

Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia Administrators - ciscoriordan
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Y_Combinator&oldid=234584904

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pb30
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...](http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=%22y+combinator%22+source%3A%22-newswire%22+source%3A%22-wire%22+source%3A%22-presswire%22+source%3A%22-PR%22+source%3A%22-press%22+source%3A%22-release%22&btnG=Search+Archives)

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

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hugh
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.

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echair
I think most people would understand "create a competitor" to entail more than
the strawman of mere implementation you seem to be taking it to mean.

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hugh
The point is that the main problem can't be solved at the two-guys-in-a-garage
level.

Two guys in a garage can create a wiki. Two guys in a garage with a million
dollar PR budget can create a wiki and get it widely publicised. Two guys in a
garage with a fifty million dollar budget can hire a bunch of writers to get
the content kickstarted. But ultimately, the problem of persuading thousands
of people to contribute to a brand new service is not a problem that anyone
knows how to solve -- it either takes off or it doesn't.

~~~
rsheridan6
The two guys have an advantage - lots of former editors are sick of Wikipedia,
and non-deletionists have nowhere to go. I don't see any reason why two guys
in a garage couldn't succeed.

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Mystalic
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
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?

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

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snorkel
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.

~~~
ciscoriordan
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
Were those sources actually linked from the Disqus article?

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pb30
No, the old article was pretty weak, just a couple of lines and a link to the
TechCrunch launch post.

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jbyers
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.

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mikeryan
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.

~~~
tptacek
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.

~~~
silentbicycle
It looks like said mainstream print pubs weren't referenced in the deleted
version, though. (Several are now.)

Wikipedia generally doesn't use <http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/> as a primary
source.

~~~
tptacek
No, WP doesn't use Google as a primary source. Neither did I. The first page
of Google results includes sources in mainstream print publications, many of
which have YC as their actual subject.

If you have a concern about sourcing, there's the "refimprove" tag. An
uncontested "prod" deletes the article. It _is_ bad form to prod things you
didn't even take the time to look up. If you want evidence to that affect, try
slapping an AfD on the article and see how long it takes to speedy out.

Then, let me know you did, so when your RfA comes up, I can cite the AfD.
RfA's have failed over silly stuff like this.

~~~
silentbicycle
(Incidentally, sorry if that came across as more hostile than intended.
Rereading it, it was more curt than I realized.)

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radley
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>

~~~
hugh
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.

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smakz
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.

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tptacek
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.

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biohacker42
A Wikipedia competitor is one of the things pg would love to fund so....

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ph0rque
why are there only 16 yc companies listed?

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pg
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
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?).

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Goladus
_why not companies funded by YC?_

Because the standard of 'notability' is bogus when applied to something of the
supposed scope of wikipedia. It's impossible to apply it with any reasonable
consistency, and it always boils down to a few biased opinions, which is why
the topic of notability deletions is so sensitive.

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hooande
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.

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known
Y Combinator Alexa Rank is 205,428

[http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=http%3...](http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com%2Fitem%3Fid%3D288200)

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

~~~
known
YC ranks 72,800 in <http://www.sitereportcard.com/index.php>

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ckinnan
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.

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gnaritas
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.

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

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tstegart
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.

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

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Mystalic
Well that was a rather quick resolution to the problem.

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ciscoriordan
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.

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

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mroman
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.

