Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soc.history.what-if (2nd nomination)

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 (consensus argument was that the subject fails WP:WEB). Sancho 22:03, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Soc.history.what-if

Soc.history.what-if (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

This article lacks any external coverage of this Usenet newsgroup. 2005's Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soc.history.what-if ended as a keep due to a flood of "it's useful", "other Usenet newsgroups have articles", and the lack of notability policy. What is here, however, is purely unsourced original research with a fat linkfarm to alternate history sites and groups. WP:V & WP:WEB are clearly not met... — Scientizzle 18:43, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• Delete, the article basically says "this is how things work on our usenet group" but doesn't say why anyone should care. Article needs to at least claim notability (unless there isn't any to claim, of course) and the claims must be verified by reliable sources. Recury 19:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
• I am sorely tempted to roll it right back two years to the version which was kept last time; it got infested by a crank at some point and has been a mess since. Thoughts? Shimgray | talk | 22:16, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
  • That version is better (though the difference is largely the elimination of the pile of external links and the swap of "counterfactual" history for "virtual" history). Still, two years ago there was just as much notability info as there is now, which is to say: almost nothing. — Scientizzle 22:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
• What if we merge this back into alternate history, counterfactual history or uchronia, since that's where somebody would likely learn about the what-if website Mandsford 23:32, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
  • If the merge doesn't happen, does the immediately above comment count as counterfactual history? Rpresser 23:38, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep, no special reason. Rpresser 23:38, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm sure you're aware that AfD is not a vote...would you care to elaborate? — Scientizzle 07:38, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep, The group should be put on warning that unless they get agreement it will be merged in alternate history. Much of the stuff is people giving themselves airs and false pride BernardZ 02:22, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I am confused about your comment...Are you suggesting that the actual Usenet group should be notified of this discussion? If so, please don't violate WP:CANVASS. Can you explain why you think the article should be kept? — Scientizzle 07:38, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
    • As a group it is just as important in the field of alternate history as many authors that have pages here in the wiki producing on any one topic up to several hundred members discussion so in this small field it is notable. BernardZ 23:40, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
      • Perhaps, but this article is lacking any information on such notability. Can you provide any evidence that this group has received outside attention? — Scientizzle 00:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
    • BernardZ didn't notice the group about the Deletion debate - but he has frequently edited the entry himself, and his recent entries caused controversy on the group. I'm actually a bit surprised about the time we have this renewed deletion proposal - in the controversy mentioned above, several regular posters have stated that they would prefer deletion to having BernardZ's entry stay as the final entry. So that your deletion proposal came up right NOW - can't be a purely accidential? — Good Habit (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
      • I'm not sure what you may be implying, but I can assure you that I've had no interaction with this group, BernardZ, or the topic of alternate history in general. I found the article using good ol' Special:Random and noticed that it was, IMO, unecyclopedic. — Scientizzle 21:07, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
        • I'm not implying anthying - I was just surprised that the deletion debate started right now. I agree that it's encyclopedic notability might at best be a borderline case. I'm a regular reader and sometimes contributor to said group (under the same handle )I used here now - but have only edited very few (may be five) articles on Wikipedia as of today (only under my IP). --Good Habit 21:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
      • Yeah, BernardZ has an interesting history here - he came along, altering the article to remove reference to people he dislikes and to explain how wonderful he was; on being challenged, he denied this was him until it was pointed out the IPs matched. He then registered an account and, er, kept going. The old talkpage is rather indicative; I had to briefly lock the page to stop him tearing chunks out and inserting rambling incoherencies... No doubt he means well, in his way, but the article doesn't seem to be better for it. Shimgray | talk | 00:27, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
• Delete or merge - while generally well-written, the group seems to have no particular encyclopedic merit, and the vast majority of content of the article belongs elsewhere - perhaps on a S.H.W-I FAQ site, or textfiles.org --Action Jackson IV 20:20, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - Four points. One, shw-i is one of the older surviving Usenet newsgroups, and has a small but dedicated group of followers. Two, almost a hundred other NGs have pages. Yes, I know that "there are other pages on X" is not the strongest argument, but it's not irrelevant either. It's rather hard to see why SHWI should be deleted when rec.woodworking, alt.zines, and alt.binaries.slack are going strong. Three, SHWI is regularly referenced by other alternate history sites -- click on some of the links and you'll find that most of them cite back to SHWI. (Many of them have been started by SHWI alumni.) True, it's something of a tight little self-referencing community, but that's neither here nor there -- it does satisfy the notability requirement. Finally, try dropping "soc.history.what-if" into google. It gets about 43,000 hits. Many of these are to articles on the NG, but a large minority are not. Click through for minute and you'll see dozens of cites to SHWI. I'm new here, but it seems to me that this satisfies the notability requirement, separately and as well.Vormuir 12:40, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  • There still have to be reliable, third-party sources on a subject. WP:V says: "If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." For what consitutes "reliable", see WP:RS. Recury 13:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
    • I see two separate issues here: noteworthiness and sourcing. Can we agree that SHWI is noteworthy? If it's not, there's no point in debating sourcing. If it is, we can then move on to discuss whether the article is properly sourced, and if not, how to fix it.Vormuir 16:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes there are two issues, but they are related. A subject that is notable would have plenty of good sources on it. Recury 16:28, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
        • Well, not necessarily -- if you have something that's of intense interest to a small group, there may not be a lot of sources. That said, I'll note that all major alternate history sites on the web cite SHWI, including alternatehistory.com, anthonymayer.net, and uchronia. I'd provide hyperlinks, but I'm still figuring out how to comment -- give me a day or two.Vormuir 17:12, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
          • Read WP:V and WP:RS please. Recury 18:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
        • As long as I'm confessing my painful n00b ignorance... is there a way to comment here without going to edit mode? Talk pages have a little "+" at the top, but this page doesn't seem to. Am I missing something?Vormuir 17:12, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
          • The [+] is just a hack to add a new section heading to the page without doing it manually. It's all still editing... wikis really don't recognise any other interface! (Also: hi!) Shimgray | talk | 17:40, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
            • Hi Shimgray! Long time no "see".Vormuir 17:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
• In other news, I see that someone has just taken down the deletion notice, apparently under the impression that it's the old nomination from 2005. Perhaps someone could correct this? (I'd do it, but I don't yet know how.)
• Meanwhile, I notice that the low-grade edit war continues unabated. Could some person of competence maybe lock the page for a while? Perhaps after reverting to an earlier, pre-troll version? Thanks in advance -- Vormuir 17:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Not sufficiently notable, poor article, lack of sources. Richard Gadsden 19:54, 5 July 2007 (UTC) (and yes, I am the original proponent of the newsgroup from 1995. So?
• KEEP after revision and repair of the article. I am appalled at the anti-USENET bias shown by a vocal faction of Wikipedia editors. Anything mentioning the newsgroups I've had personal contact with seem to come up for deletion eventually as not noteworthy, to the point that I wonder why there's a Wikipedia at all. If Wikipedia does not cover the "oddball" subjects that crop up on the Internet, then how is it any more useful to Internet users than Britannica Online or MSN? Wikipedia editors have to decide what they're trying to accomplish here, because the current course is to turn this incredibly valuable resource on popular culture into an amateur rehash of dead-tree volumes. Indeed the article does need repair after an ill-executed major edit, but to delete it in its entirety is too drastic. Anton P. Nym 00:31, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Forgive my overwhelmingly obvious anti-Usenet bias, but you've done nothing in your screed here to indicate why this article should be covered. Care to? — Scientizzle 00:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep. It is one of older but still functioning newsgroups (that counts like a miracle) and notable in AH circles. As a newsgroup you won't get much of printed coverage but this doesn't mean it is nonexistent or irrelevant. The current text should be pruned down, instead of dozens links to stories (everyone can google them) it should contain condensed history of the newsgroup. If the article doesn't improve within, say, half an year, it may be merged into the overview AH article. The [1] revision may be good start, actually. Pavel Vozenilek 16:24, 8 July 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.