Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kerio Technologies

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 no consensus. T. Canens (talk) 16:20, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kerio Technologies

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No evidence of notability. Virtually the only fact covered by cited independent sources is that a firewall they used to produce was discontinued. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:28, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: PROD was contested with no reason given. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:29, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions.

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.

Delete. Another software company ... that offers security, messaging, voice and collaboration products for small and medium businesses advertising on Wikipedia. Most of the coverage seems to focus on the fact that they discontinued several products, which would suggest that none of them have had significant effects on technology, history, or culture.

NOTE: I am concurrently nominating Kerio Control and Kerio Connect for deletion. Those pages areabout products of this business. They probably should share the same fate for aye or nay. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:25, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or Merge A (historically important) software company, made famous for their Personal Firewall and WinRoute (Think ICS before ICS) products which have since merged into their Connect product. There is plenty of independent sources as evidence of notability. This took me about 5 minutes to gather just a handful of news sources so you can't have tried very hard to check its notability. There is plenty of evidence in the two supporting articles Kerio Connect and Kerio Control which would rectify the lack of references if they were merged into the main article. --Hm2k (talk) 15:02, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I saw that kind of coverage myself. Press releases, announcements of minor trade awards (Named To CRN's 2011 5-Star Partner Programs Guide) no one outside the industry will have heard of, and routine reviews of new releases do not in m opinion establish long term historical notability. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 16:47, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment What matters here is that the links I have provided are reliable sources and satisfy the notability guidelines. In addition to these, there are hundreds more reliable sources that focus on Kerio software. These can be added to the article once the software articles have been merged. --Hm2k (talk) 17:19, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I find it mildly patronising to be told that I "can't have tried very hard to check its notability". I spent a considerable amount of time checking. And yes, I did find sources such as the ones that Hm2k has linked to, such as the one which tells us that Kerio has announced that it will "showcase" one of its products at some seminars, the one that announces that another company has signed a contract with another business to work together on some software, the one that tells us that a number of companies will be announcing new products at a Computer Security Institute show, and includes a brief mention that Kerio is one of those that will do so, and the other similar sources. However, unlike Hm2k, I don't think such write-ups of press releases about product announcements and suchlike constitutes substantial independent coverage. Any company which is good at sending out well-crafted press releases and does so prolifically every time it does anything slightly new will get many such write-ups, because journalists writing for trade papers and the like love those press releases: all they have to do is rewrite one of them in their own words and they have a whole article, without having to put work into going and finding information. This is largely how trade-journal journalism works, and for many of these trade web sites it is 100% how they work: that, together with paid advertisements, is all that they publish. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:36, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment There is also evidence of notability found in an array of popular print (books and magazines):

InfoWorld Magazine. USA: InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. 2005. p. 10.
PC world, Volume 21. Information Access Company. 2003.
Ed Bott, Carl Siechert (2006). Microsoft Windows XP networking and security inside out. Microsoft Press.
Gookin, Dan (2006). Pcs for Dummies. Thorndike Press.

--Hm2k (talk) 23:15, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have looked at all of those, and as far as I can see none of them gives more than the briefest of mentions of Kerio. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:21, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is more than a mention when the entire section is about Kerio, sure some are brief, not entire pages, but it is clearly more than just a "mention". --Hm2k (talk) 12:21, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep for Kerio Connect. It is one of the more notable products in the turnkey email server market. It is well covered in reliable sources. It has survived AfD before under its old name of Kerio Mailserver. This really is a no-brainer. The other two are not great articles and more borderline. It is hard to say whether they could be OK if they were cleaned up and improved. Rather than !vote on those I will tag for rescue. --DanielRigal (talk) 22:28, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is somewhat misleading to say "It has survived AfD before". It is more accurate to say that it was nominated for AfD, but the nominator changed his mind and withdrew his nomination shortly after making it. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:25, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How is that misleading? There was an AfD; The fact that the product is more notable than he had realised was pointed out to the nominator who, realising that he had made a mistake, withdrew the nomination. There was an AfD and the article survived it. The fact that the nominator withdrew did not affect the outcome. It just saved time. --DanielRigal (talk) 19:55, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since you ask, it is misleading because anyone who has not checked the history will be likely to imagine that the issue was discussed for a week and consensus was to keep. In fact, the discussion was open for a matter of hours, and we have no way of knowing what consensus might have been if there had been a proper chance for discussion to take place. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:39, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Additional findsources links are now included at the top of the page to help check out the notability of the products.--DanielRigal (talk) 22:35, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as failing to meet the general notability guideline, specifically the "significant and independent" parts. I'm feeling some sense of deja vu betwixt this and the Gargoyle afd, where a similar regurgitation of regurgitated press releases are being put forward as arguments for "keep." As JamesBWatson states above, there is no independent editorial oversight in the sources provided. Rather than rely upon local consensus, I'd highly recommend that Hm2k take these to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. I picked one of the sources provided, put it in the search box, and lo... it's already had some bad press here regarding it's reliability. That's just the example I picked, the others I looked at were all the same. I admit I did not look through every single one, as I quickly tired of seeing the same sentences in different orders. - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 14:20, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I know a web site that looks unreliable when I see one, but I can rarely produce evidence to support that impression. Having followed your wikilink to the Reliable_sources/Noticeboard archive, and then an external link from there, I now know that at least one of the sources is more than just unreliable: it is downright dishonest through and through. I wonder, what does it tell us about a business that it makes use of such scam websites to get coverage for itself? JamesBWatson (talk) 15:18, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You failed to take in to account any of the books or reliable sources such as this. --Hm2k (talk) 15:44, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note to closer - my comments below include the books, and extend to the coverage linked above. I looked them, they aren't up to the guideline. - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 05:37, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all: little indication of significant, genuinely independent, coverage. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 18:55, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Did you check the old product names? They have fairly recently renamed all their products so the current names may not be the best ones to search on. --DanielRigal (talk) 19:55, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another one: Evers, Joris (October 19, 2005). "Kerio to scrap desktop firewall". CNET news. Retrieved 13 July 2011. --Hm2k (talk) 23:42, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Hm2k has found plenty of reliable sources mentioning what this company has done. A company that keeps getting mentioned along with its products, is notable. Dream Focus 23:30, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Given that at least one of those sources has been shown not to be a reliable source, and that at least two editors say that none of them are reliable sources, can you please identify two source in particular from the above that you think meet the guidelines so that we may discuss them? - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 05:37, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - I recognize CNET, which is obviously a reliable source. Click on it. This company gets news coverage. The article is written by one of the CNET staff writers. And The Register is a reliable source, obviously. Read through the article there. [1] Did you honestly only search for one of the sources, and find only that one unreliable, or did you just go through all of them until you found one that wasn't reliable? Dream Focus 10:54, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - Please do try a bit harder to be nice. The reason I asked is that sweeping generalisations like "plenty of reliable sources" do not in any way lend themselves to debate or discussion, and that's what this is meant to be. Instead there is mostly people talking past each other. I'd like to find something that we agree on and build from there. Can we start with "<insert name here> is a reliable source" ? Yes, CNET and The register are well known and widely read. Yes, items that appear in them are more likely to be correct than in smaller less trafficked websites. But that does not automatically mean that everything that comes out of them carries the full imprimatur of a "Reliable source"^TM. The New York Times would not be a very good source on "Corruption at the New York Times," can we at least agree on that before we go much further?
      Aaron Brenneman (talk) 13:06, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      - Obviously a reliable source can not always be trusted if it has a vested interest in things. Neither of those sources do however. So there is point in discussing it here. Dream Focus 13:35, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        At least we agree on something. The vested interest here is that the business model is largely built upon new content, more content, faster content, all the time. The RSS feed never sleeps. This kind of high volume/low effort article is what a major component of any online magazine depends on to draw additional eyeballs. And see below for why neither one nor the other of those articles is evenly remotely independent. - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 13:55, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        
        They don't cover every single new product or activity of a company there is. They only cover notable things. It counts as a reliable source, and it covers it. Dream Focus 14:14, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reliable Sources

A listing of sources whose Reliability is being discussed:

Here's a few reliable sources that do meet the guidelines to show that Kerio Technologies is notable:

Evers, Joris (October 19, 2005). "Kerio to scrap desktop firewall". CNET news. Retrieved 13 July 2011.
Leyden, John (2 December 2005). "Sunbelt rescues Kerio Firewall from oblivion". The Register. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
Ed Bott, Carl Siechert (2006). Microsoft Windows XP networking and security inside out. Microsoft Press.

In addition to this, each of their products shows notability:

Mitchell, Dave (23 Nov 2004). "Kerio MailServer 6 review". PC Pro. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
Clyman, John (September 17, 2004). "Kerio MailServer 6". PC Magazine. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
Stevens, Alan (23 Mar 2010). "Review: Kerio Connect 7 email server". Incisive Media. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
Stevens, Alan (22 Jul 2010). "Kerio Control 7 firewall review". V3.co.uk. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
Morejon, Mario (October 6, 2008). "Kerio WinRoute Firewall 6.5". PC Magazine. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
Rubenking, Neil (September 28, 2005). "Kerio Personal Firewall 4". PC Magazine. Retrieved 15 July 2011.

That's just a few for now, I could continue... --Hm2k (talk) 09:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: If you don't believe these are reliable sources please explain why below. --Hm2k (talk) 13:42, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's easier if you don't put the bulleted list inside your comments if you're going to do a whole swag, as people can then edit under each item, just saying. For example, if you want to respond to each of my points below, it'll quickly turn the page into a mess. Just saying. But on to the analysis of the sources:

CNET/The Register articles: First of all, they are in the "news" section. This should already have the reliable sources danger sense tingling, because the vast majority of any online magazine's news section are repackaged press releases. Sometimes it's more obvious than others, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gargoyle Router Firmware for some really obvious examples.
- Starting with the Register article: Grab a chunk of text, say "Kerio Personal Firewall will be re-branded on an interim basis as the Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall." Google it. Marvel at the number of times it appears, then notice that the very first post is explicitly a press release from the vendor. Compare texts. Make critical decision: Is this article truly independent?
- The CNET article: First, note how many times "he said" or "they said" appear in the article... It's every single paragraph that is about this product. There is literally nothing in this article that is not a verbatim parroting of the company line. Do we even need to google to see that this is not independent coverage?
The Microsoft press item: Even from the partial page that we can see, it's an item in a list, not significant coverage.

Seriously, this is a total drag for me. It takes waaaay longer to examine a source, make a critical decision about it, and then commit that decision to text than it does to go "Google->Books->Kerio" and paste formatted results here. As editors, we're expected to make this kind of critical decisions ourselves whenever we edit an article. Please don't view this as some kind of contest, where if the article get deleted someone "wins." Actually try and read what the other people are saying. These aren't actual articles written by actual journalists with actual independence. It's guys whose job it is to pay their dues by (mostly) repackage pre-cooked text and hoping to get a better gig later. It's a hard job, with massive pressure to produce, and one that I wouldn't wish on my third-worst enemy. But it's not anything like what is intended by "WP:RS."
Aaron Brenneman (talk) 13:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

- Assume good faith. Why would you assume someone saw this as a contest of some sort? Is someone going around stalking an editor or group of editors and arguing with them everywhere while not participating in any AFDs other than those they are involved in? And do you have any proof of your slanderous accusation that any of these people are trying to "repackage pre-cooked text and hoping to get a better gig later"? CNET is a very well establish site, having been around a long time, formerly having their own televisions how even. They wouldn't review anything they didn't feel was notable. Dream Focus 14:14, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- It would be libel not slander, unless you think I'm reading my comments into a dictaphone or something. And assuming good faith isn't a suicide pact... look at your user page, "Snotty Elitist Deletionist" and all. I'm realsing (slowly) that you're not even mildly interested in actual discussion, so I'm going to back away slowly.
  Aaron Brenneman (talk) 14:39, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - I'm not the only one disagreeing with your interpretation of guidelines in multiple AFDs and elsewhere. Don't assume others aren't "Actually try and read what the other people are saying." if they disagree with you. Dream Focus 14:45, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'm drawing the line here. I'm satisfied that notability has been established through the reliable sources provided. If you want to discuss the case for each source you can do so at your own leisure, but until a decision is made for each of these sources, there is absolutely no way a deletion can be justified. --Hm2k (talk) 14:25, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep After examining the sources provided by Hm2k I'm fairly convinced that they are both reliable and contain non-trivial coverage of the subject. Qrsdogg (talk) 16:37, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note My !vote was only concerning Kerio Technologies, I haven't examined the other articles and their sourcing. Qrsdogg (talk) 03:00, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have already !voted strong keep on Kerio Connect. I don't think the other two are as strong but I am now happy to come off the fence and call them both keeps. This does not meant that they are good articles, they are anything but, but they could become so. --DanielRigal (talk) 20:18, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Keep all three nominated articles. Sources are there. Dream Focus 21:53, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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.