Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Finland does not exist

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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. The key problems with the "keep" arguments here is that they were overlong or were challenged by others, whereas the "delete" comments stood their ground. An alternative outcome was Sandstein's suggestion to merge, as that would be a compromise, but nobody else picked up on it. The article itself was not improved much during the scope of the AfD, which while not a required action, may have been more a worthwhile exercise than arguing over the article's scope and potential for improvement. In a nutshell, though, too many people think this article is unsalvageable and its quality of sourcing is just not good enough. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:44, 18 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Finland does not exist[edit]

Finland does not exist (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)38.26.26.150 (talk) 11:12, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • This lacks encyclopaedic notability. And even the map given uses Comic Sans. Not serious, not notable, not even very funny. -- Evertype·✆ 17:40, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • – Evertype, I understand why you consider Comic Sans to be proof of non-seriousness, but I don't think it's a good argument. --Thnidu (talk) 17:10, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Conspiracy theories-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:41, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:41, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Finland-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:41, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep -- Evertype, you don't want to be part of the cabal covering up this fraud, do you? Rhadow (talk) 19:24, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a legitimate Keep rationale. Don't you be nose-counting, closer... Carrite (talk) 05:10, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:43, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:43, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Coverage does exist, even if Finland doesn't. The cited December 2016 Vice article [1] is a solid, in depth source for this fake-news meme. A very recent article in The Guardian includes this one in an article about "controversial claims that the web especially seems to love". Searches turn up other articles about this in sources like Indy100. If another solid source or two can be turned up I'd probably !vote to keep. (And then I would have to figure out where I was, exactly, on that day a few years back when I thought I was in Helsinki staring at the head of Sibelius.) --Arxiloxos (talk) 01:18, 3 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - just trivia, and absolutely lacks notability - Alison ❤ 03:07, 3 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, I suppose my least favourite Wikipedia guideline WP:FRINGE applies here. Articles about conspiracy theories need a significant depth of sources, this was just a flash in the pan internet meme. And an article which gives this much weight to the views of the "conspiracy theory" certainly wouldn't be allowed for certain other "fringe" topics... – filelakeshoe (t / c) 09:30, 3 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, even speedy delete. Obvious example of (mis)using Wikipedia for PR. Entirely non-notable (Reddit as a main source, really?) and only created to promote a non-notable artist. Jeppiz (talk) 10:07, 3 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Per WP:FRINGE. Article gives way too much weight to a joke/hoax and takes it seriously. Article is written as if the theory is quite possibly true. There has been nowhere near enough in-depth coverage in reliable sources to warrant an article. AusLondonder (talk) 22:01, 3 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep because it has coverage, it is about an event that happened, that is even socially interesting (artificially started conspiracy theory to check how those things spread) and I wouldn't be surprised if it resulted in a scientific paper or two. Izitpajn (talk) 22:10, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The fact you "wouldn't be surprised" if this joke led to a "scientific paper or two" is not really convincing. You need to show that it has actually resulted in a scientific paper or two. AusLondonder (talk) 22:16, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
With all due respect, Izitpajn, kindly read WP:CRYSTAL. Speculating that something might become noticeable sometime in the future is not an argument to keep it. And it does not have coverage in any notable source except Guardian, and even there only mentioned in passing. It clearly is not notable now, and that is what counts. Needless to say, we do not have articles on every newborn baby in the world even though some of them no doubt will become notable, and their birth may have been included in a local paper... Jeppiz (talk) 15:10, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This doesn't even really rise to the level of a real conspiracy theory. It's a recent concoction, and is pretty much limited to a bunch of bored redditors playing fan-fiction with it. The aren't a significant number of legitimate nutters out there a la flat-earthers or Area 51-ers or such. It's essentially a wikipedia page about a reddit page that a couple people in the media were duped into thinking had serious participants. — Preceding unsigned comment added by UniNoUta (talk • contribs) 16:17, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • (not !voting, but...) Before reading this page, I clarified the list of claims to make clear that none of them are presented as factual. I don't think that'll change anyone's vote, but it might be worth considering. — Also, if the article is kept, I suggest changing the title from "Finland does not exist" to something that states explicitly that it's a hoax / conspiracy theory. --Thnidu (talk) 17:07, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - whether it's a bona fide conspiracy theory (people really believe the Japanese invented Finland out of nothing to preserve fishing rights halfway across the planet) or a satire of conspiracy theories (some bored redditor decided to see if they could convince others that Finland is fiction, with hilarious results) the story has been reported in-depth by multiple news agencies generally considered reliable, and has been analyzed by well-known conspiracy debunking organizations. Some refs: [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7], all from Google's first page. KnowYourMeme explains that this originated on Reddit in December 2014; the earliest of these refs I've posted is from December 2016 (two years later) and there has been consistent detailed coverage of the meme throughout 2017. This doesn't need to be Paul is dead to be a notable conspiracy theory, it meets our general criteria for notability, and notability is not temporary. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 19:57, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete this is an attempt at citogenesis, and the sources are largely "look at this stupid thing on Reddit". power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:14, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - reasonable coverage in secondary sources. -- Longhair\talk 20:37, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I am somewhat surprised that editors with at least some experience seem to think that being mentioned in the news is enough. It's not, please see WP:COVERAGE which clearly states "An event must receive significant or in-depth coverage to be notable". We are nowhere near that here. While The Guardian is a good source, the fact that this joke has been mentioned in passing (in a list of a long row of other joke conspiracy theorists) doesn't come even near noticeable coverage. As for the other sources, they are either not really noticeable or they focus on the artist whose exhibition this is and would maybe be an argument for an article on the artist, but not on this. Once again, being mentioned in the news is not automatically an argument for being notable by Wikipedia standards. Especially not when the coverage is this limited. Jeppiz (talk) 20:50, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Jeppiz: Well I mean I'm surprised that you're surprised, since the General Notability Guidline is the rule usually consulted for this. The lede for this this rule says "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." Presumed, not guaranteed; but still -- presumed. The rest of the rule expands on this lede and gives details and examples, but does not contradict the lede.
The rule does not further elucidate on the word "sources". Since it's plural, it surely means more than one. Since it's not defined further, the assumption is that it means "two or more" rather than "three or more" or whatever; I have always taken it this way and I think most people do, and certainly many good articles exist that have only two main sources.
The rule defines "reliable" and "independent of the subject", and I don't think that these are at issue here. The Guardian is mostly reliable; Vice I'm not sure of, though. But FWIW no claim has yet been raised that the material is not accurate.
So the key question is the definition of "significant coverage". The WP:GNG says: "Significant coverage addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material."
For an example of "trivial mention" it gives the sentence "In high school, [Bill Clinton] was part of a jazz band called Three Blind Mice". This sentence alone would not be sufficient sourcing to create a separate article Three Blind Mice (band), unless there were other sources. I think most people would agree with that.
However, how much more that a trivial mention like that is sufficient to constitute "significant coverage" is not clear. But I mean this article is about 30 sentences long. That is a decent size for an article, far more than a stub and longer than many other articles. And it's all sourced, and none of it is really original research. So I think it is true that the article sources "address the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content".
I gather that you don't agree since you are basically saying that an entire 1,500-word magazine article along with six other shorter sources does not constitute "significant coverage". Maybe your opinion is that a 3,000-word article is required, or two 1,500-word articles or something. But I would submit that this is a pretty strict and idiosyncratic definition for "addresses the topic directly and in detail", a definition which I think can't be extrapolated from the rule as written, is probably not shared by most people, does not appear to be applied in practice, and if it was applied then probably, I dunno,k 20% of articles would be subject to deletion, which is a million articles... so hmmm. Herostratus (talk) 02:29, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Ivanvector, whose sources show that there is in-depth coverage from RS for this topic. The article content could be pruned to what is available in those RS, but that's not a matter for AFD. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 05:43, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and fast. I found out about this from a Facebook meme. Apparently this was created by trolls for a cheap Facebook meme.Dave (talk) 05:55, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Hoax notable for being a hoax. Carrite (talk) 13:44, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep -- 1. If it were true, it would be notable. 2. I just found this and want to tease a couple Finnish friends, is there an option to Keep for a couple of days? 3. Google Finland and exist. The headline is "Finland Does Not Exist -Wikipedia"; that ain't good for crediblity. 4. Seriously debating the notoriety of fleeting internet memes is only slightly less sad than discussing whether a young, female 'entertainer' has achieved a substantial enough oeuvre to qualify as notorious.11:12, 8 November 2017 (UTC)38.26.26.150 (talk)
We don't have articles on any of these topics, nor do I think we should have - yet they are all cited in that same article as Finland does not exist and receive the same coverage (very little and very superficial coverage). If there's a reason for treating this particular example in that long list differently, that reason has not yet been put forward in the discussion. Jeppiz (talk) 13:30, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: I have enjoyed some of the comedy !votes in this discussion but do the ultimate closing admin a favour and play it straight for the next week, would you?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, A Traintalk 07:25, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. A hoax, and not covered as a notable hoax. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:09, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Changed to Rename Finland does not exist (meme), or delete, following the author's explanation. Refer my post of 08:18, 16 November 2017. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:51, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Delete. Back to delete. Not a notable hoax, not a notable meme. There are no serious sources discussing the hoax or meme. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:02, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I appreciate this joke, and while it is generally amusing the amount of people that references it in their responses, can we at least keep the deletion discussion joke free? Anyway, onto my vote:
  • Delete. The sources referenced are all from tabloid news sites, and while there is a somewhat sizable community on Reddit, there just isn't enough attention and/or notability in justifying keeping it. If someone can find a major source for this, I would have probably voted for keep, but sources like the Vice and the Guardian just isn't enough to justify a Wikipedia article. Dark-World25 (talk) 11:30, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete As others have said a none notable Hoax, there maybe an argument for one line in another article.Slatersteven (talk) 17:35, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - There are plenty of other places on the interwebs to play games. The article creator can take advantage of them. MarnetteD|Talk 17:59, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete -- a nn internet meme, not even a "hoax". Wikipedia is not Know-your-meme. K.e.coffman (talk) 07:45, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Joke-free comment It is a serious matter indeed when editors claim that the Manchester Guardian is a tabloid news site. Perhaps WP should ignore all but Murdoch-controlled outlets, like Fox. Rhadow (talk) 13:31, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The Manchester Guardian"—what is this, 1920? The present-day (and London-based) Guardian has very little to do with its predecessor, and while it does still carry serious news reporting its online edition contains an awful lot of unashamed fluff and user-generated content (sorry, "open journalism")—while Guardian coverage, particularly in the print edition, can certainly be a reliable source in Wikipedia's terms, in terms of establishing notability it's roughly on a par with Buzzfeed. ‑ Iridescent 23:34, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "roughly on a par with Buzzfeed" -- what is this, 2014? BuzzFeed News, part of media giant BuzzFeed, has greatly expanded the size and quality of its news operation in recent years and is now on a par for reliability with many more famous operations. The Guardian is very notable and articles like this are as reliable as any other paper's. "Fluff" = "articles that I think are about silly things", not "articles that are inaccurate". See the diff? For this article, the question is "is it accurate"? It is. If you think the article is wrong then show some evidence of that, or at any rate evidence that the Guardian's fact-checking operation is sub-par and therefore the article might be inaccurate, rather than raising objections about fluff, which indicates littles. Herostratus (talk) 07:38, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per WP:NOT. gidonb (talk) 23:54, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Under this title, delete. If it were titled "Finland does not exist (meme)" I'd be inclined to keep. Cabayi (talk) 13:58, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. (Full disclosure: I wrote it.) Here's the nickle summary: 1) the article meets WP:GNG. 2) we have hundreds and hundreds of articles in Category:Internet memes, therefore 3) arguments for deletion must address why this particular GNG-meeting article should be singled out for deletion from Category:Internet memes, and 4) no such argument has been persuasively advanced and probably can't be. QED: keep. (The argument could instead be made that Category:Internet memes should be cleared out generally; since this would involve mass-deletion of hundreds of articles this would be some heavy lifting and would require a differently-structured discussion, and anyway that argument has also not been made here).
The detailed argument and some other points follow. You can skip them if you want to.
So let me bring forward a couple of points... The nom was "This lacks encyclopaedic notability. And even the map given uses Comic Sans. Not serious, not notable, not even very funny". My translation of this is something like "This is not the sort of article that I, myself, enjoy reading". But I mean so what? Not sure what "lacks encyclopaedic notability" means; the usual formulation is "lacks notability" by which the rule of thumb if WP:GNG (which we'll look at presently). "Lacks encyclopaedic notability" though sounds a bit too close to "Britannica would not have this article" which is true but not important. It is true that it is not very funny, but it is a little funny (the phenomenon, not the article). It's not as funny as Bielefeld Conspiracy though. Comic Sans I dunno what to say. I like Comic Sans on the merits -- it's welcoming without being too informal or weird and is reasonably well designed IMO (I know that, like Maroon 5 and Budweiser, we're not supposed to like it, but enh, I have enough trouble figuring what I do like without worrying about what I'm supposed to like.) You can change the graphic if you like instead of deleting the article. Or remove the graphic if there's something wrong with it.
OK so the nom comes down to "This is not the sort of article that I, myself, care to read" which is kind of a a poor nom, but OK, maybe the nom is not so great but it could still be a bad article. So let's see. Before getting to WP:GNG and so on, I want to back off and think about first principles. Why are we here? We're here to serve the reading public. Is the reading public interested in this subject? Yes, they are.
It says here that since the article was created it is viewed, on average, a little north of 300 times a day. There was big spike recently topping out at 44,000 views on October 29, but with an elevated viewership all around that time (11,500 daily views average October 26 - November 8 (when the deletion nom was made which may skew the numbers), but they've been falling and yesterday only 1,200 people read the article). But whatever; let's say 300 page views daily is the stable average. Whatever caused the big spike to 44,000 is, I suspect, what brought the article to... well, I don't suspect; I'm confident that the big spike and the deletion nomination are probably not coincidental. Which, on one level, fine: bad article, gets some eyes, one of those eyes sees that it's a bad article and bye-byes it. Legit.
Another way to look at it though, is:
  1. Got ourselves an article, here. Not a question of "should we spend time and resources to create this article?". Somebody already did.
  2. And the article's OK. It's written well enough, there's a picture, it's plenty long enough (not just a stub), NPOV, sections formatted correctly and all, has six refs, and maybe meets the WP:GNG (we'll vet the refs and address GNG presently). It's not going to win the Pulitzer Prize. It's OK.
  3. And it got popular! At least temporarily. For whatever reason -- mention in an article, on TV, whatever -- suddenly a whole lot of people want to come the Wikipedia to find out about this thing!
  4. Well I mean can't have that. Here's just the time to delete the article! I mean good Lord next thing we'll be providing information to people for chrissakes. RA-THA!
OK, we don't thinks this is the actual reasoning, but if it was we'd end up exactly where are are now: here. Hmmmn.
So I mean, OK, what I'd like to suggest is that if you want to delete the article, let's at least replace it with a template. Something like this:
OK, so a couple things... I mean, the delete arguments are pretty poor and mostly come down to "Not the sort of article I care to read". Here's a good one: "Delete and fast. I found out about this from a Facebook meme." I mean the person has a point. We want people to come here to look up stuff they saw in Boethius's sixth-century work The Consolation of Philosophy, not fucking Facebook (whatever that is -- some new amusement the peasantry has concocted, we guess). However, the comment "only created to promote a non-notable artist" is spot on. Stephen Sheehan offered me half his ham sandwich if I would write this article. =/
OK, but so there are are a couple of cogent points that can be made. Let's make them and address them.
First, not withstanding my rant, there are subjects that are are too outré for us to handle. Is this article one of them? No, it isn't. Let's go to the tape. Category:Internet memes introduced in 2015 has eleven members (this article is one). 2016 has 13, 2017 has 13, 2012 has 12, other years have fewer. But most aren't categorized by year, and Category:Internet memes has... well, hundreds and hundreds. So we do cover internet memes here quite a bit, as a point of fact. (I ask the reader to distinguish between "I wish the Wikipedia did not cover internet memes much" and "The Wikipedia does not cover internet memes much").
So but OK, just because we cover a lot of memes doesn't prove we should cover this one. Maybe it's less notable than those other memes. Our usual go-to rule of thumb for this is the WP:GNG. Does this article meet the GNG? Well, the GNG asks for "significant coverage in reliable sources" (note the plural -- at least two). It gives little further guidance on what is "significant coverage" -- a full-length book is, passing mention in part of a single sentence is not. Pretty big space between those two, but I think that the rule of thumb is "an entire paragraph is sufficiently more than a passing mention in a sentence to constitute 'significant coverage' in that source". Others may disagree, but I think this is kind of the de facto interpretation. I think.
Well, The Guardian has a paragraph, and the Guardian is highly notable (and reliable). Vice has a whole complete article of many paragraphs. Vice is not he Guardian, but it does have a Wikipedia article; it's not printed from spirit masters. How reliable it is I don't know. Those are the two legs on which a WP:GNG argument stands. I think they're sufficient: the article meets the GNG. Not with a lot of room to spare, but meets it. And there're five other refs which don't help near as much but at least don't reduce the article's argument to meet the GNG. And there are other refs available which aren't in the article. I think.
Since the days of Nupedia the general rule is that if 1) there's sufficient well-sourced material to write a decent article, and 2) people would be interested in the article, the the article should exist, if anybody cares to write it. Let's keep doing that. Herostratus (talk) 03:15, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Herostratus, off the cuff, interesting, but at the very least it is an unacceptably misleading title. Possibly Rename: Internet meme: "Finland does not exist", otherwise delete , and maybe try again via userfication without a shocking title. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:32, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, maybe a move is in order. Usually that's done as a separate WP:Requested move discussion, but the closer her broad discretion I guess. But a retitle would be some heavy lifting, although you have a valid point. At any rate I've never seen an article deleted because the title is wrong, since that is easily remedied. Herostratus (talk) 07:15, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Rename Finland does not exist (meme), and do it from here, close the lesser RM process. The title is an extremely important part of the content and it matters critically in this case. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:18, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nah. Looking for serious sources discussing the internet meme, initially looking for data for titling, serious sources don;t exist. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:02, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. sufficiently well sourced as a notable meme (personally, I think an actually famous one) It might be possible to improve the title. DGG ( talk ) 04:35, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I've initiated a Requested Move discussion on the article's talk page. Herostratus (talk) 08:07, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy delete total trivia, no notable coverage, non-encyclopaedic content. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:01, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I sincerely hope that if this article is kept, it will be rewritten, massively, to give off the impression that it is just a joke / internet meme, and not a conspiracy theory which might quite possibly be true. I understand that to an average dumb US American who has never left their country and has absolutely zero knowledge of the outside world, this "theory" might seem remotely plausible, but to anyone with more than a few brain cells to rub together, it is completely absurd, and it is even more completely absurd that WP:FRINGE disallows us from having proper overviews of topics like reiki as any sources that do anything other than criticise the "fringe theory" are not considered reliable, yet this 110% patently incoherent "theory" - which I can only assume is a joke, written by someone who wants to troll dumb Americans - is being given a soapbox tax-free and looks like it will be allowed to remain... unbelievable. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 12:10, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. In the bin with it. Finland exists, I know, I have been there. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 14:45, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Selective merge to List of Internet phenomena#Politics. Has some sourcing so merits some coverage, but the topic is so banal that there's little more to say than "this was a stupid thing people came up with".  Sandstein  06:56, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Let's take a look at where we are. The TL:DR is that my analysis of the discussion to this point is that we have strength of argument against a 2-1 headcount in favor of deletion, so it's a tough close which will probably result in a split decision (no consensus) I guess. Details of the process I would go through if I was the closer follow.
Let's start with headcount. It's not a vote or a popularity contest (and User:Carrite says above "Don't you be nose-counting, closer"), but headcount counts for something; it's a data point. It would be rare for a 27-5 "vote" for Keep to be closed as a "Delete" on strength of argument -- it's possible, but it would probably be contested. "Vote" totals that are pretty close are generally closed as "no consensus to delete" although they don't have to be.
To this point I count 18 to 8 in favor of Delete. That's 70% for Delete, which is a supermajority. Buttt... some of the "votes" are very, very poor -- so poor that I would pretty much discount them were I closing. Here's the Delete comments that I would discount:
  1. "Delete. In the bin with it. Finland exists, I know, I have been there". Non sequitur that has nothing to do with the discussion
  2. "I found out about this from a Facebook meme. Apparently this was created by trolls for a cheap Facebook meme". I can't really understand the point, although it's possible I'm missing something. Not clear how appearing in Facebook is reason to delete an article though, and not sure what Facebook trolls are or where they fit in here. I can't make any sense of this so I can't really count it.
  3. "per IDONTLIKEIT, IAR, and WP:WIKIPEDIAISNOTFOR GIVING LEGITAMCYTOJOKESNORISITKYM which is actually a legit policy that DOES exist, and I speak the Japanese to prove it!" Pretty much gibberish. But I mean "Delete per WP:IDONTLIKEIT" is pretty much the opposite of what IDONTLIKEIT says, WP:WIKIPEDIAISNOTFOR GIVING LEGITAMCYTOJOKESNORISITKYM is not actually a policy, and it's not clear what speaking Japanese has to do with anything. As to IAR, we want to be conservative about overusing IAR to justify every opinion that pops into one's head, and I can't really take its use here as serious, given the context of the rest of comment.
  4. "The sources referenced are all from tabloid news sites." It is so ridiculous to call the Guardian a tabloid that... I mean the assertion is not true, so the comment has no value, really.
  5. "Hoax notable for being a hoax." Uhhh... actually "notable hoax" is a reason to keep the article, so not sure what's going on here... could legitimately flip this to Keep, but since it's unclear what the person thinks, just discounted.
  6. There are plenty of other places on the interwebs to play games. The article creator can take advantage of them." There's a couple of reasons to discount this. It consists entirely of an insult, so this is a behavioral issue. The matter is, do we want to reward this kind of behavior by weighing the person's contribution the same as a regular polite person? Doing so tends to degrade the project overall IMO, and I have discounted contributions on behavioral grounds in the past. The question is, is the person just being snarky, is or she being an egregious jerk? I'm going with egregious jerk since this actually hurt my feelings, so discounted. Another entirely sufficient ground for discounting is that there's no argument there; its just an insult. The person did not enjoy the article I guess, but so?
That's six, so that brings the headcount to 12 to 8 for delete. There were other Delete arguments which were very poor but which I did not discount, although to be honest I think the closer should. "Delete per WP:NOT" is extremely vague and not very helpful, "Speedy delete total trivia, no notable coverage, non-encyclopaedic content" is OK but the person does not understand what Speedy Delete is, "Under this title, delete. If it were titled Finland does not exist (meme) I'd be inclined to keep" which is just a title issue, but the title probably won't be changed. "Obvious example of (mis)using Wikipedia for PR. Entirely non-notable (Reddit as a main source, really?) and only created to promote a non-notable artist" has a problem since it's not a PR piece and I know nothing and care less about Stephen Sheehan, so that part is false (and kind of insulting), and also Reddit is not the main source so that's not true, but "Entirely non-notable" is OK, so I didn't discount the comment. " Article is written as if the theory is quite possibly true" isn't true anymore although it was when the comment was written, an example to be careful about wanting to delete articles based on their current content.
My personal opinion is that almost the delete comments, even the ones not listed above, are pretty poor... "just trivia, and absolutely lacks notability" means "I don't like it" and "lacks notability"... I mean there are a lot of "unnotable" assertions, but the article meets WP:GNG and I'd like to see addressed why that doesn't matter rather than just hand-waving... "This lacks encyclopaedic notability. And even the map given uses Comic Sans. Not serious, not notable, not even very funny" is kind of polluted by the references to Comic Sans and "not serious" (so?)... I mean all these arguments are just poor.
On the other hand, for bad Keep "votes" we have:
  1. "you don't want to be part of the cabal covering up this fraud, do you?" The person is just joking, so discounted.
  2. "If it were true, it would be notable..." and some more discourse which amounts to nothing useful. IP editor and this is his only contribution so far. Discounted.
That's it, which leaves the headcount at 12-6, which is 67%, about where we started. That the "vote" is 2-1 matters in my opinion. On the other hand the Delete arguments are almost all poor. here is MSN as a source. Here is Culture Trip, dunno how notable/reliable they are; Skeptoid whatever that is. Oh, here is Indiatimes which is part of the company that publishes The Times of India which is the paper of record for India (1.3 billion people). So... I mean just bare assertions of "absolutely lacks notability" with not even an attempt to explain away these many notable reliable sources... how useful is that as a contribution to the discussion?
Not all of the Delete arguments are poor; "Articles about conspiracy theories need a significant depth of sources" is a reasonable assertion I think, although not grounded in any rule. There are a few comments which rise to this level, although not many. The only rule I recall being invoked for Delete is WP:FRINGE which doesn't actually apply; it would apply if there was any part of the article that asserted that Finland did, in fact, not exist. But there isn't.
Kind of a tough close because you've got great strength of argument versus a 2-1 majority. If it was me I'd split the difference and punt to "argument not proven" (no consensus) I guess. Herostratus (talk) 07:57, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the break-down. I see no no problem with an editor, no matter their level of involvment, "appiont themselves prophet" and post a break down. Stuff like the above is actually helpful. L3X1 (distænt write) 14
55, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment I already outlined my reasons for delete two weeks ago and did not intend to comment further, but as the creator of the article argues rather aggressively and pings me, I wish to add that I find it rather strange, even inaccurate, that the creator sums it up to a majority versus great strength of argument. In other words, if you agree with the creator, then your argument is automatically good. I do not think this kind of battleground arguments are helpful in this discussion, nor in any other one. Herostratus, you have made your case like anyone else; you created the article and want to keep it. No need to go off on long tirades like you've been doing here, and definitely not a good idea to appoint yourself the interpreter of opinions in an AfD about an article you wrote. Not helpful. Jeppiz (talk) 13:49, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I'm not sure why I'm being pinged to this wall of text. I'm not sure why this pretty obvious Delete close was held over for additional verbiage. I'm not sure why some people think the meme of the day somehow becomes encyclopedic even though it is not covered in reliable sources, beyond cursory coverage of "what a stupid hoax — look how stupid people are" fare. Carrite (talk) 17:42, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Selective merge to List of Internet phenomena#Politics per Sandstein. Mentions in reliable sources but still pretty less for having separate article. D4iNa4 (talk) 18:03, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - per good third party sources. That the subject conspiracy based is irrelevant. Overall very weak reasons for deletion from those saying !Delete.BabbaQ (talk) 18:06, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Why has nobody presented these good third party sources then? Have anyone saying 'keep' actually bothered to check out the sources. The Guardian briefly mentions it in a long list of other silly hoaxes, none of which we have articles on. There is nothing even closely resembling the "in-depth coverage" that WP policy explicitly states should be necessary. (Also somewhat annoyed at some of the !keep-voters, like the user above, who says that those of us saying delete have weak arguments. If you make such a general statement, you should at least be able to develop why you feel those with a different opinion have weak arguments. For the record, many of us saying !delete have shown in some detail what the weakness with the !keep-voters is: they seem to think that just a brief mention in a good source is enough. Those of saying !delete have shown that that is not the case (per current policy), we have highlighted the importance of "in-depth coverage" (also per current policy) and actually gone to the third party sources and seen how negligible the coverage actually is. Now, you may not agree with us, that's fine - but do try to be a bit more constructive than just saying "weak reasons" without any hint of analysis. Jeppiz (talk) 20:36, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I did present these good third-party sources. I'm repeating myself, but I'll try again. In order to be a good source the source has to be reliable which basically means the source has a good fact-checking system. The source probably also ought to be at least a bit notable, although is not stated at WP:GNG. So at the risk of repeating myself let me present this in more depth. Once again, here're the sources, from three continents:
  1. The Guardian. Reliability: They're an old and famous publication; the assumption would be that they fact-check their articles. They're large enough to probably be afford to do so, and it would harm their business if they didn't. No evidence has been presented that they don't have some kind of fact-checking system. Notability: One of the most-read news publications on the planet. . Length of material: A paragraph, 117 words.
  2. Vice (magazine). Reliability: Read the article. 20 years old, "print magazine and website focused on arts, culture, and news topics"..."the magazine later expanded into Vice Media, which consists of divisions including the magazine and website, a film production company, a record label, and a publishing imprint"..."Vice magazine includes the work of journalists, columnists, fiction writers, graphic artists and cartoonists, and photographers. Both Vice's online and magazine content has shifted from dealing mostly with independent arts and pop cultural matters to covering more serious news topics"..."Entire issues of the magazine have also been dedicated to the concerns of Iraqi people, Native Americans, Russian people, people with mental disorders, and people with mental disabilities". OTOH they are an Immersion journalism entity and have some other non-standard. They're a large operation it looks like. I don't know what their fact-checking system is. They've probably got something but can't be sure. Notability: Circulation 900,000, website is Alexa rank 115, so yeah. Length of the material: Complete long article.
  3. Indiatimes. Reliability: "Indiatimes is the flagship brand of Times Internet...an Internet subsidiary of The Times of India Group, under which some of the largest websites in India, The Times of India, The Economic Times, Navbharat Times and Maharashtra Times, operate", so they're large enough to afford a fact-checking system. The assumption must be that they do have a reasonable fact-checking operation absent evidence to the contrary. Notability: Based on the above quote, widely read in India. Length of the material: Short article, about five paragraphs.
  4. MSN: Reliablity: Large and famous operation bearing the Microsoft brand, so presumably reasonably reliable. Notability: Alexa rank 43, so yeah. Length of the material: short article -- couple paragraphs, 238 words.
  5. Culture Trip: Reliablity: Don't know. It's a real operation, not just somebody's website. The executive team is nine people. Never heard of them and there's no proof that they fact check but no indication they don't. Notability: they say they have 11 million site visitors per month. Whether that's true or whether that is high or low amount I don't know. Length of the material: Complete long article.
  6. Skeptoid: Reliability: Dunno. They're a lot more than a random website, they have a board of directors and all that. They're a charitable operation, their mission statement is "Skeptoid Media produces free educational materials and STEM-focused informational and entertainment content, made available to educators and individuals worldwide, concentrating on critical thinking and scientific skepticism." What that says about their fact-checking I don't know. Notability: No idea. Length of the material: Complete long article.
  7. Bodahub. Reliability: No idea. They look like to be a real operation and not just a random website although this could be false front. Staff size unknown, so I'm skeptical that they're very reliable. Notablity: Dunno. Length of the material: Complete long article.
  8. Studentabladid: Reliability: Probably not very. I think they're more than just someone's website, but can't prove even this. Notability: My guess is "not very". Icelandic operation, which FWIW there's another country writing about this (four so far). Length of the material: Couple paragraphs.
  9. A Particular Act. Reliability: They're describing Sheehan's show which they hosted, so very reliable for this particular set of facts. Notability: None. Length of the material: Couple paragraphs. It's about Sheehan's act rather than the meme itself.
  10. Art In Liverpool: Reliability: Seems a reasonably sized operation, and probably reasonably reliable for this material. Notability: Some, probably, but just in Liverpool. Length of the material: Couple paragraphs. It's about Sheehan's show.
  11. Helsingin Sanomat: Reliability: It's the largest newspaper in Finland, so yeah. Finnish operation, so that's a fifth country chiming in. Notability: Largest paper in Finland. Length of the material: Can't tell, since you need subscription to read it.
There're some more, probably not amounting to much though.
So I mean, OK. Some of these sources are not in the article, so it's excusable to not know about them. I didn't know about Finnish paper till now, nor the Indian site until someone else pointed it out, and fine. We're a team here working together to figure this out, and now we've found that there definitely are enough reliable notable in-depth sources on which to base an article of reasonable size and quality. So now we know that and we can't say anymore that we don't, so good, we can move ahead, discarding that argument.
Now what a person can say is "Sure, there are plenty of reliable notable in-depth sources on which to base a reasonable article, and the article meets the WP:GNG, but the article should nevertheless be destroyed because __________". But I haven't seen anything much good to go in the blank, so that's why the Delete argument is weak. There are things that can go in the blank for some articles: "is inherently a WP:BLP violation". "Is an WP:POV nightmare and we'd be better off starting from scratch". "Violates such-and-such policy". And others.
But I haven't seen anything like that for this article. What I've seen is off-the-the cuff waving away of the entire article, display of personal prejudices which basically devolve to snobbery, and unsupportable assertions that there are not sufficient reliable notable in-depth sources on which to base an article of reasonable length and quality, when there are. That is why I say the Delete arguments are weak. Because they are. Herostratus (talk) 09:59, 18 November 2017 (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.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Finland_does_not_exist&oldid=1137849509"