Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Santorum (neologism) (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. Spartaz Humbug! 16:52, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Santorum (sexual neologism)

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Note: There was a previous AfD for this article in 2006 which was closed as keep.


 * Strong Delete/Merge what is not already in one of the many discussions of this - First of all, I recommend anyone considering commenting on this review not only the article, but the previous AfD discussion from 2006. Since then, I'm not convinced the "sexual neologism" has gained any notability and thus remains simply an entire article about a single column by a "humorist".  This is simply not notable, and as such, not encyclopedic.  The article serves no legitimate purpose in my opinion.  I agree that the controversy should be covered.  In fact, it is covered at more depth on WP than most (see all of Rick Santorum, Santorum controversy and Savage Love).  If the term, used in the way described gained more traction, then I suppose I wouldn't object to the curiously long and in-depth article about it.  However, it simply has not.  This article really makes WP look like UD -- and I'm not sure what that says more about, Wikipedia or the editors who popped in and argued to keep such a lousy excuse for an article.  I'm further humored by someone's attempt to legitimize the article by the extensive sourcing (don't be fooled -- most of the references are tangential or from the humorist himself, and only one from 2008 on.) and nominating it for good article status.  This is simply not notable (if it ever was, it certainly is no longer), non-encyclopedic, and frankly, a joke and insult to the legitimacy of WP.  jheiv  talk  contribs 08:33, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * See WP:N "Notability is not temporary." If something was EVER noteable, then it still is, by Wikipedia standards. Edison (talk) 03:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I'm not convinced that this was ever notable. A fad, perhaps.  Something interesting to throw into a column to spice it up, sure.  Both of these increment the use count, but does the use make the term notable?  In my opinion, hardly.  jheiv  talk  contribs 07:09, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. Already mostly covered by Santorum controversy. Merge where needed. No need for a separate article.--Dmol (talk) 08:37, 19 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Strong keep This article faced several deletion requests in the past and has been deemed sufficiently notable to be kept. Given that Rick Santorum has indicated a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, the sexual neologism of "santorum" has already re-entered the public forum. TechBear  &#124; Talk &#124; Contributions 21:06, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge. I think the notability is well-established.  The previous AfDs, and the set of references in this article, make it pretty clear this passes.  However, it's not at all clear that it has to be a separate article.  I'd suggest merging to Savage Love, which already has a section on this episode, and is not at all overlong. Mike Christie (talk – library) 22:32, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:02, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:02, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Strong keep per TechBear above. This meaning is still the #1 hit for "Santorum" on Google. --Jfruh (talk) 23:48, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not convinced that the result of google bombing is sufficient to deem something either notable or appropriate for a WP article -- that's a pretty interesting standard it seems. jheiv  talk  contribs 00:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Notable subject per the refs cited in the article. A check of Google Book search shows 6 works with coverage of this sense of "santorum." "Google Bombing" does not extract books from publishers with coverage of a topic, however distasteful to many. Edison (talk) 03:40, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, a whopping four (two were self published, the rest from publishers of varying quality) references does not notable make. Although this could be argued nonetheless, the need for its own page certainly seems lacking, when given the fact that it is covered sufficiently in no less than three other articles. jheiv  talk  contribs 05:13, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep notability doesn't expire. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 06:02, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge to Dan Savage Savage Love - The general course of this is showing evidence that notability is NOT permanent: the first AFD resulted in the clear keep, while the second disintegrated into a very long "no consensus" outcome. The problem in the end is that this isn't an article about a word, but about a somewhat flash-in-the-pan publicity stunt. I doubt that many people could actually provided the winning entry's definition without prompting, much less have claimed to have used it in that sense in the last month. One could argue that an article about Savage and his column has to mention the incident (which they do); but the notability of this as a term is decidedly lacking. It's especially telling that the references are all old. Neologisms often fail; the fifteen minutes of fame for this one appear to have passed. Mangoe (talk) 17:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * KeepThe multiple reliable and verifiable sources included in the article establish notability. There is no need to gain notability over time. Alansohn (talk) 00:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * With respect, did you consider that many if not most of the sources were from the humorist who is promoting this term? The majority of the remaining sources don't contain the term but are used to reference other parts of the article, such as quotes from the senator.  jheiv  talk  contribs 07:06, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep: Per notability previously being shown.--Milowent • talkblp-r 06:29, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: There are currently 29 references. 6 are from Savage himself.  The rest seem all to be covered in one or more of Rick Santorum, Santorum controversy or Savage Love.  Is there a compelling reason to have this material in 4 separate places?  To be honest, I could care less about the subject of the articles (either of them), but if Wikipedia were to recognize every humorists attempt at humor with its own article, provided they use it enough in their columns themselves, create a website about it, get a few columnists to mention it, and a few Wikipedia editors to create an article about it and defend it, Wikipedia would become a disaster.  The fact that this is even a discussion is bizarre.  It troubles me that if this were a neologism about a professional football player or Hollywood actor, there would be no question about whether an article such as this would exist -- it would not.  However since it is about a politician (still better, a Republican politician), it is not only an article, but one that is seemingly blindly defended as "per notable".  This is pretty sad.   jheiv  talk  contribs 07:26, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The reason we don't have articles for everything, like Haggard's Law, is because they don't get the same coverage. The reason we have articles like this one and The Gore Effect--also a prior deletion target which I favored keeping--is because they do have significant coverage.--Milowent • talkblp-r  15:09, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Merge to Savage Love. Also, this article ought to be shrunk.  There is some uncited material, and the topic does not merit an article of this length.  There is a self-promotional tone here as well.184.74.22.161 (talk) 15:13, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep as per original vote. You shouldn't get two bites at the apple. --173.54.210.91 (talk) 08:50, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This is, in fact, against policy and misinformed. Cute metaphor, however. 76.117.170.111 (talk) 23:05, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete, alt merge to Santorum controversy and/or Savage Love, alt rename. - The consensus close in the first AfD was that the article needed to be renamed. That AfD closer wrote "There is widespread support for Santorum (neologism) as a renaming, but neologisms don't belong in Wikipedia: the result of this debate thus compels a different title." The article is involation of that close and needs to be deleted unless there is a change. The AfD closer of this AfD needs to take a bold step and (i) remove "neologism" from the title and (ii) soften the BLP issue against Rick Santorum such as by renaming the article something like Savage Love Santorum view. If this is merely kept without change, there will continue to be polarizing positions on this topic. Books Ngram Viewer is showing a declining interest in the term through 2008, so this might be better placed as santorum. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 07:42, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. There has been a lot of previous discussion of some points raised above, on the Talk:Santorum (sexual neologism) page and the previous AfDs.  Those interested can go read those posts, but in case it's useful to summarize, here's my take on those discussions.
 * Wiktionary does not believe the word has currency, and it has been repeatedly deleted from that site. That's not citable evidence in either direction but indicates relegating this to a dictionary definition is not likely to be an option.
 * Some editors, myself among them, feel that the primary notability here is about the successful political sabotage that Savage accomplished with this coinage, and that the currency of the word is not really relevant to notability.
 * Some editors argued that the word does have currency, but because the nature of the political activism is precisely to promote the use of the word and assert that it has currency when perhaps it does not, there was some scepticism expressed about the sincerity of some of those opinions. I think the implication is that this is an AfD that really should not be closed by counting !votes, but by examining arguments.  (This is not a stalking horse argument for deletion, because as I've said above I don't think deletion is warranted.)
 * With regard to currency, as of the last set of discussions, no plausible evidence for currency whatsoever had been presented, and as far as I'm aware there is still no reliable source that can be cited for currency. However, this is not an argument for deletion, since the article is primarily about the political attack.
 * The BLP implications are beyond my experience, but a prior AfD close indicated that some caution was needed. The argument that Santorum should go straight to the Senator's article was subsequently overturned when he lost his seat; my own feeling is that that was a mistake, and that Rick Santorum is far more notable than Savage's successful attack on him -- which after all would have no notability at all if Santorum himself was not notable.  Directing the reader who types in "Santorum" to a dab page which lists the coinage is, by definition, success for Savage's attack.  Conversely, we shouldn't construct our pages so as to defang political attacks, but it makes the discussion highly politicized and open to lack-of-good-faith accusations on both sides.
 * I think the closing admin has an unenviable job here. Mike Christie (talk – library) 17:20, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree its an unenviable job, although the search term 'santorum' is going to lead to the sexual term no matter what we do. 7 of the top 10 google hits for santorum right now are about the term (including this article).  There's no question the term is the subject of significant coverage in reliable secondary sources, and frankly, there are scads of them.  "Sabotage" or not, its hard to think of any response to a statement against blacks that was ever as effective as this campaign.--Milowent • talkblp-r  04:10, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Lets start with what we agree on. Rick Santorum is far more notable than Savage's usage of Santorum to politically disparge him. Consensus is that there is significant coverage in reliable secondary sources and that the bulk of the Santorum (sexual neologism) material belongs some place within Wikipedia. The question is where and under what title. If it is another article, then there is no issue. If it is a stand alone article, then there is the rub and a most correct title is needed. "Successful political sabotage that Savage accomplished with this coinage." Sabotage is too strong. It might have been successful, but even Dan Savage noted "While Santorum would have been defeated even without a filthy, lowercase definition of his last name floating around out there," so I think it too much to give credit to the term for his defeate. What we are talking about is the "Santorum sexual neologism affect on politician Rick Santorum ." Somewhere in there is the best title for the available content on the topic. (Affect as in affect by an arrow shot in your butt). Perhaps something like, Political impact of santorum sexual coinage on Rick Santorum. I did some editing work on Mama grizzly, another coined term related to politics. In that case, the term alone is enought to convey the topic. The closing adming should look through Category:American political neologisms and Category:American political terms to get a better idea of whether Santorum (sexual neologism) fits there in:Axis of evil, Freedom fries, Soccer mom, and Santorum? For my money, if we have to say in the article title it is a sexual neologism, then does it really carry enough political impact? There is a best title for the santorum sexual coinage topic and I hope the admin is bold enought and we have provide enought discussion to make such a decision. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 09:10, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I wonder if an RfC on a merge to Savage Love would be better than an AfD; there does seem to be a fairly clear consensus that there is notability here; the question is where the coverage should be. Mike Christie (talk – library) 15:00, 27 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep There is sufficient coverage of the political implications of the word to (to my mind) establish notability for that topic distinct from the controversy over RS's remarks on homosexuality and distinct from RS himself. As I read it, this article and its notability are more about a moment of political history than truly a "neologism" article, and that political history is distinct from the RS comments that trigger it. As it is an article primarily dealing with a moment of political history, arguments around currency, are, to my mind, moot.  (There is some currency in any case, e.g.,, but I think that's moot.) I would not oppose renaming that were more clearly indicative of this ("santorum neologism controversy", "santorum googlebomb", etc.), but I don't have strong feelings for changing it, either.  --  j &#9883; e decker  talk  07:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Satisfies WP:NOTE, articles subject "has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources". Further, the subject has specifically been examined and discussed in published books within the context of multiple different topics, including but not limited to The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2006), Squirms, Screams and Squirts (2007), Value War: Public Opinion and the Politics of Gay Rights (2008), and The Purity Test (2009). The article's subject continues to receive secondary source coverage and discussion, years after its initial analysis. It was notable then, and it still is notable now. -- Cirt (talk) 13:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep: Meets WP:GNG by any standard and source coverage is recurrent in time. Not a one-time fad. -- Cycl o pia talk  14:00, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - Seems to have plenty of referencable material and I believe notability is established even if some may find it offensive or inappropriate. there is no need for WP to be politically correct, just display the information. --Kumioko (talk) 14:46, 27 December 2010 (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.