Talk:Encyclopedia Dramatica/Archive 6

Why is one of the categories on this article's talk page "Biographies of living people"? This article is not a bio of a living person.--Urban Rose 19:21, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The website itself has numerous "biographies" of real people. --clpo13_(talk) 19:28, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

So does the Dictionary of National Biography, but you don't see us putting up BLP notices there. Z00r (talk) 19:44, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I just provided a reason why it might. I certainly don't care either way. --clpo13_(talk) 19:49, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, BLP has become somewhat of a "trump card" for deleting things, whether or not they are actually biographical. If an editor claims "BLP" and there is even the most tenuous connection, everyone else pretty much has to shut up. (similar to how the phrases "national security", "terrorism", and "for the children" function in US politics). Z00r (talk) 19:56, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[deindent] Link removed with this edit. Good call in my opinion. Yes ED has some 'biographies', but our article is not a biography of a living person unless ED has achieved sentience, and even then it would fail the 'people' bit. Also, I agree about BLP being used as a filibuster. It is extremely important that we do no harm on actual biographies, but to call 'BLP! BLP!' on an article explicitly about a website seems illogical. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 21:28, May 18, 2008 (UTC)

In the light of the closing of the last AFD, it looks like this article is staying for good. For posterity's sake, I've added a template at the top of this Talk page containing all its previous AFDs, and if I haven't missed any, all 17(!) previous DRVs. There's something ironic about the fact that Encyclopedia Dramatica, a site dedicated to documenting internet drama, has caused such vast amounts of drama here on Wikipedia... let us hope we now have an end to it. Terraxos (talk) 01:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I can't get the top entry (the most recent) to display properly, maybe it's my browser? Other than that, well done. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 12:29, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Encyclopedia dramatica is fully protected. It is a very likely typo so it should be redirected here. Not much more to say :) --Have a nice day. Running 14:06, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done. I've also redirected the talk page. In the absence of any reason for editing that page, I've left the protection in place. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 14:09, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I've moved this information from the article to the talk and request verification in the form of sources. Best, NonvocalScream (talk) 11:29, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

"This popularity among the users of imageboard communities led NBC to display screenshots of Encyclopedia Dramatica and state its use as a planning hub in a televised report on Project Chanology."

Which reliable third-party source published on this topic? It didn't have a citation, so I'm placing it on the talk page for now.J Readings (talk) 15:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

This could probably be cited to the broadcast itself, as I presume NBC news would be considered a reliable source. Tracking down the broadcast (airdate, producer, etc) might be trickier. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 15:46, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think that there are two issues here. First, how is one supposed to verify vague references to a TV channel with nothing else to back it up? If I wanted to verify the information, the current sentence doesn't help me. Second, the sentence reads "the popularity among users of imageboard communities led NBC..." Really? Did NBC (or another reliable third-party source) literally say that or was that assertion the product of descriptive inference (read: original synthesis)? The point is -- assuming NBC even used ED -- it's original speculation to attribute motives that haven't been previously sourced. J Readings (talk) 15:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

TV programs can be cited for a variety of purposes - we even have a template for that sort of thing, {{cite episode}}. If you have the airdate, producers, reporter (for news), and network (publisher), then I don't see a problem with sourcing that statement to a television program. Some networks also have transcripts online - I know CNN has done this in the past, and NBC might - so citing the transcript might work, as well - and it would provide a link for Verification. But if we don't know when this was broadcast, I don't know that we can use it - which is a different problem than that fact being original research. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 16:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I've restored the Chanology Material for the time being. NBC is a reliable source. However, the statement that "this popularity among users" is what lead NBC to restore screenshots is OR, SYNTH, or pure speculation. We don't know why NBC displayed screenshots. Accepting the validity of the citation on good faith, until proven otherwise, we can simply say that ED was used as a planning hub for PC, and cite it to NBC. We may decide, though, that simply referencing the network is not even a cite. We could also reference it to a video, blog, etc., that displays the Chanology campaign on ED. A primary source used this way isn't an OR problem, but without RS coverage it's hard to argue that it's relevant. If people agree that this isn't good enough to be a real source maybe we should go ahead and delete it again. Regarding the mention of the pedophile conviction - it's not a BLP question if he's convicted. It's cited to a specific program. I've restored the mention but for the sake of caution omitted the name (which isn't relevant to the story anyway if the perpetrator isn't himself notable). My understanding from the edit summaries, btw, is that pedophilia is a sexual preference / tendency / fetish that, though offensive to many, is not itself a crime. It is only when people act on that tendency that there is actual child sexual abuse. So the person was convicted for what he did (abuse), not what he thought (pedophilia). That's just a language clarification, nothing controversial. Wikidemo (talk) 17:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, television programs are used. You'll get no argument from me on that point. But the information should be no less well-documented and readily verifiable than anything else we cite. Unfortunately, that's not the case here. Also, see my point about attributing motives to others that were not explicitly stated elsewhere. That is original research. We cannot speculate as to why NBC (we're talking about mere screenshots here, correct? That means, I take it, that NBC didn't even elaborate on the ED) decides to use something versus something else. Nobody interviewed NBC to elicit what they were thinking, correct? Frankly, the insistence on mentioning the use of screenshots in the article smacks a little bit of desperation, but that's far less of an issue for me than the other two problems with that sentence. J Readings (talk) 18:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Accepting the validity of the citation on good faith, until proven otherwise, Actually, Wikidemo, it's not a citation. It's a vague, unreferenced assertion with no way to verify it in its current form. Technically, it should be removed now because the burden always falls on editors adding material to the page, not those removing it. Anyway, I say "technically" because I'm happy to wait a bit to see if a proper reference surfaces. If not, it should really be placed on the talk page. I agree with your other comments. J Readings (talk) 18:18, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you on all counts - no strong opinion on the NBC thing and I didn't realize until after I restored it how vague the reference was. Wikidemo (talk) 18:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

That's the boat I'm in; unless NBC actually said that, it is OR. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 18:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcRbsuwe4uw Here is the NBC broadcast in question. I added it to this talk page ages ago, but my comment was removed. There are many other good, cited sources which were removed from the article with no justification. I am trying to AGF but there seems to be a campaign among certain members of Wikipedia with POV bias to dilute this article's sourcing base until they can AfD it for lack of citations. --Truthseeq (talk) 21:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Well, without getting into what happened in the past, if you have any more sources that were removed would you mind adding them or posting them here so we can restore them? - Wikidemo (talk) 21:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Just watched it....two things come to mind. First, it's a youtube reposting of a news broadcast so it's probably copyright infringement. We can't link to it for that reason. But we can reference it. Yet, it doesn't identify the date, author, etc. How to get around that? Now we're in the realm of something verifiable but unciteable. Maybe a hidden comment in the citation with the Youtube file number and date? Second, all the websites flashed up on the screen very quickly and were not identified by the reporter as ED. Did the logo appear somewhere? The fact that it's not mentioned by name suggests it's not all that relevant that ED happened to be one of the various sites Anonymous used. Wikidemo (talk) 21:46, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for posting the link. I watched and re-watched the youtube video. I agree with Wikidemo; we can't use the link because of copyright infringement, because youtube is generally not citeable, and because -- well, the most obvious reason -- ED was neither mentioned nor shown on the video. I didn't see an ED logo on those pages, either. Under the circumstances, it doesn't make much sense to keep that vague, unsourced sentence in the article. J Readings (talk) 22:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

There's no problem using YouTube as a link or citation if what's being linked to is not a copyvio. That's a big IF, of course, but there's no blanket ban on YouTube, although I think a lot of Wikipedians think there is (including myself, until very recently). Ford MF (talk) 22:13, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, thanks for the link. That little section in WP:EXTERNAL will be useful in editing someone's biography (we were wondering if we could have linked to his uploaded video on YouTube. Looks like we can.) That said, in this case, there's still seems to be little (any?) reason to cite this source for the claims made. J Readings (talk) 22:24, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, no, a link to YouTube is totally inappropriate in this context. I was giving a general heads up. Ford MF (talk) 22:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)