Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Italki (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The result was Speedy keep as a withdrawn nomination (see below). Hut 8.5 06:30, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Italki[edit]

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This has been rewritten after last AfD but while it now has plenty of refs, it still fails WP:GNG/WP:NCORP and is a WP:CORPSPAM like entry. Reliable sources (Guardian, BBC, etc.) mention this entity in passing, anything more in depth comes from press releases or their rewritten business-as-usual republishers. PS. The fact that the original creator was blocked for socking and the new one is a WP:SPA doesn't lend much credence to this, either. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:30, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per the significant coverage in reliable sources.

Analysis of article and two strong sources

Here are two strong sources:
1. The Teaching English with Technology journal article at http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1140656.pdf mentions italki 109 times.
2. This Chinese article from Sina Corp extensively profiles italki.
Editors at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Italki specifically said that the article was "poorly referenced WP:CORPSPAM" and "corporate spam on a private company with no indications of notability or significance". The rewritten article addresses the promotional concerns. The two sources I provided above address the notability concerns.

Analysis of sources

italki was studied and written about extensively in the peer-reviewed journal Teaching English with Technology, which is published by International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language Poland. italki received a substantial profile in a Sina Corp article written in Chinese. It received significant coverage in the Harmony Books–published book Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It and the John Wiley & Sons–published book Social Networking for the Older and Wiser: Connect with Family and Friends, Old and New. GeekDad's Luke Nailer reviewed italki.

Sources
1. Turula, Anna (2017). "Learner Autonomy as a Social Construct in the Context of "Italki"". Teaching English with Technology. 17 (2). International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language Poland: 3–28. ISSN 1642-1027. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-09-28. Retrieved 2017-09-28 – via Education Resources Information Center.
  From the abstract:
  The article looks at language learner autonomy as a social construct in relation to the context and its user based on the example of "Italki", a social networking site for tandem language learning. Considering the two foci--the context and the learner--the study is divided into two parts, both carried out from the perspective of online ethnography, each utilising different techniques and tools. Part 1, based on participatory observation and user experience of the author, was aimed at investigating the context of "Italki" as a language learning environment. Its affordances, noted in the course of the study, are analysed against the three aspects of social learner autonomy (Murray 2014): emotional, political, and spatial, in order to investigate the potential of Italki for interdependent learning. In Part 2 of the study, with its focus on the learner, the data were gathered by means of semi-structured open-ended interviews with "Italki" users (N = 10).
  The article notes:
  Italki – along with lang8, Buusu, MyLanguageExchange, eToM (electronic Tandem on Moodle), Speaky and many others – is a social networking site designed for tandem language learning. Such learning is based on one-to-one exchanges between speakers of different languages, who partner up to teach each other their mother tongue (or a language in which they are proficient) and to learn the target language from one another (Cziko, 2004). Apart from such language-for-language barter exchanges, portals like Italki offer their users an opportunity to learn with professional teachers for a tuition fee.
  ...
  Italki is an informal service in the sense that it is not part of any institutionalized schooling system. Enrolment and participation are a matter of choice for any user and so is the agenda, which may range from mere exploration through socializing in a foreign language to informal (peer-to-peer) or formal (tutored) language education.
2. 刘琳 (2017-07-13). "italki Kevin Chen：做语言学习的"淘宝"" (in Chinese). Sina Corp. Retrieved 2017-09-28.
  The article notes:
  
  住在伊利诺伊州附近的小城埃尔金(Elgin)的芭芭拉·莱内(Barbara Laane) 的丈夫是德国人，她想学习德语；而德语是出了名的难，如果没有老师指导学习难度更甚。一个偶然的机会，她知道了一个叫italki的网站，在众多母语教师中选择了一位，预约了线上一对一付费课程，然后就此爱上了这样的线上学习方式。
  目前在italki上像芭芭拉这样的注册用户在全球范围内超过400万，在线母语教师则有5000多名，可以选择的语种多达75种，除了大语种外，还有一些十分稀少的小语种。除了付费线上一对一课程，在italki学生还可以获得免费的写作修改、语言知识问答服务，同时，用户也可以在italki寻找世界各地的母语语伴，进行语言交换。
  这家起步于2006年底的公司如今已经成长为行业佼佼者，通过Skype在线链接全球的母语教师，为全世界的语言学习者提供一对一课程。
  From Google Translate:
  The husband of Barbara Laane, a small town near Elgin in Elgin, is a German, and she wants to learn German; and German is notoriously difficult, if there is no teacher to guide the difficulty of learning Even more By chance, she knew a website called italki, chose one of the many mother tongue teachers, made an online one-on-one paid course, and then fell in love with such online learning.
  At present, there are more than 4 million registered users in the world, such as Barbara, there are more than 5,000 native language teachers, and up to 75 languages can be selected. In addition to the big language, there are some very rare Language. In addition to paying online one-on-one courses, italki students can also get free writing changes, language knowledge quiz, while users can also find their language counterparts around the world in italki for language exchange.
  The company, which started at the end of 2006, has now grown to be a leader in the industry, providing a one-to-one course for language learners around the world through Skype's global language teacher.
  This article is an extensive profile of italki.
3. Wyner, Gabriel (2014). Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 038534810X. Retrieved 2017-09-28.
  The book notes:
  
  Italki
  A language exchange community with a well-thought-out payment system. You can use italki to find a professional teacher or untrained tutor in your target language and work with him through email or video chat for extremely low prices. There are free options on the site, which can help you find language exchange partners, but I mostly recommend italki for its paid services.
  The book also notes:
  italki.com can get you in touch with native speakers, who will talk with you or train you for very small amounts of money or in exchange for an equal amount of time speaking in English. You can spend an hour going through words with them and asking them to correct your pronunciation, which can help immensely.
  The book notes:
  italki.com brings money to the table, which changes the game dramatically. It can connect you with native speakers and professional teachers, who are willing to chat with you exclusively in your target language. This cuts the English out of your practice sessions and makes them much more efficient. Since these teachers get to work in the comfort of their own homes, they usually charge very little.
4. McManus, Sean (2010). Social Networking for the Older and Wiser: Connect with Family and Friends, Old and New. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons. p. 236. ISBN 0470970685. Retrieved 2017-09-28.
  The book notes:
  
  Italki.com
  Practising with a native speaker is the best way to keep your fluency up in a foreign language, and can also be a friendly way to improve your language skills if you're not yet fluent. Italki makes it easy for you to find study partners who are native speakers of the language you're learning, and who would benefit from your native language (probably English, if you're reading this).
  Whatever you want to learn, you're bound to find a partner here: The site has over 450,000 members from 212 countries, who speak over 100 languages.
  As well as finding language partners, you can join or start discussion forums (in English, or a foreign language) and can pose or answer questions about language study. There's a wiki for learning languages too, which is an encyclopaedia that anybody (including you) can edit. The ratings will help you to find the well researched and accurate entries. Don't forget the contributions mostly come from other students and might occasionally include errors – don't let their mistakes rub off on you!
5. Riley, Jeffery A. (2011). 2011 Social Media Directory: The Ultimate Guide to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn Resources. Indianapolis, Indiana: Pearson Education. ISBN 0132601117. Retrieved 2017-09-28.
  The book notes:
  
  italki.com
  The goal of this social network is to create a community where people can learn languages by finding language partners and language resources and develop their language skills by participating in chats, groups, and forums. Dozens of languages are represented on this lively site.
6. Nailer, Luke (2015-05-16). "How Italki Got Me Speaking Mandarin". GeekDad. Archived from the original on 2017-09-28. Retrieved 2017-09-28.
  The article notes:
  
  Visiting the italki website and looking through the teachers seems a bit like looking at a Craigslist of language learning. There is a section for language exchange partners that don’t charge anything, but this is something that I am yet to explore. Teachers set their own rates. Depending on the language and where your instructor lives the price could
  ...
  It is possible to go through other channels to find a Skype-based language teacher, but italki does a good job of having many in one place. I also feel like there is a degree of vetting and auditing going on, so I’m confident my teacher is who they say they are. In a few years time I might use italki to find a language tutor for my daughter if she’s enthusiastic about her language class at school.
  One thing I found challenging with italki was that, after buying a batch of lessons, when I wanted to book a new lesson I kept getting redirected to buy new batches. This was annoying; I just wanted to book times for the lessons I’d already paid for. Ultimately I was able to navigate my way around this, but I have found the UI for the booking system to be not very intuitive.
  Here is GeekDad's masthead:
  Owner/Publisher, Editor-at-Large
  Ken Denmead
  
  Editor-in-Chief
  Matt Blum
  
  Managing Editor
  Z
  
  Senior Editors
  Jonathan H. Liu, Jenny Bristol, Corrina Lawson, Patricia Vollmer
  
  Gaming Editor
  Dave Banks
  The editorial oversight establishes that GeekDad passes Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources.
7. Aune, Sean P. (2008-05-05). "Italki Launches Socially Built Language Textbooks". Mashable. Archived from the original on 2017-09-28. Retrieved 2017-09-28.
  The article notes:
  
  The site [Italki] launched in December 2006 with the goal of bringing free language learning to every part of the world, and thus far the site has been translated into 14 languages with more to come. Taking a look at the portions of the the Knowledge system they provided us with, it looks good, and seems it will teach words with easy visual recognition. The only thing that worries me, as with any wiki based system is the accuracy. For all you know, you could think you were learning "Where is the closest ATM?" in Japanese, and actually be saying, "Were is a good place to get mugged?"
8. So, Sherman (2008-08-08). "Social networking sites take language learning out of classroom". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on 2017-09-28. Retrieved 2017-09-28.
  The article notes:
  
  That is the idea behind Shanghai-based italki.com, a free social networking website focused on language learning, and Beijing-headquartered Idapted.com, which supports professional language training.
  ...
  Launched last December after receiving its first round of funding in July, italki has joined a nascent group of social networking sites integrated with language-learning services.
  Competitors include United States-based Livemocha.com, established in September, and VoxSwap.com, set up in Britain in January.
  ...
  So far, italki has attracted 250,000 registered users. In April alone, the site attracted 45,000 new users. About 20 per cent of its users are from the mainland and the rest spread across the globe, including 7 per cent from the United States, 4 per cent in India and 2 per cent in France.
There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow italki to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".
Cunard (talk) 07:07, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Italki participants: Northamerica1000 (talk · contribs) and K.e.coffman (talk · contribs).
Pinging Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2017 September 26#italki participants: Kshanghai (talk · contribs), RoySmith (talk · contribs), Unscintillating (talk · contribs), TonyBallioni (talk · contribs), Jclemens (talk · contribs), Hut 8.5 (talk · contribs), Hobit (talk · contribs), SwisterTwister (talk · contribs), and filelakeshoe (talk · contribs).
Cunard (talk) 07:07, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, per Cunard, I really don't see the argument for this failing GNG now. The teaching English with technology journal article above is about as in-depth as you can get, and the others have enough to base an article off. I think we can clean up and expand the article based on the sources above rather than delete it. – filelakeshoe (t / c)  07:40, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(Recusing myself from voting) @Piotrus - I apologize for being both representing a corp and for SPA -- my other account has my edits on my personal interests, and I didn't want to mix those. I know lacking other references hurts this account's credibility. I believe I am editing in good faith, and I do think the company is at a notable scale that warrants a Wikipedia page. I'd request that you look at pages of other companies in the industry, and ask if all of those pages would also be justified for an AfD. Smaller company examples: Verbling, Preply, Memrise. Larger or comparably-sized companies: Duolingo, Wyzant, VIPKID. Their pages are generally worse in both neutrality and in notable non-PR references. I believe italki is notable enough (at least as much as those other pages). Kshanghai (talk) 08:37, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sources identified by Cunard seem to be well above the GNG. I'd like to hear the nom's thoughts on those sources. But keep for now. Hobit (talk) 14:31, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I don't see how you can argue this doesn't meet the GNG, [1] is a 26 page article published in an academic journal and exclusively about the subject. Hut 8.5 17:44, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Withdraw nomination. One reliable academic casestudy and some other less in-depth sources... but I guess the case study suffices, when sprinkled with others, to show this passes GNG. Thx, User:Cunard. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:19, 18 October 2017 (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.