Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Girly

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. --Coredesat 05:30, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Girly

This has been tagged for a month now, and no external sources attesting to its notability (per WP:WEB or otherwise) have been forthcoming; having some 600 registered fans, IIRC, isn't a valid criterion of notability under any guideline I'm aware of. Since it only cites the strip itself and some Livejournal pages, it's also mostly WP:OR due to lack of WP:RS. Sandstein 13:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. If you are going to delete this one, you might as well delete all webcomic wikipedia entries. There are some that are far less as noteworthy as Girly, and their pages aren't considered for deletion at all. Girly has a significant presense in the webcomics community. Here are some links to reviews for the published Girly book, if this counts as 'notablity'. 1. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/57077/josh_lesnick_webcomic_god.html 2. http://www.websnark.com/archives/2006/07/this_has_nothin.html 3. http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/news/113954992729164.htm
• Delete Fancruft foolishness. L0b0t 14:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. No coverage in credible, third-party publications as required by WP:V. -- Satori Son 16:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Per nominator. —Encephalon 16:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete a blog with a few hundred subscribers is not notability. --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 18:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep I don't often find myself voting to keep webcomic articles, but this one does at least have a print edition from a notable publisher (Radio Comix). Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 21:25, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • But there's no indication that this print edition meets WP:BIO notability standards - "Published authors, editors and photographers who received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work", because the article has no reliable sources at all. Sandstein 04:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I'm still having trouble ascertaining how notability is judged here, but it seems like significant mainstream attention is now required for all forms of entertainment, and while I sort of understand this, webcomics -- and comic artists in general -- often have trouble getting such sources to recognize them, even if they've done enought to warrant it. Artists will frequently have to settle for doing good things without becoming media darlings. That being said, Girly's a culmination of a lot of years of skill building and ballbreaking endurance in the field of comics, and I honestly don't know if it's actually noteworthy, or if it just feels noteworthy to me due to all the work it took to get here. In any case, it should probably be noted, in case this gets deleted, that this is certainly not a fly-by-night fancomic; it has over 15000 readers and I'm one of the few web artists making a living solely from his comic work. --SuperHappy 22:57, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment (If you're having trouble with discerning notability, please see Uncle G's essay User:Uncle G/On notability.) Comic artists in general? I disagree; with effort, creativity and luck, you can be recognized by mainstream book press; Gene Luen Yang (who doesn't have an article yet)'s American Born Chinese was nominated for the National Book Award, one of the highest literary honours in the US. Kazu Kibuishi et al's Flight is published by Ballatine Books, a mainstream publisher, and Jeff Smith's Bone is published by Scholastic. Does it take skill, talent and luck? Sure. But writers have to go through the same process, and it's just as hard. I don't see how web publishing makes a comic more notable than other self-published efforts, so they should go through the same process (and I realize that you may see this as harsh. I didn't intend this.) We currently have some leniency for online sources (to address your concern that that mainstream press doesn't report on webcomics, even though it does; Megatokyo, When I Am King, Derek Kirk Kim's Same Difference have all been reported on), but they should be recognized as reliable (Gamespot can be a source for games; some comics news sites are used for comics). ColourBurst 02:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Fair enough, but I've been doing comics long enough to know about the mainstream comics and critical darlings. I hear the names you said repeated often enough and it's always the same names, and I stand by my opinion that the media's focus is extremely narrow. I know it's easy to dismiss this, saying I just feel this way because my own comic doesn't get the attention I feel it deserves, and I completely understand this. I stand by this conviction anyway. I don't see other decidedly notable comics like Scary Go Round and Sam & Fuzzy get talked about much either. Incidentally, this AfD really should get linked to WikiProject:Webcomics, or is that project totally dead now? (it does seem that way) --SuperHappy 11:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• I see what you're saying and even agree up to a point, but surely you understand that what the media chooses to cover or not cover is not our fault nor is it within our control. As an encylopedia, all we can do is present verifiable facts culled from reliable sources. It's not an encyclopedia's job to "stand up for the little guy" or give a platform for those who want to get the word out about their cartoons. The alternative is far worse: imagine if our policy read as follows: "Articles on topics within the arts and sciences must be fully referenced using reliable sources, except for webcomics where it's enough to find five people who think your strip kicks ass." Simply put, if an article about a congressional scandal needs reliable sources, then so does an article on a webcomic. We can't make exceptions. However, don't forget, the reliable-sources policy isn't there primarily to make it tough for cartoonists, it also protects cartoonists (and everyone else) from innacurate and unsourced claims. To remove it would be a libel suit (or two, or thousands) waiting to happen. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I do commend you for having the restraint to not edit the article heavily due to conflict of interest. I, however, disagree with "mainstream" - Gene Yang, Derek Kirk Kim, and Kazu Kibuishi are hardly "mainstream", and they're not even in the "main webcomic culture" (to me that seems to be comprised of Keenspot and its ilk, and Megatokyo + Penny Arcade). This is a bit of an account of when Derek won his triple crown of comics awards and what that meant for the webcomics community (at least in the opinion of the commentators). ColourBurst 22:13, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Yang, Kim, Kibushi aren't mainstream, but they're certainly critical darlings, and yes, critics do talk about these same artists over and over. Girly's not exactly a "little guy", as I repeat, it has over 15000 readers. I don't know exactly how many other webcomics can claim this, but it's certainly a small percentage of the tens of thousands of webcomics out there. --SuperHappy 20:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete - per nom. Anomo 07:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Wonderful detail in the article; I wish that editors could put that kind of loving attention into notable articles. The comic was just published in June. It hasn't had time for notability. Why are people in such a hurry to rush things into the Wikipedia? Maybe there should be a 24 month rule on current events. Anyway this is not notable, however nice it is. R. Crumb was not mainstream, but he was notable. Comeback in five years and we can see if Girly has acquired any notability by then. Wikipedia is not an advertising forum for new works. Bejnar 18:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment You guys need to research the page a little harder. Girly is over three years old. The print collection is what came out last year. So we'll try again in two years, I guess. --SuperHappy 20:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. Unverifiable through third-party reliable sources, WP:NOT an internet guide. -- Dragonfiend 20:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep as per first keep voter. Use of the work itself as a primary source for uncontroversial facts, such as cast data, is hardly OR. --Kizor 02:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

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.