Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/NNDB

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 of the debate was Keep. — Apr. 26, '06 [07:56] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

[edit] NNDB

Was given {{prod}}, removed with odd edit summary so brought here instead.
NNDB does not appear to satisfy the guideline for inclusion of websites. Google news only shows a single line in a single "net guide" column in the Edmonton Sun. While a Google search does return 24,600 hits, there are only 150 unique. Even with this dearth of hits, almost none of these are about the NNDB, but are all of the order of "See Britney/Cher/Hawking/brenneman at the Notable Names Database." This page is heavily linked thanks to having its own template but as there is no independant verification possible it should be deleted.
brenneman^{L} 23:48, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

There's been some back-and-forth on this nomination of mine. Please don't edit other people's signed comments, rebut them in your own space. - brenneman^{L} 07:58, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, sorry about the protocol breach. I was not sure what the right thing to do was. I will merely note that the statement of "150 unique" is false, and to see the fourth bullet point below. Quatloo 08:32, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Other details:

• Alexa ranking is 3,757, which indicates a traffic of 150-200,000 unique visitors/day. By contrast, the website for the Biography Channel (an American cable channel, which also publishes its own magazine, Biography) is 34,893, and Encyclopedia Britannica is 2,864.
• It is far and away the most popular website on the Internet devoted to general biography.

Someone asked for a citation. A proper citation is not specifically necessary here because this is not an article. However, I will humor you, so I did this: [1] (Yahoo) and [2] (DMOZ), plus [3] and [4] (the top 100 results for Google searches of Biography or Biographies, extracting anything that purported to be a site devoted to general biography). All I correlated with [5], Alexa. That dragnet, simple as it is, would certainly have unearthed any site that met the criteria. Nothing came close.

• Almost nobody refers to it as the Notable Names Database, which explains the dearth of hits with that name.
• The figure of "150 unique results" returned in a Google search, given in the AfD above is patently false. This person simply went to the end of the Google results and assumed that since there were no more results returned by Google, that is all there is and all pages are copies of these. This is wrong. For reasons of speed, Google trims the results -- this does not mean this is all the unique ones there are. This is true of all searches. By this person's logic, there are only 856 unique results returned for the English word "cat", which is simply absurd. The message displayed on the last Google page returned for "cat" (86th page) is, "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 857 already displayed." Out of 676,000,000 total results. Under this presumption, 99.99987% of all web pages are duplicates of others. Of course your mileage may vary depending on which Google datacenter you hit.

• NN D. -B (Not actually a "vote" --SPUI (T - C - RFC - Curpsbot problems) 07:21, 18 April 2006 (UTC))

• Delete. Being the most popular biographical website on the Internet is certainly notable on its face, but I would be amused to see this article removed on a technicality. Quatloo 09:21, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I certainly don't see where having this is harming anything. It is a real website and gets a decent amount of traffic. mikemoto, 10:49, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, and it's little template too.-- Jeandré, 2006-04-19t18:32z
• Keep. Nothing wrong here. Iloveparis 00:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Per Quatloo's (regrettably unsigned) information. Something that hasn't been mentioned is though it's kept at arm's length for various (and obvious) reasons, the NNDB is part of Rotten.com. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 18:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Usefull site for anyone editing a living person bio , deserves a Wikipedia explanation of its origin and reliability. Lumos3 19:51, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I was always under the impression that Wikipedia was an encyclopedia. It doesn't matter if you like the site, agree with the site, or visit the site, it gets thousands of visits each day and certainly warrants a page on Wikipedia. Any bias that it has can be included and discussed on the article page. --MZMcBride 02:55, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. This site is very heavily trafficked. Rainman420 19:48, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. DO BONGS Jerkcity 20:59, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. No reason to delete this. Xihr 21:08, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Heptapod 21:44, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Did anyone gave a valid reason to delete already?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dariopy (talk • contribs) 2006-04-23t22:53:18z.
  • Other than the guideline for inclusion of websites and the apparent lack of verification for it's notability in reliable sources you mean? No, other than the bedrock upon which an encyclopedia is based, I don't think anyone has. - brenneman^{L} 05:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
    • You are fat.Jerkcity 05:22, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
      • I'm just big-boned. - brenneman^{L} 07:54, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete unless sources are provided. Steve block The wikipedian meme 09:13, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. As the nominator has been informed many times, non-notability of a verifiable item is not grounds for deletion. The website exists and is described by the article. Any unverifiable statements in the article can be removed, but this will still leave a useful article. We should not remove verifiable information from Wikipedia without a very, very good reason. --Tony Sidaway 17:50, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • If Reliable sources are provided for information about this article, then everyone is happy. Barring that, "unverifiable statements" currently encompasses the entire article. I'll spare everyone the quote from WP:V that says that the onus for verification is on those who whish material to be included. - brenneman^{L} 22:55, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
    • So then correct the statements, don't delete the article. Xihr 00:17, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Probably more than 99% of the facts presented in Wikipedia are unsourced. I would not be surprised if the true figure were closer to 99.98% unsourced or thereabouts. The most important statements to source are those that are controversial or those that have misinformation floating about. Delete every unsourced statement in Wikipedia and you will delete nearly all of it. This is indeed a problem. Quatloo 02:25, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
      • I'll resist the impish urge to put {{fact}} after those statistics! ^_^ The way to solve the problem (whatever its magnitude) is not to run to the least common denominator. Remove things that don't have sources, coach and guide people to include sources, that's the way to solve that problem, but that's not what we're discussing here. We don't vote on verification, and I've yet to see a single source provided for this article. - brenneman^{L} 03:13, 26 April 2006 (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.