Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ian Miles Cheong (2nd 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 delete‎. Daniel (talk) 02:45, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ian Miles Cheong

Ian Miles Cheong (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ian Miles Cheong. Unfortunately, because the page is not identical to the previously deleted version, it is ineligible for WP:G4. PROD was also declined because of the previous AfD. In that discussion, there was strong consensus that the subject is a non-notable "simp and troll", as articulated by Vice. Nothing has changed in the three months since. InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:30, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: People, Conservatism, Conspiracy theories, Internet, and Malaysia. InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:30, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Journalism, Television, and Video games. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 07:43, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete: Per nom and the previous deletion discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:18, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Subject does not meet the GNG due to a lack of WP:SIGCOV as it stands. Happy to reconsider my vote if suitable sources can be found. User:Let'srun 14:14, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep This individual has received coverage in reliable sources spanning a considerable period of time, including clearly significant coverage, like the 2012 Daily Dot piece about him being dismissed from Reddit. It's unfortunate that he hasn't received something like a profile, but RS clearly consider him notable given the frequency at which his name is mentioned. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:31, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  This AfD is more of a procedural one because G4 and PROD don't apply. There was already consensus on this last time (not that consensus can't change, but literally nothing has changed in the past three months). InfiniteNexus (talk) 22:33, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Looking at the comments in the previous AFD, the previous incarnation looks to have been more weakly sourced, though of course I have no way of viewing it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:52, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Here's an archived version. Isi96 (talk) 23:17, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's a completely different article, a borderline stub with much weaker sourcing. You've done a good job finding sources discussing this individual. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:43, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Per Hemiauchenia. Isi96 (talk) 23:20, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

— Note to closing admin: Isi96 (talk • contribs) is the creator of the page that is the subject of this XfD. InfiniteNexus (talk) 03:21, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per Let'srun. Demoxica (talk) 03:46, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources. The subject passes Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Basic criteria, which says:

  People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject.

  • If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not usually sufficient to establish notability.

  Sources
  1. Winkie, Luke (2022-12-01). "The Redpilling of Elon Musk Isn't Funny". Slate. Archived from the original on 2023-11-02. Retrieved 2023-11-02.

     The article notes: "Ever since Elon Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in October, he’s been replying to the tweets of a man named Ian Miles Cheong on a near weekly basis. Cheong is a minor flunky of the bygone MAGA cultural revolution; like his contemporary Milo Yiannopoulos, he first came to prominence in 2014, during Gamergate ... Cheong maintains an atrophying empire (read: about 300,000 Twitter followers) by brazenly promoting the most unhinged policy proposals imaginable—like mandatory capital punishment for all shoplifters—which are eagerly lapped up by his audience, a group that seems to comprise mostly men who owe at least one of their children a phone call."

  2. "Malaysia Man Criticized After Naming Black Man 'Number One Suspect' in Us Shooting". Coconuts Media. 2020-09-17. Archived from the original on 2023-11-02. Retrieved 2023-11-02.

     The article notes: "A Malaysia man who actively tweets about US current affairs is being slammed for falsely identifying a suspect in Saturday’s shooting of two Los Angeles police officers. Ian Miles Cheong, known as Twitter user @Stillgray, wrote Monday that ... Thousands continue to criticize Cheong online today and called on Twitter to take action against his account. For years, Cheong has been posting largely right-wing views on US politics to his verified account, where he has amassed more than 300,000 followers. It was only last year when he revealed that he lives on the other side of the world, in Malaysia. ... This is not the first time Cheong has propagated inaccurate information. Twitter suspended his account for seven days last month after the Donald Trump-supporter wrote about Black Lives Matter protesters burning “a stack” of bibles in Portland when only one was on fire. It is not clear where in Malaysia he lives, but data revealed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists linked him to an address in Ipoh, Perak and an offshore company called Cyber Level Limited it said was registered in the Bahamas."

  3. Rosenberg, Matthew; Barnes, Julian E. (2020-08-11). "A Bible Burning, a Russian News Agency and a Story Too Good to Check Out". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2023-11-02. Retrieved 2023-11-02.

     The article notes: "But before it disappeared, the tweet was picked up by a Malaysian named Ian Miles Cheong who has amassed a large Twitter following by playing a right-wing American raconteur on social media. ... Mr. Cheong added his own commentary to the initial tweet, wildly exaggerating what the Ruptly video showed. ... It was Mr. Cheong whose tweet spurred the younger Mr. Trump, Mr. Cruz and numerous other high-profile Republicans to weigh in.

  4. Thalen, Mikael (2020-06-17). "Who is Ian Miles Cheong, and why does the internet care where he lives?". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 2023-11-02. Retrieved 2023-11-02.

     The article notes: "Known best for his commentary on Twitter, Cheong has made a name for himself in right-wing circles by frequently weighing in on U.S. politics. Long before his foray into U.S. domestic issues, Cheong was best known for his work as a gaming journalist and for his role as an influential moderator on Reddit. Cheong is also known for his involvement in Gamergate, a term used to describe a controversy between primarily male gamers and female game developers that led to a widespread harassment campaign in 2014. Initially, Cheong, who described himself as a “turbo-feminist” at the time, leaped to the defense of female game developers such as Zoe Quinn. But Cheong’s politics would begin shifting to the far-right as the years went on."

  5. Morris, Kevin (2012-04-03). "Reddit moderator banned for selling his influence: As SolInvictus, Ian Miles Cheong moderated some of Reddit's most popular sections. He was also a "social media consultant" for hire". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 2023-11-02. Retrieved 2023-11-02.

     The article notes: "Ian Miles Cheong had a spamming problem. The journalist and editor of gaming site Gameranx had for years promoted his content on social news site Reddit, where, under the pseudonym SolInvictus, he served as a volunteer moderator at some of the site’s most trafficked forums. At some point, redditors learned about Cheong’s surreptitious link-hawking and tipped off the site’s staff in January. Reddit, which sees 35 million unique visitors a month and is the self-proclaimed “front page of the Internet,” banned him about a month later."

  6. Morris, Kevin (2012-03-26). "Why Reddit banned influential moderator Ian Miles Cheong. Known on Reddit as solinvcitus, Cheong submitted links to a gaming site he edited and possibly profited as a result". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 2023-11-02. Retrieved 2023-11-02.

     The article notes: "So why did it take Reddit so long to ban chronic spammer Ian Miles Cheong ,the news editor of gaming site Gameranx and a top Reddit moderator? Under the psuedonym SolInvictus, Cheong had inserted himself as a moderator at many of Reddit’s largest forums, including r/AskReddit, r/Politics, r/WTF, and r/TodayILearned, all of which boast more than 1 million subscribers. Meanwhile, he relentlessly promoted content from Gameranx and other sites, including news site Global Post, and Web culture site Uproxx. It’s not clear what formal association, if any, Cheong had with the latter sites, though they comprised an overwhelming majority of his submissions."

  There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Ian Miles Cheong to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

  Cunard (talk) 10:46, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. It passes GNG, by very little. The Daily Dot, as provided above, is generally not reliable, but Slate and the New York Times are pretty good for me. Coconuts seems to be a reliable news website with fact-checking and reasonable editorial policies. CBR is a pop culture website and I don't know where editors stand on using these publications on BLPs, so I won't make any statement on this one. SparklyNights 18:30, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This source also seems good and covers him in some depth. The publication also has public editorial policies: "Mashable makes every effort to correct errors. Grammar, spelling, and style errors will be corrected in the text. If the error is factual, the correction will include an editor’s acknowledgment at the bottom of the story." SparklyNights 19:10, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak Keep: Per the sources found by others, there appears to be enough WP:GNG level coverage. Let'srun (talk) 14:09, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Changing my vote to weak delete. I appreciate Cunard's source review, but I don't think the brief mentions of Cheong in those sources are significant coverage. All they amounts to is "Cheong is a right-wing troll who people dislike". voorts (talk/contributions) 19:02, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Also, the Daily Dot is not reliable. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:06, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - the mentions in NYT & Slate are non-WP:SIGCOV; the sources with the most SIGCOV are WP:MREL (like Daily Dot), and that's not good enough to base a BLP on. WP:N requires that sources be "reliable"; MREL is one step below that. Mashable, proposed above, has already been evaluated by the community to be MREL too. Pop-culture sites (CBR) can be fine to use in BLPs, but I wouldn't base notability on them. "Coconuts" hasn't been discussed at WP:RSN, and calls itself an "alternative media company" whose goal is to "inform and entertain"; I'd lean on the cautious side and treat them as MREL too. Besides the question of notability, the current state of the article is a problem, as MREL sources shouldn't constitute a significant portion of a BLP; that's a dueness issue. DFlhb (talk) 21:19, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting to consider whether recently found sources provide SIGCOV.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 07:41, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak Delete: Coverage of Cheong either comes from weak sources (like the Daily Dot) or only gets a passing mention in more reliable sources. Cortador (talk) 11:31, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak delete, per DFlhb and others. Regardless of whether we can pluck a couple sentences out of some websites that mention that he ate a hot dog in 2017 and stepped in a puddle in 2021 or whatever, I don't think any of these really talk about him in depth beyond that. The article, as it exists right now, kind of reads like a random coatrack of detritus: he went viral by making a dumb tweet in 2017, then later, he went viral by making a dumb tweet in 2018, then later, he shocked everybody by making a dumb tweet in 2019, etc etc. Same deal as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eve Barlow — several passing mentions of someone being a clown on Twitter is not really notability. jp×g🗯️ 03:33, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete The impression I get from reviewing the sources is that this is an article that compiles a long list of trivial references to what the subject has said. Many of the articles are trivial or have a sort of tabloid tenor to them. These sources strike me as no different than, say, creating an article for the Vörös Twins on the basis of every article that is like "Who Are The Da Vinki Twins?" or "The Da Vinki Guys Say Something Hilarious In Latest Vine". The other stuff about Cheong's editorial contributions strike me as lacking the depth to sustain a notable article on their own. ＶＲＸＣＥＳ (talk) 08:46, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete too much of the sourcing is either passing mentions pulled from sources about other subjects, or comes from the WP:DAILYDOT, which isn't strong enough sourcing for a contentious WP:BLP. Sergecross73 msg me 21:40, 9 November 2023 (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.