Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common criticisms of Microsoft

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 of the debate was move to Criticisms of Microsoft and keep. - Mailer Diablo 02:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Common criticisms of Microsoft

We don't have "Common Criticisms of General Motors", "Common Criticisms of Apple" or "Common Criticisms of Thimbles" so why should we have this page? This is a general encyclopedia, not a technology encyclopedia. This page is an absolute bias magnet. It does not weigh the criticisms with the common positive attributions, and does not even lead to a page listing Microsoft's positive attributes! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Theone3 (talk • contribs) 09:52, 2 January 2006 (UTC).

• Delete. The section on criticism in the Microsoft article seems more than sufficient for the purposes of a general interest encyclopedia. – Seancdaug 10:02, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, gossip and editorial magnet. Gazpacho 11:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Inherently POV, we have a controversey section on the Microsoft page, why not use it Werdna648^T/_C\^@ 12:30, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nomination and all of the above comments. Movementarian 13:00, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Accepted and well-founded criticism should go in the Microsoft article. Currently simply a rant at the company Kcordina 13:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Microsoft is criticized frequently enough. I believe the criticism of Microsoft is noteworthy enough for its own article. Q0 14:38, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep. The current microsoft article barely scratches the surface of the issue. The nom also fails to mention that this article was spun out from the main Microsoft article on June 9, 2004. Perhaps this is a coincidence, but the nomination is the fourth edit from this user and the first since June 10, 2004. -- JJay 15:29, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep why cant we also be a technology encyclopedia? -- Astrokey44|talk 15:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. NeoJustin 17:08, January 2, 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep. The article is well done and extensive. It is too large to merge into Microsoft Corporation. As long as Wikipedia is noting already publicized criticisms, rather than discussing new criticisms or stating a criticism as a fact, it is NPOV. This is pretty common in Wikipedia. Many articles discuss criticisms. Bkwillwm 17:15, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment The problem (from this writer's POV as I wrote MS up to FA status) is that that article serves as a dumping ground for criticisms of the company in a relatively NPOV matter. If that article is killed people will drive more and more criticism into the actual MS article sending it to FARC fairly quickly. WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 18:16, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• Rename to Criticism of Microsoft for consistency with all the other "Criticism of X" articles which we do have for many subjects (contrary to Theone3's apparent argument that if we don't have an article on criticism of thimbles we must not have any criticism articles.) Keep per JJay's pointing out that this article was spun out from the main article; there is an obvious problem with spinning out a particular sub-topic because it's so large and then deleting it. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:43, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep/Rename to Criticism of Microsoft per Antaeus Feldspar. Nothing wrong with a seperate in-depth article regarding such a significant company. - Liontamer 21:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, after further consideration, at Criticism of Microsoft. Gazpacho 21:45, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I use it as a reference. Giftlite 00:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep or merge into Microsoft. --cesarb 00:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep All Monopoly articles are worthy (and important); and if they have a coercive aspect to there success, then why should that not be examined and explained. It is a subject that is best kept separate in order that it can balances the interests of those that consider themselves to be the injured parties. Trying to do it all in one article would created an impossibly messy triangle of interests.

Perhaps, before things are put up for deletion they should be seconded by someone else who can emotionally step back and consider it purely from a practical point of view. The reason given for deletion is a bit of a non sequitur.

Maybe also, it [the article] should be also categorised with coercive monopolies but I am not too clear on the policy regarding this.--Aspro 01:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. If sources are found, this could be merged into Microsoft's article. Soo 01:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Derktar 02:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC).
• Strong keep per Bkwillwm. Rename is fine. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-01-03 02:37Z
• Keep and rename. -Sean Curtin 04:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete It does appear to be biased and contradicting the NPOV. -User:Wikiolap 04:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I am convinced, keep and rename. Merging with the parent article does not seem like a good idea, as that article is already at FA status. Movementarian 08:47, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Well written and while it's about a POV, it's not written with an agenda. RedMage 3 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Apple Computer does contain criticisms, and if someone's willing to write them, I don't see why there shouldn't be factual articles criticising Microsoft, Apple, GM, or anyone else. Novakreo 13:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Move to Criticism of Microsoft to conform to naming conventions. Perfectly good article, spun out from parent due to length. -Colin Kimbrell 16:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep first class starting point source for anyone studying pros and cons of restrictive buisness practices. 82.38.97.206 17:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)mikeL
• Move to Criticism of Microsoft. The article is reasonable since the parent article would be cluttered with criticisms without it. -- jaredwf 06:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, Microsoft is known for being frequently cricised, both by those purchasing from it, and by the law, the article is notable enough. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 19:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Move to Criticism of Microsoft as argued above --Ajdz 22:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep/Move to Criticism of Microsoft Tobias Conradi (Talk) 01:01, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per above arguments. Microsoft is criticized quite frequently, this criticism is notable, and this article is better of independent of Microsoft than merged, due to its size. I am not against a Move as per above. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 02:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
• Absolute Keep I will oppose all efforts to have this page deleted. Most of the criticisms on the page are accurate, and deleting this page amounts to censorship. Arbiteroftruth 08:29, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and move to Criticism of Microsoft. JHMM13 (T | C) 08:32, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and rename to Criticism of Microsoft, as per above.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 17:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep microsoft is probably the most criticized company, so that criticism needs to be covered. Bob A
• Keep Being neutral does not mean to hide the bad side of the things.
• Keep and rename to follow convention. It can be linked from the main article. Company is too large for it to all fit in one. Stifle 02:11, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and rename to follow convention. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 12:52, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and rename to Criticism of Microsoft. --Cactus.man ✍ 13:54, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and rename as per above (What would be an uncommon criticism of Microsoft? That its products needlessly sacrifice usability and functionality for security's sake? It would be interesting to start that article and try to see if you could make it work, but that's not what Wikipedia's for). I heed the arguments about POV forks, but we do have things like Criticism of Wal-Mart (rapidly overtaking MS as the most criticized company in the US) because IMO they are the lesser of two evils (without separate criticism articles on controversial subjects, I believe, you end up with extremely long articles plagued by constant edit wars). Daniel Case 16:07, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Addendum: And CTTOI, why don't we have a separate Criticism of Apple Computer article? The section in the current article seems to me to be so woefully incomplete (there is nothing, for instance, on the way the company set the profit margin on the Mac so high that it did more to create the DOS market niche at the lower ends than IBM or Microsoft could have on their own. Or the way the company balked at Gates's plan in 1987 to license the OS, even after he'd lined up some pretty big clients, again guaranteeing the Windows market would exist) compared to what you could say that if you have (as we should) a separate article devoted to criticisms of Microsoft, to have such a piddly small section devoted to criticisms of Apple smacks of POV on Wikipedia's part in and of itself regardless of how much those articles strive for NPOV (OK, before you ask I would write it myself but I'm not as expert on that as many more people are around here, and I have other fish to fry both on and offline at the moment). Daniel Case 16:18, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
• keep/move as above. relevant enough as a topic for itself.--Austrian 20:19, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

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.