Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timeline of Amazon.com

This discussion was subject to a deletion review on 2017 March 24.
For an explanation of the process, see Wikipedia:Deletion review.

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 no consensus. The two principal opposing points of view are :

These lists are of poor quality and little substance and we should take a stand against paid editors creating junk
When viewed on their own merits, and ignoring the paid editing element which may be worth blocks and bans in itself, the articles have sufficient potential to be improved if somebody bothers to do it (as principally advanced by Beyond My Ken).

Essentially, I don't see much middle ground between these two camps; indeed, the conversation has got heated on occasion through the debate.

Northamerica1000 has suggested a further activity is to selectively merge + redirect some or all of these articles, which can be done through normal editing. The suggestion to take the conversation to Wikipedia talk:Notability#Notability of Timeline articles is also worthwhile. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 15:04, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Timeline of Amazon.com[edit]

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

Article serves no encyclopaedic purpose. Was created by a paid-editing team (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Vipul.27s paid editing enterprise.) Exemplo347 (talk) 20:35, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note This AfD discussion is not intended to be a discussion on the validity of "Timeline" articles in general. For reasons of clarity, please limit comments to the articles nominated. Exemplo347 (talk) 09:31, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would also like to nominate the following articles for the same reasons:

~~Timeline of Nortel~~ Nomination withdrawn. Exemplo347 (talk) 22:17, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I have deliberately not added the usual search links for the additional articles, as this is not a notability issue and there's not much point - these are all well-known companies. Exemplo347 (talk) 20:53, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Exemplo347 it looks like you have not bundled Timeline of Microsoft correctly. - Bri (talk) 20:49, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bear with me, I'm doing it now. Exemplo347 (talk) 20:49, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There you go. It was slightly fiddly due to the amount of articles. Exemplo347 (talk) 20:53, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome, apologize for not noticing you were in process. - Bri (talk) 21:03, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My fault totally - I should have stuck {{Under Construction}} or something at the top! Exemplo347 (talk) 21:06, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete forthwith except Nortel (not created by this team). Enthusiastically endorse proposed deletion of the lot. While the debate circles around and around at ANI, the process of mass deletion appears to be our only remedy for these critically flawed articles. I have noted the problems at COIN (permlink), but repeat here again in brief: they are essentially a walled garden created by the paid editing team as described. They show evidence of a pattern of citations to really bad sources such as blogs, wikis, and advertorial-ish aggregators, and even in one case I found a source that openly declares it takes payment for product reviews. In another case I developed evidence that there was SEO involved in the link placement, with measurable effects for one of the links inserted (see evidence here). In another case we have a Timeline of Microsoft which duplicates an existing History of same. In another case which I have privately communicated to admins due to privacy concerns, there is evidence of extensive refspamming/SEO by the same editors for immigration services companies. Basic content issues; regardless of the outcome at ANI regarding this team in particular and future of paid editing in general, this deletion is urgently needed. - Bri (talk) 21:07, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note Looks like the Nortel one was mistakenly included by me. I'm not sure how to properly rectify my oversight though. Exemplo347 (talk) 21:29, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Exemplo347: You could probably just strike it out and say "withdrawn by nom" on that line. It should be clear to other !voters and to the closing admin. - Bri (talk) 21:43, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Whoops! Exemplo347 (talk) 22:17, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bri's "evidence" that Simfish was involved in a scheme to use Wikipedia for SEO is extremely weak. All it shows is that Simfish temporarily added a link to "The History of Computing Project" (thocp.net) in one article, a very reasonable thing to do in an article about the history of Microsoft. I'm not taking any position about whether the articles should be saved or deleted yet, but the attitude of Bri, TeeVeeed, and Guy is unnecessarily hostile towards the editors who are the primary creators of these articles. Jrheller1 (talk) 21:01, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if the admission that Simfish is being paid to edit isn't strong enough evidence, nothing will be. Let's focus on the issue at hand, before this discussion starts getting derailed. The talk page of this AfD is probably the place to discuss these side issues. Exemplo347 (talk) 21:16, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Vipul is involved in the technology industry in Silicon Valley. He claims to be paying editors (including Simfish) to improve the quality of technology industry articles on Wikipedia solely for philanthropic reasons. This is very believable to me. Shouldn't other editors be assuming good faith? There's nothing wrong with some curious editors investigating a little deeper, but so far nobody has proved that there is anything nefarious about what Vipul is doing. Jrheller1 (talk) 21:26, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Like I've already said, the Talk page is the place to discuss this side issue. Exemplo347 (talk) 21:33, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How can this be a "side issue" when Bri uses the "evidence" of an SEO optimization scheme using Wikipedia in his deletion rationale? Jrheller1 (talk) 21:37, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well he's not the nominatior, I am, and my rationale is based on the fact that the editor running the paid editing team said openly that he'd paid Simfish to create these articles. Read the ANI thread for the info. Exemplo347 (talk) 21:43, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And your rationale is crap. "no encyclopaedic purpose" is not a valid rationale to delete (WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC). Nor is the fact that it was created by a paid-editing team. If there's no notability issue, what then is the rationale to delete? Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:11, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So !vote, or don't. Exemplo347 (talk) 22:15, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete agree with all of the above also WP:COATRACK issues and duplicate content. TeeVeeed (talk) 21:09, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Preliminary comment - I notice that Template:Technology company timelines largely overlaps these:

Some others were deleted already, apparently as a part of this process. Although Timeline of Nortel is presently withdrawn from the AFD above (and Timeline of Yahoo is not listed), I have to ask what people think about it. Is the difference in authorship the only reason to keep that and drop these others?? Among other things, we might consider whether the template is something to keep around because we could populate it with legitimate articles, or whether it should be withdrawn because such articles are inherently problematic.

I think we have to look hard at the whole "Timeline of..." idea in general. The paid network seemed to use it as a loophole, and it really is one, and that will not go unnoticed by future paid editors whether openly declared or clandestine. Is a timeline an encyclopedia article at all?? Is a timeline inherently and innately a so-called "coatrack" because anyone can, at any time, add another point to it without documenting any high-level relationship to the other data? Or is that just like other articles, and this is just a minor format difference? These problems may be most immediate with major companies and paid editors, but we need someone to really riddle out the philosophy here - I haven't really been able to think deeply enough to follow it. Wnt (talk) 22:37, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like something to discuss on a relevant noticeboard (although I can't think of one) - we should avoid turning this AfD into something more than it is - a discussion regarding the deletion of the specific articles I have included, for the specific reasons I've noted in the nomination. Exemplo347 (talk) 22:50, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wnt The same thought occurred to me. It seems you have two choices that result in a sound timeline. Choice one, everything in it must be sourced to another RS that has its own timeline. Choice two, allow ad-hoc additions. If choice two, then you're relying on the wisdom of crowds to winnow out the crap and result in something that substantially matches our collective sense of what is important. In these cases, IMO, the origins of the articles, their relatively unseen nature (until recently), and the lack of many contributors has resulted in questionable content. A timeline could in theory be encyclopedic but these are too broken to fix with reasonable effort. - Bri (talk) 23:38, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I made an explanatory infographic for this paid editing stuff: https://tinypic.com/r/33dz6ud/9 Ibiseggs (talk) 00:45, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timeline of Xiaomi supposed to be linked in the header? Bri (talk) 05:28, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The primary author is Simfish, so why wouldn't it be linked? However, the previous AFD discussion for this article also needs to be mentioned somewhere. Jrheller1 (talk) 04:36, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete this spam. Guy (Help!) 10:49, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Even assuming that these lists weren't made in poor faith by paid editors, there's an extraordinary amount of listcruft in here. Unlike notable events like the sinking of the Titanic or 9/11, I see very little evidence to think that sources consider a *timeline* of these things in and of itself to be an actual thing of note. Anything that's legitimately encyclopedic here can go on the main pages or integrated into the History forks, where applicable. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 14:21, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. Bri (talk) 17:12, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - My first impulse was to delete them as being promotional, my second was to delete them as being the fruits of paid editing (which I am strongly opposed to), my third impulse was to agree with Guy that they are spam, but after looking through them, I think they serve a valuable encyclopedic purpose in charting the history of the technology companies which are now pretty much driving our lives and have tremendous influence on our financial and investment institutions. In many ways they are sculpting an emerging world culture. CoffeeCrumbs may well be correct that there's listcruft in there, but that can be taken care of by the normal editing process. I think that in another era, a Timeline of U.S. Steel or a Timeline of General Motors would have been invaluable information, and I think these serve the same purpose for our time. I am absolutely pained that they were created by paid editing, and I (personally, were I an admin) would have no compunction about banning those editors from contributing to them as having COIs, but here they are, and we have to judge them as we have them. Adding up the pros and cons, I come up with a "keep". Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:06, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

User:Beyond My Ken don't know if you are watching this thread, but what you please reconsider in light of comments below? i have thought about four different ways about these as well. thx Jytdog (talk) 16:45, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Beyond My Ken raises very good points here. Articles on major companies would be improved by summarizing their histories in timelines and linking to their corresponding timeline articles.--I am One of Many (talk) 00:26, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete No, BMK raised one point (not "points"): that they "serve a valuable purpose in charting the history". However he did not give any reason why chopping up an article into little boxes would "serve a valuable purpose in charting the history", and I cannot think of one either. zzz (talk) 01:19, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I did wonder about that. BMK is a fantastic editor, but I fail to see why content that already exists in the relevant articles has been turned into "Timeline" articles by paid editors, and I fail to see why this redundant information should be kept. Exemplo347 (talk) 01:47, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(Many thanks for the compliment.) Gathering disparate information to one place where it is much more easily digestible is a service to our readers, in my opinion. Much information in the encyclopedia is repeated in different articles, according to the focus of the article. History articles, for instance, are (and should be) duplicative in part. I don't see that as being a flaw. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:45, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Let me also add that my !vote is based on the presupposition that these list-articles are basically accurate (I noted that they were fairly extensively referenced), but given Drmies' closing remarks on this AN/I thread about Vipul, if that's not the case I would have to re-think matters. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:17, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all these appear to fork articles in a hopelessly overdetailed manner. We do not need to repeat and source every press release, merger, product launch and/or partnership; and anything worth covering can be better covered in prose within the main articles. VQuakr (talk) 05:36, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is not a !vote!!! No valid rationale has been advanced to delete. "Unencyclopedic" is not a valid rationale. (WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC). Nor is the fact that it was created by a paid-editing team. No evidence that the articles are spam. No notability issue; the subject is notable. Therefore, "keep" is the only option. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:14, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Hawkeye7: notability was specifically identified as not an issue in the nomination, but since you have claimed the inverse: how do you assess notability in a "timeline of x" article? VQuakr (talk) 06:59, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC, a section of an essay, does not claim that "unencyclopedic" is a bad reason for deletion - just not a specific enough one if presented as an argument for deletion without context (which is not the case here). The essay links to WP:NOT, which is policy. A section of that policy, WP:INDISCRIMINATE, applies here. To quote: "...merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia." VQuakr (talk) 06:59, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Hawkeye7: good points that logically follow from policy. --I am One of Many (talk) 07:34, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The articles in question meet the list notability criterea (WP:LISTN). It does not meet any of the items specified in WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Redundancy is not an argument for deletion of a timeline; the Timeline of the Manhattan Project contains nothing that is not in the Manhattan Project article. It presents the information in an alternate form that provides real value to the readers. We have policies and procedures for a reason. To pervert WP:NOT in order to !vote anything out of the encyclopaedia to make a WP:POINT is appalling. Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:28, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are many reasons to delete an article. Notability is merely #8 out of 14. Building an indiscriminate and spammy list is a perfectly good criterion for deletion. - Bri (talk) 13:17, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In what way are they indiscriminate or spammy? K.Bog 09:44, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bog, as a random example of indiscriminate choices for inclusion : Timeline of Microsoft includes a $250M purchase last year, but fewer than half the nine billion-dollar acquisitions [1]. Most notably missing, Visio, their first mega purchase, and aQuantive which became a $6 billion write-off. This calls into question BMK's premise or supposition they are "basically accurate". I've already noted the spammy links reminiscent of SEO elsewhere, and privately to admins as mentioned above. If you look at article histories you can see many cases where I or others have removed eye-popping sources like [2][3][4] etc. etc. More specific source concerns listed at Talk:Timeline of digital preservation. Though not bundled in this AfD, it is symptomatic of the shoddy and questionable construction engaged in by the same paid team. - Bri (talk) 23:08, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Hawkeye7: per WP:LISTN, what sources have you found that discuss the time data points of each of these companies as a group or set? The last sentence of your 12:28 post is bizarre: citing a portion of WP:NOT in a delete !vote is not novel, and your accusation of WP:POINT is spurious. VQuakr (talk) 19:28, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For Amazon.com, see One Click by Richard Brandt. For Microsoft, see Hard Drive by Wallace and Erickson and Idea Man by Allen. Etc. K.Bog 09:39, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep because they don't make Wikipedia worse. What kind of 'encyclopedic purpose' does one need? I just don't see the harm in leaving the articles where they are. They can be tagged and improved by interested editors if there are problems specific to the articles themselves. K.Bog 19:53, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You "don't see the harm"? Is that a policy-based rationale? Exemplo347 (talk) 20:00, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm saying I don't see what the policy-based rationale is for deletion. You can't just apply the term "unencyclopedic" to whatever isn't good enough. It has to be covered by WP:NOT or something like that, to confirm that there is a need to get it off the site. K.Bog 20:07, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

These articles are lists of redundant factoids, created in bad faith by people who didn't disclose their paid-editing status for years - content that isn't suitable for any kind of encyclopaedia posted by people acting in bad faith, who only confessed what they were doing when confronted with undisputable evidence. There is no selection criteria, it's just whatever references they're paid to pop onto the article. Exemplo347 (talk) 20:24, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a policy guideline on whether Wikipedia editing should be a Markov process? My opinion is that it should be. The process by which an article was written has no bearing on whether it's worth including in the encyclopedia. K.Bog 20:47, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

See for instance how you put the timeline of Nortel up for deletion but then removed it as soon as you realized it was actually created by a different group of editors. The quality of the article for the encyclopedia is apparently not your concern. K.Bog 19:24, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note "I don't see the harm" is on the list of arguments to avoid at AfD, so other editors should avoid using it. Exemplo347 (talk) 16:00, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Beyond my Ken. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:32, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The idea that these articles are "spam" or "promotional" is absurd. There is zero "promotion" of these technology companies being done in these timeline articles. These timeline articles are just a convenient summary of the history of these companies for readers interested in the business aspect of the Silicon Valley centered technology industry. Possibly Timeline of Microsoft could be merged with History of Microsoft, but Timeline of Microsoft is definitely easier to read and digest key facts quickly from than History of Microsoft.

If it were proven that Vipul and the editors he paid were engaging in an SEO scheme or some other nefarious activities on Wikipedia, then of course they should be banned. But this has no relevance to whether these timeline articles should be kept or deleted. Jrheller1 (talk) 19:00, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

draftify The items in each of these pages, are what I would expect to find on the relevant company's website on their history page. If you review them, you will not find much of anything about failures or negative things (you do find ~some~). Pretty much just positive stuff like funding rounds, product launches, acquisitions, etc. They fail NPOV on that account. The more I look into Vipul's enterprise the more I find very clear advocacy at worst, and more commonly just mediocre editing done by high school kids or young adults who seemed to be modelling what they found on corporate or organization websites. That is not what we do here. There is also a lot of spammy sourcing in these things.

These pages should be draftified, and improved in terms of content and sourcing, and then put through AfC as they should have in the first place. This mass of promotional content should not be in mainspace. And there is ... interesting judgement, or it should perhaps be called WP:OR, in the choices that the paid editors made about what to put in the (odd) "Big picture" section they put at the top which function as a sort of WP:LEAD.... There is also a different level of OR in the selection of items to include -- assembling a history based on sources that report various events is problematic in itself - the items included in the timeline really should be sourced from, and summarize, what others have written about what events were significant in the companies' history.... not just events that editors found reported somewhere and decided were significant in the history of the company. Jytdog (talk) 00:14, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just want to underline this. What are the independent sources discuss the actual history of say WhatsApp? The Timeline of WhatsApp appears to me to be almost entirely OR, assembled by the editor to create a history here in WP. Jytdog (talk) 14:10, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Would also support delete. boy i am of various minds on this. The mixture of cruft and useful stuff makes it hard. The amount of work to clean up the mess pushes me toward delete. More than anything I want these the heck out of mainspace as they stand. Jytdog (talk) 03:27, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Userfy, improve, and submit to AfC, per Jytdog. If no one is willing to take on improvement outside of mainspace, then delete outright as promotional POV forks.--Wikimedes (talk) 04:49, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, so what if they were created by paid editors, this is the sort of thing Wikipedia is good for. A store for trivial information. I fail to see how this harms Wikipedia.Slatersteven (talk) 14:13, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Again with the "I don't see the harm" argument - the "harm" is described at WP:HARMLESS - it's an argument to avoid, as I've already pointed out. Secondly, Wikipedia is not a store for indiscriminate factoids. Exemplo347 (talk) 14:56, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's interesting that two of the keep !voters have a stated affinity for trivia in articles (also kbog's userpage). This is counter to WP:INDISCRIMINATE and not a policy based reason to retain any article. - Bri (talk) 15:37, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And my argument was more then just "its harmless" the point is I can see this as begin a benefit with no negative counter point. Also I did not say "indiscriminate" I said trivial. Trivial in the sense of "non essential" not pointless. I can see no evidence this violates any policy, it merely does not obey a very strict interpretation of some polices (after all this can be allied to all lists). I would find a listed history like this of a company I was (say) doing homework on very useful. Is that not what Wikipedias prime function is, to act as a source for useful information?Slatersteven (talk) 16:20, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

One more time. It actually is indiscriminate, in the exact way described by the user essay Wikipedia:Discriminate vs indiscriminate information which backs up WP:NOT, and is linked from it. WP:NOT is a valid policy on which to reject this article. Here's why. The essay says a collection without distinctions is junk. There are exactly zero criteria in the articles considered by this AfD to evaluate any random news story mentioning amazon.com, microsoft, etc. to either include the event in the timeline or reject it. This is reflected in the bizarre inclusion of small acquisitions and not larger ones as I pointed out. It becomes an indiscriminate matter of taste or attention of anyone who approaches the timeline article. The timeline articles are all clearly poor coatracks for any random thought someone has about the company they cover. This fits the essay description "assembled without care or making distinctions" perfectly. - Bri (talk) 16:58, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

An essay is nit policy. All this is an argument for improvement, not deletion.Slatersteven (talk) 18:33, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Slatersteven: Yes, I described it correctly as a "user essay". But it still provides useful guidance, and has been seen as useful by other editors as well. This is why Discriminate vs indiscriminate is linked from WP:NOT. Do you have anything to say about how these articles correspond to "w/o care or distinction"? - Bri (talk) 04:21, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Because this is not "words and/or names were typed as they were thought" (they are in chronological order, they are not "random keystrokes on the keyboard ", and they are not a "ordinary list of household items" (or to put it another way this is not a random list of related objects, it is a clear chronology of events). This I do not see how it fails "w/o care or distinction", but again it does not matter of this fails ""w/o care or distinction"" as that is not a policy.Slatersteven (talk) 11:01, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Merge and trim. There is some useful information here, but not enough to merit a stand alone list. All of these timelines should be merged into the articles on their respective companies, and then trimmed to eliminate the truly cruft bits. Blueboar (talk) 15:18, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would support this as well. Jytdog (talk) 16:43, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all on the presumption that they are profoundly POV given the immense COI issues. I would also be amenable to moving them into user space or draft space so that neutral editors can review the articles in more depth to determine what, if anything, can be salvaged from them; I am ambivalent as to whether such an effort would result in restoring one or more articles or merging content into other articles as Slatersteven suggests above. ElKevbo (talk) 16:57, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep for now, and then consider selectively merging into the respective main articles. Some of these timelines contain relevant historical content. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:27, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note I'd have no issue with the whole bunch of articles being moved to Draft space, trimmed of the refs that the creator was paid to add, and then put through the Articles for Creation process by any editor who was interested (naturally that shouldn't include any of the paid-editing ponzi scheme members). As a side note, the creator of these pages has been indefinitely blocked from editing. Exemplo347 (talk) 10:33, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Exemplo347, the blocked editor created none of these articles. I think you're getting R---- and S---- mixed up. - Bri (talk) 04:16, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Related DRV Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2017 March 18#Timeline of Twitter. Cunard (talk) 07:00, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Who created the article is irrelevant. The question is does the content sufficiently fail any policies or guidelines. I cannot see how it does so. It does add encyclopedic value. The quality of the article is also not grounds for deletion, if it can be improved. AfD is not about clean up. Keep all of them. Rezur Ekt (talk) 11:30, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. I have inclusionist tendencies, but gimmeabreak. This is pure WP:OR and WP:LISTCRUFT. Narky Blert (talk) 01:56, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Merge useful, sourced content into the main articles Delete the rest, as it is a WP:POVFORK; and WP:NPOV is a policy that should never be broken.Burning Pillar (talk) 22:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. While arguments on both sides hold water, Bri's breakdown to me holds the most weight. BMK's analysis is very thought-provoking, but in the end I don't find enough value to overcome the COI issue. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 02:47, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I need a list of timelines like I need a hole in the head. The above does not convince me that this subject is actually notable, only that it is possible for an editor or editorial team to cram things together and claim the subject is notable by virtue of its cramming full of notability. Am not going for it. And now my head hurts. KDS4444 (talk) 10:05, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Question re N standards for timelines[edit]

This AfD and the emphasis on timelines by Vipul's group has led me to wonder - what is the N standard for timelines, generally? I have opened a thread at WT:N here. Please discuss there if you are interested. Jytdog (talk) 14:08, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please also see Wikipedia_talk:Stand-alone_lists#Selection_criteria_for_timelines Jytdog (talk) 14:17, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Jytdog:Smell the coffee, this community is unable to self-regulate when faced with an existence threat. This is directly traceable to the anonymity principle of this community preventing and obviating any individual accountablity for its actions. Inlinetext (talk) 08:47, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

History of spammy SEO linking by Vipul[edit]

Timeline of web search engines (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) will show that Vipul (a self admitted link metric expert) has been abusing Wikipedia's link juice to promote SEO organisations via spammy links 'Timeline of ' articles since long before his network declarations. Since Vipul (and his employer) are apparently in the profession of placing paid outgoing referral links on websites of some prominent internet portals, the continuing presence of these articles without adequate disclosure represents a huge potential pitfall/threat for this community. Inlinetext (talk) 08:33, 21 March 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.