Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CarsDirect

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 Internet Brands and Wikitravel - there is a consensus that these two are notable and no consensus that notability is overridden by the COI issues.

The result of the discussion on the remaining articles is No consensus. As is often the case with mass AfDs, minimal time has been devoted to the individual merits of each article/notability of each individual topic. There is no consensus to delete on COI issues alone, thus the result can only be no consensus. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

CarsDirect

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

See:

Wikipedia_talk:WPSPAM#Internet_Brands_spam_on_Wikipedia - huge list, note that on all the articles they contain multiple links to their own site, this is for black hat SEO reasons. One way they add in yet more links (with google friendly descriptions) is by citing themselves ( Internet Brands ) or the site they own as sources for the articles repeatedly!
Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/Internet Brands

This is part of a longrunning astroturfing campaign by this company with edits by them going as far back as 2006, looking at the contributions of even only the most obvious accounts used by them (LuvWikis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), LoveWikis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and CellarDoor2001 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)), no telling if editors who have also been adding positively to them are part of the company, as they may use personal accounts too more inconspicuously, which would make sense.

This seems to be part of a semi-professional whitewashing/blackhat PR/SEO operation (I say semi-professional cos of the amateurish way they haven't really tried to hide what they are doing: [1] though even so, the operation still seem to have remained undetected for *over 4 years* by anyone on Wikipedia) and should be dealt with zero tolerance if you want to discourage this and other corporations from manipulating Wikipedia to suit their owne ends in the future.

The fact that they remained undercover for over 4 years without anyone catching them makes me worry how many other similar PR "campaigns" are being quietly waged here, especially if others are smarter and don't create accounts specifically for doing it. For Wikipedia's sake to protect it in the future this needs to be stood against and to not let them get away with this, or others will take heart thinking "it's ok, as long as we don't get caught"... If they aren't already. Kittins floating in the sky yay (talk) 08:48, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am also nominating the following related pages because these articles have been part of the same PR manipulation Online reputation management operation, for the reasons above:

I think this will be a test case of whether this kind of rather sociopathic manipulatitive behaviour from corporations with money to gain by whitewashing Wikipedia will be tolerated, if this operation is deemed to still be mostly a success it will mean many marketing agencies taking heart that they are safe in doing these things and pave the way for more similar operations to happen in the future. This has been going on for over 4 years without anyone raising the alarm... --Kittins floating in the sky yay (talk) 09:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

[2] - google "internet+brands"+wikipedia, over twelve thousand results...
- Their official website links to Wikipedia as the official description (makes sense given that they basically owned the articles with their shill editors):
- internetbrands.com/the-company (backup at internetbrands.png in case they try to wipe that evidence too)
  - These ones did too , but have been quickly hidden trying to not draw attention to what they have been doing now they've been caught I guess:
- At the bottom of the Facebook page and on the Related tab (next to the Wikipedia tab) there's a guy posting bragging about how they bought another website, "Gordon Bengston" which has a link to their website, which says it all really: "Gordon Bengston & Internet Marketing -- Brute Force SEO eMarketing Tips and Trends", facebook groups include "Profit Optimization Group", "specializing in Website Design and Development, Search Engine Marketing, PPC, and Email Marketing. YOUR customers are now searching for you on Google, you need to be there!" and "E-Marketing Systems - Getting Your Business a Presence on the Internet".. the Wall seems to be same content copied over from twitter.com/GordonBengston

apparently pyramid schemes are also ran by these people, check out the abhorrent "testimonials" from professional spammers...

Another page on the guy's site talks about "OWNING google results"...

And another link from the Facebook page says "Internet Brands - Freelance Writer" ... Guess I found their team and explains why it's so amateurish, looks like they are just roping in people from work from home scams which would seem to fit with their amoral black hat sociopathic tactics everywhere else... --Kittins floating in the sky yay (talk) 11:39, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I checked these links to Gordon Bengston, there appears to be no true link between this seo and internet brands.

I suggest you check again, Anonymous-for-fear-of-reprisals: Gordon Bengston posts on Internet Brands facebook a_man_alone (talk) 14:12, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea taking a screenshot! That may well actually be Gordon posting here trying to cover his tracks rather noobishly, the IP that message was posted from is Internet Brands PR using valletta.dreamhost.com (check contribs) webhosting shell as a proxy, see: http://robtex.com/ip/69.163.239.12.html --118.122.88.5 (talk) 12:15, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy keep. Articles have either been cleaned up or are in the process of being so. Nominator does not give adequate policy based reason for deletion (many articles start off as spam that are cleaned up). If there are concerns about notability of some of the individual articles then they should be renominated individually with a valid rationale. Quantpole (talk) 09:17, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it", WP:IAR - You really have to try look at this from their point of view, this is a success if their material stays up, and no doubt they are already having emergency meetings on how to "deal with" Wikipedia in a more "effective" way... You have a rare opportunity here where they have gave themselves away so plainly, in the future it will doubtfully be so easy, especially if they get away with it this time... --Kittins floating in the sky yay (talk) 09:24, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We do not delete articles to get revenge on people acting inappropriately or to act as some sort of discouragement. If the subjects of the articles are notable then they are kept because that is a benefit to our readers. There have already been many articles connected to Internet Brands deleted because they did not have evidence of notability. I admire your zeal for dealing with this but at the moment I'm afraid you are going about it the wrong way. These articles will have plenty of people watching them now to remove spam. I suggest you do the same. If you suspect that people from the company are editing the articles again in a spammy way then you can raise it with an admin. It is likely that the spammers will be blocked now. ~~There really is not a lot more to do. I can guarantee you that this deletion debate will not succeed, and I suggest you withdraw the nomination.~~ Quantpole (talk) 09:58, 5 May 2010 (UTC)Striking as a bit patronising and it is obvious that many other people agree. Quantpole (talk) 13:37, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Internet Brands / Delete the rest - The majority of pages are promotive and smack of being spammy, but the parent company of Internet Brands is notable, and with a bit (lot) of housekeeping is a reasonable addition to Wikipedia. a_man_alone (talk) 10:08, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Internet Brands, delete the others or rather Redirect all to Internet Brands, they can get a brief coverage there. References seem to be very inflated:

lots of inflated sources in these articles

A quote of the founder in an interview of someone else is passed as an interview to the founder of the website and used to source that the website has been "written up in the New York Times" (NYT interview in the Crafster article[3]),
website gets mentioned once as one of the websites specialized in the field,
appearances in lists of "50 best websites of X in year Y" or "Website of the week",
source doesn't talk about the website but about how the users of the website talked about something else (Washington Post source in DVDTalk[4]),
a listing in "9 Sites for Fitness and Travel" gets passed as "A PCWorld award" (PCWorld source in FitDay article [5]),
source that quotes anonymous posts from the website but doesn't cover the site itself (Times article in Professional Pilots Rumour Network article [6],
"Favourite Site of the Week" footnote in Dvorak's article (Forbes source in Professional Pilots Rumour Network article [7]], etc.

Some of them, Wikitravel and FlyerTalk, seem to have enough independent coverage to report their purpose and size, but that's not all. No independient sources covering them --> no notability of their own --> no article --> no need to discuss by separate unless a source showing notability is given. Their current sources don't seem to show that notability. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:57, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the best solution here is to delete any articles where all significant edits are by the COI accounts. If other members of the Wikipedia community then decide to create redirects or even new, properly sourced, neutral and non-promotional articles, then fine. Any edits by WP:SPA accounts should be treated with suspicion, of course. Guy (Help!) 12:04, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all (without prejudice to recreation) - I think it is clear that Internet Brands see their WP articles as a marketing tool and have engaged in a plan to distort the articles. I support the deletion of all the pages so as to remove any hint that anyone with a WP:COI has distorted them in anyway. The pages then, as per Guy, that meet WP:ORG etc. can be recreated by unconnected editors. Codf1977 (talk) 12:20, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete These seem promotional in nature (and as such fail inclusion rules) there seem to be huge COI issue (meaning it may be impposible to edit them in a way that makes them NPOV).Slatersteven (talk) 12:49, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all of them. I reviewed the "sources" on several of the articles and found them to be inflated, as described; the appearance of these "references" seems to me to be fairly clear evidence of gaming the system. The entire situation seems to call for a "nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" approach. I would salt all of the articles against re-creation as well. We need to really tighten up and clarify the barriers for entry for online businesses. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:28, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Advertising-related deletion discussions. Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:31, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
keep and continue neutral editing, screening out any which are actually non-notable. The subjects of at least most of these are notable, and it is possible to edit the articles appropriately. The spammer may not be able to edit appropriately, but other people can do so. Upon seeing these articles, I did what i usually do, which is remove the spam. I think I have succeeded for the most part: I removed undocumented praise, removed minor details, removed duplication, especially of statistics; I made sure the name of the site was mentioned only once in the article, I removed all but a single mention of the parent company, removed excessive internal linking to all sorts of obvious things, removed internal and external links to related sites and the parent company, removed unnecessary see alsos. I rewrote parts that were unnecessarily expansive,& trimmed the infobox as well as the article. The only thing I have left to do is to check whether all of the references are substantial, and then remove all but the most important of them. (I only stopped at that point because it was already 5 AM where I live). And I warned the spammer not to interfere with my removals. . I think I know how to do this sort of thing--I've done it before dozens of times to substantial groups of spamming. This is very substantial, but no worse that others.

If,as suggested, we remove every article where there is substantial promotional editing, we will lose coverage of hundreds of thousands of important subjects. There is no policy even permitting this or to reject COI editing, and it goes against the policy that we are here to build an encyclopedia. --I think essentially every article on every nonprofit and profit-making company, most products, and a great many individual biographies, has been so contaminated to some extent. Do we really think I need to do the work over again? I will, if necessary, but it seems a ridiculous waste of effort when there's a base to go on. What more would we remove or change, anyway?

if, as suggested, we remove everything where some of the sources are inflated, we'll remove about half of Wikipedia. almost all of the articles involved do have at least one or two good third party source for their importance.

There is no basis in policy for removing them , so it would have to be IAR. How it helps the encyclopedia to remove articles that are improvable and already improved, is something I do not understand. I think it reflects more of an over-reaction to the fact that we failed to detect this for several years. I agree with the nom that this is a test case: it is a test case whether we edit initially unsatisfactory articles, or just remove them. I've devoted most of my work for my time here to improving them -- not just articles unsatisfactory from spam, but articles unsatisfactory for lack of sources or incompetent writing, or failure to adequately show the notability, or contaminated by POV. As i try to rewrite at least one a day, I must have done over a thousand substantial rewrites by now, besides probably ten times that number of less drastic but substantial improvements, but the community does have the power to repudiate my approach if it chooses. If it think patrolling to remove spam from articles useless, I will stop doing it. Given we have anonymous editing as a basic principle, I continue to feel the best protection we have against spam is to edit it out, the same as with other problems. Incremental editing is the basis of WP. DGG ( talk ) 17:18, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is an important difference between an article that has experienced some promotional editing, and one whose entire history is promotional. In the latter case there is IMO nothing to be lost by nuking the article and waiting until someone without a vested interest comes along to create a new article. The intersection between genuinely significant subjects and subjects which have no coverage on Wikipedia before the PR agency comes along is, in my view, small, but some of these were started by and are largely the work of people with no obvious conflict of interest - ePodunk for example was started by Alansohn who is clearly not a spammer. Guy (Help!) 08:40, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The appropriate response to misconduct by spammers is not to delete the articles they've edited, but to ban the spammers and fix the articles. If the subjects of these articles are notable, and the articles can be brought into line with NPOV using verifiable, reliable sources, those articles should remain. This proposal is like napalming a village to save it from enemy infiltration. I hate spam as much as anyone, but let's not cut off our own nose just to spite someone else's face. If you want to "make an example", how about showing how wikis can reach NPOV constructively, even in the face of self-promotion? -Jason A. Quest (talk) 18:33, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Wikitravel I'm a wikitravel admin (as an unpaid volunteer & completely unrelated to Internet Brands I'd like to add), and I just tried to give the article a read with the most neutral glasses I was able to put on - and while it certainly suffers from quality issues, I genuinely fail to see anything that would count as blatant self promotion or spamming. As a Webby award winning website [8], with just under 100.000 unique daily visitors [9] and 270 google news hits [10], I'd also like to think we meet the notability guidelines.

If there are any specific issues with the article, I think most of the Wikitravel team would be happy to discuss this on the appropriate talk page, and work out an acceptable compromise for all - nearly all of the gang of regular users over at WT, are after all also Wikipedians. Sertmann (talk) 19:26, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep wikitravel~~Comment~~ The top two editors to wikitravel seem to have a financial stake (therefore a COI) in the site suggesting that, at the least, a rewrite is in order. However, it does seem that it is independently notable so I'm reluctant to support deletion of that article. --RegentsPark (talk) 20:11, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Switching to keep wikitravel. No sense in throwing out the baby with the bath water. (Though I empathize with kittin's frustration below, the article itself seems more or less fine and the topic needs to be covered.) --RegentsPark (talk) 01:07, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure who you're referring to as the "top two editors", but AFAIK nobody in this discussion has any financial stake in Internet Brands. Obviously there's a "COI" in the sense that Wikitravel users such as myself like the site (surprise, surprise!), but this seems rather irrelevant -- personal likes or dislikes are, fortunately, not AFD criteria. Jpatokal (talk) 06:26, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

According to this, you and Evan Prodromou are the top two editors of this article. I assumed that you and the Jani Patokallio mentioned in the article as founders of wikitravel press are the same person. Ergo the financial stake (in wikitravel, not IB). --RegentsPark (talk) 12:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy keep. This AfD is patently ridiculous: virtually all the websites in question are well sourced and easily pass the notability guidelines at WP:WEB. If there are concerns about IB making promotional edits, then the correct response is to identify those responsible and go clean up the articles in question. (And oh, COI disclaimer: I've been using Wikitravel and Flyertalk long since before IB bought them, but like most users of both sites, I have an, um, rather emphatic dislike of the company and its policies.) Jpatokal (talk) 08:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural keep (and carefully renominate individually if specific properties don't meet WP:CORP or WP:WEB). Finding the COI editing was a good catch, but some of these are clearly notable nonetheless (e.g. Internet Brands, a NASDAQ-listed company that recently underwent a $100M IPO), others are almost certainly notable (e.g. Wikitravel, Apartment Ratings). A mass-nomination like this doesn't allow the time or convenient procedure to sort out which if any of these are (a) non-notable, (b) have no significant usable content, and/or (c) are beyond repair. The lede of the parent article, Internet Brands, together with the "businesses section" are enough to stand alone as a start-class article, so that one certainly isn't deletable. Of course we'll need to police the self-interested editing but that's a different issue. - Wikidemon (talk) 09:17, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: New evidence tracking down some of the IPs has been found by MER-C which has been posted on both of the See: links at the start of this debate (Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/Internet Brands and Wikipedia_talk:WPSPAM#Internet_Brands_spam_on_Wikipedia) where for at least some fo their edits they have been stupid enough to actually do it from the corporate internet as well as home, so it shows up as "CarsDirect-com" (Internet Brands' name before they changed it to be more media-friendly) in the IP... for example we know know that 100% they started and wrote most of the Internet Brands article even back then and that's why it exists at all, it's just meant as a big google-friendly advertisement for them as mentioned before, their claws have been in this stuff from the very start:

Internet Brands previous revision from 38159510
Internet Brands previous revision from 67833422
Internet Brands previous revision from 69394667
Internet Brands previous revision from 69394788

Which is why I say delete all, some of them are maybe worth recreating but they should be done without bias, by neutral parties if they are worth having at all (ones obviously not important should be protected against recreation to stop what they would "sensibly" do later in putting the stuff back in when attention has died down)

If they are to have articles, they should have them like everybody else - in a natural way that reflects whether people without a financial gain are actually interested in having articles about these websites, not the situation we have now where these website are given undue space simply because they have existed for a long time and had lots added to them (mostly BY them): Remember they have been manipulating these articles for more than 4 years in some cases... look at the accounts' contributions, look at the IP ones too...

The fact is they have gained unfairly by doing this and leaving the articles there would be letting them have their reward of having articles that are unduly large compared to other companies' still - the manipulation needs to be undone and started afresh like everybody else has to. If people can get away with it simply by hiding for a long time - years - then they will. It probably won't be long til some kind of media picks up on this (some of the edits by them with the "anonymous" cars direct IPs are pretty hilarious) because of them being involved with vBulletin before, what I am saying basically is if you want Wikipedia to have a future you need to show people like this that the behaviour won't be tolerated, or they have no reason not to just become more sophisticated (or pay better goons) and come back later.

A lot of the other IPs will be people employed by the company to edit here too, as on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/Internet Brands page I found evidence showing they are employing people via work at home scams as "Internet Brands Freelance Writer"s to do their dirty work, which means they wouldn't have the cars direct in their IP (and in future this will only get worse as they now know how to not get caught if nothing is done to prevent them coming back later once peoples' attention inevitably turns away from them) --Kittins floating in the sky yay (talk) 12:36, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this - my Delete All (above) was not because the subjects are not notable, because some clearly are - it was to protect the reputation of WP, these articles have been badly contaminated and in my view the only way to ensure that they are free from that is to start from scratch. This sends out two very clear messages, firstly if you engage in a cause of action to manipulate an article about you or your organisation you can expect to be blocked and the article removed and secondly to the wider community it says that WP can be trusted as a source, if we discover an article that has been manipulated we will delete it and start it again. Codf1977 (talk) 13:14, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Even spammy articles contain information that is useful. There are far better alternatives to deletion of notable subjects, especially as many of these articles weren't started by the spammers, so we would be deleting other peoples work as well. In this case we have an experienced editor who is willing to work on the articles to ensure they meet wikipedia policies. Deleting the articles would hinder that work. We absolutely do not use deletion of articles to 'send messages' about spamming. If the article is notable, NPOV and the rest of it then it should be kept, and maintained to avoid spam coming back. Quantpole (talk) 14:17, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Kittin says "(and in future this will only get worse as they now know how to not get caught" - well, I don't think that's likely to happen, there has been such a furore this time round that people who would normally not bother watching such a page (like me for example) now have these pages included in watchlists and will monitor by default what happens on them. For sure any bias still may be added by nefarious accounts, but there are enough people watching to make sure that any such info is either deleted, or amended to be suitable. However, I also agree with Codf1977 in that deletion and recreation is a better message. a_man_alone (talk) 14:26, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I agree that by deleting we will be removing other peoples work as well, I don't think it will hinder the work of creating good articles, but agree it will make it a little harder, but starting from a fresh canvas so to speak will ensure a contaminated free version. Ultimately I think we will have to agree to disagree, save the point that by not deleting we risk sending the message that if you do this and get found out some of your effort might be retained and all that will happen is the accounts your edit from would be blocked. Codf1977 (talk) 14:31, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. This is why we need crystal clear and much higher barriers to entry for articles about commercial business. "Notability" on Wikipedia is simply strange jargon if it does not relate to actual notability in the real world. The only actually notable businesses produce consumer products under famous brand names, are historically important in the development of technologies, have built famous landmarks, or are connected with historical events. No other business or product belongs in an encyclopedia: no back-office software company, none of the host of business to business service companies, and certainly none of these websites or online businesses.

The WP:GNG will never be an adequate tool for sifting out the truly notable businesses. Most businesses have publicity departments. There are dozens of analysts and trade papers that cover businesses without their ever being noticed in the wider world. And only those businesses that are known in a wider world are notable in the plain-English sense. The business of making money and pitching sales simply generates too much noise, and because of the predominance of noise over signal the GNG is not strict enough.

I remain more convinced than ever that the real solution to the problems of spam and paid editing is to erect much higher and clearer barriers to entry for commercial businesses, ones that require real-world notability in addition to GNG notability. And none of these businesses enjoy that kind of real world notability. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:51, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I actually agree to a large extent, but at the moment that isn't how it's done, and a random AfD with whoever turns up probably isn't the best place to discuss it (but I'm going to anyway!) I don't happen to think the problem is with the GNG though, I think it is more in terms of what is taken as being 'significant coverage'. The main problem in what you've said is the phrase 'real world notability', as that is always going to be in the eye of the beholder. Is 'real world notability' purely about the numbers of people who have heard of something or does it take it account how much people have been affected by whatever it is? A cheap, straight to DVD horror film may have been heard of by several thousand people but is unlikely to have made any difference to their lives, yet a company that has been going for 50 years and employs 50 people may have been heard of by fewer people but will have had a far greater impact on the lives of the people who have heard of it. The GNG are purely an approximation to real world notability, but it can be defined more easily. I just think we need to make it more stringent as to what is counted in terms of sources to establish notability, and I also think that many of the specific notability guidelines are a complete waste of space (particularly those in regard to people, where if anything there should be a raising of notability requirements not a slackening). Quantpole (talk) 19:53, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural keep and nominate individually. AfD is not a brute-force tool to be used for punishing spammers. There is no criterion under WP:DEL#REASON that would justify removing the Wikitravel article. That article has no copyright violation, contains no vandalism, contains no spam or advertising content, etc. etc. (And before someone argues about the advertising content, what's there is purely descriptive and contains no promotional language whatsoever.) Powers ^T 16:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Carry on as normal/Procedure" --Kittins floating in the sky yay (talk) 16:22, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What, specifically, about the Wikitravel article requires deletion? Powers ^T 17:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This has all been said already... These articles have been subject to an insidious planned PR campaign waged by Internet Brands over a very long period going as far back to 2006 (which is also the year Internet Brands bought Wikitravel) - that's just going on the ones where they've been stupid enough to edit from an IP address with "carsdirect" in it, it's been pointed out with evidence on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/Internet Brands page that they employ "Freelance Writers" via work from home schemes too which means they can't be tracked down as easy. Some of the articles are maybe worth recreating but they should be done without bias, by neutral parties if they are worth having at all (ones obviously not important should be protected against recreation to stop what they would "sensibly" do later in putting the stuff back in when attention has died down).

If they are to have articles, they should have them like everybody else - in a natural way that reflects whether people without a financial gain are actually interested in having articles about these websites, not the situation we have now where these website are given undue space simply because they have existed for a long time and had lots added to them (mostly BY them): Remember they have been manipulating these articles for more than 4 years in some cases... look at the accounts' contributions, look at the IP ones too...

The fact is they have gained unfairly by doing this and leaving the articles there would be letting them have their reward of having articles that are unduly large compared to other companies' still - the manipulation needs to be undone and started afresh like everybody else has to. If people can get away with it simply by hiding for a long time - years - then they will. Anything else but being firm will give the all clear to future and other current spammers at the moment ... what I am saying basically is if you want Wikipedia to have a future you need to show people like this that the behaviour won't be tolerated, or they and other companies have no reason not to just become more sophisticated (or pay better goons) and come back later. If you think this is the only company doing this on Wikipedia you would be being a bit naive - this is why I've said a few times now Wikipedia needs to have some kind of system like dealing with vandals and stuff to actually thoroughly investigate these kind of things rather than relying on pure luck like you have here for someone to stumble across what's going on and tell you. This time Wikipedia has been lucky, if things don't change it will only get worse.

Also should be noted above user has a conflict of interest as he is one of the site's administrators and people like "Todd VerBeek" are telling people on wikitravel to come here and use their accounts for "damage control" if they have sufficient edits to not arouse suspicion, to which "LtPowers/Powers" above replied: "I think I have enough WP editing history to be considered more than just an interloper".[11].

Ok, I'm done, the sheer amount of backdoor dealings going on just makes me want to have a shower and stay away from Wikipedia, just way way too easy to corrupt anything... --Kittins floating in the sky yay (talk) 22:56, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since Kittins just libeled me by name, I want to state for the record that her account of what I wrote over on Wikitravel is untrue. I did not suggest doing anything covert or deceptive (I had no reason to). Can this and her other defamatory personal attacks on those who disagreed with her be removed by an admin? - TVB 99.54.136.121 (talk) 22:53, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Let me get this straight -- you're implicitly admitting that the article content is fine, yet saying that it should be deleted anyway just to punish Internet Brands and "send a message"? <boggle>

Also, you keep talking about "COI" here, but users of Wikitravel are most emphatically not employees of Internet Brands and I, for one, find it downright offensive to be tarred with the same brush as said company's underpaid work-at-home spam monkeys. Jpatokal (talk) 00:03, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Kittins has gotten so worked up over this she's quitting the project. It's hard to see why. What she doesn't understand is that we are not interlopers here; I am as much a member of the Wikipedia community as she is. Many of us who edit Wikitravel are also regular Wikipedia editors. We have the same goals -- in fact, at Wikitravel we constantly struggle against spam just like we do here at Wikipedia. There are no backdoor dealings going on. Yes, I'm doing damage control; why shouldn't I? I'm a regular Wikipedia editor commenting on a topic in which I'm interested. What Kittins hasn't done is provide any evidence that the content of the Wikitravel article was written by agents of Internet Brands, or that its current content is not acceptable. A re-written version is going to look more-or-less the same as the current version; it's just pointless busywork to delete what's there and wait for someone to recreate it. Powers ^T 00:37, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

CarsDirect is definitely a blatantly promotional article and as such it meets the criteria for speedy deletion. If it is kept, it needs to be tagged and cleaned up accordingly. Deb (talk) 11:41, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This deletion debate and related articles need to be very carefully monitored for the forseeable future, as Internet Brands, unlike some had hoped, are still directly attempting to influence Wikipedia, and have now tried to actively sway opinion on this deletion debate towards keeping these articles: they have now posted a message attempting to pose as a neutral Wikipedia editor again like with their previous accounts, claiming they are posting "anonymously for fear of retribution from Kittins" (who it seems is not actually an administrator according to your list) which as well as posting a long and rather elaborate attack on Kittins (in a way that suggests they would quite like her to be banned), warns not "to rush to some judgements", and says that they "have checked these links" and found that there is no "link" to previously-mentioned blackhat-PR/SEO scriptkiddy Gordon Bengston, in an attempt at misdirection.

The IP that message was posted from was actually Internet Brands PR themselves, using valletta.dreamhost.com (69.163.239.12) (check contribs) webhosting shell as a proxy, see: http://robtex.com/ip/69.163.239.12.html - They are connecting to a Dreamhost shell via these subnets:

116.71.191.
119.152.106.
119.152.118.
119.152.120.
119.152.242.
119.152.47.
119.152.79.
119.153.186.

and the IPs they are using to connect to the Dreamhost shell are very similar to the ones posted on Wikipedia_talk:WPSPAM#Internet_Brands_spam_on_Wikipedia

...I believe this actually backs up the need for these articles to be deleted and protected against recreation by "uninvolved" anonymous accounts in the future like the "LuvWikis"/"LoveWikis"/"CellarDoor2001"/"Cruisemates" accounts mentioned on the WPSPAM page just linked, as Internet Brands have proved they have a "by any means necessary" approach to having these articles on Wikipedia: I can only say that you are, indeed, very lucky that their typical blackhat-PR tactics have been undertaken so utterly ineptly and was caught at all, and that they didn't instead just use a less bruteforce approach to editing their articles and act as "normal happy Wikipedia community member" accounts - this will be the next step no doubt if they are allowed to keep their articles, especially if what they have already "contributed" is not wiped clean. (By the way, please block this IP too - this is part of a Chinese botnet, such as used by these kind of blackhat SEO/PR manipulator outfits). --118.122.88.5 (talk) 12:15, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Writers needed for steady telecommuting work, Internet Brands Inc" advertisement (another lovely thing on the same site, rather depressing comments there...) --208.67.253.170 (talk) 23:29, 8 May 2010 (UTC) (I'm same as 118.122.88.5 by the way, hoping these I found in a blackhat SEO pool that haven't been caught by your net will be blocked [though admittedly the irony of using their own weapons against them is nice], can anyone leave a message or something on how/who would be best to submit bulk proxy IPs for blocking to directly?)[reply]

None of which is a reason to delete reliable, sourced articles on notable web sites. Where is this message regarding Kittins that you mentioned? Powers ^T 23:53, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it fruit of the poisoned tree. If your view holds, then corporate advertises will be free to build whatever marketing articles they like on Wikipedia. When caught, they could fall back on, " none of which is a reason to delete reliable, sourced articles on notable web sites" and use Internet Brands and you as a precedent. You're argument,imho, opens Pandora's box. (anonymous) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.154.53.180 (talk) 10:02, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A point that has been raised occasionally, but is continually glossed over is that the pages were created in the first place for the sole purpose of advertising. Surely, that is unacceptable. I'll concede that the articles may now be of a standard where they fail the deletion criteria, but given their origin, is that enough? In fact, all we are doing now is furthering an advertising campaign, and - dare I add - improving it for the parent company as well. That, I think, is what has galled Kittin. a_man_alone (talk) 08:44, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a case of tarring all the articles with the same brush. While it may be true of some IB articles, the wikitravel article was created in 2003, when its goals were more in consonance with those of wikipedia and well before it became a commercial site. With due respect to kittin's, I think this is a situation where the proposed solution (deletion of all IB related articles) is not addressing the main issue (how to deal with spam from IB). --RegentsPark (talk) 21:14, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikitravel's goals are still in consonance with those of Wikipedia. We actively reject any attempt by IB to influence editorial content (and to their credit, they know better than to try), and we never edit with an eye toward how it will affect IB's income. The only difference between the way Wikipedia is run and the way Wikitravel is run is that Wikipedia is fortunate enough to be owned by a non-profit with extensive resources. Powers ^T 11:46, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Though I'll defer to you on that one, on the face of it I don't agree. It appears that wikitravel is selling user contributions through wikitravel press (which is fairly prominently featured both on our article as well as on wikitravel) and the proceeds of these sales are flowing back to Internet Brands (as well as, presumably, to the owners of wikitravel press). In that sense, wikitravel's goals differ greatly from those of wikipedia.--RegentsPark (talk) 16:12, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, just like everything on Wikipedia, the content on Wikitravel is released under a free license. Which means anyone can take the content, package it, and sell it. Wikitravel Press is really not very different from PediaPress in that respect. Note that according to that linked article, Wikimedia receives 10% of the sales of PediaPress books. Better delete the Wikipedia article, then! Powers ^T 16:38, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note that I am not arguing that the wikitravel article should be deleted (quite the contrary actually). However, since you insist, there is a difference between wikipedia and wikitravel - Wikitravel is owned by a for-profit corporation while wikipedia is entirely non-profit. Therein lies the difference between what wikitravel press does and what pediapress does. (And, if I may add, that is one probable reason why wikitravel press is prominent in the wikitravel article and site while pediapress is not in the wikipedia article.) The goals of the contributors may largely be the same, and I have no argument with that, but the two organizations have very different goals. --RegentsPark (talk) 16:53, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Of course that's enough. Origin doesn't matter; what matters is what's in the articles now. Powers ^T 12:47, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of IPs doing strange things, 118.122.88.5 (talk · contribs), 125.64.94.6 (talk · contribs) and 208.67.253.170 (talk · contribs) have repeatedly deleted slabs of this discussion and even made the bizarre allegation that I am 24.11.100.80 (talk · contribs). I'm not even going to try to sort out who's who here, but readers may wish to view the article history and figure it out themselves. 23:14, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all The first one is CarsDirect. Clicking the Google news search at the top of the AFD, shows over two thousand news results! [12] The Los Angeles Times and others do mention this. So that's an obvious keeper. So I don't trust the nominator has even gone a token search for anything on the long list of things nominated. How about you nominate each thing individually, after doing at least a brief two second search for them, to avoid wasting everyone's time. Dream Focus 05:19, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is exactly why marketers love Wikipedia. You plainly - and rather hypocritically - have not bothered to read any of the discussion. Barely anyone seems to ever do anything but take things at face value... it's hopeless. I bet Internet Brands/CarsDirect are rubbing their hands with glee reading this. --208.67.253.170 (talk) 07:59, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to second 208.67.253.170's comments - unlike most AfD's this is not about notability, this is about the the manipulation of an artical for comicial reasons by the subject. IMO the best way to deal is to delete and start again. Codf1977 (talk) 13:12, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I came to Internet Brands looking for information on the owners of vBulletin and found this AfD request. If had been deleted out of spite or punishment I wouldn't have found it. I recommend documenting the company's bad behaviour, watching the page and banning anyone who edits it out for vandalism. Bitplane (talk) 11:08, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I (and others) are not saying that the artical should not be re-created - just delete and start again. Codf1977 (talk) 13:12, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But there's nothing wrong with the content currently present in, say, Wikitravel. The recreated article would be virtually identical, so the deletion is pointless. Powers ^T 13:29, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you have a problem with something in an article, you edit it. You don't try to delete it, saying they should start over again. That makes absolutely no sense at all. Dream Focus 14:45, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Focus. -12.7.202.2 (talk) 19:41, 10 May 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.