Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beta Uprising

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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 delete. Drmies (talk) 03:51, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Beta Uprising

Beta Uprising (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats
)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs· FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

A single mention on the BBC site doesn't make a meme a 'thing'. EamonnPKeane (talk) 19:39, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@EamonnPKeane: maybe not, but 5500 mentions on the /r9k/ board in the year before the UCC shooting should merit some attention. --71.179.209.137 (talk) 19:59, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Your examples of "significant coverage" are quite simply just newspapers quoting a phrase used in the ramblings of a deranged madman. Grognard Extraordinaire Chess (talk) Ping when replying 19:58, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@]
Keep. The meme doesn't come from BBC; I'm not sure if it comes from 4chan but they are known for promoting it. See [1] for another mention (there are a number of articles about this 'threat', though there is no actual mention of violence).
I think that the concept is actually relatively interesting - it's not really just trollery. The claim is that sexual liberation has created a situation of de facto polygamy, where some "alphas" are absorbing all women's affections, leaving the "betas" desperate. And in truth, there is a certain level of natural polygamy among humans - you can look at the difference in sizes of the sexes, plot that on a curve of harem size in various species, and calculate that human men 'biologically' tend to have a harem size of something like 1.3, if I remember right. And of course species with harems are always subject to violence to control them. So we're really seeing a sort of reverse engineering of the Christian ethic; it's possible that you have to give someone, likely Jesus himself, credit for (at least) thinking up a way to make society less violent - it makes us reflect that perhaps we ripped apart some pretty elaborate social technology without really understanding what it was for.
I think the term has a reasonable number of sources behind it; whether they are in depth enough and reliable enough is debatable, but I think it is productive to let this one stay and try to organize the information for a while. It won't hurt the encyclopedia to have this. Wnt (talk) 20:05, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: This was originally closed as "speedy delete", but per a discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2015 October 3 that closure is undone and the discussion is relisted. See there for additional discussion and also the related Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Incels.  Sandstein  10:31, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein  10:31, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. Fyddlestix (talk) 12:51, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. Fyddlestix (talk) 12:52, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete/merge - The limited sourcing stresses this as a phrase used on 4chan. This doesn't seem to warrant a stand alone article but per sources the phrase "beta uprising" perhaps warrants a brief section on the 4chan article under the "Threats of violence" section.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 14:05, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@BoboMeowCat: See this incident, where "Beta Uprising" is described by the Washington Post to explain a written threat on a bathroom wall that was cited as reason for a shutdown of Eastern Kentucky University. (The relation may be questionable, but that was The Post's decision) Wnt (talk) 15:01, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yeahbut the source provided regarding the Eastern Kentucky University threat scribbled on bathroom stall also mentions "beta uprising" as a thing from 4chan. Every source referenced mentioning phrase "beta uprising" links it to 4chan. The 4chan article already has a "Threats of violence" section [2] and it seems this is where topic currently belongs given the sourcing.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 18:20, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@BoboMeowCat: What do you think of tucking it away as a draft? Darth Viller (talk) 19:33, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - No actual link between a chan and an actual shooting has been verified, and most news outlets have never uttered the term "Beta Uprising" even when talking about the chan post. Most of this article's content is talking about how the beta uprising isn't even real. --TheTruthiness (talk) 20:22, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. We don't have a page for every single 4chan meme, and none of the refs actually focus on it in any depth -- an offhand mention in a few places isn't enough to establish notability or to support an article here. --Aquillion (talk) 21:28, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Wikipedia is not 'knowyourmeme'. Also it started as a hoax to get the 'reliable sources' to name the wrong person as the shooter before the real name was known. It was successful and the reliable sources have corrected their information on that. It could be considered a hoax in that respect that is now a joke. This article would be more at home on ED than on Wiki. Also why is this 'Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions' when it's merely a group of people having a lark at the expense of you and journalism. FlossumPossum (talk) 22:14, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
DNFTT should apply equally to commercial interests, like the various reality-TV families who receive lavish coverage here. Which is to say, it shouldn't apply at all. If we can cover something with reliable sources, we should cover it. If Wikipedia coverage encourages people to go out and be creative online, or frightens them into silence because they see FBI and MIsomething investigating 4chan, either way that's none of our concern. Our concern is just to cover the facts. Wnt (talk) 12:07, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Also I should note that
WP:CANVASS applies here. Wnt (talk) 12:09, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
]
Yeah, non-sequiturs and threats. Really convincing words there. Akesgeroth (talk) 03:17, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Provided there is data about them, why shouldn't Wikipedia cover memes? There was a huge argument over
Campaign for "santorum" neologism but fortunately we realized it was worth covering. We feature practically every piece of software somebody is selling on the front page with everything but a buy now link, so why should we feel ashamed to describe the oddball ideas that make the news? Does someone have to put out payola to make something new acceptable for us to cover? Wnt (talk) 12:07, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
]
You can find 'data' on literally anything. I consider myself an inclusionist, but even then there are many things that should not be included on Wikipedia. The 'Santorum' neologism is notable because it had a large impact - it displaced Santorum's official website and biographies on google. "A phrase used on 4chan and Reddit" (as the lead of the article puts it) is not notable. Your argument about software is not relevant, as that is an entirely different topic. And I am not sure what you are trying to say with your payola reference, though I will add that Wikipedia isn't a news-site, and its actually a good thing not to cover 'new' things as quick as possible, because you're not going to be able to write a balanced article about something until enough time has passed for its impact to become clear. Omegastar (talk) 14:17, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete We don't know if the post on /r9k/ is really linked to the shooter or not. The Beta Uprising joke is in itself not notable, and is just mentioned as part of the brief news cycle. Right now there is not even enough sources to warrant a mention in the Oregon shooting article, let alone a full article. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 08:42, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I expressed some hesitancy to include it in that article myself, because we don't know for sure that the shooter in that case ever posted to 4chan. It might be a coincidence. But the media coverage cited here was of the meme and comments itself. Wnt (talk) 12:12, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete- per Omegastar. This is an encyclopedia, not Urban Dictionary. A terrible article about a non-notable meme, full of dubiously sourced attempts to link it to a recent murder. Wikipedia should not be promoting bilge like this. Reyk YO! 09:26, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy Delete puerile nonsense. Deserves at most a one sentence summary on "List of Internet phenomena" but no more. The existence of parody/satire on the internet, and false threats, means that BBC coverage is pointless. This is the worst of
    WP:NOTNEWS and poor use of interpolated opinion pieces as "sources" -- Callinus (talk) 13:50, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Delete Men like these are under severe attacks by liberal animals and recently a completely reasonable article on Involuntary Celibacy that was fairly well cited had been removed for purely ideological reasons. One the main forces to keep it removed has been a <personal attack removed> who is now banned called Tarc. But memes like these are really not Wikipedia material and don't deserve to be even merged anywhere. If you want to start addressing these most crucial issues start with something that actually isn't just a meme. Especially given how there is now an article on Cuckservative now. Inclusionism, to a reasonable point. Wikipedia isn't reasonable and had fallen to ideology, it seems. Andrey Rublyov (talk) 21:55, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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.