Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gargoyle Router Firmware

This discussion was subject to a deletion review on 2011 July 1.
For an explanation of the process, see Wikipedia:Deletion review.

Gargoyle Router Firmware

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Seems to lack significant independent coverage required by WP:GNG. The article was written by the software's author. FuFoFuEd (talk) 10:19, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 14:13, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Per nom, I'm not finding anything to satisfy the GNG either. ~~Qrsdogg (talk) 19:10, 15 June 2011 (UTC)~~[reply]

Good job Widefox finding those sources, though I'm not 100% sure that they prove notability so I'm more neutral than keep now. In any case, if this is kept the article should be moved to Gargoyle (Firmware) or something like that. I only searched for the exact phrase "Gargoyle Router Firmware" so I guess that's why I missed those (or maybe I just suck at this). Qrsdogg (talk) 20:16, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with move suggestion. Widefox (talk) 10:37, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep A quick search turned up multiple refs establishing notability. Article now has adequate references. WP:GNG satisfied. Notability established. Other problems (COI, slight advertisement style, and unsourced claims needing refs are all tagged.) Widefox (talk) 14:28, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Could you be more specific as to which references you found? FuFoFuEd (talk) 17:31, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Agree with Widefox Dcxf (talk) 12:00, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:34, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~see article for references. I tagged rescue, although it is already rescued IMHO Widefox (talk) 20:25, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]~~
Keep Cybershack and Linux Magazine are reliable sources. Dream Focus 00:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Both of those articles are very short ~ 200 words each. (That's less than half of the length of this deletion discussion, if you're curious). They also have virtually no independent opinion on the product, basically just reproducing manufacturer's information. FuFoFuEd (talk) 15:38, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: no evidence of reliable third-party coverage beyond the computer-enthusiast community. And I wouldn't call a TV programme's associated blog a particularly reliable source. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 10:41, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why would there need to be reliable third-party coverage beyond the computer-enthusiast community? Most things don't get coverage beyond their target audience, since not everyone is going to care about everything else. And if the television show is a reliable source, then so is their website's review of things. Do you agree Linux Magazine is a reliable source? Dream Focus 11:59, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Because an encyclopaedia is not meant to be a repository of information "that may only interest a specific audience" (to use {{over detailed}}'s wording). Hence WP:GEOSCOPE in WP:EVENT, the requirement for "at least some of these works serving a general audience" in WP:NBOOK, etc. Enthusiast communities are notorious for talking about the minutiae of their interest in excessive detail, hence such coverage is generally not considered evidence of notability. Television shows, like all other media, are of uneven reliability and "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Weekly "information-type show"s tend to be of lower reliability than a news programme or documentary. And the blog-associated-with-a-weekly-"information-type show" tends to be lower again. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 12:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Every article only interest a specific audience. Do you think most people enjoy reading history, or articles about various species of plants? It gets coverage, and nothing gained by destroying it. Do you have any proof that a television show wouldn't bother checking facts? I find that unlikely if its tech related since their target audience would the ones smart enough to notice any mistakes and call them out on it. Dream Focus 01:08, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note, the nonsense in WP:BOOKS about a general audience has been removed by consensus on the talk page. So you can't cite it anymore. Dream Focus 01:09, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You cited WP:GEOSCOPE which is about local news coverage, and thus nothing to do with this. Its not a small town making a big deal about a potato festivals. "An event affecting a local area and reported only by the media within the immediate region may not necessarily be notable." Dream Focus 01:11, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. I made it VERY CLEAR that I was citing WP:GEOSCOPE as an EXAMPLE OF A GENERAL PRINCIPLE! Such misrepresentation, as well as being an all-too-typical violation of WP:TALK, is the sort of thing that gives me a deep and abiding regard for yourself and your fellow ARS regulars. If I may be permitted to present a very-slightly-edited version of Pascal.Tesson's argument in Wikipedia talk:Notability (books)/Archive 2#Not a general interest encylopedia, it may elucidate my argument:

I think you are misunderstanding the intention here. The idea is to avoid claims that a ~~book~~ [piece of hardware] deserves an article when it has only been discussed in ridiculously small circles. Wikipedia, after all, is meant to be an encyclopedia not a database of ~~books~~ [computer hardware and software]. I have in my ~~bookcase~~ [computer room] right here tons of specialized ~~math books~~ [pieces of computer hardware and software]. All of them, at some point, have been reviewed and I do mean all. And all of them have been reviewed in perfectly reasonnable, credible publications but extremely specialized ones that target a very very restricted audience. I see absolutely no point in keeping articles on all of these ~~books~~ [pieces of computer hardware and software].
Given the existence of {{over detailed}}, it is reasonable to suppose that the focus of Wikipedia is not on information "that target[s] a very very restricted audience." Therefore it is reasonable to avoid whole articles that target such an audience. Therefore it is reasonable to seek evidence that a topic has a potential readership beyond such an audience. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 03:02, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Your example of a general principle is ridiculous. Unrelated thing as I have said. And you insult the ARS regulars, and yet you are one yourself, showing up at most articles tagged for Rescue and finding a reason to say delete. Dream Focus 11:42, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Again we have the logical contortionism. I gave two EXAMPLES that were EXPLICITLY from different areas of notability guidelines, I did not state nor did I imply that either was directly applicable here. As you are wll aware, I am not a member (nor would I want to be) of the ARS. I am merely an editor in good standing who attempts to correct the systemic imbalance that CAT:ARS creates in AfD debates. If you don't like your misconduct being tied to the ARS, then tough. Each time an ARS member comes on an ARS-flagged AfD and misrepresents other editors' comments, the article under discussion, or the extent, applicability or reliability of the the sources, they are bringing the ARS into further disrepute. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 12:24, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The sources quoted are not "extremely specialized ones that target a very very restricted audience" so I don't see how the books example is applicable, directly or otherwise. It's not a circle of a few dozen mathematicians, it's many thousands of open-source enthusiasts. The {{over detailed}} template seems to be speaking to trivia and lists within an article rather than the notability of an article's subject, and suggests moving or fixing said content rather than deleting it, so I don't see how that applies either. Such a minor template surely doesn't override the GNG. Dcxf (talk) 14:45, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
[The following was posted [by Aaron Brenneman[1] and restored] by Hrafn 2011-07-12T18:25:31]. Unscintillating (talk) 01:04, 13 July 2011 (UTC) -- Misattribution corrected. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 04:07, 13 July 2011 (UTC) [reply]

*Delete
The nomination claims this does not meet the General notability guideline, itself a subsection of the Wikipedia:Notability guideline. Both of these are guidelines that support and are subordinate to the verification policy.

Since this article does have sources, the debate here is "Do these sources rise to the level intended by the policy?"

The sources themselves:
"Gargoyles to keep a watch over your PC". Cybershack. 21 Jan 2011. [2] Retrieved June 16, 2011.
195 words, no attribution (that's very important) in the "news" section of an on-line outlet for the very minor television show Cybershack. Even brief perusal of the other "news" items shows them to be :press releases in all but name.

The relevant place to look here, than, would be Wikipedia:V#What_counts_as_a_reliable_source

I do not believe that this qualifies as a reliable source. There does not appear to be indepent editorial oversight. (That's another way of saying "it's just press release churn.)

Kristian Kissling (17 Jul 2009). "Gargoyle: Web Interface for Router Configuration". Linux Magazine. [3] Retrieved June 16, 2011.
210 words, mostly identical to above, also in the "news" section...

All as per above.

Koen Vervloesem (22 Dec 2010). "Gargoyle: completely open source and easy to use". LWN.net. Retrieved June 16, 2011
This is an actual article about the product, huzzah! But is this a reliable source? This is, is it "reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy?"

From the home page "What is LWN.net? LWN.net is a reader-supported news site dedicated to producing the best coverage from within the Linux and free software development communities. See the LWN FAQ for more information, and please consider subscribing to gain full access and support our activities."

I'll skip to the end, and spare you the other diggin' I've done: This does appear to be a reliable source with respect to reliability and third party, but it must be admitted that this is a niche publication and thus does not have a "reputation."

That third one is most important if the facts are disputed, but here we're really just discussing scope, which is what the crux of this is about, so I'll defer that until we finish on...

Eric Bishop. "Gargoyle FAQ". gargoyle-router.com. Retrieved 21 June 2011
Not a "reliable source" as we mean it on Wikipedia as opposed to what the words actually mean. "Why so?" you may ask.

Per [4] the lead contributor is "Eric Bishop (gargoyle-router.com): Project founder, lead developer of Gargoyle." So not "third-party."

This now means that no matter if it is decided that LWN is reliable, it doesn't have multiple reliable sources.

With respect to the quality of the debate that has occurred here, I'd strongly suggest that people work much harder at understanding and applying policies.
There is no source that gets the blanket approval that was applied to Cybershack and Linux Magazine.

Even the most cursory glance at these references should have shown they were not appropriate.

The initial authoritative statements by Dream Focus and Widefox lack anything falsifiable. Please don't make bald claims like "Notability established," give reasons for these claims. This opens the floor to calm collegial debate.

Aaron Brenneman (talk) 03:06, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

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

Relisting comment: Deletion discussion reopened and relisted after rough consensus to do so at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2011 July 1#Gargoyle Router Firmware; please do not close for another 7 days following this timestamp.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, –MuZemike 17:58, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Fails the GNG due to lack of reliable, independent sources that provide significant coverage of the topic, as analyzed by the editor above.--Yaksar (let's chat) 20:16, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I find the LWN.net and Linux Magazine articles to be RSes. The second is not great, but it does seem to meet WP:N. I also don't buy the "specialized sources aren't acceptable" line. I see nothing in policy or guidelines to make me think such a view has consensus and I'm certainly very strongly opposed to such a thing. Hobit (talk) 23:30, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Also, [5] looks like a reliable source with short but non-trivial coverage). Hobit (talk) 23:36, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is, Hobit, that almost nothing gets a blanket "it's a reliable source," editorial judgement is required on each piece. (Argh. At one stage we had an excellent guide on reliable sources that covered "churn" articles like this one, but I cannot find it now.) Anything that appears in the bite-sized sections on an on-line magazine (be that section called "tips" or "news" or the ilk) is a de-facto press release. TechSpot has nine staff. Nine. Anyone who has worked in publishing (and I realise I'm committing "argument by authority" here) knows that you're desperate for content. All the time, the voracious masses demand more content that they haven't seen before, and this is made even worse by twitter and rss feeds. To feed the beast you produce large volume/low demand articles like this one, which in addition to being easy to write are impossible to get wrong: You quote the specs, sprinkle some opinion, you're done. Here's the whole bit on Gargoyle
Gargoyle was originally available as a third web interface for OpenWRT but it's now being released as a full firmware image for routers such as the Linksys WRT54G series and the Fonera. Among its features are dynamic DNS, quality of service, access restrictions, bandwidth quota management, bandwidth monitoring tools, and an AJAX-based GUI. Gargoyle's developer says the firmware's primary focus is to provide a polished interface for advanced features that is at least as easy to configure as any existing firmware. A list of compatible devices is available here -- it supports a bunch of Broadcom and Atheros based routers -- and installation instructions can be found on this page.
It's not even unusual to send a quick one-line email "Hey, we're thinking of featuring you..." and get the person to write the text themselves. (Is that what happened here? Who knows.) The long and the short of it is that we simply cannot base an article on pieces like this. And there are tens on thousands of pieces like this. It's also part of why Wikipedia:Software notability ended up rejected and why Wikipedia:Notability (software) is only an essay. I'd suggest that all editors spend some time on the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard to gain a deeper understanding of the issues involved. I was unable to locate any discussion of techspot specifially there, but the discussion where it's mentioned is a good example of how hard we have to think about these sorts of things. - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 11:47, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The bold part of my summary at the recent DRV began revert closing. It appears that an editor described above as "showing up at most articles tagged for Rescue and finding a reason to say delete", has seen fit to superimpose a personal interpretation on the DRV discussion and turn what I opined be reverted into an unattributed delete !vote here at this AfD. I have restored attribution to the comment and marked it as a "textquote". I also note that I analyzed point 2 of the AfD closing comments on July 9, finding that it was not coherent analysis, and note that this analysis went unchallenged through the end of the DRV three days later. Unscintillating (talk) 01:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The DRV contained multiple recommendations to "Demote closing statement to a delete recommendation" or similar, so I see no reason to censor Aaron Brenneman's comments. I would like to thank Unscintillating for their irrelevant ad hominem attack. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 04:14, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't take silence as consent with respect to your comments at the deletion review: Your primary analysis was that item number two in a list has "no clear antecedent." There is also the oddity of your suggestion that the closing administrator should have emailed Linux Magazine? Regardless of these, if you had performed the search that you yourself suggested, you'd have found that were two thousand five hundred and ninety results for "at least as easy to configure as any existing firmware." and "Gargoyle." (Choose the "show omitted" option so that you can see the similarities.)
Aside from the fact that this fails the spirit of the General notability guide, it also makes it quite hard to write an article that is not in itself another press release. Take the lead sentence, google it and remove wikipedia: Gargoyle "interface for small, widely available routers" -wikipedia. Note that the first result is the Gargoyle FAQ, and then it's content farms as far as the eye can see. From this narrow and incestuous base it is simply not possible to build an article that complies with our core content policy of being unbiased.
Aaron Brenneman (talk) 12:19, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]