopedia. We report on reportable things. I also think it's deeply disingenuous to say that the kneejerk against WR and ED is confined to "two or three Wikipedians". The fact that we're even here, having this conversation, in section ... five now? ... is a testament to that. Ford MF (talk) 23:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    I'm much more apt to mean something that I didn't express well than to speak disingenuously. I have pretty much no desire to do that, ever; if I weren't going to be ingenuous, I'd kill myself.

    What I was clumsily trying to express is that the most extreme, "site-which-must-not-be-named"-style position is limited to two or three Wikipedians. Many more of the community take a more sober and measured position than that. It was the exaggeration that put you in the 2-3 Wikipedian realm.

    I don't think it's entirely fair to suggest that anybody arguing for deletion is doing so out of a knee-jerk reaction. I think there are some pretty thoughtful arguments being made on both sides. Is it not possible to think that ED doesn't meet WP:WEB without having it be due to personal aversion for the site?

    I say all of this as someone who has already express a preference for keeping the article. -GTBacchus 23:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

    We are on the same side, and not to bring up, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but the article as it stands (and as it stood when it was nominated) is currently more well cited than The Huffington Post or Boing Boing or Consumerist (blog) or Lifehacker.com or Gawker.com or Fleshbot or Go Fug Yourself or Gothamist. I do sincerely and unsarcastically thank you for reminding me to assume good faith (one of the tougher wiki-tenets) but it's difficult not to form the impression that the article is being held to a higher standard for reasons of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Ford MF (talk) 00:15, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
    Last time I checked, all sources but ninemsn were "trivial coverage", which doesn't assert notability.... --Enric Naval (talk) 21:36, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
    I believe I address that issue in my opinion above, in section 3 (search for "02:17"). -GTBacchus 21:40, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep, article demonstrates notability through citations better than more than half the articles in a random sample of 10 non-stub articles. I also find convincing the argument that it will continue to get more notable over time, so it's not a matter of if we keep this article but when. — PyTom (talk) 22:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep: It's the best documentation of the *chan subculture, which is quite relevant to the Internet (I'm not making an argument from WP policy—the rest of you can take care of that quite well), even if it is written in the highly... non-encyclopedic fashion of said subculture. —bersl2 (talk) 23:11, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Close as keep, please. 78.34.137.171 (talk) 00:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak Delete. For such an apparently notable website, I was surprised by the lack of coverage from reliable sources - essentially, there's one source provided that provides what could be called 'significant' coverage of ED. I have no prejudice against having an article on them, but despite all the 'sources' listed here, they just don't seem to have received enough attention from the media to justify it. Terraxos (talk) 00:40, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. It passes the core notability guideline. It's difficult for me to see the deletion-drama around this article as unrelated to... well... butthurt on the part of targeted Wikipedosians. Sorry, but it's notable and the article has no significant problems, let alone unfixable problems necessitating deletion. <eleland/talkedits> 02:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Yes it serves as a hub for cads and blackguards but turning away from it won't make it go away. The sheer over-excitement it seems to be causing here suggests that it as at least notable within this community. I looked around and memes from 4chan, anime, and bizarre jokes my students made that I never understood before suddenly became clear. Their interactions with the Church of Scientology have resulted in a few news mentions. Wasn't there a Fox News story on them a while back about blowing up vans? First time to ever vote in one of these. Sorry if I rambled and missed the point. 98.200.35.25 (talk) 04:57, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Wasn't there a Fox News story on them a while back about blowing up vans? HAXXORS ON STEROIDS PWNS J00 WITH VANS

also

keep —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.139.122.11 (talk) 21:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Strong Keep If it weren't notable, would so many people on here really care one way or the other? There are also countless examples of things much less notable (MUCH less) that have pages. How many times must we have this debate? Broooooooce (talk) 10:40, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

arbitrary section 7

  • Strong Keep. If the admin here abide by their own arbitrary rules, this article passes the notability litmus and should be kept. As a matter of principle, if Knowledge wants any respect whatsoever as an objective source of information, the article must be kept and must be cleaned up for NPOV (the first paragraph of the article makes it quite clear what the writer thinks of ED—Opinion = Bias). Show you're better than ED by not being ED—by which I mean, function on logic and principles of consistency as opposed to functioning on bias and personal opinion. SumeragiNoOnmyouji (talk) 06:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Close, keep and get a life - seriously, I just walked in on this article and saw this total baaawwwfest. I've seen a lot more insignificant and outright irrelevant crap keep a steady article - per countless numbers of people listed, this stinks of WP:IDONTLIKEIT and there are a good lot of people (not naming names, though a majority of them ARE deleters) that should just be ashamed of themselves for the immaturity displayed here. 64.81.169.20 (talk) 08:31, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. I don't really know what I can say that hasn't already been said. This debate is tedious: The abundance of references establish notability and the article looks nice. A fair amount of people in the Knowledge community just want this article gone because ED ridicules Knowledge. That's all. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 12:41, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • To be fair, ED attacks several individuals, not merely Knowledge in its entirety. But that is still not an argument to delete, at least not at AfD. Those who prefer what imho is a somewhat high-handed hush-up approach should pursue this at a more appropriate venue, e.g. WP:VPP. 78.34.133.49 (talk) 14:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: Thanks for posting these links. Possible copyright infringement issues aside, these three cases finally explain why LexisNexis and the other major online newspaper databases did not pick up the MSNBC and CNN stories. In all three cases, the broadcasts are in no way about the Encyclopedia Dramatica. The MSNBC story is clearly about Craigs List and a prank. The ED is briefly mentioned for literally a second. In the case of CNN's stories on the 9/11 Jewish conspiracy theory, it's worse: the ED is actually not mentioned at all. Screenshots? I've read and re-read the guidelines. Screenshots are not covered by WP:WEB or WP:N. Surely, no one here is seriously going to argue that screenshots (assuming those were even of the ED, nothing was displayed on the screen to indicate they were) are prime examples of "non-trivial coverage" in the mainstream media, when the ED was never even the subject of these stories. Better to focus the arguments on sources that at least discuss the ED. But in any case, I do appreciate finally learning why LexisNexis never registered these stories about the ED. They weren't about the ED. J Readings (talk) 15:46, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. ED most certainly is notable and the article has independent sources. Don't delete the article just because you don't like the site! Nxsty (talk) 18:00, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per the sources. As analysed by Sheffieldsteel and Ryūlóng. Garion96 (talk) 20:59, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Question: Is this the longest AfD evar? Also, I think it (and the history of ED's AFDs) is notable enough for its own article.

--Piepie (talk) 21:01, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

  • The WP-ED saga would be great material for a meta-Knowledge but not so much for Knowledge itself. Either way, the results of this will end up on ED itself. Now, whether the WP admins decide to continue feeding the trolls by denying them a single legitimate page, we shall see. —bersl2 (talk) 21:20, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
    • LOL. Someone's doing one: encyclopediadramatica(dot)com/Wikipedia_Articles_for_deletion/Encyclopedia_Dramatica

--Piepie (talk) 21:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep - While certainly not a liked article by many users on this site, it is the subject of secondary sources and passes our inclusion standards (with the exception of IAR). --Oakshade (talk) 21:13, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep I do not understand the reasons for this article being nominated for deletion. This does seem to be a relevant website, much to my own chagrin. Their article on ED referencing these constant AfDs makes some pretty strong points in favour of it. I think Knowledge's better, and has higher standards as an encyclopedia, but for a force for good, evil, or lulz, ED is definately in the very least, notable. Tyciol (talk) 02:57, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Its notability derives from WP's notability, ironically. Because its well-sourced from RS's, makes me think this is notable enough for its own article, even though I don't know too much about the site. I also tend to favor keep due to the reasons articulated above. The keep people have made rational arguments for the most part while those who want to delete it seem to have a personal stake of simply not liking the content of this website. That is not a valid reason to delete and amounts to censorship. I've seen too much deletion efforts based on "I dont like it" and censorship attempts at WP, and this makes me want to come here to say keep.Giovanni33 (talk) 07:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
lolwut? Celarnor 08:05, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Clearly this AfD is serious business. shas/T|C 08:12, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep Encyclopædia Dramatica, like it or not, is a website with a significant amount of users. It's been mentioned in several news programs, referenced in the local rags (at least here in australia where they gained notoriety for their "Project Chanology"), and thus can be considered notable, even if some of the admins here have a personal vendetta because of the humiliation they have recieved from ED users who "did it for the lulz". If you guys delete this, you basically break your own rules. But then again, it's not like that hasn't happened before on Knowledge, so that last argument probably doesn't count for much. Horst.Burkhardt (talk) 08:17, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Sufficiently sourced, and appears to have non-trivial coverage in the so-called Real World - In my opinion, it satisfies WP:WEB; even if it still could be somewhat better, it's still better than it was before. "May attack Wikipedians" argument is utter rubbish, as seen so many times before; Knowledge's goal is neutrality, and I'd say that if the idea is to cover topics neutrally without opinionated comments, the other side of the coin would be to not limit inclusion to Knowledge based on opinions, either; otherwise we'd have to start deleting articles like (Insert blatant unfurling if the Godwin Flag) neo-Nazism, because it happens to cover a topic that may promote hate toward a group of people. If we delete arguments based on that alone, where would you draw a line? Let's let go of the tiresome drama and let's quit trying to kill this article because of politics. The bottom line is this, no matter how you bake the cake: we set the bar somewhere and this thing narrowly leaps above it. If this thing gets deleted, I see it as a victory for evil wikilawyering of most foul kind, not as a victory for interpreting Knowledge's content guidelines. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 09:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep It's a well written article about a website that many journalistic authorities consider important enough to report about. I know that many wikipedia admins/mods hate the ED people because they stalked them or stoled their megahertz or whatever, but I think it is long past time to move beyond that and stop trying to delete this page. The more we fight over this, the more of a drama magnet it becomes. The scientology thing is a clear indicator of their relevance. We really can't keep out a website that affects major real world events, especially if wikipedia is going to continue to host all sorts of obscure in-universe trivia from games and cartoons. I mean, there are pages here that give us detailed biographies of minor comic book villains. If that sort of crap (which I fully support keeping) makes the cut for notability, pretty much anything does.

As an aside, I really dont understand the point of being so strict with notability. It isn't like there is really a size limit to how big wikipedia can get so I don't see what we gain by arbitrarily deleting some articles while keeping others. Yeah, I get that wikipedia isn't a "star trek wiki"/"warhammer wiki"/"spider man wiki" but I don't see what really gets broken by letting those topics exist within wikipedia. It isn't like they exclude other articles by virtue of existing. Beerslurpy (talk) 11:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

    • Dude, it's because some wikipedia editors have their panties in a twist over the site. They are being juvenile and petty, that's all. They hate being mocked and are full of themselves. You think they would go through all this trouble for any other entry? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.56.237.252 (talk) 19:17, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • keep - References appear to assert notability. I see nothing wrong with this article. Chrislk02 14:34, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep - once upon a time, and the first times this was an entry, it was not notable. Now, especially with Project Chanology in the news and a current event, the sarcastic encyclopedia of internet culture is notable. It's not pretty, but then we don't have to like it. Jason Harvestdancer | Talk to me 16:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Or delete unencyclopedia and about 1,000 other sites for god's sake 71.56.237.252 (talk) 19:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment: Since you raise the subject, may I mention the fundamental difference between Uncyclopedia and the Encyclopedia Dramatica for the purpose of this AfD? Uncyclopedia.org is a classic example of WP notability, whereas Encyclopedia Dramatica struggles to meet our notability guidelines. It's worth pointing out the similarities and differences here for the editors who keep thinking incorrectly that this AfD is somehow about WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Both are parodies of Knowledge. Both poke fun at Knowledge and its editors. Both promote misinformation and disinformation. The important difference is that Uncylopedia can justify an article on Knowledge thanks to the sheer amount of coverage in reliable third-party sources. Regardless of what's in the Uncyclopedia article now (and, to be fair, there are a few third-party sources but editors need to add more citations), I count over 24 articles in mainstream newspapers via LexisNexis that write just about Uncyclopedia as the subject of the article. Here are a few example titles by mainstream newspapers: "The Uncyclopedia on Harry Potter", "War of words over Ulster 'Uncyclopedia'", "Satirical Website Criticized by Tourist Board." The Sunday Telegraph (London) considers Uncyclopedia to be among "The 101 most useful websites" on the internet. They don't think that about the Encyclopedia Dramatica. The Seattle Post considers Uncyclopedia to be "the Onion of wiki sites." They don't mention the Encyclopedia Dramatica. The Guardian (London), The Advertiser (Australia), 24 Hours (Toronto, Canada)--all alert their readers to Uncyclopedia as the website to read. As far as I know, they don't (yet) alert their readers to the Encyclopedia Dramatica. Heck, even Jimbo Wales mentioned Uncyclopedia on The Charlies Rose Show, so we can't really claim that this AfD is about censorship of things we don't like. It's about fundamental disagreements about the notability guidelines. Personally, I remain unconvinced that the sources offered are anything but "trivial coverage". I understand that some disagree, but I suspect that we will be forced to revisit the wording of the notability guidelines to avoid this kind of disagreement in the future. In good faith, J Readings (talk) 20:03, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Sufficient references in mainstream sources over a period of several years to support notability. The site also has fairly little to do with Knowledge and the vast majority of its content is unrelated comedic content (whether funny or not is another matter, but not really the point here), contrary to the assertions in this deletion nomination. --Delirium (talk) 19:12, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep per Alkivar and others. — CharlotteWebb 19:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. It appears notable enough, and we should be able to write a NPOV article on it despite the ongoing drama. ED does clearly personally attack Wikipedians, but that's not a factor in deletion. Superm401 - Talk 20:56, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
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