Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barack Obama Joker poster

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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 delete. The keep votes are significantly weaker that those requesting deletion. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 02:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Barack Obama Joker poster[edit]

Barack Obama Joker poster (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Minor blip in the "OMG Obama!" universe, wholly unworthy of a standalone article. See past discussion for Michelle's arms and Barack's fly-swatter, namely the idea that simply being mentioned in a smattering of reliable sources is not enough of a threshold to make a subject article-worthy. Tarc (talk) 00:02, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete as nominator. Tarc (talk) 00:02, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, I clicked past this the other day and wondered if it should be deleted. The page was originally about the guy who made it then moved to be about the poster. While there is coverage it says little outside of "a guy took the Time cover and made it look like the joker", and then "flickr have banned the Joker poster". Trivial mentions do not an article make. Darrenhusted (talk) 00:09, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: per WP:OR and WP:N.. South Bay (talk) 00:14, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Question: What do you find to be WP:OR in the article? Jpatokal (talk) 08:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete for lack of notability. Bfigura (talk) 00:52, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. WP:N states that a topic is notable if it has "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", a criterion which the poster easily meets, as the references include articles in the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, MSNBC etc which are entirely about the poster (and not, as asserted above, "trivial mentions"). The poster is already easily the most recognizable Obama artwork since the Barack Obama "Hope" poster and a Google search for "obama joker" gets 4.4 million hits, compared to eg. 28k for "obama fly-swatter" or 867k for "michelle obama arms". A quick date-sorted search on Google News indicates that, over one month after breaking, the story is still receiving plenty of coverage and has even become a standard symbol of anti-Obamaism, as in Many protesters at the meeting held similar signs, which depicted President Barack Obama as The Joker from Batman and said "Organizing for National Socialist Health Care. (NBC). Jpatokal (talk) 02:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I am not disputing that it has received coverage in some reliable sources, but there is also the "presumed" aspect of the notability guidelines to consider, which dovetails into WP:NOT#NEWS. The article doesn't even do a thing to assert its own notability, which is why the PROD should've been allowed to stand and save us a lot of time. Tarc (talk) 12:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Briefly put, the image's notability above and beyond being an artwork stem from it capturing current public disillusion with Obama, in much the same way that the "Hope" poster captured the pro-Obama zeitgeist last year. I've added several refs and quotes regarding this to the article. Jpatokal (talk) 03:00, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. As Jpatokal accurately argues, the article subject meets the GNG.. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 04:22, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Per WP:N. Encyclopedias do not have articles for every individual political attack. Do we have an article about how people compared George W. Bush to a chimp], or how opponents compared Lincoln to an "Ape Lincoln?" Many presidents have been ridiculed, and in general the attacks are unencyclopedic, Edison (talk) 04:47, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I say we merge and redirect whatever can be saved into Public image of Barack Obama. That article already has a small excerpt, but I believe it can be slightly improved. --> RUL3R*flaming | *vandalism 05:09, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agree with merge and redirect. The Obama/Joker poster is significant and worth documenting, but it is too early to tell whether it is significant enough to move into its own article. Tim Pierce (talk) 15:41, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: This is the moral equivalent of WP:ONEEVENT. For pity's sake, do we have articles on every media blip a politician ever has? Is there an article on the (then) notorious Jimmy Carter rabbit incident? (No.) Is there an article on George Bush bicycling into a tree and cracking his arm? (No.)  Ravenswing  08:48, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: It seems odd to me that people are voting delete based on WP:N considering the amount of press coverage it continues to get. This really isn't a "smattering" of coverage like the nom. suggested. Metty (talk) 15:20, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This article is now in a good condition.Clearcrash1 (talk) 13:01, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Honestly the recent edits are a bit of a mess, as the sources do not support the claims made. This needs a bit of a going-over. Tarc (talk) 14:28, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: this article was created by User:Grundle2600, who is topic banned from political articles. TomCat4680 (talk) 19:16, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: The sources in the article show that the poster passes WP:N. I don't see why anyone would match a poster with WP:NOT#NEWS. Joe Chill (talk) 21:31, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: This article, which mentions the poster, although not intrinsically about it, appears to be just 6 hours old [1]. This editorial on the poster is just 3 days old [2]. There are also a number of extremely recent articles about the poster on Google News. [3] Metty (talk) 02:43, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Sourcing is not the issue, as I made note of in the nomination rationale, so continuously bringing up a point that no one is contesting is getting to be a bit pointless, don't you think? With 24/7 media saturation and the unfortunate tabloidization/sensationalist bent of mainstream media that sensationalizes some pretty trivial garbage during a slow day, just being "reliably sourced" simply isn't enough to justify an article. At the risk of crossing the "other stuff" line, I will, again, point out the arms and the fly. News heads talk about the First Lady's arms, other news heads talk about the talk...The President swats a fly in an interview, news heads talk about it...a kid photoshops an Obama poster, someone else adds a word and makes posters, the news heads talk about it...
    Will any of these three events have any lasting, indelible notability this time next month? Next year? These are the sort of deeper issues that should be discussed when we decide if a topic has sufficient, lasting value/significance to warrant an encyclopedic treatment; not "I saw it in 10 different sources this week". If all we can say is "yea, it happened and some people talked about it", that doesn't cut it as far as the "presumed" aspect of the WP:GNG goes, im my opinion. Tarc (talk) 03:04, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's almost exactly my point. The fly is a one-off event similar to the rabbit incident mentioned previously and isn't getting mentioned any more, however the poster is being used again and again (see the first article I referenced in the comment for an example). The poster wasn't just used once and forgotten. There is even more than one version of it [4] and several different captions other than socialism (which I'm looking to put into the article). Metty (talk) 03:27, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Don't get too excited at there being different versions. It's a fairly standard meme. There's a widespread and far more controversial meme about Glenn Beck doing the rounds, and I don't think we're going to create an article about that. Fences&Windows 01:49, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep well referenced article, I don't see what the deal is here. Nominator admits there are a "smattering of reliable sources", and this, to my knowledge, is not policy whatsoever: "simply being mentioned in a smattering of reliable sources is not enough of a threshold to make a subject article-worthy." Ikip (talk) 18:09, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: WP:NOTNEWS. Wikipedia doesn't cover every controversy of the moment. That's way too low a bar. Dmin (talk) 20:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note: This user made their account 3 minutes before the vote and that is their only contribution to WP. Metty 02:40, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge: While notable to a certain extent, this shouldn't be an article. Place it in another Obama article. SMP0328. (talk) 00:41, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Stub it and merge to Public image of Barack Obama#Depictions. We don't need to cover everything about the Obamas in excruciating detail, per Michelle Obama's arms. Wikipedia is not a news site, so every little burst of news doesn't need its own article. It's a photoshopped poster, for heaven's sake. Have some perspective. Fences&Windows 01:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Should the Depictions article be split out from there instead first? ;-) --Mokhov (talk) 04:25, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - As distasteful as I find the image/theme to be, it is a valid, visible aspect of the US' current political discourse. The story behind it is interesting - and nicely covered here in this article. This should be a no-brainer to KEEP. --AStanhope (talk) 02:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: passes WP:N, and WP:OR is not applicable. The article is well structured and referenced. I concur with AStanhope on the distasteful aspect of it, and so do I concur of its actuality in the US on-going politics. --Mokhov (talk) 04:22, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: This image has legs; it's still being used. For instance, just this morning it is an image on a protest sign illustrating this story today in the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gop-fringe14-2009sep14,0,940651.story. Given this, it seems that people might want to look it up to see how the image originates, etc. While Wikipedia is not a news site, it is often a place where people go to find out more information about frequent news topics.Smontg2 (talk) 09:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • For what it's worth, I think that the "merge and redirect" suggestions achieve the same end. Tim Pierce (talk) 16:40, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Agreed that if redirect is included with the merge, that would be acceptable enough. I still think it passes WP:N (which I ought to have noted above). Smontg2 (talk) 00:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This is about as notable as giving Stephen Harper's picture where he holds a kitten it's own article. (http://broadcastthis.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/stephen-harper-kitten.jpg). It's been used in countless facebook groups to laugh at Harper, and many online campaigns and so on. Notability doesn't mean "mentioned on the interwebs", see WP:BLP1E (and replace "person" with "anything"). Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 23:28, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Mentioned on the interwebs" isn't quite the same as "continues to be used in stories for major newspapers" in my view. If Harper's image with kitten is being used in Canadian town halls to mock him, then maybe it deserves its own entry, too. Also, if the image continues to be used over a long period of time, the likelihood increases that people will look it up, wondering where this iconic representation originated. Smontg2 (talk) 00:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, it continues to be used to laugh at Harper, we're just not a nation who takes a joke and blow it out of proportion, and if we did so, we'd be drowned by a bunch of non-Canadians saying "c'mon, that's not notable". This is a prime example of the WP:Systematic bias of Wikipedia. What's next, Barrack Obama fly incident? That made the news too. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:19, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • As mentioned earlier, we actually did have such an article for a time; Barack Obama fly swatting incident. The same criteria applied then are equally applicable now; insipid, not-news fluff. Tarc (talk) 02:30, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Whoops, edit conflict. Anyway. As Tarc said... that incident was already talked about. That is a single event with no lasting coverage. This is not a single event. The image is used more than once and continues to get a lot of press coverage. Metty 02:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - High EV. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    EV? Tarc (talk) 02:30, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Entertainment value? Smontg2 (talk) 03:38, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Notabilty? ok! NPOV? ok! thus keep! -- Donar Reiskoffer (talk) 07:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep widespread media attention and cultural significance justifies the presence of the article. Abyssal (talk) 13:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Not notable enough for an encyclopedia article. This will be forgotten in a year. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a news site. Kaldari (talk) 18:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • What about the option of merging that article with another Obama article? SMP0328. (talk) 18:47, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Public perception of Barack Obama#Depictions already has a short mention of the image, which is about all this silly issue is worth. If people wish to redirect this article to that section, I have no objections. 19:33, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Delete, though we may wish to consider a protected redirect to a section of another article afterwards. This is scurrilous nonsense that is a textbook example of WP:NOTNEWS. Past precedent indicates we don't cover "internet memes" when they reflect unfairly and negatively on living people. As someone else said, this will probably be forgotten in a year; if not, we can always reconsider it then. We don't have an article on George W. Bush chimpanzee comparisons and we shouldn't have this either. *** Crotalus *** 20:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't see how this can be called an internet meme -- quite the contrary, the image only achieved notability when it started appearing in physical posters and being extensively covered by mainstream media. Jpatokal (talk) 02:26, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. If George W. Bush chimpanzee comparisons were used with any effectiveness, even if only as art, I'd want an article on that, too. If unfair to Obama (I think it is) let it show for what it says about those who deploy it. -MBHiii (talk) 21:32, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, none of the deletion arguments have any merit, and all seem to be different variations of "if we do this, then we have to do this". Meets WP:N. Lampman (talk) 22:03, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    One could say that about many of the keep arguments as well, in that they fall into the "If it is reliably sourced, it 'must become an article" wiki-fallacy. Tarc (talk) 22:33, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    When I attempted to get Neurotically Yours deleted recently, the consensus was to keep for exactly that reason. I believe the problem is that large number of editors believe that RS = N. I believe a clarification of the notability policy is in order. SMP0328. (talk) 22:43, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I find WP:N quite clear: it states that "substantive coverage in reliable sources establishes a presumption, not a guarantee, that a subject is suitable for inclusion", and that a consensus to the contrary is required to overturn this presumption. For this particular article, such a consensus is manifestly lacking. Now, if you would like to change the guideline, you can try to do so at WT:N — but this page is not the place for it. Jpatokal (talk) 02:26, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I want to draw attention to Jpatokal's comment, because I think that sums up this issue nicely. No consensus, no delete--and there is clearly no consensus. Smontg2 (talk) 12:58, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Jpatokal says it well. For an article to be deleted even though it meets WP:N, it has to fail one of the WP:NOT criteria (WP:DIRECTORY, WP:INDISCRIMINATE etc.) I can't see that this article does, and neither does there seem to be a consensus in that direction. Lampman (talk) 14:20, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, it's verifiable and reasonably well-written. Notability is not policy. - Draeco (talk) 02:49, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - In the template:Public image of Barack Obama under the "in other media" section, there are only positive articles supporting Obama. Keeping this and adding it there would actually better help the NPOV and reduce bias a bit. Another option is to move or rename the Artists for Obama article. -- penubag  (talk) 06:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Blatantly against WP:NOT#NEWS with a lot of WP:RECENTISM in the mix. Brief spurts of media coverage unfortunately fool some people into the illusion of long-term historical significance. The same user also creating Barack Obama fly swatting incident, Michelle Obama's arms, and Michelle Obama's influence on style and fashion is a testament to an inability to separate Wikinews-type material from encyclopedia entries with long-term historical notability. Spellcast (talk) 07:04, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Journalism is the first draft of history" Abyssal (talk) 15:50, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete - Not nowhere near important to be on Wikipedia. --A3RO (mailbox) 07:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, Political satire has always been permitted. Both parties and all Presidents are subjected to it. I do not see this as racial in any way shape or form. While I'd like to see it all stopped, that will never happen. So I guess it's fair game... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.80.61.113 (talk) 13:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Meets the general notability guideline, as can be seen from all the reliable sources at the bottom of the article. Even if this turns out to be a negligible blip in the course of history, Wikipedia is not paper and has plenty of room for such information. --Itub (talk) 17:52, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep It has plenty of media coverage. Also, this is a currently used symbol by a notable political group, found at all of their gatherings. There are two references in the article on the statement that it is used as a symbol by the Tea Party protest movement. Dream Focus 23:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - The article clearly satisfies notability requirements. Multiple reliable sources have covered the poster's controversy. WP:NOTNEWS does not apply to this article because a) The poster is not an event; it's a form of political "art", and b) The controversy surrounding the image's removal from flickr and the poster being used by anti-Obama protesters demonstrates periodic news coverage. Although some may find the image distasteful, the article meets necessary criteria and is in no way an endorsement of the poster's message. APK say that you love me 02:17, 17 September 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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