Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Americablog (2nd nomination)

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. JForget 23:07, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Americablog[edit]

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Fails WP:WEB. While there are many GHits to the blog, and there is some coverage of issues raised by the blog, there is little to no discussion of the blog itself, as required by WP:WEB. At the first AFD, one of the issues raised focused on the number of Google News references, but there was no mention of the depth of the references, most of which were nothing more than On AMERICAblog, John Aravosis... The article is better written, but still not adequately referenced, and there is not sufficient coverage in reliable sources to rectify the situation. The article notes three events in which the blog participated: revealing that Jeff Gannon had been an escort, buying Wesley Clark's cell phone records (which belongs in the article on John Aravosis, not his blog), and protesting a Snickers ad which ran during Super Bowl XLI. The Gannon issue can be mentioned in his article, and the Clark phone records in the article on Aravosis, but a separate article need not exist for the blog.Horologium (talk) 12:16, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. Two of the references are non-trivial and establish barely sufficient notability for an article. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 12:43, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to John Aravosis and merge any worthwhile content in there. N p holmes (talk) 13:06, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JForget 23:03, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Americablog is a very popular liberal blog/newsite, which has broken a number of prominent stories since 2004. I will try to check to improve sourcing, but there are tons of news sources which should be chopped off the project if this one was.--Milowent (talk) 23:58, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I plan to nominate more blogs for deletion, this one is the first one (alphabetically) on the list. It may be a "popular" blog, but there is nothing about the blog itself in reliable sources. The Wesley Clark cell-phone records purchase, the most noteworthy thing about the blog, isn't really about the blog; it's about John Aravosis, who already has an article. Horologium (talk) 00:22, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I respect the forthright statement of your plans, but my own view, considering the changes in communications media since Wikipedia was started, is that we have been unduly restrictive, and ought to be covering considerably more of them, though it will not be easy to establish good criteria. DGG ( talk ) 19:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Aside from any focus on how "popular" the blog is, AMERICAblog has been a generator of discussion about, and thus a focal point of, a number of notable political controversies over the last few years.

The most prominent of these has been the disclosure that a journalist given preference in the White House Press Briefing Room during the Bush administration had scant journalistic credentials and was in fact using a pseudonym, sidelining from his main career as a proprietor of a male prostitute service. This controversy raised a number of questions, which were then discussed in mainstream news both online and on television. The controversy, and AMERICAblog's role in it, then re-emerged as a point of reference more recently when the Washington Post's Dana Milbank posited that President Obama's reliance on the Huffington Post's Nico Pitney during a White House Press Briefing addressing the Iranian election crisis constituted an indecorous Presidential/press relationship.

Another controversy pertained to the public response to a legal brief filed by the current Administration's Justice Department in response to a suit that challenged the constitutionality of Bill Clinton's Defense of Marriage Act: AMERICAblog generated the analysis that the brief equated gay marriage with pedophilia and incest, a view which then permeated discussion of the brief, which then led to threats among Democratic party donors that they would upset the party's coalition by working against the Administration. The controversy was followed by the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, who ultimately pointed to additional analysis which undercut AMERICAblog's perspective.

These incidents affect discussion of notable political figures, which in turn affects their political sway, which in turn affects the direction of public affairs -- this is one of those "we hold these truths to be self-evident" type of things among avid users of the internet, which Wikipedians are.

Thus, I strongly disagree with the assertion that the Wesley Clark cell phone records purchase is "the most notable thing about the blog".

I also disagree with the suggestion that the blog's article should be re-directed to John Aravosis. Aside from the fact that the above-mentioned controversies were generated from the blog, it is also significant that the blog has other notable contributors. A.J. Rossmiller's book Still Broken: A Recruit's Inside Account of Intelligence Failures, From Baghdad to the Pentagon is a well-documented first-hand analysis of the conduct of the Iraq War from inside the U.S. intelligence apparatus, which deserves its own article (so I'll probably write it).

I will find appropriate sources and add them to the article (but not today). And no, I don't have any association with the blog nor do I know any of the people I just mentioned.Brrryan (talk) 11:34, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Again, there is no coverage *of the blog itself*, other than mentions of the blog's existence and its role in a few controversies. As for redirecting a blog to its most prominent contributor, Daily Pundit redirects to William Thomas Quick and Firedoglake redirects to Jane Hamsher, to name two which come to mind immediately. A. J. Rossmiller may be notable enough for his own article (although he doesn't have one yet), but John Aravosis definitely qualifies. Horologium (talk) 12:16, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen this argument before, i.e., that a lack of in-depth coverage focused on a blog itself or other publication means it isn't notable, but I don't believe that is the reality here on wikipedia. In this case, the sheer number of times that Americablog is referenced by other news sources, and the stories Americablog is credited with breaking, should be in sum more than sufficient. I went ahead and added a small section to the article on "Rankings" to give some additional feel for the impact of the blog. When it comes to media sources, its not unusual that other media sources don't write profiles of them--its the aggregate of references that should be weighed. This doesn't only happen with blogs, its also common with smaller newspapers -- there's no evidence of profiles existing about print sources like Rapid City Journal, Ames Tribune, Bozeman Daily Chronicle, and Yellowknifer, but apparent consensus is in favor of keeping these articles. Those are simply small newspapers in one newspaper towns; while an online media sources shouldn't get an article just just because it exists, i think it should when the sum of references from other sources is significant--Milowent (talk) 13:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

agreed--this affects conventional media too. Size and demonstrated primacy in an area can sometimes be notability. DGG ( talk ) 13:57, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just using the same logic employed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zombietime, where my arguments, which ran similar to yours, were drowned out by insistence that coverage by mainstream (i.e. non-blog) media on three continents, over at least two (and arguably three) stories kicked off by photoessays from the site did not matter, since the blog itself was not discussed, only the content. In at least that case, the reality was that the standards were enforced. There are dozens of blogs which have less coverage (in breadth and depth) that that blog received, and I will be going through and ensuring that the same standards are applied. Horologium (talk) 15:01, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind the deletionist darkside, articles get deleted without absolute consistency (and it shall always be that way). The guidance as it is does not require in-depth discussions to show notability, e.g.,Wikipedia:Notability_(media)(essay), "the depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability." Reviewing that Zombietime AfD, I'm sure I could make arguments that Americablog is more notable, but I probably would have been in favor of keeping that as well. Instead of trying to eliminate articles about blogs that need improvement and not deletion, you could always request userification of Zombietime to try to improve it and hopefully one day recreate it in a stronger more-defensible iteration. --Milowent (talk) 17:16, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't have a horse in the race in reference to Zombietime; I never edited the article, although I was familiar with the site. The problem with it (and with all blogs) is that there is usually not a lot of coverage of blogs (content-wise) unless there is some sort of controversy about the blog itself, and then the articles can become very coat-racky. I don't think that zombietime (or many other websites, including this one) pass the notability guidelines as currently written. However, I dislike seeing a double standard (and rest assured, there is a double standard) in which articles get deleted because of an interpretation of a standard which is not applied equally to other blogs. Americablog is first on my list alphabetically, but it's also a test case; its notability stems from a pair of issues (similar to zombieblog), in which there is substantial coverage of issues raised by the blog, but little coverage of the blog itself. I've not canvassed (I have a philosophical objection to that sort of thing) but none of the editors who participated in the zombietime AfD have commented on this one; I'd like to see if they have the same attitude on this blog as they did on the other. Horologium (talk) 19:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep on balance, I think the sources are sufficient to establish the political importance of the blog and thus its notability. Other blogs should be discussed elsewhere. DGG ( talk ) 04:40, 30 September 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.