Wikipedia Editors Will Be Deleting The Chicks On The Right Page Because We Are Not Notable Enough

A clever and competent reader alerted us earlier today that our page on Wikipedia has been flagged for deletion.

I’m not nearly familiar enough with the inner workings of Wikipedia to understand what that means, except that it’s quite likely within the next several days, any reference to us will be removed.  The reason?  Well, you can read all about it at the discussion page created by the Wikipedia editors who seem to be in some agreement about the fact that we’re simply not “notable” enough to appear on their platform.

Let’s look at some of their discussion points, shall we?

 “Redirect to WIBC (FM)#Local news and talk Pretty much a copy of their station’s website bio (though with some clashes; this page’s claiming they moved to spend time with their family, while the website says it’s for their speaking agreements). 

So, this legit made me LOL.  We’ve been Chicks on the Right, with a successful website, for far longer than we’ve been radio hosts at WIBC.  We launched this website in February of 2009, and GAVE WIBC THE COPY that is now used as our bio on the WIBC website when we started working there in 2013 (and helped update it when we switched timeslots).  And Wikipedia’s editor is basically making it sound like our website copied our radio station’s bio of us.  Incidentally, we DID request the time slot change in order to spend time with our families.  The fact that this also freed up time to let us write and potentially travel more was a side bonus.  Regardless, I’m baffled as to why this has anything to do with our worthiness of appearing on Wikipedia.

“They seem pretty popular and have some fairly well known Twitter followers. They also had a book published not too many years ago. I think the page should stay as it is and should not be combined with another page. Alaska4Me2 (talk) 01:35, 11 August 2020 (UTC)”

Thanks for trying, Alaska4Me2, but you’re about to be shot down by Bearcat.

“Neither subjective assessments of popularity nor who does or doesn’t follow them on Twitter have anything to do with Wikipedia’s notability criteria. When it comes to getting a Wikipedia article, the notability test is the degree to which they have or have not been the subject of third party coverage about them, in sources independent of themselves, to establish that their work has been externally deemed as significant. That is, it’s not established by their own writing or speaking about themselves or other topics — it’s established by other people analyzing the importance of their work in the third person. There’s only one source here (#2, USA Today) that meets the necessary standard, and one source isn’t enough. Bearcat (talk) 15:25, 14 August 2020 (UTC)”

So Bearcat says there’s not enough “third party coverage” about us in order for our work to be “externally deemed as significant.”  They say USA Today’s feature story on us is the only source, and that it’s not enough.

So I guess I’m confused about their standards.  Not to toot our own horn or anything, but as our about-to-be-deleted Wikipedia page states, we’ve made appearances on Fox and Friends, Fox’s Happening Now, Fox’s America News Headquarters, Varney and Company, CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, CNN Newsroom, Anderson Cooper 360, and several syndicated radio shows (in addition to having our own radio show).  Our book was published by a division of Random House in 2014.  Time Magazine published an article we wrote that same year.

We spent over a year as weekly columnists for the Indianapolis Star. Our combined social media following is over 1.7 million people. 

We just celebrated the year anniversary of our Radio America podcast – The Mock and Daisy Common Sense Cast. 

So…..

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I’m not trying to be all, “OMG LOOK AT HOW IMPORTANT WE ARE!” or anything, because I’m well aware that we are complete dorks, but I gotta wonder what else we need to do to be considered at least MENTIONABLE on a freaking Wikipedia page?

Now here’s where my interest was really piqued:

“The optics of any deletion would imply censorship. Is this what Wiki wants?Oz Cro (talk) 12:16, 14 August 2020 (UTC)”

I’d also like to know the answer to that question.  Because I’m gonna be real with y’all.  THIS POST THAT YOU ARE CURRENTLY READING about our potential deletion from Wikipedia will probably get more traffic than our Actual Wikipedia page ever has.  It’s not like HAVING the Wikipedia page is crucial to our survival, nor do we derive our own sense of self-worth from having a page there.  But it certainly is odd, at the very least, that there are some random Wiki editors who are legit having a discussion about whether or not we are even worthy of mention.  Like this “Bearcat” person, for example.

“Delete, without prejudice against recreation of a redirect after the history is deleted first to prevent reversion warring. This is referenced almost entirely to content where they’re the authors rather than the subjects — but as I explained above, that’s not how you make people notable enough for Wikipedia: you make people notable enough for Wikipedia by showing that they’ve been the subject of reliable source coverage written by other people. This is, of course, without prejudice against recreation in the future if somebody can actually reference them over WP:GNG properly — but Twitter tweets and YouTube clips and sources where they’re doing the writing or speaking isn’t how you get them over the bar. Bearcat (talk) 15:25, 14 August 2020 (UTC)”

Now, Alaska4Me2, the same editor who earlier mentioned our Twitter following and book, tried to offer some other examples of us being mentioned elsewhere to Bearcat:

“Bearcat, do any of these help with notability? http://centergrovemonthly.com/chicks_on_the_right/ https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/emmis-digital/chicks-on-the-right https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/chicks-on-the-right/ https://www.cameo.com/chicksontheright http://radio-indiana.com/emmis/wibc/personalities/chicks-on-the-right/ — A4M2 Alaska4Me2 (talk) 20:17, 16 August 2020 (UTC)”

But Bearcat, who appears to be the arbiter of others’ worthiness, pushed back:

“No. They have to be the subject of journalism written by other people in real media outlets, not of social networking profiles or podcast content or “our programming” profiles on the self-published websites of their own radio affiliates or anything on a WordPress blog. Bearcat (talk) 18:09, 18 August 2020 (UTC)”

I have no idea what they consider “real media outlets,” but I’m guessing it doesn’t matter that we were profiled in 2013 by Fox News’ Todd Starnes, or in The Washington Post. Maybe those are just “wordpress blogs” or something?

But wait.  Expert editor Nate also weighs in:

“And no…paying them to say whatever you want on Cameo doesn’t clinch anything except you can pay them to say anything you want on Cameo. And if you’re on talk radio…you get a podcast feed automatically these days. That doesn’t say anything except ‘their show is re-edited into a podcast’. As to the “optics” comment above; we regularly discuss talk radio hosts here and whether their notability allows them an article. There’s no censoring going on; like most radio talk show hosts on local stations, there’s only an inordinate amount of N you can get before it fades out unless you get a national show. Nate • (chatter) 00:39, 20 August 2020 (UTC)”

To be fair, I wouldn’t have used the Cameo app as evidence of our “notability,” but whatever.  Nate thinks we’re just local radio host losers with no national audience.  Whaddyagonnado, amirite?

Then Editor ASTIG gets in on the “These girls are nobodies” action:

“Redirect to WIBC (FM)#Local news and talk: The scope of the article focuses more of the two hosts rather than the show itself. Neither of the hosts are notable. The show isn’t notable enough to have a standalone article. ASTIG😎 (ICE T • ICE CUBE) 12:18, 17 August 2020 (UTC)”

“NEITHER OF THE HOSTS ARE NOTABLE.  THE SHOW ISN’T NOTABLE ENOUGH” to have a standalone WIKIPEDIA PAGE, you guys.

BRB.  Gotta go cry myself to sleep about our lack of notability to the VIPs deciding our fate on Wikipedia now.

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Maybe someone should have linked them to our gif page.  I mean, surely it counts for something that gifs of us have been used/viewed over 125 million times.

Anyway, if y’all know any Wikipedia editors, feel free to send them this post. Or don’t. If we lose our page on Wikipedia, our lives will be changed exactly this much:

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