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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cowsay (3rd nomination)

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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 keep. John254 00:34, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cowsay

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AfDs for this article:
Cowsay (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Small piece of novelty free software, with no real assertion of notability, certainly no sign of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject," as required by WP:NOTE.

This was nominated for deletion in March 2005 (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cowsay), the result being no consensus. However I feel that Wikipedia's inclusion standards have become clearer in the three years since, and that the keep arguments given there (three unexplained, two "it passes the Google test" and one "this program has been around for a long time, and is in wide use") are in no way grounded in current Wikipedia policy.

It was nominated again last November (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cowsay (2nd nomination)) but the discussion cut short when the nominator decided it met the criteria for speedy deletion and deleted it. This provoked a DRV discussion (Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2008 July 14) where consensus was to undelete, but with little enthusiasm for the article itself, and numerous people opining that it should be sent back to AfD. So here it is. --Stormie (talk) 10:20, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep It's a real piece of software and although it's extremely trivial, it is widely used. The notability here isn't about a Perl one-liner, it's the cultural history of why all those cows keep appearing in readme files. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:57, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral but either way I'd like to see some better more substantial references in the article. Jasynnash2 (talk) 11:15, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The fact that the article has been around for so long and the references section is so pitiful suggests this is an exceptionally minor topic that is fundamentally unsuitable for an encyclopedia article. There simply isn't much of anything one can say about it, and I'm not at all convinced a few more years of waiting is going to change that. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:51, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Point taken. I may have been too hasty perhaps? Still think it doesn't warrant an article but I won't care on this one too much one way or the other. Just a silly bit. -- Alexf42 00:52, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Commment Has anyone read WP:N "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable." ? You might not like this thing, no-one is claiming it isn't trivial, but it seems to be notable according to the very first criterion of WP:N. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:04, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • The sources presently in the article are extremely weak. Only the ServerWatch one even comes close to reliable, and that sure as heck isn't going to prop up an article all by itself (besides, it also doesn't address notability in any way). If you have better sources, by all means add them, but since no reliable sources have been added in the previous several years, I'm inclined to believe that's because none actually exist. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 19:13, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Linux Gazette isn't reliable? It's older than Wikipedia. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:10, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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   / I think cowsay is a topic we certainly should cover, given its quirky but    \
   | notable place in computing culture. Given the relatively scarce sourcing and |
*  | the limited amount of things we can say about it, though, a merge to its own |
   | section in the larger [[ASCII art]] article putting it in context might be a |
   \ good idea. krimpet✽ 04:34, 25 July 2008 (UTC)                                /
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ASCII Art is awfully broad though, as it includes vast swathes of stuff that's hand-edited and doesn't have too much to do with cowsay. I could go with a merge to "ASCII art generators", if such a thing existed. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it is just another idea if users here decide not to keep Cowsay as its own article. But from looking at it here, the article has a good chance to be kept. For me, either option works fine, but I am going to say keep for this article. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 16:40, 25 July 2008 (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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