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)