 | This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia should avoid articles about web sites that could be interpreted as advertising. For material published on the web to have its own article in Wikipedia, it should be notable and of historical significance. Wikipedia articles about web content should use citations from reliable sources. | From WP:NOT#INTERNET: | “ | Internet guides. Wikipedia articles should not exist only to describe the nature, appearance or services a website offers, but should describe the site in an encyclopedic manner, offering detail on a website's achievements, impact or historical significance, which can be significantly more up-to-date than most reference sources since we can incorporate new developments and facts as they are made known. See current events for examples. | ” | This page gives some rough guidelines which most Wikipedia editors use to decide if any form of web-specific content, being either the content of a website or the specific website itself should have an article on Wikipedia. Web content includes, but is not limited to, blogs, Internet forums, newsgroups, online magazines and other media, podcasts, webcomics, and web portals. Any content which is distributed solely on the Internet is considered, for the purposes of this guideline, as web content.[1] Wikipedians are averse to the use of Wikipedia for advertising, and Wikipedia articles are not advertisements is an official policy of long standing. Advertising is either cleaned up to adhere to the neutral point of view or deleted.[2] Wikipedia is not a web directory, in that it is not a site that specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links. Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files. Articles which merely include an external link and a brief description of its contents may be deleted. Topics that do not satisfy notability criteria are dealt with in two ways: merging and deleting. Articles that may be non-notable can be marked with the {{notability}} template to make other editors aware of the problem. In the case of such articles being listed for deletion, such a listing occurs at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Alternatively, the proposed deletion process may be used or the {{db-web}} template to mark an article for the speedy deletion process. [edit] Criteria Keeping in mind that all articles must conform with our policy on verifiability to reliable sources, and that primary sources alone are not sufficient to establish notability; web-specific content[3] is deemed notable based on meeting any one of the following criteria. - The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself. This criterion includes reliable published works in all forms, such as newspaper and magazine articles, books, television documentaries, websites, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations[4] except for the following:
- Media re-prints of press releases and advertising for the content or site.[5]
- Trivial coverage, such as (1) newspaper articles that simply report the Internet address, (2) newspaper articles that simply report the times at which such content is updated or made available, (3) a brief summary of the nature of the content or the publication of Internet addresses and site or (4) content descriptions in Internet directories or online stores.
- The website or content has won a well-known and independent award from either a publication or organization.[6]
- The content is distributed via a medium which is both respected and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster;[7] except for trivial distribution including content being hosted on sites without editorial oversight (such as YouTube, MySpace, GeoCities, Newgrounds, personal blogs, etc.).
[edit] See also - ^ Content which has been packaged into material form, such as onto CD, DVD or book form, but which is still primarily only available for sale via the Internet, still falls under these guidelines. If such packaging of the product is widely available for sale in major brick and mortar retailers, then it should be considered a product, for which see Wikipedia:Notability (companies and corporations).
- ^ Websites or content which fail these guidelines but are linked to a topic or subject which does merit inclusion may be redirected to that topic or subject rather than be listed for deletion.
- ^ Discussions of websites should be incorporated (with a redirect if necessary) into an article about the parent organization, unless the domain-name of the website is the most common way of referring to the organization. For example, yahoo.com is a redirect to Yahoo!. On the other hand Drugstore.com is a standalone page.
- ^ Examples:
- ^ Self-promotion and product placement are not the routes to having an encyclopaedia article. The published works must be someone else writing about the company, corporation, product, or service. (See Wikipedia:Autobiography for the verifiability and neutrality problems that affect material where the subject of the article itself is the source of the material.) The barometer of notability is whether people independent of the subject itself (or of its manufacturer, creator, or vendor) have actually considered the content or site notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial works that focus upon it.
- ^ Being nominated for such an award in multiple years may also be considered an indicator of notability.
- ^ Content that is distributed by independent online sites will almost certainly satisfy the first criterion. However, this criterion ensures that our coverage of such content will be complete regardless. For example, Ricky Gervais had a podcast distributed by The Guardian. Such distributions should be nontrivial.
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