Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Simple Machines Forum

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 speedy keep. no delete votes standing (non-admin closure) Pcap ping 00:19, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Simple Machines Forum

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This article was deprodded with the assertion that it describes a fairly notable forum software. There are a number of google books hits on this, but none that I looked at are more than a mention. Perhaps we need a slightly lower standard than WP:GNG for this type of software. What do you think? Pcap ping 00:23, 1 February 2010 (UTC) (nom-withdrawn, see below) 04:26, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. -- Pcap ping 00:23, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I think that the nominator was right bringing this to Afd. As Pcap says, hits on google books don't offer so much more as a mention and without verifiable proof of encyclopedic notability, I'm afriad there is more reason to exclude this article than to include it.--^Trust_Me^THROW! 00:54, 1 February 2010 (UTC) (another sock of a banned user. Pcap ping 00:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC))[reply]
Keep - A fairly popular forum software package. Not as popular as vBulletin or phpBB, but still significant. ANDROS¹³³⁷ 00:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It may be popular, but can you provide significant proof of encylcopedic notability? Most of the article's inline citations are to SimpleMachines sources. Remember, we need third party coverage from reliable sources, not just sources affiliated with the subject.--^Trust_Me^THROW! 00:56, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete(sadly) : unless more sources can be found. Only one source currently in the article seems reasonable. DP76764 (Talk) 01:40, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Changing to Keep : Please pardon my unfamiliarity with the tools/links in the AfD template. Results for books and scholarly mentions are clearly adequate for WP:N. DP76764 (Talk) 04:28, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete exactly as Dp76764 says, unless sources can be found.--Prodigy96 (talk) 04:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC) (Sock of banned user. Pcap ping 00:17, 3 February 2010 (UTC))[reply]
Strong keep. Mention in 18 different books is more than plenty for notability of a software product, even if those are not each in great detail. LotLE×talk 04:07, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment (after last try at same comment "went missing" through MediaWiki glitch!). There are also 31 Google Scholar hits. Many of these provide a reasonable degree of description of the software (e.g. comparisons with other tools to explain why this one was chosen for the academic purpose). LotLE×talk 04:18, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If someone can utilize some of these mentions in the article, I will change my !vote to Keep. Where is this list of 18 books this is referred in? DP76764 (Talk) 04:11, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The list of books--as with all AfDs--is right up at the top, in the "Find Sources" template. Dp76764 misunderstood the criteria for AfD discusson. We are not discussing whether the article could be improved by more sources listed in its content (clearly it could), the point of this discussion is whether the underlying topic is notable enough for an article, regardless of how good or bad the current version is. To my mind, a piece of software discussed in 18 books and 31 scholarly articles clearly meets this standard. LotLE×talk 04:21, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) He was referring to the google books search you can click on above. There's not much in those that you can use in an article, although they do contribute a certain amount of notability in my view as well. Pcap ping 04:25, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Self-WP:TROUT and nom withdrawn: [1] Linux Journal, [2] Linux.com review-like articles. There's also a more in-depth one on forum-software.org, although that site is a little hard to establish as WP:RS (no bylines, list of staff or writers, no explicit editorial policy, and no information about the owners either.) Pcap ping 04:25, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I did not expect to find those articles on Linux-dedicated sites because this is proprietary software. I suppose the license changed at some point... Pcap ping 04:38, 1 February 2010 (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.