Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Internet Urban Legends

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 to List of common misconceptions. MBisanz ^talk 17:48, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Internet Urban Legends

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Contested PROD without comment. Essay/synthesis that fails WP:NOTESSAY, WP:OR, WP:DISCRIMINATE among others. §FreeRangeFrog 05:47, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per the nominator's rationale. Thanks — sparklism ^hey! 07:30, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with rewrite The article at the moment isn't very useful but the topic of urban legends spread through the internet is a legitimate one[1][2][3][4][5], from Usenet and email to websites and social media (compare faxlore, urban legends spread by fax and similar machines). There are lots of modern books about urban legends which discuss the internet, as well as internet-specific books such as Pamela Donovan, No Way of Knowing: Crime, Urban Legends, and the Internet (Psychology Press, 2004), Anne P. Mintz, Web of Deception: Misinformation on the Internet (Information Today, Inc., 2002), and academic papers on internet urban legends[6][7][8][9] --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:16, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:39, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

~~Strong Delete~~ Per nominator, fails various policies across the board. trivial. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 20:11, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, and improve and rewrite, agree that this article's topic has received significant coverage in multiple different reliable secondary sources including many books. — Cirt (talk) 22:24, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Go Phightins! 00:05, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Colapeninsula has demonstrated notability of the topic. Reliable sources are out there, if not in the article. While the article has insufficient citations and reliable references, it appears that these are surmountable problems. The article should be kept, as AfD is not for cleanup (WP:NOTFORCLEANUP). Mark viking (talk) 00:38, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Yes, the article may need a significant rewrite, but the topic is worthy of an article. AutomaticStrikeout (Evidence) 00:45, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Question I might be willing to change my opinion if somebody can demonstrate to me how this article will warrant it's own article separate from the Urban_Legends article that already exists. It seems to me that at the very best, "Internet" Urban Legends should be a short section within the main article. Can someone explain, please, why we need this as a stand-alone artcle? This article reads like a POV for creepypasta.com In fact if you remove all of the creepypasta stories you are left with a stub. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 00:52, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A fair question. I agree the article is weak on references and is essay-like in places--reducing it to stub would be an improvement. But it's my understanding that whether an article deserves to exist depends on whether the topic itself is notable, i.e. the existence of multiple reliable sources, some secondary. Colapeninsula's refs 1 and 5-9 are by all different authors in peer-reviewed journals and refs 6-9 are specifically on internet urban legends and internet folkore. Ref. 1 is an AJR article that I think qualifies as a secondary source. The topic of internet urban legends seems notable, which argues for keeping some form of the article. Mark viking (talk) 00:55, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Strong delete per OP and Sue Rangell. Mostly consists of a list of unreferenced urban myths and other information. While most of the individual examples aren't notable anyway, the phenomenon of Internet urban legends existing is certainly not notable (at least, not according to any of the references). – Richard BB 13:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - One internet urban legend is that anybody can write about anything on Wikipedia. There are no logical parameters for inclusion here. One person's common misunderstanding might be another person's urban legend. Carrite (talk) 16:51, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - or, rather, Merge this small article into Urban Legend. Note that several discussions have occurred in Urban Legend talk page, and have determined that WP will not (yet) contain a list of urban legends (WP:INDISCRIMINATE and all that). Bottom line :there may be some valid material in Internet Urban Legends, but it would be better off presented as a subsection within Urban Legend. --Noleander (talk) 02:13, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - it thought that AfD was not for fixing articles. Bearian (talk) 18:03, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- Cheers, Riley 00:09, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DELETE With allof the creepypasta.com ads removed, there is nothing left but a stub containing info that is already mentioned elsewhere. Let's just delete it. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 01:10, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~Keep~~ Comment The article has been nicely cleaned up by Richard BB. True, it's more of a stub now, but it is much improved and the references are out there to further develop the article. The topic is still notable. Mark viking (talk) 01:54, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mark viking, you only get to !vote once in these discussion, though you can comment as often as you want. First Light (talk) 02:36, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about that, and thanks for the correction Mark viking (talk) 04:29, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Although I did clean a lot of it up, I'd like to point out that I've still voted for a strong delete above. – Richard BB 08:39, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Merge into List of common misconceptions. I think it's safe to say ALL urban legends propagated since 2000 or so are "Internet urban legends." Faustus37 (talk) 06:44, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Merge per Faustus37. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 22:21, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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.