Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Butterface

Butterface was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was DELETE. 15 votes to delete, 2 to keep. Postdlf 06:04, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Butterface
Butterface was speedy deleted as patent nonsense but does not qualify, since it is not unintelligible or lacking in meaning. More than 24 hours after a request for clarification made to the deletor I've received no reply, so here it is after undeletion as an out of process deletion. This listing by me neither supports nor opposes deletion - it's just required by undeletion policy. Jamesday 18:39, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

NB: Content was ''Butterface: A female who has a very good-looking body but an ugly face (comes from "Everything looks good but her face"). Used by males.'' Since then the content has been updated.


 * Neutral at present - it's little but a dictionary definition but I gather at least a couple of people think it has potential. We'll see. Jamesday 18:39, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - doesn't appear to be notable. -- Graham &#9786; | Talk 19:17, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: I'd agree with the speed delete, too, frankly, because this is not nonsense, as the deletor said, but a vandal joke, an obvious one. It's simply someone's sex joke and perpetuation of juvenalia.  Just informing the world of his buddies' slang.   Geogre 19:26, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * It's not just his buddies' slang. I heard the word used in 2000. anthony (see warning) 00:03, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Were you not also the one who suggested that some high schools on VfD were famous, but couldn't state what for, or was that siroxo? :) --Improv 21:34, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Aren't you the one who suggested that the most famous cheese steak place in the world was not notable, or was that RickK? BTW, 2/5/2000.  anthony (see warning) 01:48, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * A quick Google check suggests that the word might be a Howard Stern neologism, or is at least used on his show. If nobody expands it, delete it as a dicdef. gK 19:27, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Right now it's deleted (by RickK as patent nonsense), so it can't be expanded. It doesn't seem to be invented by Howard Stern, though it is a word used on his show.  Deleting an article because Howard Stern uses the word is obviously ridiculous. anthony (see warning) 00:03, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Looking into this, the earliest reference I can find is 11/15/1999, attributed to Howard Stern, so maybe he did coin the term. anthony (see warning) 02:09, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I remember this being a popular thing to say in high school, and I can think of several people to whom it would apply now...but, I don't think this could be anything more than a dictionary definition. The previous content pretty much said it all, so I vote to keep it deleted. Adam Bishop 21:01, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * It is expandable, just like geek or nerd or asshole. If we delete this then we should delete them too. anthony (see warning) 00:03, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * It is far less known than those terms. --Improv 21:34, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Which just makes it more likely that someone is going to look it up. anthony (see warning) 22:39, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Undelete. Expandable. anthony (see warning) 00:03, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * In all fairness, this made me laugh out loud. I nominated it as a speedy for lack of content and neologistics.  If it's connected to Howard Stern and can be suitably expanded, I'll change my vote to keep.  Right now, it stands as a good-natured delete. - Lucky 6.9 02:21, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I don't understand your vote. It is connected to Howard Stern, in that he uses the term, and it can be suitably expanded.  So why isn't your vote already keep? anthony (see warning) 02:24, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete slang dicdef. -- Cyrius|&#9998; 03:21, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete unless expanded. Needs to establish that it's more than just the typical attempted neologism we get here, but that it has some basis for notability. --Michael Snow 20:15, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * What would be necessary to establish "notability"? anthony (see warning) 22:41, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * BJAODN &mdash; siro  &chi;  o  10:11, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Not encyclopedic, not notable. --Improv 15:46, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Dictdef, no potential to become encyclopedic.   &mdash; Gwalla | Talk 19:41, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * It appears to me that it could become encyclopedic by the usual process &mdash; people adding to it and refining each other's work. The Wiki method should be effective on all articles, even those about the term "butterface". Factitious 06:32, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * delete dictdef Mozzerati 21:40, 2004 Oct 21 (UTC)
 * Delete Search in Google Groups for butterface yields 875 hits, fairly impressive since other things being equal Google Groups typically returns about 1/5 as many hits as (the usual) Google web search. Search in Groups for butterface -stern yields 488 hits, showing that Stern is playing a role in popularizing it but that it has an existence outside his orbit. In borderline cases I am influenced by the quality, thoroughness, and scholarship behind an article as well as the topic. I would probably vote to keep a good article on this topic. But I vote to delete this one. Some bad articles are seeds of good articles, some are not. This one is not. There could be an encyclopedic article on the topic "butterface," but this article itself does not have the potential of becoming encyclopedic. The word should be covered in our articles on slang, Stern, or whatever if it isn't already. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 22:19, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I think I must be misunderstanding you. Are you saying that there could be a good article on the topic "butterface", but that the article Butterface cannot become a good article on that topic? Factitious 06:32, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * I think his point is that an article has to be great from the very beginning. We can't wait for it to expand, because that might take too long, and ruin the respect people have for the encyclopedia.  By this rationale we might never have had an encyclopedia in the first place, I mean, just look at the first version of Al Gore, but I think the argument is that we've grown big enough that we don't have to be a wiki any more, and should abandon the principles which made us what we are today.  Maybe we could move this article to the talk page until it's great, though.  This way it doesn't reflect on Wikipedia negatively, and it can still be easily expanded.  Were this page truly about finding consensus, that's something that could be discussed.  anthony (see warning) 14:20, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Yep, I'm saying that the more obscure and unimportant the topic itself is, the better the article ought to be on first appearance. By my rationale, though, a stub on Al Gore should be kept because, since Al Gore is quite notable, there is a large pool of people interested in expanding that stub and it is likely to grow. An article on a relatively obscure topic, such as Claude Chappe, however, should be decent&mdash;not great, but something like three decent paragraphs&mdash;when submitted. Reread The perfect stub article. Stubs are supposed to get expanded fairly quickly. Stubs in themselves are not valuable. Their value is as a means of producing an article. Not all stubs are equally valuable. This is not a question of logic-chopping. I can write the words "Chapter 1" on a page and it has the potential of becoming a great novel. In a literal sense it "can become" a great novel. But it is not a valuable page. Collaboration and incremental expansion works well on topics that are notable enough to draw on a pool of collaborators. For very obscure topics, the article should start life in a sorta-kinda-half-decent state, because it will be a long time before someone else comes along to improve it. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 02:39, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC) P. S. Take a look at the history of Claude Chappe. Fifteen edits in two years, and the article absolutely was improved by the collaborative process&mdash;but it started out as a perfectly respectable article when first submitted. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 02:43, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that explanation. It makes sense, and I agree that it's not logic-chopping.  But considering that the article has already been expanded since the beginning of this discussion, would you agree that it's now sufficiently "sorta-kinda-half-decent"?  I agree that it's not yet a great article, of course. Factitious 05:50, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)
 * It has indeed expanded since it was created. My view is that it's borderline, and my mental coin-flip happened to land on the "delete" side. If my mood had been different I might have voted the other way. I feel very strongly that it just does not matter very much whether this article is in Wikipedia or not. I don't see any terribly good reason to change my vote, so I'm leaving it as it is, out of inertia or stubbornness or sales resistance. If it does get worked up into a decent article, than, well, I will have misjudged. That's why I'm glad that I am not the only person who votes in these things. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 16:25, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Personally I am very hesitant to work on articles which are on VfD. Rather than risk having my work deleted, I prefer to wait until the VFD period is over and then recreate the article in a better form.  That this article can easily be expanded is obvious from the fact that there is much more information right here on the delete discussion than there is in the actual article.  I think a stub article should be given at least a week to grow before being listed on VfD for that reason.  As for stubs getting expanded very quickly, I should note that Al Gore remained in that original state for 9 months.  One year later it looked like this .  Maybe things have changed, and we should abandon the principles that made Wikipedia what it is today, but if we had deleted articles just because they weren't likely to be significantly expanded in even a year's time, we likely wouldn't have a Wikipedia. anthony (see warning) 14:37, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * And yes, in the case of this article, it was deleted within minutes. It wasn't even given a week to grow. anthony (see warning) 14:37, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Ambi 00:24, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Dictdef. Delete, possibly move to Wiktionary. - Mike Rosoft 12:44, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * BJAODN Passw0rd 14:38, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. There's nothing actually wrong with it.  We have plenty of other articles on slang terms, and though this is shorter than I'd like, the correct way to fix that on a Wiki is by expanding the article, not deleting it.  What do we stand to gain by getting rid of the information? Factitious 06:32, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: joke, dicdef, ephemeral. Wile E. Heresiarch 02:27, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Why do you consider the article to be a joke? I was under the impression that it was factual and serious. Factitious 20:42, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.