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 Slashdot effect. PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 03:48, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Flash crowd[edit]

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Deprodded since a merge target is at AFD, which does not seem to be a valid reason. This trope seems slightly disparate from Slashdot effect, at least enough to warrant separate discussion. This seems to be a permastub which, while sourced, has no hope of expansion beyond dicdef. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 06:54, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and merge into Slashdot effect first (then move if needed) - The topic is mentioned by many reliable sources including many research papers and dissertations. I intended for the Slashdot effect to be merged into this article. The term "Slashdot effect" and other more specific terms (Farked, Reddit effect, Instalanche) generally pertain to the effect of traffic overloads from those respective sites, so instead of using a specific term with the site title in the name, the phenomenon can be referenced at this generic page, or even at a new article titled at Traffic overload with the existing section being moved and linked into that article as well. - M0rphzone 07:21, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:29, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep if Slashdot effect is deleted; we definitely need an article on this phenomenon under one name or another, but I think Slashdot effect is a much more common and well-understood name. --Colapeninsula (talk) 17:03, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Merge into Slashdot effect, which seems to be a much more widely used term for the same kind of thing. Slashdot effect's become the defacto redirect target for all of these other phenomena (e.g. reddit effect), it would only seem appropriate to merge them together. Unless someone can explain why this 1 sentence concept of a flash crowd is somehow distinct. Shadowjams (talk) 21:03, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - The term "flash crowd" is a more generic term that does not include a specific company name, such as Slashdot, or any associated name or idea involved with it. In fact, it's actually more widely used than "Slashdot effect" with 63200 results in a Google search for "flash crowd" -mob vs. 53500 results for "Slashdot effect". Many sources use the term "flash crowd", and the entry in the Jargon File says that the term flash crowd is a more appropriate term to describe the phenomenon. "In a perhaps inevitable generation, the term [Slashdot effect] is being used to describe any similar effect from being listed on a popular site, [but] this would better be described as a flash crowd." Originally the term "Slashdot effect" was coined because the Slashdot site was one of the more popular link aggregation/user-submitted content sites back in the early 2000s. We're in the 2010s and now that Slashdot isn't as frequented as before, and many other popular sites also exist that cause the same phenomenon, I believe it's a better solution to move the content to "Flash crowd" to prevent any possible "favoritism", and in consideration of future events as well. Slashdot effect is too specific and will become obsolete as the site continues to decrease in Alexa rank and fewer and fewer people know about the site, which is already happening. - M0rphzone 22:33, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be ok with renaming "slashdot effect" to flash crowd or whatever (although I'm not seeing much suggestion that flash crowd is the primary term... but I could be convinced otherwise). But as a simply technical matter... it would be easier to merge in the smaller page (which as we've said, is almost non-existent) and then move slashdot effect to a new home. This would better preserve the edit histories for copyright reasons, and make everything easier to follow. That would require an admin deletion of this page and move, but that's a trivial technical task. Shadowjams (talk) 22:40, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's a better idea. - M0rphzone 22:56, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So we've gone and made an infinite loop. "Keep Flash crowd because it might be merged to Slashdot effect; keep Slashdot effect because it might be merged to Flash crowd". Lovely. Each article is only being kept because the other exists. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not exactly, and that's not the point here. The main point is that the topic itself, regardless of article title, is definitely mentioned by reliable sources. They just have to be cited into the article. The title/merge issue can be cleaned up later. - M0rphzone (talk) 02:50, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - My point was that there's clearly some phenomena where a website gets overwhelmed by recent notoriety from a much more trafficked site. I don't care what it's called... but I don't think "flash crowd" has a monopoly on that one either.... but whatever it's called it's all the same thing and we certainly do not need 4+ articles discussing the same thing because somebody was able to google news search their way there. It's all the same idea... so let's merge them all, then figure out the name next. The Slashdot effect is the most developed of them (as I can tell) at the moment and is the greatest redirect target. So Merge to it, then argue about the name later. Shadowjams (talk) 04:27, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so discussion closed: merge flash crowd into Slashdot effect, delete flash crowd, then move Slashdot effect to flash crowd. And this (or actually Slashdot effect) should be a speedy keep. I don't know why Ten Pound Hammer prodded these two articles. He didn't even attempt to find RSs for the topic, nor did he have good reasons for deleting Slashdot effect. - M0rphzone (talk) 20:40, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TPH does lots of deletion work. Maybe its the WP:Fastily effect - if you do enough of anything some of it will be wrong. Rich Farmbrough, 13:28, 24 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Keep and ingeniously merge Rich Farmbrough, 13:27, 24 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]
Comment I endorse a merge to Slashdot effect, the more developed of the two. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 07:24, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In that case you should probably withdraw this AFD and ask for it to be closed as 'speedy keep' under WP:SK #1: 'The nominator withdraws the nomination, and no one other than the nominator recommends that the page be deleted. ' Robofish (talk) 15:19, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, and suggest merge from Slashdot effect into this article, as while that article is more developed, 'flash crowd' seems to be the more general term. Robofish (talk) 15:16, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and consider expanding the article; I think this is the clearest title.. I agree with TPH that this is not the same subject as slashdot effect. DGG ( talk ) 01:23, 31 May 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.