Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sucks.com

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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. - Mailer Diablo 13:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sucks.com

Unsourced, spammy neologism. Delete. --Nlu (talk) 14:45, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Delete per WP:WEB, may possibly look like a CSD-A7 candidate. --Arnzy (talk ·  contribs) 14:53, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Doesn't qualify there since it's not about a Web site named sucks.com; rather, it's about a genre of Web sites. --Nlu (talk) 15:06, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete - The article is surprisingly wordy considering it could just as easily be summed up as "A sucks.com is a website devoted to saying something sucks." I figured that much out before even clicking the link. Also, there are a lot of external links, and no sources cited for the term. Coincidentally, I think this qualifies for deletion under WP:No Articles that Suck. -bobby 14:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Redirect to Suck.com as a plausible typo or possibly delete. ColourBurst 15:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete - No article should have more external hyperlinks than actual content. Chris Kreider 16:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete Spam, original research, non-notable neologism and conflict of interest. WP:VSCA.--Húsönd 05:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. Anomo 11:53, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Retain: As the main author, I would naturally argue that this article should be retained. This type of website is important. As mentioned in the article, it is only medium which in the event of a grievance, puts ordinary people on a more level platform with big business, bearing in mind that litigation is often ruled out as an avenue for redress because of the costs involved. One contributor has suggested a conflict of interest but any such information and/or links can be deleted rather than deleting the entire article. I would just add for the record that I have no involvement in any business of any kind. Websites in which I am involved are all entirely non-commercial with no subcription charges, donations or paid advertising. User: Johnadonovan. 1 November 2006
  • Retain: This is a great article about how complaints are voiced in the 21st Century. At the minimum this site could be moved to Gripe Site
  • Delete per nom --Mhking 19:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Retain: First, I should mention that one of the websites mentioned in the article, WillowBendMallSucks.com (more commonly known as TaubmanSucks.com), is mine. I'm bringing that up not only as a warning that I may not be impartial on this issue, but as evidence that I have some expertise in the matter at hand.

To state my position up front: Rather than deleting the article, I feel that it should be revised and strengthened, and allowed to remain online.

A "sucks.com website" is a specialized kind of "complaint website" (you could think of sucks.com sites as being a "subset" of complaint sites). Their distinguishing characteristic is that they communicate their complaint as part of the domain name itself, typically in conjunction with the name of the organization (often a business) that is the subject of the complaint. This succinct and stunningly effective use of domain names allows a complaint to be communicated without even requiring the viewing of the website.

Because the portion of the domain name that precedes "sucks.com" is often a trademarked name, sucks.com sites have engendered a rash of lawsuits, in which businesses typically charge site owners with trademark infringement. For years, decisions (court and arbitration) were uneven (and perhaps even capricious), as no lower-court decision was binding on any other jurisdiction. However, my case was the first sucks.com case to reach the level of the US Court of Appeals, which definitively ruled that a non-commercial sucks.com site was purely an expression of free speech, and as such was not subject to trademark law. The decision by that Court has been adopted as precedent by other circuits, and is well on its way to becoming established law throughout the US.

The point I'm trying to make here is that sucks.com sites are the bleeding edge of the ongoing struggle for free speech on the Internet. I recognize that the crudity of their names makes many Internet purists uneasy, in that they would rather fight the Internet free-speech battle on a less-offensive front line. But I still feel that the concept is an important one, and eminently deserving of a Wikipedia article.

I should point out that the US Court of Appeals weighed in on the issue of the importance of sucks.com sites when they said, in their decision on my case:

"Taubman concedes that Mishkoff is 'free to shout "Taubman Sucks!" from the rooftops....' Essentially, this is what he has done in his domain name. The rooftops of our past have evolved into the Internet domain names of our present. We find that the domain name is a type of public expression, no different in scope than a billboard or a pulpit, and Mishkoff has a First Amendment right to express his opinion about Taubman, and as long as his speech is not commercially misleading, the Lanham Act cannot be summoned to prevent it."

I couldn't have said it better myself... :) -- HMishkoff

The above highly informative comments by Hank Mishkoff should in my humble opinion be included in the article in an appropriate manner. User: JohnaDonovan: 1 November 2006

    • Nowhere in the opinion is the phrase "sucks.com" used. It's still an unencyclopedic neologism. --Nlu (talk) 07:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  • That's not correct. In the opinion, the judge said, "In Internet parlance, a web name with a 'sucks.com' moniker attached to it is known as a 'complaint name,' and the process of registering and using such names is known as 'cybergriping.'" He also specifically indicated that by adding "sucks" to the domain name I differentiated my case from an otherwise similar case in which "the defendant used the plaintiff's trade name as a domain name, without the qualifying moniker 'sucks,' or any other such addendum to indicate that the plaintiff was not the proprietor of the website. In contrast, 'taubmansucks.com' removes any confusion as to source. We find no possibility of confusion and no Lanham Act violation." In other words, the opnion clearly states that the fact the my domain name included the phrase "sucks.com" significantly contributed to the fact that I won the case.

I'm not familiar with the Wikipedia culture, and so I don't know if "neologism" is some kind of code word -- but I'm puzzled by your contention that the fact that sucks.com is a neologism (a "newly coined term") would disqualify it from inclusion in Wikipedia. "Internet" is a neologism. "World Wide Web" is a neologism. "Wikipedia" is a neologism. In fact, it seems to me that one of the strengths of Wikipedia (in contrast to convententional encyclopediae) is the ease with which it embraces neologisms. So while I agree that "sucks.com" is a neologism, I think that argues for its inclusion in Wikipedia, not its exclusion. HMishkoff 20:06, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

  • With the permission of Mr Mishkoff, I have used his comments above to expand the Sucks.com article. The article name could be changed to gripe.com or some other appropriate title rather than losing informative content material to the electronic age which has made Wikipedia possible. A number of multinationals and famous individuals (and their PR agents) will no doubt welcome the deletion of this page but this is probably not a criterion appropriate to take into account. User: JohnaDonovan: 2 November 2006.
  • From the "Good Timing" Department: This showed up in my inbox a couple of days ago as part of an Intellectual Property newsletter to which I subscribe. (The URL of the complete story is http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=270395.) In the article, the author says, "Brands are frequently mocked in parody advertisements, and some Web sites vilify companies. (Go to Google and type in 'sucks.com.' You'll get about 250,000 hits.)" I tried it, I got 231K hits. The point I'm trying to make is that the sucks.com issue is hardly "non-notable," as it's been described in this discussion. In fact, if you'll go to the "News" page on my website (http://www.TaubmanSucks.com/news.html) you'll find links to something like 75 articles that have been written about my case alone. Some of the articles are "newsy," but many of them are serious pieces written by attorneys to discuss my case and the sucks.com phenomenon. So YOU may not think that the sucks.com issue is notable, but intellectual property lawyers seem to disagree. HMishkoff 22:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Where did I say that it's non-notable? I said that ti's an unsourced, spammy neologism. --Nlu (talk) 22:24, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
  • As correctly pointed out, the article has been described in this discussion as "non-notable", not by you, but by another contributor. It seems logical to conclude that you at least concede that the article is notable which is surely an important factor. Sources have been added as a result of the comments fairly made and more can be done if deemed worthwhile. The article has been improved as a result of the various issues raised. The point about neologism has already been covered by HMishkoff. User: JohnaDonovan: 5 November 2006.
  • I've lost you. What do the issues of "neologisms" and "original research" have to do with each other? Sounds like apples and oranges to me. Every article that has anything to do with the Internet (and especially with the Web) will address a neologism, by definition, and it may or may not include original research. The point is that "sucks.com" was not a phrase that was coined for this article, it's a notable phrase (judging by the amount of press and other attention it's received) that's been around for a few years. How long do we have to wait until it's old enough to be included in Wikipedia? HMishkoff 19:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I believe the technical term or legal term for a sucks site is "gripe site", maybe just move this whole article there? Router 04:27, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • delete. Spam, nn notable neologism.--75.117.212.25 04:30, 6 November 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.