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 on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.
Keep. That a lost child's toy can become a medium-scale Internet meme is notable. I don't understand how this is advertising. The original Hopkin Green Frog ad was a real paper ad stapled to a pole, written by an autistic teen, and it took off from there. See Boing Boing report, for instance. Since this has an origin and conclusion researched by third parties it's got great article potential, although what's there needs a lot of work. This is the sort of thing that Wikipedia does particularly well. I'll see if I can clean the article up a bit later on. — mendel☎16:39, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I read the so-called "researched by third parties" link, found the reference non-authoritative, and found the article topic utterly non-notable. No indication that this has any significance other than a few people wasting electrons for a few months. No indication of lasting effect on the field of autism, or on any other field. Delete and staple it to a pole. Barno19:11, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hrm, you're not the first person to comment about that: it's not notable because he was autistic, it's notable because it's an Internet meme with an unusual backstory. It seems I've hit a nerve and that wasn't my intent (see the edit history, too); apologies if that was the case. — mendel☎20:11, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Didn't offend me at all. I just hadn't seen evidence that it was notable as an Internet meme, and looked for evidence that it was notable in any other way. "Internet meme" to me very nearly means "childish fad of the week", and even thousands of hits (if just blog entries and Usenet chat and so forth) don't prove WP-worthy notability unless some of the hits are feature articles from major media. Barno20:48, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. 20,000 Google hits, and I've experienced its widespread presence on the Internet firsthand. Toothpaste 20:20, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I agree with mendel. It is a work of art and is notable enough, and can be described in the context of other pieces of art on the internet. Perhaps it should be merged with other articles, but I think it deserves an article here. GerritCUTEDH20:23, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- It's not hurting anyone, and the backstory is kinda interesting. I just added a link to a very in-depth blog post about it, if someone wants to expand the wikipedia article. Womble16:36, 29 September 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.