Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lucas bashing

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 concensus --Ichiro 19:11, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lucas bashing

This entire entry is absolute nonsense. The use of a pop-cultural "phenemonon" invented purely from the author's imagination on a publicly accessed encyclopedia is an outrage. The perpetrator of such character defilement, through the lens of creating an actual issue when none exists, is, in and of itself, a key reason that Wikipedia can never be what it seeks to be: a fact-based collective of information on a subject. As one might expect I am a filmmaker and fervent supporter of George Lucas' works and his contributions to the cinematic arts. If I were to write a section on the praise of George Lucas, as a seperate, "counter-article" I could fill over 100 pages of stardard Microsoft Word documents and post them on Wikipedia. It is disgusting that the author of such trash would post it on a public site which they do not own nor have personal claim to. No one has the right to criticize another in public ENCYCLOPEDIA. The author already mentions briefly that some do not agree with George Lucas' filmmaking techniques, and this is documented. But his or her creation of this so called "movement" against the filmmaker is not only ridiculous, it is libel. If the author of the document feels that there is actually a large enough group of people who "bash" George Lucas, I suggest he pay actual money for his or her own site, where they can freely write and distribute whatever information they please. But to corrupt the information of other people who seek out this entry for educational and/or academic purposes, the presence of this section is an affront to the very purpose of Wikipedia. It is an Encyclopedia, not a forum for one's agenda or opinion. I demand, if this encyclopedia is to be of any value to anyone, that this entry be deleted with all haste, and the entire article be evaluated, or even better, rewritten, to properly reflect a factual, untarnished, and uncircumspect article, which this entry has failed to become. I also suggest close monitoring of this entry, for any further attempts at the injection of libel into the biographies of the world's notable people. I was accused of "defacing" Wikipedia when I first deleted this section after having read it in anger. I have since become acquainted with the policies of Wikipedia regarding such actions, and have learned to my dismay that it is in fact easier for someone to publish untrue and bogus information on Wikipedia than it is for those who seek the truth in entries, to delete it. This is most disconcerting, and unfortunately, the most unique aspect of the encyclopedia is its most flawed. I will no longer delete anything in this entry, but in protest pending its removal, I have written a brief commentary contra to the perspective in the article. Please understand I expect this to be deleted along with the nonsensical opinionative information which it opposes.

Comment Please sign your comments and comment below other comments. Also try to keep page edits within Wikipedia style (the article was already marked as possible POV -- this is why someone removed your disclaimer). I realise it's hard to neutrally document vehement arguments but try to recognise that the article is just a record of the existence of gushers and bashers (at least this article isn't as bad a nightmare as NPOV in pro-life and pro-choice articles). The article is fully sourced and is as close to a reflection of the analyses made by the sources as possible and it tries where possible to discuss both sides (read the discussion: the article has actually been edited to keep as close to the consensus of sources as possible). My bias on this article is listed below. Mattisgoo 04:00, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Inherently POV. Not a notable enough "phenomenon" to deserve a seperate article. There's already an article on Fan criticism of George Lucas. (Note: 592 Google results for "lucas bashing", 19 results for "lucas gushing") Coffee 04:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

See also: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bush bashing (512,000 Google results for "bush bashing") Coffee 05:03, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete and redirect to Fan criticism of George Lucas. I've heard the term but don't think it deserves an article of its own. --Pboyd04 04:41, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
• Merge with Fan criticism of George Lucas -- MisterHand 05:32, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
• Merge as per above. Daniel Case 05:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
• Merge. As above, so below. --Agamemnon2 07:21, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
• Merge as above. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 12:12, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
• Redirect per Pboyd04. Too much POV in this article. Merge, I suppose, if anyone can honestly be bothered. Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 18:41, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep This artice used to be very POV. Since then, a lot of work has gone in to provide references to source materials that discuss Lucas bashing as a real phenomena. I disagree that it still has an issue with POV. It may be merged, but Fan criticism of George Lucas was actually created to remove unreferenced material from Lucas bashing and to split the article after it grew too long. Zukeeper 00:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Merge per MisterHand. -- ReyBrujo 02:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Bias: I am a contributor to the article.

The arguments put forward for deletion are:

• POV
• Not notable enough to deserve a separate article

Neither of these two points qualify under Wikipedia:Deletion_policy. POV is explicitly something which does not qualify for deletion, merely an "article needing attention".

The test which is closest to "notablity" is "original research". Do the references and other sources support the content article. The article has journal, media, reviewer and colloquial support of definition and all major subject headings and topic points. In this respect, the article cannot be considered for deletion under this test.

The test for justifying the merging of an article is less clear. Let's look at the Google numbers anyway:

• As stated in the article, most references are contextual. i.e. Bashing or Gushing are normally used in context without a qualifier. This is why "Lucas bashing" returns so few hits. Without the quotes, it returns 181,000 and Lucas gushing returns 81,000. 32,000 and 17,000 using Lucas basher and Lucas gusher respectively. 469,000 for '"Star Wars" bashing'. It goes on. It is an informal term used in subculture venues -- testing it too rigidly is faulty research.
• Should the Khazakstani opposition party the Democratic_Party_of_Kazakhstan_Bright_Path be deleted or merged because only 65 Google hits exist? No, because the sources support this entity as a separate subject. This is why the number Google hits should not be used for justifying Wikipedia articles. The sources should.

Further looking at arguments for merging:

• As Zukeeper said, the "Fan Criticism" article was spun off from the bashing/gushing article. This is because it is unsupported, unreferenced, one-sided and rambling. To merge the two articles would diminish the identification of Lucas bashing and gushing as a real phenomenon.
• The article is about "bashing and gushing" not about criticism. i.e. It is about the behaviours of the people involved, not about any criticism itself. In this way, the "Fan criticism" article is not properly related.
• The combination of the two articles would be bigger than the maximum recommended article size.
• Lucas bashing contains more points than allegory, catachresis and parable combined and yet no one would suggest merging them all into metaphor. I have to suggest that people here are biased because the article is on fan subculture rather than linguistics -- a bias which is improper and not supported by Wikipedia.

On whether or not the article is "inherently POV":

• This article has been listed as having POV issues for some time. Since major revisions were made roughly a fortnight ago, no one has identified an aspect of the article that is POV. The article clearly and carefully details boths sides of a vehement debate. It does not support bashers or gushers. It avoids giving one or the other more attention. It does not support or decry George Lucas or Star Wars. There is no identified aspect of the article which forwards a point of view. Arguably the name of the article itself is imbalanced and I agree that it should be Lucas Bashers and Gushers.
• It does not help Wikipedia or it's content to declare "inherently POV" without support. If you cannot say what is negatively affected by the article, if you cannot list the biased slant of the article, then nothing will change.

To summarise my points: no argument has been made in favor of deletion. Only the claim of "not notable" has been made in favor of merging, but the request is that a large, fully referenced, balanced article on a specific topic be merged into an already ungainly, largely unrelated, unsupported, one-sided, rambling article.

Please read both the articles and the talk pages where some of these points have already been discussed.Mattisgoo 03:13, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment: Whoops, I didn't pay attention to Coffee's point that Bush Bashing was deleted. Valid point to consider. I don't know how to view that deleted article, but from the deletion votes: that article said little more than the title inferred and was really just a generic discussion of bashing. My opinion is that this is not the case for this article -- it gives an investigation into reactionary ideology that is specific to Lucas bashers/gushers -- plus, there isn't an article on bashing in a generic sense (gay bashing does exist and is cross linked from this article). Fancruft is another inferred but not explicitly stated criticism of this article that is not without merit -- again this is not immediate cause for deletion but relevant to notability concerns. Mattisgoo 03:18, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keepseems useful enough, and is certainly notable, and POV is no reason to delete, just to improve. J•A•K 10:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• Indeed it is not. But a POV title and the fact that this is clearly a fork in an existing article is a reason. The way we fix POV issues in articles is to work to consensus, not fork. And do we really need two large articles on fan criticism of George Lucas, especially since the other one has a "proper" title? - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 00:34, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• KEEP. The original article was specifically forked into this one and Fan criticism of George Lucas, due to the large amount of content, originally. The Wookieepedian 19:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep reasons for deletion are not convicing, article seems well-sourced, well-written. JesseW, the juggling janitor 23:39, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

• So is fan criticism of George Lucas, and that has he advantage of a much better title. Do we need two articles on the same topic? How to decide what is Lucas bashing and what is merely fan criticism of George Lucas? Is there an objective standard which can be applied? - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 00:37, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, Just zis Guy, but you obviously have not read either the Lucas Bashing article or fan criticism of George Lucas. While the first is well written and well sourced, just as JesseW has noted, the second is not well written and has absolutely no sources. If your only objection to Lucas Bashing is the title, may I suggest you change the title of this article instead of deleting this article outright? Zukeeper 03:40, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Rename: As I said in my main comment, I agree with a name change to "Lucas Bashing and Lucas Gushing" or "Lucas Bashing and Gushing" to reflect a less POV stance.Mattisgoo 04:00, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete Un-encyclopaedic -Dr Haggis - Talk 21:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete I just don't see how "Lucus Bashing" is a sufficiently widespread phenomenon to warrant this article. All of the information in this article could be summed up as "Some people criticize Lucas for these reasons," and folded into the main George Lucas article. At the very least, the article should be renamed to something that's NPOV; "Bashing" implies unjustified and unreasonable criticism. nmw 10:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete or Merge some of the article (like only a paragraph) into Fan criticism of George Lucas. This is not a "phenomenon". Just because you like/don't like his work, it doesn't mean you should go on and on about it. Especially on a public encyclopedia. -Hyad 18:57, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
• Merge worthwhile content into fan criticism of George Lucas. The title is inappropriate and should not be used as a redirect. --C S (Talk) 05:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Merge with Fan criticism of George Lucas, they are of the same subject only this one is slightly more crass. Though worthwhile information is inside. The Filmaker 17:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Bias - original writer of article

Hi there. I'm PacifistPrime, the orginal writer of this article (although it has now been split and so heavily rewritten by others that it no longer strictly represents my original). I don't want to get into a protracted argument about this; you guys seem to be doing pretty well on your own. Just a few points:

-I agree with Mattisgoo and others that there are no real grounds for deleting this article. Much of the discussion here is the province of a NPOV dispute, for which this article already has a specific talk page in which these arguments have already been exhaustively discussed ad nauseum, and not been added to in some time. Furthermore, I think it should be quite obvious to everyone that the only reason this article is being discussed for deletion is because of the outrageously biased reaction of the first commentator at the top of this page. His long, vitriolic rant clearly demonstrates that he is utterly biased on this matter, is not familiar with the workings or purpose of Wikipedia, and most significantly, has entirely missed the point of the article. Which brings me to another thing...

-With all due respect to everyone, why do so many of you seem to fail to understand this simple point: DESCRIBING criticism of Lucas DOES NOT constitute IMPLICIT CRITICISM ITSELF?! This article (nor Fan Criticism of George Lucas which was split from it) is not, nor ever has been condoning, supporting, promoting or enacting Lucas bashing. It is DESCRIPTIVE, pure and simple. An article descirbing the KKK is not automatically a racist tract. Writing an article about America does not make the author pro or anti-American by defult. So, if you don't agree that this phenomenon exists (despite the considerable evidence to the contrary), that's fine, but PLEASE! Stop accusing the article, the title etc etc of having an anti-Lucas bias. In actual fact, this article isn't even ABOUT George Lucas, it's about other people's reactions to him.

I really hope this bickering will conclude soon. Don't we all have better things to do?

-PacifistPrime, 5 January 2006

• Keep or Merge. Starogg 17:36, 7 January 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.