Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A Rape in Cyberspace


 * 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 keep; notability appears to have been sufficiently demonstrated for this to be covered somewhere; those supporting moving and/or merging the content to an article with a different scope are free to pursue that in the usual way. --Sam Blanning(talk) 18:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

A Rape in Cyberspace

 * — (View AfD)

The tone of this article is terrible, but more to the point it's ultimately a recounting of a single newspaper article. Maybe if there were multiple reliable sources we could have an article on "cyberrape" (whatever that is, exactly), but writing an article about a specific incident on a MUD and a specific newspaper article... it's just not notable, and not particularly verifiable either. Therefore delete. SCZenz 22:34, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I have changed my views on this, in the face of new information and significant improvements to the introduction of the article. I would still like to see the rest cleaned up, but there's no reason to delete.  My new "vote" is below.  Thanks to Dhartung for the hard work! -- SCZenz 02:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete Badly sourced and really non-notable. TSO1D 22:50, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep, needs sourcing. This was an enormously influential article that has been reprinted numerous times, e.g. by The Independent. The article influenced Lawrence Lessig, who eventually published work citing it, and it continues to be discussed a decade later. There are book citations as well. --Dhartung | Talk 23:47, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Are there any articles about the article that would help establish it's "influential," or just reprints. Also more info about book discussions would be helpful. -- SCZenz 23:54, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * "Are there any articles about the article that would help establish it's "influential,"" That's what Dhartung just gave you. Not reprints, but third-party citations and citations of citations. This is a clear instance of the first criterion of WP:WEB. Notability established beyond doubt. Dhartung, if you have the time, please add those citations to the article so that evidence of notability is preserved. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 00:34, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, I misread somewhat what he said. Sorry about that. -- SCZenz 02:36, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Coelancan, thank you for your courteous request (alas, on AFD that usually comes in the form of a scold!). --Dhartung | Talk 07:05, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I just found 132 hits on Google Books for "dibbell rape.in.cyberspace". --Dhartung | Talk 00:05, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * ...and 260 hits on Google Scholar (some overlapping GB). --Dhartung | Talk 01:50, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per Dhartung. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 23:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete I read the WP article and browsed through the ext linked article and it's still unclear what the person actually did. All I can tell is that one person hacked some other people's computers and controlled their characters. The original article externally linked is so vague you can't tell if it's a dream, real life, or someone teleported through someone's computer, or someone broke into a woman's house, or what. Anomo 00:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * This is only an argument for improving the readability of the article, not deleting it. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 00:37, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Anomo, you got the gist of it. Dibbell has received criticism for his "immersive" or melodramatic approach to the article (I'd like to find some that's citeable). He was a participant and new to online community and you could say he was drunk on the experience. Then as now some people are dismissive of the event itself, but the importance of the article is a different matter.--Dhartung | Talk 06:26, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 *  Either delete or move to Cyberrape . It doesn't make much sense to keep an article on the VV piece if we don't even have an article on the concept. And I'm sorry, even if it is supposedly relevant I still can't tell what it is. ~ trialsanderrors 00:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * This is an article about a particular publication. Moving it to cyberrape would make no more sense than moving The Selfish Gene to evolutionary biology. It doesn't matter if cyberrape isn't already an article in its own right. This particular publication is notable on its own. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 00:37, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * T&E:FEQ ~ trialsanderrors 01:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Changed to Keep per changes to the article. ~ trialsanderrors 03:32, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Cut down, move to new stub for Julian Dibbell This is a quite widely cited case study in cyberspace studies, though the article does exaggerate its significance ("it is considered by some to be an important part of science and technology studies" - that's over-egging the pudding rather). I am very surprised that Julian Dibbell does not have an article yet. He's not really a major cyberculture commentator - sort of middling, but would be notable by wikipedia standards I believe. The rape in cyberspace story was his big breakthrough, and he's done other interesting work. I don't think this case deserves its own article (the actual events are not very notable at all), but would be fine as cutdown part of a Dibbell article andor an article on cyberspace crime as trialsanderrors suggests. (the academic context is somewhat notable... but we should address primarily Dibbell not a particular short article he wrote). Bwithh 00:45, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete The article has no clarity, and it's poorly written. But these are not grounds alone for deletion. I can't see anything in this that meets WP:WEB, so delete. --SunStar Nettalk 01:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * This is not a website, so the website criteria are inapplicable. Regardless, if it were, verifiable and scholarly citations would meet WP:WEB in any reasonable interpretation. --Dhartung | Talk 01:53, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. See withdrawn nomination above. -- SCZenz 02:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * SCZenz, I commend you for your open mind, and appreciate the kudos. --Dhartung | Talk 07:05, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment The externally linked article is well just horridly unreadbly written. The article appeared to be an improvement, but still a long way to go. What it gets down to appears is just more of a hacking/prank and not a rape. That is, if someone did that to a man, a man wouldn't be in tears, just angry. I'm not sure all women would consider that rape either--hardly embarressment since it's anonymous online. It might be good to rewrite it by referencing notable sources that refer to the article. Anomo 12:39, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Exactly, Anomo. The debate over the meaning of the incident -- and Dibbell's comprehensive (although imperfect) treatment of its implications -- are why the article remains relevant today. There are people who read this and say it was just a prank; some of the participants were hard-pressed to explain why they experienced a prank as if it were sexual assault. That's the crux of Dibbell's essay. In any event, our article isn't here to explain the incident, but to explain the content and context of the essay. --Dhartung | Talk 18:22, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Merge to Cybersex or LambdaMOO. Wasn't this a pretty famous article? Still, I'm not sure if an individual news article needs a Wikipedia article of its own. It's points are better discussed in WP articles that discuss the topic of the news article. But either way, it should be discussed in some form. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 15:14, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * It isn't a "news article", it is an essay. You yourself just called it "pretty famous"; isn't that notability? --Dhartung | Talk 18:22, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, I admit I never read the essay/article/whateveryoumaycallit in full, and it's been time since even looked at it, anyway. =) Anyway, I'm not questioning its notability; What I'm questioning is whether it warrants an article of its own. We don't (last I checked) have an article on, say, "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" (but we have GOTO, and a redirect to Considered harmful), and we don't have an article on that Codd's paper, but we have an article on relational model which points to it. Similar principle could be used here. Books (IMO) warrant articles, essays and individual articles are better off merged to the subjects they cover, unless they're really really REALLY famous and influential. =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 20:30, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I couldn't disagree more (okay I probably could but still). A couple of hundred years ago, it was common to print very long pamphlets instead of books, and there is always the question of what to call a book-length essay that hasn't been published with two outside covers. Articles and anything else that are both notable and verifiable can have their own Wiipedia article. If you're feeling sympathetic toward books, just to balance that, ask yourself, would this essay be notable enough for its own article if it were a book? If the answer is yes, then it should have its own article no matter what format it is published in. Let's discriminate purely on notability, not on format. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 20:39, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * *sigh* Okay, I really wouldn't like to argue about this, but my answer to whether or not an essay needs an article of its own would be a resounding "That depends, but probably not." If I'm saying essays aren't article-worthy and books are, that's just a rule of thumb - like most of the Wikipedia guidelines and policies, as interpreted every day. We're meant to look at the spirit of our policies rather than the letter; likewise, I can't say my ideas of article merging are universal and unbreakable. In this case, I'd say this is merge material. However, like I said, I'm saying this should be kept in some form. I'm not annoyed if someone elects to just keep this as a stand-alone article for now, and I can't bother to change my boldfaced recommendation because it's probably inconsequential considering other peoples' recommendations. All I'm saying is that please don't turn this into "Article sizes: Wikiality vs. Lutheranism" thing along the lines of "We don't have an article on Codd's relational model article, which has only been described as the most important computer science paper ever published, but we have an article on this cybersex incident." We're also meant to use common sense here. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 01:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I hear you. I don't want to argue it further either, but thanks for listening as well as making yourself clear. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 05:10, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Collegial discussion is good. ;-) Wwwwolf, the question comes to whether there is sufficient material for an article on a specific essay. A merge recommendation is also problematic as there is no obvious article to merge with such as "cyberrape" (which may not even deserve its own article). The essay touches on aspects of cyber law and digital culture, but also postmodern concepts such as individual identity and the power of language. I know when I read it in the Voice so many years ago, I had no idea it would have this kind of longevity. --Dhartung | Talk 10:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * KEEP. The sources are fine, it's notable, and so on. Please don't unnecessarily nominate articles for deletion. --Ultra Megatron 04:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: the nomination was reasonable (based on the state of the article), and the nominator was reasonable and has already withdrawn. No scold necessary in this case. We just need a closing admin. --Dhartung | Talk 10:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep but it does need some rewriting for the reader (like me) who never heard of any of this before. Dhartung says above that "our article isn't here to explain the incident...."  In the abstract, that's true, but one can't really understand our article about Dibbell's article without being clear about what transpired in the underlying incident. JamesMLane t c 10:55, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 * 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.