Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/You have two cows (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 keep. (non-admin closure) Erik9 (talk) 01:14, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You have two cows

Delete as unencylopedic and failing notability guidelines. I don't dispute that "Two Cows" is a well-known, widely used rhetorical device. Nevertheless the article doesn't add any non-obvious information on its subject beyond reproducing the "Two Cows" joke. Encyclopedic articles are about their subject matter; that is, they more than merely exemplify their subject matter. If a reader who encountered the "Two Cows" joke elsewhere came here to find more information on it, would he leave any more knowledgeable? No. Accordingly, the article as it is now is unencyclopedic. To the extent I doubt any verifiable information could be found to make it encyclopedic, the article should be deleted. Furthermore the notability of this subject has been asserted but has not been shown by reliable sources. The only relevant sources are telling of the joke, and new twists on the joke, not a discussion of the joke and the meanings behind it. Please see section on article talk page about the ProQuest sourcing. TharsHammar^Bits and^Pieces 15:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom T-95 (talk) 16:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, but expand. Term has a notable history of usage in political and general social discourse. One (talk) 16:16, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Although it could use a better title than "You have two cows" (I can just hear the America Online voice saying that), the "two cows" analogy is well-known in political science and economics, and a sourced article (which this is) covers a legitimate topic for which one one might consult an encyclopedia. In some cases, a well-known joke is, like a fable or a song or a story, both instructive and indicative of culture. This would be such a case. Mandsford (talk) 16:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and improve. This is one thing wikipedia can do well, provide a background to the various metamorphoses of a joke or cultural phenomenon. --Moloch09 (talk) 16:43, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep- Meets notability and verifiability standards. Could obviously use a bit of cleanup, but a lot of articles could. Umbralcorax (talk) 17:47, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to Joke#Cycles.
This is not, basically, an encyclopaedia article, and it could never be one because there's not enough to write about. But it is part of an encyclopaedic theme (which is Joke Cycles, e.g. "You have two cows" or "In Soviet Russia, Wikipedia edits you!"). We already have content about that theme, so merge this there.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 18:32, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - topic is of some notability, and there is sourced information already there.--NapoliRoma (talk) 19:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Please take a look at the sourcing. Yes there are sources, but they are not good 2nd or 3rd party sources. I have made a topic on the article talk page about the sourcing, how the ProQuest ID #'s don't work for some, and how on the other sources it is just an editorial page telling of the joke in some form or another, no real discussion of the joke. 5 years after the articles creation with many discussions about sources its pretty clear that if good sources did exists they would have been added by now. TharsHammar^Bits and^Pieces 20:23, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - I disagree. What I think is "pretty clear" is that nobody's taken a critical look at the article for five years.
    I think the useful, encyclopaedic sources won't be talking about "You have two cows" specifically. They might be talking about the phenomenon of joke cycles, though.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 21:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - After about 700 edits to the article over those 5 years one would hope that someone at somepoint would have taken a critical look at the article. But maybe not, since there is disagreement on clarity I would rephrase it as, "Its pretty clear to me." TharsHammar^Bits and^Pieces 21:46, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Historical Comment I'm not going to vote one way or the other, but I will share some back-story. One this page is NOT five years old, it is actually nearly 8 years old. (Here is a link to the archived version from December 2001). This is actually one of the oldest pages on the entire Wikipedia and was a pet love of many of the original group of editors, including people like Larry Sanger and Lee Daniel Crocker. We loved it because it actually served as a launching point for MANY new articles, because we realised that the jokes were useless unless we had corresponding articles to explain the topics. You'll notice that the archived version still has dead links in some places (these were all subsequently repaired). In its own weird way it was a key element in the development of the 'pedia, and I remember a lot of discussions where we would laugh about how much additional work this page kept generating. This "anecdotal WP development history" has never been recorded anywhere... possibly no-one even actually cares. So is it worth preserving for posterity? That's up to the new generation to decide. Manning (talk) 02:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per One and thanks to Manning. -- Quiddity (talk) 03:09, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per one So you've got an article that's been here 8 years. And it has sources and and tells how the subject is significant. 64 Google scholar hits for the phrase. [http://books.google.com/books?q=%22You+have+two+cows%22&lr=&sa=N&start=200 200 Google book hits. And then there are 130 Google news hits Lots of even minor sources add up. This represents significant media coverage, and anyone with a problem with current sourcing should look for better sourcing in the reliable sources available on Google. And I never heard this joke before. Now I know more than I did before. I think anyone looking up the subject comes away with more than they had. And the amount of information in an article really has no bearing on its significance or notability. The fact that it is apparently a classic joke and well known in poli sci and economics, despite my ignorance, meets notability. Dlohcierekim 03:12, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cracky, even the nominator acknowledges it's notability. Dlohcierekim 03:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't dispute this joke has been widely told. I do though lay out why I think it fails the notability guidelines. "The only relevant sources are telling of the joke, and new twists on the joke, not a discussion of the joke and the meanings behind it" so that would mean no 2nd party sources. TharsHammar^Bits and^Pieces 03:29, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For example, see the coverage of the Polish jokes. TharsHammar^Bits and^Pieces 03:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Well-sourced and interesting. Why kill a perfectly good article? Its place in Wikipedia history is just the icing on the cake. Fences and windows (talk) 04:38, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- very well known, often referred to (sometimes by real economists). If there are problems with the article, fix the article, don't delete it (unless the article were in a much worse state than it seems to be now). AnonMoos (talk) 08:04, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per nominator's statement ""Two Cows" is a well-known, widely used rhetorical device." There are multiple reliable and independent sources which cover the subject. Edison (talk) 23:03, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for reasons given in the nominator's second sentence. (The rest of his argument is a misunderstanding of what an encyclopedia should be). Alex Middleton (talk) 02:48, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for the reasons given by AnonMoos and Alex Middleton. AyaK (talk) 21:20, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Well-known, widely told, and well-sourced. Problems with the article itself can be fixed, but the topic is notable. Its place in Wikipedia history I didn't know - not criteria for keeping, but very interesting. Thanks Manning. Flying Toaster 18:14, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep For reasons given above.--CharlieHoward (talk) 16:07, 16 May 2009 (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.