Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Valley Report

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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 no consensus. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 10:53, 26 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Valley Report

The Valley Report (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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New article created by SPA. I have attempted to work with creator by advising him on what reliable sourcing is. Article is about a little-known satire/faux news website created by a little-known comedian that has once or twice created a WP:SENSATION when an individual gag is mentioned in the Daily Mail or on Buzzfeed. Delete as WP:PROMO E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:07, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:52, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I disagree, I have listed several sources and examples of the hoax stories being reported as real news, just like the dozens of other satire sites with Wikipedia pages. It is not one of the "lesser known" satire websites, that is the opinion of the person nominating this for deletion. Use any buzz finder program or website and you can see its significantly more shared and viewed than most other satire websites on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yeahimadethis (talk • contribs) 18:52, 30 May 2016 (UTC) — Yeahimadethis (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. is a new editor and article creator.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:59, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Seems notable and sufficiently documented with 10 inline citations.--DThomsen8 (talk) 19:35, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can you be specific about which sources you regard as significant, reliable and independent as per WP:GNG, because aside from a debunking by Snopes of a viral Valley Report [1] , and one story in the Daily Mail [2], the citations consist of a handful of Facebook reposts of Valley Report faux news stories, most since removed by teh people who reposted them, believing that they were actual "news."E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:39, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • It doesn't matter how many "inline citations" there are when almost all of them are Facebook posts, which do not count as reliable sources under any circumstance.
  • Keep - There are four instances of Snopes debunking the articles as fake, far more than most entries on wikipedia. I am a new contributor but I don't see how that should discredit me completely. There are also dozens of radio stations reporting it as real, should I go find all of them and source all of them instead of just a few? The article was created 8 months ago and since then only one user has come along to discredit me, the article and the page of the founder, using personal opinions of how popular the website is instead of using facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yeahimadethis (talk • contribs) 19:04, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: The internet is littered with thousands of would-be-Onions. Oh did you miss the one about how Shailene Woodley Forages For Boyfriend, Finds Pauly Shore? Has this one crossed the line? Even if not, it would be nice if there was some place to write that its super duper fake.--Milowent • hasspoken 20:07, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Pretty much the only sources are the small handful of Snopes posts, which discredit a few of the individual hoaxes but do not really say anything meaningful about the website itself, and a single article on The Daily Mail that pretty much talks about the one, single fake news story and fake news in general, rather than about the website. All of the other "sources" cited on the page are Facebook posts, which are unquestioningly not counted as reliable sources. And, looking around, I can not find any other places that could be used to actually give some real reliable sources to the article. Looking at the related AFD going on right now, on the comedian who runs the site, it seems like there could be more of an argument made there for him potentially being notable. But even if the consensus over there results in him being declared notable, notability is not inherited and would have no bearing on whether or not the website he runs is or not. 64.183.45.226 (talk) 17:04, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete both instead as I have simply found nothing better to suggest a better notable article compared to the facts this is newly started and there's nothing particularly better convincing at all. SwisterTwister talk 07:29, 6 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, st170etalk 01:48, 8 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spirit of Eagle (talk) 05:23, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.
    1. Silverman, Craig (2016-05-06). "A Comedian Is Getting Tons Of Facebook Shares For His Fake News Articles". BuzzFeed. Archived from the original on 2016-06-16. Retrieved 2016-06-16.

      The article notes:

      The story is from the The Valley Report, a website that mostly publishes satirical articles. It occasionally puts out a fake news stories like this one in order to drive traffic and revenue, according to its owner, a comedian who goes by the name Dave Weasel.

      Weasel, a Canadian living in Los Angeles, said the story is one of the site’s biggest hits since it launched in August. His initial plan for Valley News was to publish satirical articles that offer an element of social commentary. But then he tried his first hoax and it instantly went viral on Facebook.

      His first hit was a fake news story about a woman who stabbed her boyfriend in the face because he took longer than 10 minutes to like her selfie. “That one just took off, getting hits and shares from all over the place,” Weasel said.

      As noted at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 188#Buzzfeed, Mother Jones for BLP's., "One of the challenges with sources like Buzzfeed is the wild inconsistency in article quality, so it really depends on the specific circumstances. If written by one of their real journalists as a legitimate news item, then it should be fine to treat it as a reliable source." And as another editor wrote, "BuzzFeed articles are, as [the previous editor] says, situationally reliable depending on who they were authored by."

      This article was by Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed Founding Editor, Canada. Silverman is an established journalist. At https://ca.linkedin.com/in/craigjsilverman, he noted that he was an adjunct faculty at the Poynter Institute, was a managing editor at PBS MediaShift, and was a columnist at the Columbia Journalism Review, The Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star. http://www.poynter.org/author/craigsilverman/ lists his Poynter Institute articles and this article from Poynter and this article from The Globe and Mail verify his background.

      Since this article was written by a reputable, established journalist, it is reliable and can be used to establish notability for The Valley Report.

    2. Gamp, Joseph (2016-05-07). "Viral lottery winner 'defecating on boss's desk' news story revealed as fake". International Business Times. Archived from the original on 2016-06-16. Retrieved 2016-06-16.

      The article notes:

      A recent news story that became a viral smash, detailing how a woman defecated on her boss' desk after winning the lottery and amassed tens of thousands of views in the process, has since been revealed as a fake by the story's author. Dave Weasel – who runs The Valley Report, a spoof news site like The Onion and The Daily Mash –admitted to BuzzFeed that the story had been fabricated, but was also one of the best stories to have been published on the site.

      ...

      The piece, headlined Woman arrested for defecating on boss' des after winning the lottery' was the site's most popular article in the site's nine-month history. Reportedly, Valley News earns Weasel "thousands of dollars per month from ads".

      ...

      Weasel, who is based in Los Angeles, stated that he thought the majority of people that read the article believed it to be true on first read. But he claimed that, "Most of the people that share it do not read it."

    There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow The Valley Report to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

    Cunard (talk) 06:03, 16 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • The Ibtimes links mentions the website briefly. The Buzzfeed is so so - considering the fact that it is easy to "get into" buzzfeed, it should usually not be used for purposes of notability. In any case, these are not enough. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 15:12, 25 June 2016 (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.
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