Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out

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

The result was Weak Keep, on the verge of No consensus. Cbrown1023 talk 14:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out

Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Why do we have an entire article on some random, faked youtube video? This _might_ be worthy of a 3-line mention in some other article about viral marketing or youtube... but not an article. This is even less relevant to an encyclopedia than most of the fancruft... Bushytails 19:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC) (Make my vote "Summarize and use to start 'List of internet viral advertisements'" Bushytails 09:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC))

• Delete This is fancruft ffm ^yes? 19:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I have delisted this from WP:DYK - we looks like regular donkeys if we are featuring an article that we are debating deleting.--Doc^g 20:02, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Merge This was a pretty noteworthy event that got lots of media, it should be put into another article as per Bushytails. Makgraf 20:04, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - Per nom. --Bryson 20:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Merge per Bushytails and Makgraf. Flyguy649 21:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Merge, media coverage should earn it a mention at least. Radagast 21:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep or Merge... somewhere. I'm not sure where to merge this... the page is linked from the viral marketing page already, and it's too much detail to include it all there. I'd be sort of inclined to keep it due to the huge amount of publicity it received both before its fakeness was revealed (the Today Show had a long segment about it and what it said about the importance of hair to women, and the Tonight Show parodied it) and after (the actresses appeared on Good Morning America). Pinball22 21:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete This is a media event. It had its 15 minutes of fame, but there is nothing encyclopedic about it. The press coverage just shows that TV/newspaper editors would not always make good encyclopedia editors. A girl screaming and doing the kind of fake crying not heard since "I Love Lucy" and pretending to cut her hair off does not belong in an encyclopedia. Inkpaduta 22:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Considering that you just opened your account last week, and presently have nothing more than "So this is Wikipedia. Huh?" on your user page, I am not taking any argument from you about what does and doesn't belong in an encyclopedia seriously, not when policies like WP:WEB are something everyone who decides to tromp off to AFD as much as you have this first week are something you should have committed to memory.

What you like and dislike is not a criterion for deletion and never will be. This is Wikipedia. Yeah! Daniel Case 02:13, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Nor is what you like and dislike criteria for inclusion. Bushytails 04:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Who said I put this up because I like it? I wrote and researched this article because I thought it belonged here on Wikipedia, that if I didn't do it properly someone else would not. Daniel Case 08:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per Inkpaduta. --Metropolitan90 23:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Well-written, well-referenced article that seems to pass WP:WEB quite clearly. Multiple non-trivial mentions, and it got parodied on the tonight show? Wikipedia is not paper people. IronGargoyle 01:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. For the people who said merge, please state where you want to merge. For the people who want to delete, think first of WP:WEB, which is Wikipedia policy. This viral video clearly meets WP:WEB as IronGargoyle stated. The article is well-sourced, with many references to newspapers (not tabloids and such). Nishkid64 01:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Bushytail said "use to start 'List of internet viral advertisements" and several of us wanted to merge as per him (or her, I don't want to be gendernormative) so that's where we want to merge to. Makgraf 09:29, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment Oh, sorry about that. I didn't see that the nominator had wanted to merge somewhere. Nishkid64 15:49, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• keep This is a perfectly legitimate article. I have no idea why it's being considered for deletion here. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens 01:31, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
• STRONG Speedy Keep, close debate and block nominator. A clear example of a bad-faith nomination, judging by the nominator's obvious unfamiliarity with WP:WEB and implied unwillingness to bother learning. I have nominated many articles for deletion ... I wouldn't have created this one to begin with if I wasn't incredibly familiar with WP:WEB, and the meaning of "multiple non-trivial news coverage." I included references to reliable sources for precisely that reason.

  That some people seem to be embarrassed that this made the Main Page shows that we need better deletionists than what we've been getting lately. As recently as six months ago this nomination would have been laughed off AfD.

  As for merging it, no. Unless you want to merge everything else in this vein, like Ellen Feiss, Bus Uncle, and even lonelygirl15 back into List of Internet phenomena, which is long enough as it is. I found enough out there doing research to justify a stand-alone article and created it. It passed newpage patrol, which is where most of the real cruft gets deleted (believe me, I know). I'm really dismayed (can you tell?) that I have to go here and take the time to restate what should be obvious to anyone who knows policy reasonably well. The merge arguments are good-faith; the deletion ones are not. Daniel Case 01:49, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Personal attacks are not appreciated. I do happen to be familiar with the web notability guidelines, and there may indeed be a way of twisting the (disputed) wording to count random youtube videos as notable... But that doesn't mean the article should exist. It's a youtube video. Not even a real one at that. There are many millions of youtube videos. Should there be an article on every one that gets a mention in the press? Should we include all advertisements, youtube, TV, radio, etc as well? It's just another random video, that no one will even remember a week from now.

My personal solution would be a "List of notable internet viral advertisements" or similar, where things like this can have a one-paragraph summary and some analysis (effects, aftermath, etc). As to the other articles you list, Ellen Feiss is a bonafide actor with appearances in a french short film and televised commercials, The Bus Uncle was an actual event (and not a pr stunt) involving a criminal act resulting in long-term effects, social changes, and so forth, and even Lonelygirl15 is a series of videos, corresponding websites and blogs, a commercial entity, profitable game, the actor appearing in other productions, and so forth. This isn't any of that. It's some random faked video that a couple news outlets mentioned, with no bearing on reality.

I generally count myself as an inclusionest... I don't even mind the 27 trillion or so imaginary pokemon creature pages. But giving youtube videos their own pages is too far. Bushytails 04:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, so it's still a categorical matter. If I read you right, the article should be deleted not because it isn't a notable subject, but because YouTube videos shouldn't have their own articles. I tend to agree that things that have never received news coverage, such as that wedding party doing the dance from Michael Jackson's "Thriller"[1] will never merit their own articles despite widespread linkage.

But it isn't just a YouTube video; it was part of a marketing campaign. And even before it was revealed as such, it was the subject of a good deal of news coverage devoted specifically to it. I don't know how you can argue, based on existing policy, that that doesn't merit a separate article. Based on the amount of information out there, I don't see how a list could hold all these things. Eventually, if this becomes common (which I'm not sure it will), this will still have been one of the first.

You might want to consider also that the Ellen Feiss article was created long before her appearance in the short film (short film? What's the difference between that and a video?) and that the commercials she has appeared in are what made her notable enough for inclusion and a separate article. That lonelygirl15 was originally deleted, restored after deletion review and then speedy kept.

What of that favorite of everybody who sees their vanity article going down in flames here, Star Wars kid? Twice nominated for deletion, twice kept.

A "couple" of news outlets here includes Canada's major newspaper (The Globe and Mail) and TV networks, coverage echoed south of the border (I would leave it to Canadian editors to point out that, had the video been filmed in the U.S. by Americans and first covered by The New York Times and CNN, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation). Your use of disparaging terms that do not accord with the facts but suggest an emotional reaction to the subject of the article ("random faked video") again is contraindicative to your pleas that this nomination is based on a thorough understanding of Wikipedia policy.

Forgotten after a week? Sounds more like a hope on your part to me. One could have said that about all the other Internet phenomena. And even if the public does forget about them after a week, that doesn't change any notability the subject may have earned through news coverage.

Personal attacks? I apologize for the tone of my remarks, but I would consider that, had a new editor created this article, the way you have phrased your arguments for its deletion and counterarguments to me arguably would open you up to charges of violating WP:BITE. Daniel Case 08:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say no youtube videos should have articles... just not ones with no lasting effects or other notable characteristics. Nor does being in the news (canadian, american, or otherwise) make something encyclopedia-worthy... Should every cat fetched from a tree by the fire department have an article, since it was reported in the odds-and-ends section of a few newspapers? Being part of a marketing campaign _really_ doesn't make something encyclopedia-worthy... an article for every advertising campaign would be absurd, would it not? And just because an article doesn't blatantly violate policy doesn't automatically merit its inclusion ("... the meeting of any of these criteria does not mean that an article must be kept.") As to having too much information to put in a list-article... most of that information is really not needed. Hell, more than half the article is just a blow-by-blow description of the video! Bushytails 09:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

How do you know this won't have lasting effects? It could launch one of the actress's careers. And I think it will certainly be discussed anytime and anywhere viral video marketing comes up. It will have an effect on that field, to be sure. In any event, the future's possible lack of interest is not a reason to delete, or we'd be without a lot of one-hit wonders.

You confuse major and minor news coverage. No, every cat rescued from a tree is not notable. But my argument was not that this was covered per se, but that this received serious coverage from major newspapers and TV networks. (See how I applied this distinction from the opposite position here. I'm quite aware of that difference; I wouldn't have created the article if I weren't.

Yes, there's too much info for a list article. I have that synopsis in there because it's essentially a short film (see the categories), so I followed part of the WP:FILM template, which includes a synopsis and character list.

I also think it's just better having separate articles than a list ... List of Internet phenomena pretty much covers that already, and list articles, as such, have softer boundaries. Believe me, they require someone pay constant attention to them and rigorously evaluate new submissions to keep them from getting crufty (the best require that any new submission be discussed on the talk page first). I think it would be too likely to get bogged down with marginal cases (if you produce a series of viral videos to promote your garage sale, should they be on that list? Probably not, unless they get lots of eyeballs). If you have separate articles, it makes it harder to try to pick up some notability by adding it to a list here.

I also think it likely that such a list would be vulnerable to spamming by anons trying to get their videos legitimized. More headache for a maintainer.

In the area of detail, you might also take a look at Bus Uncle having a full transcript of the video (to me, completely unnecessary), which is much more detailed than that synopsis I wrote. Daniel Case 05:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

• Merge per nom. —dima/s-ko/ 04:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
• Let's try to assume good faith. The nominator didn't say that this video didn't exist, or that it hadn't received media coverage, just that it wasn't worthy of an article. Arguably the standards of WP:WEB should be stricter, to reduce the systemic bias in favor of web content -- web content is accessible to all Wikipedia editors and is recent, thus making news coverage, if any, easy to locate. Demanding that the nominator be blocked is going too far. --Metropolitan90 04:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't demand the nominator be blocked; it's just a suggestion and one I now withdraw. Still, I think that if something has been effectively researched by an editor willing to take the time to do it, passed newpage patrol and been accepted for DYK, it has already been vetted properly and reasonable deletion arguments are moot. I cannot help but suspect that someone had an emotional reaction to the idea of this being linked from the Main Page purely because of the subject and chose this as a way of retaliating à la KaDee Strickland's turn as the Main Page featured article ... I see many similarities between the tone, if not the arguments, of those arguing for deletion here and the people who got mad about it being on the Main Page, then tried to tried to defeature it for purely emotional reasons (that article's creator, too, followed existing policy and procedures and seems to have been punished for it).

I argue for its retention on the grounds that existing WP:WEB standards, as quite a few other voters correctly note, could not justify its deletion. As I so often say when the shoe's on the other foot, a deletion discussion is not the place to argue for a change in policy, anymore than you'd use a traffic trial to argue for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

If the nominator does want to seriously consider what sort of notability standards we should apply to individual video clips, I would happily set up such a policy proposal page if he withdrew the nomination. Daniel Case 08:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Many unencyclopedic articles make it through the new page patrollers... an understaffed department at best, almost as bad as the recent changes patrol.

Oh, well, if you do say so. Thank God Wikipedia has people like you. If you think NPP and RCP are understaffed, you should drop what you're doing here and go help out. (I, having done both, have a different impression. I have gone through many a log page of fifty new pages or edits and found the most delete- or revertable have already been dealt with (although it's important when doing both to go completely through the list no matter how little work you find to do. That's when stuff gets away).

And it had several days as a nomination on DYK for someone to say, hey, maybe this shouldn't be here? What about those people (who also see a lot of ridiculous new articles)? Are they a bunch of incompetents too?

You argue some voters support it... but ignore the ones voting to delete it. And many policies, in spirit if not in word, do not suggest this is a topic worthy of an article

Are you trying out for BBJAODN? Seriously, this sounds like the same logic you hear from every garage band trying to get its vanity article kept.

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information (says something about half the article being a plot summary, too).

That's not in WP:NOT. (The part in parentheses, anyway).

Or "Notable ... means 'worthy of being noted' or 'attracting notice'. It is not synonymous with 'fame' or 'importance'. ... It is not 'newsworthiness.'" Or the WP:WEB you like so much... "... offering detail on a website's achievements, impact or historical significance." What achievements did this accomplish, other than a few parodies?

I would think that getting a seven-digit hit figure at YouTube would count as an achievement (and how does one, exactly, accomplish an achievement? But I digress). Judging from occasional looks at the site's main page, it's rather unusual for a video to be seen that many different times, especially within a two-week period. I don't if there are any rankings somewhere; but I'm sure that would be on them.

Impact... zero. Historical significance... if there were a number less than zero that could be applied, this would be it.

Those are purely subjective judgements. Even if they weren't, I'd argue the same is true of Mr. Blobby and yet it's there.

This article mentions none of that, likely because none exists. All the articles you used as examples of ones not deleted, however, do contain a subject with impact or historical significance.

What was the historical significance of Ellen Feiss? Does the article document how many more people bought Macs because of her saying "Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep"? Does it need to? I'm missing something here. It was just an unintentionally funny ad that a lot of people remembered, which is why there's an article on her and her subsequent doings of note.

And when Star Wars kid was kept, his parents hadn't filed suit against the school and there weren't yet a million parodies to document in established media.

If a month from now, this video is shown to have had some effect on the planet, it may be worthy of inclusion...

If "some effect on the planet" (and what, exactly, does that mean, anyway). were the standard for keeping articles, we'd have a very small Wikipedia. What about all those fictional characters and webcomics? I don't think they've got much "impact on the planet", but we've kept quite a few.

And why bother recreating the article a month from now? Why not just keep it now and delete it later if it "doesn't have an impact on the planet" (Perhaps it will raise the average temperature a tenth of a degree?)

but as of now, it's just another forgettable, non-notable fad. As I said and quoted above, not violating policy doesn't automatically make something encyclopedic.

And not having a policy-based reason to augment WP:IDONTLIKEIT doesn't mean you can have it deleted, either.

I'm all for any encyclopedia-worthy article being on the main page... it's not about the main page, it's about whether this should have its own article at all. Perhaps as your next project, you should condense the article's content into one or two paragraphs (deleting the huge plot summary would almost get it there), and start a "List of internet viral advertisements" page? This article would appear to be notable enough for a mention on a list, and the list would certainly be DYK-worthy if written well...

We generally don't use lists on DYK all that much. As for your other arguments, see my other counterarguments.

As to withdrawing the nomination... only 4 people have voted keep, with 9 delete or merge.

This is why I ignore all the delete votes. Most don't state a real reason, and one that goes into most depth is by a week-old account who seems to go around AFD basically saying "Delete this! Delete this! I don't think it belongs!" Any closing administrator would note that the keep votes are based on more sound arguments and perhaps discount most of the delete votes.

Withdrawing it would not agree with community consensus.

You're the nominator. You can withdraw even if everyone else agrees with you. Community consensus is not binding on a nominator. At least not in my experience.

Were they all keeps, it might be an option, but they're not.

See above.

In any case, you've heard my opinion, and now it's time to hear from the rest of the community. Bushytails 09:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we've heard from everyone we're going to hear from, and the result will be no consensus, which defaults to keep. Daniel Case 05:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. Cruft. 1ne 07:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. Cruftilious cruft. Edeans 17:09, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep. "Cruft" alone is a poor argument for deletion. Article meets WP:WEB handily and demonstrates notability via massive viewing and popular media impact. Wiki'dWitch 01:05, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. I came on Wikipedia to see if this video was a fake or not and I am guessing that a lot of other people do too, considering the massive number of views the video received. Tlynhen 08:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment Exactly why I created it, and why Wikipedia exists. Thanks! Daniel Case 17:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• Weak keep Whilst I'm not too fond of the subject, it does seem to pass notability. Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 00:35, 15 February 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 article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.