Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel Kim (artist)

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 merge into the Clone Manga article. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 20:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Daniel Kim (artist)

The notability of the person detailed in this article is suspect. I've done some digging and have found that he does not have a single published work (outside of Lulu.com), interview with a notable source or even a trivial mention of him in any sort of press. In addition, his website where he hosts comics (Clone Manga) does not appear to be notable - Google turns up no non-trivial mentions of it, or yet again even trivial mentions of it, in anything outside of his own site, and the webcomic community. As he has made no other notable accomplishments besides his (quite possibly non-notable) site and comics, this page has no place in an encyclopedia and should be deleted.

Also, the majority of the lead section appears to be copied and pasted from here, quite possibly leading to copyright infringement. JimmyBlackwing 19:30, 18 July 2006 (UTC) This has been listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Webcomics/Deletion. JimmyBlackwing 20:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. He is only really known in certain subculture circles with a penchant for the morbid. He might produce a notable work eventually, but at this time there is no reason to have an encyclopedia entry about him. --82.50.29.220 22:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• Merge to Clone Manga. (Vote changed from delete) After considering the discussion, I agree that a merge with Clone Manga would be more appropriate. Hargle 02:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep He's a well-known personality in web comicdom, though how well that notability translates outside the genre is open for interpretation. Voice of Treason 06:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
  • The subject of this article fails to pass WP:BIO. Regardless of whether or not he is known in the niche community that follows webcomics, he does not merit an article on Wikipedia judging by the guidelines on notability. JimmyBlackwing 07:08, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

    Comment: I'd appreciate it if you didn't jump down my or anyone else's throat, especially since I what said is almost equal to what you gave in your response. Thanks. Voice of Treason 07:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: As far as WP:BIO (a suggested guideline, not official policy) goes, there's not much in the way in interviews. Apart from his reputation and body of work in web comics, he's collaborating with current Eisner Award nominee Alex de Campi in a book of horror, and in a recent IGN interview Fred Gallagher of Megatokyo mentioned how big a fan he was of his work before plugging his website (again with the obligatory warning). Voice of Treason 12:08, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
• Merge I suggest we merge this article and all of Kim's projects into the Clone Manga article. I think the sum of his works merits a single article, but right now that content is spread across many. In addition to Daniel Kim (artist), articles to merge into Clone Manga would be Nana's Everyday Life (currently prodded} (also on AfD), Kanami (webcomic), Paper Eleven, Penny Tribute, April & May & June, and Tomoyo42's Room. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 14:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, unverified by reliable sources. -- Dragonfiend 14:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

  Comment: I don't want to come off as jumping down anyone's throat myself, but sources and refs to Kim in popular media were given a bit above. Unless you mean not in the current article, which I'd agree with. I'd also concur with Abe Dashiell's point on his multiple works being combined into Clone Manga. Voice of Treason 21:09, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

  Comment:Yes, I am referring to the lack of information verified through reliable sources in the article. If you have reliable sources for the article, please add them to the article. Note that per our official policy Wikipedia:Verifiability: "Articles should rely on credible, third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. ... The burden of evidence lies with the editors who have made an edit or wish an edit to remain. Editors should therefore provide references. If an article topic has no reputable, reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic." -- Dragonfiend 03:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: As per that same Verifiability article, "Material from self-published sources, and other published sources of dubious reliability, may be used as sources of information about themselves in articles about themselves". It then gives a short list of conditions, but I believe that this article meets them all - information not available in the appendices of the [self-] published work Paper Eleven: The Complete Collection is evident one way or another from the subject's website. I suppose this makes the presumption that the artist and the art are considerable as the same entity, but I believe that to be a reasonable assumption in this case. These are not good sources, I'll happily conceed, but they are sources and meet those conditions - and the phrase "outlandish claims beg strong sources" in the verifiability article suggests by implication that mundane claims [only] require weak sources. The website (which does contain all of this information in itself) is already mentioned in the article. Would a link to the book's Lulu page help? I would have thought that would too easily be construed as advertising...

This all said, I do believe that this makes it all the more pertinent to merge this article into a hypothetical 'Clone Army' article. Sar 09:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• Merge/Keep I suggest that the subject does in fact meet the Notability guidelines, even if 'only just', and that there is no reason to delete the article. However, I wholly agree that all of his works do not warrant separate articles, and an all-inclusive 'Clone-Army' article would suit those, if not the article about the artist as well. Reasoning in comments indented, 'cause there's a lot of it. Sorry for the verbosity... Sar 03:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

  Comment Firstly, the guidelines on Notability are very clear to state that they are just that - guidelines - and not policy. From this perspective, it is presumptious to assume that failing to satisfy the explicitly stated examples is sufficient grounds for deletion; in fact, the Notability article itself specifically states the reverse. Not that to my mind it matters - it is easily arguable that Dan Kim has made, to quote Wikipedia:Notability_(people), "a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in [the field of webcomics]". The fact that - say - Paper Eleven is not published by a 'mainstream' publisher does not make a hardcopy any less enduring (which is all the historical record we can really cite for webcomics, assuming the Internet disappears and all information contained within is lost), and the work in question has been recognised, as previously noted in this discussion, by several luminaries of the field of webcomics. Not to mention that to any degree which it is quantifiable I suspect Kim passes the 'Professor Test' suggested in Notability, and a quick resort to Google shows me that he passes that alternative suggestion as well. The main Wikipedia Notability article notes that obscure content - which one could argue the field of webcomicry as a whole should be classed as - isn't harmful and shouldn't be deleted on the grounds of obscurity alone; recognition within 'the webcomic community', as the original complaint so puts it, should be sufficient recognition for the article to remain. Sar 03:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

  Comment The 'digging' the original complaint has done is patently cursory and incomplete. Aside from the single volume published via Lulu, Kim also has work in the City Limits anthology published by Blue Day Media, leaving aside a previous edition of Paper Eleven that was sold through a now-defunct independent publisher. The assertion that the Connecticon text linked could possibly be the original source for the body text of the article is absurd - the article history shows that the text in question was originally written in September of 2005. Private conversation with Kim reveals that he copied and pasted the Wikipedia article and gave that text to the Connecticon staff around the 6th of June, but that's obviously unverifiable information... however, while I suppose it is possible that Connecticon could have booked Dan Kim ten months in advance and written and published an announcement early enough for this article to be a copy of that text, would they really bother for someone who is apparently not notable enough to warrant a Wikipedia article? Realistically, cons don't typically publish such information until far closer to the event. Sar 03:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

  Comment According to the Wikipedia:Importance article - which is admittedly tagged as a work-in-progress and not a final policy/guideline - the criteria for whether an article is 'important' enough to warrant a wikipedia article include "There is evidence that a reasonable number of people are, were or might be simultaneously interested in the subject (eg. it is at least well-known in a community)". A Google search for "Clone Manga" produces at time of writing 'about 12,000' hits; I counted 3 in the first five pages which were not directly related to Dan Kim. These are, as noted by the original complaint, primarily from within 'the webcomics community', but I could not find anything in Wikipedia's policies that specifically excluded the webcomic community - or any other subset of the population - from consideration. Searching for the artist's name alone produces far less consistent results, but it is a very common name and thus this is to be expected. This suggests that at the very least the proposed 'Clone Manga' aggregation article is warranted, and I would argue that this infers importance on Dan Kim also, since he is the sole creator of the Clone Manga 'brand'. Sar 03:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

  Comment Lastly, and by far least relevantly... I don't want this to come across as a personal attack, User:JimmyBlackwing, but I am curious as to your reasoning if you don't mind me asking: You mention on your user page that you edit the AppleGeeks article, which links to the article on Hawk; it's thus reasonable to expect that you have read that article. The only way I can see that the article on Hawk substantially differs from Dan Kim's in terms of notability is that Hawk also contributed work to Penny Arcade's CCG. His article also makes the grandiose claim that "Haque is an accomplished artist, designer, and programmer. He is primarily a digital artist, and at the young age of 23, he already has a considerable body of work under his belt", but since an {{AFD}} and not a {{db-bio}} was applied that shouldn't be the problem. The article is no substantially about the PA CCG work, it is mentioned more as an also-ran - should Hawk's article also be deleted? I don't mean to assert that "X should stay because Y is already here" so much as to point out in an exemplary way that webcomics artists are necessarily not so notable as the kind of figures - politicians, athletes, TV personalities and so on - that the Notability guidelines really seek to specifically include, and this doesn't mean that they should necessarily be excluded. In the name of disclosure I am - as could probably have been guessed - a friend of Dan Kim, but am trying to work by objective metrics I would apply to anyone. Sar 03:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: If WP:BIO is not enough, then I must direct your attention to Dragonfiend's above comment. The article is not verified through reliable sources, and most likely cannot be. If reliable sources exist, then please add them to the article.

I might also add that WP:BIO specifies "Published authors, editors and photographers who received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work." I do not believe the author in question has received such reviews, though I have done some fairly deep digging on the subject. I am not sure if self-published work is notable, but even if that is the case, these reviews do not exist - making it a moot point.

In closing, I must note, in reference to your argument of 'about 12,000 hits for Clone-Manga', that an article for a webcomic with 16,000 hits was recently deleted. Okashina Okashi, the webcomic in question, is also only one comic - compared to Clone-Manga, which houses seven as of this writing. And in regards to your comment on my possible status of bias, I only stumbled upon the non-notability of these articles while using Alexa's traffic rankings feature. Whether or not Haque and/or Panagariya are notable is not something I have seriously considered until now, and I will look into it - nominating the articles for deletion if necessary. JimmyBlackwing 07:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: The WP:BIO article specifies many independent criteria for notability, it is unreasonable to pick one and cite hwo the subject does not fulfil that one criteria if it is already demonstrated that he fulfils another. Should be remove the Philip K Dick article because PKD was never a "Political [figure] holding international, national or statewide/provincewide office or [a member] of a national, state or provincial legislature"?

I am broadly an inclusionist at heart, if a picky one, and my position on the Haque and Panagariya articles remains the same as this one - they are people who have achieved notable things within their field, therefore they are notable enough to warrant Wikipedia articles. There is every chance people will come to Wikipedia looking for information on those individuals, and it is more important that any information given is not false than that the subjects are 'famous' enough. Sar 09:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Even so, the problem itself is the inability to prove that the information given is not false, due to the complete lack of reliable sources to take said information from. WP:V is an official policy of Wikipedia - not just a contested guideline. And unless there is some hidden reliable source on this with which one could verify the factuality of this article's contents, it is not going to last much longer. JimmyBlackwing 10:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: As I noted above in response to Dragonfiend, the Verifiability article also states "Material from self-published sources, and other published sources of dubious reliability, may be used as sources of information about themselves in articles about themselves". Is there a reason I'm missing that the PXI book and/or the Clone-manga.org website don't meet any of the criteria given for this, or that this doesn't apply? Again, I'm in favour of a merge, where such arguments would be more directly relevant, but I don't see why this shouldn't be sufficient in this case. To ignore them would be to suggest that Wikipedia doesn't trust Dan Kim as to who Dan Kim is, which is surely just as much a problem whether he's telling this information to us directly via his own site or in an interview with the Wall Street Journal? (Addendum: 'Proof' is not the point of Wikipedia's Verifiability clause - it is about passing the buck, deferring the blame. Or, more politely, allowing the reader to determine for themselves how much they trust and believe the source in question. The motto is 'Verifiability, Not Truth', not 'Verifiability In Search Of Truth'.) Sar 21:31, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: However, reading deeper reveals WP:V#Self-published sources (online and paper). "Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources. Exceptions may be when a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field, or a well-known professional journalist, has produced self-published material." The subject of this article does not meet these requirements. JimmyBlackwing 23:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: The section headed "Self-published and dubious sources in articles about themselves", from which the passage I quoted was sourced, features after the section you mention and I believe that it is obvious that it is intended as a special case separate from the previous section on self-published works. To give an example, the self-published works section intends that Crank Scientist Joe cannot write a book on cold fusion in a teacup, have it published on Lulu and then cite that in a Wikipedia article about how cold fusion is perfectly possible in a teacup. The section on self-published works in articles about themselves allows that Crank Scientist Joe's biography of himself that is carried in the appendix to his teacup book should still be a valid source when writing the Wikipedia biography of this obviously-notable luminary of crank science... facts such as where he was born and where he lives, what his middle name and his birthday are are not contentious facts, and he should himself be in a position to reliably impart them. I believe this intent to be obvious because if it isn't the intent of the '...in articles about themselves' section, I cannot see what the purpose of that section possibly is, since it would be entirely excluded in all cases by the previous section that you cite and it would be entirely pointless to include it in an important and considered Wikipedia policy article. Sar 00:56, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: While this may be true, allow me point out this section in WP:RS, which happens to be the extended version of what I noted before:

"Exceptions to this may be when a well-known, professional researcher writing within his field of expertise, or a well-known professional journalist, has produced self-published material. In some cases, these may be acceptable as sources, so long as their work has been previously published by credible, third-party publications, and they are writing under their own names, and not a pseudonym."

In addition, here we have a bit of information not noted in the WP:V article, but taken from the WP:RS section of the text you originally quoted:

"However, we should avoid relying on self-published material, such as a vanity-press book or a personal website, as a sole source. That is particularly true when the subject is controversial, and the self-publisher has no professional or academic standing."

The personal website and a self-published work are the sole sources for this information, to the extent of my knowledge. JimmyBlackwing 01:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Oh, indeed. However, again, Reliable Sources is a guideline, not a policy, and the text specifically uses language such as "we should avoid ... is particularly true", which suggests that while it is frowned upon, it is not specifically wrong, just preferrable to avoid. And as it goes, I quoted the Verifiability policy, not the RS guideline, which contains a couple of sections of similar text. Assuming for the sake of the argument we cannot easily avoid such a weak source in this case, it is the best source we have and there is no Wikipedia policy which says that it is invalid - indeed, policy specifically allows it. We are not talking about controversial claims, here, we are talking about basic biographical and descriptive information. I'm in total agreement that it's not a great source, and I'd prefer more 'reliable' information. I guess this is a difference of philosophy; it seems to me that the question is between preferring a lot of reasonably informative articles on a wide array of subjects that have only a few sources, or a tiny number of articles with references in triplicate. Personally, I think it is reasonable to believe that the contents are true (and unreasonable to doubt them, largely), and Wikipedia's policy - while preferring articles of a higher quality - allows it as it stands. Going out of our way to find guidelines and suggestions that tell us it is imperfect - which we already know - strikes me as a waste of time that could be better spent removing actual inaccuracies and lies. I firmly believe that the intent of these guidelines and suggestions you are picking up on is to ward off intentional fraud and force a leery stand against 'common knowledge', not to filter out factually true articles which happen to only have poor-quality sources available. Sar 12:55, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Regardless of your personal attack, Wikipedia guidelines exist for a reason, and are not to be ignored without very good reason. As the very template at the top of guideline pages states, they are considered standards which all users should follow. Although it notes that they are not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception, I have yet to see any reason why an exception should be made for this article. The subject of this article has not made a "widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in [his] field" any more than Greg Dean of Real Life Comics (his article was deleted) or Scott Kurtz of the extremely popular PvP (he has no article of his own, and never has). And the reason I cite these facts is not because I am relying on the "if that doesn't have an article, this shouldn't" argument - it is because even people more notable or on the same level of notability as this article's subject are still not notable enough to include on Wikipedia, by its very guidelines on notability. I might also mention that the professor test, which you cited earlier, is a proposed guideline, as seen on the Wikipedia:Notability (academics) page - not an actual guideline.

And one final thing I think I should mention: a person's creation being notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia does not automatically suggest that said person is notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia. For example: Max Goldberg, the creator of the incredibly popular site YTMND (a subject notable enough for inclusion), does not have an article of his own. This stems from a few key factors - namely, Goldberg has not made any other accomplishments which would be deemed noteworthy enough for an article of his own in Wikipedia, and YTMND is not notable enough to in turn make him notable by itself. An example of a modern work so notable that it pushed its creator into notability would be Counter-Strike - Minh Le is notable because of this work, and only because of this work. Daniel Kim is in a similar position to Goldberg's - his work, while notable, does not push him into a position of notability on its own. With that said, I do believe now that at least some parts of this article should be merged into Clone Manga as opposed to outright deletion. He is notable enough to be detailed to some extent past a mere mention in the article on his creation, if not in an article on his own. JimmyBlackwing 14:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: The relevant part of this comment is just a note of my agreement that the article should be heavily edited before a potential merging into Clone Manga; the more I look at it the less satisfied I am with the quality, particularly in terms of structure. By inference, I'm also kind of ashamed that it's sat in my watch list for this long and I haven't done this on my own initiative at any point. The rest of this comment is just unimportant philosophical rambling, really...

As guidelines go - well, I am perfectly happy to conform to policy where is exists and I am aware of it, and I am content that the onus is on me to go in search of policy in order to self-regulate my activity on Wikipedia. Policy is the hard-and-fast rules, and it follows that guideline - by virtue of not being policy - is not. As best as I can see - and this stands for the Reliable Sources guideline in question - the main reason guidelines are not policy is that that they tend to cover the areas where there is a black and white answer for the extremes - "A guy I know met Dan Kim on the stairs and he told me..." is not reliable (or even verifiable!), an entry in the Britannica is - but the middle ground is often indistinct and filled with qualifiers, conditions, and possibilities too great to enumerate entirely. Thus, when not talking about an obvious case, it is in my opinion wiser to consider the intent of the guideline when considering words such as 'should'. The intent of RS is not to exclude perfectly good information, it is to ensure that articles are not written based on information that is not reliable. I see no reason to consider Dan Kim an unreliable source on the subject of Dan Kim, and thus my position. Apologies if it was not clear, but there was no personal attack intended - I was merely attempting to summarise what I saw as my position and your position in order to more efficiently work out which parts it is pointless trying to convince you on and vice versa.

As notability goes, I would - had I had those articles mentioned in my watch list at any such time their merit or lack thereof was being discussed - have made much the same argument in their defence as in defence of this article: their existence does not harm the encyclopaedia in any way, so long as they meet policy's minimum standard, and more information is better than less information, so long as there are people willing to edit that information as and when it needs editing. In this case, both those criteria that I consider important are met, and I suspect that they would be in Greg Dean or Scott Kurtz' case. (Kurtz, from what I know of him, probably deserves an article to himself more than either Dean or Kim; I find the idea that there has never been one kind of puzzling.) The concept of notability which you keep returning to in order to justify the removal of [admittedly badly-] sourced, valid information is not policy or guideline for the moment for the simple reason - as noted on the Notability essay page itself - that is is a controversial razor to use when deciding what should and shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. The examples you cite, for instance, make little sense to me. What is particularly special about Counter-Strike that makes Minh Le notable that isn't special about Real Life Comics or YTMND? Why does Counter-Strike make its creator notable where Team Fortress apparently doesn't? Assuming some particular quality of or level of awareness, where does that line fall? These are rhetorical questions, of course, the point is that it's fairly arbitrary where one draws that line, and I (and many others) will be wary of an argument that is entirely based on border cases in such a non-consensual ideal. That said, we're going around in circles now, and we both seem to be agreed that butchering editing and merging is the way forward. Sar 03:07, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

• Keep/Merge Seeing how this is an internet encyclopedia and this information would be useful for someone searching for things that are dealing with the comic/japanese genre of the internet community. Though to merge the different comics on this page sounds more tidy. - user —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.125.173.197 (talk • contribs) .
• Merge to Clone Manga. --Coredesat talk. o.o;; 05:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
• Merge with Clong Manga. Dan Kim is notable (he's been praised by Fred and is responsible for at least one meme on 4chan, the largest English imageboard in existence currently), but so is reducing clutter. Xuanwu 09:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
• Transwiki to Comixpedia unless someone comes up with third-party sources. I guess this works as a merge to Clone Manga as a second choice. Kotepho 17:22, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
• merge with clone manga is the best suggestion Yuckfoo 20:46, 21 July 2006 (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.