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. --BDD (talk) 21:24, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

LAGbook[edit]

LAGbook (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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An original version of this article was prodded in April 2013 after it was shown that the news sources it was based on were either primary-source interviews, or reprints of self-aggrandising press releases which the PR company later retracted. It came back last week using some of the same sources, and one new one: the 2013 textbook Using Social Media for Global Security, which mentions LAGbook in a list of social networking sites in Appendix A1, openly crediting Wikipedia's List of social networking websites article as its source for the list. Neither this nor its press releases confer any notability. McGeddon (talk) 19:17, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete this article has a long history of problems. Lagbook was deleted twice in February 2012 as unambiguous advertising. The article was recreated as LAGbook and had significant issues with sourcing. Particularly troubling was the company's tendency to make claims that were reprinted in the Nigerian media but were either grossly inflated or taken out of context or untrue. My favorite examples: the company claimed to have partnered with Dropbox when, if you read what they were claiming to have done carefully, it sounded like they had just plunked down $100 on Dropbox for Teams and called that a partnership. Similarly, the article claimed that Lagbook had been covered by TechCrunch, but when you read the TechCrunch article it was about a completely different company, GROUPS.PS, which makes a white-label social networking service and only briefly mentioned Lagbook as one of the users of that service. There were other WP:REDFLAGs, at the time I first CSD'd Lagbook, the company's logo was identical to Facebook's except that it was green instead of blue and used a lowercase l instead of a lowercase f. So I was not at all surprised when the creators of Lagbook put the website for sale and then the purchaser of Lagbook came forward and said that the founders were making false claims about the business and hijacking the purchaser's social media accounts. You can read the details at Talk:LAGbook. The sources that we have are primarily Nigerian media (The Vanguard and the National Mirror). Given that these sources have printed inaccurate claims from the Lagbook founders without doing any kind of independent research, I think they need to be discounted as unreliable. What that leaves us with is a website that sold for $10,000[1], ranked around 18,000 on Alexa at its best and is now defunct. I don't see any notability here but I am worried that the founders are using Wikipedia as a vehicle for dishonest self-promotion. GabrielF (talk) 19:59, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

with all due respect, i think you are letting personal feelings could your judgement.

first of all, you are the user who investigated to see is user:socialnerd was a sockpuppet of these "evil twins". your investigation cleared the user.

second, whatever the merits of the previous incarnations of this article (which i am unable to access or assess, not being an admin, the current article is a DE MINIMUS description of the website, which barely mentions the brothers at all.

& whatever the merits of the bio-article about the brothers, there is ample evidence in secondary sources (such as all the news articles that have been arbitrarily "disqualified") to justify an article about the site as an african internet company.

if the validity of the facts AS REPORTED IN THE NEWS MEDIA are in dispute, then by all means, let the opposing sources be included as well. but right now, all i see is a hysterical determination, mainly by the 2 users i have mentioned, to "extirpate" the article "at all costs", & facts, & wiki rules & policies be damned. Lx 121 (talk) 20:14, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect, please follow WP:FOC

Sources that are not reliable shouldn't be used as references. Nor should we have articles on non-notable entities, especially when the articles appear to be a means of promotion. --Ronz (talk) 20:44, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

...& now you have "invoked" wp:foc in at least 3 or 4 different places. you can find my response on that point burther down in this discussion.

AS REGARDS SOURCES: you have arbitrarily & repeatedly disqualified numerous articles which were pubished in major african online "newspapers".

AS REGARDS NOTABILITY: disregarding all the content you have removed from the article previously, the website claims a userbase of ~1 million people, which, in terms of "home-grown" sub-saharan african social networking internet companies, makes them a decent-sized "indie" player. the claimed userbase size was reported in serveral of those african newspaper articles that you have "disqualified". you may disagree with the estimate, but that does not give you the right to "decide" those newspaper are invalid sources, & unless you can provide some equally credible source disputing the number, or offering an alternative number, then you are not in a good position to simply "disappear" the info. accurate or not, these stories ran in major news media outlets, & if you really want to "finesse" the point, then you are free to adjust the relevant text to say that "it was reported in ...etc.".

finally, as regards the "evil twins" that seem to be the driving motivation behind this dedicated attempt to remove any useful content from this particular article, THEY ARE BARELY MENTIONED. it's not a bio-article about them, it's not even a wp:promo for the company. the article (what's left of it, is a "de minimus" barebones description of the website, the type of service it provides/provided, & the namechange, as added my me (which, again, you ARBITRARILY REMOVED, because apparently the national mirror (nigerian "paper", the vangardngr (nigerian news media outlet), otekbits.com (internet/tech news), & techzulu.com (african tech/internet business news) are ALL COMPLETELY UNRELIABLE SOURCES for reporting basic facts about the existence of an african social networking website.

i really am gone now, back in 6-12-24 hours. 21:33, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Your claim about the checkuser is not accurate. I requested a checkuser for Socialnerd. He was not "cleared", the clerk denied the request to investigate. See: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Chidieberenwaogu/Archive.

More importantly, there is plenty of policy to support editors looking at cited sources in order to determine whether they are reliable. We do not need to accept as automatically reliable everything published in every newspaper around the world. You've opposed the removal of several articles. Two of them are simple interviews with almost no editorial contribution from the newspaper itself: [2][3]. In the National Mirror article published in December, the founders claim a valuation of $50,000 and that they would never sell the website, two months later they sold the website for $10,000. Two others articles are blogs. Finally, the Guardian Nigeria article claims that they "entered into partnership with Versamel Limited", the purchaser, who has verified his current control of the domain name, claims that the deal was a simple acquisition and that no such partnership exists. I agree with the assessment of another editor that the Guardian Nigeria article is a warmed-over press release. They tell the same origin story of the brothers founding the website to settle a bet over a girl's major and they quote the founders without doing any independent research. This isn't a case where a highly-reliable source says one thing but the article subject says another (a la the recent Philip Roth incident). We don't need to insist that the article subject provide their own secondary sources so that we can present both sides of the story because the sources that exist right now just don't stand up to scrutiny. GabrielF (talk) 21:52, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Chidi_and_Chika_Nwaogu provides a good summary of the problems with previous versions of this and related articles, and the complete lack of sources both independent and reliable. Note that it's clear that some information in the press releases and statements to the press is fraudulent. --Ronz (talk) 20:01, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

& therefore you feel this justifies your "disqualifying" MAJOR african new media as sources for this article? based on your "gut feeling"? Lx 121 (talk) 20:14, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please WP:FOC. --Ronz (talk) 20:52, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

with all due respect, that arguement would have a lot more weight, if you hadn't spent so much time removing content from the article, arbitrarily dismissing valid sources, & abusing the good faith of another, much less-experienced user. Lx 121 (talk)

I've no idea what you're referring to, and think this is getting far off track of any useful discussion on this comment. --Ronz (talk) 21:18, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

yes, you have "no idea" of the ~1 dozen edits you made to the article, stripping out content & sources EVERY TIME.

you have "no idea" of the dozens of sources provided by user:socialnerd & by me, all of which you have arbitrarily rejected as "invalid".

you have "no idea" of how you rejected/blocked EVERY SINGLE ATTEMPT by user:socialnerd to reach a compromise & edit constructively, & offered NOTHING in return.

Lx 121 (talk) 21:40, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• 'STRONG KEEP -- users McGeddon & Ronz have been on a "mission" to destroy this article; systematically stripping out information & references, as shown in the page history [4].

apparently this began as a dispute over a bio-article written by/about the founders of the site, which expanded to a dispute over the article about the site, & then became a dispute with user:Socialnerd, whom they accused of coi & suspected of being a sockpuppet; said user was CLEARED.

in the course of all this "action" a single-interest user:Shidan appeared in the conversation. this person made accusations against the brothers, which would be unacceotable on ANY blp article, & for which he did not provide adequate proof/sourcing.

talk page is here [5]

however the 2 above-mentioned users mcgeddon & ronz have apparently decided to accept this persons "original reasearch" @ face value, & the two have continued to undermine every attempt to improve the article, & effectively driven away user socialnerd.

the users have "disqualified" a LONG list of sources as "invalid", for spurious reasons. they have claimed that every article written about the company is based on "retracted press releases", without providing concrete evidence to support this assertion.

as a side-point, this article would also appear to have been "improperly" prodded, according to the rules disqualifying articles with any history of dispute from prod nominations.

below is a list of the "not reliable" sources

"not reliable sources"[edit]

• http://techzulu.com/interview-with-founderslagbooks-social-network-for-meeting-new-people/

• http://otekbits.com/2013/04/rip-lagbook-long-live-picrate-me/

• http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/05/unilag-twins-host-over-71000-users-on-lagbook/

• http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/09/let-your-dreams-run-wild-nwaogu-twins/

• http://nationalmirroronline.net/index.php/young-and-next-generation/45116.html

• http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=114474:unilag-programmers-blaze-trail-in-social-networking&Itemid=486

additionally, they have disqualified MANY other sources, on the talk page, out-of-hand.

text of (many of) the "invalid sources" mentioned on the talk page is c&p below

end of c&p

this matter has gotten completely out of hand, these users have abused the good faith of other editors, disregarded the rules for sources, & basically "run amok" to dismantle & eliminate the article, & apparently they feel completely justified in doing so.

i'm considering whether to make out a user report but at the moment i've had enough of this "drama" & am going to do some useful work elsewhere

Lx 121 (talk) 20:04, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please WP:FOC.

User:Shidan verified his relationship with the company that purchased LAGbook.

There were multiple concerns with the sources before Shidan joined the discussion.

Much of the information in the LAGbook press releases and public statements are inconsistent and contradictory.

Some of the information in the LAGbook press releases and public statements is grandiose to the point of being inaccurate, and some outright fraudulent.

The press releases were still available for inspection last I looked. Are they gone?

I fail to see any evidence offered that there exist sources both independent and reliable on the topic, much less that meet WP:N. --Ronz (talk) 20:51, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

again, for the upteenth time WHAT "EVIDENCE"!? i see user:sheridan on the lagbook talk page, i see him making lots of claims & accusations. i don't see any "evidence" that would be considered valid in an article, & i don't see any "evidence" that "prooves" his side of the story as regards anything relevant to the article-contents.

but, apparently, you regard this single-interest user as "more reliable", than half a dozen articles in major african "newspapers"?

i'm going to stop now, because i am so unhappy with how you & your friend have acted in your mistreatment of user:socialnerd & your arbitrary removal of perfectly valid media sources from the article. i shall return to this conversation, but after i've done something more constructive for a while. Lx 121 (talk) 21:05, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is page to discuss the the deletion of LAGbook. I've tried to summarize the consensus from the talk page and other relevant discussions. What I'm not seeing here are any policy-based arguments supporting a "strong keep" viewpoint, nor opposition to the past consensus. --Ronz (talk) 21:13, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

your "consensus" amounted to you & user mcgeddon shutting down every attempt by user:socialnerd to edit constructively. much ranting by user:shidan, & a failed sockpuppet accusation against user:socialnerd.

if there was any previous deletion discussion for this article, it should be noted/included/accessible on the page here, but i don't see it?

Lx 121 (talk) 21:46, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I'm not seeing any policy-based arguments for keeping the article. --Ronz (talk) 22:58, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Africa-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:18, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:18, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Taking a look at those sources:

• The techzulu.com article is an interview: this makes it a primary source per WP:PRIMARYNEWS, and it looks like it might be a self-published group blog.
• The otekbits.com article is a company blog entry that quotes and paraphrases a LAGbook blog entry by Chidi Nwaogu: this fails WP:SPS as a non-expert blog, and reheated press releases are not reliable sources.
• The Vanguard NGR "UNILAG twins host over 71,000 users on Lagbook" article: this may be reliable, but is only five paragraphs.
• The Vanguard NGR "Let your dreams run wild" article: this is another interview.
• The National Mirror Online article: this is another interview.
• The NGR Guardian News article: this paraphrases a February 2012 press release.

WP:WEBCRIT requires a site to have been "the subject of multiple non-trivial published works", excluding "media re-prints of press releases" and "trivial coverage, such as: a brief summary of the nature of the content". On these sources plus the copied-from-Wikipedia textbook appendix, the website does not meet Wikipedia's notability criteria.

The retracted press releases are a concern (for what it's worth, the best evidence available to us is simply that press releases mentioned in last year's discussions have since been deleted for whatever reason), but a retracted press release is no better or worse than a fresh press release for sourcing purposes - Wikipedia should use neither. A press release being retracted is problematic for making it harder to check whether a given source was based on it, but I don't think we're rejecting any sources purely on the grounds that they might be based on a retracted press release. --McGeddon (talk) 09:27, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So only the Vanguard UNILAG twins article is worth considering. I agree that it doesn't demonstrate notability. Details on this afd's talk. --Ronz (talk) 16:54, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Wikipedia is not a venue for promotion. There are no reliable sources that are removed from the public relations campaigns for the site. The press and other information directly from LAGbook is not reliable, sometimes to the point of being outright fraudulent. --Ronz (talk) 17:54, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

---

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, LFaraone 01:57, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

---

• Delete: Despite the rather vehement defense, there seems to be no policy-based reason to keep this somewhat promotional article. הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) 04:28, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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.