Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Zeitgeist the Movie (second nomination)

message: :moved from main AfD article
I have to admit that I was looking forward to being the admin who closes this debate, and not just to say Never repent, Harlequin! or The Revolution is Now!. In light of the above closer's noncomment close (and don't get me wrong: the majority of the hunderds of deletion debates I closed, at least as keept, were likewise minimalist or non commentary), I am taking the liberty of adding (yes, unconventionally), what would have been my closing comment, which consists of several interrelated, critical tenants. 
First, this isn't merely "keep," this is unanimous keep; and I would have discounted Tom Harrison's opinion to delete, because as the sole dissenting voice (which we welcome), he carried the burden of responsibility to at least touching on what anyone else wrote. 
The fact that this debate was resisted at deletion review is also a cause for concern about happenings there. I submit that anything, anything, that has been viewed millions of times, is automatically notable. Not to mention when this involves a two-hour piece of narrative. Hundreds of thousands is also, in my view, likewise notable (tens of thousands is more borderline on the notability threshold). 
Of course, an entry can be deleted for being simply "promotional," and I mean that in the non ideological, spamvertisement sense. Which is clearly and unequivocally not the case here; I have seen the movie and it is rather obvious to me that the entry is, basically, a brief and incomplete summary of its contents. Now, I knew that the conspiracy label, de facto, lowers the notability of subjects. What is, however, surprising is how far it could be lowered; how detached from reality and how bureaucratized deletion review has become to relist an entry to which the word millions of (downloads) can be applied. It takes a lot of inertia, a lot of circumvention of common sense, I challenge, for deletion review regulars and the admin who closed that debate, specifically, to have us arrive at this. I hope this note is read and understood in the constructive spirit it was delivered, and I hope both new and veteran editors find it to be of value. El_C 09:08, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I rewrote the article and presented it to DRV.  I must argue against your claim that millions of views makes an article notable.  Several new videos on Youtube receive millions of views every week.  I would not argue that they all deserve a Wikipedia article as I can barely remember this week's popular videos, let a lone those of the previous week.  Though I would say the demand that Zeitgeist's notability be backed up by reliable sources, I do agree that it was very unfortunate that, the same article that received a virtually unanimous vote of Keep, was previously speedily deleted under G4 CSD and subsequently denied an AfD despite the fact that G4 was deemed inappropriate.  DRV completely failed Wikipedia that week and didn't fulfill it's intended purpose, instead just waisting everyone's time.  Very unfortunate. Pdelongchamp (talk) 16:35, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, even two minute videos, if they are downloaded millions of times, will be automatically kept. At least by this sysop. Please do not remove my closing statements from the project page. The reliable, albeit primary source, is, in this case, the number of downloads. El_C 17:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that the length of the film should factor in its viability as an article subject. I know that EL_C feels like any two minute video should have an article of its created (and I don't want to dispute that per se) but this is a FEATURE length FILM. Just because it happens to be availible on the internet for free shouldn't detract from the real influence: these people may not have paid money but they spent two hours of their lives watching it. If that doesn't count as influential I don't know what is. I feel that the potential deletion for this article was based more on its inflammatory subjects (and the primitive state in which the article first appeared) but even so it should have been fixed before viewing, not pended for deletion.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.164.222.150 (talk) 23:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  AfD Result