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 keep. Consensus seems to be that notability and copyright concerns have been adequately addressed. (non-admin closure) Tim Song (talk) 22:41, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WoWWiki (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

The article was previously converted to a redirect per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WoWWiki (third nomination) in November 2006.

Content revised content still fails WP:NN and WP:WEB. The current author claims when copying content from http://www.wowwiki.com/WoWWiki:About that "this site has grown considerably since the previous RfD, and this page is done better since" - however the article only contains refs to primary sources, and is more poorly sourced than the previously AfD'd version of the article, which can be found archived here. - Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:12, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment A quick look at google news reveals almost zero coverage of the WoWWiki. It doesn't seem to have obtained notable coverage. Due to this lack of coverage, it seems to fail WP:N, and so I have to suggest deletion. Basket of Puppies 16:52, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete – scarcely notable. ╟─TreasuryTag►Not-content─╢ 17:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and salt for lack of third-party coverage, not even worthy of a redirect. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 17:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC) Keep per sources. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 00:22, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and protect Keep I'm impressed with the improvements and the coverage found. A little insignificant ^{Talk to me!} _{(I have candy!)} 17:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep - Just as notable as Lostpedia, Wookiepedia, and Memory Alpha, all of which have their own articles and are just large wikis based around a particular fandom. More sources can be gotten if time is given instead of just quick deletion. Hooper (talk) 17:29, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a valid reason to keep an article. Tan | 39 17:34, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OTHERSTUFFEXISTS means that just because other articles exist, doesn't mean they should exist. In this case, the Wookiepedia and Memory Alpha articles surely should exist. Try not to misuse OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Here, the argument is rather that WoWWiki is not as notable as those wikis. --Apoc2400 (talk) 22:14, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Surely should exist". Subjective. My argument is valid; one needs to put forth the merits of this particular site, not simply state that other similar sites have articles. Try not to be condescending - and wrong. Tan | 39 22:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. I see no indication this site meets the notability requirements set forth in WP:WEB. If there are sources available, as mentioned above, then they need to be found and posted. Simply claiming they can be obtained is not enough. Tan | 39 17:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update: After review of the below "sources", my delete !vote stands. I urge anyone new to this discussion to go through the list in its entirety, and look at what these "sources" actually are - mostly blog entries and trivial mentions. I mean nothing personal to anyone here, but people should not look at a long list of purported sources and take it as gospel that notability exists. Tan | 39 16:24, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And yet another update: Changing !vote to keep based on the JBT source. Hard to argue with that one; that it originated from my alma mater doesn't hurt. Thanks to Protonk for supplying it. Tan | 39 17:40, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of video game related deletion discussions. MrKIA11 (talk) 17:44, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect it to the main World of Warcraft page, and protect it if necessary to prevent undoing of the re-direct. Wowwiki is a direct link at the bottom of that page, so a redirect there would make some sense. And, quite frankly, you might have some gamers who would look it up, better that it be a re-direct to a viable article than just a red-link. Oh, and lok'tar ogar. Umbralcorax (talk) 17:59, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lok'tar it is. Based on the sources provided below, Keep. Umbralcorax (talk) 23:08, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete, no independent sources. Hooper has been around long enough to know that this is not a vote and all the "strong keep"s in the world can't save an article without reliable independent sources. Guy (Help!) 18:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per many above. Does not have reliable sources to support general notability. Andre (talk) 19:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per Hammer. Drmies (talk) 19:23, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• You are not prepared (delete) - Creating an article without good third-party sources is like creating a party without a tank and healer; Until one comes along, you ain't going nowhere. You can prepare for the journey outside of the instance (by creating a draft in User: space). Nifboy (talk) 19:27, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Turns out I have a DK so I just soloed that instance. What now? :P Protonk (talk) 18:06, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • OMG OP NERF NERF NERF (someone remind me why I rolled priest?) Nifboy (talk) 22:55, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and Userfy until a time where better sources can be established. Don't salt. Why is there a need to salt? Concensus on previous XfDs has been varied to say the least... I wouldn't redirect it though, as it is not covered elsewhere. No point redirecting it to an article because it has an external link to redirect you to somewhere else to learn about it. --Taelus (talk) 19:39, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Struck. Userfying isn't even needed, it seems sources have been found now for this 4th nom! Excellent work. Keep. --Taelus (talk) 08:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• weak keep There are few sources that have details such as [1] and [2] but I'm not sure I see enough here for a separate article at this time. It might make sense to make a list of marginally notable Wikia's wikis about pop subjects. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC) Changing to full keep per additional sourcing tracked down by Odie. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:27, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete - At best this should be under the External Links section of the World of Warcraft article. It's not notable enough on it's own, even if sources could have been found. --Teancum (talk) 20:24, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"even if sources could have been found" sounds like WP:IDONTLIKEIT. --Odie5533 (talk) 22:24, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Keep: Reliable sources:

• PC World article (mirror: [3])
• Proceedings of the 2008 ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on Video games contains more than just trivial coverage
• "Genre, Activity, and Collaborative Work and Play in World of Warcraft" appears in Journal of Business and Technical Communication, is an extremely in-depth article about WoWWiki and its dynamics as a community tool for WoW players
• Emergence, game rules and players compares the short rule set of Chess to the lengthy rule set of WoW as documented by WoWWiki.
• "Audience, authorship, and artifact: The emergent semiotics of web 2.0" appearing in the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics acknowledges WoWWiki as one of the largest wikis
• Many other journal articles refer to WoWWiki articles for their coverage of UI programming API, patch mirroring, coverage of the Leeroy Jenkins video, and WoW class descriptions. It is frequently used as a reference for information on WoW's in-game environment.
• GamesRadar refers users to WoWWiki in case they have any questions in their tutorial on WoW
• Joystiq and Massively cover a "How Gamers Are Adopting the Wiki Way" panel which focused on WoWWiki
• [4] "The best-known MMO wiki has to be WoWWiki"
• [5] "For all-round, general info, WoWWiki should be your first stop."
• [6] "the mother of all WoW informational sources, WoWWiki."
• Wikia turns a profit, thanks in part to WoWWiki
• If you don't have access to one of the articles, or still need more WP:RS, let me know.

--Odie5533 (talk) 21:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I don't really consider academic papers to be suitable in this context because, as you said, they refer to the subject and are not about the subject itself. That rules out bullets #2-6. Bullets #8-12 are blog posts and not actual news articles. Bullet #7 again only refers to the subject and is not directly about the subject. That leaves bullet #1 which I'm still deciding on. Tuxide (talk) 23:21, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My comment about referring to the subject was aimed at the journal articles which I did not post here. All the ones here do more than just refer to the site. For instance, the article in J. Bus. Tech. Comm. gives a long-winded discussion on WoWWiki. You seem to be grouping all the references together as though they are all the in some type of non-notable category. I implore you to look at each reference and decide whether or not it constitutes a reliable source supporting the notability of the subject. --Odie5533 (talk) 23:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not even going to bother because even if that was the case, it is still original research. I tend to be cautious over the use of academic papers on Wikipedia for this reason. There are some cases where it is clearly appropriate to use them, such as Nash equilibrium, and WoWWiki is not one of them. Tuxide (talk) 00:17, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can make up your own rules on the use of sources, but don't expect the rest of us to agree. Not bothering to look at sources is bizarre, and you seem to not understand what original research means in the context of Wikipedia - authors of sources are of course allowed to engage in thewir own research; it is Wikipedia editors who can't do so. If the article is deemed to be premature, I suggest the Article Incubator as an alternative to deletion. Fences&Windows 01:07, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Academic papers are just another form of primary sources. I'm more interested in secondary sources; although primary sources can be used to verify points in the article, they cannot be used to establish notability. Tuxide (talk) 01:35, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry? I think you need to read up on WP:Primary sources, academic papers does not in general fit. Taemyr (talk) 08:33, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Of course academic papers are good secondary sources that help confirm notability - more so than random newspaper articles, there's certainly a lot more work put into them and they're generally peer-reviewed as well. As Taemyr points out, academic articles are not what the no primary sources thing in WP is about. --Lijil (talk) 21:26, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Staying with delete and recommending that people check the sources, many of which don't even seem to mention the article subject. I don't see any non-trivial coverage of the site itself as a distinct entity. Using these sources we can prove it exists, which was not in doubt, but its significance remains entirely unproven from those sources. Setting up a wiki is trivially easy, so evidence of significance is unquestionably required here as we are not a directory of websites. Guy (Help!) 09:25, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Guy we know you may have a infamous history of making a stance before having all the information, so I suggest you actually look at the sources before making claims that aren't true about them - as many are directly about the site and showcase its notability and widespread use in that community. Hooper (talk) 12:46, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Co-nomination To clarify, this is the version I nominated three years ago, not the one linked to in the nom. As it stands, the current version is even less-compliant to WP:RS than the older one. This should've remained in user space until it was mature and noteworthy enough to be brought back in article space again. Tuxide (talk) 22:32, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Articles don't start out at FA quality; they are worked on from stub and start where they don't necessarily use lots of WP:RS's. I don't think non-FA articles should be deleted because they are not FA; a very small Wikipedia would result. --Odie5533 (talk) 22:35, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am not making a generalization. This article was moved from article namespace to user namespace as a result of the last AFD and that is where it should be now. Tuxide (talk) 22:38, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Odie5533's sources are actually pretty good, so keep. Just don't forget to use the sources to write the article. --Apoc2400 (talk) 22:36, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep. WoWWiki is discussed 5 times in ACM articles (some of which were linked above) and 71 times in scholarly articles listed on Google Scholar, which is pretty impressive for a popular culture website. If it's notable enough to be mentioned in that many academic articles, I'd say it's notable enough that people reading those articles should be able to come and find out more about it on the Wikipedia. --Lijil (talk) 21:26, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - More references added. Hooper (talk) 23:20, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete and Block page Creation Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Aside from the fact that WoW itself has no value, the WoWWiki is also severly lacking in EV. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, in the greater scheme of things, no one cares what you like. The keep arguments I am seeing also do not address the issues being raised by the delete people. Nezzadar (speak) 02:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually they are being clearly counterpointed, while you're the one on a IDONTLIKEIT soapbox with you anti-WoW stance. If you feel as such you should refrain from talking on pages related to it.Hooper (talk) 02:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Now has more than enough sources, particularly if Odie's are also integrated into the article. BryanG (talk) 03:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Very strong keep. I'm not sure why you think this isn't notable - WoWWiki is very, very often referred to within the Warcraft community and is a well-known website. As for Nezzadar, someone's got a severely anti-Warcraft stance. [Belinrahs | 'sup? | what'd I do?] 11:36, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - As much as I love using WoWWiki as a resource, it's not a notable website per Wikipedia standards. The sources cited don't really support its notability either, being primarily trivial mentions. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 11:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think you should take another look at those sources. They are much more than trivial mentions, and directly showcase its notability. Please look at the sources better before commenting. Hooper (talk) 12:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did. Please WP:AGF.

If you really want me to spell it out for you, though:

1. [7] is a trivial mention.

• Your opinion. It seems not "trivial" at all to me. --Cycl^opia - ^talk 16:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do you honestly see this as being a significant mention? "Massively" is a blog that is not peer-reviewed in any way. WP:WEB states that we should not use a reference if it is "a brief summary of the nature of the content or the publication of Internet addresses and site". As this publication (read: blog entry) mentions WoWWiki once, barely gives it a summary, and simply says it is the most-used of these sorts of things, I can't see how anyone can take this as a significant, reliable source. Tan | 39 16:22, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, yes. The entry is brief: but it is not a brief summary, it clearly and extensively says that the site stands out among its own peers mentioned. The same holds for the entry below.

Plus: If we were all basing that on only one source of this kind, I would agree, but one has to see the context (do we expect MMORPG wikis to be the subject of dozens of academic books?) and the number of such sources -which are many. A drop doesn't make a sea, but it's absurd to dismiss the sea as insignificant because it's made of insignificant drops.

Actually if you search for WoWWiki on Google Scholar you'll see it's cited in no less than 71 academic articles. Pretty damn notable if you ask me. --Lijil (talk) 21:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finally: There are other much better sources cited above, but the editor avoided to "spell them out", like [8] and the academic articles [9] and [10]. The latter dedicates a whole paragraph to WoWWiki. --Cycl^opia - ^talk 16:43, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Clearly and extensively"? Really? Here is the entire mention from the source: "The best-known MMO wiki has to be WoWWiki, a site with hundreds and hundreds of articles updated by dozens of dedicated users." That's it. No matter how you spin it, this is in no way "extensive". Just because someone in a blog says that something is the "best-known" hardly means that notability is established. As for your sea analogy, as much as I love being compared to absurdity, this might have weight if you had, say, ten thousand sources. Creating a sea out of ten or so questionable sources is ... well, absurd. Tan | 39 16:48, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are forgetting the non questionable ones that have been posted and that I have re-posted above. :) --Cycl^opia - ^talk 16:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is true. All my comments above are directed at this one source. Tan | 39 16:57, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1. [11] is a trivial mention.

• As above. --Cycl^opia - ^talk 16:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• • See above comment. Tan | 39 16:22, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1. [12] is a primary source, so nothing to establish notability.
2. [13]... isn't even displaying anything for me in IE 8.

• In my browser displays, but admittedly nothing about the wiki. Perhaps the link is wrong? --Cycl^opia - ^talk 16:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1. [14] is a trivial mention.
2. [15] is the most extensive, but is basically a report on a panel at a gaming convention involving one of WoWWiki's admins. The panel is about wikis used for gaming in general, not WoWWiki in particular; however, this is about the best coverage we've seen so far.
3. [16] is about the same panel at the same convention. It's even more about wikis in general, and barely gives WoWWiki a mention in the beginning.

So, out of all the stuff in the article, there's one questionable source that could confer notability. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Per Odie5533. More comment later, but sourcing is more than adequate. Protonk (talk) 13:58, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • An update. References added, text cleaned up, and rescue tag placed. Anyone who states that sourcing is only trivial simply hasn't read this article. Period. Other sources cover the subject to varying degrees. The panel discussions probably mentioned WoWWiki in great detail, but we can't (absent some video recording) verify this completely. The PC World article looks supiciously like a press release, but the massively and RWW articles are fine. They cover the subject, explain the significance and provide context. This is what we need in order to write an article that is compliant w/ NOT/NOR/NPOV. Protonk (talk) 17:05, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I disagree with the massively and RWW opinion; I can't bring myself to view them as anything but non-peer-reviewed blogs. One step up from my own hackery. In reference to the JBT article, do you have a subscription or access to the article? Can you email it to me? Tan | 39 17:07, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • We can probably disagree about RWW and massively. I think they occupy the space between completely reliable and hackery, rather than occupying the 'hackery' space. :) Protonk (talk) 17:15, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Again, wonderful work of Odie5533 in finding sources. --Cycl^opia - ^talk 14:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment re: Copyright issue - as the original nominator, I will say that if the newly found sources (by Odie, above, which need to be worked into the article yet) had been previously attached, I likely wouldn't have nominated this for AfD. My initial search had failed to locate these refs. However, as I mentioned in the nom, the text of the article appears to have been copied straight from WoWWiki (mostly from the "History and background" section - even their citation template "ref web" was copied over, even though the template by the same name here works very differently - for reference, here's the copy to here). As both sites are under CC-BY-SA, this isn't a huge issue ... but the history here should provide proper attribution to the authors on WoWWiki - I'm guessing that a mention in an article summary showing it was copied from there would be enough - but how to work that in after the fact? Is it adequate to put a tag on the talk page (and the edit summary of the talk page addition, in case it gets removed from the talk page later)? I'm hoping it's not necessary to list each contributor from there over here - my guess is that pointing people over there is adequate - but I don't know enough about copyright issues to be certain. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:41, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is some more comment on my talk page, but this is probably a sufficient rewrite to avoid attribution and plagiarism problems. Protonk (talk) 17:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Per improvements and excellent source finding by Odie5533. FeydHuxtable (talk) 17:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep 38 google news hits, 16 google book hits, and most surprisingly10 google scholar hits more than establish notability (unfortunately)--UltraMagnus^speak 20:43, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Based on all the sources now listed in there. Its gotten plenty of coverage from reliable sources. Dream Focus 00:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep In practice, some sorts of topics we cover more exhaustively than others. This is among the ones we do. I think it meets the technical requirements. Personally, this is not the sort of topic I am the least interested in, but that's not the criterion. DGG ( talk ) 03:32, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per UltraMagnus and Dreamfocus, and DGG's analysis as well.--Epeefleche (talk) 10:04, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, Support rewrite (possibly Protonk's). --King Öomie 17:33, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Conditionally Keep, Rewrite, Slippery Slope I entirely admit that I'd be suffering partial WP:IDONTLIKEIT if I said delete, and the article does have some merit. Drop the opinionated quotes at the top that suffer WP:RS, and if just the things left are from the actual research sources or how it relates to the growth of Wikia and the like? Okay. However, keeping this because there's finally "enough" notability besides just an external link open the gates to any other gaming wikia site having a justified main wiki article, since in a lot of cases they could cite same Wikia-related articles. Keep, but then needs a complete re-do by someone entirely unfamiliar with the topic and could make it academically. No matter what, it'll end up here again since it's basically impossible to draw a precise line between when encyclopedia-type factual Wiki can lean into and discuss fictional variants. Rewrite. Facts only. No opinion or praise quotes. Add a link to the main wikia gaming portal site to keep it--er--"gaming politics balanced". Datheisen (talk) 08:58, 18 October 2009 (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 a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.