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This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Misplaced Pages contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Misplaced Pages's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Super fancruft is the term given to a special type of fancruft which fails Misplaced Pages's guidelines, but can't be deleted without extreme difficulty for a number of reasons. This page will help you identify if something is super fancruft.

The encounter

Potential cruft

If an article meets most, or all of the following criteria, then it may be super fancruft:

• The content is heavily internet related. Things such as blogs, video-blogs, websites, forums etc
• It lacks any real significant coverage, and uses sources such as blogs, one line mentions, primary sources and unreliable sources.
• Having a quick glance at the article makes it appear notable, but further investigation shows it isn't. Which is why it hasn't been speedily deleted.
• Is not edited very often.
• It is somehow connected to another similar article, or a series of similar articles.
• Contains wikipuffery and Peacock terms.

During AFD

If you think it is super fancruft and you decide to nominate it for deletion, the following may occur:

• Fans of the subject will notify and inform the fanbase via websites/blogs etc which results in:
  • A flood of new users/ips/spa's voting keep at the AFD.
  • Emotional fans defending the article vigorously and hoping to keep it at whatever cost.
  • Straw man and arguments to avoid in deletion discussions will be common.
• Very few established users take part in the discussion, because they have no interest in it

An article cannot be identified as super fancruft until it has been nominated for deletion, and that has run its course.

After the AFD

• If you send your AFD to have a deletion review, the fans of the article may follow you there and repeat things they did at the AFD.
• Expect to be stalked and harrassed depending on the type of community you've enraged. This can happen during and after the AFD.
  • For example if you enrage a large forum with several thousand members, expect to be continously harrassed for a longer period of time, than say a YouTube channel with only a few hundred subscribers.

Summary

In summary, you will find it very hard deleting if:

• Nobody cares about the subject except the fanbase, so nobody else will take part in the discussion. So you get an AFD filled soley with Keeps from fans of the article.
• You are outnumbered by fans of the article, and as nobody else cares about the subject you're screwed every time you nominate that article for deletion.
• The size of the flood, and the severity of the uncivilness from the fans must not reach the breaking point where it's obvious it's spam and has gathered a very large community to take part. Causing the closing admin, and other users to notice it.

See also

• Bias_in_wikipedia#Systemic_bias_in_coverage, possibly the core route of the problem

• User essays