Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 January 29

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29 January 2007

Comparison of BitTorrent sites

This page was AfD'd in september, under the grounds that it was little more than a web directory, and not much of a comparison. I userfied a version of it before its deletion and worked on it for several months, until I had grown satisfied that the arguments made at the AfD were no longer valid. I then recreated the page, leaving a message on the talk page about why I had chosen to recreate it.

This page was speedily deleted by Proto a few days later, with the summary "CSD G4 - Receaation [sic] of deleted content". As I stated above, it is correct that the article had been deleted before - however, the old version was substantially different from the new version (diff) to not qualify under CSD G4. I contacted proto informing him about his error, and asked him to either recreate it or, if he thought that that was not possible, to userfy it so I could have a backup version (I naturally didn't want to lose several months' work). He chose to userfy it. I contacted him again, a week ago, reminding him that it didn't qualify under G4, and asked him again to restore it to the mainspace. He still hasn't answered, so I chose to take it here, to DRV.

As you've now probably gathered by now, I think that this page should be recreated because the new version is an actual comparison, as opposed to a web directory, that it is sourced, and that it is substantially different from the original deleted version to not satisfy CSD G4. Even though it's a weaker argument, I'd also like to point out the high traffic it used to get, and the messages asking why it was deleted (1, 2, 3). Ultra-Loser ^{[ T ] [ C ]} 07:37, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These comments are asking for you restore it on another site outside of Wikipedia. I think that's a good idea. Proto::► 12:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, only one of those comments is asking me to restore it on another site. The other ones (including one on that very page) want it to be restored to the mainspace. Ultra-Loser ^{[ T ] [ C ]} 14:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What relaible sources is this comparitive table built on? How many articles on torrent clients do we have? There isa fair bit of precedent for excluding form such comparisons those for which we do not have articles, else they rapidly pass the spam event horizon. Guy (Help!) 10:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion. I was going to conjecture that the addition of two extra columns would not change the AfD participants' minds, but then I saw that I don't need to conjecture. Ultra-Loser said in the AfD "New columns have been proposed, which will make it more encyclopedic." to which TheFarix replied "Neither of the proposed columns will make the article encyclopedic, nor are they particularly useful." No-one contradicted him. The AfD still applies in full and this was a valid General-4 deletion. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 10:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The columns proposed were different from the columns that are there now - I don't remember the exact two, but I remember that google pagerank was one of them (I later decided that alexa ranks would be more useful). Plus, there are more than two extra columns - scroll down to the private trackers section, for example.

Also, I forgot to mention that at one point there was a criteria for inclusion to stop the article from turning it into a spamhole, but proto removed it. Ultra-Loser ^{[ T ] [ C ]} 11:25, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this was a line - in the actual article - that informed people of the rules for how to add things to the list. Proto::► 12:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse (my) deletion, G4 applied. It also remains an annotated list of external links, so could have just as easily been deleted for other reasons. Proto::► 12:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and AfD. I'm not sure about the G4 at all, honestly. Looks like a lot of new material to make it pretty different from what was originally there. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not an identical unsourced list of weblinks with no internal links, but it is a very similar unsourced list of weblinks with no internal links. Fails WP:NOT a link farm, and also fails the same criteria which got it deleted last time. Of course we could waste some more time, or we could simply accept that lists of weblinks with subjective and unsourced additional data are not encyclopaedic. Guy (Help!) 15:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing as WP:NOT isn't a speedy criteria, and "similar" isn't "substantially identical," and discussion is rarely a "waste"... --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That would be relevant if there weren't an AfD. There is. G4 is a speedy deletion criterion, and the mian part of G4 is failing to fix the things that led to deletion. Thise things are not fixed, and the deletion debate specifically indicates that cosmetic changes will not fix those problems. Guy (Help!) 15:37, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

G4 has nothing to do with fixing things that lead to deletion, but only the recreation of a substantially identical version of something previously AfD'd. I have no clue where you came up with that. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a very similar unsourced list of weblinks with no internal links - it's a sourced, highly expanded comparison of websites, complete with internal links. The arguments made at the AfD were to the effect that it was a simple repository of weblinks, and now it's not a simple repository of weblinks. Therefore the AfD no longer applies, and neither does G4. Ultra-Loser ^{[ T ] [ C ]} 16:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

T.H.E. Fox

For the purpose of review, I have made a copy of the comic strips under debate. It will be removed after the conclusion of this debate. The comics have been altered from their original file format, but other than that they should be undisturbed, including the non-extension portion of the file name that dates them. GreenReaper 05:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't normally come to deletion review, but I'm surprised at this one as there was no consensus to delete. Five votes for keep, two (or possibly three) for delete. One previous vote had been converted to keep on the basis of arguments establishing the comic's notability (namely, that it appears to be the first comic distributed online, dating to 1986 and onwards). WP:WEB is an inappropriate metric to apply to content that appeared several years before the web itself existed, and being the first "webcomic" that we know of in the world seems a clear claim to notability. In response to the closing administrator's comment, I disagree that an interview conducted with the author by the Commodore Roundtable group does not count as a source. Indeed, I would have thought them rather well-placed to determine the comic's provenance and to challenge any inaccuracies. Moreover, several facts from the interview were independently verifiable, as noted in the AfD discussion. GreenReaper 03:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I too am surprised, albeit for the opposite reason: While I have my work ruminated here almost daily, I had thought this a totally un-controversial deletion. Primary sources (like interviews with the author) are only applicable where not self-serving; this is a firmly established practice. In the absence of any other supporting sources, deletion was the only tenable outcome. I suppose that I could have used the woeful caveat "without prejudice to a properly sourced article being written." However, to my knowledge there is never such a prejudice, so I didn't. Use the caveat, I mean.
brenneman 03:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I fail to see how "stating the truth" comes out as "self-serving". As far as I can see none of the claims made by the author regarding such things as the number of comics made, the time and places in which they were distributed or even the future distribution of the comic are unreasonable. In many cases they are backed up by other sources, such as the newgroup post covering the relatively minor matter of the print publication. There is actually an archive of the strips, uploaded by another person, as mentioned by him in the interview. It contains the strips described by the author, as well as almost two hundred others. Exactly how much more evidence do you need that this comic existed and that it took place at the time described? GreenReaper 04:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Except that's not the assertion. The specific assertion is that it was the very first comic published on the internet. Providing a date for the comic doesn't actually prove it was the first (and any attempt to infer it was the first by taking other comics into account would be original research), and that means the only fallback is the author's own statement. ColourBurst 04:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Then change the statement in the article. But let's use common sense here: If we have a comic for which we have no reasonable doubt that, say, it was posted in 1987 - a full year after he claims, but it's a year I have several dated files from - and we have no record of any other comics until Where The Buffalo Roam in 1992, then maybe, just maybe, it's worth keeping around on the theory that it is quite likely to be the first online comic - and certainly the first that we've found any sources for? Five years margin is a long time. GreenReaper 04:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree, the sourcing for this article may be dubious but this deletion is even more so. The original deletion proposition was for a "lack of notability" which has been clearly disproved. Yes, this article requires better sourcing... can this article be resourced and improved while deleted, no. -- DeVandalizer 04:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Wikipedia:Deletion_review#Content_review - brenneman 04:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- It is my view that although further sources are, as always, desirable, an extensive interview with the author that contains several points that are verifiable through other sources is sufficient to establish a basis for the article, particularly given that the only "special" claim is the age of the comic. Nobody else who took part in the interview disagreed with his statements regarding this age, and as fellow users who had followed the comic, they would be the ones who would be in the best position to know. GreenReaper 04:47, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Userfy Some of GreenReaper's claims are overblown, so it should not go back into article space without sorcing from independent reliable sources. I recommend ignoring the userfied version and applying the Wikipedia:Amnesia test. If that comes out as a complete article, then merge in the userfied content. If not, go back to the drawing board and look for more sources. GRBerry 05:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Exactly what claims are in doubt here? I don't see how there is any reasonable doubt that the comic was published on the dates mentioned in the interview. Several of the images which have been preserved in the archive actually have the dates imprinted into them, quite aside from the filenames. That may not mean that it is the first comic distributed online - as someone said, it's perfectly possible that someone used the ARPAnet to send out something - but it does mean that it is the first one that we have a record of - and that, in my view, makes it notable enough for a main namespace article. I'm not entirely sure what sources you expect me to be able to find, given the surprising lack of official online-comic monitoring bodies in 1986 . . . or why you're discounting the words of the author when there's no indication that they're lying and several statements that can be independently verified as true. GreenReaper 05:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Joseph Ekaitis would be a more viable target for this information. - brenneman 05:49, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - I don't understand - if you don't believe his word about his works as a source, why would you believe it when it's on an article about him? (which doesn't exist, and rightly so, because he in general does not yet appear to be a notable person - he just happened to do this single notable thing) GreenReaper 05:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - My apologies to you, I should have said "some of" (now added) and said what in my first opining. The "several years before the web" bit stuck in my craw the most. The web was up and running by 1991 (and I'd created my first two web pages that year also - ah the joys of handcoding html, and the days before http: was the default prefix for browsers). And it isn't a webcomic until it is primarily published on the web. Online comic in 86/87, yes. Webcomic, no. The other is making the claim to first on the basis that we don't know of anything contemporaneous - that claim is canonical original research, and we can't use it - either in the article or to evaluate notability. GRBerry 06:25, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - That's why I put "webcomic" in quotes. Would online comic suit you better? :-) The point is that being online several years before the web is the very bit that makes it notable, and I feel that failing to consider that as notable does violate common sense. Wikipedians make notability decisions all the time, and they are based on the facts and sources available (because otherwise new facts could not change notability decisions). Notability criteria are our criteria, not determined by an external body. Here, the facts and sources available show that this comic was published in the mid-1980s and the next one that we know of was published in the 1990s. Do you have reasonable doubt that this is the case? If not, then why is it not a factor for notability? GreenReaper 14:52, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse Brenneman's closure, which reflects the widespread consensus that we can't have an article if no sources exist. Userfy? May be a bad idea - if there is no chance of it becoming encyclopaedic in the near future due to lack of sources, userfying may violate WP:NOT a free web host. Of course we should provide the content for use off Wikipedia if licensing at both ends permits. Guy (Help!) 10:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dave Wills (wrestling)

On the AFD discussion of the page, there was no clear consensus of how editors felt about the article and not enough editors participating to make any consensus. 4 editors wanted to delete the article (2 of which are questionable/non-prolific editors), and 5 wanted to keep it. One of the editors found a link to a message board about the deletion of the article. Despite valid reasons given on both sides, it was deleted early under WP:SNOW. There was no barrage of keep/delete votes, and the editors did not give enough time to others to find reliable sources (although the article did list some) and just deleted it. Booshakla 02:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from deleting admin: None of the "keep"ers provided anything that would qualify under the "non-trivial reliable secondary sources" clause of WP:BIO. I "snowballed" the debate ahead of schedule because things were getting out of control. Looking back, citing WP:IAR might have been a better choice. On an additional note, the forum that was mentioned has had a history of disruptive activity on wikipedia. However, I'll happily endorse the undelete if some kind of non-trivial reliable secondary sources turn up. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 04:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Next time, think about semi-protecting, with a note directing new Wikipedians to the talk page and inviting established Wikipedians to copy legit arguments to the AFD page. Sometimes this works. GRBerry 05:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a grand idea, I'll try it next time. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 05:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weak endorse deletion. early close of the AFD is troubling. Among the established editors, deletion was clearly considered correct. If he meets WP:BIO, where are the independently published reliable sources that are about this guy? They aren't in the article, they aren't in the AFD, and they aren't here. GRBerry 05:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I don't have a lot of time, and I haven't had a chance to look for sources yet, but I am fairly sure that some can be found. And it can be confirmed that his clip was used on Jimmy Kimmel Live, for sure. But with the 4 that voted to deleted the article, one was a vandal account (and was blocked for removing comments on the AFD), one was a single purpose account with around 100-200 edits, two others were established, but didn't real give any real reasons to why it should be deleted, just made jokes. That is not convincing to me. And I am also an experienced editor and I voted to keep the article and gave valid reasoning. I hope that this can be overturned or reconsidered. Booshakla 05:56, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse deletion with keep arguments of the quality of ""dave wills" wrestling gets 1,800 ghits. The clip is one of the most famous clips on the internet" - 1,800 Googles is tiny and way way below the hits that really popular videos get. Star Wars Kid gets over 400,000, for example. 1,800 ghits is less that I get and I am not notable at all. Guy (Help!) 10:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong overturn as an out of process closure, and trout-slap closing admin for doing so. Perhaps if the AfD ran the full five days, the independently published reliable sources could have been found. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clock Crew

They are an active community (www.clockcrew.cc). See Talk:Clock Crew for more on why this article should be back on Wikipedia. The last admin to change the article is on break. Lurcho 00:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But do they meet WP:WEB? It doesn't look that way. —Dark•Shikari^[T] 02:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, keep deleted. This page has been deleted 20 times over the last 2+ years, because at no time have its supporters been able to establish notability. Bring us some reliable third-party media references, and then we can talk. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 03:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. No independent sources by the 20th deletion means that, to a high degree of certainty, none exist. Guy (Help!) 10:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]