Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/IMAO

IMAO was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was to delete.

A blog. Lead item on the Blog today: "I noticed that on Wikipedia there aren't many blogs listed. Someone should write a page about me."

A typical sample: Terrorists, communists, Democrats and liberals are advised not to visit the site, as it may cause brain damage, if that is even possible."

Not encyclopedic. Mostly nonsense. Self-promotional, vanity. Not listed among BlogPulse's 35 most cited Wolfman 20:47, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * DeleteCheeseDreams 22:51, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Not an article. Estel 20:54, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Not because it is a blog, but because it is an utterly insignificant one. Gamaliel 21:51, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * The more sockpuppets that vote, the more I am convinced this is a vanity article. Gamaliel 02:59, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Vanity. Tubular 22:35, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily vanity, but it would need wider notice to be worth keeping. Actually, I checked this out on Truth Laid Bear. I think consistently top 30 probably makes it notable and I change my vote accordingly to keep.Dr Zen 23:16, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Second hand vanity then? Delete. Shane King 23:46, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
 * Only if it's vanity to write an article about a book you've read or a film you've watched.Dr Zen 00:02, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete Ashibaka tlk 23:46, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete it, with fire. --Fastfission 23:48, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: Wikipedia is not a web guide. Web guides are not blog guides.  An inflated sense of self-worth seems to come with the blogosphere already.  (And now the flames really start.)  Geogre 02:37, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: "advert or other spam". Hoary 03:04, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Not notable blog. - Vague | Rant 04:59, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep - According to the Truth Laid Bear site which contains ratings of blogs per visit, this site receives 9124 visits per day according to sitemeter. 1 Extrapolated over a year, that is over 3 million visits a year. Seems to be that makes it pretty notable for a site that should describe from an NPOV view, significant. The current article is problematic from that point of view but I will edit providing that there is a view to keep. Capitalistroadster 10:14, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I don't know what methodology this site uses, but I have to think there's something fishy about a ranking that puts The Drudge Retort in 20th place and does not list The Drudge Report at all. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 22:02, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * The Drudge Report isn't listed because it isn't considered to be a blog. The Truth Laid Bear rating has been used as a source by media sources such as Newsday, The San Francisco Chronicle, and the New York Times 3. It is considered to be the most reliable source of visitor numbers to blogs there is. For those of you who doubt the importance of blogs these days, just ask Dan Rather. However, the antics of sockpuppets is not helping the cause of retention so I'd ask you to cut it out. Despite this, I still think IMAO is encyclopedid so I will rewrite as promised earlier. Capitalistroadster 23:16, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Actually, the sitemeter used for traffic ranking is based only on the average of the past week, allowing someone to pop up in ranking from an Instalanche or equivalent (expect everyone to drop in traffic over the Thanksgiving Holiday). The link ranking on Truth Laid Bear is more stable, but has a bias towards seniority (blogs that have been around a while will pick up a lot of links even if they don't have a huge readerships).  That said, stop calling my fans sockpuppets!  You people are meanie-heads!--Frank J. Fleming 00:27, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. If for no other reason than being so badly written that someone stumbling upon this article would have trouble understanding what it is actually about. --Woggly 12:26, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. 40.000 Google hits (searched on IMAO + "Frank J") must mean something. On the other hand, the current article is rather bad in quality, and I doubt whether there are good chances it will be improved soon. - Andre Engels 13:42, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep: The site seems to notable, and looking at the truthlaidbear link it seems to has a respectable amount of visits a day. The article needs a great deal of cleanup though. ScottM 14:44, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep because although the style is not suitable for wikipedia, Capitalistroadster says he'll fix it. An alternative would be "delete and start afresh". Kappa 15:08, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete unless someone convinces me that it's more notable than I think it is. Because of the tendency for blogs to link to each other and mutually reinforce each others' pagerank, I don't think the Google test is very reliable on them. I did a Google "link:www.imao.us" search and although the 15,800 hits is impressive, when I check out a few of them I find in many others is simply an entry in a "links" category, not an actual reference to any material in the blog. In such cases, it is hard for me to tell whether the person who linked to IMAO truly reads that blog, or whether it's just mutual-blog-backscratching. A better test is searching for exact phrase "imao.us" in Google Groups. Here, it only gets 218 hits. By comparison, "slashdot.org" gets 59,900; "drudgereport.com" gets 48,600; "wilwheaton.net" gets 1,310; "wikipedia.org" gets 66,400; and my own personal home page gets 483 (So, OK, it's been in my SIG). So, in the USENET universe, the IMAO blog is not exactly a household word. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 16:47, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, Dpb, but I have to say *your* methodology is whack. It's akin to saying that we should disregard a scientific concept's being cited in scientific journals, because hey, those science guys all cite each other and that doesn't count; but hey, if people cite them on Usenet, they're in! You only allow direct cites of pages (because you insist on the whole domain name rather than the word itself) so who knows how many people just say "I saw something about that on IMAO yesterday". Comparing it with slashdot or Drudge is a bit like saying you can't have a page on Gloucester because it's not the same size as Tokyo. In the blog world, if someone feels you're worth linking to, that is, in itself, a sign that you've been noted. Nine thousand visits a day! Okay, that's not 3 million users a year (because, erm, the same people go back each day) but it's not at all bad.Dr Zen 01:07, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I agree. This is not a personal attack on Dpb, but his method of determining notability is worrisome at best, not to mention inherently flawed.  If you are unsure about your vote then you should not vote or err on the side of keep if something is clearly notable but not within your field of expertise.  [[en:RaD Man|RaD Man (talk)]] 03:39, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Fairly popular, but not to the point of being encyclopaedic.  -- WOT 17:33, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Mark Richards 17:37, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. The article is terrible and while the blog may be somewhat popular, I don't think it is popular enough to warrant an article. David Johnson 17:39, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Undecided. While the current article is worthless and I'm a little doubtfull if this blog really is something that would belong here it seems to have quite some fame for ebing a blog. Jeltz 18:41, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)
 * Delete. The very fact that the person wrote on their blog that somebody should come and start writing articles about blogs is problematic, and this is definitely an attempt at self-promotion, whether they wrote it or not.  RickK 21:13, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: non-notable blog. -Sean Curtin 01:03, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * DELETE ExplorerCDT 05:42, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Blogs are not notable.  Indrian 05:53, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete, fundamentally unencyclopedic. (Can I concur with 128.223.162.32 above, though, and ask for the Harry Potter books to be taken away too? They're making it hard to get into the local bookshops. Oh, wait...). Also: I don't mark him down for politics, but good Lord that site's a huge mess in Opera. Just saying, is all. Shimgray 17:30, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Wow, sock puppets galore.  In any case, this is "notable enough" to keep based on the information cited by Capitalistroadster. &mdash;[[en:RaD Man|RaD Man (talk)]] 20:14, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * While the article's notability is in question, and rightfully so, I am going to vote delete. The eerie coincidence of this article's creation, and the fact that someone is OBVIOUSLY desperate enough to sockpuppet the vote to hell, makes me think that, as this page currently stands, it is only there for vanity. [[User:Mo0|Mo0 [ talk ] ]] 20:20, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Seems midly notable, rather err on the keep side myself. --MaxPower 20:25, 2004 Nov 23 (UTC)
 * Delete Non notable / Non encyclopedic. Impressive amount of sockpuppets though, even more than when GNAA was vfd'd. [[User:Xezbeth| Xezbeth ]] 20:54, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC).
 * Delete. Not notable. --Improv 21:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Is WIL WHEATON dot NET a significant one then?  Sure, let's change it to something more appropriate, but if you only want the most relevant blogs the list needs major revision.  PnGrata 01:04, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * See my comment below for an indication that WIL WHEATON dot NET is significantly more notable than IMAO.us. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 16:54, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep, mildly notable. [[User:GRider|GRider\talk]] 18:50, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. --Wikimol 19:30, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. More notable than recent VfD survivor Tard Blog, which I voted against. I've run across IMAO often enough before. A 100-page paper concise encyclopedia of prominent blogs would almost certainly include IMAO. Sufficiently notable. Samaritan 07:27, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Self-promotion, a not particularly well-known blog, and a dog's breakfast of an article (an article about a website should provide some information not immediately available from the site.--Calton 03:57, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * First-edit votes
 * Keep. Wikipedia has entries on all sorts of stuff, but no one complains about most of it.  The activity of this discussion, including the strong feelings to delete, prove IMAO is notable.  Anything worthy of a witch hunt, is worthy of an entry.  If the entry is just out of Frank's vanity, why are other people doing it for him?  If true, this would prove he's so influential that even when he's being vain, people still listen. - Curi 14:25, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC) contributions
 * Keep - If Wikipedia was limited to only the most relevant content, it'd have a few hundred articles instead of a few hundred thousand. IMAO is certainly a popular and notable blog(anyone who can give the Instapundit a popular and permanent nickname with one post isn't a nobody), and deserves to be listed on the blogs page. I'm not saying it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it's just as important as dozens of other articles I've read and found useful/interesting. That said, the article certainly needs a lot of work, but given that Frank keeps pointing his readers here, it's not like that won't happen. - Alsadius 17:59 UTC, 23 Nov 2004
 * User's first edit.
 * Keep --Indrian is dead wrong. Blogs are quite notable, being the force that exposed the fruadulent documents used by CBS News against George Bush, and blogs forced both CBS and the NY Times to run their "October Surprise" articles about the Iraqi ammo dump earlier than they wanted, giving the issue enough time to be debunked before the election. In addition,it was bloggers that forced the Swift Boat Veterans story to national prominence, bringing John Kerry's "war hero" status under fire and proving Kerry's oft-repeated "Christmas in Cambodia" story to be an outright falsehood, one that the Kerry campign was forced to retract from their web site. A strong argument could be made that bloggers are no only important, but that they influenced teh outcome of the 2004 presidential election. You don't get much more notable than that. In addition, while most individual blogs lack the power and reach of the media, they collectively offer much more depth of professional and practical experience than the broadcast news readers, and have proven to be the new emerging gatekeepers of information that the mainstream media once was. Bloggers as a group are notable beyond the shadow of doubt with their influence on politics, the media, and to a lesser but growing extent, popular culture. Surely highlighting bloggers in general, and noteworthy examples of them in particular such as IMAO, has much more cultural revelevance than the blog of a "B"-grade actor. confederateyankee
 * User's only edit. RickK 20:50, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep:. The site itself is worth noting, however the article could be written better. The intended sarcastic tongue-in-cheek nature of this article is meant to be representative of the site, but is poorly done. - AnywhereAT 13:46, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * This is this user's only edit. RickK 21:13, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. IMAO is an element of folk culture in the web, widely known and often referenced. AsparagusChallenge
 * User's first edit was to IMAO and second edit was here.


 * Undecided. I have a lot of fans of my blog and many of them came here under their own volition to vote without my urging; no reason to call them sock puppets... you... uh... muckadoos.  If you don't think blogs are notable, then you're behind the times.  Now, not only bloggers are talking about the importance of the blogosphere.  The question is what makes a blog notable, and you don't seem to have a standard for that.  Maybe you could form a committee and research that.  BTW, I find this Wikipedia an interesting project, and the engineer/scientist in me couldn't help but poke it and see what happens (but please don't hold that against me on deciding my blog's notability or lack of it).--Frank J. Fleming 23:23, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC) [contributions]
 * Final comments on this. On the day that Dan Rather announced his resignation prompted by the use of faulty documents which in large part was due to blogs, no serious person can doubt the importance of blogs in the media. However, we must have a criterion for deciding whether or not an individual blog is worthy of inclusion in the Wikipedia. The criterion that I have used for my support for keeping has been the site being amongst the top 50 blogs as measured by the number of visitors. The site was also nominated in a Category for the Washington Post best blogs of 2004 in the Class Clown category which also suggests that it has achieved a degree of noteworthiness sufficient for inclusion. Capitalistroadster 00:22, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Rather denies the Killian memos affair had anything to do with a long-considered and pre-planned resignation. The man is 73 after all.  It's just your speculation that the affair "prompted" his resignation. Wolfman 00:34, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * This is the process for finding the standard... Blog entries that turn up here tend to be of the "I am seventeen and have a livejournal here and a kewl band and go to high school in Denver" vanity-entry variety, which are unarguably not the sort of thing that anyone benefits from finding in a reference work; it's likewise very hard to deny that something with a million hits a week is non-notable, so there's no argument over Daily Kos. Where to draw the line? I dunno. On a gut feeling I'd say higher; blogs are important, but clearly not every blog is important; is it better to describe the most critically notable ones (however that's defined - unlikely to be more than a dozen politically) and generalise the remainder in a central article on blogging, or the blogosphere, &c? The journalistic process is important, yet... hmm. A detailed almanac lists only "major regional" newspapers, and the 1911 Britannica doesn't even have an individual entry for the Times! It has a huge Newspapers entry, glossing over major publications worldwide... You might find Votes for deletion/Precedents of some interest. Shimgray 01:06, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC) (Also: Opera really chokes on the site. Horrible cramped columnar mess spilling over two screenwidths.)
 * Of course blogs are important as a phenomenon. That's why we have an article on Blogs, and nobody has suggested that we delete it. The question is where to set the bar for individual, particular, specific blogs. We have hardcore inclusionists who deny the meaningfulness of notability and don't think anything factual should be deleted. The rest of us try to determine notability by whatever means we can. Of those who accept the concept of notability, I think we'd all agree that the Drudge Report is notable and deserves its own article. And we'd probably agree that ISeeISay does not. IMAO falls somewhere in between. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 01:39, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Unsigned IMAO votes


 * Do not Delete, it is merely a description of the blog. Are we to remove all references to Instapundit?
 * Unsigned comment from 151.199.57.161, author of the article.
 * KEEP. The more people that think it is so important to delete that they log on and spout off, the more obvious it is that this is something worth including.  To delete it at this point would be akin to removing all the copies of "Harry Potter" from the shelves just because some loud and vocal people call it evil.
 * Second vote from 128.223.162.32.
 * Keep - If WIL WHEATON DOT NET is listed, then IMAO should be listed - for balance if nothing else.
 * vote by anon 209.30.181.124 &mdash; this ip's first edit
 * Keep. Frank J is growing in popularity and is a significant contributor to the blogosphere.  I would, however, recommend rewriting the article for more factual content and less promotion/opinion.  user dvgulliver
 * Comment from 128.223.162.32.
 * KEEP. As a political humor site, many of the "delete" votes above are politically motivated.  It is a blog in the truest sense of the word, and oft quoted and linked.  Worthy of the entry in every sense.
 * Unsigned comment from 151.193.213.24.
 * KEEP. Google has about 16,000 ofsite links to imao.us. It's clearly a fairly well-known blog.  The article itself could stand to be tidied up a bit.
 * Unsigned votes aren't counted. -Sean Curtin 01:03, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * Unsigned vote from 130.39.143.161. User's only edit.
 * Keep - the page that brought us the Nuke the Moon strategy for world peace needs its place in the wikipedia. - anonymous
 * KEEP. The site is sufficiently popular to include, the "vanity of the author" notwithstanding.  The blantant appeals for recognition are satire in themselves.  The political opinions of the author should be irrelevant.  In fact, that a vote would be taken on whether a site would be included is deserving of satire of itself.
 * Unsigned comment left by IP 170.110.241.174. Please sign in for your vote to be counted. &mdash;[[en:RaD Man|RaD Man (talk)]] 20:51, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)