Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Esoteric programming languages

See also: Deletion review

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 Arrrrghhhhhh! Too many to list up here, please see each subjection for the result of each discussion. Yanksox 18:19, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Esoteric programming languages

First of all I would like to apologize for nominating such a large number of articles at once. I have tried nominating articles separately in the past, but these often attracted people who wanted to keep the article reasoning that "maybe someone finds this useful, one article can't hurt" without realizing the scale of the problem we face here. I have spent a good studying the esoteric language scene several hours preparing this AfD. I can well image that you are not willing to an equal amount of time just to decide what to vote; may I suggest that you just pick a few of the articles at random and investigate whether or not the arguments I present below hold for those articles. Cheers, —Ruud 05:23, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

1. The biggest problem that the subjects of articles I've nominated here suffer from is what we often call non-notability, a fuzzy term that I will try to formalize a bit. When I call an esoteric language "non-notable", I mean that, except for the author's website, no sources on that language exist. This has several consequences, which will in the end lead to the conclusion that articles on these languages should not be included in Wikipedia, but are better left for a more specialized website like the Esolang Wiki. First of all, having only one source means that the article can never be more informative that that source itself, and therefore, that the handful of people interested in that language will be equally, if not better, served by the website of the author. Secondly, if for some reason the website of the author would disappear from the Internet there would be no sources left, and we would have to delete the respective Wikipedia article as well per WP:V. Finally, most of these articles have little prospect to grow beyond the stubs they are, as the description given of them on the author's website is more often than not very concise. To summarize: with few exceptions, these articles belong on the Esolang Wiki, just like obscure Star Trek facts belong on MemoryAlpha. A few of the more interesting ones could briefly be mentioned in the esoteric programming languages article.
2. Unlike what some people may expect, it is a relatively trivial task to create a new esoteric language to any moderately skilled programmer: definitely not much harder than writing another piece of software, building a website or forming a band. This would have two undesirable consequences if we would allow these articles be included on Wikipedia. Firstly, the number of articles on esoteric languages on Wikipedia a fraction of those on the Esolang Wiki and nearly all of the articles are about about languages invented between 2000 and 2005. Imagine how much more of them there could be in a few years time, all making it more difficult for the reader to find the few encyclopedic articles that do exist. Secondly, anyone could just write a few new languages, some isomorphic to Brainfuck or Befunge, a few slightly more original, and then promote them on Wikipedia, maybe going as far as to create article, or have an article created on himself, being assured that it will not be deleted as he is now notable to a hand full of people.

That said, I believe the following should without a doubt be kept: Befunge, Brainfuck, FALSE, INTERCAL, Malbolge, Unlambda and Kvikkalkul programming language (Usenet joke, notable enough to appear in the jargon file and FOLDOC), and that it is probably not worth deleting Chef (being featured in a MIT Mystery Hunt), Shakespear (Slashdot coverage), Var'aq (some notability, perhaps thanks to being listed in Eric S. Raymond's Retrocomputing Museum) and Whitespace (Slashdot coverage). —Ruud 21:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Language

Bolded entries are the languages I consider notable enough for inclusion.

Author

Bolded entries are authors who are somewhat better known in the esolang community (but have little chance of passing WP:BIO.)

Based on

What the language is based on according to the author. Gives a good impression of which languages are influential.

In

Incoming links according to Google (not counting self-links and link from Wikipedia.)

Hits

The number of unique Google returns when searching on language name "programming language" -wikipedia -encyclopedia -dictionary. The usually returns a large number of false positives. If the number is bolded this indicates there where a significant number of relevant hits.

J/F/R

Whether or not the language is listed in FOLDOC, the Jargon file or Eric S. Raymond's website.

Language	Author	Based on	Website	In	Hits	J/F/R
2L programming language	Gregor Richards (4)	Befunge, Brainfuck	[1]	0	823	No
ALPACA programming language	Chris Pressey (~20)	Conway's Game of Life	[2]	1	194	No
Argh!	Sascha Wilde (1)	Befunge, Brainfuck	[3]	0	684	No
BAK programming language	Prfnoff (3)	FORTH, Befunge, Malbolge, False, Unlambda	mirror archive	0	750	No
Beatnik programming language	Cliff L. Biffle (3)	—	[4]	3	255	No
Befreak programming language	Brent Kerby and Hilton Campbell	Befunge	[5]	0	62	No
Befunge	Chris Pressey (~20)	FALSE	[6]	3	332	No
BogusForth	Antonio Maschio (2)	FORTH, FALSE, TRUE	[7]	1	11	No
Brainfork	Asger Ipsen	Brainfuck	[8]	0	53	No
Brainfuck	Urban Müller	?	[9] archive	72	299	Yes
Braintwist	Troels Henriksen	Brainfuck	[10]	1	9	No
Bubble programming language	?	?	dead	-	-	-
Bullfrog programming language	Ryan Kusnery (2)	FORTH	[11]	0	236	No
COW programming language	Sean Heber (4)	Brainfuck	[12]	10	788]	No
Chef programming language	David Morgan-Mar (10)	(Shakespear)	[13]	6	746	No
ETA programming language	Mike Taylor	(Shakespear)	[14]	0	676	No
FALSE	Wouter van Oortmerssen (~50)	—	[15]	7	799	Yes
FiPL	Michael Gertelman	—	[16]	0	86	No
Flip (programming language)	Rune Zedeler and Erik Søe Sørensen	—	[17]	0	634	No
Fromage programming language	Prfnoff (3)	Brainfuck	mirror archive	0	0	No
GOTO++	Anonymous-ish	BASIC	[18]	0	108	No
INTERCAL	Don Woods, James Lyon and Eric S. Raymond	—	[19]	33	637	Yes
Iota and Jot	Chris Barker	Lambda calculus	[20]	2	718	No
Java2K	Gerson Kurz (13)	Probabilistic	[21]	3	5	No
Kipple programming language	Rune Berge	FORTH	[22]	0	52	No
Kvikkalkul programming language	Anonymous / Swedish Navy	Plankalkül	Usenet	—	231	Yes
L programming language	Prfnoff (3)	?	mirror archive	0	...	No
L00P	Georg Westenberger (1)	Brainfuck	[23]	0	75	No
L33t programming language	Stephen McGreal and Alex Mole	Brainfuck, Beatnik	[24]	0	771	No
Lambda programming language	Anne Veling (2)	Lambda calcuclus	[25]	0	—	No
Lazy K	Ben Rudiak-Gould	Combinator-calculus, Unlambda, Iota and Jot, Brainfuck	[26]	1	92	No
Malbolge	Ben Olmstead	INTERCAL, Brainfuck	archive	0	203	No
NULL programming language	[27] (2)	Befunge	[28]	0	...	No
Numberix	?	Befunge, Brainfuck, Wierd, BASIC, INTERCAL	[29]	1	35	No
Obfuna	Steve Engledow	?	[30]	0	34	No
Ook! programming language	David Morgan-Mar (10)	Brainfuck	[31]	13	770	No
Oroogu programming language	Georg Kraml	?	?	?	50	No
Orthogonal programming language	Brian Raiter	Befunge	[32]	3	787	No
PATH programming language	Francis Rogers	Brainfuck, Befunge	[33]	0	—	No
Pcalc programming language	Amit Ron	Reverse Polish Notation	?	?	-	No
Piet programming language	David Morgan-Mar (10)	—	[34]	8	661	No
QUOTE programming language	?	Brainfuck, Logo	down	1	12	No
S0 scripting language	?	AutoIt	?	?	none	No
SMETANA programming language	Chris Pressey (~20)	—	[35]	0	178	No
SMITH programming language	Chris Pressey (~20)	SMETANA	[36]	0	822	No
SNUSP programming language	Daniel Brockman	Brainfuck, Befunge, PATH	[37]	0	48	No
Shakespeare programming language	Jon Åslund and Karl Hasselström	Poem	[38]	2	778	No
Spaghetti programming language	Jeffry Johnston	BASIC	archive	0	742	No
Spoon programming language	S. Goodwin	Brainfuck	cache	0	405	No
THRAT	Matthew Varga	Brainfuck	?	?	31	No
TMMLPTEALPAITAFNFAL	Gerson Kurz (13)	Probabilistic	[39]	0	87	No
Toadskin programming language	Bill Glover	FALSE, Brainfuck	[40]	2	50	No
TWiRQ programming language	Eric Stein	Befunge	down	-	6	No
Thue programming language	John Colagioia	String rewriting	[41]	0	311	No
Unlambda	David Madore	Intercal	[42]	29	248	Yes
Var'aq	Brian Connors	PostScript, LISP	[43]	19	99	Yes
Whenever	David Morgan-Mar (10)	—	[44]	2	803	No
Whirl	Sean Heber (4)	—	[45]	3	722	No
Whitespace programming language	Edwin Brady and Chris Morris	—	[46]	52	586	No
Wierd programming language	Chris Pressey (~20)	Befunge, Brainfuck	[47]	1	710	No

Overall comments

• Previous AfD nomination: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Esoteric programming language related (for some reason still unclosed). --ais523 11:32, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment Not sure on the status of this page - is it actually an AfD? Anyway when you say "delete" would you wipe all traces of the info? A quick remark on "Ook!" would seem appropriate at Forth, for instance. I agree that they don't necessarily warrant their own articles. Stevage 22:27, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

• Delete most: I completely agree (with the few exceptions I've noted below), and I say this as an author of one of the pages (SNUSP), and creator and implementor of other esoteric languages. With the exception of the more influential languages you've mentioned, these can be classified as either research or vanity projects. Also to note, the Esolang wiki did not exist at the time many of these pages were created; now that it does exist, that is where they should live. Prior to deletion here, their content should be merged to that wiki. --IanOsgood 20:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is GFDL, Esolang is public-domain, so transwiki is impossible. --ais523 15:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks. Now that I've looked, the majority of the Esolangs wiki articles are already equivalent or better than the articles here. --IanOsgood 22:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all. This is ridiculous, I'm not going to paste keep in each section below. These should be nominated one at a time. -Ravedave ^{(help name my baby)} 00:27, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Also I disagree with the hit results. If you remove "programming language" from the google search for brainfuck you get 731 results. [48] If you look at them you can see they are all related to the language. Rather than deleting all of these articles I belive one massive esoteric languages article might be the way to go. -Ravedave ^{(help name my baby)} 02:23, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all. Agree with Ravedave. Incidentally, I'm kind of surprised to see Thue and Unlambda on the hit list. --maru (talk) contribs 01:27, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all per nom. Note that while Thue and Unlambda are in the chart created by the nom, they are not actually included in this AfD. Resolute 03:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment. I came here through an AFD notice on Thue. --maru (talk) contribs 03:48, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

• Whoops, and so you did. It appears that only Unlambda and the other bolded entries in the nom's chart are not up for deletion. Resolute 04:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. "that it is probably not worth deleting Chef (being featured in a MIT Mystery Hunt)" As the creator of the Chef programming language (the language, not the article - I have never edited the article), I am not offering an opinion on its deletion, but I would like to point out that the Piet programming language is significantly more notable than Chef. Piet has been featured in the commercial puzzle card game Perplex City, and has no doubt been seen by many thousands more people than Chef. It also generates about 10 times as many emails to me than Chef does (anecdotal evidence, to be sure). My point is that if Chef is retained for noteriety reasons because of the MIT Mystery Hunt, Piet certainly deserves to be retained. If, on the other hand, Piet deserves to be deleted, then Chef certainly deserves to be deleted too. I am advocating neither deletion nor retention because of the potential conflict of interest, merely pointing out a fact. I am happy to have the articles deleted (or kept) if that is the decision. -dmmaus 04:01, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all. NN, this programming stuff is going nuts on here. Just because it's an internet encyclopedia doesn't mean it should overly focus on computer stuff.-Kmaguir1 06:17, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

• comment - impractical AfD - relist:
  • This AfD currently consists of a large number of programming languages that have been classified as esoteric. However a quick scan through the articles reveals that some are...
    • Stubs, with no details on where to find more information,
    • Stubs, with the needed imformation,
    • Stubs, with the a simple description of the language,
    • or occasionally, Actual articles
  • To collect such a diverse range of article types together into a single huge AfD makes decision making nearly impossible, and restricts voting to those who are either highly keen on blanket deletion, or highly keen on blanket keeping to be the most involved, as there hence exists a massive time commitment to accurately assess each any every article's merit. It should be noted that AfD is about the assessment of merit, not voting, and so anything which detracts from the reasoned evaluation of all articles included is fairly bad form in my opinion.
  • It should also be noted that different editors google-test differently - I find myself wondering what the google hit figures would be like if forums were removed from the results (which is my personal practice). I also strongly dislike any cries of 'non-notable', since this is by definition subjective, and often a lack of references is present (which is a far more easily agreed to problem). I know this to be true in the case of several of the above!
  • I would strongly suggest relisting this AfD using the above suggested article type groupings or similar, and ideally then breaking it down further into those languages derived from a similar principle. At this point, bold merging may well emerge as the more sensible solution in many cases (as it will be apparent that the details can be merged into the parent langauge). LinaMishima 04:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
• additional several of the articles listed have had no consensus or keep AfD verdicts before, and the listing of these in any later AfDs tends to be useful. Again, the size of the list makes it a non-trivial last to perform. LinaMishima 05:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete most if not all, most if some language is voted keep in the following discussions. —Jared Hunt August 31, 2006, 07:55 (UTC)
• Keep most Some of these probably don't belong on Wikipedia. Request that they aren't deleted until I've exported the lot (much of this potentially looks like it belongs at the Esolang wiki, but due to licensing they can't be transiwikied, so I'll see what isn't on Esolang already and write stubs there). Some obviously belong here, and this AfD will probably be abandoned due to the complicatedness of the listing. --ais523 11:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Now exported. --ais523 11:47, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all non-bolded, with profgound thanks to Ruud for finally lancing this festering sore. The continued existence of these articles is due almost exclusively to systemic bias; if they were esoteric webtoons or some other such we would have nuked them ages ago. I guess there might be some merit in collecting those which have non-trivial sources into a single list article, but that's probably asking for trouble and in any case is likely better suited to Wikinfo. Just zis Guy you know? 13:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
• I don't understand. Why are some comments including delete "votes" here from March, and some from this week? --kingboyk 14:16, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
  • because this editor has been working on this project for some time, and some of us were aware of it back then and commented then. I need to review what I said then, I'm perhaps more deletionist these days than I was then. But it's rather a job to do that, isn't it. I sympathise with R for wanting to package this up neatly (as I did with lists of malls a while back)... i sympathise with editors who are not sure if they have time to do all the commenting needed. Personally I'd love it of some angel or another turned up and started merging these articls together till we got down to a small set but... probably not going to happen. ++Lar: t/c 16:37, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
    • OK. I thought I'd seen it before somewhere :) Memory like a sieve etc etc. --kingboyk 17:21, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
      • There was a previous similar AfD here. --ais523 17:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
• Using the link provided I get 17,700 GHits for Brainfuck, not 299. --kingboyk 14:18, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete most, keep a few. As an esoteric programming fan and the creator of one of these languages (Kipple) I still agree that most of these don't really belong here. The Esolang wiki was created for this reason. I agree with the short list of languages to keep, and would like to add Thue and Piet. I have voted keep on those two below. I didn't bother to write delete on all the others, but I wouldn't mind if they are deleted. --Runeberge 16:24, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep some, merge some There is far too many entries here to deal with this appropriately. Some articles, namely those with references and more than just a brief descriptive line, probably have a case for being kept. The rest can simply be merged into List of esoteric programming languages. LinaMishima 19:09, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete most or all. Create or update a page on esoteric languages highlighting tricks on which they are based (there are just few, if one manages to get through the syntax). Personally I do not see any language from the list as notable enough - individual articles for IOCCC winners would be more educative and may have an history attached (e.g. the tinycc predecessor was one such winner). Pavel Vozenilek 00:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep most - some seem rather non-notable, but most are (in my opinion) quite acceptable. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 02:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep almost all - This bewildering combined AfD seems entirely improper. Probably nothing listed here is of really great importance, but as long as they have enough description to indicate the general type of language, and an implementation exists (and is linked to), it's better to have them than not. If a hundred separate fictional characters in some popular book or movie can each have an article, surely even an obscure PL can have one. In any case, end this AfD and relist each one individually... this is trying to be an AfD on an entire conceptual category of information, not on the individual articles. LotLE×talk 03:35, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment It seems that you and a few others above don't quite understand the point of breaking it down. Each aarticle is to be decided separately. The bulk placement was for convenience and to make it clear what the scale of the porblem was. JoshuaZ 03:39, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Oh no, I understand that quite well. The couple dozen languages here are absolutely nothing compared to many other even less notable families of articles. How many separate articles are there on Star Trek characters that had one line in some episode of DS9 (or similarly for Tolkein and many other fictional worlds)? I'd certainly be happy to see mass deletion of a lot of things along those... or better yet, mass redirection to some aggregate "List of characters in <whatever>". But it wouldn't be right to create an unanswerable joint AfD on every single such character (which would often number a lot more than this moderate list of programming languages). LotLE×talk 03:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
    • But they aren't a mass deletion that is "unanswerable" they are merely grouped together for convenience. Each will be decided on its own merits. As you can see, people have gone through and picked out a few and commented on those individuals. Each will then be deleted or kept or whatevered based on its individual consensus. I fail to see the issue here. JoshuaZ 03:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: Here's another approach that I think would be reasonable: {prod} each article you think can be deleted without objection... if this very AfD has not spoiled that possibility. If no one thinks an article is worth making the slightest peep in favor of, that's probably a sign it's fine to go. But a {prod} puts a low threshhold of letting any editor ask for more consideration. I'm not attached individually to any one of these, I just find the procedure disturbing. LotLE×talk 04:01, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your recommendation to be bold. I am going to start merging articles. My plan:
    • Redirect all brainfuck derivatives to Brainfuck. Add a section there explaining the proliferation of derivatives, list them, and link to the Esolang wiki Brainfuck_derivatives category.

"Add a section"? That section has existed at Brainfuck for a long time. DanielCristofani 06:48, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

• • • Redirect all two-dimensional languages to Befunge. Add a section there listing the derivatives and link to the Esolangs 2D-language category.
    • Merge content for the unreferenced languages onto the author's user page with a recommendation to reference or rewrite for the Esolangs wiki.
    • Edit the backlinks (usually just the List of esoteric programming languages) to point to the language's home page instead (or if none, the relevant Esolangs wiki page).
    • Add a note somewhere recommending that new esoteric language articles be put on the Esolangs wiki unless otherwise notable so we don't have to go through this every couple of years. (Where, the esoteric programming language discussion page?)
  • That should reduce this list by half. I'll sit on this until the weekend in case you think this is too bold. --IanOsgood 16:14, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I, for one, am entirely supportive of IanOsgood's plans (especially of the fact it's him doing the work rather than me :-)). I don't think some one-person derivative of, e.g., Brainfuck needs more than a line and a link describing it; but on the chance someone is looking for that, at least they're directed to an article where that line and link occurs. I'm not sure, however, just how much we should rely on another Wiki: link to it, sure; but not treat that other site as if it were just more WP articles (i.e. ask "If esolangs is discontinued next month, are these WP articles still useful?") LotLE×talk 17:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Heard that. I will use the homepage for the language instead, but mention at the top of the language list that complete articles for most of the languages can be found on the Esolangs wiki. I'm going to start with the stubbiest articles and work from there. Here goes... --IanOsgood 17:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to take the fact that I'm having this work immediately reverted that this issue hasn't settled yet. I'll wait another week before I try any other merging. In the interests of moving forward, what is the estimated effort to turn this project into the suggested 50-odd individual page deletion projects? --IanOsgood 21:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

The issue is that you are not merging, you are redirecting links away from the article and to the website. Although the website contains the material, merging implies that little information is lost from wikipedia. In this case, that could have been achieved by adding a single (in some cases additional) sentance, perhaps two. LinaMishima 22:17, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, the one line summary already provided (or which I added) suffices for a non-notable variation on an esolang. Seriously, Brainfork is Brainfuck with one change; Braintwist is Brainfuck with one change. It is the reason we want to delete these articles in the first place! If someone wants the gory details, go to the website or Esolang wiki. If wikipedia is willing to host these kind of details, then prepare for a huge influx of more esolangs; on average, there are a couple created on the Esolang wiki every week! --IanOsgood 00:08, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

It is a separate issue whether retaining trivia adds signal or noise to Wikipedia as a whole. I'll need to read up some more about this community's standards. --IanOsgood 00:08, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep most, merge others: On one side, I don't think that having these articles on Wikipedia makes it less encyclopedic, the fact that there are probably more articles on esoteric languages than even on cities and towns in my country is obviously unavoidable, and deleting esoteric language articles is not going to automatically increase the count of other (possibly more useful) articles. On the other hand, I think that esoteric languages is a very interesting topic that deserves being on an encyclopedia. I actually proposed Wikipedia as a source for learning about them on a programming language design course I was a teacher's assistant for. IMHO, most languages, even the most obscure ones must be kept, and some others should be merged, like all the Brainfuck clones and variants out there. Oskilian 04:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: a while back, user:ZeroOne put many of his pages into public domain to aid transferring them to the the Esolangs wiki. --IanOsgood 19:08, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy keep all on purely procedural grounds. As much as I sympathize with the nominator trying to deal with a lot of borderline notable toy languages, this is just not the right solution. Each deletion should be AfD'd separately. Or alternately, nominator (or someone else) could be bold and merge together related minor languages (say, Programming languages derived from unlambda, etc). LotLE×talk 03:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: I removed this exact comment from every single specific language (and moved it up here). That was just rude spam - did you even bother reading any of the articles? 203.213.7.133 12:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
    • counter comment Arguably, this entire AfD is rude. Lulu commented on all of these that they have been nominated in a manner not proportialal to due process, and they is quite right in saying this. This collection of AfDs strongly discourages due checking for merit, and much of the arguments being used involve the idea that wikipedia should rely on on third party websites to host information - which is a bad call in my opinion. I would argue that most people voting are not doing any evaluation of any of the articles, meerly voting 'delete' LinaMishima 19:14, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Hey, I've done a lot of work checking these languages out! The consensus I'm hearing from the esolang experts (user:ais523, User:Graue, myself, user:Runeberge, user:ZeroOne, but user:dmmaus abstaining) is that these articles would not have appeared on Wikipedia in the first place had there been another forum for them. In fact, that is why the Esolang wiki was created. Now that it is present, esoteric languages which really should not have stuck around on Wikipedia due to being research or not notable would have friendlier reception there. (I'm hesitant to be too bold about this myself since I'm relatively new here. The wiki I'm used to has a much lighter-weight deletion process.) --IanOsgood 22:15, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
• (dedent) Comment. I definitely appreciate that IanOsgood has taken a lot of effort to look at the invidual pages. But I very strongly object to the anonymous editor who took my comment off each individual article. I was trying to make it clear that just as almost the same set of "delete" votes exists on each individual language named, so should general "keep" comments be applied to each. Anonymous deletion of votes is VERY BAD. LotLE×talk 02:33, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all - esoteric programming languages as a general topic seem to me to be notable, and the specifics seem to me a useful resource of examples. Furthermore, mass nomination is always a bad way to go about articles that require specific discussion. Phil Sandifer 15:08, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment This isn't a mass nomination. Each one is being given individual discussion below. JoshuaZ 15:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Chef isn't the only one of the languages to be featured in the MIT mystery hunt ([49]). The languages referenced look to me like Malbolge, Unlambda, brainfuck, RUBE, one of the image-based languages (possibly Piet), a language I don't recognize offhand (can someone help?), Befunge, another language I don't recognize offhand, and Chef. I don't know whether this is an argument for keeping or deletion. --ais523 15:27, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
• comment I do support deletion on most of these, but I think that this AfD is a bad idea. I believe that we should instead establish inclusion guidelines for esoteric languages, and then have separate nominations for each article with some individual argument that the language does not meet the criteria. Right now, the disembodied nominations below mostly have the same people voting the same way on each one, and not leaving much reasoning for their vote at all. The guidelines would also be of independent value. — brighterorange (talk) 17:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Specific comments

• Keep procedurally. LotLE×talk 02:37, 5 September 2006 (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.