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Anonymous (group)

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I'm nominating this for AfD to get the inevitable debate out of the way and to stop the unilateral deletion by redirect. I think the article should be kept, in the recent weeks Anonymous has gotten hundreds of articles, radio interviews and TV segments on it from all over the world. Before that a Fox station did an entire investigative segment and other raids have gotten minor press. The group has also had a widespread effect on the internet that can't be so easily documented. Sceptre is attempting to redirect the article to 4chan, which plays a very minor role in all the cases where Anonymous is documented by the media. The article was created in response to Project Chanology not having enough context to really understand who the group is and I think it serves its purpose well. BJ^Talk 16:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep due to massive media attention and having a mention in several articles, such as 4chan, Hal Turner, Habbo Hotel, Fox News, imageboards and of course Project Chanology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.205.220.254 (talk • contribs)
Keep per nom and per the floods of media references. The article is new, needs rewriting, and needs all the media references in there, which are presently lacking. William Ortiz (talk) 17:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete BLP1E applies here. Anonymous normally refers to /b/ from my experience. Will ^(talk) 17:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment /b/ is the largest board but Anonymous doesn't solely apply to it. Also, most of the sources are referring to the actions of /i/, which is not hosted on 4chan. BJ^Talk 17:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Until Project Chanology, Anonymous and 4chan were synonymous, such as the FOX report. Now, it refers to the protesting collective. The current Anonymous is notable only for Project Chanology, and BLP1E suggests a redirect/merge to there. Will ^(talk) 17:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - The Fox report was referring to the actions of 420chan's /i/. BLP doesn't apply here and even if it did 1E doesn't apply because this is a new and different usage than before and it needs to be properly explained. Saying that Anonymous is and always was a protest group is just plain wrong and is a disservice to the project and its readers. There is no suitable place to merge that will cover all current and past events and usages. BJ^Talk 17:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      - To Will: I made the same mistake but BLP1E only applies to living persons. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 06:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        Last I checked, all of the protestors were living. Will ^(talk) 23:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        But the article is about the group and hence not a BLP any more than say Office of Special Affairs is a BLP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pocopocopocopoco (talk • contribs) 04:14, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment It's a simple mistake to make, however members of Anonymous hail from not only 4chan but 7chan, Something Awful and eBaums World too. (Robomilk - currently logged out) 80.2.179.82 (talk) 09:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per nom and as a useful subpage to the notable, well developed article Project Chanology. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 17:22, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per nom and because Anonymous has become a large internet phenomenon, spanning well beyond 4chan. Due to the flurry of media coverage, it deserves an article. RevenantPrime (talk) 17:27, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per nom. Specifically, several users have expressed the need for the composition and former activities of Anonymous to be mentioned. CounterFX (talk) 17:37, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Discussions on the Project Chanology talk page directly relevant to this article include (feel free to add more):

Anonymous essay, mentioning a userspace essay (by the nominator) on Understanding Anonymous
Anonymous, requesting the creation of this article
Hal Turner?, more information on former activities of Anonymous
4Chan, on the need to give the composition of the group

Keep per nom and significant media coverage now, especially following the 2/10 events. Morhange (talk) 18:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The article is already adequately sourced, but over time it could be expanded from most likely hundreds more WP:RS/WP:V secondary sources. Cirt (talk) 18:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - has many reliable sources to establish ~~reliability~~ notability. --Explodicle (talk) 18:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and improve. Two months ago this would have been arguable, but notability and verifiability have been firmly established by Project Chanology and surrounding media coverage. This article can certainly be tightened up, as happened with the Chanology article, and this one is already in much better shape than that one initially was. --Kajerm (talk) 18:39, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Before Chanology their notability may have been tenuous but now their notability is undeniable by Wikipedia standards. The subject is unclear enough that a lot of questions are asked about them, further justifying the need for an article. --AlexCatlin (talk) 18:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and improve. I'd consider that since Chanology, Anonymous now has a sufficiently established presence to justify a wikipedia article; although I feel the quality of the article needs to be improved greatly. Lmaowitzer (talk) 19:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep the society of Anonymous has an active presence on the internet, complete with a speech community, code of conduct, and rituals which are all elements that make an interesting article that I would want to read about. Today the information is out there from WP:RS and the article itself has a great start.Coffeepusher (talk) 20:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Rules 1 & 2, gb24chan -- RoninBK _{T C} 20:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep
Weak delete The article doesn't make its case for inclusion, doesn't stand on its sources, lead reads like nonsense (to paraphrase, anonymous is anonymous people on teh internet), first cite says 4chan made Chocolate Rain popular, without so much as using the word anonymous. Article has one half-decent source: Sarno's Webscout blog at the LA Times, a passing reference about a unique event which contains the info that they are a "loosely bound group of net activists who've got a beef with the Church of Scientology". Is that really enough? The Fox11 "report" could possibly be used if cited properly, though it really be about anything. The youtube link to it is a copyvio. ROFL at it, though, unbelievable. 86.44.6.14 (talk) 21:46, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep Or face the wrath of god upon us. Also, anonymous has been around for quite some time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ShowToddSomeLove (talk • contribs) 22:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep Notability and sourceable mainstream media coveragerage is considerable. Anonymous is legion. Anonymous does not forget. They do not forgive. Expect them. Eleven Special (talk) 22:22, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. -- the wub "?!" 22:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This article needs better sourcing, but some are notable enough to warrant keeping the article. Also the only other place most of the information can go is Project Chanology, which is already quite a long article.--Kip Kip 22:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment How is this AfD different from this one? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I believe it addresses Anonymous dealing with other things as well as Scientology. DiamondDragon DESU 23:43, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- This article should describe what Anonymous is, not just its relation to Scientology which Project Chanology already covers. BJ^Talk 23:46, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Anonymous has been around for sometime, and various news and media have covered them and their controversial actions. Before Project Chanology, there was not enough coverage by secondary sources to crate an article; now, Project Chanology brung a lot of information to support the article. DiamondDragon DESU 23:43, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep, it just barely passes WP:N, but in my opinion 1/2 of the article should be removed, including the unsourced lede. We can wait until people have done some real scholarship on it (not the trivial, hysterical tv news reports) before we get into details. Right now, the term anonymous just sounds like a synonym to me, an internet mob stated in different terms. hateless 23:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
comment - adding the !vote template was out of line, IMO. At the time it was added, and even now, there is no evidence of editors voting without expressing a reason. Torc2 (talk) 00:22, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's about 4chan. There's a good possibility that there maybe a flood - lesser forums have had such. Will ^(talk) 00:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep As per WP:N, especially in light of recent events. If it fails to pass WP:N however, I believe it still improves Wikipedia through inclusion. As far as I know there has never been a reliable source to find unbiased information about Anonymous. Thus, even if it fails other policies as mentioned in delete comments above, it qualifies under WP:IAR. I for one have felt that we needed an article on Anonymous since before Project Chanology began. scetoaux (talk) 00:45, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - considering the amount of attention Project Chanology has garnered from the media, it seems fitting to have an article about the group behind it. Almost every article that I've come across that mentions Project Chanology also mentions Anonymous, which, in my opinion, means there's not much of a notability concern. And it's not just Chanology that they're responsible for. This article could be the perfect place for other activities that don't warrant their own articles. So long as this article is properly sourced, it should stick around. --clpo13_(talk) 01:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Anonymous has had substantial media coverage with project chanology, but they are not limited to project chanology. Secondary sources ARE available to create the page, and they have had media coverage on other occasions than project chanology (Global news re Forcand, fox11 news). Overall, it is a notable topic with available sources. 202.161.71.161 (talk) 01:15, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep — As it stands right now, this group is receiving a lot of media attention, virtually all of it under this name. It may well be that, in hindsight, Anonymous will be a flash in the pan, but for the moment it seems to be more than notable enough. We can always delete it later. —Brent Dax 01:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete.Neutral. ~~Per WP:BLP1E.~~ Anonymous is notable for Project Chanology. Other events that anonymous has been involved in do not meet notability criteria. Switching to neutral as I incorrectly referred to BLP1E and that only applies to living persons. Anonymous is not a living person. I'm still not convinced with the notability of this article and whether a separate article for anonymous is needed when Chanology is the only notable thing they've done. I'll go with the consenus. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 02:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep - the google search anonymous scientology mask (the last term there included to exclude previous discussions of Scientology and anonymity online, as people tended to not wear masks) returns over 49 000 results. It is important to have a good article here separate from the Project Chanology article, as Anon does exist outside the context of Chanology. Leigh Honeywell (talk) 03:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. Please see WP:GOOGLEHITS. Also, it's not a matter of whether Anon exists outside of Chanology but whether it is notable outside of Chanology. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 03:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment - Having looked over WP:GOOGLEHITS I also read this section [1] of WP:Search engine test and think that my comment stands, though I will spend some quality time with goog and figure out a better search string. Leigh Honeywell (talk) 04:29, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - From my read of the link you posted, I think what is meant by "examining the type of hits" is not about creating the right search string to generate the hits but examing the type of articles that come out of the hits. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 06:07, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. They're real, they're notable, they do do other stuff, and they're a pretty large group of people. All of this combined gives them notability. Indeed, they're considerably more notable than a lot of stuff on Wikipedia, ranging from minor hamlets to various random other articles. They've got thousands of news articles about them and have made the evening news on at least two seperate occaisions. Titanium Dragon (talk) 03:42, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep per nom. Habnabit (talk) 03:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep per nom. SciurusCarolinensis 10:06 13 February 2008 (GMT) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.50.73.209 (talk)
Keep Anonymous has become very notable with recent events. I think it was probably notable enough after the Fox 11 thing, and it certainly is now.--Theymos (talk) 10:41, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The article needs work, but Project Chanology alone establishes notability. Anonymous has become a major part of internet culture, and encompasses more than just 4chan. Xandercoon (talk) 12:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep needs work and more information on past actions attributed to anonymous. i feel article is relevant in consideration of project chanology and ongoing scientology criticism. "...a group of protesters calling themselves anonymous..." who are these people? why do they call themselves anonymous? robotpandazombie (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.95.64.254 (talk) 21:21, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep per nom. Anonymous has been covered now in a whole bunch of national and international news services. While there are issues with sourcing for sure, I think that the articles topic is way past the non-notable point now. ChronoSphere (talk) 00:17, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is news worthy material, and this article can be devloped to show that. But it must start somewhere. Sgt Simpson (talk) 01:32, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete per Will Q ^{T C} 05:18, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep They were able to get together several hundred people to protest the Church of Scientology in many cities around the country. Their protests were mentioned in several places including the BBC[2] and the LA times[3] so I think they're notable. WinstonKap (talk) 05:22, 14 February 2008 (UTC)WinstonKap[reply]
Keep only if improved per coverage by the media and the organization of worldwide demonstrations (for notability), but only if the article is improved. Right now the context is very shallow. --Ubardak (talk) 06:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- That's because User:Scepter deleted most of the content from the article; I'm filling back in a lot of content he deleted without any discussion with better sourced material, but some of the deletions make no sense and it appears he made no attempt to look for any source for some of the more obvious material (such as the reason for the masks). Titanium Dragon (talk) 07:02, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I'd also like to note that this almost qualifies for a Speedy Keep, and fails the criteria by one (and a half, for the weak delete) wikipedian(s). The news coverage they've been getting lately is crazily high. Were this the worst written article on wikipedia, I'd vote keep. Current quality of the article doesn't effect notability. Fieari (talk) 07:53, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep - The group is clearly notable, and a number of reliable sources are available. I'd be more inclined to merge the project article into the group article than the other way around. --jonny-m t 08:24, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. With Project Chanology gaining all the media coverage, I think the people behind it are notable. --Koheiman (talk) 12:02, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The news coverage of their former actions and especially that of the current bout of protesting indicates that this is worthy of an article.Jonk382 (talk) 08:09, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tentative keep. Needs improving. We may need to revisit this in the future, because I have strong concerns about the sourcing... I can imagine the problems of sourcing something if the nature of the group itself defies systematic analysis. (So what is this thing really? It's a bunch of people who don't want to register their names on a bunch of web forums.) If there's not that much sourcing, we probably should just mention the group in the articles about stuff we can verify from news reporting (like Project Chanology), so this may be ultimately merge material. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 15:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Satisfies WP:N (multiple independent reliable sources), marginally, and seems distinct enough from all of the suggested merge targets that a merge would be awkward and unhelpful to readers. Agree that it needs improvement, but it is already better than most stubs. I don't see any WP:BLP problems. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: Page has been protected to prevent vandalism for three weeks, if there are any questions redirect them to my talk page. Thank you. Rudget . 16:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep Certainly notable. Surprised not to see more Clam Sock-puppets voting here. They must be losing their edge. Jellogirl (talk) 18:00, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
keep Meets notability easily. Indeed, was arguably notable even prior to the Chanology matter. Now has many distinct sources about it. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:27, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep I am not part of Anonymous, nor do I condone most of their actions. However, with Anonymous being covered on a number of news stations, many people will be interested in what the hell Anonymous is. Wikipedia is a source for a lot of people, and a NPOV article on Anonymous is needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CDClock (talk • contribs) 21:54, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, but add more references and perhaps a look into Imageboards if at all possible to the origins of Anonymous.--Cesario (JPN) (talk) 01:54, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Week keep unless improved. The article only documents their recent actions against Scientology and none of their more controversial ventures in the past, including attacks on Habbo Hotel, Second Life, the furry fandom and various other websites. (Robomilk - currently logged out) 80.2.179.82 (talk) 09:04, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: If half of the people who voted on this AfD worked to improve the article, including using sources mentioned on the talk page that have gone unused, this article would be much better. 202.161.71.161 (talk) 09:43, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep As a member of anonymous, I say KEEP KEEP KEEP
Keep anonymous is and idea and a group. The fact that they came out in multiple place all over world, proves that there is a set idealogy and philosphy minds. The page is badly written but it is worth working on. Anonymous is not much a group though, but a collective idea of people who believe in neutral Internet etc. To say that their is not enough 'people' or publications or even sites about the Anonymous is a lie. Anonymous is a presence that must be talked about properly.
Keep no-brainer, keep it, they are growing more renowned each day. Saw them protest in Seattle, about time someone did something. Also I believe that deleting this will just make it come back until it stays up.--Link25 (talk) 21:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and improve writing so subject is more clear.

@@ Line 85: / Line 85: @@
 *'''Keep''' As a member of anonymous, I say KEEP KEEP KEEP
 *'''Keep''' anonymous is and idea and a group. The fact that they came out in multiple place all over world, proves that there is a set idealogy and philosphy minds. The page is badly written but it is worth working on. Anonymous is not much a group though, but a collective idea of people who believe in neutral Internet etc. To say that their is not enough 'people' or publications or even sites about the Anonymous is a lie. Anonymous is a presence that must be talked about properly.
-*'''Keep''' no-brainer, keep it, they are growing more renowned each day. Saw them protest in Seattle, about time someone did something.
+*'''Keep''' no-brainer, keep it, they are growing more renowned each day. Saw them protest in Seattle, about time someone did something. Also I believe that deleting this will just make it come back until it stays up.--[[User:Link25|Link25]] ([[User talk:Link25|talk]]) 21:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
+*'''Keep''' and improve writing so subject is more clear.
-Also I believe that deleting this will just make it come back until it stays up.--[[User:Link25|Link25]] ([[User talk:Link25|talk]]) 21:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC)