| abstract
| - The previous nomination for deletion of this article was on 11 August 2011 by RL0919 (talkcontribs), who wrote: This article about a website provides no indication of coverage in independent sources that would provide notability. I was able to find news listings from the site and descriptions of it in non-independent material (e.g., in the book the site distributed), but only a few passing mentions otherwise. Survived AFD in 2006 with arguments based on its Alexa rankings and the fact that it was mentioned in blogs -- stuff that would not be considered good arguments under current AFD standards. RL0919 (talk) 15:55, 11 August 2011 (UTC) His words remain true eleven months later. Delete this article per Wikipedia:Verifiability. Despite two previous AfDs and over six years of existence (this article was created on 11 January 2006), this article does not cite any third-party reliable sources. A Google News Archive search and a Google Books search return passing mentions. Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline requires that topics receive nontrivial coverage in multiple secondary reliable sources. No one in the previous AfDs has been able to provide even one such source. The article currently fails the guideline at Wikipedia:Notability. As to Wikipedia:Notability (web), I do not believe passing it would allow this article to remain. As S Marshall (talkcontribs) wrote at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2011 August 12#Kate Oxley: DRV has tended to find, of late, that the GNG trumps all SNGs. I like this: it feels right to me that there should be a simple test, and that inclusionists should not get to argue that meeting a SNG prevents deletion, and also that deletionists should not get to argue that failing a SNG leads to deletion. I'd like this simple and clear view to continue, which means I endorse the finding in this case. As I've said before, I think this means we can go around demoting the SNGs to essay status. I agree with S Marshall's position on subject-specific notability guidelines' being trumped by the general notability guideline. Therefore, I support deleting this article for failing Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline and Wikipedia:Verifiability. 1.
* Universetoday.com Site Info. Alexa Internet.Retrieved on 2011-08-04. – Alexa is not a reliable source because there is no editorial oversight over the page. Tantamount to a directory listing, the website does not establish notability because it is not as calculated and selective as sources that purposefully delve into a specific topic. 2.
* Privacy Policy.Retrieved on 2011-0820. – Universe Today's privacy policy is not a third-party reliable source. 3. Ian O'Neil(23 March 2009).Happy 10th Birthday Universe Today!. AstroEngine.Retrieved on 2011108-21. – the source source states: Wow! The Universe Today is ten years old! 4. Contact Us,.Retrieved on 2011-0820,. – Universe Today's contact us page is not a third-party reliable source. 5. Fraser Cain, Pamela L. Gay, Thomas Foster; Phil Plait Gay Foster Plait(2008)."It Takes an e-Village".ASP Conference Series369: 69. Bibcode 2008ASPC..389...69C. ISBN 978-1583816486. . – the source states: In the Bad Astronomy and Universe Today combined BAUT Forums, thousands of people gather on a daily basis to talk and ask questions about astronomy. 1.
* Lutz D. Schmadel(2009)."(158092) Frasercain". Dictionary of Minor Planet Names: Addendum to Fifth Edition: 2006 - 2008. Springer. ISBN 978-3642019647. . – This Dictionary of Minor Planet Names states: Fraser Cain (1971- ) is an engineer, book and magazine author. He is also publisher of Universe Today, which reports news on astronomy and space science to millions of people every year. In this dictionary of minor planet names, Fraser Cain is mentioned because a planet is named after him. The mention of Universe Today is tangential. It is insufficient to pass the requirement of "significant coverage" at Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline. 1.
* Ian O'Neill(27 October 2008).Universe Today banned from Digg.com. AstroEngine.Retrieved on 2011-08-20. – at first glance, this source appears to suffice. However, the author writes: Whilst in the grand scheme of things, getting banned from Digg doesn’t mean squat, after all the Universe Today team (including myself) will continue to deliver the highest quality material we can muster. It’s just a shame our writing won’t be accessing the audience of the web’s largest communities in the future. However, it’s a bigger shame the admin peeps at Digg can’t see what is going wrong with their democratic website. This source is neither reliable nor secondary. Its lack of neutrality makes it an unreliable source so it cannot be used to establish notability. 1.
* Emily Lakdawalla(11 August 2011).The Role of Press Releases in Space News Coverage. The Planetary Society.Retrieved on 2011-08-20. – the source states: Go ahead and check around at some space news sites -- Universe Today, SPACE.com, MSNBC's Space section, or blogs like Bad Astronomy -- for the period from June 5 to 11 to see what topics they covered. You'll see a lot of these press-released stories covered on most of those sites. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that -- press-released stories are pre-selected for being interesting to the public, so it makes sense that multiple news outlets should choose to write about them. And these sites aren't churnalist ones; the writers do independent reporting. In fact I rely on Universe Today and Bad Astronomy to give me an independent look at big news stories. I'm just pointing out that a large portion of stories that get covered are the ones that are selected for press-release treatment, and a lot of outlets cover the same stories. That Universe Today is tangentially cited as an example does not establish notability. 1.
* Pamela L. Gay, Fraser Cain, Phil Plait, Emily Lakdawalla, Jordan Raddick(2009)."Live Casting: Bringing Astronomy to the Masses in Real Time".CAP Journal6: 26–29. Bibcode 2009CAPJ....6...26G. . – this source is being used to verify "Several peer-reviewed papers have been written about the impact of Universe Today in space-related news." in the Wikipedia article. The source states: Fraser Cain is a publisher of Universe Today, a space and astronomy news website. In addition to this being an egregious misrepresentation, the source is not secondary and has said nothing about Universe Today's impact in space-related news. 1.
* Pamela L. Gay, R. Bemrose-Fetter, G. Bracey, Fraser Cain(2007)."Astronomy Cast: Evaluation of a podcast audience's content needs and listening habits".CAP Journal1: 24. Bibcode 2007CAPJ....1...24G. – see #9. This article shares a coauthor, Fraser Cain, with the above source. 2.
* P. Russo(2007)."Science communication distribution services in astronomy and planetary sciences outreach".Proceedings from the IAU/National Observatory of Athens/ESA/ESO Conference, Athens, Greece, 8-11 October 2007: 232-236. Bibcode 2008ca07.conf..232R. . – the source states: Podcasting refers to the production and online subscription-based distribution of media files on the internet (as audio or as video podcast, also known as vodcast).Example:• Hubblecast: • Hidden Universe: • Planetary Radio: • Universe Today: This passing mention does not establish notability. 1.
* Ian O'Neill(28 October 2008).The Universe Today is unbanned from Digg.com!. AstroEngine.Retrieved on 2011-08-20. – the source's author is the same as source #7. 2.
* – Universe Today receives some coverage:"Fraser Cain realized on Mar. 2 that his 12-year-old astronomy website had lost 20 percent of its traffic in five days.""Like every Web business, Universe Today gets a sizable portion of its traffic via Google, which accounts for 65 percent of U.S. Web searches, according to Nielsen."Universe Today began appearing lower on results pages when Internet users googled astro-related topics. So Cain logged onto a Google forum to testify on behalf of his site's quality. "If there are some changes you'd like me to make, just tell me what I need to do," Cain wrote. Elsewhere in the forum, distraught business owners—financial advisers, lingerie salespeople—raged and pled for clemency. "I'm a smoldering cinder from last week's napalm strike," wrote one publisher.At Universe Today, Cain says he's not waiting for a response from Google. If astronomers can figure out black holes, his thinking goes, Webmasters can handle Google. "We're in the dark right now," says Cain. "But complaining about it doesn't do any good."I do not consider this to be "significant coverage" of Universe Today. Titled "Matt Cutts: The Greenspan of Google", the article is mainly about Matt Cutter and Google's search-engine optimization. Universe Today is used to frame a discussion of search engine optimization. It is, though, much better coverage than the previous 11 sources. Excluding the quotations from people affiliated with Universe Today, there are roughly five sentences about Universe Today in this 36-sentence article. 3.
* Aisling Spain(17 April 2011).Embargo system is broken, says Universe Today, and leaves the game. Association of British Science Writers.Retrieved on 2011-08-20. – the sole coverage of Universe Today is: The space and astronomy news site Universe Today has decided to simply ignore embargoed stories as of 31 March 2011. "Everybody knows embargoes are broken, but nobody's willing to take the first step and abandon the system," Fraser Cain, publisher of the Universe Today site, told ABSW. The remainder of the article discusses various other websites such as Embargo Watch and Faculty of 1000 (F1000). In the previous AfD, a participant wrote that this page mentioned "an independent source that, in all likelyhood, covers the subject in detail". The page was behind a paywall so could not be viewed. I uploaded the article to and invited other participants to make their own judgments about whether it established notability: Unfortunately, it does not. That's a monthly column about web resources for physics and astronomy teachers. The resource focused on, in one paragraph, is the podcast Astronomycast, and the article merely mentions that Astronomy cast is hosted by Fraser Cain, who edits Universe Today. There is no detail about Universe Today...in fact, nothing of substance is said. This article cannot be used to establish notability.Astrocog (talk) 13:14, 28 August 2011 (UTC) Agreed with Astrocog; this source does not sufficiently describe the subject in-depth to fulfill the general notability guidelines. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 19:02, 28 August 2011 (UTC) Yes, but this, plus all the others, and the endorsements from other organizations like The Planetary Society, does fulfill the GNG. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:12, 28 August 2011 (UTC) Contributors in the past have urged a merge to Fraser Cain, the founder of Universe Today. This is untenable because Fraser Cain was deleted in September 2011 at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fraser Cain for failing the notability guidelines. Shortly after the previous AfD was closed as "no consensus", 98.164.98.44 (talkcontribs) noted that there were several factual errors in the article: I discussed this at User talk:Cunard/Archive 8#Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Universe Today (3rd nomination), where I wrote: Universe Today is not a borderline article, in my opinion. No reliable sources nontrivially cover the website. In May 2006, the closing admin at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Universe Today wrote: "...this comes very close to a consensus to delete..." Over five years later, the article excessively relies on unreliable, non-neutral, and primary sources, and there are egregious misrepresentations of the sources. This bombardment of the article is unhealthy. Because there is little useful content in the sources, assertions are fabricated and falsely reinforced by the sources. ... I am not merely mechanically upholding the notability guideline. I believe that the verifiability policy and the no original research policy, both of which defend the integrity of this site, should be upheld. Cunard (talk) 23:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC) The previous AfD closer wrote: What I would be very much in favour of, would be a general discussion to establish if a) significant use within Wikipedia as a reliable source can in any way be taken account of when considering notability (personally I think not formally, though it may be a factor to take into account); and b) clarity on "significant" coverage - if a source has only one sentence, but the sentence says "this is the most notable Foo in the world", is that significant? I wrote: The discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 26#Site good enough to be a source, but not notable enough to have an article in July 2008 was very clear that a website's being cited on Wikipedia does not confer notability. I draw your attention to Protonk (talkcontribs)'s comment: This happens all the time. 90% of the academic journals out there don't need articles, there wouldn't be any independent sources to cover them, but we still use them as sources. The reliable source guidelines don't really operate on the same wavelength as the notability guidelines. The source doesn't have to be "important" per se, just has to exercise editorial control and represent information in a reasonable way. For a website example, Economic Principals. I'll defend it to the death as RS, but I can't imagine writing an article on it. Protonk (talk) 04:41, 23 July 2008 (UTC) I strongly agree with Protonk (talkcontribs)'s comment. The defense of an article based on how many times it's cited on Wikipedia is weak and not grounded in policy. It is rebutted in the essay Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions#Arbitrary quantity. Regarding your second example, an RfC would likely conclude that it should be taken on a case-by-case basis. If an article gave the subject the passing mention ("Foo won the prestigious X Web Award."), it would be presumed notable per Wikipedia:Notability (web)#Criteria #2: The website or content has won a well-known and independent award from either a publication or organization. If a source said that "Foo want the Nobel Peace Prize" or "Foo received the Pulitzer Prize", and there was no significant coverage, the topic would still be considered notable because of the prestige of those prizes. I can find no sources that give such prestige to Universe Today. In other words, none of the sources say anything "significant" ... Myself, I see neither "significant coverage" nor anything along the lines of "Universe Today is the most notable website in the world". Cunard (talk) 22:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC) I don't think that quote comes close to saying that "this is the most notable Foo in the world". That a The Planetary Society writer tangentially mentioned it twice does not establish notability. Her statement contributes not to the notability of Universe Today, but to vouching for its reliability (Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 26#Site good enough to be a source, but not notable enough to have an article). Because the sources lack the depth and reliability mandated by Wikipedia:Notability, and because the article fails the policies Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research, this article should be deleted. Cunard (talk) 22:59, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
* Addendum: The article has been the target of sockpuppetry in the past; see the deletion log for this AfD and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Universe Daily/Archive and Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Universe Daily. Cunard (talk) 22:59, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
* Comment: I have notified the previous AfD participants: RL0919 (talkcontribs) (diff), Rocksanddirt (talkcontribs) (diff), Iridia (talkcontribs) (diff), FuFoFuEd (talkcontribs) (diff), Headbomb (talkcontribs) (diff), Astrocog (talkcontribs) (diff), Spartaz (talkcontribs) (diff), Cerejota (talkcontribs) (diff), I Jethrobot (talkcontribs) (diff), Reyk (talkcontribs) (diff), and SilkTork (talkcontribs) (diff) of this deletion discussion. I have not notified 202.124.72.139 (talkcontribs), 202.124.72.217 (talkcontribs), and Runningbackwards36 (talkcontribs) because the IPs seem to be dynamic IPs and the user was blocked as a sockpuppet. Cunard (talk) 23:12, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)