Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alt.sex.stories (2nd nomination)


 * 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. The rewrite has taken place and in its new form the article's subject is deemed notable enough to stay.  Sandstein  06:04, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Alt.sex.stories
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log )

Original research essay. No citations, no indication of external coverage of the subject. Would require a complete rewrite to make it encyclopedic. WP:TNT causa sui (talk) 22:04, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: The previous nomination (back in 2005) failed largely because of the moralization in the nomination surrounding allegations that this newsgroup was a distribution hub for pornographic content involving children. My re-nomination is explicitly under a very different rationale. causa sui (talk) 22:07, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment I wouldn't be surprised if this could be sourced properly. It is a 'known' internet phenomenon. However, while there is no deadline, we can't leave it awaiting improvement forever. It has clearly been written about (see the references and links sections), but no indication of coverage in Reliable Sources. SamBC(talk) 22:57, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been added to the WikiProject Pornography list of deletions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:45, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 02:46, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: Yikes, the first thing this article needs is to be rewritten for neutrality. Sentences such as "whose moderator was often too preoccupied to approve messages on a regular basis" are definitely not written in an encyclopedic style. This needs a massive MASSIVE rewrite, throwing out everything that's in the article. You'd pretty much have to restart the article entirely from scratch if it's kept. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 04:50, 20 October 2011 (UTC)tokyogirl79
 * I'm looking at it right now to see if there's anything quick I can do to it right now and it looks like it's going to be a chore. I'm not overly familiar with this group- is there anyone else out there more familiar with the site that can do most of the edits? I don't want to delete anything important. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 04:59, 20 October 2011 (UTC)tokyogirl79
 * I did a big rewrite but I'm a little unsure of it since I'm not overly familiar with this particular erotica newsgroup. There was so much content here that was unencyclopedic or wasn't in neutral tone that I'm a little antsy about potentially having taken out something that needed to be left in. Feel free to hack apart my editing. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 05:34, 20 October 2011 (UTC)tokyogirl79
 * It looks much more reasonable now though it still definitely needs cites. At least the original research is gone. Thanks. causa sui (talk) 16:13, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yep, hopefully this will make deciding a little easier since there isn't as much OR in the article. Since I'm at work when I do most of my wiki edits I can't really look for cites or evidence of notability, but I wanted to help where I could. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 04:40, 21 October 2011 (UTC)tokyogirl79


 * Keep - Passes the general notability guidelines receiving multiple coverage by reliable sources revealed by the google books, news, and scholar search. This one scholarly article seems to give extensive coverage. Morbidthoughts (talk) 15:31, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete as unsourced original essay. Carrite (talk) 17:29, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure, they may not be inline citations but there are sources in the references section. Morbidthoughts (talk) 01:46, 22 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep This AfD does show how Wikipedia standards change. When the article was originally created in 2003, few people would have questioned the notability of alt.sex.stories (though they might have questioned it on other grounds) and the article itself would have been considered quite good. However (apart from some expansion up to 2006) the article didn't change much but Wikipedia standards have - so while it might have been OK in 2003, an essay with only primary sources (some of which will still be good for content, but not for notability) is now OR. However, as the nominator has acknowledged, User:Tokyogirl79 has done a good job on removing the OR aspects - apart from the lack of reliable sources, of which however the standard GBooks search apparently produces quite a few. For instance,, , , , , . And there will be far more out there, even excluding ones which are primarily about United States v. Baker and give it only a brief mention - alt.sex.stories was one of the most known (well, notorious) Usenet newsgroups of the 1990s. PWilkinson (talk) 09:04, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep a famous newsgroup. Needs some improvement, but there seem to be references with which to do it.  DGG ( talk ) 03:50, 25 October 2011 (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.