Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Photo.net

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. The raw total is 5-3 Delete. One Keep commentor has five edits, non (except here) since May. If, for the sake of argument, we discount that and add the nameless original nominator, it shifts to 6-2 Delete. While the Keep commentors make good points, they don't refute that it doesn't meet WP:WEB, which is a pretty strong point. Thus, Delete. Herostratus 06:13, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photo.net

non-notable usenet. AfD started by another user, but didn't finish process. I agree with delete Akradecki 23:21, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Fails WP:WEB - nothing to suggest why this site is notable. Thryduulf 01:08, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. One of the most well-known photography sites/user communities/image galleries. I've heard of the site a lot of times outside of Wikipedia. Has a notable founder (Philip Greenspun). Google says 39,600 incoming links, Alexa ranking 1,719. Need I continue? --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 09:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. You need not continue, but you could add a claim to notability per WP:WEB to the article, along with WP:RS to back it up, as required by WP:WEB. Failing that it's a delete, Alexa or not. Sandstein 21:34, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Ergh. Don't take it that way. =) For the record, I'm not an active user of the site.
    I have my highly practical "web notability gut feeling" thing: 1) have I heard of the thing outside Wikipedia? Often? 2) Does it appear to have tons of user after a short scrutiny? 3) Does it appear to be well-established (long history, frequently linked to/discussed about, etc). The rationale being that generally, WP:WEB seems to follow from this - a famous site gets media recognition etc. I was merely trying to hint that yes, in fact, it's a big site; yes, it's probably worth doing the kind of research you're suggesting. My point being, it probably qualifies; if it had more of the material you're asking there, we wouldn't be having this debate.
    It's just that personally, I don't have a clue myself on where to begin researching for the notability issues. Like I said, I'm not an active user of the site, and know little about them. So, if anyone who uses the site and actually knows anything would bother to dig these issues up - I'd hate to see this thing die right here because it doesn't have sources or references now... --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 08:53, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
    • I quite understand your gut feeling (although I can't verify it because photo.net is down as of now), but I'm reluctant to keep a not-very-good, vanity-laden article because of it. We can agree, I think, that a delete verdict should not be a barrier to the recreation of a well-sourced article, but per WP:RS, we shouldn't bother to have an article until someone can be bothered to do the research. Sandstein 07:07, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. The software behind photo.net was packaged up and given away as the free open-source ArsDigita Community System, which then served as the foundation for thousands of other online communities worldwide. The experience that the programmers and publisher had running photo.net were shared with thousands of people worldwide in free online books such as http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.96.163.250 (talk • contribs).

And that's not a claim to notability under WP:WEB, nor is it sourced. Sandstein 04:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. The origin of photo.net was Philip Greenspun's Travels with Samantha (http://photo.net/samantha/) which won Best of the Web in 1994. [reference: http://botw.org/1994/awards/design.html] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 199.94.1.9 (talk • contribs).

That's a dead link, and possibly an argument for the notability of "Travels with Samantha", but not for photo.net. Sandstein 07:07, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete for failing WP:WEB - lacks multiple third-party non-trivial articles about it, no national awards. The reason Google isn't the final arbiter of notability is because it's not entirely accurate on its face: Yes, you get 4.4 million general hits from "photo.net", but only 80 are distinct hits, and of those 80 most don't have anything to do with Photo.net. Most of these are similarly-named sites like aircraft-photo.net, and so, and this says a lot about the notability. Yes, the traffic on the site is good, but that's not notability either (it's not a popularity contest). See WP:WEB for guidelines to improve the article. Tychocat 11:18, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per Tychocat. --MaNeMeBasat 14:59, 10 September 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.