Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parodies of Harry Potter (3rd 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.  Sandstein  05:51, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Parodies of Harry Potter
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log )

While the Harry Potter franchise is notable, notability is not inherited to every content fork. This article is an arbitary content fork and an unnecessary split, composed exclusively of a list of miscellaneous information, not notable by itself. Most of the 101 references used in the article are for descriptions of the parodies, barely a few have critical commentary (none related to the parody itself) and none show how notable a topic "Parodies of Harry Potter" is or how notable any of the parodies is. Previous keep votes in other nominations claimed that the article is fixable, but ignored whether or not the topic is notable. Doing a quick search engine test, I found that most link results are recycling material from this article, but none resembles a reliable third-party source independent of the subject to presume notability. In fact, none of the references within the article have a topic called "Parodies of Harry Potter", making the text rely sometimes on original research by synthesis like with the mention of "Harry Potter Bad Roommate" or "The Capping Show Returns".

It is my opinion that the topic "Parodies of Harry Potter" does not meet the general notability guideline since it does not have significant coverage from reliable secondary sources independent of the subject to presume notability. I also don't think that the article meets the criteria of appropriate topics for lists since the topic is trivial, non-encyclopedic and falls into what Wikipedia is not, by being an indiscriminate collection of information, a complete exposition of all possible details and an unnecessary content fork.

Instead of being a summary of accepted knowledge mentioned in the article Harry Potter or in Harry Potter fandom, this article cherry picks several parodies to create the text, with no regard as to whether the parodies themselves are notable or not. Since Wikipedia is not a complete exposition of all possible details, I do not believe that "Parodies of Harry Potter" is a topic that warrants its own article. The individual parodies should be mentioned in the articles of the notable subjects, such as Treehouse of Horror XII, and those which are from publications noted by their parodies (such as Mad (magazine)) or non-notable should be omitted altogether. Also, Harry Potter is not the only franchise that has multiple parodies. Several other franchises and classic works have at least as many parodies as Harry Potter, but that doesn't make the parodies notable or non-trivial to warrant a whole article about the many times that the works have been parodied. Jfgslo (talk) 16:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions.  —Jfgslo (talk) 16:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions.  —Jfgslo (talk) 16:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions.  —Jfgslo (talk) 16:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions.  —Jfgslo (talk) 16:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Nothing has changed in the past six months since this was last kept. One needn't have each source use the phrase "parody of harry potter" to be such.  Common sense applies and is not OR.  We get that you don't like it, Jfgslo, but repeated nominations against clear past consensus are unmerited. Jclemens (talk) 17:51, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * While you don't need to check the phrase "parody of Harry Potter", you have to show that such parodies have significant coverage in reliable sources to presume notability, which the article doesn't since it only shows that it has been parodied multiple times, just like any other franchise. Most of the references used in the article are trivial mentions or primary sources which fall into the criteria of what Wikipedia is not. Because of this, I believe that there is no presumed notability for an article that lists a multitude of non-notable parodies with detailed descriptions of the parodies themselves. WP:OR applies because all material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source and that is not the case in these parodies since almost all of them aren't showing notability and some aren't even sourced, so I do not believe that it is common sense to cite unreferenced non-notable parodies, such as Youtube videos, to presume that "parodies of Harry Potter" is notable as a topic. Also, the first AfD was a no consensus, the second one was not closed by an administrator and it was not a clear consensus and also the third one was not a complete consensus. Furthermore, consensus can change. Past decisions are open to challenge and are not binding. As I said, none of the previous keep votes in other nominations ever addressed the notability of the topic, most only argued that it's a fixable article. My contention is that the topic doesn't even meet the general notability guideline or the criteria of appropriate topics for lists and neither the sum of non-notable parodies. The only claim to notability of the parodies that I have seen is an article written in the Times by Andrew Lycett saying that the Harry Potter series has been the subject of parodies more than any other literary work, which only shows that Harry Potter is so notable that it has multiple parodies, not that the parodies themselves are notable and merit an article. Jfgslo (talk) 16:32, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep per Jclemens. Nothing has changed since the last two nominations and nothing presented has convinced me this isn't a perfectly valid topic for a WP article. Gamaliel (talk) 20:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep While I don't encourage articles for every work that has ever been parodied, the Harry Potter series has the distinction of being the subject of more parodies than any other literary work, and the article is well sourced, setting an example for any additions. I think that it may need to lose some of the pop culture references, but parodies of Harry Potter have become an industry.  Mandsford 20:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Per Jclemens.  Also, while I don't think it's really required for this discussion, the text does provide some additional context as to the significance of Potter parodies, such as the material about parody misinterpretations leading to school ban demands, urban legends, and other hi-jinx.--Arxiloxos (talk) 16:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep per the topic of Harry Potter parodies itself being a valid and easily sourcable notable topic covered in news sources books and scholars.  As was stated at the previous AFD, concerns are fixable and the article expandable, with no mandate or requirement that it be done NOW.  The way we cover topics that may not themselves individually notable is to have them in a combination article that addresses the entire notable topic with sourcing of the indvidual elements. Being able to then ourselves see the wide and persistant coverage available is not OR.  The inclusion criteria are not indescriminate.  And per WP:SPLIT there is far too much sourced information to place in some other article.  A list with specific inclusion criteria is neither "arbitrary" nor "miscellaneous", and as as a demonstrably notable topic, this one serves the project and its readers.  Schmidt,  MICHAEL Q. 16:52, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I apologize for this long text, but I feel that I needed to point out a few things. First of all, I would like to point out that it is precisely because of this type of search results that I'm convinced that this topic does not have notability. As stated in WP:BEFORE, before nominating due to sourcing or notability concerns, one has to make a good-faith attempt to confirm that such sources don't exist, which I did and this is the detailed explanation. Per WP:GNG, significant coverage means that sources address the subject directly in detail. Sources for notability purposes should be secondary sources and independent of the subject and excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject (in this case the individual parodies of Harry Potter or Harry Potter), which is what none of the sources in Google Books, Google Scholar and Google News show.


 * For example, while using Google Books with the search terms "Harry Potter" +parody, one gets 862 results, but most of them consist of primary sources, that is, individual parodies that aren't being reviewed by a reputable publication and which are not notable themselves, such as "Henry Potty and the Pet Rock", "Barry Trotter and the unauthorized parody", "Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody" or "Harry Putter and the Chamber of Cheesecakes". Other results are either from sources that are not independent of the subject, like "The Ultimate Guide to the Harry Potter Fandom" (which never treats in detail the subject of parodies, only four mentions and only two which allude to a Harry Potter parody), "J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels: a reader's guide" (which doesn't actually mention a single parody about Harry Potter) or "A guide to the Harry Potter novels" (which also doesn't mention a single parody about Harry Potter) or are trivial mentions like in "The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control" (which only mentions once a Harry Potter parody and it does it in reference to a lawsuit). Changing the term to "Harry Potter parody", the results are only 9 and all of them are trivial mentions. I have no idea how these results can be considered an indication of presumed notability when those that aren't primary sources (parodies) do not pass from a single sentence. I also don't understand how when some elements of Harry Potter are mentioned to be a parody of something in real life (see below) is getting equated to a parody about Harry Potter.


 * Using "Harry Potter" +parody with Google Scholar repeats several results from Google Books and is once again deceiving. For example, the paper "Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays" by Giselle Anatol, mentions nothing about a Harry Potter parody. It only mentions that some situations in the Harry Potter series are parodies of real life things, such as how Aunt Petunia is a parody of an overprotective mother, but there is nothing in the paper about a parody of the Harry Potter series. Same situation with "The Harry Potter novels as a test case for adolescent literature" by Roberta Seelinger, "From Elfland to Hogwarts, or the Aesthetic Trouble with Harry Potter" by John Pennington or any of the several search results. Once again, when using "Harry Potter parody", barely 12 results show up and, again, none actually amount more than a trivial mention.


 * When using a range from 2000 to 2011 with Google News, there are some results that actually mention parodies of Harry Potter. But all those that give a mention are news reports and per WP:N, a large number of news reports that provide no critical analysis of an event is not considered significant coverage. Also, not all coverage in reliable sources constitutes evidence of notability for the purposes of article creation specifically minor news stories is an example of coverage that may not actually support notability when examined, despite their existence as reliable sources. For example, "Part one of final Harry Potter film premieres at midnight" a publication by Penn State students, merely give a passing mention about how the author enjoyed a Youtube video that is a parody of Harry Potter, but does not give a review or anything similar. "Read the Harry Potter Simulation winners" doesn't cover in detail any parody of Harry Potter. "Dutch court blocks release of Harry Potter copycat book" is a news report that doesn't provide critical analysis about the parody. Once again using "Harry Potter parody", there are only 32 results using the same period of time, and the only one that gives some detailed analysis is the Simpsons episode.


 * Most of the sources found with Google News do not address the parodies directly in detail, which in my opinion means that they do show significant coverage and, therefore, are useless for notability. And we have to discount results like the article "Does Harry Potter Parody Government Response To Terror?", which does not talk about a parody about Harry Potter but about the belief by some that Harry Potter is an analogy of the British government and terrorism, nothing to do with the notability of parodies of the Harry Potter series.


 * There are some like "Artist's Potter Parody Goes National" (a news report about Wizard People, Dear Reader, a parody that already has its own article) or "Wal-Mart cast as dark lord; Organized labor uses Harry Potter parody in viral marketing campaign against giant retailer" (a news report about a campaign against Wal-Mart) that do seem better than the rest, but I think it is clear that they do not provide significant coverage in reliable sources to establish a presumption of notability for an article called "Parodies of Harry Potter" and, so, the topic does not meet the WP:GNG. I must mention that using "parody of Harry Potter" gives even less results than "Harry Potter parody".


 * I also must stress that existence is not the same as notability nor does it prove it. The fact that there are several parodies of Harry Potter is notable, but that does not mean that the parodies themselves are notable and warrant an article for themselves, particularly when they are only mentioned in primary sources or in non-independent of the subject sources, which is the case in this article. Notability requires the existence of suitable reliable sources and, so far, I haven't found reliable sources that treat the parodies in detail in a non-trivial manner.


 * WP:ATD assumes that a page can be improved, but, outside of the opening paragraph (which is the only text in the article that provides context as to the significance of the Harry Potter parodies and can easily be merged in another Harry Potter article), all the content is non-notable and falls into WP:NOT, in my opinion. For example, none of the books in the book section is notable to be mentioned since none has reliable secondary sources that review them in detail and instead it's a list of non-notable parodies sourced with primary sources. And the book section holds better than the rest of the article which is a big trivia section that lists parodies just for the sake of listing them, ignoring WP:SALAT since they are not in reliable secondary source and, as such, that makes the list trivial and non-encyclopedic. With this said, I do not believe that WP:SPLIT applies because all the content in the article is arbitrary and unneeded and should be deleted. It does not matter if it is well-sourced with primary sources, because it is non-notable material. There is a Harry Potter Wiki for material not supported by reliable secondary sources.


 * Using common sense we can see that the general notability guideline establishes that significant coverage is more than a trivial mention and that means that sources address the subject directly in detail, which is not the case in this article. Also, if you don't mind me asking, which guideline states that topics not individually notable can be combined in an article to presume that a topic has notability? If you are talking about lists, they must meet the criteria of appropriate topics for lists, which, as I have pointed out, I do not think this article does. They are useful when an article is already too big and lists can help alleviate article size problems by splitting less notable material related to the topic into lists, such as lists of episodes or characters, but it is always with material directly related to the article's subject and "Parodies of Harry Potter" are not directly related to the Harry Potter series.


 * If the list of parodies does not have an arbitrary criteria for inclusion, why are there several non-notable webcomics, youtube videos, non-notable books and other material that is only mentioned in primary sources? Is the criteria simply existence? Why all of them rely in primary sources before establishing their notability?


 * I would like to suggest that, when trying to reference with Google hits, try to read first the actual text of the results because search engine tests can be deceiving. I'm not closed to the idea of finding sources which could support notability for this topic, but I have tried already and, so far, I have not found anything new that changes my initial position.


 * To the closing administrator, please check the interpretation of the guidelines cited by the participants in this discussion, as that seems to be the main difference in arguments. I will try to refrain from making detailed responses in the future to avoid making this discussion more convoluted. Jfgslo (talk) 04:52, 11 April 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.