Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Canadian blogosphere

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 No Consensus D/K/M -- 12/13/4. More at talk page. Karmafist 16:43, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Canadian_blogosphere

Not notable, should be merged with blog at the very least. Skrewler 03:06, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

• Delete without merging. Canadian blogosphere = that part of the blogosphere in Canada. So what? Wile E. Heresiarch 04:09, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as introductory article to Category:Canadian bloggers. --maclean25 06:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete but maybe move few sentences to Category:Canadian bloggers. I don't think categories for people by nationality need any corresponding introductory articles in most cases. jni 07:51, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Agreed, that's a great idea.
• Delete unnecessarily specific. Dottore So 12:40, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, a fairly decent introduction to the topic. - SimonP 13:56, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, putting this in vfd shows the systemic bias towards non-American entries that has been identified in Wikipedia. The blogosphere in Canada has significant characteristics that are distinct and notable. --Simon.Pole 16:22, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per Wile E. Heresiarch. Nonsense. --Timecop 01:23, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• This isn't systemic bias. A similiar article about any country's blogs would have similiar problems. Certain blogs are apparently being used as primary sources, but there are no secondary sources. If sufficient secondary sources cannot be found and used, this article should go away for lack of verifiability. It's not that the article is bad, but to me it looks like original research, and as such should be deleted. I could change my mind if sources are found. Friday [[User_talk:Friday|(talk)]] 02:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
  • This is non-American systemic bias. The main articles on blog topics almost exclusively concern the situation in the USA. They are essentially national US articles. I know this is hard for some people to see, like fish seeing the water, but please try to treat other countries fairly.--Simon.Pole 04:51, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. This article is thinly-veiled vanity. Of no encyclopedic value. The Tangent 00:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
  • This is the user's 8th edit. -Hapsiainen 00:44, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Delete. -- You have got to be kidding, right? Not notable whatsoever. 65.34.232.136 05:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• The article at blog is presently very US-centric, and coverage of Canadian bloggers is required in some manner. Either keep or merge into blog as a Canadian section; the topic is most certainly not any less encyclopedic than the exclusively American examples currently cited at blog. Bearcat 06:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Then perhaps cleanup of blog is in order. Not saying I should do it, but why exactly are there *examples of blogs* in an article about blogs, you've seen one, you've seen them all, a simple one-paragraph description of what a blog is should suffice. The whole blog thing is blown out of proportion. --Timecop 06:43, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete Do we need something describing what blogs are for every country? What makes Canada so special? All of this information is just repeatative of what blogging in general is. 131.128.142.226 06:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. This is a no-brainer in the Canadian media; this is used as part of any good barometer of Canadian public opinion. Deleting this article would be a mistake, and I think significantly demonstrates an offhand US systemic bias on Wikipedia. It *is* tantamount to saying that Canadian political debate (which naturally contains a lot of debate about US policy, for reasons any Canadian would see as obvious (US policy has arguably as much effect on Canada as Canadian policy)) is irrelevant. As a Canadian, I'm inclined to object to that. References to PB or 'Canadian Blogosphere' as 'non-notable' here seem to be offhand and poorly informed. I don't hesitate to say that an American isn't going to be naturally inclined to make an informed choice about this. There are, after all, only 30 million Canadians. . . for US perspective, that's NYC and surrounding areas, and we're a pretty politically splintered group. That said, the Alexa rankings make perfect sense, and actually don't justify deletion based on overall popularity. Overall popularity among whom? Americans interested in Canadian political scandals? "What makes Canada so special?" What makes the US so special that most references in 'blogging' are pulled from the US (and refer to it)? Is there a US or pan-global content requirement for a Wikipedia article to be relevant? I wasn't aware that there was.
  • You're making an argument to fix the U.S. bias in the other articles, not to keep this particular one. There is nothing special about Canadian blogs, and there is also nothing special about U.S. blogs, so no article should be biased towards either. Incidentally, before you go assuming I'm demonstrating bias here myself, let me add that I'm British... and I would vote to delete British Blogosphere, if it existed. — Haeleth Talk 17:07, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm actually making the argument that this is a form of political dialogue that is rather important in Canada, and that if, perhaps, the article ought to be about anything other than what it is (which is bewildering, IMO), it ought to be about or include a distinct section about the mechanism by which the Canadian media interacts with this specific set of blogs, and the reason why they have such an effect on the political debate in Canada. That is notable, IMO. These sites are simply not what these delete votes claim. Sigma-6
• Keep, The article is well written, I agree with Simon.Pole, it is bias to non-Amercian articles, if there was a article of Amercian blogospheres it wouldn't of been vfd'd. To 131.128.142.226's comments, what makes Amercians so special? They bomb countries for oil? Thats all they seem noteable for. --supers 06:58, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete or merge with blogging? unnecessarily subcategorising an already over-publicised subject Adamn 08:25, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. I don't want to speculate on the suitability of this article itself, but I'd be a happy man if we could move this to Canadian blogs or somewhere similar. Blogosphere is such an awful, awful word, really. We shouldn't encourage its use by acknowledging its existence -- and this from a committed descriptivist. Someone think of the kittens. - Randwicked 08:38, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as per maclean25 and SimonP above. Luigizanasi 14:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

• I really, really hope people will explain their reasoning for keeping or deleting as it relates to editorial policies and the objections to the content. Assuming sinister anti-left or anti-Canada motives is not helpful. Also, just because there are equally unverifiable articles on other topics does not make this a proper article. This isn't written as an article, it's written as a personal essay. I'm willing to accept that blogs are significant to Canadian politics. But, this is a recent movement, and if no proper sources are available on this topic, there's no way to have an article about it. Making it neutral and verifiable is impossible without a sufficient number of reliable sources. Friday (talk) 14:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment I fail to see how the blogosphere is a "recent movement". The word was coined at the latest in 2002, and one assumes what it describes was going on for some time before that. I also fail to see why a Canadian article somehow needs to be rolled into a larger American article to be valid.--Simon.Pole 20:45, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• Strong delete. Has absolutely nothing to say other than "hey, there are bloggers in Canada, and they do the same stuff as bloggers everywhere else!" Except when it makes unsupported and unverifiable claims like "weblogs of a political nature have a particularly high visibility in Canada, perhaps more so than other countries". Merge any useful content into other articles like Blogosphere and Blog, to counter the U.S. bias perceived there, but there is no reason to keep this as an article in its own right. — Haeleth Talk 17:03, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I've removed that claim for now. I still abstain. - Randwicked 01:18, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. -- Femmina 22:38, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per Haeleth. All this article does is assert that Canadians blog, just like people in dozens of other countries do. Andrew Levine 22:58, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment This article does more than just "assert that Canadians blog". The article actually discusses the importance of blogs in Canada as opposed to other countries, citing examples. Is it too much to ask that people read entries before voting to delete them?--Simon.Pole 23:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Needs some claenup, but covers a surprisingly broad topic rather well. Radagast 23:00, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete This is another pointless, irrelevant, non noteworthy, redundant, self righteous blog. Take it outside and shoot it please. --Impi.za 00:19, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
  • This article is about many blogs, not just one blog. What are you talking about? -Hapsiainen 00:35, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Also, this is the user's 11th edit. The user has only edited AfD discussions. -Hapsiainen 00:44, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. It is clearly notable. It also analyzes the Canadian blog culture, not just describes blogging in general. -Hapsiainen 00:35, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. This is getting silly. There is systemic bias on Wikipedia in favor of all things internet-related. This article's existance is helped by the bias, not hurt by it. This is not an "American article versus Canadian article" issue- Wikipedia is meant for the whole world, not just two particular countries. There should be no such thing as an American article or Canadian article, they're all just articles. But, the big issue here is the lack of verifiability. This is a broad, new topic. I don't see how it's going to be possible to write a proper article (rather than a personal essay) on this topic unless there are good secondary sources available. Friday 00:39, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep - Until there's a consensus that there should be no country specific blogosphere article, this is a reasonable entry. If specific facts in the article are disputed or not verifiable, those items can be hammered out on the talk page. Samw 01:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep per everyone, and strong rename to something more dignified. - Randwicked 02:31, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• Comment: As for the country specific blogosphere articles, to me this is a no-brainer. Blogs, by their very nature as websites, are global. You can group them together sensibly only by their subject matter. Should we have an article about the "Pizza blogosphere" (blogs about pizza)? Until reliable sources are talking about the "Canadian blogosphere" as an identifiable thing, I still can't see how this could be verifiable. Friday 03:50, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
  • How do you know they're not? Do you read the op-ed sections of Canadian Newspapers or watch Canadian Political commentary on TV? Sigma-6
    • • How much more crap do Canadians have to take here? Comparing Canada to Pizza? This is such an insult its beyond words. With such bias, and such contempt for another country, I don't how this is acceptable.--Simon.Pole 04:50, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
        • Are you trolling or what? Skrewler 05:46, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
          • This whole vfd is a trolling exercise, I wonder who started it?--Simon.Pole 05:56, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
            • Argh. Sorry. No insult was remotely intended. I would have the same opinion of the Shakespeare blogosphere, if such an article existed. And, of course, American blogosphere would be just as silly. Not all the english-speaking world is USA and Canada, you know. Friday 14:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment. One of Wikipedia's recognised strengths is that it is up-to-date, especially on recent phenomena. We have articles on every single imaginable video game, most music albums you care to mention, practically every single piece of software out there, a number of usenet newsgroups, Wikipedia did better than the regular news media on recent events such as the London bombings and Hurricane Katrina, and so on. Where else but Wikipedia can people find hopefully neutral information on the recent and increasingly important phenomenon of blogging, especially political blogs, which are not neutral by their very nature. NPOV articles on Blogging groups (not necessarily individual blogs, mind you), perform a vital service to the world at large. Luigizanasi 04:08, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment A group of users is systematically going through and deleting all blog-related entries. This is operating in bad faith. You can see the organizing page here. They even targetted J.D. Lasica's entry. These people are living in a cave. I'm surprised they have digits to type at their keyboards.--Simon.Pole 08:50, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• Notice how you didn't vote keep on half the retarded articles on the list, just the Canadian ones. Now who's being "systematically biased"?
  • • Comment Editors should be aware that the organizer of this purge User:Timecop, has proclaimed a "War on Blogs" on his user page. His user pages also states that he is a leader of the Gay Nigger Association of America. The GNAA are a group of organized trolls, notorious for flooding Slashdot with spam. They appear to have targetted Wikipedia.--Simon.Pole 09:31, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
      • • • Comment This definately a GNAA exercise. User:JacksonBrown who has voted delete on several current blog vfd's had a huge GNAA slogan on his user page that was removed by administators (you can see it here). I don't know what else to say. The GNAA is organizing a mass deletion of blog-related entries. All blog-relate vfd's should be stopped immediately.--Simon.Pole 09:51, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
            • Comment Note: User:Timecop is actually the "President" of the GNAA, as you can see in this "press release" from their website. Wikipedia, you've been had.--Simon.Pole 10:38, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
              • Comment So what? that is called a personal attack, and has nothing to do with this VFD Adamn 11:15, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
              • Comment It doesn't matter one bit if this is organised by GNAA or whoever. They give their reasons and they are following procedure. It's legitimate. - Randwicked 11:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
                • My personal pass-time should be none of your concern. All the VFD's for blog-related stuff that *I* created are valid though. And I didn't 'start' the effort, I simply extended it. --Timecop 11:34, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
                • Vote stacking is neither legitimate nor "following procedure". Bearcat 04:35, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
                  • But the subsequent zany antics of one side or another don't or shoudn't affect the validity of the original nomination, which is what I was calling legitimate. - Randwicked 10:32, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
                    • The original nomintator Skrewler, however, is in on the GNAA blog-delete project, working in concert with GNAA President User:Timecop.--Simon.Pole 10:55, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
                      • I'm sorry to say that I really don't see the relevance. So Timecop and Skrewler are big bad trolls. Point me to where they have been vandalising blog pages and I'll agree something needs to be done. Rampantly nominating blog-related articles for deletion isn't against any rule I know of, even if they are being provocative about it. - Randwicked 12:28, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
                        • Comment For what it's worth, yes, the GNAA has been known to vandalize [1] [2] blogs, and brag [3] about it, and express disdain for them [4]. 67.169.31.50 06:40, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete Crappy term to denote a series of shit pages of worthless garbage from a particular country. Big deal. --86.2.56.178 12:09, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Delete Not really "termable" -- unless you want every country, city, and state to have an article on it's blogging community. (makes no sense to me?) --Depakote 12:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Canada is a big place. This subject is only going to get more important. Carina22 12:55, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, notable. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:05, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Informative, well-written article breaks free from the America-centric bias that is prevalent here (and in the general political blogosphere.) --AStanhope 04:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Organized deletion vandalism merits banning. --FOo 05:17, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
  • How is proactively improving wikipedia vandalism? Skrewler 07:31, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete' Canadian blogosphere? Sounds like pompous crap.  Grue  18:48, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Merge to Political Culture of Canada or expand and move to Candadian political blogs. The article in its current state is informative, but sadly, that is only true in the two Political blogs sections; the Blogs and Authority and the External links sections are simply useless. However, I acknowledge the importance of the political blogs in Canada, so that phenomenon deserves an article, hence my alternative suggestion of expand/move. Titoxd^(?!?) 18:56, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Rhobite 03:49, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete or Merge per Tito. --Locke Cole ^{(talk) (e-mail)} 05:49, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Term used on notable sites, turns up thousands of google hits as an exact match, and refers to an identifiable group - those blogs that are focused on Canada, and have events there as their synchronization. Stirling Newberry 02:28, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Notable, not simply another page "about a blog" Turnstep 03:09, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Where do all these morons come from? --Daniel11 01:43, 20 November 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.