Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Computer tan hoax

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. (X! · talk)  · @971  ·  22:18, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This close was overturned to keep at this deletion review. This was apparently an accidental closure and was never intended to be a "delete" consensus.~ mazca ^talk 09:52, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Computer tan hoax (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

per WP:NOTNEWS--"Routine news coverage of such things as announcements, sports, and tabloid journalism are not sufficient basis for an article. " This was an advertising campaign that received a brief attention from the news media in the Spring of 2009. However, the Barack Obama fly swatting incident received more news coverage. See also WP:Recentism and Wikipedia:News articles. OfficeGirl (talk) 16:31, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• This is a subtle point, but I think the Obama fly-swatting incident is different, because if you read the articles, a lot of them merely mention the event in passing or tangentially...and the media coverage is more about PETA than it is about the incident itself. In this case, the articles are written directly about the computer tan hoax itself and there's not really any other big topics it touches on...the closest would be tanning--but the sources given are more about this hoax than they are about tanning. It's the quality, not number of sources that matter. Cazort (talk) 17:12, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - notable due to the unique nature of the campaign; it also received a hell of a lot of coverage in reliable sources not merely tabloid journalism, The Times, The Guardian, The BBC, The Telegraph. If you know anything about journalism, you'll know that these are very reputable broadsheet-newspaper publishers. This scams website demonstrates that it is a unique type of "scam", this marketing blog indicates how notable this is as a form of marketing. So to sum up, clearly not the realm tabloid journalism as the nom suggests, plenty of coverage in reliable sources, plenty of notability in the form of the campaign, the "record" hits received by the site. Big fat keep. – Toon 16:51, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly had no intention to accuse The Guardian and BBC of being tabloids, but the coverage they gave to the advertising campaign was BRIEF, analogous to the Barack Obama fly swatting incident which also had coverage from major, very reputable news reporting sources. It falls under the category of "current events" but NOT under the category of encyclopedic relevance. Every novel thing that gets "15 minutes of fame" does not warrant inclusion in an encyclopedia, especially here where the 15 minutes were generated by a purposeful advertising campaign, albeit for a noble cause. Its 15 minutes were over this past spring. Clever and altruistic, but just not of encyclopedic relevance. OfficeGirl (talk) 17:06, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. The article was featured on the Main Page on April Fool's Day. And notability is not temporary.SPNic (talk) 17:48, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep While I strongly support the WP:NOTNEWS guideline, I think it is too much of a stretch to describe coverage of this hoax as "announcements, sports, and tabloid journalism". This was a highly effective campaign that received detailed coverage in high-quality and high-profile news sources, as Toon's sources show. Cazort (talk) 18:17, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Three distinct sources, two of them the BBC and the Guardian, all directly covering the subject-matter in a non-trivial way. Passes WP:N, WP:CITE and maintains a neutral tone. No real gray area here that I can see. -Markeer 22:53, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. -- TexasAndroid (talk) 23:21, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete Whilst there are many news sources for this event they are all from a few days and nothing beyond that, there is no evidence of any prolonged coverage to suggest historical significance, the size of the news publication is of no relevence, this falls firmly into a news event not an encyclopedic event. --neon white talk 00:33, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I think it's a stretch to argue that the general notability guideline of "significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject" is not met here, news or not. The only possible quibble would be that the coverage is not significant but looking at the articles given as sources, they're written directly about this topic. I explained above in my comment how the quoted text from WP:NOTNEWS does not seem at all relevant here, as the coverage of this event is in no means routine...it's a quite peculiar event. Cazort (talk) 01:46, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Also, to state that "they are all from a few days" is blatantly wrong. This Daily Mail article from 11 May, This Guardian article from 29 March and This BBC article from 9 February. So... more than a few days between 9 Feb and 11 May? Perhaps you should do some more looking. – Toon 15:03, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per policy WP:NOTNEWS, which says "Wikipedia considers the historical notability of persons and events. News coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, but not all events warrant an encyclopedia article of their own." This hoax or stunt has no historical notability, and does not deserve its own article. Also see the essay Wikipedia:Notability (news). Wikipedia is not a directory or archive of every publicity stunt which got a bit of news coverage for a few days. Perhaps it belongs in Wikinews. Edison (talk) 03:17, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I think this very solidly meets the general notability guideline. While I tend to be very strongly in favor of keeping routine news and current events out of wikipedia, I think this article is very different. I also fail to see what is lost by keeping a topic like this. It is clearly verifiable. WP:NOTNEWS, as I see it, has the primary purpose of preventing the rapid editing back-and-forth on pages, wasting editors' time, and also, of making sure there is not disproportional coverage of material just because it is current. This is a self-contained topic; there's no issue of disproportional coverage, no issue of wasting time by back-and-forth editing. And I still fail to see how WP:N is not met. Cazort (talk) 13:47, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Note The section WP:NOTNEWS that you are referencing is currently under dispute. It would be more convincing if you could cast your arguments in terms of other guidelines that have a more strongly-established consensus. Cazort (talk) 16:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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