Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/McDonald's urban legends (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. --Bongwarrior (talk) 04:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

McDonald's urban legends
AfDs for this article: 
 * – (View AfD) (View log)

This article was previously nominated for deletion in November 2006, and was kept as "no consensus" despite a slight majority in favor of deletion. Nine of the ten references in the article do not refer at all to the rumors themselves, but rather to rebuttals against those rumors. The one source of a rumor is a Snopes article which does not establish notability. Most of the rumors are unverified, which is why they're just silly internet rumors in the first place. Wikipedia should not give undue weight to such silliness. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 20:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


 * McDonald's was forced to respond to several of those rumours; a number were featured in reputable newspapers worldwide. I don't think it gets much better than that in terms of veracity or notability. Of course there is no original source for an urban myth; that is the whole point of requiring secondary sources. Since when was not citing a primary source considered a good reason for deletion? Johnleemk | Talk 20:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - My question is, does the McDonalds response to the rumours acknowledge the rumours notability to a sufficient extent? Judgesurreal777 (talk) 21:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: Judgesurreal777, I would think so. And I would think that a rebuttal of a rumor would sufficiently estblish the rumor's existance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Quasirandom (talk • contribs) 22:27, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - existence does not equal notability. Otto4711 (talk) 01:54, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Urban legends are only really citeable in two kinds of source: works by folklorists and rebuttals to rumors. Remove any uncited rumors, and leave the cited ones.  --Phirazo 03:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
 * keep. Rebuttals of rumours are perfectly acceptable primary evidence that the rumours existed and were notable (so notable that they needed rebuttal: I can't think of better evidence for the notability of rumours). To establish secondary-source notability, though, it would be nice to have citations of something like Jan Harold Brunvand's Encyclopedia of Urban Legends (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2001). Anybody have access to a copy? Things put into hamburgers (or milkshakes, or industrially produced apple pies) are a significant part of modern folklore - and should be covered as such, not as part of the MacDonalds article. If a merge were in order, it ought to be to an article on urban legends. --Paularblaster (talk) 14:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - as per Paularblaster, a rebuttal is a perfectly good secondary source for a rumour; this article is well referenced (in fact, rather better referenced than McDonald's legal cases, for example); it is only one of at least 50 McDonald's-related articles on Wikipedia, so the "undue weight" argument does not apply. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:27, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, I agree with the above, rebuttals in public constitute both proof of the rumors' existence, and that it provoked corporate responses in the media shows notability. ThuranX (talk) 05:39, 8 January 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.