Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion incident


 * 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. Clear keep consensus - no mistaken there are 0 delete votes here JForget  21:47, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion incident

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

Duplication of material already in multiple articles. A non-notable event, irrespective of whether some people think it "sounded cool". (One day in Chicago during the late 1980s, somebody broadcast a clip of a person wearing a mask and waving a flyswatter around. Over in a minute, it was largely soon forgotten.) Nothing is present here that isn't in the other articles, nor is this a plausible redirect. Therefore, deletion not merging is appropriate.

Poorly sourced, the references are generally a snippet-piece news item of the time or, free websites which parrot the news item, or YouTube. My Lexis-Nexis search returned only a filler piece or two. Beyond that I was unable to find any substantive sources.

Despite the show not being referenced in the broadcast at all, an episode of the series which happened to be airing at the time has it repeated in its own article; it's been removed several times. I'd have thought the article on the news station, which it momentarily interrupted, wouldn't include it; unfortunately it's been added there as well. For whatever reason, perhaps an idealistic anti-authoritarianism appeal, mentions of it and repetitions of the material are frequently inserted by IPs and occasionally blocked users. The only links to it are a) IP-editor Talk page vandalism warnings and similar, b) repetitions in various articles, in which it generally doesn't belong c) desperately tenuous claimed links: If it should be mentioned onsite at all, it should be limited to the main "Max Headroom (character)" page, perhaps a mention on "Broadcast signal intrusion". The subject of this AfD just duplicates that existing coverage, with redundant scene-by-scene or moment-by-moment description and verbose wording. Whitehorse1 01:52, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * November 22 & 1987 (as claim of its importance to those overall)
 * Max Headroom (character)
 * Max Headroom (TV series)
 * Broadcast signal intrusion
 * Doctor Who in North America (formerly in main Doctor Who article, discussion implies it was put here, where it doesn't belong either, to pacify those adding it there)
 * WTTW and WGN-TV (near-identical text)
 * Dan Roan (in "careers" section of this BLP, a sports anchor who happened to be presenting at the time)
 * Rich Koz (orig. research)
 * Chuck Swirsky (spurious mention)
 * The Christmas Invasion (more OR)
 * Exile (Doctor Who audio) (one of several unreferenced (likely OR) December, 2008 anon-IP additions)
 * Clutch Cargo (bizarre original research single sentence)
 * Postings on A/N, spamreports board (appears to be spam magnet, e.g. the three IPs all at University of Miami), 3RR board, etc.

Comment. Again comments seemingly spuriously throwing out the word "notable" despite the fact no sources have come to light taking sufficient notice to actually discuss and explore anything. (Not to mention the aspects beside notability.) Merely mentioning it regurgitating the basic facts in the news minireports from the week it happened = nothing substantive. If news reports aren't suitable for Wikipedia then basic parrot reciting of what's in them during passing mention in a source doesn't magically transform them or change that. –Whitehorse1 17:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Obviously notable, but it seems that there is cleanup necessary on other articles, because this is the title where the information should be.  SchuminWeb (Talk) 04:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * "Obviously notable" based on what? There are virtually no sources. No analysis. No reliably sourced suggestion of importance. Not that I could find on Lexis-Nexis, Google News, JSTOR, etc. Notable, requires sufficient reliable sources to have taken notice already. A YouTube clip is not a reliable source. A 'light news' snippet at the time (and, all such few news snippets, saying the same brief thing, were between November 23, 1987, and November 30) is not significant, nor sufficient for an article. –Whitehorse1 04:36, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Happened at the end of Doctor Who on Channel 11 around that same time. I'm surprised the article creator/perpetrator forgot about that one. Abductive  (reasoning) 05:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * It sorta mentions it. I re-checked the filler-item on seeing your comment: "..., a spokesman for WTTW, Channel 11 said..." (Assoc. Press Nov. 23, '87). The article just doesn't mention the channel #. –Whitehorse1 05:15, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep The signal intrusion made the news outside of Chicago in the Philadelphia Inquirer and San Francisco Chronicle (available on ProQuest; search for "Max Headroom Moons Chicago"). It's also been discussed at varying lengths in several books published several years after the incident:, , . The page could use some cleanup, but it's not hopeless, and I think an independent article is the best way to present this information. Zagalejo^^^ 05:52, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The 2nd link you cited, on your gbooks search string '"max headroom" wgn', is 11/2 small sentences. A mere mention. As for the other 2, they're no preview. What discussion are you asserting is in them? (WP:GHITS?) As far as the Philadelphia (news?) short article goes, I don't think I have access to that paper under it. The abstract, is visible though. It includes "But the bogus "Max" appeared to be but a pale shadow of the real TV hero. The real Max, a futuristic computer-generated character, was full of offbeat humor and routinely saved the world, although he couldn't save his own short-lived series on ABC." Literally word for word identical to the Associated Press (Dateline: Chicago) piece&mdash;see my comment above. I note the character article's just 5.4k; and, minutiae aside, contains all the info. There is sparse information as no substantive reliable sources have come to light. Please, if you're willing, could you explain your belief that repeating that in an independent article best supports its presentation? –Whitehorse1 06:32, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I can access both of those articles in ProQuest. I only compared them to each other, and they are definitely different from each other. The Inquirer piece is 432 words long, while the San Francisco Chronicle article is 324 words long. To name one specific content-related difference: the first article quotes WTTW spokesperson Anders Yocum, while the second quotes WGN engineer Wally Wright and FCC spokesperson Christine Jelinek. Both articles offer fairly informative recaps of the incident. The first one may indeed be a reprint of an AP article, but the second appears unique, as far as I can tell.
 * Yes, the books don't devote that much space to the incident, but IMO, the short mentions are enough to push the incident beyond NOTNEWS status. And I think the information is best presented in an independent article because, IMO, the subject is just as relevant to the history of WGN, WTTW, etc as it is to Max Headroom. One merge topic does not seem any better than the others, so we might as well just leave the article as it is. (That said, I wouldn't necessarily stop you from merging this to Max Headroom (character), as long as you agreed to preserve most of the detail in the present article - which I know is mostly verifiable.) Zagalejo^^^ 06:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * So, they're both small w/low wordcounts; all the pieces are pretty much identical. As for those two names, the 333-word Chicago Tribune article includes *both*. That's a near carbon copy of all the other articles. No, I don't want to be rude here, but I really think we're at crossed purposes. There IS nothing to merge, because minutiae aside it's all covered in the other articles, which I linked. If a merger was the suitable option then I would not have brought it to AfD, I would've brought it to Proposed Mergers or even merged it. As for the sourced detail, there's mainly unreliable sourcing there plus 'echo chambered' similar news fillers. How do you know there are even short mentions in those books? A search hit proves nothing. They're not browseable online; there's a picture of the cover and a synopsis, which include no information on this topic. –Whitehorse1 07:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I can view all the relevant pages in those books. No, none of them contain substantial analysis, but they do all mention the incident. Maybe you should try again later (or look for the books on Amazon, and see if you can preview the pages there.) Zagalejo^^^ 07:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Re merging: I believe that at least two or three paragraphs of information on this topic is fair. The sources (especially the John Camper one for the Chicago Tribune) did describe the event in some detail. And I don't want to get into a debate over whether or not the details are "minutiae", because that's all subjective. I've said enough here. I'll leave it to others to chime in. Zagalejo^^^ 07:29, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * A procedural request, please try not to change your comment after people reply? (I get you were tweaking, but it makes it harder for others to follow the discussion.) In any event, your links provided no substantive material. Merely mentioning it...is a mere mention. Right now the verifiability (particularly in terms of lacking sufficient sources to build encyclopedic content), notnews, notability (which, is very much not the sole issue), and duplication issues remain clear. –Whitehorse1 07:35, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I apologize for changing my comment after I posted it. That's a bad habit of mine. Zagalejo^^^ 07:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No worries. Whitehorse1 09:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * keep Forgotten by who? I've read about this in a few different sources, obviously notable. riffic (talk) 06:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * There's no suggestion nothing ever occurred. No sufficient reliable sourcing (bar the small contemporaneous news filler items) have come to light though. You know it's already amply-covered in the character (and broadcast sig. int) articles, right? –Whitehorse1 06:32, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The question is, are these sorts of intrusions common? These incidents are an eerie precursor for the Guy Fawkes masked intruder in V for Vendetta (film). If they happened a lot in that era, or have occurred with some regularity in the history of broadcast TV, one could make the case that this one is nothing special, that it is news of the five-legged farm animal variety. Abductive  (reasoning) 07:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * FWIW, this book says it was "pretty unusual". (Whitehorse says he can't view it, but I can. And you can also find the page (53) with Amazon's preview. (I just checked.) Zagalejo^^^ 07:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep the book reference found by Zagalejo says that this was "pretty unusual", "incredibly expensive and difficult" and "the most recent" in US history. Given that the book was published in 2008, that means 21 years have passed without a similar incident. Abductive  (reasoning) 07:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: I managed to read it on Amazon (and it was the pg Zagalejo said). Details beyond those given in the news attention over those few days spanned only that small sentence tho. fwiw the lack of subsequent incidents derives from introduced contingency plans and backup channels (why one lasted only 25s) mentioned in one of the articles at the time. –Whitehorse1 08:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC) (meant to say: "spanned only that 'pretty unusual' point tho") Whitehorse1
 * So, this incident resulted in a change to the way that TV stations worldwide operate that continues to this day? (Or at least until June 12, 2009, the digital switchover day.) Abductive  (reasoning) 08:10, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a huge leap. Details mentioned in one of the newsitems are the earlier WGN-TV one lasted only 25s, because the engineers just flicked a switch; the other, on noncommercial WTTW (less $ for staff?), 90s since they didn't have a contingency plan (which might be "hey, lets keep someone on duty who can flick a switch" "yes, lets"), apparently. Every other TV station in the world might well (like WGN-TV) have already had and continue to have such measures. –Whitehorse1 08:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * It's all OR territory in the absence of sources that give more than passing mention, and have content beyond reiterating the news statements, past the possible repackaging of station PR comments (e.g oh, we're secure; exceptional case that would've taken specialist knowledge/equipt; it's pretty unusual?) –Whitehorse1 08:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * What I was getting at was; the fact that these reliable sources are saying stuff about the ramifications of these intrusions all these years later is saying that it is notable. If these intrusions were only remembered on a few hackers' blogs, then they wouldn't be notable. If this was an article on a particular streaker at a football game from 1987, I might be inclined to say it wasn't notable. But intrusions like these have never happened since, almost a human generation later. Abductive  (reasoning) 08:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Where I was going with that was, there aren't any reliable sources saying anything beyond mere mentions (and, for the most part, reiterating points from the contemporary newsitems). I mean, zero analysis, no counterculture-focused academic material specifically exploring it, no study about its impact, no sources saying transmitter/satellite security improved as a direct result of it, etc., to actually build an encyclopedic article. There may've been no other incidents, but correlation does not equal causation. Maybe nobody felt the urge to repeat it, maybe the ordinary progression of improvements in broadcast technology over the years mean it's not something that could happen anymore, maybe any number of things. What's left is news snippets at the time, non-RS hacker blogs as you say, and basic references to the incident. I'd never suggest it's beneath all mention, and it exists fine in the other one or two articles; here though, each and every facet is detailed. –Whitehorse1 09:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - "Or at least until June 12, 2009, the digital switchover day." I don't mean to sound rude or like I'm attacking you, but please remember that there are Wikipedians outside the United States - the United Kingdom is gradually being switched-over between now (well, 2007) and 2012. DitzyNizzy (aka Jess) | (talk to me) | (What I've done)  09:03, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, I was trying to keep from being overly broad, but assumed that the US would be behind the rest of the world, like it is with metric. Abductive  (reasoning) 09:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Why not keep? If the event is related in so many places across Wikipedia, so why not have a central article where the info is detailed and referenced? Another option would be to have the material moved to a central article like Broadcast signal intrusion and create a redirect to this article, but the length of the material might create an imbalance in the "Broadcast signal intrusion" article. If is is PR biased toward stations' security, then the bias can probably be balanced. olivier (talk) 09:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * (Among ;) My points was it really *isn't* related to so many places, and is ill-placed in many of the articles into which it's been added. The most appropriate place is the character article, where it already is, just more verbose here, and mentioned in due weight in the B.Sig.Int. article. –Whitehorse1 09:27, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * another GBook source, from 1995. Note that it has a tiny superscript number 25, meaning this intrusion was the subject of scholarly interest 8 years after it happened. Abductive  (reasoning) 10:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * :( It's the same. I don't know why GBooks isn't letting me preview some of these; viewed it on Amazon again though. A slightly different edition, so it was subscript 28. The #28 was in the notes section, just listing all the works the author referenced. Those works were the same newspaper refs we were looking at earlier. The actual page with the citation was a brief rehash of the trio of incidents (this, Playboy Channel one, another), giving pretty much the same information as the newspaper pieces it sourced from, which is pretty much the same information in the broadcast signal intrusion article on here. In terms of using it as a source, given its the same content it'd be the same as using news reports solo. There was no actual scholarly comment. No psychological analysis, anything. –Whitehorse1 10:53, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Streaker in football game, 1987; brief flurry of news stories and nothing further; not notable. Max Headroom hijacks TV signals, 1987; brief flurry of news stories, commentary in books and other reliable sources continues to present day; notable. Abductive  (reasoning) 11:24, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * But there isn't commentary in books and other reliable sources. You've just repeated, as the last item in the comment thread, the commment you made at 08:56, where we already established lack of substantive coverage. –Whitehorse1 19:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Notable, the last major TV pirating event in the US, at least according to [one of several books] that mention it. Hairhorn (talk) 15:01, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep--there really shouldn't be much dispute about notability, and the above contributors have given plenty of examples. Drmies (talk) 17:27, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. Settle down. Yelling the same stuff at every editor who is convinced of the notability of this topic does not help your case, and makes you sound like you're parroting yourself. I look forward to an apology where you tell me you really didn't mean to accuse me of rehashing what others have said. Drmies (talk) 22:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Pardon? Nobody in this community discussion has been yelling or otherwise verbally aggressive. Also, my general outdented comment was not specifically directed to you, and certainly contained no personal accusation toward you. –Whitehorse1 22:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, you could consider reading your own comments carefully before interpreting them for me. Spuriously...regurgitating...parrot... But you said "pardon" and I accept your apology. Drmies (talk) 02:21, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * keep Sources establish WP:N. Artw (talk) 19:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The matter of actual decent source material being present or absent aside, the nomination & discussion simply isn't limited to wp:n. I appreciate these discussions often can incorrectly tend to focus on that to exclude all other issues, such as duplication, but please lets try and look at the matter overall. –Whitehorse1 19:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Verifiable and notable. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 23:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep A notable incident backed by reliable and verifiable sources. Alansohn (talk) 02:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Notable incident which is still mentioned today, ex. after the pornographic interruption during the Super Bowl, many articles mentioned this incident.  69.253.207.9 (talk) 23:37, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. notable eventTlatseg (talk) 16:20, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Of course it was notable. It was the only successful intrusion ever (I believe). It sounds like this person **may** be affiliated with the station or in some other way annoyed that this article exists - I don't see how any reasonable person could possibly believe that deleting an informational article because "it only lasted less than a minute" is appropriate. Please also remove the Kent State Shootings, as it lasted under a minute and was over. Please delete every assassination, as they lasted less than a minute so they're not really a big deal. Danfm1 (talk) 19:29, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * — Danfm1 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Keep. Notable even without "proper" sources, this is one of the only major signal intrusions in broadcasting history. Feel free to look around at some of the articles related to invertebrates, tons of those are held afloat by only one source, and that provides no information, just the fact that the thing exists. Unless you have found a way to take something like this that is obviously notable and make it completely disappear from public record, there is no reason to even consider deleting it. If you would like to delete some of the links to the page, that is fine/reasonable; deleting the article just because of those links is not. Subverted (talk • contribs) 14:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * At the risk of repeating stuff, to clarify the afd concerns an article that is a duplicate (not 'summary style') of information in another article. Mentioning sources not previously used in the article (Chicago Tribune) is not the action of someone wishing to make anything completely disappear from public record! I probably won't take up your suggestion to browse invertebrate articles, but I wouldn't suggest they shouldn't have an article; just, not multiple articles on the same one. Thanks, Whitehorse1.18:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment: If I had not voted a "why not keep?" before, I would close the case as a "keep" at this point. All opinions, except the one of Whithorse1 are in favor of keeping the article. The event was noted and of is importance in the history of broadcasting, if it really was "the last major TV pirating event in the US". It also generates abundant interest (see the length of this page). Whitehorse1 is essentially saying that the content should be in Wikipedia, somewhere in an article, but should not have its own article. Whitehorse1 seems also to disagree with the prose of the article which looks like overemphasizing the current security of the networks involved. I can address 2 points here: 1) if the content of the article is biased, it can be rewritten, nobody has objected to this. 2) where the content of this article belongs, if not in a separate article, probably depends on one's background. Whithorse1 is suggesting that it belongs to the Max Headroom (character) article, I personally would rather see it in the Broadcast signal intrusion article, and some others might see it in the one of the networks' article. Again, having the material in its own article ensures that it is maintained and referenced easily in one place. Just keep it separate and reduce the amount of text in the articles mentioning it - again, no-one is objecting to this. So just bring another admin over to close the case and all go have a walk in the park and/or send flowers to your secret lover. If you have time and interest, go and browse the invertebrate articles. Finally, on a personal note, thank you for putting this article on AfD, thus bringing it to my attention: the videos are hilarious. Now, if you have no park, no secret lover and no interest in invertebrates, just compare this to another extremely minor event, The Bus Uncle (featured article!) which became very big because of internet. If youtube had existed back in 1987, no doubt the Max Headroom broadcast would have been a much bigger deal. olivier (talk) 20:33, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * As you've asserted 'things I said', it's best to clear up confusion and misinterpretation. I can't determine how you infer an objection to the prose of 'over-emphasizing current security of the networks', from reference to trivial detail or verboseness. My suggestion wasn't the content "belongs instead" to one article, Max Headroom (character), over this one. What I said was that it is less verbosely already in that article. It's easier to maintain fewer articles than many. We use summary style, which is distinct from a fork, to fully explore topic aspects without overburdening a longer parent article, which here is only 5.4kb. It's necessary to address subjects in more than one article, like Broadcast signal intrusion, in covering main areas of the article topic. Incidentally, by contrast the Bus Uncle incident generated vigorous and substantial cultural, lifestyle, etiquette, and ethics debate, discussion and analysis. Nonetheless, I second your advice to everyone to enjoy nature and rekindle relationships. Have a pleasant day. –Whitehorse1 21:53, 14 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment: you're right, let's enjoy nature. Better than continuing this conversation. olivier (talk) 09:59, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * (interject) The word choice 'misinterpretation' was deliberate. Manipulation is loaded and unsuitable, implying bad faith motive, none of which seemed or seem present. The segment about their downplaying the incident is a dependent clause in a sentence, that lacks context when divorced from the rest. As you indicate uninterest in continuing conversation, there isn't much point to my replying to your questions. Be well. –Whitehorse1 15:57, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your kind words. I hope that other people will keep interest in pursuing this conversation. olivier (talk) 17:44, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment 2: since I do not want others to think that I am manipulating what you had said previously, here it is:
 * Whitehorse1: "possible repackaging of station PR comments (e.g oh, we're secure; exceptional case that would've taken specialist knowledge/equipt; it's pretty unusual?) "
 * Whitehorse1: "The most appropriate place is the character article, where it already is"
 * So now that you have given your opinion extensively, why don't you just say clearly what you suggest? 1) delete? 2) merge and if so where? olivier (talk) 10:06, 15 August 2009 (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.