Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MSTing

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 no consensus to delete. Note that the article was largely rewritten after the AfD began, adding many references. Merging can still be considered, of course. W.marsh 20:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MSTing

MSTing (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Completely nonverifiable and lacking in sources. Makes no claim to notability, and probably non-notable. Chardish 04:41, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: I've done a substantial reduction and rewrite that includes many sources. Two (from The Satellite News, the official MST3K website endorsed by Best Brains) should be considered reliable, but the rest are somewhat shaky. I've asked editors of the article to try to dig up more solid references. The two TSN sources should at least allow a few sentences of this article to be merged into Mystery Science Theater 3000 if we decide not to keep it as a separate article. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:32, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 18:13, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: While I respect your desire to clean up the article, the Satellite News articles are primary sources, which, although not objectionable, should be used to supplement third-party sources, not substitute for them. From WP:V: Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. And I'm afraid the other sources don't work, either: self-published websites are almost never considered reliable. I have found absolutely nothing from a reliable, third-party source that supports the notability or factual accuracy of this article. See also: WP:RS, WP:NOR. - Chardish 20:41, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - Although my instinct was to vote delete per WP:NEO, there is now a substantial list of sources showing that the term is in fairly wide use. Walton monarchist89 19:28, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Merge to Mystery Science Theater 3000 as suggested in the article itself. Arnoutf 19:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep and clean up. The concept was itself brought on by Mystery Science Theater 3000 and is thusly named, so the concept is established - but the concept in the article seems to allude to that it's only found in fanfiction. I should point out that it kind of reaches beyond this - all you have to do is see the sequel to White Fang (film) and you have a perfect case of what you can do in your own home. =) --Dennisthe2 20:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and clean up. MSTing is an important genre of parody in science-fiction fandom. --Zeborah 20:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Notability is not subjective. If you can't find reliable, third-party sources (not random websites) on the subject of MSTing, it's not notable, and it needs to go. - Chardish 20:43, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

All the current books on science fiction and fanfiction at my library are currently out on loan. In the meantime, while I recognise and agree that no single webpage is a reliable source, it does seem to me that the 27,000 google hits in the aggregate do add up to something fairly reliable. I find definitions of MSTing in the official FAQs of at least two non-MST3K newsgroups ([1] for a Star Trek one, and [2] for a Doctor Who one); in addition, I find definitions of it in three languages other than English: [3] in German, [4] in French, and [5] in Swedish. This last, moreover, is on the website of what seems to be a regular science-fiction/fantasy literature magazine. The article on said magazine in the Swedish Wikipedia is barely a stub (my translation of its full text: "Mitrania is a journal for Swedish fantasy, science-fiction and horror.") but it would appear to be a source. --Zeborah 07:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Would this Swedish link be enough to satisfy the reference concerns?--Rayc 06:32, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I've also located another source, published on an established webzine:

Sequential Tart’s Guide to Anime, Manga, and Miscellanous Japanese Terms: A Glossary. Sequential Tart - A Comics Industry Web Zine. Retrieved on 2007-01-30.

I've done a fairly substantial rewrite/rearrangement of the text, references and external links in the article, and have included citations to the Sequential Tart and Mitrania pages. I certainly hope it's enough. "Sources should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require stronger sources." (WP:V) Claims about scientific subjects certainly need scientific references; but on the other side of the "appropriate" coin, I think widespread agreeing definitions on the web should be enough to support an unexceptional claim about a web-based phenomenon. --Zeborah 09:57, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep and rename or Merge. I was the one who contested the prod. There are hundreds of authors and thousands of pieces of work that fall under category of MSTings. That being said, my initial search produced no sources outside of the actual community of MSTers that talked about the practice. The works are verifiable by going and looking at them, though the terminology is sometimes inconsistent and the only claim to notability is the number of pieces of work. I do remember some off the hand remark about the term in a scholar publication, but can't seem to find it (As well as it wouldn't make much difference). My suggestion is to either merge the practice into the MST3K article or rename it along the lines of "Effects of MST3K...", keeping a redirect from MSTing as we are the top result for that term on google.--Rayc 22:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Improvements changed my opinion to full keep, didn't think anyone could find a good ref for this one, but they did.--Rayc 01:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Merge to the main MST3K article and redirect. Needs reliable sources. Tony Fox (arf!) 22:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Merge and Redirect to Mystery Science Theater 3000. Not notable enough on its own, but well-known among the fandom. -- Kesh 23:04, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect, unless we get better sources. Chardish is incorrect in saying The Satellite News is a primary source. It's a secondary source, compiling, synthesizing, and analyzing MST3K information from the primary sources of the show itself, published conversations with the principles, and other material. But Chardish is accurate about the unreliability of the other current sources. Unless better sources turn up, what we'll be left with are a few sentences based on TSN information which might reasonably be merged into Mystery Science Theater 3000#MST3K on the Internet (where they would unfortunately be the only sourced information in that section thus far). ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:34, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Wikipedia has lately been dumping and gutting many valuable articles at the whims of one or two subjective editors, and I see no reason why this one should be a casualty to this disturbing trend. Rebochan 22:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Do you have a Wikipedia policy that supports keeping this article? WP:ILIKEIT is not convincing. -- Kesh 01:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment -- The notability has been established by references, and can continue to be so. I have noticed that the nominator likes to subjectively deflect references though. Is WP:IDONTLIKEIT now a valid policy as well? Rebochan 16:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
      • The references given are fansites, not reliable sources. Notability does not exist within a fandom, it exists when those outside the fandom take note. Also, one of the references is to a Wiki, which is absolutely not a reliable source. -- Kesh 21:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
        • I presume you meant to link to this page, as the significance of Really Simple Syndication to this debate is not entirely self-evident. To your first point: those outside the MST3K fandom have certainly taken note; the current article includes references from Star Trek fandom, anime fandom, fanfic-in-general fandom (Ms Nitpicker), and sf fandom as a whole (two of them, on sites with editorial overview for frick's sake). You can't argue that MSTing is not notable until it's known outside of sf fandom unless you also argue that apophony is not notable until it's known outside of linguistics. To your second point: the reference to the wiki is to source the claim that wikis and YouTube have been used to create MSTings. Sure enough, that wiki (including its discussion, history and links, of course) shows that wiki and YouTube technology have been used to create MSTings. The history of this page is clearer, perhaps, but I prefer a link to the page with broader scope as it requires less interpretation. These pages are certainly a primary source, but the Reliable Sources policy says that primary sources are allowed; it also says that non-scholarly sources are allowed; and saying you can't use a wiki as a primary source to verify the existence of something which exists on that wiki is like asking someone where your keys are and refusing to accept the fact that they're pointing right at them as verification that the keys are in fact there. Nevertheless, if it is really felt that this particular reference is not sufficient for this particular claim then simply delete the sentence. The article as a whole, however, is perfectly well referenced. This is not an extraordinary claim and so does not require extraordinary measures to verify. --Zeborah 06:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
          • Comment: We have one solid test of notability - the subject of the article needs to be the subject of multiple reliable third-party sources. If reliable third-party sources have not taken it upon themselves to study and research the niceties of fandom, then such information does not have a place on Wikipedia. In other words, Wikipedia is not the place for information that cannot be found in reliable sources. Fanzines border on reliable. Fansites, blogs, newsgroups, and other wikis are anything but. The Satellite News is a primary source, as it is written by the producers of MST3K. So we have one single borderline-reliable source in this article. That's not enough to establish notability. - Chardish 07:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
            • Both Sequential Tart and Mitrania are edited webzines, so we have at least two secondary sources. --Zeborah 09:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
              • Chardish, you are absolutely wrong about The Satellite News. It is not written (or even vetted) by anyone from Best Brains, the producers of MST3K. The only connection BBI has is to endorse it as an official source. It is essentially the same thing as any TV show's official website, except it's actually independent of the show and its producers. I agree that we may have no compelling set of multiple independent sources for this article, but please don't push the argument to extremes. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 15:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
                • Apologies on the Satellite News - I didn't realize that it wasn't produced by Best Brains. (A cursory glance couldn't find anything on the website saying that it isn't, but I'm taking it on good faith that you know what you're talking about.) My belief came from the fact that the "MST3K Info Club" - the same group that registered the Satellite News domain (mst3kinfo.com) - was advertised on hundreds of episodes of MST3K, during the show itself. Regardless of the writers of the content, the criteria for notability require third-party reliable sources, and I doubt that anything officially endorsed by BBI could be considered "third-party." - Chardish 20:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and clean up. MiSTing is becoming more and more widely known among the MST3k fan community as a way to keep the concept alive, and it is an extremely accessible form of parody. JD3K 20:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - It may be spreading within the fandom, but that doesn't satisfy notability. -- Kesh 01:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment: Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. If one day MSTing will become popular enough to justify reliable sources being written about it, it will merit an article then and only then. We should not keep an non-notable article that may one day attain notability. - Chardish 07:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• UPDATE: I have just listed 9 fully cited books at Talk:MSTing#Possible sources that mention or discuss in detail the general phenomenon of MSTing, although none use that word. (I feel sure more can be found; I just ran out of time to search for now.) All of them give credit to MST3K as the archetypical (if not necessarily original) purveyor of irreverent "ironic commentary" in modern (American) culture, and many specifically talk about vox populi use of this technique. The article may not currently reflect information from these sources, but this gives serious support to the idea that this phenomenon is well-known, even if the term itself isn't. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • If they don't reference the term, then it's clear the term does not meet notability. If the citations can show the phenomenon has notability, then at least the article needs renamed. -- Kesh 23:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
    • We already have one reliable source that defines the term. We have no other specific term for the phenomenon. I'm open to suggestions for alternative names, if we come across more sources. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
      • This is why I suggested a rename, since the practice has been known as rifting, riffing, MSTing, meta-MSTing, meta-meta-meta-MSTing (yes, really), MiSTing, MST, Mary Sue torture, Etc. It isn't always confined to fan fiction as well. The practice is an extension of the concepts found in MST3K, fan fiction being the most notable side effect.--Rayc 05:18, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
        • Do we have any reliable sources for any of those terms? I suspect we don't for any except possibly "riffing", which has the much broader meaning of "improvising on a given theme". (See wikt:riff.) I see the possibility of including some of the material in this article in a broader Riff article, which currently only speaks to the musical connotation. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 14:58, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
          • My memory, google, an a host of other non-reliable sources. The renaming I was talking about was repurposing the scope of the article as a content fork of MST3K in some way, since the people writing the main MST3K don't seem to want to have it dumped back into their article. I'm writing this from my university's library and have found it has at least two of the books you listed. One is checked out, I'm off to find the other one.--Rayc 23:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and a possible rename if a more appropriate name can be found. The concept -seems- to be notable (per JeffQ), but the name might not be. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 20:26, 3 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.