This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Keep. Roughly 29 keep votes, 21 delete votes. Cleanup take will be added - I'd suggest possible attention tag too. Hedley 21:23, 27 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

List of warez groups[edit]

Always going to be POV; limited encyclopediac value. Talrias (t | e | c) 01:16, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE: This Vfd has gone through 1 week of voting, and appears to be a close match. I suppose we could err on the side of 'caution' and completely redesign the article, with some help of course. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 15:08, 22 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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• Delete or EXTREME Cleanup. I am entirely fed up with the opinionated 15-year olds going around on the article talk pages, vandalizing my talk page for protecting it, and other stuff. IT has no value, because we can't list every single group out there. Unless you want to start from scratch and only add groups with a news article source, my vote stands. If you'd like to do what is outlined in the previous sentence, then the extreme cleanup applies. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 01:18, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That is absolutely astounding. Wow. Imagine if we deleted all articles on the basis of what 15-year olds did on their talk pages. —RaD Man (talk) 04:07, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

• Abstain for now. Don't know enough about this. But I see we have Category:Warez groups. Maybe a list could be made out of only those (i.e. notable enough to have a WP article. But then again, that list would be slightly redundant, so I don't know really. Shanes 01:40, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's redundant then. Like I said earlier, if it's kept it needs to be started over from scratch and only w/ groups with notable sources. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 01:43, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

• Probably what we should do is just trim the list down to groups that have articles on here, that will clear up about half of the page. In the last section, everything is red links except for one. No vote from me yet. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 01:42, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - Wikipedia is not a repository of everything ever known. --Phroziac (talk) 01:49, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, category is sufficient. Dcarrano 02:01, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete - agree with two previous voters, a category would be best, if anything at all. -- Joolz 02:07, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - This is what categories are for. --Woohookitty 02:08, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm inclined to agree with the nominator. A few examples in the main Warez article should be sufficient for our encyclopedia. This "list of" article adds little value and is creating obvious problems. Delete. If kept, I do agree with Zscout370 that the list should be pared down to only those truly notable groups. A reasonable proxy is having an article. A redlinked site (or worse, a redlinked site that no one could be bothered to even describe) is unnecessary. Rossami (talk) 02:11, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Almost entirely unverifiable. --Carnildo 02:16, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, but only the stuff that can be verified. Note to warez people: if you can be verified by us, then the authorities will be able to also. Have fun in jail! - Ta bu shi da yu 02:59, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per above 66.167.144.200 03:10, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Most of these groups are verifiable. The ones that aren't should be removed. Rhobite 03:15, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. The Category is enough. --Eliezer 03:38, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete redundant, category is better. Friday 04:07, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. The list with short descriptions is value added over a simple category, but the list should be strictly limited to groups that are sufficiently notable and verifiable to have their own wikipedia page, i.e. no red links. Dragons flight 05:08, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

  Addendum Comment: I went through and found the following wares pages which recieved keep/no-consensus VFDs: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

  I would say this is fairly good precedent that at least some warez groups are encyclopedic. If one accepts that premise, it is not much of a stretch to believe that a list of notable warez groups is also encyclopedic. Dragons flight 08:41, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. Not encyclopedic. --Malathion 06:20, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Not encyclopedic. I'd even go so far as put the category up for deletion. Almafeta 07:23, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - unlike the category, it seems like this table provides pretty good concise summaries / short descriptions of the groups. Agree with Dragons flight above on the necessity of limiting the groups to sufficient notability, though that of course carries the caveat of flame wars, vandalism, etc. when someone decides that warez group X or Y is not notable. Verifiability, IMHO, should not be too problematic, either. RidG (talk) 07:34, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
• Weak delete, there are a couple of notable groups on here but mainly it seems to be a magnet for vanity of NN ones. Radiant_>|< 08:26, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete Some of the information doesn't seem like it could be easily and instantly verified. TheMonkofDestiny 10:01, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, but let the redlinks stand. The category is sufficient at this time, but if at some later time enough articles are added to warrant a list, I have no objection the this page being re-created. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 10:03, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, mostly harmless unverifiable (sorry, I have Earth on my watchlist). I'm with Ilyanep on this one. Either this article gets deleted because it's too secret, or it gets kept, but only with groups that are verifiable through news sources. Even if this article gets deleted, one can always recreate it, but only with verifiable groups. --Deathphoenix 12:06, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - not notable. Even a so-called "notable" warez group hardly is, I'd say, any more than any other cartel of fraudsters or copyright violators. CDC (talk) 17:17, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Not to overtly criticize, but that's a rather unsophisticated comment. 95% of all released warez comes from a small number of well-established groups, with anywhere from 2 to 5 groups vying for the top position in a specific niche (i.e., PC games, DVD movies, etc.). Given the attention that piracy receives in this country and others, I would argue that such major contributors to piracy are indeed sufficiently notable. Infamy does not warrant lack of inclusion to the Wikipedia, at least as far as I am aware. RidG (talk)
• Keep - agree with RidG Ravedave 19:47, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, as per Ta bu shi da yu. --Conti|✉ 22:00, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete - not encyclopaedic, fest for 15 year old IRC kiddies who think that being able to edit a .ini file makes them a 1337 Hax0r!1!!!!!1111! --Kiand 22:04, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Amusing. :D — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:45, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

• keep please but only the parts which can be verifid Yuckfoo 22:21, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, non-notable information. Martg76 22:35, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep the list ordered information provides a useful comparitive summary of organisations. The criteria for inclusion in the list should be a WP article which itself meets the notability criteria. Fifelfoo 00:29, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Bicycle keep. As it clearly states atop this article, this is a list of warez groups for the parent article on warez. It was created because the list of names was becoming too long for the main article and it was appropriate to export it; I believe this is an acceptable reason for the creation of a list on Wikipedia. If non-notable or non-verifiable groups are added they can always be removed, but that is certainly not a valid reason for the deletion of the entire list. Secondly, this list serves to document notable groups which do not yet have articles rather than create a host of stubs. Alkivar is out of town, so I'm not sure if he'll be responding before the close of this vote. —RaD Man (talk) 03:45, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • It was created because the list of names was becoming too long for the main article So what? It was worthless in the main article, and it's worthless by itself. --Calton | Talk 13:35, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
    • To each his own. —RaD Man (talk) 16:02, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Non-encyclopedic. WP is not a web directory. --Calton | Talk 13:30, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and cleanup. Reluctantly, because there's no way this will ever get cleaned up and stay cleaned up. An annotated list is not redundant with a category. I would be more comfortable with this if it did not include freebie links with redlinked entries. (Seems like an open invitation for vanity additions.) It would be useful if there were some kind of objective criteria that could be applied (Alexa ratings? I don't know enough about the topic). -Aranel ("Sarah") 23:14, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, cleanup and annotte. This may be one of the few pages that needs semipermanent protection. Rich Farmbrough 00:52, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of which, I just noticed that this is protected from editing yet does not have a protection header atop the article. Secondly, it seems like a catch 22 (or conflict of interest) that an article cannot be improved while it is up for deletion. —RaD Man (talk) 01:56, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There used to be a vprotected tab...but it was removed by someone. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 18:05, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

RaD Man brings up a good point. This article, while being placed on VfD, has not had a chance to be improved. That really weakens this VfD, because one of the benefits of a VfD is that the article itself often gets improved during that time. If this article gets deleted (and it's pretty borderline right now), that makes it a strong case for a VfU. Perhaps this article should be unprotected and placed on VfD for another week. I'd like to see how (or if) this article gets improved. --Deathphoenix 17:29, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it should be unprotected at the moment. I think any admins who voted on this should watch it carefully, however. Talrias (t | e | c) 17:51, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep, because we already have Category:Warez groups. If it were not for this category, I would vote strong keep. Y0u (Y0ur talk page) (Y0ur contributions) 16:38, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Elfguy 17:19, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep for several reasons: 1) moved to sub page since Warez was getting too large 2) stops the main warez article (which has been a repeatedly used resource/reference by major media organizations NY TIMES, BBC) itself from being vandalized constantly by joe schmoe the 12yr old warez kiddie to hype his latest l33t group. 3) Its really easy to verify existance of groups, but many are not noteworthy enough to get a stub article. This is a way to list smaller groups, as well as larger more verifiable groups with a brief 2-3 sentance description of them, and save the hassle of vfd's of small stubs because one person decided group X was non notable. Sadly a category (which I do find useful) would get cluttered up way too fast if we were to start including data on each group since there have been probably 15,000+ warez groups worldwide in the past 20 years.  ALKIVAR™ 00:17, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Interesting list. Removing this in no way improves Wikipedia. --L33tminion (talk) 01:16, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Many of these groups are very notable, some a little less. I'm offering my help in cleaning it up. It should definitly stay. bbx 01:20, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, I'm persuaded by Alkivar's rationale. Problems should be handled by removing unverifiable additions. --Michael Snow 04:47, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. This list is interesting. --Myles Long 14:23, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Agreeing with RiDG, the fact that cracked/pirated software/media makes up such a large margin in the computer market (a given, since anyone somewhat knowledgeable on a computer has heard of p2p, and the general makeup of those networks is for distributing such files) should account for it's place it notability. Second, agreeing with RaD Man and ALKIVAR, the need for a seperate list to be created should be obvious given that someone that doesn't know what the term warez means probably doesn't want to have to deal with a huge list of groups on the same page. Also, not to be critical, but it seems that most of those giving a reason for deletion simply find the subject offensive. A wiki not only allows editing by anyone from mister PhD to his 4 year old daughter, but it also promotes free-speech. Hello World! 18:02, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

  I can't find a single vote on this who said they find the subject offensive, or that removing it would somehow limit free speech. Who are you referring to here? Talrias (t | e | c) 18:51, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

• Weaaaaaaaak keep under the condition of cleanup and REDESIGN. The current layout is horrible. // Gargaj 09:45, 2005 July 20 (UTC)
• Keep, clean and update It's an interesting list, but needs a few updates and design revamps as many groups that were only alive a month ago have now left the scene. --crumb 14:25, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Warez groups are on top of their food chain. They're the ones responsible for nearly every illegal copy of software and games out there, etc. Wikipedia's not paper, as some say. claviola (talk to me) 14:03, 22 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Moderate keep, mainly because all of the groups have their own articles already, and a list is more informative than a category. I don't really like the formatting, though. It should be more of a standard headers+<dl>-type thing. « alerante ✆ ✉ » 15:45, 22 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep per Y0u. --WikiFan04^{Talk 20:55, 22 Jul 2005 (CDT)}
• Keep - but clean, perhaps, keep the POV out, etc. IMO this page was in its best state after Ilyanep locked it originally - it was POV, flame free, info was easily verifiable (defacto2.net, cybercrime.gov), and useful. It's referenced by many mainstream news organizations as well as people (including myself) writing papers on the subject of Intellectual Property.
• Keep -- but does need cleaning, and probably some discussion about protection or watchlisting, per above. · Katefan0^(scribble) 18:00, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete while probably keeping only "historical" dead groups. Listing recent groups brings nothing but trouble. Dipswitch^(scribble) 20:28, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
• weak keep - with cleanup. --Avatar-en 12:23, 26 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.