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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pwn (2nd nomination)

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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 was no consensus.

A quick summary of the arguments:

Note that I lumped merge, redirect, delete, and transwiki together because they used similar arguments; this grouping has no bearing on the validity of the arguments presented.

I find that there really is no consensus. If the article should be kept because it is verifiable by reliable sources, where are those sources? If the article should be deleted because reliable sources cannot be found, why are all existent sources invalid? I feel that no side really "wins" this crucial point of the debate.

King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:09, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pwn

[edit]
AfDs for this article:
Pwn (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

No reliable sources that significantly cover the term (I just plucked out Urban Dictionary), consists only of original research and a dicdef. The sources include what appears to be a thesis, a PDF that shows up blank for me, and two slang glossaries. I can't find a single source that discusses the term "pwn" in detail. Last AFD closed as keep on merit of nothing but WP:ILIKEIT votes. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 18:37, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weak Keep, open to Merge or Move to Wiktionary, but not open to Delete. Nominator argued "not sourced" but in order to argue deletion, you need to demonstrate "not sourceable". [1], [2] show that it's certainly verifiable. I think a discussion of possibly moving to wiktionary could be fruitful (not sure how I feel about that) but I would not support deleting the material. Another possibility would be to merge into some page about related slang terms, with the content on "PWN" as a section. Cazort (talk) 19:28, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of video game related deletion discussions. MrKIA11 (talk) 19:34, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to Wiktionary. Word doesn't haven't sufficient significance for article. There's nothing to say about it. No-one know the origin of the word, so it'll be rife with speculation or original research. People will want to know what it means if they look for it, a job which Wikitionary has been assigned. I can't really see the argument at the moment for a full article here, though I am welcome to here ideas. Greg Tyler (t • c) 19:37, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I knew this would happen. Have you even read other stuff exists lately? There's a valid way of citing other stuff (sutff that's relevant to your argument), and there's a bad way. Citing other articles is not always irrelevant. Try reading it again. Hairhorn (talk) 20:25, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • What is this "relevant stuff", then? The only arguments you've put across so far are that this subject is notable because "Wikipedia is full of similar pages detailing gaming slang", most of the examples of which you cited lack the necessary reliable sources anyway; and that the word is "among the most commonly used", which, even if cited, wouldn't be sufficient alone to justify the subject's notability. Haipa Doragon (talk • contributions) 20:58, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I worry this article is getting grief just because it has a juvenile background. Sources are plentiful, if you care to look for them, even in Google News, although most results are general articles about gaming and internet slang, rather than an entire article about "pwn". Hairhorn (talk) 21:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]


  • Whilst I agree that there are other wikipedia pages concerning gaming slang, they treat them in a different way than this article does. Those examples you linked read to me like an encyclopedia entry. This article reads like a dictionary entry, very similar to the one on Wiktionary. As per nom, I don't think this as it currently stands should be a full article as it is doing Wiktionaries job. Taelus (talk) 20:33, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I wonder if some in the delete camp (and maybe merge as well) are conflating two issues: this subject's potential to be an article, and the fact that "pwn" has a vague or unverifiable history. Having an unverifiable history isn't fatal to an entry about a word: dictionaries all full of words with uncertain or unknown origins. There is lots of room to improve the article, deleting is not the only solution for a bad article. There is room for at least brief discussions of usage, some history, uses in popular culture (it's in at least one South Park episode). Even Google scholar has results for "pwn", although, as usual, always contained inside larger discussions, no articles solely covering "pwn". This would be at home merged into one of the internet slang or leet speak articles, but only if you're truly convinced there's no potential for anything more. Hairhorn (talk) 01:16, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Potential is important: see "Arguments to avoid". I haven't cited any sources because (1) it's trivial to verify that pwn is in common use in a particular culture, used in a consistent way, etc etc, so pick your own source, there are lots.... and perhaps more fatally to the article (2) there are none that deal soley with pwn, and dozens that deal with pwn in the context of leet speak. The sources are not great, that's for sure, that may be enough to kill the article. Hairhorn (talk) 01:56, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are at least three issues here, and it's important to distinguish between them: notability, verifiability, and the potential to be a good article.
The nominator is correct in saying that no source discusses "pwn" in detail. It just isn't out there. So there may not be enough for a good article, and for some of you this may bring up notability issues. (It also means that any detailed pwn entry will probably have OR issues as well).
However, "pwn" is easily verified, stop asking me to cite references, you can find them yourself. I've found a Wall Street Journal article, academic papers, slang dictionaries, books for worried parents, and so on. I have to think that people asking over and over for citations are confusing verifiability with the other issues. Because if you can't find "pwn" on the internet, you really haven't tried. Hairhorn (talk) 15:46, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You keep claiming to have found sources, so why can't you cite them? If the existence of these sources is as obvious as you say, prove so, otherwise your claims just boil down to "it's obviously notable". Articles are based on verified evidence of notability, not mere assertions like yours. Haipa Doragon (talk • contributions) 15:53, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If it's so easily verified, as you say, why can't you verify it? Haipa Doragon (talk • contributions) 16:13, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I said, there are many sources, but none of them discuess pwn in detail. So I'm not gonna play the game of citing souces and then being corned into defending them.... because they aren't that good. If you think "pwn" doesn't exist and isn't used in a consistent way, no amount of research on my end is going to change that. Hairhorn (talk) 16:17, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What point are you trying to make, then, if said sources you claim the existence of aren't even "that good"? The mere existence of a word isn't enough to justify a Wikipedia article on it. Haipa Doragon (talk • contributions) 16:21, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Again, you don't seem to read what I write. I've been making a point about verifiability - its existence, usage, and so on. I've hardly touched the other issues. I don't own this article. Hairhorn (talk) 16:25, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm not getting what point this is. All these claims that "many sources" exist are meaningless unless you can show us examples. This is entirely the point of WP:V, that information should be based on direct citations of sources and not just allusions to their existence. Haipa Doragon (talk • contributions) 16:38, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
if you havent noticed, it's reached pretty far into standard language by now. DGG (talk) 07:12, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If this is the case, where are the reliable sources to show this? Notability can't be based on one's subjective perception that something has entered common usage; the sources must be shown to exist to prove this. Haipa Doragon (talk • contributions) 14:43, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
People are going to type this in as a search term; there needs to be a redirect and material somewhere, at the bare minimum, even if it's just a sentence or small paragraph. There are certainly reliable sources documenting enough for a paragraph's worth (or more). Cazort (talk) 15:46, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is material somewhere - at wikt:pwn. Orpheus (talk) 05:59, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think a merge/redirect to leet would be perfectly reasonable, even though I would (weakly) prefer keeping this its own article. But I think an AfD is not a place for a merge discussion...it's a place to discuss whether the material should be outright deleted and I think that is too hard to argue for this term. Cazort (talk) 14:23, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • What the three sources[3][4][5] provide is extremely limited and conflicting definitions. TIME's peculiarly-looking (is it someone's blog?) Dashboard page says that it means "to destroy (own) a foe", CNet's photo commentary refers to it as "a hacker slang for "own," meaning getting complete control of someone else's system", and the PCMag definition remarks that in gaming, it means "to trounce an opponent. To be "pwned" is to be defeated unmercifully." I just don't see any encyclopedic notability here. Does "definately" [6][7][8] deserve its Wikipedia page as well? Again, Wikipedia is not a slang dictionary and I see nothing in the mentioned comments that could convince me in keeping the article in question. If it's only a matter of possible user searches, I think it will be more sensible to just redirect it to an appropriate slang page (e.g. Internet Slang) and use the already existing {{wiktionary|pwn}} to guide the searcher to the commonly accepted definition. — Rankiri (talk) 14:29, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Look up pwn in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  • There's more than just those three sources, however. I mentioned this one above, which had been brought up in the previous AfD, and added some others to the article. There are multiple non-trivial sources already, and room for expansion based on others. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 15:51, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The source you mention itself contains the following quote: "This word is just an overly used Internet typo. It has been overused to the point that people who play online games are using it in everyday speech." In which way is it definitive, nontrivial, or even relevant? And what possible room for expansion are we talking about? If it's a simple WP:NOTDIC slang term that doesn't represent any distinctive entities or unique concepts, the only expansion I can imagine is in an expansive list of synonyms and links to slang-related websites. — Rankiri (talk) 16:31, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • In light of finding slightly more comprehensive sources, I'm changing my original position to redirect/merge to Leet#Owned_and_pwned. I still strongly disagree with the idea that the term merits its own article. As mentioned earlier, it has insufficient individual notability and little potential for any future expansion.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB118679550023894850.html
http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2008/01/11/news/local/doc47871f54ecfe6705836093.txt
http://forthright.livejournal.com/212704.html — Rankiri (talk) 17:33, 26 May 2009 (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.
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