Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Social network aggregation

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. This is a good example of a consensus shifting as an article was substantially improved during the AfD discussion. --MCB (talk) 07:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Social network aggregation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Neologism. Statistics are cited, but claims and connections are original research. Seems like someone's essay trying to tie some theory and phenomenon to this apparent service Angrysusan (talk) 18:35, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Reads like random stats with a bit of OR. Not that the OR seems to involve much research - people make different friends in different situations? There's zero explanation of how the term has come into use, what it really stands for - the impresion given is it's just a nice user friendly tag for the bleeding obvious. I'm concerned it was created by someone with CoI, plus seems to be owned - as the AfD tag has been removed several times whilst an active AfD present. Unless the ownership gets resolved, plus some semblance of notability gets added, then it's frippery at best. Minkythecat (talk) 19:04, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Upon review, changed vote. My concerns over ownership and CoI are too great at the moment - but not unsolveable - however the notability is a far stronger problem which I can't see being resolved. Minkythecat (talk) 19:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Would need substantial rewrite to meet MoS and notability standards. Huge OWN and COI problems, as above. Considered stubbifying, but then there's no context - bottom line, it's not encyclopedic. Tan | 39 19:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - Agree with above, reads like a college essay; or rather a business plan. This is the description and defense of a business idea, with little proof of notability. Equazcion •✗/C • 19:11, 9 Apr 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. This lies somewhere in the uncharted islands between Original Research and Spam. It seems to be proposing the idea that soon you will be able to Make Money Fast by collecting and crossreferencing the things people post to networking sites. This seems to me to be using Wikipedia in the service of promoting a new idea - and a new commercial proposition to boot. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 20:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - may be notable someday, but for now is a twinkle in various corporate eyes. (At least one of the links given is to a blog posting, which in turn references: the Wikipedia article itself!) --Orange Mike | Talk 20:17, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as WP:OR at best. Guy (Help!) 20:42, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak delete without prejudice for future recreation. Not notable yet. Barely. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 20:51, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep by redirect to Social network. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:04, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  You probably mean Social network service which may not be a bad idea., or even Social media. I also think some of the information in the article can be rewritten and expanded to one of these articles. I did not create the article but I would like it userified to my sand box. I will see how I can integrate some of the information in the paret articles. Of course not the Spammy links. Igor Berger (talk) 21:15, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Keep rewrite While Social network aggregation does exist and one can probably find sources, the article's form that it is now is not encyclopidic. It does not even have much content beyond some WP:OR. I hope this article can be rebuild in a near future, but it will be hard to find secondary sources because the industry is new, maybe a few years old at the most. This is not Spam or self promotion or WP:COI. The industry is evolving into multi billion dollars. I am not sure how much Yahoo paid for MyBlogLog, but if I had to guess, it would be $1 billion dollars. So this topic has a future. Unfortunately we are an encyclopidia! Igor Berger (talk) 21:08, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to Social Network. This is a valid topic in social network analysis but a separate article on it is not necessary. It does need some sort of answer to the "so what" question and it needs to be re-written to be more understandable in laymen's terms. Renee (talk) 22:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  Social network Not to be confused with social network services such as MySpace, etc. or virtual community. Igor Berger (talk) 23:22, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete -- per the nomination and WP:OR. Xdenizen (talk) 00:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep It is obviously not a neologism as these are all long-standing words and their meaning seems clear enough. Per WP:NEO: "use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title." And there seems to be enough discussion of the topic out there to support an article. Colonel Warden (talk) 11:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• The Economist had an article on the evolution of social networks from walled gardens to interworking open standards recently. I suppose we have an article on OpenID... Colonel Warden (talk)

• Good! If we can get some more sources and maybe rewrite the aticle to make seem more encyclopidic I would recommed keeping it as well. This is definitly a real and useful topic, not Spam! Igor Berger (talk) 12:15, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So Igor, are you striking your delete !vote in light of these new sources? X Marx The Spot (talk) 12:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I will strike it out if we can get a consensus going towards keep. Okay, changing to Neutral for now, and I will revise to keep if we see the reasons for keeping it. Igor Berger (talk) 12:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep but re-write. Because that's clearly all it needs. Some previous comments (above) have also stated that in passing. Delete through lack of notability, for sure, but not through lack of proper explanation of the subject, which exists at the moment. That's an editing concern, not a policy/guideline infraction. Ref ^(chew)(do) 13:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree and I will change my vote to keep. I just did not want to take the resposibility for rewritting this article. I do know about social netwrong services and social media, but I do not know how much time I will have on hand to contribute in building this article. Other editor on Wikipedia also know about this field, but we are all busy with staff. But I guess some of us can chip in and build this article. Igor Berger (talk) 13:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep and rewrite, my first question upon seeing this article was: Are there any social network aggregators? I see[1] that there are, such as MyLifeBrand and ProfileLinker. This article in Advertising Age magazine[2] also mentions Open ID, OtherEgo, and Profilatic. The Spokesman-Review had an article about social network aggregators in June 2007[3], although that article is primarily about MyLifeBrand. From browsing the Google News Archives, I also notice Upscoop by Rapleaf, SocialURL, ProfileFly, Dandelife, Zoominfo, Spokeo, Plaxo Pulse, FriendFeed, etc. There are articles[4] about social network aggregators in BusinessWeek, Red Herring, and the Portland Press Herald. The humor website BBspot also has a satirical article about a social network aggregator aggregator. I don't know if each of those websites are notable enough for their own article, but taken as a whole, I think social network aggregation is a notable phenomenon. I think this does currently read like an essay or business plan and it should be rewritten. I would support renaming this article to social network aggregator. If people think the current article is unsalvageable, I would support the creation of a social network aggregator article, with this term turned into a redirect. --Pixelface (talk) 14:44, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  It does not matter about the title, what ever you feel comfortable with, being that you are voluntiring to rewrite. I just added a few new sources, on the fly, so please take a look at them. See what you can salvage from the original article and build with it. Igor Berger (talk) 15:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  The title does matter. I think social network aggregator would be much more appropriate: an article describing a technology. This article merely tries to explain some phenomenon, and it does it poorly. Angrysusan (talk) 18:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  I recommended a rewrite but I guess I could help with one. I think this BusinessWeek article[5] is a good starting point. All of the sites I mentioned above are not social network aggregators. I suppose topics like OpenID or OpenSocial or Upscoop could be mentioned in an article about social network aggregation, but may seem out of place in an article about social network aggregators. Sites like Spokeo and FriendFeed appear to be actual social network aggregators. I'll see what I can rewrite. --Pixelface (talk) 16:22, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment It appears to me that much of this article had text from this blog written by Ujwal Tickoo[6] which was linked to on Slashdot[7] in January 2008. On the talk page, the user Ujwaltickoo (who created[8] the article) says[9] "I have used text from my own blog -- giving Wikipedia the rights over the text I typed." I am now in the process of rewriting much of the information. --Pixelface (talk) 17:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  With a little help from a few editors the article is begining to take shape. Moving this section to the talk page for now makes it more encyclopidic and less as a WP:SYN. We should just speedy keep it and go about our business. The editors familiar with the topic area can come around when they are available and build the article over time. This one is worth to save! Igor Berger (talk) 20:30, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• leaning delete - if the blogs used as references are removed is there enough secondary sources to establish encyclpedic notability? I'm not sure. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 23:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - I agree with other commentators above - particularly the view of this article resting somewhere between Original Research and SPAM - and I note there seems to be a lot of this going on with this area of topic recently.--VS ^talk 00:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Original research has no references, by definition being something an editor has initiated and introduced an angle to. The existence of adequate references in the article towards notability rules out that accusation. The take on spam is off the mark. You cannot accuse reliable sources of being spamlinks. Ref ^(chew)(do) 18:58, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe he was referring to the original version, listed for AfD? Try reading that... Minkythecat (talk) 19:08, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what you mean, my friend. If you provide a link to the AfD you refer to, I'll take a look. However, that is surely historical - any judgment of this version of the article is surely to be made on this version's notability as evidenced by this version's references. As I say, provide a link, diff or whatever to illustrate what you are on about. Thanks. Ref ^(chew)(do) 21:30, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't assume familiarity. Mea culpa, misread your "You" line as referring to a respondant. Regardless, the current version of the article isn't the version listed for AfD - which was definitely OR and Spammy. Minkythecat (talk) 21:37, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Friendliness aside then, it remains a fact that the AfD has to move with the developments in the article it refers to. So you cannot take a snapshot in time and say "this is the only version we are to comment on". If the article is freely edited (as AfD tags encourage), then all those commenting here need to be aware of the change by constantly checking. Comments for or against can also be changed without limit throughout the duration. Ref ^(chew)(do) 00:24, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because the article has significally changed, I propose that the editors who voted at the begining of the nomination process be asked to come back and reevaluate their votes. If this does not happen I believe this is a skewed poll. Also if you may check, the editor who has nominated this article for delition has not edited since. The editor is a new editor and may not have interest in the article or the deletion process. Igor Berger (talk) 00:54, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment If it appears a skewed "vote" (?we don't actually vote remember?), the closing admin will ordinarily take into account comments about proposed article improvement and actual edited improvements if any. Sometimes this leaves No Consensus, which at least gives the article breathing space for development in the future. As regards your proposition, I can't see how you can compel previous contributors to this AfD to return. They are at liberty to move on, having put in their views at the time of their visit. Ref ^(chew)(do) 01:13, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep or Merge with Social network service. The move toward greater openness between social network sites is clear and validated by a number of references now on the article. --Deadly∀ssassin^(talk) 10:28, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep with existing heading. Social network aggregation is a fast-growing area. None of the other articles that have been suggested for merger address this topic well. There have been adequate references in this article. However, some have been moved to the talk page, and might be edited back into here. Bellagio99 (talk) 14:49, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Being a neologism isn't a valid deletion reason. The other issues with the article are reasons for editing it, not deleting it. Rray (talk) 03:19, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Per Wikipedia:Avoid_neologisms#Articles_on_neologisms some neologisms can be deleted. I quote " Articles on protologisms are almost always deleted as these articles are often created in an attempt to use Wikipedia to increase usage of the term." --Enric Naval (talk) 21:46, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Enric Naval, It ain't a neologism. It's a term I commonly hear in the following serious circles: social network analysts, social software developers; HCI developers, and their kindred. Bellagio99 (talk) 00:43, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments that you hear on social circles are neither WP:V verifiable nor WP:RS, and can be a neologism since you don't state when you started hearing them --Enric Naval (talk) 00:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'm familiar with the link you provided. It's still not a valid deletion reason. Valid deletion reasons can be found at Wikipedia:DEL#Reasons_for_deletion. Being a neologism isn't on the list. Rray (talk) 01:38, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your sarcasm aside, some of us do believe it is on that list - the second bullet point, in fact. WP:NOT. Tan | 39 01:39, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Assume good faith? I wasn't being sarcastic. I really have already read the page that was linked to, and being a neologism really isn't listed in the list of valid reasons to delete an article. We can agree to disagree that the 2nd bullet point applies, but at any rate, that wasn't the reason given in the deletion nomination. By the way, most of the reasons you gave in your "Delete" opinion aren't valid deletion reasons either. Needing a rewrite, ownership issues, and conflicts of interest are all problems that can and should be addressed via the editing process, not via deletion. Rray (talk) 02:31, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I suppose I should assume good faith there. Sounded sarcastic. Anyways, go back in the history and read the article as I saw it - it seemed insalvageable at the time. I still am not quite sure on the notability of the term, but you are correct that a lot of the problems I wrote above have been alleviated. Tan | 39 04:05, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, rewrite as above Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 02:27, 19 April 2008 (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.