- 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 delete. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 13:45, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Digital Journal
AfDs for this article:
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- Digital Journal ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
- (Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)
This appears to be a non-notable publication of...less than stellar repute as of late.
I can find no meaningful coverage of it in archives (including printed newspapers), other journals or books. The existing sources are...not great and clearly not independent. As an example this tech crunch piece has no author, this is a press release, this is really just about a data breach.
I don't know if it was originally the case but it doesn't appear that they have any editorial standards or oversight, though that's a discussion for WP:RSN for its use here. Praxidicae ( talk) 16:50, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 16:55, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 16:55, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of News media-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 16:55, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Journalism-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 16:56, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 16:56, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- Delete. To be fair, a publication's reputation is not part of our notability criteria for media per se — a media outlet can become notable because of its unreliability, as witness Breitbart and The Drudge Report, if its unreliability makes it a subject of reliable source coverage about its unreliability. What's more definitive here, rather, is that the sources just aren't doing enough: TechCrunch is not a reliable or notability-supporting source at all; the G&M "Interview with Christopher Hogg" is a Q&A interview in which an executive who's directly affiliated with the company is speaking about it in the first person, which isn't a notability-making source as it's not independent of the topic; the Metro piece is just a really short blurb that isn't substantive enough to count as a data point toward WP:GNG if it's this close to the best you can do; and the G&M "does your backup need backup" isn't so much notability-building coverage about the company — it just uses a data breach at the company as an anecdote in a column whose core subject is the general concept of how important it is to back up your business data, which is not the same thing as notability-building coverage. So the sources present here just aren't getting it over WP:GNG at all. Bearcat ( talk) 22:09, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, qedk ( t 桜 c) 08:37, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, qedk ( t 桜 c) 08:37, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
- Delete per nom and Bearcat. I have nothing further to add. Non-notable born-digital blog and online message board. Doug Mehus T· C 16:07, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- Keep I see references to this site at Media Bias/Fact Check, at Crunchbase, at Bloomberg, at MuckRack... the list goes on. There's a short profile of the founder and his company that runs the site here. The four citations that are already in the article seem legit to me.
- I think this article contains valuable info, especially since our article specifies that Digital Journal relies on user-submitted content, and therefore, it's not suitable for use as a reliable source. That's exactly how I came across this discussion - I was searching for a source for another article and came across an article hosted by Digital Journal. When I saw this article, I knew I could not use this publication as a reliable source. So if we delete this article, we do a disservice not just to Wikipedia readers, but also to editors that may not be familiar with it.
Andrew Englehart (
talk) 23:36, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- @ Andrew Englehart: Regarding those sources, in turn: (1) Media Bias Fact Check LLC is a sketchy source, to say the least, not unlike Media Matters I suspect; (2) Crunchbase is essentially a self-published source, a directory of sorts in which anyone can add companies and it's semi-moderated by TechCrunch staff and appointed moderators (think: Wikipedia with edit requests for everything); (3) Bloomberg profiles are just that, profiles, compiled algorithmic-ally from multiple datasets and data sources; and (4) MuckRack, never heard of it, but again, non-qualifying reliable source. Doug Mehus T· C 00:06, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
- Reliable sources, for the purposes of establishing the encyclopedic notability of a topic, are not just "any website you can find that provides technical verification of information about the company": entries in business directories, for example, are not notability makers, and neither are podcasts or Q&A interviews in which a person directly associated with the topic is talking about themselves in the first person. To establish that a topic is notable enough for an article, a source has to represent journalism, from a real media outlet, that is written in the third person and analyzes the topic's significance independently of its own self-published claims about itself. That is, newspaper articles about the company and its accomplishments, books about the company and its accomplishments, and on and so forth. Bearcat ( talk) 15:06, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
- Delete Fails basic notability tests and WP:WEBSITE notability. The sources provided don't meet basic test and I don't see anything better. Glendoremus ( talk) 16:09, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
- 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.
- 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 delete. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 13:45, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Digital Journal
AfDs for this article:
[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!
- Digital Journal ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
- (Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)
This appears to be a non-notable publication of...less than stellar repute as of late.
I can find no meaningful coverage of it in archives (including printed newspapers), other journals or books. The existing sources are...not great and clearly not independent. As an example this tech crunch piece has no author, this is a press release, this is really just about a data breach.
I don't know if it was originally the case but it doesn't appear that they have any editorial standards or oversight, though that's a discussion for WP:RSN for its use here. Praxidicae ( talk) 16:50, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 16:55, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 16:55, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of News media-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 16:55, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Journalism-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 16:56, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 16:56, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- Delete. To be fair, a publication's reputation is not part of our notability criteria for media per se — a media outlet can become notable because of its unreliability, as witness Breitbart and The Drudge Report, if its unreliability makes it a subject of reliable source coverage about its unreliability. What's more definitive here, rather, is that the sources just aren't doing enough: TechCrunch is not a reliable or notability-supporting source at all; the G&M "Interview with Christopher Hogg" is a Q&A interview in which an executive who's directly affiliated with the company is speaking about it in the first person, which isn't a notability-making source as it's not independent of the topic; the Metro piece is just a really short blurb that isn't substantive enough to count as a data point toward WP:GNG if it's this close to the best you can do; and the G&M "does your backup need backup" isn't so much notability-building coverage about the company — it just uses a data breach at the company as an anecdote in a column whose core subject is the general concept of how important it is to back up your business data, which is not the same thing as notability-building coverage. So the sources present here just aren't getting it over WP:GNG at all. Bearcat ( talk) 22:09, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, qedk ( t 桜 c) 08:37, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, qedk ( t 桜 c) 08:37, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
- Delete per nom and Bearcat. I have nothing further to add. Non-notable born-digital blog and online message board. Doug Mehus T· C 16:07, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- Keep I see references to this site at Media Bias/Fact Check, at Crunchbase, at Bloomberg, at MuckRack... the list goes on. There's a short profile of the founder and his company that runs the site here. The four citations that are already in the article seem legit to me.
- I think this article contains valuable info, especially since our article specifies that Digital Journal relies on user-submitted content, and therefore, it's not suitable for use as a reliable source. That's exactly how I came across this discussion - I was searching for a source for another article and came across an article hosted by Digital Journal. When I saw this article, I knew I could not use this publication as a reliable source. So if we delete this article, we do a disservice not just to Wikipedia readers, but also to editors that may not be familiar with it.
Andrew Englehart (
talk) 23:36, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- @ Andrew Englehart: Regarding those sources, in turn: (1) Media Bias Fact Check LLC is a sketchy source, to say the least, not unlike Media Matters I suspect; (2) Crunchbase is essentially a self-published source, a directory of sorts in which anyone can add companies and it's semi-moderated by TechCrunch staff and appointed moderators (think: Wikipedia with edit requests for everything); (3) Bloomberg profiles are just that, profiles, compiled algorithmic-ally from multiple datasets and data sources; and (4) MuckRack, never heard of it, but again, non-qualifying reliable source. Doug Mehus T· C 00:06, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
- Reliable sources, for the purposes of establishing the encyclopedic notability of a topic, are not just "any website you can find that provides technical verification of information about the company": entries in business directories, for example, are not notability makers, and neither are podcasts or Q&A interviews in which a person directly associated with the topic is talking about themselves in the first person. To establish that a topic is notable enough for an article, a source has to represent journalism, from a real media outlet, that is written in the third person and analyzes the topic's significance independently of its own self-published claims about itself. That is, newspaper articles about the company and its accomplishments, books about the company and its accomplishments, and on and so forth. Bearcat ( talk) 15:06, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
- Delete Fails basic notability tests and WP:WEBSITE notability. The sources provided don't meet basic test and I don't see anything better. Glendoremus ( talk) 16:09, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
- 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.