Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Internet Book Database

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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 all, arguments raised that WP:WEB has not been met have not been refuted, and the individual articles have been deleted. The compilation is at Bibliographic database. If anyone wishes to merge more information, let me know and I can userfy the deleted articles to assist with merging -- Samir धर्म 10:27, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Internet Book Database

The Internet Book Database (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

doesn't meet WP:WEB criteria Dicklyon 04:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I am also nominating the following related pages because they too don't meet WP:WEB criteria:

Comments:

  • Keep "Internet Book Database"? Surely it's notable enough. Wavy G 07:55, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
By which criterion of WP:WEB? Can you fix the article, since "The article itself must provide proof that its subject meets one of these criteria via inlined links or a Reference, Notes, or External link section."? Dicklyon 08:05, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete - alexa rank 641,921, 165,384 and 1,342,119 respectively. To compare, IMDB has a rank of 35. It's just not high enough for a notable internet book database. MER-C 09:19, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, fails WP:WEB criteria. Low alexa ranking, and various factors as well. --Terence Ong (C | R) 13:44, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - Alexa is not a measure of anything! Google indexes 35000 pages of ibookdb currently (it was 80000 last time I checked). The Internet Book Database is one of the largest of its kind and a very important book resource. Off Topic Note: I have also discovered that iblist and ibdof have links to themselves from 100s of author pages all over wikipedia! Heavenhelllord 15:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
This is your page, so why not tell what WP:WEB criterion it meets, and put the evidence in the article? Dicklyon 15:41, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I think the WP:WEB criteria are not perfect. I'm not entirely sure how I would modify the article to meet WP:WEB. As you can tell by the comments here, the content of the site is what makes it notable. The effort itself is very large and commendable so WP:WEB may not be perfect.? Heavenhelllord 16:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • What you're suggesting what is commonly known as I like it. You like the website, so it should be kept, even though it is not held to the same standards as other websites? If we start keeping web articles based on personal judgements of their quality and value, rather than the notability standards we have used in the past, is there any objectivity or consistency? Fan-1967 15:22, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I like a lot of sites but I'm not including them all in wikipedia because they are not what should be included in wikipedia. However this particular site is 1) One of the largest of it's kind, 2) A very important resource for the Book Community, 3) It's content cannot easily be found in other sources that are notable by WP:WEB standards - so I would say that it is fit for inclusion into the wikipedia. 128.143.50.94 19:11, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Sorry, but that still sounds like saying you think the content is valuable so it should be exempt from WP:WEB. -- Fan-1967 19:13, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • If the content is valuable, it should be inclued in WP:WEB! Isn't valuable content to a large enough population (book readers), a good enough reason for something to be on Wikipedia? Heavenhelllord 20:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per WP:WEB. Fairly new site, no indication it's achieved notability yet. May qualify as repost, per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Internet Book Database. -- Fan-1967 15:39, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • The original Internet Book Database article (as you can see from that discussion) was written when the site was beta testing and has come a long way since then. The reason I vote for keep is that this is a significant effort for the book community unlike the earlier efforts mentioned above and does deserve mention in the Wikipedia. The site has nearly a 1000 inlinks from external sources(according to yahoo siteexplorer) and that is IMO a good achievement for a site whose domain was registered in Feb. Heavenhelllord 16:01, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment WP:WEB does not have a provision for "growing quickly". We get many, many articles whose authors argue that a subject is growing toward notability. The only question is whether the site has achieved notability. They may (or may not) be on their way there, but that's not the same thing as being there. Fan-1967 16:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • My reason for keeping is not about "is growing quickly" but "is a notable effort", "has alredy grown quickly", "is large and significant enough already"
  • I disagree, then. Alexa rank of 641K doesn't meet my standards of "large and significant", unless you want to argue we should create articles for the 640,000 websites more popular than this one. Fan-1967 17:14, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Alexa Rankings don't mean squat. That's why I included the count of inlinks from yahoo siteexplorer. Here is one example of a site on Wikipedia with dismal Alexa Rankings - Everyone's a Critic. I can easily dig up some more if you wish. Heavenhelllord 17:33, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I dug out my own Alexa ranking. My web site has a ranking of 5,915,806 but my links page on my site has a ranking of 11,686! shelagh 19:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Yeah, unfortunately yahoo counts, but does not distinguish. Scroll through the pages of results. The inlinks are overwhelmingly from parchayi.net, a related site from the same owner. Fan-1967 17:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment fanforums for notable authors do not make the forum notable. All this talk about growth but not a single reliable source. ColourBurst 19:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I just think that this website is notable because it has a larger collection of books and authors than other popular online book related websites. There are no book related websites that offer such a large listing of both fiction and non-fiction of all genres. There are no other sites that I know of that offer a combination book database/social networking aspect. There are other features unique to ibookdb such as finding other versions of books. The site is notable for it's content and usefulness to the book community. The forums are just a small part of everything that makes this site notable.Heavenhelllord 19:47, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia's standards on notability are not based on personal judgements of quality, or usefulness. They amount to: is the subject of this article reasonably well-known, based on independent, third-party sources? Nothing has been presented to indicate that this website meets that. Fan-1967 19:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Are you proposing deletion of just The Internet Book Database or all the articles in this section? According to you are any of the three sites mentioned above notable? Heavenhelllord 20:58, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete all three; the others don't even seem to have any defenders, and have the same problem re WP:WEB. Dicklyon 21:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Which is a shame since they are all excellent, very informative sites and the best websites with book related information. I'm surprised the others don't have any defenders considering they have 1000s of links across wikipedia. Maybe there should be one common Wikipedia article about Online user driven Book Databases that combines all of the three? Heavenhelllord 21:39, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
That's the most sensible idea I've heard yet. That way, the topic is more neutral, not specific to a site; it changes the whole point of the article into something much more encyclopedic. Dicklyon 23:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete Not notable, having information on notable people does not make a website notable shelagh. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 20:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Have you even visited the site? Heavenhelllord 20:58, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • How would that be relevant? Fan-1967 21:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Because his comment indicated that the forums had information about notable people, where infact the information is provided by notable people and there is almost no information about them except that they post there. So his comment indicated that he doesn't even know what he is talking about. Heavenhelllord 21:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • The forums are not fan forums HighInBC and ColourBurst. The forums are moderated by the notable authors. The notable authors moderate and post on the forums. shelagh 22:03, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Should we be modifying WP:WEB, then, to take such things into account? Dicklyon 23:52, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • You miss my point; having notable authors having forums is fine and all, but it doesn't confer notability (there's no "notability by association" criteria on Wikipedia), because it doesn't say anything about the site itself (other than "notable authors post there"). Again, what's the problem with finding reliable sources to support this site? ColourBurst 00:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - if movie database gets an article, why not book database? —Hanuman Das 00:43, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Because the movie database gets thousands of times as many visitors, and is established and well-known, and is one of the most popular sites on the web? Fan-1967 00:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
And because IMDb has a solid, long-established reputation, which this book database does not seem to posess (at least for now). Pascal.Tesson 05:24, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
But what about the Adult Film Database and Internet Adult Film Database? IMDb isn't the only film database on Wikipedia. Dunk the Lunk 10:01, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, a number of people seem to think so, yet nobody gives a rationale relative to WP:WEB. What's up with that? Dicklyon 06:11, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • May it is WP:WEB that needs to change? Heavenhelllord 16:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that's another good idea. I would expect you'd be all over proposing changes there since you haven't been able to suggest any way the page meets the present criteria. Dicklyon 19:00, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Looks pretty notable to me. I see no reason deletion. MrKing84 07:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Summary: Although people are pretty divided, nobody has yet made an attempt to say how any of these pages meet the criteria of WP:WEB, nor has anyone yet proposed a change to the criteria such that the page would be acceptable. I suggest we have no more comments unless they include such information, and delete all three if none is forthcoming. By the way, I have nothing against these pages and wouldn't mind them sticking around if there's some justification, but the issue came up here: Talk:Book#The_Internet_Book_Database.3F. Dicklyon 19:00, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Nice so a competitor wants to remove ibookdb from Wikipedia because his own site is better :) and would of course like to keep his own article ISBNdb.com here!! His own Alexa ranking is not great, BTW Heavenhelllord 19:18, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Good catch. I just added that one to the list. Hopefully that's OK. Dicklyon 19:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm the owner of the Internet Book Database so I will refrain from taking sides. However, this is fair - Delete one, delete them all. I did like the proposal to create one page about all the databases however. I'm sure the creators of each individual article will contribute if someone starts that article and redirects all the old ones to the new page. Sgd2z 19:48, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Dick, can you merge all the articles into one called Internet Book Databases or something like that instead of deleting them?? Heavenhelllord 19:59, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I think I already endorsed that idea. Not me, though. Dicklyon 20:07, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't know how to do it and you did call it a sensible idea :) Heavenhelllord 20:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh, come on guys. I did not say a thing about deleting the ibookdb.net article, all I was against is having a link to that article from Book page because that link seemed pretty arbitrary to me, not the article itself. I personally think everything under moon can be and should be described in Wikipedia -- if nobody links to it, and nobody searches for it then what's the harm? A couple of bytes on hard-disk somewhere? Amaltsev 20:12, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a blogging site. However since we now have so many contenders for a book database how about linking to a list of book databases from the Book article Heavenhelllord 20:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • That would be a reasonable compromise I think, useful to actual readers of Wikipedia. I can probably dig through my notes and add some more databases there if needed. Notable or not. Amaltsev 20:55, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't particularly agree with some of the stuff on notability here (e.g. - Alexa Rankings). There needs to be some overhaul of WP:WEB. I can undersand Wikipedia doesn't need an article on every website out there but the WP:WEB criteria are not exactly perfect and there are thousands of completely useless articles on Wikipedia, including some on sites that have no place here but somehow deleting these book database articles has taken priority. Heavenhelllord 21:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Except that the Alexa test is not actually part of WP:WEB. Without the Alexa test, however, you still have lack of sources. ColourBurst 23:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • What's the harm? The core of Wikipedia itself - Wikipedia needs to be verifiable. We have provisions for things that don't have sources but could reasonably get them, but this isn't the case here. ColourBurst 23:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge them all into Bibliographic database? There's not much there, and the title is appropriate for handling all these online databases and more. Dicklyon 20:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • More contenders for merging - ISBN.nu - wow so many book databases :) How about Bibliographic Databases plural? Heavenhelllord 20:36, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - In Category:Book Websites - there are several book meta search engines (isbn.nu, addall, bookfinder, biblio etc.) which are all basically the same thing and probably can all be merged into this new article as a subsection? Heavenhelllord 20:42, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - per above Killerhun00 00:24, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Uh, per which above? When a discussion gets this complicated, you might want to be more specific. Fan-1967 00:28, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep all and possibly merge into a new article for online book databases. --- RockMFR 20:19, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep all Although I said I didn't want to comment originally I'm in favour of keeping all for 4 reasons 1) Iblist has over 65 000 articles or equivelent on books, authors, and series making it more notable than some foreign language wikipedia sites but without any financial backing. 2) Once editor status is granted Iblist and IBDof are fully editable and are effectively wikis. 3) Charles Pellegrino, L. E. Modesitt, Jack McDevitt, Lois McMaster Bujold all use IBDoF/IBlist for their official forums 4) Although they are not the largest websites in themselves they are the largest non-commercial (ie amazon etc) online book databases available on the internet and until one of them outstrips the others and becomes an 'IMDb for books' they all deserve fair representation on Wikipedia. Dunk the Lunk 19:49, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Seems notable enough to me. YankeeDoodle14 21:51, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge: I've started a merge into Bibliographic database, and put merge tags into the articles, and one more. There are probably others. Since people want to keep the info, but can't say how the articles square with WP:WEB, this seems like the way out. If I don't hear objections, I'll go ahead and make them redirect to the merged page. Dicklyon 22:28, 18 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.