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. Most of the keep votes are not policy- or guideline based (e.g. "gives a good basic information" or variations on "Keep for the time being", which is the opposite of what we should do). The other ones, and the basis of the discussion, revolves around the sources, but the sources presented by the keep side are not sufficient to meet the generally accepted standards for those, as set out in our guidelines. E.g. a source like [1] (given below) is in reality a copy of the promo site for the film here, not an independent review (never mind a reliable source). Taken all this into account, the "delete" opinions have the stronger, more policy- and guideline-based argument. Fram (talk) 15:34, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thrive (film)[edit]

Thrive (film) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Non-notable movie. CSD was originally removed for content issues, and PROD tag removed previously as well. Searching for info on the movie, it's hard to locate any info outside of non-reliable sources, or a blurb on a blog. If sources can be located by others, the article could be improved. Wildthing61476 (talk) 21:17, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:45, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Conspiracy theories-related deletion discussions. meco (talk) 15:25, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the term blog isn't as clearcut as some would have it. Huffington Post is a blog site, yet it is a lot more reliable than, say a blog on Wordpress. Same goes for blogs connected to major newspapers featuring the paper's own writing staff. I see at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard that Huffington Post is a recurring item, so we could ask them what the correct assessment if our source would be. __meco (talk) 20:31, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Works for me, I'd like clarity on that for not just this article, but all articles. Wildthing61476 (talk) 22:14, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'm not inclined to make that query, so would you? __meco (talk) 09:51, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Consider it done. Wildthing61476 (talk) 02:43, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
One response stated that the blog was good for stating the opinions of the writer, but as a source, not so much. Wildthing61476 (talk) 04:28, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, that means it doesn't count towards establishing the subject as notable. We'll keep that in mind then. __meco (talk) 16:37, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, T. Canens (talk) 16:14, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Those are all blogs. Useless for establishing notability. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 18:08, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But there's more to Wikipedia than notability, Dominus Vobisdu. Thrive the documentary isn't just fringe weirdo freakiness, it's well-marketed fringe weirdo freakiness. As encyclopaedists, we're educators and we do have a basic duty to our readers in cases like this. One of the reasons these bizarro fringe theories take hold is because people who ought to be skeptical opinion leaders—educators, informers, etc.—won't take them seriously enough to argue against them. Personally, I think we need to cover it because we need to explain where it goes wrong. And we can do so within our rules, because it's not hard to produce impeccable sources for statements like "Free energy suppression is bunk".—S Marshall T/C 19:26, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As far as WP is concerned, if it doesn't exist in reliable independent secondary sources, it doesn't exist at all. And no amount of marketing makes something significant enough to include here. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, no, what makes it significant enough to include here is the sources already in the article. Yes, I've read the opinion statements about the Huffington Post that were linked from above and I don't find them convincing; I don't see why it doesn't suffice. WP:N doesn't discount all blogs, you know. My point about debunking fringe nonsense is intended as an addition to the arguments already raised above, not a replacement for them.—S Marshall T/C 00:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The present problem of lack of independent RS will either be resolved in time, or not. Certainly however, there is a considerable "buzz", and people will turn to WP to find out more. Should they find nothing, or should they find at least something that will allow them to see through this scam? I'd go with the latter. Also, paralleling the above, that "buzz" will either generate outside (i.e. RS) interest in time, or it will die down.
So we could/might/should simply postpone the AfD for half a year or so. The underlying problem is the means of marketing this movie. It is designed to bypass the conventional channels (movie theaters), and hence will not as easily be reviewed in the conventional sources. For the time being, I am not surprised that it has not generated much interest outside sources on the level of HuffPost (and below, i.e. non-RS), but since there is a certain educational benefit for the public at large in keeping the article, I'd keep it for a bit longer to see how it develops. This is especially warranted since there will likely be more movies etc with unconventional means of distribution in the future; some will be great, some will bomb, but we won't be able to tell as quickly as with other content. The significance of "new media" is growing to the detriment of "conventional" RS, and WP eventually needs to find a policy to accomodate this. Why not make Thrive a test case? It is well suited; the harm done by keeping now deleting later if it fails is (IMO) less than the harm done by deleting now rebuilding later if it succeeds.
It may be advisable to restrict editing permissions though, because it is too tempting a target for the fan base.
TL;DR: Keep for the time being because similar (and worse) stuff has been kept too and not since yesterday, and because the fan crowd should at least find something on WP that points them to Free energy lest they die in ignorance. We can't tell yet how this develops, and it's less effort to delete it later than to restore-and-update it later. Also, it may be useful to turn to non-English sources (Spanish, Russian and German come to mind, they have been most proactive about such eso-conspi stuff in the past). Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 23:19, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That is essentially an argument that we keep the article to see if it becomes notable based on the fact that some people have heard of the movie and may look it up on wikipedia. Every movie that is released has been heard of by somebody, and has the potential to be looked up on wikipedia by somebody, but we don't have an article for every single movie ever released because we only have articles for the ones that meet our inclusion guidelines. If there are other crappy articles out there that are worse than this one, then they need to be improved if possible, or deleted if they don't meet notability. However, their presence is not relevant to keeping this article. -- Whpq (talk) 13:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Armbrust, B.Ed. Let's talkabout my edits? 19:48, 23 January 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.
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