Wiki143:Articles for deletion/A Chipmunk and a Lizard

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 of the debate was to delete. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 16:00, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

A Chipmunk and a Lizard

This was a disputed prod. The editor who removed the prod without comment doesn't seem willing to engage in discussion. I've given my reasons on the talk page in hopes of getting the article to improve, but there's been no response. Anyway, the reason I suggest deleting is that there are no sources and no indication of significance for this website, and the alexa ranking shows no data whatsoever. This seems to fall far short of WP:WEB, and if no reputable third-party sources are talking about this, we can't do much with it either. Friday (talk) 14:39, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Delete as NN; a mighty twelve unique Google hits and no Alexa ranking. (That aside, I wasted three minutes of my life going through some of the strips, and it's bloody lame. I need to go wash my eyes out with Diet Coke now or something.) By contrast, I follow two semi-daily webcomics. Something Positive is a reasonably popular strip, and has 27,000 Google hits, an Alexa ranking of 12,761, and its edit history on Wikipedia is several hundred deep. Questionable Content has 72,000 Google hits, an Alexa ranking of 8,243, and likewise edit history on Wikipedia is several hundred deep. Ravenswing 15:04, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment While I appreciate the NN suggestion, the above suggests to me that an important criterion is that the proposer simply didn't find the comic funny and hence not worth propagating. This is possibly the only difference between the aCaaL comic and other, Wikipedia-featured, web comics. There is a following for the web comic, albeit not a huge one. Also, it is clear that Google does not find all related webpages, as the missing link to http://www.harpingchipmunk.me.uk/chipmunk-lizard.shtml exemplifies. Cream-T 19:11, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I commend to you the words "That aside." There are a lot of painfully unfunny comics out there (anyone laughed at Family Circus this decade?) that are notable by way of circulation and verifiability. This one fails; if Google didn't find all the related webpages of one webcomic, it would logically not find those of ones far more notable. Traffic a thousandth of Something Positive still sucks. Ravenswing 20:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

That's not it at all. I find Hitler horribly unfunny, but we have an article on him. This is about verifiability, and (for those who believe in it), notability. Friday (talk) 19:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• This has been listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Webcomics/Deletion. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 15:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

What does this mean? Do the people who know about webcomics think this should be kept? I'd certainly welcome input from folks who have better knowlege of the subject matter. Friday (talk) 15:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Comment It's just a notification that we have added this AfD on own list of pending deletion nominations. If the individual members of the WikiProject have opinions, they will post them here. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 16:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - And, as much to the point, a lot of (usually insignificant) webcomics get written up as articles, a lot get AfDed in return, and no one wants to see any deserving ones fall through the cracks; I remember Sabrina Online, which was legitimately one of the earliest known ongoing web comics, getting AfDed a month or so back. Ravenswing 16:33, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Yeah, but for the record, the Sabrina AfD was an obvious case of bad faith. Someone was irritated that his furry comic of choice had been nominated, so naturally he plopped an AfD notice on the most popular furry comic. I killed that AfD before it went anywhere. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 16:40, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Now would be the time for someone with knowledge of the subject to make the case for keeping it. Generally, a comic strip with only 330 Google hits is considered not notable enough for a Wikipedia article. If there is significant information that would counter this, now is the time. :) Dlohcierekim 16:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as non-notable. Incidently, their homepage is all but telling people to vote and keep the article.--Nydas 18:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Hi, I'm Jonathan, one of the creators of the strip. I understand the grounds cited for deletion (except that the strip isn't always lame). But if it counts for anything, my partner and I have been posting the strip every weekday for four years now, we have a readership, and we are committed to keeping the strip going. If you need to delete it now, I'm hopeful that one day a Wikipedia entry will be warranted (i.e., the strip will be more widely known). When we stumbled upon the entry last night, we just thought it was nice that Wack'd About Wiki had written up something about the strip. (I see now that some additional notes were added by another attentive reader for us to thank.) (Sorry about the "ballot-stuffing" scare. We thought it was neat that someone put us on Wikipedia and wanted to tell our readers. When we saw there was a little controversy this morning about it, we amended the note to tell them that it might not be here forever.) JTh 20:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Delete: non-notable web comic. I see no evidence of significant print publication, or third party sources. --Hetar 20:02, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nomination (lack of reliable sources, doesn't meet WP:WEB) -- Dragonfiend 22:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Not notable and “Editors should avoid contributing to articles about themselves or subjects in which they are personally involved, as it is difficult to maintain NPOV while doing so. :) Dlohcierekim 22:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete no Google hits, and author doesn't seem to particularly care either. M1ss1ontomars2k4 23:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete nn per Ravenswing. Author doesn't seem to care about this article, so why should we (or anyone else, for that matter?) M1ss1ontomars2k4 23:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Does repeating a comment make it more valid? And I think the "author doesn't care" argument is not only a dubitable interpretation of the author's intent, but even more so a dubitable reason for deletion. Cream-T 07:09, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

• Delete for reasons listed. DVD+ R/W 23:51, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: Jonathan here again. Obviously, we hope the article might be allowed to remain to stay, though we realize this is looking unlikely. Watching this discussion has been a little rough and there are a few things I wanted to get across:

--I want to make sure it is understood that my partner and I are not the Authors of the Article.

--I want also to apologize for having edited the Article, as a related party. I did feel a little funny about it after I saved my changes. (I went in to fix some spellings and clarify the identification of the masks two of the characters wear.)

--It was a coincidence that I found the Article in the first place, a few days after it was posted. I was at Achewood for the first time in a while and clicked their link into Wikipedia. While I was in Wikipedia, I thought I'd check to see if anyone had done anything about our humble strip. It was a lot of fun to find out someone had, but in light of what has followed, I might rather it had come and gone without my knowing about it.

--Sorry the Author hasn't been back to defend his putting it up; 11-year-olds are pretty busy people, I guess. 8^)

• Comment: Sorry, Jon, it's not that I'm busy, Wikipedia has been down at my house and as we speak I'm using recess time to defend the article from AfD. This is my favorite strip, it has a following, and I didn't know about Google, try Yahoo and you might find it's more...acurate. I'm find a way to keep the article. Heck, I've already came up with a solution! --Wack'd About Wiki 15:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

--We get the most visitors on our page on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and I would have been curious to see what contributions may have been made to the article if it were still there by then. Maybe none, but it would have been fun to see how a Chipmunk and a Lizard article might have evolved in the community environment of Wikipedia.

--We don't have the hugest readership, but we do have a following. It's not the worst-looking strip, either, and it's in for the long haul. So it just seemed to us like the kind of cultural artifact that would be included in the world's largest encyclopedia. That's why I feel a little confused and a little chagrined by the discussion. But as I said before, if the Article is dropped now, I'm hopeful its return will be warranted sometime in the future.

Anyhow, thanks for reading.. JTh 02:03, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment You might want to check out Comixpedia, which has a MediaWiki-based encyclopedia devoted specifically to webcomics. It's pretty damn spiffy. We even use the same license, so you can copy and paste the version that's here directly over there. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 16:43, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

• There is now a version on Comixpedia here. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 01:19, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• It looks nice, Abe, spiffy even! Thank you for taking the time to copy it over.. JTh 02:47, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I don't really understand what reason there could be for deleting this article. It describes a current work of fiction in a clear and straightforward way. The work it describes is an honest and sincere human expression. Neither the article nor the work it describes is self-serving or vainglorious in any way. A wonder of Wikipedia is that it can catalog our culture with unprecedented breadth. The comments about how the work has not yet caught on with a large number of people seem beside the point. What matters is that the article describes a legitimate bit of the world.VtPerry 22:13, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - The reasons are founded in that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with narrowly defined pertinent entry criteria: verifiability and notability. The clarity of the subject's prose has nothing to do with it, nor does the putative honesty or sincerity of the expression therein, nor the level of (or lack of) vainglory, That the work has not caught on with a large number of people is exactly the point. The most idiotic, meretricious and slovenly artwork imaginable, fit only for subhumans, merits articles as long as enough people care about it. That's what matters here. Ravenswing 22:56, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Delete- Irrelevent. No evidence of prominence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ted87 (talk • contribs) .

• Comment: I moved aCaaL to one of my userpage subpages, so you can edit it without worring about AfD. Problem solved. --Wack'd About Wiki 15:55, 16 May 2006 (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.