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. MelanieN ( talk) 01:53, 27 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Hater (Internet)

Hater (Internet) (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)

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This article addresses an abstract concept, not an actual thing. Why do we have an article about "a person [..] who expresses hatred in public forums"? For the word itself, we have Wiktionary. I am sure that any further explanation of the term could be covered in a section of the Internet troll article. Furthermore, the article has many unreferenced claims and contains substantial original research, aside from the clunky and awkward wording. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (discourse) 20:45, 11 March 2016 (UTC) reply

• Keep/Move - we have plenty of articles on abstract concepts. I'm not sure that awkward and clunky wording should be justification for an article delete. There is some OR in the article, but this is an example of an article that should be improved, perhaps renamed Hater (internet meme), not deleted.   Insert CleverPhrase Here  21:02, 11 March 2016 (UTC) reply
  • I said aside from that wording, so that wasn't a reason to delete, just a side point. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (orate) 21:05, 11 March 2016 (UTC) reply
• Keep The topic is notable and just needs work. For example, see The Offensive Internet – an entire book from Havard University Press. Andrew D. ( talk) 21:19, 11 March 2016 (UTC) reply
• Delete The article is misinformative, and it's 100% OR. First, the problematic scope. The slang word hater isn't specific to Internet culture; it's just another context in which the word is used. The section "Definition and origin" is entirely about usage outside Internet culture. But okay, the article says it has a different meaning in the Internet context, so I'll play along.
  
  The whole article hinges on the definition in the lead section. It cites Michael Strangelove (2010), who offers this definition: "a person who posts rude and often racist, sexist, homophobic, or obscene messages". Notice that his only necessary and sufficient condition for "hating" is to post "rude" messages. So a hater is someone who posts rude messages. This is not a rigorous definition, and it's also not the definition offered in the article's lead section. The lead section is supposed to be the keystone for the whole article.
  
  "Difference between a troll and a hater" cites one source: a definition of trolling. Any definition of hater in the section is conjecture (complete with weasely language like "normally..." and "many people now consider..."). Not helpful. The section "Cause of a hater's action" strays into murkier waters. This time, the citations are about hate crimes and cyberbullying; how the "hater" fits into all this is left to the imagination of the reader. At worst, the OR in this section implies that a hater is one who commits a hate crime. It also implies that a hater is a sort of cyberbully, but that disagrees with the definition offered in "Definition and origin". (Wait, so are cyberbullies a type of hater, or are haters a type of cyberbully? Damn, maybe we should have thought this through!) Watery implications on a foundation of sand.
  
  The "Incidents" section is a summary of a case of online harassment. By implication, Caroline Criado-Perez is a hater. Let's all add to this section so we can make a Wall of Haters. Totes encyclopedic.
  
  Finally, the article ominously concludes with a "Law" section about the punitive consequences of posting "indecent, obscene or menacing" material if you're a UK citizen. (Presumably, a hater is someone who posts material that is indecent, obscene, and/or menacing. How many possible definitions are we dealing with now?) So if you're not a UK citizen, don't even think about moving to the UK if you're a hater, or it could cost you £5,000. Consider yourself deterred.
  
  Is there encyclopedic material in work like Nussbaum's The Offensive Internet? Certainly. But what encyclopedia article(s) should come from them? I don't know, but it's probably not " Hater (Internet)". — Ringbang ( talk) 19:18, 12 March 2016 (UTC) reply

• You've got a bad link there. The stuff about haters on YouTube is at Haters, Spammers, and other Deviants. And there's plenty more sources out there like Hate on the Internet. Andrew D. ( talk) 19:32, 12 March 2016 (UTC) reply

• Comment Thanks for the correction. I read Strangelove's definition and amended my notes above. Certainly there is a lot of source material about online hate speech and online harassment—two different but overlapping topics. With quality source-material like the Sarah Rohlfing essay you linked, editors could write a quality article about " Hate speech on the Internet". And that's just it: Rohlfing's essay is about hate speech and hate crimes, not haters. Trying to work within the confines of the slippery, ambiguous, problematic word hater presents an unnecessary obstacle. Can you think of anything that could be done with " Hater (Internet)" that wouldn't be done better in " Hate speech on the Internet", the " Online harassment" section of Cybercrime (which could be expanded into a full article), Cyberbullying, Mobile harassment, and the related articles? I find it hard to imagine " Hater (Internet)" ever being a good article, but it's much easier to imagine " Hate speech on the Internet" developing into one. — Ringbang ( talk) 21:24, 12 March 2016 (UTC) reply

• You're welcome. Changing the title of an article is done by a move, not by deletion. And notice that the page, under its current title, was the subject of two educational assignments in 2014. If you read its talk page, you'll see that the people involved got something out of it and seemed to think the topic had merit. Why should we now make this history inaccessible? Developing it further to improve it is fine but deletion would be a step backwards, no? Andrew D. ( talk) 22:04, 12 March 2016 (UTC) reply

• Unfortunately, moving the article doesn't fix the content. This article was probably never a good idea. It started out as a misconception, and cited Strangelove even though that work doesn't support User:Colonel Warden's definition, which is vague and flawed. (That initial OR version of the article is close to what is online now.) Then came the rewrite that the students praised. Suddenly, the article at least defined the word in way that's consistent with its slang use (as in "player hater" and "haters gonna hate"). But guess what? It only cites and paraphrases Urban Dictionary. Not exactly a deep analysis. Certainly this reinforced to my mind that we have some responsibility about what to publish. So, what if someone found a reliable secondary source to replace Urban Dictionary, and amended the definition? Since Wikipedia is not a dictionary, we'd also need some content that would make it encyclopedic. So all the article needs is a definition based on reliable secondary sources and any content that will make it encyclopedic. In other words, there is no article. But let's assume that we have all that content. Congratulations, we just made a locus for the same nonsense that used to go into Player hater. I believe it's best to delete. Ringbang ( talk) 03:21, 14 March 2016 (UTC) reply

I suggest moving the article, and taking the internet-hater-related content and sequestering it in a section of its own. This allows the article to develop in clear way, without deleting the article's history, and also accomplishes the goal of a wider, more inclusive, and more useful subject. When this move occurs some of the internet hater stuff might be deemed irrelevant to the new topic, but much of it would stay. Anyone want to put their hand up for this one?   Insert CleverPhrase Here  04:19, 14 March 2016 (UTC) reply

• Delete. This is pretty clearly a WP:POVFORK of internet troll, leveraged from a WP:NEOLOGISM. As noted above, the arguments that attempt to indicate that there is a concept here distinct from that of the troll article are all based on WP:original research built out WP:SYNTHESIS, and not based on any kind of coverage (to say nothing of the kind of significant coverage we would need to justify an article here) within any particular WP:Reliable source. I welcome the authors of this content to contribute some of the content here to the troll article or elsewhere, but this just does not pass muster for policies on independent notability/fork/neologism issues. Snow ^{let's rap} 11:27, 19 March 2016 (UTC) reply

• Delete. This article is essentially a drawn out dictionary definition, and the concept itself is, as was stated by the nominator, too abstract to be properly presented in an encyclopedia. What constitutes "hatred" in a public forum is based on opinion, not fact, and therefore, the topic cannot be covered without some sort of POV. Additionally, there is some blatant original research in this article (especially in the "Cause of a hater's actions" section), and some of the content is mind bogglingly inept. (e.g. Why is an episode of Cheers from 1989 referenced in an article about an internet term?) All signs point to "delete": if anything, a redirect to Wiktionary may be appropriate. Colonel Wilhelm Klink ( Complaints| Mistakes) 16:07, 19 March 2016 (UTC) reply
• Delete. Basically WP:NOT#DICT: but as User:Snow Rise has stated it's pretty much just a WP:POVFORK of content from internet troll. Tpdwkouaa ( talk) 17:22, 19 March 2016 (UTC) reply

• Weak keep with rename. For me this article is either A) an altogether bad idea, or B) properly titled Hater (Internet meme). As stated by others, better articles exist to discuss trollish behaviour patterns, but I venture that none of these capture the unique social media stoicism (and repugnance-swallowing, anti-instinctual Zen disengagement) of "haters gonna hate". The meat of the "haters" meme lies in the burgeoning culture of online co-existence with the vile, anonymous detritus which soon seems to pervade every forum. While we don't need another article about haters, we might be well served with an article about how Internet culture is beginning to salve the seemingly inescapable co-existence of the vile alongside the constructive. I'm rarely on the deletion side, and that's my best shot at preserving this, which I admit is somewhat anaemic even by my own anti-deletion slant. — MaxEnt 22:38, 19 March 2016 (UTC) reply

• Delete. As User:Snow Rise and others have pointed out, this is a POV fork and defining it as distinct seems to fall within the scope of Original Research. -- Gimubrc ( talk) 17:11, 21 March 2016 (UTC) reply

• Delete. Article is a giant mess of SYNTH and OR. It's supposed to be about an internet term, but starts off with a dictionary definition which doesn't mention the internet. It cannot decide if it originated from Will Smith or Bret Hart in 1997, or Cheers in 1988, but were any of them talking about the internet? It doesn't seem very likely from the context provided, but none of it's actually sourced anyway, except that episode 19 of season 6 of Cheers is a thing that exists. How this differs from internet trolls is entirely unsourced, save to a website that defines "troll" (but not "hater" or suggests how such a thing would be different from a troll or even that it exists), and it appears to just be someone's opinion. None of the cyberbullying cites used in the "causes" section discuss "haters", so there's more SYNTH, and it tries to somehow connect the term to hate groups - again, a term which the article itself claims started as "people jealous of Will Smith's success" - presumably because both involve the word "hate". Egsan Bacon ( talk) 17:46, 25 March 2016 (UTC) reply
• Delete and Draft if needed, delete for now until better improvements are available. SwisterTwister talk 06:25, 26 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 21:23, 26 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 21:23, 26 March 2016 (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.