Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bsnes

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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. Wizardman 19:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bsnes

Bsnes (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

Article does not present any citations for substantial coverage from reliable, independent sources, so does not pass WP:Notability guidelines. Previously prodded with the rationale "non-notable software"; removed with the comment "no reason given for deletion.", without addressing the concern. Marasmusine (talk) 07:54, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

It's the most accurate SNES emulator, and its development prompted further advancements in competing emulators. It's notable enough in the emulation world, and that alone is enough to keep the article. Define "reliable, independent source" for this matter, because as far as I know bsnes is covered in the major emulation sites, and acknowledged by the most prominent members of the community. --Lashiec (talk) 17:10, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
"Reliable, independent source" is defined in the WP:Notability guideline. The subject requires substantial coverage from a source with a reputation for fact checking and editorial oversight; "independent" requires the source to be unaffiliated with the subject, ruling out advertising, fan-sites, press releases, etc. For software, a typical good source would be a review or interview from one of the major gaming websites or paper magazines. If you can provide some links to coverage in the major emulation sites you mentioned, that might be a good start. Marasmusine (talk) 20:39, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - Marasmusine places the facts forth well. No coverage by independent sources; ergo, it should be deleted. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 01:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - Without coverage in reliable sources, the article is just acting like one of the hundred thousand emulation sites. If the list of them is deemed worthy of inclusion in the future, that'll be all it will require. TTN (talk) 12:52, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth. I found no mention of Bsnes on Google Books (unlike, say, Zsnes or Snes9x). Kariteh (talk) 13:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - fails the general notability guideline that requires coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject. This is pretty central wikipedia policy. Randomran (talk) 01:07, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - Actually, I think this should be kept. But the current wikifag trend to build up karma and gain levels in the world's biggest text-based MMORPG is to go around to every article, ignore that Wikipedia is supposed to be the sum of human knowledge and say "This fails notability because I don't know anything about it." So, that said, "This fails notability. Get rid of it." Can I have my karma points now? anonymous (talk) 05:07, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
    Only if you think it's okay for a general encyclopedia to include an article about a ZX Spectrum game I once wrote whilst still in sixth form, a band I'm in that's been heard of by about a dozen people, or any particular website I could knock up in about 5 minutes. Marasmusine (talk) 10:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
    I would say that yes, that's fine -- so long as there is a lengthy disambiguation page to separate all 500 garage bands named "Baby Smasher" or whatever the in name of the week is. Regarding the Web site, that may be a bit too close to abusing Wikipedia for spam. (talk) 01:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.219.229.89 (talk)
  • Comment - The media tends to ignore emulation for various reasons (possibly including fear of legal action or other reprisals from hardware and software publishers who wish emulation itself were illegal and not just the copyright violations some use it for), so there are no "reliable sources" mentioning bsnes as there are few mentioning emulation at all and fewer mentioning it in-depth enough to name actual emulators. The "major emulation sites" mentioned by Lashiec above would probably not be accepted as sources, and would certainly not be accepted by certain factions. I would be happy to be proved wrong on any of this.

    If I were in the mood to argue, I would !vote "Keep per WP:IAR" based on these facts and the fact that bsnes is a wikt:notable emulator, but I'm not and so I will just comment once. Anomie⚔ 12:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep - By way of WP:IAR. All delete votes point to the same issue: notability, while providing no other justification for deletion. I believe it is a mistake to weigh the entire article on this one issue alone, as well I believe there to be fundamental problems with this argument.

First, discussion of fourth-generation emulators in major publications primarily occured in the late 90's, when emulation was in its infancy, and long before bsnes was created. It is unlikely that one would find a recent gaming magazine covering even ZSNES at this point, as emulation is simply old-hat, and coverage that does occur would obviously focus on newer systems.

Second, with the commercialization of emulation by way of the Wii Virtual Console, coverage of retro-grade emulators could be seen as legally risky. For these two reasons, seeing any fourth-gen emulator covered in printed form is unlikely.

Third, this emulator is most certainly notable in the context of the emulation community. It has pioneered altogether new methods of emulation, started a movement toward enhanced accuracy in all emulators for all systems, was the first SNES emulator to reach a milestone 100% compatibility, and has a roughly on-par userbase to other emulators: ZSNES and Snes9x included.

Simply by researching the emulation community, it is evident that this is not at all similar to a band "that's been heard of by about a dozen people," rather this is software that's been heard of by hundreds of thousands of people.

One might also note the roughly 100 edits this article has received over the two and a half years it has existed here indicates that the community cares about this article, and finds the information to be valuable.

Fourth, I believe that deleting this article will only serve to harm the usefulness of Wikipedia. This specific emulator is referenced in the emulation section of the main SNES article on Wikipedia, and it serves to provide valuable contextual information for it which wouldn't be appropriate to include there.

I believe this article has its shortcomings, mostly related to the lack of printed material to reference, but that it has potential to be refined. I also believe that its notability will continue to grow with time, as it has all along. It is quite possible that reliable sources of information will exist at some point in the future.

At the very least, it is just as worthy as the other two-hundred plus emulator articles contained within Wikipedia, the vast majority of which also lack published reviews and are no more notable than this emulator. I see no reason to single this article out.

All that said, I urge you to consider keeping this article, WP:Notability aside. 199.230.203.254 (talk) 15:56, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Concerning your first and second points (as well as your last two sentences): Have you actually read the discussion before posting? I've already mentioned that Zsnes and Snes9x are both mentioned in publications; Google Books is your friend, too.
  • Concerning your third point: I'm sorry but Wikipedia is about verifiability (in reliable sources), not truth. Please see also Wikipedia:Original research; we can't just establish a subject's notability ourselves, we can only do so by using reliable sources and references which have already done the research.
  • Concerning your fourth point: it's not really an argument. "Usefulness" is a term which is not recommended in deletion discussions since it doesn't mean anything precise. This discussion concerns the article primarily, but if notability can't be established for the subject, the sentences that mention it in other articles may be challenged and removed just like the article. Kariteh (talk) 17:39, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, I have read the previous discussion; did you read my response? ZSNES and Snes9x would be covered as they existed in 1998 when console emulation was in its infancy: bsnes did not. My point is that the standards for notability are insufficient for this category. It's a subject with shady legal grounds that few publishers would have any need (or reason) to cover explicitly, especially with newer consoles garnering much of their attention. It's just as unlikely that ZSNES will be covered in future publications at this point. I'm not saying that's good enough for your notability standard as it stands ... I'm saying that it's a poor standard to apply to this article for the reasons I have listed.
  • For the third point, with 50,000+ Google search results for bsnes, there's plenty of verifiability, you're simply too pedantic about your sources to accept something such as [1]. I can't possibly imagine why a book publisher would perform a costly review of an SNES emulator at this point in time, as it is not a product for sale, it is not affiliated with a company, is legally risky, and provides no story that they haven't previously covered. Yet it is still very much notable in the place of emulation history. The notability rule is simply inefficient for this specific category, hence WP:IAR.
  • The fourth is very much a valid argument, you simply disagree with it so you discredit it with no consideration. That you would encourage destroying relevant information in other articles just to rid yourself of this one, frankly, worries me greatly. Not all important history is recorded in books. 199.230.203.254 (talk) 18:22, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I am the owner of the domain which hosts the bsnes Web site. Each release of bsnes causes a miniature spike in our domain traffic with nearly 10,000 unique downloads of the Windows and Linux binaries. I have not factored in source code downloads. The emulator is also heavily mirrored by many more popular emulation sites. It may be safe to say that bsnes has, at minimum, a user base of 15,000 - 20,000 users by conservative estimates. I am willing to provide traffic totals from our logs should anyone like to contest these numbers. 17:22, 27 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.219.229.89 (talk)
  • Keep Merge - Notability is well established in the emulation field, acknowledged by Anomie who is clearly a subject matter expert as the lead developer of SNES9X. Numerous [2] independent [3] sources [4], while not as notable as the New York Times, are equally reliable to nearly all emulator entries on Wikipedia. Google Books results such as [5] and [6] do not demonstrate greater notability of ZSNES and SNES9X to any rational individual. Edit: changed vote, see below Ispirel (talk) 06:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
    An open wiki, someone's personal website and a forum entry do not qualify as WP:Reliable sources, and at present we're not discussing other articles. Marasmusine (talk) 08:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • "wikis are excellent places to locate primary and secondary sources", "Weblog material written by well-known professional researchers writing within their field, or well-known professional journalists, may be acceptable", "In cases where self-published material has been published by a professional researcher or other expert in the field, a source published in one of these media may be considered reliable in some cases." These were but three examples. There is plenty of verifiable information regarding this emulator available at appropriate locations. You won't find detailed emulator analyses in the NY Post for reasons others have already covered above, so this qualifies as a special circumstance where slightly less reliable sources should at least be considered. Other stuff exists is a poor example, as this is essentially precedent setting and will affect hundreds of other articles on Wikipedia. This very well should be considered now. Ispirel (talk) 10:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep If you look around the emuscene, you will notice that this emulator brought something new: very accurate SNES emulation. So if you delete this, you also should delete every other SNES emulator article.--87.174.98.26 (talk) 14:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - I've done some additional research into this I thought I'd share.

1) A link discussing emulator related deletions on Wikipedia: [7].

2) Other emulator AfD discussions: [8],[9], [10].

3) A response by myself to TTN a while back: [11]

It would seem prudent to develop a site-wide consensus, rather than nominating random articles for deletion every other week. 199.230.203.254 (talk) 18:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I wouldn't oppose a merger of the emulation software that have not received extensive coverage in reliable sources (WP:N, etc) but otherwise have good sources for verifiability. Marasmusine (talk) 23:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the links. After reading them, I concur with Marasmusine above. If we merge this article to a generalized list, such as List_of_SNES_emulators and Nintendo_DS_emulation, my concerns will be met. References can then anchor-link there instead. If bsnes gains more reliable sources, we can re-create this article later. Marasmusine and those voting delete, how would you feel about me either expanding List_of_SNES_emulators or creating a "SNES emulation" page with infoboxes and general descriptions for each emulator there? I feel that's an acceptable compromise. Ispirel (talk) 00:36, 30 May 2008 (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.