Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DVD Verdict (2nd nomination)


 * 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) DavidLeighEllis (talk) 02:37, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

DVD Verdict
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This website is not the subject of significant coverage from multiple reliable, independent sources. (?) It's only mentioned in passing when its reviews are quoted in (usually promotional) press. There are no refs in the article that show significant coverage—most are primary sources and the previous AfD did not reveal anything different. czar 15:50, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep – Analyzed in a four-page section of an academic book (I've added to further reading). This news article also covers the site at length, but I can't access the full text (already cited). These sources alone might indicate bare notability, but an article of appropriate length could be written from these coupled with numerous summaries of the site in print (1, 2, 3, 4). 23W 23:40, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. Cavarrone  17:38, 31 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep as a suitable and improvable stub/start class article per analysis and sources brought forward by showing the nom's rationale is flawed, and the facts shared in the last such deletion attempt of five years ago: 1)    DVD Verdict is one of the top DVD review websites much like DVD Talk.  Major movie studios work with DVD Verdict to get press coverage and reviews of their new releases.  DVD Verdict is also counted as a reliable source for countless Wikipedia film related articles. 2)  SCTV includes their reviews of them on their website,, they are listed besides others such as Roger Ebert, Salon.com, etc. as reviewers, and Rotten Tomatoes considers them a suitable critic resource. 3) 9 sources should be sufficient to keep it; the minimum number required is 2.  And aside from a wish to have it gone, no proper  deletion argument has been made.  User:23W found the coverage the nom did not, and this is suitable for coverage herein under WP:USEBYOTHERS and WP:RSOPINION.   Schmidt,  Michael Q. 13:19, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep per sources by 23W and per points by Schmidt (especially point 1). Cavarrone 16:37, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Source review, please? (1) We have no indication of what the "further reading" Prince book contains (though the title, How to Make Money on MySpace, should ring bells of promotionalism, and there is nothing in the author byline that would indicate that this book is in any way academic. (2) I suppose the CBS Marketwatch snippet stands, though it isn't much. I would agree to this point that DVD Verdict would be mentioning somewhere, but there isn't nearly enough stuff to write an article of any length (nevertheless to pass the general notability guideline). (3) The remaining bare links (#1–4 above) are the epitome of passing mentions: they mention the site's name but say no more about it. As for the rest, I don't see where inclusion in Rotten Tomatoes (or any mainstream aggregator for that matter) is a substitution for significant coverage in reliable sources. There are not nine sources of significant coverage. We're resting on two, really—which are admittedly not much—and a number of passing mentions. czar  17:49, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The book chapter is presented as a "case study" on the site, and McGraw-Hill is known for publishing mostly instructive texts. Maybe "academic" isn't the right word – that title sounds great for a comedy book nowadays – but what you put stock in the book seems subjective, and it's at least independent from Verdict. The other print sources are stubby, but I'm curious if an impact section could be made from those and the longer sources. 23W 21:28, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Under WP:SIGCOV two is enough... and as WP:SUBSTANTIAL is not a guideline, under WP:N multiple less-than substantive sources are fine as long as they offer more-than-trivial information.  Schmidt,  Michael Q. 08:40, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Except we have no indication the two sources have more-than-trivial info? The MySpace book might provide a basic description of the site (basing this off of Google snippets unless someone actually has the book) but the rest of its two-page chapter appears to be based on MySpace marketing (you know, the book's topic). And the Marketwatch snippet consists of what the DVD Verdict guy thinks viewers prefer—has nothing to do with the website itself. I won't get into whether two sources is patently "enough", but I certainly don't see how these two sources are enough to write any authoritative encyclopedia article on the topic. Maybe worth mentioning in a list of review sites somewhere, though. czar  13:44, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is an admittedly imperfect encyclopedia anyone can edit which, by its having no editing "staff" (simply many volunteers lacking any verifiable qualifications) is admittedly unreliable and thus not "authoritative". Any actual "authority" is found in the reliable sources elsewhere that choose to write about the topics we simply echo about herein. And so here we can inform our readers with information (not just a name on a list) of staffed review websites widely accepted elsewhere as expert by those actual authorities. Thanks,  Schmidt,  Michael Q. 04:47, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
 * At the risk of repeating myself, I don't see what makes DVD Verdict an authoritative source if we're struggling to find any reliable source to verify basic information about its operation. I see blogs with more coverage than this review site. I suppose I have nothing else to add unless someone has more than the two sources already discussed. czar  05:45, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I should think that reliable sources with reputations for fact-checking and accuracy probably did the research themselves to gauge DVD Verdict as an "authoritative source" even if you or I personally did not. Of course perhaps those many RS should all be demoted to non-RS.
 * And rather than concentrating on the two offered above as examples of non-mandated SIGCOV, we might look ourselves at Google News, Google Books , Google Scholar (see, WP:GHITS last paragraph rather than me picking a few dozen out of the many hundreds) and we can wonder why so many many reliable sources rely on or speak of what you determined as a such a non-notable site, ask ourselves how things have changed in the 5 years since the last AFD, and ask "why should Wikipedia not have some coverage?"  Schmidt,  Michael Q. 10:30, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think anyone seriously contends that using a pullquote from a review to advertise a game (usually at the DVD author's discretion) is some kind of endorsement of the source's quality. And no, it should not be a surprise that "academic" reviews pull the only review source they could find online and use it for opinions—I don't think it's fair to conclude that they have a source-vetting process. (Mind you, they also cite Wikipedia. I'm positive their editors won't be fired over such inclusions.) But I also think this is off-topic from whether the subject has significant coverage in multiple reliable & independent sources. The Google links above are the epitome of passing mentions. Once again, there's nothing with which to actually write an article. Yes, things have changed since the last AfD five years ago, namely the bar of inclusion/notability. czar  16:24, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Well... it seems that despite our mutual bluster, a repeat of a consensus toward notability seems destined. Shall we expect you to nominate this again in another five years?  Schmidt,  Michael Q. 13:00, 4 November 2015 (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.