Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Man-Faye (4th nomination)

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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 Delete. Fails WP:BIO. Jayjg (talk) 13:30, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Man-Faye[edit]

AfDs for this article:
Man-Faye (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Non-notable individual who has achieved nothing of significance. All information about him comes from the same source. Fails Wikipedia:Notability (people). I seriously don't understand why this page exists, but people that have contributed more to the anime and game industry than he has had their articles deleted. Jonny2x4 (talk) 00:59, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Given the number of fictional characters who do come up for debate, I thought I'd double-check. —Quasirandom (talk) 20:37, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • DeleteAs nominator said, fails WP:Notability (people)--LAAFan 05:45, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The only source is an interview that is 4 and a half years old. I saw in the past AfD that this was kept because the person appeared on tv but no notability has been seen since then. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:05, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - One source isn't enough to show notability. —Quasirandom (talk) 14:13, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Well. If this isn't a great example of a terrible AfD, then I'm frightened.
Let's deal with the AfD itself. It would seem that AfD lottery is alive and well. Didn't manage to delete it the first 4 times? Well, maybe the 5th time will do the trick! It worked for other unpopular articles like Daniel Brandt, after all, no matter how many sources were dug up. Obviously both keeps were wrong, and we with our superior wisdom of 2010 know better.
The nomination is no better. Jonny manages to assume what he is trying to prove in two different sentences (1 & 3), makes an elementary mistake no one has called him on in sentence #2, and in sentence #4 manages to combine both a breathtaking arrogance (apparently if he can't see any interest or notability, that means there is none) with making one of the most elementary AfD mistakes - invoking WP:WAX.
Knowledgekid makes an incomprehensible to me argument; notability has nothing whatsoever to do with how old an interview is. The interview would prove notability (or not) exactly as much if it were from 1606. See WP:NTEMP.
LAAFan does not bother with any actual argument, just parroting the nominator.
Шизомби throws in a bunch of buzzwords, few of which are actually relevant. (Presence of OR is independent of Notability; much like bad prose has no bearing on whether to delete.)
The IP 69.x.x.x cites a sock or single-purpose editor's citation of WP:INDISCRIMINATE, which doesn't contain any categories applicable to Man-Faye (the closest is the "Who's who" entry, which is about events and not standalone bios).
Many Otters reveals his incompetence at searching by claiming Man-Faye never appears in Google News; in fact, a search will turn up at least 3 hits about this Man-Faye. Otters presumably does not actually know much about Google News, specifically that the default search goes back only a few months. And his comment about TV is amusing; what precisely would he regard as a source other than the show itself? Should we specify that screenshots must be published in the New York Times? Must there be a DVD box set so we can cite the disc? Does it need to come with time-intervals down to the second? (And are book citations no longer acceptable unless they come with word and paragraph positions?) Would a YouTube video suffice? (Oh, but wait, in the previous AfDs, Youtube links were mocked. Damned if you do...)
Otters's judgement of the previous AfDs is also telling. The only one that goes anywhere close to where he wants is spared any accusation; the second one may have a number of socks, but you know what? The closing admin darn well knew that, and in his closing is quite firm that he has taken the socks into account and still decides 'keep'. As for your dismissal on #3 that the keep votes were all WP:NOTAGAIN - have you actually read Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Man-Faye (3rd nomination)? I count 9 keep votes not mentioning the previous AfDs, one of which mentions it but supplies normal keep reasons as well. I see exactly 2 keeps on the basis of previous AfDs. 2 out of 11 or 12 is... not a lot.
So. The sole good argument I can see in this specious wasteland is that there is just 1 RS, the ANN interview. Par for the course, no-one arguing 'delete' has done any research worth a damn - no LexisNexis or JStor searches or nothing. I'll have to make do with my good old CSE. We have his ANN interview, obviously. We have a second ANN interview with Anime Expo's official spokesman, of which Man-Faye dominates the questions and word-count (something like half the text deals with Man-Faye or the general problem he poses); but maybe that doesn't count for WP:WEB or WP:MEME's 2 'non-trivial' pieces of coverage. Fine. We also have his appearance on Unscrewed, and I did a teeny-tiny bit of work in finding a cite for that; note that there are only 3 guests for a 30 minute show, and one is musical (those never run very long), giving Man-Faye a good 10 minutes. That's pretty non-trivial. So make that 2 non-trivial sources. There's the Leno spot, and his second appearance on Leno. Do we need a cite that he is controversial and popular? That's easy: "In a historic coup, Anime Selects has negotiated exclusive access to the controversial and popular cosplay cult figure, Man-Faye, who will host several of the network's events during the week and act as on-air correspondent for the coverage of AX2006." Come to think of it, I wonder if hosting Comcast's "Anime Selects On Demand" channel is notable? It probably is. #3. While we're on the topic, descriptions like 'notorious' or 'insane' or 'bizarre' and part of 'otaku lore' are not hard to come by (or even just wordless mention). And who at AX could ever forget creepy Man-Faye? And I don't even have any magazines like Animerica or Protoculture Addicts which could be expected to have covered Man-Faye!
Enough dumping of links. Either you're dead convinced that Leno et al do not severally or collectively constitute non-trivial coverage, or you are. It would be nice if there were some way to run an experiment to see how peoples' votes would change if we had similar refs and coverage of a more neutral higher-status topic, one that wasn't on the bottom of the geek hierarchy and disquieting to boot. But that's just dreaming. The closing admin will do his usual thing and weigh the supplied refs and arguments.
Finally, I've canvassed previous AfD participants - try to counteract the 'AfDs only count the few people who are paying attention at that moment' effect. Naturally, I've notified every non-retired non-deceased commenter/voter who hasn't shown up here yet; consider this public notice & transparency per WP:CANVAS's guidelines on acceptable canvassing. --Gwern (contribs) 11:02 4 August 2010 (GMT)
As for Daniel Brandt, removal of his article was the correct decision in part because he specifically requested to be removed (thus, the deletion of his article means the system worked, and shouldn't be cited as an example of AfD failing). And even though the nominator of the 3rd AFD is a sock or SPA, his (or her) argument is still valid. Does this article really belong in a general encyclopædia? 69.251.180.224 (talk) 02:53, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Daniel Brandt had been covered or quoted or mentioned in hundreds of stories on LexisNexis alone. He was encyclopedic, especially in the story of Wikipedia. Just asking does not trump making a good encyclopedia.
As for 'general encyclopedia' - this is not the didactic Encyclopédie of Diderot, nor the royalist-glorifying Encyclopedia Britannica, nor one of Borges's parodic encyclopedias. Wikipedia was, as I recall, meant to the union of all specialist encyclopedias - covering what a specialist physics encyclopedia would cover, or what a Victorian literature encyclopedia would cover, or what a Vietnamese history encyclopedia would cover. Would Man-Faye appear in an encyclopedia of anime? Or of conventions? Or of cosplay? I think the answer to at least one of those is 'yes'. --Gwern (contribs) 04:32 5 August 2010 (GMT)
  • Keep per above - I find it quite amazing of all the problems on Wikipedia, this matter needs to be settled upon AGAIN. I can think of far worse articles on Wikipedia that need a good deletion (The vast majority of episode articles for many shows that have an undue Unwarranted Self-Importance factor, etc.) Heck, i'd see the case with Alodia Gosiengfiao or Vic Mangina, but not Man Faye. --293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 11:22, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - He's a cosplay fame whore. But the coverage indicates he is successful enough to satisfy our inclusion criteria. -- Whpq (talk) 11:47, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, in case my comment above wasn't clear enough. Non-notable, lacking in reliable sources and verifiability, original research, etc. Not everybody who appears on Leno merits encyclopedia coverage, one hopes. The influx of incivility and canvassing is troubling. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 14:19, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Incivility is in the eye of the beholder; I, personally, find it very incivil when people make broad claims which are falsifiable in a few seconds - they are, deliberately or not, lying to me and trying to pollute my brain with false beliefs.
But as for canvassing - that is normal, useful, and specifically allowed by the relevant guideline. If you are on the side of Truth and The Wiki Way, why should you be troubled in the least? --Gwern (contribs) 14:37 4 August 2010 (GMT)
Again, watch the tone if you would. I doubt I'm able to pollute your brain! Notifying article editors and relevant wikiprojects is acceptable and perhaps even ideal. Prior AfD participants is questionable, particularly if you're only notifying the keepers, but perhaps you're doing everybody, which would be the way to do it, if you must. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 14:44, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My contributions and the AfDs are all public. I have notified everyone, as I said earlier - but 2 AfDs were majority keeps and 1 was mixed, so naturally my canvassing will reach more keepers than deleters! --Gwern (contribs) 14:59 4 August 2010 (GMT)
  • Keep per Gwern. When an article is given an AfD so many times, it will inevitably end up being deleted because certain people weren't aware of the one that ended up the killing blow. --Ifrit 14:54, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Delete. No significant coverage in reliable sources. Bongomatic 15:06, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep At the previous AfD, I said "I had doubts, but I followed the refs and links to see it was actually N." Looking again, I say the same: it does seem that he;s notable in his field But a number of points have been mentioned this time which seem to require a more extended comment.
1. It is not canvassing to notify everyone who commented at previous AfDs. It is not presently required to do so, but I think it ought to be, just as it ought to be. It seems basic fairness to notify people you know to be interested. To avoid possible selective notification ,it should be done by bot.
2. It is not unreasonable to bring up a subject again after 3 years. Our standards change. Since I became active 4 years ago, I've seen that some of our standards have gotten more rigorous in that period. We seem in general to be not accepting some of the things we accepted then, and this applies particular to BLPs.(in some other areas, we have gotten less restrictive). I agree with some, but not all the differences, but the people here change, and the encyclopedia evolves. (I would have very much objected to bringing this up in 2008 after two successive keeps in the previous 2 years. That's different.)
3. This falls within the general category of things which might reasonably be considered not to be notable by disinterested observers, but are anyway in terms of the people who pay attention to such things. An encyclopedia with central editorial direction can have a policy on these, but we have to go by what the people in & out of Wikipedia in the subject area think, rather than by what we each of us individually think ourselves.
4. It is good for an encyclopedia to have consistency; it's a sign of maturity and good judgment. We should pay much more attention to it. But I do not think our decision-making method is really going to be capable of this to the extent an centrally organized publication can be. When comparing articles, it's usually going to be possible to find comparable articles that were kept but shouldn't have been, and also ones that were inappropriately deleted.
5 This is a low quality article. It would help very much if it were properly improved: the references mentioned above should be added; the OR and judgmental attitude must be removed. When dealing with eccentric people as subjects, the only proper approach is a thoroughly objective one: treat them as soberly as possible, and let the reader judge.
6What we do not have a procedure for is forcing improvements in articles. Deleting them because they have not been improved is a very poor substitute, ultimately destructive of the encyclopedia. Citizendium tried to have an encyclopedia composed only of good articles, with the result that it has very few articles at all. DGG ( talk ) 17:05, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - I've looked through the sources provided by Gwern above, and I do not believe there is enough there to satisfy WP:BIO. Only one of those can really be called significant coverage from a reliable source. This person is a funny internet meme, but just doesn't seem to have achieved lasting notability. Robofish (talk) 17:14, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    My only other comment is that 'this was kept at AfD in the past' is not an automatic argument for keeping it now - especially as the last AfD was in 2007, as DGG points out above. See also WP:NOTAGAIN. Robofish (talk) 17:16, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 08:22, 7 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete not really any significant coverage in external sources to call him notable for... dressing up and acting creepy. —fetch·comms 02:16, 8 August 2010 (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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