Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/FORscene

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 delete. Babajobu 09:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FORscene

Page was previously deleted as advertising and recreated with some changes. It is still a non-notable software product, the article is advertising posted by the company's founder, and generally WP:VSCA-ish. Ryanjunk 17:49, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Surely the important thing is that independent third parties think that this is a notable product. These include the Royal Television Society, who thought it was the most signficant of any product anywhere for advancing the process of video post production, and awarded it as such, as well as the biggest production company in the world, the BBC (FORscene works on their 27,000 desktops).

The product is widely used, with distributors in six countries on three continents.

Finally, the product pushes the boundary of what is possible on the web - a complete web-based editing and publishing system for web and mobile phones (cell phones in the US). By using Java in novel and powerful ways, the client takes the strain rather than the server, giving the internet its first complete (ie from shooting through editing to publishing and viewing) browser-based real time video application.

So, in short, I'd like to contest this deletion, which removes from Wikipedia what has been judged by senior independent people in the industry a very significant product.

((The above comments added by User:Stephen B Streater, the author of the article.

• • Please sign your posts with 4 tilde marks, it creats a signature. Also do not add extra formatting to the page such as "==Reply==", it messes the page up. Thank you. Thatcher131 18:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Abstain based on lack of knowledge. However it is not enough to assert the product is used by BBC or whatever; can you include references from trade publications, or other independent sources? Thatcher131 18:18, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

To get you started, here's a video of the award ceremony shot on a prototype Nokia N90 mobile phone, uploaded over the air, and edited and published in FORscene. PS I don't know why the four tildes come out Forbidden on my preview - I'll look this up now. SB Streater. Forbidden 18:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's a reference to ITV's multiple programmes (Granada is the production arm of ITV). Their first ten programmes were broadcast on Channel 5 last year.

If you live in the UK, you can watch the prime time series Super Vets on BBC1 every Thursday at 8.30pm. Forbidden 18:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I've fixed the signature now. Stephen B Streater 18:52, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's some recent information on Tiscali.

MPEG-4 legal action against MPEG-4 users. FORscene uses Forbidden's own editing codecs, so is not affected by MPEG-4 legal action. Having your own codecs is a significant technological position (as Apple is finding out to their potiential cost), which is why it is mentioned in the article. Stephen B Streater 19:08, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Recent news on the Forbidden website from Friday 13th Jan and Thursday 26th Jan show a couple of recent BBC events Forbidden has been invited to attend to demonstrate FORscene. Stephen B Streater 19:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Now put that stuff in the article and give people a chance to mull it over. Thatcher131 20:32, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I've added this, and some extra links to more third party articles too, to the main article, in a new section. Stephen B Streater 23:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per WP:VSCA. Stifle 00:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
• Weak delete unless it's cleaned up; current version is not very encyclopedic. OhNoitsJamie^Talk 01:04, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Do you have anything specific in mind? The original version said a lot more about the system and why it was significant, but this was deemed to salesy. This version says a lot more third parties views and usage. Perhaps something looking more like Adobe Premiere would be preferable, showing development history back to 1990.

I notice that other similar UK listed companies have entries eg Vividas. Would the VSCA people be happy with a Forbidden Technologies entry, with a link to the description on the Forbidden website? Stephen B Streater 08:24, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• • Comment The presence or absence of other similar companies having articles is irrelevant. If those other companies are non-notable, their articles will be brought through the AfD process. Ryanjunk 16:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not after removing Vividas, but thinking of adding Forbidden. Are there any guidelines on what makes a company notable?

I would rather read about a company or product on Wikipedia, where independent third parties can amend or write their own content, than rely on the company website or literature.

To me, notable is not the same as popular or established. In particular, some novel products can be very notable. Judging by the response from independent third parties in the industry, FORscene would appear to fall into this category ie novel and notable.

I've included a couple of third party articles which mention FORscene, and which give a broader picture than the current FORscene article.

I notice in the guidelines that there is no prohibition per se to writing articles about products you are involved in. I know that this has been controversial when applied to biographies and such like, but I would have thought a web based product is relatively simple to verify and so much less prone to bias.

• Comment WP:Notability provides guidelines for notability, further broken up into subpages for different categories (companies, products, etc). Ryanjunk 18:50, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll have another look. Stephen B Streater 19:01, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

The Notability pages themselves mention some discussion as to how important notability is, but I don't think anyone is concerned with this here. More useful is the criteria for notability expressed in the guidelines here. In particular the sufficient criteria for notability which is for multiple independent non-trivial published works including newspaper articles.

Forbidden Technologies, which has been around for a few years, easily meets this notability criterion, with numerous articles including in the national press eg Telegraph, Independent, Financial Times, The Business, Investors Chronicle, The Daily Mail and the Sun as well as the trade press articles which talk about FORscene (see next paragragh), and thousands of "articles" in invesment websites. ADVFN alone has over 4,000 since the beginning of last year (Forbidden Technologies does not post on these boards).

FORscene itself, although relatively new, has also received multiple independent articles, both on the web and printed trade press particularly eg Broadcast, Televisual, New Media Age and Showreel magazine, as well as winning multiple independent awards (the RTS being the most recent and important).

So if people here are happy with these notability guidelines, I'll fish out references to some of these press articles.

Moving on to the VSCA question. The guidelines suggest that although desirable, it is not required, that the author of the article is not an investor in the company.

I've been tidying up the entry, with the objective of making it more encyclopaedic. This process is still ongoing. Stephen B Streater 00:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

History section added showing developments since 1990. This could be thinned, but launch date in 1990 is significant because it shows FORscene is not some random new idea, but the result of many years of development in the industry.

I've included Eidos plc developments NOT because I founded Eidos plc (which had reached UKP 1Bn market cap the year I left to found Forbidden), but because thousands of broadcast TV programmes were made on it. One of the reasons for the success of FORscene is that Optima developments had responded to vast numbers of criticsms from professional editors over many years, and this knowhow is incorporated into FORscene. Stephen B Streater 10:14, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per WP:Notability and WP:VSCA for three reasons - (a) The only contributing editor in the article - and proponent here - seems to be Stephen B Streater, and the article is about his web site, (b) virtually nothing in WP links to it apart from his comments in a few Talk pages this AfD and (c) it doesn't do well on alexa --Nigelj 14:25, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the alexa information in particular, which shows a significant recent rise. However it's not obvious to me that links to Forbidden Technologies website directly relate to the importance of FORscene. Most FORscene users have locked down systems and would not register at all in alexa, which may in any case be weighted towards the US, where FORscene is not available.

It's true that FORscene is not widely linked to in Wikipedia. In fact, the original article was deleted after about 1 minute, so I wouldn't expect many links in Wikipedia! No one will link to an article recommended for deletion, so I think the link point is spurious.

The notablity guidelines suggest that the large number of printed press reports, both in the national press and trade journals, should be enough for notability.

Now I've got to know Wikipedia a bit more, I acknowledge that independence is an important issue though, which can only be resolved either by either:

a) people who are independent (such as customers) writing an article; or

b) reducing the article to a stub which contains little information.

As FORscene itself is still a new product, I suspect that over time some of the growing FORscene user base will also be a Wikipedia contributors, so a) will happen at some point.

In the mean time, seeing as I'm me, the most constructive thing I can do is to reduce the page to a non controversial stub, and wait for other Wikipedia users familiar with FORscene to add to it as they see fit.

I was thinking along the lines of:

FORscene is an award winning Java internet video platform, enabling users to edit and publish for web and mobile.

Stephen B Streater 17:10, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

On notability, this Italian magazine has a four page article (about 2/3 through). Stephen B Streater 20:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Another international article - this time in Japan: DRM article. Stephen B Streater 20:27, 19 February 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.