Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rafed.net

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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 No consensus to delete, so keep. However, the oppose reasons need to be addressed or the article will be susceptible to another AfD. Tyrenius 00:40, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rafed.net

Rafed.net (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

72.75.72.174 (talk · contribs) requested I list this at AfD, so I am doing so. I removed the CSD, because the article makes at least one genuine claim of importance. According to 72, that claim isn't backed up by reliable sources, and I don't endorse or dispute that, but I think AfD is a more appropriate venue to settle this issue. So consider this no "vote", but I'd obviously support deletion if no sources emerge. W.marsh 18:44, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Delete unless sourced. I couldn't find any independent coverage on Google or Google News, so there doesn't appear to be anything from which to construct an article. Trebor 18:52, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep When determining a sites notability, the amoung of people adhering to that religion must be considered. Considering that most Shi'a live in non-western countries, the site has a remarkably high Alexa rating, even higher than al-Islam.org, in fact 3-4 times higher rating. And then it should be noted that al-Islam.org is the highest ranked Shi'a site by Yahoo. Now, add to that a google seach gives almost 70k hits, and it becomes very hard to argue that this is a non-notable shi'a site. --Striver - talk 20:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Using the definition of notability as there being multiple, independent, non-trivial published works, then it is very easy to argue that it is "non-notable". What verifiable information can be included in the article (because anything that isn't verifiable can be removed)? Notability is not important or significance (or popularity). Trebor 20:45, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak Keep - seems like a fairly popular rating judging by its alexa rating, but it definitely needs some reliable sources per WP:V Jayden54 20:06, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Al-Islam.org linkes to it [1], so does google [2]. dont know how important this is. sistani linkes to it [3]. Blocked in Saudi Arabia [4] --Striver - talk 20:23, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
But there still isn't information from which to write an article. It should be deleted unless or until sources are found, otherwise there is nothing verifiable to put in it. Popularity, in itself, cannot guarantee an article if there's no third-party coverage. Trebor 20:45, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
" information from which to write an article"? Nor did i present it as such, presented that as a list of highly notable entities noting the site. --Striver - talk 17:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Right, so those sources have no use in creating a verifiable article, do they? The fact that these entities note the site is fairly irrelevant if that's all they do. Trebor 17:26, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete although the alexa hit is high, still no 3rd party coverage/ no other notes of notariety, thus failing WP:V SkierRMH 21:21, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete because it does not meet any of the criteria in Wikipedia:Notability (web) ... Google and Alexa measure popularity, which is not the same thing as notability ... since half of the links from the article are either broken or lead to user-hostile (try clicking "Child Encyclopedia [8]") Arabic language pages (see WP:EL#Foreign-language_links), I cannot even WP:VERIFY that the "Content" section external links are posted on the subject's website as claimed, or if it has any information of value to English readers ... if there are no Wikipedia:Reliable sources citations (and so far, all I see is a six month old search engine results page), then it does not belong here. Dennette 00:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment can an Arabic reading person read this and see if it has any valuable information?--Striver - talk 01:50, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
1st Comment (negative) User:Striver (the author) has removed the "Contents" section with the beau coup links to their site, but the remaining links are still either to non-English pages, "404 Error" pages, or a demonstrably unreliable Alexa page ... as for the link they just offered, http://www.aboutus.org/Rafed.net, quite aside from it being in a non-English language, AboutUs.org ("a website about websites that you can edit") is also not a WP:RS since we have no idea who wrote it or if it is even true (whatever it says) ... to quote Wikipedia:External links#Links normally to be avoided:
12. Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors.
2nd Comment (negative) As of this date, the Alexa ranking for Rafed.net is 15,930 ... I don't know how it works, so does that mean that it is more popular or less popular than the ranking of 11,172 (as of six months ago) that appears in the article? The point is, the numbers do not match, which means it is not current or factual information about the subject that can be verified, so it should not even be stated. Alexa's Most Popular In Shia page lists Rafed Network for Cultural Development as Number 3 today, but where will it rank six months from now? Will it even be around? (How long has it even been around? The article sure doesn't tell me.)
(modified 10:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)) Alexa also says that of the 937 sites that link to Rafed.net, Wikipedia is at #2 with a ranking of 12 (Google is #1), so what does that tell us? It tells me that either
  1. the "External link" at the end of the Abd-Allah ibn Umar article ("Shia are the real ahl ul-Sunnah", which produces a 404 error, BTW) has been drawing a lot of traffic to their site, and Wikipedia is being used to inflate their search engine rankings, or else
  2. if Wikipedia listing has no effect on Alexa and Google rankings, and Wikipedia is also the 2nd highest source of traffic to their site, then those other 936 sites each must only have Very Few links
... and we already know that most of the English language links to their site (both here and on other sites) are either bogus or have evaporated (to give them the benefit of the doubt, with no implication that the links were bad faith additions) ... I'm sure it's a very popular Arabic language site, but that has absolutely nothing to do with meeting any of the Wikipedia:Notability (web) criteria, which is the only issue open to debate.
3rd Comment (neutral) I believe that Google and Alexa results have their place in conjunction with other verifiable evidence, but search engine results by themselves are not a reliable source because their information changes from day-to-day ... there is no way to set a "minimum threshold ranking" for popularity, (e.g., "one of the top five" or "in the top 5%"), nor is there a mechanism for deletion if the site falls below that threshold when it is their only claim to notability, so in this case it Just Doesn't Matter ... but the question is moot because WP:WEB does not say anything about considering results from search engine pages as one of the three well defined criteria for notability of websites. 72.75.72.174 (talk · contribs) 06:46, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
  • answer It looks like the site has had a considerable re-work on their site map structure, and that explains all the error links. I requested the AboutUs.org link to be translated in case it provided clues as to were to find coverage, it's not unusual to include such things. Ie, i did request it to be translated as a RS. And in either case, it is a RS about what they say of themselves. #3 of the Shi'a sites on Alexa tells a lot and it is a clear indication of notability, going above al-Islam.org (#1 according to Yahoo) and also above Sistanis page, both being very well known Shi'a sites. Only that is enough to establish notability. I mean, it goes even above Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting! We don't care were it is in six month, we are looking at it's notability now. Even if it goes to zero notability in six month, it will still be notable for historical purposes. The external link at Abd-Allah ibn Umar was put there as a link to the Shi'a view of the person. Is that supposed to work against this site's notability? Strange logic. Again, al-Islam.org a site that is #1 of the Shi'a sites according to Yahoo has an Alex ranking of about 45k, while this site has 15k, making it 3 times more popular and visited than al-Islam.org. Of course does the numbers of this site change, how is that a argument against its notability? In either case, all of this is really redundant, this should alone suffice. --Striver - talk 14:50, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Popularity is not notability. Notability is multiple, non-trivial, independent sources, and for this site we just don't have them. At the moment, the article can't contain anything verifiable except its page ranking at Alexa. Read through WP:N and WP:WEB and find a criterion it meets. Trebor 15:46, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Alexa's coverage is both independent and non-trivial, right? --Striver - talk 17:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
It's highly trivial unless Alexa actually wrote a prose article with specific information about this site, not just the rating they provide for millions of sites. That's the whole need for reliable sources... if there's nothing we can say about the site beyond it's numbers that's backed up by reliable sources, there's really no article. --W.marsh 17:23, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Independent, yes, but I'd argue it's trivial. It's just a ranking in a list of sites on a particular subject - there's nothing there from which to construct an article. Trebor 17:25, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
here is it linked number 3. Here is the non-trivial coverage. Here, this small coverage explains that the site is from Qum, the center of Shi'a Islamic learning of the entire world. Guys, i would like to remind you that WP:WEB is only a guideline. WP:RS is already fullfiled by multiple sources that state that the site is a very high ranked Shi'a site. SO we know that the site is notable in the sense that it is highly popular. That is so far as the policies go. Now, considering that rafed.org has a arabic text would explain why it's hard to find long texts that cover the site in English, but that is only a guideline requirement. Ask yourself, does wikipedia benefit or not from having a stub about the third or so most visited Shi'a site, considering the large amounts of other sites on wikipedia?--Striver - talk 17:25, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
The Alexa coverage is still trivial, as is the other site - it's directory entry information. Trebor 17:32, 24 December 2006 (UTC) I quote WP:NOT: "Wikipedia articles should not exist only to describe the nature, appearance or services a website offers, but should describe the site in an encyclopedic manner". The only remotely encyclopaedic piece of information is that it is the 3rd most visited site on a particular subject according to Alexa (which isn't perfect by any means). It has stub tags, but there is no way it can be expanded without some independent coverage and, at present, it is little more than a directory entry. WP:WEB is only a guideline, but you still need a (very) compelling reason to ignore it, and popularity does not count as one. Trebor 18:36, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
According to http://www.alexa.com/browse?&CategoryID=180817 (which Striver provided) the website for Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting is the #1 "Most Popular In Shia" website, but (a) that article is not being judged based on WP:WEB criteria, and (b) it's popularity is so trivial that it's not even mentioned in the article, even though it is a verifiable fact ... that same Alexa page places The Aalulbayt (a.s.) Global Information Center (another article authored by Striver), a.k.a. al-shia.com) as #2, but again, that article doesn't have to meet WP:WEB because WP:CORP#Criteria for clubs, societies, and organizations is the most appropriate benchmark for the subject ... and since the author keeps mentioning Al-islam.org, I should point out that the article looks like it should be included in this AfD since it, too, has nothing but "popularity" by Alexa as its source of notability. --72.75.72.174 08:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I argue that this shows a flaw in the WP:WEB, and this should not surprice anybody considering that it is still in a guidline phase and has not been accepted as a policy. The bottom point is that wikipedia does not cover non-sense, small and trivial issues. We have a consensus here that this site is among the very top of the Shi'a sites regarding popularity. This is enough to establish that this is not a trivial site, no mater how lacking WP:WEB is. --Striver - talk 14:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Notability guidelines will almost certainly never be made policy as they're so heavily debated. Feel free to argue the case for popular sites with little coverage on WP:WEB if you think there's a flaw, but at present that's not the consensus decision. The site may not be "trivial" (although I'm not sure what you mean by that), but the independent coverage certainly is - that means a decent article can't be written. I'm afraid the bottom point is that Wikipedia does not cover things that have not already been covered elsewhere, regardless of their popularity. Trebor 14:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not arguing that we should scrap WP:WEB, of course not. Rather, i'm saying that this seems to be a case that is somewhat of a exception. You see, a large Christian cite will have no problem finding third part full coverage in English, while an Islamic site will have more trouble doing the same. Specially if it is a Shi'a cite. This is most probably natural bias, i mean, is it really so surprising that we have trouble finding English coverage for a mainly Arabic Shi'a Islamic site? Nobody here have tried to make an Arabic search. And we do know from the statistic and numbers available that a Christian equivalent site would have plenty of third party coverage in English. So, is it good or bad for wikipedia to delete a decidedly notable Shi'a site, only due to a lack of English coverage? As for wrting an article, we do have some facts already that are attributed to third parties, such as the Saudi Arabia ban and the numbers. And adding self-evident facts need no third party sourcing, we don't need somebody to tell us that it has a multi language Qura'an and that it has severa language and sections. I agree that we wont be able to have a large and FA article, but we can most surely have a decent stub. --Striver - talk 15:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
But a stub needs to have potential for expansion - you can't put all the available information in and say that it's a stub, as there's no way it can grow. You raise a good point with the foreign language coverage, it's possible there will be Arabic sources with more coverage of it. We could really do with someone who can speak the language to search. But I'm reluctant to include an article because it might have additional sources, and the onus to find them is on the people arguing to keep. And although you could add self-evident facts, as they have not been mentioned (to the best of our knowledge) in any outside sources, they aren't notable aspects of the site. We could add articles for any sites popular on Alexa, along with a basic précis of what's on them, but they would just be directory entries. Trebor 15:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Im not sure why this article is being deleted. But if it is popularity or significance that is being debated, I can note that the institute that runs the Rafed.net website is a large institute that has branches in 3 countries (Iran, Syria, Lebanon). (says it here in Arabic: [5]). The thing with Arabic websites is that they arent very google friendly. Try finding any website using google. Youll have to do a lot of diging. It seems google is set up in a way such that it doesnt have the search capabilities that it does in English or other languages. Maybe it's the way they put Meta tags on Arabic pages or something. But anyway, google isnt a good measure of things when dealing with Arabic websites. And even if you argued that it isn't popular enough, I'd argue that the website is a portal to a ton of information regarding the Shi'i faith. I'd definitely keep it.--Zereshk 16:48, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Read the discussion - popularity isn't an issue for deletion, a lack of verifiable information is. r (or in other words, a lack of notability). I'd be happy to keep if sources can be found. Trebor 16:53, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Zereshk just confirmed my suspicion, the problem is not that this site is not notable, the problem is that it is hard to establish this using English googel. It's popularity is not in question, and it's hard to argue that it is non-notable in the entire world, just because it has a lack of third party coverage on the english internet. Let me ask you, are you arguing that it is likely that the article has no third party Arabic coverage, considering its high popularity? --Striver - talk 17:41, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Zereshk has missed the point entirely ... http://rafed.net/aalulbayt/m8a.html cannot be used as a citation because it is from the subject's website (1st party), and WP:WEB does not include "popularity" (as measured by Google or Alexa) as one of the criteria for "notability", so it's popularity as a Shi'a website (which has never been questioned or denied) is simply not a subject for debate ... to quote WP:WEB, The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself. ... that is the only subject open to debate, and so far there are no citations to support such a claim, either in Arabic or English ... perhaps some Arabic speaker would like to add this article to the Arabic Wikipedia, but in its present state, it just does not meet the criteria for inclusion in the English Wikipedia. --72.75.72.174 18:32, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree. I honestly don't know if it will have third-party coverage - a lot of popular websites don't and thus can't have an article. However, that doesn't matter as the burden of evidence lies with the people arguing to keep - you can't keep on the basis that it might have sources. Trebor 19:08, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep google and alexa are notable third party refernces.--Sa.vakilian 18:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
    • They clearly aren't... WP:WEB. google and alexa cover millions of websites and provide nothing but numbers, no information on what the sites are actually about. Including a website because it's listed on Google is like including an article on me because I filled out the 2000 Census and have an entry in the phone book. --W.marsh 19:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
      • That is not true, we are not talking about computer generated google hits that you can manipulate, no mater how much spam you add, you will not be added to the list of most important Shi'a sites, you don't get there through spam. --Striver - talk 19:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
        • The guy I replied to is talking about the google hits and Alexa listing. --W.marsh 20:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
The Google and Alexa citations are only allowed to remain in the article in support of the assertion that the subject website "is one of the most popular Shi'a websites", otherwise they would have been removed per WP:EL, which excludes search engine results pages, but as citations they are allowed as a WP:RS for that assertion only ... and without at least one of those citations, that assertion must be removed as WP:NOR. (Just as the assertion "The site is among several Shi'a sites blocked in Saudi Arabia" will have to be removed unless a replacement can be found for the citation that has evaporated.)
Here are Alexa and Google rankings that contradict the claim of "popularity":
  1. Most Popular In Islam. Alexa Internet. Rafed.net comes in last in a list of 10 most popular websites
  2. Google Directory - Society → Religion and Spirituality → Islam. Google. Rafed.net is not in the list of 25 top websites — click "Shi'a" (the citation provided by the article) and it's #9 in the list
That is why the article may assert that the subject website is a "popular Shi'a" rather than "popular Islamic" website ... it's popularity is in a narrowly defined field ... note that neither Alexa or Google have a category of "Sunni" wesites, although both have categories of "Sufism" and "Islamic Organizations" (subject website is not listed by either Web directory in the latter category, although its parent organization might be), but if any wesites in the Top (pick any number between 1 and 5) of any of these categories have articles in Wikipedia, then they either have some claim of notability other than "popularity" that satisfies WP:WEB, or else they should be AfD'd as well.
In summary, Alexa and Google may be used as citations for assertions of popularity, but popularity is not a factor in considering notability as defined by WP:WEB, which requires that something has been published about them besides the anonymous rankings made by some Internet bot that tabulates hits and links. --72.75.72.174 21:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I dissagree, the "top ten list" is not page ranking based on Google hits, it is a third party assertion to it's notability. Sure, a pure google search gives 67 000 hits, and i can agree that is not a third party assertion, but when google adds it as number nine to its own list of most popular Shi'a sites: Society > Religion and Spirituality > Islam > Shia and Alexia makes it number three on its list, that is most certainly two third party assertion, that is a direct non-trivial statment from Google and Alexa and not something derived from their search engine or general statistics. --Striver - talk 09:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
No one denies that the Google Directory is the same kind of web directory as Yahoo! Directory, which has nothing whatsoever to do with Google search results. However, since Alexa Popularity, Google Directory, and Yahoo! Directory rankings only contain trivial information about the subject websites, and they do not meet the WP:V or WP:RS criteria to satisfy WP:NOTE, then even being first on the list for all three web directories would not matter (note that Playboy.com does not even mention their ranking on any web directories, even though it's relative popularity in its own special category is probably higher than the subject's) ... you are welcome to try to change WP:WEB to allow popularity rankings as a criteria instead of WP:V, but until the guideline is changed, the consensus opinion is that such rankings by themselves lack sufficient notability for inclusion of a website in Wikipedia ... besides saying, "this website gets more traffic than most others in the same category", they do not offer any information that is non-trivial, and it does not matter which ones or how many of them say it. --72.75.72.174 10:22, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not saying that it is notable since its in a directory, im saying it's notable since it is among the top of notable directories, that's a huge difference. Google saying it's Number one = does not establish notability? I simply do not agree. I could agree that it does not bring in lots of other usefull info such as when was it created and what's the creator name and such, sure, but it most certainly establishes that the article is notable. Were going round in circles, if you want to argue that Google is not a RS for notability, you go ahead and believe so.--Striver - talk 10:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
What I believe does not matter ... Wikipedia:Verifiability#Sources of dubious reliability (which is an official policy, not just a guideline) says:

In general, sources of dubious reliability are sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no fact-checking facilities or editorial oversight.

If you can demonstrate that Google Directory, Alexa Popularity, or Yahoo! Directory has any fact-checking facilities or editorial oversight, then I will no longer consider them dubious, which is rather the opposite of reliable, as sources. --72.75.72.174 11:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
lol! omg, i can't believe you actually wrote that! ... i rest my case. --Striver - talk 15:10, 28 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.