Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Predictions of the end of Wikipedia

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. (non-admin closure) ~ Amkgp 💬 15:13, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Predictions of the end of Wikipedia

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Predictions of the end of Wikipedia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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This was a bold redirect to the main Wikipedia article which was reverted, so I'm nominating at AfD. I still wouldn't be opposed to a redirect (or a very very selective merge if anyone wants). My rationale for redirecting was:

This is a giant pile of WP:SYNTH. Basic statements about editor retention and funds should be at the main article. These aren't predictions as much as loosely related speculations about its future. There's not enough here to sustain a separate article while overcoming the SYNTH problems.

To expand on that a little, let me first note that the article content doesn't reflect its title. There are no actual predictions. At best there's some vague speculation. And much of it falls more into the general complaint department over at Criticism of Wikipedia (or bias, etc). Furthermore, as I initially noted, general observations about editor retention, funding, and such can (and already do) belong at the general article. Trying to present statistics from a source that's not predicting the end of Wikipedia in a way to make it sound like the end is nigh is again improper synthesis. There's a whole section titled "Possible antidote", which with its very name is trying to bolster the conclusion of this essay-like article, and doing so by taking an article that has nothing to do with the purported topic and folding that in.

This article takes scattershot articles about criticisms of, observations about funding, trends in editor decline, and so on, and tries to inappropriately synthesize that into some sort of notion that people are predicting Wikipedia's Doom (tm). This is a gross violation of our policy prohibiting original research and must not stay in place. Specific facts may possibly have a home in other articles, and if a redirect is deemed appropriate, I leave it to the discussion to determine where. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:34, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:34, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:34, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:34, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

• Keep I started this article. In first drafts I like to keep things simple and establish WP:GNG, which is Wikipedia's main inclusion criteria. At special:diff/807233190#References anyone can check the cited sources which all talk about how Wikipedia will end. When multiple sources have a topic as their focus, then that topic can be in Wikipedia. The nominator may be correct about some of the later content going off topic, but that issue is separate from notability and deletion. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:45, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

  Even in the state you linked, it's still unkeepable. There are no predictions of Wikipedia's end. Even in the section (in the old revision linked) titled "Another website kills Wikipedia", there are 5 sources listed, not one of which is actually predicting that another website will end Wikipedia. This is still SYNTH, as is the rest of the article, even in this old revision. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:54, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

• Keep Plenty of RS - there is certainly a notable subject here. The plural title rather belies the synthesis argument. If only Wikipediocracy was an RS..... Johnbod (talk) 13:52, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
• Keep. The references provided make it clearly pass GNG. Are there any other specific deletion arguments presented? Any concerns over article wording should be brought to the talk page... and I'm not seeing any. ɱ (talk) 14:15, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
• Comment I've just started checking the sources, but so far, none of the ones I've looked at actually say that the end of Wikipedia is nigh. For example, the 2013 piece from Technology Review straight up and says [Sue Gardner] is surely right that Wikipedia isn't going away. Likewise, The Atlantic declares The encyclopedia isn't starving for stewardship or editorship yet. And The Telegraph only concludes that the current trend puts Wikipedia at the beginning of a path down which most of us would not want it to go. What they're talking about is the decline, or predictions of the decline, not the fall. This Daily Dot story doesn't even go that far; it doesn't infer that Wikipedia is actually in trouble. I urge everyone !voting here not to judge wiki-notability just by counting the footnotes, and I'll suggest that if kept, the article should be renamed. XOR'easter (talk) 15:17, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Reference 1: describes Knol as a competitor, quotes Google rep as dismiss[ing] speculation that Knol was designed as a Wikipedia killer, does not speculate that Wikipedia is actually in trouble [1]. Reference 2: clickbait headline calls Knol a Wikipedia killer, actual text has nothing to back that up and only argues that Knol will be a better choice for students and teachers [2]. Reference 3: an early look at Wolfram Alpha which doesn't go further than saying Wikipedia might feel the pinch [3]. Reference 4: blog churn that hypes up an AOL project as a "Wikipedia killer" [4], whereas their own source gives it the much more tame description "AOL's answer to Wikipedia" and calls it "more of a design concept than anything else" [5], and I can't find any evidence that the "Owl" project actually went anywhere. Reference 5: the Technology Review story discussed above. Reference 6: a random opinion column again with a clickbait headline [6]. XOR'easter (talk) 18:47, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
• Keep There is a lot of coverage on this topic even if they don't all say exactly "End of Wikipedia".★Trekker (talk) 17:00, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
  • It's not about whether they use the exact words "end of Wikipedia", but whether they even suggest that Wikipedia is ending, as opposed to maturing, or becoming rigid, or suffering from growing pains. XOR'easter (talk) 18:01, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
• Keep There is plenty of WP:RS to support WP:N- there is certainly a notable subject here. Lightburst (talk) 19:12, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
• Keep for reasons cited by User:*Treker and Johnbod 7&6=thirteen (☎) 19:48, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
• Extremely selective merge to Criticism of Wikipedia. I say "extremely selective", because a lot of the page as it stands is based on sensationalism and ephemera. It makes more sense to discuss what's left as part of the broader picture — Wikipedia being criticized for insular community practices, etc. — than it does to give that material a clickbait headline of our own. XOR'easter (talk) 20:22, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
• It seems to be a reasonably covered topic if you ask me. Keep. Foxnpichu (talk) 20:51, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
• Extremely selective merge to Criticism of Wikipedia. Per nom and XOReaster, and per WP:NOPAGE. This article as it stands is pure trash. In the lead we have Many online encyclopedias exist; proposed replacements for Wikipedia have included Google's since-closed Knol,[1][2] Wolfram Alpha,[3] and AOL's Owl.[4] which is ridiculous since Knol is closed and Owl doesn't even have a WP article. The section on "Decline in editing" is something covered in Criticism of Wikipedia. The section "Sources of viewers and funds" the content appears to have zero relevance to the subject, and is cited to a source which also doesn't say anything about Wikipedia ending. The section "Possible antidote" is WP:OR -- it talks of automated editing as an "antidote" and cites a single research paper -- (i) which is primary, (ii) which only gives a method for generating articles without commenting on if these methods would take over humans.

WP:NOPAGE applies even if the topic is notable. I'm not sure of notability either. I don't think sensationalist headlines like Will Virgin Killer be a Wikipedia killer? counts as contributing to the notability. – SD0001 (talk) 06:04, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

• Extremely selective merge per XOR, SD, NOPAGE, and also to uphold our core content policies like NPOV and NOR. This is a mess of SYNTH, and what little that's not sourced to blog posts, opinion, or rank speculation, would be much better presented on the other existing articles about Wikipedia, including its spinouts like Criticism of Wikipedia. I'm not even sure the redirect is worth keeping. Lev!vich 14:49, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
• Keep Sure, the article can be improved. The repeated claim that X thing is going to kill Wikipedia has been around, well, as long as Wikipedia itself. IMHO, it's a thing separate from the Criticism article and well-covered. Ckoerner (talk) 15:20, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

  The repeated claims of X thing killing Wikipedia are just clickbait sensationalisms created by cheap online blogs. They don't actually mean it. If we restrict our attention to respectable sources only, we have sources like:

  • "The Decline of Wikipedia". MIT Technology Review. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  • "Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages". Wall Street Journal.
  • "3 Charts That Show How Wikipedia Is Running Out of Admins". The Atlantic.
  • "Wikipedia reaches a turning point: it's losing administrators faster than it can appoint them". Telegraph.

  none of which actually talk of an impending end. Maybe renaming the article to Decline of Wikipedia (currently a redirect) would be good as that's the topic for which notability exists. – SD0001 (talk) 17:03, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

• Keep This is a notable subject. If there are other concerns, such issues should be addressed separately. Northern Escapee (talk) 07:23, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.