Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Toothing

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was no consensus. Woohookitty 07:48, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Toothing

Deliberate and admitted hoax that didn't even last a month. Habap 7 July 2005 20:05 (UTC)

• Delete nn hoax, per nominator. By the same group of vain hoaxers as Greenlighting. -Splash 7 July 2005 20:18 (UTC)
• Delete as per Splash. Jaxl 7 July 2005 20:34 (UTC)
• Delete. Non-notable, forum vanity. Quale 7 July 2005 21:05 (UTC)
• Delete to destroy current non-notable content, then redirect to teething. Cheers! -- BD2412 ^talk July 7, 2005 21:13 (UTC)
• Redirect to teething as per BD2412, but no need to delete first. Meelar (talk) July 7, 2005 21:20 (UTC)
• keep - a hoax it may be, but it was certainly a popularised one (both in the press and online). The article fully admits it is a hoax, and is an informative little article about the phenomenen. it's not as though there's a more deserving article of this name, or we're running out of space, so I see no reason to delete. UkPaolo 7 July 2005 21:23 (UTC)
• Keep Edison's 250 failed attempts to build a light bulb weren't obliterated from history, so why disregard this technological experiment?
• Delete and redirect per BD2412; failed hoax is not notable. Dcarrano July 7, 2005 21:25 (UTC)

I wouldn't exactly call it "failed". Perhaps it wasn't as popularised elsewhere in the world, but certainly in the UK the concept of toothing got significant press coverage; even a bbc news article: [1]. I think people should be able to look the term up in Wikipedia, even if it's only to find it was just a hoax. The term has been widely enough used! UkPaolo 7 July 2005 21:34 (UTC)

Just to add to my last comment, this is a made up term, not used to describe anything other than this phenomenen, yet it gets 115,000 google results. Surely that goes to show how widely it may have been believed and used. It also inspired a Wired, ABC and BBC news article, as well as stories in a significant amount of the UK's newspapers and magazines. It was also discussed on Slashdot. It may well have been popularized significantly more in the UK than elsewhere in the world, but the term did gain usage. It may be a hoax, but it was certainly one which was believed upon. As long as the article retains a NPOV, explains it was a hoax etc etc, I see it as a useful definition and explanation of the term. I might add also that it was a term I had heard of long before reading this article, and one which I was interested to find is now an acknowledged hoax. Surely the article should remain so that other people may do the same. UkPaolo 7 July 2005 21:45 (UTC)

• Keep per UkPaola, media coverage indicates notability. Kappa 8 July 2005 00:34 (UTC)
• Keep per UkPaolo Chuck July 8, 2005 02:47 (UTC)
• Keep per UkPaolo. Xoloz 8 July 2005 02:53 (UTC)
• Delete This may have had some breadth but it had no depth. Hoaxes come and go, and this one was not persistent enough to merit inclusion. ChangingMyNameAllTheTime 8 July 2005 03:34 (UTC)
• Keep per UkPaolo. Article makes clear it was a hoax, and the hoax got media attention. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 8 July 2005 06:18 (UTC)
• Merge into Bluetooth (this being connected to that technology) and redirect - Skysmith 8 July 2005 10:51 (UTC)
• Keep per UKPaolo. It certainly doesn't hurt the encyclopedia to have this article. KissL 09:29, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

• Keep - I think this article belongs here because it is an issue that was talked about in the media. --ZeWrestler 15:15, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep to be able to look it up and get the information needed. -- Lightkey 22:36, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Informative. I appreciated the article and am glad that I saw it.

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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.