Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/IsAnybodyDown?


 * 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) — Theo polisme  02:27, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

IsAnybodyDown?

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Non-notable website. The website has come under heavy criticism in recent days from a number of blogs. The current web page is sourced primarily from these critical blogs. But, despite the blog-war ongoing, and the website getting a lot of negative attention across the web, there are no reliable sources in the article to show the site's notability. The couple of RS on the page are for tangential subjects, not the topic site itself.

On top of all of this, the site's owner is now attempting to scrub the page. But that all aside, we still have a small-time website that IMHO simply does not meet the notability criteria. TexasAndroid (talk) 22:45, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Weak delete - GQ Magazine looks reliable to me (though my French is not the best), but on its own it's not enough. Huon (talk) 23:06, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - with the addition of Techdirt and Ars Technica articles, it has become sufficiently notable, and we can write a well-sourced article. Huon (talk) 05:37, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I would not generally consider Techdirt a reliable source. It's another blog. A widely read blog, that I follow regularly myself, but still a blog.  No real editorial control to make it up to the level of RS.  Ars Technica is a whole different matter... - TexasAndroid (talk) 20:35, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Essentially, the top 4 are squatting on this article and engaging in vandalism on behalf of their non-notable websites.75.70.221.14 (talk) 09:51, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete I did some searching and couldn't find anything in reliable sources that amounted to "significant" coverage. There certainly are a lot of bloggers talking about them, but not the reliable sources we'd need to keep the article. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete I'm one of the bloggers covering this. While I have (of course) great faith in my own writing and those of the other blogs, this doesn't meet Wikipedia's guidelines for notability. --Adam.steinbaugh (talk) 00:58, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete Concur with the above, with the addition that if the conflict eventually becomes covered enough to the point where it's notable, there's no reason the page can't be recreated after some discussion. White Ash (talk) 04:35, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Speedy Delete The sources listed are not notable and are being used with many weasel words, i.e. non-notable sources making vanity edits on their own behalf/agenda. There are several legitimate sources which have linked to this website (mainstream local Richmond, Virginia news covering the Anna Michelle Walters case, as well as Velvet in Hungary - a top Hungarian news source) however, that is not even listed in this article. In this form, the website is not notable (because most of the negative sources are dictating the edits from their own non-notable websites rather than attempting to meet neutral POV). Additionally, this should really be a speedy delete and the article should already be gone, because the primary edits were made by vandals, engaging in vandalism and nonsense. Here's a list of the sources examined:
 * Popehat - Not notable
 * Adamsteinbaugh - Not notable
 * Abovethelaw - Not notable
 * Jezebel - Not notable
 * Huffington Post - Notable, but does not mention Is Anybody Down.
 * AngelList - Not notable
 * IsAnybodyDown.com - Does not need to be linked in multiple sections/multiple links unless they are directly referenced by notable sources
 * Do not delete The GQ source establishes the website's noteworthiness. The reliability argument is a red herring. The statement that Marc Randazza is asking plaintiffs to come forward is reliable because those are his own words. Yet, it was removed. That Craig Brittain and David Blade III share the same IP address is again not up for debate: the e-mails are there for anyone to see. David Blade III is not registered in New York -- that is a statement made by the NY Courts. That Craig Brittain owns both the IsAnybodyDown? site and Takedown Hammer is not a fact awaiting confirmation by the mainstream media -- it is reflected in the site registration record, as pointed out by Marc Randazza, Ken White, and anyone else who can type into the search query of whois.com. That the words "Takedown Lawyer" and "David Blade III" were removed from IsAnybodyDown only after allegations of fraud were raised is not from an "unreliable" source, it is, again, a historical fact - there for anyone to see. Nobody editing this article drew a direct causal relationship between the suspicion and the removal, but the fact is, it happened. That women are harassed because of the site does not need to be confirmed by CNN, because you can simply go to the site and see it for yourself. Givemelsats(talk) 12:14, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * What you call a red herring, Wikipedia calls one of it's core policies. I'm sorry, but reliability of sources is essential around here.  And blogs are (almost) never considered reliable sources.
 * The GQ article is a help towards notability, but is not really enough by itself. Notability generally requires multiple reliable sources.  We have one, maybe.  I say maybe because, given the language difference, it's a little hard to tell.  Is it an actual article, or just a blog/column?  I can see that the subject site is mentioned, but it's a little hard to tell if it's a 1-2 paragraph mention in an article about the larger situation, or an actual article on the IAD website.  I'll try to get someone who can get past the language barrier to give it a look.  But even if it serves, it's still not enough, by itself.
 * What is interesting to me is the two items mentioned by the IP above. If one or both of the mentioned articles could be tracked down, it's possible that we might have our reliable sources. I'm not a good internet hunter myself, so I'll leave the searching for those two to others.  But I'm open to changing my mind if multiple RS can be come up with. - TexasAndroid (talk) 18:28, 6 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I tried to hunt down the sources mentioned by the IP editor (who, by the way, is probably related to IsAnybodyDown). Google News didn't find anything (except Above the Law which seems to have an editorial staff and a publisher and may thus be a little more reliable than the average self-published blog, but probably not sufficiently so). Thus a quest for the Richmond, Virginia sources is rather difficult. A web search just produced lots of links to Anna Walters pictures hosted on IsAnybodyDown, but nothing remotely resembling reliable coverage of the website. http://velvet.hu/ exists, but a search on that website for "Is Anybody Down" or "IsAnybodyDown" came up empty. Unless the IP editor can himself provide links to those sources, I don't think we can find them. Huon (talk) 19:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The IP editor (75.70.221.14) isn't just related to the site, he is the owner of the site. He has also previously engaged in edit warring and vandalised Wikipedia articles. 91.125.140.243 (talk) 23:19, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Confirmed. This e-mail exchange, written up by Marc Randazza on Wednesday, shows the same IP address used by the IP editor, Craig Brittain, and the "Takedown Lawyer": http://randazza.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/is-isanybodydown-com-operator-craig-brittain-and-david-blade-one-and-the-same/ Givemelsats (talk) 21:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Here you go: http://velvet.hu/sztori/2012/10/19/tanarnojerol_posztolt_pucer_kepeket_az_iskolas_szereto/ (It's non-english. That's why you didn't find it). The original articles from WRIC and WTVR included references to Is Anybody Down but have since been removed. Either way, this entire article needs to be re-written from a neutral POV if it is to stand (with no references to biased non-neutral blogs). 75.70.221.14 (talk) 21:03, 6 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Maybe my Hungarian is lacking, but I don't think that article mentions IsAnybodyDown. It includes a link but never discusses the website itself. Huon (talk) 21:18, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The article uses an image with the Is Anybody Down watermark and references the website as a link. A link from an established, reliable source is infinitely more valuable than sources which do not meet any of wikipedia's 3 core editing principles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability. The current sources on the page do not meet any of these three. Furthermore, the supposed 'sources' are really just attempts at squatting on a potentially notable website for their own ends - making references to people and websites who will probably never meet the three core editing principles of Wikipedia.75.70.221.14 (talk) 23:02, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that trying to apply Wikipedia's "core editing principals" to our sources exhibits a misunderstanding of what Wikipedia does and how it uses sources. That Wikipedia editing should be NPOV does not require that it only use NPOV sources, and our range of acceptable sources is plenty broad. That Wikipedia is not for original research does not mean that it cannot reference such research. I can point to exactly one site which holds Wikipedia's core principals, and it is one that experienced Wikipedia editors understand is not a reliable site. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:25, 7 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Weak Delete The only two sources that I wouldn't immediately write off are the GQ post (which appears to be a blog-like section of the site) and the post on Jezebel...one might make an argument for those being passable as reliable (see WP:NEWSBLOG), but...its hard to tell how controlled either are from an editorial standpoint. The link to Velvet provided by the IP editor contains only images obtained from the site and contains a link to the site, barely a fleeting mention.   The meat of the post is related to the aforementioned Anna Walters issue, not IsAnybodyDown.  If kept, there may be some cleanup work needed to ensure we don't run into POV issues and the like (I'm guessing this would reduce the article to a stub, however, based on its current state).   Aeternitas827 (talk) 03:55, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:11, 6 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Note: This same content also appears at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/IsAnybodyDown?, which was created 4 November, the day before this AfD went up. One or the other should be deleted or they both should have a histmerge or whatever is deemed appropriate. Shearonink (talk) 00:35, 8 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Strong keep the ongoing issue is in its early days (which is to say that either more 3rd party references will arrive soon, or the topic can be reconsidered in a month or two) and in general has a lot in common with The Oatmeal and FunnyJunk legal dispute, which is a useful and well-regarded wikipedia article TJIC (talk) 17:58, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The issue is not whether it may become notable at some unknown point in the future, but whether or not the site is notable *now*. At the point in time when the more notable media sources jump into this, it can be revisited.  For now, IMHO it's simply not (yet) notable. - TexasAndroid (talk) 03:52, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, TBrandley 18:07, 12 November 2012 (UTC)



Arbitrary Section Break

 * Ok. We have what may be the first English Reliable Source out today.  Ars Technica  If this counts as a RS, then the corner from non-notable to notable may have been turned. - TexasAndroid (talk) 16:18, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep I've been reading about this ongoing saga on Techdirt. I would say that it is notable now. The person who runs the site has deleted the entire content of this page and replaced it with a legal notice, so even he agrees that the subject is notable. Albeit in the wrong way, but if it's so important that someone wants to censor a civilized discussion of its notability on grounds unrelated to notability, it's probably notable. Jamouse (talk) 23:18, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Strong keep This is reaching major news outlets including Ars Technica. Cowicide (talk) 01:46, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep There is now another international source (Huffington Post Italy) that also names the site's founders. Also added an article today from Daily Dot. 21:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.170.150 (talk)
 * Keep I reverse my earlier vote to delete. NPR has now identified the founders and interviewed one of them. NPR On The Media. --Adam.steinbaugh (talk) 02:10, 18 November 2012 (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.