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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. Simple vote counting puts delete votes slightly ahead of keep votes (roughly 60/40). An analysis of the arguments shows that most Keep voters argue that the topic passes WP:GNG, owing to the vast quantity of sources available on the subject. That argument is countered to some degree by those claiming that the vast majority of the sources are not primarily about the specific topic of Kutcher's use of Twitter, but otherwise I believe the consensus is that the topic most likely passes WP:GNG. However, the Delete voters make a compelling case for why passing WP:GNG doesn't matter in this case, and that's because policy trumps guidelines. The policy in this case is WP:NOT, in particular WP:INDISCRIMINATE (and to some degree WP:NOTDIARY), which states that "merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia." In the discussions below, there are many examples of other potential topics that receive a lot of coverage in reliable sources, but otherwise would not be suitable for an article as they would violate WP:NOT. In any case, I would be ok with restoring the article for the purpose of merging some of its material to other articles, upon request on my talk page. -Scottywong | comment _ 19:06, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Ashton Kutcher on Twitter

Ashton Kutcher on Twitter (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log • Stats)
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Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, I am not sure how a person's account on Twitter can be seen as being worthy of an account.

Things like Category:Celebrity_Twitter_accounts make a mockery of building an encyclopaedia. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:30, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply

Keep Justin Bieber on Twitter just became a WP:GA and there is a lot of encyclopedic content that belongs in this article that is to detailed for a general biography. The article clearly passes WP:GNG.-- TonyTheTiger ( T/ C/ BIO/ WP:CHICAGO/ WP:FOUR) 13:40, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Keep although when I passed the Justin Bieber on Twitter GA, I did note that I don't really like Twitter articles. However, it passes WP:GNG so it is acceptable. Regards, ⇒ T A P 13:52, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. TonyTheTiger ( T/ C/ BIO/ WP:CHICAGO/ WP:FOUR) 13:52, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Comment Please don't take this as argumentative or confrontational as it's not meant to be. But the sentence "They <Kutcher and GF> were a measuring stick by which Twitter was determined to have gone mainstream in early 2009." and the accompanying source is evidence for the notability of the Twitter article, not a justification for an entire article on Kutcher's Twitter account. And, to paraphrase Vituzzu's comments, non-notability is a definite reason to delete an article but the reverse is not necessarily true. Notability ("fame and popularity") is not a guarantee for inclusion. If an article doesn't measure up to any of the Wikipedia:Five pillars, the "fundamental principles" of the project, it shouldn't be included. This article doesn't measure up to the first pillar: there's no redeeming academic value, it is WP:INDISCRIMINATE and fails WP:NOT#NEWSREPORTS-- William Thweatt Talk | Contribs 21:38, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Quote and source are evidence for the notability of the article in question, also. You have not said why you feel INDISCRIMINATE and NOTNEWS apply, so I will not address those. I would love for "academic value" to be given the weight of a rule or essay as a point in favor of inclusion, like a sort of tiebreaker, but AFAIK it has no standing in a deletion discussion, nor would I want it to. Anarchangel ( talk) 21:39, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply
As an academic writing in this area, yes, there is redeeming academic value. -- LauraHale ( talk) 21:41, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Academic writing? -- Vituzzu ( talk) 22:04, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
My doctoral thesis is in this area, and I've had more conversations with academics about Twitter, Twitter's role in society, Twitter metrics than you'd probably like to know. I've also talked to people in three departments in my university about this topic in how to design coursework related to this topic, and I've given a training session for industry folks where this type of material would be covered. Twitter is being written about extensively in various parts of the academic world. If you want to cry no-academic value, as some one in that space, it doesn't wash. I suppose the people writing about extinct birds and first century generals from Greece are unlikely to write about Twitter academically, but others in communications, popular culture studies, sociology and business are. -- LauraHale ( talk) 22:18, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
My claim is that there is no academic value in maintaining individual "X on Twitter" articles (I should have been more clear on that). We already have an article, Use of Twitter by celebrities and politicians where the use of these Twitter accounts can written about and centralized. If that's not enough, see my suggestions below. After all, if I'm reading what your saying correctly, it's the use of these twitter accounts that is of interest, not the existence of them. The individual "X on Twitter" articles just border on WP:Fancruft.
That would be nice. I have a whole chapter in my thesis about a specific twitter account. There is academic value in maintaining these because they are a great launching off point for people in several fields doing work in this area. The individual articles, which clearly pass WP:GNG, offer valid case studies. This is why they are of academic interest, despite the claims you're making otherwise. -- LauraHale ( talk) 22:46, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep: While I'm not a huge fan of more of these articles, the article passes independent WP:GNG. The articles have value in that they explain how social media and current culture work and would probably be useful in marketing, communications or popular culture studies classes. -- LauraHale ( talk) 21:31, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Comment I would think that the information that provides "value in that they explain how social media and current culture work" should be in the twitter article. If, indeed, it is the case that there is some useful academic information it should be combined into a "meta-article" such as "Twitter in Marketing" or "Twitter's use in popular culture" and have these "famous and popular" examples redirected and included as examples, rather than having multiple individual "X on Twitter" articles and dealing with the same issues every time a new one comes up.
How long do you propose making these articles if you include all the heavily covered WP:GNG eligible Twitter accounts? The case studies these articles represent in an academic sense would quickly explode out a page and could not be dealt with with out presenting WP:UNDUE problems. I think you're trying to cite academic work as an excuse with out having much familiarity with the multi-discplinary work being done in this sphere. WP:IDONTLIKEIT appears to me what the argument boils down because the academic one is not a valid argument. -- LauraHale ( talk) 02:44, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply
So why doesn't it fall under WP:OR? (Theoretically it could have been a COI too) -- Vituzzu ( talk) 11:21, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply
The whole thing is reliably sourced, passes WP:GNG, does not do WP:SYNTH to try to push a point of view that the sources do not support. Hence, it is not WP:OR. What sort of WP:COI are you implying? If you're implying Tony has one, I need to see some evidence of it. If you're implying I have it, early draft of my thesis shows this has little to do with my methodological approach and isn't fundamental to my topic. I'm not supporting this with the intention of using it in a classroom. As an argument had been made this was not of academic interest, I pointed out it clearly WAS of academic interest. No WP:COI there. Go fish again? -- LauraHale ( talk) 11:34, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Feel free to deem it fishing but, again, it's always you saying it has some academic interest, it has a "stand-alone" importance, all the infos in the page are in topic (even these) and, finally, it's always you saying it passes WP:GNG. -- Vituzzu ( talk) 23:53, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply
You said it doesn't have academic interest, based on criteria I do not understand. The article clearly passes WP:GNG because Kutcher's Twitter usage has been covered independently of other Kutcher topics. I think there would be a struggle for over half the articles on Wikipedia to have as many media references as Kutcher on Twitter. And the topic does have stand alone importance because the goal to get a million followers was widely covered by the media and demonstrates social media related issues in wider culture and marketing. You've yet to demonstrate the topic doesn't pass WP:GNG unless you dismiss thousands of articles from multiple media organisations from several different places around the globe. You haven't offered a compelling reason why this would not be of academic interest, despite claiming it isn't. Google Scholar shows you're wrong about academic interest. This appears to be a fishing expedition, especially when WP:COI was thrown in, in order to justify a vote based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I don't like articles about Pokemon or Bieber albums but they pass WP:GNG so they stay. -- LauraHale ( talk) 05:16, 12 June 2012 (UTC) reply
So your best point is in order to justify a vote based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT, is it a kind invite to leave the discussion? Again, you're both producing and judging academic production about that topic, that's a form of COI, since is quite natural all of us will tend to underline the relevance of his own research topics. I already said why, according to me, it doesn't pass the GNG and the only answer I got is such a sort of mantra "it passes WP:GNG" (repeated n-times). As I tried to say dozens of times nothing shows it has an "stand-alone" relevancy, it can be easily summarized and merged into Kutcher's page. -- Vituzzu ( talk) 11:31, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep His twitter actions do get ample press coverage. Having read through the article, I see it is clearly a valid content fork from his main article. Dream Focus 21:39, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep Passes WP:GNG. Marketing, Media and Technology are all valid encyclopaedic subjects. Hawkeye7 ( talk) 22:29, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 01:29, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply

Arbitrary break - Non-vote consensus?

  • Neutral for now(?) - This AFD should have been opened as "{{ not a vote}}" at the start. Therefore, voting would have been avoided or lessened, even if numerous "keeps" would make this discussion SNOWy. "Keeps" rely on WP:GNG as part of argument, yet even news media is insufficient proof that this topic is actually notable; one article or 1,000 articles do not prove sufficiency, but at least they're trying. Nevertheless, real-life events happen, and impact (i.e. effects from and on this topic) has been well-sourced enough to balance this article. Hopefully, one academic source, like a peer journal, a published essay, or some mainstream book, would have been enough for this topic to pass GNG. As I'm reading WP:notability, I figured that the notability of this has gained due to some pedophilia case in football and the notable celebrity himself. Nevertheless, I'm reading WP:notability (events) and WP:notability (web), and maybe those who want to vote must study these after this post and before voting. -- George Ho ( talk) 14:18, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    Time Magazine [1] covers how popular the guy's account is. And this article isn't about one event, its about someone's twitter account which has had multiple events which have been covered in the media. We wouldn't create an entire article for just one media covered twitter event. Dream Focus 00:01, 12 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    I'm not sure if it passes WP:GNG; 1,000 news sources do not implicate widespread attention. To me, GNG is poorly cited, so I can't use it for arguments. I don't think "(events)" applies because the subject was used by the celebrity for such events. Nevertheless, let's use "(web)" then:

    Similarly, a website may be notable, but the owners or authors do not "inherit" notability due to the web content they wrote.

    The above quote passes by the impact Ashton made on Twitter: the loss of Demi, and the shutdown itself.

    When evaluating the notability of web content, please consider whether they have had any significant or demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education. High-traffic websites are likely to have more readily available verifiable information from reliable sources that provide evidence of notability. However, smaller websites can be notable. Arbitrary standards should not be used to create a bias favoring larger websites.

    Challenging CNN for bed sheets that reduce risks of malaria helps this topic achieve it. Fortunately, it passes " WP:Notability (web)" because of those events and other events that meet above, but how does it pass GNG? I crossed out my neutrality because I'm starting to figure out that this topic meets (an)other subject-notability guideline(s). -- George Ho ( talk) 00:25, 12 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    Shall I add {{ not a vote}} in this arbitrary break then? -- George Ho ( talk) 00:29, 12 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    What are your thoughts on the academic references available to cite? -- LauraHale ( talk) 05:18, 12 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    Some are inaccessible, as purchase is required. There are some with full access: AAAI.org. I'm still finding ones that pass "significant coverage" and all other criteria of GNG. I get a feeling that GNG is the most unique yet misunderstood or miscited. Many sources there discuss popularity of Kutcher's account and trivially Kutcher's use of Twitter. Someone can be brave enough to go through all Scholar results... I don't know if I'm the one. -- George Ho ( talk) 05:50, 12 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Comment: Nomination doesn't state any grounds for deletion. I don't care how useless twitter is, I'm sure the nominator has written articles I would personally find useless. But my subjective view is not relevant.-- Milowent • has spoken 20:53, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Strong keep Notable article. WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a reason to delete. Statυs ( talk) 03:16, 16 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Yes, it isn't. Fortunately, no one uses that argument. Instead there have been arguments about content, encyclopedic quality, whether to merge, etc. You, on the other hand, don't seem to have an argument in favor of keeping it--so can I refer you to WP:ILIKEIT? Drmies ( talk) 22:46, 25 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. Down this path lies madness. The President of the USA is regularly covered by newspapers, but does that mean we should have a Barack Obama in the New York Times section? Obviously the Ashton Kutcher article should have a paragraph or two about his presence on Twitter, but having an entirely separate article for what at the end of the day boils down to a single factoid ("first use with a million followers") is complete overkill and serves no useful purpose. Jpatokal ( talk) 12:05, 16 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Questions It seems that this article is about a publisher of information and their means of publishing it, is that not one valid way to look at this? Are there publisher/publishing notability guidelines that should or do exist? Alanscottwalker ( talk) 12:32, 16 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Keep Given the citations available and the arguments above and below, this appears to be a notable and discrete topic in the "new media" category, like the articles about individual "blogs." Alanscottwalker ( talk) 12:49, 21 June 2012 (UTC) reply

Arbitrary break 2 - Relisting

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, DGG ( talk ) 05:21, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep - Valid WP:GNG Wikipedia:Summary style of Ashton_Kutcher#Twitter_presence and, to the credit of the editors of Ashton Kutcher on Twitter, not much in the way of citing to Kutcher's Twitter account to support the Ashton Kutcher on Twitter article. "became the first Twitter account with 1 million followers in April 2009" - of course the news sources are going to write about his Twitter account and have follow up stories on it, giving Wikipedia plenty of material for the spinout article. Wikipedia:Summary style reqires enough text in the given Ashton_Kutcher#Twitter_presence subtopic to merit its own article, so you might want to expand Wikipedia:Summary style. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 09:16, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • P.S. - For what it's worth, I recently iVoted to delete Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Personal life of Jennifer Lopez largely because it failed Wikipedia:Summary style, due in part to the lack of cooperation with the editors of the Jennifer Lopez article and lack of restraint in adding trivial details to the Personal life of Jennifer Lopez article. The 'Ashton Kutcher on Twitter' article has cooperation with the editors of the Ashton Kutcher (even though there is some disagreement) and shows retraint on adding trivial details to the 'Ashton Kutcher on Twitter' article. Plus, it has what I noted above. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 14:50, 19 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. While Ashton Kutcher is notable, I can't imagine why a Twitter account would need a Wikipedia article. JIP | Talk 10:00, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • The same reasons Sam and Diane from Cheers need an article about themselves, which I created. Frankly, it was nominated as AFD, but the nomination was withdrawn. Unfortunately, in this case, the bickering about Twitter and Ashton Kutcher can't go away here. -- George Ho ( talk) 10:10, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete: In my opinion, this is a synthesis of published material that advances a position ( Wp:Synth) which is the claim that this Twitter account is notable: it seems that the significant coverage in reliable sources doesn't establishes a presumption that this subject is suitable for being included in any kind of encyclopedia ( WP:GNG, last point of the list), it could be treated as a pure curiosity.-- Nickanc ( talk) 11:49, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Because his twitter account has gotten ample coverages in the media, for being so popular, as well as various things that have happened involving it. That isn't synthesis. Dream Focus 16:16, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Question LauraHale, you mentioned your thesis, and said one of the chapters was on a particular twitter account. I gather it's not his, or you would have said so, so what account is it? (if you don't want to be specific, what type of account--a person in what field?) Second, do you think you could in fact do a chapter on his? and do you think an academic article on his would be accepted by a first-rate journal? Third, perhaps you could summarize some of the paywalled sources in terms of how much of the content is about this account in particular? DGG ( talk ) 15:39, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • DGG: I have (sub after reorganisation) chapters on Brendon Fevola on Twitter and Anna Meares on Twitter, with a fair bit about Zac Dawson on Twitter. Very early drafts of this material can be found here, here and here. If anyone created those, I'd probably support deletion of them. As Kutcher is not an Australian sport topic, it would not fit into my topic. I could probably easily write a paper about Kutcher on Twitter. If I was very motivated, I could probably get it published in an academic journal of first rate in popular culture, but you'd be looking at a six month to two year lag AFTER I submitted it. (Conference presentation would thus be easier.) I've had a debate as to whether or not I could probably get away with, with conference organiser permission, present Justin Bieber on Twitter as a conference "paper" but that's because the quality of that article is much, much higher. (If I wanted to spend the time, there are a number of accounts that I could probably do that for.) It is important to remember that with a topic like social media, there is going to be an academic lag in writing about it. (Thus, conference papers better.) The publishing methods do not allow for faster times to publish. Hence, there is a reliance on newspaper sources.-- LauraHale ( talk) 04:54, 18 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Specifically looking behind pay wall data bases I have access to, I can see one article directly on this topic: "The real meaning of Ashton Kutcher's 1M Twitter followers. Dumenco, Simon; Dumenco, Simon., Advertising Age (0001-8899)" One article that specifically mentions Kutcher and Twitter in the abstract is "Ulanoff L. Facebook Challenges Twitter to Celebrity Deathmatch!. PC Magazine [serial online]. June 2009;28(6):1. Available from: Computers & Applied Sciences Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed June 18, 2012." This abstract says: "This article discusses how the social network Facebook is trying to encourage celebrities into using their website to connect with others. The author speculates that this effort is in direct response to rival social network Twitter. The press release available from Facebook on how celebrities and brands can transform their pages is discussed. Celebrities who use Twitter and Facebook include actor Ashton Kutcher and basketball player Shaquille O'Neal. It is suggested that despite the press release, Facebook is still more complex to use than Twitter." The following also mentions both together: The Twitter scorecard. Publishers Weekly. 256.20 (May 18, 2009) p4. Word Count: 182. From Literature Resource Center. The first sentence says: "Although everyone's still a little unsure of just how valuable a Twitter following is--does Ashton Kutcher really have more pull than CNN?--celebrities, news organizations and entertainment conglomerates are scrambling to get more followers on the social networking site. " Another article behind a pay wall is Wheaton K. Twitter no substitute for good ol' one-way communication. Advertising Age [serial online]. April 20, 2009;80(14):25. Available from: Communication & Mass Media Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed June 18, 2012.. Abstract is: "The article discusses actor Ashton Kutcher, and his race to become the first user of the social messaging tool Twitter to obtain one million followers. It is said that Kutcher's use of billboards and television appearances to advertise his Twitter stunt was contrary to the spirit of online social networking." Reading the articles about Kutcher and Twitter, they come from a popular culture studies or marketing discipline. The focus is not on Ashton himself, but rather the use of Twitter as a platform for communication and the effectiveness of Kutcher (and thus other celebrities like him) in tasks like fund raising, getting media attention, promoting causes and doing outreach. Without reading the current article, I'd expect this to be a major focus where Kutcher is almost the side story. (Which is the case for the Bieber article.) If the article is about Kutcher, it is doing it wrong. Hopefully, that answers your questions. (Please don't ask me to write about this academically. :) )-- LauraHale ( talk) 04:54, 18 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • More comment on this. danah boyd is one of THE leaders in the field of social media research. (My supervisor has been urging me to cite Boyd more.) danah boyd wrote: 7.To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter

Alice Marwick; danah boyd. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. May 2011. Vol.17,Iss.2;p.139 - 158. Source: SAGE Premier 2012. Kutcher's practices for use on Twitter were repeatedly cited in this paper and how it compares to others, in some cases explaining how this conceputalizes how Twitter itself is understood. Quote: "Responsiveness on Twitter is variable: while Ashton Kutcher may not write back to his fans, a fan will typically write back to him, and Ashton Kutcher will typically respond to other celebrities. This type of public recognition marks certain people as more important than others." And yeah, the existing article is pretty crap in that it focuses on Twitter metrics, with out contextualizing WHY this is encyclopediac. -- LauraHale ( talk) 05:10, 18 June 2012 (UTC) reply

  • Delete There's some synthesis going on here, and the subject can have ample coverage in the articles on Ashton Kutcher and Twitter. Frankly, all of these Celebrity X on Twitter articles are embarrassing and they all need to be merged into Use of Twitter by celebrities and politicians and leave it at that. AniMate 17:13, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep When I saw this mentioned on DGG's page, I was certain I was going to come here and request not just deletion, but complete and utter destruction. But, after reading the comments here, and thinking about it, and checking the article itself, this article is essentially the equivalent of The Rest of the Story--it's a description of a particular type of published content, that has importance (notability, in our terms) independent of the author himself (or his publicists--whoever actually writes the content). It seems problematic because we have no easy way to title the article that makes it clear that this is an article about a work of literature (I mean that in the broad, postmodern sense), but, nonetheless, this is what it covers. Now, merger may be appropriate, but I think that such a discussion would occur better on Talk:Ashton Kutcher, as such a discussion might need more than the AfD format (and time limit) can provide. If you want the WP terms, this subject meets WP:GNG and thus is notable enough for an article, and I see no pressing other need to demand deletion. Qwyrxian ( talk) 03:25, 18 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep For my tastes, all the celebrity-twitter-related articles should be deleted, starting from Justin Bieber on Twitter, but looking at cited (and not cited) sources this subject clearly passes our notability guideline. Cavarrone ( talk) 09:56, 18 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Weak delete or merge the applicable policy here is ...not case studies, which states that we should be cautious in how we treat "situation X in location Y" or "version X of item Y" types of articles. There ARE enough sources to create articles about television appearances of Barack Obama, newspaper coverage of Barack Obama, humor and entertainment of Barack Obama, and any other number of forks. (And you can see how similar articles could be written for other major public figures.) The principle at play in WP:NOT is that we can let sources dictate what verifiable content should appear in articles, but not always the proportion or organization of said articles. It's possible that celebrities on Twitter or some other article would make sense. But we already have Twitter usage and there has to be an intelligent way to fork this, instead of creating numerous articles about case by case by case. Again, Wikipedia is not a collection of case studies. Shooterwalker ( talk) 22:20, 18 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Quoting from the part on case studies: "This is perfectly acceptable when the two variables put together represent some culturally significant phenomenon or some otherwise notable interest." In the case of of Ashton Kutchet, it does represent that as the research done by academics and the mentions in several marketing related texts demonstrate. This doesn't hold true for say an article titled Anna Meares on Twitter where her Twitter usage doesn't pass WP:GNG and does not represent "some culturally significant phenomenon" because her use and place inside the Twitter hierarchy isn't particularly noteworthy. I think you'd be lucky to have maybe 20 accounts which would pass this threshold, as demonstrated by the Rhianna article being deleted. (And a deletion I fully supported. Nothing noteworthy about her usage and nothing that demonstrated "some culturally significant phenomenon".) -- LauraHale ( talk) 00:34, 19 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep -- most of the "X on Twitter" articles are borderline or delete candidates, and most popular culture figures who use twitter cannot sustain a sub-discussion fork to "X on Twitter", but the article is well-sourced. A merge to the main article would be inappropriate because it would dominate an article that is already pushing prime article length. It would be nice if the photo represented Kutcher specifically on Twitter, but that's no reason to delete. I'm generally against expanding celebrity worship on WP, but this article more than passes the bar. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 00:22, 19 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete after merging a very slimmed down version to the main article. -- Bensin ( talk) 01:07, 20 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Question for Bensin: The main article being Twitter? Because of the focus on follower totals and the relative weight of these statistics towards understanding how Twitter works as a marketing and social tool? -- LauraHale ( talk) 01:21, 20 June 2012 (UTC) reply
I would suggest that the "main article" be Use of Twitter by celebrities and politicians.-- William Thweatt Talk Contribs 02:18, 20 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Do you think the information on Kutcher would fit there? It would seem, unless scaled back to one or two sentences, it would be WP:UNDUE. The list also has a current US centric problem. Hugo Chavez's use of Twitter is not included, and he gave away a house to his I believe three-millionth follower. There is nothing in there about the South Australian Tourist board use of celebrities to promote Kangaroo Island, and this recieved a fair amount of Australian coverage. The article as it stands is awful and I think a good rewrite would end up removing him as there are many, many, many celebrities and politicians use Twitter. Can you please explain why you think Kutcher would be relevant? -- LauraHale ( talk) 04:15, 20 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Answer to LauraHale: Thats a good question! Perhaps it's best to split the article and merge the parts into Ashton Kutcher, Twitter and Use of Twitter by celebrities and politicians. Any description and important examples of how Twitter works as a marketing and social tool belongs in the article about Twitter. -- Bensin ( talk) 16:30, 20 June 2012 (UTC) reply
I don't think anybody is questioning Twitters role in contemporary society, but that role is best described in the article about Twitter. -- Bensin ( talk) 16:30, 20 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Up to what level? Although, if I didn't make it clear before, I'm more or less referring to celebrities like Kutcher (including Gaga, Bieber, Britney, etc) on Twitter. — Bill william compton Talk 03:00, 21 June 2012 (UTC) reply
There is a common article for all celebrities on Wikipedia. §§ AnimeshKulkarni ( talk) 17:42, 28 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep, because it's a legitimate source of information as a stand-alone article, and then, in general, X_on_Twitter only has to solve the same problem WikiProject:Numbers had, how far to go? Laura mentioned, what, ten, 20 at best? Hardly the plague most of the Merge/Deletes seems to be fearing, especially when 1089_(number) isn't a problem.
woops, signature. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 00:23, 21 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. I usually argue WP should be about Cézanne and Niobium, with most anything BLP avoided. However, in this case Kutcher's twitter acct has made a lot of contemporary news: CNN, Wired, NPR and the NYT. I hate this topic, but it is a highly notable cultural trend and in particular has been around for several years, so I think it's time to bite the bullet and declare it OK. -- Ultracobalt  ( talk) 06:13, 21 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - it's a minor section in his bio , not a separate article bloated by trivia. - Youreally can 23:53, 23 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Based on a re-reading of LauraHales information about the sources and their significance, it seems to be there is no substantial basis for the separate notability of this subject, and it constitutes excessive coverage, even by our usually very liberal standards for popular celebrities. The keep arguments basically are saying that the use of twitter by such individuals is a notable subject; I agree with that, but it doesn't mean that the use of it by any one particular individual celebrity is therefore separately notable. I think it would take unusually strong evidence to justify such a split, and the evidence here is a great deal weaker than that, and weaker even by our usual standards. DGG ( talk ) 07:45, 24 June 2012 (UTC) reply
This appears to be a misperception of the argument, which is that given the amount and wide nature of sources that discuss this individual's publications in the new medium, it is a notable and discreet topic by the wider world's standards and therefore by Wikipedia's. Outlets that popularize a new medium or have used it in a distinct way are often the subject of their own article (see eg., Nupedia (long defunct), SCOTUSblog (ongoing) etc., etc.) - Alanscottwalker ( talk) 09:41, 24 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Wikipedia's standards for keeping an article does not require an academic article that would be accepted by a first-rate journal. Wikipedia's articles do not need to meet FA standards to be kept and the request for LauraHales' information and opinion about the sources and their significance towards an academic article that would be accepted by a first-rate journal is not a way to judge a basis for the separate notability of this subject. My own research turned up more than 240 news articles having Kutcher and Twitter in the title of the news article alone, more than enough to populate article topic subsections such as History, Twitter usage as a communication platform, Reaction, etc. and to provide strong evidence of separate WP:GNG notability of this topic. In a sense, this is a new type of article for Wikipedia. We have articles on newspapers, magazines, and other media communication outlets such as the Oprah Winfrey Network. In the "X on Twitter, Facebook, etc." article, you have a media communication outlet essentially run by one person (probably with the help of their team, publicists, lawyers, etc.), with content covering one person, where that single person media communication outlet is written about by numerous Wikipedia reliable sources (which makes it Wikipedia notable). Because of the newness of these types of article, there's no direct pattern of subsection headings in which to structure the article around, so initially we're going to get some articles longer than they should be and not as well structured as they should be (which is not a reason to delete). We should not crush these new type of Wikipedia articles; instead, we should let them develop and bring out a structured pattern based on a thorough survey of the relevant literature, which will include scholarly articles in the future per LauraHale. In advance of that, looking at the subsections for The New York Times and other media communication outlet articles may provide some guidance: History (straight forward and always a must in my book), Ownership (we assume it's one person but research focused on this would show it probably is a team effort), Content (probably not as important as it is for the New York Times), Usage as a communication platform (LauraHale's suggestion; the article largely should focus on this), Reaction (yes, this is important). There's probably are other subsections that would fit. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 08:59, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Arbitrary break 3 - Relisting, Part Deux

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Tom Morris ( talk) 23:22, 24 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Relisting comment I'm relisting this for another week, as although there has been a lot of participation, there seems scant regard for actually building a compelling case for deletion.
    • Many keep !voters cited the WP:GNG. Most of the delete !voters have thus far seemed unable to challenge the assertion that it does meet the GNG, with only George Ho suggesting somehow that 1,000 newspaper articles does not satisfy the GNG. This strikes me as an implausible reading of both the plain words of the GNG and long-standing practice at AfD and DRV.
    • Some delete !voters advanced the view that the article breaches WP:SYNTH. I have not seen any argument advanced as to how exactly the article is synthesising published material to advance a position. If it is, it should surely be discernible what the position it is advancing is. User:Nickanc advances the argument that the synthesis is to push the position that the topic is notable. This seems like a frankly mad argument to me. It misunderstands the nature of notability and also misunderstands the desideratum behind having a policy against original research, of which the ban on synthesis is a section. All Wikipedia articles synthesise notability from multiple sources: is Tom Cruise notable because Time wrote about him? No. Is he notable because USA Today wrote about him? No. Is he notable because Time, USA Today, MSNBC, Entertainment Weekly and the BBC have written about him. Sure. Is this synthesis? In the common and ordinary sense of the term, yes. But that's uninteresting. The policy on WP:SYNTHESIS is what is included in the article, not on what decisions go on behind the scenes about notability.
      • Perhaps instead those suggesting WP:SYNTH are suggesting that the article has to synthesise together sources that cover both Twitter and Ashton Kutcher. That's sort of what articles do. How is this different from, say, the article on Christianity and homosexuality or World War II and American animation?
        • Bleh. I agree that it is perhaps better to leave the notability policy out of the test for synthesis, but I disagree with your reasoning that it would fail that test. Synthesis is advancing a new third conclusion based on two or more disparate facts. The fact that a person is in X number of news stories can be expressed as X separate facts, but they are so similar, it is unnecessary. And the conclusion that is reached is always the same no matter which news stories or how many. Assessing the value of the sources themselves is complicated (substantial coverage? independent?), but counting them up is the most basic of calculations and is allowed under WP:CALC. Anarchangel ( talk) 00:49, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Then there's WP:INDISCRIMINATE. I'm not sure that this works too well either. I'm not wild about the way the article is structured, but I cannot for the life of me see how that based on the sources used, one can honestly say that it is indiscriminate. It covers the stated topic perfectly well enough.
    • The primary reason seems to be a non-policy-based expression of frustration: "Down this path lies madness", making "a mockery of building an encyclopedia" etc. Frustration and dislike of celebrity culture is perfectly understandable (I share absolutely no desire to follow Mr Kutcher's tweets) but basically amounts to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. — Tom Morris ( talk) 23:29, 24 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • I'm a Keep voter, but I think that several Delete voters have been building a compelling case as well, mostly based on excessive coverage (for instance, there is coverage of Barack Obama every day in reliable sources, but I hope we don't make a Barack Obama in the News on 24 June 2012 article...). DGG leans on this argument in a particularly compelling argument. I'm not convinced, but I do think that it is a compelling case that could build consensus; I agree that relisting is a good idea, but mainly because I don't see one side as forming a consensus over the other. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 02:03, 25 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete The key issue here is that to establish notability we're looking for articles that are substantially about the subject, not just mention it. There seem to be no sources that are solely or primarily about the Twitter account of this person, so clearly the sources are being used in a very WP:SYNTH-like manner. You can basically find source mentions of any topic, but just having footnotes doesn't mean that a topic is notable -- they must be of a certain caliber and depth into the subject when notability is disputed. Steven Walling •  talk 23:32, 24 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • You need to check the sources again with special attention to articles like this Time magazine article and this New York Times article.-- TonyTheTiger ( T/ C/ BIO/ WP:CHICAGO/ WP:FOUR) 23:59, 24 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • Once again, those sources are not solely or primarily about Ashton's Twitter, but rather about Celebrity use of Twitter overall. The content that is substantially about the Ashton Kutcher account is relatively small. Having a series of articles like this when the sources that are reliable only support notability for general celebrity use of Twitter is not appropriate. Steven Walling •  talk 02:20, 25 June 2012 (UTC) reply
        • This reasoning is rather weak in light of the countervailing standard that a particularly noted intersection or outlet of "new media" and another topic, like "celebrity" (or "encyclopedias" or "breaking news" or any other general topic), make for a focused article on in depth aspects of the other topics, as well as its own. (See also, The Washington Post [2] and AdAge). Alanscottwalker ( talk) 14:28, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • On reading the policy on synthesis you seem to be trying to explain your point with, it still seems entirely unrelated; or if I interpret it in a way that is related, an inaccurate accusation. Any claims made in the article about Ashton Kutcher's twitter usage and it's treatment in the media seem to be verifiable in the associated sources. If you're talking about claims made on this page, of course, WP:SYNTHNOT, though just an essay, the forth section explains the issue with that appropriately. As for just looking at notability, note that 'Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material'. And while I'm sure anything anyone says about Ashton seems trivial (I know it does to me), the reason for having more than a trivial mention is noted further down, in WP:WHYN, "We require "significant coverage" in reliable sources so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic. If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page, but should instead be merged into an article about a larger topic or relevant list." This is clearly not an issue for this article. In other words, if either of these concerns were particularly valid, to say nothing of being grounds for deletion, there would be notable problems with the article itself, such as a preponderance of unsupported statements, or the article would be nothing more than a stub with no hope for expansion. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 05:56, 25 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Comment- Just for kicks, must I remind you this for historical study: WP:articles for deletion/Olivia Hack. -- George Ho ( talk) 23:57, 24 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Merge back into AK's main article (which is surprisingly short and begs for why this is spun out?), and if necessary from there, spin out the filmography of AK into a separate article. Because this involves a BLP, as much of the BLP information should be kept in a single article to make its maintenance simpler. It's not that this isn't notable, but because of how we handle BLPs, we need to be really careful when we do these types of spinouts. (This is a problem all the "X on Twitter" articles have). -- MASEM ( t) 15:41, 25 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. I don't see what good a redirect would do. Some of the content--some of it--could find a way into his main article, but this thing as an article in its own right is ridiculous. What's the purpose? (That's a rhetorical question.) There is nothing encyclopedic, of lasting value, about this article that is somehow separate from the subject himself to such an extent that it needs to be treated separately (like Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories, which has little to do with Obama and everything with BLP violations pre-redacted); it seems, rather, an excuse to collect a bunch of facts and numbers to create a DYK/GA, riding on the wave of X on Twitter. Which reminds me: someone needs to write Twitter on Twitter--should be easy. Drmies ( talk) 22:55, 25 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • So, I ended up running myself all around Wikipedia to see if I could find an actual basis for the conclusions you've drawn about the article being ridiculous or having no encyclopedic value; the crux of your argument to delete much more so than aspersions on author motivations. As of yet, I haven't found much, so if you could offer up something to justify deletion more concrete than the, as already identified, very 'idon'tlikeit' frustration, that'd be helpful... Darryl from Mars ( talk) 05:32, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • You didn't have to run anywhere--you could just read my comment. "I don't like it"? Do you have anything to offer besides "it's a legitimate source of information as a stand-alone article", which is nothing but "because I say so"? Drmies ( talk) 18:31, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
        • We need policy to justify -not- deleting the article now? Well then, let's start from the beginning. It passes WP:GNG, it's WP:V, and as far as I can tell WP:NPOV, not WP:PLAG, not WP:VSCA (Yeah, that's an essay, but linking to each thing individual seems silly even now)...In other words, it's an article, written on a topic that isn't WP:CARES, with sourced information from not unreasonable sources. I could obviously go on, but, really, this seems backwards, should I be going through all the 'reasons for deletion' that you either don't have or haven't mentioned, just to tell you there's been no solid, actual argument made for deleting it? And I'm not just saying 'rawr you need a policy', though it'd be helpful, there just hasn't been an argument that could reasonably be supported by any policy that's, you know, not 'idontlikeit'. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 22:34, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Merge back to Ashton Kutcher Sure, it's worth having a section on the main article about the Twitter account, but pointless to break out a separate article about it. OhNoitsJamie Talk 14:57, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Comment Reasons such as "Down this path lies madness", making "a mockery of building an encyclopedia" etc. and similar "expressions of frustration" are not IDONTLIKEIT, but policy based arguments, based around the fundamental pillar of policy that WP is an Encyclopedia--all our other rules are really just explanations of it. If I were going to say IDONTLIKEIT, I would use it on the main article on the person! (for that matter, the support for a separate article cannot truly be characterised as I LIKE IT, which would mean they like the tweets; rather, the argument amounts to the even more infantile, IWANTIT). I am indeed feeling quite concerned at this attempt to subvert the principle of building an encyclopedia by breaking out mini-articles from sections of an article which happen to sound attractive. Masem's argument a little above for merging expresses the positive way an encyclopedia should handle such material. . I have in the past often supported break out articles on popular culture--even popular culture that I dislike extremely-- but the primary reason for my support has that they've mostly been instances where the material would otherwise have been edited into non-existence. That's not in danger hereAnd I continue to rely on Laurahale's discussion of the secondary sourcing as a demonstration that there is no substantial coverage, only mention as one a a large number of similar phenomena in which every well known person with a twitter following can be included. I am particular impressed by her comment that as a specialist in the general subject she would not want to write a scholarly article on this. DGG ( talk ) 22:24, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Well, this popped while I was editing and happened to be on the pillar page. The argument itself, that something 'doesn't belong in an encyclopedia', does have the fact this is an encyclopedia as a legitimate basis, but the personal judgement that this particular article somehow fails to be worthy of Wikipedia hasn't been given any real basis. There is some text to go with that pillar worthy looking at, and I think we'd both be stretching ourselves to find a part of it this article actually violates. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 22:34, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • I thought Laura Hale said she could write a paper on this topic but it's not what she is currently working on and there would be lag time. Also, WP:NOTPAPER suggests that the above arguments are not policy based as they misconstrue what the project is by giving the editors own personal definition of encyclopedia, based solely on what the individual editor does not like to separately cover. It appears what the comment above means is the only possible policy based choices are keep or merge since it speaks so highly of a merge rationale and not for deletion of the topic matter. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 23:51, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete WP:POPCRAP, WP:FART, totally agree with Drmies. Sad sign of the state of wiki. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not somewhere to hang POPCRAP. PumpkinSky talk 02:18, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Hmm... if there were a(n) (auto)biography of Ashton Kutcher and his Twitter account, that book could have been as notable as Full Service (book) and more notable than this article's subject itself. -- George Ho ( talk) 02:29, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • I do hope, when someone writes, It's A Tweet Life, A and K and the unbearable lightness of being, they credit you for the idea. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 16:09, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. Meeting WP:GNG does not presume the article of encyclopedic value. And Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. It's basically 'on this day he had x number of followers' and 'by this time he was competing with x for' blah blah blah. This is a policy and certainly trumps the WP:GNG (a guideline) which others keep citing. IMO these Twitter articles are an embarassment to the whole project. Till 05:05, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Indiscriminate happens to be that stretch I was talking about earlier. Hopefully, we can work past your shame, to find something actually careless or thoughtless about the article. Honestly, I could list any two pieces of information followed by 'blah blah blah'...it has x protons and it's this dense at this temperature, blah blah blah. Whether that information is actually indiscriminate or not depends on the article and the context in which it's presented. Even though the policy you mention doesn't exhaustively list indiscriminate things, for obvious reasons, comparing this article to excessive statistics (i.e., a series of numbers without context) and calling 'trump by policy' is a bit silly. Consider this example, if the article said 'once, ashton kutcher went to russia', then cited a tweet that said 'duuude, russia', that's pretty indiscriminate. On the other hand, if it mentions he was sent to Russia as part of a delegation focused on social netowrking as a consequence of having the most twitter followers, and that's cited to an external source that reported on such a thing...Well, maybe you still consider that an embarrassment. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 06:10, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • I can say my opinion and you can say yours. So stop going around and commenting on everyone's vote to change their opinion. Btw don't bother replying to this, I won't answer. Till 06:20, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
        • if I may, the purpose of this is to discuss rationales, especially since it was relisted to give those who wish to delete a chance to come forward with policy rationales. You are of course free not to discuss other's policy points. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 10:36, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
          • Well WP:INDISCRIMINATE states that being true or verifiable does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. I think that fits well here as pointed out through the very poor encyclopedic value (IMO) it has, 'x had this many followers' etc. Till 10:51, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
            • One must also consider WP:NOTDIARY; "news reporting about celebrities can be very frequent and cover a lot of trivia, but using all these sources would lead to overdetailed articles that look like a diary". A lot of the article contains 'x reported this' and 'according to x' and IMO is violating that policy (much more important than a guideline). So yes this is why I consider the article an embarassment and with no encyclopedic value. Till 11:08, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Mr. Kutcher's Twitter activities would fit much better in the article devoted to his life and career. I am not seeing any encyclopedic value to having an article about him or any celebrity with a higher-than-normal following on Twitter. And Adoil Descended ( talk) 10:55, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete: The owner is notable. But not all he does is notable enough and encyclopedic. Though newspapers must be covering what he tweeted, his "tweets", the subject of the article, are not notable. Would we have a article on some writer who has published 10-12 novels at some local publication and has not been notable at all just because evidence of these publications is available through print advertisements? This article has nothing in it that says about his tweets. It speaks only about owners fame. §§ AnimeshKulkarni ( talk) 17:56, 28 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Strong long hard deep unambiguous DELETE' I am sure his e-mail address and facebook get a lot of attention but notability is not inherited and twitter accounts like physical addresses simply cannot be contrived as notable except under extraordinary circumstances that do not exist, a litmus would be if an account where the common name of a scandal that was notable and was leaked via twitter and came to be known by the @twitter name used for its account a la watergate, deepthroat, wikileaks, bradley manning, but it simply is not. This article is not educational in any way and fails to meet the needs of wikipedia readers. Merge into a one sentence statement in Kutcher's article at the absolute most. LuciferWildCat ( talk) 07:20, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Perhaps I should still be refraining, but; would not something like being included in a diplomatic delegation to Russia be extraordinary? Obviously they sent the man, and not the account, but that's why this article isn't 'Ashton Kutcher's twitter account'. There seems to be arguments that the account isn't notable, which are probably accurate, but concerning the confluence of Ashton Kutcher and his actions on and concerning Twitter; it's obvious that they could be included in the main article, but to do so without giving it undue weight would require culling most of the article just for the sake of making it shorter. Still, regarding only the most recent relisting, there is undeniably a 'rough consensus', whether it's well-founded or not, and there's no reason the most significant pieces of information couldn't be included in the main article if this one is deleted. It's a matter of discretion at this point. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 08:03, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • There is no difference between Ashton Kutcher on Twitter and Ashton Kutcher on Facebook, Ashton Kutcher on MySpace or Ashton Kutcher on Formspring (significance-wise). A line needs to be drawn for encyclopedic content. Wikipedia isn't a spin-off from NOW Magazine. As WP:WHIM states, "merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia". I can't think of how somebody's activity on Twitter is considered suitable on Wikipedia. Till 10:34, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Therein lies the discretion, since I can easily think of how it's considered suitable. While the article isn't anything like the examples listed under that policy, the policy also states it isn't exhaustive; so whether or not the article is, in fact, indiscriminate (or diary-like), is subject to interpretation of the article itself. I see how this article could be a useful collection of information for someone who, say, heard about the russia thing and googled 'ashton kutcher twitter russia' to find out if it were true/why. (I know I'm harping on that particular instance a bit, but it was actually interesting to learn on my part). Or, apparently, for writing a paper, though it hasn't been written. Collecting dispersed information in such a way seems very encyclopedic to me, otherwise why not let Google do our job for every other article. However, this is merely the way I see the article. Even if I disagree, there is no 'see, this is discriminate' test or policy I can apply. So, for as long as your argument for deletion is based on that particular metric, there's no significant argument I'm making against that. Reasonable enough? Darryl from Mars ( talk) 11:09, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • "There is no difference . . ." It appears there is and it lies in the third party coverage of those things. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 11:27, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • Again, I did say significance-wise, not coverage-wise. As in, encyclopedic value. Till 01:53, 30 June 2012 (UTC) reply
        • This Russian event did not happen just because of his twitter account. Isnt it? It happened because a famous film-star was using twitter. This event is also not about the account. Its about Kutcher. §§ AnimeshKulkarni ( talk) 12:39, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
          • That would be the distinction between 'Ashton Kutcher on Twitter' and 'Ashton Kutcher's Twitter Account', I should hope. Mind you, I doubt any old celebrity would have done, he did have more followers than anyone else at that point, and apparently some amount of tech savvy to go with it...or so it is reported. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 13:01, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • I actually Googled to check the different results you get for Ashton Kutcher on Facebook and Ashton Kutcher on Twitter. It is pretty obvious that while there is fleeting and mostly incidental coverage of his activities on Facebook, his activities are Twitter have been the subject of a substantially greater degree of attention. The comparison is not valid.-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 19:02, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • I'm guessing you didn't read the whole thing, because I did say 'significance-wise', not 'coverage-wise'. Till 01:46, 30 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep I admit my first instinct upon seeing "x celebrity on Twitter" is to push for a merge or delete, but this appears to be an exceptional case where a celebrity's activity on a social networking site has racked up considerable in-depth press coverage that goes beyond "x tweeted" as he has marked several milestones for the social networking site including one that involved a competition to beat out a major news source. The pop-hate is a bit misguided as popular culture is still a part of culture whether you like it or not. If something is a notable aspect of pop culture then it makes sense to have an encyclopedic article about it.-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 17:32, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - Articles are supposed to be about topics of lasting significance. We are not People Magazine. Ladyof Shalott 18:19, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Wouldn't that other article suggest this one would develop? Among other things, Kutcher has authored/published on Twitter use. See, [3]Has Bieber? Alanscottwalker ( talk) 16:32, 30 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • This is the most meaningless and ignorant comment I have ever seen in my entire life. Statυs ( talk) 03:14, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
The 'article' isn't about anything remotely encyclopaedic, end of story. Twitter is a website. Websites aren't new. Ashton Kutcher isn't notable for posting stuff on websites. 'Celebrities' posting stuff on websites isn't new. People claiming that something somebody they've heard of doing something they've heard of is 'notable' isn't new. Sadly, the inability of people to distinguish between temporary 'noticeability' and anything any of us will give a damn about in two years time isn't new either. If people want to find out about 'Ashton Kutcher on Twitter' they can read his Twitter postings - or the gutter press. This 'article' is vacuous bollocks, and not worth the effort involved in explaining why to people who can't tell the difference between hype and significance, or between 'ignorance' and an unwillingness to waste time arguing with airheads... AndyTheGrump ( talk) 04:09, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
Aha, Well, I suppose there's no pointing out the ill-tempered behavior of a self-labeled grump. Anyways, it may be worth pointing out to anyone looking over the discussion that, whether you or I or anyone will or will not give any damns in two years, that notability is not temporary when it comes to Wikipedia. An airhead like me knows that much. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 09:05, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
The Laughing Nutter
Twitter sized summaries are required for twitter sized attention spans.
WP:WHATTHEF***DOWEWANTGARBAGELIKETHISINANENCTCLOPAEDIAFOR
is a vast improvement and outstandingly polite, note the ***'s
where page after page after page after page after page after page (wait, not too much reiteration, I sense a sudden slump in twit-readership) after page of reasoning has failed, using approachable hopefully memorable language to explain policy is f***ing brilliant. Penyulap ☏ 19:48, 2 Jul 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment I have from my first months here been a supporter of very full coverage of popular culture. I urge those who think so also, to realize that this is best done by not being ridiculous. Unlike the corresponding article on Bieiber, where almost all of of the contents is totally worthless FANSITE fodder that belongs nowhere except where it is found already, on his own twitter account, some of this material is reasonably relevant to the article on Kutcher. It will only be harmed by pulling it into a separate article. Trying to make too many articles ofn a favorite subject shows the lack of a reasonable and encyclopedic approach to it. Andy's comments just above are probably unfairly negative--but the existence of articles like this is what encourages such an attitude towards it. DGG ( talk ) 02:54, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
If personal editing history is important, I have no editing history to speak of with respect to popular culture; it doesn't particularly interest me. What does interest me is that it is fairly treated like any other subject, based on the application of the same standards we apply to any subject. Also, this article is actually a media and publishing article, as this by another user [4] commenting today discusses further. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 12:25, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. I was bouncing back and forth, and reluctant to note my view given how people respond to those in this camp, but DGG's point makes the most sense. It's not about liking or hating the articles, but whether or not the article provides encyclopedic value on its own merits. I'm not seeing it with this one. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 05:15, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Strong delete this is an encyclopedia; we do not include gossips or any pop bs.-- GoP T C N 07:32, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete: The article simply has no encyclopaedic merit. Possibly the claim that the account was the first to have a million followers could be included in Ashton Kutcher. Jezhotwells ( talk) 12:40, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Comment Honestly, instead of paying attention to the "OMG, WTF is with this POPCRAP!?" arguments people should actually be looking not only at this article but beyond to see the unique impact Kutcher has had with regards to his activities on Twitter. Here are some non-popcrap reasons for keeping the article: [5] [6] [7] [8]. If anything, the current article may suffer from having a narrow focus on his account rather than dealing more generally with Kutcher's involvement with Twitter. Anyone looking into the history of Twitter would be ill-served if they did not pay a lot of attention to Kutcher's activity. If we could only keep one of these x celebrity account on Twitter articles, it would have to be this one.-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 15:18, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Not a notable topic. This content can do on the Ashton Kutcher page or the Twitter page, but this isn't needed and isn't notable. Toa Nidhiki05 15:28, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per WP:WHIM. Either that, or FAC it onto the Main Page, per WP:****. — MistyMorn ( talk) 08:57, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Although I didn't want to comment on this AfD, I think I should. The article is not independently notable of Ashton Kutcher. By the same rationale for the existence of this article I could find some sources from google [9] and make Ashton Kutcher and shoes. IRWolfie- ( talk) 09:36, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
    • You know, it almost certainly wouldn't be the same rationale; unless you can honestly say you see some notable landmarks in the development of shoes as a social concept in those search resuults. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 11:13, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Odd. By this argument Abraham Lincoln and slavery is not "independently notable" of Abraham Lincoln. As Tom Morris discussed when relisting, this shows fundamental misapplication of notability. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 11:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. Easily and obviously notable. I can't see why there's a long discussion about it. Everyking ( talk) 15:59, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
    AN entirely empty WP:ITSNOTABLE vote to be discarded. Tarc ( talk) 17:11, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
    All right then. Its notability is established by substantial media attention. Everyking ( talk) 19:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - WP:UNDUE is usually applied to negative "Controversy regarding X..." type articles, but it can also be taken in the other direction; too much weight given to something positive, or in this case, the trivial and the banal. All this is is a byproduct of tabloid media who obsess over everything that a celebrity does, and now we have a notion that "celebrity using social media technology" is somehow noteworthy of our time. It isn't. The media has also taken note of (examiner.com/article/publishing-the-impulsive-imp-a-q-a-with-anne-rice-and-her-sister-tamara) Anne Rice's discourse with fans via facebook, but this doesn't justify Anne Rice of Facebook in the slightest. Tweeting in itself is not a notable, unique, or extraordinary activity. It warrants a line or two in his bio, but the stuff about CNN challenges and what he says about Penn St. is trivial. Tarc ( talk) 17:11, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
From wp:undue, "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public." So while undue is not an article inclusion criteria, it similarly advises NOT following editor's personal approval or disapproval of what RS choose to cover per WP:BELONG, dosn't it? Alanscottwalker ( talk) 19:50, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete – Unworthy of its own article. This article is about NOTHING and only the necessary information about his Twitter account should be condensed and put onto a new section on Ashton Kutcher called '@aplusk'. – Plarem ( User talk) 19:34, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - The article is not about Kutcher's signifcant tweets. That information can/should be in the Biography article, and mainly is. This article is about the media coverage of Kutcher's tweets, and it is using that same media coverage to source itself. That makes the media coverage WP:PRIMARY in this case, and those sources cannot be used to meet WP:N or any of the salad of policies regarding WP:BLPN. We are not a newspaper, and not a news aggregator. We would need RS covering the coverage to have this type of meta-article meet our policies, we don't have those sources and I have been unable to find them. -- Tgeairn ( talk) 20:54, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
This article is about the account or outlet, and is using third party reliable sources that cover the account. Isn't that how almost all Wikipedia articles are written? Alanscottwalker ( talk) 11:41, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Arbitration break 4 - ?

  • Okay, after reading all arguments, delete. Seriously, Ashton Kutcher is notable for one crappy show whose syndication broadcasting will die down, one lousy movie about a missing car, one relationship with Demi Moore, and so on. Kutcher's Twitter account? Well, I see some assertion of notability from this topic. Unfortunately, notability of this account is becoming irrelevant, as too much recentism is involved, criticism or praise on account (or Ashton's activities with Twitter) is not yet found or added, and no books or academic journals about primarily the topic itself are made. Even Full Service (book), a trashy book about Hollywood stars from the past, has some hints of notability that will not go away, and its article has content that demonstrates history of book and reaction toward book. The Sam and Diane article has content of fictional and real-world development that may not be mergeable to Cheers, Sam Malone, or Diane Chambers. The topic of the Kutcher/Twitter article, on the other hand, is neither fiction nor book nor Seinfeld; it is ...something... or nothing... that lacks reaction per WP:IINFO. If there is a book mainly about Kutcher's Twitter, then the book must have reviews, background about the book itself, and the book's plot. -- George Ho ( talk) 21:10, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
If you're looking for reaction in books, it's there: [10], [11] Alanscottwalker ( talk) 22:21, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
These books neither improve quality of this article nor prove significant coverage on this topic. I added "mainly" to clarify. As I said, a book primarily about Ashton Kutcher's Twitter activities will have more value than a book's subject itself, and... it's not as if this conversation were Fahrenheit 451 here. Back on the sources, the books you listed do not have critical viewpoint on Kutcher and his Twittering ways. -- George Ho ( talk) 23:33, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
We are at a deletion discussion where the policies are GNG, WEB and the other notability guidelines, yet when hundreds of reliable sources from respected outlets (discussing multiple facets of this topic) and books that actually use the topic as something the reader will readily grasp information from are mentioned and linked to -- the response is little more than WP:BELONG. Anyone who publishes educational books like those linked to, only uses such well known examples, because they indeed evoke a critical viewpoint of the topic. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 00:45, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
WP:Manual of Style applies here, as well. There is no guarantee that notability of this topic benefits or leads to a valuable stand-alone article. This topic could be notable, but... look at this article. It talks primary stuff that has been retold in non-primary sources, like a fictional recap. Can we leave notability out of this between us? After all talk about notability, I realize that any amount of notability does not equal to a valuable article. This article has no indication of value (notable or not), especially since this topic hasn't yet inspired reaction, like "Suicide(s) of..." and stuff. Even WP:BELONG is part of an essay and may or may not apply to what the article says right now and to how every argument can be neither right nor wrong but beneficial to consensus. -- George Ho ( talk) 00:58, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
And you would replace notability with what, how some people may feel today? But leaving aside notability, what we can look to is whether a publisher's communications and his means of doing so can form the basis for an encyclopedia article. Wikipedia and every other encyclopedia has already answered that yes in spades. Wikipedia has a plethora of articles on individual blogs. In just the 11 citations already cited here throughout the above discussion, such an article can be written. Add to that hundreds more. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 01:17, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
I'm not replacing notability; I'm leaving notability aside, as you were doing. To put this another way, this article talks growing statistics, which... I find... valuable probably... but insufficient amount of value. Moreover, it discusses the events that indirectly caused more attention on Twitter and Ashton Kutcher, which is already said in Ashton Kutcher. I'm not sure if mentioning Kutcher's first Twitter intro to Bieber is worth valuable or signifying, but... That's all I can say, as there aren't any other sources that explain impact on Bieber by this topic itself. You don't see "(person) on instant messaging" because specific (not general) people's instant messaging activities are... are they recorded in books and journals? You don't see Ashton Kutcher on instant messaging yet.... Wait a minute; is Twitter also instant messaging? Is blog another way of instant messaging? If Facebook is instant message, then maybe we can add Facebook and other stuff here, so this title would be renamed to "Ashton Kutcher on internet", right? Otherwise, this article would come down as unencyclopedic. -- George Ho ( talk) 01:29, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
This publishers message and means is covered by the reliable sources extensively. Someone else? Some other means? -- that article, who knows? Information can always be added to improve any article. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 01:39, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
Whatever the publisher's message does in those reliable sources is a retelling of real-life events (i.e. a recap), as fiction has been retold by non-primary sources. Leaving sources aside, like fiction, this article should not be about only plot and background. There is no source yet about his creating an account and/or review of his account. This article said that he merely created it, posted messages in it, and caused attention by exploiting it. Suicide of Tyler Clementi have background and effects, but a person's profile is too low to have a separate "Tyler Clementi" article (well, it was separate but became "Suicide of..."). There was so much balance on background, court case, and reactions from directly and indirectly involved and uninvolved. Sam and Diane article may have been retold in articles of Cheers, Sam Malone, Diane Chambers, and Frasier Crane, but critical reception of Sam and Diane is not that mergeable to either of them. Account of the publisher was exploited for philantrophy that resulted growth of followers, but philantrophy and comment controversy are more valuable than growing stats and already told in Ashton Kutcher article. Account, on the other hand, requires such reaction about his accounts themselves. No analyst has covered on his article mainly yet, so we must wait... -- George Ho ( talk) 02:05, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
This is not fiction. This is communications, media, business, marketing, philanthropy, sociology, advertising -- all these non-fiction angles and more are covered in detail in the sources over a sustained period of years. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 02:42, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
You forgot one thing from WP:IINFO: "Similarly, articles on works of non-fiction, including documentaries, research books and papers, religious texts, and the like, should contain more than a recap or summary of the works' contents. Such articles should be expanded to have broader coverage." Account is the publisher's work, and account must inspire scolarly analysis and critical reviews. Get it? -- George Ho ( talk) 03:05, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
They "should" and they are "expanded" because they exist -- an example in an educational marketing text or an article in the Washington Post business section is not going to be just a recap. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 03:16, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
... Link, please? -- George Ho ( talk) 03:24, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
The links are above. [1] through [11]; there are also links in the article and at the very top of this discussion. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 03:27, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
These sources either already explain information in Wiki-articles or do not have information that have worthy of inclusion, unless they are meant for Ashton Kutcher article. Look, there's nothing else you can find that's worth including or that's not already explained, okay? I checked the sources (1 to 11), and that's all I found. The upcoming Twitter-based sitcom... what happened to it? -- George Ho ( talk) 03:51, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
Yes, I know. The multiple reliable sources thought differently about this topic and that's what we base article inclusion on. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 04:57, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
...Since these sources are reliable, can we put reliability of sources and notability of topic aside, so we must discuss article's current state of inclusion and exclusion, please? I guess this article has reliable sources, but I'm not sure if verified information is worth repeating in this article, especially since no primary analysis is published yet. -- George Ho ( talk) 05:41, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
The wider world has this article topic, in its communications, media, business, marketing, philanthropy, sociology, advertising, etc. aspects, and the project seeks to serve the wider world. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 10:17, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep passes easily WP:GNG -- DeansFA ( talk) 23:24, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep per The Devil's Advocate. Yes, the subject is faintly ridiculous, but its notable. The subjective opinion of random editors unsupported by actual facts is a weak rationale for deletion.-- Milowent • has spoken 03:01, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
    • As I said, notability and reference are less important than content itself per WP:MOS (or any other guideline or essay about how to write a valuable article) and WP:N's amount of worthy guarantee of a stand-alone article, regardless of amount of notability. -- George Ho ( talk) 03:05, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
No matter how many times you comment George, your subjective belief is that "Ashton Kutcher is notable for one crappy show whose syndication broadcasting will die down, one lousy movie about a missing car, one relationship with Demi Moore." Luckily wikipedia was not built on such subjective beliefs.-- Milowent • has spoken 03:56, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
Still I wonder: why do you think this article has some value that's repeated in Kutcher article? Did he create any other accounts that's newsworthy or something else, like chatting online (AOL, remember?), posting videos on YouTube, and any other? As I said before, maybe this article cannot limit itself to only Twitter account, especially if anybody doesn't publish analysis and thought elsewhere, like paper. Stats... well, not as much as general background about creation of his account... I don't know, but stats are not sufficiently valuable, even if valuable, to me. -- George Ho ( talk) 04:59, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep While I am not an AK fan, this article easily meets the GNG. For those of you who are arguing that "you could just as easily have CelebX on Facebook (etc)" articles, well, yes you could. Someone may still make them, and then we can have this exact same discussion again! My vote will become merge to CelebX on Social Media.  The Steve  04:47, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
" this article easily meets the GNG". Please explain why. This isn't a vote. It has always been Wikipedia policy that those who wish to include content have to justify it - and simply claiming without further evidence that 'it meets a policy requirement' isn't justification at all. Why should an online encyclopaedia have an article about the postings of someone not famous for posting stuff on websites on websites? Where are the sources that say this individuals postings are notable? What are they notable for? How do they differ from the postings of anyone else? Twitter, as a social/technological phenomenon is clearly notable, but why are the postings of this particular 'celebrity' of any lasting significance? Without a clearly-defined explanation of why this is anything other than random fancruft, or hype about another internet fad, there is nothing to support anything more than a passing mention in the bio of the individual concerned. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 06:03, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
I'm curious where that 'always' Wikipedia policy came from, it's not the trend I've read in them so far. Anyways, assuming he isn't in fact famous for it, which I can't easily say, that's fine, he need only be significant. Incidentally, no one (few poeple?) write sources about a subject and say explicitly 'we find the subject of this article we wrote notable per Wikipedia guidelines'. We find subjects notable based on the existence of independent sources that make note of them. In general, there are a number of verifiable things about this particular guy's use of Twitter that are and have been treated as distinct from that of a variety of other such individuals. I can mention a couple again if you like. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 07:34, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
I've already mentioned WP:notability (web), and WP:GNG has been cited too many times. There is no MOS guideline about internet-related articles right now, so... I would like your examples, please? -- George Ho ( talk) 07:47, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
ok, since you insist. Washington Post article about AK and twitter, Wired article, LA Times article. Three impeccable sources, all reliable, all almost entirely on subject, out of 42 on the page. Now, you could easily have looked at the article yourself, but presumably its easier to grump about it here. You mentioned "lasting significance" - there is no such requirement, sorry. You want sources that say these postings are notable - also not required - the fact that these twits appeared in reliable third-party sources (see above) indicates notability, and you should know this if you read the GNG.  The Steve  07:49, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
Umm.... can we leave notability and verifiability out of this discussion? I did read WP:GNG and tried to explain that 1,000 news sources could count as one source, no matter what company or agency. If you have your own beliefs, then you may be right. Nevertheless, notability has no actual criteria; Wikipedia made and change rules about criteria of notability. Also, verifiability on one event or another may be met. That's why we're putting "notability" and "verifiability" aside to weigh in on article content itself by value and quality. Look at the article and another, and tell me if the topic itself is worth explaining further and keeping a fork article. -- George Ho ( talk) 07:59, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
ummm, no, we cannot. I base my votes on wikipedia's inclusion policies and back those votes up, not on whether I think it should be here, or that its too trivial, or any other excuse. Hey, surprise! The news talks about trivial things. If they do it enough, we get an article! I completely disagree with your analysis, as news sources are our normal source of info. If you're suggesting a massive policy change that considers ALL news from EVERY paper, tv station etc, as a SINGLE SOURCE, I'm afraid you won't get much traction, AND you'll invalidate about 100,000 current articles which quote only news sources. Notability may not have "actual criteria", but the GNG explains that Significant Coverage (which I've shown) SHOWS Notability. Even aside from that, this Businessweek article shows the significance of AK's Twitter account in big business, investment, and startups. Clearly notable, by any standard.  The Steve  08:23, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
...All right, I'll rephrase on the 1,000-article part: primary events directly about this topic, such as statistics and messages, have been retold by non-primary sources. Retelling of all Twitter activities might count as one; impact by account might count as another. I got two. Review on account is the third. Unfortunately, a review on one or multiple postings... are not worthy of inclusion. For instance, why including a negative or positive opinion about Kutcher's competition with CNN to battle malaria? Should we include that? A book, which may inspire reviews, or a movie about Twitter and Ashton can tell a better narrative than this article. -- George Ho ( talk) 08:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
There's now four distinct people in this little chain, so let's not attribute anything one person said to another. As to George, my personal favorite is still his diplomatic mission to Russia concerning social networking, that certain doesn't work for any random celeb on any random website. Moreover, not just being the first to have a million followers, but turning it into both a public event and a philanthropic platform seem, well, significant, if nothing else. In regards to the value of the article, understanding that we've put aside policy-based considerations for a moment, I can easily see someone interested in specifically the subject of him on Twitter, while not, to use Andy's terms, giving any damns at all about his filmography. Whether the best way to facilitate giving that person the information they want is a separate article or a subsection goes into a discussion of link navigation and search engines and the like, and is probably a discussion worth having on the article's talk-page in the future. Similarly, the article's quality is something for the editing process, and although I wouldn't exactly call it poor now, no doubt it could be improved. What I am confident about, looking at value and quality, is that deleting the article doesn't benefit much of anything. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 08:32, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
How does keeping the stand-alone article benefit anything, as well? -- George Ho ( talk) 08:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
I assume you mean as opposed to a merge? Wouldn't be the worst thing that ever happened, but it risks turning interesting information into a factoid without context. Although maybe you're asking me something else? Darryl from Mars ( talk) 09:48, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
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.
  1. ^ Smith, Peter (2009-02-09). "Twitter and the Dalai Lama". IT World. Retrieved 2012-05-27.
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ashton_Kutcher_on_Twitter&oldid=1221041228"
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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. Simple vote counting puts delete votes slightly ahead of keep votes (roughly 60/40). An analysis of the arguments shows that most Keep voters argue that the topic passes WP:GNG, owing to the vast quantity of sources available on the subject. That argument is countered to some degree by those claiming that the vast majority of the sources are not primarily about the specific topic of Kutcher's use of Twitter, but otherwise I believe the consensus is that the topic most likely passes WP:GNG. However, the Delete voters make a compelling case for why passing WP:GNG doesn't matter in this case, and that's because policy trumps guidelines. The policy in this case is WP:NOT, in particular WP:INDISCRIMINATE (and to some degree WP:NOTDIARY), which states that "merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia." In the discussions below, there are many examples of other potential topics that receive a lot of coverage in reliable sources, but otherwise would not be suitable for an article as they would violate WP:NOT. In any case, I would be ok with restoring the article for the purpose of merging some of its material to other articles, upon request on my talk page. -Scottywong | comment _ 19:06, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Ashton Kutcher on Twitter

Ashton Kutcher on Twitter (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log • Stats)
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Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, I am not sure how a person's account on Twitter can be seen as being worthy of an account.

Things like Category:Celebrity_Twitter_accounts make a mockery of building an encyclopaedia. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:30, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply

Keep Justin Bieber on Twitter just became a WP:GA and there is a lot of encyclopedic content that belongs in this article that is to detailed for a general biography. The article clearly passes WP:GNG.-- TonyTheTiger ( T/ C/ BIO/ WP:CHICAGO/ WP:FOUR) 13:40, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Keep although when I passed the Justin Bieber on Twitter GA, I did note that I don't really like Twitter articles. However, it passes WP:GNG so it is acceptable. Regards, ⇒ T A P 13:52, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. TonyTheTiger ( T/ C/ BIO/ WP:CHICAGO/ WP:FOUR) 13:52, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Comment Please don't take this as argumentative or confrontational as it's not meant to be. But the sentence "They <Kutcher and GF> were a measuring stick by which Twitter was determined to have gone mainstream in early 2009." and the accompanying source is evidence for the notability of the Twitter article, not a justification for an entire article on Kutcher's Twitter account. And, to paraphrase Vituzzu's comments, non-notability is a definite reason to delete an article but the reverse is not necessarily true. Notability ("fame and popularity") is not a guarantee for inclusion. If an article doesn't measure up to any of the Wikipedia:Five pillars, the "fundamental principles" of the project, it shouldn't be included. This article doesn't measure up to the first pillar: there's no redeeming academic value, it is WP:INDISCRIMINATE and fails WP:NOT#NEWSREPORTS-- William Thweatt Talk | Contribs 21:38, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Quote and source are evidence for the notability of the article in question, also. You have not said why you feel INDISCRIMINATE and NOTNEWS apply, so I will not address those. I would love for "academic value" to be given the weight of a rule or essay as a point in favor of inclusion, like a sort of tiebreaker, but AFAIK it has no standing in a deletion discussion, nor would I want it to. Anarchangel ( talk) 21:39, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply
As an academic writing in this area, yes, there is redeeming academic value. -- LauraHale ( talk) 21:41, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Academic writing? -- Vituzzu ( talk) 22:04, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
My doctoral thesis is in this area, and I've had more conversations with academics about Twitter, Twitter's role in society, Twitter metrics than you'd probably like to know. I've also talked to people in three departments in my university about this topic in how to design coursework related to this topic, and I've given a training session for industry folks where this type of material would be covered. Twitter is being written about extensively in various parts of the academic world. If you want to cry no-academic value, as some one in that space, it doesn't wash. I suppose the people writing about extinct birds and first century generals from Greece are unlikely to write about Twitter academically, but others in communications, popular culture studies, sociology and business are. -- LauraHale ( talk) 22:18, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
My claim is that there is no academic value in maintaining individual "X on Twitter" articles (I should have been more clear on that). We already have an article, Use of Twitter by celebrities and politicians where the use of these Twitter accounts can written about and centralized. If that's not enough, see my suggestions below. After all, if I'm reading what your saying correctly, it's the use of these twitter accounts that is of interest, not the existence of them. The individual "X on Twitter" articles just border on WP:Fancruft.
That would be nice. I have a whole chapter in my thesis about a specific twitter account. There is academic value in maintaining these because they are a great launching off point for people in several fields doing work in this area. The individual articles, which clearly pass WP:GNG, offer valid case studies. This is why they are of academic interest, despite the claims you're making otherwise. -- LauraHale ( talk) 22:46, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep: While I'm not a huge fan of more of these articles, the article passes independent WP:GNG. The articles have value in that they explain how social media and current culture work and would probably be useful in marketing, communications or popular culture studies classes. -- LauraHale ( talk) 21:31, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Comment I would think that the information that provides "value in that they explain how social media and current culture work" should be in the twitter article. If, indeed, it is the case that there is some useful academic information it should be combined into a "meta-article" such as "Twitter in Marketing" or "Twitter's use in popular culture" and have these "famous and popular" examples redirected and included as examples, rather than having multiple individual "X on Twitter" articles and dealing with the same issues every time a new one comes up.
How long do you propose making these articles if you include all the heavily covered WP:GNG eligible Twitter accounts? The case studies these articles represent in an academic sense would quickly explode out a page and could not be dealt with with out presenting WP:UNDUE problems. I think you're trying to cite academic work as an excuse with out having much familiarity with the multi-discplinary work being done in this sphere. WP:IDONTLIKEIT appears to me what the argument boils down because the academic one is not a valid argument. -- LauraHale ( talk) 02:44, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply
So why doesn't it fall under WP:OR? (Theoretically it could have been a COI too) -- Vituzzu ( talk) 11:21, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply
The whole thing is reliably sourced, passes WP:GNG, does not do WP:SYNTH to try to push a point of view that the sources do not support. Hence, it is not WP:OR. What sort of WP:COI are you implying? If you're implying Tony has one, I need to see some evidence of it. If you're implying I have it, early draft of my thesis shows this has little to do with my methodological approach and isn't fundamental to my topic. I'm not supporting this with the intention of using it in a classroom. As an argument had been made this was not of academic interest, I pointed out it clearly WAS of academic interest. No WP:COI there. Go fish again? -- LauraHale ( talk) 11:34, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Feel free to deem it fishing but, again, it's always you saying it has some academic interest, it has a "stand-alone" importance, all the infos in the page are in topic (even these) and, finally, it's always you saying it passes WP:GNG. -- Vituzzu ( talk) 23:53, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply
You said it doesn't have academic interest, based on criteria I do not understand. The article clearly passes WP:GNG because Kutcher's Twitter usage has been covered independently of other Kutcher topics. I think there would be a struggle for over half the articles on Wikipedia to have as many media references as Kutcher on Twitter. And the topic does have stand alone importance because the goal to get a million followers was widely covered by the media and demonstrates social media related issues in wider culture and marketing. You've yet to demonstrate the topic doesn't pass WP:GNG unless you dismiss thousands of articles from multiple media organisations from several different places around the globe. You haven't offered a compelling reason why this would not be of academic interest, despite claiming it isn't. Google Scholar shows you're wrong about academic interest. This appears to be a fishing expedition, especially when WP:COI was thrown in, in order to justify a vote based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I don't like articles about Pokemon or Bieber albums but they pass WP:GNG so they stay. -- LauraHale ( talk) 05:16, 12 June 2012 (UTC) reply
So your best point is in order to justify a vote based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT, is it a kind invite to leave the discussion? Again, you're both producing and judging academic production about that topic, that's a form of COI, since is quite natural all of us will tend to underline the relevance of his own research topics. I already said why, according to me, it doesn't pass the GNG and the only answer I got is such a sort of mantra "it passes WP:GNG" (repeated n-times). As I tried to say dozens of times nothing shows it has an "stand-alone" relevancy, it can be easily summarized and merged into Kutcher's page. -- Vituzzu ( talk) 11:31, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep His twitter actions do get ample press coverage. Having read through the article, I see it is clearly a valid content fork from his main article. Dream Focus 21:39, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep Passes WP:GNG. Marketing, Media and Technology are all valid encyclopaedic subjects. Hawkeye7 ( talk) 22:29, 10 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 01:29, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply

Arbitrary break - Non-vote consensus?

  • Neutral for now(?) - This AFD should have been opened as "{{ not a vote}}" at the start. Therefore, voting would have been avoided or lessened, even if numerous "keeps" would make this discussion SNOWy. "Keeps" rely on WP:GNG as part of argument, yet even news media is insufficient proof that this topic is actually notable; one article or 1,000 articles do not prove sufficiency, but at least they're trying. Nevertheless, real-life events happen, and impact (i.e. effects from and on this topic) has been well-sourced enough to balance this article. Hopefully, one academic source, like a peer journal, a published essay, or some mainstream book, would have been enough for this topic to pass GNG. As I'm reading WP:notability, I figured that the notability of this has gained due to some pedophilia case in football and the notable celebrity himself. Nevertheless, I'm reading WP:notability (events) and WP:notability (web), and maybe those who want to vote must study these after this post and before voting. -- George Ho ( talk) 14:18, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    Time Magazine [1] covers how popular the guy's account is. And this article isn't about one event, its about someone's twitter account which has had multiple events which have been covered in the media. We wouldn't create an entire article for just one media covered twitter event. Dream Focus 00:01, 12 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    I'm not sure if it passes WP:GNG; 1,000 news sources do not implicate widespread attention. To me, GNG is poorly cited, so I can't use it for arguments. I don't think "(events)" applies because the subject was used by the celebrity for such events. Nevertheless, let's use "(web)" then:

    Similarly, a website may be notable, but the owners or authors do not "inherit" notability due to the web content they wrote.

    The above quote passes by the impact Ashton made on Twitter: the loss of Demi, and the shutdown itself.

    When evaluating the notability of web content, please consider whether they have had any significant or demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education. High-traffic websites are likely to have more readily available verifiable information from reliable sources that provide evidence of notability. However, smaller websites can be notable. Arbitrary standards should not be used to create a bias favoring larger websites.

    Challenging CNN for bed sheets that reduce risks of malaria helps this topic achieve it. Fortunately, it passes " WP:Notability (web)" because of those events and other events that meet above, but how does it pass GNG? I crossed out my neutrality because I'm starting to figure out that this topic meets (an)other subject-notability guideline(s). -- George Ho ( talk) 00:25, 12 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    Shall I add {{ not a vote}} in this arbitrary break then? -- George Ho ( talk) 00:29, 12 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    What are your thoughts on the academic references available to cite? -- LauraHale ( talk) 05:18, 12 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    Some are inaccessible, as purchase is required. There are some with full access: AAAI.org. I'm still finding ones that pass "significant coverage" and all other criteria of GNG. I get a feeling that GNG is the most unique yet misunderstood or miscited. Many sources there discuss popularity of Kutcher's account and trivially Kutcher's use of Twitter. Someone can be brave enough to go through all Scholar results... I don't know if I'm the one. -- George Ho ( talk) 05:50, 12 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Comment: Nomination doesn't state any grounds for deletion. I don't care how useless twitter is, I'm sure the nominator has written articles I would personally find useless. But my subjective view is not relevant.-- Milowent • has spoken 20:53, 11 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Strong keep Notable article. WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a reason to delete. Statυs ( talk) 03:16, 16 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Yes, it isn't. Fortunately, no one uses that argument. Instead there have been arguments about content, encyclopedic quality, whether to merge, etc. You, on the other hand, don't seem to have an argument in favor of keeping it--so can I refer you to WP:ILIKEIT? Drmies ( talk) 22:46, 25 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. Down this path lies madness. The President of the USA is regularly covered by newspapers, but does that mean we should have a Barack Obama in the New York Times section? Obviously the Ashton Kutcher article should have a paragraph or two about his presence on Twitter, but having an entirely separate article for what at the end of the day boils down to a single factoid ("first use with a million followers") is complete overkill and serves no useful purpose. Jpatokal ( talk) 12:05, 16 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Questions It seems that this article is about a publisher of information and their means of publishing it, is that not one valid way to look at this? Are there publisher/publishing notability guidelines that should or do exist? Alanscottwalker ( talk) 12:32, 16 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Keep Given the citations available and the arguments above and below, this appears to be a notable and discrete topic in the "new media" category, like the articles about individual "blogs." Alanscottwalker ( talk) 12:49, 21 June 2012 (UTC) reply

Arbitrary break 2 - Relisting

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, DGG ( talk ) 05:21, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep - Valid WP:GNG Wikipedia:Summary style of Ashton_Kutcher#Twitter_presence and, to the credit of the editors of Ashton Kutcher on Twitter, not much in the way of citing to Kutcher's Twitter account to support the Ashton Kutcher on Twitter article. "became the first Twitter account with 1 million followers in April 2009" - of course the news sources are going to write about his Twitter account and have follow up stories on it, giving Wikipedia plenty of material for the spinout article. Wikipedia:Summary style reqires enough text in the given Ashton_Kutcher#Twitter_presence subtopic to merit its own article, so you might want to expand Wikipedia:Summary style. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 09:16, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • P.S. - For what it's worth, I recently iVoted to delete Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Personal life of Jennifer Lopez largely because it failed Wikipedia:Summary style, due in part to the lack of cooperation with the editors of the Jennifer Lopez article and lack of restraint in adding trivial details to the Personal life of Jennifer Lopez article. The 'Ashton Kutcher on Twitter' article has cooperation with the editors of the Ashton Kutcher (even though there is some disagreement) and shows retraint on adding trivial details to the 'Ashton Kutcher on Twitter' article. Plus, it has what I noted above. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 14:50, 19 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. While Ashton Kutcher is notable, I can't imagine why a Twitter account would need a Wikipedia article. JIP | Talk 10:00, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • The same reasons Sam and Diane from Cheers need an article about themselves, which I created. Frankly, it was nominated as AFD, but the nomination was withdrawn. Unfortunately, in this case, the bickering about Twitter and Ashton Kutcher can't go away here. -- George Ho ( talk) 10:10, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete: In my opinion, this is a synthesis of published material that advances a position ( Wp:Synth) which is the claim that this Twitter account is notable: it seems that the significant coverage in reliable sources doesn't establishes a presumption that this subject is suitable for being included in any kind of encyclopedia ( WP:GNG, last point of the list), it could be treated as a pure curiosity.-- Nickanc ( talk) 11:49, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Because his twitter account has gotten ample coverages in the media, for being so popular, as well as various things that have happened involving it. That isn't synthesis. Dream Focus 16:16, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Question LauraHale, you mentioned your thesis, and said one of the chapters was on a particular twitter account. I gather it's not his, or you would have said so, so what account is it? (if you don't want to be specific, what type of account--a person in what field?) Second, do you think you could in fact do a chapter on his? and do you think an academic article on his would be accepted by a first-rate journal? Third, perhaps you could summarize some of the paywalled sources in terms of how much of the content is about this account in particular? DGG ( talk ) 15:39, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • DGG: I have (sub after reorganisation) chapters on Brendon Fevola on Twitter and Anna Meares on Twitter, with a fair bit about Zac Dawson on Twitter. Very early drafts of this material can be found here, here and here. If anyone created those, I'd probably support deletion of them. As Kutcher is not an Australian sport topic, it would not fit into my topic. I could probably easily write a paper about Kutcher on Twitter. If I was very motivated, I could probably get it published in an academic journal of first rate in popular culture, but you'd be looking at a six month to two year lag AFTER I submitted it. (Conference presentation would thus be easier.) I've had a debate as to whether or not I could probably get away with, with conference organiser permission, present Justin Bieber on Twitter as a conference "paper" but that's because the quality of that article is much, much higher. (If I wanted to spend the time, there are a number of accounts that I could probably do that for.) It is important to remember that with a topic like social media, there is going to be an academic lag in writing about it. (Thus, conference papers better.) The publishing methods do not allow for faster times to publish. Hence, there is a reliance on newspaper sources.-- LauraHale ( talk) 04:54, 18 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Specifically looking behind pay wall data bases I have access to, I can see one article directly on this topic: "The real meaning of Ashton Kutcher's 1M Twitter followers. Dumenco, Simon; Dumenco, Simon., Advertising Age (0001-8899)" One article that specifically mentions Kutcher and Twitter in the abstract is "Ulanoff L. Facebook Challenges Twitter to Celebrity Deathmatch!. PC Magazine [serial online]. June 2009;28(6):1. Available from: Computers & Applied Sciences Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed June 18, 2012." This abstract says: "This article discusses how the social network Facebook is trying to encourage celebrities into using their website to connect with others. The author speculates that this effort is in direct response to rival social network Twitter. The press release available from Facebook on how celebrities and brands can transform their pages is discussed. Celebrities who use Twitter and Facebook include actor Ashton Kutcher and basketball player Shaquille O'Neal. It is suggested that despite the press release, Facebook is still more complex to use than Twitter." The following also mentions both together: The Twitter scorecard. Publishers Weekly. 256.20 (May 18, 2009) p4. Word Count: 182. From Literature Resource Center. The first sentence says: "Although everyone's still a little unsure of just how valuable a Twitter following is--does Ashton Kutcher really have more pull than CNN?--celebrities, news organizations and entertainment conglomerates are scrambling to get more followers on the social networking site. " Another article behind a pay wall is Wheaton K. Twitter no substitute for good ol' one-way communication. Advertising Age [serial online]. April 20, 2009;80(14):25. Available from: Communication & Mass Media Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed June 18, 2012.. Abstract is: "The article discusses actor Ashton Kutcher, and his race to become the first user of the social messaging tool Twitter to obtain one million followers. It is said that Kutcher's use of billboards and television appearances to advertise his Twitter stunt was contrary to the spirit of online social networking." Reading the articles about Kutcher and Twitter, they come from a popular culture studies or marketing discipline. The focus is not on Ashton himself, but rather the use of Twitter as a platform for communication and the effectiveness of Kutcher (and thus other celebrities like him) in tasks like fund raising, getting media attention, promoting causes and doing outreach. Without reading the current article, I'd expect this to be a major focus where Kutcher is almost the side story. (Which is the case for the Bieber article.) If the article is about Kutcher, it is doing it wrong. Hopefully, that answers your questions. (Please don't ask me to write about this academically. :) )-- LauraHale ( talk) 04:54, 18 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • More comment on this. danah boyd is one of THE leaders in the field of social media research. (My supervisor has been urging me to cite Boyd more.) danah boyd wrote: 7.To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter

Alice Marwick; danah boyd. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. May 2011. Vol.17,Iss.2;p.139 - 158. Source: SAGE Premier 2012. Kutcher's practices for use on Twitter were repeatedly cited in this paper and how it compares to others, in some cases explaining how this conceputalizes how Twitter itself is understood. Quote: "Responsiveness on Twitter is variable: while Ashton Kutcher may not write back to his fans, a fan will typically write back to him, and Ashton Kutcher will typically respond to other celebrities. This type of public recognition marks certain people as more important than others." And yeah, the existing article is pretty crap in that it focuses on Twitter metrics, with out contextualizing WHY this is encyclopediac. -- LauraHale ( talk) 05:10, 18 June 2012 (UTC) reply

  • Delete There's some synthesis going on here, and the subject can have ample coverage in the articles on Ashton Kutcher and Twitter. Frankly, all of these Celebrity X on Twitter articles are embarrassing and they all need to be merged into Use of Twitter by celebrities and politicians and leave it at that. AniMate 17:13, 17 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep When I saw this mentioned on DGG's page, I was certain I was going to come here and request not just deletion, but complete and utter destruction. But, after reading the comments here, and thinking about it, and checking the article itself, this article is essentially the equivalent of The Rest of the Story--it's a description of a particular type of published content, that has importance (notability, in our terms) independent of the author himself (or his publicists--whoever actually writes the content). It seems problematic because we have no easy way to title the article that makes it clear that this is an article about a work of literature (I mean that in the broad, postmodern sense), but, nonetheless, this is what it covers. Now, merger may be appropriate, but I think that such a discussion would occur better on Talk:Ashton Kutcher, as such a discussion might need more than the AfD format (and time limit) can provide. If you want the WP terms, this subject meets WP:GNG and thus is notable enough for an article, and I see no pressing other need to demand deletion. Qwyrxian ( talk) 03:25, 18 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep For my tastes, all the celebrity-twitter-related articles should be deleted, starting from Justin Bieber on Twitter, but looking at cited (and not cited) sources this subject clearly passes our notability guideline. Cavarrone ( talk) 09:56, 18 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Weak delete or merge the applicable policy here is ...not case studies, which states that we should be cautious in how we treat "situation X in location Y" or "version X of item Y" types of articles. There ARE enough sources to create articles about television appearances of Barack Obama, newspaper coverage of Barack Obama, humor and entertainment of Barack Obama, and any other number of forks. (And you can see how similar articles could be written for other major public figures.) The principle at play in WP:NOT is that we can let sources dictate what verifiable content should appear in articles, but not always the proportion or organization of said articles. It's possible that celebrities on Twitter or some other article would make sense. But we already have Twitter usage and there has to be an intelligent way to fork this, instead of creating numerous articles about case by case by case. Again, Wikipedia is not a collection of case studies. Shooterwalker ( talk) 22:20, 18 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Quoting from the part on case studies: "This is perfectly acceptable when the two variables put together represent some culturally significant phenomenon or some otherwise notable interest." In the case of of Ashton Kutchet, it does represent that as the research done by academics and the mentions in several marketing related texts demonstrate. This doesn't hold true for say an article titled Anna Meares on Twitter where her Twitter usage doesn't pass WP:GNG and does not represent "some culturally significant phenomenon" because her use and place inside the Twitter hierarchy isn't particularly noteworthy. I think you'd be lucky to have maybe 20 accounts which would pass this threshold, as demonstrated by the Rhianna article being deleted. (And a deletion I fully supported. Nothing noteworthy about her usage and nothing that demonstrated "some culturally significant phenomenon".) -- LauraHale ( talk) 00:34, 19 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep -- most of the "X on Twitter" articles are borderline or delete candidates, and most popular culture figures who use twitter cannot sustain a sub-discussion fork to "X on Twitter", but the article is well-sourced. A merge to the main article would be inappropriate because it would dominate an article that is already pushing prime article length. It would be nice if the photo represented Kutcher specifically on Twitter, but that's no reason to delete. I'm generally against expanding celebrity worship on WP, but this article more than passes the bar. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 00:22, 19 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete after merging a very slimmed down version to the main article. -- Bensin ( talk) 01:07, 20 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Question for Bensin: The main article being Twitter? Because of the focus on follower totals and the relative weight of these statistics towards understanding how Twitter works as a marketing and social tool? -- LauraHale ( talk) 01:21, 20 June 2012 (UTC) reply
I would suggest that the "main article" be Use of Twitter by celebrities and politicians.-- William Thweatt Talk Contribs 02:18, 20 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Do you think the information on Kutcher would fit there? It would seem, unless scaled back to one or two sentences, it would be WP:UNDUE. The list also has a current US centric problem. Hugo Chavez's use of Twitter is not included, and he gave away a house to his I believe three-millionth follower. There is nothing in there about the South Australian Tourist board use of celebrities to promote Kangaroo Island, and this recieved a fair amount of Australian coverage. The article as it stands is awful and I think a good rewrite would end up removing him as there are many, many, many celebrities and politicians use Twitter. Can you please explain why you think Kutcher would be relevant? -- LauraHale ( talk) 04:15, 20 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Answer to LauraHale: Thats a good question! Perhaps it's best to split the article and merge the parts into Ashton Kutcher, Twitter and Use of Twitter by celebrities and politicians. Any description and important examples of how Twitter works as a marketing and social tool belongs in the article about Twitter. -- Bensin ( talk) 16:30, 20 June 2012 (UTC) reply
I don't think anybody is questioning Twitters role in contemporary society, but that role is best described in the article about Twitter. -- Bensin ( talk) 16:30, 20 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Up to what level? Although, if I didn't make it clear before, I'm more or less referring to celebrities like Kutcher (including Gaga, Bieber, Britney, etc) on Twitter. — Bill william compton Talk 03:00, 21 June 2012 (UTC) reply
There is a common article for all celebrities on Wikipedia. §§ AnimeshKulkarni ( talk) 17:42, 28 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep, because it's a legitimate source of information as a stand-alone article, and then, in general, X_on_Twitter only has to solve the same problem WikiProject:Numbers had, how far to go? Laura mentioned, what, ten, 20 at best? Hardly the plague most of the Merge/Deletes seems to be fearing, especially when 1089_(number) isn't a problem.
woops, signature. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 00:23, 21 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. I usually argue WP should be about Cézanne and Niobium, with most anything BLP avoided. However, in this case Kutcher's twitter acct has made a lot of contemporary news: CNN, Wired, NPR and the NYT. I hate this topic, but it is a highly notable cultural trend and in particular has been around for several years, so I think it's time to bite the bullet and declare it OK. -- Ultracobalt  ( talk) 06:13, 21 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - it's a minor section in his bio , not a separate article bloated by trivia. - Youreally can 23:53, 23 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Based on a re-reading of LauraHales information about the sources and their significance, it seems to be there is no substantial basis for the separate notability of this subject, and it constitutes excessive coverage, even by our usually very liberal standards for popular celebrities. The keep arguments basically are saying that the use of twitter by such individuals is a notable subject; I agree with that, but it doesn't mean that the use of it by any one particular individual celebrity is therefore separately notable. I think it would take unusually strong evidence to justify such a split, and the evidence here is a great deal weaker than that, and weaker even by our usual standards. DGG ( talk ) 07:45, 24 June 2012 (UTC) reply
This appears to be a misperception of the argument, which is that given the amount and wide nature of sources that discuss this individual's publications in the new medium, it is a notable and discreet topic by the wider world's standards and therefore by Wikipedia's. Outlets that popularize a new medium or have used it in a distinct way are often the subject of their own article (see eg., Nupedia (long defunct), SCOTUSblog (ongoing) etc., etc.) - Alanscottwalker ( talk) 09:41, 24 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Wikipedia's standards for keeping an article does not require an academic article that would be accepted by a first-rate journal. Wikipedia's articles do not need to meet FA standards to be kept and the request for LauraHales' information and opinion about the sources and their significance towards an academic article that would be accepted by a first-rate journal is not a way to judge a basis for the separate notability of this subject. My own research turned up more than 240 news articles having Kutcher and Twitter in the title of the news article alone, more than enough to populate article topic subsections such as History, Twitter usage as a communication platform, Reaction, etc. and to provide strong evidence of separate WP:GNG notability of this topic. In a sense, this is a new type of article for Wikipedia. We have articles on newspapers, magazines, and other media communication outlets such as the Oprah Winfrey Network. In the "X on Twitter, Facebook, etc." article, you have a media communication outlet essentially run by one person (probably with the help of their team, publicists, lawyers, etc.), with content covering one person, where that single person media communication outlet is written about by numerous Wikipedia reliable sources (which makes it Wikipedia notable). Because of the newness of these types of article, there's no direct pattern of subsection headings in which to structure the article around, so initially we're going to get some articles longer than they should be and not as well structured as they should be (which is not a reason to delete). We should not crush these new type of Wikipedia articles; instead, we should let them develop and bring out a structured pattern based on a thorough survey of the relevant literature, which will include scholarly articles in the future per LauraHale. In advance of that, looking at the subsections for The New York Times and other media communication outlet articles may provide some guidance: History (straight forward and always a must in my book), Ownership (we assume it's one person but research focused on this would show it probably is a team effort), Content (probably not as important as it is for the New York Times), Usage as a communication platform (LauraHale's suggestion; the article largely should focus on this), Reaction (yes, this is important). There's probably are other subsections that would fit. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 08:59, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Arbitrary break 3 - Relisting, Part Deux

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Tom Morris ( talk) 23:22, 24 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Relisting comment I'm relisting this for another week, as although there has been a lot of participation, there seems scant regard for actually building a compelling case for deletion.
    • Many keep !voters cited the WP:GNG. Most of the delete !voters have thus far seemed unable to challenge the assertion that it does meet the GNG, with only George Ho suggesting somehow that 1,000 newspaper articles does not satisfy the GNG. This strikes me as an implausible reading of both the plain words of the GNG and long-standing practice at AfD and DRV.
    • Some delete !voters advanced the view that the article breaches WP:SYNTH. I have not seen any argument advanced as to how exactly the article is synthesising published material to advance a position. If it is, it should surely be discernible what the position it is advancing is. User:Nickanc advances the argument that the synthesis is to push the position that the topic is notable. This seems like a frankly mad argument to me. It misunderstands the nature of notability and also misunderstands the desideratum behind having a policy against original research, of which the ban on synthesis is a section. All Wikipedia articles synthesise notability from multiple sources: is Tom Cruise notable because Time wrote about him? No. Is he notable because USA Today wrote about him? No. Is he notable because Time, USA Today, MSNBC, Entertainment Weekly and the BBC have written about him. Sure. Is this synthesis? In the common and ordinary sense of the term, yes. But that's uninteresting. The policy on WP:SYNTHESIS is what is included in the article, not on what decisions go on behind the scenes about notability.
      • Perhaps instead those suggesting WP:SYNTH are suggesting that the article has to synthesise together sources that cover both Twitter and Ashton Kutcher. That's sort of what articles do. How is this different from, say, the article on Christianity and homosexuality or World War II and American animation?
        • Bleh. I agree that it is perhaps better to leave the notability policy out of the test for synthesis, but I disagree with your reasoning that it would fail that test. Synthesis is advancing a new third conclusion based on two or more disparate facts. The fact that a person is in X number of news stories can be expressed as X separate facts, but they are so similar, it is unnecessary. And the conclusion that is reached is always the same no matter which news stories or how many. Assessing the value of the sources themselves is complicated (substantial coverage? independent?), but counting them up is the most basic of calculations and is allowed under WP:CALC. Anarchangel ( talk) 00:49, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Then there's WP:INDISCRIMINATE. I'm not sure that this works too well either. I'm not wild about the way the article is structured, but I cannot for the life of me see how that based on the sources used, one can honestly say that it is indiscriminate. It covers the stated topic perfectly well enough.
    • The primary reason seems to be a non-policy-based expression of frustration: "Down this path lies madness", making "a mockery of building an encyclopedia" etc. Frustration and dislike of celebrity culture is perfectly understandable (I share absolutely no desire to follow Mr Kutcher's tweets) but basically amounts to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. — Tom Morris ( talk) 23:29, 24 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • I'm a Keep voter, but I think that several Delete voters have been building a compelling case as well, mostly based on excessive coverage (for instance, there is coverage of Barack Obama every day in reliable sources, but I hope we don't make a Barack Obama in the News on 24 June 2012 article...). DGG leans on this argument in a particularly compelling argument. I'm not convinced, but I do think that it is a compelling case that could build consensus; I agree that relisting is a good idea, but mainly because I don't see one side as forming a consensus over the other. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 02:03, 25 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete The key issue here is that to establish notability we're looking for articles that are substantially about the subject, not just mention it. There seem to be no sources that are solely or primarily about the Twitter account of this person, so clearly the sources are being used in a very WP:SYNTH-like manner. You can basically find source mentions of any topic, but just having footnotes doesn't mean that a topic is notable -- they must be of a certain caliber and depth into the subject when notability is disputed. Steven Walling •  talk 23:32, 24 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • You need to check the sources again with special attention to articles like this Time magazine article and this New York Times article.-- TonyTheTiger ( T/ C/ BIO/ WP:CHICAGO/ WP:FOUR) 23:59, 24 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • Once again, those sources are not solely or primarily about Ashton's Twitter, but rather about Celebrity use of Twitter overall. The content that is substantially about the Ashton Kutcher account is relatively small. Having a series of articles like this when the sources that are reliable only support notability for general celebrity use of Twitter is not appropriate. Steven Walling •  talk 02:20, 25 June 2012 (UTC) reply
        • This reasoning is rather weak in light of the countervailing standard that a particularly noted intersection or outlet of "new media" and another topic, like "celebrity" (or "encyclopedias" or "breaking news" or any other general topic), make for a focused article on in depth aspects of the other topics, as well as its own. (See also, The Washington Post [2] and AdAge). Alanscottwalker ( talk) 14:28, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • On reading the policy on synthesis you seem to be trying to explain your point with, it still seems entirely unrelated; or if I interpret it in a way that is related, an inaccurate accusation. Any claims made in the article about Ashton Kutcher's twitter usage and it's treatment in the media seem to be verifiable in the associated sources. If you're talking about claims made on this page, of course, WP:SYNTHNOT, though just an essay, the forth section explains the issue with that appropriately. As for just looking at notability, note that 'Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material'. And while I'm sure anything anyone says about Ashton seems trivial (I know it does to me), the reason for having more than a trivial mention is noted further down, in WP:WHYN, "We require "significant coverage" in reliable sources so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic. If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page, but should instead be merged into an article about a larger topic or relevant list." This is clearly not an issue for this article. In other words, if either of these concerns were particularly valid, to say nothing of being grounds for deletion, there would be notable problems with the article itself, such as a preponderance of unsupported statements, or the article would be nothing more than a stub with no hope for expansion. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 05:56, 25 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Comment- Just for kicks, must I remind you this for historical study: WP:articles for deletion/Olivia Hack. -- George Ho ( talk) 23:57, 24 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Merge back into AK's main article (which is surprisingly short and begs for why this is spun out?), and if necessary from there, spin out the filmography of AK into a separate article. Because this involves a BLP, as much of the BLP information should be kept in a single article to make its maintenance simpler. It's not that this isn't notable, but because of how we handle BLPs, we need to be really careful when we do these types of spinouts. (This is a problem all the "X on Twitter" articles have). -- MASEM ( t) 15:41, 25 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. I don't see what good a redirect would do. Some of the content--some of it--could find a way into his main article, but this thing as an article in its own right is ridiculous. What's the purpose? (That's a rhetorical question.) There is nothing encyclopedic, of lasting value, about this article that is somehow separate from the subject himself to such an extent that it needs to be treated separately (like Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories, which has little to do with Obama and everything with BLP violations pre-redacted); it seems, rather, an excuse to collect a bunch of facts and numbers to create a DYK/GA, riding on the wave of X on Twitter. Which reminds me: someone needs to write Twitter on Twitter--should be easy. Drmies ( talk) 22:55, 25 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • So, I ended up running myself all around Wikipedia to see if I could find an actual basis for the conclusions you've drawn about the article being ridiculous or having no encyclopedic value; the crux of your argument to delete much more so than aspersions on author motivations. As of yet, I haven't found much, so if you could offer up something to justify deletion more concrete than the, as already identified, very 'idon'tlikeit' frustration, that'd be helpful... Darryl from Mars ( talk) 05:32, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • You didn't have to run anywhere--you could just read my comment. "I don't like it"? Do you have anything to offer besides "it's a legitimate source of information as a stand-alone article", which is nothing but "because I say so"? Drmies ( talk) 18:31, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
        • We need policy to justify -not- deleting the article now? Well then, let's start from the beginning. It passes WP:GNG, it's WP:V, and as far as I can tell WP:NPOV, not WP:PLAG, not WP:VSCA (Yeah, that's an essay, but linking to each thing individual seems silly even now)...In other words, it's an article, written on a topic that isn't WP:CARES, with sourced information from not unreasonable sources. I could obviously go on, but, really, this seems backwards, should I be going through all the 'reasons for deletion' that you either don't have or haven't mentioned, just to tell you there's been no solid, actual argument made for deleting it? And I'm not just saying 'rawr you need a policy', though it'd be helpful, there just hasn't been an argument that could reasonably be supported by any policy that's, you know, not 'idontlikeit'. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 22:34, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Merge back to Ashton Kutcher Sure, it's worth having a section on the main article about the Twitter account, but pointless to break out a separate article about it. OhNoitsJamie Talk 14:57, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Comment Reasons such as "Down this path lies madness", making "a mockery of building an encyclopedia" etc. and similar "expressions of frustration" are not IDONTLIKEIT, but policy based arguments, based around the fundamental pillar of policy that WP is an Encyclopedia--all our other rules are really just explanations of it. If I were going to say IDONTLIKEIT, I would use it on the main article on the person! (for that matter, the support for a separate article cannot truly be characterised as I LIKE IT, which would mean they like the tweets; rather, the argument amounts to the even more infantile, IWANTIT). I am indeed feeling quite concerned at this attempt to subvert the principle of building an encyclopedia by breaking out mini-articles from sections of an article which happen to sound attractive. Masem's argument a little above for merging expresses the positive way an encyclopedia should handle such material. . I have in the past often supported break out articles on popular culture--even popular culture that I dislike extremely-- but the primary reason for my support has that they've mostly been instances where the material would otherwise have been edited into non-existence. That's not in danger hereAnd I continue to rely on Laurahale's discussion of the secondary sourcing as a demonstration that there is no substantial coverage, only mention as one a a large number of similar phenomena in which every well known person with a twitter following can be included. I am particular impressed by her comment that as a specialist in the general subject she would not want to write a scholarly article on this. DGG ( talk ) 22:24, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Well, this popped while I was editing and happened to be on the pillar page. The argument itself, that something 'doesn't belong in an encyclopedia', does have the fact this is an encyclopedia as a legitimate basis, but the personal judgement that this particular article somehow fails to be worthy of Wikipedia hasn't been given any real basis. There is some text to go with that pillar worthy looking at, and I think we'd both be stretching ourselves to find a part of it this article actually violates. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 22:34, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • I thought Laura Hale said she could write a paper on this topic but it's not what she is currently working on and there would be lag time. Also, WP:NOTPAPER suggests that the above arguments are not policy based as they misconstrue what the project is by giving the editors own personal definition of encyclopedia, based solely on what the individual editor does not like to separately cover. It appears what the comment above means is the only possible policy based choices are keep or merge since it speaks so highly of a merge rationale and not for deletion of the topic matter. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 23:51, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete WP:POPCRAP, WP:FART, totally agree with Drmies. Sad sign of the state of wiki. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not somewhere to hang POPCRAP. PumpkinSky talk 02:18, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Hmm... if there were a(n) (auto)biography of Ashton Kutcher and his Twitter account, that book could have been as notable as Full Service (book) and more notable than this article's subject itself. -- George Ho ( talk) 02:29, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • I do hope, when someone writes, It's A Tweet Life, A and K and the unbearable lightness of being, they credit you for the idea. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 16:09, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. Meeting WP:GNG does not presume the article of encyclopedic value. And Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. It's basically 'on this day he had x number of followers' and 'by this time he was competing with x for' blah blah blah. This is a policy and certainly trumps the WP:GNG (a guideline) which others keep citing. IMO these Twitter articles are an embarassment to the whole project. Till 05:05, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Indiscriminate happens to be that stretch I was talking about earlier. Hopefully, we can work past your shame, to find something actually careless or thoughtless about the article. Honestly, I could list any two pieces of information followed by 'blah blah blah'...it has x protons and it's this dense at this temperature, blah blah blah. Whether that information is actually indiscriminate or not depends on the article and the context in which it's presented. Even though the policy you mention doesn't exhaustively list indiscriminate things, for obvious reasons, comparing this article to excessive statistics (i.e., a series of numbers without context) and calling 'trump by policy' is a bit silly. Consider this example, if the article said 'once, ashton kutcher went to russia', then cited a tweet that said 'duuude, russia', that's pretty indiscriminate. On the other hand, if it mentions he was sent to Russia as part of a delegation focused on social netowrking as a consequence of having the most twitter followers, and that's cited to an external source that reported on such a thing...Well, maybe you still consider that an embarrassment. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 06:10, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • I can say my opinion and you can say yours. So stop going around and commenting on everyone's vote to change their opinion. Btw don't bother replying to this, I won't answer. Till 06:20, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
        • if I may, the purpose of this is to discuss rationales, especially since it was relisted to give those who wish to delete a chance to come forward with policy rationales. You are of course free not to discuss other's policy points. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 10:36, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
          • Well WP:INDISCRIMINATE states that being true or verifiable does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. I think that fits well here as pointed out through the very poor encyclopedic value (IMO) it has, 'x had this many followers' etc. Till 10:51, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
            • One must also consider WP:NOTDIARY; "news reporting about celebrities can be very frequent and cover a lot of trivia, but using all these sources would lead to overdetailed articles that look like a diary". A lot of the article contains 'x reported this' and 'according to x' and IMO is violating that policy (much more important than a guideline). So yes this is why I consider the article an embarassment and with no encyclopedic value. Till 11:08, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Mr. Kutcher's Twitter activities would fit much better in the article devoted to his life and career. I am not seeing any encyclopedic value to having an article about him or any celebrity with a higher-than-normal following on Twitter. And Adoil Descended ( talk) 10:55, 27 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete: The owner is notable. But not all he does is notable enough and encyclopedic. Though newspapers must be covering what he tweeted, his "tweets", the subject of the article, are not notable. Would we have a article on some writer who has published 10-12 novels at some local publication and has not been notable at all just because evidence of these publications is available through print advertisements? This article has nothing in it that says about his tweets. It speaks only about owners fame. §§ AnimeshKulkarni ( talk) 17:56, 28 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Strong long hard deep unambiguous DELETE' I am sure his e-mail address and facebook get a lot of attention but notability is not inherited and twitter accounts like physical addresses simply cannot be contrived as notable except under extraordinary circumstances that do not exist, a litmus would be if an account where the common name of a scandal that was notable and was leaked via twitter and came to be known by the @twitter name used for its account a la watergate, deepthroat, wikileaks, bradley manning, but it simply is not. This article is not educational in any way and fails to meet the needs of wikipedia readers. Merge into a one sentence statement in Kutcher's article at the absolute most. LuciferWildCat ( talk) 07:20, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Perhaps I should still be refraining, but; would not something like being included in a diplomatic delegation to Russia be extraordinary? Obviously they sent the man, and not the account, but that's why this article isn't 'Ashton Kutcher's twitter account'. There seems to be arguments that the account isn't notable, which are probably accurate, but concerning the confluence of Ashton Kutcher and his actions on and concerning Twitter; it's obvious that they could be included in the main article, but to do so without giving it undue weight would require culling most of the article just for the sake of making it shorter. Still, regarding only the most recent relisting, there is undeniably a 'rough consensus', whether it's well-founded or not, and there's no reason the most significant pieces of information couldn't be included in the main article if this one is deleted. It's a matter of discretion at this point. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 08:03, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • There is no difference between Ashton Kutcher on Twitter and Ashton Kutcher on Facebook, Ashton Kutcher on MySpace or Ashton Kutcher on Formspring (significance-wise). A line needs to be drawn for encyclopedic content. Wikipedia isn't a spin-off from NOW Magazine. As WP:WHIM states, "merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia". I can't think of how somebody's activity on Twitter is considered suitable on Wikipedia. Till 10:34, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Therein lies the discretion, since I can easily think of how it's considered suitable. While the article isn't anything like the examples listed under that policy, the policy also states it isn't exhaustive; so whether or not the article is, in fact, indiscriminate (or diary-like), is subject to interpretation of the article itself. I see how this article could be a useful collection of information for someone who, say, heard about the russia thing and googled 'ashton kutcher twitter russia' to find out if it were true/why. (I know I'm harping on that particular instance a bit, but it was actually interesting to learn on my part). Or, apparently, for writing a paper, though it hasn't been written. Collecting dispersed information in such a way seems very encyclopedic to me, otherwise why not let Google do our job for every other article. However, this is merely the way I see the article. Even if I disagree, there is no 'see, this is discriminate' test or policy I can apply. So, for as long as your argument for deletion is based on that particular metric, there's no significant argument I'm making against that. Reasonable enough? Darryl from Mars ( talk) 11:09, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • "There is no difference . . ." It appears there is and it lies in the third party coverage of those things. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 11:27, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • Again, I did say significance-wise, not coverage-wise. As in, encyclopedic value. Till 01:53, 30 June 2012 (UTC) reply
        • This Russian event did not happen just because of his twitter account. Isnt it? It happened because a famous film-star was using twitter. This event is also not about the account. Its about Kutcher. §§ AnimeshKulkarni ( talk) 12:39, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
          • That would be the distinction between 'Ashton Kutcher on Twitter' and 'Ashton Kutcher's Twitter Account', I should hope. Mind you, I doubt any old celebrity would have done, he did have more followers than anyone else at that point, and apparently some amount of tech savvy to go with it...or so it is reported. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 13:01, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
    • I actually Googled to check the different results you get for Ashton Kutcher on Facebook and Ashton Kutcher on Twitter. It is pretty obvious that while there is fleeting and mostly incidental coverage of his activities on Facebook, his activities are Twitter have been the subject of a substantially greater degree of attention. The comparison is not valid.-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 19:02, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
      • I'm guessing you didn't read the whole thing, because I did say 'significance-wise', not 'coverage-wise'. Till 01:46, 30 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep I admit my first instinct upon seeing "x celebrity on Twitter" is to push for a merge or delete, but this appears to be an exceptional case where a celebrity's activity on a social networking site has racked up considerable in-depth press coverage that goes beyond "x tweeted" as he has marked several milestones for the social networking site including one that involved a competition to beat out a major news source. The pop-hate is a bit misguided as popular culture is still a part of culture whether you like it or not. If something is a notable aspect of pop culture then it makes sense to have an encyclopedic article about it.-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 17:32, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - Articles are supposed to be about topics of lasting significance. We are not People Magazine. Ladyof Shalott 18:19, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply
Wouldn't that other article suggest this one would develop? Among other things, Kutcher has authored/published on Twitter use. See, [3]Has Bieber? Alanscottwalker ( talk) 16:32, 30 June 2012 (UTC) reply
  • This is the most meaningless and ignorant comment I have ever seen in my entire life. Statυs ( talk) 03:14, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
The 'article' isn't about anything remotely encyclopaedic, end of story. Twitter is a website. Websites aren't new. Ashton Kutcher isn't notable for posting stuff on websites. 'Celebrities' posting stuff on websites isn't new. People claiming that something somebody they've heard of doing something they've heard of is 'notable' isn't new. Sadly, the inability of people to distinguish between temporary 'noticeability' and anything any of us will give a damn about in two years time isn't new either. If people want to find out about 'Ashton Kutcher on Twitter' they can read his Twitter postings - or the gutter press. This 'article' is vacuous bollocks, and not worth the effort involved in explaining why to people who can't tell the difference between hype and significance, or between 'ignorance' and an unwillingness to waste time arguing with airheads... AndyTheGrump ( talk) 04:09, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
Aha, Well, I suppose there's no pointing out the ill-tempered behavior of a self-labeled grump. Anyways, it may be worth pointing out to anyone looking over the discussion that, whether you or I or anyone will or will not give any damns in two years, that notability is not temporary when it comes to Wikipedia. An airhead like me knows that much. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 09:05, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
The Laughing Nutter
Twitter sized summaries are required for twitter sized attention spans.
WP:WHATTHEF***DOWEWANTGARBAGELIKETHISINANENCTCLOPAEDIAFOR
is a vast improvement and outstandingly polite, note the ***'s
where page after page after page after page after page after page (wait, not too much reiteration, I sense a sudden slump in twit-readership) after page of reasoning has failed, using approachable hopefully memorable language to explain policy is f***ing brilliant. Penyulap ☏ 19:48, 2 Jul 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment I have from my first months here been a supporter of very full coverage of popular culture. I urge those who think so also, to realize that this is best done by not being ridiculous. Unlike the corresponding article on Bieiber, where almost all of of the contents is totally worthless FANSITE fodder that belongs nowhere except where it is found already, on his own twitter account, some of this material is reasonably relevant to the article on Kutcher. It will only be harmed by pulling it into a separate article. Trying to make too many articles ofn a favorite subject shows the lack of a reasonable and encyclopedic approach to it. Andy's comments just above are probably unfairly negative--but the existence of articles like this is what encourages such an attitude towards it. DGG ( talk ) 02:54, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
If personal editing history is important, I have no editing history to speak of with respect to popular culture; it doesn't particularly interest me. What does interest me is that it is fairly treated like any other subject, based on the application of the same standards we apply to any subject. Also, this article is actually a media and publishing article, as this by another user [4] commenting today discusses further. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 12:25, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. I was bouncing back and forth, and reluctant to note my view given how people respond to those in this camp, but DGG's point makes the most sense. It's not about liking or hating the articles, but whether or not the article provides encyclopedic value on its own merits. I'm not seeing it with this one. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 05:15, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Strong delete this is an encyclopedia; we do not include gossips or any pop bs.-- GoP T C N 07:32, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete: The article simply has no encyclopaedic merit. Possibly the claim that the account was the first to have a million followers could be included in Ashton Kutcher. Jezhotwells ( talk) 12:40, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Comment Honestly, instead of paying attention to the "OMG, WTF is with this POPCRAP!?" arguments people should actually be looking not only at this article but beyond to see the unique impact Kutcher has had with regards to his activities on Twitter. Here are some non-popcrap reasons for keeping the article: [5] [6] [7] [8]. If anything, the current article may suffer from having a narrow focus on his account rather than dealing more generally with Kutcher's involvement with Twitter. Anyone looking into the history of Twitter would be ill-served if they did not pay a lot of attention to Kutcher's activity. If we could only keep one of these x celebrity account on Twitter articles, it would have to be this one.-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 15:18, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Not a notable topic. This content can do on the Ashton Kutcher page or the Twitter page, but this isn't needed and isn't notable. Toa Nidhiki05 15:28, 1 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per WP:WHIM. Either that, or FAC it onto the Main Page, per WP:****. — MistyMorn ( talk) 08:57, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Although I didn't want to comment on this AfD, I think I should. The article is not independently notable of Ashton Kutcher. By the same rationale for the existence of this article I could find some sources from google [9] and make Ashton Kutcher and shoes. IRWolfie- ( talk) 09:36, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
    • You know, it almost certainly wouldn't be the same rationale; unless you can honestly say you see some notable landmarks in the development of shoes as a social concept in those search resuults. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 11:13, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Odd. By this argument Abraham Lincoln and slavery is not "independently notable" of Abraham Lincoln. As Tom Morris discussed when relisting, this shows fundamental misapplication of notability. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 11:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. Easily and obviously notable. I can't see why there's a long discussion about it. Everyking ( talk) 15:59, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
    AN entirely empty WP:ITSNOTABLE vote to be discarded. Tarc ( talk) 17:11, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
    All right then. Its notability is established by substantial media attention. Everyking ( talk) 19:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - WP:UNDUE is usually applied to negative "Controversy regarding X..." type articles, but it can also be taken in the other direction; too much weight given to something positive, or in this case, the trivial and the banal. All this is is a byproduct of tabloid media who obsess over everything that a celebrity does, and now we have a notion that "celebrity using social media technology" is somehow noteworthy of our time. It isn't. The media has also taken note of (examiner.com/article/publishing-the-impulsive-imp-a-q-a-with-anne-rice-and-her-sister-tamara) Anne Rice's discourse with fans via facebook, but this doesn't justify Anne Rice of Facebook in the slightest. Tweeting in itself is not a notable, unique, or extraordinary activity. It warrants a line or two in his bio, but the stuff about CNN challenges and what he says about Penn St. is trivial. Tarc ( talk) 17:11, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
From wp:undue, "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public." So while undue is not an article inclusion criteria, it similarly advises NOT following editor's personal approval or disapproval of what RS choose to cover per WP:BELONG, dosn't it? Alanscottwalker ( talk) 19:50, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete – Unworthy of its own article. This article is about NOTHING and only the necessary information about his Twitter account should be condensed and put onto a new section on Ashton Kutcher called '@aplusk'. – Plarem ( User talk) 19:34, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - The article is not about Kutcher's signifcant tweets. That information can/should be in the Biography article, and mainly is. This article is about the media coverage of Kutcher's tweets, and it is using that same media coverage to source itself. That makes the media coverage WP:PRIMARY in this case, and those sources cannot be used to meet WP:N or any of the salad of policies regarding WP:BLPN. We are not a newspaper, and not a news aggregator. We would need RS covering the coverage to have this type of meta-article meet our policies, we don't have those sources and I have been unable to find them. -- Tgeairn ( talk) 20:54, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
This article is about the account or outlet, and is using third party reliable sources that cover the account. Isn't that how almost all Wikipedia articles are written? Alanscottwalker ( talk) 11:41, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Arbitration break 4 - ?

  • Okay, after reading all arguments, delete. Seriously, Ashton Kutcher is notable for one crappy show whose syndication broadcasting will die down, one lousy movie about a missing car, one relationship with Demi Moore, and so on. Kutcher's Twitter account? Well, I see some assertion of notability from this topic. Unfortunately, notability of this account is becoming irrelevant, as too much recentism is involved, criticism or praise on account (or Ashton's activities with Twitter) is not yet found or added, and no books or academic journals about primarily the topic itself are made. Even Full Service (book), a trashy book about Hollywood stars from the past, has some hints of notability that will not go away, and its article has content that demonstrates history of book and reaction toward book. The Sam and Diane article has content of fictional and real-world development that may not be mergeable to Cheers, Sam Malone, or Diane Chambers. The topic of the Kutcher/Twitter article, on the other hand, is neither fiction nor book nor Seinfeld; it is ...something... or nothing... that lacks reaction per WP:IINFO. If there is a book mainly about Kutcher's Twitter, then the book must have reviews, background about the book itself, and the book's plot. -- George Ho ( talk) 21:10, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
If you're looking for reaction in books, it's there: [10], [11] Alanscottwalker ( talk) 22:21, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
These books neither improve quality of this article nor prove significant coverage on this topic. I added "mainly" to clarify. As I said, a book primarily about Ashton Kutcher's Twitter activities will have more value than a book's subject itself, and... it's not as if this conversation were Fahrenheit 451 here. Back on the sources, the books you listed do not have critical viewpoint on Kutcher and his Twittering ways. -- George Ho ( talk) 23:33, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
We are at a deletion discussion where the policies are GNG, WEB and the other notability guidelines, yet when hundreds of reliable sources from respected outlets (discussing multiple facets of this topic) and books that actually use the topic as something the reader will readily grasp information from are mentioned and linked to -- the response is little more than WP:BELONG. Anyone who publishes educational books like those linked to, only uses such well known examples, because they indeed evoke a critical viewpoint of the topic. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 00:45, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
WP:Manual of Style applies here, as well. There is no guarantee that notability of this topic benefits or leads to a valuable stand-alone article. This topic could be notable, but... look at this article. It talks primary stuff that has been retold in non-primary sources, like a fictional recap. Can we leave notability out of this between us? After all talk about notability, I realize that any amount of notability does not equal to a valuable article. This article has no indication of value (notable or not), especially since this topic hasn't yet inspired reaction, like "Suicide(s) of..." and stuff. Even WP:BELONG is part of an essay and may or may not apply to what the article says right now and to how every argument can be neither right nor wrong but beneficial to consensus. -- George Ho ( talk) 00:58, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
And you would replace notability with what, how some people may feel today? But leaving aside notability, what we can look to is whether a publisher's communications and his means of doing so can form the basis for an encyclopedia article. Wikipedia and every other encyclopedia has already answered that yes in spades. Wikipedia has a plethora of articles on individual blogs. In just the 11 citations already cited here throughout the above discussion, such an article can be written. Add to that hundreds more. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 01:17, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
I'm not replacing notability; I'm leaving notability aside, as you were doing. To put this another way, this article talks growing statistics, which... I find... valuable probably... but insufficient amount of value. Moreover, it discusses the events that indirectly caused more attention on Twitter and Ashton Kutcher, which is already said in Ashton Kutcher. I'm not sure if mentioning Kutcher's first Twitter intro to Bieber is worth valuable or signifying, but... That's all I can say, as there aren't any other sources that explain impact on Bieber by this topic itself. You don't see "(person) on instant messaging" because specific (not general) people's instant messaging activities are... are they recorded in books and journals? You don't see Ashton Kutcher on instant messaging yet.... Wait a minute; is Twitter also instant messaging? Is blog another way of instant messaging? If Facebook is instant message, then maybe we can add Facebook and other stuff here, so this title would be renamed to "Ashton Kutcher on internet", right? Otherwise, this article would come down as unencyclopedic. -- George Ho ( talk) 01:29, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
This publishers message and means is covered by the reliable sources extensively. Someone else? Some other means? -- that article, who knows? Information can always be added to improve any article. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 01:39, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
Whatever the publisher's message does in those reliable sources is a retelling of real-life events (i.e. a recap), as fiction has been retold by non-primary sources. Leaving sources aside, like fiction, this article should not be about only plot and background. There is no source yet about his creating an account and/or review of his account. This article said that he merely created it, posted messages in it, and caused attention by exploiting it. Suicide of Tyler Clementi have background and effects, but a person's profile is too low to have a separate "Tyler Clementi" article (well, it was separate but became "Suicide of..."). There was so much balance on background, court case, and reactions from directly and indirectly involved and uninvolved. Sam and Diane article may have been retold in articles of Cheers, Sam Malone, Diane Chambers, and Frasier Crane, but critical reception of Sam and Diane is not that mergeable to either of them. Account of the publisher was exploited for philantrophy that resulted growth of followers, but philantrophy and comment controversy are more valuable than growing stats and already told in Ashton Kutcher article. Account, on the other hand, requires such reaction about his accounts themselves. No analyst has covered on his article mainly yet, so we must wait... -- George Ho ( talk) 02:05, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
This is not fiction. This is communications, media, business, marketing, philanthropy, sociology, advertising -- all these non-fiction angles and more are covered in detail in the sources over a sustained period of years. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 02:42, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
You forgot one thing from WP:IINFO: "Similarly, articles on works of non-fiction, including documentaries, research books and papers, religious texts, and the like, should contain more than a recap or summary of the works' contents. Such articles should be expanded to have broader coverage." Account is the publisher's work, and account must inspire scolarly analysis and critical reviews. Get it? -- George Ho ( talk) 03:05, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
They "should" and they are "expanded" because they exist -- an example in an educational marketing text or an article in the Washington Post business section is not going to be just a recap. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 03:16, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
... Link, please? -- George Ho ( talk) 03:24, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
The links are above. [1] through [11]; there are also links in the article and at the very top of this discussion. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 03:27, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
These sources either already explain information in Wiki-articles or do not have information that have worthy of inclusion, unless they are meant for Ashton Kutcher article. Look, there's nothing else you can find that's worth including or that's not already explained, okay? I checked the sources (1 to 11), and that's all I found. The upcoming Twitter-based sitcom... what happened to it? -- George Ho ( talk) 03:51, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
Yes, I know. The multiple reliable sources thought differently about this topic and that's what we base article inclusion on. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 04:57, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
...Since these sources are reliable, can we put reliability of sources and notability of topic aside, so we must discuss article's current state of inclusion and exclusion, please? I guess this article has reliable sources, but I'm not sure if verified information is worth repeating in this article, especially since no primary analysis is published yet. -- George Ho ( talk) 05:41, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
The wider world has this article topic, in its communications, media, business, marketing, philanthropy, sociology, advertising, etc. aspects, and the project seeks to serve the wider world. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 10:17, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep passes easily WP:GNG -- DeansFA ( talk) 23:24, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep per The Devil's Advocate. Yes, the subject is faintly ridiculous, but its notable. The subjective opinion of random editors unsupported by actual facts is a weak rationale for deletion.-- Milowent • has spoken 03:01, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
    • As I said, notability and reference are less important than content itself per WP:MOS (or any other guideline or essay about how to write a valuable article) and WP:N's amount of worthy guarantee of a stand-alone article, regardless of amount of notability. -- George Ho ( talk) 03:05, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
No matter how many times you comment George, your subjective belief is that "Ashton Kutcher is notable for one crappy show whose syndication broadcasting will die down, one lousy movie about a missing car, one relationship with Demi Moore." Luckily wikipedia was not built on such subjective beliefs.-- Milowent • has spoken 03:56, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
Still I wonder: why do you think this article has some value that's repeated in Kutcher article? Did he create any other accounts that's newsworthy or something else, like chatting online (AOL, remember?), posting videos on YouTube, and any other? As I said before, maybe this article cannot limit itself to only Twitter account, especially if anybody doesn't publish analysis and thought elsewhere, like paper. Stats... well, not as much as general background about creation of his account... I don't know, but stats are not sufficiently valuable, even if valuable, to me. -- George Ho ( talk) 04:59, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep While I am not an AK fan, this article easily meets the GNG. For those of you who are arguing that "you could just as easily have CelebX on Facebook (etc)" articles, well, yes you could. Someone may still make them, and then we can have this exact same discussion again! My vote will become merge to CelebX on Social Media.  The Steve  04:47, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
" this article easily meets the GNG". Please explain why. This isn't a vote. It has always been Wikipedia policy that those who wish to include content have to justify it - and simply claiming without further evidence that 'it meets a policy requirement' isn't justification at all. Why should an online encyclopaedia have an article about the postings of someone not famous for posting stuff on websites on websites? Where are the sources that say this individuals postings are notable? What are they notable for? How do they differ from the postings of anyone else? Twitter, as a social/technological phenomenon is clearly notable, but why are the postings of this particular 'celebrity' of any lasting significance? Without a clearly-defined explanation of why this is anything other than random fancruft, or hype about another internet fad, there is nothing to support anything more than a passing mention in the bio of the individual concerned. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 06:03, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
I'm curious where that 'always' Wikipedia policy came from, it's not the trend I've read in them so far. Anyways, assuming he isn't in fact famous for it, which I can't easily say, that's fine, he need only be significant. Incidentally, no one (few poeple?) write sources about a subject and say explicitly 'we find the subject of this article we wrote notable per Wikipedia guidelines'. We find subjects notable based on the existence of independent sources that make note of them. In general, there are a number of verifiable things about this particular guy's use of Twitter that are and have been treated as distinct from that of a variety of other such individuals. I can mention a couple again if you like. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 07:34, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
I've already mentioned WP:notability (web), and WP:GNG has been cited too many times. There is no MOS guideline about internet-related articles right now, so... I would like your examples, please? -- George Ho ( talk) 07:47, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
ok, since you insist. Washington Post article about AK and twitter, Wired article, LA Times article. Three impeccable sources, all reliable, all almost entirely on subject, out of 42 on the page. Now, you could easily have looked at the article yourself, but presumably its easier to grump about it here. You mentioned "lasting significance" - there is no such requirement, sorry. You want sources that say these postings are notable - also not required - the fact that these twits appeared in reliable third-party sources (see above) indicates notability, and you should know this if you read the GNG.  The Steve  07:49, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
Umm.... can we leave notability and verifiability out of this discussion? I did read WP:GNG and tried to explain that 1,000 news sources could count as one source, no matter what company or agency. If you have your own beliefs, then you may be right. Nevertheless, notability has no actual criteria; Wikipedia made and change rules about criteria of notability. Also, verifiability on one event or another may be met. That's why we're putting "notability" and "verifiability" aside to weigh in on article content itself by value and quality. Look at the article and another, and tell me if the topic itself is worth explaining further and keeping a fork article. -- George Ho ( talk) 07:59, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
ummm, no, we cannot. I base my votes on wikipedia's inclusion policies and back those votes up, not on whether I think it should be here, or that its too trivial, or any other excuse. Hey, surprise! The news talks about trivial things. If they do it enough, we get an article! I completely disagree with your analysis, as news sources are our normal source of info. If you're suggesting a massive policy change that considers ALL news from EVERY paper, tv station etc, as a SINGLE SOURCE, I'm afraid you won't get much traction, AND you'll invalidate about 100,000 current articles which quote only news sources. Notability may not have "actual criteria", but the GNG explains that Significant Coverage (which I've shown) SHOWS Notability. Even aside from that, this Businessweek article shows the significance of AK's Twitter account in big business, investment, and startups. Clearly notable, by any standard.  The Steve  08:23, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
...All right, I'll rephrase on the 1,000-article part: primary events directly about this topic, such as statistics and messages, have been retold by non-primary sources. Retelling of all Twitter activities might count as one; impact by account might count as another. I got two. Review on account is the third. Unfortunately, a review on one or multiple postings... are not worthy of inclusion. For instance, why including a negative or positive opinion about Kutcher's competition with CNN to battle malaria? Should we include that? A book, which may inspire reviews, or a movie about Twitter and Ashton can tell a better narrative than this article. -- George Ho ( talk) 08:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
There's now four distinct people in this little chain, so let's not attribute anything one person said to another. As to George, my personal favorite is still his diplomatic mission to Russia concerning social networking, that certain doesn't work for any random celeb on any random website. Moreover, not just being the first to have a million followers, but turning it into both a public event and a philanthropic platform seem, well, significant, if nothing else. In regards to the value of the article, understanding that we've put aside policy-based considerations for a moment, I can easily see someone interested in specifically the subject of him on Twitter, while not, to use Andy's terms, giving any damns at all about his filmography. Whether the best way to facilitate giving that person the information they want is a separate article or a subsection goes into a discussion of link navigation and search engines and the like, and is probably a discussion worth having on the article's talk-page in the future. Similarly, the article's quality is something for the editing process, and although I wouldn't exactly call it poor now, no doubt it could be improved. What I am confident about, looking at value and quality, is that deleting the article doesn't benefit much of anything. Darryl from Mars ( talk) 08:32, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
How does keeping the stand-alone article benefit anything, as well? -- George Ho ( talk) 08:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
I assume you mean as opposed to a merge? Wouldn't be the worst thing that ever happened, but it risks turning interesting information into a factoid without context. Although maybe you're asking me something else? Darryl from Mars ( talk) 09:48, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply
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.
  1. ^ Smith, Peter (2009-02-09). "Twitter and the Dalai Lama". IT World. Retrieved 2012-05-27.
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ashton_Kutcher_on_Twitter&oldid=1221041228"

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