Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Trolltalk (2nd nomination)

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. - Mailer Diablo 09:04, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trolltalk

Horribly fails WP:NOR and WP:V, among other policies. Article subject (a single story on Slashdot) is not notable. --- RockMFR 00:30, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

This is the 2nd (or 3rd time?) this has been nominated for deletion. The previous discussion (NO CONSENSUS) can be found here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Trolltalk

Numerous other Slashdot-related articles are currently up for deletion, for reference:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Recurring jokes on Slashdot

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Slashdot trolling phenomena

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Slashdot subculture (2nd nomination)

• Delete getting ill with all this /. crap Danny Lilithborne 00:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete basically a subforum of Slashdot, unknown even to most regulars. This is the fourth awful Slashdot-related article in as many days, and frankly it's getting tiresome writing reasoning for them all, so let's be brief: Fails WP:WEB, fails WP:V, no reliable sources, etc. etc. etc. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 01:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete unless reliable third-party sources are provided. — TKD::Talk 01:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Arbusto 03:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as above. Vectro 03:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete We all know this will never be sourced. It's disappointing that a previous AFD was successfully defeated by a mass sockpuppet attack. SubSeven 03:44, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per all above. Resolute 04:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as non-notable, etc. Choess 05:41, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Not notable. Wikipedia is not a Slashdot encyclopedia. May deserve a brief mention at Slashdot. Delete, or redirect at a pinch, fascinating though it is to read about the contributions of nonnotable people to a nonnotable forum. Vizjim 06:12, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per nom and above. Ok as a mention in the main slashdot article if reliable sources are found. Bwithh 15:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per WP:V, WP:WEB, and the myriad of good reasons above. I love /., but this is so unimportant it is nearly ridiculous.--Isotope23 16:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Almost worthy of a mention in the main /. article, but there is no reason for a seperate article. --Maelnuneb (Talk) 17:17, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete While interesting to read (to me, at least), the lack of verifiability means thumbs-down. --Neo 06:03, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Just in the past 14 days, trolltalk has received over 3500 comments, making it among the most active discussion forums on the Internet. Though posts are deleted after 14 days, it's received probably half a million total posts in its lifetime, many orders of magnitude more than any other Slashdot story past present or future. 4.253.47.43 11:04, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Uh... the thing is, we can't just take your word on it. We could if Slashdot would have a complete archive and automated statistics system, and someone would have done extensive chronicling of the place. By purging the history automatically, it kind of digs its own grave on the verifiability department; what we have is "current" situation. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 15:17, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Okay, I admit it, I clicked on the link you provided. As far as I can tell, all the content is just copy-pasted text from public domain sources (the bible, old dictionaries, etc), all presumably posted by a bot or some posting script, and given the lack of variety, more than likely all posted by the same bot. So if all the posts are generated by bots, with no actual discussion going on, who cares whether it gets a thousand "posts" a week, or a million, or a trillion? They aren't even actual posts, and without any discussion going on, it isn't even really a forum. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 15:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
    • As mentioned in the article, Trolltalk has been attack almost constantly since May 2005 by a sophisticated crapflood script that renders it practically unusable. Generally, nobody posts during the crapflood because their post would get buried, despite the efforts of the Trolltalk Digest (which FAILS IT miserably). Sometimes the crapflood crashes for a few days, and human activity will return until the crapflood is fixed and restarted. Some people still skim through Trolltalk even during crapfloods looking for other human posts, but it's usually an exercise in futility. Surprisingly, however, Trolltalk got more posts before the crapflood: the number of genuine human posts in the past two weeks was often well above 5000. Most of the former users have been driven away by the crapflood so Trolltalk probably would never return to its former glory even if the crapflood were stopped for good. In fact, the crapflood was stopped for about two days in order to announce these AfDs, but nobody seemed to care. Because of that two days without posts, the Trolltalk post count is actually about 500 less right now than it would be if the crapflood had continued during that time. 4.253.43.96 20:48, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Also, the crapflood does not use "copy-pasted text from public domain sources". The crapflood uses a number of different process threads that operate in different manners. One is a crapflood uptime report. Three use the Unix Fortune (program) including the standard databases and a number of collected & customized databases. Four use Markov chains to generate random but sensible-looking text based on four different sets of input text. One of these replies to existing comments in order to fuck up the anti-crapflooding efforts of the Trolltalk Digest. Then there are others but you get the idea.
    • p.s. I'm not the Trolltalk Crapflooder; I'm going off of public information here & analysis of the crapflood over the past 1.5 years in an attempt to track down the Trolltalk Crapflooder's identity. I am in no way connected to the Trolltalk Crapflood; in fact it's widely believed that the Trolltalk Crapflooder doesn't even read Trolltalk anymore. 4.253.43.96 20:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Even though Wikipedia doesn't consider the number of posts as a measure of notability, it would be good to point out that ~500 posts/day is fairly good evidence that a forum/website is FAR from being large enough to be notable. Realize that places like GameFAQs have HUNDREDS of individual boards with that amount of activity per day, and they certainly don't have their own articles here. --- RockMFR 23:17, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete A mention of the thing is material for main Slashdot article; the rest is just uncalled for. Not really any more remarkable than any other feature of the site; subforums must be really really exceptional. It's not a good sign if the article has to drop down to "we've had this sort of discussions before" level. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 15:17, 11 October 2006 (UTC), Slashdot user WWWWolf (#2428), "Oh, we have this sort of thing too? Yeah, I have vaguely heard of it..."

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.