Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/USWeb


 * 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. But consensus is that this needs a complete rewrite.  Sandstein  08:43, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

USWeb

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Uses WP:SPS and Primary Sources which are regurgitation of press releases in PR trade press pubs. Fails WP:GNG and should be deleted as per WP:PLUG as an advertisement for a dissolved defunct company. This company was previously somewhat notable 20 years ago, but nothing recent is availabe online, and the current article lists no sources for the vast majority of its content. Octoberwoodland (talk) 21:16, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment - I have tried to run down many of the listed sources on the bottom of the article, but I am unable to locate many of them online to verify their contents. I located a second USWeb company online, but it is not the same company as is listed here.  The company listed here was acquired by another company then dissolved after it filed bankruptcy proceedings. Octoberwoodland (talk) 21:21, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 04:12, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Advertising-related deletion discussions. North America1000 04:14, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 05:48, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 05:48, 26 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete as extensive and largely uncited corporate spam, as in:
 * "Among the benefits touted was joining USWeb's technical and Internet design skills with the traditional advertising and marketing savvy of CKS."
 * A prime example where WP:TNT applies. K.e.coffman (talk) 19:14, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Corporate spam? The so-called spam was written at least three years after the company was liquidated.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:34, 30 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep This company was among the biggest of the dotcom high-fliers. Has the nominator put in the effort to check BusinessWeek, TIME, WSJ, from 1995–2005?  The NYT apparently published a few articles mentioning them:  https://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/#/usweb/.  Same with the Chicago Sun-Times:  https://www.highbeam.com/Search?FilterByPublicationID=392330&FilterByPublicationName=Chicago+Sun-Times&searchTerm=USWeb .  If you really don't like this article, at the very least you should merge into MarchFirst instead of deleting and leaving a WP:REDLINK.  Nominator claims that "This company was previously somewhat notable 20 years ago" which flies in the face of WP:NOTTEMPORARY: "Notability is not temporary; once a topic has been the subject of "significant coverage" in accordance with the general notability guideline, it does not need to have ongoing coverage." -- DanielPenfield (talk) 19:07, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
 * What was notable 20 years ago is not necessarily what is notable today. USWeb was a web site design firm a lot like GoDaddy is today, only smaller, and without its own data center.  The company is a load of hype and marketecture, I don't think it was all that notable even back then.  At any rate, the company is gone and this article has no secondary sources, and the company went bankrupt after it merged with CKS.   A merged company should not have an article mainly because it no longer exists under this name.  The company had no long lasting effect on the industry, here today gone tomorrow.  Octoberwoodland (talk) 20:33, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Another point is what made the company somewhat notable at the time was claims by its CEO (Joe Firmage) he had been visited by extraterrestrials in his bedroom, after which the company fired him, then merged with CKS (and subsequently went into bankruptcy). From a perspective of BLP, Wikipedia should probably not be writing articles about someone's mental illness and publishing their delusions as though it were fact.  This Alien Visitation content does not appear in this article, and without it, this company really has no notability.  Octoberwoodland (talk) 21:09, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I went through all your highbeam research and it all says the same thing, USWeb merged with another company then went belly up.  Wikipedia is not a ghost town for online advertising for failed, defunct companies with no sources for their article content.  None of your highbeam sources validates the current content of the article.  WP:TNT. Octoberwoodland (talk) 22:45, 29 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep The article has many references, which the nominator doesn't deny he/she has not read because they are not online.  Notability is not temporary, and Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia of online notability.  As for what is online, WP:BEFORE D1 for Google books shows good snippets for magazines such as Network World, Infoworld, and Computerworld dating from 1996 to 2000.  On the second page, there is a 2011 book called Fit to Bust: How Great Companies Fail with a snippet reading, "Remember USWeb? No, not many people do. The Industry Standard described USWeb's growth strategy in May 1998: 'Since March 1997, it has bought 26 companies, paying for the acquisitions with options and shares currently worth some ..."  Good hits continue to the third page, and which point I stopped looking.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:34, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Honestly, if these trade rag publications are all you can find, then you made my point. Just advertisement for a non-existent company.  None of your sources match the content in that article.  Acquired 26 companies?  then went bankrupt?  OK .. sure ... whatever you say.  :-) Octoberwoodland (talk) 02:50, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Have you read the Industry Standard, which was given as the reference in the 2011 book? I didn't think so.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:49, 30 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep – Yes, USWeb was a scam, and they were pretty successful at convincing people to sell their perfectly good web development companies in exchange for shares in this conglomerate. They were structured as a franchise model similar to McDonald's, except that local franchisees were not owners of their local shop but were made to salivate at sharing the "profits" coming from the stock market frenzy at the time. Article must be kept as a case study in hubris typical of that period of Internet history. — JFG talk 06:40, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Glad we agree on something. I have known USWeb was a scam for a long time.  I followed that company for quite a while in the trade press.  What's wrong with this article is it is nothing more than Joe Firmage's brain farts about the great things the company "is going to do", but the sad fact is, the company did none of these things that are in that article  -- it was a dot com scam to soak investors with an IPO, and since the company had no core technology, when the IPO money ran out the company had no revenue from customers and it went belly up .  If this article is kept I will probably try to remove all the uncited content, which is a lot of what's here.  The big problem is running afoul of BLP.  When you have someone who claims to be in contact with extraterrestrials, mental illness is clearly in the mix and it makes any content from them suspect.  At any rate, Wikipedia is not a place for Joe Firmage's delusions and scams.   I will probably leave it to others to fix this article, it's a mess. Octoberwoodland (talk) 19:31, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed, this should not be a promotional page for Firmage's outdated and outlandish delusions. But the encyclopedia deserves an article as part of the dot-com bubble saga. WP:TNT perhaps? — JFG talk 05:32, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Yep. WP:TNT Octoberwoodland (talk) 07:00, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Kurykh (talk) 22:51, 3 February 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.