Talk:Charlie Bit My Finger

Overdetailed

The problems I've identified were a complete exposition of all possible details, and repetitive content. -- Marawe (talk) 19:33, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

You're going to have to be a bit more specific than that. I still don't know which parts you are referring to. Theleftorium 19:57, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

If you're talking about the "Views" section then I agree that it could be shortened. Theleftorium 20:01, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Please re-read the article carefully if you were unable to find useless repetition and overdetailed contradictions like:

Excerpt I	Excerpt II
The boys' father uploaded the video online so that it could be viewed by their godfather who was living overseas in the United States.	Howard uploaded the video onto YouTube so that it could be watched by the boys' godfather, who was residing in the United States.
[The video] was "simply an attempt to capture the boys growing up". [...] it "didn't particularly stand out". It was not until he transferred the video onto his computer a few months later and played it again that he realized it was funny.	"This was just one of those moments where 'I had the video camera out because the boys were being fun, and they were providing something really very funny."

-- Marawe (talk) 06:07, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

The first part you are referring to comes from lead section, which is supposed to be a summary of the article. Please see WP:LEAD. I will shorten the quote box. Theleftorium 11:11, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I have made some adjustments to the lead anyway. What do you think? Theleftorium 11:19, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I think there is too much repetition in the article lead from the first two paragraphs. I made changes to the first paragraph but reverted. Upon reflection (if what I say about repetition is true), then this was the correct action to take - the revert I mean - good job to Theleftorium. If detail should be taken out, then it should be from the lead before the rest of the article. After reading a bit of WP:LEAD (here especially) and this guide i think the lead can be shortened (something) like this:

"Charlie Bit My Finger – Again!" is an Internet viral video famous for once being the most viewed YouTube video of all time with over 214 million hits as of July 2010. The 56 second long clip features two English brothers, aged three and one. In the video, the younger brother, Charlie, bites the finger of his older brother, Harry. The boys' father uploaded the video online in May 2007 so that it could be viewed by their godfather, and it has since become an Internet phenomenon.

This reduced lead gives an overview of what the subject is and why it is notable. The other detail (in my opinion) can be read in the main body of the article. Thoughts? --Boy.pockets (talk) 00:33, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. The reason for my revert was that the lead shouldn't contain information that isn't available in the rest of the article. IMO, your version is a bit too short though and it misses some important details. What do you think of this? Theleftorium ^(talk) 14:46, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I am happy with the revision. Good job! - In case I was not clear; I agree with the revert of my work. Detail should not have been taken out of the body while remaining in the lead. Cheers --Boy.pockets (talk) 13:17, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I think the article is still way over-detailed for a YouTube video. Common sense suggests that an article on a one-minute home video should not be longer than - for example - an article on an entire religion, a major historical figure, or an entire branch of mathematics. This is an online encyclopedia, but it is not an encyclopedia about the internet so there needs to be a little perspective. Suggestions on how to shorten this down to a much more concise article? 96.252.169.163 (talk) 07:33, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

References

Hits?

The article says "191,776,492 million hits", but that would actually be 191,776,492,000,000 hits. Is that correct, or does it only have 191,776,492 (ie almost 192 million hits)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.175.129.212 (talk) 14:09, 21 May 2010 (UTC) CHARLIE BIT MY FINGER AMAZING VIDEO EVERYONE LOVES BEAUTIFUL TIMES LIKE THESE — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.66.246.91 (talk) 03:19, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

First Comment: No Second Comment: Please stay on topic :)Yours Truly (talk) 17:31, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Featured on AFV

Amongst the many comments on this site one of the users claims that they saw this video featured on America's Funniest Home Videos (they said it was the first one and it was this video that was at number 1 when they posted the comment (February 2010)). Should we include that somewhere in the "Impact" section? trainfan01 talk 18:47, January 5, 2010 (UTC)

Can You Predict?

I believe that the formula of the number of views over time could be exponential. Can you predict which date that this video will exceed over a billion? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Garygoh884 (talk • contribs) 04:03, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Deleted

This article should not be worthy of an encyclopedic entry. The subject may have established notability but it's only a 56 second long youtube video. Although this may be my opinion since I don't really approve of trivial articles on a high standard online encyclopedia. Gamerdays (talk) 12:17, 12 June 2011 (UTC)gamerdays

I may disagree on that. Although this video was about a minute long and was the most watched video at all times. Garygoh884 (talk) 13:47, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

If you really think it should be deleted, you could take it to AfD, though I doubt that it would be deleted seeing as though notability is clearly established. Chris the Paleontologist (talk | contribs) 21:13, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Most views = More chances of getting more views

If a video gets a large number of views, this would mean that more and more people are attracted to watching this video since it was featured on the "Most Watched" list. This could be an exponential detail for this. 220.255.1.95 (talk) 05:41, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Confused by info on vids that have supposedly surpassed it view count

The section which says that this vid's views have been surpassed by several music videos confuses me. As far as I can see it is still the most viewed altogether by a 100 million-ish, and the music videos mention aren't even in the top ten. The section does mention stats from multiple video sites, so the music videos could be hosted elsewhere, but then it concludes by saying and remains the most viewed YouTube video that is not a professional music video.[17] Which implies that there are music videos ahead of it. Granted the stats are from may, but I doubt it has changed that much in two monthsTalltim (talk)|

dinner

wasnt there something about cdi in here when a rumor went around that they had the videogames?184.98.114.65 (talk) 21:55, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Updates

The article has been sorely out of date for awhile, using info from 2008, 2009 and 2010. The article was heavily biased and I've updated a lot of it to reflect current information. Apparently this video may be part of the beginning of the trend of baby viral videos on Youtube. So it does have importance as an internet topic. From what I've read the family decided to try and embrace the video and develop a brand to avoid being exploited by others. --Turn685 (talk) 18:13, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Something that also needs to be covered is why the video became popular specifically. --Turn685 (talk) 18:27, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Out of date viewcount and position on most viewed videos list

I do not have time to fix this at the moment, as sources would need to be re-cited. — Preceding unsigned comment added by O99o99 (talk • contribs) 21:35, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Comment about unlisting

The capture history for this page at the Wayback Machine shows that the video was changed to "unlisted" some time between 07:08:37 UTC and 09:25:18 UTC (3:08 am Eastern Time and 5:25 am Eastern Time, respectively). 74.104.137.109 (talk) 14:07, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

What purpose does this serve?

This article is something of a mess. Its entire scope could be conveyed within a single bullet point or table row in a list of viral YouTube videos. As a topic, I wouldn’t have thought it would even warrant a stub.

It’s not notable for anything apart from holding the top spot in YouTube views for a while. That’s hardly worth its own article in and of itself. If you look at other articles in some of the the same categories, like “Mid-importance Internet Articles”, it’s sharing space with content that is arguably much, much more deserving, like:

- 2019 Iran Internet Blackout - Africa (song by Toto) - ASCII Art - Ballotpedia - Buzzfeed - Cyberwarfare - Dark Web - Denial-of-Service Attack - Facebook Marketing - Freedom of Information - Google Search …

Those are a few examples from just the first page. Are we to contend—-even just among the subsection of internet-related articles—-that Charlie Bit My Finger is even remotely as culturally significant as Google Search? Even Toto’s Africa possesses artistic merit and was recorded by a group of musicians who were influential in their time.

Even if we were to presume that a video’s relative success as a viral video (as measured by view counts) is a sufficient metric with which to justify maintaining a full article, it has been so thoroughly eclipsed at this point that the bottom entry in the Top 30 has nearly five times the views.

Lastly, it has neither the substance to provide enough material with which to fill the space of a full article without resorting to needless verbosity and repetition, but it also lacks the significance to attract the kind of quality writing and care for detail that could potentially make an article worthwhile, even if its subject was similarly superficial as this.

In other words, it does nothing to meaningfully contribute towards documenting the collective knowledge and experience of humanity; meanwhile, the careless writing and frequent disregard for basic conventions in the body of the article potentially harms Wikipedia’s credibility, reinforcing many of the worst stereotypes and assumptions that have been repeatedly leveled by critics of the platform. My conclusion is that Wikipedia would be substantively improved by deleting this article in favor of a short blurb in some of the other articles covering viral videos and/or YouTube.

I appreciate anyone who took the time to read and consider my perspective, and I am happy to engage in a discussion or answer any questions. ~ SilverXnoise (talk) 05:39, 17 February 2024 (UTC)