Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chidi and Chika Nwaogu

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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 delete. SarahStierch (talk) 20:31, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Chidi and Chika Nwaogu[edit]

Chidi and Chika Nwaogu (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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This article - and that of LAGbook, a website developed by the Nwaogu brothers - were both deleted in April after they were revealed to have been based almost entirely on credulous reprints of exaggerated press releases written by the Nwaogus (press releases which were later retracted by the PR site that originally published them). There was some history of the Nwaogu's putting out exaggerated press release statements (such as describing a simple affiliate programme for Etisalat as a "partnership" with that company, a claim which they were forced to publicly retract), and it appears that this new version of the article may be doing the same thing again, with "defunct MTV social-network domain name bought by someone and replaced with a GROU.PS site" being talked up as "Nigerian Programmers Contracted To Redesign MTV’s TagWorld" in an article which only quotes the brothers and "an engineer". The article is also claiming that the Lagbook website, which the brothers sold at auction in January announcing they were abandoning it, has actually just had its name changed - but this is only sourced to a (somewhat fawning) brief-question-lengthy-answer "interview" with the brothers, written by the same journalist.

Wikipedia was alerted to previous sourcing problems by a user who claimed to have bought the Lagbook website at auction, and was disappointed that both Wikipedia and Nigerian news sources had been taken in by bad faith press releases that exaggerated the significance of the website. I won't try and quote from memory, but it may be worth resurrecting Talk:LAGbook for context, if an admin could do that? McGeddon (talk) 18:47, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • I am aware that the articles to LAGbook and the brothers were deleted earlier. You said that 'they were based almost entirely on credulous reprints of exaggerated press releases writen by the Nwaogus', and I beg to differ. I took the time to look at the articles that are based on releases and those that weren't. One of the articles from Vanguard is written by Victor Gotevbe (who through my research is the Administration & HR Manager at Vanguard. Victor has a column on Vanguard called Youthful Vibes where he talks about young Nigerians making a difference, and on September 1, the brothers was featured on his column. The article came in form of an interview, in which Victor was the interviewer. This means that it is exclusive, and not based on press releases, and thus reliable. Before the interview started on the article, Victor said some personal words of his own, which included his description of the brothers as 'human set of twins making a difference, 'attacking' issues and proffering solutions'.
Looking at the National Mirror article, we can see that it is also an interview with one of the National Mirror reporters. The writer of the National Mirror article is ONUKWUBE OFOELUE and according to my research he worked as a correspondent for the newspaper for two years, and now writes for Daily Newswatch. The writer interview the brothers after they 'gathered that LAGbook recently signed a contract with Blackberry…'. This was written in the lede of the article. ONUKWUBE had a column on National Mirror called Youth and Next Generation that writes about young Nigerians making a difference just as the Youthful Vibe column on Vanguard. This means that it is also exclusive, and not based on press release, and thus reliable.
You said that the brothers claimed to have gone into partnership with Etisalat; a claim they were forced to retract. Please can you tell me where their retraction statement is? According to the National Mirror article, the brothers said that they 'did go into partnership with Etisalat, but it wasn’t monetary. It was a sponsorship on airtime; they provided airtime for our users. Etisalat's deal lasted from August 2011 March 2012.' Do you think they will publicly say that if it didn't happen, when National Mirror has a daily circulation of over 100,000? That's as much as I know about that.
You got it all wrong on the Tagworld story. If you look at this report on Techcrunch dated 2010, you will notice that GROU.PS bought TagWorld and its users from MTV: http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/13/grou-ps-buys-social-project-from-mtv-networks/ - so I dont think it ever went defunct, and bought by a random person, and replaced with a GROU.PS site.
Personally, I had signed up for a LAGbook account some months ago, and I got a message on April that the new LAGbook is now PicRate, so I think there was a name change. If they sold the site to anyone, that doesn't make it no longer LAGbook, and in fact, LAGbook did change name to PicRate (whether or not the brothers are still engage in it). lagbook.com now redirects to picrate.me, and if you need me to forward the message I received from LAGbook that their name is now PicRate, I will gladly do so.
The buyer of the site may have said things about the site that brought up some concerns, but these are claims, and not facts. Maybe things went badly between him and the brothers, and he decided to get to them that way. I can't say because I wasn't there, and neither can you.
The fact is that the Vanguard and National Mirror articles termed as press release extracts are actually interviews by writers that talk about young Nigerians impacting positive values on the nation. I am a Nigerian, and I know how popular and respected they are here. They were invited to the IT leaders West Africa Summit to speak; if they aren't reputable, will they be invited to speak at a summit where a minister spoke as well?
It's your call. I'm of the belief that no amount of facts is enough of someone who has stamped his belief on something without constructive reasons. A fact is enough of an unbiased mind. That's everything I'll say. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Babajide.O (talk • contribs) 19:26, 16 June 2013 (UTC) — Babajide.O (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
  • A press release is an official statement issued to newspapers giving information on a particular matter. This definition tells us that an interview is not a press release, because the interviewee only answers questions asked by the interviewer and doesn't just give information on whatever he/she wants. As pointed out by Babajide; the vanguard article that reads 'Let your dream run wild - Nwaogu twins' and the national mirror article that reads 'We sold our laptops to build LAGbook -Twins' doesn't count as press releases. In fact they are one of many series of articles published under a column dedicated for creative young people as Babajide also pointed out. If two column writers focused on creative youths from two unrelated national newspapers interviewed the same people (the twin brothers), doesn't that count as notable? Look at this, the questions the both columnists asked are totally different and unrelated. The vanguard columnist was focused on what inspired the creation of the social network while the national mirror columnist was focused on the blackberry advertising deal the brothers had recently struck. I look at the vanguard, theGuardian and national mirror articles and there is no similar article that exists like them. This should tell you that they are exclusive stories written by their respective writers else something similar should have sprung up with identical quotes from the Nwaogu twins. How can you call a young person whose social network grew to a million members in three years 'not notable'?
Tagworld never went defunct. It was acquired by GROU.PS and this was reported by popular and respected sources. So how can someone buy it and replace it with another site? Tagworld.com goes to tagworld.grou.ps, and since GROU.PS acquired it - the rest is self explanatory. Since LAGbook was created using GROU.PS, is it impossible for the owner(s) of GROU.PS to contact the twins to redesign Tagworld for them?
I heard about LAGbook back in August 2011 through a Techcrunch piece written by Sarah Perez. When I signed up, I discovered that they gave free airtime from Etisalat to their users for sharing photos and other multimedia. If a social network gives free airtime to its members for using it courtesy the telecommunication company that provides it, I don't see why that couldn't be looked upon as a form of partnership since both parties benefit in some way.
An announcement doesn't mean that, that is what happened on the run. I could announce that I will be abandoning my studies at school and end up finishing it for some reason. The person who bought the site might have persuaded the twins to stay a little while and give him and/or his team/partners an orientation around the workings of the site. Some sort of involvement pattern might have been created, and this doesn't change anything about a name change. Let's imagine I buy Company X from its owner and change its name to Company Y after the founders have left the project, is it wrong for a paper to report that 'Company X changes name to Company Y'? No it isn't.
Was the buyer a Nigerian or someone who lives in Nigeria? From what I have learnt, the buyer is Canadian. Does a Canadian know about the Nigerian news source? I am a Ghanaian living in Nigeria and I know the Nigerian news source and no reporter writes about something that isn't noteworthy, that is why it is called newspaper and not talkpaper. --PBaahD (talk) 21:30, 16 June 2013 (UTC)— PBaahD (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
Press interviews are regarded as primary sources. I'm not convinced that the "Nigerian Programmers Contracted To Redesign MTV’s TagWorld" story at the same site (by the same writer) is any better - it primarily just quotes the brothers' claims about their new job, and an engineer from Grou.ps, and uses quotes which are repeated on several other news/blog sites, suggesting that these may be from a press release. Given that the previous version of this article was built on dubious, later-rescinded press releases reprinted by low-oversight news blogs and then published as fact at Wikipedia, I'm concerned that this might be happening again. Have any stronger sources covered the same story? --McGeddon (talk) 14:21, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
i think you make erroneous conclusions most-a-times. if a story appears on several news/blog sites with similar quotes/content, that doesn't make it culled up from a press release. i have seen techcrunch and ventures beat article printed on many news/blog sites with the same/similar title and content. this doesn't make it a press release. many bloggers write their stories from other sources.--PBaahD (talk) 09:26, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Dude, a notable source Techcrunch reported that GROU.PS bought Tagworld. Didn't it? Now tagworld.com directs you to tagworld.grou.ps (which is intuitive since GROU.PS bought the site to increase their traffic as stated in the Techcrunch report). Now on the footer of tagworld.grou.ps, it is written 'Designed by Chidi and Chika Nwaogu', doesn't that tell without doubt that the twin brothers designed this Tagworld? Please grow up and state things based on constructive facts not speculative thoughts.--Babajide.O (talk) 08:48, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
All I'm questioning is whether the available sources show them to be notable people. WP:PRIMARY sources such as interviews and website footer credits are not relevant to this; every website has designers, but Wikipedia does not publish biographies for all of these people. --McGeddon (talk) 09:28, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Mc, have you read the title of The Guardian article 'UNILAG Programmers Blaze Trail In Social Networking'? What does that tell you? Doesn't that tell that they are notable in the Nigerian social networking space? Look at the Vanguard title 'UNILAG twins host over 71,000 users on Lagbook' and the content of the article that reads '...have blazed the trail in the Nigerian social network'. Doesn't that show notability again in the Nigerian social networking space? Look again at the Vanguard title 'Let your dreams run wild – Nwaogu twins' and the contents 'Youthful Vibes brings to us the story of a dynamic Nigerian identical twins' and 'we have similarly seen human set of twins making a difference, ‘attacking’ issues and proffering solutions…', doesn't that show notability again? Now you finally have come to agree that they are the designers of Tagworld in contrast to what you said earlier "defunct MTV social-network domain name bought by someone and replaced with a GROU.PS site" being talked up as "Nigerian Programmers Contracted To Redesign MTV’s TagWorld". You may need to read more and consider things more carefully.--Babajide.O (talk) 11:07, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's certainly an impressive article title, but appears to have been derived from a press release written by the Nwaogus themselves. I see no reason to doubt that they're now working on a website at a URL that used to belong to MTV, but we need a reliable secondary source to put it into context and confirm it as significant, rather than quoting their own perspective that they have been employed to "redesign the look and feel of TagWorld from scratch". Wikipedia does not judge a person's notability by their interviews and press releases. --McGeddon (talk) 08:52, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You choose to call all sources provided press releases which are not to me. To me, the Vanguard, The Guardian, and National Mirror Newspaper articles are all reliable sources because the sources in question are all reliable news sources in Nigeria. But if you choose to call it a primary source with close connection to the twin brothers, I will not argue about it. I have discovered that argument on the internet doesn't solve a problem, rather it creates noise, so I will stop here.--PBaahD (talk) 11:58, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said, what remains of this article is undisputed and is cited to relevant secondary reliable sources. What's the point deleting it? Aren't the brothers computer programmers and twin brothers and best known for creating LAGbook? We have five sources here that backed just two sentences that doesn't contain exceptional claims, and you want to delete it?--Babajide.O (talk) 17:20, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Nigeria-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:31, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:31, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:31, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hmmm, so you guys are still on this. I got tired of arguing last time on the talk page as it felt all I said fell on deaf eyes. Please turn your attention to this page, the author of that article was talking about Top 10 Social Media Sites in Africa. On Number 4 is LAGbook with 1,000,000 registered users; how isn't this notability. So I will ask that the Admin that will preside over this debate use his/her good office to investigate if this is wikipedia worthy or not. That's all I will say on this.--Socialnerd (talk) 13:25, 17 June 2013 (UTC) — Socialnerd (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.[reply]
That's not the "Top 10 Social Media Sites in Africa", it's the "Top 10 Social Media Sites You Haven't Heard of in Africa", in no particular order. And it's a self-published blog. --McGeddon (talk) 14:21, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hahahaha, I knew you will read meaning to that title: Top 10 Social Media Sites you Haven't Heard of in Africa, Let me bring you to the fact that the No.1 on that list Mxit is on Wikipedia (i.e Noteworthy). So that title didn't really mean that you haven't heard of it, but rather that they are top social media sites in Africa that not all around the world are familiar with. Like I said "that all I have to say". I don't really care if this page gets deleted; as I never did for the first I created. I just felt like I should contribute a little. Ciao--Socialnerd (talk) 16:26, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Same problem as last time, just a few new SPAs this time around. Like last time, editors are throwing in primary sources and other unreliable sources about the brothers mixed with reliable sources that are not about the subjects. The extremely poor press standards for what we have on the brothers prevents us from saying anything about them, per WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:BLP. --Ronz (talk) 16:47, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Just to be clear, the press releases about the brothers and LAGbook were retracted in April 2013. No references were to be found that were not based upon those press releases. The brothers sold LAGbook in 2012 and are not affiliated with Picrate.Me, the site created in part from LAGbook. --Ronz (talk) 17:38, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    We have reference from three reliable Nigerian news source: Vanguard, National Mirror and The Guardian. Show me how any of these were culled from a press release. All these things you say about the brothers and the sources, is there any reliable source that covers it and show that they are facts? --Babajide.O (talk) 19:42, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Those specific references, and all others that could be found, are not reliable sources, and were based upon press releases that were retracted. Talk:LAGbook has been made available for review of the discussions and problems found. We simply cannot use material based upon retracted press releases as sources. Likely we won't be able to use anything from the brothers either, given that they were responsible for the press releases. --Ronz (talk) 21:37, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    The Vanguard, The Guardian and National Mirror articles are not based on any press release man. They have titles that have never appeared anywhere else and content that if you search are not anywhere else. If they were from press releases, there will be a similar article online that could have culled up from the same press release making them have similar or the same title and/or content. And how will you take the words of someone similar because he bought the site? Wikipedia is based on facts and not words from someone. I could have a personal problem with someone and come up and say lots of things that are untrue just to get back to him and you will accept it simply because he is a Nigerian and I am a Canadian? Let us imagine if I who is a Nigerian buy a site from a Canadian, if I come on Wikipedia and say bad stuffs about him simply because I bought his site, will you decide to take the page down? This is prejudice to me and I am not surprised either.--Babajide.O (talk) 22:43, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, but all the pre-May 2013 articles are based upon press releases. The one published since is also based upon them - Ventures Africa must have a slow press time or the article was delayed for some reason.
    I don't see what nationalities have to do with anything. Please focus on the relevant policies and guidelines. --Ronz (talk) 23:10, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Please can you show me any similar articles to these articles below:
    http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=114474:unilag-programmers-blaze-trail-in-social-networking&Itemid=486
    http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/05/unilag-twins-host-over-71000-users-on-lagbook/
    http://nationalmirroronline.net/index.php/young-and-next-generation/45116.html
    http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/09/let-your-dreams-run-wild-nwaogu-twins/
    If they are culled from a press release, at least some other source would have culled from the same press release too and have similar content or title with any of these. You keep saying they are from press releases and you don't have any fact. Prove it and I will rest my case. Show me where these articles have appeared similarly and then I will agree they are not exclusive stories from the papers. But if you can't, I'll see you as...--Babajide.O (talk) 23:43, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, but we reviewed them as you can see on the talk page and no one disputed that they were not reliable sources.
    The issue was also brought to NPOVN, where the information and references were undisputed as fraudulent.
    Once again, please focus on policy and content per WP:FOC. --Ronz (talk) 01:08, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    It not being disputed in the past doesn't mean that it is true. Maybe the previous editor who wrote the article was fed up arguing this with you. I am fed up myself arguing this with you. You already have your thoughts focused that the sources are not reliable and are fraudulent, and I think nothing will change your mind on this, so I will stop here.--PBaahD (talk) 11:58, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    We resolve issues by focusing on content and relevant policies. We don't decide on article content based upon appeals to emotional issues. Sounds like we're done here. --Ronz (talk) 15:25, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Done where? Because PBaahD said he is fed up arguing this with you, doesn't mean we are done. The sources on this article are secondary reliable sources. They are from reputable sources. You have cut down the article to indisputable facts about the brothers that are properly cited to relevant sources. Such a short article with relevant five sources is only crazy to delete such article. What is documented on this article as of typing this is indisputable and has relevant sources to back it up. What's the point deleting it here?--Babajide.O (talk) 17:16, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    No, what's left is not indisputable. We have no reliable sources. They are most definitely not reputable. --Ronz (talk) 02:07, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Four of the articles are online versions of actual printed newspaper articles with circulation running into 100,000. How isn't that reputation? Okay, look at this. If these articles are based on releases issued by the brothers, how will newspaper print articles based on releases from a non-reputable person? I still stand on the fact that you should show me where any of these articles have appeared similarly online. If it is a press release, it should have been simultaneously reported by other sources. These are exclusive reports from these newspapers; these are reliable sources. You're trying so hard to twist them as culled from press releases.--Babajide.O (talk) 08:58, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    They are not reliable sources. They've been discussed at length. Ignoring those discussions and simply disagreeing with the conclusions will not sway anyone. --Ronz (talk) 16:18, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as BLPs need reliable independent sources, and this doesn't appear to have any. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:03, 23 June 2013 (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.
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