Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Save the Netbooks: Difference between revisions

Content deleted Content added

Inline

Revision as of 03:09, 26 February 2009

Save the Netbooks

This article is about a blog, run by the creator of this article, that just started less than a week ago, to campaign for a particular position. Major COI problems, no real notability for the website (as compared to the topic in general, which probably belongs under netbook only), and the sources used for the article fail reliable sources (a bunch of blogs, pres release by the site) and do not establish notability. Wikipedia is not a soapbox for people to campaign on their own behalf. Maybe if this site sticks around for a while and makes a real difference somewhere and gets mainteam news coverage for it separate from the topic as covered on netbook, then it can have it's own article. Right now it's just someone abusing Wikipedia as a press release for his cause. DreamGuy (talk) 16:30, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, it does seem like an obvious attempt to use WP as a propaganda tool and a clear case of COI. If that's sufficient grounds for deletion, then so be it. Letdorf (talk) 16:37, 25 February 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Letdorf to clarify? You agree with deletion or you agree with samj that he is not in violation?

Sorry, I'm indicating agreement with DreamGuy. Letdorf (talk) 17:40, 25 February 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Comment: Letdorf is one of the two (british) editors who have been vigorously defending this (british) company and whose recent edits outed me personally, then 2 minutes later discredited both article and author by affixing the COI cleanup template. Their haste to contribute to this discussion is likely due to this unrelated dispute, but in any case their reasoning is not "sufficient grounds for deletion". Also, prior to the blocking of User:842U the only commentary permitted in the netbook article on the subject was unjustified claims of genericide. -- samj _in^out 17:18, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I can't really get excited about this trademark controversy either way, but I don't like WP being used as a soapbox. I also like to see WP articles report the facts of the matter in as objective a way as possible, as, of course, they should. These are my only interests in this and other related articles. There was no "outing" involved, as you freely admitted your COI on the talk page. Letdorf (talk) 17:40, 25 February 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Strong Keep or Merge (from author) As I said to the brits and socks on the talk page:

The site clearly meets WP:WEB (see here, here and here). There's some more for good measure, here, here in japanese, here in spanish, again in turkish, one from the philippines, even some negative press. Even so, the register, ars technica, techdirt and jkontherun are all non-trivial and independent so any two of them should suffice for WP:WEB.
The article itself is unbiased, the subject need not be. Nobody has identified areas where the article fails to have a NPOV, least of all influenced by COI.

Remember, COI is no justification for deletion. -- samj _in^out 16:40, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"The brits and the socks"?? Which do you think I am? And, yes, COI is a reason for deletion -- often it's a reason for speedy deletion. I took this to AFD instead, which is more than it deserves. DreamGuy (talk) 00:53, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Meh, just realised that the article was brutally savaged by DreamGuy before listing it - ~~even I'd vote against it now~~. -- samj _in^out 18:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If by "brutally savaged" you mean "edited to remove clear violations of policy." But, yeah, that's right, I remember, you don't care about our policies, you just want free advertising. DreamGuy (talk) 00:53, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suspected Sock Delete unless a lot of modification is made. I have meda no secret for my dislike of this article's subject matter. The author has gone as far as to claim I'm doing something wrong by requesting edits, accusing me of sock puppetism, rather than naivity and inexperiance with Wikipedia. Reasoning with him seems to boil down to this general template: "I'm right, you're wrong, there is no discussion to be had - thank you SamJ". However, samj will claim that I'm a sock puppet and that I'm also biased. I deny both charges. This needs to be decided by someone with a completely objective position. Memsom (talk) 16:59, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suspected Sock Addendum if we want to be more exact with the problems this article has to overcome:

Slander_and_libel defamation "the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government or nation a negative image."

The author is a strong Partisan of the movement. He is responsible for the manifesto against the subject, with an aim to defame/cause damage to their legal right to defend a trademark they have held for around 10 years.

All attempts to call for moderation have been quickly quashed by the author.

Most edits from people external to this article have been removed quickly. The only way I have menaged to pus a less biased agenda is through expressing my concerns and getting the author to make changes. These have been painful to extract and have often been less that was requested.

Memsom (talk) 17:15, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Memsom is the other of the two (british) editors who have been vigorously defending this (british) company, both here and outside, openly admitting to having a conflict of interest. See WP:IDONTLIKEIT -- samj _in^out 17:24, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suspected Sock Retort Sam, I believe I have told you from the beginning that I disliked the attitude of your campaign - to quote myself from your first link:

I could go and change the Wikipedia article, but I'd rather someone with no attachment to the other camp has a hand in it. I call b***s**t on you, because you are perverting the Wikipedia article and making a mockery of the Wikipedia neutral stance.

I don't know the other people who have commented on this thread, I can't speak for anyone but myself. I ended up here due to the following chain of events:

News story on OSNews
Investigate web site. Follow links.
Discover Wikipedia article through links. Look at SamJ's "articles edited". Notice Netbooks included
Realise the link between SamJ and Sam Johnson, owner of the Save the Netbooks site.
Have dialog through Twitter - SamJ abruptly blocks my account - apparently discourse is not allowed?
Make an edit to the page - SamJ undoes it.
Start dialogue on the talkback - whilst also attempting to raise notice of issues this page has.
SamJ places a COI notice on my talkback. I return the COI, adding an extra item to the list with appropriate counter links.
SamJ accuses me of being a Sock Puppet.
More discourse, SamJ makes minor edits to this page... more discourse, more minor changes.
Another appeal, SamJ seems to begin to listen, certainly reacts with less venom.
Boom, all heck breaks loose here.

Along the way, I note more than one person has attempted to request moderation - each time SamJ has removed the tag almost immediately, IMHO making a mockery of Wikipedia.

SamJ has run such a campaign perviously, which claims to have stripped Dell of the "Cloud" trademark. I haven't looked in to the details, but I see an alarming trend in the subject matter of the articles this user is creating and the practices he is advocating. Should we be encouraging hate mongering and cyber vigilanteism? If the word Psion was replaced with a racial group and the message one of a hate campaign against that group, would the article have lasted this long? A quantum leap in logic, I know, but I've pondered this fact over the last day.

Being British is irrelevant. Psion is no longer a British company. It would be like me calling Vauxhall a British company, even though they're owned and run by GM/Opel. Memsom (talk) 21:04, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And that is exactly why your vote should not be counted: WP:IDONTLIKEIT -- samj _in^out 22:33, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suspected Sock Why do you feel the need to turn this in to school boy "you're it", "no you're it with bags on", "no you're creamos and no returns"? I voted for deletion *or major revision*. You're not exactly going out of your way to to build bridges here. Memsom (talk) 22:46, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have to go out of my way to "build bridges" - it's just an article and the content will end up in the Netbook article where it will get more eyeballs anyway. What I don't appreciate is the repressing of a message just because people don't like its contents. There is no doubt whatsoever that the subject is notable and nobody has been able to identify specific issues with the article outside of blanket assertions. -- samj _in^out 23:05, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suspected Sock If you give off a persona of being abrasive, people (other people, I'm past caring and in to the "defend my position from the accusations" point) will react badly. If I felt like you weren't attacking me and slinging mud in my direction, I would stop commenting. Memsom (talk) 23:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - The COI issues here are too large to overlook. If history shows that this was a notable campaign, restore later.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:12, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment COI is not, never has been and (with any luck) never will be a valid reason for an AfD vote. The purpose of these debates is to establish whether there is enough verifiable evidence of notability to satisfy WP:WEB and as you can see from the many examples above there clearly is. -- samj _in^out 17:31, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suspected Sock 'Delete' - Clear COI interest, also as a current civil legal dispute any posting would need to be clearly NPOV - this isn't eg links that went the 1998 grant of trademark evidence were deleted. Also, the main author and defensive editor doesn't want to take points about the law, which in an article about a tm dispute might be helpful. Also, I didn't think being British prevented you commenting on an article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.27.50 (talk) 17:34, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It does when the subject is a british company, in much the same way as it would be were the subject an olympic athlete. It's not really all that surprising then that your edit comes from a british university. -- samj _in^out 17:44, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, it doesn't. A users opinions count the same no matter what country they are from. Their comments would count the same even whether they are from the UK, US, Japan, Sudan, or anywhere else. Samj, you might try backing off from spreading false info just to save this advertisement for your campaign. TJ Spyke 18:01, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"This IP address, 131.111.27.50, is registered to University of Cambridge and may be shared by multiple users of an educational institution." -- samj _in^out 18:03, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am aware of that (I checked the WHOIS). My comment was that their opinion would mean the same even if it was from a US or Australian editor (or any other country). Being from the UK doesn't change anything. If the user was from the company that owns the trademark, that would be different. TJ Spyke 18:08, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When a handful of editors, socks and IPs work together to delete an article about a british company it definitely matters (WP:COI, WP:IDONTLIKEIT, etc.). The only issue this IP editor identified was a specific ref about 1 trademark in 1 country that was replaced with "International trademarks were issued" so as to be less precise but more accurate. -- samj _in^out 23:00, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suspected Sock Accusing the opposing individuals of conspiracy is a big claim. Can you back that up? Can you prove that (a) we know each other (I don't know them, I can't speak for them knowing each other) (b)this is an organized attack (it is not, I have clearly explained how I got here which you have also documented when attacking me.) (c) being British is a crime in this instance? Psion ceased trading in the UK some time ago, as far as I'm aware. If not, the Canadian wing of the company now runs the shop and they are a Canadian registered company as far as I am aware. Memsom (talk) 23:59, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Clear COI (and the articles creater/campaign organizer keeps removing the COI tag). The article also appears to be blatant advertisement to try and get people to support the campaing (which IS grounds for deletion), the majority of the page just states the goals of the campaign. A brief mention in the Netbook article is sufficiant. TJ Spyke 17:39, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Again COI has no place in these debates (except perhaps to justify some problem with the content) and the COI tag is a cleanup tag, not a tool to permanently brand content you don't like. Also, on what basis do you claim that it is "blatant advertising", bearing in mind that the CSD G11 policy is "Pages that exclusively promote some entity and that would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic" and this content is clearly encyclopedic. You misread the intentions of the article but we perhaps didn't do enough to assert notability. In any case it's good to see someone outside of the UK contributing to the debate. -- samj _in^out 18:02, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - no third-party reliable sources I can see. And overt promotional use of Wikipedia. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 19:38, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Except here, here and here. Oh that's right, they were stripped from the article before it was listed. How convenient. Also bear in mind that the policy on blatant advertising (CSD G7) states that "Of course, an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view." -- samj _in^out 18:55, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suspected Sock Okay, lt us examine that claim:

Criteria Keeping in mind that all articles must conform with our policy on verifiability to reliable sources, and that primary sources alone are not sufficient to establish notability, web-specific content[3] is deemed notable based on meeting any one of the following criteria. The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself. This criterion includes reliable published works in all forms, such as newspaper and magazine articles, books, television documentaries, websites, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations.[4] except for the following: Media re-prints of press releases and advertising for the content or site.[5] Trivial coverage, such as (1) newspaper articles that simply report the Internet address, (2) newspaper articles that simply report the times at which such content is updated or made available, (3) a brief summary of the nature of the content or the publication of Internet addresses and site or (4) content descriptions in Internet directories or online stores. The website or content has won a well-known and independent award from either a publication or organization.[6] The content is distributed via a medium which is both respected and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster;[7] except for trivial distribution including content being hosted on sites without editorial oversight (such as YouTube, MySpace, GeoCities, Newgrounds, personal blogs, etc.).

Which justifies the actions of DreamGuy in about 60-80% of the removals as bare minimum.

I do agree this is not grounds for deletion, but it is definitely not unjustified or vandalism. Memsom (talk) 23:40, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Even if those particular ones were there, I'd still say the same. I'll view it as notable when it gets into newspapers. BTW, you have a conflict of interest: per WP:COI, finding fault with the basis of every comment here doesn't strike me within the spirit of "avoid, or exercise great caution when ... Participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors". Gordonofcartoon (talk) 19:38, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't aware that sources had to have dead tree versions to be considered reliable - this requirement is conspicuously absent from the policies which call for "multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself". It also conflicts with Wikipedia's own debates on the reliability of Ars Technica and (less so) The Register:

The Register: Independent news, views, opinions and reviews on the latest in the IT industry. Offices in London, Edinburgh, San Francisco and Mountain View.

Suspected Sock the impression I've always had was that the Register is extreme in views and quite often sensationalist. Very tabloid in reporting and quick to judge. Memsom (talk) 21:26, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ars Technica: specializes in original news and reviews, analysis of technology trends, and expert advice on topics ranging from the most fundamental aspects ...

Suspected Sock The reaction on Ars[1] to the Save the netbook article is fairly telling : most people seem pretty unmoved.

Here it is again with sources but in any case I'm kind of over arguing for a cause that has no other purpose than to protect consumer choice. -- samj _in^out 20:35, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suspected Sock You campaign is about your personal feelings towards this subject. It's not about protecting "consumer choice", because the average consumer does not know what the difference between a PDA, UMPC, Nettop, Laptop, Notebook, Webbook, Netbook or Googlewhack is. No one knows because it is a neologism, it isn't a universal term yet, especially outside of English speaking countries and has been dropped by many of the manufacturers whilst the Netbook trademark case is pending.The small laptops that are popular currently withh still exist no matter what they are called. Price points sell them, not buzzwords. Memsom (talk) 21:26, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A neologism with almost forty million hits? "Save the Netbooks" has almost twenty thousand alone and yet people are still arguing for its deletion. -- samj _in^out 22:37, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suspected Sock Well, it seems not everyone like what you are doing and questions your motives, and not every hit is even for your site. Google spiders pages, so if you have many pages repeating the same announcement and adding no extra content, it is possible you could reach that many hits. The term "save the netbooks" isn't exactly a unique moniker. Memsom (talk) 23:12, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - COI, WP:NOTWEBHOST etc. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξ φ 19:00, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok so WP:COI definitely has no place here, but how does WP:NOTWEBHOST apply? -- samj _in^out 22:56, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and clean up, if necessary. Meets notability under WP:WEB [2] and COI is not grounds for deletion, though the editor's attitude is rather counterproductive. I see a lot of WP:ILIKEIT and WP:IDONTLIKEIT on this page. THF (talk) 21:59, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't voting IDONTLIKEIT, I was voting "It's a week old, can we really tell yet if it's notable?" As far as I'm concerned, if Psion wanted to start enforcing their trademark, they should have done it quite a while ago.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:11, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your comment was "The COI issues here are too large to overlook.", yet neither COI nor event duration are valid reason to delete. If anything COI edits could be a *huge* source of energy, provided they are monitored for WP:NPOV and not vigorously stamped out as seen above - the article is factual bordering on cold and exactly zero instances of non-NPOV have been specifically identified (likely because there are none). It has almost twenty thousand search hits and it needs only TWO to satisfy WP:WEB -- samj _in^out 22:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Its pretty obvious that this is a politically motivated bad faith nomination. The people here screaming delete seem to be spouting off as many WP policies as they can and they need to go learn some new words. This article clearly meets WP:N and WP:V; and any COI or POV material can be dealt with by means other than a deletion. LetsdrinkTea 23:26, 25 February 2009 (UTC) Sorry for the violation of AGF. I do admit that this article has many serious issues, however since they can be fixed they do not warrant deletion of the article. I have found over 100k+ hits on google on this subject and there is no doubt in my mind that there are enough sources that meet WP:RS to get it through WP:N and WP:V. That said, my !vote to Keep this article stands. LetsdrinkTea 01:14, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suspected Sock I would far rather this article was cleaned up by an impartial moderator and and locked from editing. Seems like the best course of action, given that neither the creator nor any contributers here (I include myself) are impartial enough to do that now. It's quite clear that SamJ is not going to be able to make edits without flack and more accusations flying about the place. Voice of reason must be enforced. Deletion is extreme, but allowing open editing is going invite trouble till the matter is resolved in court/USPTO hearing. Memsom (talk) 23:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Letsdrinktea claims "Its pretty obvious that this is a politically motivated bad faith nomination" -- Hello, what? There's no bad faith involved, and I'm not political in the slightest regarding this topic. Hell, I probably agree with the "political" position of the site the article is about on the issue. The question is whether we should give an encyclopedia article to a site less than a week old being used as advertising, and, no, no we can't. The attack on me was a pretty obvious violation of WP:AGF. You can't just assert it clearly meets WP:N and WP:V when it most certainly doesn't, not by a long shot. DreamGuy (talk) 00:47, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Except for those pesky twenty thousand search hits. COI doesn't matter. Duration doesn't matter. And you're one to talk about WP:AGF when your hardly WP:CIVIL nomination states that "it's just someone abusing Wikipedia as a press release for his cause". Last I checked it wasn't even in the top 10 hits so hardly great advertising - it'd be better off in the netbook article (which incidentally is where it'll end up if this is deleted). -- samj _in^out 01:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Add in the hits for "Save the netbook" and other variants and you have well over 100k LetsdrinkTea 01:40, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To be more quantitative, this "blatant advertising" has been responsible for exactly 1.39% of our referrals according to analytics. -- samj _in^out 01:15, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:SOAP. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:09, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Except that "Of course, an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view.". -- samj _in^out 00:15, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. WP:SOAP, WP:COI, and notability concerns. The term is clearly notable, but the movement doesn't seem to be at this point. I might support a highly abridged merge to the main article. Dayewalker (talk) 01:21, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On further review Merge to Netbook. As the page is, it's a content-fork, and the website doesn't have notability beyond the controversy over the trademark. Once the self-citing is cut, there isn't a lot there. But NB that WP:COI is not a reason for deletion. THF (talk) 01:22, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hiding irrelevant digression

Comment A number of the voters above are the subject of this sock puppet investigation: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Memsom (as if this wasn't enough of a circus already) -- samj _in^out 01:24, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Sam, rather than making a blanket statement like that, you'd probably be better served by tagged the SPAs as such. Dayewalker (talk) 01:26, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Ok, done. -- samj _in^out 01:32, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - As of right now, I see no difference. I was talking about on this page, for clarity's sake. Dayewalker (talk) 01:34, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      - Ok, really done. Did you not see e.g. the Ars & Reg links above? They should be enough for WP:WEB as neither WP:SOAP nor WP:COI are applicable (see above). -- samj _in^out 02:22, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        I saw, and I disagree. Furthermore, you shouldn't be tagging editors as "suspected socks." Single-purpose accounts can be tagged as such, but calling someone a sockpuppet when the case is still open shows an awful lot of bad faith. Dayewalker (talk) 02:30, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 131: / Line 131: @@
 *'''Delete'''. [[WP:SOAP]], [[WP:COI]], and notability concerns. The term is clearly notable, but the movement doesn't seem to be at this point. I might support a highly abridged merge to the main article. [[User:Dayewalker|Dayewalker]] ([[User talk:Dayewalker|talk]]) 01:21, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 *On further review '''Merge''' to [[Netbook]]. As the page is, it's a content-fork, and the website doesn't have notability beyond the controversy over the trademark.  Once the self-citing is cut, there isn't a lot there.  But NB that [[WP:COI]] is not a reason for deletion. [[User:THF|THF]] ([[User talk:THF|talk]]) 01:22, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
+{{Collapse top|1=Hiding irrelevant digression}}
 *'''Comment''' A number of the voters above are the subject of this [[WP:SOCK|sock puppet]] investigation: [[Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Memsom]] (as if this wasn't enough of a circus already) -- <u style="text-decoration:none; font-family: papyrus;">[[User:SamJohnston|samj]] <small><sub><font color="maroon">[[User talk:Samj|in]]</font></sub><sup><font color="green">[[Special:Contributions/SamJohnston|out]]</font></sup></small></u> 01:24, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 **Sam, rather than making a blanket statement like that, you'd probably be better served by tagged the SPAs as such. [[User:Dayewalker|Dayewalker]] ([[User talk:Dayewalker|talk]]) 01:26, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
@@ Line 137: / Line 138: @@
 *****Ok, really done. Did you not see e.g. the Ars & Reg links above? They should be enough for [[WP:WEB]] as neither [[WP:SOAP]] nor [[WP:COI]] are applicable (see above). -- <u style="text-decoration:none; font-family: papyrus;">[[User:SamJohnston|samj]] <small><sub><font color="maroon">[[User talk:Samj|in]]</font></sub><sup><font color="green">[[Special:Contributions/SamJohnston|out]]</font></sup></small></u> 02:22, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 ******I saw, and I disagree. Furthermore, you shouldn't be tagging editors as "suspected socks." [[WP:SPA|Single-purpose accounts]] can be tagged as such, but calling someone a sockpuppet when the case is still open shows an awful lot of bad faith. [[User:Dayewalker|Dayewalker]] ([[User talk:Dayewalker|talk]]) 02:30, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
+{{collapse bottom}}