Wikipedia talk:Notability/RFC:Notability of free open source software

Initial comments

Even with your arguments, there's no reason to create anything new notability for FOSS.

The point of notability is to help establish context for any topic in WP so that the general reader (in this case, one that may not be computer-literate, much less FOSS-software literate) can read and understand the topic. This is more than verifiability (yes, great, we can check the source, but that doesn't help to establish context), and more than the stats on the install base on the software.

I see no reason why the general notabiliy guideline can't apply to FOSS. If the software is covered in a reliable ,independent source, then it's likely notable. True, FOSS doesn't enjoy as great a list of RS that can be pulled from, but that list is not empty (eg Linux Journal). And web sites from reliable publishers, such as oreilly.com, can also be used. We don't require print sources, just ones that have a history of editorial review to judge them reliable. --MASEM (t) 05:08, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• The article's I've seen about free open source projects usually meet WP:CSD#G11 because they only link to the project page itself and provide no information drawn from sources outside the project. Those fail basic guidelines and that can be solved with reliable sources as listed above; no need to include yet another notability criterion. (Now, if only the same common sense was applied to schools and malls...) - 87.211.75.45 (talk) 08:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I've modified the proposal to make its goal more clear: sources which would otherwise not be considered reliable (e.g. technology blogs not as popular as the Linux Journal) nevertheless indicate notability, because their apparent lack of reliability is coupled with the intrinsic verifiability of FOSS (claims can be tested by downloading the source code). -- Dandv (talk) 03:27, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• • • That's missing the point. Notability is not about verifiability, though it helps supports it. It says that we can cover a topic in a manner to help place it in context for people not knowledgeable about the topic. We can't establish that ourselves (that's OR) which is why we turn to secondary sources. It's just a matter of making usre that if reliable sources (but maybe not print or academic ones) are being used to source FOSS, that this is pointed out at AFD. --MASEM (t) 04:01, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

It's worth noting that we don't have a topic-specific notability guideline for software in general. There have been past attempts at drafting one, but none were successful. Since being open source doesn't make software any more or less notable, there's no reason to treat it separately in terms of notability. I would add to what Masem said, that the present proposal is substantially just an assertion that the AfD process doesn't treat open source software developers fairly; that's not a notability issue, and in any case we don't decide notability of any work based on the author's assertion that it's notable. I don't think this proposal is needed. — Gavia immer (talk) 18:42, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe the general complaint is that FOSS stuff simply won't get mentioned in the types of RSes that WP will allow, even if they 'should' be notable, and therefore things will get deleted that 'shouldn't'. It's a bit of a systemic bias really. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 19:11, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying that. I've amended the proposal accordingly. -- Dandv (talk) 03:27, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

past projects

I think the distinction between presently active and cancelled projects to be a very bad way to go. If there is any one principle that has been helpful in helping articles on less popular subjects at Wikipedia, it's that notability does not go away.

It might even be particularly perverse for this particular topic. There is usually no great difficulty finding information on the web about currently active software projects. It's the ceased ones where Wikipedia can be the only accessible source of information. At any rate, I at least became first interested in Wikipedia for information on extinct or almost extinct programming languages. DGG (talk) 15:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this. Wikipedia strives to document all things from all times with equal importance, not just stuff that exists today. Warren -talk- 16:14, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I've amended the proposal to remove this clause. Dandv (talk) 03:27, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Some comments

1. Given that open source software developers generally are not registered Wikipedia users

   Is there a source that open source developers are less represented on Wikipedia than other groups? Wikipedia is run entirely on open source software. If anything, I would guess that they are slightly more represented than most groups. In any case, I don't see how this is particularly relevant to the notability of the software.

2. articles on active free open source software projects, with large user bases, being deleted on grounds of lack of notability

   And proprietary software with large user bases never gets deleted? Again, this isn't really relevant.

3. anyone can download the code and check the claims in the article

   And people can visit a geographic location, or contact a person. That doesn't mean sources are optional.

   • There is a difference in cost between going to Mt. Everest and downloading Firefox. -- Dandv (talk) 11:23, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

4. the opinions of FOSS experts should be given more weight

   This is an unnecessary departure from existing practices. Reliable sources should be given the most weight as these can be verified. What happens when the "expert" leaves the project and we no longer know what in the article is correct or not?

   • Something along the lines to what happens when a WP:RS link goes away: {{deadlink}}

   • When a link to the source goes away, we usually still have the rest of the source information, so someone with access to news archives can still verify it. If a person goes away, the only thing we can do is replace it with a real source instead. Mr.Z-man 19:53, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

5. Who else has better knowledge of an open-source project than its developers?

   There's no commercial possibility for most people as well nor is there much of one for businesses that only serve a small market, that doesn't mean we should allow them to write puff pieces about themselves.

6. The requirement for third party reliable sources for software projects done over the Internet is broken. People don't generally write books or even cnn.com articles about free software projects except for the very biggest ones.

   Where are all these reliable books and CNN features on minor non-free software? People don't write books about me either, that doesn't mean I get an exemption, it means I'm not notable.

   • Not sure I understood this counter-argument. The point I'm trying to make is that software doesn't usually get mentioned in sources which Wikipedia traditionally considers reliable. It gets mentioned instead in personal and community blogs, web reviews etc.

   • My point is that issues like this are not specific to free software. Proprietary software, books, people, products, etc. Except normally we would consider this a sign of non-notability, rather than discard the guidelines. Mr.Z-man 19:53, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

7. the more supporters and keep votes a FOSS article has, the more editors vote for its deletion (which suggests canvassing for deletion)

   WP:AGF?

8. Some FOSS projects generated very short AfD discussions, with less than 4 votes

   This is fairly normal for AFD and is more a sign of a strained deletion process than bad notability criteria.

9. Other articles generated heated debate

   So do internet memes, that doesn't mean we should drop the RS requirements for them. See also WP:BIGNUMBER

10. only two of the dozens of deleters at Foswiki and MojoMojo, voted at all in the AfDs for the other wikis. This casts doubts on the neutrality of the deletion process.

    Again, AGF. Not everyone votes in every AFD.

11. removing articles about large active FOSS projects, or removing software entries from comparison lists in general[6] does not help improve Wikipedia.

    See WP:EFFORT, this isn't at all specific to free software.

12. Since most FOSS developers are not familiar with Wikipedia policies, the first time they find out about the guidelines for deletion is when they are used on their article.

    Again, this isn't specific to free software

Overall, I think this is far too much of a departure from existing practice to be workable. It seems to propose a system where FOSS articles are exempt from most of the content guidelines and policies, even WP:V to some extent. Mr.Z-man 04:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• The aim of the proposal is just to relax the criteria of reliability for sourcing FOSS; not to lower the bar for article quality. On the other hand, I have no problem with extending this proposal to any software that can be downloaded and evaluated. FOSS just has the verifiability advantage that its source code can be inspected. -- Dandv (talk) 11:23, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • The problem is that the source code is essentially a primary source and as such has few uses, and they're sort of a foreign language source as well. It may be easier to download the source code than to go to a library and pick up a book, but as long as the book is written in English, the majority of editors should be able to at least get a basic understanding of it. The same is not necessarily true of source code. Many, if not most, editors have no programming knowledge, and even those that do may not have the knowledge to evaluate code to verify claims. I'm fairly proficient in languages like PHP and Python, but there's no way I could verify the claims in an article about something like GRUB or GCC just by reading the code (Hell, I don't even know how every part of MediaWiki works, and I've been working on it for 8 months). You're advocating we do away with most of the WP:V and WP:RS requirements for FOSS articles, as well as giving preference to the opinions of the developers of the software and "experts," I don't see how this could possibly improve article quality, only quantity. Mr.Z-man 19:53, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Why?

I am failing to see why free open source software needs to be treated any differently from any other software. Basically, the argument seems to boil down to the fact that someone can easily download the software and verify the information themselves, but it doesn't receive much coverage. If it doesn't receive any coverage, then, I'm sorry, but it's simply not our place to cover it. We aren't a directory, nor are a publisher of original thought, nor are we a free webhost. Why should free software that has not received any coverage be treated differently from MySpace bands that have not received any coverage? Surely, someone could easily download the music and check the claims of genre themselves? J Milburn (talk) 11:47, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

• Not in regards to J Milburn, I just don't want to start a new section. I would prefer a looser standard for FOSS projects, based on your reasoning, but I have to say you're barking up the wrong free encyc if you think you can change the rules for them. Our rules get tighter with time, not looser (see WP:CONSENSUS). - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:22, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

• The difference between FOSS and e.g. a MySpace band are that a piece of open source software is sometimes widely used by many people (far more than would be listening to our hypothetical band) and that it is sometimes widely discussed but not in a formal/notable context because the groups for which the software is relevant tends towards the utilitarian (how to use and apply vs. what it is) and as such fewer publications are made about the software in traditionally notable media. It would be like having a band that people talk almost exclusively about how they like to listen to it to best enjoy the music, but take little time to actually talk about the significance of the band. If bands were like that many could have huge followings and no notable sources despite their cultural impact. Bjartr (talk) 00:54, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Poll

• Strong oppose What you're essentially suggestion is you take several pillars of Wikipedia policy and practice and turn it on its head. Among others:

Notability: "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article."

Original research: "all material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source."

Verifiability: "Material likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source."

If you want to change these, you should raise it on those pages rather than trying to make those changes through a back door using a guideline like this. AndrewRT(Talk) 23:46, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

difference between open source and proprietary software

I have noticed what when looking for information about significant software package, wikipedia usually has a nice, informative article about it, frequently with a notability tag. Something does seem wrong here; maybe it doesn't need a separate guideline, but at least the existing guideline should be fixed.

I think the issues are not only the fact that it's open source and thus claims can be verified should be considered; even if everyone can't verify it, it's harder to make false claims when thousands of pairs of eyes can see the facts. We should also consider what the major Linux distros include, since that shows it has been reviewed more than a journal writeup would.

If the guidelines say that a closed source package with a writeup in one magazine article is inherently more notable & verifiable than software with available sources that's part of every Linux distro and a lot of information on the web, then I think something is wrong there. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 17:04, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there's anything wrong here. If it's so widely used, why aren't people writing about it in computer magazines? AndrewRT(Talk) 22:09, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

One of the reasons we have source-based notability is that it restricts us to topics we can reasonably write a good quality article about. If there's no reliable sources about it, how do we write a quality article about it? When the best sources for an article are blogs and the subject's website, that doesn't lend itself to a particularly good article. At best we're using non-fact-checked and self-published information, at worst we're using original research from studying the source code. As I said above, this wouldn't increase the quality of Wikipedia at all, only the quantity of articles. Mr.Z-man 22:47, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Who knows why (or if) they aren't in magazines. If an open source project has good documentation in the package and online, it's not like I'd need to resort do dead-tree sources to find out about it. Maybe there's less money involved; maybe there's so much other documentation that the magazine article wouldn't add much. I just don't see where, if several online sources describe a feature, and you can try the program and see the feature, we can see it's not verifiable unless it's on paper. Sometimes seeing really is believing. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 23:28, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

It's not about paper. It's about reliable sources. This all stems from verifiability. Self-published sources are discouraged because anyone can write anything they want in such. Original research -- me going and seeing if a feature exists -- is discouraged because nobody else can verify the results of my research, and someone else might get different results. We require reliable sources because they provide some measure of assurance that the information they provide is correct. Since "correctness" can be validly disputed, and we also want WP:NPOV, the reliable sources guidelines prevent crackpots from self-publishing whatever they want. • Wikipedia's goals do not include documenting every feature of every program ever written. That sounds like a neat idea, but it's more appropriate for another project, not an encyclopedia. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 01:01, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Magazines do more than provide documentation about the software, they provide a description from an external perspective, something that the developers of the software aren't going to be particularly good at, and something that individual editors aren't supposed to do. Mr.Z-man 01:55, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Although usually I think notability and verifiability can be considered roughly equivalent, since it's about whether information is available; here I think they're different, because we know the information exists, but it's not clear whether it's distributed in such a way that would establish notability in other topics. To me, inclusion in a major Linux distro is more notable than a single magazine article. Even if we can't reliably tell much about what a program like gtkpod does, because we don't consider the probably hundreds of websites that write about it to be any more reliable than free software foundation, we can still see that exists, by checking the various package repositories. It seems a bit contradictory to me to say that we can't use sources, even if they all agree, because they can't be verified; and that they can't be verified because that would be original research. Technically, it's not unverifiable if you can reproduce it, and it's not original if you're only reproducing it from an existing source. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 17:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

FOSS should not get special treatment

I have a lot of problems with this proposal. My argument boils down to "We shouldn't make exceptions to important Wikipedia practices for FOSS (or anything else)". Specifics:

Notability

If something — a FOSS project, a payware product, my left knee, whatever — lacks the reliable sources needed, then it's not notable by the standards of Wikipedia. Note that this doesn't mean the the project isn't notable by the standards of you, me, the author, the FOSS community, etc. It means Wikipedia, nothing more. Wikipedia isn't a popularity contest or a rite-of-passage. That means we sometimes won't have the information that Freshmeat or Slashdot or whoever do, because we have different standards. Not necessarily better standards, just different.

Direct developer participation - conflict of interest

"FOSS developers ... possess valuable knowledge of a project". Unfortunately, not useful for this encyclopedia. It's very hard to be neutral about something one has direct involvement in. That's human nature, and that's why WP:COI exists. The fact that it's non-commercial doesn't really matter. Wikipedia avoids COIs not because we hate the idea of someone making a profit, but because someone with a COI has a hard time being objective.

Direct developer participation - verifiability

WP:V is fundamental. Everybody has to be able to verify content, even if wikipedia.org ceases to exist. So a developer coming here personally to provide knowledge is as problematic as any other person directly involved in something coming here. One can't verify the edits made by a primary source. That's a big part of why WP:NOR (in particular WP:PS) exist.

Reliable sources

Sorry, I can't budge on this one. If we can't have reliable sources, anyone can write anything they want. I'm sorry if that means it's hard to get someone's favorite FOSS project -- or favorite anything -- written in an article, but that's the price we pay for having a quality encyclopedia.

I'm afraid that stringent source requirements are actually the route to an outdated encyclopedia. Any sort of recent technology will suffer when you require "reliable sources" on them. The reason for this is rather simple, once it's understood that what most consider as a "reliable source" pretty much boils down to paid content — most of technology advances too fast for these sources to keep up. Few of them employ staff of sufficient technical caliber to be able to judge the merits and status of every technical advance out in the world. Furthermore, by the time the article hits print, it's often outdated or incorrect, especially in the case of popular progressive FOSS projects. It is not worth the investment for them to cover most FOSS projects, especially since they have to consider the interests of their subscribers and advertisers and the embarrassment of being wrong when picking available content to print.

The largest complaint for this is that the people nominating these articles for deletion as not having been sourced reliably have absolutely no clue as to "who's who" in the field, so they refuse to consider anything outside of paid (and thus legally liable) content as reliable. Just as they are not educated enough in the required fields to judge the notability of a concept. Notable means "worthy of notice." Go ask the cashier at a McDonalds (not in a college town) how important s/he thinks specific concepts of higher mathematics and physics are to him/her. Chances are, while s/he'll concede that they sound fancy, they are of little very little personal importance, to the point that s/he has no interest if you try to teach them. I'd venture that cashier would try and delete the topic on Wikipedia, were s/he also an editor.

In summary, if we're willing to change the new slogan of Wikipedia to "Everything that was important a few years back" then blind adherence to reliable source guidelines is certainly the way to go. Most new content (outside of celebrity gossip, which always makes it to the "reliable sources") will have a hard time getting in, after all. Quite frankly, we'd be better served by requiring editors to prove competence in the field before submitting or voting on a request for deletion from WP:N or WP:RS (the most common excuse for deciding on WP:N status), unless it violates WP:NOR. There's no need to add new guidelines or exceptions for a specific class of information, after all, when revising the gross oversight in the current guidelines would do a better job. After all, most quality encyclopedias have editors who are willing to do a bit of field research before throwing out data. —Unvalued (talk) 01:45, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Source code

The fact that you or I can examine source code is of only marginal utility. Unless the statement isn't much more than "Project Foo has a file called foo_main.c", it's original research to draw conclusions about something from the sources. This applies doubly-so as much to demos.

WP:EGO

I read this as "Lots of people voting demonstrates that it must be notable." I can't agree. Think about someone getting their high school class to vote to keep their garage band.

Improving Wikipedia

This seems to take take "more stuff == improvement" as a given. I disagree. Adding bad content hurts the project.

Useful content

Finally, I think "it's useful" isn't a good inclusion argument. Wikipedia isn't trying to be the repository of all useful content on the Internet. There's lots of alternative outlets for useful content that deserves to be preserved.

I hope nobody takes the above personally. I also hope nobody takes deletion or inclusion of an article personally. Too many people see having an article on Wikipedia as some kind of achievement. That's not why we're here.

Respectfully submitted, —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 22:44, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Notability criteria proposal

Some comments against such proposals somehow mention that a notability criteria still should exist, and it should be something more reliable than blog/forum posts. Well, consider inclusion into major linux distros to be such criteria. Since official repos are peer-reviewed and inclusion requires some non-trivial work, this criteria seems to be perfect. 0xd34df00d (talk) 12:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Some distributions have the goal of including everything they can. How do we decide which distributions count? —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 13:29, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Debian, for example. They won't include every opensourced "Hello world". Yes, the number of packages is quite big, but you don't see every package being described in Wikipedia, do you? The number of software describe in various magazines and other sources that are currently considered reliable isn't much less. 0xd34df00d (talk) 14:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Status of RFC

Another user recently closed this RFC as it had fallen into inactivity and hadn't reached any consensus in nearly a year. These edits were reverted by a meat puppet of User:Mclaudt, who has been indefinitely blocked for widespread disruptive activity (detailed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Mclaudt). As Mclaudt and his meat puppets have been indef blocked, and many of their other edits reverted or otherwise overturned by admins, I am tentatively restoring the "closed" tag on this page. However, should any good-faith editors wish to reopen the discussion, feel free to do so. —Psychonaut (talk) 13:44, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I am reopening the rfc as I believe something is clearly amiss here. Unomi (talk) 21:34, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I support reopening this RFC. The fact of the matter is that I feel strongly that Wikipedia should have official policies in place to be more permissive with F/OSS projects. For example, I think WP:COI should allow more leeway for OSS developers to revise things like the version number of their program on the Wikipedia entry for their OSS project. I also feel blogs, forum discussions, and other sources not normally considered to establish notability should be allowed to establish notability for open source programs in deletion discussion.

I am very dismayed that good OSS programs like Fracas, TripleA, and the Awesome Window Manager have recently been deleted from the Wikipedia. Something needs to be done from this deletion craze which is ultimately making the Wikipedia a less useful place. Unfortunately, I am devoting most of what little free time I have to finishing up my open-source program and will not be able to make too many contributions here.

Disclaimer: I am the author of MaraDNS. Samboy (talk) 22:19, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Disagree. WIkipedia is not here to promote someone's pet project. Either it meets the current threshold for inclusion or it doesn't get an article. significant coverage in reliable third party sources independent of the subject. This is the same threshold for inclusion for about 99.9% of the stuff on wikipedia. The only thing I can think of that gets a pass is some geography stuff. I haven't seen a single good reason why F/OSS should get a pass on this except for things like WP:ILIKEIT. If there are no reliable third party sources talking about the project we cannot make an article on it. An article based solely on primary sources would be biased plain and simple. This would require giving F/OSS a pass on basically all the core principles of wikipedia and frankly that is just not going to happen. They would need a get out of jail free card for: WP:OR, WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOTABILITY, WP:NPOV, and there hasn't been an article come along that is special enough to warrant that.--Crossmr (talk) 23:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

• Here is what I don't quite understand, we somehow have an amazing variety of articles on 'in-universe' elements of comics and tv-series, and because the source 'world' has passed the notability criteria than so do (apparently) all the elements and characters. While claiming that all F/OSS software is inherently notable is unlikely go over well, how about going back to, what I believe was our previous criteria, of being included with a major OS distribution? Unomi (talk) 23:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Or how about sticking with the simple and practical rule in place, which is, "How the heck are you going to write an article if you haven't got any sources?"
    Fundamentally, I'm not finding any reason to believe this perpetual assertion that sources only exist for proprietary software: It has been repeatedly disproven. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:12, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

The problem is not with finding sources for information, this is readily available from source code, documentation, blogs, tutorials and project web pages, the same sources we use for other software where notability has been established. The problem is with establishing notability. Unomi (talk) 02:02, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

• • • Then give WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS a read. Those are all primary sources or unreliable sources like blogs. You can't base an article completely on primary sources, and blogs are neither reliable nor do they establish notability.--Crossmr (talk) 08:03, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

After reading the recent debate surrounding the attempted deletion of DWM and the deletion review it has become clear that there is an inherent bias in the Notability guidlines for FOSS such that objective notability is out of step with subjective notability. Commercial software produces have PR departments that ensure that reviews of there programs are published in magazines which FOSS doesn't. This over inflates the objective notability of commercial close source software.

Open source software tends to make use of new media which some interpretations of the notability discount as reliable sources. Even if this policy is not a good one, there needs to be better guide lines for dealing with both new media heavy topics (which FOSS is an example of) 59.167.219.127 (talk) 13:42, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Using popularity as an alternative to media coverage

One way forward could be to use the results of popcon, popularity contest, an opt-in program which gathers statistics on which programs are installed and votes for them: http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/05/27/ways-to-understand-the-linux-users-popcon-and-smolt/

http://popcon.debian.org/

http://popcon.ubuntu.com/

This would let us set a minimum install base, rather than simple availability in distributions. Unomi (talk) 02:05, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Not even remotely reliable.--Crossmr (talk) 08:01, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

How do you mean? Unomi (talk) 08:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Opt in popularity contests? Not remotely an objective assessment. Its the same reason we no longer use Alexa rank to establish notability.--Crossmr (talk) 09:31, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Surely if they're opt-in popularity contests, then the real number of users of software in any particular distribution will be much higher than the figures quoted in such contests. It's certainly an *indication* of popularity, if not an objective assessment. --Xyiyizi 11:24, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Its not remotely an indication of notability. See WP:BIGNUMBER it isn't an objective measure of whether or not the world at large considers something notable. Just who can collect the most fanboys. There is no evidence that that group of fanboys no matter how large actually indicates any notability. Reliable third party sources giving print and press to them is an indication that the greater population as a whole might have an interest in that subject, which is exactly the point.--Crossmr (talk) 12:35, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

That, right there, encapsulates perfectly what is wrong with the notability guidelines. "There is no evidence that that group of fanboys no matter how large actually indicates any notability." Why? --Cerebellum (talk) 21:02, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

It's a self-selected, non-scientific survey, thus there's no way to know how indicative the figures are of actual popularity. --Cybercobra (talk) 21:27, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Let's make it a little more abstract: how about a group of fanboys? Can popularity, in the absence of reliable sources, indicate notability? --Cerebellum (talk) 21:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Where should we draw the arbitrary "popular enough" line? --Cybercobra (talk) 22:19, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I have absolutely no idea. I think I was actually mis-reading your statement above: I took "no matter how large" to mean "It doesn't matter how many fanboys there are, popularity does not equal notability," when in fact you seem to be saying "Is this group of fanboys really large enough to indicate notability?" Is that correct? --Cerebellum (talk) 22:27, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be confusing me and User:Crossmr --Cybercobra (talk) 23:25, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Missing the point

I signed up to Wikipedia so as to contribute to various software articles, being very knowledgeable with various software for Linux and Windows operating systems. I have noticed that the notability guidelines aren't very favourable to free software articles. I don't contribute as much as I could because the fear is that whatever I contribute will just be deleted any way. But as others have said here, giving free software a "get out of jail free card" seems a little counter-productive, and a very short-sighted way of alleviating the problem. The elephant in the room here is of course the notability guidelines themselves, which are woefully inadequate for many purposes. Almost all of the software articles that could be deleted are at least verifiable. Of course, that alone is too vague, and leads to the deletionists' nightmares of every Joe Schmoe and their bash scripts having articles unto themselves. It doesn't have to be that black and white, though; Wikipedia is not a zero-sum game. Additionally, too many people seem to forget that the notability guidelines are just that: guidelines. The inclusionist's nightmare is of course having WP:N applied indiscriminately to everything in the Wiki (we'd lose literally millions of articles if that were so). I wouldn't know where to begin changing the notability guidelines so as to be fairer, but I do at least recognise that there needs to be fundamental changes to them if many articles are to stay around, free-software included.--Xyiyizi 11:46, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

You would probably find that outside geography most articles have been the subject of significant coverage by reliable third party sources. Yes, some fiction things are out of control, but you'd also find that within those subjects there have actually been plenty of reliable sources published that address most of that minutia (think star wars, star trek, pokemon, etc. They all have tons of encyclopedias and things written by third parties about them). So as fun as it is to dredge up the "we have an article on every pokemon" argument, pokemon has been subject to a ridiculous amount of coverage. But you're still getting into an argument of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. The existence of articles which don't conform to the policies and guidelines isn't any indication that there is a problem with the policies and guidelines, just that they haven't been cleaned up yet. There are millions of articles here and only so many volunteers to go around so it sometimes takes time to get around to them. Some get around to faster than others which is often what spurs these little outcries.--Crossmr (talk) 12:40, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

The pragmatic solution is to attack things from the other side: In the case of Dwm, expand Window manager and its subarticles such as tiling window manager. After enough expansion, spawning new articles per WP:SUMMARY, there will be natural places for discussing all widespread window managers in detail. Parallel to that, work on Debian or any other Unix or Linux distribution. Expand coverage to its components, again spawning off articles per WP:SUMMARY. At some point there will be a natural need for a Dwm article as a common subarticle of a subarticle of window manager and of subarticles of several linux distributions.

This will work if the encyclopedia is put first all the time. It means stepping out of one's most immediate circle of interests and learning (and writing) about related things. There is nothing better to protect an article from unnecessary AfDs than its natural integration in a dense network of related articles which treat several related subjects encylopedically.

What doesn't work is people specialised in a small number of software distributions coming to Wikipedia and editing only these, as if Wikipedia were Freshmeat. This should work, because very likely some of them would become valuable WP contributors sooner or later. But very often it doesn't. The problem is on Wikipedia's side, and it seems doubtful that we will get a critical mass for fixing the problem at this time. Hans Adler 12:35, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Rejected

I have tagged this proposal as rejected. The purpose of content-specific notability guidelines is to provide an indication of the likely indicators for a notable topic in the area, such guidelines never override the fundamental content principles of verifiability from reliable independent sources and neither do they override the general notability guideline which describes the way we identify the difference between an encyclopaedic topic and a directory entry.

That's not entirely true, as witnessed by WP:PEOPLE, and in particular WP:ATHLETE and WP:PROF. See the extensive discussions in WT:Notability/Archive 39. Some subject-specific notability guidelines claim to interpret WP:GNG, others claim to supplement it with additional criteria. Hans Adler 14:04, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

They can claim what they like, if the articles lack reliable independent sources they are liable to be deleted because policy trumps the agreement of the few people who contribute to the average subject notability guideline. Guy (Help!) 16:24, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Which policy are you talking about exactly? NPOV? The situation with open source software is special in that in the majority of cases we have everything it takes to write neutral articles based on primary sources. (I.e. we have full disclosure and the ability to interpret the technical information.) And if you have actually read the discussions above then you are probably aware of the argument that when a high-quality Linux distribution publishes a software and its documentation as an integral and supported part, then that should be regarded as independent vetting. Hans Adler 16:37, 9 March 2010 (UTC)