Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia Administrators

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Y_Combinator&oldid=234584904

by ciscoriordan • 18 years ago

45 79 18 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

It's things like this that make me lose faith in Wikipedia.

tstegart• 18 years ago

I don't know. When you read the definition of what is notable, you can argue someone has a point. Useful? yes, Interesting? of course, Popular? definitely. But you have to dig deeper to decide if YC is notable.

After some thought, I think it is. One can say YC is just another VC firm, so why should that be notable. But the unique way in which they are investing and developing companies is notable.

adamt• 18 years ago

I'd agree completely. Y-combinator is the leading example of a company that is shaking up the the way technology investing is being done.

People who believe in the YC model and people who challenge alike all follow its progress closely as it is the flag-bearer of a new wave of investment.

This is why just about every major tech/business publication and many newspapers have written about YC.

The reality is that YC is now starting to get to the point where it is challenging some parts of the industry. This is why every Techcrunch article that mentions YC or a YC company is filled with the obligatory comments.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” –Gandhi

parenthesis• 18 years ago

The fact that several imitators of YC have since popped-up seems to me to make the original notable.

pb308• 18 years ago

This method of deletion (prod) is sometimes used as a way to force people/fans to improve the article. To contest the deletion all one has to do is remove the tag, and hopefully improve the article before it is sent to a full deletion discussion.

tptacek5• 18 years ago

It's not even an AfD, just a prod? I just removed the tag. Now it has to go to AfD to be deleted.

jfarmer• 18 years ago

The page is actually pretty crappy, IMO.

Mystalic3• 18 years ago

Before everyone goes nuts, please consider the following: - Wikipedia allows for a civil debate on deletion matters. That's why the talk page is there. - Back up your arguments with logic and facts instead of floods of "YOU ARE WRONG" - that will get you nowhere. - Don't flame anyone for their opinions. - Most of all, let's defend the notability of Ycombinator. As a tech entrepreneur and professional blogger, I believe that A) YCombinator is very notable for not only who it invests in, but it's unique style and that B) People benefit from that information. So I will argue with logic, facts, and courtesy. I hope you all do the same as well.

iamdave• 18 years ago

How about instead of running in blazing with integrity, already prepared to disagree with someone we "please expand or rewrite the article to establish its notability." and bring it to Wikipedia standards?

Mystalic3• 18 years ago

That's a given. The article isn't up to wikipedia standards at the moment.

Goladus4• 18 years ago

From the Wikipedia Notability Guidlines page:

If it is likely that independent sources could be found for a topic, deletion due to lack of notability is inappropriate unless active effort has been made to find these sources. For articles of unclear notability, deletion should be a last resort.

That's why people "go nuts." Whoever nominated this for deletion was either lazy and stupid or just looking for some drama.

pb308• 18 years ago

Rather than just complaining about Wikipedia, I've contested the deletion by removing the prod tag and added some sources from major publications. Please help add references from reliable sources (blogs dont count) or help copyedit the article.

Here's a good search for finding reliable sources: http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=%22y+combinator%22+so...

rokhayakebe2• 18 years ago

Rather than just complaining about Wikipedia, I would love to see 2 smart guys in a garage create a competitor.

pb308• 18 years ago

http://citizendium.org/ ?

hugh6• 18 years ago

It's trivially easy for two smart guys in a garage to create a competitor.

It's difficult to persuade hundreds of thousands of people outside said garage to write the actual content.

staticshock• 18 years ago

1) what does "competitor" translate to, for non-profits?

2) why write new source if your goal is just to launch another wiki?

corentin• 18 years ago

It was created years ago and it's called the world wide web.

silentbicycle3• 18 years ago

Definitely. Wikipedia collectively has a lot of experience with holding off editing attempts by swarms of irritated people, and that's strongly influenced their editing standards. To my understanding, content posted without sources is useless at best, trolling at worst.

pg2• 18 years ago

reliable sources (blogs don't count)

Aren't there reliable blogs?

DanielBMarkham• 18 years ago

But no commonly accepted way to validate their reliability

rms2• 18 years ago

They're good for adding more information but bad for establishing notability (as per Wiki policy) because their reliability is contentious.

So yes, there are reliable blogs, but a post from Scoble and no mainstream media hits won't save an article from the deletionists.

ph0rque• 18 years ago

why are there only 16 yc companies listed?

bfioca• 18 years ago

Yeah I don't know - they removed RescueTime and some others. It seems pretty incomplete to have some but not others. I don't know what criteria they're using to decide which should be listed.

hugh6• 18 years ago

Well, they should be using the criteria set out in WP:COMPANY -- I don't think they're quite there yet. Some notable companies are unlisted, and some not-yet-notable companies are.

Not every company is notable, and certainly not companies at the two-guys-and-no-revenue stage (compare to your local dry cleaner, who is probably actually profitable).

pg2• 18 years ago

For a while Wikipedia had such a complete list that we ourselves used to refer to it. Then some wikipedian decided to "improve" the list by deleting most of them. Since then it has always been a more or less random subset of YC funded cos.

hhm• 18 years ago

I guess there should be a separate page listing all YC funded companies (if you can have pages listing all characters in tv series, why not companies funded by YC?).

Mystalic3• 18 years ago

Well that was a rather quick resolution to the problem.

ciscoriordan3• 18 years ago

The one-time problem of this specific article being nominated for deletion has been resolved, but the larger issue of the Wikipedia bureaucracy preventing good content from being created and viewed is certainly still around.

smakz• 18 years ago

I also don't see what the big deal is. Having a Wikipedia article does not all of a sudden validate the Y Combinator idea, and having it deleted certainly does not invalidate the work they've done.

To put it in perspective, ignition partners, one of the largest north western venture capital funds, does not have a wikipedia page.

Take a look at the articles on VC firms on sand hill:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Hill_Road

Only KPCB has an informative, encyclopedic entry - the rest I would argue don't even need to have articles.

Not to mention YC isn't a big VC firm, it's seed-only.

jbyers• 18 years ago

I don't mind Wikipedia's standards, but I wish they were more evenly applied. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of companies that are less notable than YC that will never be deleted. Instead it is those that are somehow controversial and questionably notable that will be flagged for deletion.

mikeryan• 18 years ago

YC isn't "Not Notable" they're saying the article doesn't have the sufficient supporting evidence of its notability. (Which it doesn't)

This is an easy fix.

tptacek5• 18 years ago

It is kind of annoying that an admin prodded a page that has mainstream print pubs on the first page of news.google.com results.

biohacker42• 18 years ago

A Wikipedia competitor is one of the things pg would love to fund so....

snorkel• 18 years ago

Since we're refraining from flaming the wiki wackos on wikipedia let's do it here instead: Get a frigging grip on reality. That page is not that bad. It is useful information. Deleting should be reserved for obvious spam or completely irrelevent or wrong information. But that's fine. The wikieaucracy is gradually destroying wikipedia paving the way for something better to take its place.

ciscoriordan3• 18 years ago

There's something seriously wrong when the article about Disqus is deleted for not having reliable sources, and a search on Google News for "Disqus" shows articles from the Washington Post, CNET News, Mashable, and VentureBeat, all on the first page.

wmf• 18 years ago

Were those sources actually linked from the Disqus article?

pb308• 18 years ago

Their point of view: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deletionism#Rationale_for_del...

tptacek5• 18 years ago

This again?

Read the comments here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=216723.

YC has a huge amount of media coverage. There is no way it is going to be deleted. The sole standard for an article remaining in Wikipedia is Notability, which is determined entirely by the presence of reliable independent sources.

Anybody can nominate an article for deletion at any time. You could nominate [[Bill Gates]] right now. It would appear, briefly, in the AfD debate log, until someone speedy-kept it. This will get speedied too. Move along, nothing to see here.

hooande• 18 years ago

Does traffic play into this at all? Something tells me more people go to that page than to the long tail majority of wikipedia pages.

radley• 18 years ago

Ironic that they'll remove actual people and companies, yet they retain 100s of pages covering the Star Trek universe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Federation_of_Planets

echair2• 18 years ago

Ironic, perhaps, but not at all surprising. Wikipedia is a portrait of wikipedians.

hugh6• 18 years ago

It's true that people tend to be more aggressive about deleting pages about people and companies than they are about deleting random Star Trek crap, but it kinda makes sense. Most of the truly rubbish pages which show up on wikipedia are random schmoes creating their own wikipedia pages to promote themselves, their businesses, their bands or their blogs, so the notability criteria for people, businesses, bands and blogs are pretty firmly enforced. At least there's only a finite supply of random Star Trek crap to be incorporated.

ckinnan• 18 years ago

It's the Internet! Why delete any articles, ever!? It's not like Wikipedia is running out of database space or something. It's dumb to have a subjective "notability" standard at all in a world of practically infinite scale.

gnaritas• 18 years ago

It's called signal to noise. All content is not good content and serves to make the good content hard to find. Deletion is necessary.

pb308• 18 years ago

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deletionism#Rationale_for_del...

known2• 18 years ago

Y Combinator Alexa Rank is 205,428

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=http%3...

Jem• 18 years ago

You are aware that Alexa Rank is both a) virtually useless and b) easily fixed, yes?

known2• 18 years ago

YC ranks 72,800 in http://www.sitereportcard.com/index.php

psyklic• 18 years ago

... and the article is still pretty bad! apparently these comment threads don't inspire much action ;-)

mroman• 18 years ago

One answer to their knack for deleting valid content is to simply NEVER donate to them, encourage every single person you know to do the same, and let wikipedia know you are doing this and why.

This is what I have done.

Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia Administrators

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