Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Polandball

Polandball

Polandball (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Non-notable internet injoke or meme. Wikipedia is not knowyourmeme. We do not have to document each and every one. Harizotoh9 (talk) 04:53, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

• Speedy keep The article is clearly referenced to numerous reliable sources, so it easily passes WP:GNG. This nomination seems to be an attempt to keep the article from appearing at DYK on 1 April as per Template:Did_you_know_nominations/Polandball. Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 04:57, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I was unaware of any DYK nominations. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 05:13, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. But did you check any of the sources which show that the meme is notable? It is more than notable, and I have even used the Polish sources to establish this notability. Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 05:24, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - Alternatively, it could fit into List of Internet phenomena with Polandball being a redirect. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 05:17, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Probably not, because there is enough details already for a stand alone article. But thanks for that list, I'll add Polandball to it with a link to the article. Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 05:24, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
• Speedy Delete. There is not a single reliable source in the article. Just click the " news · books · scholar · JSTOR " links above. News: [1] barely 3 results, which are forum comments or unrelated. Books: [2] zero relevant links. Scholar zero: [3]. JSTOR: [4] zero. The article itself has some sources but none of these are reliable or notable, though that may not be obvious to non-Polish speakers. First source [5] is an essay by a first year undergraduate student at a Polish university or something (I'm not even sure why this stuff is up on the internet) - clearly not a reliable source. Second source [6] is simply a Polish blog. Who the hell cares? Third source (Przeglad) is another blog/opinion piece. Next source [7] is also a blog which mentions the subject in passing. [8] is an opinion piece in a newspaper. Opinion pieces are not reliable sources nor are they sufficient to establish notability.

Now, if Wikipedia was oh internet or Encyclopedia Dramatica then yeah, sure, the inclusion of a racist internet memes would be justifiable. But last I checked this is an encyclopedia not a troll site - let the troll sites do what they do, and let the online encyclopedia be an encyclopedia. There's no indication that this particular internet meme has achieved sufficient status to have been picked up by reliable sources, much less any reason why the Wikipedia needs to suffer any kind of embarrassment by featuring bigotry on its front page (the article has been nominated for DYK). There's been enough embarrassing SNAFUs with respect to DYK lately. This article should be deleted, never mind being featured on the front page.

(For the sake of clarification: I happen to think that some of the Polandball cartoons are actually pretty funny. At the same time, the few and in between funny versions of the joke are much outnumbered by the fact that it's a kind of medium which easily lends itself to 13 year old internet morons giving vent to their racist and xenophobic stupidity. Unfortunetly most of the cartoons out there reflect that. What's next, racist offensive "Negro jokes" on Wikipedia's front page, simply because they may or may not be an "internet meme" some users find them humorous, and because it's "April Fools" so things which are otherwise considered obnoxious and offensive are "ok"? Whole thing is a disgrace.VolunteerMarek 05:56, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment of the lack of notability. However, the content of the jokes should not be relevant. It's simply an issue of lack of notability for me. Wikipedia should not document each and every internet injoke out there. There are other sites and Wikis devoted to that. If this joke had reached the level of notability as, say the song "Friday" then I would have no problems with it. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 06:39, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Sure, there's two problems here. One is just the basic non-notability of the article itself. The other is the DYK nomination. Aside from some other issues in the background, it should be mentioned that even the place where this supposed meme supposedly originated is itself not even notable, apparantly. Krautchan.net simply redirects to Imageboard. This is scraping the bottom of some internet barrel for sake of "lulz".VolunteerMarek 06:46, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment In relation to the above comments about unreliable sources, ignoring irrelevant rants, the following needs to be made known. Gazeta Wyborcza is a leading Polish newspaper, and Wojciech Orliński is one of the newspapers regular columnists. So his article more than means our WP:RS guideline. The article discusses the meme in depth. Cooltura is a weekly Polish cultural magazine published in the UK, and the article in it was republished by numerous other Polish sources, such as Interia.pl (one of Poland's largest web portals), so again is a reliable source. Claims that this source only mentions the subject in passing is totally wrong -- the article is discussing the meme in depth. Przegląd is a weekly Polish magazine, and does meet the threshold of a reliable source. This article is on the subject of internet memes, and has information on Polandball. Hiro appears to be a weekly Polish magazine as well. This article is one the subject of internet memes, and delves a little into two memes which relate to Poland---Polandball being one of those. As to accusations of racism, etc, the Cooltura article starts off with "Ostatnia internetowa moda wyśmiewająca Polskę i naszą flagę narodową, która szerzy się w cyberprzestrzeni to kolejny dowód na stale tlący się w kręgach zachodnich elit i wśród społeczeństw ideologiczny antypolonizm. Albo nie. W każdym razie obrażamy się jako pierwsi, zanim etatowi polonijni moraliści zapłoną świętym ogniem oburzenia. A potem, jak zwykle, spłoną ze wstydu." Translate it for yourselves, and see what is written. It would be great if people didn't mispresent sources like they have above. Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 06:52, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Furthermore If one refers to pl:Wojciech Orliński it states "Od 1997 pracuje w "Gazecie Wyborczej", gdzie pisze głównie na tematy związane z kulturą masową." -- this states that since 1997, Orlinski has been a columnist with Gazeta Wyborcza, where he writes mainly on popular culture. Polandball is clearly popularly culture. His article has been passed off above as just some oped in a newspaper, but rather it is the complete opposite. It is an article on the meme, written by a notable journalist, who's field of expertise is pop culture, and published in one of the largest Polish newspapers. It's also not an opinion piece, it is a detailed article on the actual meme. Sorry, just need to detail the mischaracterisation of sources as was done above. Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 07:47, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

The comments above are false and they misrepresent the sources. However, since myself and the author of the comments are subject to an interaction ban I am unable to provide a fully detailed adequate comment in response - bottomline though is that these are in fact just blogs and opinion pieces, not reliable source, and this can be easily verified. The fact that the above comments are explicitly replying to my comments is a direct violation of his interaction ban with me, per WP:IBAN which states that a user under an interaction ban is not allowed to reply to editor Y in discussions or make reference to or comment on editor Y anywhere on Wikipedia, whether directly or indirectly;. Note that none of my comments referenced anything but the article itself.

At this point I find myself in an impossible position. If I address the comments made above (which are a clear violation of an interaction ban), then I risk violating the ban myself. If I don't address them then the person who violated an interaction ban "wins". My only recourse at this point would be to file an Arbitration Enforcement request against the user but I hope that it doesn't have to get to that.VolunteerMarek 07:59, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, you two have stated your views. We can allow for other people to judge the your positions. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 08:30, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Yup.VolunteerMarek 08:32, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

• Speedy keep - numerous sources have been provided, including Polish newspaper articles. Estlandia (dialogue) 10:14, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

"Named sources" =/ "reliable sources". The "Polish newspaper article" is an opinion piece which merely mentions the thing in passing.VolunteerMarek 13:58, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

• Speedy keep - one of the most notable memes on the Internet. I think it would not be reasonable to expect to have tons of scholarly sources on a meme subject, and otherwise it is well-sourced. GreyHood ^Talk 12:44, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

You can "expect" to have tons of scholarly sources all you want, but until they actually exist, it's not notable. See WP:CRYSTAL.VolunteerMarek 13:58, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Forgot to answer you before, VM. Apparently you have plainly misunderstood what I wrote. WP:CRYSTAL has no any relevance here. My point is obvious: memes, just as some other categories of subjects (recent events; many products of popular culture, especially modern ones) tend not to be covered by scholarly sources. And that's normal and not making memes less notable - often they remain much more notable than all those hundreds of thousands articles on little-known sportspeople or scientists. At least such is the reality. Then, for the meme which appeared just few years ago, this article has enough sources establishing the notability, and these sources are of decent level considering the kind of topic - and what we have is Polish (sic!) newspaper articles in the top-level Polish newspapers. Opinion pieces or not, does not matter as long as content is approved and edited by notable media. Anyway, it is quite obvious that memes and many other aspects of popular culture would not be covered neither by scholarly sources, nor by recent news. So we remain only with such categories as analysis / educational articles / opinion pieces / entertainment. And the article by Orliński is serious and detailed enough to be considered an educational and informational article, not an opinion piece - it conveys a quality description of what Polandball is and how it originated. GreyHood ^Talk 20:04, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

• Keep knowyourmeme is not a sanction for deletion. I see enough sources to assert notability. Inclusion criteria does not require academic sources and also Google scholar is an imperfect search engine and cannot be trusted as a perfect representation of all academic research. PhD thesis coverage for any topic may not necessarily be indexed in Google Scholar particularly if the publication is on paper-only with no internet presence. Also there is one work Example (edit | talk | history | links | [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Example&action=watch watch | logs)] that is most curious and is prepared by someone from Rzeszów University. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 16:38, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

You can't seriously be saying that there are scholarly works on this subject which have somehow been missed by google scholar. There aren't. And like I already pointed out that work from "Rzeszów University" is just some paper some undergrad wrote which happened to get put up on the internet. It's not a scholarly paper at all. There's not a single reliable source in the article.VolunteerMarek 16:49, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

• Keep - Source 1 looks good and there's a reasonable chance that this is being covered as a prototype of an internet meme in Polish language sources cited in the article below that. As for memes: Do we need to have articles for them all? No. Or most of them? No. Or many of them? No. This one? It is at least close enough to give me pause. The article is sufficiently well done that it should get the benefit of the doubt, in my opinion. Carrite (talk) 17:31, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

• * Keep - Polandball is a well known meme all over the internet. Even I have heard of it before the article. --Lihapulla1 (talk) 18:34, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

• Speedy Keep - Notability as an important cultural phenomenon more than established through news articles, it seems unreasonable to expect there to be many scholarly works covering recent and specific internet culture. --GoldenMew (talk) 18:47, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

• Keep. Well-written article on a notable cultural phenomenon with ample coverage in secondary sources. Shrigley (talk) 20:08, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

• Delete.Badly written. No-notable fringe term. Sources not confirming to WP:RS.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:41, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Badly written vote. **Non-notable. **Conforming. Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 14:36, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
• Delete Splendid example of a non-utile article about a non-utile meme with rather unfortunate connotations at best. Wikipedia is supposed to at least pretend that it is restricted to articles of some encyclopedic value - which this, alas, fails. Collect (talk) 22:24, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
• Keep, good deal of secondary source coverage. — Cirt (talk) 05:03, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
• Delete, the sources are badly researched at best. I don't know where the drawball story is from, but it's most probably just made up. I lurk the board in question and used to lurk it when Polandball came up, and there was never any mention of drawball concerning the origins (and allow me to make the unreasonable assumption that I know more about the memes of my home board than some journalist). Also, the scope of countryballs is now much broader, the comics stopped being exclusively about poland after a few months or so. --84.153.90.97 (talk) 13:18, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

The article already mentions the fact that it has generalized to 'countryball', though it is still referred to as 'Polandball'.Estlandia (dialogue) 13:26, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but it's a bit hard to keep up with current usage if you have to cite news items. --84.153.90.97 (talk) 15:04, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:44, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. Plot thickens. First, it was only Polish ball, then it was Russian ball (which I, as a culturally Russian user, consider highly offensive), and finally, we have a Britball cartoon, but "Britball" is something very different. Honestly, I do not think this has anything to do with creating encyclopedic content. My very best wishes (talk) 15:23, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
  • "Culturally Russian user" is typically a self-description by non-Russians from the former USSR. So please better clarify what your mean, otherwise your point is misleading. GreyHood ^Talk 19:30, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Just to clarify, I think this article qualify as an attack page and possibly WP:POINT, given the previous relations between creator(s) of the page and Polish editors. Indeed, the creation of the article evidently cased a lot of disruption on AE and various talk pages, including highly questionable comments with regards to at least three arbitrators. Is it worth it? I do not think so. My very best wishes (talk) 20:05, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
• Delete per Volunteer Marek. Unconvinced by the sourcing here. JN466 16:43, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Hello WR/WF user. The sourcing is solid, as has been explained above. Feigning being unconvinced by sourcing is not going to result in deletion of the article, because if it is deleted, I will file a deletion review straight away. Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 16:50, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
    • I'm not feigning being unconvinced, I am unconvinced, as are the guys over in the AfD on German Wikipedia, where you created the same nonsense. I saw a post about this on Wikipediocracy days ago and wasn't interested. Today, Fæ linked to Wikipedia:April_Fool's_Main_Page/Did_You_Know#Zhirinovsky.27s_ass on Jimbo's talk, in the Zhirinovsky's section, and I saw Polandball on that page again, with your name next to it. In view of your <irony>wonderful work on Zhirinovsky's ass</irony>, I thought I'd have a look, and it's basically more of the same. --JN466 17:57, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Also Jayen466, were you WP:CANVASS to participate in this discussion? That means did you come here as a result of being asked to, or it being posted on another website? Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 16:52, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
    • It is my belief, Jayen446 as arrived here as a result of this post on the new Wikipediareview offshoot. His reason for the above is not credible. Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 18:12, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

• • • • • Um -- how many folks will you convince with this sort of argument? All you show so far is that you read that site. Collect (talk) 19:09, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
• delete internet meme not enough notable sources--Karl.brown (talk) 18:18, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
• -Delete - and indefinitely block User:Russavia for repeated violations of NPOV contributions - Non-notable internet injoke or meme. Youreallycan 19:09, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Your argument is invalid Every article I write on WP is done in an NPOV way. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that I have breached NPOV. In fact, looking at the article right now, you will see that everything is sourced, and there's not a single problem with NPOV. In fact, I took extra care with this article to make it NPOV as it is. It also doesn't help people's causes saying it's non-notable, when I have shown above it is. Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 19:17, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
    • You are a constant NPOV violator - you and anyone who is enabling or supporting you such as User:Greyhood should be thrown out of the project immediately - and good riddance to you, you and your contributions are no better than a disruptive troll. _ Youreallycan 19:21, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
      • WP:NPA: Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor. GreyHood ^Talk 19:39, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
• Comment - I would feel better about this article if it hadn't been created by an editor who has a history of conflict with Eastern European editors (in fact, this article has become cause for arbitration requests relating to prior WP:EEML sanctions). Even if the "countryball" cartoons have become popular within a particular internet community, the choice to write an article about "Polandball" exclusively suggests that there may be a specific agenda at work here. The user has already been chastened for placing cartoons on their userpage that could be interpreted as anti-Polish. Another ArbCom member went so far as to =483716597 remove them, but they were restored and remain there despite the concerns expressed. I would vote to delete the article, but I do not wish to be accused of being canvassed. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:19, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Memes is a perfectly encyclopedic topic and everyone has a right to write an article about a meme if the meme is notable enough. Remember that here we should judge the merits of the article and its topic, not who created the article. GreyHood ^Talk 19:35, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment You seem to be suggesting that I am an WP:SPA and that this article is the only thing I have ever written. Hmmmmmm. Here's a few articles that I have written...a wide range of articles on a wild range of subjects. Are you suggesting that all of my editing here is agenda driven? What agenda would you say my expansion of Fucking, Austria was pushing? Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 19:38, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Was it your queer agenda? - or just your fucking agenda, can't you just pack all your fucking agendas in your fucking suitcase and Fuck off? Youreallycan 19:41, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Russavia, I did not mean to imply that you are an SPA, or that you are not a prolific editor. Sorry if I gave that impression. I'm not sure why you ask about Fucking - is it relevant to the article under discussion here? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:08, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
• Comment A lot of people here seem to be plainly anti-meme. While I myself stand for inclusion of only the more notable memes to Wikipedia, the attempts to block one of the most widespread memes, which is all over the Internet, from entering Wikipedia, look most worrying, like a kind of censorship of certain topics. GreyHood ^Talk 19:30, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
• Delete, not notable. Racist and clearly offensive given the ruckus over at WP:AE. The handful of opinion pieces cited as sources do not give any in depth coverage beyond a single mention of the term "Polandball" in passing. --Nug (talk) 20:02, 27 March 2012 (UTC)