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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bristol (software)

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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. I'm normally very liberal--some people say much too liberal--about notability of software, particularly open source software, which is one of Wikipedia's specialties, but there has to be some 3rd party sourcing--this is really a basic rule for product articles in general. DGG ( talk ) 05:16, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bristol (software)

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Bristol (software) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Fails WP:N and WP:RS. Only web and book hits on "bristol software" and "bristol synth" are self referential. No reviews or third party comments, let alone anything notable. The software home page has a link "wiki" directly referring to this page, which fails WP:NOTWEBHOST. The article is, despite the efforts of several, still too jargon heavy and not really appropriate for a summary, which fails WP:NOTMANUAL. Ritchie333 (talk) 16:54, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. Logan Talk Contributions 16:57, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The article would definitely need a lot of cleanup. But we should look for notability. Is a sourceforge project with some 45000 downloads over last 5 years. It seems to get frequent mention on linux related sites. It is included in the List of Linux audio software, and I looked at some of the other articles in the synthesizers category. Many are equally poorly sourced, e.g Din (din is noise), Gnaural, FluidSynth... Group delete? Or keep all? MakeSense64 (talk)
  • Delete as lacking in-depth coverage in reliable, independent third-party sources. Should such sources be integrated into the article, feel free to leave a note on my talk page and I'll take another look. Stuartyeates (talk) 04:37, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't delete. I can see how one would think that Bristol is not notable, if one is unfamiliar with open-source audio software. Attaining clear notability is a long, uphill climb for many such projects. Few will ever get the kind of coverage routinely devoted to products with big marketing budgets. In accordance with WP:FAILN, I suggest placing a {{notability}} tag on the article, rather than jumping straight to the "delete" option. Also in accordance with WP:FAILN, as an alternative to deletion, we should consider merging Bristol (software) into a (hypothetical) more general article about open-source synth software. SoCalDonF (talk) 21:45, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Response. FWIW I have used Bristol in the past (though only sporadically as my Nord Stage keyboard produces far better sounds out of the box, in my opinion). I should point out that I addressed concerns about this article three and a half years ago, and there hasn't been any real progress from that. My concerns about the Bristol project page referring to this article as if it were its own official documentation page (Wikipedia is not a web hosting service) haven't really been addressed. --Ritchie333 (talk) 11:10, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • FWIW I use Bristol occasionally, and find its B3 emulation satisfactory for my purposes. But that is beside the point. I agree that the Bristol's notability is not established per Wikipedia's guidelines, but suggest that we consider alternatives to the "nuclear bomb" of article deletion. While I do see some problems with the article's content, most of the content is encyclopedic (though admittedly not well sourced). It does not read like a user manual. (A user manual would include information about how to build and install the software; how to connect a MIDI keyboard; how to select, modify, and save patches; etc.) The issue regarding the way an external site links to the Wikipedia article should be taken up with the owner(s) of the external site, IMO. Regards, SoCalDonF (talk) 17:34, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Some specific pieces that jar with me and don't fit with what I would consider to be a cursory introduction to the program include the sentence "The application consists of two multithreaded programs, the audio engine and GUI, running in separate processes communicating via TCP" and the entire section on "User interface architecture". As an end user of the project, if the program was single threaded and only ran on Windows, but otherwise emulated the instruments to the same sound quality, it would be equally useful. I don't need to know any of this unless I'm actually developing the program itself. --Ritchie333 (talk) 10:57, 15 December 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,  Sandstein  18:17, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, delete this page if you so see if. I posted it because _your bloody site_ was referencing bristol (software), that reference was not my decision, but it might have been to mine to post the page to help expand the coverage of your damn encyclopedia. I have donated to your site, not that that is relevant however the fact that people donate knowledge to this site and that your stasi's try and delist the parts that they cannot understand concerns me. Just because you do not understand what is posted (and you already cropped 90% of what I submitted) does not mean that nobody is interested. This app does have a following but get of your mangy old horses and either delist or forget 'keeping the bits about the hammond' because you old farts can understand that bit, but not the rest.

I think I will go and delete the whole page, and perhaps ask for my money back.

assholes.

Comment Vandalising the page will win you no friends. In your situation, I would have created my own documentation website containing technical information, and ensured the product saw some reviews eg: in a magazine that would have established notability. --Ritchie333 (talk) 02:31, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep It's an interesting article that extends the encyclopedia with useful coverage of software emulated synths. The nominator's accusation of WP:NOTWEBHOST is ridiculous. We don't discourage other sites linking to WP! The developer's site is already extensive and they certainly don't need WP. WP rather benefits instead from their efforts, in gifting us this article. We have been extremely churlish in how we've reacted to an editor who doesn't need to do this, did it from their own generosity of time and effort, and managed to stay clear of the usual crappy hype that COI is really a guard against. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:22, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Response This argument is flawed. Linking to Wikipedia is fine; linking to a Wikipedia article and presenting that article as an official part of another website is not. I suspect if I created a Wikipedia page for some of my open source projects, and included technical instructions on its architecture, that weren't of general interest, it wouldn't even survive a speedy delete. FWIW I have created pages in the past myself that have subsequently failed an AfD review and been deleted, but I haven't taken it personally. I would furthermore point out that I have given constructive reasons to my thoughts above, and unlike the author, have avoided personal abuse and foul language. --Ritchie333 (talk) 12:32, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The home site is extensive - too big for me to bother counting pages. It has, AFAICS, one link to this article. You are wholly misrepresenting their use of WP by claiming that they're mis-using WP to provide hosting for a manual.
I would also question your interpretation of WP:NOTWEBHOST. If I was to build a framed site, wrap up a WP page on toast in my own page header and banner adverts for toasters, that would still never become a reason for AfD/Toast. We should never make decisions on a page here on the basis of how it's being used or mis-used elsewhere - let alone whether GFDL would even allow us to. WP:NOTWEBHOST applies if the WP content is being used as a substitute for someone else hosting their own site (or to be fair, pages). Given the extensive size of the official site, there's no suspicion of this.
I regret the tone of the editor's responses, but given the provocation they've had, I see them as quite understandable. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:43, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response If I look at the Bristol Home Page, I see a menu at the bottom; one of the options is "Wiki". There is no mention that this link goes to Wikipedia, or indeed that it has anything to do with Wikipedia at all, until you click on it. This gives me the impression that the author did not want to pay for his own website and decided to reuse data hosted by Wikipedia for his own personal gain. That is the opinion I formed when I first encountered the software in around 2007, and it is still my opinion now that the technical information on this article should belong on a separate page separate from Wikipedia. Why does somebody wanting to know what the product does need to know about its multi-threaded architecture or X11 dependencies?
My challenge to you now is to find some reliable sources for this article and link them in here. You will stand a better chance of getting the article kept if you can do this.
Please can you also point out where I have personally provoked and insulted Mr Copeland and I will apologise and retract the comments. I regret to inform you that resorting to abusive language is never excusable, particularly on the internet where you have all the time in the world to form a constructive argument. --Ritchie333 (talk) 12:53, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
While I can't speak for anyone other than myself, I feel I must try to help out here. I don't think you intended to provoke anyone, but your initial comment might perhaps fail WP:AGF, depending on how one reads it. I'm afraid that Mr Copeland (assuming it really is him, who knows?) took things a bit more personally than we should have hoped. Your references to WP:NOTMANUAL and WP:NOTWEBHOST may have been particularly offensive. (I read those sections carefully, and I don't see how this article runs afoul of either of them.) Some people don't "get" what Wikipedia is about, but that in itself is no reason to denigrate their contributions, if they are made in good faith. SoCalDonF (talk) 18:22, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. An example of an offensive remark would have been "Your software is awful and your website makes my head hurt." (Please note this isn't actually what I think at all!) I would point out I addressed the concerns I made at the top of this AfD nomination in the summer of 2008, and I assumed since few people had passed comment in the three and a half years since then, and nobody for the past year, that nobody was interested in fixing the issues, and perhaps silently dropping the page would be a better solution. --Ritchie333 (talk) 19:23, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The offense, if any, is in the perception, not necessarily in the intention. As I said, I don't think you intended to provoke anyone. BTW, I'm trying to find sources. I agree with you that reliable sources will vastly improve this article. SoCalDonF (talk) 19:57, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The page as it now stands is devoid of content and worthless - it should be either restored to the useful version, or else deleted. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:54, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The older version may still be deleted as, to repeat what I said upthread, nobody has come forward with reliable sources. --Ritchie333 (talk) 10:43, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"The article isn't the way I like it" isn't and shouldn't be a criteria for deletion, as far as I know, and as I understand the notability guidelines no amount of unverifiable information will make a subject notable, just amount of need for cleanup, rewriting, or expansion will take away from a subject's notability once established. For my part, I've searched Ebsco, Gale, and Proquest databases using multiple variations on terms and the broadest parameters possible and found no coverage. I regret the hurt feelings and frustration some folks including the article's creator may feel, but based on my findings I would have to recommend the article be deleted. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 20:38, 19 December 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.
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