Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pigasus (politics)


 * 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 WP:SNOW. Clear keep, some improvements as noted can be made. (Non-admin closure) --Chip123456 (talk) 11:25, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Pigasus (politics)

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  Stats )

I came across this topic in my routine check of CAT:HOAX. Although I have seen enough to convince me that it is not a complete hoax, a search for sources leads me to believe that this is just a minor publicity stunt that was part of the larger, notable 1968 Democratic National Convention protest activity. I found one, maybe two reliable sources that mention this pig, but it is only mentioned in passing as part of a discussion on the protests as a whole. All other claims made in this article are either sourced to blogs or completely unsourced. Therefore I believe this article should be deleted as failing the notability criteria. &mdash; KuyaBriBri Talk 18:11, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 18:17, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 18:18, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment Presently the article is full of silly jokes and counterfactual statements, violating WP:V and lacking reliable sources. But certainly there was press coverage of the "Pigasus" swine candidate put forward by Yippies in 1968, and he is as fitting a subject for an article as the various pets of famous people, such as Presidential dogs and cats, whose articles have been upheld in numerous AFDs.  I will see if sources are available at the online sources to which free access is available. Edison (talk) 18:29, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete due to lack of reliable sources and no evidence of notability. Please see article version before recent hoaxer's cleanup attempt (yes, he was a Muslim pig known for his charismatic speeches and landmark court case.) Back in the real world, from the single real cited source looks like some students pulled a short-lived prank that got a brief mention in a newspaper's "lighter side of things" image caption - the only "reliable" source. Most of the article is hoaxery-jokery by, drawn from a joke web site, a blog entry, a fictional book ("The Illuminatus Trilogy" as a source, really?), and just gunk made up by the hoaxer. Even the only "reliable" source talks about the pig in a joking manner, giving a grand total of zero serious sources. I will change my !vote if notability can be established, though with little hope, as the hoaxer seems to have scraped the bottom of the barrel pretty thoroughly. 88.114.124.228 (talk) 18:59, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment Have you tried a WP:BEFORE Google Books search, such as using the terms "Pigasus" and "Yippies"? There's a significant number of books out there. AllyD (talk) 19:09, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep This is part of the enduring historical record of the 1968 Presidential campaign, and is still frequently referred to in articles about the 1960's, as a notable mass media event. Edit out any hoax or poorly sourced text. Some sources with coverage, which could be used to make a reliable sourced stub out of the present hoaxalicious mess Many of the sources are behind paywall, so someone with library access could delve into them to verify the depth of coverage. "Yippies pick pig for President" Boston Globe, Aug 24, 1968, 555 words (payment required)  Chicago Trib, Sep 30 1968 ":Yippie Pig retires from race" 281 words, payment reqiured), LA Times Aug 17 2000 (payment required) "He calls them a light-hearted attempt to bring back "Pigasus," the swine that Hoffman's yippie ... "OK, the pig isn't the original Pigasus," Greenwald concedes. ", Hartford Courant, Oct 1, 1968 (payment required) "Pigasus, the presidential candidate of the Youth International Party Yippies is ... Pigasus was taken to the anticruelty society, the Yippies were taken to jail. ", Christian Science Monitor, Aug 12, 1968 (payment)"They plan to nominate a pig--called Pigasus--for president. Pigasus will be shipped here from Denver for the occasion.  ...", Boston Globe, Aug 10, 1968 "The YIP will have closed convention Pigasus has the nomination locked up and Is already working on his acceptance speech Peck said 100000 YIPs would ..., LA Times, Apr 13, 1969 (payment) "The exodus ended the attraction of the farm which gained some fame as a hippie -yippie haven and was the home of Pigasus, the hog which yippies ran for ...",LA Times, Nov 17, 1987 (payment) "As a founder of the legendary '60s commune the Hog Farm, it was Romney who nominated his prize hog Pigasus as a candidate for President during the ..." (this was not George or Mitt Romney), The Economist, Jan 7, 1999 (42 words about Pigasus 1968 candidacy), ,  New York Daily News,  Aug 20, 2008, "Pigasus was purchased by folk singer Phil Ochs. But when Rubin ... Unfortunately for Pigasus, he was never seen again; there is speculation a cop took him ...  Page 9 of 25) I(In a 40th anniversary review of the 1968 Democratic Convention, a New York paper saw fit to devote 75 words to the pig.),  [http://www.neurope.eu/article/political-dirty-dozen-worlds-weirdest-parties paragraph on Youth International Party, with 2 sentences on Pigasus, Daily Beast blog,Jan 14, 2012 with  199 words about Pigasus (page 12), Silicon Valley's Metro, Sep 13, 2001 (compares Pigasus favorably to   Al Gore's 2000 candidacy, saying "at least Pigasus was alive.". Then let's look for Pigasus' 1968 candidacy at Google Books:, ,   , , ,, , .. There are many more results: that's just the first page, and on page 20 the results just keep coming.   Edison (talk) 19:10, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I can't see through the paywalls, sorry. I see The Economist reference: a joke "His platform, naturally, was garbage" - no further information. "neurope.eu" makes a two-sentence mention, one of which is, again, a joke. "metroactive.com" mentions the pig's name, makes a joke about Al Gore, and mentions the pig's name again. Am I just unlucky that the only sources I can see are trivial mentions and jokes? Not that I am against having an article about this, just that is there reliable sourceable academic content or just one-liners? 88.114.124.228 (talk) 19:41, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * You don't have to be able to get through paywalls to be able to see that if the name of the topic is appearing in the titles of newspaper articles, these aren't just one-line mentions. There were entire newspaper articles about it in 1968 and it's still being mentioned half a century later in encyclopedias of pop culture. -- ▸∮ truthious ᛔ andersnatch ◂ 19:51, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I would like to see more than a mention of a name to see if there is more than a one-sentence joke to be had. Though I still think the subject might be encyclopedic, just that I have yet to see a non-joke source, and 95+% of the article is still ill-sourced and joke-based (did you know the pig had a clear platform on eating people? And the pig was not aware why he was being paraded? And, as sourced to The Illuminatus! Trilogy, the pig swallowed handcuffs that were being put on him?) 88.114.124.228 (talk) 20:08, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Dude, seriously - if you would like to see something like that it's a reason to put your own elbow grease into it, not a reason to ask the rest of us to serve it up to you on a silver platter. Nevertheless, I have added a find sources for "Pigasus" "Yippies" to the top of the AfD.  Try for example the Google News search, which racks up dozens of hits, but you can press "free only" on the left hand side and easily find things like The Montreal Gazette for August 23, 1968, "Chicago cops squelch piggy nominations" -- ▸∮ truthious ᛔ andersnatch ◂ 20:38, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Duuu...de, serisously! With all the elbow grease you are calling for, the article still has obvious crap such as an image of a flying pig representing Pigasus. And that's just one of the dozen obviously made up things in there. I am not about to take the uphill battle of removing crap from a 95% crap article with me having the burden of proof for every spoonfol of crap I remove. Which is where this article is at this time: mostly written by a blatant vandal, and then being fixed sentence-by-sentence by ...I don't know who. What I would do is blank the page, then add only things that can be reliably sourced without gunk like a fictional novel and the lighter-side-of-things image caption (which, even after all this, still remains the principal "source" of the article). 88.114.124.228 (talk) 22:02, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * If you don't want to work on the article, then just don't. Clogging up the AfD process with frivolous nominations about notability in which you haven't even bothered to look for any sources is an abuse of the system and asking other people to go get the sort of sources you "want to see" and then ignoring it when I actually go do your work for you is making this look even more like you're just trying to be vexatious.  AfD is not here to furnish you with a way to goad other editors into researching and writing encyclopedic content because you can't be arsed to yourself.  Changing my !vote to Speedy Keep. -- ▸∮ truthious ᛔ andersnatch ◂ 22:22, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm realizing that you actually aren't the AfD nominator 88.114.124.228; at first I didn't notice your separate !vote and thought you were the nominator and had accidentally logged out or something. But it turns out that you're just the one who placed the hoax template on the article (not inappropriately) and argued for "deletion as the most obvious way to improve the article" in the talk page.  However, the same points apply - the editors involved in an AfD disputing notability of an article's topic are expected to research the topic to evaluate its notability; this is why all of the specialized search links are created at the top of the AfD during the normal creation process.  If you don't want to spend the effort to investigate the topic outside of Wikipedia then you shouldn't be commenting on a notability-based AfD.  If you are genuinely concerned about persistent unrepentant vandalism and "long-running hoaxery" you should follow the steps for responding to vandalism.  Note also how not to respond to vandalism. -- ▸∮ truthious ᛔ andersnatch ◂ 00:47, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The Google News search provided the excerpts I included for the paywall articles. The books cited (and many more I did not bring over from Google Book search) include some more extended coverage, which I recommend be used to replace the fantasy novel presently cited as a source in the article. Attention by several editors may be needed to make sure that the nonsense stays out of the article after it gets cleaned up and de-hoaxed. See pages 48-54,  4 paragraphs in a book about animals in politisc, pages 153, 156,  178, breif coverage  of the arrests at the "nomination",   which has 2 long paragraphs (with a physical description of the hog) The Yippies media events were not just a "joke" as you state, but detracted from media coverage of more serious demonstrators against the Vietnam War. ]Edison (talk) 20:05, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep ‣ Yes, copious sources in newspapers and books, and the nominator should be severely trouted for not performing WP:BEFORE or even just looking at the links already in the article such as the one to the St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture. -- ▸∮ truthious ᛔ andersnatch ◂ 19:17, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep User:Edison has provided a great list of sources (please see above). There is a lot of material here - I will be reading through it, and it will be great if other editors can assist. The New York Daily News is a good source, and I placed that in the article . As I indicated in the Pigasus talk page, any help with sourcing/improving the article is greatly appreciated! Thank you, User:Edison. This is a great help.   Nelsondenis248 (talk) 19:34, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Do you have sources for your assertions such as the pig being Muslim and the pig giving speeches on the subject of cows and being a charismatic speaker in general, etc etc? 88.114.124.228 (talk) 20:20, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The material you just alluded to is no longer in the article (nor has it been in the article, during the entirety of this discussion). Please feel free to contribute to the article, and improve the article, as other editors are trying to do. Nelsondenis248 (talk) 21:06, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * At this time, does the article still contain hoaxery such as a pig writing memoranda referring to presidential candidates eating people? Even after all this, most of the article is still hoaxery you put in there. Do you feel it is appropriate that you insert blatant hoaxes into Wikipedia and demand that other people clean up behind you? How about the article featuring a flying pig with a caption "Pigasus out on parole" - do you really suppose we should believe you have ever been acting on good faith? And the article has more and more and more of your hoaxery remaining. And you keep playing innocent, do you? 88.114.124.228 (talk) 21:48, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Your complaint seems overblown and based on your memory of the article as it was in a previous state. . Kindly take another look at the article. There has been considerable improvement in the sourcing, and considerable removal of things which smacked of hoaxery. It remains a notable piece of political theater. Additional editing may be needed, but the references cited above indicate the incident/animal are notable, since they have in fact been widely noted by reliable sources over a long period. Edison (talk) 22:23, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep and improve - The topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources; it passes WP:GNG. Northamerica1000(talk) 04:45, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep per Edison's outstanding efforts and reasoning.--Arxiloxos (talk) 05:38, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - I have family that was actually part of this and it is indeed a verifiable part of activist history in the United States. I'd recommend getting in contact with Maury Englander as he traveled with Pigasus for a short period.  Maury is a photojournalist and extensively covered many social movements in the 1960s and 1970s.  --1440PST 31MAY2012  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.103.168.4 (talk) 21:38, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep per added sources and improvements made by Edison. Meets notability threshold.--JayJasper (talk) 19:42, 1 June 2012 (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.