Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alt.sex.stories

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

The result of the debate was keep. – Robert 04:17, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alt.sex.stories

Was tagged as speedy candidate with the reason: "Not Notable, promotionion of a singular website which contains large amounts of illegal material (eg alt.sex.stories.pedo)". As far as I can tell, Usenet newsgroups can be notable and containing large amounts of illegal material shouldn't be a reason not to have an article on it. We also have articles on other questionable material. Abstain. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep This is an encyclopedia, not a moral judgement. User:Fuzzywolfenburger
• Keep Josh Parris#: 12:56, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep. I was surprised to see a Speedy Deletion tag posted, ostensibly because of "notability" and "illegal material." Let me address each one:

• First, lack of notability is a criteria for deletion, not speedy deletion. The Usenet hierarchy alt.sex.stories is critical to an understanding of the growth of the internet into its present form. Usenet predates the Worldwide Web by well over a decade. Many people who are not familiar with the history and background that gave rise to the internet tend to think of the Web as the internet. That's simply not true, it is only one aspect of the Internet and only the most recent. Before there was a Web, there was Usenet. And one of the most important portions of Usenet that drove the popularity of the web were the stories told through the alt.sex.stories hierarchies. This was an important factor in drawing people to the internet in the first place. As detailed by the article itself, understanding the alt.sex.stories hierarchy is critical to understanding how the internet was born. To say it lacks notability is absurd.

• As to "illegal" materials, there is no "alt.sex.stories.pedo" as far as I can tell. If one was created in the past (and a Usenet group is easy to create), there is no indication that it in any way has propogated. My Usenet service is among the most comprehensive, with over 120,000 Usenet groups. There's no "pedo" subgroup. If any such group is out there, it is certainly not being distributed. Nonetheless, even if it was out there, the other subgroups certainly do not deserve to be shunned because someone decided to create a questionable subgroup. It is all protected under U.S. law; written materials --even involving minors -- are protected by the First Amendment.[1] There's no such thing as an "illegal" textual description of a sexual act.

• I believe this nomination was made in bad faith and without any checking of notability or legality. Jtmichcock 13:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep as per Josh and Jmichcock, and suggest adding a clean-up tag to break things into a few subsections; perhaps Purpose, History and Sub-groups, for example. Confusing Manifestation 13:46, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete For those who say there is no "alt.sex.stories.pedo" may I point you to this Usenet listing. Not only does it exist, but it appears to be active. And as if that wasn't bad enough there is also "alt.sex.stories.babies" which describes inself as "STories involving pre teen children and sex". alt.sex.stories is a usenet group not a website, but it is the equivilent of a single website. Wikipedia has a policy of not allowing articles devoted to single websites. There are litrally thousands of porn websites out there, so why don't they all have Wikipedia articles devoted to them? And as far as telling the story of Usenet is concerned, I think the Usenet article does that just fine. —gorgan_almighty 14:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I recall reading where Yahoo was being pursued by law enforcement because it was allowing its chat rooms to be used by pedophiles to pick up children. I suppose by that logic Yahoo should be de-listed. By way of background, alt.sex.stories is a hierarchy, not a single group and most certainly not a website since it has existed before the Web was even invented (although you can now access the usenet through Google Groups). The subgroups include just about everything that you could imagine, just like Yahoo chat rooms have all manner of behavior. Within the alt.sex.stories groups, there are two main moderated hierarchies, alt.sex.stories.moderated (ASSM) and alt.sex.stories.gay.moderated (ASSGM), both of which have very strict policies on underage sex. I happen to be the moderator the latter and have been for six years (as well as being an assistant moderator prior to taking over). Just the mailing lists for our group includes some 30,000 people and that does not include the tens of thousands of people who read the stories off the web nor those who obtain through Usenet. Our "straight" counterpart, as you can imagine, has an even larger audience. There is no question of notability. I would again urge a Speedy Keep. Jtmichcock 16:10, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Yes I noticed your connection to alt.sex.stories. So the alt.sex.stories Wikipedia article is written by the moderator of alt.sex.stories is it? That in its self has been cause for deletion of articles in the past. Please don't take my request for deletion as a personal insult against you, as its not. Your comment about Yahoo being pursued by law enforcement because it allowed its chat rooms to be used by pedophiles is very true. I'm just concerned about the same happening to Wikipedia. Can we get some comments from people who aren't directly connected to alt.sex.stories perhaps? —gorgan_almighty 16:38, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
      • There is no moderator of "alt.sex.stories", Jtmichcock moderates "alt.sex.stories.gay.moderated", and he is far from the only contributer to the alt.sex.stories article here on Wikipedia. I have created a section on the ASS.* hierarchy to attempt to clear up this confusion. And for the record, I have no connection to alt.sex.stories other than appreciation of Usenet's history and impact in general. --W.marsh 16:45, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
      • We've never deleted articles because of who wrote them. We delete advertising articles because they're POV, and vanity articles because they're non-notable, not because of who writes them. This article seems perfectly fine with regards to NPOV. As for the legal issues, I can't see any in regard to talking about a group that may or may not have a similar name to another group that may or may not be doing something illegal. Didn't a whole WikiProject dedicated to censoring Wikipedia to comply with Florida obscenity law get shot down not too long ago? I remember voting in the AfD on it but wasn't around when it was closed, and can't remember what it was called to look it up. (For the record, I have nothing to do with ASS. Teeheehee.) --Last Malthusian 16:47, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
        • I think the proposer has some misconceptions about Usenet and how groups are formed and managed. I have the codes and passwords for the ASSGM Newsgroup and not any others. While I have some familiarty with the folks working at ASSM (our websites cross-promote each other), I don't have the authority or means to approve, delete or otherwise affect any posting in that group. As to the balance of the Newsgroups in the ASS hierarchy, I don't even check those unless I hear that someone's writing a diatribe about us. I'm not even sure how many other Newsgroups there are. ASSM and ASSGM were both chartered hierarchies set up years ago. Once you got your group, that's what you handle. Individual ISPs that carry your group or not, it all depends on the demand. Largerly, most ISPs won't carry Newsgroups with any sort of underage content designation; Google carries all sorts of groups without such restrictions, but refuses any binary files. As to whether or not Wikipedia should mention a hierarchy that might contains underage materials in a subgroup, I would certainly hope so. If for no other reason to caution people about what their children/spouses/other family members may be getting themselves into. Jtmichcock 17:41, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep This is a long-established newsgroup (with 1,380,000 google hits... [2]), not a website... Wikipedia has plenty of articles about webpages and even newsgroups less known than alt.sex.stories. Not to drag this out, but subgroups really have no connection to their parent group... due to the nature of Usenet, anyone who knows how can create a subgroup. --W.marsh 15:10, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, notable newsgroup, Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of prudes minors. --Last Malthusian 15:38, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• Given that there's not a single delete vote, I think we can safely Speedy this. (Not counting the 'nominator', by which I mean the guy who put the speedy tag on, not Mgm.)--Last Malthusian 23:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep, this is a large section of the usenet heirarchy. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 17:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable newsgroup, and seriously, are pedophilic stories even considered illegal? I can understand photos or videos, but stories? For a murder mystery, do authors go to jail for 25 to life? Flyboy Will 17:20, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. We have articles on far less notable newsgroups than this. It is an important part of usenet's history. Capitalistroadster 17:52, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Written word is not illegal, and if that is the basis of its main argument for deletion it is inherently flawed. Additionally, is is as already stated NOT a website, it's a newsgroup, and the differences exist in format, protocol, usage and more. Anyone who equates any Usenet hierarchy as a website is completely ignorant of the internet as a whole. Pan 18:23, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep - One person's disgust with Internet sex stories is not a valid reason to delete an article. FCYTravis 22:52, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy keep and censure for user:Gorgan almighty for his attacks on other editors. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:24, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
  • User:Gorgan almighty has never attacked anyone. Everything I have said and done has been in Wikipedia's best interest. Whether you agree with the nomination or not it was made in good faith. And if you look at my contributions to date you will see I have a history of resolving disputes & protecting Wikipedia against vandalism. Please do not attack me because my views are different to yours.—gorgan_almighty 10:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
    • "Everything I have said and done has been in Wikipedia's best interest." Including placing a bogus speedy deletion tag on an article which did not meet any of Wikipedia's criteria for speedy deletion? A nomination that did not even correctly identify the subject of the article as a newsgroup rather than a website? And then in this discussion, when someone tried to address the fundamental error of fact upon which your argument for deletion was founded, you attacked him with an ad hominem circumstantial: "So the alt.sex.stories Wikipedia article is written by the moderator of alt.sex.stories is it? That in its self has been cause for deletion of articles in the past. ... Can we get some comments from people who aren't directly connected to alt.sex.stories perhaps?" You would be better advised to pay attention to where you're getting your facts completely wrong than pointing the finger at the person pointing out your error. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:11, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Let's not make this ugly - it's not worth it when this discussion's surely going to be closed soon. I don't think Gorgan acted in bad faith, and I don't think an ad hominem is the same as an 'attack' - that implies something far more violent and aggressive. --Last Malthusian 17:18, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
      • I agree. I think the proposer saw the rogue sub-newsgroups and panic took over. That's perfectly understandable. I think we should all be mindful to check things out before proposing an article for deletion. It would save a lot of time and effort if you have thoroughly checked out the background. I do hope that we can close this debate soon. Jtmichcock 19:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
• With apologizes to Phroziac, extreme lesbian keep. a.s.s is pretty much synonymous with pornographic or erotic fiction on the internet; I'm having trouble thinking of a more-notable usenet group. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Extreme Keep. I heard of a.s.s. before I even had internet access. It is that Notable. (friendly) tip to nominator -- please check background some more before nominating for deletion. novacatz 04:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• I feel it is my duty as an immoral Wikipedian to say vehement support of maximum keepification. (Plus, good lord, this usenet group is probably more notable than any other.) Cernen 09:57, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Keep, very notable newsgroup. — Zazou 02:37, 22 December 2005 (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 article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.