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. Looking through the debate it really centres on the arguments of Tokyogirl79, Lizzymartin and the interjection from Spirit of Eagle. This is one of those articles that pushes the boundaries of the policies and guidance that apply, the WP:GNG, WP:NOTNEWS and WP:EP. A close reading of the debate sees Tokyogirl79 state: "In the end I'm not going to lose sleep if this gets kept", which to my mind demonstrates the grey area this article exists in. Numerous articles have been cited as examples within the debate as having been kept and deleted, so prior precedence is hard to determine, and equally should not be defined by this debate. To quote the Editing Policy previously linked, "Wikipedia is here to provide summaries of accepted knowledge to the public", and the article summarises accepted knowledge, and maintains reasonable sourcing. Wikipedia is a work in progress. Interested editors are free to revisit this article in time, and reassess the situation, and even form a consensus on the talk page as to the mooted merge discussed below. Hiding T 10:48, 27 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

MacGyver the Lizard

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MacGyver the Lizard (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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I came across this as an A7 nomination by Arthistorian1977, however there was enough coverage to where an A7 didn't really apply. The article's creator (Lizzymartin) said that she was still adding coverage so I figured that I'd wait a while before nominating, assuming that no one else did.

A look at the coverage in the article shows that the coverage here was written over a fairly short period of time over the summer. The lizard is mildly popular on social media, however his fan following hasn't received enough coverage or notice to where it'd be considered the same as say, the Star Trek fandom, which is what MacGyver would need to pass that portion of WP:ENTERTAINER. There was a mention on the talk page of coverage from as early as 2012, however the only link provided was a self-published blog source and I can't find any coverage that was put out earlier than 2016.

I have no true problem with this being userfied in case more coverage becomes available in the future, but offhand this looks to be your typical news story about a cute animal/lizard that gets a small amount of coverage but not enough to warrant a Wikipedia article. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:15, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • If by some chance we do have some of his fans coming in here, please understand that this isn't personal and it's not me trying to be a buzzkill, it's just that notability is extremely difficult to establish on Wikipedia, especially for animals and for social media related topics, let alone a topic that is a mixture of the two. Also, please read over WP:NOTAVOTE. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:17, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Animal-related deletion discussions. North America1000 20:51, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions. North America1000 20:52, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. North America1000 20:52, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Florida-related deletion discussions. North America1000 20:52, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 02:15, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sourcing
  1. Petcha.com. Per the website's about page, it looks like this is a site where just about anyone can create content. There's nothing on the author's page or on the website as a whole to show that there's any sort of editorial oversight. In other words, this looks to be a self-published source and cannot be used to show notability. Whether or not it should even be used as a source is debatable, as Wikipedia is fairly strict about being able to verify sourcing. Like many of the other sources, this was published in April 2016.
  2. TheDodo.com. This one is written by a staff member and has an editorial staff, however it was also published in April 2016, during the same point in time as much of the other coverage. The staff oversight does make this more likely that this will be considered a RS, however depth of coverage still needs to be proven and there still needs to be evidence to show that the site is considered a RS per Wikipedia's guidelines - which are almost insanely strict.
  3. Vice. Vice is kind of questionable as a source. I've seen more than a few people say that it's not usable, with only a relative few saying that it can be used on pop culture material. It was brought up at RS/N at one point where someone pointed out that the site has gotten facts and material wrong, which shows that they don't appear to do a lot of fact checking on a regular basis. This is why a large portion of editors tend to not use it as a source, since it's so easily questioned. This was published around the same time as the other sources, albeit a few months later in June 2016. Even if we count it as a RS - and Vice would make for a fairly weak source in my opinion - this still doesn't show a depth of coverage.
  4. Daily Mail. The DM is a tabloid and despite it still being technically usable on Wikipedia, it's not considered to be the strongest or best place to use as a source, as this paper doesn't really do a whole lot of verification - this is because they predominantly look to sensationalize material. They might not be looking to sensationalize a lizard, however their behavior with other topics makes this a less than ideal source to use at all. Like many of the other sources, this was released in April 2016.
  5. Daily Telegraph. This is far better and the DT is considered a RS, however the problem with this source is that it was released in June 2016, around the same time as the other sourcing. Another problem would be that the article is almost entirely images and the article itself is only a few lines long - making this potentially a WP:TRIVIAL source more than anything else.
  6. Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed is another one that could be usable, however again, this was written around the same point in time, in June 2016. There's also a predominant focus on images rather than article content, although it's longer than the DT article.
  7. Rare. This is better, but like the others this was released around the same time as the other news articles, in June 2016.
  8. FuzzFix. At best this is questionable as a source. Not much information is given about the site's editorial oversight. It also doesn't really help that the company that owns the site gives off impressions that they focus on marketing and internet optimization. This is honestly pretty questionable as far as its usability goes and even if we ignore that, the article is still written in June 2016, so still written around the same time period.
  9. Official website. This is the OW, so it's primary.
  10. YouTube. Official YT channel, primary.
  11. China Times. The CT can be usable, however even without translation the article is shown to be relatively brief. It's also published in April 2016, so again the issue of recentism is brought up.
  12. Okezone. The Indonesia Wikipedia page for this site is fairly extensive - however that doesn't mean that it would be reliable per Wikipedia's guidelines. The link comes up as dead for me, so I can't really investigate who wrote this (staff or site member) or if it received any editing. However I do note per the citation on the Wikipedia article that this was published in June 2016.
In the end what we have here is a lot of coverage that happened during the same point in time, predominantly in April and June 2016. The latest source was one article in July. Some of the sources are pretty questionable as far as their overall reliability goes on Wikipedia and at least one of them, the Daily Mail, is consistently challenged as a source on Wikipedia - to the point where it's really not the type of source you want to use to determine notability. The lizard's fan following on social media is pretty slim - per one article it has 13,000 followers on Instagram and 34,000 subscribers on YouTube, which is not really all that much when you compare this to YouTubers with millions of followers. The lack of a large fan following doesn't mean that something can't pass notability guidelines, however I should also say that this number is not so sizable that this would be considered the type of following that would give notability. That sort of thing is mostly saved for things like the Star Trek and Star Wars fandoms, where there are conventions surrounding them or at the very least, multiple books and articles written about or heavily mention the fandom.
While it'd be nice if it were otherwise, there just doesn't seem to be a heavy enough amount of coverage to justify an article. This could be considered WP:RECENTISM, because despite the lizard being around for a few years it really only gained media attention this year, over a period of about 3-4 months. I have to compare it to other social media phenomenom that received far more coverage yet were still considered to be ultimately non-notable, such as the Ikea Monkey or Kai the hitchhiker, the latter of which received coverage over a longer period of time (he received additional coverage over murder allegations, but received media coverage initially over a viral video) but was still considered to be non-notable. There have been a lot of topics that have been brought to AfD after having received a spate of coverage in the media over a short period of time, sometimes even a fairly heavy amount, only for them to be deleted because the coverage was over a pretty short period of time and all tended to focus on the same thing: that the topic exists and that it's considered to be a novelty to the article writer. I just don't see where the coverage here is heavy enough to warrant inclusion here. Now it's possible that the coverage could become heavy enough in the future, which is why I mentioned it being userfied until more coverage comes available - which I honestly don't see happening any time soon unless it starts getting attention along the lines of Grumpy Cat - and even GC's notability took a while to come about.
Sometimes, very rarely, a social media or pop culture phenomenon can become notable despite having only a few months (or weeks) of coverage, however these cases are pretty rare because the coverage has to assert something incredibly rare and notable - which is not asserted here. Being one of the few lizards on social media (it's likely not the first) isn't considered to be something direly notable as far as Wikipedia is concerned. That type of distinction is usually reserved for things like winning an extremely prestigious award (think in the terms of Grammys or Nobel Prizes) or doing something so distinctive that it's mentioned in various academic texts, like Stanley Salmons' contributions to the fields of neurology, biochemistry and physiology. I'm not trying to be a buzzkill, just trying to stress how difficult it is to establish that someone or something doing something few others have done is something that would establish notability. Having a small fan following and being one of the few lizards featured doing cute things just aren't the type of things that would fall under these guidelines. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:52, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, the reason I keep bringing up Star Trek is that this is the type of fandom needed to assert notability. Nowadays it isn't all that difficult to gain followers on social media. It's not as easy as breathing, but it's not so difficult that it's some impossible task that would be seen as something few can do. To put this in perspective, Wikipedia frequently deletes entries on people who have hundreds of thousands of followers or subscribers on their various social media outlets because this type of popularity is not seen as a sign of notability. This is because few media outlets really write about these or writes about them in a way that would establish that the fan following is notable. It's actually considered to be relatively run of the mill for a social media personality (or animal) to receive a small fan following, which is why it's so difficult to establish notability for social media related topics. There are hundreds upon thousands of topics with similar or larger amount of followers, so the only true way to establish notability for these topics is to show coverage over a long period of time. A handful of articles written around the same point in time just isn't enough to establish notability here. To add on to this, I have to point out PewDiePie, who continually failed notability guidelines until 2013, long after his followers numbered in the multiple millions on YouTube and social media apiece. That's how insanely difficult it is to establish notability for social media personalities and part of why I don't think that MacGyver meets guidelines at this point in time. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:03, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, as far as the Charlotte Sun goes that might still be considered too recent - in order to really show that there's coverage over a longer period of time there would need to be coverage in RS from either 2015 or in the next year, 2017. A spate of coverage during the summer and late spring is still pretty recent. It's just that tough to assert notability for social media personalities or people known for videos or other similar media. Heck, I had DGG tell me that the article for Kai was non-notable despite the amount of coverage - and I had to agree with him on that. I just don't see where the coverage given here, at this point in time, is enough. Again, I've seen a lot of articles about topics (ie, people, animals, etc) with more coverage and more followers on social media get deleted. I do think that standards are a little strict, but I don't know that this is the best article to set the precedent that recent coverage from only a couple of months and a relatively modest amount of followers is enough to pass notability guidelines. Honestly, if this was a person the article would likely have been deleted by now. I don't know that the subject being an animal makes this that much more special. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 03:31, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do not believe the result of unrelated AfD debates really has any bearing here, especially considering most of the referenced subjects were clearly related to news events, which as per multiple mentions above, this is not. To be honest, it sounds like most of these arguments are based off an interpretation of precident rather than of policy as defined by WP:GNG. Lizzymartin (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:49, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The thing is, they kind of do. The problem here is that it's incredibly difficult to assert notability for topics that are related to social media or social media-esque topics like videos or the like. There have been many, many articles that have failed notability guidelines in the past despite having larger fan followings and more coverage over the same amount of time. I'm not sure that an exception should be made for an article about an animal with a social media following that's actually on the smaller end of the scale that has received a fairly small amount of coverage over a small point in time. My point is this: if people or topics with larger fan followings and better sourcing can't pass notability guidelines then I'm not sure that MacGyver could or should either. There might be an argument over social media personalities and coverage over a short period of time (ie, that guidelines should be made more loose to take them into consideration), however at the same time this isn't really the best case to set that precedent because the sourcing is so weak overall and there have already been so many cases with stronger arguments for notability that have failed GNG. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:02, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm going to try to keep from making this any longer unless new material is added since I believe that we've both said our part and at this point it's just sort of us repeating the same things over and over. I don't think that the current sourcing is enough, given that there have been so many cases in the past with stronger assertions of notability that have been deleted. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:03, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:13, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I did not canvas your talk page. As per Wikipedia guidelines on attempting to get more input on AfD discussions that are getting no attention, I selected another discussion from the "list of Websites-related deletion discussions", "/r/thedonald", and used the appropriate "Please See" syntax to leave an auto-generated unbiased message on 6 users talk pages who had contributed to that discussion, 3 of whom voted keep, 3 of whom voted deleted. I went out of my way to be as unbiased as humanly possible. Please see my Special:Contributions/Lizzymartin page for evidence of it, and see appropriate methods listed in WP:Canvassing. I do not appreciate you coming in here and accusing me of canvasing as I clearly followed the guidelines in trying to get more input on this discussion. Shame on you. Lizzymartin (talk) 18:27, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Related to your actual vote, how does WP:NOTNEWS apply at all to this non-news event? Lizzymartin (talk) 18:44, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/MacGyver_the_Lizard . Lizzymartin (talk) 21:37, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you very much for your input. I completely concur with your first two assesments: Meets GNG; would be nice if there was a longer time frame of coverage, but it’s enough for a keep. I am however, really baffled by the assessment of borderline on WP:NOTNEWS. Could you please elaborate on that a little? I would really like to reach a consensus on that point. I have read over the guidelines related to news many times and do not see any connection. It is my understanding that WP:NOTNEWS covers following points:
  • Original reporting: This clearly does not apply
  • News reports: This seems to be about events. I can see it apply to an article titled “MacGyver’s first video” or “MacGyver suprpassed some threshold of followers”, or “MacGyver eats crab”, but I don’t see how it applies to the subject himself.
  • Who's who: People related to a notable event are not nessessarily notable themselves - does not seem to apply here since since it’s not about an event. The only possible connection I can see here is if someone were thinking that maybe MacGyver’s first viral video was a notable event, but he himself is not. I don’t think this is the case though, as that video recieves only trivial mentions in some of the sources, and on the whole is less notable than MacGyver himself.
  • A diary: Even when someone is notable, every detail of their life should not be included on their page - definitly does not apply to an AfD discussion, but rather applies to what content should be kept on the article of a subject deemed notable.
  • A merge wouldn't be a bad outcome here. I'm not against this coming back, I just think the coverage here is just far too recent to show notability, especially given that the sourcing is so incredibly light. If it was far heavier I wouldn't have necessarily nominated it, but it's just that this is far too light for my comfort. If it survives AfD as its own article, then groovy - we can potentially use this as precedent to establish notability for social media personalities with far less coverage than was previously needed. It's just that I'm concerned that the coverage here won't necessarily hold up if we try to do that in the future and it'd end up with this article not only getting deleted (barring other future coverage) and it'd be twice as difficult to get that AfD overturned in the future. If this ends with a userfy or merge then that's far easier to overcome than a delete - which I think is certainly possible given how weak the coverage is in relation to articles on similar or identical topics that have had better coverage and still got deleted. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 00:25, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are a few reasons why I don’t think a merge onto List_of_viral_videos is appropriate. To begin with, only two of the sources even mention any specific viral video (the first viral video of his back in 2012). That video only has about 400k views on youtube - its only real significance is that it is what first got him noticed. He has other youtube videos with significantly more views now. Even more than that though, he has multiple facebook videos with millions of views each, such as this one (https://www.facebook.com/MacGyverLizard/videos/vb.211549348980941/826654834137053/?type=3&theater) with over 3 million views. There are a few of his videos that have been reposted as a whole or remixed and reposted on other user’s Instagrams and gotten millions of additional views each. Snoop Dogg, for example, posted a remix of that 3M+ view video on his Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/p/BI_iGneBE7k/?taken-by=snoopdogg&hl=en) which got nearly a million views. At present, I doubt that most people who know about MacGyver have ever seen that first video mentioned in the two articles. I don’t think that reducing this article to merge based on two trivial mentions of one old, relatively unsuccessful video (compared to his others), does it justice.Lizzymartin (talk) 01:11, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps List of Internet phenomena would be a better merge location then. I've been looking through MacGyver's YouTube page, and I agree that there really isn't a single major video to write about. Also, the fact that there are articles much less notable than this one is not grounds for keeping, although it is justification for nominating those less notable articles for deletion. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 06:21, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note to admins I don’t believe further discussion will significantly improve consensus beyond this point, and it is my hope that an experienced administrator will soon close this discussion. I believe that the below summary is a pretty objective snapshot of where we are. I know this isn’t a vote, and I’m not trying to tally votes, its just that the discussion is pretty long right now and the state of things might not be easily assessed by a passing administrator. All the above opinions should still be read by the closing administrator, and this summary should only be used to help access whether it may be time to read the above statements and try to close with consensus.
  • Delete: 2 per WP:NOTNEWS - though it looks like consensus has been pretty clearly reached that WP:NOTNEWS and WP:ONEEVENT do not apply here. After much discussion, one editor who had previously voiced concern about WP:NOTNEWS has struck that part of his statement.
  • Draftify: 1
  • Keep: 9, (6 + 3 weak) - It appears that consensus is that WP:GNG is met. Weak !votes wish there was a longer timeframe of coverage.
  • Merge: 2 including nominator, who has invested significant time in detailing her position. It appears that her biggest concern is related to precedent, but I don’t want to speak for her, and her above opinions should be read for themselves. Lizzymartin (talk) 02:23, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • MacGyver has been the subject (“significant coverage”) of every source referenced.
  • Multiple of the referenced sources are undeniably independent reliable secondary sources: Daily Telegraph, China Times, Buzzfeed, RARE, TheDodo.
  • VICE - even if some people think it should not be used as a source for anything but pop culture, this is pop culture.
  • Some of the less know sources, FuzzFix and Petcha, do in fact also have editorial control and review, even though its hard to find out from their websites.
  • Even if some of the additional sources, such as the Daily Mail, are questionable, they do not make any claims that are not also supported in multiple of the other reliable sources.
If you examine the reasons for wikipedia’s policy on sourcing, WP:WHYN, you should conclude that these sources are sufficient to write an objective, balanced, neutral, non-gossip, non-hoax, non-promotional article of sufficient length based off on secondary sources and no original research. Lizzymartin (talk) 03:30, 27 August 2016 (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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