Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WDMA

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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 of the debate was delete. – Alphax τεχ 02:42, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WDMA

  • Delete Unverifiable; the only source is to a SomethingAwful post that doesn't include any of what the article is about. Notability is also in question, there are lots of torrent sites that may or may not exist. Golbez 05:28, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment Golbez has removed comments from Talk:WDMA regarding the new location of WDMA [1]. Comments on a talk page should NEVER be erased, especially by a Wikipedia Administrator. He has also reverted edits on the main article because he found the information displeasing. He didn't bother to ask for some verification of information being added, he just deleted it [2] [3]. Golbez had no problems with the article prior to this week, when WDMA came back. He would revert vandalism every now and then [4] [5]. He even contributed to the article [6] on August 12th. Hell, on August 9th he even reverted someone blanking the page with the summary of rv - give a reason for blanking. wdma is dead, no need to fear talking about it anymore[7]. But now, months after his first edit to the article the information has suddenly become unverifiable, and Golbez nominated the article for deletion. Geregd 21:11, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Your detective work is marvelous. Let's say I had a change of heart. If I recall, I only reverted the talk page once, and it was a mistaken firing. Itchy trigger finger. Furthermore, the above is the user's first edit. --Golbez 23:18, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete I second this. Every bit of unverified internet web-drama does not need to be around. This doesn't seem at all notable to me. Demilio 06:20, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Thirded. I have been a member of Something Awful for years and I can personally confirm that there was never any such thing as WDMA, or for that matter, BTB. This entire article is unencyclopedic science fiction. Afed 06:58, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Absolutely. WDMA has never existed, and absolutely no one has ever been banned from SA for mentioning its existence, or asking where da movies atted. 24.168.5.223 07:56, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  •  :1. I agree that this is just too incredibly obscure to be worth mentioning (and I am a person who has pretty generous limits on what I consider to be incredibly obscure). The fact that a torrent tracker associated in some way with a semi-private web-based forum may have existed is far from sufficient to warrant entry in the Wikipedia. Just because something existed does not mean it's worth entering, in the same way that just because down the street on the corner there is a little ghetto-mart run by a Pakistani guy who sells beer and cigarettes does not mean that, defacto, he is a key and important part of my local neighborhood which is a subset of my community which is a subset of my part of town which is a subset of the city I live in, and should thus carefully be logged and documented. There are literally thousands of private trackers in existence right now, many with associated forums (and vice versa). Those that represent something more than just the fact that they exist are those which could be considered in an article related to the general phenomena.
2. Above is a comment or two from what I suspect are some SA forum members who are jokingly happy to see their tracker not mentioned or publicised. This brings up the points mentioned elsewhere that things of this nature can be notoriously difficult to verify. Knowing the SA memebrs, I would find it equally possible that they would get a kick out of creating a false history of the site for fun (I don't mean this insultingly: its the tendancy to do things like this that makes their site so much fun to read). So, all in all, its a vague thing compounded by vagueness on this count.
3. On the other hand, we need to be reasonable when it comes to documenting web-based communities and things that arise from them. Simply put, huge and widespread things can happen on the web for which, a year later, little concrete information remains. The very ephemeral nature of data these days (particularly on things which are invisible to google caches and such) on the web means we have to not allow ourselves to fall into the trap of saying, in essance, "because you can't clearly and easily show information about something with sixty thousand people experienced but didn't leave too much of a trail about, it means it didn't happen."
But, 2 out of 3: I vote to delete Dxco 08:51, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I've been an active Something Awful member for a few years and have not heard of a WDMA before. 152.7.26.103 10:18, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • As there is no evidence to support this thing existing, I don't think it's really necessary to keep it. I find it hard to believe something like that could be kept secret anyway Trampled talk 11:04, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I am a member of Something Awfu (spankspank) and I can tell you no such thing every existed, complete drivel.
  • ITs all lies. Damned lies and statistics. There was never any Something Awful File Sharing, just like there was never a moon landing.
It should be noted that the crusaders attempting to expose these diabolical activities are permabanned members of SA who were kicked out of WDMA because they couldn't maintain a ratio of 0.15 without using a hacked torrent client XD
  • The page shouldn't be deleted but changed into a redirect for the real multiplexing technology WDMA. This is however a hoax gone way out of proportion which doesn't have a place on an encyclopedia.
  • Delete Even if it did exist at some point, information about this site is hardly encyclopedic, and I doubt that the knowledge would benefit anyone. - Xgkkp 19:08, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
I believe it did exist, but am with you that it's unencyclopedic: private bittorrent trackers come and go with the wind. Noone has demonstrated that this particlar tracker was of any broadly representative interest on the topic of the early-2000's growth of bit torrent, or SA in particular. Another web forum had a tracker. woo. Dxco 19:39, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete per WP:V.--Isotope23 19:32, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete not verafiable or notable. -Greg Asche (talk) 20:24, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, nn, unverifiable. MCB 20:27, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. RFD: The only reason why people are voting for deletion is because none of the data has been verified. Ergo, all that needs to be proven is the existence of the site and the previous existence of File Forums on the Something Awful Forums. The data is verifiable in several different ways: one, the existence of the WDMA site and the drama that happened that brought it down; two, Something Awful owner Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka's public acknowledgement of the existence of the file forums' previous existence to an audience at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana; three, screencaps of WDMA are readily available; and four, screencaps of the old Something Awful forums which used WDMA as a tracker are readily available.
Incorrect. I am voting for deletion for other reasons as well (see my comments above). I think the topic in general is worth a brief mention on the SA page if the author wishes, but do not believe it is worthy of it's own stand alone entry.Dxco 01:16, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
This seems like a good idea. - Xgkkp 09:25, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Deletion of this article is only being considered because of a revert war currently occurring: there seems to be a cover-up attempt at hiding a particular URL that has been posted several times (look in the history for more details).

I find it especially disturbing that users are censoring the talk page (especially 70.84.105.116) --Hippolami 03:28, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Deletion should not be a solution to revert wars. Octalc0de 00:26, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree. However, it does bring the article to light - an article that I'm not convinced is worth having. Perhaps others will feel the same.Dxco 01:18, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: Roughly 40% of the non-anonymous users who have posted here fail the 100 edit guideline (not that it really means much). The site certainly existed, a lot of the people here are frantic to get information regarding it removed now that it's back, but I don't particularly care whether the mention here is removed or not. -- uberpenguin 01:35, 25 October 2005 (UTC)


  • Keep: WDMA most certainly existed, I was a member, along with thousands of other people. As mentioned previously, WDMA is notable due to its longevity (during a time when BT trackers exist for about 5 minutes before disappearing), huge userbase and exteme secrecy. Near the end of it's life, the whole thing started to break down, and i decided to save a page showing how hypocritical the members were. http://fa.gs/THEGOON.html
  • The preceding vote [8] is by an anon user with less than 10 edits, most of which are to the article itself. --Ryan Delaney talk 20:57, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: Golbez emailed me, presumably to ask about this AFD. WDMA existed, I was a member. That is no reason to keep the article, though. If the facts listed in another comment above really exist (Lowtax talking about WDMA at a presentation, etc.) then they can be used as reasons to keep the article. Not anecdotes. silsor 19:45, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Generally I guess the article should be deleted. Some things seem much less notable with time. I suspect a lot of articles about web sites, forums, etc. will go the same way. silsor 23:27, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete: This really doesn't warrant an article anyway, and it's turning into a trollfest. Name Not Needed 04:42, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
  • KEEP: its turning into a trollfest because the sa GOONS are trying to cover up the existence of WDMA. the rest of us, who are actually grounded in reality, are simply pointing out truths, which you take for "trolling"
    • Unsigned vote by anon IP 216.144.24.226 whose only contributions have been to this article. --Golbez 16:47, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
    • no kidding golbez, i guess that nullifies my point doesnt it
  • Delete: This article harms Wikipedia by bringing unnecessary drama to the table. It has a somewhat interesting history but isn't all that notable compared to other torrent sites. Gary 20:23, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete The whole WDMA thing was a short lived hoax to fool stupid internet wannabe pirates that became desperate for their warez after Suprnova got closed down. And as is typical for goons, they can never stop beating a dead horse even months after it's decayed to dust. I guess we could expand this into an article about the hoax (because there were a few funny catches) but I really don't believe this is that pivotal to Internet history to deserve its own article. Lochness Monstah 00:14, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Worthless article. Cordell Walker 02:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Sam, Grandma wants her waffles back...
    • Unsigned vote by anon IP 146.163.187.247 whose only edit has been this AfD. --Golbez 17:27, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Documenting bittorrent sites is not worth our time. --waffle iron 00:15, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment The "WDMA is a hoax/never existed" tinfoil bandwagon of anons (and some registered users) is some strange attempt to keep WDMA a "secret". Its existance was pretty tightly guarded (as well as one can do such things on the Internet) while it existed. As far as I know, it hasn't been resurrected, so I can only presume that the reason people are posting false information about it here is simply to troll wikipedians who are not familiar with the SA Forums / WDMA. I know I'm not the first to point this out, but I figure a signed comment from a registered user with an edit history will lend some credibility to the statement. As far as keep/delete, I'm ambivalent - WDMA was a big deal to the SA Forums, but precisely because of its secrecy it was never well-known or important to the Internet at large. I'd say its main claim to notability is keeping such a large-volume torrent site under the radar of the authorities for so long, but whether or not that's enough for Wikipedia is for others to decide. -- Tyler 08:45, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • delete nn, hoaxcruft. Dottore So 12:02, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Ashibaka (tock) 19:31, 30 October 2005 (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.