Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Transitioning Applications to Ontologies

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 delete. Merging or adding to a list requires a clear consensus of where to do that and we don't have that. Otherwise there is a clear concern that none of the articles are properly sourced to non-trivial reliable sources that talk directly about the subject so if we simply use the GNG as the yeardstick to measure these articles against they fail Spartaz ^Humbug! 05:30, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Transitioning Applications to Ontologies

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Multiple problems relating to contested proposed deletions.

This is one of several articles in a series that apparently are about minor European Union funded computer science projects. Thanks to User:Abductive, it came to light at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Insemtives that there existed an offsite project aimed at inserting multiple articles about minor EU research projects on Wikipedia. Template:Research-Project was apparently created to support this project. All of these articles appear to be created by interested parties. I'd call this a walled garden but for the fact that most of these articles appear to be orphaned.

No notability

The projects they describe, generally, do not carry any indicia of organizational notability. Most are referenced only to internal sites, or to related sites for this entire family of projects. In fact, but for the fact that they are apparently funded or organized by the European government, they have no real showing of minimal importance.

Patent nonsense

What's worse in my eyes is that the prose tends to be patent nonsense, the sort of thing that no one can reasonably be expected to make sense of. The technical term is complete bollocks. They generally are written in that vacuous jargon filled with buzzwords, uninformative abstractions, and glittering generalities. They read like a mixture of cod philosophy and 1997-era cyber-utopianism. Their text appears deliberately calculated to seem vaguely grandiose and to demonstrate fluency with the patter while failing to convey actual information:

The project will also tackle several major bottlenecks of knowledge technologies in the areas of semi-automatic creation of ontologies, automated methods for metadata creation and augmentation of legacy content, and distributed heterogeneous repositories.

Semantic Web Services, and Service-Oriented Architecture that host them, are expected by the project to make a significant contribution to the competitiveness of European ICT in the coming period, based on the fact that significant recent initiatives have built up strong foundations for practical semantic SOA. They have shown how new systems can profitably deploy semantics as a lingua franca for modeling the points of contact between software components at a higher level than previous technology.

User:DGG has suggested that these articles be merged into a variety of candidates such as Information Society Technologies or Sixth Framework Program. Given the low quality of the prose, I am unconvinced that these texts are worth preserving anywhere.

Related nominations

I am also nominating the following pages for essentially the same reasons as this:

Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 14:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy this patent nonsense. Gosox5555 (talk) 14:59, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Four comments. I have researched some of the articles in Category:FP6 Projects and Category:FP7 Projects, and speedy/prod-tagged a few here and there, and AfD'd one. I have three comments; (1) many of these articles are copyright violations, since they are copied directly from the projects' websites. (2) Many of the surviving members of the FP6 category are notable, and many of the FP7 category are not notable, yet. If any are deleted, in a year or two they might attain notability, so this and other AfDs should not be used to justify a {{db-repost}} after 2011. (3) A merge is utterly inappropriate. Either a project is notable, or it isn't. (4) Keep in mind that these things are essentially miniature funding agencies, with a limited lifespan—probably set up that way by the Europeans to forestall their inclusion in future budgets. They exist only on paper and the web. For this reason, Google Scholar/WoS hits for these projects should be discounted; they are often just making an appearance in the acknowledgment section, being thanked for granting the money. Abductive (reasoning) 15:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to say delete all of them. However, in looking through the various nominations, I would propose an exemption for SQO-OSS based on the results found here [1] which appear to be reasonably in depth. All of the rest I agree with the nomination. As such ~~Delete all~~ redirect all except SQO-OSS. Quantpole (talk) 16:26, 11 August 2009 (UTC) Changed to redirect - they are all verifiable so there's no reason for them not to in the article. Not sure about the merge - it'll be a bit complicated trying to merge all the histories surely? In line with my reasoning above SQO-OSS should be a blue link in Information Society Technologies. Quantpole (talk) 10:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and merge

First of all they are not nonsense. They are merely in a peculiar dialect, Information-scientist-talk. Starting with the most confusing, "ontology", for example, does not mean the traditional philosophical subject described in our article ontology; it means Ontology (information science), which essentially corresponds to "organization of knowledge" in a specific area or for a specific purpose-- in the approximate sense of library subject headings, or in a more complicated way, since it describes properties other than the subject, Dublin core. Most people will find that and our related articles rather confusing, but it is difficult to give straightforward explanations in ordinary language for elaborate formal constructs.

Abductive explains the problem with these articles rather well, except for not explaining why merging is impossible. We merge less-than-notable subjects into articles about things that are--taken together--notable. At the very worst, these could be merged into 6th framework. He doesn't want to do it, but I think he is essentially saying that WP:N applies to every part of an article, which is very far from policy.

My suggestion to merge would not merge very much of the content. I would in fact think it better to rewrite, except that I am not going to do it, having other priorities. Not that it cannot be done--the section the nominator quoted above can be roughly translated as

The project will also deal with several difficult areas in organizing information: the semi-automatic creation of schemes for organization, automatic methods for finding sets of descriptive terms, updating of older material, and integration of material organized for different purposes.

and

Our project will be important for the development of the European economy, since it is based on previously-completed work, which shows the practicality for development of more complicated computer programs covering multiple separate fields.

AfD is not for editing, though. DGG ( talk ) 18:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Not only text like dhmcrhjdlj is patent nonsense (Indeed, in some secret tongue, it may be the potent name of a god.) In our sense, patent nonsense also includes "(c)ontent that, while apparently meaningful after a fashion, is so completely and irredeemably confused that no reasonable person can be expected to make any sense of it whatsoever." It's in that sense that I call this "patent nonsense". The fact that these writers toss around words like ontology and semantics without regard to their prior meanings doesn't help, of course; I gather an "ontology" is something like a database entry structure, but calling it an "ontology" certainly lends it an air of metaphysical grandeur.

But if it's impossible for ordinary readers to understand enough of this stuff to translate it into English, then it is patent nonsense within our technical use of the term. And these articles are then, indeed, a walled garden from which others are excluded by their very unintelligibility. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 19:25, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

~~Keep~~. Redirect Unsurprisingly, it was relatively easy to find three scholary mentions of the first article - Transitioning Applications to Ontologies - and I added refs there. ~~Clear pass for WP:GNG~~. I have no interest in the subject and didnt check the other, but for research projects, such refs are quite likely, right?. The text is not PATENT nonsense, only an approximation thereto - but that is a reason to fix, not delete, the stuff. Power.corrupts (talk) 20:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I've had a look at the first ref ([2]), where the just mentions that the work was supported by the organisation. The second ([3]) contains minimal information, and seems to be simply some researchers saying,'hey, this is what we're up to'. The last appears to be something the organisation has published that has appeared in the review. None of these show the the organisation has any notability, and is no way near a 'clear pass for WP:GNG'. The second and third sources are not secondary as they are written by persons involved with the organisation, and none of them are 'significant coverage'. If you disagree with my analysis, then please explain why you think these sources show that this project meets the guidelines. Quantpole (talk) 23:20, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Some of these projects have budgets in the range of €1,000,000 and the highest I saw was about €5 million, so no, there is no particular reason why refs are likely. These projects are designed to fund collaboration between different universities, and are speculative ventures; like start-ups in the private sector, they can be huge successes or whimpering, non-notable failures. Abductive (reasoning) 23:34, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Agree, I had a closer look and the refs do suck, and per WP:CRYSTAL results come before mention. I support DGG's reasoning on WP:N, which is very clear and straight, and I propose any salvagable info, probably just the mere mention of the progam (which is supported by refs), merged into 6th framework, and existing articles kept as redirects with intact history per WP:PRESERVE. And to Abductive - you just dont get €1m-€5m without any prospects of scholary references, it sure is peanuts in the financial world, not the academic. Power.corrupts (talk) 09:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - - Sure, the money is impressive, but some of these projects have not gone anywhere. If a project has no mentions in third party sources, it doesn't matter that they had a €1.7 million budget. Abductive (reasoning) 14:30, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - I've changed my vote above to redirect too. Quantpole (talk) 10:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Question: which article do you think these should be redirected to? - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 14:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Smerdis, have you checked these for copyvio? Abductive (reasoning) 14:30, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Reply. If you're addressing me, I'd say ~~Sixth Framework Programme~~ (too general) Information Society Technologies is more specific and a better choice. Other suggestions? Power.corrupts (talk) 19:53, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Just keep them I am of course biased here, as I am the creator of the KnowARC article, and no, there is no copyright violation, as I am also the respective Web site creator and the project Board member. If an article looks gibberish to you, it is not the reason to remove another unrelated article. Neither you can merge them just because they are "European". Nor can non-experts judge notability of one or another project, especially when it is still runnning. Sorry for the harsh words, but with this approach you guys will remove all articles on quantum mechanics or paleobotany and such like. For the KnowARC project, it actually has a significant impact in the Grid technology area, especially in developing world-wide standards and yes, a European Grid solution. This may not be notable to every layman, but it is not a useless piece of information either.The article admittedly can be improved, expanded and supported by references, and I of course can use another template (please advise which), but I honestly see no reason for either deleting, merging or re-directing it anywhere.oxana (talk) 20:47, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- The problem is that we cannot just take your word for it over the influence of the project. It all has to be backed up in reliable sources, which are independent of the project. I suggest you read up on what wikipedia calls notability. It is a bit different to what gives something 'real world' notability. The main criteria is that it has 'received significant coverage in reliable sources'. Without those sources we cannot write a reliable encyclopaedic article, and that is all we are trying to do here. If you can show that there are decent references then I'm pretty sure most of us would change our vote. Quantpole (talk) 23:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply: Would this kind of source be reliable: [4]? I can collect these references and add to the page. oxana (talk) 11:09, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - That is a press release, and is not a third-party source. What would be ideal is an independent write-up in a book, scholarly article or news story that says the project is important or interesting or special or noteworthy (what we call "notable"). Abductive (reasoning) 11:16, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - OK, something like this: [5]? Actually, after some thinking, we consider that a redirection from this arcticle to Advanced_Resource_Connector may be a good idea, unless of course Wikipedia watchdogs think it is patent nonsense ;-) oxana (talk) 12:14, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. European R & D projects are about a specific area that each uses their own ontology (=vocabulary + set of concepts + relations). Expressed in English that can look strange if you do not know the vocabulary. But that is the way science and technology works. Second I think the argument that this article, in good faith, uses a research template, is not a good argument. In fact even the authors of the research template clearly did produce that to increase the quality of Wikipedia. I think Wikipedia would be more helped with a positive discussion on how to improve articles on projects, their relation with FP7, pages describing the plans, relation with the general Wikipedia European Union pages, than all this article bashing that is going on. A last a note on notability of FP7 projects. Most projects are applied R & D, and should create "impact". That is also the reason why it makes sense to have Wikipedia pages about them: they are not basic research. The project proposals have to go to a fair and transparant evaluation process, that takes 3 - 5 days and typically involve 20+ independent evaluators, of which 3 - 5 ready everey letter of the sometimes very long ( 100 - 500 pages) project proposals. These evaluators are independent of the organisations that submit the proposals and independent from the European Commission. (There should be a Wikipedia page to describe this process :-) ). Passing such an evaluation (most project proposals fail) is a notable event. Of course the project should produce more notable events, and yes, most project pages could be improved - let us work on that. (Just for clarity: I worked as independent evaluator, and also on projects themselves.) Ademmen (talk) 08:38, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I certainly would not object to an umbrella article covering all of these several projects. I do think that general readership notability should be required for any single project within the group to warrant a stand-alone article. Technical and trade publications and websites probably have too limited a reach to confer notability.

The language barrier is a separate problem, of course. It seems to be possible to rewrite these texts in ordinary English instead of a sort of jargon whose idiosyncratic redefinitions of ordinary words make its texts seem nonsensical to outsiders. We are, after all, asking for texts that "anyone can edit"; impenetrable jargon amounts to a claim of ownership. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:22, 18 August 2009 (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.