Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Saltine cracker challenge

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 keep. (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:04, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Saltine cracker challenge

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~~WP:MADEUP sums this up pretty well. Irbisgreif (talk) 06:01, 22 October 2009 (UTC)~~[reply]

Delete per nom. No cites to indicate that this is a notable cultural phenomenon rather than something made up one day. --JamesAM (talk) 06:06, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strike my delete: good werk Melchoir. Food Detectives clinches it for me. Now I'm off to try the cinnamon challenge. Delete. Ditto. Drmies (talk) 06:07, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep ~~Delete~~. I think I recall this from high school biology as a demonstration of what happens when you don't have enough amylase to dissolve a quantity of starch. ~~It's not notable enough in its own right, though.~~ (At best, find sources and include in an appropriate article.) TheFeds 06:44, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pleasantly surprised by the improvements by Melchoir. I just verified several of the Factiva references; no issues there—they're valid. (Amending my previous recommendation to keep.) TheFeds 16:28, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I'll add references myself. The fact that new editors often don't add references is one of many reasons why it is inappropriate to AfD an article one minute after it was created! Next time try cleanup tags and/or Wikipedia:Proposed deletion. And please brush up on Wikipedia:New pages patrol#New pages that may require deletion. Melchoir (talk) 06:55, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
~~'Weak Delete, Merge with~~' Competitive eating. If it goes for a delete consensus, I'll go with the crowd, but I would rather it gets merged --Cleave and Smite, Delete and Tear! (talk) 13:52, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
keep and merge needs improvement, but surely it will find its place somewhere with good references. the concept seems feasible and Google provides a multitude of entries 88.71.96.63 (talk) 14:11, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This definitely isn't something just made up in school one day. I've heard of this, and a search in google news shows tons of mentions in various news articles. And FWIW if you type "saltine" in google the first thing that autocompletes is "saltine challenge". I'm not sure there's enough sources to add up to significant coverage or whatever the exact threshold is, but it's something that will require a lot of searching to determine one way or another. This is clearly a very popular activity, it's just a matter of whether reliable sources have ever bothered to write about it. Calliopejen1 (talk) 14:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- For another surprise search Google for "saltine". Evil saltine (talk) 21:02, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Wow. You should monetize that! ;-) Melchoir (talk) 23:04, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
~~Merge~~ with competitive eating. I forget where I saw this originally on television, probably Tosh.0 or something like that. JBsupreme (talk) 15:23, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- The saltine cracker challenge now stands alone, so keep. JBsupreme (talk) 23:24, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Don't merge this with Competitive eating. While the saltine challenge is obviously a form of competition involving eating, and it makes appearances at fairs, most of our article on Competitive eating is inapplicable. The timescale and amount of food for saltines is much shorter than than the contests described there. It's a binary challenge, not a "how many" challenge. There are no known governing organizations or professionals. The sections "Training and preparation" and "Criticisms and dangers" would simply mislead; the limiting factor is the amount of saliva, not the amount of stomach capacity. These unique differences mean that there is no good place in Competitive eating to merge this article; one couldn't just add it to the Food list.
One might add a new top-level section for saltines to both Competitive eating and Saltine cracker. This strategy isn't exclusive with having a separate article for details; it benefits from it. See Wikipedia:Summary style.
As for whether there is enough detailed, significant coverage to be found in reliable sources, the answer is yes. If the article doesn't convince you yet, then that's because it's still a stub. I'm not done with it. Melchoir (talk) 17:38, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Update: Although I'm still not quite done with the article, I'm getting close. It's no longer a stub, and I've nominated it for WP:DYK. Melchoir (talk) 09:57, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. Totally inappropriate to merger with competitive eating. See here for evidence. ^Bongo_matic 07:09, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment So, what I just read was someone complaining about moving a CONTEST for EATING food into the completive eating contest? Ok, besides laughing, this is really not worth a full article, and there are enough random stubs, so just merge it, or if the will of Wiki says delete, purge it.--Cleave and Smite, Delete and Tear! (talk) 19:01, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep: I've heard about this, so it is culturally relevant, I however don't see this article ever going beyond a stub, but that's not what we're debating here is it. Deathawk (talk) 19:22, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Meets WP:N fairly easily, with tons of coverage from verifiable sources. As a sort of game and pop culture phenomena, it's no less notable than existing articles like Beer pong and Quarters. Also, agree with Melchoir on the merge being a bad idea, competitive eating is something approaching a sport, while this is simply a sort of game. Geraldk (talk) 13:46, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I love changing to keep when an article is improved like this. I'm honestly both surprised and impressed. ---Irbisgreif-(talk | e-mail)-(contribs) 17:18, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. More than enough sourcing. Evil saltine (talk) 20:57, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on previous opinion: Flagrant conflict of interest! ^Bongo_matic 04:25, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, he is evil. Melchoir (talk) 04:42, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Silly, but sourced. Cheers! Scapler (talk) 05:03, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I see multiple independent reliable secondary sources. I like it with articles like this when Wikipedia can cover such fun niche topics. :) Cirt (talk) 05:53, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This article is improved dramatically, and might actually be a GOOD article now. --Cleave and Smite, Delete and Tear! (talk) 13:27, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep based on my failure to pass the challenge 6 years ago. At the time I think it was four crackers (but I could be wrong). I also failed the three litres of chocolate milk in one hour challenge.--kelapstick (talk) 19:25, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - partly because it meets WP:GNG, and partly because like Kelapstick, I too have failed this challenge in the past. Woe is me! Giant Snowman 12:54, 28 October 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.