Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Spoke card

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 Non-admin closure. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 02:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Spoke card

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There are no independent, reliable sources that tell us anything about bicycle spoke cards. We can verify that a spoke card is a card you stick in your spokes, but that is a dictionary definition. They have been used for advertising and messages, but no quality sources treat that fact as notable. Without sources, there's no content, and without content there's no article. Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:59, 16 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose deletion -- I just added sources. Obviously spokecards are an expression of a subculture within the cycling community, but they are widespread and have been put to a wide range of purposes, as evidenced in the article, which much more than a dictionary definition. This article is far longer than many established stubs. -Ahalenia (talk) 22:08, 16 February 2014 (UTC)Ahalenia[reply]

Keep: @Ahalenia: seems to have done a really good job, I'm not seeing any issues. Might be on the edge of WP:FAN, but not enough to delete. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 22:34, 16 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Can anyone explain how the passing mention of the word "spokecard" in the two books added in any way comes anywhere close to meeting the standard of "significant coverage" in the notability guidelines? I saw both these books before I submitted this AfD, and indeed they do verify that spokecards exist, and that sometimes they have advertising on them. Those two data points can be conveyed in a single sentence in Bicycle culture or Bicycle. If spokecards are a signficant expression of culture, or an expression of anything, then why is there not even one single article that takes spokecards as its main subject? The way we know something is significant is by the amount of attention that good, independent sources give to it. This is a classic case of Existence ≠ Notability, or WP:BUTITEXISTS --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:07, 16 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Chas. Haine does talk about spokecards in ways other than advertising in his book. I left out blogs, which go into spokecards in detail, since they are not acceptable sources. I've poked around the articles in the DIY Culture and the Bike parts categories, and Spoke card is better developed and better referenced than many of them. Dustcap, anyone? Ahalenia (talk) 23:32, 16 February 2014 (UTC)Ahalenia[reply]

Yep, the blogs and forums don't count, so let's not speak of them again.

Searching Questia I found "Inaugurating 2 Wheels; Bikers Get around Closed Streets", The Washington Times, January 14, 2009, where it says, down in the 4th paragraph, "[Bike valet] users will receive a commemorative ticket and spoke card." Then, via HighBeam, we have "Iowa Farm Groups Come Together To Bring Fun, Farmers And 'Free Food!' To 2011 Ragbrai Riders", States News Service, July 6, 2011. This is only a press release, btw. It tell us they're staging a bike rally about Iowa agriculture, and at each checkpoint they'll hand out spoke cards. Gale (publisher) has zero mention of "spoke card" or "spokecard". Even these two articles, which required resorting to paywalled databases to dig up, do not have spokecards as their subjects. They're about something else, bicycling during the Presidential Inauguration and an agriculture themed rally, and they only mention the spoke cards along the way. Neither article even dwells on the significance of spoke cards, such as by giving us any facts indicating the cards are important.

When I say the cards are used for "advertising" I mean they're a medium: you print stuff on them, whether it be commercial adverts or messages about your group identity or whatever. The problem is, none of our sources consider that important. They mention it, then move on to weightier matters. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:04, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Looking deeper, I'm beginning to lean towards possibly a Merge, tho my vote's still with Keep. The coverage is definitely there, and I can tell you from personal experience that it was definitely a thing, but if we can't find a source that's irrefutable, a merge would be acceptable. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 04:06, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. They're not restricted to a subculture; it was common for kids in America (of a bygone era, at least). It made a Wired top 5 list and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and San Francisco Bicycle Coalition teamed together to give away free ones.[1] The sheer volume of blogs about them and eHow, Yahoo Answers and WikiAnswers questions, while not individually useful, are collectively so. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:10, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Ten million self-published sources like blogs and eHows and Yahoo Answers are as just as meaningless as one. Collectively, any number of self-published sources add up to zero, because zero plus zero is still zero.
  The press release from SFMTA could lead to notability, but only if independent sources find it notable enough to write about. And even then, the press release is about bicycle safety, not spoke cards. Spoke cars are not the subject. The "top 5" list is actually "5 Inexplicable Fixie Fashions", a blog post at Wired by a Charlie Sorrel who has a total of 5 blog posts there, all in 2009. It's an attempt at humor, considering one of the things Sorrel calls "inexplicable" is the Brooks Saddle, a highly respected component that the author himself admits he has. A blog post on economics by Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman would be a reputable source, but a blog post by a non-cycling expert who is spitballing contradictory jokes about hipster fixie riders is not evidence of anything.
  I'm shocked so many editors find these paltry sources to be evidence of notability. If this were a company or a person, it would be obvious that this is trivial, incidental coverage and passing mention. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:47, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If you really want them, here is an article about spokecards in a newspaper (print and online); here's one in a magazine (print and online); and here is a published essay in an art exhibition catalogue (print and online). Ahalenia (talk) 22:50, 17 February 2014 (UTC)Ahalenia[reply]

Yes, of course I really want them. Directly citing significant coverage of the subject is the only point of these AfD discussions. Thank you. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:30, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:19, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:19, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Not surprisingly it was a quick search to find independent, reliable sources that tell us about bicycle spoke cards. [2][3] The very heavy commonness of the activity is what's notable about them.--Oakshade (talk) 01:18, 20 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Again, passing mention proves spoke cards exist. It fails to meet Wikipedia's standards. WP:GNG requires significant coverage, not merely a sentence or two in a book. The closest anyone has come is an article about a Cherokee artist who uses spoke cars as a medium above. I think that is a story about an artist, and not about spoke cards, but at least it's within the range of a reasonable argument. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:25, 20 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

These historical independent, reliable sources that tell us about bicycle spoke cards are beyond the scope of "passing mention". The Wired article mentioned above is substantial too. --Oakshade (talk) 01:35, 20 February 2014 (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.