Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sinfest (2nd nomination) - Wikipedia


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I initially wanted to wait until either the webcomic concluded, or the most recent source is 10+ years old, but returning talkpage concerns made me decide to start this early. My argument for deletion is WP:SUSTAINED combined with a shift in subject matter of the work covered. The most recent source, a 2016 list entry by Paste, states that it had "recently become a more specific and pointed criticism of the most toxic parts of American exceptionalism," and this is the most up-to-date information we can cite on this webcomic. Sean Kleefield in his 2020 book Webcomics did mention Sinfest as an example, but in his blog he made clear he did not do any research for this. As editors, we have recently tried to expand on Ishida's/Sinfest's recent political and controversial aspects through primary sources, but this got (probably rightfully?) undone. Reliable sources are staying away from Sinfest and we don't know how to cover it anymore: the article is largely about a Sinfest that no longer exists, or only exists buried in its own archives. Typically when sources on a long-running webcomic dry up, it just means it's no longer in the zeitgeist, but I don't think that really applies here: I would perhaps make the vain suggestion that reliable sources don't "want" to consider this work notable. I would like to hear what other editors think of this argument and issue. Note that "this webcomic is bad/harmful" is not a deletion rationale tho. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 06:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. SUSTAINED applies to brief bursts of newspaper coverage: the coverage already in this article passes sustained, with consistent coverage over a period of multiple years. Per WP:NTEMP once something is notable, it is notable for good, and even though the coverage has ceased the past coverage is well, well over sustained. The past Sinfest is the notable sinfest, we do not need to discuss the current one. PARAKANYAA (talk) 07:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. In my opinion, the discrepancy between what Sinfest was in the 2000s and what it is now is so jarring that it has become an entirely different entity, functionally separate from what it was once was. I think we can all agree that reliable sources have not given meaningful coverage to the very disturbing turn the comic has taken over the past few years.
Ordinarily, it's completely fine for an article on a comic to lay stagnant if reliably sourced coverage dries up. However, in this case, we're left with an article that discusses the generally favorable coverage Sinfest received in the past, says nothing about its current iteration, and maintains a link to the website. Together, these facts mean that this page functions as a puff piece on a work of antisemitic propaganda, which it then directly links to.
I want to make it clear that I do not believe that this was the intent of any editor here; I know that Wikipedia has policies for a reason, and I have not gotten any impression of fellow editors here other than that they are committed to following Wikipedia's procedures and improving the site's coverage of this comic. I do think that, in this case, we might have to be a bit flexible in the application of policy. "Notability is not temporary" is certainly a good guideline in general, but in this case, we have been left with no way to talk honestly about something that it would be harmful to talk about dishonestly. For that reason, I think deletion is the best option.
I'll be honest here, I'm only an occasional editor of Wikipedia, and I'm not thoroughly familiar with the site's policies or precedents on issues like this. I feel about this similarly to the way I do when I hear about US Supreme Court rulings, which is that I have a strong moral conviction about what is right, but I don't know much about actual legal procedure. (I've made a couple comments on the Sinfest talk page about policy in the past, and later realized that I was mistaken about how the relevant policy actually worked, which is why I haven't posted there since.) For that reason, I chose to comment rather than explicitly support deletion. My position is based not on specific Wikipedia policy but on my moral conviction that Wikipedia should not be covering antisemitic propaganda without explicitly labeling it as such.Wehpudicabok (talk) 21:40, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Owen× ☎ 12:57, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep, meets GNG and has numerous sustained sources. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:16, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I would argue that the sources are not sustained, as it's impossible to update the article since 2011 or so due to a lack of sources. 05:46, 26 July 2024 (UTC) 2601:447:C801:3AD0:4401:E46F:BEE7:403 (talk) 05:46, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, fails WP:GNG as sources either do not provide significant coverage or are not independent of the subject. Nominator Maplestrip/Mable and comment by Wehpudicabok are correct that this also fails WP:SUSTAINED as the only potentially reliable sources I see here, like Publishers Weekly, only provide coverage during a relatively brief time period, and the lack of sources means this fails WP:NPOV and WP:BLP with several poorly sourced claims about a living person's "perspectives" on "American politics, organized religion, and radical feminism."
    Source assessment: Here is a a source assessment table showing the first 10 out of 11 sources in the article. The 11th source[1] is another example of insignificant coverage, with just two sentences on this topic in a listicle of 29 other items. Elspea756 (talk) 15:35, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source assessment table: prepared by User:Elspea756

Source Independent? Reliable? Significant coverage? Count source toward GNG?
https://web.archive.org/web/20170202032914/https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/11/required-reading-40-of-the-best-webcomics.html   Six sentences in a listicle of 40 items ✘ No
https://web.archive.org/web/20161222023014/https://www.wired.com/2009/08/10-great-webcomics-you-should-not-share-with-your-kids-geekdad-wayback-machine/   Five sentences in a listicle of 10 items ✘ No
https://sinfest.net/news.php (redirects to a site on Wikipedia's blacklist)   The subject's website   Self-published source ✘ No
https://web.archive.org/web/20170707021326/https://www.themarysue.com/40-webcomics-you-need-to-read/2/   Three sentences in a listicle of 40 items ✘ No
https://web.archive.org/web/20090615151041/https://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6663678.html?nid=2789&source=link&rid=1907919383   Largely based on interview quotes and likely press release from the subject ✘ No
Webcomics. Bloomsbury Comics Studies. ? Offline source I do not have access to.   Nominator says "in his blog [the source] made clear he did not do any research for this." ? Offline source I do not have access to. ✘ No
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/comics/article/45885-tatsuya-ishida-speaks-on-sinfest-jesus-and-fans.html   Largely based on interview quotes and likely press release from the subject ✘ No
https://web.archive.org/web/20180310090252/http://www.patreon.com/sinfest   The subject's blog post   Self-published source ✘ No
https://web.archive.org/web/20141027235626/http://www.ccawards.com/2004.htm   Artist name and title of work simply listed three times in a list of 115+ other items ✘ No
https://web.archive.org/web/20110611141712/http://www.bt.no/bergenpuls/litteratur/Debuterer-i-Tommy-og-Tigeren-2285615.html   Mentioned in a single short sentence in an article on another topic ✘ No
This table may not be a final or consensus view; it may summarize developing consensus, or reflect assessments of a single editor. Created using {{source assess table}}.


Elspea756 (talk) 14:48, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep: Keep it seeing that we already have one wikipedia page for Stonetoss. Why not keep Sinfest as a page?96.241.99.133 (talk) 18:03, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    There's a huge difference between the Stonetoss and Sinfest pages, though, which kind of illustrates my point. The Stonetoss page immediately identifies it as a neo-Nazi webcomic right from the first sentence, and the claim has several citations to reliable sources. If similar reliable sources existed to identify Sinfest that way, we would simply add them, and then I would vote to keep. We cannot do that, because as far as I can tell, reliable sources do not cover Sinfest and haven't for many years. Wehpudicabok (talk) 18:45, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, Sinfest very much lacks WP:Sustained if you can't even source such a large and obvious part of the comic. Has anyone here read the recent articles? It's openly anti-semitic and not trying to hide it. It would practically make Jack Chick say 'that's a bit much' 05:57, 26 July 2024 (UTC)~~ 2601:447:C801:3AD0:4401:E46F:BEE7:403 (talk) 05:57, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Just because one aspect isn't covered doesn't mean it fails sustained.
    Also, sustained doesn't even apply to the comic as a whole, it applies to events. If the owner had made one very controversial comic that would be an Event and need sustained coverage, but the reasons Sinfest is notable aren't related to that. PARAKANYAA (talk) 06:02, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    If Sinfest had sustained notoriety it would be possible to keep the article up to date. It is not possible to keep the article up to date. Therefore Sinfest does not have sustained notoriety.
    If A then B, not B. Therefore not A. 2601:447:C801:3AD0:4401:E46F:BEE7:403 (talk) 06:09, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Per source assessment. Felicia (talk) 18:09, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Keep there are two competing arguments happening in this thread and I think it's confusing the issue a lot. Argument 1 - The comic has significant older coverage, but has changed direction dramatically since then, and the article does not mention that at all. This is not a reason to delete. It is a reason to edit. Argument 2. The comic has never had significant older coverage. That would be a reason to delete, but I am personally a weak Keep on this front. There are a variety of sources, even if the coverage isn't particularly "deep", and it appears to have held at least a minor cachet in the early 2010s webcomic scene. That said, the self-promotion citations (site news and patreon link) should probably be taken out. (aside, I am leery of the "source assessment" table, as it strikes me as a means to paint "objectivity" on the various sources by applying fancy formatting. is this a new thing to wikipedia? I've never seen it before.) Hornpipe2 (talk) 22:25, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    With regard to the comment that "The comic has significant older coverage, but has changed direction dramatically since then, and the article does not mention that at all. This is not a reason to delete. It is a reason to edit.", editors have done so. Other editors have then removed those edits, because they were not reliably sourced. This is what we've been discussing. There's no way to talk honestly about what the comic is now, because no reliable sources have covered the change. And this is a particularly disturbing change to omit, because the comic has veered into explicitly antisemitic propaganda. If you have coverage of the change from reliable sources, by all means, add them. Wehpudicabok (talk) 22:39, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't plan to edit the page, no, but it sounds like AfD is not the venue for this discussion then? I'm pretty firmly opposed to "we should delete it because an edit war is preventing the article from being corrected". Hornpipe2 (talk) 22:46, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That's not what I'm saying and it's not what happened. Some editors made good-faith edits to cover the change, then others pointed out that the changes have to be reliably sourced, and the sources that had been used didn't meet Wikipedia's reliability standards. As far as I can tell, there simply aren't any reliable sources that have covered the change. It's not an edit war; there's just no way to make it better unless reliable sources start covering this topic, which they are unlikely to do. And finally (this is my own opinion, not Wikipedia policy), it is unethical to cover antisemitic propaganda without calling it that. Wehpudicabok (talk) 22:54, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay. I am sorry to have mischaracterized your statements, I do not mean any ill will here. I agree that it is unfortunate that the article does not (and cannot?) cover the comic's turn into antisemitism and transphobia - things I too find reprehensible - but speaking purely from the perspective of article deletion, my understanding of the policy is simply that articles are not to be deleted for reasons like this. Hornpipe2 (talk) 23:06, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you. To be honest, I'm not as familiar with Wikipedia's deletion policy as I'd like to be, which is why I keep emphasizing that some of what I'm saying is not based on that policy. If this were an ordinary webcomic, I'd be fine just leaving it as it was years ago; and if this were a culturally prominent piece of far-right propaganda, I'd be editing the article to reflect that. It's only because it's in the specific overlap of "gray area of notability" and "far-right propaganda" that we have this problem. Wehpudicabok (talk) 23:13, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as per source assessment 2601:447:C801:3AD0:4401:E46F:BEE7:403 (talk) 03:51, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Opinion on the sources presented by Oaktree b? PARAKANYAA (talk) 05:41, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not sufficient. Could you start an article with just those? I don't think so. 05:44, 26 July 2024 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:447:C801:3AD0:4401:E46F:BEE7:403 (talk)
They are both SIGCOV. And yes you could? Good enough for GNG, in combination with the earlier stuff. PARAKANYAA (talk) 05:48, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All the 2013 book seems to prove is that Sinfest exists. I could write an article about it if you'd like using that source. Ahem "Sinfest is a webcomic".
In the old days you could get GNG with more original research than Wikipedia is willing to tolerate in the modern era. I helped clean up a lot of original research FROM the GNG article, including a list of characters. 2601:447:C801:3AD0:4401:E46F:BEE7:403 (talk) 05:53, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The 2013 source has plenty of analytical coverage of Sinfest. What are you even talking about? It's multiple pages discussing and analyzing a comic from it. PARAKANYAA (talk) 06:00, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete since the article no longer reflects what Sinfest has become, and editorial policies restricting its update to reflect this seismic shift. Ssteedman (talk) 05:00, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a deletion rationale. PARAKANYAA (talk) 05:40, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It could be counted as Lack of WP:Sustained. Which is reason to delete. Sinfest is not notable, and has not been for ten years. 06:02, 26 July 2024 (UTC) 2601:447:C801:3AD0:4401:E46F:BEE7:403 (talk) 06:02, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is a reason for events. If Ishida had made one extremely controversial comic 10 years ago and it wasn't mentioned before or since, that would be a sustained issue. This is a comic strip. The coverage is already over multiple years - just because something isn't covered anymore does not make it non notable. Read WP:NTEMP
Plenty of notable TV shows or series have less coverage as they go along. We do not delete a notable work because its later versions have less coverage. PARAKANYAA (talk) 06:04, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]