Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Showcattle.com


 * 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 Delete both. Yannismarou 15:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Showcattle.com and Showdog.com

 * – (View AfD) (View log)
 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Non-notable websites. (Almost) completely unsourced. Reads like an ad and consequently doesn't pass WP:WEB. This is most likely CSD G11 or prod material but I wanted to err on the side of caution as the websites in question look legitimate. Seed 2.0 23:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: I assume it's in essence the same story for Showdog.com (note: that page was recently WP:PROD'ed). -- Seed 2.0 23:52, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and bundled the two AfDs together. -- Seed 2.0 13:23, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached  Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mailer Diablo 10:43, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete non-notable games. -FisherQueen (Talk) 11:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete - NN games, WP:VSCA. Someone well versed in deletion nominate the three images in the dog one at IfD as well, please. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 13:31, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete and shovel under the stable. Fails WP:ATT, WP:NN, and with a mighty Alexa rank of #1,207,306 and a handful of Google hits, WP:WEB as well.   "ShowCattle.com allows you complete control over the breeding of your cattle with several realistic options like pasture breeding, artificial insemination, and embryo transfer."  Oh boy!  (They also have a Showcats.com and a TrophyHorse.com, if you're interested.)    RGTraynor  13:50, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * To append to my own !vote, the Alexa and Google info I have up there is for Showcattle.com alone. Showdogs.com's Alexa ranking is 3,429,980, which is a hell of a lot worse, so either Alexa's wrong or we're being conned as to the site's pageviews.  Showdog.com (leaving out its own webpage) only returns 685 Google hits,  and I'm not seeing any reliable, independent published sources cropping up in the list.  Right now my !vote remains to Delete Both until we see some genuine sourcing for either site.   RGTraynor  16:18, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, seeing the unlocked usage log is a show of good faith, and it does report about 20,000 visitors/day, although that doesn't take into account daily usage from unique IP addresses. Even cut by the expected percentage, though, several thousand users a day is good evidence of notability.    RGTraynor  20:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Let me be clear that I'm not arguing with you in hopes of the article remaining, I had nothing to do with it and I’m not sure the site should even be listed myself. However, you are making some claims based on false information that I simply cannot let pass without correcting. Yes, Alexa is so wrong it’s scary to think that there are people so uniformed that they would use it it as a legitimate source of information.  You can find the entire log report for the most recent analysis at http://www.showdog.com/logreport/ (I have removed the password protection for 24-hours).  You are not being conned although I wish we didn’t have the server bill for that level of traffic. As I said, our Alexa ranking was MUCH higher when we were a lot smaller site doing around 2-million page views per month.  It routinely ranks our low traffic sites above our high traffic sites.  Alexa is a severely flawed tool that gives inaccurate information for anything outside the top 500 sites on the Internet.  Using it as a credible source is shaky at best.   Regarding “genuine sourcing”, the EW article is the least credible but the only one posted on the Internet.  The print articles from leading industry publications are hanging on my wall in front of me right now but are not online.  I’m sure you realize the folly of expecting everything that is “genuine” to be posted on the Internet. Regarding the listings, I questioned whether to even allow our users to put them up.  To be honest, I actually don’t see the point of a Wiki listing in the first place for our site.  There’s certainly not a selfish reason to be listed, we already get tons of referrals from search engines and I didn’t notice Wikipedia in the top 100 referrers to our site.  Wikipedia also isn’t the kind of directory where information on our site is relevant to any core issue. However, your rationale for measuring the credibility of websites is flawed and should be reconsidered in the future when analyzing other sites.

“Win Best in Show – Online”, Dogfancy, February 2006 ”Fantasy Kennels”, AKC Family Dog pg 38, Sep/Oct 2005 ”Click and you’re in the cattle business”, Southern Livestock Standard pg 1, April 19th, 2002 As I said, just remove the articles. They do nothing for us, they’re just the work of some of our customers, it’s a pretty clear consensus that you guys don’t feel they are appropriate, and to be frank I really don’t see a reason to continue to validate these facts. I ask that you stop with the questions of my credibility, it’s just disrespectful. I have provided you with information to back up everything I said. All of you have better stuff to do with your time and so do I.
 * Delete Showcattle.com, keep Showdog.com. I completely agree with RGTraynor's assertion that the cattle site is non-notable, but showdog.com seems to have quite a large internet following. I looked it up on a search engine, and as I sifted through the pages of results I found a large amount of unaffiliated personal sites that are "virtual kennel clubs" for it, leading me to believe that it is indeed notable. I'd guess that the other show[animal].com sites are a spinoff to showdog.com, which is the most successful and established site out of the bunch. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 14:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This is the owner of the sites, our users put them together, the only edit I have done was to correct the spelling of my name. I was alerted to them by somebody requesting permission to use our logo on the page and then again today when they sent me this link through our forums.  Please feel free to remove them, I just want to stress that they weren't done by myself. BTW, regarding Alexa rank, Showdog does over 16 million page views per month, has 12,000 users who have logged in during the past two-weeks, and we ranked MUCH higher on Alexa when we only got 2 million.  Alexa is just flat out bogus.  I'm not sure what the criteria for "handful of Google hits" is but we recieved 20,000 referals from Google last month from 2,434 unique search terms.  Showcattle does about 1/5 the traffic of Showdog but was the original sit in our line of simulations.  It's the only online game that focuses on the agricultural niche but is most certainly a MUCH smaller site than Showdog. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.117.79.115 (talk) 14:53, 6 April 2007 (UTC).
 * Correction, spelling of a sister site, not my name. Sorry for the mistake.
 * Thank you for the clarification. I am beginning to wonder if these sites should be on two separate AFDs. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 15:09, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Nah, we should just discuss their merits independently.   RGTraynor  16:18, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Question for site owner The guidelines we're using for determining whether the article is deleted are at WP:WEB. Basically, we need to find independent sources that have written about this web site in order to find it notable.  Are you aware of significant sources that have reviewed the site, or noteworthy awards it has won?  Can you help us find the sources we need? -FisherQueen (Talk) 15:11, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * (please forgive my ingorance on Wiki formatting) The only thing I could think of would be magazine articles. Showdog was featured in a full page article in the Sep/Oct 2005 issue of "The AKC Family Dog" (pg. 38-39) and a paragraph in the February 2006 issue of "DOGFANCY".  Showcattle.com was the featured front page story in the April 19, 2002 issue of "Southern Livestock Standard".  None of those articles are posted online due to the policies of the relevant publications.  In terms of web awards, there are a few but I've never placed much crediblity in any of them.  I want to stress that I'm not trying to lobby one way or the other, just providing information for those of you who know the policies.
 * I found an article in Entertainment Weekly about it. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 15:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * A paragraph in an online blog on the EW website, anyway. Any indication that EW did a genuine piece on the site?   RGTraynor  15:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * EW didn't write about us in any print publication, it was just a blog post by Michael Slezak.
 * Oh, I guess I misunderstood the page. My fault. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 15:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete- Fails to meet WP:WEB. Retiono Virginian 15:15, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * To save you guys the effort and wasted time of discussing this further, please just remove the listing. We really have no need to be listed on Wikipedia, it's clear that most here don't see a reason for it to be listed, and to be frank, some of the severely misguided "analysis" of our site is a bit insulting.  (I'd also prefer that we don't get outranked by a Wiki listing on our site some day in Google ;)
 * Delete both. Fails all criteria of WP:WEB. Sr13 (T|C) 23:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete both, unfortunately. Although the sites are certainly notable and worthy of being included in Wikipedia, the articles themselves at the moment lack sources other than primary ones. So until somebody (i.e. probably the site owner, as he is the one who has them - but he doesn't want to) cites the printed articles in the correct way, the articles should be deleted. I would do it, but I don't have the articles. 78.0.156.40 00:51, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not that I don't want to, I've provided all the information we have. What's the correct way to cite a print article that is not posted online?
 * See WP:CITE. Potatoswatter 16:24, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * That kind of bureaucratic stuff is why I went into business for myself. Here’s the info we have short of taking them out of their frames and scanning them for you…
 * Comment: Hi. Since I originally nominated Showcattle.com (and later added Showdog.com), I just wanted to add some context for you. Before I do, I'd like to thank you for participating in this discussion though. As you can imagine, tracking down reliable sources can be hard work - you providing them is appreciated. I think there might be a bit of a misunderstanding here. I never questioned your credibility and I don't think any other editor did either. In that context, the only question was whether there were reliable sources to back up the claim that your websites are indeed notable as defined by WP:N. I don't want to bore you so I'll try to keep this brief: citing sources is important for a variety of reasons but, basically, the idea is that statements made on this Wiki should be verifiable, accurate and not original research. Citations allow anyone to check the accuracy of such a statement and help establish it as a fact. For instance, in your case, I could claim that Showdog.com generated $2b in ad revenue last year since, technically, noone (with a few exceptions) is barred from adding information to Wikipedia. If I were to make such a claim, it would most likely be removed and I'd be asked to add a reliable, verifiable source. It's a form of peer-review, if you will that is one of the five pillars of Wikipedia.


 * In your case, it's really the same thing except the issue in question is (amongst other things) notability. Any questions about credibility were raised in that context. In other words, nobody is doubting your word or calling you a liar. It's just a process we try to follow to make sure we're all on the same page, objective and fair. Cheers, --Seed 2.0 21:13, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Just a comment. It is a shame to see double standards here on Wikipedia. Just check "Multiplayer online games" category and you'll see a dozen games without any sources cited. But nobody proposes them for deletion. Why? Maybe because there is big business behind those games. Showdog.com lacks flashy animations, vampires and murders, so let's delete it! No matter that tens of thousands of people play it... as nobody wrote about it on the net it's not notorius... erm... "notable" enough. Shame on us! 78.0.135.37 00:54, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: Multiplayer games get AfDed all the time for reasons of non-notability or failure to demonstrate usage; I've voted in four of them this past week alone. If your research has turned up such games that you don't think pass notability muster, feel free to file on them yourself.    RGTraynor  03:37, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Delete both. A rather unique idea, and if it had some quality references I'd be happy to support keeping, but as it stands now, one entertainment weekly blog doesn't seem to be enough.  Rook wood  Dept. of Mysteries 16:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Thewinchester (talk) 04:54, 10 April 2007 (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.