Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense (6th nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Basically delete. I will say, off the bat, that I am ignoring the GFDL question in this close. Simply put, that is a legal issue, and I do not believe that legal issues are best decided via a !vote of untrained community members. This leaves one major argument for deletion - the argument that BJAODN is a monument to vandalism. It also leaves one argument for keeping - that BJAODN is funny. While it is tempting to treat this as a matter of "I don't like it" vs. "I like it" and just count votes, I do not think that this is appropriate here. Simply put, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and "it encourages vandalism" does inherently trump "it's funny" as a reason for doing or not doing something. And looking at BJAODN, the lack of care or judgment taken with it is disappointing to say the least. I do not think that anybody in this MfD would seriously argue for a pressing need to memorialize the claim that there exists a line of Pepsi called "Penis Pepsi" that "tastes like big foots dic" (sic). And yet we did. It is also telling to me that, despite the promises of many to fix the lack of attribution in BJAODN, none of it was actually fixed, suggesting a page that is not the subject of any serious work or effort.

I am therefore persuaded by the claims that the page is simply a monument to vandalism. On the other hand, I am also persuaded by the claims that the page is an institution. To this end, I have left certain subpages unscathed - things that compile non-encyclopedia edits (Help desk, unblock), deleted articles with freaky titles, two that were just reposts of a discussion, the Colbert page, stupid article ideas, and the best-ofs. I do not close the door to some of these being individually nominated, and would not consider such nominations querrelous or cases of asking the other parent.

I will note, finally, that there is obviously no way to close this MfD without it being contentious. However, it is my sincere belief that, in this case, deletion is the less contentious and divisive option. As such, that is what can best claim to be "consensus" in this case. Phil Sandifer 15:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Addendum, because it seems there is some ambiguity over my close. This is not a closure without prejudice for recreation, or an encouragement to create a GFDL compliant version. Quite the contrary, this is a close noting that consensus has turned against memorializing vandalism, and a close with predjudice against recreating any part of BJAODN, though I did keep certain parts for historical value.

I will also note that I, as part of the close, moved the main BJAODN page to Wikipedia:Silly things to emphasize the break from the previous tradition of BJAODN. This is part of the close, and probably shouldn't be edit warred over. Phil Sandifer 20:01, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense (6th Nomination)

Nomination

The Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense main page links to about 60+ pages, all of which forms the project namespace identified as BJAODN. The purpose of this MfD is to end BJAODN as an ongoing project, including deleting its title page and all of its other namespace pages (which are referred to as the BJAODN subpages and can be viewed at Template:Bjaodn and Bjaodn content). I believe that an appropriate action would be to Delete all subpages, tag main as historical.
(1) Background: The BJAODN project basically is a list of humorous items taken from around Wikipedia and posted in project namespace. Rather than being posted in article namespace, where policies such as Verifiability, What Wikipedia is not, and No original research clearly apply, the material is posted in project namespace, which creates confusion as to whether such article standards policies apply to these lists or to what degree they may apply. None of the lists have or could comply with an "unambiguous statement of membership criteria based on definitions made by reputable sources" as set out at Wikipedia:Lists, but it is not clear if Wikipedia:Lists applies to these project namespace lists. This is not a project that reaches out to assist in other areas of Wikipedia or to assist users in contributing to the encyclopedia; this project exists to draw content from other areas of Wikipedia into project namespace to build on itself. In this sense, it seems to be a website project hosted within Wikipedia.
(2) Unmaintainble: The BJAODN project basically is a list of humorous items taken from around Wikipedia and posted in project namespace. Many of these items have been deleted from other parts of Wikipedia after an XfD discussion.

(i) Copyright problems. When material is copied from one namespace to one of the remaining seventeen namespaces - with copy being a key term - it creates complex copyright compliance problems, particularly where the copied material is not freely licensed to Wikipedia. Not all users assign their copyrights in their talk page contributions to Wikipedia - they retain the copyrights. Some users retain different rights than other users. The BJAODN project is filled with such talk page posts, some entirely violating the copyrights of others and some commingling material having different copyrights attached to it. In addition, BJAODN posters have not shown any compliance with Wikipedia:Copyrights - Using copyrighted work from others and there is no reason such material should be kept.

(ii) GFDL problems. GFDL is a Foundation issue (issue #4) and compliance with GFDL is beyond debate. When only part of a document is copied, the copied portion is a modified version and this creates complex GFDL compliance problems. In particular, GFDL Sec. 4. Modifications has specific, detailed rules regarding the use of a modified version taken from one namespace (a first network location) and posted in a different name space (a second location within that same network). As far as I could determine, none of the material posted in the BJAODN project complies with GFDL Sec. 4. Modifications.

(iii) Recreation of deleted material problems. In addition, the BJAODN project does not appear to follow the policies related to the recreation of material that was previously deleted after an XfD discussion.

(iv) Attribution. Although DENY and BLP issues can be addressed by editing the pages and the cut and paste that supports the BJAODN project can be accomplished through the WP:SPLICE process, it seems improbable to properly attribute material having commingled copyright licenses and various GFDL issues.

(3) No longer needed for its intended purpose. The BJAODN project originally was created and maintained for the past five or so years as a repository for humorous items XfD deleted from Wikipedia. With the wild success of Wikipedia, there now are many alternative outlets to recreate deleted material outside of Wikipedia's eighteen namespaces. In particular, Uncyclopedia is listed at Wikipedia:Alternative outlets as providing the same services as the BJAODN project and nostalgia.wikipedia.org seems to be an effort to republish the BJAODN project outside of Wikipedia. A main purpose of the BJAODN project now largely seems to serve the needs of unregistered users rather than the needs of the encyclopedia. For example, a survey of BJAODN What links here shows links to the BJAODN main page on 740 talk pages of unregistered users and 805 talk pages of registered uses. This 740/805 ratio is an exceptionally high unregistered-to-registered user-talk page ratios and demonstrates a relatively disproportionate linkage interest with unregistered users for this project. While the BJAODN main page may have historical value, the project has no relevance to Wikipedia today.
For prior discussions on the BJAODN project, see:

March 25, 2004. Miscellany for deletion #1. Results: Keep.

March 24, 2007. Miscellany for deletion #2. Results: Speedy close.

March 31, 2007. Miscellany for deletion #3. Results: Withdrawn, procedural keep.

May 31, 2007. Miscellany for deletion #4. Results: Nomination withdrawn.

May 31, 2007. Deletion review. Results: Deletion endorsed.

June 2, 2007. Deletion review (of subpages). Results: BJAODN should continue to exist, but it must be absolutely free of GFDL violations.

August 14, 2007. Miscellany for deletion #5. Results: Speedy close.

August 14, 2007. Deletion review. Results: Overturn and list on MfD.

For prior discussions on BJAODN subpages, see:

July 19, 2005. Articles for deletion (of a BJAODN subpage). Results: Delete

August 26, 2005. Non-main namespace pages for deletion (of a BJAODN subpage). Results: Delete

May 20, 2006. Miscellany for deletion (of a BJAODN subpage). Results: Delete

March 21, 2007. Miscellany for deletion (of a BJAODN subpage). Results: Nomination withdrawn

August 16, 2007. Miscellany for deletion (of a BJAODN subpage). Results: Deleted

-- Jreferee ^(Talk) 20:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Note to closer - An arbitration case has been opening regarding the events surrounding the recent August 14, 2007 speedy deletion of the BJAODN project. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 20:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Note to closer - Admin Ryulong has compiled a comprehensive list of what would need deletion at User:Ryulong/Sandbox/Beach. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 21:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course, admins should use discretion when looking over that list, as some such pages may be better off in other sections of Wikipedia (such as, say, the idea of Wikipe-tan). — Rickyrab | Talk 00:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

• Delete except for the main page, which should be tagged "historical". All subpages of BJAODN are covered by one or more of the following: CSD G1 (patent nonsense), CSD G3 (pure vandalism), CSD G4 (recreation of deleted content), CSD G10 (attack pages), CSD G12 (blatant copyright infringement), CSD A1 (insufficient context), CSD A7 (no assertion of notability), WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought, WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a soapbox, WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a blog, webspace provider, social networking, or memorial site, WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a directory, WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, or textbook, WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, and WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Did I miss anything? — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, you missed the fact that most of those don't apply to non-article space. The only ones you might have a case for is copyright infringement and attack pages. And a couple wouldn't apply either way. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 20:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• The GFDL applies everywhere. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 21:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• And what does that have to do with my statement? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 21:24, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• Melodia, you're wrong. The CSD general criteria and WP:NOT apply everywhere. The WP:NOT policy specifies what Wikipedia in general is not, not just what articles shouldn't contain. Userspace is the only place that WP:NOT is relaxed, but even there it applies and egregious violations are routinely targeted and deleted. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 21:28, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• That's really not true. There are many policies which it makes sense to apply to both the main namespace and the Wikipedia namespace, and these may be loosely enforced if their applicability is clear, but in general both long-standing precedent and common sense tell us that standard policies apply only to the main article namespace. Otherwise 98% of user pages would have to die, 90% of WP-space essays would be deleted as original research, and so on. A few policies specify what namespace(s) they regulate (WP:NOT#BLOG is an example of one that loosely does so). For the rest, we are free to ignore policies wherever appropriate, and gauge consensus with other means. — xDanielx ^T/_C 00:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• Well, I noted the exception for userspace and a similar relaxation exists for the projectspace (as you note). Relaxation does not translate into exemption, however. Project pages are regularly deleted under WP:NOT, particularly if they do not contribute to the encyclopedia. There is little doubt that a project page that contained any one of the following would be deleted: a forum for discussion unrelated to Wikipedia (WP:NOT#CHAT), a personal essay on the evils of government (WP:NOT#SOAPBOX), a personal blog (WP:NOT#BLOG), a sales catalog (WP:NOT#DIR), a how-to guide for buying and selling on eBay (WP:NOT#HOWTO), speculation about the 2012 Summer Olympics (WP:NOT#CRYSTAL), an extensive plot summary for Stargate (WP:NOT#PLOT). My point is that merely being located in the "Wikipedia:" namespace is not a free pass to avoiding deletion per WP:NOT. I think this is especially relevant in this case, since BJAODN is essentially a compilation of articles and article content. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 01:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• Sounds like a fair summary. I just wanted to make clear that some of the policies Black Falcon listed do not apply, such as WP:CSD#A7, WP:NOT#GUIDE, and WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought. I think WP:CSD#A1, WP:NOT#DIR, WP:NOT#CBALL, WP:NOT#INFO, and WP:SOAP can be argued as either applying or not applying to WP-space, largely depending on context. — xDanielx ^T/_C 03:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per WP:DENY - One of the major reasons we created this page all those years ago was related to not having the ability to restore deleted pages. This page now simply encourages vandals by having a 'best of' archive. Let WikipediaReview do that. --mav 20:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • (rolls eyes) WikipediaReview? Come on, there are friends of Wikipedia who like having a best-of-nonsense archive, too; why should we give the task to WikipediaReview? Why not put it on a website friendly to Wikipedia? — Rickyrab | Talk 21:43, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Then let Uncyclopedia take the really funny stuff. WikiReview already archives much of the "best" vandalism. I was not suggesting we work with them; they simply already archive this garbage. --mav 12:55, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Well in all fairnes Uncyclopedia may not be the best match, they use a CC license, we use GFDL there is no way to just copy text back and forth between the two without violating one of the licenses. I believe someone set up a dedicated BJODN wiki during the DRV debate though, soulds like a likely place to put it if people insist on preserving some of it. --Sherool (talk) 13:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Note to closer - Mav was the one who created the Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense page in March 2002. Jreferee ^(Talk) 15:26, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all as GFDL violations and per the spirit of WP:CSD#G1, WP:CSD#G3, WP:CSD#G4, WP:CSD#G10, etc. per Black Falcon. Also per WP:DENY; while DENY is an essay, the existence of this page serves only to condone and promote juvenile vandalism. As for the GFDL, keeping this violates foundation issue #4 - the copyleft licensing of content here, which includes all pages (not just articles). Allowing such a large collection of violations of not just the GFDL, but of policy in general (particularly multiple clauses of WP:NOT) to stand seriously damages our commitment to licensing and policy, and ultimately our reputation as an encyclopedia. We can't turn our backs on that simply because it's funny (which most of this stuff isn't). --Coredesat 20:42, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Alternatively, apply the Messedrocker Solution. --Coredesat 05:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all - collection of unfunny vandalism, not to mention the worrying copyright problems. This can be hosted elsewhere. Moreschi ^Talk 20:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete All, mark as historical if you want. I'm fairly disappointed that we have to go through this MfD, not because of a desire to rebut the community, but because the consensus at the VERY large (144 Kb) and just-closed DRV is quite clear in favor of the speedy deletions for any number of reasons: Appropriate use of the speedy deletion criteria, GFDL violations, propagation of attacks, SPAM, WP:DENY, and so on. Much has been said on this issue, by myself, by most admins and contributors, and on and on and on... and we are now repeating ourselves. Delete all, per above and more. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 20:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • There was no consensus. Furthermore, the closing admin ruled "overturn". — Rickyrab | Talk 22:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete BJAODN has caused too many divisions here for something supposed to be funny. Deletion is not a perfect option but there are few other viable alternatives. We can leave it as is but it would violate the GFDL. We can assemble a team of editors and admins to make it GFDL compliant, but this seems like a huge waste of effort on something not too important to the encyclopedia. Or we can delete it. That's not to say we can't start it over, making any new BJAODN GFDL complaint from the beginning. As far as fixing all the history through the WP:CPMV procedure, that seems very optimistic. First we have to find the history - in cases of pages that were pure vandalism, that is easy, we need the whole page (and the below-described process is a little simpler). In cases of vandalism to real articles, we need to find the specific revisions BJAODN section refers to (in old, heavily edited articles, that's a little harder). Then, delete the page where the history is from, restore only the revisions to move, delete the BJAODN subpage, move the page with the history to the subpage, undelete the BJAODN page, undelete the page where the history was moved from, and repeat for each "deleted joke" on the subpage, for all 60+ pages. While the history can be found by anyone, admins would have to do the actual history merge, a huge waste of time IMO. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 21:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strong delete per nom and WP:DENY. Ford MF 21:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep (yay trend breaker!). There is no CSD cat for this, as discussed at the RFAr. If it is delete though, de-linkafy the main BJAODN page, and tag as historical. Kwsn(Ni!) 21:26, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

  Technically CSD G-12 applies, but this isn't just about the applicable CSDs, of course. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 21:35, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

  BJAODN isn't a blatant copyright infringement, and fails G12.1 (The material was copied from another website ), G12.2 (There is no non-infringing content in the page history worth saving) and G12.3 (The material was introduced at once by a single person). Melsaran (talk) 16:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

  How are CSD criteria relevant to an MfD? Moreschi ^Talk 21:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• Outsource this project to an off-Wikipedia site, along with the page histories, and then delete. GFDL adherence could then be undertaken by people dedicated to BJAODN. The project would continue, but it'd be off-Wikipedia. Nonetheless, add a Wikipedia entry for BJAODN. Since BJAODN would be off-Wikipedia, and since it is arguably notable, "Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense" ought to be referred to in an article, just like other notable memes and collections. — Rickyrab | Talk 21:33, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

  BJOADN is notable how? Moreschi ^Talk 21:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Someone's likely to have referred to them in the past, so people ought to go and look. — Rickyrab | Talk 21:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I think a news search is a better indicator of notability. The web hits all seem to be BJAODN pages on other wikis and blog mentions. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 22:15, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
      • That's debatable. If several people on wikis and blogs mention it, and if it's publicized among numerous people, then one could argue that the topic is notable. And one could always drum up publicity off Wikipedia to get the press to recognize BJAODN as a Wikipedia "phenomenon". — Rickyrab | Talk 22:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Drumming up publicity to make something notable goes against the principles of a respectable encyclopedia. As editors, we should reflect the state of the world, not attempt to change it. We should not attempt to make notable something that isn't. WP:BEANS, please. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 22:34, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
          • Maybe. Maybe not. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

You are asking for something that is outside the technical ability of the closing admin. Anyone may copy the content while it is available for their own uses, no-one is stopping them as long as they stick to the GFDL when the reprint it. There is still plenty of time, and it would be inappropriate to ask that the content not be deleted on the condition that someone may copy the material somewhere else. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 21:52, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Something you wouldn't permit yourself when you speedily deleted BJAODN subpages a while back. Remember that? — Rickyrab | Talk 21:59, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

... You are making progressively less sense. At this point, I will not answer any questions you have of me specifically. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 22:03, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

(Shrugs) I guess there aren't too many questions worth asking about you, given that your behavior has landed you in front of ArbCom and is plainly obvious. (I'll shut up now.) — Rickyrab | Talk 22:06, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please do and cease ad hominem attacks. Thanks. Majorly (talk) 22:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete apart from the main page which should be tagged as historic as per nominator. Serves no encyclopedic purpose, has too many problems already identified by others and is creating too much wikidrama. Can now be deleted in the proper manner after this miscellany for deletion is completed. Davewild 21:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all mark main page as historical. If you find amusing vandalism, you can store it elsewhere yourself. Majorly (talk) 21:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Sure, if we also use the historical page to link to where the project is stored, or make an article about Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense. — Rickyrab | Talk 21:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Oh no we don't. No way will it ever be an article. Anyway I mean users can store it on their own computers if they really care. Or maybe in diffs on their userpage. But we're deleting a project not so we can just make it elsewhere. Majorly (talk) 22:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Anything that's notable deserves an article. And the project IS moving elsewhere; that's an established fact. See the recently-closed DRV, if you don't believe me. And if it's not already notable, BJAODN supporters will try their hardest to make it notable. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
        • It isn't notable, and never will be. The BJAODN opposers will try their hardest to keep it off Wikipedia :) Majorly (talk) 22:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
          • It is notable, and it will continue to be. I suspect our little tussle here will ultimately be a draw: I suspect there would be deletions, which would please the deletionists, and there would be a historical page and a mention in Wikipedia article space, which would please the inclusionists. :) — Rickyrab | Talk 22:32, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
            • OK, I change my rationale. Delete, don't mark as historical. We're not here to please people. Majorly (talk) 22:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
            • (EC) Notability is proven by coverage in reliable and independent sources. Since they don't exist for BJAODN, it isn't notable. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 22:39, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
              • I favor deletion and marking as historical, on the ground that WP:NOT a battleground, and compromise solutions are the best way to keep it that way. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:43, 18 August 2007 (UTC) That is not the only way to prove notability: it can be proven if a lot of different sources mention it, whether reliable or not. Furthermore, it is known that it exists. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:43, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
                • Quoted from Wikipedia:Notability: "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." So, that is the only way to prove notability and the sources must be reliable. As for your last point: verifiability != notability. Lot's of things exist but don't merit articles. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 22:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
                  • Well, not even news agencies are necessarily reliable. That means that such things as the recent earthquake in Peru aren't notable, by your standard. Otherwise, what's to keep a blog from being reliable? Besides, if a lot of people know about it and think about it, it's notable. Case closed. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:52, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
                    • Besides, if BJAODN isn't notable, then why are you deletionists raising such a stink about it over several MONTHS? That proves it's notable to at least some people, to the point of being a major Wikipedia issue. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
                      • First, please remain civil. Second, I am not a deletionist and wanting to get rid of preserved vandalism does not make me one. Third, it seems to me that we are talking about different things. When I write "notable" and "reliable", I am referring to the terms as defined at Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 23:05, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
                        • I apologize. I was typing in a heated discussion, while hungry and in need of dinner, and also was under pressure to get off the computer and hit the road (and not just from people on Wikipedia). Because I was under stress, I acted a bit less civilly than I should have. — Rickyrab | Talk 00:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
                          • No worries, except ... now I'm hungry. ;) Black Falcon ^(Talk) 01:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
                    • Rickyrab, please, just knock it off now. You're embarrassing yourself by making such strawman claims regarding other people's views. It'd be best if you just stepped away from this discussion. --Cyde Weys 23:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
                      • Okay, I made strawman claims. I apologize. It would be a good idea to provide a way to direct people who are accustomed to working on BJAODN on Wikipedia to the project's new location, and I was attempting to argue for such a means through an article or a page marked as historical. I feel that people who work on BJAODN ought to at least have that courtesy. It only takes a few bytes and a brief bit of one's time. — Rickyrab | Talk 00:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per above. One 21:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• What if the anons revolt (i.e., go about registering accounts and proceeding to create pages concerning Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense)? What would you do then? something to think about. — Rickyrab | Talk 21:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Not much to think about at all. We would block them and protect the titles. We do have a pretty good idea what we're doing, and its kind of hard to get one over on the cabal (TINC). --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 21:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Even then, it took a while for the "cabal" to do in User:Willy on Wheels. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all. BJAODN ceased being funny ages ago. There was no bar for inclusion and all of the entries were mere boring tripe: vandalism of the lamest variety. This is not anything worth preserving. As many others have pointed out, keeping it around as a shrine to vandals runs counter to the principle of Denying vandals recognition. We should take a cue from how real world local governments deal with vandalism: they clean it up as soon as possible, leaving no trace that it was ever there. This is the best way to discourage vandals, by showing them that all of their effort is for naught. The worst thing you can do is put it up on a pedestal where hundreds times more people will eventually see it, and perhaps be "inspired" by it, than if you simply just painted it over and never mentioned it again. --Cyde Weys 22:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep It may not be funny to everybody, but never judge other people's humour! Mayalld 07:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary Section Break

• Delete per reasons above and mark main page as historical. BJAODN is being ported to another website anyway. Tim Q. Wells 22:31, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete the main 60+ pages for reasons of being not that funny. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 22:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all subpages, keep the main page with a {{historical}} tag and a description of what it was. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 23:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all the actual "content" (subpages), agree a slightly modified and historic tagged main page can be kept "for the record" due to the many incoming links. GFDL and other copyright issues aside most of it is simply not funny, creates an incentive to write nonsense articles since while constructive contributions are constantly modified and refactored "funny" (in the opinion of at least one person) vandalism is often perfectly preserved in these archives. There are better ways and more suitable places to endulge in wimical humor on the internet, and way way better things to spend time and effort on at Wikipedia than collecting and cataloging vandalism that meets someone's subjective idea of funny. --Sherool (talk) 00:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Though it saddens me to say so, delete the 60+ numbered subpages. Keep the main page and mark the page as historical. Also keep the "special collection" of by-popular-acclaim subpages, and the "Other stuff" pages. Grutness...wha? 00:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• I'll try my suggestion from DRV again here, and see if it gets any traction this time. Delete. Then, undelete one subpage at a time, for (say) 3 days to one week, and give supporters time to move whatever portion of that subpage they can salvage and still comply with WP:DENY, GFDL, etc. into a New and Improved! (TM) BJAODN section. In 8-14 months, you'd have a smaller, GFDL compliant BJAODN, only a tiny little bit of illegal stuff woud exist at any one time. Meanwhile, re-organize BJAODN so that going forward it is compliant. Those not willing to devote time to saving the best parts of BJAODN would no longer have reason to complain. The one-subpage-at-a-time thing makes it more manageable. JOG et al should be reasonably happy because there isn't a gigantic wad of non-compliant stuff sitting out there in public. --barneca (talk) 00:52, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Even if the GFDL issue is taken care of in that manner, that still doesn't address the fact that BJAODN violates WP:NOT, has issues with resposting deleted content, encourages vandalism by providing recognition for it, and serves no encyclopedic purpose. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 01:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
    • True, but the GFDL problem is the only one that's really convincing to me. Once that's addressed, everything else just falls under WP:Harmless and WP:Relax to me. Anyway, just trying my mediation hat on; evidently it still needs work. --barneca (talk) 01:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

BJAODN is currently being moved offsite by a group of users, just for everyone's information. Neranei (talk) 01:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• Wait a week delete Give a week from the MFD's closure before you actually delete it, and leave the main page and tag it as historical. Someone's started working on an offsite BJAODN, we can simply link the old BJAODN main page to that in a "New Location" section, and everyone should be happy. Those who enjoy BJAODN can still read it, those who think anything violating the rules is bad don't have to see it on Wikipedia. --Lucid 01:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• The biggest ever super strongest possible earth-shatteringly huge KEEP I will ever put down on a deletion discussion. -- Ya gotta keep it! T (Formerly Known as FireSpike) 02:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

  Why? --Hemlock Martinis 02:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

  It's obvious: He just likes it and feels the need to just vote to keep it. –Animum 03:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

  I personally try to keep from jumping to conclusions about other people's motivations in such a low-bandwidth medium, but it might work better for you. In any case, adding another warm body to show support in a discussion to establish consensus (or lack thereof) isn't meaningless, even if it's not particularily effecitve either by itself. --Kizor 10:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• Nuke from high orbit remove all traces of this vandal affirmation, ass grabbing nonsense. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, Uncyclopedia is that way.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 02:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment -- I seem to hear this a bit: "collection of unfunny vandalism". Saying it's "unfunny" is basically a variation of WP:IDONTLIKE. I happen to find the majority of it quite funny. T (Formerly Known as FireSpike) 02:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all Per above and reasons provided on WP:DRV. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 02:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete I've been following discussions about BJAODN since March of this year, and I've finally come to realize the legitimacy of the arguments to delete. In a moment of nostalgia for what might soon be gone, I skimmed one of the earlier BJAODN pages. There were a few funny items, but many (not all) lacked the GFDL-compliant attribution, and the whole idea seems to have outgrown its usefulness on a project-wide level. I'm still in the process of considering what to do with my personal BJAODN collection, but I am now convinced that the project should be discontinued and made historical in Wikipedia-space. Shalom ^Hello 02:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. I've already expressed my opinions in the DRV. I concur with my colleagues. Get rid of it. --Hemlock Martinis 02:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• If the community consensus is not for keeping this page, then I think the main page should be marked as {{historical}} with a description of what was there, including any soft redirects to other agreed upon locations. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Rickyrab. And per Af648 and Evouga below 02:53, 21 August 2007 (UTC) —  $PЯINGεrαgђ  03:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Suspend – impending the closure of the ArbCom case, whereupon I would vote delete because of the innumerable copyright violations, libel, etc which is archived in BJAODN subpages. Upon deleting the subpages, mark BJAODN itself as historical and fully-protect. –Animum 03:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Some of ArbCom's proposals will become moot if the subpages are deleted, so they would probably like to wait for us. It would be more convenient for everyone if we just let this run five days and close. Cool Hand Luke 09:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• MessedRocker Solution, except this time, the subpages would be deleted. In other words: delete the subpages, redirect them to the main BJAODN page, and replace with a brief essay documenting the history and why it had to go. MessedRocker (talk) 03:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, long since ceased to be useful, clever, or germane to the task of this project. Outsource it if you must, but we don't need to assist officially. -- nae'blis 04:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep, a bit of a rant, and some suggestions on how to prevent future problems. Yes, it thumbs its nose at most if not all of Wikipedia's policies, but that is because "it is considered humorous. It is not intended, nor should it be used, for any remotely serious purpose." Remember that bright purple banner? I only see two actual reasons to get rid of this. One main reason is due to copyright violations. Those violations can be removed without too much difficulty (I'll explain momentarily). The other main concern is GFDL compliance. While I do have to admit there isn't much that can be done for existing subpages - of which I may support deletion if no other alternative can be found - that is not a reason to trash the whole project when compliance can be managed. I would suggest trying to set up a WikiProject BJAODN, whose purpose would be to screen new submissions to the project for copyright violations, and make some effort to track down who originally wrote the bad joke or deleted nonsense, and then record via edit summary who sent it in. In this manner, the contributor of such nonsense is not held up for public ridicule, but one could find who contributed if they went to look for it, so we are still compliant with the GFDL. That's the same thing we do at Articles for creation, and it works fine. Obviously, this will take a bit of work, but, hell, I'd be willing to get the project started if that's what it takes to keep this from being completely deleted. Hopefully such organization would also help make the nonsense even funnier, by weeding out all the not-so-funny stuff. BJAODN is a large part of Wikipedian culture and I'm sure a lot of people would be quite upset if they wandered over only to find that the pages had been deleted. Maybe not, but that's how I see it. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 04:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Your analogy falls down a bit since Articles for Creation has encyclopedic merit, and BJAODN inherently does not. -- nae'blis 06:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Point noted, but I'm not discussing encyclopedic merit there, just how we can manage GFDL compliance. I know BJAODN doesn't have encyclopedic value, it's there to be funny. What I'm trying to address is how it can be funny and legal at the same time. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 14:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Recreation of deleted material (from article space and so on). Whether BJAODN gets forked to another site is irrelevant. --Kjoonlee 05:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Extra-Strong Keep - Can somebody show me a single piece of blantant copyright violation that exists in the BJAODN collection, as some of you call it?. If everybody in this debate actually tried to do someting other than shouting delete, we might actually get something done. Try and fix a problem first then if it was helpless - delete. Is it just me or is that people are using heaps of weasel words - If there is a problem with BJAODN can you at least show me where in the collection instead of saying crap like - "It a copyright violation,it's not funny, it's blah, balh, balhahalhasd", where is your proof?, if you say there is a porblem, SOURCE IT Af648 06:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
  • The copyright violation argument comes from the fact that the GFDL license requires attribution and preservation of page histories, which are not done in copy-and-paste moves. BJAODN is made up of thousands of copy-and-paste moves. The problem was brought up three years ago and not addressed. It's not possible to pinpoint a specific example because the entire thing has this problem. --Coredesat 07:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
    • But isn't the histories of the copy & paste in Wikipedia(well somewhere at least, on other pages where it was vandalised), that would still count as perservation og page history Af648 10:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep per all countless previous discussions of that matter. Looks like a pack of overzealous admins has nothing else to do but list stuff for deletion over and over again. May I suggest, for example, to write some Wikipedia articles to relieve you from boredom?  Grue  08:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
  • At this point this is clearly not a speedy keep candidate, and a speedy keep would likely make things worse in terms of the arbitration case. --Coredesat 09:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
    • More importantly, you don't actually provide a reason to speedy keep (or just keep) the pages. Instead of refuting the arguments posted in the nom and by others who support deleting it, you accuse admins of being overzealous. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 10:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, do not userfy. I've always been suspicious that these pages give users perverse incentives to create funny vandalism. The GFDL license issue is more than enough for me. If we don't respect our possibly unenforceable license, how can we expect anyone else to? Cool Hand Luke 09:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep but severely reorganise, at worst esperanzify. I'm strongly opposed to utter deletion of this page; it has been part of the site long and part of our "human face". If done correctly and following the GFDL requirements, the page is essentially harmless. CSD G4 isn't a problem in my opinion because sending an article to BJAODN is as such a motion that can be used in XfD; If a significant number of people say an article should be BJAODNed in XfD, that's one form of XfD consensus. (Recreating articles in BJAODN that no one asked to be BJAODNed might be problematic though.) As far as "better outlets" go, they all have different guidelines; I'm not sure if we should get rid of this for the cases where BJAODN is the best solution. Let's not reinvent the wheel. But anyway, like suggested before, if BJAODN is kept, it has to be reorganised and the utter junk needs to be thrown away. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 10:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
  • For clarification: I do specifically endorse the plan to delete the individual subpages full of cut-and-pastes and never bring those back. April Fools archives etc should be easy to bring to compliance, and with some attention, the "best of" stuff should be easy to bring into compliance. But keep the main page for now; it can be esperanzified later if there's just nothing to keep this afloat. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 15:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete: There's no evidence that the project intends to comply with the GFDL licence, the most revent archive was in violation of the licence, despite there being considerable concern raised 3 months ago and continually since. Recreation of deleted content is not permitted and BJAODN is now being used to repeat personal attacks on administrators and to humiliate vandals, all things we NEVER do on Wikipedia. Nick 11:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all subpages, tag main as historical per nom. Copyright/GDFL issues, WP:DENY, etcetera.-h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 12:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all except main page. Tag it as historical. Serves no purpose other than glorifying vandalism or insulting poor, yet good faith, contributions. Anyone wanting to relax from WikiStress may log out and take a walk out, play a game, read a book, meet people... whatever. Wikipedia is not an amusement park. - Nabla 13:54, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Deleate' But maybe mark as historical. Bad Jokes and Nonsence is what Uncyclopedia is and that type of thing doesnt fit in wikipedia. --— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sunny910910 (talk • contribs)
• Delete Burn with fire and tag as historical to make an example out of it like Esperanza is. I am for one glad to see this arrive at MFD as now any case of 'out-of-process keep it'-ism will be avoided. Deleted nonsense needs to stay deleted and glorifying vandalism should be discouraged at Wikipedia at all costs. The entire process for vandalism reverting has gotten vastly nonsensical. WP:DENY might just be an essay, but it's an essay to keep in the back of your head as you continue to edit Wikipedia. The success and credibility of this encyclopedia is constantly being challenged and the deletion of BJAODN is one step towards an improvement. We have to remember, Wikipedia is in the real world, as some big businesses are just finding out, and things we do here could have serious consequences, like violating the GFDL. Even in the most recent attempts at resolving the issue of GFDL problems in the most recent archive of BJAODN has been an utter failure. There are just some things Wikipedia doesn't need to be associated with, and BJAODN is the next thing on The List™. — Moe ε 15:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep all, except those pages which have been identified as direct GFDL violations. This is not detrimental to the encyclopedia; I will re-iterate a point I've made in dozens of MfDs and DRVs. In addition to being an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is a community. It needs a community infrastructure - not all of which will be directly related to building the encyclopedia - in order to support that community. No evidence whatsoever has been presented for the spurious argument that the existence of BJAODN encourages vandals to create joke pages; human nature is such that some people will always be driven to create joke pages. Perhaps we should, from time to time, go through and prune BJAODN, so it doesn't get too long. But BJAODN, while it may not directly aid the physical building of the encyclopedia, aids the community which creates the encyclopedia - and our contributors are our most important asset. Walton^One 15:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep all per Walton, WP:COMMUNITY, and the fact that forks from other articles (nearly everything used with summary style + {{main}}) are technically GFDL violations as well. Melsaran (talk) 16:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

(UTC)

Second arbitrary section break

• Reboot the project. Give some time for a "best of" collection that can be attributed, delete all the old subpages, and start again with full GFDL compliance. --Phirazo 16:00, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Reboot as Phirazo says. I like the way he puts that. There's no reason it can't still exist with a legal and attack-less presence. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 16:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Recognition is a form of reward. BJAODN recognises vandalism. Ergo, BJAODN rewards vandalism. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Cogito ergo sum, ergo vandalisme --Cyde Weys 02:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep the main page and and GFDL-compliant material, delete the rest, and reboot. We have to distinguish between problems with the current version of BJAODN and problems with the concept of BJAODN. The former can be addressed by deleting most of the subpages and putting a big notice on the main page saying that "all additions which do not comply with the GFDL or WP:BLP will be reverted". I am sure there are plenty of people who would be willing to enforce this. The problems with the concept are WP:NOT and WP:DENY. DENY is not a policy or a guideline, it is an essay, and a hotly contested essay at that. BJAODN is not making shrines for individual vandals, and there has been no evidence presented by anyone here that BJAODN is encouraging people to insert funny vandalism, as Walton One notes above. As for WP:NOT, I think we have to consider that humorous pages may actually benefit the community by creating a more light-hearted atmosphere. Most humour pages, by definition, violate WP:NOT. Yes, material is added which should not be there, but it is possible to create rules to stop it being inserted. The problems raised do not require the removal of BJAODN from Wikipedia entirely. Hut 8.5 16:20, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
  • It seems counterintuitive to attempt to create/enforce rules for a project which, by its very nature, recognises and encourages violations of the rules. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Creating/enforcing rules for BJAODN would prevent the addition of material that encourages violations. Such rules would allow us to enforce GFDL compliance. People also need to keep in mind that WP:DENY is an essay, and neither policy nor guideline, so in itself cannot be used as a reason for deletion. If we were to treat WP:DENY as a policy, we wouldn't have the zillions of warning templates, we'd just block them straight off. Vandals in general aren't going to look around for stuff that doesn't need to be vandalized anyway - they're going to head for the articles so they can make as much of a mess of things as visibly as possible. BJAODN doesn't fit that description. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 17:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
      • You wrote: "Creating/enforcing rules for BJAODN would prevent the addition of material that encourages violations." The whole point of BJAODN is that it consists of policy/guideline violations. How can it discourage violations when violations of content policies are the very thing that it thrives on? GFDL compliance is only one issue among many. As for WP:DENY, I agree that it can't be used for speedy deletion. It can, however, just as any good argument, be used in a deletion debate. Your example with the warning templates is not an accurate one because it does not take into account the requirements of another guideline: Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers. In any case, my principal argument is not WP:DENY, but WP:NOT and WP:CSD (criteria G1, G3, G4, G12, and A7 -- an article posted in another namespace, except userspace, is still an article and can fall under A7). — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
        • BJAODN isn't a blatant copyright infringement, and fails G12.1 (The material was copied from another website ), G12.2 (There is no non-infringing content in the page history worth saving) and G12.3 (The material was introduced at once by a single person). Melsaran (talk) 16:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
          • OK, so maybe not speedy deletion, but it still violates GFDL. Also, BJAODN meets G12.2: since it consists solely of vandalism, hoaxes, and the like, it has no content worth saving. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
        • By enforcing rules, we would avoid copyright violations, blatant attacks, make it clear that hoaxes are not to be taken seriously, and make it clear that the whole page is a living example of what Wikipedia is not. It's an example of what we shouldn't be - by putting it up in a humorous context, we make it clear that such violations aren't acceptable, and by extension discourage them. The example with DENY was simply that - an example, to show why that isn't a policy (And plus, policies override guidelines anyway). CSD arguments can also be rebuffed - G1,3,4: This is used to show examples of patent nonsense, and so has useful value for new users seeking to revert vandalism or mark articles for deletion. G12: This can be prevented by the very rules you are protesting. A7: Again, can be used as an example. Furthermore, "Article" criteria apply to Main and Portal namespace only. The CSD page specifically mentions that they apply to portals, but do not mention any other namespace. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 17:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
          • The WP:NOT and WP:CSD policy pages and other pages such as Wikipedia:Patent nonsense and Wikipedia:Vandalism more than suffice to make clear what type of content is not acceptable. Deletion and (if applicable) a warning, not placement in a supposedly humorous context, sends a clear message that violations are unacceptable. Preservation in BJAODN is the equivalent of "we'll wag a finger at you for what you did, but one person thought it was funny, so nice job!" To be blunt, I'm more inclined to believe that Bill Clinton did not have sexual relations with that women and never inhaled than to believe that BJAODN could ever serve a useful educational purpose. The only value of BJAODN is as a potentially relaxing distraction, but the Internet already has tens of thousands of pages devoted to that. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep all. I see no evidence thaat this is a significant GFDL violation - it certainly seems no larger a problem than deleting problematic edits from the revision history, which we do as a matter of course. Remaining reasons seem unpersuasive. Furthermore, this has been handled so badly that I am loathe to endorse the process that could lead to a delete at this stage. Phil Sandifer 18:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Additional note - I am troubled by the decision to take this to deletion (and worse, to try to speedy it) without leaving any sort of message or note for the people who had previously expressed an interest or desire to keep this to the effect of saying "Hey, this needs fixed." Phil Sandifer 18:34, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Like I said at the DRV, I don't see that these pages make a significant contribution to the encyclopedia. The reasons for deletion seem cogent enough to me - in particular, many of these pages are in violation of copyright. But more importantly to me, these pages seem to be an episode in Wikipedia's youth that at some point will be disavowed, and playing young too long as you grow old isn't cool. While editors who were here in the early days may look on these with nostalgia, I don't. Anyone is free (while copying edit histories at the same time) to move these to another wiki somewhere, and I think that would be the right thing to do. Like gmaxwell said at the DRV, the reason to delete it is not GFDL, although that is a problem. The reason to delete it is that it was a bad idea from the project's youth that has been outgrown. One last thing - I want to specifically claim that there is not consensus to restart these from scratch if the old version are removed, and such consensus cannot be established by fiat when closing this MfD. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all BJAODN seems like a vandal-trophy case to me. Let's face it, do we actually need pages to display "unique" instances of vandalism? No, we don't. Acalamari 19:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• DeleteWikipedia is an encyclopedia. This kind of stuff does not belong here.--†Sir James Paul† 09:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per reasons mentioned above, including WP:DENY. If someone wants to preserve them, just send them to uncyclopedia. --Acepectif 19:43, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete all We need to respect copyright in general, and our own licensing requirements doubly so. This has already been moved off wiki, there is no justification whatsoever to allow this to stay while in violation of the GFDL license we received it under. To paraphrase Alkivar and quote Ripley, "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure". ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 21:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Reboot (a.k.a. keep). Phirazo's compromise solution is elegant, easy to implement, and satisfies licensing concerns. The deny/idon'tlikeit arguments are stupid. I like WP:DENY and routinely exercise it in administrative decisions, but it clear to me that BJAODN is a gallery for the amusement of wikipedians, not the glorification of vandalism. There's a world of difference between blocking/discouraging vandals/trolls and having a sense of humor. Even an inane sense of humor, like quoting shit from Monty Python or maintaining a personal bash collection on one's userpage, helps lighten the otherwise mundane nature of volunteer contribution. There are far more convenient outlets open to output by internet fuckwads, like uncyclopedia or e.d., for there to be a substantial incentive to continue actively abusing Wikipedia in spite of the high transaction cost and prohibitive nature of our vandalism countermeasures. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 22:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
  • This MfD is about the existing entries. Regardless of whether they are kept or deleted, it is clear for this discussion that there is not consensus to add new things to BJAODN. This isn't because of the GFDL, but because of the numerous opinions above that BJAODN doesn't serve the encyclopedic purpose of Wikipedia. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Of course it doesn't serve an encyclopedic purpose, it's a non-mainspace diversion! A minor one at that, at least before this flareup. As for what this MfD is about, that's a judgment call. Between the prior MfDs, DRVs, & AN/I posts, this is as good a place as any to campaign for a sensible solution outside of complete deletion. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 20:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • The huge problem with Phirazo's reboot "solution" is that it doesn't solve anything and requires a series of actions that are extremely unlikely to take place. "Give some time for a 'best of' collection that can be attributed, delete all the old subpages, and start again with full GFDL compliance." Who decides "best of"? Everyone? Anyone? Will there have to be a process (<wretch>)? What about finding material from deleted histories? You'd need an admin, and with the amount of info from deleted pages, you'd need alot of time and willing admins with far bigger fish to fry. And what about issues of BLP and SPAM? When it was deleted last time, the BJAODN regulars clamored to find attributions, but failed, miserably. To advocate Phirazo's reboot solution is really just a vote for a permanent keep, because there will never be enough time to find attributions, and there will be arguments and processes invented that will cause a near permanent delay in the removal of content that violates copyright, license, and even good taste. A true reboot would be to delete the lot and start over, with new material properly attributed by the adder, and with strict guidelines prohibiting SPAM and attacks, and allowing for the removal of non-GFDL compliant material, although, as noted, one wonders if continuing is worth the trouble and is in line with the goals of our Project. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 23:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I was merely trying to come up with a compromise solution. The "best of" was just a thought, I would assume the process of finding the best (attributable) ones would be the same process that articles get improved with. If an entry cannot be attributed, it would have to go. If no one is going to create a best of, then a straight delete and reboot might be the way to go. As far as WP:BLP, WP:SPAM and future GFDL compliance, people would have to monitor new submissions. --Phirazo 01:07, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Got to say, that reboot idea sounds brilliant. A process probably is the best move. T (Formerly Known as FireSpike) 00:16, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

For the record, the BJAODN regulars hardly even tried to find attribs. I succeeded at finding attributions, but I stumbled when it came to deleted pages. (we need to find ways of attracting admins to specific projects.) By sending BJAODN to another website, marking the main page historical and providing a link to the offsite project, we'd save the Wikipedian admins the trouble of having to police BJAODN and violate Wikipedia policy. — Rickyrab | Talk 00:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• • • No convoluted process is necessary. Delete the archives, selectively bring back properly attributed/worthwhile material in a "best of". Since the archives are now mirrored elsewhere, the local copy of old BJAODNs could be deleted. Monitor the new BJAODN to throw out questionable content and, presto! ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 20:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per WP:NOT and WP:DENY. --ZimZalaBim ^talk 00:51, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - as I said at DRV, BJAODN is the least pressing GFDL problem imaginable. Ultimately, the pages should be brought into GFDL compliance, but even if that took an entire decade, it would be perfectly okay. I still cannot believe we're seriously considering deleting one of Wikipedia's oldest institutions based on concerns that vandals aren't receiving proper attribution for their vandalism. Also, since the trend at this MfD, so far, seems to be in favor of deletion, we should definitely mirror this offsite, to make sure it isn't lost. --Hyperbole 01:10, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

  For the record for anyone who didn't get it at the DRV, here is where they are being put for the moment. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 02:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, a valuable record of Wikipedia culture and history. --Pmsyyz 03:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Umm ... I don't think we would want to characterise a collection of thousands of instances of vandalism, many of them clearly libellous, as "a record of Wikipedia culture and history". — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 03:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep at least the main page. Firstly, it should be noted that BJAODN does not satisfy CSD G12, as it doesn't even satisfy the first criteria, location on a non-WP site. I am unmoved by WP:DENY, an essay with little consensus. The question seems to be as follows: does BJAODN do more good, by relaxing the mood of Wikipedia, than it does harm, by promoting vandalism? I think so. Wikipedia already has the reputation of being the wiki with the most anal-retentive and bureaucratic atmosphere; why not provide editors with a (non-article-space) stress release valve? Evouga 04:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Again. They're bad jokes, emphasis on "bad", as in most of them are not even remotely funny, effectively making this a data dump. Uncyclopedia has some pretty good ideas about what is and is not funny, that we could learn from; arbitrary lists and randomness clearly are not. Aside from that, violating foundation principles is bad. >Radiant< 08:51, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
• KEEP Yes, it may be bad, but NOT the negative bad, more like bad in "bad-ass". In fact, this was something that a friend showed me when he introduced me to Wikipedia. Evouga, YOU ROCK - I'm swayed enough by your reasons for wanting this kept. This will just end in a "no-consensus" vote presumably. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Heh. Now KEEP this. It's just a diversion, after all. --Whitmorewolveyr 09:07, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
• Reboot and set up an editorial board for the new version per User:Hersfold. I'm up for helping with that, anyone else? The legal issues are real and probably beyond fixing for the old stuff, and the current collection has some malicious and a lot of boring crap (which decent editing would have stopped), but permanently nuking the whole project is excessive. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS; if you don't like it, either ignore it or help make it better, but don't stop others from having the chance. BJAODN is harmless. Moyabrit 12:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Editorial boards are counter to m:Foundation issues (the "wiki process"). As I have pointed out, there is clearly not consensus for new things being put in BJAODN, so restarting from scratch is not an option. The question here is whether to delete or mark as historical the stuff that's already there. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Why are you selectively defining the limits of editorial discretion? The fact that editors wish to maintain a new incarnation of BJAODN means that the consensus you attribute may not be so clear. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 20:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
      • "Editorial board" is maybe too strong for what I was thinking of. What I meant was just to organise the project a bit better, with regular maintainers who would weed out illegal, mean or boringly stupid entries after the fact. Everyone would still be able to edit BJAODN without asking permission, so it would still be a wiki. And if this MfD isn't meant to consider a possible reboot, I'd like to know where we should do that. Moyabrit 13:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per lack of attribution, lack of project-related value, etc. If someone wanted to keep the index page and tag it as historical, I guess I'd be OK with that. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 15:48, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete for three reasons: one, it's really, really not funny; two, it encourages people to vandalise in the hope of getting included; and thirdly, it's almost certainly a GFDL violation. David Mestel^(Talk) 18:15, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep It's a part of the community. Think of it, a LOT of users must have put something there if there is 60+ pages. -Flubeca^Talk 18:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• Indeed, and few of those users are getting attribution for their contributions. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 19:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete all subpages and mark main page as historical. Parts of it are funny, but it's not right to make Wikipedia Administrators spend days (or longer) making it compliant. If an official archive of BJAODN is created, adding a link on the historical mainpage should be considered. — Odin_son 20:27, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep, on both procedural and common sense grounds. The background given in 1) above is pov; 2) and 3) are misguided (nostalgia and uncyclopedia do not exist for the same purpose; this is the least of wikipedia's copyright and gfdl and attribution concerns; the process of 'BAJAODN'ing something considered funny but deletable will not be substituted by some third-party site (sorry Melodia!). CSD criteria should have absolutely nothing to do with this discussion. +sj + 20:45, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • It doesn't make sense to cite common sense in defense of a minority position in a discussion, unless you're going for irony. --Cyde Weys 00:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • It is funny how often different notions of humor, irony, and consensus / majority are at the bottom of deep miscommunications over community fora such as this. One of the core troubles with BJAODN debates is that there are people who don't find its entries funny, and are in fact offended by their existence; while others find these pages funny and enjoyable to browse regularly.

    As for this being a 'minority position', I am rather certain it is not, among the editing community at large; but among policy enthusiasts and MfD readers, over this three-day period, it seems to be... with many of them relying on misdirected enthusiasm for enforcing copyright and GFDL. I would be glad for a proper broader community discussion to find out whether I am justified in my conviction. +sj + 01:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: MfD is absolutely not the place to be having this discussion. There should be a broader community-wide reflection and consensus on what these sorts of project-namespace efforts mean. Note how the people involved in the last few discussions of this topic have been substantively different from one another... +sj + 20:45, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

  Esperanza was handled at MfD, so this seems to be an appropriate location to discuss this. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 21:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

  The Esperanza MfD is the best example of *fD being misapplied in this way. If you were basing this nom on that one, I can understand why you proceeded this way; Esperanza should have been handled with a broader community discussion for the same reasons. Most people who found out about the MfD after it was over would likely concur. I would go so far as to say that any page or set of pages with more than 1,000 edits or more than 200 different editors should be handled dramatically differently from other pages when being nommed for deletion. +sj + 01:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

  "Most people who found out about the MfD after it was over would likely concur"? Not exactly. Most members of Esperanza were voting for the deletion of it when the time came. It simply dissolved and was worthless, much like some projects on MFD that won't be named. WP:BJAODN already has a large banner at the top that displays that it's up for deletion, what more is needed. The only thing other than that would be to notify every member of the project on thier talk pages. Bringing everyone who glorifies vandalism here so they can say I like it, would be most unproductive. — Moe ε 16:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• I posted a notice about this MfD on the Community bulletin board and it was up there for a day. The Signpost also published a BJAODN story dated August 20, 2007 linking to this MfD. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 20:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. We should not recognize vandalism (that's why it's different from any other Wiki-humor). The GFDL problems are not being worked out adequately. And it's not funny anymore. The humor should be moved to another site. My second, more lenient option is to get the community to work together through dicussion and find a course of action before doing anything. Singularity 20:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
• Reboot, get rid of the copyright problems (even though mergers produce the same problems). DENY is an essay, but it does have a point. However, not all material in BJAODN is from vandalism. XfDs that had humorous content, strange help desk questions, ironic placement of tags in article space... etc. After the reboot, disallow vandalism and cite (or link to) the occurance. --Rayc 23:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep although there shouldn't be any NEW pages in the project. Just leave what is there there. Leitzan _talk 02:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete but if anyone wants it, put it under their own userspace provided that it doesn't violate the existing copyright issue OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, but I think the main page could be tagged as historical. It's almost a shame, BJAODN seemed kind of funny when I first came across it, (and sometimes not so funny...) but the case for this violating copyright all over the place seems pretty strong. Someone above suggested making a wikiproject or something dedicated to working out copyright and GDFL compliant entries, but I suspect that far too few editors release their contributions freely to really come up with something interesting, and even then, it would probably take quite a major effort to come up with anything at all. Homestarmy 03:04, 21 August 2007
• Delete. I really like BJAODN. But that's all I've got, is WP:ILIKEIT. I can't argue to keep because I have no argument. Therefore, I have to say delete on this one. Crystallina 06:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Category:All pages needing cleanup contains thousands of pages. Time and effort should be directed towards productive tasks. Punkmorten 07:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. It will be a sad day when the community's sense of its own importance becomes so inflated that it leaves no room for BJAODN. Gandalf61 10:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep - as often appears on article deletion reasons, BJAODN is in need of cleanup/repair, not deletion. Orderinchaos 10:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - Templates (and other things that embed, like AfD discussions) violate the GFDL too, are we going to delete all templates because of it? I don't think so. Same case here. -- Prince Kassad 11:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• Templates do not violate the GFDL. The content in the template is transcluded from what the template namespace says, which has a full history. Your point is moot. — Moe ε 15:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the template has a full history, but to use it in an article you still need to give attribution. It's more of a problem for substituted templates because these don't link back to the template page. -- Prince Kassad 16:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The issue here is BJAODN, just because WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS isn't a reason. That issue needs to be brought up someplace thats not here. — Moe ε 16:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I won't do it because I know that nobody will take the problem seriously. People are just voting to delete BJAODN for GFDL violations because they want to get rid of it, and copyvio is a welcome argument to do that. -- Prince Kassad 18:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

No one will take the problem seriously because templates causing a GFDL violation is ludacris, which isn't the topic of this discussion, like I said, other crap existing isn't a reason to keep something that obviously needs to be deleted unless you have a real reason. — Moe ε 20:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• Very Very Strong Keep - what is it with people around here? Can't we have a little fun? First most of the sandbox pages are deleted, now this! Ok, it’s a very cluttered and unorganised project, but the idea is sound; it’s a historical archive which represents the Wikipedia Community, its contributors and society as a whole. Come on people! Think outside the box 12:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • So you like it? Not the most convincing reason to keep GFDL violations. — Moe ε 15:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • The Wikipedia community, its contributors and society as a whole are represented by a collection of vandalism, hoaxes, nonsense, and libel? And I thought I was a pessimist ... — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, there's enough of it to fill several whole pages; I'd say it represents something Think outside the box 10:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

third section break

• Nuke em - The first time I encountered this page and its progeny was when I saw one user smirking to another about how they had dragged something the person wrote off to BJAODN. I looked into it and yes, the text was poorly written and not particularly encyclopedic... but that's no cause for being obnoxious about it. I've seen the same scenario several times since for even less cause - reasonably valid contributions and discussion dragged off for no purpose but to mock. These pages are an institutionalized violation of WP:CIVIL and WP:BITE. They piss me off. They're also GFDL violations? Didn't know that... that's bad too. They violate WP:DENY and WP:BLP? Good point, hadn't thought of it but I can see that too. Bad pages. But for me, the reason to stomp them into paste and never let them come back is that they are frequently used to be 'funny' at the expense of other contributors. To mock and humiliate people who are trying to help us. That's counterproductive and, frankly, infuriating. Funny? Not to me. --CBD 12:55, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. I think we should take some advice from Wikiversity. Again, I think that the content should be transferred to a site that's not Wikipedia, and then it won't be Wikipedia's problem. You can even make a site that glorifies vandalism on Wikipedia, as long as it's not hosted here...--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 13:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• Remove GFDL violations and keep per my belief that keeping a few humorous, or social, or otherwise non-productive parts of Wikipedia is beneficial for the project (they make Wikipedia not suck). Many users start editing Wikipedia because they find neat a few stuff we have around. Let's not lose them as we lost the Esperanza editors. Húsönd 14:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• Who is going to removed the GFDL violations and when? Last MfD people said they would remove them, but it never happened. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 15:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• I expect the people who were most concerned about the GFDL violations to do the job. It won't be me, that is for certain.--Húsönd 15:29, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• It is just that those who wish to keep it are not fixing it. They didn't last time. I could do it, but I would rather write an encyclopedia. Frankly I don't think it will ever get done as much of the attribution requires admin tools to recover and most admins have better things to do, like write an encyclopedia. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 15:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with you. Those willing to keep it will leave it as it is because they're not concerned about GFDL, and those willing to delete will not fix it because they simply won't waste their time fixing something they want to get rid of. A typical Wikipedian go-nowhere.--Húsönd 15:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• Not go nowhere, go write an encyclopedia. This task has nothing to do with our stated goals so I don't think it is a failing of any sort if this gets deleted. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 17:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• We lost the Esperanza editors? If they're that focused on side projects that they leave when/if it goes away, no great loss. 64.126.24.11 15:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC) (nae'blis, not logged in)

• Ack! Most edited Esperanza simply because it was the only part of Wikipedia where people could get accustomed to editing it while interacting with other users at the same time. Many of them became great editors. Others edited it because the rest of Wikipedia was too boring to edit without a break or something different every now and then. Many of them were still doing a good job.--Húsönd 15:29, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete all, possibly restart The BJAODN is full of copyvio. It is also not particularly funny. So, delete all then possibly restart the project with attribution and genuinely good content. GDonato (talk) 15:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. I fail to see the imminent danger posed to Wikipedia by a bunch of bad jokes (properly licensed or not). Kaldari 16:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Properly licensed or not? Has it occured to you that Wikipedia has to comply to GFDL, that it's not an option? — Moe ε 16:09, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • The GFDL isn't the only issue, or the most important one. The nominator didn't claim "imminent danger" as the reason for deletion, though, and that standard is never required for deletion. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep: I think that these snippets -- which are usually only a few lines at best -- fall under the doctrine of fair use. In the case that it's longer, a link to a revision can be provided. .V. _[Talk|Email] 18:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• Fair use? Nothing written on Wikipedia is released under fair use. Any edit anybody makes is released under the GFDL. Fair use has nothing to do with it. — Moe ε 18:46, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• The GFDL doesn't trump fair use, so even if something was originally released under the GFDL, it could still be used under the terms of fair use, if a case can be made for that. — PyTom 00:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per every piddling bit of policy cited in the nom. As much as I would hate to appear like a harbinger of bad faith, it seems somewhat unintuitive to read over the entire nom and say as your keep reason "I don't see anything wrong with this! It's not doing any harm, why delete it!" We are VERY explicit with our use on policy of Wikipedia, and we establish such things to set a precedent; a precedent that cannot be broken by petty vandalism. We need to maintain this precedence if we intend to maintain our stability as an encyclopedia. In truth, the content within BJAODN is questionable at even essay level. I appreciate all of the creativity placed into building this rather outlandish section of the Wikipedia; even I agree it's funny. But here at Wikipedia, we are building an encyclopedia and are trying to keep it within the policies established by our good friends. I would like to suggest that whosoever wishes to keep BJAODN do the following:

• A. Build a website.
• B. Use Encyclopedia as a portal.
• C. Cache the data on your computer.

• We must build an encyclopedia that keeps its integrity even within projectspace, namespace, and userspace. If we cannot do that, then we have failed in our task. Have your fun, just don't let it interfere with your work. --WaltCip 19:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, then burn it with fire. Total non-encyclopedic data dump which does nothing but reward vandals and similar foolishness. We've wasted too much time on this as it is. Burntsauce 22:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Though I've generally (generally) enjoyed BJAODN pages over the years, the GFDL/attribution/DENY problems have never been fixed, nor will they be, nor could they be (at least, not easily- attribute every piece of text and we're promoting vandalism; don't attribute and face the obvious problems). It's much, much better to just get rid of BJAODN altogether- if a solution to the above issues is somehow found, then by all means, start it up again. -- Kicking222 23:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep as a funny piece of Wikipedia community. If it could all be rebooted, as such, with attributions, it wouldn't violate anything. There's nothing wrong with having a bit of humour on here. In fact, it's a welcome break. -- _{Escape Artist Swyer} ^{Talk to me} _{Articles touched by my noodly appendage} 00:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• Again, humor is not a valid argument. There is nothing in WP:HUMOR that says that articles with the little purple banner must be kept under any circumstances, even if they are funny. Plus lawyers have no sense of humor, and they will go after Wikipedia GFDL violations anyway. It's very unlikely that this will be restarted and the same issue will not pop up again; previous MFDs have already established that. Therefore the safest thing to do would be to outsource BJAODN, not "recycle" it.--WaltCip 01:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• Who are these hypothetical lawyers and where would they come from? Is there some active GFDL police (outside of pontificating wiki users) that I am not aware of? And why isn't humor a relevant argument for a project called "Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense"? ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 03:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete all What have these jokes and vandal traces got to do with an encyclopaedia? Delete and put the whole thing in somewhere else not Wikipedia. I don't see any reason to keep a junkyard in Wikipedia. Copyvio and other problems need not be mentioned at all. --Sjhan81 01:42, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep All What people have posted on BJAODN is for the most part humorous vandalism, for example, James Blunt and the queen mother "we aren't sure if he touched her" this is not a GFDL violation, at least not on it's face (overanalysis of anything could find a possible violation) show me that the majority of this repository is information copied from other sources and/or manipulated in such a way as it is a violation AND that it is done in an intentional and malicious way and i'll change my vote. Other than these hypothetically extensive violations of the GFDL the deletion of this age seems to be endorsed soly by those with sticks firmly lodged in their rectums.Aricci526 04:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete subpages, tag main page as historical. Whether it is funny or not, BJAODN is not important enough to justify the work needed to keep and fix it. Also the WP:DENY argument has some validity. If something is so funny that you must preserve it for posterity, you can use Unencyclopedia or another alternative outlet. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a joke site. Eluchil404 04:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep all per Walton One Brian | (Talk) 05:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per the Chewbacca defense. Either that or Transwiki to Uncyclopedia in exchange for a sense of humor and future considerations. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. -- But|seriously|folks  05:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Get a sense of humor, people - and this is a crucial part of Wikipedia history.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  15:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Request substantiation of claims

Keep with heavy cleanup. I have so many objections to this nomination I had to create a section of my own for them:

• Baby with bathwater: If there are problems (such as GFDL violations) with particular entries, delete the entries. We don't delete the whole of Wikipedia just because there are some vandals or copyvios.
• GFDL violations? I don't believe anything and everything copied to BJAODN is automatically a GFDL violation. The nomination seems to take WP:copyvio as a given; where is the supporting argument?
• Fair use: Given that BJAODN is basically quoting for purposes of humor, I think fair use has a strong argument here (certainly as strong as for many of the images that get used in articles).
• Define "document": The GFDL is all about copying "the document". Is it declared somewhere that each page in Wikipedia is a separate document? My own assumption, all along, has been that Wikipedia is one big document — i.e., the encyclopedia. The "document", as far as the GFDL is concerned, is the project as a whole, the website, the SQL database behind it. If we are going to require each page to be a different document, then every merge, split, move, and copy-and-paste is going to become a GFDL violation. Please tell me how that would help us write an encyclopedia.
• Ownership: We have no ownership of articles. That would seem to apply to "bad" content as well as "good" content in articles.
• NOT NOT#WEBSPACE: Citing WP:NOT#WEBSPACE is bogus. BJAODN is all about Wikipedia and being a Wikipedian; it is "on-topic" for the Project namespace. Using WP:NOT in this fashion would justify deleting large numbers of other project pages.
• Aside: Speaking of namespaces: What's with all the links to "namespace" pages in the nomination? I count at least nine such links. Is the nominator trying to prove something here? Am I just missing something?
• Selective licensing? The claim is made that some contributors do not license their talk page contributions under the GFDL. I would like to know more about this. Any time I edit any page on Wikipedia, including talk pages, I get told, in no uncertain terms, that "You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL". When did this become optional?
• Deleted materials? Citing CSD G4 (Recreation of deleted material) seems totally bogus to me. That item states, in part, "... provided ... any changes to it do not address the reasons for which it was deleted". I think it's pretty self-evident that moving to BJAODN addresses the reason it was deleted. BJAODN is will within the letter and the spirit of CSD G4.
• Citations: Even if we want to interpret the GFDL in the worst possible way here (considering every page on Wikipedia a separate document, etc.), any BJAODN entry with a citation (e.g., link to article) would seem to be okay.
• Attribution: The attribution statement (iv), as given, is really just a reiteration of the claims of copyright problems. So see above.
• m:Avoid Copyright Paranoia. Yes, I know that's just an essay; some of the points it raises are still valid.
• Community: Wikipedia is powered by people. Wikipedia needs a community to work. A community without humor is, at best, a very bleak prospect. I would argue that these sorts of things are an essential part of the human aspects of Wikipedia. Crusading to eliminate them on the grounds that they're "just humor" hurts the project.
• However: All of the above being said, it does seem to me that BJAODN has become something of a dumping around for anything and everything. Significant cleanup is needed. That can includes lots of stuff getting deleted. For the future, perhaps some sort of mechanism for "inclusion criteria" would be a good idea, to help keep it from getting out-of-control.

If the nominator could respond to any of these -- in particular, the copyvio-related parts -- I would really appreciate it. Thanks. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 06:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep per the many concerns raise by DragonHawk, and also because there seems to be no evidence that BJAODN has any effect on vandalism at all. Let's not throw the bath out with the bathwater. Re: inclusion criteria - perhaps have some mechanism by which people can remove entries that everyone but the initial contributor deem unfunny. — PyTom 08:27, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Wikipedia is a community, not just an encyclopedia. Anons, registered users, all and sundry... this shows the community has humour. The WP:DENY is not policy, so that argument's weak. There's a lot of good arguments to keep this, deleting it would be a waste. Let's add new stuff to it, this can continue indefinitely... heh, and it's not WP:ILIKEIT that's the reason I want it kept. --84.45.219.185 09:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Non-arbitrary section break

(Further discussion, unrelated to the above, can go after here. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 06:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC))

Comment -- Am I the only one who finds it ridiculous to use a licence which makes not crediting the anonymous illegal? Assuming of course that the consensus here is right about that; are there any qualified IP lawyers reading this page?

The m:Foundation issues page gives "copyleft licencing of content" as the core principle, achieved in practice by using either GFDL or CC-BY licences. The copyleft principle is quite rightly "beyond debate", but is the practice currently used to achieve it (applying the GDFL) also set in stone forever, despite the licence not being designed for either wikis or encyclopedias?

BJAODN isn't important enough by itself to try changing the licence for, but if every throwaway comment ever made in any namespace has to be attributed, despite the author not even caring enough to register an account, isn't that tons of unproductive work for nothing? And what about out of date mirrors which store unattributed "work" - if there's any real liability, wouldn't WP share it for having published the content in the first place, however briefly?

I'm not a lawyer and can't offer a better alternative myself, I'm afraid. Moyabrit 11:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• The GFDL is not the only reason for the nomination. That cannot be stressed enough. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • It is the only reason that doesn't boil down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT, though. Copyvios and/or foundation issues trump consensus, but everything else is open for discussion. Moyabrit 16:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
    • This is the place for such discussion. The line between a lot of IDONTLIKEIT opinions and a consensus to delete is not so wide. Can you explain what encyclopedic purpose these pages serve? — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
      • They relieve some people's stress, which helps the community, and they show the world that WP isn't too stuck up to laugh at itself every now and then. The (main) BJAODN talk page mentions a news article citation in Business Standard, which I think is reasonably positive about WP. Moyabrit 17:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
      • People need community. So without community, we don't have an encyclopedia. Thus, Wikipedia community pages which help keep the project alive do serve the purpose of writing an encyclopedia. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 02:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• Up to this point consensus might well been formed, I'm writing a draft closure to try and gauge it. The actual closing admin is free to use if he/she wishes to, and modify if consensus changes - Mailer Diablo 13:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The result of the debate was to delete the subpages with no prejudice on BJAODN's future or restart; the BJAODN main page itself should not be touched. There is consensus from editors that the BJAODN pages present possible problems of copyright, BLP and GFDL; even those who advocate keep on cultural/historical/humour grounds (which are valid arguments) have acknowledged these issues.

If a judgment on the future of BJAODN as a concept is determined now, we are going to play ping-pong between deletion review and MfD. Even if we restart BJAODN, at least if it ever returns to MfD there should be much less problems because editors would now aggressively monitor its contents for policy violations. Discussion for BJAODN's future begins here.

For transparency the pages that were deleted they should be listed properly on the main page or subpage. (I learn this from WP:ESP the hard way) Whether the community chooses to restart BJAODN or not, a history of it up to now on its main page is strongly recommended. - Mailer Diablo 13:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• Considering that the majority of "keep" suggestions are based in expressions of a personal liking of BJAODN (which does not override policy/foundation issues), the existence of other GFDL violations, and/or a misunderstanding of Wikipedia:Copyrights, and that a substantial number provide no reason at all, I would propose the following alternative (I hope you don't mind that I used parts of your version). — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 15:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I am not at all certain that you are on the right side of understanding Wikipedia:Copyrights or the relevance of WP:ILIKEIT in discussions of non-mainspace content. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 15:54, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure on what you base your first opinion. As for the second issue, I realise that WP:ILIKEIT is more valid in deletion discussions of non-mainspace pages, but I think the fact that BJAODN is so contentious and involves so many other problems (copyright, libel, and so on) plays a role. You are, of course, free to disagree. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 16:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
      • I agree that BJAODN is contentious, there are enough "I don't like it" comments to balance out favorable impressions of the project. However the main issue behind deletion remains the alleged non-compliance with the GFDL, and as I see it, any potential legal problems are better assessed by people with expert knowledge of intellectual property law and familiarity with FSF's & WMF's stance on in-project application of the GFDL. (I suppose I just violated our own little spin on Godwin's law: as Wikipedia discussions grow longer, the urge to appeal to Wikimedia officials becomes inevitable.) ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 16:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Re Godwin's Law - Me too! I'd like to know what Jimbo thinks of changing to a better different copyleft licence in future... not that I'd ever dream of invoking him myself, of course ;-) Moyabrit 17:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
          • Re: Anetode. Actually, for me, the main reason for deletion is WP:NOT. However, at this point, a little intervention (or at least guidance) from the Powers That Be might be useful, at least in terms of putting the issue to rest once and for all ... that is, until the next deletion review or MfD nomination :0 — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The result of the debate was to delete the subpages and tag the BJAODN main page as {{historical}}. There is consensus that the BJAODN pages present possible problems with the GFDL, WP:BLP, and WP:NOT; even those who advocate keeping on cultural/historical/humour grounds have acknowledged these issues. Moreover, as the discussion illustrates, there is no consensus to restart BJAODN on Wikipedia (any changes to the off-wiki version are beyond the scope of this nomination).

Wikipedia is, first and foremost, an encyclopedia. Without making any judgment on the worth or appropriateness of BJAODN, it is clear that its continued existence is a point of contention. Aside from BJAODN, Wikipedia has numerous humour pages (many found in Category:Wikipedia humor), few or none of which are as problematic, contentious, or divisive.

I don't think there's consensus for that closure. .V. _[Talk|Email] 15:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Wa-hey ! Draft closures that allow us to push our own opinion, put down those who disagree with us and smuggle in an extra rant or two, all wrapped up in a nice purple box - what a cool addition to the MfD process - not ! Arguments are not improved by repetition. Gandalf61 16:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Arguments are not improved by repetition, but there's nothing wrong with summary. After all, this is a discussion. In addition, I don't believe that my final paragraph actually repeats anything stated in the discussion. I'm puzzled by your claim that my comments "put down those who disagree" ... how exactly would you disagree someone on this issue without holding/expressing the view that their arguments are not convincing? And since when is calling an argument unconvicing a "put-down"? I can't very well agree and disagree with them simultaneously. I'm equally puzzled by your "rant or two" comment. Since when is 5 sentences a rant? ... I could rant on more about the appropriate length for a rant ;) ... However, I've removed the purple box to avoid any confusion with the actual closure. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 16:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• I think any decisions (or lack thereof) on BJAODN's future as a subject matter (rather than the current subpages) is likely to make or break any truce we have here. - Mailer Diablo 16:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • If we can't discuss BJAODN's future here, can a discussion elsewhere decide to restore any of the old content? Assuming of course that some people including at least one admin are ready to work on it. Personally I think it's become too big to read, so the funny stuff is drowned in cruft anyway. But would anyone wanting to dig through it for lost gems be able to, without a full deletion review? Moyabrit 16:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
    • "Userfy" option is avaliable on request if you are willing to spend the time on a temporary user subpage, and if BJAODN is restarted by discussion fits the new parameters/standards. - Mailer Diablo 17:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
    • It's not clear there would be consensus to restart it, but per Mailer diablo we can postpone that discussion for later. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Personally I wouldn't mind deleting the entire archive, given that it's been saved offsite. Restoring more than a handful of pieces would be too much work (and impossible for me as a non-admin), too contentious and would overshadow new BJAODNs. The important thing IMHO is to keep BJAODN as a concept. But if I adopt one or two (like the dinosaur rolypology theory), can I just move them now myself or do I need permission (from who)? Moyabrit 17:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Just noticed the WP:USERFY page suggests a cut&paste move of content; isn't that just as illegal as much of the existing BJAODN? Moyabrit 17:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
          • Good catch - I added a note there about keeping a list of contributors after a cut/paste move. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I like Mailer Diablo's draft close, the only change I would make is to have the discussion about the future of BJAODN on seperate subpage of the talk page, for example Wikipedia talk:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense/The future of Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense, just to keep the discussion seperate from the main talk page. --Phirazo 22:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• Speedy Keep-ity Keep-Keep, per all countless previous discussions of that matter. The problems can be fixed. We aren't Uncyclopedia, but we aren't humorless drones, either. Uncyclopedia is all about clowning around; Wikipedia can certainly make the claim to have some wit. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 17:50, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Speedy keeps are for uncontentious situations; there is a lot of sentiment here to delete these. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, the people who wanted to keep it didn't fix it. -- Jeandré, 2007-08-22t18:42z —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 18:42, August 22, 2007 (UTC).
  • And the people who kept claiming they saw problems also didn't do anything to fix them. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 02:21, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• That is what this MfD is for. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 02:23, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• So, rather than address the specific problems, just delete the whole thing? That seems... disproportionate. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 02:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• Double Secret Uber Keep. Just because we're writing an encyclopedia doesn't mean that said encyclopedia can't be funny.Belgium EO —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 19:14, August 22, 2007 (UTC).

• Trying to get rid of all the humor isn't the issue. It's the contentious, liable, BLP violations and possible GFDL violations that are the issue. — Moe ε 21:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: 1) FT2 posted some good arguments at the ArbCom case that are relevant here. 2) Attempts by admins to make their arguments look more important by wrapping them in a "proposed closure" have absolutely no place in MfD. Please either close the discussion for real, or post normal arguments like the rest of us. Evouga 19:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep BJAODN was one of the things about Wikipedia that first attracted me to be an editor: I liked to see an outlet for nonsense (and other sites, like Uncyclopedia, don't do that because they're, um, other sites). So it should be kept in the name of recruitment, as well as per every other 'keeop' comment here, which there's little point in going over again at this juncture. Lordrosemount 21:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep per WP:COMMUNITY. The copyright violation arguments to delete are totally without merit. As I pointed out WT:BJAODN#GFDL violation? I think not., by extrapolating from a sample of BJAODN (i.e. all of the material on one of the subpages selected randomly), it is shown that the vast majority of material does not violate the GFDL, and that which does is minor and easily fixable. I got what looked like one of the more difficult items fixed by simply asking the admin who put it there in the first place to provide the proper attribution. I believe that if the time spent debating the existence of the pages were instead spent actually fixing any GFDL-compliance isues, the GFDL issue would be entirely moot. I also don't buy the WP:DENY arguments, unless someone can convince me that there is a large number of people vandalizing Wikipedia for the sole purpose of getting their work featured in BJAODN. DHowell 22:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. I have to agree with this. Making Wikipedia into the broadest reference work in human history was the easy part. Now we need to keep our position and the quality of our content at least stable, with the joy that comes out of making good rewrites and new articles ever lessening and - more importantly - more and more policy and content arguments and people working at cross-purposes. The site was designed for the accumulation of knowledge, now we must do something it wasn't designed for and form and uphold effective and fair policy in a virtual environment. In such circumstances it's vital that we stay a community under the spirit of co-operation, and this is an outlet for that. Note that the GFDL situation, if any, is different from the last time as an editor has already sworn (reluctantly) to mechanically trace the origins of the entries, and there's a new template on the main BJAODN page's talk page that should ensure future compliance if implemented. --Kizor 23:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep BJAODN is a noble part of the history of Wikipedia, we CAN still be a huge and respected projct without losing our sense of humour. Tomgreeny 23:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• I find nothing noble about BJAODN, nor it a great part of our history here. If you would, address the issues presented by the nominator instead of WP:ILIKEIT. — Moe ε 01:54, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep It'd be a bog shame to delete one of Wikipedia's oldest articles, also it has some neat stuff in it. Cheers, JetLover ^(talk) 00:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• Article? What about the points made by the nominator, care to address those? ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 00:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - it is a notable wikipedia history, rules about articles do not apply, and only community may decide the fate. If some pieces/section have serious problems, e.g., copyvios, they may be simply cut out. BTW, applying GFDL to stupidity is stupidity squared. `'Míkka 00:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• That was said at the last MfD, but nobody removed them. Are you going to remove them? ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 01:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • What is your problem? Is someone suing you? `'Míkka 01:01, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
• For an admin you sure have a disregard for copyright. I don't think we should have to be sued to follow copyright here. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 01:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • For an admin I am surprized you don't know how to deal with copyvios: you see them, you delete them. Anticipating a possible "smart" retort, if some idiot cut'n'pastes a piece into History of Burundi, deletion of the HoB is not a solution. `'Míkka 01:23, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
• If it was an encyclopedic article I might put in the bother, but since it has nothing to do with our project I don't see the point. The fact is that nobody is removing the vios, not even those who think it should be kept after the vios are removed. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 01:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Unmaintainble. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 01:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • On the contrary, it is archive, hence non-expandable, hence very well maintainable on a need-to-do basis. `'Míkka 01:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Nobody is maintaining it though, that the problem. In terms of what is actually humor, what is BLP, what is liable, what is GFDL compliant, etc. BJOADN fails to maintain any of it. — Moe ε 01:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Honestly Mikka, there thousands of important things we can maintain especially encyclopedic content. That's why we are here. Why do you think Esperanza was deleted? It gets people out of track. Let Digg do the job. Or else leave it to Unencyclopedia. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 03:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• Objection: How does moving GFDL content entirely within the Wikipedia project create a GFDL violation? —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 01:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Because under a common interpretation each page is a separate document for purpose of the GFDL. Someone sent an email to the FSF about the way we move content around, and their answer was much less than a full endorsement of our GFDL compliance. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:39, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
    • The majority of BJAODN entries link to the original article, similar to an edit like [1]. If this interpretation is correct, then BJAODN is the tip of the iceberg. — PyTom 01:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Do you have a reference to the actual message traffic with the FSF? This really wants solid knowledge. If that is, indeed, the case, then this goes way beyond BJAODN. That would all of Wikipedia is riddled with GFDL violations. There is extensive copying between pages, in the form of merges, splits, article hierarchies, and so on. I sincerely hope that interpretation is wrong, because otherwise, we basically need to copyvio the whole website. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 02:18, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep This has been part of Wikipedia for years. It's survived 5 deletion nominations, I doubt the sixth will win. MalwareSmarts 01:50, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• It's not about winning anything. WP:ILIKEIT doesn't rebuttle the nomination at all, if you would like to look at that. — Moe ε 01:54, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Well let's go through the nomination then shall we?

2. i. Completely frivolous. Nothing in Wikipedia license or policy suggests that material in non-article namespace has any extra protection above material in articles.

2. ii. The same tired GFDL complaints which have already been addressed time and again in both this MfD and the last one. Yes, there's currently a problem, yes, it only affects some subarticles and does not apply to BJAODN as a whole, and yes some editors have already volunteered to help fix it.

2. iii. Specious. The speedy deletion criteria only have consensus in article space.

2. iv. There's nothing here that hadn't already been said in i. and ii.

3. WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Seeing as how this is the only part of the nomination left to rebut, WP:ILIKEIT arguments are perfectly valid here. Evouga 04:28, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• Agree with Evouga, with one exception: CSD G4 is general, so it does apply to non-article space. That being said, it only applies if "the copy is substantially identical to the deleted version". I don't think that BJAODN is substantially identical to anything that's moved there, so G4 doesn't apply. I'm also not sure there's a GFDL problem, at least for the BJAODNs that are named "From Article". — PyTom 04:49, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Nice silly collection of pages in the project namespace. I am not a laywer either, but the GFDL concerns in this context appear exaggerated to me. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete based on WP:DENY and WP:BEANS rather than WP:GFDL. I posted my views at DRV (link; post+comment) and more thoughts on the GFDL at arbcom (GFDL#1 GFDL#2). I feel they are worth recapping here:

I do not feel the GFDL or deletion policy require deletion of BJAODN. Reasons are given in the arb case, but briefly:

1. There is significant material correctly attributed
2. Non-attributed material is easy to fix (any user can see the author of non-deleted pages; any of a thousand admins can see the author for deleted pages)
3. Deletion policy and practice is very clear that if fixing is easy or significant non-copyvio content exists then rectification (or removal of remaining problematic content) is strongly preferred to deletion
4. I am concerned about the double standard whereby this issue is pretty much entirely ignored for all internal copy/pastes (especially in the mainspace) except one topic which extensively uses identical moves for humor and education value.
5. It is far from clear legally whether GFDL applies to individual "article X of a website" or whether users contribute to "Wikipedia" as a whole (if the latter then internal moves are as much a non-violation as moves within a page).
6. (As a side comment, on Wikipedia, IP editors are considered 'authors' generally, and an IP is used to identify the authorship. Whether or not the author is anonymous by account name, or anonymous by IP, seems irrelevant; we do use IP to identify authors. Possibly worth mentioning this).

Along with GFDL concerns, the same rationale applies to any BLP concerns, libellous content and the like. These can be removed; they (like GFDL) do not necessitate deletion of the page. I also note that community pages have a value of their own, and are encouraged, in general. Provided they are secondary to the communal project of encyclopedia writing. When they conflict with that, conflict with policy, or cause problems, then it's a concern and may lead to deletion if the community agrees.

Unfortunately, for me, BJAODN probably hits that line.

GFDL and problematic content set aside, and looking at BJAODN as a whole, I support deletion 1/ WP:DENY and WP:BEANS. 2/ Unconvinced of merits of a place where if an edit is bad enough it will be preserved indefinitely to mark the editor's 15 minutes of fame. 3/ The usefulness of "BJAODN" as a label in debate does not require all 65 or 99 pages of "whatever caught people's attention" to be preserved too. (Saving the original page only, for historic value, wouldn't hurt.)

For me, one thing overrides all other concerns. I don't believe (as stated above) that advertizing in effect, "if you make a bad enough article edit or hoax, you might permanently get in the Wikipedia hall of fame", is a good thing. That concern (which broadly mirrors BEANS and DENY) is my main concern. I also don't think we need a 65 page archive. It was funny once, but 65 sequels dim the humor. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 08:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Phirazo has created User:Phirazo/Bjaodn header which would allow future versions of BJAODN to be GFDL-compliant. see User:Phirazo/Bjaodn example for an example. Hut 8.5 10:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment / possible solution? Again, the above idea brings up the DENY problem. By putting someone's user name out there, it's going to encourage some of those users to continue to vandalize and add nonsense, because they know those edits will live forever- and be attributed to the proud vandal. What if we added that information, but it was hidden in the wikitext (i.e., only visible when one clicks "edit this page")? I'd think that would eliminate a large portion of the DENY issue without sacrificing GFDL compliance. Though maybe it won't get rid of DENY problems... I'm not sure. But, and not to toot my own horn, it's the best suggestion I've heard yet. The vast majority of the keep arguments I've read have simply amounted to "this is part of Wikipedia's history" or "if we delete this, we'll have no sense of humor"... but those rationales don't alleviate any problems whatsoever. I don't know if this idea would, but it's sure as hell better than simply saying that BJAODN should exist because it's always existed. -- Kicking222 13:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

    • To be fair, a lot of the delete arguments are WP:IDONTLIKEIT. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 13:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

      • This is completely true, but at a quick glance, a far larger percentage of keep arguments than delete arguments hinge on these types of shoddy rationales. Either way, I'd like to know what people think about hidden attribution. -- Kicking222 15:06, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Delete Here is the way I see it. These pages really don't serve purpose other than to be the dumping ground for Deleted Nonsense (yes I'm aware that is why it is called what it is) and hence has no real value to the project. While some see it as a way to release stress on Wikipedia or to have a good laugh there are other avenues that can be used for that (Uncyclopedia is one). Additionally the GDFL issues are another problem that most likely will not go away. Most likely what will happen is a very long debate will get started on how to fix BJAODN and no progress will be made to actually fix it, just like what happened with Esperanza and the AMA after there MfD's and discussions, which will result in these pages once again going up for MfD and cause even more drama. Humor has its place yes, but I think this got carried away (again do we really need several DOZEN pages of BJAODN?). Ok that is my two cents feel free to disagree ;) Æon ^{Insanity Now!} 15:11, 23 August 2007 (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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.