Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of question and answer websites

:{{la|List of question and answer websites}} – (View AfDView log)

:({{Find sources|List of question and answer websites}})

Promotional list that has no value to the encyclopedia. Dave Dial (talk) 17:40, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:21, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:21, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

• I think you're under the false impression that lists of commercial entities are necessarily promotional, possibly because communicating information about them "promotes" them? Such indirect "promotion" is not our concern, as long as the topics are verifiable, notable, and written in neutral language. All but three of the entries in this list have articles, which means this is an index of notable article topics organized by what they fundamentally are, and giving objective information about them without any promotional or POV language. It is no more "promotional" than a List of search engines or any other list in :Category:Internet-related lists. Though is "question and answer website" the best way to index these? I don't know, but that's a question the nom has not raised. postdlf (talk) 22:52, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

::I'm not really under any false impressions, and I would say that a collection or list of mostly message board forums or user generated 'answers' isn't on par with search engines. Per WP:NOTDIR, what Wikipedia is not, among other reasons, the page should be deleted. If we remove the obvious and borderline forum sites that are nothing more than spam, the 'list' is pretty thin. In any case, thanks for your participation. Dave Dial (talk) 14:31, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

• Delete - indefinite scope / non-notable intersection. I am unable to find, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, an agreed definition of "question and answer website", or any suggestion that this intersection of topics is the subject of significant coverage in reliable sources. PLEASE NOTE ALSO the duplicate page List of question-and-answer websites. Regardless of whether this one stays or goes, the duplicate content should be deleted or merged. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:56, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
• Good catch on the duplicate; obviously one of those should redirect to the other after any merging has been performed. It isn't a "non-notable intersection" because it's not an "intersection". It's just a singular list of a specific kind of website, in the same way that list of backup software is more specific than lists of software. postdlf (talk) 15:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
• It's an intersection because there are two criteria - it must be a website, and it must deal in questions-and-answers (presumably - still not sure what the definition of "question and answer website" is). An entity may presumably deal in questions and answers without being a website (one can picture a Q&A book, or TV program), or be a website without dealing in questions and answers, so it's an intersection of topics, and a non-notable one at that. Also your response raises the suggestion that the list only exists so that it CAN be a list - that is, it's not an aid to navigation or an assistance to encyclopaedic understanding of the topic. It would therefore fall foul of WP:NOTDIR. (But look, the world's not going to fall down whether this is deleted or kept. :-)) - DustFormsWords (talk) 04:30, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
• Keep The obvious value of such a list is to assist navigation. The basis of the list is notable per WP:LISTN; for example, see [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Zl4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA56 here]. Warden (talk) 06:59, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
• Keep. I'm pretty convinced with the insights of postdlf and Warden. I'll be surprised to see better insights than these in this discussion. PolicarpioM (talk) 10:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
• Delete both 'question and answer' articles per WP:NOTDIR. WP:LAIR is another article that is duplicate, but more complete. Mamyles (talk) 14:06, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

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:Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

:Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, —Tom Morris (talk) 00:27, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

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• Keep. I think this article can be useful.--Kaspo (talk) 02:03, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
• Keep and redirect List of question-and-answer websites to this page. This is the better laid out of the two and at some point we're going to have to delete or redirect the already pre-existing page to this entry. I debated a long time about this but I think this does squeak by notability guidelines per the arguments given by Warden and others. It passes notability... for now, but just barely avoids being a list. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 11:57, 8 November 2011 (UTC)tokyogirl79
• Redirect this page to List of question-and-answer websites, and merge the two lists. The hyphenated name is less ambiguous.—Wavelength (talk) 02:29, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

• Delete per WP:NOTHOW. All these two articles are is a list of various web sites that have a section where people can ask and answer questions. This article may help people who want to know how to get answers for questions, but Wikipedia is not a how-to guide, that's what Wikihow is for. --Madison-chan (talk) 23:17, 14 November 2011 (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.