Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Al-islam.org (second nomination)

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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, no reliable sources showing notability. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 16:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Al-islam.org

Al-islam.org (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

This page does not qualify as notable in that there are no independent sources for it. It had a previous nomination over a year ago, which ended in no consensus (here) but the main reason to keep was popularity, which does not qualify under WP:WEB. This is a very similar case to the (currently ongoing) AfD for Rafed.net - a reasonably popular website which lacks any non-trivial independent sources from which to construct an article. Trebor 20:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment (negative) To quote WP:WEB:

Discussions of websites should be incorporated (with a redirect if necessary) into an article about the parent organization, unless the domain-name of the website is the most common way of referring to the organization. For example, yahoo.com is a redirect to Yahoo!. On the other hand Drugstore.com is a standalone page.

To me, that indicates that this article should be a redirect to Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Library Project, which is the parent organization, and their only claim to notability, through a 2003 essay from George Mason University. As currently written, this article is just an advertisement for the website, with multiple images uploaded from the website and multiple links to the same pages on the website. The repeated references to Yahoo! popularity have nothing to do with providing a reliable source of their notability as defined by the WP:WEB criteria ... the same arguments have been made at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rafed.net and apply here for the same reasons, so please read that discussion first ... also review the edit history and talk:Al-islam.org to review attempts by the author to hinder bringing it into line with Wikipedia guidelines. 72.75.72.174 20:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Islam-related deletions. --   ⇒ bsnowball  14:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
  • stong keep i dont care what the guidline says, but if it states that the number one Shi'a Islamic site according to Yahoo and google does not fulfill its criteria, then theres something wrong with the guideline or your interpretation of it. --Striver - talk 16:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment Yahoo and Google's ratings should count for nothing, I've already stated that on the discussion page for this article and explained why. Yahoo's so-called "popularity" rankings are useless, since we don't know how exactly they rate them and it isn't necessarily even based on popularity: "Sites that are most popular with users or the most relevant to the category appear at the top of the site listings" (emphasis added) http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/dir/basics/basics-21.html See also http://www.google.com/technology/index.html Шизомби 14:08, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment I believe that a more appropriate link for Google Directory (as opposed to Google Search) would be http://www.google.com/dirhelp.html ... they're really two different things, but still, Directory does not satisfy WP:V. --72.75.72.174 14:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment The Google link I gave above is for information about their PageRank, which determines "importance" in the Directory. Шизомби 19:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep because when we debate on reliable ref. such page can help us a lot. --Sa.vakilian 19:00, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Exactly, this site is a reliable source for Shi'a Islam material, Google even raised its page ranking to 8 out of 10. --Striver - talk 08:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak delete per IP user above. CRGreathouse (t | c) 10:08, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak Delete, fails WP:WEB: no convincing independant, third-party, non-trivial coverage has been provided for this website. if such coverage can be found i may reconsider my decision. if such coverage only exists in another language then it should be provided, although it is more appropriate for the article to be present on that language wiki. Google/Yahoo/Alexa rankings/overviews by themselves are not sufficient, and using this as a measure simply opens the floodgates to masses of other similarly oft-visited but non-notable websites which are listed on those websites. some valid arguments presented by 72.75. ITAQALLAH 17:50, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Could you provide me an example of those articles risking to flood wikipedia, ie, a popular site that is non-notable? --Striver - talk 18:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, let's start with one for Harley Quinn, a comic book character with lots of fan websites, any one of which is a "popular site that is non-notable", i.e., does not satisfy WP:WEB:
It is listed in the Top Three on all of the following web directories in the same category, i.e., "Harley Quinn":
  1. Top > Arts > Comics > Titles > B > Batman > Harley Quinn. Alexa.
  2. Directory > Entertainment > Comics and Animation > Comic Books > Titles > DC > Harley Quinn. Yahoo! Directory.
  3. Arts > Comics > Titles > B > Batman > Harley Quinn. Google Directory.
Or you can pick any of these websites:
All of them are listed in at least two (if not all three) of the above cited directories, and they are all in the Top Five for each directory in which they are listed, with "Gotham Girls" even coming in first on two of them ... that's four examples of websites on the same subject with the same web directory category, which by your logic and arguments are each sufficiently notable for a Wikipedia article based solely on their ranking ... now, do you want me to find any more examples? --72.75.72.174 20:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
That is hardly a fair comparison.A minor figure is not analog to a religious denomination, maybe DC comics would be analogous to Shi'a Islam. Does any of the Harley_Quinn sites have a Google page rank of 8? A google page rank of 8 says a lot, consider that wikipedia itself has that page rank - so please give a equivalent comparison, a character top-ten list and a world-religion denomination top-ten list are not comparable. The smaller the subject the fewer sites and the more non-notable the site will be, obviously, hence the injustice in the comparison. --Striver - talk 02:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment I still don't think Google's page ranks are significant, and they don't speak to the reliability of the page. Aren't there any signifiant publications you can cite that write about this website? Шизомби 03:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
The example is exactly the kind of "similarly oft-visited but non-notable websites" to which User:Itaqallah was alluding ... the argument is,

harley-quinn.com satisfies WP:WEB because it is one of the most popular Harley Quinn websites according to the rankings on Alexa, Yahoo! Directory, and Google Directory.

That is the crux of your argument about Al-islam.org. And I agree with User:Schizombie that PageRank does not satisfy WP:V or WP:RS for claims of "importance", "popularity", or whatever you want to call it. But allowing it for one means allowing it for all, and what one editor called a "floodgate", I would have called a "slippery slope", which my example demonstrates.
And the example is a perfectly fair one, because "(a) the notability of the subject of the website (i.e., Harley Quinn) has already been established by the fact of having a Wikipedia article, (b) it is "notable" enough that all three web directories have a category for the same "minor character", (c) it is either the highest ranked or is among the top three highest ranked on all three of the most respected web directories, ergo, WP:WEB guidelines should be ignored." ... that is exactly the same as your argument, just substitute "Al-islam.org" and "Shi'a" for "harley-quinn.com" and "Harley Quinn". --72.75.72.174 05:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete no reliable sources. Find some and you can keep the article. Guy (Help!) 20:18, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
JzG, why do you not regard an Google page rank of 8 as a proof of notability? --Striver - talk 11:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
How about this? And here is a swedish short coverage of the site. Another one... and another --Striver - talk 13:22, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment The policy behind the WP:WEB guideline for notability is WP:RS, and web directories and PageRanks like Google do not satisfy that, nor do any of the references you have just cited. --72.75.72.174 14:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Striver, I did not mention notability. If this site has not been the primary focus of multiple non-trivial coverage in reliable independent sources then we can't verify its neutrality. Doesn't matter how popular it is. Guy (Help!) 15:00, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
JzG, wich one of [1], [2], [3], [4] and [5] is not a "non-trivial coverage"? Remember that the quote from WP:WEB is "The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself.". Note that the independent sources does not need to be notable. even when the search is closed to only ".edu" sites, it produces almost 1000 hits: [6]. 28 hits on google books [7]. --Striver - talk 16:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
btw, what do you mean by "we can't verify its neutrality"? --Striver - talk 17:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Duke, help me out, because i don't get it. Why are the above sources not enough to establish notability? --Striver - talk 10:56, 31 December 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.