Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suzy Q

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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 there is clearly no consensus to delete this‎. If there's any desire to shuffle the content around, perhaps to the company article or a standalone list, that can continue to be discussed, but that discussion need not take place here. (non-admin closure) Alpha3031 (t • c) 06:40, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Suzy Q[edit]

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Suzy Q (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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As I said in my PROD, the only coverage I found which appears to be reliable is the Today.com article which is already here. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 23:36, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I want the article kept. It's probably not gonna be, which is why I didn't bother making a serious argument. It doesn't meet the WP:GNG, which most people won't dig deeper. (I get it, people are busy, and statistically that usually works.) [Update: per drilling down shown below, can be made to meet the GNG if WP:HEY is done, so probably will be kept 17:08, 13 October 2023 (UTC)]
If I was going to make a serious argument, it would be along these lines:
1) It's an OK article. It's not offensive, promotional or like that. It costs us no effort to make it; somebody already has. There's no reason to give a person searching for info on this entity a 404 rather than this article.
2) It's a somewhat well-known product as its been on grocery shelves across America. A non-zero number of people are going to want to learn about it (Unfortunately the page count will tell nothing, because most people are looking for Suzie Q, or Susie Q). Looks like the article should be renamed to Suzy Q (snack cake), the string "Suzy Q" should be a redirect to Suzie Q which is a disambig page, and this article listed on that page. That is, technically, against the WP:AT rules, so can't happen. Rules!)
3) The First Principle is "Wikipedia is an an encyclopedia" and that page states that the Wikipedia "combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias". "Encyclopedia of American Snacks" would be a reasonable, if specialized and obscure, thing to exist. The rule doesn't say "includes the contents of existing specialized encyclopedias", it says we should have the things ("features") that specialized encyclopedias would have, namely a bunch of entries (often short) about various small details of specialized areas. And as a matter of fact, there is a specialized encyclopedia that contains an entry for Suzy Q: "The NutriBase Complete Book of Food Counts". True, the title says it is a "book" rather than an encyclopedia, but are we going to fuss about details of title wordings? The book "Eat This, Not That! The Supermarket Survival Guide" isn't an encyclopedia, but it does have an entry where it provides useful details for the cakes. They weigh 57 grams, 220 calories, and son on. We also learn that (as of the book's publishing year) "One Suzy Q has 50 more calories than a Wendy's Jr. Original Chocolate Frosty".
There are a number of other similar-type books that mention the product, mostly tiny entries in diet book. But we do learn from the "Flash Gordon" comic book that in 1965 that we could "[f]ind 3 fullcolor [baseball] cards printed on specially marked boxes of Twinkies Cakes. Cup Cakes, Suzy Q's and other Hostess snacks." All these small datums add up to a reasonable article.
There's also something about Suzy Q's in, believe it or not, the scholarly book "Animals and Agency: An Interdisciplinary Exploration", the chapter "At the Top of the Hierarchical Ladder", page 291, "[The] Owl finally accepts a Hostess Suzy Q snack cake. Even this small alteration from her own diet, however, prevents her metamorphosis for several hours, entrapping her in a human-animal prison and effectively denying Owl her identity." Her identity! Bigdome college talk there. And you thought it was just a snack cake. Anyway, there's a entry for your "In science, literature, and the arts" section right there.
There's plenty enough there to make a perfectly good, if short, article. And, in theory, there's a link right above to look in Google Books. Not really complaining, no blame, I forget to do all the WP:BEFORE steps usually. We all do. But at least in theory we should try to be more diligent. Note to self also.
4) You're cutting a hole in a matched set. Category:Hostess Brands brands has ten entries. Granted this article is much smaller than those others (at this time), but still. And there's even a template which includes our cream-filled delights along with its brethren. I can't post it here for technical reasons, but here is the link: {{Snack cakes}}
So now we are putting a redlink in this template. When that's the case, to me it's a data point to consider: do we want to do this? (I call this the "broken windows" approach to deletion; don't just throw rocks at random windows, either leave them intact or bring the whole structure down). There's no rule about this, but I we're not supposed to be too rule-bound.
But, in addition to all this, apparently the product is going to be made again, and there's plenty of coverage of that. I get that OP didn't catch that, I have made the same mistake often enough, so again no blame, and I only saw it 'cause I dug deep for this post. But here is a whole short article from the Today show, and there are some notices in the business press. There's your article right there.
Sorry to rant on, but you asked. No serious criticism intended. I know we get a firehose of crappy articles every day. I happen to latch on to this article, in real life we can't spend that much time on all these entities, deliciously cream-filled as they may be. But now I see that somebody could WP:HEY it with all these refs.
TL;DR: Keep. Snack cake. Herostratus (talk) 04:00, 13 October 2023 (UTC) [minor edits 16:55, 13 October 2023 (UTC))][reply]
  • Merge to Hostess Brands §Products, which will improve the suggested merge target article, as per WP:ATD-M. North America1000 06:57, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Not sure how appropriate merging to that specific section would be given it's currently just a bulleted list, but I would support merging to elsewhere in the article; perhaps the History section would be more appropriate. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 10:09, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Prefer Hostess (snack cakes)#Products as merge target. I'm not concerned about the fact that the section at either proposed merge target is a bulleted list; each bullet point could reasonably be expanded. Suriname0 (talk) 19:33, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with this notion directly above from Suriname0, that the bulleted list can easily be expanded, which would also improve the article. North America1000 09:17, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Products-related deletion discussions. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 10:07, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I removed a template from this discussion which was interfering with the layout of all of the other AFD discussions on the daily log page. Liz Read! Talk! 07:05, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thank you. It was weirding the layout here too. Herostratus (talk) 16:55, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Natg 19 (talk) 23:59, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weak keep Mentioned here [1], just barely at notability. Oaktree b (talk) 00:44, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. When I saw this AFD, I thought "of course, they're notable". However, after searching, I cannot find any significant coverage. THe only coverage I could find amounts to 'these things exist and they're coming back'. Not enough. -- Mike 🗩 17:54, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep barely meets GNG Andre🚐 00:38, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: So far, arguments to Keep, Delete and Merge but No Consensus
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 23:10, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Mnmh. Why are we relisting this again? It's not a vote, but if it was a vote, it'd be 3-2 to keep (including nominator) and one merge which seems unlikely. For the arguments, even if you want to believe that mine are worthless and not worth refuting or paying attention to (whatever, it's you all's life) and all that is at issue is a GO/NOGO based on the WP:GNG, you've got a 3-2 edge on people saying that it does meet the GNG (or could) and, c'mon, it does, at least bu a little. Sheesh. Herostratus (talk) 16:08, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Herostratus, I appreciate your thoughtful contributions to the conversation here. But this isn't a vote count and I don't see a consensus here. Closers, above all else, do not want to be accused of "supervoting", inserting our own opinion into the close or taking sides. But since you object to my response, I'll not take further action here and will let another closer decide how and when to end this discussion. They might see things differently than I did. Liz Read! Talk! 07:22, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
User: Liz, I was wrong, you were right, and thanks for the relist, better safe than sorry. I just get frustrated that these AfD's (I seldom come here) seem to be populated by editors who seem to treat WP:GNG as an ironclad core foundational rule. We lose a lot of OK articles that way I suppose, and basically give a good "get lost" to the people who researched and wrote them, to boot. Hey, I vote Delete more often than Keep, but for actually not-OK articles. And for all I know, four more editors are going to come here and chime in with "four legs good, two legs bad" "Doesn't meet GNG, delete" or "Delete per nom" and the closer will be like "OK, 6-3 to delete, deleted", with with an explanation consisting solely of "The result was DELETE". I've been assured that there's no serious shortage of admins, and no need to add a class of civilian AfD closer, so I've got to figure that this is considered best practice.
AfD does't work very well anymore. Maybe it did before our Eternal September, I can't remember. We get too many false positives. I suppose for deletion also (I don't come here much): "Worthless article, but unfortunately meets WP:GNG so must keep". Do something else, people. A group of 20 picked studious admins who decide. Yeah, I know, "the community". Fine, if we could school people on, I don't know, what we're supposed to be doing here. Fetching info out of the world, out of darkness and obscurity and decay, and putting in a nice package interlinked with other nice packages, an overview (good enough for most people, and often pointers to good deeper material for those for whom it isn't), all verified with nice refs, that makes the internet not suck so much. Rather than "Congratulations! You've deleted your first article!"
I'm not getting why giving readers a 404 instead of this article which already exists is helpful for that. I've never gotten a good explanation for that, and I've asked many times. I know, I know, I'm typing into the void. Whatever. Makes me feel better anyway. No need to reply if you even do read this, I'm just venting.</rant> Sincerely Yours, Frustrated. Herostratus (talk) 22:16, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Very very weak keep per Oaktree. Just barely enough for me before I vote for merge. I'd be inclined to vote for a stronger (relative term) keep per the very long paragraphs Herostratus said but if I were to talk about WP:N I definitely would doubt this would meet it. S5A-0043Talk 12:53, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Oaktree. Bookworm857158367 (talk) 13:27, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to Hostess Brands §Products as an AtD.  // Timothy :: talk  21:58, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge. Yes, beloved childhood memories. Yes, some sources exist, but coverage is shallow rather than significant. A merge is almost always preferable when there is a vigorous debate to keep or delete, there is a useful target to merge into, and the discussion implicates that at least a minority of active users find the information useful to keep. Bearian (talk) 01:27, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Mnmh, merges are appropriate sometimes, but as a positive improvement, not as a compromise, cos that can just make it worse. The material is either useful or its not. Merging rather than deciding would, in this case, just make a mess. Here is the the current contents of Hostess Brands §Products:
A list of eight linked names. You're suggesting it be replaced with a list of seven linked names and a two-paragraph (or so) illustrated exposition on one of the products. This seems like converting a neat structure into a not-as-neat structure. Most of those articles are longer than this one, true; some a lot longer and some a little longer, those ones mainly because they go into more detail (could do that here too), or have a large in-popular-culture section, or have some material ref'd to offline books. Zingers is shorter.
I think that merging in just this article might look to the reader like we're valorizing Suzy Qs in particular: it'd be the only product with more than a link after all. Having not-so-neat structures increases the chances of having unintended bad consequences like that, whether building a computer program, a house, or an encyclopedia.
And, sooner or later an editor will probably come along and be like "This is not neat" and just delete the material and possibly the mention of the product in the list at all, because it'd be the only blacklinked one. (Moving it into its own article, which that editor might see as the best solution, would not be allowed.) This's another possible unintended bad consequence of having a not-so-neat structure. Herostratus (talk) 05:14, 1 November 2023 (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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