Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ars Technica

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The result was keep, nomination withdrawn. - Mailer Diablo 09:54, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ars Technica

Ars Technica (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Does not, in my opinion, assert notability. I came across this page reading its post at the conflict of interest noticeboard, where someone reported that writers were removing sourced, negative info about the site. Most of the references are from the site itself. delldot talk 15:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I think I owe everyone an apology: I didn't realize how notable of a site this was when I nominated it, and I should have done more homework. I think the article needs a lot of work but at this point I'd like to withdraw my nomination. delldot talk 21:39, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - constantly cited by sites like Slashdot. Well respected within the geek community. Article does need work, mind - Alison^☺ 15:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep While I suppose the COI concerns could be true or not, I don't know, the site itself is a widely cited news source, so I have no problem accepting that it can meet WP:WEB. Mister.Manticore 15:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. While the article is a piece of fluff, it's certainly a notable site and more than meets WP:WEB. Wizard needs work badly! fethers 15:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep but needs work, and watching to stop the restoration of fluff (such as the now-deleted history of the site's colour scheme). Tearlach 16:05, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, widely respected news site with a 1,394 traffic ranking on Alexa. --DrewSears 16:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and fix. Artw 17:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Very notable website with Alexa rank of 1,394 (and has been in the top 1000 a number of times). Definitely needs cleanup and better referencing though. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:51, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep I can't believe deletion was even considered. The article needs work, but the site is quite notable. --Guess Who 19:45, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep What is this about, anyway? htom 20:57, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Voting to delete this is ridiculous. This is one of the most senior and respected websites on the topic on the internet. Graeme Hefner 21:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Trying to remove this page on the grounds of notability shows that the nominator couldn't be bothered to even peripherally research the subject of the article. - Debuskjt 22:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep This site is clearly notable, though the article needs a lot of work --Zarek 23:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Absolutely. Ars Technica is highly notable. Article just needs to reflect that unfortunately. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 00:05, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Ars Technica is nothing more than a source of left-liberal political propaganda and Apple fetishism. It has been going downhill for years. DrPizza 00:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Can I be the first to say that Apple Fetishism sounds seriously kinky :) But either way, we're after facts here, not POV - Alison^☺ 00:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Apple fetish sites are non-notable, due to their sheer abundance. DrPizza 11:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Frankly, with the sheer level of abuse this article takes, I think we'd all be happier if it just went away. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kennedye (talk • contribs) 00:30, 17 March 2007 (UTC).

Comment: Kennedye is a forum moderator at Ars, so this comment may be taken as a conflict of interest of the user is indeed the same. Full disclosure: I'm a regular reader and forumite at Ars, so I won't express my opinion on the discussion as a whole. Daveydweeb (^chat/_review!) 01:30, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Sorry folks, but your opinion of the content of a website nor any problem with vandalism with the article is grounds for deletion. Mister.Manticore 00:49, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep ArsTechnica is a notable news source and a large online community. The article needs more work, but does not deserve deletion on the noted grounds. Marklyon 02:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Definitely notable. Maxamegalon2000 05:12, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. This is ridiculous, right? We have quite a number of articles that use Ars Technica as a reliable source. Oh, and for what it's worth, User:DrPizza and User:Kennedye, the only people to vote for deletion thus far, are both both moderators on Ars Technica's forums. -/- Warren 10:10, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment, Possible Delete Being the person who recommended this be checked for COI, I am not looking for deletion. However, I wonder if deletion is the only way to keep this article from being fluff, as there are too many Ars members, writers, and staff who are willing to take all negative information out of the article in the interest of promoting the site. As for Ars being notable due to postings on Slashdot, that makes no sense. Slashdot posts a lot of garbage from anyone willing to submit stories summaried from other sites. For the record, Warrens is taking this opportunity to claim that I am a sock puppet. Considering the manner of my edits, which are far different than the edits of other people, no less talented (of course), I find it hard to believe that he actually believes that. Of course, when much of your life has been spent protecting an article, you may lose perspective. I would be happy to identify any and all edits that I made to the article, ending sometime last summer (I gave up).--216.227.57.119 11:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Anon editors who are only interested in putting negative information into an article, hmm, could they be sockpuppets of someone with a grudge? If the only "meat" you have to offer is bad mouthing the subject, your additions should be being deleted, IMarrogantO. htom 13:14, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Umm, hello? "Anon editors" weren't the only ones trying to restore the criticism section (a section of similar sort is in the Slashdot article, and doesn't get attacked all the time). In fact, there was maybe only one other "anon" editor besides me that I can remember. And it wasn't bad mouthing. It was sourced criticism, mostly not added by me (though I did try to add sources for those who demanded it). BTW, offtopic, but is that an MST3K nick? I love that episode.--216.227.57.119 21:04, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest is not a reason to delete this article. There are thousands upon thousands of people who attempt to manipulate Wikipedia's content for negative reasons. And it's not posting on Slashdot that decide me, but references by numerous other news sources including the Guardian and Zdnet. Mister.Manticore 15:56, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I was merely responding to the attribution of importance attached with having your articles or summaries of other articles posted on Slashdot.--216.227.57.119 21:04, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, say what you will, Slashdot is at least a selective news aggregator, so they do have some value in determining a given source's merits, but as they're not the only site to reference Ars Technica, it's not worth quibbling over. Mister.Manticore 00:52, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Since all the "criticism" was totally retarded (insofar as it was substantially fabricated and consistently unsupported) it was not unreasonable to remove it. Articles about extant web pages are in any case generally worthless; if you want to know what Ars Technica's about, stick the frigging URL into your web browser and take a look. You don't need an "encyclopaedia" entry about it. Articles like this one seem only to cater to those lunatics who believe that if it's not on Wikipedia it doesn't exist. Such articles can only ever be fluff, because there's nothing substantive to say. At least Slashdot is somewhat notable, due to the way it functions as a DoS tool. DrPizza 11:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. A walk through the article's history since April 2005 reveals what its main problem was all along: the propensity of Ars Technica partisans to treat an encyclopedia article as if Wikipedia is a webspace provider. Several NPOV editors have it on their watchlists now, so those few who still try to revert it to its former corrupted condition find their intentions frustrated very quickly. — Athænara ✉ 10:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment While it probably would have been ideal for delldot to do a bit of research before listing the article for AFD I'm of the opinion it was a fair move. Articles should establish the notability of their topic indepedently of anything else. Articles which fail completely to do so are the ones at fault when they are listed for deletion, not the editors who list them. Editors IMHO should not be expected to do independent research on the subject of an article outside of what is already in the article when listing an article for deletion (even if it is usually wise). This is doubly the case when the article is of a resonable size and has existed for a resonable period of time. If a clearly noteable topic is listed for deletion because the editor was unaware it was a noteable topic because the article failed completely to establish that; it usually has the beneficial effect of making people aware that an article is in dire straits (although this should definitely never be even of slightest consideration in listing an article for deletion). Point being, this is the way wikipedia is supposed to work... Nil Einne 14:26, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep This is very notable. mrholybrain's talk 15:16, 18 March 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.