Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of April Fool's Day jokes (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 speedy keep. looks like a blizzard now Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:39, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of April Fool's Day jokes[edit]

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Example farm. There is no inclusion criteria, so nearly any example can be added willy nilly. I can't see this being reduced to a few "notable" examples as I can't think of a possible singular cutoff criterion. It's WP:IINFO right now. Last AFD was full of WP:SOFIXIT (how can I "fix" something that's 100% examplefarm?), WP:ILIKEIT and "no reason for deletion", which is ironic since none of the keepers were using policy based reasoning either. I surely think this is beyond repair and that WP:IINFO is a good reason for deletion. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:14, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Just to add a new voice to previous discussions..We are writing an encyclopedia here to inform readers about topics they might be interested in. Are they interested in April Fool's Day jokes? Of course they are, in large numbers, and they are often looking for a reliably sourced list too! Notwithstanding the regrettable current trend to argue via policy quote, the concerns about this list are really concerns about what should be on it and how that is decided. Those are matters for talk page discussion, not AfD. Geometry guy 00:49, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's the problem. I think nothing should be on this list, since there's no possible way there could be an inclusion criterion. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:09, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The talk page is a blank canvas, so you have all the space in the world to discuss it. Geometry guy 01:34, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss what? The fact that I want the page killed with fire? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:36, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:22, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, but remove any joke (no exceptions, no loopholes for associated entities - there must be an article and it must be specifically about the joke or hoax) that does not have its own article. TPH is right that it's a potentially limitless example farm in its current form, but there are a number of notable jokes that would benefit from a list page. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:20, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep A list of the jokes is something that readers might be interested in, and if each one was reported in the news media there is no problem. People who are not interested will find it easy to avoid the page. BigJim707 (talk) 02:29, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and develop an inclusion criterion via consensus. And yes, it is possible. My recommendation would be along the lines of "any entry that is a) notable by itself or b) carried out by a notable organization and verifiable by reliable sources". Limiting the list only to entries with associated articles is generally preferable, but I think it may be excessive in this case. Try and get some discussion going and get a feel for the broader community consensus and go with that. Angrysockhop ^{(talk to me)} 03:46, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and troutslap nominator. There is absolutely nothing WP:IINFO that supports this nomination, and nominator has been previously notified almost a month ago that such nominations were improper. Jclemens (talk) 04:55, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You don't think this is "Excessive listings of statistics"? I still think it fails WP:SALAT since there is no criterion of inclusion. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 05:41, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep No inclusion criteria? (1) Must be a joke (2) Must have been carried out/published on April Fools Day! Other inclusion guidelines and policies such as verifiability and the general notability criterion imply an unwritten inclusion standard—that the joke must have been notable enough to warrant independent coverage (enforcing this would remove quite a lot of currently unreferenced entries such as the Adult Swim section). It's certainly not "excessive use of statistics" as suggested above! It's written in comprehensible prose, and for the most part, is well-referenced. --Canley (talk) 06:05, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Mr. Hammer and I have differed a bit about inclusion-worthiness of this topic or that over the last couple years (he being a highly driven deletionist). That said, there's no cause for trout here because this does not have any possible limiting inclusion criteria. "It happened on April Fools Day..." eliminates virtually nothing. This is a big junk drawer for all sorts of cruft. If it's an April Fools' prank and it was reported in the media, it's in. Not exactly encyclopedic, eh? That said, I think there is something to be said for a certain amount of cruft to leaven the hard content, so I'm not gonna cast stones here. But don't be too harsh on the nominator, he's pretty much on the mark on this. Carrite (talk) 06:48, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - my gut reaction on seeing this listing was that it must be a dreadful uncited cruftlist. But it isn't: it's a properly-cited, clearly-delimited list of April's Fools Jokes, some of which (like the BBC's spaghetti tree) are cultural icons. As such the list documents popular culture in a plain and encyclopedic manner and is certainly worthy of inclusion. An AFJ, by the way, is not 'any joke', but a deception or prank played with a straight face (e.g. camouflaged as a serious news item) on the morning of 1st April - quite a tight inclusion criterion, so there's no problem there. This is a good WP list. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:44, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per [user:Chiswick Chap]] I expected to see our usual listcruft and trivial kid's games at school. In fact the majority are like the spaghetti trees: large-scale hoaxes by media outlets that have since generated significant comment by other sources. We might yet prune some of those that aren't, but there's clearly a notable list here. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:41, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I removed some of the uncited material. BTW there is a rumor that next month WP policies will actually start to be followed. BigJim707 (talk) 12:36, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep- but make sure the scope of the list is limited to jokes that would otherwise be notable on their own, such as the spaghetti trees joke. Umbralcorax (talk) 14:59, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is no policy that requires WP:Notability, to article standards, for individual list entries. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:04, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. I was just trying to think of something that would prune out some of the useless cruft while leaving a viable list. Umbralcorax (talk) 15:26, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think the fact that the joke had been reported on in reliable news media, as an April Fools joke, should be enough. I trimmed the article, mostly by this standard yesterday. Of course in 100 years there will probably be thousands of items, but I guess we can deal with it then. BigJim707 (talk) 06:04, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - The exclusion criteria seems pretty well defined to me. . . A prank executed on April Fool's day that has received media coverage. In addition to that, the article is well sourced and written. --Stv Fetterly (Edits) 15:45, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Ten Pound Hammer tilting at windmills yet again on this one. On the last nom, you got one vote supporting deletion, you should sometimes let another editor reevaluate these things first. Its a notable subject, not free of editorial choice debates, but exactly the kind of article we should have in a comprehensive compendium of human knowledge and history.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 03:33, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Raised at WP:AN#Back_off_the_Hammer This is getting out of control. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:20, 7 March 2012 (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.