English Wikipedia @ Freddythechick:Articles for deletion/MS Paint Adventures

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 delete. no reliable sources = no article. Blogs don't count Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:22, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

MS Paint Adventures

MS Paint Adventures (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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Non-notable web-based comic lacking GHits of substance and with zero GNEWS. Appears to lack notability. ttonyb (talk) 16:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

• Strong keep - I'll copy what I said on the talk page regarding the PROD: "First, Google News results are completely irrelevant to webcomics. I'd imagine very few well established webcomics have any Google News hits. Second, if you're going by Google hits as a mark of notability, I'm not exactly sure what you're doing. I'm not sure how you're defining "substance". Further, if we go by sheer volume, it has even more hits than other webcomics with articles on them, such as Wondermark or Dinosaur Comics. Also, I'm pretty sure Google hits have never been a guideline for notability. If you really want to delete this article, you're going to need a better excuse." Furthermore, citing WP:WEB, the first criterion states that notability may be established by two or more independent publications, which, as mentioned in the article, it already has. Although they are just blogs, both blogs already are mentioned on Wikipedia. Additionally, webcomics whose articles on Wikipedia are already well established link directly to MS Paint Adventures, such as Dinosaur Comics, Dr. McNinja, Perry Bible Fellowship, and possibly others that I'm not even aware of. This seems enough to me to establish notability to me. --Λύκος 17:24, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment – If GHits and or GNEWS are not relevant to webcomics, then I suggest you provide sources that meet the criteria in reliable sources and verifiability. Generally speaking, blogs are not considered as valid support because they, with certain exceptions such as news based blogs, lack editorial oversight. BTW - being mentioned in Wikipedia does not provide the based for using them as reliable sources nor does being linked to by someone mentioned in Wikipedia. No one wants to delete the article, the reason for the PROD and then the AfD is to determine if the article meets Wikipedia notability criteria and, if not, provide a chance for the article to be updated in order to meet those requirements. ttonyb (talk) 01:06, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - Isn't that generally what the concern templates are for? Not throwing a deletion nomination at the article immediately? I get the feeling that if this were to happen to many of the webcomic articles that are on Wikipedia and have been for some time, they would have been deleted immediately. If this article is to be deleted, I feel that there's a slew of other articles that should be deleted. Also, I said that Google News hits were irrelevant--I mentioned that Google hits were not a good benchmark, not completely irrelevant. --Λύκος 02:12, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment – The very easy and obvious way to avoid deletion is to provide support to meet the notability requirements. AfDs are usually active for 7 days, so there should be time to come up with valid references. ttonyb (talk) 02:22, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• Keep - I'm sorry, but using Google News as a notability criteria? I'm with Oni Lukos here. There is no reason why a system unlikely to cover items that are not "newsworthy" (i.e. non-political webcomics, etc) should be used to determine "notability". And according to WP:WEB, Google News is not specifically indicated as a notability criteria. The article may still be non-notable for other reasons, assuming the above mentioned blog sources do not qualify as reliable sources, but I personally am getting a strong anti-MS Paint Adventures vibe from this AfD nomination. --64.5.15.112 (talk) 22:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)— 64.5.15.112 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Comment – Rather than unjustly accusing someone of bias against the article, why don't you provide support to meet the notability requirements. ttonyb (talk) 01:06, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment, since there are no Google News sources, would anybody care to provide some other secondary sources for this topic? Abductive (reasoning) 23:16, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
• Comment I agree with Oni Lukos, it seems very strange you would requested 2 deletions of this article, and that being your only edits to this page at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.40.183.42 (talk) 07:52, 20 December 2009 (UTC) — 69.40.183.42 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Delete: The above editors have not shown that there is significant coverage. Joe Chill (talk) 03:49, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
• Strong keep - There are over five thousand members on the MSPA forums. On the Something Awful forums there is a thread about MSPA that has attracted over 100 people to it and gains over 7 new posts every day on average. There are t-shirts, posters, and three volumes for the Homestuck soundtrack. As I type this right now, there is a Project Wonderful banner ad on the site that is worth $23.20. Since this price is based on a bid-based system, I would hardly think that a "non-notable" entity would be attracting that kind of attention. There are even webcomics with extensive articles on here that don't get even halfway to that amount on their own Project Wonderful ads. Anyone who believes that MSPA is not "notable" has possibly been living in some kind of cave for the last year or two. --FuegoFish (talk) 19:47, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment – "Real-world" notability does not equal Wikipedia notability nor is site traffic is not a criteria of notability. Please see notability and help me understand how any of your reasons might meet this criteria. Thanks... ttonyb (talk) 20:03, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - Well, I'm surprised how you managed to take away "site traffic" from what I said. I mentioned thousand of people who like MSPA enough to get a forum account there. I mentioned popularity in unrelated internet communities. I mentioned merchandise and other forms of commercial interest. I don't think I ever mentioned the site's traffic. I don't even know what MSPA's site traffic is. Millions? Billions? How could I possibly check? Also I think you'll find it doesn't matter whether I've made one thousand edits or just one, so don't presume that it makes any kind of difference. --FuegoFish (talk) 20:38, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment – I again suggest you read WP:WEB for help in understanding that "Real-world" notability does not equal Wikipedia notability and that site traffic is not a criteria of notability. BTW - site traffic can refer to total traffic or individual visits. Rather than focus on this, how about looking at notability and helping me understand how any of your reasons might meet this criteria. Thanks... ttonyb (talk) 20:50, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - Still not seeing where I mentioned traffic at any point that was not, in fact, replying to your original assertion that I was talking about site traffic. You might be slightly obsessed with this subject! Just saying! Moving on, here's a brief list of things that seem (to me) to be notable about MSPA. Patrick Rothfuss (who has his own wikipedia article, no less) did a short review of MSPA where he called it "interactive storytelling at its finest" (which it is). Manifesto Games examined MSPA's game/not-a-game nature on their Play This Thing site. The blog Comic Book Closet interviewed Hussie, which counts (by my understanding) as a non-trivial published website source. Also, shouldn't the fact that MSPA cannot be published be a unique enough qualifier for wikipedia notability? Last I checked you can't print animated gifs and flash files, which probably makes MSPA the only webcomic out of the whole lot.

Also, I'd like to just ask you how Cubetoons is notable enough to not be considered for deletion. Or El Goonish Shive, that seems to be mostly listing itself and its own store as references. I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space has little in the way of notability either. Likewise Post-Nuke, Demonology 101, A Doemain of Our Own, Elven Lacryment, and Faux Pas (webcomic). They're all webcomics like MSPA, going by the loose definition of "webcomic" people use. But while some of these articles have a note at the top asking people to "please help to establish notability", none of them were nominated for deletion the exact same day they were put on wikipedia. Which might suggest some kind of bias! Unless your next move is to nominate everything I just linked for deletion, in which case I fully retract everything I may have accidentally insinuated. --FuegoFish (talk) 22:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment – All the examples you gave appear to be blogs lacking editorial oversight. Blogs lacking editorial oversight are generally not acceptable as a reliable source. As mentioned above, having a Wikipedia article does make one a reliable source. With regards to other article that you believe should be deleted, I have not reviewed them and you are more than welcome to nominate them for deletion. BTW - their existence does not justify this article's existence. See WP:WAX.

Your comments about bias are odd, first of all, I believe most articles that are deleted are done on the day they are created; second, if I was biased against Webcomics, then it would make sense I would have nominated other Webcomic articles for deletion. Your unsubstantiated comments are not appreciated or are they relevant to the notability of the article in question. I suggest rather than making such statements you review WP:RS and focus on providing adequate sources to validate the article's notability. My best to you... ttonyb (talk) 23:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment – The blog Play This Thing appears to not be self-published and may not lack editorial oversight, as the user FuegoFish seems more knowledgable in the area it seems fair to let him make that conclusion. The blog by Patrick Rothfuss is self-published by somebody who is considered an expert in the field (fantasy writing) and has previously been recognised and published by reliable third-parties, and hence meets the criteria for a reliable source. See Patrick Rothfuss --94.192.92.233 (talk) 23:49, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
• Keep – If all of the sources linked are "blogs lacking editorial oversight," I wonder who these people are. Trout? Trollops? I'd never heard of "editor in chief" as a pseudonym for "big time-wasting do-nothing" but I suppose I am open to development in the English language.

From the very article you linked (WAX): "an entire comment should not be dismissed because it includes a comparative statement like this," and it states how there is a "misconception that this section is blanket ban on ever referencing other articles or deletion debates." Would you look at that? I can selectively read into comments on the opposite opinion to support my opinion as well. Snarkiness aside, it seems that the "Pokémon test" seems to refer to comparisons between characters of fictional entertainment series and X, which, by nature, would be difficult to have objective measures of notability, as no one, say, writes entire articles on a fictional character in an edited source. In this case, on the other hand, we have tangible metrics by which to compare this webcomic with other webcomics - we have a full article with editors (Play This Thing), and a full article by an authority on fantasy writing (Rothfuss), which is more than can be said about El Goonish Shive, I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space, etc. as mentioned by FuegoFish. So what makes this objective, tangible advantage on MSPA's part invalid? And don't tell me those articles haven't been deleted because of a lack of experts in that field - if that were the case, what would justify your judgement of this article, but not the others? Randomness? Bias? And I'm sorry if this is not what you might argue, but simply linking to an entire article (WAX) tends to open up some ambiguity as to your argument, as you might imagine.

Also, perhaps this has to do with lack of experience in this field, or I'm mistaken in some other fashion, as I am not an experienced wiki-editor/amateur philosopher/debate person/whatever, but it seems to me that FuegoFish never insinuated that you were "biased against Webcomics [sic]," but biased against MSPA in favor of other webcomics. I mean, he is pointing out your lack of initiative in deleting obscure webcomics nobody has ever heard of, while simultaneously pointing out your enthusiastic initiative in deleting this particular webcomic. Seems to me to be a clear case of "bias vs. MSPA favoring other webcomics," not "bias vs. webcomics favoring everything else ever" Wouldn't your statement, then, be that logical fallacy they call a "strawman argument," i. e. putting words in another's mouth? Is that what I'm using against you right now? I'm sorry, I must apologize once more, as I have not yet taken an epistemology class and so these things confuse me sometimes.

Anyway, since people rarely change their opinions anyway, can I bring up a question about the AfD statistics link at the top? Why is it that it only lists the 2 deletion votes, ignoring the 3 keep votes? Is that a syntax parsing thing? Thanks in advance. -Adghar (talk) 07:14, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

• Keep - This seems to meet notability as per WP::web and Oni Lucas' response. Oesor (talk) 00:31, 20 December 2009 (UTC)— Oesor (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

* Comment Uh yeah, Tony, it's a great idea to stick your head in the ground by tagging everyone who disagrees with you as a sock puppet. Why not focus on the topic instead making ad-hominem attacks saying "These people don't matter!"? Since you're wrong about me, I'm just gonna go ahead and remove all these SPA tags you've littered all over in what I assume is an attempt to discredit people. Oesor (talk) 20:01, 20 December 2009 (UTC)— Oesor (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Strong keep I don't see how MSPA isn't notable, the flashes and especially the music are both very unique. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.40.183.42 (talk) 07:41, 20 December 2009 (UTC) — 69.40.183.42 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions. —Emperor (talk) 15:53, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
• DELETE - Lots of WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS arguments above. I am not surprised that other crap exists as we are not required to delete crap articles in descending order from most crappy to least crappy, so as to ensure that no article exists that is crappier than the one currently being discussed. As the article says, this comic's best claim of notability is that it has "a mention on 1UP.com's Retronauts blog and indie gaming blog Play This Thing!" Mentions on blogs are far from the same thing as Wikipedia:Notability's "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Sharksaredangerous (talk) 17:50, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Does anybody even check sources anymore? I personally don't use the term "mention" to describe full articles. I mean, what kind of "significant coverage in reliable sources" are we looking for here? An article in a print encyclopedia? An article in a national newspaper (asking us to break unprecedented ground, now, are we? Okay, maybe not, but I personally can't remember any point in time when I read an article about a webcomic in a national newspaper.)? Did you notice how I pointed out that in that same article you linked, and ttonyb linked, it talks about how you shouldn't use that as a blanket ban, about how you shouldn't just dismissively discredit any argument of that type? Twice? (see my comment above for relevant quotations)

I mean, if we face reality, there really is no such thing as a webcomic scientist right now. And if the article in question is already of objectively higher notoriety than countless examples listed, I would think it is up to the deletion party to justify what makes this one so especially bad that it needs to be deleted in spite of its higher notoriety. I mean, what? The arbitrary choice of ttonyb choosing to delete this article and not other webcomic articles is sufficient reasoning?

Here's an analogy to help illustrate why trying to apply WAX as a blanket ban fails in this case. The fact that there are two full articles written on MS Paint Adventures, one of them run by a staff of editors and one by a professional fantasy writer objectively differentiates it from other articles of this type. Say someone tries to write an article about Home_made_band_x. It's nominated for deletion. The original writer and maybe some fans write "but there's an article on Obscure_pokemon_y! Surely, Home_made_band_x is more well-known." Here, there are established metrics for bands which Home_made_band_x likely does not meet in its category - the Black Eyed Peas topped charts and whatnot, for example. It also does not take into account Obscure_pokemon_y's surface notoriety as a facet of Pokemon itself. However, in this case, MS Paint Adventures matches up to the metrics already established in webcomics, and the comparison is not trying to cross genres.

And isn't it funny how delete-proponents on this page seem to be discrediting blogs (even ones run by staffs full of editors) in much the same way secondary school teachers discredit wikipedia itself? Ignore this as part of my argument if you wish; I'm aware that if this is used as part of the argument it's probably a non sequitir ad hominem or something like that. I just thought it was interesting from my point of view.

Also since ttonyb hasn't replied yet I am still wondering why the AfD statistics page is showing 2 votes for deletion and none of the votes for keeping, so maybe you can explain instead. I generally don't edit very often on wikipedia, so I genuinely am not aware of how the AfD statistics page functions. -Adghar (talk) 07:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - Just going to point out that there are two kinds of print articles about webcomics, in general terms. Firstly there's the local newspaper doing a story on a local man (or, indeed, woman) who has made a webcomic that is at least mildly successful. The second, and much rarer type, is an article about Penny Arcade. Since Penny Arcade is the only million-dollar franchise in the world of webcomics (Zuda and so on don't really count, since they're a facet of a print media company) and runs a charity for children in addition to their famous convention, they generate more "news" of the type that the print media focuses on.

Webcomics are pretty non-newsy things, if you stop and think about it. In fact, so are print comics. Nobody writes an article about Dilbert, or Superman. Because nothing of interest (in terms of news media) happens. Superman keeps leaping tall buildings in a single bound, Dilbert keeps working the same depressing job. Even when something utterly monumental happens in the world of the comic, like DC's recent decision to (temporarily) kill Batman, not many people take notice. So factor in that webcomics have very small audiences in general, and that none of them have a 70-year-old institution like Batman going for them, and you'll find that there is literally no reason to write about webcomics.

The same goes for essays and other forms of print article. If you ignore the webcomics done by amateurs (who have done nothing and will never achieve anything of any artistic importance) you are left with perhaps fifty to sixty webcomics of such amazing quality of art and writing that you could write an essay about them that wasn't on how bad they were. However, these webcomics make up some of the less popular webcomics, because the typical reason for visiting a webcomic is not to be challenged or enthralled by the incredible story or the beautiful art. Instead it is just something to read during the morning for a few minutes before you leave for work, or school. The most popular webcomics are basically akin to daytime television, except possibly of less interest.

So in essence, with webcomics what we have is a particular medium which, by its very nature, is wholly non-notable by Wikipedia's current standards of notability. It does not engender discussion in print, those involved with it are typically non-notable people who have nothing else to their names, it is disparaged by many as a cheap and inconsequential medium, and it does not bring itself to be noticed on any level besides "it is a comic on the internet and it exists." --FuegoFish (talk) 14:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - It is incorrect to describe these sources (like a 3 paragraph blog post) as "full articles." They do not provide significant coverage. Yes, Penny Arcade is a good example of a webcomic that meets Wikipedia:Notability's criteria of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject," but it is far from unique. The many others include such diverse comics as xkcd, Megatokyo, Achewood, Questionable Content, Eric Monster Millikin, Get Your War On, Leisure Town, Van Von Hunter, The Perry Bible Fellowship, etc. etc. with sources like CNN, Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, USA Today, etc. I'm not saying this comic has to be as successful as the above stars in the field, I'm just saying it needs more than short blog posts to have an article here. Also, don't worry about this comic being singled out because it hasn't been; articles on all sorts of topics including on other webcomics get considered for deletion here all the time. Instead let's try to find some sources that meet our standards and are good enough to write encyclopedia articles with. Sharksaredangerous (talk) 17:50, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Strong keep, extremely popular webcomic with an unique storytelling concept. --Novil Ariandis (talk) 10:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment – What I find interesting is with all the fever exhibited here to keep the article, no one has simply gone back to the article to provide independent, third-party, verifiable sources per the requirements of WP:WEB and notability. There seems to be a lot of disagreement that these guidelines are not applicable for this article. Well, that may or may not be true, but this is not the forum to debate the validity of those guidelines. Those that disagree with the guidelines are more than welcome to debate these issues at the appropriate articles talk pages and hopefully if there is community consensus get the guidelines changed.

Getting back to he issue at hand and ignoring all the ridiculous comments about bias, sockpuppetry vs. SPA, the existence of other webcomic articles, and the funny comment about the lack "webcomic scientists", the issue remains that the article still appears to fail WP:WEB. I understand the one or two of the blogs have been proposed as valid to support the article (although I am not convinced), but going back to what I said at the very early stages of the discussion, the very easy and obvious way to avoid deletion is to provide support to meet the notability requirements. AfDs are usually active for 7 days, so there should be time to come up with valid references.

As far as the question of why the "strong keeps" do not enter into the stats, I have no idea, but I suspect the script was written to "see" only "keep" and "delete". Nonetheless, it does not matter, because the review is not based on "votes", the reviewing Admin will look at the comments and base their decision on the substance of the comments, not the number of "votes". My best to all involved in the discussion. ttonyb (talk) 18:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Keep Although I see that it fails this and it fails that, have common sense as well. Yes, there are Wikipedia rules, but those rules are there So that the articles are good and useful. If a rule says that something should not exist, but it does deserve to exist, and by going by common sense, it is notable, then let it exist! However, somebody does still need to go back and perhaps edit some things and stick in a couple extra sources so that it shows that it is noteworthy. So now, how about we go with Ttonyb, and we actually work on the article instead of arguing on here. -HaiyaTheWin IS The Win! 18:25, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment – Nicely put, thanks. ttonyb (talk) 18:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - Some anonymous users have been leaving their two cents on the issue on the Talk:MS Paint Adventures talk page --Λύκος 06:11, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.