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 delete and restore prior redirect to xkcd. This article is about a neologism (definition of neologism: a newly coined word or term), and Wikipedia has a policy to deal with neologisms, at WP:NEO. It states, among other things, "To support an article about a particular term or concept we must cite what reliable secondary sources, such as books and papers, say about the term or concept, not books and papers that use the term." As many editors note below, those reliable secondary sources have not been provided. That Wikipedia's treatment of the subject has appeared in a few articles (and a cartoon) is not a case for notability of the term itself (and that event is already covered well enough at xkcd). Since the argument to delete has not been refudiated, it must be deletified. Despite several calls for protecting the article against future re-creations, I don't see a pressing need for salting at this point. -Scottywong| chat _ 22:04, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Malamanteau[edit]

Malamanteau (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)

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This is a breaching experiment, identified as such by its author's dare on the talk page. Of the 21 current sources, the vast majority either do not actually use the word at all (WP:SYN) or are primary sources influenced almost entirely by the very debate we're now having: as such, this is an article about its own struggle for existence on Wikipedia. We should neither entertain such experiments nor the editors who introduce them. The previous redirect is appropriate, but given that there was previously a DRV and RfD over that matter this needs to be a central discussion. Recommend full protection of the redirect to prevent further disruption. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 23:31, 10 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Please assume good faith. This is neither a breaching experiment nor a dare. The term meets WP:GNG as it is the subject of significant coverage in reliable sources including The Boston Globe and The Economist. Gobōnobo ^{+ c} 23:54, 10 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That is plainly contradicted by the talk page diff specified, and indeed the very content of those sources (which heap scorn on Wikipedia for not summarily deleting such rubbish due to unwarranted good faith in their creators). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 01:41, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That Economist article you keep linking to is clearly a blog, not a reliable source. BigDom (talk) 07:32, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Blog" does not mean "not reliable source". There is an automatic presumption that some random person's blog is not a reliable source, of course, but blogs that meet journalistic standards through fact-checking and editorial oversight may certainly qualify. Especially when they're the digital arm of a highly reputable publication like the Economist. —chaos5023 (talk) 14:22, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. It's true that the bulk of the sources cited are irrelevant to notability, not being to reliable sources or not containing significant coverage of the topic. However, the Economist, Boston Globe, and Long Island Press citations readily meet the WP:GNG between them. Note that commentary on Wikipedia controversy does not automatically make a source primary for purposes of Wikipedia notability. —chaos5023 (talk) 00:16, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - agreed, many of the sources don't add to notability (and simply support bits of article content) but there are others in the list that do. I do like the irony of nominating for deletion, a subject which has gained notoriety for having been nominated for deletion. I can hear them screaming now - "Don't feed the trolls!". Stalwart111 (talk) 00:28, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's not irony: it's the entire purpose of the nomination. This is not Meta. The subject itself is a troll, and a deliberate one. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 01:41, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Sorry, my comment was supposed to be a bit tongue-in-cheek. My point was that I enjoy it; I like the fact that it's up for discussion and I think such discussions are healthy. I don't begrudge you for nominating it. I don't think the article necessarily adds value to WP but I do think it does technically (frustratingly perhaps) meet WP:GNG. Stalwart111 (talk) 02:14, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Restore redirect and protect indefinitely, preferably with the minimumest amount of discussion possible. As a word it is belongs on wiktionary, not here, and as a meta-discussion it fails WP:EVENT. VQuakr (talk) 02:56, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Having looked through the sources provided, many of them are unreliable or simply do not even mention "malamanteau" (no, someone writing it in the comments section doesn't count). The only ref that comes close to being usable is the Boston Globe article, but that alone is not enough to pass GNG. I will AGF that the author did not intentionally mislead us into assuming notability by using an unreliable blog from The Economist but not mentioning that fact that it is a blog in the reference. Also, this article is full of false attribution; not one of the sources provided in the Sarah Palin paragraph actually says that "refudiate" is a "malamanteau" (not that they would be reliable sources anyway) and there are other examples throughout. BigDom (talk) 07:30, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• There is no false attribution in the article. The Economist piece indicates that refudiate is a malamanteau. While it is a "blog", it is not unreliable as it is written by author Robert Lane Greene, who is an authority on the matter. Also, The Telegraph is usually considered a reliable source. Gobōnobo ^{+ c} 20:01, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• The Telegraph certainly is a reliable source, I'm not denying that. But that link doesn't include the word "malamanteau" anywhere in it, so it hardly helps to establish notability does it? And The Economist "article" says that refudiate is not a "malamanteau" under the current definition so I'm not sure what your point is... Also, how can you say there isn't false attribution? You claim that refudiate is a "malamanteau" and then provide two sources that don't back that up – that's false attribution. BigDom (talk) 22:04, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Again, there is no false attribution. Not all references used to establish individual facts in an article are indicative of or intended to establish notability. There is not a rule saying that any references in article "X" have to explicitly mention "X" or they are not permissible. The Economist piece discusses Munroe's definition in the comic and goes on to describe malamanteau as "a word meaning "an erroneous and unintentional portmanteau, eg, 'refudiate'"". Gobōnobo ^{+ c} 00:12, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Blogs published by established reliable news media sources, such as The Economist, or written by experts like Language Log can be notable per WP:RS: "Some news outlets host interactive columns they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professional journalists or are professionals in the field on which they write and the blog is subject to the news outlet's full editorial control", "Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article". --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:30, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Language Log blog post is a response to the Economist blog post, which is described therein as "a quixotic bid to rescue malamanteau". I don't see how wikilawyering over whether a blog post is a reliable source or not does anything to address the problem that said blog post is actually the primary topic of this article (which, after stripping away synthesis such as the Palin material, is about the article's own struggle for existence on Wikipedia). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:45, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Whether the article's content is any good isn't germane to AfD. You seem to be saying "it's written as about the wrong stuff, so delete it". Content issues are a WP:SOFIXIT, not an AfD topic; we're examining article existence here, which is strictly about whether the topic has RS coverage. I mean, yeah, the question of how we cover a topic that's mostly notable for controversy surrounding it is a weird judgment call that we don't really have rules for; do we cover Monica Lewinsky, Lewinsky scandal, both, neither? Since the topic proper does receive discussion in sources, not just the controversy, though, it seems well within the bounds of editorial discretion to bundle the topic and attendant controversy together as in this case. —chaos5023 (talk) 14:32, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • The "subject" (by which I assume you mean the made-up word) has not received any reliable secondary coverage at all separate from the matter of the article's deletion at Wikipedia. Those few sources that we would typically consider to be reliable here (all of which in this case are blogs) all specifically cover it from the angle of Wikipedia. The threshold for the notability of a subject is not whether or not an article on it has ever had its AfD discussed in a newspaper's blog. The Lewinsky scandal is an absurd thing to contrast with this, being an extremely high-profile scandal with significant impact on the real world. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:58, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Okay. I don't really think it matters what angle it's covered from so long as it's covered, and I don't agree with the assumption that Wikipedia controversy being under discussion has some special impact on the GNG. Those seem to be the points of intractable difference. —chaos5023 (talk) 15:29, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 17:23, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - WP:NOTNEWS. The only source for this is Erin McKean's news article - Boston Globe May 30, 2010. The one other article I found merely cited to McKean's news article.[1] Neologisms require more to justify a Wikipedia article. WP:NOTNEO provides requirements, such as wide use, which Malamanteau lacks. Even the event surrounding the effort to try to see fast the Malamanteau word can enter the language is an event that does not meet WP:GNG. Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Even if it were, Malamanteau would not be in it. Delete. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 03:33, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 13:34, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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• Keep because it meets WP:GNG:

• Newsblog source from The Economist: Eggcorn, mashup, malamanteau or other?
• Boston Globe source: One-day wonder. How fast can a word become legit?
• There's also a mention in Long Island Press: Nothing But Net: The Net at 10 a.m.

—Northamerica1000^(talk) 06:36, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per BigDom as well as WP:NOTNEWS. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 15:56, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep because Wikipedia needs to not take itself so seriously. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xkcd#Themes Seldenball (talk) 19:28, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Move to projectspace or Userfy - This really isn't notable as a "word". It's potentially notable as a "Wikipedia in popular culture" topic. The Economist and Boston articles are solid, but not sufficient to build an entire article upon. —Quiddity (talk) 20:47, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to xkcd. Wiktionary had to delete this plenty of times too. 81.157.179.6 (talk) 15:28, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Is there more to this than just the meaning of the word? No? Then delete as WP:NOTDIC. SpinningSpark 01:43, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to xkcd per WP:NEO. There are sources, but not enough to warrant notability on a separate article. - SudoGhost 01:46, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Meets WP:GNG with quality sources such as The Economist and The Boston Globe addressing the subject directly in depth as their main topic. WP:NOTDIC does not seem to apply as the article is about the word as well as the events surrounding its popularization. Gobōnobo ^{+ c} 00:04, 26 September 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.