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. The sources keep piling on. While the "delete" side has refuted many of them, enough remain to establish notability. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:31, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pibgorn (webcomic) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

PROD contested with the WP:POPULARITY-invoking comment "Widely followed cartoon." Unfortunately, this comic does not appear to have received any significant coverage in reliable sources. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:42, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For ease of organization, here are third-party reliable sources people have found:

• Comic Riffs (WaPo blog), about the decision to disable comments. Seven sentences, three of them quotes from the comic's publisher.
• Comic Riffs again, noting that that day's strip was very gory. Three sentences.
• St. Petersburg Times, a review of a play by the same author. One word.
• Innsmouth Free Press, significant coverage.

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions. —Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:46, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Webcomics-related deletion discussions. —Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:46, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's hard to believe this is serious. Strong keep. Until McEldowney got rid of the comments section, it was getting hundreds of comments a day, far more than any other comic on gocomics.com and has several books published. Carlo (talk) 06:21, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is still a WP:POPULARITY argument, which is explicitly listed as a non-criterion. McEldowney's books are self-published (being wealthy enough to print up a vanity book for yourself and your friends is also not a notability criterion). Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:41, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here are a few: [1] [2] [3] Carlo (talk) 06:32, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Omigod you're actually linking an internet comment section as grounds for notability. This is hilarious. The press release is obviously also not a good source for notability, and as for Comic Riffs, it's a daily comics blog that's been around since 2008, and in this two-and-a-half-year stretch of daily posting, they've devoted one post to - not even the comic itself - but to the disabling of comments. This is not a strong argument. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:41, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No - I linked to "Comic Riffs," which is a well-known Washington Post blog ABOUT comics which HAS a comment section, and I was linking to the post, not the comment section. Don't you know the difference? I think it's fairly obvious that you are not TRYING to make a determination, but HAVE made one, since when someone points out notability, your immediate response it to explain why that one doesn't count. This is certainly notable enough for Wikipedia. Carlo (talk) 14:19, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All right then, maybe your first link, which doesn't mention Pibgorn except in the comment section, was just a mistake. What did you actually mean to link?

I've already asked you to be civil and assume good faith. I encourage you to read the pages I've just linked. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While the comments in "comic-riffs" aren't reliable, the blog certainly is. In any case I'm certain you could manage to make your point a bit more civilly. You don't need to ridicule. Hobit (talk) 12:42, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep [4] and [5] are certainly coverage by a reliable source. [6] is a brief mention. [7] is a blog, but may be reliable in this context (expert in the field, etc.). There are quite a few other references to the comic in the washingtonpost blog also. Hobit (talk) 12:42, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is that the WaPo coverage is incredibly trivial. It certainly doesn't satisfy the requirements at WP:GNG. (And the St. Petersburg link is even worse. "We're going to talk about a totally different thing created by the same person" does not constitute coverage! You'd have to go to RS Noticeboard for the blog, but I doubt it'd pass.) Compare, say, Ctrl+Alt+Del (webcomic) - I'm still not sure it's notable, but at least it has real articles about it like this. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• • I'll disagree. One is the entire article (6 short paragraphs) which is certainly _not_ a trivial mention. The other form comic rifts ranks this comic but uses only 74 words to describe it. I'd say beyond trivial, but certainly not in-depth. The blog post is solid, and the SPT article is, as noted, in passing. Hobit (talk) 20:20, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the 6-paragraph one is better than any of the other sources people have linked, but as I said to Cfortunato, it's one post in a daily blog that's been running for years, and it's not even really about the comic. I disagree about the other one; I think two sentences to say "this one strip is really gory today" is trivial. The blog post is certainly "solid" in terms of the depth of coverage, but it's the reliability (why do we care about someone's personal blog?) that I'm questioning. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:29, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"6 short paragraphs" is not significant coverage. Also, I'm not sure which 6 paragraphs are being described here. Is it this "Comic Riffs" blog post, which only has 5 paragraphs? 8 sentences (4 copied from another site) spread out over 5 paragraphs is no where close to significant coverage. Thanks, Starblueheather (talk) 21:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Maine-related deletion discussions. —Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:47, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. —Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:17, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, not notable. The best source we have is an insignificant 8-sentence blog post. That means we do not even have significant coverage in a single reliable source, let alone the significant coverage in multiple reliable sources that are called for by Wikipedia:Notability. I've done a search and found no better sources. Thanks, Starblueheather (talk) 21:02, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The blog is a RS as it's an official blog of the Washington Post. Hobit (talk) 23:04, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Perhaps you meant to leave your comment in response to someone who was questioning the reliability of that source, rather that to me? I think I've pretty clearly stated that the source is insignificant (it is only 8 sentences, half of which are quotes from what is effectively a press release) and that we require significant coverage by multiple sources. Yes, they also must be "reliable," but since we don't have "significant" and "multiple" we don't even need to discuss how "reliably" they've summarized and quoted the press release. Thanks, Starblueheather (talk) 01:24, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Perhaps you were a bit unclear? The statement "blog post" generally implies that the source isn't reliable. But if you are accepting it as a RS then we are simply down to if the coverage is significant or not. And on that we'll just have to agree to disagree. Hobit (talk) 02:57, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think part of the confusion is stemming from the fact that you have linked 2 blog posts. One is from the WaPo (the one talking about how comments were disabled) and is a reliable source, though I don't think the coverage is significant. One is from "Webcomic Overlook," which would probably not pass reliable source muster although it discusses the comic in more detail. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:43, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• You are correct Roscelese that an 8 sentence blog post is insignificant and does not provide the depth of coverage we would require to write an encyclopedia article. It also, being a single source, does not provide us with multiple reliable sources. Thanks, Starblueheather (talk) 04:16, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• I linked to two different Comic Riffs articles, one of which has significant coverage (in my opinion) one of which ranks the comic but gives only minimal context. In addition there is another blog that is on the topic of web comics that may or may not be a RS but certainly has significant coverage. Hobit (talk) 16:00, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• No need to constantly repeat yourself. Yes, you completely wasted everyone's time by providing a link to an unreliable source like the Webcomic Overlook. This is a waste of time because, as the nominator explained at the very top of this AfD, we are looking for significant coverage in multiple reliable sources. You also completely wasted everyone's time by linking to a Comic Riffs blog post with only 3 sentences on this topic, a blog post that you describe as "minimal coverage." This is a waste of time because, again, we are looking for significant coverage in multiple reliable sources. You also wasted everyone's time by linking to another Comics Riffs blog post that is a trivial 8-sentence blog post. Again, this is a waste of time because we are looking for significant coverage in multiple reliable sources. You've then claimed you somehow believe this 8-sentence blog post represents the type of detailed, in depth coverage we're looking for so that we can write encyclopedia articles, but you have made no attempt to explain why you might think such a thing. Instead you are just continuing to waste everyone's time with the same links to either unreliable or insignificant coverage. Stop wasting our time. Thanks, Starblueheather (talk) 17:41, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Wow, attack much? I find that the 5 paragraphs provide significant coverage. You don't. We got it. Also note the _other_ RS that is in much greater depth (see below). In my opinion we have 2 reliable sources that provide significant coverage, 1 RS entry that provides a ranking (which helps with WP:N), and 1 questionably RS which provides in-depth coverage. Hobit (talk) 18:24, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• No need to repeat yourself. You are still wasting everyone's time and have made no attempt to explain why you might think this 8-sentence blog post provides significant, detailed, in-depth coverage sufficient to base an encyclopedia article on. Thanks, Starblueheather (talk) 18:30, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• [8] appears to be a reliable source (see [[9]]) and is certainly in depth. Hobit (talk) 16:57, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep As shown by now, there are relevant references and in general lack of refences means the article needs to be improved, not deleted --Martin Wisse (talk) 21:51, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Could you list all the multiple references you are referring to, and explain why you believe they are both reliable and give this significant, in-depth coverage, meeting WP:NOTABILITY? Thanks, Starblueheather (talk) 22:03, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per Hobit. Please be aware of the WP:BLUDGEONing by Starblue and nominator, and the potential for obfuscation of Starblue's repeated contradictions. Anarchangel (talk) 23:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The IFP is a good source, but it's still only one source, which doesn't cut it. Problems with the other "sources" have already been mentioned. Can you help find more? Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:20, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[[10]] was listed above with no comments... Hobit (talk) 02:37, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Innsmouth Free Press looks like an amateur fan blog run on Word Press, not a reliable source with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. See [11], "We don’t pay for movie or book reviews ... We don’t pay for articles, interviews or essays ... Powered by WordPress." Thanks, Starblueheather (talk) 02:40, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could you point out where the amateur status or software used to run the site makes it a non-reliable source? That they don't pay? Are you seriously questioning the reliability their work? On what basis? It's not a WP:SPS They have an editorial staff, regular columnists and the like. Certainly looks like a RS. Is there some element to their work you find likely to be non-reliable? Hobit (talk) 03:05, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree the Innsmouth Free Press appears to be a reliable source (unless we find out that the writer of the article has a connection to the comic, which from a cursory search doesn't appear to be the case). A lot of FSF publishers are very small and don't have money. But in my opinion, it really is the only source we have. I don't think the other sources (I listed them above) provide enough coverage to pass GNG. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:14, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure Hobit, of course. Per WP:RS: "Anyone can create a website ... self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs ... are largely not acceptable... Blog in this context refers to personal and group blogs. Some news outlets host interactive columns they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professional journalists ..." This looks pretty clearly to be a self-published group blog of nonprofessionals. It is not a reliable source with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Since it is a review, it is largely opinion, and we definitely do not want to give undue weight to the opinions of amateur bloggers per our Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy. Thanks for asking, Starblueheather (talk) 03:26, 3 March 2011 (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.