It occurred to me tonight that we're only two months away from Shamrock Shake season. I was so elated I could hardly speak, so I rushed over to Wikipedia to see what our friends, the good people who fight trolls and build the encyclopedia, thought about it.

The answer - no article. It's a redirect to McDonald's Products, and has been that way since October. It actually wasn't such a bad article before that.

Maybe they don't think it's notable? Well using their favorite research tool, Google, one can easily find plenty of articles in major newspapers about the Shamrock Shake.

So what's the reason for deleting it? It's notable, it's economically important, it's a public health issue (many children receive much-needed nutrition from these shakes), and millions of people have heard of it.

I think this is part of some larger patterns. 1. Wikipedians hate big business 2. They hate McDonald's specifically, 3. The notability guidelines are a mess, and 4. Deletion/merging has become a POV battle-weapon.

Who on WP hates McDonald's? I love McDonald's (for a chain fast food place, it's reasonably clean and my local McDonald's is new and the servers get the order right). Why would Wikipedians in general hate McDonald's? Is there really even a need for a separate article on each McDonald's product? Even obvious notability doesn't guarantee that each product needs its own article.

If you drink that stuff, your poop comes out green. Any encyclopedia should mention that.

not just poop if you drink enough of them.

You know as well as I do that the decision process for whether a product gets its own article is completely bizarre and irrational. Obscure computers and imaginary robot cannons get their own articles. What makes an article viable on Wikipedia is if the information tyrants in charge decide they like it.

Guys, you're making this too easy.

It's because they're a direct competitor of Mzoli's Meats!

This isn't a cabal action, actually. If you look at the talk page, it turns out a random guy proposed a merge and then interpreted lack of response as consensus.

It should have an article, and I'd like to un-redirect it, but I don't want someone to say I'm acting as a proxy for banned users or something like that.

I have noticed a weird tendency for Wikipedians to be more deletionist about ordinary "real world" aspects of pop culture, perhaps reflecting a kind of "nerd bias". (They like to stuff those kinds of topics into single articles, so-called "mergism", depriving them of space to breathe and grow.) It can be a struggle to write good content about commercial products, for example. There was one guy, Improv, who once went on a massive deletion spree of all kinds of commercial products, things like Chips Ahoy cookies. While those deletions were promptly overturned by overwhelming consensus, he was an extreme case of a broader tendency, which seems to involve paranoia about being perceived as advertising for corporations (on top of ordinary deletionism, of course). Even when these kinds of topics get stuffed into bloated single articles (such as a list of products by a fast food chain), they can still be alarmingly vulnerable to AfD nominations--usually surviving, but with a disturbingly strong minority favoring deletion.

I absolutely agree that the decision process for whether anything gets its own article is often completely bizarre. That doesn't translate to "Wikipedians hate McDonald's". There's a disconnect there.

Well, that obscure robot cannon probably won't last long. Moreschi and his friends have it in for Gundam related articles and are waiting to do their yearly deletionfest.

Unless of course, that rat bastard TTN beats him to it.

Seriously, the war on fiction is barely started.

Does anyone else find it odd that in every fiction related deletion they scream "move it to Wikia?" Somebody seems to be trying to line the pockets of WMF....

Wikia is a better option than outright deletion, although I share the concerns that a supposedly separate entity doesn't get NOREFs attached to the outgoing interwiki links. And the Shamrock Shake is real, not a fictional entity.

You know, I was wondering why Armarkov picked up the cause of the Shamrock Shake - his first mainspace edit since 12 December. Now I know why...

Outright deletion shouldn't be the answer though, per the five pillars, not paper, etc.

It would be interesting to see who continues to use WP if all the bleach, naruto, dbz, etc articles were magically transported to the for profit site.

(And yes, I'm aware the Shamrock Shake is "real".)

Many fiction articles violate the not plot part of the WP:NOT policy, though.

I'd say the vast majority of them do.

Not plot is not followed, its about as useful as speed limits.

It keeps coming back to the de facto observation that Wikipedia is more a compendium of popular culture than a traditional encyclopedia.

I happen to think the Internet needs a site like Wikipedia that provides a rich compendium of popular culture, volatile as the content might be.

Just don't call it an encyclopedia.

Yeah, isn't that odd? Also, the next time you see someone say "Move it to Wikia!", just try -- try! -- to add a comment that, in addition to Wikia, if people wanted to build an entire sematically-tagged directory of these fictional robots, Wikipedia Review.com welcomes that. See how long that comment is allowed. Of course, since authors can earn 100% of the advertising revenue placed on their Wikipedia Review.com pages, one could even argue that Wikipedia Review is a better place than Wikia for editors, but, that still wouldn't fly.

Indeed, Wikipedia's culture not only supports Wikia, it assumes a non-compete, no-mention clause for all other alternative wikis.

Greg

This particular type of merging of content is so asinine. Who in the world would type "shamrock shake" into Wikipedia and prefer an article on all McDonald's products?

It's important to make guidelines and to follow them, but you need to revisit them and fix them when they come up with such ridiculous results.

wait..............

ice cream contains nutrition? o_O

Real ice cream, made from milk, does.

It's funny that real world things seem to have a higher notability standard than the mess in Category:Star Wars. I mean if a Jedi Knight appeared in one book that sold ten thousand copies of course its important.

McDonald's shakes have milk. It's an urban legend that they don't.

Please don't think I have it in for all fiction articles. I couldn't care less if there were ten thousand articles on fictional robot cannons. On my own encyclopedia I would never delete an article that someone spent hours putting together, even if it was about something I had no interest in.

I just bought a Shamrock shake, which according to Wikipedia, is impossible because it is only sold in March.

Obviously your local McDonalds is staffed by Protestant terrorists who are trying to undermine the sacredness of St. Paddy.

I knew there had to be a good reason.

What kind of bs is that? They serve mint shakes only during March, but orange juice every day of the year (before 10AM)?!?!?

Well hey, at least they have an article now, so we don't have to look it up on encyc !


Not mint. Vanilla (or more properly "vanilla") + green dye. It's much like the green Budweiser that will be flowing from many a keg a couple days after the Ides of March.

I'm pretty sure they use Nappy Light for that. Anyway, this is conversation might get silly at some point if we don't watch out.

I'm pretty sure it tasted minty. At any rate the formula has changed. It used to be served like a vanilla shake, in an opaque cup, and it was a uniform green color. Now it's vanilla shake served in a clear cup with green syrup poured onto the top, mixed slightly, and topped with whipped cream and a cherry. Whatever it is it's not just coloring because it tastes different depending on straw depth. It's been this way at least since last year.

You need to provide a reliable, verifiable source for your statement. If you do, we can amend the article.

Too late.

That is one scary example of Wikipedia at its most anal.

If they can have a Shamrock Shake article, why not an FAC on Cookie O'Puss? All that exists is one sentence in the Cookie Puss article.

And, by the way, has anyone noticed the resemblance between Cookie Puss and Newyorkbrad?

Somehow I think NYB will be pleased with this.

A great example of how WR helps dedicated wikipedians correct errors in articles. I trust that wikipedian will think more highly of WR in future.

You are what you eat. Supposedly.

(Okay, if that were so, why don't more of the women who work at the WMF resemble Jimbo's penis? )

((this bullshit, it just writes itself....))