Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pillow Fight Club

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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 to delete nor to smerge. This does not preclude any such merge discussions taking place elsewhere, of course. - brenneman{T}{L} 06:16, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pillow_Fight_Club

Please add new comments to the bottom of the page.

  • Strong Delete:This is a pure vanity page, of interest only to the event organizers, and consisting in the main of links to other vanity pages. Hmackiernan 21:32, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

How is this purely vanity? Someone must have had some serious sour grapes to consider this page, which is informative and one of the few sources of information on this "fad" purely in vain to the organizers. If that's the main objection limit the off going links.

22:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)22:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)22:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)22:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)12.111.30.89 22:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

This organization exists in the real world and has had press coverage. The San Francisco Chronicle article, which is linked to at the end of the page, would seem to clearly indicate that Pillow Fight Club is of interest to those outside the organziation.

This is TOTALLY valid!

I agree this is interesting to some and not a harmful entry. Please keep this entry here(JB, 2/15/06).

Someone must be really vengeful and spiteful to want this page removed. There is no other reason. I think the support for this page speaks for itself. If it's deleted, I'll probably stop using Wikipedia altogether, since its whole foundation would be flawed and its name a fraud. ---

I'll elect to ignore the psychologizing, and say only that you must have a very skewed idea of Wikipedia to consider deletion of this page constituting 'fraud'.
Maybe you should read a bit more before making such histrionic and grandiose statements.
Hmackiernan 20:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Pillow Fights are real-world events that ought to be documented on wikipedia. They have affected thousands of people in dozens of cities worldwide and the phenomenon is currently spreading. This page is linked to by many websites. Why would you delete it?


Don't delete! This was informative!


Newsworthy, informative are not, in my opinion, valid criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a newspaper. 209.19.42.2 23:47, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep Surely Wikipedia is not a newspaper, but that's not an actual policy, nor should newsworthiness preclude topics from Wikipedia. Yes, before this event took place the article probably wasn't deserving of a page but now that there existed such an event, that it is imtimately linked with flash mobs which is itself is a legit topic (it would have been an actual flash mob if it was planned covertly), and it has garnered enough notoriety to become newsworthy, I believe makes this topic worthy of inclusion. Its clear it has elevated beyond something that was just made up and I'm sure someone can find the feathers around the ferry building to prove it. hateless 01:37, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
  • KEEP - Its not make believe people, its been documented as a real event, besides some people have no idea about it.

--ConradKilroy 04:32, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

First rule is - never mention the Pillow Fight Club (and certainly never write an article about it). A smerge into the flashmobbing article may be in order, though. Grutness...wha? 05:14, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - The "event organizers" mentioned in the original post are parties unknown, who seek to remain anon & who make no money or other gain through any aspect of an event. Organizers and participants are unorganized, which means the idea has spread for its own value, as a meme. The "promoters" are merely reporting on an open source idea that has international acceptance.--dr elys jimenez 07:12, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - I think this is a totally legit entry. It falls under Sociology or Anthropology and is a cultural phenomenon albeit a weird one and perhaps short lived but I was seeking legitimate info about it and was happy to see such an exhaustive entry about it which also led me to Flash Mobs and other interesting bits of modern culture. --User: taymar
    • user's second edit to Wikipedia - the other was to the sandbox Grutness...wha?

KEEP!! This is a real event, these do happen, and I wouldn't have found out so much about them if it wasn't for this page.

  • Delete the pillow-puppets Dlyons493 Talk 19:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

KEEP THIS - Please

KEEP! Am going to link to this on my blog. Thought provoking, informative, and apparently true: there have been actual events in London, San Francisco, etc. This is no less valid than Pastafarianism. Oh yeah, and I'm going to organize one myself.

  • Well, I'm heartened to see the pillow-puppets are out in force (and thank you Dylons493 for that wonderful neologism :) )

I remain unconvinced, but whatever.

Hmackiernan 21:16, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I saw Pillow Fight Club mentioned in Neil Gaiman's blog and didn't see an explanation. I came here to find out. Now, if it's something that people unrelated to the event would want to research, then it is informative.-E.C.

  • Delete. Wikipedia should not be used to promote memes, only document them when they have already become popular. That means we need good coverage of the event in independent sources (good ones - not blogs), and sorry, but one slow-news-day story in an Israeli newspaper doesn't convince me that this is a global phenomenon. --Malthusian (talk) 16:48, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong delete. Missed the SF Chronicle - now I see that we have actual third-party evidence that this encyclopaedia is being used to promote non-notable events. "Like many others, Davis learned of the pillow fight from a friend who directed her to a Web site -- in her case it was Wikipedia -- that gave details about a planned flash mob pillow fight on Valentine's Day in San Francisco." (my emphasis) Never mind the WP:NOT paper versus WP:NOT indiscriminate see-saw, this article is literally giving people the wrong idea about what we're here for. Even ignoring that, the two independent references documented two individual flash mobs, not a global pillow fighting fad, and individual flash mobs are generally not notable. --Malthusian (talk) 16:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Your comment reeks of subjective judgement, Mal. First off: what is non-notable? What is your criteria for notability? Seems newsworthiness is not a criteria you'd use, although the topic passes your "good coverage in independent sources" criteria. If it helps any, Google has about 10 articles for the SF pillow fight.[1] Second, if you have content on an article that is promoting or advocating an event, you have an example of POV in an article, which would warrant editing. I will concede that the article outside of the opening section and the external links should probably be deleted, and perhaps the opening needs some editing too. However, you can argue any proper article on an event, say, 2006 Winter Olympics, is functioning as promotion as well: all you need is a time and place. It's not the job of the editors to police what the contents of an article is used for by individual users. And the quote does not make it clear that the article was used for the purpose of promotion or as just as a reference. Lets not get into silly authoritarian we need to make an example! sillyness, it's gonna punish Wikipedia users more than the promoters. We on the Keep camp have proposed newswortiness as a criteria for notability, please present your own objective criteria and argue for it. hateless 05:39, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
As I already said, all your news articles prove one thing: that in a couple of places people had a couple of flashmobs in the form of a mass pillow fight. This article is a) trying to bulk up those isolated incidents into a global phenomenon and b) trying to turn it into a global phenomenon by using Wikipedia as a promotional tool. As for the Olympics, you might be interested to know that those have been going for decades and receive worldwide coverage from every form of media, and have already become notable without Wikipedia's help. --Malthusian (talk) 13:37, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
And it should be clear that I'm not denying that, yet I'm saying that's enough for inclusion within Wikipedia. What I'm asking for is your criteria for notability and inclusion, and I'd like one where you can't just raise the bar every time you realize the test was passed. hateless 07:30, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Know what I'd like? If the pillowheads people demanding that the standards and criteria be made available would read up a bit on Wikipedia's policies, standards, guidelines, criteria &c before barging in bloviating about how horribly hateful and unfair we are by threatening to delete 'their' article. Hmackiernan 18:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Keep the strawmen at home, h, no one here claimed ownership of this article in any way. And name calling isn't going to help. hateless 07:17, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
straw is for stuffing pillows anyway Hmackiernan 22:58, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per Malthusian Ryanjunk 16:59, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
  • KEEP! Pillow Fight Club is a social meme akin to Burning Man. It existed. It exists. It will appear again. Flash mobs can be related directly through history to the 1960s Be-Ins or early 90s Queer Nation mall zaps. In this case, though, the Internet as the medium of communication. PFC did not occur *because* of Wikipedia, but is certainly of interest to its users. --Ggreg 22:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
    • user's second edit to Wikipedia Hmackiernan 17 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep: I had no idea what this was as I heard about it thru an weird happenings newsletter. I came to Wikipedia and I now know. This is why wiki exists.

--Acgrenier 23:51, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

User's first contribution. [2]
  • Keep - I came to wikipedia to find out about this. It was useful. MarkDilley
User's sixth contribution. [3]
  • Keep - I just received an email invitation to a future pillowfight happening in New York City--I was baffled and did a wiki search to find more info. As dr elys jimenez said, the events are taking place around the globe, it seems doubtful that the same people are behind each of them. Apparently mass public pillowfights have become a meme, definitely some obscure piece of knowledge worth noting.Anirishprophet 02:35, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
User's first contribution. [4]
but is it Wikipedia's job to be the clearinghouse for information on every passing fad? Answer: no. hmackiernan 00:16, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

keep Unless you'll replace it with something more useful, why delete it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.237.97.6 (talk • contribs)

  • Keep - Stupid fad, good article. KarlBunker 02:20, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Query — Where is the line between a newspaper and a living Wikipedia? How many PFC events must occur before it has a place here? Can the lines between documentation, reporting, and promotion be drawn without considering the motives of the writers? --dr elys jimenez 07:50, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  • When there are reliable independent references that state it's a global phenomenon, it's a global phenomenon. Using individual flashmobs as references and trying to pull them together into a global phenomenon is original research. --Malthusian (talk) 10:54, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - Look at the text of Wikipedia_is_not_for_things_made_up_in_school_one_day: "Fads, and fashions can end up in Wikipedia. But only if someone first sits down and researches them, and publishes a book, an academic paper, or a magazine/journal article detailing that research. Then the subject becomes eligible for Wikipedia.

For example, Catherine Gewertz has written an article, published in Education Week in 2001, about the school craze of freak dancing, which makes freak dancing a valid topic for a Wikipedia article." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.189.34.46 (talk • contribs)

  • Keep: It's only going to get bigger...(Wisey 20/02/06) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.31.76.254 (talk • contribs)
  • Merge to Flash mob. I wish cool stuff like this happened where I live.--God of War 06:04, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep: This is an interesting article about a social phenomenon that adds joy and whimsy to life. With all of the anger in the world, isn't it worthwhile to mention a movement of lighthearted fun? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.202.150.177 (talk • contribs) 06:30, 20 February 2006
  • Strong Keep I heard about this page from an onlooker at the SF event who was delighted with the event and very pleased to find out more about it on Wikipedia quota 13:01, 20 February 2006 (UTC) As several people have pointed out to me, this was rather 'faint praise'. I should have added that I found it useful and informative, too. If (before some event) this page was used as promotion, then yes that's not Wikipedia. But if it is a professional and accurate record of events, then it is as useful as any other record of people doing extraordinary things for extraordinary reasons. quota 20:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep: I came upon this page randomly from a xanga, it's brilliant! If it weren't for this wiki, I never would've learned about this. There's no reason to delete! Vecter 02:47, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. TheRingess 07:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. (I am a real user, not a puppet.) If this isn't true and notable, it should be. If Brian Peppers can be deleted simply because the whole phenomena is evil (even if perhaps marginally notable), than this can be kept because the phenomena is delightful (even if perhaps marginally non-notable). Anyway, with a Reuters story and lots of photographic verification, this seems to have more verification than many other marginalal articles that are kept. (However, the "Rules" and perhaps the "Sugesstions for attendees" sections should go.)Herostratus 18:03, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep See no grounds for deletion. See no overbearing vanity. --Shadow Puppet 01:21, 23 February 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.