Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Light as a feather, stiff as a board


 * 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. Cirt (talk) 06:25, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Light as a feather, stiff as a board

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

The subject is not notable, discussing an obscure party game. There are no sources, and the writers have been unable to find any references to justify notability requirements for some time while the "Unreferenced" template has been there. It was removed from PROD on the grounds of a source spotted on Google Scholar which "looked promising", but no-one involved has actually read. Kan8eDie (talk) 20:42, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 *  Neutral  I put a rescue tag on this one, solely because I remember it from an episode of South Park. The girls on the show were playing the game at a sleep over at Bebe's house, I believe, which leads me to believe it may be a larger cultural thing.  (The episode where Butter's was disguised as a girl to get the "secret weapon" / finger paper game.)  We shall see.    D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 21:08, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Interesting. It still looks pretty non-notable, but that is helpful, thanks. If this has any real significance, perhaps in the US only, then it can stay, but so far no concrete indication has been given that it does. —Kan8eDie (talk) 21:21, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It was in The Craft as well. Uncle G (talk) 21:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Cough. Cargo cult encyclopaedia article writing, I see.  Uncle G (talk) 22:03, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Whenever I look at an AfD, I see two things. Arguments for Keep and Arguments for Delete. I cannot make any arguments to keep the article. Bigvinu (talk) 21:38, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * For those of you who have been back to the first version of the article, before it got cargo culted, here's where to find LeFors Clark:
 * Uncle G (talk) 22:03, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I hate to just assume it is as bad as it sounds, but the title "Antigravity and the world grid" hardly inspires me that it is a worthwhile source to base an encyclopaedia on. —Kan8eDie (talk) 22:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete as this seems like a patent case of WP:MADEUP. While I'm sure it's a game that's actually played, that doesn't make it notable. (Nor does a brief mention in South Park). If someone writes a book on childhood play and devotes some paper to this, maybe. Until then, no. B figura  (talk) 23:06, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep well established term and game. Lots of hits on google news. I added a few of them. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:36, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Assorted links to pseudo-science nonsense do not properly reference an article like this. If you want to support their claims of extraordinary things happening with the game, the sources are clearly wrong; if you are trying to document this as a sociological phenomenon, then linking the crackpot articles directly is original research. Has any sociologist or other related disciplinarian written about this game? A lot of junk is on google, which does not make it notable. Besides, for some of the sources given, it is unclear that they have any relevance to the article at all. For example, a link to a Google search page clearly documents no fact in the article. —Kan8eDie (talk) 00:11, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The citations are to established media. There are lots more on Google News and you're welcome to add them. The sources are simply the best available websites describing and discussing the subject (since many of the citations and news sites aren't available online). ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:48, 22 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete This is a disaster. Is this an article about a parlor game? A turn of the phrase that has become common and hackneyed in the press, and used to describe everything from political figures to silicon wafers? A pseudoscience fringe theory? The answer, it seems, is all of these things at once. Thus, this article manages to be indiscriminate in its choice of topic, non-notable in any individual one of them, and a classic example of muddled prose at the same time. RayAYang (talk) 01:27, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Parlor game? You mean like Are you there Moriarty?, Squeak Piggy Squeak, Carnelli, Charades, Consequences, Dictionary (Fictionary), Snap-dragon, Twenty questions, Blind man's bluff, Mafia/Werewolf, Elephant's foot umbrella stand, Wink Murder, The Minister's Cat, Tiddlywinks and Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?    D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 01:25, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I was wondering how long it would take to invoke WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS in defense of this article. RayAYang (talk) 06:34, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say that the essay you mention is applicable at all times. It actually wasn't used in defense of the article, but in response to a comment. And sometimes, dare I say, that OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, like non-binding verdicts found in my profession, can actually be used as a positive guideline as to show precedent in former, similar AFDs, as opposed to being an essay that deters anyone from bringing up a similar situation. I would hope that if I invoked No Personal Attacks, that people would look into it to see if I had actually been personally attacked, as opposed to letting said invocation end a debate. Lawshoot! 06:46, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply It wasn't to justify the article, it was to demonstrate that you didn't look before you leapt. The article doesn't need to be justified, it is independently notable.   D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 13:40, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It amuses me to note that the sourcing remains extraordinarily slim, consisting mostly of offhand references in columns written around the Halloween season. My complaints about the introduction of bizarre pseudoscience into the article also have not been addressed. Different people have different bars for notability and suitability of inclusion for topics into an encyclopedia about human knowledge (as opposed to trivia). For me, this game/pseudoscientific fringe theory/phrase used in essays clearly doesn't qualify. RayAYang (talk) 20:50, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps that is the problem. I am too lazy to develop my own bar for notability.  I just use Wikpedia's.   D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 21:09, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't be an ass. The Wikipedia notability guidelines call for judgment and discretion. Reasonable people can and are differing over what constitutes "significant" coverage and what constitutes historical notability. RayAYang (talk) 04:45, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty surprised that I'm apparently the only one here who played this growing up. I'd argue that it's common enough to appear in the news media (both in articles about the game and in plays on the name of the game), but I do seem to remember that the main reason I got on the subject in the first place was stumbling on the surprising pseudoscientific theories about how the game supposedly works.  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 02:00, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * KEEP I knew going into this that it was likely notable, but stayed neutral until sourced appeared. ChildofMidnight has got a strong start on it, and while the article still needs some organization, that isn't a reason to delete.  He has provided more than enough references on the page to show it is as notable as I thought, now it just needs a tag or two and to have the information formatted out.  There is no reason to delete now, only a reason to clean up a bit.  The fact that many have never heard of this (likely is only a U.S. thing) is *exactly* the reason it belongs, particularly since it is verified.   D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 02:41, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep:While it needs a rewrite (tries too hard to assert notability), the sources and references are enough to establish it as a notable child's game. Lawshoot! 13:30, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. As wel as the sources presented so far there are loads found by a Google Books search. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:37, 22 November 2008 (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.