Wikipedia:Why is BFDI not on Wikipedia?

Battle for Dream Island (BFDI) is an animated web series on YouTube created by Cary and Michael Huang. Although BFDI has over 1 billion views, readers may be surprised to discover that Wikipedia does not have an article to this series and most users are unable to create one. This is often due to the fact that so many people have tried to do so and their attempts have resulted in pages that violate Wikipedia's notability and verifiability guidelines, which require article topics to have significant coverage in reliable, independent sources, and BFDI is in the list of topics that lack such coverage. This essay explains why this article does not exist, why it has been deleted, and why it is "protected from creation", so only administrators can create it. If you are new to Wikipedia, then this essay is for you. If you are more experienced, you can also read this as a case study on some of Wikipedia's policies, like notability, what Wikipedia is and isn't, and disruptive conduct.

One of the main reasons why an article about BFDI gets deleted is because Wikipedia has a system of rules that determines whether or not a topic should have an article. Just because a certain topic turns popular does not necessarily mean that an article about that topic should be made. What is important is whether a lot of reliable and independent sources, such as news articles, have written about it. Unlike other internet shows which enjoy similar popularity (e.g. The Angry Video Game Nerd, Homestar Runner, Eddsworld, Epic Rap Battles), BFDI does not have independent and reliable sources. Without good sources, we would not be able to make articles that are accurate or unbiased. Articles whose topics do not receive enough coverage in such sources would fail to meet Wikipedia's verifiability, notability and neutral point of view guidelines and may be deleted.

Please keep things civil and do not harass other users. Even Cary Huang published a video titled "Let's keep BFDI casual", asking fans to not take the series too seriously.

Background
Battle for Dream Island (2010–present, abbreviated BFDI) is an animated web series on YouTube created by jacknjellify, a channel owned by Cary and Michael Huang. The web series features anthropomorphic objects competing in a series of contests for a prize. After each contest, one of the contestants would be eliminated in the next episode after votes cast by the viewers are counted. The series inspired a genre of animated web series known as "object shows."

The creators of the series, Cary and Michael Huang, are best known for the interactive online visualization tool The Scale of the Universe, which has attracted coverage, was featured on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day and inspired the Kurzgesagt app "Universe in a Nutshell". This led to the International Astronomical Union naming minor planet 10003 Caryhuang after him. However, keep in mind that this essay is about BFDI, not its creators.

You can watch the series using this playlist.

Policies and guidelines
Numerous pages about BFDI have been deleted for many reasons. Unless enough coverage is found in reliable, independent sources, an article on BFDI would not meet the criteria on whether such an article should exist. Pages about this web series have been used for webhosting content unrelated to Wikipedia. Furthermore, many people have agreed to delete these kinds of pages.

Introduction
On Wikipedia, articles must have a neutral point of view. This is one of Wikipedia's fundamental five principles. Wikipedia's notability system is crafted around this concept. There should be enough sources for us to see what the significant points of view on a topic are. For example, if there are multiple reviews published about BFDI, we can talk about what the critics liked and what people thought of BFDI.

It is also important for sources to be reliable. Self-published and/or user-generated websites like Facebook and Fandom are unreliable because anyone can publish anything on them, including information that is false, misleading, and/or biased. People who hate BFDI can just write negative reviews about the show, and so a BFDI article would erroneously say "this show has been considered the worst by critics." This is why sources need to be reliable. A reputable publication would see if the review came from a professional critic and if they are being honest.

Currently, there are no reliable sources talking about BFDI, and basing a Wikipedia article on unreliable sources is a bad idea since unreliable sources can be manipulated.

Specific criteria
On Wikipedia, the word notability is very different from how it is used by everybody else. Usually, notable is just another word for being important. However, on Wikipedia, when we say notable, we mean more like an article about the subject can be written such that it


 * 1) has a neutral point of view
 * 2) is verifiable with reliable sources
 * 3) gives detailed, encyclopedic coverage of the topic.

There have been many, many failed attempts to find sources which fit these criteria. Notability is an extension of Wikipedia's verifiability and neutrality policies. If no reliable sources can be found, then readers would have no reason to trust that the information within the article is correct and unbiased.

It is also important to notice the plural in reliable sources. In order to enforce a neutral point of view in articles, we need to discern the majority view on a topic. For example, flat earth is refuted by nearly all scholars and scientists, so we do not state it as fact. However, if there are only a few sources describing the topic, we have no idea what the majority view is, which means the article is unable to have a neutral point of view.

Common sources found in attempted BFDI articles are IMDb and Fandom. These websites are user-generated, meaning that anyone can change the information to their whim. Wikipedia holds articles to a much higher standard of reliability, where the facts are almost guaranteed to be correct, hence reliable. Other common sources are YouTube links to the web series itself. However, they do not contribute to notability because they are not independent from the subject. If sources are affiliated with the subject in hand, they may only highlight positive aspects of the subject and discard the rest, or they may even fabricate information to promote the subject. Since facts from articles can only be drawn from their sources, a lack of independent sources makes it difficult for an article about a subject to be unbiased.

A common misunderstanding is that notability exists purely to limit knowledge to only what is deemed "important". This is not true. Here is Wikipedia's founder on its purpose:Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.—Jimmy Wales Our goal is to document knowledge in an organized fashion, no matter how mundane or important they are. If an unbiased, reliable article could be made about BFDI, we would have done that a long time ago.

A similar case occurred with SMG4, an Australian-based YouTube channel that creates Machinima videos using Nintendo characters like Mario as well as their original characters. After extensive deletion discussions primarily over notability, by November 2023, an article on SMG4 became a redirect to Glitch Productions, an Australian-based animation company that is run by the creators of SMG4. As for BFDI, however, there are no articles or lists on Wikipedia that meaningfully dedicate a section to BFDI (see Special:Search/"Battle for Dream Island"). This means that unlike SMG4, a BFDI redirect cannot lead anywhere and thus cannot be created.

Reliability of specific sources
Wikipedia lists many well-known and/or commonly-used sources on Reliable sources/Perennial sources and rate them based on their reliability as well as how they are being used by editors. Some well-known sources like NPR are ranked "generally reliable", while some like Urban Dictionary are "generally unreliable". Some sources are deemed so problematic by consensus (e.g. blatant disinformation) that restrictions are added, ranging from deprecation (usually via edit filter and auto-revert) to blacklisting (via a spam blacklist). A spam blacklist is different from a title blacklist.

As mentioned, YouTube, Fandom, and IMDb are some of the most common sources found in pages about BFDI. All three sources are considered "generally unreliable" because they are user-generated and self-published sources. Generally speaking, Fandom and IMDb can be edited by anyone with an account, whether or not they are "experts" on the subject matter. This means that there is little to no quality oversight on the edits being performed. YouTube videos can be considered reliable sources if they are published by a reputable agency, such as ABC News, or by a subject-matter expert, such as a renowned professor with a PhD. However, most videos and Fandom wikis (including the unofficial BFDI Fandom wiki) are neither of these.

In the context of BFDI on Wikipedia, BFDI videos published by jacknjellify are considered primary sources. These videos do provide insight on what BFDI is for those unfamiliar with the show; however, any interpretation made by Wikipedia editors (e.g. character development, canonicity of BFDI media, and "theories" about BFDI) has to be backed with a secondary source. Not doing so would violate the no original research policy. Not only that, videos from the creator are limited to the creator's perspective.

Popular ≠ Notable
While a subject's popularity may suggest notability, it does not automatically guarantee notability in the sense that Wikipedia uses that word. Though the channel hosting BFDI has 2.37 million subscribers and over 1 billion views, these numbers alone do not justify the creation of a BFDI article on Wikipedia. Usually, when something is popular, many reliable sources report on the subject, making it notable. However, BFDI is an exception, with editors being unable to find any reliable sources that have reported on this show. BFDI 's popularity can be seen through the existence of numerous Fandom pages,  but it cannot appear on Wikipedia without demonstrating any indication of notability.

Drafts
Wikipedia has a type of pages called "drafts". Drafts are designed to develop new articles before being published as actual articles, which can be viewed on search engines. Since drafts and user pages are not usually found by casual readers, lack of notability and bad writing are not problems.

However, drafts on BFDI were often deleted through numerous miscellany for deletion discussions. This is because Wikipedia has no firm rules. These discussions found that those drafts had many bad edits, and used up editors' time. For example, one draft even got submitted for review and declined 13 times. Additionally, even if BFDI became notable, those drafts would have been very bad articles, so editors decided that it was not worth keeping BFDI drafts.

User pages
While editors are permitted to store drafts in their userspace with the possibility of becoming actual articles, editors may not use their userspace to indefinitely host pages that look like articles. These are often indexed on search engines and make Wikipedia look more like a webhost, which it is not. Wikipedia is a formal encyclopedia, not a dumping ground for trivial topics.

User pages are for collaboration and communication, with the ultimate purpose of maintaining one as part of a Wikipedia editor's efforts to build an encyclopedia. Therefore, user pages cannot have "fake articles" about topics that are not suitable for inclusion on Wikipedia, such as BFDI.

What Wikipedia is not
In order to compensate for the lack of critical reviews and analysis from reliable sources, many attempted BFDI articles often are plot-only summary of works. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Instead, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Entries only consisting of plot summaries are better suited for alternative wikis such as IMDb or Fandom. Remember that Wikipedia is for everyone, not just fans of a certain series, and that Wikipedia must abide by a neutral point of view–showing that people both like and dislike a certain piece of media.

Criteria for speedy deletion
Wikipedia has a system that allows administrators to perform uncontroversial deletions without any need for discussion. Editors will usually delete new BFDI articles under the criterion "Unauthorized recreations" (G4). In the past, "Having no indication for the article's significance" (A7) was also used, though the series now definitely shows a claim of significance.

Disruptive editing


Disruptive editing, or the abuse of editing privileges, is not allowed. In the case of BFDI, many editors have decided on a consensus that articles about BFDI do not belong on Wikipedia. However, as demonstrated in the list below, the pages have been re-created against consensus several times; this is considered disruptive and wastes editors' time.

As a result of tendentious recreations, pages that include in their title any variation of "Battle for Dream Island" or "BFDI" are blocked from recreation in a technical level (i.e. creation protection and TitleBlacklist). Please do not create pages with lookalike characters to bypass this restriction.

Vandalism
In the context of Wikipedia in general, vandalism is the act of deliberately disrupting Wikipedia pages, such as trolling, spamming, and blanking an entire article, especially when trying to emphasize a point or promote a concept like BFDI.

Existing articles that bear a resemblance to anything related to BFDI (titles, characters, settings, etc.) are subject to vandalism. The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI, Bundesbeauftragter für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit), a government agency in Germany that deals with data privacy and freedom of information, was hit with occasional vandalism because its initialism merely resembles the web series's initialism. Similarly, the article on Dream Island, an actual island off the coast of Antarctica, was also vandalized because the titular fictional island in BFDI has the same name. These acts of vandalism were often from unregistered or newly registered users who were at least somewhat familiar with BFDI.

Hoaxes
Other problems with having BFDI articles on Wikipedia were the inclusion of fanon content, or content created by fans not connected to the actual series, and hoax claims such as supposed films and production companies surrounding the series (e.g. and ). Please do not create hoaxes on Wikipedia. Creating hoaxes on Wikipedia is a serious violation of Wikipedia’s policy on verifiability that negatively affects both Wikipedia’s reputation and your personal reputation. A hoax is basically disinformation, or false information deliberately spread to deceive people.

Adding hoaxes to Wikipedia is also a less obvious form of vandalism. If disinformation like false claims of a BFDI movie were spread on Wikipedia without getting removed, this could result in real-world errors and consequences, like books citing Wikipedia having to be reprinted, public embarrassment surrounding BFDI, and lost points on school assignments. The addition of hoaxes and fanon content also contravenes the purpose of Wikipedia–Wikipedia is a verifiable encyclopedia, not a crystal ball for fanon content and speculation. Wikipedia is not a webhost site like Fandom, so please do not add your fictional ideas here. Remember that you are here to build the encyclopedia that is Wikipedia.

As per Wikipedia’s policies, all information must be verified with a reliable secondary source. It is unlikely for a reliable source to promote hoax claims when the general public does not believe the hoax.

Gaming the system
On Wikipedia, "gaming the system" is the act of using the rules against their intended purpose to commit unwanted acts, such as engaging in pointy behaviors. Wikipedia is not a government entity where the rules are written in such a way that unintended consequences are allowed to occur. Instead, policies and guidelines are written with improving Wikipedia in mind; rules can be ignored if they appear to inhibit such improvements.

In the case of BFDI on Wikipedia, there is strong consensus against (re)creating articles about BFDI, leading to creation protection and TitleBlacklist. However, these protections only block the creation of the exact title, which may be case sensitive. Due to their limited scope, there were attempts made by editors to go against consensus and use name and spelling variations of the web series. Some of the variations beside include, , , and. Having multiple articles with subtly different names or in different namespaces, especially if they are indexed in search engines, would create confusion with regard to which article is the actual one intended for the topic.

Plagiarism and copyright violation
You might have learned in school that you may not pass off any work of others as your own, such as not properly crediting the original author of the work being used. This is the basic definition of plagiarism. Committing plagiarism can lead to real-life consequences, which includes damaging your reputation, facing disciplinary actions from your school or other authority figures, and becoming liable for copyright infringement. It should be noted, however, that although there are similarities between plagiarism and copyright infringement, they are not exactly the same. For instance, you may freely use works that are not copyrighted (e.g. works of Shakespeare), but you may not plagiarize these works.

Copyright infringement is the act of using others' copyrighted work without their permission. This includes, but is not limited to, republishing your favorite social media influencer's videos (including screenshots), music, and lyrics. In the case of Wikipedia, obvious copyright-infringing content is deleted on sight, as well as revisions that contain copyrighted content (see Revision deletion). Yes, fair use (or other equivalence like fair dealing) allows for the use of copyrighted works under limited circumstances; however, for the most part, Wikipedia does not accept fair-use media as per the non-free content policy and guideline.

Plagiarism and copyright violations are not very prevalent in the case of BFDI on Wikipedia, but some editors have engaged in such behavior. One example involves a handful of editors copying materials from Fandom and publishing them on Wikipedia. This behavior becomes very obvious when the published content contains many red links to articles and templates that do not exist on Wikipedia. " " is an actual template that is usable on Fandom, but not on Wikipedia (see Spoiler for more information).

Uploading copyrighted content onto Wikipedia without any non-free use rationale is considered copyright infringement and is thus prohibited, as seen on. Wikimedia Commons does not allow copyrighted content under any circumstances; non-free use rationales do not exist on Commons.

Will an article on BFDI ever exist?
An article about BFDI is unlikely to exist in the near future, and attempts to create one now are simply too soon. If you can demonstratively prove that there is now significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of BFDI, then you are free to start a deletion review with new evidence and rationale included.

In the meantime, you can contact and request your favorite reliable news/review sites to cover BFDI. Here are some suggestions: keep your message brief, explain why you like it, what sets it apart from alternatives, and mention the attraction the series has garnered. These are some indicators of the existence of a substantial fan base, which can be a factor in their decision on whether or not to cover it. Always stay polite, and if the answer is no, move on.

Overview
The first known attempt to create an article about BFDI occurred in, of which the article was speedy deleted on the grounds of lacking any indications of significance. Multiple users have since recreated the article numerous times, which ended up being speedy deleted repeatedly for the same reason. Different name variations on the same topic have been attempted, including pages with the name "" and "". Users have also created draft pages about the web series, such as "" and "". Articles, lists, and disambiguation pages like Dream Island, Ruby (given name), and Woody (name) have been the subject of vandalism due to their page names being similar to the settings and characters from BFDI.

BFDI became increasingly popular by the late 2010s, especially with the release of its fourth season, Battle for BFDI, in 2017. This led to pages on BFDI being recreated, deleted, and salted more frequently. Users nominated these pages for deletions, of which there were consensus to have most of them deleted and some salted indefinitely. In September 2020, the term "Battle for Dream Island" was placed under TitleBlacklist in an attempt to curb recreations. In 2022, administrator Timwi was warned after restoring the article. In the same year, a deletion review was written as pages related to BFDI were constantly being recreated. In February 2023, "Battle for BFB", "Cary Huang", and "Michael Huang" became blacklisted as well, followed by "object show" in March 2024.

Affected articles
Certain pre-existing articles have often been targets of BFDI-related vandalism. An article about the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (abbreviated BfDI) was vandalized multiple times before they were promptly reverted (see its page history). Two of the edits, which happen to be article hijacks (1 and 2), were copy-pasted from this Fandom page. The article Dream Island is also a frequent target for unhelpful additions.

Disambiguation pages like Dream Island (disambiguation) and BFB have faced similar issues as editors have added non-article entries in these pages. Per Disambiguation, these pages should not have non-article entries.

Editors who wish to help should place these pages into their watchlist.

Conclusion
While mainspace articles are subject to notability guidelines where significant and reliable secondary sources are required to stay up, drafts and user pages are not subject to such rules. However, these pages, along with other namespaces, are still subject to some other sets of rules like what Wikipedia is not. Drafts can be deleted after a miscellany for deletion nomination, although this type of scenario is quite rare. In order for a draft to become a proper article without being declined, it should have plenty of reliable sources, not YouTube, Fandom, self-published sources, etc.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of alternate outlets for information about BFDI where you can contribute. For example:


 * Fandom
 * Fanlore
 * Namuwiki (Korean)
 * Miraheze
 * TV Tropes
 * IMDb
 * Know Your Meme
 * Giant Bomb