Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Meow Wars

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 Keep. JWSchmidt 21:04, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Meow Wars

Delete. Yeah, a flame war on USENET is really encyclopedic. If this is encyclopedic then about half of the arbcom cases are too. karmafist 23:41, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete per nomination, unless we want an article space biography of Willy on Wheels too. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 23:49, Dec. 23, 2005
• Keep. The article has been on WP since September 2003, and describes a notable series of events. The VFD appears to be part of Karmafist's recent and bad-faith campaign against Usenet; see [1] and [2]. Andy Mabbett 00:04, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Leave Karmafist alone. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 00:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Strong keep most usenet flamewars are surely not notable (I've been involved in several and witnessed many more) but some are, particualrly when there are real world effects. Shutting down the mail-servers at Boston University alone is enough to make this notable IMO, and being the, er, catalyst for the adoption of digital signatures in usenet control msgs is an even stronger reason to regard this as notable. One may diappapprove of or dispise internet trolls and vandals, but when they have real-world effects, we should report on them. DES ^(talk) 00:14, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete - Wikipedia needs articles on every flame war that ever happens. And arbcom is a court of law in Trenton, New Jersey --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 00:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Weak keep - I remember these events and have heard reference to them since then. I'm not sure that the label of 'biggest flame war of all time' is accurate, but it was certainly a notable event which established a 'Meow Wars' meme which people might wish to look up. Keeping an article on one notable flame war is not synonymous with keeping articles on all flame wars. It might be better to cut down and merge this into the Flaming article. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 01:20, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Strong keep.... the Meow Wars literally changed the way Usenet conducted itself and was an important test of extreme free speech on the internet. wikipediatrix 01:33, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Weak keep. Seems slightly notable, but laden with POV. I remember WoW voting on the last one. -- Natalinasmpf 01:36, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep - This was the great granddaddy of flame wars. Endomion 01:38, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete Now nearly ten years on, we can reasonably measure whether the "Meow Wars" have had any lasting impact. The answer is not really. The article doesn't mention any substantial aftereffects outside usenet besides vague references to the fact that Web forums tend to be more moderated (they are, but not directly because of the Meow Wars). The article has no mention of any mainstream coverage by the media, no books, newspaper citations, etc. Finally, I count 151 unique Google hits out of some 350 total. If anything, it should be merged into a Usenet or flaming article. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 02:32, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Considering that the History section of the Usenet mentions none of this, the only Links To are from the "see also" sections in a handful of articles, and based on the miniscule google hits, I think it don't even deserve to be a redirect to Usenet. Flyboy Will 03:44, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Weak keep: seems to have affected Usenet as a whole.—Stombs 05:42, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Strong keep. This isn't just another flamewar. This is the flamewar. It pretty much brought most of Usenet to a standstill, and was basically the beginning of the decrease in the signal to noise ratio for the social parts of Usenet. There wouldn't be much in the way of google hits or mainstream press, as this was during the time that the Internet was still in its infancy and most of the MSM had not heard of the Internet, and the documentation of what exactly happened isn't great--all we have is the content of the flame war, so there's not much on the Web about it, as this was still three years before the creation of the first web browser. --Thephotoman 08:20, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Strong delete. In 100 years nobody will remotely care about this specific incident. If not deleted, I strongly urge merging this into a flamewar or generic usenet article. —Locke Cole 01:40, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

In 100 years will anyon remember Sharon Tate (a featured article)? Whther or not something will be remembered in 100 years has got to be one of the worst reasons for deleting an article. Johhny-turbo 00:02, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep per other's keep arguments above. 100-year rule is good idea but would require massive gutting of pop-culture articles. Herostratus 04:46, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep again, and again, and again.  Grue  21:26, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep per above. --badlydrawnjeff 15:59, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep per above. Significant event, article seems well written and topic is notable and encyclopedic. All IMHO of course. ++Lar 07:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 13:16, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
• Strong keep. --King of All the Franks 13:36, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Keep- having real world consequences is preety big Johhny-turbo 23:57, 28 December 2005 (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.