RationalWiki:The great Youtube purge

The purge ended on 30 September 2018. Further articles can be nominated for deletion at RationalWiki:Articles for deletion.

Over the years, RationalWiki editors have created a large number of articles documenting the best and worst of YouTube. In September 2018, the RationalWiki community embarked on a project to examine all articles focused on YouTube personalities and determine if any of these articles could be removed. The basic guiding criteria for inclusion in this list was that the YouTube channel under consideration have less than one thousand subscribers or be really boring.

List
• 2

Additions

 * Maoist Rebel News — a bit meh nowadays
 * Common Filth — not Youtube, but a bland article. This is for YouTube-related articles only. If you think that page should be deleted, nominate it for deletion in the conventional way.

Subtractions

 * DarkMatter2525 — Passes thresholds.
 * Cdk007 — short article, but seems note-worthy. Better to err on keep than delete.
 * Grappling Ignorance — an atheist who suffered real-life consequences (losing his job, getting his classroom vandalized, being treated like a pariah) for his views that RationalWiki echoes. Needs sources, however.
 * Hunter Avallone — kept at a previous debate, probably has some merit.
 * NephilimFree — uh huh
 * Blonde In The Belly Of The Beast — keep
 * Wife with a Purpose — keep

Discussion
-
 * 1) Keep Darkmatter2525, He does good anti-creationist and anti-apologist stuff, but his social views bleed over and they're pretty poorly thought out, though this seems to be due to out-of-control idealism more than malice. Further, he has a decent following. 14:59, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Dude has 663,000 subs. I think that's well above our cutoff point and he's probably missional. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano  Make a Reservation  15:27, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
 * What Moosolini said. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 17:12, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I'll add it to Subtractions. RoninMacbeth (talk) 17:16, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
 * From what I've seen from Darkmatter2525's twitter, his political and social ideas seem to be pretty left-leaning. If we're going to mention his political or social stances, maybe we should do more updating on that. TheEOE (talk) 17:37, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) If we keep Richard Coughlan it needs a sever overhaul, it's currently borderline Islamophobic and pushes Thunderf00t/TheAmazingAtheist apologia.  18:04, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I clicked the article's link to his YT channel and found that it got terminated for naughtiness. I think he's safe to delete. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano  Make a Reservation  18:33, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
 * What was the exact reason? From the looks of things he was being harassed. 18:52, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know the exact reason. All I got from Youtube was the usual "This account was terminated for blah blah community guidelines something something" message. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano  Make a Reservation  19:49, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) This Richard Wiseman guy seems to have more than 2,1 mil. subs. Maybe we should try to get more info about this guy? Tinribmancer (talk) 19:56, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I think our overall coverage of skeptics is pretty barren, but it's kind of hard talking about their good parts that agree with us, to be fair. 20:02, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) When I made this list, I included all the articles which seemed to be substandard, many of them do have or had at one point more than 1000 subscribers. If there is any articles you feel is worth keeping, make sure to rescue it.  08:46, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
 * 2) How long is the discussion period going to be? A week? 10 days? A month? I say, stop pussyfooting around and nuke the bastards. Spud (talk)
 * I vaporised a few. Note the detailed edit summaries including a link to this page, the number of subscribers, and deletion rationale. 09:11, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Can we set a time limit? How about unless compelling arguments have been made for any of them to stay by 12:00 UTC on Sunday 30 September 2018, they will all be deleted? Spud (talk) 09:19, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable to me, still on the fence about one or two but I've saved the DarkMatter2525 article so that's my main work done. 14:09, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, since nobody's objected, you've got a week to defend the articles you want kept. Unless somebody else beats me to it, I'll delete all the articles that haven't been defended at 12:00 UTC (8 o'clock in the evening my time) on Sunday 30 September 2018. Spud (talk) 12:32, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
 * And I've done what I said I would. I say the purge is now over. Spud (talk) 12:34, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Nominating Maoist Rebel News to be added too; recent videos of his have less than a thousand views and there is nothing to indicate to me that he isn't just another Youtube crank. Count Bezukhov (talk) 14:04, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Seconded 14:09, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Does anyone think that the Blonde In The Belly Of The Beast article needs to be trashed? I feel like it needs some cleaning and more sources and it would be fine. TheEOE (talk) 00:11, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This particular personality has over a hundred thousand subscribers and appears to be on topic, so I favor keeping for now. I did add the "sources needed" template. Cosmikdebris (talk) 12:23, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think we should keep Wife with a Purpose as well. She seems missional. TheEOE (talk) 01:51, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
 * She only has 11 thousand subscribers and her videos struggle to get 1 thousand views. CowHouse (talk) 06:22, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I mean, the article talks about more than just her YouTube channel, also are we keeping Blonde In The Belly Of The Beast? TheEOE (talk) 02:25, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Fair point, and she does have a reasonable amount of media coverage. I agree we should keep both of them. CowHouse (talk) 04:50, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * So what do you say ? Keep Blonde In The Belly Of The Beast and Wife with a Purpose? TheEOE (talk) 01:18, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * My as well keep both. 08:44, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) NephilimFree doesn't seem like a very bad article. That jab about him being unemployed is kinda unnecessary, not sure if his "mooching" off is relevant either unless it pertains to his arguments. Oh, but I think NephF's habits for legal intimidation aren't something we should really brush aside. 21:51, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
 * May as well save it for now. 16:43, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Hunter Avallone gets a bit of attention by butthurt BonBons and drive-by users. I like to think that means something. 21:54, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
 * We spared Hunter's article in a previous afd vote. Check the archives. I was involved in that discussion, and you'll see my reasoning for why I didn't want him deleted. My views on the matter have not changed. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano  Make a Reservation  22:34, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Added to subtractions. (yeah that sentence sounds odd to me too) 16:43, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This would be the AFD in question. It's worth the trouble linking to there if you can, for convenience's sake. 22:52, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Cdk007 is noteworthy for being one of the earliest Atheist YouTubers, back when being an Atheist was guaranteed to cost you in real life, rather than now when the odds of suffering backlash for simply saying "I'm not buying it" is regional and considerably more mild by comparison in most cases. (generic butthurt, rather than someone losing their job.) The same goes for Grappling Ignorance, both being examples of just how bad persecution of Atheists has been in the recent past.  22:30, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
 * 2) Alliance of Christ has 1255 subs and hasn't updated anything since 2011. Is it safe to delete it? Because I don't see the purpose in keeping that one. Tinribmancer (talk) 22:01, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it's safe to delete. It's not been active who some time and there's no a lot of interest in it nowadays and not much stuff of interest it's article. 12:00, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Wife with a Purpose is pretty famous racist iirc outside YouTube 05:30, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * feels more like was pretty famous than is. The alt-right tends to cycle token minorities pretty fast.  Nonetheless she passes the "yeah at least I've heard of her" test.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 19:00, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Alliance of Christ: turf wars (half of this article) aren't that interesting to read about. 18:51, 28 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Can't we just add them to the "official" RW list of Vloggers and Internet Kooks?--Palaeonictis (talk) 13:54, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Wellllll we're also considering cleaning up our list of Webshites too at a later date. I'd hold off creating listicles until we get that big one established with stricter standards too. 21:43, 23 September 2018 (UTC)