Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elf Life (2nd nomination)

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. Consensus to delete. There are three editors who said keep. One who feels that it is a "very weak keep" on the basis that a single award may provide notability but acknowledges that policy may not support that and that sources are lacking. The other two editors merely agreed with the first, with no more detailed rationale. In contrast, there is significant policy based argument, and consensus from the editors favouring delete. TigerShark (talk) 22:09, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Elf Life

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I sent this to AFD in January, and it was closed as "soft delete" due to a lack of participation. It was then taken to WP:REFUND by user @Gormongous:, who argued that the comic winning a Web Cartoonist's Choice Award, and that it was gathered in print collections, were enough for it to be notable. The user further claimed Secondary sources on Elf Life are difficult to find, given the regrettable tendency of creator Eric Gustafson to paywall, abandon, or delete his work once he grew frustrated with or tired of it, but it was a major artistic presence on Keenspot until its abrupt hiatus in late 2004, enjoying crossovers and references from other significant comics on the site like Avalon and Clan of the Cats.

I do not feel this is a valid argument, and does not address the lack of WP:RS. As of right now, the only sources in the article are Wayback links to the comic itself, or the WCCA's website. I found absolutely no results on Google News, Newspapers.com, Google Books, or ProQuest, and the comic name turns up <30 hits on regular Google. Winning the WCCA is not a sign of webcomic notability in and of itself if no further sources exist; see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jack (webcomic) (3rd nomination) as but one example. If there are indeed sources hiding somewhere, then Gormongous or any other editors arguing to keep must prove that reliable third-party sources exist. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:27, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Comics and animation and Webcomics. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:27, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The current article has no significant secondary sources – I agree that the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards are not significant because it does not provide much information about the comic – and I could not find any. HenryCrun15 (talk) 03:07, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. Can we discuss more how winning Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards is not enough? As a rule of thumb, winning a notable award IMHO makes something pass WP:GNG. Do ping me if you reply here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:00, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Applegeeks (2nd nomination) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sabrina Online (2nd nomination) are the first two AFDs I found where winning WCCA was not enough to save the article. I hardly see how the WCCA is a "major" award if it only existed for seven years. The utter lack of secondary sources should absolutely be weighed more greatly. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 16:39, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You are right that most did not consider this notable, but frankly, I see only one good argument against and one for regarding this award in the second AfD. Overall, I don't think we established a consensus this award is not notable (also the closer disagreed). Back then the award did not have its own article, it does now, so this further invalidates the old consensu. While I often agree with you, this time I'll dissent and stay by my week keep, as I think thea award has been shown to be notable (per sources cited in the article it has now), which by extrapolation means that it confers some notability to its winners, IMHO. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:09, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete – I have to agree with Ten Pound Hammer and HenryCrun that just a single award is not enough to establish notability. The entire rest of the article is currently original research, citing only the primary sources. There doesn't seem to be any reliable third-party sources to base an actual article around here. @Piotrus: I simply don't believe that one or two awards give us much to work with when it comes to writing an encyclopedic article. I consider each award a single secondary source no different from a magazine article, personally. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:34, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Maplestrip While I am often on the deletionist side of discussions, I to believe that winning a recognized (notable) award makes something notable. That's my interpretation of GNG's concept of significance/importance. The Award was mentioned in NYT: [1]. It's not invisible. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:12, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Piotrus: I don't want to judge this based on the WCCA; if it were an Eisner I would feel the same. Specifically, I don't believe that an award listing on its own counts as "significant coverage," as it does not "[address the topic] in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content." Moreover, I would note that GNG speaks of "sources." It doesn't speak of a singular source being enough. GNG says nothing about the significance/importance of the subject itself, and awards aren't mentioned in the guideline at all. A single award organization, no matter how prestigious, is to me not sufficient. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat)
Indeed, rules support your version, but they are also inconsistent in application - we often accept an award as significant in some other context, including WP:NBIO. In either case, I agree more sources would be needed, hence my week keep, which, frankly, is a very weak one. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:10, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Piotrus: I would personally be concerned if a BLP had only a single secondary citation (to an award). I would argue that it is impossible to write an article conforming to BLP policies if there are no reliable sources about them. Of course, usually, anyone who wins a suitable award will be written about by other sources too, so I'm sure this doesn't come up too often. Webcomics journalism is sadly quite niche. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:57, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It is, and it's a fact this comic has not garnered much attention from more mainstream media, not too mention academia. If it goes, it goes, no big loss, but I do think it is valuable to discuss the case of such awards. At minimum, it will make 10PH's case stronger next time someone asks why this award is not sufficient, as I did. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:14, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Piotrus: Do you think we should move this conversation somewhere else (such as WT:NBIO), or at least link/archive this discussion somewhere relevant? I expect this deletion will be closed, the article will be deleted, and our conversation will never be read again. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:46, 7 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Maplestrip The odds are this was discuss somewhere before, but yes, a discussion, maybe at WP:GNG, about what awards/prizes confer notability, might be useful indeed. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:58, 7 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There were a couple of discussions related to notability of the award, but not about whether winning one gets you an automatic WP:GNG pass. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 00:16, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Star Mississippi 13:37, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per WP:ANYBIO as Piotrus has said, major award. Lightburst (talk) 13:52, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So sources mean nothing now? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 17:54, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also, what proof is there that the WCCA is a "major" award? As I pointed out, several other webcomics that won WCCAs have still been deleted because of the sources not being there. And there are no sources here. Did you find any I missed? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 17:56, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - per Lightburst. Mathmo ^Talk 15:10, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So sources mean nothing now? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 17:54, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
TPH, you don't need to ask the same question multiple times to multiple editors. You know that. Star Mississippi 18:12, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Since WP:ANYBIO has been brought up several times above, I just want to point out that it rather explicitly states "People are likely to be notable if they meet any of the following standards. Failure to meet these criteria is not conclusive proof that a subject should not be included; conversely, meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included", emphasis mine. Even if the WCCA is determined to be a notable award, winning it is not an automatic guarantee that an article is justified. And the fact that there is no significant coverage in reliable, secondary sources about the comic included in the current article, none has been presented in this AFD by any of the Keep arguments, and that I could not find any myself upon searching means that this is one of the cases where it is not. Rorshacma (talk) 18:09, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per what has been said above. I've heard of it, and I know that's not the test of notability, but I think it is notable and can be improved. Andrevan@ 22:36, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Improved with what? The 18 hits this gets on Google? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 22:54, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Changing my !vote to Delete because I can't find anything in any databases or searches. Andrevan@ 23:14, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: The general notability guideline (GNG) is coverage in multiple substantial reliable independent sources. The Web Cartoonist Choice Awards are not substantial coverage; the web pages associated with the awards do not go into detail about the comic, its publication history, its contents and storylines, etc. They only state the name of the comic, the author, and that it won the award in question. So the WCCA can't help a webcomic meet the general notability requirements. And overall I don't think GNG is met; apart from the WCCA, I only found brief coverage on ComixTalk - again not substantial. Separate from the general notability guideline is the line in "Notability (web)" which says, "web-specific content may be notable [if] the website or content has won a well-known and independent award from either a publication or organization". However, I would not call the WCCA "well-known". As such, I recommend deletion unless more independent sources can be found, or unless a case can be made that the WCCA is "well-known". HenryCrun15 (talk) 05:11, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To minimize confusion, I will note that you had already !voted above, Henry. Going into more detail is good of course :) ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:12, 18 July 2022 (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.