Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MeatballWiki (2nd nomination)

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. Bduke (talk) 08:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] MeatballWiki

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

Navel gazing. While many Wikipedians (especially the older ones) have heard of MeatballWiki, it has no notability in the outside world. Although the article has existed since 2001 (created by an editor who described it as a "shameless plug to fill in dangling link"), it has virtually no secondary sources. All the inlined citations link to wikis and other forms of content that fail WP:RS. There are only two mentions of MeatballWiki in mainstream media, both of which are listed in external links. They are as follows:

• A New York Times (Associated Press) article from September 2004: "At its core, a Wiki is an empty room, devoid of furniture and decoration, said Sunir Shah, founder of an online community called Meatball. Visitors bring the personality and mission, turning the Wiki into a library, a party or a conference room." [1] Note that the mention is only in passing.
• A BusinessWeek article from June 2004: "The many guides to the wiki world are good to check out. One of the most popular is Meatball Wiki, a sort of community conscience for wiki makers and travelers, with tips and philosophical discussion about the nature of online communities." [2]

That's it. Two sentences in reliable sources for a site that has existed for over half a decade. We need to hold ourselves to the same guidelines we apply to garage bands. MeatballWiki fails our web notability guidelines: specifically, "content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself" (No), "the website or content has won a well-known and independent award from either a publication or organization" (No), and "The content is distributed via a medium which is both respected and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster" (No).

Frankly, some of the arguments in the last AFD were nothing short of embarrassing. One user said, "This article has been on Wikipedia for over 4 years, and Meta often refers to Meatball". Another said that "it meets my "heard of this thing outside of Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects a few times" gut feeling criterion". These should have been disregarded because they do not accord with Wikipedia deletion policy. If someone wants a Wikipedia: namespace or Meta article on meatball, that's fine — but this is not an encyclopedia article. *** Crotalus *** 06:06, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep --- And here on Wired. Why did you renominate this? Apart from the nom, it was a unanimous keep last time. --- tqbf 06:10, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • "It was kept before" is not a valid argument. Your citation of Wired is more substantial, but it still involves a small handful of sentences — no one has ever written an actual article on MeatballWiki in any reputable publication, online or off. It flagrantly fails to meet WP:WEB, and the arguments last time almost all amount to "I like it". *** Crotalus *** 20:00, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

    It wasn't just kept; it was kept almost unanimously, in a well-attended debate. Why have you chosen to nominate it again? --- tqbf 01:01, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Well-known and mentioned on Wired...definitely notable. The article needs help, but deletion is not the answer here. SaveThePoint (talk) 09:00, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • MeatballWiki is not notable in the real world. If it were, there would have been at least one article written specifically about it. Read the requirements on WP:WEB. *** Crotalus *** 20:00, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Sometimes I wish it weren't the case (like fictional virtual game subcharacters or whathaveyou), but notability outside a particular community doesn't appear to be necessary for inclusion as long as the entry is sufficiently notable inside the community. Ψν^Psi_nu 14:57, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • In fact, articles on video game characters with no substantial real-world references are now generally merged into the parent articles. All articles must meet Wikipedia policy on reliable sources. *** Crotalus *** 20:00, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
• May I ask a question? It seems that the "standard" here is WP:WEB and this article doesn't meet it. Elsewhere it is suggested that other articles in a similar state are merged up into a parent article of sorts. So what's the parent article for MeatballWiki? Coccyx Bloccyx (talk) 23:19, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • There really isn't one, though I suppose it might merit a mention in the Wikipedia article. Moving it into project space (to Wikipedia:MeatballWiki) and rewriting it to look more like a project space page might also work. *** Crotalus *** 23:44, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
    • If there is a parent article, it is wiki, or perhaps history of wikis. Our article on the closely related UseModWiki was moved to Project space by you without discussion, although it might be practicable to merge the two if consensus necessitated (I don't think that's the direction things are going, though). --Dhartung | Talk 01:09, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. -- the wub "?!" 23:39, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - notable and actually rather influential. It's not navel gazing to cover the history of wikis any more than it's navel gazing to cover the history of operating systems and LED monitors (you're using one now, aren't you?).Wikidemo (talk) 00:00, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
  • If it is indeed "notable and actually rather influential," then you should be able to find non-trivial, reliable sources discussing it. If you find any, please include them in the article. *** Crotalus *** 00:07, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
    • "should" and "will bother doing so as a casual participant in a snowball keep deletion discussion" are two different things. People advocating articles for deletion ought to take some time themselves to figure these things out. Wikidemo (talk) 19:59, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, there are actually quite a few citations in Google Scholar demonstrating its importance to the Wiki community and history. --Dhartung | Talk 01:09, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Dhartung, said Google Scholar citations just need to be integrated into the article. (jarbarf) (talk) 21:26, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. As I understand, the first notability criteria for websites boils down to asking whether the website has been the subject of published works, meaning hardcopy publications. However, these notability guidelines are "rough guidelines which most Wikipedia editors use to decide" whether a website should have an article, rather than legally binding criteria set in stone. Let's try to look at the big picture. I think I have shown in my articles on the History of wikis and Sunir Shah (recently deleted without my having a chance to participate in the discussion) that Sunir Shah and MeatballWiki have both played a central role in the historical development of wikis, first because MeatballWiki was the primary SisterSite to break away from Ward Cunningham's WikiWikiWeb, following the spectacular deletions of the WikiReductionists, and secondly because Sunir first applied to wikis a whole range of key concepts that have become a central part of wiki culture, such as WikiOnWiki reflection, wiki as community, barnraising, barn stars and more. The fact that this history is as yet only recorded on digital media does nothing to diminish its importance. Let's try to lift our range of vision and appreciate what is really important in the global scheme of things, rather than remaining tied to petty procedural questions which only hide the reality of the issue. Redeyed Treefrog (talk) 21:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Comment No, reliable sources are not limited to hardcopy. It does exclude sources with unclear editorial authority such as blogs and college newspapers. As wikis may be edited by anyone, they are generally not a reliable source. An article about a wiki may cautiously cite the wiki for information about it, but wouldn't be sufficient to demonstrate notability by itself. --Dhartung | Talk 23:22, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you for this clarification Dhartung. What you're saying then is that Wikipedia itself, as a wiki, is not a reliable source. But all of this enormous effort devoted to correcting or deleting articles would seem to be aimed precisely at making Wikipedia into a reliable source. This contradiction shows how much work still needs to be done to clarify the philosophical underpinnings of the whole Wikipedia project (to say nothing of increasing its internal democracy, which is so easily subverted by abusive use of administrative privilege). - Redeyed Treefrog (talk) 13:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• Instead of speculating, you should read WP:V. Wikipedia is definitely not a reliable source for WP articles. --- tqbf 14:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
• Note that Wikipedia, as an enycylopedia, is a tertiary source. Wikis can be reliable tertiary sources; or at least we all hope so--otherwise we all are wasting our time. Wikis are generally unsuitable as secondary sources, due to unclear editorial authority. Wikis can be acceptable as primary sources, particularly about themselves--particularly those with good versioning capabilities (i.e. most modern wikis in existence). As most of WP's sources are secondary, other wikis are generally not good references for us to use. But citing a wiki concerning itself (WP cites project and metaspace itself when it covers itself) is generally, acceptable. --EngineerScotty (talk) 18:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

• Keep, recommend closing debate per WP:SNOW. Article does need improvement though. --EngineerScotty (talk) 18:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: It depresses me to read the nominator make a distinction between the "real world" and the Internet. — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 09:53, 3 January 2008 (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.