Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/4

This is part of Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Proposal.

4 (unremarkable websites)

 * "An article about a website that does not assert having had an impact beyond its core group of interested people, nor having had media coverage, nor having at least 5,000 users. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to VFD instead" should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.


 * For instance, a web forum on any particular hobby is generally not interesting to people outside that hobby group, and would be better off as an external link in the article on that hobby.
 * Articles on such websites are frequently added to Wikipedia, and if about a forum are prime targets for vote distortion through usage of sockpuppet and meatpuppets.
 * Any of the major forums (e.g. Slashdot, Something Awful, Wikipedia) have significantly more than 5,000 users. Any of the major sites (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN) have had extensive press coverage.
 * Strict limits for Google hits or Alexa rankings were considered for this criterion, but rejected as being impractical.
 * If you are unsure about this proposal, consider that there is a proposed test run to try it out for a month.

[ vote] – discuss

Votes
'''This proposal is no longer open for voting. Voting closed on July 19, 2005 15:11 (UTC).'''

Support

 * 1) A и D я 01D TALK EMAIL July 4, 2005 15:49 (UTC)
 * 2) VfD votes for forums attract ridiculous numbers of sockpuppets. If they could be speedy deleted, that would significantly reduce the number of "omg keep you idiots are all against including things in wikipedia that arent mainstream!" votes. Hermione1980 4 July 2005 16:42 (UTC)
 * It is odd that so many people support this line of reasoning because it is nonsense. Let's ban all discussion just in case some malcontents try to join in! Great idea! Pcb21| Pete 09:54, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) However, if there is some other ground for significance or importance asserted, that should also save the article. I wish we could write that into this proposal later. DES 4 July 2005 17:59 (UTC)
 * 2) I agree with Hermione. Oliver Keenan July 4, 2005 18:11 (UTC)
 * 3) Even if this rule gets accidentally applied to a notable site with a poor article, all we lose is a poor article. --A D Monroe III 4 July 2005 19:30 (UTC)
 * 4) Dragons flight July 4, 2005 20:50 (UTC)
 * 5) I also agree with DES. humblefool® 4 July 2005 20:53 (UTC)
 * 6) --Henrygb 4 July 2005 21:36 (UTC)
 * 7) Dmcdevit 4 July 2005 23:27 (UTC)
 * 8) nixie 4 July 2005 23:46 (UTC)
 * 9) I agree with Hermione and DES. --Idont Havaname 5 July 2005 00:12 (UTC)
 * 10) Hermione's argument is convincing. JesseW 5 July 2005 00:24 (UTC)
 * 11) -Splash 5 July 2005 00:46 (UTC)
 * 12) NatusRoma 5 July 2005 00:58 (UTC)
 * 13) Support - avast, ye sockpuppets!!! -- BD2412  talk July 5, 2005 02:03 (UTC)
 * 14) However, I would still like to see guidelines for Google hits/Alexa traffic. Denni☯  2005 July 5 02:06 (UTC)
 * 15) Agree with Hermione and DES. Alphax τεχ 5 July 2005 02:28 (UTC)
 * 16) mikka (t) 5 July 2005 03:03 (UTC)
 * 17) &mdash; Phil Welch 5 July 2005 03:17 (UTC)
 * 18) Fuzheado | Talk 5 July 2005 03:48 (UTC)
 * 19) Agree with puppet prevention argument.  Xoloz 5 July 2005 06:37 (UTC)
 * 20) Support, request that this proposal be titled the Wikipedia Sockpuppetry Reduction Act of 2005. --FCYTravis 5 July 2005 06:54 (UTC)
 * 21) Support --G Rutter 5 July 2005 08:50 (UTC)
 * 22) Support - JoJan 5 July 2005 08:54 (UTC)
 * 23) agreed, new websites are created every second + if it doesn't affect its core group...PeregrineAY July 5, 2005 10:06 (UTC)
 * 24) Support; I trust that admins will use their judgement and apply DES' suggestion. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 5 July 2005 19:55 (UTC)
 * 25) Support. It should help to kill the sockpuppets. --Scimitar 5 July 2005 23:25 (UTC)
 * 26) Support. Avast ye sockpuppets. Jayjg (talk) 6 July 2005 02:26 (UTC)
 * 27) Strong support. wat too much website vanity gets put through VfD... Sasquatch′↔Talk↔Contributions July 6, 2005 04:29 (UTC)
 * 28) Support. -R. S. Shaw 6 July 2005 04:58 (UTC)
 * 29) &mdash; Trilobite (Talk) 6 July 2005 10:44 (UTC)
 * 30) --Porturology 6 July 2005 13:04 (UTC)
 * 31) * Porturology's 250th contribution was at (or after) 12:28, 10 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:17, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 32) ➥the Epopt 6 July 2005 13:31 (UTC)
 * 33)  Aphaea  *  6 July 2005 14:43 (UTC)
 * 34) necessary to curtail "reputation hacking". Kaldari 6 July 2005 20:14 (UTC)
 * 35) Ayup. Thanks, Luc "Somethingorother" French 6 July 2005 20:27 (UTC)
 * 36) Carnildo 6 July 2005 22:04 (UTC)
 * 37) jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 7 July 2005 02:39 (UTC)
 * 38) Anomaly1 7 July 2005 03:00 (UTC)
 * 39) * Anomaly1's 250th contribution was at (or after) 02:11, 8 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:17, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 40) Support.   ral  315  July 7, 2005 05:21 (UTC)
 * 41) Support Tobycat 7 July 2005 08:07 (UTC)
 * 42) Support Axon 7 July 2005 09:59 (UTC)
 * 43) Support. jni 7 July 2005 12:12 (UTC)
 * 44) Weak Support. - Looking forward to a test run.--Muchosucko 7 July 2005 13:01 (UTC)
 * 45) <> Who? ¿ ?  7 July 2005 16:30 (UTC)
 * 46) Support, mainly because a VFD on a web forum tends to get assaulted by a horde of sockpuppets. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; July 7, 2005 20:05 (UTC)
 * 47) Support  &mdash;thames 7 July 2005 20:47 (UTC)
 * 48) Neutralitytalk July 9, 2005 09:42 (UTC)
 * 49) Support Gwk 9 July 2005 16:35 (UTC)
 * 50) * Gwk's 250th contribution was at (or after) 02:40, 10 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:17, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 51) Support. TheCoffee 21:16, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 52) Support. Gamaliel 17:25, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 53) Support. --Metropolitan90 18:37, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * 54) Support"'. We a criterion  to this effect. --Canderson7''' 18:59, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * 55) Support.   JeremyA 20:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 56) Support.-gadfium 00:13, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 57) -- nyenyec ☎ 00:26, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 58) Support as per Hermione Hiding 08:54, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 59) Support These sites take a large share of the vfd attention  and it is reasonable to have this speedy delete criteria for them --Mysidia 13:01, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 60) * Mysidia's 250th contribution was at (or after) 18:25, 9 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 13:13, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 61) Dsmdgold 14:21, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * 62) Johnleemk | Talk 14:44, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 63) MarkSweep 01:14, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 64) Shanes 05:51, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 65) Support. - Mgm|(talk) 11:51, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * 66) Support I'm surprised this wasn't a criteria already. Inigmatus 15:45, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * 67) * Inigmatus's 250th contribution was at (or after) 17:21, 12 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 17:49, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 68) Support. Pavel Vozenilek 19:36, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 69) Support. If they are important, that can be established in the text so that it is not a speedy criteria delete. Vegaswikian 05:03, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 70) Support. EvilPhoenix talk 01:19, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
 * 71) There's always WP:VfU for the inevitable errors that will creep in. We need something to increase the throughput of VfD; better to fix a few errors in a quick system than use a slow, expensive (in time/energy) system. Noel (talk) 01:56, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 72) Support. --EnSamulili 10:27, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 73) – Smyth\talk 10:30, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1) Newbies never know they are supposed to "assert notability". Also websites which are the popular in their field should often be covered in an NPOV way in wikipedia itself, possibly merged into a larged article. Kappa 4 July 2005 16:33 (UTC)
 * 2) I think WP:CSD ought to be linked in the MediaWiki:newarticletext, so newbies (at least those who pay attention) will know they are supposed to "assert notability". JesseW 5 July 2005 00:24 (UTC)
 * 3) *I understand that - but my opinion is that anyone writing an article about a good website will (almost) always start by explaining why it's a good website, thus stating why it would be 'notable'. E.g. if a website was featured in the newspapers, that's about the first thing I'd mention. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; July 5, 2005 09:30 (UTC)
 * 4) I object primarily because the wording of this item was added by User:Radiant! without discussion prior to this vote being opened.  -- Netoholic @ 4 July 2005 19:03 (UTC)
 * 5) *You are wrong. It was discussed at Websites. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; July 4, 2005 19:52 (UTC)
 * 6) ** You are wrong. It is a mistake to confuse "guidelines for inclusion" with "criteria for immediate deletion".   Would you have us simply redirect WP:CSD to What Wikipedia is not? -- Netoholic @ 5 July 2005 02:23 (UTC)
 * 7) Too broad. It is not clear that even websites as popular as Fark.com would be immune from this criteria. Its article doesn't indicate the number of users (thousands could be < 5000), doesn't indicate media coverage, and doesn't clearly assert any impact beyond overloading some servers. Pburka 5 July 2005 02:49 (UTC)
 * 8) Too subjective. BLANKFAZE | (&#1095;&#1090;&#1086;??<b style="font-size:90%;">)</b> 5 July 2005 03:45 (UTC)
 * 9) Too many false positives. See my case study at Wikipedia talk:Websites, which was for a far laxer criterion. Cryptic (talk) 5 July 2005 03:54 (UTC)
 * 10) *Your case study did serve to convince me that having a poor Alexa ranking is not (in and of itself) grounds for deleting anything. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; July 5, 2005 09:26 (UTC)
 * 11) Conditional. I would support this if it did not require this information to be asserted. It is trivial to obtain such information by visiting the web-site that is the subject. We see way too many significant subjects come up on VfD because the nominator has not made such simple checks. &mdash;Theo (Talk) 5 July 2005 10:35 (UTC)
 * 12) Oppose. 5000 is too high as a limit - who's to say that a (community) website with 4000 regular participants is not notable? Remember that Wikipedia Is Not Paper(tm); we can afford to be inclusive. -- Schnee (cheeks clone) 5 July 2005 12:13 (UTC)
 * 13) Strong Oppose. I just feel that there must be exceptions to this rule,, and why the set limit anyway?  This is too arbitrary. &mdash; Ram-Man (comment) (talk) July 5, 2005 14:26 (UTC)
 * 14) Oppose. This is too subjective to be a speedy candidate. We have a lot of website articles that don't meet these criteria and I see no need to delete them. Angela. July 5, 2005 14:32 (UTC)
 * 15) I've seen far too many important websites VfD'd for stupid reasons. Alexa ranks and the like.  See also Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/Z --Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 15:08 (UTC)
 * 16) This should be dealt with on a case-by-case basic at WP:VFD. — Bcat (talk | email) 5 July 2005 15:42 (UTC)
 * 17) Barely suitable as a VFD criterion, and REALLY not suitable as a CSD criterion - David Gerard 5 July 2005 21:46 (UTC)
 * 18) Oppose.  If this were applied according to how it's written, it would have no effect.  As this voting page has shown, the issue is clearly disputed and controversial, and the proposal states that under those circumstances, "it should be taken to VFD instead."  Therefore, no page could legally be speedied under this criterion.  Any use of it would be abuse. Factitious July 5, 2005 23:50 (UTC)
 * 19) --Mononoke 6 July 2005 00:28 (UTC)
 * 20) * Mononoke's 250th contribution was at (or after) 03:29, 10 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:17, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 21) Oppose per Angela's reasons. <FONT COLOR="#006699">Un</FONT>focused 6 July 2005 08:00 (UTC)
 * 22) Strong Oppose number of users (irrespective of whether a user is defined as a regular visitor? an occassional visitor? a contributor?) is often irrelevent in determining whether a site is note worthy. The whole proposal is just too arbitrary. Stewart Adcock 6 July 2005 08:36 (UTC)
 * 23) Oppose because too subjective. Sietse 6 July 2005 10:37 (UTC)
 * 24) Oppose. Hard limits don't make much sense for something like this.  It could be a very important and popular website for some specialty for which there aren't more than 5000 people.   Nathan J. Yoder 6 July 2005 13:54 (UTC)
 * 25) Oppose. James F. (talk) 6 July 2005 14:24 (UTC)
 * 26) Oppose. While I agree that website VfDs attract a lot of sockpuppets that waste time, enough people take care of the VfDs to point out the sockpuppet accounts. It takes a VfD to determine the notability of a web site. --Deathphoenix 6 July 2005 14:54 (UTC)
 * 27) Broad, ambiguous. --ArmadniGeneral 6 July 2005 16:10 (UTC)
 * 28) ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 6 July 2005 19:57 (UTC) I echo Deathphoenix, and agree w DES as well, alot of the support votes are conditional or hesitant, and thus should be ignored. ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 6 July 2005 19:57 (UTC)
 * 29) Oppose -- False positives are likely too commonplace; also, standards are not reflected in reality of new articles. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 6 21:22 (UTC)
 * 30) Oppose. 5,000 is an arbitrary cap and some notable websites don't have users in that sense (visitors are not the same as users). Needs to be considered in the round on VFD. David | Talk 6 July 2005 21:53 (UTC)
 * 31) Oppose per Schneelocke and Angela. Nohat 7 July 2005 02:11 (UTC)
 * 32) Oppose per Angela.  Way too arbitrary. -- Ricky81682 (talk) July 7, 2005 08:13 (UTC)
 * 33) Oppose for same as Angela. -- Aaron Hill July 7, 2005 09:08 (UTC)
 * 34) Oppose I would vote for, but there are many sites that have impact only within their subculture, and yet are encyclopedic with respect to documenting that subculture. -Harmil 7 July 2005 14:30 (UTC)
 * 35) Oppose Admins can not in general be sure of knowing about the importance of every website, and so will easily make mistakes and delete legitimate articles. The cost of VfD is worth avoiding losing the conent. Pcb21| Pete 7 July 2005 15:26 (UTC)
 * 36) Oppose. Why 5000? I'd imagine Wikipedia had fewer than 5000 users not too long ago. Setting the number at 5000 is just pointless instruction creep. In principle I support making vanity website articles speediable, but the criteria should make more sense in the real world. How about sites with no Alexa ranking, or any site on a free homepage provider?   [ +t, +c, +m ] July 7, 2005 19:18 (UTC)
 * 37) Oppose the criterion is quite lame. <font style="background: black" face="Courier" color=#FFFFFF> Grue  7 July 2005 20:35 (UTC)
 * 38) Oppose as currently written. 5000 is too arbitrary; number of users does not necessarily correlate with notability.  Kaibabsquirrel 8 July 2005 07:42 (UTC)
 * 39) Oppose. Too arbitrary and may potentially give too many false positives for websites in languages other than English. -- Rune Welsh ταλκ July 8, 2005 09:12 (UTC)
 * 40) M e r o v i n g i a n  (t) (c) July 8, 2005 09:13 (UTC)
 * 41) oppose as it is too vague. How can a site have impact beyond its core group of interested users? Aren't those, by nature, the ones that are impacted by it, as they are the ones that visit it? Does 5,000 users require that the site have user logins? Brighterorange 8 July 2005 20:59 (UTC)
 * 42) 24 at 9 July 2005 18:31 (UTC)
 * 43) * 24ip's 250th contribution was at (or after) 18:20, 10 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:17, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 44) Oppose. I see a horrible future where articles are written even more so than they already are to address internal concerns. Grace Note 02:44, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 45) Oppose. Arbitrary user number. <b style="color:mediumblue;">Andre</b> ( talk ) 05:29, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * 46) Oppose. - McCart42 (talk) 13:43, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 47) Oppose - How can this be monitored? --ZeWrestler 15:31, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 48) IanManka 05:24, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 49) * IanManka's 250th contribution was at (or after) 05:54, 12 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 05:59, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 50) ** My apologies. I thought I had deleted all of my ineligible votes (I missed the fact that I needed 250 edits to vote), but apparently I missed this one. I cancel my vote. Sorry for any inconvience. IanManka 06:05, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 51) ***Having been told to restate my votes, I oppose this proposal. IanManka 05:42, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 52) Oppose Criteria too ambiguous. Simply having an Alexa traffic rank of more than a certain level would've been simpler. Dan100 (Talk) 08:43, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * 53) Oppose. Criteria too ambiguous. JuntungWu 14:19, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 54) Oppose Criteria too ambiguous. Alexa traffic rank of more than a certain level would've been simpler.--Feydey 23:09, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 55) Oppose. Would be abused. Alexa rank would have been worse because of inherent limitations to that methodology. David Remahl 03:35, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 56) Oppose. The core group of interested readers could be the entire world for a site like Google.  Think things out.  Don't generalize.  Superm401 | Talk 04:36, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * 57) Oppose. Too vague to leave to speedy deletion. DS1953 05:44, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * 58) Oppose First, 5000 seems arbitrary and won't exclude some not-notable sites like the Purdue University webmail. A subjective criteria is needed. Second, users is vague. Can this also include visitors? or only registered users? maddox.xmission.com has only one "user", but over a million visitors. Casito⇝Talk 02:27, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 59) oppose- I agree with Casito. Who picked 5000? Is that jsut an arbitrary number? Who determines how many "users" the site has? Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 20:42, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Comment

 * DES says "if there is some other ground for significance or importance asserted, that should also save the article." In a speedy deletion, one (1) person makes the decision. There is no discussion, there is no chance to assert anything.  The article just disappears before any of us is aware it existed.  Unless of course it's patrolled by trolls, in which case the venue of the trollathon will simply switch to VfU.  No, sock puppetry is not a major problem on VfD; closers are cleverer than you think.  No, this would not streamline VfD because trollathons of that ilk are rare and for every one of those we get somebody who wants to delete an article about, say, a gay archive website because it hasn't got a high Alexa rating. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 23:56 (UTC)

Proposal P1
Note that if Tony Sidaway's new proposal (at Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/P1) passes, it would apply to this proposal as well. I think it would answer many of the objections to this proposal. I urge those who have supported this proposal to consider supporting P1 as well, and those who have oppsoed it to consider a conditonal vote of support if and only if proposal P1 also passes. DES 7 July 2005 15:02 (UTC)