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. Coredesat 03:38, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Veropedia[edit]

Veropedia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Seems like a very new website, but the only independent sources on it seem to be blogs, which are not reliable sources. Since this is a Wikipedia-related topic, possibly move it to Wikipedia:Veropedia or just delete. h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 03:13, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The links in the references section seem to be to blogs, and the talk page is empty save templates, so I don't know what sources you mean. If you do know of some particular sources that covered it, would you provide links to them so they can be used in the article? Or are some of those blogs reliable? I admit that I am not familiar with them, and a brief look didn't indicate that they were. A clarification would be appreciated. --Sopoforic 08:41, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
800 words of coverage in the Toronto Star is more than significant, it's exclusive. This article now exceeds the basic notability criteria. VanTucky Talk 20:36, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See my notes at the bottom of this debate. The question is, does it really satisfy the relevant notability guidelines? There's an exception to being notable which the article comes unnervingly close to being covered by, again as I've noted. Definitely an ambiguous one... Anthøny 19:26, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That point is now somewhat moot, given the publication of the Wired News article today[1] - Alison 19:32, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please show me where this website has been discussed in reliable sources. Wikipedians' blogs are NOT reliable sources. Also, Wikipedia is not a crystal ball - we can't say whether in the future it will be discussed by reliable sources for sure.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 12:08, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Non-blog media attention is minimal, and essentially comprises republications that mirror the slashdot story, and based on the same two sources slashdot itself gives - its developer's blog and veropedia's own self-publication.
  2. The number of blog posts from Google suggest that following the slashdot post, Veropedia has achieved some mention, but that its mentions are 1/ as social gossip or a "coming soon" interest, rather than 2/ as a notable encyclopedia (eg: a site that readers are told is notable by sources discussing reference websites).
  3. The publications are mostly republication of self-published material provided by Veropedia and its developers, with brief comment (plus one criticism by a party open to concerns that he might focus on anything Wikipedia-related whether notable or not).
    • Veropedia as an reference site: - There is no evidence that as a reference site any independent credible reliable source has yet taken significant note of veropedia.
    • Veropedia as a social buzz, concept, meme or potential future 'watch this spot': - Ideas and concepts do merit articles, but the blogosphere includes many of these so (WP:NOT, WP:N) a degree of exceptionality or a basis to pick this one out as notable, is needed, to meet the criteria "not an indiscriminate collection of information".
  4. There does not yet seem to be significant (or any real) analysis and opinion, by reliable sources on reference sites, as said, the mentions seem to be mostly limited to republications of self-published material. There are no obvious secondary sources upon which to base more than a self-description. So it is hard to provide coverage on veropedia as a subject - there are no (or very few) sources of comment and analysis.
  5. Finally, considering WP:CRYSTAL whilst veropedia has traction, suppose all all the mentions it ever got, were those it has now, would there be enough to say it had achieved "notability"?
We have at least one reliable source (and republications), plus evidence of a significant amount of transient social gossip. But in fact, WP:NOT#NEWS sets an additional bar over that, that a brief media mention is not enough. Although I started writing this as "keep/weak keep", I feel on reflection and source checking, that at present veropedia is still within the territory of "brief mention in the news"; there is just the one source mention that's pushed these republications. Even though there is public mention and some blogosphere buzz, that for me is the decider. That may change in a week, or a few months, or never. It may even change during this AFD. But it's not to be anticipated that it will. Delete for now, until such time as this status quo has changed. FT2 (Talk | email) 15:17, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See my remark bellow about what CRYSTAL actually says. CRYSTAL applies primarily to future events where the content is speculative. That's not an issue here. Similarly NOT NEWS is to deal with one-offs such as murders, car-crashes, minor elections, scandals, publicity stunts etc, not the existence of a website which continues to exist The most relevant detail is WP:WEB which this meets given the Slashdot and Toronto Star coverage. The fact that Wired is going to do a piece just makes it even more so. JoshuaZ 19:52, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree that it's not an issue here. Much of the "keep" view posting is based on editors' impressions what vero might or will be, or what kind of coverage might or will emerge but hasn't done so sufficiently yet. That is classic WP:CRYSTAL. FT2 (Talk | email) 10:03, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Not News, like all polices and guidelines, is meant to be interpreted with some degree of common sense. DGG (talk) 16:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Could you clarify what exactly you see as not "common sense". Is there ongoing or independent significant coverage beyond slashdot and its ripples at present? At present, Veropedia has had one significant mention - a republication of its self published self descriptions on a major IT news+discussion website. These were picked up by slashdot and mirrored in many blogs and a couple of sites. There is no apparent coverage beyond that now.
WP:NOT#NEWS is exactly intended to discriminate against matters which receive brief transient coverage in reliable sources (eg see the expression "considers historical notability") - Veropedia's coverage now (WP:CRYSTAL) is one repub of its own self-description, in a slashdot page (plus blogs and such that have reprinted the same self-pub sources), and at this time is brief and transient and no significant wider coverage has been cited to suggest that at this time that is not the case. FT2 (Talk | email) 16:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, yes. But have you ever even been to the website? Sorry, but if you really think wikipedia is perfectly reliable, sadly you're wrong. Wikipedia even admits it. This site has taken thousands of wikipedia articles and checked, rechecked, and rechecked again and again to make sure they are perfectly reliable. Within a few years this site is basically going to be a perfectly reliable wikipedia. We could at least do it a little honor by fixing it up some and giving it its own article. Sorry if I offended anyone or "offended wikipedia", but there are lots of people out there who don't trust wikipedia because anyone can change it to say anything. Sadly this site is trying to take wikipedia's articles and make them so that everyone can "trust them". Thanks   jj137 (Talk) 20:22, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be missing the essential point. We don't write articles because the subjects have an ideology or lofty goal that we agree with or not. The concerns here are whether the article meets our notability guidelines for websites and whether this runs afoul of various issues discussed in WP:NOT. No one here is claiming that Wikipedia is reliable, nor is anyone saying that Veropedia is a bad idea. The issue is whether we really have enough material to write a worthwhile article about it. (And incidentally, I don't think that "Strongest Keep Possible" is going to have much of a different result than "Strong Keep" especially given that admins generally treat "Strong Keep" pretty close to "keep" anyways and aren't very fond of calls for keeping based on ILIKEIT) JoshuaZ 20:36, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And again, I realize that. I'll try to summarize what I'm trying to say in a sentence (or half-sentence): per Jeffrey below. Sufficient press coverage. Sorry, I guess it was kind of hard to get my point across.   jj137 (Talk) 22:35, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"I think we can reasonably expect more reliable sources to be appearing" ... This is not useful at AFD. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. FT2 (Talk | email) 13:09, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CRYSTAL says "Wikipedia is not a collection of unverifiable speculation. All articles about anticipated events must be verifiable" - that's not an issue here. CRYSTAL is to rule out things like Rocky 7 or movies that exist only in speculation from directors. There's no CRYSTAL issue here. JoshuaZ 19:52, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As stated above, disagree. To recap, much of the "keep" view in this AFD is predicated upon editors' impressions what vero might or will be, or what kind of coverage might or will emerge but hasn't done so sufficiently yet (plus web coverage that would be considered too small to attest to "being notable" on almost any other AFD of a beta website). That is classic WP:CRYSTAL. One way to look at this neutrally is to ask, right now, if Veropedia did nothing more than it has done so far, if it remained a beta website with 4000 Wikipedia articles, a slashdot post and a under 5 or 6 media mentions of the concept, and nothing beyond that, would the "keep" arguments still stack up? Would we keep an article on John Doe's attempt to start an unconnected encyclopedia fork from Wikipedia, based on 4000 articles and a handful of transient mentions? That is the reason WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:CRYSTAL are applicable. The "unverified speculation" is that Veropedia will be notable as a reference site. It isn't yet, though I'm sure it will be. That again is WP:CRYSTAL. For every site that is notable, a hundred garner some brief media mention and enthusiasm. Brief mention and a promise of future profile means little. So we apply the same standard to Veropedia as to all other new announcements, we don't cut corners for it. Given the connection to Wikipedia, it's probably (especially?) a good idea to be (if anything) more diligent than usual. We can always recreate when appropriate. FT2 (Talk | email) 10:03, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
i mean, don't you people have any shame? Law/Disorder 05:27, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Throwing all your toys out of the pram because you're not getting your own way is funny, but ultimately completely unhelpful. Please just let the discussion run it's course without making personal attacks on everybody who has expressed an opinion here. Nick 11:48, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the editor is merely profressing frustration at the ability of several admins to game the Wikipedia process in order to pimp a site they're involved with? --Bogwoppit 11:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is more what WP:RS would require, but still the concern that there is no evidence that it has more than transient news interest persists. At this point WP:NOT and WP:N, the basic inclusion criteria, still seem to be quite far from met. "Beta project of a new concept website roll-out with limited commentary or note" (which is all we have really) is not really enough to support an article yet. As said, sometime, it will have one, I'm sure. But that time is not now. FT2 (Talk | email) 12:57, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't a usual concern at AFD. if needed though the page could be moved to user space, so the history is kept, the #redirect deleted or changed, and then when it's time, moved back and improved. That's probably the better way to do it. FT2 (Talk | email) 21:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Huh? Citizendium clearly has more press coverage (although it does look like citations to Larry are about 3/4s of the citations in that article). JoshuaZ 21:46, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And not necessarily just the article, in their case. Have they picked a licence yet ? Nick 22:44, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Let's stay on topic, shall we? VanTucky Talk 22:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Aww. And they still haven't settled on a licence. Nick 23:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Post office boxes in St. Petersburg. WilyD 18:10, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's because it is a post-office box used by Danny. It has already been pointed out that this doesn't look so good. JoshuaZ 18:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, it mentions different boxes (#358 for the Foundation, and #354 for Veropedia). Heaven forbid two people who live in the same town to use the same post office! Oh heavens, the scandal! ^demon[omg plz] 21:08, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Btw, is Veropedia really a rival? Isn't it a partner/colleague encyclopedia? Aec·is·away talk 16:27, 7 November 2007 (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.