Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wikipedia Reference Desk

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 merge to Wikipedia. Consensus (or at least the solution probably most acceptable to most people) is that this is not yet a fit subject for a full article, but may be covered with a sentence or two in Wikipedia and/or any appropriate subarticles. Sandstein 06:45, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Reference Desk

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

Non-notable article, and navel-gazing. The fact that the reference desk attracted a single study doesn't make it notable. If this were part of any other website, would we have an article about it? Note that things like Wikipedia requests for adminship and Wikipedia administrator's noticeboard don't have articles, and Wikipedia Arbitration Committee was redirected. The closest comparison for this article is probably Yahoo! Answers, and that article has far more references for third-party coverage than this does. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:23, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. One single study in a not-particularly-prominent journal, no particular coverage in secondary sources. Not notable outside of our own particular world, though I do feel my belly-button is worthy of extra study. Let's get this over with quickly and go back to being excellent at what we do. I'm not looking forward to having to insert the obvious major bloopers that happen on the RD's to complete the record. This should be enclosed in a WP:SNOWball. Franamax (talk) 22:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I look forward to the day that we are well known and notable, but that is not today. Dragons flight (talk) 23:03, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. What they said. --ColinFine (talk) 23:39, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep While it is only one source, it is a dedicated academic study on the subject. That's as good a source as you can get. Wikipedia:Notability doesn't require multiple sources. --Tango (talk) 23:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually I'd say a review article in a respected journal would be a much better source, since it would represent a peer-reviewed summary of a current state of knowledge. This is one primary source, which policy links I shall not put. Franamax (talk) 01:32, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - It isn't a primary source. The author has nothing to do with the Ref Desk, as far as I know. Papers are primary sources about the research discussed in them. They are secondary sources about the subjects of that research. --Tango (talk) 17:21, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Fails WP:Web, and also raises WP:Self concerns. Not to beat down upon ourselves, we have a single research article, which has received no secondary media/scholarly attention yet, and was not published in a highly prestigious journal; the "subject" hasn't won any awards; is a pretty low-traffic website (<5000 hits/day); and hasn't received any significant coverage in any other secondary sources that I am aware of. At this point we would simply have an article summaary of the JoD paper, which we would not even consider barring our obvious conflict of interest. Abecedare (talk) 01:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. -- Abecedare (talk) 01:18, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. -- Abecedare (talk) 01:18, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It has now occurred to me that we already have an article about this topic, improbably entitled Wikipedia. Would the better solution be to simply merge this marginally notable information into the primary article? Franamax (talk) 01:42, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Merge: that is exactly what I was thinking as I clicked over to this discussion. —Akrabbim^talk 01:55, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Agree. The source is sufficient to add say a 1 sentence mention of refdesks at Wikipedia, and a 2-3 sentence summary of their reliability at Reliability of Wikipedia and Academic studies about Wikipedia. Abecedare (talk) 02:02, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge or weak ~~keep~~ delete. Believe it or not, there are books about Wikipedia these days, and the Ref Desk, is covered in one of them [1] at sufficient length for a stub. Also covered in a self-pub book from lulu.com [2]. A merge seems preferable though. Pcap ping 01:59, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Does anyone have a copy of The Wikipedia Revolution? That is probably the most notable "book on Wikipedia". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:33, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - No, but I searched in it on Amazon. No mention of "reference desk" in it. Pcap ping 03:26, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- As for the links you gave, the lulu-published one appears to say little more than an about.com article I removed from the external links list--essentially just "here's how to use the RD". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:33, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - I had a closer look at the O'Reilly book. It's mostly a couple of screenshots, and sample questions one could ask. Not much useful coverage. A couple of sentences at English Wikipedia seem appropriate though. Pcap ping 03:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - And all hail John Broughton for donating the book to us, watching over its evolution, and maintaining the other vast wiki-bible too. Not especially relevant to this AFD discussion but I find it a seriously cool thing to go about doing. Franamax (talk) 04:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This AfD nomination was incomplete (missing step 3). It is listed now. DumbBOT (talk) 13:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: needs more references. Alexius08 (talk) 14:35, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The author can be contacted. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep: (Or at least Give it time to develop) My first reaction was to !vote "delete" but having read the paper that is referenced in the article, it appears that it is mostly summarizing the results from several other comparative studies of "question answering services" that have been carried out by the library science folks - at least a couple of which appear to have studied the Wikipedia Ref Desk. The trouble is that those documents are "pay-to-view" so it's tough to find out what they actually say - and that's probably why we don't have more references than we do. We need to find people who have access to those documents and give them time to assess their value as references. However, my feeling is that there is enough notability here. I was also nervous about the WP:SELF issues - but having re-read that guideline, I find nothing there that says that we cannot write about Wikipedia itself - only that we may not gratuitously refer to ourselves in unrelated articles. We have articles on similar subjects (Knowledge Search, for example) with no referencing whatever - and articles such as Hunch (website) have references that are mostly links to announcements of the site and self-references from the site itself. What we have here is an actual, authoritative academic paper - published by library reference desk professionals. That's a strong reference and a strong claim for notability. The reason I have a "Weak" keep is that I'm concerned about WP:COI and WP:OR issues if Wikipedia ref desk contributors (such as myself) were to work on that article. Hence I'm not going near it personally. But I do recommend that people re-check (as I did) the WP:SELF guidelines and then I suggest we forget that this is an article ABOUT Wikipedia and treat it like any other article about a web service that answers questions from the general public. SteveBaker (talk) 01:48, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge or delete. Based on one or two primary publications in highly-specialized venues, adding more than a paragraph or so about the Ref Desks to the encyclopedia will push us over the boundary from information to self-congratulation. There just isn't enough material to justify a full, free-standing article, and we don't generally keep articles about websites which have a few hundred visitors per day. Redirect this article to Wikipedia. Mention these (and other sources, as appropriate) there, in Academic studies about Wikipedia, and/or Reliability of Wikipedia. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge (weak). I created the article and am now a bit uncomfortable about it. On the one hand, the number of 3rd party articles specifically about the Refdesk is low enough that we could mention the notable material at a hypothetical new Refdesk section of the English Wikipedia article (if it'll be allowed) until the section is too large and awkward, at which point a standalone article gets created, as usual. On the other hand, there are many articles about less notable subjects that have survived AfD. (I know, someone wrote an essay saying that's not a legitimate justification, but consistency has some value.) I think some of my own discomfort and, obviously, some of the above discomfort is about the navel-gazing and the idea that this should force a higher standard of notability. I think I agree with SteveBaker that this shouldn't be the case. Currently I'd say I'm 49-51 between "keep" and "merge". Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:04, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge into the main WP article, though I'm not sure if "merge" is really the word for sticking two sentences into that rather lengthy article. "Wikipedia also maintains a reference desk, where volunteers answer questions from the general public and provide references if available. According to a study by Pnina Shachaf in the Journal of Documentation, the quality of the Wikipedia reference desk is comparable to a standard library reference desk, with an accuracy of 55%." Matt Deres (talk) 21:00, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:SELF. Gosox(55)(55) 01:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC), Weak delete or perhaps weaker merge to Wikipedia. Rereading the guideline, an article about wikipedia appears to be fine. My issue is now notability. The reference desk at a library would not normally be notable, why should Wikipeida's? It is also not notable per WP:WEB. Gosox(55)(55) 02:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge in various appropriate articles per Abecedare (02:02, 18 February) and Matt Deres (21:00, 21 February). — Sebastian 00:57, 24 February 2010 (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.