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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. Mostly Rainy 03:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Bantown

An utterly non-notable group of nerds - sorry, hackers - whose article fails all criteria of WP:BIO, in particular no multiple independent reliable coverage (the sole source is Slashdot, which doesn't meet WP:RS). Damned if I know why, but I tried searching on Factiva, and came up with nothing. I'm sure they get a lot of Google hits, but who cares? Delete. Sam Blanning 01:40, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom--Jusjih 01:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• Bantown meet the two following criteria of WP:BIO:

1. Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events
2. The person has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person. (Multiple similar stories describing a single day's news event only count as one coverage.)

I fail to see why Slashdot does not meet WP:RS. Please could you point out why Slashdot is not a reliable source. Keep Via strass 01:59, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Newsworthy? Then where are the news articles? Because I searched a database of hundreds of newspapers with tens of thousands of articles, and came up with zilch. As for slashdot, it does not have the fact-checking process required of a secondary source. I think Kotepho summarised it better than I could in the current WP:DRV debate about Eon8. --Sam Blanning 02:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Dear Sam, if I may call you that. Please note if I have added a reference to this article. It's from the online edition of an American newspaper called the Washington Post. Perhaps you could let me know if this would be considered reliable. I didn't add it before because as far as I am concerned Slashdot is a more important news source than what is presumably a local newspaper. HTH. Via strass 02:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The trouble with that article is that it says "An established hacker group known as "Bantown" claimed responsibility". Even if it had said that they had carried out a single attack on LiveJournal, that would be very shaky grounds for notability, being only a single event - claiming to carry one out is almost non-existant. --Sam Blanning 09:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sam. I would love to know your real reasons for wanting to delete this article. I don't understand your objection to the 'claim of reponsibility'. Perhaps your unaware that hacking Livejournal was an illegal act, and that so far no successful convictions have been brought against the perpetrators. Perhaps you can explain the distinction between claims of reponsibility and actual responsibility implicit in the words "Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events". The facts remain

• This article contains multiple references to news reporting of incidents involving Bantown
• They are not all from one source
• They do not all refer to a single incident
• They include well-known and respected sources such as slashdot.org and the Washington Post

Consequently any nomination based on non-notability is abusive. The fact that this AfD nomination is being ballot-stuffed by IP-based users who have no other edits on record is further evidence of this abuse. Via strass 21:20, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Dear Sam, I have taken the liberty of quoting form Kotepho's comment referenced by you:

• Can an AFD be closed based on the weight of arguments instead of numbers? The answer is obviously yes, in some cases. I don't think anyone really cares that 'votes' from (sock|meat)puppets and new users are regularly ignored. If 20 people vote keep, but one person points out it is a copyright violation, can it be deleted? If 20 people vote delete because of lack of sources, and one person finds mentions in the NYTimes and Washington Post, can it be kept? I say yes. While this closure is not as clear-cut as these other cases, I do not see it as being egregiously out of line. If they cannot, we should get rid of "NOT a democracy" and move AFD back to VFD. Thus, I do not think arguing this on procedural grounds has much merit.

Notability or non-notability aside (and I lean towards non-notable) of the subject, this article itself is a wreck. I vote delete until someone is willing to give this group more than just lip-service; perhaps then we can see whether they belong in the encyclopedia. --66.92.130.57 02:03, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• As a fan of Bantown for many years now, I think this article sucks and should be completely rewritten or not written at all. Strong Delete with extreme prejudice. --Weevlos 02:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per nomination -- this nomination is appropriate because the group is non-notable and the article is horrendously written. ContivityGoddess 02:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete This fails on so many levels. --Bouquet 02:10, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep. Just because an article "sucks" doesn't mean it should be deleted. It's easy to slap a {{cleanup}} tag on it, hard to undelete. My Google search shows just shy of 30,000 hits. I'd like to see more effort to verify notability before deletion. Ifnord 02:29, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per nom. Not notable enough yet for an encyclopedia. One successful attack on a blogging site isn't exactly making hacker history. When they graduate to hacking Pentagon computer systems, pull some amazing stunts revealing the truth about secret alien technologies at Area 51 that get headlines around the world, which eventually leads to all the bantown members receiving long prison sentences, then we can reconsider Bwithh 02:54, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• A firm Delete. We don't need to encourage these "skript kidiez" by giving them their own wikipedia article. Everyone knows they're just a lame rip-off of GnAA anyway that has its roots in Furcadia. Cheburashka 03:14, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. The current entry appears more notable than a typical vanity page, but Bantown isn't all that noteworthy. Maybe clean up the content and add it to an entry on cracker groups or script kiddies.
• delete as they only do it for the lulz not the monies.
• Delete Bantown has done nothing noteworthy, really they should probably just be rounded up and put in concentration camps for eventual clensing. --Qurve 06:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, I believe Qurve said it quite well. 71.112.141.236 06:32, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• Abstain/Comment If anyone wants to keep it, find a newspaper article about it. DyslexicEditor 23:51, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - unfunny group that doesn't need more excuses/headlines/credibility to keep it going. Baseball,Baby! 08:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete-0 hits on Google News. If we keep this article, then we might as well have articles on WP vandals as well. They all seem to be in the same category of humanity.--Wine Guy Talk 09:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete this article needs the wiki final solution. --joeyo 15:34, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Naconkantari 16:36, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• Knowing that Bantown has had run-ins with WP folk in the past, keep due to their involvement in the major LiveJournal attack that caused the site to redo its entire structure. The group meets WP:BIO, contrary to the nom. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:02, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Is the Livejournal attack really so noteworthy. At best, a mention in the Livejournal article, but not a separate article for the supposed culpritsBwithh 11:54, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• • Out of interest, is it verified that they were actually responsible? So far I've only seen the article where they claim to be responsible. --Sam Blanning 22:26, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
    • What form would this verification take? Via strass 23:40, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps evidence of police investigation based on formal complaint by Livejournal Bwithh 11:54, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

lol. no successful prosecutions have yet been brought. i have addressed the issue of Bantown's 'claimed' responsibility by adding further information to this article. hth. Via strass 22:13, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• • • I don't know if it is, but there's nothing stopping us from making sure the article reflects what can be verified about it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:36, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep This article is notable, and quality of an article is not a reason to delete. It's a reason to improve or re-write. Tobyk777 23:57, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment The facts remain
  • This article contains multiple references to news reporting of incidents involving Bantown
  • They are not all from one source
  • They do not all refer to a single incident
  • They include well-known and respected sources such as slashdot.org and the Washington Post

Consequently any nomination based on non-notability is abusive. The fact that this AfD nomination is being ballot-stuffed by IP-based users who have no other edits on record is further evidence of this abuse. Via strass 00:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• • • There are two reliable sources, and they both refer to a single incident - where Bantown claimed to have hacked LiveJournal. --Sam Blanning 13:16, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
      • Thousands of blogs were defaced and had their emails changed to bantown(wildcard) at mailinator or spam.la. There are still some of the defacements up as well as comment crapfloods from hacked accounts on the relevant news posts. The Slashdot story even has someone comment about how their journal was hijacked. Your argument reeks of logical fallacy and illogical denial of legitimate reporting. Nevertheless, I still think this article should be deleted. --Weevlos 13:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• KeepThis seems like a perfectly valid and well written article with clear references. Disagreeing with the aims of the hackers or their credibility is no reason to delete the entry, as the events described in the article seem prefectly noteworthy. Green penguin 02:33, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• I maintain that being known for one hack attack on a blogging site is not that noteworthy. the other IRC freenode attack appears to be totally unconfirmed as to responsibility. Even so, the two attacks would not be particularly noteworthy Bwithh 11:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• I have added a link to a log of Freenode's official comment on the attacks, which includes a Freenode operator making the statement = 20:35:59<@HedgeMage> We are not releasing our suspect list, but we have some reasons to expect that bantown or GNAA may have been involved. Via strass 20:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• Weak keep There is some notability, and two decent sources for the livejournal thing. Sources aren't easy to come by, so it will probably be a permastub. Passes User:Radman1/CUNT in my mind. Kotepho 05:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
  • There is no such a thing as a "permanent stub". The definition of a stub is that it is a basis for expansion. An article that can never be longer than a few paragraphs without breaking WP:V is just a stillbirth. --Sam Blanning 13:16, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Has the stubs cabal tried to make up some cannonical definition of a stub? Hell, even if they did I don't care. On topic though, such articles may still be useful or they can be merged somewhere. Since I don't see a particular target, I might as well say keep as there is not a problem that requires deletion currently presented. Kotepho 14:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment To be fair,just wanted to note that there seems to be some influx of pro-deletion new users (probably from a rival hacker group or something) which would account for some of the more extreme comments above. On the other hand, it could be cunning reverse psychology by bantown partisans *shrug* Bwithh 11:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
  • You ever consider the possibility Bantown members legitimately want it gone? 71.112.141.236 16:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom 67.191.90.151 12:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• Weak Keep I am not a bantown member, I am in fact a member of a "rival hacker group or something" called the GNAA. But this is a notable article. Attacking LJ and getting however many accounts IS notable. I'm pretty sure they weren't the ones to crack freenode, though. --Staos 16:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Is this a discussion of the ethics or lack of thereof of Bantown and its members, or is it a discussion of whether an encyclopedia should have an article about the group that is beeing refered to in day to day conversations and are certainly noteworthy for their efford in the LJ case and the later Freenode hijack.
• Delete. --Conti|✉ 17:35, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• STRONG KEEP. There are articles about branches of "alleged" terrorist groups in the middle east. There are four articles sourcing Bantown:

• • McMillan, Robert (January 20, 2006). "LiveJournal makes changes to counteract security threat". InfoWorld.
  • Krebs, Brian (January 20, 2006). "Account Hijackings Force LiveJournal Changes". Security Fix at The Washington Post.
  • "Details of the LiveJournal Account Hacks". Slashdot. Jan 20, 2006.
  • "Freenode Network Hijacked, Passwords Compromised?". Slashdot. Jun 25, 2006.

• • I suspect this deletion is simply because of a morality matter which should have no impact on this. Unless there is a secret Misplaced Pages morality policy? Misplaced Pages's role is not to be moral. It's role is to be an encyclopedia. This strongly smells like people who simply don't agree/like the subject of the article wanting to scrub them from the system based on that. Also, I should add, playing a role (based on four published web sources) in forcing a service with 10 million plus accounts to change their systems permanently is noteworthy. There are stubs that no one makes a fuss over for even stupider/weaker things. Deleting this article is inappropriate based on bias by WP editors. NOTE: I have nothing to do with bantown. rootology 18:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
    • I should add, if we're going to start playing games of ethics over what should/shouldn't be in WP, we might as well nominate Al-Qaeda and Pedophilia for deletion. I think even more people find both of those abhorrent than do Bantown. Crusading/POV warrioring etc. by select groups of admins to delete things they don't like must be stopped. rootology 18:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
      • You illustrate my point quite well. The nomination is not on grounds of abhorrency, it is on grounds of non-notability. Hamas, Al-Qaeda et al have acres of news coverage from reliable sources dedicated to them - paedophilia ditto, plus numerous academic studies into its causes, its effect on children and why Americans can't spell or pronounce it correctly. Hence, we can write a comprehensive article on them while sticking to that which is verifiable. Bantown has, so far, two reliable sources with no more forthcoming, none of which provide a claim to notability (well, they claim that they hacked LiveJournal and FreeNode... so basically, they claim that they have a claim... rock on). Plus the usual post office gossip from the global village. I dunno, I just think there's not much of a comparison between prosecuting a global jihad by launching hundreds of rockets against Isreal, and t07a11y f1gh71ng t3h p0w3r d00d by annoying a bunch of emos reading each others' diaries. Oh well. --Sam Blanning 23:12, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
        • Does this count as a valid source? http://www.zone-h.org/content/view/13778/31/ My concern for better or worse is that trolling in and of itself (see the GNAA article for a great example with it's endless deletion attempts) is smeared as 'not noteworthy' too easily on here. If it's content of notable nature--for better or worse--it deserver inclusion. Also, how many sources are needed for noteworthiness? Trolling related or other controversial topics I feel are held to a higher and more rigorous standard than most articles. I suspect MANY of the objections are due to "not wanting to let them have a legitimate record" or the ever popular and ludicrous "no trophy platform" statement I see here and there. rootology 00:10, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
        • Typo editing, saved before proofreading and excluded sentence. Whoops. rootology 00:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per ContiE. Moral objections have no place here, unless the article is an attack page on the subject, in which case it's speediable. -- nae'blis _(talk) 22:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• http://en.wikipedia.org/WP:BIO

"Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events"

http://www.zone-h.org/content/view/13778/31/ - check
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/01/account_hijacki.html - check
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/01/20/74662_HNlivejournalsecuritythreat_1.html - check

"Google Test -- Does the subject get lots of distinguishable hits on Google or another well known search mechanism?"

http://www.google.com/search?q=bantown - check, 30000+ hits on my screen

This quest for deletion here (and at the GNAA article) is against Misplaced Pages's own policies based on what I suspect is admins having a negative view of the participating group that is covered. I could care less personally whether this article stays or go based on the content. However, based on WP's own rules removing this one in this manner would be a flagrant disregard of our own policies, in my opionion, for "not liking them". Any such deletion should be fought tooth and nail on that criteria.

Would anyone care to try and demonstrate why any of the conditions I list above are not met? Everything of this nature needs to be kept in check. Based on what I listed, I can't see any reason to force a deletion except based on the personal POV of certain admins/editors. rootology 00:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep per reasons stated above. --Heathencourt 02:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I have added further information to this article in response to comments and criticisms made on this page. Not including Slashdot stories, there are now 3 references and a primary source linking the subject to newsworthy events. A reference and a primary source give direct evidence that Bantown are prime suspects for the two attacks, although their responsibility has not been 'proved'. These references include well-known news outlets - none of them are forums or user-sourced comment. While I understand Slashdot does not fact check, the two front page stories at least show the general level of interest in the topic. The references on this page are much better than most other short articles on wikipedia.

There are now 11 'Keep' comments on this page and 17 'Delete' comments, at least three of which seem to be sockpuppets (Qurve, ZomgPete and 67.191.90.151), some other of which do not justify themselves sensibly (eg Cheburashka, 71.112.141.236). It really doesn't seem to me that we will acheive any consensus to remove this article. Is it possible that we can agree to end this farcical process? Then I can get back to my work and those people whose main motivation on wikipedia is deleting other people's work can perhaps focus on Lesbian until graduation or similar.

If you are someone who has repeatedly called for deletion on this page, it would be courteous if you could leave a comment saying whether or not you are going to continue calling for the removal of this article. If you are going to carry on I think you should give a responsive answer to all of rootology and my points above. As I already pointed out I have other things to do than trying to stop people deleting things I wrote in good faith. Thanks a lot. Via strass 11:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Apart from my concerns above, which a chat log does not nullify, I cannnot support retaining an article where the claim to notability rests on supposed crimes for which no-one has been convicted, per Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons (in which I am a great believer, in contrast to the "it's the Internet, you can say anything" attitude that seems to prevail around articles like these). It may seem like an irrelevant concern given that the group involved has themselves claimed to be responsible, but I can assure you that it will look very different to everyone involved when they're 10 or even 5 years older. --Sam Blanning 12:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• It is not a 'chat log'. It is the official response by the operators of the irc network Freenode to the attacks. They are an irc network so the official comment was made on irc. The page this log appears on gives context.
• Perhaps you should direct your attention to the page Osama bin Laden. AFAIK he has claimed reponsibility for numerous acts of terrorism, but has not yet been convicted of any of them. This objection is laughable.
• Bantown is not a living person and this article does not refer to any living person who may or may not be involved with Bantown. The links between the two attacks and a person or persons acting under the name Bantown has been proven, I needn't reiterate this again. If you feel the article should be reworded to avoid incriminating anyone you are free to do so. This has nothing to do with notability.
• I'm not asking that you support retaining this article, just that you stop trying to get it deleted.

Hope this helps :) Via strass 13:16, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. the only thing going for notability here are the unverified claims of Bantown. The fact that other articles about vandals and criminals exist does not impinge on the notability of this article. If claims were all that were needed to establish notability, I might claim responsibility for the LJ attack as well... oops. Well, excuse me, I'm off to slashdot. Tychocat 17:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• • Hi Tychocat. Thanks for your input. If you would take the time to look thru this page and the article you would see that the issue of 'claimed responsibility' has now been addressed about 5 times. Apart from the question of whether this is a genuine caveat to notability the article now includes the following sources:
    • An internet security expert from the Washington Post discussing in detail Bantown's livejournal attack after having interviewed them at length.
    • The official public statement and Q&A session given by a Freenode staffer in which they cite Bantown as suspects for the network takeover
    • The livejournal news page about the attacks showing the involvement of Bantown
  • Hope this helps Via strass 20:11, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. The group is not noteable. Davidpdx
• Weak Keep – Should at least be merged with Funkytown ~ IICATSII 10:04, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete I reviewed the sources - one mentions bantown only in an irc transcript, not in the article propper, one does not mention bantown, Slashdot is a rehash of the WaPo blog, and the WaPo blog is single-sourced to bantown - there is no independent fact checking done to demonstrate that their claims are accurate. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
  • lol a succession of users come along and raise exactly the same points as User:Samuel Blanning, which were already addressed, seemingly unable to review this page.
    • The irc transcript is the official comment by Freenode on the attacks. It is a primary source.
    • lol what? the Washington post is single-sourced to Bantown? this is a curious objection. it does not seem to me that it is our place to fact-check on behalf of the washinton post. wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a place for original research. if the washington post were happy to publish these allegations it is not remiss of wikipedia to cite them.
  • Via strass 20:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom--Nosmik 20:17, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
  • • • Primary sources are generally unnaceptable.
      • The Washington post says that bantown says they hacked livejournal. They do not say that bantown hacked livejournal. This is why I describe the article as single sourced - they, in fact, go out of their way to not state that bantown did it as a fact, rather to just quote their self-aggrandizing statements. Wait, are you accusing me of not trusting them? You got it! Hipocrite - «Talk» 21:01, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. --Bigtop (tk|cb|em|ea) 00:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

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.