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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nude celebrities on the Internet (2nd nomination)

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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 Keep. The foundation of the push to delete this article is based primarily on two arguments: (1) it is an old article (by Wikipedia standards) and (2) it cannot be salvaged to meet Wikipedia’s editorial standards. Neither argument has the strength to support a call for deletion. The age of the article is irrelevant – whether it was written in 2001 by Mr. Wales and Mr. Sanger or whether it was written yesterday by an anonymous IP editor doesn’t matter and is not a policy-based issue. The second argument that the article cannot be salvaged is strictly an opinion, and one that does appear to be supported in consideration of the ongoing clean-up efforts by Mr. Wolfowitz (who was cited in the nomination) and the additional editing that began after this AfD nomination was put forth. For expanding the article, a Google Books search for “nude celebrity Internet” puts this subject into a historic perspective regarding the rise of Net culture (including references to using the Net to distribute fake nude celebrities photographs, which is an aspect not currently covered in this article). BLP issues can be addressed with mature editing, which also appears to be going on. As for the lack of photographs, well... :) Pastor Theo (talk) 00:59, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nude celebrities on the Internet

edit
AfDs for this article:
Nude celebrities on the Internet (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

OK, this is an unusual one, and needs a longer statement than the usual AFD.

This article is a genuine piece of wiki-archaeology. This was one of the original Wikipedia articles in 2001, and a version from 2004 became a Featured Article (those who say Wikipedia hasn't improved might like to try assessing that against the current Featured Article standards). Many significant figures of Wikipedia's early history - Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger, David Gerard... - have been involved with it in one way or another over the years.

But, Wikipedia has changed, and despite the fact that this was one of our better articles when Wikipedia was finding its feet in the early days of the decade, it doesn't really seem appropriate any more. The original article was written before our policies were in place so the authors can't be blamed for its problems. However, although Hullaballoo Wolfowitz has done a heroic job at cleaning it up, the fact remains that by current standards this is a mess of original research, unverified statements, unreferenced potentially libellous statements about living people, and biased statements based on personal opinion ("downmarket", "in high demand"...).

An earlier AFD nomination resulted in its skin-of-its-teeth survival, based on assorted "all these problems will be easy to fix" statements - but in the two years since then, the issues still haven't been fixed. Meanwhile, our standards have risen; what wasn't out of place five years ago, when these articles were considered Featured Article standard, looks very out of place today. The page is virtually orphaned when it comes to mainspace links, and although it has a respectable number of links from non-mainspace pages those are more an artefact of its longevity than of any particular significance, in my opinion.

This is potentially a contentious AFD nomination, because of the article's history - it's one of present-day Wikipedia's last surviving links to the wild-west Bomis days. But the fact that Larry Sanger wrote an article shouldn't make it immune. This may warrant a place in Wikipedia space as an exhibit in the "museum of early Wikipedia history". However, if this article turned up de novo in Special:NewPages, it would probably be tagged for deletion within minutes as a personal essay - and after eight years, I don't think it's going to get cleaned up. (If anyone is willing to have a go at cleaning this up, I'm more than willing to withdraw this nomination.)  – iridescent 16:38, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. Clean it up. Verify claims. Remove that which is unverifiable. There is nothing wrong with this topic or having an article on this subject. Kingturtle (talk) 16:54, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Valid topic, though it needs a clean-up. Sources are there aplenty: [1] JN466 17:06, 8 August 2009 (UTC) Change to Delete, unless cleaned up during the course of this AfD; allow recreation only with proper sourcing (preferably scholarly sources). JN466 17:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep have had a look and found some sources for the existing cases mentioned (took 5 minutes, can people who tag these articles not do this???). I think in order for it to be kept there needs to be more cases listed with valid sources.Mark E (talk) 17:40, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete per nom. Plastikspork (talk) 17:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Ridiculous. Who is a "celebrity"? Are you going to include all the porn stars who have appeared nude on internet sites? Or just movie stars caught by paparazzi? What about clips of movie stars who appear nude in films? At the very least we need a third party source (preferably scholarly, as Jayen466 notes) indicating this is a phenomenon worth paying attention to and clearly delimiting the topic. csloat (talk) 17:46, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom and csloat. Pointless. How is this encyclopedic? Just stupid. Lara 18:06, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and move. There's a coherent and interesting topic under discussion here, relating to the demand for and dissemination of nude photos of celebrities who are not pornography actors; but there's no reason to limit it to the Internet. The article already discusses magazines. I say move to Nude celebrities (over redirect) or Nude media of celebrities and clean up. Dcoetzee 19:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and clean-up, possible merge if there is an appropriate article on celebrities that this dovetails with. This is a notable subject and we can write about it encyclopedicly. If vandalism is an issue then start doling out semi-protection to quell the tide. Better writing and sourcing will also help curb the non-sense. These nudity scandals or in Madonna's case non-scandal publicity work, are common and are consistently top-selling editions in the tabloid world with nude pictures being a holy grail of sorts for some stalkerazzi's. This has become a sub-genre in films as well. -- Banjeboi 20:24, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Seems to perfectly embody the word "unencyclopedic." --MZMcBride (talk) 20:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how anyone can argue it's not a notable subject based on the number of sources discussing the phenomenon and examples of it. The title of the article seems like it could maybe be tweaked. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see anyone here saying it should be deleted as it's not a notable subject (although most of those Google hits are false positives). I think you may be misunderstanding the issue here; this isn't a matter of notability, but of verifiability, BLP violation, original research, bias, and indiscriminacy. – iridescent 21:22, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why not just delete the parts that are disputed and/or add citation needed tags. I haven't read much past the opening paragraphs, but BLP violations, bias and original research should just be removed.
Am I marked for Wiki-life for having made an edit to the article? I already did work on food and sexuality article. At least no animals are involved. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, CoM, the almighty pendulum impacts all arenas of society; if you are still alive when the neo-Victorians take over, I'm sure you'll be subject to public character assassination. Enjoy! Unschool 22:56, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and clean-up Notable subject and we can write about it encyclopedicly. -Snorre/Antwelm (talk) 21:30, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, unless substantially cleaned-up over the course of this AFD as per Jayen466. As it is - as it was before and after the first AFD - it does not adhere to WP:V. Location (talk) 22:03, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. Otumba (talk) 22:22, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I came across this expecting some prudish arguments, but actually, Iridescent is spot on. This wouldn't survive an AfD if it were a new article, and the fact that it's a former FA is irrelevant. It's a collection of random thoughts; calling it original research actually elevates it higher than it deserves. (And besides, as ChildofMidnight says, not enough pictures.) Unschool 22:27, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - discriminate and notable phenomenon. Please base this article on it's merits and avoid comparing it to other articles; its status and age have no impact on my decision and this would be my vote had it just been created. Plenty of sources are available, it just needs a bit of cleaning up. Artichoker[talk] 23:01, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep most definitely. I might be able to come up with some sources that would be useful. Lampman (talk) 23:02, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and aggressively remove problematic material. Even if that means turning it into a stub, not much longer than the lead. Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook
  • Comment. I can conceive some combination of Andrew's and Derrick's suggestions that could make this salvagable. Unschool 00:40, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Anything that can be salvaged from this article can easily be attributed to the respective articles. This is much too arbitrary. Nude celebs on the Internet? This would have been a Jerry Springer show at one time, given the 3 unrelated qualifications it takes to get here. Almost as bad as Cats That Look Like Hitler. Law type! snype? 04:07, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - I usually consider myself an inclusionist, and while this may technically meet WP:N, it's simply not suitable for inclusion within an encyclopedia. I disagree that it's discriminate info; in fact, the topic is extremely vague. Are we describing nude people who happen to have their pictures posted on the Internet? If so, then it does indeed fail WP:IINFO. All salvageable info (doubtful that there's much) can be merged into any combination of the many nudity-related pages. –Juliancolton | Talk 04:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and move to Nude celebrities - Naked celebrity photos are definitely a notable phenomenon. The article's title is inappropriate because much of the content isn't about internet photos and "internet" photos aren't particularly notable, since an image is just an image and the internet just happens to be the medium by which they are released. Also, I like it, it's useful, and it harms noone, plz dont dekete. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 15:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and move. I know I don't edit Wikipedia very often these days, but I was around back when Larry and co were editing this article. I agree that the phenomenon is rather independent of the specific medium these days (though the increased ability of ordinary citizens to disseminate material is significant), but the fact that there is such a huge demand for nuddy pictures of celebrities who don't make a career of taking off their kit is surely as least as worthy of noting as many of the untold range of other phenomena that Wikipedia accumulates information on. --Robert Merkel (talk) 22:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The question is whether or not nude celebrities on the Internet is a legitimate topic for an encyclopaedia article. The answer, even after reading the article and the misdirected nomination, would seem to me to be "why on earth not?" Is there a dearth of reliable coverage of the topic? Not by a long stretch. Is there any fatal spam/conflict of interest/self-referential element to the topic that would prevent us ever having an encyclopaedic article on it? Not as far as anyone has claimed thus far. Is it inherently unmaintainable? Having as its subject a dynamic topic that attracts low-quality contributions is no justification for throwing in the towel. Doing so after eight years, which, given that in the absence of a global data storage/electricity apocalypse this particular repository of information is likely to persist in some form for hundreds of years, seems foolishly shortsighted. No compelling reason has been offered to justify deletion.  Skomorokh  12:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I think many of those commenting above may have not looked at the article recently: it is, at present, not a list of people, but a discussion of the subject. To say this isn't a notable topic in the light of the sources quoted does not seem to make much sense. DGG ( talk ) 02:14, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Nods.) Read my reply to ChildofMidnight, above. This isn't a matter of notability, but of verifiability, BLP violation, original research, bias, and indiscriminacy, and I don't see any way these issues can be fixed - over any timescale. – iridescent 19:44, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Article has merit but needs to be cleaned up. I really have trouble with deleting a previous featured article even if it was not up to todays standards.... RP459 (talk) 03:11, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment If this was a featured article why does it not have a star showing that it was in the upper right hand corner? RP459 (talk) 03:14, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Because it is no longer featured, so the star was removed. Artichoker[talk] 03:25, 13 August 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.
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