Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Notable websites founded before 1995


 * 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. Although there's something of a case to be made as to the 1995 date being arbitrary, there's a clear consensus that this has an encyclopedic value and should be kept. The 1995 issue is a content problem that may be worth discussing on the article talk page. KaisaL (talk) 00:20, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Notable websites founded before 1995

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

PROD was contested with a user simply asserting they thought "this list is valuable". The WP:VALUABLE section of WP:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions says people need to give a reason for why something is or is not valuable, and the user didn't give any basis for how it has value. This is a blatant POV fork since "notable websites" is a highly subjective title, and Wikipedia is supposed to have articles with neutral titles and neutral content per WP:Neutral point of view and WP:Content forking. Additionally, all details on website creation can be included on the sites' own articles instead. Snuggums (talk / edits) 14:23, 22 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. This is a longstanding (created in 2006), well-referenced list with a clear set of WP:LISTCRITERIA. I'm not sure where the nominator got the impression that it's a content fork. It may be because the list was moved from List of websites founded before 1995 to Notable websites founded before 1995 last year. That was probably not the best decision, and it may be a good idea to move it back. - Eureka Lott 14:56, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * How long the page has existed is a moot point per the WP:ARTICLEAGE section of arguments to avoid (linked above). Moving this page back to "List of websites founded before 1995" would certainly make it more neutral, but these details still could easily be included on the sites' own pages. As Timothy mentions below, the criteria also seems arbitrary to begin with. Snuggums (talk / edits) 15:41, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * As noted on the list's talk page, it's not arbitrary at all. There were 130 websites in 1993 and 2,738 in 1994, but that number had grown to 23,500 by 1995. Expanding the time frame the list covers wouldn't be feasible. - Eureka Lott 16:02, 22 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment - This one's a little tricky. That the criteria for inclusion seems so exceedingly arbitrary is a pretty good argument in favor of deletion. However, there's probably a pretty good argument for retention if there is some obvious way that the list can be modified to be not-so-arbitrary. For example, modification to List of website founded in the 1990s might be perfectly acceptable.  Timothy Joseph Wood  15:01, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete - arbitrary selection criteria. What is 1995? No reliable sources indicate the significance of this date. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:32, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. It is rather arbitrary, but is useful and interesting content and the saving for me is that it is not just an a-z list but is broken down into the year of going online. This makes unconvincing the argument that it should be deleted because of its title. A lot of the content is unreferenced, making the "notability" assertion for them unproven - but that is a content issue, or an article name issue. BTW, I've got a couple of ancient web-design books from the mid to late 1990s that may be useful as sources, since they mention many of these early sites as examples of up-to-date designs. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:44, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep This is a useful history of the early web, properly sourced and reasonably accurate. The web turned out to be quite a notable invention, those who were very early adopters have notability in my opinion.198.58.162.200 (talk) 21:27, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is a well-referenced article with a significant encyclopedic value. The individual sites don't give the same historical perspective. Notability can be determined by consensus using the already specified criteria (sounds familiar?). More importantly, 1995 isn't arbitrary at all. This year is widely considered in reliable and professional media as the year the dot-com boom began. The title of this article practically means Notable websites founded prior to the dot-com boom. The only valid discussion is whether websites started in 1995 should be included or not (which has nothing to do with an AfD). -- IsaacSt (talk) 23:00, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep - Although perhaps it would be possible to have another name. Another possibility would be merging as part of a history article.  It remains important that the sites be notable enough, implying that they also have articles, etc.  Less notable sites should probably be removed, as there's nothing much to say about them according to reliable sources.  PaleoNeonate (talk) 00:33, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep - More or less, the era of commercial control of the internet began with the decommissioning of NSFNET on April 30, 1995, making pre-1995 a fairly reasonable selection criteria, in my opinion. Smmurphy(Talk) 19:06, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  WC  Quidditch   &#9742;   &#9998;  20:32, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions.  WC  Quidditch   &#9742;   &#9998;  20:32, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete, arbitrary selection criteria, like having a list about the New York Cosmos (1970–85) Siuenti (talk) 21:35, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * That's a rather unusual position to take, since there are at least three lists about the team, and two of them are featured lists. - Eureka Lott 23:43, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete as it's an arbitrary list selection criteria and is borderline WP:LISTCRUFT. The content could possibly be merged into another article that currently exists (or a new one) with a more appropriate criteria. Ajf773 (talk)
 * Comment there's quite a plague of these articles with arbitrary selection criteria, like List_of_Arsenal_F.C._players_(1–24_appearances). What's so special about 24? It certainly doesn't end in a 0. Siuenti (talk) 23:49, 23 March 2017 (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.